ã€ŠStar Gateã€‹


 Chapter 1: Military Inspectorate

    Chapter 1: Military Inspectorate

    Silver City.

    The Inspectorate.

    Third rank inspector Li Hao stepped into the Inspectorate¡¯s administrative area. Falling on the thin side with substantial dark circles under his eyes, the youngster seemed to have stayed up all night.

    As a new recruit with only one year under his belt, Li Hao¡¯s tenure at the Inspectorate wasn¡¯t much to speak of. He usually reported to work a bit early so he could do a quick clean of themon areas, boil some water, and wait for colleagues to arrive.

    He was slightlyte today, so there were already a few at their desks when he walked in. A middle-aged woman, likewise dressed in a uniform and seated by the door, greeted Li Hao enthusiastically when she saw him.

    ¡°Little Hao, you¡¯rete today,¡± she teased. ¡°Look at those bags under your eyes! Did you paint the town redst night?¡±

    Li Hao shed her an innocent smile, the very picture of down-to-earth naivet¨¦.

    ¡°Don¡¯t say that, big sis Yu!¡± He waved agitated hands around. ¡°I don¡¯t have a girlfriend and I¡¯ll never find one if there¡¯s rumors like that about me!¡±

    ¡°Hehehe, kiddo. You¡¯ve been at the Inspectorate for a year, but still can¡¯t handle our joking.¡± The middle-aged woman loved ribbing Li Hao, yet there were hints of something different in her gaze. After a round of heartyughter, she suddenly brought up an old topic. ¡°Little Hao, you don¡¯t cook since you live by yourself, right? Eating out isn¡¯t clean or healthy, soe have dinner at my ce after work.¡±

    ¡°No no, I can¡¯t be making trouble for you, big sis,¡± Li Hao declined with another smile.

    A brawny, middle-aged man close to them snorted withughter and interjected, ¡°Little Hao, do you think your big sis is really inviting you over for dinner? She wants you to be her lover boy! Aiyo, read between the lines, kiddo!¡±

    ¡°Hahahahaha!!¡± Uproariousughter rang out of the nearby cubicles.

    Far from coloring with embarrassment, big sis Yu red hotly at everyone and blustered, ¡°What? So what?? Little Hao is a fine young man! He has a great personality, great brains, and great looks. I¡¯llugh in my sleep if he¡¯s really my man!¡±

    Laughter redoubled at her words, but many nodded in agreement as well. Li Hao was generally regarded as a promising young man.

    The brawny man didn¡¯t mind the heated retort. ¡°You¡¯re right, Little Hao is not bad at all. It¡¯s just a bit of a pity¡­¡± he said sadly.

    What was a bit of a pity?

    Regret appeared on everyone¡¯s faces with the turn of conversation, but their object of discussion didn¡¯t mind.

    ¡°It was my decision to make, big bro Zhou. What¡¯s there to feel sad about?¡± The young man grinned brilliantly.

    ¡°Now, we can¡¯t really put things that way, Little Hao,¡± Brawny Zhou sighed with pity. ¡°Silver City Inspectorate is a fine ce and anyone would be doing well to reach third rank after half a year of full time employment. But, you¡¯re here because you withdrew from your studies at the Veteris Institute. [1] If you¡¯d waited to first graduate from Silver City¡¯s most prestigious hall of learning, you¡¯d join the Inspectorate as a first rank inspector. And that would be the lowest possible rank you¡¯de in at!¡±

    Hisments opened the floodgates and the fashionable Chen Na quickly added her opinion.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, the heck you drop outta school for, Li Hao? None of us are qualified to sit for the institute¡¯s entrance examinations, even though we would love to. You would¡¯ve graduated in two more years, whereas it¡¯ll take at least five years of smooth sailing to get from third rank to first. And if we hit some bumps in the road? We¡¯ll be lucky to be promoted to first before we retire!¡±

    Envy and regret tinged the voice of the young woman who¡¯d just arrived at work. She envied graduates of the Veteris Institute and felt regret on Li Hao¡¯s behalf that he¡¯d been a scant two years from graduation when he suddenly withdrew and joined the Inspectorate.

    Even the inspector general had been concerned about their new recruit¡ªhe tried to persuade Li Hao to return to school and finish his studies first. If the young man really wanted to join the Inspectorate, he could register for the examinations after he graduated.

    Sadly, the young, polite, and typically easy-going Li Hao proved to be incredibly obstinate in this matter. Normally a docile soul, he absolutely refused to go back to the institute.

    Chen Na knew that even Li Hao¡¯s mentor had tried to convince the young man to reconsider his withdrawal. There was a very promising future ahead of him!

    The young man remained wreathed in smiles as he listened to everyone talk about his affairs. He walked over to the corner and boiled some water, busying himself as he responded, ¡°Isn¡¯t it nice to start as a third rank inspector? Besides, if I really waited until graduation, I would lose two years of time with everyone. Wouldn¡¯t that be a pity!¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, you¡¯re right!¡± Easyughter answered his pleasing words.

    Li Hao always knew the right thing to say and, having just turned twenty, he was one of the youngest at the Silver City Inspectorate. Highly pedigreed as a top student, his colleagues rather enjoyed listening to his ttery.

    Cheerfulughter and discussion filled the administrative cubicles this morning. People dropped the topic of Li Hao withdrawing from school. It was the fact that he didn¡¯t mind doing so that they mentioned it in the first ce.

    After all, failure to graduate from the Veteris Institute was grave enough to be one of the greatest regrets of life.

    When it came to what the young man¡¯s considerations were and why he¡¯d chosen to do so, well, they weren¡¯t at liberty to ask. The group once received an answer that Li Hao wanted to start earning money. Tuition was too high and his expenses too great¡ªhis savings had run dry.

    But would Veteris students really be short on funds?

    Joviality in the administrative area gradually petered out as senior officers began filtering into their offices.

    Silver City Inspectorate was the city¡¯sw enforcement agency. There were four other branches in the city apart from its headquarters and it wasprised of multiple departments. Li Hao was assigned to the Department of ssified Affairs. His main duties involved archiving files, opening the books for old cases, reviewing cold cases, documenting important proceedings¡­

    The Department of ssified Affairs didn¡¯t operate on the front lines and rarely involved itself in the field. But if other departments were shorthanded, Li Hao and others were sent over as temporary backup.

    Overall, his position was more of an office job.

    ¡­¡­

    Another busy day at workmenced when the senior officers sat down at their desks.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t have his own office¡ªa third rank inspector fresh to his post wasn¡¯t qualified to have one. Neither did big sis Yu, Brawny Zhou, and the others from earlier, despite being second rank inspectors.

    Li Hao¡¯s desk was located close to the restrooms. Thankfully, there was no apanying smell that one might expect with such a spot. It was, however, too bustling and noisy for the likes of the veterans in the administrative area.

    The young man¡¯s desk pushed up to Chen Na¡¯s across from him. Joining half a year earlier than him, she was also considered to be a rookie. It was almost time for a fresh batch of recruits to enter the Inspectorate, which would finally free them from rookie status.

    Li Hao was buried deep in some files when a gentle tapping came from his neighbor across the way. He lifted his head to find Chen Na sprawled over her desk.

    ¡°Li Hao, there¡¯s a field missioning up,¡± she whispered with a radiant smile. ¡°It¡¯s an easy one and we get to spend a month away from the office. Wanna apply for it together? It¡¯ll be fun to stretch our legs for a month.¡±

    Li Hao blinked and quickly ran through a mental schedule, then shook his head. ¡°Nah, nothing goodes from going outside. It might not be as safe as you say either.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯ll be very safe!¡± Chen Na deted. ¡°It¡¯s just to apany the Veteris Institute¡­¡±

    She paused, blinked, and looked at Li Hao with new awareness. ¡°Ah¡­ sorry, I almost forgot,¡± she said apologetically. ¡°You don¡¯t want to see your old ssmates and mentor, do you? I hear it¡¯s Professor Yuan Shuo leading the expedition team this time¡­¡±

    She inwardly cursed at herself forpletely forgetting the ramifications of this mission. Hadn¡¯t Yuan Shuo mentored Li Hao when the young man still attended the institute?

    Apparently, the professor held high hopes for Li Hao and almost thrashed his student when Li Hao refused to rescind his withdrawal. It¡¯d raised quite a fuss at the Veteris Institute and many students swore at Li Hao for being a fool of an ingrate.

    Who was Yuan Shuo?

    One of the most distinguished names at the school! There were so many students who wished to learn from him, but failed to find favor in his eyes.

    Li Hao smiled and didn¡¯t refute her words. I don¡¯t want to see them? Well, not really.

    Reality wasn¡¯t anywhere close to the wild rumors. His teacher simply found his decision regretful. It¡¯d only been a few days since Li Haost paid a visit to Professor Yuan¡¯s and ate dinner together. There was none of this beating up Li Hao as soon as the man saw his former student.

    So teacher¡¯s leading the team¡­ Professor Yuan was one of the foremost professors at the Veteris Institute. Security should be tight if he was leading a team. Whether it was the Inspectorate or other agencies, everyone would make the necessary arrangements.

    There was nothing for Li Hao to worry about and frankly speaking, the Inspectorate was just there to go through the motions. It wouldn¡¯t be small fry like them in charge of Professor Yuan¡¯s security detail. That would be the Night Watchers that Li Hao had heard about in hushed tones over the past year.

    The Night Watchers were aw enforcement agency much like Silver City Inspectorate, but they handled different cases. Unresolved cases or ones that the Inspectorate didn¡¯t know how to handle were transferred to their jurisdiction.

    Neither outsiders nor the Inspectorate knew what the Night Watchers did. But since Li Hao was stationed in the Department of ssified Affairs and was primarily in charge of archiving files and tracking mysteries, he possessed a vague understanding.

    The Night Watchers!

    Li Hao¡¯s decision to withdraw from school and be a third rank inspector had much to do with this secretive organization. It could be said that they were the biggest motivation for his actions.

    Of course, he would never tell anyone that.

    The Night Watchers were so mysterious that he wouldn¡¯t have heard about them before joining the Inspectorate. But thanks to his mentor, he knew a thing or two and that such an agency existed. Regr people weren¡¯t aware of them at all.

    One crucial detail he¡¯d learned before withdrawing from school was that the Silver City Inspectorate was directly subordinate to the Night Watchers. His teacher once mentioned that the most promising talents at the Inspectorate could potentially be transferred to that agency.

    It¡¯s been a year at the Inspectorate and people seem to think highly of me. I wonder if I¡¯ll have a chance toe in contact with the Night Watchers. Li Hao¡¯s thoughts flew rapidly with a hint of urgency, but he kept a firm grip on his emotions. His expression remained the same as usual.

    It should be soon!

    Unrest should being to Silver City soon, but the Inspectorate seemed blithely unaware. It looked like it would fall to the Night Watchers to handle it, so all he needed was an opportunity!

    1. Veteris: ancient Latin for ¡®old¡¯ ?

 Chapter 2: Scarlet Shadow

    Chapter 2: Scarlet Shadow

    Opportunities are to be created. Li Hao couldn¡¯t sit around waiting and hoping for one. He quickly sorted through the file in front of him and headed for the office in his area.

    Knock knock knock sounded as he rapped on the door.

    ¡°Come in!¡± called out the department head.

    Li Hao pushed the door open. ¡°Good morning, sir!¡±

    ¡°Hey there, Li Hao!¡± Middle-aged Wang Jie smiled to see his visitor. Here was a goodd who was polite and willing to put in hard work! Although he¡¯d prematurely ended his studies at Silver City¡¯s finest institute, it wasn¡¯t like the boy had been expelled. He¡¯d voluntarily withdrawn, so Wang Jie still paid quite some attention to Li Hao.

    ¡°Sir, I have a report to make.¡± Li Hao shed an answering grin.

    ¡°Have a seat,¡± Wang Jie offered.

    The Department of ssified Affairsbored under a light workload and none of their matters were critical. The most important issues were assigned to thew enforcement team, which left the department rather quiet.

    Is thed trying to build a closer rtionship so I¡¯ll promote him? But it¡¯d only been half a year since Li Hao withdrew from school and started full-time. It was impossible to put his name forward in such a short period.

    As Wang Jie¡¯s mind traveled down various possibilities, Li Hao turned serious and began his report in a low voice.

    ¡°Sir, my duties at the Department of ssified Affairs entail cataloging disputed and unsettled cases. It¡¯s been roughly a year since I joined the department and I¡¯ve reorganized and recategorized some of the files within thest ten years¡­¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m aware, and as expected of a Veteris student!¡± Wang Jie nodded with a smile. ¡°The filing situation was less than optimal before and worms had nearly gotten to some of the older cases. I sent someone to clean them up, but it was still tough to find what we needed. We can quickly find whatever we want after you¡¯vee, so credit goes where credit¡¯s due!¡±

    Li Hao hastily shook his head. ¡°Sir, I¡¯m not here to brag about my aplishments.¡±

    What, really?

    Wang Jie chuckled despite himself. Did thed really have something to report? He nodded and motioned for Li Hao to continue.

    Li Hao took out a sheaf of papers and handed a set to his department head. He paged through his copy and spoke in a levelheaded voice that belied his years.

    ¡°September 16, 1720 records a self-immtion case at the Quiet Residences of Silver City. Eyewitnesses report sparks suddenly igniting in the person of interest before he burned to death.¡±

    Wang Jie scanned the case in his hand and looked back at the young man. A closed case from ten years ago, and an ident at that. What did thed mean by bringing it up again?

    ¡°September 22, 1723. The hair of a sales clerk at the Commerce and Trade Center spontaneously ignites. It quickly spreads to the rest of her body and burns the sales clerk to death.¡±

    ¡°I know this one.¡± Wang Jie nodded. ¡°I wrote the file. I visited the scene and confirmed that it was an ident due to static electricity in the center.¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t refute the exnation and continued, ¡°August 18, 1725. A guest checks into the People¡¯s Hotel and is discovered one dayter, dead from setting himself on fire.¡±

    Five years since the first self-immtion case, two years from the second. It amounted to three self-immtion cases within five years, but all were idents. Numerous cases were reported in Silver City everyday, so three such cases in five years wasn¡¯t a big deal. No one paid attention to them.

    They might have caught some attention if the same inspector handled all three, but only just.

    Too many cases passed through the Department of ssified Affairs and Wang Jie normally didn¡¯t pay them any heed. Frowning, he turned to Li Hao as faint premonition prickled at him.

    ¡°February 16, 1727. Another person dies of self-immtion on East Main Street in Silver City. The culprit is ball lightning appearing nearby that causes mes to erupt in the person of interest. That marks one and a half years from the previous case!¡±

    Wang Jie¡¯s face tightened with rm. Three years to two, two years to one and a half!

    ¡°August 12, 1728. The Inspectorate branch of the Silver City suburbs reports a missing person. Their charred remains areter discovered by a river, seemingly the result of a lightning strike from a thunderstorm. It is treated as an ident.¡±

    Another year and a half!

    When subordinate agencies reported cases, the Inspectorate simply archived them for record-keeping purposes and didn¡¯t get involved. Not to mention, it¡¯d been an ident that the suburb division already closed the books on, so there was no need for headquarters to overrule things without reason.

    Wang Jie¡¯s expression grew dark, he really hadn¡¯t paid attention to these cases. There were too many that passed through his department and a fair number of old ones were destroyed every year.

    ¡°One and a half years¡­¡± He looked at Li Hao instead of paging through the files in his hands. ¡°The first interval was three years, the second was two years, and now we have two cases spaced one and a half years apart. Did another self-immtion case happen in August or September of 1729?¡±

    1729 wasst year. Wang Jie wracked his brains¡ªhad something happened then? If so, that made for an interval of one year and meant six cases took ce in Silver City within ten years!

    It didn¡¯t seem much when averaged out¡ªtwo years per case. Silver City was enormous and more than one Inspectorate branch was in charge of it. One branch mighte across one case in ten years, so who would pay it any attention?

    Li Hao nodded. ¡°Another case took ce in 1729 at the Veteris Institute. The person of interest was my ssmate from the dorm room next door. It¡¯s part of the reason why I withdrew from the Institute.

    ¡°I personally witnessed everything and became extremely afraid. I dreaded the thought of staying in school. The circumstances around my ssmate¡¯s death were very strange, so I want to investigate why these people went up in mes!

    ¡°This is partially why I insisted on joining the Inspectorate. Outsiders cannot ess these files, but I can! I perused and organized all of the self-immtion cases from thest ten years and feel that they may not be idents!¡±

    Wang Jie quickly flipped through the papers in his hands, briefly scanning them before looking back at Li Hao. ¡°Tell me what you¡¯re thinking.¡±

    ¡°There have been six cases in ten years. No, strictly speaking it¡¯s nine years, since we haven¡¯t received a report so far this year,¡± Li Hao responded solemnly. ¡°Sir, I care a lot about this because of my ssmate¡¯s involvement. It¡¯s almost July, which means it¡¯s been almost a year since thest one! The intervals have been growing shorter, so if these self-immtion cases aren¡¯t a coincidence, we might see another one in the near future.¡±

    ¡°Not an ident?¡± Wang Jie paged through the files again. He was a veteran inspector and had been reassigned to the Department of ssified Affairs on ount of his advancing age. If it wasn¡¯t for Li Hao sorting through the files and grouping some cases together, they might¡¯ve continued to fly under the radar.

    And now, anyone would feel a hint of unease when all six self-immtion cases were viewed together through the same lens.

    ¡°We cannot determine from present circumstances that these cases are premeditated,¡± Wang Jie exhaled, then continued sharply. ¡°But¡­ too many coincidences mean that they are anything but! I will discuss this with the other departments, especially the enforcement team. The Department of ssified Affairs does not directly be involved in cases, but some attention does need to be brought to bear on these recurring self-immtion incidents.

    ¡°If it happens again soon¡­¡± The department head¡¯s expression shifted. ¡°That means your deduction is correct and they¡¯re not simple idents!¡±

    His stern expression rxed as he looked at the young man and he smiled. ¡°Of course, there¡¯s no need to be overly worked up. Even if they are murders, there are cases a thousand times more awful than these. But you, Li Hao, did a very good job!¡±

    Wang Jie¡¯s seriousness did not hold out for long. Even if they did confirm these incidents as murders, it wasn¡¯t a big deal. Having seen and heard so much throughout his career, six people dead in ten years really wasn¡¯t much.

    He was more gratified by Li Hao¡¯s persistence and sense of responsibility. He¡¯d also gained a better understanding of the young man¡¯s withdrawal from school.

    ssmate?

    More like a good friend!

    There was no need for Li Hao to withdraw otherwise.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao didn¡¯t continue to press the point.

    Murder?

    Would he need to flee from the Veteris Institute if it was simply murder?

    Having witnessed everything with his own eyes, he would much rather that it was just murder. What was that shadow the color of blood?

    Self-immtion?

    No, a scarlet shadow had burned his neighbor to death, but none of the other ssmates who¡¯d witnessed the incident mentioned seeing the shadow!

    Had they lied?

    No, there was no need for that.

    Li Hao knew for certain that he was the only witness. The others hadn¡¯t discovered the scarlet shadow, or perhaps they couldn¡¯t see it at all. And he¡¯d felt it again recently, he¡¯d even vaguely sensed itst night!

    Perhaps there was more than one of it!

    Once the Inspectorate takes a look at the files and realizes they¡¯re no idents, they¡¯ll report it to the Night Watchers if they can¡¯t handle it.

    Cases that no one paid further attention to were concluded as idents and their files delivered to the Department of ssified Affairs to gather dust. But the Inspectorate saw matters through to the end if they ever decided to look into a matter.

    The Night Watchers! Li Hao recited to himself as Wang Jie stood up.

    ¡°Then I¡¯m going to call for a meeting with the enforcement team, I might need youter on, Li Hao. You¡¯re the one who organized these files, after all.¡±

    The young man quickly bobbed his head up and down as he heaved an inward sigh of relief. Good, this was what he wanted to hear.

    He did all this so he could participate, but not directly. That was too high profile. He wanted to take part only as the discoverer of the connection between these cases. That way, he would very possiblye in contact with the Night Watchers if the mysterious group became involved.

    Buting in contact didn¡¯t mean that he could join them, and he may not dare join them even if given the chance!

    Li Hao had read too many case files over the past year. Some of them held additional meaning between the lines. Take the scarlet shadow, for example. He didn¡¯t seem to be the only one who could see it. Some other records also spoke of it, but their authors were either dead or gone missing.

    There were no exceptions.

    Thus, he didn¡¯t dare speak of the matter as there was great danger lurking within. He didn¡¯t dare tell anyone that he could see the scarlet shadow. Who knew if even the Night Watchers were a fully reliable group?

    No matter what, I need to get closer to them through regr means! Li Hao took a deep breath and backed out of the office. He needed to make their acquaintance not only to investigate the truth, but also to ensure he remained well and alive.

    Everyone who could see the scarlet shadow was dead. He didn¡¯t know if there were more who could, but anyone who revealed that they could was dead. This was very abnormal.

    ¡°I can¡¯t just die like this. I didn¡¯t leave the Veteris Institute to hide in the Inspectorate.¡± Li Hao breathed out softly and grinned brilliantly.

    The ideal oue was for the Night Watchers to take care of this matter and for some unexpected benefits to fall into hisp, such as a transfer. As a paper pusher, it would be nice to be a paper pusher for the Night Watchers if they would have him.

    He didn¡¯t think he was a good fit for the field duty teams¡ªthey were very dangerous. He¡¯d asked obliquely when eating dinner at his teacher¡¯s and learned that the casualty rate for the Night Watchers was very high!

    ¡°Let¡¯s just take things one step at a time.¡± Li Hao smiled to see Wang Jie rush off. The first move was in y.

    Scarlet shadow¡­ What the heck is it and why can I see it?

 Chapter 3: Sword of the Lis (I)

    Chapter 3: Sword of the Lis (I)

    After leaving the department head¡¯s office, Li Hao nced at the calendar on his table when he returned to his seat.

    July 12, 1730.

    ¡°Almost a year!¡± he mumbled.

    ¡°What¡¯s almost a year?¡± Chen Na asked curiously.

    ¡°It¡¯s been almost a year since I joined the Inspectorate,¡± the young man exined with a smile.

    ¡°Oh, you still remember that?¡± Chen Na responded indifferently. What was the point of recalling when one joined the Inspectorate?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. He remembered! He remembered it very clearly!

    He joined the Inspectorate on August 1, 1729. His withdrawal from school was July 23, the day after the incident. It wasn¡¯t long after that that he applied to Silver City¡¯sw enforcement agency.

    A self-immtion incident urred in the Veteris Institute on July 22, 1729. Second year student Zhang Yuan went up in mes outside his dorm room and died from his injuries.

    After the Inspectorate looked into the case, a media ckout was imposed to protect the school¡¯s reputation upon confirmation that it was indeed an ident. Very few knew that a Veteris student had died on school grounds.

    Neither did the matter snowball because Zhang Yuan¡¯s parents were dead and he didn¡¯t really have rtives. No one came around looking for him, so the matter was quickly suppressed.

    Li Hao¡¯s mentor eventually guessed that his withdrawal was rted to Zhang Yuan since the two were close.

    Zhang Yuan!

    It¡¯d been almost a year since Little Yuan¡¯s death. Events of the day still came readily to Li Hao, even now.

    Zhang Yuan had been caught in the grip of a scarlet shadow. As his body slowly burned away, no one realized how Zhang Yuan¡¯s soul struggled, his mind wailed, and his heart despaired.

    But Li Hao saw his friend clearly. He moved forward to help, but Little Yuan¡¯s mouth repeatedly opened and closed when he saw Li Hao. Although he couldn¡¯t make a sound despite the incredible anguish, his mouth kept moving. Others might think he was screaming or moaning; only Li Hao knew differently.

    ¡°Run!¡±

    His friend wanted him to run.

    Li Hao knew Zhang Yuan too well. He didn¡¯t want Li Hao to get closer, he wanted Li Hao to run for his life!

    Zhang Yuan hadically been wearing only a pair of boxers when he died outside his dorm room. It was far from funny to Li Hao. His friend must have already gone to bed, but when the incident urred, he pushed through the throes of extreme agony to stagger into the hallway. He¡¯d turned in the direction of Li Hao¡¯s room!

    Unable to make a sound, he gathered all of his mental resolve to break a porcin tile. That raised a disturbance in the dead of night, causing many students to poke their heads out of their rooms¡ªincluding Li Hao.

    Had Zhang Yuan been crying out for help?

    That¡¯s what everyone thought, but Li Hao didn¡¯t think so. His friend had been warning him. He floundered out of his room, made a noise to lure Li Hao out of his, then wordlessly mouthed ¡°run¡± at the end of it all.

    He hadn¡¯t been begging Li Hao for help, but warning him to flee for survival.

    ¡°Fourteen years,¡± Li Hao murmured to himself.

    He and Zhang Yuan had known each other for fourteen years, not the two as fellow students that everyone was aware of. They were ssmates since young, or was it more urate to describe them as best friends?

    Both were quiet characters of few words as the brotherhood of men didn¡¯t need to be mentioned all the time. It was more than amply demonstrated by Zhang Yuan''s formidable determination to deliver a message to Li Hao in the face of impending death!

    Zhang Yuan¡¯s case was ultimately kept under wraps and disappeared without a ripple. Li Hao was likely his only close friend, so no one else looked into his death.

    Why did Little Yuan want me to run? Did he see something? Hear something? Was he just afraid? Or did he know that the scarlet shadow woulde for me next? These questions had gued Li Hao¡¯s mind for the past year. He couldn¡¯t begin to imagine how much torment Zhang Yuan had suffered, yet his friend chose to spend hisst moments warning Li Hao. There was definitely more than met the eye here, perhaps the scarlet shadow wasing for him next!

    ¡°Six people plus me makes seven. What¡¯s themonality between us? The cases are spread out over ten years and urring at a faster pace. If I¡¯m included among the persons of interest, there¡¯s no connection between us other than me and Zhang Yuan. Are these random killings or targeted murders?¡±

    Li Hao rubbed his forehead and flipped through the files in front of him. They were of the other six people as well as some clues collected over the past year through various channels.

    It¡¯d been ten years since the first person¡¯s death. Perhaps there were more before them, perhaps not. Li Hao had no way of knowing. Ten years was too long an interval, it was hard to investigate anything before that.

    ¡°Gender? Age? Profession? Background? Mutual acquaintances?¡± He¡¯d paged through the files in front of him multiple times, but none of the usual shared attributes jumped out. It was a collection of strangers unrted to each other.

    ¡°Why did the scarlet shadow kill them? Did they threaten it somehow, or was there another motive at stake?¡± Endless confusion swirled in Li Hao¡¯s mind. Of course, there was another reason why he doggedly continued the investigation¡ªrevenge!

    No one cared about Zhang Yuan¡¯s death, but he did. There were also too many uncertainties associated with the Night Watchers. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that he couldn¡¯t find more useful information on his own, or that hecked good ideas on how to handle a shadow that no one could see, he wouldn¡¯t ce any hope in the mysterious group. He would rather take out the culprit himself!

    ¡°Reviewing their information again, Li Hao?¡± Chen Na couldn¡¯t help but ask when she saw the young man reach for the familiar bundle of documents. She¡¯d seen him study these cases numerous times throughout the year. They were growing thicker, and Li Hao had read through them so many times that the files were getting worn.

    However, he mmed them shut whenever she wanted a look. She could only vaguely tell that they were the personal files of a few people.

    Li Hao raised his head and shed her a smile of purity. ¡°Just having a look, big sis Na.¡±

    ¡°Pfft!¡± Chen Na snorted. Just having a look? For an entire year?

    The kid wasn¡¯t too honest at times.

    ¡°You¡¯ve had a look for so long, Li Hao, what are you looking for? There¡¯s so many veteran inspectors around, but you go at it alone instead of asking them. What can a rookie like you find? Why don¡¯t I take a look, maybe I wille up with something? Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t tell anyone,¡± Chen Na giggled. ¡°How about it, let me have a look?¡±

    She was very curious!

    Li Hao was unwilling to let others know about his investigation because he worried about raising the scarlet shadow¡¯s attention. But he¡¯d continuouslye up empty-handed, and since Wang Jie had his report, it didn¡¯t matter if Chen Na took a look as well.

    He hemmed and hawed for a bit before saying, ¡°Then¡­ sure, but let¡¯s not bother anyone else with this.¡± He didn¡¯t want too many to know that he was paying attention to these cases.

    Chen Na was also a rookie and thus rtively less perceptive and shrewd. Anyone else might think of the associated cases when they read the personal files and know that Li Hao was looking into the self-immtion incidents.

    He was letting Chen Na take a look because he¡¯d stared at them for so long and had nothing to show for it. Maybe he was missing the forest for the trees or was bogged down in the weeds.

    Or maybe there really was no connection to be found.

    Perhaps an outsider like Chen Na could identify something?

    Very well. Li Hao wasn¡¯t holding out any hope, he was just unwilling to ept no progress after so much time and effort.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± Chen Na grinned from ear to ear. She finally had a chance to peek into Li Hao¡¯s little secret!

    Worried that he¡¯d change his mind, she leaned over the tables and quickly grabbed the files from his hand. After rapidly flipping through them, she asked, ¡°Li Hao, what are you trying to find in these documents? There¡¯s so much here¡ªyou¡¯ve recorded so many details that they¡¯re basically memoirs. What are you trying to do?¡±

    ¡°Commonalities!¡± Li Hao answered after brief thought. ¡°I want to know what they have inmon!¡±

    Chen Na blinked, at a loss. She took a closer look at the six people¡ªdifferent ages, professions, backgrounds, gender, and social circles. The first of them had died ten years ago, and thetest wasst year. What were they supposed to have inmon?

    Li Hao¡¯s been reading these for a year? He¡¯s¡­ got a lot of time on his hands.

    But thest file gave her an inkling of a clue¡ªZhang Yuan, a student at the Veteris Institute. He was the primary reason why Li Hao scrutinized these files, wasn¡¯t he?

    Zhang Yuan, deceased on July 22, 1729. Li Hao withdrew from school not long after that, right? Or did he withdraw from school at the same time?

    Chen Na took another look and seemed to understand more of the context when she factored in Li Hao¡¯s withdrawal from the Veteris Institute. Some of their colleagues still failed to understand why a Veteris student would forsake his studies and throw away a glorious future. Perhaps she grasped some of the underlying reasons after the young man shared the files with her today.

    Previously regarding the issue with amusement, her eyes sharpened with solemnity when her thoughts traveled here. Did Li Hao suspect that Zhang Yuan¡¯s death was a murder instead of an ident?

    Were all six actually a series of murders?

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao waited for a bit while Chen Na perused the files, but didn¡¯t mind that he didn¡¯t receive an immediate response. Instead, he turned his mind to his next step.

    The Inspectorate should be opening an investigation after he made his report, but he didn¡¯t hold out much hope for that line of action. Not unless the Night Watchers swiftly involved themselves!

    The key thing is that the scarlet shadow might attack me soon if I¡¯m the next target. I think I saw a hazy red thing a few days ago¡ªwas it the scarlet shadow? Is it looking for me? Or has it already found me and not taken action yet because of my identity?

    The Inspectorate was the city¡¯sw enforcement agency, after all. A student¡¯s death might not raise too much attention, even if the student was from the vaunted Veteris Institute. But the death of a third rank inspector would draw a detailed inspection. The death of one of their own was far more severe than a student¡¯s.

    Based on what I know, there¡¯s a time limit to each appearance. The shadow never manifests for too long, or it might be more urate to say that it only appears at certain times. There is onemonality between the victims, but¡­ it¡¯s not a very clear link!

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t entirely clueless after one year. At the very least, he¡¯d determined that the weather was never ideal on the days that the six died. There was always either a thunderstorm, ball lightning, or clouds¡­ No one paid attention to the weather when the incidents took ce; Li Hao had been forced to take note of it when he couldn¡¯t locate any other clues.

    He keenly recalled that it¡¯d been drizzling the night Zhang Yuan died.

    The shadowes out only when it rains, or when the weather is bad. Li Hao swiftly scribbled something on a piece of paper and ripped it up just as quickly. He put down his pen after shredding his notes and sank into deep thought.

    While he rummaged through his thoughts, Chen Na suddenly gasped, ¡°I¡¯ve got it!¡±

 Chapter 4: Sword of the Lis (II)

    Chapter 4: Sword of the Lis (II)

    Li Hao started and jerked his head up. Got it?

    Got what?

    How is that possible??

    He hadn¡¯t expected anything and Chen Na had only briefly nced through the files. She¡¯s pulling a fast one on me, isn¡¯t she? He frowned, then quickly rxed his brows and returned to his customary smile.

    ¡°What did you find, big sis Na?¡±

    Chen Na felt a bit awkward as she¡¯d caught the tail end of Li Hao¡¯s frown. That¡¯s right, he really cares about this. It¡¯s not a joke.

    ¡°Well¡­ I¡¯m not done looking through everything yet, there¡¯s too much,¡± she said haltingly.

    Li Hao remained unruffled. As I thought. There was nothing to be disappointed about since he hadn¡¯t hoped for anything in the first ce.

    Chen Na, however, continued, ¡°I¡¯m not done yet, but I think there really is a connection. I¡¯m just¡­ not entirely sure.¡± She raised a piece of paper. ¡°I doodle, so I wrote down their names as I looked through their files.¡±

    Li Hao nced at the paper and nodded. The six persons of interest! He knew their names by heart, what of it?

    None of them shared the same name or surname. Some were three characters, others were two. There was no connection when it came to their names.

    ¡°Zhou Qing, Hong Jiao, Wang Haoming, Liu Yunsheng, Zhao Shihao, and Zhang Yuan. Those are their names, right?¡± Chen Na quickly asked since she held Li Hao¡¯s attention.

    The young man inclined his head.

    She scanned the list of names again and suddenly doubted herself. What if Li Hao thought she was ying him? That would be bad. She coughed after an awkward silence. ¡°Forget it, pretend I didn¡¯t say anything. It doesn¡¯t seem right, we¡¯re missing two.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Li Hao twitched with surprise. ¡°Missing two?¡±

    ¡°It would be right if there¡¯s a Zheng surnamed victim and a Li surnamed victim,¡± Chen Na answered even more stiltedly. ¡°But there isn¡¯t, so um¡­ just ignore that I said anything.¡±

    She didn¡¯t want to go on, this was so embarrassing!

    Waves of emotion rocked Li Hao. Why should there be two more? A Li surnamed victim¡­ His surname was Li!

    As for a Zheng surname¡­ Li Hao could only ess cases within thest ten years. Any undisputed cases over ten years old were destroyed. There were too many files at the Inspectorate and too many cases that were idents. The Department of ssified Affairs didn¡¯t keep all of them archived.

    Despite the shock roiling through his heart, Li Hao maintained a coolposure and stretched his lips in a smile. ¡°C¡¯mon, big sis Na, out with it. We¡¯re just chatting. Why should there be two more surnames?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not from Silver City, are you?¡± Chen Na looked at him curiously.

    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡±

    ¡°Hmm¡­¡± Chen Na nodded as she thought of something else. ¡°I got it. You¡­ don¡¯t have elders at home, do you?¡±

    ¡°My grandparents passed away a long time ago.¡± Li Hao grew curious. What did this have to do with the elderly?

    ¡°If you have older rtives at home, sometimes they speak of local sayings and folktales. I remember my grandma loved talking about this when I was young.¡± Chen Na didn¡¯t feel as awkward anymore since Li Hao was genuinely interested. She traveled back in time for a moment. ¡°I used to live with my grandma and she loved singing folk songs. There was one that went like this¡­¡±

    She struck her grandma¡¯s customary pose and cleared her throat, singing softly, ¡°The sword of the Lis, de of the Zhangs, fists of the Zhaos, footwork of the Lius¡­ and the trouble that is the Zheng young master!¡±

    Embarrassment crept in after a short verse and she smiled bashfully. ¡°It doesn¡¯t sound as good in the standardnguage. It sounded really nice when my grandma sang it in the Silver City dialect. It¡¯s part of the local operas and probably sounds juvenile to someone who hasn¡¯t heard it before.¡±

    A keen light danced in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. Folk songs! Sword of the Lis, de of the Zhangs¡­ There were eight surnames in this song!

    Li, Zhang, Zhao, Liu, Wang, Hong, Zhou, Zheng!

    Li Hao yanked the paper out of Chen Na¡¯s hand and looked at the first name¡ªZhou Qing. He was the first self-immtion incident from ten years ago, followed by sales clerk Hong Jiao, then Wang Haoming¡­

    If the first to die was someone surnamed Zheng, that would make Zhou Qing the second victim, Hong Jiao third, and Wang Haoming fourth¡­

    And if he reversed the order of the eight surnames in the Silver City folk song, it would perfectly match the order of the incidents. Thest to die was Zhang Yuan. He was a match for the de of the Zhangs.

    That meant there was one more toe! Someone else would die, someone surnamed Li. They were the first in the song and they matched the sword of the Lis!

    Li Hao¡¯s expression shifted drastically and he jerked his head up at Chen Na, unable to conceal the surprise and agitation rippling through him. ¡°This song¡­ when did it start circting, who wrote it, w-what¡­¡± His voice was a little hoarse.

    Startled, Chen Na jumped from the intensity in his eyes. ¡°Calm down, Li Hao. Many elders know the song, but not that many young folks do. That¡¯s why you don¡¯t know it. We can look into things slowly if it catches your eye, don¡¯t be in a rush!¡±

    Li Hao took a deep breath and suppressed the impulses raging in his heart. He couldn¡¯t rush into things! Who would¡¯ve thought that Chen Na would give him such an important clue with just a quick nce? He¡¯d never heard of this song before and never heard anyone sing it. It must¡¯ve fallen out of fashion years ago.

    As the officialnguage proliferated and became standard, the older generation slowly took folk songs to the grave with them. Li Hao¡¯s grandfather passed away a long time ago¡ªLi Hao had never even met the man, so there was naturally no one to sing the song to him.

    Calm down! He told himself sternly. What was the point of rushing? The key thing was that there was a clue now. There was no need to be in a hurry.

    I need to confirm if the first to die was surnamed Zheng.

    While the Department of ssified Affairs destroyed files more than ten years old, there were still ces he could look into. He just needed to find out if there were any Zheng surnamed casualties of self-immtion within thest fifteen years.

    Li Hao was both excited and incredibly fearful. If he really did find such a person, that meant he was next!

    Little Yuan must have seen or heard something topel him to warn Li Hao.

    The sword of the Lis¡­

    The sword of the Lis!

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes shot wide open. There was a sword in his family! It was alling to him now. His family did have a sword¡­ of sorts?

    But¡­ what he was thinking of didn¡¯t really seem like a sword. At the same time, however, he knew it was a sword.

    It was very contradictory and the truth.

    When he was a young boy, Li Hao¡¯s father pulled a sword-shaped jade pendant over the boy¡¯s head and said solemnly, ¡°This is a sword called Steris and it is the only inheritance of our family. Do not say it is jade when you pass it onto your children. It is a sword.¡±

    His father had been very solemn, then rxed helplessly when he saw how lost Li Hao looked. ¡°Your grandfather said the same thing to me when he gave it to me, and these wordse from our ancestors. They insist that it is a sword, so just call it that.¡±

    That was why Li Hao immediately thought that the Lis really did have a sword¡ªit was called Steris. In fact, the sword-shaped jade pendant was around his neck right now!

    Confusion was setting in. If the sword of the Lis in the folk song was the pendant, then yes, the Lis possessed a sword.

    Do the Zhangs have a de?

    He didn¡¯t know if the others corresponded to what the song described, but Li Hao knew Zhang Yuan well because his friend¡¯s parents died early on.

    de of the Zhangs¡­

    Li Haobed through his memories. Did the Zhangs have a de or not? Snippets flew past his mind¡¯s eye and he stilled. Wait, the Zhangs might really have a de.

    It was different from his pendant as jade was valuable, more or less, especially a piece of old jade. Therefore, the Lis treated it with some importance.

    But the de of the Zhangs¡­ Li Hao suddenly recalled that a young Zhang Yuan once snuck something out for the two of them to y with. Zhang Yuan¡¯s father quickly found out and gave him a thorough beating. That item seemed to have been a de shaped rock!

    Li Hao¡¯s memories were a bit hazy, but he recalled amid the angry lecture delivered that the item was passed down from the Zhang ancestors. Although it wasn¡¯t worth anything, it was still a family heirloom that should not be toyed with.

    But after that, Li Hao saw his friend¡¯s father casually throw the stone off to the side. Thus, his personal theory was that Zhang Yuan¡¯s father had just wanted to smack his son that day and seized any excuse to do so.

    Is that rock the de of the Zhangs in the folk song?

    If it was, then everything matched!

    Li Hao never saw the stone again, but that was also because the two grew up and had better things to do than y with a particr stone. There were plenty by the side of the road if they wanted one.

    This is it! Everything¡­ everything in the folk song is most likely real! He subconsciously touched his chest. The jade pendant was cool to the touch and didn¡¯t exhibit anything different.

    The hint of cool snapped Li Hao back to his senses and he looked at Chen Na with yearning.

    ¡°Big sis Na, may I meet your grandma?¡±

    Where did the folk songe from, who first sang it, how long had it been around, and was itplete? Why was it rted to the self-immtion cases? What was the scarlet shadow and why was it killing people from the eight families in the song?

    Was it killing just one representative, or was it killing everyone rted to the eight families? If that was the case¡­

    ¡°Huh?¡± Li Hao blinked before Chen Na could respond and grabbed the stack of files. He flipped swiftly through the pages, despite having read them endless times. ¡°Hong Jiao¡¯s parents are dead and she was young when she died, so there is no one left of the Hongs.

    ¡°Zhou Qing is survived by his wife, but they have no children after many years of marriage,¡± he mumbled to himself. ¡°Zhang Yuan goes without saying¡­¡±

    His friend was the only remaining descendant of the Zhangs after his parents passed away when he was young.

    ¡°Wang Haoming was unmarried when he died, but he wasn¡¯t an only child. He has a younger brother¡­

    ¡°Liu Yunsheng was an old man and a bachelor his entire life.

    ¡°Zhao Shihao had a daughter who left Silver City with his wife after his death. Their whereabouts are unknown.¡±

    Li Hao rapidly turned the pages, seeing that some were married and some had kids. Since their marital statuses were different, that attribute hadn¡¯t jumped out to him before.

    His thoughts suddenly turned to himself.

    My parents passed away three years ago in an ident¡ªan absolute ident as the car flipped over after it lost control. But looking at this¡­ was it really an ident?

    Li Hao¡¯s parents passed away three years ago in an ident unrted to self-immtion. That was why he didn¡¯t think to include his parents in these cases, but a myriad of possibilities surged through his mind now.

    The Zhang, Hong, Zhou, and Liu bloodlines were ended. There were no further direct descendants. Wang Haoming had a younger brother and Liu Shihao had a daughter. If he was the Li of the song, then the Lis¡­ had only him.

    This isn¡¯t meant to just kill one person, but to eradicate the entire n!

    Li Hao¡¯s heart pounded with fear, but also fury!

    Did my parents not die from an ident?!

    He couldn¡¯t confirm his spection, however, since there were still living members of the Wangs and Zhaos.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Chen Na¡¯s shout brought him back to reality. ¡°Are you alright?¡±

    The young man had answered his own question and then ignored everything she said, like he was lost in thought.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine!¡± Li Hao quickly shook his head.

    ¡°Do¡­ do you think these people have something to do with the families in the folk song?¡± Chen Na nced at him. ¡°But it¡¯s just a folk song. Some of these songs are modified from mythology, whereas others are just random ditties hummed everyday. I think it¡¯s just a coincidence. We¡¯re missing two surnames from the list, yeah?¡±

    She wanted to smile at the young man, but suddenly paused and looked at Li Hao. Missing two¡­ a Zheng surname and a Li surname!

    Li Hao?

    Did all this have something to do with Li Hao?

    She was an inspector after all, so basic logic and rationality operated readily. She immediately connected the dots to Li Hao. Did he investigate this so doggedly because it rted to him?

    ¡°Li Hao, your surname is Li, right?¡±

    The young man chuckled ruefully. What, was he supposed to say no?

    ¡°Tell me the truth, is there something off about their deaths?¡± Chen Na frowned and looked at the files again. A cursory nce indicated that they were all idents and spread throughout multiple years. Was there supposed to be a connection between them?

    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about thatter, big sis Na. Can I meet your grandma?¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t want to dwell on the topic.

 Chapter 5: The Fog Clears

    Chapter 5: The Fog Clears

    Chen Na also dropped the topic and followed Li Hao¡¯s change in thought. ¡°I told you just now, but you didn¡¯t hear. My grandma passed away a few years ago¡­¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry!¡±

    ¡°No worries, she was more than ny years old. It was a happy passing,¡± Chen Na waved off the apologetic young man. ¡°A lot of people on my grandma¡¯s side know this folk song, at least, that was the case when I was young. I don¡¯t know if that still holds true or how many of my older rtives are still alive. I haven¡¯t made a trip back to the family home in quite a few years.

    ¡°How about this,¡± she continued, given how vested Li Hao was in the matter. ¡°If you really are that interested, we can visit and conduct an actual inquiry. We might be able to learn something if we run into an elder who knows the song.¡±

    Li Hao gave it some thought and nodded.

    ¡°We¡¯re off the day after tomorrow, does that work for you, big sis Na?¡±

    ¡°Yeah!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s mind was at ease after they decided on a course of action.

    ¡°Big sis,¡± he spoke rapidly, ¡°You know more people at the Inspectorate than I do, can you do me a favor?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s hear it.¡±

    ¡°Can you look into a few people for me?¡± Li Hao was a lot more forting with his neighbor now that he¡¯d shown Chen Na the files. ¡°Wang Haoming¡¯s younger brother doesn¡¯t live in Silver City. His only rtive here was his older brother, and he hasn¡¯t been back since Wang Haoming died.

    ¡°The second is Zhao Shihao¡¯s daughter! She and his wife left the city after his death and haven¡¯t been heard from since.¡±

    The Silver City Inspectorate exercised jurisdiction only over Silver City. It held no authority in other regions, much less the right to pull their citizen¡¯s files. He was asking Chen Na because herwork was bigger than his.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t even familiar with the branch on the city¡¯s outskirts, but there would always be someone else¡¯s colleague, old ssmate, or friend assigned there. He might find something if he sent out feelers.

    Chen Na¡¯s eyes darted around. He wants me to look into some of these people¡¯s families? What does Li Hao mean by this?

    ¡°Can you do it, big sis Na?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s easy enough if we have a general range.¡± Chen Na nodded after thinking it over. ¡°The worst would be if we don¡¯t have a single clue. It¡¯s a big world out there beyond our Silver City and we don¡¯t have the authority to cross jurisdictional boundaries. Nor are we authorized to ess the databases. If we want to entrust someone with this task, it would be much better if we have a designated target.¡±

    ¡°I understand. I have some information and I¡¯ll consolidate it into a report for you. I may not know precisely where they are, but I know what city they¡¯re in.¡± Li Hao had a preliminary understanding of these people¡¯s families after his year of investigation. He just wasn¡¯t able to contact them since they weren¡¯t in Silver City.

    ¡°Then that¡¯s easy, leave it to me!¡± Chen Na epted amid a flurry of Li Hao¡¯s profuse thanks.

    The two conversed for a while before Chen Na suddenly lowered her voice. ¡°Li Hao, some things¡­ Well, just look out for yourself, okay? I feel like¡­ there might be more than meets the eye here.¡±

    Being no fool, she¡¯d made some educated guesses. If Li Hao really was the Li of the ¡°sword of the Lis¡±, then would he meet with danger as well? The Inspectorate didn¡¯t fear danger, it feared danger from unknown sources. After all, these cases had been deemed as idents.

    Li Hao nodded and didn¡¯t say a word. There were a lot of things he needed to do and confirm. Delving into files more than ten years old, for one, to see if the Zhengs were dead. If circumstances permitted, he wanted to visit Zhang Yuan¡¯s home as well. It remained unupied after his friend''s death¡ªwas the de of the Zhangs still there?

    How about the mace of the Hongs and spear of the Zhous? Did all of the weapons in the folk song exist? Where were they now?

    Was the scarlet shadow out for the n or the weapons?

    Fists and footwork went without saying¡ªnothing would remain after their people died. But if the weapons were family inheritances simr to how the Lis treated theirs, then there might be some clues to be gleaned.

    He would be able to handle danger better once he identified the scarlet shadow¡¯s goal and understood it more.

    ¡­¡­

    Instead of heading straight to Zhang Yuan¡¯s house or going home, Li Hao busied himself elsewhere.

    Silver City Inspectorate.

    The Archives.

    Auntie Zhao, a middle-aged woman in charge of record keeping, brought out a pile of files from storage. She raised a cloud of dust as she swept them off and handed the yellowed papers to Li Hao.

    ¡°Little Hao, what do you want these for?¡± she asked with bemusement. ¡°All Zheng surnamed derations of death from 1715 to 1719 are here. There¡¯s hundreds of them, and they¡¯ve all been dead for a while¡­¡±

    Li Hao smiled innocently. ¡°Big sis Zhao, some unsettled cases at the Department of ssified Affairs might have something to do with them. I can¡¯t go into details, but thank you so much for the trouble. I¡¯ll take you out to lunch if we find any clues.¡±

    ¡°Never mind lunch. Little Hao, you¡¯re no longer a little boy at twenty years old. My daughter is twenty-two, which makes her two years older than you¡­¡±

    Resignation crept into Li Hao¡¯s smile. ¡°Let¡¯s talk about thister, big sis. I¡¯m still young.¡±

    He scuttled out of the Archives in a slightly bedraggled fashion. The aunties of the Inspectorate were warm-hearted, enthusiastic people, but they had a habit of introducing their daughters to him.

    Or nieces if not daughters, or someone else¡¯s daughter.

    It was his fault for being part of the Veteris Institute once. Although he¡¯d withdrawn from school, that did nothing to diminish his poprity.

    Li Hao began scanning the list he¡¯d received. Several hundred weren''t that many and most werebeled with cause of death. He needed to eliminate most of them and cross-reference with materials on hand before identifying if there were any Zhengs present that he was looking for.

    The most ideal would be if there was a cause of death that said self-immtion. That would be most convenient.

    He¡¯d discovered that the scarlet shadow, or whatever faction was behind it, killed members of the eight families through self-immtion. He wouldn¡¯t have been able to hone in on the previous victims if not for that.

    There might be other secrets hidden behind that cause of death. Li Hao didn¡¯t know anything else for now.

    ¡°There was a self-immtion case in 1720 and another in 1723. The one I want should be a simr interval to the earlier cases, or maybe a longer one. What¡¯s most likely should be a Zheng victim dying before 1717.¡± Li Hao speed-read through the names as he walked. If there was a Zheng deceased that fulfilled all of the criteria, that would mean all of his previous guesses were correct.

    If there wasn¡¯t and the Zhengs were still alive, that didn¡¯t mean aplete failure either. A living person might provide more clues and in fact, it might be better if the Zhengs were still alive. That could mean they were somehow connected to the scarlet shadow.

    ¡°The folk song said something different about the Zheng young master, that he was trouble. Perhaps there¡¯s something different about this family?¡± Li Hao flipped to the next page as he mused. ¡°Zheng Yunqi, died September 12, 1715 in a gas explosion¡­¡±

    The young man¡¯s eyes sharpened. Gas explosion? That would leave him without a corpse, an oue very simr to self-immtion. It was also a manner of death that wouldn¡¯t draw too much attention.

    ¡°Is it him?¡± murmured Li Hao. Usually more than one died in a gas explosion. If that was the case, all of the Zhengs might have died on the same day!

    After perusing the list of hundreds, he felt that Zheng Yunqi was most likely to be the Zhengs of the folk song.

    ¡°Maybe¡­ I can go take a look.¡± Li Hao found an address, but of course, it was unknown if the residence was still there after fifteen years. He¡¯d suddenly found a lot more clues today thanks to Chen Na¡¯s folk song, and he was beginning to identify the crux of the self-immtion cases.

    If Zheng Yunqi was who he was looking for, then it meant Li Hao was the only one alive out of the eight surnames.

    ¡°Is it revenge? Or something else? Is the scarlet shadow someone¡¯s pet or is it a special ability? Or is it a smokescreen?¡± Li Hao touched the shirt over his chest again¡ªthe jade swordy underneath. Was this strictly a family heirloom, or did it have another purpose?

    ¡°I¡¯m definitely next, given that all seven families are dead. How is the enemy finding me and how did they find the others? There¡¯s nothing special about the victims, so why can the scarlet shadow lock onto us?¡±

    A sense of impending danger loomed over him; Li Hao could sense the brewing storm. He quickly swiped through hismunicator, wanting to see when the next overcast or rainy day was. Based on previous instances, that may be when the scarlet shadow appeared next.

    ¡°July 18, overcast!¡± Li Hao¡¯s expression shifted. It was the 12th today and they were in for a week of good weather. The skies would turn cloudy on the 18th and stay that way for a while.

    ¡°So that means the fastest the scarlet shadow might appear is six days from now? And if it doesn¡¯t appear then, it might appear anytime during this period of overcast and rainy days?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart clenched painfully!

    He hadn¡¯t been sure before if anyone wasing for him, if he was next. But now, he was convinced that the scarlet shadow had its sights fixed on him.

    ¡°Little Yuan wanted me to run. Does that mean he also guessed, or learned from the shadow, that I¡¯ll be the next victim? Why didn¡¯t it also kill mest time? Why has it waited for a year?

    ¡°Maybe there are limitations to it, or maybe self-immtion can only be used once each time. So it has to kill me through self-immtion?¡±

    Li Hao suddenly smiled as he rubbed his temples.

    ¡°This makes things so much better!¡±

    Impending danger was far preferable to the unknown. He¡¯d understood too little about the scarlet shadow before¡ªits goal, origins, and target. Thus, he¡¯d spent most of the past year in abject fear. After he sorted through the clues and fully understood that he was next, he wasn¡¯t afraid anymore.

    There was only fury and hate!

    A blood debt has to be paid in blood!

    If the scarlet shadow really did appear in a week, he would go to the Night Watchers even if it meant exposing himself. He would tell them that he could see the shadow! It would be worth any price to kill the shadow, even if the price was his own life!

    ¡°Little Yuan¡­ mom¡­ dad¡­ If you two also died to the scarlet shadow, I¡¯ll take revenge for all of you!¡± Li Hao tightened his fists as an uncharacteristic streak of savagery appeared on his gentle face!

 Chapter 6: Affecting the Entire Body By Pulling On One Hair (I)

    Chapter 6: Affecting the Entire Body By Pulling On One Hair (I)

    6:00pm.

    Business hours were over at the Inspectorate. Li Hao typically left work on time since he didn¡¯t operate on the front lines. He would already be gone if this was any other day, but today, he wasn¡¯t in a rush.

    The department head¡¯s office.

    ¡°You say you want to take a look at Zhang Yuan¡¯s house?¡± Wang Jie rumbled with a nce at Li Hao.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°You two were once ssmates and this case might turn out to be a murder, so it¡¯s not out of the question for you to have a gander. But¡­ it¡¯s a bit of a hassle for someone from ssified Affairs to request at-home carry.¡±

    Indeed, Li Hao was here to apply for a firearm. He could bring a gun home only if Wang Jie approved his request. Although firearms might prove useless against the scarlet shadow, it wasn¡¯t a given that it would appear. In that case, Li Hao should be more on guard against his fellow human.

    If his enemy was human, then guns would be of lethal importance.

    ¡°Sir, I don¡¯t want a firearm for home carry, but for the case!¡± Li Hao corrected.

    Wang Jie chuckled. Bringing a gun home and requesting it for an investigation were two vastly different concepts. The kid was a Veteris Institute student alright! He¡¯d changed the nature of his request with a single sentence.

    ¡°We are the Department of ssified Affairs, not thew enforcement team.¡± Wang Jie disappointed Li Hao when he shook his head.

    The young man didn¡¯t know how best to handle the scarlet shadow yet because he wasn¡¯t too familiar with it. Having a gun in the meantime would immensely help with a sense of security.

    ¡°I¡¯ve only just mentioned Zhang Yuan¡¯s case to the enforcement team, it hasn¡¯t been made into an official case yet. You won¡¯t be able to submit a request using that as a reason.¡± Wang Jie thought rapidly. ¡°How about this, the Institute is making a field study soon and we¡¯ll be sending some folks to protect their people. Why don¡¯t you join the team? That will assign you to the mission and you¡¯ll have the right to bear arms if you¡¯re part of the protection detail.¡±

    Li Hao blinked¡ªresignation setting in. So despite all the twists and turns, that mission had still fallen into hisp? He¡¯d already declined when Chen Na mentioned it this morning. Apparently, it was his teacher leading the team. Would he soon see familiar faces if he epted the mission?

    Wang Jie sighed when the young man stayed silent. ¡°What is it? Are you afraid that Old Yuan will beat you up? I hear things didn¡¯t end too well between you two when you withdrew from school. A word of advice, Little Hao, you should find an opportunity to improve that rtionship now that you¡¯re part of us. He was once your mentor, after all.

    ¡°Your future at the Inspectorate will be so much brighter if Old Yuan puts in a good word. But if everyone knows that he¡¯s put out with you, they¡¯ll consider whether it¡¯s worth offending the esteemed professor for the sake of a third rank inspector. That¡¯ll hold true even though his hand doesn¡¯t stretch to the Inspectorate.¡±

    Wang Jie was truly exerting great effort on Li Hao¡¯s behalf. He didn¡¯t know the particrs, just that Li Hao had had a falling out with his mentor when he withdrew from his studies. Although the notable professor couldn¡¯t affect the young man¡¯s career, the Inspectorate would still have to show some face to the venerable personage.

    ¡°This is the best way for you to obtain a gun and it¡¯ll ease rtions with your mentor. It¡¯s two birds with one stone¡ª¡± Wang Jie really wanted to persuade Li Hao as he thought highly of thed.

    He was a few sentences in when the young man nodded, ¡°Alright!¡± Wang Jie nearly choked on the rest of his words. Didn¡¯t they all say that thed was kind hearted, but a bit too unyielding? How had he agreed so readily?

    ¡°Sir, what the stories say may not be true.¡± Li Hao stretched his lips in an honest, but resigned smile. ¡°My rtionship with my teacher isn¡¯t like that. True, he wasn¡¯t too happy when I withdrew, but he¡¯s long set it aside and it¡¯s been over a year. He even encouraged me the other day that I need to do well at the Inspectorate.¡±

    ¡°Is that so? Good, very good!¡± Wang Jie nodded with immense satisfaction. Who knew if this was the truth or not? But given how aboveboard thed was, it was most likely true. ¡°Then fill out this form. You¡¯ll need to enter the field in a few days and apany the protection detail for the Institute¡¯s team.¡±

    Li Hao scanned the papers that he was handed¡ªVeteris Institute was sending a team out at the end of the month. There were no particrs, just that a protection detail needed to be on standby.

    The secrecy was to prevent vital information from leaking. After all, the Veteris Institute was an acimed organization of great value. The proposed mission looked to be difficult if his own teacher was leading the survey team.

    I wonder if it¡¯ll conflict with the scarlet shadow affair?

    More likely than not, the Night Watchers would follow his teacher into the field. It might actually be a good thing if the scarlet shadow chose to attack then. Various thoughts shing through his mind, Li Hao quickly filled out the application.

    ¡°You can pick up your equipment at the armory.¡± Wang Jie put the form away.

    Li Hao hesitated instead of immediately exiting the office.

    ¡°Sir¡­¡± he raised haltingly. ¡°Zhang Yuan¡¯s case is a bit¡­ It''s a bit strange. Do you think it involves preternatural forces? Can the Inspectorate really take care of it?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Wang Jie flicked a sharp nce at the young man. ¡°What are you getting at?¡±

    ¡°N-nothing,¡± Li Hao responded awkwardly, then doggedly continued like he couldn¡¯t keep it in. ¡°I¡¯m just worried that the enforcement team might¡­ wake a sleeping lion? Or something unexpected might happen? I hear that we might have another agency¡­?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough!¡± Wang Jie¡¯s frown deepened. ¡°Watch what you say! I know that everyone gossips and shares rumors, but these aren¡¯t things that we should discuss. Put all of this out of your mind. Honestly, it¡¯ll be too much hassle if things develop to that stage. A bunch of trouble always follows whenever they send in their own people!¡±

    He didn¡¯t want to say anything else or discuss the Night Watchers. It was never a good thing if they were involved. The situation inevitably turned veryplicated and they were sources of immense trouble themselves.

    Truth be told, he didn¡¯t want anything to do with the Night Watchers if he could help it. He wasn¡¯t the only one who felt this way; the enforcement team likely didn¡¯t want them involved either.

    The Night Watchers intervened only when there was no other option avable. Inspectorate preference wouldn¡¯t matter if things devolved to such a state.

    Li Hao nodded and raised a final point. ¡°Sir, I notice that each self-immtion case takes ce on an overcast or rainy day. We¡¯re about to enter the rainy season and it¡¯s been almost a year since thest incident. If previous pattern holds true and someone¡¯s behind all of this, then the culprit might take action in the near future!¡±

    Wang Jie carefully noted this detail. He was yet to fully familiarize himself with the cases since he¡¯d just taken them over. Hence, he was less familiar with thempared to Li Hao.

    ¡°I¡¯ll let the enforcement team know.¡± Wang Jie nodded after brief thought. ¡°You be careful. Keep a weather eye out when you investigate Zhang Yuan¡¯s house. Do you need me to send additional personnel with you?¡±

    ¡°Nope!¡± Li Hao shook his head. It wasn¡¯t that he had a death wish, but that adding ordinary people was pointless since they couldn¡¯t see the scarlet shadow.

    He had a gun now and made some other arrangements. Everything would be fine if he didn¡¯t encounter the scarlet shadow. Not to mention, most in the Department of ssified Affairs were used to a desk job. Who knew who would be protecting whom if push came to shove?

    ¡°Then be careful, but I do think there¡¯s no danger because the boy¡¯s been dead for a year.¡± Wang Jie waved thed out of his office.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao breathed more easily when he trotted out of the office. Wang Jie really is looking out for me.

    He headed for the armory with papers of approval and received a ck handgun in short order. Metallic to the touch, it was a third generation vortex gun with an effective firing range of fifty meters. uracy was negligible beyond that.

    Some of the big cities already used the fourth gen that possessed an effective range of one hundred meters. Since Silver City didn¡¯t count as a big city, they were yet to be issued those guns in mass quantities. Even theirw enforcement team still used third gen.

    He was assigned eighteen bullets¡ªsix could be loaded at one time and fired repeatedly. It was a very intimidating weapon.

    Although Li Hao was assigned to a desk job at the Department of ssified Affairs after joining the Inspectorate, he¡¯d received one month of training. Firearms were part of it, so he knew how to handle a gun.

    He was just slightly out of practice.

    Confidence duly fortified with a weapon in hand, Li Hao wondered if guns could hurt the scarlet shadow. He could see what others couldn¡¯t, so would his shots have an effect?

    ¡°Sir Wang indicated that the enforcement team doesn¡¯t like to involve the Night Watchers. But time is of the essence¡ªwill they be able to handle the scarlet shadow if the Night Watchers don¡¯t intervene?

    ¡°What if I tell them I can see the scarlet shadow¡­¡± The idea bloomed in Li Hao¡¯s mind. Equally quick to arrive were the cases that mentioned people who could see the scarlet shadow. All of them were never heard from again.

    Were they dead, or¡­?

    Perhaps the Night Watchers had been involved in the previous cases, but those who could see the shadow were missing or died. Or perhaps they were recruited into the Night Watchers?

    Uncertainty over the consequences of revealing his abilities made Li Hao struggle for what to do. Revealing what he knew would mean something if the Night Watchers could and would eliminate the scarlet shadow. But what if¡­ the Night Watchers were colluding with the scarlet shadow instead?

    If he exposed himself, would the Night Watchers go for the scarlet shadow or himself?

    ¡°A mysterious power¡­ That¡¯s what the Night Watchers are and what the scarlet shadow is as well. Are they in cahoots, or are they enemies?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t identify the answer as hecked relevant channels to gather such information.

    The worst case scenario was if the two were colluding with each other and those who¡¯d discovered the scarlet shadow had been permanently silenced!

    Enormously conflicted, a headache began to set in. What wouldn¡¯t he give for the Night Watchers to dispose of the scarlet shadow and take revenge for Zhang Yuan and his parents! Yet, what if reality was the direct opposite of his wishes? He might be unnecessarily exposing himself and inviting doom!

    ¡°I¡¯ll¡­ wait a few more days¡­¡± Although he was in grave danger, Li Hao still wanted to wait a few more days and see what the enforcement team came back with. At the very least, he wanted to assess their attitude.

    For now, he was just someone who had discovered the oddities in the self-immtion cases. The enforcement team would surely connect the dots just as quickly if they diligently pursued the matter. If there were shrewd people among them, Li Hao felt that they might contact the Night Watchers ahead of time.

    He¡¯d mentioned the possibility of another incident in order to exert pressure on the enforcement team. If he could borrow their hand to bring in the Night Watchers, then he wouldn¡¯t need to reveal that he could see the scarlet shadow.

    ¡°Regardless, teacher is leading a field survey team soon, so the Night Watchers have to attend that. Their representatives will be in Silver City after a few days, whether or not they¡¯re permanently stationed here.¡± Li Hao temporarily set aside the idea of revealing himself after he processed everything and ascertained that it was very likely the mysterious organization would appear on their own.

    He might find out very soon whether or not the two were working with each other. Besides, he could always reveal himself if the Night Watchers didn¡¯t pay him a visit before the rain arrived.

 Chapter 7: Affecting the Entire Body By Pulling On One Hair (II)

    Chapter 7: Affecting the Entire Body By Pulling On One Hair (II)

    The zing sun had set by the time Li Hao walked out of the Inspectorate; there weren¡¯t many on the streets as it was a hot and humid day. The sky blushed red as the radiance of night set in. Recently, it was still extremely muggy even at 9pm, so very few people loitered outside.

    Li Hao¡¯s house wasn¡¯t too far from the Inspectorate¡ªjust eight kilometers. He wheeled out his bicycle and threw a leg over it. He¡¯d been riding a bike to work over the past year partially to exercise, but also to avoid certain dangers.

    It was harder to detect danger in crowded ces; Li Hao exercised constant vignce ever since Zhang Yuan¡¯s death.

    He nced around casually after he got on the bike, seemingly checking the road conditions and view ahead. In actuality, he scanned to see if anyone was following him¡ªparticrly today, after he confirmed that the scarlet shadow wasing for him next.

    How does the shadow target us?

    Based off of Li Hao¡¯s determination, the scarlet shadow was never present for long. It vanished soon after appearing and spent a very short amount of time outside. In that case, how did it pinpoint the victims with uracy?

    Did that mean there were people observing them from the shadows ahead of time, those who waited for the shadow to reap its harvest?

    That wasn¡¯t outside the realm of possibility.

    Although he hadn¡¯t been schooled as an inspector by trade, Li Hao still possessed basic counter-surveince skills.

    ¡°Since I haven¡¯t discovered anything yet, does this mean that the shadow itself can lock onto us? Does it have something to do with my sword? Is it using these family heirlooms to track us?¡±

    The bike moved slowly and the third gen vortex gun rested in the inner pocket of Li Hao¡¯s shirt. His button looked like it was undone to catch the breeze, but it was actually to facilitate the fastest draw speed possible if he needed it.

    All was as usual, he didn¡¯t notice anything amiss. But when he reached a downhill slope and coasted to the bottom, his heart skipped a beat.

    He caught sight of an oing ck car out the corner of his eye as he flew downhill. It was a very ordinary car no different from other cars in the otherne of traffic.

    S 7219!

    His heart shook. This wasn¡¯t right¡ªhe¡¯d just seen the car moments ago. Cars like that were all over the roads. It was a very basic car formuting and nine out of ten cars were its make, but Li Hao knew this license te!

    He naturally possessed certain strengths to be able to pass the examinations for the Veteris Institute. A strong memory was almost a prerequisite. But if that was his only strong suit, he wouldn¡¯t have caught Yuan Shuo¡¯s eye. The professor wouldn¡¯t have taken Li Hao under his wing.

    Something¡¯s wrong¡ªthis car was headed in the same direction as me earlier. I¡¯m riding slowly, so it passed me and drove off. That was only seven minutes ago!

    Seven minutes at the car¡¯s speed meant that it was on the straight road ahead. There were no good ces to stop, and seven minutes were too short to run an errand or drop someone off. That it passed Li Hao on the other side now meant that it¡¯d turned around not long after passing the young man.

    Li Hao kept the same nomittal expression on his face, but waves of emotion reared in his heart.

    This has never happened before¡­ Is someone following me? Why?! He quickly thought of a possibility¡ªthe case that he¡¯d reported to Wang Jie might have been leaked! There¡¯s a mole at the Inspectorate, and it¡¯s probably in thew enforcement team!

    Li Hao¡¯s heart sank with his gut reaction. Even though it might truly just be a coincidence and the car may have simply made a u-turn, he didn¡¯t dare treat it as coincidence.

    Any coincidence had to be viewed through the lens of premeditation.

    ¡°Sir Wang notified the enforcement team about the self-immtion cases, which may have brought attention to me if they know I¡¯m the one who dug all of them out again. If the enforcement team has questions, they can just ask me, they don¡¯t need to follow me. On the surface, it looks like I¡¯m paying attention to this only because it involves my ssmate¡­¡±

    My hunch was right! Everyone in the cases who said they could see the scarlet shadow was quickly exposed. I felt there was a mole in the Inspectorate or Night Watchers then!

    In his review of the cases, Li Hao discovered that anyone who reported seeing a scarlet shadow quickly died afterward or disappeared. It was a detail difficult to notice if one wasn¡¯t paying specific attention to the files.

    Inspectors usually glossed over these kinds of cases. They asked their questions, made their reports, and didn¡¯t bother following up on nonsense talk of a mysterious shadow.

    But someone ced importance on it.

    What did that indicate?

    That someone in the Inspectorate was specifically fixated on this, that someone else would quickly receive word if anyone called in a tip about a scarlet shadow.

    Have I been targeted just because I mentioned the self-immtion cases? Do these people want to see if I can see the scarlet shadow, or if I just happened to discover a connection between the cases?

    I didn¡¯t dare raise that I saw a shadow when Little Yuan diedst year. If these people are familiar with the details, they¡¯ll probably think I discovered the connection by ident. They won¡¯t think I can see the shadow because if I could, I would¡¯ve called it inst year! Li Hao thought through and analyzed many things over the span of a few quick seconds.

    He was a third rank inspector, after all, one who¡¯d just discovered something awry with the self-immtion cases. Even if there was someone colluding with the scarlet shadow, it didn¡¯t seem likely they would take action against him right this very moment. Killing him at this juncture would only confirm something off about the cases and stir up greater trouble.

    Well well, aren¡¯t things getting interesting!

    Li Hao snorted inwardly without a flicker of change in expression. He continued riding forward as if nothing was wrong. The car that he took note of quickly vanished in the gloom.

    ¡­¡­

    S 7219.

    A middle-aged man drove the car that¡¯d traveled past Li Hao while a nondescript middle-aged woman sat in the passenger seat. They were a perfectly normal middle-aged couple with nothing special about them.

    ¡°Nothing,¡± the woman muttered after they left Li Hao.

    The driver didn¡¯t seem to hear her.

    After a moment, he remarked calmly, ¡°It¡¯s probably just a coincidence. He¡¯s keeping an eye on this because of Zhang Yuan¡¯s death. They were good friends.¡±

    The woman inclined her head. Quiet returned to the interior of the car.

    ¡°But we can¡¯t rule out other possibilities,¡± the driver suddenly said. ¡°Continue keeping an eye on him from a distance. Be careful, those annoying fellows might being to Silver City again.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The woman nodded. She knew who the driver spoke of and they were indeed very annoying.

    Silence descended upon the car once more.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°I¡¯m being watched!¡± Li Hao stopped his bike before a gatedplex and slowly pushed it forward.

    ¡°Little Hao¡¯s back!¡±

    ¡°Do you have time for a drink with me tonight, Inspector Li?¡± The residents rxing in front of the doors greeted Li Hao enthusiastically.

    A third rank inspector was just slightly bigger fry in the Inspectorate, but having one in residence brought a sense of security and authority to a small neighborhoodplex. That held true despite Li Hao looking bookish, frail, and utterlycking in the dignity of inspectors.

    ¡°Mmhmm, I¡¯m back!¡± Li Hao smiled at everyone.

    Openlight was an old and slightly run-downplex. The Lis had lived here for many years. In fact, they¡¯d resided here for as long as Li Hao remembered. It was a very smallmunity with only six buildings. Li Hao lived in the innermost building¡ª#302 of Building 6.

    He wheeled his bike along the tattered roads rather than ride it home. It¡¯d been a very long time since Openlight¡¯s internal roads werest maintained. Potholes and general degradation marked them, which made bike riding a bumpy affair.

    Sounds of conversation floated in the air behind him.

    ¡°Little Hao¡¯s a good enough kid, but hecks the watchful eye of an elder. He¡¯s the type to need a guiding hand! Just look at him, finally making it into the Veteris Institute, but then withdrawing from school to be an inspector. What a pity!¡±

    ¡°Now now, the Inspectorate is just as good. He¡¯s got a job for life!¡±

    ¡°Sure it''s a secure job, but his future would be so much brighter as a Veteris graduate, not to mention how much more money he would make!¡±

    People weren¡¯t keeping their voices down, but such words had often been repeated over the past year. Li Hao neither cared about them nor exined himself. There was no need.

    He was considering what had just happened and how he should react. The gun in his shirt offered some degree of safety, but not much.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know enough about this mysterious faction watching me and my strength in battle is limited. I¡¯d just be an ordinary person without the gun.¡±

    He had a few sses on wrestling and arresting others under his belt¡ªnot only did the Inspectorate require it, but he¡¯d learned from his teacher during his two years at the Institute. Yuan Shuo was a master of melee fighting in addition to being a schr. Rather than use his skills to pick fights, the professor practiced to temper his body and grow ustomed to various environments as fast as possible.

    As his teacher once said, knowing these skills would, at the very least, enable him to run faster in the face of danger. Every Veteris professor could potentially encounter danger whenever they journeyed outside.

    Thus, Li Hao knew a little of fighting, but he wasn¡¯t very well versed. He¡¯d studied for a total of three years and could easily handle thugs and hooligans. Butpared to veteran inspectors? He didn¡¯t amount to much.

    ¡°The identity of an inspector may not be as deterring as I thought. I don¡¯t know how long I can keep this under wraps.¡± A ck shadow darted past him as he mused, and Li Hao subconsciously raised his foot to kick it.

    He quickly retracted his limb.

    A small ck dog stopped in front of him. Instead of barking, it looked eagerly at Li Hao like it was anticipating something. The young man smiled and parked his bike.

    ¡°You seem to have gotten faster, Panth.¡±

    Panth, or rather Panther, wasn¡¯t a name that suited the skinny and feeble dog. Li Hao gave it an impressive name all the same. It wasn¡¯t his dog, but a stray that wandered into theplex from somewhere.

    Li Hao lived alone and sometimes had leftovers. It was wasteful to dump them, so he asionally fed the poor creature. The dog seemed to take Li Hao for its owner after a few months and didn¡¯t wander around much anymore. It often sprawled at the entrance to Building 6, waiting for the young man to get off work.

    Other building residents knew that Li Hao fed it, so while some were afraid of dogs, no one dared chase off the dog of a third rank inspector. They gradually became used to Panther as it was quiet and biddable.

    Li Hao stooped down to scratch the dog¡¯s head. Living alone became a very lonely affair after a while. Many things umted in the heart, so it was nice to have a dog forpany. Sadly, he was usually too busy to offer much care. The most he could do was put out some food when he came home at night. Sometimes he put out dog food during the day; Panther was left to its own devices when he forgot.

    ¡°Arf!¡± the little ck dog barked.

    ¡°Dinner¡¯sing.¡± Li Hao smiled warmly, a smile that was much more real than what he wore at work. He got to his feet and walked upstairs.

    He lived in a dpidated building with a shabby staircase. The railing was rusted and half of the residents had moved out of the six stories. Only a few retirees were left now. Li Hao hadn¡¯t moved away because he neither had the money to buy a new ce, nor did he want to move after his parents died. This was where he¡¯d always lived.

    Panther followed Li Hao up the stairs, running eagerly at the boy¡¯s side.

 Chapter 8: Panther

    Chapter 8: Panther

    Unit 302.

    The inside was dim as the curtains were tightly closed. Li Hao pushed the front door open and walked into a moderately sized room of sixty square meters. Panther didn¡¯t follow him in, instead opting to sprawl at the threshold and waiting to be fed.

    The young man wasn¡¯t in a mood to cook today. He rummaged for dog food of unknown expiry date, took out Panther¡¯s food bowl, dumped a decent portion in, and set it outside of the doorway.

    ¡°Arf!¡± Panther wagged his tail and looked at Li Hao, seemingly saying something.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t buy groceries after work, so we¡¯ll have to make do,¡± the young man exined. Though he didn¡¯t understand Dog, it was fine. Panth was probablyining about a dinner that was almost expired. ¡°Just having something to eat is good enough. You might not even have this in a few days. You¡¯ll have to scrounge on your own then.¡±

    Li Hao stooped down andughed at the little ck dog taking unwilling bites of its dinner. He took out the vortex gun from his shirt, thought about it for a bit, then took off the jade sword around his neck.

    He held it up to the light and sank into deep contemtion. Did the jade sword have something to do with the mysterious power that was the scarlet shadow? Were the eight families of the folk song also involved with the mysterious power?

    But nothing special was forting from the jade sword after all these years. All those stories about iming or activating a treasure with blood¡ªhe¡¯d gotten hurt countless times when he was young and often sshed it with his blood. Nothing had ever happened.

    ¡°Steris!¡± he murmured. Was this what the scarlet shadow was after?

    ¡°Arf!¡± Panther suddenly paused munching and barked at the sword.

    Li Hao looked sideways at him. Tail waving hesitantly, the dog faced the jade sword and looked like it wanted toe forward, but didn¡¯t dare to. It maintained a bit of distance and stared, wide-eyed, at the sword.

    Li Hao lifted an eyebrow and suddenly stabbed the pendant at Panther in a moment of inspiration. The dog sprang upward and hopped aside in an extremely swift reaction.

    That¡¯s surprising. Panther didn¡¯t run away after dodging the blow; the dog barked at Li Hao with an aggrieved look.

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Both of Li Hao¡¯s eyebrows shot up. Was Panth afraid of this?

    How interesting.

    Folktales spoke of white cats and ck dogs sometimes seeing things that humans couldn¡¯t. Did the ck dog see something in the sword?

    Panther was very smart, of that Li Hao was well aware of. All dogs were quite smart. If Panther wasn¡¯t, it wouldn¡¯t hang around and refuse to leave. It knew there was food to be had here.

    ¡°C¡¯mere Panth!¡± Li Hao beckoned it over. Panther hesitated before tentatively picking its way to the young man. Its eyes were fixed on the jade sword all the while.

    ¡°Arf!¡± The dog was somewhat afraid at first, but gradually got over its fear because Li Hao was present. Meanwhile, the young man¡¯s brows knitted together as he followed the dog¡¯s reaction. There was definitely something special about the sword.

    As he mused over possibilities, something shed in front of his eyes. Li Hao¡¯s hand lightened before he had a chance to react. When his vision cleared, he realized that Panther had swallowed the jade sword.

    ¡°What the fuck?!¡± Li Hao froze, then sprang forward and grabbed the dog¡¯s mouth. ¡°Spit it out!¡±

    Damn it! What¡¯s gotten into the dog? It doesn¡¯t normally fight for food when I feed it. It seems to be asking for a yelling today!

    It¡¯d been afraid at first and pounced as soon as Li Hao¡¯s attentionpsed. The heck was that all about?

    A feint? Something to get him to rx his guard? So even dogs knew how to scheme these days?

    ¡°Arooouuu!¡± Panther refused to open its mouth.

    Li Hao grew irritated and closed one hand on the dog¡¯s mouth, grabbing the dog¡¯s tail with the other. Panther wouldn¡¯t get a chance to run away or bite someone else.

    ¡°You ingrate, you good-for-nothing! I wasted all that good food on you! This is a family heirloom, don¡¯t you dare eat it! Spit it out!¡±

    Li Hao let go of the tail and grabbed the dog¡¯s neck, using his other hand to force Panther¡¯s mouth open.

    ¡°Arooouuu!¡± The little ck dog refused to give up its prize, but the human proved to be stronger and forced its mouth open.

    The jade sword was in Panther¡¯s mouth. Li Hao wordlessly regarded the pendant with some disdain, but Steris was very important. He had to reim it even though it was dirty, so he fished it out of the dog¡¯s mouth and smacked Panther with annoyance.

    ¡°I feed you, you know?? Youpletely ignore me when it¡¯s important, you ingrate of a dog!¡± Li Hao cursed for a bit, startled by the normally biddable dog. Why was Panther suddenly acting out? He really was too rxed around the dog¡ªit could have easily made off with the family heirloom!

    ¡°They say that a dog that bites doesn¡¯t bark. That suits you, alright!¡± Li Hao swore a bit more, rolling his eyes at the sticky jade sword.

    Gross!

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther stopped struggling and stared yearningly at the jade sword with none of its earlier hesitation. Its tongue lolled like it wanted to lick the sword again, but Li Hao delivered a disdainful smack to its nose. The tongue quickly retreated back into its mouth.

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther knew who the boss was and quickly turned a pleading gaze onto Li Hao. There were equal parts plea and equal parts fawning intent in it, as if it deeply wished to lick the sword again.

    Li Hao automatically grimaced with distaste, then paused with a frown. He considered the little dog anew¡ªPanther didn¡¯t act like this normally. He wouldn¡¯t have fed it if it wasn¡¯t very docile. It sometimes drooled over food in his hands, but it never came forward if Li Hao didn¡¯t hold the food out in wee.

    ¡°Do you want to eat this?¡± Li Hao waved the jade sword around. Panther looked at it raptly, but seemed conflicted. It appeared to determine something before it¡­ shook its head.

    ¡°Huh?¡± Li Hao blinked. Did the dog understand him?

    Dogs eventually gained an understanding of their humans, so it was normal for them to understand keywords. What did Panther mean by shaking its head? It didn¡¯t want to eat the sword?

    Then why do you keep looking at it? And you stole it just now, too.

    ¡°Weirdo,¡± Li Hao murmured. There must be something special about Steris; the possibility urred to him when he heard the folk song. But it really had seemed very ordinary during all of these years.

    Today, an urge to inspect it closely struck him, which was why he¡¯d taken it out when Panther was beside him. Who knew this series of events would happen next?

    If it wasn¡¯t for the folk song stirring his curiosity about the jade sword, Li Hao might wear it for his entire life without taking it off to truly look at it.

    And Panther would never have a chance to eat it.

    ¡°So Panth really wants this¡­ because it¡¯s that tempting? Does this only apply to Panth, or to all dogs? What¡¯s so special about Steris?¡± Li Hao¡¯s thoughts wandered off again, a fact that the little dog quickly took advantage of.

    Panther stuck its tongue out and slurped the jade sword, also covering Li Hao¡¯s hand with spit.

    The young man screwed up his face with disgust and smacked the dog¡¯s head again, wiping his hand on the dog¡¯s fur.

    ¡°You won¡¯t get any more food from me in the future if you keep trying to take it!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther shook its head again and furiously wagged its tail, as if saying that it wasn¡¯t trying to take the jade sword. It was just licking the item.

    A sense of something being off with the situation brewed. Li Hao looked at the dog, then at the jade sword. It was so dirty that he¡¯d have to clean it with water. Thus, he raised the sword. ¡°Do you still want to lick it?¡±

    Panther nodded!

    ¡°Has it gained a spirit??¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. The heck! Panth was smart before, but not like this. It seemed to fully understand everything he said today.

    Thinking it over, Li Hao gingerly offered up the sword. The little dog looked carefully at the young man before extending its tongue, licking the sword. Satisfaction shone out of its eyes¡ªsatiation after eating its fill.

    ¡°Why does Panth want to lick this? Does it taste good?¡±

    Bull!

    Li Hao had licked it a fair number of times when he was a kid. His thoughts wandered off as he took a trip down memoryne. Father didn¡¯t wash this when he gave it to me, did he? I¡¯ve¡­ definitely licked it a few times!

    Had a dog ever licked it when his father owned it, or when it was passed through the family?

    If one had¡­ or even if one hadn¡¯t, it was dirty and full of germs. Who knew how many people had worn it before and he¡¯d often held it in his mouth when he was young!

    ¡°Gross, I need to stop thinking about this.¡± Li Hao shook his head and tried to put it out of his mind. Humans already ate so many disgusting things, so it was best not to think too hard.

    ¡°Panth¡¯s a bit abnormal today, but that also means there is indeed something special about Steris.¡± Li Hao¡¯s mind ran rapidly through a variety of possibilities. He rose to his feet to wash his hand and the jade sword.

    ¡­¡­

    The young man walked to the kitchen and washed his hands, then poured a bowl of water and tossed the jade sword into it. He needed to disinfect it first before doing anything else. He was going to Zhang Yuan¡¯s house in a bit, so the jade sword needed to go back around his neck.

    Potential theft would gnaw at his mind if he left it at home, and what if the jade sword was a protective amulet? It might be useful if he ran into the scarlet shadow, so Li Hao didn¡¯t dare go anywhere without it.

    Perhaps the jade sword had yed a factor in the scarlet shadow not immediately going for him after killing Zhang Yuanst year.

    Immersing it in potable water for a bit, Li Hao took out the sword and ced it under running water. He was about to pour the bowl down the drain when he sensed movement underfoot.

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther followed him in!

    Concerned about the dog shedding and being toozy to clean up, Li Hao usually didn¡¯t let Panther inside. The little ck dog was a model student and never set foot over the threshold, but it followed the young man to the kitchen today!

    Li Hao looked down and saw an eager doggy gaze directed at the bowl in his hand. It contained the water that he¡¯d used to clean the jade sword.

    He ced the bowl on the ground when a thought urred to him. Panther ignored the fact that the water was boiling hot and furiouslypped at it. It preferred to whine from a burned tongue than stop drinking.

    ¡°Huh? The water¡­ used to clean the jade sword?¡± Certain spections came together in Li Hao¡¯s mind. Was there something special about the water that the jade sword had been immersed in? ¡°But that¡¯s still not right. I licked it so many times when I was a kid and nothing special ever happened.¡±

    He naturally ceased such pointless actions after he grew up, so he was very surprised at what was unfolding in front of him. Some strangeness was certainly afoot as Panther¡¯s matted and coarse ck hair turned soft and smooth at a pace visible to the naked eye. Its tail seemed to be wagging faster as well.

    ¡°It¡¯s the water that was used to clean the sword! Is there some sort of mysterious power in it? Weird¡­ Is this the proper way to use the jade sword?¡± Li Hao stooped down and caressed the dog. Its fur was markedly different! It was smoother than before and not as prickly.

    Eyes snapping to the jade sword, the young man regarded it with an ardent expression. Was the logic that any water used to submerge the sword would end up containing mysterious energy? Was what he¡¯d been looking for, the mysterious power that his hand reached out for, possibly in this bowl?

    ¡°If¡­ if this is real¡­ then a dog showed me how to use my family heirloom??¡±

    The key point was that Panther had licked the sword earlier. Although Li Hao still found it unsanitary despite running it under boiling water. Of course, if this was truly the way, then he¡­ well, it wouldn¡¯t be the dog licking it then.

    Even if Li Hao did find the act a bit gross.

    ¡°Does Steris contain a mysterious power that can only be essed through water? Does it have to be dunked in water for the power to diffuse so that others can absorb it?¡± Li Hao¡¯s thoughts flew rapidly. It wasn¡¯t a natural urrence that suddenly gave Panth a coat of soft and smooth fur. It had to be some sort of esoteric, supernatural power.

    Li Hao suddenly didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. A dog was showing him the proper way of essing Steris? He looked wordlessly at Panther.

    The little ck dog looked up with satisfaction when it finished drinking. Its tail wagged faster when it saw Li Hao¡¯s gaze and a new light of intelligence gleamed from its eyes.

    ¡°I feel like¡­ Panth is fully aware now!¡± Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. Was the sword that useful? He looked at it with a fervent stare. Panther was fine after drinking it and gained certain benefits, so what about him?

    Can I drink it?

    If I do, will I somehow gain arcane power?

    Danger abounded around him, so it might very well save his life if he could obtain some mysterious power of his own before facing the scarlet shadow!

    ¡°I won¡¯t die if I drink it, will I?¡±

    He shouldn¡¯t, since he¡¯d licked it so many times as a child. Panther was just an ordinary dog and perfectly fine after licking and drinking its water. Whatever was harmless for Panth was likely harmless for him.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t I give it a try¡­¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t control himself after the impulse rooted in his heart. He wanted strength!

    Zhang Yuan¡¯s death, being followed today, the scarlet shadow, the Night Watchers¡­

    He craved strength as all of this cycled through his thoughts. He¡¯d plotted his way into the Inspectorate because he wanted toe in contact with the Night Watchers and peek into the ult side of the world.

    He had to seize the chance when it was right in front of him!

    ¡°I¡¯m going to give it a try. I¡¯ll only die if something happens. The scarlet shadow is about to arrive and the Night Watchers may not be reliable. The Inspectorate is full of buffoons, so there¡¯s no one I can rely on or trust. What do I have to lose?

    ¡°Let¡¯s do it!¡± Li Hao swiftly came to a decision and smacked Panther on the head again, sending the dog into a daze.

    ¡°If this really does prove effective,¡± the young man muttered in high spirits, ¡°then there will be plenty of good days toe, Panth. We¡¯ll eat like kings and think nothing more of it!¡±

    ¡°Arf!¡± Panther barked, expectation brimming in its eyes. It really seemed to be fully sentient and quite eager for the good days that Li Hao spoke of.

 Chapter 9: New Book of Five Styles (I)

    Chapter 9: New Book of Five Styles (I)

    Was immersion in water the key?

    Li Hao had no idea. It wasn¡¯t like the sword never touched water since he¡¯d worn Steris for many years. He didn¡¯t even take it off when showering, but nothing out of the ordinary ever urred.

    He¡¯d shoved it in his mouth numerous times when he was a boy; that was equally ineffective.

    Somehow, it seemed to have an effect this time. At least on Panther.

    Within the kitchen.

    Li Hao took out arge bowl for soup and ced Steris within. He poured the pot of drinking water into it¡ªwas potable water the key?

    Of course he didn¡¯t shower with drinking water. Had the mysterious attributes of the jade sword not activated before because the water wasn¡¯t at a required temperature?

    Nothing noteworthy happened either when Panth first licked it. It was only when the little ck dog drank the water used to disinfect the sword that its fur swiftly grew sleek.

    ¡°If drinking water¡¯s not enough, I¡¯ll heat it again with the stove. And if that still doesn¡¯t work¡­ I¡¯ll be out of ideas. Is it only dogs that can absorb the mysterious power?¡±

    A glut of emotions warred in Li Hao¡¯s heart. Anxiety, excitement, agitation, and worry that everything would be an extreme let down. He really wanted to set foot into the extraordinary! Perhaps he would have a way to handle the scarlet shadow then.

    He desperately needed the power for himself. There were people keeping him under watch, the scarlet shadow might arrive at any second, the Night Watchers were possibly looking for anyone who could see the shadow, there was potentially a spy inside the Inspectorate¡­

    The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes grew tenacious as trains of thought charged through his mind. He wouldn¡¯t give up this time even if he failed!

    The water in the bowl showed no signs of change after a few minutes with Steris. A groggy Panther was sprawled on the ground. It raised its head to look at the bowl, too full to drink it despite wanting to. It didn¡¯t disy the same urgency as before.

    ¡°Whew!¡± Li Hao exhaled heavily and carefully picked the bowl up, walking out of the kitchen.

    Double checking that the front door¡¯s deadbolt was engaged, he firmly pulled the curtains closed. He had to ensure that either no one outside saw him or that there would be ample forewarning if someone tried to break in.

    Preparations duly made, he returned to the couch and sat down. The jade sword was present in the bowl and seemed more translucent and radiant than before.

    Of course, it was equally likely that he was seeing things.

    ¡°If the Li family sword could be passed down through the folk song for so many years¡­ that must mean there¡¯s something special about it, right?¡± Li Hao brought the bowl up to eye level, clenched his jaw, and ced his gun next to him for easy ess. He carefully took a small sip, the smallest of sips. The water was a bit too hot, but he didn¡¯t mind.

    He didn¡¯t feel anything at first upon swallowing, just that the water was hot. But gradually, he seemed to detect something different¡ªa warm current wafted through his stomach. It quickly faded away.

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened and a keen light sparkled in them. Did something work just now? Was it another delusion?

    What if it was a phantom sensation or he¡¯d started pulling things out of thin air? Had that warm current been real?

    ¡°All I need to know is that I won¡¯t die from it!¡± Plucking up his courage, Li Hao swallowed a bigger mouthful. The sensation was more pronounced this time, there really was a warm current flowing through his stomach!

    He jerked his head down and saw something like starlight sparkling around his stomach.

    ¡°Mysterious power?¡± His heart quailed. Was this the mysterious power that hovered around the edges of society? He could see radiance glimmering like starlight after he drank the water!

    His expression flickered rapidly as the starlight began to extinguish. It winked out of existence, dispersing around Li Hao and fading away.

    The groggy Panther suddenly opened its eyes and crawled in Li Hao¡¯s direction. It stuck out its tongue and licked the air, but didn¡¯t find anything.

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Li Hao furrowed his brows in quick analysis. ¡°Is the starlight mysterious power? It appears in the stomach first, spills over, and then vanishes. Is that because I can¡¯t hold onto the power?¡±

    He knew nothing about these supernatural forces, but did know that everything needed to be defined by a set of rules or skills as he practiced martial arts. Not only did random practice fail to strengthen the body, but it might also identally cripple oneself. His teacher had spoken of that once and right now, he was wholly ignorant of what should be done.

    The starlight might be the mysterious power that he yearned after, but he was unable to retain it and could only helplessly watch it dissipate.

    ¡°Does the power require using a secret art or something like that?¡± Li Hao looked at the little ck dog at his feet. Panther didn¡¯t know any cultivation techniques and neither was it a cultivator. Starlight flowed through the animal, strengthening it even though the power was present for only a short period of time.

    Li Hao looked at the water left in the bowl and swiftly came to a few conclusions.

    One¡ªthe jade sword really did contain some sort of energy that resembled starlight. It required water as a medium for the energy to seep into.

    Two¡ªthe energy strengthened the body, but could not be retained.

    Three¡ªmaking the mysterious power his might require referencing secret arts or other cultivation systems. It wasn¡¯t something that one gained through simply absorbing or eating the power.

    Fourth¡ªwas he possibly cultivation trash??

    His fourth point was far from wild spection as Li Hao was contemting what it took to practice the mysterious power. Were there any requirements, and did he fulfill them?

    What if someone else was able to retain the warm current and only he was unable too? That wasn¡¯t outside the realm of possibility!

    Mysterious power wouldn¡¯t be, well, so mysterious if everyone in Silver City was qualified to wield it. Vague rumors of the Night Watchers wieldingrger than life abilities were the closest thing that most knew of, and that organization didn¡¯t seem particrlyrge.

    Keeping these points in mind, Li Hao mentally assessed his condition. There didn¡¯t seem to be much difference. He wasn¡¯t suddenly overflowing with strength and neither did his hair turn lustrous or skin be smooth like Panther.

    ¡°It feels like I¡¯m sitting in a hot spring. My stomach feels hot, but I don¡¯t sense anything else,¡± Li Hao murmured with an abrupt fall in mood. Howe his changes were less than a dog¡¯s?

    Panther¡¯s fur had noticeably be brighter after drinking the water, but he didn¡¯t feel anything different.

    ¡°Am I less than Panth?¡± the young man chuckled ruefully. Or perhaps the sword¡¯s first ¡°brew¡± was more effective? Who knew, maybe he really was less talented than the little ck dog.

    That would suck so much!

    ¡°This won¡¯t do, I feel like I¡¯m wasting the starry energy. It disappears quickly after it seeps out of my body.¡± Li Hao frowned at the remaining water in the bowl; he didn¡¯t dare drink anymore. He was wasting it!

    Water stored the energy and it entered the stomach after consumption, but vanished as soon as it filtered through the stomach.

    ¡°Can Steris be immersed in water all the time, or is this kind of usage limited?¡± Too many unknown variables prevented Li Hao from easily taking another sip. ¡°Ick a way of retaining the starlight. Maybe some changes will finally ur if I can absorb all of it into my body¡­

    ¡°Wait!¡± He suddenly thought of something else. ¡°The key thing is that Ick any kind of foundation. That¡¯s why not much of the energy is absorbed and why it vanishes so quickly. Maybe it¡¯s because there¡¯s no foundation for the mysterious power to take root in in my body¡­¡±

    This was all spection as he knew too little about any of this.

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to waste it and don¡¯t know how long the water will preserve the energy¡­¡± He stood up when a new idea came to him. Perhaps he could give the ¡°New Book of Five Styles¡± a try. [1]

    It was a rudimentary martial method that promoted good health and fitness, one that his teacher created out of some ancient texts. Yuan Shuo was proof that the method worked as he was still light on his feet and could beat the daylights out of Li Hao, despite being more than seventy years old.

    Rather than being a concrete system of moves or techniques, it was a method that tempered one¡¯s muscles and bones to the greatest possible degree. The New Book of Five Styles also had nothing to do with mysterious power.

    Li Hao thought of it at this time because he felt some physical training might help him absorb more starlight. As for whether or not it would actually prove effective, that was up to the heavens.

    1. There are certain fighting styles modeled after animals in Chinese martial arts. The "Five Animal y" (ÎåÇÝ‘ò, Wu Qin Xi) are a set of exercises developed during the Han dynasty. The five animals in the exercises are the tiger, deer, bear, monkey and crane. Each animal has two exercises corresponding to the yin and yang internal organs. Regr practice is said to improve functioning of the liver/gall dder (wood element ¨C tiger), kidneys/dder (water element ¨C deer), spleen/stomach (earth element ¨C bear), heart/small intestine (fire element ¨C monkey) and lungrge intestine (metal element ¨C crane) respectively. ?

 Chapter 10: New Book of Five Styles (II)

    Chapter 10: New Book of Five Styles (II)

    The New Book of Five Styles described the instinctive nature of five animals when it came to hunting and fleeing. The ferocity of tigers, tranquility of deer, steadiness of bears, nimbleness of apes, and speed of birds.

    Li Hao¡¯s teacher, Yuan Shuo, was particrly skilled in the styles of ape and bird. To put it simply, the professor desired to flee as adroitly as apes and fleet-footed as birds. His goal was to run at the first sign of danger, bypassing all obstacles and hurdles.

    When Li Hao studied by the professor¡¯s side at the Veteris Institute, he¡¯d learned only the style of the ape. He retained a cursory overview of the other four and was yet to practice them in the same way. This was a method that couldn¡¯t be mastered overnight¡ªthey required constant, persistent training.

    ¡°Let¡¯s give it a try!¡± Decisive by nature, Li Hao felt that there was nothing to lose by putting his thoughts into action. His brief warm up seemed easier than normal and he quickly refocused on the bowl, drinking a mouthful of sword-baptized water.

    He nimbly darted around the next moment, lifting his heels and pushing off his feet. Springing into the air, he hooked his hands into a ring hanging in the center of the living room and swung like a monkey.

    He¡¯d installed the ring so he could practice the New Book of Five Styles. The ape style centered on agility and was one of Yuan Shuo¡¯s specialities. Thus, it was the first style that Li Hao learned from his teacher. It was one that utilized the surroundings to create a better, faster, and more economical escape route.

    As Li Hao immersed himself in the style, he felt much more fleet-footed than usual. Swinging from the ring for a bit, he then kicked off a wall and leapt into the air. Posturing like a monkey, he flung himself forward and grabbed the back of the couch in front of him.

    Using his arms for leverage, he scurried around the moderately sized living room. Being tightly packed with objects, there wasn¡¯t much space for movement. He shed to and fro in the limited area with unmatched agility.

    He didn¡¯t possess enormous physical strength and wasn¡¯t very muscr. Compared to Zhang Yuan, he was much more suited to do battle with books while Zhang Yuan was built like a bear.

    Such a physique, however, happened to make Li Hao a perfect match for the ape style. Someone too stocky would find it difficult to move around tight spaces.

    ¡°Huff! Puff!¡± Rapid breathing echoed in the tiny living room.

    What seemed like easy cavorting around was an immense drain on stamina. Only when hebined his actions with the breathing method denoted in the New Book of Five Styles could he maintain coordination with his body.

    The breathing method wasn¡¯t a profound martial art, just some guidelines on when to breathe, when to exhale, how to hold one¡¯s breath, and how to adjust one¡¯s breathing. Of course, to speak of the method was much easier than executing it. Yuan Shuo had easily modified the five animals¡¯ y for the New Book of Five Styles, but then spent a great deal of effort creating an appropriate breathing method to go with it.

    Thus, the New Book of Five Styles wasmon knowledge at the Veteris Institute, but the breathing method was not. Yuan Shuo kept the seemingly insignificant pointers for himself and taught them to a few select students. As Li Hao¡¯s breathing sped up and hitched from his exertions, he made continuous adjustments to ensure the flow of his movements.

    Aplete act of the ape style didn¡¯t take long¡ªthree minutes from start to finish. Just three minutes was sufficient to exhaust an adult moving at high intensity and fast pace. Li Hao couldn¡¯t manage more than two run-throughs after three years of diligent training. He waspletely drained after six minutes and couldn¡¯t get back up.

    Meanwhile, his seventy-year-old teacher boasted of more stamina than him. His highest record was five times in a row, but Li Hao didn¡¯t believe that anyone could maintain such high intensity, speed, and agility for fifteen minutes straight.

    If one could flee like an ape or monkey for fifteen minutes straight after encountering danger, then one¡¯s chances of survival greatly increased.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t have the energy to think of other matters at the moment. He continued moving at an incredible speed while Panther watched with a dumbfounded stare. The table, chairs, couch, coffee table, and walls became his leverage points. Signs of his exertions could be seen everywhere throughout the room.

    ¡°That¡¯s two times!¡± His breathing was unsteady when he finished his second run-through, but he still had stamina to spare. Not only did the jade sword enhance his physical reserves, but it also seemed to make him lighter.

    The ape style was generally a tad bit ufortable for him. His body was too heavy and every jump and push off required too much effort. It was a bit easier today.

    ¡°I think I can go again!¡± He finally nced down at his stomach to find that the starlight had visibly faded. There was a faint sheen left over his skin.

    Naturally, much of this starlight would quickly dissipate as well, but he could sense that he¡¯d absorbed a lot of the energy.

    He was both gratified and surprised. What was this mysterious strength? And why were the Night Watchers shrouded in secrecy?

    He didn¡¯t know if they were so unknown because of physical prowess, or if they possessed special abilities like the scarlet shadow. Could they turn invisible, perhaps, or cast fire?

    If it was just being immensely skilled, then he didn¡¯t need to gain a deeper understanding of the Night Watchers. Perhaps a new routine of drinking water pre-practice would see marked improvement in his own skills.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± An extremely excited Li Hao shoved everything out of his mind. He was very tired after running through the routine twice, but felt that he could continue. The key thing was¡ªthere was still water left.

    He took anotherrge gulp and started jumping around again.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°What¡¯s with upstairs?!¡± cursed an old neighbor in the unit directly downstairs. Li Hao used to train at home often, but never for long. Things were usually over after a few minutes. What was going on today, was he on something?

    It¡¯d been half an hour!

    Soundproofing was subpar in an old building like this. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the kid was an inspector, the middle-aged woman living beneath him would¡¯ve charged up and started yelling.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°WHEW!!¡± Li Hao took a break from the rhythm of practicing twice, resting for a bit, taking another mouthful, and continuing. There was no more water in the bowl, so he crashed to the floor like a sandbag and let everyst bit of strength drain out of his body.

    ¡°Hoo!¡± Panting heavily, he closed his mouth and adjusted his breathing tempo ording to the New Book of Five Styles.

    It wasn¡¯t ideal to suck inrge breaths of air during cooldown. The instructions said that regting breathing was still critical during this stage or one risked wasting arge portion of the practice that¡¯d just concluded.

    ¡°Hoo¡­¡± Li Hao looked up with delight after he calmed his breaths.

    Nine times!

    It wasn¡¯t nine times in a row; he¡¯d stopped to rest a few times. The five times that his teacher was capable of were uninterrupted, so he hadn¡¯t broken his teacher¡¯s boastful record. But today, he¡¯d managed three consecutive iterations for a duration of nine minutes!

    He still had stamina to spare afterward¡ªthat was incredible to the point of frightening.

    ¡°This water¡­ is divine water!¡± Li Hao took in a sharp breath. Did the Night Watchers or scarlet shadow enhance themselves through these kinds of methods? It was just his first encounter with the water. The effects were already marvelous and his energy levels were much higher than before.

    If these people constantly trained like this, they would be terrifying even if they didn¡¯t set fire or possess supernatural skills!

    ¡°I¡­ may have underestimated the Night Watchers. If they improve like this every night without using supernatural abilities, will a third gen vortex gun actually hit them?¡±

    Almost certainly not!

    A third gen vortex gun possessed an effective firing range of fifty meters. He couldn¡¯t lock on to anything beyond that. But if within fifty meters, Li Hao probably wouldn¡¯t have enough time to fire before the enemy drew close and broke his neck!

    And if they wielded supernatural arts, such as casting fire through air, then he never stood a chance of harming them.

    ¡°Guns¡­ might be useless!¡± More reservations were cropping up in Li Hao¡¯s mind. Guns were already potentially useless against the scarlet shadow. He looked at the jade sword in the bowl and fished it out, gazing at it with hope and desire. ¡°Is there a limit to how many times a day you can be dunked in water? Do you always produce this mysterious energy?¡±

    If there was no limit and he could use it however he wanted, that meant he could drink his fill everyday!

    His major concern was that there was a limit to the sword, that the mysterious starlight would eventually run out. Inclined to study it further, Li Hao frowned when he nced at the clock on the wall. This was it for today, it was 8pm.

    He needed to head for Zhang Yuan¡¯s house!

    If he didn¡¯t go now to see if Zhang Yuan¡¯s stone de was still there, he might not have a chance to in the future. Someone was watching him; he should make use of their surveince just starting to take shape.

    ¡°If Steris has this kind of ability, then what about the de of the Zhangs?¡± Li Hao suddenly hypothesized that the scarlet shadow might be targeting these weapons.

    ¡°The sword of the Lis, de of the Zhangs¡­ If this is indeed their goal, then the de might be gone. But who knows?¡±

    It was a difficult call to make. Had the scarlet shadow discovered the de? The item was just a rock and wouldn¡¯t seem out of ce on the ground. The Zhangs certainly didn¡¯t pay much attention to it. Zhang Yuan hadn¡¯t cared about it after his parents died¡ªhe might¡¯ve tossed it elsewhere himself.

    If even Zhang Yuan didn¡¯t care about it, would the scarlet shadow or the faction behind it be able to find it?

    ¡°But if they haven¡¯t yet¡­ that means someone might be keeping an eye on the Zhang family home!¡± Li Hao¡¯s heart quailed. It¡¯d be safer if the shadow had already recovered the de. If not, it¡¯d be dangerous for him to visit the Zhang family home.

    Would he go, or not?

    The young man swiftly decided that yes, he would go. But after he made appropriate preparations, of course. No matter what, he must ensure his own safety. Of course, it would also be best if he did locate that de.

    There might be limited uses to the jade sword; it might prove ineffective after a few more times. If the Zhang de granted the same effects, that meant a few more tries for Li Hao to experiment with.

    He rose and entered the bathroom for a quick shower. It wasn¡¯t long before he reemerged to get dressed, put the jade sword over his head, and stowed the gun. When he was about to head out, he looked at Panther sprawled on the floor.

    ¡°You¡¯reing with me. You can be the lookout since you¡¯ve got a keen nose!¡±

    Panth should be useful after drinking the water. It was a dog, so it might discover someone following him if he didn¡¯t.

    ¡°Arf!¡± Panther wagged its tail and scrambled up with excitement.

    Li Hao smiled and scratched its head. ¡°Don¡¯t bark, a dog that bites doesn¡¯t bark! You seem to be smarter now and can understand me. Don¡¯t make a sound if you sniff someone following me, just bite my pant leg, alright? I¡¯ll understand if you do that, do you understand me?¡±

    The little ck dog nodded!

    It bobbed its head up and down a few times and mped onto Li Hao¡¯s pant leg. He burst out chuckling.

    Good dog!

    It was smarter than the dogs trained at the Inspectorate. Nice, perhaps Panth really could help him.

    Patting the dog¡¯s head, Li Hao thought over how he might dispel certain dangers that might be lurking. He stepped out for Zhang Yuan¡¯s house after he settled on various courses of action.

 Chapter 11: Knowing How To Act Is Real Strength (I)

    Chapter 11: Knowing How To Act Is Real Strength (I)

    Night had fallen. Zhang Yuan¡¯s house was on an old street outside Openlight neighborhood. Li Hao loved ying on the old streets of town as a young boy. But as Silver City developed, parts of the historic section were dismantled and merchants departed. It¡¯d fallen to disuse and few were the people who visited these days.

    Most of the residents had moved away¡ªit was quieter than Openlight.

    House lights were still glimpsed in a few structures lining the street, but the general air of stillness only served to cast the surroundings in an eerie light. If time had permitted, Li Hao would¡¯ve proceeded methodically¡ªdrinking some sword water everyday and slowly growing stronger before attempting anything else.

    Unfortunately, time was not on his side.

    A dy of just one day might mean an uptick in danger. While he would be stronger if things went ording to n, the sword water only enhanced physical strength. It wouldn¡¯t give him mystical abilities to handle the paranormal shadow.

    There was only one goal with this visit, and that was to see if the stone de was still there.

    If it was, that would be very good news for Li Hao. If not, then perhaps the faction behind the scarlet shadow had retrieved it. It would also mean that his sword may be exposed and that someone already had their sights set on it.

    Panther followed soundlessly by Li Hao¡¯s side. The little ck dog was an inconspicuous sight in the darkness. Their footsteps echoed softly through the street and Li Hao looked at one house in particr without a change in expression. An official paper seal was stuck over the front door.

    This was Zhang Yuan¡¯s home.

    He could already tell that there was no one here; neither did Panther issue a warning. All the same, he wasn¡¯t going to pin his hopes on the dog. Li Hao took out amunicator when he was less than one hundred meters from the front door and dialed a number.

    The faint glow from themunicator illuminated the young man¡¯s face in the gloom.

    Beep beep beep. A resonant voice quickly squawked, ¡°Just look at the hour! Have you thought things through and want toe back because you can¡¯t hack it at the Inspectorate?¡±

    The speaker¡¯s very loud voice echoed on the dark street since Li Hao had hit the speaker function. He¡¯d been slightly apprehensive about things toe. but suddenly felt much more reassured. The young man responded respectfully, ¡°I¡¯m not considering that idea for now, Teacher.¡±

    ¡°Then the hell you calling me for!¡± The voice shifted with irritation.

    ¡°Teacher, I¡¯ve investigated Zhang Yuan¡¯s self-immtion case for the past year and discovered something off about it. Zhang Yuan might not have died in an ident!¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s face was calm in the dark, yet his expression twisted slightly. ¡°There¡¯s been more than one self-immtion victim over the years. Although they seem unrted, there¡¯s actually a subtle connection between them. I haven¡¯t identified any concrete clues yet though.¡±

    The other side of themunicator fell silent. Li Hao was in front of Zhang Yuan¡¯s family home and continued softly as he looked at the ragged paper seals. ¡°I¡¯m in front of Zhang Yuan¡¯s house right now. I want to see if there¡¯s anything that points to him being murdered, that his death wasn¡¯t an ident.¡±

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± came an old man¡¯s shout from the other side. ¡°I know about Zhang Yuan¡¯s matter. Based on what you¡¯re saying, you shouldn¡¯t be there so recklessly if this is a murder. Be wary of idents!¡±

    He continued in a loud roar, ¡°Stay there for a second, I¡¯ll send word to the Inspectorate and Institute. Help will be there shortly if you need it!¡±

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t need his former student to spell everything out. Li Hao was calling him to say that Zhang Yuan¡¯s death wasn¡¯t an ident, that it was likely murder, and that he was in front of Zhang Yuan¡¯s house as they spoke. The professor immediately grasped that it was potentially a dangerous situation!

    Right now, Li Hao needed a show of strength sufficient to intimidate dangers that might lurk in the dark. He didn¡¯t need his teacher to do anything or say anything¡ªit was enough that the professor knew where Li Hao was and that he was investigating Zhang Yuan¡¯s case.

    It was adequate that a heavyweight of the Veteris Institute was aware of the matter. No one would dare take brash action any longer. Otherwise, more trouble would ensue if Li Hao¡¯s death incited the fury of the old man at the Institute.

    The rumor mill said that Li Hao and Yuan Shuo hadpletely broken ties with each other. The opposite was inly the truth. Yuan Shuo¡¯s voice carried a great distance in the hushed street. If anyone was keeping an eye on the area, they would definitely hear the old man¡¯s words that people from the Veteris Institute and Inspectorate mighte.

    ¡­¡­

    As Li Hao conversed with his former professor, the docile Panther suddenly bit his pant leg. While the young man didn¡¯t notice anything out of the ordinary, the dog¡¯s senses were keener than his. It might¡¯ve picked up something, or his teacher¡¯s words might¡¯ve caused those hidden in the shadows to move and expose themselves.

    There really was someone conducting surveince in the area.

    Still, that wasn¡¯t necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, it might mean that Zhang Yuan¡¯s stone de was still at the house.

    Yuan Shuo was still squawking from themunicator, but Li Hao objected with a smile. ¡°It¡¯s not that bad, Teacher. I¡¯m just calling to give you a brief overview. The more important matter is that I¡¯ve applied to be on the protection detail for the field study in a few days. I might be apanying you in the field.¡±

    ¡°You?¡± A surprised Yuan Shuoughed heartily. ¡°That¡¯s good! I¡¯ll wait for you! It so happens that this time¡¯s field survey is a bitplicated. You learned a lot by my side for two years, but you never put any of it into practice!

    ¡°Li Hao, why don¡¯t we treat this as your field practice ss? If you perform well, I¡¯ll make you a supernumerary student. Although we have many rules at the Institute, if you aplish certain things during the field survey, I can have you graduate all the same!

    ¡°If you still decide to stay at the Inspectorate, you¡¯ll rise two ranks with a diploma in hand. You¡¯ll be guaranteed a position as a first rank inspector and have a much brighter future ahead of you!¡±

    Lu Yun smiled. ¡°Teacher, let¡¯s talk about thatter. I¡¯m entering the house first to see if there¡¯s any clues. It goes without saying that I¡¯ll find a way to rejoin the Institute once I¡¯ve gotten to the bottom of Zhang Yuan¡¯s case and caught the culprit.¡±

    ¡°That works too! Call me any time if you run into trouble,¡± Yuan Shuo reminded. ¡°There¡¯s nothing I can¡¯t take care of. If the Inspectorate and Institute can¡¯t do anything, there¡¯s always your teacher here. As long as you win glory in the future, I¡¯ll go all out if need be and send certain powerhouses to your rescue!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook and filled with wordless gratitude. He knew what his teacher spoke of. If need be, the powerhouses he would send were likely the Night Watchers.

    He hadn¡¯t said anything to his teacher beforehand because he worried the issue might implicate his teacher if it grew bigger. But with the professor¡¯s sharp wits, the first thing he thought of was also supernatural factors at y upon hearing that Zhang Yuan¡¯s self-immtion wasn¡¯t an ident.

    That¡¯s why he spoke of certain powerhouses. Despite Yuan Shuo being a preeminent professor, the Night Watchers weren¡¯t a group that would help on anyone¡¯s say so. Li Hao was handling a private matter, not business, so it would cost a hefty price to request their aid.

    ¡°I understand, thank you so much!¡± Li Hao hung up and ripped off the paper seals on the doorframe, opening a door that¡¯d been closed for a year.

    ¡­¡­

    Silence returned to the street outside after Li Hao entered the house with his little ck dog. Not a peep was heard for a very long time.

    A pair of eyes glowing with a mysterious blue hue faded in and out of the void. A ck figure that seemed part of the night moved through the darkness. It was ck from head to toe, apart from the blue eyes that looked like they floated through the gloom. It wore the mask of a vicious ghost, fully obscuring its features and making it impossible to determine its gender.

    ¡°Li Hao, Zhang Yuan¡¯s ssmate, best friends. Formerly a second year student at the Veteris Institute, he withdrew from school and joined the Inspectorate after Zhang Yuan¡¯s death. He has investigated the incident ever since and made a report to Wang Jie, department head of ssified Affairs, earlier today. He has connected the six self-immtion incidents and wishes to treat them as one joint case.¡±

    Information about Li Hao shed through the ck figure¡¯s mind. The young man came under surveince when he withdrew from schoolst year and seemed to be a key character himself. However, that matter wasn¡¯t part of the ck shadow¡¯s jurisdiction, so it didn¡¯t know anything more.

    It had standing orders to leave Li Hao alone if possible; the boy would be usefulter on.

    Careful thought is required before I do anything to him. Had Li Hao been talking to his teacher Yuan Shuo earlier?

    Yuan Shuo was a premier elder of the Veteris Institute. Department head of the Ancient Civilizations major, he worked with the Night Watchers and was one of the few in Silver City who could directly speak to the mysterious organization.

    ¡°I wouldn''t touch him even if no one told me so.¡± The ck shadow drifted close to the Zhang family home. Why had Li Hao gone inside?

    To search for clues?

    Zhang Yuan had burned to death at the Institute¡ªwhat clues would there be in his home? Or was the young man looking for something?

    As for what, the ck figure didn¡¯t know. His mission was simply to keep an eye on everyone that approached the house.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Aooorrrr!¡± Panther kept up a low whine as it frantically shook Li Hao¡¯s pant leg, trying to tell the young man something.

    Li Hao remainedposed, but inwardly highly vignt. Was someone approaching him? Had his phone call with his teacher not been enough to dissuade them? He didn¡¯t say anything, just caressed the dog¡¯s head.

    After some momentsforting Panther, he looked at the old house that¡¯d fallen into disrepair.

    He currently stood in a moderately sized yard that stretched before the main house. Zhang Yuan¡¯s room was off to one side and the kitchen on the other. Li Hao was very familiar with the premises as he¡¯d oftene when he was a child. Even though its modest size was too limiting for older children, he¡¯d still visited often before his parents passed away.

    His primary goal this time was the stone de of the Zhangs.

    Taking a look around, he could tell that someone had been by, despite pristine appearances. Some items were shifted from their positions. Nothing looked out of ce, but Li Hao could clearly tell that they¡¯d been moved.

    He was likely the most familiar with this house apart from Zhang Yuan. Even the old tree in the yard had been tampered with. It looked to have been dug up by the roots and rented into the ground.

    ¡°If the stone de is still here, it won¡¯t be in the primary suite or second bedroom, that¡¯s for sure!¡± With all the times that Li Hao visited the house, he would¡¯ve seen the de if it was hidden in these two spots. He¡¯d rummaged through plenty of closets and drawers as he¡¯d treated the Zhangs¡¯ like it was his own ce.

    ¡°Thest time I saw the de was when Uncle Zhang beat Little Yuan. I remember he threw it to the ground, but I don¡¯t know if he picked it up againter.¡± It seemed to Li Hao that Zhang Yuan had fished the de out of a random corner. Possibly even Uncle Zhang hadn¡¯t remembered and used it as an excuse to deliver a hefty beating when his kid touched it. He probably didn¡¯t think much of the family heirloom.

    What inheritance from the ancestors??

    Even if it was, it wasn¡¯t worth anything. Who wanted that piece of junk? If it wasn¡¯t for Zhang Yuan finding it again, Uncle Zhang might not have ever recalled that there was such a stone.

    Li Hao traced the indistinct path of his hazy memories and walked toward a corner of the yard. There were a bunch of stones there meant to repair walls with.

 Chapter 12: Knowing How To Act Is Real Strength (II)

    Chapter 12: Knowing How To Act Is Real Strength (II)

    Li Hao quickly scanned the pile of stones, failing to locate the rock of his memories. All he remembered was that it bore some resemnce to a de.

    ¡°I can¡¯t search for it on arge scale if someone¡¯s watching me from the shadows.¡± As he pondered over his next course of action, Panther suddenly started a low growl.

    ¡°Arrrrrr!¡± It wasn¡¯t the sound of protecting food, but a guttural sound that carried a few hints of wariness. Li Hao¡¯s scalp went numb as well!

    He reflexively followed the dog¡¯s line of sight and looked toward the main house. His heart skipped a beat before resuming a furious drumming. The front door was originally shut tight with nothing there, but now it was ajar and a smear of red could be seen through the crack.

    The scarlet shadow?? Li Hao¡¯s heart pounded furiously. Has the scarlet shadow been released?

    He¡¯d seen it before, but his calctions said that the shadow should only be active on rainy nights. What was it doing here at this time?!

    ¡°Can it be¡­ that the scarlet shadow¡¯s been searching the house for the stone de this entire time??¡± Imperceptible cold sweat beaded Li Hao¡¯s forehead.

    They¡¯d met too early! He wasn¡¯t fully prepared yet. If it attacked him and set him on fire, he wouldn¡¯t have any way to defend himself!

    ¡°What¡¯s it doing here?? Damn, this is too fast. I haven¡¯t even met the Night Watchers yet¡­¡± He turned stiff and began to tremble ever-so-slightly. He itched to spin on his heel and run.

    But someone might be watching him from the outside.

    Right, he couldn¡¯t run because ordinary people couldn¡¯t see the scarlet shadow! If he did, that would reveal certain things¡ªsuch as his ability to see it. That would bring enormous trouble down on his head. He should have no reason to be afraid if he couldn¡¯t see it.

    A myriad of thoughts flew through his mind before he shouted, ¡°What are you yapping for? Be quiet!¡± Having yelled at Panther, he shouted at the main house next. ¡°Who¡¯s there?! This is the Silver City Inspectorate, who¡¯s inside??¡±

    Li Hao raised the third gen vortex gun and took aim. ¡°Is anyone there? Show yourself!¡±

    He forced himself to look anywhere but the hint of red and barked orders at the main door. When he failed to receive a response, he advanced on the house.

    When he drew close, he abruptly darted forward and kicked the door open. It crashed against a wall and startled the neighbors. Rustling sounds rose from nearby houses.

    Li Hao ignored them and peered into the house after kicking the door open. ¡°Is anyone there?! I¡¯m from the Inspectorate,e out or I¡¯ll shoot!¡±

    Although he stared resolutely in front of him, his forehead was slick with sweat and his arms slightly trembling. Panther cowered at his feet, petrified with fear. Li Hao could see the dog¡¯s eye out of the corner of his. From the reflection in its eye, he saw a scarlet shadow standing on his left side. It was so close that it was cheek-to-cheek!

    Don¡¯t react, keep it together. He remained scanning the house like he didn¡¯t see anything at all.

    ¡°No one?¡± His voice shook and he lowered it to curse noisily. ¡°Fucking hell! Good thing none of my colleagues were around or I¡¯d never hear the end of this! Scaring me like this when it¡¯ste, I thought the murderer was hiding here!¡±

    He breathed out explosively, keeping his eyes averted from the shadow. Wiping away a sheen of sweat, he looked down and smacked Panther on the head. ¡°Dumb dog! What you barking for? There¡¯s nothing here! You scared the crap out of me!¡±

    Whack!

    A slightly wounded look appeared in the terrified dog¡¯s eyes. Don¡¯t you see it? This dog sees it! It didn¡¯t dare lift its head because the shadow was floating right over it.

    Li Hao remained oblivious even as his hand passed through it to punish the dog. An undetectable chill was the only thing that grazed his arm.

    It¡¯s intangible! His motions masked a bold probing of whether the scarlet shadow really was invisible and untouchable. Ostensibly to smack Panther, it gave him a very natural reason to touch the shadow.

    The experiment showed him that¡­ he couldn¡¯t touch it!

    Shit, I¡¯m in trouble. Guns are ineffective! Li Hao panicked and kept hisposure only with immense concentration. To outsiders, he couldn¡¯t see the shadow, so there was nothing wrong with his gesture.

    ¡°Damned idiot dog, I¡¯ll chop you up if you keep yapping! You made me break Little Yuan¡¯s house door and almost scared me into calling teacher. I was one tap away from asking him to send people from the Inspectorate and Institute!¡±

    Highly irate, he aimed a foot at the dog. It passed through the shadow again and didn¡¯t connect with anything!

    Li Hao was much more bold than one might think of the young man. The scarlet shadow wasn¡¯t attacking on sight¡ªit seemed to be observing something. In that case, his act needed to continue and he needed to segue into his usual actions.

    He exhaled again as he took another nce around the pitch ck house. ¡°It¡¯s actually pretty scary when it¡¯ste at night. How about¡­ I still give teacher a call? The fellows at the Inspectorate don¡¯t seem that smart or reliable. They¡¯re the ones who closed the books on Little Yuan¡¯s case and didn¡¯t notice anything out of the ordinary. If worstes to worst, I¡¯ll ask teacher to send out those people in ck.¡±

    Those people in ck were the Night Watchers. Li Hao was familiar with their uniform because he¡¯d once caught a glimpse of them from far away. This muttering was just to threaten those watching him. If the shadow was sentient, it would know who he spoke of¡ªthe Night Watchers!

    Maintaining absolute calm in this crucial moment, he also wanted to confirm if the two sides were colluding with each other. Not only did he stand his ground, but he continuously tested various theories.

    Running would be the dumbest thing he could do. It would instantly reveal that he could see the shadow, which would cement his doom. Based on Li Hao¡¯s analysis, he would only die on a rainy day. It wouldn¡¯t be right now. There had to be certain reasons for that. In that case, he might as well go all out!

    ¡°Those people in ck look very scary,¡± he mumbled hesitantly. ¡°I don¡¯t know if teacher is able to send them if he goes to them. Whatever, I can only turn to them since the Inspectorate doesn¡¯t have any clues.

    ¡°I¡¯m not that brave or strong and I have no idea what to do. Look at me being a big baby just because I¡¯m herete at night. I probably can¡¯t continue to do this alone.¡± Looking dejected, he took out themunicator. ¡°I have to ask teacher for help!¡±

    His heart shook when he began dialing Yuan Shuo¡¯s number. The scarlet shadow was vibrating! A faint strand of red beyond the house walls extended toward it and connected to the shadow. It promptly floated away the next second¡ªlike it¡¯d received amand¡ªand vanished from the yard. Momentster, Panther crawled back up and wagged its tail, restored to its usual exuberance. It looked more easily at Li Hao.

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± It seemed to be saying that all was well. The person had left and that ghostly shadow was gone.

    Li Hao, however, regarded the development quite solemnly. So the scarlet shadow was with the person outside the house! That wasn¡¯t important since he¡¯d long surmised that the shadow wasn¡¯t an independent entity, that it belonged to an organization.

    The key thing was that the person outside could see the scarlet shadow and evenmunicate or control it,manding it to leave. They grew concerned when Li Hao spoke of reaching out to his teacher and asking the Night Watchers for help. Hence, they chose to retreat.

    His intimidation tactics worked!

    Yet, Li Hao wasn¡¯t the least bit happy. The thread of red that stretched into the house seemed like the starlight from his sword water. It was a type of mysterious power!

    ¡°The person outside wields supernatural power! Are they working with the shadow or its master? Did they send it out to test me?

    ¡°I can¡¯t kill the shadow with a gun so¡­ what if it¡¯s a human being outside? What happens to the scarlet shadow if I kill the person?¡± He suddenly felt like he¡¯d grasped something critical. The scarlet shadow was horrifying, but if it was a person¡­ Even those who possessed arcane powers weren¡¯t invincible if they were made of flesh and blood.

    Scarlet shadow¡­ unknown person¡­ scarlet shadow¡­ unknown person¡­ The dormant jade sword had seemed to stir when he touched the shadow. Could Steris harm it?

    ¡°This trip was worth it even if I don¡¯t find the stone de!¡± Agitation suddenly seized Li Hao. Perhaps I can handle this guy, but the caveat is that he can¡¯t be on guard against me. If he is, just that scarlet shadow alone can easily kill me!

    ¡°If I catch him unawares and shoot him, and if Steris can harm the shadow¡­ I might be able to take both of them out if I n this properly!¡±

    The look in his eyes grew bright. Only the unknown induced fear! He was much less afraid when he began plumbing the depths of the preternatural manifestation and the organization behind it. Only the desire for revenge drove him.

    ¡°But is this scarlet shadow the one I saw before? How many are there? Is the person keeping an eye on things from the shadows one of their head honchos?¡± Li Hao fretted over how many people, shadows, and powers this organization might contain. It felt like there was more than one of them!

    ¡°This is tough¡­ I¡¯m just an ordinary person!¡± he sighed and resolved to make full use of the other¡¯s retreat. They might note back for a while because they didn¡¯t wish to run into the Night Watchers. Hence, he needed to make good use of time to see if he could find the Zhang stone de.

    ¡­¡­

    At the end of the street.

    A pair of vivid blue eyes beneath a snarling ghost mask paused with uncertainty. Should they leave, just like this?

    But¡­ it would be very troublesome if Li Hao really did bring in the Night Watchers. Bigger issues would arise if they were exposed.

    ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s leave for now just in case. The boy might not be able to get the Night Watchers toe since they don¡¯t mobilize at Yuan Shuo¡¯s beck and call. But better safe than sorry.¡± The masked person still elected to leave.

    A scarlet shadow followed soundlessly behind the person. The masked person didn¡¯t know if Li Hao would find anything since they¡¯d already scoured the house numerous times for what they wanted. They failed to locate it even after digging up the foundations. It was probably lost and it¡¯d be the greatest joke of all time if Li Hao found it.

    But of one thing they could be certain, and that was Li Hao hadn¡¯t withdrawn from the Veteris Institute because he saw something. He just couldn¡¯t ept his good friend¡¯s idental death. If he¡¯d seen something, he would¡¯ve wet himself with fright tonight.

    It was good that they could eliminate this possibility and have an exnation for his actions.

 Chapter 13: Master and Disciple (I)

    Chapter 13: Master and Disciple (I)

    The Zhang family home.

    Inside a small yard.

    Li Hao sweated profusely and his heart pounded with fear. Spending a year at the Inspectorate was proving to be a valuable experience. If the Veteris version of him stood here, he might not have been able to maintain hisposure and pull off a grand y of deception.

    ¡°I need to search as quickly as possible and leave. What if the other guyes back?? Panth!¡±

    He looked at the dog. Li Hao was very familiar with the house, but the more familiar one was in a ce, the less likely one was able to find an item of interest. He¡¯d brought the little ck dog to borrow its canine strengths.

    Panther tilted its head back at Li Hao.

    The young man scanned the yard and kept his voice down, pointing at the jade sword in front of his chest. ¡°Sniff around, there should be something here that¡¯s simr to this. You¡¯ve got a sharp nose, see if you can find it.¡±

    That¡¯s right, perhaps Panther would have some luck. The dog had been very taken with the jade sword. In fact, Li Hao was beginning to suspect that Panther had found its way to his door because of Steris.

    It justcked the chance to lick it before because he¡¯d never taken it out. Today was its first opportunity.

    In that case, could Panth sniff out the stone de?

    The Zhangs had always resided here, so if the stone de still existed, it would most likely be inside the house. No one carried around a rock for fun.

    More?

    Panther understood! Newfound energy moved its stiff limbs. The little ck dog didn¡¯t immediately smell it around them because it had to be very close to catch the barest whiff. If it didn¡¯t know that these items were special, it would easily overlook the strange shapes.

    But since it did, Panther bent its mind to the task. Nose twitching ferociously and front legs crouched on the ground, it diligently sniffed the ground in a close search. If Li Hao had another one of those things, then perhaps good things would be in store for the human¡¯s furry friend!

    Li Hao was just as busy while Panther conducted its examination. He looked through the yard, the walls, the ground¡­

    The scarlet shadow had most certainly looked at the same ces, but Li Hao surmised that they didn¡¯t know what the stone de looked like. They might not even know it was stone.

    After all, how likely was it that anyone would believe the cross around his neck was the sword of the Lis? It was a cognitive conflict!

    If one went by the folk song, then surely the sword of the Lis and de of the Zhangs were weapons that could slice through metal like butter. Of course they were domineering, awe-inspiring, and gleamed with radiance!

    But in reality, the sword of the Lis was a tiny jade pendant and the de of the Zhangs was an insignificant rock.

    ¡­¡­

    Ten minutes¡­ twenty minutes¡­

    Li Hao grew anxious when he failed to locate what he was looking for. Was it gone? Had the scarlet shadow found it? Or was it actually lost?

    Not only did hee up empty-handed, but so did Panther return with nothing after making aplete circle. The dog would smell something if it was close by, right?

    ¡°Nothing!¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t stay here too long. Although he¡¯d frightened the person off, they mighte back. He couldn¡¯t keep searching either, that would expose his true intentions.

    He stood in the center of the yard and looked at the primary and secondary bedrooms. If he was Uncle Zhang, where would he put the rock? Perhaps he¡¯d gain a new lead if he put himself in Uncle Zhang¡¯s shoes.

    ¡°Uncle Zhang didn¡¯t care about it then and randomly threw it in the street. In myter visits, I didn¡¯t specifically check for a de-shaped stone on the ground. But I came here often and don¡¯t think I ever saw it. I would''ve seen it at some point if it was still here, no?

    ¡°Uncle Zhang probably didn¡¯t keep it safe. He wouldn¡¯t have thrown it away so uncaringly if that was the case.¡± Li Hao swiftly reyed his memories. Albeit hazy around the edges, he could still vaguely recall them when he thought hard.

    ¡°Little Yuan stayed home for a few days after he was punished and it was a few more before I visited again. Did Uncle Zhang move the stone de during this time? What would he do with a rock? But it¡¯s very likely that it disappeared then, or I would¡¯ve seen it again during all those years.¡± Li Hao thumped his fist on his head. He¡¯d been too young to remember anything clearly.

    Had something happened in those days, or maybe Uncle Zhang found the rock annoying and thrown it away?

    If he had¡­ then there was no way Li Hao would be able to find it.

    One rock, more than a dozen years. Who knew where it¡¯d been swept to by now?

    ¡°Panth doesn¡¯t smell it¡­ Is it too far away, or is something interfering with the scent? Being too far away is self-exnatory, but if the scent is being interfered with¡­¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes rapidly darted around.

    There were two ces that would most likely interfere with scent¡ªthe kitchen or the outhouse!

    Outhouses, not flushing toilets, were found in old houses like these. Of course, it was much more preferable that it didn¡¯te down to that.

    ¡°Oh¡­ right, I think Little Yuan¡¯s outhouse and kitchen were repaired when we were children. Could a rock be used for material then?¡± Li Hao dubiously regarded his spection; it was his best bet. If he still came up empty-handed, then he was really plum out of luck. ¡°Did Uncle Zhang fix the kitchen or outhouse first after he beat Little Yuan?¡±

    No idea!

    But if the stone de was still at the Zhangs, it was very likely to be in one of those two areas.

    Li Hao headed for the kitchen without hesitation. He would only check the outhouse as ast resort. And if that stone de really was in the outhouse¡­ Well, Panth could drink its fill of that water in the future!

    He had Steris!

    ¡°I hope it¡¯s in the kitchen¡­ Panth, with me!¡± He softly called the dog to him.

    The kitchen hadid unused for many years; a massive stove for woks came into view through the door. Its wok was rusty and the lid decaying.

    ¡°Take a sniff!¡± Li Hao pointed at the stove. ¡°Don¡¯t be distracted by the smells!¡±

    Even though it¡¯d been neglected for many years, it was once heavily utilized for a long period of time. Extremely faint scents of fire and grease still lingered in the air. It might interfere with the dog¡¯s efforts.

    Panther did indeed wander around with confusion after entering the kitchen, particrly as there was a thick scent of mold in the area. It checked the premises earlier, but found nothing. Given Li Hao¡¯smand, it adroitly jumped onto the stove and sniffed it closely.

    A ckyer of ash soon colored its nose while Li Hao also diligently searched where he could. ces that¡¯d undergone more recent repairs could be ignored, his key focus was on ces worked on a dozen years ago. Only those might use the stone de and it was those areas that the faction behind the scarlet shadow couldn¡¯t be bothered with.

    After all, why would the Zhangs hide their precious de in a ce like this?

    After circling the kitchen, he found that the scarlet shadow and its backers immensely valued the stone de. There were signs of search even here¡ªeven the ashes in the stove had been rifled through.

    Ashes that¡¯din untouched for years wouldn¡¯t look like what he saw. These had been disturbed at some point in time.

    ¡°They¡¯re also looking for it and made sure to check the firece. They were very thorough!¡±

    Would the Zhang family heirloom be covered in ashes? Li Hao didn¡¯t think so, but they¡¯d still conscientiously sifted through it!

    Panther came up empty-handed once more, disappointing the young man. Was it really in the outhouse?

    Gross!

    Battling growing distaste in his heart, Li Hao¡¯s eyes flicked toward therge chimney over the stove. Chimneys of brick weremonce in kitchens of old houses. Without it, the kitchen was uninhabitable when cooking.

    ¡°Um¡­ the kitchen?¡± Li Hao suddenly recalled something. Hadn¡¯t the kitchen undergone some work after Uncle Zhang beat Little Yuan? He wasn¡¯t sure, but it seemed to being to him!

    Being a small dog, Panther sniffed around the stove. It was unable to climb up the chimney that was the height of a person.

    ¡°Can it be there?¡± Li Hao jumped nimbly onto the stove and grabbed the dog by the scruff of its neck. ¡°Sniff there!¡±

    He raised Panther high and moved it around like a metal probe. Resignation filled the dog¡¯s eyes and it dutifully stuck its nose out.

    Its nose twitched at a spot one meter over the stove. A familiar scent wafted into its nostrils.

    ¡°Arf? Arf arf!¡± Panther lit up, prompting Li Hao to brighten as well.

    Had they found it? Was it really here?

    The chimney¡­ had probably been overlooked by the faction behind the scarlet shadow. Who could¡¯ve fathomed that the Zhangs would stick the family legacy into a chimney?? They¡¯d even once searched around the structure!

    Or perhaps the scarlet shadow had looked around. It was formless and intangible, possibly able to go through walls and floors. It¡¯d likely searched the walls and floors, but the faction was focused on cracks, cubbyholes, boxes, or chests.

    Maybe it¡¯d never urred to them that the de they were looking for was a rock.

    Li Hao stared at a protrusion in the chimney with bright eyes. Was the de in there?

    Mottled ster had fallen off in pieces, revealing some of the bricks inside. More ster ked off when Li Hao touched it, revealing a stone the color of dirt. It wasn¡¯t fully apparent, but the young man beamed when he saw it!

    ¡°That¡¯s it!¡± His heart raced. Although he couldn¡¯t see the entire stone, what it should look like floated to the forefront of his mind. It was a rock shaped like a de¡ªnot too big, just a bitrger than a fist.

    ¡°Uncle Zhang¡­ really respected his ancestors, huh!¡± Li Hao suddenly didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. Uncle Zhang had given his son a hefty beating because of this stone, then immediately shoved it into his kitchen chimney! Was this how one was supposed to respect the family ancestors¡¯ wishes?

    If the Zhang ancestors came back to life, they would likely promptly die again of anger.

    While it was unknown how the other families treated their inheritances, the Li family sword was treasured as a family heirloom. It was incredible that the Zhangs had managed to pass on a rock for so many generations!

    Or¡­ perhaps it hadn¡¯t looked like a rock before? Maybe it slowly petrified until it became a stone by the time of Uncle Zhang¡¯s generation?

    There was no time to think about it, neither did Li Hao really care to. He frowned at the stone stuck in the chimney.

    He¡¯d found it! But how was he supposed to get it out?

    It wasn¡¯t that he couldn¡¯t, but that if he did, it would leave very apparent marks on the chimney. A year at the Inspectorate taught him that once a ce was disturbed, scarlet shadow and its backer were sure to inspect it when they came back. What did Li Hao want with this inconspicuous chimney?

    And once they saw that it was missing a stone, they might very quickly realize what had happened!

 Chapter 14: Master and Disciple (II)

    Chapter 14: Master and Disciple (II)

    If Li Hao was still the Veteris student of old, he would take the stone de without a second thought. But when the scarlet shadow came back, it might connect the dots that the de of the Zhangs was the stone that¡¯d been dug out. He¡¯d be in for it then!

    A world of hurt would descend once the scarlet shadow knew that the de was in Li Hao¡¯s hands. It might even deduce that Li Hao had guessed certain things and knew about the eight families. He would expose everything with a single action!

    What should I do now? He couldn¡¯t walk away after finding it. Not only was the Zhang de very possibly a treasure, but it might have other uses too. The scarlet shadow¡¯s faction must value it highly. They wouldn¡¯t run the risk of discovery and still be keeping the house under watch a yearter if not.

    Li Hao frowned. Should he take the stone de and fill the hole with another rock?

    However, a clumsy cover-up would out him all the same. The differences between old and new marks were readily apparent with a single nce.

    ¡°The only option is topletely destroy the kitchen and obliterate all traces of evidence. I have to make it impossible for them to investigate. The best is if I destroy the chimney¡ªbut would that be too forced?

    ¡°I should find another stone, preferably with the same shape, then destroy the chimney. Even if they reconstruct the scene, they won¡¯t be tipped off by anything like a missing part.¡±

    Li Hao possessed the basic tools of an inspector¡¯s trade. Over the past year, he¡¯d learned how to destroy evidence, fabricate evidence, and throw people off track. If he simply destroyed the kitchen, the enemy might be able to rebuild the original chimney and realize that there was a piece missing.

    He was in no hurry to take the de once he settled on a proper course of action. It¡¯d rested here, overlooked, all these years. He didn¡¯t need to rush in right this very second.

    Li Hao breathed out gently. Finding it was the most important task. I can wait a little longer. But I¡¯ll have to trouble teacher for what I¡¯m about to do next.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao dialed his teacher¡¯smunicator when he walked out of the kitchen. It was answered almost on the first ring.

    ¡°Are you alright?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m fine, teacher!¡± Li Hao responded gratefully and skipped the pleasantries. ¡°Teacher, there¡¯s nothing at Zhang Yuan¡¯s house, but someone¡¯s been keeping an eye on it. His house has been searched through¡ªdo you think the murderer is looking for something?¡±

    Yuan Shuo quickly grasped the underlying context. ¡°What are you thinking?¡±

    ¡°Can we lure them out of hiding?¡± Li Hao quickly asked. ¡°Since they looked through Zhang Yuan¡¯s house and still watch it, I¡¯m guessing they haven¡¯t found what they¡¯re looking for. My word doesn¡¯t carry much weight at the Inspectorate as I¡¯m low on the totem pole. Could I ask teacher to have the Inspectorate send people and raise a fuss? They can dismantle part of the Zhang home and rm the enemy. That might lure out his killers.¡±

    Dismantle part of the Zhang family home? Is there a need for that? Yuan Shuo blinked.

    Granted, it wasn¡¯t the scene of the crime and that part of the city was ted for general rebuilding. It wouldn¡¯t mean much if the house was really torn down. Had his former student discovered something and had another goal in mind? Or did he really want to induce something to reveal itself?

    Partially tearing down Zhang Yuan¡¯s home would very likely raise the scarlet shadow¡¯s attention, but Li Hao was fine with that. The bigger the operation, the better¡ªand it was best if there indeed was a mole in the Inspectorate.

    An enemy fully aware of the situation perfectly suited his purposes.

    He needed to aplish only one thing¡ªsubstitute a stone of the same size for the stone de. Once that was done, the enemy could restore the scene to their heart¡¯s content and stille up empty-handed.

    The scarlet shadow¡¯s faction would only guess that Li Hao suspected something, not that he¡¯d taken anything. All they would conclude was that he possessed strong deductive abilities and found some clues.

    He had to sow seeds of suspicion amid the dirt of uncertainty. He needed to y for time and ensure the matter grew bigger so it would draw in the Night Watchers.

    ¡°Exposing shadowy dealings to the public eye¡­ Neither the Night Watchers nor the enemy seem willing to appear in public. Nor do they want this to turn into a topical issue. But as an ordinary person, I need more eyeballs on it. Maybe I can swing it so that it has nothing to do with me. They¡¯ll think I¡¯m a smart person who doesn¡¯t know the secrets beneath the surface.

    ¡°If I blow up the situation out of desire to avenge my friend¡­ Yes, that also suits my character!¡± Li Hao came to a final decision after weighing up the pros and cons.

    This might catch the Night Watchers¡¯ eye earlier than expected. He could potentially interact with them close at hand and he might report that he¡¯d found some clues¡ªlike the people keeping watch outside.

    Of course, he hadn¡¯t seen anything remotely out of the ordinary, just that there was a person outside! He¡¯d seen a footprint on the walls. It was ideal evidence and a sign that the enemy was so arrogant that they didn¡¯t care they were leaving tracks behind.

    After spinning furiously through the likely oues, Li Hao decided to aggravate the situation.

    Yuan Shuo asked a few questions on the other side of themunicator, confirming that his student really wanted to do this. The smart young man wouldn¡¯t take action without cause or reason. In that case, he would offer some support for a minor matter.

    ¡°Very well, I will call the Inspectorate immediately! Zhang Yuan was a Veteris student¡ªif this really was a murder, the Institute will not idly sit by. Retreat for now, people from the Institute and Inspectorate will be there within the hour.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, teacher!¡± Li Hao quickly offered thanks. His teacher was very dependable at times, which made him even more reluctant to talk about the scarlet shadow.

    As much authority as hemanded, Yuan Shuo was just an ordinary person. Li Hao didn¡¯t want to drag the esteemed professor into things.

    ¡°No need for thanks!¡± Yuan Shuo dismissed and exchanged a few more words before hanging up.

    ¡­¡­

    The Veteris Institute of Silver City.

    Deep within the Institute, in arge residence built with ssic ir, an alert Yuan Shuo looked around in full spirits. Hale and hearty, he seemed more like a soldier than one of the city¡¯s most notable professors.

    A stack of files sat in front of him¡ªsix self-immtion cases!

    ¡°The Inspectorate¡­ is a sieve!¡± Cursing lowly, he rubbed his temples after he hung up. The organization was bing ever more inept over the years. Their files were leaked so easily! Anyone in Silver City who wished to keep an eye on this matter could get their hands on a copy.

    ¡°There¡¯s never a dull moment with my student¡­ It¡¯s one thing to investigate this in secret, but he dared to report it to his superiors? It¡¯s obvious that none of these cases are normal!¡±

    The old man sighed softly. You¡¯re too inexperienced, youngster. Don¡¯t you know that the Inspectorate is riddled with holes? Anyone with their wits about them can identify the problems with these files!

    ¡°Sword of the Lis, de of the Zhangs, fists of the Zhaos, footwork of the Lius¡­¡± Yuan Shuo hummed the folk song as he quickly digested the contents of the files. Did it have to do with his student?

    ¡°I wonder if the six dead are rted to this song.¡± He knew it since he was an old resident of Silver City. Being a renowned schr, it was the first thing he thought of when he saw the files. This particr collection of surnames immediately jumped out.

    After a while of contemtion, Yuan Shuo picked up hismunicator and swiftly dialed a number.

    ¡°I am Yuan Shuo!¡± He barked in a dignified voice tinged with anger when the call finally connected. ¡°Cut the ther, my student is in danger! The Veteris self-immtion case fromst year is possibly a murder. Doesn¡¯t the Inspectorate have any knowledge about this?!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t care about that! Li Hao is my student and studied by my side as soon as he entered the Institute. Do you know why that is? He is a genius, a premier explorer! He will plumb the depths of ancient civilizations in the future, but had to withdraw from school because of your ineptitude! Do you know the damages you¡¯ve inflicted on the Institute?!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    ¡°So now Li Hao¡¯s found something, but you guys are a massive sieve and immediately exposed him! He¡¯s in danger right now and might die at any time! I don¡¯t care what you do, you will rescue him from his fellow student Zhang Yuan¡¯s house even if you have to level the street! Capture anyone and anything lurking in the shadows!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    ¡°Shut up and send your people now! I don¡¯t care how much of a disturbance you cause, you will surround that street and slowly advance on the house. Encircle all killers in hiding. My only demand is that Li Hao returns safe and sound!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s it! If you can¡¯t do it, I¡¯ll go to the Night Watchers right now! Do you think I¡¯m blind, that I can¡¯t see the issues with these six cases?! You guys don¡¯t want the Night Watchers to interfere, but if my student dies, I¡¯ll take this straight to the top and rip the hair off everyst one of you!¡±

    ¡°Please quell your anger, Elder Yuan. We¡¯ll get on this right away, don¡¯t worry!¡± The inspector general¡¯s temples throbbed on the other side of themunicator. Although the old guy didn¡¯t wield any real authority, hiswork spanned far and wide. He¡¯d taught at the Institute for nearly fifty years and many of his former students were now people of note.

    The Inspectorate would buckle under the pressure if this matter grew out of proportion.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry my ass! The Institute will be sending people as well! I¡¯ll go myself if ites down to it! I¡¯d like to see who dares kill Veteris students right in Silver City! One wasn¡¯t enough, now they¡¯re going after my final disciple! They¡¯ve eaten the heart of a bear and the courage of a panther!¡± Yuan Shuo roared like a lion. Since Li Hao wanted topound the situation to lure certain parties out of hiding¡­ he would blow everything up!

    The professor never shied away from causing greater trouble. That was someone else¡¯s problem, not his!

    A variety of parties and interests needed him, so they wouldn¡¯t do anything to him. Li Hao was easy to take care of too¡ªhe¡¯ll just make the little guy his assistant. Those who didn¡¯t dare touch Yuan Shuo wouldn¡¯t dare touch his assistant either.

    Yuan Shuo lost his anger as soon as he hung up. He looked outside with a soft sigh. Kid, mundane people shouldn¡¯t get involved in this. Even if there¡¯s a problem with Zhang Yuan¡¯s death, you¡¯ve done enough. You should stay out of it now.

    ¡°What a pity!¡± the professor exhaled an almost inaudible murmur.

    What a pity that I can¡¯t induct the mysteries into myself. Things wouldn¡¯t be such a hassle otherwise. If I could ess mysterious power, my aptitude in the New Book of Five Styles would catapult me forward. All manner of riffraff would give way then!

    ¡°Hmph!¡± the old man snorted. The Night Watchers might not actually want me to ess the mysteries. Would I still work with them if I did? All these years of saying they¡¯ll find a way, but they still have no answers. Do they take me for a fool?

    ¡°Li Hao¡­ the sword of the Lis?¡± Yuan Shuo closed his eyes and put it out of his mind. Kid, you should return to the Institute and be my assistant. I¡¯m getting up there in age, I do need a sessor.

 Chapter 15: The Law Enforcement Team of Silver City (I)

    Chapter 15: The Law Enforcement Team of Silver City (I)

    10 o¡¯clock at night.

    Rumble!

    Engines roared through a quiet old alley. It¡¯d been a very long time since the street had seen so much action. Car lights red in all directions and the neighborhood came alive with action.

    ¡­¡­

    In front of the Zhang family home.

    Li Hao looked silently at the scene developing in front of him. He hadn¡¯t wanted to raise too much attention at first, but his thoughts progressed with the situation and particrly after he encountered the scarlet shadow.

    The truly formidable hid within the most difficult environment! Elevating himself to a high profile was perhaps another way to keep a low profile.

    Starting today, everyone would know that he wanted revenge for Zhang Yuan. There were no other motives or findings driving him. He had no choice but to ask others for help and remained blithely unaware of danger looming over him. He had no idea there were other circumstances at y.

    In other words, he was a bull in a china shop.

    This kind of Li Hao was precisely the Li Hao that some wished to see. Young, impulsive, brash, but loyal! Intelligent, but not shrewd. Possessing of some smarts, butcking wisdom.

    This would be the image that he built!

    It would lower the enemy¡¯s guard, but not craft an impression that he was dumb. How would he catch Yuan Shuo¡¯s eye if he was dumb? That would ring too falsely.

    He always considered what each move might bring and cost him beforemitting to it. He was only taking a small stone, but he was doing so with great fanfare and widespread excitement!

    It was therefore inconceivable that he¡¯d go to all this effort just to cover up retrieving a rock. That was precisely the flow of thinking Li Hao sought. The more unbelievable things were, the less likely people¡¯s thoughts would proceed in this direction.

    Rumble!!

    Leather boots crunched gravel as armored inspectors alighted from the cars. They swiftly surrounded the street and approached the Zhang house.

    The inspector general hadn¡¯te, but Li Hao immediately recognized the hulking leader at the front. This was the deputy chief of the enforcement teams and second-inmand at the Inspectorate. Although he sat in the same hierarchy level as department head Wang Jie of ssified Affairs, they grasped wildly different levels of authority.

    Deputy Chief Liu Long of the enforcement teams was a tall and brawny man. He was dressed casually in a trench coat instead of the ckw inspector uniform. It was very out of season, so it was more than likely that weapons brimmed beneath the outeryer.

    Li Hao was aware of the deputy chief¡¯s style¡ªhard, aggressive, and extremely fierce. Commander of many, Liu Long was plied with high status in the Inspectorate and Silver City.

    ¡°Who is Li Hao??¡± Liu Long¡¯s leather boots crushed gravel into dust as he walked. Watching from a distance, Li Hao¡¯s eyes sparkled from his observation. Woah, so strong! He¡¯s definitely a powerhouse!

    The Inspectorate mightck users of supernatural talents, but made up for that withbat and boxing experts. Each of their experts could fend off ten enemies by themselves. This deputy chief would certainly be strong in battle.

    ¡°Sir, I am Li Hao!¡± The young man quickly presented himself¡ªchest up, shoulders back, stomach in, voice clear and crisp. ¡°Third Rank Inspector Li Hao from the Department of ssified Affairs of the Silver City Inspectorate greets Chief Liu! I am under orders to investigate this case!¡±

    ¡°Hmph!¡± Liu Long snorted coldly, his tone particrly frosty. He raked the young man with a sharp re and he responded angrily, ¡°As a fellow member of the Inspectorate, I find you a disgrace, Li Hao!¡±

    The young man furrowed his brow. The deputy chief roared like a tiger, his words tinged with reluctance, irritation, and apleteck of concern that other people might hear him.

    ¡°What is the Inspectorate? Aw enforcement agency! It is the only and most crucialw enforcement agency of the city! As a member of the Inspectorate, you should seek help from your own if you make any discoveries or run into danger!

    ¡°Why did you go through an outsider and have them interfere with our process??¡± Liu Long hectored as he bounded forward like a prowling tiger. He took only one step, but crossed one hundred meters with that one step and immediatelynded in front of the young man.

    Li Hao stilled internally. A true expert! He¡¯d met Liu Long before, but not under these conditions. While the young man possessed some skills to his name, he might not be able to even draw his gun in front of the deputy chief.

    Does he actually wield some mysterious power himself? Or is this the natural ability an ordinary person canmand when they train to the limit of their physical abilities?

    Cowed, Li Hao lowered his head and his voice shook. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t do that!¡± he said lowly. ¡°I was just asking my teacher for help and didn¡¯t expect him to mobilize the Inspectorate. I didn¡¯t dare ask us for help because I have no evidence¡­¡±

    Liu Long harrumphed, but seemed to ept the answer.

    ¡°Look for evidence if you don¡¯t have any!¡± he retorted coolly. ¡°Why would that stop you? Out with it, what¡¯s happened here?¡±

    Li Hao took a firm mental grip of himself and continued in a low voice, ¡°A self-immtion case. I¡¯ve reported it to my superior, but don¡¯t know if Chief Liu knows of it?¡±

    ¡°I do!¡±

    ¡°Zhang Yuan and I were good friends. I came here tonight to look for clues. I firmly believe that he was murdered and didn¡¯t die in an ident¡­¡± He paused when he choked up. ¡°But I found someone following me on the way here! Not only that, but someone¡¯s searched through his sealed house. I used toe here often because we were so close. At the same time, I found some suspicious footprints outside theplex walls.

    ¡°The house has been empty for a very long time,¡± the young man spoke rapidly. ¡°Half the street has moved away and the Zhangs are located at the very end. Logically speaking, there¡¯s no reason for someone toe to the house¡­¡±

    ¡°Take me to these footprints!¡± Liu Long barked in tones that brooked no questioning. He turned to therge team behind him. ¡°Seal off the street and search every house. Ask if any strangers have been around! Don¡¯t let anyone go and kill anyone who resists!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The team swiftly dispersed, sending the street into a hubbub as they carried out their orders.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao ignored themotion behind him and brought Liu Long to a shaded portion of theplex walls. He didn¡¯t need to say anything. The deputy chief bent down as soon as he saw the shallow footprints and inspected them closely, the look in his eyes changing slightly.

    ¡°Hmph!¡± An arctic look returned to his gaze. Some elites from the team followed quietly by his side and awaited for orders.

    ¡°Wu Chao, take a look at this!¡± Liu Long waved one of them forward. With his white gloves, Wu Chao fit the stereotype of a professional inspector. He also stooped down for a look. What were ordinary footprints to Li Hao¡¯s eyes became so much more in the skinny, middle-aged inspector¡¯s analysis.

    ¡°Suspect, male! Approximately 180 cm of unknown weight, the footprints are shallow. The deepest ones are from two hours ago and the faintest more than half a year. He¡¯s decently strong¡ªno less than level two, possibly even stronger!¡±

    Li Hao found thest line odd, but didn¡¯t say anything. Liu Long, however, knew that someone from ssified Affairs might not understand.

    ¡°Thew enforcement teams ssify dangerous personnel into three levels. We do not take into ount weapons or other external items, just personal skill. Level one is the strongest, level three is the weakest!¡± He didn¡¯t mind exining to someone he¡¯d yelled at moments ago. ¡°Someone who can kill a member of your department is level three!¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s twenty-eight people in ssified Affairs and some are veteran inspectors¡­¡± Li Hao smiled awkwardly. You¡¯re exaggerating, aren¡¯t you?

    The deputy chief snorted mercilessly. ¡°Your department head was strong enough before and had some skill¡ªhe wouldn¡¯t be promoted to department head otherwise. But he¡¯s fallen out of practice since being reassigned to ssified Affairs and no longer trains. Any regr enforcer of my team can kill him now, to say nothing of the criminals that we deem dangerous!

    ¡°You must understand that we don¡¯t assign ranks to just anyone. All those who receive a number are extremely dangerous!

    ¡°A tragic case urred in Silver City three years ago when a bastard killed all thirty-two members of the Hu family with his bare fists. That is our level three! In all these years, few are those who are assigned a level in our cases.¡±

    That shone a light for Li Hao on how terrifying level three criminals were. Of course, this was an internal standard for the enforcers. It wasn¡¯t standard throughout the Inspectorate, so very few at ssified Affairs mentioned it.

    The look in the young man¡¯s eyes changed as he thought back to how Wu Chao had said that the owner of the footprints was level two, possibly level one. Granted, it wasn¡¯t surprising since he most likely had arcane abilities. Thew enforcers¡¯ criteria applied to ordinary people. Anyone beyond the norm would naturally be level two, one, or even greater than one.

    It was just surprising that level three criminals were already so terrifying. Then, wielders of mysterious energy were possibly beyond his imagination! And how could Wu Chao draw so many conclusions from just footprints?

    The skinny, middle-aged man tilted his head with a sidelong nce at Li Hao and smiled in an eerie way. ¡°Comrade Little Li, do you think I¡¯m spewing nonsense?¡±

    ¡°Not at all, just curious about big bro Wu¡¯s abilities¡­¡± Li Hao quickly shook his head.

    ¡°Are all Veteris students this humble?¡± Wu Chaoughed hauntingly. ¡°They usually ride high horses, but you¡¯re different. Well, you did also withdraw and be part of us!¡±

    Wu Chao gently pushed off his feet and jumped high into the air, as if showing off for Li Hao. He left a single footprint on the ground when hended.

    ¡°People with different skillsnd differently on the ground, thereby leaving different footprints. I can even tell which part of the footnded first and what position theynded in!

    ¡°I then go off hisnding posture to deduce more information. The footprints we see here are varying levels of depth. He looks to have jumped from a ce several meters high, but not all of his footprints support that height. That means he can easily control his muscles¡­¡± Wu Chao took a few minutes to exin his process, despite there being no need to under ordinary conditions.

    Li Hao was directly involved in the affairs tonight and though he¡¯d withdrawn from the Veteris Institute, he was still deeply entangled with it. It wouldn¡¯t hurt Wu Chao to say a few extra words.

    Liu Long listened quietly and spoke only when Wu Chao was finished. ¡°Enough! He¡¯s not part of the enforcement team, so there¡¯s no need to say so much!¡±

    Li Hao smiled wordlessly.

    The deputy chief looked around them and then at the house. ¡°They¡¯ve got some nerve to keep this ce under surveince for so long after killing someone!¡±

    ¡°Chief, isn¡¯t it normal for the suspect to be bold?¡± Wu Chao chuckled. ¡°Us enforcers might not be able to take them down.¡±

    ¡°Not be able to?¡± The look in Liu Long¡¯s eyes sharpened with frost. ¡°Not necessarily! Some people always think they¡¯re better than others and have no respect for anything. But haven¡¯t we killed our fair share of those arrogant fools over the years?¡±

    The other enforcers smirked coolly at these words.

 Chapter 16: The Law Enforcement Teams of Silver City (II)

    Chapter 16: The Law Enforcement Teams of Silver City (II)

    Meanwhile, Li Hao''s thoughts raced rapidly. What did they mean? Were they speaking of those with preternatural powers? Had Silver City¡¯sw enforcers previously killed those supernatural people wielding mysterious energy?

    Liu Long turned to Li Hao while the young man was still grappling with what he¡¯d heard.

    ¡°Little fellow, you need to trust the enforcement team sometimes! I know you had your own concerns when you sought out your teacher. You¡¯re not dumb either. You found these six self-immtion cases out of a sea of files and identified that they were connected. This shows you are a patient, intelligent person! The Inspectorate needs people like you!

    ¡°You have certain thoughts in noting to thew enforcers, I understand that,¡± Liu Long continued coolly. ¡°But you must remember that a dragon cannot suppress a snake in its element. You might have realized by now that an ordinary person could not havemitted all six cases and that the culprit goes beyond our level one. But so what?¡±

    The man¡¯s aura abruptly turned baleful. Shot through with frosty intent, his arctic coat fluttered in the wind.

    ¡°Even dragons must remain quietly coiled in Silver City! We are not helpless without the Night Watchers! I¡¯ve even beaten up some of their weaklings before!¡±

    A loud snort indicated his displeasure while Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. Does he mean that? The direct mention of the Night Watchers cut straight through the young man¡¯s thoughts.

    Clearly, the deputy chief could tell that Li Hao suspected this case was connected to factors beyond normal society. Liu Long looked like he shared the same conjecture, but he still hadn¡¯t brought in the Night Watchers. It looked like he wanted to handle it with his own team.

    Where does he get his confidence from?

    Li Hao thought through all of this in a split second and looked down with an awkward expression. ¡°I¡¯m afraid I don¡¯t understand the chief¡¯s meaning¡­¡±

    ¡°Hypocrite!¡± Liu Long sniffed. ¡°What don¡¯t you understand? If you, someone who paged through countless cases to find these six, don¡¯t understand, then who does? Don¡¯t tell me you don¡¯t know about the Night Watchers! There¡¯s nothing to be concerned about! What others are afraid to voice doesn¡¯t mean that the Inspectorate is afraid too! As strong as the Night Watchers are, they still answer to a boss!

    ¡°Remember this, Li Hao! The Night Watchers and Inspectorate are shadow and light. We¡¯re overseen by the same superiors! Technically speaking, we¡¯re colleagues. So what if we talk about them, what can they do about it? Their greatest taboo is hurting one of their own. They don¡¯t dare and won¡¯t ever do it! So all you have to do is make sure your actions are aboveboard. What are you afraid of the Night Watchers for? You can openly curse their name!¡±

    Poleaxed, Li Hao felt like he was getting to know Liu Long for the first time.

    Seriously? The Night Watchers that everyone¡¯s wary of, the mysterious organization that people don¡¯t even dare discuss, seems worthless to this one.

    A mature woman behind Liu Long tittered and interjected with amusement, ¡°Little fe, the chief may be talking a bit big. But just like he says, there¡¯s nothing to be worried about! We don¡¯t bring those guys up only because they¡¯re bad omens. A big case always happens when they appear¡ªthey¡¯re inauspicious.¡±

    ¡°And what are you talking about!¡± Liu Long blustered. How dare his team members say he was talking big!

    The female inspector giggled coquettishly and ignored her superior. She focused on Li Hao. ¡°The chief and us are inclined to spend so much time chatting with you because we want to tell you that ssified Affairs is boring. Why don¡¯t you join the enforcement team, little Li Hao?¡±

    Li Hao was truly stunned this time.

    Wut.

    Liu Long looked just as severe, but his tone was slightly more mollified. ¡°You look like you keep your wits about you and you¡¯re patient and loyal. You pass muster! Come join the team. I¡¯ll make you a second rank inspector and have you focus on analyzing cases¡ª¡±

    The woman interrupted again, this time with a beguiling smile. ¡°To put it simply, the enforcement team needs elite talent. A cultured person like yourself, one who discovered a connection and strung six cases together out of thousands, is a particrly good fit! We have a lot of crude brutes on the team who rely on pure experience and skill. Their analysis is weak and they often fail to deduce more from clues. We¡¯ve had to give up a lot of cases because of it¡ªZhang Yuan¡¯s case is one of them!

    ¡°We did find some hints that something was amiss, but didn¡¯t think too hard on it. Add to that overlooking the five other cases¡­ that means wepletely failed to connect the dots. Otherwise, we would¡¯ve handled it as abined case long ago! We¡¯d naturally know that this isn¡¯t an ordinary case.¡±

    They¡¯re here¡­ on a recruitment drive?? Li Hao found himself equal parts speechless and surprised. The enforcement team wanted him? Their chief had been so cold toward him from the beginning that he¡¯d thought Liu Long was highly dissatisfied with him.

    ¡°You¡¯ll solve the self-immtion cases faster if you join us!¡± Liu Long resumed his usual frosty tone. ¡°We can always bring in the Night Watchers if we can¡¯t handle it. It¡¯s right and proper for us to seek them out. But if you have your teacher ask, you¡¯ll make him owe plenty of favors!¡±

    Now that hit Li Hao where it hurt. The chief was not to be underestimated! Just one line was sufficient to dissuade Li Hao from asking Yuan Shuo for help. Just as Liu Long said, his teacher would owe massive favors if he relied on the professor!

    ¡°That¡¯s enough for now, think about it!¡± Liu Long concluded aloofly. ¡°It¡¯s no big deal,e if you want! We don¡¯tck for elites and our task at hand is to capture this guy. Have everyone keep an eye out that the target is an expert and very possibly supernatural!¡±

    The deputy chief strode into the Zhang family home. Li Hao trotted in his wake, trying to think of how to nudge Liu Long into leveling theplex. True, it was Little Yuan¡¯s house, but he wasn¡¯t in this world anymore. Surely his friend wouldn¡¯t mind if it was done to avenge him.

    ¡°Team, search the house!¡± Liu Long roared before Li Hao could say anything. ¡°Tear it down if you don¡¯t find any useful clues, raze it to the ground and dig three feet down! If you still find nothing, burn it all! I¡¯d like to see what the suspect was watching this house so long for?! Even supernatural objects have to show themselves if we burn it all!

    Li Hao: ¡­¡­

    I¡­ haven¡¯t said anything yet. This guy looks brash and¡­ he really is very brash!

    This was also a perfect n of action. No wonder what the enemy was looking for, they would show themselves if the entire house went up in mes.

    His style is seriously to my taste!

    ¡°The enforcement team¡­¡± Li Hao was acquainted with them since he was an inspector, but today, he was getting to know his so-called colleagues all over again. Was Chief Liu Long¡¯s team really that inept?

    But it was true that the enforcement team was a sieve. His report had been leaked in the blink of an eye, which indicated that they were an internal mess.

    As Li Hao sank deep in thought, the coy team member from earlier suddenly drew close to him with a radiant smile. ¡°Little Li, that¡¯s how the chief is, don¡¯t mind him! You¡¯re an inspector too, so you know how things work sometimes. The chief really does want you to join, despite appearing like he doesn¡¯t care. He quite wishes to be team members with you.¡±

    ¡°Um¡­¡± Li Hao was getting turned around. Was there a need for that? He¡¯d simply made a report to his supervisor.

    ¡°The chief said before that the enforcement teamcks nothing,¡± she giggled and lowered her voice. ¡°Not battle strength, not weapons, not authority. What weck is a smart, attentive guy who doesn¡¯t have many ties with the team!¡±

    Li Hao turned over her words in his mind, but before he could process them, she sighed and whispered next to his ear, ¡°There are numerous moles in the enforcement team! Chief wants to clean house, butcks the ability to do so. He¡¯s extremely talented, but he can¡¯t ferret them out and doesn¡¯t want to damage morale with a tant investigation.

    ¡°That may be what he wants with you. He¡¯s hoping you can use the smarts and attention to detail from the self-immtion cases and peel back theyers to find the worms in the team!¡±

    Li Hao paused, so Liu Long knew! Not only did he know about the moles, but he wanted to get rid of them. Was he juggling a lot of concerns to not have been able to do so yet?

    Liu Long recruiting him to be the de in his hand was thest possibility on Li Hao¡¯s mind.

    The female inspector giggled at Li Hao¡¯s hesitation. ¡°Think about it! Your friend¡¯s case may be very tricky and we¡¯re just putting on a show tonight. We might have to appeal to the Night Watchers still. If you join us, that greatly increases your chances of working with them. Otherwise, the Department of ssified Affairs doesn¡¯t have the right to participate in this case!

    ¡°You withdrew from school for your friend and spent a year looking through old files in ssified Affairs. That¡¯s long enough, isn¡¯t it? Do you want to stay there until you retire?¡±

    Li Hao grew lost in thought again¡ªamon urrence tonight. His image of the inept enforcement team was once more being rewritten. None of the members he¡¯d met so far were simple characters. Every word they said spoke to his heart, even their recruitment pitch.

    He was suddenly concerned about the stone de that he¡¯d retrieved before everyone arrived. The team wouldn¡¯t find anything, would they? He had been worried about the scarlet shadow and hadn¡¯t entertained the notion that the enforcers might discover what he¡¯d done. Li Hao had even been at ease when Liu Long proposed tearing down and burning the house. Would they notice something wrong with the chimney? Could the substitute stone sufficiently distract them?

    Whatever, I¡¯ll just me it on the scarlet shadow. I don¡¯t know anything at all.

    People really thought too highly of themselves sometimes. He thought that everything was proceeding smoothly, but the enforcement team had caught him off guard. He¡¯d truly underestimated thew enforcers after spending a year at ssified Affairs.

    ¡°Joining the enforcement team¡­¡± A newly wary Li Hao followed the group¡¯s footsteps, but he was solidly lost in thought.

    There was the aloof and domineering leader, a coy woman whose words stabbed straight at the heart, and a Wu Chao who could identify countless clues with a single nce¡­ It rather seemed that crouching tigers and hidden dragons abounded in thew enforcers!

    If a group he¡¯d dismissed was like this, then what about the Night Watchers?

    And he wanted to join the Night Watchers, pfft! If he did, he probably wouldn¡¯t even know how he ended up dead! These people were too sharp and experienced. None of his secrets would remain secrets if he spent enough time with them.

    He suddenly felt a cold wind at the back of his neck.

    ¡°The world outside is so scary that ssified Affairs is like a yground! ssified Affairs is much morefortable!¡± Li Hao shook his head and looked again at Liu Long.

    Had it been a test when he proposed burning the house down? He hadn¡¯t asked if Li Hao had found anything, like there was no need to ask. This abnormality further raised Li Hao¡¯s guard.

    I didn¡¯t smile just now, did I? I don¡¯t think so! Li Hao was thankful when he thought back to moments ago. Thank goodness he was steady enough that he could maintain his expression when Liu Long spoke of what the young man wanted to do. Mmhmm, he deserved to be praised for that!

 Chapter 17: A Maddened Liu Long

    Chapter 17: A Maddened Liu Long

    Thew enforcement team naturally came up empty-handed after searching the Zhang family home. There was nothing of value here. However, Liu Long was aware that there must be something precious in the residence if someone had kept it under surveince for so long. Or were they possibly waiting for someone?

    Waiting to see who woulde to the house?

    But who would visit when there were no more Zhangs left? In the past year, only Li Hao came because he was vested in the case.

    The towering deputy chief ced his hands behind his back and strode through the yard. Li Hao and the others followed behind¡ªPanther hadn¡¯t run off either. It didn¡¯t dare approach Liu Long, like it was afraid of the man.

    The deputy chief quickly reached the kitchen; its doors were open while people searched inside. They didn¡¯t find anything, of course.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t look at the chimney, at where he¡¯d reced a certain stone. He¡¯d done his best to restore it to its original condition, but some of the ster had been shaken loose throughout the course of his exertions. There was nothing he could do to stick it back on.

    But it also seemed normal to have some king ster in a kitchen that¡¯d long been neglected.

    None of the enforcers lifted their heads or paid much attention to the chimney. Only Liu Long swept the entireyout with an exceedingly sharp gaze. He neither expected to find any clues nor hoped that there would be any treasure left to discover after the house was kept under watch for so long.

    He paused, ever so slightly, at the end of his sweep when he reached the shifted stone.

    The deputy chief quickly looked away and turned without a word. He looked at Li Hao measuredly and asked faintly, ¡°Li Hao, did you find anything when you arrived?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± The young man shook his head and added, ¡°Well, not entirely. Based on my observations, someone¡¯s rifled through the entireplex and even dug up the old tree in the yard. They must¡¯ve raised arge disturbance, but no one¡¯s aware of it. They¡¯re either very strong or they¡¯re very good at covering up things!¡±

    Liu Long inclined his head. ¡°Do you think those behind the scenes will emerge if we tear down the house?¡± he suddenly asked.

    ¡°Probably not!¡± Li Hao opted for the truth. ¡°Thew enforcers will still be here after theplex is torn down. As strong as the enemy might be, they won¡¯t dare show themselves because that would no longer be operating in the dark. That¡¯d be setting themselves against all of Silver City!¡±

    ¡°Then do you think there¡¯s a need to continue tearing down this residence? This is your good friend¡¯s ancestral home, the only thing left of him.¡±

    Li Hao mentally snapped to attention. Had Liu Long discovered something? Is he doubting me or suspecting that the scarlet shadow faction took something?

    It¡¯s very likely me!

    The shadow¡¯s faction was still watching the house to this day. There would be no need for them to stay if they¡¯d retrieved something.

    That left only Li Hao.

    Man, he¡¯s tough to shake off!

    Why did he ever think that such a difficult character was a bumbling fool?

    Ah, that would be due to the enforcement team failing to solve quite a few cases. Otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t think they were ipetent to the point of being unable to handle mere self-immtion.

    ¡°It¡¯s¡­ best if we can keep it,¡± Li Hao said slowly after thinking for a bit. ¡°But if we can¡¯t, we¡¯d still be avenging Zhang Yuan if we catch his killer. The house is a dead thing. We can tear it down or burn it, I don¡¯t mind either way!¡±

    ¡°Well said!¡± Liu Long nodded and abruptly punched out, smashing a hole in the kitchen wall.

    Li Hao¡¯s heart jolted with shock. Although the kitchen wall wasn¡¯t made of metal, it was still formed of stacked brick. The deputy chief broke and caved them in with a single punch! Just that alone told Li Hao that if he suffered a blow, he¡¯d be crippled at the very least, if not dead.

    ster flew everywhere after the aged kitchen wall suffered a blow. Liu Long looked around coolly andmanded, ¡°Stop wasting time since we haven¡¯te up with anything. Tear it down! Dig three feet beneath the ground and burn it all if you don¡¯t find anything. If there¡¯s still nothing after that¡­ pack it up!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Enforcer shouts were swiftly punctuated by rumbling sounds.

    Liu Long looked at Li Hao again. ¡°Do you want to look around and save a few keepsakes?¡±

    ¡°No need, there¡¯s no point to that!¡± Li Hao shook his head with a morose sigh. ¡°Bringing the killer¡¯s head to Zhang Yuan¡¯s grave would be much more meaningful!¡±

    There was no way he¡¯d dump oil over himself when fire burned in front of him! Whatever he took would be all that remained of the Zhangs. He¡¯d never be able to exin himself; no one would believe that the mess on his pants was mud and not shit!

    The scarlet shadow had been searching for the de all this time. No matter what he took, they would think it was part of his keepsakes.

    And ironically enough, he did have the de!

    Liu Long didn¡¯t necessarily have good intentions either. Perhaps he was testing Li Hao, or perhaps he wanted to kill via another¡¯s hand. Whatever it was, the young man wasn¡¯t going to take the bait.

    An inscrutable smile shed through the depths of Liu Long¡¯s eyes and he called out, ¡°Don¡¯t ruin everything. Pick a few items to take back as evidence!¡±

    Li Hao remained silent, quickly deciphering Liu Long¡¯s intentions. Did he want to lure the scarlet shadow out of hiding? He didn¡¯t think lightly of the enforcement team or Liu Long anymore. Every word that the deputy chief said was worthy of deeper analysis.

    ¡°Everyone, spread out! Li Hao, you¡¯re with me.¡± Liu Long dismissed the enforcers around him.

    Carrying out his orders with crity, the young man didn¡¯t question anything. Liu Long didn¡¯t exin anything as he strode outside. Li Hao trotted in his wake to keep up.

    ¡­¡­

    Outside the Zhang front doors.

    People were everywhere on the street; there werew enforcers intermixed with startled residents. Although many had moved away, there was a fair number left.

    Liu Long marched forward without a word, stopping when he reached a water tower in the middle of the street. He set foot onto its staircase and continued upward.

    Once more, Li Hao followed the deputy chief. He didn¡¯t understand what the man wanted and why they were here. To make use of a high vantage point? This was the tallest building in the street and could easily see in all four directions. Did he want to observe where the enemy was?

    The wooden staircase creaked as they climbed up, reaching the top before long. The old street stretched out in front of them and Liu Long¡¯s ck trench coat pped in the wind, revealing the numerous weapons hidden within. Contrary to Li Hao¡¯s expectations, he saw the glint of metal instead of guns.

    There was a dirk, an exquisitely crafted silver ax, and some throwing daggers.

    ¡°Li Hao, you¡¯re an inspector from ssified Affairs.¡± Liu Long looked up at the sky instead of the bustling street below. ¡°Tell me, what is your impression of the enforcement team after a year at the Inspectorate?¡±

    ¡°Highlypetent!¡± Li Hao answered without hesitation.

    ¡°Heh,¡± came a cold snort as derision crossed Liu Long¡¯s face. ¡°Hypocrite! All literati are hypocrites!¡±

    ¡­I have nothing to say to that.

    ¡°You mean highly ipetent!¡± Liu Long continued coldly. ¡°We can handle some minor, insignificant cases, but we fail almost all of the big ones!

    ¡°But we¡¯ve turned this way only in thest few years. In the past, the Inspectorate was the anchor of Silver City! As a long term resident, surely you recall that the city¡¯s security was the best out of all neighboring cities. You didn¡¯t even need to shut your doors at night!¡±

    Li Hao nodded after thinking for a bit. Silver City had indeed seemed very safe when he was young. Of course, that could also be because he¡¯d been a blissfully unaware child, so he¡¯d thought that there was no danger in the city.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t care what he was thinking. ¡°Do you know why I want you to join the enforcement team?¡±

    ¡°I don¡ª¡±

    ¡°Because of Zhang Yuan!¡±

    Li Hao frowned. What did he mean by that?

    ¡°I¡¯ve captained the team for ten years,¡± Liu Long said calmly. ¡°My ties to the team run deep, just like your friendship with Zhang Yuan. The team feels like my brother and I don¡¯t want a brother to slowly die like this!

    ¡°I wanted to save it once, but found that I cannot see the wood for the trees. I am no longer able to use reason and rationale to manage emotion. I know everyone very well, but it is because of this that I don¡¯t think any of them would do anything against me.

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to doubt anyone. I¡¯m not willing to believe that the brothers that have been through life and death with me would betray the core of who we are for the sake of money or other baubles!

    ¡°We took an oath the moment we joined the Inspectorate and the enforcement team that we would enforce justice! We would enforce thew in what was unfair! We would not fear power or sacrifice!

    ¡°Justice always prevails! It never flinches and it neverpromises!¡± Liu Long dered solemnly, then sneered self-deprecatingly at himself. ¡°Such was our oath that year, but it seems that very few can remain faithful and always keep it in mind!¡±

    Li Hao listened silently. He wasn¡¯t close to this man, but perhaps the unfamiliarity was why Liu Long was willing to speak so candidly.

    ¡°Zhang Yuan¡¯s case is not a simple one, and it might involve supernaturals!¡± Liu Long changed the topic.

    Li Hao found his voice again and nodded. ¡°I think so too! The six cases seem very normal, even the one I witnessed with my own eyes. It¡¯d be very difficult for ordinary people tomit them.¡±

    ¡°And you still dare to keep going with the investigation?¡± Liu Long smiled¡ªhis first of the night, but it was a smile that made one ufortable.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know if this person was connected to the scarlet shadow, but he had no other choice or ideas anymore.

    ¡°Zhang Yuan was my only friend!¡±

    ¡°So you¡¯d put your life on the line for him?¡± Liu Long asked faintly. ¡°We are all hot-blooded and impulsive in our youth, but feelings change when we grow older!

    ¡°Regardless, that¡¯s not important! You¡¯re in a bit of danger right now. One, you¡¯re involved in thest self-immtion case. Two, you uncovered the connection between multiple cases and brought it to our attention. Three, you rmed the enemy ahead of time with your visit tonight. This is one of your sources of danger.

    ¡°Don¡¯t expect too much from Professor Yuan. We have to rely on ourselves. Depending on others always proves to be unreliable!

    ¡°Professor Yuan is just an ordinary person. The Night Watchers might give him some face, or they might not. Don¡¯t fall into the trap of thinking that they¡¯ll always get involved if a case involves the extraordinary.

    ¡°What are six dead people to the Night Watchers?¡±

 Chapter 18: A Maddened Liu Long (II)

    Chapter 18: A Maddened Liu Long (II)

    ¡°It¡¯s not that they don¡¯t care about people dying.¡± Liu Long shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s that there¡¯s not enough Night Watchers and they¡¯re scattered all over! There are very few assigned to Silver City and they all have their own duties to carry out. They don¡¯t mobilize unlessrge scale casualties ur. A few deaths that involve a whiff of something preternatural don¡¯t necessarily draw their attention.¡±

    It was Li Hao¡¯s first time hearing someone mention the Night Watchers in earnest. He couldn¡¯t contain his curiosity and asked lowly, ¡°Are there not that many Night Watchers?¡±

    ¡°Correct!¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°There¡¯s not that many. We who maintain public security are just the ordinary people at the Inspectorate! The Night Watchers act only when there are no other options avable. And another thing¡ªnot all people with supernatural ability join the Night Watchers. The Night Watchers is just one of therger organizations among them.¡±

    Li Hao thought for a moment. ¡°Chief, are supernatural humans born or made?¡±

    ¡°Both!¡± Liu Long answered with an assessing look. ¡°Are you interested in this field?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Lies!¡± Liu Long snorted. ¡°Everyone yearns for mysterious powers when they first hear of the supernaturals. That¡¯s because they are unaware of the danger and esoterica involved. They just know that supernaturals are unfathomable and invincible! Only when one prates deep into their ranks does one understand the perils. One might grow to regret their decision, but everyone¡¯s eyes always shine at first.¡±

    There was nothing Li Hao could do but nod in agreement. Anyone would seek to have magical abilities. He did, too.

    ¡°But if you barge in knowing nothing, you¡¯ll more than likely die. And let¡¯s say you end up surviving your brash impulses, your life will be all the more difficult for it.

    ¡°It so happens that¡­¡± Liu Long chuckled. ¡°I actually know a bit about the Night Watchers. I can give you some pointers if you join the enforcement team.¡±

    ¡°So the chief said this much¡­ just to convince me to join the enforcement team?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°I¡¯m only a third rank inspector with one year under my belt. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m so valuable that I deserve to have so much information revealed. You¡¯ve even openly talked about the hidden side of our society just to get me to join!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate yourself!¡± Liu Long¡¯s gaze turned deep. ¡°It¡¯s not as simple as you think. Or you can also view it as killing with a borrowed hand. Your teacher, Professor Yuan Shuo, is a great backer! Bad practices have piled up at the enforcement team, so perhaps it¡¯s time to borrow external force to break them down.

    ¡°Your teacher is an ordinary person, but also not entirely. Silver City, the Veteris Institute, and the Night Watchers all rely on him to resolve certain problems.¡±

    Li Hao listened quietly without interjection.

    ¡°That¡¯s one reason, the second is that we do need some fresh blood. Being from the Institute, you¡¯re a good choice! Third and very important to me, you¡¯re loyal. At the very least, I can trust you with my back. And fourth, you¡¯ve got brains and an eye for detail. With some training, you can be a capable assistant!¡±

    Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°What do you think?¡± Liu Long smiled. ¡°Are those reasons enough?¡±

    Are those reasons enough?

    No way!

    They seemed sufficient, but not entirely. Those reasons certainly weren¡¯t enough for someone like Liu Long to keep an eye on a regr young man and pull him aside for a prolonged recruitment spiel.

    Li Hao carefully considered Liu Long. The deputy chief was looking away, his towering body turned to the sky. He grinned when he felt the weight of Li Hao¡¯s regard.

    ¡°Little fellow, it¡¯s not necessarily a good thing to know too much. I want to help you solve the case and for you to help me. Isn¡¯t that enough? Why must you get to the bottom of things?¡±

    Li Hao pursed his lips in silence and muttered, ¡°I want revenge, but I also want to know what I¡¯m getting into. Knowing is better than not knowing! I understand and ept everything the chief has said, but I want to know the truth. I don¡¯t want to bumble around in the dark and be an unwitting sacrifice!¡±

    ¡°Ah, you youngsters really can¡¯t bide your time,¡± Liu Long chuckled. ¡°Did you take something from the Zhang family home?¡±

    ¡°No? I don¡¯t understand.¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± Liu Long snorted. ¡°The chimney showed marks of being tampered with. Li Hao, I¡¯m a veteran inspector with twenty years of experience. I¡¯ve been deputy chief for ten years, so you can think of me as ipetent, but not blind! The traces were fresh. What, are you going to say that someone else did it?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s scalp went numb, but he insisted doggedly, ¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about, chief. I really didn¡¯t do anything.¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter!¡± Liu Long broke out in a broad grin. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter even if you took a supernatural item. I don¡¯t care!¡±

    Huh? It was growing harder and harder to make out the kind of person that Liu Long was. What does he mean? Confusion was really starting to set in.

    ¡°Let¡¯sy it all out in the open.¡± Liu Long continued smiling. ¡°I want you to join us, but I can¡¯t force your transfer because you have a strong backer. Otherwise, you¡¯d already be on the team and not through a friendly invite!¡±

    Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°Your teacher has some status, so I can¡¯t do anything to you!¡± Liu Long recovered his previous imperiousness. ¡°After all this, I just want to say that you¡¯re in a lot of danger. You might be the next victim of self-immtion!¡±

    Thump thump thump!

    Li Hao¡¯s heart pounded as the sudden mention was strange. Did Liu Long have something to do with the scarlet shadow?

    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much!¡± Liu Long interrupted his train of thought. ¡°The self-immtion cases aren¡¯t over yet! Supernaturals are involved and they should¡¯ve left a long time ago after killing someone. However, they continued toy their ns in the city for ten years, possibly even longer! This isn¡¯t death through ident or murder for revenge. This is a targeted killing!

    ¡°Their mission may be ongoing and they have a target in their sights. I was wondering who the next one might be. It looks like it might be you!¡±

    Li Hao forced down his agitation. ¡°Why me?¡±

    ¡°Why?¡± Liu Long grinned. ¡°There are a lot of people with the Li surname, but the most active one recently seems to be you! Of course I¡¯m going to raise your suspicion to the highest degree!¡±

    Li Hao blinked again. The deputy chief¡­ seemed to know the folk song!

    ¡°They keep an eye on the Zhang family home for the de of the Zhangs, don¡¯t they?¡± The chief¡¯s words nearly caused Li Hao to lose hisposure. ¡°And you have the de of the Zhangs and sword of the Lis, don¡¯t you?¡±

    While Liu Long¡¯s grin broadened, Li Hao couldn¡¯t find it within him to smile. An icy hand clenched around his heart. This man had figured it all out by himself! He knew everything!

    Of course, Li Hao¡¯s report might have provided a certain direction, but Liu Long was extremely terrifying to extrapte everything in such a short period of time!

    ¡°Is it a supernatural treasure?¡± Liu Long murmured to himself, then quickly shook his head. ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter, not important! ult items aren¡¯t useful for ordinary people. Their treasures are trash to us, so it doesn¡¯t matter if you took it or not.

    ¡°On the contrary, it¡¯s best if you do have it!¡± he chuckled. ¡°That will one hundred percent make you their next target! How will they possibly give up after so long? They won¡¯t, even if they¡¯ve already attracted attention to themselves! Therefore, you joining us isn¡¯t just to help me, but also to save yourself! You won¡¯t be able to hold off supernaturals by yourself.¡±

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t willing to admit to any of this, but his thoughts were in slight disarray. He tamped down frustration and muttered, ¡°Chief, they seem to have spies in thew enforcement team. You know so much, are you¡­¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± Liu Long snorted withughter. ¡°Do you suspect me? As you should, but there¡¯s no need. You don¡¯t understand everything I do, but you might in the future.¡±

    ¡°Please speak frankly, chief!¡± Li Hao murmured.

    Liu Long remained silent for a long time before he sighed softly. He quickly returned to normal and spoke with an even tone, but his words made Li Hao shudder.

    ¡°Supernaturals are just as you think and you yearn to be extraordinary. So do I! Not only do I yearn for it, but I once almost set foot in that realm. Sadly, I was sent back before finishing the crossover!

    ¡°I refuse to ept it, how can I ept it?! They reject me after letting me see another world is out there!

    ¡°The chaos in thew enforcement team is partially due to me. When I was firmly rooted in the team, I was diligent and industrious. But ever since being rejected, I am no longer willing to spend the rest of my days in mundane dullness!

    ¡°Therefore, less of my heart is in thew enforcement team, which caused it to be infiltrated with all manner of riffraff.¡±

    These words didn¡¯t make Li Hao shudder, the next ones did!

    ¡°I am not willing to wallow in mediocrity for the rest of my life, to simply brush shoulders with that mysterious domain. I know a way that will help me set foot in the supernatural world again¡ªkilling supernaturals!¡± The look in Liu Long¡¯s eyes sharpened as killing intent flooded out of him.

    ¡°We need to kill a supernatural whose attributes or powers are a good match for us! After their death, their powers are stripped and conducted into our own bodies. If sess is not at hand after one try, we try again, then again, and again! We do so until the mysterious powers activate our own supernatural abilities, thereby making us supernaturals as well!

    ¡°Supernaturals are far and few in between, each attempt to kill them risks our own life as well! But I will not be ordinary! We¡¯ve killed multiple supernaturals over the past three years, but none of us have ever seeded in crossing over.¡±

    We??

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts were aplete jumble. Killing supernaturals to be one themselves? He never imagined and couldn¡¯t believe that thew enforcement team was so bold!

    Sweat beaded his forehead as he finally understood why Liu Long didn¡¯t care about the problems the young man might bring with him. In fact, the deputy chief actually hoped that Li Hao would attract certain unique characters ining after him!

    Li Hao swallowed noisily. He thought he was bold enough, but today he met someone who was even bolder and crazier!

    Liu Long¡¯sugh was slightly tinged with madness. ¡°What are we afraid of? That¡¯s why I don¡¯t really want the Night Watchers to be involved. As for the danger¡­ With high riskes great reward! Are we to spend our dwindling lifespans in undistinguished monotony?

    ¡°You too, Li Hao! If you want to be supernatural, you might be rejected even if you join the Night Watchers! They give you only one chance to conduct mysterious power into yourself. There¡¯s limited quantities and they will not give you a second chance if you fail. But are you willing to fall back to themonce dirt after glimpsing that magical peak??¡±

 Chapter 19: Decision (I)

    Chapter 19: Decision (I)

    ¡°Has no one¡­ ever seeded?¡± Li Hao asked, thinking of the water from his sword. Was that starry energy what they meant by mysterious power? He¡¯d drunk quite a few mouthfuls earlier tonight, but remained as ordinary as ever. Or had he been inducting the ult into himself and failing over and over again?

    ¡°There have been sesses!¡± Liu Long nodded, thenughed at himself. ¡°Each year, the Night Watchers recruit at least ten thousand people from the various major cities to participate in experiments. Only one percent of them seed, which means everyone else other than the roughly one hundred finalists fail! Setting aside how few Silver City¡¯s spots are, do you think you¡¯ll be part of the one percent if you¡¯re selected, Li Hao?¡±

    The boy remained silent.

    ¡°Therefore, we can only rely on ourselves!¡± Liu Long rumbled. ¡°We kill them ourselves! We use mortal techniques to kill supernaturals! Kill them, strip them of their powers, and find which ones are a match for us. If one isn¡¯t enough, then two, or three! Sess will eventually be at hand!¡±

    Li Hao took a deep breath, looking not at Deputy Chief Liu Long, but a lunatic called Liu Long. Here was a mortal who wandered the boundary of death in a bid to be extraordinary. He killed supernaturals to set foot in their domain!

    This is so insane I don¡¯t know what to think.

    It was crazy enough that the young man had these thoughts. The person in front of him, however, not only nursed these thoughts, but acted on them.

    ¡°Chief¡­ you think I¡¯ll catch their eye?¡±

    ¡°For sure!¡± By now, Liu Long kept nothing close to his heart. ¡°Don¡¯t deny it¡ªI sensed a bit of mysterious power the first time I saw you. You must have encountered supernaturals or their treasures recently. People like you definitely have something to do with their world!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know if that was due to the jade sword¡¯s influence or him drinking the sword¡¯s water. Regardless, this team captain had seen something in him.

    What a scary guy!

    Killing the superhuman when he himself was mundane in order to gain magical powers¡­ Li Hao didn¡¯t know how strong they were, but they must be quite fearsome as the scarlet shadow killed people in terrifying ways. This man was mad!

    ¡°Think about it, you¡¯re wee anytime!¡± Liu Long suddenly jumped down from the tower. His voice traveled back up. ¡°Don¡¯t count on your teacher, he won¡¯t be able to help you make the crossover. He can¡¯t do it himself and the Night Watchers don¡¯t wish for him or his students to do so. That won¡¯t y into their interests!¡±

    Teacher can¡¯t either?

    ¡­¡­

    Up on the water tower.

    Liu Longnded on the ground, leaving Li Hao behind.

    ¡°Bait¡­¡± Li Hao murmured to himself, fully understanding what Liu Long meant. The deputy chief may look like a dumb brute, but he was quite shrewd and meticulous. His speech was frank and on the level, the absolute height of sincerity.

    There was also a certain connotation to his words apart from what he said. He, Liu Long, was also loyal! He would not burn a bridge after crossing it!

    Indeed, this was readily apparent from Liu Long¡¯s insistence that he was unwilling to investigate who the moles were. He wasn¡¯t willing to hurt those who¡¯d betrayed him, and he would never forget the favor if Li Hao helped him.

    This was the mark of a true expert!

    It was a soundless permeation of meaning that was evident as soon as one spent a little time thinking about it. Not even traitors were enough for Liu Long to set aside their rtionship.

    Does he really care about brotherhood that much?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t think so; all of these guys were too crafty. There¡¯d been so many tricks in that conversation¡ªbravado, feints, threats, coercion, and persuasion. Who knew how many brain cells the man had exhausted in just a few minutes?

    ¡°Killing those whomand preternatural arts and stealing their powers¡­ If one time isn¡¯t a match, then a second, a third time¡­ Is that really the way to be supernatural myself?¡± Li Hao was suddenly quite disappointed. The world of the mystic didn¡¯t seem all that peaceful. If an ordinary person like Liu Long sought to kill them for their power, then what of the supernaturals themselves?

    They were probably more brutal toward their own kind! No wonder they kept such a low profile and refused to show themselves. That likely forestalled a lot of unnecessary trouble.

    ¡°While it looked like Liu Long told me a lot, he always stopped after mentioning things and didn¡¯t go into detail. He probably can¡¯t tell me much unless I join the enforcement team.¡±

    The deputy chief spoke nothing of how exactly supernaturals trained, how they conducted mysterious power into themselves, how strong they were, what kind of abilities they wielded¡­

    ¡°And is it true that I have mysterious power on me? Or did he throw that out there to nudge me off bnce, so that I would admit I took something from the Zhangs?¡± It seemed highly probable to Li Hao. Additionally, Liu Long didn¡¯t know that the young man could see mysterious power. That was a talent out of reach for ordinary people. The starry energy was most probably mysterious power.

    Li Hao could see that there was no starry energy outside his body. Otherwise, whether it was the scarlet shadow or its handler, one of the two would¡¯ve reacted.

    Liu Long was lying to him!

    In contrast, Li Hao had glimpsed a hint of something on the man. There was a very faint starry hue around his physique¡ªvery weak and very possibly mysterious energy.

    ¡°Liu Long has killed supernaturals and absorbed their powers before. They didn¡¯t metamorphose into anything else, so there are remnants of that power inside his body. In that case, he might actually stand a chance of setting foot in that domain.¡±

    Indeed, Li Hao could see the energy, just like he could the scarlet shadow when no one else could!

    Apart from Liu Long, the team members next to him might also possess a bit of arcane power. The ¡°us¡± he spoke of was likely the flirtatious woman, super tracker Wu Chao, and two others. Counting Liu Long, that made for five people and was far from including the entirew enforcement team.

    It looked like there was a clique among thew enforcers, one that hunted down supernaturals.

    ¡°Do they use powerful weapons or other means?¡±

    Their prey was certainly not weak or they wouldn¡¯t be a goal for Liu Long. Since they¡¯d sessfully hunted their quarry before, that meant this little team was quite formidable. The advantages of terrain and timing were all with the Inspectorate. It was the agency¡¯s prerogative to use heavy weaponry and the enforcement team could easilye up with excuses after the fact. Thus, it wasn¡¯t impossible that careless supernaturals could die to these guys.

    Li Hao was bold enough to set his sights on them with just a third gen vortex gun, to say nothing of Liu Long¡¯s team. Strictly speaking, he was the head honcho of the agency of force in Silver City.

    The inspector general sat in his office and never attended the front lines¡ªthat was left to the enforcers. Liu Long was the true boss.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao rummaged through his thoughts as he walked down from the tower. What were the consequences if he declined? Would Liu Long retaliate? Would he leak information to the scarlet shadow or even tell them that the young man carried the de of the Zhangs and sword of the Lis?

    Maybe he¡¯d just outright kill Li Hao from the shadows!

    ¡°He looks like an open and honest man¡­ but he¡¯s actually a ruthless guy!¡± Li Hao would never consider him a bumbling brute anymore. The enforcement team¡¯s shabby state might even be part of his schemes, a plot to lull outsiders and supernaturals into a false sense of security.

    The weak could ovee the strong if the enforcers were viewed as just for show!

    ¡°Moles¡­ heh, don¡¯t tell me he nurtured those himself? Even if he didn¡¯t, they¡¯re the result of hisx oversight. This guy definitely knows who¡¯s a traitor and purposefully hasn¡¯t cleaned house!¡± Li Hao suddenly saw many things clearly as his mind spun rapidly.

    Liu Long of thew enforcement team was a person of note! He¡¯d most likely created the current confusion in the team. He¡¯s so sinister that it¡¯s no wonder his name shares the same pronunciation as oozing pus!

    After a hearty round of mental curses, Li Hao turned his thoughts to what decision would be most beneficial to him.

    ¡°If I join them, I¡¯ll have help against the scarlet shadow because Liu Long¡¯s goal is the supernaturals! I¡¯m not familiar with the Night Watchers and don¡¯t know their situation. I don¡¯t even know if they¡¯re connected to the shadow. If Liu Long and his, honestly, weak team are able to cross over, they¡¯ll be more gungho than the Night Watchers.

    ¡°Granted, they have certain confidence and knowledge because they¡¯ve killed supernaturals before.¡±

    Li Hao was the shadow¡¯s next target and after tonight¡¯s uproar, they were preparing to move against him, weren¡¯t they?

    ¡°There¡¯s just one issue¡­¡± The young man¡¯s thoughts churned with conflict as he walked down the street.

    One issue?

    The issue that Liu Long and the scarlet shadow were possibly in cahoots, that would be real danger then!

    It wasn¡¯t impossible.

    If that¡¯s the case, I¡¯m done for!

    Li Hao had to consider the possibility as if it was true, then he¡¯d already exposed nearly everything about himself.

    ¡°Hoo!¡±

    Heart heavy, he wasn¡¯t too satisfied with how tonight had yed out. Some unexpected twists and turns hade up. It was fine enough if Liu Long could handle the scarlet shadow. If not, Li Hao was in greater dangerpared to before.

    ¡­¡­

    Rumble!

    Arge tractor bulldozed the Zhang family home in a massive cloud of smoke and dust. Li Hao silently watched it go down, seeming to see Zhang Yuan in front of him.

    Little Yuan, your house is gone.

    You¡¯re gone and your house is gone. The final traces of you in this world are almost no more. What else can I do other than get revenge and bring your killer¡¯s head to your grave?

    Nothing.

    The beguiling female member from before soundlessly crept up to Li Hao, faint perfume grazing past his nose.

    ¡°Little Hao,e find me tomorrow if you want to join us!¡± She chuckled in his ear. ¡°My name is Liu Yan and I¡¯m the vice captain of the enforcement team. You cane to me anytime!¡±

    Liu Yan!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know who she was before she gave her name. After the introduction, he found that he was acquainted with her. While there were plenty of people he¡¯d yet to meet after a year in ssified Affairs, he knew of them and their associated gossip.

    Liu Yan was a name that often appeared in conversation.

    Rumor had it that she was Liu Long¡¯s bed partner. Of course, that was just gossip from ssified Affairs. Li Hao had no idea whether it was true or not. But judging from the situation he saw today, perhaps it wasn¡¯t strictly empty talk.

    The ssified Affairs aunties often discussed Liu Yan with contempt, saying that she¡¯d used her pretty face to climb to the position of vice captain of thew enforcement team.

    One had to know, the vice captain should be at least a first rank inspector. After inspector camemissioner inspector, which was Liu Long¡¯s actual rank. Only at this rank did one wield true authority. It was slotted just beneath the inspector general in the hierarchy of power. There were some assistant inspector generals who didn¡¯tmand as much power as Liu Long did.

    ¡°Alright!¡± Li Hao nodded decisively.

    A wise man goes with the flow! This wasn¡¯t the time to decline, nor could he decline. He had to ept!

    ¡°Nicely done!¡± Liu Yan smiled alluringly. ¡°You won¡¯t regret this!¡±

    She was already gone.

 Chapter 20: Decision (II)

    Chapter 20: Decision (II)

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened at her speed andck of sound. Everyone on the small team looked run-of-the-mill, but they were all very strong. After spending time with them in close quarters, he was starting to see a faint sheen of starlight outside their bodies.

    It was so faint that Li Hao only saw it when they were close at hand, but it was definitely the same as the sword¡¯s starry energy that he couldn¡¯t fully digest.

    Are they¡­ demi supernaturals?

    The entire group had likely conducted mysterious powers into themselves before, but they failed to officially cross over. Liu Long had done well to nurture several powerful helpers out of the enforcement team!

    ¡°So it¡¯s confirmed, the water from the jade sword is mysterious power! Liu Long and the others want to set foot into that domain through killing supernaturals, but I don¡¯t have to! My jade sword supplies me with energy and I also have the de of the Zhangs now. I wonder if the de can do the same thing?¡±

    The rumbling noises grew louder as fire leapt and danced in the night air. mes quickly swallowed the Zhang family home while Li Hao looked on, not regretting any decision made tonight. He¡¯d gained more information than he ever imagined he would possess. Even though it meant exposing some of his own secrets, that didn¡¯t matter. Was the scarlet shadow faction truly oblivious that he was the beholder of the sword of the Lis?

    Not necessarily, given their attention. They hadn¡¯t taken action simply because they had other ns in mind. If they were his parents¡¯ killers, how would they not know that his surname was the Li of the folk song?!

    It would be self deceiving to think otherwise.

    ¡°They probably won¡¯t show themselves given this huge disturbance.¡± Li Hao tugged his shirt straight and nudged Panther. ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go home!¡±

    He left without a word to Liu Long, using the burning house as his cover.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Chief!¡± Several people were gathered around Liu Long. Liu Yan looked at their leader with a quizzical look, then watched Li Hao depart in the dark.

    ¡°Chief, do you really want him to join us?¡± she whispered.

    ¡°The chief has his own thoughts and ns in mind!¡± chuckled Wu Chao; he was as thin as a rail. ¡°Li Hao has quite a backer! While Yuan Shuo isn¡¯t supernatural, he¡¯s not too shabby with his New Book of Five Styles. He¡¯s got to have a little something if the Night Watchers keep wanting to work with him. It¡¯s not necessarily a bad thing to recruit Li Hao.¡±

    ¡°But not necessarily a good thing either!¡± grumped a fatty whose eyes had disappeared amid folds of flesh. ¡°Yuan Shuo is a proud and stubborn person. Chief sent out feelers to him before, wanting him to join our hunts. He couldn¡¯t be bothered to give us the time of the day! Making Li Hao one of us might result in Night Watcher attention¡­¡±

    Liu Long cut him off before he could finish. ¡°The Night Watchers? Do you really think they don¡¯t know about us? How would they possibly not know that the Inspectorate has killed more than one supernatural?¡±

    He continued in a more cating tone, ¡°So what if they do? We kill only those with criminal records! Besides, this way of killing supernaturals, stripping them of their mysterious energy, and using their powers to ascendes from the Night Watchers themselves! Heh, haha!¡±

    Derision and indifference filled the deputy chief¡¯s eyes as heughed coldly.

    ¡°They leaked this method so that cannon fodder who want to be supernatural will alleviate some of the pressure on them! They have a heavy caseload and not enough time, but any crime that extends beyond the ordinary will turn into incredible trouble if it¡¯s not dealt with. The Night Watchers are spread too thin and it¡¯s too dangerous for mortals to take the field. That organization gets along the best they can. Who¡¯s actually willing to offend the supernaturals?

    ¡°Yet, somehow, word spreads that repeated induction of their mysterious powers will enhance one¡¯s chance of crossing over. What kind of result do you guys think these words lead to?¡±

    The group fell silent. What kind of result? Anyone who wasn¡¯t willing to live a mundane life would put their life on the line for this chance!

    It gave rise to struggles of life and death! When properly equipped with the proper methods, weapons, and brains, it was entirely possible that one could defy a supernatural. The team was the best example of that!

    And was such a phenomenon unique to Silver City?

    Most likely not!

    The Night Watchers had shared this information because they wanted to borrow the hand of those unwilling to flounder in monotony for the rest of their lives. Thetter was cannon fodder that also happened to reduce the organization¡¯s problems.

    ¡°The Night Watchers have got this all nned out! Tell me, where would we go if we really became supernatural?¡±

    ¡°To them!¡± Liu Yan smiled. Everyone nodded in agreement. They were part of the Inspectorate, what else would they join if not a sister organization?

    ¡°Damn, nice plotting.¡± Fatty took arge breath. ¡°They don¡¯t have to spend a single iota of mysterious energy and might gain new blood from other people¡¯s efforts. They can also get rid of some supernatural troublemakers!¡±

    Killing two birds with one stone!

    The Night Watchers only needed to reveal some information to ensure that any inspector who crossed over would join them. They were the legitimate, orthodox way. Few were those who would opt for the shadows after growing used to walking in the light.

    ¡°It¡¯s just an overt conspiracy,¡± Liu Long replied calmly. ¡°I don¡¯t know about others, but those who fail the recruitment drive will never be satisfied with beingmonce. We once set foot into their domain, but were kicked back. None of us ept that! People like us are the core strength of the various Inspectorate branches. We have power, authority, and sufficient confidence to fight for a chance!

    ¡°The Night Watchers don¡¯t need to pay any price to have us fight for them and can also choose whichever promising talents they want. So why not??¡±

    The rest of the team fully understood by now. Only some had grasped the implications prior to Liu Longying it out so clearly. Fatty, for instance, was more focused on the Night Watchers discovering that they were secretly harvesting mysterious energy. Everything was much more clear after the captain¡¯s exnation!

    ¡°Chief, will it be helpful for Li Hao to join us?¡± Fatty asked.

    ¡°It will!¡± Liu Long offered no exnation.

    The team sank into deep thought and asked no further. As for whether or not Li Hao would join, did that bear questioning?

    Of course he would!

    No one would turn down the chief¡¯s invitation after learning about the supernatural domain. Setting aside the one percent chance of sess with the Night Watchers, the key point was that Li Hao probably wasn¡¯t even qualified to enter the screening process.

    Many were those who knew about supernatural power in the vast Silver City, and they were all members of the upper echelon! They ardently wished that they, or their descendants, could be extraordinary. Li Hao barely stood a chance. Even if his teacher put in words for him, he most likely wouldn¡¯t even be considered for a candidate.

    As long as he understood how difficult that process was, he would also know that joining the enforcement team was the only option avable to him.

    ¡­¡­

    Nighttime was always charming. Li Hao maintained constant vignce as he walked home in silence. Zhang Yuan¡¯s house wasn¡¯t too far from his and he mused over many things along the way. Eventually, he decided to give his teacher a call.

    Ring ring ring¡­

    Themunicator quickly picked up. Yuan Shuo had likely waited all night long instead of going to sleep.

    ¡°Teacher!¡±

    ¡°Is everything taken care of?¡±

    ¡°Yes. Captain Liu Long arrived with his men. I¡¯m already on my way home.¡± Li Hao considered something before raising, ¡°Teacher, the captain says that I might be in danger. Whoever killed Little Yuan might being for me too.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± Yuan Shuo seemed to have already guessed it as he wasn¡¯t too phased. ¡°You will move to the Veteris Institute tomorrow morning. Not the dorms, but my ce, and don¡¯t go back out! Things will be fine after youy low for a year or two.¡±

    As easily as his teacher spoke, Li Hao could tell that Yuan Shuo was betting himself. He was betting that the Night Watchers wouldn¡¯t hang the esteemed professor out to dry.

    Unless the scarlet shadow¡¯s side was extremely strong, they wouldn¡¯t want to provoke the Night Watchers either. However, the young man knew that they wouldn¡¯t give up like this. Not to mention, he didn¡¯t want to hide for such a long period of time.

    ¡°Teacher, I¡¯d like to stay at the Inspectorate.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re as stubborn as a mule!¡± Yuan Shuo snapped. ¡°You know the dangers, but still want to stay. You¡¯re being foolish, not brave!¡±

    ¡°Teacher¡­ I want to join thew enforcement team! Captain Liu invited me tonight and says he can ensure my safety.¡±

    ¡°Thew enforcement team?¡±

    ¡°Yes, and he says that joining them might¡­ lead to another domain.¡±

    ¡°Hmph!¡± A derisive snort echoed from themunicator. ¡°So Liu Long still hasn¡¯t given up! Is it that easy? If it is, everyone would have magical powers! I know what he¡¯s doing and he does indeed possess perseverance and boldness.¡±

    After that approval, Yuan Shuo continued, ¡°But there¡¯s some things you don¡¯t understand. He must have painted a very simplistic picture for you. The reality is that one, killing those people is always a brush with death! Second, conducting the energy into yourself is ny percent safe with the Night Watchers. Even if you don¡¯t seed, at least you won¡¯t die. But Liu Long¡¯s method has a fifty percent casualty rate!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. Liu Long had indeed left this detail out.

    ¡°And do you think they¡¯re the only foolhardy ones on the enforcement team? Heh, Liu Long recruited dozens at first, but how many stand with him now? Some died over the course of their hunts, others died when they tried to absorb the energy.¡± Yuan Shuo sighed. ¡°If you really want to walk this path, perhaps I can put in a request for you and see¡­¡±

    The professor was hesitant at first, but quickly grew resolute. However, Li Hao could sense how difficult it would be for his teacher. This matter was far more than it seemed. He came to certain conclusions after thinking over what Liu Long had said about the Night Watchers never permitting his mentor to seed.

    ¡°That¡¯s alright, teacher, there¡¯s no need for that!¡±

    ¡°Very good.¡± Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t insist and dropped the subject. If Li Hao went, he might be part of the ten percent casualty rate! He himself was the ny percent that failed and lived, but the young man was only his student. It was highly likely that something would happen to him.

    He didn¡¯t want to say anything else after his thoughts traveled here.

    Li Hao was more at ease after confirming that his teacher knew what Liu Long and the others were attempting. ¡°Teacher, then I¡¯m going to join the enforcement team. I might not try that method, I just want revenge!¡±

    ¡°You and your temper¡­¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°Fine, fine, as you wish! Your personality is just like mine. Since you¡¯ve made up your mind, there is no reason to give up. Bute by when you have time. I can¡¯t help you, but I can tell you more about what you should expect. This isn¡¯t an easy path to walk!¡±

    The professor suddenly chuckled. ¡°It might be a good thing if you actually seed. Then we can undertake certain things together and not have to be at the whims of another. Some fellows want nothing more than for me to fail. Heh, I¡¯ll throw them away sooner orter!¡±

    Li Hao seemed to understand, but he didn¡¯t ask for further rification. If his teacher wanted to talk about it, he would exin in great detail. inly, he had some other reservations in consideration.

    That was it then, he would join thew enforcement team! Since his teacher didn¡¯t try to persuade him otherwise, it meant he understood certain things. Liu Long might have various schemes in y, but for the moment, Li Hao should be safe!

    ¡°Scarlet shadow¡­ mysterious powers¡­ I¡¯ming!¡±

    It¡¯s been a year, let me see what¡¯s so unfathomable and strong about you guys!

 Chapter 21: Demon Hunters (I)

    Chapter 21: Demon Hunters (I)

    Li Hao went to bed veryte that night. He exercised extreme caution even in sleep¡ªPanther was assigned to watch the door, the vortex gunid right next his hand. There was no room for concern about idental discharge; those driven to desperation would try anything.

    Thankfully, the night passed without incident.

    Perhaps they were also awaiting the arrival of the rains.

    ¡­¡­

    July 13, 1730.

    Yesterday¡¯s upheaval seemed but a dream. Openlight was as quiet as usual; no one paid attention tost night¡¯s disturbances from the street next door.

    Or perhaps some noticed, but didn¡¯t think much of it.

    Morning.

    Li Hao woke up, washed his face and brushed his teeth, boiled a cup of water and ced the jade sword inside.

    A few momentster when the water was cooler, he took a sip. A frown immediately creased his brows.

    ¡°There¡¯s less starry energy this time.¡± The frown deepened with thought. Compared to yesterday, the water today did seem to contain less starlight. ¡°It¡¯s not a problem if it¡¯s only a little less, the key thing is if this mysterious energy can be replenished¡­¡±

    That was what he was most concerned about. Did the jade sword¡¯s energye from previously formed reserves, or was a certain time interval required between each immersion? If it could recharge, then he had an unending cornucopia!

    As for the stone de, Li Hao didn¡¯t disturb it for now. He hadn¡¯t taken it outst night due to fear of being followed.

    Feeling the warm current circte through his body after drinking the water, Li Hao swiftly practiced the ape style. Even if it proved ineffective against the scarlet shadow, improving it was always a good thing. He wouldn¡¯t let this chance pass him by.

    He mused as he trained¡ªwas it better to steep the jade sword multiple times throughout the day, or just once a day? What was the difference between each brew?

    All of this required further experimentation.

    He darted adroitly around the room, jumping up and down like a monkey. This time, he practiced fewer times than the night before. Li Hao stopped after the third consecutive runthrough. Although he had stamina to spare, the starry energy outside his body was fully dispersed. This was why he stopped.

    What if the scarlet shadow or other supernaturals could also see this energy?

    If so, he was a walking billboard. He could already see that Liu Long and the others possessed a faint sheen over their bodies. There was nothing about that aspect of their abilities that they could hide from him.

    I¡¯ve met Liu Long before, but didn¡¯t discover anything untilst night¡­

    Was it his eyes that couldn¡¯t see Liu Long¡¯s glow before, or had the man changed recently? Or was the sword water the reason for his newfound vision?

    He knew far too little about his developing circumstances.

    ¡°The world of supernaturals!¡± Li Hao washed up again and changed into something much more refreshing.

    Panther¡¯s tail wagged eagerly when he poured the rest of the water into the dog¡¯s food bowl. It swiftly licked the bowl dry and looked at Li Hao for more. Meanwhile, the young man sucked in a sharp breath when he studied the little ck dog.

    ¡°Damn!¡± The starlight around the dog seemed to be denser than the light around Li Hao. Was this more diffusion and less absorption, or was it the other way around? Did the dog absorb so much that it caused starry overflow?

    Li Hao had no idea!

    He¡¯d rather think it was leakage from the dog being unable to absorb it all. Otherwise, the dog trounced him in every aspect when it came to mysterious powers!

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther seemed to be indicating for another cup.

    Li Hao rubbed its head with a smile. ¡°That¡¯s it! You can have some next time. I¡¯m going to work now, so watch over the house while I¡¯m gone. Keep an eye on anyone whoes. Remember their scent and follow them for a bit if you can, but don¡¯t go too far.¡±

    He was quite worried that someone would sneak into his home when he was gone. He wore the jade sword on him and there was nothing else valuable in the house. Granted, the stone de fromst night was also a treasure, but that wasn¡¯t at risk of being discovered. It was too bulky to be carried around, yet who would pay attention to a stone in the dog den beneath the staircase?

    There was a possibility that passersby would take it¡ªbut really, who would take a rock from a dog¡¯s hideout?

    Not even street sweepers would bother with Panth¡¯s bed unless they were bored out of their minds. In conclusion, nowhere was safer than the dog¡¯s den.

    Panther would know and locate it if it really did get lost. That was far better than keeping it on him. The jade sword was a pendant, so that was fine. But even the biggest idiot would know something was afoot if the young man carried a rock around.

    ¡°Arf!¡± Panth nodded.

    It really does understand! Dog¡¯s getting way smarter. Li Hao rose to his feet and walked downstairs.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao didn¡¯t need to say a word at his regr breakfast spot outside Openlight for the stall owner to hand him severalrge meat buns and a cup of soy milk. After dropping appropriate payment into the change box, the young man leisurely took his bike to the Inspectorate.

    The ck car from yesterday was unexpectedly absent. Who knew if it¡¯d given up the chase or resolved to act with more prudence after the events ofst night?

    Whatever it was, he didn¡¯t feel anyone following him all the way to work.

    ¡­¡­

    Silver City Inspectorate. Department of ssified Affairs.

    Li Hao was the first to arrive today. As per usual, people streamed in after he quickly cleaned themon areas and boiled some water. Since Chen Na was just as short-tenured as him, she came early as well.

    It was another zing hot day. The fashionable inspector was a bit sleepy this morning¡ªpossibly the result of a poor night¡¯s sleep. She yawned widely and grumbled when she saw Li Hao, ¡°Hey Li Hao, this isn¡¯t how we do things! Howe you didn¡¯t take me with you when you investigated a casest night?¡±

    ¡°You know about that?¡±

    ¡°No duh!¡± Chen Na yawned. ¡°Of course I do, thew enforcement team mobilizedst night!¡±

    She¡¯d naturally learned of what happened given the degree of disturbance. Chen Na swung her head back and forth to clear the cobwebs. ¡°Did you bump into the killer?¡±

    ¡°Nope.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°I just felt that someone was following me.¡±

    ¡°How exciting!¡± Curiosity seized Chen Na as she¡¯d never been part of a major case. ¡°Then the files you showed me before really were murders?¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head. ¡°More likely than not.¡±

    ¡°Then this is going to be a huge deed of distinction!¡± The young woman grew more animated. ¡°Li Hao, credit will go to you first if we ferret out the person behind it all. This case might promote you to a second rank inspector!¡±

    She was envious, but more so regretful that Li Hao could participate in a major case. Chen Na wasn¡¯t the type to like twiddling her thumbs on the sidelines.

    ¡°We don¡¯t even have any clues yet,¡± Li Hao replied nomittally.

    Chen Na thought for a bit, then whispered, ¡°Didn¡¯t we n on making a trip to my family home tomorrow? Are we still going? If we go, will we be followed? I say, if we catch the killer by working together, will I get to share the credit as well?¡±

    They¡¯d agreed yesterday to visit Chen Na¡¯s ancestral home and ask about the folk song. Unfortunately, unwanted and dangerous attention swiftly locked onto Li Hao¡ªeven the scarlet shadow had appeared! Therefore, he hesitated over their proposed course of action.

    He flicked a nce at his colleague and said, ¡°Forget it, we¡¯re not going anymore. It¡¯s too dangerous since we¡¯re both rookies. We shouldy low for a bit.¡±

    He didn¡¯t want to drag Chen Na into this; anything involving the supernatural field was too hazardous. As for the folk song, he was in no hurry to get to the bottom of that. There was much more rity on that situation now, he could look into it after the scarlet shadow was eliminated.

    ¡°Huh? We¡¯re not going anymore?¡± Chen Na¡¯s face fell, she really wanted to participate in a major case! ¡°C¡¯mon, Li Hao, let¡¯s go! What¡¯s there to be afraid of? We can tell thew enforcement team if you¡¯re that worried. Think about it, we can be bait and maybe get the killer!¡±

    There was obviously certain risk at y, but all they needed to do was to tell the enforcers, no?

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait and see!¡±

    More people filtered into the area as they conversed¡ªquite a few of them knew what¡¯d urredst night. Big sis Yu came in blustering, ¡°Now don¡¯t lose your marbles, Little Hao! Stay far away from dangerous cases like those. ssified Affairs is a ce of light workload, low danger, and high pay. Where else can you go to find such a good job? Be a goodd and stay in this department, don¡¯t get involved in the enforcement team¡¯s affairs!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, Little Hao, listen to your ole brother here as well. Don¡¯t stick your nose into these things. There¡¯s nothing in it for you, to say nothing of the danger.¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    The crowd was enormously concerned about one of their youngest and offered a string of warnings. Most were rusty with investigations after being stationed at ssified Affairs for such a long time. Likely no one was willing to take an opportunity to join the front lines.

    Li Hao neither refuted nor debated anyone. He kept nodding with a pleasant look on his face.

    Just look at him, so unfortunate as to be unwillingly dragged into all of this!

    ¡­¡­

    The group didn¡¯t stop until Wang Jie walked through the front doors.

    ¡°Li Hao, in my office!¡± The department head called out before heading in.

    Li Hao waited for a moment before following his supervisor.

    ¡­¡­

    Inside the office.

    Wang Jie carefully looked Li Hao over and smiled, pressing his hands down. ¡°Sit!¡±

    Li Hao gingerly sat down.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be so reserved,¡± Wang Jie chuckled. ¡°You won¡¯t have an easy time of things in the enforcement team if you¡¯re so uptight.¡±

    The young man raised his head.

    ¡°Thew enforcement team called mest night and said they want to transfer you over. Liu Long seldomly asks for people and he did it himself this time. I can¡¯t say how rare this is and it means that he ces a lot of importance on the request! Looks like you¡¯ve entered his line of sight because of the self-immtion cases, Li Hao! What do you think?¡±

    In all honesty, Wang Jie couldn¡¯t refuse. He also felt that Li Hao wouldn''t be able to refuse either. Of course, if the young man¡¯s teacher was as close to Li Hao as people said he was, then he would still be able to refuse if he really wanted to.

    Liu Long of thew enforcement team was much higher ranked than Wang Jie¡ªhe truly held the reins of power!

    Hence, Wang Jie wanted to hear Li Hao¡¯s thoughts about the matter.

    The young man thought for a bit and lowered his head. ¡°Sir, I want to go! ssified Affairs is great and I really like it here, but you know I joined the Inspectorate for one reason¡­ to get revenge for my friend!¡±

 Chapter 22: Demon Hunters (II)

    Chapter 22: Demon Hunters (II)

    ¡°Ai!¡± Wang Jie sighed. ¡°I understand, I¡¯ll be very sad to see you go. Even if you didn¡¯t leave, I was nning on making a report to see if I could get you a promotion. But I won¡¯t stop you since the self-immtion cases are first and foremost on your mind.

    ¡°But you must be careful¡ªLaw Enforcement is much more dangerous than ssified Affairs. They suffer casualties and fatalities every year, particrly with cases like self-immtion. Try for a desk job if you can, don¡¯t head to the frontlines. This matter is much moreplex than it seems! If the enforcement team can¡¯t handle it, it¡¯ll very likely arouse attention from higher up.¡±

    Li Hao nodded silently, forestalling further words from his superior. Wang Jie rather liked the young man, but since this was Li Hao¡¯s ultimate goal in joining the Inspectorate, there was nothing further he could say.

    ¡°Just let me know if you¡¯d like toe back afterwards. You¡¯re wee back anytime!¡±

    ¡°Thank you, sir!¡±

    Wang Jie smiled. ¡°No worries. Go report to the enforcement team first and see when the official transfer wille in. ssified Affairs needs to hold a farewell party for you!¡±

    ¡°Thank you, sir!¡± Li Hao repeated. Everyone in the department was very nice to him. Honestly, if the situation wasn¡¯t what it was, staying put would be a good choice.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao didn¡¯t tell his colleagues that he was being transferred out after he left the department head¡¯s office. He didn¡¯t pack anything either. After letting Chen Na know that he was stepping out for a bit, he headed for thew enforcement team¡¯s area.

    Law Enforcement and ssified Affairs were both located at Inspectorate headquarters, but they were in different buildings. ssified Affairs was ced behind the main lobby, whereas Law Enforcement was in the building next door. That entire building was Law Enforcement purview¡ªa much more extravagant affairpared to ssified Affairs.

    No one stopped the uniformed Li Hao when he entered the building. Law enforcement team members bustled in and out of their territory, each of them quite ferocious. Compared to them, Li Hao was too weak to be of note.

    Since no one questioned his presence, he headed upward to look for Liu Yan. As vice captain of the team, she had her own office. All of the offices were on the sixth floor.

    The young man made quick work of the stairs and found no one on the relevant floor. There were only empty hallways leading to senior offices with nametes emzoned on the walls. He looked around and quickly knocked on a particr door.

    ¡°Come in!¡± Liu Yan sounded much more aloof when shecked the coquettish lilt ofst night. Her voice immediately lightened when the young man pushed the door open. ¡°Aw, isn¡¯t it Little Hao. Looks like you didn¡¯t sleep wellst night and missed big sis this morning.¡±

    ¡°Good morning, Vice Captain Liu!¡± Unperturbed, Li Hao performed a circumspect salute. A beguiling figure held no allure for him, not to mention he was hardly in the mood given the danger that stalked him. Besides, this vice captain was absolutely not as simple as she seemed. She ran with Liu Long; Li Hao didn¡¯t want to make trouble for himself.

    ¡°Little Li Hao, what are you being so serious for?¡± Liu Yan dimpled delightfully, a stark contrast to the ramrod straight young man. He swept the office with a surreptitious gaze and quailed inwardly.

    The office was massive! It seemed to rival all of ssified Affairs and ran at least two hundred square meters long. But that wasn¡¯t the main point¡ªit was normal for Law Enforcement to have more impressive amodations. What was unusual were the weapons of mass scale destruction that Li Hao glimpsed scattered around.

    What was a third gen vortex gun worth? The pistol wasplete trash in a ce like this!

    A Galewind One!

    Li Hao had heard of this model and make before. It was a devastating submachine gun that could load three hundred rounds at the same time for repeated fire.

    There¡¯s a fourth gen Hawkeye!

    The most advanced sniper rifle there was, its effective firing range was five hundred meters with an evenrger reported maximum range.

    And a second gen Armorpiercer!

    Those were rumored to punch straight through iron and steel.

    ¡­¡­

    How is this an office, this is a private arsenal! Li Hao was at aplete loss for words.

    Liu Yan¡¯s smile deepened when she saw the changes in Li Hao¡¯s expression. ¡°Don¡¯t be startled, little Li Hao. These are just models. I keep them around for fun, they¡¯re not real!¡±

    ¡­do you take me for a fool?

    Models?? The sheen of metal and the glint of light reflecting off of them¡­ these are models?? Do you think I¡¯m blind?!

    Thew enforcement team was really something! Liu Yan was openly disying incredibly dangerous weapons in her office.

    ¡°Really, they¡¯re just toys!¡± Liu Yan chuckled and suddenly threw a ck grenade at Li Hao. ¡°y with it, nothing¡¯s going to happen!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s pupils constricted violently as he hastily caught the projectile. Sweat beaded his forehead. Holy fuck! This isn¡¯t going to explode, is it?

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± A merry Liu Yan walked over and casually yanked the pin out of the grenade. ¡°See, the pin was still in! Nothing would¡¯ve happened.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s scalp went numb with horror. Are you crazy?! She¡¯d yanked out the pin! He wanted to run screaming out of the office. Thankfully, Liu Yanughed and quickly took the grenade, tossing it out the window.

    ¡°Really, everything¡¯s fine, it¡¯s all fake!¡±

    KABOOM!

    The room shook from the explosion and color drained from Li Hao¡¯s face. Fake? This woman¡¯s crazy! You threw a grenade outside and might¡¯ve blown something up. How¡¯s everything fine??

    In the meantime, Liu Yan kept her eyes trained on the young man¡¯s face and stopped smiling when she saw his pale countenance. ¡°Little Li Hao, this won¡¯t do.¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s all it takes to scare you?¡± Liu Yan returned to her seat and propped her feet up on her desk,pletely disregarding what image she should present. ¡°Supernaturals are so much more than that,¡± she drawled. ¡°Some of them can manifest tiny fireballs more potent than that toy. You¡¯ll die in a moment of carelessness. You¡¯re so timid and afraid of even grenades. How are you to join us?¡±

    Li Hao frowned, then quickly rxed his brow. ¡°I don¡¯t know about any of this! I¡¯m just an ordinary person and may not encounter those people even if I truly join thew enforcement team. I should be afraid, vice captain. Maybe I¡¯ll get used to it after a few more times.¡±

    ¡°Oh yeah?¡± Liu Yan grinned. ¡°You¡¯re as timid as a mouse and not at all like the chief described. He says you¡¯re as bold as a lion! I actually think you¡¯re not short on courage either. If you were, you wouldn¡¯t continue investigating the self-immtion cases after realizing they¡¯re more than what meets the eye.¡±

    ¡°Some things just need to be done.¡± Li Hao recovered his calm. ¡°We must head to the mountains even though we know there are tigers around! Just like you and the others, vice captain, you know that the supernaturals aren¡¯t a people to provoke, but you do so anyways. I think that everyone carries a certain degree of fear with them, it¡¯s just that some things must be undertaken no matter what!¡±

    ¡°Agreed.¡± Liu Yan nodded with full approval. ¡°Well said. No one¡¯s without fear. I¡¯m afraid, the chief is also afraid. But being afraid doesn¡¯t mean we give up!¡± She looked at the young man. ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll be of much help, but since the chief has spoken, I wee you to Law Enforcement. That¡¯s not important¡ªwhat¡¯s much more important is wee to the Demon Hunters!¡±

    Demon Hunters!

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. Was this what the small group called themselves? He reached out to shake the vice captain¡¯s outstretched hand and didn¡¯t understand why Liu Yan suddenly tightened her wrist. She grabbed Li Hao¡¯s right hand, twisted it around, and mmed him to the ground over her shoulder before he could react!

    The young man bounced back up, his training of three years kicking in. Clenching his teeth against the pain, he immediately jumped out of Liu Yan¡¯s attack range.

    The woman watched him quietly instead of following up, assessing his response with some admiration. ¡°Not bad! Your vignce is just subpar and your skills average, but your responsiveness passes muster. This is the ape style from the New Book of Five Styles, isn¡¯t it? Your practice shows!¡±

    Li Hao regarded her warily instead of responding. The woman looked delicate, but her hands had been like steel earlier! He could tell without checking that his arm was swollen after she grabbed it!

    Her strength was incredible, it¡¯d felt like bands of iron had constricted him!

    ¡°Just testing your skills, don¡¯t be rmed!¡± Liu Yan giggled flirtatiously, a world of pleasure promised in her gaze. She was back to her usual state, yet Li Hao no longer dared take her lightly!

    ¡°It¡¯s good that you have the basics of the Five Styles. The ape style is not ideal for attack, but it¡¯s suited for escape. I think ordinary supernaturals won¡¯t be able to catch up to you if you reach the height of your teacher¡¯s mastery!¡±

    A new thought urred to Li Hao. ¡°Does Vice Captain Liu mean¡­ that my teacher knows the ape style well?¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Liu Yan blinked, bursting into boisterous titters. ¡°Who wrote the New Book of Five Styles? Elder Yuan! You¡¯re asking if the creator of the New Book of Five Styles is good with them?¡±

    Her peals of mirth continued for a while before suddenly stopping. ¡°He¡¯s very, very strong! While your teacher isn¡¯t a supernatural, he was an ultimate powerhouse in the mundane field before supernatural power appeared! He didn¡¯t make the crossover when the mysterious energy came¡­ ai!¡±

    Who knew if that sigh was for Yuan Shuo or herself? So what if one was immensely skilled in the mundane arts? The greatest expert could not withstand a single fireball, streak of de light, or bolt of lightning from a supernatural.

    That was what made everything so tragic!

    But Liu Yan quickly returned to her senses and solemnity. She strode outside. ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go find the chief and introduce our operations to you. You should know what your duties are and gain an understanding of the enemy and yourself. I don¡¯t expect anything out of you, just don¡¯t drag us down!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart started racing. Magical abilities! Perhaps he¡¯d learn more about the supernaturals from Liu Long. This might be where he marked his first step into that field himself. If this group dared hunt them down, that meant they understood their quarry well. This was also why he wanted to join the enforcement team. Only when he knew his enemy could he better manage the scarlet shadow.

 Chapter 23: I Feel Like Iâ€™m Really Strong! (I)

    Chapter 23: I Feel Like I¡¯m Really Strong! (I)

    Liu Yan didn¡¯t take Li Hao to Liu Long¡¯s office. Instead, she turned left and right and up and down through the hallways until they entered the basement. They were in a part of the basement that no one else could enter.

    It was a big space as Li Hao found a slight echo when he walked through the door, but it was very quiet.

    Almost eerily quiet.

    A ce that could make one¡¯s hair raise in the Law Enforcement building was certainly a very unique ce. Large quantities of training equipment greeted the eye while vast amounts of weaponry adorned the walls¡ªmuch like Liu Yan¡¯s office. There were hot weapons and cold weapons, with everything one could want from de, spear, sword, to polearm.

    Li Hao¡¯s scalp went numb when he saw a decently sized miniature fire cannon by the door. My gosh, how many weapons have these people stockpiled??

    Such was the innate advantage of thew enforcement team. It didn¡¯t matter if someone found this ce¡ªLiu Long was the captain of the enforcement team and the boss of Silver City¡¯s Agency of Brute Force. If he said these weapons were meant for taking down suspects, no one would gainsay him otherwise.

    And if it was Li Hao hoarding so many weapons, he would¡¯ve been rounded up and executed a long time ago.

    A tiny passageway on the other side of the fitness equipment and weaponry seemed to lead elsewhere. Liu Yan did not take Li Hao there. She walked into the fitness area and called out, ¡°Chief, I brought him!¡±

    Several figures walked out of the shadowy depths. The towering and muscr Liu Long, Wu Chao thin as a rail, a man that shook the floor with every step, and a diminutive young woman with a friendly look on her face.

    When Liu Yan was added to the mix, that made for five total. Such were the Demon Hunters of thew enforcement team.

    Despite the hot season, Liu Long was dressed in his customary trench coat. Part of the reason for that was to conceal the myriad of weapons on him¡ªanyone would find it suspicious if he openly carried all of them.

    ¡°Liu Long!¡± The deputy chief strode over, aloof as ever. He introduced himself once more, ¡°Captain of the Demon Hunters and in charge of frontal assaults!¡±

    ¡°Wu Chao.¡± The scrawny man smiled nonchntly. ¡°Scout for the Demon Hunters, in charge of gathering intelligence and drawing fire!¡±

    ¡°Chen Jian,¡± slowly rumbled fatty of startling mass. ¡°Rear guard for the Demon Hunters and in charge of defense!¡±

    The petite woman spoke with a gentle voice. ¡°Yun Yao, doctor for the Demon Hunters and in charge of looking after everyone.¡±

    The four had distinct positions and abilities¡ªtheir responsibilities were clear! As tiny as the team was, it possessed all the parts that it should have. Li Hao flicked a nce at Liu Yan, what did she do?

    Liu Yan smiled winsomely and tittered when she noticed the young man¡¯s attention. ¡°What are you looking at? Liu Yan, vice captain of the Demon Hunters and secondary offense! Chief is the primary attacker and I follow up!¡±

    Ah, I see.

    ¡°We are the fullplement of the Demon Hunters!¡± Liu Long looked calmly at Li Hao. ¡°There used to be more of us, now there are quite a few less. We are all that remains¡ªa primary and secondary attacker, one doctor, one defender, and one scout. Li Hao, are you willing to join us?¡±

    The young man nodded.

    The chief¡¯s gaze deepened with meaning. ¡°Li Hao, do you know why we¡¯re called the Demon Hunters?¡±

    Li Hao remained silent.

    ¡°Because we are justice!¡±

    Justice? Li Hao blinked rapidly at the small contingent in front of him. You¡­ are justice?

    ¡°Yes, we are justice!¡± Though Liu Long¡¯s tone remained dispassionate, it carried the unquestionable ring of conviction. ¡°Perhaps we have our individual goals and thoughts, but don¡¯t forget that we are thew enforcement team of the Inspectorate! We are an agency that administers the rules and regtions¡ªwe dispense justice and protect Silver City!

    ¡°Everything we do is to safeguard and strengthen ourselves so that we can maintain peace! The demons we hunt are fiends of ughter with blood on their hands!

    ¡°The first task you have after joining us is to forget about everything else. Remember one thing only¡ªwe are justice! Supernaturals whomit crimes are demons. Those that the Night Watchers cannot take care of are left to us. We are in charge of clearing out the filth!¡±

    Liu Long infused Li Hao with their mission statement the moment the young man joined the Demon Hunters. Such were their guidelines and precepts!

    It would be exceedingly dangerous for the team to be focused on a bevy of personal schemes, no matter how small the group, because their enemy wasrger than life. Thus, the team¡¯s handful of members had their own faith that they adhered to¡ªupholding justice!

    Whether true or not, they firmly believed that they were on the side of good and exorcised demons from Silver City.

    ¡°Justice¡­¡± Li Hao murmured.

    ¡°Correct, justice!¡± Liu Long dered solemnly. ¡°Remember this, Li Hao! The Demon Hunters are the guardian angels of Silver City! Who knows what horrors would be visited upon our home without us! It would be a yground for the supernaturals, a garden for them to take whatever they wish!

    ¡°Of course, you may not believe me or fully trust what I say. In that case, all you need to do is travel out of the city and visit the hundreds or thousands of cities elsewhere in the world. Apart from the central portion, all other regions have long dissolved into chaos. Turbulent times are upon us and human lives arepletely worthless like ants!

    ¡°Just one supernatural can gue a city and only Silver City has remained at peace all these years. While we have our fair share of disturbances, tranquility has reigned overall. In the five years that the Demon Hunters have operated, we have killed one supernatural a year. Each of our hunts have saved our home!¡±

    Liu Yan hugged her shoulders next to Li Hao. She chuckled merrily. ¡°The chief speaks truly. Although he likes to talk big, none of what he says is false. We all had our own motives in joining the Demon Hunters and may not have wanted to protect anyone, but the truth of the matter is, Silver City is at peace because of us!¡±

    Li Hao mulled over their words; perhaps Liu Long wasn¡¯t wrong. While they killed supernaturals because they wanted to be magical themselves, they really did eliminate some criminals ready to sink the city into terror.

    Was it an anarchic world out there?

    The young man didn¡¯t know because he¡¯d almost never left Silver City. He¡¯d only visited a neighboring city once in his life, and that was many, many years ago.

    ¡°Li Hao, this is your first lesson after joining the team!¡± Liu Long¡¯s voice sharpened with foreboding. ¡°Do not think that we are specters who skulk around in the shadows, we arew enforcers! We are envoys that uphold and dispense justice! Therefore, all those whomit crimes are demons in our eyes. The quarry that we Demon Hunters pursue are those demons!¡±

    Something within Li Hao abruptly eased when he heard this conclusion. Regardless of the slightly vain perspective and somewhat self persuasion, it was very¡­forting to hear the deputy chief say that the team was stillw enforcement. They were justice!

    It was strangely heartening to hear this!

    We are not unsavory characters that creep insidiously in the gloom. We are protectors of the entire city! Even if that may not have been the team¡¯s original goal, that was the reality that their actions led to.

    A real expert! This was Li Hao¡¯s conclusion of Liu Long in this moment. The man was a true expert whether in terms of strength or mentality. He was immensely skilled in guiding thoughts down his proper path. Thanks to him, every member of the Demon Hunters firmly believed that they were on the side of good and never entertained the possibility of a guilty conscience.

    When they killed supernaturals, all they felt was a sense of aplishment. They protected the people, safeguarded justice, and secured the city. This kind of psychological contentment was a feat out of reach for ordinary leadership, but Liu Long had attained notable triumphs in this area.

    In this moment, Li Hao felt that it might not be a bad thing to join the Demon Hunters.

    This was when Liu Long rumbled, ¡°Li Hao, introduce yourself!¡±

    The young man thought for a bit. ¡°My name is Li Hao and I was an inspector at the Department of ssified Affairs. Before that, I withdrew from my studies at the Veteris Institute! I have higher agility due to being skilled in the ape style of the New Book of Five Styles.¡±

    ¡°...that¡¯s it?¡± Liu Long bestowed a withering look on him.

    ¡°That¡¯s¡­ it.¡±

    ¡°You became Yuan Shuo¡¯s final disciple with just that?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s all thanks to teacher being gracious to me,¡± Li Hao answered awkwardly.

    ¡°Li Hao, we do not give up on team members in moments of danger, even if youck sufficient value. However, that also means we will not risk our lives to save you! But if you are valuable enough, we would be willing to sacrifice ourselves so that you may live and our faith endure!¡±

    Li Hao contemted for a moment before adding on, ¡°I¡¯m also versed in paleography¡ªanalyzing ancient writing is an important segment of exploring ancient civilizations. My memory is very good, this is also one of my strong suits.¡±

    The group looked at each other with strange looks. Paleography? Was that useful?

    Very!

    Extremely useful!

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s status was so high because he was the department chair of Ancient Civilizations. His identity wasn¡¯t key¡ªthe key was that he was a veteran expert of ancient civilizations and had studied them in great depth.

    Even the Night Watchers depended on him enormously, but they didn¡¯t dare let him be supernatural himself. Many troubles would arise once the eminent professor himself possessed extraordinary powers.

    Some things were useless to ordinary people, but very potent for supernaturals. Most supernaturals, however,cked sufficient knowledge and deductive abilities to identify what was useful to them.

    Yuan Shuo could easily aplish that task!

    A mundane Yuan Shuo dared not misappropriate his findings, but a supernatural Yuan Shuo might grow out of control. He could very possibly keep some findings for himself and do so with none the wiser.

    Therefore, Liu Long lit up at Li Hao¡¯s self-introduction!

    ¡°How much of Yuan Shuo¡¯s skill have you learned?¡±

    ¡°You think too highly of me, chief,¡± Li Hao replied humbly. ¡°Teacher¡¯s wisdom is as vast as the seas. I have drawn upon but one drop of it.¡±

    ¡°Talk like a human being!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao rambled with resignation, ¡°I followed by teacher¡¯s side for just two years and spent most of it studying. I never participated in any concrete practice. Teacher knows so much and I only specialized in analyzing ancient writing. I¡¯m far beneath teacher in all other aspects¡ªbreaking traps, preserving artifacts, feng shui, ancient cultures and society¡­¡±

    The young man waxed eloquent and was quite amazed by the heights that his teacher had reached. ¡°I¡¯ve busied myself with other things after leaving school and haven¡¯t had time to study further. I am so far behind teacher that I only see the dust as he rides on ahead!¡±

    ¡°You are well enough!¡± Liu Long rumbled. ¡°Yuan Shuo wanting to take you under his wing is already a sign of your potential and skills!¡±

    Analyzing ancient writing¡­

    The team captain changed the topic. ¡°Very well, from today forth, you are the Demon Hunters¡¯ analyst and¡­ bait!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    Silence reigned. Was bait also a job title?

    Wu Chao snickered off to the side¡ªan eerie and somewhat sinisterugh.

    ¡°Looks like I¡¯m finally free, little guy! I¡¯ve been bait since ourst one died and been stressing about dying myself. It looks like I finally have a sessor!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know what to say, despite Liu Long being very clear before he arrived¡ªthe young man¡¯s role in the team would be bait. This was just an official deration.

    Liu Long looked at Li Hao with a faint frown. ¡°I mean for you to be bait, not to send you to your death! Your body doesn¡¯t seem to amount to much and you won¡¯t have great skill under your belt despite knowing the ape style. You haven¡¯t had enough time with it!¡±

    The man strode toward the exercise equipment. ¡°Come, let us test your abilities! I need a gauge of where you are to know how to train you. I¡¯d also like to see if you have what it takes to escape from the supernaturals.¡±

    A test?

 Chapter 24: I Feel Like Iâ€™m Really Strong! (II)

    Chapter 24: I Feel Like I¡¯m Really Strong! (II)

    Li Hao followed without a word. The others gathered out of curiosity as well. Liu Yan¡¯s mouth was almost glued to the young man¡¯s ears as she whispered, ¡°Show us everything you¡¯ve got, don¡¯t hold back! You¡¯re so weak that it¡¯s pointless to hide anything. Pretending to be weaker than you are will only decrease what you gain from this. Chief still has some nice treasures on hand!¡±

    Instead of responding, the only thing that Li Hao sought to do was to avert his ear from the woman¡¯s mouth. Don¡¯t blow air at me, it¡¯s dang ufortable.

    ¡°Hehehe¡­¡± Liu Yan smiled happily. Liu Long ignored their antics; it was the other female member who chuckled softly.

    ¡°Sis Yan, stop teasing him.¡±

    ¡°Who¡¯s teasing him?¡± Liu Yan tittered delightfully. ¡°Little Hao is so easy on the eyes¡ªjust look at our team of raggedy misfits! This one¡¯s skinny as a stick of bamboo, that one¡¯s fat as a wall. Chief is decent enough, but he¡¯s old and his skin is so leathery. He doesn¡¯t take care of himself at all! Little Hao¡¯s the best!¡±

    The other three men¡¯s footsteps hitched, but no one said anything. For some reason, Li Hao felt that he¡¯d innocently offended three people at once.

    I didn¡¯t say any of that, Liu Yan did. Don¡¯t assign the me to me!

    They reached the fitness area, a zone replete with any equipment that one could think of.

    Liu Long¡¯s tone remained the same as earlier, despite what¡¯d just happened. ¡°Humanity already possessed powerful cultivators before the supernatural domain was on the scene. Your teacher, for example,mands tremendous battle strength because he¡¯s practiced the Five Styles to their utmost!

    ¡°The previous inspector general trained his Iron Shirt to great perfection. Regr des could not pierce him and even guns left only external marks.

    ¡°These people are representative of those in the mundane field who have trained an art to its maximum. Before there were supernatural powers, we called these people martial masters! The greatest masters and grandmasters could withstand hot weapons with nothing but their bodies!¡±

    Martial masters!

    Li Hao listened intently¡ªthis was all new to him.

    ¡°There are weak and strong among the martial masters. Strength is often not the deciding factor. Some specialize in speed, others in defense, some are adept with force¡­

    ¡°Everyone has their own strengths and thus cannot be jumbled into one category. Those who are agile might kill those who are strong yet slow. Those who are strong might also kill a swift martial master with one blow.

    ¡°Martial masters always have one particr ability that sets them apart from ordinary people. That is what gives them their name! Strength and speed are the most direct manifestations. Ones rted to defense, like Chen Jian, do not show themselves until moments of life or death. Thus, it is difficult to measure just how strong he is.¡±

    Li Hao nodded again, that made sense! He looked at Liu Long with curiosity. ¡°So the chief means that it¡¯s difficult to determine weak and strong among martial masters? Which means¡­ they¡¯re all simr¡­?¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao fell silent. Isn¡¯t that what you just said?

    Liu Long turned to the young man. ¡°Don¡¯t think too much¡ªstrong is strong, weak is weak! Martial masters had their own categorization a decade or so ago, there just weren¡¯t that many of them. yer of Tens, Sunderer of Hundreds, Dominator of Thousands! Those are the martial masters!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. This naming scheme¡­ was so literal! It¡¯s too simplistic, isn¡¯t it?

    ¡°Their meanings are readily apparent, aren¡¯t they?¡± Liu Long seemed to know what the young man was thinking. ¡°Indeed, it¡¯s just that direct and straightforward! Everyone here possesses the capabilities of a soldier in a proper army. The lowest requirement for those hailed as martial masters is to kill a troop of ten head-on. That is the threshold for yer of Tens!

    ¡°Further up is Sunderer of Hundreds, a level far more difficult than you can imagine. If you can defeat a troop of one hundred soldiers with one blow, you¡¯ll be that level of powerhouse!

    ¡°As for Dominator of Thousands¡­¡± Liu Long took a deep breath. ¡°That¡¯s theoretical. In reality, no matter how strong a mortal is, they face nothing but death if they meet with a contingent that is one thousand strong. That holds true even if there are no hot weapons deployed.

    ¡°Your strength and stamina will be readily exhausted in battle and there are limits to the strongest among us. It¡¯s impossible to be a Dominator of Thousands!

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t until supernatural abilities appeared that some supernaturals truly are this level in deed and name.¡±

    Li Hao started and raised a question. ¡°So based on what the chief says, if powerful supernaturals are on that level, the weaker ones are only yer of Tens and Sunderer of Hundreds?¡±

    ¡°Only?¡± Liu Long looked at him with some derision. ¡°You¡¯ll know when you actually meet them in battle! A Sunderer can defeat one hundred by themselves! Their speed and strength are unparalleled, not to mention the special talents that a supernatural also possesses. A martial master who is a Sunderer will only manage a close escape if they meet their supernatural counterpart! Do you think that¡¯s weak?¡±

    Li Hao remained quiet. A Sunderer of Hundreds¡­ That didn¡¯t seem impressive, but if faced with a contingent of one hundred ferocious soldiers, he¡¯d probably be beaten to death as soon as he barged in.

    The young man was suddenly very curious about Liu Long¡¯s strength.

    ¡°Is chief a Sunderer?¡±

    Liu Long remained coolly aloof, it was Liu Yan who answered with a smile. ¡°You can say that, he can be barely counted among them. How does he lead us against the supernaturals if he¡¯s not strong himself? They¡¯re very powerful. Even the weakest among them is a Sunderer of Hundreds or worse to fight!¡±

    It was Li Hao¡¯s first time clearly understanding how strong this team captain was. Of course, it was still a theoretical understanding since he didn¡¯t know what these cultivation levels really entailed. A Sunderer? Cool name, still doesn¡¯t sound all that scary.

    ¡°What about my teacher?¡±

    ¡°Your teacher was a Sunderer in his prime, but he has declined in his age. His stamina and speed have all decreased, so he¡¯s probably no longer at that level.¡± Liu Long shook his head. ¡°A portion of premier martial masters reached this level back in the day, but with the proliferation of hot weapons and supernaturals, everyone¡¯s shifted attention to the ult. Very few are those who are willing to put in effort to practice mundane martial arts!

    ¡°Inducting mysterious power into oneself sends us to the heavens with one step. The body is strengthened and abilities heightened. Ordinary people can be a yer of Tens after a single day, then a Sunderer grandmaster after a certain period of time! Who¡¯s willing to toil through the ancient martial arts given that?¡±

    Liu Long sighed when he looked at Li Hao. ¡°The supernatural field goes beyond the limits of the human body. It enables humans to be more than who we are and infinitely raises our maximum potential. A wooden barrel with the tiniest bit of water in it still holds more than a wine ss. The mundane martial masters are the wine ss, and the supernatural that barrel. Do you understand?¡±

    The young man nodded to indicate hisprehension. It was so clear that it inspired despair!

    Mundane martial masters would never advance beyond their upper limits if they couldn¡¯t conduct mysterious power into themselves, even if they trained for their entire lives. Years ofbor still ced them below a newly initiated supernatural. How hopeless was this?

    Take Yuan Shuo, for instance, a disciple since youth and now more than seventy years old. He was once a leader in the world of martial masters, but now possibly only had the strength of a yer of Tens.

    This kind of capability made one only a novice when it came to the supernatural!

    A grandmaster of more than seventy years could onlypete with some young rookies. No wonder the professor said that the Five Styles were just another trick to save one¡¯s life, that it was more a fitness routine than anything. He never said that it was a method to kill because reality was too disheartening!

    Having finished his introduction, Liu Long changed tack. ¡°Go try things out. We want to observe your speed, strength, and capabilities.¡±

    Li Hao said nothing further and fully understood that there was no need to hide anything. His bit of proficiency with the ape style was truly nothing to this group. Thus, heunched himself into the fitness area, jumping, tumbling, and swinging like an ape. He delivered the asional punch to the sandbags ced around the premises.

    ¡­¡­

    Outside the fitness area.

    Liu Long watched quietly. The skinny Wu Chao shook his head after looking on for a bit. ¡°He¡¯s stronger than the average person and not that far off from some of our older inspectors. But¡­ chief, will he be able to evade retaliation from supernaturals?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s definitely not a yer of Tens,¡± the portly Chen Jian said in muffled tones. ¡°Two or three at most! This is the first time the Demon Hunters have recruited such a weak guy, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s abilities might prove useful if he ran into two or three soldiers; he might even take out his opponents. But there was more than a tenfold difference between two and ten. In their eyes, the young man was much too weak.

    Liu Yan crossed her arms and watched merrily. ¡°He¡¯s pleasing to the eyes, he can be our mascot! He can do support work and analyze the information we gather. He¡¯s suited for a civil post, unlike you bumbling brutes!¡±

    They should¡¯ve had someone like Li Hao long ago, so Liu Yan didn¡¯t think there was anything wrong with their newest member.

    On second thought, the rest of the group found that she made a lot of sense.

    ¡°Are yers that big a deal against hot weapons?¡± Liu Yan continued. ¡°They¡¯re dead all the same after a st! Of course, if we go up to Sunderers, they¡¯ll be hard to deal with whether they¡¯re martial masters or supernaturals.¡±

    The main sticking point at that level was locking on to the target. One¡¯s eyes would see the enemy, the brain would give themand, but the enemy would then appear in front of you and smack you to death with one palm strike. Even the most powerful weapons were useless then.

    Hot weapons were devastatingly useful only against opponents weaker than a Sunderer of Hundreds. Granted, it was still possible to kill a Sunderer with one if they were otherwise preupied.

    ¡°He must carry a hot weapon.¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°Choose some for him that are light and easy to use. His brains are what matter, not his abilities. It¡¯ll be easy enough to strengthen his body and speed if we can get him some mysterious power, even if he doesn¡¯t cross over to bing supernatural.¡±

    The team captain chuckled lowly. ¡°The key thing is, he¡¯s noting here solely for a civil post. He¡¯s an expert in ancient writing! Although he¡¯s certainly not up to Yuan Shuo¡¯s standard, he¡¯s useful enough for our purposes.¡±

    The rest of the team nodded thoughtfully, that was true enough. Li Hao was useful in many ways, so it rather seemed like a good idea that he be part of the team.

    ¡­¡­

    Busy jumping around from post to post, Li Hao felt that he was in great condition. At the very least, he was much stronger than before. He huffed and puffed his way out of the fitness area and asked with some expectation, ¡°Chief, what do you think? Is there a difference between me and a yer of Tens? Can I count as one of them?¡±

    He could totally take on ten people by himself!

    Meanwhile, Liu Long paused with awkwardness and didn¡¯t know what to say. Where did this kid get his confidence from? How was this a disy from a yer?

    The rest of the team also looked at each other. Self awareness was a rare thing alright! A yer of Tens? Keep dreaming!

    The silence stretched on until Li Hao felt that something was wrong. ¡°A¡­ yer of Nine?¡± he asked hesitantly.

    Ringing silence answered him.

    ¡°Five?¡±

    Still silence.

    Li Hao¡¯s expression slowly shifted. No way! I feel like I¡¯m really strong after drinking the sword water. I can even spar with teacher! I can¡¯t be that far off if teacher is a Sunderer? Teacher can only manage five rounds of the ape style for a dozen minutes. I can do nine minutes now!

    Liu Long finally broke the prolonged silence. ¡°Don¡¯t think too muchziness is what you should fear, not weakness. Work hard and you¡¯ll find that a yer of Tens isn¡¯t much of anything either.¡±

    ¡­silence stretched on again, but Li Hao understood. The hell, I¡¯m not even a yer of Five? And he wanted to kill the scarlet shadow¡­ Man, ignorance really was bliss and courage!

 Chapter 25: The Supernatural Field (I)

    Chapter 25: The Supernatural Field (I)

    ¡°Are yers of Tens really that strong?¡± Li Hao asked incredulously in the basement of Law Enforcement. Ten? That really didn¡¯t sound like much. It wasn¡¯t such an incredible feat as, to his knowledge, some of the older inspectors could also fight ten at the same time.

    ¡°Really that strong?¡± Liu Long replied with aloof pride. ¡°They¡¯re incredibly weak to me, but for you, a yer can kill several of you without breaking a sweat!¡±

    The petite Yun Yao interjected softly, ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate a martial master despite what you¡¯ve heard, Li Hao! One who is a yer of Tens can kill an entire contingent of ten soldiers in a single second. It¡¯s not sessive one-on-one fights against ten people¡ªthat¡¯s an entirely different concept.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no point in saying this much to him,¡± Liu Long remarked. ¡°Chen Jian, teach him what it means to be a martial master.¡±

    ¡°Me?¡± the fatty answered slowly. ¡°I¡¯m not skilled at offense and I¡¯m really slow. The kid¡¯s speed is up to par.¡±

    Their strengthsy in different areas. Li Hao was a bit faster than him whereas he was more adept at defense.

    ¡°Give it a try!¡± Liu Long furrowed his brows. ¡°Just take him through his paces. It¡¯s good that you¡¯re more practiced at defense, this means you won¡¯t identally kill him!¡±

    Fine then! Li Hao was a bit saddened by the exchange. They were sending a shield to test him because they were afraid of identally smacking him to death. All the same, it was rather exciting.

    Men usually nursed a slightpetitive streak and they typically sought to be number one. While the young man didn¡¯t know how strong Chen Jian was, the fatty was such a lumbering heft that Li Hao could at the very least run from the fatty, no?

    A simple and honest smile spread across Chen Jian¡¯s face as he nced at the eager Li Hao. ¡°Shall we go for a round or two?¡± he quickly added, ¡°I¡¯m the weakest in our team and not good for anything other than defense! You¡¯re pretty quick since you know the ape style. I may not be able to catch up to you¡­¡±

    Li Hao nced at him. It was one thing if he hadn¡¯t said anything, but now that he had¡­ It worried Li Hao more instead. Was this fatty a secret expert?

    ¡°Chen Jian is the weakest on the team in terms of speed, attacks, and ability to prate the enemy¡¯s defenses,¡± Liu Long said impatiently. ¡°If you don¡¯t want to fight him, we¡¯ll send Wu Chao instead!¡±

    Li Hao quickly shook his head when he looked at the man. Nah!

    Skinny over there was obviously agile and nimble. Being the team¡¯s scout, he was unquestionably sharp-witted. Li Hao knew the limits of his abilities well¡ªhe might not even get to touch the guy.

    ¡°Then here Ie!¡± Chen Jian took a slow step forward.

    Li Hao settled into the opening stance of the ape style without another word, jumping upward and back without thought when his opponent¡¯srge fleshy hand swung at him. This guy¡¯s palm didn¡¯t seem like it¡¯dnd lightly.

    When he saw the young man leap upward, Chen Jian subconsciously shifted slightly to the right. The unhurried adjustment drew a change in expression from Li Hao. That was where he nned tond! Not the direction he was jumping backward in!

    He quickly flung himself further upward, kicking out wildly sans all grace or elegance. There wasn¡¯t much beauty in real martial arts to speak of. The ape style was already one of the better Five Styles. Some of the others looked downright foolish as the practitioner had to sprawl on the ground and propel themselves with their four limbs. Honestly, there was no other way to describe it but ugly.

    Chen Jian shed a simple grin, as if having anticipated Li Hao¡¯s reaction. It didn¡¯t stem from a fast reaction speed or strength, but purely from experience! One would die very quickly if one didn¡¯t gain any experience from fighting supernaturals.

    Li Hao iled around wildly, making use of air resistance to adjust his position. Meanwhile, Chen Jian took two casual steps. When Li Hao descended because he could stay aloft no longer, he happened tond less than a meter in front of his opponent.

    They were nearly face to face!

    The second the young man felt solid ground beneath his feet, he wanted to push off again. However, a massive hand loomed in the corner of his eyes¡ªthe p from the very beginning.

    Smack!

    A crisp impact!

    Li Hao somersaulted through the air and crashed to the ground. Chen Jian had hit his neck instead of his face¡ªthere was a bright red handprint on it. The young man had the wind knocked out of him, it felt like his neck was broken!

    His mind a groggy mess, Li Hao couldn¡¯t feel anything. There wasn¡¯t much sensation anywhere beneath his neck. The young man jumped up again, wanting to flip himself out of the way, but another smack pped him down to Earth.

    He waspletely befuddled!

    Chen Jian was still as simple and honest as before. He first looked at his hand, then at the tangled Li Hao on the ground. The fatty smiled an open and awkward smile before turning to Liu Long and the others.

    ¡°I¡­ didn¡¯t think his reaction would be so slow,¡± he said sheepishly. ¡°And I didn¡¯t think he¡¯d start by jumping into the air. You said so before, chief, that leaping high without enough strength to back it up is a death wish. I¡­ didn¡¯t think that I¡¯d run into that today.¡±

    Jumping into the air without sufficient strength to determine the oue of battle meant that once Li Hao¡¯s return trajectory andnding spot were fully calcted, he was at the mercy of others. This was a grave taboo inbat!

    Even Sunderers of Hundreds took to the air only if they had no other choice. One¡¯s weaknesses were on full disy in midair and there was ack of ideal opportunity to counterattack. Keeping one¡¯s feet firmly nted on the ground was the primary rule that every martial master adhered to in battle!

    Li Hao had been overconfident given his skill in the ape style. He felt that he was fast and nimble enough to soar through the air, but was knocked senseless in a split second!

    ¡­¡­

    All was quiet in the basement; only Chen Jian¡¯s exnation echoed in the void. Li Hao¡¯s head was lowered and his face beet red. He¡¯d always fancied himself clever, but had suffered an enormous setback today. He thought himself strong enough, but the team member in charge of defense had sent him flying with a simple p. If Chen Jian hadn¡¯t shown mercy, Li Hao rather suspected that his head would already be torn off!

    It looked like it was time to put the thought that he was at least a yer of Five or Six to rest. He came to a certain awakening and understanding in this moment. I¡­ am not a martial master. Strictly speaking, I¡¯m just an amateur who¡¯s had a few days worth of training. I¡¯ve never been in practicalbat and am nothing more than a rookie through and through. I thought way too highly of myself before!

    And here I thoughtst night that I could kill the scarlet shadow and its master if I drew my gun fast enough. How naive I was twelve hours ago!

    How childish!

    ¡­¡­

    The team looked at Liu Long, then at Li Hao. Strange expressions spread across their faces. Was the young man crumbling from his defeat? That¡­ would make for a very poor psychological temperament!

    Liu Long frowned slightly as well. He¡¯d wanted to give Li Hao a harsh dose of reality, but that wasn¡¯t his main goal. He just wanted the young man to understand that the enemies they faced were far greater than the young man imagined.

    Now wasn¡¯t this a pickle? One round of sparring had shattered his confidence. Li Hao was still sprawled on the ground¡ªwas he that unable to deal with failure?

    ¡°Is that all you¡¯re worth?¡± Faint disappointment dawned in Liu Long¡¯s eyes. Though Li Hao wasn¡¯t strong enough, at least his thought processes, brain, patience, and endurance were top notch. The young man was worth cultivating if he¡¯d caught Yuan Shuo¡¯s eye and secretly investigated a case for a year on behalf of a friend.

    But was the real truth that Li Hao had led too smooth of a life this far? Could such a person handle setback?

    As Liu Long mused, Li Hao stood up, rubbed his neck, and smiled bashfully. He was the perfect image of a young man still progressing through life!

    To be honest, he really wasn¡¯t that old. If he hadn¡¯t withdrawn from the Veteris Institute, he¡¯d still be in the middle of his studies.

    ¡°I always thought I was different from others, that I was smarter than everyone else. It felt like I could do anything since I passed the exams for the Institute, became Professor Yuan¡¯s disciple, entered the Inspectorate, and found the connection between the cases¡­ I did good in everything I tried.¡± Li Hao shook his head with a rueful smile. ¡°Only today do I learn that I¡¯m nothing in a fight! I¡¯ve practiced the ape style for only three years and cked off this year. How can I possiblypare to all my elder brothers here? Big brother Chen has probably trained for many years!¡±

    ¡°Sixteen years!¡± Chen Jian responded happily. ¡°I started only when I was twelve!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao was speechless¡ªnot at his opponent¡¯s tenure, but because he was twenty-eight!

    Are you shitting me? You¡¯re only twenty-eight? I thought you were at least forty the first time Iid eyes on you! You¡¯re twenty-eight?? The hell??

    Naturally, Li Hao expressed none of his thoughts and disyed some resignation. "My teacher once said that proficiency in martial arts depends firstly on innate potential and secondly on diligence! Hard work is more important than potential!

    ¡°I daren¡¯t say I have potential. Even if I do, myzy habits mean that I¡¯m alive only because big brother Chen pulled his punches!¡±

    ¡°Nah, don¡¯t say that,¡± Chen Jian smiled shyly. ¡°I did, but I also used thirty percent of my power to begin with. You¡¯re already very good to still be on your feet after taking one of my blows.¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Is heplimenting me? Li Hao looked at the seemingly honest and aboveboard fatty. There¡­ weren¡¯t any hidden meanings behind this reply, were there? The member for defense struck me to the ground with only thirty percent of his strength. Am I supposed to be proud that I survived?

    ¡°Good, I¡¯m d you recovered,¡± Liu Long spoke up. ¡°I was thinking that I¡¯d let you go if you wanted to withdraw after being defeated. It looks like you¡¯re tenacious enough.¡± His tone turned aloof again, ¡°What I want to tell you is that Chen Jian is a yer of Tens, and one focused on defense! You must keep in mind that any supernatural is much stronger than him. If you can¡¯t avoid even Chen Jian, don¡¯t think of surviving an encounter with a supernatural!

    ¡°It¡¯s normal for you to be weaker since you¡¯ve just joined us. You¡¯re only a probationary member for now. Apart from the guy in the self-immtion case, you¡¯ll also be bait on other asions. Your primary task is to strengthen yourself and help us analyze some data!¡±

    There was no way that Li Hao would be useful right now, not a chance!

    Liu Long tightened his trench coat and looked at the rest of the team. ¡°Liu Yan, you¡¯re in charge of this guy. Make sure he understands the full situation! Don¡¯t have him dying randomly in the missions toe.¡±

    ¡°No worries, chief, I¡¯ll take care of him!¡± Liu Yan chuckled merrily while Li Hao wanted to protest.

    Ah, forget it, whatever. He was the youngest of the Demon Hunters and the weakest team member could easily smack him to death. What ce was there for him to speak?

    He didn¡¯t want to ask anything about the team doctor anymore. Yun Yao looked kind and fragile, but who knew how she actually was? The more some people looked gentle, the more frightening they actually were.

    At the very least, he was a bit more familiar with Liu Yan and had spoken to her a few more times.

    Liu Yan looked merrily at the young man. ¡°Little Li Hao, let¡¯s chat in my office. It¡¯s too oppressive here.¡±

    ¡°Wait a second, vice captain,¡± Li Hao said after thinking it over. He looked at Liu Long. ¡°Captain Liu¡­¡±

    ¡°You are permitted to call me chief!¡± Liu Long barked out coldly, like the privilege was a badge of honor.

    Li Hao said nothing. He was under another¡¯s roof, so if the captain wanted to be called chief, then he was the chief.

    ¡°Chief, Zhang Yuan¡¯s murderer probably knows we¡¯re investigating him after our disturbancest night. Based on the files I analyzed, they seem to always make their move on overcast or rainy days. It¡¯s been almost a year since thest case and given my calctions, the bad weather we¡¯ll see in the next few days might be when they¡¯re nning to make a move.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Liu Long inclined his head. ¡°I¡¯ll be ready. You want to say that you¡¯re next, aren¡¯t you? Are you afraid?¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t respond.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± Liu Long didn¡¯t exin much, just issued reminders. ¡°Your current goal is to understand more of the world. The more you know, the better you are able to protect yourself. We¡¯ll think of how to take care of the self-immtion guy!¡±

    The only choice that Li Hao had avable was to trust the team. At the same time, he also felt that Liu Long didn¡¯t have a death wish.

 Chapter 26: The Supernatural Field (II)

    Chapter 26: The Supernatural Field (II)

    The captain headed up to ground level after this series of events; Wu Chao and Chen Jian were close on his heels. Yun Yao bid them farewell before making her way deeper into the basement.

    Liu Yan nced at the team doctor and found that Li Hao was also staring at the petite girl.

    ¡°Little fellow, is it stressful chatting with big sis?¡± she murmured with amusement. ¡°Don¡¯t have any extraneous thoughts about that one¡ªolder sisters are better.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t be mistaken, vice captain!¡±

    ¡°So what if I am, so what if I haven''t?¡± Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m just giving you a helpful tip! Being a doctor is not a profession for the masses. Ordinary doctors are useless for our injuries and doctors are of immense importance to our team. They have a mission that no one else canplete.¡±

    Curiosity seized Li Hao. ¡°What is it?¡± In his current state, he was curious about everything and anything. The faster he settled into the rhythm of things, the faster he could catch up to everyone else.

    ¡°Stripping supernaturals of their mysterious power!¡± Although Liu Yan smiled as she answered, her smile was ever-so-slightly tinged with apprehension.

    Stripping supernaturals of their mysterious power!

    Li Hao pulled up short.

    Regr people didn¡¯t seem able to see mysterious power. As for whether or not supernaturals could¡­ maybe, but the theory bore testing since none of the people in front of him were supernaturals. inly, it wasn¡¯t easy to take someone else¡¯s power, but Yun Yao could!

    Given what Liu Yan said, the doctor was indeed a very important part of the entire team. They hunted supernaturals for their prey¡¯s mysterious power. There was no point for the Demon Hunters¡¯ existence without Yun Yao.

    Just look at Liu Yan¡¯s reaction¡ªsomeone as unbridled and brazen as her showed dread when it came to their doctor! Li Haomitted the detail to memory.

    While everyone on the small team seemed to be ordinary mortals, they were anything but. Those who could join the Demon Hunters were the furthest thing from a kind and gentle soul.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go, stop looking!¡± A merry Liu Yan casually kicked Li Hao. ¡°Stay away from that woman, she¡¯s worse than the chief! We can joke around with the chief, but her? Don¡¯t talk to her if you can!¡±

    Li Hao nodded docilely. He was the very image of a well-behaved new recruit, just like how he¡¯d been a year ago when he first entered ssified Affairs. He¡¯d been the perfect department junior who kept his head down and did what he was told.

    He was still the same way a yearter, but the entire department sang his praises and didn¡¯t have a bad word to say about him. That was enough.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao followed Liu Yan back to her office on the sixth floor. They¡¯d only been in the basement for half an hour, but the previously terrifying office now offered peace of mind.

    Bam!

    Liu Yan plonked herself in her chair, still giving no heed as to her image. She propped her feet on her desk and indicated for Li Hao to sit wherever he¡¯d like. When he found afortable spot, she casually spoke of solemn affairs.

    ¡°Chief wants me to give you a brief overview, but I don¡¯t know where to start. All of this is known material to me, so why don¡¯t you ask me yourself. Ask me anything you¡¯d like to know and I¡¯ll answer!¡±

    Li Hao snapped to attention. While he presented a polite front, he would set all that aside in a sh to gain more knowledge. He cut straight to the chase, ¡°Vice captain, how does one be supernatural?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s two ways!¡± Liu Yan answered equally frankly. ¡°The first one is being born supernatural! Some people are born with innate ways to absorb mysterious power and don¡¯t need to cultivate or induce the energy into themselves. There¡¯s a naturally forming mysterious foundation inside their bodies that grows with them. These people are hailed as Heaven Favored!¡±

    Heaven Favored!

    Li Haomitted the name to memory.

    ¡°The second is to conduct the mysterious power into yourself! That¡¯s the typical way to cross over¡ªdrawing upon mysterious power, being baptized by it, and having it activate your own abilities. These types of supernaturals are mainstream and the path that most walk! They¡¯rebeled Starlight in their hierarchy of power!

    ¡°Mysterious power is as resplendent as the stars. Latter-day supernaturals absorb this energy, so they consider themselves theing of starlight.¡±

    Starlight!

    Li Haomitted another name to memory. Did this mean that there were two main factions in the supernatural hierarchy, based on how one became otherworldly?

    ¡°Just these two types?¡±

    Liu Yan nodded. ¡°Strictly speaking, we¡¯re the second type too because we want to cross over via inducting mysterious power into ourselves. We¡¯re not a different category.¡± Having said that, she thought for a second. ¡°There¡¯s rumors of another way though.¡±

    This sparked Li Hao¡¯s interest. ¡°What is it?¡±

    Liu Yan dimpled beatifically. ¡°It¡¯s said that some powerful supernatural items can change a person¡¯s foundations and propel them into that mysterious territory! It¡¯s a way of setting foot into the ult through external objects.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart skipped a beat! Supernatural items? Like Steris and the stone de?

    Liu Long should know, or at the very least guess, that he had these items. But why didn¡¯t the man bring the topic up? Was he secretly making ns, or did he really not care about them?

    ¡°This method isn¡¯t mentioned much because it¡¯s nearly impossible!¡± Liu Yan continued. ¡°First, it requires such a powerful object that it¡¯s beyond the reach of ordinary people. Second, apparently these itemse with restrictions. They won¡¯t work for just anyone. I¡¯m not clear on the particrs¡ªchief might know, but you don¡¯t need to be concerned about this.¡±

    Li Hao nodded without a word and changed the topic. ¡°What did he mean before when he talked about finding a mysterious power that matches and directing it into the body?¡±

    ¡°Everyone¡¯s constitution is different and our talents lie in different areas. There are many kinds of supernatural abilities out there. Chief, for instance, is skilled at offense, but he doesn¡¯t know what kind of offense. Lightning? Fire? Ice? Since he doesn¡¯t know himself what attribute he¡¯s suited for, it¡¯s very difficult for him to open his supernatural lock if he absorbs energy that¡¯s a wrong fit!¡±

    ¡°Supernatural lock?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s what we call the barrier between us and the supernatural! I don¡¯t know if there¡¯s actually something like that in our bodies¡ªchief says that he learned about it from the Night Watchers. They say there¡¯s a lock inside everyone that constrains the mundane and extraordinary. Only when you unlock it can you set foot into the ult.¡±

    Li Hao understood¡ªunlocking their supernatural lock was what everyone strived for!

    That was all he had for questions about the supernaturals themselves. He switched to something more relevant to himself. ¡°Vice captain, is there a way for me to cross over if I want to?¡±

    ¡°Yes¡ªinducting mysterious power into yourself. However, it¡¯s probably hard for you to be allotted a share of it at your current state. Maybe we can try to get you some after we kill the one behind the self-immtion cases¡­¡± Liu Yan responded candidly. ¡°It depends on how much you contribute to the case! You don¡¯t get more just because you¡¯re weak or talk a good talk. The Demon Hunters take spoils very seriously and divvy up mysterious power based on how much work each person did.¡±

    Li Hao nodded his understanding. ¡°Then is there¡­¡±

    ¡°Is there a way for you to get stronger?¡± Liu Yan smiled. ¡°Yes! You can raise your martial strength before you enter the supernatural domain. You¡¯re so weak that there¡¯s still many ways to improve yourself.¡±

    An eager Li Hao looked expectantly at her.

    ¡°Number one, keep training hard!¡± Liu Yan said after considering her response. ¡°Number two, practice a good martial dao method. Your Five Styles is a pretty good one. Elder Yuan was once a Sunderer of Hundreds after all, so it goes without saying how good his method must be. The New Book of Five Styles is also veryprehensive¡ªit can attack, defend, and guard.¡±

    The young man nodded with agreement. This was very true, he could see that even though he¡¯d only learned the ape style.

    ¡°Number three, external force!¡± Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°That¡¯s still mysterious energy at the end of the day. Even if it doesn¡¯t open our supernatural lock when conducted into our bodies, it still enhances our physique. The physical constitution is our foundation! A strong body, mind, and formidable method will naturally make you stronger!¡±

    Mysterious energy! I¡­ I have that! The sword water!

    ¡°This naturally isn¡¯t the only type of external force¡ªmysterious energy is only one type. There¡¯s a lot more that can strengthen the body. Perhaps your teacher will know more about this.¡±

    Li Hao blinked. What did she mean by that?

    The woman giggled with amusement. ¡°Who knows how many ancient ruins the professor¡¯s explored since he¡¯s the department chair of Ancient Civilizations? The Night Watchers im most of the findings, but they¡¯ll leave him some to cate his feelings. Treasures are the most numerous in those ruins. With how weak you are, you¡¯ll benefit handsomely if your teacher gives you a few things!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. How dare he ask his teacher for presents? No way!

    ¡°Hahaha, don¡¯t be shy! Your teacher isn¡¯t the only one, we have some nice things too!¡± Liu Yan lowered her voice. ¡°You won¡¯t go wrong if you listen to big sis. So long as you demonstrate enough value and that you¡¯re worth investing in, the chief will respond in kind! Having killed a few supernaturals already and being thew enforcement agency of Silver City, we have a little treasure vault of our own.¡±

    Li Hao blinked rapidly, he understood!

    ¡°Big sis Liu, are there any definitive markers to increases in strength other than my own assessment? For example, do any changes ur when one reaches the yer of Ten level?¡±

    ¡°Changes?¡± Liu Yan paused, then smiled. ¡°Yes, but a martial master¡¯s strength is determined in actualbat. There¡¯s a livebat training room toward the rear of the basement. You¡¯ll know what I mean when you give it a try. You¡¯re a yer if you can pass the first level¡ªit means you have the strength to wipe out an elite troop of ten at the same time!¡±

    A training room? Li Haomitted another interesting detail to memory. He looked at the woman again, were there no other benefits or help to be received after joining the Demon Hunters?

    Liu Yan started, then understood his meaning. She tittered with hrity. ¡°You don¡¯t seem as honest as you appear, little fellow!¡±

    ¡°For justice!¡± Li Hao whispered with a pure smile.

    For justice!

    That stopped Liu Yan¡¯sughter and she shook her head with a sigh. ¡°You¡¯re a fast learner. I can¡¯t give you anything else because you¡¯ve just joined, but you can take whatever hot weapon you want from my office. Take as many as you want! They¡¯re all legal and you probably need these things the most at the moment. Strengthening oneself isn¡¯t aplished overnight. Just look at big sis here, this is all I¡¯m good for after training for twenty years¡­¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Twenty years? When did you start? You look only thirty years old or so, are you actually over forty?

    Of course, he didn¡¯t dare ask these questions. These guys revealed ten to twenty years of practice at the drop of a hat, it was damned terrifying! He was well aware of how hard martial training was and how difficult. He¡¯d put in hard effort over the past three years, running through the ape style whenever he had time. A dozen broken hoop rings and numerous painful crashes to the ground counted among his experience.

    Time ticked by as the young man asked a few more questions. It wasn¡¯t until Liu Yan brought up that it was meal time that he stopped with reluctance. The more he understood, the more he yearned for the mysteries!

    If he couldn¡¯t quickly join the supernatural domain, then he must progress with martial dao. It was always good to be better able to defend himself.

    The sword water is an absolute treasure! I need to get more out of it and drink more! Li Hao carefully sensed the coolness around his chest. This might be his only way to shorten the gap between him and the others.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao didn¡¯t do anything for the rest of the day apart from asking questions and listening to answers. He saw no sign of Liu Long after the morning meeting¡ªperhaps the team captain had gone off to make certain preparations.

    Law Enforcement didn¡¯t put in an official transfer request, possibly out of concern that they¡¯d alert the enemy ahead of time. Other than the Demon Hunters, only Wang Jie of ssified Affairs knew of the situation.

 Chapter 27: To Be A Teacher (I)

    Chapter 27: To Be A Teacher (I)

    6pm. The workday was over.

    Li Hao packed up his things, the third gen vortex gun still on him. Although Liu Yan said that he could pick whatever weapon he set his eyes on, he didn¡¯t choose any for the time being. The more formidable a weapon was, the less convenient it was to carry around.

    Hand grenades, on the other hand, weren¡¯t too bulky. They fit in a pocket, so long as they didn¡¯t also explode in the pocket.

    He nced at the sky¡ªit was another day of clear weather. Rain didn¡¯t seem likely on the forecast tonight.

    ¡°The Demon Hunters¡­¡± Li Hao flung his leg over his bike and turned back to look at the Law Enforcement building in the distance. It felt like there was a pair of eyes, or several pairs of eyes, on him.

    Was it Liu Long? Was the team already keeping a watch on him andmencing the n with him as bait?

    ¡°It¡¯s not that I can¡¯t trust Liu Long, but that I can¡¯t fully trust him!¡± Li Hao held his own standards of judgment. He wouldn¡¯t immediately be close friends with Liu Long since he wasn¡¯t familiar with the man. The captain wouldn¡¯t intentionally hurt Li Hao if he truly stood on the side of justice. At the same time, however, he wouldn¡¯t do anything if the scarlet shadow killed the young man!

    Sacrificing Li Hao for a dead supernatural might be a trade that Liu Long made without blinking. Not even Yuan Shuo could say anything about that! There was nothing his teacher could do so long as Liu Long didn¡¯t personally kill the young man.

    Based on Li Hao¡¯s current train of thought, his teacher was possibly the reason why Liu Long refrained from asking about the stone de and sword. The position of captain of thew enforcement team still hobbled the man.

    After all, Liu Long wasn¡¯t on the side of evil and wrongdoing. He was one of the Inspectorate and overseen by the Night Watchers.

    ¡°Even if teacher does nothing at all¡­ he is still a silent factor in saving me.¡± Li Hao was well aware that without the greatness of his teacher, Liu Long would absolutely ask about the treasures, if not outright kill him. He might even force Li Hao to hand them over in the name of bait.

    This purposeful ignorance was inly out of reservation for Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°When ites down to it, it¡¯s all because I¡¯m too weak!¡± Li Hao¡¯s bike creaked as he rode on. He didn¡¯t know whether the scarlet shadow faction was watching him or whether Liu Long and the others were following him. It was very difficult to locate those who¡¯d made up their minds to stay out of sight.

    ¡°The only thing I can do is to get stronger!¡± he murmured. He didn¡¯t trust even the enthusiastic Liu Yan. She might not save him when real danger was at hand. ¡°I hope I can grow stronger before they make their move!¡±

    He hadn¡¯t dared drink too much sword water before because digestion was slow and he was worried about exhausting the mysterious power. But now that he looked at it, all the energy in the world would do him no good if he died. Therefore, he was going to steep the sword to drink as much as possible!

    Not only that, but he was even considering whether he should destroy the jade sword to release more energy. At this point in time, it didn¡¯t matter whether or not it was a family heirloom. And if the jade sword wasn¡¯t the solution to his problems, there was another stone de at home!

    ¡­¡­

    The bike slowly trundled forward as Li Hao stared off into space, uncaring of anything he saw. Openlight quickly appeared in his line of vision.

    #302 of Building 6.

    Panther darted out of a corner like a shadow before the young man set foot inside. The little ck dog was noticeably faster than before.

    ¡°Arf!¡± Panther wagged its tail happily, as if saying all had been well today. No one paid attention to the house after Li Hao left for work and no one came sniffing around.

    Meanwhile, the young man looked at a dog that seemed a little bigger than yesterday and gently patted its head. He pushed open the front door, took off his outer clothes, and turned on the light. It threw off dim illumination as the curtains were pulled tight.

    Li Hao sat on the couch and contemted the events of the past two days. So much had happened so quickly that he was having a hard time digesting everything. Properly analyzing all of the various clues was a tall task.

    ¡°The Demon Hunters, scarlet shadow faction, Night Watchers, eight families¡­ I might be the only survivor out of the eight families!

    ¡°The scarlet shadow¡¯s target is me, the Demon Hunters want their supernatural, the Night Watchers are busy elsewhere and might note, but someone from their side should be here because teacher is about to go into the field.

    "Was the shadowst night and the person behind it just one part of their faction, or was that everyone?¡±

    How many supernaturals are we talking about?

    Li Hao had no idea! However, probably more than one as the one fromst night was very possibly a scout. It wasn¡¯t likely to be their entire contingent.

    ¡°Has Liu Long thought about this? Can the Demon Hunters handle the situation if there¡¯s more than one supernatural on their side, maybe even three or four?¡± Li Hao gently knocked on the table. While the team was of some help, they didn¡¯t offer a sense of security. A multitude of thoughts ran through his mind, but there was no one who could help him.

    No, no wait. Li Hao struggled for a moment before taking out hismunicator. He needed his teacher¡¯s help¡ªmere constion, if nothing more concrete.

    ¡­¡­

    The Veteris Institute of Silver City.

    Yuan Shuo practiced an extremely ugly boxing method in his yard. It¡¯d be more urate to call him a squawking hen as opposed to a training cultivator. Rather than the technique known as Chicken Fists, it was the fowl style of the New Book of Five Styles!

    Tiger, deer, bear, ape, and fowl. The ape style was suited for escape and the fowl for speed¡ªwhich actually made it even more appropriate for escape than the ape style. A killing technique was also embedded within each style!

    Whether it was the ape or fowl style, all contained their ways to kill. Li Hao didn¡¯t know because he hadn¡¯t studied the styles in sufficient breadth or detail. He¡¯d always thought of the ape style as just a way to ensure safety.

    Humm!

    Yuan Shuo moved slowly without force. He looked like a pping hen when he swung his fists around. Despite thepleteck of elegance, explosive sounds rang through the air.

    A Sunderer of Hundreds! One who used to be at the peak of martial dao!

    Sadly, his stamina had declined with age. The appearance of supernatural abilities and poprization of hot weapons also gradually phased out this kind of person. In the eyes of outsiders, he was pure literati and a premier expert of ancient civilizations.

    Ring ring ring!

    The interruption shook Yuan Shuo out of his ungainly motions. He flicked a sideways nce at themunicator off to the side and picked it up.

    ¡°So you¡¯ve decided to go to thew enforcement team?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t surprised. If his final disciple said he was going to do something, then he would do so without hesitation. The esteemed professor also seemed to know that Li Hao had called because he needed something.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Are you doubting yourself? Did Liu Long take you down a peg today? Do you think you haven¡¯t anything to your name and can¡¯t hack it in the outside world?¡±

    ¡°A little,¡± Li Hao admitted with a sigh. ¡°Teacher, do you think there¡¯s still a future for academic studying after an entire new world has appeared in our society?¡±

    The young man felt that future prospects for the schstic field were dim after witnessing the might of supernaturals. Would this world be the domain of supernaturals in the future? Could mundane folks such as his teacher and himself live in peace and enjoy life?

    ¡°There is naturally no way forward for pure academia! But there¡¯s even less of a way forward for sheer violence!¡± Yuan Shuo responded firmly. ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of anyone conquering everything through pure military might. Human intelligence is the key to uniting the world and bing the master of all!

    ¡°Those who walk the path of martial dao might see half the result with twice the effort if they try to learn our knowledge, but we see twice the result with half the effort if we pursue martial dao! Don¡¯t think that you¡¯ve wasted your time up till now¡ªit was all in preparation and a foundation!

    ¡°If you do end up making the crossover, you¡¯ll find that wisdom and intelligence are priceless treasures. They ensure that the road ahead is much less broken!¡±

    It was his task to shine a light when a student was lost. Such was to propagate dao, disseminate learning, and resolve confusion! To Yuan Shuo, it was normal that self doubt would circte after Li Hao came in contact with the supernatural field for the first time. It was also imperative that his student¡¯s faith didn¡¯t waver at this time.

    ¡°While I won¡¯t go so far as to say that I was invincible beneath the heavens, I was one of the few at the top of the pyramid before the dawn of the ult. However, I was known not for my fighting capabilities, but my research efforts in the field of ancient civilizations. That is why I am renowned throughout thend!

    ¡°Those in my generation who only knew martial might naturally didn¡¯t meet with good ends after hot weapons grew in poprity. The more famous one was, the faster one died! But me? Here I am, still alive and well. I am an honored guest to those supernaturals¡ªwhile there are certain restrictions ced on me, I go where I wish and do what I want.

    ¡°The supernaturals may be strong for the moment, but that doesn¡¯t mean there is no one who can keep them in check or pass judgment on them¡­¡±

    Li Hao listened quietly as his teacher rambled on, the knot in his heart easing slightly. After a while, Yuan Shuoughed heartily.

    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much when ites to thew enforcement team. Liu Long and his guys may not be able to take care of real trouble when ites knocking, so I leave you with what I said before¡ªyou can hide out with me anytime.¡±

    ¡°Teacher, are the Night Watchers aware of the situation in Silver City?¡± Li Hao asked after some thought.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. They might be, but they won¡¯t be first on the scene even if they are. Liu Long and his men are the canaries in the mine and cannon fodder!¡± Yuan Shuo responded without an ounce of mercy. The true status of the Demon Hunters induced bone-piercing horror!

    ¡°There aren¡¯t that many Night Watchers, which means each supernatural is incredibly precious and not to be easily sacrificed. As the current situation in Silver City is vague, cannon fodder like Liu Long will be sent out first.

    ¡°It¡¯s fantastic if they¡¯re sessful and not a huge loss if they¡¯re not. The Night Watchers will gain a general understanding of their opponent¡¯s capabilities. To know oneself and the enemy¡¯s strength is the path to victory¡ªthey will know what level of strength to deploy for thetest trouble guing Silver City. This is why the Night Watchers so rarely appear.¡±

    The organization maintained their sense of mystery so that outsiders were unaware of their particrs. Fringe groups like Liu Long¡¯s team were lookouts. It didn¡¯t matter if they died. But if they managed to kill a supernatural and cross over, they would add to Night Watcher strength if they joined the shadowy faction.

    This was the true cloud looming over Silver City and Yuan Shuo had long seen through it!

    Li Hao exhaled softly, how mercenary! His teacher¡¯s words parted some of the fog and helped him understand that the Demon Hunters were likely in contact with the Night Watchers. Perhaps Liu Long was a peripheral member?

    It was impossible!

    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much,¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly said. ¡°I can¡¯t force you toe to me if you¡¯re unwilling. Since you understand more of the situation, I¡¯ll give you a brief overview so you are better able to protect yourself.¡±

    What? Li Hao had thought his teacher would give him some treasure, but that inly wasn¡¯t the case.

    Yuan Shuo suddenly switched to a secretnguage¡ªa unique mode ofmunication between him and his students. For an expert like the esteemed professor, crafting a special way of transmitting messages was very easy.

    ¡°The sword of the Lis, de of the Zhangs¡­ They are families in the folk song and even specific supernatural items. They would be jokes in times before, but that may not be the case now!¡±

    Li Hao started, then quickly regained his calm. If even Liu Long could guess the truth, why not his teacher? In the young man¡¯s eyes, Yuan Shuo was the smartest and wisest man he knew.

    ¡°It is both a blessing and a curse if you have them! Zhang Yuan¡¯s death is possibly rted to this. inly, supernaturals have you in their sights and this is likely what they want. The folk song of the eight families has circted for countless years. I¡¯ve heard of it, but I don¡¯t know where ites from. Perhaps it was never recorded anywhere and just passed on through word of mouth from generation to generation¡­

    ¡°ording to my research, the song may have something to do with the ancient civilizations. Being my student, you know a bit about them and how I discovered the New Book of Five Styles in a ruin. I simply modified the method a bit.¡±

    Li Hao listened silently to his teacher.

 Chapter 28: To Be A Teacher (II)

    Chapter 28: To Be A Teacher (II)

    ¡°The treasures of the folk song share amon characteristic,¡± Yuan Shuo continued. ¡°Outsiders are unable to use them. Zhang Yuan was burned alive possibly because his killer wanted to collect his bloodline, soul, or a mental attribute that would enable them to use the de of the Zhangs!

    ¡°I also have a few thoughts about the time interval between cases. It¡¯s very likely due to certain innate limitations of the supernatural methods employed by the killer. Each immtion to extract the victim¡¯s bloodline or soul causes the killer to enter a state of hibernation!

    ¡°It¡¯s in to see that they¡¯re improving though¡ªor rather, the hibernation period is decreasing!¡±

    Li Hao quickly bobbed his head in agreement, despite his teacher being unable to see his response. He was so thoroughly impressed beyond words. His teacher hadn¡¯t known anything beforehand, but deduced so much after seeing the files only yesterday!

    Of course, this also had to do with the depth and breadth of his teacher¡¯s knowledge.

    ¡°Another thing¡ªthey only act on rainy days. This means their abilities are deployed only during rainy weather. They need more than a simple murder¡ªthey also need to collect or harvest something from your bodies after killing you.¡±

    Yuan Shuo paused when he reached this point. ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate the one behind the cases. If the first one to die was a member of the Zhengs, this means these ns have been in motion for fifteen years!

    ¡°Keep in mind that it¡¯s only been twenty years or so since ult powers have appeared among us. Do you know what this means if the enemy was one then? It means they are a veteran among supernaturals, not a rookie wet behind the ears!

    ¡°Of course, it may not be one singr person behind things. Perhaps the initial supernatural who started the cases has left and it¡¯s their faction members or disciples overseeing the situation. It doesn¡¯t seem likely that a powerhouse would remain in Silver City indefinitely.¡±

    Li Hao took another deep breath. He¡¯d already considered his teacher¡¯stest point, but not to this level of detail. Had Liu Long?

    ¡°You may not be able to use the de of the Zhangs, but you will certainly be able to use the sword of the Lis! It likelyid inert before because the supernatural was yet to be found. This domain should¡¯ve existed in ancient civilizations as well; this is just a reawakening as opposed to a sudden creation. If you are the heir to the sword of the Lis, you¡¯ll be able to activate the sword if you have it.¡±

    ¡°Activate?¡± The young man finally opened his mouth. The sword of the Lis was both a secret andmon knowledge. Anyone who heard the folk song would think of it, but no one knew what it actually was.

    Had he activated it through steeping it with water?

    ¡°Yes, activate! How would it be easily utilized after lying unused for so many years? I know many ways to activate such treasures, but they¡¯re all too hard for you. The easiest should be using your blood to bind it to you. Of course, the caveat is that the sword really belongs to your family and you didn¡¯t seize it from another.¡±

    ¡°Teacher, I¡¯ve tried that already,¡± Li Hao chuckled ruefully. ¡°It doesn¡¯t work!¡±

    He¡¯d dripped blood on the pendant before!

    ¡°Did you expect anything otherwise? A random drop of blood is useless¡ªdo you think randomly spraying blood around is what that method entails?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    It¡­ isn¡¯t? Li Hao had nothing to say.

    ¡°It¡¯s not just any ole blood, especially from descendants like you who are unknown generations removed. Your bloodline changed long ago. For you, two kinds of blood can unseal the treasure. The first is your heart¡¯s blood and a kind that I don¡¯t particrly rmend. It¡¯s too damaging, but if you run into life threatening danger and are about to die, you can stab the sword into your heart. Remember not to stab it too deeply and end up killing yourself!¡±

    Li Hao cracked an awkward grin, just listen to what his teacher was saying! ¡­okay, so this is a very dangerous way.

    ¡°The second is to practice the Five Styles, thereby enhancing your physique and bloodline. If you can reach my level, perhaps one drop of blood will be sufficient to activate it!¡±

    A sudden thought struck Li Hao¡ªbe a Sunderer of Hundreds? But he was out of time!

    The young man thought for a moment before asking, ¡°Teacher, is there any mysterious power associated with these objects?¡±

    ¡°Sometimes, it depends,¡± Yuan Shuo quickly responded. ¡°You can try absorbing some if yours has any, but it might not have a great effect!¡±

    Li Hao started, might not have a great effect? This was something he held high hopes for!

    ¡°Teacher, don¡¯t they say that conducting the energy into our bodies will make us supernatural?¡±

    ¡°What?! It¡¯s not nearly that simple!¡± Yuan Shuo hummed over how to exin things. ¡°I¡¯m not too clear on what your state of affairs are, so let me talk about the situation as I know it. Some supernatural objects contain some mysterious energy, but that energy is very weak. If you can absorb it, it might help with improving your constitution. It¡¯s not as useful as you might think, however. It¡¯s almost impossible to make the crossover through it alone!¡±

    Disappointment dawned in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. Impossible?

    ¡°Of course, that isn¡¯t set in stone since there¡¯s much we don¡¯t know about these otherworldly powers. They haven¡¯t existed in our society for long, so there aren¡¯t that many examples to refer to,¡± Yuan Shuo continued. ¡°Here wee to the crux of what I speak of. Since you probably have one of those things, I¡¯ll teach you a breathing method that¡¯s not recorded in the New Book of Five Styles!¡±

    ¡°A breathing method?¡±

    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s moreprehensive than what you¡¯ll find in breathing techniques. I created it after years of integrating knowledge gleaned from various ancient texts. I didn¡¯t mention it before because you had no possibility of absorbing mysterious power!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°You didn¡¯te in contact with the supernatural before, so it wouldn¡¯t be of any use. Now, however, I would go to you if you didn¡¯t seek me out today.

    ¡°I need to teach you the Breathing Method of the Five Styles so you can absorb energy. We generally don¡¯t see any in day-to-day life, but you¡¯re different. You¡¯ve possibly alreadye in contact with it, this is your fortuitous opportunity!¡±

    ¡°Can you absorb it, teacher¡­¡±

    ¡°Me?¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s chuckle turned intoughter. ¡°What, you would share it with me? There may not be much power in one supernatural object, it would be a drop in the bucket for me. Let me put it this way, the stronger one is, the harder it is to make the crossover. Our metamorphosis is much harder than normal people¡¯s!

    ¡°Liu Long bears a high likelihood to ascend, but it¡¯s been unusually difficult for him because his martial dao is strong. It¡¯s actually easier for you because you don¡¯t have a martial foundation. Of course, this also means you¡¯ll be a weaker Starlight once you¡¯re supernatural.¡±

    Enlightenment was at hand for Li Hao, so this was what the process was about!

    ¡°Therefore, it¡¯s a good thing if you can absorb even a tiny bit of mysterious power. It¡¯s useless for me and honestly speaking, it may not be a good idea for you to pursue this path. If you don¡¯t make the crossover, it will only serve to strengthen your martial dao and make it harder for you to metamorphose as time goes on.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t care¡ªhe was curious about only one thing. ¡°Teacher, do I understand correctly that the stronger our martial dao foundations are, the stronger we are after crossing over?¡±

    ¡°No shit! Take me for example, I¡¯m a Sunderer of Hundreds. If I¡¯m the same level as the weakest Starlight after ascension, what would I cross over for? Who knows who¡¯d be the winner if one of them shows up?¡± That was all Yuan Shuo said about himself before he turned solemn. ¡°Alright, enough of this nonsense and don¡¯t think about me, you¡¯re too weak! Listen to me¡ªI will teach you the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, but teach it to no one else on pain of death! No one! The fruits of mybor over these years are all contained within. Supernaturals have only been around for twenty years and what the Night Watchers havee up with may not rival my creation!

    ¡°This is the power of knowledge and really, what the hell do they know about supernatural powers? I may be mundane, but I know that these powers have been around longer than these guys. I read about it forty years ago in various tomes¡­¡±

    Yuan Shuo heartilyplimented himself for a while before returning to the topic at hand and the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Li Hao listened intently, finding the method very simple!

    Although his teacher praised it to the high heavens, the young man felt that it was just a little more sophisticated than a regr breathing technique. Exactly how much more, though, he couldn¡¯t really tell.

    What Li Hao didn¡¯t know was that, being one of the first to learn about the supernatural world and study it, not only did Yuan Shuo include his own deductions in the method, but he also incorporated vast amounts of ancient knowledge. As simple as the Breathing Method of the Five Styles might sound, it might be the strongest method to draw upon other energy sources in the entire ult domain.

    Li Hao adjusted his breathing as he listened to his teacher, changing more than just the rhythm of his breaths. He altered his posture until he resembled arge frog with his belly turned to the sky. It looked incredibly silly.

    Suddenly, the inert Steris that released mysterious power only when immersed in water sparkled with starlight. A dense current of energy flowed from the jade sword around the young man¡¯s neck into his body.

    If as before, it would¡¯ve quickly flowed back out. Instead, he absorbed the vast sum of energy like every single one of his pores was breathing. Countless pores took in mysterious power at a faster rate and greater quantity than could be imagined!

    When Yuan Shuo finished speaking and realized that his student was silent on the other end of themunicator, he shook his head.

    ¡°That¡¯s a young¡¯un for you, they¡¯re so impatient. He started cultivating as he was listening, didn¡¯t he?¡±

    The little guy probably had obtained a portion of mysterious power! Yuan Shuo chuckled and hung up with a shake of his head. ¡°He¡¯s still too young. As shrewd as he looks, he¡¯s quite naive! He slipped straight into cultivation without another word and is obviously already absorbing energy. Does this mean the sword of the Lis is on him or possibly next to him?

    ¡°It¡¯d be too obvious if it¡¯s next to him¡­ so it¡¯s on him?¡± Yuan Shuo thought for a moment and came to a surprising answer. ¡°Attaboy, the sword of the Lis is more than I thought! I thought it would be a massive sword, but it¡¯s that jade pendant!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s scalp would crawl with horror if he was here!

    The professor shook his head with amusement after recalling his student¡¯s ne. ¡°Not bad, that sword is not bad at all! I never sensed anything different about it and since it¡¯s so small¡­ I wouldn¡¯t guess it was the sword of the Lis if I¡¯d never seen it before!

    ¡°I wonder how much the kid will glean with the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. The sword may not have much energy left after being sealed away for so many years. He¡¯ll cross over if he¡¯s lucky, but if he¡¯s not, at least he¡¯ll reach yer of Five¡­ or Six?¡±

    Yuan Shuo made some quick calctions based on his own experience¡ªthe degree of certainty was too low. Things were not as simple as they seemed here. A supernatural that existed fifteen years ago would at least be a Sunderer if they hadn¡¯t improved at all during this time. They wouldn¡¯t be a personage that any regr person could handle.

    They might have even advanced beyond that to the equivalent of Dominator of Thousands!

    If that was the case, hot weapons were nearly useless. Those powerful enough to kill the enemy would kill the wielder first.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao was preupied with absorbing energy from the sword while his teacher pondered. There was so much, this was much better than steeping the sword in water!

    Fully conscious and aware of his surroundings, his heart pounded with shock as heid on his back. His teacher¡¯s breathing method was extraordinary! It really could take in mysterious power, and at an extremely fast pace!

    His constitution seemed to be changing and he could vaguely sense the presence of various chains inside his body. They sealed off certain areas, preventing the mysterious power from entering certain core areas¡ªhis heart and brain.

    ¡°Supernatural locks¡­ plural?¡± Was this what Liu Yan had mentioned before, the barrier that separated the mundane from the ult? ¡°There¡¯s too much!¡±

    He didn¡¯t have much time to think as he suddenly felt that he¡¯d taken in so much that he was about to explode. This was more than ten cups of sword water!

    ¡°I gotta train!¡± Li Hao bounded up from the floor and smashed his head on the ceiling. Starlight wreathed his body!

    Panther¡¯s eyes were wide open next to the young man and it kept licking the air. It abruptly understood something and syed its limbs upward, adjusting its breathing to be simr to Li Hao¡¯s.

    The young man hadn¡¯t concealed the breathing method from the dog; it hadn¡¯t urred to him to avoid a dog¡¯s gaze. The energy radiating from his body ceased diffusing outward and rushed toward the little ck dog.

    Panther¡¯s limbs were turned upward as it adjusted its breathing; it began collecting a haze of resplendent light around it as it breathed in and out!

    A young man jumped and leapt like a monkey inside the tiny room while a dogid like a human being, breathing starlight in and out of its nose. Thebination made for a terrifying sight!

 Chapter 29: A Return Visit (I)

    Chapter 29: A Return Visit (I)

    Starry energy sparkled within the room, but it didn¡¯t spill over. No one outside the room, not even a supernatural, could see or sense it. Steris didn¡¯t throw off arge radius of power¡ªwhatever reached the boundary quickly vanished into the void.

    Not to mention, there was a little ck dog called Panther present as well. The dog fully absorbed any overflow. None was wasted.

    Li Hao had bitten off more than he could chew! Strength brimmed in his body and his heart raced with agitation. The young man had to continuously practice the ape style and cycle through endless three minute iterations. He would explode if he didn¡¯t vent the overabundance!

    Even so, he continued to operate the Breathing Method of the Five Styles¡ªnot the full method, just the breathing technique.

    The breathing method could be divided into two parts. Theplete version was the coordination of posture and breathing technique. The partial consisted of just the breathing technique and was also effective, but less sopared to theplete version.

    ¡°Hup!¡± Low grunts sounded in the room. Li Hao abruptly stopped jumping around and curved his hands like an ape would, grabbing for the wall.

    The ape style wasn¡¯t just fleetness of foot. He¡¯d simply found no use for its other functions prior to today as he¡¯d never sought to kill anyone. There was so much energy within his body that he couldn¡¯t contain it all and he would soon be in danger. Thus, he went down previously unexplored paths and waved his hands around like an ape¡¯s paw.

    Bam!

    ¡°Ouch!¡± Li Hao sucked a breath in. Damn that hurt!

    His hand was flesh and blood after all. The blow created some small holes in the wall, but his fingers also screamed with pain. He¡¯d almost torn some fingernails off. However, the pain wasn¡¯t the point!

    The young man brightened when he looked at the wall. wing a few holes out of its smooth surface had been out of reach before. The point of contact between finger and wall was too small, he couldn¡¯t bring much strength to bear. Being smooth as it was since it was painted concrete, there was also ack of certain leverage avable for use. It would be much easier to find grip on a dirt wall.

    ¡°Liu Long broke through a kitchen wall with one punch¡­ A punch is way stronger than some fingers and the Zhang kitchen wall was just brick. He¡¯s really strong, of course, but I seem to be much stronger than before too!¡±

    He only needed to briefly practice the Breathing Method of the Five Styles for a swift increase in strength! Granted, this had much to do with how weak he was. The weaker one was, the more apparent improvements were.

    At Liu Long¡¯s level, vast quantities of mysterious power were inconsequential. It would barely result in any changes.

    ¡°Teacher¡¯s method is amazing!¡± Li Hao took a close look at his fingers. They were red at first and the fingernails a bruised purple, but as mysterious power continued to surge into his body, the minor injuries quickly receded.

    He also sensed his muscles bing morepact and blood flow circting faster! In fact, his bones were changing too. They were¡­ beingpressed?

    Indeed, the energy seemed to be squeezing Li Hao. He was 178 centimeters to start, neither short nor tall in the grand scheme of things. Though he didn¡¯t take immediate measurements, he appeared to have gotten shorter. Perhaps just a centimeter or less shorter, but shorter nheless.

    He¡¯d beenpressed!

    The more dense andpact one¡¯s muscles and bones were, the less empty space there was within them.

    ¡°I¡¯m¡­ not going to be a lot shorter if this continues, am I?¡± Li Hao found the phenomenon strange. Liu Long was very tall; the young man had also never heard of anyone getting shorter as they practiced martial dao.

    On the other hand, people usually started training as a child. Li Haomenced only three years ago at the Veteris Institute, and he hadn¡¯t taken his first two years that seriously.

    To think was to act. He opened his hand instead of curving it like earlier. Sying his fingers this time, he grabbed the wall in front of him!

    Bam!

    A crisp collision and stomach-turning nail scratches sounded as his fingers sank into the wall. Not too deep, just enough to leave a handprint. He didn¡¯t touch the cement construction inside. The wall, however, seemed to shake¡ªor perhaps that was a delusion.

    What was clear to see was that this move was more lethal than the one before it.

    ¡°Tiger w!¡± This was the attack technique of the tiger style in the New Book of Five Styles. Though Li Hao wasn¡¯t as versed in the other four, that didn¡¯t mean he waspletely unpracticed with them. Yuan Shuo had taught all of the styles to his disciple¡ªthe young man simply focused on the ape.

    He felt that the tiger style was more suited tobat, and indeed, one simple jab demonstrated that Tiger wnded with more strength! It required a different way of utilizing strength, a shift in posture, and an adjustment in breathing.

    Fleet-footed and swift, the ape style was suited for scouting the path ahead. The strength that Ape Foot brought to bear was much less than Tiger w.

    ¡°Right, the tiger style is most suited for offense among the five!¡± Li Hao grew agitated as he assessed the minute changes in his body. He was stronger than before! His muscles responded more quickly and he felt lighter on his feet.

    It felt like he¡¯d been running with weights and the burden had now been lifted off his shoulders. Were these the effects of mysterious power? They were so apparent!

    No wonder Panther¡¯s fur shone after its first encounter with sword water. Li Hao had thought then that perhaps the effects were different because Panth was a dog. Now that he thought it over again¡­

    Damn it! There must have been more energy in the bowl the dog drank! He¡¯d drunk the second bowl, but the dog had taken first dibs. Did that mean Li Hao had been left with the dregs?

    Wait a second, Panth¡­?

    The dog seemed particrly quiet today!

    Li Hao tilted his head and paused with surprise. The little ck dogy with its belly up to the ceiling and breathed at a simr rhythm to the young man. The dog was¡­ cultivating!

    ¡°The hell?!¡± Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped with shock. He could ept Panther understanding him, but the dog¡¯s powers ofprehension were this strong?? It was imitating him and practicing the Breathing Method of the Five Styles!

    Mysterious power ceased emanating from the jade sword when Li Hao stopped training and the energy within the room gradually faded away. The young man kept an eye on the dog, watching as starlight dwindled for the dog.

    When Panth opened its eyes and saw Li Hao looking at it, it bounded upward and pounced at the young man!

    Li Hao shifted slightly to evade the iing creature. Panther didn¡¯t mindnding on empty air; it licked the young man¡¯s foot instead.

    ¡°Go away!¡± Li Hao shook it off and bent down to scratch the dog¡¯s head. ¡°Are you bing more human?¡±

    He frowned, contemting if this was a good thing or not. Panth was turning into something more than a dog!

    As an ordinary person and a member of the Inspectorate, Li Hao¡¯s first instinct was to wonder if this might lead to unwanted consequences. But as soon as his thoughts traveled to the supernatural and the scarlet shadow that ordinary people couldn¡¯t see¡­ the development quickly lost its significance.

    What did people care about a human-esque dog these days? What was the scarlet shadow? Not even human!

    At least Li Hao was familiar with Panther and half a master to the dog. If it really became more than what it was, then so be it.

    ¡°Teacher said that the Breathing Method of the Five Styles cannot be taught to outsiders!¡± Headache brewing, the young man looked at the dog. ¡°Thank goodness you¡¯re just imitating me. You¡¯ve learned the breathing technique, but not the rest of the method¡­¡±

    The breathing technique focused on rhythm and coordinating one¡¯s breaths with one¡¯s pores. The dog had performed a strong imitation of that! Meanwhile, the rest of the method was the upwards syed position. It wasn¡¯t as simple as it looked and required several exclusive synchronistic means. Panther hadn¡¯t learned any of the rest.

    Additionally, humans and dogs were different at the end of the day. The little ck dog may not be able to use its knowledge even if it fully picked it up.

    ¡°It¡¯s my oversight that someone¡ªsomething else picked up the breathing technique!¡± Li Hao wouldn¡¯t fully immerse himself under normal circumstances, even if he was practicing the breathing method. He would never fully demonstrate the entire method in front of someone else. That might lead to the negation of the entire method if anything went wrong.

    However, he¡¯d lowered his guard since there was only a dog in front of him and breathed heavily, enabling Panther to see and learn everything.

    The little ck dog at his feet seemed to understand something and raised its head, an ingratiating look in its eyes.

    Li Hao frowned and muttered, ¡°I know you understand me, so don¡¯t use what you¡¯ve just learned unless I¡¯m with you! And¡­ I¡¯ve got to visit teacher when I have time. I wonder if he¡¯s willing to take a dog for a disciple¡­¡±

    He suddenly broke into a grin. Why did it sound like he was insulting himself?

    ¡°Forget it, pretend I didn¡¯t say anything.¡± The young man wanted to crack a joke at his teacher¡¯s expense, but recalled how unpredictable Yuan Shuo could be. If he really epted Panther as a student, future introductions would go, ¡°This is my student, the human Li Hao, this is my other student, the big ck dog¡­¡±

    It would be Li Hao who wanted to die of embarrassment!

    Panther didn¡¯t know what was going on¡ªit was happy and wagged its tail because the young man was smiling. Dogs understood human emotions and Panth had been slightly scared earlier. But since the human was smiling, that meant everything was alright.

    Li Hao set the matter out of mind. He¡¯d let his teacher know when he had time. Given teacher¡¯s character, he would be more curious than anything and wouldn¡¯t mind that a dog had learned his breathing method.

    Ignoring Panther, Li Hao fished out the jade sword and studied it closely with shining eyes.

    ¡°Mysterious power!¡±

    There seemed to be quite a lot of it in the sword. Of course, that might not be the key issue to many people. They would be much more interested in the jade sword itself.

    ording to his teacher¡¯s words, each supernatural object possessed limited quantities of energy. Some reserves were so minuscule that using the object once or twice consumed all of it. It was possible that Liu Long didn¡¯t care about the family heirlooms because he knew there was so little energy in them that they were nearly ineffective. Another point of consideration was that he might not be able to use these family treasures in the first ce.

    Li Hao was possibly worrying too much. He¡¯d pondered if Liu Long was nning something in the dark, but it now seemed that might not be the case.

    ¡°They don¡¯t care about these heirlooms, but I do!¡± Li Hao murmured. Teacher felt that the energy was too little to be of use to him, as did Liu Long since he was another Sunderer. But Li Hao was a weakling who wasn¡¯t even a yer of Tens. Even a tiny sliver of energy would improve him greatly.

    ¡°My speed, strength, and physique are all better than before! I wonder what level I¡¯d be if I was tested now?

    Probably not a yer of Tens yet, not that fast!

 Chapter 30: A Return Visit (II)

    Chapter 30: A Return Visit (II)

    If he were to go against Chen Jian again, Li Hao felt that he might be able to avoid that p now. But it was still impossible to have even a hope of winning against the man.

    Chen Jian was a yer of Tens¡ªwhether it was one ten or nine tens? That was difficult to tell. Based on what Li Hao knew, there was a vast difference between yers of Tens and Sunderers of Hundreds.

    Apart from Liu Long, all of the Demon Hunters seemed to be yers. However, there were differences of strength among them as well. Liu Yan looked to be the strongest, but she said that Yun Yao was not to be provoked.

    ¡°I¡¯m probably not a yer yet, so I need to work hard. I need to keep myself alive at least!¡±

    Ensuring his safety was key in the danger yet toe. The scarlet shadow was not something to run afoul of.

    ¡°Let¡¯s keep training!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t use the breathing method this time since there was still mysterious power lingering in his body. He was in fine fettle and able to continue practicing the New Book of Five Styles.

    He had to make good use of time! Since there was a way to increase his strength, there was no reason to ck off.

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time.

    Openlight, sixth floor of Building 5.

    Liu Long stood on the balcony with his arms crossed, looking across to a certain apartment in Building 6. The windows were shut tight and the curtains drawn. Still, one could vaguely make out a figure jumping around inside.

    It was Li Hao¡¯s house.

    The tall and skinny Wu Chao stood next to his captain, likewise watching the apartment. He shook his head after a while. ¡°The guy drew the curtains before the sky got dark¡ªhe¡¯s exercising vignce. He¡¯s probably suspected for a while that Zhang Yuan¡¯s death is a murder. Chief, do we just watch him like this? Is someoneing?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Liu Long responded calmly. ¡°Just keep watching!¡±

    Wu Chao swept his gaze in another direction and said lowly, ¡°Chief, our position is the best for a stakeout! I also briefly circled the perimeter and found that no strangers havee to Building 5.¡± He paused, then continued, ¡°Is there no one watching him, or are they using supernatural means to keep an eye on Li Hao?¡±

    The enemy might not be here in person even if they were following the young man. Some supernatural methods could be utilized with none the wiser. It was just rare for a supernatural to personally keep an eye on a mundane.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t rebuff his subordinate, but neither did he think there really was a supernatural tailing Li Hao at the moment. It was more likely that they were secretly observing the young man while they waited for the right moment to arrive. Perhaps it was the rainy days that Li Hao spoke of.

    The young man was right here and wouldn¡¯t run for safety. If that was his considered course of action, he would¡¯ve done so long ago. If that urred, it didn¡¯t matter to the enemy whether or not they followed him.

    After brief contemtion, Liu Long changed the topic. ¡°How much mysterious power do we have right now?¡±

    ¡°Twelve cubes,¡± Wu Chao answered. ¡°Ten with attributes, two without.¡±

    The deputy chief seemed to be weighing something up. ¡°Have the boye see me when he reports for work tomorrow. Retrieve the two unattributed cubes. Let him absorb them and let¡¯s see what happens.¡±

    Wu Chao wasn¡¯t too surprised by themand, just envious. ¡°Chief, we don¡¯t have many and unattributed ones are more valuable. Why don¡¯t we try the attributed ones first?¡±

    Attributed mysterious power came with certain energy¡ªfire, thunder and lightning, as well as others. They weren¡¯t necessarily a match for the one absorbing it, but they would be the preferred choice if they were a right fit. It all depended on the person!

    For martial masters yet to ascend to the supernatural domain like Wu Chao and the others, unattributed energy was more precious. They strengthened the person without risk of rejection or danger. Thus, everyone on the team treasured unattributed cubes of energy.

    ¡°He¡¯s too weak!¡± Liu Long replied calmly. ¡°We¡¯re not the Night Watchers with their trove of powerhouses who can yank out energy at any time. If he absorbs the attributed power and his body rejects it, there won¡¯t be much we can do to suppress the reaction. He¡¯ll explode and die. Do you want to go back to being bait after that?¡±

    Fine then, Wu Chao had nothing else to say. Li Hao was indeed too weak and it was right and proper to give thed a wee gift after joining the team. But the man still had his doubts.

    ¡°Chief, did you recruit him for one time use¡­ or do you really n to nurture him further?¡± he whispered. This was something he''d been wondering for a while.

    Liu Long flicked a nce at him and smiled. ¡°He is our teammate so long as he¡¯s alive! He is ourrade-in-arms and what¡¯s his is his, what should be protected should be protected, and what should be taught is taught. If he dies¡­ Well, need I say more?¡±

    Wu Chao understood. This was how he¡¯d reached his current stage in life. Survival of the fittest!

    Only when alive was one part of the team. Nothing mattered anymore if one died. Everyone understood on their first day of joining the Demon Hunters just how dangerous it was to hunt supernaturals. No one would be here if they didn¡¯t have their own story to tell or specific motivation driving them.

    ¡°It¡¯s nice being new!¡± Wu Chao sighed. Newbies didn¡¯t have to do anything to receive benefits, how lucky!

    Granted, this was also the team rule. Neers were so weak that without protective measures, the team would consistently bleed its fresh blood and weaken until it died. It was just¡­ they¡¯d only been given one square of mysterious power when they joined. The founding members hadn¡¯t even received that because they hadn¡¯t had a treasury then. What reserves they possessed now were produced through the skin of their teeth.

    Expectation crept into Wu Chao¡¯s voice as he thought about it further. ¡°I wonder if we¡¯ll be able to kill them this time, how much mysterious power they can provide, and if it¡¯ll be attributed or not. Chief, will you be able to cross over if you absorb some more?¡±

    Liu Long shook his head wordlessly. Cross over? Too hard!

    Those who didn¡¯t ascend on their first try ended up enhancing their martial dao, constitution, and strength. That in turn made metamorphoses even more difficult. For a Sunderer like him, many more attempts were required and ideally, mysterious power that was matched to him.

    As useful as unattributed energy was, it enhanced his physique more than anything. Thus, it wasn¡¯t necessarily a good thing to absorb too much as it made crossing over that much harder.

    Liu Long sighed inwardly and looked at the window across from them again. ¡°Stay here and notify me of anything that happens!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    The captain left without another word. It didn¡¯t seem like anything would happen to Li Hao over the next couple of days, but it was another story once the rainy season began. The young man might be in danger at any second then.

    ¡­¡­

    The sky darkened soon after Liu Long left and night was swift upon them. Li Hao continued practicing the ape style inside the house, maintaining his form longer each time. Sweat spattered over the floor until it grew slick with sweat. Just when he was about to go through another runthrough, Panther started growling from its sprawled out position on the ground.

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow at the little ck dog. Was someone here?

    His heart skipped a beat and his breathing stuttered when he looked up. The young man quickly settled into the opening stance and began the ape style again, albeit at a much weaker level than before. He was shocked and terrified out of his mind!

    The corner of his eye caught a smear of red outside his window. It was pressed against the ss! The scarlet shadow was here! It was his first time seeing it in his house!

    Was Liu Long nearby?

    Did he see it?

    Could he see it?

    Damn it!

    Li Hao¡¯s heart raced with panic and worry. Was the shadow here to keep him under surveince? What could he do other than remainposed and pretend he didn¡¯t see it?

    He was extremely tired after another round of the ape style and halted for the night. The scarlet shadow still floated outside¡ªon the window. It was like it¡¯d pierced through the window and was perching on the ss.

    Did this mean that the supernatural behind it was close by? Would they attack tonight? They were too bold! Zhang Yuan¡¯s house was dismantled just yesterday and here they were today. This was tant disregard of Liu Long and his team!

    What do I do now? Li Hao grew more uneasy the longer the shadow stayed. In order to conceal his anxiety, he walked into the bathroom to take a shower.

    The hairs on the back of his neck stood up when water hit his face. He forced himself to stay still and look at his toes. He couldn¡¯t let the scarlet shadow realize he could see it¡ªit was right next to him!

    The two were nearly cheek to cheek in the small bathroom!

    Don¡¯t worry! It¡¯s just here to keep an eye on me! It didn¡¯t attack the second it appeared, so it doesn¡¯t want to kill me right now. Based on teacher¡¯s deductions, this isn¡¯t the time. So rx, rx! I don¡¯t see anything, training is sweet, Liu Yan¡¯s boobs are so big¡ªdo they make fights difficult?

    Li Hao shifted his gaze and wrenched his thoughts around, concerned that he¡¯d work himself into a frenzy if he continued to dwell on the situation. The jade sword around his neck remained inert, appearing to be any regr pendant. He didn¡¯t know if the scarlet shadow could see it and what it would make of the ne. He didn¡¯t have the capacity to think anymore, much less be shy that his naked self was on full disy.

    Who would think about that at a time like this?

    My circumstances are getting more and more dangerous! Time passed in the throes of his wild thoughts; the shadow disappeared when he finished showering.

    Panther sprawled in the living room, quiet as a mouse the entire time. It wasn¡¯t until the scarlet shadow disappeared that it heaved a sigh of relief. Li Hao also breathed out more easily as well. Dog and human looked at each other inplete silence¡ªthere was also some confusion in the dog¡¯s eyes.

    You saw it too? I thought you were blind! You¡¯re so good, I thought you couldn¡¯t see it! You¡¯re better at this acting business than I am!

    ¡­¡­

    Inside the apartment.

    Li Hao had the distinct sensation of surviving a cmity. This was the second time in two days that the scarlet shadow had approached him! Did this mean that the enemy was about to make their move? Was this why the shadow kept him under observation, to see if their pig was fat enough for the ughter and assess how much meat he¡¯d produce?

    Indeed, that was Li Hao¡¯s current takeaway from the situation. The scarlet shadow seemed to be repeatedly admiring whether or not its crops had matured.

    ¡°Damn you!¡± the young man cursed lowly. What do you take me for?!

    He would¡¯ve bowed his head to fate, but still tried for a desperate gamble if things had been as if before. But now¡­ he refused to acquiesce!

    The jade sword was a supernatural object and he¡¯d learned his teacher¡¯s breathing method. He¡¯de in contact with the supernatural domain and could absorb mysterious power! Why should he blindly ept what fate had in store for him??

    ¡°No matter how strong they are, they¡¯re not invincible!¡± Li Hao set his jaw. Why would they exercise such caution if they were that domineering?

    The truth was, they were afraid!

    Of what?

    Of the Night Watchers!

    There must be someone even more powerful than the scarlet shadow among the Night Watchers. Thus, the shadow¡¯s faction didn¡¯t dare raise too much of a disturbance.

    ¡°What am I scaring myself for?¡± Li Hao reassured himself and cursed at Panther, ¡°Damn, you¡¯re trash. You¡¯re always the first to cry whenever you see it.¡±

    Wounded innocence filled the dog¡¯s eyes. I¡¯m just a dog and very weak. If you¡¯re afraid, then of course I am too!

    The little ck dog felt that it was still young, that it was normal for it to be afraid.

    A young man and a dog slumped in the living room, staying quiet for a very long time. After a while, Li Hao picked up hismunicator and dialed a number. It wasn¡¯t his teacher for once.

    Liu Long¡¯s coldly arrogant voice traveled through it after a while. ¡°Speak!¡±

    There was no greeting or pleasantry, just that one word.

    ¡°I feel like someone¡¯s watching me!¡±

    ¡°Uh huh!¡± Liu Long responded, unperturbed.

 Chapter 31: Starlight, Mysterious Power (I)

    Chapter 31: Starlight, Mysterious Power (I)

    Li Hao thought for a bit, maybe the chief thought that he¡¯d discovered the Demon Hunters tailing him?

    The scarlet shadow sure as heck wasn¡¯t part of the team.

    Guessing that Liu Long had misunderstood, Li Hao brainstormed for how to continue. ¡°I don¡¯t know how to describe it, it felt like there was a gust of evil cold air blowing through my house. The stray dog that I keep around suddenly barked, thenid unmoving. When I checked, it¡¯d peed on the floor!¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Liu Long blinked. Evil cold air, a dog barking and peeing? Hisposure receded as he realized what the possibility was. ¡°Are you sure?¡±

    Li Hao kicked Panther¡ªthe little ck dog was despondent. I peed? You peed! Your whole family peed!

    Sadly, it could only bear the transgression since it couldn¡¯t talk.

    ¡°Absolutely!¡± Li Hao lied without blushing.

    ¡°I see!¡± Liu Long sounded a bit solemn and thought things over. ¡°Don¡¯t move and don¡¯t say anything more. I¡¯ll be there shortly, but you won¡¯t see me! I¡¯ll follow you in secret starting tomorrow, so don¡¯t slip up or reveal anything.¡±

    He didn¡¯tmand Li Hao to stay at the Inspectorate instead of going home because he needed the young man to continue leaving himself in the open.

    Li Hao grunted in assent and asked, ¡°Do I just ignore everything then, chief?¡±

    ¡°Ignore everything!¡± The captain¡¯s voice grew stern. ¡°You only have one mission¡ªwhen you get that feeling again, pull open the curtains!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m afraid¡­ that I won¡¯t have the chance to open them,¡± Li Hao mumbled.

    Liu Long seemed to realize that as well and changed his mind. ¡°Come find me first thing when you report to work tomorrow!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao agreed promptly. With his astuteness, he could tell that Liu Long was likely going to bring out some precious baubles. That was for the best, he would take whatever he could get¡ªer, was offered.

    Kids who made a fuss were the ones fed. If one remained silent in the Demon Hunters, there might not be anything that woulde one¡¯s way. Liu Long seemed to be a miserly sort and hadn¡¯t given Li Hao anything on his first day. Even Liu Yan had said he could take any hot weapon he wanted!

    ¡°Whoo!¡± Li Hao sat on the floor in deep contemtion after hanging up. He frowned when he saw the palm print on the wall. Had the scarlet shadow seen that?

    Granted, it wasn¡¯t a big deal if it had. A pseudo-martial master yet to reach yer of Tens wasn¡¯t worthy of a second nce from supernaturals. It would actually be a good thing if they thought this was the real strength he was hiding.

    There was still energy left in the jade sword and he knew the breathing method. He might see increases in strength everyday over the next few days. Judging him on the basis of what he disyed today would only confuse the enemy.

    Despite the fact that any increases in strength might still be insufficient to threaten supernaturals, Li Hao doggedly continued onward.

    ¡­¡­

    The night passed peacefully.

    July 14, a fair day.

    Another night passed and the scarlet shadow continued to fly under the radar. Li Hao had a good night¡¯s sleep and issued a few reminders to Panther before leaving for work. He shook out some dog food before hopping on his bike.

    The young man didn¡¯t know whether Liu Long hadest night or not, and he didn¡¯t ask. All he knew was that he needed to see the man today. Could he worm some benefits out of the captain, something ideally like a powerful supernatural object?

    It was more likely than not that this was wishful thinking.

    ¡­¡­

    Department of ssified Affairs.

    This was still Li Hao¡¯s post. Oddly enough, Chen Na was first to arrive this morning and excitedly beckoned at him when she saw the young man.

    What¡¯s she doing here so early?

    Li Hao was most familiar with Chen Na out of the Inspectorate and they were reasonably close with each other since they were the youngest in the department.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Chen Na bubbled with enthusiasm. ¡°Great news!¡±

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°Newbies areing, did you forget? It¡¯s time for the annual batch of new recruits, we¡¯re free! We won¡¯t have toe early to clean up or fetch water anymore!¡± Chen Na¡¯s hands danced animatedly.

    Although she was a fellow rookie alongside Li Hao, thetter did a bit more work since she joined the Inspectorate a tad earlier. She had to pitch in at times too, however, since it was too much for Li Hao to handle everything by himself.

    ¡°New recruits?¡± Li Hao started; he¡¯dpletely forgotten about this. It wasn¡¯t a big deal to him as he was about to leave ssified Affairs. Technically speaking, he wasn¡¯t part of the department anymore. It would be official once the announcement came through.

    So she¡¯s here for this! Happiness filtered into his answering smile. ¡°Great news! Freedom atst. I wondered why you¡¯re here so early. Is today when they report in?¡±

    Chen Na nodded with high spirits. ¡°That¡¯s right! Higher-ups finalized the selection a long time ago¡ªthey¡¯ve been training ever since. Today is their first day at work!¡±

    ¡°Got it, that¡¯s nice!¡± Li Hao shared Chen Na¡¯s joy. It was indeed a joyous asion! The girl would otherwise be steaming mad if she had to take over all of his work. ¡°How many are there?¡±

    ¡°Two¡­ no, three!¡± A merry Chen Na replied, her sources of information vast. ¡°The third is a recent addition. Three of them! They¡¯ve got it good. I was the only one when I came because you were a transfer. I had to do everything and then so did you. They¡¯ll have an easier time of thingsing in three at once.¡±

    Li Hao murmured in agreement. He was only half paying attention to the conversation as he waited for the department head to arrive. After roll call, he would report to Law Enforcement for the real business at hand. What did he care about this?

    But he was known as a good, honest guy in ssified Affairs. That persona had to be upheld even upon departure, so he was appropriately just as happy. Their colleagues walked in as they chatted and Li Hao busied himself as usual. He didn¡¯t ck off just because he was about to leave.

    Wang Jie came around 9:00 am, followed by the three rookies. They were very young andprised of two males and one female.

    ¡°Everyone, listen up!¡± Wang Jie pped his hands with a smile. ¡°Take a break for a second¡­¡±

    Well, no one was working apart from Chen Na and Li Hao. The rest were waiting for thetest gossip. The department head ignored the state of his subordinates and continued merrily, ¡°We¡¯re being assigned three newbies today, all of them elites! To be able to join the Department of ssified Affairs is a sign of their strength and capabilities¡­¡±

    The three were introduced amid a wave of udits. Li Hao set aside his tasks to take a good look at the three. Dressed in brand new inspector uniforms, they cut dashing figures. He focused on the young man standing on the left. The neer seemed young¡ªyounger than Li Hao¡ªat only neen years old. He was quite handsome and beamed with boyish charm.

    Li Hao was typically hailed as the best looking of ssified Affairs. There was certainly fluff to that title since most department staff were middle-aged men and women. There weren¡¯t many young people stationed at ssified Affairs.

    Decent looking enough, Li Hao did indeed fall shortpared to the new guy. The most obvious was in terms of their skin. The neer had fair skin that was evenly toned and milky smooth. Flushed with good health, it was tender just from appearance.

    Constantly seeking to make Li Hao her man, big sis Yu stared raptly at the rookie. Was today when she switched targets?

    Chen Na also took a few nces and looked at Li Hao. She lowered her voice with amusement. ¡°Do you see that, Li Hao? Your biggestpetition is here. He¡¯s called Wang Ming, right? He¡¯s a little better looking than you!¡±

    ¡°Feast your eyes on a sight you like!¡± Li Hao inclined his head with a smile.

    ¡°Pfft! Who says I like cutesy types?¡± All the same, Chen Na snuck a few more peeks before saying, ¡°His eyes are so bright!¡±

    Indeed, they seemed particrly alert because they were very bright. The eyes were the windows to the soul. If a dull look in the eyes apanied a handsome face, it made for a listless demeanor. Wang Ming, however, looked around with brilliant eyes.

    ¡°Hello everyone and good morning seniors. I am Wang Ming and Ie from the Inspectorate Academy. I graduated this year¡­¡± the young man introduced himself to everyone.

    Wang Jie quickly led him to Li Hao and Chen Na, chuckling when he nced at the two youngsters. ¡°Li Hao, Chen Na, you¡¯re seniors now too. Wang Ming, learn from Li Hao and familiarize yourself with his cases. Chen Na and Li Hao, make sure to teach Wang Ming what you know.¡±

    Rather than special treatment, sending Wang Ming to learn from them was a function of Li Hao¡¯s impending transfer. Although Chen Na remained unaware, Wang Jie was fully clued in. Thus, he needed to find someone to fill in Li Hao¡¯s position.

    Wang Ming was perfect!

    ¡°Alright, do we need to get another desk?¡± Chen Na chuckled.

    ¡°Nope!¡± Wang Jie smiled. ¡°Just move a chair over for a few days!¡±

    Albeit mystified, Chen Na didn¡¯t ask further. A few days it was. Li Hao remained pleasantly quiet and smiled faintly at the neer. He was hardly as calm on the inside as he appeared to be on the surface.

    Wang Ming!

    The heck was going on?

    His eyes were trained on Wang Ming not because of the rookie¡¯s handsome looks or bright eyes, but because he saw a faint illumination of starlight on the young man. It was less than what wreathed Liu Long and the others, but it was more resplendent!

    There wasn¡¯t much¡ªin fact, it was the barest twinkle. However, it was so scintiting that Li Hao could sense the cool tranquility of starlight though they were a distance apart.

    Starlight!

    The term floated to the fore. Of the two ways to set foot into the supernatural, those born with innate talent were Heaven Favored and those who conducted energy into themselves were Starlight. Regardless of how one made the crossover, one was supernatural!

    For some reason, Li Hao thought of the Starlight name at this moment. His expression remained mild as usual while waves of shock roiled his heart. Why was there suddenly a Starlight here? Who¡¯d sent him?

    The scarlet shadow? The Night Watchers?

    These were the only probable factions that would send a supernatural, so which had done so? Why was the supernatural in ssified Affairs and assigned to him?

    It was one thing if this was a regr intake of new recruits, but how would supernaturals evere to this department? Something was inly amiss here. No one else could see the starlight radiating from Wang Ming, but it was clear as day to Li Hao.

    Can Liu Long and the others see the energy?

    He¡¯d forgotten to ask yesterday how to determine supernaturals!

    Damn!

    An icy grip closed around Li Hao to find that a supernatural was by his side. Damn it!

    Was it the Night Watchers?

    It was far better if it was the Night Watchers¡ªit¡¯d be too terrifying if it was the scarlet shadow¡¯s side. There would be no ce safe in Silver City anymore; this was a Night Watcher base camp!

    ¡°Brother Hao¡­¡± A voice traveling into Li Hao¡¯s ears interrupted his wild thoughts. He lifted his head to see Wang Ming shing a sunny smile at him. ¡°Brother Hao, you¡¯re my senior and thus probably older than me. I¡¯ll call you Brother Hao, but you can just call me Wang Ming.¡±

    Li Hao answered with a slightly fake smile, but no one found it so since this was how he always smiled.

    ¡°You¡¯re too polite!¡± he replied enviously. ¡°I¡¯m a year earlier than you, but I¡¯m half-baked, aplete amateur. You¡¯re different, you¡¯re a real professional who graduated from the academy! Which one did you go to? Silver City?¡±

    Silver City had an Inspectorate Academy that served as the reserve corps for the Inspectorate. Most staff came from the academy.

    ¡°No.¡± Wang Ming shook his head with a radiant smile. ¡°I¡¯m from White Moon City and the White Moon Inspectorate Academy.¡±

    ¡°The White Moon Inspectorate Academy?¡± Chen Na expressed with surprise.

    Wang Ming inclined his head without further exnation; he didn¡¯t seem to be as interested in her. Li Hao, on the other hand, thought of something else.

 Chapter 32: Starlight, Mysterious Power (II)

    Chapter 32: Starlight, Mysterious Power (II)

    White Moon City!

    There were several other cities close to Silver City that were of simr scale, ones with poptions just over one million. One hundred and fifty kilometers away, however, was arge city called White Moon City.

    It upied special status as the capital of their province. The name of the province¡ªSilver Moon¡ªwas coined from the names of Silver City and White Moon City. Silver City was even ced in front!

    But that was many years ago. As time went on, Silver City declined in geographical prominence and its poption emigrated en masse. These days, Silver City was just an ordinary city among Silver Moon¡¯s thirty-two cities.

    There were rumblings from above that provincial officials were debating whether to change the province name from Silver Moon to Moon re, since the second greatest city within the province these days was re City. It was much more prosperous than Silver City.

    There was yet to be a conclusion in this matter; Silver City apparently refused the proposal numerous times. After all, it, too, exulted in glory once.

    Such thoughts ran through Li Hao¡¯s mind and honed in on a graduate of the capital¡¯s Inspectorate Academying here, of all ces. Who knew whether this identify was real or fake? Do they think thating from further away means I won¡¯t be able to investigate him?

    Meanwhile, Chen Na was both surprised and envious. ¡°What are you doing here, Wang Ming?¡±

    The young man smiled radiantly. ¡°Silver City is nice! Well¡­ it¡¯s also becausepetition is too fierce at White Moon. Promotions are hard toe by, so my family rmended Ie here. Circumstances are less intense at Silver City, so maybe I can get promoted here and transfer back home.¡±

    Understood!

    ¡°That¡¯s a good idea.¡± Chen Na nodded. ¡°As small as Silver City is, there are more opportunities and chances for all of us since the staff count is lower. Competition is too stressful in a big city, so you made a wise choice!¡±

    ¡°I think so too.¡± Wang Ming¡¯s smile grew more radiant, casting him in such a handsome light that even Chen Na was caught by his aura. She quickly averted her eyes and looked at Li Hao to reorient herself.

    The new focus of her attention was rather resigned. What do you mean by this?! You always said I was very handsome! Women¡­ heh!

    Li Hao slowly calmed down; it wasn¡¯t the time to quibble about this. What was he afraid of? He would knock down every obstacle as they arose! He held the immense advantage of being able to immediately tell people apart. No matter who the other was, they were here already. Screw it!

    Li Hao threw his responsibilities aside after briefly conversing with Wang Ming. ¡°Chen Na, take Wang Ming under your wing for a while. I need to head out for a bit.¡±

    ¡°Where are you going?¡±

    ¡°Law Enforcement.¡±

    ¡°Again?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m on the mission to escort the Veteris field study, remember?¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°I need to make a full handover and undergo some training so nothing goes awry.¡±

    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t go when I asked, but somehow you¡¯re going now,¡± Chen Na responded with a partial eye roll. ¡°Fine, go! I¡¯ll show Wang Ming around!¡±

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be happy that I¡¯m leaving such a handsome guy to you?¡± Li Hao teased. ¡°Wang Ming, learn well from Chen Na! The tasks are simple and you¡¯re highly educated. You should pick things up quickly.¡±

    Wang Ming smiled gently and nodded. ¡°Brother Hao, let¡¯s grab dinner tonight¡ªmy treat. I¡¯m newly arrived and a disciple to the two of you. I need to express my sentiments!¡±

    ¡°Alright, sure!¡± Chen Na bobbed her head in agreement.

    Li Hao wanted to turn him down at first, but likewise nodded after some thought. ¡°Sure, then thank you in advance!¡± He left without another word.

    Your treat?

    Treat your ass!

    This guy is very likely here for me. He¡¯s either with the scarlet shadow or from the Night Watchers. If thetter, then Wang Ming was keeping such a low profile because¡­ Oh, heh. They want to trap the scarlet shadow faction. These guys know about the situation at Silver City, but are biding their time.

    An observer was here because the Night Watchers had perhaps determined that the next target was Li Hao. It was possible they didn¡¯t even notify the city council beforeing to scope out the situation.

    ¡°Someone so bold that they came directly to the Inspectorate¡­ Would a supernatural from the shadow¡¯s side be so fearless? We are still Silver City¡¯s highest levelw enforcement agency at the end of the day¡­ so it¡¯s probably the Night Watchers!¡± Li Hao wasn¡¯t sure about the uracy of his conclusion, but he was eighty percent certain that Wang Ming came from the Night Watchers!

    A Starlight, and such a young one! Of course, his age might also be part of his cover.

    Li Hao¡¯s mind spun rapidly through various thoughts. Was this a good or bad development? If the neer really was from the Night Watchers¡­ then¡­ this was good.

    ¡°I was worried that Liu Long might not be able to handle things himself, but with the Night Watchers in the mix, that makes sess more likely!¡± With that, Li Hao entered the basement of thew enforcement team.

    ¡­

    ¡°I¡¯mte!¡± Li Hao was unruffled by Liu Long¡¯s obvious wait. ¡°A few rookies joined ssified Affairs today and one of them was assigned to me, probably to take over my duties. I showed him the ropes for a bit and have to say, White Moon inspectors are real professionals. He picked up everything very easily.¡±

    Liu Long nodded, not paying the exnation much heed. Li Hao could only guess from the man¡¯s reaction that he either really didn¡¯t know anything, or that he kept his cards too close to his heart.

    ¡°Did you find anythingst night, chief? Is someone following me?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say¡ªit¡¯s possible. I didn¡¯t see anything when I went.¡±

    Li Hao cared a lot about this matter not because he was wary of the scarlet shadow, but because of another reason.

    ¡°Chief, can ordinary people like us identify Starlights?¡± he asked rapidly. ¡°Are they any different from the rest of us?¡±

    ¡°Didn¡¯t Liu Yan tell you?¡± Liu Long blinked.

    ¡°No.¡±

    Liu Long shook his head. As he thought, the woman was none too reliable. ¡°There¡¯s normally not much of a difference,¡± he quickly exined. ¡°They are human, we are human. The real differencees when they utilize their abilities. Energy ripples form when they activate their powers. While those are still hard for ordinary people to detect, martial masters like us can sense them. As for non martial masters¡­¡±

    The captain thought of something when he nced at Li Hao. ¡°I believe we have a supernatural probe that can detect energy ripples. It was prepared for ordinary people to use.¡±

    ¡°A supernatural probe?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°It can pick up any usage of otherworldly abilities within one hundred meters of you.¡±

    One hundred meters? That''s useless!

    Li Hao frowned. ¡°Its range is so limited. If a supernatural uses their powers within one hundred meters I¡¯m probably dead meat, aren¡¯t I?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no helping it!¡± Liu Long shook his head. ¡°It hasn¡¯t been long since the supernatural world appeared in our society. This is already a decent development. Besides, those who usually go against supernaturals are either strong martial masters or others of their kind. A probe isn¡¯t needed. This kind of equipment is typically ced in a static location to prevent supernatural infiltration.¡±

    ¡°Oh!¡± A new thought urred to Li Hao. ¡°So this means we¡¯re unable to identity supernaturals as long as they don¡¯t use their powers?¡±

    ¡°Not necessarily. Supernaturals with the appropriate abilities or a certain level of strength can ID their kind¡ªthey can sense the innate energy ripples within their target. We¡¯re a long ways off from that, of course!¡±

    ¡°I see,¡± Li Hao sighed with pity. ¡°And here I thought supernaturals would appear with a halo of light or something, that we¡¯d be able to tell who they were with a single nce.¡±

    ¡°Now those are some wild thoughts!¡± Liu Longughed. ¡°How is that possible! Well, if the supernatural is very weak or a newbie, but possesses arge amount of energy at the same time¡­ Even ordinary people will sense something off if they¡¯re in close proximity.¡±

    ¡°Got it!¡± Li Hao nodded. Got it, you guys can¡¯t see the starlight associated with mysterious energy. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s you being too weak, not making the crossover yet, or if this holds true for other supernaturals.

    I seem to be a little¡­ special.

    No wonder the people who could see the scarlet shadow eventually disappeared. There were likely other connotations associated with that ability.

    ¡°Chief, can I get a probe?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ve already prepared one for you.¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°It can be a defensive measure, though it won¡¯t be very useful.¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind, who cared about how useful it was? With the probe in hand, he could opportunistically expose Wang Ming. He couldn¡¯t tell the chief now¡ªit would raise suspicions. But once he had the probe, he would find a way to reveal Wang Ming¡¯s identity as a Starlight whether or not the newbie used his powers.

    At the very least, Liu Long¡¯s starting point was to protect him. It was difficult to say the same for the Night Watchers. Whether it was the shadowy organization or the scarlet shadow, Li Hao had to let Liu Long know so countermeasures could be prepared!

    And all of it had to be achieved as naturally as possible.

    As Li Hao mulled over his ns, Liu Long spoke no further and led the young man deeper into the basement. There was no one inside but the faint figure of a busy Yun Yao in one of the rooms. Liu Long didn¡¯t stop until he reached a door made of metal in the deepest portion of the basement.

    ¡°This is the Demon Hunters¡¯ treasury!¡± the man exined coldly. ¡°Everything inside was won through blood, sweat, and tears! You¡¯re new and will act as bait soon, so we¡¯re making an exception! You¡¯re being given a chance that no one else had and will witness what true, precious mysterious power was!¡±

    Liu Long spoke solemnly as the treasures inside had indeed been harvested thanks to team members putting their lives on the line.

    Li Hao was instantly intrigued. Mysterious power! This was his first real contact with the energy apart from the jade sword. Would it be simr to what came from Steris? Teacher said that power from supernatural objects was feeble and faint. Would he see unbounded energy in a short while?

    Agitated, the young man eagerly peered forward. He seemed to glimpse a river of starlight!

    Well, he knew that was a delusion, but he couldn¡¯t help himself.

    Liu Long inclined his head as he looked at Li Hao, an imperceptible smile crossing his lips. This was the normal, expected reaction. I want you to understand that even if you¡¯ve encountered this domain through the sword of the Lis, it¡¯s absolutely nothingpared to true mysterious power!

 Chapter 33: A Human Is Less Than A Dog (I)

    Chapter 33: A Human Is Less Than A Dog (I)

    A door of metal barred the treasury at the basement of the Law Enforcement building. It was high security. Liu Long waited for the slightly disheveled Yun Yao to walk over before he opened the door.

    Li Hao nodded at the team doctor. Not knowing how to address her, he opted for a small smile. The doctor was very important to the team. Although Li Hao found her to be a kind soul, he kept Liu Yan¡¯s warning in mind.

    It wasn¡¯t that he defaulted to trusting Liu Yan, but that her trepidation seemed very real. The doctor was inly not someone to offend if she could inspire reservation in the brazen woman.

    ¡°Not bad!¡± Yun Yao suddenly looked at an eager Li Hao.

    The young man blinked. You talking to me?

    Liu Long also looked at the team doctor with surprise. What was not bad?

    Yun Yao didn¡¯t say much in the team, but her status was very high. She was talking strangely today.

    ¡°Nothing much!¡± Yun Yao shook her head with a smile. ¡°I can tell from how Li Hao looks that he trained well when he went home yesterday.¡±

    She changed the topic with a simple line, but Li Hao¡¯s mind raced furiously. Trained well?

    He did indeed train well after absorbing a significant amount of mysterious power. However, he¡¯d also confirmed that all of the energy around him had dissipated. Some lingered inside his body¡ªthere was nothing for it as he couldn¡¯t possibly digest everything.

    Could the girl see what was in his body?

    That was the only likelihood!

    Her role was apparently that of extracting mysterious power from supernaturals. How did Yun Yao withdraw energy that most people couldn¡¯t see?

    Liu Long opened the treasury door amid the young man¡¯s pondering.

    ¡­¡­

    This was a treasury made of pure metal! There wasn¡¯t even an air vent to break up the walls.

    The floor was metal; one could feel the weightiness of metal as one walked over it¡ªit had to be thick. The Demon Hunters had certainly made a heavy investment and highly valued their vault.

    It was modestly sized and very well organized. Divided into only three rooms, there was a separate door to each room. Mysterious power was ced in the third.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t say anything about the first two rooms or open the doors for Li Hao to take a look. He walked straight to the third room, making way for Yun Yao to take out a key. Li Hao was shocked by its tiny sparkle of starlight. This¡­ is a supernatural item?!

    The key was a supernatural object??

    Despite the starlight being faint, it was still starlight and ergo mysterious power. That made it a supernatural object, right? The Demon Hunters definitely valued this energy!

    Click.

    Starlight wavered when the key turned. The captain might not be able to see it, but Li Hao could. It was through ripples of starlight that the door opened.

    ¡°We spent a fortune to create a vault that can store mysterious power!¡± Liu Long dered with detached pride. ¡°Even supernaturals can¡¯t easily ess it without the key!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, impressed. ¡°Amazing!¡±

    As for what was amazing about it¡­ Well, if a supernatural really made their way here, would it matter if they had the key or not? The treasury was good against thieves and not much else.

    First toe into view beyond the metal door was a massive ss cover¡ªa veryplicated ss cover mechanism!

    It upied half of the room; Li Hao¡¯s eyes darted around when he saw¡­ starlight! He saw starry radiance the moment he saw the cover, a radiance different from everything he¡¯d seen before.

    What he¡¯de in contact with thus far stemmed from Steris¡ªtrue cosmic illumination that shimmered with the frosty presence of the stars. What he saw now seemed to contain other things.

    There were several areas within the ss cover. One portion burned with fiery brilliance, another contained thunder and lightning, and yet another was interspersed with ck fog. Thest area was simr to the starlight that he usually saw. It was pure radiance without anything else mixed in. It also felt slightly scattered.

    Liu Long also stared at it, infatuation in his eyes. He seemed to see it too in this moment!

    Indeed, the team captain sighed, ¡°This is mysterious power, can you see it?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook! Can you see it? Have they found me out? Liu Long knows I can see it¡­

    The young man quickly calmed himself down. No, that shouldn¡¯t be the case. As he surmised, the man continued, ¡°This is all thanks to Yun Yao. Mysterious power is unseen under normal conditions, but she can capture the power and confine it inside ice crystal covers. She knows special methods to force its true appearance into visibility so we can see it!¡±

    Li Hao looked at Yun Yao with surprise. So she was the reason why all of them could see the starry radiance? What kind of ability was this? Liu Long had said before that ordinary people, sometimes even supernaturals, couldn¡¯t see mysterious power.

    The target of his scrutiny was calm and smiled faintly back at him. ¡°Brother Liu praises me too much, this is just a small trick! Mysterious power is simply a type of energy¡ªenergy can¡¯t always be seen, but it exists on a fundamental level. All I need to do is dye it if I want to make it visible to the naked eye.¡±

    Dye energy?

    Li Hao understood the words, but not the theory.

    Yun Yao chuckled when she realized that the young man was curious. ¡°The dyeing process isn¡¯t tooplicated and there¡¯s more than one way to achieve the effect. The actual hard part is preventing mysterious power from dissipating! Thankfully, we have the ice crystal covers and strictly speaking, credit for that goes to Professor Yuan Shuo!¡±

    Li Hao paused, then realized what she was saying. ¡°My teacher¡­ created these covers?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Yun Yao seemed to hold Yuan Shuo in high regard¡ªanyone who dabbled in research and experimentation knew of Yuan Shuo, particrly if the subject matter had to do with the supernatural.

    ¡°Your teacher¡¯s discovery of ice crystals in an ancient ruin drew no attention until the professor found that their greatest use was to iste mysterious energy, thereby preventing its dissolution!¡± the team doctor waxed eloquent with appreciation. ¡°The development of the supernatural domain might have stagnated for many more years without the unearthing of ice crystals. With them, the Night Watchers are able to store mysterious energy and direct it into the body, bestowing more people with the qualification to be otherwordly!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, the ice crystals were a very useful finding!¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°The Night Watchers were established roughly a dozen years prior to that and weed very few new members every year. Other than the Heaven Favored, they relied on their members personally passing on mysterious power to guide neers through metamorphosis! However, not only was this a dangerous process, but it came with a high cost. The organization didn¡¯t take off until ice crystals were known to the world.¡±

    Li Hao brimmed with indescribable pride; his teacher was really something! The development of the supernatural domain had much to do with the esteemed professor! The young man quickly thought of something else. ¡°Then¡­ why can¡¯t my teacher make the crossover?¡±

    ¡°First, because his martial dao cultivation is immense. Second¡­¡± Liu Long smiled mysteriously. ¡°Your teacher is not the kind sort either. He knows too much about the supernatural field and keeps many things to himself. There¡¯s a portion of ancient ruins that he¡¯s refrained from excavating or even divulging their whereabouts! Everyone guesses that your teacher must hold a few exclusive ruins in his keeping. Therefore¡­ what ce will there be for the Night Watchers if he bes supernatural himself?

    ¡°Another key point is that with your teacher¡¯s strength and the advantages he¡¯s gained from the ruins, he¡¯ll be one of the strongest Night Watchers once he ascends¡­¡±

    Li Hao thought for a moment, then murmured, ¡°So they¡¯re afraid?¡±

    ¡°Yes, very!¡± Liu Long nodded, then quickly said, ¡°But I somehow think that your teacher will be supernatural soon!¡±

    ¡°What makes you say that?¡± Li Hao thought of the answer as soon as he asked the question. ¡°Does the chief mean that the Night Watchers have be much stronger, so they feel they can control my teacher even if he crosses over? As a result, they no longer fear him?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Liu Long nodded, smart! Only a slight pointer was needed!

    The supernatural domain had appeared veryte at just twenty years ago; Yuan Shuo was already a premier martial master then. With his strength and attainments in ancient civilization research, he might vault to the top of the field after he made the crossover.

    The implications were terrifying!

    Thus, the Night Watchers had taken certain precautions. Yuan Shuo was neither part of the government nor the shadier aspects of society, but he was also not exactly good inside and out. Someone who reached Sunderer of Hundreds in martial arts was fond of valor and ruthlessness. Killing or maiming others was bound to happen.

    Under such circumstances, the Night Watchers would not dare let Yuan Shuo cross over too early, whether out of consideration for their own development or to suppress the professor. The timing was finally about right¡ªthey had their own powerhouses now that could corral a supernatural Yuan Shuo. Bing Starlight twenty yearster made the professor no threat whatsoever.

    Li Hao thought for a moment and then asked, ¡°I¡¯m curious about one thing¡ªdid my teacher ept his fate so docilely? Does he work for the Night Watchers just like that, without protest?¡±

    Liu Long looked at him and chuckled. ¡°Remember that the Night Watchers represent the government! There are limits to one person¡¯s strength no matter how strong they are. Not to mention, they aren¡¯t just wholly taking without end. They also protect your teacher¡ªit¡¯s a two way street.¡±

    ¡°Protect?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Liu Longughed meaningfully. ¡°Li Hao, do you think that a Sunderer of Hundreds doesn¡¯t have a single rival to his name? That they¡¯re all dead? Let me put it this way¡ªYuan Shuo is so biddable and rarely leaves the Institute due to this fact.

    ¡°He¡¯s guarded by the Night Watchers whenever he ventures out partially because he¡¯s made a lot of contributions to the supernatural domain, but also because he offended too many people back in the day. The school is a shelter for him.¡±

    A shelter!

    Li Hao had never considered the possibility. Although surprised, it seemed reasonable at the same time. Why else would his teacher go along with things, if not for the existence of enemies? Given his nature, he would¡¯ve erupted in open hostility a long time ago with this treatment. How would he continue to perform tasks for an organization that continuously stood in the way of him bing greater than what he was?

    The young man looked around instead of asking further questions. ¡°Chief, is this mysterious power all that we have? Are we keeping more elsewhere?¡±

    Liu Long looked wordlessly at him, then quickly set his feelings aside. ¡°You don¡¯t understand. Although the energy here doesn¡¯t upy arge portion of space, it¡¯s a lot! We have twelve cubes in the vault¡ªone cube is one cubic meter! Mysterious power expands at a set density and ispressed only when it enters a human body or special objects. Twelve cubes is the total sum of our reserves!

    ¡°Ice crystals are also hard toe by¡ªhaving so many crystal covers in here took a huge investment of resources. Such is the only vault we have for mysterious power!¡±

    Total sum?

    Li Hao blinked, then looked again. There was indeed a lot present, roughly twelve cubic meters worth. But was this all that the Demon Hunters possessed? It seemed strange no matter how he looked at it. The energy that he absorbed from the jade sword and what it emanated¡­ was a lot too.

    Was it a difference in quality? Was the energy here much higher quality?

    ¡°Then¡­ how much am I being allotted, chief?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re a newbie and need to protect yourself, so I went against the grain and decided to give you two unattributed cubes! Unattributed mysterious power does not contain any other special quality, making it easier to absorb and safer!

    ¡°But there¡¯s also a catch¡ªit¡¯s more likely for unattributed power to enhance the constitution. When a martial master¡¯s strength rises, supernatural locks be harder to open and the crossover more difficult!¡± Liu Long gave a brief overview. ¡°Danger rises almost exponentially if the attributed power is not a match for you. We will be hard pressed to save you since we are not supernaturals. You can choose for yourself if you want attributed or unattributed energy. It¡¯s two cubes either way!¡±

    The man suddenly smiled when he saw how unaffected the boy was. ¡°Li Hao, how much are your monthly wages right now?¡±

 Chapter 34: A Human Is Less Than A Dog (II)

    Chapter 34: A Human Is Less Than A Dog (II)

    Li Hao blinked. My¡­ wages?

    ¡°I¡¯m a third rank inspector and earn one thousand star coins a month as an intern. Aftering on full time, I received a huge raise to two thousand a month. If I get promoted to second rank after joining thew enforcement team, I¡¯ll earn four thousand star coins a month!¡±

    Four thousand a month was a respectable sry. Li Hao was single and cooked often¡ªhalf a kilogram of high grade rice was only one coin. He¡¯d already lived a pretty good life as an intern on one thousand star coins a month.

    One fast food meal cost five coins. Even if he ate out three meals a day, that was only four hundred and fifty coins a month. His current sry more than covered life¡¯s expenditures. If he was promoted to another rank, he would have to consider getting a wife to help him spend so much money.

    ¡°So you earn two thousand a month at current, do you?¡± Liu Long smiled oddly.

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Do you know how much one cube of mysterious power goes for?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s a market for these things?¡± Li Hao started. These things could be sold?

    ¡°Not openly¡ªthere are many ck markets!¡± Liu Long snorted. ¡°The rich and powerful are just ordinary people at the end of the day. Not only do supernaturals possess immense battle strength, but they also live longer. Who doesn¡¯t want to be one of them? However, the Night Watchers are the only official channel for ascension if one isn¡¯t Heaven Favored. Underground markets naturally sprang up given theck of legitimate means!¡±

    The young man nodded with understanding. ¡°Fair enough. If I had money and couldn¡¯t cross over through orthodox methods, I might buy a ticket to bing greater too!¡±

    It was only to be expected! What a huge pity it would be if one had all that money but was still consigned to being mortal.

    ¡°The prices must be high!¡±

    Mysterious power was hard toe by, otherwise everyone would be supernatural.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Liu Long replied with amusement. ¡°Guess how much one cube goes for in the ck markets.¡±

    ¡°One hundred thousand?¡± On second thought, Li Hao felt that was lowballing such a rare resource. ¡°Five hundred thousand!¡±

    It was the highest price he could imagine. At his current sry, he would save twenty-four thousand a year if he didn¡¯t eat or drink. Given certain expenses he still had to incur, it would take thirty years to buy one cube.

    That was expensive enough, wasn¡¯t it?

    Inspectors were a highly sried profession. Most Silver City citizens earned less than one thousand star coins a year¡ªit would take fifty to sixty years to buy one cube.

    ¡°Not bad, that was a ballsy guess!¡± Liu Long chuckled. ¡°But you¡¯re still too low. One cube goes for one million coins on the ck market.¡±

    Li Hao heaved a slight sigh. Damn that was expensive! A promotion was the prerequisite to him ever being able to buy one.

    ¡°Are you not excited?¡± Liu Long looked at him with a smile. ¡°I¡¯m giving you two million here!¡±

    The young man remained calm. ¡°Chief, things from that domain are beyond the mundane to me. They¡¯re no longer connected to money, so it¡¯s all the same no matter how expensive!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s a good mentality to have, but you¡¯re thinking too much.¡± Liu Long broke into trueughter. ¡°You think being supernatural will transcend you beyond the mortal world? Think again! Putting a roof over your head and food on the table requires money! Buying and selling supernatural items requires money! Ordinary people make up the bulk of society, so money is an unavoidable necessity!

    ¡°Take amodations, for example. Where will you live without money? On the street? Do you know how much ice crystals cost? How will you buy them and store mysterious power without money? You still need to walk from ce to ce¡ªdo you think all supernaturals can fly or travel through the earth?¡±

    Li Hao started multiple times in quick session. He really had thought that one wouldn¡¯t need to worry about trivial matters like money if one was supernatural. But now that the chief pointed it out¡­ the young man realized that supernaturals were also human. If one was human, one needed to consider matters of survival!

    ¡°Then¡­¡± Li Hao said dazedly. ¡°Will I get a raise after joining the Demon Hunters?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Liu Long was speechless. This was what thed was concerned about after all that? He didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. ¡°You do, and you got it on your first day. Ten thousand star coins a month!¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°That means I earn more than first rank inspectors?¡±

    A first rank inspector earned at most eight or nine thousand a month. They could break ten thousand when taking into ount bonuses and other rewards.

    ¡°Yep!¡± Liu Long nodded and changed the subject. ¡°I tell you this so you understand how precious mysterious power is! Don¡¯t think it¡¯s readily avable by the side of the road. Two cubes would be out of reach your entire life if you didn¡¯t join the Demon Hunters!¡±

    Li Hao finally smiled. So it was valuable? That¡¯s not bad then. Granted, money wasn¡¯t of primary importance to him¡ªhe couldn¡¯t wait to absorb the energy. Would it be the same as the energy in his jade sword, or would it have even better effects?

    ¡°Chief, how do I absorb it?¡±

    Liu Long gave him a booklet. ¡°This is the Energy Induction Method, the Night Watchers use it too. It¡¯s the standard body method for conducting mysterious power into yourself. Other supernatural organizations use it as well!¡±

    A Night Watcher cultivation method? That piqued Li Hao¡¯s interest. He quickly took the booklet and flipped it open¡­ finding a very thin booklet indeed!

    Hemitted the contents to memory with one nce, flipped to the second page, then the third, and that was it!

    Three pages, one thousand characters! Such was the Energy Induction Method, the standard procedure that supernaturals used to absorb mysterious power.

    Bizarreness bubbled up in Li Hao¡¯s heart. The hell? Why was this simr to the breathing techniques of the Five Styles? Not the Breathing Method of the Five Styles that his teacher just taught him, but the technique he used when he first started practicing the ape style.

    It was what he employed for the sword water on the first day¡ªthe efficacy rate was very low. What his teacher taught retained seventy percent of mysterious power, whereas what he used originally preserved thirty percent and wasted the rest.

    In his eyes, this Energy Induction Method at most rivalled his first technique.

    Liu Long spoke solemnly while Li Hao rummaged through his thoughts. ¡°This knowledge cannot be passed on to outsiders! Although many organizations possess the know-how, they keep it under wraps. Grave punishment will result if the Night Watchers find out! It¡¯s fine if we of the Inspectorate use it, but outsiders are not permitted to learn!¡±

    The deputy chief spoke extremely seriously, but all Li Hao could do was nod wordlessly. I knew this thing several years ago¡ªnot the exact same one, but more or less. I have the Breathing Method of the Five Styles now, so I can¡¯t be bothered with this.

    He wasn¡¯t going to deploy the breathing method since his teacher had also said that his method was not to be shown to outsiders. Li Haomitted the Energy Induction Method to memory and quickly raised, ¡°I¡¯ve learned it, chief. Can I begin?¡±

    Liu Long nodded and looked at Yun Yao.

    ¡°Stick out your right hand!¡± She cracked a tiny opening in the ice crystal cover. It was a unique contraption as mysterious energy didn¡¯t pour out of it. At the same time, it was very limited in its uses.

    Yun Yao pointed at the cover. ¡°Reach in and operate the Energy Induction Method¡ªit will direct energy into your body. But remember, energy will flow back out and dissipate very quickly if your absorption efficiency is too low.¡±

    Li Hao knew all this, so he asked with confusion, ¡°Then why not have me stand inside the cover? This way, we can use the mysterious power again if I can¡¯t absorb it all.¡±

    That was what Panther had done¡ªthe dog had used the energy that seeped out of the young man. Such a precious resource should be recycled as much as possible!

    ¡°First, it would cost too much to make such arge ice crystal cover,¡± Yun Yao chuckled. ¡°Second, using the energy that flows out of the body is less efficient and more likely to cause a conflict. The more times mysterious power is reused, the more likely it is to sh with the next user. Our reserves already count as a second or even third usage¡­¡±

    Because their energy was stripped from others!

    To put it simply, it was better to let the power fade away than to use it again. The likelihood of rejection was too high. Not only would it result in suboptimal results, it might even cause greater harm.

    ¡°I see¡­¡± Li Hao mulled over her words. The dog didn¡¯t care. Panth ate whatever was offered to it and didn¡¯t seem to suffer any harm. It feasted upon whatever was present.

    The young man¡¯s right hand passed through the cover and a tendril of mysterious power visibly darted into his palm. It was Li Hao¡¯s first timeing into contact with energy that did note from the jade sword. His eyes swiftly widened when he operated the Energy Induction Method.

    Holy fuck!

    Why did this feel so awful? The jade sword¡¯s energy was a gentle warm current. Although there was too much of it, it was afortable sensation.

    In contrast, this attempt felt incredibly dreadful. The energy didn¡¯t listen to him and rampaged furiously through his arm, violently barreling toward other areas in his body. A faint sense of rejection grew!

    Is this what Yun Yao meant by the sh caused by repeated usage? Li Hao wondered with bafflement and iprehension. Did this mean that the energy within the jade sword was firsthand, and that the treasury held second or third hand?

    Was conflict greater when the energy was harder to absorb? Technically speaking, Panther took in secondhand energy as well, but here he was, doing worse than the dog!

    A human was less than a dog!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t dare disy any part of what he was thinking. He focused on operating the method and absorbing the energy. Mysterious power surged toward him within the ice crystal cover. The veins on his hand bulged and blood oozed out¡ªthe negative reaction was growing so strong that his capiries were bursting!

    This is all that secondhand is good for! He cursed inwardly, suddenly thinking much higher of what he received from the jade sword.

    He¡¯d always thought that mysterious power was mild and moderate, but now he fully realized how unbearable it was. No wonder they said that inducting energy might kill the user. He didn¡¯t understand before, but he did so now!

    His physical constitution was quite strong, but the energy had a terrible impact nheless. Just look at this, his blood vessels were bursting! Ordinary people would explode if they inducted unattributed mysterious energy, wouldn¡¯t they?

    I¡¯d die as well if this was a third or fourth usage!

    Liu Long¡¯s voice rang in his ears at this time. ¡°Not bad, the rejection isn¡¯t that strong. Very good! Looks like your constitution will do, you¡¯re only bleeding a little. I thought I would need to save you¡­¡±

    This isn¡¯t strong rejection?? Li Hao suddenly pitied the others. They¡¯d probably almost died during their first attempt to absorb energy! He tried to put the adverse reaction out of his mind and concentrated on absorbing energy.

    Liu Long spoke again after a while, ¡°Alright, you can take out your arm now and bandage it up. Your training over the past two days have borne fruit¡ªyou¡¯ve managed to keep at least thirty percent of the power. Not bad at all!¡±

    A stiff expression developed on Li Hao¡¯s face. That was it? That was it?? Two cubes of mysterious power were gone, just like that??

    The fuck??

    This was close to how much he absorbed after Panth on the first night! This was it?! Two million??

    Uhh¡­

    Li Hao waspletely speechless and immensely disappointed. Awe on! That was way too little. It doesn¡¯t even begin topare to how much I took inst night!

    Yet, Liu Long wore a look ofmentation. He exined proudly when he saw the young man was in a daze, ¡°Now you know the might of mysterious power and how valuable it is, don¡¯t you? Work hard and don¡¯t let me down! If you do well this time and we kill the supernatural, I¡¯ll reward you with another two cubes!¡±

    Li Hao stretched his lips into an awkward smile. So if I work like a dog and put my life on the line to kill the scarlet shadow, you¡¯ll give me another two cubes? I¡¯m seriously worth less than a dog! Panth you lil bastard, how much of my energy did you eat?!

    The young man suddenly realized why the scarlet shadow had its eyes set on the weapons of the eight families. He would be the same!

 Chapter 35: Discovering New Territory (I)

    Chapter 35: Discovering New Territory (I)

    Within the treasury.

    ¡°Are you ufortable with so much mysterious power umted in your body?¡± Liu Long asked.

    Li Hao nodded, that was precisely his feeling. This instance of mysterious power was harder to digest. The energy within the treasury was differentpared to the energy within the jade sword¡ªit faded more slowly.

    Any sword energy that he didn¡¯t digest quickly dissipated after absorption, benefiting Panther instead. Thus, while it looked like he took in a lot of energy from the swordst night, more than half of it had gone to waste. The dog seemed better than Li Hao at digesting energy.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t dare operate the Breathing Method of the Five Styles while he absorbed the two cubes of power, so he didn¡¯t collect too much. If it was energy from the jade sword in his body, it would¡¯ve already seeped out and dispersed.

    On the contrary, the energy yet lingered in his body despite not being digested.

    Weird! Were the two types of energy different? Was secondhand energy easier to store? I don¡¯t get it!

    Liu Long suddenly roared, breaking into Li Hao¡¯s thoughts. ¡°What are you standing around for if the power hasn¡¯t been digested yet?? Get over there and start training! Are you waiting for such a precious resource to dissipate??¡±

    Li Hao ran outside without another word. A tyrannical deputy chief was still rather intimidating. It was better not to get on his bad side.

    ¡­¡­

    The fitness area.

    It was outfitted with a much moreprehensive set of equipmentpared to what he had at home. Although the two cubes of mysterious power were underwhelming in terms of energy and hard to digest, Li Hao quickly settled into practicing the Five Styles. Wasting energy didn¡¯t seem like a big deal at first, but when he considered the unknown number of times the jade sword might be good for, he quickly changed his mind.

    ording to what his teacher said, the energy contained within supernatural objects was very limited. Therefore, Li Hao needed to treasure what he¡¯d just received.

    It was time for the ape style again! Leaping into the air, jumping andnding, Ape Paw, swinging around on hoops, pushing off various leverage points¡­

    Slowly, a bizarre expression draped over the young man¡¯s face. The mysterious energy that he¡¯d absorbed earlier seemed to stir only now!

    ¡°Hup!¡± he grunted. Veins throbbed on his forehead as pain suddenly wracked his body. Convulsions seized certain portions of his body. Thinking that something was wrong with him, that the mysterious power was on a fatal rampage, Li Hao opened his mouth to cry for help.

    ¡°Don¡¯t stop, continue!¡± Liu Long roared. ¡°The energy is taking effect right now! Mysterious power¡¯s greatest effect is destruction¡ªyou will be reborn from ashes of devastation! It continuously reforges your body, blood vessels, and bones so that you live through death via the path of suffering!¡±

    Unbearable torment strained Li Hao¡¯s entire being!

    That¡¯s not right! The thought shed through his head. This wasn¡¯t right, it absolutely wasn¡¯t right. Rebirth from ashes of devastation? That wasn¡¯t how it worked. There was no destruction when he absorbed energy from the jade sword. Whatever excess he took in faded away. It nurtured instead of hurt the body.

    These were two entirely different sensations to his senses. The jade sword¡¯s power was pure and gentle; what he just obtained was so violent!

    ¡°Chief¡­ it hurts¡­ is something wrong¡­¡±

    ¡°Wrong your ass!¡± Liu Long roared. ¡°This is how mysterious power is! Train well with it¡ªtwo cubes of power are a priceless treasure! I¡¯ll have your ass for it if you waste them! We paid an incredible price to acquire this energy! You¡¯ll die in the next mission if you don¡¯t make a noticeable improvement to your abilities!¡±

    Li Hao screamed with agony¡ªit hurt so much! He wasn¡¯t afraid of suffering, he just wanted to tell Liu Long that things didn¡¯t seem right. Why was it like this?

    Bam!

    Being driven crazy with torment, the young man swapped to the more ferocious tiger style. It was better able to ease this torture!

    Bam!

    The punching bag went flying and exploded when the next fist hit it! Li Hao erupted with strength, blood vessels bulging all over his body.

    ¡­¡­

    Off to the side.

    Yun Yao inclined her head and whispered, ¡°He has good foundations! The New Book of Five Styles is Elder Yuan¡¯s secret art alright. Although Li Hao is yet to reach yer of Tens, his physical constitution is far beyond average! Ordinary people see their orifices flow with blood after absorbing two cubes of mysterious power, to say nothing of their blood vessels bursting and their organs beingpressed. He seems fine apart from his blood vessels expanding.¡±

    This level of physique absolutely ced the young man almost on par with yers of Tens. There was a negligible difference between the two.

    Liu Long also inclined his head. ¡°The guy is in good shape! Is the New Book of Five Styles that good? I took a look at it before and pegged it for something for general health. So it has this kind of effect on martial foundations?¡±

    ¡°Perhaps there¡¯s a secret edition!¡± Yun Yao smiled¡ªthat was a distinct possibility. She looked strangely at Li Hao, wanting to say something, but refraining in the end.

    The young man seemed to have absorbed some mysterious power¡ªnot from moments ago, but previously. But though he had, his strength hadn¡¯t improved by much. What was key was that there were no signs of his blood vessels bursting. That was a typical indicator of absorbing energy. Even burst capiries would be detectable.

    In Yun Yao¡¯s eyes, Li Hao might have absorbed some power before this, but just a little.

    Power from a supernatural object, perhaps? And in an exceedingly small amount?

    That was possible.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao roared nonstop in the training grounds.

    ¡°Rah!!¡± He was as ferocious as a tiger out of the mountains and struck with Tiger w, snapping a wooden dummy in half!

    The result shocked him just like it would anyone else¡ªhow was this possible?! He was now experienced with two types of mysterious power. The jade sword offered more; it was purer and more gentle, possibly firsthand energy that didn¡¯t enhance his abilities much.

    What came from the Demon Hunters was exceedingly destructive and kept rampaging through his body, bolstering him to deal more lethal and ferocious blows!

    Li Hao saw almost no improvement from his first night of drinking mysterious power. It was his third instance today, but it felt much more potent than the vast quantity he took inst night. Off to the side, Liu Long¡¯s eyes lit up when he saw the young man¡¯s condition.

    ¡°Good! Li Hao, continue! The effects seem quite pronounced for you, so two cubes of power should be able to power you to yer of Tens!¡±

    Li Hao was unable to dwell on the captain¡¯s words¡ªhe didn¡¯t have any time to think as he was yet to fully digest the energy in his body. It still tore through him, so he needed to continue working off the excess.

    ¡°RAH!!¡± A shout rang out like one from a tiger shaking the mountain woods. One of the offensive techniques of the tiger style, the sound attack was normally effective for simply boosting morale. It never had a tangible effect.

    Li Hao¡¯s roar actually gave the impression of a tiger prowling through its territory and dering sovereignty! Ears rang painfully while the young man abruptly formed his hands into fists and mmed them into the floor.

    Bear Style!

    The bear style among the Five Styles was most suited for deploying advantages of strength. Li Hao brought out all five animal styles at this point in time. He was most adept at the ape style and less practiced with the other styles, but that didn¡¯t matter in this moment.

    He needed to vent what was in his body!

    That was the only thing on his mind!

    Bam bam bam!

    A series of enormous collisions sounded as he concentrated his strength into his hands. The bear style focused on the arms, the tiger style on equilibrium between the four limbs, and the ape style on the legs.

    Liu Long stared fixedly at the young man, surprised once again. ¡°This constitution¡­ is really not bad! The little guy might really make it to yer of Tens after absorbing two cubes!¡±

    It was incredible, but not wholly impossible. It was just¡­ Li Hao¡¯s foundations were so good that even now, there were no signs that he was about to bleed. This was very rare!

    It meant that his physique was cream of the crop. Liu Long didn¡¯t understand¡ªwas the New Book of Five Styles that incredible? Even Yuan Shuo¡¯s constitution was just run-of-the-mill, wasn¡¯t it?

    ¡°If the Five Styles are that good for crafting one¡¯s foundations, why does the professor¡¯s health decline?¡± Liu Long murmured. ¡°Did he revise the New Book of Five Stylester on and Li Hao studies that edition instead?¡±

    Yun Yao shook her head. While she didn¡¯t know the answer, it was clear to see that Li Hao was in fine physical condition.

    ¡°What a pity!¡± Liu Long suddenly sighed. ¡°If Yuan Shuo practiced this edition of the Five Styles when he was young, he would¡¯ve crafted a solid foundation and prevented all those internal injuries that gue his well being. He might¡¯ve set foot into Dominator of Thousands! If he can ascend from that level¡­ he¡¯d be a titan in the modern day supernatural domain!¡±

    The two were more astounded the longer they watched. Liu Yan was likewise dumbfounded when she came down and saw that Li Hao was furiously punching and jumping around like a monkey.

    ¡°How long has he been at this?¡±

    ¡°Half an hour!¡±

    Liu Yan¡¯s jaw dropped. ¡°And he¡¯s still standing? This efficacy rate is crazy! I remember some guys before toppled over as soon as they absorbed just a little bit. They couldn¡¯t move and their efficacy was also crazy¡ªcrazy low!¡±

    Some people¡¯s blood vessels burst as soon as they absorbed a tiny bit of mysterious power. They couldn¡¯t continue taking in energy, much less digest it. But Li Hao¡ªhe was still training half an hour after being exposed to mysterious power. This conversion rate was extremely high!

    Liu Long was likewise stunned. After a while, he said, ¡°It¡¯s not helpful for him to train without an opponent. You go, spar with him.¡±

    ¡°Me?¡± Liu Yan blinked. She looked at her captain and then at the merry Yun Yao. Bullies!

    Fine, fine, woe was her.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao was still punching wooden dummies when a chuckle traveled into his ear. ¡°How about big sis help you practice?¡±

    The young man wasn¡¯t afraid¡ªhe was only excited. Well met! It was too tiring to continue the way he¡¯d been going. There was still mysterious power inside his body! There was just under half left, so the vice captain¡¯s arrival was perfect!

    ¡°Be careful, vice captain!¡± Li Hao felt that he was much stronger than before andunched into an attack as soon as he turned around. There was no fear of hurting anyone by ident as all Demon Hunter members were very strong. He who struck first gained the advantage!

    ¡°ck Tiger Heart Gouge!¡± he shouted and curved his hands into tiger ws. Blood vessels bulged over them as he swung at Liu Yan.

    ¡°Where are you gouging, little Li Hao?¡± Liu Yan tittered and instantly broke free with a waver of her body. She pushed out her chest with a radiant smile. ¡°We have an audience, so don¡¯t go grabbing randomly!¡±

    Li Hao turned a deaf ear. His teacher had said that concentration was required in training¡ªmental distractions were not permitted. Put all nonsense out of his mind!

    ¡°Ape In Flight!¡± he shouted again and pushed off with both feet, leaping into the air.

    ¡°Have you forgotten the lesson we taught you earlier about not leaving the ground?¡± Liu Yan chuckled. The little guy had jumped up again, that was a great taboo!

    She readied to yank Li Hao out of the sky when the young man suddenly made use of his momentum and iled around wildly, lifting himself further until he grasped the fluorescent lights in the ceiling.

    The tube lights were very fragile, so the young man only touched them gently to leverage them as a turning point to fling himself past Liu Yan.

    ¡°Well done!¡± Yun Yao called out with surprise.

    Liu Long nodded as well. ¡°A two-stage jump through outside utilization halfway. That¡¯s very rare! However¡­ we¡¯re indoors right now. There¡¯s no ceiling to use in the outdoors.¡±

    Yun Yao chuckled and murmured, ¡°Maybe he won¡¯t do this outside.¡±

    No matter what, Li Hao hadmitted the lesson to memory and wasn¡¯t hauled out of the air. He leapt past his opponent and reached for her back. This kind of adaptation was quite umon for a rookie!

 Chapter 36 : Discovering New Territory (II)

    Chapter 36 : Discovering New Territory (II)

    Within the training grounds.

    Li Hao immediately turned back after leaping past Liu Yan and grabbed for her back. She grunted when the young man¡¯s hand was about to connect, flinging one leg backward in response!

    It was as if she had eyes in the back of her head and her flexibility far exceeded expectations. Most people lost their center of bnce when they kicked backward and could barely reach their butt, but Liu Yan¡¯s leg seemed to be boneless and unerringly aimed for Li Hao¡¯s face.

    Incredible!

    This was immensely surprising as Li Hao had considered the woman might dodge, turn, or bend down¡­

    Everything but suddenly kick backward!

    Bam!

    He wasn¡¯t able to evade in time and suffered a blow to his nose.

    OW!!

    His nose exploded with pain as blood streamed out; tears immediately welled up in his eyes.

    Fuck!

    He cursed loudly inside. Damned unlucky! But instead of stopping to clutch his nose, Li Hao remained on his feet. He didn¡¯t want the fight to end right after encountering a huge setback.

    Liu Yan might¡¯ve thought that the young man would stop after taking a critical blow¡ªthest thing on her mind was that he would rather grin and bear it if it meant he could clock a swing in return.

    Although blood and tears blurred his vision after Liu Yan retracted her leg, Li Hao kicked forward with every fiber of remaining strength. His kick wasn¡¯t too high in contrast, but he connected squarely with the vice captain¡¯s butt!

    She wasn¡¯t able to avoid the riposte since she was halfway through withdrawing her leg. Thrown off bnce, she reeled and stumbled forward several steps before finding her footing.

    Liu Yan sent a death re at the young man, whereas Liu Long and Yun Yao were shocked intoplete silence. A foreboding still reigned in the basement¡ªLi Hao had struck back after being kicked in the nose!

    His counterblownded precisely on Liu Yan¡¯s bottom and sent her flying for a marked distance. This ranpletely beyond Liu Long¡¯s spections!

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Liu Yan almost shrilled.

    The young man immediately clutched his nose and stooped on the ground with a cry of pain.

    ¡°Ahhhh! My nose! Big sis Liu, my nose is broken¡­¡±

    Her rage immediately deted. Anger shot through with indignation, Liu Yan was also quite resigned. She¡¯d broken thed¡¯s nose? She hadn¡¯t nned on hurting him! Who would¡¯ve thought that he¡¯d pull out a two-stage jump and suddenlynd behind her? She¡¯d reacted instinctively, but breaking his nose?

    Well¡­ she was no weakling!

    ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to¡­¡± Halfway through her protest, Liu Yan red with anger again as she thought of Li Hao¡¯s reaction.

    Yun Yao swiftly stepped forward and pulled Li Hao¡¯s hand away from his face, poking and prodding his nose. She quickly smiled. ¡°It¡¯s not broken, there¡¯s nothing to worry about. You¡¯ll be fine after some rest!¡±

    Li Hao raised a teary face. Woman, you¡¯re doing this on purpose, aren¡¯t you?? I know that it¡¯s not broken! Would I be putting on this act if I didn¡¯t kick Liu Yan in the wrong spot and send her flying? What are you checking me out for?!

    As expected, Liu Yan¡¯s concern melted into a frown and she took a deep breath tounch into a tirade.

    ¡°Alright! Well done, Li Hao!¡± Liu Long interrupted with authority. He turned to Liu Yan. ¡°You were struck by a non-martial master!¡±

    The vice captain¡¯s words stuck in her throat.

    ¡°Liu Yan, you know how dangerous our line of work is! You were cking off!¡±

    The woman quieted down. cking off?

    That was a little out of line.

    She¡¯d pulled her punch because Li Hao wasn¡¯t an enemy and very weak to boot. Although she¡¯d been afraid of killing the guy, it was true that she¡¯dmitted an error. Li Hao had sessfully kicked her and if this was a mission, she¡¯d already be dead.

    ¡°I¡­¡± Liu Yan said nothing. Vexed and somewhat resigned, she turned on her heel. A mum Li Hao tearfully watched her go, there was arge footprint on her butt!

    Equally silent, Liu Long also pretended not to see it. Meanwhile, Yun Yao took a good look and smiled. Chuckling softly, she patted Li Hao. ¡°Few are those who can make her suffer a loss and be unable to talk about it. You¡¯re quite a bundle of surprises!¡±

    The young man smiled sheepishly. He hadn¡¯t meant to do so; idents were bound to happen in bouts of sparring. I suffered more in that exchange, okay?

    ¡­¡­

    Liu Long remained staring oddly at the young man while Li Hao cleaned up himself. A guilty feeling crept into thetter as they stood facing each other.

    ¡°You¡¯ve got a good physique!¡± Liu Long broke the silence. ¡°Your absorption efficacy is very high! Do you practice a revised edition of Yuan Shuo¡¯s New Book of Five Styles?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°This is what teacher taught me from the very beginning. I don¡¯t know what version it is.¡±

    ¡°Are you aware that your foundations rival those of a yer?¡±

    Astonished, Li Hao looked baffled. Inwardly, however, he knew that he wasn¡¯t in such good shape. It was all due to absorbing the mysterious power within the jade sword, particrly afterst night! He¡¯d beenpressed to the point of getting shorter!

    A thousand questions swirled in Li Hao¡¯s mind. The energy within the jade sword was truly different. It was overly gentle and didn¡¯t result in tangible improvement, but it certainly provided certain benefits that were not seen in the mysterious power that he¡¯d absorbed today.

    It greatly enhanced the physical condition, for example!

    His body digested almost none of the energy from the two cubes today¡ªthat power did not have a nurturing effect. It only destroyed!

    Indeed, destroyed. It continuously destroyed his muscles and washed over them, then exuded a tiny bit of itself to heal the tissue. The end result was a repeating cycle of extreme pain! When everything concluded, a new domineering strength appeared in his body, one that contained immense offensive capabilities!

    These two types of mysterious power feelpletely different! Li Hao came to certain conclusions. The energy within the sword seemed more geared toward nurturing and support. What the Demon Hunters collected was suited for attacking. They were two different categories of power!

    No wonder neither Panth nor I grew stronger after absorbing so much. But having a strong body is good all the same. Panth¡¯s coat is so glossy that it¡¯s almost dripping oil!

    If the little ck dog had absorbed the power avable today, it would¡¯ve probably exploded. Li Hao had almost done so!

    Nurturing¡­ Li Hao had a strong hunch that while this kind of mysterious power was mediocre when it came to amplifying battle capabilities, it was more valuable that what he¡¯d absorbed today.

    I can¡¯t talk about it!

    Not on pain of death!

    Therefore, he didn¡¯t mind its effects being attributed to the New Book of Five Styles. His teacher more than likely didn¡¯t care either.

    ¡°Maybe teacher is just too incredible,¡± Li Hao quickly responded. ¡°Chief, do you mean that my foundations are more or less on par with a yer of Tens?¡±

    Liu Long thought for a bit. ¡°There¡¯s not much of a gap if we¡¯re talking strictly physical condition! What remains is strength, speed, and experience. If you train more and take part in a few battles¡­ You¡¯ll be a true yer!

    ¡°Of course, this is all a result of mysterious power. Do you understand how precious it is now?¡±

    Li Hao bobbed his head rapidly. He did! What the Demon Hunters had was not to be dismissed!

    ¡°Chief¡­ I notice that the energy both destroys and heals body tissue, but does that leave any injuries behind?¡±

    Liu Long bestowed him with a look of appreciation and nodded firmly. ¡°It does! Destruction and rebirth do not easilye about. It stimtes your potential as it grants you more strength, cing your body in a state of depletion. This is when it¡¯s important to quickly enter the supernatural field! You can slowly heal and recover after ascending as Starlight¡ªthis is a required step to crossing over.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, but contrary opinions swirled in his heart. He felt a bit different as starry energy from the jade sword lingered in his body. When the mysterious power ravaged his muscles, the gentle sword energy helped heal him.

    A state of depletion?

    Not at all!

    He¡¯d actually almost fully recovered and didn¡¯t feel too tired or find things too painful.

    ¡°Chief, is there a limit to absorbing mysterious power?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Liu Long exined. ¡°Each absorption is destruction because the energy is too domineering for your body¡¯s tissues to contain. A newbie like you can try once a month at most. Too many times will result in too many injuries! At my level, once every three to five days is good¡ªbut the caveat is that there¡¯s enough energy for us to use!¡±

    Is that so?

    Li Hao remained silent. Why did he think that it would be fine if he had another go right now?

    Energy from the jade sword is different! he realized once more. So very different! Damn, Panth made out like a bandit! I wondered why the dog¡¯s fine after taking in so much. It looks like the jade sword¡¯s mysterious power is meant for healing and nourishing.

    Perhaps it was time to put the jade sword¡¯s energy into a category of its own. Let¡¯s call it¡­ cosmic power! It¡¯s different from other types of mysterious power.

    The young man was suddenly curious. ¡°Chief, people like you and my teacher have absorbed mysterious power for a long time but failed to cross over. Does that mean you bear a lot of injuries?¡±

    ¡°Yes, and that¡¯s normal!¡± Liu Long didn¡¯t mind admitting. ¡°Your body makes a full recovery if you ascend and if not¡­ you can die from your injuries! A Sunderer of Hundreds has no shortage oftent injuries. I¡¯ve never heard of a martial master walking around with no wounds whatsoever!¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t supernaturals heal the damage? Isn¡¯t it easier to cross over if one is in good health?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that simple!¡± Liu Long shook his head. ¡°Setting aside whether or not there are supernaturals who have healing abilities, they would be beyond precious if they existed! Why should they heal you? Can you pay the price? Don¡¯t think too much¡ªyou should be considering how to set foot into that world and be Starlight. Forget about recovering from wounds!¡±

    He thought Li Hao was scared, but the young man was thinking of something else. His teacher!

    His teacher was elderly and bore a hefty array of injuries. He might have also absorbed mysterious power quite a few times, worsening his general condition.

    When the young man heard Yuan Shuo cough before, he¡¯d thought that was a byproduct of advanced age. But now that he thought about it, it might be the result of injuries from absorbing mysterious power because that was what the New Book of Five Styles was intended for!

    The more one absorbed yet was unable to crossover, the more grave the injuries.

    What if he gave his teacher a cup of starry water? Would that heal him and propel him to the supernatural domain?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t want to conceal anything from Yuan Shuo because the eminent professor treated the young man very well. He readily passed on his secret knowledge, holding nothing back. Not to mention, if teacher really progressed, that might confer Li Hao more support and confidence to take on the scarlet shadow!

    If one cup isn¡¯t enough, then two¡­ Or maybe I¡¯ll just let teacher use the sword itself? Li Hao pondered deeply. He didn¡¯t mind exposing the jade sword, since his teacher might¡¯ve guessed it long ago given his keen intelligence.

 Chapter 37: Yuan Shuoâ€™s Eccentricity (I)

    Chapter 37: Yuan Shuo¡¯s entricity (I)

    The jade sword¡­ Right, I still have the stone de! If teacher actually wants it, I can give him the stone de since the jade sword is a family heirloom.

    Zhang Yuan was dead, but Li Hao felt that his friend wouldn¡¯t mind giving the de away if it meant revenge could be had.

    ¡°Focus on cultivating!¡± Liu Long pped Li Hao¡¯s shoulder with encouragement. ¡°Your foundations are good. If you can fully digest the energy over the next couple of days, you¡¯ll truly set foot into yer of Tens! Your odds of survival will increase greatly then!¡±

    There wasn¡¯t much time left. Li Hao quickly bobbed his head, an unusual expectation and desire dawning in his eyes. He wanted to grow stronger and obtain a bit more mysterious power from the vault. It didn¡¯t matter if the power was secondhand¡ªthebination of tyrannical mysterious power and the jade sword¡¯s cosmic power resulted in enormous benefits!

    If I can get a little more and get Panth some¡­ it definitely won¡¯t die after eating so much cosmic power. Maybe I can raise a yer of Tens dog? Li Hao swallowed hard. It might be very useful to have Panth as a hidden ace. What a pity that there were only two cubes and they all went to me!

    Mysterious power was a marvelous thing, no wonder it was so expensive. Li Hao no longer turned up his nose at what the Demon Hunters offered, he just wanted more!

    ¡­¡­

    Within the basement.

    Li Hao sensed an enormous improvement after hisst absorption of energy. However, it remained questionable whether he¡¯d reached yer of Tens. Liu Long and the others were too vague¡ªperhaps they felt that saying more was pointless since Li Hao was yet to reach that level. Even now, the young man didn¡¯t know what the traits of being a yer were.

    Was it just a stronger physical body?

    The captain was more talkative than he¡¯d ever been and temporarily lost his aloof arrogance¡ªpossibly due to Li Hao¡¯s excellent performance. That opened the door for further questions.

    ¡°Chief, is there a way to identify a yer of Tens apart from actual battle?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°Liu Yan didn¡¯t bother telling you before likely because you¡¯re cannon fodder. You might die before you reach yer of Tens. Other than paying attention in actualbat, you don¡¯t need to care about any of this¡­¡±

    Hot damn! You know, I kicked her good. I don¡¯t regret that anymore. Liu Yan shows me a smiling face all the time, but also thinks I¡¯m not long for this world??

    Women were tricky alright, they were one way on the surface and another way inside.

    ¡°So what¡¯s different about yer of Tens?¡± Liu Long thought for a while. ¡°Let¡¯s start with a premise thatbat is not what determines cultivation levels. Actualbat is the foundation, so remember that well!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, that he understood.

    ¡°So in terms of actualbat, we can go off the words themselves. You can test this out for yourself. Whether it is Sunderer of Hundreds or Dominator of Thousands, you¡¯ll know once you throw yourself into an army barracks.¡±

    Li Haoughed awkwardly. Are you kidding? I don¡¯t want to die. And if I really reach Dominator, it¡¯s not like the army will fight me with bare hands and feet. One st from a cannon or a thousand guns firing in unison means the death of a Dominator all the same, no?

    That isn¡¯t how I¡¯d want to die, even with a death wish!

    ¡°If not through actualbat, there are also notable characteristics to each cultivation level. A yer of Tens is a true martial master and as such, qi blooms from inside! It is what¡¯s considered internal force among the people, or at least you can consider it so. Before the supernatural domain appeared, martial masters were also extraordinary and beyond the mundane. Their greatest trait is vibrant internal force!¡±

    Li Hao brightened. ¡°Internal force?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°A type of force that gathers from within and manifests as qi. To put it inly, a martial master¡¯s qi reverberates, their blood courses with vigor, and their meridians and bones resonate in unison¡­¡±

    He suddenly shook his arm, summoning a concerted hum from his bones and meridians.

    Pop pop pop!

    The air cracked as if there was a long whip snapping through it.

    ¡°You see that?¡± Liu Long smiled. ¡°That is the most noticeable mannerism of a yer of Tens! The meridians and bones resonate with kicks or punches and internal force suffuses them. This is the end result!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes lit up! yer of Tens! The weakest of the martial masters, their lowliest member, punched with the ringing of bones and meridians! Amazing, and he couldn¡¯t do so at the moment!

    This meant he was yet to reach the yer level. Not only would he not operate at these heights in actual battle, neither was his cultivation up to par.

    ¡°What about Sunderer of Hundreds?¡± Li Hao¡¯s interest was piqued.

    However, Liu Long frowned slightly. ¡°Sunderer¡­ You should put that out of your mind. Martial masters have fallen out of fashion! You stand a very decent chance of advancing to the supernatural domain if you¡¯re a yer, but once you be a Sunderer¡­¡±

    The man sighed imperceptibly. ¡°Don¡¯t seek to break through to Sunderer of Hundreds! Many are the Starlight who have ascended from yer, but I¡¯ve almost never heard of one who advanced from Sunderer. Perhaps there were a few in the beginning¡ªthere¡¯s likely almost none now.

    ¡°Remember this, Li Hao, try not to absorb unattributed mysterious power in the future. It is both a treasure and bane to martial masters. Absorbing too much will enhance the body and strength to a point where metamorphosis is too hard! Your chances of ascending are almost nonexistent once you be a Sunderer.¡±

    His tone turned self-deprecating. When did the identity of a mighty Sunderer of Hundreds be a burden instead? Weaker martial masters could cross over and be otherworldly, but the difficulty grew exponentially when one was a Sunderer. Too much mysterious power was required to attempt the change, and sess wasn¡¯t guaranteed even when there was sufficient energy.

    Whether it was he or Yuan Shuo, both had been figures of note among martial masters twenty years ago. But now, one taught in ssrooms and studied ancient civilizations, while the other was aw enforcement officer on the front lines.

    Their status seemed high, but that was all there was to them. They were less than a youngster newly joining the supernatural field.

    Li Hao considerately paused his questions when it seemed that Liu Long was lost in thought. Based on the captain¡¯s exnations and what his teacher had mentioned, the young man grasped that the stronger the martial master was, the less likely they were to cross over.

    Unattributed mysterious power was more aimed at enhancing strength. If one wanted to ascend to the other domain, one should absorb attributed power. If the martial master was lucky enough to find one that was a near perfect fit, they might directly break through to the otherworldly. Of course, the caveat was that one survived the process.

    The rate of death was moderate¡ªodds of survival for the Night Watchers were 90%, but only 10% for the Demon Hunters. That was why Liu Long opted to have Li Hao improve his constitution as opposed to absorb attributed energy.

    Don¡¯t reach for what¡¯s beyond my grasp! Li Hao kept reminding himself. Attaining yer of Tens first was equally good. So a vigorous internal force and resonance of bones and meridians were the signs of being a yer! As for practicalbat¡­ who cares, it¡¯s enough to keep up on a fundamental level.

    Actualbat was easy enough¡ªfight more, kill more. If they fight one hundred times in ten years, I¡¯ll fight one hundred times in one year. I can still keep up with them, that¡¯s not an issue at all.

    ¡°Chief, I¡¯ll stop here for today. I need to make a trip to the Institute.¡±

    ¡°The Veteris institute?¡± Liu Long came back to his senses and furrowed his brows at the young man. ¡°To meet with Yuan Shuo?¡±

    ¡°Yes, to meet with my teacher.¡±

    Liu Long thought for a bit. ¡°Do as you wish, but remember to leave tonight!¡±

    Li Hao looked quizzically at the man.

    ¡°We need more clues and traces of the people behind the scenes,¡± Liu Long exined. ¡°They may not show themselves if you stay at the Institute! Because Yuan Shuo is soon to embark on his field mission, the Night Watchers might have already sent their representatives to Silver City. Of course, you can stay there if you¡¯re more afraid of death and never set a foot out!¡±

    ¡°I want revenge more!¡± Li Hao shook his head, then asked hesitantly, ¡°Chief, will we need to notify the Night Watchers if we can¡¯t take care of this?¡±

    ¡°Remember this well, if the Demon Hunters can¡¯t handle a problem, then ordinary Night Watchers will be going to their deaths as well!¡± Liu Long answered coolly. ¡°Don¡¯t think too highly of that organization. There¡¯s not that many among them who can truly defeat me. Most who can have important missions and hold down the fort in the big cities. Do you think that any sent to a minor Silver City will be able to manage trouble that I can¡¯t resolve?¡±

    Confidence and arrogance!

    Such was the pride of a Sunderer of Hundreds! Liu Long possessed his own self-assurance even though the supernatural domain defined this age.

    Li Hao said nothing further and trusted that the chief wasn¡¯t truly unaware of the dangers that were entailed. He insisted on this course of action not solely because he wanted to kill a supernatural for their power, but more likely of what he said. Anything that he could not handle would be beyond the reach of ordinary Night Watchers as well.

    The Night Watcher senior council might note in person for something that hadn¡¯t happened yet.

    Li Hao epted things after he followed this train of thought to its end. Besides, he¡¯d discovered Wang Ming. This guy hade undercover before the rain arrived. He needed to expose the pretender¡ªa supernatural in hiding might result in unexpected developments.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao left the basement and turned out of thew enforcement building. He was about to leave the Inspectorate altogether when something caught his eyes. What¡­ a coincidence!

    ¡°Brother Hao!¡± Wang Ming grinned radiantly. ¡°Brother Hao, want to get lunch together? I¡¯m new here and don¡¯t know what¡¯s good at the cafeteria.¡±

    It was noon and not that unusual to be bumping into each other here. However, Li Hao somehow knew that this guy had one hundred percent arranged for this chance encounter.

    He shed a pure and innocent smile. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Little Ming, but I¡¯ve got to make a trip to the Veteris Institute¡­¡±

    ¡°Are you dealing with a case?¡± His new nickname caused Wang Ming¡¯s eyebrows to briefly rise. They quickly came back down and an expression of interest spread across his face, as if he very much wanted to take part.

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m going to see my teacher.¡±

    ¡°Brother Hao is a student of the Veteris Institute?¡±

    ¡°I used to be.¡± Li Hao smiled apologetically. ¡°I gotta go. Little Ming, eat first or have Sis Na take you. We¡¯ll grab dinnerter.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± Wang Ming let him go without protest.

    Li Hao strode out of the Inspectorate, wheeled over his bike, and started pedaling toward the Institute. A strange look appeared in Wang Ming¡¯s eyes as he watched the young man go. Liu Long is quite willing to expend his resources!

    The Demon Hunters of Silver City don¡¯t seem to have arge reserve of mysterious energy, but they let even Li Hao absorb some. Did they really intend to recruit this guy?

    What a bit of a pity. The next self-immtion case might be here soon and it wasn¡¯t that useful for Li Hao to absorb energy now. It wouldn¡¯t be very helpful even if he swiftly made it to yer of Tens.

    What was the point in wasting that energy?

    ¡°Liu Long of Silver City¡­¡± Wang Ming looked at thew enforcement building close at hand. This one was known even in White Moon City.

    What a pity!

    The stronger one¡¯s martial dao was, the harder that boundary was to cross and the more difficult it was to break the supernatural locks.

    Martial dao enhances supernatural locks! Wang Ming thought back to certain reminders from a few seniors, of how weak ordinary people were when they first broke through. It was as difficult as reaching the heavens for a Sunderer of Hundreds to shift to the supernatural domain.

    ording to the current limits of supernatural knowledge, it was best to ascend at the yer of Tens level. Supernatural locks were rtively easy to break at this level and one started off at a reasonably high level of strength. Thus, many supernatural organizations gave high priority to helping yers cross over.

    No one wanted Sunderer of Hundreds.

    Reservation grew in Wang Ming as he thought of Li Hao and he turned his gaze back to the direction where Liu Long had disappeared in.

 Chapter 38: Yuan Shuoâ€™s Eccentricity (II)

    Chapter 38: Yuan Shuo¡¯s entricity (II)

    ¡°Li Hao and his teacher Yuan Shuo¡­ Yuan Shuo¡­¡± Wang Ming sighed with emotion. This personage was much more preeminent than Liu Long.

    Both were Sunderers of Hundreds, but Yuan Shuo had broken through twenty years ago. In other words, he¡¯d sat at the peak of martial dao before the supernatural domain appeared. On the other hand, Liu Long had required mysterious power to break through to Sunderer. That was entirely differentpared to someone who¡¯d ascended via pure mundane skill alone.

    Not to mention that the professor was a renowned authority of ancient civilization. Known throughout all of Silver Moon, his reputation was both striking and remarkable.

    ¡°The Five Styles and breathing method¡­ Rumors speak of a hidden breathing method that¡¯s even stronger. Sadly, that one is entric and hard to approach. I wonder how Li Hao managed to be his student?¡±

    Yuan Shuo had a decent number of disciples, but Li Hao was his only student in recent years. His previous students had either graduated or died. The professor was more than seventy years old and hadn¡¯t epted students in a long time. Li Hao was an abrupt and baffling surprise to many.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with Wang Ming¡¯s befuddlement.

    The Veteris Institute.

    A familiar ce.

    Quiet and peaceful was the school¡¯s normal state of affairs. It was most known for the Ancient Studies major, a department overseen by Yuan Shuo. It was due to him that the school was so well known. Its alumni were highly sought after by many factions in the province.

    Yuan Shuo possessed a great breadth of knowledge, so even without epting more disciples, graduates of his department were very well known. They were highly active in exploring the assorted ancient ruins associated with various cities.

    Bygone civilizations were an area that all of humanity probed. ording to fragments of ancient documents, there was once an iparably glorious civilization before their current one. It broke apart at the end of its time and utterly vanished in the river of history. Few were records left of it.

    Unearthing the past facilitated transcendental development of many modern things. Communications, transportation, hot weapons, and even the supernatural domain benefited from excavating ancient ruins. Many crucial technologies came directly from them, enabling the agricultural society of mankind to progress into an industrial one just a few decades ago.

    Discoveries were so numerous that some technologies were temporarily set aside, resulting in disjointed development across the board. Enormous attention and resources were given to hot weapons, butmunicationsgged far behind. Thus, it was difficult for those of Silver City to converse with anyone in another city. ording to Yuan Shuo, one could easily reach someone else millions of kilometers away in the ancient times.

    Theirmunication system spanned the entire continent!

    Modern day devices were effective for only the same city, a clear sign of imbnced societal progress.

    No one stopped Li Hao when he rode his bike into the Veteris Institute. Although he wasn¡¯t a student, his inspector uniform gave him a free pass. A few fully detached houses came into view when he cycled down a shaded trail. These residences belonged to the senior professors of the Institute and thisne normally saw very few visitors.

    Someone jumped out of the bushes as soon as he approached and stood in front of the young man.

    ¡°This part of campus is off limits! Trespassers are not allowed!¡± he dered coldly.

    ¡°I¡¯m here to visit Professor Yuan!¡± Li Hao raised his head with a smile. ¡°Are you new? I¡¯m a student of the professor. Li Hao, third rank inspector of the Inspectorate. I¡¯vee before and it was always Brother Zhang on duty. Are you with the Inspectorate or the Institute¡¯s protection detail?¡±

    ¡°Elder Yuan is not receiving visitors at the moment!¡± the man replied gruffly without listening to Li Hao. ¡°He will be in seclusion for the foreseeable future.¡±

    Li Hao raised his eyebrows. ¡°Did my teacher say that? Well, I¡¯ll make things easy for you and ce a call, but¡­¡± He smiled at the man. ¡°I think this is a decision made by the protection detail or some other organization. Teacher doesn¡¯t have a habit of secluding himself, so don¡¯t decide for him even if you¡¯re a so-called supernatural organization!¡±

    The man¡¯s expression shifted and he looked frostily at the young man.

    ¡°Just saying.¡± Li Hao had been extremely wary of the shadowy Night Watchers before, but he didn¡¯t care about them anymore. What was wrong with just saying some stuff?

    If the Night Watchers were truly keeping tabs on him, then they knew that he¡¯d joined the Demon Hunters. In that case, it was right and proper that he knew about them as well.

    The man in front of him glowed faintly of mysterious power. He was weaker than Liu Long or even Liu Yan, but it was highly likely that the Night Watchers had sent him to protect Yuan Shuo.

    A true supernatural was either absent or in concealment. Whatever the situation may be, this guy wasn¡¯t supernatural. He was likely a martial master who¡¯d absorbed some energy, an existence like Liu Long and the others.

    The middle-aged man frowned and grunted, ¡°A moment, I¡¯ll make a report of this!¡±

    Li Hao said nothing further.

    There was no need to unnecessarily antagonize the Night Watchers. At the same time, the state of affairs irked him since it definitely wasn¡¯t his teacher¡¯s idea to refuse all visitors. Did the Night Watchers have to restrict who his teacher saw?

    The man disappeared for a while before returning with, ¡°Go in!¡±

    ¡°Thanks!¡± Li Hao replied merrily and rode inside.

    The man watched him go with a frown. He raised his hand to a ck earpiece and muttered, ¡°I didn¡¯t check him. Will everything be okay?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, let him through!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The man said nothing more; he was just a bit surprised. Everyone else had been turned away, but this young man received free passage from his superiors. Yuan Shuo was about tomence his next exploration and word on the street was that this was a very important one. The professor was not to have any guests in the near future in order to prevent news from leaking and to ensure his safety.

    ¡­¡­

    The Yuan residence.

    Li Hao parked in front of the door and set his bike to the side before knocking.

    ¡°It¡¯s open!¡± came the resonant voice of an elderly man.

    Yuan Shuo was practicing in a yardid with blue bricks. Rather than the ferocity of the tiger style, he disyed thenguid lines of a sunbathing turtle.

    The door opened with a creak; Li Hao drew his lips in a smile unseen at any other time the moment he saw his teacher.

    ¡°Teacher!¡±

    ¡°Find a ce and sit!¡± Yuan Shuo continued his routine without attending to his student.

    At seventy years old, the esteemed professor was still hale and hearty. He wasn¡¯t too tall at one hundred and seventy centimeters, but it was a decent height for an elderly man. Yuan Shuo had certainly been taller when he was younger.

    His hair was peppered with gray and overall, his outfit was very simple with a pair of cloth shoes. Li Hao was used to his teacher¡¯s appearance and habits. He took a seat nearby and watched the professor run through his boxing method.

    His fists moved very slowly! Each one was as if a snail crawling over the ground. It induced yawns and lethargy, but Yuan Shuo never grew bored of it. Li Hao was very familiar with it as his teacher had practiced it for many years. In his view, his teacher sought to add another style to the Five Styles!

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t look at Li Hao, but he seemed to sense his disciple¡¯s regard and guess some of what was running through the young man¡¯s mind. Just as Li Hao was about to raise his cup for a sip of water, the plodding professor abruptly vanished on the spot.

    A fist suddenly appeared in front of the young man¡¯s eyes!

    It was slow, so slow that it seemed more like a slow motion rey. Li Hao wanted to dodge it, but it felt like someone had locked onto him and he couldn¡¯t move! Sweat beaded his forehead¡ªthis was simr to when the scarlet shadow locked onto him. It was identical terror, danger, and peril of life and death!

    ¡°Roar!¡±

    Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods!

    A sound wave attack!

    Bam!

    A palm struck his head; Li Hao didn¡¯t even see his teacher withdraw his hand.

    ¡°What are you hollering for?¡± Yuan Shuo hectored. ¡°It¡¯s Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods, not a cat mewling on the street! You¡¯ve learned shit about the tiger style, it¡¯s the cat style in your hands!¡±

    Li Hao awkwardly wiped away the sweat on his forehead and rose from his chair. ¡°Teacher, you were so fast just now and I felt like I couldn¡¯t move¡­¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s because you¡¯re too weak!¡± Yuan Shuo was immensely dissatisfied. ¡°A third rate martial master relies on his fists and legs, a second rate deploys his aura, and a first rate locks on mentally. You¡¯re not even third rate!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡± Li Hao rubbed his head, not minding his teacher¡¯s scathing criticism. He wasn¡¯t third rate because he wasn¡¯t even a martial master! Only when he reached yer of Tens was he one!

    ¡°Not bad!¡± Yuan Shuo stopped¡ªcursing was just a habit for him. ¡°You¡¯ve improved. You couldn¡¯t even shout before, at least you¡¯ve advanced beyond that. However¡­ this may not be what I want to see either.¡±

    The eminent elder shook his head. ¡°Martial dao has declined. It¡¯s enough to simply be healthy! It¡¯s better to put ancient civilizations as your main profession¡ªyou won¡¯t have to worry about food on the table or a roof over your head in the future. I was thinking that you have good potential. You¡¯ll forge a ce for yourself in this world if you focus on ancient studies in the event of remaining mundane. I can arrange for you to be an assistant professor or something after I retire. You¡¯ll take over from me in a few decades. ¡­ai, what a pity!¡±

    Li Hao chuckled politely and didn¡¯t say anything. He poured a cup of tea for his teacher and took a close look at the elder, finding the sight odd. Whether it was Liu Long or Liu Yan, starlight twinkled around all of the team members¡ªeven in an impure state. For Starlight supernaturals like Wang Ming, he emanated a very pure glow.

    There was nothing around his teacher; Li Hao would¡¯ve seen it long ago! Had Yuan Shuo never absorbed any mysterious power?

    ¡°What are you looking at?¡± Yuan Shuo sat down, kicked Li Hao away, and picked up the tea cup.

    ¡°Teacher¡­¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°Howe you¡¯re different from Captain Liu? I feel a sinister cold whenever I approach the captain¡­¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s mysterious power leaking!¡± Yuan Shuo said nonchntly. ¡°He¡¯s useless, he¡¯s trash, he absorbed too much random energy. He can¡¯t digest it all, so of course there¡¯s leakage. That¡¯s the coldness you feel. I¡¯m not trash like him.¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao was thoroughly speechless. He was aware of how arrogant his teacher was, but it was his first time seeing his teacher like this. The one they spoke of was a Sunderer of Hundreds and the boss of thew enforcement team!

    Was it appropriate to talk about him like this?

    At the same time, Li Hao was startled by the implications of his teacher¡¯s words. Did his teacher mean that he¡¯d fully digested the mysterious power that he¡¯d absorbed?

    ¡°Stop looking, you won¡¯t see anything. Study what I¡¯ve taught you and use it well. You¡¯ll achieve greater things than Liu Long, understand?¡±

    Li Hao understood! The Breathing Method of the Five Styles! So this meant that the breathing method was incredible enough to fully absorb mysterious power??

    He didn¡¯t have much in the way of experience at the moment, he just vaguely felt that this secret art might truly be remarkable. Of course, he wasn¡¯t here for the method, but for the cosmic power in Steris. Li Hao ardently wished for his teacher to cross over so he himself would have greater support when facing danger.

 Chapter 39: Dominator of Thousands! (I)

    Chapter 39: Dominator of Thousands! (I)

    Within the small yard.

    Li Hao looked on with expectation.

    ¡°Do you have any old injuries on you, teacher?¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± Yuan Shuo threw his head back with brazenughter. ¡°Are you joking? Injuries? Me? I was invincible beneath the heavens before the supernatural domain appeared! I am the guest of honor for the Night Watchers after it is part of our world. While that organization can¡¯t be deemed to be the whole of the otherworldly field, they are still thergest faction. So you tell me, who can hurt me?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    This wasn¡¯t the answer that Li Hao wanted. He couldn¡¯t help but follow up, ¡°Teacher, Captain Liu says that every Sunderer of Hundreds umtes various wounds. You were once a premier martial master¡ªare you unable to break through because you¡¯ve collected too many injuries?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s only for trash like him!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Man you¡¯re a tough nut to crack! Li Hao wanted to cry. His teacher was wonderful in all aspects, but he constantly acted tough. This refusal to admit that he was anything less than perfect health was very vexing.

    ¡°Then¡­¡± The young man changed to a more direct tack. ¡°Teacher, there has to be a reason why you¡¯ve yet to ascend to Starlight, right?¡±

    ¡°Because I¡¯m too strong!¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly found his student impudent. What did the young man mean by this?? Does he want to poke at my pain points?

    Heh! It¡¯s impossible for him to! Of course, it was also pointless to say too much to Li Hao. What could the kid do with the truth?

    Li Hao was truly growing frantic. His teacher kept too stiff of an upper lip!

    ¡°Teacher, would you have a chance of ascending to Starlight if you fully recovered from your injuries?¡±

    ¡°Is this what you came to me for?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve got too much time on your hands!¡± Yuan Shuo huffed with resignation. ¡°Don¡¯t think so much. My crossover hasn¡¯t happened for a variety of reasons. External, internal, they¡¯re all there!¡±

    ¡°Can you be more specific, teacher?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Yuan Shuo frowned and looked at his pupil for a long while before saying slowly, ¡°I have the Breathing Method of the Five Styles and absorbed some of the mysterious power that the Night Watchers once supplied. But I was too strong then and needed too much energy¡ªthis was one of the reasons why I failed.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, so there hadn¡¯t been enough mysterious power for his teacher¡¯s ascension.

    ¡°I am old now and my health has declined, that is another reason!¡±

    Li Hao nodded again. So his teacher¡¯s constitution was no longer strong enough to withstand the breakthrough to Dominator?

    ¡°I made a few powerful enemies back in my day and some are now supernatural. There are even a few who are leaders of supernatural organizations. They¡¯ve exerted pressure on the Night Watchers, this is a third and external reason!

    ¡°As for the fourth¡­¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly smiled and lookedzily at the young man. ¡°I don¡¯t want to.¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    Wat.

    What was that supposed to mean?

    The first three were understandable, but what was with the fourth reason? The professor didn¡¯t want to make the crossover? Did that mean the first three reasons were bullshit and that his teacher could ascend at any time?

    Yuan Shuo grinned to see a lost look appear on his student¡¯s face. It was always highly entertaining to tease Li Hao. He decided to answer straightforwardly given the mystified state of the young man.

    ¡°The first three reasons are valid and the fourth is real enough as well. I did have hope to cross over in the initial years, but I couldn¡¯t ept the situation¡­¡± A regretful Yuan Shuo shook his head andughed at himself. ¡°It¡¯d been more than ten years since the supernatural domain appeared and certain ''old friends¡¯ were already part of it for more than ten years. There was a gap between me and them. If I chose to break through then, they would certainly give me a ¡®warm¡¯ wee.

    ¡°It¡¯s one thing if I¡¯m mundane, but even the Night Watchers will find it hard to protect me if I¡¯m supernatural. These old friends won¡¯t easily move against me while I am a martial master and neither will they see me as a major enemy¡­¡±

    Li Hao began to understand. Some reservations prevented his teacher from setting foot in that other world, but wasn¡¯t this also drinking poison to quench his thirst?

    All the same, Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t a cowardly type afraid of getting into trouble. ¡°I was still immensely ambitious a few years ago. My thoughts then were to break through in martial dao first, then make the crossover! I wanted to reach Dominator of Thousands and then be Starlight. That would put me on simr footing with any enemies even though I¡¯m decadeste to the game!¡±

    Yuan Shuo suddenly zed with unbridled pride¡ªhe seemed more overweening than Liu Long! He wanted to set foot into the supernatural domain as a Dominator of Thousands, bing the strongest among Starlight and erasing a gap of decades between him and his ¡°old friends¡±.

    But inly, he¡¯d failed!

    Li Hao frowned. ¡°Teacher, do you mean that you didn¡¯t cross over before because you wouldn¡¯t be able to match your enemies if you did so? That your only option was to reach Dominator before catching up in one fell swoop?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Then¡­ what went wrong?¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t know how strong that level of martial master was, but he knew that Yuan Shuo had broken through to Sunderer many years ago. If this was his n back then, that meant he still saw the hope of sess.

    Why had he given up?

    Yes, given up. Li Hao felt that if his teacher wouldn¡¯t say these words if he hadn¡¯t. At the very least, he wouldn¡¯t say that he¡¯d been ¡°still¡± immensely ambitious a few years ago.

    ¡°Heh, yes, something did go wrong,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°But it¡¯s just as well, it ended my hopes. I asked the Night Watchers to help me, but none of their methods have seeded. There¡¯s nothing for it but to ept fate!

    ¡°It¡¯s actually a good thing¡­¡± the professor was still chuckling. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be of the mind to ept students if it wasn¡¯t for this!¡±

    He was so busy before trying to ascend to Dominator of Thousands. Thus, he didn¡¯t take on students for many years. But once his dreams were crushed, he didn¡¯t care whether or not he could make the crossover. Hepletely relinquished the notion when the Night Watchers hemmed and hawed after he asked for help and resources to shore up his body.

    All that was left for him now was to live out his days in peace and hole up in the Veteris Institute of Silver City. It was due to this abundance of time that he could teach others. Outsiders wondered why he suddenly epted students again, the answer was simple¡ªhe was bored!

    Teaching others was a solid option when a martial master could not achieve breakthroughs in strength and metamorphose. Yuan Shuo had chosen Li Hao because the young man seemed bright enough toprehend some of his knowledge.

    Was he to choose Zhang Yuan if not Li Hao? The former was slow on the uptake!

    ¡°Teacher, do you still have a chance to ascend to Dominator of Thousands and make the crossover?¡±

    Yuan Shuo sighed softly. ¡°I know what you¡¯re thinking of and that you face danger. But with my half-crippled Sunderer strength¡­ I¡¯m probably less than Liu Long at the moment.¡±

    There was nothing else he could say! The once invincible Yuan Shuo, grandmaster of the Five Styles, could only ede to fate and say that he was less than Liu Long.

    ¡°What I said before still stands¡ªyou can hide out with me if you¡¯re afraid. They won¡¯t easily trespass on my territory because I¡¯m still useful to the Night Watchers and various excavations still need me¡­¡±

    Li Hao scratched his head, finally disying the anxiousness of youth.

    ¡°Teacher¡­ I¡­¡± He didn¡¯t know how to say it. After thinking of a while, he suddenly headed into the house. ¡°Teacher, I got my hands on something good. Try it and see if it works for you!¡±

    ¡°Something good?¡± Yuan Shuo almost broke intoughter. The kid was fun! What was this he¡¯d found? How good was it?

    I¡¯ve seen so many treasures in my lifetime, too many to be recounted. My problems won¡¯t be resolved so easily because they touch upon my core essence!

    It hadn¡¯t been that many years¡ªjust three, when he ran into misfortune in an ancient ruin. They¡¯d reacted too slowly and many Night Watchers had died while he, a half-step Dominator grandmaster, thoroughly lost all hope of bing greater.

    Otherwise, he might¡¯ve secretly crossed over a long time ago and sought out his ¡°old friends¡± for a nice conversation or two.

    Lost in thought, the professor didn¡¯t mind Li Hao entering the house. He gently rubbed the spot over his heart, thinking back to an injury so severe that his heart had been pierced clean through. He wouldn¡¯t have made it out alive if not for his vigorous life force. He was more than seventy years old, after all. And while he survived, his path as a martial master was forever severed.

    Perhaps¡­ I still need to seek out an opportunity to rise to the supernatural field. There might be hope to be found there.

    It appeared that he¡¯d given up on the surface, but he hadn¡¯t, not really. He still wished to ascend if he could! It was just much harder to with a broken body. The turtle boxing method that his student saw him practicing all the time was precisely what it appeared to be. Turtles possess longevity and good health!

    It was a boxing method for good health that he¡¯d reconstructed through perusing numerous ancient tomes. Rather than a bid to improve his battle strength, he practiced it to fortify his body. He wanted to give it another try¡ªwhether ascending to the supernatural world or breaking through to Dominator of Thousands!

    He had to try again, even upon pain of death, or he¡¯d never be content in life!

    There was no need to speak of this to others. Even the Night Watchers thought that he¡¯d given up and weren¡¯t willing to give him any precious resources anymore.

    If I seed¡­ hmph!

    He¡¯d called the shots and raised wind and rain twenty years ago. Many of the local supernatural kings of their field respectfully hailed him as an elder brother! All of them looked down their noses at him now; he¡¯d have to teach them a good lesson! All these years hiding out in Silver City and depending on the Night Watchers for a gasp at life¡­ harrumph!

    Yuan Shuo wandered down memoryne¡ª a rare urrence of rummaging through history and past glories. As for Li Hao? He knew the ce well, he could do whatever he wanted.

    The professor leaned back against the chair and let his thoughts run wildly.

    The young man came out before long, holding a cup of water.

    Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°There¡¯s water out here, what did you go inside for?¡±

    ¡°Have a sip, teacher.¡±

    The old man blinked and cast a sidelong nce at Li Hao, then at the water. ¡°Did you¡­ poison this? Do you want me dead so you can have my inheritance? I have a will and all of it goes to the Night Watchers. You¡¯re ying with fire if you take it!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    His teacher really liked to talk about the most random things sometimes.

    ¡°Have a sip, teacher!¡±

 Chapter 40: Dominator of Thousands! (II)

    Chapter 40: Dominator of Thousands! (II)

    Yuan Shuo looked at the cup again and stroked his beard of modest length. Something urred to him with a smile.

    ¡°So water can be infused with mysterious power? But¡­ it won¡¯t have an effect! And with my body the way it is, it¡¯s not the most pleasant experience to absorb energy these days¡­¡±

    He hazarded a guess at the truth, but fine. He¡¯ll drink it since it was a token of his student¡¯s filial appreciation! His body was very weak as his injuries were yet to heal. It might put him in a spot of trouble if mysterious power ran through it¡­

    At the same time, he was still a Sunderer. What could such a small cup of water do? There weren¡¯t even 0.1 cubes of energy in it!

    So what if the entire cup was mysterious power? He¡¯d drink it so he could end the kid¡¯s hopes.

    Sword-steeped water? He truly guessed its origins and what made it unusual. He flicked a nce at Li Hao¡ªthe sword being on the young man¡¯s body, water from the sword was no different from Li Hao¡¯s bathwater.

    Ai! What a good teacher I am. I¡¯m going to drink a student¡¯s bathwater in order to not hurt his feelings!

    It wasn¡¯t like Yuan Shuo had never absorbed energy from supernatural objects before; the gesture waspletely useless!

    A thousand thoughts running through his mind, Yuan Shuo threw the contents back with a toss of his head. He shouted before he even swallowed, ¡°Wonderful! I feel the effects already. You are a good boy, Li Hao¡­¡±

    The young man¡¯s face spasmed. Teacher, the water¡¯s still making its way down! Is this act really necessary?

    Yuan Shuo roared withughter and fired a barrage of exaggeratedpliments. He was about tounch into a few jokes when he suddenly paused¡ªmysterious power was unfurling through his body with none of the usual violent impact!

    It was gentle! A warm current! Very incredibly mild! He¡¯d never experienced such mellow energy before! Everything he¡¯de in contact with, no matter the type, was extremely tyrannical and harsh.

    The old professor froze with shock.

    ¡°Teacher, the breathing method!¡± Li Hao quickly reminded.

    Right, the breathing method! Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t even thought of utilizing it as he didn¡¯t want power to rampage through him. He¡¯d been concerned that overpowering force would make him vomit blood and break hisposure.

    The elderly man immediately called upon the Breathing Method of the Five Styles and readied himself to be assaulted to the point of vomiting blood. But¡­

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s mouth and eyes opened wide.

    What was this?

    He was swiftly absorbing the mysterious power, but it remained a warm current as before. A hot spring slowly eddied through the bottom of his heart. It was sofortable!

    Absorbing mysterious power had always been synonymous with pain, but this time, it was easy and effortless. A pleasant warmth seeped into his bones.

    ¡°Ahhhh!¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t help a moan.

    Li Hao¡¯s lips twitched. His teacher sounded like¡­ um¡­ well¡­ like an old cat in heat!

    The esteemed professor shot to his feet, his eyes full of shock and amazement. This wasn¡¯t mysterious power! He stared fixedly at his pupil. He¡¯d seen all manner of mysterious power before, but never this kind. Even energy used for healing resulted in pain when it entered the body. That kind of mysterious power forcefully closed some injuries afterwards, but what Yuan Shuo experienced now was entirely different!

    The professor said nothing as he quietly underwent the experience. He was much stronger and experienced than Li Hao, so he focused on observation and analysis.

    Recovery¡­ and nourishment¡­ of the mind and body! Yuan Shuo¡¯s shock was visible to the naked eye when he felt the tattered parts of his heart slowly knit back together.

    Unfortunately, too little of it mended as he was overly strong. There was so little energy in the cup of water that less than half a millimeter of the five millimeter gash on his heart closed. Not even ten times the warm current would be enough, and it would be harder to heal the closer to full recovery it reached.

    All the same, this energy was enormously precious. What was it?

    Yuan Shuo was powerful and the Breathing Method of the Five Styles incredibly capable. He swiftly absorbed the entire flow without leaving any for discharge. There wasn¡¯t enough for his own use, so how would there be sufficient energy to leak out?

    Cosmic power was also easier to absorb than mysterious power.

    There¡¯s no more!

    Abrupt dissatisfaction struck Yuan Shuo, but he realized something with a sigh. A smile crossed his face despite the regret. ¡°Not bad, but¡­ you should save something like this for yourself. There are many secrets to your sword and there can¡¯t be much of this kind of mysterious power. Don¡¯t waste it and use it sparingly.¡±

    ¡°Was it effective, teacher?¡± asked an anticipatory Li Hao, ignoring what his teacher said.

    ¡°It was alright,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Fine enough!¡±

    Supernatural objects wouldn¡¯t hold vast reserves of energy and he was old! There might not be a marked effect even if he sucked the sword dry. It was better to leave it for the kid¡ªit was a waste on him.

    A million thoughts ran through Yuan Shuo¡¯s mind and momentary impulse grabbed him. If he was as if before, he might demand the sword from his student. But now?

    Forget it.

    He¡¯d grown soft in his old age; the impulse quickly died down upon consideration that there was never much power to be found. Yuan Shuo, oh Yuan Shuo, don¡¯t destroy the benevolent image that your student holds of you.

    ¡°Just alright?¡± Li Hao was quite disappointed. So it wasn¡¯t very effective? How could that be? Or was it that his teacher was too strong and there was too little water? He wasn¡¯t willing to ept this oue and quickly said, ¡°Let¡¯s try a few more times, teacher.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t bother!¡± Yuan Shuo interrupted.

    ¡°You must¡¯ve drank too little!¡± Li Hao continued doggedly. ¡°It wasn¡¯t that effective because you¡¯re too strong. The cup of water was just a test, drinking more should prove more effective¡­ My dog¡¯s fur is glossier after drinking a cup yesterday!

    ¡°If water doesn¡¯t work, try absorbing it directly!¡± The young man grew animated. ¡°I absorbed somest night too¡ªroughly ten times what was in the cup¡ªand saw some effects¡­¡±

    Yuan Shuo: ¡­¡­

    The professor stared wordlessly at his pupil. A dog drank that much? And Li Hao absorbed ten times that amountst night? The hell?

    Things were rather confusing. His student¡¯s little jade sword was tiny, so he could guess without trying just how much mysterious power it contained. So what was Li Hao talking about? Was the sword of the Lis truly different?

    Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t retain his detachedposure and coughed, his voice so low that he almost rasped, ¡°You¡­ Little Hao, are you saying that you have a lot more of this kind of energy?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°But I absorbed somest night and don¡¯t feel like it¡¯s decreased any. I think there should be a lot more and it might be useful for you if you absorb it all, teacher.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t feel like it¡¯s decreased any?¡± Yuan Shuo stroked his beard and looked at his student again. ¡°Was that a casual steeping of the sword just now?¡±

    ¡°Yeah!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Yuan Shuo identally tugged out a beard hair. He blew it away, looking at Li Hao with new eyes. Really?

    How was this possible?

    ¡°Do you¡­ do you want to let me have a try?¡± The elderly professor could barely contain himself. He¡¯d wanted to preserve the energy for Li Hao, but the little bastard fed it to dogs! How could the brat waste it like that! Then¡­ then I¡¯ll try and absorb a little more?

    Li Hao heaved a sigh of relief at his teacher¡¯s acquiescence and quickly took out the jade sword, offering it up. Yuan Shuo frowned when he took it; he didn¡¯t detect the slightest hint of a supernatural aura!

    Was this a self-defense mechanism, or was it hibernating? Did it require Li Hao to activate it for use? It would appear that the family weapons of the folk song were quite umon, and they differed from the supernatural objects that he¡¯d handled before.

    ¡°Can I draw the energy out of it?¡± Yuan Shuo immediately summoned a warm current when he operated the breathing method! ¡°Ahhh!¡±

    He groaned, feeling afortable sensation drape around him and sink into his bones. This was better than when he sought pleasures of the flesh in his youth! There was so much and it was so dense! He really could draw it out of the weapon!

    His mind seemed to transcend the body and it almost journeyed the world by itself. He could get drunk on this!

    Powerful energy coursed through his body. Not only did his heart furiously absorb mysterious power, but so did the deep minute fractures of his blood vessels and marks on his bones. Every particle that defined Yuan Shuo took in energy!

    Once a premier martial master on the cusp of breaking through to Dominator of Thousands, his body deeply craved what the jade sword offered. Old injuries crisscrossed inside and out, all of which were rejuvenating in this moment.

    Yuan Shuo walked on air! He forgot that he wanted to save some for Li Hao as his thirst for this type of power built to overpowering heights. This was a healing panacea, an immortal pill!

    A little more, just a little more, I want only a little more¡­

    Yuan Shuo started and jerked back to wakefulness a second after the thought floated through him. To regain his rity under such conditions demonstrated just how transcendental the mindset of a grandmaster was!

    He clenched the jade sword with one hand and formed a fist with the other,ing to terms with shock roiling through his thoughts. He looked at his student with apletely different look and spoke with sudden severity, ¡°You¡¯re in bigger trouble than you can imagine!¡±

    Li Hao looked nkly at his teacher. Aren¡¯t you absorbing mysterious power? Why are you suddenly saying this? Do you want to rob me, teacher? I have a de, y¡¯know, how about you take that instead? The jade sword is a family heirloom.

    ¡°This item far exceeds all supernatural objects that I¡¯ve ever encountered. Those who have their sights set on it may possibly understand its true value. If they do, you are definitely in greater trouble than you think! They will be determined toy hands on it and the key thing is, this sword may still be sealed!¡±

    That¡¯s right, it was sealed away!

    Even the experienced Yuan Shuo was moved¡ªit was highly likely that this sword was yet to be freed from its seal. What he¡¯d just absorbed was just a portion of its reserves and not the most precious it had to offer. The sword was most invaluable!

    The eminent professor could barely contain himself when his thoughts traveled here. It was easy enough to imagine the attention the sword would draw once it was unleashed.

    ¡°The eight families of Silver City¡­¡± Yuan Shuo murmured. So what if the city boasted of a legend of eight great families? The world was incredibly vast and Silver City pitifully small. How strong could these families be?

    But in this moment, he questioned his skepticism. Could all of this be rted to an ancient civilization?

    There was also the sealed sword to consider!

    Yuan Shuo took stock of his condition again¡ªthe wounds to his heart had recovered by an incredible thirty percent! Would it fully heal after a few more tries? And if he absorbed energy a few more times after that, would all of his injuries be gone? And a few more times after that¡­ might he regain the prime of his youth and try for Dominator?

    Get outta here with that!

    I¡¯ve already given up and lost all hope. ¡­is Dominator of Thousands still a possibility for me? What if I try to cross over after ascending? Won¡¯t I stand a greater chance than a few years back?

    Yuan Shuo swallowed hard as his thoughts ran wildly. His heart pounded furiously and his eyes suddenly snapped to Li Hao.

    ¡°Have you told anyone else about this?¡±

    The young man¡¯s heart jolted. What was with that tone? Did his teacher really want to rob him?

 Chapter 41: Master and Disciple Ascend in Unison (I)

    Chapter 41: Master and Disciple Ascend in Unison (I)

    ¡°Teacher¡­ calm down, calm down! I haven¡¯t told anyone else, I¡¯m the only one who knows. Oh, and a dog knows too!¡±

    ¡°Good!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded, then found something wrong with the response. I know about it! The kid had just said that he and a dog knows. ¡­why did that sound like a roundabout insult? ¡°Don¡¯t tell anyone else!¡± reminded the elderly man. ¡°And you idiot, you shouldn¡¯t have told me either!¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t do!¡± Li Hao responded awkwardly. ¡°Teacher, you freely gave me precious knowledge like the New Book of Five Styles and the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. You¡¯ve taken care of me over the years, so I would tell you even if I didn¡¯t tell my own father!¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± Yuan Shuo snorted withughter. ¡°Your father is six feet under, do you want to put me there too?¡±

    ¡°¡­that¡¯s not what I mean¡­¡±

    ¡°Enough, I understand your sentiments!¡± Yuan Shuo looked down at his hand and tossed the jade sword back to the young man. He fell silent for a short while. ¡°I still feel that there¡¯s a limit to this type of mysterious power, so you shouldn¡¯t waste it. Using it on a dog? You¡¯re out of your mind! Do you not want to be human anymore?¡±

    ¡°How do you feel, teacher?¡±

    ¡°Well enough!¡±

    ¡°Then take some more¡­¡±

    ¡°No need!¡±

    ¡°Teacher, I¡¯m in grave danger!¡± Li Hao¡¯s wits were sharp and he¡¯d detected the professor¡¯s earlier shock. ¡°As good as the energy is, I¡¯m afraid that I won¡¯t live long enough to use it! At least my survival will be ensured if you ascend to Dominator of Thousands or Starlight!¡±

    ¡°Hide out with me for a year!¡± Light glinted in Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes. ¡°If you use that time to absorb more of this energy and focus on your foundations, I guarantee you¡¯ll break through to Sunderer! If you cross over as a Sunderer, you won¡¯t be a weakling even among Night Watchers in a year from now!¡±

    ¡°Teacher, are you sure that it¡¯s worthwhile to take shelter here? If word gets out that the enemy can¡¯t obtain the item, it might attract others or stoke greedy eyes from the Night Watchers!¡± A ruthless expression dawned on Li Hao¡¯s face. ¡°You said so yourself that this is a precious object. If you think so with your years of archaeological experience, then what about others? The best course of action now is to kill any and all witnesses!¡±

    The young man waved his hands around threateningly and blustered, ¡°Many know about the folk song of the eight families, but they don¡¯t know the specifics. The guy who killed Zhang Yuan might! Silver City is just a tiny dot on the map and supernatural objects aren¡¯t worthy of mention. At the very least, they don¡¯t attract attention from the truly great!

    ¡°I don¡¯t have the ability to withstand this kind of enemy! It will be certain protection if teacher can ascend and kill that guy¡ªor is teacher not confident in your chances to cross over or eliminate the enemy?¡±

    ¡°When did you get so ruthless, kid?¡± Yuan Shuo stared dumbly at his student. ¡°How can you say ¡®kill any and all witnesses¡¯ so easily?¡±

    I never taught you that! I taught you to cultivate your moral character, behave ethically, and work hard in your studies. Where did you learn this talk of bloodshed and ughter from?

    ¡°I¡¯ve been at the Inspectorate for a year and seen all manner of cases!¡± Li Hao creased his eyes with a smile, rather resembling a fox. ¡°I¡¯ve grown used to this after seeing it again and again!¡±

    Yuan Shuo suddenly felt that the Inspectorate was a ce that caused harm and misled the younger generation. Just look at Li Hao, he¡¯d strayed from the proper path!

    Oh my head, oh my heart! I wanted to raise a good child!

    ¡°Teacher, absorb all that you can. You¡¯re so strong but you¡¯ve taken so little. I think I absorbed more than youst night!¡± Li Hao continued in a distressed tone that bordered on exasperation when Yuan Shuo showed obvious signs of reluctance. ¡°I¡¯d rather this benefit my teacher than an outsider! Please just tell me if you can ascend with more mysterious power. If not, I can try Captain Liu. He might also be very strong if he breaks through¡ª¡±

    ¡°Get outta here with that bullshit!¡± Yuan Shuo erupted with loud curses. ¡°What does Liu Long have on me?! Even his old man Silver Spear Liu Hao, one of the Three Spears of Silver City back in the day, had to bow and scrape in front of me!¡±

    Li Hao listened quietly to this new piece of gossip. So Liu Long¡¯s father was also a martial master, one part of the Three Spears of Silver City? But err¡­ his moniker was also a homophone for lewd. Lewd Spear? That was uhh¡­ less than ideal!

    ¡°Very well!¡± Yuan Shuo brightened. ¡°It¡¯s embarrassing to continue avoiding eptance if you don¡¯t care. Give it to me! I¡¯ll grab something good for you inpensation once I seed!¡±

    His eyes were so bright that they could pierce through one¡¯s soul!

    ¡°If I really recover from my injuries and break through to Dominator of Thousands, I¡¯ll win a ce for myself beneath the heavens, even if I stay mundane! So they say there¡¯s no ce for a Dominator after just twenty years? We¡¯ll see about that!!¡±

    Yuan Shuo threw all caution to the wind¡ªopportunity and hope were right there for the taking!

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry.¡± He looked at his student with an exceedingly serious expression. ¡°If I really do deplete the sword, I¡¯ll get some of the other families¡¯ weapons for you!¡±

    The professor fully operated the breathing method without another word and summoned a dense oscition of energy through the air!

    ¡°Piss off!¡± he suddenly shouted furiously. ¡°I¡¯m teaching my student the secret art of the Five Styles. Anyone who dares approach will see for themselves if an old Sunderer still has the ability to kill!¡±

    The abrupt roar quieted down the surroundings. Those who protected him, those who kept him under surveince, all vanished. No one dared pry into a Sunderer of Hundreds passing on knowledge. Even weaker Night Watchers would be doing nothing but offering their head up on a silver tter if they went against Yuan Shuo.

    It was not yet time to dissolve into open hostilities, so everything between heaven and earth quieted down. The tiger may be old, but it remains a force to reckon with!

    While Li Hao didn¡¯t catch sight of those hidden in the shadows, his heart surged with emotion. This was his teacher, a leading martial master back in the day! The professor still exerted dominance in all directions when he red his might.

    Dominator of Thousands¡­ Who would win in a contest between Dominator and the scarlet shadow? You must break through, teacher!

    That would be his greatest trump card and greatest backer.

    ¡­¡­

    The wind whipped and clouds billowed in the small yard. A sick tiger yetmanded fear and respect! Everyone hidden in the surroundings dispersed after Yuan Shuo¡¯s shout. Meanwhile, the elderly man fully drew upon the breathing method.

    As a premier martial master, Yuan Shuo suffered no hesitation aftering to a decision. He fully thought things over before taking action, but once he made up his mind, the decisiveness of a veteran martial master was stunning to behold.

    Cosmic power surged into the old man¡¯s body! Even Li Hao could vaguely pick up the sound of a beating heart. He, too, was agitated and oddly apprehensive.

    What was he afraid of?

    That there wouldn¡¯t be enough cosmic power!

    What should he do if his teacher saw no effect after absorbing everything from the sword? How about throwing the stone de into the mix if the jade sword wasn¡¯t enough? Trading two weapons he had no use for for Yuan Shuo¡¯s recovery and ascension was a worthwhile transaction!

    Otherwise, they would either benefit the scarlet shadow faction or the Night Watchers. That would be the worst oue, and there was a ny-nine percent chance that he would enjoy none of the spoils in the event of those urrences.

    ¡­¡­

    Veteris Institute of Silver City.

    There was no one within several hundred meters of Yuan Shuo¡¯s residence, but two figures appeared on the rooftop of an academic building at this time. One male and one female, their features were indistinct.

    ¡°What do you make of this, Hu Hao?¡± asked the woman. She looked into the distance, but averted her gaze so she wasn¡¯t looking directly at Yuan Shuo. A vague stream of blood and qi hurtled through the yard, one that made her wary of direct observation.

    ¡°What do I make of it?¡± The man¡¯s ck uniform lengthened his figure; starlight glimmered in his eyes. ¡°Not much. If Yuan Shuo wishes to teach a secret art of the Five Styles to his disciple, then so be it.¡±

    ¡°Is that all he¡¯s doing?¡± The woman was highly skeptical. ¡°He¡¯s raised such a fuss. He can teach his student indoors if he wishes too, what¡¯s the point of causing such a ruckus in his yard¡­¡±

    ¡°To give a demonstration?¡± the man chuckled. ¡°You know the situation too¡ªa mysterious supernatural seems to have their sights set on his student. Yuan Shuo once dominated the era and cloistered himself after the rise of the supernatural domain. Even hisst disciple is now under threat. Perhaps this fuss is to exhibit his might and intimidate the other!¡±

    ¡°Is that possible?¡± the woman sighed. ¡°His era¡­ is over!¡±

    It was the world of martial masters twenty years ago; modern day society was a far cry from those times. Yuan Shuo had been invincible before and an apex existence among Sunderer of Hundreds. He showed signs of crossing the threshold to Dominator of Thousands. Who didn¡¯t respect such a character?

    He remainedmanding sufficient authority a few years ago, but all of that ended with the death of a Veteris studentst year. Word of his injuries must have made it out¡ªperhaps details of his tattered qi and damaged heart were among them.

    Otherwise, regr supernaturals dared not offend a peak Sunderer of Hundreds. That death meant that the enemy no longer feared Yuan Shuo!

    A third eye solidified on the woman¡¯s forehead, one shut tight. She looked again into the distance with a sudden urge. Yuan Shuo was no longer the Yuan Shuo of old, and she was very interested in a secret art of the Five Styles.

    She wanted to open the eye and pierce through the curtain of qi and blood. Was the old professor passing on knowledge or doing other things?

    Starlight shimmered over her forehead and the man next to her kept his voice low. ¡°Don¡¯t make any brash moves. We¡¯re here to protect, not provoke¡­¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± The woman couldn¡¯t resist her curiosity; the eye on her forehead slowly opened.

    ¡°Be careful of the blood and qi¡­¡± The man furrowed his brow.

    The woman chuckled without a word.

 Chapter 42: Master and Disciple Ascend in Unison (II)

    Chapter 42: Master and Disciple Ascend in Unison (II)

    Be careful of blood and qi that were a few hundred meters away? Were martial masters supposed to be strong?

    The woman was young and hadn¡¯t been supernatural for long. She¡¯d met a few yers of Tens in her time¡ªnone of them could withstand a single blow! Only one Sunderer of Hundreds ever crossed her path¡ªthat one kept a very low profile during a visit to Night Watcher headquarters. He¡¯d been unassuming, polite, and even slightly deferential to the Night Watchers that he met.

    The era of martial masters was well and truly over!

    Legends of yore, Sunderers of Hundreds were nothing more than grandiose stories in the present day. Not to mention, Yuan Shuo was injured. She was just taking a peek, nothing else.

    Thus, she ignored herpatriot¡¯s advice and opened her third eye with a chuckle. ¡°Hu Hao, we have a duty and obligation to clearly scope out the situation to ensure that nothing happens to Professor Yuan. I¡¯m just carrying out my responsibilities. Who knows if that Li Hao is plotting against the professor as we speak?¡±

    Any excuse was sufficient grounds to prevent a reprimand. Hu Hao furrowed his brow and said nothing more. The Night Watchers held Yuan Shuo in less regard these days after his hopes of crossing over shattered. The professor was old and the organization also worked with other preeminent experts of ancient civilizations.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s standing was in free fall.

    ¡°Be careful, a top tier martial master is still fearsome¡­¡±

    ¡°I know, I know!¡± the woman interrupted. Her third eye was fully open and she saw Yuan Shuo through a hazy mist of blood and qi. She also glimpsed a pair of eyes zing with killing intent and fury, the look in them crazed from the humiliation of being scorned!

    It was a pair of eyes that stabbed straight to the heart and cut through all living things!

    ¡°How dare you! Death to all who dare pry into my secret art!¡± Yuan Shuo took to the sky like a bird!

    For the first time, Li Hao witnessed the ungainly fowl style in its true splendor. His teacher flew into the sky and spread his arms out like wings!

    Yuan Shuo raged upon discovering his protection detail¡¯s impudence! Many years worth of wrath boiled over in full fury. He was a bird hurtling through the sky. Although his movements were far from beautiful as he iled through the air, his speed was shocking!

    He crossed one hundred meters in a split second,nded gently on the ground, then rose again! While he couldn¡¯t leap consecutively through the air, his jumping skills were incredible and he shot another one hundred meters after pushing off.

    Yuan Shuo traveled almost three hundred meters within the blink of an eye. He was so quick that neither Li Hao nor the two supernaturals had time to react.

    Fast, so incredibly fast!

    Having achieved great perfection with the Five Styles, Yuan Shuo was well-rounded in every aspect of martial arts! He drew level with buildings thirty meters tall on his next upward bound. Upon the roof, the man and woman¡¯s expressions changed drastically.

    ¡°Elder Yuan¡­¡± Hu Hao quickly spoke up.

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± A tiger howl suppressed everything.

    BOOM!

    Hu Hao¡¯s ears rang and blood welled out of the openings on his face. He was momentarily deaf and mysterious power surged from his body. The man abandoned his attempt at an exnation.

    The woman had expended a great deal of energy to open the third eye. Being young and inexperienced, she didn¡¯t have a chance to react or even close her anguished eye before a fist loomed in front of all three eyes!

    ¡°You have some audacity toe sniffing around my secret art! KILL!¡±

    Killing intent, malicious intent, blood qi¡­ The woman¡¯s three eyes were awash with the color of blood. That was the only thing she saw.

    BOOM!

    An enormous explosion rang out with Yuan Shuo¡¯s punch. Bones and meridians resonated in unison, ripping through the air like a muffled p of thunder.

    ¡°AHH!¡± shrieked the woman as all of her eyes bled profusely and massive mysterious power leaked forth.

    ¡°A minor punishment for a major transgression! I will spare your life considering it is your first offense!¡±

    Bam!

    Another massive explosion echoed as Yuan Shuo snapped his leg outward and sent the woman flying. Her bones broke with a teeth-numbing crunch!

    ¡°This is all a misunderstanding, Elder Yuan!¡± Hu Hao soared into the air with a sword of light in his hands. Though he sweated profusely, he didn¡¯t dare make a move. All he could do was yell loudly and grab the woman that¡¯d flown out, taking several steps back before stabilizing their forms in the sky.

    The woman was unconscious in his arms; blood bubbled from her mouth.

    Yuan Shuonded on the ground with a frosty look in his eyes, breaking through the dirt with his step and leaving a deep fissure.

    ¡°Misunderstanding? Then let it be a misunderstanding! Have your superiorse to me if they think otherwise!¡± The elderly man¡¯s aura began to decline and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He snorted coldly, ¡°Go tell them that although Yuan Shuo is old and retains less than ten percent of his strength, he is not to be insulted by the likes of you! Martial masters may be on our way to bing obsolete with the rise of the supernatural world, but we can still raise a meter of bloodshed if we are so inclined!¡±

    ¡°We would never dare!¡± A panicking Hu Haonded on the ground and garbled out, ¡°It really is a misunderstanding, Elder Yuan! This is Li Meng¡¯s first excursion and she has no sense of propriety. Our mission is to protect you and when your yard was hidden from view, Li Meng opened the eye of truth because she was worried about you¡­¡±

    ¡°It will be treated as a misunderstanding!¡± Yuan Shuo said faintly. ¡°Be it a misunderstanding or willful infringement, such are the rules of martial masters! Those not of my discipline cannot pry into the secret art of the Five Styles!¡±

    The elderly professor suddenly clutched his heart and cast a sidelong nce at Hu Hao. He turned around and slowly walked off, heading for his house.

    ¡°Can¡¯t kill anyone anymore,¡± he said forlornly. ¡°If this was twenty years ago¡­ no, three years ago. If this was three years ago and that chit dared intrude on me teaching a disciple, I would kill her even if she was a Night Watcher! What a pity that with old agees incapacitation¡­¡±

    Unspeakable sorrow and endless resignation filled his voice. The woman came back to wakefulness at this time and spat out a mouthful of blood upon hearing the words, but didn¡¯t dare say anything. Yuan Shuo walked with an unsteady gait¡ªthis grandmaster of their age seemed truly old for the first time!

    ¡°I used my final strike on you guys. I wanted to save it for a rival¡­ What a pity!¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s despondent voice traveled back to the supernaturals.

    Hu Hao¡¯s expression shifted drastically. Was this the end of the road for Yuan Shuo? He¡¯d been gravely wounded a few years ago and erupted beyond his capacity today. Both the professor¡¯s qi and blood were depleted. If his injuries red up again and resulted in his death¡­

    Sweat poured from Hu Hao¡¯s brow! He looked at the woman when the old man disappeared from view and kept his voice down.

    ¡°We¡¯re in big trouble!¡± he said in chilly tones.

    ¡°He¡­ almost killed me¡­¡± The woman was irate.

    ¡°We¡¯re in big trouble and not because you almost died!¡± Hu Hao set his jaw. ¡°You forced him to use his final strike! If he doesn¡¯t hold on until the end of this mission, if he¡¯s not involved in this excavation and we can¡¯t depend on him to open certain portions¡­ You¡¯ll be sent to the most dangerous areas if you don¡¯t die from these wounds and be deployed on the most dangerous missions!¡±

    The woman¡¯s expression changed dramatically. She¡¯d almost died moments ago¡ªnot only was she shaken by Yuan Shuo¡¯s strength, but she was also the type to hold a grudge. That old guy was too savage! But upon hearing herpatriot¡¯s words, she paled with dismay.

    Yuan Shuo¡­ was about to die?

    Reeling with shock, she ignored her injuries and appetite for revenge when the consequences struck her. Only terror moved her now. ¡°Is he¡­ is he really going to die?¡±

    ¡°He was injured too deeply before and that just disturbed his injuries!¡± Hu Hao muttered. ¡°The methods of a premier Sunderer of Hundreds are truly incredible! He bounded through nearly four hundred meters in an instant and his blood qi suppressed even mysterious power. He¡¯s a terrifying martial master!

    ¡°But at the same time, those were the methods of his prime. He spent thest few years limping along after his heart was nearly shattered. What he¡¯s done just now¡­¡±

    The woman¡¯s face flickered through a variety of emotions before she grit her teeth. ¡°It¡¯s all my fault. I¡¯ll immediately make a request upstairs and use all of my savings, including an advance on my sry, to purchase a Heavenmend Pill! It will aid his recovery!¡±

    Yuan Shuo could not die! They would truly be in enormous trouble if he died, particrly as a field mission was about tomence. He was the ancient civilization expert most familiar with that set of ruins!

    At the moment, he was more important than anything taking ce in Silver City. Li Meng and Hu Hao were here not to investigate the self-immtion cases, but to prevent those cases from affecting Yuan Shuo.

    It was due to that that the professor issued multiple invites for Li Hao to move in. He was still protected by the Night Watchers at the moment.

    Despite her own grave injuries, Li Meng had to sacrifice her life savings in exchange for a healing item for Yuan Shuo. It was peak frustration, but it was her own fault for not listening to another¡¯s advice. She¡¯d also underestimated the capabilities of a premier martial master!

    Abject fear flooded her thoughts when she thought back to that pivotal moment.

    ¡°Hurry and make your report before it¡¯s toote,¡± Hu Hao sighed. ¡°I hope that¡¯s enough to resolve the situation, but he was already clutching his heart when he left. I¡¯m worried that his heart is bleeding. With Yuan Shuo¡¯s pride, he would not demonstrate weakness in front of juniors unless he had no choice to!¡±

    Yuan Shuo was an exceedingly proud person! Although the old man was imperious and unbridled, inexplicable condolences seized Hu Hao when he watched the retreating figure. There went the grandmaster of an age!

    One single move exhausted the pinnacle of martial dao and could possibly result in his death! Hu Hao couldn¡¯t bear the thought. This was too cruel to a peak martial master!

    Heaving for breath, Li Meng looked at the distant Yuan Shuo once more. The minuscule hate at the bottom of her heart vanished and she murmured apologetically, ¡°I¡­ I didn¡¯t think it¡¯d turn out this way¡­ He¡¯s so aggressive and came for me before I saw anything¡­¡±

    ¡°Ai, forget it!¡± Hu Hao shook his head. Poking into someone else¡¯s knowledge, and a secret art at that, didn¡¯t fly no matter how one spun it. Li Meng hadn¡¯t necessarily wanted to steal martial knowledge, but it was true that she¡¯d fundamentally viewed Yuan Shuo with contempt.

    She felt that supernatural strength was invincible and there was nothing to fear about an antique who hadn¡¯t fought in many years. She¡¯d even thought that Yuan Shuo wouldn¡¯t discover her attention and been overconfident, resulting in this development.

    ¡°Enough of this, retreat! We need to stay further away!¡± Hu Hao helped Li Meng out of the area. They needed to notify their supervisors and obtain lifesaving treasures as soon as possible. They needed to sustain Yuan Shuo¡¯s life for a period of time, at least, and mollify the professor. Otherwise, why would he bother working for them if he was about to die?

    They were in big enough trouble as it was and their superiors would be furious with them if the situation degraded further. Who could¡¯ve foreseen this happening?

 Chapter 43: Master and Disciple Ascend in Unison (III)

    Chapter 43: Master and Disciple Ascend in Unison (III)

    Within the yard.

    A limping Yuan Shuo returned, out of breath.

    ¡°Teacher!¡± Li Hao anxiously met the elderly man.

    Yuan Shuo breathed out heavily and suddenly grinned. ¡°What? I¡¯m fine! That scared the crap out of me!¡±

    ¡­huh? What the heck is going on?

    ¡°What you looking at? Use your brain!¡± Recent happenings made for a perfect teaching moment. Yuan Shuo continued with trepidation, ¡°I lost my temper just now and happened to be in a state of change. I couldn¡¯t hold myself back and identally hit them too hard!

    ¡°They were Night Watchers¡ªthe foremost supernatural organization. We still need their protection!¡± chuckled the professor. ¡°I¡¯ll make enemies out of them if I beat their members half to death¡ªnow wouldn¡¯t that be awful! Not to mention, that was a little girl. Killing her would levy a charge of bullying at my feet¡­

    ¡°Keeping a lower profile also results in some benefits! They need to hurry up and give me some treasures since I¡¯m dying. After all, they still need me for whates next!¡±

    Li Hao sucked in a deep breath. His teacher thought through so much in a split second?

    ¡°And another thing, the mouthful of blood I spat was the putrid blood in my body¡ªthe result of various wounds I¡¯d umted. It was the ideal pretext for them to ¡®confirm¡¯ that I am beyond saving and on death¡¯s door. There is no need to guard against me anymore!¡±

    Li Hao took another deep breath. So there¡¯d been anotheryer of meaning to everything that¡¯d just happened? His teacher was truly a wily old fox¡­ No, a very deliberate and calcted person!

    Of course, this wasn¡¯t the main point. ¡°Teacher, your wounds¡­¡± the young man lowered his voice.

    ¡°They¡¯re almost all healed!¡± Yuan Shuo grinned radiantly. ¡°Keep this quiet, but I¡¯m almost fully recovered and now is the perfect moment! I wasn¡¯t at liberty to chase those two away, but now that they¡¯re at least a thousand meters out¡­ it¡¯s time that I returned to perfect health!¡±

    Multiple birds with one stone!

    The two had been too close before. Being supernatural, they might possibly sense something unusual taking ce. But due to his fit of rage and their injuries, they¡¯d moved one thousand meters away. This was a moment of absolute privacy and Yuan Shuo¡¯s chance!

    ¡°Perfect health¡­ will that lead to a breakthrough?¡± Li Hao asked apprehensively. He was still taken by his teacher¡¯s earlier performance. What a disy, what a show!

    The professor had traversed hundreds of meters in seconds. It was Li Hao¡¯s first time knowing that one could actually fly with the fowl style! Although only one hundred meters was possible at a time, extended flight could be achieved through leverage. Meanwhile, that one hundred meters was true flight!

    Yuan Shuo had been flying! He required only one punch to render a supernatural into a gravely wounded state and the other into overawed silence¡­

    There was only one thought running through Li Hao¡¯s mind¡ªthis is with teacher not having broken through yet! Once he¡¯s fully healed and ascends, he¡¯ll easily trounce whichever supernatural he faces!

    Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t be bothered with his student¡¯s flight of fancy. That punch turned out in his favor as it conveniently expelled all of the blood lingering from his internal injuries. It was the ideal medium to purge whatever was left behind from old wounds.

    Walking away withpensation wasn¡¯t key. He wouldn¡¯t need those treasures after he made a full recovery; he could give them to Li Hao.

    Yuan Shuo bent his mind to absorbing another warm current of mysterious energy. He wasn¡¯t looking to cross over to the supernatural domain, but to take the martial dao leap.

    Dominator of Thousands!

    He¡¯d been a step away from that threshold years ago. At present, new blood coursed through his veins, cleansing his body of old bodily trash. His muscles closed in on themselves¡ªflexing with more tension instead of fusing as inseparable chunks.

    A smile spread over Yuan Shuo¡¯s face when even his hair showed hints of darkening. More than seventy years old, his body was transforming to a forty-ish version of himself. That had been the prime of his life, whereas decline set in after fifty. His physique weakened and it was only through rich experience that he maintained his edge.

    ¡°A Dominator of Thousands can fight a thousand opponents by themselves!¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly said. ¡°Sunderers already count as superhuman as they exceed the limits of the human body. Dominators used to be considered walking gods. Since time immemorial, any who reached that level left a deep mark on martial dao and were the only ones who could defeat army generals.

    ¡°While Dominators can take on a thousand at once, prudence must still be exercised. One cannot be dumb enough to openly face thousands at the same time. Retreat is in order if the situation turns south¡ªyou will never be captured that way!¡±

    Enemies that numbered more than the thousands did not necessarily mean doom for a Dominator either. That was only the case if the martial master was too dumb or surrounded by so many people that they couldn¡¯t escape. Otherwise, they were extremely slippery to pin down if they refused to engage in directbat.

    Granted, that was only applicable in the era of cold weapons. These days, Dominators were easily ambushed in a moment of carelessness and could die to ordinary people.

    ¡°Li Hao, do you know what the greatest characteristic of a Dominator of Thousands is?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± The young man shook his head. I don¡¯t even know what it looks like to be a Sunderer! I only know that a yer elicits resonance between bone and meridian and a vigorous internal force.

    ¡°The consciousness!¡±

    Consciousness? Li Hao blinked. What about it?

    ¡°Premier martial masters have trained their minds to an extreme. Their physical bodies are iparably strong and the mind is another kind of aura! So as I stand here, I am the mountain. So as I stand there, I am the river! Winds howl and rain pours, but the mountains and river remain untouched. Such is a Dominator of Thousands!¡±

    The scene changed in front of Li Hao¡¯s eyes¡ªhis teacher suddenly seemed to be a mountain. No, a river. A mountain was immobile and a river in constant motion. These contradictory notions coexisted at the same time.

    BOOM!!

    The sound of blood flowing drummed like a racing river. Yuan Shuo¡¯s blood and qi frothed while his body remained a statdmass. His blood rushed wildly with abandon as his bones and meridians roared like thunder!

    So strong!

    The professor¡¯s aura exploded throughout the small yard. Li Hao felt like he was a dinghy drifting through the open sea, at risk of capsizing at any time. He began to sway and struggled to stay on his feet.

    Meanwhile, Yuan Shuo¡¯s aura built and his amused tone traveled through the air like the voice of a god or a demon. ¡°Witness for yourself the aura and consciousness of a Dominator! You won¡¯t be at a loss for what to do when you encounter this type of individual in the future and neither will you be afraid!¡±

    With experience came familiarity; a Dominator of Thousands wasn¡¯t a personage that just anyone could meet.

    Li Hao drifted among the breeze and swung back and forth.

    ¡°Practice the ape style!¡± Yuan Shuo shouted. ¡°My aura may be able to guide you to ascending too. When your internal force burgeons and your bones and meridians resonate in unison, that is a sign that you are a true yer of Tens!¡±

    Li Hao had practiced the New Book of Five Styles for a scant three years and treated it as a fitness routine. He¡¯d seen decent improvement over this time, but only in terms of his foundations. He¡¯d never reached the yer threshold.

    With Yuan Shuo¡¯s vibrant aura whipping through the surroundings and the secret art of the same method as lead, Li Hao settled into the ape style. He staggered through the yard like an ape, drunkenly running through a boxing method alongside his teacher.

    Indeed, Yuan Shuo practiced a boxing method as well! The ape style!

    Teacher and disciple lost themselves in a series of punches, jumps, and leaps. As time passed, Li Hao began to feel an upswing of internal force from the depths of his body. Contrary to mysterious power, this force seemed to be an innate product of himself. It oscited from his core and traveled toward his legs, filling them with internal force.

    On his next kick, cracks and pops filled the air!

    Bones and meridians resonating in unison!

    Due to the guidance of a grandmaster about to set foot into Dominator of Thousands, Li Hao broke through himself, using the advantage of their methods sharing amon origin! This was a fortuitous opportunity that countless people could only dream about.

    Li Hao had brought opportunity to Yuan Shuo, and so did Yuan Shuo return chance to Li Hao. Otherwise, the young man might not set foot into yer of Tens for another half month to a year and a half, even if he kept absorbing mysterious power.

    It all depended on luck! But now, under the guidance of his teacher¡¯s aura, he easily made the leap!

    Not only that, but there was another massive benefit conferred by the tutge of a Dominator grandmaster. When he met opponents in the future, he would not fear them so long as they weren¡¯t that much stronger than Dominator!

    Fear was the mostmon manifestation of the gap between cultivation levels. The weak cowered before even engaging the strong. They were overwhelmed by their opponent¡¯s aura, but that would never happen to Li Hao because he ascended with a Dominator of Thousands!

    ¡°Hup!¡± Li Hao roared as Yuan Shuo grunted.

    Furious gales whipped through the yard!

    Another round of explosive pops sounded when Li Hao kicked his foot. Off to the side, Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t nearly as shy as his student. He gently retracted his hands and feet without much disturbance, as if he was returning to his origins and roots.

    But when Li Hao looked over, his jaw dropped in disbelief. His teacher¡¯s white hair waspletely ck. Pieces of old skin ked off the elderly man¡¯s body and fluttered in the wind. Some floated to Li Hao and stuck to his mouth¡­

    ¡°PBTHH!!¡± the young man quickly spat with disdain and disgust. He was struck with incredulity anew when he looked at his teacher. Despite possessing a biological age of seventy, Yuan Shuo looked to be in his forties!

    This method can reverse the clock?

    Yuan Shuo remained where he was, digesting his gains. He nced at Li Hao with a wide smile, appearing in front of his student before the bbergasted young man could react. Thetter could do nothing when pulled in close for a hug.

    SMOOCH!

    Li Hao went ck-jawed with disbelief. Had he just been¡­ harassed by his teacher?

    Yuan Shuo grabbed his face andnded a hearty kiss on it, grinning from ear to ear.

    ¡°Good child!¡± The professor threw his head back withughter. He roared with such mirth that it bordered on manic!

    I, Yuan Shuo, am back!

    Dominator of Thousands!

    Who in the world will be a match for me when I set foot into the supernatural domain?! Twenty years? What is that worth?? None of you have the right to stand on my level even with another eighty years!

    ¡°Good child! We will sweep thend from today forth! No one can measure up to us and the mere supernatural world can be popped with a flick of a finger!¡±

    Arrogant!

    Incredible arrogance beyond belief!

    A mixture of excitement and agitation seized Li Hao. Teacher is this amazing now? Then what the hell am I afraid of? Hot damn, the scarlet shadow ain¡¯t worth shit! My teacher is a Dominator of Thousands!!

 Chapter 44: Supernatural Levels, Teacher and Disciple Scheme (I)

    Chapter 44: Supernatural Levels, Teacher and Disciple Scheme (I)

    Both teacher and disciple were the epitome of hubris in this moment. Fear and worry were no longer a concern!

    Li Hao¡¯s teacher was a Dominator of Thousands and possibly the greatest among modern martial masters. What was there to fear about a paltry scarlet shadow?

    As for himself, the young man didn¡¯t think much of breaking through to yer of Tens. So he was a yer. Great. Everyone was a yer in the Demon Hunters and they still struggled at every step.

    The current Li Hao didn¡¯t understand what it meant to set foot into yer of Tens after training for only three years. Yuan Shuo did, but he didn¡¯t pay it much heed.

    yer of Tens was indeed weak and this was his student they were talking about. Even if thed didn¡¯t focus on martial dao, it was a foregone conclusion that he would advance given guidance from a Dominator.

    Not to mention, Li Hao was twenty years old. It wasn¡¯t beyond the pale that he set foot into this level at that age. Yuan Shuo recalled a disciple of one of his old friends breaking through at twelve years old. Now that was ridiculous.

    Granted, his friend¡¯s disciple had started training as a child and bathed in precious herbs at the age of three. The professor couldn¡¯t be bothered to consider that. Li Hao hadn¡¯t beenpletely without external help either. Other than cosmic power, he¡¯d also absorbed some mysterious power. That was a key factor too.

    ¡°Teacher!¡± An excited Li Hao put everything out of his mind. ¡°Are Dominators of Thousands also invincible in the supernatural field?¡±

    Dominator of Thousands!

    Wreathed in smiles, Yuan Shuo paused for thought. ¡°Pretty much. I will well and truly be invincible once I make the crossover!¡±

    ¡°And before you do?¡± Li Hao followed up, slightly that something was amiss.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s hand closed on empty air when he tried to stroke his beard. His facial hair disappearing would take some getting used to! He considered things again and answered ambiguously, ¡°A Dominator is an apex existence!¡±

    ¡°How apex?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t rest easy¡ªwhy was his teacher being so inconclusive?

    Yuan Shuo coughed. You¡¯re asking too much on a day of great joy, kid!

    Somewhat reining in his brazenness, the professor replied calmly, ¡°Li Hao, you must know that being supernatural is not synonymous with being strong. Most people are the equivalent of yer of Tens when they first cross over. They are on par with a Sunderer after a period of improvement. Differences abound between Sunderers¡ªwhether one is of Nine Hundreds or One Hundred, one is a Sunderer all the same!¡±

    ¡°Teacher¡­¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t resist interrupting since he desperately wished to know if his teacher was invincible. ¡°Were you just making empty boasts earlier?¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± Yuan Shuo snorted with dissatisfaction. He pointed at the sky and raised his nose. ¡°Let me put it this way. There are only five people in all of Silver Moon who can beat me at my current strength!¡±

    There were thirty-two cities in the province, yet his teacher imed to be in the top five? Li Hao was hugely taken aback by this im.

    How big was Silver Moon and how big was its poption? Silver City was a small, backward city and possessed roughly a million, but the capital of White Moon City counted thirty million! Silver City was nothingpared to White Moon City!

    Out of the other cities, the smaller ones were on par with Silver City and therger ones less than White Moon, but the secondrgest of re City also housed more than ten million. There were at least hundreds of millions if the entire province was considered! How was teacher top five in light of all those people and supernaturals?

    ¡°Teacher, if Dominators are that powerful, then¡ª¡± Li Hao almost physically stumbled with Yuan Shuo¡¯s next words.

    ¡°The five that can defeat me are all higher level than me. In terms of supernatural levels, there¡¯s a couple dozen that are the same strength as me!¡± Yuan Shuo exined awkwardly. If he sessfully made the crossover, then those stronger than him might not prove to be a challenge either.

    Li Hao was slightly disappointed at first, then felt that this was still quite an aplishment. There weren¡¯t that many that rivaled his teacher in the entire province! Seen in another light, it was absolutely stunning that his teacher was so strong without being supernatural himself.

    ¡°Teacher, is it easy to reach the Dominator equivalent for supernaturals?¡±

    ¡°Easy?¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s not that easy, but much easier for them than martial masters! Let¡¯s put it this way¡ªsupernaturals are also divided into various levels. Their Dominator equivalent is called Sunre! A Sunre supernatural is the martial master Dominator of Thousands. There are quite a few Sunre in the province¡ªnearly every major city has one in residence.

    ¡°But that¡¯s onlyparatively speaking against martial masters.¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head with a slight sigh. ¡°I might be the only Dominator to appear in thest twenty years!¡±

    There¡¯d been more Dominators around twenty years ago, but he hadn¡¯t heard of any in recent times. They might still exist, but they were either in seclusion or biding their time. The second group would be testing the waters to see if they could make the crossover, or perhaps they already had.

    The situation outside Silver Moon was much less clear¡ªYuan Shuo hadn¡¯t set foot beyond the province in many years and was ignorant about the outside world. In the meantime, Li Haomitted the new term to memory.

    Sunre!

    That was the supernatural level that corresponded to Dominator of Thousands. The martial master equivalent was hailed as walking gods, but they weren¡¯t invincible in their otherworldly counterpart. More than a dozen existed in Silver Moon.

    I wonder what level is the scarlet shadow?

    Worried about sending his teacher to his doom, Li Hao added, ¡°Teacher, can you handle Little Yuan¡¯s killer after your breakthrough? What if they have an organization behind them with lots of supernaturals? Will that be too much for you to handle?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s go inside and talk!¡± Yuan Shuo looked around them and lowered his voice. ¡°We should keep a low profile after these changes.¡±

    Li Hao understood and headed inside with the rejuvenated elder.

    ¡­¡­

    The main visitor hall was spacious and arranged with ssic ir. Instead of settling down to business, Yuan Shuo first sought out a mirror after heading inside. He appraised his appearance with satisfaction before heading back to his student.

    Teacher¡¯s getting a little full of it!

    Li Hao ignored the little disy of narcissism.

    ¡°In my view, Zhang Yuan¡¯s killer is neither weak nor too strong,¡± Yuan Shuo analyzed. ¡°Zhang Yuan wouldn¡¯t have made it out of his room if the supernatural was really strong. He would¡¯ve silently burned to death on his bed. But since he could walk outside, that means that his killer or the supernatural ability employed is limited!

    ¡°Of course, we can¡¯t conclude they¡¯re weak from that alone. Someone who can spend more than ten years setting up a scheme won¡¯t possibly be weak. What we need to see is if they¡¯re an organization or flying solo.¡±

    ¡°Most likely an organization!¡± Li Hao thought for a bit.

    ¡°What makes you say that?¡± Yuan Shuo looked at his student with an assessing gaze.

    ¡°The presence I sensed outside Zhang Yuan¡¯s house belonged to a scout!¡± the young man analyzed. ¡°I also discovered someone following me outside the Inspectorate once. They were in a car, so they might be mundane people keeping an eye on me.

    ¡°The main perpetrator probably isn¡¯t bold enough to personally maintain constant surveince. There¡¯s also no need to do so since I¡¯m very weak. Therefore, there should be more than one person on the enemy¡¯s side. But if ites down to exactly how many or the number of supernaturals they have¡­ I have no way of figuring that out.¡± Li Hao looked at his teacher at this time. ¡°Teacher, how do we determine whether a supernatural is strong or weak?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s difficult to tell!¡± Yuan Shuo answered candidly. ¡°The same goes for martial masters¡ªit¡¯s hard to determine someone¡¯s strength if they don¡¯t show the characteristics of their levels. It can be defined only through actualbat. As for objects like a supernatural probe, that¡¯s all bullshit!¡±

    The professor sneered visibly. ¡°There¡¯s even some of my work in that. It¡¯s somewhat useful, but not really. A Sunre can absolutelypress his mysterious power to decrease its seepage. You might only pick up the tiniest supernatural ripple, so how can you use that to determine their strength?¡±

    That¡¯s true!

    Li Hao thought of how his eyes were different from other people¡ªhe could see mysterious power. Could that be an indicator?

    ¡°Teacher, does every level of supernatural contain different depths of mysterious power inside their bodies?¡±

    ¡°No shit, of course!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°The denser their power, the stronger they are. But we do need to take actualbat and practicality into consideration. If a supernatural is skilled at healing, then they might still lose to someone weaker even though their power is strong. Ites down to individual capacity.¡±

    Understood!

    ¡°Are there differences to the different levels of energy?¡± Li Hao explored curiously. ¡°The Demon Hunters have an ice crystal cover that can visibly manifest mysterious power. If we can see it, doesn¡¯t that mean there¡¯s different states, arrangements, and power?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    This was Yuan Shuo¡¯s area of expertise. He¡¯d discovered the ice crystals and contributed to the method of dyeing mysterious power. The professor nodded authoritatively.

    ¡°I won¡¯t speak of those stronger than me in the supernatural field. Newly ascended martial masters manifest their power in a way simr to motes of starlight. That¡¯s why they¡¯re called Starlight! This is the first level of that domain, but since everyone goes through that stage, society is used to calling all supernaturals as Starlight!¡±

    Starlight! The first level!

    ¡°Then¡­ that means Starlight maps to yer of Tens?¡±

    That sounds¡­ so weak! Even I¡¯m a yer!

    ¡°Pretty much! At the same time, it¡¯s hard to tell who¡¯s stronger and weaker in actualbat since there¡¯s differences between the two specializations. The second level of the supernatural domaines with a brighter luminosity of energy. On par with the full moon, they are called Darkmoon!¡±

    Li Hao listened intently. This was the first time that someone unveiled this new part of their society to him. The Demon Hunters hadn¡¯t mentioned it because none of them had made the crossover. Although Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t either, he was exceedingly familiar with it because this was his trade!

    ¡°So Starlight, Darkmoon, and Sunre are the equivalent of yer, Sunderer, and Dominator?¡±

    ¡°Not exactly!¡± Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t want to admit it, but he did. ¡°Unless a martial master reaches Dominator of Thousands, they will always be weaker than their supernatural peers.¡±

    ¡°Why is that?¡± Weren¡¯t they the same level?

    The professor smiled with resignation. ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way¡ªmartial masters can employ only physical attacks. Supernatural abilities are not physical in the slightest. Take those two outside earlier, for example. The man could fly, so he probably became Darkmoon not that long ago. I¡¯m a Dominator now, but if he¡¯s prepared for me and hovers in the air indefinitely¡­ what do you think I can do about that?¡±

    ¡°Teacher, you can fly too!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Yuan Shuo was truly resigned. ¡°That¡¯s not flying, that¡¯s using leverage! I can¡¯t keep myself up there, but he can so long as his energy doesn¡¯t run out. That¡¯s what makes us different!

    ¡°Of course, it¡¯d only take one fist to kill him!¡± the man suddenly said proudly. ¡°It won¡¯t matter then if he can fly. Martial masters also gain some special abilities when we reach Dominator. That¡¯s why we stand toe-to-toe with their Sunre when we reach Dominator. Before that, martial masters are slightly weaker than their counterparts.¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether or not that was true¡ªhe could only trust his teacher.

    ¡°Does that mean that the two outside are possibly stronger than Captain Liu?

    Supernaturals¡­ were too terrifying! Those two looked very young from a distance, but they were potentially mightier than a Liu Long who¡¯d trained for decades.

    ¡°Not necessarily!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°Liu Long is more than forty years old and has been immersed in martial dao for nearly thirty years. He outstrips them in terms of experience and knowledge. If they fight him, it¡¯s more likely that they die!¡±

    No wonder! No wonder Liu Long said that if he couldn¡¯t handle things, then the Night Watchers of Silver City might not be useful either.

 Chapter 45: Supernatural Levels, Teacher and Disciple Scheme (II)

    Chapter 45: Supernatural Levels, Teacher and Disciple Scheme (II)

    So what level was the scarlet shadow at?

    Thinking back on it, Li Hao didn¡¯t recall any mysterious power emanating from the shadow. Did that mean it had no level? That only its master possessed a supernatural level? But I didn¡¯t see anyone with it!

    No, wait, what about Wang Ming? That one¡¯s mysterious power was very bright, brighter than Liu Long¡¯s. Could Wang Ming be a Darkmoon? He shouldn¡¯t be a Sunre¡­

    ording to what his teacher said, there weren¡¯t that many Sunres in the province. There might be only one in each city, and that didn¡¯t include minor ones like Silver City. Sunres were on the same level as Dominators; he¡¯d just been given a taste of how strong his teacher was. Wang Ming was noticeably weaker.

    Wang Ming might be simr to the two outside, a Darkmoon¡­

    So three Darkmoon Night Watchers hade to Silver City. Two stood guard over his teacher and one stayed in the shadows. The organization inly valued their honorable guest. When his thoughts traveled here, Li Hao quickly raised, ¡°Teacher, a supernatural¡¯s arrived in ssified Affairs and he might be a Darkmoon!¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Yuan Shuo blinked. Instead of asking his student how he knew or determined the supernatural¡¯s strength, he smiled. ¡°Interesting. Looks like Zhang Yuan¡¯s death is aplicated affair. The Night Watchers must be proceeding with such caution because they know that or have even guessed the killer¡¯s identity¡­¡±

    ¡°Teacher, what if my new colleague is one of the people behind Zhang Yuan¡¯s death?¡±

    ¡°They shouldn¡¯t be!¡± Yuan Shuo immediately shook his head. ¡°Do you think just anyone can walk into the Inspectorate? The Inspectorate is able to identify whether or not someone is supernatural. Therefore, at the very least, your inspector general knows about the neer. He¡¯s definitely aware! Unless he¡¯s a co-conspirator, the new guy is one hundred percent a Night Watcher!¡±

    Li Hao heaved a slight sigh of relief. That was good. He really was concerned that Wang Ming was from the scarlet shadow faction.

    Teacher and disciple chatted for a while longer before Li Hao prepared to leave.

    ¡°Make sure to keep the sword safe, if nothing else.¡± Yuan Shuo solemnly returned the jade sword. It still had reserves of energy after he absorbed so much and broke through Dominator of Thousands¡ªthat was incredible. It was a cornucopia!

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Li Hao nodded. He fully understood the jade sword¡¯s value now. Actually, he¡¯d known when he absorbed the energy from the Demon Hunters.

    ¡°And another thing,¡± Yuan Shuo said after some thought. ¡°Though I am a Dominator, it remains difficult for me to step into the otherworldly. Ick supernatural energy, and not the kind that you have. Yours isn¡¯t used to enhance battle strength. What you have reinforces the foundations and is a hundred times more precious than the kind I speak of!

    ¡°At my level of strength, I need a few hundred, if not one thousand cubes of mysterious energy!¡±

    Li Hao rapidly ran through some calctions. One cube went for a million coins on the ck market. If his teacher needed one thousand cubes, how much would that cost?

    ¡­one BILLION?!

    The young man swallowed hard. Holy shit, that was crazy! And his teacher didn¡¯t have that kind of money, did he? Even though it seemed like he was rich?

    A matter that could be resolved with money was easily handled for Yuan Shuo. The crux of the issue was that the Night Watchers would absolutely be aware of such arge transaction, as would all other supernatural organizations.

    This was not a feasible path!

    The professor looked at Li Hao and intoned, ¡°It¡¯s not the right time for me to show myself. I still have rivals out there and though they¡¯re not in Silver Moon, they¡¯re a force to be reckoned with! We need to keep a low profile for the moment¡­¡±

    Didn¡¯t you just say we¡¯d sweep thend? Li Hao grinned wryly. His teacher¡¯s words could never be taken for face value.

    ¡°Of course, I¡¯ll really be unstoppable if I cross over. You can do whatever you want then! So we just need to stay quiet for a little bit, don¡¯t rush!¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°Let me take a close look at the crisis at hand. I¡¯ll kill them if they¡¯re weak, and if they¡¯re too strong¡­¡±

    The grin deepened with mischief. ¡°The Night Watchers can take the fall!¡±

    Interest appeared on Li Hao¡¯s face.

    ¡°If the ones behind everything are weak enough that I can take them out in one go, I¡¯ll kill them without a second thought,¡± Yuan Shuo kept his voice down. ¡°But it¡¯ll be dicey if they have anyone beyond Sunre. Even if I can take on one or two of them, you¡¯ll be in grave trouble!

    ¡°Of course, anyone beyond Sunre won¡¯t be in Silver City at the moment. We can kill anyone below that level and pin it on the Night Watchers! That organization has their fair share of experts. Half of the five stronger than me are Night Watchers!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. His teacher had decided to tailor his response ording to the type of enemy they faced. Prudence was ideal! There was also another unspoken factor that both of them were well aware of.

    Wouldn¡¯t a faction that¡¯did their ns for so many years and already seized several treasures be constantly growing stronger? Just one jade sword and cosmic power alone was stunning enough. If Yuan Shuo could use it to set foot into Dominator, why couldn¡¯t the other reach greater heights?

    The two didn¡¯t mention it because they were afraid of destroying their confidence. Since Yuan Shuo had deduced that anyone stronger than him wasn¡¯t in the city, or even the province, that gave them much more room to flex their muscles.

    ¡°Also, your jade pendant is just a pendant!¡± Yuan Shuo added. ¡°I¡¯ll give you a sword before you leave, one that¡¯s a supernatural object!¡± He leered savagely. ¡°No one¡¯s ever seen your sword or knows what the sword of the Lis looks like. They all have to take your word for it. What else could a supernatural object carried by a mundane be, if not the sword of the Lis?

    ¡°In that case, we need to choose a decent item¡ªone that isn¡¯t scrap metal!¡± An agonized tone crept into Yuan Shuo¡¯s voice. ¡°It¡¯s been difficult to collect treasures ever since the Night Watchers kept a close watch on me. Ah, forget it. I collected a fine sword several years ago, it¡¯s an absolute treasure!

    ¡°Actually, it¡¯s a perfect fit for our purposes! It¡¯s also sealed away and doesn¡¯t exude any mysterious power. Radiance shimmers within. I found it in arger ruin and suspect it¡¯s a treasure tied to a bloodline legacy.¡±

    ¡°Teacher, your sword might be more precious than mine,¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but say. ¡°Won¡¯t this be a pretty big loss for you?¡±

    He knew that Yuan Shuo intended to palm off a substitute for the real thing. But if the family treasure wasn¡¯t as expensive as that sword, that¡¯d be a bad trade!

    ¡°Impossible!¡± The professor shook his head emphatically. It went without saying that Li Hao¡¯s sword was valuable beyondpare. However, he didn¡¯t bother to exin himself. ¡°Take it with you when you leave! You should know how to use it without further guidance from me.

    "If the enemy is too strong for me to handle, you can try throwing the sword out. If I or the Night Watchers kill the enemy, you should also throw the sword out. Throw it at the Night Watchers if you can so they take the fall!¡±

    Teacher and disciple quickly settled on their n. They would kill the enemy if thetter was weak or kill the scouts if they were strong, then dump it all on the Night Watchers¡¯ head. The caveat to this was that the Night Watchers wanted the sword. Otherwise, me would stillnd in Li Hao¡¯sp.

    Would the Night Watchers want it?

    Given how Yuan Shuo described it, they very likely would. As for whether or not their n would gue the conscience, Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t feel the slightest bit guilty. To be honest, Li Hao didn¡¯t either. The Night Watchers deserved to be the scapegoat if they took the sword, it wasn¡¯t his fault.

    ¡­¡­

    Teacher and student conversed for almost an hour. When Yuan Shuo took out the sword, he also dyed his hair white. He didn¡¯t want to expose himself for the time being.

    The sword that Yuan Shuo spoke of wasn¡¯t toorge. Just a bitrger than the jade pendant, it was the size of a dagger and easily identified as a sword. It could be carried on the young man as it fit into a pocket.

    Li Hao nced at it, vaguely identifying a mightyyer of mysterious power brewing inside. He was reluctant to take it as it might be the only treasure of this caliber that his teacher owned. The professor was freely handing it over just to decrease the amount of trouble that Li Hao was in!

    ¡°Go home soon!¡± Yuan Shuo cautioned after wrapping up matters. ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much. I won¡¯t follow you the entire way, but I¡¯ll be there in short order if anything happens! All you need is to survive the first strike!¡±

    Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Improving yourself is crucial!¡± Yuan Shuo thought for a bit. ¡°You may be a yer of Tens, but that doesn¡¯t mean you¡¯re all that impressive. The weak and strong within this level are also clearly delineated. yer of Ny-Nine is still a yer of Tens. That¡¯s a bit of an exaggeration, but the gap still exists.¡±

    Yuan Shuo had nned on sending his student away, but stopped the young man again when he considered that Li Hao would likely find it difficult to progress in a short amount of time.

    ¡°You¡¯ve never experienced truebat and everything I taught you before was to improve general health. It¡¯s not very useful in fighting, so I¡¯ll shore up your knowledge after this incident!¡±

    There wasn¡¯t enough time to teach thed anythingprehensive right now. The professor thought for a bit beforeing to a decision.

    ¡°I¡¯ll teach you a somewhat underhanded offensive technique! It¡¯s easy enough and not part of the Five Styles, but it¡¯ll be useful for ensuring survival!¡±

    Li Hao lit up! Underhanded? Didn¡¯t hear that part! I don¡¯t care, I just want to stay alive.

    Yuan Shuo stayed indoors and struck a stance in the hall, presenting a very prim and proper image.

    ¡°Martial masters need to draw in close when facing opponents, particrly third rate martial masters like you! You don¡¯t need to learn any strong attack methods because you might not have a chance to use them. If you have the ability to, then you won¡¯t need them. So today, I¡¯ll teach you the Hand That Brings Back Life! It¡¯s a technique that I found in some ancient tomes.¡±

    The Hand That Brings Back Life!

    What an upright and honest name¡ªit sounded like a doctor¡¯s skill. But when Yuan Shuo deployed it, Li Hao gained a full understanding of its true meaning. The professor waved his fists around in a mad caper. He only had two hands, yet somehow, a third popped up in the next second!

    Yes, three hands!

    The third one snatched at Li Hao¡¯s crotch the second it appeared. He didn¡¯t have time to react!

    Monkey Stealing Peaches was a move in the ape style, but it wasn¡¯t nearly as bewildering as this one. The opponent sometimes knew that it was meant to attack the private parts as soon as it was deployed. Meanwhile, this one manifested a third hand!

    Li Hao paled with horror.

    ¡°The key to the Hand That Brings Back Life is in the hand that catches one off guard!¡± Yuan Shuo grinned broadly and stepped back. ¡°This is a skill of robbers as recorded in bygone records. Unsavory characters also existed in ancient civilizations and they used this technique to steal! I modified it slightly to be one suited for direct ambush!¡±

    Who could guard against an extra hand that suddenly appeared inbat?

    ¡°Where did the extra hande from, teacher?¡± A baffled Li Hao considered the seemingly simple technique. His teacher only had two hands, how had there been a third one?

    ¡°That¡¯s the core of the technique. We only have two hands, the third one is fake!¡± Yuan Shuo exined the need for confounding falsehood for truth; a game of misdirection with the body was the most difficult part of this technique.

    The two made a thorough study, stopping only when Li Hao more or less mastered the move and grasped its core essence.

    ¡­¡­

    When the young man departed the residence, the middle-aged scout who¡¯d stopped him before was no longer present. Li Hao didn¡¯t feel eyes on him until he was a bit of a distance away, and he only sensed it because he vaguely caught sight of sparkles of starlight. Supernaturals!

    It must be the man on the rooftop from before. The woman was gravely injured after their encounter and wouldn¡¯t recover for a while.

    Not a flicker of change crossed Li Hao¡¯s face; it was as if he hadn¡¯t discovered anything. He swiftly vanished into the distance on his bike.

    ¡­¡­

    Hu Hao revealed himself after Li Hao departed. He looked at the young man¡¯s back and then at the residence. What had Yuan Shuo taught Li Hao that they¡¯d stayed in there for multiple hours?

    ¡°I wonder how Elder Yuan¡¯s injuries are doing¡­¡± he sighed softly, helplessly. Please don¡¯t die, or he and Li Meng would be in for it.

 Chapter 46: Contentment (I)

    Chapter 46: Contentment (I)

    It was four o¡¯clock in the afternoon on July 14 when Li Hao left the Veteris Institute. Silver City¡¯s rainy season was forecasted to start on July 18 and would run for a prolonged period of time.

    ¡°Three more days,¡± Li Hao murmured to himself as he biked back to work. It would start raining on the 18th, so he didn¡¯t have much time left. One could trust the forecast as Silver City¡¯s Weather Bureau was rather urate.

    He rolled into the Inspectorate, thoughts chasing each other in his mind. He needed to clock out for the day and Wang Ming had mentioned that he was treating them tonight. As someone perpetually single and the acimed nice guy of ssified Affairs, Li Hao wouldn¡¯t turn him down. That didn¡¯t suit his image.

    ¡­¡­

    The Department of ssified Affairs.

    Wang Ming brightened slightly when he saw Li Hao return. Curiosity shed through his eyes as he continued listening to Chen Na¡¯s overview of how to process documents. Despite how brief this flicker was, Li Hao clearly noted everything.

    The reaction would go overlooked if Li Hao wasn¡¯t paying attention to him, but since Li Hao was, some of the signs were easily detected. Wang Ming inly wasn¡¯t a deeply shrewd and deliberative person. Perhaps that was due to a truly younger age, or perhaps he was simr to Li Meng and this was his first mission.

    I bet they know about teacher injuring Li Meng. This guy hadn¡¯t been so curious when Li Hao left. Perhaps he was also wondering what his teacher had taught him. Passing on a secret art had been the excuse that Yuan Shuo employed.

    ¡°You¡¯re back, Brother Hao!¡± Wang Ming was a very polite soul who didn¡¯t put on airs. He easily greeted Li Hao with respect usually shown toward older people.

    ¡°Mmhmm, I¡¯m done for the day.¡± Li Hao nodded with a faint smile.

    ¡°What done for the day!¡± Chen Na giggled. ¡°More like you don¡¯t want to cook and came back for dinner! You¡¯re back even though the day¡¯s over. You¡¯re thinking about that meal that Little Ming said he wants to treat us to, aren¡¯t you!¡±

    Little Ming!

    Li Hao held back his mirth. Chen Na had probably heard him call Wang Ming that and followed suit.

    Resignation flickered in Wang Ming¡¯s eyes, but he didn¡¯t give voice to it. He bobbed his head in tacit eptance of his new nickname. ¡°I found a good restaurant. We can head there as soon as everyone¡¯s done. I hope it suits both of your tastes.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t care, I eat anything.¡± Li Hao was naturally even more easygoing than Chen Na. ¡°Are we the only ones?¡±

    ¡°Just you two for today because I¡¯ve troubled you all day. I¡¯ll treat the others in the department tomorrow!¡± Wang Ming quickly responded.

    Li Hao returned to his seat without another word and quickly handled some documents. The end of the work day arrived after a brief flurry of activity.

    ¡­¡­

    Five thirty. The main entrance to the Inspectorate.

    Wang Ming¡¯s eyes lost their focus when he saw Li Hao¡¯s bicycle. ¡°Brother Hao, are you taking your bike there?¡±

    He hadn¡¯t driven his car to this posting and neither had he had time to buy one. Li Hao was very courteous and said he¡¯d take the neer to the restaurant, but here he was with his shabby bike! Although Wang Ming had seen the bike at lunchtime, who would¡¯ve thought that this would really be all that the guy had to his name!

    ¡°It¡¯s not far!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Just ten minutes up ahead. You can take the car instead if you want, Sis Na is driving.¡±

    ¡°How about both of us ride with Sis Na¡­¡±

    ¡°No way!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°I need to go home after this. If I leave my bike here, I have toe back for it. That¡¯s too much of a hassle!¡±

    Wang Ming wanted to break into loud curses! This guy was so damned uptight! Why did he have to split hairs like this at his age? He rode a bike for transportation and opted for an easy job for his career. He was a Veteris Institute student, alright? Get some ambition into you!

    Although far from satisfied with a bike, considering that Chen Na was driving the car by herself and Li Hao on a bike¡­ Wang Ming decided to go with Li Hao after some consideration. This was the person he wanted to get to know more, anyhow.

    ¡­¡­

    Wang Ming¡¯s long legs were impossible to fit on the bike, making for a very ufortable position. He was forced to hug Li Hao¡¯s waist. Now this was a new experience. After a while, he couldn¡¯t help but ask, ¡°Brother Hao, what do you have in your pocket? It¡¯s so hard and pointy.¡±

    His thoughts would go down a wild path if it wasn¡¯t for his hands being around Li Hao¡¯s waist. It was rock hard and he was a man! But since it was around the waist¡­ he was probably thinking too much.

    ¡°Oh yeah, I almost forgot,¡± Li Hao answered in affable tones without looking back. ¡°It¡¯s an old family heirloom. My neighborhood hasn¡¯t been too quiet as ofte¡ªthe dogs bark up a storm at night. I¡¯m worried about losing it, so I carry it in my pocket.¡±

    Wang Ming¡¯s eyes lit up! Old? Family heirloom? Interest piqued, he asked casually, ¡°What kind of object is it that you carry it around like that? What if you break it? It looks like you¡¯re not the super conscientious type, Brother Hao.¡±

    ¡°I won¡¯t!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s not porcin, it¡¯s a small metal sword. It won¡¯t break even if I smash it on the ground. I did just that many times when I was young.¡±

    ¡°A small sword?¡± Wang Ming¡¯s face was unguarded since it was Li Hao¡¯s back facing him. His eyes were so bright that they¡¯d startle anyone who saw him!

    Well that was easy! The sword of the Lis is on Li Hao, huh, and in his pocket? I can take it if I want to!

    It was incredulous, but also made a great deal of sense. If unrest hade to the neighborhood, then of course one kept their valuables on them. Wang Ming just hadn¡¯t anticipated seeing the sword of the Lis so soon.

    There was a file about this sword in the Night Watcher headquarters. It was very generic as it hadn¡¯t been long since the organization¡¯s founding. There was only a general summary based on what little they knew.

    The heritage of the eight families of Silver City could span several hundred or several thousand years. The specifics were very difficult to track down. The weapons mentioned in the folk song, however, were estimated to be Sunre at the very least!

    The supernatural field had developed sote that its objects were ssified ording to supernatural strength levels. Sunre was on par with Dominator of Thousands. A treasure at that level was a rare sighting for a supernatural.

    ¡°Brother Hao, a small sword and a family heirloom¡­¡± Wang Ming couldn¡¯t resist temptation. ¡°May I take a look? I love antiques like these and have collected quite a few of them. If you like them, I¡¯ll bring some from home next time I go on leave.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it.¡± Li Hao¡¯s lips stretched in a simple and honest smile. ¡°Feel free to take a look, it¡¯s nothing special. Don¡¯t break it though. Though it¡¯s not valuable, it¡¯s still my inheritance. This is the only thing to remember the family by after the death of my parents.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t break it!¡± Wang Ming was overjoyed to receive Li Hao¡¯s permission. This really had been very easy! Although he couldn¡¯ty im to it, it was still good to take a look since the Night Watchers needed more information about these weapons and the people behind the scene.

    He reached for the sword without further ado. Shock blossomed on Wang Ming¡¯s face when he closed his hand around the silver sword. It really was a supernatural object!

    While there was so little mysterious power that it was almost undetectable through clothing, he could clearly sense something different about it when he held it in his hand. The mysterious power in his body suddenly shifted with activity!

    What a treasure! Greed dawned in Wang Ming¡¯s eyes. Any supernatural would covet it if they saw or felt it. Modern times were so close to the origin of the supernatural world that not all supernaturals had a treasure to their name. That applied to even the Night Watchers and a portion of Sunres.

    Being only Darkmoon, it was even harder for Wang Ming toe across one on his own. However, he quickly tamped down his greed. This item wouldn¡¯t be so easy to im. He perceived a faint aura of ughter as he held it¡ªthere was much more here than met the eye. It was also more mysterious than previous supernatural objects that he¡¯de across.

    It seems to be under a seal! That was what his senses vaguely told him. No wonder the weapons of the eight families had gone unnoticed before. It wasn¡¯t until the rise of the supernatural that they saw the light again and gradually disyed their special characteristics when their seals were undone. That was when others grew aware of them and discovered their secrets.

    This exins why the enemy hasn¡¯t just robbed the sword. There¡¯s probably a process necessary to unseal it! Sharp-witted as he was, Wang Ming quickly came to a few key conclusions. He looked at Li Hao¡¯s back with some pity¡ªthe guy was very likely the descendant of an ancient supernatural. What a shame!

    The changing of the times had turned their ancestor¡¯s treasure into lethal poison. ording to Night Watcher investigations, Li Hao might be the only surviving direct heir of the eight families¡ªthe caveat being that he really was the heir to the sword of the Lis.

    The organization hadn¡¯t been certain before, but Wang Ming was one hundred percent certain now. He held the sword in his hand!

    ¡°Brother Hao, this is a nice looking sword!¡± Wang Ming praised with interest. ¡°Do you want to sell it?¡±

    ¡°Nope!¡± Li Hao immediately refused. ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it, it¡¯s a family heirloom. If I sell it, my old man will crawl out of the ground and beat the shit out of me! Besides, I¡¯ve had it appraised before. It¡¯s not worth much since it¡¯s made of metal.¡±

    ¡°Now now, each to their own. I¡¯m definitely interested if Brother Hao wants to sell it. I can¡¯t make any big promises, but I can pay one to two hundred thousand for it!¡±

    ¡°That much?¡± Li Hao jerked with surprise. ¡°One to two hundred thousand?¡±

    Wang Ming sighed inwardly when he registered the bike slowing down. What everyone made of the world was indeed very different. One to two hundred thousand? If this was a Sunre supernatural object, those supernaturals would pay one hundred times the price. What was ten million star coins?

    There were nearly one hundred million people in Silver Moon and only how many Sunres. Each of them yearned for strength, so they wouldn¡¯t bat an eye at spending that sum. Of course, he couldn¡¯t quote an overly high price as that would lead to suspicion instead of temptation.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, we can discuss anything in this range. If you sell the sword, Brother Hao, you might be able to move to a new ce.¡±

    Li Hao bobbed his head and made some quick calctions. ¡°Don¡¯t be messing with me now. Houses in the neighborhoods around the Inspectorate go for three thousand. If I really do sell it for two hundred thousand, I can move to a new building with two bedrooms!¡±

    ¡°You got it!¡± Wang Ming felt the sword was in the bag. ¡°I don¡¯t have that much money on me right now. I¡¯ll go home on my next vacation and ask my family for it. Brother Hao can tell me more about itter.¡±

    I can¡¯t take it right now, Li Hao needs to be its catalyst. We can talk about this transaction if he survives and still has the sword.

    As for taking it by force¡­ the Night Watchers wouldn¡¯t stoop to those levels. They didn¡¯t need to, normally speaking.

    It suddenly felt that Wang Ming hadpleted half of his mission in one fell swoop. He¡¯d confirmed Li Hao¡¯s identity, confirmed that the sword of the Lis existed, taken a look for himself and touched it, and confirmed that it was a supernatural object. There could be no doubt about it, the next target was Li Hao!

    They arrived at the restaurant while they chatted. Wang Ming alighted to grab their private booth and ce orders while Li Hao went to park his bike.

    ¡­¡­

    By the street.

    Li Hao parked his bike and took out hismunicator to dial a number.

    ¡°Speak!¡± Liu Long was as aloof as ever.

    Li Hao lowered his voice with a mix of trepidation and unease. ¡°Chief, are ourmunications at risk of being monitored?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Liu Long replied curtly, already sensing that something was amiss. ¡°Where are you?¡±

    ¡°A restaurant called the Jade River!¡±

    ¡°What happened?¡±

    ¡°Chief, I seemed to be tailed by a supernatural!¡± Li Hao was so nervous that his voice was nearly inaudible. ¡°Not tailed, but followed right next to me! We have a rookie in ssified Affairs called Wang Ming. I gave him a ride to dinner and uh, I have an old family heirloom that I keep on me. He insisted on taking a look at it and I thought nothing more of it since he¡¯s mundane. But when he touched my heirloom, I sensed a burst of mysterious power!¡±

 Chapter 47: Contentment (II)

    Chapter 47: Contentment (II)

    An old family heirloom? Liu Long immediately understood¡ªthe sword of the Lis! Li Hao had sensed a reaction between Wang Ming and the object¡ªa supernatural was with Li Hao!

    The deputy chief frowned and rposed himself. ¡°Keep your head, don¡¯t be afraid! There¡¯s nothing to be concerned about if he¡¯s just following you. He would¡¯ve already killed you if he wants to. Don¡¯t show that anything¡¯s amiss, I¡¯m sure you can calm down!¡±

    ¡°Chief, I¡¯m worried that¡­¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± Liu Longforted and quickly assessed¡ªa supernatural at the Inspectorate¡­ a Night Watcher?

    It was highly likely.

    Annoyance and irritation assailed him in turn that the Night Watchers had kept him in the dark. Liu Long was well aware of what they had in mind. They wanted to observe from the shadows and have him serve as a scout and cannon fodder!

    Although he¡¯d known this long ago, the Night Watchers sending someone to interfere without even notifying him was wholly unexpected. Neither had the inspector general said anything. So that one was also dissatisfied with him too, hmm? That was one personage that the Night Watchers could not pull the wool over.

    After some thought, Liu Long concluded that the neer was most likely on their side. While he couldn¡¯t one hundred percent rule out that it was the enemy, the likelihood wasn¡¯t great.

    Li Hao fretted as Liu Long pondered, ¡°Chief, I am a bit worried¡­ The guy said that he wants to buy my sword. Do you think I should sell it? Will I be safer then?

    ¡°I thought about it just now¡ªhe might be from the Night Watchers! If so, won¡¯t we bait them into fighting the enemy if I sell the sword to them? We can just sit back and watch two tigers face off. I¡¯ll earn some money too¡­¡±

    Sell the sword?!

    Liu Long instantly lost his temper and growled, ¡°No! Are you short on money? What the hell are you selling it for?!¡±

    ¡°Chief, I am short on money! I want to ask if I can trade it for mysterious power. Maybe I¡¯ll get stronger if I absorb more and can protect myself better¡­¡±

    ¡°Trade your ass!!¡± Liu Long was beyond irate. ¡°You¡¯re not allowed to do that! Remember, you¡¯re part of the Demon Hunters and not the Night Watchers. You¡¯re not certain of his identity either, so you might still die after selling the sword!¡±

    ¡°But I¡¯ll die if I don¡¯t sell it, so why not trade it for a couple cubes of mysterious power and enhance myself¡­¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡± Liu Long was despondent. The kid was stubborn! He sighed after thinking over things more. ¡°We still have some mysterious power in our reserves. It¡¯s not that I can¡¯t give them to you, but that I¡¯m concerned about permanent damage from absorbing too much! You might even explode as all we have left is attributed energy.

    ¡°How about this, I¡¯ll give you another two attributed cubes if you think you can endure it before the rainse. Selling the sword is not viable. You won¡¯t be able to digest the energy you get from selling it!¡±

    Delight gleamed in Li Hao¡¯s eyes, now this was more like it! Liu Long didn¡¯t want him to sell the sword as there would be no pickings left if the Night Watchers became involved. With great risk came great opportunity! Liu Long wished to cross over. Although killing a supernatural was very dangerous, he didn¡¯t care. All he wanted was more personal benefit.

    I knew it¡­ Li Hao made quick calctions. Two cubes were fine¡ªit didn¡¯t matter if they were attributed or not. He¡¯d find out if that mattered when he absorbed them.

    ¡°Then¡­ alright, thank you chief. I won¡¯t sell it. I¡¯m also worried about the team¡¯s safety and feel that everyone might be safer if the Night Watchers get involved.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, so long as you understand!¡± Liu Long could finally rx. ¡°Don¡¯t expose yourself! If this person¡¯s really from the Night Watchers, then our n has a higher chance of seeding and our safety is more assured. Pulling chestnuts out of the fire is what we martial masters who seek the supernatural must do!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao hung up after the two conversed a little more. He was coollyposed¡ª nerves from moments ago nowhere to be found.

    It was a decent enough act. Although Liu Long was helping him, Li Hao did need to understand and obtain more mysterious power. Given how stingy the captain was, he¡¯d at most parcel out a few cubes of mysterious power if their n seeded in killing the scarlet shadow. That was too little!

    The ones newly assigned to Li Hao were doing nothing but sitting in storage. This meant they didn¡¯t match the others. Why not let me have a try? Limits on absorption that applied to others were inapplicable to Li Hao. Cosmic power provided the best neutralization to mysterious power.

    Exposing Wang Ming increases my degree of safety, no matter what his identity is. Gaining two additional cubes of mysterious power is not bad as well. This also redirects everyone¡¯s attention to the sword. It¡¯s much less likely that my jade pendant will be exposed.

    Li Hao was satisfied with his performance, albeit it paled inparison to his teacher¡¯s. His teacher had beaten someone half to death, but the victims had to think of how to address his wounds and were afraid of him dying.

    He had much to learn from his teacher! That there was a shining example of what he should strive for. His teacher probably wouldn¡¯t think much of two cubes of mysterious power.

    ¡°It is a heavy burden on my shoulders and the road ahead is long!¡±

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao returned to their private booth, whereupon Wang Ming disyed the depths of his pockets. He ordered a dozen dishes despite only three for dinner¡ªsome dishes werepletely foreign to Li Hao. He was a tant pauperpared to the neer.

    Chen Na suddenly said mysteriously halfway through dinner, ¡°You¡¯re from White Moon City, Little Ming, that¡¯s a big city. Out with it, you came to Silver City with a special goal in mind, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    Wang Ming started. Have I been made? No¡­ no way!

    Chen Na smirked knowingly at his expression and sighed when she saw apletely lost Li Hao.

    ¡°Li Hao, you¡¯re from the Veteris Institute at the end of the day. How do you not know anything! Do you know that a group of people is about to be selected from Silver City for White Moon?¡±

    ¡°What for?¡± Li Hao asked nkly. ¡°For training? Or promotion?¡±

    ¡°Neither!¡± Chen Na sighed and shook her head when she nced at Wang Ming. ¡°You don¡¯t know, but Little Ming surely does. Some youngsters disappear from the Inspectorate around each year end. They¡¯re sent to White Moon City for a selection! If they seed, they might be¡­ one of those legendary figures!¡±

    Wang Ming heaved an inward sigh of relief. Got it. The Night Watcher selection! Damn she scared me, I thought the gig was up.

    Li Hao was fully aware of what Chen Na spoke of¡ªthe Night Watchers selecting a few people from Silver City to conduct mysterious power into. There was a one percent chance of sess; Liu Long had mentioned that.

    inly, Chen Na misunderstood Wang Ming¡¯s presence in Silver City. She thought he was here becausepetition for spots was too fierce in White Moon.

    ¡°Sis Na, what are you talking about?¡± Li Hao continued to y dumb. ¡°One of those legendary figures?¡±

    ¡°I knew you didn¡¯t know! What a pity¡­ Li Hao, you should try talking to your teacher. You know about this, right, Little Ming?¡±

    ¡°I know a little.¡± Wang Ming nodded with a smile.

    ¡°I knew it!¡± Chen Na crowed with pride. ¡°The minds of you people from big cities twist and turn too much! Little Ming, have you ever met those legendary figures?¡±

    Legendary figures¡­ Wang Ming was at a slight loss, but decided to answer with a word or two since he¡¯d tacitly admitted he was here to vie for a spot. No one would believe that he didn¡¯t know anything.

    ¡°I¡¯ve encountered them before, yes, but didn¡¯t share a deep conversation.¡± Wang Ming could tell from the new look of vagueprehension that Li Hao must have heard some things from Liu Long. Therefore, his response could be neither filled with too much truth nor falsehood.

    ¡°It¡¯s actually an organization of people beyond ordinary! It¡¯s part of the Inspectorate and there¡¯s not many members. They choose people from the lower ranks each year and induct them into the organization.¡±

    ¡°From what you say, I think I actually do know a bit,¡± Li Hao interjected curiously. ¡°I heard my teacher mention it once and saw someone like that when I visited today! I feel like no one will believe me, but it¡¯s all true. I saw a man fly! That was incredible! Little Ming, people like that are the best of the best in White Moon, aren¡¯t they?¡±

    He paid special attention to Wang Ming¡¯s expression as he spoke. Thetter should know about Yuan Shuo¡¯s affairs, so there was no need to hide anything. He just wanted to see what Wang Ming thought about Hu Hao.

    Was it respect? Contempt? Or something else?

    Wang Ming¡¯s reaction could be used to determine his standing and strength¡ªthis was a tiny trick that Li Hao was employing. Based on what he knew, Hu Hao was a Darkmoon. ording to what his teacher said, that didn¡¯t make Hu Hao very strong. He was just someone with special abilities and a rookie among Darkmoons.

    Liu Long would eat him for lunch if they met in battle. So then, what of Wang Ming? The Night Watchers had sent him in secret, making Liu Long just a figurehead. Was he stronger than Liu Long?

    ¡°Best of the best?¡± Wang Ming chuckled, oblivious of the scrutiny. ¡°They¡¯re all the best of the best to us! Being able to fly is amazing, but you said you saw him when you visited your teacher. That means he¡¯s probably not that impressive because your teacher would¡¯ve introduced you otherwise. Did he?¡±

    ¡°No¡­ no he didn¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°There you have it,¡± Wang Ming¡¯s chuckles deepened.

    Li Hao nodded. Hu Hao¡¯s standing was less than this guy. Wang Ming enjoyed a higher status and was possibly even stronger. He might not be Sunre, but he was a strong Darkmoon.

    Wang Ming continued to remain oblivious of what he¡¯d just done. It¡¯d only taken a few casual words to nearly detail his entire background to Li Hao.

    ¡­¡­

    Everyone was content after the meal. Wang Ming spoke of many interesting happenings from White Moon City; Li Hao and Chen Na pointed out areas to take particr caution within the department. Chen Na simply enjoyed the meal, whereas Li Hao gained far more than what he could have imagined.

    His greatest harvest was that Wang Ming didn¡¯t think he¡¯d given his identity away. The neer continued to chit chat idly and mentioned that he might not be able to report to work on time the day after tomorrow. A family elder wasing to visit him.

    Li Hao immediately snapped to attention. A family elder! A real elder, or a Night Watcher powerhouse?

    Were the Night Watchers going to send even stronger personages to Silver City? It was a bit of a pity for them if they sent in more agents for this secret mission. They had a walking beacon named Wang Ming among their ranks. Thankfully, Li Hao was also on the side of justice or Wang Ming would¡¯ve been beaten to death long ago for revealing their secrets.

    Li Hao pped Wang Ming on the shoulder before he left and spoke a fewforting words. This supernatural didn¡¯t seem that scary or frankly, all that smart. He was almost simpleminded, yet thought he was quite shrewd.

    This seems all there is to supernaturals. They¡¯re a bit stronger, but short on brains. They don¡¯t exert as much pressure as Liu Long.

    As he sped away on his bike, Li Hao found that he no longer feared supernaturals as much as he did before.

    Time to go home! Everyone¡¯s attention being elsewhere created a perfect opportunity to retrieve the stone de and see if he could create some de-infused water. Steris¡¯ cosmic power was incredible, so how about the stone de? Would it be the same energy or something different?

    This would be quite an interesting experiment.

    Back at the restaurant.

    Wang Ming looked strangely at the departing Li Hao. That guy had acted like a senior looking after a junior when he left. Why do I get the feeling that he thinks I¡¯m dumb? Does he really think I¡¯m the rookie I appear to be?

    ¡°Looks like Veteris students aren¡¯t any smarter than the rest of us!¡± Wang Ming shook his head. Ah Li Hao, do you know that you¡¯re in bigger danger than you can imagine? It might be a Sunreing for your head!

    ¡°Thankfully, a much stronger presence will be here soon and can observe from the shadows. We¡¯ll ambush the enemy even if they¡¯re a Sunre!¡± Wang Ming was highly satisfied with the deed of merit he¡¯d be recognized for after he reported the sword to the neer.

    Both Li Hao and Wang Ming were very satisfied with how their rtionship had deepened after a meal.

 Chapter 48: Stone Blade, Demon Hunters (I)

    Chapter 48: Stone de, Demon Hunters (I)

    Openlight.

    Building 6.

    A simple dog den was located under the building stairs on the first floor. Far from clean, it exuded a faintly pungent smell. This was Panther¡¯s home.

    Li Hao¡¯s home was Li Hao¡¯s. He didn¡¯t let the little ck dog inside when he was at work. Not to mention, staying indoors might not be to Panther¡¯s liking. No one had time to walk the dog, the dog walked itself.

    It was only these two days that Li Hao permitted Panth to stay inside, to see if it could detect the scarlet shadow. The den was lined with old tattered clothing and straw dragged in from who knew where. Li Hao¡¯s contribution was an unused sofa cushion for a bed.

    No one looked after the dog during the day, to say nothing of where it lived.

    Li Hao spared a swift nce for the dog den after parking his bike and quickly made his way upstairs. Leftovers swung from his hand. There¡¯d been no time to cook over the past two days and they were out of expired dog food. Panth had gone hungry today.

    Thankfully, there were enough leftovers from dinner for him to take home. Being so well off, Wang Ming had ordered a delicious variety of dishes. The little ck dog was in for a treat tonight!

    Upstairs.

    His second floor neighbors had their front door open; there was only one upied unit on the floor. Both had been upied back in the day, but one family had moved away.

    ¡°You¡¯re home, Little Hao!¡± greeted an auntie when she saw the young man.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, Auntie Zhang, I¡¯m off work.¡± Li Hao nodded. The woman called out awkwardly when he turned to continue up the stairs.

    ¡°Little Hao, I don¡¯t mean to lecture you, but you should stop keeping that stray around. This house is all that¡¯s left of your mom and dad and it¡¯s full of mementos. The dog kicks up quite a racket when you¡¯re not home¡ªI suspect it¡¯s ripped up half the house!¡±

    Kicks up quite a racket? Li Hao blinked. Panth was a good dog! Ripped up half the house? No¡­ way?

    The dog understood human speech now and Li Hao had reminded it to not make a mess.

    ¡°You¡¯ll know when you go home.¡± The auntie shook her head helplessly. ¡°Another thing, Little Hao, are you under a lot of pressuretely?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    Where am I supposed to begin?

    ¡°I¡¯m fine, Auntie Zhang. Please say whatever you want to say.¡±

    ¡°Ahem, there¡¯s been significant disturbancesing from above whenever you get off worktely. Little Hao, your previous training onlysted for a few minutes. These days¡­ tell me the truth, are you¡­ are you seeing someone?¡±

    This neighbor couldn¡¯t resist some good gossip and brightened. ¡°If you are, bring her by to show us! Just don¡¯t¡­ don¡¯t go for those dubious sorts of women!

    ¡°There¡¯s no sight of you during the day and all that noise at night¡­ This is not what a decent, respectable young man should be like!¡± The auntie pounded her chest with anguish as a massively sordid scene yed out in her mind. There was no other possible exnation¡ªLi Hao¡¯s nightly disruptions were the result of unsavory women from outside!

    It made sense, he was young! Blood ran hot through his veins and he didn¡¯t have a girlfriend. It was natural that his thoughts turned in that direction.

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. ¡°Auntie¡­ you¡¯re mistaken,¡± he responded awkwardly after a long pause. ¡°I¡¯m just going through a training routine! Next time I¡¯ll remember that soundproofing is bad in an old building like ours.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I understand!¡± Auntie Zhang responded meaningfully. Don¡¯t you worry, kid, I won¡¯t tell a soul.

    Utter resignation seized Li Hao when he read his neighbor¡¯s expression. Great, everyone would learn tomorrow that he brought home random women everyday and stayed up all night with them. There was no way he could exin himself¡ªno one would believe him if he did!

    Therefore, he didn¡¯t bother extricating himself from the mess. He headed upstairs and almost tumbled back down when he reached the next floor.

    ¡°Little Hao, it¡¯s fine if you¡¯re really bringing women home. Just don¡¯t¡­ just don¡¯t have any thoughts about your dog!¡±

    The young man nearly lost his footing. This was how a yer of Tens martial master was defeated!

    ¡°Nothing happened in your house when the dog lived under the stairs,¡± the auntie continued in pained tones. ¡°But the disturbances go deep into the night in the two days that you¡¯ve brought it home. So don¡¯t misunderstand, it¡¯s not your auntie thinking too much. Just consider your actions some more, this really isn¡¯t a good thing!¡±

    She couldn¡¯t be med for her train of thought. Upstairs was as quiet as a mouse when the little ck dog lived outside. Thumps and bangs abounded when it was an indoor dog. How was it possible for anyone to be oblivious of the truth?

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao nearly fled upstairs. ¡°I¡¯ll take Panther downstairs immediately. Auntie Zhang, this really is a misunderstanding!¡±

    You can wrongly use me of bringing women home, but you can¡¯t say that I¡¯m doing anything with my dog!

    ¡°Mmhmm, good, good!¡± Auntie Zhang didn¡¯t care about anything other than kicking the dog out. Thed was young and should not proceed down the wrong path.

    ¡­¡­

    Open door.

    Enter house.

    Close door!

    Li Hao breathed out explosively and locked eyes with Panth.

    ¡°Did you hear that?¡± Auntie Zhang¡¯s ferocity in a fight scared even him.

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡±

    ¡°Shut it and go downstairs to your den.¡±

    ¡°Arf!! Arf!¡± Panther was reluctant as the dog den smelled. Do you think it¡¯s worthy of my current coat of fur? Just look at how gleaming and glistening it is! The den¡¯s smelly and might get my fur dirty!

    ¡°Get down there!¡± Li Hao raised a brow and cocked his elbow like he was throwing a rock. Panther immediately understood.

    The rock! Precious rock! Got it. If you¡¯re going down there to look for the rock, then this dog is going too.

    It opened the front door without further word¡ªthat¡¯s right, the little ck dog had learned how to open doors.

    One human and one dog swiftly descended the stairs. The door on the second floor was closed, but Auntie Zhang nodded to herself when she heard themotion. Good, good, thed was returning to the light and retracing his steps from the wrong path!

    ¡­¡­

    Ground floor.

    Bystanders walked through the neighborhood as the night was young. Li Hao didn¡¯t mind them since the scarlet shadow typically didn¡¯t appear when there were a lot of people.

    ¡°Have some food, Panth. Where¡¯s your bowl gone to?¡± Li Hao darted into the dog den and felt around, casually sweeping a rock into his sleeve. He tossed the leftovers to the little ck dog and muttered, ¡°Keep an eye out. It¡¯s fine if people visit, but bark a few times if that thing shows up!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panth nodded with fear in its eyes. It was also afraid of that thing, but it could handle a few barks.

    With that, Li Hao returned upstairs. He¡¯d left the stone de in the den over the past two days to avoid raising attention. With his earlier maneuvers, no one could be certain that he¡¯d taken the de. Even Liu Long couldn¡¯t be certain, despite seeing the incongruence in the kitchen.

    Li Hao shut his door tight when he returned home with the stone de.

    ¡­¡­

    The stone de was filthy after spending some time in the dog den and numerous years in the kitchen. Li Hao considered it with disdain and washed it repeatedly.

    On the couch.

    The young man studied the stone de, debating whether to dunk it in water or attempt a direct absorption. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles should work, right? Was it possible that it worked for the jade sword and not stone de?

    The lineage weapons that his teacher spoke of mattered only if he wanted to unseal the weapon. Li Hao didn¡¯t need a fully released stone de, he just wanted to absorb cosmic power.

    ¡°I don¡¯t think my bloodlinees into y for just absorbing energy¡­ Panth and teacher wouldn¡¯t have been able to absorb anything in that case.¡± Such was Li Hao¡¯s conjecture, but he wasn¡¯t certain of this theory.

    Another point that gave him pause was whether the energy from the stone de was the same as the jade sword. Or was it simr to what Liu Long gave him? His teacher had been very clear that the jade sword was very special and precious.

    ¡°I¡¯ll know if I try!¡± It was pointless to keep spinning his wheels. All he worried was that the scarlet shadow might appear when he was absorbing energy. That would be an extremely tricky situation!

    ¡°Little Yuan, I¡¯m going to borrow your family¡¯s de now. Please don¡¯t mind, I¡¯ll use it to get revenge for you!¡± Li Hao chuckled. It¡¯s been one year. I¡¯ll ughter that shadow and sacrifice it to you on your death anniversary!

    He swiftly operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, adjusted his breathing, and turned himself up to the sky. The stone de rested on his chest¡ªhe would soon know if it contained cosmic power.

    A peculiar energy surged out of the stone de. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles was truly the most premier method of the supernatural domain! Liu Long¡¯s Energy Induction Method was ineffective on both the jade sword and stone de. Thank goodness his teacher had taught him another. Otherwise, Li Hao would have to immerse the weapon in water like before to diffuse a tiny bit for use.

    Most supernaturals would also find it difficult to absorb the special energy within these weapons. Only if they stumbled upon the water-steeping method by ident could they utilize a tiny bit of the reserves.

    Cosmic power glittered!

    It looked the same as what was contained within the jade sword. Li Hao saw the sword when he opened his eyes.

    So it¡¯s the same as Steris¡­

    The thought just shed through his mind when he spat out a mouthful of blood. A powerful surge of violent power scrambled his body! The young man¡¯s expression changed drastically¡ªmysterious power!

    This wasn¡¯t cosmic power, it was mysterious power, and something much more aggressive than that! Agonizing pain assailed Li Hao; it felt like knives slicing into his flesh. The energy contained within the stone de was too belligerent! It rampaged through him like multiple great des!

    This time, Li Hao experienced what Liu Long spoke of¡ªthe bursting of blood vessels due to sheer violence of mysterious power. What he felt now was more than three times the impact of the energy he¡¯d absorbed during the day!

    ¡°AHH!¡± Li Hao growled, veins popping out all over his body and some blood vessels already bursting. He quickly changed his posture and abandoned the breathing method. Too much de energy had entered his body in the blink of an eye and mmed through him.

    Pain!

    Incredible pain!

    He¡¯d also postted that the stone de might contain mysterious power instead, but that wouldn¡¯t be an issue since he¡¯d already absorbed two cubes without any problem. He was also much stronger than his former self during the day since he was yer of Tens now.

    Thus, the risk was eptable and manageable. And now Li Hao knew how very wrong he was.

    ¡°AHH!¡± he growled again as colossal force crashed into him. The unmanageable power was ripping through even his skin. He had absolutely no way of controlling this energy, to say nothing of absorbing it.

    ¡°I¡¯m doomed¡­¡± He remembered something just as it looked like the end was nigh and hastily grabbed the jade sword lying next to him. He clutched it for dear life and furiously operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. I wonder if cosmic power can repair the damage caused by this energy and neutralize it. If not, I¡¯m gonna die! It¡¯s too strong!

    ¡°Pfft!¡± Blood sprayed everywhere as another blood vessel burst. This was miles apart from the scene during the day. ¡°I was too brash!¡±

    Instead of panicking at his blood vessels bursting, Li Hao felt only surprise and self-recrimination. Everything had gone smoothly over the past two days. Although the scarlet shadow asionally loomed, he rxed his guard after his teacher ascended to Dominator of Thousands. That prompted a direct trial of the stone de without further consideration!

    He knew full well that energies might differ between varying weapons, but he¡¯d dismissed the concern and felt that he could endure it. The reality was, he couldn¡¯t!

    ¡°I¡¯m just an ordinary person who broke through to yer of Tens thanks to teacher¡¯s guidance. If it was up to just me, I might not break through for another three years if I didn¡¯t absorb the jade sword¡¯s energy!

    ¡°Li Hao, did you forget that you¡¯re mundane?? You need to be extremely, extremely careful. Have you forgotten the horror of the scarlet shadow and how the supernatural domain is much more terrifying than you think?!¡±

 Chapter 49: Stone Blade, Demon Hunters (II)

    Chapter 49: Stone de, Demon Hunters (II)

    Self-reflection was in order! Li Hao swiftly absorbed power from Steris, hoping to recover from his wounds and corral the stone de¡¯s energy. He¡¯d truly been too careless this time!

    ¡°Come!¡± Li Hao grit his teeth and fully operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles on the jade sword. A warm and gentle current swirled into being, sweeping through his entire body¡ªhurtling power from the stone de abruptly quieted down like it¡¯d seen its elder brother. Cosmic power began repairing fractured and burst blood vessels while his shifted organs found their proper ces. Li Hao heaved a sigh of relief as his wounds started to close.

    He¡¯d almost been the death of himself. It took only one blunder to cause an irrevocable mistake amid carefullyid ns. He¡¯d grossly overestimated himself!

    Momentster, the young man started up the Five Styles. He focused on the bear style this time instead of the ape style. The bear style centered on strength and physique enhancement as opposed to agility. The stone de¡¯s energy was well suited for offensive deployment as its momentum was fierce, which actually made the tiger style more apt for it. However, that style would cause such a great disturbance that the auntie downstairs would be inspired by new rumors.

    The bear style centered around stability and supplemented with offense. It looked naive and somewhat silly, but even tigers had to cower docilely when a bear palm struck!

    Li Hao¡¯s movements remained measured as he ran through the bear style; each step and hand strike used every iota of strength in his body. Vast sums of de and sword energy traversed through him, particrly his four limbs.

    A lock¡­ no, multiple locks in his body manifested to his eyes. They were wrapped tightly around him¡ªsupernatural locks!

    Opening the supernatural locks enabled one to cross over to the otherworldly domain. He¡¯d felt them when he absorbed energy from Steris, and now he sensed them again. These locks and chains constricted him and prevented mysterious energy from entering core areas such as his brain and heart. It meant he was unable to metamorphose and could only enhance his physical body.

    Boom!

    The floor shook when Li Hao gently stomped his foot!

    He¡¯d grown stronger, and by a lot! It overwhelmed his capabilities for a second and he couldn¡¯t control himself despite the tiny movement. He¡¯d improved too much today. First it was mysterious energy from the Demon Hunters, then it was his teacher forcefully helping him ascend, now he was absorbing energy from both stone de and jade sword.

    His strength reached several times greater than yesterday¡¯s within the span of a single day. It was inevitable that he lost control!

    ¡°What are you doing now, Little Hao?!¡± Auntie Zhang shrieked. ¡°The dog¡¯s out of the house, why are you doing this again?!¡±

    This has nothing to do with the dog! Li Hao thought resignedly.

    ¡°Auntie Zhang, the fridge fell over! I¡¯m fixing it!¡± he called out. The young man wiped off his forehead when downstairs fell silent,ing back with a hand full of blood. He¡¯d lost a lot of blood when his blood vessels burst.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care, instead focusing on decreasing the force behind his movements. He¡¯d liked living here before as the old house held a lot of memories. But now as he ran through his training routine, a new thought distracted him.

    If I make it through this¡­. I should get some money and move to a bigger ce. It¡¯ll be best if it¡¯s a single family home with enough space to train in. Teacher¡¯s ce is nice, he has his own house and yard and can do whatever he wants.

    That was all talk for another day. Everything was off the table if he died to the scarlet shadow!

    Humm! Punch, punch punch!

    The young man refrained from stomping his foot to decrease the amount of disturbance he made. His bones quivered, singing with a low sound every time he moved. Bones and meridians resonated in unison!

    Thankfully, this could be controlled. Otherwise, a martial master¡¯s ringing blows would easily be deciphered inbat and countered. Li Hao yet struggled to control his newfound strength; the sudden increase was as if a child stumbling around after picking up a mallet. It took him half an hour and ten rounds of the bear style before he finally stopped.

    ¡°Absorbing only a little bit took half an hour to digest¡­ This energy feels stronger than what came from the two cubes.¡± Li Hao regarded the stone de and jade sword with a shifting gaze. ¡°This¡­ also seems to be mysterious power meant for offense! It¡¯s different from what I took this morning though, it feels higher quality.¡±

    He decided against absorbing more. A conversion process was required with any amount of energy, so he wouldn¡¯t improve any further over the next couple of days. It would be good enough to proceed a little further within the yer of Tens realm.

    Improving too much overnight might also draw suspicion from others. He needed to slowly digest his gains!

    ¡°I can¡¯t¡­ but didn¡¯t teacher say that he needs vast sums of mysterious power to cross over? Is he talking about highlybative energy like what the stone de contains?¡± Li Hao sank into deep thought.

    The professor knew about the jade sword and had likely guessed about the stone de, despite Li Hao not saying anything. Breathing out heavily, the young man decided to exin that it was possible the scarlet shadow¡¯s faction was much stronger than imagined.

    It was probable that they¡¯d taken the other family weapons. Once they discovered the secrets within, they might grow greater than Sunre even if this kind of energy wasn¡¯t found in all of the weapons!

    ¡°If teacher is able to cross over, he might bypass Sunre and stand among the five that he speaks of!¡± Li Hao took a deep breath. He might¡¯ve saved all of this for himself in ordinary times. Humans were selfish creatures after all¡ªthere was a certain kind of amusement in gradually growing stronger.

    That was not an option for him at current.

    ¡°I hope the reserves here are enough for teacher to advance¡­ Only when he seeds do I have a chance at a future!¡± Li Hao smiled as he triumphed over the greed in his heart.

    All humans possessed selfish desires. No one was born a saint. Those who could see through themselves and look past the fog of personal benefit were the ones who seeded.

    His teacher once said that he was also self-serving. Li Hao even felt his teacher¡¯s greed rise when he absorbed cosmic power, but he¡¯d emerged victorious over himself. This set a prime example for the young man!

    ¡°Teacher bing stronger is the same as me growing stronger. It means that I have much more guarantee!¡± Li Hao stopped drawing upon the stone de when his thoughts traveled here. It was a waste to absorb the energy like this. He should bring Panth back and absorb a tiny bit more, letting energy seep out for the dog¡¯s enjoyment.

    The little ck dog was plump and healthy thanks to cosmic power. It was time to add a little happiness to itsfort! That might also grant immense offensive capabilities and turn Panther into one of his trump cards.

    Li Hao grinned with pure delight. Don¡¯t you drool over my sword everyday, doggy? See if you dare stare at Steris anymore after a good time today!

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao washed the blood from his face and body before heading downstairs. He dragged a full Panth upstairs, taking pains to make as little noise as possible. If Auntie Zhang saw him again, she¡¯d suspect him of more unsavory acts with the dog.

    Panther quietly acquiesced to its fate.

    Inside the house.

    ¡°Hey Panth, I¡¯m going to give you some different energy today,¡± Li Hao murmured with a warm smile. ¡°It¡¯s a bit painful, but you¡¯ll be a real panther after absorbing it. You¡¯ll beat the crap out of them at the very least!¡±

    Anticipation dawned in the little ck dog¡¯s eyes.

    ¡°Do you want it?¡± Li Hao decided to give a warning after some thought. ¡°It¡¯s really painful, I just had some.¡±

    Haughtiness filtered into the dog¡¯s eyes. If you can absorb it, I can absorb it. Pain? What¡¯s that? I don¡¯t know that! Just look at the muscles I¡¯ve got! I made a big dog cry with one smack earlier, I got what it takes!

    ¡°Are you sure you want the energy?¡±

    Panther fidgeted with impatience. Li Hao was too much talk tonight!

    ¡°Alright then!¡± The young man said nothing further. I warned you, so enjoy!

    He briefly operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles and absorbed a little from the stone de¡ªnot too much, just roughly one or two cubes worth. This energy could be sold for money! Damn he was good to his dog.

    Clenching his jaw against the pain, he absorbed a touch of cosmic power and neutralized the body, letting half of the stone de¡¯s energy leak out of him.

    Panther was on its back with its limbs syed upward. The little ck dog knew the breathing method as well, which funneled massive amounts of energy into it.

    ¡°AOOOUU!!¡± A ghastly shriek ripped through the air like a wolf¡¯s howl!

    Auntie Zhang on the second floor sighed, looked at the ceiling, then at her partner sitting across from her.

    ¡°There is no hope for thed, he¡¯s ying with the dog again! His parents would die of anger if they were still alive!¡±

    To think that she would live to see this day! Why did she see this day! Li Hao had fallen by the wayside! Of course he¡¯d sunk low as soon as he withdrew from school! Did this happen to all good students when they entered the Inspectorate?

    It¡¯s terrifying! My grandson better not join the Inspectorate when he grows up!

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao didn¡¯t have the capacity to consider his neighbors'' opinions. He gripped the dog¡¯s mouth and cursed, ¡°What are you crying for?! That thing will eat you if you lure it here! I told you multiple times that it hurts. You¡¯re the one who wanted to absorb the energy!¡±

    ¡°Aooo¡­. ouu¡­.¡± Tears flooded out of Panther¡¯s eyes. It hurts so much! You¡¯re an awful human being Li Hao! You¡¯re worse than a dog! I wouldn¡¯t have absorbed it no matter what if you told me it hurts this much!

    ¡°Digest it well, this energy can¡¯t be had for a thousand pieces of gold! You¡¯ll be amazing afterward and kill that thing with one bite!¡± Li Hao admonished and focused on his own training.

    The ape style!

    What little he¡¯d absorbed should not be wasted.

    The little ck dog writhed with agony and sorrow, but there was nothing to be done. It waved its limbs and tail upon seeing Li Hao jump and leap through the living room. Though Panther wanted to learn the ape style, the method wasn¡¯t a good fit. Its agility wasn¡¯t up to par, so it could only instinctively practice a doggy style¡ªDog Dig!

    One human and one dog began digesting the de energy, restoring quiet to the apartment.

    ¡­¡­

    Outside the apartment in the building across the way.

    Liu Long stared silently at tightly drawn curtains; the other Demon Hunters were also present.

    ¡°Chief, how about you head over and sleep with Li Hao¡­¡± Liu Yan tittered with amusement.

    Liu Long swept her with a withering re, instantly reducing her to silence. The woman¡¯s smile slowly disappeared as well.

    ¡°We might lose this time!¡± Liu Long said coldly. ¡°But the gains will be plentiful if we win. Some of us may die, but those who live truly have a hope of crossing over!¡±

    The group quieted down.

    ¡°I can vaguely sense a current of mysterious power in the surroundings,¡± Liu Long breathed out. ¡°It¡¯s very faint, but it¡¯s present even though it knows we¡¯re here. That means the enemy is assured of sess and only waiting for the right timing!¡±

    The killer behind the self-immtion cases should know about the Demon Hunters and how the team was hunting them. But they continued to follow Li Hao in close quarters. Liu Long could tell that they were up against a tough foe!

    ¡°Chief, we¡¯ve put our lives on the line all five times!¡± sneered the skinny Wu Chao. ¡°We¡¯re the only ones left after those missions. I don¡¯t want to live, I want to ascend! But if I die, then that¡¯s my fate! Just give the word, chief, how do we do it?¡±

 Chapter 50: Feeling Things Out (I)

    Chapter 50: Feeling Things Out (I)

    The others didn¡¯t say a word.

    ¡°Have Li Hao head for the outskirts once the rains arrive,¡± Liu Long took a deep breath. ¡°We¡¯ll make therge warehouse the final battle site! They think they¡¯re invincible and have nothing to fear because they¡¯re supernatural, but we¡¯ll show them the Demon Hunters are not to be trifled with!¡±

    The deputy chief abruptly clenched his fists when he looked at the others.

    ¡°We are upholders of justice, eliminators of evil, and protectors of dao!¡± he rumbled. The rest of the team, even Yun Yao, repeated the incredibly mboyant deration with likewise tightened fists.

    ¡°We are upholders of justice, eliminators of evil, and protectors of dao!¡±

    A sacred light shone upon them! The Demon Hunters exterminated evil and safeguarded dao!

    ¡­¡­

    The oath that the Demon Hunters made in the neighboring building was both hallowed and ludicrous. Li Hao was aware of none of it; he¡¯d probablyugh if he knew.

    Upholders of justice¡­ That was just wishful thinking on Liu Long¡¯s part, a type of self-brainwashing. Did they really picture themselves as defenders of Silver City?

    When Li Hao made this oath, all he wanted was to im the moral high ground.

    ¡­¡­

    Inside the room.

    Li Hao and Pantherpleted their routines. Human and dog panted on the ground,pletely exhausted. Li Hao sagged against the couch whereas Panth sprawled on the floor. The little ck dog couldn¡¯t even lift its head as it sulked over the injustice of being tricked.

    After resting for a while, the young man forced his sore and aching body to rise and tidy the room. It smelled foul; the pungent scent of blood tinged the air. Sweat intermixed with blood and the odor of dog made the apartment air quality unbearable.

    He also needed to quickly clean up before the scarlet shadow appeared and saw something.

    The surroundings were much better after a while. Li Hao plopped down on the couch and stared nkly at the three treasures. There were two swords and one stone de in front of him¡ªall supernatural objects.

    Who deserved to die if not him, a mundane with three extraordinary treasures? An innocent¡¯s only crime was their wealth!

    ¡°Teacher¡­ Liu Long¡­¡± Li Hao mumbled. His teacher was a good man¡ªat the very least good to him. Of this, he was well aware of. As for Liu Long¡­ Well, the deputy chief was a decent sort too. If he refrained from taking Li Hao¡¯s stone and de in the matters toe, it would demonstrate that he really did have a foot in the camp of justice.

    Liu Long was aware that Li Hao possessed one of the family treasures. He might not know how powerful it was, but he knew that the young man owned one and that even the de might be on him. Apart from Yuan Shuo and Li Hao, Liu Long might be the only other who knew that the de of the Zhangs was on Li Hao. The scarlet shadow faction might be in the dark.

    And yet, Liu Long never mentioned any of it. All he was focused on was killing the supernatural, stripping them of mysterious power, and crossing over to the other side.

    One had to know that to the deputy chief, even the most mediocre supernatural object was still a treasure. He might not have a use for it, but he could easily trade it for mysterious power. If Liu Long was fixated on bing supernatural and willing to sink into the depths of depravity, he could trade Li Hao and the weapons to the scarlet shadow in a heartbeat.

    rity suffused Li Hao¡¯s thoughts.

    ¡°Teacher might not be at liberty to easily show himself. He¡¯ll have his own set of troubles and aspirations once he bes supernatural.

    ¡°Liu Long¡­ What does his path look like after we take care of the scarlet shadow?¡± Various thoughts bubbled in his mind. Perhaps he should help Liu Long cross over if there was a chance to.

    Li Hao put on his inspector uniform as he pondered. Panther raised its head with confusion. What was the human doing, putting on clothes in the middle of the night?

    ¡°Come out with me!¡±

    ¡°Arf!¡± Confusion shifted to skepticism. What for?

    ¡°We¡¯re making a trip to the Institute. The usual goes for you, stand guard.¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf¡­¡± Panther responded lowly in obvious reluctance.

    ¡°Are you afraid of that thing?¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°What for? Don¡¯t be afraid! It¡¯s best if it appears actually, I hope it does! The more times it shows up, the less I¡¯m afraid of it and the more I know about it!¡±

    He did hope that the shadow would appear. More of its shroud of mystery faded away each time it manifested. It was no longer an existence that he couldn¡¯t cope with!

    Although he could only hope that his teacher and the others could resolve the situation, he couldn¡¯t always rely on outsiders to straighten out his issues. They might not see thest of the scarlet shadow with just one mission either¡ªsuch was his intuition!

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther had no other choice since it wanted to continue staying by Li Hao¡¯s side.

    ¡­¡­

    Momentster, one human and one dog set out in the night.

    To the Veteris Institute!

    ¡­¡­

    In the building across the way.

    On surveince duty, Wu Chao¡¯s expression suddenly shifted drastically. ¡°Chief!¡±

    The others in the room looked at him.

    ¡°Li Hao¡¯s gone outside!¡±

    Liu Long was taken aback. What was Li Hao doing outside in the middle of the night? Didn¡¯t he know he was in grave danger? The hell!

    ¡°After him!¡± Liu Long grunted, spurring the Demon Hunters into a flurry of action. Though it wasn¡¯t a rainy night, it was still very dangerous for the boy to be out alone. Supernaturals loved mobilizing at night. They were a rare sight in the daytime because they wished to avoid too much contact with mundanes.

    The supernatural and mortal worlds had drawn clear boundaries with each other. And with the Night Watchers on the scene, disrupting the mundane world would result in certain retribution.

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time in a shadowy corner of Openlight.

    A ghostly face suddenly materialized beneath a massive tree. A man in a ghost mask stood with a scarlet shadow next to him! Vivid blue eyes looked out of the mask and peered into the distance with some bafflement.

    Li Hao had left his housete at night.

    ¡°He can¡¯t leave Silver City before the rainy season arrives!¡± A reminder of the request andmand from above floated into Ghostface¡¯s mind.

    Ghostface wasn¡¯t here to kill anyone or target Li Hao. His only mission was to prevent the young man from leaving the city. That one needed to stay in Silver City!

    Is this a trap? Ghostface knew that the so-called Demon Hunters kept Li Hao under constant surveince, but he didn¡¯t care.

    The Demon Hunters?

    The supernatural and mundane were already two different worlds. Their leader¡ªLiu Long¡ªheld some acim as a Sunderer of Hundreds. However, martial dao was obsolete. Even the once domineering Yuan Shuo was nothing more than an errand boy now. He worked for the Night Watchers in exchange for their protection.

    The era of martial masters was no more!

    ¡°Let¡¯s take a look!¡± Ghostface vanished in the darkness, leaving the scarlet shadow behind. It drifted in the air before openly chasing after Li Hao. Concealing its traces wasn¡¯t a concern; Ghostface wasn¡¯t worried about discovery.

    He wouldn¡¯t care if the shadow faced a Sunderer because these mortals werepletely ignorant that the supernatural was trulyrger than life!

    ¡­¡­

    Night time.

    Li Hao headed toward the Veteris Institute with a dog padding next to him. Just a few kilometers away, they would reach their destination in half an hour. He carried the three treasures on him¡ªthe young man was very bold when he needed to be.

    Since the scarlet shadow wouldn¡¯t kill him now, he actually wished it woulde. If it did, it was a chance to better understand the shadow and see if the Demon Hunters could see it. The team certainly had someone on him. Could martial masters see the entity? Li Hao wasn¡¯t sure.

    There didn¡¯t seem to be mysterious power exuding from the shadow. Liu Long had mentioned that martial masters discovered the supernatural through extremely weak pulses of energy. Would Liu Long be able to see it without that energy?

    Being blind to it was the most dangerous of all. And if Liu Long couldn¡¯t see it, what about Yuan Shuo? It would be a very sticky situation if the professor couldn¡¯t see it either. While Li Hao could see it, that might not do any good. The crux of the situation was whether or not the others could attack the scarlet shadow.

    I hope you appear! Li Hao ardently hoped to see the shadow again; he was ready with an extremely audacious idea. Perhaps he could try and make a move against it. It wasn¡¯t going to kill him at this moment, after all!

    No one came after him after five minutes.

    No one came after him after ten minutes.

    After fifteen minutes, Panther suddenly shifted with agitation and bit Li Hao¡¯s pant leg. The young man stilled inwardly. It was here!

    They really were bold enough to send the shadow! This also indicated some awful truths. The one behind the scenes was either confident that the Demon Hunters couldn¡¯t see it, or they were confident that it didn¡¯t matter. Liu Long and his team weren¡¯t worthy of notice.

    One had to keep in mind that Yuan Shuo spoke of Liu Long being able to defeat supernaturals who¡¯d just risen to Darkmoon!

    An expressionless Li Hao continued forward. Meanwhile, a terrifying sight reflected in Panther¡¯s eyes. A scarlet shadow suddenly materialized in front of the young man. It was the color of blood, and it stood right in front of him!

    Li Hao passed right through it like he couldn¡¯t see it; the shadow shifted slightly. The young man abruptly fished out a small sword from his clothes. Mysterious power shimmered beneath its surface and the young man frowned, looking around him with a wary expression.

    ¡­¡­

    Within the shadows.

    Liu Long furrowed his brow and muttered inaudibly, ¡°What¡¯s going on? He senses danger¡­ Do you guys?¡±

    None of those present felt anything out of the ordinary. Not even Liu Long perceived anything¡ªjust a vague sense of unease! It wasn¡¯t until Li Hao took out a small sword that faintly glimmered with mysterious power that he realized something was untoward. Had Li Hao discovered something, or had his sword sensed something?

    Was that the sword of the Lis? He was too far away to sense anything, but it must be a supernatural object!

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time.

    Ghostface manifested in the gloom, surprise in his vivid blue eyes. A supernatural object! Was this the treasure that his superiors wanted?

    That¡¯s the sword! Has he discovered something?

    Ghostface was both mystified and startled. Li Hao couldn¡¯t see the shadow, that he was certain of. The young man didn¡¯t see the shadowst time and he didn¡¯t see it this time. Otherwise, he would react before passing through it. The sword should¡¯ve tipped him off. It was a treasure, alright!

    So what if you¡¯ve realized that something¡¯s off? What can you do about it?

    Ghostface wasn¡¯t too worried. What could the young man do about the shadow right in front of him? There were increasingly fewer numbers of people who could see the shadow¡ªhe¡¯d killed quite a few himself. Those still alive cowered in the Night Watcher headquarters. They might not be found in any part of the province.

    ¡­¡­

    By the side of the road.

    Sword in hand, Li Hao frowned and scanned his surroundings.

    ¡°Stop hiding! I know you¡¯re there!¡± he ordered coldly.

    Nothing answered.

    The young man abruptly waved the short sword around. ¡°You¡¯ll have to pay a price if you want to kill me!¡± he stated grimly. ¡°Do you think no one knows about you just because you¡¯ve hidden yourself?? I¡¯ve known about you since a long time ago!¡±

    He postured threateningly, but he was faint of heart!

    ¡°My teacher is a Sunderer of Hundreds and a premier martial master. He¡¯s about to be a Dominator of Thousands! You¡¯ll be offending a Dominator if you touch me, is that worth it?! Let¡¯s talk, we don¡¯t need to bring life and death into everything!¡±

    His words echoed in the darkness as he waved his sword around, passing through the scarlet shadow multiple times!

 Chapter 51: Feeling Things Out (II)

    Chapter 51: Feeling Things Out (II)

    The more Li Hao waved the short sword around, the more the icy grip of fear closed around him. Why??

    What was the scarlet shadow?!

    He casually swept the sword across the shadow several times, but it passed through without hesitation or damage every single time. Why was this?! Supernatural didn¡¯t mean undying! What was this thing??

    However, the young man heaved a sigh and retracted his sword. ¡°Come out, chief! No one¡¯s following me. Are you there?¡±

    Momentster, a frowning Liu Long dressed in a trench coat padded out of the darkness. He cast a frosty nce in Li Hao¡¯s direction¡ªnot because of the young man, but because he vaguely sensed something off. The scene rang of wrongness and something really did seem to be close to Li Hao.

    He peered around with all of his might, but found absolutely nothing.

    There has to be something here! Liu Long strode up to Li Hao.

    The scarlet shadow swiftly vanished as he did so. Oh? Does it not want to face Liu Long? Is it wary or think it¡¯s an unnecessary waste of effort?

    The deputy chief seemed aware and suddenly looked in a certain direction, his eyes full of killing intent. He didn¡¯t speak until a long whileter, after the scarlet shadow fully disappeared.

    ¡°Interesting¡­ what a pity!¡± Liu Long was coolly threatening.

    ¡°A pity?¡± The reaction surprised Li Hao.

    ¡°A pity that I¡¯m not a Dominator of Thousands! This seems to be a type of mental energy. Sunderers wield aura and Dominators wield the consciousness. No wonder it¡¯s so bold! My aura cannot pry into the enemy, which means only a Dominator can use their mind to lock onto them.

    ¡°Damn, they¡¯re cocky!¡±

    They had every right to be cocky. Liu Long could sense them, but not identify them. This was an enormous test for him¡ªone very difficult to pass and easily tagging him as aughingstock.

    On the other hand, the look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes changed slightly. Aura, consciousness! His teacher had spoken of these. Dominators possessed consciousness! So that can see the scarlet shadow? Or could Dominators lock onto where the shadow was while remaining blind to it?

    This trip had not been taken in vain! The shadow didn¡¯t think much of Liu Long because the captain couldn¡¯t see it, but Li Hao had obtained a vital piece of information. It was a type of mental energy that Dominators could possibly hone in on!

    Deep in thought, Liu Long looked at the young man. ¡°Did youe out on purpose to lure out the ones in the shadows for me to observe?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded. His primary goal was actually to test whether or not Liu Long could see it and if he himself could touch the shadow. It appeared that neither martial dao nor supernatural abilities could.

    However, the stone de and jade sword could! They stirred with energy that he suppressed. He¡¯d stayed strong against the urge to bring them out.

    Liu Long said nothing further. His gaze glittered with light when it shifted to the short sword in Li Hao¡¯s hand.

    ¡°We should know the enemy as well as we know ourselves. It was a risky move, but I have a better understanding of the danger facing us now¡­ That it touches upon a mental state indicates we might be in real trouble! We could be facing an existence on par with Dominator of Thousands¡­¡±

    It wasn¡¯t impossible to face a Dominator level opponent¡ªwhen he could see what he fought. ¡°Go home soon and don¡¯t go anywhere else!¡± Liu Long changed the topic before vanishing on the spot. They might have to change the n.

    Li Hao¡¯s nighttime excursion had proven to be beneficial and resulted in more awareness of their enemy. Liu Long was already prepared to fight Dominators and Sunres¡ªwhile he was just a Sunderer, this was his homeground. For instance, there were massive quantities of grenades buried in the warehouse on the city¡¯s outskirts.

    However, a Dominator-level expert that could not be seen was tricky. He needed to make moreprehensive preparations and brainstorm a thorough n for this challenge.

    ¡­¡­

    The moon¡¯s radiance dappled thend.

    Li Hao cinched his shirt tight. Liu Long must be thinking of countermeasures if he didn¡¯t mention giving up. That was good, it meant the captain wasn¡¯t shrinking back in fear.

    ¡°Dominator of Thousands¡­ mental energy!¡± The young manmitted the notion to memory and continued forward. The scarlet shadow did not reappear.

    He quickly reached the Institute and climbed the wall instead of entering through the main gates. With his newfound nimbleness, he made quick work of the wall around campus and set foot on Institute soil.

    The school¡¯s security detail was sufficient against ordinary people. It was an easy task for him to avoid them since he was a yer ofTens.

    ¡­¡­

    Outside the Yuan residence.

    On duty in the shadows, Hu Hao furrowed his brows and looked in a certain direction. A heavily injured Li Meng waited next to him with a pale face. She suddenly looked at Li Hao and regarded the young man with iprehension and irritation.

    ¡°What¡¯s he doing here again?¡± she muttered. He came too often!

    ¡°Ignore him!¡± Hu Hao responded. They¡¯d juste off worse in an exchange at noon, so it was time to stay quiet and let the visitor be.

    Li Hao entered his teacher¡¯s residence as they conversed. No one stopped him this time.

    ¡­¡­

    The Yuan residence.

    All was quiet. Yuan Shuo was not in the yard. He didn¡¯t have a habit of moon-bathingte at night. The door to the main house swung open of its own ord in the still night.

    Yuan Shuo was in the living room, possibly having just finished training as he needed to consolidate his new cultivation level after breaking through. His hair was white again and wrinkles repopted his face. He looked the same as before, not the middle-aged man Li Hao had seen earlier.

    ¡°Teacher!¡±

    Yuan Shuo nodded at him and frowned at his student. ¡°Is someone after you?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s frown deepened and he said ponderously, ¡°I see traces of a consciousness on you¡­ someone¡¯s locked onto you!¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t understand.

    ¡°The consciousness awakes at Dominator of Thousands! I wouldn¡¯t be able to discover this before, but now I can tell that there are marks of a consciousness on you. They¡¯re fresh¡ªdid you run into the killer just now?¡±

    ¡°I did!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Captain Liu was with me, but he didn¡¯t see them. He says this might involve the mind!¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re definitely a tough opponent!¡± Yuan Shuo sighed. ¡°Though I had my guesses, it¡¯s still a headache to actually confirm it.¡±

    ¡°And another thing,¡± Li Hao mused. ¡°There was no trace of them to be found¡ªCaptain Liu couldn¡¯t see or hone in on them. Teacher¡­¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°Those of my level don¡¯t look at what¡¯s in front of us¡ªit may not be real! With the consciousness in hand, not even an invisibility art can pull the wool over my eyes unless the opponent is much stronger.¡±

    The young man nodded. It wouldn¡¯t be an empty boast if his teacher said so. He wasn¡¯t here for that. Li Hao took out the stone de and ced it on the table. Yuan Shuo looked at him, seeming toprehend something.

    ¡°There¡¯s a special mysterious power inside that¡¯s fiercer than ordinary power,¡± Li Hao whispered. ¡°It¡¯s different from the mild nature of cosmic power andes with incredible impact!¡±

    ¡°So de and sword are meant for different purposes?¡± Yuan Shuo hummed with thought. ¡°The sword of the Lis, de of the Zhangs¡ªone is gentle and nurturing, the other is keen and shaped for attacking. There¡¯s also the fists of the Zhangs, footwork of the Lius, the big turtle kept by the Wangs, mallet of the Hongs, spear of the Zhou, and the trouble that is the Zheng young master¡­

    ¡°If we go by the words of the folk song, the Zhangs, Lius, Wangs, and Zhengs might not have weapons. It¡¯s hard to say though¡ªfists and footwork don¡¯t necessarily mean no weapons. The turtle might also represent a shield or something like that.¡±

    The professor analyzed the entire situation before diving into the stone de. ¡°If the other six weapons have been imed, then the enemy will have absorbed the energy within. The spear and mallet are meant for offense, the turtle for defense, fists and footwork to deploy force¡­

    ¡°This really is turning out to be a sticky situation. The main thing is that we don¡¯t know how much they¡¯ve absorbed. Is it everything, a small portion, or do the other weaponsck this energy entirely? That would be a reason as to why they don¡¯t just rip the sword from your hands and might even want to take you with it.

    ¡°If they are wary of the Night Watchers, that indicates they¡¯re not much stronger than we think.¡± A headache brewed and he quickly concluded his spections. ¡°I¡¯ll ept the de, but I¡¯m still not sure I can cross over! The crux of the issue is that I don¡¯t know how much time we have left and how much energy is inside. But don¡¯t worry, there are ways to take on even a Sunre if ites down to it!¡±

    ¡°So long as you think this way, teacher.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Run if real trouble crops up. If you can¡¯t beat them, run for your life. You can take me with you, yes? We¡¯ll flee to the Night Watcher headquarters if ites down to that. They won¡¯t idly stand by if they see us on their doorstep, right?¡±

    Yuan Shuo grinned¡ªkid¡¯s starting to sound a bit like me. Too bad it¡¯s a tough call and too far away to run. Silver City was so small and White Moon City so far removed.

    Neither teacher nor disciple could ept backing down now. Not to mention, that would only cause the enemy tomence their ns ahead of time. Yuan Shuo might only need a few days before he could attempt a cross over.

    The two didn¡¯t mince words and Yuan Shuo outright epted the stone de without refusal. There was no need for pleasantries at this critical stage.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t stay long and quickly left the professor¡¯s residence.

    ¡­¡­

    Yuan Shuo tried absorbing some energy as soon as his disciple left. Although the young man left a final word of warning that the process was very painful, the experienced martial master didn¡¯t think much of it.

    His lips spasmed after he absorbed a bit of de energy. Fuck, that hurts! This energy was too ferocious!

    However, his eyes lit up. This was a marvelous treasure! The heritage weapons of the eight families were indeed premier treasures. How was there so much offensive capability in a sealed de?

    ¡°The more I understand about the eight families, the more mysterious they are!¡± Yuan Shuo sank into deep thought and considered the excavation at the end of the month. ¡°Does that ruin have something to do with them?¡±

    The two couldn¡¯t be more unrted to each other. One was in Silver City and the other was almost outside the province. It was a tiny area that was the ruins of an ancient civilization. But somehow, the two suddenly seemed rted.

    ¡°I remember that a turtle is etched on the front doors of the ruins. I didn¡¯t think much of it before, but can it have something to do with the Wangs?¡±

    Yuan Shuo rummaged through his thoughts. This was the biggest set of ruins he¡¯d found in recent years and the most intact. They were also the most dangerous¡ªit was where he¡¯d been injured three years ago.

    So many had died that the Night Watchers gave up exploring and sealed it away. They were reopening it in conjunction with several other supernatural organizations. inly, the Night Watchers were afraid of high casualties again. They had no other choice but to split the gains. There was strength in numbers and losses were better borne on the backs of many if they were incurred inrge numbers.

    ¡°The eight families¡­ ruins¡­ self-immtion cases¡­¡± If the killer knew about the eight families and had either guessed or knew that the ruins were rted, would they participate in the field mission toe?

    In that case, would more of their strength be concentrated there if they were an organization? That would make Silver City safer.

    ¡°Let¡¯s put that aside for now!¡± Yuan Shuo took a deep breath. The most pressing task at hand was to resolve Li Hao¡¯s troubles. They could think about the ruinster.

 Chapter 52: Displaying Just A Small Portion of Oneâ€™s Talent

    Chapter 52: Disying Just A Small Portion of One¡¯s Talent

    Li Hao was much calmer after he gifted the stone de to his teacher. He¡¯d done everything he should and this was all he could do. It was now up to Liu Long to manage the Night Watchers. The current situation was murky to him after exposing Wang Ming¡¯s identity¡ªLiu Long undoubtedly knew how to respond.

    ¡°Now both teacher and Liu Long know that the scarlet shadow is invisible!¡±

    Was there anything that he hadn¡¯t said?

    Li Hao scanned all the details he knew. Ah, yes, there was one thing. I can see the shadow¡­ that wasn¡¯t important anymore. He didn¡¯t need to reveal everything about himself. It might prove useful that no one knew he could see the shadow. It might not be of any use if others knew that he could.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to focus on improving over the next couple of days!¡±

    There wasn¡¯t enough time to advance further in his cultivation. Otherwise, Li Hao would rather continue training on his own and personally kill the scarlet shadow.

    Time was not on his side.

    Having made his preparations, all that was left was to improve his skills over the next few days. He was yet to spar with anyone since crossing into yer of Tens. It was time to add a meaningful battle to his roster of experience.

    ording to his teacher, this level of martial master was just for show and didn¡¯t possess actual skill to their name. All they could do was run a little faster and punch a little harder than others.

    ¡­¡­

    Another quiet night passed.

    July 15.

    Inspectorate, the basement, Demon Hunter headquarters.

    Li Hao arrived very early this day and wasn¡¯t in the mood to dance around sensitive topics with Wang Ming. Therefore, he shifted to the team¡¯s basement to practice the New Book of Five Styles. There was no fear of disturbing the auntie downstairs here.

    Boxing techniques, w methods, Bear Hug, Tiger Pounce¡­

    Li Hao was attempting to use all five styles in conjunction. Tiger, bear, deer, ape, and fowl. The young man moved awkwardly and his limbs were ungainly as he cycled through gestures. Sometimes hey prone on the ground, other times he leapt upward like a wild beast.

    The fowl style was the hardest to practice out of the five. It centered on being nimble and light-footed¡ªa leverage point tounch oneself into the air was key. This was very difficult for a novice like Li Hao to grasp. He fell straight to the ground upon several abortive attempts to soar into the sky. It was less useful than the ape style for the moment.

    He decisively gave up the fowl style after a few tries that went nowhere, deciding to focus on his most practiced ape style.

    Someone entered the fitness area while he was deep in practice¡ªthe enormously muscr Chen Jian pushed open the door. Blinking sleep out of his eyes, the honest man paused with surprise when he saw the young man.

    ¡°You¡¯re here early, Li Hao.¡± Though Chen Jian hadn¡¯t slept wellst night, he was still the first one to the basement today. The newest member of the team arriving earlier than him was quite unexpected. On the other hand, he wasn¡¯t that worried about the mission to protect Li Hao since the chief was overseeing that.

    ¡°Brother Jian!¡± Li Hao panted and smiled. ¡°Brother Jian, are you interested in sparring with me again?¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± Chen Jian raised an eyebrow. It¡¯d be understandable if the young man didn¡¯t wish to ever exchange blows afterst time¡¯s defeat. But he was the one to bring it up first?

    ¡°You want to practice with me?¡± the chubby man chuckled kindly. ¡°I¡¯m not versed in offense because I specialize in defense. How about this, I¡¯ll just defend and be a practice opponent for you!¡±

    Li Hao grinned delightedly. A human shield like Chen Jian was most wee for a rookie like him. A living person was different from a stationary target, after all. Not to mention, Chen Jian was an incredibly strong martial master. It was much better to train with him than to train alone.

    ¡°Brother Jian, I absorbed some mysterious power yesterday¡­¡±

    ¡°No worries!¡± Chen Jian smiled broadly with an inward eye roll. I know that! Of course I know you received two cubes of power yesterday. The key thing is¡­ you¡¯re also aware that you just took them in. Mysterious power isn¡¯t digested within a single day, it takes a long period of time.

    And although you have some foundations, they¡¯re really not worth much. You¡¯re just a little bit stronger than ordinary people, but can¡¯t withstand a single blow from true martial masters!

    I¡¯m a shield, how can you possibly hurt me?

    Li Hao happily paused his routine. ¡°Then¡­ I shan¡¯t stand on ceremony. Brother Jian, please guide me!¡±

    ¡°Hit me however you like. I won¡¯t return blows, but I¡¯ll evade and dodge. That¡¯s also the basic instinct of defense, after all.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The young man was delighted. This was even better. If not, it¡¯d be more productive for him to punch a piece of metal.

    The two settled into fighting stances without further ado. Li Hao pounced like a tiger and deployed the tiger style. Hands curved like ws, he flung himself at Chen Jian¡¯s arms, wanting to pin them to his opponent¡¯s side.

    As rotund as Chen Jian was, he was exceedingly agile and slightly shifted his feet to dodge three inches to the right. He needed no other major movements to ensure that Li Hao¡¯s hand closed on empty air.

    However, Chen Jian blinked after his sessful evasion. The young man¡¯s hand whistled through the air despite missing its mark. His w attack broke through the air? He¡¯s improved that much?

    Li Hao followed through on his momentum and sprawled on the ground. He stered his limbs to the floor and pushed up with his feet, exploding upward like a deer. Deer were lithe, fleet-footed creatures of tranquility that erupted with an extremity when they encountered danger!

    ¡°Huh¡­¡± Chen Jian shifted again to avoid the second attack, but he wasn¡¯t fast enough to put himself out of Li Hao¡¯s way this time. Since he couldn¡¯t dodge the young man¡¯s leg, he would defend against it!

    BAM!

    A loud collision rang out as Li Hao used another point of leverage in the air to refocus his strength in his arms. He was a ferocious tiger out of the mountains! Both hands clenched into fists, he descended from the sky to smash his opponent!

    Bam!

    Chen Jian took a step backward while Li Hao was likewise thrown back from the immense recoil. But at the same time, the young man turned himself so that he swung through the air like a monkey. The change sent him swiftly swinging back, his hands once more curved into ws to rip into his opponent!

    Astonishment seized Chen Jian¡ªLi Hao had made him take a step back! His arms were even slightly numb!

    The shock broke his concentration; he just sparred with the young man two days ago. At that time, he sent Li Hao flying with a single p, so how could the other be beating him back today?!

    Unfortunately, this kind of shock was most inopportune. Li Hao came swimming back through the air against all expectations and grabbed Chen Jian¡¯s arms with both hands. A cutting strength traveled from them and ripped the portly man¡¯s sleeves to pieces!

    ng!

    The ear-piercing screech of metal grating on metal rang out. Li Hao scratched ten bloody marks on his opponent¡¯s arms, but his fingernails lifted slightly as a result.

    ¡°Ouch!¡± Chen Jian was truly taken aback. Unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t at liberty to ask for details as they were in the middle of a fight. He¡¯d said he would only defend; he wasn¡¯t nning on going back on his word. Seeing Li Hao close in for another w attack, he shook his arms to throw the young man off, then crossed them in front of his chest to block a wild flurry of punches.

    What happened next made him doubt his hearing.

    Whoosh whoosh whoosh! rang a series of bones and meridians humming in unison. Li Hao¡¯s leg whipped into his line of sight, snapping ruthlessly through the air!

    ¡°The hell?!¡± Chen Jian could no longer contain himself. The fuck?? yer of Tens! Are you kidding me?! Kid was trash yer of Five two days ago, but now he¡¯s a full yer? Are you kidding??

    Chen Jian was only a yer himself. Although he wasn¡¯t a novice to the level, it still hurt to be kicked by another peer while in a defenseless state.

    Li Hao brought out his full force only now, so Chen Jian answered in kind without another word. He balled his right hand into a fist and punched the bottom of Li Hao¡¯s foot. Forget only defending, he wasn¡¯t going to y by those rules anymore! While he wouldn¡¯t suffer much injury if Li Hao kicked him, it would still bring him a world of pain.

    Bam!

    Another loud collision rang out as Li Hao wore Inspectorate-issued leather boots. They were very durable and tough. His kick happened to connect with Chen Jian¡¯s fist¡ªanother extremely hard object.

    Crunch!

    Li Hao¡¯s foot fractured, but he carried on like nothing was amiss. He used his opponent¡¯s fist as a leverage point to push off and swing like an ape. It was all he needed to spin himself around.

    Outsiders would think that Chen Jian had grabbed Li Hao¡¯s foot and was whirling him around. The truth was the entire opposite. Chen Jian felt that the young man had grabbed his fist¡ªthey were stuck together!

    Li Hao used the fist as a fulcrum for a full revolution before kicking off and kicking madly with both feet!

    Pop pop pop!

    Explosions continuously sounded in the air as Chen Jian looked on gravely. He covered his head with both hands and crouched protectively over his vital parts, getting a punch in whenever there was a chance.

    The two exchanged blows in earnest,mencing an enormous battle in the fitness area. When Chen Jian evaded Li Hao¡¯s next weighty kick, the young man¡¯s foot mmed into the wall and created a massive hole.

    ¡­¡­

    As the two sparred in the fitness area, others watched with jaws agape at the door. A bbergasted Liu Yan turned to look at Liu Long. Liu Long was also dumbstruck and his eyes slightly unfocused.

    ¡°It¡¯s my first time¡­ seeing such incredible results with mysterious power!¡± he muttered after a long time. There was nothing else he could say.

    All of them had seen the young man¡¯s capabilities for themselves two days ago. He¡¯d improved some after absorbing mysterious power yesterday¡ªmanaging tond a kick on Liu Yan. But Li Hao today? If Liu Long wasn¡¯t absolutely sure of the date, he¡¯d think he was seeing Li Hao again after a few years.

    Thed was yer of Tens after a single night!

    While he was young and looked like hecked experience, his opponent was the perfect candidate for the purpose. A shield that wasn¡¯t adept at offense was an ideal backdrop to fully disy Li Hao¡¯s strength.

    Liu Yan rolled her eyes. Oh screw you! It¡¯s not like we haven¡¯t absorbed mysterious power before¡ªwhen has it ever seen such great effect? If bing yer of Tens was possible with just two cubes, then there might not be Starlight to be found among the Night Watchers.

    yers ascended as Darkmoon!

    Therefore, the organization also wished for martial masters with some basic foundations to join them. Inducting mysterious power into them would create new Darkmoons. Meanwhile, Sunderers of Hundreds found it too difficult to cross over. If someone like Liu Long could easily ascend, the Night Watchers would treat him as their greatest treasure.

    They were disappointed in Liu Long after he proved unable to cross over with a significant quantity of energy. The group threw in the towel and sent him away. He was a guest that continuously failed to metamorphose and the Night Watchers was not a weing ce for martial masters. Thus, Liu Long chose to return to Silver City.

    yer of Tens was the organization¡¯s preferred group to recruit from. Sadly, the path of martial masters was difficult to walk and those who sessfully reached that level were often mature in age. And with the development of the supernatural field, many were those who couldn¡¯t endure the rigors of training and wished to cross over as soon as possible. Few could calm their hearts enough to train.

 Chapter 53: Displaying Just A Small Portion of Oneâ€™s Talent (II)

    Chapter 53: Disying Just A Small Portion of One¡¯s Talent (II)

    The quiet Yun Yao suddenly whispered, ¡°Can you guys sense the mysterious power in his body?¡±

    Under normal circumstances, energy constantly seeped out of the body after absorption by a newbie like Li Hao. Even Liu Long had a faint sheen of mysterious power around him¡ªeveryone in the Demon Hunters did. It was why Li Hao could see a halo of starlight for each team member, but he didn¡¯t see any around his teacher.

    Liu Long¡¯s gaze sharpened when he heard the team doctor and he snorted. ¡°Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple is indeed different! The old man keeps things to himself even though martial masters are almost extinct. He¡¯s not even willing to extend a helping hand to those of the same path!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s status came as no surprise, just look at Yuan Shuo¡¯s usual condition! There was never any mysterious power to be sensed from the professor after he absorbed energy¡ªit was as if the old man fully digested everything.

    The Night Watchers knew about this peculiarity; all suspected that Yuan Shuo possessed an unmatched induction method. But no one was able to make the old man open his mouth if he was unwilling to speak of it.

    Perhaps theck of seepage was also due to his personal strength. Today, however, there was likewise no mysterious power sensed outside Li Hao¡¯s body. The implications were very clear to Liu Long.

    ¡°The kid visited Yuan Shuo twice yesterday¡ªonce in the afternoon and once at night. I wonder if he just learned this method, or if he knew it all along and needed to discuss some details. Yuan Shuo apparently taught him another secret art and didn¡¯t show face to even the Night Watchers. He gravely injured one of them!¡± Liu Long¡¯s sources of information were quick and vast¡ªhe knew of what¡¯d happened at the Veteris Institute.

    ¡°Chief, do you mean that Li Hao¡¯s learned the elder¡¯s secret art?¡± Liu Yan muttered. An incredibly strong absorption method? This was probably the secret knowledge that everyone wanted!

    Typically speaking, a precious treasurended its innocent owner in jail. Even though Yuan Shuo was an unparalleled expert in the field of ancient civilization, he still drew attention from all fronts for his exclusive knowledge. Yet there he was, perfectly fine and in possession of his secret art. inly, the old man had certain tricks up his sleeve.

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Liu Long nodded. This was the only possible exnation. He held both admiration and slight dislike for Yuan Shuo.

    They were old acquaintances as his father used to be friends with Yuan Shuo. Liu Long had even been brought to meet the professor in hopes that the elder would take a new disciple. However, the child was rejected.

    Yuan Shuo had refused on basis of a preference to teach those who were smart. Even though smart people entertained too many of their own thoughts and weren¡¯t too biddable, that was still better than teaching fools!

    Essentially, he meant that Liu Long was an idiot.

    And so, a young Liu Long formed a grudge against Yuan Shuo.

    With martial masters on their way to extinction, Liu Long deeply wished to revitalize Silver City¡¯s martial dao. It would give the city a modicum of protection since the Night Watchers were unwilling to take up residence in such a small city. Yet old man Yuan Shuo with his lifetime of untold riches wasn¡¯t willing to share a single gold shaving!

    The old fart didn¡¯t want to donate a book of regr martial dao theory, to say nothing of incredibly strong secret arts! He was impossible to understand sometimes!

    Was this necessary??

    Those things weren¡¯t useful to him, so wouldn¡¯t it be good to employ them in enhancing martial dao? Silver City was too small and its experts too few. It would only add to Yuan Shuo¡¯s personal glory if more talents emerged!

    In all his years instructing at the Veteris Institute, Yuan Shuo never taught martial dao in his general sses. His adherence to pure academia was a primary reason for why many pointed fingers at him. He epted few disciples over the years and some of them never even learned martial dao.

    Li Hao was among the rare ones bequeathed part of the professor¡¯s skill since he learned the New Book of Five Styles. If the young man hadn¡¯t joined the Demon Hunters, he might continue to use the method for simple physical training. It wouldn¡¯t amount to much in the end.

    There was nothing else for the rest of the team to say. They fixated on the fight in which Li Hao mounted a furious offensive and Chen Jian remained on defense, asionally throwing a counterattack. It was a dramatic and impressive sh.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Be careful, Brother Jian!¡± Li Hao caught Chen Jian¡¯s attention with a sudden shout. A tiger roar filled the basement! The sound attack of the tiger style!

    One drawback was that the young man had only ever seen a tiger in a cage. He¡¯d never seen one in the wild nor heard the true roar of a ferocious tiger. Thus, his sound attack was far below what Yuan Shuo brought to bear.

    The professor¡¯s roar was one garnered from struggles with a tiger roaming the mountains. His brimmed with the air of ughter and menace. Yet despite being the roar of a captive tiger, Li Hao¡¯s sudden attack still shook Chen Jian and assaulted his ear drums.

    In the split second that Chen Jian spent reeling from the sound, Li Hao wrapped his arms around his opponent like he was a ck bear. Chen Jian was much taller andrger than the young man¡ªhe was the one who seemed more like a bear, but he was the one yanked up from the ground!

    ¡°Off you go!¡± Li Hao bellowed and lifted Chen Jian with every fiber of strength in his body. He flung his portly opponent out with a shake of his arms!

    Bam!

    Chen Jian smashed into a wall and left a clear mark on the concrete. Pieces of it cascaded to the ground, leaving a dusty Chen Jian behind. Unharmed, he was just stunned and surprised. The rotund man regarded Li Hao with incredulity.

    ¡°Hoo!¡± the young man panted heavily, likewise looking at Chen Jian with astonishment. Hot damn! Theirs was a long sparring session and the man showed no injuries other than a few bloody trails on his arm. Is this guy even human?

    Li Hao had kicked a metal pipe in half, but Chen Jian waspletely unscathed. The young man wouldn¡¯t kill his opponent even if he spent the entire night fighting. He¡¯d die of exhaustion first!

    ¡°Brother Chen is amazing!¡±

    Chen Jian, however, flushed beet red at the praise. This was over the line for Li Hao, thed was making fun of him, wasn¡¯t he!

    p p p! Apuse sounded by the door. Liu Yan dimpled with staggering allure and looked ardently at the panting Li Hao. She swiftly approached the dazed young man and grabbed his neck, breathing in an overly sweet voice, ¡°Little Hao Hao is so amazing!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao shifted his body without a flicker of change in his expression, but couldn¡¯t shake off his new fan. A faint fragrance drifted into his nostrils. He rubbed his nose and said shyly, ¡°Sis Liu, will you let go of me first?¡±

    ¡°Oh? Someone¡¯s shy!¡± Liu Yan tittered madly. Instead of letting go, she drew Li Hao even closer and whispered, ¡°Little Hao Hao, can you teach big sis how to absorb mysterious power as fast as you?¡±

    ¡°I can ask my teacher, Sis Liu,¡± Li Hao said hesitantly. ¡°I don¡¯t know if teaching someone will result in wholesale banishment or worse.¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Liu Yan¡¯s beguiling expression froze and she shoved the young man away withint. ¡°Where¡¯s your consideration for the fairer sex?¡±

    The boy sure knew how to talk, huh! She couldn¡¯t afford to offend that one. Who could she go to if retribution came for her head? A Night Watcher was almost beaten to death yesterday for simply wanting to peek into what Yuan Shuo was teaching!

    It was best to stay away from old fellows like that!

    In the meantime, Li Hao didn¡¯t intend to conceal his strength after disying the capabilities of a yer of Tens. It would be difficult to hide the Breathing Method of the Five Styles regardless as there was no mysterious power around his body. It was apparent with a single nce that he¡¯d fully digested the energy.

    Yuan Shuo had mentioned this was fine¡ªthis was how he was as well. It wasn¡¯t an issue for the Night Watchers to be aware of it. All that mattered was that they didn¡¯t know how to practice it.

    Liu Long strode forward, rare admiration softening his tone.

    ¡°Not bad, you exceed my expectations! I was thinking that it wouldn¡¯t be long before you be a yer after absorbing mysterious power, but that you¡¯d still need more than a month!¡±

    Li Hao had used only one day!

    ¡°This is all teacher¡¯s credit, not mine!¡± responded a humble Li Hao. ¡°When I visited teacher yesterday, I understood how truly strong he is! He was irate when someone tried to sneak a peek into his training and utilized strength he should¡¯ve left alone. Teacher said he felt the advent of consciousness in that moment, that he was close to his old peak condition! It was then that he led me toprehending the secret art of the Five Styles and used his mental strength to lead me to yer of Tens¡­¡±

    Sorrow appeared on the young man¡¯s face. ¡°But teacher vomited blood after helping me break through and I¡¯m afraid that¡­ ai!¡±

    Liu Long sighed as well; parts of his grudge suddenly faded away.

    ¡°This might be the end of the foremost grandmaster of martial dao in Silver Moon!¡± he offered with equal parts self-deprecation and grief. ¡°I heard about what happened yesterday. Yuan Shuo suffered grave injuries a few years ago and someone tried to invade his privacy in his home. He utilized the full battle strength of a Sunderer of Hundreds in his rage and defeated two Darkmoon with a single blow¡­

    ¡°Ai! What a pity! He was probably very close to Dominator of Thousands in that moment and his consciousness was upon him. It¡¯s a cultivation realm I¡¯ve always yearned for¡ªto think that you would see it before me!¡±

    Liu Long was no longer surprised that Li Hao had set foot into yer of Tens. A peak Sunderer had once more sensed the consciousness in his final strike¡ªa personage like that should¡¯ve ascended to Dominator!

    Unfortunately, Yuan Shuo was too old and his wounds too severe. All that resulted was a disciple reaching yer. It was such a damned shame when one mulled this matter over! Even Night Watcher experts would sigh with emotion when they heard of it.

    Li Hao was still small fry after bing a yer. It would¡¯ve been a feat worthy of note only if Yuan Shuo set foot into Dominator.

    The rest of the Demon Hunters looked oddly at Li Hao. The consciousness!

    ¡°The advent of the consciousness¡­¡± Liu Yan eximed. ¡°That¡¯s a hallmark of the Dominators! If Elder Yuan hadn¡¯t been injured a few years ago, he would¡¯ve taken another step forward and be a walking god in martial dao!¡±

    How incredible, how amazing, how lucky, and how¡­ pitiful!

    Indeed, pitiful!

    Such a grandmaster like him would never repeat the aplishment.

    Li Hao sighed as well and chuckled ruefully. ¡°That¡¯s why I wanted to try out my strength today and see if I live up to my teacher¡¯s care! My heart won¡¯t rest easy otherwise!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re good enough!¡± Liu Long inclined his head. ¡°Chen Jian is mid yer, not a novice. Strictly speaking, if yer runs from ten to ny-nine, he should be in the thirties! Of course, since he focuses on defense, it means you¡¯re stronger than regr yers if you can beat him like this¡­¡±

    This was only in terms of offensive power! The estimate was less obvious in terms of practicalbat. There might be those weaker than Li Hao who could kill him.

    ¡°Brother Jian isn¡¯t even hurt,¡± expressed a disappointed Li Hao. ¡°I pulled out all the stops!¡±

    ¡°You want to injure him?¡± Liu Long chuckled. ¡°Would we be who we are if you could hurt him? Chen Jian won¡¯t be badly wounded by even a Sunderer. He didn¡¯t utilize his Iron Shirt technique earlier. Do you actually think that¡¯s all there is to him?¡±

 Chapter 54: Strange Attributed Mysterious Power (I)

    Chapter 54: Strange Attributed Mysterious Power (I)

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao was more resigned than ever. So that hadn¡¯t been Chen Jian¡¯s full strength? And I thought I¡¯ve gotten way stronger!

    Liu Long ran some quick calctions. ¡°Judging from the looks of you and your ascension to yer yesterday, you¡¯ve likely digested both cubes of mysterious power. I agreed to give you two more in a few days, but looks like this is the day!¡±

    ¡°Chief!¡± The rest of the team looked sharply at Liu Long. Another two cubes?

    The team¡¯s store of mysterious power didn¡¯t belong to Liu Long alone. Although everyone thought that Li Hao was very capable, they¡¯d gathered this energy by jointly risking their lives. This decision wasn¡¯t very fair.

    ¡°Li Hao will be allotted less if we all survive this mission!¡± Liu Long smiled. ¡°If he dies, we¡¯ll split his share. If we all die, then none of this matters!¡±

    The group settled back down. That made more sense.

    The captain looked at Li Hao with a soft sigh. ¡°You might not understand, Li Hao, but I still want to emphasize how precious mysterious power is. Killing one Starlight typically yields five to ten cubes of mysterious power.

    ¡°A Darkmoon yields twenty to forty. I don¡¯t know about those ranked higher because we¡¯ve never killed one.

    ¡°The Demon Hunters have gathered one hundred and twenty cubes from five demonic supernaturals. We¡¯ve absorbed most of it¡ªsome having been absorbed by those who are now dead. These twelve cubes are all that¡¯s left of more than a dozen lives!¡±

    He thought for a moment beforeughing at himself. ¡°Twenty-two brothers, to be exact. That trantes to roughly six cubes per life¡ªand they were all Inspectorate elites! You¡¯ll have taken a life if you absorb another two more!¡±

    Li Hao suddenly found a weighty heft to the energy. Twenty-two people dead in exchange for one hundred and twenty cubes of energy! The price was too high!

    ¡°Chief¡­ is it worth it?¡± he suddenly asked.

    Liu Long threw his head back with manicughter.

    ¡°Yes! Because¡­ we are justice!¡±

    Upholders of justice who defended Silver City!

    Li Hao turned over the sentence in his mouth. He used to find the derationughable, but mirth was thest thing on his mind in this moment. It didn¡¯t seem that funny anymore. Justice?

    Perhaps!

    He wasn¡¯t too familiar with Liu Long or any of the Demon Hunters. Li Hao had rarelye in contact with thew enforcement team during his year at the agency. After a couple days in theirpany, however, his impression changed again and again. The first time that Liu Long spoke of defending justice, Li Hao¡¯s only reaction was heh!

    Hypocrite!

    How is killing and looting under the guise of justice anything close to the side of good? That¡¯s just talk tofort and convince yourself!

    But somehow, these fools treated it as gospel. Of course Li Hao couldn¡¯t express his true sentiments. It wasn¡¯t a bad thing to y along, in any case.

    Liu Long¡¯s second mention of justice sent some doubts swirling. Was the safeguarding he spoke of truly protection, or was it executing viinous supernaturals in order to obtain greater strength? Was that still justice?

    Li Hao was also curious about one point¡ªwhy did the various Demon Hunters pursue the supernatural domain? What were their goals? Did they want to grow stronger?

    Being supernatural seemed very dangerous. Mundanes sometimes lived just as well, if not better, than their otherworldly counterparts. If it wasn¡¯t for the scarlet shadow targeting him, Li Hao might not pursue this field.

    His teacher once mentioned supernatural organizations. The Night Watchers were one¡ªLi Hao knew of them, just not their name. He hadn¡¯t thought much at the time, feeling that they and him were of two different worlds. Now he was forced to dive headfirst into this realm.

    Li Hao voiced none of his myriad of thoughts. He liked staying silent, but sometimes chattered with other intentions. He¡¯d put on a mask a year ago and customarily wore a false smile.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao followed the team captain on a repeat visit to the treasury; the entire team trailed behind. Liu Yan gushed with affection and wrapped her arm around the young man.

    ¡°You¡¯re really something, Little Hao Hao!¡± The woman was wreathed in smiles. ¡°You joined us only a few days ago, but this is your second time absorbing energy. When big sis here joined the team, three full months separated my first two times!¡±

    Li Hao slightly shrugged his shoulders. Yo, sis, can you not be so friendly? You¡¯re basically clinging onto me, that¡¯s enough of that!

    ¡°Why are you shrugging your shoulders? Are they sore? Shall big sis rub them for you tonight?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao had nothing to say. She was¡­ impossible to establish boundaries with.

    Up ahead, Liu Long didn¡¯t even blink at Liu Yan¡¯s antics. He couldn¡¯t be bothered. Of the five remaining Demon Hunters, each came with their own stories and thoughts. Twenty-tworades-in-arms had died since the team¡¯s founding and the survivors were full of various motivations and desires. Liu Long knew, he knew everything, but sometimes wasn¡¯t willing to say anything.

    Who knew if there was a tomorrow in store for them?

    Creak!

    The treasury door swung open. Mysterious power was stored in the third room; Li Hao hadn¡¯t known what the first two rooms contained on his previous visit. Liu Yan took on the role of enthusiastic tour guide this time.

    ¡°There are three rooms here, mysterious power is stored in the third. Do you know what¡¯s in the first two?¡±

    ¡°Hot weapons?¡±

    ¡°Nope, how are those things worthy of being stored in the treasury?¡± Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°Supernatural objects such as weapons, books, diaries, and others are held in the first room. Apart from the ones we¡¯ve killed, we¡¯ve also collected some from other sources. It¡¯s a bunch of knickknacks, but they should be worth something. We just find it difficult to categorize them!¡±

    Li Hao nodded with understanding. ¡°What about the second room?¡±

    ¡°The second room?¡± Liu Yan remained merry, but a sidelong nce from Li Hao found her smile¡­ not exactly typical. ¡°The second room¡¯s interesting! Regr people can¡¯t enter it¡ªit¡¯s the team¡¯s most important area, even more so than the room with mysterious power! But a word of warning from your big sis, best stay out of it!¡±

    Is it treasure? What kind of treasure can¡¯t even be looked at?

    Liu Long abruptly bestowed a cold look at the woman. ¡°Have you had enough fun yet?¡±

    Liu Yan tittered and let go of Li Hao¡¯s neck. ¡°Don¡¯t be so rough, chief,¡± she simpered. ¡°So I¡¯ve been neglecting you, hmm? Are you jealous?¡±

    An unmoved Liu Long didn¡¯t grow angry. He simply nced at the second door, fell silent, and continued to the third room.

    Li Hao looked at the second room as well, truly curious now. The quiet team captain showed irritation only when Liu Yan mentioned the second secret chamber. What could possibly be inside?

    There was no time to ponder as Yun Yao had already opened the door to the third room. The female team doctor was a taciturn individual, but she nodded smilingly every time Li Hao looked at her. She didn¡¯t seem as standoffish as Liu Yan had said¡ªshe seemed very weing.

    Mysterious power of various colors was visible within the ice crystal cover. Ten cubes were ced under different covers.

    ¡°These ten are all attributed,¡± Yun Yao introduced. ¡°Theye from three different supernaturals!¡±

    ¡°This is fire attribute energy.¡± She pointed at ming-red power on the left. ¡°Its supernatural was decent at peak Starlight. In martial master terms, he was a peak yer of Tens.

    ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate a peak Starlight! Big brother Liu was already a Sunderer during that mission and strictly speaking, stronger than our opponent. Despite that, we still sacrificed a few people before killing the supernatural. His power of me was very strong. A light graze envelops the body¡ªthose who died were burned to ashes!¡±

    The portly Chen Jian suddenly lifted his shirt to show his chest. A massive scar upied his skin instead of chest hair.

    ¡°Be careful of this guy, Li Hao!¡± heughed brightly. ¡°This is the mark he left on me. The tiniest bit of me almost burned me to death!¡±

    The young man was well aware of how strong Chen Jian was, particrly in terms of defense. However, that was pure physical defense. The barest graze of fire from mysterious power had almost burned the team tank to death!

    That¡¯s terrifying! Li Hao nodded with solemnity.

    ¡°There was a massive fire in the southern outskirts of the city in 1727. 128 people died and investigation after the fact found that a short circuit resulted in the immtion of the factory. However, eyewitness reports say that a tendril of fire descended from the skies that day and reduced the factory to ash¡­¡±

    A surprised Liu Long nced at Li Hao before inclining his head. ¡°You¡¯re well read, that case is closed! This fellow was behind it. He was a temp at the factory before he became supernatural, but he had sticky fingers. He was fired for it and socially ostracized because of his personality. After he crossed over, he returned to Silver City for vengeance!

    ¡°How is someone like that worthy of such powers?¡± snorted the man. ¡°The heavens are blind! Which one of the Demon Hunters isn¡¯t stronger than that bastard? Fuck the Heaven Favored! Heaven Favored is more like Heaven Blind As A Bat!¡±

    He was both resentful and contemptuous that people like these could be supernatural. Heaven Favored? Bullshit!

    Li Hao kept silent¡ªso it really was this dead supernatural behind it. He¡¯d paid more attention to that case due to the connection with a congration. Survivors all spoke of arson and not a short circuit, but the case was ultimately closed based on a short circuit burning the factory down.

    He thought it was an unsettled case, but it turned out that the killer was already dead!

    Yun Yao pointed at the second crystal cover. ¡°The energy of lightning is inside! A newly ascended Darkmoon wielded it. This kind of energy is so strong that many people died to it¡ªit took both Brother Liu and Liu Yan to kill that supernatural!¡±

    Beaming brightly, Liu Yan raised her eyebrow with pride. ¡°I made the final blow!¡±

    Li Hao stuck his thumb up, now that was impressive!

 Chapter 55: Strange Attributed Mysterious Power (II)

    Chapter 55: Strange Attributed Mysterious Power (II)

    Darkmoons were the equivalent of Sunderer of Hundreds! They were stronger than regr Sunderers. Even though Liu Long was the main offense and Liu Yan secondary support, it was still a testament to their strength that they¡¯d brought such an opponent down.

    Li Hao was suddenly reminded of a few unsolved cases in ssified Affairs that had to do with electricity. They likely stemmed from this one, yet he said nothing. The supernaturals that the team killed were all likely well-deserving of death!

    ¡°Earth energy is found under the third cover!¡± Liu Long picked up the conversation. ¡°That guy was probably the hardest one to kill. He was a new Darkmoon, but incredibly difficult to corner because he could travel underground. We incurred our greatest losses due to his ambushes from below. Twelve of ourrades died in that operation!¡±

    Li Hao regarded the captain solemnly. Liu Long shook his head.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t really do it. He was so arrogant that he thought nothing of us. It was incredibly difficult because he came and went like a ghost, popping up anywhere and everywhere. We finally buried a thousand kilograms of explosives in a certain area and lured him over to blow him up! We didn¡¯t extract much mysterious power after that, more¡¯s the pity.¡±

    Blew him up with a thousand kilograms of explosives!

    Li Hao started, he¡¯d almost forgotten about hot weapons. This Darkmoon supernatural could move through the earth. A martial master like Liu Long without special ability could only meet the opponent head-on, but not touch him. The team captain had to resort to outside weapons instead!

    Indeed, what they said was true, that Darkmoons weren¡¯t infallible and mortals could kill them if they had a proper n.

    ¡°Of the three attributed mysterious powers, fire and lightning are extremelybative. Earth is more suited for auxiliary support¡ªthe caveat being that the attribute is a good match for you. Otherwise, any attribute is simr to regr mysterious power and will only slightly enhance your offensive capabilities!¡± Liu Long clenched his hand and punched forward, giving off faint sparks.

    He knew that the young man didn¡¯t understand. ¡°I once absorbed fire energy, so my attacks contain a tiny hint of fire. However, I¡¯m not sure if this means that fire suits me. Sometimes it¡¯s hard to determine what attribute is the right fit without crossing over.¡±

    Li Hao nodded¡ªthe power of fire! So Liu Long could utilize fiery punches? If the captain possessed some special powers, what about the others?

    They might all have special abilities¡ªparticrly Chen Jian. Li Hao strongly suspected that the rotund manmanded defensive ability of earth as his defense was ridiculously masterful.

    If the Demon Hunters counted five supernaturals in their track record, that meant two types of energy had beenpletely absorbed. I wonder what abilities the other two contain and who absorbed them?

    Yun Yao also offered a few words of exnation for non-attributed power. This kind of energy was distilled from attributed energy; it didn¡¯t exist independently.

    ¡°Which do you wish to choose, Li Hao?¡± Liu Long looked solemnly at the young man. ¡°Since you¡¯ve already experienced mysterious power, let me put it this way. The force of attributed mysterious power is several times greater than that, yet its benefits are on par with regr unattributed energy! Therefore, it¡¯s a massive loss if the attributed energy you absorb is not a good match. Not only will you not obtain additional benefits, but you have to endure greater danger!

    ¡°If you seed in digesting it, however, you¡¯ll gain a little bit of its characteristics even if you don¡¯t cross over. Such are the potential benefits!¡±

    Li Hao hesitated over the three energies in front of him. Which should he choose?

    ¡°Chief, if I get two cubes, why don¡¯t I choose two different ones¡­?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it!¡± Liu Long shook his head. ¡°With sufficient buffer time, sure, but if you absorb two different types together, the impact will st your brains out. I don¡¯t want to clean up after your corpse!¡±

    Very well then, Li Hao understood. He looked at the three ice crystal covers again. Which should he choose? Fire and lightning sounded good. His attacks would be stronger if he could gain a little bit of their characteristics, but earth also sounded good!

    Earth gave the impression of defense as weighty as a mountain. Being able to move through the ground was a prime lifesaving method in current circumstances. Granted, it was also possible that it was nothing more than regr mysterious power to him.

    ¡°I want the earth attributed one!¡± Li Hao decided.

    ¡°Not bad!¡± Liu Long nodded with a rare smile. ¡°It¡¯s safer and there happens to be only two cubes of earth left!¡±

    It was the least plentiful out of the three types, likely because of how its owner died. There might not have been any part of the supernatural left, so harvesting any energy was already a boon. There was more fire and lightning in the team¡¯s reserves.

    ¡°Come absorb it!¡± A thought suddenly struck Liu Long. ¡°And use the way that Yuan Shuo taught you, don¡¯t use my Energy Induction Method.¡±

    Awkwardness crept into Li Hao¡¯s face; the team captain knew what he was thinking of.

    ¡°Alright, everybody out! Don¡¯t worry, no one will peek.¡± He turned and left, followed by the rest of the smiling Demon Hunters.

    ¡°Absorb as much as you can, Little Hao Hao,¡± Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°If you can digest it all, big sis has ims to two of the remaining eight in the treasury. If youe chat with big sis tonight, I¡¯ll give you those too!¡±

    Li Haoughed drily, but was inwardly surprised. Liu Yan owned some of the energy in the vaults? Why didn¡¯t she absorb them? Was it not a match? But unattributed power could be absorbed without risk, why hadn¡¯t the rest of the team taken the energy?

    Bringing up the rear, Yun Yao seemed to understand the young man¡¯s confusion.

    ¡°The rest of the mysterious power is either not a good fit, or we can¡¯t absorb anymore,¡± she exined in a calm, soft tone. ¡°If we continue to take in more energy while failing to cross over, we might ascend to Sunderer of Hundreds instead. Once we make Sunderer, the supernatural will be almost impossible to reach!¡±

    Li Hao understood! So this meant that Liu Yan was very close to peak yer? This was something he hadn¡¯t considered. Everyone on the team was yer of Tens; it made sense if vice captain Liu Yan was a peak yer. What about the team doctor in front of him?

    New questions rose in his heart, but Yun Yao was already gone. He was the only one left in the secret chamber once the door closed. It was just him and ten cubes of mysterious power¡ªaren¡¯t these guys worried I¡¯ll take it all?!

    Of course, he would never do so.

    ¡­¡­

    Earth attributed mysterious power was yellowish-brown in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. It looked different from cosmic power.

    ¡°Mysterious power¡­ attributes¡­ energy¡­¡± He was unversed in the supernatural domain, but unique in that he could truly see mysterious power. He didn¡¯t have to rely on Yun Yao dyeing the energy to make it visible.

    Her ability only manifested the energy and didn¡¯t reveal its core. Li Hao, however, could glimpse what made it different.

    ¡°Why can mysterious power possess different attributes?¡± Upon closer observation, the young man realized that the three energies in front of him were mostly the same. The major difference came from their core. Various colors corresponding to fire, lightning, and earth continuously emanated from the center, creating a muddledbination of energy.

    ¡°If I strip that from the energy, I¡¯ll create pure unattributed mysterious power!¡±

    The major benefit of unattributed power was that it was far safer and less painful. The major drawback was that it only enhanced the physique and did not help with the crossover.

    Li Hao gave it some thought, then stretched his hand into one of the ice crystal covers. He utilized the Breathing Method of the Five Styles¡ªit was faster and more effective. The side effect was that he drew upon Steris at the same time. This was the only way that energy could be summoned from the jade sword. Regr breathing methods were ineffective, a point that was both pro and con. Those who didn¡¯t know this breathing method wouldn¡¯t find any use for the family weapon even if theyid hands on it.

    Two currents of mysterious power surged into his body at the same time. When the expected pain assailed him, the young man also noticed something different.

    ¡°Cosmic power is stripping out the earth attribute!¡± Li Hao saw with surprise. The energy from Steris was dissecting the earth energy! Most of it was mysterious power¡ªonly a portion was attributed energy. Both entered his body at the same time, but were separated upon entry!

    Before long, a ball of pure yellowish-brown hovered in his body. Instead of following his blood vessels or muscles, it beelined for one location. Li Hao quickly clutched the upper left portion of his belly¡ªthere was an important organ there. The spleen!

    ¡°The five elements¡­ earth¡­ the spleen?¡±

    The spleen could be found in the left abdominal cavity below the stomach. It served a vital function as the body¡¯s blood bank. Normally stored in the spleen, blood was delivered when needed. Death was not far behind once the organ hemorrhaged. The copse of the body¡¯s blood bank meant swift blood loss and impending demise.

    The spleen was also exceedingly fragile¡ªmore than the stomach or heart. It was much more likely to be damaged from a heavy blowpared to the other two. Therefore, even martial masters knew defeat was at hand once their spleen was hit¡ªif not death.

    Hence, Li Hao purpled with dismay when the energy surged into his spleen. That organ was incredibly weak and mysterious power enormously powerful! Attributed power also delivered a greater punch than regr power. Once it rampaged through the spleen and ripped it to pieces, he¡¯d die!

    ¡°Damn it!¡± He swiftly directed vast sums of cosmic power to the spleen so they could contain the yellowish ball.

    Oh fuck!

    He was in for it this time, why was this happening?? Mysterious power didn¡¯t usually touch the organs because they were too fragile. It kept to the blood vessels, muscles, and skin. Why were things suddenly different?!

    The breathing method could redirect energy, but when cosmic power approached the spleen, it flowed right past instead of attacking the foreign mysterious power. Li Hao paled with horror!

    The yellowish energy shot into his spleen¡ªhe needed to call for help! He would require immediate medical attention once his spleen broke apart, hopefully Yun Yao would prove useful and be able to save him before he bled to death!

    ¡°Hel¡ª¡± Li Hao blinked before he finished the word. The hell? It didn¡¯t hurt!

    There was no pain after the yellow melded into his spleen. It only felt a bit bloated like it¡¯d eaten too much. Something peculiar crept into the young man the next moment¡ªall of the blood normally stored in that organ surged out!

 Chapter 56: The Calm Before the Storm (I)

    Chapter 56: The Calm Before the Storm (I)

    This was the blood bank of the human body! But at the same time, Li Hao¡¯s blood wasn¡¯t gushing out due to a broken spleen. It was more like the organ was too full and expunging everything due to overeating. It came with a powerful feeling!

    Under normal circumstances, a rush of blood only came with the amount of energy that the body needed. This time, however, it felt like the adrenaline rush associated with intense exercise. His blood thundered hotly and set the young man on fire! If Li Hao took his blood pressure now, it would undoubtedly top the charts.

    Rush rush rush¡­

    A small river flowed through his veins, apanied by the actual sound of babbling water. Stunned and surprised, Li Hao noticed that his spleen seemed to be changing! So the ball of yellowish-brown was transforming and¡­ strengthening his spleen?

    ¡°The energy of earth? The spleen? Strengthening?¡± the young man murmured to himself. Inparison, the mysterious energy pounding through his blood vessels seemed far less important. Something new was afoot.

    However, he quickly found out the consequences of giving free rein to mysterious power in his body.

    ¡°Help!!¡± he shrieked. The door banged open and the team members jumped with shock at what they saw!

    Li Hao was a person of blood, it seeped out of his skin! Blood bubbled out of every pore and his orifices flowed freely.

    ¡°Nothing happened the first time, so why is this urring now?¡± Liu Long gasped. ¡°This level of blood loss¡­ Yun Yao!¡±

    It was too much! It looked like all of the young man¡¯s blood was bubbling out of his body. He¡¯d die to his own devices if this continued, wouldn¡¯t he?!

    Yun Yao swiftly stepped forward, gentle energy rising out of her palm. She frowned as soon as she touched Li Hao. This was a bit odd.

    ¡°Are you feeling weak?¡± she asked solemnly.

    ¡°No¡­ I feel¡­ really excited!¡±

    Yun Yao¡¯s frown deepened and she continued her examination.

    ¡°You¡­ are making new blood at an incredibly fast pace!¡± An odd look crept onto her face. ¡°It feels more like a blood transfusion to me! There was too little energy in your bloodstream before, which meant that it supplied you with insufficient energy. But right now, your spleen is operating at an incredible pace and creating new blood infused with powerful energy!¡±

    This was what she found incredible¡ªLi Hao seemed to be undergoing a blood transfusion!

    However, Liu Long¡¯s expression flickered with hesitation. ¡°Are you sure? A blood transfusion? Stronger blood recing weaker blood happens to both martial masters and supernaturals, but it normally urs at the Dominator or Sunre level. He¡¯s just a yer¡­ how can he refresh his blood? Where does such a powerful mechanisme from? Take a closer look, don¡¯t let him die from blood loss!¡±

    Li Hao was simply losing too much blood! Yun Yao immediately conducted another examination as she also thought she was mistaken. It was then that the young man¡¯s blood flow began to slow down.

    ¡°It¡¯s not internal bleeding or broken blood vessels.¡± The team doctor frowned after a second passthrough. ¡°It¡¯s simply a normal purge! He¡¯s somewhat weak after this renewal, but only because it consumed too many resources to create so much blood. This¡­ really is a blood transfusion!¡±

    She was certain of her conclusion¡ªwhat was with Li Hao?

    The young man in question was equally baffled, despite having guessed at the truth. He had no choice but to sob through a bloody face, ¡°I have no idea! I started bleeding after I absorbed the earth energy. It scared the crap out of me! Chief, is this what happens with all attributed energy?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Liu Long finally rxed upon seeing that Li Hao could still talk, and with a great deal of energy. ¡°No¡­ you¡¯re the only one this has happened to,¡± he answered hesitantly. ¡°Other people bleed, but not from a blood transfusion. You¡¯re¡­ a weird one! Stronger blood has reced weaker blood, instilling your body with greater energy and explosive force. A simr urrence happened to me when I reached Sunderer of Hundreds¡ªI also sensed the strength in my blood rise. However, that was much fainter and not anywhere near as exaggerated as yours!¡±

    It seemed that Li Hao had fully refreshed every drop of blood in his body! This was attainable by only Dominators of Thousands, what was with the boy? And through attributed energy? This was all too bizarre!

    Liu Long didn¡¯t fully understand it as mysterious power was too unknown. He had no idea what to say.

    Off to the side, a veryplicated look suffused Liu Yan¡¯s eyes and sheined, ¡°Chief, does this mean that the little guy is even stronger after his blood has been renewed?¡±

    ¡°I think so!¡± Liu Long nodded and stiltedly looked in Li Hao¡¯s direction.

    Fuck this shit! Why?? The kid made yer of Tens on day one and refreshed his blood on the second. Is he gonna break through to Sunderer tomorrow before he¡¯s finally satisfied? How about Dominator the day after that??

    The other five in the treasury looked at Li Hao with gleaming eyes, even Yun Yao. What they would give to dissect Li Hao to understand the situation! This was the first time any of them encountered this!

    Covered in blood, the young man shook from the implications. A blood transfusion attainable by only Dominators? I really don¡¯t know anything about this. Maybe my spleen¡¯s function has grown stronger after it¡¯s reconstructed. Maybe it¡¯s bigger and filled with more energy¡­ but I don¡¯t know why this is either!

    Is this the effect of attributed energy? No one ever told me about this possibility!

    The current Li Hao was small and weak. Stop looking at me, guys! You¡¯ll want to eat me alive before the scarlet shadow gets to me if you keep looking at me like that!

    Attributed energy¡­ reconstruction¡­ A wild thought rose in Li Hao¡¯s mind and he wanted to run the risk of great impudence to ask, ¡°Chief, can you give me the rest of the eight cubes?¡±

    But it only shed through his mind. If he dared voice it aloud, the others would beat him to death on the spot. He didn¡¯t dare think about the remaining cubes and to be frank, they were too weighty.

    All he wanted to do at the moment was to grow stronger as fast as possible. Liu Long had mentioned that every five to six cubes was the equivalent of one fallen team member. He¡¯d already absorbed four.

    The chief had voiced only truth to Li Hao since the young man joined the Demon Hunters. The situation was clear from the start¡ªhe was bait. Giving four cubes of mysterious power to cannon fodder amply demonstrated Liu Long¡¯s sincerity. Here was a person who schemed when necessary, but was otherwise on the level when circumstances called for it.

    There was no need to give anything to someone whose function was to just lure out the mastermind. Any gifts would more than likely go to waste since the timeline was so heavily truncated. If Li Hao had been an ordinary person, he wouldn¡¯t begin to touch the threshold of yer after absorbing four cubes. They were that short on time!

    Thus, Li Hao skipped over his crazy question and continued reflecting on what made this instance of absorption different from the others.

    Cosmic power¡­ doesn¡¯t neutralize attributed power. It distills the attribution within. This was a marked difference from unattributed mysterious power. When it came to thetter, cosmic power neutralized the destructive tendencies. As it split out the properties of attribution, the new ball of energy lost its offensive characteristic and transmuted into unique nurturing.

    This sounded simr to cosmic power, but was different. Cosmic power enhanced the entire body, whereas attributed power enhanced the organs. Judging from the earlier instance, the five elements corresponded to the five major organs. Different attributes strengthened different organs.

    Once more, the uniqueness of cosmic power was made apparent. But was Li Hao the special one or the energy within the jade sword? Regardless, there was no doubt that different effects took ce when he absorbed mysterious power.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°How do you feel?¡± Liu Long suddenly asked as the young man pondered over new findings.

    ¡°I feel a little¡­ weak!¡± Li Hao smiled ruefully. Whether it was a blood transfusion or internal purging, he¡¯d lost a lot of blood. Although he could sense that his body was swiftly recing it, there was still a slight weakness.

    ¡°Out with the old and in with the new, this is good!¡± Liu Long nodded with approval, then sighed, ¡°I think I know why Yuan Shuo epted you as a disciple!¡±

    The sword of the Lis¡­ Does Yuan Shuo know about it? Was there something special about the Li n? Were they the descendants of ancient supernaturals and ordingly carried rare markers in their bloodlines?

    So many questions! Liu Long was certain, however, that Li Hao was a genius. The young man brought a different perspective to the table each time and he improved too quickly. This wasn¡¯t something that anyone who absorbed mysterious power could attain. Only the Heaven Favored within the Night Watchers could rival Li Hao.

    The Heaven Favored¡­ were they people like Li Hao?

    ording to studies made by the organization, this exceptional cohort born with supernatural abilities were very likely descended from supernatural ancestors. Their supernatural locks were unlocked at birth!

    Li Hao seemed different from that.

    ¡°Li Hao, can you feel your supernatural locks?¡± Liu Long suddenly asked.

    The young man gave it some thought and nodded. ¡°I vaguely sense their existence when I absorb energy.¡±

    ¡°Ah!¡± Liu Long sucked in a sharp breath and dismissed some conjectures. His surprised exmation stemmed from Li Hao being able to sense his locks so quickly, and his dismissal was tied to the presence of locks within the young man.

    So Li Hao¡¯s ancestors weren¡¯t supernatural? But the sword of the Lis was inly a supernatural object!

    Has his family declined because they¡¯re too far removed? Being the descendent of an ancient supernatural doesn¡¯t automatically make one Heaven Favored either. Perhaps Li Hao is one with weaker potential, so his locks weren¡¯t undone at birth?

    This might be the only possible exnation.

    ¡°Being able to sense your locks so quickly means you¡¯re a genius! But remember, you¡¯re only a genius and not Heaven Favored. That particr group is born with their locks resolved!¡± Liu Longughed self-deprecatingly, ¡°Although I don¡¯t think they¡¯re truly favored by the heavens, the truth is that they have many more advantagespared to us. They¡¯re inherent supernaturals and will instinctively grow stronger with time, even if they don¡¯t cultivate!¡±

    How it induced envy!

    Heaven Favored are born without locks? Li Hao turned the idea over in his mind. That made cultivation so much easier without that step in the way. Just look at how much effort Liu Long and the others were going through to open their locks!

    Meanwhile, the young man knew that he was no genius. His locks were well and present. Theypletely sealed him off like chains, cordoning off all of the vital areas of his body!

 Chapter 57: The Calm Before the Storm (II)

    Chapter 57: The Calm Before the Storm (II)

    Li Hao had already sensed that his heart, mind, and other major areas were sealed away. What if there were other locks in his body? The light of envy dawned in his eyes.

    Inherent Starlight! How lucky, how nice that must be!

    Although innate Starlight was just yer of Tens, they were still supernatural with limitless potential. Martial masters paled inparison as they were capped at Dominator of Thousands in present day society.

    ¡°That¡¯s enough, chief, what are you talking like that for? Are you trying to shatter Little Hao Hao¡¯s confidence?¡± Liu Yan smiled radiantly. ¡°Little Hao Hao is talented enough already¡ªto think that the bait we dragged into our fold is a genius! Big sis isn¡¯t willing to let you be bait anymore!¡±

    Li Hao chuckled drily. Seriously, what could he do about this one? One did not hit a smiling face, not to mention that he wouldn¡¯t win in a fight!

    ¡°Li Hao, although you seem to have improved again,¡± the quiet Yun Yao suddenly spoke up. ¡°I have to remind you that your constitution is getting stronger and stronger. If this continues and you fail to be Starlight after a few more tries, you¡¯ll end up following in Brother Liu and your teacher¡¯s footsteps!¡±

    Everyone blinked¡ªthe merry Liu Long snapped out of his joy and frowned at Li Hao.

    ¡°I forgot about this. Li Hao¡­ you¡­ should make the crossover as soon as possible! The end of the road is nigh for martial masters!¡±

    He was reluctant, yet had to admit that there was no future for martial masters. Dominators hadn¡¯t appeared for many years and there weren¡¯t even many Sunderers in Silver Moon. Sunderers were only the equivalent of Darkmoon. How many of those existed?

    While there wasn¡¯t a specific number, they outnumbered martial masters by at least tenfold! Even he himself, the deputy chief of the Inspectorate, toiled to be supernatural and not a Dominator of Thousands.

    There was no light at the end of the martial master tunnel. A practitioner of martial dao for decades, Liu Long regretted having to forsake his path. And yet, how many more years would it take to reach Dominator if he didn¡¯t pursue the supernatural?

    Ten or twenty years if all went well? What if it took the rest of his life?

    If he ascended to the other side, he could instantly be Sunre¡ªthe equivalent of a Dominator.

    The man sighed again, suddenly finding Li Hao¡¯s blood transfusion not necessarily a good thing. A stronger physique meant a more difficult crossover, such was the rule.

    Li Hao, however, didn¡¯t care. He didn¡¯t feel kindly toward supernaturals and looked much more favorably upon martial masters. His teacher was a martial master and Captain Liu Long was a martial master. Although thetter wanted him to be bait, the man had also given him substantial presents. The deputy chief also protected him¡ªmartial masters were wonderful! The rest of the team were also martial masters¡ªthey were the best!

    As for the dying path of martial cultivation, Dominator of Thousands was the limit. Having broken through to yer of Tens as soon as he set foot on the path, Li Hao didn¡¯t think there was anything bad about it as he was far removed from Dominator. Neither did he feel that martial masters were any way worse than supernaturals.

    He couldn¡¯t empathize with Liu Long¡¯s despair. The young man had also seen a true Dominator in action¡ªthat caliber of strength was incredible! Thus, his response demonstrated his youth.

    ¡°Chief, what¡¯s so bad about martial masters? Is the supernatural really that strong? My teacher punched the lights out of two Darkmoon with one move!¡±

    Liu Longughed wordlessly¡ªah, to be young again!

    ¡°I don¡¯t have a good impression of supernaturals!¡± Li Hao continued. That group had killed his friends and possibly even his parents. They were also probably responsible for many of the cases that he¡¯d sorted through.

    Those whocked the psyche and mental fortitude necessary for their newfound strength easily diverted onto a deviant path. Martial masters, however, were different!

    They toiled for every step of progress. Of the Demon Hunters, the most experienced had cultivated for several decades and the least had at least eight years under their belt. Even Li Hao was three years into his practice.

    Meanwhile, Heaven Favored might be supernatural at just a few years old and wield the strength of a yer. An inted sense of self worth seemed inevitable for one who could easily kill dozens of soldiers at a young age

    ¡°Developmentmenced in the supernatural field only twenty years ago, which is also the maximum tenure for its earliest batch. Twenty years to develop the next generation of supernaturals means that many of themck a basicprehension of humanity!

    ¡°Martial masters conduct a holistic review to see if students are worthy of inheriting the master¡¯s legacy. But for the supernatural side, I think they only look at talent. They only care about inducting energy and nothing else.¡± Li Hao had gleaned a thing or two about the supernatural selection from Wang Ming¡ªit was pure assessment of genius and nothing else!

    One could be a criminal, but still find supernatural organizations willing to provide shelter. All could be overlooked so long as one besrger than life!

    Liu Long smiled, but didn¡¯t say anything. It was Liu Yan whose dimples deepened eerily; she grinned so brilliantly that even the young man found something amiss.

    ¡°Little Hao Hao is very correct!¡± Liu Yan¡¯s smile was almost a leer. ¡°Twenty years ago, even martial masters were taken to task if theymitted a crime. The death sentence was carried out whenever deemed proper. So what if the used was a mighty martial master? A wrongdoer was a wrongdoer!

    ¡°But now, certain supernatural organizations recruit such criminals and transgressors inrge numbers! They find that criminals possess the requisite focus and are less afraid of death. They¡¯re more reckless and willing to conduct mysterious power into their bodies. It has resulted in overwhelming numbers of convicted supernaturals in these organizations!

    ¡°Or, it might be that it doesn¡¯t matter if you¡¯ve killed someone. So long as you sessfully cross over and don¡¯t join the Night Watchers, there is an organization willing to harbor you and shield you from the rest of the world!¡± Liu Yan grew more agitated as she spoke and sneered through clenched teeth. ¡°They aid and abetwbreakers, yet happily enjoy the taste of freedom. Not even the Night Watchers can do anything about it!

    ¡°Although Night Watchers are on the side of good, they struggle with too many restrictions and cannot silence the world. They must take the route ofpromise and permit certain organizations to go unchecked in exchange for thetter¡¯s support. So long as these organizations are not too far over the line, they will not be held ountable for their actions. However, that serves to embolden certain people!¡±

    It was Li Hao¡¯s first time hearing of such analysis and inside knowledge. It was both surprising and perfectly reasonable.

    ¡°Mortal hot weapons lose their deterrence once a person¡¯s strength surpasses mundane limits. This kind of disorder we see is only natural if a governmental organization like the Night Watchers cannot subdue all sides!¡± Liu Yan sneered. ¡°Therefore, we must be supernatural if we wish to break the restrictions of the ordinary. Remember this, Li Hao¡ªyou will be fine if you break thew, so long as you are supernatural! The Night Watchers will ignore small transgressions and if youmit arge one, just join the other organizations for a good life!¡±

    ¡°Nuh uh, Sis Liu.¡± Li Hao shook his head with a smile. ¡°I¡¯m different from them. I¡¯ve received higher education and been part of the Inspectorate for a year. No matter how you slice it, I¡¯m on the side of good and justice. Those who have fallen to depravity are on the side of evil. How can you view me through the same lens?¡±

    ¡°The more highly educated you are, the easier it is to deviate onto the wrong path!¡± Liu Yan snorted.

    Well then, I have nothing to say. Not to mention, it wasn¡¯t set in stone that he could make the crossover in the future. Li Hao dropped the conversation and the six walked out of the treasury.

    ¡­¡­

    As Li Hao¡¯s strength increased, so did his confidence and assurance in things toe. He piped up with a question as the team walked.

    ¡°Chief, do we have any ns for the killer behind the self-immtion cases?¡±

    He would¡¯ve never asked before and Liu Long wouldn¡¯t have answered. But now, the team captain thought for a bit.

    ¡°The n is simple¡ªlure them out of hiding and make them suffer from their own scheme! Hot weapons will be the main offensive force. We¡¯lly mines and spray a few rounds with machine guns. The enemy will outright die if they¡¯re weak or be injured if they¡¯re strong. That will create the perfect opening!¡±

    ¡°They can¡¯t possibly be unaware of this possibility.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°I even suspect that they have moles in thew enforcement team. They¡¯ll understand the might of hot weapons and you¡¯re already exposed, chief, because they followed me before! They likely know about the Demon Hunters and probably even how many supernaturals you¡¯ve killed¡­¡±

    Was Liu Long overconfident? Although Li Hao¡¯s trump card was his teacher, he didn¡¯t want massive casualties to result from the team¡¯s carelessness. There were only so many of them left.

    ¡°I know.¡± A smiling Liu Long nodded. ¡°There are some additional preparations in the works too, but it¡¯s not good for you to know too much. Just know that there are other details in addition to this!

    ¡°Your mission is simple¡ªfind a way to lure them to our predesignated spot when the rainse. All you need to do afterward is wait for them to set foot into the trap!¡±

    Li Hao started to speak, then stopped.

    ¡°Do you think it¡¯s dangerous?¡± chuckled the deputy chief.

    ¡°A little.¡±

    ¡°Unfortunately, this is it,¡± Liu Long continued chuckling. ¡°Do you have any better ideas? I¡¯d love to suppress the enemy by force and kill them that way, but weck sufficient strength. We can¡¯t even pin down their movements for an ambush, so we might as well opt for a more straightforward way. If they want to kill you, they must step into a snare.¡±

    He waved to the others. ¡°You guys go first, I have some words for Li Hao.¡±

    The rest of the team left without question.

    ¡°Liu Yan¡­¡± sighed the captain when the rest were far away. ¡°You saw for yourself just now. She was once married¡ªa supernatural killed her husband. There was no recourse for her as the murderer joined a supernatural organization. The Night Watchers could only pretend ignorance and drop the issue, which is why she was agitated.¡±

    I see! No¡­ wonder¡­

    ¡°I tell you this only to say that it¡¯s against her will that she¡¯s out of control and sometimes impossible to understand. She¡¯s the most fearless of us in the field and even I pale inparison when she goes berserk. She didn¡¯t join the Demon Hunters with much thought other than to be supernatural and hunt down her husband¡¯s murderer. Sadly, she is yet to seed¡­¡±

    Liu Long decided to give a brief overview of Liu Yan¡¯s background because the madwoman had fixated on Li Hao. He didn¡¯t wish the young man to form a bad impression.

    ¡°She hounds you not because she really wants to start anything with you,¡± Liu Longughed. ¡°She¡¯s very enthusiastic to all neers because she hopes that they can make the crossover. To put things crudely, she might really be willing to do anything you want if you can ascend. Her only goal is revenge!

    ¡°I give the same talk to every neer so they won¡¯t refuse to own their debt if they take advantage of her. She bears a blood feud on her shoulders and is a rose with thorns. She is not one for the fainthearted!¡±

 Chapter 58: An Eager Little Inspector (I)

    Chapter 58: An Eager Little Inspector (I)

    ¡°The Night Watchers can¡¯t do anything about it either?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°She¡¯s amissioner inspector of the agency! How much power can the Night Watchers have if they won¡¯t take revenge for the death of a higher ranked¡¯s family? If they can¡¯t do that, what does it matter that they¡¯re an official government organization?!¡±

    He hadn¡¯t thought that the Night Watchers would stay their hand out of reservation for these supernatural organizations. How could they subdue thend if they wouldn¡¯t take revenge for amissioner inspector whose family had been killed?

    With Li Hao¡¯s personality, he¡¯d find a way to secretly make an example of the culprits, if not open vengeance. His authority would be nonexistent otherwise!

    There was abruptly only sympathy left for Liu Yan. The captain¡¯s meaning was very clear¡ªthis rose with thorns would do anything for anyone who could inflict revenge for her.

    It was quite pitiable. She was a senior executive officer and he only a third rank inspector. They were many ranks apart, yet her dire issue remained unresolved.

    Liu Long sighed again¡ªhe was sighing many times today. He shook his head with resignation.

    ¡°The supernatural domain is much moreplicated than you think! Let¡¯s put it this way, the Night Watchers aren¡¯t weak, but neither are they the strongest in terms of overall strength! Certain organizations either rival or surpass them. They also need to consider the fact that they¡¯re a government agency and require prudence in all action. They cannot casually engage in life or death struggles because they also need to oversee the various cities!¡±

    Simply speaking, too many limitations hampered the Night Watchers. Offending a massive supernatural organization or eliciting bacsh from others on behalf of amissioner inspector was more of a loss than a gain to the senior council. It was understandable from their perspective, but iprehensible from Li Hao and the victim¡¯s perspective.

    ¡°So there¡¯s nothing that can be done about Sis Liu¡¯s cause?¡±

    ¡°Nothing, unless we be supernatural powerhouses. We can seek vengeance in our own names then and not the Night Watchers¡¯¡­¡± Liu Long answered calmly. ¡°As the team captain, I have some ns in mind. The prerequisite is that I cross over first.¡±

    Otherwise, it was all bullshit and pure imagination. The one who¡¯d killed Liu Yan¡¯s husband was now peak Darkmoon and poised to break through to Sunre. That was a high level personage in any organization. A regr Sunderer could do nothing against a character like that.

    Li Hao nodded quietly, voicing none of his myriad of thoughts. The other team members came to mind.

    ¡°Chief, what about the others?¡±

    ¡°Them?¡± Liu Longughed. ¡°Everyone has their own story, why poke at their scabs? I gave you a reminder about Liu Yan only because I see her cing high hopes in you. You absorbed mysterious power so quickly that she really is thinking a thing or two. I don¡¯t want you to be tempted by women, get in over your head, then end up in disgrace.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re overly concerned, chief!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m not that type of person!¡±

    Liu Long said nothing. Little fe, you may say that you¡¯re not that type of person, but it¡¯ll put me in a difficult position if Liu Yan really does take you to bed. Helping her or not will be a hard call then.

    ¡°Wang Ming¡­¡±

    The team captain shook his head when Li Hao mentioned the neer.

    ¡°Ignore him!¡± he muttered. ¡°I¡¯ve already looked into his identity¡ªyep, he¡¯s from the Night Watchers. Pretend to know nothing and I¡¯ll take care of everything!¡±

    Li Hao nodded,fortable with the deputy chief¡¯s arrangements. The man appeared brash and crude, but was actually very thoughtful. He wouldn¡¯t conduct this private conversation about Liu Yan otherwise.

    The young man had no further matters to bring up and parted ways with Liu Long after momentary discourse. Instead of rushing to leave, he headed for the showers and a change of clothing.

    The basement was vast and the facilitiesprehensive. There were showering stalls and a bunch of new inspector uniforms in a nearby closet. inly, Liu Long and the others werezy. Any uniform that was dirtied or torn ended up in the trash¡ªLi Hao saw several sets of clothing in the trash can.

    As expected, the chief of thew enforcement team could flex some muscles. He had his pick of whatever wardrobe he wished.

    ¡­¡­

    Much refreshed after a shower and a brand new outfit, Li Hao found that the benefits of a strengthened spleen were starting to be apparent. Faster circting blood ensured that even casual punches snapped through the air; the resonance of bones and meridians was particrly noticeable.

    The young man barely left the basement that day. He focused on digesting mysterious power and sparring with Wu Chao and Chen Jian. They were easier opponentspared to Liu Yan and Yun Yao, whereas Liu Long was so busy that he was nowhere to be found. Of the two men, one was skilled in defense and the other in escape¡ªperfect opponents for Li Hao.

    He reaped great benefits over the course of a day, while Wu Chao and Chen Jian felt that the young man was absolutely perverse! They could see a tangible rate of improvement!

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t beenpletely familiar with the New Book of Five Styles before, but now he demonstrated confidence and uracy in every gesture and movement. Apart fromcking experience with practicalbat and needing to hone his killing intent, Li Hao really did seem like a true yer of Tens now.

    In the past, a yer needed to actually kill someone; the battlefield was where most yers could be found. With the advent of supernaturals in Li Hao¡¯s era, such tests became rare for martial masters.

    ¡­¡­

    The night winds arrived when Li Hao returned home on the 15th. It was a cool night amid the scorching hot summer. For the young man, this change in weather meant that the rainy season was almost here. It wouldn¡¯t be long now.

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time, outside Silver City.

    Bloody shadows manifested in the night¡ªnot one, but many. A person in a mask stood behind each shadow.

    ¡°The rains are almost here!¡± said one of the Ghostfaces in a haunting tone, both expectant and regretful. ¡°It¡¯s time to harvest the sword of the Lis!¡±

    Some chuckles answered him while another said, ¡°The Demon Hunters of Silver City are involved this time, possibly Yuan Shuo as well!¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡±

    ¡°The Demon Hunters? Liu Long and his idiots, right? I know him! He¡¯s a Sunderer of Hundreds who offended the Night Watchers! They saw that he possessed decent potential and held hopes for him to ascend as a Sunre genius. Not only did he fail, but he ran his mouth and said that martial masters are not necessarily less than supernaturals. He can protect thend just as well from Silver City. Hah, what a joke!¡±

    ¡°Howughable. I hear they¡¯ve secretly killed a few supernaturals over the years, some of them Darkmoon. But those are just wandering supernaturals. The merry band of fools would¡¯ve died a long time ago otherwise!¡±

    ¡°Everyone, it¡¯s best to stay alert even though Silver City is a small ce. While it¡¯s so insignificant that not even Night Watchers visit, that doesn¡¯t mean there are no threats here. We need to give it a little respect as it still boasts of a few Sunderers!¡±

    Sunderer of Hundreds!

    ¡°We¡¯d be better off staying alert against hot weapons,¡±ughed a Ghostface. ¡°A Sunderer will die as soon as they show their face! This is thest of the eight bloodlines, which means it is ourst mission in Silver City! Everyone, we might not evere here again afterpleting this operation!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, although the city is ready and there are Night Watchers present, what can they do? We know about them, they don¡¯t know about us! Let¡¯s make this quick and eliminate the Li remnant with the fastest possible speed. The n to collect the eight bloodlines will beplete after we obtain the sword of the Lis!¡±

    ¡°What about the de of the Zhangs?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, that¡¯s much less important after we have the sword. We might be able to rece it with something else. It hasn¡¯t surfaced in all this time, so it might really be lost!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    Scarlet shadows vanished into the darkness as shouts of assent echoed through the air. Ghostfaces followed suit. Just as Li Hao thought, there was more than one shadow and more than one perpetrator!

    ¡­¡­

    July 16. A hot and muggy day. It was so muggy that one could barely breathe. Those in the know recognized it as a sign of impending storms.

    Morning.

    Li Hao kept one hand on the handlebars and one on his breakfast bun, leisurely riding his bicycle to the Inspectorate. All had been quietst night. There was no scarlet shadow, no one from the Demon Hunters came for him, his teacher didn¡¯t call him, Wang Ming didn¡¯t harass him¡­ Even Panther was very calm and docile.

    It was a rare night of peace.

    Cars whooshed by the bike.

    S 7219.

    A familiar license te.

    Li Hao carelessly swept a gaze to the side as he bit into his bun, brimming with youthful vigor and a smile that one would expect from a young man. This had been the car that followed him a few days ago when he made a report of the self-immtion cases. Here it was again.

    Are they feeling some urgency?

    Were they worried that he¡¯d run off if they were keeping him under surveince during the day? Wouldn¡¯t it be fun if he suddenly did flee for safety?

    Of course, that might be more dangerous and ruin some of Liu Long¡¯s preparations. It wouldn¡¯t win more time for his teacher either.

    Yes, time.

    Li Hao wished to stall for time. Although his teacher was a Dominator now, he needed time to absorb the de¡¯s energy. That weapon¡¯s power was too ferocious; even Yuan Shuo might not be able to induct too much in one go.

    It required time for the professor to grow into his strength.

    ¡°Tender affection springs to see flowers bloom and wilt¡­¡± Singing during his morningmute, Li Hao seemed to be in a great mood today.

    ¡­¡­

    Inside the car.

    It was the same man and woman from before. The open window admitted strains of the young man¡¯s singing when they passed him. It grated on the ears!

    The car drove for a while before the woman in the passenger seat chuckled, ¡°People are so pitiful sometimes!¡±

    She meant Li Hao. He had no idea he was about to die, and in a very gruesome manner to boot. Look at him, singing on his way to work. How sad!

    The middle-aged man in the car also smiled. ¡°This is normal. That is the sorrow of being mortal!¡±

    The car slowly rolled to a halt¡ªsomething seemed to be broken. Both upants alighted after parking the car by the side of the road, waiting for Li Hao.

    They had clear-cut orders from above to ignore everything during these two days and follow the young man. He was not to leave their line of sight. They could wait outside the Inspectorate when he arrived at work¡ªthere were other arrangements in y inside the building.

    Momentster, a bike passed by.

    Li Hao abruptly cut off his song and braked, looking at the car off to the side. He shed a very honest and simple smile.

 Chapter 59: An Eager Little Inspector (II)

    Chapter 59: An Eager Little Inspector (II)

    ¡°Folks, do you need some help?¡± Li Hao asked eagerly. ¡°Look for an inspector if you need help! I¡¯m third rank inspector Li Hao of the Inspectorate. It looks like you¡¯re having car troubles, can I help you?¡±

    The two looked at each other with surprise. How¡­ enthusiastic! Should theyugh or cry? What a foolish boy. Do you know who we are?

    The man smiled at Li Hao and answered softly, ¡°Thank you, but no. We can fix it ourselves!¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± Li Hao parked his bike on the side and walked over, ncing at the car. ¡°What seems to be broken? I¡¯ve fixed cars before and we of the Inspectorate love helping people. Well, it¡¯d be wonderful if you could thank me with a silk banner if I do fix your car, of course. But hahaha, that¡¯s just a joke, it¡¯s fine if you don¡¯t!¡±

    A bashful smile crept over the young man¡¯s face as he was too shy to directly ask for something he wanted. I just want a silk banner!

    The woman burst into giggles. This little fellow wet behind the ears was quite childish! A silk banner?

    ¡°Inspector, do you know how to fix cars?¡± she continued giggling.

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t help the pride that tugged at his smile. ¡°I do! Mister and missus, I¡¯m sure you won¡¯t begrudge a silk banner if you can afford a car! Also, I¡¯m a rookie. You understand that rookies need opportunities, right? I could do with a bit of honor and glory because I might be promoted to second rank soon! What say you?¡±

    The two were truly stunned and speechless. Their target was volunteering to fix their car and raised the request of a silk banner because he was up for promotion!

    They were aware of this advancement because Li Hao was about to be transferred to thew enforcement team. In that case, he really did stand a high chance of being promoted. But did he truly have no idea that he was about to lose his life? What did a promotion matter at this time?

    You won¡¯t be able to enjoy any part of your new rank!

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll have to trouble Inspector Li.¡± The man smiled warmly. ¡°A silk banner is naturally in order if we can get back on the road.¡±

    What a strange feeling! Being helped and befriended by their mark might¡­ make the mission easier toplete. Interesting!

    Based on what they knew, Li Hao had no friends or family. Those upstairs didn¡¯t know much about him as he was quite entric and unsociable. Would the man be able to make more detailed reports if he interacted more with the young man?

    It might also seem a little strange if he kept turning down the eager inspector.

    Having established their deal, Li Hao rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He stuck his head under the hood and ran his hands around the motor. Then, he circled around the car and asked in mystified tones, ¡°Will it not start? Has it overheated¡­?¡±

    ¡°Let me try again then,¡± the man chuckled. ¡°The engine turned off by itself earlier and it wouldn¡¯t turn back on again.¡±

    ¡°Alright, there doesn¡¯t seem to be a major problem as it¡¯s new¡­¡±

    The man climbed back into the car as they spoke, sessfully igniting the engine this time. After all, there wasn¡¯t a problem to begin with. They¡¯d parked here simply to make it easier to follow Li Hao.

    ¡°Thank you, inspector!¡± the woman eximed happily.

    ¡°No no, I don¡¯t think I did anything¡­ What a pity, there goes the silk banner. But it¡¯s a good thing that the two of you are fine. Resolving the public¡¯s troubles is also the duty of an inspector!¡± Li Hao shed a broad, honest smile.

    The couple seemed to catch his mood and the man alighted with a serious look. ¡°Now now, we can¡¯t look at things that way. My wife and I have just moved to Silver City. It was destiny for us to meet the generous, helpful Inspector Li. We¡¯llmission a silk banner straight away and deliver it to the Inspectorate!¡±

    ¡°Oh, no no!¡± Li Hao hastily waved them off. ¡°That¡¯s really alright!¡± The young man lowered his voice to an awkward whisper, ¡°Um¡­ I can pay for the banner! I don¡¯t have any friends or I would¡¯ve had someone¡­ Well, heh, you know. Inspectors are people too and any silk banner is a mark of glory. If you don¡¯t mind, I¡¯ll pay for it!¡±

    The two were amused into trueughter. How adorable, how pure! Was he both embarrassed by the silk banner request, but couldn¡¯t resist its allure?

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about the money, Inspector Li.¡± The man smiled. ¡°It''s only a few coins! Now that would be not showing me face.¡±

    ¡°Then¡­ I thank you?¡± Li Hao grinned brilliantly and checked the time. ¡°Oh no, I¡¯m going to bete! Please look for me at ssified Affairs when youe. If I¡¯m not there, you can find me at Law Enforcement. I¡¯m going to be transferred there soon, so I¡¯ll be going on more field missions in the future. It¡¯d be nice to have some friends outside, thus I thank you!¡±

    He grabbed his bike and waved happily at the couple before speeding off.

    ¡°I have to say, a person like this is very fun and charming,¡± the woman sighed once the young man was gone. ¡°He has the pure heart of a child¡­ What a pity that you and I can never go back to how things were!¡±

    The man inclined his head, likewise infected by Li Hao¡¯s smile. The young were different, alright. They happily volunteered their service to others¡ªnot everyone in the Inspectorate was like him.

    ¡°Are we really going to deliver a silk banner?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± The man smiled craftily. ¡°Why not? Our identities check out and it¡¯d be nice to set foot inside for a better understanding of theplex. It¡¯s rare to have a legitimate reason to enter the Inspectorate!

    ¡°With this opening, no one will think twice if we are frequently seen nearby. We¡¯ll say we¡¯re here for Li Hao and want to take him out to eat as a show of appreciation or something. Who will pay attention to us then?¡±

    The woman nodded, it was a perfect excuse! They¡¯d been delivered a pillow as they were nodding off. Previously, they¡¯d been concerned that someone would discover or suspect them tailing Li Hao. The situation was abruptly much safer!

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time.

    The Inspectorate.

    A beaming Li Hao arrived with high spirits.

    ¡°Lla, dadada, it¡¯s a great day~¡± All he needed to do was wait for the bait to be taken. The young man headed straight for thew enforcement team instead of ssified Affairs.

    Liu Yan¡¯s office.

    Liu Yan was surprised by the dwindling strains of song that apanied the footsteps approaching her door. How was the kid so happy today?

    Knock knock knock!

    The door opened to show Li Hao¡¯s beaming face. ¡°You¡¯re here so early, Sis Liu!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Liu Yan¡¯s long legs were propped up on the table as she leaned back in her chair. It was her usual cocky posture. ¡°You¡¯re in a good mood today.¡±

    ¡°Yeah!¡± the young man answered merrily. ¡°Sis, haven¡¯t I been thinking that I¡¯m such a rookie? That I haven¡¯t killed so much as a chicken in my life and go weak at the knees when I see blood. I¡¯m worried that I¡¯ll faint when I see major action, so I¡¯ve decided that I¡¯m going to train my courage!¡±

    The hell?

    Where are you going to find the time and ce to train your courage? There¡¯s not enough time!

    Li Hao seemed to know what she was thinking and chuckled, ¡°There¡¯s no need to bother chief or Sis Liu for this, I got myself two targets for practice! It¡¯s two martial masters, or possibly one martial master and one mundane!

    ¡°I just wanted to give you a heads up and ask sis for a venue. Oh, and stand guard for me please. I¡¯m a bit nervous at the idea of a solo mission. I¡¯m a good student and was never involved in fights. I¡¯m concerned that I¡¯ll be scared out of my wits at the sight of blood!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Liu Yan¡¯s jaw dropped. The young man was acting a bit strange today. ¡°You¡­ got yourself two targets? Are you picking up bad habits, Li Hao?¡±

    Was the little guy thinking of what she said yesterday, that it was fine to break thew as long as he was supernatural?

    Liu Yan¡¯s expression chilled. Had he not understood that she¡¯d said that with sarcasm? Using people for target practice and spilling blood¡­ was this what a good person would say?

    She didn¡¯t consider herself a good person, but she knew that she would not do unto others what she would not wish upon herself. She was familiar with the agony of having no ce to turn to for her pain and humiliation!

    And Li Hao seemed to be turning into that kind of person!

    Her kind predisposition toward him immediately fell into the negatives and turned into distaste instead!

    ¡°Sis, there¡¯s two baddies following me who are probably minions of the one behind the self-immtion cases.¡± Li Hao¡¯s face was alight with pure joy. ¡°They¡¯re keeping an eye on me, I¡¯m sure of it! We can bring them in for questioning! Apart from our team, there¡¯s got to be only wrong people following me right now.

    ¡°Haven¡¯t I just ascended to yer of Tens? It¡¯s so boring and less effective to fight wooden dummies everyday. I¡¯m thinking of bringing them to me so I can practice with them!¡±

    ¡°You want to kidnap someone?¡± Liu Yan arched her brow. ¡°Capturing their people¡­ would alert them ahead of time, no?¡±

    ¡°No, not kidnap them! They¡¯ll show up themselves! And do you think we¡¯d be giving anything away at this stage, sis? They probably knew we¡¯re working together a long time ago. It¡¯s an open secret that people avoid talking about!

    ¡°Therefore, they won¡¯t care if we really take some of their people and even kill them!¡±

    Li Hao saw things clearly¡ªif the scarlet shadow long knew about Liu Long and the others, what was the point of concealing anything?

    There was nothing to conceal!

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s matters were a secret whereas Liu Long¡¯s particrs were an open book. Was there a problem with capturing two henchmen at this point? The enemy wouldn¡¯t care at all!

    I¡¯m gonna live it up a little and get some practice in!

    Surprised by the young man¡¯s idea, Liu Yan ignored the second part of Li Hao¡¯s response. ¡°They¡¯ll show up themselves?¡±

    Do you take them for idiots? So they¡¯re following you, bute of their own ord? You really think they¡¯re fools!

    ¡°Yes, really! They¡¯re so excited that they agreed to bring a silk banner and themselves as target practice¡­¡±

    The heck?? The little guy is getting more and more out of hand! Do you think I¡¯m an idiot or that the others are idiots? Bringing a silk banner and themselves? What don¡¯t you say they¡¯ll deliver their heads on a silver tter?

    ¡°Get out!¡± Liu Yan snapped. The little guy was normal enough two days ago, why was he being so reckless today? Was the pressure getting to him?

    ¡°I mean it¡­¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll throw you a grenade if you don¡¯t piss off!¡±

 Chapter 60: An Eager Little Inspector (III)

    Chapter 60: An Eager Little Inspector (III)

    Li Hao was resigned. It¡¯s true! Why don¡¯t you believe me?

    The office phone rang; it was the front lobby.

    ¡°Vice Captain Liu, there are two visitors here to deliver a silk banner to Li Hao. ssified Affairs say that he¡¯s at Law Enforcement and the team says he¡¯s with you. Can you send Li Hao out here for a second?¡±

    Liu Yan: ¡­¡­

    She stared dumbly at the young man. What the heck was going on?

    Liu Yan hung up and frowned at Li Hao. ¡°Are you sure that the ones with the banner are the ones following you?¡±

    ¡°One hundred percent!¡± Li Hao brimmed with smiles. ¡°They¡¯re so fast! I only just got here. This efficiency with a silk banner¡­ tsk tsk, how amazing! Sis, I¡¯ll head downstairs. Where do you think is a good ce to interrogate them? I¡¯ll bring them there.¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Liu Yan really was at a loss. Kid¡­ you¡­ you had them walk up to a ce you selected andy their heads down for you to chop off?

    Was something wrong with the brains of those tailing Li Hao? How would they present themselves for target practice otherwise?

    ¡°I¡¯ll go with you¡­¡± A mystified Liu Yan rose to her feet.

    ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Sis, just think of a ce for me!¡±

    ¡°Then¡­ take them to the basement!¡± answered a baffled Liu Yan. ¡°Do you really not need me to go with you?¡±

    ¡°Nah, that¡¯s too much trouble. They can walk themselves in!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Sis, you have to hold down the fort for me. This is my first time doing something like this so I¡¯m a little scared. You know I was a good student before, and that I had a desk job at ssified Affairs after bing an inspector. I really think that I¡¯ll vomit or lose control of my legs when I see blood!¡±

    Though he exaggerated, it was the truth. His notion of seeing blood was the blood from harming or killing someone, not the typical type of blood from otherwise caused injury. Under such circumstances, it was normal to go weak at the knees, feel guilty, afraid, or horrified unless one was a psychopath with homicidal tendencies.

    Li Hao did indeed wish to get some practice in before encountering the scarlet shadow. He was afraid!

    He was afraid that he¡¯d cower at the sight of real battle, that he¡¯d sag bonelessly to the ground and shake with dread. It was only to be expected!

    The young man hardly thought that he had nerves of steel, that he could remain unmoved at the sight of corpses. He¡¯d been so terrified when Little Yuan died that he couldn¡¯t move. His legs had trembled like a leaf and strength receded from his being. He hadn¡¯t even been able to shriek with dismay.

    Thus, a sudden thought popped into his mind when he passed by the two in the car. Maybe it¡¯s time to train my courage.

    Liu Yan was reassessing her impression of Li Hao. Here stood a shy little boy until now. Although possessing some natural talent, he was a rookie who didn¡¯t know or understand anything. She even felt that he¡¯d be a burden in the real battlefield and it was hard to say whether or not he¡¯d survive.

    It seemed that certain conclusions needed to be updated in this moment. Finding some targets to practice with and wanting to improve his courage¡­ was this the Li Hao she knew?

    The vice captain had conducted a thorough investigation of their newest member when he joined, finding him to be an honest person, the resident good guy. He reported to work early, leftte, cleaned the offices, fetched water and tea. But now what was he talking about?

    What a surprise and shock! Had a supernatural invaded his mind?

    ¡°Li Hao¡­¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m going to head downstairs, sis. Wait for me in the basement?¡±

    Liu Yan gave up what she wanted to say. ¡°Be careful!¡± She nodded.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, this is the Inspectorate!¡± Li Hao grinned. What would two minor characters dare attempt in the Inspectorate? If they possessed any degree of pluck or daring, they wouldn¡¯t be henchmen assigned to follow him!

    ¡­¡­

    Downstairs.

    The man and woman really hade with a silk banner. Being that it was their first time in the Law Enforcement building, it was very natural that they looked around with avid curiosity. Ordinary people couldn¡¯t enter a ce like this. They were blessed with a legitimate reason thanks to Li Hao.

    The front counter didn¡¯t bother with them as they were here to deliver a silk banner. Thew enforcement team was unfamiliar with Li Hao, simply knowing him to be an iing transfer. ssified Affairs, however, was wondering what Li Hao had done to result in a banner of thanks.

    ¡°Big sis and big bro!¡± Li Hao bounded downstairs with excitement. ¡°You really are here! I thought you were joking as it was a small task!¡±

    ¡°Inspector Li!¡± The man rose with a smile. ¡°How could I joke about that? Inspector Li is a kindhearted soul who extends a helping hand to those in need. My wife and I were nearly in a traffic ident this morning. It¡¯s all thanks to the inspector that we are here safe and sound¡­¡±

    He casually upgraded Li Hao¡¯s feat! Didn¡¯t the young like a heady mix of ttery and aplishment?

    ¡°Hahaha, you¡¯re too polite, big bro!¡± chuckled a merry Li Hao. ¡°Let¡¯s not stand in the lobby! It¡¯s a bit embarrassing since I haven¡¯t officially transferred here yet. Why don¡¯t youe with me and we¡¯ll grab a cup of tea. As for the banner¡­ I thank you two greatly for the silk banner! Since you¡¯re here, let¡¯s sit and chat for a bit before you go!¡±

    The man and woman smiled at each other. How courteous! How enthusiastic! They might as well broaden their worldview since they¡¯vee.

    The two nodded and followed Li Hao out of the lobby. He kept up a litany of exnations as they walked to the end of the first floor hallway.

    ¡°I¡¯m a rookie and there¡¯s a lot of veterans here. They might be a little¡­ if everyone sees us. You know what I mean! We¡¯ll have some tea in the basement, there¡¯s not that many people there. I can¡¯t thank both of you enough!¡± Li Hao babbled happily as they climbed the stairs. ¡°I forgot to ask your honored names?¡±

    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m simply Zhou He and my wife¡¯s surname is Yuan.¡±

    ¡°Big brother Zhou and big sister Yuan!¡± Li Hao repeated warmly, quickly shortening the distance between the two parties.

    They soon reached the basement and approached the Demon Hunters headquarters. Not only did the lower level not appear gloomy, but it was very well lit and weing.

    ¡°We¡¯re just up ahead, not that many peoplee here. I can tell that Brother Zhou and Sister Yuan are big bosses who do a lot of business. Please let me know if there¡¯s anything you need in the future. I love taking care of people¡¯s troubles!¡±

    Zhou He nodded with a faint smile. What a simple and honest child!

    The woman frequently chimed in with the conversation. It was quite rare to meet such an ardent inspector. What a pity!

    Li Hao pushed open the door and brought the two to where the Demon Hunters normally took a break. Fervently weing them in, he closed the door.

    It was a very umon door! Outfitted with premier soundproofing and protection, a bomb would be hard pressed to st through it, to say nothing of people. It was secured by a fingerprint lock. No egress was possible without the appropriate authorization.

    Slight unease prickled at Zhou He when Li Hao shut the door.

    ¡°Let me close it so other people don¡¯t think I¡¯m cking off!¡± The young man smiled.

    Zhou He said nothing; his eyes widened slightly when he took in the decor around the room. This wasn¡¯t a reception room or a visitor¡¯s lounge. It was more¡­ more like arge assembly hall! There was fitness equipment, guns, ammunition, and everything that one might think of. It was like an armory!

    Where is this ce? Zhou He shifted uneasily. Could an outsidere here? The woman next to him also changed expression when she caught sight of a miniature cannon among the weaponry.

    Fuck! Are ordinary people allowed to be here?

    The two were abruptly seized by apprehension and fear. We¡¯re just here to get closer to Li Hao, how are we suddenly in a ce like this?

    Li Hao fully closed the door with a great deal of joy. These two were such good sports toe to the basement without any resistance. Lovely! So this was how it felt to turn someone¡¯s scheme back on them. What a splendid feeling!

    Li Hao patted Zhou He¡¯s shoulder from behind while the man reeled from his circumstances. ¡°Big brother Zhou, it¡¯s quiet here because there¡¯s no one around¡­¡±

    He raised his knee and shoved it forward!

    Bam!

    A crisp impact sounded as Zhou He twisted his body to protect his vitals. Li Hao, however, smashed into the small of his back and sent incredible pain through his body!

    Damn it! This was a trap! And I put myself in it!

    Eyes wide open, the woman fished out a dagger from the depths of her pants and tried to stab the young man!

    ¡­¡­

    Several people watched silently in the depths of the basement¡ªLiu Long was among them. His gaze was aplicated mix of peculiarity. What a strategy of blocking the enemy¡¯s retreat and destroying them! It was¡­ this was¡­ rather unbelievable.

    Was Li Hao really the cowardly sort? He was more audacious to the point of stepping on a tiger¡¯s tail! Was this anything that a regr person would dare do?

    ¡°If the kid survives uing events¡­ he¡¯s gonna grow up to be a vicious character!¡± sighed the thin and reedy Wu Chao.

    The portly Chen Jian chuckled with some restraint. The kid¡­ was such a viin!

    Yun Yao and Liu Yan didn¡¯t say anything; they watched in silence.

    ¡°He¡¯s met a good match,¡± Liu Long whispered after a while. ¡°A yer of Tens and one who¡¯s versed in martial arts despite not being a yer. It looks like the other side is quite strong to send two yers just to shadow someone!¡±

    While yer didn¡¯t sound all that strong, Liu Long knew that there might not be one hundred yers and Starlights together out of the million-strong poption of Silver City. That made for less than one per ten thousand!

    Yet, there was one in front of them and simply assigned to keep an eye on their target. Would Li Hao be able to handle both at the same time in his firstbat exercise? Despite his sessful plotting, it was clear to see that they were both old hands.

    All five Demon Hunters keenly watched the fight.

    ¡­¡­

    Within the premises.

    Having the advantage of surprise, Li Hao continued his attacks without hesitation!

    Tiger Pounce!

    Hands mercilessly curved into ws, the young man treated the fight as hising-of-age present. This was no practice session, it was the congrattory gift for him advancing to yer of Tens!

    Since the scarlet shadow wants to kill me, I¡¯m not going to just sit around and wait to be killed! Imma kill you two first and give you guys a taste of defeat through your small fry!

    Pfft!

    His hands sunk into Zhou He¡¯s arms and wed a massive chunk of flesh out. Li Hao grimaced when blood sprayed from the wound. His own blood agitated out of his spleen, but he wasn¡¯t afraid!

    Am I supposed to be afraid of you guys? You¡¯re only human, I¡¯d do the same thing to the scarlet shadow!

    ¡°ROAR!!¡±

    Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods.

    The basement turned into a battlefield¡ªLi Hao¡¯s first ever battlefield.

 Chapter 61: A Victorious First Battle (I)

    Chapter 61: A Victorious First Battle (I)

    It was a roar that inspired dread and panic!

    Zhou He¡¯s ears rang so loudly it felt like they¡¯d been pierced through. He was immediately caught on the back foot since he was unprepared. Li Hao leapt into the air with a massive leap!

    Going airborne was a grave taboo in battle, something Chen Jian had told the young man on his first day. However, it was a move Li Hao loved to deploy given his proficiency in the ape style.

    Due to his experience from the first day, he propelled his feet through the air to rise to the ceiling, then kicked his feet so he descended in a rotating fashion!

    BAM!

    He sent Zhou He flying through the area. There was no time to follow up before a piercing sound split the air. A dagger stabbed at his temples!

    Li Hao grabbed the woman¡¯s wrist with a quick backhand and erupted with cutting strength from his fingertips. It sank into his opponent¡¯s wrist and elicited an anguished cry. The young man¡¯s right hand grabbed the fallen dagger and stabbed it into the woman¡¯s wrist for good measure!

    CLANG!

    Oddly enough, the metal connected with a loud collision. The human skeleton was extremely durable, yet neither was the dagger an ordinary weapon. One pierce ran the hand through!

    ¡°AHHH!¡± shrieked the woman.

    Deaf to her torment, Li Hao grabbed the woman¡¯s neck with his left hand and mmed her against the wall.

    Bam!

    Another loud collision rang out as numerous bones broke. Li Hao pulled out the dagger, then punctured her hand to nail her right hand on the wall!

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Zhou He wailed when hended on the ground, vomiting blood. Their target had fixed hispanion to the wall! This show of savagery was atplete odds with the information he¡¯d gathered!

    Kind, simple, honest, loyal, shy¡­ Such were the characteristics and descriptions he¡¯d gathered from others. They weren¡¯t unfounded spections as they stemmed from casual mentions by his ssmates, gossip from his neighbors, and evaluations from his colleagues.

    No one ever mentioned that he was such a brutal and cruel person!

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Tsk tsk tsk!¡± Liu Yan clucked her tongue. As they said, a dog that bites does not bark! Even she, a veteran, found Li Hao ruthless. Although the Yuan surnamed woman was slightly older, she was still a woman. Despite that, Li Hao first broke her wrist, then nailed her hand to the wall for good measure so she wouldn¡¯t escape!

    Was this a rookie¡¯s first encounter with practicalbat? He was more vicious than a great many veterans!

    The Demon Hunters all brought their full strength to bear against supernaturals, but they wouldn¡¯t necessarily show the same degree of ferocity against a woman yet to reach yer of Tens. At the very least, Chen Jian and Wu Chao might find it difficult.

    Liu Long and the others continued to quietly observe the fight. This is Li Hao¡¯s first battle¡­ right? Honestly, is this really his first time pitting himself against others? Is this really his first time seeing blood?

    Damn, just look at his moves. Pure martial masters rarely used weapons¡ªif they did, they used their own. Li Hao, on the other hand, grabbed the enemy¡¯s dagger and used it against its owner without hesitation!

    The weapon was far sharper than a hand or foot. That stab into the handpletely crippled the woman¡¯s palm. With her wrist broken, her entire arm was useless if death didn¡¯t already loom.

    Seeing that Li Hao was such an unreasonable yer, hepletely dominated the woman in terms of strength given that she wasn¡¯t even a yer.

    ¡­¡­

    Immersed in the thick of battle, Li Hao didn¡¯t have the effort to spare to consider what the team might be thinking. The only thought on his mind was something his teacher had once taught him.

    ¡°Ignore everything once you start fighting. Whether right or wrong, remember that you have to be the only one left standing!¡±

    Yuan Shuo said that when passing on the New Book of Five Styles. Those who walked the path of martial dao either made no move at all, or moved to end their enemy. There was no need for extraneous talk¡ªjust defeat all enemies first whether one was right or wrong. Beat them into the ground until they had no capacity to fight back! If they were still alive, then all sides could sit down for a chat of who was in the right.

    Giving opportunities to the enemy was just a deration that one had lived too long. Therefore, Li Hao didn¡¯t think there was anything wrong with his actions.

    After nailing the woman to the wall with her dagger, he scrambled up with his hands and feet like an ape and flung himself at Zhou He.

    Zhou He was another yer and, strictly speaking, stronger than Li Hao. However, he was much weaker at the moment since one of his arms was a bloody mess and his spleen potentially damaged from the earlier ambush. Zhou He panicked at seeing his attacker advance swiftly.

    ¡°Don¡¯t, I have intel¡­¡± he shouted.

    Bam!

    Li Hao struck without hesitation, stretching out a hand curved into a w for the ck Tiger Heart Gouge!

    Gibbering with abject fear, Zhou He frantically crossed his arms in front of his chest. He¡¯d just reached forward with both arms when Li Hao¡¯s hand connected, swiping downward with syed fingers like a vicious tiger pouncing on prey!

    Pfft!

    Flesh burst apart and sweat poured from Zhou He¡¯s forehead. Pain! He was somewhat curtailed in his counterattacks, whereas Li Hao rained a furious barrage on him from all sides!

    ¡°Li Hao¡­ your death is nigh¡­ I have very important information for you¡­¡±

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± Another Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods!

    Blood flowed freely from all of the openings on Zhou He¡¯s face. His breathing hitched and his movements slowed.

    Li Hao only felt that the man was an incredible fool. His teacher had said that those who practiced martial dao needed to retain a breath inside their body. That breath was used to brace oneself for action and coordinate breathing with external skill. Zhou He continued talking as he fought and he was far from an expert. Lacking both internal and external skill, he was easily targeted and interrupted!

    Such was the benefit of a premier martial teacher and tutge from a Dominator of Thousands! Zhou He learned from a Sunderer at most¡ªpossibly even another yer. Martial dao, after all, was in decline!

    Li Hao¡¯s roar perfectly interrupted Zhou He¡¯s return breath, forcing him to swallow his words with a slight internal injury. His hands and legs moved disjointedly. It was the perfect opportunity for Li Hao to wrap his arms around his opponent!

    Bear Hug!

    Craaaack!

    Sounds of bone crunching and breaking rang through the area. On guard against a return kick from his opponent, Li Hao stomped with vicious momentum and smashed through Zhou He¡¯s right leather shoe. Blood, flesh, and bone intermixed as the man howled with anguish!

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Hiss!¡± Five sharp breaths in unison!

    Chen Jian looked at Liu Long, then at Liu Yan.

    ¡°Was¡­ was he ying dumb when he sparred with us before?¡± he muttered nervously. This was Li Hao¡¯s first time inbat? Bullshit! The kid was absolutely brutal and coldly calcting. He crippled the woman first, then set his sights on Zhou He. They were both yers, but Zhou He couldn¡¯t mount resistance to a rookie!

    Looking at the current situation, there was almost no possibility for the man to turn it around.

    However, a solemn Liu Long was focused on something else entirely.

    ¡°Are there that many killing moves in the Five Styles?¡±

    Indeed. Whether it was the ape style or the others, every move from Li Hao¡¯s New Book of Five Styles was lethal! Gouging the heart, ripping and tearing, crushing hugs, tiger fists¡­ His Five Styles was a bit different from other people¡¯s. Every move and technique was merciless and relentless!

    This was something they didn¡¯t normally observe¡ªor it¡¯d be more urate to say that Li Hao was typically lessfortable in his own skin. Had Yuan Shuo revised his New Book of Five Styles again? There was so much killing intent in this version!

    Everyone thought his martial method was for general health and well-being; his normal cial speed seemed to confirm that. But now that a Sunderer like Liu Long took another look at this method, it was in to see how lethal every detail of it was!

    The techniques centered on the enemy¡¯s vitals!

    The heart, throat, eyes, crotch, spleen, waist, and kidneys were Li Hao¡¯s primary area of focus. He freely jabbed the eye, grabbed the throat, and grasped the crotch without reservation!

    The more Liu Long saw, the more taken aback he was. Martial masters didn¡¯t focus only on attacking¡ªstrengthening the body was another main area of concern. Combined with the rise of hot weapons, it meant that many of their killing techniques had evolved with the times.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao¡¯s Five Styles seemed to be a return to the primordial past!

    ¡°The New Book of Five Styles¡­¡± Liu Yan, another expert about to set foot into Sunderer, frowned. ¡°It utilizes the instinctive hunting styles of five animals. It is always a struggle of life and death between animals. If a hunt fails, the hunter starves to death. It is a constant interchange of brutality and savagery! While it sounds like child¡¯s y, it¡¯s actually an extremely barbaric martial method. What we see normally seems to be the¡­ neutered version!¡±

    Li Hao seemed to have returned to his origins in this moment. Of course, he missed quite a few opportunities since he was a rookie. If it was Liu Long, he would¡¯ve broken Zhou He¡¯s neck in the first few moves.

    But since Li Hao¡¯s legacy stemmed from a premier martial master, Zhou He couldn¡¯t begin to measure up to him!

    The young man shoved his shoulder forward as the team talked, throwing Zhou He forward, then yanking him back. His shoulder mmed into the man¡¯s chest¡ªcrunch!

    Innumerable ribs broke before Zhou He crashed to the ground, blood spewing from his mouth. He exhaled more air than he breathed in, a potential sign of further internal damage. Despite the man¡¯s eyes losing focus, Li Hao didn¡¯t rx his guard.

    The young man looked around, then quickly backed away. He turned and ran for the other side, leaping into the air to make a neat turn and whip his right leg out!

    The woman, about to remove her mangled right hand from the wall, didn''t have time to dodge before Li Hao¡¯s foot hit her neck with a loud crack!

    Bone fractured before the woman hit the ground. Fresh blood dyed the floor red.

 Chapter 62: A Victorious First Battle (II)

    Chapter 62: A Victorious First Battle (II)

    The battlested less than three minutes and ended with man and woman on a ground strewn with puddles of blood. Panting heavily, Li Hao knelt on one knee and watched the two warily as he adjusted his breathing.

    He seemed toe back to his senses upon confirming that they couldn¡¯t move. The young man paled as he looked at the bloody floor, then at the people walking out of a corner. Fear struck him only now and he regarded the team with rm and panic.

    ¡°That was terrifying, these two are so strong and savage! That woman almost ran a dagger through my brain!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Liu Long stared silently at the young man.

    ¡°Do you mean that, Little Hao?¡± Liu Yan smiled stiffly. Are you putting on a show?

    Li Hao looked nkly at her¡ªof course he meant what he said! That fight was too awful! Realbat was so dangerous. He would¡¯ve been stabbed to death if he¡¯d been a little more careless or reckless!

    Just look at him¡­

    The rest of the team found the sight iprehensible. Li Hao seemed to be serious, but, dude, do you see what you¡¯ve done?

    Your two opponents are bleeding messes on the floor. Who knows how many ribs Zhou He has fractured? His foot is crushed, his kidneys are pulped, and the scratches on his arms run straight to the bone!

    The woman is beyond describing. Her neck may be broken, her hand is crippled, and she has too many broken bones to be counted. But you¡¯re the one who says you¡¯re afraid?? Are you even human?

    Liu Long said nothing and didn¡¯t mind the possibility that Li Hao might be putting on an act.

    ¡°Is this your first time in actualbat?¡± he growled.

    ¡°Yep!¡± Li Hao bobbed his head rapidly. ¡°Actualbat is so scary. I learned the New Book of the Five Styles because I¡¯m a martial arts fan. But I use it for exercise and didn¡¯t expect it to be so vicious in battle!¡±

    A martial arts fan¡¯s first battle!

    ¡°If this is your first battle, howe your movements were without hesitation?¡± Liu Long looked oddly at the young man. Li Hao¡¯s blows were so decisive that it didn¡¯t seem like his first fight! He¡¯d been too resolute!

    It was a characteristic that only veteran martial masters possessed, and from those who had experienced life and death. Only those martial masters could make snap decisions without dithering and take down the enemy first!

    ¡°Hesitation?¡± Li Hao shook his head after some thought. He really hadn¡¯t felt any uncertainty. ¡°I don¡¯t sympathize with them because I know they¡¯re the enemy. My teacher taught me that if I start fighting, I need to take out the enemy before thinking of anything else! The stronger the opponent, the more ruthless I must be or I¡¯ll be the one struck with misfortune!¡±

    Alright then! Liu Long hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would listen to his teacher so fully. Yuan Shuo said that because his opponents were all powerhouses and they shared blood feuds. But Li Hao¡­

    Well, perhaps this was a good thing in the end. The little guy that he thought of as a rookie gave a better than expected showing in his first battle! He¡¯d caught a yer of Tens and someone close to being a yer off guard. When battle ended in three minutes, the two were so heavily injured that they were on the verge of death whereas¡­ only the skin had broken on Li Hao¡¯s knuckles!

    Indeed, he¡¯d punched with so much force¡ªand one of his blows connected with Zhou He¡¯s exposed bone¡ªthat his knuckles were bleeding from where he¡¯d scraped them.

    Other than that, there was nothing else on Li Hao!

    These were the results of battle from a rookie newly ascended into yer of Tens!

    Liu Long could say with certainty that almost none of the martial masters he knew could achieve this feat. Even he hadn¡¯t been able to do so when he first broke through to yer. His first opponent had been another yer and he was the one to almost die! The other had almost beaten him to death!

    ¡°Bro, you¡¯re really something!¡± Chen Jian stuck his thumb up. Heartfelt respect!

    This young fellow was frail, soft-spoken, and sometimes blushed furiously when Liu Yan teased him. Their shy little brother had beaten two martial masters into quivering puddles during his first real battle!

    ¡°Thank goodness you weren¡¯t this vicious when you sparred with us before!¡± The skinny Wu Chao looked around with fright. The kid ripped off chunks of flesh whenever he grabbed someone!

    Chen Jian was fine since his defense was so strong, but Wu Chao was hardly on the same level. If Li Hao hit him with the same blows, his paltry kilograms of flesh would be long gone!

    ¡°They¡¯re bad guys and we¡¯re justice!¡± Li Hao exined bashfully. ¡°When I attack viins, I¡¯m upholding justice! How would I ever attack one of us?¡±

    ¡°Justice!¡± Liu Long and the others blinked, turning toward the young man. Liu Yan tittered so gleefully that she bent forward, breaking into gales ofughter. A massive, shining expanse loomed into Li Hao¡¯s line of sight.

    ¡°Sis Liu, your top isn¡¯t buttoned!¡± he couldn¡¯t help but raise.

    The premises immediately quieted down.

    Liu Yan immediately straightened up and looked at the young man with shock. ¡°Are you a man??¡± She jabbed an usatory finger. ¡°You choose to remind me that my top isn¡¯t buttoned at a time like this??¡±

    Li Hao looked around innocently. What? Couldn¡¯t he do that?

    Liu Long and the others burst intoughter when they looked at each other. True mirth poured from the rest of the team.

    ¡°Vice Captain Liu, it looks like not everyone likes the show you put on!¡± Even Yun Yao joined in the fun.

    ¡°Pfft, it¡¯s not like you have any!¡± Although Liu Yan was wary of Yun Yao, she couldn¡¯t help a retort. I do whatever I want! Do you have what I have?

    Yun Yao instantly fell silent and looked at Liu Yan with an odd look. It seemed to promise that she would find an opportunity to beat Liu Yan¡¯s head in!

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with them. He nced at the two still vomiting blood and asked, ¡°Should we take them in for questioning? Let¡¯s see what we can learn from them. Sis Yun Yao, can you take a look at them since you¡¯re a doctor? We won¡¯t be able to question them if they die!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re coldhearted alright!¡± Liu Yan chortled. This was what the little guy was focused on? Not bad, not bad!

    Li Haoughed drily and heaved a sigh as he stood up. ¡°Real battle is very different, it¡¯s so exciting! It¡¯s more nerves that got to me than anything¡ªI was so nervous just now! I was really afraid that they¡¯de at me at the same time from front and back. Chief, how do you normally handle those types of situations?¡±

    Liu Long looked wordlessly at him. What do you think? Didn¡¯t you handle it just fine just now? Cripple one with your full strength, then take care of the other! How else are you supposed to handle it?

    The kid seemed to be asking for it with his questions!

    ¡°Chief,¡± Li Hao continued sincerely. ¡°Something else that my teacher didn¡¯t teach me¡ªmy w attacks aren¡¯t that strong and my movements are affected if blood touches my hand. Gore is messy and blood is sticky. My holds kept slipping as the fight continued. What should I do then?

    ¡°I don¡¯t have time to wipe my hands off,¡± he asked with the air of a student consoling a teacher. ¡°Thank goodness I wasn¡¯t using a weapon or I¡¯d probably lose my grip on it. How do you usually do it, chief?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    Everyone was quiet. This was a¡­ special question. So out of the ordinary that Liu Long was momentarily lost in thought. Li Hao disdained his w attacks not because of the pain or injuries they inflicted on the enemy, but because they dirtied his hand. Weapons and grips were hard to maintain when his hand was slippery.

    Was this a question about battle?

    It¡­ counted, right?

    But no one had ever asked this so matter-of-factly as Li Hao. The young man asked with unfettered confidence of wanting to resolve the issue.

    ¡°Li Hao, are you¡­ not feeling guilty at all?¡± Yun Yao couldn¡¯t help but ask. ¡°Not guiltiness from having done something wrong, but it¡¯s normal to feel a certain degree of guilt and self-reproach after your first battle¡ªespecially one like this.¡±

    Was something mentally wrong with Li Hao? Or was he by nature cruel and uncaring?

    ¡°I¡¯m not burdened by anything because I know they¡¯re viins,¡± Li Hao answered after some thought. ¡°They¡¯re bad people who want me dead! As for feeling guilty¡­ I do feel a bit guilty, but this has nothing to do with my question, right?¡±

    Yeah I am feeling a bit guilty, but I¡¯m more bummed that you guys are looking at me with those eyes! You¡¯re all old hands, is there a need for this?

    Liu Long and the others didn¡¯t say anything because they didn¡¯t find anything untoward. They were more considering that Li Hao was a natural battle machine and possibly a bit cold-blooded.

    ¡°Your w technique causes your hand to be covered in blood,¡± Liu Long addressed seriously, setting everything else out of his mind. ¡°Under these circumstances, you can¡­ One, find a chance to wipe your hand off on the enemy. Two, find a chance to rub it against the floor, especially against some dirt! Three, avoid grabbing arteries¡ªthose will spray you with blood. Four, run the enemy through and wipe yourself clean when you yank your hand back. Five, be so fast that no blood sprays before you¡¯re done!¡±

    The other looked strangely at Liu Long. Well well, one guy is bold enough to ask a nutty question and the other is crazy enough to answer! And give him five solutions to boot!

    Li Hao listened intently. He¡¯d always felt that he was too fresh behind the ears and needed to learn from martial seniors. The fifth point that Liu Long mentioned was fantastic¡ªbe as fast as possible!

    Be so fast that when he retracted his w, the enemy¡¯s blood wouldn¡¯t have time to spray forth. That was all he needed to do! Blood wouldn¡¯t be a worry if he was fast enough!

    Li Hao looked at the captain with veneration. No wonder the rest of the team weren¡¯t Sunderers! Just look at how they regarded him instead of answering his question. It made absolute sense that the captain was the strongest.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. Li Hao was a promising talent. In the olden days, an elderly martial master epted disciples like him as a way to ward off old age. As martial masters aged, they were less able to fight. Ruthless students like Li Hao were necessary to fend off the enemies that woulde knocking. He was brutal, vicious, merciless, and thought there was nothing wrong with what he was doing.

    A final disciple!

 Chapter 63: The Kind Are Lucky (I)

    Chapter 63: The Kind Are Lucky (I)

    In this moment, Liu Long seemed to grasp how Yuan Shuo had taught the youngster in front of him. The old man had led by word and example, treating Li Hao as his final disciple. Indeed, the young man subconsciously disyed a number of the professor¡¯s own notions.

    Yuan Shuo was the driving force behind Li Hao¡¯s martial dao enlightenment, so the young man developed with significant influence from the elderly professor. Yuan Shuo was equally ruthless when he fought! He wouldn¡¯t have so many enemies otherwise.

    ¡°That¡¯s enough of that, let¡¯s interrogate these two first. Stop their bleeding, Yun Yao, don¡¯t let them die. Though they might not know much since they¡¯re minions, we mighte across unexpected information!¡± Liu Long called out. It was difficult to question the two before they were restored to some modicum of good health.

    Li Hao picked up the silk banner that¡¯d fallen to the ground as they fought.

    ¡°What are you going to do with that?¡± Liu Yan asked.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to hang it up!¡± Li Hao chuckled merrily. ¡°Sis, this holds a lot of meaning as it¡¯s my first silk banner! It¡¯d be weird if I don¡¯t disy it since they openly brought it to me. I¡¯ll go hang it up and say they took the back door!¡±

    An instant hush descended over the team. Busy stemming Zhou He¡¯s blood flow, the team doctor saw the man¡¯s eyes widen. Yun Yao cursed inwardly when he almost choked on his next breath.

    Animal! Li Hao¡¯s a damned animal!

    Hanging the silk banner at a time like this? She¡¯d die from a fit of apoplexy if she was the man!

    Li Hao neither knew nor cared to know. He scanned the banner with contentment, ever more satisfied the longer he looked at it.

    ¡°Benevolent and Compassionate¡ªGifted to Inspector Li Hao of the Inspectorate.¡± The characters grew more beautiful the more he gazed upon them. Well written! Indeed, he was benevolent andpassionate!

    ¡°Chief, Sis, I¡¯m going to take this to ssified Affairs. I¡¯ll bring it back when the transfer goes through.¡±

    It was his first silk banner! How lovely it was, how could he bear to throw it away? He would hang it up in ssified Affairs first and then bring it to Law Enforcement!

    ¡°Have fun with the interrogation, I¡¯m leaving!¡± Li Hao hummed a tune as he left with the banner, appearing the very picture of a rookie inspector receiving his firstmendation from the general public. He brimmed with pride and joy!

    Those in the basement looked wordlessly at each other.

    ¡°Everyone¡­¡± Wu Chao said slowly after a long pause. ¡°Is that guy¡­ a bit¡­ perverted?¡±

    Do you know where that banneres from?? Do you realize what happened to those who brought it to you? Are you actually so thick-skinned as to take it back with you and disy it for everyone to see??

    The fuck?!

    The team was both speechless and in awe of Li Hao¡¯s mettle. How could the young man not be reminded of the blood he spilled when he looked at the red banner?

    Liu Long opened and closed his mouth, concluding with a muffled ¡°whatever!¡± after a while. What could he say? There was nothing to say!

    After today¡¯s battle, the team captain could tell that the rest of the team finally truly epted Li Hao. He was no longer just bait, a disposable tool, or deadweight. Liu Long himself had shared the same opinions before.

    This battle made them realize that the little guy wasn¡¯t just a random bystander. If he survived the events toe, he would be more formidable than Liu Long in the future. Only now did the Demon Hunters treat him as one of them.

    Of this, Li Hao most likely remainedpletely oblivious.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao set foot into ssified Affairs with a light step. What a beautiful day! His mood lightened when he saw Wang Ming.

    ¡°Good morning, Little Ming!¡±

    Wang Ming was making a record of files on hand and stiffened when he heard the nickname. However, he quickly recovered.

    ¡°Hello Brother Hao, were you at thew enforcement team again?¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡± Li Hao waved the silk banner around. This was the pride and joy of a new inspector! Although he normally kept a low profile, even he couldn¡¯t help but show off his mark of distinction. See! Look here! Someone¡¯s given me a silk banner!

    As expected, Wang Ming¡¯s attention was caught. ¡°A silk banner? For Brother Hao?¡±

    ¡°Yep, just a trifling matter. They were too polite and insisted on delivering a banner!¡± Li Hao answered casually and boomed heartily, ¡°You¡¯ll have your own one day, Little Ming!¡±

    Their exchange caught other people¡¯s attention and the rest of the department looked at Li Hao. Gossip ignited with a fury when they saw the banner; everyone wanted to know the particrs. The young man gave an honest recounting of doing nothing more than fixing a car for someone.

    As for what happened to the people after they delivered the banner? Who cared?

    ¡­¡­

    It was a lively time at ssified Affairs for a while.

    ¡°Little Ming.¡± A thought urred to Li Hao after he hung up the banner. ¡°Didn¡¯t you say you¡¯d bete today? Have your family elders arrived?¡±

    The guy had mentioned visiting elders at dinner yesterday.

    ¡°They have! I waste for an hour this morning¡ªBrother Hao doesn¡¯t know about it because you weren¡¯t here.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. They¡¯re here! Night Watcher powerhouse or real elders?

    ¡°Why don¡¯t we pay them a visit after work?¡± His lips stretched in a broad and simple smile. ¡°We can let your family elders know that it will be smooth sailing for you since we¡¯re looking after you.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright!¡± Wang Ming declined politely. ¡°That elder is a bit entric and doesn¡¯t like interacting with people.¡±

    I see!

    Definitely a Night Watcher, I can tell from hisnguage too. He¡¯d say dad or mom, not just elder. Li Hao dropped the subject. Asking too much would raise suspicion. Wang Ming, however, drew closer and lowered his voice.

    ¡°Brother Hao, it looks like it¡¯s going to rain over the next two days. We happen to be off then¡ªdo you have any ns?¡±

    It was the 16th today. Rain was forecasted for the 18th. Li Hao and his coworkers were scheduled for vacation on the 18th and 19th.

    ¡°Do you have any ns?¡± Li Hao asked curiously. ¡°Do you have ces in mind even though you¡¯re new in town? How about you name where you want to go and I¡¯ll see if I can make it?¡±

    ¡°Why don¡¯t we go hiking?¡± Wang Ming replied eagerly. ¡°People say there¡¯s an impressive view at the top of Mt. Heavenly King on the city outskirts. Let¡¯s go check it out!¡±

    Hiking? The outskirts?

    Li Hao thought for a bit while Chen Na scrunched her face up with disdain. ¡°What fun is there in hiking? You¡¯re out in the wilderness without any ce to hide from the rain. Let¡¯s go karaoke and grab food!¡±

    ¡°Sis Na, us guys don¡¯t like karaoke,¡± Wang Mingughed drily. ¡°Hiking is training! There¡¯s ces to stay on the mountain so we can spend the night if we get tired. We can watch the sunrise. Maybe Mt. Heavenly King will be prettier in the rain!¡±

    Chen Na very politely declined the offer. Forget it! She hated something as tiring and meaningless as hiking. Li Hao, on the other hand, made some swift judgment calls.

    Did Wang Ming want him to go hiking to make it easier for the Night Watchers to find a suitable ambush spot? The mountain was sparsely upied and there would be few visitors on a rainy day. It was an ideal spot for the Night Watchers to fight the scarlet shadow faction¡ªthere would be negligible impact on Silver City.

    They were a government organization, after all. As numerous as their problems were, it didn¡¯t change the fact that they were tasked to maintain order and were the greatest protective organization avable to mundanes.

    Therefore, both Night Watchers and Demon Hunters wished for the battle site to be in the outskirts, not inside the city. A fight between supernaturals could easily lead to widespread fatalities among mortals.

    Mt. Heavenly King¡­

    Li Hao thought it over. The Demon Hunters had picked a different spot that was also in the outskirts. Since the team relied on hot weapons, they required t ground more suited for burying explosives.

    ¡°We¡¯ll see!¡± He didn¡¯t immediately turn the proposal down¡ªhe would ask Liu Long and the others first.

    Wang Ming wanted to continue pushing, but had to set the topic aside when Li Hao bent his head down to work. He inwardly raced with anxiety¡ªLi Hao could not remain in the city the entire time! He was obviously the next target and the Night Watchers had sent a significant personage for this operation. They highly valued the eight families of Silver City.

    Wang Ming didn¡¯t know much, just a few hints and shadows. Not many had cared about the eight families before, but recent happenings in the supernatural domain seemed to be linked with these unknown ns of Silver City.

    Thus, important personnel from the Night Watchers hade to resolve the situation and to gain a better understanding of the sword of the Lis.

    Wang Ming knew that Li Hao was working with the Demon Hunters. Perhaps he needs to follow their orders? In that case, it was up to that venerated one to decide on how to proceed.

    ¡­¡­

    A quiet morning passed in ssified Affairs. Li Hao¡¯s silk banner was the subject of discussion for a while before everyone returned to their usual pursuits. Some people fell back into their usual banter while others brewed tea and read the paper. No one paid attention to Zhou He and hispanion.

    In their eyes, the two naturally left after delivering the banner. What would they stay for? A meal at the Inspectorate?

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time, outside the Inspectorate.

    An old man casually plodded past the front gates. He shuffled toward a little ck car parked on the street.

    S 7219.

    The old man carelessly nced inside and shuffled away. There was no one inside and the car had been parked for a few hours!

    He headed for a small alley. No one loitered in it since it was the middle of the work day. All was very quiet as the old man walked through it.

    ¡°They¡¯re not there. There¡¯s been no word from them after they went inside.¡±

    An aloof male voice cracked through an earpiece hidden beneath white hair. ¡°Come back to base first! Zhou He wouldn¡¯t enter rashly. He¡¯s gone missing after going inside and we¡¯ve received no word from the Inspectorate. Either they¡¯ve both deserted or they¡¯ve been secretly captured. It¡¯s very possible that the Demon Hunters are behind it if they¡¯re in custody!¡±

    Not thew enforcement team, or they¡¯d receive some sort of notification.

 Chapter 64: The Kind Are Lucky (II)

    Chapter 64: The Kind Are Lucky (II)

    Zhou He had ostensibly gone inside to give Li Hao a silk banner. What the actual fuck?

    Was Li Hao involved in this?

    Probably not, because their intelligence indicated that the young man had gleefully brought the banner back to ssified Affairs to show off. If Zhou He¡¯s capture had something to do with him, a rookie wouldn¡¯t possess theposure to proudly show off the silk banner afterward. Therefore, the scarlet shadow faction immediately dismissed the idea of Li Hao being involved.

    It was very likely that Liu Long and the others had discovered the two and secretly set up a sting operation.

    ¡°Zhou He, you damned idiot!¡± Loud cursing rang in the old man¡¯s ear.

    What an absolute idiot! Did you have nothing better to do than to give Li Hao a silk banner? That¡¯s putting yourself straight in the lion¡¯s den! Do you really think that Liu Long and his team wouldn¡¯t do anything??

    ¡°Forget it, it is what it is. Those two don¡¯t know anything, it¡¯s just a bit of a pity. That idiot Zhou He would¡¯ve been recalled after this mission to undertake the induction ceremony. He held high promise to cross over!¡±

    All of thergest supernatural organizations ced great importance on a yer of Tens. Zhou He had been assigned an easy mission so he could add merit to his record. That would provide sufficient reason for him to undergo the ceremony. Once he was supernatural, it was very possible that he¡¯d ascend straight to Darkmoon!

    That was all empty dreams now¡ªthanks to Zhou He courting death.

    The old man sped up without a word until he eventually vanished in the alley. Since it was confirmed that Zhou He was in custody, there was no further need for him here.

    ¡­¡­

    The Inspectorate.

    Although Li Hao was about to be transferred away, he solemnlypleted his tasks. His desk phone rang in the afternoon when he finished his duties for the day. Liu Yan requested his presence at Law Enforcement.

    Li Hao notified Chen Na and Wang Ming, leaving amid Chen Na¡¯s admiring gaze and Wang Ming¡¯s curious one. He headed for the building¡¯s basement.

    The blood was cleared away and there was no sign of the two to be found. Were they dead or alive?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care. Sometimes, he viewed life and death through an indifferent lens. He was alone in this world¡ªhis friend was dead, his parents were dead, and the countless cases he¡¯d pored over the years were filled with dead people.

    The heart grew uncaring after seeing so much.

    There was a small conference room in the basement. Liu Long and Liu Yan were sitting inside; there were no signs of the others to be found. The captain indicated for Li Hao to sit down after he walked through the door.

    Liu Yan regarded the seated young man with an odd look. ¡°Did your stomach turn after you went back to work?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao looked back at her, baffled. Why would his stomach turn?

    ¡°Nothing?¡± Liu Yan had to ask again.

    ¡°Eh?¡± Li Hao was well and truly confused. Why should he feel nervous or fearful? Wasn¡¯t the fight over? Why be afraid now?

    Liu Yan was quite resigned by the look in the young man¡¯s eyes. The little guy was definitely perverse! He¡¯d really gone back to work as if nothing had happened! Whether victory or defeat, people usually mulled over their first battle for a long period of time. Even one without spilling blood was grounds for endless mental rey!

    But Li Hao?

    He went back to his desk without skipping a beat!

    ¡°Little Hao Hao, did you really not think about the fight?¡±

    ¡°I did, I¡¯m not heartless,¡± the young man said after some thought. ¡°I wondered if Zhou He possesses any secret martial arts methods since he¡¯s a yer. Any mysterious power? Is it possible to strip out mysterious power from a martial master, like we do from a supernatural? If not, what about their internal force?¡±

    The hell?! Liu Yan was abruptly realizing that the kid was absolutely perverse!

    ¡°You damned perverse, cold-blooded guy!¡± she cursed lowly.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao was the epitome of innocence! What? The Demon Hunters were the weird ones in his eyes. Weren¡¯t these matters something any normal person would consider? As the saying went, people who set fires and killed others struck it rich. Was there anything wrong in asking if there were benefits to be had from killing a yer?

    Liu Long was likewise speechless and interrupted their conversation. ¡°Enough of that! I¡¯ve just received word regarding an issue that involves you, Li Hao, so I had youe listen in!¡±

    The young man nodded docilely.

    ¡°The Zhou He that you beat to death¡ª¡±

    Li Hao raised his hands like he was a student and quickly refuted, ¡°I didn¡¯t beat him to death!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Liu Long cast him a withering look. ¡°You crushed his foot, pierced his sternum, kicked his kidneys to pieces, and pulverized his spleen. He would¡¯ve died on the spot if it wasn¡¯t for his strong vitality of a martial master! Even so, we weren¡¯t able to save him!¡±

    Thus, Zhou He really was dead. Li Hao looked away in a daze, but quickly regained his calm without another word.

    So the guy was dead. He hadn¡¯t personally beaten the man to death¡ªZhou He died during the interrogation and not in front of him. Therefore, Li Hao knew nothing. He¡¯d killed a yer in his first battle!

    That did bother Li Hao slightly, but his worries were ayed by the fact that the man was a viin. The Inspectorate had taught them during training that inspectors were to punish evil, raise up good, and discipline criminals! When the criminal resisted and could harm the inspector, outright execution was rmended!

    In that case, there was nothing further to consider about the matter.

    ¡°Zhou He, forty years old, martial master from re City!¡± Liu Long ignored whatever might be on Li Hao¡¯s mind. re City was the secondrgest city in the province, second to only White Moon City and ten times more prosperous than Silver City.

    ¡°He started martial dao practice at twenty-one years old and was apprenticed to a Sunderer from re City. His teacher passed away ten years ago. Zhou He set foot into the yer realm at thirty-two and did not make further progress over the next eight years!

    ¡°He joined a supernatural fringe group called Ghostface one year ago! Their leader is a Sunderer, not a supernatural. Zhou He and Yuan Xiao are both part of that group!¡±

    A group subordinate to supernaturals?

    Li Hao mused over the information while Liu Long continued solemnly, ¡°There are many supernatural organizations, but one that appoints a Sunderer to set up a fringe group and recruits numerous yers¡­ An organization like that is not weak!

    ¡°No one gets up early unless there¡¯s something in it for them. It is difficult to bring in martial masters unless one can offer the hope of ascension. It is even harder to have them willingly risk their lives for the faction. This organization, however, offers a great deal of mysterious power to these yers.

    ¡°They can break through to Sunderer, at the very least, if they don¡¯t cross over to the supernatural. You must know that not even the Night Watchers dare waste mysterious power like this!¡±

    ¡°So what you mean, chief¡­¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°Is that this organization has deep pockets? That they possibly operate on a massive scale and are very strong?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Liu Long nodded and looked at Li Hao. ¡°Additionally, if just a fringe group possesses a Sunderer¡­ There aren¡¯t many of those in this day and age. There may be more in re City, but a Sunderer is still a rare martial expert! It¡¯s not an easy ask to have a Sunderer at one¡¯s beck and call.¡±

    Li Hao nodded again.

    ¡°Based on what Zhou He told us, his mission with Yuan Xiao was to follow you and prevent you from leaving the city. Their task was simple because they aren¡¯t the key characters!¡±

    Li Hao nodded again.

    ¡°There¡¯s a problem with what we¡¯ve learned. Have you identified it?¡±

    A problem? The young man reflected on thetest findings and analyzed them. ¡°Do you mean to say that this organization will be sending very strong people since they are very strong, chief? We surmised this long ago, so this shouldn¡¯t be the key issue¡­¡±

    He nced at the deputy chief again. ¡°If they have fringe groups, that means they¡¯re not strictly just a supernatural organization. They won¡¯t hold themselves superior to mundanes! Sunderers of Hundreds are usually rtively well off and of high status. They might be important personages like chief is¡­ Ah! Hot weapons?¡±

    The thought suddenly urred to him! Liu Long and the team relied on the might of hot weapons to eliminate supernaturals. Did this mean that the organization might own hot weapons of their own?

    ¡°Not only that, but their martial masters might have once been part of the Night Watchers.¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°Hot weapons are one thing, but the second is that they might have full intel on the Demon Hunters. They might know all of our secrets!¡±

    ¡°Third,¡± Liu Yan continued. ¡°Their intelligenceworks will be up to speed since they have an organization among us ordinary people. Your teacher might fall under their purview too, as well as the two Darkmoon Night Watchers currently in Silver City.

    ¡°With their level of caution and preparations for a decade, they¡¯ll send at least two on par with Sunderers and Darkmoons! Plus us¡­ they¡¯ll send at least five experts that rival Sunderers and Darkmoons!¡±

    That ran outside the scope of their capabilities.

    ¡°It¡¯d be fine if only one Sunre came,¡± Liu Yan pondered. ¡°Things will be dicey if multiple Darkmoon and Sundererse. Powerhouses on the level of Sunre are used to working alone. While they¡¯re ferocious in battle, they¡¯re limited by what they can do. If they split up on the day of the operation, however, they can preupy us with a portion of their people and send the rest to you!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t make a sound. That would indeed be worrisome.

    Liu Long nced at the young man. ¡°Therefore, I have an idea. With the sword of the Lis on you, they¡¯ll want your life and the sword! It¡¯s best to split the two up. If you trust me, you can leave the sword in my care. That ensures they won¡¯t focus their energies on you. Even if they do sessfully split us up, there will be less pressure on your side.¡±

    Right, his primary goal was to have Li Hao hand the sword over to him. In the team¡¯s eyes, thed was just an ordinary person.

 Chapter 65: The Kind Are Lucky (III)

    Chapter 65: The Kind Are Lucky (III)

    If the sword stayed with Li Hao, the young man would suffer the greatest degree of attack possible. If the two were separated, Li Hao might only suffer a lesser degree of attack even if he was split up from the rest of the team.

    It was a secret that he was a yer, so if the enemy underestimated him and sent another yer against him, he might be able to turn the tables!

    However, would Li Hao be willing to give his family heirloom to an outsider?

    Liu Long thought hard about his request¡ªit easily gave the impression that he had designs on the Li inheritance.

    ¡°You can have it!¡± Li Hao fished out the sword and ced it on the table as the chief turned over the ramifications. Liu Long started and looked at the young man with surprise. Li Hao smiled innocently back at him. ¡°Who can I trust, if not chief?

    ¡°Since I¡¯ve joined the team, I am one of you! I understand what you¡¯re thinking, chief. This is all for my own safety, so I should be grateful and not dwell on suspicions! It¡¯s just a sword¡ªit may be treasure, it may be worthless. I can¡¯t use it for the moment and it¡¯s trouble if I keep it on me. In fact, you¡¯ll be assuming greater risk if you take it, chief!¡±

    Even Liu Long was touched by Li Hao¡¯s words! The man could vaguely sense ripples of mysterious power when he looked at the sword. A single nce was all it took to identify that the item was extraordinary. The ripples of power were beyond their normal understanding.

    Li Hao had brought out an item like this without hesitation! Liu Long was beginning to wonder if it was appropriate to have the young man serve as bait. It seemed an incredible disservice!

    He quickly tamped the thought down, however. Li Hao had to be bait, that was non negotiable.

    ¡°Li Hao¡­¡± he raised solemnly. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, the sword will remain with me so long as I am alive. If you are the only one alive after this mission, everything that belongs to the Demon Hunters is yours!¡±

    Hot damn! Li Hao inwardly clucked his tongue. It¡¯s all mine, just like that? How did I suddenly make it into the core of the team? I didn¡¯t know Old Liu was this sentimental!

    Li Hao viewed himself as a very rational person, which made Liu Long more emotional in contrast. Thetter was already making derations of protecting the sword with his life!

    ¡°Chief, we¡¯ll win! Justice always prevails!¡± Li Hao encouraged. Liu Long said nothing in return. He suddenly fished out a book with yellowing pages and tossed it at the young man.

    ¡°Go back and page through it, it might prove useful for you. If not, just use it for leisure reading.¡± He took the sword and left withrge strides.

    Liu Yan grabbed the booklet as soon as he left and assessed it with envy. ¡°As I thought, it¡¯s his prized Nine Forged Force. This guy really¡­¡± Seeing as Li Hao didn¡¯t understand, she exined further, ¡°This is chief¡¯s secret martial art, Nine Forged Force. As its name indicates, the user can erupt with force that is forged nine times over! It was the secret art that his father once practiced at the peak of his glory. Chief¡¯s father was once a premier martial master of Silver Moon Province!¡±

    Of that, Li Hao knew. Silver Spear!

    One of the Three Spears of Silver Moon, they wouldn¡¯t be too weak if even his teacher had mentioned them. They had to be at least premier Sunderers. However, Li Hao was surprised to receive the Nine Forged Force instead of a spear technique, and that it was his so easily.

    Martial masters were much more conscientious about their legacy than supernaturals.

    ¡°Hold onto it and read it well,¡± Liu Yan extorted. ¡°This secret art is very strong and rivals your teacher¡¯s New Book of Five Styles! Your teacher¡¯s art is veryprehensive, but its weakness is that itcks explosive power! The Nine Forged Force is defined by explosiveness. Nineyers of internal force¡­ It''s something that regr people can¡¯t achieve. Neither can their constitution support such an endeavor!¡±

    She sighed with emotion and left. Danger nipped at her heels upon seeing Liu Long leave this behind¡ªextreme danger. Some martial masters were unwilling to pass on their knowledge even upon pain of death. Liu Long had been unwilling before, but he was suddenly bequeathing it to Li Hao? What did this mean?

    Did the chief think there was noing back from this mission?

    The booklet suddenly weighed on Li Hao¡¯s hands and heart. He¡¯s giving it to me so easily?

    ¡°Nine Forged Force¡­¡± A method that excelled in sudden eruptions of strength!

    While Li Hao didn¡¯t grasp how precious it was, a method that was Liu Long¡¯s trademark technique would not be too weak. After some thought, the young man grabbed hismunicator and dialed a number. As Yuan Shuo¡¯s final disciple, he could not brashly learn another martial master¡¯s legacy.

    ¡°Teacher!¡±

    ¡°What is it?¡± Yuan Shuo sounded tired¡ªpossibly having just absorbed energy from the stone de.

    ¡°Have you heard of our chief¡¯s Nine Forged Force?¡±

    ¡°No shit! It¡¯s Silver Spear¡¯s ultimate knowledge¡ªnine stacks of force behind one jab! It¡¯s a decent secret art. Although there are quite a few drawbacks, its explosiveness is unmatched. I wanted to trade it for the New Book of Five Styles once, but the guy wasn¡¯t willing to.

    ¡°However, his early death is also tied to it because his body couldn¡¯t endure the burden of nineyers of force. His arms were crippled at an early age and he passed away from sheer depression! If I am to use it, my body¡¯s strong enough that I can bring nineyers of force to bear with one punch. I¡¯ll beat a Sunre so bad that their own mother won¡¯t recognize them!¡±

    While Yuan Shuo seemed to be dismissing the method, he was actually giving it high praise.

    ¡°Um¡­¡± Li Hao whispered after some thought. ¡°Our chief has given it to me. Can I learn it?¡±

    ¡°What??¡± Yuan Shuo paused, then roared, ¡°Of course you learn it! You have a fantastic physique, so of course you¡¯re damned well suited to learn it! And here I was thinking how to find a method more suited for you¡­ this is perfect! Liu Long will be a sick cat in his old age, but you won¡¯t be! Learn it!¡±

    The professor paused with confusion. ¡°Why did he give it to you?¡±

    It¡¯d only been a few days! Was Liu Long an idiot and handing out his family legacy just like that? Was Li Hao so easily fooled? Yuan Shuo had never gotten that impression before!

    ¡°I don¡¯t know either,¡± Li Hao said sheepishly. ¡°I gave the small sword to the captain and he gave me this in return¡­¡±

    Alright then!

    Yuan Shuo knew the story behind the sword and that it was nothing good. Misfortune visited whoever possessed it. So this meant that his disciple had given a source of trouble away and tricked Liu Long into feeling grateful?

    Well now¡­ what could he say about that?

    ¡°Alright then, read it yourself. It¡¯s not my ce to peruse or teach another martial master¡¯s secret art. This one is very suited to you though. You¡¯ll be able to kill regr mid yers despite being a novice if you reach Thrice Forged!¡±

    Yuan Shuo truly did hold the method in high regard. Its side effects and bacsh on the body wouldn¡¯t be a concern for Li Hao given hismand of cosmic power. The professor was also well aware of this.

    ¡­¡­

    The Yuan residence.

    Yuan Shuo barked withughter after hanging up and cursed lowly, ¡°To hell with it! How is the kid this lucky??¡±

    He was too damn lucky! All good things found their way to him! Nine Forged Force, eh? Silver Gun you old fart. You never imagined that your secret art would end up in my student¡¯s hands, eh!

    ¡­¡­

    Night.

    Openlight.

    Home.

    Li Hao opened the Nine Forged Force booklet. Panther was sprawled on the couch next to him and craned its neck forward for a look. The young man didn¡¯t push it away as he didn¡¯t think the dog could read. Understanding human speech was one thing, but recognizing text? If Panth could manage that, he¡¯d call the dog his master!

    ¡°Martial masters who enter yer of Tens see an upwelling of internal force and a ringing ord of bone and meridian. Internal force is limited and scattered throughout the various parts of the human body. Martial masters of the same level will see minute differences between their internal force¡­¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s father had written the booklet¡ªit wasn¡¯t the original. It was apparent from the contents that Liu Long¡¯s father, Liu Hao, had been a peak Sunderer in his prime. However, Yuan Shuo said that such a mighty martial master had bowed and scraped in front of him! There must be some degree of exaggeration in that recounting.

    A peak Sunderer would have rivaled Yuan Shuo back in the day.

    Liu Hao was most skilled with offense. A spear was the king of all weapons! Martial masters that employed the spear focused only on attacking. There was no return after they deployed a move.

    Liu Hao utilized the Nine Forged Force to bring forth nineyers of force onto his weapon, creating a tremendous reputation for himself in the martial world of Silver Moon. Hailed as Silver Gun Liu Hao, he was one of the Three Spears of Silver Moon back in the day.

    There¡¯d been plenty of Sunderers then, so for Liu Hao to create such a name for himself was the surest sign that he was extraordinary. The primary reason for that could be attributed to this method!

    He employed the same level of internal force as his peers, butyered it nine times in one blow. While he wasn¡¯t perfect on aprehensive level, his offensive abilities were unmatched among the Three Spears!

    As apparent as his strengths were, so were his weaknesses. Hecked speed and physical constitution. Layering force nine times resulted in enormous damage to the body, so Liu Hao¡¯s arms were nearly crippled when he reached middle age.

    It was one of the reasons why he brought his son to Yuan Shuo when Liu Long was young. The Liu spear technique was widely renowned, but Liu Hao knew that it enacted too high of a toll from the body. Regr martial masters could fight up to seventy years old, but a Liu n member saw a swift decline after forty. Oftentimes, they werepletely disabled.

    If it wasn¡¯t for Liu Long enhancing his body through absorbing mysterious power, consecutive years of fighting at his age would¡¯ve likewise consigned him to an ignoble fate.

    ¡°Nineyers of force!¡± Li Hao sighed with appreciation. He didn¡¯t quite understand how valuable the art was, but he knew how strong it could be.

    It wasn¡¯t an empty descriptor. The method focused on utilizing strength and concentrating it in the arms from elsewhere in the body. Layer uponyer of strength built upon themselves, testing one¡¯s control and the tenacity of the arms.

    ¡°Is Thrice Forged the limit for a yer?¡±

    That was what the booklet indicated. Any more beyond that easily resulted in shattered arms and irrevocable damage. When it came to Sunderers, they should not exceed sixyers.

    Liu Hao once utilized nineyers when he met with a powerful foe. He dispatched the enemy, but also damaged his foundations. His arms were nearly rendered useless and he retired not long thereafter. The Silver Gun of the Three Spears thus vanished from public view and soon departed the world.

    ¡°The benefits and detriments of Nine Forged Force are apparent. Once force isyered, I¡¯ll have to remain where I am. Moving will disperse the force¡­¡±

    That was the major drawback! Redirecting the strength of one¡¯s body meant locking oneself in ce. Moving around then would dismiss the internal force and very likely lead to injury. Therefore, as famous as the method was, quite a few veteran martial masters also knew how intricate it was.

 Chapter 66: Training Forged Force, Darkness Rises (I)

    Chapter 66: Training Forged Force, Darkness Rises (I)

    ¡°Unless one¡¯s constitution is strong enough to not care about the redeployment of strength¡­¡±

    This was likely why Liu Long had passed the Nine Forged Force method to Li Hao. The young man¡¯s physique seemed quite decent, a trait on disy before he became a yer. His body condition had further improved after the round of new blood.

    In his state, Li Hao might avoid the drawback of not being able to move upon utilizing the Nine Forged Force. Even if he moved, he might retain sufficient strength to maintain the method¡¯s operation. The likelihood of bacsh hurting him was immensely decreased.

    The young man studied the method for a while. Apart from the description and proper way to call upon one¡¯s strength, the crux was a specific breathing technique.

    Every secret art came with a unique breathing method that was the core of the method. Different arts had different ways of calling upon one¡¯s strength. If Li Hao tried to use the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to practice the Nine Forged Force, he might splinter his internal force and injure himself instead.

    Therefore, the secret art itself wasn¡¯t very valuable¡ªthe associated breathing method was of paramount importance. Liu Long had included it with the booklet. A inly separate piece of paper was included among the yellowing pages.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao spent an hour carefully perusing three thousand characters before attempting to practice. He first adjusted his breathing to that of the Nine Forged Force. It was a very different tempopared to before.

    Next to him, Panther stared fixedly at the young man. Li Hao cast a sidelong nce at the little ck dog and grinned. The dog wanted to steal some knowledge again!

    ¡°You can only sense the difference in breathing and not the change in internal organs. That means you¡¯re learning just the outward signs and not the principle! But you¡¯re just a dog, so that should be enough.¡±

    Panther didn¡¯t mind the remarks and continued observing Li Hao. Gradually, its breathing took on a particr meter. Each breath¡¯s duration was different¡ªnot in a disorderly way. Instead of imparting difort, it came across as a very rhythmic beat.

    Since the dog wished to learn, Li Hao didn¡¯t purposefully quiet his breathing. Outsiders would be hard pressed to detect anything once he toned himself down. He could sense internal force inside his body after adjusting his breathing¡ªa strength different from mysterious power!

    Internal force was quite special as it bloomed from the inside, a function of the body¡¯s natural workings. In contrast, mysterious power came from the outside and with a distinct separation that it wasn¡¯t produced by the body.

    Internal force originated from the blood, muscles, cells, and bones. It felt like every fiber of the body produced this faint strength. Just like vitality, a healthy body supplied one with more internal force. It was formless, but able to be truly felt.

    Internal force flowed through his body like a current. His arm muscles writhed when he directed the current to the arms. Popping sounds rang in the ear when he shook his hands¡ªthe resonance of bone and meridian!

    Compared to when he first set foot into yer of Tens two days ago, Li Hao held a better grasp and understanding of his strength now. A quick shake and outward push of his arms sent Panther flying six meters out until the dog crashed into the wall.

    Innocence welled up in the little ck dog¡¯s eyes! It wasn¡¯t injured since it was much hardier than ordinary humans after absorbing some de energy. It even rivaled yers! However, that was all it was good for since Panther didn¡¯t know how to call upon its strength.

    Li Hao paid the dog no heed and reviewed how it felt to have internal force surge from within. He mmed his palm down on the living room¡¯s heavy coffee table. It bore a marble tabletop that his father once carted back from a mountain. After so many years, numerous cracks had developed in it. It didn¡¯t react to a light p from the young man¡¯s hand.

    After the firstyer of force wasid, Li Hao activated a secondyer with another writhing of his arm muscles. When he pressed his palm down, the entire coffee table shook!

    Thump thump thump!

    The coffee table trembled, showing signs of potentially splitting open.

    Li Hao continued to adjust his breathing and circte a thirdyer from elsewhere in his body. The muscles of his right hand wriggled again, writhing with such pronounced motion that it was a bit terrifying.

    Thisyer of force had some difficulty extending out of his body and the continued motion of his right arm muscles turned into soreness. Li Hao, however, insisted on following his course of action!

    This was Forged Force!

    What he deployed was too slow for now, the true Nine Forged Force wouldn¡¯t be this slow. His secondyer of force came noticeablyter after his palm strike connected, and his thirdyer was still stuck in traffic in his arm. If he hemmed and hawed like this when facing an opponent, he¡¯d die before he managed to deploy his thirdyer.

    At the same time, Li Hao was simply unfamiliar with the method since it was his first time employing it. The thirdyer of force finally traveled down his arm as he continued to focus on it. He smiled when the coffee table shuddered with a slight crack.

    Although the process was arduous, it was confirmation that he could learn the method. Granted, what he utilized at the moment was far from Thrice Forged. He wasn¡¯t even Once Forged!

    A real Thrice Forged was a consecutive deployment ofyers of strength with barely a pause in between them. That was a trueyering of force.

    ¡°The book says that the initial stages of this method are the hardest because they too easily strain the body. I did actually tear some muscles in my upper right arm just now¡­¡±

    But do I care?

    Li Hao smiled. Cosmic power! The energy was perfect for nurturing the body and could neutralize something as violent as mysterious power. Internal force was easily taken care of as it was much milderpared to mysterious power. Thus, cosmic power could easily repair its damage.

    Most people might run through the Nine Forged Force once or twice a day when they first started out. That was hardly Li Hao. He circted the Breathing Method of the Five Styles and absorbed a tiny bit of cosmic power, sending it to his right arm. It instantly repaired torn muscles and left him pain free.

    ¡°Nice!¡± Li Hao once more verified the benefits of this energy. It was wondrous! He didn¡¯t need any medicinal supplements to train the Nine Forged Force. When the Liu family members practiced it, they required an additional prescription to nurture the body so their training didn¡¯t harm their foundations.

    Cosmic power was an untold number of times stronger than that prescription.

    ¡°This is fun!¡± Indeed, the young man found it fun.

    Passion and interest were the fuel of cultivation. If one wasn¡¯t interested in cultivation, then one would attain no results. Li Hao was immensely interested in the Nine Forged Force as he viewed it as a fun game.

    He punched forward,yering his internal force. It took three seconds for the secondyer to appear¡ªan interval that was an entire lifetime in actualbat. But as his arms grew ustomed to the strength, his secondyer arrived faster and faster.

    Two seconds¡­ one second¡­

    It grew hard to improve after he reached one second. That interval was still too long as martial masters could trade several blows within one second. Neither would one¡¯s opponent stand still for an entire second after being punched and wait for a second blow.

    Punch punch punch!

    Li Hao focused only on the Nine Forged Force this evening¡ªit was possibly his fastest and easiest way to improve. He had no fear of injury thanks to cosmic power. He could practice with impunity!

    Punch after punch,yer afteryer, his training this night probably exceeded a year to even five years of others¡¯. Liu Long¡¯s eyeballs would fall out if he saw how Li Hao trained! A regr person¡¯s arms would¡¯ve exploded long ago. Not only did the young man feel fine, but his arm muscles grew noticeably stronger from the effects of cosmic power. They rippled with strength visible to the naked eye.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao exulted in training and never grew weary. After repeated punches and palm strikes, he discovered a secret. Well, not entirely a secret, just that his own arms grew stronger the more times he deployed the method.

    It wasn¡¯t really a secret, simply that regr martial masters could never practice the same way. Whoever tried to do so for a day would cripple themselves, if not end up outright dead.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t even inclined to sleep this night. When it was almost dawn, one of his punches sounded twice! There was almost no gap between them; it was as if the two snaps were one.

    The young man started. had he seeded? No way! He punched the coffee table again¡ªit was pockmarked after a night.

    Bam!

    The marble split open and the table split into two. The auntie downstairs suddenly roared, ¡°Li Hao, what are you doing now?!¡±

    What was he doing so early in the morning?!

    Li Hao was actually being very careful and had ced a rug underneath the table. But his punch splintered the coffee table, rendering the rug useless. He sighed helplessly. His ce was so small that there wasn¡¯t any ce to train and the slightest disturbance caused the auntie downstairs to raise hell at him. Perhaps his own Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods improved due to imitating her.

    He¡¯d yet to see a bonafide wild tiger, but he¡¯d heard her roar countless times. She was ferocious in arguments throughout the neighborhood and reigned supreme over the other women in Openlight.

    Li Haoforted himself and called out, ¡°The fridge fell over!¡±

    ¡°Your fridge falls over everyday!¡± came the answering snarl. What, was it made of paper to fall over so many times?!

    ¡°I¡¯m getting a new one next month! You can have the old one and sell it for parts if you wish, auntie!¡±

    She immediately quieted down. Not bad! A free refrigerator, one that would fetch a few coins if sold for scrap!

    Li Hao ignored the exchange and smiled brilliantly.

    Sess!

    Twice Forged!

 Chapter 67: Training Forged Force, Darkness Rises (II)

    Chapter 67: Training Forged Force, Darkness Rises (II)

    Though it was just a beginning and certainly much less than what Liu Long could bring to bear, Li Hao had achieved Twice Forged over the span of a single night! In his wildest daydreams, he fancied calling upon Nine Forged after a few days!

    He might still be a yer of Tens then, but he could possibly beat a Sunderer to death if he erupted with full strength.

    ¡°I¡¯ve finally done it!¡± Initial sess meant that future attempts would be easy. Indeed, Li Hao found that each repeated instance of Twice Forged was sessful, but he reverted back to his previous state when attempting Thrice Forged. The thirdyer was incredibly difficult and required a long interval toplete.

    ¡°It¡¯s the 17th.¡± The young man looked outside when he pulled back the curtains. Noticeable changes were observed in the weather today. Gusts of cool wind unfurled through the zing hot day and the sky seemed to be overcast.

    ¡°It might rain tomorrow.¡±

    It¡¯d only been a few days since determining the next target might be him, but it felt like it¡¯d been a century. During this period, he ascended to yer of Tens, joined the Demon Hunters, discovered how to utilize the energy within the jade sword and stone de, and learned the Breathing Method of the Five Styles as well as the Nine Forged Force.

    Some might go their entire lifetime without experiencing these events.

    ¡°It¡¯s finally almost here!¡± Right now, Li Hao was more anticipatory of the scarlet shadow¡¯s arrival than anything. Though he was still very weak, the prolonged torment of awaiting death was almost more than he could bear.

    He caressed Steris hanging in front of his chest. How was the tiny sword supposed to be used? Was he to kill the enemy with it? Wouldn¡¯t that be poking them with a toothpick?

    ¡°The sword always shows an abnormal reaction against the scarlet shadow, so it must be effective. But¡­ it¡¯s not like I can pinch it between two fingers and kill the shadow that way¡­¡± This was Li Hao¡¯s greatest headache at the moment. It felt so unnatural!

    Was anyone ustomed to stabbing enemies with a toothpick?

    In his eyes, the scarlet shadow was their biggest threat because no one could see it. It could easily approach him in a moment of carelessness and set him on fire. The others may not save him in time, so he¡¯d have to take care of it himself¡­

    What could he do about it?

    Li Hao took off the chain and held up the jade sword that was the size of a cross. He grasped the hilt with two fingers and waved it forward!

    ¡­this is seriously awkward.

    ¡°So what if it¡¯s awkward. Maybe it¡¯ll have a big effect. It¡¯s not the smoothest, but it¡¯s serviceable.¡± Li Hao put on the jade sword again and experimented swiftly drawing it.

    A yank on the chain, a grasp with his fingers, and a quick jabpleted the task.

    ¡­ so anticlimactic.

    The movement did make it hard for Nine Forged Force since he hadn¡¯t practiced directing his strength into only two fingers.

    ¡°Perhaps it¡¯s the same for the shadow whether or not the force isyered.¡± Li Hao put the notion out of his mind. It is what it is.

    These were the limits of what he could do for the moment. He¡¯d prepared everything he could, asked for all the help avable, and offered whatever he could to his teacher. Compared to fighting solo like he¡¯d been previously, he was now more than one hundred times stronger than before!

    If he still couldn¡¯t make it to the other side, then so be it.

    Li Hao was about to wash up when a disturbance sounded from the house. Panther suddenly raised its paw and mmed it down on the coffee table¡­

    An agonized squeal rang out.

    ¡°Aouuu!¡± The little ck dog considered its swollen paw and looked piteously at the human. What gives? Why can¡¯t this dog smash the table to pieces?

    Li Hao was absolutely speechless. He absorbed some cosmic energy and circted it through his arm, directing some out of his fingers and pointing it at the dog.

    Its swollen paw deted slightly, but Panther still looked at him morosely. It seemed to be asking for instruction. It¡¯d also absorbed much of the sword energy that¡¯d seeped out of Li Haost night and followed him in practicing Nine Forged Force. Why hadn¡¯t it worked?

    ¡°Dogs and humans are different after all, I have no idea how to teach you. You¡¯re supposed to concentrateyered force on the arm¡ªyour legs, in other words, but as for how¡­ I¡¯m not a dog, so I can¡¯t exin it to you,¡± Li Hao said with resignation. ¡°Figure it out yourself! And Panth, how about you follow me starting tomorrow? Can you handle that thing?¡±

    The little ck dog shook with fear.

    ¡°Not me then, but Liu Long¡ªthe big guy fromst time. I¡¯m worried he won¡¯t be able to see or sense it, so just bark a few times in its direction! Give him some pointers so he knows where it is. How about it?¡±

    Panther was still afraid after thinking about it.

    ¡°Whatever you want then, I won¡¯t force you. I might be dead after tomorrow though, so you¡¯ll go back out on the streets again!¡±

    The little ck dog¡¯s heart raced with anxiety when it heard¡ªdead? Then what¡¯s going to happen to me?

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡±

    ¡°Are you agreed?¡±

    ¡°Arf!¡±

    Li Hao chuckled. Good dog! I¡¯m not forcing you to do this, you wanted to yourself. This is a democracy and I won¡¯t force you if you refuse, even if you¡¯re a dog.

    ¡°Very well. Come with me to the Inspectorate today and I¡¯ll introduce you to the team captain. Behave, do you hear me? Don¡¯t be too smart or understand too much. Pretend to be an ordinary dog, but one that can see that thing. You can bark when you see it¡ªthat¡¯s a dog¡¯s instinct. Well, it¡¯s not like the captain knows what a dog is capable of either.¡±

    Derision filled Panther¡¯s eyes. Li Hao patted it on the head until it grew a little dizzy, calming the dog that was much too human.

    ¡­¡­

    The Inspectorate.

    Law Enforcement.

    The basement.

    Liu Long was very confused to see Panther. It wasn¡¯t until Li Hao exined that the little ck dog could see the thing that Liu Long¡¯s bafflement changed to surprise.

    A dog could see it?

    ¡°Are you sure that dogs can see the entity that exists in a mental state?¡±

    Wait, that sounds a bit weird. It¡¯s almost an insult to me because I can see it too! Li Hao nodded without a change in expression.

    ¡°Yes, they can. Panther always looks in a certain direction and growls when something feels off. It¡¯s really smart and understands human speech, chief. You might have an easier time of things with it around. The dog won¡¯t add to your troubles and will remind you when that thing appears. That thing doesn¡¯t really care about a dog.¡±

    Liu Long nodded, finding it incredible, but willing to entertain that there was something different about this dog since Li Hao spoke of it.

    ¡°Alright then, I¡¯ll take it with me and we can spend some time getting to know each other so we don¡¯t rm the enemy ahead of time.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you won¡¯t.¡±

    The two exchanged a few more words before Liu Long continued, ¡±Have you looked at the book? Burn it after you memorize it. All you need to do is remember the contents, I don¡¯t expect you to master the method right now.¡±

    He truly didn¡¯t expect anything from the young man. Nine Forged Force wasn¡¯t easy to learn, particrly the beginning stages. Those were the most challenging and it¡¯d taken him three years to achieve proficiency. The situation improved somewhat afterward, making the third and fourthyerse much faster.

    His father, Silver Gun Liu Hao, had possessed more potential and be a peak Sunderer before forty years old. Even he had taken a year to begin his journey with the method.

    Therefore, although Li Hao boasted of a better constitution and tutge from a famed master, Liu Long estimated that it¡¯d take the young man at least a year and a half before he found sess.

    Li Hao, on the other hand, bubbled with the need to keep his secret quiet. There was no point in mentioning that he¡¯d already learned it as one should hide one¡¯s aces for a while. If even his team captain thought little of him, then the enemy would think less. Riches and big things could be aplished when one kept a low profile. What could one do when sauntering around beating one¡¯s chest?

    ¡°Don¡¯t go home tonight,¡± Liu Long continued. ¡°Come with me to the outskirts tomorrow. We¡¯re in the light while they¡¯re in the shadows. We have no choice but to go on the offensive and lure them out of their hidey-hole!¡±

    ¡°Wang Ming wants to hike Mt. Heavenly King tomorrow!¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°Don¡¯t go up the mountain, our spot is at its foot. The mountain¡¯s not suitable terrain for us, but you can go with him if you think the Night Watchers can handle the matter.¡±

    He looked at Li Hao. Do you trust the Night Watchers more or the Demon Hunters? The Night Watchers might take action, but they might not prove sufficient for the task. And even if they do show themselves to be stronger, it might not be good for Li Hao. Supernaturals did not care about the wellbeing of others when they started fighting.

    Liu Long would at least keep an eye out for the young man and not wish for him to die so easily.

    ¡°I¡¯ll do as the chief says,¡± Li Haoughed honestly. ¡°But I just feel, wouldn¡¯t it be better if you guys worked together?¡±

    Wasn¡¯t there strength in numbers? Guerri tactics were usually employed by viins¡ªsending in people when the previous wave died until the targets were finally dead. This wasn¡¯t very auspicious!

    ¡°You¡¯re wrong, that may not make us stronger!¡± Liu Long shook his head with augh. ¡°Some supernaturals attack everything in sight. Actually, most of them are like that, especially those suited for offense. One strike of lightning smites everyone but themselves. We might adversely affect each other if we conduct a joint operation, so working together isn¡¯t necessarily better.¡±

    ¡°Then what about the enemy?¡±

    What if they had numerous supernaturals on their side? Would they affect each other?

    ¡°It¡¯s possible that the same happens to them, so they¡¯ll most likely split up and minimize their influence on one another. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll have Liu Yan protect you if that happens tomorrow!¡±

    She was the strongest on the team apart from him.

    Li Hao nodded after some thought, epting the arrangement. As confident as he was, he didn¡¯t think he could handle the scarlet shadow by himself. Not to mention, he wasn¡¯t all that confident. Although he¡¯d killed a yer yesterday, he still thought of himself as a puny weakling.

    So he¡¯d fought once¡ªthat was nothingpared to his teacher. His teacher could fly and st two Darkmoon with one move! What did Li Hao amount to?

    With Liu Yan on the scene, he¡¯d try tond the finishing move if there was a chance to.

    The two conversed for a while longer before Liu Long left with Panther. Given Li Hao¡¯s suggestion, the chief would familiarize himself with the dog first to ensure full cooperation when needed.

 Chapter 68: Raining (I)

    Chapter 68: Raining (I)

    It was a small matter that Liu Long walked away with Panther. But half a dayter¡­ the team captain came to Li Hao with an odd look in his eyes. He delivered a friendly punch without saying a word and just as bizarrely ran off.

    Li Hao had no idea what¡¯d happened. What you hit me for?

    ¡­¡­

    Thew enforcement team.

    The captain¡¯s office.

    Liu Long¡¯s gaze remained as strange as before. He stared at the little ck dog in front of him and abruptly sighed.

    ¡°A human is less than a dog! Hot damn! A dog knows a martial breathing method, and it¡¯s the one that belongs to my family¡¯s Nine Forged Force! How are you this damned smart?? It took me a few days to learn it and you at most watched Li Hao practice itst night! How do you know it too??¡±

    Indeed, he¡¯d discovered a secret. Panther habitually employed a martial breathing method. Although the dog¡¯s breathing was so imperceptible that regr people wouldn¡¯t be able to detect it, it was the Liu breathing method that the little ck dog utilized.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t realize it at first. It wasn¡¯t until he led the dog around for a bit that he noticed the dog breathed at the same tempo as he did. His jaw dropped with shock!

    When he breathed, the dog breathed. When he paused, the dog paused¡­

    It nearly sent him up a wall!

    This dog was uncanny. No wonder Li Hao said it could see existences of the mental state.

    ¡°The supernatural domain has be part of our world and even dogs arerger than life!¡± Liu Long shook his head, but wasn¡¯t overly surprised. He sighed softly, ¡°Myths awake, the supernatural rises, and storiese from White Moon City of animals turning into spirits!

    ¡°There¡¯s even news from the central region of these animals devouring powerhouses stronger than Sunre! To think that a tiny Silver City would see a dog like you as well!¡± Heughed self-deprecatingly at himself. ¡°A dog can be so, but I cannot make the crossover. How ironic! Forget it, forget it. You¡¯ve learned my family¡¯s breathing method and I have nothing better to do. I¡¯ll try teaching you Nine Forged Force. If you really turn into a dog spirit, show me a paw of nineyered force and smack those bastards to death!¡±

    Liu Longughed heartily. Could a dog learn the method? Who cares, let¡¯s give it a try. He was a much better teacher than Li Hao since he¡¯d trained for decades. The kid had nothing on him!

    Upon assessing the little ck dog for a while, Liu Long began teaching the owner of eager canine eyes how toyer internal force!

    Panther¡¯s learning abilities shocked him anew. Hot diggity, he¡¯d never learned as fast as the dog!

    In actuality, it was because Panther had spent a night practicing and absorbing arge amount of cosmic power. It was naturally a quick study after meeting a suitable teacher. Its paws blurred with afterimages through the air!

    Twice Forged Dog Paw!

    Liu Long almost wanted to tell the dog to be his student when Panther mastered the secondyer. Be my final disciple! You¡¯re much better than a human!

    He thought Li Hao had a lot of potential given that Yuan Shuo epted thed. But now? What was Li Hao good for? He didn¡¯t measure up to Panther at all! Look how quickly the little ck dog had mastered Twice Forged!

    The day of reckoning was upon them, but Liu Long put business out of mind. He spent the entire day in his office teaching a dog. If word of this got out, the rest of the team would go mad. They thought their captain was brainstorming in seclusion, thinking of ways to stymie the enemy and defuse the crisis that might arrive tomorrow.

    No one imagined that he would spend the day teaching a dog martial arts!

    At the end of the day, Panther could just barely deploy Thrice Forged Dog Paw! Li Hao¡¯s jaw would drop with iprehension if he knew!

    Time passed slowly as the little ck dog practiced its new craft. July 17th gradually came to a close. Dusk fell and thunderclouds filled the sky.

    Cold winds gusted through Silver City. Scarlet shadows manifested in the darkness to await theing harvest. The eight bloodlines were almost assembled!

    ¡­¡­

    Plop plop plop¡­

    It was raining!

    Tiny raindrops sttered on windows and overhangs, plinking as they connected. All was quiet as the night stretched on.

    Passersby on the streets were rare after 10pm in a small ce like Silver City. Everyone knew that the weather was about to take a turn for a worse, so there were even fewer people than usual. Storefronts were closed; the rainy season was here! The city would be inundated in the days toe.

    ¡­¡­

    The basement.

    Li Hao wore a new inspector uniform and a third gen vortex gun on his waist. Some grenades rested in his pockets. He didn¡¯t carry overly powerful hot weapons as they weren¡¯t too convenient. They were also too difficult for a single person to operate by himself.

    Not too far away, a shield stood next to Chen Jian. ck and of moderate size, it would be employed to protect the vitals.

    Yun Yao packed up a medicine kit in a nearby corner while skinny Wu Chao toyed with a dagger. His mind seemed to be lost in thought.

    Liu Yan sat in front of Li Hao. Bereft of her customary smile, she was also lost in thought. A framed photograph rested face down in front of her. Did it hold a picture of herte husband?

    Bam!

    The door swung open. Dressed in a trench coat, Liu Long walked in with a dog by his side. It was only now that he left his office with Panther.

    Everyone looked at him, even the distracted Liu Yan and Wu Chao. They snapped to attention and focused on their captain, the heart of the Demon Hunters.

    ¡°It¡¯s raining!¡± He strode in coolly and looked around. ¡°Are you all ready?¡±

    ¡°Ready!¡± Chen Jian answered in a muffled voice.

    Liu Long shed a vicious leer. ¡°Remember, evil never triumphs over justice. We are justice!¡±

    ¡°Justice!¡± the team growled.

    ¡°We uphold justice, eliminate evil, and safeguard order!¡± Their motto once more rang through the basement. mboyant as ever, this time, the echoes stirred Li Hao¡¯s heart. To uphold justice and eliminate evil!

    BOOM!

    Thunder roared through the sky, but the team¡¯s expression shifted. Liu Yan quickly stood up with a stern look. ¡°That¡¯s not thunder!¡±

    Indeed, it wasn¡¯t. They were all too familiar with this kind of sound. It was a bomb!

    Liu Long¡¯s expression turned unpleasant and he smiled stiffly. ¡°The supernaturals¡­ really are something! They don¡¯t want us to leave the city and aren¡¯t willing to let us seize the initiative. Therefore, they¡¯ve entered the city!¡±

    Entered the city!

    The enemy had entered the city and was destroying their home. They were using the entire city¡¯s safety to split up the team and assumemand!

    Li Hao paled. The rest of the team didn¡¯t say anything as they thought he was scared. It was surprising that he was scared now, of all times. Youngsters couldn¡¯t be counted on in moments of crisis, alright!

    However, Li Hao wasn¡¯t scared. He shook with anger and panic as he listened to the sound. ¡°Chief, was that an explosion? It¡­ came from my home¡­¡±

    It definitely sounded like it, but he couldn¡¯t be certain.

    A mor rose outside as the Inspectorate mobilized!

    ¡°It¡¯s only the beginning.¡± Liu Long regained his calm. ¡°Looks like our opponent this time isn¡¯t easy to handle!¡±

    They¡¯d made the first move before the team could move out of the city. It was both a threat and warning. Don¡¯t think of leaving the city!

    It was also a message to Liu Long and the others that they should give up, that all of their ns were known. Even the location of the trap was no secret!

    So don¡¯t even think about it!

    Some supernaturals may be arrogant, but some were cautious. Their opponents were inly the prudent sort. Though they didn¡¯t think the Demon Hunters needed to be guarded against, they still weren¡¯t willing to set foot into the trap.

    Liu Long took a deep breath. He had a hunch that trouble wasing for him.

    Ring ring ring!

    The deputy chief picked up amunicator and swiftly heard a familiar roar. ¡°Liu Long, where are you?! You¡¯re not at thew enforcement team and neither is Liu Yan! Big matters are afoot in Silver City, are you deaf?? There¡¯s been an explosion and people are dead!¡±

    Thew enforcement team needed to immediately resolve such a major incident, but they milled about uncertainly because the captain and vice captain were absent. There was only one st site thus far, who knew if there would be a second?

    The furious voice crackled to life again. ¡°Return to the Inspectorate immediately and lead a team to the relevant area! Not just you, but also Liu Yan! Arson has urred in the western outskirts and the oil storage tanks are on fire! Someone¡¯s lit them up!¡±

    ¡°Alright, Inspector General, don¡¯t panic. I¡¯ll take care of it!¡± Liu Long said slowly in a calm tone.

    ¡°Liu Long!¡± The man¡¯s voice rang with solemnity. ¡°I know you¡¯ve been busytely and I overlook certain things you undertake. However, you should let professionals handle the job. I am the inspector general of the onlyw enforcement agency in Silver City. You must keep in mind that the safety of the entire city is more important than one singr person!

    ¡°I am holding down the fort in the Inspectorate tonight while you¡­ you need to head out there and catch the perpetrators. If you must protect the little guy, send him to my office!¡±

    Both of them knew that the explosion was just the beginning, a warning. It was a signal to the agency that they should recognize the situation they were in and give up Li Hao. Their target from beginning to end was Li Hao.

    Therefore, whether it was the explosion or fire, they were just warnings and not a deration of war against Silver City¡¯sw enforcement agency.

    The Inspector General¡¯s voice was so loud that Li Hao heard him as well. The young man finally understood how terrifying and crafty the enemy was. They were as quiet as a mouse and didn¡¯t care about Demon Hunter involvement because they¡¯did their ns long ago¡ªthrow Silver City into chaos!

    The team would suffer immense pressure as the city dissolved into confusion.

    Don¡¯t you consider yourself the side of good? Are you going to investigate these cases and restore peace to the city, or will you forsake your duty and stay to protect Li Hao?

    ¡°I know!¡± Liu Long¡¯s voice remained even. ¡°I¡¯ll take care of it! Inspector General, I¡¯m going to hang up now!¡±

    He nced at Li Hao and remained silent for a moment. ¡°All of you, stay here and don¡¯t take brash action. I¡¯m going upstairs to handle things!¡±

    ¡°Chief!¡± Liu Yan was rmed. ¡°This is exactly what they want to see!¡±

    They wanted a distracted Demon Hunters that was unable to fend for themselves. The enemy¡¯s target from beginning to end was always very inly Li Hao.

    Liu Long nodded. ¡°I know!¡± But he had to go.

 Chapter 69: Raining (II)

    Chapter 69: Raining (II)

    If Liu Long didn¡¯t show himself, the perpetrators would continue to wreak all manner of havoc throughout the city. Sometimes, protecting Silver City was more than just empty talk.

    The deputy chief left, leaving behind Li Hao with a dour expression. He wasn¡¯t displeased with Liu Long leaving, but enraged that the guys who wanted to kill him would be so callous and utterlyck scruples!

    They were using all of the citizens to force the Demon Hunters to stay out of the matter. Even though they didn¡¯t feel that the team was worth bothering with, they still decided to hold the city hostage in an overabundance of caution.

    They absolutely deserve to die! The young man snarled inwardly. Sadly, there was nothing he could do as he was too weak.

    ¡­¡­

    Silver City was partially enveloped by pandemonium. It rained, but many ces were on fire. The mayhem didn¡¯t begin to calm down until Liu Long led his team to investigate all of the disturbances.

    ¡­¡­

    Silver City Veteris Institute.

    The Yuan residence.

    More than Yuan Shuo stood in his yard. There were two Night Watchers next to him¡ªHu Hao and Li Meng. Li Meng seemed much recovered; only her face was a little pale.

    Hu Hao could sense the disruption outside as he looked beyond the house.

    ¡°Elder Yuan,¡± he said softly. ¡°We¡¯ve reported to headquarters and reinforcements will be here soon. But it¡¯s best if you don¡¯t go outside right now. It¡¯s safer inside!¡±

    Hu Hao subconsciously knew that the enemy didn¡¯t want to antagonize the Night Watchers. Neither were they here for Yuan Shuo. They wanted the professor¡¯s student. From a Night Watcher perspective, these people demonstrated the height of disrespect with their audacity. They courted death!

    But their mission was to protect Yuan Shuo, so the professor was more important than Li Hao. They couldn¡¯t expose the old man to danger for the sake of his student.

    Yuan Shuo said nothing and continued to look outside. The ruckus gradually quieted down.

    ¡°Aren¡¯t they bold!¡± the man suddenly eximed with a trace of frostiness. ¡°Supernatural they may be and mundane is the rest of the world, butws still exist! This organization is too cocky! Do the Night Watchers know who they are?¡±

    Too cocky by far!

    Silver City was insignificant and far from the central seat of power, but it was still a city under the government¡¯s jurisdiction. Yet today, it was treated as a tool to threaten the Night Watchers and Inspectorate with!

    ¡°I do not oversee this operation, so I¡¯m unfamiliar with it.¡± Hu Hao shook his head. ¡°But to act in such a wanton, unbridled manner and be so untraceable¡­ It can only be one of the three major supernatural organizations¡ªRed Moon, Celestial, and Yama!¡±

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s brows drew tight. Was it one of them? If so, then his student was truly in much greater trouble than they¡¯d thought. These three organizations had been on the scene before the Night Watchers. Thetter was formed twenty years ago, but the three even earlier. They remained in the shadows upon inception. It wasn¡¯t until the Night Watchers came to be that the official authorities received some clues about the existence of the three.

    Compared to other supernatural organizations, Red Moon, Celestial, and Yama had explored further in their domain and possessed more powerhouses. One glimpse of any of the three might reveal heart-pounding secrets.

    Their strength exceeded the imagination.

    Yuan Shuo said nothing further. If it really was one of the three¡­ Silver City was in significant trouble. But since they were here for Li Hao, they wouldn¡¯t send experts too beyond the pale. None of the three wished to lose any premier heavyweights in a miscalction against the Night Watchers.

    Thus, the professor remained put. He waited.

    It wasn¡¯t time for him to take action. Either he bided his time, or he achieved great effect once he made a move. Otherwise, it would be more difficult to handle the snake if he didn¡¯t beat it to death the first time.

    Within the house.

    The two Night Watchers considered the situation with unpleasant expressions. They were the legitimate supernatural organization of the government, yet here they were, suffering in silence. They weren¡¯t strong and this mission wasn¡¯t something they could take on. All they could do was watch as Night Watcher dignity was used to mop the floor!

    As small as Silver City was, it was still a city of a million strong. And now, it was shrouded by terror from another.

    ¡°We¡¯ll eliminate them sooner orter!¡± Li Meng snorted.

    A newly born calf was not afraid of a tiger. She talked a big talk and had the courage to back it up.

    Yuan Shuo, on the other hand, remained silent. Hu Hao sighed inwardly. It was easy to conjecture boldly¡ªthey would¡¯ve eliminated these organizations a long time ago if they could do so. The Night Watchers couldn¡¯t and these groups were impossible to trace. Such were the reasons behind the events of the day.

    The supernatural field had arrived and risen so quickly that the government hadn¡¯t been able to grasp full control of it from the beginning. Its appearance wasn¡¯t even spontaneous¡ªit was premeditated. Of this, the government had been unaware as well.

    Once they knew, they had to call upon deep foundations to hastily convene the Night Watchers. Only then did the authorities barely manage to stabilizew and order in the various provinces.

    Unrest once more engulfed thend now and the Night Watchers were limited. How could they subdue all sides?

    An undercurrent of worry ran through Hu Hao as they¡¯d been endlesslypromising over the past twenty years. As time went on, the various supernatural organizations grew ever more out of control. In certain ces, even the Night Watchers had be corrupt.

    How long could such a peacest?

    Silver Moon was fine enough, but would the turbulence of Silver City spread elsewhere?

    The residence fell silent. Both Night Watchers were furious and reluctant, but could only quietly watch things unfold outside. Perhaps headquarters would send someone so strong that they would quell the upheaval with one move and bring the supernatural field to heel!

    However, they¡¯d nursed such hopes for years with rarely anything happening.

    Yuan Shuo leaned against a chair and said nothing. His hand caressed arge de. When he made his name back in the day, he¡¯d done so without relying on a weapon. His skills were veryprehensive and he was proficient in all manner of weapons, including hands and feet. Now, however, he carried a de wherever he went.

    No one paid attention to the newly forged weapon. The two next to him didn¡¯t and cared even less that a tiny stone de was embedded inside. It was roughly eight centimeters long and only three centimeters wide¡ªsmaller than the hilt!

    Yuan Shuo gently caressed it and breathed rhythmically; his muscles continuously writhed beneath his clothes as currents of strength rushed throughout his body.

    ¡­¡­

    Silver City.

    There was arge church less than three thousand meters from the Inspectorate. In its abandoned state, it more resembled a ghost¡¯s abode. It was deathly quiet!

    A low chuckle traveled from a shadow in the corner after who knew how long. ¡°Liu Long¡¯s out! Yuan Shuo¡¯s stuck in the Institute and the two protecting him don¡¯t dare take a single step away from him.¡±

    ¡°Have the Night Watchers made any arrangements?¡±

    ¡°We haven¡¯t discovered any yet, but that is of no matter. There are only so many premier experts at the headquarters of the Silver Moon Night Watchers. They¡¯re all out on missions and we have our corresponding ns. Their movements are under surveince, not to mention they won¡¯t easily take action.

    ¡°We might have raised their attention had we sent our own premier powerhouses, but this time? They don¡¯t want to take the risk of open hostilities if they kill us!¡±

    If they could kill some organization heavyweights with a single blow, the Night Watchers might be tempted to, even if they had to pay a price. But earning the enmity of a major supernatural organization in return for killing a few mid-level characters? That wasn¡¯t worth it to them!

    Darkughter carried satisfaction and pride to the shadows. It was such an aplishment to envelope Silver City under their influence!

    So what of the Night Watchers?

    They were here to harvest a mundane this time. No matter how glorious the Li n might have once been, present day Li Hao was nothing more than a mortal. Someone from Silver City wished to stop them? What a fool who didn¡¯t know their strength!

    ¡°When do we make our move?¡± came another voice from the darkness.

    ¡°There¡¯s no rush, we wait!¡±

    For what?

    Some knew, some didn¡¯t. A rookie among the Ghostfaces couldn¡¯t help but ask, ¡°Liu Long isn¡¯t there and Yuan Shuo can¡¯t move. The timing is perfect. Are we still going to wait?¡±

    Wasn¡¯t this the ideal opportunity?

    ¡°We¡¯re going to wait a bit longer. You don¡¯t understand. We¡¯re going to first make the others so busy that they trip over their feet, then wait until lightning brews at night and the rain turns blue. That¡¯s when we make our move!¡±

    Blue?

    There was such a thing as blue rainwater?

    Not all of the Ghostfaces hade to Silver City before and not all of them were previously part of the mission. Surprise and confusion appeared in those who weren¡¯t in the know.

    Could rain turn blue? Why did they need to wait for this phenomenon?

    ¡­¡­

    The basement.

    Li Hao breathed out heavily and looked at the others.

    ¡°They¡¯ve lured chief away, but still don¡¯t make their move.¡± He was growing anxious. ¡°What are they waiting for?¡±

    He¡¯d thought the enemy would act as soon as Liu Long left, but that wasn¡¯t the case! They were still waiting! What else did the scarlet shadow need other than the rains? He was growing frantic while waiting for them!

    If worst came to worst, he¡¯d just go toe-to-toe against them! It¡¯d be great if he won and still be better than endlessly waiting if he died.

    Not too far from him, Liu Yan chuckled softly with amusement. ¡°Are you that eager to die?¡±

    ¡°What if we can kill them instead, sis?¡± Li Hao chuckled as well, some agitation abating. ¡°Fine, let¡¯s wait! Why don¡¯t we take the initiative and head to the spot? If they¡¯re waiting, that means the time isn¡¯t right yet. They won¡¯t necessarily make a move even if we leave now!¡±

    The scarlet shadow faction still needed time and he didn¡¯t want to sit here to wait for death.

    ¡°We wait for the chief!¡± Liu Yan didn¡¯t normally listen to Liu Long¡¯s orders all that much, but she seemed to ce all of her trust in the man at a time like this. He hadn¡¯t sent them out when he left, so she didn¡¯t talk of leaving. No matter what Li Hao said, she insisted on staying.

    ¡­¡­

    Outside the Inspectorate.

    Liu Long made his rounds with a squadron, left a few people behind to handle the case, and returned to headquarters.

    But not to the basement.

    The rain was growing heavier and lightning brewed in the darkness. Muffled ps of thunder sounded in the sky. Next to him, rainwater trickled down Panther¡¯s glossy fur, but didn¡¯t drench the dog.

    They were being extremely passive! Liu Long knew that he was being led around the nose by others. It was pressure from the city and from the unknown enemy. He had no choice but to follow their path.

    Regardless, there was no sign of unease or trepidation to be found in his eyes. Just calm and aloofness.

 Chapter 70: Raining (III)

    Chapter 70: Raining (III)

    Liu Long didn¡¯t even have time to take a sip of water when he exited the car. Someone immediately braved the rain from the Inspectorate lobby.

    ¡°Captain, another arson case has urred in the northern outskirts!¡± the messenger gabbled. ¡°A lot of people are trapped in the building and the fire department¡¯s already gone out, but they need help from thew enforcement team¡­¡±

    Again?!

    Incidents repeated over and over again, leading him away from the Inspectorate and toying with him. They threatened him, warning him to not return. If he did, another case would crop up!

    ¡°The Inspectorate¡­¡± Liu Long murmured. If they couldn¡¯t resolve the challenges facing them, the agency would have no dignity left to speak of after the night! Even the Night Watchers would lose all prestige.

    You guys should know this too, so have you made sufficient preparations?

    ¡°Follow me!¡± Liu Long shouted and set off in the rain. His squadron¡¯s van quickly sped off.

    Then we continue! You¡¯re outsiders at the end of the day. Although you¡¯veid some ns, can you know the city better than me?

    ¡°I¡¯ve almost located you guys!¡± Smiling faintly, Liu Long stroked Panther¡¯s head. The little ck dog¡¯s nose twitched as it traveled with the team tonight.

    The van threaded through various streets and alleyways of Silver City at a moderate speed. Perhaps due to the growing rain, the engine extinguished on various asions. Each time the car idled, Liu Long¡¯s temper red more irritably. He would alight from the van, light a cigarette, and growl reprimands. The rest of the squad was so intimidated that they didn¡¯t dare speak. As for their captain taking a dog around on a rainy day¡­ who the hell knew what he was thinking?

    When the van stopped once more, this time near a church, Liu Long got off and kicked it so hard it shuddered.

    ¡°Damn it! Why haven¡¯t we upgraded the fleet? Why?! The cars go belly-up every time it rains, this isn¡¯t the first time! Trash, you¡¯re a bunch of trash! Can¡¯t those bastards upstairs see the difficulties we¡¯re in?? They allocate less and less funds each time, they¡¯re all trash! All of you as well!¡±

    He roared like a furious King Kong as thunder and lightning exploded overhead. ¡°Forward, on the double! Smash this piece of shit tomorrow!¡±

    Their raging tyrant leading the pack, thew enforcement squad jogged through the rain. They were far away from the incident site, but Liu Long made quick time when he ran. Panther disappeared from his side at some point. Under the cover of rain and night, no one paid attention to a dog.

    At the head of two dozen people, Liu Long sprinted through the downpour. The rain sttering over his face did nothing to dim the passion and fury in his eyes. They were close! Panther could see that thing, and more than that! It was a dog that didn¡¯t need to be trained, one that was almost a dog spirit!

    ¡°All of you¡­ just wait!¡± The man took out amunicator. ¡°Move out! The city will quiet down only when you guys are out. I¡¯ll send people to cover you!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± came Liu Yan¡¯s voice as she hung up.

    ¡­¡­

    The basement.

    ¡°We leave the city!¡± Liu Yan bristled with weaponry.

    Now was the time!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know why they were suddenly heading out now, but he didn¡¯t say anything. He swiftly followed the vice captain, as did the others without another word.

    ¡­¡­

    Outside the church.

    A ghostly shadow materialized as soon as Liu Long hung up; a scarlet shadow hovered beside it. Panther silently watched it from a corner, permitting the rain to drench it. It tucked its tail between its legs and swiftly scurried away the second it caught a nce. A stray dog to begin with, there was no need for it to put on an act. This was precisely how a stray should behave!

    It whined as it ran, feeling that it was going to aplish something great today. Perhaps the big guy it¡¯d newly met would teach it more martial arts. He was so much better than Li Hao! Li Hao never taught a dog any martial arts!

    ¡­¡­

    Panther came streaking through the night. Liu Long swept it an aloof nce from far away, seeing the little ck dog nod to him!

    It¡¯s there!

    Found it!

    Liu Long possessed certain methods to locate his target even without the dog¡ªthis was his territory, after all. But things were much easier with Panther.

    Target location confirmed!

    He swept the church with a look out of the corner of his eye. It was built in early history andter stood vacant. Meant as a ce of leisure for citizens, the people unfortunately weren¡¯t interested in a church. They¡¯d rather sit beneath the shade of arge tree than go to church.

    The church was now ted for removal and would soon be dismantled.

    Nice ce! Liu Longplimented to himself. It was a good choice as the neighbors were all moved out due to deconstruction close at hand. Added to that tonight¡¯s rain, it meant that almost no one lingered nearby.

    A perfect ce!

    Two dozenw enforcement personnel stopped when their captain suddenly halted. Some looked at the solemn captain with bafflement. Why had they stopped?

    Gasps for breath filled the air. Some were tired from the run, but Liu Long¡¯s authority was so strong that no one daredin. Thew enforcement team quite admired their captain. Granted, confusion stirred the ranks these years as Liu Long was preupied elsewhere.

    Rainwater drenched them in sheets, but no one made a peep since their captain didn¡¯t say anything. A group of people stood in the rain as they looked at the tall man in front of them. There was no dissatisfaction from the group¡ªeven if there was, no one dared express any.

    Liu Long looked over them¡ªfamiliar faces, brothers who¡¯d spent many years by his side. These were the people that he brought on this particr squad. While none of them were part of the Demon Hunters, they were all aware of its existence.

    Every one of the Demon Hunters was a madman or desperado. Their hearts burned with the desire to grow stronger. Liu Long wouldn¡¯t recruit them otherwise as mortals hunting supernaturals was a gamble that ended in death nine times out of ten.

    He scanned his men, rain sluicing down his face as the downpour grew stronger.

    ¡°All of you are my brothers through life and death. I have treated you properly, so you do not need toe for my head either!¡±

    Expressions shifted at his words.

    ¡°What do you mean, captain?¡± someone responded sternly. ¡°Who would dare harm you?¡±

    ¡°Not important!¡± Liu Long remained as aloof as ever. ¡°None of that is important! Perhaps money does make one blind, but just remember¡ªthe supernatural is supernatural and mundane is mundane. Those people will not look you straight in the eye! Money runs out sooner orter, but getting involved in all this ensures that you will not die a natural death!¡±

    Absolute silence rang out of the squad.

    ¡°I won¡¯t drag you down with me, but you must do as I say!¡± The man looked coolly at his men. ¡°Everyone, listen up! Split into two and divide yourself into pairs between the two. Nobody move or do anything! There is to be no whispering as you keep an eye on each other. Wait here for me, do not run off! Perhaps there are those among you with a mission of watching me. That¡¯s fine, I will not take you to task for it! But anyone who dares do anything now will be executed without hesitation!¡±

    The rest of the squad held their breaths.

    ¡°I hardly think that all of you will betray me. The darkness is the darkness in the end!¡±

    Some of these people might be tracked by others in order to keep an eye on his movements. The enemy wouldn¡¯t be so well informed otherwise. They were so quickly updated on his whereabouts that it was uncanny!

    Therefore, there must be someone among the two dozen tasked with surveilling him. Supernatural trackers might be active on them to feed the enemy with information wherever they were.

    Liu Long knew of this long ago. These confidantes were the only ones who would grasp his location with such rity. Now that they were kept here, it might buy some time.

    The squad wasn¡¯t without its share of quick-witted people. Someone immediately spoke up, ¡°Captain, there¡¯s obviously more than meets the eye here. Us brothers aren¡¯t dumb, we could tell something was up a long time ago. The captain¡¯s being led around by the nose¡ªthere¡¯s probably someone among us who carelessly got bugged!

    ¡°The captain trusts us, so we shouldn¡¯t make the situation difficult either. It¡¯s not the best n to just stand here and wait. If you trust us, sir, I, the second and third-inmand of this squad can supervise each other while we lead the rest to the incident site!¡±

    They were all experienced inspectors with sharpened senses. No one spoke of betrayal as it might be unintentional. Neither was this the right moment to delve into things.

    ¡°I do trust you.¡± Liu Long nodded after a deep look at all of them. ¡°But if the perpetrator is still there¡­ you¡¯ll be in trouble if you head there.¡±

    ¡°Captain, we¡¯re inspectors!¡± someone chuckled lowly. ¡°Are inspectors afraid of thugs?¡±

    Liu Long said nothing further and waved them forward. Two dozen men swiftly progressed in the rain, all keeping an eye on each other¡ªincluding the three squad leaders inmand.

    In the end, Law Enforcement was not fully corroded.

    Liu Long ran off in another direction. With Li Hao and the others out from the basement, the enemy wouldn¡¯t be able to contain themselves. His people were exposed since they were on the move; he needed to initiate the rest of his ns as quickly as possible.

    As the man darted through the city, he whistled gently. A dozen people in ck military uniforms quickly materialized out of the night.

    Indeed, military uniforms.

    While there was no army stationed at Silver City, there were some retired soldiers. Liu Long was once one of them; he¡¯d joined the Inspectorate after retiring.

    ¡°With me!¡±

    The dozen men fell in step behind him without a word. Strong and agile to a man, some wore short guns on their backs, one carried heavy weaponry that resembled rockets. One carriedrge amounts of explosives and another hauled a case of grenades¡­

    Liu Long had been busy with preparations over the past few days, ones such as secretly notifying his oldrade-in-arms.

 Chapter 71: Demon Huntersâ€™ First Battle (I)

    Chapter 71: Demon Hunters¡¯ First Battle (I)

    The group¡¯s sprinting footsteps traveled particrly lightly through the onught of rain. They arrived at the church very shortly. Liu Long didn¡¯t draw near¡ªsupernatural senses were remarkable and the enemy might sense them if they approached too close.

    He raised his hand without a word!

    Those behind him swiftly set up an attack formation, assembled a miniature cannon, and loaded it with ammunition. A machine gun was also erected while someone burrowed into a nearby house. Everything was conducted in a methodical manner and all was ready within a minute.

    The entire process was startlingly quiet. There was no need for loudmands as this troop had supported Liu Long in previous supernatural hunts. They were so discreet that not many knew he had trusted followers outside of thew enforcement team that dared kill supernaturals for him.

    Liu Long¡¯s tall and bulky figure looked toward the church in the distance. His eyes cut through the rain with a frosty glint. Supernaturals were hard to kill¡ªhe and his men may not be able to kill that many even with an ambush. However, he wasn¡¯t the type to passively sit back when others came for him. It was better to strike the first blow!

    A mighty dragon was hard pressed to match a local snake. Liu Long was the local snake of Silver City! He raised his right hand high and swung it downward!

    KABOOM!

    A cannonball crashed into the church, swiftly followed by multiple grenades. The team also flung packs of explosives in the church¡¯s direction. The consecutive collisions temporarily overpowered the rain.

    ¡°This is thew enforcement team of the Inspectorate! We are here on business! Do not put up a fight! Those who resist will be killed!¡±

    Rumble!!

    Explosions ripped through the air before he finished.

    BOOM!!

    The church walls were instantly reduced to rubble and the roof caved in. Liu Long withdrew a hatchet, took off his drenched trench coat and roared, throwing the weapon at the first Ghostface to run out of the church.

    ¡°Keep hitting them!¡±

    KABOOM!

    No one seemed to care about identally hitting Liu Long or even his survival. Massive amounts of artillery hit the church and a rat-tat-tat from the machine gun drowned out the rain.

    ¡­¡­

    Inside the ramshackle church.

    The Ghostfaces were ready to move out after receiving word that Li Hao had separated from thew enforcement team. Althoughpletely caught off guard by the ambush, there were thankfully numerous supernaturals among them.

    Mysterious power surged after a Ghostface shouted, forming a protective dome around the assembly. A cannonball pierced through it in the blink of an eye; the others immediately backed away. In the next instant, a machine gun filled that Ghostface with holes!

    Another Ghostface panicked and ran out of the church, meeting a silver hatchet as soon as he emerged.

    One stroke from a hatchet propelled by sevenyers of force!

    Bam!

    A Darkmoon supernatural was the equivalent of a Sunderer. Cloven into two, the hysteric Ghostface¡¯s blood sprayed over the street.

    ¡°Liu Long!¡± wailed a shrieking voice.

    The deputy chief felt danger in this moment¡ªformless danger. Something seemed to appear next to him and burrow into his body.

    If Li Hao was here, he¡¯d see three scarlet shadows hovering around the chief. Not only that, but more flew towards the soldiers. Leader and squad werepletely clueless. Ammunition and explosives were ineffective against these ghostly entities.

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther¡¯s barks were particrly shrill in the stormy night.

    Liu Long understood from the dog that the mental danger he¡¯d sensedst time was here. He was a Sunderer at the end of the day, so he could fend for himself for a bit. His brothers outside, however, wouldn¡¯t be able to withstand them!

    A barrage of cannonballs, explosives, and bullets rained down on the supernaturals. It created an opening for Liu Long to rush forward and hack every Ghostface he saw. If his team died and the hot weapons were rendered ineffective, Liu Long wouldn¡¯t be able to face the enemy by himself. He could sense more than one supernatural on the scene; there were quite a few of them present!

    There had to be at least seven or eight, and this was after he hacked one to death while the machine gun took out another.

    ¡°A ten person squad?¡± Liu Long was stunned. Ten supernaturals? This scale went beyond the imagination. Even Night Watchers found it difficult to send ten of their people to Silver City for one operation. They were called in for too many cities.

    ¡°You court death, Liu Long!¡± someone roared from the church. ¡°We seek only Li Hao, but you dare interfere and even kill us! Silver City is an insignificant backwater, do you really think we won¡¯t dare put the city to the sword?!¡±

    This was crazy! They had their ns and a full understanding of Liu Long. He should¡¯ve gone to the other location with his men to process the arson case. What was he doing here?

    They had agents among thew enforcement team; there was norge-scale withdrawal of weapons today and the armoryid untouched. Of course, Liu Long could secretly collect some weapons since he was the captain of Law Enforcement. With the inspector general choosing to pay selective attention, regr people were very easily kept in the dark.

    The Ghostfaces hadn¡¯t imagined that Liu Long would dare open fire inside the city, and with this level of firepower! He¡¯d even brought mortar with him?? He might be here with a cannon meant for besieging cities if it wasn¡¯t forck of time!

    ¡°We do not concede to evil!¡± Such was Liu Long¡¯s only response.

    Put the city to the sword?

    No matter what, they would never bow their heads to evil. The Night Watchers¡¯ repeatedpromises had resulted in increasing unrest instead of peace. These fellows would be afraid only when enough of them died.

    ¡°Final round!¡± Liu Long roared after he backed out of the church¡¯s range.

    Ghostfaces materialized inside the structure. Some flew into the sky, others dove beneath the ground, and more melted into the air. Having gathered their wits, the capabilities of the supernatural were beyond imagination. Other than those who truly had no way of escape, all ran away when Liu Long called for a final round of attack.

    One person with a gun was no threat to them, but a dozen prepared elites in formation required prudence and avoidance. Of course, they could quickly kill these impertinent mundanes if given enough time!

    The sky lit up with red after Liu Long shouted. Everyst cannonball, explosive, and grenade found their way to the church. A Ghostface roared, directing gale winds through the air with a wave of mysterious power. The wind swept through everything, tossing explosives and cannonballs into the sky.

    KABOOOOOM!!

    Explosions rocked the area and deafened the ear. The supernaturalmanding the winds stumbled. inly, this was a hasty deployment of power beyond his capabilities.

    Liu Long suddenly turned back with the hatchet upraised. The tendons on his hand bulged as he waved the weapon seven times.

    Sevenyers of force!

    ¡°Kill!¡± He pushed off his toes and shot into the air as if he were a dragon himself, charging the Ghostface that¡¯d just employed his abilities.

    Killing intent shot through the air like frost, scattering the rain! A hatchet hurtled forward with a vicious glint. The wind supernatural raised his head in fear. Though he was a Darkmoon, he¡¯d just employed power beyond his capabilities and was gathering his strength for a next blow.

    An experienced Sunderer like Liu Long was most adept at pinpointing opportunities in battle. As the supernatural reeled from horror, Liu Long jerked. He¡¯d been fighting the scarlet shadows that¡¯d burrowed into his body all this time. Since he¡¯d just redirected his internal force to a blow that employed his full strength, he could no longer protect his body. As such, his organs immediately felt like they were on fire!

    The pain was indescribable!

    Liu Long couldn¡¯t see it, but Panther¡¯s eyes were full of worry in the distance. It saw three scarlet shadows tunneling into the man¡¯s body and sparks beginning to ignite on the captain!

    They were immting Liu Long!

    Not only that, but some other scarlet shadows had drawn close to the soldiers on the outskirts.

    ¡°Arf arf arf!!¡± The little ck dog frantically warned everyone.

    ¡°Is this all you got?!¡± Liu Long suddenly roared. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he brought the hatchet down on the supernatural¡¯s head. His blood frothed like boiling water when the enemy¡¯s head split open!

    Even the shadow seemed to be harmed by the agitating blood¡ªwisps of green smoke rose from the man¡¯s body! The agitating blood burned the scarlet shadow in turn!

    Liu Long roared like a lion, propelling his internal force for all his might. He didn¡¯t care if it ended up being a pyrrhic victory. More than forty years of age and a practitioner of the Nine Forged Force to sevenyers, each battle worsened his injuries. If he continued to fail the crossover, it was only a matter of time before he ended up like his father. Once he was disabled from crippled arms, he would be a worthless wretch on a sickbed until he died.

    His eruption today resulted in two dead supernaturals so far. Hisrades had killed another¡ªworth!

    Of course, he didn¡¯t want to die now.

    No one ever wanted to die; he was no exception. But unless he could enter Dominator of Thousands, there was no better approach against the scarlet shadow. This kind of mutual destruction was the only way to somewhat keep them in check.

    ¡­¡­

    After the soldiers fired theirst salvo, they immediately fled the scene without a look back. Years of coordination and experience told them that if they continued to stay, they would be dead without a doubt. Not only would they not be able to eliminate the enemy, but they would hamper Liu Long instead.

    The scarlet shadows, however, remained on the chase!

    These mundanes had caused grave casualties to the Ghostfaces, so the supernaturalsmanding the shadows would not easily forgo their retribution! These mundanes must die!

    Someone woulde along to handle Liu Long, so the rest of his men should prepare for death since they¡¯d dared face supernaturals head-on!

    Seven Ghostfaces manifested outside of the church. They were a ten person squadron of supernaturals¡ªthree were dead. The rest were beside themselves; mysterious power rippled over all of them.

    All of these impertinent mortals had to die!

    One of them snorted when they saw Liu Long stir his blood to burn the scarlet shadow.

    ¡°Liu Long, do you think you can dy us with just you? You think too highly of yourself and underestimate Li Hao¡¯s importance. Do you think this is all of us?¡±

    Focused on withstanding the shadows in his body, Liu Long¡¯s expression finally shifted noticeably. This wasn¡¯t all of them? How isn¡¯t this all of them??

    Ten supernaturals all at Darkmoon meant that they were ten Sunderers¡­ This was more than he¡¯d anticipated, yet this still wasn¡¯t the enemy in full?

 Chapter 72: Demon Huntersâ€™ First Battle (II)

    Chapter 72: Demon Hunters¡¯ First Battle (II)

    What kind of organization could send so many supernaturals for a single operation? And what was Li Hao relevant to that so many supernaturals woulde after a mundane? Were the eight families this important?

    Liu Long¡¯s face flickered through a variety of expressions before he shouted, spitting blood that evaporated in the air. He took out a tiny crystal ball from his waistband and crushed it.

    BOOM!

    Another loud explosion rocked the area when the crystal ball burst open. Liu Long fled, setting himself on a course that would intersect with the route Li Hao and the others were taking.

    There was more than one team of supernaturals in motion!

    In that case, some of his arrangements might run into snags. He¡¯d done his best to exercise generosity when estimating the enemy¡¯s strength. Ten Darkmoons for a mundane and the Demon Hunters with only one Sunderer? There might not be ten Sunderers in all of Silver City and the Night Watchersbined!

    Was there a need for this??

    Liu Long wanted to break out in loud curses. Seriously, is this necessary??

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Ghostfaces set off in hot pursuit.

    Liu Long stomped downward and caved in the ground with a rumble. His foot connected squarely with another Ghostface¡¯s head, denying the other the chance for an ambush. This wasn¡¯t his first rodeo! Nheless, it was surprising that there was someone here who knew how to travel through dirt.

    Scarlet shadows pursuing the soldiers were within touching distance of the slowest ones. A diminutive figure abruptly shed through the rainy night and scurried toward the men.

    Yun Yao!

    Indeed, the shape resolved itself to be the Demon Hunter team doctor when it paused. She wore something akin to an anti-poison face mask. Nothing appeared in her line of sight, but as her gaze moved back and forth, different colored areas materialized in front of her. It was a modified supernatural probe!

    The scarlet shadow was invisible, but that didn¡¯t mean it was impossible to detect. While it didn¡¯t possess supernatural abilities, it raised a faint cloud of energy whenever it moved or attacked.

    Yun Yao caught sight of a brilliantly red area for a split second.

    There!

    Ten crystal balls, the kind that Liu Long had just brought out, appeared in her hands. They were ice crystals filled with mysterious power. Once crushed, they created an explosion. While the scarlet shadows may be untouchable in terms of physical attack, Liu Long and the others had analyzed that mysterious power could inflict some effect.

    It was a pity that time had been too short for Yun Yao to do anything other than modify a single pair of detection sses. She meant to give it to Liu Long, but the chief turned her down. As a Sunderer, it was easier for him to sense those things.

    Since Yun Yao and the others were yet to set foot into Sunderer of Hundreds, it was impossible for them to discover the shadows without external tools.

    BOOM!

    The patch of bright red shattered after a loud explosion!

    Yun Yao couldn¡¯t see anything other than the red area scattering. Panther, however, saw the pursuing shadows fly apart from the mysterious power. They¡­ swiftly regathered, albeit at a slower pace, and remained fully intact.

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± When frantic barking sounded, Yun Yao didn¡¯t hesitate to run off with the little ck dog. The scarlet shadowspletely redirected toward the fleeing human and dog!

    Thus, the soldiers made a clean getaway. No one said anything given that this was the n. If true danger appeared, they as mundanes were to escape first. The Demon Hunters had assigned Yun Yao to cover their retreat.

    ¡­¡­

    Panther ran with all its might. The little ck dog could effectively dodge the scarlet shadows because it could see them. Yun Yao knew of this, so she kept fast pace despite her diminutive stature.

    ¡°Panther, avoid those things and head for the north,¡± she panted.

    Run north!

    Li Hao and the others were there, as was Liu Long headed in that direction to convene. It would be safer if they were all together.

    The team also had other arrangements. Everything that¡¯d taken ce thus far was to lure these guys over there. Although the team had almost died here, the n was still in motion. Staying alive was sess.

    Danger nipped at her heels as Yun Yao began faltering. Another figure swiftly shed up to them at this time¡ªan extremely fast Wu Chao. Landing from a roof, the skinny man grabbed Yun Yao and spun on his heel. Not even Panther could outrun him.

    ¡°What are you doing here?!¡± Yun Yao gasped. With Wu Chao here, that meant there were only Liu Yan and Chen Jian with Li Hao!

    Wu Chao should be with Li Hao as his speed could ensure Li Hao¡¯s safety at crucial moments. The young man was too weak.

    ¡°Li Hao sent me to you. He says he won¡¯t die, that his teacher will help at a critical moment,¡± Wu Chao flung out before falling silent. He couldn¡¯t afford to disrupt his breathing. Hauling Yun Yao over his shoulder, he focused on running.

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther¡¯s urgent barking sounded behind them. Wu Chao scooped up the little dog without second thought, carrying Yun Yao over his shoulder and lugging Panther with the other hand. It was like the wind was beneath his feet as he made remarkable time to the outskirts.

    Two Ghostfaces materialized behind them; there were only two scarlet shadows left in pursuit.

    ¡°They¡¯re meeting up!¡±

    ¡°Wu Chao and Yun Yao of the Demon Hunters¡­ The Demon Hunters huh? They¡¯re crazy!¡±

    How dare mere yers of Tens be involved!

    ¡°After them!¡± the two growled and set off in hot pursuit. All of these people would die tonight!

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time, the northern quadrant of Silver City.

    Chen Jian and Liu Yan sandwiched Li Hao between them. Instead of traveling on foot, they sat in a car that sped for the city outskirts. Liu Yan held a small dagger in her hand and alertly scanned the surroundings with a vignt expression. Although Chen Jian was in the driver¡¯s seat, he barrelled forward without paying much attention to the conditions on the road.

    Li Hao had heard violent explosions within the city and glimpsed fiery sparks that shot for the sky. He was very startled that the captain had arranged for massive amounts of hot weapons within the city, swiftly found the enemy¡¯s hiding ce, andunched a sessful attack.

    However, hot weapons weren¡¯t almighty unless an overwhelming amount of cannons were deployed to carpet bomb Silver City. That would mark the end of the city and countless mortals would die. It was an impossible thought. Unless supernaturals were encountered in the wild, hot weapons were often greatly limited in effect inside the city!

    The Demon Hunters were nowhere near heartless enough to flood the city with explosives and turn innumerable citizens into burial goods.

    A loud explosion rang out ahead of the speeding car. The bridge in front had been detonated!

    Countless figures emerged out of the rainy night. Li Hao¡¯s eyes focused on them to see¡ªmartial masters! Not supernaturals! The ones blocking their way were martial masters!

    He could see they were martial masters because they were the same as the Demon Hunters; a faint hue of mysterious power surrounded them. This surface level energy indicated that they¡¯d once absorbed mysterious power, but failed the crossover.

    ¡°Ghostfaces?¡± Liu Yan and Chen Jian swiftly alighted from the car and prepared for battle. ¡°The Ghostface organization? You¡¯re attacking inspectors from the Inspectorate¡ªdo you really think the Night Watchers are impotent?¡±

    Zhou He belonged to a group called Ghostface that answered to a supernatural organization. This time, Ghostface also sent out its martial masters.

    ¡°Leave Li Hao behind!¡± someone shrilled from the crowd. They wore masks of vicious ghosts in a possible bid to avoid detection. The voice was so distorted that it was most likely not an urate representation.

    ¡°Alright!¡± Liu Yan agreed without protest, eliciting jerks of surprise. She pulled out the gun tucked into her waistband and fired a round of shots. ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±

    She grabbed Li Hao and ran while still shooting. They couldn¡¯t afford to be bogged down here, not to mention she was no match for them. This group seemed to be led by a Sunderer, so guns would be ineffective on him.

    As expected, one of the Ghostfaces shed to and fro, dodging the bullets. He spread his arms like an eagle¡¯s and flung himself at Li Hao and the others! The rest of the martial masters also employed their arts to close the gap. Their only mission was to prevent Li Hao from leaving the city. They could not kill Li Hao, but the others were to be shown no mercy!

    The Ghostface leader didn¡¯t understand themands, but supernaturals had their own ns in mind. They didn¡¯t deign to tell him anything, so he didn¡¯t ask. All he knew was that sessfulpletion of this mission would reward him with three inductions.

    Those upstairs would provide him sufficient mysterious power to make three attempts at crossing over. If he still failed after that, he would have to ept his bad luck. But he stood a high chance of sess, at the very least. Every Sunderer required at least dozens to one hundred cubes of mysterious power for an induction.

    Someone with multiple notches on his belt like Liu Long faced a tall threshold for ascension, to say nothing of the Ghostface leader. He could only ce his hopes in the supernaturalsmanding him.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao gasped for breath and barely maintained the breathing method. He adjusted his air and stabilized his footsteps, following Liu Yan and the others. The muddy path slowed them down, but it also provided the benefit of obstructing their pursuers.

    Rat tat tat!

    A string of shots rang out behind them. Oh what the fuck?!

    Aren¡¯t you guys martial masters? Do you have any shame in using guns??

    Plink plonk plink!

    Chen Jian¡¯s shield deflected countless bullets. He protected his vitals and covered Li Hao and Liu Yan with his massive body. Although the young man was saved from death by scattered fire, they wouldn¡¯t make it out of the city at this rate.

    Liu Long was yet to appear and they didn¡¯t know what the current situation was. Wu Chao and Yun Yao had gone to meet him. Liu Yan was the strongest left on the scene, but she wasn¡¯t a Sunderer and they were being chased by one.

    ¡°Sis¡­¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡± Liu Yan snapped. Talking during a chase easily led to distraction and throwing off one¡¯s tempo. They would be in incredible trouble if they were caught.

 Chapter 73: Counterkill! (I)

    Chapter 73: Counterkill! (I)

    ¡°Put me down¡­ they won¡¯t kill me right now!¡± Li Hao huffed out. He was afraid of death, but the enemy would catch up to them sooner orter at this rate. They were just a bunch of martial masters; they probably didn¡¯t mean to kill him since there was no sign of the scarlet shadow to be found.

    Therefore, the Demon Hunters still had a chance! And his teacher was yet to take the field, so they still had trump cards to y.

    Liu Yan, however,pletely ignored him. Only aloofness and madness glinted in her eyes.

    ¡°Fatty!¡± she growled. Having worked with her many times, Chen Jian immediately understood her without the woman needing to say anything.

    As Li Hao reeled from what was happening, Liu Yan threw him into the air. Shield upraised, Chen Jian whirled around and smashed into the Sunderer hot on their heels!

    Liu Yan was close behind him. The Sunderer punched the shield with a loud impact and forced Chen Jian back a few steps. The fatty was unharmed while Liu Yan darted out like a ghost, stabbing the other¡¯s fist with a de!

    Her dagger grazed past skin and missed the vitals, leaving only a bloody mark on the back of the hand. The Sunderer cocked his hand back for a fatal punch at Liu Yan, but his arm suddenly tingled with numbness!

    ck matter floated up to his skin, causing the martial master¡¯s eyes to widen with shock. He swiftly backed away and hit his right arm with his left. A vast quantity of blood shot through with ck gushed out.

    ¡°Poison?!¡± he snarled. Poison was more despicable than guns!

    Liu Yan ignored him, focusing on blocking his path. She bounded into the air, grabbed Li Hao, and continued frantically fleeing the scene. The young man was stunned by the two¡¯s boldness. They dared to counterattack at a time like this and actually seeded!

    They were martial masters who dared kill supernaturals alright! This level of battle experience was entirely out of his league.

    The pursuit continued!

    Li Hao no longer resisted being dragged along in Liu Yan¡¯s wake. He continuously looked back, brainstorming how to kill these guys in a counterattack! He was very weak, but these guys also knew that and they didn¡¯t dare kill him!

    That was the Demon Hunters¡¯ advantage!

    ¡°Sis, use me as a shieldter!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t receive a response¡ªhad Liu Yan heard him? Chen Jian did and his only thought was that Li Hao was also crazy.

    Use you as a shield?

    While they vaguely understood his meaning, what if the young man misjudged and the enemy was willing to kill him? How would a newbie survive a Sunderer?

    Three yers sprinted for their lives and busily plotted counterblows to kill their pursuer. There were even more yers following at a distance.

    The rain came down harder.

    Although Li Hao was willing to be their shield and create an opportunity, Liu Yan didn¡¯t want to take the bet. This was different fromst time¡ªall of them had waited in the wings while the young man took on Zhou He. They could easily overpower a yer and prevent any idents.

    Today¡­ Liu Long was yet to join them and she was not quite a Sunderer herself. There was far more than one enemy; the three of them might be able to give it a try otherwise. If they were tied down here, there were plenty more martial masters waiting for them.

    The rain soaked Liu Yan¡¯s long hair through and stered her clothes to her body. The usually beguiling woman¡¯s curves were fully on disy, but the typical teasing light was absent from her eyes. There was only nervousness and gravity to be found.

    Li Hao was in no mood to admire the sight either. His speed was less than Liu Yan¡¯s and despite being pulled along, he was tiring.

    Counterattack!

    They had to strike back, especially as there were no supernaturals on the scene yet. Once their pursuers caught up, his teacher might make a move. That might scare off the supernaturals.

    ¡°We can¡¯t continue like this¡­¡± Though Li Hao didn¡¯t set a goal for himself, he had his own ns in mind. He wanted to lure over everyone who was here to kill him!

    He couldn¡¯t die before that¡ªhe needed to create an opportunity for his teacher to kill them all in one fell swoop! The chances of sess were much higher if his teacher became involved. Once his teacher appeared and killed a few martial masters, that might spook the supernaturals and send them into retreat.

    Therefore, not only did the team have to dy the enemy here, they needed to counterattack so more men were sent to this location. Such were Li Hao¡¯s thoughts and why he was willing to take this risk, why he wasn¡¯t willing to remain in the Veteris Institute.

    Otherwise, he could absolutely take shelter with his Dominator protector. Why risk his life against such resourceful enemies?

    ¡°Sis!¡± An urgent Li Hao kept his voice down. They needed to hit back while they had the strength to! Otherwise, continued chase at this speed and weather would sap their stamina until theycked the ability to raise a hand. Whether it was martial master or supernatural, neither camp was invincible. Both mysterious power and internal force were finite; such high intensity activity like this consumed too much.

    Of course, Li Hao also had valuable resources to his name! He operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles and pulled tendrils of warm currents out of the jade sword. Absorbing some, he let the rest dissipate into the woman tightly clutching him.

    Busy running and ignoring her ward, Liu Yan stiffened. She resumed her motion when she realized what was happening, but shock filled her heart!

    Mysterious power?

    This isn¡¯t it!

    She¡¯d thought that the supernaturals had arrived, locked on, and invaded her, but quickly realized this wasn¡¯t the case. The weak influx of energy came from Li Hao! Not only did it not rampage through her under these circumstances, it warmed her like a hot spring and restored her vigor.

    What is this?

    Liu Yan¡¯s mind was a muddled mess and she didn¡¯t have time to carefully consider what kind of power this was. Her taut muscles, however, rxed some. They¡¯d been running for more than three minutes. Fleeing at full speed while protecting someone was a massive drain on stamina. But now¡­ some of hers was returning!

    Surprise flickered through her drenched face. She swept a nce out of the corner of her eye at Li Hao while they sprinted through the night. The flow of energy continued to travel into her, bringing a long-absent warmth into her body. Even some of her old injuries from previous inductions seemed to be healing.

    There¡¯s something seriously up with this kid! No wonder people are after him!

    A quiet Liu Yan made swift calctions¡ªher stamina and internal force were depleting at a rapid pace. The Sunderer behind them was stronger than her, but she was the one on the team closest to that level. The enemy was also draining their stamina and internal force!

    As their endurance waxed and waned, she was returning to her peak. She¡¯d injured the enemy prior to this extended pursuit. Perhaps¡­ the Demon Hunters really did stand a chance!

    ¡°Fire!¡± Liu Yan grunted and grabbed Li Hao, carrying him in her arms like she would a child.

    The young man paused with surprise. He¡¯d been towed along in her wake earlier, but now she was holding him in a near princess carry. This was awkward, he was a man!

    Granted, he didn¡¯t care about that in a crucial moment like this.

    Li Hao was free to act while Liu Yan sprinted. He fished out his third gen vortex gun and took aim at the Ghostface less than fifty meters behind them¡ªthe only Sunderer among the enemy.

    Bang!

    The martial master was indeed highly skilled and managed to evade the bullet under a high speed chase. However, his tempo was affected, so he called out with some coldness, ¡°You can¡¯t get away, Li Hao! You should know that if this continues, a lot more people will die than just you!¡±

    The young man¡¯s expression remained the same and he waited to fire a second shot. He continued to operate the breathing method while Liu Yan drew slightly further from the enemy.

    ¡°You won¡¯t get away if I don¡¯t get away! My teacher will take revenge for me! He may not be able to kill supernaturals, but he¡¯ll handle a Sunderer like you!¡±

    ¡°What a joke!¡±

    Yuan Shuo!

    The name floated to the forefront of the Ghostface martial master¡¯s mind. If it¡¯d been twenty years ago¡ªno, just three years ago, he wouldn¡¯t have dared provoke Yuan Shuo. But the era belonging to that preeminent personage was over. The supernatural had risen and martial masters? Heh!

    He himself was a martial master, and a Sunderer! He knew better than anyone that the way of martial dao had gone downhill.

    Sunderers still dominated the scene a few years ago, but with increasing amounts of Darkmoons in recent times and even Sunre, martial dao was in full decline. Just Silver Moon alone boasted of Sunres by the handful¡ªthey rivaled Dominators!

    In contrast, there wasn¡¯t a single Dominator in the province and it was time for an antique like Yuan Shuo to take his final rest.

    Li Hao wanted his teacher to take revenge for him? Yuan Shuo would be better served looking after himself! The Night Watchers wouldn¡¯t be able to protect him forever and his enemies were too numerous to be counted. Word on the street was that his greatest rival had improved in recent years and surpassed Sunre!

    The Night Watchers might not have cared about a Sunre before and continued to protect the old man, but would they do the same if a being greater than Sunre came knocking?

    Such thoughts ran through the Ghostface¡¯s mind.

    Bang!

    A bullet grazed past his ear and nearly hit him, snapping him back to his senses. Fury dawned on a face beneath the mask and his voice grew more severe.

    ¡°Li Hao,e here! I won¡¯t kill you. Do you want Liu Yan and Chen Jian to go down with you? Do you know how many will die in Silver City once the Demon Hunters are no more?!

    ¡°You have no idea! Silver City is too small and the weakest among the province¡¯s thirty-two cities. It¡¯s so small that it can be forsaken! Too many people have their sights set on this city and the Night Watchers don¡¯t have sufficient personnel or desire to protect it. They rmended abandoning it and moving the people to a bigger city many years ago!

    ¡°Liu Long didn¡¯t wish for Silver City to vanish in the river of time. He insisted on holding down the fort by himself. One Sunderer against the supernatural!

    ¡°He boasted to the Night Watchers that the city would stand so long as he was alive. It might be a footnote in history if he dies and countless people will leave their homes and businesses to eke out survival elsewhere. Do you want Liu Long and his people to die with you?!¡± roared the indignant Ghostface, righteous in his worry for the future of Silver City.

 Chapter 74: Counterkill! (II)

    Chapter 74: Counterkill! (II)

    Granted, this was also the truth. A few years ago, government higher-ups proposed abandoning the smaller cities and consolidating therger ones. Silver City was on the list of those to relinquish as the Night Watchers didn¡¯t have the people or energy to guard it against supernaturals.

    And yet, Liu Long said he alone was enough! He could withstand the invasion of supernaturals with the might of a martial master and prevent Silver City from being rented elsewhere!

    A migration was so much more easily said than done. Countless people would have to abandon their properties and businesses if an entire city moved. They would arrive in a sprawling city sans savings, career, familiar faces, and be dependent on others. The young could adapt, but what about the elderly and children?

    The world grew ever more chaotic and half of this city of a million would fall into bleak misery.

    So long as Liu Long was in residence, he eliminated all invading Darkmoons. Sunre and above didn¡¯t think much of Silver City, so the supernatural domain refrained from encroaching on the metropolis. But what if he was dead?

    There were so many supernaturals who wished to ascend to the heavens with one step. They craved money, power, material wealth, and beauties. Not daring to try their luck in one of therge cities, they turned their sights to the smaller ones for entertainment.

    Countless pairs of eyes were fixed on Silver City!

    ¡­¡­

    Secure in Liu Yan¡¯s arms, the look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes shifted slightly. Is that so? If those upstairs wanted to abandon the smaller cities, that meant even the government was finding it hard to maintain control over the state of affairs. They were being forced into giving up certain territories and forgerger cities that would hold more people and be easier to defend.

    Was the government being coerced into a defensive position? Were they on the back foot when it came to the supernatural field?

    But theymanded a massive army and overpowering hot weapons! It was rumored that the government even hoarded super weapons that could destroy cities. Were they stillpelled to react passively under such circumstances?

    It was an incredible notion to Li Hao!

    The government exercised immense might and authority in his eyes; he¡¯d always felt that the Night Watchers weren¡¯t willing to exert more effort on Silver City¡¯s behalf because they couldn¡¯t be bothered with such a tiny ce.

    But now, things took on a different cast!

    Abandon Silver City??

    No wonder the province had wanted to change its name to Moon re a few years ago. The continued absence of such a modification might have something to do with Liu Long. As a Sunderer, he would be greeted with respect in White Moon City, but he insisted on staying in Silver City.

    ¡°Justice¡­¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s usual slogan rang in the ear. To safeguard justice! Eliminate evil and defend dao!

    Li Hao had always felt that hypocrisy and delusion disguised as selffortced these words, but after learning of some things from the enemy, perhaps the captain cared more sincerely about this slogan than one might realize.

    ¡°Darkness never triumphs over justice!¡± roared the young man.

    The Sunderer behind them drew ever closer. ¡°You¡¯re wrong!¡± he denounced coldly. ¡°The victor is justice! The defeated is the darkness!

    ¡°Martial masters are in decline, supernaturals are on the rise! Countless supernaturals stir with ambition, unwilling to be left out in the cold and having to skulk through the shadows. When humans exceed their limits and can withstand or even pulverize hot weapons, their next thought is to rece the government that wields these tools!

    ¡°Martial masters steadily put one foot in front of the other, so their desires are less intense and they can exercise self control. But supernaturals?¡±

    The Sunderer snorted with derision. Supernaturals?

    They soared to the heavens with one step and left virtue behind in the dust. When an eighteen year old suddenly became a Darkmoon or Sunre and easily killed a thousand people by themselves, how were they willing to limit themselves to the slow progress of one step at a time?

    No, they would overthrow the world order and build a nation that belonged to only them!

    Such was the state of the modern world and the current supernatural field.

    The Ghostface martial master quite held these upstarts in contempt, but reality was cruel. As much as he disdained them, he had to work for them!

    So what if he hated the circumstances? He had to find a way to join them, no matter his level of distaste. How could he be them when even Yuan Shuo failed the crossover? Inadequate support was forting from the government, leaving people like him worse off. The only option left avable was to throw themselves under the banner of supernatural organizations in the wild.

    The martial master said nothing more as the chase continued. He¡¯d almost caught up to his quarry! His earlier words served to sow seeds of doubt and make Li Hao hesitate. Perhaps the young man would deliver himself to his pursuers¡¯ hands?

    That wasn¡¯t outside the realm of possibility!

    Based on what the martial master knew, Li Hao highly valued the ties of friendship. He voluntarily withdrew from the renowned Veteris Institute in order to seek revenge for his ssmate. Would such a person be willing to let the Demon Hunters sacrifice themselves for him once he knew what the team represented?

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± The martial master closed the distance with a mighty bound. ¡°Are you going to send an entire city to the grave for the sake of you alone? Silver City has value so long as Liu Long is alive and Yuan Shuo remains. Who will withstand the supernatural once they are gone?

    ¡°You will be the sinner of the entire city!¡±

    Li Hao grimaced and clenched his teeth. Eyes bloodshot, he red at the martial master. His hand tightened on the third gen vortex gun since the two parties were very close, but his fingers trembled and he didn¡¯t fire.

    ¡°Submitting to darkness will only result in greater disaster! If you dare kill me today, then tomorrow¡­¡±

    ¡°Idiot, who finds joy in killing mundanes? We kill you because there is value in killing you! Li Hao, don¡¯t join Liu Yan and the others in their madness. You might not die, but if this standoff continues, none of you will get away when the supernaturals arrive!

    ¡°Being a martial master, I highly respect the Demon Hunters. I can let them go if they put you down! This is a promise from a Sunderer, Li Hao! You are the key and you will decide their life or death!¡±

    Li Hao hesitated. He ground his teeth and grunted, ¡°Let me down!¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡± Liu Yan snarled.

    The young man struggled!

    ¡°Don¡¯t listen to his bullshit!¡± Chen Jian¡¯s face contorted as he called out. ¡°Don¡¯t move, Li Hao! Don¡¯t mess up the vice captain¡¯s tempo!¡±

    Damn it! Li Hao was steady enough in normal times, why was he suddenly acting up today?! He¡¯d be the death of them! To hell with it, students couldn¡¯t be trusted alright! They couldn¡¯t be relied upon when push came to shove!

    Liu Yan¡¯s breathing hitched as Li Hao continued to struggle. The martial master behind them leered. As I thought! Someone as loyal as Li Hao wouldn¡¯t remain unmoved after he said so much. How he liked students like these! A sly old fox like Yuan Shuo would¡¯ve spat at him a long time ago, much less listen to everything he said.

    Up ahead, Liu Yan began to slow due to the young man¡¯s intensifying struggles.

    ¡°Li Hao!!¡± the woman growled. He ignored her and continued to il around.

    ¡°Put me down and run for it! I can die, but you guys need to live! Silver City needs you! A wave of darkness rears and the world needs the team to light a spark of hope for Silver City! The people will see a future with you!

    ¡°Even if the city really is abandoned and moved elsewhere, the people will have an anchor to rely on if you guys still live! I can¡¯t doom everyone for my own selfishness and extinguish the light for Silver City!¡± Li Hao dered righteously and began struggling again!

    ¡°You little bastard!¡± Liu Yan missed some steps due to his movements and couldn¡¯t maintain her breathing. She was forced to put the young man down.

    The martial master smirked at the sight. It¡¯s in the bag! They were less than ten meters apart. What a good little boy Li Hao is!

    Here was a child with justice in his heart. The Ghostface would¡¯ve been delighted to see such ad twenty years ago and consider taking him for a disciple. A youngster like this would bring glory to his master in thetter¡¯s old age and never consider betrayal. Martial masters dearly needed followers like these to provide for the aged and take care of final affairs!

    But unfortunately, the supernatural had risen!

    ¡°You said that you¡¯d spare Sis Liu and the others!¡± Li Hao flung away Liu Yan¡¯s hand, unwilling to be dragged along in her wake. He was nearly face-to-face with the enemy and implored, ¡°You¡¯re a martial master too. Every wrong has a source¡ªkill me if you want to, don¡¯t change your tune!¡±

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± An incensed Chen Jian was forced to grab the young man and push him forward. Damn it, what the hell are you doing?! Are you really cing your trust in an enemy¡¯s promise?!

    ¡°Of course, I¡¯m not crazy. Why should I kill them and make enemies of Liu Long and the Night Watchers? Killing you is my mission and I gain nothing from killing them. Even if the Night Watchers are preupied right now, they can stille for me after uncovering my true identity. I have no desire or ability to offend them!¡± Ghostface answered smugly. This was more like it! And he did speak the truth.

    What was the point of killing the Demon Hunters if there was no need to? He¡¯d just be creating trouble for himself.

    Li Hao bit Chen Jian¡¯s arm, making the man subconsciously release his grip. With a quick fling of his hand, the young man¡¯s other arm broke free of Liu Yan. Having flung both of them off, he nearly collided with Chen Jian. Li Hao hastily dodged the portly man and ran toward the enemy.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Liu Yan immediately stopped; Chen Jian halted as well. The young man was running straight to the other side. Despite the rain, they could tell that his expression was rxed.

    ¡°I¡¯ll stay, you guys go!¡± he announced with the determination of willingly going to his death.

    The two sides were too close! Ghostface stood in front of Li Hao as soon as he finished speaking!

    Even the enemy was dazed in this moment. His target really had delivered himself on a silver tter! Concerned about trampling Li Hao to death since the young man was just a mundane, Ghostface hurriedly slowed down. His feet dragged across the ground as he came to a stop.

    A smile blossomed on his face when his hand touched Li Hao¡¯s shoulders. As his eyes were exposed, Li Hao could read glee and jubtion in the other¡¯s eyes.

    The mission wasplete!

 Chapter 75: Counterkill! (III)

    Chapter 75: Counterkill! (III)

    The martial master¡¯s grip was light, so very light, as if Li Hao was a porcin object in danger of being crushed. Sunderers were enormously powerful and might very well reduce the young man¡¯s shoulder to bone dust if they clenched too tightly.

    Ghostface was as careful as he could be, but Li Hao seemed to be the opposite. He lost his bnce and crashed into the other. He only wielded the strength of a mundane, but after three years of martial training, Li Hao knew that martial masters were most easily thrown off bnce when they deployed their full strength. This also held true for Sunderers.

    So long as he picked the right timing and disrupted the other¡¯s breathing, it would take them some time to gather strength anew even if they suffered no harm. This was something Li Hao grasped after beating Zhou He to death.

    Sunderers wouldn¡¯t normally let another invade their personal space, especially an enemy. Ghostface, however, was more on guard against Liu Yan and Chen Jian. He didn¡¯t care about Li Hao.

    He grabbed the young man and watched the two warily. They might not be willing to leave like this.

    ¡°Liu Yan, Chen Jian, there¡¯s no need for you to¡ªahem!¡± He coughed, needing to catch his breath after Li Hao ran into him.

    Liu Yan suddenly shrieked with fury and whirled around with a dagger in hand. She lunged at the enemy with rage and disappointment. ¡°I won¡¯t let you achieve your goal even if it means killing Li Hao!!¡±

    Her dagger was aimed straight at the young man!

    Ghostface nearly jumped out of his skin; this couldn¡¯t be permitted to happen! Li Hao could not die now! Not only would he fail his mission if the young man died, he would also be punished. The instructions from above were very clear. Li Hao could not die before the blue rain arrived!

    That expanded the mission from capturing Li Hao to protecting him as well. At the very least, Ghostface needed to ensure his prisoner¡¯s safety until the young man was handed over to the supernaturals.

    More pressing matters at hand, Ghostface set aside the fact that Li Hao had run into him and swiftly backed away.

    ¡°Protect Li Hao!¡± he roared and grabbed the young man to throw him back. There were more yers behind them that could protect their precious merchandise. He needed to deal with these two lunatics first. He would not show them courtesy if they insisted on killing Li Hao!

    Overlooked by his captor, Li Hao¡¯s eyes glittered keenly. His hands curved into ws and internal force surged. The two were on top of each other when Ghostface raised him up. Frightened, Li Hao subconsciously flung his arms around the other¡¯s neck.

    The martial master vaguely felt the position inappropriate. It hindered his movements and would adversely affect him. When did the kid be so timid?

    Something tore the next second and blood sttered Li Hao¡¯s face!

    Strength exploded out of the young man¡¯s hands¡ªthe might of a yer of Tens and Twice Forged Force. His hands ripped through the martial master¡¯s throat like they were tiger ws!

    Too fast, and entirely unexpected! Ghostface was stronger than Li Hao, but his attention had been on Liu Yan and the others. He hadn¡¯t suspected the young man of anything. It was at this moment that Li Hao ripped his throat out! There was no fear or trepidation in the young man¡¯s eyes, just aloofness.

    Pfft!

    Blood sprayed everywhere!

    ¡°You¡­¡± Ghostface gasped; pain was yet to travel up his nerves. He still had strength left to smack and kill the little bastard with!

    He raised his hand to punch Li Hao¡¯s head, yet somehow, a third hand appeared from the young man! Li Hao was inly grasping Ghostface¡¯s throat with both hands, but a third hand grabbed the martial master¡¯s crotch when he cocked his hand back for a punch!

    This part of a man truly was¡­ fragile, whether one was a Sunderer or Dominator!

    Crunch!

    It felt like something had been crushed to pieces. Acute pain overwhelmed everything; Ghostface didn¡¯t have the strength to do anything with his upraised hand. It flopped down uselessly and he wanted to howl with the anguish of the world ending!

    But his throat had been ripped out!!

    ¡°Mmph¡­ kth¡­.¡± he screamed with all his might as tears streamed down his face. Not even the mask forestalled the tears.

    It was broken! Crushed! And he couldn¡¯t even keen with agony! Pain numbed his being and his mind went nk. The young man in front of him was entirely too vicious and cruel, ripping out his throat before thoroughly crushing him down there!

    The martial master wavered and fell to his knees. His hands fell limply by his side as he didn¡¯t have the strength to do anything. They hovered protectively over his crotch¡ªdespite knowing it was a futile gesture, this was an instinctive reaction.

    Tears welling in his eyes as he lifted his head, he stared fixedly at Li Hao while blood gushed out of his throat. He¡¯d been had!

    Li Hao looked on, coolly unmoved. Liu Yan came charging from behind and cleanly stabbed the dagger into Ghostface¡¯s temples. She pulled it back out without hesitation, plunging it back in for repeated strokes!

    Light extinguished in the pair of teary eyes.

    Dead!

    If a Sunderer fought Liu Yan and the team head-on, they would be the ones dead with ny-nine percent surety. Tonight, however, it was the martial master that breathed hisst. This was all due to Li Hao, and it came too quickly!

    The young man panicked at the sight. He¡¯d been nose-to-nose with the martial master and bounded backward as soon as the enemy died. He flung himself toward the back, garbling, ¡°Catch me, protect me!¡±

    The yers behind them had just received orders to protect Li Hao. Although their leader suddenly dropped to his knees, their minds didn¡¯t register what¡¯d taken ce. The yer out in front subconsciously reached forward to catch the young man.

    Protect Li Hao!

    Li Hao aimed for his savior and pulled him close, throwing his arms around the man.

    ¡°Protect me!!¡± he shrilled.

    The man didn¡¯t have a chance to think further before a wave of pain assaulted him. Li Hao seemed to have a death grip on his neck! Internal force surged from the young man, turning his arms into a vise.

    Crunch!

    A crisp sound rang out as Li Hao snapped the yer¡¯s neck into two with the Bear Hug technique! He then drew his gun with his right hand and fired at the yer closest to him. His movements were sure and swift, first snapping one enemy¡¯s neck, then blowing out the brains of another.

    They were only one meter apart¡ªhe¡¯d be an idiot if he missed at this range.

    Bang!

    There was no running from a gun! Blood spurted as a bullet drilled straight through the skull!

    He killed two yers in the blink of an eye. Liu Yan came flying over and stabbed her dagger into the second yer¡¯s throat. She pulled out another with her left hand and stabbed it into a third¡¯s heart!

    Two strokes to ensure death! The rest of the group watched with horrified eyes as one Sunderer and three yers died before anyone could react!

    ¡°Be careful, he¡­¡±

    This had been a ten person team of nine yers and one Sunderer. Four were dead in the span of a breath and their strongest was among the fatalities. Of the six survivors, some were shocked beyond belief and others were so frantic they didn¡¯t know what to do. Everything was happening so quickly!

    Li Hao fired again. The enemy was too close; he didn¡¯t want to throw himself over as it was very dangerous. It was better to use the gun first!

    Bang!

    As the blow connected with a target, Liu Yan whirled in with both daggers and swiftly severed another martial master¡¯s arms. Another two were instantly crippled.

    Chen Jian finally made it to the rest of the group, just as baffled as the rest of the Ghostfaces. When Li Hao spotted the portly man¡¯s arrival, he roared, ¡°Protect me!¡±

    While Chen Jian stared with iprehension, the young man grabbed eight grenades from his pockets. Their pins were strung together on a single thread; he yanked them out with a quick pull!

    Threw the grenades down!

    Turned and ran!

    Liu Yan was poised to deliver a finishing blow to the one whose arms she¡¯d severed. She cursed when she caught sight of the grenades out the corner of her eyes. Eight of them! She was only a yer, not an invincible Dominator! Neither was she a supernatural with remarkable abilities! Martial masters were also mundanes and would be blown to pieces by grenades!

    Instead of turning around to run, she stepped on the closest martial master tounch herself into the air and catapult herself out.

    BAM!!

    A massive explosion rocked the air. Three of the remaining six were thrown around like rag dolls and died without an intact corpse to their name. The other three found themselves missing limbs when the dust settled.

    The shockwave flung Liu Yan and Li Hao outward. Only Chen Jian remained on his feet since he was farther from the center of the st. The detonation shocked him back to his senses and he grabbed Li Hao, bringing up the shield to block shrapnel.

    Plink plink plink!

    Rocks collided with the shield; Chen Jian was still a bit dazed by the situation. Meanwhile, Li Hao sprinted backward and jumped lightly in the ape style, grabbing a Ghostface that¡¯d survived the st and crept up to him!

    His hands clenched tight in ck Tiger Heart Gouge and he gouged the enemy¡¯s chest open! Blood covering his hands didn¡¯t faze him as he propelled internal strength forward and shattered a beating heart!

    Liu Yan whirled around without missing a beat and slit the throat of another martial master seeking to get away. Only one was alive now¡ªthe grenades had imed his right leg and slowed him down, ironically resulting in prolonged survival.

    Chen Jian fully snapped back to the present and roared, picking his shield up and charging forward. He smashed thest survivor¡¯s head in with a bellow of rage!

    Silence finally descended on the scene. Li Hao and Liu Yan were drenched in blood. The intensifying rain sluiced them clean, but puddles of red dotted the ground.

    Three yers had bizarrely counter-killed one Sunderer and nine yers!

    Liu Yan remained focused in battle and methodicallynded finishing blows, ensuring their enemy¡¯s death. She frequently nced at Li Hao with an odd gaze as she did so!

    No one could tell what she meant by it, but her eyes seemed to be suffused by an unusual fervor and enthusiasm. Li Hao had been incredible in this battle!

 Chapter 76: The Inspectorate of Silver City (I)

    Chapter 76: The Inspectorate of Silver City (I)

    The rain came down in buckets. Liu Yan delivered finishing blows to the Ghostfaces on the ground, even the Sunderer fallen in a kneeling position. Experience had taught her to be deathly afraid of an enemy faking death.

    Instances abounded on the battlefield of being killed in turn when one failed to make sure that the foe was dead. After the supernatural world appeared, so did unique abilities that could temporarily stop the heart. Sometimes, burning them to ashes was the best way to deal with those bastards.

    Liu Yan wasn¡¯t injured. She¡¯d broken the skin in a few ces from running too quickly and being caught in the final grenade st¡ªthat didn¡¯t count. When she finished her task, she looked at Li Hao again, as if seeing the young man for the first time.

    Li Hao had demonstrated an extremely ruthless character when he fought Zhou He. However, the team upied a disadvantageous position this time. Regardless, this newbie yer of Tens still brainstormed how to counterattack under such circumstances, and seeded!

    A Sunderer wouldn¡¯t take Li Hao lightly, if not for the martial master¡¯s own carelessness. Even with the three Demon Hunters working together, it was far more likely that their enemy would trounce them.

    A baffled Chen Jian picked himself up¡ªthe portly man was injured. He¡¯d safeguarded their rear and had been hit by some of the martial masters wielding guns. His skin and flesh were thick, so he was able to nonchntly dig out the bullets from his back and buttock. He was also staring at Li Hao.

    The two veterans held the young man in high regard after this battle! Meanwhile, the subject of their attentions sank into deep thought. He turned toward the two after thinking of next steps.

    ¡°Do we have more grenades?¡± He¡¯d thrown out all of the ones he carried.

    ¡°An ambush?¡± Liu Yan shook her head. ¡°Anyone with sufficient experience will not rashly check corpses. They¡¯re all martial masters, so they¡¯re all experienced. It¡¯s just that they underestimated you¡­¡±

    Li Hao chuckled. He wanted to say that he was actually thinking of possibly getting one on the supernaturals¡ªbut those might be even more on guard. They alsomanded more abilities, so it was more likely that the grenades would be wasted instead of blowing them to death.

    ¡°Should we bury them?¡±

    Any length of concealment that they could manage was eptable. Once the enemy discovered that a squad of martial masters had died, Li Hao and the others would dramatically rise in importance. He didn¡¯t need to exin that to the rest of the team; Liu Yan tossed corpses into the pit created by the grenades after she finished ensuring they were dead. Chen Jian helped as well.

    inly, it wasn¡¯t the first time they¡¯d undertaken a task like this. When Li Hao stepped forward to help, three people made quick work of all of the bodies. The young man looted a dagger from the Sunderer¡ªbare fists and hands were sometimes a losingbination.

    Just look at how Liu Yan operated with a dagger! Martial masters were made of flesh and blood, after all. She cut through their throats with one stroke all the same.

    The trio left the rest of the items alone. They coulde back for the rest of the loot if they won the night. If not¡­ it was a futile effort to take anything. Although there was only one Sunderer among the ten martial masters, there was bound to be treasure on everyone. The Demon Hunters were preupied elsewhere for the moment.

    The torrential downpour was a boon as it washed away the blood and footprints. Water swiftly umted in the pit of corpses. A cursory nce would lead one to think that this was just a puddle. Seeing as they were close to the city outskirts, it was quite normal for a pothole to appear here.

    Liu Yan and Chen Jian didn¡¯t say a word as they busied themselves. The team could just barely see each other through the feeble moonlight filtering through the darkness. Not even the heavy rain could blot out the crescent in the sky. The scene seemed particrly deste!

    Liu Yan rose when she finished and waved her hand. Chen Jian and Li Hao swiftly fell in step behind her, proceeding along the muddy road.

    ¡°We¡¯ll go to the meeting spot¡ªthe warehouse at the foot of Mt. Heavenly King!¡± she said.

    ¡°They must know that we buried explosives there¡­¡± Li Hao raised. One hundred percent they knew! The enemy wouldn¡¯t try to stop him from exiting the city otherwise.

    ¡°No worries!¡± Liu Yan seemed willing to reveal certain things to the young man now. Her gaze was remote through the heavy rainfall, but it softened with friendliness when she looked at him. ¡°They won¡¯t see through chief that easily! I can tell you a thing or two though. Just remember that when we reach the meeting spot, we¡¯ll have the ability to withstand supernaturals!¡±

    Withstand supernaturals?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t understand, but he could tell that Liu Long had other arrangements at the ready. Thisw enforcement captain of Silver City seemed more capable than he thought! Although the captain¡¯s whereabouts and status were currently unknown, no one would think he was dead before seeing his corpse.

    ¡°Hurry! We need to make it there before they react! They think that those martial masters are enough to capture us!¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡±

    The three sprinted through the darkness. Chen Jian was the slowest¡ªafter the bullets, he was even slower than Li Hao. His wounds still bled and he muttered after a while, ¡°You guys go ahead, I¡¯ll bring up the rear! I¡¯ll set up an ambush and kill whoeveres in pursuit!¡±

    He was so slow that he was less than Li Hao at their current pace. He was only a burden to the other two, so he might as well stay and fight with everything he had left!

    As for departing the premises¡­ the thought didn¡¯t cross his mind. To the Demon Hunters, departure before the mission wasplete was desertion.

    Li Hao smacked his head and grabbed Chen Jian¡¯s arm, sending a warm current into the man.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, this is a unique special force that my teacher taught me!¡±

    The baffled Chen Jian didn¡¯t say anything as he quickly felt the benefits of this energy. His wounds immediately stopped hurting and the vast quantity of internal force he¡¯d depleted before rapidly returned.

    Li Hao possessed secrets.

    Of course, the portly man neither minded nor had the ability to care. His face flushed as excitement brewed. He could continue the mission! Once his internal force began recovering and his wounds stopped bleeding, strength returned to his limbs.

    Up ahead, Liu Yan said nothing and grabbed Li Hao¡¯s hand. ¡°Give me some so I won¡¯t consume too much stamina!¡±

    She couldn¡¯t afford to exhaust as many resources as she was during such high speed running. Locating a car was out of the question as it was the middle of the night in the suburbs. They would also be too conspicuous if they found one.

    Li Hao said nothing as he held Liu Yan with one hand and Chen Jian with the other. The three formed a line with the young man in the middle. He was almost torn apart as he focused on conducting some cosmic power into the two.

    This wasn¡¯t the time to quibble over energy. If they failed, everyone would die. If they seeded, they were all battlerades through life and death. It was just cosmic power¡ªhe could easily find a usible excuse. It was up to them if they believed him or not.

    The young man somehow had the effort to spare for other thought. ¡°Is chief unable to make the crossover, or does he not want to?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s unable to!¡± Liu Yan quickly responded as they ran. ¡°Who¡¯s fool enough to not ascend if they can? Don¡¯t overthink it! He¡¯s not Yuan Shuo though, he does have a chance to ascend. The Night Watchers are willing to give him plenty of opportunities, but with one caveat. He needs to move to White Moon City after ascension and hold down the fort there!

    ¡°Chief will very possibly be a Sunre after he makes the transformation. The Night Watchers need his help, but he¡¯s not willing. Thus, he left them and returned home!

    ¡°The provincial government wishes to tighten their defensive. Silver City, among others, will have their charter revoked and be moved elsewhere. The Night Watchers mean to give some cities and people to the supernatural organizations and recognize their rule!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. Recognize their rule? What did that mean?

    ¡°The current organizations arepletelywless,¡± Liu Yan muttered while they ran. ¡°Part of that is due to apleteck of public knowledge of where their base is, how many people they have, and how strong they are.

    ¡°They can have a few cities and even an entire province if need be. They can establish a nation so that one, they will have ties that bind them, making them be much more prudent about attacking mundanes. Two, it will be easier to attack them if they have a significant base of operations. Three, some of our more powerful siege weapons will be useful if they form their own nation. They won¡¯t be able toe and go at will like they do now¡­¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes gleamed after he thought it over. This was good!

    It was absolutely a good development based on Liu Yan¡¯s words. These organizations were so unbridled because they were entirely unrestrained and mysterious. They would be curtailed once they established a nation.

    Go on, be cocky little shits then! We¡¯ll st you with cannons and siege weapons!

    The Night Watchers had a great idea!

    ¡°This is the inexorable trend of the times!¡± Liu Yan continued. ¡°Chief and I are unable to protest and cannot protest because their strategy is right, the n is correct. It is one that will stabilize society and these unknown factors!

    ¡°But Li Hao, keep in mind that people are needed to establish a nation. Where will the peoplee from? The current government isprised of ordinary people, so they care and are willing to protect their own kind. Do you think the supernaturals of these organizations will care? Will they properly run their cities? Thus, wherever is abandoned means that its people are also abandoned!¡±

    What would happen to ordinary people if they lived under the auspices of supernatural organizations?

    No one knew!

    They might live happily ever after, or it might be a living hell. The future was unknown, which made it highly unfair to those left behind.

    However, what else could be done?

    Everything Liu Long did was to prevent Silver City from bing an abandoned city. It wasn¡¯t strategically important as it was located on the province¡¯s borders. Being a small city, its poption was tiny, making it a good choice for abandonment. Using it to curtail some supernatural organizations seemed like a great deal.

    However, Liu Long wasn¡¯t willing. He¡¯de back home and slowly ascend through killing supernaturals. Only through this could he ensure that Silver City wasn¡¯t renounced. Once it was, the entire city would fall under supernatural jurisdiction.

    Once war broke out, the city would be leverage for the government to use against the organizations. Weapons of great devastation might be used against Silver City. While Li Hao didn¡¯t read the situation that clearly yet, the upper levels of Silver City and the Night Watchers were well aware. It was part of the reason why the Demon Hunters had been established.

    Liu Yan fell silent as the young man digested what he¡¯d heard. The three moved at high speed with minimal movement, darting through the night. They were more than ten kilometers out from their designated meeting spot. Even as martial masters, they needed time to traverse the distance given the environment.

 Chapter 77: The Inspectorate of Silver City (II)

    Chapter 77: The Inspectorate of Silver City (II)

    Veteris Institute of Silver City.

    Yuan Shuo breathed out heavily and stood up, walking to the door for a look outside. ¡°I wonder if my student is still alive!¡±

    No answer was forting from Hu Hao, whereas Li Meng was as blunt as usual.

    ¡°Maybe he¡¯s dead. Why don¡¯t we go take a look? These people won¡¯t dare kill Night Watchers! We¡¯ll bring back his corpse if he¡¯s dead and maybe kill a few if the enemy is weak¡­¡±

    Her words grated on the ear, but Yuan Shuo decided to forgive her after hearing thest sentence. The little girl didn¡¯t have much in the way of brains, but her heart yet burned with the fires of passion. She was even willing to go after the enemy¡­

    Perhaps the Night Watchers needed a batch of hotblooded youngsters like her, ones who didn¡¯t think too much or were burdened with too many reservations. All they were concerned about was building their reputation through killing the enemy whenever the opportunity presented itself. That wasn¡¯t bad either.

    Hu Hao inly thought more than Li Meng as he remained quiet. He mused over many more misgivings. A racket sounded in the man¡¯s ear and the Night Watcher sighed after listening for a while.

    ¡°It looks like¡­ it¡¯s the end of the road for Liu Long!¡±

    Yuan Shuo looked at him. The Night Watchers pulled from an adequate intelligencework. Sometimes, matters hecked knowledge of were recorded in their files as the Inspectorate came under their jurisdiction as well.

    ¡°Liu Long gathered his old battlerades and killed three Darkmoons! However, the organization sent more than usual this time and now the supernaturals are also after him. He won¡¯t survive the night!¡± Hu Hao fell into a despondent silence.

    This was thew enforcement captain of the Inspectorate that they spoke of! They came from the same system, but there was nothing that he could do about it. It was only himself and Li Meng here. They could protect themselves if they remained in the residence; there was nothing but death waiting for them if they left!

    Yuan Shuo also kept quiet. Was this Liu Long¡¯sst dance? Should he¡­ take action now?

    The professor took a step forward after a deep inhale. To hell with it! As dumb as Liu Long might be, he¡¯d given a lot to Silver City all these years. Even if Yuan Shuo felt that such efforts were futile, the man¡¯s contributions could not be written off!

    He had to save Liu Long!

    ¡­¡­

    Within the city.

    Liu Long ran from more than one supernatural pursuer. Numerous scarlet shadows burrowed into him time and time again. His face was ashen and strength drained out of his limbs. Agitating his blood over and over again won him temporary reprieves at too high of a cost. These intangible things were more difficult than supernaturals to put down!

    Damn it! What are these things?

    They couldn¡¯t be beaten to death or obliterated. A Sunderer¡¯s boiling blood could only expel them, not kill them.

    The singr thought on his mind right now was to reach the city¡¯s outskirts. He might stand a chance if he made it to the meeting point! If he couldn¡¯t¡­ he had to keep these people upied, at the very least. Their mission was a sess if Liu Yan arrived.

    When it came down to it, killing three Darkmoons with the capabilities of a Sunderer was an immensely worthwhile trade. Just as Liu Long prepared his final stand, the ground trembled in front of him. The Ghostface who could travel through earth popped up to obstruct his way.

    Liu Long regarded the enemy frostily. This setback was meaningless, he would kill whoever stood in front of him!

    A gunshot broke through the air just as he prepared to put his life on the line. It seemed to be a signal as it was echoed by countless guns!

    A middle-aged man in an Inspectorate uniform stood on a tall building in the distance. Imperiously surveying the city through the darkness, he gripped a gun in his hand. Three sword-shaped medals dangled from the left breast pocket covering an overweight body.

    Inspectors were one star,missioner inspectors two star, and chiefmissioner three star. Li Hao was a one star¡ªhe would remain so even if he was promoted to a first rank inspector. Liu Yan and Liu Long were two stars. There was only a single three star in all of Silver City¡ªthe Inspector General of the Inspectorate. A true personage of immense authority, he outranked the entire city.

    And he was here!

    The superior who wanted Liu Long to give up Li Hao was here! He¡¯d fired the first shot from the roof of a building. A uniform patter of footsteps sounded through the rain. It was an entire division of ten thousand troops!

    The Inspectorate! It mobilized when Liu Long found himself at the end of his tether!

    ¡°Supernaturals are not permitted in restricted areas of Silver City! Trespassers will be executed without question! The Inspectorate bears an unshakable responsibility to settle the ruffians assaulting the city! My countrymen, chaos is upon us today! Shut tight your doors and windows. Come to the Inspectorate forpensation of all losses once disorder is quelled!¡± the inspector general dered in ringing tones from the rooftop.

    Ten thousand guns fired in unison to punctuate his words. Battalions of Inspectorate elites fired upon incredible beings with magical abilities!

    Sure, some of you can fly, swim through the earth, walk through fire, or dance with lightning¡­ but we are the Inspectorate!

    Bang bang bang!

    Gunshots ripped through the dead of night. No sleep would be found in Silver City tonight!

    ¡°Silver City Inspectorate!¡± shrieked a flying Ghostface. ¡°You are but mortals, how dare you assault supernaturals! Does the city wish to be razed to the ground?!¡±

    He changed direction for the building with the damned fatso on it. This was insane! How dare thew enforcement agency of a puny Silver City mobilize en masse! Ten thousand guns firing at once actually killed a supernatural with the disjointed barrage! How did the Inspectorate dare send their people out??

    This was a war between supernaturals!

    Although mundanes possessed hot weapons, once the supernaturals collected themselves and sent their scarlet shadows out, these ordinary fools would die inrge swathes!

    Were they crazy?! No one expected that they would be involved!

    ¡°You want to raze us to the ground?¡± sneered the fatty. ¡°You talk a big talk!¡±

    He pushed off his feet andunched himself into the air, unsheathing a massive sword from his back. Pointing it at his would-be attacker, he hurtled toward the supernatural!

    ¡°Remember my face! The one who kills you tonight is Inspector General Mu Sen of Silver City!¡±

    The fatty was number one in the agency. Everyone knew his predecessor was an expert that guns and des could not touch, but few knew that the current inspector general was also a heavyweight to be reckoned with.

    He soared into the air and shed with his de!

    The iing supernatural¡¯s eyes widened. He thrust his palm out, directing a wave of mysterious power with the aura of a peak Darkmoon!

    Supernaturals who could fly were incredibly strong. This one rivaled Liu Long and had left a bloody mark on the deputy chief¡¯s back. If it wasn¡¯t for Liu Long being familiar with the terrain and able to continuously dodge and evade his pursuers, he would¡¯ve died to this one¡¯s hand a long time ago.

    Nothing kept Fatty Mu Sen in check. A loud rumble apanied his sh and internal force exploded with the ringing of bones and meridians. He parted the rains and hacked through the mysterious power!

    ¡°KILL!¡± he roared!

    KABOOM!

    A bomb rose into the air and detonated near the fatty!

    RUMBLE!!

    The explosion lit up the sky, irradiating the void with light. A shockwave barrelled into the flying supernatural and dispersed his mysterious power. He floundered and fell out of the sky.

    ¡°Bastard!¡± he snarled, ring at Mu Sen who was also plummeting from the sky. This guy attacked only for the purpose of keeping him still for a single second! Fatso was creating an opportunity for the bomb to throw him off bnce¡ªhe wanted tomence the fight on the ground!

    Ghostface forcefully regained his bnce and erupted with mysterious power again. He wanted to tell the mundane this was a ridiculous flight of fancy. Supernaturals wererger than life! They were invincible and far outstripped anything a martial master could do! Martial masters could not hover in the air, but supernaturals could!

    BAM!

    Projectiles whizzed past them! Apany of one hundred inspectors flooded out of nearby houses and fired indiscriminately into the air.

    There weren¡¯t that many bullets given the number of men, but all of them firing at the same time made it difficult for the supernatural to pull off a perfect evasion. Even the descending Mu Sen caught a stray bullet, but utilized the momentum to throw himself back up into the sky for a second sh!

    ¡°Get down there!¡± he leered. ¡°We¡¯ll blow your balls out if you fly any higher!¡±

    BAM!

    Mysterious power and martial dao collided once more! Both sides lost their bnce this time and fell toward the ground. Fear finally crept into Ghostface¡¯s heart. There were one hundred people with guns below them, he would be turned into a sieve! Darkmoons were only Sunderers and Sunderers were not impervious to hot weapons. He couldn¡¯t withstand a hundred people with guns!

    ¡°Mu Sen!¡± he roared angrily.

    ¡°Mu Sen!¡± apanion in the distance called out coldly. ¡°Silver City will be put to fire and sword if you dare kill him!¡±

    KABOOM!

    Thunder and lightning ripped through the air as the speaker blew a hole in a small apartment building. Terrified shrieks and wails sounded when the building began to split apart. This supernatural was forced to use mundanes as hostages upon seeing that hisrade might be killed.

    ¡°Call for a retreat! Otherwise, we¡¯re hidden in all corners and can strike from the shadows. What will Silver City do then?¡±

    An anguished look appeared in Mu Sen¡¯s eyes as he nced at the supernatural about tond, then in the direction of the teetering apartment building.

    This was the sorrow of the Inspectorate!

    They were strong enough to fight the enemy, but their weapons were useless once supernaturals melted away from the battlefield. Thetter killed mundanes with horrifying efficiency and devastation if they were of a mind to.

    Such incidents had taken ce before. The Inspectorate wouldn¡¯t be so wary otherwise and be so concerned with closing the too tightly around supernaturals! They could do whatever they wanted, but the agency couldn¡¯t!

    Mu Sen sighed inwardly. There was nothing he could do either. Just as he¡¯d said to Liu Long, they could either choose to protect one person or an entire city. Other people might be able to let emotion drive their actions, but those in charge could not.

    Liu Long, this is all I can do!

    ¡°Retreat from Silver City or you will have a struggle to the death on your hands!¡± he roared. ¡°If you do not retreat, all twelve thousand guns and three hundred cannons of the Inspectorate will duel you to thest! Piss off! Go out of town if you want to fight! One death in the city is no different from a dozen or hundred! Don¡¯t back us into a corner!¡±

 Chapter 78: The Inspectorate of Silver City (III)

    Chapter 78: The Inspectorate of Silver City (III)

    ¡°We will naturally withdraw, Inspector General Mu!¡± snorted the one in the distance. ¡°We didn¡¯t mean to cross your path either. Liu Long overreached and killed three supernaturals. Our fury will not abate unless we kill him! I think the inspector general doesn¡¯t wish to see this kind of scene either!¡±

    Liu Long had long fled the premises. He propelled himself to safety as soon as the Inspectorate appeared to sweep the area with guns, filling the guy who could travel through earth with holes. He knew that Mu Sen couldn¡¯t get carried away by sentiment.

    This eruption of force raised the fatty¡¯s stock in Liu Long¡¯s books. This was the limit of what the fatty could do. Safe in the distance, Liu Long threw his head back with a roar ofughter.

    ¡°Mu Sen, I¡¯m heading out of town first! Guard the city well! I raise my estimation of you tonight! Let¡¯s sit down for a drink in the future if we have a chance to!¡±

    He jumped, leaped, and ran for the northern outskirts.

    Out of seven supernaturals, one was dead from the random barrage of bullets, the flying one was surrounded by one hundred inspectors, some were pursuing Liu Long, and the rest were staring rapaciously at Mu Sen.

    Let go of the flying supernatural or they would not retreat!

    As for the one dead, their organization could collect on that debt. Caution marked this group of Ghostfaces as they hadn¡¯t received orders to ughter Silver City citizenry. They didn¡¯t dare truly erupt in open hostilities. If the Night Watchers were goaded into mass mobilization, it would lead to untold casualties on both sides.

    Mu Sen sprayed water in all directions when hended heavily on the ground. He stood up rubbing his bottom, eyes glittering with killing intent as he looked at the fallen supernatural not far away. Let¡¯s kill this guy!

    If it hadn¡¯t been for an unexpected attack forcing the supernatural to the ground, it would be very hard to kill him! This was a perfect opportunity. Otherwise, Liu Long would find no safety no matter where he ran. The ability to fly was terrifying¡ªone could follow and lock onto a target, track and conduct surveince, take shelter¡­

    Do we kill him?

    What if that spurred the supernaturals into a killing spree?

    ¡°Step down, let him go!¡± Mu Sen ultimately gave up on the idea. He needed to protect Silver City!

    Later vengeance from the Night Watchers was useless if Silver City suffered immense casualties tonight. So what if the Night Watchers gave the enemy hellter?

    Caught in the middle of inspectors, the supernatural looked at them jeeringly. A soft chuckle traveled out from the mask. He¡¯d thought he was dead earlier, but now? Mortals were mortals! They held too many reservations and didn¡¯t dare kill him!

    Just you wait until this mission is finished!

    He wasn¡¯t at liberty to punish the fatso today. It had to wait until this matter was concluded and Li Hao was in their grasp.

    ¡°Inspector General!¡± Fury rose from the rank and file. Let him go?! This guy was too big a threat! Some of their people had secretly observed the situation tonight¡ªhe was Captain Liu Long¡¯s greatest threat!

    They¡¯d finally brought him down, but were going to let him go just like this?? Even though thew enforcement captain had run far away, he couldn¡¯t run far enough! This fellow would catch up to him in a matter of seconds!

    ¡°Let him go!¡± Mu Sen repeated irritably. He knew their thoughts and was equally incensed, but there was nothing he could do.

    Supernaturals lingered in the darkness and they had no leads on the one who released lightning. That one could send out another bolt at any time to strike a few houses and the people inside. It was incredibly difficult to catch supernaturals in this gloom. Casualties would be too high; he was unable to turn a blind eye to the citizenry for the sake of Liu Long and a few others.

    ¡°Until we meet again, Inspector General Mu!¡±ughed the supernatural before flying into the sky again. He was off!

    So what if one hundred guns were aimed at him? He wasn¡¯t alone! Such were the benefits of a team. He might be at the end of his tether if he was here alone today, but instead, he had a team who stepped in to suppress the Inspectorate so they didn¡¯t touch him.

    A figure shot upward like lightning the moment he took to the sky and punched outward! His fist was heralded by a p of thunder!

    BAM!!

    The flying supernatural split apart and chunks of his body scattered on the ground!

    ¡°Ahh!!¡± someone shrieked¡ªa resident peeping from the surroundings.

    A white-haired Yuan Shuo had bounded into the air to annihte the supernatural with one punch! Blood dribbled from his mouth and he bit off sneeringly, ¡°This old man is not afraid! Killing vermin with my final breath is a worthwhile endeavor for one about to die!¡±

    He rose and fell from the rooftops of the buildings around him, passing through the rainy night with a long de on his back. Laughter traveled back on the wind as he shot in Liu Long¡¯s direction.

    ¡°Youngster of House Liu! Fear not the disaster staring at you, this old man will save you! Few are the Sunderers in Silver City and I am not afraid if you are willing to fight!¡±

    ¡°Yuan Shuo!!¡± came a furious bellow within the city. The supernatural whomanded thunder and lightning was furious beyond belief. He hadn¡¯t thought that the old man would join the fray!

    Two were dead now! Add to that the three from before, it meant that half of the team were unceremoniously dead!

    ¡°Damn it!¡±

    ¡°After him!¡± Numerous figures peeled out of the darkness, each one burning with incandescent rage. How dare a man about to die intervene at this time! The martial blockheads of Silver City were too big for their britches!

    Off in the distance, Hu Hao and Li Meng looked at each other with wide eyes. So fast! Yuan Shuo had taken to the air like a bird and strode away in the blink of an eye to punch that Darkmoon to death!

    Wasn¡¯t the old man on death¡¯s door? How did he have any fight left in him? What should they do now? They were in trouble! Do they catch up to him or not?

    They wouldn¡¯t be able to exin themselves if they didn¡¯t follow and Yuan Shuo died. But if they did, wouldn¡¯t that instigate a war between the Night Watchers and the supernatural organization?

    As they hesitated, Mu Sen sneered at them from a distance. ¡°Are you waiting for an evening snack or what? Do you think they¡¯re willing to start a war? Are they assured of victory against Night Watchers? You two are idiots!¡±

    The two flushed beet red. They¡¯d been lectured!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Hu Hao could also fly. He grabbed Li Meng and shot for the horizon. Like Mu Sen said, the enemy was just as hobbled by concerns as they were. No one could afford the consequences of causing a war between two factions.

    ¡°Inspector General!¡± Some inspectors angrily looked at Mu Sen. Were they really letting the enemy go like this? Although Yuan Shuo had killed the flying supernatural, emotions ran high since they weren¡¯t the ones to eliminate the bastard!

    It was a bitter pill too hard to swallow¡ªthese people were hunting theirw enforcement captain! We have more people and guns, as well as confirmation that these people can die if there¡¯s enough bullets in the air!

    Mu Sen waved them off, the fight suddenly draining out of him. With another look in the distance, he dragged his feet to the Inspectorate with a self-deprecating bent of his head. I¡¯m afraid this is it! This is the end of the road for you, Liu Long! I can sense a stronger surge of energy rippling in the distance. A Sunre might be here!

    ¡°Fire your guns into the air!¡± he called out. ¡°Supernaturals, remember well your humiliation today! You are not allowed in our city! If you trespass, that is when the sons of Silver City will bathe in the blood of our enemies! Your arrogance has no ce here!¡±

    It was both intimidation and resignation. All he could do was shout a few lines of bravado to vent some frustration. He was the inspector general of a city, but didn¡¯t dare carry out justice because of a few supernaturals!

    Fuck this shit!

    He unsheathed a long de when he reached a particr street. Mu Sen couldn¡¯t be bothered to say anything to those held in custody and executed each one he saw, deaf to their cries for mercy!

    He woodenly cut through a dozen necks like he didn¡¯t see blood gushing from severed stumps.

    ¡°Liu Long may not be bothered by this, but I am!¡± he stated in arctic tones. ¡°I may not be able to kill supernaturals today, but I can kill you traitors! Take a good look at whose territory you¡¯re in! How dare you work for others while in my domain!¡±

    He vented some of his spleen after heads hit the ground, then looked into the distance with resignation again.

    And some anticipation.

    Have Wang Ming and the guy behind him also gone out? I hope the Night Watchers put in a better showing this time. The enemy¡¯s grinding their face into the ground if they still don¡¯t man up. They¡¯ve sent a Sunre! I wonder if the Night Watchers will be able to handle it¡­ And Liu Long! I hope he¡¯s okay!

    The chubby and typically amiable inspector general walked over the corpses, wiping off the blood on his shoes. The very image of ruthlessness, he shook his head as he walked. What was Yuan Shuo doing, getting involved in this nonsense!

    The old man had one foot in the grave, yet insisted on sticking his nose into things. He might still die even if he managed to survive the supernaturals tonight!

    ¡°Once I ovee the past, I will dare challenge even the sun and moon!¡± sang chubby Mu Sen as he leisurely strolled through the night, as if the dust had settled. He waved a hand when he passed by the church, sending a few people rushing in with various instruments to collect mysterious power from the dead supernaturals.

    ¡°Ole brother Liu, I¡¯ll give this back to you if you survive. If not¡­ It''s mine! I need it too!¡± Mu Sen sighed, then grinned. I¡¯ll hold onto it if you die and get revenge for you after I cross through to the other side!

    You¡¯re not the only one fighting the good fight! And don¡¯t think you¡¯re really all that! Where would you get so many weapons and ammunition from if I didn¡¯t secretly support you? Why would there constantly be so many fearless desperadoes wanting to join the Demon Hunters?

    The inspector general remained grinning as he looked to the north, but only frosty killing intent brimmed in his eyes. Ghostface, huh? I¡¯ll remember you!

    ¡­¡­

    The northern outskirts.

    Li Hao, Liu Yan, and Chen Jian remained sprinting at high speed. They consumed an incredible amount of stamina, but recovered it equally quickly. Gunshots from the city traveled into their ears. Liu Yan paused ever so slightly and looked back, possible derision or sorrow curving her lips.

    The Inspectorate had finally made its move. Only the fatty in the Inspectorate had the authority tomand so many guns at once.

 Chapter 79: Killing A Scarlet Shadow (I)

    Chapter 79: Killing A Scarlet Shadow (I)

    ¡°Chief is getting out!¡± Liu Yan quickly realized. The fatty nursed too many concerns to readily mount an offensive, but he at least could ensure that Liu Long would not die within the city.

    ¡°The Inspectorate?¡± Li Hao realized with surprise. The agency had gotten involved? This really did run outside his expectations.

    ¡°Mmhmm, that should be them!¡± Liu Yan muttered as they ran. ¡°The fatty at the Inspectorate is our superior. You should be careful of him¡ªhe¡¯s not a good guy. Don¡¯t get so taken in that you count the money for him as he sells you to the highest bidder!¡±

    Li Hao had met Mu Sen before. The inspector general hade by a few days after the rookies came on board. Mu Sen had offered a fewpliments and was very amiable. He possessed a good reputation within the Inspectorate.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that the inspector general, normally quiet as a mouse, would dare interfere with tonight¡¯s affairs?

    ¡°Is the inspector general a martial master? Or supernatural?¡±

    ¡°Martial master!¡± Liu Yan responded swiftly. ¡°The supernaturals are almost all with the Night Watchers, only mundanes remain with us. Most of the Inspectorate are martial masters, but there¡¯s a portion that¡¯s purely mundane.¡±

    Li Hao asked no further as it wasn¡¯t the time for questions. The three continued to race forward, crossing a patch of wilderness before long. Arge warehouse loomed one thousand meters after that, and the faint outline of a mountain could be seen in the distance.

    Mt. Heavenly King!

    This was where Liu Long had chosen and while Li Hao didn¡¯t understand why this spot was significant, there was nothing he could do other than to trust the captain. They were almost there!

    Liu Yan suddenly crouched in the grass, as did Chen Jian. The two yanked Li Hao down next to them.

    There was no movement in the surroundings! The young man found nothing after a quick scan. However, he trusted Liu Yan¡¯s judgment. Silently crouching amid grass that was as tall as a person, the heavy downpour masked the sounds of the trio crunching through the terrain.

    A gunshot rang through the night thirty secondster! The rain drowned it out, but a muffled crack could still be identified through the deluge.

    Liu Yan¡¯s only reaction was to crouch even lower. Meanwhile, Chen Jian made a gesture at Li Hao. The young man understood it¡ªtall guy¡­ Wu Chao!

    Wu Chao and Yun Yao were here! They¡¯d gone to support the captain; Li Hao had been worried over their continued absence. It looked like they were alive, but tracked by the enemy.

    ¡°Arr arr arr!¡± A little ck dog¡¯s continued growling barely reached Li Hao¡¯s ears.

    Panther!

    ¡­¡­

    Wu Chao¡¯s face was white and he heaved for breath. He couldn¡¯t hold Yun Yao or drag along Panther anymore. The dog still had some energy and growled without stop, as if trying to deter something. Yun Yao had tossed away her goggles a long time ago. She couldn¡¯t see the scarlet shadow, but she knew where it was! Wherever the dog barked was where it was!

    She still had her medicine kit and could tell that Wu Chao was injured. There was a supernatural following them!

    Most were distracted by the captain; there had been two following them at first. One left due to certain events in the city, leaving one still hunting them down.

    ¡°Go to the meeting point¡­¡± Crimson brilliance colored the skinny man¡¯s face. Rainwater trickling down his head carried hints of red with it. It was blood!

    Wu Chao was injured, and heavily at that. The supernatural following them nearly rivaled him in speed. Although the gap between the two parties didn¡¯t close, the Demon Hunters were attacked by scarlet shadows a few times, even with Panther pointing the way.

    Being weaker than Liu Long, Wu Chaocked the ability to agitate his blood with internal force to force the shadow out. His organs had suffered burn damage and his head seemed to have been pierced clean through. Raindrops took away tendrils of blood with them.

    Yun Yao swiftly opened her kit instead of saying anything and took out a tiny crystal ball. She shoved it in his mouth, whereupon Wu Chao swallowed withoutint. His face flushed ever more brightly and his blood began to froth. However, his skin split open as well and he lost blood at a faster rate.

    The team doctor quickly dressed his wounds; a faint sheen of energy from her hand barely managed to close them.

    ¡°Go, head to the meeting point first,¡± she said tiredly. ¡°You know what the consequences are!¡±

    Consequences?

    The consequences of taking that crystal ball!

    Wu Chaoughed with a slightly bleak note. Of course he knew what the consequences were¡ªthe crystal ball was both poison and medicine. It stirred up the potential, but one was crippled after a period of time.

    Who could care about that now?

    The skinny man recovered to his peak; both strength and speed returned to him. He grabbed Yun Yao with one hand and Panther with the other, sprinting for the warehouse in the distance.

    He traveled at full speed again.

    A figure outlined in shifting blue light shed by momentster. The supernatural in a ghostly mask was also here. He¡¯d somehow failed to catch a yer after all this time! Although the guy was a little bit faster, it was surprising that he¡¯d managed to run for so long.

    ¡°That dog¡­¡± The supernatural hadn¡¯t cared about the dog before, but Blue Ghostface was now puzzled. The dog seemed a bit special, like it could see the shadows that normal people couldn¡¯t.

    The scarlet shadow had drawn close multiple times, but only harmed Wu Chao once. The rest of the attempts were evaded. Logically speaking, a yer should not be able to evade the scarlet shadow. Even Liu Long was only able to meet it head-on!

    But that dog? Interesting¡­

    ¡°A dog on its way to bing a dog spirit? Or is it that ck dogs share special characteristics?¡± Blue Ghostface didn¡¯t understand it. The scarlet shadows were also special and the Ghostfaces didn¡¯t understand them either. Although hemanded one shadow, that didn¡¯t mean he understood everything.

    A faint ripple of mysterious power undted over him, manifesting the scarlet shadow to chase their quarry again.

    ¡­¡­

    Within the wilderness.

    Liu Yan didn¡¯t make a sound. She didn¡¯t show herself even when Wu Chao and Yun Yao darted past them. The woman seemed more confident than before.

    Seeing that she was concealing even the sounds of her breathing, Li Hao knew that the woman wanted to ambush the pursuer. It had to be supernatural because Li Hao could see all too clearly through the rainy night!

    A beam of lunar splendor sparkled in the distance¡ªmysterious power, Darkmoon!

    The others didn¡¯t know that he could see mysterious power.

    ¡°A supernatural!¡±

    It wasn¡¯t martial masters this time, just one Darkmoon on par with a Sunderer. No, make that much more thorny to handle than a Sunderer. It was almost impossible for Liu Yan to pull off an ambush as supernaturals were so much more difficult than Sunderers!

    inly, her earlier sess had emboldened her. She turned back to give Li Hao a look, one that the young man understood!

    He stiffened. No way, sis! She was obviously overestimating him as she wanted him to put on the same show as before. Maybe they could pull the wool over the pursuer¡¯s eyes!

    But the situation was different this time, because Li Hao saw a smear of red by the ball of light! A scarlet shadow! It was their first time encountering one tonight and the source of his many nightmares. No one else could see it and not even Liu Long could handle it!

    Li Hao¡¯s teacher had said that it was a mental existence that only Dominators could exterminate. The young man subconsciously stroked his jade sword. Perhaps only Steris could take on the shadow. But one had to keep in mind that the shadow came with a Darkmoon. Liu Yan and Chen Jian were no match for the supernatural.

    When he saw that the woman was poised to run out, Li Hao held onto her with a death grip! Don¡¯t move!

    These supernaturals had an extra pair of eyes when theymanded a shadow; it was a pair that saw in 360 degrees. Scarlet shadows could fly, were formless and intangible, and could hover in the air to observe in all directions.

    The supernaturals that died in the city had either directed their shadows to follow Liu Long or sent them too far away. They died due to overlooking the mundanes around them. Otherwise, it was very difficult for them to perish when a shadow was another set of eyes.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t dare let Liu Yan rush out¡ªhe already saw the shadow in the air! This would be a rush to her death, not an ambush! The shadow would discover her as soon as she moved!

    Liu Yan tilted her head at Li Hao; the young man pointed at the sky. She started, then realized something with shock.

    What does he mean? Is he saying that the formless mental entity is nearby? But¡­ those things are hard to see and there should only be one of them. It should be following Liu Long in the city right now, what¡¯s it doing here?

    Being a yer, she couldn¡¯t feel the other¡¯s presence. It was only now that insurmountable pressure dawned on her. There was more than one of these things!

    If Li Hao hadn¡¯t stopped her, the enemy would¡¯ve discovered her long before she drew near. She¡¯d be dead without a doubt!

    In the meantime, Li Hao was furiously thinking of solutions. A supernatural with a scarlet shadow was too difficult to handle. Supernaturals were incredibly mighty to begin with. When armed with a scarlet shadow, they were impossible to ambush and the shadow was also extremely destructive. It made it easier for the supernaturals to do their job.

    Liu Long¡¯s unexpected move of activating hot weapons on arge scale within the city was why he¡¯d been able to swiftly kill three. He would have no hope otherwise in a direct standoff.

    Li Hao looked toward the source of light again. As hidden as supernaturals may be, they were light bulbs to him. He didn¡¯t worry about an ambush, just the shadow. Whether one traveled through the earth or elsewhere, he would discover them so long as he could see mysterious power.

    A scarlet shadow swiftly floated past them while Li Hao and Liu Yan were both lost in thought. The young man stayed motionless, terrifyingly quiet in the grass, permitting the ice-cold rain topletely drench him.

 Chapter 80: Killing A Scarlet Shadow (II)

    Chapter 80: Killing A Scarlet Shadow (II)

    The source of lunar splendor quickly came after the scarlet shadow. Li Hao breathed out gently when both disappeared, ¡°They¡¯re following Brother Wu and the others!¡±

    Liu Yan tilted her head solemnly at the young man and kept her voice down. ¡°Did you stop me because the thing you metst time is somewhere in the surroundings?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I can sense its existence!¡±

    It didn¡¯t matter that he wasn¡¯t being fully transparent, it was all the same at a time like this.

    Liu Yan¡¯s eyebrows knitted together; she elected to respond from another angle. ¡°Then what should we do? I can tell from Wu Chao¡¯s condition that he¡¯s taken a Potential Pill. Yun Yao created it¡ªthe pill utilizes mysterious power to stir up potential. However, the effects don¡¯tst for long and Wu Chao will be fully crippled soon!¡±

    They were roughly fifteen hundred meters away from the warehouse. It was a short distance, but also didn¡¯t leave enough time for Wu Chao and the others to prepare once they arrived. The supernatural was too close on their heels. If they were caught, both Demon Hunters would die.

    Li Hao tried to put his teacher out of his mind and swiftly thought through things. ¡°Can you guys take down a Darkmoon together?¡±

    Could the team do so without Liu Long? If they could, he could try to eliminate the scarlet shadow. The jade sword in his possession was his source of confidence!

    Of course, he wasn¡¯t fully confident in his chances.

    ¡°It¡¯ll be hard!¡± Liu Yan responded. ¡°But not impossible. Ites down to your¡­ special internal force! I¡¯ve barely expended any of my resources during our run. Mysterious power isn¡¯t infinite, the supernatural must have expended quite a bit on a chase from the city. Judging from Wu Chao¡¯s state, the two have exchanged some blows. We stand a chance if the supernatural hasn¡¯t made it far down the Darkmoon path!¡±

    ¡°My injuries are almost fully healed,¡± Chen Jian added. ¡°I¡¯ll be able to block his attacks so long as he isn¡¯t one of those with elemental powers. No physical blow is getting through me!¡±

    Both of them looked at Li Hao, the rookie on the team¡ªnot because he was strong, but because of his special methods. They were cing hopes in him that he had methods to bring against the enemy.

    The team was originally meant to protect the young man, but now their roles reversed. They needed to rely on Li Hao¡¯s special ability to ensure they survived the night.

    ¡°Sis, what¡¯s in the warehouse that you¡¯re nning on using against the supernatural? We¡¯re not running there to our deaths, are we?¡± Li Hao asked first. If they were going to just sit in the warehouse, what was the point of going there? Supernaturals weren¡¯t fools, they¡¯d guess that explosives were buried there. Utilizing those could only be ast move. Everyone would die together then.

    ¡°Ice crystal covers!¡± Liu Yan revealed. ¡°We¡¯ve utilized ice crystals to construct a distinctive environment in the warehouse. Remember, they iste mysterious power!¡±

    Li Hao thought back to the stores of energy he¡¯d absorbed in the treasury. An ice crystal cover over the entire warehouse? But didn¡¯t they say this is a precious resource? Where can the team get so many crystals to put a dome over such arge area?

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t span arge section, just a small part,¡± Liu Yan quickly borated. ¡°Supernatural damage can be avoided inside it! Supernaturals are less than martial masters if they can¡¯t draw upon their powers. It¡¯s not the entire warehouse, so we have to enter it first and find a way to lure them in¡­¡±

    ¡°So why didn¡¯t you guys set it up inside the city?¡± Li Hao still didn¡¯t understand. They¡¯de so far just for this?

    ¡°We should talk as we run, I¡¯m afraid Wu Chao won¡¯t hold out much longer!¡± Liu Yan said.

    The trio resumed their sprint as the vice captain murmured, ¡°It¡¯s not a good idea to use weapons of mass destruction inside the city! Additionally, it¡¯s very difficult to move the ice crystals here because they¡¯re too fragile. They¡¯re not strictly ice crystals, but a special crystal that a supernatural we hunted created before he died¡­¡±

    Li Hao only partially understood the exnation, but he did grasp that an ambush was possible only here. Liu Long wanted to hold the final battle here because he wished to utilize the unique properties of these crystals against the supernaturals.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you guys make ice crystal armor or something like that?¡± The young man couldn¡¯t help but ask. If ice crystals could iste mysterious power, armor that negated their abilities would greatly diminish the supernaturals.

    ¡°We can¡¯t! Ice crystals are a special material and not durable at all. Who knows if armor is even possible¡ªbut let¡¯s say it is. All the enemy needs to do is move around a bit to shatter it. It¡¯s usable only in fixed locations. You might break it through the course of your own movement!¡±

    Li Hao fell silent with understanding. The trio continued running. The warehouse ahead wasing into view and Wu Chao¡¯s ghastly voice rasped through the air.

    ¡°How dare you keeping, punk?? There are countless explosives buried here and I¡¯ll blow all of us to kingdome if you set foot inside!¡±

    Outside the warehouse.

    Wu Chao and the others had entered the structure. The skinny man was bleeding from all of his orifices¡ªthe pill¡¯s effects were almost over.

    Outside the warehouse, Blue Ghostface had erected a dome of power to keep rain from drenching him. He didn¡¯t enter the building as he knew there might really berge amounts of explosives buried here. These martial blockheads thought too little of supernaturals and the organization supporting them!

    The scarlet shadow drifted toward the warehouse. Explosives? Hah! Could scarlet shadows be blown up?

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther nervously raised. The scarlet shadow wasing!

    Neither Wu Chao nor Yun Yao could call on any methods against the scarlet shadow. Explosives were useless once the shadow entered the building. They would only blow the team up!

    ¡°This had nothing to do with you, but you insisted on sticking your nose into it!¡± Blue Ghostface spat coldly outside the warehouse. ¡°How many more crystal balls do you have? Bring them all out!¡±

    Yun Yao had used the crystal balls a few times earlier. It was a rare item that could damage the shadows, but the supernatural was betting that Yun Yao didn¡¯t have many of them. Perhaps she¡¯d already used all of them! The Demon Hunters couldn¡¯t possibly have too many since the item was rted to mysterious power.

    Yun Yao remainedposed and took out a crystal ball. She tossed it without a word, aiming for the direction that the dog was barking its head off in.

    Bam!

    The crystal ball exploded. Yun Yao couldn¡¯t see the result or effects, but Panther¡¯s barking softened. The mental entity had been forced back once more. However, the team doctor knew that this was only the beginning.

    It was true, she didn¡¯t have many crystal balls left¡ªjust three. The intangible entity seemed invincible and was more difficult to take care of than supernaturals.

    ¡°Where¡¯s Li Hao?¡± Blue Ghostface was in no hurry after trapping his quarry in the warehouse. They wouldn¡¯t be getting away! He was more perplexed about where Li Hao and the rest of the team were. There were also no signs of the martial masters from the Ghostface organization. Had something happened?

    As expected, martial masters are trash.

    There were ten of them and one was a Sunderer. They were just out to capture two yers and a mundane. How could they fail even this??

    He caught movement out the corner of his eye and turned his head back. Li Hao and two others appeared, oblivious to the presence of the scarlet shadow. They seemed to unwittingly stumble upon the scene; faces tightened when they saw Blue Ghostface.

    ¡°The whole gang¡¯s here!¡± chuckled the supernatural. ¡°Liu Long seems to have some skill to his name, he¡¯s still alive! You guys aren¡¯t bad either. Where¡¯s Yun Gui and the others?¡±

    He was inly asking about the martial masters; Liu Yan and Chen Jian didn¡¯t seem to have weathered a mighty battle. The supernatural could tell with a single nce that they weren¡¯t injured. Internal force surged vibrantly inside Liu Yan, another sign that they hadn¡¯t fought anyone. Where had his organization¡¯s martial masters gone?

    There was a Sunderer among them! They couldn¡¯t have gotten lost, could they?

    Granted, that was a possibility. The rain wasing down in sheets and it was nighttime. It would be hriously ludicrous if they¡¯d gotten lost!

    Li Hao was slightly nervous as he could see a scarlet shadow flying toward him after they arrived. Panther barked from the warehouse and Yun Yao urgently called out, ¡°Be careful of something ghostly approaching you guys!¡±

    Wu Chao¡¯s body was covered in blood and he shouted anxiously, ¡°That thing is formless and intangible! You can feel it, but not see it! The organs burn after it enters the body!¡±

    They were in trouble!

    Liu Yan stood in front of Li Hao, wielding daggers in both hands. She looked alertly at the supernatural and bit off coolly, ¡°The most mystifying things are still controlled by people! I bet you that thing will vanish if I kill you!¡±

    She growled andunched herself forward, charging the other with iparable speed! Chen Jian tightened his grip on his shield and also flung himself at the enemy!

    There was nothing else they could do!

    Based on what Li Hao said, ambushes werepletely useless. The best n of action was for them to preupy the supernatural and for the young man to find a way to exterminate the shadow¡­

    The supernatural would lose its greatest ace if the shadow was gone. Only then would they have a chance of killing the enemy.

    The scarlet shadow rushed Liu Yan the second the woman threw herself forward. Meanwhile, Li Hao abruptly turned tail and ran. ¡°Hold them off, I¡¯ll get reinforcements!¡±

    He ran!

    Blue Ghostface had wanted to eliminate the little yers of the Demon Hunters first; he was extremely irritated to see Li Hao run for it. Their mission was Li Hao! They could let the Demon Hunters go, but Li Hao could not stray out of sight!

    The scarlet shadow raced after the young man!

    A mortal could not outrun a shadow, but it wouldn¡¯t kill the young man at the moment. Blue Ghostface gave orders for the scarlet shadow to simply impede and gain control over the target. He was most worried that Li Hao would somehow get lost in the wilderness or off himself. That would be the most dicey of all.

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther rushed out in pursuit of the shadow. Wu Chao and Yun Yao wanted to follow, but the Darkmoon snorted. Countless raindrops sharpened into lethal points and shot toward the Demon Hunters.

    The ability to manipte water!

 Chapter 81: Killing A Scarlet Shadow (III)

    Chapter 81: Killing A Scarlet Shadow (III)

    Bam bam bam!

    Sharpened raindrops smashed into Chen Jian¡¯s shield, leaving it a pockmarked mess. They were exceedingly deadly and could¡¯ve drilled countless bloody holes into flesh and blood.

    ¡°We charge together!¡± Liu Yan roared, stabbing with one of her daggers. ¡°Forget Li Hao, they won¡¯t kill him yet! They¡¯re waiting for the right timing!¡±

    ¡°Smart!¡± chuckled the supernatural. So what if he was surrounded and they¡¯d guessed the truth? He waved a shield of water into being in front of him; it fully dispersed the force behind Liu Yan¡¯s dagger when she pierced through it. The dagger could not prate closer to him.

    ¡°The era of martial masters is over!¡± chuckled Ghostface. He waved another surge of mysterious power forward¡ªa rainy night was his perfect battlefield! He could deploy greater strength than otherwise!

    Water arrows shot in all directions!

    Chen Jian roared angrily and stepped up, raising the shield over everyone. The Demon Hunters were well coordinated. Wu Chao grit his teeth against pain from his organs, swiftly circling around their opponent like a wraith wielding a ck shortsword. He would take any opportunity that presented itself!

    Four yers found themselves on the back foot when facing a Darkmoon, but they acted in unspoken ord. With Chen Jian in front of them, he could just manage to withstand the fearsome water arrows. The portly man could hold on for a bit so long as properties such as fire did not appear.

    Liu Yan also brought her full strength to bear. She strode forward and cracked her legs like a whip, shattering the water shield so she could stab both daggers in!

    The five waged battle as one team!

    ¡­¡­

    In the distance.

    Li Hao ran for his life, but the scarlet shadow was just as fast. It caught up to the young man in the blink of an eye. Panther chased them down from behind, barking its head off at the shadow!

    The human slowed to a pause, looked around him, then cast a resigned look at the dog. What are you barking for? I can see it! It¡¯s not like your barking is of any use! You can¡¯t touch the shadow!

    He gripped the jade sword with nervousness. He didn¡¯t know if it¡¯d be of any use. Would he have to wait for his teacher to save him if it couldn¡¯t eliminate the shadow either?

    The scarlet shadow didn¡¯t seem to possess a consciousness of its own. It hovered in ce, awaiting orders. Upon seeing the young man stop, it swiftly drew near.

    The hairs rose on the back of Li Hao¡¯s neck! He didn¡¯t try to instinctively dodge it¡ªthe shadow might be the most difficult part of tonight. It was a thornier opponent than the supernaturals! They would be in a pickle if he didn¡¯t kill the shadow.

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther started up a racket again.

    Li Hao ignored the dog and jerked the jade sword off its chain. He pinched it tightly and aimed the tip at the shadow. It was do or die! This thing had burned his best friend to death! Although he didn¡¯t know if it was the same one, all scarlet shadows deserved death!

    He clenched his teeth and stabbed forward the moment the shadow drew near!

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± There was no reaction. It was as if the scarlet shadow suffered no injury.

    Li Hao reeled with shock. There¡¯s no effect?? This couldn¡¯t be! The jade sword was ready to jump into battle the previous times, how was it ineffective now?

    But such was reality. The sword stabbed through the shadow without any oue.

    ¡°Is it¡­ still sealed? Is the bloodline needed to unseal it?¡± The young man suddenly thought back to his teacher speaking of the sword being sealed. Should he stab his heart for his heart blood? Or perhaps he should try agitating his blood. That might unseal the jade sword at a certain level.

    Li Hao¡¯s blood frothed when his thoughts traveled here. He was only a yer, so he couldn¡¯t reach Liu Long¡¯s level of forcing the shadow back, but the sensation in his blood seemed to bring something new. Steris trembled in his hand!

    ¡°Kill!¡± Li Hao grunted, stabbing once more. There was an effect this time!

    The scarlet shadow suffered a blow when it drew near his chest. It sounded like something was punctured when Steris connected; crimson smoke rose from the hole. The shadow now seemed¡­ tangible?

    Due to always being able to see the shadow, Li Hao didn¡¯t know if this meant it was visible to the naked eye. It did seem much clearer than before, however.

    Panther suddenly waved its paws around and pounced forward, swinging its paws rapidly and catching the shadow with sharp ws! A fissure appeared in the shadow with yet more deting sounds. Joy dawned in the dog¡¯s eyes! So this worked too?

    Li Hao tightened his pinch without another word and propelled his internal force, decisively stabbing forward!

    Pfft!

    More scarlet smoke rose. The shadow seemed to sense danger and sought to flee. Panther waved its paws behind it and forced the entity back.

    Li Hao put the sword away and attempted a punch. It connected solidly with the scarlet shadow!

    The shadow really was tangible now!

    Steris could force the scarlet shadow into taking form! The shadow didn¡¯t seem too strong¡ªit was just difficult to kill. Li Hao and Panther¡¯s attacks inflicted consistent damage and always raised wisps of bloody smoke!

    ¡°So¡­ this is all there is to you?¡± Li Hao suddenlyughed. I¡¯ve been scared shitless for a year, but this is what this thing is? It¡¯s so weak! I thought you were a god or something!

    It was on par with a yer of Tens and impossible to deal with only because ordinary people were unable to see it. No wonder these people hadn¡¯t been able to kill Liu Long even though they sent scarlet shadows!

    ¡°Die!!¡± Li Hao attacked frically, bringing out the dagger he¡¯d taken from the martial master. He shed in a random frenzy, swiftly pulverizing it to pieces with Panther¡¯s help. However, the human-sized cloud of smoke slowly came back together.

    Li Hao furrowed his brow. Were these things undying? Howe it lived through that barrage? What the hell is it?

    The jade sword didn¡¯t seem to be fully unsealed as it ceased to be useful after piercing through the shadow¡¯s invisibility. Could it be that the shadows were impossible to exterminate?

    A faint tendril of bloody smokended on Li Hao¡¯s hand. He was operating the Breathing Method of the Five Styles all this time and circting cosmic power inside his body. When the bloody smoke drifted to his hand, he identally absorbed it.

    Once inside his body, itbined with cosmic power and transmuted to a unique energy. The energy was very special as it enhanced neither the body nor organs. It swiftly melded with blood¡ªLi Hao felt that his blood brimmed with energy ever since the blood transfusion. With the injection of the blood-red energy, his blood agitated anew!

    ¡°Huh?¡± The young man blinked, was the scarlet shadow also a special energy? His blood was growing stronger and his eyes turned red!

    Martial masters strengthened tendons and bones, enhanced internal force, underwent a blood transfusion, and trained their body¡­

    Yet blood was the most difficult to improve.

    So this thing is energy? Cosmic power can nullify and turn it into unique energy for me to absorb?

    Hot damn!!

    Glee shone from Li Hao¡¯s eyes. His head was aching over how to handle the thing as it didn¡¯t seem it would die. Let¡¯s see how you manage to resurrect if I absorb all of you!

    Breathing Method of the Five Styles at full strength!

    Li Hao grabbed the shadow and devoured it with all of his might! I¡¯ll assimte you to death!

    Bam bam bam!

    The scarlet shadow struggled fiercely, as if sensing danger. Tendrils of red smoke arose and churned toward Li Hao; the young man¡¯s blood agitated violently! He underwent a simr experience when strengthening the spleen, but there¡¯d been too little energy then to highlight the effects of a blood transfusion.

    This time, however, the scarlet shadow was more than enough. Blood bubbled from Li Hao¡¯s pores! New blood geysered at the same time¡ªblood surged through his body likeva. The young man overflowed with strength!

    ¡°Let¡¯s eat more!¡± Li Hao nearly danced for joy. The scarlet shadow might be key to growing stronger! He already felt more capable after less than one tenth of it¡ªwhat if he absorbed an entire shadow?

    How many supernaturals hade on this mission?

    The young man suddenly wished for a dozen scarlet shadows to be after him. C¡¯mere, all of you, I¡¯ll eat you all!

    Babump, babump!

    His heart pounded violently. Blood rushed around his body like a water current. Li Hao could tell that he was stronger, but his meridians, bones, and skin didn¡¯t seem up to the task yet. His blood vessels strained with the load.

    Off to the side, while there was no possibility of Panther sharing the spoils, the dog seemed to understand that Li Hao was obtaining something good. Seeing the young man covered in an increasing amount of blood, Panther¡­ suddenly licked Li Hao.

    It was just a lick, maybe it¡¯d gain something for its efforts.

    Emotions of both man and dog ran high. After a few licks that seemed to prove effective, Panther gave full rein to its tongue.

    Bloody smoke filled the air as the scarlet shadow began to shrink amid struggles. It was the size of a human being to begin with, but gradually diminished to the size of a head. Li Hao was almost drunk on what he¡¯d absorbed.

    This was a marvelous treasure! It wasn¡¯t any worse than cosmic power and might be better as it was the equivalent of absorbing several hundred cubes of mysterious power all at once, but with no pain!

    Li Hao swung his fist again and shattered thest bit of the shadow. He could clearly sense that he¡¯d grown stronger.

    ¡°I¡¯ve improved?¡± He smiled happily. He ced himself at yer of Thirties, maybe even forties. The young man was much stronger than before.

    Li Hao quickly pivoted on his heel to run back to where he came from. The scarlet shadow was no more. Who knew if the supernatural could sense that? Don¡¯t worry about it, let¡¯s go back for a look first. Panth is a yer, which makes for six yers total. Maybe we¡¯ll be able to take that guy down!

 Chapter 82: Sunflare (I)

    Chapter 82: Sunre (I)

    Li Hao noted immediate qualitative improvements after absorbing the scarlet shadow. They were very noticeable, and much morepared to mysterious power. Highly agitated, the young man sprinted back with Panther. Would more scarlet shadowse alongter?

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time.

    The Ghostface supernatural coalesced countless water arrows, ready to break through Chen Jian¡¯s defenses once and for all to exterminate the irritating fatty. The projectiles abruptly dispersed with dramatic ir when the supernatural spat out a mouthful of blood.

    Utterly baffled, his mind spun. Bacsh from mysterious power? What had he done? A rainy day was his home turf and he¡¯d yet to exhaust his power to the dregs of his potential. Why had it suddenly recoiled?

    Ghostface blinked, dazed in thought. The scarlet shadow was¡­ gone!

    Incredible!

    Nonsensical!

    The supernatural turned a bit lifeless in this moment as he couldn¡¯tprehend the development. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The scarlet shadow wasn¡¯t his¡ªit came from the organization. Powerhouses of the organization had assigned it to him and exined that the shadows were undying. They could not be exterminated as they were reborn from whatever tiny particle was left!

    Therefore, bacsh from them was not possible.

    It was a symbiotic rtionship between supernaturals and scarlet shadows. Their wielders provided mysterious power to maintain the shadows¡¯ existence, whereas thetter aplished many tasks that supernaturals could not.

    Surveince, target tracking, and assassinations were the shadows¡¯ forte. They were the strongest existence within the organization and the most mysterious!

    Even Sunre found it hard to kill the shadows. They might be able to sense something from the entities, butpletely obliterating them was almost impossible. When there was only a tiny mote left of a fully scattered shadow, not even Dominators or Sunre could sense it. Therefore, scarlet shadows had reigned supreme over the years!

    No one ever entertained the notion that a shadow might die. They lived even when the supernatural died. The shadows were simply severed of their connection with their wielders. The organizationter sent people to collect them. Of the supernaturals that died tonight, their shadows currently waited in a standby mode.

    There they would remain, undiscovered in the absence ofmands. Dominators and Sunre couldn¡¯t locate them if they didn¡¯t move. Thus, the organization always deployed a cleanup crewter on.

    ¡°Impossible¡­¡± The supernatural didn¡¯t understand.

    Under normal circumstances, a supernatural¡¯s mental fortitude was much worse than a martial master¡¯s. Most of them seeded overnight andcked the tenacity of the martial masters. It was easy to fight when the winds were behind their back, while emotions often cropped up when they encountered something beyond their grasp.

    Take the water supernatural, for instance. He was a bit lost at the moment. He¡¯d first suffered bacsh in the middle of battle and then grew lost in thought¡­

    On the other hand, every single person of the Demon Hunters was a highly experienced martial master! Liu Yan, in particr, only appeared irreverently flippant. She clutched opportunities in battle with first rate reflexes.

    Identifying an opening the moment the water arrows dispersed, she soundlessly rammed her ck dagger forward! Chen Jian followed with an upraised shield. Although Wu Chao couldn¡¯t stop vomiting blood behind them, he brightened and marshaled his attention. Running circles around their opponent, he provided a distraction for the supernatural.

    Yun Yao quietly took out multiple crystal balls and tossed them at their enemy.

    BAM!

    Mysterious power roiled when the balls exploded, washing a wave of unpleasant recoil over the supernatural. Liu Yan¡¯s dagger arrived before he had a chance to strike back. He subconsciously raised a hand to condense a water shield against iing danger, but was nowhere near fast enough!

    Pfft!

    The dagger sank into the supernatural¡¯s chest, shocking him awake! This was no time to wonder what happened to the scarlet shadow and why he¡¯d been hit by recoil!

    He was a Darkmoon at the end of the day; the dagger didn¡¯t hurt him. Supernaturals wererger than life and not that easy to kill. The mysterious power inside him blocked the attack. Although he was injured, he was still alive!

    Roaring, the supernatural summoned another shield of water and sprayed countless water arrows around him. Liu Yan and the others retreated, while Chen Jian pressed forward to protect the team.

    Crack!

    His small shield finally reached its limits and broke apart when water arrows pierced through it. A chorus of puncture sounds rose as the arrows stabbed into Chen Jian. He paled and blood seeped out of his body¡ªnumerous bloody holes had appeared on his face, one of them next to his face as an arrow nearly pulverized an eye.

    The rest of the Demon Hunters regarded the scene warily.

    Darkmoon!

    This was an existence on par, no, a hair superior to a Sunderer. The team had been excited when they killed a Darkmoon before¡ªLiu Yan even wondered if she was beginning to rival one. Upon fighting this one in pitched battle whilecking Liu Long as the main offensive, however, she understood how terrifying they were.

    The team worked in unison and something had happened to cause the inexperienced enemy to lose his concentration. Even so, they failed to kill the other and it was they who were in extreme danger!

    Wu Chao was fully out ofmission. He was prone on the ground after a few water arrows pierced through him, his status unknown. Yun Yao had reacted swiftly enough to retreat, but her pant leg was also dyed with blood.

    As the main defense, Chen Jian was the most heavily injured. Liu Yan was the only one in decent condition; there were only three bloody holes on her.

    ¡°All of you seek death!!¡± raged the water supernatural. He tried to mask his fear with anger. Where was the scarlet shadow? He didn¡¯t think much of the people in front of him¡ªthe most critical thing was the shadow¡¯s disappearance!

    He was in for it if he lost the shadow, even if hepleted the mission! The scarlet shadow was immensely important! If it died¡­ although the organization never spoke of potential consequences, he was all too aware of the style of those higher up.

    He was doomed! His own life might not be as important as the shadow.

    As he ruminated through bafflement and horror, a frightened Li Hao tore back from the distance.

    ¡°Sis, there are two super powerhouses fighting ahead. I was almost shaken to death by their ripples! Run!!¡±

    Liu Yan blinked. Super powerhouses? A great fight? But I don¡¯t sense any ripples!

    The water supernatural couldn¡¯t spare thought for anything else.

    ¡°Li Hao, where is my divine shadow?!¡± He¡¯d nearly lost hisposure.

    ¡°Divine shadow?¡± Li Hao sprinted for dear life back to the group. He¡¯d lost his shoe at some point and was a bedraggled mess. He gasped in a garbled mess as he ran, not having enough time to think. ¡°What divine shadow¡­ the thing chasing me? I don¡¯t know, I think I saw red smoke next to me when the shockwave hit¡­ That was so scary! Thank goodness I¡¯m okay¡­¡±

    The water supernatural blinked. Red smoke! Ripples from a fight between super powerhouses¡­ killed the shadow?

    He¡¯d not only given the scarlet shadow orders not to kill Li Hao, but also to protect the young man. So the shadow had died to protect its charge?

    Super powerhouses?

    While he didn¡¯t know how strong these powerhouses might be, those who could kill a scarlet shadow would not be a weakling!

    Li Hao reached them, ignoring the supernatural caught in throes of fear. ¡°Go inside and take shelter! Those two areing!!¡±

    The supernatural was extremely close to Li Hao and could reach out to grab the young man if he wished to. But that was thest thing on his mind at the moment.

    ¡°What super powerhouses?!¡± he bellowed.

    An expert from the organization? Who were they fighting? Sunre? Or stronger?

    He didn¡¯t sense anything at all, but the shadow was indeed dead. Li Hao didn¡¯t have the ability to achieve that¡ªabsolutely impossible.

    ¡°Go inside first!¡± Li Hao grabbed the fallen Wu Chao and struggled to drag the man into the warehouse. He called out frantically, ¡°They¡¯re so strong! I saw a small mountain disappear without a sound! Those two felt hotter than the sun!¡±

    The sun!

    Sunre!

    The water supernatural blinked with iprehension. Has the organization sent a Sunre? And had onee from the Night Watchers??

    He looked into the distance, but saw nothing. He didn¡¯t sense any supernatural ripples! Did they extend beyond the limit of his perception?

    Li Hao suddenly thought of something and dropped Wu Chao. He nervously walked toward the supernatural instead.

    ¡°I surrender! Take me away from here! They¡¯re so fast that I¡¯m worried their fight will spill over to here! It doesn¡¯t matter which side they¡¯re on, they don¡¯t care about our survival since they¡¯re so caught up in their struggle! You guys don¡¯t seem like you want to kill me right now, but those two don¡¯t care and might not be able to control themselves even if they do!¡±

    He¡¯s not putting up a fight? The supernatural coolly assessed Li Hao. The kid sought protection from him?? This was the biggest joke beneath the heavens!

    The shadow died to protect this guy?? Damned unlucky!

    But it was just as well, he had an excuse now. He might be in much less trouble when he returned. It wasn¡¯t his own issue, but the result of dueling powerhouses. The shadow had died to protect Li Hao, and the young man truly couldn¡¯t die now!

    Liu Yan¡¯s eyes lit up when the supernatural grabbed Li Hao¡¯s shoulder. She thought he would do as before and assassinate the other right now.

    And the young man¡­ didn¡¯t!

    Li Hao remained docile in the other¡¯s hand. He was no fool. He¡¯d made it back to the scene before speaking up and saw Liu Yan fail to kill the enemy with one stroke. Mysterious power protected its wielder! No ambush would kill this guy; it¡¯d only raise his attention instead. That would be true disaster.

    Li Hao eximed with pain as it felt like the guy was going to crush his shoulder. ¡°Gently! We should retreat first¡ªwhy don¡¯t we go inside? Those two are so strong that it might take the ice crystal covers inside to shield us.¡±

    ¡°Ice crystal covers?¡± The water supernatural suddenly understood why these guys wanted to run this way! So this was the reason! But since he knew, this was no problem. Not to mention, these guys were almost fully crippled.

    He coalesced water arrows again without a word.

 Chapter 83: Sunflare (II)

    Chapter 83: Sunre (II)

    Even though the Demon Hunters didn¡¯t present much of a threat, it was better to kill them now than leave them alive to create troubleter. The water supernatural elected to clear the field first, then take Li Hao inside for shelter. Even if it was Sunres dueling each other, ice crystal covers could easily take care of the ensuing ripples. He himself was a Darkmoon, so he ought to be able to protect himself.

    Liu Yan flung a vicious re at Li Hao and grabbed Wu Chao before running off. ¡°Retreat!¡±

    She was pulling back!

    ¡°They¡¯re dead meat!¡± Li Hao hastily said when the supernatural wanted to give chase. ¡°We should hide first. It¡¯s actually better that they run or you¡¯d have to worry about them attacking you inside the crystal cover¡­¡±

    That¡¯s right!

    Time was of the essence and though he didn¡¯t know where the two powerhouses were, the scarlet shadow hadn¡¯t died too far away. He would be in a thorny situation if he was dyed due to fighting Liu Yan.

    As for suspicions¡­

    The water supernatural was indeed a bit suspicious, but the shadow was also truly dead! And while his power was restricted inside an ice crystal cover, it was nothing a yer could withstand. Li Hao posed no threat whatsoever, the organization was all too familiar with him!

    Though the young man studied martial arts by Yuan Shuo¡¯s side, he knew only the basic New Book of Five Styles after two years. He possessed no offensive capabilities whatsoever and it was only these two days that he came in contact with the supernatural.

    Li Hao¡¯s every move and gesture was conducted under the organization¡¯s watchful eye. Their records logged his improvements in the Five Styles. He might have reached yer of Two or Three at the most!

    The water supernatural couldn¡¯t be bothered to take such a weakling into ount. The kid wouldn¡¯t be able to kill him even if he stood there without moving.

    The supernatural put everything out of his mind and ignored the Demon Hunters. Closing the door after entering the warehouse, he swiftly ran further in. It was one thing if Li Hao didn¡¯t mention the ice crystals. Now that the supernatural knew about them, he could sense them. Wherever his mysterious power was blocked from probing further was naturally where the ice crystals were.

    They quickly reached the rear of the warehouse where a small shipping container was isted. That should be it!

    The supernatural didn¡¯t sense anything amiss after warily scanning the premises. He didn¡¯t care about explosives buried in the ground. Those guys weren¡¯t capable enough to detonate explosives right beneath his nose. Even if they did, they would all die and take Li Hao with them.

    It was better to take cover first!

    ¡°Are you sure you saw two people?¡± he said coldly as he pushed the young man into the container. ¡°You¡¯re a lucky one to still be alive. Thankfully you are, or I wouldn¡¯t know how to exin myself. Don¡¯t dream of someoneing to rescue you, Li Hao. Even if there¡¯s a Sunre from the Night Watchers outside, they¡¯ll understand this time that when ites to the supernatural, even they are only mundanes. They cannot measure up to the truly mighty supernatural organizations!¡±

    The two fully entered the container. There was indeed a thinyer of ice crystals over it¡ªspecifically meant to resist supernatural energy. They provided almost no physical barrier, but mounted a daunting defense to mysterious power.

    The water supernatural was inherently opposed to these things, but walked inside after some thought. This material was highly effective against mysterious power, but seeing as he was standing next to them, he could break them at any time. Even if Liu Yan and the others came back, it was a second¡¯s worth of work to smash them.

    He wouldn¡¯t have any problems then, other than possibly being unable to withstand the aftershocks of two dueling powerhouses.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Vice Captain Liu!¡± Chen Jian couldn¡¯t help but raise when they left the vicinity of the warehouse. Were they really leaving? What about Li Hao?!

    Liu Yan stopped and looked worriedly at the structure in the distance.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± She set her jaw. ¡°He wants to do so. Darkmoons are more difficult to handle than we expected! It¡¯s too hard for us to take the enemy down in a frontal assault without the chief being here. The kid¡­ probably wants to lure him into the ice crystal cover and ambush him when his powers are restricted!¡±

    She grasped Li Hao¡¯s intention when he didn¡¯t resist being taken captive. He wanted to lure the enemy to the appropriate spot and then ambush him!

    Liu Yan didn¡¯t want to consider how dangerous that might be. Darkmoons, even somewhat restricted, were not an existence that the young man could manage. The exchange earlier helped the team understand that they wouldn¡¯t be able to kill the guy even by working together.

    ¡­¡­

    Inside the shipping container.

    The water supernatural was on high alert and kept his ears cocked for a disturbance, but all was quiet!

    Nothing disrupted the night.

    He looked skeptically at Li Hao. Had the kid reallye across a fight between two super powerhouses?

    The young man jumped when he saw the gaze trained on him. He quickly threw away the gun at his waistband. ¡°Don¡¯t be mistaken, I didn¡¯t intend on shooting!¡±

    He quickly threw both hands in the air. ¡°Seriously! Search me if you don¡¯t believe me! Also, I don¡¯t know what the sword of the Lis is, but I have a short sword on me. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s that sword¡­ You can have it if you want it!¡±

    The sword of the Lis?

    The supernatural blinked, his thoughts hadn¡¯t wandered in that direction at all. This was the item that the organization wanted! Right, isn¡¯t it on this kid?

    Growing agitated, he stalked over to Li Hao. The young man raised his hands high in return and was the very picture of biddability. He didn¡¯t dare move and pointed to his stomach with his chin, worried about the enemy killing him.

    ¡°The sword¡¯s by my stomach. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s what you guys want, but can you spare me if you take it? I¡¯m just a mortal. There¡¯s nothing in it for you guys if you kill me. I can even work for you! My teacher¡¯s Yuan Shuo¡ªhe¡¯s a very strong Sunderer!¡±

    ¡°Hah!¡± snorted the supernatural with equal parts sarcasm and contempt. He felt the area by Li Hao¡¯s stomach¡ªit did indeed bulge. There was a weapon there!

    The sword of the Lis?

    The supernatural took out the short sword that Li Hao had looted from the martial master and held it in his hand. This was when fear gripped the young man. What if the guy had seen the weapon before and recognized it?

    Thank goodness he seemed to be assessing it cautiously and indicated nothing amiss.

    ¡°The sword of the Lis?¡± The perplexed supernatural toyed with the sword. So this was what the organization wanted? It was so ordinary¡ªthere was no mysterious power in it that he could sense.

    Well, that was to be expected. It¡¯d flown under the radar before because it was so ordinary; it would¡¯ve long been discovered otherwise. The supernatural hefted it and suddenly asked, ¡°Are you sure this is the sword of the Lis?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± Li Hao quickly said. ¡°I really don¡¯t! I didn''t even know the saying until a few days ago! This is the only item in my family that might have something to do with that sword¡­ Here, I¡¯ll show you where there¡¯s a small line of writing on it. Maybe it¡¯s what you guys are looking for¡­¡±

    Writing?

    Where?

    The man studied it carefully but didn¡¯t see anything. Is the kid lying? Or do I really not see it?

    He walked over with the sword; Li Hao remained with his hands high in the air. The supernatural smirked with amusement. What a nice little boy. Too bad you¡¯re still going to die! The organization wants your life in addition to the sword!

    ¡°Point the hilt at me¡­ I¡¯ll show you¡­ Ah forget it, I won¡¯t move, so don¡¯t misunderstand¡­¡±

    Who the hell cares if you move or not? I wouldn¡¯t be worried of you doing anything even if you don¡¯t have your hands raised.

    The impatient supernatural drew closer. After some hesitation, the young man put a hand down and pointed at the hilt.

    ¡°Right there, take a close look. You can see writing there¡­¡±

    The man subconsciously looked at the handle¡­ and sensed something in the next second. Was that¡­ a third hand he saw? Was he seeing things?

    No! There really was a third hand!

    The Hand That Brings Back Life!

    Li Hao had used the same technique on the Sunderer and now repeated this very useful technique from his teacher. It might be less effective on women, but for men¡­ Whether it was supernaturals or martial masters, their defenses were the weakest down there. The key thing was that it really hurt when the area was crushed!

    It was unbelievably painful!

    Those who weren¡¯t men could not understand how even an idental bump would leave one howling on the floor.

    Within the ice crystal dome, supernatural power was suppressed to its weakest. There was inly none protecting the crotch.

    Pop!

    Balloons popped, eggs cracked, and bubbles burst. Such sounds rang in the shipping container.

    The supernatural subconsciously lowered his head, then sobbed like any mortal would. He fell to his knees!

    Pain!

    His mysterious power started drifting away!

    Li Hao swiftly grabbed the sword that the other had taken, stabbing downward. Not at the throat or brain, but the shoulder!

    ¡°AHH!¡± screamed the supernatural. Pain and more pain!

    Nothing stopped Li Hao¡¯s blow and the de sank into flesh. He¡­ could see.

    Indeed, this was his greatest ace. He could see mysterious power, so he could see where it was the thinnest and easiest to pierce through. The enemy¡¯s heart, throat, and eyes teemed with energy. None of that had dispersed. If he attacked those spots, he might be harmed by bacsh instead.

    Most mundanes, even martial masters, would think to attack these vital points first. Li Hao refused!

    Stony ruthlessness glinting in his eyes, the young man stabbed the de into an unprotected shoulder. The de ripped downward and carved off an entire arm off the supernatural!

    The overwhelming agony further dispersed the enemy¡¯s power.

    Li Hao continued with a strike at the waist!

    ¡°AHH!!¡± The supernatural screamed again and again, also with disbelief that Li Hao¡¯s every stroke attacked him where his defenses were weakest. His remaining hand could not be spared for his crotch anymore. It barely managed to blossom with power and condense a de of water.

    Even though his manhood was crushed, his arm severed, and his waist bleeding profusely, he still had enough fight left to swing at the young man¡¯s head!

 Chapter 84: Sunflare (III)

    Chapter 84: Sunre (III)

    The vitality of a Darkmoon was much stronger than a Sunderer. The Sunderer that Li Hao attacked earlier died soon after suffering a simr round of blows, but the Darkmoon was still standing and could strike back!

    Li Hao met his opponent head-on; he had his own ns in mind. He would not dodge or evade because if the enemy broke the ice crystal dome instead, their mysterious energy would re back to life. The situation was salvageable if the supernatural lingered to do battle. Great trouble would ensue if he ran.

    Thanks to cosmic power, Li Hao could recover from any injury that stopped short of losing a limb. Therefore, he let the other stab the dagger into his stomach. Although enormous pain briefly made him loseposure, he maintained sufficient muscle tension to wrap both hands around the supernatural¡¯s neck and whisk one upward, pulling the man¡¯s hair up. The other hand plunged the dagger into the back of the supernatural¡¯s neck!

    Pfft!

    The dagger was deflected sideways with a metallic screech, but it ripped the back of the neck open!

    ¡°AHH!¡± An anguished cry rang from the man¡¯s lips as his mysterious power almost fully dispersed. Li Hao yanked firmly on the handful of hair and drove the de in again, putting all of his strength into a mighty stroke that tore through the wound!

    CRACK!

    The de ran out of flesh and blood¡ªLi Hao had nearly cut straight through the supernatural¡¯s spine! Blood sprayed out of the wound and the head nearly toppled down from the bleeding stump!

    Even the young man was caught off guard by the horrific sight, but he didn¡¯t stop there. Internal force surged to vibrate the dagger. Li Hao stabbed it in again and again, stroke after stroke!

    After an indeterminable period of time, someone called from outside, ¡°Li Hao?¡±

    The killing intent in the young man¡¯s eyes abated and he looked down at the corpse separated from its head. He furrowed his brows and threw away the thing in his hand. Taking time to wipe himself off on the other¡¯s body, he didn¡¯t leave the shipping container until he was clean.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Is he dead?¡± Liu Yan and the others were on high alert outside the shipping container and approached with caution. The vice captain heaved a sigh of relief when the young man walked out. Li Hao didn¡¯t follow the team when they rushed inside.

    A few momentster, Liu Yan and Yun Yao walked out with pale faces. Chen Jian also looked at the young man with an odd look. He was so¡­ brutal! Is this kid really a rookie? How many strokes was that? He dismembered the corpse!

    Normally unppable, even the portly man found hairs on the back of his neck raising. How in the world had Li Hao managed to pull that off? Had he grabbed the supernatural¡¯s head and stabbed the body again and again?

    So vicious!

    Liu Yan¡¯s expression was likewise jarred out of normalcy¡ªit took her a while to recover.

    ¡°Are you alright?¡± she whispered after a long exhale. There was a Darkmoon inside, dead at Li Hao¡¯s hands!

    Li Hao had tricked a Sunderer before this. As things were turning out, the young fellow killed a Sunderer and a Darkmoon over the quick span of a night. Were these really aplishments achievable by a yer of Tens?

    Even though both opponents had underestimated Li Hao, it still took a bold, meticulous, and extremely valiant mental state to aplish these acts. Otherwise, it was impossible for the average person to lie without a flicker of change on their faces and y whatever role was needed to fool these powerhouses.

    At the very least, Liu Yan didn¡¯t think she was capable.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine!¡± Li Hao looked a bit wan, but quickly recovered and grinned brightly. ¡°They¡¯re all bad guys! Evil never triumphs over justice, and we are justice!¡± He swiftly recovered his fighting spirit after a round of self-hypnosis. ¡°Justice always prevails! We uphold justice, eliminate evil, and safeguard dao!¡±

    He suddenly really liked this saying. So long as I stand on the side of justice, it¡¯s right and reasonable that I kill them!

    Liu Yan was reassured in some aspects to see the young man recover, but more worried in others. What if the kid turned into some sort of warped soul? Look how fast you¡¯re bouncing back from something like this¡­ What¡¯s your heart made of? Even a veteran like her needed some time after the sight inside.

    ¡°If we survive this mission¡­ I¡¯ll help you with some psychiatric rehabilitation,¡± the normally genteel Yun Yao said softly. Liu Yan always says she¡¯s perverse, but I think she¡¯s absolutely wrong. She just hasn''t met someone more twisted than her, and here we have Li Hao! He¡¯s a rookie! Is he really okay, mentally speaking?

    ¡°Sure!¡± Li Hao nodded. He didn¡¯t mind epting help from teammates. Rehabilitation was rehabilitation, it was no big deal. The scene had been a bit overwhelming when it was right in front of him, but he readily put it out of mind when he couldn¡¯t see it any longer.

    ¡°Li Hao, if you survive this incident¡­ I believe it¡¯s only a matter of time before you have a seat at the table, whether in the supernatural or martial master domain!¡± Yun Yao added, looking at the young man with a very different gaze. Many people would suffer sleepless nights so long as he lived.

    ¡°Don¡¯t say that, Sis Yun,¡± a shy Li Hao protested awkwardly. ¡°I¡¯m just a yer, not even a supernatural. That¡¯s a bit much¡­¡±

    No one responded.

    ¡°Moving on,¡± Liu Yan took a deep breath. ¡°We don¡¯t know what the situation is with the chief. Let¡¯s make our preparations. He¡¯lle here if he¡¯s still alive. We should drag the container outside to make it easier for him to enter. If supernaturals identally barge in, it¡¯ll be as easy as breathing for a Sunderer to kill Darkmoons!¡±

    There was no possible oue other than death for supernaturals with their power suppressed! Li Hao wouldn¡¯t have found it so easy to kill the water supernatural if it wasn¡¯t for the container. The enemy¡¯s mysterious power put up supreme defenses that even Liu Yan would find tough to break, much less Li Hao.

    The young man marshaled his attention with a chuckle. ¡°Yep! I¡¯ve discovered that supernaturals tend to be arrogant and gullible. None of them built any foundations or knowledge after gaining their strength. It¡¯s actually quite likely that they¡¯ll barge straight in!¡±

    If it was a martial master or someone as crafty as his teacher¡­ Ahem, someone as experienced as a veteran, they would easily see through Liu Long. But supernaturals?

    Those guys were easy to hoodwink and thought themselves superior to martial masters. It was impossible to not fool them.

    No one mentioned Li Hao killing someone anymore. Chen Jian, however, looked piteously at Li Hao, then at Wu Chao on the ground. With a pleading look, he hoped that the young man wouldn¡¯t forget theirrade. Could thed share some of that strength and save a life? Wu Chao was dead without a doubt otherwise, not even Yun Yao would be able to save him.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything¡ªhe hadn¡¯t forgotten. It was just that when he conducted some energy into Wu Chao¡¯s body, he found the injuries were too severe to quickly patch up. Thus, he shared sufficient cosmic power to just keep the man alive. Everything else could wait until this matter was over.

    ¡­¡­

    As the team rearranged the warehouse, Liu Long and his pursuers closed in on the meeting spot. The deputy chief had killed three of the ten supernaturals in the original ambush, Yuan Shuo killed one, the Inspectorate gunned one down, Li Hao dispatched another, leaving only four chasing Liu Long and Yuan Shuo. There were suddenly a lot of dead on the enemy¡¯s side.

    Yuan Shuo had caught up to Liu Long; his face was an unhealthy mix of white and gray. Liu Long dragged the old man along, immensely afraid that the old guy would die somewhere along the way.

    ¡°Hang in there, old man Yuan!¡± Liu Long said frantically. He didn¡¯t know what the situation was with Li Hao and the others, but old man Yuan might be the first to die tonight.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry¡­ I can still¡­ hold on for a bit¡­¡± Yuan Shuo panted and nced behind them. There were four supernaturals furiously giving chase. They didn¡¯t concern him; it was the splendor that shone like the sun that he spent more time sensing!

    Just one Sunre? If the supernaturals had sent only one Sunre, they were doomed to fail tonight. Based on what Yuan Shuo knew, the Night Watchers had also sent a Sunre. Therefore, the enemy might not find sess even if he didn¡¯t deploy his full strength.

    One Sunre, ten Darkmoons, and multiple martial masters¡­ They think highly of Li Hao!

    This caliber of team made sense for Yuan Shuo, Liu Long, the Night Watchers, or the Inspectorate. Someone like Li Hao didn¡¯t even need to be considered. Or had they sent a Sunre to oversee things because their ns of many years had been exposed?

    If it really was one of the three great organizations behind the operation, things wouldn¡¯t be so simple!

    Either I don¡¯t make a move, or I have to inflict massive losses if I do!

    Losing top tier talent would be the only reason why the enemy called the operation off. Losing just one Sunre might not have an effect or cause them to redouble their effort. Sunres were strong, but there were dozens of them in Silver Moon. The three greatest supernatural organizations wouldn¡¯t necessarily be concerned about losing someone of this level.

    Therefore, Yuan Shuo decided to keep waiting!

    The other side¡¯s powerhouse might not reveal themselves at first light. Experts were usually prudent and emerged only when they were sure there was no ambush in the wings. They, too, had to be careful of the Night Watchers lying in wait.

    I¡¯ll leave that one for the Night Watchers! They¡¯ve sent out their Sunre. If there¡¯s any more powerhouses on the scene, they won¡¯t make a move until they¡¯re certain this isn¡¯t a trap! Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t spare as much thought for Li Hao as his student was safe for the time being. These people needed the right moment before they killed thed. This was why he wasn¡¯t feeling any urgency.

    As for the others, he wasn¡¯t as concerned. If they really were to die, it was still worth it if they took out a premier existence with them.

    ¡­¡­

    Even further in the distance, as the chase continued.

    An old man held Wang Ming as the two flew through the air.

    ¡°Elder Huang, do we not act yet?¡± Wang Ming asked earnestly. Yuan Shuo and Liu Long seemed like they would fall at any second!

    The old man carrying him quietly looked around and answered slowly after a moment, ¡°We¡¯re not there yet!¡±

    Not there yet? Wang Ming didn¡¯t have a chance toe to an answer before he was thrown away.

    ¡°Go find Hu Hao and Li Meng. The three of you shall work together to kill those guys!¡±

 Chapter 85: A Painful Parting Between Teacher and Disciple (I)

    Chapter 85: A Painful Parting Between Teacher and Disciple (I)

    Wang Ming was yet to recollect his senses when a p of thunder rang in the air!

    ¡°Huang Yun, so the Night Watchers have indeed mobilized a Sunre! It looks like you have truly forgotten past anguish!¡± Lightning split the sky as a figure manifested like a god of thunder.

    The elder named Huang Yun on the side of the Night Watchers looked on solemnly. ¡°The eight families of Silver City¡­ It looks like there are secrets we have yet to uncover. Your side sent out a thunder Sunre!¡±

    It was the kind of supernatural most suited for battle!

    ¡°Why don¡¯t both of us take a step back,¡± chuckled the thunder Sunre. ¡°We only want Li Hao. You can have everyone else¡ªincluding Yuan Shuo and Liu Long. If not¡­ the Night Watchers will be one less Sunre after today!¡±

    Huang Yun fell silent. The organization had pulled out all stops to ensure that he reached Silver City in time. They all thought that one Sunre would exceed the limits of the enemy¡¯s imagination. Yet here they were, still caught on the back foot.

    Which of the three organizations was this one? Huang Yun knew that he couldn¡¯t match his opponent. Although they were both Sunre, his mysterious power was less abundantpared to his opponent¡¯s. Not to mention, the other was of the thunder attribute.

    ¡°Why must you cause disorder in the world?¡± he rumbled helplessly. ¡°Have you forgotten that you were once mortal?¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand!¡± sneered the supernatural. He ignored whatever Huang Yun might¡¯ve said next. Thunder and lightning ripped through the surroundings!

    A battle between Sunres erupted in the wilderness. Bolts of lightning smashed into a hurricane! And thus, a rare sight brewed in minor Silver City.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t lied to the supernatural dead at his hand. The timing waster than what the young man said, but a fight did indeed break out between Sunres. Roughly five kilometers out from the warehouse, thunder and lightning roared against gale winds. Bolts of lightning illuminated the firmament.

    ¡­¡­

    Outside the warehouse.

    Li Hao looked solemnly in the fight¡¯s direction. Two entities zing as brightly as the sun exploded with mysterious power. Thanks to illumination by electricity, he could clearly see two figures duking it out in midair.

    They could fly!

    Neither of the two seemed to be of the flight speciality, but they could hover in the air. One stepped on lightning while the other was wrapped in violent winds. Lightning and wind crashed and churned against each other!

    Only sounds of battle rang out; the two did not converse. The Night Watchers had made their move.

    ¡­¡­

    In the distance.

    Liu Long¡¯s expression shifted when he turned back for a look. Sunre!

    This caliber of powerhouse really hade to Silver City in addition to the team of ten supernaturals! Silver City denizens wouldn¡¯t be able to hold off the enemy if it wasn¡¯t for the Night Watchers sending a Sunre of their own!

    The four Darkmoon chasing Liu Long and Yuan Shuo also turned back. Yearning appeared on faces beneath the masks when they saw two heavyweights shing against each other in the sky.

    Sunre!

    This was a level so much stronger than Darkmoon. Darkmoons might be in by mundane hot weapons, while it would take a weapon that could level cities to eliminate a Sunre. The former was highly superior in terms of speed, defense, and perception.

    A Sunre could sense their opponent before thetter even locked onto them. Just as Yuan Shuo told Li Hao when the old man ascended to Dominator, the differencey with the consciousness!

    Ordinary people could neither see nor sense the scarlet shadow, but Dominators could at least perceive the entity. They could locate where a shadow was and pinpoint its location as soon as it moved.

    Such were Dominators and Sunres¡ªmuch superior to Darkmoons.

    ¡°Huang Yun!¡± A grave Liu Long recognized the supernatural in the distance. ¡°Huang Yun¡­ one of the top three in Flowing Cloud City. I never thought it¡¯d be him!¡±

    He knew someone was here from the Night Watchers, but not this august personage! Huang Yun was moderately ranked in the Night Watchers and at the very least, premier personnel in Silver Moon.

    However, it was clear to the naked eye that the thunder supernatural was stronger. The gale winds were noticeably suppressed. Lightning zigzagged through the sky while Huang Yun drifted through his storm, unable to find solid footing.

    He was no match for his opponent!

    Who is the thunder supernatural? Liu Long regarded the sh somberly. A peak Sunre and ten Darkmoons¡­ Which mighty organization was this that wanted to kill Li Hao? It was stronger than they anticipated!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go¡­ Who cares about him, let¡¯s take care of ourselves first!¡± Yuan Shuo coughed. What you staring for? Although Huang Yun wasn¡¯t on par with his peer, he wasn¡¯t in imminent danger. They were both Sunre; the gap between them wasn¡¯t too big. The Night Watcher wouldn¡¯t lose that quickly.

    Meanwhile, Liu Long and Yuan Shuo should run for their lives! If a Sunre had appeared on the battlefield, then Li Hao might be in danger soon! The timing was right! The Sunre had likelyin in wait all this time just for this moment.

    They weren¡¯t far from the warehouse, but Liu Long grit his teeth and clenched his hand around his hatchet.

    ¡°We strike back!¡± He looked at their pursuers. ¡°The Night Watchers have sent out three Darkmoon. Since they¡¯ve joined the fray, that means we can ally with them and strike back!¡±

    The other side only had four Darkmoon left, whereas the Night Watchers had three. If throwing Liu Long and an injured Yuan Shuo into the mix, their battle strength could just manage to rival their opponents.

    Of course, scarlet shadows didn¡¯t count. Those things were too irritating. In any case, Liu Long¡¯s side was much stronger than before. The ice crystal dome at the warehouse was just a contingency n. It would be better if they could eliminate the enemy here¡ªit might even help Huang Yun.

    ¡°Dispose of the Night Watchers since they¡¯ve dared interfere!¡± boomed a resonant voice. ¡°Let them know that this is no longer their era!¡±

    So what if the fearsome Night Watchers were involved? Deploying a Sunre and three Darkmoon to a ce like Silver City was their absolute limit. Meanwhile, supernatural organizations were the epitome of freedom. They could go anywhere they wanted while the Night Watchersbored under missions and oversaw core territories. Silver City was neither within a core territory nor under Huang Yun¡¯s jurisdiction. Sending so many people here strained provincial capabilities.

    Redirecting more personnel could lead to problems in core territories. It wasn¡¯t as if the Night Watchers hadn¡¯t suffered losses before, particrly the ghastly encounter in the ruins. Numerous supernatural organizations watched raptly from the wings, awaiting chances to ambush the official organization.

    The four Ghostfaces behind Liu Long stopped when they heard themand. Wang Ming happened to convene with Hu Hao and Li Meng even further behind them.

    ¡°Kill!¡± Wang Ming eximed excitedly. ¡°Today is when the Night Watchers reestablish our authority! The rest of the supernatural organizations will behave themselves if we kill these guys!¡±

    Youngsters of the official agency weren¡¯t gued with so many considerations. All they knew was that they¡¯d suffered a miserable existence over the years. They were limited at every turn!

    Disparate opinions were even beginning to appear upstairs. Part of the senior council advocated for recruiting a portion of the supernatural organizations and bequeathing them special privileges or profits. It only served to make the Night Watchers increasingly unstable.

    Wang Ming had even heard whispers of powerhouses beyond Sunre plotting something at headquarters, wanting to gain sole dominion.

    When a person¡¯s power far exceeded that of ordinary people, to the point where even hot weapons couldn¡¯t touch them, their desires were infinitely magnified!

    These days, fires rose from all corners of remote provinces such as Silver Moon. Only the central region remained untouched by unrest.

    Twenty years of supernatural development had greatly strengthened their organizations.

    Li Meng¡¯s third eye opened when she heard Wang Ming and her eyes gleamed. ¡°It¡¯s Brother Ming! Brother Ming¡¯s here! Hu Hao! Let¡¯s kill them together!¡±

    This was so exciting!

    Wang Ming was a genius of the Silver Moon Night Watchers. Although he wasn¡¯t Heaven Favored, he was a powerhouse among Darkmoons despite his recent crossover. ording to the finer details of supernatural hierarchy, the Night Watchers had created a sub-hierarchy for the Darkmoon level¡ªCrescent, Halfmoon, Fullmoon.

    Wang Ming was already peak Halfmoon less than five years after his ascension. Li Meng was just a Crescent, whereas Hu Hao neared Halfmoon, but wasn¡¯t at that level yet. Thus, the girl was naturally agitated at seeing Wang Ming.

    All of the organization¡¯s youngsters wished to aplish something impressive, but reality limited them. The opportunity was finally upon them if even Huang Yun was on the battlefield today!

    ¡°Kill!¡± Wang Ming didn¡¯t care about this! He coalesced a sword of light in his hand.

    Hu Hao hesitated¡ªthose people weren¡¯t pushovers! But this was no time to mount a protest, so he darted into the sky and melted away into the darkness.

    Li Meng widened all three eyes, shooting a ray of red from her third eye toward the four in the distance.

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°How¡­ stupid!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head as Liu Long sighed. The level of battle experience that these three Night Watchers disyed¡­ was too awful for words. Li Meng, especially¡ªwhat was the point of erupting with power from so far away? What did that achieve other than needlessly consume mysterious power?

    These youngsters might be hotblooded, but they reallycked experiencepared to someone like Huang Yun. The man was a veteran supernatural, so despite having not much experience before, he¡¯d umted a bit after all these years. This was also why the supernaturals demonstrated less and less respect to martial masters.

    When the supernatural domain first appeared, although they were stronger than their martial master peers and possessed stronger vitality alongside more methods, they were often the ones dead after a battle. Martial masters were highly experienced and extremely skilled in conflict.

    After twenty years, however, the older generation of supernaturals fully rivaled martial masters when it came to experience.

    Liu Long sprinted backward without another word. If he really ignored the three rookies, they¡¯d quickly end up dead. There was still a significant gap between the two sides!

 Chapter 86: A Painful Parting Between Teacher and Disciple (II)

    Chapter 86: A Painful Parting Between Teacher and Disciple (II)

    The remaining four supernaturals were very strong¡ªthey upied the upper echelon of their ten person team. Based on Liu Long¡¯s determination, there was one Fullmoon left. The other three were Halfmoons, which meant that Wang Ming and his colleagues were no match for them.

    ¡°Ai!¡± Yuan Shuo sighed when Liu Long ran off. Does your conscience not condemn you for deserting a half crippled elder? Have you forgotten that your mission is to protect Li Hao? Entangling with supernaturals and leaving thed on the sidelines¡­ Perhaps other powerhouses are headed his way right now!

    Idiot Liu Long was a fool in critical moments!

    Forget it, this old man will go myself. Yuan Shuo dragged himself onward as his face grew more ashen.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to Li Hao¡­ These guys are staying here¡­ to kill the Night Watchers¡­ so I¡¯m afraid¡­ danger ising for¡­ my student¡­ Liu Long¡­ hurry ande find¡­ us¡­¡± It required multiple breaths to finish the sentence. He stumbled in the direction of the warehouse as a battle broke out behind him.

    Seven supernaturals and one Sunderer exchanged a flurry of blows. Incredibly excited moments ago, Li Meng cried out with agony when a bolt of lightning drove into her third eye. It originated from the supernatural who previously threatened Mu Sen! Leader of the team, he was a Fullmoon thunder supernatural.

    Only Liu Long could stand against him. Everyone else, including Wang Ming, was weaker than the enemy. The deputy chief hacked with a flourish, but he paled before touching his opponent. His organs felt like they were on fire again¡ªthat thing was here!

    He was experienced with it by now, but Wang Ming grunted in the middle of rushing the enemy. Mysterious power scattered and his sword of light shattered. The young man spat out a mouthful of blood, looking around with wide eyes.

    What kind of ability was this??

    ¡°Idiot! Haven¡¯t you realized anything after following us for so long?¡± Liu Long cursed. ¡°There¡¯s an invisible mental monster nearby. It sets the organs on fire and disrupts your mysterious power. Be careful!¡±

    He¡¯d thought that the Night Watcher would realize after all his tracking that there was a reason why he kept agitating his blood! Any martial master with a modicum of experience would know that he only did so because he was in danger.

    Rookies were rookies! Too fresh behind the ears!

    Li Meng and Wang Ming were both injured after the initial sh¡ªLiu Long didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. I would¡¯ve kept running with Yuan Shuo if I¡¯d known you guys were this green!

    ¡°Retreat!¡± He didn¡¯t dare linger in the field after seeing this level of battle achievement. He was actually the strongest one on their side! ¡°Break through the encirclement with me!¡±

    Cheeks burning, a resigned Wang Ming came to his senses. He¡¯d only ever conducted minor missions and measured himself against weaklings. It was his first time crossing paths with this kind of supernatural.

    They were thrown intoplete disarray after mere moments! How mortifying!

    There was no time to think of anything else, they needed to focus on fighting their way out. Liu Long abruptly brandished a short sword and shouted, ¡°I have the sword of the Lis! Come for me if you want it!¡±

    He bounded into the air and leapt out of the circle of conflict, sprinting for the warehouse. This was why he hadn¡¯t been too worried about Li Hao¡¯s safety. These people possibly needed both person and sword, and he had the sword. Of course, he¡¯d also been herding them away from the young man by keeping them preupied.

    A faint sheen of unfathomable mysterious power seeped from the short sword. The four supernaturals¡¯ jaws dropped. Liu Long had the sword?

    ¡°After him!¡± They quickly gave up on the Night Watchers. Those people were add-ons, the sword of the Lis and Li Hao was the key!

    Raindrops tinged with blue poured from the sky as thunder and lightning ripped through the air!

    It was time to handle Li Hao. The supernaturals didn¡¯t dare dy and rushed after the deputy chief. They really didn¡¯t care about leaving Wang Ming and the others in their rear.

    These supernaturals were stronger when it came to battle experience. If they were to rank everyone¡¯s strength, Liu Long was slightly stronger than them and the Night Watchers were absolute rookies hardly worth any attention.

    Hu Hao shed into existence, grabbed the other two, and chased after Liu Long.

    ¡°We¡¯ve lost face for the Night Watchers!¡± Wang Ming¡¯s expression was an unpleasant mess. It was a horrible beginning! He and Li Meng were injured shortly after encountering the enemy¡ªhow humiliating was this??

    ¡°Be careful of the monster in the shadows.¡± His heart palpitated with fear at the thought of what¡¯d harmed him. ¡°I don¡¯t know what it is¡ªit burrows into the body without any sign beforehand. Not only does it set the organs on fire, but it also shakes mysterious power so that we can¡¯t concentrate it!¡±

    It was so dangerous!

    If it wasn¡¯t for Liu Long, he might already be dead! None of the Night Watchers dared take their foe lightly anymore. In fact, aplicated mix of emotions rose in their heart when considering the Demon Hunters had held fast in such conditions and even killed some in return.

    Were martial masters really in decline?

    Sunderers possessed less vitality given that the destructive abilities of internal force did not measure up to mysterious power. Thus, Liu Long should be less than them. Although the two parties were often mentioned in the same breath, supernaturals were superior when it came to speed and strength.

    And yet, it was Liu Long who killed multiple supernaturals!

    ¡°Martial masters are different,¡± Hu Hao muttered. ¡°We¡¯re too young andck experience! Martial masters are forged through battle and with Liu Long¡¯s years of training, many lives have passed through his hands. A veteran martial master like Yuan Shuo would¡¯ve scrapped every three days and issued an official challenge every ten days. He holds more lives in his hands than anyone!¡±

    Wang Ming said nothing further, only gritting his teeth as he stared fixedly at those in front of him. They¡¯d been belittled!

    As for the monster in the shadows, he thought of Liu Long¡¯s earlier tactic against it. Would agitating his mysterious power have the same effect? At least he was more familiar with it now and his stock of experience would swiftly increase after critical junctures of life or death.

    If the three of them didn¡¯t die tonight, they would never again be as helpless in the face of danger as they were today!

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Cough cough cough¡­¡± Yuan Shuo vomited blood as he paled, looking up at the extreme downpour from the sky. Stop raining!

    My hair¡¯s going to turn ck again if you keep raining! I don¡¯t even know if the grayish-white of my face is my disguise or hair dye being washed away. This rain is ridiculous!

    ¡°Are there any or not? If not, it¡¯ll be worth it to double back and take out that thunder supernatural¡­¡± He was trying to determine if there were more powerhouses waiting in the wings. Though the enemy held the upper hand in the current situation, it wasn¡¯t overwhelming odds. If this was all they brought to bear, they may not easily take Li Hao tonight, much less host any sort of ceremony to unseal the sword of the Lis.

    ¡°That thunder supernatural is ratherposed as he keeps Huang Yun preupied, so it¡¯s likely that there¡¯s more of them!¡± Given his many years of experience and intuition as a Dominator, Yuan Shuo concluded there must be more skulking in the shadows. As for whether they were Sunres or stronger, that was a difficult call to make.

    The enemy¡¯s primary focus was Li Hao¡ªof that there was no doubt. Therefore, they must also be waiting for a moment to capture the young man. The Night Watchers were not their target.

    The warehouse came into view before long, but Yuan Shuo¡¯s expression shifted. The hell? They really think highly of the kid, or it¡¯s the secret of the eight families that¡¯s more than I imagine. What¡¯s that, a peak Sunre? Or even stronger??

    Surely not!

    Uncertainty was creeping into his heart. He didn¡¯t think much of Sunres after breaking through to Dominator¡ªwhat could supernaturals bring to bear against sixty years of training and experience? Their most tenured member went back how long?

    That was why he said there were only five people in Silver Moon who could defeat him, and all of them were stronger than that level. One of them was the boss of the Silver Moon Night Watchers. He was absolutely at that level, and it was unknown if there was a second member of the Night Watchers at simr heights.

    Would such an existencee to Silver City to kill Li Hao?

    If so¡­ then these were truly thorny circumstances!

    Yuan Shuo took stock of his vibrant internal force and the iparably keen de energy. Though he wasn¡¯t as confident as before, he clenched his jaw and steeled his heart. So what if someone of that caliber really was here? This is my first time attacking with full force¡ªI betchu aren¡¯t prepared to meet an old guy like me here!

    ¡­¡­

    Outside the warehouse.

    Li Hao was slightly distracted. When he caught a raindrop in his hand, it melded with his body and elicited a slight agitation from his blood. Trouble may finally be here for him. There was something off about this rain.

    He hadn¡¯t felt this way before, not that he felt anything the night Little Yuan died. However, he did vaguely remember that the rain had been tinged blue when his friend was murdered.

    Of course, not that many people paid attention to such a detail in the dark. Water easily presented itself with different colors under different conditions. Blue rain didn¡¯t seem that out of ce.

    And yet this time, Li Hao sensed something different when the water entered his body. There was an answering restlessness from his blood. Power of the bloodline?

    Was this what the enemy had been waiting for? Do they want to ensure that my bloodline is active before burning me to death, then collect the power it contains to unseal the sword from my ancestors?

    It was a thought, but was that the truth? Why did the rainwater have this kind of effect? Did it only appear in Silver City? Well, why else would the enemy refuse to let him leave the city?

    Is the blue rain a result of their methods, or is there something different about the city for it to naturally produce this kind of rain?

    Li Hao¡¯s heart raced when he looked around him. There were two surges of power that shone as brilliantly as the sun roughly ten kilometers away, but there was something even brighter and bigger further out!

 Chapter 87: A Painful Parting Between Teacher and Disciple (III)

    Chapter 87: A Painful Parting Between Teacher and Disciple (III)

    ¡°It¡¯s a blistering sun, it¡¯s¡­ scorching!¡± Color drained from Li Hao¡¯s face. The ball of light was stronger than both Sunres and advanced in their direction at an unimaginable speed.

    It wasing for him!

    The supernatural organization had sent someone stronger than Sunre for him?! Or was this a peak Sunre existence?? He couldn¡¯t determine its strength¡ªall the young man could tell was that the neer was stronger than the dueling Sunres.

    Li Hao again sensed something different before the heavyweight arrived. A massive scarlet shadow sped through the air¡ªit was enormous! It was his first time seeing such a ginormous shadow. More than ten times bigger than the one he¡¯d killed earlier, it was at least twenty meters tall!

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. Are you kidding me?! He¡¯d been present when Little Yuan died¡ªthe scarlet shadow that killed his friend was simr to the one that Li Hao had killed tonight. Just look at this one!

    He could see it from miles away!

    Twenty meters tall was the equivalent of six or seven floors! And the key thing was, no one could see it other than him! His heart threatened to stop beating. Teacher¡­ are you up for this? For the first time ever, he doubted his teacher. Perhaps this was out of the esteemed professor¡¯s league!

    Panther shivered by his feet. Previously confident that it¡¯d grown stronger, the now petrified little ck dog tucked its tail between its legs.

    A super big red shadow!

    Super super big!

    It had a great time licking the young man when Li Hao absorbed the shadow. But this one?? There was only one thought in the dog¡¯s mind¡ªI won¡¯t finish licking this one even when it¡¯s time for my next life!

    ¡°Sis!¡± In this moment, Li Hao confirmed that none of Liu Long¡¯s arrangements mattered. The one about to arrive wasn¡¯t someone that the Demon Hunters could cope with.

    When Liu Yan looked at the young man, she saw a bloodless face that nheless smiled at her.

    ¡°You guys should withdraw! We¡¯ve pretty much taken care of the danger here and the powerhouses are preupied. Go help chief, it¡¯s pointless to stand guard here¡­¡±

    Liu Yan¡¯s brows furrowed.

    ¡°Seriously. It¡¯s better to go help chief than to waste time standing around here. I won¡¯t be going, I¡¯ll just wait here!¡±

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Liu Yan looked sharply at him, none of her usual coquettishness to be found. ¡°Out with it!¡±

    The young man shed an ugly grin. ¡°I see a falling sun!¡± he joked, as if the matter had nothing to do with him. ¡°Sis, we¡¯re fireflies. What can we do against a descending sun?¡±

    Liu Yan¡¯s expression shifted and she looked to the distance, where roars of thunder mmed against howling winds. ¡°You mean that?¡± she asked irritably.

    ¡°No! Stronger than that!¡±

    Liu Yan¡¯s breathing hitched as she was momentarily dazed. Stronger than Sunre? What kind of titan had Li Hao aggravated?? Beyond Sunre?

    She couldn¡¯t imagine such strength. Liu Yan was only a yer, a level that mapped to the weakest of Starlight. There were Darkmoon, Sunre, and many more minor levels above her. Killing a Darkmoon reeling from bacsh had almost been more than the coordinated Demon Hunters could bear, to say nothing of a supernatural stronger than Sunre.

    ¡°Go!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Hurry, their target is me, not you guys! Trust that justice will always prevail. Thank chief for me, sis!¡±

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Liu Yan wanted to say something further, but couldn¡¯t find the heart to say so.

    Yun Yao likewise had an unpleasant expression on her face. ¡°Can you get away?¡± she whispered.

    Can I get away?

    Li Hao chuckled ruefully. How could he? The enemy was rapidly approaching!

    And yet, it was Yuan Shuo who arrived first. Disheveled and bedraggled, he¡¯d lost his shoes somewhere and his face was a mottled mess of gray and ck. The old man heaved a sigh of relief when he ran in and saw Li Hao; his gleaming smile appeared particrly bright in the rain.

    ¡°Little Hao, thank goodness you¡¯re still alive!¡±

    Li Hao stared at him. ¡°Teacher¡­ you¡­¡±

    Look damn awful! Your disguise is a bit too much. C¡¯mon, you¡¯re a Dominator¡ªis it right that you¡¯re in such bad shape?

    The young man nced in the distance when his thoughts traveled here. The massive ball of light was less than ten thousand meters away and drawing closer. Based on this speed, it would be here soon.

    He anxiously stepped forward to support his faltering teacher. ¡°He¡¯s much stronger than the two¡ªhe¡¯s like the zing sun in the dead of summer!¡± he muttered. ¡°Teacher, let¡¯s bow our heads to fate if we can¡¯t face him. If not, are you able to outrun him if you take me with you?¡±

    ¡°Who are you thinking so little of?¡± Yuan Shuo kept his voice down, but spoke with less confidence than he might. He¡¯d never matched himself against this level of opponent, so he didn¡¯t know if he could prevail either.

    ¡°Also, the thing in the dark¡­ is bigger than can be imagined.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s another one?¡± Yuan Shuo almost inhaled sharply. The fuck? Two of them? I can try taking on one of them, but two¡­ Also, are there differences in strength with those things? ¡°How big?¡±

    ¡°At least twenty meters tall!¡±

    The fuck!!

    It was easy to imagine how strong it was; he also seemed to sense it the next moment. Yuan Shuo was a Dominator, after all. He readily perceived the unique energy ripples of the mental entity.

    They were in trouble now.

    He wanted to spin on his heel and leave. Although this student of his was his final disciple, this was too much trouble that the kid had stirred up! Even the boss of the province¡¯s Night Watchers might have to retreat if he were here tonight. Thed wanted an old man to be his shield??

    Granted, who knew what the oue would be since he¡¯d yet to try? If Yuan Shuo could tidy up the issue, it would deal a grave blow to the other side. If he killed this one and that Sunre, that wouldn¡¯t leave many of this caliber in the supernatural organization, even if they were one of the three greats. When that was the case¡­

    ¡°You can see it?¡± Yuan Shuo asked softly.

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    Was there a point to hiding anything anymore? Li Hao could see clearer than his teacher, which was precisely why he was terrified. He could try ambushing a Darkmoon, but the Hand That Brings Back Life wasn¡¯t able to crush something at that echelon! There was also the scarlet shadow to contend with. It was so big that he came up to its feet¡ªwhat, was he supposed to crush its toenails?

    Yuan Shuo took a deep breath, havinge to a decision. He looked at those behind him and barked, ¡°Piss off! I¡¯m going to make a final stand with Li Hao. I haven¡¯t much longer to live anyway, get out of here so I can die with my student!¡±

    These useless burdens needed to make themselves scarce! Li Hao had to stay, this entire operation was meaningless if thed left.

    ¡°Elder Yuan¡­¡±

    ¡°Piss off!¡± Yuan Shuo snarled. What were they waiting for? Their deaths??

    The professor sized up the surroundings and discovered ice crystals within the shipping container by the door. A n for Li Hao spontaneously came into being.

    ¡°Wait there. You¡¯ll be able to defend yourself against supernatural abilities to a certain degree there. Otherwise, you¡¯ll die if we make a single misstep! I¡¯ll go inside too. With both of us in that, that guy won¡¯t easily kill you. You¡¯re less than an ant to him and too easy to kill. We stand a chance yet if he constrains his power!¡±

    Understood! Li Hao nodded, it was just acting. He could do that. As for his teacher¡­ he had even less to worry about since his teacher was a better actor than him. Let¡¯s see how we do this time!

    His teacher might dispatch the opponent if they were lucky. But if it was one against two with the involvement of the scarlet shadow¡­ that would make things tricky.

    ¡°Teacher, do you really think that stabbing the item into my heart will unseal it?¡± Li Hao thought of the jade sword that¡¯d been able to injure the shadow, despite its sealed state. What if it was unsealed? Would one stroke be enough to eliminate the scarlet shadow?

    His teacher would stand a better chance against the iing powerhouse if he could smite the shadow.

    Yuan Shuo considered the possibility. ¡°It¡¯s possible, but not a given¡­¡±

    His gaze shifted toward his student. Is it here yet? He couldn¡¯t see the shadow, but he could sense a thing or two.

    Ashen-faced, Li Hao nodded woodenly. A scarlet shadow that towered like a skyscrapernded one hundred meters away from him. It was monstrously titanic!

    Yuan Shuo also smiled stiffly. What in tarnation was he supposed to say now? This is my first time calling upon my full strength¡­ Let¡¯s not make a fool of myself.

    ¡°Piss of!¡± he roared again. Liu Yan and the others didn¡¯t say anything¡ªthey saw the changes in Li Hao¡¯s expression. The young man hadn¡¯t looked so ghastly when he killed the Darkmoon.

    Liu Yan clenched her teeth and dragged Wu Chao away. Panther wanted to slip away too, but changed its mind when it saw that Li Hao was staying. Fear filled the little ck dog¡¯s eyes, but a tiny hint of anticipation also sparkled in its depths.

    What if?

    What if they poked that huge shadow to death? How much would it gain this time?

    Not going!

    Liu Yan and the others swiftly withdrew so they could meet Liu Long. It would be another can of worms if Liu Long barged into the scene. Meanwhile, Li Hao and Yuan Shuo walked into the shipping container.

    Yuan Shuo gripped arge de and seemed oblivious to everything. He gasped, ¡°Li Hao, this old man can¡¯t go any further. I¡¯m done for it after this time! There¡¯s hope for you still¡ªthat Sunre may not be a match for Huang Yun¡­ the Night Watchers are very strong¡­ and Liu Long is still alive. You¡¯ll be safe so long as they take care of those guys!

    ¡°Live well when you¡¯re safe, move out of Silver City!¡± He was the very picture of having one foot in the grave as he issued final reminders to his student.

    ¡°Teacher¡­ you¡¯ll be fine!¡± Li Hao protested tragically. ¡°I know that supernaturals can heal injuries and their mysterious power can save you. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be fine!¡±

    ¡°Children¡­ always think the best! Cough cough cough¡­¡± Blood trickled out of Yuan Shuo¡¯s mouth as a fit of coughing overtook him. He sighed, ¡°My greatest regret in this life is that I was unable to make it to Dominator to Thousands, that I did not make the crossover to sweep thends. How would a mere Sunre be my opponent otherwise?¡±

    He panted with obvious difort and grabbed Li Hao¡¯s arm, heaving for breath. ¡°I¡¯m going to teach you the Breathing Method of the Five Styles now, remember it well! This is¡­ a culmination of countless ancient tomes that I pored through¡­¡±

 Chapter 88: Old Demon Yuan Awakens (I)

    Chapter 88: Old Demon Yuan Awakens (I)

    A figure descended soundlessly outside the storage container andnded on the scarlet shadow¡¯s head. Sounds of the conversation within drifted to its ears.

    The Breathing Method of the Five Styles!

    The powerhouse beyond Sunre slowed his steps. He¡¯d wanted to rush in, grab Li Hao, and burn the kid alive, but now he retracted his mysterious power and froze in ce.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s Breathing Method of the Five Styles!

    Who knew how many had their eyes set on this method? But the old guy never breathed a word of it. Yuan Shuo was about to die tonight and his student with him. If the method was lost here¡­ it might truly vanish forever!

    Perhaps¡­ I can kill Li Hao and just capture Yuan Shuo? The thought floated to the forefront of the person over the scarlet shadow. Treasures tempted the heart, but ordinary items had long lost their allure for him. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles, however, could prod him to action!

    The organization valued Yuan Shuo not for his martial discipline¡ªmartial masters had entered a state of decline many years ago. It was the countless ancient tomes he held in his mind that were of utmost importance. The old guy had destroyed an endless number of them! He¡¯d ruined them out of self-preservation, retaining the only existing copy of them in his memories!

    The figure drifted upon the wind and reappeared outside the storage container. Yuan Shuo and Li Hao werepletely oblivious!

    The professor continued mumbling final words as the young man lowered his head in throes of anguish, brought to the point of near tears.

    ¡°Teacher, I¡¯ll treasure this method well!¡±

    ¡°Mm, good.¡± Yuan Shuo coughed blood. ¡°Not only that¡­ but I¡¯ll be leaving you¡­ many treasures¡­ and sites of ancient ruins¡­ I¡¯ll tell you ones that¡­ no one else knows¡­ Don¡¯t tell anyone! ¡­They will be the foundation¡­ for your rise¡­ Once you control them¡­ you will have no issue reaching beyond Sunre¡­ The ancient civilizations¡­ are stronger than we¡­ can imagine!¡±

    ¡°Say no more, teacher!¡± Li Hao choked out. The guy outside won¡¯t be able to control himself and will rush in if you keep talking!

    ¡°It¡¯s¡­ it¡¯s fine¡­ I am a peak Sunderer¡­ I can hold on for a while longer¡­¡± Yuan Shuo abruptly lowered his voice as teacher and disciple conversed, ¡°Come closer¡­ I am afraid of others overhearing¡­¡±

    Li Hao ced his ear next to the old man¡¯s mouth.

    The figure outside nced at Yuan Shuo, but could only make out vague mouth shapes. He couldn¡¯t send in his mysterious power because an ice crystal dome surrounded the area. As he considered potential courses of action, he waved the enormous scarlet shadow into the size of a regr human. It passed through the ice crystals and entered the storage container.

    Whether it was him or the shadow, it was all the same. Since he wasn¡¯t at liberty to eavesdrop, he sent the shadow instead. The two could die after he learned what he wished to know! This would also save him the trouble of interrogating Yuan Shuo¡ªhe might not obtain all of the secrets in that manner either.

    Li Hao nodded with reddened eyes. Yuan Shuo smiled with satisfaction. Got it, the scarlet shadow¡¯s inside! But¡­ can you hold on, kid?

    Forget it, they shouldn¡¯t go so far as to kill you right now. Everything¡¯s under my control. Supernaturals are all idiots. How can I so easily let you learn of my secrets?

    Sorrow flooded the faces of both teacher and disciple!

    ¡°Teacher¡­ farewell!¡±

    ¡°Little Hao¡­ take care of yourself¡­¡± Teacher and disciple sobbed in each other¡¯s arms!

    The premier powerhouse outside the shipping container stirred restlessly. Hurry up and spit out your secrets, then die!

    He¡¯d suppressed his mysterious power to the lowest point possible to prevent detection; he was deathly afraid of Yuan Shuo sensing his presence. The figure fully extinguished his inclination to erupt in sudden fury and sweep the enemies away. Hurry the hell up!

    The duo inside were so melodramatic, it was as if Yuan Shuo would die in the next second!

    The figure shifted the scarlet shadow so it could gain clear insight on their conversation. Did it have something to do with certain ancient ruins, the secret art of the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, or something simr?

    He leaned forward and pricked his ears up, but failed to hear anything.

    Inside the shipping container.

    Yuan Shuo coughed violently as he tightened his grip on his weapon. ¡°Little Hao¡­ recite the Breathing Method of the Five Styles¡­ again¡­ I¡¯m afraid that you¡¯ll forget it¡­¡±

    ¡°There are thirty-eight thousand acupoints in a person¡¯s body.¡± Li Hao lowered his head without protest and murmured, ¡°One acupoint for one inhale, one acupoint for one exhale. The breathing method utilizes the essence of the five beasts¡ªthat of flight, earth bending, running, agility, and strength¡­¡±

    The person outside shifted with excitement at hearing the narration. I am the only person in the world who knows Yuan Shuo¡¯s Breathing Method of the Five Styles after today!

    Yuan Shuo blurred into motion when the figure concentrated on listening for more. The opportunity was upon them!

    He soundlessly erupted with qi and blood, brandishing therge de to send a trail of qi through the air! Yuan Shuo held absolutely nothing back¡ªpulling one¡¯s punches against a powerhouse like this was to beg for death.

    His consciousness red like a furnace, shattering all of the ice crystals! They immediately assembled into a cage and shot at the powerhouse outside through the maniptions of Yuan Shuo¡¯s mind. Such was battle experience!

    Breaking the ice crystals was an effective obstruction of potential counterattacks. Even if he couldn¡¯t fully subdue the other¡¯s mysterious power, momentary suppression during a sh of powerhouses was sufficient to decide the oue of battle. It would determine who walked away and who died with dishonor.

    A streak of blood-red qi evaporated the rainwater around them!

    Severing with one stroke!

    Boom!

    A massive explosion rang out as de light illuminated heaven and earth!

    The premier powerhouse was fully revealed to teacher and disciple¡ªa middle-aged man with no face covering. A ferocious and unbridled look glinted out of his eyes; long hair flowing from his head, he appeared younger than Liu Long.

    It was no wonder he was such a heavyweight¡ªthough blinded by greed, he still reacted with the fastest speed possible. He roared when Yuan Shuo¡¯s de descended on him and raised both hands to the sky. A transparent shield coalesced on top of them. It exploded with scintiting illumination that exceeded Sunre!

    Sunre was the peak ofprehension for ordinary people. Those who exceeded this level were a titan in any organization. The supernatural snarled after manifesting his shield and fractured the earth with one stomp!

    ¡°You court death!¡±

    BOOM!

    A tremendous explosion rocked the area. Despite the powerhouse¡¯s shout, Yuan Shuo still shattered the other¡¯s shield with one blow. Blood sprayed from the supernatural¡¯s mouth, but he remained just as unyielding. He followed his stomp and sank into the ground, minimizing the effects of the ice crystals.

    Not only that, but a golden longsword appeared in his hand the moment the shield broke. Formed of iparably keen mysterious power, its edge knew no bounds.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo!¡± he shouted and threw himself at the old man. The best defense was offense¡ªhe could not let this martial blockhead easily break his defenses and draw near for closebat!

    Dominator!

    He could sense that Yuan Shuo had broken through to Dominator of Thousands!

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± Yuan Shuo shouted as well, as if he were a tiger descended from the mountain that shook the woods with his presence! The sound wave reverberated through nearby rainfall, turning them into arrows of water that shot in all directions.

    Despite not being their target, Li Hao was turned into a pin cushion. A scarlet shadow once more appeared in front of him and acted as his defender. Even now, the supernatural did not think he would lose. Since he wouldn¡¯t lose, then Li Hao could not die right now.

    The n to gather the eight bloodlines would not beplete without the young man!

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s roar echoed in the four directions and shook his opponent¡¯s mysterious power. His hair spontaneously returned to ck and he regained youthful features. The long de that he gripped tightly whistled through the air with numerous afterimages.

    ¡°Martial dao canmunicate with the consciousness!¡± His blood and qi transformed into a dragon upon his shout, turning the void into a zing furnace. The very air seemed to be on fire and unparalleled mes licked at the long-haired supernatural.

    Not real fire, but blood and qi!

    Such was a preeminent martial master! The fusion of consciousness, blood, and qi made heaven and earth into a furnace!

    ¡°Kill!!¡± Yuan Shuo sprang out in the air and shed numerous times. When his weapon shattered, he waved the hilt around and threw punches to subjugate mountain and river!

    BOOM!!

    Yuan Shuo was mighty beyond belief. The powerhouse beyond Sunre didn¡¯t have a chance to counterattack before the formidable barrage forced him back. Bam! sounded as thest of a dozen punches sent him flying.

    Blood spattered through the void!

    There was a noticeable fist imprint on Long Hair¡¯s chest as he was flung backward. Yuan Shuo bore down with unforgiving momentum! He took one step in the air and kicked his leg, whipping it through the void!

    This was only the beginning of their battle, yet it immediately surpassed the dueling Sunres in the distance. Rain no longer fell in this part of the wilderness and illumination turned the sky white.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo!¡± snorted Long Hair. All metallic objects agitated when mysterious power surged around him, morphing into thousands of swords that shot at the professor!

    Thebatants¡¯ speed was so iprehensible that they exchanged countless blows in a split second. Yuan Shuo nted himself in the ground like a brown bear and shook the earth with a heavy step. The ground caved in with a rumble when he sprang upward from the pockmarkednd, deploying one punch to shatter the metallic swords!

    ¡°So what of mysterious power?!¡± He whipped his leg outward again like he were a demon god, pulverizing the metallic fragments.

    Boom!

    The two sides drew closer, so fast that Li Hao didn¡¯t understand what they were doing. He couldn¡¯t even see them clearly. All he knew was that his teacher held the upper hand. Long Hair should¡¯ve suffered some damage after being sent flying, but as for how much, he didn¡¯t know.

    ¡­¡­

    The Sunres abruptly halted their battle. Huang Yun was rather worse for the wear¡ªhe looked burnt and crispy. However, he had no room to spare for himself. He looked at the horizon with stupefaction.

    Yuan Shuo!

    And the other person¡­

    ¡°It¡¯s you guys!¡± Huang Yun looked at his opponent with shock and anger. ¡°That¡¯s Divine Brokensky?!¡±

 Chapter 89: Old Demon Yuan Awakens (II)

    Chapter 89: Old Demon Yuan Awakens (II)

    Divine!

    Rather than being a term that denoted strength, it was an honorific for Heaven Favored. It indicated that the bearer had ascended the moment the supernatural world awoke. They were supernatural by birth; not one of those who had to put in painstaking effort to graze the threshold of this domain.

    Such supernaturals were typically premier powerhouses. This Divine Brokensky was said to have be otherworldly the moment the supernatural came to being. After twenty years, he was one of the most experienced of his peers and part of the strongest cohort.

    He was greater than Sunre!

    The thunder supernatural across from Huang Yun shifted and said coldly, ¡°To think that Yuan Shuo would break through to Dominator of Thousands¡­ No wonder you guys dared get involved, you¡¯ve got some nerve!¡±

    A Dominator martial master!

    They were almost extinct in Silver Moon. Yuan Shuo was the only one to appear in recent years. But as terrifying as Dominators were, he faced Divine Brokensky!

    Huang Yun set his jaw and didn¡¯t respond. It was entirely unexpected that Yuan Shuo would break through and be so damned unlucky. He faced a Heaven Favored on his first demonstration of full strength!

    They were in deep trouble!

    Both Sunres could tell that Yuan Shuo held the upper hand and had beaten his opponent to spitting blood with a string of powerful attacks. However, this advantage was just a facade if he didn¡¯t severely injure the other with one move!

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Holy fuck!¡± Liu Long¡¯s world was upended. ¡°A Dominator of Thousands!¡±

    Shock chased desire over a sea of incredulity in his eyes. Yuan Shuo had ascended!

    Liu Yan and the others had arrived moments earlier and allied with the three Night Watchers to barely fend off the four supernaturals. But as the two sides exchanged blows, an unbelievable battle broke out elsewhere.

    Yuan Shuo and a premier heavyweight beyond Sunre!

    A sh beyond Sunre was taking ce in the insignificant Silver City!

    As taken aback as he was, Liu Long roared ¡°Kill!¡±

    They had to kill the four in front of them as Yuan Shuo was unlikely to withstand that powerhouse. A Dominator was only barely on par with Sunre.

    ¡­¡­

    In the sky.

    Yuan Shuo again bounded through the air in an extreme frenzy. He waved his fists around, unmarked by hesitation found in the elderly. Punch after punch with a moderately sized rock in his right hand, he used it as a brass knuckle in his blows.

    Long Hair didn¡¯t pay attention to the brass knuckle at first, but then it immediately defused the mysterious energy in his chest when one of those punches connected. He shook when the professor then leveraged momentum to pulverize his organs.

    What is that? A supernatural object? It can break my defenses and harm my internals!

    Additionally, extremely forceful mysterious power surged into the supernatural¡¯s body to further grapple with the man. It blew through through his defenses.

    Yuan Shuo doggedly kept up the offensive. Since he held the winning hand, he needed to keep ying it until the other was dead or lost the ability to fight. He¡¯d taught this to Li Hao, that victory was imed only when the enemy could no longer stand or offer resistance!

    ¡­¡­

    A shell-shocked Li Hao stared dumbly at where two premier powerhouses had split the earth in their struggle. Was this possible through human strength?? So this was Dominator of Thousands? How incredible!

    Prior to this, he¡¯d been of the opinion that as strong as Dominators were, their abilities were limited as they were still flesh and blood. They might not even measure up to more powerful grenades. Today, reality pped him and his small worldview in the face.

    The ground fissured when Yuan Shuo pushed off. Blood and qi burned as if they were in a real furnace and evaporated the rain in the air. Wherever he stood was a locale of dry weather.

    Was this attainable via grenades? Not even certain cannons measured up to the destructive force contained in one of the professor¡¯s moves. One had to keep in mind that a human was deploying these techniques, one extremely nimble human at that!

    No wonder the army exercised dwindling restraint over the supernaturals!

    When it was just Darkmoon, Li Hao could see how a dozen or two experts armed with guns and a proper n could easily dispatch one. When it came to Dominator, the enemy would have to be an utter fool and insist on directbat for the soldiers to do anything. The situation would be no different with a fullplement of one thousand troops.

    On the other hand, all the supernatural needed to do was to exercise a bit of prudence and find a chance to whittle away at the soldiers. Even one thousand troops would be defeated then!

    ¡°Scary!¡± Li Hao murmured to himself and looked at the scarlet shadow in front of him. How nice of the shadow to shield him from the ripples!

    This scarlet shadow was enormously strong to be able to block the fallout from two premier heavyweights. Li Hao smiled ruefully as he caressed the small sword in his hand. Despite its sealed state, it was able to harm the previous shadow and even make the entity take physical form. It¡­ wouldn¡¯t work this time, would it?

    The little sword¡¯s power was limited; this was likely outside of its reach. Meanwhile, his teacher was formidable! He kept up a furious barrage and remained on the front foot. Li Hao, however, understood that the enemy must be a hair stronger. Otherwise, his teacher would¡¯ve long captured his opponent after ambushing and inflicting the first injury!

    Battles between true titans were swiftly concluded unless they were evenly matched. Li Hao suddenly saw the scarlet shadow shift, as if it wanted to leave.

    Indeed, it was preparing to join the battle and step away from protecting the young man. If Long Hair was reinforced by this entity, that wouldnd the professor in difficult straits. inly, the supernatural hade to his senses and realized the importance of swiftly dispatching Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°It¡¯s leaving¡­¡±

    Real trouble would arise if the scarlet shadow left. Li Hao was afraid of death and pain, but even more so of stabbing himself to death. There was no room for hesitation, however. He raised the jade sword and plunged it where his heart was!

    His heart blood!

    His teacher had said that it might unseal the sword. Well then, a quick experiment would reveal the answer, wouldn¡¯t it?

    Extreme pain rocked his body! Maybe he¡¯d stabbed it too deeply and identally punctured his heart? Was he going to die now?

    Who knew?

    Who the hell cared?

    All he knew was that he needed to keep the scarlet shadow here. It could not be permitted to join the fight no matter what! Could the jade sword aplish that after being unsealed? Who knows?

    Let¡¯s bet on it!

    Indeed, this was a gamble. Yuan Shuo was betting that he could take care of his opponent and Liu Long was betting that he could hold his own against supernaturals. And now, Li Hao joined them at the table with his family heirloom. He gambled that it could be unsealed and used against the scarlet shadow!

    ¡°Kill!!¡± Li Hao charged the scarlet shadow as soon as he pulled out the sword. Under normal circumstances, he would not be able to touch it, so the shadow ignored him. But when the jade sword emerged from the young man¡¯s chest, it exuded a faint illumination that powered it to stab into the shadow¡¯s depths!

    ¡°Ah!!¡± A faint scream seemed toe from the shadow.

    Is it alive??

    He didn¡¯t know! All he knew was that he needed to kill this thing, so he pulled the sword out and stabbed it forward again!

    The shadow moved this time, seemingly provoked to irrationality by the attack. It was no longer under Long Hair¡¯s control and shifted to red smoke, filtering into Li Hao¡¯s chest.

    Energy exploded like fire in the young man¡¯s body! It was powerful beyondprehension!

    Li Hao roared with fury and called upon the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Cosmic power surged in response. He knew that the scarlet shadow wanted to burn him alive, just like it¡¯d done to Little Yuan!

    But¡­ I have Steris!

    Li Hao saw a different world the moment the fiery energy expanded in his body. He suddenly knew what Little Yuan had seen, why he¡¯d struggled to get away, and how he¡¯d known that his best friend was the next target.

    A vastly different world appeared in Li Hao¡¯s gaze as his eyes pierced through all matter! A diagram of the eight trigrams hovered over Silver City¡ªan absolutely massive picture that shrouded the entire city!

    Each of the eight corners corresponded to a different direction and a thread ran from all of them. One was tied to Li Hao; the other seven threads were not in Silver City. They were all gathered in the same spot!

    It was as if someone had forcefully pulled the other seven away.

    Li Hao understood the situation in this moment. This was likely the scene that Little Yuan had looked upon, with the exception of one of the threads tied to him and the other tied to Li Hao. Little Yuan might not be the sharpest tool in the box, but he understood after this that the next on the docket was Li Hao, someone else relevant to the eight trigrams.

    ¡°So this¡­ is what you saw?¡± Li Hao swiftly put everything out of mind and furiously operated the breathing method, taking in vast sums of cosmic power.

    Both cosmic power and strength from the scarlet shadow swelled in his body! His organs vibrated as they were ripped apart¡ªthe scarlet shadow swiftly moved on to crushing his meridians. Cosmic power followed in its wake and extinguished any fire it came across.

    ¡­¡­

    In the distance.

    Long Hair looked on with dismay. Being continuously suppressed by Yuan Shuo, he wanted to recall the scarlet shadow to help him defeat the old man. He would have some breathing space when Yuan Shuo was distracted and could recover his true battle strength to destroy the old bastard.

    But his summons failed!

    The scarlet shadow did not return!

    Damn it! What¡¯s going on?

    He didn¡¯t have the time or effort to spare¡ªYuan Shuo¡¯s offensive was tyrannical and domineering. This Dominator¡¯s internal force was so destructive that it was more than his level. In terms of categorization, it was much more than internal force!

    Yuan Shuo shouted as supernatural locks manifested over his body. He was going to break them, ascend, and kill his foe!

    BOOM!

    A lock exploded, expanding his strength. He dimmed the stars and moon with his next punch!

    A dragon of qi and blood encircled Long Hair¡ªthe supernatural erupted with radiant golden light in response. Heid about with killing intent, fracturing the dragon wherever he could.

    Both parties were caught in the fervor of battle, they didn¡¯t care if it resulted in a pyrrhic victory anymore. Yuan Shuo was stronger after one of his locks broke!

 Chapter 90: Old Demon Yuan Awakens (III)

    Chapter 90: Old Demon Yuan Awakens (III)

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s expression suddenly shifted. He clenched his teeth so hard that the veins in his neck bulged. Roaring, he shoved the newly born mysterious power out of his body and detonated it in midair!

    An explosion of extreme energy sted into the long-haired supernatural, making him vomit blood!

    ¡°Are you crazy?!¡± gasped Long Hair. Mysterious power had blossomed in Yuan Shuo, demonstrating that he bore the potential to swiftly ascend to the supernatural world. But the old man destroyed that energy origin the next second! It was the source of mysterious power¡ªruining it meant relinquishing the crossover!

    What was this, if not the actions of a lunatic??

    Though Yuan Shuo¡¯s face was pale, he smiled faintly. His expression swiftly faded to aloofness when he looked at his opponent. ¡°How can a sparrow understand the ambition of a swan?¡±

    The mysterious power had started corroding his internal force!

    Internal force was the most crucial part of a martial master. It stemmed from the body, blood, and organs. If corroded, his body would likewise be gravely injured. Although mysterious power could be replenished, it was an external resource.

    In that one moment, Yuan Shuo discovered a potential problem with ascending to the supernatural. It might reduce his many years of training to nothing but dust. Therefore, he was as decisive as one could possibly be.

    The burst of mysterious power was put to good use, at least, and gravely injured his opponent.

    ¡°I can kill you even without mysterious power!¡± Yuan Shuo roared and transformed into a massive bear. Not a real brown bear, but appearing that way from his ring aura. He maintained a tight grip on the stone de, having discovered that the weapon was extremely vicious when crashing through defensive abilities. It¡¯d proven invaluable for sustained control over his adversary.

    Despite being unable to wield the full power of the de¡ªhaving yet to even unseal it¡ªthe energy within was sufficient to be his greatest trump card. It was the key to breaking through the premier supernatural¡¯s mysterious power.

    Boom!

    Wearing his bear form, Yuan Shuo stomped the ground and fractured it. He leapt into the air and threw himself at Long Hair, demonstrating overwhelming offense from beginning to end!

    Energy surged in a boundless stream from the de!

    Bam!

    Long Hair was once more sent flying,pletely suppressed by the professor. He hadn¡¯t had a chance to catch his breath or identify a counterattack since the fightmenced. The old Dominator was too well versed in slipping through the cracks!

    Although he was stronger than Yuan Shuo when it came to vitality, mysterious power, and defenses, all of it was moot if he couldn¡¯t touch the old man and had to constantly defend himself against fatal strikes.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo¡­¡± he yelled. ¡°Yuan Shuo, we can¡ª¡±

    BOOM!

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s foot arrived. de energy was wrapped around it, bestowing the kick with incredible power. It shattered a decently sized hill behind Long Hair, pulverizing it to pebble.

    ¡°Kill!¡± Yuan Shuo howled. A dragon floated overhead¡ªone made of blood and qi. It frothed with agitation, but it wasn¡¯t enough! He maintained the upper hand through abination of his strength and the de¡¯s energy, but he¡¯d yet to kill his foe. What did this mean?

    That he was insufficient to deliver a fatal blow!

    Yuan Shuo did not ept this!

    Countless ancient tomes shed through his mind¡ªone of them froze amid the sea of knowledge!

    The Incantation of the de of Blood!

    This was an ancient tome thatbined blood qi with mental strength, manifesting a de of blood to inflict a lethal strike. Recorded as a desperate move, it was noted that martial masters of the ancient civilization sometimes used it as their final stand. It was exceedingly devastating, but also came with overwhelming side effects.

    The Incantation of the de of Bloodbined blood qi and consciousness to deploy strength beyond one¡¯s level. For that, the body swiftly weakened, sometimes even leaving the wielder crippled or dead as the price!

    Books spoke of certain old martial masters focusing on this method in order to stand against powerful enemies in their old age. Theyid their life on the line in crucial moments, often to marvelous effect. It waster banned because most users died for their use.

    But did Yuan Shuo care about the consequences in this here and now? Didn¡¯t his student have a sword that could save people? And who says I¡¯ll die? It¡¯s not like death is a certainty!

    The books also spoke of a solution to this method. He hadn¡¯t been fortunate enough to read it yet, more was a pity.

    ¡°Meld!¡±

    With heaven and earth as forge and an eruption of the consciousness¡ªthe aura!

    Yuan Shuo charged with indomitable momentum; he was more like a demon god in this moment. The dragon coiled over his head sank into his body, whereupon he forged a de of blood!

    It burrowed into the stone de, somehow erging it!

    Stone de in hand, Yuan Shuo struck, dyeing the skies the color of blood!

    ¡°The fuck is the supernatural worth!¡± he roared.

    Long Hair¡¯s expression twisted and he snarled, letting loose with all of his mysterious power. He was like a sun illuminating thends, brightening their part of the wilderness, if not all of Silver City as well. He was the radiant sun!

    ¡°You made me do this, Yuan Shuo¡­¡±

    ¡°Made your ass!¡± Yuan Shuo attacked before the other finished.

    Long Hair¡¯s mysterious power broke apart with a giant rumble. The de continued unabated and fell upon its target!

    Ashen-faced, shock flooded Long Hair¡¯s eyes! How was this possible?! All of the power in his body had been shattered with a single stroke¡­

    ¡°The de of the Zhangs!¡± A possibility urred to him, one that brought even more incredulity. How could Yuan Shuo use the de of the Zhangs? That wasn¡¯t possible! Even if the old man had it in his possession, he shouldn¡¯t be able to use it.

    The same logic applied to all of the treasures from the other families. Only those of their own bloodline could wield them. Even though the organization had the other weapons in their custody, the items were just empty shells good for minimal use. They had to gather all eight bloodlines, use Li Hao¡¯s to activate Steris, and fully break the blockade of the eight families before they could trulymand the treasures.

    However¡­ Yuan Shuo was not of the eight, much less a Zhang descendant! How could he use the de of the Zhangs??

    No one had an answer for Long Hair. The de descended with unbelievable swiftness and cleaved him into two.

    Yuan Shuo fell down from the sky and spat out a mouthful of blood. This was a real reaction¡ªhe was weak all over. He couldn¡¯t speak, so waved the de again and sectioned his opponent¡¯s body into a thousand pieces!

    If that didn¡¯t ensure the supernatural was dead, there was nothing else that could be done.

    Having aplished all that, Yuan Shuo bounded through the air like a bird. He didn¡¯t pay any attention to Li Hao, nor could he. Crossing one thousand meters with remarkable speed, he poured everything he had into racing to the Sunre battlefield before the effects of the Incantation wore off. Since he¡¯d made his move, he might as well kill them all!

    He casually swung his weapon when he was halfway there and shed through the firmament!

    Pfft!

    Four heads hit the ground at the same time.

    Liu Long and the others stared at him as if they beheld a veritable demon. There was disbelief, horror, surprise, joy, and fear to be found. Yuan Shuo!

    A man closer to being a demon or a god!

    The professor didn¡¯t care what they thought. He focused on the thunder supernatural who wanted to make a getaway.

    ¡°Stop him, Huang Yun, or I¡¯ll kill you too!¡±

    BOOM!

    Gale winds exploded as Huang Yun¡¯s heart skipped a beat. He won? Yuan Shuo had cut down Divine Brokensky!

    Heavens above, Silver City¡­ no, the winds were about to shift in Silver Moon! A premier powerhouse beyond Sunre had died in the province and it was a martial master who killed him!

    ¡°Wind!¡± he roared. Violent winds interspersed with heavy downpour shed with thunder and lightning. Yuan Shuo wanted to kill, so he needed to stop this person!

    The thunder supernatural revealed his true appearance for the first time¡ªa young man. Paling, he growled, ¡°How dare you obstruct me, Huang Yun! Red Moon will take the Night Watchers to task for this! There exists arge gap between the Night Watchers and the three great organizations. Do you want Red Moon to dere open warfare on you??¡±

    ¡°Kid, the three organizations are strong and we Night Watchers are weak.¡± Huang Yun smirked. ¡°But¡­ none of the three organizations can entertain the thought of making it back alive if they daree! Though we¡¯re no match for you in the wilderness, what do you take our armies for if you truly attack us?¡±

    The government couldn¡¯t beat the supernaturals in the open, but would the organizations dare attack the cities? They¡¯d all go down together if it came to that! This was just mutual curtailment!

    ¡°Bastard, let me go! Huang Yun, Red Moon will give you three thousand¡­ no, ten thousand cubes of mysterious power if you let me go!¡±

    Huang Yun was briefly tempted, but continued his furious barrage without a word. Don¡¯t even go there! The guy behind me is Yuan Shuo! He was a ruthless character twenty years ago, and now he¡¯s a Dominator? No, he might be more than that. It was terrifying to even consider!

    There¡¯s no way I can let you go, he might actually kill me instead!

    The Night Watchers had weathered their fair share of hardships over years of partnership with Yuan Shuo¡ªand that was when he was a Sunderer. Now that he was a Dominator, possibly even stronger, Huang Yun didn¡¯t dare offend this former local tyrant!

    The demonic Yuan Shuo arrived at this moment! His de swung through the air and lit up the void with bloody light. One stroke cut through all lightning!

    ¡°Let me go, Yuan Shuo!¡± snarled the thunder supernatural. ¡°You will die if you kill me! My father is¡ª¡±

    ¡°Ying Hongyue?¡± Yuan Shuo snorted. ¡°You¡¯re too green, kid! I know your father, he¡¯s the leader of Red Moon! The organization is named after him! He was a Sunderer twenty years ago when he begged for mercy after one punch from me! He¡¯s the one I¡¯ve been avoiding all these years, or I would¡¯ve left the province long ago! Our feud runs deep and you look just like that mongrel! Who would¡¯ve thought that his son woulde in person today!¡±

    Huang Yun¡¯s eyes widened. The son of Ying Hongyue?

    Yuan Shuo swung his de again and sliced the other¡¯s head clean open. He smiled merrily. ¡°Damned idiot! Your old man¡¯s wanted to kill me for a dozen years, but here I am! So what if I kill you? You guys can get through the Night Watchers first!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Huang Yun was speechless. Although you guys shared a feud before, that was just an extension of your grudges from years gone by. But now that you¡¯ve gone and killed his son¡­ you just created a death feud!

 Chapter 91: Dual Cultivation (I)

    Chapter 91: Dual Cultivation (I)

    Like a bird, Yuan Shuo flitted through the sky without looking back.

    ¡°All of the loot is mine!¡± His voice traveled back on the wind. ¡°I¡¯m going to look in on my student. Send everything to the Yuan residence at the Veteris Institute unless you want to eat one of my blows too, Huang Yun!¡±

    A series of changes flickered rapidly through the Night Watcher¡¯s expression. He had nothing to say. What a terrifying fellow! It¡¯s frightening when martial artists reach this realm!

    ¡°What¡­ what level are you?¡± he couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    Dominator of Thousands? Could a Dominator kill Divine Brokensky? The professor had cut down the son of Ying Hongyue like he was slicing through a head of cabbage. It was all too shocking!

    ¡°Just peak Dominator of Thousands!¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s distant reply stunned everyone.

    Peak Dominator of Thousands!

    ¡­¡­

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s next stop was the warehouse¡ªit was wrecked to pieces. He nced at his bleeding student and promptly grabbed Li Hao, sprinting into the darkness. Along the way, the professor flushed and spat out blood, vaporizing the liquid as soon as it exited his mouth.

    ¡°I can¡¯t hold on, but why are you¡­ like this right now¡­¡± He could sense that Li Hao¡¯s sword was transferring energy, so it wasn¡¯t the right time to take it. He could only glean what he could from the side and repair his ruptured organs. He¡¯d put on too much of a show¡ªhe wasn¡¯t a peak Dominator!

    Granted, he wasn¡¯t too far off. The key issue was that he was too heavily injured. If he had been any slower to leave the scene of battle, he might not have been able to retain his lofty image. Vomiting blood would have been a foregone conclusion.

    ¡°Cough cough cough¡­¡± Harsh coughs sounded¡ªreal coughs. Yuan Shuo¡¯s face was no longer a mixture of white and gray; it was just stark white. He ran as fast as he could with Li Hao¡ªrunning was the best course of action at the moment! There was nothing left in his tank if another opponent appeared on the scene, or if that idiot Huang Yun decided to test or kill him.

    Run and hide first¡­ We cane out when the coast is clear! An odd look brewed in his eyes as he thought of what¡¯d urred when his supernatural locks opened. My supernatural dream is broken. What supernatural locks?! They¡¯re not a pathway to essing the supernatural, they¡¯re a person¡¯s defensive system. Damn it, what is the supernatural?

    To relinquish painstakingly umted internal force in favor of mysterious power¡­ that was to drink poison in search of quenching thirst! It appeared strong, but waspletely hollow on the inside.

    There might be something nefarious behind the awakening of the supernatural!

    ¡°Cough cough cough¡­¡± Yuan Shuo wanted to vaporize his newest mouthful of blood, but suddenly discovered that it was gone. A¡­ dog next to him had swallowed it.

    He recognized it, it was the little ck dog that followed Li Hao. The professor frowned.

    ¡°Are you turning into a dog spirit? You¡¯ve swallowed my blood and Li Hao¡¯s blood¡­ A dog that has tasted human blood bes great trouble if it seeks more!¡± It needed to die for developing a taste for blood!

    Panther threw up the mouthful of blood with disgust when Yuan Shuo raised his hand. Disdain crossed its face and it regarded Yuan Shuo with a trace of the same distaste. This blood¡­ is so gross!

    Yuan Shuo started and took another look at the little ck dog. ¡°So you¡¯re doing it for the energy¡­ You¡¯ve got a helluva sharp nose!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s blood contained a special energy. The dog hadn¡¯t developed a bloodlust, it just wanted that power.

    ¡°Forget it!¡± He couldn¡¯t be bothered with Li Hao¡¯s dog; Yuan Shuo quickly vanished into the darkness. Never mind all this, they needed to run away as far as possible and hide out for a few days. It was good that the dog was with them. If they had to remain in hiding after the few days and ran out of food, they could kill the dog for sustenance. How nice that a food source moved with them and saved him future effort!

    Panther had no idea what was running through the old human¡¯s mind and happily followed the two.

    ¡­¡­

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s departure raised a massive disturbance through all channels and locales. A bloody battle had taken ce in Silver City!

    Divine Brokensky had fallen, the son of Red Moon¡¯s leader was dead, ten Darkmoon had perished, as well as a group of martial masters that included Sunderers. All of it stemmed from Yuan Shuo, the old demon that dominated Silver Moon twenty years ago!

    The old demon had ascended to peak Dominator and defied all odds to strike down Divine Brokensky. The news even started making its way to other territories. This was the first time that someone beyond Sunre had died in the province. An uproar grew on all sides¡ªthe world was changing!

    ¡­¡­

    ¡°Pfft!¡± A mouthful of blood. Li Hao blearily opened his eyes while the Breathing Method of the Five Styles continued operating. The rampaging within his body had slowly calmed down, yet red energy continuously surged into him. All of his meridians felt stoppered, even solidified by the energy. There was no pain, just numbness, as if his body wasn¡¯t his!

    ¡°You¡¯re awake?¡± came his teacher¡¯s voice. Li Hao wearily focused on his teacher walking a dog¡ªPanther.

    ¡°Teacher!¡± The young man coughed up another mouthful of blood, blood that contained some ck.

    Yuan Shuo was exhausted after standing guard over his student for a day. He couldn¡¯t be bothered with saying anything after seeing Li Hao was awake and conscious. The professor grabbed the jade sword like a robber after loot.

    ¡°Gimme some!¡±

    The young man didn¡¯t know what to say. His teacher¡­ hardly seemed a notable literary expert!

    ¡°Teacher, I¡­¡±

    ¡°I know, I¡¯ve assessed your condition. There¡¯s too much energy in your body, but it¡¯s reached an equilibrium. You won¡¯t die for the time being, but I will if you don¡¯t let your teacher absorb some energy!¡± Yuan Shuo joked, belying his dire straits. If he hadn¡¯t been concerned that his final disciple might die to the onught of energy, he would¡¯ve taken the sword a long time ago. Thed had himself to thank for being Yuan Shuo¡¯s student. The old man wouldn¡¯t have been so considerate of anyone else!

    Everything was a mess inside his body¡ªhe was in much more disarraypared to Li Hao. It was only energy that assaulted the young man, but Yuan Shuo had exhausted his stores, depleted his internal force, and suffered considerable damage to his consciousness. It was a level of injury that reached the mind.

    The Incantation of the de of Blood was indeed a forbidden art; it was Yuan Shuo¡¯s first time experiencing the might of such a method. At the same time, it waspletely out of Li Hao¡¯s reach.

    Any technique that involved mental employment of energy was reserved for Dominators. As strong as this forbidden method was, it wasn¡¯t avable to ordinary people. Those who utilized it weren¡¯t able to pay the price.

    It felt that Yuan Shuo¡¯s injuries spontaneously healed when he absorbed a little bit of energy. He couldn¡¯t help but groan. Damn good!

    It feels so damn good!

    It was asfortable as rain in a drought. Hot damn, if he¡¯d had the sword with him before, he might¡¯ve been able to use the Incantation twice. The weapons of the eight families were beyond the imagination. Take the stone de, for example, it was crucial to him breaking histe opponent¡¯s defenses. Both stone de and Incantation were critical to a Dominator defeating Divine Brokensky.

    It was also his good luck.

    ¡°Teacher!¡± Li Hao looked at Yuan Shuo. His teacher¡¯s bedraggled state didn¡¯t seem to be an act. There was no one around them, so there was no point in keeping up the pretense. ¡°Did we win?¡±

    ¡°We won!¡± Yuan Shuo cursed as he absorbed more energy. ¡°There¡¯s some ruthless bastards over at Red Moon! They sent a Sr against a mundane! Damn, they were really willing to expend some resources! Thankfully I ended that son of a bitch!¡±

    Sr? Li Hao leaned against a grubby wall as he didn¡¯t have the strength to move. ¡°Is Sr¡­ above Sunre?¡±

    ¡°Yep!¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s spirits lifted as he felt his wounds continue to close. ¡°Those above Sunre gather the energy of the three suns and obtain their one true meaning. This means that Srs have nearly three times the amount of mysterious powerpared to a Sunre!

    ¡°I¡¯d thought that even if those behind the scenes have some brains to them, it¡¯s only been twenty years since the supernatural domain appeared. There are exceedingly few Srs in Silver Moon¡ªmore in the central region. But they sent one here, so they really think something of you! Damn, a Sr!¡±

    The situation truly had been perilous. If not for the stone de, if Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t broken through and could reference countless ancient tomes, one Sr could have easily exterminated them all. He could butcher everyone in Silver City while he was at it.

    Li Hao sighed. Seriously, they do think something of me! The more the situation¡¯s like this, the more likely that trouble isn¡¯t over yet! They sent out someone like that for me, a mundane! Teacher killed the first one, but what about next time?

    ¡°How did you kill him, teacher? Did you break through?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head with a frown. ¡°It¡¯s not that simple. If we set aside the supernatural, there is no way forward for martial masters beyond Dominator!¡±

    No way forward!

    ¡°Then make the crossover, teacher.¡± Li Hao blinked. ¡°Is there not enough energy in the de?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not it, but I won¡¯t tell you yet. Focus on breaking through to Sunderer, the road ahead is long.¡± Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t want to say more for the moment¡ªrevealing too much might interfere with Li Hao¡¯s development. ¡°And¡­ I don¡¯t know what to make of your current situation. What did you absorb to nearly solidify your blood? Your meridians are full of energy, but it¡¯s not mysterious power.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s the mental entity I spoke of before,¡± Li Hao exined after some thought. ¡°It entered my body, but I hurt it with the sword. Arge sum of energy surged into my body afterward andbined with the sword to be a unique power. I once absorbed some on a previous asion, but very little. That taste strengthened my blood, but this time I took in too much and have digestion issues.¡±

    ¡°You bet!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°I¡¯m aware of your physical constitution¡ªyou¡¯re not a weak yer. The energy you¡¯ve absorbed, however, is probably beyond Dominator! There¡¯s too much and it¡¯s thanks to the sword that you haven¡¯t exploded. It neutralized the energy, but alsonded you in these circumstances.¡±

 Chapter 92: Dual Cultivation (II)

    Chapter 92: Dual Cultivation (II)

    Li Hao attempted to further digest the energy, but found there was nothing he could do. It really had congealed!

    What do I do now?

    On the other hand, Yuan Shuo was mostly recovered from his injuries and shook his head at his student. ¡°You subconsciously absorbed energy in your sleep and took in too much! It solidified and it¡¯s too difficult for you to digest by yourself.¡±

    Li Hao frowned and looked at his teacher¡ªsurely his teacher knew of a way! Yuan Shuo was all-knowing in his eyes. Though that might be an overly high evaluation, it had proven to be true up till now. There was nothing his teacher didn¡¯t know and no question he couldn¡¯t answer.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ll see greater trouble toe,¡± Yuan Shuo continued. ¡°However, you¡¯re the only heir to the eight families of Silver City. Not only did Red Moon fail their mission, but they also lost one of their Sr powerhouses. This isn¡¯t thest we¡¯ve seen of them.

    ¡°Of course, they won¡¯t brashly make their next attempt. I¡¯m here, after all, and they¡¯re yet to fully determine my situation. With me killing their Sr, they¡¯ll send more next time. In the same vein, the Night Watchers are still a faction to contend with and I¡¯m technically their coborative professor. That means they won¡¯t try again in the short term.¡±

    Yuan Shuoid this out because he wanted his student to understand that the issue had not been resolved. It was also a type of cation because the matter wasn¡¯t that severe. Li Hao was in no imminent danger. As weak as the Night Watchers were, Red Moon wouldn¡¯t easily stir to action if the agency brought forth a tenacious defense. It would require the organization¡¯s full strength to move against the government agency¡ªRed Mooncked that kind of conviction.

    ¡°Your current problem is easy to handle.¡±

    Li Hao brightened. He knew his teacher had a way!

    ¡°There¡¯s two ways!¡± Yuan Shuo held up two fingers with a smile. ¡°The first, cut into yourself for bloodletting!¡±

    Li Hao smiled awkwardly. Erm¡­ well, of course. That was an option if they were out of ideas. But slicing into himself to let blood flow¡­ honestly, that sounded painful.

    ¡°The second, dual cultivation.¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± The young man wasn¡¯tpletely oblivious about life. He asked in a strange tone, ¡°Are we going to get a woman somewhere?¡±

    ¡°Get outta here!¡± Yuan Shuo barked. ¡°You¡¯ve gone straight to the gutter just because dual cultivation is mentioned! What are you thinking of women for at your young age? Dual cultivation is just a way of cultivation, don¡¯t think of it as more than it is! I meant dual cultivating with me¡­¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped.

    ¡°What, you don¡¯t want to?¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Is it so bad to let your teacher pick at the spoils? You absorbed too much to digest. Ordinary people can¡¯t do a thing for you, but the two of us stem from the same discipline. Your foundation is the Breathing Method of the Five Styles¡ªas is mine. At my level of strength, I can deplete a good portion of the energy from you if we dual cultivate. Of course, it¡¯ll be much more of a loss to you as I¡¯ll be taking more than half of the energy you managed to absorb!

    ¡°There¡¯s yet another way¡­¡± the professor continued leisurely. ¡°Third, wait it out! You can wear away at it bit by bit and absorb it grain by grain. With your condition, I estimate that you¡¯ll fully digest it in a year or two. You might be a peak Sunderer or even Dominator when you¡¯re finished. Ah, it¡¯s not likely you¡¯ll be a Dominator as that level focuses on the consciousness, but this energy will at least guarantee peak Sunderer!¡±

    If Li Hao was willing to wait, he should be able to fully assimte the energy after two years. Reaching peak Sunderer over such a span of time would make him the envy of countless martial masters. It was truly a short period of time.

    However, the professor mentioned this methodst because he knew thed did not enjoy the luxury of prolonged tranquility. The energy had solidified his meridians and blood. If he managed to live through that, he would have to spend the next two years in bed as an invalid.

    ¡°I can take most of the energy if we dual cultivate right now. You¡¯ll be left with only a small amount to absorb. While that will still enhance your strength to peak yer, it¡¯ll be difficult for you to reach Sunderer!¡± Yuan Shuo looked merrily at the young man. ¡°What do you think?

    ¡°Ah, I forgot to say that bloodletting will also shake the energy loose. You¡¯ll absorb a portion of it that way too¡ªperhaps more than you would dual cultivating with me. It might also propel you to Sunderer!¡±

    Of the three ways, Li Hao would gain the least from dual cultivation because Yuan Shuo was too strong! If the professor was involved, he would im most of the power.

    Li Hao thought about it briefly. ¡°Teacher, can I choose a fourth way?¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    What fourth way?

    A baffled Yuan Shuo looked at his student. Do you have more tricks up your sleeve than me, kid?

    ¡°I remember you once mentioned a senior sister in White Moon City,¡± Li Hao said sheepishly. ¡°Does she know the Breathing Method of the Five Styles too? How about¡­¡±

    ¡°Piss off!¡± Yuan Shuo was speechless. You¡¯re still thinking about that?? Besides, how would we get to your senior sister at this stage? Do you know how many pairs of eyes are on us? We need to keep a low profile to rest and recover. What¡¯s this talk of your senior sister¡­

    He stroked a nonexistent beard. ¡°Don¡¯t even think about your senior sister! She¡¯s also in her thirties, which makes her an old hagpared to you. You should be pickier in your hunger!¡±

    Li Hao had absolutely no words to say. ¡°Dual cultivation¡­¡± heughed. ¡°Can we drop this term? I really can¡¯t stand it. If you change the name, teacher, I¡¯ll pick this one!¡±

    ¡°Are you decided?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± chuckled the young man. ¡°Teacher being strong is the basis for my survival! If not for teacherst night, I¡¯d already be a lump of charcoal!¡±

    He hadn¡¯t needed to consider anything, it was just the name of dual cultivation that made this option unptable. Of course he would share the energy with his teacher. This benefitted both of them and made for a win-win situation.

    What good would it do if he reached peak Sunderer? The enemy blew everything up with their first move! They sent a Sr to pick him off¡ªthat was two levels higher than Sunderer. What hope was there for Li Hao without his teacher¡¯s protection?

    ¡°I knew you weren¡¯t stupid!¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°I gave you three ways, but there¡¯s only one. You have to dual cultivate even if you don¡¯t want to because I¡¯m starving! My internal force is grinding to a halt and I would¡¯ve sucked you dry in your sleep if you weren¡¯t my student!¡±

    Li Haoughed wryly. ¡°Teacher, we¡¯re on the side of justice. Why do you sound like we¡¯re the viins instead?¡±

    ¡°Drop that justice bullshit!¡± Yuan Shuo sniffed dismissively. ¡°When martial masters swept thend twenty years ago, we ruled the four corners with iron fists and killed untold numbers! Everyone called me Old Demon Yuan! Those whocked manners called me Monkey Yuan¡ªthat was appropriate since I focus on the Five Styles and am very fast!¡±

    In any case, none of his monikers had sounded good. Something like the Three Spears of Silver Moon had nothing to do with him. He was the old demon. It was only after the rise of the supernatural that he reined himself in.

    ¡°Cut the crap and start dual cultivating. You¡¯ve been out for a day. Everything¡¯s fine at Silver City¡ªthe Night Watchers have found their footing and Red Moon won¡¯t dare send anyone for now. We need to get back as soon as possible!¡±

    ¡°Do we have to right now?¡± Li Hao wasn¡¯t really in a hurry¡­

    Yuan Shuo cut him off with exasperation. ¡°Are you a fool?! How many did we kill yesterday? One Sr, one Sunre, ten supernaturals, and some martial masters. How much treasure is there and how much mysterious power? We need to hurry up and collect the loot before heavyweights arrive from the Night Watcher side.

    ¡°Once their Srse, do you think I¡¯ll be able to go against them for the sake of some war booty? They also sent a Sunrest night and need to keep taking the fall for us in the future. Do you think offending our protectors is something we should easily do?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao shook his head.

    ¡°There you have it!¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°There¡¯s only Huang Yun here right now and he¡¯s afraid of me. He won¡¯t dare contest my im, so all of it is mine once I go back. Otherwise¡­ the Night Watchers will definitely want a cut if they have a Sr on the scene. We¡¯re not going to leave even shavings for them! If the two of us have no use for something, your captain and Big Boobies might, no?¡±

    Are you¡­ talking about Liu Yan?? Li Hao found himself speechless once more. His teacher had effort to spare for that? How¡­ unbefitting behavior! Howe he¡¯d never seen this side of his teacher before? Had it all been an act?

    Well, that was very possible!

    His teacher couldn¡¯t beat his enemies in the past, so had no other choice but to enjoy old age with a low profile. Now that he¡¯d grown stronger and killed a Sr, his inner strut came back out!

    ¡°Hurry up, stop dragging your feet!¡± Yuan Shuo tossed the jade sword back to his student. ¡°There¡¯s so much less energy in itpared to before¡ªit looks to be a finite resource. What a pity¡­ I wonder if it can recover? It¡¯s so useful that it¡¯ll be a huge loss if this is it!¡±

    He felt quite regretful as the difference in energy levels had been stark when he pulled from it. Current levels of power were very feeble and wouldst a bit longer for Li Hao, but a Dominator like him would swiftly empty it, so Yuan Shuo halted his draw.

    ¡°Teacher, I unsealed my sword earlier¡­¡±

    ¡°Nope!¡± Yuan Shuo interrupted. ¡°You just temporarily ripped a small hole in the seal. That little bit of heart blood isn¡¯t enough for anything! Your sword is much more than you can imagine, so let¡¯s take it one step at a time. The effects aren¡¯t noticeable because you¡¯ve only unsealed a tiny bit. We can study itter!¡±

    He grabbed Li Hao and ced his palms and feet against his student, then decided to take the young man¡¯s shoes off after some thought.

    Li Hao jumped when he saw that his teacher wanted to take his own clothes off. ¡°Teacher, we just need to turn our five senses to the heavens and bare our hands and feet. What are you taking your clothes off for?¡±

    ¡°My clothes are wet, they¡¯re ufortable!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± the young man grew frantic. ¡°Teacher, we should observe the rules of propriety!¡±

    ¡°You little bastard!¡± Yuan Shuo cussed. Do you think I like looking at you? Hah!

    He couldn¡¯t be bothered with further words and yanked Li Hao¡¯s shoes off. cing their hands and feet together, he rattled off, ¡°We need to coordinate our usage of the breathing method. Follow my lead as I call upon my power and crash my internal force against you! Don¡¯t resist, but it¡¯s not like you¡¯ll be able to do anything. No one wille to save you!¡±

    Li Hao said nothing¡ªyou sound more and more evil, teacher! I¡¯ll just do as I¡¯m told and not listen to anything more.

    Teacher and disciple fell silent.

 Chapter 93: Dual Cultivation (III)

    Chapter 93: Dual Cultivation (III)

    The two operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles at the same time. A strong surge of internal force shook Li Hao¡¯s meridians and blood vessels after being conducted into his body. Force rammed into the solidified passages, but the impact was thankfully less than violent since both parties shared the same martial method.

    The congealed energy did indeed loosen after being pounded by a Dominator¡¯s internal force. Ripples of power seeped from the young man; both Yuan Shuo and Li Hao began absorbing the energy in its milder form. Even the crouched Panther secretly deployed the breathing method and took in what it could.

    ¡°This dog of yours has a lot of thoughts rattling around its brain.¡± Yuan Shuo flicked a nce at the little ck dog. ¡°If you don¡¯t feelfortable with it, you might as well make some dog stew! But forget it if you think it¡¯s fine.¡±

    Li Hao also looked at Panther¡ªit stared fearfully back at the duo. ¡°Don¡¯t worry.¡± The young man smiled. ¡°Panth won¡¯t hurt me even if it develops into more than a dog. It¡¯ll gue others instead!¡±

    Yuan Shuo chuckled and said no more, turning his mind back to stripping power from his student. He was ravenously hungry! Li Hao¡¯s little sword wasn¡¯t enough and whatever energy this was, it suited his purposes better.

    ¡°Damn, this is good!¡± he couldn¡¯t help but exim after absorbing some energy. ¡°It¡¯s different from mysterious power and it¡¯s more suited for martial masters! There¡¯s an undercurrent of blood qi to it¡­ What was the thing you killed?¡±

    ¡°A scarlet shadow!¡±

    ¡°A scarlet shadow?¡± Yuan Shuo sank into deep thought. ¡°Never heard of it before¡ªit might be something from Red Moon. There¡¯s something strange about it! This energy may not be useful to supernaturals, but it¡¯s highly nutritious for martial masters! Interesting¡­ they have a lot of these, don¡¯t they?¡±

    Red Moon!

    Yuan Shuo suddenly grinned, an expression echoed by Li Hao when he looked at his teacher. Their grins broadened as they looked at each other.

    A knowing look stole into the young man¡¯s eyes when Yuan Shuo raised an eyebrow. ¡°Teacher¡­ I can see them¡­ Ordinary people can¡¯t, so we have a chance¡­¡±

    ¡°Ahem!¡± coughed a cheery Yuan Shuo. ¡°We eliminate evil and safeguard dao! We¡¯re not in the business of pursuing scarlet or white shadows, so don¡¯t run your mouth! And remember, don¡¯t imitate Liu Long if you truly mean to uphold justice. We need good ns and preparations, and it¡¯s best if we can kill two birds with one stone!

    ¡°The Night Watchers may not be as strong as the three supernatural organizations, but their advantage is that they are legitimate and official! They¡¯re not short on the good stuff¡ªI know of a lot of treasures myself. The three organizations have always stirred against them, but so has the agency gotten their blows in. It¡¯s a shame I didn¡¯t have time to ept some of their missions beforehand. The rewards for killing a Sr would be immense!¡±

    Li Hao understood! Join the Night Watchers, take on their missions, and reap even more rewards for the same action!

    ¡°Teacher, the Night Watchers wouldn¡¯t recruit us, would they?¡± They seemed to only take supernaturals.

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand, but we can talk about thister. Anyhow, we¡¯re on their list now. Didn¡¯t you give the sword to Liu Long? It might be in Huang Yun¡¯s hands as we speak¡ªthat¡¯s a token of loyalty! Would they be so thick-skinned as to take the sword if they aren¡¯t going to ept you?¡±

    Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°There¡¯s plenty of ways! Regardless, the golden rule when roaming through the world is to first find a patron. Or at the very least, a scapegoat! As strong as I am, I am not a strong enough backer. The Night Watchers may not be the strongest in the supernatural domain, but they won¡¯tck for Srs. Also keep in mind that we¡¯re in Silver Moon! Most of their strength is concentrated in the central region!

    ¡°Both you and I have to make our way into their ranks. We¡¯ll hang with them until they can¡¯t protect us!¡±

    Li Hao listened intently¡ªthese were the ultimate truths of a veteran martial master, still alive after years of traveling through the jianghu!

    Teacher and disciple absorbed energy. Li Hao could sense improvements in his constitution as he digested the energy. His blood grew stronger, as did his bones and muscles.

    ¡°You should be approaching Sunderer or reach it after you digest your share!¡± Yuan Shuo decided to turn this into a teaching moment. ¡°But remember, physique is physique, speed is speed, and strength is strength. There¡¯s also experience, techniques, and reaction time. These are the fundamentals for a martial master¡¯s survival! Don¡¯t be one of those whippersnappers in the Night Watchers. All they have is power without requisite character!

    ¡°You must work hard on practicing the Five Styles! It¡¯llst you until Dominator! It¡¯s very well bnced¡ªperhaps a little too mild. But you also have the Nine Forged Force. With this, you won¡¯tck for methods or energy. All youck is proficiency!

    ¡°So you must practice often after we return to Silver City. Spar with Liu Long whenever you have nothing to do. He won¡¯t have it in him to give you a real beating.¡±

    ¡°Teacher¡­¡± Li Hao interrupted. ¡°I can practice with you¡­¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡± Yuan Shuo interrupted even more forcefully. ¡°Do I have the time to spare for a greenhorn like you? Plus, I know what the rest of your day looks like after you fart in the morning! What¡¯s the point of sparring with me? Don¡¯t you know how to utilize freebor? Why are you looking at me instead? Have you considered that I¡¯m an old man over seventy years old?!¡±

    What a joke! He was so busy, how could he be Li Hao¡¯s training partner? Liu Long didn¡¯t have much on his te, so of course he¡¯d be the one!

    Li Hao was utterly speechless! Why did it seem like his teacher¡¯s patience dwindled after he broke through? He would¡¯ve agreed to be the young man¡¯s training partner before!

    The two fell silent. Li Hao concentrated on the breathing method and observing his surroundings. Where were they? He didn¡¯t ask since his teacher was with him, but¡­ why did this seem like the sewers? Which part of the pipes were they in?

    ¡­¡­

    After roughly an hour of dual cultivation, Li Hao felt that half of the energy within his body had dissolved. His blood was no longer coagted and began flowing vigorously through his veins again. It felt like¡­ he could kill Liu Long with one punch!

    Of course, the young man knew this to be a delusion.

    ¡°Nice!¡± Yuan Shuo breathed out with satisfaction and ease. ¡°This energy is very nice! It contains some power on the mental level¡ªit¡¯s definitely prime sustenance for martial masters! My injuries are almost fully healed. If a Sr shows their face now, I¡¯ll cut them down all the same!¡±

    The caveat was that he called upon the Incantation of the de of Blood again and deployed it through the stone de. A potential factor of concern was ack of energy in the stone de; Yuan Shuo wouldn¡¯t be able to recover from a usage of the incantation without outside help.

    The little sword was almost empty and the energy that Li Hao had absorbed was almost gone. What remained was for thed himself. Thus, chances were small for Yuan Shuo to kill another Sr!

    Of course, Srs might not dare cross his path right now.

    Li Hao stood up and swiftly ran through the New Book of Five Styles. Much more strength powered his moves, to the point where it took some getting used to.

    ¡°Remember, a martial master¡¯s strengthes from their own efforts.¡± Yuan Shuo gave pointers as he watched on the sideline. ¡°Everythinges from the body! Therefore, limation never takes too long. We¡¯re not like supernatural trash¡ªtheir power is exceptionally hard to control because almost all of ites from external sources! Trouble with control is nonexistent for us. It¡¯s your first time experiencing this level of strength and you¡¯re a novice¡­ You¡¯ll adapt after two more days and sleeping on it!

    ¡°Don¡¯t listen to other people bullshit about one¡¯s level not catching up to strength. You reach the relevant level when you have sufficient strength! Of course, you also need to familiarize yourself with the consciousness and how to utilize your aura at the Dominator level¡ªthat¡¯s the real test! For Sunderer, all you need is adequate strength!¡±

    Li Hao listened earnestly. His teacher voiced the truest wisdom!

    Yuan Shuo stood up and kicked the little ck dog that was busy ying dead. ¡°Go out and scout for any potential danger. After that, head back to Silver City¡ªsee if there¡¯s any powerful supernaturals present. Return with due haste if there¡¯s none or we¡¯ll make you into dog stew!¡±

    Panther tucked its tail between its legs and pelted out of their hiding ce. This old man was a bit scary! Life was morefortable by Li Hao¡¯s side. By this one¡­ the old man stared at the dog and drooled when Li Hao was asleep, like it wanted to taste dog meat! So scary!

    ¡°That dog is more than it seems!¡± Yuan Shuo said thoughtfully after Panther left. ¡°It can see the mental entity when even I can¡¯t! That means it¡¯s also a bit special! It might not be happenstance that it¡¯s with you. There could be a connection to the bloodlines of the eight families! Is its ancestor connected to their ancestors?¡±

    That was possible; he was just briefly analyzing the situation. It didn¡¯t matter if there was a connection or not.

    ¡°Remember, kid, you can have a pet dog, but it cannot be the master! Keeping a dog spirit may be helpful, but you¡¯re an idiot if you let it ce itself over you!¡± Yuan Shuo repeatedly drew upon his life experiences to guide Li Hao. The young man drank in every word. He worshiped his teacher, so he took every sentence to heart.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go back!¡± Yuan Shuo headed out. Li Hao looked around when they emerged from the dark passageway and discovered that they didn¡¯t seem to be in Silver City!

    ¡°This is Fog City, we were taking shelter here. We¡¯ll be in time for dinner if we go back now!¡± Yuan Shuo walked down the streets of Fog City with Li Hao by his side. His demeanor was quite natural, not jarring in the slightest.

    ¡°Remember, don¡¯t say anything after we return. Give the sword to the Night Watchers, but don¡¯t give it up too easily. Say that it¡¯s in my care¡ªthey won¡¯t dare to seize it from you then!¡±

    Li Hao nodded docilely.

    ¡°And leave Silver City as soon as possible if you can!¡±

    Li Hao nodded again, then thought for a bit. ¡°I saw an eight trigram over Silver Cityst night, it should have something to do with the eight bloodlines. Seven out of eight lines lead to the distance, only mine is in Silver City!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, it¡¯s either undone seals or something else. Perhaps the ancestors of the eight familiesid their own ns! The supernaturals won¡¯t easily move against you once you leave Silver City. City territory and blue rain might be required to activate your bloodline for that thread!¡± Yuan Shuo was so quick on the uptake that he easily came to some initial conjectures. ¡°Therefore, you better leave Silver City. White Moon City is the safest in Silver Moon. The three great organizations won¡¯t dare act so brazenly there.¡±

    ¡°The three great organizations?¡± Li Hao repeated nkly.

    ¡°Red Moon, Celestial, and Yama! The three great organizations appeared very early in our society¡ªmore than twenty years ago. Perhaps there were Heaven Favored then who established the three organizations. They predate the Night Watchers,¡± Yuan Shuo murmured. ¡°They might¡¯ve known that the supernatural was about to awaken and recruited a batch of Heaven Favored ahead of time. Since the Night Watchers hadn¡¯t been founded, they naturally couldn¡¯t respond. Once the agency came to be, a portion of the Heaven Favored were already spoken for.

    ¡°But, don¡¯t think lightly of the Night Watchers. While they may not have been around for long, they can still hold back the supernatural organizations. They¡¯re still very strong¡ªafter all, they are backed by the government!¡±

    Li Hao nodded once more. Teacher and disciple walked out of Fog City and set course for Silver City. They were back for their loot!

    Yuan Shuo was only in a moderate hurry. The Night Watchers wouldn¡¯t arrive so quickly if they were toe. Srs were in high demand and it would take some time to temporarily requisition one.

 Chapter 94: The Spoils of War (I)

    Chapter 94: The Spoils of War (I)

    Silver City.

    July 19.

    The downpour continued; another rainy day. It wasn¡¯t as heavy asst night, however. Today, a fine drizzle added a refreshing trace to the summer heat. Everything that¡¯d happenedst night seemed to be a distant memory.

    Of course, the citizenry didn¡¯t actually forget aboutst night. The zing sun that¡¯d risen in the northern sky and its subsequent plunge and extinguishment were unforgettable.

    No one knew what had happened.

    They only knew that the city¡¯s government still existed and that the Inspectorate conducted their usual rounds on this day. That was enough. The government was always dependable and trustworthy, particrly in troubled times. They had no one else to turn to other than the official authorities.

    The big church in the city had already been razed. The area was off limits and a new forbidden zone. Not only that, but any ce that a supernatural had died was taboo. Inspectors cordoned them off, forbidding entrance and egress.

    The warehouse in the northern outskirts was most important of all! A premier existence beyond Sunreid there, dead by Yuan Shuo¡¯s hands. Crisscrossed with ten thousand cuts, he was dead beyond a doubt.

    ¡­¡­

    Near the warehouse.

    The structure was torn asunder afterst night¡¯s battle, revealing massive amounts of explosives buried underneath. There were also a few cannons hidden in the distance¡ªmore of Liu Long¡¯s arrangements.

    It was a pity that none of them had been brought into y. Of course, that was also a good thing as the situation might look different today if all contingencies were activatedst night.

    The surroundings teemed with people at where Divine Brokensky had fallen. Huang Yun, Wang Ming, Hu Hao, Li Meng¡­

    Night Watcher powerhouses were all gathered together. Chubby Mu Sen was here as well; an injured Liu Long stood in the rain, his trench coat pping around him as he waited for something.

    A figure manifested in the air when the rain suddenly paused. A short-haired man appeared with a tired expression. He didn¡¯t even have time to rest after traveling a long distance.

    Huang Yun was the first to discover his presence and walked up with joy. ¡°Director Hao¡¯se in person!¡± He hadn¡¯t thought that this personage woulde so swiftly! It was a fast trip even if the director hade from White Moon City. It looked like Silver City¡¯s events were making the province¡¯s Night Watchers stir with restlessness.

    The short-haired mannded on the ground. Roughly forty years old and a moderate height of one hundred and seventy centimeters, he inclined a tired head at Huang Yun and smiled at Mu Sen. ¡°Inspector General Mu!¡±

    Mu Sen ranked highly as he was a chiefmissioner, the true boss of Silver City¡¯sw enforcement agency. He was one rank higher than Huang Yun.

    Huang Yun¡¯s official title was that of amissioner inspector¡ªthe same as Liu Long¡¯s. Night Watcher ranks were higher than their peers of the Inspectorate, so Huang Yun could be regarded as the same rank as Mu Sen.

    ¡°Director Hao is here quick, is everything in order at White Moon City?¡± Mu Sen nodded slightly.

    ¡°Everything is fine!¡± The director smiled faintly. ¡°White Moon is impregnable, no one dares rashly cause trouble¡­¡±

    He was simply responding with an empty pleasantry, but Mu Sen replied in a sarcastic tone, ¡°Is that so? If White Moon is a mighty fortress, why did a Sunre visit usst night? Have the little cities be less worthy than the big ones?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± It took a few moments for the director to react. I just wanted to say that we haven¡¯t had an easy time of things either. Why do the Night Watchers sound so heinous when the same wordse from you?

    ¡°Inspector General Mu has misunderstood¡­¡±

    Mu Sen didn¡¯t care. ¡°We¡¯re used to it! A little city like us only has a few million residents, it doesn¡¯t matter if we all die! But a ce like White Moon City? You have thirty million! It¡¯s a super city that would see too many deaths if anything happened! See, Silver City doesn¡¯t even have a Night Watcher branch. Such is cold, harsh reality!¡±

    Liu Long stood off to the side with his head lowered. His ears twitched and he murmured, ¡°Silver City is so small that we barely have any supernaturals. Any that appear go to White Moon City, so we¡¯re unable to create a branch!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true!¡± Mu Sen chuckled. ¡°Thest inspector general was a strong talent! I heard that he made the crossover as a Sunderer and became a Sunre. What a pity that he couldn¡¯t make it back to us! The world is so vast and the outside so alluring. There¡¯s nothing that can be done if he wishes to see it!¡±

    Director Hao didn¡¯t know what to say, so Huang Yun coughed quietly instead.

    ¡°Inspector General Mu, the situation is more dire than you think. There aren¡¯t enough Night Watchers to go around and trouble constantly roils in the center region. We¡¯ve redeployed some of our elites there, so we¡¯re truly unable to fully take care of each of the thirty-two cities in Silver Moon.

    ¡°I gave up defending East Lake City toe here in secret. Thankfully nothing happened there, or I would be a sinner for the ages!¡±

    Feel the emotion and guilt! See, didn¡¯t Ie even though I had a critical mission?

    It was understandable that Silver City would have numerousints to lodge about White Moon City. Mu Sen spoke the truth, they didn¡¯t even have a Night Watcher branch. The agency¡¯s multiple offices in the province could be found in the major cities, such as White Moon. Branches were staffed by Starlight, Darkmoon, and even a Sunre in some major cities.

    Mu Sen snorted withughter.

    ¡°The Demon Hunters of Silver City are stronger than some of our branches!¡± chuckled Director Hao. ¡°One Liu Long measures up against several Darkmoon, and Inspector Mu Sen is also exceedingly powerful. As small as Silver City is, its defensive capabilities are high. We just didn¡¯t anticipate that the other side would send so many experts!

    ¡°One Sr, one Sunre, ten Darkmoon, one Sunderer, and nine yers¡­ To be frank, other than White Moon City and re City, not a single one of the other thirty-two in the province could have stood up to this force!¡±

    It was tant ttery of Mu Sen and his men, but it wasn¡¯t what the inspector general wanted.

    ¡°So this means that Director Hao also acknowledges Silver City¡¯s strength?¡± He grinned.

    The director halted awkwardly in his tracks.

    ¡°In that case, I rmend promoting the Demon Hunters as the Night Watcher branch of Silver City!¡± Mu Sen pressed on relentlessly. ¡°Liu Long will be the chiefmissioner of the branch!¡±

    ¡°Um¡­¡±

    ¡°Liu Long aplished a deed of great valor and must be rewarded!¡± Mu Sen refused to give the director time to say anything. ¡°While he isn¡¯t supernatural, is that the only trait that matters to the Night Watchers? Do they not look at practicalbat strength and achievements? If that is the case, then the agency is far too short-sighted!¡±

    The inspector general chuckled. ¡°If a promotion is in order, then this new branch needs to be equipped with at least ten Night Watchers! Either Starlight or Darkmoon are fine! I believe one hundred cubes of mysterious power a month is the basic standard for resources. However, Silver City teeters on the precipice, so I think the usual allotment does not work. We¡¯ll need at least one thousand cubes a month!¡±

    Director Hao¡¯s jaw dropped, as did Huang Yun¡¯s eyes bulge. Wang Ming and the others gaped with iprehension. What was this?

    ¡°Other than that, we can go with whatever¡¯s typically given to the other cities! Additionally, we killed a Sr and a Sunre during this operation, so the Night Watchers need to dole out supplies and issuemendations ording to individual contribution.

    ¡°Ah, Silver City suffered enormous losses, so it¡¯s best if you send some aid, particrly ice crystals! We needrge sums of them. It¡¯d be best if we can encase the entire city with ice crystals!

    ¡°And supernatural weapons too, we need some of those!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    Silence!

    The scene was dead silent from beginning to end. Director Hao stared at the inspector general for a very long time. ¡°I¡¯m only a deputy. I will ry your words to headquarters. I do not have the authority to make the decision in this!¡±

    Stall for time first!

    Fatty Mu Sen has gone crazy, hasn¡¯t he?? Saying this as soon as he sees me¡­ Does he think I¡¯m immune to whatever message I deliver?!

    ¡°Then I take it that Director Hao has agreed!¡± Mu Sen responded blithely. ¡°The Night Watchers have one principal and five deputies in Silver Moon. Since the director agrees, I¡¯m sure the others won¡¯t have any objections.¡±

    Oh fuck you! The director almost spat out loud. When did I agree to anything? Those upstairs want to withdraw from Silver City and migrate the people elsewhere. If we establish a Night Watcher branch here, that means we will defend it to thest. He really didn¡¯t dare promise anything.

    It suddenly felt that he¡¯de at the worst possible time. He was sitting on pins and needles!

    Damned fatty! The ursed fatty was¡­ sublime when it came to inserting himself into every possible opportunity!

    ¡°I do not mean to put you in a difficult spot, director,¡± Mu Sen wasn¡¯t done. ¡°But we can¡¯t afford to not establish a Silver City branch! Yuan Shuo has ascended to Dominator of Thousands and is a peak Dominator. He can also be regarded as a Sr after killing one of them. How can the home of a Srck a Night Watcher branch? That would dishearten him to no end!

    ¡°Silver City no longer seems as simple as before, what with the eight families and all. Just that alone is worthy of Night Watcher attention! In my view, not only does a branch need to be formed, but so is a Sr needed in residence! A dozen Sunres wouldn¡¯t be out of hand either¡­¡±

    This was getting too ridiculous! But the fatty¡¯s words did need to be taken into consideration. Director Hao contemted for a moment before inclining his head. ¡°I will pass this along, but I reiterate, I cannot make the decision!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Mu Sen ceased to put the director in a difficult spot. The man was a deputy, after all, so it was unrealistic to expect a snap decision. What was important was that everyone was on the same page.

 Chapter 95: The Spoils of War (II)

    Chapter 95: The Spoils of War (II)

    The inspector general turned to Liu Long. ¡°Captain Liu¡­ no, Chief Commissioner Liu, be sure to thank Director Hao! You can share the good news with your peers in White Moon City that the director came all this way to promote you. Let those of White Moon know that the Night Watchers clearly mete out punishment and reward!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough, Inspector General Mu.¡± Director Hao finally couldn¡¯t stand it any longer. ¡°I¡¯ll put in a good word, but like I said, I¡¯m just a deputy!¡±

    With that, he ignored the fatty. That damned fatty was going to be the death of him! The director strode off to where numerous bloody chunks littered the ground. The remains were yet to be cleaned up.

    ¡°This is the corpse of the Sr¡ªhis power can be found within,¡± Huang Yun rapidly exined as he followed the director. ¡°I was worried that rashly tidying it up would disperse the power. Director Hao hase at the perfect time! You are also a Sr, so you can safely collect the energy!¡±

    Mysterious power among supernaturals was categorized by strong and weak. It wasn¡¯t undoable for a Sunre to gather a Sr¡¯s power, but seepage and dissipation could easily ur. That would be amentable waste!

    In that case, it was better to leave the body where it was! Who knew how Yuan Shuo had taken down his opponent? It seemed that all of the energy remained inside the chunks in a sealed state.

    Director Hao bent down to pick up a piece. Blood-red de energy wafted out of it, mming into the palm of his hand. A roar of thunderter saw a faint mark on the director¡¯s palm. He regarded it solemnly.

    ¡°Such keen and dense de energy!¡± Remnants were sufficient to injure him! Yuan Shuo¡¯s strike against his opponent was stronger than they imagined!

    Was this a Dominator of Thousands?

    Director Hao had met Dominators before, but not in the Silver Moon province. He¡¯d exchanged blows with them; it was absolutely ludicrous to entertain that a Dominator could reach beyond his level to kill a Sr. When supernaturals reached this level, theycked neither battle experience nor tempering through life and death. They fell short only when it came to length of cultivation; supernaturals matched veteran martial masters in every possible way.

    But¡­ Divine Brokensky had died to a lower level Yuan Shuo!

    Mu Sen and the others shook with shock. The remnants of the professor¡¯s de qi managed to hurt Director Hao¡ªincredible!

    ¡°His weapon is remarkable!¡± the director pronounced. ¡°And not just his weapon, but his secret art too! The consciousness isbined with blood qi, the mind with the body. All are merged into one¡­ As expected of a premier martial master who once swept thends!¡±

    The old man was stronger than other martial masters because he knew more secret arts!

    The look in Director Hao¡¯s eyes deepened. Would he have any advantage if he fought Yuan Shuo? He was a Sr close to Divine Brokensky¡¯s level. If the professor could kill Brokensky, then he could very well kill the director too if optimal circumstances arose.

    When it came to battle between powerhouses, it boiled down to favorable timing, geographic convenience, and good rtions. Anyone could find themselves on the losing side.

    ¡°Red Moon will be rocked by Brokensky¡¯s death!¡± the director added.

    ¡°Will they attack again?¡± Huang Yun asked worriedly.

    ¡°Hah, no need to worry about that!¡± Director Hao snorted. ¡°Losing a Sr will make their hearts ache for a very long time! Red Moon¡¯s main force is in the central region instead of Silver Moon. They can¡¯t send that many people to this province. And if they did, they¡¯d be worried about losing a second or third Sr!

    ¡°Of course, we still need to exercise prudence. The Night Watchers defend too many targets that are too monumental. We¡¯re up against a loose organization that can easily stay out of sight. Caution is still in order!¡±

    Mu Sen wasn¡¯t interested in any of this¡ªhe knew it all. Thus, he cut straight to the chase. ¡°How many cubes of mysterious power can we extract?¡±

    That was the key! Who cared about the other stuff!

    Director Hao studied the corpses strewn around the area. ¡°Quite a bit of it has dissipated,¡± he identified after a bout of muttering. ¡°We should be able to extract roughly one thousand cubes.¡±

    One thousand cubes made for a structure ten meters long in all directions. It inly exceeded the volume of a human being!

    However, that wasn¡¯t how mysterious power was measured. It needed to fully expand in an ice crystal container and assessed only after it ceased spreading.

    Mu Sen frowned at the estimation. ¡°That¡¯s it? A Darkmoon usually yields twenty to forty cubes! Taking the average yields thirty. One Sr is worth only thirty Darkmoons?¡±

    That was too little!

    ¡°That¡¯s not how to look at it.¡± The director shook his head. ¡°Not to mention, this one consumed a great deal of his power and his remains have been here for a night. One thousand cubes is already a decent harvest! And that¡¯s possible only because not too much energy has dispersed.¡±

    Huang Yun nodded and quickly added, ¡°The Sunre is the son of Ying Hongyue, a thunder supernatural! He also expended a lot of power, so it¡¯ll be a lot if we get even two hundred cubes.¡±

    The ten Darkmoons would amount to no more than three hundred cubes altogether.

    Off to the side, Liu Long made quick calctions. Last night would yield fifteen hundred cubes! What an astronomical number! The Demon Hunters reaped only one hundred and twenty cubes from five supernaturals over five years! They were harvesting more than ten times that today, a feat that would take the team thirty years to reach. Granted, the disparity was due to the presence of a Sr.

    However, Mu Sen still found the number to be unimpressive because the risk they¡¯d taken wasn¡¯t just ten times that of normal, but a hundred or thousand! Everyone would be dead if not for Yuan Shuo!

    ¡°There¡¯s also a supernatural item,¡± Huang Yun continued. ¡°The thunder supernatural carried a weapon!¡±

    Sadly, the Sr had been empty-handed.

    ¡°Mm, not bad!¡± Director Hao nodded. ¡°Where¡¯s Yuan Shuo?¡±

    ¡°He disappearedst night with his student¡ªthe heir of the Lis!¡±

    ¡°I understand.¡± The director¡¯s eyes darted around while he nodded.

    A dog happened to enter the group¡¯s line of sight, followed shortly by a strolling Yuan Shuo and Li Hao. When Yuan Shuo saw the neer from a distance, he whispered to his student, ¡°Do you see the shorty in the front?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s Hao Lianchuan, stationed at the Night Watcher provincial headquarters of Silver Moon! They have one principal and five deputies in Silver Moon¡ªthey¡¯re all directors of the organization! This guy¡¯s ranked in the top three, a force to be reckoned with other than the principal.

    ¡°It¡¯s said that there are possibly two Srs from the Night Watchers in Silver Moon. One of them is the principal, the other is potentially him. I wasn¡¯t certain before, but I can be sure after today that that guy is a Sr!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, he could see it too. That ball of light could be seen from miles away!

    ¡°Teacher, are there only two Srs from the Night Watchers in our province?¡±

    ¡°Pretty much,¡± Yuan Shuo lowered his voice. ¡°Don¡¯t be thinking that there¡¯s a lot of Srs out there. If there were, it would¡¯ve been more than Brokensky yesterday! I told you before that I¡¯d only have five opponents if I became a Dominator. There are about that number of Srs in the open in the province!¡±

    The young man understood and whispered back, ¡°So are you in the top five now, teacher?¡±

    Although his teacher hadn¡¯t entered a higher level, would the other Srs dare think lightly of him after he killed one of them?

    ¡°Let¡¯s not go that far¡­ top five?¡± Yuan Shuo smiled modestly and chuckled after a pause. ¡°Would even number one dare raise his voice at me? I¡¯m someone who¡¯s killed a Sr, how about them? I might be the first one in the province to ever kill a Sr, do youprehend?¡±

    Cultivation levels were cultivation levels, battle strength was battle strength. As strong as the other Srs were, that didn¡¯t mean they could kill those of their level. No matter how Yuan Shuo managed the deed, he¡¯d killed one!

    Just that alone ensured that the other Srs wouldn¡¯t think of sparring with him.

    ¡°I paid quite a price to kill that Sr,¡± Yuan Shuo said in a normal voice as they drew near the others throughout the course of conversation. ¡°I wonder if the conquests of battle are sufficient topensate me!¡±

    Conquests of battle!

    A strange gaze entered Hao Lianchuan¡¯s eyes. Huang Yun looked on with resignation and whispered to his superior, ¡°When he leftst night, he said all of the loot was his¡­¡±

    How¡­. did they handle this?

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t say a word. Yuan Shuo was an old acquaintance!

    ¡°Professor Yuan!¡± he greeted while the old man made his way to them. ¡°Congrattions to Professor Yuan for ascending to Dominator of Thousands, ying a Sr, and bing the greatest among Silver Moon martial masters! You are truly a walking god!¡±

    ¡°You tter me!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled and raised cupped fists. ¡°It was all luck! The guy wasn¡¯t good with his brains and didn¡¯t know how to strike back despite being hacked to pieces. You guys know how supernaturals are¡ªthey¡¯re all short on battle experience. I couldn¡¯t help but hack him to death with just a few blows. If I¡¯d known Srs were this easy to kill, I should¡¯ve tried my hand before breaking through. Maybe I could have made the crossover after killing one!¡±

    How awkward!

    Huang Yun didn¡¯t know if Hao Lianchuan felt awkward¨Che was very awkward at any rate. It didn¡¯t seem possible to debate this topic with a Dominator who¡¯d killed a Sr.

    ¡°That is certainly true.¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t seem to mind in the least. ¡°Professor Yuan has practiced martial dao for decades and ruled thend twenty years ago. We juniors are naturally less than the professor when ites to experience.¡±

    You¡¯re right, but you¡¯re very old, so what¡¯s the point of saying all this? This one hadn¡¯t been this cocky before breaking through. Now that he had¡­ he dared jeer at even Srs!

    Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t in the mood to continue and turned to Li Hao with a chuckle. ¡°Go on, have Mister Huang collect the mysterious power for you and gather whatever you should. We lost quite a bitst night and need to find some things to make us whole again!¡± He looked at Liu Long. ¡°Where¡¯s my disciple¡¯s sword?¡±

    Liu Long took out a small sword without a word, drawing a sharp nce from Hao Lianchuan. Was that the sword of the Lis? He didn¡¯t know it was with Liu Long or he would¡¯ve taken a look! What a pity he couldn¡¯t say anything since Yuan Shuo was here.

    ¡°Chief, where are the others?¡± Li Hao murmured when he walked up to take the sword. There was no sign of Liu Yan and the rest of the team.

 Chapter 96: Spoils of War (III)

    Chapter 96: Spoils of War (III)

    ¡°Recovering! Wu Chao is heavily injured and the others are wounded as well. Yun Yao is looking after them.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, then looked at the old man that his teacher called Mister Huang. His intention was very clear¡ªplease collect the mysterious power for me. Normal people can¡¯t gather this stuff.

    Huang Yun looked awkwardly at his superior; Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t say anything. A living Sr was precious, while a dead one was¡­ forgettable! Other than Liu Long, no one relied on obtaining mysterious power through killing supernaturals.

    One Sr might yield one thousand cubes, but a singr Sunderer alone might require that many to make the crossover. Slightly less than that could be sufficient, but it was never worth it to kill a Sr for their power!

    Li Hao thought this was the only way because he was inexperienced in the ways of the world. If this truly was the case, then chaos would¡¯ve long engulfed the supernatural domain!

    Mysterious power was both important, but negligible. Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t care about it. Instead, he looked at the young man, at the sword in thetter¡¯s hand, then the young man again. The heir of the Lis!

    The final heir to the eight families of Silver City! What secrets did the eight families hide that Red Moon would pay such an enormous price to kill them?

    ¡°Is this Li Hao, Professor Yuan? As expected of a vaunted disciple of the professor!¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°I hear that you¡¯ve joined the Inspectorate, so that makes you a colleague! You are loyal and devoted to yourte friend, and you¡¯ve also performed a great deed of merit! We made a clean sweep of all Red Moon members that came on this mission¡ªthe Inspectorate will absolutely be rewarding people ording to their contributions. In my opinion, there is no problem for you to be promoted tomissioner inspector!¡±

    ¡°That means a raise too?¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°Your pay will increase from three thousand to twenty thousand?¡±

    That cut Hao Lianchuan off mid sentence. Was the old man listening to himself?

    ¡°We did not expect Red Moon¡¯s ambush, Professor Yuan. Of course, it also had something to do with Li Hao. To be honest, there are certain matters that we have not fully grasped about Silver City, particrly when ites to ancient affairs. Even the professor did not anticipate this, much less us!¡± Hao Lianchuan exined. ¡°I have heard of a Silver City folk song that mentions the sword of the Lis. Might I have the honor of looking upon it?¡±

    Li Hao looked at his teacher, then at the director. He decided to offer the little sword to thetter. Hao Lianchuan smiled in return and took a moment to probe it with his senses. It¡¯s sealed!

    A detailed inspection revealed that the seal was very strong. Though he couldn¡¯t determine anything else, the necessity of such a substantial seal was proof that there was much more to this sword than met the eye!

    ¡°Do the Night Watchers want it?¡± Yuan Shuo cut straight to the chase.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Hao Lianchuan likewise minced no words. ¡°There¡¯s no need to talk in a roundabout way with Professor Yuan! One, Red Moon was very likely here for this sword. It¡¯s too dangerous for it to remain with Li Hao¡ªthe professor should understand this as well!

    ¡°Two, we are indeed very curious about the eight families and wish to trace them back to their roots. We also desire to understand Red Moon¡¯s goal, so we need to study the sword!

    ¡°Three, given that Li Hao has yet to unseal it, there are likely difficulties with locating the proper method. We can give it a try. The Night Watchers are arge organization at the end of the day and possess countless talents. We¡¯ll certainly have more methods to unseal an item than Li Hao!¡±

    The director nced at Li Hao before settling his gaze on Yuan Shuo. ¡°This sword has be the source of trouble!¡±

    ¡°We know, so my disciple¡¯s given it to me!¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°It¡¯s not a source of trouble anymore with me! Have Ying Hongyuee find me if he wants it. He was a dog twenty years ago and he¡¯s still a dog now!¡±

    ¡°Professor, it¡¯s been twenty years like you say. Ying Hongyue has twenty years under his belt and Srs at hismand. What level do you think he is now?¡± Director Hao said earnestly. ¡°He took to the field once two years ago and killed a Sr. We''re not sure if he even used his full strength! He¡¯s in the central region for the time being fighting Yama, Celestial, and our headquarters. While he can¡¯te here, that doesn¡¯t mean he never will!

    ¡°I won¡¯t beat around the bush as we¡¯re all smart people. Giving it to the Night Watchers will be safer than the professor carrying it.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true! How about this, I can do that with minimal stiptions.¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°First, publicize that you guys took the sword of the Lis. Second, ensure Li Hao¡¯s and my safety. Third, give me ten thousand cubes of mysterious power. Fourth, Li Hao joins the Night Watchers. Fifth, I want all of the ancient tomes that you guys have collected over the years. Sixth, you will personally protect Li Hao. Seventh, Li Hao gets first pick of three ancient artifacts in the excavation toe. Eighth¡­¡±

    Hao Lianchuan felt worse than if he¡¯d eaten fecal matter. It was hard to say what level of treasure the sword of the Lis was, since it was still sealed. He wasn¡¯t even sure if it would be easy to unseal or not. Red Moon might have a way, but the Night Watchers didn¡¯t know too much for now. Taking the sword meant protection for Li Hao, but Yuan Shuo used it as an excuse to demand outrageous terms!

    And he was still going!

    The director already didn¡¯t think he could agree to what was being voiced, but the professor only seemed to be growing more excited. He was almost telling the Night Watchers to attach themselves to his pants!

    ¡°Eleventh, return all of the red fruits that I foundst time. Twelfth¡­¡±

    Hao Lianchuan had to interrupt him. ¡°Professor, take the sword!¡±

    Have it your way, I don¡¯t want it anymore!

    ¡°Don¡¯t give me that!¡± Yuan Shuo arched a brow with a chuckle. ¡°You have plenty of good things¡ªI contributed a bunch from my own explorations. To put it bluntly, I¡¯ve discovered more for you than what I want, so are my requests excessive? Would you have so much treasure if it wasn¡¯t for my help over the years?¡±

    ¡°Professor, we also paid the price for them. You know how many have died in these excavations, not to mention we need to resist those uwful characters. Some things were depleted a long time ago.¡±

    ¡°Then forget it.¡± Yuan Shuo took the sword. ¡°I don¡¯t care if you want it or not! There¡¯s no problem with me hanging onto it, I¡¯d like to see Ying Hongyue try! I wasn¡¯t afraid of him back in the day and I¡¯m definitely not afraid of him now! As for the eight families of Silver City¡­ they might harbor endless secrets and treasures. We¡¯ll uncover those ourselves!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan had no idea how to proceed. He turned merrily to the young man. ¡°What are your thoughts, Li Hao?¡±

    This ced Li Hao in slightly awkward straits. He looked at Yuan Shuo and whispered, ¡°Teacher¡­ why don¡¯t we give it to the Night Watchers?¡±

    ¡°Huh??¡± Yuan Shuo flew into a rage. ¡°Have you forgotten who¡¯s on your side?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that¡­ I¡¯m just afraid of danger seeking you out!¡± Li Hao replied haltingly. ¡°We¡¯ll be safer if it¡¯s with the Night Watchers and¡­ your conditions seem over the top to me. It¡¯s just a sword, a memento of my family. I almost sold it to Wang Ming when he offered a hundred thousand for it.¡±

    Wang Ming ardently wished to be swallowed by a hole in the ground. What was this being brought up for?

    ¡°The Night Watchers protect our homnd and need to train innumerable elites to withstand strong foes!¡± Li Hao continued seriously. ¡°Teacher, what happens to them if we ask for too much? We¡¯re on the side of justice, not robbers!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan looked on with approval. Not bad! No wonder intelligence said that Li Hao was a smart, sensibled who was honest and cared deeply about friendships. This was why everyone held a high opinion of him at the Inspectorate! He was worthy of their attention just from these words alone!

    ¡°And what do you know, you little bastard?¡± Yuan Shuo cursed. ¡°You idiot, do you think I¡¯m doing this for myself?! It¡¯s all for you!¡±

    ¡°Teacher!¡± Li Hao mulishly set his jaw and didn¡¯t meet the old man¡¯s eyes. ¡°Let me be headstrong for once! I¡­ I don¡¯t want to see the Night Watchers pay such a high price that it costs some of them their lives! I feel that you can reduce some of your terms, especially the one about Director Hao personally protecting me! He¡¯s a supreme powerhouse who needs to safeguard the entire province, not just me!

    ¡°And the mysterious power¡­ ten thousand? Teacher, do you know how much ten thousand cubes costs? I think¡­ a third of that at most is enough! I don¡¯t really understand if the other stuff is precious, but I think we should ask for one third at most!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Hao Lianchuan cursed inwardly. One third?? Kid, you really don¡¯t know the value of things. Even one third is enough to make us vomit blood!

    ¡°That¡¯s it!¡± Li Hao clenched his teeth. ¡°That¡¯s the most I will ept, teacher, or I¡¯ll give it away for free!¡±

    There was nothing more that Hao Lianchuan wanted! Yuan Shuo seemed both angered and resigned. He harrumphed after a long moment, ¡°You make the call for your own items. It¡¯s one third if you say so, just don¡¯t regret it in the future! You won¡¯t be getting this treasure back after it¡¯s gone! In my view, it¡¯s ten times more valuable than what I¡¯m asking for! You idiot with no worldview, you¡¯ll know how little I was asking for when you be a powerhouse yourself!¡±

    The atmosphere turned tense; Hao Lianchuan suddenly couldn¡¯t find the words to refuse. Did he ept the terms or not? Li Hao was almost breaking with his teacher for this matter!

    Man, this is¡­ difficult to manage. I can only put in the request!

    He decided to say nothing more and simply observe.

    Anger built in Yuan Shuo until he brandished his sleeves. ¡°I¡¯m going back! Also, I killed those people, so send everything to me other than what belongs to Liu Long and his team! I can¡¯t be bothered with the Night Watcher reward!¡±

    In actuality, they wouldn¡¯t give it to him if he asked for it.

    ¡­¡­

    Yuan Shuo stalked away in a huff. Hao Lianchuan wordlessly watched him go. This one¡¯s temper¡­ was growing out of hand. The director could deter the professor on the basis of strength in the past. But now? That was a difficult feat.

    ¡°Do you want to be supernatural?¡± He smiled at Li Hao.

    ¡°I do!¡± The young man bobbed his head with delighted surprise. Mysterious power seems to only strengthen my body without opening my supernatural locks. Teacher also says to temporarily set aside the idea of bing supernatural¡­ so I¡¯ll just agree for now.

    This was a Sr in front of him! It was time to y the good student card again.

 Chapter 97: Spoils of War (IV)

    Chapter 97: Spoils of War (IV)

    ¡°Huang Yun, you¡¯re in charge of collecting the other mysterious power, I¡¯ll handle this area. The rest of you are dismissed!¡± Hao Lianchuan refocused on Liu Long. ¡°I am aware of how the Demon Hunters performed, however, I reiterate that migrating the city is the best option! You experienced the pandemonium ofst night for yourself. A sole Sunderer cannot maintain his footing in the burgeoning supernatural domain by himself, not unless you break through to Dominator like Professor Yuan!¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± Liu Long rumbled. ¡°But I maintain the same as I always have. Silver City is open to migrating, but the prerequisite is that a satellite city is constructed near White Moon! Our migration will not look like throwing our people into White Moon and forgetting about them. Everything about the citizens needs to be taken care of¡ªtransportation, lodging, and jobs. How many families will be separated and broken up if otherwise?

    ¡°We have our own considerations, just as those upstairs have theirs. If this condition isn¡¯t met, Liu Long will continue to hold down the fort in Silver City. While my strength may not be up to the task, I am willing to defend thest sanctuary of the city!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan sighed and discussed no further. Stubborn, ole tough as nails! As heartbreaking as it was to leave one¡¯s home, the world was growing ever more disorderly. Being left in istion meant that danger might descend at any time.

    What Liu Long spoke of was not easy to administer. Settling in one million people with one fell swoop¡­ Silver City wasn¡¯t the only city ted for migration¡ªnumerous small cities were as well. It was impossible to make arrangements for all of them!

    Liu Long didn¡¯t mind. He knew that those in charge would never agree to his condition. He nced at Li Hao and muttered, ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±

    Li Hao nodded and followed the deputy chief. He smiled faintly at Hao Lianchuan and the others before leaving, making sure to tell Wang Ming, ¡°Little Ming¡­ Ah no, Sir Wang. It¡¯s my turn to treat you next time! I must thank all of you for putting your lives on the line to help me!¡±

    Wang Ming flushed hotly. Put our lives on the line to help you? We, er¡­ joined the battle, but our results¡­ are difficult to describe.

    They could be more urately termed as plete humiliation¡±. Thankfully, Li Hao hadn¡¯t seen them, so Wang Ming simply grinned in response. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, it¡¯s what we should¡¯ve done!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan inclined his head with a smile. Li Hao really is a good boy! What a pity that he¡¯s run afoul of arge organization like Red Moon. His future is hard to describe.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao and Liu Long soon left the area. The deputy chief muttered as they walked, ¡°I¡¯d wanted to take you under my wing, but it looks like that won¡¯t be needed anymore. You might be leaving Silver City soon. That¡¯s just as well, it¡¯s safer at White Moon.¡±

    ¡°Are you abandoning me, chief?¡± Li Hao shed a simple and honest grin. ¡°Why would I leave?¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Liu Long started. Not leaving? ¡°You know that Silver City is very unsafe¡­¡±

    ¡°That may not be the case!¡± Li Hao¡¯s grin broadened.

    Do I want to leave? Not really. Although his teacher rmended that he leave as soon as possible, Li Hao had his own thoughts. The enemy might not return in the short term given their immense losses. Moving to White Moon may not be a good move as there were too many experts there. Some matters would be difficult to conceal under their noses¡ªsuch as the jade sword.

    Of course, it was unquestionable that remaining in Silver City would be very dangerous. But now that his family¡¯s sword had apparently been taken away, that changed the equation. It was tough to tell whether Red Moon needed Steris, his bloodline, and when the blue rains woulde next.

    Based on previous pattern, the next interval mighte after half a year to another year. Therefore, he was safe for at least another six months since there was no point in killing him during normal times.

    If there¡¯s still half a year, I don¡¯t necessarily need to leave! Li Hao¡¯s thoughts turned to elsewhere in the city. There might be some scarlet shadows drifting around. It wasn¡¯t a convenient time to collect them, he had to wait until the Night Watcher heavyweights left.

    If he didn¡¯t, they might discover something afoot.

    The shadows were highly nutritious substance. The one before was too big for him to digest, but if anyone else left their shadow behind, he ought to be able to absorb it. Perhaps he¡¯d quickly set foot into Sunderer of Hundreds! If so, he¡¯d be able to hold his own if he moved to White Moon.

    Teacher can take the lion¡¯s share of the spoils this time. The five elements strengthen the five organs¡ªI haven¡¯t tried all the types of mysterious power either. I can train with peace of mind for a while.

    Assorted thoughts shed through his mind; Li Hao was truly unwilling to depart Silver City for the immediate duration. Beside him, aplicated look entered Liu Long¡¯s eyes.

    Not leaving? The kid¡¯s got some guts. Liu Yan said he employed trickery to kill two expertsst night. Perhaps¡­ perhaps not leaving is just as good. I may have a chance to see Li Hao make the crossover and be a Darkmoon, or even Sunre!

    If another Sunre was willing to stay in Silver City, then the city might be more valued. The two nursed various thoughts as they made their silent way back to the Inspectorate.

    ¡­¡­

    The Inspectorate.

    Wu Chao and Chen Jianid on beds in the basement. Yun Yao was tending to their wounds. She seemed tomand a unique healing ability that restored patients without requiring the use of equipment. Liu Yan stared off into space on the side. She¡¯d only suffered some scratches inst night¡¯s operation, so her injuries were long healed.

    ¡°Chief!¡± Whether it was Yun Yao, Liu Yan, or the bedridden Wu Chao and Chen Jian, the entire team looked at the captain when he walked in. They were both nervous and expectant.

    Expectant of what?

    Liu Long knew, so he mused for a bit before saying, ¡°The mysterious power of the supernaturals I killed in the city should be ours. The rest, however¡­ Yuan Shuo¡¯s probably not going to give us any of the rest.¡±

    Everyone was naturally concerned with how loot would be divided after a bloody battle. Ten Darkmoons had died¡ªLi Hao killed one, Yuan Shuo killed five, Liu Long killed three at the start, and the Inspectorate gunned thest one down. If four supernaturals were allotted to the team, that meant one hundred cubes.

    A negligible amountpared to Yuan Shuo¡¯s harvest, it was enough for the team¡¯s use given what they¡¯d earned over the years.

    ¡°No worries, teacher can¡¯t use that much,¡± Li Hao piped up. ¡°There might be some left over. I¡¯ll go talk to him and see if we can get some more.¡±

    Liu Long waved him off. He would im however much he killed. He didn¡¯t need anyone¡¯s pity.

    ¡°Little Hao Hao,¡± giggled Liu Yan. ¡°You killed a Darkmoon by yourself! His power alone is enough for you to feast on. There¡¯s at least thirty cubesing from him!¡±

    Thirty cubes!

    That was an extremelyrge amount for them.

    ¡°That was a joint effort.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Credit doesn¡¯t go to the person who delivered the final blow. If that¡¯s the case, then the team has no part in the three that chief killed by himself.¡±

    That wasn¡¯t how loot was divided in a team. Liu Yan was trying to wrestle more benefits for Li Hao, but the young man didn¡¯t care about this. They could divvy up the spoils ording to the team¡¯s original rules. Whoever contributed more would receive more.

    If they based distribution on whoevernded the killing blow, then defensive types like Chen Jian and healing types like Yun Yao would never have any kills to their name. That would render a team meaningless.

    Liu Long remained silent, as if he didn¡¯t care about the allocation of mysterious power. Liu Yan looked at him, then at Li Hao.

    ¡°The Night Watchers sent a powerful guy,¡± she suddenly said. ¡°Do they have ns for Silver City, chief?¡± She knew that Liu Long cared about this more.

    The deputy chief found a ce to sit down, ignoring wounds that were still bleeding. ¡°Fatty Mu wants to establish a Night Watcher branch, but the Director Hao they sent can¡¯t make the call. It¡¯s most likely not going to happen.¡± He abruptly grinned and cated the team, ¡°We reaped a rich harvest this time! Perhaps there¡¯s hope for all of us to ascend!¡±

    It wasn¡¯tpletely hopeless for some of them to join the supernatural system. yers normally ascended as Darkmoon. It remained a tall order for him, though. While he could match some supernaturals with his strength of a peak Sunderer, the Night Watchers would not send him resources or mysterious power.

    Li Hao said nothing. There was nothing he could do in this matter, and he was striving to digest everything he¡¯d gained today. His body brimmed with energy after absorbing the scarlet shadow; he was in the best condition that he¡¯d ever been. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles continued to operate, but he purposefully avoided drawing on the jade sword.

    Steris was noticeably less than before. It was so useful that it would be an immense pity if it was emptied. Based on his teacher¡¯s words, his physique had already reached the Sunderer threshold. He just needed time to make the conversion.

    Therefore, he needed to digest this part of his gains first. There was plenty more waiting for him! There were the scarlet shadows in the city, his teacher¡¯s mysterious power, and potentially more benefits from the Night Watchers. All of it would help him improve, and it all came from the Sr that Yuan Shuo killed.

    ¡­¡­

    The team respectively focused on recovery or their own thoughts. Li Hao stayed quiet and continued to digest his energy.

    ¡­¡­

    The Night Watchers swiftly finished cleaning up the city outskirts. One Sr and one Sunre in the form of Hao Lianchuan and Huang Yun, respectively, and a Yuan Shuo who could kill Srs, brought unprecedented security to this territory. It would take at least three Srs to even consider braving Silver City.

    Night fell once more.

    Veteris Institute, the Yuan residence.

    Hao Lianchuan came calling on a solitary visit. Yuan Shuo was practicing in the yard; the front door opened of its own ord. The director walked straight in and sat down to watch the professor practice. He didn¡¯t speak until Yuan Shuo finished running through a boxing technique.

    ¡°In Professor Yuan¡¯s years of hibernation, not even I noticed anything amiss about you. It looks like the professor has long since recovered from your injuries three years ago?¡±

    Yuan Shuo sat down with a smile and wiped away the sweat on his face. ¡°Not that long ago, I only just recovered. As for why I didn¡¯t say anything¡­ my worries are obvious, no?¡± He smiled a half smile. ¡°If I said anything, the Night Watchers might stop me from setting foot into Dominator of Thousands!¡±

 Chapter 98: Paving the Way (I)

    Chapter 98: Paving the Way (I)

    ¡°The professor thinks too little of the Night Watchers!¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head. ¡°We¡¯ve always hoped that the professor could break through to Dominator and make the crossover. That would bestow another Sr to Silver Moon! It¡¯s just that the events of three years ago caught us off guard¡­¡±

    ¡°Enough of that!¡± Yuan Shuo interrupted. ¡°Where¡¯s my loot?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s been transported to the Inspectorate. We¡¯re unable to just bring it to you.¡± Hao Lianchuan had no intentions of misappropriating the gains. The fall of a Sr was enough to dissuade anyone of these kinds of thoughts. He was here for another matter. ¡°What are your thoughts about the ruins ted for the end of the month?¡±

    The two parties had originally agreed to excavate a set of ruins at the end of the month. At that time, however, Yuan Shuo was on the brink of death and took his marching orders from the Night Watchers. Now that he added a Sr notch to his belt, it changed everything.

    ¡°That ce is very dangerous!¡± Yuan Shuo sank into deep thought. ¡°I was injured there three years ago and many Night Watchers died that day. I¡¯ve also heard that quite a few from the major organizations died during their attempts to explore it. This time, the Night Watchers are banding with a few organizations in a joint expedition, correct? There will even be those from the central region present?¡±

    Hao Lianchuan nodded. ¡°Mmhmm, our lossesst time were so great that we cannot afford a repeat urrence.¡±

    ¡°I can lead the team,¡± Yuan Shuo mused over the situation. ¡°But the split needs to change! Previously, you took anything rted to the supernatural and I only received what you didn¡¯t want. This time, I want an even split!¡±

    ¡°Do you think¡­ that¡¯s even possible?¡± Hao Lianchuan sighed as soon as he heard the professor. ¡°This set of ruins is different and we are investing a great deal. A few Sunres and myself will be involved!¡±

    Yuan Shuo wanted too much!

    ¡°Then forget it, I¡¯ll explore it myself!¡± Yuan Shuoughed.

    Of course it would be dangerous, but all of the treasure belonged to one person alone in a solo expedition. He was an expert of ancient civilizations and knew more about ancient ruins than all of these peoplebined. There were pros and cons to cooperating with the Night Watchers.

    ¡°Red Moon will also be sending people!¡± Hao Lianchuan looked at him. Are you sure you want to do this alone?

    ¡°So what?¡± Yuan Shuo sneered. ¡°Worstes to worst, I won¡¯t go! Who knows if those guys will even be able to ess the ruins if I don¡¯t go. So what about Red Moon? Knowledge is power, knowledge is wealth! How many in our time know more about ancient civilizations than me? I¡¯d like to see how much the Night Watchers will walk away with if you request any of their help!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan fell quiet. Yuan Shuo was in no hurry¡ªwho could they look to in Silver Moon, if not him? Granted, it did give one pause if Red Moon was involved. Although he¡¯d killed one Sr, that didn¡¯t mean he could kill a second, especially as Li Hao¡¯s jade sword was almost depleted. He didn¡¯t have the ability to use the Incantation of the de of Blood a second time.

    ¡°I need to go back and discuss this with headquarters!¡± the director gave way. He could no longer make the decision in this affair. The Night Watchers had held a brief meeting before he came and mentioned the excavation, as well as the possibility that Yuan Shuo would demand exorbitant terms.

    They hadn¡¯t thought that he would ask for so much!

    ¡°Since you¡¯re here,¡± Yuan Shuo raised upon seeing his visitor ready to leave. ¡°Silver City may not be safe yet. Why don¡¯t the two of us clear the dangers skulking around the city?¡±

    ¡°Clear the dangers?¡± Hao Lianchuan replied. ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°There are some supernaturals lingering nearby. Let¡¯s kill them all!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± The director froze, witnessing the cold-bloodedness of this old martial master for the first time. Kill them all!

    These supernaturals hadn¡¯t gone on a rampage¡ªthey simply weren¡¯t part of the Night Watchers. Some dawdled around Silver City, not taking any action despite possibly nursing some thoughts. Yet Yuan Shuo wanted to kill them all!

    ¡°Um¡­¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll do it if you¡¯re worried about ruining Night Watcher reputation!¡± Yuan Shuo snorted. ¡°This old man isn¡¯t afraid! What are they doing near Silver City, if not wanting to stir up some trouble? They think there¡¯s something to be had without running any risk, don¡¯t they? In that case, let me do the deed. As for being condemned for it¡­ hah. Do I look like I¡¯m afraid of that?!¡±

    He really wasn¡¯t! He¡¯d offended so many people in the past, and what of it? He¡¯d made it through the storm and was now less afraid as he was a Dominator!

    ¡°Professor, this really will offend too many¡­¡±

    ¡°Irresolute and hesitant!¡± Yuan Shuo snapped. ¡°You are a deputy of the Night Watchers, I am not! I do not need to consider the same things as you. I am alone in this world and have nothing in my old age apart from a few students! Students are students¡ªthey have their own futures to take care of and it is their own fate if they are killed or implicated by others. Why do I need to care about that?

    ¡°Are you doing this or not?¡± he asked again.

    Hao Lianchuan sighed, then whispered, ¡°I can¡¯t, but¡­ I can if there are any Srs.¡±

    Yuan Shuo nodded with satisfaction.

    ¡°I can¡¯t act as I would, but¡­¡± the director suddenly mentioned in a hushed voice. ¡°Can you bring Wang Ming and the others with you? Of course, ahem, we can tell everyone that you killed them all. How about it?¡±

    Temper the youngsters! The key thing was, he wanted Yuan Shuo to take the fall.

    A grinning professor immediately nodded. He agreed so readily that it made Hao Lianchuan uneasy.

    ¡°We can¡­ also forget about it?¡± the director hesitated. Yuan Shuo had agreed too easily!

    ¡°Hao boy, don¡¯t change your mind so easily,¡± the professor chuckled. ¡°Cut the crap and tell those little fellows to follow me. Even if they don¡¯t take any action, it¡¯ll do them good to just watch. I¡¯ll have themnd some finishing blows, if nothing else. It¡¯ll do them good to see blood!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan agreed after momentary internal turmoil. He did indeed want the youngsters to gain more experience. They¡¯d apparently made a poor showing this time, even the Wang Minguded in White Moon. Thetter wasing across as slightly ipetent after being sent to Silver City.

    It was enough to make the deputy wonder if they¡¯d done too good a job protecting the youngsters. Was the next generation able to shoulder the responsibilities toe?

    ¡­¡­

    Yuan Shuo set out once more on this night.

    The southern outskirts of Silver City in an extraordinarily opulent, vast residence.

    A man as fat as a pig ate in a restaurant; his face and hands were oily from food. His expression shifted drastically when something broke through the roof.

    Yuan Shuo crashed through the roof like a demon god, flicking his toes when hended and kicking the man¡¯s brains out before thetter had a chance to react!

    Hu Hao and the others swiftly descended, their faces pale. This was the third one! Yuan Shuo¡¯s killing intent was overwhelming and his aura overpowering. They were truly witnessing the might of the veteran martial masters and their formidable mental fortitude. These martial masters killed without blinking!

    Yuan Shuo swept a nce at the fellow he¡¯d kicked to death andughed. ¡°What, are you guys still not used to it? This bastard more than deserved to die. If I remember correctly, this ce used to belong to a Silver City tycoon! The merchant''s gone missing¡ªdo you guys know where he is?¡±

    None of the Night Watchers responded.

    ¡°Probably buried in the garden. Do you guys want to dig him out for a look?¡± Yuan Shuo jeered.

    Wang Ming breathed out heavily behind the professor. ¡°Committing murder for the sake of treasure, upying another¡¯s wealth¡­ he did indeed deserve to die! But, Elder Yuan, didn¡¯t you say you¡¯d give us some chances to take a turn¡­?¡±

    What opportunities are there after you kick the guy to death?

    ¡°Finish him off!¡± Yuan Shuo said faintly. ¡°I have no obligation to teach you, but I can familiarize you with the sight of blood! Your task isplete after you stab him a dozen times!¡±

    ¡°But the guy¡¯s dead¡­¡± Wang Ming looked on with conflicted eyes.

    Yuan Shuo turned to serve him a peaceful stare. Shudders overtook Wang Ming and he grit his teeth, coalescing a sword of light. He stabbed it into the corpse!

    Yuan Shuo smiled. Li Meng and Hu Hao looked at each other and quietly followed their colleague¡¯s lead. Their movements were marked by hesitancy since it was their first time undertaking such a task.

    Yuan Shuo watched them for a bit, not minding their inexperience. They¡¯d get used to it after a few more stabs! The Night Watcher youngsters were too green. He was willing to show them around because he had his own ns in mind.

    When they were finished, the professor raised faintly, ¡°You three are broadening your worldview with me. I have decided. From today forth, I pronounce you as my honorary disciples!¡±

    The three paused. What¡¯s going on?

    Hao Lianchuan also jerked in the sky. The hell?

    ¡°It is so settled!¡± Yuan Shuo proimed softly. ¡°You can borrow my name in the future and say you¡¯re honorary disciples of Dominator Yuan Shuo. Legacy is most important in martial dao! Betrayal is to lie to your master and forsake your martial ancestor! There is only one rule for my disciples¡ªyou may not betray your master or bully your fellow disciples. Love and unity between your fellows is the only thing that my disciples must aplish!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan still gaped in the air. Hu Hao and the others stared with iprehension.

    ¡°Are you unwilling?¡± Yuan Shuo turned frosty and stern. ¡°Or do you think I am unworthy?!¡±

    ¡°We wouldn¡¯t dare!¡± Wang Ming hastily said. ¡°That¡¯s not what we mean, Elder Yuan. It¡¯s just¡­ we¡¯re Night Watchers¡­¡±

    ¡°So what?¡± Yuan Shuo answered irritably. ¡°Your director¡¯s up there. Ask him if there¡¯s a problem with this. Night Watchers are all supernaturals and supernaturals have no master and disciple system. You¡¯re just an honorary disciple, that doesn¡¯t affect anything. Ask Hao Lianchuan if there¡¯s any problems!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan quickly thought through things and inclined his head after a while. Honorary disciples¡­? So be it. It was a trifling matter and no big deal if it wasn¡¯t an official rtionship.

    Wang Ming and the others didn¡¯t dare protest further and erupted with ttery. Perhaps they were also slightly pleased by the abrupt turn of events as Yuan Shuo was a powerhouse who¡¯d killed a Sr. It seemed to be a good idea to have Yuan Shuo for their honorary master!

 Chapter 99: Paving the Way (II)

    Chapter 99: Paving the Way (II)

    ¡°Then it is settled!¡± Yuan Shuo finally smiled. ¡°You¡¯re just honorary disciples, so there¡¯s no need to set an official banquet. While I don¡¯t have many disciples, they¡¯re all official ones. You three are honorary disciples, so remember to hail them as senior brother and sister when you see them in the future! Remember, ties of fraternal love bind you together. You must do your utmost to help in times of trouble. That is what it means to be of the same teaching!¡±

    He threw out a booklet. ¡°Your teacher doesn¡¯t have anything good to give you, so here is the New Book of Five Styles! Others are not permitted to learn of it, particrly the breathing technique!¡±

    It was just the breathing technique, not the Breathing Method of the Five Styles!

    ¡°Do not underestimate this. Although supernaturals do not practice martial dao, it is not necessarily a good thing to solely rely on absorbing mysterious power. It is an external force, after all. Training both the internal and external is the true way!¡±

    Excitement dawned on the Night Watchers¡¯ faces. They knew about the New Book of Five Styles! They might not have thought much about it before, but who dared belittle it after Yuan Shuo reached beyond his level to kill a Sr?

    ¡°Our thanks to our teacher!¡± Genuine emotion entered their voices.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s lips stretched in a crafty, wolfish smile. These three were Darkmoon and very young. Wang Ming was almost a Fullmoon¡ªnot far from Sunre. They were all so young and direct inductees of the Night Watchers. If lucky, they would soon reach Sunre and be the agency¡¯s core strength in Silver Moon.

    He was paving the way for Li Hao!

    ¡°Ah, yes. Li Hao of Silver City will be your little senior brother in the future!¡± Yuan Shuo added. ¡°Being a martial master, he has no supernatural abilities! He may not be as strong as you guys, but he¡¯s inherited my knowledge. You must protect him well¡ªhe will undoubtedly be of help to you down the road. I¡¯m sure you¡¯re aware of howcking the agency¡¯s knowledge banks are. Sometimes, knowledge changes destiny. There wille a day when you have use for him.¡±

    The trio looked at each other; it was Wang Ming who answered first. ¡°We will remember teacher¡¯s words!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°Then let¡¯s locate our next target, I¡¯ll let you get a few hits in this time. You need to make it to Sunre as quickly as possible¡ªonly then can you have your voice heard. Look at you three now! You do whatever you¡¯re told with no freedom at all. You bring dishonor to my name!¡±

    The trio grinned foolishly and didn¡¯t dare say anything. Their superior was in the sky overhead!

    ¡­¡­

    Up in the air.

    Hao Lianchuan grasped Yuan Shuo¡¯s intentions after listening for a while. This was rather unexpected! It seemed that the professor quite cared about his final disciple. He¡¯d gone through this act just to find some backers for Li Hao!

    Li Hao had no foundation in the Night Watchers, but now he had two junior brothers and one junior sister. Even though this was a result of Yuan Shuo¡¯s casual mention and forced eptance, they had to acknowledge the rtionship after receiving his New Book of Five Styles. In the martial dao world, lying to or betraying one¡¯s master was the most heinous offense. Not until Yuan Shuo¡¯s death would this tie be severed!

    The Night Watchers were an official, legitimate organization. They couldn¡¯tmit such actions. If they did, the agency would clean house!

    Yuan Shuo¡­ Li Hao!

    Yuan Shuo was paving the way for Li Hao and not keeping the young man by his side to propagate his teachings¡­ Did the professor hope that Li Hao could join the Night Watchers?

    That was just as well! It would deepen their ties with Yuan Shuo. Otherwise, the agency found it tough to direct him after his ascension.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao had no idea that he¡¯d suddenly gained two junior brothers and a junior sister. After continual absorption for a day, he digested eighty percent of the scarlet shadow¡¯s power in his body. The rest would be absorbed through natural processes over the next two days.

    He threw a casual punch when he rose, eliciting a series of pops and cracks from his bones and meridians. Joy dawned in his eyes. He¡¯d improved so quickly!

    He couldn¡¯t determine what level he was at the moment, but the strength that he¡¯d just punched with seemed to approach Liu Yan¡¯s. Liu Yan was peak yer, nearly a Sunderer!

    ¡°This feels nice!¡± He hadn¡¯t even been a yer a few days ago and was now approaching Sunderer. Jubnce and celebrations were in order! And the key thing was, he still had a lot of other gains to digest.

    When he walked out of the lounge, he saw that only Wu Chao was left on the bed. Chen Jian had recovered enough to walk around.

    Liu Long was as aloof as ever to see the young man. ¡°It¡¯s good that you¡¯re out, the delivery from the Night Watchers hase! We received 160 cubes of mysterious power in total!¡±

    All of it came from the supernaturals, none of the martial masters could supply this resource.

    ¡°Your teacher collected roughly 1400 cubes¡ªso many that they werepressed and stored in the Inspectorate warehouse. Your teacher can go withdraw them whenever he needs to!

    ¡°We have thunder, earth, water, metal, and wind attributed power this time.¡± The captain looked at the others. ¡°I im primary credit for this operation! I will receive thirty percent, Li Hao gets twenty. The rest will be split among you guys. Does anyone have any opinions?¡±

    After Liu Long and Li Hao split half of the gains, that left less than Li Hao¡¯s share for the remaining four.

    ¡°Of course not!¡± Liu Yan giggled. ¡°It¡¯s nice to get any! This is more than I expected.¡±

    She was getting twenty cubes with this split! They were lucky to get three to five cubes in previous missions and would suffer worse injuries in the process. Thanks to Li Hao, she¡¯d emerged mostly unscathed this time. Thus, she was quite satisfied with twenty cubes.

    If she was satisfied, the others would also be satisfied as they were weaker than her.

    Li Hao¡¯s thirty-two was roughly equivalent to killing a supernatural. Liu Long had determined the split ording to that deed, assigning everything from the supernatural he killed to the young man.

    The captain nodded after seeing no one object. ¡°Very well! This is ourrgest gain in several years. I hope that someone can seed this time!¡±

    He said this with a bit of hope and desire. The desire applied less to him as he thought of Yuan Shuo and how the professor had decapitated four enemies with one stroke. Martial masters could also be invincible!

    He was peak Sunderer and eons away from Dominator. But if he could break through, did he still need to ascend? He would be a Sunre if he made the crossover, but the Dominator Yuan Shuo could kill Srs. If Liu Long also possessed the ability to kill Srs, would Silver City still have its charter revoked?

    No way!

    Liu Long abruptly found unexpected hesitation in his long pursuit of the supernatural. He wasn¡¯t as resolute as before. Dominators had long disappeared from Silver Moon and there had been no hope or potential in his future. But now¡­ should he set aside personal dignity and beg Yuan Shuo for some pointers? Would the old man agree?

    Pointers from a Dominator might entail that he took fewer twists and turns.

    Liu Long looked apologetically at Li Hao. Should he use the little guy to have him put in a good word for Liu Long?

    Li Hao was grinning straightforwardly, as if quite happy with his allotment. Thirty-two cubes were a lot. His teacher¡¯s fourteen hundred were his teacher¡¯s. He could at most ask for a couple hundred before he popped from energy overlord. The opportunity to break through to Sunderer seemed right in front of him!

    ¡°Everyone, rest well tonight. We continue our duties tomorrow while the experts are still here!¡± Liu Long once more looked at Li Hao. ¡°Li Hao, you can rest for a few more days and keep your teacherpany. If you need anything, you can alwayse to me, your chief, your captain of thew enforcement team!¡±

    He was basically telling the young man to go to his teacher¡¯s. If he was too tired, Liu Long could piggyback him there!

    Being quick on the uptake, Li Hao immediately caught the undertones. How funny, it looks like Liu Long truly epts the oue this time. He was always reluctant or unwilling when Yuan Shuo was mentioned before. It seems the affairs ofst night were no small impact.

    ¡°Alright! I¡¯lle to chief if I really need to!¡±

    Liu Long nodded with satisfaction before turning to leave. Meanwhile, Li Hao couldn¡¯t wait to see the mysterious power he¡¯d been allotted. He wanted to request all five elements this time. Perhaps he could strengthen his five organs and grow stronger!

    ¡­¡­

    The Inspectorate, the treasury.

    All of the loot from battle was held here. Although it was night and powerhouses present within the city, the Inspectorate didn¡¯t dare rx their guard on ount of the value in the vaults. Mu Sen personally led men to stand at the doors. He would not be at ease until Yuan Shuo retrieved his items.

    One thousand cubes of mysterious power!

    Silver City was such a small ce that even the highly ranked Mu Sen had never seen so many. This would be a rare sight in any city other than White Moon or re.

    The guard was heavy around the treasury; Li Hao could sense numerous machine guns locking onto him when he entered its vicinity. With the inspector general also present, not even regr Sunres would be able to seize the treasures inside.

    ¡°Li Hao of thew enforcement team greets Inspector General Mu!¡± Li Hao saluted. He wasn¡¯t too familiar with the inspector general apart from a decent first impression. When he first withdrew from school to join ssified Affairs, Mu Sen had advised him to finish his studies first before joining the Inspectorate.

    His second impression came fromst night. Although the inspector general didn¡¯t leave the city, he¡¯d helped Liu Long to the best of abilities inside the city. Li Hao hadn¡¯t caught the conversation between Mu Sen and Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Mu Sen smiled radiantly. ¡°Well done, well done!¡± He nodded with hispliments; the young man had no idea what he was being praised for. ¡°Are you here for the mysterious power?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Your teacher¡¯s share or the Demon Hunters¡¯?¡±

    ¡°Just mine, I wouldn¡¯t dare meddle with teacher¡¯s portion.¡± Li Hao smiled bashfully.

 Chapter 100: Sunderer of Hundreds (I)

    Chapter 100: Sunderer of Hundreds (I)

    ¡°I hear that you made quite the contribution this time. Liu Long mentioned you¡¯ll be receiving thirty-two cubes. What a sight to behold!¡± This was simply pleasantry from Inspector General Mu¡ªhe¡¯d also been allotted some mysterious power. He led men against the earth bending supernatural in the city, so he¡¯d unceremoniously reserved his share from the very beginning. He smiled at the young man. ¡°Shall I take you inside? Will you be absorbing some today?¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Lights switched on when Mu Sen opened the door, revealing an expanse of ice crystal covers. However, there didn¡¯t seem to be enough for one thousand cubes! Where was the rest?

    The inspector general brought up the rear. His smile deepened when he saw Li Hao looking around. ¡°Are you wondering why there doesn¡¯t seem to be that much mysterious power here?¡±

    The young man nodded again.

    ¡°Mysterious power doesn¡¯t necessarily need to be preserved in ice crystal covers. The covers do indeed prevent the energy from dissipating, but their biggest drawback is that they require too much space! Can you use an ice crystal cover to preserve mysterious power from a supernatural that you kill when traveling? Impossible!¡±

    Li Hao continued to nod. That was very true! A dead Sr produced roughly one thousand cubes, but who carried around sufficient ice crystal covers for that amount?

    ¡°It is the same when you guys extract mysterious power,¡± Mu Sen continued exining. ¡°For instance, you have been allotted thirty-two cubes of power, but must you absorb them here? No martial master or supernatural wishes other people to witness their cultivation process. Therefore, there¡¯s a way to make mysterious energy portable!¡±

    That piqued Li Hao¡¯s interest. ¡°Inspector General, how do they do it? What kind of item is needed to prevent the power from fading away?¡±

    There truly was ack of privacy to absorbing his share in the treasury. There were so many people outside. Wouldn¡¯t he be a walking billboard afterward announcing that he was different from everyone?

    ¡°You¡¯ll find out in a bit!¡± Mu Sen answered merrily with a meaningful smile. ¡°We didn¡¯t have this option before in Silver City, but now¡­ we do!¡±

    The two entered the range of the ice crystal covers; there were one hundred cubes of varying attributes scattered among them. Some were unattributed mysterious power!

    ¡°You can choose thirty-two cubes of whatever attributes you want. You can also pick unattributed ones! They¡¯re roughly the same value¡ªunattributed is easier to absorb while attributed ones are more explosive, but they more easily break supernatural locks.¡±

    Li Hao was here for power of the five elements. The ball of earth energy had transformed his spleen and he had samples of every element other than fire. No fire supernaturals hade on this operation¡ªdouble their effort was required for half the result on a rainy night. Their battle strength was diminished, making it inconvenient to attack in such wet weather.

    The other avable attributes were wind and thunder; flight was also part of wind.

    I need fire¡­ ording to the five elements of metal, wood, water, earth and fire, it corresponds to the heart. If mysterious power strengthens my organs again this time, my heart will be left behind.

    ¡°Inspector General,¡± Li Hao requested after a quick nce. ¡°I would like eight cubes of metal, wood, and water, as well as six cubes of earth.¡±

    He felt the need to bnce the equation after previously absorbing two cubes of earth. Since there was no fire to select from, there were two more that he could select. ¡°I would like one each of thunder and wind please.¡±

    ¡°Absorbing power attributed to the elements can indeed increase your chances of making the crossover,¡± Mu Sen elucidated, hardly surprised by the young man¡¯s decision. ¡°But they need to be the proper match! If you bear the fire attribute and take in water, bacsh can easily hit you and might even cost your life!¡±

    It was very normal that Li Hao needed power of different attributes. The best kind of mysterious power to conduct was the type that was a perfect counterpart to the young man. Only that attribute could potentially lead to the opening of his supernatural locks.

    But trial and error was the only way to identify the proper attribute. Li Hao wanted too many different attributes at once¡ªit would easily lead to waste. Of course, this was the young man¡¯s decision. Mu Sen wouldn¡¯t sway him one way or another.

    ¡°I know, Inspector General!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll abandon the attempt if things start to go south!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, I trust that you won¡¯t be that silly. But are you giving up martial dao progress with this focus on absorbing attributed power?¡± Mu Sen found it a bit regrettable. ¡°Your teacher is a martial dao legend after entering the Dominator level! I thought you would choose unattributed power and proceed further down the martial dao path like your teacher. But it looks like you don¡¯t care about that.¡±

    ¡°Inspector General, my period of training is too short!¡± Li Hao answered simply. ¡°It barely totals three years, with only a few days of really treating it as walking the path of martial dao. I¡¯m basically the same as a supernatural initiate, and I¡¯d make progress faster with thetter. Thus, I want to be supernatural as fast as possible!¡±

    Mu Sen nodded withprehension, dropping whatever he might¡¯ve said next. Indeed, Li Hao hadn¡¯t practiced martial dao long enough. It was understandable that he would choose the supernatural instead.

    ¡°You better be a yer before crossing over. If you aplish that, you stand a chance of skipping Starlight. Of course, it depends on the circumstances since it takes a while to enter yer of Tens.¡±

    It was obvious that Liu Long hadpletely bypassed Li Hao in his reports; Mu Sen didn¡¯t know about the young man¡¯s condition. Liu Long hadn¡¯t given an exnation as to why Li Hao should be allotted so much mysterious power. All he said when Mu Sen asked was that Li Hao had contributed greatly as bait.

    Only the Demon Hunters were aware that the young man was behind the deaths of the supernatural and the Sunderer. Therefore, Mu Sen waspletely oblivious that Li Hao was a yer and fast approaching the Sunderer threshold.

    The young man was a mundane in everyone¡¯s eyes. He might ascend to Starlight or yer more quickly after absorbing mysterious power, but other than that? It was too early to consider anything else.

    In the meantime, Li Hao aimed to quietly get rich. There was no need to publicize his aplishments! Enemies could be ambushed only when they remained unaware. What the hell could he do if they knew everything about him?

    ¡°What do I use to withdraw mysterious power, sir?¡±

    Mu Sen walked over to a ss cab and took out a long, white rod. Li Hao didn¡¯t recognize it at first¡ªhis gaze sharpened when he did.

    Human bone!

    ¡°Use this!¡± The inspector general smiled faintly. ¡°Remember to return it when you¡¯re done! Mysterious power normally cannot be conserved. Apart from ice crystals, the human body is the most ideal container. It¡¯s not that any regr person will do¡ªa Sunre at the very least is required. Their bones canpress mysterious power!¡±

    Silver City possessed these tools only after killing a Sunre and Sr. No wonder the inspector general had said that they didn¡¯t possess the relevant capabilities before.

    ¡°The skeletons of these powerhouses canpress mysterious power, or they¡¯d explode as well! Their skin also serves the same function, but your teacher dismembered the two that died. While their bones are intact, their skin¡­ forget it!¡±

    Revulsion and aversion crept into Li Hao¡¯s expression. He turned slightly pale.

    Mu Sen chuckled when he looked at the young man. ¡°Are you afraid?¡±

    ¡°No, not afraid,¡± Li Hao answered haltingly. ¡°It¡¯s just¡­ it¡¯s just a bit¡­ Inspector General, is this all we have?¡±

    ¡°We can use other tools, such as supernatural objects. Do you have any?¡± Mu Sen continued chuckling. ¡°With the state of Silver City, it¡¯s already grand that we have objects to store mysterious power in. Look at you being picky! Your teacher¡¯s mysterious power is held in an even more ludicrous container¡ªthe Sr¡¯s head!¡±

    Color drained from Li Hao¡¯s face and he set his jaw, looking like he was marching to his death. Mu Sen sighed inwardly to see the young man¡¯s reaction. Too young!

    He was just like the Night Watcher youngsters¡ªinexperienced in the ways of the world. Li Hao was even less in the know. Although he was Yuan Shuo¡¯s student, he hadn¡¯t practiced martial dao before. As expected, he shied away from blood and gore.

    The inspector general said nothing further and fulfilled Li Hao¡¯s request. Eight cubes of metal, wood, and water, six of earth, and one each of wind and thunder. He used six separate bones to hold the young man¡¯s mysterious power. Mu Sen ced them in a little ck bag and handed it to Li Hao.

    ¡°Take your time after you go back! Don¡¯t be in a rush! Send these back when you¡¯re done, they can be reused! Silver City¡¯s toocking in mysterious power containers!

    ¡°Only a few people know of this, so don¡¯t tell anyone. Wealth stirs the heart and attracts trouble. Thirty-two mysterious cubes can be sold for tens of millions in the ck market. That amount of money is sufficient for many people to forget everything!¡±

    ¡°Thank you for your reminder, Inspector General!¡± A pale Li Hao walked out with the little ck bag.

    ¡­¡­

    Liu Yan arrived a bit after Li Hao left the treasury. She nodded at Mu Sen, who smiled upon thinking of recent events.

    ¡°Little fellow Li Hao just collected his portion. The Demon Hunters should take him through appropriate tempering when you have time! He needs to expand his worldview since he¡¯s been dragged into this domain. He¡¯s so timid that he looked like he¡¯d seen a ghost after looking at a human bone. He would¡¯ve wet his pants if I didn¡¯t let him go!¡±

    A very strange look entered Liu Yan¡¯s eyes. She nodded with difficulty after a long pause. ¡°Alright, will do! He¡¯s a culturedd, a schrly sort. It¡¯s normal that he¡¯s never seen blood before!¡±

    What the hell? The kid¡¯s nothing good! He lied again! Almost wet his pants after seeing a bone?? It¡¯s more like he almost made me pee my pants when he killed the water supernatural. His methods¡­ I have no words.

    And now this? Weak-kneed at the sight of a human bone? Who¡¯s he trying to fool?

    She hadn¡¯t seen it before, but Liu Yan now knew this was Li Hao¡¯s disguise. The kid was rotten, bold, and ruthless. And perverted! Whoever believed him died a grisly death!

    She said none of this to Mu Sen. This was good, the fewer people who knew, the better! If everyone knew how evil and perverted the kid was, none of the team might¡¯ve made it back alive from the mission. The damned kid hid behind a good boy act, which had proven to be the deaths of those two powerhouses.

 Chapter 101: Sunderer of Hundreds (II)

    Chapter 101: Sunderer of Hundreds (II)

    ¡°The schrly sort!¡± Mu Sen sighed with emotion. ¡°A fake schr like Yuan Shuo somehow managed to raise a true schr! I wonder what Li Hao thinks of his teacher now¡ªhis frail and gentle professor has suddenly turned into a demon who kills without blinking!¡±

    He was frantic for Li Hao just thinking about it!

    Liu Yan smiled woodenly and quickly changed the topic. ¡°Inspector General, I¡¯d like to retrieve something!¡±

    Cut the crap! You wonder what Li Hao thinks of his teacher now? Don¡¯t even bother wasting time on that! I¡¯m more worried that Yuan Shuo can¡¯t ept his student being a serial killer!

    A merry Mu Sen led Liu Yan inside. He loved chit chatting with beautiful women. What a pity that Liu Yan was a rose with thorns. He enjoyed the flirting, but wouldn¡¯t dare to catch anything if she threw herself at him.

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time.

    Li Hao traveled straight to the Veteris Institute instead of returning home. His teacher¡¯s was safer at a time like this. If trouble arose when he conducted power into himself, his teacher might have a way to resolve it.

    ¡­¡­

    The Yuan residence.

    Yuan Shuo was home; there weren¡¯t many supernaturals lingering around Silver City. He killed a few while making a circuit and didn¡¯t know if there were more, but if there were, they would soon vanish after learning about the deaths of the others.

    There were no protectors standing guard over him anymore. He didn¡¯t need them. Hu Hao and Li Meng were preupied, in any case. They couldn¡¯t wait to start practicing the New Book of Five Styles. Neither did Yuan Shuo want anyone keeping an eye on him, so he sent them all away.

    The yard was empty when Li Hao arrived. Despite the presence of lights, it was almost midnight. Silver City had slept much more peacefully over the past two days.

    ¡°Teacher!¡± Li Hao saw Yuan Shuo in the living room. He realized he was hungry when he saw the professor eating¡ªhe hadn¡¯t eaten anything in twenty-four hours.

    ¡°Want some?¡±

    ¡°Thank you, teacher!¡± Li Hao sat down without another word and dug in,ing up for air when his mouth was smeared with grease.

    Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t much better when he ate. Smiling merrily, he looked at his student with rare tenderness. Ah, I¡¯ve truly gotten old. Now that I¡¯m injured, I should prepare to take off my armor and return to the fields. It¡¯s time to raise a student to inherit my banks of knowledge.

    He held too many ancient tomes in his mind, ones that he¡¯d destroyed the originals for. It would be an immense pity if they werepletely lost after he died. He¡¯d wanted to take a few years to pass on everything he knew to Li Hao. Thed wasn¡¯t the heir to his martial dao, but to his knowledge.

    He¡¯d taught the New Book of Five Styles to Li Hao just so the boy would be healthier. Who knew that would bizarrely lead him to the martial master path? Yuan Shuo had epted a student only because of his old injuries, but that somehow facilitated his breakthrough to Dominator of Thousands.

    The professor was actually quite satisfied with this student of his; it was a pity he was going to be very busy in the uing months. There might not be much free time to impart his learnings to thed. It was a regretful realization.

    ¡°Little Hao!¡±

    ¡°Mm?¡± Busily munching on a drumstick, Li Hao raised his head.

    ¡°Don¡¯t go home for a while.¡± Yuan Shuo smiled cheerfully. ¡°I¡¯m going to be busy in the days toe and will find some time to teach you at night. You might not have use for this knowledge right now, but they could be immensely useful in the future!¡±

    Take the Incantation of the de of Blood, the New Book of Five Styles, the Breathing Method of the Five Styles for example¡­ Many of these stemmed from ancient tomes. He modified them to better suit modern martial masters, and that was only the tip of the iceberg!

    He often came across records or descriptions in the past that he attributed to fantasies or spections of the ancients. But now that he considered them again, was that truly the case?

    Yuan Shuo nursed a grand notion of connecting all of those texts together to see if he could forge a new path for martial dao. Although their text was a bit worn down, that didn¡¯t matter! He could reconstruct them inch by inch and revise them bit by bit. The New Book of Five Styles didn¡¯t fully originate from the ruins either. He¡¯d restored it by himself and it proved just fine for cultivation. It simply took a very long time to aplish.

    Li Hao nodded without protest. He always listened to his teacher.

    ¡°Then we start tonight¡­¡±

    ¡°Not tonight!¡± the young man suddenly interrupted. ¡°I need to absorb mysterious power tonight. I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ve discovered, teacher, but elemental attributes can be separated from the mysterious power. They can be divided into a ball of attributed energy and a ball of unattributed power! The unattributed strengthens the body while the attributed improves the organs. I¡¯m not entirely sure of this, but when I separated the earth energy before, I enhanced my spleen!¡±

    ¡°Are you sure?¡± Yuan Shuo started. He truly hadn¡¯t realized this!

    ¡°Yes! It requires the energy from the little sword though, or else it¡¯s impossible!¡±

    ¡°Mysterious power can strengthen the organs?¡± Yuan Shuo muttered with newfound emphasis. ¡°Martial masters strengthen only the bones and muscle as they progress through yer and Sunderer. Only when they reach Dominator do they refresh the blood, which then reciprocates the effects onto the organs! However, it¡¯s an extremely long process!¡±

    This was odd, didn¡¯t mysterious power devour internal force? He hadn¡¯t felt it when absorbing energy, but after it burgeoned in his body, he discovered that it consumed his internal force. But now thed said it could be used to strengthen the organs? Wasn¡¯t this a shortcut? What was the reason behind this? And what was the differencepared to directly absorbing mysterious power? What were the little sword¡¯s effects?

    A myriad of thoughts sparkled in his mind; Yuan Shuo looked toward Li Hao. ¡°Other than the consciousness, the crux of the Dominator level is the strengthening of the organs. Only then is one a walking god! Or else, even poison might kill a Dominator. If the organs are not strong enough, that affects the meridians, bones, and skin. The singr breath of qi that we hold in our bodies is insufficient to strengthen the organs!

    ¡°Are you preparing to absorb mysterious power and build up your internals?¡± he asked again after some thought.

    ¡°That¡¯s my n!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Teacher, I think the effects might be better and moreprehensive if we focus on training the external and internal at the same time! Otherwise, each reverberation of internal force might harm the organs. That¡¯s why a lot of martial masters grapple with sustained injuries after a fight.¡±

    Almost every martial master carried their share of wounds. Any who were unharmed were walking proof of one thing¡ªthey were a fake martial master who did not engage in fights!

    ¡°That¡¯s just as well!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°You should absolutely strengthen your organs if you can! We don¡¯t because we don¡¯t have a way. If there is a way, you need to enhance your internals before that sword of yours is depleted!

    ¡°It will prove immensely useful for you in the future if you seed. My only concern is that there¡¯s too little energy left in the sword.¡±

    He didn¡¯t consider the same possibility for himself. It was more likely that he would exhaust the sword after a tiny amount of strengthening. In that case, it was better for Li Hao to forge solid foundations.

    ¡°Stop eating!¡± Yuan Shuo roughly hauled the young man up when thetter bent down for more food. What are you stuffing your face for?! I wouldn¡¯t have let you eat if I knew you had proper business to take care of!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind his teacher and continued chewing on his mouthful of chicken. He was satisfied only after swallowing everything in his mouth.

    ¡­¡­

    There was arge training room in Yuan Shuo¡¯s residence. He practiced in the yard when the weather was good, moving indoors when the weather was bad.

    ¡°Hurry up and begin! Show me this process!¡± The professor threw Li Hao onto a seat cushion.

    ¡°Teacher!¡± Li Hao interjected. ¡°Let¡¯s not be in a hurry. I can sense that I¡¯m about to enter Sunderer of Hundreds, but what is that level? What are its characteristics? What do I need to keep an eye out for as I make the breakthrough?¡±

    He didn¡¯t know any of this!

    Yuan Shuo started,ing back to his senses with a mixture of emotions. Although he¡¯d kept saying that Li Hao would soon progress to Sunderer, it was another thing entirely to actually see his student break through.

    When did he ascend to that level?

    Yuan Shuo started training as a young boy and became a yer when he was a teenager. He crossed into Sunderer in his twenties, reaching peak Sunderer in his forties. He then swept through the martial dao society of Silver Moon and dominated the local scene. The next thirty years were spent on trying to break through to Dominator, and he didn¡¯t seed until recently.

    But Li Hao¡­

    The rise of the supernatural was also good for martial masters as they could use mysterious power to more easily strengthen themselves. Numerous thoughts shed through Yuan Shuo¡¯s mind, settling on guilt that he hadn¡¯t taught thed any of this. The final disciple of a Dominator not knowing martial dao? It would be so shameful if word of this got out!

    ¡°I mentioned before that yer and Sunderer focuses purely on physical strength! Dominator touches on the mental level¡ªwhat we often refer to as the consciousness! Thus, Dominators are easiest to identify and determine!

    ¡°yers produce internal force, resonating their meridians and bones in unison. These characteristics represent that you have truly joined the ranks of martial masters! Internal force originates from the daily practice of martial methods and secret arts. We have another avenue now in the form of absorbing unattributed mysterious power. It fortifies the body and swiftly generates internal force. However, this may be a double edged sword, so consider its use wisely!

    ¡°yer of Tens is the process of strengthening internal force. The stronger internal force is, the stronger the body. This holds true no matter the context!

    ¡°Sunderers¡­ are determined through battle. In the past, one was deemed a Sunderer only after defeating apany of one hundred troops on the battlefield! This is less important in modern times as it¡¯s hard to find apany willing to fight you without hot weapons!

    ¡°Thus, cultivation level is one thing and actualbat strength is another in our times!¡±

    Li Hao bobbed his head as he listened intently.

    ¡°There¡¯s one hallmark of Sunderers, and that is the projection of internal force!¡±

    The young man jerked with surprise.

    ¡°Whether it¡¯s mysterious power or internal force, the human body acts as a seal for both of them! When your internal force can reach beyond the body to project outward, protecting oneself and attacking enemies, that means you have reached the Sunderer cultivation level!¡±

    ¡°External projection? Teacher, how is that achieved?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a natural reaction from the body, not an action you purposefully undertake. Your internal force will naturally extend outward and break a barrier when you reach Sunderer. All you need is the requisite physique and powerful internal force!¡±

    That sounded easy, but in reality¡­ Well, Li Hao still thought it was very easy. So it¡¯s just external projection! I get it!

    ¡°Then there must be a division of strong and weak among Sunderers. How do we determine that?¡±

    ¡°In the traditional martial master world, we divide Sunderers into the initial, mid,te, and peak stage. They correspond to the Crescent, Halfmoon, and Fullmoon of the supernatural Darkmoon. For them, there¡¯s also a Plenilune[1] before they set foot into Sunre. It should corrte with the peak stage of Sunderers. The moon perfects itself only to wane, a concept that also applies to peak Sunderers! Those who are unable to progress beyond this stage will begin to decline instead!"

    1. Plenilune: the time of the full moon. From Latin plenilunium, plenus meaning full, lunium from luna moon. ?

 Chapter 102: Sunderer of Hundreds (III)

    Chapter 102: Sunderer of Hundreds (III)

    The moon perfects itself only to wane and water fills only to overflow. If one underwent a sustained period of stagnation after reaching Fullmoon or peak Sunderer, prolonged struggle would mark the beginning of decline.

    Yuan Shuo had dawdled at this level for a very long time. He held a deep impression that if martial masters didn¡¯t shoot swiftly upward from this level, they would end up the same as him, stuck in a dead end for the rest of their life if they weren¡¯t graced with a fortuitous encounter!

    As it stood, Liu Long was ramming himself upward. He¡¯d barely made it to Sunderer, yet the downhill plunge stared at him straight in the face if he didn¡¯t continue his momentum!

    ¡°Teacher, how do you determine an initial Sunderer from a mid?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t wrap his mind around the idea.

    ¡°That¡¯s easy!¡± Yuan Shuo exined. ¡°Sunderers project their internal force into only the four limbs when they first reach this level. The four limbs are the easiest to extend intopleting this stage means you¡¯ve mastered initial Sunderer! Mid Sunderer is marked by the torso. It is mastered when internal force can project from all parts of the body except the head.

    ¡°Late Sunderer involves the head. Internal force can extend from the entire body¡ªat this point, you can injure enemies with internal force from a head butt! This indicates perfect proficiency of your body, making you ate Sunderer!¡±

    ¡°Then what about peak Sunderer?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°Peak?¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°That is when youe in contact with the consciousness! This level is a bit too profound for you at the moment. To put it simply, it feels like you¡¯ve grown an omnipresent eye. You can perceive danger and sometimes sense people or see behind you. You might be able to view the inside of your body or your organs. You have touched the consciousness, which marks peak Sunderer! It is the first step to Dominator.¡±

    Li Hao understood! He finally had a thorough outline of the martial master cultivation system. All yers needed to do was practice internal force and temper the physical body. Sunderers could project their internal force beyond the body. Extending it through the limbs was initial Sunderer, through the torso was mid Sunderer, everywhere throughout the body waste Sunderer. Looking inward, sensing danger, and grasping the consciousness was peak Sunderer.

    ¡°Is Captain Liu a peak Sunderer?¡± asked the young man.

    ¡°Not really, but kind of!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head.

    ¡°How so?¡±

    ¡°It was mysterious power that elevated him to that level, so he has no inkling of the consciousness! He can be firmly considered ate Sunderer, but his umted internal force exceeds that level. Most modern martial masters share this problem! Thus, it¡¯s not likely that Liu Long can break through, not unless heprehends the consciousness. If he doesn¡¯t, he either needs to make the crossover, or stay as a peak Sunderer for the rest of his life!¡±

    ¡°Is there no other way?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°There is!¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°This is the hardest challenge for martial masters to ovee! How do you think I came in contact with the consciousness myself?¡±

    The levels before weren¡¯t too hard¡ªessing the consciousness was the real difficulty. Li Hao didn¡¯t understand, but he knew that his teacher did. The professor was a Dominator, after all!

    ¡°How did you do it, teacher?¡±

    ¡°Martial training, intent training, heart training, and origin training!¡±

    Li Hao looked on nkly.

    Yuan Shuo sighed. You suddenly don¡¯t seem too sharp either, kid. Forget it, I¡¯ll go into more details since it hasn¡¯t been long that you¡¯ve known about martial dao.

    ¡°Take the New Book of Five Styles for example¡ªI lived in the mountains for three years in order to break through to peak Sunderer! I spent the days observing the true characteristics of tigers, deer, bears, apes, and birds. I learned and imitated everything about them. Remember, imitate, not be then!

    ¡°Humans are humans and animals are animals. We need to grasp the profundities of our observations! Why do tigers attack through pouncing? How do they pounce and why can they urately injure their enemy, delivering fatal hits with one move? How do deer determine that a tiger is about to ambush them?

    ¡°It is an extremely marvelous process!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Those who can understand willprehend and those who cannot¡­ Well, there¡¯s no helping it. That means they reallyck the potential!¡±

    ¡°Teacher, Captain Liu practices the Nine Forged Force,¡± Li Hao asked with newfound curiosity. ¡°He¡¯s not imitating the five animals. How can he grasp the consciousness if he wants to break through?¡±

    ¡°This hearkens to the origin of each martial dao secret art! Let¡¯s talk about his Nine Forged Force¡ªyou need to consider how the inventor created it! What is the intrinsic nature of the Nine Forged Force? How does oneyer internal force nine times in one move? Since I¡¯ve never practiced it, I am unable to offer an answer.

    ¡°As its practitioner and a well versed one, does he not have a slightest inkling? Pursuing greater strength is correct, but pure strength will not propel one beyond the bottleneck!¡±

    Li Hao nodded appreciatively. A few words from his teacher helped him sketch a rudimentary picture of the martial master cultivation system. As expected of a Dominator!

    So Captain Liu couldn¡¯t ascend because he wasn¡¯t a true peak Sunderer yet. He¡¯d yet to brush against the consciousness and understand it, so he was far from Dominator. This was a problem that mysterious power could not resolve and he might face the same difficulty in the future.

    After learning all this, Li Hao turned his attention to absorbing mysterious power. Since he¡¯d strengthened his spleenst time, the young man opted for the other organs first. Of the five organs, the heart corresponded to fire, spleen to earth, wood to liver, metal to lungs, and water to the kidneys.

    Li Hao started with water first! Let¡¯s work on the kidneys! Strong kidneys made for strong men¡­ The well-read young man was aware of this. Stronger kidneys might trante to a stronger crotch¡­ perhaps. In any case, he was growing concerned after using the same dirty trick twice. What if someone did the same to him?

    Li Hao drew a tiny bit from the jade sword after water energy entered his body. He didn¡¯t dare waste anything from Steris and was deathly afraid of consuming so much that he depleted the treasure.

    The kidneys were vitally important as they discharged toxins and removed metabolic wastes. He wouldn¡¯t have to worry about the enemy employing poison if his kidneys were strong enough¡ªany that assailed him would be swiftly excreted.

    This organ also regted blood pressure. Someone with powerful blood like Li Hao easily sent his blood pressure racing. That wasn¡¯t a severe problem in itself, other than his blood vessels easily breaking. This was a drawback of the blood being stronger than the body.

    Motes of mysterious power filtered out of the human bone, entering the young man¡¯s body to be swiftly segregated by cosmic power. The attributed portion acted just as Li Hao surmised¡ªthey corresponded to the five elements and began strengthening the kidneys!

    Yuan Shuo closely observed his pupil all the while, various looks shing through his eyes. He had some preliminary thoughts, but now wasn¡¯t the time for experimentation.

    After Li Hao absorbed two cubes of water energy, he swiftly took in metal and wood. When he finished digesting two cubes of the four elements, he reassessed the state of his strengthened organs. His body actuallybored under a bit of strain. The various organs could endure blood flowing faster, but his heart¡­ seemed overtaxed.

    Babump, babump, babump!

    His heart pounded furiously; the difort was bearable as the imbnce wasn¡¯t too great.

    ¡°He¡¯s missing fire!¡± Yuan Shuo instantly grasped, then thought of something else just as quickly. He swiftly vanished from the house.

    ¡­¡­

    Outside the residence.

    Yuan Shuo bounded into the air and appeared in front of Hao Lianchuan. ¡°Do you have fire attributed mysterious power?¡±

    ¡°Eh? No... what¡¯s going on?¡±

    ¡°I remember that you¡¯re a fire supernatural?¡±

    ¡°Yes¡­?¡±

    ¡°And you don¡¯t have fire energy?¡±

    ¡°Me being a fire supernatural doesn¡¯t mean I possess its mysterious power. Am I supposed to strip power from my own body?¡± Hao Lianchuan looked on wordlessly; he wasn¡¯t in the habit of carrying that on him!

    ¡°Strip some from your body!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Hao Lianchuan nearly choked on his own spit. What was that supposed to mean? I¡¯m still alive, but you want to strip my power?

    ¡°Hurry up and extract some! I¡¯ll tell you a secret!¡±

    ¡°A secret?¡±

    ¡°Swiftly now!¡±

    Fine then, Hao Lianchuan was very curious about this secret. He extracted a tiny amount from himself, at which Yuan Shuo frowned.

    ¡°That¡¯s not enough, give me twenty cubes. That¡¯s nothing to you!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Hao Lianchuan sighed. ¡°Don¡¯t be pulling the wool over my eyes, Professor Yuan. I hope this secret is worth twenty cubes!¡±

    Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t be bothered with the director. He swiftly collected the fire energy in a supernatural object, to which Hao Lianchuan turned a blind eye. The old man had some money, huh! He¡¯s squirreled away some good stuff over the years.

    ¡°What is this secret, Professor Yuan?¡± It didn¡¯t matter if it wasn¡¯t a big secret. Twenty cubes weren¡¯t much and it¡¯d seemed like Yuan Shuo was going to hit him if he didn¡¯t agree. A secret would be an unexpected bonus.

    However, the professor¡¯s response shook him to the core. ¡°Your heart is overtaxed! Fire energy is a great stimnt for the heart. You should absorb some energy of the other four elements, even if in trace amounts. It¡¯s fine if there¡¯s some conflict, just absorb a very small amount to counteract the burden on your heart. Otherwise¡­ your heart may explode one day!¡±

    With that, he glided through the air and swiftly disappeared, leaving a gaping Hao Lianchuan behind. His heart was overtaxed and he needed to partake some energy of the other elements! Yuan Shuo was right, he had indeed felt some strain on his hearttely, but didn¡¯t think much of it.

    ¡°The energy of the five elements?¡± The director sank into deep thought, suddenly finding this to be a very worthwhile trade for twenty cubes. That old man certainly possessed a stunning amount of secrets. Any random one was worthy of immense attention!

    etvre''s Thoughts

    And now that we''re in the triple digit chapter range, please consider writing a review for SG if you''ve been enjoying the series! Or if you haven''t, that''s cool too! Just praise the celestial fluff goddess etvre then hahahahaha.

 Chapter 103: Good News for the Demon Hunters (I)

    Chapter 103: Good News for the Demon Hunters (I)

    Indoors.

    Li Hao was nning on wrapping up absorption of mysterious power when his teacher produced a round jug. ¡°Fire energy!¡±

    The young man¡¯s eyes lit up. His teacher was amazing! Anything he wanted was swiftly procured! He continued to conduct mysterious power, gradually strengthening his heart with the new provision. His body established a stable cirction system as all five organs had been enhanced.

    Li Hao¡¯s body trembled when the circtionpleted. There was a noticeable increase to his internal force, but not to the point of breaking out of the body. He paid it no heed and continued taking in mysterious power two cubes at a time.

    After an indeterminate period, thirty of the cubes that he¡¯d been allotted and an additional eight from his teacher meant that Li Hao had digested thirty-eight cubes of attributed energy in one go! Combined with the two earth cubes from before made forty in total!

    This was a sum unattainable by Liu Yan and the others over numerous years, not to mention there simply hadn¡¯t been that much for them to absorb.

    When Li Hao was finished, he had a feeling that¡­ he could project his internal force! He grunted and punched forward. Not quite enough! He drew on the Nine Forged Force next. Oneyer isn¡¯t enough, so let¡¯s try twoyers!

    Twice Forged!

    Threads of light shimmered over Li Hao¡¯s fist with the increase in internal force. He crushed the floor tiles with a loud punch!

    Joy seized him¡ªwas he a Sunderer?

    Yuan Shuo, however, frowned. ¡°That¡¯s good enough, you¡¯re almost there. You just barely managed to project internal force with Twice Forged. Eh, you can count as a Sunderer now. But what the hell did you punch my floor tiles for?¡±

    This little bastard! Yuan Shuo looked around the room with a sour expression. I spent a ton of money on these tiles and you broke them all! Why are you such a pain?

    ¡°Teacher, I¡¯m a Sunderer!¡± What did the gleeful Li Hao care about this?

    ¡°So what?¡± Yuan Shuo responded sternly. ¡°You¡¯re an initiate, and barely at that. Strictly speaking, you¡¯re not a Sunderer either. Wang Ming is the same age as you and he¡¯s peak Halfmoon. When he enters Fullmoon, that¡¯s ate Sunderer! Do you think you¡¯re something?¡±

    The kid would get way too full of himself if he wasn¡¯t taken down a peg!

    ¡°Teacher, I¡­¡± Li Hao mumbled sheepishly. Can¡¯t I be excited for a little bit? I¡¯m a Sunderer!

    ¡°Also, yourbat ability is extremely poor. That¡¯s enough, you can stop here for now!¡± Yuan Shuo said firmly. ¡°Take the rest of the day to familiarize yourself with your new condition!¡±

    He strode out of the training room; a beatific smile blossomed over his face and his fists clenched tight as soon as he exited! A Sunderer of Hundreds! To think that he might raise a Dominator in his old age! Although the kid utilized external force for his breakthrough, it wouldn¡¯t matter so long as he couldprehend the consciousness. If he became a Dominator as well¡­ there would be two Dominators under his school of teaching!

    Keep it together! Yuan Shuo cut through his internal jubtion. I can¡¯t show anything! I¡¯m a Dominator who¡¯s killed a Sr. He¡¯s just a measly Sunderer, a rookie initiate that I can kill with a single p!

    His emotions settled down. Right, that¡¯s right! He broke the floor tiles outside with a single stomp and harrumphed, ¡°Have someone retile my floors tomorrow! All of them! You¡¯re paying!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao looked on awkwardly. I¡­ I don¡¯t have much money. Your tiles are really expensive, teacher! He finally recalled how poor he was; the joy of breaking through to Sunderer immediately dimmed. I don¡¯t have any money!

    ¡­¡­

    Twice Forged enabled him to project his internal force, indicating that Li Hao had truly reached the Sunderer threshold. He wouldn¡¯t be an official Sunderer until he could project internal force through one single instance of deployment.

    But he didn¡¯t care about that! He danced around with foolish joy. How many days had it been since he became a yer? Just three or four days!

    As for how much mysterious power he¡¯d absorbed in total¡ªnot that much. Liu Yan and the others might have absorbed more than him. His key difference was that he digested a great deal of cosmic power when he took in mysterious power. The jade sword was legendary!

    It neutralized the scarlet shadow¡¯s power and mysterious power, decreasing the violence of their impact. It also improved the structure of energy to make it more suited for nourishing the body, as opposed to the supernatural tendency of exhausting potential.

    Li Hao punched excitedly. The New Book of Five Styles! He also tried the Nine Forged Force. One of the drawbacks of martial dao was that switching between methods required utilizing a different breathing technique. The Nine Forged Force had a proprietary technique and the Five Styles possessed its own breathing method.

    When he practiced Nine Forged Force, he needed to halt the Breathing Method of the Five Styles and change to the Nine Forged Force breathing technique. It required a short and simple process, which would only shorten as he grew more proficient in the method. However, this was a clear detriment in a fight between powerhouses.

    Li Hao dwelled on this con as he swapped methods, wondering if his teacher had a solution. The Nine Forged Force didn¡¯t seem that useful for now, but he could sense the might of this secret art. Once Forged ced him on par with Liu Yan as he wasn¡¯t a Sunderer. Twice Forged made him a Sunderer and enabled him to project his internal force. His strength immediately climbed beyond that of Liu Yan¡¯s.

    And this was just Twice Forged! What about three times or four, or even more? Once he reached Nine Forged, perhaps he would step into mid orte Sunderer¡­

    ¡°Hup!¡± He put everything out of his mind¡ªhe could think about this after solidifying his new level. Li Hao¡¯s newest goal was to master Thrice Forged. His internal force was more abundant than before and his body stronger. There was enough internal force for his use and his body could withstand the bacsh, but the thirdyer of force was difficult to control. It was hard for him to swiftly reach a state of stackingyers on each other. If he couldn¡¯t aplish this process, then there would be nothing special about his internal force; he wouldn¡¯t even be able to project it.

    ¡°Teacher says mybat ability iscking and that my reflexes aren¡¯t fast enough, but strength breaks all methods!¡± His thoughts slightly differed from Yuan Shuo¡¯s at this stage. Li Hao was of the mindset that since he¡¯d just be a Sunderer, of course he was no match for Wang Ming. But if he reached peak Sunderer first, would Wang Ming be able to match him?

    Therefore, he would raise his cultivation level first, then his strength, then slowly temper his strength when he reached the bottleneck of consciousness. That was when he would have time to slowly increase his battle experience!

    What Li Hao had in mind was to exercise superiority through cultivation level!

    Take his teacher, for instance. Dominators were immensely powerful, but he might not rival his teacher when he reached the same level. But what if his cultivation level was even higher?

    Prevailing in the face of adverse circumstances is the stuff of legends, but that also illustrates how difficult it is to achieve. Dominating others through sheer strength is the norm, and the expected oue is set ny-nine percent of the time¡­

    Li Hao¡¯s mind flitted through various thoughts as he practiced martial routines. His thoughts broke free from the usual in that most people considered how to be invincible in their cultivation level, whereas the young man wondered if he should always strive to be one level higher than the enemy.

    So you¡¯re unmatched in your level, but if I¡¯m higher than you, how¡¯re you supposed to fight me?

    ¡°Therefore¡­ I can¡¯t stay in ce. I need to keep absorbing power until I can¡¯t!¡±

    Mysterious power, scarlet shadow energy, cosmic power. He needed to digest all of these as quickly as possible. It wasn¡¯t a cause for pity that the jade sword was about to be exhausted. Transmuting it into his own strength made it his. Power not grasped in the hand would never be his.

    ¡­¡­

    Sounds of Li Hao practicing continued throughout the night. Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t disturb the enthusiasticd in his first contact with projecting internal force. On the contrary, it would be best if this enthusiasm could be sustained. Only then would Li Hao grasp a brighter future.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao did not collect the scarlet shadows within the city as Hao Lianchuan was still present. That continued to be on his agenda and needed to be aplished soon, because the young man was concerned that Red Moon would send their people to collect the shadows. He would grab them as soon as the director left.

    It wasn¡¯t as if Red Moon would dare send anyone before both Hao Lianchuan and Yuan Shuo departed. Everything was ounted for in Li Hao¡¯s calctions.

    ¡­¡­

    Early next morning.

    Li Hao once more rushed to the Demon Hunters base. The team was in better condition two days after battle. The most heavily injured Wu Chao could leave his bed now.

    Everyone was in high spirits!

    They¡¯d experienced the heaviest fighting ever in this mission, but it was the only time that there were no fatalities. This put everyone in a good mood, including Liu Long. Not only that, but the early rising Liu Yan smiled beguilingly when she saw Li Hao.

    ¡°Little Hao Hao, big sis loves you!¡± She stered her body onto the young man¡¯s.

    Li Hao looked around awkwardly and whispered, ¡°You should¡­ button your buttons together!¡±

    ¡°Does Little Hao Hao still get shy?¡± Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°You¡¯re not shy at all when stabbing people!¡±

    ¡°Did you personally see him stab others, vice captain?¡± the still injured Wu Chaoughed hauntingly. ¡°Heh, us men will probably never get a chance to experience how he thrusts his weapon!¡±

    Liu Yan flicked him a cold nce. ¡°Shut up, trash! You¡¯re the most heavily injured, why do you think you can crack lewd jokes with me?!¡±

    Wu Chao immediately shut up with some resignation. I mean¡­ yes, but it¡¯s not like I had a choice!

    Yun Yao was changing Chen Jian¡¯s dressings and spoke cidly without turning her head, ¡°Vice Captain Liu, someone in her thirties should be more modest. Li Hao is still young.¡±

    ¡°Who are you calling in her thirties?!¡± Liu Yan flew into a rage. She didn¡¯t dare provoke Yun Yao in normal times, but the team doctor had just thrown down the gauntlet!

    Who was in her thirties?!

    I just turned thirty!

    Yun Yao didn¡¯t want to continue arguing after delivering a knockout blow. She looked at Li Hao when she finished with Chen Jian and smiled faintly. ¡°You¡¯re not injured, are you? If you are, you cane to me.¡±

    ¡°Bah!¡± Liu Yan spat derisively, but softly since she was wary of Yun Yao.

 Chapter 104: Good News for the Demon Hunters (II)

    Chapter 104: Good News for the Demon Hunters (II)

    Li Hao shook his head with a smile. ¡°I¡¯m fine, just some scrapes and scratches.¡±

    He was indeed injured, but his injuries had healed so quickly that there was almost no sign of them anymore. Meanwhile, Liu Yan almost forgot proper business after the small tiff with Yun Yao.

    ¡°Little Hao Hao,¡± she eximed. ¡°Do you know that your big sis broke throughst night?!¡±

    She agitated her internal force with unbounded enthusiasm. A faint strand of white manifested above her fingertips. ¡°I absorbed some mysterious power and progressed to Sunderer!¡±

    The team paused with surprise, then broke out in general delight.

    A breakthrough!

    Liu Yan had stopped at yer of Tens for many years. Despite absorbing plenty of mysterious power, she continuously failed to break through or make the crossover. Today, she progressed without fanfare!

    The team was overjoyed at first. After a while, Wu Chao suddenly turned despondent and whispered, ¡°You¡¯re a Sunderer now?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°This¡­¡± Wu Chao was glum. Still having his wounds bandaged, Chen Jian fell silent as well.

    ¡°Being a Sunderer is a good thing!¡± Yun Yao sighed as she tended to Chen Jian.

    Li Hao could tell that the team was truly happy at first, but then not so happy. He understood.

    It was indeed cause for celebration that Liu Yan had grown stronger and set foot into Sunderer, but the stronger a martial master was, the harder it was for them to be supernatural. Of this, the group was well aware.

    The stronger one was, the harder it was to convert to the supernatural domain. Take Liu Long for example¡ªhis strength as a martial master grew by the day, but improvement was limited so long as he could not make the crossover.

    Progress was much simpler in the supernatural system. Sunderers were barely on par with Darkmoons, yet look at Wang Ming, Li Meng, and Hu Hao. They¡¯d easily set foot into Darkmoon at such a young age. While they were far from reaching Sunre, there were high hopes for them to do so.

    How many among martial masters could break through to Dominator of Thousands? The gap between the two systems was too great!

    If Liu Yan had advanced twenty years ago, she would have set a public banquet and invited everyone to feast! But in this day and age, rising another level in martial dao without entering the supernatural system meant that her chances of crossing over were greatly diminished!

    The joyous atmosphere immediately turned downcast. Liu Yan could sense it too, but she didn¡¯t mind as much as she would¡¯ve before.

    ¡°What is this? Isn¡¯t this worth congratting?¡± she tittered. ¡°Sunderers are very strong! I¡¯m the second person on the team to break through! Elder Yuan¡¯s shining example is right in front of us, I don¡¯t despair at all! We¡¯ll be able to go against Srs after reaching Dominator!¡±

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s condition brought hope to everyone. To put it in more ostentatious terms, every Silver Moon martial master felt there was hope for the future after hearing the news. A Dominator rising up against a Sr!

    Martial masters were the eternal gods!

    Of course, martial masters would rather join the supernatural domain if circumstances permitted. There were plenty of Sunres in modern society and a handful of Srs. There was even news from the central region that some powerhouses had smashed the boundary to rise above Sr!

    But martial masters?

    Out of hundreds of millions in the vast Silver Moon, there wasn¡¯t a single Dominator to be found among martial masters. Well, there was one now, but only one!

    The supernatural was inly much higher when it came to upper limits. Srs ranked above Sunre and there was more to be found above Sr. As for what exactly remained unknown as there were too few familiar with it.

    But martial masters?

    Was there another level above Dominator? Not even martial masters knew!

    Dominators were walking gods a few decades ago. yer of Tens, Sunderer of Hundreds, Dominator of Thousands¡­ What came after that, one against tens of thousands? Who could battle so many?

    The future was bright and unbounded for supernaturals, martial masters were the wilted flowers of yesterday.

    Peak Sunderer Liu Long craved to make the crossover, as did Yuan Shuo continuously pursue the supernatural. And today, the member of the team with the most potential to be otherworldly identally ascended to Sunderer¡­

    This was wonderful news as it meant the team was stronger. It was also disastrous news as Sunderers found it much more difficult to make the crossover. Although the public admired Yuan Shuo now, there were also those waiting to see the professor be made a fool of. It would be even harder for Yuan Shuo to be supernatural after making it to Dominator. The supernatural domain continuously pushed its limits while martial dao already bumped up against its borders!

    Yuan Shuo was strong enough now, yet existences beyond Sr had appeared in the central region. That ced them two levels greater than Yuan Shuo. As strong as martial masters were, could they defy powerhouses beyond Sr?

    Another key point was that martial masters required ten, twenty, or even thirty years to take one step forward. It¡¯d only been twenty years since the supernatural appeared and there were already existences beyond Sr! They continued to improve and grow stronger every year, a fact that martial dao could notpare to!

    ¡°What¡¯s with all of you?¡± Liu Yanughed happily. ¡°I broke through! I¡¯m a Sunderer! If I make the crossover at this level, I might vault straight into Sunre! This is great news, why all the long faces?¡±

    ¡°Congrattions!¡± Li Hao was the first to react and smiled broadly. ¡°You¡¯re a Sunderer from now on, sis! We have less to worry about. My teacher says that Dominator may not be the limit of martial dao. While progress is fast with the supernatural, that doesn¡¯t mean there are no drawbacks.

    ¡°All of you know better than I do that advancement is slow with martial masters,¡± Li Hao continued after seeing that he had everyone¡¯s attention. ¡°But internal force travels from inside to out. It¡¯s energy produced by the body with no obvious disadvantages. And the supernatural?

    ¡°Their energy travels from outside in. Supernaturals are in grave danger when they enter an area without mysterious power. They also suffer from a lot of disadvantages. Fire supernaturals, for example, are noticeably suppressed on rainy days. Martial masters can limate to all sorts of environments¡­¡±

    ¡°We know all this,¡± Yun Yao interrupted gently. ¡°But you need to know that only one Dominator has appeared among all Silver Moon martial masters in thest twenty years! That august personage is your teacher, Yuan Shuo! I¡¯m not judging who¡¯s stronger or has more advantages, just that in terms of powerhouses, there have been at least fifty Sunres in Silver Moon over thest twenty years.

    ¡°And those are only the known ones. There¡¯s bound to be more in the shadows, hidden among supernatural organizations or even Night Watchers!¡± she concluded with resignation. ¡°Everyone knows that there are drawbacks with the supernatural, but it swiftly improves and develops every year. It¡¯s ovee some of its initial issues by now, yet curtains fall on martial masters by the day. Professor Yuan is now foremost among Silver Moon martial masters!¡±

    Could this number one rival Srs? He¡¯d killed one of them, yes¡ªcould he kill a second?

    Many guessed that Yuan Shuo killed Brokensky because the supernatural hadn¡¯t anticipated his opponent had broken through. It led to severe injuries with the first blow and his subsequent death. The professor might not prevail against a Sr opponent in directbat.

    ¡°Sis Yun.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Although martial masters might have a more modest upper limit, we may be able to swiftly cross over to Sunre as a Sunderer. Isn¡¯t that also a good thing? Our team is stronger after gaining a Sunderer, it¡¯s definitely worth celebrating!¡±

    He offered some encouragement after seeing that everyone remained down in the dumps. Liu Yan herself might not feel as open-minded and happy about her breakthrough, but Li Hao really didn¡¯t think it made a difference.

    ¡°That¡¯s true!¡± Chen Jianughed straightforwardly. ¡°Sunderers are also a force to be reckoned with! Chief is a Sunderer¡ªlook at how much stronger he is than those Night Watchers! This makes for two Sunderers in our six person team. Silver City¡¯s not that big, so as long as we don¡¯t suffer another supernatural attack of the same scale, we¡¯ll be able to handle it if a few Darkmoonse under normal circumstances.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, that¡¯s right!¡± Wu Chao shoved his moroseness downward and smiled in ghastly fashion. ¡°Congrattions, Vice Captain Liu! You¡¯re really something to be the second Sunderer of our team!¡±

    Liu Long entered at this time. He looked at the group, then at Liu Yan.

    ¡°Everyone knows about Liu Yan breaking through?¡± he asked calmly.

    ¡°Yep!¡± The team nodded. Patently, the chief knew before they did.

    ¡°This is good! Increases in strength are good at a critical time like this. As for this making progress hard¡­ Don¡¯t we have the greatest martial master of Silver Moon? We might learn something new if we ask him for guidance! Sunderers soar to the heaven with one move if they set foot into the supernatural. They directly enter the ranks of Sunre! Not even our province has many Sunres, you¡¯ll be envious then!¡±

    That was all he said on the topic. He might say more if Liu Yan could make the crossover, but modern knowledge was that the stronger the martial master was, the further it shoved them away from the supernatural. This development wasn¡¯t necessarily the best.

    ¡°Enough about that, let¡¯s talk about more good news!¡± Liu Long shed a smile. ¡°Director Hao sought me out this morning! He¡¯s agreed in principle to establish a Night Watcher branch. Once it¡¯s formalized, we¡¯ll be a branch in much more than just name.¡±

    He looked at Li Hao, surmising that the young man might be the only person who didn¡¯t understand. ¡°Establishing a branch means that we¡¯ll be sent some supernaturals and resources that they need, including mysterious power! If the branch failed toe through, all we¡¯d get are massive raises from the Inspectorate. But what good are wages to us apart from food, sleep, and clothes?¡±

    They didn¡¯t need money! There wasn¡¯t much use for it as money couldn¡¯t buy mysterious power. Those who traded mysterious power on the ck markets needed money for other purposes, such as resources for the organization, food, lodgings, etc.

    Public coin paid for all of this when it came to the Demon Hunters, so they didn¡¯t understand the purpose of money. Once a branch was established, their wages would change to mysterious power instead of fiat. Other than a steady source of resources, those upstairs would also send a few supernaturals to enhance the city¡¯s defense.

    Establishing a Night Watcher branch also indicated that the government had temporarily set aside the idea of migrating Silver City.

    There were so many benefits!

    ¡°Director Hao came to me and mentioned his thoughts to indicate that he approves of this n,¡± Liu Long chuckled. ¡°This is good! He has a high status among the Night Watchers¡ªhe¡¯s second to only Director Xie! This means that the likelihood of this proposal going through is greatly increased!¡±

 Chapter 105: Good News for the Demon Hunters (III)

    Chapter 105: Good News for the Demon Hunters (III)

    ¡°Will you be chiefmissioner of the new branch?¡± This was the only detail that Liu Yan cared about. ording to the hierarchy of power, directors of Night Watcher branches should be first rank chiefmissioners¡ªthe same as Mu Sen.

    The establishment of a branch was indeed good news; their only fear was that someone other than Liu Long would be chosen to be the director as he was only a martial master. The branch would not be good news then.

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing to worry about!¡± Liu Long remarked indifferently. ¡°Our goal isn¡¯t to exercise control over the new branch¡ªits presence means that Silver City has be territory that must be protected! If they do tap someone else to be the chiefmissioner, they¡¯ll have to send at least a Fullmoon of the Darkmoon level. That¡¯s another good thing, not bad!¡±

    The team mulled over his response, not as excited as one might think. This was worthy of celebration only if Liu Long became director of the new branch.

    As she mused, Liu Yan suddenly lit up. ¡°Why don¡¯t we ask Professor Yuan to join us? With his presence, there¡¯s no way the director will be anyone else¡­¡±

    Liu Long stared at her before snorting, ¡°Do you think that¡¯s possible?¡±

    The heck are you thinking? Not to mention, with Yuan Shuo¡¯s personality, he wouldn¡¯t be a responsible overseer. Actually, he might bring trouble with him instead. Forget it, Liu Long would rather that those upstairs send a peak Darkmoon.

    He turned to Li Hao with a faint smile. ¡°Did you absorb mysterious powerst night?¡±

    The young man nodded.

    ¡°How do you feel? Are your supernatural locks loosening?¡±

    ¡°No, still the same old!¡± Li Hao shook his head.

    Liu Long frowned. He was wavering in his cultivation due to Yuan Shuo¡¯s new aplishment, but also because he proved unable to make the crossover. His continued failure was motivation to continue down the martial dao path. Yet Li Hao was young, this was his best chance. If he continued to strengthen his body without ascending¡­ it would grow steadily more difficult to join the supernatural.

    ¡°Forget it, there¡¯s no hurry!¡± Liu Long dropped the conversation. Haste would not do them any good. There was no helping it, some people never made the crossover because they couldn¡¯t find the appropriate mysterious power that was their match.

    They could only wait! Perhaps Li Hao would easily cross into the supernatural when the time was right.

    The team of six counted great gains after the supernatural battle of a few days ago. Once everyone recovered, they would be all the stronger for it even if no one made the crossover. With the Demon Hunters enormously strengthened and potentially a few more Night Watchers, they would have much stronger capabilities to defend the city.

    Li Hao¡¯s mind was elsewhere. ¡°Chief, I¡¯m still a third rank inspector for the moment,¡± he said shyly. ¡°The second rank appointment has yet to be announced. Did I contribute enough this time? If so, can I be promoted to first?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    Dead silence! Liu Long stopped in his tracks. This was what the kid was concerned about at a time like this? The hell??

    He¡¯dpletely forgotten all about this because he was amissioner inspector. The next rank upward was chiefmissioner, a rank he wasn¡¯t qualified to attain if the new branch didn¡¯te through. There was only one chiefmissioner in all of Silver City¡ªMu Sen.

    ¡°You¡­¡± Liu Long choked on his spit. ¡°Fine! I¡¯ll write up a report for you. You did indeed make an enormous contribution and I guarantee a position of first rank inspector, if notmissioner inspector!¡±

    ¡°Then my monthly sry increases to ten thousand, doesn¡¯t it?¡± Li Hao smiled bashfully.

    ¡°You were just allotted thirty-two cubes yesterday,¡± Liu Long couldn¡¯t contain his irritation. ¡°They¡¯re worth tens of millions! Do you really care about pocket change?¡±

    Why was the kid so muddle-headed at times?!

    ¡°Chief, I don¡¯t know if mysterious power can be sold and I wouldn¡¯t dare sell it even if it can be,¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°Every step is difficult without money! I broke my teacher¡¯s floor tiles yesterday and he wants me to repair them. I asked around this morning and they¡¯ll cost around one hundred thousand altogether!¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Liu Long gaped speechlessly. Was Yuan Shuo even human? You want your student to upgrade your tiles for you??

    The young man grinned at seeing the captain fall silent. ¡°Chief, how about you lend me some money?¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Liu Long blinked and said awkwardly, ¡°I don¡¯t have any money either.¡±

    How is that possible?! Li Hao stared at the man. Damn you¡¯re miserly, you don¡¯t want to part with even that! You¡¯re amissioner inspector, your sry is high! How can you possibly not have money?

    Liu Long didn¡¯t bother exining that he really didn¡¯t have any. He didn¡¯t even look at his monthly paystub before giving all of it away. He only cared about mysterious power and other things rted to the supernatural. Nothing else mattered. Whenever payday arrived, he gave it to the families of brothers fallen in battle.

    The other Demon Hunters were in a simr state. They didn¡¯t care about money. Roughly twentyrades-in-arms had died in various missions; not all of them were single. Mysterious power couldn¡¯t be offered inpensation, only money could. They were fed and clothed by the government, so no one thought about money.

    Li Hao had to give up the idea of borrowing from the team when he realized their mentality. What a bunch of poors! Although they all received a decent allotment of mysterious power, no one would sell any as it wasn¡¯t enough for personal use. All that mattered was sufficient food and drink, who cared about wealth?

    ¡°Chief, I went to ask my teacherst night how martial masters can break through to Dominator,¡± Li Hao changed the topic. ¡°He told me everything and said that you¡¯re a pseudo peak Sunderer! Your strength is there, but you¡¯ve yet to encounter the consciousness. Therefore, you don¡¯t count as a true peak Sunderer.¡±

    This piqued Liu Long¡¯s interest; everyone else perked up their ears. The newly ascended Liu Yan also grabbed a fistful of Li Hao¡¯s shirt. Since they continued to fail the crossover, it would be tremendous if they could learn some Dominator secrets.

    ¡°What my teacher means is that the primary reason lies with chief¡¯s insufficient understanding of the true nature of the Nine Forged Force. Back in the day, my teacher traveled to the mountains and befriended tigers in order toprehend the meaning of the Five Styles. This was relevant to understanding their aura!

    ¡°To be more exact, he says that just as everyone is different, so is every secret art distinct. The key is to grasp the core essence of the secret art! The Five Styles¡¯ can be found from nature and with the aura from the five animals when they attack. Teacher¡¯s never practiced the Nine Forged Force, so he doesn¡¯t know where to begin. He did say, though, that chief will never break through to Dominator if you don¡¯t understand this!¡±

    Liu Long sank into deep contemtion. The consciousness and aura! He knew these terms, but not how toprehend them. His father had never spoken of them, likely because he himself hadn¡¯t known at the time of his death. If he had, he would¡¯ve rivaled Yuan Shuo.

    The true nature of the Nine Forged Force?

    The deputy chief came up empty-handed after some thought, but at least he knew where to start looking. He smiled at Li Hao. ¡°Did your teacher send you with this message?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao grinned simply. ¡°He simply told me about it. Since it has to do with chief, I have to tell you!¡±

    ¡°Hahaha!¡± Liu Longughed heartily, seemingly in good spirits. ¡°Very well! I acknowledge this favor from you. As for Yuan Shuo¡­ I won¡¯t be bothering with him.

    ¡°We¡¯ll have some peace and quiet because Yuan Shuo cleaned house over the past couple of days. Everyone should focus on absorbing mysterious power, training, or undertaking somew enforcement missions if you have nothing to do.¡± He turned to Li Hao. ¡°You can ask me any questions you have about the Nine Forged Force. But your primary method is still the New Book of Five Styles, don¡¯t get your priorities confused. My method harms the body, it¡¯s less than the Five Styles.¡±

    He was very familiar with his family¡¯s heritage; it harmed both enemy and wielder. It was fine if Li Hao could practice it, but no matter if not. Another thought suddenly struck him. ¡°Where¡¯s Panther?¡±

    He actually missed the little ck dog.

    ¡°It¡¯s with teacher,¡± Li Hao chuckled. The dog had secretly learned the breathing method and also absorbed some scarlet shadow energy yesterday,nding itself in a state of metamorphosis. His teacher had bade the dog to stay behind, but who knew if he wanted to teach or beat the dog?

    Liu Long inclined his head without further question. There was nothing to be said if the dog was with Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°Chief, I¡¯m going out,¡± Li Hao raised upon seeing the deputy chief prepare to leave.

    ¡°Now?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I want to visit Little Yuan¡¯s tomb.¡±

    ¡°Ah, I see!¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°Go on, there¡¯s nothing happening now and your teacher and Director Hao are both present. There shouldn¡¯t be any issues. But don¡¯t go out of the city and be careful of Red Moon members.¡±

    After issuing a few reminders, the captain left quickly as he had affairs to tend to. Liu Yan piped up as soon as he was gone, ¡°Little Hao Hao, do you want big sis to go with you?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright, I¡¯ll go myself.¡±

    Liu Yan didn¡¯t insist since this was a tomb-sweeping excursion. A strange look entered her eyes when the young man left. The kid¡­ Liu Yan had sensed his condition more clearly than the others when she was on top of him earlier. His blood flowed extremely quickly!

    At first, she thought he was excited because her body was next to his. But close observation indicated this wasn¡¯t the case. It continuously circted that fast!

    Your blood flows so fast¡­ Liu Yan suddenly smiled in the direction of Li Hao¡¯s departure. He¡¯d improved again, hadn¡¯t he? And judging from hisck of mention¡­ he was nning on tricking his enemies to the end, wasn¡¯t he?

    Her thoughts traveled back to when she broke throughst night. She was nowhere near as happy as she appeared because the crossover would be incredibly difficult as a Sunderer. In fact, she almost wept when she realized her aplishment. She¡¯d adjusted her attitude for today and announced it as good news.

    Liu Yan sighed inwardly when she thought of Li Hao. Don¡¯t be obsessed with martial dao, there¡¯s no future there. The woman was highly envious of Night Watcher youngsters that set foot into Darkmoon so easily. She hoped that Li Hao could make the crossover soon and not further improve in martial dao.

    ¡°Tomb sweeping¡­¡± Perhaps she should visit that dead asshole since Li Hao had gone to visit his friend. It¡¯d been so long! With her supernatural dreams in tatters after her breakthrough, perhaps she could go see him.

 Chapter 106: The Dragon Hidden in the Abyss (I)

    Chapter 106: The Dragon Hidden in the Abyss (I)

    Inside the city.

    Dressed in his inspector uniform, Li Hao walked down the streets. He took a close look at the tattered church when he passed it. There were scarlet shadows drifting listlessly inside, as motionless as if they were dead. No one could see them, and there was more than one!

    Three supernaturals had died at the church, but he only saw two shadows. Was there a third, or had it died?

    Can anyone other than me kill the scarlet shadows? Li Hao didn¡¯t know. All he knew was that scarlet shadows remained in the world even after their masters died. That was enough.

    Red Moon¡­ bloodline¡­ scarlet shadow¡­¡± Hemitted the organization to memory. A den of evil!

    Evil should be hunted, exterminated, and burned to ashes. He would remember all of this.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t in a hurry to collect the shadows after confirming their existence. He quietly passed by like he hadn¡¯t seen them, heading straight for the cemetery. Zhang Yuan¡¯s grave was inside the city as opposed to outside. It was a bit out the way; he made his way toward a public cemetery neighbored by a few factories.

    ¡­¡­

    Another half hour of walking transpired before Li Hao reached the small mountain that the public cemetery was situated on. Zhang Yuan had pretty much been fully consumed by mes when he died, forestalling the need for a cremation.

    Halfway up the mountain.

    A new grave stood here. Li Hao hadn¡¯t been by in a few months; thest time he visited was during the new year. His eyes darted around when he approached it¡ªthere were fresh flowers ced in front of the tombstone! They didn¡¯t look to be from today since they were somewhat wilted. The wind and rain had knocked them askew.

    Yet, the young man was certain that these flowers were a recent addition. Little Yuan¡¯s family passed away long ago. When the young man died, it was Li Hao who paid for the plot. Zhang Yuan didn¡¯t have any family and they hadn¡¯t held a burial service.

    Who would visit his tomb?

    Li Hao looked around, approaching only when he was certain there were no balls of light that corresponded to supernaturals. He stared silently at the flowers in front of the grave. A young Zhang Yuan smiled from the photo on his tombstone. Li Hao considered it quietly for a very long time.

    ¡°Little Yuan¡­ You wanted me to run, but I didn¡¯t,¡± he said slowly. ¡°I think I¡¯ve won¡­ My teacher killed a really powerful guy from that organization and a lot of their supernaturals! I don¡¯t know if they¡¯lle again and I don¡¯t know if the thing that killed you died. I wanted to sacrifice their heads to you, but I think someone¡¯s taken them away.¡±

    Li Hao sat down in front of the grave and smiled at histe friend. ¡°But I¡¯ve entered this domain now and I¡¯m working toward the supernatural world. I may be able to take real revenge for all of you when I be one myself! I know what the leader of that organization is called¡ªYing Hongyue. I don¡¯t know who was the one that killed you, but I know that destroying this organization should be full revenge for you!¡±

    That was all he had to say. He remained sitting dumbly by the grave and lost himself in thought as he looked down the mountain. Neither the fresh flowers nor their giver mattered. Whether they were from an enemy, rtives, or the murderer with a guilty conscience¡­ none of it mattered. Li Hao didn¡¯t want to look into any of it.

    He continued up the mountain to where his parents¡¯ grave was. It wasn¡¯t that pressing anymore whether his parents truly died in a car ident or not. Regardless of the truth, he assigned me to Red Moon.

    The organization needed to die if it was a car ident. It needed to die if it wasn¡¯t a car ident. One required some goals and motivation in life. His parents were dead, his best friend also dead¡­ While his teacher was quite good to him, a teacher was not his parents. Li Hao found himself a bit lost at times, floundering through life without knowing which way forward.

    He drifted along aimlessly!

    If it wasn¡¯t for seeing the scarlet shadow, if it wasn¡¯t for the shadow¡¯s threat still being present, Li Hao¡¯s life would¡¯ve ended the moment Zhang Yuan died. There would be nothing he looked forward to in this existence.

    Red Moon was his new faith!

    He sometimes felt that the stronger Red Moon was, the better! If they were too weak and his teacher too easily crushed them¡­ would that make him lose his fighting spirit anew? Perhaps he wouldn¡¯t even want to understand the supernatural domain without Red Moon being in the picture.

    A massive patch of tombstones forested the mountaintop. Li Hao walked toward a tombstone mounted with a picture of a man and a woman. Both of them wereughing very happily; it¡¯d been a favorite of his parents¡¯, a family portrait taken when Li Hao was ten. He scrubbed himself out of the photo because his parents might not have wanted to use that picture for their final portrait.

    Li Hao stood in front of the grave for a while without sitting down; the look in his eyes shifted erratically. It was at times furious, at times maddened, with then a gradual return to calm. Such aplex gaze should not appear in the young man¡¯s eyes, but he seemed a bit crazed at the moment.

    He stood unmoving for a very long time. While he spoke with Zhang Yuan below, he only stared at his family here. After an indeterminate period of time, he walked up and shattered the picture with a gentle palm strike!

    The action would¡¯ve shocked any bystander, yet Li Hao only smiled eerily. He looked meaningfully at the tombstone, then at the surroundings before descending from the mountain. His hands tightened into fists as he walked!

    He hadn¡¯t realized the situation before, but he was a far cry from who he¡¯d been previously. He knew and understood more now! Killing intent flooded his eyes. He hadn¡¯t shown any bloodlust at the supernatural whom he¡¯d fooled to death, but right now he brimmed with the urge to kill and main!

    The grave was empty!

    He didn¡¯t dig into it for confirmation, but he could sense and see a hint of something awry. Someone had disturbed his parents¡¯ grave and there was nothing underneath it. He simply needed to slightly push out his internal force¡ªa feat he could achieve. His internal force sensed nothing underground. It was empty.

    Red Moon!! shed through his mind. Someone had dug up his parents¡¯ grave. The car ident might have been a cover-up, with the perpetrators possibly making their move on the day of burial. He hadn¡¯t noticed it before andcked the investigative capabilities that he now possessed.

    So his parents¡¯ grave had been robbed. Where were the bodies? Did that require consideration?

    Little Yuan had been reduced to ashes when he died. As the heir to the Lis, did his father carry a different bloodline? Had Red Moon collected his father¡¯s bloodline, but needed to kill him as well to unseal the jade sword because it on him?

    The thread of the eight trigrams is now connected to me! Was it connected to father before?

    Too many questions rose in his mind, of which he quickly sunk. He didn¡¯t need to know that much! Was there a point to finding answers? The only thing that mattered was killing them all! Killing someone was quick and easy work, but to dig up a grave and steal the body¡­ that kind of person needed to die ten thousand times over!

    In fact, Li Hao suspected that the graves of all eight families had been robbed. Perhaps all of those who¡¯d died had had their bodies taken away¡ªmaybe even their ancestors!

    Since they know about the unique traits of the eight families, the need for family bloodlines, and the family weapons¡­ Digging up ancestral tombs and grave robbing seems a necessary course of action!

    The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes grew colder. He didn¡¯t need to delve further on this matter. If his parents¡¯ grave was empty, it was more than likely that the others were as well. Damned animals!

    When he reached the foot of the mountain, Li Hao took a turn and visited the public cemetery¡¯s administrative office. It was staffed by one old man who was busily nodding off.

    ¡°Sir!¡± Li Hao woke the old man. Thetter blearily opened his eyes and jumped with shock to see a young man standing in front of him.

    ¡°Don¡¯t go around scaring people like that in broad daylight!¡±

    ¡°My apologies.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°I just wanted to say that I¡¯m a descendant of Number 118 and came to visit my parents, but saw that someone¡¯s destroyed their final portrait¡­¡±

    ¡°What??¡± the old man eximed. ¡°No one¡¯s gone up the mountain¡­ Can it be damaged from the rains?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Sir, I¡¯m not here to assign responsibility. I¡¯m just a bit heartbroken at seeing my parents¡¯ picture ruined. I¡¯m going to be a bit busy over the next couple of days and don¡¯t have time to repair it. If you can, could you get someone to fix it for me? I¡¯ll have a new picture delivered to you.¡±

    He took out a few star coins from his pocket and gave them to the old man with a smile. ¡°This is payment in advance. If that¡¯s not enough, you can send someone to the Inspectorate to find me. I¡¯m Li Hao of the inspectorate!¡±

    The old man quickly nodded when he took in Li Hao¡¯s uniform. ¡°This is definitely enough! This is only right and proper. I¡¯ll have someone fix it as soon as you bring the photo.¡±

    ¡°My thanks! Also, Number 1125 halfway up the mountain is my friend. He doesn¡¯t have any family, but I see fresh flowers in front of his tombstone. Has someone been by?¡±

    ¡°I don''t know,¡± the old man responded awkwardly. ¡°You know us, we¡¯re just in charge of administrative duties. A cemetery is different from a neighborhood, we¡¯re not at liberty to make a record of visitors and ask who they¡¯re visiting. There are a lot of visitors, so it¡¯s difficult to say who goes where.¡±

    Li Hao nodded slightly. ¡°That¡¯s alright, I was just curious if my friends¡¯ rtives havee. No worries since you don¡¯t know.¡±

    He left after another round of thanks.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao had ruined the picture on an angry impulse. He was a mundane for all intents and purposes; one oblivious to the truth since he hadn¡¯t dug up his parents¡¯ tomb. To onlookers, why would he ruin the tombstone?

    The young man forced down his raging anger and killing intent. Impotent fury was useless; it would only permit the enemy to gain a better understanding of his abilities. Hopefully, they didn¡¯t pay too much attention to this detail.

    All of them are going to die sooner orter! I¡¯m not leaving a single one alive! Li Hao cussed ominously. Just you wait!

 Chapter 107: The Dragon Hidden in the Abyss (II)

    Chapter 107: The Dragon Hidden in the Abyss (II)

    Li Hao returned to the Inspectorate on foot, taking time to readjust his mental state so that he wasn¡¯t affected by the matter. Composure gradually returned to his expression, but the ball of fire in his heart could set everyone around him ame.

    It went without saying what had happened to his parents¡¯ bodies. They were absolutely burned to a crisp. He could treat it as being cremated, but would the enemy have burned it in a typical fashion? They must have stripped out his father¡¯s bloodline first!

    The ball of fire burned more hotly the more he dwelled on it. His emotions were so violent that he could almost feel his supernatural locks manifesting. It was only then that he barely managed to keep his temper in check and refrain from revealing anything.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao saw a familiar face when he returned to work, as if the person had been waiting for him. Wang Ming!

    Li Hao shed a fake smile and shuffled his steps to catch up. ¡°Sir Wang!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± Wang Ming looked on awkwardly. That sounded weird! ¡°Just use my name!¡±

    ¡°Now that won¡¯t do!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Sir Wang is an extraordinary young talent of the Night Watchers, I¡¯ve heard my teacher speak highly of you! You rival our team captain, so no matter how we look at it, I shouldn¡¯t call you directly by your name!¡±

    ¡°Um¡­¡± An awkward Wang Ming asked probingly. ¡°Has¡­ has Elder Yuan said anything to you?¡±

    Something about honorary disciples, maybe?

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Li Hao looked on nkly. ¡°Oh, yes yes yes! My teacher says that Sir Wang is a genius and that you will surpass him one day¡­¡±

    Wang Ming didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. It looked like Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t spoken of their agreement. That was good, it would be quite awkward otherwise. Was he supposed to address Li Hao as his senior brother?

    Although he called the young man Brother Hao before, it wasn¡¯t ufortable as he knew that was for the mission. But now it really would be weird. He didn¡¯t want to acknowledge the guy in front of him as his senior brother.

    ¡°I¡¯m off then!¡± Wang Ming didn¡¯t want to mention the topic and quickly concluded their conversation.

    Li Hao nodded. ¡°As you should be. Silver City is a small ce and not fit for something like you, sir!¡±

    Wang Ming wanted to respond to that, but stopped himself. In the end, he said, ¡°You know about the Night Watchers and the supernatural! Professor Yuan received a lot of mysterious power this time. I feel that as his student, you should try asking him for some and make the crossover as soon as possible!

    ¡°The matter of the eight families of Silver City is not yet over!¡± Wang Ming was gravely solemn. ¡°Red Moon paid such an enormous price andid ns for so many years, but came up empty-handed at thest possible step. You are most certainly still ted for mandatory elimination. They won¡¯t stop, not like this, as you are viewed as thest heir of the eight families!

    ¡°Silver City is not a ce to remain for long. It is too remote¡ªnot even Professor Yuan can reside here indefinitely. He could have before, but it is not a good idea now that he¡¯s be a Dominator.¡±

    Li Hao nodded with a sigh. ¡°I know, but¡­¡±

    ¡°You should go to White Moon. With your teacher¡¯s strength, he¡¯ll be able to finesse a Night Watcher identity for you. We¡¯re not all supernatural, there¡¯s the back office as well. They handle intelligence and support. There will be plenty of suitable positions.

    ¡°Youe from the proper, preferred background of humble origins and hail from the Inspectorate. I also hear that you¡¯re possibly getting a promotion tomissioner inspector! Even if you¡¯re demoted when you transfer to the Night Watchers, you¡¯ll still be a first rank inspector. That remains a good job.¡± Wang Ming was suddenly giving advice to Li Hao.

    ¡°You might find things unfamiliar and ufortable when you go to White Moon, but we should always march forward. You¡¯re young, so take your time to limate! Once you¡¯re there, we count as old colleagues and even battlerades. You cane to me if you run into any problems, but of course, I¡¯m just a minor character in the agency and can¡¯t help you much.¡±

    He added a postscript to his offer to indicate that he could only help with small matters, not big ones.

    ¡°You can also go to Li Meng and Hu Hao. They love to help people, so I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll turn you down.¡±

    Li Hao was rather confused and slightly surprised. So these people were this amodating? Or was there something afoot that he didn¡¯t know?

    The young man subconsciously felt that it had something to do with his teacher. Otherwise, there was no need for a Night Watcher like Wang Ming to say anything to him. Though wild thoughts ran through Li Hao¡¯s mind, he quickly thanked his handsome peer. ¡°Thank you, Sir Wang!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t call me tha¡ªah forget it, do whatever you want!¡± This wasn¡¯t all that Wang Ming wanted to say to Li Hao. ¡°It¡¯d be best if you can ascend to the supernatural while you¡¯re in Silver City! If you can¡¯t¡­ I can think of a way to get an induction chance for you!¡±

    ¡°Induction?¡± repeated a perplexed Li Hao. ¡°The Demon Hunters can do that too¡­¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡± Wang Ming snorted dismissively. ¡°You guys are just ying house, it¡¯s an utter joke! Liu Long and the others have already undergone induction once, so there¡¯s no problem for them to proceed in that manner. You¡¯re different as you haven¡¯t officially conducted energy into your body before.

    ¡°The Night Watchers do it in a different way. Not only do we absorb mysterious power, but there are also some other steps that make ascension easier. Otherwise, it¡¯s not like the rich merchants can¡¯t afford to buy mysterious power. Why do they fight tooth and nail for a Night Watcher spot?¡±

    It made sense to Li Hao upon further thought. He didn¡¯t ask for specifics, however.

    ¡°Thank you, sir.¡± The young man smiled. ¡°But I can already tell that each spot must be very valuable. I think I¡¯ll give it a try myself so I don¡¯t waste one! I¡¯ll walk the path of martial masters like my teacher if I don¡¯t seed. I feel that I¡¯m not too far away from yer of Tens.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand, your worldview is too small!¡± Wang Ming sighed. ¡°Martial masters are strong¡ªridiculously strong if they¡¯re like Professor Yuan. But you shouldn¡¯t limit yourself like that. Keep in mind that it¡¯s only been twenty years since the supernatural rose. We already have existences beyond Sr! It continues to develop swiftly, no one knows where the limits are. Martial masters, on the other hand, have already found their boundary!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. He knew all this because his teacher had mentioned it, but he didn¡¯t dwell on it. If his teacher said not to attempt the crossover and focus on martial dao, then that was what he would do. Of one thing Li Hao was certain of, and that was that his teacher wouldn¡¯t say this for no reason. He must have his considerations.

    Of course, this didn¡¯t need to be exined to Wang Ming.

    ¡°Thank you, Sir Wang! I''ll remember all of this and if I reach the end of the road, I¡¯ll be sure to be thick-skinned enough to visit you!¡± thanked Li Hao. The handsome young man was quite generous to exin so much and promise to try and obtain a spot for him.

    ¡°Have it your way!¡± Wang Ming couldn¡¯t be bothered with further persuasion given that Li Hao didn¡¯t seem inclined to leave Silver City. He waved his counterpart off. ¡°I¡¯m leaving today! My final words are that Silver City is seriously too small, there¡¯s only a million residents here. Thirty million reside in White Moon and while Sunderers like Captain Liu Long lead the pack in Silver City, they can be found everywhere over there! Everything is superior in White Moon, whether opportunity, chance, treasures, secret methods, and secret arts.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, I understand! Thank you!¡± Li Hao waved back at him and sent Wang Ming off. The Night Watcher hadpleted his mission and looked like he gained a fair bit for it. If he was leaving, then Hao Lianchuan should also be leaving soon, if not already!

    Li Hao suddenly decided to return to the Institute when his thoughts traveled here. He wanted to bring his teacher with him when collecting the scarlet shadows. They revealed their true form after he poked them with the jade sword. What would he do if the shadow suddenly started attacking? He needed to bring his teacher along.

    And what if someone discovered him?

    With his teacher present, the professor could observe the premises and see what the shadow was made of. Li Hao hadn¡¯t nned on concealing this matter in any case. His teacher had long since guessed that he could see the scarlet shadow and simply didn¡¯t bother questioning Li Hao about it.

    ¡­¡­

    Night.

    The church.

    The cordon had been removed, mysterious power collected, and corpses disposed of. The blockade of this area was over. With even Hao Lianchuan and the others gone, no one cared about this part of town.

    Liu Long and the team knew that there had been monsters here, but they all thought that the monsters were a supernatural ability. Since the supernaturals were dead, then their abilities were likewise terminated.

    Inside the church.

    Yuan Shuo quietly casted his senses around the premises and pointed in one direction after a long while. ¡°Here?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s gaze flickered and he nodded.

    ¡°How obscure!¡± Yuan Shuo took a deep breath. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have made such a careful sweep if you hadn¡¯t said something. It¡¯s impossible to discover them without a detailed probe. No wonder these things are so mysterious and flew under my radar when they came to kill Zhang Yuan! I was not yet a Dominator then and wouldn¡¯t have discovered them if they weren¡¯t right next to me.¡±

    Li Hao took out the jade sword without another word and pinched it between two fingers.

    ¡°Don¡¯t you find that position unnatural?¡± The professor rolled his eyes. ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid of other people taking note if you keep using it like that? I need to figure out a way to hide this thing inside another weapon. You¡¯re a Sunderer now, but I have nothing good to give you. Tell me what kind of weapon you want and I¡¯ll make one for you. Put this thing inside it, that¡¯ll make it more convenient to use.¡±

    Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°The weapon will need to stay on me because I¡¯ll use it often. If I put it inside a weapon, it¡¯ll be suspicious when people see that I sleep with it. This is good enough, teacher! But can you make a weapon with a small notch in the front? I can put the jade sword inside at critical moments and leave just the tip showing.¡±

    Yuan Shuo found a lot of sense in these words. An item like this did indeed need to be carried on the young man¡¯s person.

 Chapter 108: The Dragon Hidden in the Abyss (III)

    Chapter 108: The Dragon Hidden in the Abyss (III)

    ¡°Lend me your de for now.¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°You won¡¯t have use for it in the short run since the impact is too violent. Its energy functions the same as mysterious power for you, just a little better. I¡¯llpensate you with more mysterious power, so let me borrow this for now!¡±

    The stone de was very useful for him¡ªa key factor in whether or not he could fight Srs.

    ¡°Alright!¡± Li Hao nodded and stabbed forward with the sword.

    Pfft!

    The small sword seemed to puncture a membrane, revealing the scarlet shadow. It remained unmoving and hovered in the air without struggle. Yuan Shuo took his first clear look at the shadow. Thed¡¯s sword can make these things show themselves!

    He walked up for a close inspection, studying it with care and infusing it with a bit of internal force.

    ¡°Impressive!¡± he sighed with appreciation a few momentster. ¡°This is an entity of energy, not a physical entity. It¡¯s made of pure energy. Under normal circumstances, things made of energy are tangible and visible. I didn¡¯t discover this one, however, because there¡¯s a special mental energy inside it!¡±

    ¡°Mental energy?¡±

    ¡°The aura and consciousness that I mentioned!¡± Yuan Shuo sized it up again and mulled over his words. ¡°Whoever made this is quite the expert! But¡­ it resembles something I once saw in an ancient book.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Blood shadow puppets!¡± A light glinted in Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes. ¡°It¡¯s nothing good and if it really is what¡¯s recorded in the ancient records, it¡¯s very difficult to get rid of. A human being is needed to nurture it and in the end, this thing devours whoever¡¯smanding it. It absorbs and digests everything about its caretaker. Heh, it¡¯ll be interesting if Ying Hongyue is behind this. Does the guy want tobine all puppets as one?¡±

    ¡°Teacher, do you mean¡­¡±

    ¡°When these scarlet shadows devour their supernaturals, they grow stronger in the process. They¡¯re filled with the unique energy that we absorbed. Whoever created it might know this too and treat those supernaturals as nourishment!¡±

    The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes shifted slightly when he understood. Ying Hongyue? Then this meant that the man knew scarlet shadow energy was beneficial to the body. But¡­

    ¡°Do you mean that Ying Hongyue practices martial dao, teacher?¡± Li Hao quickly asked.

    ¡°He used to, but he¡¯s supernatural now. Even so, he was once a veteran martial master, so perhaps he still makes use of martial dao at times. Maybe he has different ideas in mind.¡±

    Both Li Hao and Yuan Shuo had personally experienced the unparalleled benefits of scarlet shadows for martial masters.

    ¡°Who cares, this thing is nice!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled after further observation. ¡°Though it¡¯s not as strong as the one before, it¡¯s enough for you. You should absorb some after setting foot into Sunderer of Hundreds. This thing fortifies internal force and rivals the effects of mysterious power for supernaturals! I¡¯d love to run into Ying Hongyue and question how he made these. I want to create a bunch to eat as snacks!¡±

    The professor reached forward. As the scarlet shadow was now visible to the naked eye, he could do whatever he wanted with it. Yuan Shuo popped it with a clench, scattering the scarlet energy. It swiftly gathered together again, but the professor kneaded it into a ball.

    Smiling, he shoved it into a tiny jug. ¡°Hurry and absorb them, it¡¯s best if you do so before I leave. Their creator might notice otherwise. How many more are there?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s one more here and two in other areas that I checked out. There¡¯s three at the ce where teacher killed the supernaturals¡­¡±

    Seven total! Li Hao had killed another tiny one before this, which made for eight. The final tally was eight scarlet shadows apanying ten supernaturals on the mission a few nights ago. Divine Brokensky had brought one and the dead Sunre didn¡¯t have one. Perhaps he¡¯d gone without because he was Ying Hongyue¡¯s son.

    ¡°Good, take them all. Leave one for me to study, you take the rest.¡±

    The smaller scarlet shadows weren¡¯t useful for Yuan Shuo as they weren¡¯t strong. Thus, he was only interested in studying them, not absorbing them. If he could make them as well, would he need to fear ack of shortcuts for martial masters in the future?

    This thing was much more useful than mysterious power!

    ¡­¡­

    Teacher and disciple ran all through the city on this night, working into the wee hours of the morning to collect seven scarlet shadows. Li Hao left one for this teacher and took the rest. There was no time for Yuan Shuo to hold a ss tonight. He darted into his study with the shadow to begin his analysis.

    Instead of being in a hurry to consume the shadow¡¯s energy, Li Hao wanted to see what benefits the cubes of wind and thunder energy would bring him. One cube was a very small amount of power, but he wished to try. If the five elements corresponded to the five organs, what did wind and thunder map to?

    He swiftly absorbed thunder energy first, letting thunder and lightning rampage through his body at will. It was indeed worthy of being regarded as the strongest offensive element. Its impact was the most pronounced! Out of all the energies he¡¯de in contact with, only the de was a little bit stronger. The rest were slightly removed from these heights.

    But as forceful as it was, it didn¡¯t seem further distinct from mysterious power. It resulted in the same effects on the body as the others. Thunder energy began dispersing after momentary stimtion of internal force. It didn¡¯t summon his supernatural locks.

    inly, thunder wasn¡¯t a good match for Li Hao. It wouldn¡¯t push him into making the crossover.

    The young man didn¡¯t mind. It¡¯d be too easy if one cube was all that it took. He pulled a little on the jade sword to neutralize the thunder. A ball of pure thunder and lightning darted through his body, soundlessly sinking into his bones.

    Li Hao blinked. My¡­ bones? A numbing sensation swiftly crawled through his body like a minor electric shock.

    ¡°Ah!¡± he called out softly. The door to the training room mmed open. Yuan Shuo frowned to see his student having moaned with an expression of enjoyment.

    ¡°Young man, I understand what you¡¯re going through, but this is the training room in your teacher¡¯s house! Discard those stray thoughts! You should be either sleeping or training at a time like this, not filling your mind with that kind of mess! If you¡¯re really that hungry¡­ figure out a solution yourself!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not it, teacher, I¡­¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good, no need for exnations!¡± Yuan Shuo waved him off. ¡°I¡¯ve been in your shoes before, I understand! Those who walk the path of martial dao brim with vigor and have greater desire for these things. What I¡¯m most impressed with is that you found release without the aid of supplemental items¡­ What a talent!¡±

    The professor shook his head with admiration. ¡°Ah, to hell with it. I¡¯ve collected a few nice things over the years. Help yourself to the study. The third row of shelves is filled with that kind of material¡ªit¡¯s so much better than relying on your imagination! But damn, kid, you¡¯re really something!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not it, teacher, I was training!¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°That¡¯s what I told my teacher when he caught me in the act. I also said I was training! It¡¯s all the same script!¡±

    He turned and left. He knew the drill! That¡¯s how I lied to my teacher when I was young! It is the peak of mortification if a boy is discovered halfway. It¡¯s very normal for him to deny everything.

    Li Hao stared, ck jawed, shaking his head wordlessly. Teacher, really¡­ what do I say now? I really was training, what was he thinking of?

    ¡°So thunder energy can strengthen bones?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with exining anything. His teacher would understand sooner orter. What could wind do?

    Time to keep experimenting!

    He quickly absorbed wind power¡ªit was less violent than thunder. It made him feel like he was flying after he absorbed it, like he was floating!

    Li Hao used the jade sword to neutralize it once more. Wind energy flurried through his body once it was distilled; the young man¡­ didn¡¯t sense anything upon close inspection. But he did feel vaguely different. He brightened when he rose to his feet and moved around.

    ¡°Wind energy seems to have made me lighter!¡± He couldn¡¯t point to any specifics; it had simply melded into his body. It didn¡¯t improve any singr function, but made him lighter overall. ¡°I¡¯ll be faster this way!¡±

    Martial masters focused on speed, strength, and the physique. Such were the core! Wind energy melted right into his body. Perhaps this was what was meant by being as light as a swallow.

    He quickly operated the breathing method to practice Birdshot!

    Birdshot was the true levitation art of the Five Styles. Li Hao waved his arms around like a bird in flight. He resembled a panicky pping hen when he tried the art before, but this time he felt differently due to the lightness of his body. He traveled a small distance forward when he waved his hands!

    The young man¡¯s eyes lit up. Wind energy was wonderful! If he absorbed enough to modify his physique, he might really be able to take to the sky. He¡¯d be able to respond ordingly if he met flying supernaturals.

    ¡°Thunder enhances bone, wind lightens the body, and the five elements strengthen the organs¡­¡± Li Hao sensed that if he came into his own as a martial master, he would be much more well-rounded than supernaturals. There would be a lot fewer drawbacks for him to deal with. At the very least, he wouldn¡¯t be weakened on a rainy day like fire supernaturals were!

    The young man was very excited on this night, trying Birdshot again and again. Yuan Shuo shook his head at the sound of his student giving himself a head full of bumps next door. Silly child, you can¡¯t use Birdshot yet

    Under normal circumstances, Birdshot was a technique that peak Sunderers could barely employ. It utilized the consciousness to fly through the sky, albeit to lesser effect than supernatural flight. It did, however, enable the martial master to p through several hundred meters before having tond almost immediately.

 Chapter 109: The Silver City Branch (I)

    Chapter 109: The Silver City Branch (I)

    Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t going to stop Li Hao from practicing Birdshot, no matter how impossible it was for the young man to learn it. No sleep was forting for the professor on this night; he didn¡¯t like to sleep. Twinges of reluctance assailed him when he scanned the books on the third row of his bookshelves. Li Hao might take them all tomorrow!

    After prolonged perusal, Yuan Shuo took out a yellowed book from the third row and hid it elsewhere. He breathed out more easily¡ªthe rest could go to his disciple! This book was one treasured since youth, he couldn¡¯t bear to part with it.

    ¡­¡­

    Silver City.

    Tranquility gradually returned to Silver City after Hao Lianchuan and his men departed upon the removal of Red Moon¡¯s incursion. The battle of a few days ago seemed like a dream. No more was forting from the supernatural organization and the Night Watchers fully retreated; Silver City was as it¡¯d always been, other than the addition of an imperious martial master who¡¯d killed a Sr!

    The Night Watchers left with the sword that Yuan Shuo had given Li Hao and released word that it was in their possession. As for how they publicized it, or if they really had, Li Hao was unaware. He wasn¡¯t part of this circle and as such, was ignorant of everything about it. But with his teacher keeping an eye on things, he could rest at ease that the Night Watchers wouldn¡¯t pull any tricks.

    The agency was yet to send over the promised benefits. They said they needed some time, time that Yuan Shuo told Li Hao to give. The Night Watchers either didn¡¯t agree to something or followed through when they did. They were likely just dying the actual handover.

    The agency requiredrge amounts of resources for the excavation at hand and were likely unwilling to invest too much in Li Hao for the time being. They would emerge from the exploration with a certain amount of gain, regardless of whether or not it was a sess. Based on his teacher¡¯s words, Li Hao may be able to select a few suitable treasures from the agency¡¯s harvest.

    The excavation was temporarily postponed due to Yuan Shuo¡¯s breakthrough. Everyone needed time to digest the development, including the supernatural organizations. The previous professor hadn¡¯t been worth mention, but if he was still part of the expedition, more strength needed to be added on all sides.

    The various factions needed to deploy at least a Sunre or two, or even a Sr, to withstand Yuan Shuo in his current form. However, these kinds of powerhouses weren¡¯t mobilized at the drop of a hat.

    ¡­¡­

    It was July 25 in the blink of an eye. Li Hao spent the week limating to assorted increases in his abilities. There was nothing to do at work during the day as the team was recovering. Evenings were spent at his teacher¡¯s and being regaled by stories grotesque in shape and gaudy in color.

    Alright, he meant records from ancient tomes.

    Yuan Shuo had uncovered many books over the years that he hadn¡¯t given to anyone else or taken out of the ruins. Some weren¡¯t easy to preserve, so he read them, swiftlymitted them to memory, then destroyed them.

    His actions didn¡¯t denote him a good person, but they were also proof of his superhuman memory. Li Hao¡¯s memory was decent as well, which was no wonder the professor had been willing to ept the young man as his student. A strong memory was one of the key traits that he looked for.

    Li Hao¡¯s mind was filled to bursting over the next couple of days. After saying that he would be preupied in the period toe, there was nothing Yuan Shuo wanted to do more than convey all of his knowledge to his student. The young man memorized at least a dozen books, and that was only a fraction of what Yuan Shuo knew.

    The professor selected the most important material to pass on, not leaving any text or digital data behind. It would be Li Hao¡¯s if the young man could remember it all; there would be no cheat sheet if he couldn¡¯t.

    ¡­¡­

    The Inspectorate.

    Law Enforcement.

    Thew enforcement team was much quieter these days given that no supernatural showed their face. They made their rounds and focused on the cases at hand. Liu Yan and the team moved out of the basement, returning to their offices. Li Hao clocked in and out as usual; he was now officially transferred to Law Enforcement.

    When he entered the lobby on this day, the female inspector at reception smiled radiantly at him. ¡°Li Hao, Captain Liu is looking for you and tells you to go see him as soon as you arrive!¡±

    ¡°Alright, thank you Sis Wu!¡± Li Hao was a sweet boy who¡¯d grown familiar with the team after officially transferring in a few days ago. Everyone quite liked him¡ªhe was a refined boy from the Veteris Institute and always greeted people with a smile. An asional bashful grin further endeared him to some of the female inspectors.

    Thew enforcement team was aware of Demon Hunter exploits, but everyone knew that Li Hao had been unwittingly dragged into them. He wasn¡¯t the battle-happy type like their captain, so many pitied him for joining the perilous Demon Hunters.

    The inspector at reception was part of the group that felt deeppassion for the young man. She called out when he walked upstairs, ¡°Li Hao, thew enforcement team has lost a lot of peopletely and many positions are empty. You can bring up an internal transfer to the captain. If there¡¯s nothing that can be done, you can always sit at reception with me. It¡¯s an easy job!¡±

    ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll be sure to tell the captain. Thank you Sis Wu!¡± Li Hao turned back with a smile.

    The female inspector called Sis Wu responded in kind. Biddable fresh meat¡ªyoung men like Li Hao were her favorite!

    ¡­¡­

    A baffled Li Hao climbed the stairs with a smile on his face and headed for Liu Long¡¯s office. The team was busy digesting their gains from battle, so what did the chief want with him? Was there another mission?

    A strange expression crossed his face before he entered the office. There was a ball of light inside!

    A supernatural!

    Judging from its size and brightness, this should be a Darkmoon. Where was it from?

    ¡°Come in!¡± Liu Long¡¯s voice sounded when he knocked on the door. Li Hao paused with surprise when he entered and assessed the situation inside. There were no outsiders here! Only Demon Hunters.

    He further jerked with astonishment when he looked at¡ªYun Yao!

    Yun Yao had made the crossover! The team doctor had ascended! The others didn¡¯t show major signs of improvement; the bottlenecks that gued them still stood in the way. After Liu Yan became a Sunderer, she was essentially out of the running to be supernatural.

    Out of the three remaining, Chen Jian and Wu Chao didn¡¯t dare absorb too much since they¡¯d just recovered. Being in better shape, Yun Yao had long made a full recovery and took in a lot of energy over the past couple of days. Who would¡¯ve thought that she¡¯d really ascend!

    ¡°What you looking at?¡± A cross-legged Liu Yan said sourly when she saw Li Hao stare at Yun Yao as soon as he entered the office. ¡°Is there a flower on her face?¡±

    She wasn¡¯t as wary of Yun Yao as before after breaking through to Sunderer.

    Li Hao awkwardly found himself at a loss of how to respond. He saluted Liu Long instead. ¡°Chief!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, this means the whole team¡¯s here!¡± He smiled at the young man¡¯s initial reaction. ¡°It looks like your powers of perception are decent, even if your strength isn¡¯t all that. Did you sense something a bit different?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded and looked at Yun Yao again. ¡°Congrattions to Sis Yun!¡±

    A half smile appeared on Yun Yao¡¯s face and she inclined her head. ¡°It was just luck. I happened to open my supernatural locks and ascend, but a pity¡­¡± She sighed.

    ¡°Making the crossover is good enough, what¡¯s the point of demanding more?¡± Liu Long said calmly.

    ¡°Yun Yao has ascended,¡± exined a merry Liu Yan when she saw that Li Hao didn¡¯t understand. ¡°But her tiny bit of healing abilities has vanished. She¡¯s a match for water! She¡¯s suddenly turned from a doctor into a water supernatural!¡±

    ¡°This is normal!¡± Liu Long spoke up in defense of Yun Yao. ¡°No one is certain what kind of abilities they¡¯re suited for before they be supernatural. Not to mention, water abilities also have healing properties. Water supernaturals sometimes act as healers in certain supernatural organizations.¡±

    Despite his words, there was still a difference between the two. Healers tended towards light or wood abilities. Water abilities were subparpared to the previous two in terms of healing effect.

    ¡°It¡¯s alright.¡± Yun Yao smiled more wholeheartedly. ¡°It¡¯s enough to just make the crossoverpared to some people who never do.¡±

    ¡°Some people who never do?!¡± Liu Yan sneered. ¡°Do you think Sunderers are just for show? Come on, let''s go at it if you disagree!¡±

    ¡°Enough!¡± Liu Long interrupted their spat. There were only two females on the team, but they somehow never got along. Liu Yan was more reticent before her breakthrough. Now that she was a Sunderer, she gave tit for tat.

    The captain turned to the young man with a smile. ¡°I summoned you because I have good news to announce! There''s been word from White Moon that the Silver City Night Watcher branch should be a go! Director Hao helped our cause when he returned, as did the Night Watchers that were deployed on this mission. Out of consideration for this, White Moon has agreed to a branch in Silver City!¡±

    Shared joy bloomed in the office.

    ¡°Chief, does this mean we get raises again?¡± Li Hao asked excitedly.

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Liu Long looked wordlessly at him. Seriously, what¡¯s in that brain of yours? How is that the most important?

    ¡°No shit!¡± he answered curtly. ¡°After we be Night Watchers, our sry is no longer money, but mysterious power! How much is one cube of mysterious power worth? Can it be reced by wages?¡±

    Li Hao looked on sheepishly. I know that, but I''m not short on mysterious power. Teacher has a lot, while I really dock money.

    His teacher might have money as well, but while Li Hao could bring himself to ask for mysterious power, he really couldn''t do the same when it came to money. Mysterious power was indeed more valuable, but it was meant for cultivation. Being the student, it was a trifling matter for his teacher to support him in that regard.

    But without money, one could not eat, could not sleep, could not purchase a car. Was he supposed to ask his teacher for all of this as well? How embarrassing that a twenty year old could not keep himself alive!

    etvre''s Thoughts

    Sounds like Li Hao is getting a CPU dump straight into his brain. And WAHEY Yun Yao is a supernatural! That was pretty unexpected tbh.

 Chapter 110: The Silver City Branch (II)

    Chapter 110: The Silver City Branch (II)

    Being in high spirits, Liu Long didn¡¯t care what Li Hao was thinking. ¡°Based on the Night Watcher configuration of other cities, if we are to gain our own branch, it must be staffed by at least ten people to beplete.

    ¡°One of the personnel is the director of the branch, to be served by a chiefmissioner. There are one or two deputy directors, served by high-rankedmissioner inspectors. There is one team captain, which can be filled in by an inspector.

    ¡°We will differ from therger cities due to a fewer number of citizens. Our framework will be smaller, so these are to be our arrangements.¡± He looked at the rest of the team. ¡°Based on the news that I¡¯ve received, White Moon will not be sending a branch director. I ought to be able to serve as the branch director!¡±

    True joy seized the team when they heard this!

    ¡°Chief, how is upstairs being so generous?¡± Liu Yan bubbled with delight.

    ¡°A variety of factors,¡± chuckled Liu Long. ¡°The most important being Yuan Shuo. He¡¯s not exactly on good terms with Night Watcher powerhouses. Many are unwilling toe to Silver City as long as he''s here, and they might have to follow his lead while they¡¯re at it. We are too small and we''ve offended Red Moon. That supernatural organization might attack at any time, so no Sunre is willing toe.¡±

    As for those below Sunre, well, they were no fools. Local tyrant Liu Long was a peak Sunderer¡ªany neer would be expected to issuemands to the man. But how? Who would listen to them?

    Out of consideration for this point, White Moon made a decisive call. Establishment of the branch would go forward, but its director would be Liu Long.

    The team was ecstatic! Li Hao¡¯s mouth threatened to split from the force of his grin.

    ¡°It doesn''t matter if other people don''t think much of us, we think much of us! Chief is being promoted to chiefmissioner!¡±

    Inspector,missioner inspector, and chiefmissioner were the three grades of the Inspectorate. Inspectors were divided into third, second, first rank. Commissioner inspectors were divided into low and high rank. The same went for chiefmissioners¡ªlow and high rank.

    Of course, the ¡°low rank¡± part of the title normally went unvoiced. It was referred to in private. Low rankmissioner inspectors and low rank chiefmissioners were still viewed as full members of their grade. Meanwhile, ¡°high rank¡± was always affixed as that made the title more sophisticated.

    Liu Long grinned and pressed his hands downward for calm. ¡°I¡¯m being pushed to something entirely beyond me, there¡¯s no helping it! The formation of a Night Watcher branch isn¡¯t as simple as doling out promotions. I¡¯m sure everyone understands the meaning within.

    ¡°I summoned the team to share the news and for another important matter¡ªselection of the deputy director. If there¡¯s only one in our branch, then I can rmend someone. If there¡¯s two, the other spot may be filled by someone from White Moon.¡±

    Such was convention.

    Liu Yan flicked a nce at Yun Yao as soon as she heard this, understanding why the chief couldn¡¯t make up his mind.

    ¡°Give it to her if she wants, I don¡¯t care!¡± she sniffed. ¡°She''s a supernatural, after all. I''m just a martial blockhead!¡±

    Liu Long wordlessly raised his eyebrows at the woman. Who are you dragging down with you? Who here isn''t a martial blockhead? I¡¯m one too!

    Yun Yao greeted the outburst cidly, as if she wasn''t angry at all.

    ¡°I don¡¯t need it,¡± she responded calmly when the team captain looked her way. ¡°Put her name forward if she wants it. She''s the vice captain and amissioner inspector. She manages to fit the bill.¡±

    With that, both parties expressed their indifference to the position. Off to the side, the quiet Li Hao suddenly ventured timidly, ¡°Um¡­ can I say something?¡±

    Perplexed heads swiveled toward him. What are you interrupting for? Do you want it too? Get outta here!

    The young man continued awkwardly. ¡°Um¡­ I just¡­ I just have a small suggestion,¡± he said gingerly. ¡°Really, just a small suggestion! Deputy directors are usuallymissioner inspectors, of which Sis Liu is one. The rest of us in the team such as me, Brother Wu, Brother Chen, and Sis Yun are all first rank inspectors.¡±

    He''d just been promoted two days ago¡ªsadly, not tomissioner inspector.

    ¡°Why don''t we discuss it among the team and have the chief put one of our names forward? Ahem, just for official purposes. Sis Liu is still the vice captain in private. That gives the Demon Hunters anothermissioner inspector. Our sries and benefits will be better, and the rest of the deputy director benefits can go to Sis Liu¡­

    ¡°Maximization of profits!¡± the young man concluded. ¡°Otherwise, Sis Liu will still only be amissioner inspector if she fills the position. She won''t even be promoted to high rankmissioner inspector, which would be a waste!¡±

    Liu Long and the others stared, ck jawed. Could things be done like this? They hadn¡¯t considered this at all because professional ranks weren''t too important to them.

    Li Hao held a contrary opinion. ¡°I hear from Wang Ming that even Night Watcher benefits differ ording to grades. Strength is one facet, grade is another. Some veteran inspectors or veteran Night Watchers aren''t the strongest, but their tenure runs long. So despite transferring to a desk job, they still have a ce at the table given their high rank.

    ¡°In that case, we should think more about this. It may not matter in Silver City, but¡­¡± Li Hao continued with enthusiasm, ¡°but we keep improving! If therees a day in which we''re all supernatural or Sunderers and Dominators, rank will be very important if we''re still a part of the Night Watcher system!

    ¡°Chief, for example, is being promoted to chiefmissioner. He''ll have decent status if he moves to White Moon. But if chief was still amissioner inspector? There''smissioner inspectors by the handful in White Moon. What will happen to chief then?

    ¡°If therees a day when Silver City can no longer be defended, we¡¯ll talk more loudly if our own ranking is high. It¡¯ll make for a smoother migration, so not only are professional ranks important, they''re very important! I bet you that the provincial senior council isn¡¯t only filled with Sunre and Sr supernaturals!¡±

    Liu Long sank into contemtion and inhaled deeply after a while.

    ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± He looked at Li Hao. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter from the Silver City perspective, but if we have to give up the city and join White Moon one day, our ranks will be key then!

    ¡°Mundanes and supernaturals share custody of the government, and not purely on basis of strength. Some stronger supernaturalsck the desire to administer a city, so most of the work falls to mundane hands.¡±

    Liu Long turned to address the rest of the team. ¡°Li Hao is correct. Liu Yan won¡¯t be promoted even if she bes a deputy director because it hasn''t been long since she''s be amissioner inspector. Some more time is required before she can advance to high rank. The four of you, however, can use this opportunity to rise tomissioner inspector!¡±

    ¡°I''m not interested,¡± Yun Yao declined again. ¡°I''mpletely unconcerned about this.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me, chief,¡± Wu Chao chuckled. ¡°I can¡¯t, not even for show! Let Fatty Chen do it¡­¡±

    ¡°Not me!¡± Chen Jian rumbled. ¡°Chief, you know how I shake whenever I see higher-ups! If I have to host them after bing the deputy director¡­ I¡¯ll go weak at the knees!¡±

    Liu Long blinked. None of them were willing? He looked at Li Hao again.

    ¡°I¡¯ll do it, chief!¡± the young man said excitedly.

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Dead silence descended upon the scene.

    ¡°Did you say all that because you knew they¡¯d refuse?¡± Not even Liu Yan could resist teasing the young man. ¡°You want a promotion for yourself, don¡¯t you? I say, Little Hao Hao, you¡¯re only how old and already a first rank inspector! How are you not satisfied?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that, sis.¡± Li Hao beamed radiantly. ¡°If I¡¯d graduated from the Veteris Institute, I would¡¯ve quickly be a first rank inspector. Therefore, the promotion a few days ago isn''t really a promotion. Commissioner inspector is the real advancement!

    ¡°I would have no opinion if Brother Chen or the others are willing. I''m young, after all, and I joined the teamter. But they¡¯re not willing, so I must put myself forward to serve others and contribute what I can to the team!¡±

    The exnation sounded pretty, but in reality, he just wanted to be promoted! Wasn¡¯t this sweet! Commissioner inspector!

    First, it went without saying that his sry would increase.

    Second, it would indeed bring about a better position if they moved to White Moon. No one wanted to start from the bottom, not to mention that Li Hao had already cleaned desks and fetched water at ssified Affairs for a year

    Third, a higher rank and position would result in acquaintance with the senior levels. It would all prove useful someday. Right now, for instance, it would make it easier to obtain information about the Red Moon organization.

    Liu Long stared at the young man, unable to find words for a proper response. He¡¯d thought that Li Hao raised the idea to help others advance in their careers. Well well, it turned out everyone turned the idea down, leaving the way clear for the righteous young man. Look at him champing at the bit!

    Isn¡¯t he something! Quite obsessed with professional sess at his young age.

    ¡°Can you do it, Li Hao?¡± Liu Long frowned. ¡°You¡¯ll be put on probation for a bit even if they agree. You¡¯re so young and you¡¯re¡­ a yer. You might find this post a bit difficult.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s easy too, chief!¡± Li Hao said hurriedly. ¡°Just tell them this is to cozy up to my teacher. I can run anytime if I¡¯m an ordinary inspector, but if I¡¯m amissioner inspector, I count as mid-level management. Deserting won¡¯t be easy then! What''s amissioner inspector worth for the sake of my teacher?¡±

    Damn, kid already has the proper excuse for me. But Liu Long had to say, if this was what was in his report, it was likely that upstairs wouldn¡¯t care about Li Hao¡¯s capabilities. The young man would just be an ornament connecting the Night Watchers with Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°Then people might point to nepotism¡­¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t care!¡± Li Hao answered firmly. Who the heck cares? A tangible benefit in hand is the key!

    Liu Long had nothing else to say. He looked at the rest of the team. ¡°Are you sure you don''t want to fight for it?¡±

    Yun Yao shook her head uncaringly, Wu Chao smiled spookily, and simple Chen Jian said, ¡°Let Li Hao do it, he has a brighter future than all of us!¡±

    More like he¡¯s too treacherous! It was better for Chen Jian to support the idea, just in case the kid turned back to bite him when he grew into his strength. The kid was too evil!

    Wu Chao and Yun Yao didn¡¯t have an opinion. Although Li Hao was weak, everyone knew what kind of person he was. How a Darkmoon and Sunderer had previously died was clear in everyone''s minds.

    Thed was a vicious character!

    They were happy to facilitate his advancement; they cared more about bing supernatural.

 Chapter 111: The Silver City Branch (III)

    Chapter 111: The Silver City Branch (III)

    ¡°Then it¡¯s settled!¡± This conclusion was the most remote possibility from Liu Long¡¯s mind. On the other hand, Li Hao could barely contain his mirth. He was going to be amissioner inspector!

    Liu Yan ignored the chortling young man. ¡°Chief, we need at least ten people ording to our configuration. There¡¯s only six of us now. Even if they send another deputy director, will they be assigning more supernaturals to us?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say!¡± Liu Long shook his head after some contemtion. ¡°They might, they might not. If they don''t send more people, we¡¯ll have to wait a while for rookies to cross over. White Moon is hosting their induction ceremony soon for the new recruits from various cities. We might get a few of them¡ªStarlight.¡±

    The team curled their lips with dismissal. What good were Starlight for? Darkmoon was far more useful.

    ¡°What if we recruit our own?¡± Li Hao recovered from his exuberant state.

    ¡°There are limited numbers of supernaturals. Those who can be recruited have long been spoken for.¡±

    ¡°I mean martial masters!¡± Li Hao exined. ¡°Recruit martial masters! Silver City has somepetent martial masters, no? If not, what about other locations? Although martial masters are weaker than supernaturals, they¡¯ll be willing to work for us if we give them chances to be supernatural. Once a martial master crosses over, a yer is converted to Darkmoon. They''lle with the benefit of experience, making them much better than newbies.

    ¡°We¡¯re situated on the fringe of Silver Moon and may encounter danger any time. Rookies are actually very unsuited for us¡­¡±

    You¡¯re a newbie yourself, look at you thinking less of others! Liu Long wanted to say. But what kind of rookie killed a Sunderer and Darkmoon as soon as they joined? Never mind.

    Li Hao did have the right to look down on them!

    ¡°Let¡¯s give it a try!¡± Liu Long didn¡¯t refuse the young man¡¯s proposal. While it was possible that no martial master was willing to join them, this cohort was more open-minded to serving arger organization.

    Of course, this had been true in the past. Liu Long would no longer be a mere captain of the Demon Hunters after the new branch was established. He would be a right and proper branch director of the Night Watchers! This was a supernatural organization endorsed by the government; he would wield much more authority. They would also be allotted monthly caches of mysterious power. It was a much better situationpared to hunting and killing dangerous prey for their power.

    A tittering Liu Yan patted Li Hao¡¯s head, making the young man ufortable again. What now? Why are you touching me? This old woman loves to take advantage of me!

    ¡°Little Hao Hao¡¯s got such good brains,¡± Liu Yan breathed merrily. ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for you being too weak, you could even be the branch director!¡±

    Liu Long flicked a sharp nce at her. What gives?

    ¡°I don¡¯t mean anything by it. Don''t misunderstand, chief! I¡¯m just curious¡ªLittle Hao Hao absorbed mysterious power very quickly before. How many of your thirty-two cubes have you taken now? Where are you in yer of Tens? I¡¯ve ascended to Sunderer and Yun Yao over there has be a Darkmoon. Wu Chao and Chen Jian are dyed by their wounds and only started two days axgo. You weren¡¯t hurt, so what¡¯s your status?¡±

    Even Liu Long found his interest piqued. Everyone could tell that the young man hadn¡¯t made the crossover. Had he further improved on the path of martial dao? Mysterious power was very helpful when it came to increasing one¡¯s strength.

    ¡°I¡¯m the same as before and haven¡¯t improved much,¡± Li Hao said bashfully. ¡°I wasted a bit of mysterious power when I absorbed it.¡±

    It¡¯s not like you guys will believe me if I say I¡¯m a Sunderer. If you do, you''ll be saddened because it''s only been a few days since I became a yer.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t press the young man for details since Li Hao didn¡¯t wish to talk about it. Improvements? Perhaps he¡¯d taken a step forward in the yer level. Mid yer? Late yer? Late yer at most!

    The captain didn¡¯t consider the possibility of Sunderer, that was almost impossible.

    ¡°Alright then, everyone should rest up. We¡¯ll know what the specifics are when official documentationes in two days. I¡¯ll raise the matter of Li Hao bing a deputy director.¡± Liu Long sighed with emotion when he mentioned this point. ¡°Li Hao, it¡¯s a pity that you don''t hold a civil post.¡±

    All the kid cared about were promotions. He seemed far more suited for civil service¡ªthe future would be brighter for him there.

    ¡°This is all thanks to you, chief!¡± Li Hao quickly protested. ¡°Where else would I have this kind of opportunity? Not to mention, credit goes to my big brothers and sisters. You guys know I¡¯m young and poor, so you gave me this chance for a raise. I visited my house yesterday¡ªit was where the explosives hit that night. My floor has almost caved in and I''ve been thinking about where to find a new ce to live!¡±

    While his home hadn¡¯t fully copsed, it was pretty much the same. It had been one of Red Moon¡¯s targets during that operation. The multiple explosions in Silver City had been to lure Liu Long away. No one was injured, but the explosions caused the old building to sink in. The uncle and auntie downstairs had fallen off their bed with shock and broken their legs. Their son and daughter had taken them away for rest and recovery.

    Li Hao would disturb no one if he trained at home now, but his house wasn¡¯t suitable for further residence. He was thinking of finding a new ce since his teacher¡¯s wasn¡¯t a long term solution. A night or two was fine, but as the days dragged on, even a sneeze elicited a ¡°young men should pace their needs¡±. His teacher came and went like a wraith¡ªLi Hao was at his wit¡¯s end.

    ¡°Come live with big sis!¡± Liu Yan threw aely arm around his shoulders. ¡°Big sis has a big bed!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright, I¡¯m afraid I¡¯ll disturb you, sis,¡± Li Hao replied stiltedly.

    ¡°Never!¡± Liu Yan giggled and pinched Li Hao¡¯s cheek. ¡°You¡¯re so cute, you would never disturb me.¡±

    Li Hao looked at the others for help, but they studiously avoided his gaze in favor of watching a good show.

    ¡°Alright, all of you are dismissed!¡± Liu Long ignored their antics. ¡°Exercise more care in your actions. You too, Li Hao. Don''t find a ce too far from city center or you won''t even have a chance to be rescued!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The team filed out of the office and bumped into Mu Sen in the hallway. They greeted the inspector general, but didn¡¯t engage in conversation.

    Mu Sen was the type to bring his own cheerfulness. He directed his attention to Liu Yan after greeting everyone. ¡°Congrattions to Vice Captain Liu, or should I say, Director Liu!¡±

    ¡°Not at all.¡± Liu Yan beamed. ¡°You are a chiefmissioner, inspector general. Not to mention, I will not be the director!¡±

    She left with Li Hao. Mu Sen was undoubtedly here for this matter. I wonder what his reaction will be when he hears that Li Hao is being submitted as the deputy director? Her smile faded away when they were a certain distance from the inspector general.

    ¡°There''s much more to that fatty than meets the eye, don''t be bewitched by his smile! We think he became a Sunderer before chief! Who knows what ns he had in mind when he epted the post to Silver City? But apparently his family has some foundations in White Moon, so don¡¯t offend him if you can help it. Don''t get too close either though.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. ¡°Is the inspector general a peak Sunderer?¡± he asked curiously.

    ¡°We''re not sure, he might be. People say that he hacked through the flying supernatural with one stroke. That puts him atte Sunderer at least!¡±

    The young man asked no further upon understanding.

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time.

    White Moon City.

    The Night Watcher Silver Moon headquarters.

    Wang Ming gaped with shock and took a while before asking, ¡°I¡¯m¡­ going to be the deputy director?¡±

    Silver City again?? I don¡¯t want to go! I already made a fool of myself there, won''t peopleugh at me even more with my return? It was also so remote that he didn''t understand why upstairs wanted him to go. He was a Fullmoon, the equivalent ofte Sunderer. He was a genius at headquarters, so was it really appropriate for him to be assigned to this post?

    ¡°It¡¯s a joint director decision.¡± Huang Yun smiled. ¡°Number one, as Yuan Shuo¡¯s honorary disciple, it will be easier for you to find your footing. Number two, Liu Long will be more open to epting you since you fought by his side once. Number three, keep an eye on Li Hao¡¯s movements!

    ¡°Li Hao is the only heir to the eight great families! Although no one¡¯s mentioning that anymore, it doesn¡¯t mean we¡¯re disregarding that! You two are familiar with each other¡ªit¡¯ll be easier for you to be in contact with him and possibly even his bodyguard! Red Moon won¡¯t give up this easily! Although we have all of their powerhouses under surveince, the organization is so big that we can''t possibly keep an eye on everyone!

    ¡°Wang Ming, you go with an important mission! Don¡¯t worry about resources, reach out to me at any time!¡±

    The handsome young man couldn''t find the tears to cry with! This sounded simple, but Silver City was so far away that it was possible lines of contact might fail at times. He was done for! Was he being exiled?

    ¡°Then what about Hu Hao and Li Meng?¡± he couldn¡¯t help but ask. These two couldn¡¯t be luckier than him, could they?

    ¡°Them? They¡¯re going too.¡± Huang Yun¡¯s smile broadened. ¡°The Silver City Night Watcher branch isn¡¯t strong enough, it¡¯s staffed by too few. Three Darkmoons is a perfect addition to flesh out the framework. You¡¯ll be a deputy director and the other two can be arranged as Silver City sees fit. You¡¯re stronger than them!¡±

    That¡¯s true. Wang Mingforted himself for a bit. I just¡­ really don¡¯t want to go, especially because I¡¯ll have to face Li Hao and Liu Long! It¡¯s going to be so ufortable! But he had no room to refuse since those at the top had decided.

    ¡°Can Ie back whenever the situation there stabilizes?¡± he asked earnestly.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± Wang Ming sighed with relief. Hopefully he coulde back as soon as possible. Silver City was so small and the scene of his heartbreak.

    Huang Yun¡¯s smile deepened after he sent the young man away. ¡°Finally got rid of him¡­¡± he murmured. ¡°You cane back when Silver City is migrated!¡±

    Upstairs had decided tomence with the migration n, Silver City was included. It was just a matter of when and how.

 Chapter 112: A New Official Wants To Make A Strong Showing (I)

    Chapter 112: A New Official Wants To Make A Strong Showing (I)

    The Silver City Night Watcher branch was ready to be established. Silver Moon¡¯s provincial government sent out official letters and posted documents on July 28, readying the formation of a new Night Watcher branch.

    Other cities were both envious and admiring. Of the thirty-two cities in the province, only nine possessed Night Watcher branches. Silver City would be the tenth. There were limited numbers of Night Watchers in the province; they were mostly concentrated in the big cities. White Moon contained a poption of thirty million and re more than ten. It used to be that five million inhabitants were the baseline consideration for creating a branch.

    Poption size was a very important condition to be met. Branches were typically not considered for cities that were too small, out of concern that the agency would be spreading their resources too thin and opening themselves up to defeat by supernatural organizations.

    A Night Watcher branch in Silver City was a jaw-dropping, unprecedented urrence. The branch was ultimately approved out of consideration for Yuan Shuo and the secretive eight families. White Moon City paid it special attention all the same, assigning three supernaturals to the new branch¡ªnone of them rookies!

    They were all Darkmoon, with one apparently of the Fullmoon level.

    ¡­¡­

    July 28.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t pay attention to the official documentation. He was wandering around a traditionalpound with houses on four sides of a rectangr courtyard. It was enormous at four hundred square meters and another garden of one thousand square meters.

    An individualpound for an entire family!

    The young man couldn¡¯t stop gasping in shock as he walked around. He looked nkly at Liu Yan. ¡°Sis, don¡¯t you think too highly of me?¡±

    The vice captain had insisted on finding a house for him; Li Hao had no choice but to agree when he couldn¡¯t turn her down.

    Just look at this! I asked you to find me a two bedroom apartment, preferably on the first floor. If not, then somece with good soundproofing. But this was where Liu Yan led him to early this morning?

    They were in the eastern district of Silver City, the affluent neighborhoods. Nearly all of the city¡¯s rich and famous lived here. The young man found the unit inappropriate as soon as they arrived. Housing prices were extremely elevated in this locale. Normal monthly rent ran about three thousand in Silver City, whereas the ones here reached five thousand.

    When he¡¯d been a third rank inspector, his monthly wages were roughly two thousand star coins. It was sufficient for Silver City. He could save roughly twenty to thirty thousand a year if he lived a frugal life, particrly as he was a civil worker. Many things could be written off for reimbursement and there were some bonuses he could work toward. All of that made saving approximately thirty thousand a year an easy enough task.

    A house that was one hundred square meters cost at least three hundred thousand. He could afford it even without being promoted for ten years. It would be easier now that he was much more highly ranked. However, apleteplex like this cost at least four or five million, and he wasn¡¯t inting his estimate! It would cost at least that much!

    He didn¡¯t have any money! It was illegal to sell mysterious power to other supernaturals and his colleagues didn¡¯t have any money if he were to sell to them.

    Liu Yan also looked around the premises. ¡°What am I thinking too highly of?¡± she answered blithely. ¡°You¡¯re going to be a deputy director of the Silver City Night Watchers soon. You¡¯re going to be someone of note! Are you supposed to be jammed like a sardine into a high density apartmentplex? When ites to houses¡­ you¡¯re amissioner inspector, how can you not have a house?¡±

    ¡°¡­through embezzlement? Corruption?¡± asked a speechless Li Hao.

    ¡°Pfft!¡± Liu Yan looked contemptuously at him. ¡°Is that all you know? What corruption? These are spoils of war, do you understand? Loot is handed in and divided ording to Night Watcher rules! This house is from ourst operation!¡±

    Loot? Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°Have you forgotten Zhou He?¡±

    ¡°Oh, oh yeah!¡± Li Hao did remember the name. It was the first person that he¡¯d killed¡ªno, the martial master that Captain Liu and the others beat to death during their interrogation.

    ¡°He owns this!¡± A peal of tinklingughter came from Liu Yan. ¡°And a car as well, you¡¯ve seen it before. It¡¯s in the Inspectorate garage¡ªyou can drive it away anytime! You¡¯re the one who arrested Zhou He, so keep his house and car now that you¡¯ve been promoted!¡±

    So this was the background of the house!

    ¡°How does a yer have so much money?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°What kind of bullshit is that? He was a martial master of many years, how would he not have a few million? Just think about it, you¡¯d be a multimillionaire right now if you were willing to sell the mysterious power that you got!¡±

    Earning money was very easy for them, but what good was wealth? The truly good stuff couldn¡¯t be bought. It was easy for Zhou He to gather five million, but could he buy the same equivalent of mysterious power?

    That would be very difficult!

    And even if he did, he might not see that much benefit after absorbing it all.

    Li Hao¡¯s worldview was so small that Liu Yan found it impossible to further converse with him. Although shecked money, she didn¡¯t fret over it like the young man. All he worried about from day to night was how to get a raise! People wouldugh at him if word of this got out! He would already be aughingstock for wanting a promotion because his wages would increase.

    Li Haoughed dryly. It was true that he was yet to see the world. The richest he ever was in life was when he received his monthly pay from the Inspectorate. He¡¯d looked at his ountsst month¡ªhis savings totaled twelve thousand!

    But now¡­ forget that.

    He gazed upon the massive garden, then walked inside to take in the opulent interior. The exterior was done in a vintage style, whereas the inside was very modern. There were two floors in total as well as an underground garage. A pool could be found in the backyard, just like in other vis. A residence with enormous outdoor space like this one suited Li Hao¡¯s tastes more.

    ¡°So huge!¡± the young man murmured and happened to look back at Liu Yan.

    The woman grinned at the staring young man. ¡°So you¡¯ve finallye to your senses!¡± She thrust her chest forward. You finally know topliment other people! Not bad, you¡¯ve got good taste!

    Li Hao immediately came to his senses and looked elsewhere with resignation. ¡°Sis, do the others¡­ really not need this? Is it okay if I just ept it?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine!¡± Liu Yan really thought nothing of it. ¡°We live in the Inspectorate most of the time. You¡¯re young and just joined the team, so you still have the habit of clocking in and out of work. We¡¯re different. It¡¯s been many years since we joined and typically, we stay at the Inspectorate in our free time.¡±

    They rarely returned home as there was no one home. What was home? Just a house! Their homes were long gone. Liu Long once mentioned that there was a story behind every Demon Hunter. They never mentioned family, significant others, or children¡­

    Wu Chao and Chen Jian seemed to live in the basement, as did Yun Yao. She was there whenever Liu Long saw her. The captain disappeared at times, but who knew if that was to go home or go elsewhere? Perhaps he had no home either and simply went out for a walk.

    Liu Yan was the same! These people treated the team as their home.

    Li Hao said nothing further. He didn¡¯t care either, he just needed a ce to absorb mysterious power and train. Some of his secret arts could not be revealed to outsiders unless his teacher approved. If he practiced in the team basement, the Breathing Method of the Five Styles might be exposed. That waspletely uneptable!

    Li Hao continued to stroll around for a look. There was a living room, guest room, restroom, and a gym on the first floor. The second floor held the primary suite, study, children¡¯s room, and others. He had no use for most of the rooms and the furnishings weren¡¯t new. It¡¯d previously been upied, but this suited his purposes more. He didn¡¯t need to do or renovate anything¡ªhe didn¡¯t have the money to either.

    All was in order; he just needed to bring a few changes of clothing. The more he appraised theplex, the more he liked it. He¡¯d yet to reach the team¡¯s level, he still had a need for materialistic objects. It¡¯d been ufortable at Openlight before to be admonished for running through a boxing technique. Things were perfect now!

    The front and back yards were ridiculouslyrge. He could do whatever he wanted!

    Liu Yan was already on a couch on the first floor. She winked coquettishly at Li Hao when he came down the stairs.

    ¡°The house is really big, Little Hao Hao. Are you afraid to be in it by yourself? How about big sise and keep youpany?¡±

    Li Hao looked around calmly. ¡°Sis, do you think I should host a housewarming or something?¡±

    ¡°Whatever you want!¡± Liu Yan grumbled. Are you ignoring me, little guy?

    The delighted young man didn¡¯t want to waste time discussing these sorts of things. ¡°Sis, they say that they¡¯re sending three Night Watchers of the Darkmoon level. This puts our team at six Sunderers and Night Watchers!¡±

    Not including him. If counting him, that made for seven. It was quite a mighty force, putting Silver City¡¯s branch on par with the other cities¡ªif they overlooked theck of Sunre.

    ¡°Meh, that¡¯s good enough.¡± Liu Yan shrugged carelessly. Thank goodness she¡¯d ascended to Sunderer, or she might feel some pressure.

    ¡°There¡¯s nine of us now. Recruiting another will pretty much fulfill the lowest requirements,¡± the woman remarked. ¡°Chief says he wants me to be the team captain. Other than the oneing to be deputy director, the other two will join the field mission team. I wouldn¡¯t be able to keep them under control if I wasn¡¯t a Sunderer!

    ¡°Chief wants to make a five person field mission team. Wu Chao as scout, Chen Jian as shield, I¡¯ll be primary offense. The other two will be assigned based on their abilities.¡±

    A five person team could indeed satisfy some basic needs. More would require stronger leadership ability. There were no more resources for Liu Yan to draw on.

    ¡°What about me?¡± Li Hao asked with confusion.

    ¡°You¡¯re top brass!¡± Liu Yan smirked. ¡°One principal and two deputies! You¡¯ll spend your days drinking tea, reading reports, and listening to debriefings. What, is our top brass supposed to go to the frontlines?¡±

 Chapter 113: A New Official Wants To Make A Strong Showing (II)

    Chapter 113: A New Official Wants To Make A Strong Showing (II)

    Li Hao blinked wordlessly. Liu Long had been the team captain before!

    Liu Yan broke intoughter at the young man¡¯s confusion. ¡°I¡¯m joking! You don¡¯t need to apany the regr missions, but of course you¡¯ll be with us when dangeres. Chief wants you to be in charge of basic administrative work. We have more people on the team and our official structure isplete. We¡¯ll need to handle and file various documents, as well as obtain intelligence for our cases.

    ¡°You¡¯ll be the one topile and assign resources, contributions, the treasury, and others. You¡¯ll be very busy!¡±

    Support work wasn¡¯t any easier, it was just rtively safer. Liu Long could set and portion out rewards for aplishments when it was just them. But now that they¡¯d joined the Night Watchers, the outsiders might not be satisfied with this set of rules. It would fall to Li Hao to carry out the job.

    The young man didn¡¯t say anything when he heard his responsibilities. Support work was support work, he didn¡¯t mind. He¡¯d been shouldering a heavy load of text archivaltely. His teacher¡¯s method of text archival was storing all abstruse material in his brain. Li Hao felt his brain grow more numb by the day.

    His teacher wanted him on a daily regimen of memorizing new things; he had no choice but toply. If he had to carry out field duty on top of that, Li Hao felt that he might copse.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go back if you¡¯re finished!¡± Liu Yan stood up. ¡°We received our documents this morning! The Night Watchers are decently efficient, so the new guys might arrive this afternoon. We should greet them. Your official appointment might arrive then too.¡±

    Li Hao nodded; the two left together. Despite Zhou He¡¯s car being his, it was still at the Inspectorate, so he didn¡¯t have a car for now. Liu Yan had one¡ªit belonged to the Inspectorate. The young man wasn¡¯t aware of whether or not she owned one herself. It was parked at the entrance to the front garden, but could also be driven in if that was the desire.

    The surroundings were very lovely. While there were neighbors, they were at least two hundred meters away. Eachplex was afforded the maximum privacy possible.

    Li Hao and Liu Yan were about to enter their car when a gleaming ck sedan stopped in front of them. A man¡¯s head poked out when a window rolled down.

    ¡°Captain Liu! What a coincidence to run into you here!¡± The genteel man seemed thirty years old at most and was easy on the eyes.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t recognize him, so he looked at Liu Yan. The woman shed a smile so dazzling that it gave the young man pause. It was¡­ truly radiant. She walked over before he had time to ask, beaming all the while. Li Hao had no choice but to follow in mystified fashion. Was there a need to be so enthusiastic?

    It wasn¡¯t that he had any thoughts toward the vice captain, just his manly ego at y. I will begrudgingly ept you being nice to me, but I¡¯ll be unhappy if you¡¯re nice to anyone else.

    Liu Yan reached behind her as his thoughts ran wildly and pped a pair of handcuffs onto the other¡¯s outstretched hand. ¡°You¡¯re following me!¡± Her smile vanished.

    ¡°Liu Yan, you¡­¡± the man retorted hotly. ¡°I live here and happened to run into you! What are you doing?!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re following me!¡± Liu Yan repeated coldly. ¡°How can you so coincidentally run into me? I suspect that you have dealings with certain illegal organizations! Come with me to the Inspectorate. With your background, you may know that a Night Watcher branch is about to be established in Silver City. Thus, I have reason to believe that you are conducting reconnaissance on Night Watcher movements. You¡¯re dead meat this time!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t try to frame me, Liu Yan!¡± the man flew into a rage. ¡°Don¡¯t try this with me! You should know when to stop! I said that this is a coincidence¡­¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll see about that after you meet the Night Watchers!¡± Liu Yan snorted. ¡°You can tell me all about it when you make it out alive! Come here, Li Hao, and escort the suspect for questioning!¡±

    The young man was rather confused; his earlier thoughts were nowhere to be found. Only one idea upied his mind. Was there a need for this?

    It was one thing to scare off unwanted attention. It looked like the other was pursuing Liu Yan, but she didn¡¯t wee his advances. However, it didn¡¯t seem that appropriate to really take them to the Inspectorate.

    Despite his doubts, he dared forward, grabbed the handcuffs, and growled, ¡°Out of the car!¡±

    ¡°How dare you!¡± snarled the man as he turned around to re at Li Hao. There was none of his earlier ease. If he really was pped with the crime of prying into Night Watcher movements, he¡¯d have the skin stripped off him, if not more. ¡°Don¡¯t go over the line, Liu Yan¡­¡±

    ¡°Keep talking tough!¡± Liu Yan¡¯s expression was frosty. ¡°Keep talking and I¡¯ll take it that you¡¯re resisting arrest. I¡¯ll execute you on the spot!¡±

    The man instantly shut up. A wise man did not fight when the odds were against him. He corralled his temper and grit his teeth. ¡°Fine! I¡¯m sorry! Liu Yan, I wasn¡¯t prying into your affairs, I was just passing by! You know that I live up ahead! Plus, the Night Watcher branch hasn¡¯t been formed yet, so what am I prying into?¡±

    ¡°See, you knew everything as soon as the official documents arrived. What is this, if not prying?¡±

    The man shut up without a word. There was no point in saying anything else.

    Liu Yan sneered at him. ¡°Open his handcuffs, Li Hao. But keep an eye on the guy and execute him as soon as he vites proper behavior!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao barked before undoing the handcuffs. He quickly followed Liu Yan to the Inspectorate car, using their rearview mirror to train his eyes on the man. Thetter¡¯s face contorted with fury and he stared fixedly at them.

    ¡­¡­

    In the car.

    ¡°Sis, who was that?¡± Li Hao asked curiously.

    ¡°Qiao Peng!¡± Liu Yan responded calmly as she drove. ¡°He lives in theplex ahead of you, keep an eye on his every moment! He has another identity as the vice president of the Qiao Mining Industries. His dad is the boss!¡±

    Qiao Mining Industries! That immediately jogged his memory. ¡°He¡¯s a huge entrepreneur of Silver City, a really rich person. Apparently theirpany is worth several hundreds of millions¡­ is that true?¡±

    And how were he and Liu Yan at odds with each other?

    ¡°There is so much more to Qiao Mining Industries,¡± Liu Yan said lowly. ¡°They appear to be in the mining industry, but they¡¯re actually in the business of secretly excavating ancient ruins! Qiao Mining Industries has a professional mining team, or should I say a team of robbers and thieves? Granted, the sites of ancient civilizations are not that easily plumbed. I just suspect them of having dealings with a supernatural organization, it might be Red Moon!¡±

    Li Hao frowned. ¡°What makes you say that?¡± This family business needed to be uprooted if that was the case!

    ¡°Qiao Mining Industries has operated for many years and was founded in Silver City. You know our city, there¡¯s nothing here. They say that there¡¯s ore in the mountains outside the city, but bah! Bullshit! I haven¡¯t seen them mine anything over these years, but here they stay without shifting their ass! I didn¡¯t think much about them before, but ever since Red Moon¡¯s attack and the eight families of Silver City came to the forefront, I suspect these guys have something to do with the supernatural organizations!¡±

    Liu Yan paused, then added, ¡°It might not be Red Moon, it could also be Yama!¡±

    Why¡¯d she change her mind? Li Hao found the swing difficult to process.

    Liu Yan snorted. ¡°I¡¯m not far from the truth, but it¡¯s all spection. I have no proof. Chief may have mentioned my affairs to you before. Let¡¯s put it this way. My husband was an engineer for Qiao Mining Industries. He was in charge of random bits and ends. He came home one day to tell me that they¡¯d uncovered something unusual in the mountains, possibly an ancient site. Those were different times then, what ancient sites did Silver City have? I didn¡¯t pay much attention to it¡­

    ¡°He was dead shortly thereafter, murdered! His killer was a captain of the security team. Apparently they had an argument in one of the sites, the guy lost his temper, and smashed my husband dead with a rock!

    ¡°I brought a team to arrest him as soon as I heard. The guy fled arrest. When we next heard of him not long after, it was that he¡¯d joined Yama and absorbed enough mysterious power to be a Darkmoon!¡±

    ¡°Sis, are you saying that there¡¯s a connection between Qiao Mining Industries and Yama?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°That they could be Yama territory and here to excavate ancient sites? That tour husband stumbled upon one of their discoveries and was silenced for it?¡±

    ¡°More or less!¡±

    ¡°Then¡­ why don¡¯t you tell the Night Watchers?¡± Li Hao raised. As useless as the agency seemed, they were the only official supernatural organization.

    ¡°Having just offended Red Moon, do you think they can afford to offend Yama?¡± Liu Yan saw things more clearly than he did. ¡°The Night Watchers may not be as strong as any of the three and they¡¯re already in open hostilities with Red Moon. Can they withstand another fight with Yama? And I might identally reveal myself to Yama if I make a report of this. It¡¯ll result in more trouble for myself.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Upon further consideration, it really wasn¡¯t something to be mentioned. But he doggedly continued forward. ¡°Then¡­ with how you treated the guy today, sis, aren¡¯t you worried that he¡¯ll suspect something?¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t get it!¡± Liu Yan suddenly smiled. ¡°He would suspect that I knew something if I ignored him. My sudden antagonism toward him as soon as I join the Night Watchers will actually put him at ease. It¡¯s indirect proof that I don¡¯t know anything. If so, I should be biding my time instead.

    ¡°Li Hao, sustained concessions and patience isn¡¯t the best thing sometimes. It might arouse greater suspicion instead,¡± the vice captain suddenly offered some advice. ¡°You are also the only heir of the eight families of Silver City! I''ve confirmed it, there is no one alive from the other seven. Those who left for other cities have all died of various idents.

    ¡°Therefore, there must be more secrets in Silver City. I suspect the ruins of the eight families are here. If so, then they might be digging into your ancestral grave, Li Hao!¡±

    The young man regarded Liu Yan wordlessly. Ancestral grave¡­? Now that sounded awkward.

 Chapter 114: A New Official Wants To Make A Strong Showing (III)

    Chapter 114: A New Official Wants To Make A Strong Showing (III)

    ¡°Red Moon caused such a disturbance that those who didn¡¯t know about the eight families before do now,¡± Liu Yan waxed eloquent. ¡°Yama, Celestial¡ªbut I have a feeling that these two might¡¯ve known already. Some mid-sized organizations might be newly aware, as well as the Night Watchers.

    ¡°Everything might seem calm and tranquil, but that¡¯s hardly the case. All eyes are probably on you. Danger lurks in the shadows so long as you remain in Silver City. It¡¯s not out in the open for now because of Elder Yuan. Once he leaves, we will certainly be the most chaotic ce in all of Silver Moon!¡±

    Chaos! It was inevitable!

    Liu Yan was no fool and had drawn her theories long ago. All was quiet now due to the presence of an expert who could kill Srs. But once said expert departed, the city would promptly dissolve into utter pandemonium.

    Just you wait.

    ¡°Sis, why don¡¯t you guys leave since you know that troubled times areing?¡± Li Hao asked after a long period of silence.

    ¡°Leave?¡± Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°Where to? And why? Trouble is good! From dangeres opportunity! As a martial master yet to make the crossover, I craverge amounts of mysterious power! Once the Night Watcher branch is formed, we¡¯ll be rewarded for killing enemy supernaturals. My monthly sry and additional power from killing enemies is where my opportunity lies.

    ¡°Otherwise, having just set foot into Sunderer of Hundreds, I¡¯ll never be able to ascend.¡±

    She knew how dangerous the city might be in the near future, but so what? She wasn¡¯t afraid! This was precisely her gamble, that Silver City would be treacherous. Without the chances to be had from these circumstances, how eternally long might it take for her to make the crossover as a Sunderer?

    ¡°I owe you thanks for my breakthrough,¡± she suddenly said. It was a meaningful statement as one couldn¡¯t make out if she was happy or resigned. Indeed, Li Hao was the primary reason why she¡¯d advanced to Sunderer. After therge quantity of special energy he sent into her, she returned home to discover that her physique had grown stronger and her supernatural locks even more secure. It was why she¡¯d broken through.

    She didn¡¯t speak of it to anyone.

    Li Hao paused. Me? Ah, sword energy!

    ¡°I just wanted to heal your wounds,¡± he said with embarrassment.

    ¡°It¡¯s alright.¡± Liu Yan continued driving with a smile. ¡°Sunderer is just as well, this means I have some ability to protect myself now. Otherwise, yer ispletely insufficient if I¡¯m still stuck on the martial master path.¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t respond as he was busy thinking of things. So the eight families were catching attention, were they?

    He knew this would happen, but since everyone had avoided the subject before, he thought no one cared. Looks like they did care. Despite the eight families being an old legend, post the awakening of the supernatural, the sword of the Lis being presented to the Night Watchers, and Red Moon losing a Sr in Silver City, perhaps powerhouses of other provinces were also paying attention to them now.

    Nothing resulted from their scrutiny so long as Yuan Shuo was in residence, but the storm might descend as soon as his teacher left.

    That¡¯s fine! Like Liu Yan said, this was an opportunity. Li Hao had just set foot into Sunderer, but his strength continued to improve. His teacher had withdrawn his share of mysterious power from the treasury and mentioned that he would obtain some of the five elements for his student.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s loot of mysterious power focused on metal energy as the Sr had been a metal supernatural. The Sunre was a thunder supernatural. While they could help Li Hao, they weren¡¯t as useful as the bnced nature of the five elements. The professor needed time to trade his cubes with others.

    These days, I can sense that I¡¯m on the verge of seeding with Thrice Forced. It¡¯s a small improvement, in a way. The young man saw Qiao Peng¡¯s figure slowly disappear in the rearview mirror.

    Qiao Mining Industries! Potentially a fringe Yama organization. Li Haomitted it to memory.

    ¡­¡­

    The Inspectorate.

    Li Hao and Liu Yan returned like nothing had happened.

    Therge conference room.

    Mu Sen was also present; Li Hao was surprised by some familiar faces when he entered the room. Wang Ming didn¡¯t say a word when he met Li Hao¡¯s eyes. He¡¯d told thetter to leave for White Moon as soon as possible, that Silver City was too small. Yet here he was, back before long. How mortifying!

    ¡°We¡¯re all here, good!¡± Mu Sen smiled when he saw Liu Yan and Li Hao return. ¡°The documents and people from the Night Watchers have arrived. Everyone take a seat, I¡¯ll announce the appointments!¡±

    The group sat down where they would. Wang Ming didn¡¯t greet or talk to Li Hao as he found the situation too humiliating. Could everyone just pretend that he didn¡¯t exist?

    ¡°After careful study, the senior council has decided to formally establish a Night Watcher branch in Silver City! Liu Long, formerly captain of the Silver Cityw enforcement team, is promoted to chiefmissioner and will serve as the branch director!¡±

    Liu Long rose, walked up to ept his letter ofmission, and snapped a salute. Everyone apuded their new director. There weren¡¯t that many present, just the Demon Hunters and a few outside Night Watchers. It was a secret agency, after all. Although quite a few knew about it, they should keep it confidential where they could and avoid the public eye.

    ¡°Wang Ming, formerlymissioner inspector of the White Moon Night Watchers, will serve as deputy director!¡±

    Wang Ming walked up and epted his letter without a smile on his face. He¡¯de all the way from White Moon to be the new branch¡¯s deputy director, but he was still an outsider to these people. What was the point of this? He was amissioner inspector to begin with and wasn¡¯t promoted for his new title, making it all the more pointless.

    ¡°Li Hao, formerly first rank inspector of the Silver Cityw enforcement team, is promoted tomissioner inspector and will serve as deputy director!¡±

    Wang Ming stared at Li Hao, beside himself with humiliation. The kid was the other deputy director? He really hadn¡¯t known about this. Holy fuck, I¡¯ve done poorly for myself in life. I¡¯m the same rank as Li Hao?!

    Li Meng and Hu Hao looked at each other, finding the situation too awkward for words. So Li Hao was to be their superior? My word, if they¡¯d known that Li Hao would be the deputy director, they would¡¯ve resisted this transfer with every fiber of their being. They thought it would be Liu Yan!

    The vice captain was older than them and with a longer tenure. Other than not being a supernatural, she was an eptable deputy director. But Li Hao??

    ¡°Director Liu, this¡­ uh¡­ Li Hao¡­¡± Wang Ming couldn¡¯t resist muttering. ¡°Hasn¡¯t it only been a while since he joined the Inspectorate? And he¡¯s not a supernatural¡­¡±

    How is this reasonable?

    ¡°No worries, Li Hao is primarily in charge of back office support,¡± Liu Long replied evenly. ¡°We look to Director Wang when real battle is upon us. Director Hao is a Fullmoon supernatural and the strongest in Silver City¡­¡±

    Wang Ming flushed beet red. This was stark humiliation! What do you mean by this, Liu Long?! Everyone knew what¡¯d happened in the previous battle. Liu Long could take on three by himself, whereas Wang Ming couldn¡¯t handle solobat. There was also Yuan Shuo within the city walls, so what was this talk of the strongest in the city, if not degradation of the worst kind?

    ¡°Director Liu!¡±

    ¡°Oh, I mean first among supernaturals!¡± Liu Long corrected calmly.

    Wang Ming blinked, then quieted down. That was urate enough. Forget it, he wasn¡¯t going to argue with a blockhead.

    ¡°Liu Yan, formerly captain of the Silver City field mission team¡­¡±

    The appointments continued. There were nine altogether for the new branch¡ªfour were executives, if they counted Liu Yan. Yun Yao, Wu Chao, and Chen Jian didn¡¯t mind the new hierarchy. Hu Hao and Li Meng looked around them, suddenly feeling very alone. They were two Darkmoons reporting for work in the minor Silver City, yet at the end of the day¡­ they were just more substantial soldiers.

    They hadn¡¯t even finagled a position of team captain!

    The two almost broke out in sobs. If they¡¯d known this would be the case, they should¡¯ve requested a transfer to re City. Even if they weren¡¯t part of the leadership team there, there would still be some Starlight who could be their minions. Look at the situation they were in now! Other than the two of them, only Wu Chao and Chen Jian were weaker than them. And the key thing was, they were of apletely different path as they were martial masters. They were also directly from Liu Long¡¯s faction!

    The two of them were the lowest on the totem pole!

    ¡°Congrattions, everyone!¡± Mu Sen smiled as he finished announcing the appointments. ¡°Particrly Li Hao, congrattions! I said so before that a student from the Veteris Institute would stand out from his fellows sooner orter! I hadn¡¯t thought that you¡¯d make amissioner inspector so quickly.¡±

    He was both surprised, yet not so surprised. It made sense that those upstairs had agreed¡ªthey needed to show Yuan Shuo''s face.

    ¡°The formation of a Night Watcher branch is a wonderful asion for both the Inspectorate and me!¡± said the merry inspector general. ¡°You will be in charge of all cases involving the supernatural and martial masters in the future. The Inspectorate will handle only the mundane cases. Of course, feel free to temporarilymandeer anyone from the Inspectorate whenever you need help.¡±

    There were too few Night Watchers and there would undoubtedly be many supernatural cases toe. Mu Sen granted them leniency in permitting them to bolster their ranks whenever needed.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t care about that. He thought for a bit before saying, ¡°ording to my knowledge, the Inspectorate has the most detailed files on all supernaturals and martial masters in the city. Just give me a copy of that, including a listing of all supernaturals and martial masters in the various corporations, Veteris Institute, and agencies.¡±

    Mu Sen looked at him without saying a word.

    ¡°What, can you not do that?¡± Liu Long asked cidly. ¡°Inspector General Mu, you and I are of the same rank now! The Night Watchers have the right to request these files. Please hand them over.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t mean that!¡± Mu Sen frowned. ¡°Liu Long, what do you intend to do?¡±

    ¡°A new official wants to make a strong showing. I¡¯m going to light a fire with my showing, is there a problem with that?¡±

    Mu Sen opened and closed his mouth. He was the only one who could read those files because they involved all of the superhuman existences within Silver City. yers, Starlight, Sunderer, Darkmoon¡­

    Did Silver City have those?

    Yes, but very few and concentrated within a few corporations and powerful organizations¡ªsuch as the Veteris Institute. There was a martial master in residence there, and it wasn¡¯t Yuan Shuo.

 Chapter 115: Origin Weapons (I)

    Chapter 115: Origin Weapons (I)

    Mu Sen said nothing further in the face of Liu Long¡¯s insistence. ¡°I¡¯ll give the list to you when I get back.¡± He nodded.

    ¡°Don¡¯t delete anything!¡± Liu Long continued in his calm tones. ¡°Those have nothing to do with you. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not a bad guy. We¡¯re all protectors of Silver City and won¡¯t do anything irrational.¡±

    ¡°Do as you wish!¡± Mu Sen left without another word. It was best to limit his interactions with Liu Long. The guy was not a logical person and would drag him down sooner orter.

    ¡°We can finally flex our muscles withplete freedom!¡± Liu Long suddenly smiled.

    Though no one knew what he meant, they were all seized by excitement. Wang Ming joined them in this thrilling sensation, but soon sensed something different. Liu Long was looking at him¡­ strangely.

    The fuck! Wang Ming cursed subconsciously. What you looking at me for? I¡¯m just an outsider, you don¡¯t have something in mind for me, do you?

    ¡°Let¡¯s all go to Li Hao¡¯s ce after work tonight to celebrate the formation of the new branch!¡± Wreathed in smiles, Liu Yan called everyone together for the group¡¯s first social asion. Liu Long wasn¡¯t the enthusiastic type and everyone left in the conference room would be eating out of the same figurative pot in the future. ¡°Little Wang, Little Hu, Little Li, are you three okay with that?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± The three looked at her. Li Meng and Hu Hao quickly turned to Wang Ming. You¡¯re the boss, what you say goes. They are three outsiders unfamiliar with this group. It was up to Wang Ming if he wanted toy down thew in this very moment, or forever bow his head.

    Wang Ming didn¡¯t care about any of that. This was all transient and temporary to him. He would leave soon, so there was no point in expending effort to fight Liu Long for power! Besides, Huang Yun wanted him to get close to Li Hao. This mission had to be aplished, so the handsome young man quickly nodded in eptance.

    ¡°Very well, let¡¯s go to Director Hao¡¯s ce!¡±

    The turn of events left Li Hao speechless. My ce? I have no idea where the kitchen is in my new ce. Liu Yan seriously knows how to make things a hassle. Why don¡¯t we go out to eat?

    ¡°Then it¡¯s settled.¡± The beaming Liu Yan didn¡¯t care what the young man thought. ¡°The Inspectorate should¡¯ve arranged lodgings for the three of you. It¡¯s been a long and arduous journey. Why don¡¯t you get settled in first, we¡¯lle pick you upter.¡±

    ¡°Thank you for going to the trouble!¡± Wang Ming left without another word. He didn¡¯t want to stay a single second longer than he had to. It was too ufortable! Although Li Hao and Liu Long couldn¡¯t care less, the same couldn¡¯t be said for him. His pride was too strong and he couldn¡¯t bear it. It curdled his insides to think of how those supernaturals had injured him with one blow and he¡¯d needed Liu Long to save him.

    The three neers left together. Liu Long snorted withughter the moment they disappeared from view.

    ¡°Not bad!¡±

    Liu Yan nodded and smiled as well.

    ¡°It¡¯s those three.¡± Yun Yao inclined her head in approval. ¡°At least we¡¯ve fought together before. They have some fire to them. While they¡¯re newbies, they¡¯re notplete rookies. They¡¯re all Darkmoon and not some of the oily supernaturals that we¡¯ve seen¡­¡±

    The team was quite satisfied with these three. Lack of battle experience wasn¡¯t a problem. The Demon Hunters had been mostly concerned about being sent stubborn, lone warrior types or those who wanted to vie for authority. That would make for a difficult time then.

    Not all supernaturals turned a blind eye to mundane power. Some wouldn¡¯t mindmitting detestable acts in the name of fame and wealth. But not these guys, these guys were fine.

    ¡°They¡¯re good!¡± Chen Jian proimed with a broad smile. ¡°They helped us with the supernaturalsst time, so we¡¯re all acquainted. Wang Ming is stronger than us, so it¡¯s all good!¡±

    Liu Long nodded. This was why he was at ease. He didn¡¯t care about power or authority either, but he would defend his territory to hisst breath if someone came for it. He understood how important this team was¡ªthey were all trusted people who¡¯d gone through life and death together. He wasn¡¯t willing to ce their lives in anyone else¡¯s hands. That made an easy environment for fatalities.

    ¡°Sis, I don¡¯t have anything to make food with,¡± Li Hao muttered with the onset of a headache. He ignored what the team was talking about.

    ¡°Are you an idiot?¡± Liu Yan rolled her eyes. ¡°Order in! Have the restaurant deliver! We¡¯re just eating at your ce, who¡¯s cooking there?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. Was this what it meant to y host? I¡¯ve learned something new today! So it¡¯s just borrowing my ce, huh? Here I was, bashing my brains out on how to handle this!

    ¡°Let¡¯s do as Liu Yan says,¡± Liu Longughed. ¡°We can just eat whatever, the food doesn¡¯t matter. Hosting a wee dinner for them is a show of goodwill. You can grow closer to Wang Ming as we eat, Li Hao. Chat with him, especially about the supernatural affairs toe.¡± The chief paused. ¡°Especially about the eight families!¡±

    Li Hao stilled with seriousness. He needed to pay attention to this!

    He truly wanted to understand more about the eight families, but neither his teacher nor the others knew much. Who knew if the Night Watchers knew more? The best way to learn more might be to interrogate Ying Hongyue. A pity that that was impossible. Right?

    In that case, Wang Ming was the next best alternative.

    Li Hao nodded and set out to look for restaurants when Liu Long waved him back. ¡°Don¡¯t be in a rush to leave! Now that we¡¯ve officially be a Night Watcher branch, we can¡¯t continue to operate from the basement! Go find an office building for us to move into. We don¡¯t have many belongings or equipment¡­¡±

    ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll have thew enforcement team move out of this building so we can take it over. That saves us the hassle of a move!¡±

    The rest of the team stared at him. Damn, son! You¡¯re as ckhearted as they get! Make thew enforcement team move? Look at how many we have and how many they have!

    ¡°What?¡± Perplexed, an embarrassed Li Hao scratched his head. ¡°Our headquarters are here and it¡¯s not that easy to move a treasury. So have thew enforcement team move, their stuff is easier to move. I can call for a movingpany.¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Liu Yan burst into giggles and Liu Long waved an extremely exasperated hand. ¡°You figure it out! But it¡¯s all on you if peoplein!¡±

    Truly ckhearted! The new branch was only just formed, but here they were going to take someone else¡¯s ce like a dove upying a magpie¡¯s nest! Li Hao was showing his true colors now, wasn''t he? He could look forward to curses thrown his way!

    The rest of the team ignored the young man and chatted for a while before heading downstairs.

    ¡­¡­

    The group blinked when they reached the first floor. A hotbed of activity, thew enforcement team bustled to and fro as they moved items in perfect harmony. Liu Long looked around with astonishment. Since when were these guys so easily persuaded? And they all wore smiles on their faces? Had something good happened?

    This location had been their office for a very long time and they were suddenly being told to move. Wasn¡¯t that a hard pill to swallow?

    ¡°Captain!¡± greeted inspectors passing by. The team was still used to calling him captain. Liu Long grabbed a nearby bulky man.

    ¡°Old Zhou, why are you guys being so proactive? The kid didn¡¯t threaten you guys, did he?¡±

    ¡°How could he?¡± chortled the old veteran. ¡°And would Commissioner Inspector Li ever do such a thing? Didn¡¯t you say that if we finish the move today, we can all choose a gun from Captain Liu or your office? That we can even take the cannon if we want?¡±

    He paused, a weird tone creeping into his voice. ¡°You two¡­ know about that, right?¡±

    Liu Long and Liu Yan looked at each other with resignation. The hell they knew about! The kid seriously knew how to bullshit.

    But the more they thought about it, the more it didn¡¯t matter. They could always get more weapons; the ones in their offices were kept there for easy ess. Not to mention, since they were now part of the Night Watchers, they needed to turn in the Inspectorate weapons. Night Watchers were rarely equipped with conventional weapons.

    ¡°We do!¡± Liu Long answered gruffly. ¡°That¡¯s all it took for you guys to bounce up and down like this?¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡± Old Zhouughed loudly. ¡°Captain, Commissioner Inspector Li is a highly educated person, alright! He¡¯s someone meant for big things! He says that moving away now is so that we can return with our heads held even higher. I hear¡­ that um¡­ they¡­ are recruiting new members?¡±

    He looked expectantly at Liu Long. The Night Watchers were not a secret to thew enforcement team. Law enforcement members had personally participated in the supernatural battle of Silver City a few days ago. Everyone knew about the existence of supernaturals.

    Based on Li Hao¡¯s words, this building was being requisitioned as Silver City also hosted a branch of that agency now. Everyone on thew enforcement team had a chance to join it, but there would be a selection process. Anyone who moved away now could move back once they passed through the process. They woulde back with a raise, increased benefits, and the chance to be supernatural!

    The team was highly excited about this possibility.

    ¡°Old Zhou, that domain is very dangerous. You¡¯re a veteran inspector, so you should know more about what we¡¯re talking about.¡± Liu Long furrowed his brows. Why could the inspector barely contain his excitement like some of the young¡¯uns?

    ¡°Captain, I¡¯m not hoping to be one of those!¡± Old Zhou smiled easily. ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li says that he can recruit a few people for administrative duties. Our rank will increase by one level and our sry double. The sryes from upstairs, anyhow, not your pockets. Themissioner inspector also says that it¡¯d be a waste not to take advantage of this, since it¡¯s no skin off our backs. Under normal circumstances, Night Watchers¡­ ahem, can set up a mundane help center that requires a bit of staff. It¡¯d be a shame to not take advantage of a gig that offers a promotion and a raise, wouldn¡¯t you say so?¡±

    Liu Long felt a bit awkward. Is that so? I don¡¯t know, I¡¯ve never thought about this before. I see! So the Night Watchers also have an administrative back office for support duty? He¡¯d originally assigned those tasks to Li Hao, but to think that the young man would outsource his work in the blink of an eye. The young man was really something!

    Liu Yan and the others busily suppressedughter. Chen Jian was the first to break. ¡°Li Hao¡¯s got some good thoughts in him and knows how to obtain benefits for our brothers. It¡¯s true, we don¡¯t care about promotions, but Old Zhou and the others do. Any that get promoted is a good thing since it¡¯s upstairs picking up the tab.¡±

 Chapter 116: Origin Weapons (II)

    Chapter 116: Origin Weapons (II)

    Old Zhou looked up excitedly from the boxes he was moving. ¡°That¡¯s right! Captain, I thought you were looking out for your old brothers! Is that not the case?¡±

    He was a bit disappointed. Had the captain overlooked them for such a nice gig? So it was Commissioner Inspector Li who truly had their backs!

    ¡°Bastard!¡± The awkward Liu Long quickly returned to his customary aloofness. ¡°Of course I did, I was just worried that you¡¯d be afraid of danger¡­¡±

    ¡°Just listen to yourself, captain! Forget it, I¡¯m going to ask themissioner inspector if there¡¯s a spot for me. I¡¯m not talking to you anymore, captain.¡± Old Zhou ran off happily to search out Li Hao, leaving a resigned Liu Long in his wake.

    Tea cools down as soon as someone¡¯s gone, but I¡¯m right here still! These guys are too materialistic.

    Li Hao returned before long and raised his voice when he saw how busy everyone was working.

    ¡°Move faster, folks! Let¡¯s try to be done by tonight! The new ce is nice and I¡¯ve juste from talking to Inspector General Mu. He didn¡¯t want to see everyone go, so I only managed to wrangle ten spots! I can only promote you guys one rank higher, it was too hard to get anymissioner inspector titles. Therefore, I rmend having second rank inspectors in the first round. That will maximize our benefits!

    ¡°If third rank inspectors wish to apply for this opportunity, please wait a bit longer! Once the branch grows bigger and we have more people, I¡¯ll recruit some more big brothers and sisters from thew enforcement team to help!¡±

    ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li is the best!¡±

    ¡°As expected of a top student from the Veteris Institute!¡±

    ¡°Cheers for themissioner inspector!

    ¡°¡­¡­¡±

    A chorus of ttery rose from the inspectors. This was a very exciting announcement! Not all of them were able to undertake exhausting missions like Liu Long and the rest of his Single Hunters. Those guys fed their entire family when they ate for one. Some of thew enforcement team, like the rest of them, had families to feed!

    Advancements and raises were an asion of absolute delight.

    ¡­¡­

    Liu Long watched silently off to the side, turning to Liu Yan after a while.

    ¡°We¡¯ve focused on pursuing the supernatural all these years,¡± he whispered. ¡°And forgotten what a mundane life feels like. No wonder Law Enforcement was such a hot mess.¡±

    They¡¯d forgotten what these brothers and sisters needed. So long as one didn¡¯t ascend beyond this system, advancement and raises were what everyone sought after. Liu Long had failed to give these to them over the past few years.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao still viewed himself as a mundane. He knew what they wanted, so could satisfy their desires. Therefore, they were happy to hail him as amissioner inspector despite being newly promoted. Currying favor cost them nothing. Being able to join the new branch¡¯s back office meant striking rich.

    ¡°It''s nothing to do with me, I was just a deputy,¡± Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°This is your oversight, chief. Don¡¯t try to drag me into it.¡±

    ¡°Everyone¡¯s willing to move!¡± Li Hao ran up to them excitedly. ¡°I told the inspector general about our needs and he said Law Enforcement can use the building next door. It¡¯s empty anyways, all it needs is a bit of cleaning up. Look, chief, we have our own station now!¡±

    ¡°You definitely know how to take care of things!¡± Liu Long broke out intoughter. And he¡¯d thought thed would give rise to general discontent! ¡°How did you think of this, and to recruit a bunch of people into the back office?¡±

    ¡°Wang Ming told me about it.¡± Li Hao still recalled their final conversation. ¡°When he told me to move to White Moon, he said it was fine that I¡¯m mundane. White Moon Night Watchers need mundanes for administrative work, so I asked around. As it turns out, Night Watcher branches can recruit mundanes so long as they aren¡¯t on the frontlines. There¡¯s no set number¡ªbut generally fewer than the Night Watchers.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve got a good memory!¡±plimented Liu Long. ¡°But don¡¯t forget the proper task at hand! Don¡¯t be preupied with the minutiae of your position¡ªbeing obsessed with the trappings of power isn¡¯t good. Remember to keep increasing your strength. You¡¯re a deputy director now and your strength is quite unfit for the task!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, chief,¡± Li Haoughed dryly. ¡°I¡¯ve been working hard and will make the crossover as soon as possible!¡±

    My strength? Sunderer of Hundreds. That¡¯s good enough, right? Sharpening the ax did not dy cutting up firewood. Li Hao didn¡¯t want to be forever bogged down by administrative detail. Identifying people to split his load now would give him adequate time to trainter.

    ¡­¡­

    The day passed in a busy flurry.

    Night.

    Nine Night Watchers drove two cars, one of them Liu Yan¡¯s and the other the one allotted to Li Hao. S 7219. Liu Long and the others were in the first car, whereas Li Hao took the new arrivals.

    Wang Ming hadn¡¯t wanted to sit in the passenger seat, but also didn¡¯t want to squeeze with Li Meng and Hu Hao after they plopped themselves into the back seat. He reluctantly sat down in the front.

    It wasn¡¯t long before he shifted uneasily.

    ¡°Li Hao, do you know how to drive?!¡± he couldn¡¯t help but cry out. He¡¯d thought of a n of attack before getting in, of how he¡¯d avoid conversing with Li Hao. Yet why was the guy driving the car??

    ¡°Yeah!¡± Li Hao answered eagerly. ¡°I¡¯ve driven cars before, but not ones as fancy as this one. Driving is so easy! All you need to do is handle the steering wheel, step on the pedal, and brake! Don¡¯t you know how to drive, Ole Wang?¡±

    He didn¡¯t hail Wang Ming as ¡°sir¡± anymore because they were of the same rank. Li Hao was twenty and Wang Ming seemed to be the same age, possibly even younger since he used to say ¡°Brother Hao¡±. Therefore, a younger moniker was appropriate. However, calling someone ¡°little buddy¡± seemed a bit rude, so Li Hao settled for ¡°Ole Wang¡±.

    Wang Ming didn¡¯t know what to say. I don¡¯t know how to drive? It¡¯s more like you don¡¯t know how to drive! Is messing with the steering wheel, gas pedal, and brakes all you need to do? I mean, it¡¯s not like he¡¯s wrong, but the way this guy drives is too damned terrifying!

    Wang Ming reined himself in, trying to distract himself. If not, he¡¯d throw up from being so carsick.

    ¡°Li Hao, howe Silver City put you forward to be the deputy director?¡±

    ¡°Oh, chief said I¡¯m more suited to it and that the others aren¡¯t, so he chose me.¡±

    Bullshit! Wang Ming wanted to curse.

    ¡°Li Hao, you¡¯re not yer of Tens yet, right?¡± Li Meng bounced so badly in the back that she had to join the conversation to divert her attention. ¡°Did you find any mysterious power that suits you from the portion you were distributed?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao answered morosely. ¡°Teacher says that maybe my constitution is unique and it¡¯s hard for me to find my proper match. I need to keep waiting and start from martial dao. Martial masters are quite something and just as strong as supernaturals!¡±

    ¡°Have you entered yer of Tens?¡±

    ¡°Pretty much!¡± the young man chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m almost there, I think I can resonate my bones and meridians! It¡¯s just¡­ I¡¯ve yet to try in actual battle. Teacher says that martial masters and supernaturals who cannot fight are all trash!¡±

    Expressions turned dark on all three faces. Thankfully, Li Hao included himself among that, or they¡¯d think he was getting a secret jab in at them.

    Wang Ming was close to erupting with anger and forced down the awkwardness he felt. ¡°Have you visited Elder Yuantely?¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯d he say to you?¡±

    ¡°A lot, why?¡±

    ¡°Nothing.¡± Wang Ming dropped the topic. It looked like Yuan Shuo had indeed not said anything about taking honorary disciples. That was good. But¡­ on the other hand¡­ if the professor couldn¡¯t even be bothered to mention them¡­ that showed how worthless honorary disciples were!

    Unnamed jealousy agitated in his heart!

    They wouldn¡¯t be happy to see Yuan Shuo announce their arrangement to the world, but the professor didn¡¯t even tell his own disciple! The gap between the final and honorary disciples was too big. The professor hadn¡¯t said anything to the trio after they moved to Silver City. It truly broke the heart.

    Li Hao had his own agenda in mind. ¡°Ah yes, Sis Li and Brother Hu, teacher said that you guys were herest time to escort him to a ruin. Where is it? Why¡¯s it been canceled?¡±

    ¡°Not canceled, dyed!¡± Being the forthright sort, Li Meng kept nothing a secret. ¡°A lot of people have their eyes on it. Before Elder Yuan broke through, we arranged for Director Hao to lead the team. The other factions were also going to send Srs for their expeditions to keep all sides in check.

    ¡°At the same time, Elder Yuan¡¯s presence is a necessity. The other parties would want him to go even if we didn¡¯t want him to because he¡¯s very knowledgeable about that site.

    ¡°When the Night Watchers probed it three years ago, we ended up with severe losses and casualties. Three Srs and multiple Darkmoon died. Elder Yuan also suffered grave injuries from that expedition. The Night Watchers and other organizations have sent in their own people over the years, but always ended up losing a lot of personnel. Therefore, Elder Yuan being there is a must since he¡¯s an involved party. That also means everyone needs more time to prepare now that he can kill Srs.¡±

    Li Hao understood the situation now.

    ¡°You keep talking about other parties¡ªis it Red Moon, Celestial, and Yama?¡±

    ¡°More than that!¡± Li Meng exined. ¡°Those are only the three biggest supernatural organizations! Various smaller ones spring forth like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. New ones appear every year¡ªsome are eliminated, but some grow into their own!

    ¡°The Night Watchers and three biggest ones are the first tier of the supernatural domain. There are some weaker ones below that.¡±

    ¡°Wow, it¡¯s thatplicated?¡± Li Hao stomped on the brakes, nearly flinging everyone out of the car. Thankfully, they were all supernaturals and could catch themselves, but it was an absolutely ridiculous situation. He¡¯d almost driven the car into the river!

    ¡°Sis Li.¡± Li Hao was fully engrossed in the conversation. ¡°Don¡¯t the Night Watchers care about that, sis? Either kill them all to establish our authority or recruit them to our cause. Why are there so many other organizations?¡±

    An irritable Wang Ming cut in before Li Meng had a chance to respond. ¡°It¡¯s not that simple! Latter-day supernaturals are easy to take care of, but the Heaven Favored start off as supernatural. Their rate of improvement is horrifying, even faster than the Night Watchers! They¡¯re Sunre or Sr before you even know it!

    ¡°They haven¡¯t broken thew, so are we supposed to pay the price of killing them just because they¡¯re supernatural? We do think of recruiting them, but what can we do about those who don¡¯t want to ept? They can run anywhere and be everywhere in this vast world. Forcing them to join results in more trouble as that just creates dissension and discord,¡± Wang Ming sighed. ¡°The key thing is that weck attraction for supernaturals! The three great organizations are much more alluring!¡±

 Chapter 117: Origin Weapons (III)

    Chapter 117: Origin Weapons (III)

    ¡°And why is that?¡± Li Hao was curious. Why wasn¡¯t an official, legitimate organization preferable to an underground, supernatural organization? It didn¡¯t make sense.

    The government held all the advantages and the reinforcement of hot weapons at first. How did they still end up with fewer powerhouses among their ranks than the three great organizations? What kinda trash was that?

    ¡°Ai!¡± Wang Ming sighed. The straightforward Li Meng couldn¡¯t hold her sentiments in.

    ¡°It¡¯s all because of mysterious power! The founders of the three great organizations were supernatural before the Night Watchers were formed. They secretly umted their resources and seem to have upied severalrge ruins or other treasures. Whatever it is, they can produce vast quantities of mysterious power.

    ¡°Beingters, our agency missed the best timing. We don¡¯t have any ancient sites that can produce power or own any precious treasures that can collect energy. Even if we do, we have very few,¡± she exined despondently. ¡°You tell me, are we an attractive proposition to supernaturals if we don¡¯t have as much mysterious power? The turmoil in the central region is because of this, and we are the main reason for the disturbance!¡±

    Wang Ming coughed slightly.

    ¡°What, I¡¯m telling the truth!¡± Li Meng brushed him off. ¡°In the Night Watcher headquarters¡­ and I¡¯m talking central headquarters¡ªnot Silver Moon, there are powerhouses who are unwilling to be limited by the three great organizations. They secretly eliminated a few smaller organizations and seized some treasures and sites that can produce mysterious power.

    ¡°Unfortunately, they were discovered as they weren¡¯t very discreet. The three great organizations rose in revolt and waged battle after battle in the central region. They want to force the Night Watchers to hand over the killers. Add to that some people fishing in troubled waters¡­ it¡¯s almost all out war over there!

    ¡°Because of that, we keep a very low profile elsewhere¡ªsuch as ces like Silver Moon. The Night Watchers don¡¯t dare rashly stir up trouble because they¡¯re afraid of also losing control over the bordends. There won¡¯t be much help forting from the central region. It¡¯s enough that they¡¯re holding the line against the three great organizations and others.¡±

    Li Hao was rather taken aback by this new knowledge.

    ¡°Are you saying that we robbed people in the central region and then were¡­ embroiled in a gang fight?¡±

    ¡°Yep!¡± Li Meng couldn¡¯t stifle herughter, despite the embarrassing description. ¡°You¡¯re right, it¡¯s a gang fight! I hear that those above Sr have gone for several rounds! The central Night Watchers can¡¯t hold off the mob by themselves, but they seem to have gonepletely mad. They¡¯ve even fired a few city annihtion missiles. Of course, a lot of people have died, so both sides are wary of each other. It¡¯s utter mayhem over there.¡±

    ¡°Interesting.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°So that means we¡¯re rather domineering in the central region?¡±

    Secretly exterminating entire organizations and taking their treasures! He¡¯d thought that Night Watchers were all pretty ipetent¡ªahem, pretty resigned to the status quo. Take Silver Moon, for instance. They were being forced to give up cities!

    Yet, the agency was starting the fight in the central region? How unexpected.

    ¡°We¡¯re not that domineering,¡± Wang Ming took over the conversation since Li Meng had said everything she should, and then some. ¡°We don''te off well in this incident, to be honest. It¡¯s not that we specifically wanted to sh with the various organizations¡ªthat only leads to enormous losses¡ªbut that some of the younger Heaven Favored are out of control. They fear nothing and feel that there¡¯s not enough mysterious power to go around, so they banded together and picked a small organization as their target!

    ¡°No one was aware at first, it waster exposed to the world. But with how things have developed, no one can take a step back. And so battle began.

    ¡°The situation was a powder keg to begin with, one that almost exploded. This was the fuse that ignited the entire central region,¡± Wang Ming sighed emotionally and shook his head. ¡°Those Heaven Favored are not to be overlooked! I hear that both sides sat down at the negotiation table before war broke out, but those guys went and ughtered the grandson of the Yama leader. They seized one of Yama¡¯s treasures and thoroughly enraged the organization. Obviously, negotiations were a bust after that¡­¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. ¡°These guys are¡­ really fierce, aren¡¯t they? Or did they start this war on purpose?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, I don¡¯t think so, but even so¡­ it¡¯s not a big deal anymore,¡± Wang Ming coughed drily. ¡°Apparently, that treasure is extremely important! Yama¡¯s grandson only snuck it out to show off, but the Night Watcher Heaven Favored killed him and brought the item to headquarters.

    ¡°Those at headquarters hadn¡¯t nned on waging a war, but couldn¡¯t contain themselves after seeing the treasure and pounded the drums of battle! The chiefmissioner says that the treasure can possibly producerge amounts of mysterious power, even unique mysterious power, and it can appraise one¡¯s constitution!¡±

    Appraise one¡¯s constitution? What¡¯s that?

    ¡°If I use the treasure on you, I can immediately tell what kind of mysterious power you¡¯re most suited for and just give you that one. It will raise your chance of sess to ny percent! Keep in mind that¡¯s incredibly high. We use a random induction process right now, it¡¯spletely unsystematic if someone crosses over or not.

    ¡°Who has that much mysterious power to waste??

    ¡°If this treasure performs as the rumors say and nine seed out of ten, then our strength will increase explosively! We have a greater poption size, our internal structure is more stable, and we have a selection process to pick from the best.

    ¡°This may have been why the three great organizations were so powerful in the past. Being able to determine one¡¯s constitution, to identify which mysterious power is the best match, and to almost ensure sess with one induction¡­ You tell me, isn¡¯t this an extremely valuable treasure?¡±

    Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath and nodded emphatically. Very valuable indeed! The Night Watchers drifted below the three great organizations likely because theycked this. If he was part of the Night Watcher senior council, he would never give back the treasure. To war it was then! They could have their battles! They would fight even in the face of casualties, the treasure would never be returned!

    No wonder the situation in the central region had be so bad that cities were being leveled.

    Li Hao felt that he¡¯d truly enriched his knowledge during this car ride. He swiftly understood the core of the central region turmoil. People from the big cities knew more, alright! His teacher didn¡¯t know about this, much less Liu Long. A Darkmoon like Wang Ming, however, knew all of the specifics.

    ¡°So is that treasure¡­ still with the Night Watchers?¡±

    ¡°Of course, or they would¡¯ve stopped fighting a long time ago,¡± Wang Ming chuckled. ¡°As crazy as the conflict may be over there, chaos also serves a purpose! I hear that improvementes very quickly there because there¡¯s so many shes. There used to be very few Night Watchers above Sr, but a new face has ascended recently and they¡¯re not very old.

    ¡°All of the various organizations are involved in the war. The three great organizations don¡¯t want the Night Watchers to grow stronger, the mid and smaller organizations want a chance to seize the treasure. They want a piece of the pie. If they cany hands on an item that can identify the constitution and strengthen them, they¡¯ll have the ability to stand up to the three great organizations!¡±

    Therefore, enormous amounts of supernaturals were involved in the central region. Battle meant opportunity and many climbed higher. Darkmoons died everyday, too many to be counted. People also made the crossover to the supernatural domain everyday, so the losses didn¡¯t matter.

    ¡°This war better not stop too quickly,¡± the quiet Hu Hao suddenly spoke up. ¡°Otherwise¡­ trouble wille for Director Li and Professor Yuan!¡±

    Red Moon powerhouses didn¡¯t have time to spare for the duo because they couldn¡¯t afford to send more powerhouses to Silver City. But once the central war was over, a puny Silver Moon and a singr Yuan Shuo wouldn¡¯t be able to stand up to them.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care. ¡°Come if they will, we¡¯re not weak!¡± He grinned.

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± The trio ignored him. He did not know the immensity of heaven and earth! Did he think a few Darkmoons and Sunderers could withstand Red Moon?

    What a joke. This guy really didn¡¯t understand the cruelty of the supernatural domain.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t continue the conversation; he was very satisfied with the sudden amount of information he¡¯d obtained. Red Moon most likely wouldn¡¯t be able to deployrge numbers of experts for the next rainy season because they were embroiled in the central region. They couldn¡¯t easily extract themselves from it.

    If only a few came, perhaps he could butcher them one by one for meat.

    As for the central region¡­ Li Hao hardly nurtured a death wish. He¡¯d heard the trio loud and clear. Those above Sr constantly shed in battle and sometimes died. The situation was terrifying. His teacher would be going to his death if he went. But when it came to the treasures, ruins, and those that could produce mysterious power¡ªthose Li Hao were very interested in.

    Could his jade sword produce an endless flow of unique mysterious power? Or was it depleted after it was all consumed?

    ¡°Right, is that mysterious power limitless?¡± he suddenly asked. ¡°Those treasures, for example, can they produce more energy after it¡¯s absorbed?¡±

    ¡°The various organizations have their ways to resolve this issue,¡± Wang Ming exined. ¡°Some can convert other things into mysterious power or replenish what was inside. These treasures are needed as the intermediary. They have a special name in the supernatural domain¡ªorigin weapons! Any organization that possesses an origin weapon is worthy of attention. It means they can continuously raise new supernaturals!¡±

    Origin weapons! They can be replenished and convert energy¡­ Li Hao¡¯s thoughts flew rapidly. Why did he think that the weapons of the eight families were possibly all origin weapons? Surely not!

    There might be eight weapons, or there might not be since the folk song mentioned some of them didn¡¯t use weapons. If they were origin weapons and eight at a time¡­

    Damn!

    ¡°Then¡­ is the sword I sent overst time an origin weapon?¡± Li Hao asked probingly.

    ¡°How is that possible?¡± Wang Ming broke out inughter. ¡°Origin weapons aren¡¯t that easy toe by. But¡­ your sword is sealed, so it¡¯s hard to say. If it is, then that¡¯s frightening. Red Moon has taken an uncountable number of them so I hope¡­ it¡¯s not. It¡¯d be too terrifying if their strength increases so much again.¡±

    However, Li Hao thought it highly likely that it was one.

 Chapter 118: Origin Weapons (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 118: Origin Weapons (IV)</h4>

    <i>Origin weapons!</i>

    In that case, the eight families were truly forces to be reckoned with in the ancient times. If every family possessed a family inheritance that was an origin weapon, that was the foundation for a massive organization! No faction wouldst for long without a steady source of mysterious power or having to rely on killing and looting power from others.

    The closest example at hand was the Demon Hunters. If it hadn¡¯t been for Yuan Shuo¡¯s involvement in thest battle, they would¡¯ve been exterminated early in the night.

    Li Haomitted the term ¡°origin weapons¡± to memory and thought back to the dwindling energy in the jade sword. How could he replenish it? That power was too useful and he¡¯d be pained by its depletion.

    ¡°Ole Wang, do the other branches have origin weapons?¡±

    ¡°Are you kidding me? Only the White Moon branch has one out of all of the Silver Moon. That¡¯s why we can raise a new batch of supernaturals every year. The three of use from that origin weapon.¡± Wang Ming exined further, ¡°And that¡¯s why there are always powerhouses in residence at White Moon. Director Hou never leaves headquarters¡ªhe holds down the fort there to prevent the treasure from being stolen.¡±

    The Director Hou he spoke of was the top dog of the Silver Moon Night Watchers, the true top brass. A definite Sr!

    ¡°Origin weapons do more than produce mysterious power,¡± Li Meng interjected. ¡°Based on what I know, they seem to be able to produce a special type of mysterious power. I don¡¯t know what makes it special, but I heard some seniors say that when the supernatural domain first appeared, some people directly absorbed that mysterious power from the origin weapons because they didn¡¯t know how precious it was. It proved to be an extravagant and wasteful action! The effects are particrly pronounced as many current Sunres and Srs are those who took in that kind of power.¡±

    <i>Origin power!</i> Li Hao kept the same expression on his face, but his heart trembled.<i> Is what I¡¯m absorbing from the sword and de... this so-called origin power? </i>Origin weapons produced unique mysterious power. Why did his sword sound more like an origin weapon the more he heard?

    ¡°The older supernaturals knew nothing and were just iling around!¡± Wang Mingined. ¡°No one does that kinda stuff anymore, not unless everyone has an origin weapon. Those can spawn a massive organization by themselves! Who would treat a weapon like that??¡±

    Li Hao, however, thought of his teacher. Did his teacher not know about these weapons? He thought his teacher knew everything. If he did, he would¡¯ve long guessed that both sword and de were possibly origin weapons.

    ¡°Does everyone know about origin weapons?¡±

    ¡°And how is <i>that</i> possible? No one knew about them¡ªpossibly only Director Hou did in our province. It wasn¡¯t until the war in the central region that news of that kind of precious treasure got out. Now it¡¯s bemon knowledge and we know about origin weapons too.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, that made sense. His teacher probably hadn¡¯t known anything before. Word had just started spreading and his teacher was cut off from sources of news while he remained in Silver City. The Night Watchers wouldn¡¯t tell him everything.

    The young man rejoiced. He knew something that his teacher didn¡¯t; he had to go back and tell him! Origin weapons! He and his teacher both had one!

    <i>I wonder how to make them produce infinite mysterious power? Or maybe that¡¯s not what I need. I need to figure out how to infinitely resupply their unique power.</i>

    Once he had an inkling of an idea in mind, that was the precursor to solving it. Li Hao grew more ted the more he thought of this until¡ª<strong>BAM!</strong> He crashed the car!

    Wang Ming, Li Meng, and Hu Hao sighed. They should¡¯ve expected this! They shouldn¡¯t have started talking to the guy, now look at the straits they were in. It would¡¯ve been more convenient to have Hu Hao fly with him.

    Li Hao awkwardly alighted from the car to take a look. ¡°It¡¯s fine, we ran into a block of stone. Car still works!¡± He quickly returned to the driver¡¯s seat, restarted the engine, and continued on their way.

    ......

    The three supernaturals wobbled off the car when they reached the front door of Li Hao¡¯s new house. They were all weak at the knees. Meanwhile, Li Hao¡¯s new car was a mangled mess. The front fender, grill, and head lights were all gone.

    <i>My car!</i> Li Hao sighed inwardly. It looked like he was destined not to be rich in this life. How much would it cost to fix this car? He probably wouldn¡¯t be able to afford it until he got paid.

    ......

    Li Hao was distracted during dinner. The group thought he was anguished over his car. He wasn¡¯t¡ªor just a tiny amount if he was. He cared more about origin weapons and the eight families. If Red Moon knew about this and had found a way to use the eight weapons, then they would never give up.

    Just one origin weapon was sufficient to ensure they¡¯d never forgo the pursuit, to say nothing of the eight trigram diagram in the skies. The central region was being blown up for a singr origin weapon!

    Perhaps Red Moon hadn¡¯t mobilized on a mass scale because they were worried about bringing others in.

    <i>In that case, I need to be more careful. They want to kill me not just for the eight trigrams, but also for the weapon. I hope the sword at the Night Watchers can pull the wool over their eyes a bit longer.</i>

    ......

    <i>As Li Hao and his new colleagues ate dinner.</i>

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    ¡°How dare you! You seek death!¡± Amanding shout broke through the air, followed by a massive explosion.

    A group of people swiftly gathered in front of an important treasury door. A powerhouse with long hair flowing over his shoulders looked in the four directions with a frosty expression.

    ¡°Dismissed, everything¡¯s fine!¡± he said after a long time.

    The group returned to their posts. When they left, the man turned to the nearby Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°There doesn¡¯t seem to be any valuables here,¡± his tones were arctic. ¡°Just the sword that you brought back from Silver City!¡±

    These was the Night Watcher provincial headquarters! The enemy had dared follow them here! They were entirely too bold!

    ¡°Director Hou, are they dead?¡± Hao Lianchuan asked lowly.

    ¡°They ran!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s eyes widened. Someone could flee from Director Hou¡¯s grasp?

    ¡°An earth powerhouse!¡± the man snapped. ¡°The eight families... weapons... Red Moon... It may not be someone from Red Moon, it looks like a lot of people are keeping an eye on the weapons of the eight families. You need to keep a closer eye on Silver City. Now that sword and person are separated, the more powerful existences might not find it worth their while to visit Silver City. However, we should bring Li Hao to White Moon as soon as Yuan Shuo leaves. Those people won¡¯t sit still.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Hao Lianchuan nodded. ¡°What¡¯s... the situation with the eight families?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s tough to say, it¡¯s been too long. We¡¯re unable to uncover all of the secrets,¡± sighed the man. ¡°The leader of Red Moon might have obtained a few ancient tomes regarding the eight families. Regardless, keep a close eye on their movements! And that Li Hao, give him more attention when appropriate!¡±

    His tone suddenly turned remote. ¡°If these people don¡¯t give up, then... it may be a good opportunity to purge some of these troublesome fellows.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan nodded. It <i>was</i> a good opportunity; their only concern was that the Night Watchers weren¡¯t strong enough to im this delicious pie.

    ¡°And, tell Yuan Shuo that the excavation is scheduled for the end of next month.¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡± When Hao Lianchuan reached the door, he suddenly turned back with a question. ¡°Director Hou, can central headquarters deploy more powerhouses from the central region to reinforce us here?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± The man shook his head. ¡°Impossible, they¡¯re barely holding on as it is. They wanted me to join them a few times, and with the origin weapon. I refused their requests. If I leave, you¡¯ll be hard pressed to maintain the situation in Silver Moon.¡±

    ¡°Ai!¡± Hao Lianchuan left with a helpless sigh.

    Both sides were in a tense situation! Otherwise, there would¡¯ve been more to join this excursion to the ancient ruins. It shouldn¡¯t be just him, one Sr. This might be a very unsettling expedition.

    ......

    <i>The second day after the establishment of the new Night Watcher branch.</i>

    Li Hao once more rode his tattered bike to work. There was no helping it, the car was too ugly after crashingst night. It¡¯d also failed to start this morning, angering the young man so much that he nearly smashed the vehicle to scrap metal.

    Such a piece of crap!

    Compared to his old apartment, the new house was located further away from the Inspectorate. It was roughly half an hour by bike. But Li Hao was a Sunderer now, this distance didn¡¯t tire him out. He leisurely pedaled over the path of blue stoneid in front of his door.

    A luxury car purred over the neighborhood¡¯s road before long; the road ran parallel to the path of blue stone. The car was much fancier than the one Li Hao had received. When the young man didn¡¯t turn his head, the car window rolled down instead, revealing the features of the man who¡¯d shed with Liu Yan yesterday. He wore a faint smile on his face and appeared quite genteel.

    Of course, he hadn¡¯t been asposed when Liu Yan handcuffed him yesterday.

    ¡°Remember me, little brother?¡±

    Li Hao flicked a quick nce at the man and inclined his head. ¡°I remember, VP Qiao of the Qiao Mining Industries. Sis Liu told me about you.¡±

    ¡°Going to work?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Li Hao kept a calm expression as he wasn¡¯t too willing to converse with the other.

    ¡°Riding your bike there? How about taking my car?¡± Qiao Peng smiled at his demonstration of generosity. ¡°I was just joking with Liu Yan yesterday. I happen to have some business to take care of at the Inspectorate. It¡¯ll take you too long by bike, so hop into my car.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright!¡± Li Hao declined politely. ¡°Sis Liu said that your head of security killed her husband. Stay away from me or I might not resist the urge to arrest you!¡±

    ¡°That really was an ident.¡± Qiao Peng raised an eyebrow with a sigh. ¡°I¡¯ve been trying to make up for it these years. To put it bluntly, I pursue her because I want topensate her for this. Otherwise, with my status, I can have any woman I want.

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand, little brother. She¡¯s been hurt too deeply, so she needs a sense of security. And I... I can soothe her hurts.¡±

    Li Hao frowned and pedaled faster, ignoring the man. <i>You putting on an act with me, huh?</i>

 Chapter 119: Undercurrents in Silver City

    <h4>Chapter 119: Undercurrents in Silver City</h4>

    <i>We¡¯re on the same page here!</i>

    Li Hao was also putting on an act. Since the guy in front of him was potentially associated with Yama, there was no need to erupt in open hostilities at this particr point in time and fully offend the guy. And he¡¯d sought the young man out for a conversation...

    Did it have to do with the eight families?

    Did he want to build a rtionship because Li Hao was the heir to the eight families?

    ¡°Forget it, perhaps you don¡¯t understand,¡± Qiao Peng chuckled when the young man ignored him. ¡°You might when you get a bit older. Youngsters don¡¯t understand matters like these. We¡¯re neighbors now you cane by for a visit when you have time.¡±

    As for why Li Hao could live here, he wasn¡¯t that perplexed. Was it hard for a Night Watcher to find a decent ce? Not to mention, he¡¯d received word that this fellow had recently be a deputy director. That wasn¡¯t a big surprise either, on ount of Yuan Shuo.

    The luxury car slowly drove away. Li Hao followed it with his eyes for a while before pedaling faster on his bike.

    <i>Qiao Peng!</i>

    He would remember the name. Perhaps the guy was one of those who¡¯d dug up his ancestors¡¯ tomb.

    ......

    <i>Law Enforcement.</i>

    It was now the Night Watcher branch.

    There were only nine official members of the Silver City Night Watchers. Li Hao recruited an additional ten mundanes from the Inspectorate to manage day-to-day and administrative support. They were officially open for business today.

    Li Hao had his own office in this building and a silk banner hanging from one of the walls. He was a man of his word and really did bring Zhou He¡¯s silk banner over to his new office, hanging it up like themendation it was. It was the first silk banner in his life and thus, worthy of respect.

    Zhou He had given him a house, a car, battle experience, and his life. Li Hao needed to remember his kindness, no matter what!

    He¡¯d just entered his office when Liu Yan knocked and pushed open the door without waiting for a response. ¡°Time to go, stop looking at your silk banner. Chief wants us in for a meeting!¡±

    ¡°This early?¡±

    ¡°Chief has always been efficient!¡± Liu Yan smiled winsomely. ¡°How did you sleepst night? Were you afraid?¡±

    ¡°Nope.¡± Li Hao hastily shook his head. <i>I wouldn¡¯t dare say so. Are you going to move in if I was? That would be the really scary thing!</i>

    The two chatted as they headed upstairs to the conference room.

    ......

    <i>The conference room.</i>

    The others were mostly assembled when Li Hao arrived. Wang Ming was hot on his heels. They¡¯d all just sat down when Liu Long swept in with his customary decisive air and trench coat.

    ¡°The Silver City Night Watcher branch has just formed. We should do whatever we need to do while there¡¯s still a Dominator in residence!¡± Instead of sitting down, he cut straight to the point. ¡°I¡¯ll cut a long story short!

    ¡°Silver City did not have an official supernatural agency before. It¡¯d always been the Inspectorate in charge of the entire city¡¯s security. The government does not have troops stationed here either. The Inspectorate is the city¡¯srgestw enforcement agency and its onlyw enforcement agency!

    ¡°Not everyone is mundane in a city of one million. Silver City has martial masters and supernaturals among the citizenry. We don¡¯t have many Darkmoon, but we have Starlight!

    ¡°There are several areas in Silver City that need to be emphasized. First, the Veteris Institute. Li Hao is familiar with that. Second, the city government. They are in charge of civil administration. We handle military affairs, they handle civil. We do not interfere with each other.¡±

    The city government was in charge of all matters that did not require force. More than aw enforcement agency was required for the peace of a city; many other departments were necessary as well.

    The city government was not the same system as the Inspectorate, but they were all governmental systems. They did not infringe upon each other. Civil did not intermix with military, while military did not interfere with civil.

    ¡°Third, the eighteen martial dojos of Silver City. I mean the ones opened by official martial masters!

    ¡°Fourth, the six major corporations of Silver City!

    ¡°These people are more or less meeting points for martial masters and supernaturals. Or they might work for other bigger factions, or they wish to start a faction themselves. They are all the main sources of instability for the city!¡±

    The Inspectorate possessed its share of martial masters. Liu Long and his people were all martial masters, as did Mu Senmand his own force. As for supernaturals... the agency really didn¡¯t have any. If they did, they sent the talents to the Night Watchers unless the supernatural themselves was unwilling. However, inspectors who made the crossover were almost always willing to join.

    This gave rise to a peculiar situation. Some of these other ces might have a few supernaturals, but the Inspectorate didn¡¯t have a single one. Well, now they did, and more than one.

    Everyone looked at each other. Wang Ming was willing to say a few words more after eating with Liu Longst night. ¡°Director Liu, do you mean...?

    ¡°Tidying up and putting things in order!¡± Liu Long answered crisply. ¡°The Inspectorate didn¡¯t have sufficient authority or strength before. We had to give certain people a longer leash! Now that the Night Watchers have been formed, we must let the city¡¯s various factions know that Silver City is still under official rule!¡±

    Wang Ming said nothing more.

    ¡°Then what goals do we need to aplish, chief? Simply establish our authority?¡± Li Hao asked.

    ¡°If that¡¯s it, chief would¡¯ve done so with his previous action,¡± Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°They can¡¯t possibly be unaware that chief killed three supernaturals!¡±

    There was indeed no need to exert themselves just to reinforce their authority.

    ¡°It¡¯s not just that,¡± Liu Long rumbled. ¡°But that... a portion of the factions shelter evil and condone corruption! We didn¡¯t have the ability or excuse to clean these vermin out before, but we do now that we¡¯re Night Watchers!¡±

    Having broached the topic, he continued without reservation. ¡°And also, this is to earn a little extra on the side! Killing supernatural criminals and stripping their mysterious power is another important source of power. Don¡¯t just look to upstairs for our resources. Headquarters only allots ten cubes to Silver City every month! Three cubes for the chiefmissioner, one cube formissioner inspectors, half a cube for inspectors, and the rest to be distributed among ourselves.¡±

    With nine people in the Silver City Night Watcher branch, there was one chiefmissioner, threemissioner inspectors in the form of Li Hao, Liu Yan, and Wang Ming, and the rest who were inspectors. The two supernaturals were also first rank inspectors.

    Based on the standard wages, 8.5 cubes a month were sufficient for Silver City. Ten cubes were a generous allotment. ording to ck market prices, Li Hao¡¯s monthly sry was in the millions!

    No matter what, one cube of mysterious power a month was a significant amount. It was why countless people scrabbled after a spot in the Night Watchers.

    However, it was too little for Liu Long.

    Three cubes would¡¯ve been sufficient before, particrly as it was a steady source of ie. Thirty-six cubes a year was quite a lot.

    But now, he didn¡¯t find it enough because everyone was stronger. One cube a month was nowhere near enough for someone like Liu Yan. That tiny amount could barely strengthen a Sunderer¡¯s body, to say nothing of crossing over to the supernatural.

    Therefore, he needed more energy.

    Wang Ming and hisrades widened their eyes at such a naked admission. Liu Long was talking about killing people for their mysterious power! This was too... cruel! Were the powerhouses of this locality all like this?

    ¡°But this also creates an atmosphere of danger!¡± Li Hao ignored the supernaturals¡¯ obvious dismay. ¡°The Night Watchers aren¡¯t invincible. We¡¯ll have mishandled our duties if we end up forcing supernaturals to join enemy organizations.¡±

    Liu Long frowned. His word had been unquestionably epted before. What did the kid mean by this? Was this opposition to his proposal?? He was just notifying the group of his decision; all the team needed to do was follow orders. He was used to this style and didn¡¯t like being contradicted, not even from Li Hao.

    The young man grinned innocently, seemingly aware that Liu Long was dissatisfied. ¡°Chief¡¯s primary goal is the peace and safety of Silver City. At the very least, we need to ensure that no trouble arises internally.¡±

    Liu Long inclined his head.

    ¡°Therefore, I think that we should show them courtesy first!¡± Li Hao suggested. ¡°We can send official notices to each faction, inviting all official martial masters and supernaturals to meet with the Night Watchers. They will be given special permits after they put themselves down in the official record.

    ¡°Those who bear our special permits can freely go about their business in the city. We¡¯ll spin it as we need to pay particr attention to them because their destructive abilities are more powerful than the norm. I¡¯m sure that those who don¡¯t intend on causing trouble won¡¯t mind this.

    ¡°This is how they do it in White Moon, right?¡± Li Hao looked at Wang Ming.

    ¡°Yes.¡± The handsome young man nodded. ¡°However, there are many powerhouses at White Moon. The Night Watchers don¡¯t pay them much attention so long as they aren¡¯t too out of line. Everything is fine as long as they don¡¯t make trouble inside the city.¡±

    ¡°Then it¡¯s proof that this measure is very appropriate!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°We construct order for the supernaturals! Silver City was too small before andcked an official organization to execute this policy. This time, I rmend officially putting it in motion!¡±

    Liu Long looked silently at the young man for a while. ¡°Continue!¡±

    ¡°Those who have entered themselves in our systems and carry the special permit are up to code. Those without are stowaways with ulterior motives. At that point, we¡¯ll have a right and proper excuse to carry out thew!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re farting after taking off your pants!¡± Liu Long frowned. ¡°I¡¯m not saying that this is a bad idea, but that there¡¯s no need for it!¡±

    ¡°Chief, we¡¯re official personnel and not members of those supernatural organizations. We still need to stand at the highest peak ofw and morality to judge and sentence others. We can¡¯t view ourselves as supernaturals in the wild!¡±

    Such was Liu Long¡¯s style¡ªrough around the edges. That hadn¡¯t been a problem before when the Demon Hunters were a fringe organization. Things were different now that they were part of the regr troops. The old ways could not be perpetuated!

    After spending a few years at the Veteris Institute and another with the Inspectorate, Li Hao was well aware that falling within the confines of thew sometimes saved quite a bit of trouble. They needed to stand at the highest peak of the system before pronouncing their verdict, not make a mistake that could be exploited by others.

    After all, Silver City possessed mediocre strength and needed support from their superiors. They weren¡¯t an independent nation¡ªthey could do whatever they wanted to then.

 Chapter 120: Undercurrents in Silver City (II)

    <h4>Chapter 120: Undercurrents in Silver City (II)</h4>

    Silver City was not wholly separated from White Moon. The senior council in Silver City could speak to their counterparts in White Moon.

    ¡°Additionally, I believe that most people still hold justice in their hearts!¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°Chief means that we should charge in with guns zing! That¡¯s too bloody and violent. It will make people uneasy. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s the time for this yet, we can absolutely leverage other force against force. We don¡¯t have to do it ourselves.¡±

    <i>Don¡¯t have to do it ourselves?</i> Liu Long looked at the young man again.

    ¡°Technically speaking, the martial masters and supernaturals at the city government and Veteris Institute are on the same side as us! The Night Watchers have one rule¡ªall supernaturals and martial masters in their jurisdiction can be dispatched by the Night Watchers. We can borrow their martial masters and supernaturals to jointly suppress these transgressors!

    ¡°That will share the load and not concentrate all of the pressure on us. Otherwise, our actions will easily lead to joint resistance from all superhuman powers within Silver City. It will be detrimental to us finding our footing in the city!¡± Li Hao concluded with, ¡°Of course, we follow the chief in everything. If you think that kicking in their doors is the best, then I will carry out your orders!¡±

    Liu Long mused with deep contemtion.

    ¡°Chief, it is indeed time to change some of our thought patterns,¡± Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°We used to do these things in the dark and we¡¯re not used to suddenly being in the light! Li Hao¡¯s right, we represent the government now. We are on the side of justice, so let¡¯s not act like robbers!¡±

    ¡°Chief, perhaps it¡¯ll be sweeter to directly enforce thew!¡± Chen Jianughed. ¡°We were above board when we were in thew enforcement team, then moved to the basement when we became the Demon Hunters. Honestly, for a period of time I thought <i>we</i> were the viins!¡±

    Headquartered in the basement and surviving in the darkness... It really did feel like they were the wrongdoers instead. They mouthed calls of justice and righteousness, but sometimes, that was just tofort themselves.

    Liu Long and the others didn¡¯t immediately register the implications of Li Hao¡¯s words. They were used to it, after all. This was how things had been for many years.

    But upon further thought... and upon recalling how they once proudly held their heads beneath the sun when they were in thew enforcement team... Liu Long became lost in thought. He¡¯d never thought about this before because he¡¯d grown used to striking from the shadows. This was also the Night Watcher style.

    The Night Watchers!

    As their name indicated, they appeared at night. They kept watch and patrolled the night¡ªhence, Night Watchers. Thus, everyone was used to slinking through the shadows. It wasn¡¯t just Liu Long, but even Wang Ming and the others who were unused to Li Hao¡¯s proposition that they should haul everything out into the open.

    Li Hao cautiously ventured when Liu Long remained silent, ¡°And another thing, chief, I rmend not pushing all of Silver City¡¯s factions to the opposing side. It will help us to use some of them for our purposes.

    ¡°We are the bane of crime, but some people have onlymitted misdemeanors or engaged in minor misconduct. We can consider showing leniency to the supernaturals who may have done the same.¡±

    Liu Long didn¡¯t respond as he was thinking. Momentster, he looked at Wang Ming. ¡°What do you think, Director Wang?¡±

    <i>What do I think? I don¡¯t know anything, I don¡¯t think!</i>

    ¡°I have no opinion!¡±

    ¡°I also have another small suggestion,¡± Li Hao continued.

    ¡°Speak.¡±

    ¡°Chief also knows that we¡¯re very short on mysterious power. How much can we gain from killing people? Some of the corporations have leaders in high positions that secretly trade for mysterious power on the ck market. Sometimes they even transact with the Night Watcher or other supernatural organizations. This is why we continuously see new supernaturals in Silver City.

    ¡°My thoughts are if we can¡ª¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Liu Long interrupted before he finished.

    ¡°We cannot aid and abet this kind of practice.¡± Wang Ming also frowned. ¡°I understand your desire to obtain mysterious power, but we cannot encourage under-the-table transactions. Even less permissible is having Night Watchers endorse it! That will easily cause the supernatural to rage out of control.

    ¡°People used to go about their business secretly. Enormous trouble will appear once you openly support it. You must keep in mind, Li Hao, that some people are willing to do anything in pursuit of personal profit! The darkness is the darkness. Order will be difficult to maintain once it bes the light!¡±

    Li Hao nodded thoughtfully and refrained from continuing his line of thought. He did indeed have that kind of idea in mind and wanted to collect more mysterious power from those channels. But their objections made sense, so he didn¡¯t insist. Silver City would be in grave trouble once it was out of control.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll send notices to the relevant parties!¡± Liu Long decided. ¡°It¡¯s best if they can step forward and register themselves. If not... we need to make an example of them! Some problems have cropped up inside the city over the years. We can¡¯t even find the killer for some of our cold cases¡ªI¡¯m sure you¡¯re most familiar with those, Li Hao. They were most likelymitted by these people, and they¡¯ve covered their tracks so cleanly that we can¡¯t find any evidence.

    ¡°So we¡¯ll start with putting the city¡¯s personnel list in order. It¡¯ll be easier to locate them if we have questions in the future.¡±

    ¡°Chief, I can deliver the notices as a demonstration of sincerity!¡± Li Hao volunteered.

    ¡°You?¡±

    Li Hao nodded. This was a chance to fully understand how many powerhouses there were in Silver City because he could see them!

    Yes, the balls of light! He saw balls of light where there were supernaturals. Whether they were Starlight or Darkmoon, the stronger they were, the easier to detect. He was much more reliable than that supernatural probe.

    The probe¡¯s effective range was too small and only picked up on active mysterious power ripples. Although weaker supernaturals would find the ripples more difficult to control, it wasn¡¯t impossible.

    Since he¡¯d decided to temporarily stay in Silver City, Li Hao wished to thoroughly understand the city¡¯s situation. He also wanted to see how many powerhouses were in hiding. Of that, he was certain of, particrly after Red Moon and the eight families were exposed. It was a given that many supernaturals had flocked to the city in recent times.

    He might even be able to conduct some reconnaissance at the Qiao Mining Industries. That was one of Silver City¡¯s sixrgest corporations. He wouldn¡¯t have a reason to visit under normal circumstances. This was the perfect excuse.

    ¡°Alright! Do you need our help?¡± Liu Long nodded.

    ¡°Yes! Have Director Wange with me!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°He¡¯s a supernatural from White Moon, a mover and a shaker! Most people won¡¯t dare refuse him. His appearance will also demonstrate our sincerity and resolution. Everyone needs to listen up unless they want to publicly oppose us!¡±

    ¡°Very well!¡±

    Wang Ming wanted to protest, he didn¡¯t want to go. <i>The hell man? Li Hao, why do you have to drag me into this? Aren¡¯t Hu Hao and Li Meng right beside me? They¡¯re also from White Moon.</i>

    Life was truly difficult these days. He didn¡¯t want to do anything and was happy to follow Liu Long¡¯s lead. Now look at things, they wanted to involve him in everything.

    ......

    <i>After the meeting.</i>

    Li Hao grabbed Wang Ming and walked outside. The handsome young man followed unwillingly andined, ¡°Li Hao, get anyone you want for a small matter like this. What are you involving me for?¡±

    ¡°To the able falls more work!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Ole Wang, don¡¯t you want to aplish something big and get back to White Moon as soon as possible?¡±

    ¡°How?¡± Wang Ming looked intently at him.

    ¡°Figuring out the secrets of the eight families, for example. Or finding the Silver City gathering spot of the three great organizations. Or killing some fugitives. Or even reaching Sunre. There are so many ways.¡±

    ¡°Does this have something to do with you bringing me to deliver notices with you?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded with a smile. ¡°This will help us understand the city¡¯s secrets more! Are clues supposed to present themselves to us while we sit in our offices? Ole Wang, we¡¯re both young and I want to be promoted. So c¡¯mon, let¡¯s work together.¡±

    Wang Ming was tempted. ¡°...fine!¡± He barely nodded his head after a while.

    Li Hao smiled. <i>I knew this guy was easy to fool¡ªconvince.</i> If circumstances permitted, he did want to take a look at the mountains that the Qiao Mining Industries operated in. Liu Yan had mentioned that they¡¯d discovered something there. Being in the outskirts, the corporation wasn¡¯t too far from the city. They¡¯d excavated the mountains for many years and seemed to have found some ore.

    But for such arge corporation to focus on such small mountains for so long... It wasn¡¯t that they didn¡¯t make money, but that their profits fell short of expectation.

    Some people said that the corporation liked giving back to their home, that they opened mines in Silver City to provide more employment opportunities and to pay taxes to the city. Li Hao hardly believed that. Merchants pursued profit, there was no reason for the Qiao family to be so good-hearted.

    But that could not be their first stop.

    ......

    <i>Afternoon.</i>

    Li Hao and Wang Ming sat in a car together. It was Wang Ming driving this time. He absolutely refused to let Li Hao drive. That guy¡¯s driving skills were too much, even for a supernatural.

    ¡°Where to?¡±

    ¡°The Veteris Institute!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°That¡¯s my alma mater. Although I¡¯ve withdrawn, I¡¯d like to see how strong it is. I remember that the Institute¡¯s own security detail protected my teacher on some early expeditions.¡±

    The school ought to have some strength to its own name, not including his teacher. There might be some powerhouses in residence. While the Institute focused on studying ancient civilizations, there were also numerous other important businesses at y. Li Hao had vaguely heard of such research and development when he was still a student.

    ......

    <i>The Veteris Institute.</i>

    Li Hao was too familiar with this ce. He was here on business this time.

    <i>The vice principal¡¯s office.</i>

    The elderly vice principal sighed with emotion when he heard why Li Hao was here. ¡°I was regretful when you withdrew from school. To think you¡¯d join the Inspectorate and forge your own path! You¡¯ve done well for yourself.

    ¡°We do indeed have a security detail, your teacher is very familiar with it. He personally taught some of their members as well.¡±

 Chapter 121: Undercurrents in Silver City (III)

    <h4>Chapter 121: Undercurrents in Silver City (III)</h4>

    ¡°We have nothing to hide,¡± said the vice principal with white hair. ¡°We didn¡¯t report ourselves previously because there was no requirement to be entered in the official records. Since that is now in effect, I¡¯ll have Captain Chen from the protection detaile over. You can talk to him directly.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, he was familiar with Captain Chen. But since the young man was here on official business, he needed to officially present himself to the Veteris Institute.

    The vice principal pulled out hismunicator, summoning a hulking bear¡ªhulking man before long. The neer smiled faintly at Li Hao and frowned slightly at Wang Ming.

    ¡°Captain Chen!¡± Li Hao grinned in return. ¡°My apologies for the disturbance. We¡¯re here because Silver City is forming its own Night Watcher branch and thus needs to register the superhuman characters within the city. We also want to invite all superhuman personnel to attend our ribbon-cutting ceremony in three days!

    ¡°This is our first stop because I¡¯m most familiar with the Institute,¡± chuckled the young man. ¡°I trust that with Captain Chen present, our work will go smoothly!¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± The captain inclined his head, then nced at Wang Ming. ¡°And this is...?¡±

    ¡°A person of note from White Moon City, Director Wang Ming!¡±

    Wang Ming stared stonily ahead. <i>Do you really have to introduce me this way, Li Hao? A person of note from White Moon... It¡¯s like you¡¯re afraid people don¡¯t know what a big deal I am!</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s an honor!¡± Captain Chen didn¡¯t offer to shake hands. It was best that powerhouses maintained a bit of a distance. He gave a candid overview after some pleasantries. ¡°The Institute¡¯s protection detail is a modest size of forty people, with only seven true yers. Counting me makes for eight...¡±

    ¡°Has the captain not reached Sunderer?¡± Li Hao scribbled down some notes.

    ¡°No, I fall just a little short,¡± the captain said with regret. ¡°I¡¯m simr to your Vice Captain Liu of old, but I hear she¡¯s broken through to Sunderertely? Is that true?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°How wonderful!¡± the captain said wistfully. He was rather envious as he held high hopes for Sunderer since the crossover was impossible for him. Unfortunately, he¡¯d continuously failed to ascend.

    Peak yer wasn¡¯t a weak level, but Li Hao still asked, ¡°Does our Institute not have a single supernatural?¡±

    ¡°How should I put it...¡± the captain considered his words carefully. ¡°We do, and he¡¯s a Darkmoon! This is also why our Institute is rtively safe. But that one is not in residencetely, he¡¯s gone to visit other ces.¡±

    Li Hao nodded and didn¡¯t ask further. He visited the protection detail¡¯s station with Captain Chen, made a cursory overview, then quickly left the Veteris Institute.

    ......

    <i>On the road.</i>

    ¡°Li Hao, is such a simple inspection enough?¡± Wang Ming frowned. His counterpart was so perfunctory that he was being negligent! The kid simply scanned the premises, made a few notes, and called it a day. <i>That¡¯s it?</i> There were no additional measures or detailed proving. Were they supposed to discover more secrets this way? Ferret out supernaturals?

    <i>What a joke!</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s not easy to investigate them since they¡¯re all martial masters,¡± Li Hao responded casually. ¡°Am I supposed to fight them?¡±

    ¡°We should at least bring a supernatural probe with us. Who knows if they¡¯re hiding anything if we don¡¯t even have that?¡±

    ¡°My teacher¡¯s there?¡± Li Hao replied nkly. ¡°Teacher¡¯s senses are very strong after breaking through to Dominator. He¡¯ll be the first to discover anything amiss at the Institute.¡±

    It was only then that Wang Ming recalled this character. He instantly ran out of things to say. What Li Hao left unsaid was that he wished for his inspection style to quickly bemon knowledge. It would be best if everyone thought he was just going through the motions and didn¡¯t think much of his task. If that was the case, then supernaturals wouldn¡¯t feelpelled to immediately go into hiding.

    They wouldn¡¯t be able to hide from his eyes so long as they remained in ce!

    ......

    As expected, several factions received word as soon as Li Hao and Wang Ming left the Veteris Institute. The two Night Watchers were very perfunctory in their visits and didn¡¯t bother looking into things. It was a routine that was over after a few lines were entered into the public record.

    ......

    <i>Inside a massive office of the Qiao Mining Industries.</i>

    The white-haired president of the corporation smiled faintly and looked at his son standing in front of him. ¡°The process looks to be just a formality. Wee them if they visitter and register our people. Don¡¯t give them excuses. Everyone who should be entered from the Qiao Mining Industries should be entered! Make sure they know all about our yers and two Starlight!¡±

    ¡°I understand, father.¡± Qiao Peng nodded with a smile. ¡°Do I need to cultivate more of a rtionship with Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°An appropriate one. Don¡¯t get too close as there are too many keeping an eye on him these days.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    ¡°Are you sure... there¡¯s no problem with Liu Yan?¡± asked the president after some thought.

    ¡°Most probably!¡± Qiao Peng replied lowly. ¡°We handled it very quickly, so I trust that the guy didn¡¯t have a chance or time to say anything to Liu Yan. I¡¯ve been testing her these years and while she¡¯s very annoyed toward me, she shows no sign of bone-deep hate. She¡¯s been keeping an eye on Yama instead!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± President Qiao didn¡¯t want to deal with Liu Yan either, not unless he had to. She was the vice captain of the Inspectorate¡¯sw enforcement team and shared an ambiguous rtionship with Liu Long. It wouldn¡¯t be good if the situation snowballed out of control.

    It was one thing if something happened to a regr inspector, but Liu Yan was different. She was amissioner inspector. A deadmissioner inspector would involve the Night Watchers, even if they were spread thin.

    When Liu Yan¡¯s husband died, it was a different matterpared to amissioner inspector¡¯s death. The Night Watchers couldn¡¯t be bothered to involve themselves in her grudge against Yama, so putting out an arrest warrant was the best they could do.

    ¡°Father,¡± Qiao Peng whispered when the man fell silent. ¡°More and more people are paying attention to Silver City these days. Has anyonee from... over there? I¡¯m also worried about exposure because our rate of progress is very slow.¡±

    ¡°Take a deep breath!¡± His father smiled. ¡°Being overly hasty only leads to failure. We¡¯ve put our down roots for many years¡ªno one can measure up to that. Additionally, don¡¯t take further action over there for the time being. I don¡¯t want to raise attention. Let¡¯s maintain a holding pattern.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Qiao Peng nodded.

    His father regarded him for a bit. ¡°It¡¯s fine if you act a little dumber and more foolish in front of others, but don¡¯t be a real fool in critical moments. Yama¡¯s grandson... Now that was a real fool! He let all the ttery and fawning get to his head, which was why he grew so bold as to show off that kind of treasure outside. His head wasn¡¯t screwed on right! It¡¯s one thing that he¡¯s dead, but he¡¯s dragged all of Yama into the swamp. Don¡¯t imitate him!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, father!¡± Qiao Peng promised solemnly.

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Qiao Senior nodded. ¡°Good. Also, don¡¯t resent me for suppressing your crossover all these years. It¡¯s only been twenty years since the supernatural world¡¯s development and the situation wasn¡¯t as stable as before. But now... it may be. You can make the crossover after this matter is over. You¡¯ll be more than a Darkmoon when you seed.¡±

    Joy dawned on Qiao Peng¡¯s face and he rapidly bobbed his head. This was what he¡¯d been looking forward to all this time! He hadn¡¯t ascended during these years partially because he didn¡¯t dare to be too mboyant, and also because his father forbade him from it.

    ¡°Father, then... once I cross over, can I take a few things from...¡± he couldn¡¯t help himself.

    ¡°Shut up!¡± Qiao Senior¡¯s face darkened. ¡°Did you already forget my reminder?! Idiot! Forget about that and everything else! Remember that we are only a corporation, a legitimate corporation! We mine for ore and that¡¯s it! Forget about everything else!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Qiao Peng barked out solemnly. He didn¡¯t dare say anything else, but he was expectant, excited, and a bit reluctant. After so many years of effort, was father really going to offer <i>that</i> up on a silver tter?

    Of course, they couldn¡¯t afford to provoke Yama, but would the organization know about everything they discovered? The central region upied too much of Yama¡¯s resources. If that wasn¡¯t the case, true powerhouses would¡¯ve long arrived in Silver City from both Yama and Red Moon. The secrets of the eight families were more mysterious than they thought.

    As a local mover and shaker with many years of history, the Qiaos held a fair bit of intelligence. They might know as much as Red Moon and they¡¯d also concealed a fair bit.

    Qiao Peng slowly backed out of the office with various thoughts running through his mind.

    Inside the office, Qiao Senior looked silently out of the window. ¡°You be careful,¡± he suddenly said. ¡°Get close to Li Hao and see if there¡¯s anything special about him. Don¡¯t let him discover you. We might need his blood to open that ce.¡±

    ¡°¡®There are too many watching him!¡± Someone responded softly from the shadows.

    ¡°I know, so you can only surreptitiously observe him when hees. There¡¯s no need to take action right now,¡± Qiao Senior said tiredly. ¡°I, too, am unwilling to just let things go after a dozen years, but I know it¡¯d be pulling chestnuts out of a fire if I really took any action. Don¡¯t forget that it¡¯s only been twenty years since the supernatural domain appeared! There¡¯s still a chance to catch up! I wouldn¡¯t nurse any other thoughts if it¡¯d been a few hundred years.¡±

    Supernatural organizations constantly rotated throughout these twenty years. Some were established today and toppled tomorrow. Nothing was set in stone! Not even the three great organizations were secure in their position. Everything was possible.

    Qiao Senior wasn¡¯t so ambitious as to want to set himself against the three greats¡ªhe just hoped that his side would measure up to the effort of a dozen years.

    ¡°Understood!¡± The voice in the shadows vanished.

    Qiao Senior lounged on a chair, continuing to look outside. <i>The eight great families... Silver City!</i>

    It was bing apparent that everyone had overlooked Silver City and the eight families. From what bits and pieces he¡¯d obtained, the eight families had been beyond imagination in the ancient civilization! Silver City might¡¯ve been the heart of the continent then!

    It might be up to this chance to determine whether or not the Qiaos could rise.

 Chapter 122: The Qiaos (I)

    <h4>Chapter 122: The Qiaos (I)</h4>

    Li Hao visited a number of ces over the course of an afternoon, simply observing formalities at nearly all of them. He greeted those in charge, notified them of his duties, and went through the motions even at locations that seemed to require more of an investigation.

    Wang Ming was almost popping with rage!

    <i>This is it?? And you told me you wanted to aplish something grand! What happened to locating the strongholds of the three great organizations?</i>

    He now strongly suspected that Li Hao only wanted the position for its kickbacks and presents.

    Indeed, while the young man didn¡¯t carry out his responsibilities with any inkling ofpetency, he epted quite a few packages. Nothing was precious or valuable, just corporation products or dojo specialities, but the guy took whatever was offered to him!

    He took receipt of everything!

    <i>In the car.</i>

    The next stop was theirst of the day¡ªQiao Mining Industries.

    Wang Ming looked coolly ahead. He didn¡¯t like Li Hao¡¯s style and became more silent the more stops they made. Meanwhile, the young man kept trying to have a conversation.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be mad, Ole Wang. Thest ce gave us really nice tea. I¡¯ll split it with you when we get back!¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Wang Ming snapped back. He was a right and proper Fullmoon; he apanied Li Hao on this trip not for tea leaves. He wanted to win honor for a deed of merit, unlike his counterpart who wanted to use the Night Watcher name for unptable practices!

    <i>I might respect you if you actually embezzled a few dozen or hundred cubes of mysterious power, but all you want are tea leaves, fruit, and whatever? Can you be any more embarrassing??</i>

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s epted practice to take their gifts. They would feel ufortable if we didn¡¯t. Silver City is a small ce and we¡¯ll bump into everyone often. This is no big deal and nothing to cause unpleasantness over. This is how the rank and file work.¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡± Wang Ming was irate. ¡°Remember that you¡¯re not a third rank inspector anymore, you¡¯re amissioner inspector! You¡¯re the deputy director of the Night Watchers in Silver City, the senior level of this city! There are fewer than five people more highly ranked than you in all of Silver City! I¡¯m embarrassed for you acting like trash and you should be too!

    ¡°It¡¯s one thing at the Veteris Institute, that¡¯s where your teacher works. It¡¯s a ce of learning, a pce of knowledge! It¡¯s fine to treat them with kid gloves. But the small dojos,panies, and corporations? What the hell are they? They¡¯re nothing to the Night Watchers!¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t put it that way,¡± Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°We can¡¯t look down on mundanes even if we be supernatural.¡±

    ¡°Leave me alone! I don¡¯t want to talk to you!¡± Wang Ming drove in huffy silence; he was in a very poor mood.

    ¡°Don¡¯t misunderstand,¡± Li Hao continued chuckling and lowered his voice. ¡°I¡¯m doing this to rx their guard so we can gain more clues.¡±

    ¡°Hah!¡± sneered Wang Ming. ¡°And what have you discovered? Tell me about it!¡±

    Li Hao sighed and took out his notebook. "We went to the Institute, six dojos, and one major corporation this afternoon. We registered one Sunderer, twenty-four yers, and two Starlight at these eight ces, correct?¡±

    They¡¯d registered twenty-seven superhumans this afternoon. There were eight yers at the Institute; the remaining neen were from a corporation called Gxy Inc. Gxy was arge corporation that rivaled Qiao Mining. Their primary business was car manufacturing and the Silver City location was just a branch. The presence of a Sunderer at a minor locale was ample demonstration of how abundant this corporation¡¯s resources were.

    Sunderer of Hundreds was still very strong.

    ¡°These are the ones we registered. ¡°Wang Ming nodded, still highly dissatisfied. ¡°But are you sure that¡¯s all of it? Take Gxy, if we set all the others aside. They¡¯re ranked in the upper echelon of Silver Moon corporations. I don¡¯t believe there¡¯s not a single Darkmoon at one of their branches. Do you believe they only have two Starlight?¡±

    He didn¡¯t!

    Darkmoons were strong and even the Night Watchers had sent three Darkmoons to Silver City. For arge corporation like Gxy with deep pockets and a vastwork, how could they only have two Starlight at their Silver City branch?! Money wasn¡¯t effective in small quantities, but the corporation possessed enough tomunicate with the gods. They even partnered with Night Watcher headquarters at times!

    There was no way that Wang Ming believed that had been a full ounting of Gxy¡¯s personnel! Not to mention, Li Hao hadn¡¯t bothered making a detailed sweep. Wang Ming had proposed looking around and even bringing out the supernatural probe, but the other turned him down without discussion.

    Wang Ming was fit to explode, this was aplete farce! While he didn¡¯t fully agree with Liu Long¡¯s arrangements since it didn¡¯t seem good to plumb the depths of each faction, they should fully carry out the task since the course of action was agreed upon!

    <i>What a righteous guy!</i> Li Haoughed to himself and kept a calm expression on his face. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you don¡¯t get it. We¡¯re just the vanguard to attract their attention! We have other arrangements in the works¡ªsomeone else is conducting the concrete investigation while we distract them.¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± Wang Ming looked skeptical. ¡°You¡¯re lying!¡±

    <i>Don¡¯t try to fool me! I haven¡¯t sensed anything out of the ordinary.</i> Besides, no one on the team¡ªnot even Liu Long¡ªcould investigate these corporations while keeping everyone in the dark. Many of these corporations had installed supernatural probes. While the instruments wouldn¡¯t pick up martial masters, martial dao was much more limited. Martial masters couldn¡¯t fly through earth or sky like supernaturals. Slightly heightened security was all that it took to deter martial masters.

    ¡°It¡¯s true!¡± Li Hao nodded seriously. ¡°Of course, this is a secret. I¡¯m telling you only because you won¡¯t stopining. This actually has nothing to do with you as it doesn¡¯t fall under your jurisdiction.

    ¡°Since I have to tell you, this makes you the third person to know about this. If you breathe a hint of this to anyone else... you¡¯ll be a traitor, Wang Ming!¡±

    The handsome young man¡¯s heart skipped a beat and he asked uncertainly, ¡°What does that mean?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s actually a tenth person on our team!¡±

    <i>A tenth person? </i>Wang Ming blinked.

    ¡°We look like we only have nine in the branch, but there¡¯s another high level expert hidden in the shadows. I can¡¯t reveal their identity. All you need to know is that they exist.

    ¡°Really?¡± Wang Ming wasn¡¯t too certain of what he was hearing and neither was he that easy to fool. ¡°I¡¯m a deputy director, howe I don¡¯t know about this?¡±

    ¡°You can determine that yourself!¡± Li Hao answered evenly. ¡°I¡¯m speaking of this here and only today. I won¡¯t admit to anything after we leave! I¡¯ll y dumb even if you tell other people that you heard it from me¡ªI¡¯ll be a sinner otherwise! The tenth person is very special and not at liberty to show themselves. However, they¡¯re infinitely resourceful and a good hand at collecting intelligence.

    ¡°Based on their examination, some factions did indeed conceal certain things today. Gxy, for instance, has more than one Darkmoon. They have three!¡±

    ¡°Are you sure?!¡± Wang Ming¡¯s face snapped with shock and he lowered his voice. ¡°How are you guys in contact? I haven¡¯t sensed anything. Are you lying to me, Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s true!¡± Li Hao nodded seriously. ¡°I can¡¯t tell you how wemunicate with each other, we naturally have our ways. You¡¯re not part of the inner circle yet as you arrived only a few days ago. I¡¯m already breaking the rules by telling you so much!¡±

    Wang Ming understood¡ªa Demon Hunter concealed agent! But... how were they <i>this</i> strong?

    He didn¡¯t quite believe it and frowned intently at Li Hao until thetter reminded, ¡°Focus on the road!¡±

    Wang Ming instantly returned to his senses and refocused on the steering wheel. ¡°Do you mean it,¡± he asked incredulously. ¡°Are there really three hidden Darkmoons at Gxy? There are a decent number of Darkmoons these days, but they¡¯re concentrated in the major organizations. Not that many wander unattached. It would seem normal if they have one, but three...?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s true!¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°One of them seems to be on your level.¡±

    He based that off a simr size of light halo. He¡¯d discovered that he was able to see balls of light as long as they weren¡¯t too far away. Supernaturals of varying strength could be seen at different distances.

    Srs, for instance, could be observed from thousands of meters away. Even now, Li Hao recalled the massive ball of light approaching through the terrain. Sunres could be seen within one thousand meters, and Darkmoons at a much more modest one hundred meters. If Starlight... he might have to be up close and personal to see a tiny twinkling of starlight, as feeble as sparks from a fire.

    Thus, most supernaturals did not escape his eye. There were indeed three Darkmoon at Gxy and one of them was a Fullmoon.

    Wang Ming¡¯s frown deepened. He no longer felt that Li Hao was pulling his leg. They were possibly really drawing attention to create opportunities for that hidden tenth person.

    There was still one thing he didn¡¯t understand. ¡°What level of strength is this person that they can swiftly assess the enemy without rming them? Are they an investigative supernatural? They have to be at least a Darkmoon!¡±

    <i>At the very least!</i>

    When could the Demon Hunterse in contact with such a supernatural? These kinds were very important and a hotmodity for many organizations.

    Offensive type supernaturals were not that valued as there were too many of them. Those with unique abilities were much more in demand. Li Meng and Hu Hao, for instance, received more attention than others. Although their ranks were less than Wang Ming, they were also young geniuses of the Night Watchers. They wouldn¡¯t have been assigned to protect someone like Yuan Shuo otherwise.

    Li Meng had her third eye of the sky and could see through many things that others couldn¡¯t. Hu Hao was a flight supernatural. While his importance would severely decline after the Sunre level, he was an importantbat resource before then.

 Chapter 123: The Qiaos (II)

    <h4>Chapter 123: The Qiaos (II)</h4>

    Most supernaturals could fly after they reached Sunre. Not too far, of course. The limitation in distance was mitigated only after reaching Sr. With sufficient mysterious power, there was no difficulty in flight.

    Wang Ming naturally ced high importance on a supernatural adept in ndestine operations and investigations. This might be a presence that not even his superiors were aware of! At the same time, he felt a bit ufortable.

    Li Hao was... such an honest boy. He talked freely about everything. He would be in enormous trouble if Liu Long learned of this. But naturally, Wang Ming wasn¡¯t the type to waggle his tongue.

    ¡°I can¡¯t tell you specifics,¡± Li Hao murmured. ¡°I just know that this person can supply a lot of intelligence for us! Don¡¯t ask too much, Ole Wang. I told you this only because we¡¯re friends and you¡¯re a warrior of justice. I¡¯ll be in hot water if you let this get out.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± Wang Ming nodded, but was still uncertain. ¡°Are you sure about the uracy of this intelligence?¡±

    ¡°One hundred percent!¡±

    ¡°Fuck!¡± Wang Ming took a deep breath. Just one Gxy Inc. was hiding three Darkmoons, and one of them a Fullmoon! What the hell!

    When Huang Yun sent him to Silver City and said that there might be a bit of trouble, Wang Ming dismissed the notion. Now, however, the city suddenly seemed very dangerous.

    ¡°Sunres are senior executives at all of the major factions and won¡¯t take unnecessary risks! Plenilunes are preupied with rising to Sunre, so the strongest of active powerhouses these days is Fullmoon!¡± He quickly brought Li Hao up to speed on the supernaturalndscape. ¡°If there really is a Fullmoon among them, then there is much more to Gxy than meets the eye! They only need one Darkmoon if they¡¯re concerned with protection. No one would attack apany with a Darkmoon in residence!¡±

    Li Hao nodded his understanding. Wang Ming finally fell silent and Li Hao said nothing else as well. Their car rolled to a stop as they¡¯d arrived at the Qiao Mining headquarters.

    ......

    <i>Reception.</i>

    In order to prevent Li Hao being denied entrance, a phone call from the receptionist quickly brought Qiao Peng and a few employees downstairs.

    ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li!¡± Appearing to be in his thirties, Qiao Peng didn¡¯t look too old. If one ignored how bedraggled he¡¯d been when handcuffed yesterday, he rather seemed to be a promising, young person.

    He wore a suit on his tall and muscr frame, greeting Li Hao with a smile. He turned pleasantly toward Wang Ming. ¡°Might I know this officer¡¯s august surname?¡±

    ¡°Director Wang!¡± Li Hao answered brusquely without the affable manner he¡¯d shown at his previous stops. ¡°Person of note from White Moon City! VP Qiao, surely Qiao Mining already knows given the extensive intelligencework you have!¡±

    Wang Ming was slightly surprised. Li Hao was a friendly person and had been very polite at their previous locations. He hadn¡¯t expressed anything even when Gxy Inc. concealed the truth. Why was he suddenly being so unpleasant?¡±

    Qiao Peng didn¡¯t mind the curtness. ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li, Qiao Mining has foundations only in Silver City. White Moon is arge city and we are run-of-the-mill there. How could we know much about a supernatural organization like the Night Watchers? You think too highly of us.

    ¡°There¡¯s a misunderstanding between me and Commissioner Inspector Li,¡± he quickly exined when he saw that Wang Ming was perplexed. ¡°It has to do with Vice Captain Liu. I¡¯m in my thirties and my father keeps pushing me to find someone to marry. I have... slightly high standards and to be honest, only the vice captain catches my eye in all of Silver City. But while dropping flowers pine for love, the heartless brook babbles on! She expressed some dissatisfaction toward me yesterday and themissioner inspector probably thinks I¡¯m an irritating pest. It¡¯s all a bit embarrassing, really.¡±

    Wang Ming understood certain things after the candid recounting. Liu Yan and Li Hao... There¡¯d seemed to be something unusual between the two at dinner yesterday. Liu Yan often spoke in a suggestive manner that led one down ambiguous paths. He could understand why Li Hao seemed out of sorts.

    <i>Li Hao, ah Li Hao. Heh, you¡¯re really something eh? Liu Yan¡¯s at least thirty and you¡¯re only twenty... That¡¯s some kinda appetite! But yeah, that¡¯s what men like. Young married women are the best.</i>

    ¡°No worries, VP Qiao!¡± Wang Ming smiled knowingly, having grasped the crux of the issue. ¡°So long as your courtship is standard and sensible. Of course, I¡¯m sure that VP Qiao won¡¯t do anything inappropriate. Vice Captain Liu is the prettiest flower of the Inspectorate and we won¡¯t let things rest easy if anything over the line urs!¡±

    He pushed his colleague gently. That was enough!

    Li Hao was still put out with the situation. ¡°Alright, that¡¯s between you and Sis Liu, I won¡¯t involve myself with it! But I warn you, don¡¯t give yourself airs just because you¡¯re the vice president of Qiao Mining. We¡¯re all well aware that this is no longer an era in which cash is king. Make sure you behave yourself!¡±

    ¡°Now we really have a misunderstanding.¡± Qiao Peng spread out his hands with resignation. ¡°Of course, if themissioner inspector finds it inappropriate... I can withdraw? But... but this wouldn¡¯t be the thing to do, would it? I feel that equitablepetition is most ideal when ites to love.¡±

    ¡°Who¡¯s engaging in equitablepetition with you?¡± Li Hao replied frostily. ¡°I¡¯ll show you no mercy if you keep thering nonsense!¡±

    ¡°Then take it as pure nonsense, don¡¯t be angry!¡± Qiao Peng chuckled. ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li has already attained great achievements in your youth and we¡¯re all of Silver City. There¡¯s no need to have strained rtions between us. If there¡¯s anything I¡¯ve done wrong, let me take you out when you have time. There¡¯s nothing that can¡¯t be discussed over a drink!¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll talk about thatter!¡± Li Hao barked. ¡°I want to register all superhumans at Qiao Mining¡ªall martial masters and supernaturals. You¡¯re a massive corporation, don¡¯t you dare say you have none! I¡¯m also going to make a round of all of your storefronts, mines, and offices! I¡¯ve already called for a supernatural probe, so don¡¯t think you¡¯ll get away with hiding anything!

    ¡°Everyone needs to be registered and anyone not will be viewed as a criminal!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Qiao Peng cursed inwardly. <i>You¡¯re using a chicken feather as a warrant to issue orders! I know about your previous stops! Those were just formalities, but now you want to make rounds at my ce and even brought in a supernatural probe!</i>

    Granted, this also seemed normal for a hot-blooded young man who¡¯de into power overnight. And there was theplication of Liu Yan!

    As to be expected, young men like these found it hardest to withstand mature women like Liu Yan. Perhaps the sordid duo had already taken each other to bed! How tawdry!

    <i>This kid doesn¡¯t have an ounce of cunning to him! It¡¯s written all over his face! But people like him are the easiest to handle. </i>

    On the other hand, Qiao Peng would be unsettled if Li Hao showed him a smiling face today and forgot their previous scuffle. As a man, he was all too familiar with his own gender. If another man pursued his woman and didn¡¯t know how to take a hint... He wouldn¡¯t be friendly to them either!

    The more Li Hao was thus, the more at ease Qiao Peng could be and the more it demonstrated that Liu Yan really didn¡¯t know anything. If she did, she would¡¯ve long talked to Li Hao about not butting heads with Qiao Peng, that making moves in the dark was the way to go.

    None of his thoughts reflected in Qiao Peng¡¯s expression¡ªonly slight resignation crossed his face. ¡°There¡¯s no need to be thus, Commissioner Inspector Li. We¡¯re from the same roots and I hear that when you visited Gxy...¡±

    ¡°Gxy is Gxy, Qiao Mining is Qiao Mining!¡± Li Hao cut him off. ¡°VP Qiao, I have reason to suspect that you are harboring fugitives after your continued excuses! As a local, I am all too familiar with mines. Being underground for years and a closedmunity, ces like mines are a perfect shelter for criminals!

    ¡°If you keep running your mouth, I¡¯ll immediately ce Qiao Mining under close surveince!¡±

    Since he now grasped the reins of power, Li Hao showed open hostility to even someone who was the heir to a massive corporation.

    Qiao Peng was familiar with intelligence regarding the young man and couldn¡¯t help but curse inwardly. <i>He¡¯s turned into a bully because of the authority thates with his position! This kid was dumbly honest before, but a different sidees out as soon as he sniffs a hint of power. He¡¯s actually a dog, isn¡¯t he!</i>

    ¡°Very well, as you wish!¡± Qiao Peng disyed the barest hint of dissatisfaction that could barely be detected. ¡°But I also want to remind themissioner inspector that Silver City is not a ce where one person calls the shots. Don¡¯t tarnish the Night Watcher reputation!¡±

    Li Hao snorted contemptuously and headed for the elevator without another word.

    ¡°Director Wang, keep an eye on things down here and don¡¯t let anyone leave! I''m going to sweep each floor with the supernatural probe. We¡¯ll go through their headquarters first, then probe their mines and storefronts!¡± Li Hao turned to Qiao Peng. ¡°You¡¯re with me!¡±

    The man frowned, but didn¡¯t say anything. He waved his men into the elevator.

    Qiao Mining¡¯s headquarters stood at thirty stories tall, making it one of the tallest buildings in Silver City. There weren¡¯t that many skyscrapers in the city; buildings of five to six stories were the norm.

    They rode straight to the top floor. Li Hao took out a bulky supernatural probe that was bigger than a watermelon. Red dots would appear on its disy panel if supernatural ripples were detected.

    Li Hao flicked it on¡ªthe probe consumed mysterious power during operation and wasn¡¯t easily activated under normal circumstances. He frowned as soon as it whirred to life. ¡°It¡¯s giving a reading!¡±

    ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li,¡± Qiao Peng said with resignation. ¡°We didn¡¯t say that we don¡¯t have any supernaturals. We do, and more than one. We have three Starlight¡ªI wasn¡¯t going to conceal that. You just didn¡¯t want to listen to me.¡±

    Li Hao epted these words awkwardly, but quickly regained his cool. ¡°What are you so worked up for? I only said that a reading.¡± He furrowed his brows when he looked at the disy screen. ¡°Three Starlight, did you say?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°But there¡¯s eight dots on here...¡±

    ¡°Do you think I don¡¯t know anything,missioner inspector?¡± Qiao Peng burst outughing. ¡°This probe can only sense ripples within its range of detection, it¡¯s not so urate as to pinpoint how many supernaturals there are. What eight dots, are you seeing things?¡±

    ¡°And what do you know?!¡± Li Hao lost his temper. ¡°This is the Night Watcher¡¯stest supernatural probe! If I say there¡¯s eight, then there¡¯s eight! Stopughing and joking, Qiao Peng, I¡¯ve got my eye on you!¡±

 Chapter 124: The Qiaos (III)

    <h4>Chapter 124: The Qiaos (III)</h4>

    ¡°Whatever you say then!¡±

    The elevator stopped at the top floor. There were only tworge offices here¡ªQiao Peng and his father¡¯s. Li Hao made a beeline for Qiao Senior¡¯s office.

    ¡°That¡¯s my father¡¯s office.¡± Qiao Peng frowned. ¡°He¡¯s in a meeting right now. Don¡¯t go too overboard, Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡± the young man brayed with the arrogance of a small man intoxicated with sess. He growled, ¡°Qiao Peng, you and I originally had no grudge with each other, but you put a foot wrong when you harassed Sis Liu! I have nothing to say about her husband dying in your mines, but you set your sights on Sis Liu after killing her husband! We¡¯ll see about that!¡±

    Qiao Peng cursed inwardly again and frowned deeply. ¡°You can¡¯t go around saying stuff like that, Li Hao. Don¡¯t you dirty me with that! It was an ident and the Inspectorate closed the books on it a long time ago!¡±

    ¡°Hmph!¡± Li Hao pushed open the door. An old man inside raised his head to look at his visitor, ncing questioningly at Qiao Peng.

    Thetter quickly stepped forward and whispered a few sentences. The elder rose to his feet with a chuckle.

    ¡°Hello, Commissioner Inspector Li! You have achieved so much in your youth! I am familiar with your teacher Professor Yuan. Who would¡¯ve thought that I¡¯d bump into the professor¡¯s prized pupil here!¡±

    ¡°You are too kind!¡± Li Hao grunted and walked around with the probe, declining further pleasantries. Smiling benignly, the old man didn¡¯t stop him. Waves of shock rose in the young man¡¯s heart!

    He didn¡¯t detect anything outside, other than there were powerhouses at the Qiao Mining Industries. He¡¯d realized that as soon as he set foot through the front doors. The supernatural was very bold as he stayed close to Qiao Peng. He was a Darkmoon and seemed to be a bit stronger than Wang Ming. He might be a Plenilune.

    Even so, that wasn¡¯t enough to push Li Hao into losing hisposure. But now, he was having trouble keeping a straight face. Thankfully, he could mask it through grimacing as he walked around with the probe.

    What he didn¡¯t detect and startled him so much was the elderly man in front of him, Qiao Peng¡¯s father! A legendary figure of Silver City¡¯s merchant scene, Qiao Feilong was more than seventy years old and built hismercial empire from scratch.

    Li Hao was in perfect control even before he pushed open the door, but cold sweat soaked his back when he saw the other. A bright ball of light!

    Indeed, a ball of light that couldn¡¯t be seen through the door. The young man was almost blinded when he opened the door.

    <i>Fucking hell!</i>

    The ball of light seemed slightly weaker than Divine Brokensky, but only just. <i>A Sr? Or peak Sunre?</i>

    Why hadn¡¯t he sensed anything outside? One had to know that this ball of light wasn¡¯t something that could be obstructed by matter. It was the seepage of energy that Li Hao could see through. But he hadn¡¯t seen anything earlier!

    What did this mean?

    It meant that the elder in front of him couldpletely conceal the ripples of his energy. It wasn¡¯t until Li Hao saw the man with his own eyes that he could see the manifestation of energy within the body. It was perfectly contained as well¡ªa control and concealment of energy that¡¯d reached the martial master level!

    A martial master¡¯s energy stemmed from personal training, so it was normal and expected that it was inconspicuous. However, a supernatural¡¯s energy originated from outside sources. What was absorbed from other ces could not be so perfectly concealed, unless it was obscured by an extremely potent supernatural item!

    <i>Qiao Feilong is a peak Sunre or Sr powerhouse!</i>

    <i>Incredible!</i> Li Hao truly hadn¡¯t considered this possibility. He¡¯d thought that Qiao Feilong was just reaping wealth through any means possible since Qiao Mining Industries was a Yama fringe organization. But it would seem the truth was not as simple as it was depicted. Would a peak Sunre or even Sr be a simple tool for fleecing money? And he¡¯d hidden himself so masterfully!

    Li Hao continued waving the supernatural probe around while debating himself, shocked at his findings.

    <i>There¡¯s another Plenilune apart from Qiao Feilong. The three Starlight are their supernaturals on the surface, and this is just the headquarters. What about the other ces?</i>

    The Qiaos were much stronger than they anticipated! Based on his previous spections, it would already be out of the ordinary if they possessed a Darkmoon. That peak Plenilune might be their biggest trump card, but there was nothing he was afraid of because Yuan Shuo resided in Silver City.

    ¡°Are you done here, Commissioner Inspector Li?¡± Qiao Peng demanded impatiently. It would be too fake if he remained unmoved in the face of such provocation.

    ¡°What are you in a hurry for!¡± Li Hao huffed back and turned to Qiao Feilong. ¡°President Qiao, I should not be this brazen as I am your junior, but I feel that such a legendary figure of Silver City might have been too busy with his business to oversee his children¡¯s education!¡±

    ¡°What makes you say that?¡± Qiao Feilong smiled warmly. ¡°Please feel free to speak frankly,missioner inspector.¡±

    ¡°This Qiao Peng!¡± Li Hao jabbed his finger at his subject¡¯s nose. ¡°He¡¯s got some nerve! Liu Yan is the team captain of the Night Watcher field mission team, a senior officer of themissioner inspector grade! This Qiao Peng acted frivolously toward her on multiple asions in broad daylight!

    ¡°Is there any honor to be had in bullying a widow?! The Night Watcher branch has indeed just been established, but it would take absolutely no effort to ruin the Qiaos! With the rise of the supernatural and the indiscreet style of your vast family and business, I feel that it¡¯s only a matter of time before this person brings disaster to your house!¡±

    Qiao Feilong calmly inclined his head after a while. ¡°You speak truly! Qiao Peng has indeed been a bit overly pampered. So this is the matter at hand. Rest easy, Commissioner Inspector Li, he will not pester Vice Captain Liu anymore!¡±

    ¡°Dad!¡± Qiao Pengined loudly.

    ¡°You¡¯re more than thirty years old, yet have no sense of propriety! Themissioner inspector is young, but his words make extreme sense! You do not focus on how to cross over after the rise of the supernatural, but instigate endless trouble with women day in and day out!¡± Qiao Feilong turned to Li Hao. ¡°There will be no end to enmity if it is not settled amicably. Qiao Pengcked decorum in his actions and Vice Captain Liu may not be willing to see me. Please tell her I apologize on my son¡¯s behalf. Additionally, I offer her a small token of my sentiments...¡±

    ¡°Forget it, that¡¯s not needed!¡± Li Hao waved the man off.

    ¡°Please make a decision after you hear me out.¡± Qiao Feilong smiled. ¡°The Qiaos are a local corporation, after all. The establishment of a Night Watcher branch in Silver City is anotheryer of protection for us locals! I know a detail or two about Vice Captain Liu¡¯s matter. Her husband died in an ident, but he was still a member of the Qiao Mining Industries. I feel quite apologetic for his undeserved death.

    ¡°I know Vice Captain Liu has been seeking to break through and make the crossover. We do not know much about this domain and are deeply regretful that we cannot help her in this regard! But we collected ten cubes of mysterious power from White Moon City recently. I was going to give them to Qiao Peng in pursuit of the supernatural, but now I worry he¡¯ll cause greater trouble after ascension due to hisck of restraint. Why don¡¯t I make a gift out of them and present it to the vice captain? Please treat it as a token of my sentiments!¡±

    Li Hao wanted to refuse him outright, but stopped awkwardly and huffed, ¡°Ten cubes? Isn¡¯t... isn¡¯t that too precious?¡±

    ¡°A life is more important than the heavens themselves!¡± sighed Qiao Feilong. ¡°This will also help me sleep better at night. It¡¯s just what little I can do!¡±

    ¡°Well... Sis Liu might not want it...¡± Li Hao was conflicted.

    ¡°That¡¯s alright. If Vice Captain Liu doesn¡¯t want it... just throw them away!¡± Qiao Feilong sighed again. ¡°The Qiaos can afford to gift or lose something like this. I only hope that the vice captain can be more at ease, in which I can look at myself in the mirror.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s internal struggle was evident; Qiao Feilong gestured to his men. Someone quickly walked up with a box.

    ¡°This box is an energy storage box from the central region! It can hold mysterious power as ice crystals are embedded within its structure. All ten cubes are inside, but they¡¯re all of the fire attribute. I¡¯m not sure if they suit Captain Liu.¡±

    Li Hao subconsciously epted the box. It wasn¡¯t heavy, but he still tightly clenched his arms around it.

    ¡°Then... I ept?¡± Reluctance warred with struggle. ¡°I¡¯ll... bring this back to you if Sis Liu doesn¡¯t want it?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright, throw it away if she doesn¡¯t want it!¡±

    Li Hao grimaced with reluctance and concluded with embarrassment, ¡°Then... then I¡¯ll take this... and throw it away if she doesn¡¯t want it...¡±

    ¡°Whatever you wish!¡±

    ¡°My apologies for the disturbance and breach of etiquette, President Qiao is truly my idol!¡± Liu Yan immediately broke out into smiles. ¡°There will be many areas in which I¡¯ll have to rely on the president as I carry out my duties in Silver City. As long as Qiao Peng no longer harasses Sis Liu, I will not make things difficult for the Qiaos. I hadn¡¯t wanted to in the first ce, but Qiao Peng was simply too out of line!¡±

    Qiao Peng couldn¡¯t stop cursing to himself. <i>How was I out of line? You little bastard, you care for nothing but money! Look at all the excuses you¡¯ve made for a woman! Now that you¡¯ve received our token, you still act like I¡¯m the one who stirred up trouble first. Holy fuck this sucks!</i>

    The young man was a deft hand at bureaucracy at a young age. As expected of a student from the Veteris Institute! Li Hao had a trove of slick responses that he could quickly trot out for any asion.

    Qiao Feilong murmured his agreement with a smile.

    ¡°Um... I do still have to make a round of the mines,¡± Li Hao continued awkwardly. ¡°But rest assured, President Qiao, it¡¯s just a formality. Qiao Peng will be with me, I¡¯ll just take a look from the outside. I must carry out my orders to the letter! We can leave the supernatural probe, I¡¯m sure that there will be no trouble.¡±

    ¡°But of course!¡± Qiao Feilong smiled. ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li is a fine person. Please visit whenever you have time, you are always wee!¡±

    ¡°Then I thank you for your hospitality!¡± Li Hao merrily walked toward the door. ¡°Qiao Peng, you should learn more from your father. I¡¯ll be waiting downstairs. Don¡¯t lecture him too harshly, sir.¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, I hear you. I¡¯ll give him a good talking to!¡± Qiao Feilongughed heartily. His smile didn¡¯t drop until the elevator doors closed on Li Hao and the Night Watcher started his descent. He furrowed his brow at his son. ¡°You should keep your act to an appropriate level! You know that Li Hao has intentions toward Liu Yan, but you insist on getting involved! Isn¡¯t that tantly giving offense? Go on, apany him to the mines, but remember not to let him walk around. The same goes for you too!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    ¡°Go on, then!¡±

 Chapter 125: The Qiaos (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 125: The Qiaos (IV)</h4>

    Qiao Peng swiftly headed outside without further word. Qiao Feilong mulled over the situation after his son left and addressed a corner of his office.

    ¡°Did you sense anything special?¡±

    ¡°No, he¡¯s very ordinary, but he looks to have absorbed mysterious power. I can sense that his physique is quite decent and his skin¡¯s tenacity is very good. He might be a yer of Tens.¡±

    ¡°That is to be expected!¡± Qiao Feilong dismissed the assessment. ¡°He¡¯s Yuan Shuo¡¯s student and has absorbed mysterious power. With the New Book of Five Styles in hand and supposedly wielding its breathing method as well, setting foot into yer of Tens is only a matter of time!¡±

    ¡°Then does the boss think...¡± the person in the shadows lowered his voice. ¡°Is there anything special about his blood?¡±

    ¡°It may not be as simple as just his blood. The so-called bloodline may need to be distilled <i>from</i> the blood. Mere blood flow will not do!¡± Qiao Feilong waved the conversation to a close. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s set this aside for now. Do not incite trouble as the city is unstable at the moment. Wait for the right moment to act!¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡±

    The discussion was over.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Wreathed in smiles, Li Hao reached the first floor still reeling from shock. Was Qiao Feilong a Sr? Could his teacher kill a Sr now without the sword¡¯s help? Would they reaprge amounts of mysterious power if they killed this Sr? What kind of supernatural was the corporation president?

    Scattered thoughts ran through his mind. To think that this old guy would hide himself so deeply!

    <i>He must carry a treasure on him!</i>

    Qiao Feilong wouldn¡¯t conceal his energy ripples so perfectly otherwise. There was nothing to sense and in fact, it appeared that he held thempletely within his body.

    <i>Got us a big one!</i>

    This was definitely arge catch, one that was staying put in Silver City. Logically speaking, even Heaven Favored found it difficult to break through if they didn¡¯t do battle or see the rest of the world. Yuan Shuo hadmenced his fair share of wandering when he was young, which enabled his eventual breakthrough to Dominator.

    No one could absorb mysterious power and passively make their way to Sunre or Sr.

    <i>Can it be that... they¡¯ve taken something from my ancestral tomb? </i>The possibility suddenly urred to Li Hao, alongside deep anguish. <i>Bastards! The guy must¡¯ve dug into and robbed my ancestors¡¯ graves! That¡¯s how he¡¯s able to ascend in Silver City and be peak Sunre or even a Sr. Damn it, he stole from me!</i>

    It was highly likely and a given that something was afoot at the Qiao mines. What a pity that they could not afford to alert the enemy at this time! But the trip had not been made in vain. He¡¯d discovered Qiao Feilong¡¯s strength and obtained ten cubes of mysterious power. Thetter was an unexpected gain, but these two together were enough.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Wang Ming nced at his colleague and took note of the box in his hand. ¡°An energy storage box?¡±

    ¡°You recognize it?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Wang Ming furrowed his brows. ¡°You epted more presents?¡±

    It was one thing to take small gifts, but this was mysterious power! He¡¯d already forgotten how he derided Li Hao for his small worldview. One should either not ept gifts, or take only dozens or one hundred cubes of mysterious power!

    ¡°It¡¯s not for me, it¡¯s for Sis Liu,¡± Li Hao muttered. ¡°Shecks this and it¡¯s herpensation. You don¡¯t understand, this is blood money!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re making the decision on Liu Yan¡¯s behalf?¡± Wang Ming was startled that the young man dared ept this.

    Li Hao leered. ¡°It¡¯s fine! It¡¯s our loss if we don¡¯t take it!¡±

    <i>Will Sis Liu want it?</i>

    Not under normal circumstances, but Li Hao felt that Sis Liu would want it if he put in a few words. Using the enemy¡¯s gift to strengthen oneself and then kill the enemy in return... Why not ept something like this!

    <i>Well well, their rtionship really extends beyond the norm! </i>Wang Ming sniffed. Li Hao appeared to be an honest boy¡ªhe really kept his tendencies well under wraps.

    They needed to carry out their duties well after epting a present. The group quickly arrived at the mines outside the city. Li Hao didn¡¯t even walk inside. He took a look from the entrance and quickly left in merry delight. He seemed to be in a hurry to return to headquarters¡ªwell, of course as he carried a box of mysterious power. He didn¡¯t set it down once.

    Qiao Peng suddenly spat on the ground when Li Hao and Wang Ming disappeared from view.

    ¡°Eyes of a rat that can only see an inch of light!¡± he cursed at Li Hao. The kid had been so upright and righteous before, but look at him after receiving a gift! He was worried about dirtying his shoes at the mine inspection and decided on taking a look from the outside before running off.

    ¡°The Night Watchers are blind to let this guy be the deputy director!¡± he spat. But this was just as well, it would save him a lot of effort.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>In the car.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s smile slowly withered and he looked at Wang Ming. ¡°Ole Wang, are Sunre real powerhouses?¡±

    ¡°No shit!¡± Wang Ming rolled his eyes. ¡°Do you know how many Night Watcher Sunres there are in all of Silver Moon? Sunre is the equivalent of Dominator¡ªone against a thousand! Which one of them isn¡¯t a heavyweight?¡±

    Li Hao nodded silently. <i>Really? Well, fuck! I saw three balls of light in the depths of the mines! If Qiao Feilong is thrown into the mix, then there might be one Sr and three Sunres at Qiao Mining! And you say that Sunres are apex powerhouses that are rarely seen? Who are you kidding??</i>

    <i>I¡¯ve only been at it for a few days and have seen a ton of Srs! Hao Lianchuan, Brokensky, and now possibly Qiao Feilong! There¡¯s the Sunre that diedst time, Huang Yun, and the one hidden in the shadows of the Qiao office... That makes for three Sunres!</i>

    <i>The Qiaos!</i>

    A reeling Li Hao once more questioned if the Qiaos were just a money-making machine in the mundane world for Yama.

    <i>Hells no!</i>

    If Yama was that powerful, then Red Moon and the Night Watchers paled far inparison. Who would assign so many powerhouses to a mundane fringe group designed to fund the organization?

    <i>It must be something from the eight families that¡¯s propelled them forward. It¡¯s got to be! One hundred percent!</i>

    Li Hao was certain that there was much more behind the Qiao curtain. They must¡¯ve discovered something and possibly stashed it away for their own use. They wouldn¡¯t be so powerful otherwise. Wasn¡¯t that belittling the Night Watchers, to produce so many powerhouses in a family corporation from a fringe city like Silver City?

    If Wang Ming said Sunres were powerhouses, then they were powerhouses. It just pained Li Hao that the Qiaos was making use of some treasures. Had they emptied the ruins? Liu Yan¡¯s husband had been dead for many years. With these years of excavation, perhaps they really had made off with plenty of loot.

    <i>The Qiaos bide their time and there¡¯s no movement from Yama¡ªI haven¡¯t heard of any major disturbance in Silver City. Are the two in cahoots or not? Or are the Qiaos conducting some secret operations behind Yama¡¯s back?</i>

    He nursed some suspicions¡ªthere should be more than Qiao Feilong on the scene. There might be other Srs from Yama, waiting in the shadows to reap their harvest. They would at least ce checks on each other!

    <i>I need to go to teacher!</i> Li Hao was both frightened and excited. Perhaps they¡¯d make out like bandits this time, if they didn¡¯t die in the attempt.

    Off to the side, Wang Ming looked strangely at his counterpart. <i>Just look at his expression change! </i>What, was he a chameleon? Was he this excited to receive mysterious power? Was there a lot in that box?

    Impulses stirred in Wang Ming, but he quickly dismissed the notion. <i>I¡¯m not Li Hao. This guy¡¯s vision for the future is so meager that he epts bribes! I¡¯m going to report him one day!</i>

    Of course, if he was given some... <i>Bah! I, Wang Ming, will never share his loot!</i>

    Wang Ming stomped on the elerator as various thoughts ran through his head.

    ......

    <i>Veteris Institute of Silver City.</i>

    It hadn¡¯t been long since Li Hao¡¯s departure, but he hadn¡¯t visited Yuan Shuost time; he¡¯d gone directly to the principal¡¯s building. This time, he set course for his teacher¡¯s residence.

    Wang Ming wasn¡¯t with him out of a decreased desire to run around. He waited outside with the car; Li Hao let him be.

    ......

    <i>Inside the yard.</i>

    Yuan Shuo was facing off against a dog. He found it fun to educate Panther on a daily basis. Li Hao didn¡¯t know where a screw had gotten loose in his teacher¡¯s mind. He¡¯d matched wits and valor with the dog for almost half a month!

    ¡°Teacher!¡± Li Hao waved a greeting. Panther howled and barrelled out, rearing up on Li Hao¡¯s thigh.

    ¡°Aouuuu! Arf arf! Meow meow!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. What were those cries?

    ¡°Panth, what are you imitating a cat for?¡±

    ¡°Aouuu, aouuuu,¡± Panther answered frantically. It didn¡¯t want to either, but that terrifying old man said that he might not be a dog, that he might be a mixed breed and could possibly climb a tree like a cat, bite like a wolf, and plow the fields like a cow...

    Panther wallowed in an abyss of misery! This was too painful, so when it finally saw Li Hao, it itched to immediately run off with the young man. It didn¡¯t want to spend a single second more with the old human!

    ¡°You¡¯re here, eh?¡± Yuan Shuo looked much younger together. He casually wiped off his hands, ignoring the dog. ¡°Don¡¯t randomly run around on errands when you¡¯ve got free time. You should take advantage of the opening to practice martial techniques. That Little Wang you work with is here too, right?¡±

    ¡°Correct, we¡¯re here on official business and didn¡¯t want to disturb teacher.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t mind and didn¡¯t ask why Wang Ming wasn¡¯t present. It was normal, the kid was too embarrassed toe.

    ¡°This dog is quite nice!¡± the professor chuckled. However, Panther was so frightened it nearly shook.

    ¡°Did you hit it, teacher?¡± Li Hao asked helplessly.

    ¡°Hit it?¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°How would I? I¡¯m an academic sort and rarely punish humans or dogs. Tell me, have I ever punished you?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s... true. You haven¡¯t.¡± Li Hao found it odd. What was Panth afraid of if it wasn¡¯t being beaten?

 Chapter 126: Teacher and Disciple Plot Again (I)

    <h4>Chapter 126: Teacher and Disciple Plot Again (I)</h4>

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther immediately barked.

    ¡°So the dog is telling on me, hmm?¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°I haven¡¯t beaten it, really. I just used de energy to stimte it a few times and then mysterious power. I gotta tell you, this dog has a really great constitution!¡±

    Li Hao suddenly understood and didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. This was worse than being beaten! He was all too familiar with the impact of mysterious power and de energy. Without the sword to neutralize the two... it was such a... bone-deep sensation. It would be a marvelously pleasant feeling if the sword was on hand to neutralize them, but without... he could easily imagine the desperate straits that Panther found itself in.

    Of course, it was pain intermixed with happiness.

    ¡°You should treasure what teacher is giving you.¡± Li Hao patted the little ck dog¡¯s head. ¡°These treasures can¡¯t be bought for any sum of money! You should understand their value if you want to be a mighty dog spirit. So many people diedst time because they wanted these things!¡±

    Tears welled up in Panther¡¯s eyes. <i>This dog knows. But... you don¡¯t know that this pervert takes turns using these energies on me! He says he wants to test where my limits are. These days have been worse than death!</i>

    Li Hao ignored Panth. This was an incredible opportunity! His teacher couldn¡¯t be bothered with ordinary people, the dog was failing to appreciate what happiness really was!

    With that, he bucked the pleading dog off his leg. It was hanging on so tightly that its sharp ws were digging into his skin.

    ¡°Teacher, I¡¯m here for a reason.¡±

    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t be without one.¡± Yuan Shuo was too familiar with Li Hao and couldn¡¯t be bothered with saying more. He busied himself with his own affairs inside the house; there was nothing the young man could do but follow behind. The professor wanted to be the first to speak. ¡°We¡¯re going to the ruins at the end of August!¡±

    ¡°Me too?¡± asked Li Hao.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know and can¡¯t make a decision!¡± Yuan Shuo replied uncertainly after some thought. ¡°The ruins are both danger and opportunity. The one I discovered might have something to do with the eight families, but they also might not!¡±

    <i>The eight families again! </i>Li Hao furrowed his brows.

    ¡°Teacher, the eight families are rooted in Silver City. Are there any of their historical remains around the city? You¡¯re an expert in this field, have you discovered any signs or clues over the years?¡±

    ¡°Silver City...¡± Yuan Shuo poured a cup of tea for himself and walked back out. ¡°I¡¯ve scanned the city¡ªits feng shui is ordinary. This doesn¡¯t speak to a grand burial, but the ruins may not be a tomb. It could be a sunken ancient city sealed beneath the ground, but few items speaking to this have appeared in Silver City. I¡¯ve investigated them all and didn¡¯t find any traces.¡±

    He was an expert!

    Li Hao frowned, not even his teacher had uncovered anything?

    ¡°Teacher, there might really be some in Silver City!¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± Yuan Shuo paused solemnly. ¡°It would be... normal for there to be some. The legends of the eight families start from Silver City and I spent the past couple of days deducing that if any exist, they¡¯ll be located in the directions of the eight trigrams!

    ¡°They won¡¯t be regr ruins either, and they might be sealed. People will easily die there!¡± He looked at Li Hao. ¡°Have you found one?¡±

    ¡°Wait a moment, teacher...¡± Li Hao entered the house to take out pen and paper. He swiftly sketched an outline of Silver City¡ªit resembled an eight trigram!

    He hadn¡¯t paid much attention to it before because many cities wereid out in this manner. The eight trigram diagram wasn¡¯t very special. One could even view it as a circle.

    But when Li Hao saw the diagram in the sky... he couldn¡¯t unsee it. It might require blue rain for him to see it with his eyes once more. Thus far, he¡¯d only seen it when the scarlet shadow entered his body and his blood frothed. While he¡¯d absorbed scarlet shadows after that, the diagram didn¡¯t show itself again. Regardless, hemitted everything to memory and swiftly sketched the diagram.

    It was both a map of Silver City and an eight trigram diagram. He drew a dot of red in a particr zone.

    ¡°Dead north.¡± Yuan Shuo raised a brow when he took a look. ¡°The <i>li</i> position of the eight trigrams. <i>Li</i> corresponds to fire and this is situated in the outskirts of Silver City. There should... be a mine here. I believe it belongs to Qiao Mining Industries?¡±

    The <i>li</i> position of fire! Li Hao suddenly recalled how Qiao Feilong had given him fire mysterious power. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but he did indeed subconsciously think of this.

    ¡°Are there ruins there?¡± the young man asked.

    Yuan Shuo looked strangely at his student and answered before Li Hao could exin himself, ¡°I¡¯ve been to this ce before and didn¡¯t discover anything. There are no clues to any ruins. I only went because the Qiaos invited me after it caved in, hoping that I could identify a new mine for them...¡±

    As a professor of ancient studies, he was also one of feng shui and tomb raiding¡ªahem, prospecting. It was quite normal for someone to request his skills in reopening a mine.

    ¡°This is it!¡± Li Hao said firmly. ¡°I don¡¯t know what the specifics are, but I¡¯m not guessing randomly. Teacher, do you know the background of Silver City¡¯s Qiao Mining Industries?¡±

    ¡°The Qiaos... Qiao Feilong...¡± Yuan Shuo rummaged through his memories. ¡°Qiao Feilong is a Silver City native and left home at a young age to seek his fortunes elsewhere. He returned to Silver City when he was forty, having built quite amercial empire.

    ¡°He founded Qiao Mining Industries after that. It¡¯s been about thirty years.¡±

    Not twenty, but thirty marked his return to Silver City. Thus, while most would think of Red Moon¡¯s preparations a dozen years ago, few would connect a corporation of thirty years to the eight families. This held true even when the uniqueness of the eight families started bing more widely known.

    <i>Did this guye in contact with Yamater on, or did Yama startying its ns thirty years ago?</i> Li Hao wavered between the two possibilities. <i>The supernatural domain hadn¡¯t even manifested then!</i>

    ¡°Qiao Feilong used to practice martial dao, but didn¡¯t attain high aplishments with it. He stopped training after reaching yer of Tens, and he only set foot into this level to be able to protect himself. Once Qiao Mining expanded in scope and he had sufficient funds to hire martial masters for bodyguards, he no longer walked the path of martial dao.

    ¡°He is secretly a vicious and cruel person. There¡¯s been no end of unsavory matters conducted in secret for his corporation to reach its current heights. Conflicts aremon in the mining industry and there was nock of underhanded mines back in the day. He took over them all!¡±

    Yuan Shuo pointed at where Li Hao had dotted the map. ¡°There used to be a lot of secret mines here before Qiao Mining moved in. Not long after that, the other mine owners started dying or became crippled. Some voluntarily sold their mines to him at a low price. Silver City turned a blind eye to all of this as none of these mine owners were anything good. It was a den of snakes turning on each other!

    ¡°Of course, Qiao Feilong is a significant entrepreneur and phnthropist on the surface. He¡¯s donated a lot to both Silver City and the Veteris Institute. There¡¯s a Feilong Lab building at the Institute that was built with his donations.¡±

    Li Hao nodded¡ªhe¡¯d had sses in that building once, but forgot that it came from Qiao Feilong¡¯s donation.

    Yuan Shuo looked at his student when he was finished, awaiting information. The Qiaos were inly involved since the young man had suddenly mentioned the family. Were there ruins in the Qiao mines?

    ¡°Teacher, you¡¯ve met Qiao Feilong.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Do you think he¡¯s a supernatural?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Yuan Shuo responded indifferently. ¡°He is.¡±

    ¡°You know?¡± The young man started.

    ¡°Nope.¡± Yuan Shuo remained just asposed, then burst outughing. ¡°If I say no after you¡¯ve said all this, am I the fool or are you?¡±

    He¡¯d realized as soon as his student asked him. Li Hao looked on wordlessly.

    ¡°So he¡¯s a supernatural?¡± Yuan Shuo frowned. ¡°To be honest, I just saw him. He¡¯s either so weak that I can¡¯t sense it, or so strong that I can¡¯t sense it!¡±

    Those were the only two possibilities!

    ¡°Someone who can hide themselves from me and earns a special visit from you... Can he be a premier powerhouse? Sunre? Sr?¡±

    Darkmoon didn¡¯t count as a powerhouse!

    ¡°If it¡¯s rted to the ruins, then can it be that there¡¯s a ruin of the eight families inside the mines? That¡¯s how he soundlessly became a powerhouse, because he discovered some treasures from it? And he¡¯s been flying under the radar because he¡¯s plotting something?

    ¡°So Silver City does indeed have ruins... and I didn¡¯t discover them. What a pity. I might¡¯ve be a Sunderer long ago if I had,¡± Yuan Shuo sighed,pletely ignoring his student¡¯s desire to talk.

    ¡°A Sr, is it?¡± he murmured. ¡°If Qiao Feilong is a Sr, he won¡¯t be in charge of excavating the ruins. He must have helpers. Does he have Sunre working for him?¡±

    The professor stroked his beardless chin. ¡°He¡¯d be worried about his man running off with the goods if there was only one, so there must be at least two?¡±

    Two Sunres could keep each other in check!

    Trust was a limitedmodity for someone like Qiao Feilong. He wouldn¡¯t trust anyone without reservation. Being a sessful businessman, he possessed sufficient resources and money to nurture a flock of supernaturals.

    ¡°Silver City is a small ce, but it¡¯s really not a peaceful locale!¡± Yuan Shuo sighed with emotion. ¡°Little Hao, I¡¯d say stay away from them if you don¡¯t care about the ancestral tombs of the eight families or your ancestralnd. They¡¯re not people to run afoul of!¡±

    Li Hao tilted his head wordlessly. <i>I haven¡¯t said anything, but teacher¡¯s already determined everything and that they have more than one powerhouse. The elderly are more wise and experienced alright!</i>

    ¡°Teacher, there¡¯s one Qiao Feilong who might be a Sr, three definite Sunres, and one Plenilune...¡±

    ¡°Damn!¡± Yuan Shuo sucked in a sharp breath. ¡°They¡¯re really not people to offend! Little Hao, a rack of old bones like me can¡¯t suffer through something like this!¡± With that, he looked at the young man. ¡°You want to take the ruins back, don¡¯t you?¡±

 Chapter 127: Teacher and Disciple Plot Again (II)

    <h4>Chapter 127: Teacher and Disciple Plot Again (II)</h4>

    ¡°I¡¯m, I¡¯m just thinking about it...¡± Li Hao said sheepishly.

    ¡°That¡¯s normal, you¡¯re the only heir left of the eight families, after all. Technically speaking, all of their ruins belong to you. What¡¯s yours is mine, so this means that Qiao Feilong is upying our stuff, isn¡¯t he!¡±

    Li Hao quickly bobbed his head.

    ¡°Also, the ruins of the eight families might require your weapons or bloodlines to open,¡± Yuan Shuo continued. ¡°Even if he¡¯s essed it, he¡¯s just cracked it open at most. There¡¯s no way he¡¯s thrown the doors wide open! Therefore, he certainly has designs on you. Does this mean we have a new enemy?¡±

    Li Hao nodded again. Everything his teacher said was right.

    ¡°He who strikes first, prevails. He who strikeste, fails!¡± Yuan Shuo arched a brow. ¡°We either don¡¯t take any action, or we hit them where it hurts and go for the kill!¡±

    ¡°But they¡¯re a Yama pawn...¡±

    Yuan Shuo brusquely interrupted his student before the young man finished. ¡°Not to worry, he must be keeping this from Yama! I know people like Qiao Feilong all too well! Whatever he¡¯s found will bepletely taken away if he tells Yama, so he¡¯ll never tell them!

    ¡°All we need to do is tear out the weeds by the roots¡ªkill Qiao Feilong, kill all of his men, kill his son, and kill everyone who excavated the ruins for him. That way, Yama won¡¯t know that they really found any ruins, even if they have an inkling of the truth.¡±

    Li Hao opened and shut his mouth. He only held his suspicions, but his teacher spoke with surety, as if he was very familiar with Qiao Feilong!

    ¡°Stop gaping, this is normal and expected!¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly grinned. ¡°I¡¯m like this as well, I¡¯ve just beenpelled otherwise by circumstances. Do you think I¡¯m a minion for the Night Watchers by choice? Their tool to explore ruins with? I have no choice! I¡¯d take it all for myself if I could!¡±

    He truly wasn¡¯t a kind soul, only Li Hao found him a good person. This was what Yuan Shuo would do if he was Qiao Feilong. Such was the personality of the old guard of martial masters. Arrogant, unyielding, selfish, and greedy.

    The professor possessed all of these traits; he¡¯d just cultivated his moral character and behaved ethically over the years. Death stared at him in the face then and the way forward was severed. It was when he lost all hope that he epted Li Hao and crafted the image of a benevolent teacher.

    The truth of the matter was, Yuan Shuo was Old Demon Yuan. As someone from the same line of thinking, how would he not understand Qiao Feilong? Thus, he called forplete extermination of anyone rted to Qiao Senior as soon as he formed the idea!

    Not only that, but Yuan Shuo further narrowed his eyes. ¡°We need to massacre them and we need to do so without fanfare. We can¡¯t let too many people know that Qiao Feilong is a powerhouse! He can be a Darkmoon, but he can¡¯t be a Sunre or Sr! That will make people wonder why he stayed in Silver City for so many years.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine if he¡¯s a Darkmoon. A rich Yama tool for fleecing sheep¡ªwhat¡¯s noteworthy of him being a Darkmoon? The only thing he can¡¯t be is a Sunre or Sr, understood?¡±

    ¡°Teacher, do you mean...¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t quite keep up with his teacher¡¯s pace. ¡°That you¡¯re going to go after him right now?¡±

    That was precisely Yuan Shuo¡¯s intention. No hesitation! He started plotting how to do away with all possible witnesses as soon as Li Hao finished talking. This efficiency, this decisiveness, this ruthlessness... No wonder he was Old Demon Yuan!

    ¡°Indecision inevitably leads to trouble!¡± Yuan Shuo snorted. ¡°We know he¡¯s the enemy, so we must pull him up by the roots! I showed mercy back in the day and didn¡¯t kill Ying Hongyue. I let him live and it forced me to hide for the next twenty years instead. Don¡¯t follow my lead!¡±

    Either they did nothing at all, or they did their worst!

    Yuan Shuo looked in the direction of Qiao Mining¡¯s headquarters, falling silent for a brief moment.

    ¡°I can utilize my killing move again and take out Qiao Feilong, but those three Sunres... won¡¯t be easy to handle! I can¡¯t take them on myself and we need to act fast. Are they at the mines?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Then we need to split up!¡± Yuan Shuo intoned. ¡°I¡¯ll go for Qiao Feilong. We need to find another for the three Sunres. There are also other supernaturals to consider, as well as his son. We need to epass all of them! This isn¡¯t something that one or two people can handle.

    ¡°We either stay put, or we take them all out at once in quick battle so no one gets away. Silver City only seems peaceful and quiet on the surface. Who knows how many pairs of eyes are watching us from the shadows?

    ¡°We better make sure that not a word of this gets out, or people might suspect the mines as soon as Qiao Feilong dies. Or we kill them with the excuse that they¡¯remunicating with Red Moon! If that, then we can borrow the Night Watchers to seize Qiao Mining by legal authority!¡±

    Li Hao scratched his head and ran through the possibilities. ¡°Does our branch stand a chance against a Sunre if all of us attack at the same time?¡±

    ¡°Pretty much!¡±

    And that was it. Joint action from Liu Long¡¯s old team and Wang Ming¡¯s new fellows might be barely enough for a Sunre. It was apparent from this just how strong this level of supernatural was.

    The enemy possessed three Sunres, more supernaturals, and also martial masters! They also had a security team in the mines. While that was mostlyprised of mundanes, they were vicious, heartless people that carried hot weapons.

    Hot weapons were permitted as Qiao Mining held the appropriate gun permits and also operated a securitypany under their umbre.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s pretend we don¡¯t know anything.¡± Li Hao¡¯s head was starting to ache. ¡°There¡¯s nothing we can do to them in the short run. In fact, it¡¯s more likely that we make a big mistake instead. Whether if some get away, this turns into a big deal, or it turns into a big deal after they¡¯re all dead, or if we do kill them all... None of those oues are what I want to see.¡±

    The young man leaned toward quietly eliminating his opponents and collecting the benefits with none the wiser. He didn¡¯t want situations to turn into entanglements that everyone was aware of. It didn¡¯t matter how precious the treasure was if everyone knew about it. He didn¡¯t want to be hunted throughout the world!

    Look at the chaos that¡¯d engulfed the central region for the sake of one precious treasure. Srs and above were fighting for it! Li Hao didn¡¯t want to be the next target!

    ¡°We can¡¯t wait!¡± Yuan Shuo refuted solemnly. ¡°You can, they won¡¯t! Qiao Feilong is no fool. He knows that Silver City has be a target of note after a Red Moon Sr died here. The only reason why no powerhouses havee is because they¡¯re all preupied in the central region!

    ¡°But once war slightly abates there, we¡¯ll see heavyweights rush here. Therefore, he¡¯s ying for time. He must be looking for an opportunity to fully open the ruins or kill you for the sword or bloodline...¡±

    ¡°He doesn¡¯t know I still have the sword.¡±

    ¡°Then he wants your blood!¡± Yuan Shuo concluded dismissively. ¡°Do you think he only wants the sword? His goal isn¡¯t necessarily the same as Red Moon¡¯s. What they want might have to do with the trigram in the sky, but Qiao Feilong cares more about the here and now. Thus, he¡¯ll want to open the ruins with your blood more.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, this was very true. Qiao Feilong might not care about the eight trigrams, and he still might not after learning about them. With Red Moon attention in the area, he probably wanted to wring all he could out of this opportunity once and for all.

    ¡°So this means that he isn¡¯t willing to wait even if I am?¡± Li Hao sighed with resignation. ¡°I met him today¡ªhe was quite enthusiastic and polite. Or was that because he thinks I¡¯m a dead man walking?¡±

    ¡°Pretty much.¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°Not bad, you. Did you let anything slip when you met him? Did you pee your pants when you read his strength?¡±

    ¡°How could I!¡± Li Hao grinned as well. ¡°Could I lose face for my teacher like that? Who the hell is Qiao Feilong? My teacher¡¯s killed Srs! Teacher will kill him all the same if he¡¯s one!¡±

    He hadn¡¯t peed his pants, but it¡¯d been a close call.

    ¡°Enough of that empty talk, there¡¯s no point to it.¡± Yuan Shuo frowned. ¡°We should think about how to handle this trouble. It¡¯s going to be quite difficult to eliminate them all with minimum fuss.¡±

    ¡°The Night Watchers?¡± Li Hao asked lowly.

    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°Not unless their Srse! It would take either Hao Lianchuan or Hou Xiaochen... or both of them to ensure the operation is carried out with none the wiser. Hou Xiaochen doesn¡¯t leave White Moon and Hao Lianchuan...¡±

    The professor frowned when he reached this point. ¡°Don¡¯t trust them too much, who knows if they have other ns in mind? I¡¯m not too familiar with Hao Lianchuan. We know of each other, but differences in opinion easily crop up when secrets are at stake. He has a strong backer behind him¡ªthe Night Watchers!¡±

    Those with a substantial backer did not make for easy partners. There was nothing Yuan Shuo and his student could do against the agency if Hao Lianchuan decided to renege on their agreement or break off partnership ties.

    ¡°Ai!¡±

    ¡°Ai!¡± Teacher and disciple sighed in unison. Yuan Shuo looked at Li Hao, Li Hao looked at Yuan Shuo. Both wore gloomy expressions. They were in a pickle!

    ¡°Teacher, don¡¯t you have a few good friends after your years in the martial world?¡± Li Hao asked with such an expression of exasperated disappointment that Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyebrows quivered. ¡°The Sunderers of your era would be Sunres if they made the crossover at the beginning. After so many years, they might even be Srs. Are all of your old friends dead?¡±

    ¡°Nope, Ying Hongyue¡¯s still alive.¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s simple response stoppered the rest of the young man¡¯s words.

    <i>Let¡¯s just pretend I didn¡¯t say anything!</i>

    Ying Hongyue might be stronger than Sr¡ªmore than likely. He was one of the leaders of the three great organizations. His teacher really knew how to choose his friends.

    ¡°Of course I still have a few old friends...¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled, then quickly shook his head. ¡°But it¡¯s because we¡¯re old friends that I don¡¯t want to use profit and gain to test our rtionship. It¡¯s normal for brothers to turn on each other if division of spoils is uneven, not to mention friends. To put it bluntly, old friends can endure life and death together, but rarely can they share wealth!¡±

    He had friends, and some rather strong ones. But he didn¡¯t want to use this to test their bonds. It would be fine if it was just an ordinary ruin, but this one involved the eight great families and Li Hao. His student was at the heart of the excavation, and ughtering him might be required to ess the ruin. Then... his friends were not the ones to call upon.

 Chapter 128: Teacher and Disciple Plot Again (III)

    <h4>Chapter 128: Teacher and Disciple Plot Again (III)</h4>

    What if essing the ruins required Li Hao¡¯s blood, and not just a small bloodletting? Yuan Shuo could resist the urge to kill his student, but his old friends?

    What was a dead Li Hao worth to them??

    Some things didn¡¯t require further exnation to the young man. His old friends might notmit such actions, but Yuan Shuo still had to be on his guard.

    Teacher and disciple sighed again!

    ¡°If we have no other option, we can go to Hao Lianchuan!¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly said after a long while.

    Li Hao blinked. Hadn¡¯t they just said they wouldn¡¯t go to the Night Watchers?

    ¡°This is the backup of backup ns. The Night Watchers are a legitimate organization of the government so they need to follow their own processes. They won¡¯t seek to kill you straight off the bat. They¡¯ll at least discuss the situation and see if they can offer some sort of payment. They¡¯re a bit pedantic!¡± Yuan Shuoughed at them for being fussy, then self-deprecated in the next breath. ¡°It¡¯s because of this obsession with detail that you can look to them if you really run into trouble. They¡¯re the best out of a pool of mediocrity! The Night Watchers are more reliable than others when it reallyes down to it.¡±

    That was the key¡ªthey had no other options!

    ¡°As opposed to creating a full blown mess and attracting the attention of Yama and the other great organizations, we might as well pay a price and have the Night Watchers take action!¡± Yuan Shuo determined. ¡°Even if they take the ruin in the end, they won¡¯t kill you to open it. They¡¯ll at least think of a way...¡±

    ¡°So my death is necessary?¡± Li Hao scratched his head.

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say,¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°Of Course it¡¯s best if you don¡¯t have to die. The Night Watchers probably won¡¯t do anything to you if they im it. Think about it, kid. Do you want the Night Watchers to help, or shall we risk it ourselves?¡±

    A dangerous look glinted in his eyes. ¡°I can try ambushing Qiao Feilong. If I¡¯m sessful, I¡¯ll have enough strength left to deal with those Sunres at the mines and the rest of the superhumans...¡±

    That was exceedingly risky! Li Hao didn¡¯t need to think further before shaking his head. ¡°Then we might as well ask the Night Watchers for help.... Right, teacher, can I... can I give some sword energy to Captain Liu? Maybe he¡¯ll be able to break through to Dominator?¡±

    What if Liu Long also became a Dominator? That would ce him on par with some Sunres, or even make him stronger. Martial masters were hard pressed to triumph over their supernatural counterparts when they were below Sunderer of Hundreds. But once they reached this level andmanded the consciousness, it was Sunres who often fell short.

    ¡°He doesn¡¯t know the aura yet!¡± Yuan Shuo frowned. ¡°If he does and you share the sword energy with him, he might stand a chance of breaking through before it¡¯s exhausted. The key thing is, the guy hasn¡¯t grasped enough aura!¡±

    Liu Long was more reliable than Hao Lianchuan, rtively speaking. Sadly, he was weaker.

    A pensive expression crossed Li Hao¡¯s face. ¡°Aura... I wonder if the chief understood anything after I spoke to him. Things will be much easier if he can sense the aura, absorb sword energy, and rise to Dominator!¡± The young man heaved a sigh. ¡°Teacher, I¡¯ll probe the chief¡¯s intentions. If the circumstances still aren¡¯t guaranteed after the chief breaks through, we can grab Director Hao.

    ¡°Regardless, we can expose some of our aces if it means we can eliminate the Qiaos. We can give up the ruins if ites to that!¡±

    Li Hao held quite an open mind about treasure and loot. It wasn¡¯t his style to pursue wealth at the cost of his own life. The Qiaos very likely had their eye on him. His identity as the heir to the eight families had been exposed after the rains. Perhaps only Red Moon had certain methods to lock onto him prior to that; the Qiaos hadn¡¯t known anything.

    Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°Little Hao, outsiders are outsiders in the end. Do not let anything impede your cultivation! I¡¯m trading for mysterious power of the five elements. When I collect them all, you must focus on training and break through as fast as possible!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s rate of improvement was speedy and he would soon set foot into Sunderer of Hundreds. But overall, his developmentgged behind others by a few years. The earliest supernaturals had been training for twenty. It was very difficult for the young man to catch up. Yuan Shuo and Li Hao needed to employ all methods avable to facilitate breakthroughs at the fastest possible rate. Only then would the young man find his footing in this increasingly turbulent world.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, teacher.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°I¡¯ve been absorbing the scarlet shadow¡¯s power over the past couple of days and have improved some. I can now project my internal force without having to rely on Twice Forged! I can do so through all four limbs, my hands, and I¡¯m still improving!¡±

    He¡¯d neither cked off nor dyed his cultivation despite recent events. Initial Sunderer was to project one¡¯s internal force through the four limbs. He¡¯d already extended that to his two hands, thanks to the scarlet shadow.

    However, he¡¯d pretty much consumed that energy. If Li Hao wished to continue improving rapidly, he needed more resources and treasures. Who knew how long it¡¯d take for his teacher to trade for mysterious power?

    ¡°Both hands and arms?¡± Yuan Shuo clucked his tongue. That was fast! Although thed looked to be initial Sunderer, and not even peak initial, he could already freely project his internal force. It¡¯d only been a few days! The kid might be able to evenly project from all four limbs in half a month if there was sufficient scarlet shadow energy!

    ¡°So long as you haven¡¯t stepped off the gas pedal!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°You can practice the Nine Forged Force more before you make further significant improvements. You¡¯re only Thrice Forged currently, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    ¡°Trash!¡± the professor cursed. ¡°That dog of yours can manage Thrice Forged! Sunderers need to start at four times!¡±

    Li Hao had nothing to say. <i>Teacher, you sound like you¡¯re insulting me and calling me the dog.</i>

    Panther suddenly raised its paw at Li Hao when it heard the old human mention its name. Whether it was to brag or to demonstrate its abilities, it wed threeyers of force in the air! Not only that, but even a fourth shimmered on the edge of existence.

    The young man started. <i>The hell?! Almost four times??</i>

    ¡°Teacher, is Panther peak yer?¡±

    yer of Tens could at most support threeyers, it would take a Sunderer of Hundreds to employ more. Was the dog... growing stronger?

    ¡°Pretty much!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded happily. ¡°I think this dog is almost a Sunderer! But its rate of improvement will slow down after it enters that level. You idiot, you gave it the first brew! The sword¡¯s first instance of energy must be the best after being sealed for so many years. It might even have had some special properties, but you gave it all to the dog!¡±

    The professor couldn¡¯t help cursing as the jade sword¡¯s energy must have been highly potent when it was first released. Sadly, Panther imed all of it and Li Hao only downed the second brewing.

    ¡°It¡¯s different, teacher!¡± The young man was in good spirits. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have realized any of this if it wasn¡¯t for Panth¡¯s discovery! Perhaps I still wouldn¡¯t understand the uniqueness of the sword. Teacher would still be a Sunderer, I would still be mundane. We might both already be dead to Red Moon¡¯s attack.¡±

    Li Hao would never plumb the sword¡¯s secrets without Panther. Yuan Shuo also wouldn¡¯t teach him the Breathing Method of the Five Styles as it would be aplete waste on someone not a yer. If that was the case, the professor wouldn¡¯t make it to Dominator either...

    Every bite and every sip was preordained. Seen through this lens, who was the one who¡¯d benefitted handsomely?

    Panther proudly raised its head, as if showing off that it was the one that¡¯d discovered the unique properties of Steris.<i> Hurry up and praise this dog!</i>

    Li Hao grinned and aped a kick. ¡°Hurry up and be a Sunderer! A yer isn¡¯t good for anything. I was looking forward to you helping me, but you¡¯re of no use whatsoever.¡±

    ¡°Aouuu!¡± The little ck dog¡¯s head drooped. It was very strong, but Li Hao¡¯s enemies were bing stronger and stronger. There was nothing it could do.

    Li Hao left quickly after exchanging a few more words with his teacher and confirming that they would make the first move. <i>Time to chat with the chief! </i>Hopefully he could use the excuse of the Qiaos colluding with Yama to quietly uproot the family without anyone catching on. As for whether or not the Qiaos had ns against him... <i>who cares!</i>

    The young man didn¡¯t think too much. Concealed supernaturals hidden from the public record... Qiao Feilong wasn¡¯t a good guy at all. He could die!

    ......

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s smile faded away after his student left, reced by a heavy sigh.

    <i>Oh my word! I¡¯m a Dominator and can fight Srs, but the kid¡¯s attracting bigger and bigger fish. I can¡¯t improve much in Silver City anymore, it looks like I have to go to the central region.</i>

    Martial masters would eventually disappear into the crowd if they didn¡¯t evolve through battle. He¡¯d been able to rise to Dominator because he¡¯d swept the fournds as a Sunderer and battled countless opponents.

    But now, his foundations were empty.

    ¡°Silver City is not a ce to stay for long... Even in the battle toe, the strongest there will only be a Sr...¡±

    Those above Sr!

    Yuan Shuo craved to witness this level. Not only that, he wished to visit the central region and visit other martial masters. He was first in the Silver Moon martial dao domain, but that didn¡¯t mean there weren¡¯t formidable martial masters elsewhere.

    He¡¯d reigned supreme only in Silver Moon when he was a Sunderer. There had already been Dominators outside the province in his time. Were they still alive and did they yet roam the world?

    It was highly likely they were still alive! Dominators rivaled Sunre. When the supernatural domain rose, it threatened Sunderers, but not Dominators. In fact, thetter group might have walked further down the path of martial dao since they could absorb mysterious power.

    ¡°I should leave after taking care of this matter!¡± Yuan Shuo sighed, worrying about Li Hao. If he holed up here, he would only grow steadily weaker. The supernatural was developing too quickly.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s battle intent abruptly red!<i> Let¡¯s start with the Qiaos!</i>

    ¡°I¡¯ve underestimated you, Qiao Feeling!¡± The image of that smiling tiger rose in his mind. The inwardly cruel man¡¯s strength really hadn¡¯t been detectable before.

    ......

    <i>The Law Enforcement building.</i>

    Li Hao and Wang Ming swiftly made their way to Liu Long¡¯s office when they returned to headquarters. It was time to report in.

    ......

    <i>Inside the office.</i>

    Liu Long leaned back on the chair with a frown, his thoughts inscrutable. He called out when he heard a disturbance, ¡°Come in!¡±

    The two pushed open the door.

    ¡°Are you done?¡± A distracted Liu Long asked in a muffled voice.

    ¡°We visited half of the dojos,¡± Wang Ming swiftly responded. ¡°The Veteris Institute, Gxy Group, and Qiao Mining Industries. There¡¯s a few we¡¯ll visit tomorrow because it¡¯s toote tonight.¡±

 Chapter 129: The Commonalities of Martial Masters (I)

    <h4>Chapter 129: The Commonalities of Martial Masters (I)</h4>

    Liu Long inclined his head. ¡°Were there any supernaturals not on the list?¡±

    Supernaturals and martial masters hadn¡¯t been givenplete free rein in Silver City before the formation of the Night Watcher branch. Liu Long had a list from the Inspectorate. This mission was to register those not on the list.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao responded. ¡°The ones we visited today have some extra martial masters and supernaturals. Their strength is all mediocre at yer of Tens and Starlight.¡±

    As for the Sunderer at Gxy Group, he was on the list too. He didn¡¯t count as an under-the-table superhuman.

    Qiao Mining Industries had only registered three Starlight, no more. No one under Sunderer or Darkmoon was worthy of mention. Liu Long would scan the updates himselfter on.

    ¡°Hmph!¡± snorted the chief. ¡°I hardly believe that with the advancement of the supernatural, these factions don¡¯t have a single Darkmoon? This particr supernatural level has exploded in number across thend!¡±

    The situation wasn¡¯t what it¡¯d been ten years ago! Or rather, Darkmoons had been rare even three years ago. But with the arrival of war in the central region, the supernatural had developed swiftly. Darkmoons were amon sight now. As small as Silver City was, the various corporations didn¡¯tck money. Even superhumans sometimes worked for others on behalf of money. How could these groups not have recruited a single Darkmoon?

    Who did they think they were fooling?

    ¡°Do they think these are still the years of old?¡± Liu Long sniffed coldly. He was a haughty individual¡ªhe wouldn¡¯t have been dissatisfied with Li Hao reaching out to Yuan Shuo instead of thew enforcement team otherwise. That had been their first meeting!

    In Liu Long¡¯s eyes, the dignity of the Inspectorate was to be maintained. These people inly didn¡¯t show him face! They weren¡¯t willing to register their people even with the establishment of a Night Watcher branch. How dare they y sleight of hand like this!

    Wang Ming was more charitable than the new director, or it might be more urate to say that he¡¯d seen his fair share of such action in White Moon.

    ¡°Director,¡± he consoled. ¡°This is normal! tant lies happen all the time even in White Moon. I think it¡¯s tolerable so long as they don¡¯t cause trouble...¡±

    ¡°Which is why White Moon Night Watchers don¡¯t exercise a single shred of authority in the entire province!¡± Liu Long snapped. ¡°Why else would people dare misbehave when facing supernaturals?¡±

    Wang Ming fell awkwardly silent. There were some things that he could not speak further on. Not to mention, the Night Watchers struggled under their share of difficulties. He bbored under this suffering in normal times, and there was nothing he could do but remain quiet when Liu Yan burst out with this criticism.

    ¡°Chief!¡± Li Hao interjected. ¡°It can¡¯t be helped. The Night Watchers are spread thin in the central region, so we need to keep a lower profile in a fringe province. This is normal! Otherwise, no one will have our back if anything happens. I bet this is what upstairs is considering as well.¡±

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Liu Long¡¯s jaw dropped. <i>How are you spouting the same drivel as upstairs after bing a senior officer? You weren¡¯t like this before!</i>

    A general air of discontent circted when the team previously spoke of the Night Watchers, finding the agency to be less than helpful. They didn¡¯t do much when such big affairs urred in Silver City. So thed betrayed them as soon as he was promoted?

    Even Wang Ming regarded his counterpart with contempt. <i>This guy turns whichever way the wind is blowing! How shameless!</i>

    ¡°Chief, did you forget that we¡¯re Night Watchers?¡± Li Hao grinned. Insulting the agency now was to insult themselves! ¡°Since we¡¯re real Night Watchers now, we should maintain their dignity like it is ours. Cursing at them everyday is self denial. It that¡¯s the case, why establish a branch in Silver City?¡±

    Liu Long started, his thoughts straining to catch up. He¡¯d grown too used to his previous life and it was a struggle to adapt to new circumstances. Li Hao was right, they were Night Watchers now. If he continued to sneer at their ipetence, he was sneering at himself. If he didn¡¯t take pride in his position, he wouldn¡¯t meld with the Night Watcher system. How would he help the agency stand with upheld heads and win fear and respect?

    ¡°That¡¯s right... we¡¯re Night Watchers now!¡± Liu Long sighed emotionally, suddenly disinterested in the proceedings. He waved his hand, indicating their dismissal.

    Wang Ming turned on his heel without a word, turning back with surprise when he found that Li Hao didn¡¯t move.

    ¡°I have some other things to report,¡± whispered the young man. He winked knowingly.

    Wang Ming understood! The tenth member! It looked like Li Hao wanted to make this report alone. He couldn¡¯t get involved.

    Forget it, he wouldn¡¯t ask any questions in case he identally betrayed the kid.

    Wang Ming left without another word, the very picture of cooperation.

    ......

    Liu Long¡¯s forehead creased into a frown as soon as they were alone. ¡°Is there something else?¡±

    ¡°Chief, there¡¯s some hidden supernaturals among the ces we visited.¡±

    ¡°You discovered them?¡± Liu Long was taken aback.

    ¡°No, Wang Ming and I discovered them together. He has a special ability...¡±

    Liu Long looked skeptically at the young man. <i>Seriously? Then why isn¡¯t he here making the report himself?</i>

    ¡°He doesn¡¯t want to say anything because he¡¯s too full of it. He thinks someone as great as a White Moon native shouldn¡¯t have to consort with bumpkins like the chief!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Liu Long continued to regard Li Hao with skepticism. ¡°You¡¯re not making this up, are you?¡±

    Li Hao sometimes seemed like a walking bag of ulterior motives and nothing good, but sometimes was simple, honest, and dependable. He was veryplicated and very perverted.

    Li Hao leered without a word.

    <i>The kid¡¯s definitely making this up! </i>Liu Long cursed.

    ¡°Speak.¡±

    ¡°Chief, let me first ask¡ªdo we eliminate strongholds of the three great organizations if we find them in the city?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Liu Long barked. ¡°They¡¯re not all bad, but any in Silver City at the moment are bad! Have you forgotten the Demon Hunter motto of punishing the wicked and eliminating evil?¡±

    How could Li Hao question this?!

    ¡°To safeguard justice!¡± Li Hao nodded with a solemn expression. ¡°To uphold justice, maintain peace, and eliminate evil. The Demon Hunter spirit will never be extinguished!¡±

    ¡°Go on then,¡± said a mollified Liu Long. ¡°Have you discovered traces of the three great organizations?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°A Yama branch!¡±

    ¡°Not Red Moon?¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s Yama. Sis Liu confirmed it, the Qiaos!¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s eyes darted around as he took a minute to collect his thoughts. Being aware of his deputy¡¯s situation, he¡¯d guessed it would have something to do with Liu Yan as soon as Li Hao mentioned the Qiaos.

    ¡°Are you sure?¡± The man frowned. ¡°Liu Yan had her suspicions before, even I did, but there was no evidence to support or refute it either way. You must know that we are justice, but that doesn¡¯t mean we can execute without a crime!¡±

    Justice still resided in his heart. They needed basic evidence and logic to kill someone¡ªif the absence of such, they could not take action. If they did, they would be no different from supernaturals that butcher innocents.

    Thus, even though Liu Yan once said there might be something afoot at the Qiaos, which resulted in his own investigation, he gave up when he returned empty-handed. Liu Long even snuck into the Qiao residence and stood right next to Qiao Senior, quietly observing the other for a few days. Only when he was certain nothing was amiss with them did he give up the chase.

    The death of Liu Yan¡¯s husband could only be categorized as an ident. Of course, the killer remained on their wanted list.

    ¡°No evidence is needed.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Just one point¡ªQiao Feilong is a powerhouse and sheltering several others. Is that enough?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re joking!!¡± Liu Long snorted. ¡°If a yer... no, a yer who hasn¡¯t trained in many years counts as a powerhouse, then I cannot refute what you say. I¡¯m too familiar with Qiao Feilong!¡±

    ¡°Are you close to him, chief?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Liu Long smirked. ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way, I¡¯ve seen every inch of his body!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped!<i> You... you guys have... Can I say this or not?</i>

    ¡°I once stood at the foot of his bed in the dark and stared at him for several days...¡±

    ¡°Chief!¡± The shocked young man understood. ¡°It¡¯s amazing that you¡¯re still alive!¡±

    <i>Oh my god.</i>

    <i>You followed a Sr and stood at the foot of their bed for several days. This can only mean one thing¡ªQiao Feilongid there for you to watch because he wanted to remain hidden.</i>

    <i>Otherwise, he would¡¯ve pped you dead at the beginning. A Sunderer standing right next to a Sr for days and even watching him pee... You¡¯re seriously perverted.</i>

    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Liu Long frowned. ¡°You mean he¡¯s concealed his strength? Impossible!¡± Being no fool, he grasped the implications. ¡°He had no supernatural ripples and while it¡¯s difficult to visibly identify a martial master¡¯s level, you can tell a thing or two from the skin¡¯s toughness and luster. It¡¯s not as specific, but some conclusions can be drawn.¡±

    He trusted his judgment.

    ¡°A Sr!¡± Li Hao intoned.

    ¡°......¡± Liu Long froze and stared dumbly at Li Hao. ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°A Sr!¡±

    ¡°Ah...¡± Liu Long fought to process the revtion. He stood up in a daze, looking back at Li Hao. He wanted to say something, but stopped himself.

    ¡°My teacher¡¯s sure of it!¡± Li Hao swiftly answered, knowing what the captain wanted to know.

    With Yuan Shuo endorsing the identification, Liu Long understood that this was true. He could doubt Li Hao, but there was no need to suspect Yuan Shuo. If Yuan Shuo said so, then it must be so.

    <i>A Sr! </i>Liu Long blinked dazedly. Silver City had a Sr in residence, and one of its own! Indeed, if Qiao Feilong was a Sr, then he was the strongest in the city.

    Liu Long had been worried that Silver City was ted for migration and how they¡¯d find it impossible to gain footing without any powerhouses. But now, the city had one!

    What a pity that their powerhouse hadn¡¯t stepped forward when the city was in danger. He was absent when Red Moon attacked and he was absent when the other supernatural cases urred.

    Qiao Feilong!

    A Sr who concealed his identity and even permitted Liu Long to keep him under surveince without revealing anything amiss. The death of Liu Yan¡¯s husband absolutely had something to do with the Qiaos.

 Chapter 130: The Commonalities of Martial Masters (II)

    <h4>Chapter 130: The Commonalities of Martial Masters (II)</h4>

    ¡°And here I always thought I was the strongest in Silver City,¡± Liu Long took a self-deprecating breath. ¡°But first it was Yuan Shuo, now it¡¯s him... howughable.¡±

    ¡°My teacher is different!¡± Li Hao dered. ¡°I promise that my teacher only just broke through a few days ago¡ªwhen I entered yer of Tens. He didn¡¯t hide it on purpose!¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s eyes widened. Really? He¡¯d thought that Yuan Shuo had broken through a long time before and was just hiding his strength all this time.

    ¡°Teacher was probably weaker than chief before this!¡± Li Hao was aware of the knot in Liu Long¡¯s heart. The chief even suspected that Yuan Shuo had been aware of Little Yuan¡¯s death and just hadn¡¯t bothered to care. The professor only became involved when Li Hao was dragged in.

    But this wasn¡¯t the case!

    ¡°I would never hide something like this!¡± Li Hao said solemnly. ¡°If teacher was a Dominator and did nothing when Little Yuan died.... I would not have this kind of rtionship with him! I would hate him, not admire him! I admire him because if teacher was a Dominator then, he would¡¯ve killed whoever was attacking Little Yuan! Do you believe me, chief?¡±

    ¡°I do!¡± Liu Long nodded and took a deep breath, recovering his calm. ¡°A Sr eh... interesting. And Yama having something to do with this.

    ¡°I¡¯ll report this and see if I can get Director Hao toe to us. Director Hou won¡¯t be able to leave White Moon City. Since these guys dare conceal their identities, I have both personal and official reasons to uproot them!¡±

    And that was the response from the branch director of the Silver City Night Watchers. Whether it was Liu Long or Yuan Shuo, martial masters were sometimes quite diabolic and vicious. They didn¡¯t need evidence or other arguments. The moment that Li Hao identified the other as a Sr in concealment, their first thought was to strike first, strike fast, and strike them dead. Everything could wait until after the enemy was dead¡ªthey wouldn¡¯t be wrong, in any case!

    And if they did happen to be wrong... Well, that was the other side¡¯s fault for concealing their strength. An expert that was of no help whatsoever to Silver City, one that didn¡¯t lend a hand or even inquire after the city when danger descended, was worth just as much dead. Liu Long and the others wouldn¡¯t regret killing a character like that.

    ¡°If we can kill him ourselves, teacher won¡¯t want any of the thousand cubes of mysterious power that will result from a Sr,¡± Li Hao said after thinking for a while. ¡°That can all go to the team, including the three Sunres!¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s eyes shot wide open! He suddenly understood multiple things. One, the other side had an additional three Sunres. Two, Li Hao had discussed this with Yuan Shuo. They wanted to take care of this under the table and share none of the benefits with anyone else!

    Of course, this couldn¡¯t be all there was to it. Other factors had to be in y. Liu Long¡¯s thoughts raced rapidly...

    ¡°Qiao Feilong has a ruin under his control!¡± Li Hao muttered before the man had a chance to think things through. ¡°Or possibly a ruin! Whatever it is, it likely belongs to my n, so teacher and I want only that and we can¡¯t have too many people learning of it.¡±

    ¡°But you can tell me??¡± Liu Long¡¯s temples throbbed. He <i>knew</i> something was wrong when the kid mentioned doing the deed by themselves! He hadn¡¯t thought Li Hao would be so forthright as to just say the reason why.

    A ruin!

    A ruin that belonged to the eight families... now he understood what the young man meant.

    ¡°Chief is trustworthy! I trust teacher the most in Silver City, then chief!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Hah!¡± Liu Long sneered. ¡°Forget it, I don¡¯t need that. Have fun yourself, don¡¯t drag me into your games. I want to live a few years longer. What level am I? A Sunderer! It¡¯s one thing if there¡¯s one Sr, but you say there¡¯s another three Sunres?? Li Hao, are you getting too full of yourself?¡±

    The kid seriously had!

    <i>Kill those guys by ourselves? And you want me to work with your teacher? BAH! I¡¯m cannon fodder!</i>

    ¡°Cannon fire!¡± Li Hao thought for a moment. ¡°We can fire cannons at the mountains in the outskirts, that won¡¯t affect anything. I¡¯ve also thought about the issue of the three Sunre. So long as we¡¯re willing, we can just throw weapons of mass destruction at them!

    ¡°The justification is simple¡ªcollusion with Red Moon! We won¡¯t mention Yama at all. We¡¯ve offended Red Moon as it is, so what¡¯s a little more offense? Yama will never admit that they¡¯ve got people in Silver City, so they can only suffer in silence.

    ¡°Chief, can hot weapons kill Sunre?¡±

    Liu Long sank into contemtion. ¡°It¡¯s... possible if they¡¯re caught off guard. But Sunres wield a little bit of aura too. Aura is a concept hard to exin, so let¡¯s just put it as they have a sense of danger.

    ¡°They¡¯re so fast that if they possess any other supernatural abilities, such as the ability to move through earth, they¡¯ll escape in the blink of an eye. Cannon fire will have limited effect. Of course, they¡¯ll be heavily injured all the same if they suffer a direct hit. They might not die, however.¡±

    Sunres were highly perceptive; cannons weren¡¯t so fast to the point that this level of supernatural couldn¡¯t react. Such was one of the limitations of hot weapons.

    If weapons of mass destruction that could cover a dozen kilometers at once were deployed, then even Sunres would find it difficult to survive. This scale of weapon only appeared on battlefields in which both sides were gravely wounded and mutual destruction was an option. It wasn¡¯t a good oue for either side if not.

    Take the central region, the Night Watchers had utilized a city annihtion weapon in one such conflict and level a soaring mountain into t terrain. That was the kind of suitable territory. If fired within a city, countless people would apany the destruction of buildings and property.

    Li Hao brainstormed briefly. ¡°Chief, would you be able to cope with the three Sunres if you broke through to Dominator?¡±

    ¡°It depends on their strength, if they¡¯re mid Sunre or whatever. If we martial masters are all as strong as your teacher, then of course we can take them on. The key thing is that not everyone¡¯s like your teacher.¡±

    Liu Long didn¡¯t think he¡¯d be greater than Yuan Shuo even if he did break through to Dominator, not to mention that he couldn¡¯t.

    ¡°Chief, have youprehended the aura?¡±

    ¡°Not yet... but I¡¯m beginning to!¡± Liu Long furrowed his brows. ¡°I used too much forcest time and injured my arms. I haven¡¯t had the chance to give it a try and my blood qi is slightly depleted. I¡¯ll need some time to recover.¡±

    He agitated his blood the entire night when facing the scarlet shadow, and he¡¯d relied on his strength as a Sunderer to ignore his wounds. Otherwise, he would¡¯ve long been crippled. Li Hao didn¡¯t even know that the chief was gravely injured because Liu Long didn¡¯t permit his condition to show.

    Thus, he spoke up when he saw that the young man nned for him to join this operation. It would be the gravest trouble if Li Hao suffered from a misjudgment due tock of information. Liu Long could stand against regr Sunderers, but he would most likely lose against Fullmoons or Plenilunes.

    ¡°You¡¯re beginning to?¡± was all that Li Hao cared about.

    Liu Long inclined his head. ¡°I looked into the origins of the Nine Forged Force. The key to the nineyers resides in eachyer being stronger than the previous! Their origin is quite clear¡ªthe waves!¡± He didn¡¯t keep anything to himself since he¡¯d taught the Nine Forged Force to Li Hao. ¡°Have you ever seen the sea?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head. Silver City was an ind city!

    ¡°Then you need to go take a look. There¡¯s a sea shore near White Moon, so I¡¯ve seen the sea.¡± Liu Long took a trip down memoryne. ¡°When waves churn over the sea¡¯s surface, they start off as small spray that is propelled forward by waves to the rear. Each wave moves in roughly the same way, yet when two waves areyered over each other, they erupt with stronger force! A tidal wave can result when sufficient waves areyered, such is the might of the heavens!¡±

    The man recounted the rest with some fear. ¡°I once saw an enormous wave that was over one hundred meters tall! It started off as a regr wave, but whenpelled by the wind, it was like internal force building upon each other in our blood flow. A series of waves stacked on top of each other to raise one that was over hundred meters tall! It pounded arge boulder to pieces and swept through the beach!

    ¡°I was a yer then, but still felt that I couldn¡¯t survive in such an environment,¡± Liu Long sighed. ¡°When your teacher spoke of aura, I immediately thought of that day! White-crested waves surging and leaping to the sky, bearing an aura to destroy everything! I want to imitate theyering of waves and smash onto my target as if splitting bamboo, but my body doesn¡¯t allow me to do so!¡±

    He shook his head. ¡°I¡¯ve never used Nine Forged because my body didn¡¯t let me, but now I wonder if I couldprehend the aura of the method if I tried? It¡¯s a pity that I understood it toote,¡± he sighed again. ¡°But I still want to try. Maybe I can use mysterious power to help me recover after resting for a while. Remember, Li Hao, you better go see the real sea when you canyer your force nine times. Observe the true waves! Speaking of, are you capable of Twice Forged now?¡±

    He¡¯d never asked because he didn¡¯t think it likely. It hadn¡¯t been long since Li Hao came in contact with the method.

    ¡°I am!¡± Li Hao grinned.

    ¡°Seriously?¡± Liu Long started.

    Li Hao punched without another word, erupting with a secondyer of force at almost the same time. He didn¡¯t project his internal force, just simply moved his arm.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Liu Long also reached forward and grabbed the young man¡¯s fist, shaking slightly as he did so.

    ¡°You¡¯ve learned it??¡± he asked in disbelief. Thed really had learned Twice Forged? That was too fast!

    He didn¡¯t mind the dog that¡¯d quickly grasped Thrice Forged. A dog that could be more than it was was a very perverse existence. Li Hao, on the other hand, was just a human! He¡¯d learned it so quickly?

    Li Hao¡¯s grin brooded. <i>I know Thrice Forged too, want me to show you?</i>

    <i>Nah, that¡¯d probably scare the chief out of his wits.</i>

    The addition of another Sunderer who knew Thrice Forged wouldn¡¯t affect the battle situation much at this point. The young man woulde clean otherwise. Since it wouldn¡¯t, there was no purpose in saying anything.

    ¡°Genius!¡± Liu Longplimented from the bottom of his heart. ¡°You can deploy Twice Forged! This means you¡¯re in the midtter stage of yer of Tens. That¡¯s so fast!¡±

    A yer could deploy Thrice Forged at most. Since Li Hao could manage Twice Forged without much pressure, he¡¯d inly entered mid tote stage of this level.

    ¡°This isn¡¯t important, chief.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s very important!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s really not,¡± Li Hao insisted. ¡°Chief, my teacher has a treasure that can heal others with special effect. Do you stand a chance of breaking through to Dominator if your wounds are fully healed?¡±

    ¡°My injuries aren¡¯t the typical type...¡± Liu Long frowned.

    ¡°Can they be worse than my teacher¡¯s? His heart was almost pierced through.¡±

 Chapter 131: The Commonalities of Martial Masters (III)

    <h4>Chapter 131: The Commonalities of Martial Masters (III)</h4>

    ¡°......¡± There was nothing Liu Long could say; he suddenly recalled in this moment that Yuan Shuo had indeed suffered from a punctured heart in the past. It was somehow fully healed now, and he¡¯d risen another martial master rank. Everyone thought that he¡¯d done so through a special method or slowly recovered to good health.

    But it was the work of a treasure?

    ¡°If your teacher¡¯s heart can be fully repaired, then so can my injuries. It¡¯s just...¡±

    ¡°No ifs, ands, or buts!¡± Li Hao dered solemnly. ¡°If chief says that you¡¯re confident of rising to Dominator, I can have my teacher stand guard and heal your injuries. With two Dominators in the ranks, everyone will know how strong the Silver City Night Watchers are! We will triumph in all directions and make an example out of these guys!¡±

    <i>This guy seems more like the director than me,</i> Liu Long grumbled to himself. He hesitated after looking at the serious Li Hao.

    ¡°Chief, martial masters should continue to press forward with indomitable will after entering Dominator of Thousands! Being overcautious is not the path to sess! My teacher said this to me once and I treat them as absolute words of wisdom. I hereby gift them to you, chief!¡±

    ¡°Pressing forward with indomitable will...¡± Liu Long¡¯s eyes danced around and he raised an eyebrow. ¡°I am confident if my wounds can be healed! My physique has reached the necessary requirements since I¡¯ve absorbed so much mysterious power. All Ick is theprehension of the aura and the fact that I can¡¯t use my full strength since I¡¯m injured.

    ¡°If I can recover and your teacher is willing to give me some pointers at critical moments, I¡¯m sure I can be a Dominator!¡±

    He suddenly brimmed with confidence!

    Li Hao was pulling random phrases out of a hat. For martial masters, marching inexorably onward was only to be expected after they set foot into Dominator. If they felt they didn¡¯t stand a chance, then they really wouldn¡¯t as that would mean the aura would fail to materialize.

    Liu Long suddenly recalled the wave that he saw all those years back. Indomitable and unyielding! It was just soft and gentle water, but it sted forward like a cannonball. Unflinching and undeniable. Once it started shrinking back and faded into the sea, the wave¡¯s aura began to disappear and leave it asnguid water again.

    ¡°Chief, if you can enter Dominator of Thousands...¡± Li Hao suddenly chuckled. ¡°When my teacher became a Dominator, he used his aura to guide me into yer. You and I both practice the Nine Forged Force. Perhaps your breakthrough will also help me, this is an act of mutual gain!

    ¡°I think my teacher wouldn''t mind exerting himself a bit more if I can also improve. I¡¯m his final disciple, after all!¡±

    He and Yuan Shuo both practiced the New Book of Five Styles, while he and Liu Long both practiced the Nine Forged Force. Thus, Li Hao could sense both auras and could guide others. As for other people, they might be able to perceive a thing or two, but wouldn¡¯t be able to help much since they were not of the same school of teaching.

    Therefore, what he said wasn¡¯t false. If Liu Long seeded, Li Hao did think that it would help with his own future breakthrough to Dominator. Experiencing two kinds of aura beforehand was a precious opportunity that urred only once in a thousand years.

    ¡°I have no heir and the Nine Forged Force is almost lost in my generation!¡± Liu Long said somberly. ¡°Since you¡¯ve already learned Twice Forged.... I won¡¯t take you for my disciple. However, you are the martial heir of my family! If I can set foot into Dominator and grasp the aura of the Nine Forged Force, I will naturally not keep anything from you.¡±

    He had no descendants and Li Hao was his martial dao heir! Since he was the heir, the young man should experience the might of the Nine Forged Force.

    ¡°Also, if I fully recover and set foot into Dominator... I only said I couldn¡¯t rival your teacher because I was injured! My abilities are lessprehensive than your teacher¡¯s, but if my method erupts in full force, your teacher will not be able to stand up to it!

    ¡°Nine Forged is theyering of nine times!¡± Liu Long suddenly dered confidently. ¡°Your teacher borrowed a few powerful supernatural objects to kill that Sr, but I might not need to! I am sure I can break through a Sr¡¯s defenses, but of course I am less than your teacher in other areas.¡±

    He didn¡¯t mind revealing his weaknesses, but he also didn¡¯t want his family¡¯s heritage method to be belittled, especially by someone who¡¯d inherited two styles such as Li Hao. He wanted to tell the young man that <i>while your teacher is strong on a holistic level, I¡¯m stronger when ites to offense!</i>

    Li Hao thought rapidly¡ª<i>break through a Sr¡¯s defenses? Really?</i>

    Upon further consideration, that might actually be true. After all, theyering of internal force nine times may not be any less than de energy. His teacher was indeed aprehensive powerhouse¡ªthe strength of the New Book of Five Stylesy in their all-epassing bnce, but his teacher had also said he wanted to practice the Nine Forged Force as well. That method was outstanding in terms of explosive power!

    Of course, Yuan Shuo never mentioned having Li Hao teach him. Martial masters ced a high importance on heritage. They wouldn¡¯t brashly pick up someone else¡¯s knowledge by themselves, even if itplemented their own.

    ¡°Chief, do you want to give it a try?¡± Li Hao asked excitedly. ¡°Sess means that we¡¯ll be able to strip them of their mysterious power, no matter what level of aplishment you achieve. Sis Liu, Chen Jian, and Wu Chao will stand a chance of crossing over to the supernatural! There¡¯s more than one thousand cubes of mysterious power from that Sr alone. With those three Sunres... it might be two thousand cubes total!¡±

    Killing supernaturals for their power was the dumbest move possible, but for those sorelycking, this was the most direct and straightforward idea. Two thousand cubes was an astronomical amount.

    Li Hao¡¯s mind flew through calctions. If his teacher went against Qiao Feilong and the chief went against the three Sunres... No, it¡¯d be best if the entire department went with Liu Long. They should use hot weapons to soften the enemy first¡ªit¡¯d be best if they could injure the enemy as thus.

    The enemy was most easily killed when they scurried for shelter.

    All of Silver City¡¯s Night Watchers would greatly increase in strength if the operation seeded. There wasn¡¯t much issue with employing hot weapons. They just needed to eliminate these people before other powerhouses sensed the weapons. No one would care how many hot weapons were deployed, and people usually didn¡¯t think much about those who could die to hot weapons.

    True experts wouldn¡¯t fall to hot weapons, unless it was a special time and ce.

    Liu Long¡¯s emotions surged.<i> Kill a Sr and Sunres! Set foot into Dominator! </i>His mouth turned dry and he looked around in a transfixed state. He¡¯d found it difficult to kill Darkmoons a few days ago, but now the kid invited him to kill Srs and Sunres.

    <i>Am I crazy or is he crazy?</i>

    Liu Yan and the others were right¡ªLi Hao was an immensely perverted guy deep in his bones.

    ¡°In that case, give me three days!¡± Liu Long intoned. ¡°We¡¯ll brainstorm a way to take care of this ourselves if I can break through in three days! If not, we can¡¯t dy things either. Qiao Feilong must have ulterior motives in mind. We cannot warm a snake in our embrace and permit him free rein. We go to Director Hao if I don¡¯t seed after three days!

    ¡°I believe that he¡¯ll take a stand, but I do understand that you have your reservations. Just remember, Li Hao, that something is yours if you live to im it. If you are not... then nothing is yours.¡±

    Those were the same sentiments that Yuan Shuo had expressed. The young man suddenly felt that the thoughts of martial masters were very simr. If someone like Liu Long wasn¡¯t at the Inspectorate, he¡¯d be a local tyrant in the outside world.

    Martial masters possessed strong self control. they didn¡¯t lose their senses of self despite enormous power due to obtaining power step by step. They were very clear about what they needed and wanted.

    Perhaps this was the greatest difference between martial masters and supernaturals¡ªconviction!

    Martial masters seemed to have more abundance and rity in their conviction. While Li Hao hadn¡¯te in contact with too many supernaturals yet¡ªWang Ming was the one he was most familiar with¡ªhe did seem to perceive ack of strong conviction.

    <i>Three days!</i>

    Liu Long felt that he could break through in three days. If not, hope was too dim and it was better to let the Night Watchers take care of the matter then.

    ¡°Good!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°This matter should not be dyed, chief. Why don¡¯t we go see my teacher now?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s not be in such a rush!¡± Liu Long chuckled. ¡°That will raise too much attention! You¡¯ve already gone a few times today, so it¡¯s not the best timing to visit now. Plus, I also need to make some preparations. Let¡¯s go tomorrow!

    ¡°I will pay an official visit to Yuan Shuo tomorrow, extending him an invitation to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony in three days! Inviting everyone to attend the ceremony will be a perfect distraction. It will rx Qiao Feilong¡¯s guard. He¡¯s not a supernatural, so he¡¯s not on the list of attendees. That¡¯s the best time to kill him!¡±

    He¡¯d already settled on a date!

    ¡°The ceremony will take ce at night! Night Watchers, y¡¯know, are suited to operate at night. That will perfectly exclude some unpredictable factors within the city!¡±

    Nighttime was suited for killing.

    Li Hao nodded, not saying anything further. He turned and left, suddenly calling back, ¡°Aren¡¯t you worried that I¡¯m lying to you, chief? That the enemy might be stronger, or that teacher might move against you after we kill Qiao Feilong?¡±

    Wasn¡¯t Liu Long the least bit worried about this? That his own side would turn on him?

    ¡°Am I afraid of that?¡± sneered the man. ¡°If I was that much of a scaredy cat, I¡¯d be long dead! I have some aplishments to my name in Silver City only because I am willing to trust others!¡±

    He either didn¡¯t trust someone, or didn¡¯t doubt someone he trusted. It was because of that he didn¡¯t kill anyone when traitors infested thew enforcement team. Mu Sen had to oversee the deed for him.

    Liu Long¡¯s pros were apparent, as were his significant cons. Yuan Shuo was a more cautious and prudent sort. To put it bluntly, he was more treacherous and cold-blooded.

    That was right, cold-blooded! Of that, Li Hao was well aware of! His teacher being good to him didn¡¯t mean he was the same with others. Li Hao knew that he received this treatment because his teacher had lost all hope three years ago and treated him as a direct lineal disciple, teaching the young man all of his knowledge. In the past, this kind of disciple was the equivalent of a son, or one even more important than a descendant.

 Chapter 132: The Commonalities of Martial Masters (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 132: The Commonalities of Martial Masters (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao never suspected his teacher¡¯s intentions and Yuan Shuo treated the young man as his own son. Such was the meaning of a direct lineal disciple and the final disciple. Meanwhile, Liu Long valued rtionships more.

    This meant that Yuan Shuo seemed more benevolent and congenial on the surface while Yuan Shuo was more coldly aloof. Thus, most people¡¯s first impressions were that Liu Long was harder to approach and more entric.

    Li Hao suddenly grinned. Sometimes, it was quite interesting to see through to the true nature of things. Liu Yan wasn¡¯t as ardent as she seemed, Liu Long wasn¡¯t as remote, his teacher wasn¡¯t as pleasant, and he wasn¡¯t as naive and simple.

    Ah, humans!

    ¡°Then... I congratte us in advance, chief!¡± Li Hao left with a smile. Everyone was different, but one thing they were simr in was that they were all extremely decisive and acted without hesitation. If they said they would kill someone, then they would kill someone!

    Liu Long couldn¡¯t even be bothered to conduct an investigation. There was no point to that. The confirmation of such powerhouses existing was the best evidence. Kill first, then talk!

    That was theirmonality.

    As Li Hao walked out of the office, he mused over one question¡ª<i>what else should I do for this operation?</i>

    He wasn¡¯t strong enough to join the fight against the Sr or Sunres. He would just add to the team¡¯s troubles instead! Sniping a target out in the wild was doable, but hecked the qualifications to kill these people.

    However, Li Hao wished¡ªor craved¡ªto do something.

    ¡°What can I do?¡± The young man thought of something after a while. He pinched the jade sword around his neck; this was his greatest source of confidence in the days toe. He could heal his teacher or Liu Long in a timely manner if they were hurt. If he stabbed his heart at a critical moment, would it explode with greater power now that he was a Sunderer?

    Would it be stronger after it was unsealed?

    All of this was unknown, but perhaps it could be tried!

    He could try to unseal the sword ahead of time¡ªit might bring him greater aid. If he was stronger and surprised the enemy with a blow at a crucial moment, that might result in unexpected positive effects!

    An innocent smile blossomed on Li Hao¡¯s face. The smile persisted when he ran into Li Meng and Hu Hao along the way¡ªa very simple and pure smile!

    The two supernaturals were too embarrassed to greet the young man, but they smiled at him when they thought of how he was their little junior brother. They¡¯d originally felt that Li Haocked sufficient qualification to be their superior, but they felt better after seeing such a sincere smile directed at them. Perhaps this was better, they were all part of the same big family. That made Li Hao better than that Liu Yan.

    ......

    Silver City continued to be quiet and peaceful. No one fathomed that three people had so decisively and resolutely made the decision to start a ughter. Qiao Feilong was even more unaware that the Li Hao who¡¯d shown him a friendly face that afternoon and epted a hefty present would be discussing how to kill him by the end of the day.

    ......

    <i>In an even further direction.</i>

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan met several people in secret to issue severe warnings.

    ¡°No one shall instigate trouble in Silver City before the excavation! I¡¯m sure that everyone understands how important these ruins are. The Night Watchers are willing to share them with you because we wish to peacefully resolve these problems! But if anyone dares create problems in Silver City or Silver Moon during this time, we will show them no mercy!¡±

    Various powerhouses standing in the surroundings expressed their standing on the matter, including troublemaker Red Moon from a while back.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry! Everything can wait until the end of the excavation!¡± dered their representative with cold arrogance. Their organization would not brashly take action now, for fear of missing out on the expedition to the ruins.

    As for the Night Watchers... no one felt that they would be an instigator. Silver Citycked the requisite strength; it was the same case for the Night Watchers here. The agency¡¯s mission as a whole was to uphold order. Many times, the decrepit Night Watchers only passively responded to events.

    ¡°That would be for the best!¡± Hao Lianchuan furrowed his brows. ¡°Whether it¡¯s the war in the central region or its negotiations, none of it affects our partnership here! Silver Moon does not rank high among the list of provinces and it does not hold any advantages. We hope to raise our overall profile through this cooperation!¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± assented a powerhouse with a hellishugh. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Director Hao, we won¡¯t cause trouble without reason. Not to mention, Red Moon¡¯s behind Silver City, not us Yama. Director Hao has nothing to worry about from us!¡±

    ¡°Hah!¡± sneered the Red Moon delegation.

    ¡°I don¡¯t care what you guys get up to,¡± Director Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with their bickering. ¡°This is a warning. The Night Watchers may not be able to overturn you, but no one will be sleeping through the night if we truly bring out our full force!¡±

    With that, Hao Lianchuan disappeared on the spot, a little more at ease. Silver City should be fine in the short term after this warning. Everyone still wanted Yuan Shuo to lead the expedition. Therefore, Li Hao should be safe during this period of time.

    <i>I¡¯ve done my best... Li Hao shoulde to White Moon after the excavation is over. We can guarantee his safety here. </i>Hao Lianchuan smiled. As for the possibility of Li Hao and the others stirring up trouble, the possibility never urred to him.

    ......

    <i>Silver City.</i>

    <i>Peace reigned over thend.</i>

    The rainy season was over and consecutive days of rain finally abated. It was hot again.

    <i>Joyous Heaven Residences.</i>

    This was where Li Hao¡¯s current residence was located. The neighborhood was small and home to affluent citizens. There were only so many denizens and a fantastic coverage of greenery. It made for much purer air in the morning.

    Li Hao ran through a boxing technique early in the morning. The experience was entirely different and so veryfortable in a spacious environment. His closest neighbor was several hundred meters away. No one would hear him if the disturbance wasn¡¯t great.

    <i>The New Book of Five Styles!</i>

    These days, Li Hao practiced the Five Styles on the outside and the Nine Forged Force inside. The Five Styles were techniques, the Nine Forged Force was an internal method¡ªtheyering of internal force. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles was the foundation from which internal force was born.

    Currently, Li Hao experimented with the transition between breathing methods. Martial masters seemed less than supernaturals in this regard. Due to theirte development, there was only one absorption method for supernaturals¡ªthe Energy Induction Method. There were certain variations to it, but they didn¡¯t need different breathing methods.

    One method was also sufficient for all supernaturals.

    Meanwhile, internal force required a different breathing method for each technique. It was much moreplicated!

    Li Hao was attempting to switch between the breathing methods for the Five Styles and Nine Forged Force, preventing being limited to only one in critical moments. Being able to use only the Nine Forged Force toyer his internal force and unable to use the Five Styles for his techniques was a detriment to his battle strength.

    ¡°Is there really no fundamental method to them all?¡± Li Hao contemted as he ran through a boxing routine.

    His punchesyered upon each other like the waves. His legs tensed and he pushed off, but stumbled on his way to leaping into the sky. The fowl style operated sluggishly¡ªa problem resulting from different breathing methods.

    Li Hao swiftly switched to the appropriate breathing style and deployed ck Tiger Heart Gouge. However, theyered internal force in his body began drifting apart. With the cessation of the Nine Forged breathing method, theyers could not gather.

    The young man continued without discouragement. He¡¯d asked his teacher about his idea¡¯s feasibility and received the answer that it would be very difficult to consider both sides, but one could try merging them.

    Take the Breathing Method of the Five Styles! Given that the method employed five different animal styles, there ought to be five different breathing methods. However, Yuan Shuo managed to consolidate one singr breathing method to epass all five.

    If Li Hao was of a mind to incorporate a sixth style and reconsolidate the five so that the breathing method could be used for both methods, then he would be a grandmaster of martial dao for the new generation. Yuan Shuo had done so before!

    Of course, this required a vast sum of knowledge, not simply imagination. The Nine Forged Force may not be a suitable match for the Five Styles, but methods were created by people. Yuan Shuo¡¯s brain had held so much information that he¡¯d employed a portion of ancient tomes to synthesize the New Book of Five Styles that he was so proud of. It was also why he treated it as strictly confidential.

    ¡°Although I¡¯ve memorized a lot of the ancient books and received personal tutge, I¡¯ve just gulped it all down without thought. I haven¡¯t digested it and turned it into my own knowledge, so there¡¯s no way I can create the New Book of Six Styles as things stand!¡±

    Li Hao was well aware that he couldn¡¯t. Perhaps his teacher could, but Liu Long wasn¡¯t willing to teach the Nine Forged Force to Yuan Shuo. Li Hao could not exceed his authority and rashly impart the method. This was a grave taboo in the path of martial dao.

    He ran through the boxing routine primarily to digest some of the scarlet shadow¡¯s power within his body. He felt that he could soon project internal force from every inch of his limbs. While his rate of progress was fast, he still found it too slow.

    This was his breakout period¡ªenergy from the scarlet shadow, jade sword, and mysterious power were umted in his body. He was just digesting them. Once he concluded this stage and no longer had the sword and scarlet shadow to pull from, his rate of improvement would sadly decrease.

    Silver City was a very dangerous ce for him. Reaching Sunderer was not enough to set him at ease.

 Chapter 133: Understanding Aura (I)

    <h4>Chapter 133: Understanding Aura (I)</h4>

    <i>Smack smack!</i>

    Li Hao switched from the Nine Forged Force after running through hisst iteration and focused on the Five Styles. He threaded through the garden like a monkey, agile and light on his feet. He trained his gaze at the front door.

    Several hundred meters directly across from his front yard was Qiao Peng¡¯s residence. Qiao Feilong didn¡¯t seem to live there. There was a ball of light in Qiao Peng¡¯s house, one that was visible from several hundred meters away. Radiance akin to the full moon flooded Li Hao¡¯s eyes. He could tell that this was the Plenilune that he¡¯d seen at Qiao Mining Industries!

    <i>So that guy¡¯se here.</i>

    Was he here to surveil Li Hao? Who cared. He demonstrated only the strength of yer of Tens if he summoned the ringing of bones and meridians. No one would care as it didn¡¯t pertain to the overall situation. In fact, there would be a problem if he wasn¡¯t a yer¡ªhe would be too much of a trash talent that way and unfit to be Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple.

    It was time to report to work. Li Hao quickly tidied up, showered, changed, and walked out of hisplex.

    ......

    <i>Outside the garden.</i>

    Qiao Peng¡¯s car was already parked at the door. It was the Plenilune driving today; he kept such a low profile it was as if he was invisible. The car window rolled down.

    ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li!¡± called out a beaming Qiao Peng. ¡°I didn¡¯t show you good hospitality yesterday and my father lectured me as well. I spent the night thinking about Liu Yan¡¯s matter and realize there¡¯s plenty of other fish in the sea. There¡¯s no need to offend themissioner inspector on ount of one woman!

    ¡°If you¡¯ll show me some face, I¡¯d like to treat you tonight. I¡¯ve got a table reserved at one of the best restaurants in town¡ªit¡¯s better to get rid of enmity than to keep it alive. I¡¯d like to apologize to both Vice Captain Liu and Commissioner Inspector Li. How about it?¡±

    Li Hao flicked a nce at him and irritably waved the man off. ¡°Forget it, I have no interest in befriending young master Qiao. If I¡¯m to befriend anyone, it should be Qiao Senior!¡±

    He rode away on his bike, the meaning behind his words quite clear. <i>Qiao Peng, you¡¯re not worthy. I¡¯d be willing to exchange a word or two if your old man was here.</i>

    Qiao Peng frowned, but quickly recovered his calm. He watched Li Hao leave before asking, ¡°Uncle Chen, he¡¯s a yer, right?¡±

    ¡°Yup,¡± the driver grunted and took a look as well. ¡°He might¡¯ve be a yer a few days ago. I sensed some hesitation in his practice this morning. Frequent interruptions means that he¡¯s not too familiar with the boxing technique. It looks like Yuan Shuo has indeed skipped over Li Hao for his martial dao heritage.¡±

    Li Hao had switched between breathing methods multiple times, causing stuttering in his routine. As a Plenilune, the driver could naturally sense the pauses. This was the hallmark of a rookie!

    It was perfectly reasonable for Li Hao to struggle with the problem as he was a martial master newbie. Anyone familiar with the young man would know that he¡¯de in contact with only surface level trappings before this.

    Qiao Peng chuckled, unsurprised by the response. ¡°He became a deputy director thanks to Yuan Shuo¡¯s influence¡ªthe Night Watchers were only taking action that most benefited them. A new yer like him, one that relied on mysterious power to reach his level of strength, leading some Darkmoons? I wonder what they really think.¡±

    The driver didn¡¯t answer.

    ¡°But the guy is diligent enough despite how cocky he is. He reports to work on time and clocks out when appropriate. He¡¯s an interesting weirdo!¡±

    As a Night Watcher deputy director, Li Hao still adhered to strict work hours and took a bike to the office... he really was a weirdo!

    Of course, it might be because he¡¯d yet to learn the lifestyle of this echelon of society, being newly promoted and all.

    Qiao Peng lifted a hand as the young man disappeared into the distance. The car engine turned on and the vehicle headed for Qiao Mining Industries. He¡¯d greeted Li Hao just to make it easier for a close look. There were now so many pairs of eyes on the young man that there was no need to get overly close. It was just as well that he didn¡¯t want to go to dinner. All Li Hao did was scoff at Qiao Peng. While thetter could keep his head, he couldn¡¯t help the resentment that brewed inside.

    ......

    <i>The former Law Enforcement building.</i>

    Li Hao reported to work on time, walking straight to Liu Yan¡¯s office instead of his own. He hadn¡¯t seen the vice captainst night; it was a rare sight to see her leave work early.

    ¡°Yo, is the sun rising from the west today?¡± Liu Yanughed when she saw the young man. Li Hao voluntarily visiting her? What a rare sight this was!

    Other than when he first reported for work at thew enforcement team, the guy hadn¡¯te to her office at all. What brought him here today?

    ¡°I¡¯m here to see you, sis.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen you for an entire night¡ªyou¡¯ve gotten prettier!¡±

    ¡°Pah!¡± Liu Yan spat at a confused Li Hao.<i> The heck? I¡¯mplimenting you. This is called a pleasantry, what are you getting mad for?</i>

    Liu Yan couldn¡¯t help but curse with amusement when she noted his confusion, ¡°What kinda crap is that? How am I prettier after a night? That¡¯s not apliment, that¡¯s more like an insult! Big sis here is a widow and should be getting more gaunt by the day. Prettier after one night? Do you know what the problem with that is?¡±

    <i>Er... is there a problem with that? Whatever, there¡¯s a problem if you say so.</i>

    ¡°What reminded you of me today?¡± Liu Yan smiled winsomely and set the topic aside.

    ¡°I have a present!¡± Li Hao raised the box in his hand. ¡°I visited Qiao Mining Industries yesterday and Qiao Feilong gave me ten cubes of mysterious power to give to you. It¡¯s his apology.¡±

    Liu Yan¡¯s expression froze stiff! She nced sharply at Li Hao.

    ¡°Sis, there¡¯s no reason to turn it down!¡± The young man remained smiling faintly. ¡°I¡¯ll take it if you don¡¯t want it.¡±

    The woman furrowed her forehead and said faintly after a while, ¡°You take it then!¡±

    She was unhappy, but didn¡¯t say anything. Some things were set in stone after they were epted, yet certain things could not be epted! What did the Qiaos imply with this gift?

    It was blood money!

    How could Li Hao ept it?? He knew the full story and she was the one to tell him all about it! Liu Yan was irate, but she forced her temper down. Ten cubes of mysterious power... since he¡¯d taken them, then he could keep them.

    Li Hao scuttled near Liu Yan and said softly, ¡°I¡¯m worried we won¡¯t have a chance to ept presents in the future if we don¡¯t do so now!¡±

    The woman raised a brow. What was that supposed to mean?

    ¡°Sis, us Night Watchers are the government¡¯s supernatural organization. We are a legitimate agency of authority. Is anyone allowed to pull a fast one over us? Is there no vengeance we do not pursue?¡± Li Hao needed to exin the details to Liu Long, but there was no need to do so with Liu Yan. All that needed to be said was one sentence¡ª<i>we take whatever vengeance we must!</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t do anything brash!¡± Liu Yan hissed. ¡°If we rm Yama after already offending Red Moon...¡±

    Li Haoughed before she could finish. ¡°Sis, you¡¯re too far behind the times! What <i>about</i> Yama? You probably don¡¯t know that some of the Night Watcher Heaven Favored in the central region offed Yama¡¯s grandson! And took the organization¡¯s most precious treasure! They¡¯re beating each other to bits over there. That is the source of the war in the central region!¡±

    Liu Yan and the others didn¡¯t know because the flow of information was quite sluggish in fringe territory such as Silver Moon. There was no helping it, particrly as Silver City was on the border of this remote province. Being newly promoted, Liu Yan and the others weren¡¯t even familiar with the Night Watcher situation in White Moon, to say nothing of the central region.

    They only knew that it was a mess outside, but nothing about the specifics.

    The vice captain¡¯s expression shifted drastically and she looked at Li Hao with burgeoning excitement. ¡°You mean... that the Night Watchers and Yama are already fighting each other?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Li Hao nodded emphatically. ¡°What Wang Ming said to me should be true. He¡¯s a highly prized genius among Night Watchers and a very important character in all of Silver Moon. Regr news won¡¯t escape his notice.¡±

    Wang Ming wasn¡¯t part of the senior council, but he had potential. Upstairs wouldn¡¯t hide this from him since they thought highly of him. He¡¯d be aughingstock if he ignorantly treated Yama as one of their own people.

    The look in Liu Yan¡¯s eyes deepened; she was bing so agitated that she could barely contain herself. ¡°So you mean... we¡¯re... going to... move against Yama?¡±

    <i>Against the Qiaos?</i>

    ¡°Indeed.¡± Li Hao inclined his head. ¡°We haven¡¯t fully decided yet, so don¡¯t get too worked up, sis! So do you want the mysterious power? If not, I really will take it.¡±

    ¡°I want it!¡± Liu Yan answered promptly, obvious joy in her face. ¡°You¡¯re right, we may not have a chance to be presented with any in the future if this is true, so I want it!¡±

    ¡°Sis, did you finish absorbing all of the mysterious power you were distributedst time?¡± A merry Li Hao handed the storage box over.

    She hadn¡¯t received much, just twenty cubes. Liu Yan¡¯s absorption speed should be faster after breaking through to Sunderer. Who knew if she finished her allotment?

    ¡°Pretty much, there¡¯s just a few cubes left. What, are you done with yours? Surely not?! Liu Yan looked at the young man with surprise. Was he done with his? He was a yer who¡¯d received thirty-two cubes. As fast as he could absorb energy, he wouldn¡¯t do so everyday, would he?

    Well, given how he¡¯d used the energy on hisst attempt, that could very well be possible. If that was the case, he was basically eating mysterious power.

    One had to know that after joining the Night Watchers, Li Hao¡¯s grade resulted in only one cube a month. That was a veryrge amount already¡ªhis sry wasn¡¯t sufficient to feed him.

    ¡°No, I don¡¯tck mysterious power,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I¡¯m just asking. It¡¯s fine if you¡¯ve finished it all, sis. If not, don¡¯t hold back! We might have other sources soon and strength doesn¡¯te from being frugal!¡±

    He was concerned that Liu Yan would use mysterious power sparingly and overly scrimp and save. If this operation seeded, his agreement with the chief meant that his teacher wouldn¡¯t demand too much mysterious power. In fact, there might not be any taken away the team. What Yuan Shuo wanted was the ruins.

    Given Liu Long¡¯s style, everyone on the team would receive mysterious power then.

    ¡°When do we do it?¡± Liu Yan asked after some thought.

 Chapter 134: Understanding Aura (II)

    <h4>Chapter 134: Understanding Aura (II)</h4>

    ¡°In a few days.¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡±

    ¡°Chen Jian and Wu Chao have recovered from their injuries and have been absorbing energy over the past couple of days. I don¡¯t know if they¡¯ve made the crossover or be Sunderers, but they stand a high chance of breaking through,¡± Liu Yan remarked.

    Those two had also received theirrgest distributions of mysterious power ever. If they didn¡¯t ascend to the supernatural domain, then they had hopes of bing Sunderers. As both Chen Jian and Wu Chao had absorbed some jade sword energy, their physiques were much enhanced.

    After their process wasplete, everyone¡¯s strength would have increased as a whole.

    ¡°That will be for the best!¡± Li Hao smiled. If everyone became a Darkmoon or Sunderer, then the entire team would¡¯vepleted a full round of breakthroughs. They might all be useful in the field toe.

    ......

    After he left the box behind, Li Hao exchanged a few more words with Liu Yan, then went off to find Liu Long. Today, the branch director was going to pay an official visit to Yuan Shuo, the first of Silver City. Liu Long himself was the most senior executive of Silver City¡¯s supernatural agency, so this kind of visit was necessary.

    ......

    At 9am sharp, Li Hao drove Liu Long to the Veteris Institute. The car weaved to and fro along the way, causing headaches in those keeping an eye on the young man. Li Hao¡¯s driving skills made it extremely hard to follow him! It was impossible to determine which direction he would drive next!

    Thankfully, some people knew the destination. Apparently Liu Long was going to officially call on Yuan Shuo today. Both of them were martial masters, but very rarely met each other before. It was sad that Liu Long and Yuan Shuo shared an obscure past, that the two used to be estranged.

    Some were eager for a show to start and for the two to erupt into a fight. That would be just their wishful thinking.

    Both parties worked for the Night Watchers now. Although Yuan Shuo had sessfully broken through, he shouldn¡¯t sh with Liu Long. This visit was supposed to be preparation for the ribbon-cutting ceremony in two days¡¯ time.

    ......

    <i>The Veteris Institute.</i>

    Liu Long didn¡¯t notify the Institute beforehand or arrive with great fanfare, he was just here to call upon Yuan Shuo. While they had other goals in mind, Liu Long was still gravely solemn in the car. He didn¡¯t pay attention to how Li Hao was driving the vehicle and was silent for the entire ride.

    ¡°Chief, there¡¯s no need to be so nervous,¡± Li Hao cated as he drove. ¡°My teacher is very easy to talk to...¡±

    Liu Long flicked a wordless nce at him. It wasn¡¯t his first time seeing the professor¡ªthe two had met many times before. But an official visit? This might be the second. The first had been when his father brought him in hopes of Yuan Shuo epting him as a disciple. The drawbacks of the family¡¯s Nine Forged Force were too numerous; Yuan Shuo¡¯s Five Styles was a notable method that nourished the body.

    His father had hoped that Liu Long could join Yuan Shuo¡¯s discipline. The former had almost been ready to retire as his arms were gravely injured to the point in which he couldn¡¯t wield a spear at full strength.

    Liu Long still recalled how despairing and helpless his father had been when Yuan Shuo rejected him. Liu Hao hadn¡¯t wanted Liu Long to continue practicing the Nine Forged Force or even walk the path of martial dao! Yet Liu Long knew that he was Silver Spear Liu Hao¡¯s son. The Silver Spears were known throughout the province. If he didn¡¯t train, his family would be exterminated by enemies as soon as his father died.

    Thus, when Liu Hao returned home, he taught the Nine Forged Force to his son with a veryplicated mix of emotions. It wasn¡¯t an easy road to walk, and once a practitioner set foot on it, there was no way back.

    The car stopped.

    Liu Long awoke from his memories and nced at the yard in front of the house. He took a deep breath before opening the car door and alighting.

    The gate to the yard was already open. Yuan Shuo stood inside, right by the gate. He looked smilingly at Liu Long.

    The director drew close, but a towering wave of aura pressed down on him as he approached the yard. His footsteps slowed while his boots sank into the ground. He raised his head to look at Yuan Shuo.

    The professor remained smiling and didn¡¯t say a word. His eyes did all the talking for him.<i> If you can¡¯t even walk into my yard while facing my aura, then I don¡¯t believe you can be a Dominator!</i>

    <i>This is a test for Dominator of Thousands! Are you fit to be one if you can¡¯t pass even this? There¡¯s no need to waste time here if you can¡¯t do so!</i>

    Liu Long¡¯s gaze was coolly remote. He tensed his foot, raised it, and stepped forward again.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The tile beneath his feet split open. Li Hao easily strode by his side as usual. He could sense his teacher¡¯s aura, but since it wasn¡¯t aimed at him, it didn¡¯t have an effect. Having sensed it once before, the young man didn¡¯t find it too strong. He was focused on Liu Long.

    Each of the director¡¯s steps was taken with effort¡ªthe gap between Dominator and Sunderer was exceedinglyrge! Peak Sunderer Liu Long found it difficult to progress in the face of Yuan Shuo¡¯s aura!

    Li Hao suddenly seemed to hear the sound of waves. Indeed, wavespped by his ear. He tilted his head to see Liu Long exploding withyer uponyer of internal force. Powerful force surged out of him like a river overflowing its banks. It withstood the aura and enabled him to set foot into the yard.

    A soundless contest!

    Li Hao was rather envious in this moment.

    Indeed, the young man envied Liu Long that he had the right to enjoy such treatment. His teacher had never tested him in this way as Li Hao had a ways to go before he reached this level.

    Li Hao paused and stood behind Liu Long. A faint aura rose from the bottom of his heart as overwhelming pressure descended from the sky. He purposefully walked behind Liu Long so he could sense teacher¡¯s aura in action¡ªone that was on the offensive instead of epassing the subject.

    ......

    ¡°Oh?¡± Yuan Shuo raised a brow and regarded his student. Thed was certainly interesting, he wanted to give it a try!

    Although Liu Long was shouldering nearly all of the aura, the slightest seepage was enough to overwhelm Li Hao since he was yet toprehend the consciousness. Yuan Shuo ignored the young man. He could try if he wanted. Observing a real aura would help him and at the very least, facilitate Li Hao to understand what it meant to be a true Dominator.

    Yuan Shuo remained focused on Liu Long. He could also hear the waves! Liu Long seemed to have attained some understanding of this level, but his aura was... too weak. The professor raised an eyebrow.

    It was then that Liu Long roared and stomped his foot, splitting the earth. Layers of force exploded from his arms and traveled down his body. His trench coat split around his arms, revealing blood-sttered limbs!

    Indeed, they were usually covered in blood and went unnoticed since they were frequently inside a trench coat.

    Liu Long¡¯s arms rippled like the waves, but arge amount of blood seeped out each time they moved. His arms could not endure the strain! The Nine Forged Force method was too strong and the director¡¯s constitution too weak inparison.

    Thrice Forged... Four... Five... When he reached sevenyers, his muscles trembled seven times and blood shot out with a <i>bang!</i>

    Disappointment dawned on Liu Long¡¯s face. He couldn¡¯t hold on! He couldn¡¯t sustain eight or nineyers. He was theoretically capable of it, but his body didn¡¯t permit him to fully deploy the true strength of the Nine Forged Force. He was also a few meters away from Yuan Shuo and loathe to give up like this.

    <i>You thought I was too dumb to be your disciple and now I still can¡¯te near you even at my level of mastery. Is my family¡¯s heritage method really so much more inferior to your Five Styles??</i>

    ¡°Hup!¡± he grunted. Eightyers of internal force!

    <i>Crack!</i>

    It wasn¡¯t his blood vessels, but his bones that seemed to be faltering. Tendons bulged on his arm¡ªno, that was a blood vessel devoid of liquid. Liu Long forced Eight Forged into existence!

    He split apart Yuan Shuo¡¯s aura with a punch and continued forward.

    Li Hao was beet red. He took a step forward as well, but the aura was growing stronger and stronger. He fully sensed the difference between Dominator and Sunderer¡ªthey could not be mentioned in the same breath!

    He was only experiencing a tiny bit of aura that Liu Long wasn¡¯t blocking, but it was enough to make him feel like he was going to split apart! Thankfully, his physique was incredibly durable. There was no sign of blood oozing out of him. It was more psychological pressure than anything.

    ¡°Humph!¡± he grunted and ceased operating the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. He switched to the Nine Forged Force instead¡ªoneyer, twoyers, threeyers!

    <i>Thrice Forged!</i>

    Li Hao concentrated the internal force on his legs instead of his hands. He broke the tiles when he stomped down and took a step forward. Damn the feeling was sweet!

    ¡°Do you wish to keep trying?¡± came Yuan Shuo¡¯s voice. ¡°Your hands will be crippled after nineyers!¡±

    Liu Long halted, unwillingness shining out of his eyes. He clenched his bloody hands tight as he looked at Yuan Shuo. Did he dare try nineyers?

    He didn¡¯t!

    It wasn¡¯t that he was afraid of the pain, death, or being crippled. It was that he¡¯d just established a Night Watcher branch. If he lost his battle strength so quickly, he would let down quite a few people.

    ¡°Hmph!¡± The snort was a mixture of defiance, anger, and frustration! Liu Long clenched his jaw tight and remained where he was. What kind of emotions should he bring to bear against the guy in front of him?

    <i>Yuan Shuo!</i>

 Chapter 135: Understanding Aura (III)

    <h4>Chapter 135: Understanding Aura (III)</h4>

    ¡°The waves churn through heaven and earth...¡± came Yuan Shuo¡¯s voice. ¡°Nine Forged Force... Liu Long, even the waves can be angry!

    ¡°People say that a tidal wave is the fury of the sea! What might of the heavens is there in just the waves? Only with a tidal wave is there true might! You¡¯ve never seen one! It breaks apart mountain and earth, churning through thend!

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s sea is an internal sea. It''s too small, too weak! You should go out and take a look at the real sea outside the province. There¡¯s a real sea there with real tidal waves. I once saw a tidal wave rip through the coast and turn a massive city into floodwater! The tallest buildings were toppled and the strongest martial masters were ripped apart!

    ¡°One against thousands? A walking god?¡± Yuan Shuo sighed with emotion. ¡°In that moment, the tidal wave will tell you what it means to be one wave against <i>millions!</i> No matter how strong your weapons are and how powerful your body, you are crushed to dust when the wave ms into you!¡±

    A walking god could kill one thousand at once, but a tidal wave could instantly demolish a city of millions.

    Liu Long frowned with thought. He¡¯d encouraged Li Hao to go see the world, but it was Yuan Shuo who said that he knew too little and his knowledge ran too shallow. A real tidal wave wasn¡¯t thus!

    ¡°Elder Yuan, although I can see a tidal wave for myself... my body... is unlikely to hold up...¡±

    ¡°Have you ever seen the sea destroyed by a tidal wave?¡± Yuan Shuo smiled.

    The response sent Liu Long into a daze. Could the sea be destroyed by a tidal wave? What did that mean?

    ......

    Li Hao was also contemting behind the director. He¡¯d never seen the sea before, but he had ake. Could a wave in ake destroy the pool of water? No!

    <i>What I¡¯ve seen before are allkes. </i>His teacher was a pedagogue and wouldn¡¯t mention this for no reason whatsoever.

    ¡°Wave... tidal wave... internal force... aura...¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes darted around rapidly. A surge of internal force swelled from his body. Internal force originated from the body and Sunderers could project it outward.

    The Nine Forged Force was a strain on the body because it contained vibrant internal force. If waves floated on the surface, could internal force beyered on the surface?

    As Li Hao thought through this, he subconsciously released a surge of internal force. A second surge was hot on its heels and he operated the Nine Forged Force, wanting toyer the two together. However, they quickly dispersed.

    Projecting inward to out could not aplish Twice Forged.

    <i>Why?</i> Li Hao asked himself. Whether it was the sea orke, they were in endless motion. They could beyered on the surface, so why not internal force? They were of the same body! Whether it was internal force or the physical body, they all originated from the same source.

    <i>The body as bridge?</i> Li Hao considered his arms and thought back to an ancient tome he¡¯d memorized. It spoke of the body as a bridge to erect the gate of heaven and earth. Inside and outsidemunicating in unison, the body as the source...

    He didn¡¯t quite understand it still, but partialprehension seemed to hover at the edge of his mind. He retracted his internal force and no longer projected it. He couldn¡¯t grasp the knack!

    Li Hao extended an index finger, sending a faint surge of internal force through it. A second surge projected from it and settled on top of the first. The two tendrilsyered together with extreme difficulty.

    Inspiration struck the young man. He couldn¡¯tyer internal force outside his body because the avable surface area was too vast. That resulted in internal forceing in contact with too many surfaces and was easily dispersed. But what if he shrank the surface area to the size of a finger?

    Anotheryer of force shot through his finger. If his maniption of force was fast enough, why couldn¡¯t it beyered outside the body? If the subsequent surge of force formed before the previous one dissipated, why wasn¡¯t it possible?

    The thirdyer!

    His internal force broke with a sharp crack and swirled into a tiny vortex. Deep in thought, Liu Long whipped his head back when he heard the sound. His expression changed drastically at the sight of Li Hao making his second attempt. One surge of internal force, a second, a third...

    <i>Thrice Forged!</i>

    Sword qi shot out of the young man¡¯s finger with a muffled bang!

    Lost in contemtion, Li Hao thought of a secret art recorded in an ancient tome¡ªLethal Force Point! Sending cutting sword qi out from one¡¯s fingers!

    He hadn¡¯t thought much of it when he first saw it, but now he shot out a ray of internal force from his fingertip. It cut into the ground and left a small hole.

    Liu Long¡¯s eyes widened when he saw the move. Projection of internal force! Not only that, but his internal force wasyered <i>outside</i> of the body...

    The man¡¯s jaw dropped as he stared at Li Hao. <i>Sunderer!!</i> The young man was a Sunderer and could utilize the Nine Forged Force outside the body! How was this possible??

    In this moment, Liu Long fully understood Yuan Shuo¡¯s meaning. The waves could not destroy the sea and he was the sea. His internal force was the waves, so there was an inherent problem with which his internal force was destroying himself.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Liu Long murmured, sorrow springing forth from the bottom of his heart. He suddenly looked back at Yuan Shuo and lowered his head. ¡°When Elder Yuan said I was too stupid to be epted as his disciple, I refused that assessment and felt that my potential was decent. Now that I''ve seen Li Hao''s actions today, I finally realize... just how stupid I am!¡±

    He looked down at his feet with unspeakable dejection and sadness.

    <i>So it turns out that I really am dumb. Li Hao understood many things with just a few words from Yuan Shuo and can evenyer his internal force outside his body... I am... ashamed. Comparison is not only the thief of joy, but the thief of life. There really is a difference in potential between people.</i>

    Li Hao came back to the present and opened his mouth to speak, then quickly shut it again. He felt a bit awkward since not all the credit went to him. He¡¯d just read a few old books and memorized strange trivia. That was why the Lethal Force Point urred to him so readily. Liu Long had never encountered these before, causing deficiencies in his level of culture and knowledge banks!

    This wasn¡¯t innate potential, just the demonstration of learned knowledge.

    Yuan Shuo likewise looked at Li Hao with a strange look and burst out intoughter. ¡°My student is passable! Pleasee in, Director Liu. You should have gained something from this experience!¡±

    Liu Long nodded and looked at Li Hao again, suddenly inclining his body. ¡°My thanks!¡±

    Agog with surprise, Li Hao wanted to say something in return, but the director had already stepped into the yard. He had an outline of what he needed to pursue. Oftentimes, just a thin barrier needed to be pierced before enlightenment was imminent. Today, Li Hao pierced that barrier for him.

    The young man scratched his head with awkwardness and some regret.<i> Why did I project my internal force for no good reason? How am I supposed to hide my strength now that chief knows I¡¯m a Sunderer?</i>

    What a pity!

    Yuan Shuo led the way with a small smile, but cockiness gleamed out of the depths of his eyes. <i>Let¡¯s see how arrogant you can be now, Liu Long! My disciple alone canpletely knock you off your perch. You wouldn¡¯t ept it when I said you were dumb¡ªyou ept it now, don¡¯t you?</i>

    Behind him, Liu Long soothed over his ruffled ego. He¡¯d already gained a lot from this visit before even conversing with Yuan Shuo. Perhaps he did stand a chance of breaking through to Dominator today. The precursor to that was he was able toyer internal force nine times outside his body and truly grasp the aura.

    ......

    <i>The Yuan living room.</i>

    Yuan Shuo and Liu Long respectively sat in the host and visitor seats. Li Hao did not have the right to sit among them as he was Yuan Shuo¡¯s final disciple. Hierarchy and seniority was very much observed at a time like this. Regardless of whether or not Liu Long was his supervisor or subordinate, Li Hao was only qualified to stand at a time like this and serve tea.

    Such was custom!

    In the supernatural world, strength was king. They bypassed many rules and customs observed by martial masters. There was no right or wrong, just a difference in style. To venerate only strength andck even the decorum between teacher and disciple was too barbaric and primitive for many martial masters.

    Li Hao first poured tea for his teacher, then for Liu Long. With that, he stood to the side and waited for them to discuss their matters at hand.

    Liu Long nced at the young man, then at Panther sprawled not too far away. He suddenly wanted tough! <i>So Ick a disciple. Howe the dog isn¡¯t being sensible and pouring a cup of tea for me? I¡¯ve taught it martial methods, and earlier than Yuan Shuo!</i>

    Liu Long had indeed passed on the Nine Forged Force to Panther¡ªnot just the technique, but the method in full. He¡¯d taught the dog up to Thrice Forgedst time!

    Silly dog!

    ......

    All Li Hao knew was that Liu Long first looked at him, then looked at Panther. He blinked, then felt awkward again. What was that supposed to mean? That he was the same as Panth?

    The resigned young man didn¡¯t react. <i>So your thoughts can also twist and turn like that, huh chief! And here I thought you were honest and frank!</i>

    Yuan Shuo brushed the surface of his tea with the teacup lid and took a small sip. He ced the cup down to regard Liu Long. ¡°Li Hao¡¯s exined the matter to you, correct?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°If you break through, can you fight three Sunres with the strength of a new Dominator?¡± Yuan Shuo cut straight to the chase. ¡°It¡¯s not that this old man thinks less of you, I know full well how strong the Liu family¡¯s Nine Forged Force is. But apart from that?¡±

    Liu Long frowned.

    ¡°Are you fast?¡± Yuan Shuo asked with a faint chuckle. ¡°Can you fly? How many steps can you take through the air? How will you chase them if they can bend the earth or fly? In all of martial dao, speed is the only factor that cannot be mitigated. Perhaps that saying is too absolute, but what if one of the three is adept at speed and can get away? Are you going to kill them through the air with nineyers of force?¡±

    Liu Long opened and closed his mouth at multiple times, ultimately finding himself unable to answer. He couldn¡¯t!

    ¡°This old man does not measure up to you in terms of explosiveness, of that there is no question. But I win in terms ofprehensive ability! I can give chase, I can flee. I can attack and I can defend. When ites to the offensive power that Ick, my treasures can make up for it.

    ¡°And you?¡± The professor looked at Liu Long. ¡°What if I pay the enormous price to help you cross over to Dominator, but you cannot even handle three Sunres. If you let them go, that exposes me and Li Hao. Will you be able to shoulder the consequences of your actions?¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s face shifted rapidly through a series of expressions and he shook his head. ¡°I cannot!¡± He swallowed all of his previous grandiosity. Indeed, how should he react if the enemy was skilled at escape? The Liu Nine Forged Force was most versed in frontalbat, it was best if the enemy met him toe-to-toe and didn¡¯t run. That was the Liu preferred type of opponent¡ªsee who died when they both flung themselves at each other!

 Chapter 136: Li Haoâ€™s Aura (I)

    <h4>Chapter 136: Li Hao¡¯s Aura (I)</h4>

    ¡°Liu Long, you¡¯re a martial master. You should understand even if my student doesn¡¯t!¡± Yuan Shuo was very practical. ¡°You know what it means to help someone cross into Dominator of Thousands, to be a so-called walking god. You know what it entails for the martial master rendering the aid.

    ¡°This idiot disciple of mine tells me to lend out a secret treasure and heal your wounds. You, too, know how difficult it is for a martial master to recover from years of umted injuries. How many martial masters have died at this step? It¡¯s easy for him to speak of this when he doesn¡¯t know the value of what he offers. Those who are not industrious do not know the importance of being thrifty! All he needs to do is say a few words!¡±

    Yuan Shuo snorted with bemusement. ¡°And he made the offer that all of the mysterious power can go to you? Are you kidding me? I can make an announcement right now that I¡¯ll help someone break through to Dominator of Thousands in return for them killing three Sunres for me. I ask you, Liu Long, won¡¯t all peak Sunderers in the provincee running to me and beg for the chance?

    ¡°And some of them will have alreadyprehended the aura, making it easier to help them than you!¡±

    Eyes wide, Liu Long nodded. ¡°Elder Yuan is right! Just that alone is sufficient to win the undying loyalty of a martial master devoted to martial dao! They will wholeheartedlymit themselves to the cause even if death is a possibility!¡±

    Yuan Shuo was correct. Guaranteeing Dominator would entice all martial masters who still worked toward a brighter future. The professor was spot on when he said just that benefit alone should be enough to have Liu Long ce his life on the line.

    ¡°I can personally forgo any distribution of mysterious power, but if the others are involved, I hope I can im some for them. Not too much, just ording to their contribution.¡±

    Off to the side, Li Hao nced at his teacher and forcefully kept his mouth shut. It¡¯d been his teacher who said to give the mysterious power to Liu Long, but he¡¯d suddenly changed his mind. What did his teacher have in store?

    ¡°I don¡¯t need that bit of energy. In fact, you might need it more, so it doesn¡¯t matter!¡± Yuan Shuo remained as coolly collected as before. ¡°I say all this just to let you know that you should not take this for granted. My student may be unaware of the particrs, but you do!¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dare!¡± Liu Long rumbled. ¡°I did not think too much about it before, so I have indeed fallen short in some areas. My apologies for the oversight, Elder Yuan! It is part of our duties to conduct this operation and some personal grudges are mixed in as well. I should not be taking any additional benefits, but sadly, I am ipetent and find it difficult to be up to the task as a Sunderer!¡±

    He truly hadn¡¯t thought everything through enough. He¡¯d been shocked and overwhelmed by Li Hao mentioning that he could obtain thousands of cubes of mysterious power. After Yuan Shuo pointed all this out, the director subconsciously did find it slightly inappropriate.

    ¡°As a fellow martial master and the fact that you may soon be the second Dominator in Silver Moon, we should be frank with each other.¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°Our lines ofmunication should be open so that we do not sh with each other and sow the seeds for discontent in the future!¡±

    ¡°Elder Yuan speaks truly!¡±

    ¡°The ruins will go to Li Hao!¡± dered Yuan Shuo. ¡°You and I will split the mysterious power! Li Hao will not share anything else we find, that goes to us alone. Of course, if you find it unfair that Li Hao takes the ruins...¡±

    ¡°Not at all!¡± Liu Long answered firmly. ¡°Although Li Hao has not officially bowed to me as his master, he¡¯s already reached Thrice Forged in the Nine Forged Force. He counts as having inherited my family¡¯s martial legacy. As you know, Elder Yuan, the Nine Forged Force has never been taught to outsiders. In that case, Li Hao growing stronger is the oue I desire as well!¡±

    Yuan Shuo inclined his head with a smile.

    ¡°It¡¯s good that you agree! For martial masters like us, a martial heir is more important than anything else. We can set the rest aside for now, I will help you regain full health. Your arms must be the first focus as they are too damaged. As for whether or not you canprehend the aura of the Nine Forged Force after they are healed, that is up to you. If you can smoothly break through to Dominator, then our partnership can continue. If you fail, then everything we said just now was just bullshit!¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Liu Long nodded and took a deep breath. He was both expectant and nervous. The state of his arms was the umtion of years of practice. Did Yuan Shuo really have his ways to treat them?

    The man didn¡¯t know, but since Yuan Shuo had agreed to their coboration, then he could give it a try. If it was a sess... then... Liu Long couldn¡¯t contain his agitation.

    ¡°Alright, we have no time to lose, let¡¯s begin right away!¡± Yuan Shuo waved his hand and pped Li Hao on the back. ¡°Keep a secret lookout for us and order a few dishes. Tell people that I am setting out a spread for Liu Long. No one will dare peek in on us then!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao quickly agreed and walked out of the house, rubbing his neck. The little jade sword was gone¡ªit looked like his teacher had decided to draw on the treasure himself.

    There was no need to reveal that it belonged to Li Hao and that Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t actually doing the director a favor. One should always be on guard against potential harm from others. While neither Li Hao nor Yuan Shuo felt that something would go awry with Liu Long, they still didn¡¯t want to say that the treasure was Li Hao¡¯s. Liu Yan and Chen Jian knew that the young man could call upon a bit of healing power, but they never mentioned it.

    Some things needed to be yed dumb about.

    ......

    <i>Outside the front door.</i>

    Li Hao took Panther with him. The little ck dog hadn¡¯t left with its owner¡ªit wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to absorb more sword energy. Yuan Shuo kicked it out with a mighty shove. It followed morosely behind Li Hao.

    The young man didn¡¯t care what mood the dog was in. He walked to a kiosk before the gate¡ªequipment left by the Night Watchers. There was amunicator inside.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t need to dial a number when he picked it up. ¡°Prepare some dishes to pair with wine and send them in at lunch time. Keep an eye on the surroundings, don¡¯t let anyone approach!¡±

    Sounds of assent came from the other end; Li Hao didn¡¯t bother finding out who it was before he hung up. Standing outside the kiosk, he yed with a surge of internal force, gently propelling another surge from his body and instantlypleting a secondyering.

    Projection of internal force, externalyering of said force.

    ¡°This is just ying with the technique, it¡¯s not aura!¡± Li Hao was still mulling over what the aura was. Whether it was external or internalyering of his force, it was all directly tied to the Nine Forged Force.

    The aura was also termed the consciousness as it touched upon the mental level.

    <i>This level of the mind... is also recorded in ancient texts. It¡¯s known as intent, mental force, and by other names. umtion before utilization, it is derived from the heart and makes the wielder invincible!</i>

    <i>The ancient texts say that in the ancient civilization, whoever resolutely believed they were invincible could call upon something like an aura, even if they hadn¡¯t fullyprehended it. The only concern with this method was that they were crushed by defeat in the first instance of failure. Never did they recover from a stumble in an invincible aura.</i>

    Li Hao mentally paged through the many books that he¡¯d memorized. Aura did not necessarily have to personally observed or imitated in the manner that his teacher and others had done. Some of the ancients created their own unique aura.

    There were those who firmly believed they were invincible and held that belief from start to finish. They believed it even when they died¡ªthis was aura.

    Some decided to cultivate an invincible aura¡ªthey nurtured their auras from the mindset of assurance of victory to invincibility. Once their areas wereplete, they swept thends and never lost a battle. They reached the apex with such an aura.

    Those were all different from the ones that his teacher employed.

    <i>Different eras have different training methods, but they all share something inmon. They bring their auras down on their enemies! To nurture an aura, one needs to foster qi and bring it forth from the inside!</i>

    Powerhouses were such not just because of the physical damage they could bring to bear, but also because of their mental fortitude. Those weaker were immediately smashed when the aura was unleashed.

    <i>How should I umte my aura? </i>Li Hao¡¯s thoughts turned back to himself. Befriend the tigers in the mountains like his teacher? Or observe the sea like Liu Long and watch a tidal wave rear to the heavens? Or do as the ancients did and walk the path of invincibility? Or should he just build the faith that he was invincible and would win every fight?

    He looked down at Panther, at where the little ck dog was ying with its ws. It seemed to want to imitate Li Hao andplete one instance of externalyering... But it couldn¡¯t project its internal force since it wasn¡¯t a Sunderer. It would be more effective to practiceyering its farts.

    ¡°Panth, are you a martial master dog or a supernatural dog?¡± Li Hao snorted. Panther didn¡¯t seem to be a supernatural, so was it a martial master instead?

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± The young man didn¡¯t understand the response, but judging from the superior look it cast at the ground, it seemed to want to be an invincible dog.

    ¡°Aura... consciousness...¡± Li Hao ignored the dog. ¡°What kind of aura should someone who keeps a low profile like me learn? Invincibility and the path of being undefeated? That¡¯s impossible, I¡¯m not one of the ancients and don¡¯t have their training environment. No one can suppress the heavens for me and make peers fight me on an equal footing. No one can quell enemies for me...¡±

    That would not work. The aura of invincibility required a strong n with a strong patron, one that could subdue thend. His opponents would fight him on whatever terms he demanded! Or in times of peace, people would spar in friendly matches.

    If Li Hao challenged Red Moon Sunderers in their current society... their Srs would run out the next second and crush him underfoot. He would have to eat the heart of a bear and the gall of a leopard to challenge someone in their home. There was no possible oue other than being beaten to death!

    ¡°If that¡¯s a no-go, then I have toprehend the aura of nature,¡± Li Hao murmured to himself. ¡°Respect must be given to heaven and earth, nature is also iparably powerful. I have no right to gaze upon the strength of nature as a Sunderer! Not even Dominators or those stronger have the right, to say nothing of me.

    ¡°Therefore, I can only seek toprehend it! Tigers are less than heaven, earth, and nature. If Ipare the Five Styles and Nine Forged Force, the power of a tidal wave is stronger than that of a tiger. Of course, it also depends on how it¡¯s used. It would be a joke if a tidal wave turned into a foot bath!

    ¡°Panther, what kind of strength in nature have you seen used in bothnd and sea? I¡¯d like toprehend that kind... As much as the waves roil over everything, they cannot destroy the earth. The same goes for hurricanes and lightning¡ªthey can break through the sky but do nothing to the earth...¡± The young man fell into deep contemtion.

    ¡°Humans walk the earth and the earth has existed for eons. No matter how mountains topple andnd cracks, the earth remains. True danger oftenes not from the sky or sea, but from the earth!¡±

    He suddenly thought of earthquakes. When earthquakes urred, they shook the ground and sky from inside out. Mountains fell, fissures opened, and all life trembled. He¡¯d witnessed it once before, he really had!

    A small earthquake struck Silver City once. Though minor, it still resulted in deaths.

    Martial masters stood on the ground and even flight supernaturals mustnd at times. Li Hao stared at the soil beneath his feet, seeming to understand what he needed. No one could forever live in the skies! Only the aura and strength of the earth was unceasing and inexhaustible.

    He stomped on the ground, erupting with threeyers of internal force. A hole appeared in the dirt. Panther imitated his actions and mmed its paw down, shaking the ground and slightly numbing Li Hao¡¯s foot. The dog was likewise jittery from Li Hao¡¯s stomp.

    Pausing, the young man looked at the dog, which looked back at him. Stomps and paw ms abounded as they had a grand time. Panther was ying, but Li Hao was not. Who says that the Nine Forged Force was a result of the waves? Liu Long felt that waves built upon each other, so he sensed the aura of the waves!

    In the meantime, Li Hao felt that it was theyering of tremors. The waves were such, and so were earthquakes! Powerful earthquakes came in waves and their destruction matched that of a tidal wave¡¯s.

    ¡°Earthquakes are earth<i>quakes!¡±</i> Having once observed such momentum, Li Hao¡¯s heart still pounded when he thought back to it. He made up his mind when his thoughts traveled here.

 Chapter 137: Li Haoâ€™s Aura (II)

    <h4>Chapter 137: Li Hao¡¯s Aura (II)</h4>

    The young man didn¡¯t have to imitate the two martial masters. A martial master¡¯s path was trod by one¡¯s own feet and everyone¡¯s aura was different. What he needed to do was to keep himself rooted in the ground and utilize the earth as his foundation.

    He stomped downward again, thinking back to the scene of overwhelming destruction from the earthquake. When he stomped next, the boom that resulted was that of Four Forged! Not only that, but something different seemed to be visible to Panther¡¯s eye.

    Li Hao seemed to have nted himself into the earth. While he swayed when he stomped, he remained standing erect. There looked to be a mountain towering behind him.

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± called the perplexed ck dog. What was that?

    Li Hao smiled. He did not know the aura, but he seemed to have found his path. He knew how to umte aura and how to nurture it.

    ¡°The ancient books record someone who kept a sword for many years and never used it. He stunned heaven and earth when he finally unsheathed it! A fearsome power was hidden within it, and the sword was hidden within the scabbard. Aura was brewed in the sword and I... meld and hide myself in the earth. I do not falter if the earth does not falter...¡±

    Of course, that was just his wish. It was almost impossible to achieve, but Li Hao didn¡¯t mind!

    Liu Long hade toprehend the aura today. He was not sessful, but the young man had grasped a few hints. What would Liu Long think if he found out?

    This was why potential was sometimes not in the body, but in the mind. The heights that one¡¯s thoughts reached determined one¡¯s level. The physique only determined the present. Thoughts determined the future.

    ¡°Panth, you need to learn how to read and read some books!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°If you don¡¯t know what logic is, what earth, heaven, and nature are, you will never understand how vast the future is. You will only be able to see what is at hand, but I can look ahead!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± answered the little ck dog. It didn¡¯t fully understand, but it would remember these words.

    Li Hao closed his eyes and spoke no further. He umted his energy for a while and stomped once more. Internal force brimmed from both feet, projecting outward into the earth. No holes were forting this time. Instead, tremors shook the ground and spread outward for three meters. They shattered the flowerbed in the yard.

    A blinding grin split Li Hao¡¯s face!

    ¡°Projection through all four limbs!¡± He aplished that feat in this moment! He could fully project internal force from his legs and evenprehended a hint of something else.

    ¡°Li Hao, I¡¯ll smack you to death if you keep destroying things out there!¡± An angry bellow exploded from the house. What was the kid doing out there? Pops and cracks and crashes, was he tearing down the house?! <i>Not even the dog tore down the house, so how dare you try that, Li Hao?! You¡¯re worse than the dog!</i>

    In celebratory spirits, Li Hao immediately drooped with resignation.<i> I wasn¡¯t destroying anything... Okay, fine I was.</i>

    He¡¯d shattered the flowerbed and broken a few floor tiles. <i>I hope teacher doesn¡¯t want me to fix them, I don¡¯t have any money. Have Liu Long do it. He doesn¡¯t have any money either, but he¡¯s first inmand and can use public funds for it.</i>

    ......

    <i>Inside the house.</i>

    Liu Long was concentrating on his rapidly healing arms and almost broke out inughter when he heard Yuan Shuo. The professor, however, raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°What youughing at? I can sense that the kid will stun us all in the near future!¡±

    ¡°He has good potential, but Elder Yuan exaggerates a little too much.¡±

    ¡°Not potential of the body¡ªI never cared about that!¡± Yuan Shuo answered with aloof pride. ¡°You have exemry potential for martial dao, the cream of the crop! Yet I do not care about that, I look for intelligence, reaction, and judgment! Such is the foundation of a martial master who will proceed far down the path of martial dao! A martial master without their own thoughts, one who only knows how to follow the tried and true, will have trouble bing a Dominator. Even if they manage to seed, they are only fit to be someone¡¯s minion!¡±

    Liu Long was speechless. <i>Are you...plimenting me or insulting me? I have exemry potential, but you still didn¡¯t want me. You¡¯re saying my brains suck, aren¡¯t you?</i>

    He¡¯d never thought of himself as a fool, but he was an eternal idiot to Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°Elder Yuan, I was incredibly young then!¡± he couldn¡¯t help himself. ¡°Even if I¡¯m not that smart, how could you determine that from a single nce and conclude that I don¡¯t reach your standards?¡±

    He really couldn¡¯t ept this.

    ¡°Did I need to take a second look?¡± Yuan Shuo snorted. ¡°When your father brought me here, I asked you why you wanted to learn an outsider¡¯s craft since your father¡¯s Nine Forged Force is so strong. Do you remember how you responded?¡±

    It took Liu Long a few moments to remember. ¡°I... I said that as strong as the Nine Forged Force was, it had the drawback of harming the body. Father rmends the Five Styles, so I wanted to learn from Elder Yuan!¡±

    Was there anything wrong with that? He still didn¡¯t understand.

    ¡°That¡¯s why I say you¡¯re dumb!¡± Yuan Shuo snorted. ¡°I didn¡¯t need to observe anything to draw my conclusion. Remember you were here to ask me for help! Even your father was begging. You weren¡¯t young then¡ªyou were ten, right?¡±

    ¡°Around that.¡±

    ¡°You were already ten, but didn¡¯t have any usable brains. Remember that I¡¯m stronger than your father! I was simply being polite when I said that your family¡¯s method is very strong, but you went along with it and made it seem like you wanted to learn my Five Styles only because you had no other choice! I am the grandmaster of a martial discipline, but I am yourst choice??¡± Yuan Shuo sneered. ¡°I gave your father face in saying that he was strong. If I didn¡¯t, I would point out that I can grind all three Silver Spears into the ground at the same time! If it was Li Hao, he would¡¯ve said that as strong as the Nine Forged Force is, it does notpare to the Five Styles. One should naturally practice the strongest method for training!¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s jaw dropped. <i>That¡¯s it? You thought I was dumb for that?! I was just a kid! And my family¡¯s Nine Forged Force is indeed strong, that¡¯s the truth. I was supposed to kiss your ass for you to ept me?!</i>

    Liu Long had never fathomed that he¡¯d been rejected because he hadn¡¯t fawned over Yuan Shuo. How was this right?? Based on his recollection, he¡¯d thought that with Yuan Shuo¡¯s status, the grandmaster would want to hear the truth more. But ten year old Liu Long had erred when... he didn¡¯t kiss up to the old man!

    <i>Fuck!</i>

    An apologetic Liu Long turned purple. He would never admit that he was dumb, only that Yuan Shuo was too shameless!

    ¡°Ai!¡± Yuan Shuo sighed.<i> You still don¡¯t understand. You¡¯re too straightforward¡ªperhaps you have a little bit of intelligence, but that tiny amount is nowhere enough to be useful. </i>The heart was to be trained first before martial dao. One had to learn how to be a person before bing a powerhouse.

    It would¡¯ve been one thing if Liu Long had been the ten year old of a regr family, but he was the son of a dying father, the student of a martial master with abundant enemies. Who would want him as a disciple if he didn¡¯t bend his brains to the task? Whoever epted him was epting a basketful of trouble and built-in enemies! How did the kid not understand this?

    <i>But you still don¡¯t know a thing even today, so you absolutely deserve running yourself into the ground.</i>

    ¡°I¡¯m not your father and can¡¯t be bothered to teach you, so we stop here!¡± Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t feel like continuing the conversation. Ast wave of sword energy surged forth, making Liu Long¡¯s arms creak and pop. He swung his arms around like twin hammers, breaking through the air. His eyes widened at the effect and he stared at Yuan Shuo with shock.

    ¡°What kind of energy is this?¡±

    It was so powerful! While his injuries weren¡¯t fully healed, they were essentially inconsequential. Many of his old wounds were gone. No wonder Yuan Shuo¡¯s punctured heart had recovered.

    <i>What is this?</i>

    ¡°What, I¡¯m not a criminal to have to exin myself to you,¡± Yuan Shuo responded indifferently. ¡°You often speak without thinking. Remember, whether it¡¯s a martial master or supernatural, we all have our secrets. Do I have to tell you about everything you see?¡±

    <i>I didn¡¯t mean it that way... </i>Liu Long felt wronged. He was Yuan Shuo¡¯s junior, not to mention he wouldn¡¯t be able to take on the old guy in a fight. It was a very frustrating position to be in. If it wasn¡¯t for the hope of breaking through... He¡¯d want to leave right now. This was maddening!

    ¡°I didn¡¯t mean it that way...¡±

    ¡°Regardless of whether or not you did, you shouldn¡¯t have asked!¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s face darkened and he remained quiet. <i>I really want to beat this old thing to death, he¡¯s infuriating! Here I thought my temper is fine enough, but I want to start throwing punches after a few words from him.</i>

    ¡°Can youyer your force nine times?¡±

    ¡°I think so.¡± Liu Long heaved a sigh of relief to see the professor change topic.<i> Fine, fine, I won¡¯t ask anymore.</i>

    ¡°Not think so, but must be so!¡± Yuan Shuo nitpicked irritably. ¡°I didn¡¯t expend all these resources for you to think that you can seed with Nine Forged. Your life as a Sunderer won¡¯t make up for all this energy if you can¡¯t do it!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure I can!¡± Liu Long raised his voice, annoyance poking through. ¡°One hundred percent, I¡¯m sure I can!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. Liu Long wanted to do nothing other than smash it in. The old man looked so ugly when he smiled!

    ¡°Li Hao,e in!¡±

    The young man walked through the door after a moment. Yuan Shuo opened his mouth to start talking when he did a double take at his student. He scanned the perimeter of the boy¡¯s body with some confusion. When he told Liu Long that Li Hao was sure to be a stunning personage and a grandmaster of the age, he¡¯d meant in terms of the young man¡¯s intelligence and mentality.

    But right now, he sensed a wisp of something different.

    <i>Aura?</i>

    How was that possible?!

    Li Haoyering internal force outside his body was shocking enough and induced immense satisfaction from Yuan Shuo. Yet as of this moment, he had certain suspicions.

    ¡°Have you grown stronger?¡± Yuan Shuo asked slowly after a moment.

    ¡°Yes, I can project internal force from all four limbs now. I¡¯m peak initial Sunderer!¡± Li Haoughed happily.

    Liu Long was as surprised as Yuan Shuo was indifferent. An initial Sunderer didn¡¯t amount to anything, no matter how peak they were. He wasn¡¯t asking about this. However, he set this aside for now and looked at Liu Long.

    ¡°Come, let me sense your wave intent! Don¡¯t have any reservations and ignore Li Hao. Ignore that dog as well, unleash your strongest state!¡±

    Liu Long was surprised, but just as champing at the bit since the professor put it this way.

    <i>Let¡¯s give it a try!</i>

    He waved a punch forward, rippling internal force through his arms like the waves,yer uponyer. One could vaguely sense leaping and soaring waves!

    There hadn¡¯t been much buildup when Yuan Shuo set foot into Dominator. Everything had been aplished very naturally. Li Hao noticed something different with Liu Long¡ªthe chief needed to umte his aura! He needed some preparation before he could sense the consciousness at the apex.

 Chapter 138: Li Haoâ€™s Aura (III)

    <h4>Chapter 138: Li Hao¡¯s Aura (III)</h4>

    <i>This doesn¡¯te as naturally to Liu Long as it does to teacher...</i>

    Li Hao realized as he watched the director. It would be a very forced breakthrough if Liu Long seeded. It wasn¡¯t anywhere near as easy and natural as his teacher¡¯s. If it hadn¡¯t been for his teacher¡¯s injuries, he might¡¯ve been able to set foot into Dominator without needing any outside help whatsoever.

    A wave of internal force swept toward him; Li Hao nted his feet into the ground without a change in expression. <i>Nine Forged Force!</i>

    When Liu Long¡¯s internal force entered his body, it followed his body¡¯s structure and rocked his insides. The young man grunted and stomped lightly on the ground, diverting the wave of force into the earth.

    The ground shook and the floor tiles split! <i>Fuck!</i> Li Hao winced with dismay. He snuck a nce at his teacher. <i>Shit shit shit, my teacher saw. I really don¡¯t have any money to fix your floor tiles. </i>He knew that each tile was supremely expensive¡ªfive hundred each! He had to swap out an entire house¡¯s worth in one go, that required almost one hundred thousand!

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes were as wide as dinner tes¡ª<i>aura! </i>That had absolutely been a fledgling aura! He wasn¡¯t seeing things, he¡¯d already suspected it earlier. Li Hao was now leveraging force against force, diverting Liu Long¡¯s internal force through his body into the ground. That hadn¡¯t been the utilization of simple strength, but the maniption of a kind of aura!

    <i>How is this possible? </i>Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t believe it.<i> I didn¡¯t teach him this! Even if I did, I would¡¯ve only said to imitate the five animals because that¡¯s the easiest way toprehend the aura. </i>Li Hao... seemed to have his own understanding.

    Liu Long continued to rage with power, but Yuan Shuo ignored him. There was nothing to see there and no problems that he could discern. Even if the man was sessful, he¡¯d only be a typical Dominator with nothing special about him. He wouldn¡¯t possess many distinguishing characteristics.

    A Dominator like Liu Long might¡¯ve drawn more attention from Yuan Shuo in the past¡ªbefore he saw how Li Hao wasprehending the aura. But now, the professor couldn¡¯t be bothered with another nce! He widened his eyes and continued to stare at his student.

    A very guilt-stricken Li Hao lowered his head, ardently wishing for his teacher to look elsewhere. <i>Stop staring at me! Isn¡¯t it just one floor tile? Liu Long¡¯s broken several, why don¡¯t you re at him?</i>

    ¡°Hup!¡± Liu Long¡¯s grunt drew both of their attention.

    Yuan Shuo finally shifted his gaze while Li Hao dabbed at nonexistent sweat on his forehead. His teacher¡¯s look had been terrifying! <i>Was there a need for that?? It¡¯s no big deal that I directed internal force into the ground. It¡¯s just basic maniption of my knowledge and I still don¡¯t know much about aura.</i>

    The young man knew that he hadn¡¯tprehended the aura; he just had a basic understanding and slightly swept the fog away.

    Little did he know that one small step was a sign to Yuan Shuo that his disciple was on the right path. Li Hao possessed the requisite physique and had wrapped his head around the burgeoning notion of aura. If nothing went awry, the doors to Dominator of Thousands were creaking open to him!

    <i>Incredible!</i> Emotion rocked Yuan Shuo¡¯s inner world, but he had no words to express himself.

    ¡°Deploying moves in the air is useless!¡± he growled instead. ¡°You''re so weak that you¡¯re taking half a day to simply understand the aura. Nineyers of the waves arepletely wasted in your hands!¡±

    He punched with exquisite speed as he spoke; there was nothing but a looming fist in Li Hao¡¯s field of vision. It turned into a vicious tiger descending the mountain in the blink of an eye, one that pounced on its prey.

    Liu Long appeared to be a massive wave, but was abruptly reduced to a tiny creek. The ferocious tiger grabbed him in its paw and flung him around¡ªthe difference between the two was apparent!

    ¡°That¡¯s it? That¡¯s not enough, you trash!¡± Yuan Shuo roared angrily. A bear descended in Li Hao¡¯s line of sight next and a bear paw mmed down on the wave. The wave broke apart while in the real world, Liu Long rocked back on his heels from Yuan Shuo¡¯s palm strike.

    Shock crossed the director¡¯s face! He could sense that he was about to break through, but he couldn¡¯t put up a fight against the professor. It¡¯d only been a few days since Yuan Shuo progressed, but the gap between them was so noticeable!

    ¡°Is that all there is to a tidal wave?¡± Yuan Shuo demanded aloofly. ¡°Are you worthy of battling a Sr like this?! You¡¯re dead as soon as they unleash their aura! Do you really think you¡¯ll be able to match them just as a Dominator? I want to see a tidal wave, not a massage and shower! Your ugly face doesn¡¯t even count as a bath!¡±

    Liu Long flew into a rage! <i>A bath?! Who are you belittling?!</i>

    ¡°Break!¡± he grunted and punched again, his arm darting out like a spear. A water dragon erupted in the mental sense.

    A loud bang answered him as Yuan Shuo seemed to transform into a massive ape. The ape sought to capture the dragon! The professor waved his hand and squashed his opponent, instantly clenching the water dragon to death.

    ¡°Haha!!¡±

    The bark of victoriousughter incensed Liu Long beyond all reservation. His opponent was so strong that he couldn¡¯t begin to match the other! He could not begin to withstand Yuan Shuo even with his aura in full throttle. The man in front of him was terrifying.

    Liu Long had been concerned that they would spar to the point of losing their tempers, but now he realized that he¡¯d thought too much. The only one to lose his temper was him, his opponent was just toying with him!

    ¡°Layer!¡± A forceful wave appeared, one wave piling atop another. Three, four... nineyers in the span of a breath!

    <i>Whoosh whoosh whoosh... boom boom boom!</i> sounded by Li Hao¡¯s ears. He stared raptly at the fight, at Liu Long¡¯s fists and his teacher¡¯s hands. One used the Nine Forged Force and the other New Book of Five Styles, both of which he knew. They were both Dominators¡ªindeed, Liu Long seemed to have advanced in this moment. Unbeknownst to him, aura punctuated each of his moves and he brought it to bear against his opponent. He was simply being overpowered by the professor.

    Regardless, it was now a sh between two Dominators. As a new Sunderer, Li Hao was afforded a rare opportunity to observe a fight of this caliber in close quarters. He subconsciously aped their movements, drinking in every single punch and palm strike. The young man couldn¡¯t help but put himself in Liu Long¡¯s shoes so he could perceive his teacher¡¯s aura. He broke out in a cold sweat the second he did so.

    <i>So fast!</i>

    His teacher was too fast; Liu Long was entirely on the back foot. He wasn¡¯t as fast as Yuan Shuo¡ªwhether in terms of reaction, adaptation, or deployment of technique. All Liu Long could do was doggedly match blow for blow!

    Li Hao suddenly felt an icy grip around his throat. Yuan Shuo shifted his punch into a w and swept at Liu Long¡¯s throat like an eagle. The director roared and waved his fists around, wanting to use nineyered force to beat his opponent back.

    <i>No... he should retreat or dodge. He can¡¯t hold it off! </i>The thought rose in Li Hao¡¯s mind.

    Liu Long grunted¡ªYuan Shuo¡¯s hand had disappeared. It was now around the man¡¯s throat and clenching his windpipe. The professor easily brushed off Liu Long¡¯s fists, sending them down thetter¡¯s sides.

    Dejection filled the director¡¯s face, yet Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t even look at him. He turned to Li Hao, a movement subconsciously echoed by Liu Long. What the director saw surprised the man.

    Li Hao dripped with sweat as he forced his hands apart. He seemed to be trying to shove something out rather than attack someone. He was defying Yuan Shuo¡¯s hand, one that didn¡¯t exist!

    The young man leaned backward as he thrusted his hands apart and braced himself with his right arm, pushing forward! His palm did seem to connect with something and Li Hao pushed off his toes, performed a backflip and tumbled onto the ground, swiftly evading something.

    Liu Long¡¯s eyes widened with surprise! Was this Li Hao¡¯s method of counterattack?

    The heavily sweating young man returned to his senses after he rolled away. He nced sideways at the silent living room and was seized by sudden awkwardness. He looked at how dirty he was, then at the two broken floor tiles his toes had dug into...

    ¡°Teacher and chief¡¯s battle was so marvelous that I couldn¡¯t help but try to practice a thing or two,¡± Li Hao coughed lightly. ¡°Teacher, the chief is our guest, so we can¡¯t make him repair the tiles that he broke. I¡¯ll pay for the repairs...¡±

    <i>Retreating in order to advance!</i>

    As expected, Liu Long swiftly interjected, ¡°There¡¯s no need, I¡¯ll send people to fix them! I was too overworked to consider our environment. I¡¯ll have someonee by to rece them.¡±

    Yuan Shuo looked at his student with a half smile, a reaction that enlightened Liu Long. He looked speechlessly at the young man.

    <i>Was that on purpose? You said that to prompt my response so that I would fix the floor tiles.</i> But of course, this was hardly Liu Long¡¯s current focus. He fixed his gaze on Liu Long for a long while. ¡°You first pushed Elder Yuan¡¯s hand again, then counterattacked...¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°I couldn¡¯t counterattack, teacher is too strong. I pushed so I could shift teacher¡¯s w attack to the side. His next move would be to quickly follow that up with a hand to the throat, so I could only push off from the ground to flee the premises. My opponent was too much for me!¡±

    Indeed, he was outssed by his opponent. That was why he¡¯d rolled on the ground after jumping back¡ªit was to run away as fast as possible. He didn¡¯t intend to counterattack at all.

    Liu Long stared into space before smiling ruefully. ¡°Well I can¡¯t get away, I¡¯m not fast enough!¡±

    This wasn¡¯t a move he could imitate because he was too slow! He may be a Dominator now, but still suffered blow after blow. He would die to Yuan Shuo because he reacted slower than Li Hao. He was less than even the kid! Not in terms of strength, but with strategy and reaction. He relied too much on pure strength!

    Did this count as a breakthrough? Was he a walking god, a Dominator of Thousands?

    <i>Hah!</i>

    Liu Long drooped, then couldn¡¯t help but ask, ¡°Did youprehend anything from my aura?¡±

    Li Hao hesitated, then nodded. ¡°I did, and a lot of things!¡±

    ¡°What did youprehend?¡± Liu Long insisted.

    Awkwardness crossed Li Hao''s face and he wanted to respond with nonsense when his teachermanded, ¡°Speak the truth!¡±

    ¡°Chief¡¯s aura is very strong!¡± The young man looked at his feet with resignation. ¡°The waves build upon each other, each stronger than the one before! But there¡¯s several things from my perspective. For one, you aren¡¯t fast enough. For another, you¡¯re not familiar enough with the Nine Forged Force. There are tiny hups when youyer your internal force nine times. They¡¯re very feeble, but I sense them.

    ¡°And third, it might be because of your previous injuries, but chief doesn¡¯t seem to dare to use internal force in your arms. You seem to be holding back...¡± Li Hao¡¯s tone shifted. ¡°Fire and water are heartless! I¡¯ve yet to see the waves, but I¡¯ve witnessed a raging gale. Chief, even water is violent!¡±

    He punched outward with the sound of waves crashing upon the shore! An explosion ripped through the air! A furious storm seemed to be upon them; rain sted into them. Violence!

    Liu Long somehow sensed the violence of rain from Li Hao¡¯s boxing technique! It was the explosive sensation of a storm so domineering that it would split the earth open...

    This wasn¡¯t water¡ªor rather, it wasn¡¯t the water of Liu Long¡¯s impression.

 Chapter 139: A Spare Tire (I)

    <h4>Chapter 139: A Spare Tire (I)</h4>

    ¡°Water is as fast as a de and keen without edge!¡±

    <i>Bam! </i>echoed from another one of Li Hao¡¯s punches.

    ¡°Chief, these are just my own thoughts,¡± the young man panted. ¡°Please don¡¯t mind the unversed, rudimentary aspects of them.¡±

    ¡°Your teacher says...¡± Liu Long sighed after a long moment. ¡°That you¡¯ll be a stunning character one day!¡±

    <i>I believe it!</i>

    He truly did in this moment. So water could be this violent! It didn¡¯t measure up to the majestic grandiosity of a tidal wave, but it felt that a single drop of water could break through the earth.

    Liu Long abruptly punched forward.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    An explosion ripped through the air like a bomb, a storm ripping through the firmament! This was water, the heartless element of fire and water. Liu Long closed his eyes to sense everything about it. He looked at the young man when he opened them again.

    ¡°It looks like Elder Yuan was right not to ept me.¡±

    Compared to such a genius disciple like Li Hao, Yuan Shuo would likely suffer a heart attack from sheer frustration if Liu Long was also a disciple.

    <i>Idiot...</i>

    He hadn¡¯t wanted to admit it before, but Liu Long had to today. He seemed to be too set in his ways.

    Yuan Shuo stood with his arms crossed off to the side. His pride quickly transformed into approval. ¡°You¡¯re not bad yourself! Setting foot into Dominator through borrowed aura... while youck your own distinction, you¡¯re a Dominator nheless. You¡¯ll be fine against regr Sunre!¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t understand before,¡± Liu Long chuckled ruefully. Simple respect had reced his aloofness from earlier. ¡°After sparring with Elder Yuan today, I can tell that your strength far eclipses mine despite advancing only a dozen days ago. Everyone attributes your Sr kill to luck, but in my eyes, you would be able to fight a Sr even without outside help!¡±

    Such was a true walking god! As for himself, the conclusion he came to after prolonged thought was that he was just a Dominator. On his side stood a Dominator of Thousands, while on Yuan Shuo¡¯s there was a god that roamed thend. There was no difference in their level, but a massive gap in strength.

    ¡°Congrattions chief, congrattions teacher!¡± Li Hao broke the atmosphere with a jolly shout. ¡°Our n isplete ahead of time. I¡¯ll fetch food so you can celebrate with some wine!¡±

    They really needed to stop, Liu Long was about to abandon himself to despair if they continued! He was a Dominator at the end of the day, but was being checked to a shadow of himself. That would be too much of a pity!

    Liu Long startedughing when the young man left. ¡°Elder Yuan... I quite envy you!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s my student. Don¡¯t think he¡¯s yours just because you taught him the Nine Forged Force,¡± Yuan Shuo said proudly. ¡°You won¡¯t do!¡±

    ¡°I understand.¡± Liu Long truly was envious. He looked at the dog waving its paws and sighed. <i>Damn it, the dog¡¯s not bad. How about I have a dog for a disciple?</i>

    ......

    <i>Noon.</i>

    Liu Long stayed for lunch in a house that now seemed rather worse for the wear. Countless floor tiles were shattered and debris littered the ground. Normal people didn¡¯t fight in their homes, so patently the three at the table weren¡¯t normal.

    Liu Long had a strong appetite after breaking through and ravenously tore through the food. He was a domineering man to outsiders, one with a high position and imposing authority. That was not in effect here. He¡¯d been a child begging for tutge when Yuan Shuo was in his prime. There was no ce for him but humility in front of the professor.

    Yuan Shuo sipped at a cup of wine¡ªthe only one to do so at the table. Liu Long may seem rough around the edges, but he didn¡¯t drink. Intoxication easily bungled matters. Meanwhile, Yuan Shuo¡¯s style corresponded to the old guard of martial masters. Food and drink passed through the man in a free and easy manner.

    He drank wine with narrowed eyes, lost in thought and looking past Liu Long and Li Hao. He¡¯d been worried about what would happen to his student once he left Silver City. Thed would be in constant danger if the matter of the eight families wasn¡¯t resolved. But since Li Hao hadprehended an outline of the aura, he was suddenly more at ease. Could Li Hao set foot into the Dominator level before he left?

    Indeed, Dominator of Thousands!

    Once the aura was grasped and energy from the sword to supplement, Yuan Shuo would be able to shove Li Hao upward if the former could obtain some more mysterious power of the five elements and scarlet shadows!

    Aura was the thorniest problem bottlenecking martial masters. Nothing else was an issue in Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes.

    He¡¯d obtained one thousand cubes of mysterious power after Red Moon attacked and constantly requested the Night Watchers to deliver them. The agency dragged its feet, impeding his own trades for the power of the five elements.

    He hadn¡¯t been in a hurry at first. What was the rush? As fast as Li Hao was improving, they could not overly insist on haste. But now, urgency licked at his heels. Those bastards! They were too slow! Now that thed had a fledgling aura, he was in a state of high speed development. Each day of dy was a crime; it was torture!

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t consider the possibility of Li Hao devouring too much and causing experience tog behind strength. Thed was different from other martial masters. The worst Dominator was still stronger than a Sunderer, no?

    Thed could increase his cultivation level first, which would raise his strength ordingly. What was this talk of experience? Killing more people naturally brought about more battle experience; A martial master¡¯s strength came from the self; there was no danger of losing control.

    In this regard, Li Hao wouldn¡¯t be in much trouble after rising to Dominator, despite hisck of experience. He just needed to refrain from being an idiot and running off to pick fights with Sunres and Srs. He would be absolutely fine against Sunderers or Darkmoons.

    Yuan Shuo suddenly rose as he considered the situation. Li Hao looked up and reached to fill his teacher¡¯s wine cup when the professor snatched up a nearbymunicator. He thought for a bit and dialed a number.

    ¡°It¡¯s me!¡±

    ¡°Elder Yuan...¡± A familiar voice traveled out of themunicator¡ªMu Sen.

    Li Hao and Liu Long looked at each other with surprise. What did Yuan Shuo want with Mu Sen?

    ¡°I can¡¯t get in touch with Hao Lianchuan, but I¡¯m sure you can!¡± Yuan Shuo barked out coolly. ¡°Tell him I want to see my mysterious power tonight, all of it! We can forget about the ruins if I don¡¯t! Don¡¯t give me any bullshit, dying things won¡¯t make the problem go away. Are they waiting to pay only after the ruins? Or do they want to burn the cubes to me when I¡¯m dead??¡±

    ¡°Elder Yuan, I, ah, we can¡¯t contact White Moon City either...¡±

    ¡°Mu Sen, are you sure you want me to go to your office and scream into your face?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Silence came from the other end of themunicator before Mu Sen spoke with resignation, ¡°We use the emergency contact method only when something major has urred. It consumes effort and resources each time it¡¯s activated...¡±

    ¡°The major urrence is that I¡¯ll kill Inspector General Mu Sen if Hao Lianchuan doesn¡¯t give me my stuff. Is that reason good enough?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    A silent Liu Long¡¯s lips curved upwards. Li Hao held himself in with effort, deeply concerned that Mu Sen would hear something and identify who else was present.

    ¡°Very well, I¡¯ll notify them right away,¡± Mu Sen capitted with resignation. ¡°But tonight... There¡¯s quite a distance between us and them. Even if they¡¯re ready, it will be very difficult to make a delivery tonight.¡±

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan can fly. It¡¯s just one thousand kilometers, he can fly here! I don¡¯t care about anything else, that¡¯s all!¡± Yuan Shuo snapped themunicator shut and threw it to the side. He didn¡¯t care how they arranged the matter. It was indeed difficult tomunicate between cities, but if the most senior executive of the Inspectorate didn¡¯t have a reliable manner to reach White Moon with, then the capital¡¯s control over the province would instantly plunge.

    Hao Lianchuan arrived so quickly the day that Red Moon attacked, a clear sign that they had their ways ofmunication. They just weren¡¯t in use normally.

    ¡°Those fellows need a kick in the arse!¡± Yuan Shuoined. ¡°I know what they¡¯re thinking! We¡¯re headed to the ruins very soon and if I die there, they won¡¯t have to pay me anything. If we survive, we do so with certain gains. A bit of mysterious power is nothing then! Li Hao, you already gave them your sword. It¡¯s one thing to withhold treasures until after the expedition, but they want to hold back even the mysterious power from Brokensky...¡±

    The professor worked himself up in a froth as he spoke!

    ¡°Teacher, it¡¯s okay,¡± Li Hao cated. ¡°We don¡¯t have any use for it in the immediate future anyway.¡±

    <i>Bullshit!</i> Yuan Shuo threw him a sidelong nce. <i>Says who? You can use it right now, and you have great need for it!</i>

    Some more of the sword¡¯s reserves had been depleted to heal Liu Long. There was less and less energy in the sword. If Li Hao didn¡¯t increase his strength as quickly as possible, it would be very difficult to make swift progress once the sword was exhausted.

    There was a limit to mysterious power absorption. One could not take in endless amounts. Li Hao could do so due to the sword neutralizing the energy for him. Otherwise, he would be only a little better off than the average person even if he possessed an excellent constitution. He wouldn¡¯t be able to easily absorb thirty cubes in one go like he could now.

    ¡°Does Elder Yuan have immediate need of mysterious power?¡± Liu Long asked. ¡°I have some...¡±

    ¡°Eat your food!¡± Yuan Shuo cut him off. He was well aware of the director¡¯s tiny fortune. The man had received fifty cubesst time¡ªa sizable amount. But what did that matter to Yuan Shuo?

    Li Hao needed to train his organs and required the bnced power of the five elements. Liu Long¡¯s wasn¡¯t appropriate and there was very little of it. A regr Sunderer would find it sufficient, but it was far from enough for Li Hao.

    Liu Long bent his head back to his bowl. He brought up business again when he was nearly full. ¡°Elder Yuan, do you have more information about the three Sunres?¡±

    He only knew there were three Sunres. Were they initial, mid, ortter? What kind of abilities did they have? He knew almost nothing about the enemy other than their level and number. Everything else was unknown. It was nigh impossible to prevent unexpected and possibly undesirable developments under these circumstances.

    ¡°No,¡± Yuan Shuo responded. ¡°That¡¯s why I want Hao Lianchuan to bring up the rear! We won¡¯t notify him if there¡¯s anything good to be had, but if things go south, we¡¯ll have him show his face!¡±

    Liu Long blinked.

    ¡°Besides, shouldn¡¯t someone from upstairse to honor the formation of a new branch?¡± Yuan Shuo continued. ¡°Hao Lianchuan is the most suited person! He cane congratte you as a sign of how important this branch is regarded, and to intimidate the supernaturals that will be present. They won¡¯t dare involve themselves in our matter. And if anything really is overlooked, Hao Lianchuan can clean up after you.¡±

    Such were Yuan Shuo¡¯s ns. He made them deliver his mysterious power tonight because it would have to be none other than Hao Lianchuan who did so. No one else was capable of doing so!

 Chapter 140: A Spare Tire (II)

    <h4>Chapter 140: A Spare Tire (II)</h4>

    If not tonight, White Moon would have to send someone tomorrow and it would still be Hao Lianchuan! No other Sunre would dare cross thousands of kilometers to transport thousands of cubes. There were supernaturals roaming the wild, waiting tomit robbery!

    ¡°Teacher, you¡¯ve really considered everything!¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but sigh with appreciation.

    Of course, who knew how Hao Lianchuan would react?

    ¡°And it doesn¡¯t matter what he thinks,¡± said Yuan Shuo. ¡°Can Night Watchers not eliminate wanted criminals? Not to mention, various factions are waiting to excavate the ruins with us. There will be no problems so long as it isn¡¯t open warfare. The prerequisite to that is that they don¡¯t know about Qiao Feilong¡¯s true strength.¡±

    Teacher and disciple nodded.

    ¡°Then does this mean we¡¯re on our own for the three Sunres?¡± Liu Long asked. He thought about the issue and mulled over what Yuan Shuo had said about having Hao Lianchuan bring up the rear. There shouldn¡¯t be much issue with their proposed course of action.

    Of course, no n could be perfect. Fortune was snatched from the jaws of danger! But if Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t afraid, then what was <i>he</i> afraid for?

    ¡°I¡¯ll need to make certain preparations after I go back and require the cooperation of the others. At the very least, we need to be ready for a besiegement.¡± Liu Long hesitated. ¡°There are probably plenty of regr people in the mines. Once we use weapons of mass scale destruction...¡±

    It weighed on him. Yuan Shuo was more ruthless than him when it came to this, but the professor was also aware of Liu Long¡¯s personality. He didn¡¯t outright say to ignore the regr people, but bent his mind to considering Liu Long¡¯s concerns as well.

    ¡°They won¡¯t let regr folks into that area because of the ruins,¡± Li Hao interjected. ¡°During my observations, I noted there was a distance between the three Sunres and ordinary people. They were at least one thousand meters apart.¡±

    Not too far, and in fact, very close! But it was a distance that could be avoided if one exercised a little bit of caution.

    ¡°I have a suggestion if chief thinks this is ill-advised,¡± Li Hao mentioned.

    ¡°Speak your mind.¡±

    ¡°A public holiday!¡±

    Liu Long blinked. <i>A public holiday?</i> He thought rapidly. ¡°There¡¯s no reason for a public holiday!¡±

    ¡°Why not?¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Our Night Watcher branch is opening in two days. In order to celebrate this day and the fact that Silver City has its own supernatural agency, the entire city can rx on that day and the day after! We can say this to the city¡¯s senior council and tell those below that it¡¯s simply days off.¡±

    Most people would return home for a two day holiday, particrly those who worked in the mines. They were overworked in normal times and would absolutely not stay in the mountain with the arrival of a rare holiday. Not everyone would leave, but there would be much fewer there than otherwise.

    Since they would be one thousand meters away, that would decrease losses to the lowest amount possible.

    ¡°Won¡¯t that unnecessarily alert the enemy?¡± asked Liu Long.

    ¡°It¡¯s the entire city on holiday, not just him!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°And it¡¯s only targeted toward mundanes, the Qiaos shouldn¡¯t pay it any attention.¡±

    ¡°But we must be on our guard!¡± Yuan Shuo objected. ¡°Do you think it makes sense to give mundanes a holiday for a Night Watcher asion? And will the Qiaos give those days off just because we say so?¡±

    The professor swept a nce at his student and shook his head. ¡°You do well with minor tricks, but you also easilymit mistakes in critical moments.¡±

    Li Hao lowered his head without a word. Since his teacher had spoken thus, perhaps he had a n.

    ¡°Dering a public holiday outright isn¡¯t a very reliable course of action...¡± Yuan Shuo narrowed his eyes. ¡°Roughly a thousand meters away, are they? Then I¡¯ll visit tonight and create an incident. I¡¯ll copse the mine! I¡¯m familiar with the area as I opened a new mine there before. A few pokes and prods at the original copse site will ensure that the ground continues to cave in. No one is in the mines at night and the Qiaos will dere apany holiday themselves. They won¡¯t be back up to business for another ten days to two weeks.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s doable.¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°It won¡¯t be the first. Qiao Mining Industries suffered a few copses when I was on thew enforcement team. They were able to move on afterward due to ack of casualties.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s normal!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Their area of copse should be close to the ruins. There naturally won¡¯t be that many people there. But since it caved in, they have to rectify it. Now that they¡¯ve started excavating the ruins, it¡¯s copsed more than once or twice in recent years. Another urrence isn¡¯t a big deal, and they¡¯ll certainly send their people away when they explore the ruins to avoid discovery.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. That was true. Another copse wouldn¡¯t raise eyebrows since it wasn¡¯t the first time and the Qiaos would be more concerned than anyone that the incident might draw attention. They¡¯d immediately halt operations to prevent a third party investigation.

    Therefore, they would pause work as soon as the incident urred.

    ¡°Can you avoid their detection, teacher?¡±

    ¡°No shit, I¡¯m a martial master, not a supernatural!¡± Yuan Shuo hectored. Thed didn¡¯t even know basic fundamentals! The greatest advantage to being a martial master was that internal force blossomed from inside the body. There was nothing special about a martial master if they didn¡¯t project their energy.

    Supernaturals were extremely hard pressed to sense their martial dao counterpart.

    Li Haoughed dryly and said nothing more.

    Liu Long¡¯s assorted fears and concerns were set aside after deciding upon the overall direction of their n. It was up to luck as to whether or not they would seed.

    It was up to luck to see if he could take down the three Sunres.

    ......

    Based on Li Hao¡¯s thoughts, he wanted to add Hao Lianchuan to the cause for added surety. However, his teacher and Liu Long were gamblers at heart; the thought didn¡¯t cross their mind. They wanted to take care of this by themselves if possible and bring in the cavalry if they couldn¡¯t. This wasn¡¯t in ordance with Li Hao¡¯s expectations.

    But at the moment, it was all the young man could do.

    They continued to eat lunch without further discussing this matter.

    ......

    Li Hao left with Liu Long after lunch. There would be someone who came along to fix Yuan Shuo¡¯s floor tiles. That had nothing to do with Li Hao.

    <i>Inside the car.</i>

    Liu Long¡¯s eyes were shut as he contemted something. He suddenly opened them when they were almost at the Inspectorate. ¡°Do you think we should involve Liu Yan and the others?¡±

    He was asking for Li Hao¡¯s opinion!

    Startled, the young man marshaled a response. ¡°We should if they still aren¡¯t afraid of danger and want more resources. But if they feel that they want to live out their days in peace and just draw a sry, then we should leave them be. But to be honest, Silver City will be in danger if anything goes wrong with us. It won¡¯t matter whether or not they¡¯re involved.¡±

    ¡°So you think we should bring them into this?¡±

    ¡°You have your own considerations, chief.¡± Li Hao refrained from saying too much as Liu Long wasn¡¯t the indecisive sort. He was just overly worried because this operation involved several Sunres and the Demon Hunters were akin to his siblings. Li Hao was certain that if Liu Yan and the others knew, they¡¯d all want to be part of it. Only Wang Ming and his people were hard to determine.

    ¡°Let¡¯s hold a meeting,¡± Liu Long decided. ¡°Should we let Wang Ming and the others participate?¡±

    They were outsiders, after all.

    ¡°We should.¡± Li Hao offered his take. ¡°They¡¯re all young and highly driven! This is a chance to blend our department, or we¡¯ll stay two separate teams that are difficult to integrate. We¡¯ll be one group only after fighting side by side.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± Liu Long smiled, then quickly resumed his customary aloofness. ¡°While I don¡¯t know the particrs of our enemy, I¡¯m confident of defeating all three of them after bing a Dominator! They¡¯re three rats who¡¯ve never shown their faces in the supernatural domain. Maybe they¡¯ve never even raised a hand before. How much battle awareness can they have after the Qiaos hid them for so long?¡±

    ¡°Probably not much.¡± Li Hao smirked. ¡°Maybe less than me!¡±

    ¡°Precisely!¡± Liu Long nodded in agreement. It wasn¡¯t just the three Sunres, but also Qiao Feilong. The man hadn¡¯t fought for many years either. He was just a mere yer before, how much battle awareness would he hold even as a Sr now?

    He could torture those weaker than him, but what of his peers?

    Who knew if it was out of selffort or true belief, but confidence began to brim in Liu Long.

    ......

    <i>The Law Enforcement building.</i>

    Wang Ming couldn¡¯t help butin to Hu Hao when he heard that yet another meeting had been scheduled. He¡¯d juste from visiting some corporations.

    ¡°People say that White Moon holds a lot of meetings and I quite agree! But aftering to Silver City, I find that it¡¯s the smaller ces that arepletely out of control!¡±

    It¡¯d only been how many days and how many meetings in that duration? Silver City held meetings at the drop of a hat!

    He was immensely dissatisfied with Liu Long, finding the director to be someone indifferent to fame and wealth. The man was known among White Moon supernaturals as a cantankerous guy. But now he seemed more obsessed with the trappings of power!

    He held nonstop meetings after bing director. There was absolutely no end in sight! Not only that, but there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony in two days. Bah! They were Night Watchers, not a corporation! What was this nonsense about a ribbon-cutting ceremony? They were an absoluteughingstock!

    ¡°He doesn¡¯t do a single thing that he should be doing!¡± Wang Mingined again. Hu Hao didn¡¯t say anything as he was a taciturn, reserved type. Li Meng, however, quite agreed.

    ¡°That¡¯s right! When upstairs told us toe to Silver City, I was thinking it might be the same asst time and we might see some fighting. It might be dangerous, so they wanted us toe to temper ourselves. But after a few days... it¡¯s either meetings or whiling the days away. We go to dojos andpanies to waste time. I¡¯m so bored!¡±

    The heck was this! Li Meng felt that White Moon City was overestimating the martial masters of Silver City. They seemed to have entered retirement after thest battle. Every single person was busy disying their authority instead of doing actual work. This was such a waste of the trio¡¯s lives!

    ¡°Director Wang, Li Meng, let¡¯s go to the meeting!¡± Hu Hao interrupted. They were in thew enforcement building! It wouldn¡¯t do for someone to overhear them. They were a team, after all. They¡¯d yet to grow close with Liu Yan and the others after these days. It only appeared that they were congenial on the surface.

    ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s see what they¡¯ve got in store for today,¡± Wang Ming snorted. ¡°There¡¯s a perfectly fine conference room here, but they want to hold it in the basement. They¡¯ve seriously got too much time on their hands!¡±

    The three grumbled and muttered among themselves, but still headed for the basement. This was where the meeting was being held this time.

 Chapter 141: A Spare Tire (III)

    <h4>Chapter 141: A Spare Tire (III)</h4>

    <i>In the basement.</i>

    Liu Yan and the others filed in. Yun Yao and the rest of the team still lived here¡ªthe offices upstairs were empty most of the time. Compared to the rest of the building, they were still more ustomed to this environment.

    They didn¡¯t mind it when Li Hao and Liu Long came through the door together. Liu Yan knew some of the details, but didn¡¯t say anything. Upon seeing that their supernatural colleagues were yet to arrive, Liu Long swept a nce at Wu Chao and Chen Jian.

    ¡°You two only started absorbing mysterious power over the past two days, didn¡¯t you?¡± He frowned.

    The two nodded.

    ¡°Finish absorbing all of your cubes in the next two days. I don¡¯t care if it results in internal injuries, induct them all!¡±

    The two men blinked. Why were they suddenly in such a hurry? Based on previous circumstances, twenty cubes was more than enough tost half a year. They might not receive any more in the future, so doling them out sparingly was the best way to maximum gains. What was the rush for?

    But Liu Long¡¯s authority remained and they highly trusted the director. They quickly nodded without any questions.

    ¡°Yun Yao!¡±

    ¡°Here.¡± Yun Yao looked at the director.

    ¡°You are a water supernatural now, how much of your healing abilities do you have left?¡± asked Liu Long.

    ¡°About the same as before.¡± Yun Yao pushed her sses up her nose. She¡¯d never worn any before, but was fond of wearing a pair now. Li Hao knew a thing or two¡ªthey seemed to be able to catch glimpses of scarlet shadows. The team doctor utilized them to steer clear of pursuit.

    ¡°Then you¡¯re still our healer for now.¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°You¡¯re in charge of treating the team before we have a true light or healing supernatural join us.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    A knock sounded on the door before Wang Ming entered with a smile. He looked at everyone and nodded at Liu Long, wanting to find a ce to sit. However, he found that the team was sitting willy-nilly. Chen Jian was even sitting on the floor!

    Speechless, Wang Ming decided to stand on the side with Li Hao. Li Meng and Hu Hao opted to stand near Chen Jian.

    Liu Long nced at the group and dispensed with the niceties. ¡°Folks, you¡¯re none too familiar with us since you¡¯ve just joined us. While we fought together before, that was a very short experience. I have one question for you¡ªare you here to gild yourselves with pretty des, or are you here to experience life and death?¡±

    ¡°Of course we¡¯re here to temper and hone ourselves!¡± Wang Ming replied with dissatisfaction. ¡°Gild ourselves? Is there any point to gilding if we arecking as supernaturals? Does Director Liu think too little of us?¡±

    ¡°Director,¡± Li Meng added. ¡°We came to Silver City because we heard you need reinforcement. We¡¯re not here to y around.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± Liu Long dered coolly. ¡°There will be a battle in the city soon. You don¡¯t need to know who the enemy is! You just need to follow orders, keep your head, follow the n, and don¡¯t interfere with your teammates!¡±

    <i>A battle?</i>

    Wang Ming started. What battle?

    ¡°Director, how strong is the enemy?¡±

    ¡°Sunre!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not undoable.¡± Wang Ming furrowed his brows. ¡°But the danger will be significant. Can I ask if theye from one of the three great organizations or some other one?¡±

    ¡°They can be viewed as part of the three great organizations!¡±

    ¡°But White Moon wishes that we don¡¯t provoke a fight with them...¡±

    ¡°This is Silver City!¡± Liu Long barked out. ¡°My decision isw here! You call the shots only when I step aside and you take my ce! Otherwise, what I say goes!¡±

    Wang Ming thinned his lips. <i>Whatever you say then.</i> He wasn¡¯t afraid of just one Sunre. Silver City was adequately staffed at the moment. While theycked Sunre, there were four Darkmoons in the department and two Sunderers. They could stand their ground.

    As for danger... Just like he¡¯d said, encountering danger was their ideal Silver City life.

    ¡°Director, do we have a time and a ce for the operation?¡± asked a Hu Hao who¡¯d been silent up to this point.

    ¡°I¡¯ll let you know when it¡¯s a go!¡±

    Alright then, he didn¡¯t trust them. That was normal. Although Wang Ming wasn¡¯t too satisfied, he epted the state of affairs.

    ¡°Do we have a n of attack?¡± he asked instead. ¡°How will we coordinate? I¡¯m a metal supernatural, Li Meng is a special type, Hu Hao is a flight type. At White Moon, we typically run several drills beforehand to ensure that we¡¯re synchronized and that our abilities don¡¯t interfere with each other...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no need, you just need to ensure that the three of you are in harmony!¡± Liu Long looked at him. ¡°You need to be prepared for an attack by a Sunre. Focus on how to withstand or even obstruct them so they cannot flee. If you cannot do it, let us know now!¡±

    Wang Ming¡¯s heart quailed! <i>We three need to be prepared to fight a Sunre? That¡¯s... so... exciting!</i>

    He was worked up, apprehensive, and also embarrassed.

    ¡°Ah... Director...¡± he managed to spit out. ¡°We... weck sufficient battle experience. To be honest, our coordination isn¡¯t all that and we probably won''t be able to keep a Sunre in ce if we ran into one.¡±

    Liu Long chuckled; he liked the guy¡¯s honesty. There was no use in running their mouths. They¡¯d be beaten to death in a second if they were truly on the battlefield. It would be a detriment to themselves and to their teammates.

    ¡°The enemy is also new!¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Wang Ming and his brethren blinked. Also a rookie? ¡°There¡¯s rookies among Sunre?¡±

    It was hard to believe¡ªhow could one still be a rookie as a Sunre? This level of supernatural had crossed over at least ten years ago. Whether the supernatural was of the Night Watchers or other organizations, it was impossible to not have experienced a certain amount of battle after ten years¡ªparticrly as a Sunre. Only when one was a Heaven Favored and naturally developed their way to Sunre was that a possibility.

    ¡°They¡¯re most likely rookies... I¡¯m not entirely sure, but ny percent certain! Even if they¡¯ve battled before, their fights were most likely against lower levels. They don¡¯t look to have fought peers!¡±

    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, then we have nothing to worry about.¡± Wang Ming breathed out more easily. ¡°Hu Hao can fly, Li Meng can lock onto their location and distance, and I can attack. So long as the three of us exercise caution, we¡¯ll be able to run even if we can¡¯t defeat them. Ahem, I mean we¡¯ll be able to curb them within reasonable limits.¡±

    They were more experienced after the wounds they¡¯d sufferedst time.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine if the three of you withdraw from the operation. But if you wish to participate, we are so decided!¡± Liu Long concluded. ¡°Everything is to be kept confidential. Nothing is to be divulged to even White Moon City without my approval. Do all of you hear me?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Then the meeting is concluded. Be ready to fight at any time!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± the team chorused.

    The Demon Hunters were veryposed. So what if they faced Sunres? They¡¯d taken down Darkmoons before and the entire team was stronger now. It wasn¡¯t iprehensible that they had Sunres in their sights.

    ......

    Liu Long¡¯s meeting was very brief. When the group filed out of the basement, Wang Ming grabbed Li Hao.

    ¡°Are we going up against Gxy?¡± he muttered.

    ¡°Guess!¡± Li Hao grinned.

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>Guess my ass! </i>That was the only possibility he could consider since that corporation possessed Darkmoons. But did that mean they had Sunres among their ranks?

    He didn¡¯t know.

    ¡°Forget it, we¡¯ll go against whoever we go against so long as it isn¡¯t the Night Watchers!¡± He didn¡¯t have many demands in this area. He would hit whoever the target was as long as it wasn¡¯t one of their own. ¡°Will your teacher be in the field?¡±

    ¡°Maybe.¡±

    That set Wang Ming at ease. Their safety was assured if there was a Dominator waiting on the sidelines. It was just one Sunre! Yuan Shuo would p them to death in a matter of seconds if they proved to be more than what the supernatural trio could handle. Wang Ming still recalled how Yuan Shuo had hacked Ying Hongyue¡¯s son to death with one stroke. The professor was formidable!

    Thus, Wang Ming noticeably rxed.

    ¡°Stay on your guard, things won¡¯t be that simple!¡± Li Hao whispered when he saw his colleague at ease. ¡°Treat every battle as yourst¡ªmy teacher taught me that and I¡¯ll tell you the same! Unexpected drops of the ball happen all the time.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Wang Ming nodded with renewed focus.

    The two went along their ways.

    ......

    The work day was soon over. Li Hao promptly clocked out as usual; there was no aberration from his usual behavior. Anyone watching him would only draw the conclusion that the young man was extremely boring.

    He came to work on time and left work on time. He didn¡¯t go anywhere else apart from an asional visit to his teacher¡¯s. Li Hao¡¯s life was so regr that he was more predictable than a retired senior citizen.

    ......

    <i>As Li Hao returned home.</i>

    <i>The Yuan residence.</i>

    A panting Hao Lianchuannded on the ground and irritably pushed through the front door. ¡°Is there a need for this, Professor Yuan?? Threatening others with the life of the inspector general is not a good idea!¡±

    He was quite dissatisfied! It was one thing to joke around, but Mu Sen had been gravely serious that Yuan Shuo would execute him if Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯te today! Once the matter involved the inspector general of a city... Hao Lianchuan had to rush here with due haste no matter how busy he was.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s threat was over the line and out of bounds!

    ¡°Where is it?¡± Yuan Shuo ignored him. ¡°Did you bring it? Don¡¯t talk so much. You took my things and didn¡¯t send so much of a word in many days, and you also took the sword of the Lis. Would you just forget about it if I didn¡¯t ask you for it? Are the Night Watchers engaging in daylight robbery now?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan heaved a resigned sigh. ¡°I¡¯m collecting the mysterious power for you...¡±

    ¡°The Night Watchers can close up shop if they can¡¯t even take out one thousand cubes!¡±

    Fine. Hao Lianchuan had nothing to say to that because they could indeed bring out that many. He had indeed wanted to dy the handover until after the expedition, but he couldn¡¯t withhold it forever since this one had insisted.

    ¡°I brought them with me, two hundred cubes of each of the five elements...¡±

    ¡°I gave you thirteen hundred!¡± Yuan Shuo looked at him with a frosty expression.

    ¡°We¡¯re really not misappropriating your goods, that¡¯s not something we¡¯d do! You wanted equal parts of all elements¡ªthis is all we have on hand. I brought unattributed power for the other three hundred cubes. Will they do? They¡¯re more useful for martial masters.¡±

    Yuan Shuo reluctantly inclined his head. That would do.

    ¡°Then it¡¯s settled. Liu Long came to me this morning and said that if youe, you can be an anchor for him. He wants to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony...¡±

 Chapter 142: In A Rush To Die (I)

    <h4>Chapter 142: In A Rush To Die (I)</h4>

    ¡°I¡¯m up to <i>here</i> with work, how do I have the time to participate in an opening ceremony??¡± Hao Lianchuan was so angry that he almostughed. <i>I have so much on my te already and I¡¯m supposed to hold down the fort for him??</i>

    What a joke!

    ¡°There are too many rats scurrying through Silver City. Do you think one Sunderer is sufficient to keep them under control?¡± Yuan Shuo responded faintly. ¡°Do whatever you want. It¡¯s the day after tomorrow. Are you going to rush back to White Moon right now?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan was at a loss for words. ¡°Fine! Nothing major should be happeningtely as I¡¯ve exchanged a few words with the various supernatural organizations. So don¡¯t worry! As chaotic as the central region is, it hasn¡¯t affected us for now. Everything is on hold until the expedition concludes.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Yuan Shuo waved a hand to send his visitor away. <i>That¡¯s enough, you can go now.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t think it was possible for him to be more speechless. <i>I¡¯m a Sr, alright? This guy¡¯s getting more and more arrogant! He seems more like the Old Demon Yuan of old.</i>

    Neither could the director be bothered with further conversation. He turned on his heel and left. While he had some spection as to why Yuan Shuo wanted mysterious power of the five elements, it was too much effort to ask. He¡¯d absorbed a little bit of other elements like the professor had told him to¡ªthe effects were decent. Despite ack of noticeable gain to strength, his chest pains were alleviated. This was a very important matter.

    Hao Lianchuan was prepared to experiment for a period longer before making an announcement to the Night Watchers atrge. If no problems cropped up for him, he wanted them to study whether a bnced system of the five elements was needed for optimal development of supernatural abilities.

    It was due to Yuan Shuo furnishing this information to him that he was so responsive. He came as soon as the professor called for him.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s footsteps faltered when he reached the yard in front of the house. He stepped on a piece of broken tile and raised his eyebrow when he looked down at it. Being a Sr, his eye was keen.

    <i>The employment of the aura?</i> It didn¡¯t seem like Yuan Shuo¡¯s¡ªcould it be that Liu Long had left it here this morning?

    So this meant that Liu Long was familiarizing himself with the aura. That was good! It looked like the man stood a good chance of advancing to Dominator!

    A smile traced Hao Lianchuan¡¯s lips. This was an unexpected surprise! No one had told him about it and Liu Long hadn¡¯t mentioned it. Was he nning on giving the Night Watchers a surprise after he broke through?

    ¡°Heh, it¡¯ll be a good thing if he can advance. It¡¯ll be worth it to put in a showing this time then!¡± A chuckling Hao Lianchuan made his way to the Inspectorate; he was in particrly high spirits. No one in Silver City was able to stir up any trouble.

    ......

    <i>July 30.</i>

    Thest day of the month. There were no longer or shorter months in the Star era. [1] Every month was a standard thirty days. Today was a rest day. Whether it was the Inspectorate or Night Watchers, they all had their days off. There were six days of rest in a month. Being a public servant was a cushy job,paratively speaking. Of course, there was no rest to be found if they were embroiled in work.

    Li Hao woke upter on this day¡ªnot because he wasckadaisical on a day off work. After his teacher copsed part of the mine, the professor visited Li Hao¡¯s room and scared the living daylights out of the young man. After that, he didn¡¯t let the young man sleep.

    Yuan Shuo force fed mysterious power to Li Hao! It was truly a forced action as Li Hao had to absorb energy whether or not he could. However much he could take in was however much Yuan Shuo shoved at him.

    There were one thousand cubes of mysterious power! Li Hao almost vomited blood at the abundance and managed less than one hundred cubes. That in itself was sufficient to shock anyone who heard.

    Who could absorb one hundred cubes of mysterious power in one night?! Not even a Dominator like Liu Long could take in that much¡ªhe wouldn¡¯t be able to digest it. Li Hao, however, possessed sword energy.

    Mysterious power was neutralized to a gentle energy after the sword worked on it. Whatever he couldn¡¯t digest was stored in his body. Unfortunately, both disciple and teacher sensed that the sword¡¯s energy was dwindling. Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t yet know how to reverse the situation. Origin weapons were top secrets of the supernatural domain and ancient books didn¡¯t mention this term. It must be something formted by modern supernaturals.

    One hundred cubes were sufficient to help a Sunderer make the crossover. One such as Liu Yan would ascend, if being supernatural was in the cards for her. When Yuan Shuo reached peak Sunderer, he¡¯d assessed that he needed several hundred or a thousand cubes if he wished to cross over. But Li Hao only strengthened his organs after absorbing so much; he continued to enhance his physique.

    It required his own effort to project internal force from his torso. That would require some time as, strictly judging the conditions of his body, even Yuan Shuo said that thed¡¯s organs rivaled his own at peak Sunderer. The professor had utilized his internal force to nurture his organs whereas Li Hao relied on special energy to fortify them.

    This was why Li Hao rosete on this today and felt stuffed to the brim, like he¡¯d had too much to eat!

    The ribbon-cutting ceremony was the next night¡ªAugust 1st. It was a long time from now and it didn¡¯t matter if Li Hao did no work today, so he didn¡¯t care about wakingte.

    ¡°It¡¯s great having a big house, if a bit inconvenient!¡± he reflected as he digested his gains. The environment was great, but there was no ce to have breakfast. No one else in this affluent neighborhood visited a breakfast stall everyday like Li Hao was ustomed to. They all had their own chefs and staff.

    On the other hand, it was still a wonderful experience to wake up early, take a walk, grab some breakfast, do some stretching, and run through the Five Styles.

    Li Hao grumbled as he took stock of his current condition. It felt like his organs were on fire¡ªthey were furnaces!

    Blood churned through his veins, each flowing movement creating tendrils of internal force that strengthened blood vessels, skin, bones, and others.

    ¡°Thunder enhances the body, wind increases speed...¡± Li Hao turned glum whenever he thought of thunder. Ying Hongyue¡¯s son was a thunder supernatural and Yuan Shuo had obtained some upon killing his opponent. Huang Yun took half of the harvest and the professor traded the rest away.

    He hadn¡¯t nned to at first, but he felt that the five elements were more important. yet with only one thousand cubes of the five elements and three useless cubes of unattributed power, Li Hao felt they¡¯d done poorly for themselves.

    What did Huang Yun want with thunder energy?? Wasn¡¯t he a wind supernatural? Although unattributed mysterious power strengthened martial masters, they were less valuable to Li Hao than attributed power.

    As much as he grumbled, Li Hao ran through azy boxing technique. It was the form of the Five Styles when the method wasn¡¯t employed for battle. Hailed as the best drill for preserving one¡¯s health, it wasn¡¯t a fierce routine.

    Li Hao focused on the increase of internal force, the reinforcement of flesh and blood, and the innate feeling of strength arising from them. He didn¡¯t dare utilize too much force in his training as too big of a disturbance might draw his neighbor¡¯s attention.

    <i>I wonder if Qiao Peng¡¯s in the mood to chat me up today.</i> Li Hao¡¯s lips curved upward. The Qiao mines had copsedst night and he¡¯d sensed the Plenilune following Qiao Peng around leave. The light source was very noticeable in the dead of night.

    He returned in the morning; it looked like he¡¯d pretty much resolved the copse.

    <i>Speak of the devil.</i>

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t sense Qiao Peng¡¯s presence, nor that of the Plenilune. But the supernatural was a giant walking light bulb. Li Hao was able to see him so long as he could still see. His best guess as to why he could see was his bloodline. There was no possible exnation apart from that. <i>The Night Watchers seemed to have recruited some people like me. Are they also the bloodline of the eight families?</i>

    But that didn¡¯t make sense. If those people are from the eight families, that meant that the Night Watchers were aware of the folk song and legend. Why then, didn¡¯t they know about Silver City?

    Some things were not easily broached. Wang Ming might know, but he wasn¡¯t a fool. Asking too many questions might tip him off.

    The matter could not be rushed. Li Hao had time to slowly pump Wang Ming for information after they fought together in the uing mission and formed deep ties of friendship. There would be no fear of asking too many questions then.

    What¡¯d happened to those who could see the scarlet shadow? Was the shadow a secret to the Night Watcher senior council?

    Perhaps not!

    Why else would they know that the shadow handlers were special as soon as they saw the scarlet shadows? There had to be powerhouses with special abilities among the agency, as well as Srs who could directly see the shadows. But it was just a guess as Li Hao didn¡¯t have any Sr friends.

    Thoughts zigzagging through his mind, Li Hao didn¡¯t notice his neighbor¡¯s arrival until someone knocked on the front gate.

    ¡°Who is it?¡± he called out.

    ¡°It¡¯s me, Commissioner Inspector Li. Are you busy?¡± Qiao Peng waited outside with his Plenilune driver.

    The door quickly swung open and Li Hao regarded him frostily with a frown. ¡°I told you already, Qiao Peng, leave me alone and I¡¯ll forget you exist! What do you mean by disturbing me so early in the morning?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t misunderstand!¡± Qiao Peng chuckled. ¡±I truly don¡¯t mean anything else by it. Themissioner inspector misunderstands me. I¡¯m here on business.¡±

    ¡°What kind of business?¡± Li Hao stood at the front gate, not intending to let his visitor in.

    ¡°As things go.¡± Qiao Peng wasn¡¯t angered by the treatment. ¡°Qiao Mining Industries owns a mountain in Silver City. Commissioner Inspector Li visited two days ago, do you remember?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°We had a copse in the mines yesterday...¡±

    ¡°Did people die?¡± Li Hao brightened. ¡°And you want me to smooth it over? Tell me how many are dead first. If it¡¯s more than three, handle it yourself at the Inspectorate. If it¡¯s less than three... I don¡¯t care about money and it holds no value for me. I want mysterious power!¡±

    Qiao Peng¡¯s jaw dropped. <i>Who the hell said this kid was a good person? Heavens above! He¡¯s only been an official for a few days, but he¡¯s already learned how to demand bribes! Did he just not have room to flex his muscles before?</i>

    This was thest thing that Qiao Peng expected, and he really wasn¡¯t here to ask Li Hao to make the problem go away.

    ¡°That¡¯s not it... Qiao Mining treats our employees well and does not work at night. Only the mine shaft copsedst night, no one was injured. The mines are closed until a new shaft is constructed.¡± Only now did Qiao Peng address the purpose of his visit. ¡°Professor Yuan is the city¡¯s most renowned geologist...¡±

    1. Just as we are in A.D., so is this world in the era named Star. ?

 Chapter 143: In A Rush To Die (II)

    <h4>Chapter 143: In A Rush To Die (II)</h4>

    ¡°You want my teacher to open a new mine for you?¡± Li Hao understood.

    ¡°That¡¯s not it!¡± Qiao Peng chuckled. ¡°Professor Yuan is Silver City¡¯s foremost powerhouse. We wouldn¡¯t dare trouble him with such a trifling matter! We all know that Commissioner Inspector Li is the professor¡¯s disciple and used to concentrate your learning in this area. I¡¯vee today to request themissioner inspector¡¯s help in identifying a new mine opening for us.¡±

    Li Hao furrowed his brows while his mind operated at high speed. He hadn¡¯t thought that the Qiaos woulde to him for help in the end. What was the meaning of this? The Qiaos were professional miners, did theyck experts?

    <i>No!</i>

    This wasn¡¯t a difficult task and they were the experts, so what were they doing knocking on Li Hao¡¯s door? It was... the height of strangeness.

    The young man had some thoughts after a while. <i>They want me, but what good does having me do? Absolutely nothing! Not only am I of no help, but they¡¯d have to worry that I might discover something. However, Qiao Peng is here all the same...</i>

    <i>The ruins!</i>

    Li Hao roughly grasped the Qiaos¡¯ intentions. Maybe the mine copse meant nothing to them, but if they could utilize this chance to invite Li Hao in and possibly activate something through his bloodline... then it was a matter of paramount importance!

    Perhaps they might even try to kill him?

    Li Hao took an inward breath. It wasn¡¯t outside the realm of possibility!

    Silver City had drawn a lot of attention these days, as had he. It wasn¡¯t a sure bet to have him visit the mines with a regr reason. He¡¯d gone a few days ago, but with a Night Watcher. His visit had also beenmon knowledge and many were keeping an eye on him.

    An excuse of privately helping with identifying a new mine opening might draw less attention from his watchers. Yuan Shuo was an expert in this field and Li Hao was his prized disciple. It was reasonable that arge corporation like Qiao Mining Industries would request the young man¡¯s help.

    Li Hao¡¯s only concern was that... there might be no return from this! Qiao Feilong might seek to kill him, grab what he could from the ruins, then make a run for it. Exposure wouldn¡¯t be a concern for them anymore.

    <i>Danger! </i>Li Hao sniffed the scent of danger. The Qiaos might really use this opportunity to kill him. No wonder they still invited him despite knowing there were ancient ruins and their own secrets present. There were certainly ulterior motives at y.

    Despite understanding the connotations, Li Hao showed a conflicted expression.

    ¡°I won¡¯t have themissioner inspector make this trip in vain.¡± Qiao Peng lowered his voice with understanding. ¡°Whether it¡¯s star coins or mysterious power, everything is negotiable...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t have my teacher¡¯s skills!¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°And it¡¯s just identifying a new mine opening. Does yourpanyck talent like this?¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t,¡± Qiao Peng replied with resignation. ¡°And to be honest, we¡¯d much rather have our own people handle things if possible. But the copse site is in an awkward location and our experts are elderly. They¡¯re not light on their feet, so we want someone nimble who can swiftly reconnoiter the surroundings and immediately restart operations at the mines. Commissioner Inspector Li and Professor Yuan Shuo are the most suited in Silver City, but we really can¡¯t afford to invite the professor!¡±

    Qiao Peng chuckled with resignation. ¡°He is a Dominator, a walking god¡ªhow much would it cost to be graced with his presence? Our mountain is worth only so much. We can¡¯t bear to part with more than it¡¯s worth and the professor won¡¯t be satisfied if we offer too little. After some consideration, we guess that themissioner inspector¡¯s learned roughly eighty percent of the professor¡¯s knowledge. That¡¯s enough!¡±

    It was a perfect reason. Why didn¡¯t they go to Yuan Shuo? Because he was too expensive. Why did theye to Li Hao? Because he was a fighter jet among experts¡ªagile, efficient, convenient, and decisive.

    ¡°And how much can you pay?¡± Li Hao raised a brow.

    ¡°One cube of mysterious power or one million star coins!¡± Qiao Peng responded seriously. ¡°This is absolutely a fair price!¡±

    ¡°Forget it, my monthly sry is one cube.¡± Li Hao was disappointed. ¡°I thought the Qiaos ran a big empire, but this is all you can offer?¡±

    Qiao Peng cursed inwardly! <i>I¡¯m willing to put up ten or one hundred cubes, but I bet you wouldn¡¯t dare ept it! And I¡¯m paying you this much only to have you prospect the area. How are you not satisfied? This guy is much greedier than the stories make him out to be.</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s a lot,missioner inspector. It¡¯s not that we can¡¯t afford a higher price, but to be honest, it wouldn¡¯t be worth it if we did. If the price is too high, then... we¡¯d rather wait a few days than restore operations tomorrow,¡± Qiao Peng paused. ¡°It¡¯s just a day¡¯s work for one cube. Commissioner Inspector Li, please feel free to ask around to see if we¡¯re offering a fair price.¡±

    Li Hao seemed tempted and considered the offer for a bit. ¡°Very well, then give me a moment. Are we going now?¡±

    ¡°Yes, as soon as possible!¡± Qiao Peng bobbed his head, wanting nothing more than for Li Hao to follow him right now. He couldn¡¯t forcefully abduct thed¡ªthere might be people from the city keeping an eye on him. They were also too close to Yuan Shuo. If Li Hao was taken against his will, it would send the city into an uproar.

    They had to ensure that the young man followed them willingly! Once they were inside the mines, no one would brazenly follow them in because they understood that the trip was just for a new mine opening.

    Qiao father and son had made quite the airtight n, and they did have some other motivations in y. If special circumstances were triggered when Li Hao approached the ruins... they could either kill him on the spot or find a way to collect some of his blood.

    In either case, the Qiaos needed to confirm the usability of the young man. If there was no response from the ruins and his blood proved useless, they would needlessly offend arge host of people if they killed him. It would also expose them after numerous years of concealment¡ªan immense loss rather than a gain.

    They would inevitably extract some sort of gain by inviting Li Hao this time. They would ensure he left a bit of blood behind at the very least. The mines were also one of the least inconspicuous ways to ensure this. It¡¯d just caved him and rubble abounded. Any random fragment of rock could inflict a bloody scrape¡ªthat would be a very ordinary urrence.

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t dy. He returned to the house for a change of clothes and quickly walked out of the front gate. Hismunicator rang just when he climbed into the Qiao family car. Qiao Peng pricked his ears in the front seat when the young man picked up, eavesdropping on his conversation.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡±

    ¡°What is it, chief?¡±

    Qiao Peng raised an eyebrow. Liu Long?

    ¡°Director Hao¡¯se from White Moon and says he¡¯ll be the master of ceremonies for the ribbon-cutting ceremony tomorrow. Hurry up and present yourself to him!¡±

    ¡°Now?¡±

    ¡°Yes, the faster the better.¡±

    ¡°Um...¡± Li Hao hesitated. ¡°Chief, can it wait? Or do you want toe to Qiao Mining and wait for me at the front of their mountain? I¡¯m going to locate a new mine opening for them right now and will be done soon.¡±

    ¡°What are you thering on about?!¡± Liu Long¡¯s furious roar split the receiver. ¡°You¡¯re going to pick up some extra ie when Director Hao¡¯s waiting for you?¡±

    ¡°No, that¡¯s not what I mean...¡± Li Hao exined. ¡°The Inspectorate has a duty to handle certain cases and one like the copse of a mine involves general safety. I¡¯m primarily going to investigate to see if they¡¯ve concealed any casualties. Chief, I¡¯m busy with proper business!¡±

    ¡°Bullshit! Get back here!¡±

    Li Hao set his jaw with reluctance. ¡°It¡¯s just one hour, chief. I¡¯ll be there as soon as I¡¯m done. I said I¡¯d do it and we¡¯re almost there, it won¡¯t do if I don¡¯t go! And chief... I... I need mysterious power.¡±

    ¡°Fuck that!¡± Liu Long cursed. ¡°I¡¯d smack you to death if you weren¡¯t Yuan Shuo¡¯s damned student! I¡¯m driving there right now and you finish as fast as you can! Li Hao, all your learning¡¯s gone straight up your ass! Don¡¯t give yourself airs just because you¡¯re Yuan Shuo¡¯s student. How dare you act like this with Director Hao in residence?! I really couldn¡¯t tell before!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just a coincidence!¡± Li Hao hastened to exin, but Liu Long had already hung up. The young man swore with frustration and looked irritably at Qiao Peng. ¡°Look at this, I was yelled at for you guys! I don¡¯t care what the situation is, Qiao Peng, you get one hour at most. It¡¯d be best if we can decide on a new location, but you have to pay up even if we can¡¯t!¡±

    Meanwhile, Qiao Peng was also inwardly cursing up a storm! Screw this sted development! Liu Long wasing too?? And Hao Lianchuan was in town?! If Liu Long came and Li Hao was also here, that¡¯d draw all eyeballs to them!

    And if Hao Lianchuan also turned his attention to them... they needed to exercise utmost caution. Taking Li Hao and Liu Long to that ce might result in exposure.

    ¡°Let¡¯s not, Commissioner Inspector Li,¡± Qiao Peng quickly raised. ¡°Let¡¯s forget about today. I don¡¯t want to have Director Liu make a trip in vain. We can reschedule for another time.¡±

    The n was ruined with the addition of Liu Long¡¯s presence. They could take a break and go about their business.

    ¡°None of that bullshit.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°I¡¯ve already been yelled at and will be yelled at again if I tell chief not to go. It¡¯s fine, Director Liu is very good to me and I dock mysterious power. Taking one hour to earn one cube... he won¡¯t mind. He won¡¯t do anything apart from yelling at me.¡±

    He nced at Qiao Peng out of the corners of his eyes and suppressed augh. <i>You¡¯ve now got troubles you can¡¯t speak of, huh!</i>

    Liu Long¡¯s call hade in such a timely manner naturally due to Li Hao¡¯s actions when he went inside to change. Since the Qiaos were so earnest in their invitation, the young man might as well go. Refusing could raise suspicion.

    Liu Long wanted to tag along to see if he could sense something. Perhaps he could probe the attributes of the three supernaturals, their abilities, and their strength. Martial masters could easily hide themselves, but supernaturals would give something away if they were close to a Dominator¡ªespecially if they were Sunre.

    And here they were, fretting about ack of opportunity to understand their opponent! A chance hade knocking at their door. Otherwise, the director of a Night Watcher branch really didn¡¯t have a reason to visit a mine.

    While Yuan Shuo had gonest night, what he sensed might not be the same as Liu Long. Perhaps the professor felt that he could take on their opponents, but it was still up to Liu Long to draw his own conclusions.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    A mystified Liu Long drove toward the mountain. What... nice fellows to offer themselves up on a silver tter. Was the Qiao family in such a rush to die?

    He wanted to sneak into the mountain as well, but worried that his abilities of concealment would fall shortpared to Yuan Shuo¡¯s. They would be in grave trouble if he was discovered. Thus, this was perfect. He had a legitimate reason to walk right in.

 Chapter 144: In A Rush To Die (III)

    <h4>Chapter 144: In A Rush To Die (III)</h4>

    Liu Long drove like his personality¡ªfast and furious. He arrived before Li Hao did.

    There were very few people on site due to the copse. Liu Long stood at the entrance and waited for the others, lighting a cigarette when he alighted from his car. When someone approached him, he dered coldly, ¡°I am Liu Long!¡±

    The person¡¯s eyes widened.

    ¡°Where¡¯s Li Hao? Tell him to get out here!¡±

    Only senior executives were left on the scene. The man quickly responded, ¡°Liu... Captain Liu, Commissioner Inspector Li doesn¡¯t seem to be here. Are you looking for him?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Liu Long frowned. ¡°He¡¯s not here? Is he ying me?¡± His frown deepened and his voice snapped with arctic frost. ¡°I hear there¡¯s been a copse. Has anyone died?¡±

    ¡°No, no one¡¯s died at all...¡± stammered the fearful executive. Everyone was apprehensive of the boss of thew enforcement team. Although Liu Long no longer upied this position, regr people weren¡¯t aware of that.

    A car pulled in as they conversed.

    ¡°Chief, how are you here faster than me?¡± Li Hao called out with delight.

    Qiao Peng kept up an internal litany of curses as he got off. <i>You¡¯re here damned quick!</i>

    ¡°Cut the bullshit!¡± Liu Long ignored Qiao Peng and turned his re onto the driver. He looked uncertainly at the man, then at Li Hao. ¡°Hurry up, Director Hao¡¯s waiting! ...are you a supernatural?¡± He suddenly pointed at the driver. ¡°Have you registered?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± the middle-aged driver responded softly. ¡°I¡¯m nning to go tomorrow.¡±

    ¡°This is the bodyguard that my father hired for me,¡± Qiao Peng exined. ¡°We don¡¯t mean to keep it from the Night Watchers and were nning to register him...¡±

    ¡°Shut up, there¡¯s no ce for you to talk here!¡± Liu Long speared him with a cutting nce. ¡°Register as soon as possible!¡± That was all he said since everyone knew that there were bound to be supernaturals hidden at different ces.

    Qiao Peng still brought his driver despite knowing Liu Long wasing, partially because it was inconvenient to send the supernatural away when Li Hao was already in the car and partially because they wished to test to see how much the Night Watchers knew about the Qiaos.

    Based on Liu Long¡¯s reaction... there seemed to be nothing amiss. Otherwise, the man would¡¯ve yed dumb.

    While Qiao Peng appeared to be a dandy, schemes and calctions abounded in his heart. Every step he made was carefully considered. Far from being an ident, the exposure of his driver was deliberate.

    After all, it would be unbefitting their status if the vast Qiao family didn¡¯t have a single Darkmoon or Sunderer to their name.

    ¡°I don¡¯t care what you agreed to,¡± Liu Long barked with annoyance. ¡°Hurry up, Li Hao. I¡¯ll go in with you so you can handle this as fast as possible.¡± He nced at the driver again. ¡°Leave this guy here. No one will do anything to a Qiao young master while I¡¯m here!¡± A jeering tone crept into his voice. ¡°And keep your head down! Don¡¯t think you can do anything you want just because you¡¯ve got money. We couldn¡¯t be bothered with you before andcked the authority to do anything, but times are different now!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Qiao Peng bobbed his head. ¡°Why don¡¯t Director Liu take a seat here? I¡¯ll only trouble themissioner inspector and he¡¯ll be out soon...¡±

    ¡°No need, we go together!¡± Liu Long responded with aloof arrogance. ¡°I¡¯m sure you understand with your family¡¯s position just how much danger Li Hao is still in. We cannot afford a single mishap! If there¡¯s someone hidden in the mountain who means him harm, your family cannot afford the consequences!¡±

    <i>Damn it, how unlucky can we get?! </i>Qiao Peng cursed again.<i> We thought ourselves real clever and made sure to invite Li Hao with an airtight excuse. Great, now we¡¯ve brought Liu Long to us as well. What a hassle this has turned out to be!</i>

    As for the possibility of killing Liu Long along with the young man... Forget it, not with Hao Lianchuan <i>and</i> Yuan Shuo both in residence. Open hostilities at this point in time would easily lead to other problems.

    They had to give up the n and send away this scourge as quickly as possible. Qiao Peng dared to say nothing else and quickly led them into the affected zone.

    Liu Long crossed his arms and wordlessly stalked behind Li Hao. He walked into the mountain without reservation, sensing something as soon as he entered. There were three extremely faint presences that he wouldn¡¯t have sensed without being a Dominator. And it was also because he knew of their existence beforehand that he could sense anything. He might have ignored the information otherwise.

    Based on that alone, they could determine that the Qiaos were skilled at concealment. Were these three the same as Qiao Feilong and possessed treasures that could hide their presences? Even if that was the case, he was only picking up very faint signs. That indicated they either contained all of their power inside their body, or they were in a unique environment with quarantine properties. Perhaps... they were surrounded by ice crystals!

    Liu Long¡¯s eyes suddenly lit up. Was that the case?

    Ice crystals could indeed obscure their presences to the greatest degree possible. But if that was the case, it meant they would have trouble using their full strength if suddenly forced into battle.

    This wasn¡¯t an issue under normal circumstances since ice crystals were fragile and easily broken. But this was a valuable opportunity if the team made full use of it.

    <i>Are there ice crystals around? Or is this the effect of the ruins that Li Hao and Yuan Shuo spoke of? </i>Liu Long rapidly ran through possibilities and felt that it was more likely to be ice crystals! The Qiaos likely hadn¡¯t prated deep into the ruins. If those weren¡¯t fully open, then it was most likely to be the isting effect of ice crystals.

    <i>The heavens smile upon me!</i> Liu Long was immensely excited. If this was the case, he might be able to dispose of the three Sunres ahead of time if he snuck in and caught them unawares before they smashed the ice crystals! This trip was highly worthwhile!

    His perception of the three presences swiftly vanished as the zone of copse was quite far away. What he sensed slowly dwindled until he could no longer sense them anymore. This was further confirmation that it was likely to be ice crystals.

    In the meantime, Li Hao busily took in his surroundings. He was actually observing the three balls of light and determining how strong they were. It was most straightforward topare them to Huang Yun; he might be able to identify their exact strength this way. And if he saw any colors in their light... he might be able to see their power attributes if they were of themonly seen ones.

    The trio soon arrived at the caved-in area. Li Hao did have some skill to his name. He looked around in great detail and swiftly inspected the surroundings. The young man ducked into the hole and quickly bounded back up.

    ¡°This is easy, you don¡¯t need to build a new mine shaft. You just need to clean this area up and you¡¯ll be able to resume work in roughly ten days. Building a new shaft might take longer. You better wait to send someone to clean this ce up after three days so there¡¯s no secondary copse!

    ¡°Do not take human life lightly!¡± Li Hao intoned. ¡°The Qiaos are rich, but we all call Silver City home. There is indeed a risk of a secondary copse here, so you should wait a few days for things to stabilize before cleaning it up. Do you understand? I¡¯m keeping an eye on you, so don¡¯t set a toe out of line. You don¡¯t want Sis Liu to recall anything unpleasant, do you? If that happens, you can¡¯t me us for not showing you face!¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡± Qiao Peng quickly agreed. ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li, are you sure we don¡¯t need a new mine shaft?¡±

    ¡°One hundred percent!¡± Li Hao pronounced loftily. ¡°I may not be on the same level as my teacher, but I can solve a small problem like this with a single nce! I have to say, it¡¯s a waste of money to invite me here. Other people cane to the same conclusion. But you Qiaos run arge business, so what do you care about money?¡±

    ¡°Not at all, I¡¯m much reassured with themissioner inspector here...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough,¡± Liu Long interrupted impatiently. ¡°Come with me if you¡¯re done. What are you dragging your heels for?¡±

    Li Hao chuckled and looked at Qiao Peng again.

    ¡°I''ll send someone over with it when themissioner inspector returns tonight,¡± Qiao Peng quickly said in understanding. ¡°It¡¯s not convenient to carry it around with you.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m betting you wouldn¡¯t dare misappropriate my money!¡± Li Hao snorted and left with Liu Long.

    Qiao Peng escorted them out of the mountain and breathed more easily only when the two got in their car. He couldn¡¯t resist cursing when their car was far away.

    ¡°We almost seeded!¡± he swore. What did Liu Long have to get involved for?? Another thought quickly urred to him and he swiftly turned to his driver. ¡°Go ask if anything unusual happened at that area.¡±

    It was a pity that they hadn¡¯t collected Li Hao¡¯s blood. But perhaps something had happened to that ce with the young man¡¯s visit?

    The driver vanished without a word.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, in the car.</i>

    Liu Long broached the topic only after they were a long distance away. ¡°Their presence was very faint and hard to sense, but they should be Sunre. I seemed to sense some mes, so they might be fire supernaturals!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, he¡¯d also seen some red. ¡°There seems to be two fire supernaturals, the other might be an earth or wood supernatural. We¡¯re not sure on that¡ªteacher told me about this after he visitedst night. They should all be a bit weaker than Huang Yun¡ªthe wind supernatural from the Night Watchersst time.¡±

    ¡°Your teacher... is really strong!¡± Liu Long sighed with appreciation. He¡¯d only sensed a tiny bit, to think that Yuan Shuo would see so much and even be able to estimate their strength! The professor was truly magnificent!

    ¡°Huang Yun is a mid Sunre, which possibly makes these three initial Sunre or approach mid level. Regardless, it¡¯s good that they¡¯re not stronger than Huang Yun!¡± Liu Long continued, ¡°Did your teacher mention if they¡¯re being concealed because of the ruins or because of ice crystals?¡±

    Erm... his teacher hadn¡¯t mentioned any of that! Not only had he not talked about this, but he didn¡¯t even investigate anythingst night for fear of discovery. Granted, Li Hao didn¡¯t mind the question. He thought back over what he¡¯d observed.

    ¡°It might be due to ice crystals because the ruins are very durable. Being more fragile, some of the ice crystals might¡¯ve cracked with the copsest night. That permits some supernatural power to leak out¡ªyou might not have sensed anything otherwise, chief.¡±

 Chapter 145: In A Rush To Die (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 145: In A Rush To Die (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao based his judgment on the fact that he saw mysterious power seep out around the balls of light and not surround the balls. This was likely due to minor cracks in the ice crystals.

    Liu Long was fully confident now. He didn¡¯t suspect anything as there was no need to suspect Yuan Shuo¡¯s words.

    ¡°So we¡¯ve determined their strength and attributes. What a coincidence that the Qiaos would invite you to prospect the mines. They threw their brains away!¡± Liu Long snorted.

    <i>Threw their brains away?</i> Li Hao pursed his lips. <i>Not at all. Beautiful thoughts filled them. If you weren¡¯t here, they¡¯d very likely find a way to kill me.</i>

    ¡°Then now...¡±

    ¡°We go see Director Hao. What, did you think I was joking?¡± Liu Long looked at the young man with surprise. <i>You¡¯re a branch deputy director. How can you not greet your direct superior? What are you thinking, boy?</i>

    Li Hao thought for a bit and nodded. ¡°What level Sr is Director Hao?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say.¡±

    ¡°Do you not know, chief?¡±

    ¡°How would I possibly know?¡± Liu Long shook his head.

    <i>Should I ask? With Hao Lianchuan as a baseline, I should be able to tell what level Qiao Feilong is. Is he peak Sunfare, initial Sr, or even stronger? </i>In Li Hao¡¯s eyes, the ball of light around Qiao Feilong was slightly weaker than Hao Lianchuan¡¯s, but not by much. He was a bit weaker than Brokensky, but also not by much.

    ......

    The car quickly stopped at the Law Enforcement building. Li Hao once more saw Hao Lianchuan, the powerhouse that his teacher had summoned to be their spare tire in the trunk.

    Hao Lianchuan seemed quite congenial and smiled kindly. He showered Li Hao with praise as soon as he saw the young man, expressing how much the Night Watchers cared about Li Hao and their difficulties. They¡¯d taken the sword of the Lis and would deliver their part of the bargain in return, but they needed some time.

    In other words, typical bureaucratic jargon!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind and spoke inly when Hao Lianchuan had gone on for a while, ¡°Director Hao, my teacher says that you¡¯re very strong and that he may not be able to beat you even though he killed Brokensky. My teacher says that Brokensky doesn¡¯t count as a strong Sr, that Director Hao is stronger than him. Is Director Hao a mid Sr?¡±

    Directly asking someone about their strength, particrly a subordinate to their superior, was a very rude gesture. It was a grant vition of custom!

    But since the speaker was Li Hao, a student of Yuan Shuo¡¯s that was yet to graduate... And the crux of the question being that Yuan Shuo had praised Hao Lianchuan and imed to be inferior... Everyone loved praise!

    Hao Lianchuan was no exception. A smile crossed his face without a hint of dissatisfaction regarding Li Hao¡¯s words.

    It was Liu Long who furrowed his brows. ¡°Manners, Li Hao! Don¡¯t ask what you shouldn¡¯t! Director Hao was a Sunre before and can only be an initial Sr now. It¡¯s impossible for him to be a mid Sr so quickly!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan frowned in response, now these words grated on the ear despite being the truth! While he was put out, what could he say to a straight shooter like Liu Long?

    ¡°It¡¯s fine!¡± He smiled instead. ¡°Children will be curious. It¡¯s as your Director Liu says, Li Hao. I am only initial Sr based on your divisions of initial, mid, andte. There¡¯s nothing to hide about it, but there¡¯s not much meaning in discussing this since Sr is so far removed from you.¡±

    Li Hao nodded with a trace of yearning. ¡°Being a Sr is amazing! Even teacher says Director Liu is formidable. Someone who teacher speaks about like this must be incredible! I hope I can dominate thends like Director Hao one day!¡±

    ¡°You will, you¡¯re still young.¡± Hao Lianchuan beamed radiantly. These words were right up his alley! <i>Oh Yuan Shuo, you may be arrogant, but your student¡¯s exposed everything about you. So you also think I¡¯m very strong, hmm? What a simple child! You¡¯ll be in for a beating if your teacher heard you.</i>

    <i>You¡¯re the heir to a martial master, yet admire a supernatural.</i> That would be the greatest failure in Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes. The professor had killed a Sr, but his disciple thought less of himpared to Hao Lianchuan. <i>Damned sweet!</i>

    Li Hao also smiled bashfully. ¡°Then I won¡¯t disturb Director Hao any longer. The director has a million things to attend to everyday, I am very honored with being able to meet you! Please go back to your day, director. I take my leave!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, work hard and try to join the supernatural as soon as possible. There¡¯s a better environment at White Moon than here, so I hope to see you at White Moon soon!¡±

    Li Hao nodded with a smile and left by himself. So Qiao Feilong is only initial Sr and a little weaker than Hao Lianchuan. Teacher ought to be able to handle him, right?

    ......

    <i>Inside the office.</i>

    ¡°The educated are different, alright!¡± Hao Lianchuanplimented Li Hao a few more times. ¡°They are highly cultured and steeped in propriety. This is something that Yuan Shuo will never measure up to. That guy is an absolute hypocrite and far from being a good soul. Thank goodness his student is different.¡±

    <i>Seriously? Is that all you can see?</i> Liu Long wondered with resignation. He had to acknowledge, however, that Li Hao easily lulled one in. When he first witnessed the young man¡¯s bashful smile, he¡¯d thought that thed was too pure. Someone as innocent as the boy shouldn¡¯t be dragged into such dangerous affairs.

    Of course, Liu Long no longer held those views. Li Hao was a massive trap on the same level as Yuan Shuo.

    Liu Long fobbed Hao Lianchuan off with generic responses before quickly saying, ¡°Director Hao, the others and I will bete to the ceremony tomorrow.¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Hao Lianchuan blinked. How could one conduct their business in this manner? There was nothing right about the hosts beingte to their own event.

    ¡°You know about the Demon Hunters and our activities before the branch establishment, Director Hao,¡± Liu Long exined. ¡°Liu Yan and the others have expressed a desire to pay a visit to our fallenrades before the ceremony. It¡¯s not that appropriate for the director toe with, so...¡±

    ¡°I...¡± Hao Lianchuan sighed. ¡°Of course! These were all valiant people who fought the good fight. It¡¯s just that the Night Watchers had our difficulties in the past, as I¡¯m sure you¡¯re aware.¡±

    ¡°Yes, and we hold no grudges!¡± Liu Long responded calmly. ¡°Li Hao says that we¡¯re Night Watchers now and to curse the Night Watchers is to curse ourselves. Therefore, there¡¯s no need to cast me. It was all our own decisions!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan once again thought highly of Li Hao being a goodd! Of course, these words could onlye from the cultured. Liu Long didn¡¯t have it in him at all.

    ¡°Then you guys go pay your respects, I¡¯ll host the ceremony. We¡¯ll formalize the establishment when you guys arrive!

    ¡°My thanks to Director Hao!¡± Liu Long said perfunctorily.

    ¡°There¡¯s no need for thanks,¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°This is what I¡¯m supposed to do!¡±

    The two exchanged a few more pleasantries before Liu Long left. He¡¯d confirmed Hao Lianchuan running the show tomorrow and the team¡¯s absence wouldn¡¯t elicit the director¡¯s confusion or dissatisfaction. That was perfect.

    They might even have time to join the reception after they were done killing people.

    ......

    Hao Lianchuan thought things over after Liu Long left, finding something amiss, but unable to put his finger on it. Forget it, nothing major would ur when he was here. Although, did they need to bring Wang Ming and the others with them?

    ¡°But it¡¯s just as well, that means Liu Long and the rest have epted them. This is good!¡± Hao Lianchuan smiled with gratification when he thought of this point. Being able to meld together was naturally the best possible oue.

    ......

    A day swiftly passed by.

    <i>August 1st.</i>

    <i>Silver City.</i>

    <i>Qiao Mining Industries.</i>

    <i>The office on the top floor.</i>

    Qiao Feilong stood in front of a window and overlooked the entire city. The moderately sized metropolis filled his field of vision. It was a clear day, but it somehow gave him a stifling feeling.

    ¡°The winds are about to blow!¡± murmured the white-haired Qiao Feilong.

    This wind didn¡¯t pick up only today. It brewed in Silver City when Red Moon lost a Sr to Yuan Shuo during their operation to capture thest heir of the eight families. There was no other ce in Silver Moon at the moment that was more tumultuous than Silver City. Red Moon, Celestial, Yama, a few mid-sized organizations, and the Night Watchers were all watching the city. How much longer could the Qiaos hide themselves?

    Once they were exposed, Yama would be the first to bring arms against him. He was the organization¡¯s pawn in Silver City. Yama had only known bits and pieces about the eight families, but once they understood that Red Moon had made preparations in the city, they sent Qiao Feilong back since he was a Silver City native.

    Qiao Feilong had only been a peak yer then. That had been a passable level of strength in that period, butpletely negligible to Yama. They undertook these actions to put a thorn into Red Moon¡¯s side.

    No one expected that Qiao Feilong would actually find something in Silver City and glean many benefits from it. Unbeknownst to the untold number of those fighting grimly outside, Qiao Feilong quietly set foot into the ranks of Srs with none the wiser.

    Yama would certainly send someone to kill him once word got out. Their leader might evene for a personal look. Silver City¡¯s ruins were inly much more incredible than previously thought if they could facilitate a yer without much battle experience into crossing over.

    ¡°Time to go!¡± Qiao Feilong murmured once more. Silver City was not a ce to stay for long. It¡¯d drawn too much attention after a Red Moon Sr died here. However, he was loath to leave like this because he hadn¡¯t fully excavated the ruins.

    He even felt that he¡¯d skimmed only a bit off the surface¡ªjust that was sufficient to help him into the Sr level. If he could inherit it all, he would certainly advance beyond Sr and even create a supreme supernatural organization on par with the three great organizations!

    It grated to give up like this! Greed existed in everyone. Not to mention, he¡¯d already obtained certain gains. How could he bear to relinquish his fortune like this?

    ¡°Li Hao..."

 Chapter 146: Setting Out (I)

    <h4>Chapter 146: Setting Out (I)</h4>

    <i>Knock knock knock!</i>

    Someone knocked on the office door.

    ¡°Come in!¡±

    Qiao Peng pushed through the door. ¡°Father.¡±

    Qiao Feilong turned around with a calm expression. ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°Father, the Night Watcher branch is being formally established tonight and Director Hao Lianchuan is overseeing the proceedings. Although we have not been invited, Uncle Chen and the others have been issued invitations...¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    Uncle Chen was the driver that had been protecting Qiao Peng recently. He was the powerhouse that the corporation halfheartedly concealed and pushed to the forefront as the strongest among them. As a Plenilune, he matched Liu Long. It was a sign of Qiao Mining Industries¡¯ status and strength.

    He was exposed now only because Qiao Feilong wished to avoid certain oblivious people targeting Qiao Mining in their schemes. It was so inconvenient when they did so. Now with such a heavyweight among their ranks, their enemies had to consider if they could take action or not. Would Liu Long have dared to sneak into Qiao Feilong¡¯s room in the middle of the night if the Plenilune had been public knowledge beforehand?

    It was due to this and out of a desire to prevent further irritations from happening that this powerhouse was out in the open. Or rather, what they revealed to those higher up was that this powerhouse was here at Qiao Feilong¡¯s request and came with a hefty price tag.

    Qiao Mining offered him one hundred cubes of mysterious power a year, the equivalent of one hundred million star coins. A branch director such as Liu Long received only three cubes a month¡ªthirty-six a year. Such was the package offered by the government¡¯s only major supernatural organization.

    Patently, it was much better to work for the Qiaos.

    ¡°Father,¡± Qiao Peng interrupted when he saw his father sink into deep thought. ¡°Can I go to the ceremony tonight?¡±

    ¡°You?¡± Qiao Feilong frowned. ¡°What for?¡±

    His son wasn¡¯t a supernatural and hadn¡¯t been invited. Wasn¡¯t he just creating trouble for himself by turning up?

    ¡°I want to take advantage of this opportunity to talk to Liu Yan and resolve our old scores. Also... I want to converse with Li Hao more!¡± Qiao Peng said grumpily. ¡°I might already have Li Hao¡¯s heart blood if it wasn''t for Liu Long throwing a wrench into the works yesterday.¡±

    Qiao Peng still hadn¡¯t recovered from yesterday¡¯s failure. They¡¯d been so close!

    Qiao Feilong furrowed his brows before quickly shaking his head. ¡°There¡¯s no need! I have made arrangements for Li Hao.¡±

    He didn¡¯t want to drag things out. Although the Qiao ruins were yet to be fully excavated, once the Night Watchers finished with theirs, so was peace in Silver City at an end. He didn¡¯t have much time to waste.

    Qiao Feilong needed to handle Li Hao before this and attempt to ess the ruins. What a pity that the sword of the Lis had been turned over to the Night Watchers! He didn¡¯t know if it was the weapon they needed or the bloodline. It was because of that that they waffled on the proper course of action.

    ¡°Father, the arrangements you speak of are to...?¡±

    ¡°Fake an assault!¡± Qiao Feilong said coldly. ¡°Pretend to be Red Moon and ambush him. We can¡¯t hope to kill him, but we can take a portion of his blood, and preferably heart blood!¡±

    That was all they could do.

    Qiao Peng nodded, he held no dissenting opinion. Of course, it didn¡¯t matter if he did. ¡°Do we wait until Hao Lianchuan leaves?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Qiao Feilong nodded. If he had any other option, he¡¯d wait until Yuan Shuo left. But Yuan Shuo would very likely bring Li Hao with him to the other ruins. The Night Watchers wouldn¡¯t permit the young man to stay alone within Silver City because they knew that Red Moon had their eye on him.

    The only advantage the Qiaos held was being under cover. No one knew about their strength or situation. Even if an investigation wasunched after the attack, it would only be traced to Red Moon. That might buy him more time to fully excavate the ruins.

    He was still loath to leave like this!

    After father and son conversed for a bit, Qiao Peng looked around with uncertainty.

    ¡°Speak!¡± Qiao Feilong frowned again.

    ¡°Father, we may be withdrawing from Silver City soon. When... when can I enter that area and make the cross over?¡± He couldn¡¯t help himself in the end. He wanted to grow stronger, particrly after yesterday! Liu Long had outright ignored and looked down on him. He spoke to only Uncle Chen¡ªthat scorn and disregard was too much to bear.

    It was the same from Li Hao! This was all due to Qiao Peng being a mundane. Hence, even Li Hao treated him with contempt because the former was a yer.

    Qiao Peng couldn¡¯t bear it anymore! He wanted to be supernatural. They were leaving soon anyway, ording to his father!

    ¡°Father, if I leave still as a mundane, I will dy the withdrawal. I can at least ensure that I won¡¯t hold us back if I¡¯m a supernatural then.¡±

    Qiao Feilong¡¯s brows knitted together. This wasn¡¯t the best timing. Of course, he wasn¡¯t nning on keeping Qiao Peng down forever since he only had one son. He¡¯d prevented his son from crossing over due to the need for concealment and for other reasons. But from the anxiety and resentment shining from the depths of Qiao Peng¡¯s eyes, he understood that his son was angry after being suppressed for so long.

    ¡°Peng¡¯er, it¡¯s easy to be supernatural!¡± Qiao Feilong sighed. ¡°I would¡¯ve let you cross over if this was ten years ago! But as time went on and my own strength grew stronger, I discovered more that I didn¡¯t know before.¡±

    He looked strangely at Qiao Peng. ¡°They all say that opening the supernatural locks is the permit toward the mysterious! But my findings these years tell me that opening them ahead of time exhausts the potential and consumes vitality.

    ¡°Martial masters reach their limit at Dominator of Thousands. There is no way forward, so the martial master path is not the correct one. However, the supernatural isn¡¯t necessarily safe or holds more promise than martial masters either.¡±

    Qiao Feilong lowered his voice. ¡°I think some of the more powerful supernaturals might have realized the issues themselves through exploring ruins and perusing ancient texts. Just wait a little longer until we excavate the ruins more. I promise that you¡¯ll be a powerhouse in this new world order!¡±

    Qiao Peng¡¯s thoughts took an aggrieved cast at his father¡¯s ambiguity. He was none too happy. What had his father discovered? Not safe? The supernatural dominated the world and the more powerful ones could fly through sky and earth. They were like gods! Could anything be more unsafe than being a mundane?

    ¡°Father, no matter what path I walk, I¡¯ve made no progress in either martial dao or the supernatural over these years. I can¡¯t just keep waiting to be a powerhouse, can I?¡±

    So the supernatural wasn¡¯t safe, what about martial dao? But his father didn¡¯t even give him mysterious power to absorb, so he naturally didn¡¯t make much progress as a martial master. He wasn¡¯t even a yer, just a mundane who knew how to fight.

    ¡°Would I do anything to harm you?¡± Qiao Feilong said impatiently. ¡°One cannot absorb too much mysterious power at this stage. Absorbing too much damages your own potential! Plus, I¡¯ve discovered a more unique and stronger energy in the ruins!¡±

    The Qiao patriarch¡¯s eyes gleamed and he finally showed some excitement. ¡°That energy is different from other mysterious power and internal force! It can nurture your physical body and strengthen your supernatural locks! While it appears that you haven¡¯t gained much strength, it¡¯s a match made in heaven whenbined with mysterious power! If we obtain more of that kind of energy, you¡¯ll quickly make it to Sunderer or even Dominator! Once you use a stronger body to break through your supernatural locks, you¡¯ll vault to Sunre or even Sr!¡±

    Qiao Peng¡¯s eyes widened. Crossing over as a Sunre or Sr? How was that possible?? It¡¯d taken his father more than ten years to reach his state, even with all these years of excavations. His father was spinning a farfetched tale!

    ¡°Ah... father, do you mean this?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Qiao Feilong frowned. ¡°It¡¯s not just you, but also me. I will be able to rectify some of the old injuries that I suffered in my early years. This energy will also supplement the potential that was consumed. I¡¯ve found that it¡¯s hard to keep improving after bing a Sr due to the potential that I exhausted earlier. It may be gone, but that thing will help us get it back.¡±

    He flushed with agitation. If he couldy hands on the energy, he would very likely fix everything and take another step forward. He might be able to proceed beyond Sr and be a true powerhouse, one that could stand on equal footing with the leaders of the three great organizations.

    Likewise moved, Qiao Peng no longer insisted that he wanted to immediately be supernatural. His father wouldn¡¯t be lying to him at this stage, unless he wasn¡¯t his father¡¯s son.

    ......

    Qiao Feilong sent away a buoyant Qiao Peng after a while. The former¡¯s smile slowly dropped off his face with a sigh. ¡°Tell me, do you think we¡¯ve been exploring the real ruins over these years or just their outskirts?¡±

    ¡°What makes you say that?¡± came a low human voice in the spacious office.

    ¡°The more we explore the area we discovered... the more I think... I sense... that it¡¯s fringe territory and not the core! The core area is very likely to be behind that door. What else do you think is behind it?¡±

    ¡°The door?¡± came the wispy voice again. It spoke hesitantly this time. ¡°Perhaps there¡¯s nothing beyond the door...¡±

    ¡°Impossible! The energy is seeping out from it!¡± Qiao Feilong frowned. ¡°There¡¯s just very little. And remember the grooves that we saw in the door! Do you think the weapons of the eight families need to be embedded within to open it? And that¡¯s when we¡¯ll enter the true ruins of the eight families!¡±

    The more he spoke, the more certain he was. It was just... he had no options. Seven of the eight families were dead, only Li Hao was alive. His sword was with the Night Watchers, so there was nothing Qiao Feilong could do despite knowing what he needed.

    This was a key reason why he wavered and debated whether it was better to leave earlier rather thanter.

    ¡°I¡¯d like to seal off the ruins first and seek out Red Moon when I¡¯m strong enough, seize the weapons they¡¯ve taken, then get the sword from the Night Watchers...¡± Such were his most recent ns.

    ¡°You make the call!¡± came the voice in the shadows.

    ¡°You¡¯re still like this after all these years,¡± Qiao Feilongughed. ¡°Alright then, I¡¯ll make the decision! What a pity that we couldn¡¯t obtain enough power... I think it might be able to reform your body.¡±

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter anymore,¡± chuckled the voice. ¡°Boss, I am who I am today because I do not have the restraints of external concerns. Every sip and every bite is preordained. Who says it¡¯s a bad thing to not have a body?¡±

 Chapter 147: Setting Out (II)

    <h4>Chapter 147: Setting Out (II)</h4>

    ¡°But you are barred from reaching grand perfection!¡± Qiao Feilong murmured. ¡°Based on the information we¡¯ve gathered these years, the physical body is still very important. The notion of ascending beyond matter by abandoning the body is not proven! Red Moon is undertaking a simr n¡ªyou¡¯ve seen for yourself what you discovered before and realized that they were just puppets. They aren¡¯t true spirits!¡±

    ¡°The spirit...¡± The person in the dark quieted down. They thought of the scarlet shadows that existed like puppets,pletelycking their own consciousness. Although they moved without a trace and were invisible to outsiders, they had not ascended any ne of existence.

    Red Moon might have already discovered something and started experimenting, but everything pointed to the conclusion that this was not a viable path.

    ¡°Did someone from Red Moone to collect those things?¡± Qiao Feilong asked.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure. I didn¡¯t dare investigate with Yuan Shuo in the city and Hao Lianchuan also present at the time. They were gone when I could perform reconnaissance. Red Moon might have retrieved them, or they might have copsed on their own.¡±

    ¡°What a pity!¡± Qiao Feilong sighed. He might¡¯ve been inclined to capture some for study otherwise. They might be very useful.

    ......

    Li Hao was naturallypletely oblivious of the conversation that took ce at Qiao Mining. He and Liu Long were hiding in the basement with the others. There was an additional fixture there today¡ªa car undergoing modification.

    Yun Yao gently embedded ice crystals into the vehicle, turning it into a moving ice crystal cover. A merry Liu Yan regarded her efforts with crossed arms.

    ¡°Modifying this is no problem, but we can¡¯t let Li Hao drive it. If he does... he¡¯ll crash this thing to smithereens no matter how tightly you enclose it!¡±

    ¡°Sis! My driving¡¯s been pretty decent the past couple of days,¡± Li Hao protested awkwardly.

    ¡°Enough of that!¡± Liu Yan snorted. <i>Pretty crap, more like!</i>

    Wang Ming and the supernaturals were also present. The former looked the car over with a frown. ¡°What¡¯s the point of modifying the car? The engine¡¯s noise will draw the enemy¡¯s attention. You¡¯re just obscuring the supernatural ripples.¡±

    What was the point of this? There wasn¡¯t a need for it, ice crystals were expensive and easily broken.

    ¡°It¡¯s enough to simply conceal mysterious power!¡± Liu Long exined calmly. ¡°You supernaturals will ride in the car to prevent your power from leaking out and being exposed.¡±

    Martial masters weren¡¯t afraid of that possibility, but supernaturals were easily exposed.

    ¡°Chief, can we still not know who the target is?¡± Chen Jian shifted weapons off to the side.

    ¡°What are you in a rush for?!¡± Liu Long answered curtly and turned back to Wang Ming. ¡°I told you your mission already, so keep another point in mind. Try not to get out of the car if you can help it, not unless the enemy is running toward you! Apart from being a zone of concealment, the ice crystal cover is also to facilitate your ambushes. You need to make good use of the opportunity!¡±

    He then addressed Chen Jian and the other martial masters. ¡°You, Wu Chao, and Liu Yan will be responsible for employing the hot weapons. The target will seek to kill you at first opportunity, but they may also show you mercy. Sunres will most likely want revenge after being sted by hot weapons!¡±

    The martial masters nodded. inly, they were bait in this operation. It wouldn¡¯t be the first time. They were in a more precarious positionpared to the supernaturals.

    ¡°What about me?¡± Li Hao asked. There was no job for him.

    Liu Long looked at him. ¡°What do you think you can do?¡±

    <i>I...</i> Li Hao didn¡¯t know what to say, but also what Liu Long meant. The chief was protecting him as he knew the young man was a Sunderer. He was actually stronger than Chen Jian and Wu Chao.

    ¡°Your mission is simple, get rid of that flea!¡± Liu Long assigned a task in the end because he was worried about Li Hao wandering off. The flea he spoke of was Qiao Peng. The Qiaos needed to be exterminated as soon as possible.

    ¡°Then let Sis Liu go...¡±

    ¡°Just listen to orders!¡± Liu Long growled. ¡°Not to mention, you¡¯re a more suitable candidate if that person¡¯s also at the office. I¡¯d be afraid that your teacher doesn¡¯t care about Liu Yan¡¯s survival, do you understand?¡±

    Li Hao did. If Qiao Peng was present when they went to take out Qiao Feilong, that made for a sticky situation. Or perhaps his teacher would eliminate him as an afterthought.

    ¡°Chief, is that guy really not going to go home?¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°Why would he be at the office in the middle of the night?¡±

    ¡°He will. He¡¯s lived there for many years.¡±

    It was very odd that Qiao Feilong never returned home. Perhaps it was out of a desire to keep his strength hidden, or perhaps there was another reason. Regardless, there was a bedroom in his office.

    Liu Long had personally visited to spy upon him there, which was why he knew that Qiao Feilong did not leave at night.

    ¡°Everyone needs to be careful as we will be conducting separate missions. We willmence action at the appropriate time. Synchronize watches now!¡±

    The team looked down at their watches; the supernaturals did not wear any as mysterious power easily interfered with mechanical workings. That wasn¡¯t a problem, however, as they would be with Liu Yan and the others.

    Liu Long took a deep breath afterpleting preparations and waited. Only the sounds of everyone busypleting their tasks filled the basement. He rose to his feet when the car wasplete after an indeterminate period of time.

    ¡°Li Hao, let¡¯s make a round and let everyone know that we¡¯re still here. Liu Yan will take the car and drive the others to the target spot!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Excitement and agitation filled the woman¡¯s eyes. She knew who the target was tonight!

    <i>The Qiaos!</i>

    She only had one mission¡ªdrive the car to a high vantage point near the mines and go into hiding. Then, when the time arrives, st the shit out of those fuckers!

    Wang Ming and the rest of the team quickly climbed into the car, leaving only Liu Long and Li Hao. Liu Long took a moment to sense the surroundings when the door closed and nodded with satisfaction when he couldn¡¯t sense any mysterious power. Rookies such as Wang Ming and hisrades easily seeped energy. The three Sunres would sense them as soon as they walked out of the ruins.

    Another door opened elsewhere in the basement, one that led straight to the underground garage. No one would notice if they drove out of there.

    ......

    Nerves set in once everyone left¡ªLiu Long whispered as they walked, ¡°This is the strongest enemy I¡¯ve ever faced in my professional career, and it¡¯s not just one enemy. Nothing can go wrong with your teacher¡¯s side or we¡¯ll be in grave trouble!¡±

    As Qiao Mining¡¯s headquarters were in the city center, blunders could easily happen. Of course, based on their analysis, neither Yuan Shuo nor Qiao Feilong would want others in the city to know of their situation. Hao Lianchuan was also present, so Qiao Feilong was bound to leave at the first possible opportunity once battle was joined.

    But that was just their judgment. As for whether or not he would do so, that was uncertain.

    ¡°Chief, we¡¯ve done everything we should do, so there¡¯s no use in thinking too much about the results. The more perfect a n is, the more likely it is that something will go wrong. All we can do now is just forge our heads!¡±

    Liu Long inclined his head. ¡°You only have one mission¡ªprotect yourself!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, chief. I¡¯m a Sunderer!¡±

    Liu Long didn¡¯t say anything to that. ¡°Perhaps you can bring Panther with you to prevent falling to bizarre danger. Supernaturals have many tricks up their sleeves. People can¡¯t see certain things, but the dog can.¡±

    He showed extra care and concern for the young man as his breakthrough to Dominator had much to do with Li Hao.

    ¡°I will!¡± The two reached the ground floor as they spoke, running into Hao Lianchuan descending from upstairs.

    ¡°Have Wang Ming and the others left?¡± he asked curiously when he saw the two. He didn¡¯t sense other supernaturals within the building. Were they gone?

    ¡°They¡¯ve gone to procure certain things for our fallenrades.¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°Where are you headed to, Director Hao?¡±

    ¡°To Yuan Shuo,¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°He¡¯s the foremost of Silver City, after all, and needs to be invited to something like this. But he might not show you face if you go, so I¡¯ll go in person!¡±

    The professor would show him face, right?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll go, director!¡± Li Hao hastily said. ¡°How can we trouble the director? I¡¯ll bring my teacher back here.¡±

    ¡°You go?¡± Hao Lianchuan acquiesced after some thought.

    A merry Mu Sen walked in from outside. ¡°Director Hao, Ole Liu, shall we instate a curfew tonight since there will be a gathering of supernaturals? Some of these guys won¡¯t follow the rules and could cause trouble.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯d be for the best!¡± Liu Long nced at his watch. ¡°Let¡¯s make it a bit earlier tonight at 8pm! We can prevent anyone from acting the fool on the way here. The reception will start at 9pm sharp!¡±

    9pm was slightlyte, but day and night were all the same to supernaturals. Liu Long would¡¯ve gone to Mu Sen had the inspector general note. It¡¯d be best if no one was on the streets tonight.

    Mu Sen nodded; Li Hao made his farewells to leave for his teacher¡¯s.

    ......

    <i>The Yuan residence.</i>

    A weapon that looked like a brass knuckle had appeared in Yuan Shuo¡¯s hands; the sharper point in the middle was the truly lethal weapon.

    The de of the Zhangs!

    He pointed at a map on the table. ¡°Your reception starts at 9pm. As the main focal point of the evening, I will leave at 8:30pm. You drive. We¡¯ll pass by Qiao Mining Industries at roughly 8:45pm.¡±

    Silver City was a small ce. There would be almost no one on the streets at that time, and even fewer tonight since curfew would be in effect.

    Qiao Mining headquarters was located in themercial district. No one was there at night since they left for home after work.

    ¡°Teacher, Qiao Feilong is on the top floor. We don¡¯t know how to fly, so we can only take the elevator or stairs. Doesn¡¯t that give him too much time to react?¡±

    Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°That¡¯s of no matter, the Birdshot technique isn¡¯t that impotent. Two leaps will definitely be sufficient, if not one! He won¡¯t have much time to react. Qiao Feilong¡¯s used to hiding in the dark, so he won¡¯t respond as quickly this first time!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. He could only trust his teacher¡¯s words.

    Student and teacher fell silent. Time trickled while they waited. It was soon 7pm, yet the sky wasn¡¯t fully dark. Night descended slower on a summer¡¯s night.

 Chapter 148: Battle (I)

    <h4>Chapter 148: Battle (I)</h4>

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>The Law Enforcement building.</i>

    Activity bustled at the Inspectorate tonight due to the Night Watcher ribbon-cutting ceremony. Instead of being hosted at a hotel, the ceremony took ce on Inspectorate grounds.

    Guests started arriving at 7pm. They were greeted at the door byw enforcement team members and the head usher was Mu Sen. Many were startled by the ttery of being weed by the inspector general. Some, however, were confused. Where were Liu Long and the others?

    A dojo master couldn¡¯t help but ask, ¡°Inspector General Mu, is Director Liu not around?¡±

    ¡°He is, he is,¡± chuckled Mu Sen. ¡°But he¡¯s busy at the moment and it¡¯s Director Hao overseeing the proceedings tonight. With Director Hao present, it doesn¡¯t matter if that fellow is around or not!¡±

    Laughter broke out in the crowd, but some didn¡¯t dareugh in case theynded themselves in trouble. As for Director Hao... these people were more or less familiar with him.

    Second-inmand of the Silver Moon Night Watchers, Hao Lianchuan was a premier powerhouse. It was their honor to see him in Silver City. The mere yers, Sunderers, Starlight, and Darkmoon gathered didn¡¯t dare give offense to this legendary Sr.

    <i>Inside.</i>

    The Inspectorate¡¯srgest hall had been set up for the establishment ceremony. A frowning Hao Lianchuan stood within it. There were quite a number of guests filling this magnificent hall of the vast Inspectorate, but he... seemed to be ignored.

    It was frustrating!

    He could understand Liu Long and the others being absent¡ªthey¡¯d gone to visit their fallenrades. But old fart Yuan Shuo? He wasn¡¯t here either. Was he waiting for thest possible second?

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s position was too far removed for ordinary people to attempt striking up a conversation, so he seemed at a loss for what to do in the hall. Well, it was his fault foring so early. He had no ce to go other than the Inspectorate in Silver City, yet this was where the ceremony was being held. He¡¯d thought that he could chat with Yuan Shuo when the professor came...

    People jostled each other through the crowd, but there wasn¡¯t a single Night Watcher in attendance. Hao Lianchuan shook his head<i>. This is the most unique establishment ceremony I¡¯ve ever been to. Not a single focus of attention is here! Shouldn¡¯t a deputy director be mingling with the attendees, at the very least?</i>

    Thankfully, Mu Sen ran in before long. He sought out Hao Lianchuan to express his impatience. ¡°Director Hao, why don¡¯t we rush along Liu Long and the others? They¡¯re still not back, but it¡¯s almost time for the ceremony. It¡¯s inappropriate that they¡¯re absent.¡±

    ¡°No, it would be inappropriate to rush them.¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head. ¡°They¡¯ve gone to honor their fallenrades. It¡¯s fine if they¡¯rete. We can use it as an intimidation tactic on these guys. But Yuan Shuo¡ªyou should hurry him along!¡±

    Awkwardness crept over Mu Sen¡¯s face. He could urge Liu Long to faster speed, but Yuan Shuo... he was afraid of being yelled at.

    ¡°Are you being silly or what? You can contact Li Hao if you don¡¯t dare rush Yuan Shuo!¡± Hao Lianchuan exined with resignation. What an inflexible stickler for the rules!

    <i>Didn¡¯t Li Hao set out to get his teacher already? They must be together and probably didn¡¯t go with the group visit. </i>Unfortunately, Mu Sen had to follow orders. He dialed Li Hao¡¯s number, hanging up with no better answers after a while. ¡°Li Hao says that his teacher said he¡¯ll head out at 8:30pm sharp and arrive at 9:00pm on the dot!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan cursed to himself. This was too much!

    He impatiently waved Mu Sen off and set off in search of a ce to rest that wasn¡¯t the great hall. All of these guys were more reliable in the reports of White Moon than in person.

    ......

    Some more time passed as various faction representations filtered in. Meanwhile, a silver car drove out of Yuan Shuo¡¯s residence. It was his car, though he never drove it. He simply owned one¡ªa feat that poor kid Li Hao couldn¡¯t measure up to. Not only did the professor own a car, but it was a very trendy design. Those of Yuan Shuo¡¯s age typically liked ck, but not him. He purchased an eye-catching little silver car.

    Li Hao drove with his hands clenched tight around the steering wheel. He had a hunch that his teacher¡¯s car would be scrap metal after this mission. Of course, he didn¡¯t say anything because he wasn¡¯t going to pay for that if it was thest thing he did!

    The car slowly drove into the distance. Based on their route, the Qiao residence would be on the way before they reached the Inspectorate.

    ......

    A silver car slowly crept along the city streets, passing by the Qiao residence without stopping. There were two humans and one dog aboard. Li Hao shifted restlessly in the driver¡¯s seat after a while.

    ¡°Teacher, what should I do if Qiao Peng and his driver happen to be there and I can¡¯t beat them?¡±

    He read Qiao Peng¡¯s driver as a Plenilune¡ªthat mapped to peak Sunderer! They¡¯d received an invite to the ceremony at the Inspectorate, but what if they werete or simply decided not to go?

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t asked Qiao Peng if he nned to go. If they were unlucky, they might run into him at the destination.

    Eyes closed in repose, Yuan Shuo suddenly opened them. ¡°You¡¯re a Sunderer too and practice the Five Styles and Nine Forged Force. You won¡¯t die in an instant even if you¡¯re no match for them. Take advantage of Qiao Peng¡¯sck of intent and draw out battle if you really can¡¯t defeat him. Panther has some strength to its name. You won¡¯t die that quickly if the two of you coordinate well.¡±

    That was heartless enough. ¡°You won¡¯t die that quickly.¡± inly, Yuan Shuo had considered this possibility and still decided to bring his student along.

    Li Hao quietly focused on the road.

    ¡°Therees a time when a fledgling must spread its wings to fly. I am not worried that you¡¯ll suffer heavy injuries, not with sword energy at the ready. You¡¯ll be able to recover from whatever you suffer. What I worry about is that youck valor. That is intolerable for a martial master.

    ¡°I do not expect my final disciple to defy powerhouses beyond your level. However, you should at least be able to hold your own for a while. Both of you are Sunderers¡ªthe only difference lies with your physique. Your opponent does not possess an aura while you wield a burgeoning one. Why would you be afraid of him?¡±

    He felt that there was no need for Li Hao to be afraid. No need at all!

    ¡°Remember, the aura is a martial master¡¯s ultimate ace! A Dominator with an aura will never fear a Sunre. Keep in mind that you are no ordinary initial Sunderer. Nothing is a problem so long as you keep your heart in order. I even hope that you¡¯ll run into him!¡±

    Only hope, no concern.

    ¡°Teacher, I¡¯m a rookie...¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid of me dying?¡±

    ¡°Then that is your destiny if you die!¡± Yuan Shuo intoned. ¡°I can take you under my wing for a while, but I cannot shelter you forever. Although your opponent is a Plenilune, he is not that much stronger in my eyes. I rather hope that youe across opponents like these.¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡±

    A loud boom sounded right when Li Hao responded. Yuan Shuo shook and the corners of his lips spasmed.

    ¡°I¡¯m just a little nervous. It¡¯s fine, teacher.¡± The young man took a deep breath. ¡°I think I hit a curb, that¡¯s not a problem.¡±

    He started up the engine again. There was nothing to cars after one drove them a few times. He was finding his teacher¡¯s car a bit unfamiliar only because it was his first time driving it.

    The car continued down the empty street. It was very quiet tonight as curfew was in effect starting at 8pm. Only those with special identities were permitted to move about. Silver City denizens were aw-abiding sort, not to mention there was ack of entertainment in such a small ce. Add to that major disturbance taking ce only a few days ago¡ªit made for no people to be seen on the streets.

    A skyscraper grew in size up ahead. Qiao Mining Industries! Neon lights shone with light, illuminating the surroundings. Yuan Shuo clenched his fists and breathed out gently. Was he stressed?

    A little.

    <i>A Dominator battling a Sr...</i>

    His first battle had been aplete ambush. He¡¯d upied the upper hand only because he presented a weak front. It was now public knowledge that he¡¯d triumphed over a Sr, so while he may be able to ambush his opponent again, he would not be able to lull them with a show of weakness. No one would believe that Yuan Shuo wascking.

    When Qiao Feilong realized it was Yuan Shuo attacking him, he would be on full alert and wouldn¡¯t prioritize keeping his strength hidden.

    <i>But am I afraid? No! I¡¯ve never been afraid! </i>Yuan Shuo was just a little wary and solemn, but he didn¡¯t flinch from the battle toe. As a martial master of decades, he¡¯d experienced hundreds of duels at the very least. What right did Qiao Feilong have topare himself to such a veteran martial master?

    His fists slowly rxed. Beside him, Li Hao continued a litany of suggestions.

    ¡°When we get there, teacher, why don¡¯t I drive the car straight into their building? Maybe Qiao Feilong wille downstairs. When he does, we can ambush him...¡±

    Yuan Shuo ignored his student¡¯s ideas. Did they make sense? A little. But too many coincidences would appear too contrived. He¡¯d be willing to give it a go if their opponent was younger than thirty. However, Qiao Feilong was a simr age to him and a wily old fox who¡¯d spent decades in the world of business.

    Did it make sense that Li Hao¡¯s car would just so happen to crash into his building tonight?

    Did it make sense that Liu Long would follow the young man to the mines today?

    For Qiao Feilong, one coincidence was fine, two coincidences were eptable. But three? That was no longer a coincidence.

    ¡°What do you think, teacher?¡± Li Hao continued. He really felt his thoughts were good. identally running into a building when the building owner was present... Qiao Feilong would have toe down if Li Hao and Yuan Shuo were in the car, right? He¡¯d have to greet them, at least? They could swiftly stab him in the gut when he was smiling pleasantly at them. That¡¯d give them an advantage then!

    Li Hao built quite a nice picture in his mind.

    ¡°Focus on driving,¡± Yuan Shuo responded calmly. ¡°Continued employment of trickery is not the right way! Additionally, don¡¯t think too little of your teacher. I¡¯ve had the stone de for multiple days and resided at peak Sunderer for decades. Do you think I haven¡¯t improved at allpared to a dozen days ago?¡±

    Li Hao snapped to solemn attention and said no more. Panther sprawled in the passenger seat, seeming to sense the grave killing intent in the air.

 Chapter 149: Battle (II)

    <h4>Chapter 149: Battle (II)</h4>

    <i>The top floor of Qiao Mining Industries.</i>

    Qiao Feilong looked down from a window and could vaguely make out a silver car¡¯s slow approach. His stomach turned; his heart was slightly unsettled.

    Had he forgotten something? Or was something about to happen? The car below... seemed familiar. Curfew was in effect tonight, so those who could so tantly drive on the streets must be supernaturals attending the ceremony. At this hour, the reception was about to begin.

    Who could it be?

    <i>...Yuan Shuo!</i>

    He remembered now, it should be Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°A martial master...¡± Qiao Feilong murmured. There were numerous drawbacks to martial masters at times and unique advantages at others. Currently, it was thetter as he could not sense the other¡¯s presence. He could only specte and rely on his own judgment due to martial masters possessing only internal force, not mysterious power.

    Internal force was held within the body and exceedingly hard to detect. Qiao Feilong hadn¡¯t paid much attention to the previous Yuan Shuo as the man was just peak Sunderer. He was strong, but that was all there was to him. But now that the man was a Dominator and had killed a Sr, Qiao Feilongmitted the person to memory. Perhaps they would have more run-ins in the future and they might even exchange blows. He¡¯d considered how he might react if Yuan Shuo was his enemy. There was also Li Hao to consider. If he wished to kill the young man, then Yuan Shuo might be an impossible hurdle to cross over.

    Qiao Feilong suddenly glimpsed something as he ruminated through his thoughts. Something was amiss.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, street level.</i>

    Li Hao looked at his watch. ¡°It¡¯s 8:45 pm...¡±

    Their side was tomence at this time; the operation outside the city would start one minuteter because the disturbance here would be smaller. A sh wouldn¡¯t be known that quickly, even if it was between two premier powerhouses. The situation was different outside the city as Liu Long and the others packedrge amounts of hot weapons. Arge uproar was inevitable once they started fighting and would raise Qiao Feilong¡¯s attention.

    A marvelously fast Yuan Shuo darted out of the car window like an ape as soon as Li Hao spoke. The window was tiny, but the professor burrowed through without a sound. The young man nced backward while keeping his foot on the pedal. A shadow shot toward the sky, visible in the dark through the glow of neon lights.

    Yuan Shuo set foot in the air like a massive bird, covering nearly one hundred meters with an upward leap. The building barely reached one hundred meters since it was thirty stories tall, putting it within easy reach of the Dominator.

    Li Hao watched with immense shock. Thest time his teacher bounded through the air, he¡¯d traveled only a dozen meters. Perhaps he hadn¡¯t utilized his full strength then, but this time he rose one hundred meters! He was obviously much stronger than before.

    Yuan Shuo swiftly ascended with unparalleled speed. He seemed to glimpse a pair of eyes as he soared through the sky. The owner of the eyes also saw him.

    Behind the window, a stony-faced Qiao Feilong looked on with consternation and inexplicable relief.

    <i>He¡¯s here for me! Yuan Shuo¡¯s here!</i>

    Solemn and grave, a ball of fire rose around him. He didn¡¯t know how he¡¯d been exposed, but knew that battle was inescapable the second that Yuan Shuo came striding through the air. It would only end with one of their deaths.

    He didn¡¯t know how much Yuan Shuo knew or why the man was so certain that Qiao Feilong was hiding his strength, but years of tempering inmerce enabled him to keep his head. A long de of fire materialized in front of him.

    A man gripping a de of fire shed through the window, sending searing mes through the air. Another man punched forward from the other side. There was no need for words, any that were said would be a joke. They both had only one goal¡ªkill the other.

    There wasn¡¯t even the sound of shattering ss. mes melted the window and the long de of fire lit up the night sky. A faint glow from the stone de erupted from Yuan Shuo¡¯s fist. His punch seemed more like a de stroke than a punch.

    Two des collided without a sound! All of the ss in the top floor simultaneously shattered, as did the floorboards beneath Qiao Feilong¡¯s feet crack and go up in mes.

    Fist and de crashed into each other!

    Only after Qiao Feilong took a slight step back and Yuan Shuo spun in the air did the sound of their impact travel outward.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    <i>Boom!</i>

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A series of explosions ripped through countless panes of ss. It was as if multiple bombs had gone off on the top floor, leaving it a pockmarked mess. All of the desks and chairs were obliterated.

    Qiao Feilong took a step back without looking down at himself. He coughed lightly as dripping sounds traveled into his ear. Fresh blood drenched his hand!

    Shock, confusion, and a trace of amazement filled his eyes. Could a Dominator truly break through a Sr¡¯s defenses? He could sense that he wasn¡¯t able to bring any defenses to bear as the other broke through his fire system with a punch. Internal force shook his insides to the point where the bones of his hand cracked.

    Was this Dominator of Thousands?

    No, it should just be Yuan Shuo. Dominators should not be this strong.

    Thoughts shed through his mind for a split second. Outside the window, Yuan Shuo returned like a bird. A tiger roar shook the heavens next.

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± This was a true tiger. Anyone who saw or heard him would see a spotted tiger prowling down from the mountain. This was the true tiger style!

    A ferocious tiger shook the firmament with its roar, the sound wave copsing the floor. Yuan Shuo punched again with a massive sound st and pummeled Qiao Feilong into the ground. The man dropped from the top floor while Yuan Shuo set foot into the building. In this moment, he seemed the reincarnation of a demon god.

    ¡°Is this all there is to a Sr, Old Qiao?!¡± Yuan Shuo crushed the floor with a stomp and transformed shrapnel into lethal projectiles, shooting them outward in all directions. A fiery streak soundlessly answered from below!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    The entire floor was cut into two; zing mes melted through even concrete and iron.

    Yuan Shuo adroitly vanished on the spot, reappearing as a hulking bear and crashing through the top floor. The fiery de once more cut through the smoke and haze.

    Qiao Feilong did not respond or ask anything. There was no need to! Everything would be over once Yuan Shuo was dead. He was more concerned with where Hao Lianchuan was. Was the director also part of this attack? Or was he outside the city?

    As concerned as he was, Qiao Feilong knew he needed to eliminate Yuan Shuo. With a shift in thought, he transformed the mes from a de into a fiery sea. A mountain of des and a sea of mes! The building was lit up from within as mes licked at it.

    Fire energy!

    ¡°Flowery moves that bear no fruit!¡± Yuan Shuo dered coolly. He was Old Demon Yuan!

    <i>I only have my pair of fists! It was these fists that beat endless martial masters to death and killed countless supernaturals before that domain came into its own. </i>Only when his fists weren¡¯t tough enough did he hole up and live out his days in Silver City.

    But now, they were tough again!

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    Like demon, like beast. The fiery sea shook when his punch barrelled forward. The consciousness erupted and aura swelled; he was a walking god that never lost a battle.

    Yuan Shuo extinguished the fiery sea with that punch alone. A massive explosion sounded before Qiao Feilong was sent flying from the center of his creation. The man¡¯s heart and mind quailed with incredulity!

    Was this Yuan Shuo??

    He couldn¡¯t withstand Yuan Shuo whether in terms of technique, killing intent, or consciousness! The only area that he held the advantage was his strong base of mysterious power. It prevented disastrous defeat from crushing him!

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± ming red blood seeped out the corners of his lips. A fiery dragon appeared beneath his feet and brought him into the air. Countless mes once more flew out with a clench of his jaw. They were stronger this time and burned through this floor with a rumble.

    The two hovered in the air as they fought, battle intensifying for this round.

    Qiao Feilong found the circumstances unbelievable¡ªhe was a<i> Sr! </i>Hadn¡¯t Yuan Shuo been able to kill Brokensky only because he¡¯d hid his strength too deeply and Brokensky had been careless? But while Yuan Shuo had indeedunched an ambush tonight, Qiao Feilong was also ready beforehand. And yet, he still found himself on the losing side.

    <i>Why??</i>

    This didn¡¯t make sense!

    Was internal force this strong at a Dominator level that it could directly break through the defenses of a Sr?

    <i>Should I run?</i>

    The thought shed through his mind. <i>No!</i>

    Battle was only the beginning. If he chose to run now, he wouldn¡¯t have a chance to counterattack. Running was to give Yuan Shuo a chance.

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    Fists!

    Uncountable fists!

    Yuan Shuo employed no technique at all; he simply rained punches down on his opponent. And gradually, Qiao Feilong began to sense something different. He exhaled with a cold look at Yuan Shuo.

    <i>I¡¯ve figured you out! Your right fist!</i>

    The professor¡¯s right fist was remarkably fierce due to a special energy that wasn¡¯t internal force. It seemed to be a treasure as the brass knuckle was too big to be just that. As cutting as the blows from Yuan Shuo¡¯s left fist were, they delivered minimal damage.

    <i>A treasure!</i>

    ¡°Your brass knuckle... is a supernatural object?¡±

    <i>Cough cough cough.</i>

    Qiao Feilong evaded another series of blows while struggling with a coughing fit and rapidly backed away, burning through floors to endure Yuan Shuo¡¯s mighty offense. The two quickly descended through the building.

    The brass knuckle was a supernatural object!

    Yuan Shuo continued his attacks without a word. Qiao Feilong had a good eye for detail and he wasn¡¯t in the mood to respond. Just as he¡¯d taught Li Hao, there was no need to converse with a standing enemy. The only time talking was appropriate as if he was heavily outmatched. Otherwise, keeping up the offense was the only answer!

    Unceasing offense!

    Another loud explosion rang out as Yuan Shuo flung a punch that fractured the floor. He swung through the air like an ape and kicked out a foot, circling Qiao Feilong upside down and delivering a dozen kicks.

    <i>Bam bam bam!</i>

    Qiao Feilong responded as well, sting back with mes that turned into fiery dragons. They sought to wrap around Yuan Shuo and burn him to death.

 Chapter 150: Battle (III)

    <h4>Chapter 150: Battle (III)</h4>

    Qiao Feilong split his attention between defending himself while coughing and maintaining a clear look in his eyes. Though hecked battle experience, he wouldn¡¯t die so easily. Years of participation in the world ofmerce had equipped him with the calm required in these situations. Yuan Shuo being more difficult to handle than expected was one such asion.

    However, he still elected to speak again to catch the professor¡¯s attention.

    ¡°You¡¯re here for the ruins, aren¡¯t you?¡± Qiao Feilong¡¯s voice was haunting. ¡°That is not something you or I can im alone. don¡¯t force me into making itmon knowledge. Perhaps you and I can partner to explore them together! You have the strength and experience, whereas I have decades of research. Working together is the way.¡±

    Yuan Shuo remained silent.

    A silhouette slightly darker than the rest disengaged from the wall and slowly approached them. A shadow in the night, it was soundless, without smell, andcking even mysterious power. It was more eerie than the scarlet shadow.

    The shadow gained a target when Qiao Feilong pointed out that the threat came from Yuan Shuo¡¯s right brass knuckle. It didn¡¯t seek to kill the professor, that was too hard!

    Dominators possessed aura and consciousness, of that everyone was well aware of. It was very easy for scarlet shadows or simr entities to move against Sunderers. But when it came to Dominators, it was very hard to invade their bodies. At the same time, it was incredibly difficult for the martial masters to discover these entities, especially in moments like this.

    Powerhouses could not afford to lose their concentration in battle.

    Qiao Feilong would have a chance to counterattack if they removed the brass knuckle. Once they interrupted Yuan Shuo¡¯s momentum, the man was sure to die.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, below ground.</i>

    Li Hao drove the car straight into the building and looked up when he abandoned the tattered silver car. He saw a massive ball of light!

    It went without saying that that was Qiao Feilong.

    However, the young man quickly frowned. The ball of light illuminated a ck shadow¡ªwhat was that? He hadn¡¯t seen anything near Qiao Feilong when he visitedst time, so what was that shadow?

    He wasn¡¯t seeing a wall or other matter, it was an energy source. Just like Qiao Feilong¡¯s fire energy and Yuan Shuo¡¯s internal force could not be seen through, the visibility of the shadow meant that it was a special type of energy that he¡¯d never seen before.

    The ck shadow dawdled around the ball of light. Li Hao was no fool, he guessed it was Qiao Feilong¡¯s trump card that he meant to ambush his teacher with. Should he yell? But who knew if his teacher could hear in the thick of battle. Even if he did, that might goad the ck shadow into pouncing on his teacher.

    ¡°The ck shadow looks like a Sunre, not a Sr...¡±

    What should he do? Should he yell?

    Various possibilities floated up in his mind.

    ¡°The Night Watchers are here on a case! Stop resisting and turn yourself in, Qiao Feilong!¡± Li Hao roared. He didn¡¯t know if the two could hear him, so he utilized Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods, bawling like a cub. A string of strange words emitted from his mouth next. ¡°The three spirits safeguard the g, the southern mountain in my heart...¡±

    The secretnguage!

    Yuan Shuo shared a secretnguage with his students, employing it to discuss certain ancient texts and to pass on secret arts such as the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. He¡¯d utilized it when teaching the method to Li Hao through themunicator.

    Up in the air, Yuan Shuo kicked another floorboard to pieces. He plummeted downward with his opponent, but still managed to catch the juvenile roar of Li Hao¡¯s voice.

    ¡°Be careful teacher, there¡¯s a ck shadow behind you...¡±

    <i>A ck shadow?</i>

    The hairs rose on the back of Yuan Shuo¡¯s neck. He didn¡¯t sense anything and his perception was exceedingly keen as a Dominator. He also possessed the usage of a consciousness, so he could sense it if a scarlet shadow drew near him.

    But now, he had no idea that anything was around him. Where was the ck shadow? Behind him?

    A strong mental fortitude led him to put the thought out of his mind. ¡°Get away!¡± he roared without turning around. It was a reminder to Li Hao for him to leave as fast as possible, and an attempt to distract Qiao Feilong.

    The appearance of the ck shadow ruined some of their ns because he couldn¡¯t locate it! The unknown represented danger. As for why Li Hao could sense it, Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t know. It might have something to do with his eyes. Those eyes were already unusual in that they could see the scarlet shadow.

    Yuan Shuo had secretly asked around as his student said the Night Watchers may have taken some people like him. He hadn¡¯t received word back yet.

    Down below, Li Hao looked in a certain direction instead of responding. Some people were running down the stairs and fleeing for their lives. The battle had erupted so suddenly that there were still people inside the building. Joy erupted in his heart when he saw Qiao Peng. The man really was there!

    ¡°Cease your resistance, Qiao Feilong, or I¡¯ll kill your son!¡± Li Hao shouted and jumped upward, rushing toward the panicked Qiao Peng.

    Qiao Feilong didn¡¯t even blink, but the ck shadow approaching Yuan Shuo hesitated. Qiao Peng was Qiao Feilong¡¯s only blood descendant, his only heir! Although the back shadow was close to Yuan Shuo, the situation on the ground was critical.

    Yuan Shuo hade so suddenly that Qiao Peng¡¯s bodyguard was still at the Inspectorate. The Qiaos weren¡¯t ready to erupt in open hostilities just yet, so they would naturally send their people to the ceremony. And it was because hecked a protector tonight that Qiao Feilong summoned his son to the building. He didn¡¯t want anything to happen when his driver wasn¡¯t around.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that Yuan Shuo would pick tonight to visit?

    The disadvantages of Qiao Peng not yet crossing over to the supernatural world were evident in this moment. He was no match for Li Hao; his piddling skills were sufficient only for mundanes.

    The ck shadow hesitated. Should it strike against Yuan Shuo first or go down to save Qiao Peng?

    The ck shadow wouldn¡¯t necessarily be able to invade Yuan Shuo¡¯s body, but it was confident of seizing his brass knuckle. But once it did, the professor would discover it. If he wasn¡¯t swiftly defeated, he might preupy the shadow.

    All of these considerations were considered in half a heartbeat. Li Hao didn¡¯t care about any of it. He who struck first was stronger!

    ¡°Go on, kill him!¡± Qiao Peng roared from the stairs. Some people ran by his side¡ªnot ordinary employees. Those still at the office in the middle of the night weren¡¯t regr workers. Other than the security detail at reception who¡¯d long run off, the ones remaining now were his usual bodyguards.

    The supernaturals had gone off to the ceremony, these were the ordinary bodyguards. They were equipped with guns as the Qiaos had their own securitypany. All of them, Qiao Peng included, drew their guns to take aim at Li Hao. They wanted to shoot the young man dead in a firing blitz.

    As for what would happen to the ruins if Li Hao died... that wasn¡¯t on Qiao Peng¡¯s mind at the moment.

    The battle overhead continued. On the ground, Li Hao responded bynding explosively and stomping his foot, shooting out sharp shards of rock. They pierced through the heads of some gun-wielding bodyguards before they could react.

    The young man was not the sort to show mercy when he acted. He was very concerned about his teacher¡¯s circumstances. Perhaps it would instill some caution in Qiao Feilong if he captured Qiao Peng.

    <i>Bang bang bang!</i> fired the surviving bodyguards and Qiao Peng when Li Hao stomped his foot.

    Qiao Peng ran for cover as he shot wildly. Guns may not be able to kill the young man¡ªthe guy was a yer, after all, though it was said that his strength was mediocre...

    The thought had just entered his mind when light shed in front of his eyes. Li Hao shed across several bodyguards¡¯ throats with fingers like a keen de. He instantly appeared in front of Qiao Peng, grabbed his throat, and swung his other arm down.

    <i>Crack!!</i>

    Qiao Peng¡¯s hand holding the gun flopped down listlessly¡ªit was broken. A massive boom sounded at the same time as the floor above them caved in. Two figures appeared in front of the two. Qiao Feilong and Yuan Shuo had fought their way to ground level! They¡¯d sted through an entire building with the fastest speed possible; such was the strength of a Sr.

    Li Hao swiftly followed up with a kick that broke Qiao Peng¡¯s leg, forcing thetter to kneel on the ground. He grabbed a handful of Qiao Peng¡¯s hair and kept his other hand around the man¡¯s throat. Qiao Peng flushed beet red as he struggled for breath.

    ¡°Heh...¡± Qiao Feilong panted, turning to Yuan Shuo. ¡°Your disciple seems a bit dumb... Will I allow myself to be taken without a fight now?¡±

    Was this an effective threat?

    Not at all! Allowing capture now was to go to his death. How dare Li Hao use his son against him!

    Li Hao naturally knew that it was ineffective to threaten Qiao Peng, but when he saw through the radiance of fire and light that the ck shadow approached him instead, the gesture didn¡¯t seem as impotent as he thought.

    The shadow changed targets to him because it wanted to save Qiao Peng! It relinquished the chance to attack his teacher because it wished to conduct a rescue. It was clear to see that this ordinary person held some importance for the shadow.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t as afraid of the ck shadow¡ªhe¡¯d terminated even the humongous scarlet shadow, to say nothing of this one. However, he wasn¡¯t certain if the two shadows were simr.

    The young man was still cautious as Qiao Feilong wasn¡¯t too far from him. He was afraid of a powerhouse like the esteemed businessman, but not of unknown entities like the ck shadow. He had all those meals of scarlet shadows to thank.

    Yuan Shuo continued to fight, not considering the fact that his student was nearby and had taken Qiao Peng alive. His usual ferocity was on disy; no caution marked his movements. He bore down in domineering fashion and utilized the Five Styles to their utmost, suppressing Qiao Feilong with repeated punches. He was so overbearing that the other¡¯s fire energy couldn¡¯t even spread out too far. Some ripples undted from their fight, but there was nothing he could do about those for the moment.

    Perhaps out of concern for his son on one side and his student on the other, both parties moved away with unspoken ord. They broke countless floor tiles and battled their way to the street. At the same time, Li Hao saw the ck shadow pounce on him. Other people may not be able to see it, but he could.

 Chapter 151: Battle (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 151: Battle (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao already had his hand wrapped around the small sword when the shadow rushed him. This was his life-saving ace, but who cared whether or not it was exposed in this moment? It might be the only thing effective against the entity. He strongly suspected that he wouldn¡¯t be able to touch the thing if he attacked with any other means.

    The little sword glowed with a faint luster as Li Hao grasped it tightly and stabbed forward!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    It sank into something as a muffled grunt came from the air.

    ¡°Hmm?¡± said the ck shadow¡ªanother difference to the scarlet shadow. It was highly taken aback.

    What was this?

    ¡°The sword of the Lis?¡± A thought urred to it. Wasn¡¯t that in the hands of the Night Watchers? Why was it still with Li Hao? So the sword of the Lis could harm it?

    That seemed to exin things. The weapons of the eight families were no ordinary objects. Qiao Feilong had once spected that the weapons were simr to origin weapons.

    The void trembled after the ck shadow was pierced and a humanoid shape revealed itself. A beet-red Qiao Peng with a broken leg and being dragged around like a sack of potatoes also saw the shadow. A word forced itself out of his mouth, ¡°Mother...¡±

    Li Hao reeled with shock!

    <i>Mother?!</i>

    How was that possible?!

    Qiao Feilong¡¯s wife had been dead for many years! How was it the shadow??

    Although its features could not be discerned, the shadow shook and transmitted, ¡°You... can see me?¡±

    That singr question revealed a lot of information. Qiao Peng hadn¡¯t been able to see her before and possibly didn¡¯t even know she existed. It was very likely that she couldn¡¯t make herself visible to the naked eye. Otherwise, there was no reason for Qiao Peng¡¯s mother to hide herself all this time.

    The only answer was if she was neither human nor ghost and unable to control whether or not she could be seen. That was the only reason why Qiao Peng didn¡¯t need to know, in case the truth saddened him.

    As much of a bombshell as this was, Li Hao was enormously delighted. Qiao Peng¡¯s mother? Even better!

    Although she was dead, Li Hao had once looked up her file. Its information indicated that she had been Qiao Feilong¡¯s secretary and was highly trusted by him. She became his official partner and the matriarch of the Qiaos.

    Being his right hand woman in life, much of the credit for the family¡¯s rise went to Qiao Peng¡¯s mother. She gradually withdrew from thepany after giving birth to a son so she could focus on raising Qiao Peng.

    Thus, it was apparent that she loved and doted on Qiao Peng.

    To think that she would still be alive! But in this state? What was going on?

    Far off in the distance, the bboring Qiao Feilong suddenly turned in their direction. His eyes widened when he saw the shadow!

    It was visible!

    The ck shadow was visible!

    He could only hear but not see the shadow over the years. Yet today, in the thick of battle, his lover was here! How was this possible??

    He¡¯d tried many methods over the years but never found sess. He could only hear her voice and eventually sense her presence due to the years they spent together, but never see her in physical form. Why was she visible now?

    As baffled as Qiao Feilong was, he thought of something the next second. He looked at Li Hao and at the small sword in his hand. This might be the sword of the Lis; it might help his wife recover her physical body!

    Energy from the ruins had rammed into her once and turned her into this ghastly state. Hope dawned now!

    ¡°Kill him and take the sword!¡± Qiao Feilong grunted. ¡°We can have more sons if this one¡¯s gone! We can have many children if you¡¯re alive again!¡±

    He worried that his wife would be too soft.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Yuan Shuo sent him flying with a punch¡ªthe Qiao patriarch crashed onto the street, breaking through countless buildings in the process.

    ¡°Kill him, do you hear me?!¡± Qiao Feilong emphasized even as he spat out blood. He hadn¡¯t wanted his son to die at first, but now... he changed his mind. Qiao Peng could die, but so must Li Hao. They had to have that sword!

    The ck shadow trembled and pounced on Li Hao. In return, the young man shook the ground with a light burst of aura, but it was immediately suppressed.

    While it was far less than Qiao Feilong, the ck shadow was still very strong. It projected the strength of a Sunre¡ªa level beyond Li Hao¡¯s capabilities. He could put up a fight against a Sunderer, but a Sunre was truly out of reach. He couldn¡¯t even ambush one.

    He abruptly raised Qiao Peng high when the shadow subdued his weak aura, smashing Qiao Peng down on the ck shadow as a weapon!<i> Qiao Feilong doesn¡¯t care, but do you?</i>

    Off in the distance, a grim Yuan Shuo delivered a crazed flurry of punches. Punch after punch connected, like he was a massive bear shaking the earth. He wanted to quickly beat Qiao Feilong to death so he could save his student. Li Hao could hold his own against a Sunderer; he could not do so against a Sunre.

    Yuan Shuo was able to sense the ck shadow and its peculiar strength only when it revealed itself. It was a Sunre level existence¡ªbeyond Li Hao¡¯s abilities.

    Teacher and disciple had miscalcted. Otherwise, Yuan Shuo was confident that he could suppress Qiao Feilong and prevent the man from affecting Li Hao.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Li Hao threw Qiao Peng squarely at the ck shadow. The shadow hastily dodged out of the way, so restricted in its movement that it didn¡¯t dare utilize too much force out of fear that it¡¯d kill Qiao Peng alongside Li Hao.

    The young man still had his hands wrapped around Qiao Peng¡¯s leg and yanked the man back. He saw his teacher erupt with increased fury and heard more collisions ringing out, even the rare shout of anger. Urgency nipped at his teacher¡¯s heels.

    Neither of them expected the ck shadow¡¯s appearance and the small sword wasn¡¯t as effective as expected. It forced the ck shadow to reveal itself, but it couldn¡¯t kill the entity like it could a scarlet shadow.

    <i>What is this thing?</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know, but he knew that he was no match for it and would die. He stomped his foot once more and red his weak aura, shaking the ground. The tremors barely rebuffed the poised ck shadow. Although he felt the gravity of the situation, the young man didn¡¯t panic.

    There was nothing to be panicked about. His opponent feared for Qiao Peng¡¯s life¡ªthis was the best possible oue. Of course, this situation wouldn¡¯t endure for long. He would die soon.

    Thankfully, the shadow seemed to be wary of the little sword. It shied away when Li Hao waved the weapon around.

    ......

    <i>Not too far away.</i>

    Yuan Shuo was extremely anxious at the sight of Li Hao warding off the enemy with difficulty. Though he professed to be uncaring of his student¡¯s death, that was just all talk. His disciple was the next potential Dominator, how could he die here?

    When his thoughts traveled here, Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t resist the urge of activating the Incantation of the de of Blood. He hadn¡¯t nned to when he set foot onto the battlefield. There might not be enough sword energy to heal him, so he might be gravely injured after this battle. However, it was the only choice avable to him.

    He was as decisive as ever; blood and qi rose in his face, gathering together while his consciousness erupted in full fury. Even the stone de in his hand seemed to grow a portion longer.

    Yuan Shuo sent Qiao Feilong flying with a punch. He roared, umting qi, blood, and consciousness to form a dragon of blood and qi.<i> I wonder if I¡¯ll be able to recover this time...</i> But he did not turn back. It was simr to when Li Hao chose to stay in the face of obvious danger when he saw the ck shadow and elect to capture Qiao Peng. That was how things should be between master and disciple.

    There was no need to quibble too much.

    ¡°Incantation of the de of Blood!¡± the professor roared. The stone de was somehow the size of a regr de, and it was blood-red!

    Qiao Feilong immediately sensed fatal danger! He¡¯d originally wanted to wait until his wife killed Li Hao. It was taking so long because she was concerned about her son¡¯s life. She would kill Li Hao given just a little more time. After he was dead, she might be able to meld back into the shadows. No matter how Yuan Shuo was prepared then, he would have to exercise caution. That was when Qiao Feilong could counterattack.

    But at this moment, he sensed danger. Billowing fire energy erupted out of the air! He was bringing his full strength to bear. Qiao Feilong was a Sr! How could he be so downtrodden by Yuan Shuo to the point where he faced a lethal threat?! This was infuriating!!

    A pir of me illuminated all of Silver City as a powerful presence was fully exposed. mes and a blood-red stroke threw light over the city. Two mighty surges of strength emanated in all directions.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A massive collision shook half the city as de light cut through fire, extinguishing the sea of mes. A bloody stroke arced through the sky and obliterated a head in its path.

    ......

    <i>At the same moment.</i>

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan jerked his head up, clearly sensing everything only now. He¡¯d faintly heard a bit of a disturbance earlier and barely picked up anything as they were more than ten thousand meters away from the battle site. Given the number of supernaturals present, he could only send Mu Sen to take a look.

    But now, his expression shifted drastically. This wasn¡¯t a regr fight between supernaturals!

    <i>Fuck! Where is this Sring from? And was that Yuan Shuo? Which Sr is Yuan Shuo fighting now??</i>

    The director looked at the hall of supernaturals and bellowed, ¡°Everyone, quiet!¡± A mor was rising as they¡¯d heard the shes too. Hao Lianchuan red a foreboding aura and snapped out, ¡°Everyone, quiet! Any who dares incite unrest now will be executed on the spot!¡±

    Unease shone in his eyes. What was going on? Was it Red Moon? Or the other organizations? What was that damned bastard Yuan Shuo doing now?? He picked endless fights with Srs after rising to Dominator.

    Hao Lianchuan wanted to take a look, but he hesitated after looking at the crowd of attendees. Would these guys riot as soon as he left? And that damned Liu Long, were all of them in on this together? They¡¯d left him here to keep the local supernaturals under control so thetter couldn¡¯t join the battle.

    That must be the case!

    <i>Liu Long, you bastard. How dare you treat me as your guard dog! </i>While Hao Lianchuan cursed everything he could about Liu Long, he was also worried.<i> Yuan Shuo, you idiot. Killing one Sr was good luck, why are you trying your luck again? Do you really think you¡¯re stronger than Dominator?</i>

 Chapter 152: Slaying Solar, Destroying Sunflare (I)

    <h4>Chapter 152: ying Sr, Destroying Sunre (I)</h4>

    <i>Qiao Mining headquarters.</i>

    A streak of de light illuminated the void outside the building and threw radiance in all directions on the street. A head shot into the air and exploded.

    Heaven and earth stilled.

    Blood seeped out of the corner of Yuan Shuo¡¯s mouth and dripped onto the ground. Cold, heartless, he did not pause. He waved the blood-red stone de and threw himself at the ck shadow!

    ¡°Boss...¡± Stupefied, the ck shadow couldn¡¯t believe the sight. It fell back on old ways and called out the honorific by habit. Qiao Feilong had been a genius in its eyes for all these years, an invincible personage. He¡¯d climbed his way up the city¡¯s ranks and slowly umted his fortune, scheming against Yama to silently develop to Sr. He was even prepared to establish his own supernatural organization and vie with the other three greats and the Night Watchers...

    It was all over today.

    Qiao Feilong was dead!

    While Yuan Shuo had kept him on the back foot before, he hadn¡¯t reached the point ofplete defeat. But Yuan Shuo broke through all of his defenses in a single instant and decapitated him as Qiao Feilong brimmed with full battle strength!

    ¡°Im... impossible...¡± The ck shadow didn¡¯t believe it!

    Meanwhile, Qiao Peng was still alive despite being used as a weapon; despair dawned in his eyes. He hadn¡¯t resented his father when the man said to abandon him. There was no need to give in to that kind of emotion.

    Perhaps that was the only move that could be made to keep Qiao Peng alive. To keep everyone alive. But the shadow... his mother, had been too hesitant and cared about him too much. She¡¯d been bogged down by Li Hao and missed the best opportunity to strike!

    Whose fault was it?

    HIs mother wanted to save him and became irresolute for it. The best timing slipped through her fingers, so the me for his father¡¯s death in battle shouldy at her feet.

    <i>But she did so to save me...</i>

    Resignation filtered into Qiao Peng¡¯s eyes. Resignation, grief, and pity. And of course, a little regret. He didn¡¯t ascend to the supernatural even in the end. He would never wee the opportunity that his father spoke of.

    ¡°We¡¯ll die together...¡± Qiao Peng suddenly struggled fiercely in Li Hao¡¯s hands. Li Hao subconsciously clenched his hand so tight that it ripped into Qiao Peng¡¯s throat. Blood sprayed everywhere, but the Qiao young master didn¡¯t care.

    Was survival still a consideration at this point?

    <i>No!</i>

    Only with his death would his mother go insane and relinquish any hope. She would kill Li Hao and make him their burial goods! There was no need to consider Yuan Shuo, they were no match for him!

    The yboy disyed a ruthlessly decisive personality in this moment. He did not wish to die when there was hope to live. When that hope no longer existed, he wanted someone else to pave the way first.

    ¡°Peng¡¯er!¡± shrilled a furious and crazed voice. The shadow was still caught in the throes of despair by Qiao Feilong¡¯s death when she saw Qiao Peng¡¯s throat crushed and blood spraying everywhere.

    She fully awoke in this moment. It was her hesitation and dithering that resulted in the failure of this battle. Qiao Feilong didn¡¯t me her¡ªhe simply died with regret. Her son didn¡¯t me her and resolutely decided to die as well. And she... she would kill Li Hao!

    Yuan Shuo wasing, but startling killing intent exploded from the shadow. She would make him lose a student¡ªno, his final disciple! To martial masters, a final disciple was more precious than a son. Even though he¡¯d risen from the metaphorical dead with his breakthrough to Dominator, he would still be anguished by the death of his disciple.

    ¡°Die!!¡± The shadow shot forward like a knife. She¡¯d been turned into this state through an ident. A unique power had hit her when they excavated the ruins, but it didn¡¯t kill her as it¡¯dbined with the special energy in the ruins. It contained heating properties that retained her soul, or rather, her spirit.

    Yuan Shuo was unable to discover her due to this energy. It was very special and difficult to be detected. It was a simr case to how he was unable to discern the sword energy at first. It wasn¡¯t until Li Hao extracted some that he could begin to sense any. The energy of the eight families seemed to carry unique attributes for concealment.

    The ck shadow no longer had the capacity to consider too much. Her heaven and earth, her husband was dead. She hadn¡¯t dared reveal herself to her son out of worry that he¡¯d be saddened by her state. But for all her doting and love, her son was not long for this world.

    How had everything happened so quickly?? There was only one thought on her mind now¡ªkill Li Hao!

    She shot out like a sword, aiming for Li Hao¡¯s head. Although the young man had forced her into revealing herself, she was still, in essence, an unique mental entity. Her speed was unparalleled as she sought to smash Li Hao¡¯s head.

    The young man¡¯s eyes widened. He didn¡¯t know if his opponent was the same as the scarlet shadow or if it could hurt him, but he wasn¡¯t willing to take the risk under these circumstances. Li Hao grunted and stomped his foot!

    The earth trembled while he raised Qiao Peng. Erupting with a unique aura, Li Haomanded a surge of blood qi and internal force tobine with the aura.

    <i>The Incantation of the de of Blood!</i>

    Yuan Shuo taught him many things over this period of time, but he only had thed memorize the Incantation instead of practice it. This method was one of mutual destruction with the enemy. Of course, Li Hao wasn¡¯t able to use it as hecked an aura.

    It had been the most remote possibility on Yuan Shuo¡¯s mind that his student wouldprehend a fledgling aura so quickly, and it was in the same vein that Li Hao threw caution to the wind when his survival was at stake. The Incantation of the de of Blood erupted!

    Blood qi, internal force, and the beginnings of aura swiftly melded into one. His decisiveness fully matched Yuan Shuo¡¯s¡ªthe young man was terrifyingly calm when death stared at him in the face.

    The ck shadow hesitated for a split second when the bleeding Qiao Peng was thrown at it. Even now, she couldn¡¯t bear to ruin Qiao Peng¡¯s corpse. Motherly love was magnificent, but it wasn¡¯t appropriate when it came to matters of life or death. The merest moment it slowed was sufficient opening for a particr blood qi to rise around Li Hao.

    The Incantation of the de of Blood!

    He didn¡¯t need to kill anyone with it, he just needed to hold off his enemy. His teacher would be here soon, very soon!

    <i>Humm!</i>

    A sonic wave broke through the air as Yuan Shuo shot over like a flying sword. He fractured the earth when he pushed off and raised his de high upon arrival!

    The ck shadow wailed and evaded Qiao Peng, flinging herself at the target.

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    A blood-red barrier shattered. Li Hao was still too weak and his aura yet to fully form. Thus, his Incantation didn¡¯t reach Yuan Shuo¡¯s level and couldn¡¯t kill someone beyond his cultivation. He spat out a mouthful of blood when the barrier broke, just so spraying it onto the little sword. It agitated in response and seemed to grow a little bigger.

    Li Hao stabbed it forward without another thought!

    <i>Screech!</i>

    The shrill sound of friction between two pieces of ss sounded out. ck smoke wafted from the shadow from where it¡¯d been injured, whereupon the little sword instantly devoured the tendrils. It seemed to havee across something delicious or from the same source as it. The jade sword was taking the initiative to devour the unique energy that was the ck shadow!

    Yuan Shuo finally arrived at this time. Instead of engaging in meaningless chatter, he struck with his de!

    A loud bam rang out instead of the sharp screeching that Li Hao raised. The stroke split the shadow into two, and the stone de in Yuan Shuo¡¯s hand also seemed to sniff a hint of something different.

    The stone de erupted with a devouring force that swallowed half of the ck shadow. Yuan Shuo shook with surprise, but didn¡¯t have time to consider the development. He waved the de around to sh the other surviving half.

    ¡°The ruins!!¡± shrieked the ck shadow with notes of despair and unwillingness. She wanted to reveal the secrets behind the ruins so that others would make trouble for the teacher and disciple duo. They could be her instruments of revenge for her family being exterminated.

    ¡°ROAR!!¡±

    <i>Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods!</i>

    Li Hao and Yuan Shuo mimicked each other precisely and emitted tiger roars at the same time. The roars shook thend and concealed everything!

    Revealing one¡¯s secrets before impending death was amon course of action. Yuan Shuo once said that the best way to prevent enemies from causing trouble when on death¡¯s doorstep was to kill them outright, denying them the chance to speak.

    A less ideal method was to create a bigger disturbance that would cover up the enemy¡¯s movements.

    Of course, if one waspletely fearless, then the enemy could be permitted to say whatever they wished. Yuan Shuo would simply kill whoever came knocking on his door afterward. Teacher and disciple inly couldn¡¯t afford the third at the moment, so two tiger roars instantly obscured the shadow¡¯s shriek.

    Li Haobined aura and internal force in the little sword; it seemed to swellrger in response. He once more stabbed the weapon at the ck shadow. Yuan Shuo acted without hesitation and shed with the de as well!

    The ck shadow was nailed into ce by two opposing forces when de and sword acted in concert. It was ripped apart and the weapons seemed to transform into gluttons, ravenously devouring its energy.

    ¡°Boss... Peng¡¯er...¡± An anguished voice echoed upon the wind. It was the shadow¡¯s final words. It didn¡¯t care whether or not it lived after Qiao Feilong and Qiao Peng were dead. It was neither human nor ghost to begin with, death was just death. The only thing it felt was a bitterness that it hadn¡¯t died first, that its hesitancy at a critical moment had cost her husband and son their lives.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    A tendril of ck smoke exploded. Most of it was swallowed by the de and sword, leaving a tiny bit to fade away in the air.

    Just as teacher and disciple finished the three Qiao family members, a dog¡¯s barking suddenly sounded from the side of the street. Both Li Hao and Yuan Shuo turned to see Panther w the ground in the darkness. A person¡¯s head could vaguely be seen before the little ck dog smacked it to pieces!

    Yuan Shuo furrowed his brow¡ªnot because Panther had killed someone, but because there were still supernaturals not afraid of the immense ripples of this kind of battle. An earth supernatural had slipped in to observe at close quarters!

    The ignorant were fearless!

    Someone that Panther could bat to death with one w was either Starlight or a new Darkmoon. As Yuan Shuo and Li Hao had been focused on the Qiaos, they hadn¡¯t paid attention to anyone else. It wasn¡¯t like the interloper would¡¯ve gotten away either. Teacher and disciple would¡¯ve made sure he did not leave once they¡¯d taken care of their affairs.

 Chapter 153: Slaying Solar, Destroying Sunflare (II)

    <h4>Chapter 153: ying Sr, Destroying Sunre (II)</h4>

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther barked with a small strut. Its nose twitched as it sniffed through the darkness.

    The little ck dog had been cleaning up the perimeter! Li Hao hadn¡¯t taught it this skill. The young man nced at Yuan Shuo¡ªhad his teacher?

    ¡°I didn¡¯t teach it that,¡± the professorughed sardonically with a bleeding mouth. ¡°That dog is afraid of death and wanted to hide, but then discovered we were strong enough to kill our opponents. So now it¡¯s afraid that we¡¯ll yell at it for its cowardice, so it barks a few times to let us know that it¡¯s putting in work too!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Li Hao blinked, then broke out inughter. Heughed andughed until both teacher and disciple coughed up blood at the same time. Both of them had utilized the Incantation of the de of Blood. Li Hao was better off as his aura was weak. He couldn¡¯t bring too much power to bear, but that also meant his bacsh was less. Yuan Shuo, however, was gravely injured.

    The young man quickly offered up the jade sword. Yuan Shuo took it without protest and operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to absorb a bit of sword energy. He stopped when his injuries stabilized and wouldn¡¯t lead to his immediate copse.

    The professor quickly returned to the site of battle and sectioned the headless corpse on the ground into a dozen pieces. He piled all of the pieces together, swiftly jogged to the silver car, and took out an energy storage box. Yuan Shuo opened the box and put everything inside, then stood with the box in one hand.

    ¡°Clean up the blood, I¡¯m going to take a look outside the city!¡± He rose into the sky with an angry bellow. ¡°Don¡¯t think of running, Red Moon vermin!¡±

    Yuan Shuo broke through the air like he was chasing an enemy.

    ¡°The Qiaos have colluded with the evil supernatural organization known as Red Moon!¡± Li Hao promptly shouted. ¡°They deserve death! To me, Inspectorate! Arrest everyone involved with the Qiaos!¡±

    His angry shout brought a series of uniform footsteps from the distance. Mu Sen arrived before long, bringing a solemn group of heavily equipped inspectors with him.

    Li Hao knew they would quickly be on the scene when he saw Mu Sen from far away. The Inspectorate wouldn¡¯t ignore a massive battle erupting in their homegrown.

    ¡°A Sr ambushed my teacher!¡± the young man called out. ¡°Teacher¡¯s off in pursuit. Seal off the premises, Inspector General Mu!¡±

    Mu Sen waved a hand without a word. The inspectors quickly sealed off the area. The inspector general was shocked when he took a better look at closer quarters. Another battle with a Sr! Were Red Moon Srs so worthless? How dare they send another when one had already died?

    He saw Qiao Peng¡¯s corpse and those of the bodyguards. The ck shadow had dispersed and Qiao Feilong¡¯s body was nowhere to be found. There were only some stters of blood on the ground.

    <i>Where is Qiao Feilong?</i>

    The question shed through his mind. Mu Sen only asked about the enemy. ¡°Did the Sr get away? Or is Professor Yuan being chased by the enemy?¡±

    The Sr¡¯s presence had vanished just as quickly as it¡¯d appeared. The inspector general hade quickly enough, but all he saw was a sea of fire and a de the color of blood. He didn¡¯t know any details.

    The de of blood likely belonged to Yuan Shuo and the sea of fire to a fire Sr.

    But now? Did it mean that Yuan Shuo held the upper hand if Li Hao stood here, unharmed? If that was the case, the professor was terrifying!

    A Dominator killing one Sr was an ident and luck, but matching a second Sr was pure strength. No one would chalk it up to coincidence a second time. One was not so consistently lucky.

    ¡°A Qiao Plenilune is at the Inspectorate for the reception.¡± Li Hao wasted no time. ¡°Some of their Starlight and martial masters are present too. Eliminate them as quickly as possible!

    ¡°Inspector General Mu, Director Hao may not fully grasp the situation at the moment and the Plenilune might not know that the Qiaos are in cahoots with Red Moon. We should rush over there and you should kill the guy without another word!¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± Mu Sen frowned slightly and nced at Li Hao. The young man¡¯s eyes were clear.

    ¡°Although Director Hao can handle a Plenilune that suddenly rages out of control, I¡¯m worried about other people bing coteral damage. What my teacher means to say is that collusion with the three great organizations leads to no mercy!¡±

    The Plenilune might know something at this point, but that was fine. As much as he knew, he wouldn¡¯t dare open his mouth while the situation remained murky. Meanwhile, Mu Sen was very conflicted. Just kill them... outright? What was teacher and disciple hiding?

    But right now, he couldn¡¯t ask anything. It wasn¡¯t a convenient time and he shouldn¡¯t ask even if it was.

    ¡°Understood!¡± Mu Sen nodded and grunted, ¡°Seal off the premises. No one is allowed in and all trespassers are to be executed on the spot!¡±

    He walked off with Li Hao to drive back. It was faster to take the car although the Inspectorate was close.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t I contact Director Hao now?¡± Mu Sen proposed in the car. ¡°With the director¡¯s strength, he¡¯ll quickly suppress the other without a chance of anything going wrong...¡±

    ¡°I hear that White Moon is coborating with the three great organizations,¡± Li Hao answered calmly. ¡°If Director Hao takes action, that will give the organizations something to find fault with! This matter has nothing to do with Director Hao, it is a private grudge with us Silver City Night Watchers! This stays within Silver City and does not carry over anywhere else. If Director Hao makes a move, that gives them an excuse to respond in kind and will ruin Night Watcher matters!¡±

    Mu Sen could find no rebuttal. <i>You¡¯ve even thought of a perfect excuse for me!</i>

    ¡°Therefore, it¡¯s better to just kill them. We¡¯ll say they¡¯re all from Red Moon when they¡¯re dead. They wanted to kill me before and my teacher killed Brokensky. So what if we kill a few more Red Moon members today?

    ¡°Martial masters take revenge for every slight they should address! If Red Moon does not ept this, we wee them to continue fighting!¡±

    Mu Sen seemed to be seeing Li Hao for the first time. He got into the car and quietly drove off at a fast speed. After a while, he suddenly asked, ¡°Where have Liu Long and the rest of the team gone?¡±

    ¡°After Red Moon¡¯s people!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Mu Sen cursed to himself. ¡°We¡¯re all of Silver City, so I¡¯ll cut straight to the chase. What else do you need me to do apart from killing this Plenilune?¡±

    There must be great secrets at stake here. Yuan Shuo¡¯s fight would not go undetected as it had caused too great of a disturbance. Whenbined with a massive uproar outside the city, various factions would certainly seek to get to the bottom of the matter when the dust settled. So what should he do?

    Li Hao nced at Mu Sen¡¯s back. ¡°Publicize the fact that the Qiaos colluded with Red Moon! Qiao Mining Industries was the organization¡¯s stronghold in Silver City. Father and son were outer members of the organization and this battle was the result of them scheming to ambush my teacher. It caused a massive battle instead...

    ¡°Additionally, it would be nice if Inspector General Mu could send someone to clean up the battle site as soon as possible. We can¡¯t have anyone learning about the situation. It has to do with some of my teacher¡¯s killing moves. If they¡¯re exposed, he will be easily targeted.¡±

    Mu Sen took a deep breath and patted the ckmunicator hanging over his ear.

    ¡°Wash away all of the traces of blood near Qiao Mining Industries. Burn all of the bodies on the spot to prevent mysterious power from polluting the surroundings! Recover order as soon as possible and have people clean out their building. Burn it all! Pour concrete into the damage inflicted on the streets and seal them off...¡± He barked out a litany of orders.

    His orders would be very quickly carried out given the inspector general¡¯s level of authority. As an agency of force, the Inspectorate would swiftly ensure that everything would be put back to order apart from a damaged Qiao Mining headquarters. It would be nigh impossible to glean any clues from the scene.

    ¡°If you have any requests, Inspector General, please feel free to voice them. I think my teacher will consider them.¡±

    ¡°No need!¡± Mu Sen rumbled. ¡°I only have one thing to say. Next time... and I hope there¡¯s no next time, but if there is, let me know ahead of time! You should know that a sudden battle, especially one of the Sr level, can easily cause massive casualties!¡±

    Thank goodness it¡¯d taken ce in themercial district and there was a curfew in ce tonight. Who knew how many would be on the streets otherwise?

    The inspector general could tell from this that the group was prepared. Otherwise, a curfew wasn¡¯t necessary for tonight.

    ¡°I understand.¡± Li Hao nodded without responding further.

    Various thoughts shed through Mu Sen¡¯s mind; they were close to the Inspectorate. ¡°That Sr... Will we see them again next time?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    <i>Dead! </i>Mu Sen reeled with shock. Although he had his guess, it was still stunning beyond belief to hear that the other was truly dead. A second Sr! Yuan Shuo was terrifying, absolutely terrifying.

    ¡°But everyone is to know that they escaped!¡± Li Hao supplemented.

    ¡°I understand!¡± Mu Sen nodded. Although it would enhance Yuan Shuo¡¯s reputation and make him foremost among Silver Moon if the truth got out, that would also ce him in greater danger. Saying that the enemy got away made the situation much safer¡ªthe caveat being that none of the three great organizations were willing to admit that they¡¯d lost a Sr.

    Was it an unknown Sr? It had to be, or there was no concealing the matter. No one would know about the death of an unknown Sr.

    The car stopped as they talked; the Inspectorate was so quiet tonight that it was eerie. A formidable presence rose into the air¡ªHao Lianchuan was still holding down the fort. All of Silver City¡¯s supernatural personages were gathered here tonight, nearly one hundred of them.

    If he left after Mu Sen¡¯s departure and during Liu Long¡¯s absence... who knew what else would happen tonight? Thus, he didn¡¯t move despite anxiety besieging him on all sides. Theck of a distress signal from Yuan Shuo was another major reason why he stayed. Perhaps Yuan Shuo can handle whatever situation he found himself in.

    Hao Lianchuan slightly rxed with relief when he sensed Mu Sen and Li Hao¡¯s return. Their footsteps were resolute¡ªa sign that the issue wasn¡¯t great. So where was the Sr? There was a fire Sr!

    Hao Lianchuan was already trying to determine which faction¡¯s Sr was here tonight. There were limited numbers of them and they were mostly known, even when hidden. A fire Sr... Red Moon seemed to possess one, but most of their resources were concentrated in the central region. Was their Sr here on a solo mission to kill Yuan Shuo?

    Were they crazy?

    Yuan Shuo had a Sr notch on his belt and the director himself was here. Much of this didn¡¯t make sense.

    The two returnees entered through the door as Hao Lianchuan grappled with his thoughts. Every head in the hall snapped to them. Mu Sen carried arge de in his hand and brimmed with portentous killing intent.

    ¡°Director Hao, someone attacked Professor Yuan and there¡¯s been a massive battle on the city streets,¡± he solemnly exined with fury. ¡°They ran from the premises and the professor is giving chase...¡±

    ¡°Is he alright?¡± Hao Lianchuan intoned.

    ¡°We¡¯re not sure.¡± Mu Sen walked forward, as if wanting to make a report to the director. Hao Lianchuan, however, furrowed his brow and looked at his colleague. Although it was difficult to see through Mu Sen since he was a martial master, their proximity meant that Hao Lianchuan could sense the active state of the man¡¯s internal force.

    <i>A revolt?</i>

    <i>Has Mu Sen revolted and wants to ambush me?</i>

 Chapter 154: Slaying Solar, Destroying Sunflare (III)

    <h4>Chapter 154: ying Sr, Destroying Sunre (III)</h4>

    <i>Impossible!</i>

    Well, not that a revolt was impossible, but that a yer wasn¡¯t able to kill a Sr at such close quarters. Hao Lianchuan kept the same expression on his face, but inwardly cursed Silver City for being an incredibly bizarre location. Their Night Watcher branch didn¡¯t listen to orders and even their inspector general was a strange fellow.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s gaze shifted to the side as he grumbled to himself and caught sight of a middle-aged man who seemed honest, but wore a look of worry. It was a driver from Qiao Mining Industries.

    <i>Mu Sen wants to kill him? Why?</i>

    Hao Lianchuan even had the impulse to stop the inspector general, but someone appeared in front of him at this time.

    ¡°Director Hao, my teacher says...¡± Li Hao began.

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t hear a word of what Yuan Shuo purportedly said. Actually, Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything either. Killing intent suddenly shed through Mu Sen¡¯s eyes and he cut down the driver with the long de in his hand!

    ¡°The Qiaos have colluded with bandits to ambush Professor Yuan!¡± he roared. ¡°He deserves to be executed! Any who dares move will be treated as co-conspirators!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Only now did the Plenilune realize that Mu Sen was attacking him. He quickly raised a hand in defense and erupted with immense fire attributed power. But the de arrived just as his strength billowed!

    A Plenilune could not save himself from a peak Sunderer ambush at such a close distance.

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    The man¡¯s head was pierced through and smashed to pieces. His upraised hands were likewise destroyed.

    Hao Lianchuan frowned and swept an offended nce at Li Hao. All of these people had ignored him and even purposefully obstructed him! Li Hao, Yuan Shuo, Liu Long, Mu Sen...

    Silver City was a tightly-knit whole that water could not seep into. They covered for each other and didn¡¯t trust even the Night Watchers. It was in to see that they had their secrets, but didn¡¯t trust Hao Lianchuan with them!

    Irritation built in the director¡¯s heart, yet he snorted coldly and deployed a fire dragon. Six supernaturals stirring restlessly in the crowd were immediately burned to ashes!

    Not only were the Qiao superhumans scared out of their wits when Mu Sen attacked, but so were others with ulterior motives up their sleeves. Unfortunately for them, they forgot Hao Lianchuan¡¯s level of strength.

    He couldn¡¯t be bothered with interrogating them, so ignited his fire dragon and just burned those unstable factors to death!

    ¡°Have you forgotten that I¡¯m still here?¡± Hao Lianchuan bit off coldly, apparently directing his words at the cowering group in the hall, but in reality meaning them for Mu Sen and Li Hao. <i>Do you take me for a dead man? Killing someone in front of me and eliminating all of the suspects, what are you trying to do?!</i>

    He was infuriated! White Moon had <i>just</i> reached an ord with the three great organizations and others, but here was a massive problem dumped into hisp! <i>Damn it! And I thought Silver City would be fine for the short term.</i>

    ¡°Everything¡¯s fine now, Director Hao,¡± Li Hao kept his voice down. ¡°It¡¯s just a local Silver City corporation colluding with some evil supernaturals to ambush my teacher. Everything¡¯s over now.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan tilted his head at the young man, the look in his eyes chilling to arctic levels. He recovered his calm only after a long moment.

    ¡°Have Liu Long present a detailed case analysis tomorrow!¡± He ignored Li Hao and frowned at Mu Sen. ¡°Have someone clean up the bodies. It¡¯s a gory mess here. This is the Inspectorate, not a wet market!¡±

    He turned toward the trembling crowd in the hall. ¡°There is no need to be afraid,¡± the director said calmly. ¡°The Night Watchers are everyone¡¯s guardian so long as you hide no skeletons in the closet, do not disrupt society, refrain frommitting murder, abstain from breaking thew, or others. We are not butchers!

    ¡°We would request your presence a little while longer tonight as we hunt down the criminals running through our streets. Please enjoy yourselves. It is an asion for celebration that the Silver City Night Watchers strike atwbreakers and kill transgressors on its first day of formation! I hope everyone takes this as a warning and do not think to vite thew just because you are superhuman!¡±

    ¡°We would never!¡± chorused a pale crowd. They were truly frightened out of their wits. A Sr was awful beyond belief! Hao Lianchuan had casually burned eight superhumans to death with a few fire dragons. Although they were yers and Starlight, but how many Darkmoon and Sunderers were present?

    The strongest was the one that Mu Sen had killed, an action that still palpitated the hearts of those present. They already knew that the inspector general was strong as he could cleave a flying Darkmoon to half with one stroke. Despite the advantage conferred by an ambush, he¡¯d easily dispatched a Darkmoon powerhouse moments ago¡ªone that seemed very strong. They could tell from this that the fatty was likely a peak Sunderer.

    Mu Sen wore a smile on his face again after killing his target. He nced at Li Hao and waited for Hao Lianchuan to finish. ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid, everyone. All of you alive are good,w-abiding citizens. So long as you are registered, the Inspectorate and Night Watchers will not only leave you to your business, but will also provide what help we can within our purview.

    ¡°Once Director Liu and the others return, we will all have a few drinks to steady our nerves. Silver City will be at peace after tonight! Please bring a message from the Inspectorate and Night Watchers when you return home to those who might¡¯ve forgotten to register or were in closed door cultivation for too long. Do remember toe register once out of seclusion!¡±

    Expressions shifted minutely through the crowd. Were there more unregistered supernaturals in Silver City?

    Of course!

    Were there any who dared remain unregistered after tonight?

    Probably not, unless there was truly something afoot. With the grand showing by the Night Watchers during the reception and establishing their authority via a killing, unregistered superhumans wouldn¡¯t even know how they died if they were found out.

    The entire hall was so uncannily quiet that one could hear a pin drop.

    Li Hao and the others didn¡¯t dare twitch a finger. They looked at the door. <i>Is everything okay on the chief¡¯s side?</i> wondered the young man. They were up against three Sunres! The mines were slightly removed from the city. Battle might be over by the time Yuan Shuo rushed to the site. It was difficult to say what the oue would be.

    They were fully prepared against their unsuspecting foes and Liu Long was a Dominator. That should prove enough for the task, right?

    This operation was not without its consequences. Take Hao Lianchuan, for example¡ªthe director would likely leave Silver City with a poor impression of Li Hao. He would probably think less of the city as a whole.

    They¡¯d hoodwinked those above and bullied those below!

    If put into more serious terms, the Silver City Night Watchers and Inspectorate had shown a tant disregard for their direct supervisor. It would be normal for a grudge to develop after today if he was a more narrow-minded or petty person.

    The events had also enabled Li Hao to better understand Mu Sen. The inspector general was a hell of a character! He didn¡¯t ask too much and didn¡¯t seek to confirm his guesses. He killed whoever was ted to die. The decisiveness of a martial master was also on full disy when it came to Mu Sen.

    The other issue was the jade sword...

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts turned to Steris. It¡¯d absorbed a bit of the ck shadow in a manner that seemed to be replenishing itself. Not only Steris, but so did the stone de of the Zhangs exhibit the same behavior. When heunched a joint offensive with his teacher, both weapons seemed to have caught sight of something delicious and eagerly devoured the ck shadow.

    What was so special about it? The two weapons hadn¡¯t swallowed the scarlet shadows. Did it have something to do with the ruins? Perhaps the ruins that the Qiaos had found contained resources that could replenish the weapons!

    A light shone out of Li Hao¡¯s eyes when his thoughts traveled here. He needed the energy in the sword, as did his teacher. His teacher had suffered grave injuries after deploying the Incantation of the de of Blood. Although he¡¯d absorbed a tiny bit of energy, it was far from enough. Absorbing all of it may not be enough.

    Who knew how much trouble they¡¯d encounter in the days toe? He had to help his teacher recover as quickly as possible.

    ......

    As Li Hao considered these questions, projectiles carpet-bombed the Qiao mines. One of the mountains was bombed out of existence and revealed vague hints of ruins beneath the terrain.

    Liu Long raised his ax high and hacked a fleeing Sunre to death. He promptly upied the attention of another while the third Sunre ran for another minor mountain. It wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t want to fight with hisrade, but that he wanted to kill the snipers hiding in the mountain.

    Bullets shot at them as the Sunres fought, forcing them to reveal their weaknesses. They needed to kill the annoying gnats with the guns first! As powerful as Sunre defenses were, they still easily died when sniped during a battle with a Dominator.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    An artillery shell exploded next to the running Sunre, but was adroitly evaded. Chen Jian braced a bazooka on his shoulder and fired again. His target dodged just as nimbly, demonstrating the might of a Sunre.

    The fervent light of battle glinting from her eyes, Liu Yan wielded des in both hands. Sunres were domineering and she was inly no match. However, their enemy faced not just her martial masterrades, but three more supernaturals in the car.

    Liu Long pummeled his opponent like he was the wave, keeping them so off bnce that they couldn¡¯t find their footing. He obviously had the upper hand. All would go well so long as he kept this one preupied a little while longer.

    ¡°Kill!¡± Liu Yan growled and rushed forward. There was an entire cultivation level gap between an initial Sunderer and initial Sunre, but they weren¡¯t afraid!

    ¡°You court death!¡± The fire supernatural she faced seemed young and red with fury. He wasn¡¯t of a mind to exchange blows. He just wanted to kill them as soon as possible, then go back to hisrade to eliminate Liu Long. With the happenings here, had something happened to their leader?

    There was no time to consider the possibility. Fire energy erupted, meeting a tiny shield in Liu Yan, Chen Jian, and Wu Chao¡¯s hands.

    An ice crystal shield!

    These objects were exceedingly fragile, but suppressed a great portion of the fire energy as soon as the two met. The force of impact shattered the shields, however. Such was the drawback of ice crystals. Otherwise, they would be kryptonite against mysterious power.

    The fire supernatural didn¡¯t mind. Ice crystals were easily broken and provided only momentary resistance. These guys would die all the same.

    An explosion rang from his rear as a beam of golden light shot out. It was the Fullmoon Wang Ming, a metal supernatural!

 Chapter 155: Slaying Solar, Destroying Sunflare (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 155: ying Sr, Destroying Sunre (IV)</h4>

    Li Meng¡¯s third eye was long open. It wasn¡¯t her first rodeo; she was ready ahead of time. They were much more prepared for this fight.

    A special mysterious power emanated from her third eye. The fire supernatural suddenly felt like he¡¯d entered a ck hole, but just for a second. He snarled furiously and erupted with fire energy to shatter whatever he was caught in.

    That created a fatal opening.

    The golden longsword had disappeared without a trace. When the supernatural swept his energy through the void to look for it, he felt his scalp tingle. Hu Hao had brought Wang Ming into the sky at some point and was descending on his head!

    Liu Yan roared with fury in the same moment and stabbed her two des forward. Wu Chao and Chen Jian kept their distance, spraying the premises with bullets. Hot weapons, cold weapons, and supernatural abilitiespleted the besiegement of the fire supernatural.

    Yun Yao deployed water energy behind the team, but not for offense. She created a defensive dome around her people to prevent them from being burned to a crisp by the immense fire energy.

    Four Darkmoons, one Sunderer, and two near Sunderer made for seven Night Watchers who created a fatal trap for a Sunre when they acted in unison.

    ¡°You court death!¡± snarled their target. Fire energy exploded as he sought to immte heaven and earth.

    The water defense shattered and Li Meng¡¯s third eye closed. Blood trickled out of it. Liu Yan¡¯s des melted when they stabbed into the enemy. Fire swiftly traveled up the des to her arms, wanting to reduce them to dust and take the entire person with them.

    The fire supernatural tilted his head, evading the golden longsword with a cold look. Sunres wouldn¡¯t die so easily. Wang Ming posed the greatest threat out of those in front of him, but the young man moved like he was performing a drill. He only knew to jab and stab with his sword¡ªadaptability seemed to have passed him by.

    Just as the fire supernatural assessed the situation, Wang Ming smiled with delight from his position in the air. It was perfect that their opponent had tilted his head to evade his longsword!

    The golden longsword didn¡¯t fall straight down like a normal sword would. Instead, it flew apart into feathery pieces.

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    Metal energy detonated, spraying countless golden feathers outward. Still caught by the notion that the sword would only move forward, the fire supernatural was caught off guard and hit by endless feathers. Bloody marks covered his head.

    ¡°He¡¯s a rookie alright!¡± Wang Ming exulted. ¡°How does he not know about supernatural techniques?¡±

    Supernatural rookies only knew to whack each other with their power; that was a primitive way of fighting after twenty years of development. Among the Night Watchers, supernaturals could learn techniques like his Heavenly Maids Scattering Blossoms¡ªa technique he¡¯d named himself.

    Rather than being a move to kill the opponent in a straightforward manner, it exploded like someone scattering flowers. He knew it was a direct hit the second their opponent dodged!

    Director Liu was right, their opponent was a rookie who¡¯d never even seen a supernatural technique before. A veteran of the three great organizations would never be hit so easily. This move was sometimes just as risky as it was useful because his opponent wouldn¡¯t dodge like this if he was the slightest bit prepared.

    One single move was sufficient to leave the enemy a bloody, pockmarked mess. The flying Hu Hao followed up with a thunderous kick and pulverized the supernatural¡¯s head.

    A pale Yun Yao grunted to summon more water energy. A water dragon covered Liu Yan¡¯s hands, extinguishing the mes. However, scorch marks remained on the woman¡¯s hands.

    Liu Yan furrowed her brows and didn¡¯t say a word, despite how painful it was. She stretched out her charred hands and stuck them in the other¡¯s chest, brutally ripping it open.

    Battle was over in a second. The remaining Sunre jerked with dismay and wanted to run. The first Sunre had died to a sudden ambush, the second died to a group of Sunderers and Darkmoons. Momentum was no longer on his side, so he didn¡¯t dare remain to continue the fight.

    ¡°Kill!!¡± A wave of sound shook the forest on the mountain and rain drizzled from the sky. It was like a wave exploding upon the shore!

    Indeed, exploding.

    Countless water droplets and raindrops smashed apart in the air. Liu Long¡¯s arms were a bloody color¡ªa sign of the Nine Forged Force in full operation. He wielded an ax with both hands and brought it down with violence!

    <i>BAM</i>!

    The scurrying Sunre was hewn into two and his body exploded. Blood vessels exploded in Liu Long¡¯s arms as well as blood shot everywhere. Off in the distance, Wang Ming and hisrades gaped at the scene.

    ¡°A Dominator!¡±

    Another Dominator! The supernaturals were beside themselves. Silver City¡¯s second Dominator!

    They¡¯d nursed some spection when Liu Long killed the first Sunre, but that battle had been too fast-paced and Liu Long hadn¡¯t disyed the same wild fury. Therefore, those were only guesses that couldn¡¯t be explored in deeper detail.

    But after they killed their own target, they subconsciously looked toward the closest disturbance and witnessed this astounding scene. Liu Long hacked a Sunre into two with one stroke!

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± While blood seeped out the corner of his mouth, Liu Long smiled and turned to Wang Ming and the rest in the distance. ¡°It¡¯s done!¡±

    He¡¯d killed two Sunres tonight! Although he¡¯d gotten lucky with the first one given that it was an ambush, the second had been on the basis of pure strength. He¡¯d overwhelmed the enemy! He, Liu Long, was not a supernatural, but could still kill Sunres!

    <i>Dominator!</i>

    The team¡¯s hearts soared and Wang Ming¡¯s trio looked around in a daze. Silver City was uncanny! Two Dominators had appeared in quick session and they were both extremely ruthless. They¡¯d thought that the team was going against one Sunre... but no, it was three!

    Thankfully, all three were dead.

    ¡°We killed three Sunres...¡± Wang Ming murmured. When did Sunres be so worthless? They died three at a time and he¡¯d been instrumental in the death of one. This was incredible!

    Liu Long¡¯s next words shocked Wang Ming senseless.

    ¡°Elder Yuan hase quick... Is that Sr dead?¡±

    <i>A Sr?!</i>

    Wang Ming, Hu Hao, and Li Meng¡¯s eyeballs almost popped out of their heads. They¡¯d thought that the professor hadn¡¯t been able to rush to the scene in time, but it turned out that he¡¯d gone to hunt a Sr??

    Liu Long did not conceal this from the trio because since they¡¯d just gone through life and death together, he did not wish to hide anything from them.

    Yuan Shuo frowned slightly when hended, but didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°He is.¡± The professor inclined his head. Such a calm response raised further waves of emotion.

    ¡°Dominators easily dispatching Srs and Sunres... Are martial masters truly obsolete and decrepit institutions of the past?¡± Li Meng murmured. She somehow found herself losing confidence in the supernatural! Why did it seem so easy for Dominators to kill Srs and Sunres here?

    ......

    <i>The Qiao mountains.</i>

    Yuan Shuo nodded to see the Sunre corpses when he rushed to the mines. Liu Long had done well for himself. It was a very good showing for an initial Dominator to kill two Sunres in his first battle.

    It didn¡¯t hold a candle to his own aplishments, but there was no need to do so. Yuan Shuo was almost forty years older than Liu Long and vastly more experienced. Liu Long didn¡¯t measure up to him because they were from different generations. There was no pointparing the two.

    The others rushed over. Liu Yan was the most heavily injured out of the group, then Li Meng. The two women were more wounded than all of the men. Yuan Shuo flicked a nce at Wang Ming and the rest.

    ¡°You guys are a disgrace to men!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The men flushed hot with humiliation.<i> Is there a need for such talk? It¡¯s not like this is our desired oue either, it was just ack of being able to take care of everyone when battle broke out.</i>

    Of course, Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t really mean anything by it. He was focused on the pit in front of him and walked over to find it in the process of caving in. ¡°Wait here and don¡¯t let anyone enter!¡±

    Liu Long nodded. He knew what Yuan Shuo wanted to take a look at.

    The professor quickly vanished on the spot, leaving behind a team that nced quizzically at each other. No one knew what to say.

    Three Sunres and one Sr! What secrets had the Qiaos been hiding?

    Incredible secrets, more like!

    Even Li Meng realized something was amiss at this stage. Nothing today had been an ident. Liu Long and Yuan Shuo had known about the situation beforehand and what kind of opponents they¡¯d run into. Sunres and Srs had never been seen in the field before, so the team subconsciously thought of something else¡ªancient ruins!

    ¡°Director Liu...¡± Wang Ming looked at Liu Long.

    ¡°Do you have something on your mind?¡± Liu Long asked evenly.

    ¡°Are... are these... are these ancient ruins?¡± Wang Ming blurted out. The trio from White Moon was more frank on a whole¡ªsomeone who¡¯d been around the block like Mu Sen would never speak his mind like this. It was a question that easily led to one¡¯s demise.

    Blood was often spilled over ruins that could be entered and plundered.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Liu Long shook his head.

    <i>Don¡¯t know?</i>

    That answer was unexpected.

    ¡°I really don¡¯t,¡± Liu Long exined. ¡°And we have an agreement beforehand, so none of this has anything to do with us! ording to our discussion, the mysterious power and treasures of the three Sunres will go to us.

    ¡°I don¡¯t want any of it since my greatest gain was Professor Yuan helping me progress to Dominator. My part was received in advance. Therefore, you guys can split everything from this operation!

    ¡°The three Sunres will at least five hundred cubes, maybe even nine hundred. But considering how these guys weren¡¯t that strong, it might be five to six hundred at most.¡±

    Most Sunres yielded two to three hundred cubes of mysterious power. It depended on their strength; peak Sunre should grant them more. The team had never killed one at that level before, so they didn¡¯t know.

    Of the three dead Sunres, extracting roughly six hundred cubes seemed greatly doable.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t want a share, Li Hao didn¡¯t want a share. That left seven to divvy up their gains, which meant everyone would receive nearly one hundred cubes. It was many times greater than their previous harvest. Not even Wang Ming had obtained so many cubes at once before, but he was slightly conflicted at the moment.

 Chapter 156: Eating Dinner (I)

    <h4>Chapter 156: Eating Dinner (I)</h4>

    ¡°You guys need to keep in mind that a Sr is much stronger than a Sunre!¡± Liu Long frowned. ¡°Professor Yuan was the one who killed the Sr and we wouldn¡¯t have so easily eliminated the rest of them if I didn¡¯t progress to Dominator before the mission. It¡¯s also thanks to a vast amount of intelligence from Li Hao that we were so well prepared today...¡±

    He thought that Wang Ming was dissatisfied with the distribution, that the young man had his eye on the ruins. However, Wang Ming quickly shook his head.

    ¡°I¡¯m not talking about the distribution, but... that... well... Director Liu, ording to Night Watcher rules, we can decide ourselves how to allocate ordinary loot. But once ruins are involved, a report needs to be made...¡±

    ¡°So that¡¯s what you¡¯re talking about. I know the rules,¡± Liu Long replied calmly. ¡°There¡¯s another one that says the Night Watchers will try to stay out of struggles over ruins! You need to think carefully¡ªthose aren¡¯t our war spoils. They belong to someone else. Therefore, are the Night Watchers going to imitate the three great organizations and seize it from another?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not what I mean...¡± Wang Ming scratched his head awkwardly. As a Night Watcher and having already seen the ruins, he would suffer from a guilty conscience if he didn¡¯t report it. He was being swayed by bad influences, wasn¡¯t he!

    Liu Long and his gang always seemed like they were breaking or bending the rules.

    ¡°Out with it, Wang Ming,¡± Liu Yan snorted. ¡°Are you with us or are you going to be selfless and tell upstairs about this, and in the process ruin all rtions with Professor Yuan?¡±

    <i>With them?</i>

    That phrasing sounded wrong to begin with. They were a legitimate, orthodox agency that was the government¡¯s only supernatural organization. With them? Were these Silver City people all bandits?

    A wry Wang Mingughed with resignation. This wasn¡¯t the kind of education he¡¯d received in the Night Watchers, nor was this the kind of training he¡¯d been subject to. ording to the Night Watcher system, he needed to report this to his superiors at the first possible opportunity. Alright well, his superior was Liu Long.

    The agency wasn¡¯t in favor of bypassing one¡¯s direct supervisor unless something was drastically wrong, such as betrayal. Otherwise, adhering to the rungs of hierarchy was the preference.

    Wang Ming ran through numerous considerations before saying helplessly, ¡°My professional code of conduct says that this cannot be ignored! Therefore, I¡¯ve decided to...¡±

    The group looked at him. Even Li Meng and Hu Hao turned their gaze to him.

    ¡°I¡¯ve decided to report it to my superior!¡± He ignored a few sudden res from a few people. He mumbled, ¡°As my direct supervisor is Director Liu, I will be handing a report to you, sir. It¡¯s nothing to do with me as to whether or not you actually pass it on!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The group looked at each other; the corners of Liu Long¡¯s lips twitched.

    <i>Damn, kid. None of us made you take the fall, just listen to yourself. You¡¯re a sharp one, huh? </i>Nothing that urred after today would have anything to do with Wang Ming. He¡¯d already made his report to Liu Long. If things went awry, the mey with Liu Long suppressing the report. It had nothing to do with Wang Ming!

    At the same time, the young man¡¯s decision to not bypass Liu Long was also a deration of his stance. The kid was a tricky one!

    Wang Ming suddenly grinned mischievously. ¡°So... um... director. How much are each of us being allocated?¡±

    Liu Long raised an eyebrow. <i>You¡¯re an eager one.</i> He nced at Yun Yao¡ªshe was responsible for extracting mysterious power. She was kneeling on the ground and making her assessment. The team doctor looked up when she sensed the look.

    ¡°Two fire supernaturals and one earth supernatural!¡± She smiled. ¡°The earth supernatural was unlucky and died as soon as he came out. He would¡¯ve been impossible to deal with if he¡¯d taken cover underground.

    ¡°The earth supernatural will yield roughly 220 cubes since he consumed very little energy. The two fire supernaturals will yield roughly 400 cubes, making for 620 total cubes. The margin of error won¡¯t be too big.¡±

    Being experienced as she was, her judgment was typically correct. Liu Long didn¡¯t wait to announce the distribution back at headquarters. Emotions were running high and the group needed greater encouragement.

    ¡°Wang Ming, the lion¡¯s share of the credit goes to you. I saw your supernatural technique take out the enemy¡¯s head. Therefore, you get 120 cubes.¡±

    Wang Ming lit up. 120 cubes, and not from embezzlement or Li Hao¡¯s methods! This was an allotment from his Night Watcher supervisor based on his contribution in battle. He wouldn¡¯t turn it down! Based on his current monthly sry of one cube, it would take ten years to earn 120 cubes. Granted, that was at his current position. Promotions were inevitable given how young he was. All the same, it was highly exciting to earn ten years worth of sry in one go!

    ¡°Of the remaining five hundred, Li Meng gets 100 cubes because she used her third eye to beguile the enemy! She paid a hefty toll to create an opening so the team could kill the enemy.¡±

    Li Meng beamed so brightly her smile could almost be seen from space. She wasn¡¯t asposed as Wang Ming. The handsome young man was only excited, whereas she was so happy that she wanted to faint.

    <i>Oh heavens! 100 cubes!</i>

    ¡°Liu Yan was in charge of baiting the enemy and was the main direct offense. 100 cubes.¡±

    Liu Yan inclined her head without a word, not as jubnt as she might¡¯ve been. Her hands were charred wrecks. What use was one hundred cubes if they couldn¡¯t recover?

    Well, injuries were only to be expected throughout the course of battle. She could retreat to the secondary lines if worst came to worst. Half of her enemies were gone with the extermination of the Qiaos. All that was left was the murderer that was now part of Yama. She¡¯d never thought of taking vengeance on the supernatural organization. There might not ever be such a chance in this lifetime, so why seek out worries for herself?

    Half of her enemies were dead. This mission was worth it even if she didn¡¯t personally gain anything from it.

    ¡°Hu Hao, Yun Yao, Chen Jian, and Wu Chao. All four of you were auxiliary support. Although your strength levels are different, it seems to me that you made simr contributions. Each of you had your own positions to fulfill with nothing that particrly stood out. The four of you will split the remaining 300 for 75 each. Does anyone object?¡±

    They quickly shook their heads.

    ¡°Chief, we killed one, but you killed two...¡± Chen Jian couldn¡¯t help himself.

    ¡°I told you that I¡¯ve already gotten my distribution ahead of time!¡± Liu Long grinned. ¡°Is progressing to Dominator less than one or two hundred cubes?¡±

    That drew the group back to their senses. Even Wang Ming couldn¡¯t help but sigh with admiration. ¡°Director, you advanced without telling any of us! Don¡¯t they say that it¡¯s more than ten times harder for martial masters to break through,pared to supernaturals? How did you manage it all of a sudden?¡±

    ¡°Elder Yuan is incredible!¡± Liu Long chuckled. Liu Yan, however, frowned.

    ¡°Is Li Hao not getting a share?¡±

    ¡°Him?¡± Liu Long snorted. ¡°Elder Yuan killed a Sr and that is where the kid¡¯s contribution is as well. We won¡¯t be involving ourselves in those gains, so there¡¯s nothing here for Li Hao either. Of course...¡± He lowered his voice when he looked at the caved-in area in front of them. ¡°No matter what there is here, I hope that none of us attempt to investigate. We¡¯ve gathered everything we should have and our harvest is greater than any before!¡±

    The least among them was being allotted seventy-five cubes. Ifbined with the twenty that Chen Jian and them had received before, that made for an unbelievable sum after only two missions.

    Wang Ming shrugged. Since he¡¯d already decided to make a report to Liu Long, anything else was out of his hands. <i>Ancient ruins? What does that have to do with me? There¡¯s a lot of them lying around¡ªthe bigger question is always if you can excavate them.</i>

    There were indeed quite a few ruins in the wilderness, but exploring them was a dangerous expedition filled with traps. The Night Watchers wouldn¡¯t partner with the three great organizations otherwise.

    Wang Ming knew this, so while he was tempted by the ruins here, he also knew how limited his strength was. These ruins were out of his reach.

    Li Meng and Hu Hao also shook their heads without a word.

    Yuan Shuo abruptly jumped out of the hole at this time. He was frowning, but his forehead quickly rxed. He punched the ground without saying a word, copsing the rest of the opening with a rumble.

    Liu Long looked on with confusion.

    ¡°It¡¯s a thorny issue.¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°Let¡¯s address other concerns. We should clean up the battlefield and arrange for two people as a lookout. They just need to prevent ordinary people from barging in. Nothing else is an issue.¡±

    Chen Jian looked at Liu Long and offered in his simple way, ¡°Chief, I¡¯ll stay behind.¡±

    Liu Long looked back at him and sized up avable personnel. ¡°Hu Hao, you¡¯re not injured and you can fly. You can run away as soon as there¡¯s danger. How about you stay here with Chen Jian?¡±

    Hu Hao was rather surprised. He talked very little and was a quiet man. Logically speaking, since there was a huge secret here and he was stronger than Chen Jian, unexpected developments could very likely ur if they were the only ones left behind. What if some other thoughts urred to him and he killed Chen Jian with his superior strength as a Darkmoon, then secretly took some treasures...

    Liu Long wanted him to stand guard here?

    What a surprise!

    ¡°Director, am I... am I suitable?¡± he asked lowly.

    ¡°There is no question of suitability,¡± Yuan Shuo said faintly before Liu Long could respond. ¡°You three are my honorary disciples and these ruins are from your little senior brother¡¯s family. You won¡¯t be able to open them without him. Given how generous he is, he¡¯ll share any treasures there are with you! If you want to take them for yourself... go for it. A Sr was unable to fully ess the ruins and im the goods. If you can do it, that¡¯s a testament to your skill!¡±

    The three from White Moon blinked. That was true. If the ruins were so easily cracked open, they would¡¯ve been emptied long ago. There were obviously no more treasures inside the outer fringe, any that had been there were long imed. If they wanted more, they would need to plumb its depths again.

    Hu Hao nodded with understanding. ¡°I see, please be at ease, Elder¡ªteacher.¡±

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t mind the stuttering. They were just honorary disciples, it didn¡¯t matter that they weren¡¯t wholly devoted to him.

    Liu Long and the rest of the Demon Hunters were surprised by this tidbit. Little senior brother? Honorary disciples? What was going on?

    ¡°Let¡¯s go back, Liu Long. If we don¡¯t, Hao Lianchuan¡¯s probably going to lose his mind.¡± Blood trickled out of Yuan Shuo¡¯s mouth when he smiled.

    Everyone¡¯s eyes widened with dismay. Was the professor injured?

    ¡°I¡¯m fine!¡± Yuan Shuo waved them off and wiped off all of the blood. He looked around and said softly, ¡°It¡¯s just a small scratch! There¡¯s no need to say anything to anyone.¡±

    He was Silver City¡¯s bedrock and pir at the moment. Some things were bound to happen if it became public knowledge that he was gravely injured. As worried as the others were, they didn¡¯t say anything.

    Yun Yao quickly cleaned up the corpses. The bodies of Sunres possessed an additional purpose of preserving mysterious power. The rest of the team quickly cleaned the battlefield. It was difficult to thoroughly clean it given how intense the fighting had been. All they could do was to erase clues about the Sunres¡¯ strength and identity.

    They stowed everything and climbed into the car. Chen Jian and Hu Hao were left behind to stand guard.

 Chapter 157: Eating Dinner (II)

    <h4>Chapter 157: Eating Dinner (II)</h4>

    It was very quiet inside the car. The uninjured Wang Ming drove; everyone else was more or less wounded. Even Liu Long was severely burned in a few areas and many blood vessels had burst in his arms.

    ¡°Elder Yuan, did everything go smoothly in the city?¡± Liu Long asked after they drove for a while.

    ¡°Well enough.¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°The events of tonight tell us one thing¡ªdo not underestimate anyone. The most ipetent of supernaturals can still draw upon the might of their domain. While impotent supernaturals are the norm, they will gradually erode the advantages of martial master when they utilize their full strength.¡±

    The reply put Wang Ming and the others in an awkward spot, particrly Wang Ming!

    <i>Impotent supernaturals are the norm...</i> this deration would make the speaker a public enemy. How arrogant!

    At the same, this unexpected teacher of theirs had the right to be so cocky. The heads of two Srs numbered among his achievements! One had to know that there were only two Srs in all of the Night Watchers throughout Silver Moon¡ªDirector Hou and Hao Lianchuan.

    This feat was the equivalent of Yuan Shuo killing the provincialmanders-in-chief by himself. Granted, Director Hou was so powerful that he was on another level entirely.

    Yuan Shuo seemed to sense Wang Ming¡¯s thoughts and said calmly, ¡°Wang Ming, although you three are honorary disciples that I casually epted, I offer you a warning all the same. It¡¯s up to you if you wish to listen. This is what I should do since you are my disciple.¡±

    ¡°Please go ahead, teacher!¡± Wang Ming responded respectfully. Li Meng also curiously opened her eyes.

    ¡°Just remember a few things,¡± Yuan Shuo intoned. ¡°And not just you guys, this goes for all of you!

    ¡°Number one, the supernatural exhausts too much potential. I don¡¯t know if the powerhouses beyond Sr have a way to resolve this. Meanwhile, those below Sr likely haven¡¯t run into this issue yet. Problems are bound to crop up, so do not give up on martial dao as you train the supernatural.

    ¡°Although practicing two systems will dy your cultivation speed, remember that nothing good arises from draining the pond to capture fish! Laying solid foundations and making progress one step at a time is the key. Your current speed is not the concern, your future distance is what¡¯s at stake!¡±

    Solemn expressions flickered across the group and heads bobbed,mitting the professor¡¯s words to memory.

    ¡°Number two, internal force is consumed by the supernatural when it forms and turns into mysterious power. Yun Yao,ss, that¡¯s what happened to you, right?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Yun Yao nodded. ¡°My internal force transmuted to mysterious power after I crossed over.¡±

    ¡°Therefore, it will be hard for you to generate internal force even if you continue to train in martial dao as a supernatural.¡± Yun Yao inclined his head. ¡°That is of no worry. My research indicates that internal force is not consumed the absolute second it forms. You can contain it within your organs! Mysterious power will not invade the five organs at first and all of the organs possess their own supernatural locks. You haven¡¯t opened all of them yet.¡±

    ¡°But Elder Yuan,¡± Yun Yao raised somberly. ¡°Internal force strengthens the supernatural locks and increases the difficulty of advancement...¡±

    ¡°I know that! Believe me if you will, don¡¯t listen to me if you don¡¯t! The choice is yours. Internal force will indeed strengthen the supernatural locks when held within the organs and increase the difficulty of your cultivation. Just remember that what is too easily obtained is usually not valuable.¡±

    The group sank into contemtion, but Wang Ming stirred restlessly.

    ¡°Teacher,¡± he couldn¡¯t help himself. ¡°I... I am a Fullmoon. If my supernatural locks are strengthened with the generation of internal force, then my chances of opening them to be a Sunre are greatly decreased...¡±

    Rather than all of them opening at the same time, more supernatural locks were opened with each breakthrough, making it possible for the body to contain more mysterious power.

    And yet, Yuan Shuo wanted them to strengthen their locks? Why?

    ¡°So it¡¯s up to you guys.¡± Yuan Shuo was as calm as before. ¡°I said that this might dy your cultivation speed! There¡¯s no helping it. Additionally, stronger may not be better in the supernatural world. Perhaps some of your powerhouses can supplement their shorings when they reach a certain level. I don¡¯t have the answers to these questions yet and am only offering my suggestions. It¡¯s your call whether or not you wish to take my advice.¡±

    Waving her charred hands around, Liu Yan chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m not a supernatural, Elder Yuan, so this doesn¡¯t matter to me. I¡¯d like to ask if there¡¯s a way to heal my hands? You are widely read and highly experienced, do you think there¡¯s a chance?¡±

    Yuan Shuo nced at her hands and said casually, ¡°They¡¯re almostpletely dead and would be beyond redemption under ordinary circumstances. Let me see if I cane up with something for you. This shouldn¡¯t be an issue.¡±

    Liu Yan lit up and she suddenly thought of Li Hao. Was Li Hao¡¯s energy a unique internal force? Had Yuan Shuo taught it to him? Many spections popped into her mind, but she asked no further.

    Li Meng couldn¡¯t stand her internal urging either. ¡°Te... teacher, my eye... is often injured. Its defenses are very weak. Do you have any solutions for that?¡±

    Her third eye was so weak that it was often injured in moments of carelessness. Its special characteristics were immensely useful, such as the illusion it¡¯d created against the Sunre, being able to trace the opponent¡¯s trajectory, or seeing through mist and fog... It was powerful, but so weak that it frequently wept blood.

    The Night Watchers¡¯ solution was to strengthen her mysterious power. ording to them, the stronger her mysterious power was, the stronger her eye¡¯s defenses would be. There was no need to supplement with anything.

    ¡°Your eye is very unique!¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly said. ¡°You are a special type of supernatural as well. There¡¯s two possibilities. First, ancient records speak of unique bloodlines in the ancient times. Some of that may have awakened in you!

    ¡°Second, this could be the beginning of a supernatural technique! If it¡¯s the first, your best bet is to enhance your bloodline. To make it purer, you need to be stronger. I rmend using martial dao to strengthen your bloodline, not the supernatural!

    ¡°If it¡¯s the second, then certain ancient martial masters naturally produced unique abilities when they were strong enough. If yours is a fledgling technique... then I still rmend you to practice martial dao!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Meng didn¡¯t know what to respond with. Both answers were for her to practice martial dao... Could the elder be trusted? Whatever the answer was, she didn¡¯t dare ask further.

    ¡°It¡¯s up to you guys whether or not you wish to believe me,¡± Yuan Shuo chortled. ¡°You¡¯re honorary disciples, after all. However much you learn is yours, and it¡¯s fine if you don¡¯t learn anything.¡±

    Wang Ming and Li Meng looked sheepishly at each other. The professor was too frank!

    Their car re-entered the city. Since it was under curfew and the Inspectorate was out in full force to sweep the city, they were stopped at a checkpoint. When the inspectors on duty saw that it was Liu Long and other colleagues, they snapped to attention and quickly waved them through.

    ¡°Inspector General Mu works quickly,¡± Liu Long expressed his appreciation at the sight of restrictions ced so swiftly on the entire city. There were men at every checkpoint, a clear demonstration of Mu Sen¡¯s control and abilities of execution. ¡°Elder Yuan, is there hope for Mu Sen to be a Dominator?¡±

    Everyone in the car looked at Yuan Shuo and Wang Ming nearly gave his best Li Hao imitation. He yanked the steering wheel away before the car crashed into a wall.

    Yuan Shuo red at him, the handsome young man quickly offered an apologetic grin. He continued driving distractedly¡ª<i>is Yuan Shuo really able to mass produce Dominators?</i>

    <i>No way!</i>

    ¡°Mu Sen...¡± Yuan Shuo considered for a while before shaking his head. ¡°I¡¯m not sure, it¡¯s tough to say. Mu Sen is more shrewd than you and keeps a lower profile. He should be peak Sunderer, but I don¡¯t know if he¡¯s perfected his art orprehended the aura. I¡¯ll only know if he attacks me with full strength or volunteers a demonstration of his aura. Otherwise, you know just as well that a breakthrough is impossible without the aura. Dominators are not apples to be plucked off a tree!¡±

    Grasping the aura first, healing one¡¯s internal injuries, stimtion from another Dominator, and guidance through aura created only the possibility of breaking through. None of that was on the table if the Sunderer in question didn¡¯t know the aura. If Yuan Shuo was able to easily help others to understand the aura, he would¡¯ve shoved Li Hao to Dominator long ago. He wouldn¡¯t let thed toil on his own like this.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t say anything and they soon reached the entrance to the Inspectorate. Someone met them outside when they alighted from the car. Hao Lianchuan looked them over with a displeased expression and briefly scanned Yuan Shuo. He arched a brow and quickly shed a smile.

    ¡°Many thanks to Professor Yuan for helping us Night Watchers eliminate evil supernaturals! Some fellows didn¡¯t wish to see a sessful establishment of a Night Watcher branch in Silver City. They stirred up trouble and ambushed our guests. Thanks to proper precautions from Director Liu, those evildoers with malicious intent were struck down! I will report this to Director Hou and seek proper reward for these deeds of merit!¡±

    A few more pleasantries followed, all bellowed at the top of his lungs. ¡°Since Director Liu and the others have returned, the ceremony can officially begin! There¡¯s no need for a speech as the heads of these supernaturals are a good way to celebrate the new branch! Eat and drink up, everyone! You must enjoy yourselves tonight!¡±

    He turned to make his way back to the hall, ignoring everyone present.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo!¡± His voice echoed thunderously in Yuan Shuo¡¯s ear. ¡°I¡¯m showing you face in not berating you in public! Making a move at this time and killing supernaturals... Do you know how long we¡¯ve prepared for those ruins?! If you¡¯ve ruined the partnership...¡±

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s lips moved minutely. ¡°Look at you being lily-livered! Are you the only one who wants that partnership? They want it just as badly! Not to mention, so what if I¡¯ve killed a few outer members? Fob the three great organizations off with an excuse and they won¡¯t even dare fart in your direction!¡±

    ¡°What was with that Sr?¡±

    ¡°What Sr?¡± Yuan Shuo asked strangely. ¡°A Sr? Are you confused? There was just one Darkmoon...¡±

    ¡°Oh screw you!¡± Hao Lianchuan spat. <i>Do you take me for an idiot?? How was that not a Sr?!</i>

    As far away as they¡¯d been, a presence that he could sense ten thousand meters away could only be a Sr!

    ¡°There¡¯s no such person!¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s lips vibrated. ¡°Believe what you will. Why don¡¯t you ask the other organizations if they sent a Sr? They¡¯re not idiots, how would they send another after I¡¯ve already killed one? It was just one audacious Darkmoon who thought he could make his name by killing me. What aplete fool! I swept the street with his head.¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡± Hao Lianchuan would never believe it was a Darkmoon, no matter how sincere Yuan Shuo was. ¡°An unknown Sr? Or have they run off?¡±

    If they¡¯d gotten away, the various organizations would never admit to sending someone to kill Yuan Shuo. If it was an unknown Sr, their death would be equally unknown to others. It didn¡¯t matter as much then.

    Hao Lianchuan was likely the only one in all of Silver City who could be certain that the enemy had been a Sr tonight. Some powerhouses that observed the battlefield afterward might be able to deduce the same, but the battle site had been destroyed and was cordoned off. After tonight, no one would be able to glean how fierce the fighting had been.

    ¡°I have no idea what you¡¯re talking about.¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t be bothered with him and walked toward his disciple.

 Chapter 158: Eating Dinner (III)

    <h4>Chapter 158: Eating Dinner (III)</h4>

    Hao Lianchuan wanted to swear out loud, but didn¡¯t dare do so given a host of reservations. The old guy was a damned bully! He wanted to beat the shit out of the old man!

    There was definitely a Sr involved tonight, and they were most likely dead. An unknown Sr...

    The more the director thought about it, the more things seemed wrong.

    He had a belly full of anger and suddenly changed direction for Liu Long. He kept his voice down with effort. ¡°This is what you mean by visiting fallenrades?¡±

    Liu Long nodded and whispered back, ¡°It¡¯s worship and sacrifice through spilling blood. This is all for justice and light! Don¡¯t worry, Director Hao, this was a voluntary mission. We won¡¯t be requesting rewards from headquarters.¡±

    <i>Request... rewards... Damn if I don¡¯t want to p the shit out of you too!</i>

    ¡°Tell me the truth, Liu Long, how many did you kill?¡±

    ¡°Three! Maybe four if we count Elder Yuan¡¯s.¡±

    ¡°So you guys killed three... what level were they?¡± Hao Lianchuan frowned.

    ¡°Two Starlight and one Darkmoon.¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Hao Lianchuan mused over the response. Was that true?

    The battle outside city walls had been so far away that he hadn¡¯t sensed a thing at the Inspectorate. He¡¯d vaguely heard a few explosions¡ªthat might¡¯vee from hot weapons. When it came to the team¡¯s condition... Wang Ming wasn¡¯t injured, Liu Yan had her hands in her pockets. Though she seemed to be injured, he wasn¡¯t at liberty to take a closer look.

    As for Li Meng... It wasmonce for her to suffer injuries. She could be wounded fighting Starlight, so he couldn¡¯t be bothered with her.

    In that case, it seemed usible that Liu Long and the rest of the team had killed one Darkmoon and two Starlight. All of them together might be able to take out one Sunre, but they wouldn¡¯t do so easily!

    ¡°This is the end of the matter!¡± Hao Lianchuan inclined his head when his thoughts traveled here. ¡°Don¡¯t create more trouble for me in the near future. I will smooth things over here. So you guys killed a few deviant supernaturals. All will be fine so long as the three great organizations let the matter go.¡±

    ¡°Director Hao, do you mean that we bow our heads in defeat if the three great organizations wish to take us to task for tonight?¡± Liu Long suddenly paused and looked at the director with a fiery gaze of indignation.

    ¡°It¡¯s not what you think.¡± The director¡¯s brow creased and he shook his head. ¡°The reality of the situation is that we really can¡¯t afford to erupt in open hostilities for the moment. Headquarters is unable to support us from the central region and frequently requests our reinforcement instead. Director Hou has been under enormous pressure to answer their call. The three great organizations are stronger in Silver Moon than us. We¡¯re already enemies with Red Moon. If we involve Yama or Celestial on top of that... You know the consequences as well, Liu Long. Sometimes, we must bide our time!¡±

    ¡°Bide our time?¡± Liu Long¡¯s frown cleared. ¡°I understand! If the three great organizations wish to assign responsibility, just shove it all to me! I¡¯ll say we killed a few of their outer members to take revenge for Li Hao. We¡¯ve already offended them once, so I¡¯m not afraid of offending them again!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan sighed and said nothing more. He thought of something else when he walked a few more steps. ¡°Do you want to join the expedition at the end of the month? I can apply for a spot for you if you want to go. You might stand a chance of breaking through to Dominator or crossing over. It¡¯s a rare opportunity, but it alsoes with great risk!¡±

    Liu Long hadn¡¯t been on the list of candidates, but Hao Lianchuan was worried that Liu Long wouldn¡¯t be able to withstand the pressure from his actions if he remained in ce as a Sunderer. They might as well bring Liu Long along and see if he had a run in with fortune. He¡¯d be much safer after advancing.

    ¡°I¡¯ll... think about it.¡± Liu Long hesitated before asking, ¡°Director Hao, what are our chances of victory if we fight the three great organizations now?¡±

    ¡°None at all!¡± Hao Lianchuan waspletely frank. ¡°Unless we blind our eyes and deafen our ears to relinquish everything and defend only White Moon City. We¡¯ll have to use weapons of mass scale destruction as soon as their powerhouses attack and hope to intimidate our enemies that way! We¡¯ll only be able to defend, which means we¡¯ll have to abandon all of the smaller cities. Would you be happy with that?¡±

    ¡°Are we less than them in all areas, or just have fewer numbers of powerhouses?¡±

    ¡°In all areas!¡± Hao Lianchuan sighed again. ¡°We¡¯re not afraid of one of them, we¡¯d be at a disadvantage against two of them, and we¡¯d be hung up on a tree for whipping against all three!¡±

    Very well then, Liu Long understood the state of affairs. He calmly walked to the front of the hall and sat down in his seat. He picked up a pair of chopsticks and started eating.

    ¡°The food¡¯s gotten cold. Dig in, everyone,¡± he called out.

    The hall stilled for a split second before sounds of cutlery in use rang out. A blood-stained Liu Long was quite daunting. In this moment, all of the superhumans of Silver City kept their heads down.

    ......

    <i>At another table.</i>

    Yuan Shuo also started eating. To be more urate, he ravenously dug into the food. Li Hao poured wine for him and whispered. ¡°Teacher, Hu Hao and Chen Jian...¡±

    ¡°Leave them there,¡± Yuan Shuo mumbled equally quietly. ¡°Don¡¯t go there for now. Wait two more days. We might have unexpected gains this time, so don¡¯t ration the sword energy. Heal your injuries.¡±

    ¡°Then, what about you teacher...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m in no rush.¡± Yuan Shuo finished off a pork knuckle at record speed. His teeth were so strong that he crunched through even the bones. After some munching, he continued, ¡°Hao Lianchuan and Mu Sen might¡¯ve noticed something. The others shouldn¡¯t have sensed anything, so we won¡¯t have much of an issue there.¡±

    Li Hao nodded without a word. It was impossible to have pulled off tonight without causing any disturbance.

    ¡°Teacher, do we stand a chance of recruiting Director Hao or Inspector General Mu to our side?¡±

    ¡°What side?¡± Yuan Shuo blinked, looking at his disciple in a new light. <i>Well well well, so you¡¯re preparing to build a camp dedicated to your cause, aren¡¯t you?</i>

    <i>What ¡°our side¡±?</i>

    ¡°I mean our side as in what the chief has,¡± Li Hao answered sheepishly. ¡°Taking on a few private gigs, ones that aren¡¯t reported.¡±

    Yuan Shuo was struck speechless!

    ¡°Don¡¯t fill your mind with random drivel! You should be focusing on progressing to Dominator! Only when you¡¯re a Dominator can you and I, and that idiot Liu Long, make a name for ourselves anywhere we go!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s why they say there¡¯s strength in numbers...¡±

    ¡°In <i>quality</i> numbers!¡± Yuan Shuo interrupted. ¡°A mundane is dead in a matter of seconds when they run across a Sr, even if they wield a gun! Sunres will take them out all the same, Srs aren¡¯t even needed! Therefore, we must have experts if we are to be strong!¡±

    The professor wiped grease off his lips and grinned. ¡°Take our current circumstances, there¡¯s a lot of people around us, no? They¡¯re all superhuman. But other than Hao Lianchuan and a few others, to me they¡¯re all trash that I can p them to death with a single palm strike! What¡¯s the point of having so many people?¡±

    ¡°And who do you want to kill now, Professor Yuan?¡± rang out a cold voice beside them.

    Yuan Shuo flicked a sidelong nce with a tilt of his head. ¡°Director Hao, why are you taking an old man¡¯s joke seriously? Come sit down with us. Thank goodness the director was here tonight, who knows what kind of mess we would¡¯ve found ourselves in otherwise? Of course, I won¡¯t be thanking you since I¡¯m a victim. Have Liu Long thank you, and Li Hao. You¡¯re the director¡¯s subordinate, so express your gratitude!¡±

    Li Hao quickly got to his feet. ¡°Thank you for your help, Director Hao!¡±

    <i>I¡¯m not falling for this again! </i>Hao Lianchuan cursed to himself. <i>None of you are anything good! I thought Li Hao was a nice, biddable boy. But now? Hah!</i>

    <i>He¡¯s the same as Yuan Shuo¡ªnothing good!</i>

    The director wasn¡¯t here to pick a fight; there wasn¡¯t a point to discussing what had happened.

    ¡°We really must keep a lower profile for the time being,¡± he lowered his voice. ¡°You¡¯ve offended too many! Do you still intend to go to the ruins?¡±

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter anymore,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. It didn¡¯t matter in the first ce.

    That pierced through Hao Lianchuan¡¯sposure and he regarded the professor with resignation and long endured suffering. ¡°It¡¯s fine if you don¡¯t go, but what about Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°What about him?¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if he goes or not. What, is he going to die if he doesn¡¯t go?¡±

    Hao Lianchuan took a deep breath through his nose and decided to reveal some information. ¡°Do you know why we insist on going to those ruins? There are so many ruins in the world and many treasures to be found in other locales. And yet, the Night Watchers send people again and again, even going to the depths of allying with various supernatural organizations. We go even though we¡¯ve suffered heavy casualties! Do you know why, Professor Yuan?¡±

    ¡°I do,¡± Yuan Shuo responded indifferently. ¡°Don¡¯t forget who it was that discovered them. Setting aside all possibilities, there are definitely origin weapons to be found in those particr ruins. Yes, weapons, plural! That¡¯s the most important point. The second is that those ruins are likely a defensive type ruin¡ªthey might even be a special defensive origin weapon, one big enough to envelop an entire city!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s heart shook and he looked sharply at Yuan Shuo. How was this possible?! This was information they¡¯de by at a high price and through sacrificing many people. Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t been by the ruins since he was injured three years ago.

    The professor snorted withughter and a cocky tone crept into his voice. ¡°Don¡¯t try to y coy with me, Director Hao. Is there a point to doing that? I¡¯ve seen many things in my life and explored more ruins than I can count. That defensive origin weapon is what¡¯s most important to you. Once you obtain it and cocoon a city with safety, you¡¯ll be able to consolidate White Moon City and attack or defend at will. That will give you the confidence to seize the initiative in the events toe, doesn¡¯t it?¡±

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s expression flickered through a variety of changes; he truly was dejected. After a while, he inclined his head with resignation.

    ¡°You are right, that is the primary treasure that we wish to obtain.¡±

    ¡°So... what does it have to do with Li Hao going or not?¡± Yuan Shuo smirked.

    ¡°Because those ruins might very well have something to do with the eight families!¡± Hao Lianchuan couldn¡¯t help but say. ¡°Although it¡¯s just a possibility, but if it¡¯s true, then we can give control of the weapon to Li Hao! He¡¯ll be a highly important target that the Night Watchers have to protect then. It¡¯s the safest arrangement for him.¡±

    ¡°Hah!¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t be bothered with a response. ¡°Whatever you say. Alright, let¡¯s talk about thister. It¡¯s early. Eat up first. You must be starving, Director Hao.¡±

    ¡°No, wait, listen to me, Professor Yuan...¡±

    Yuan Shuo waved him off and continued stuffing his face.

    ¡°I know, I know,¡± he mumbled around a mouthful of food. ¡°I promise not to kill anyone or fight anyone for the time being. I will keep a low profile until the ruins are open. Will that do?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The professor sounded like he was humoring a child, but there was nothing Hao Lianchuan could do about it. He always found his hands tied when it came to someone like Yuan Shuo. He could keep the man under control before, but now...

    Forget it, he might not match the professor in a fight. The guy was too perverse.

    An innocent Li Hao sat beside them and dered in an honest fashion, ¡°I¡¯ll convince teacher, Director Hao! I won¡¯t let him do anything else for the time being. As Night Watchers, we have a duty to safeguard the tranquility of Silver City. Be at ease, Director Hao!¡±

    <i>Fuck off!</i>

    Hao Lianchuan wouldn¡¯t believe a single word from the young man¡¯s mouth anymore. <i>Go on, keep acting why doncha!</i>

    ¡°Think about it carefully.¡± The director rose with gging interest. ¡°I¡¯ll say this one more time. Do it for those of Silver City, if not yourself. I leave you to it!¡±

    Yuan Shuo waited to chuckle after the professor left. ¡°Ignore him. We wouldn¡¯t have done anything else even without his thering.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Teacher and disciple tucked in once more. The other tables were also exceedingly quiet as the guests ate without a sound. This was supposed to be a joyous reception, but it was as quiet as a graveyard. Too many ate without knowing the taste of their food or even what they were eating. Some supernaturals couldn¡¯t be distracted out of the horrified looks on their faces.

    Silver City was growing ever more dangerous.

 Chapter 159: Hou Xiaochen (I)

    <h4>Chapter 159: Hou Xiaochen (I)</h4>

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    Night had fallen, yet lights were aze in the city center. A metropolis with thirty million residents was prosperous beyond imagine. Far more bustling than Silver City, an uproarious din echoed on its streets despite thete hour. It was the very picture of peace and prosperity.

    The Night Watchers had a different name in an official capacity. Their full name was the Inspectorate Night Patrol Committee. Their headquarters was named the Silver Moon Province Inspectorate Night Patrol Committee Headquarters. As their name indicated, they were an agency under the Inspectorate.

    As the supernatural domain developed, the Night Watchers gradually grew from a branch department into a major leadership role. In terms of position, they outranked some ordinary local Inspectorates.

    Silver Moon Night Watchers were headquartered in the southern quadrant of White Moon City. They were not grouped with the Inspectorate¡¯s headquarters¡ªthose were in the northern quadrant. There was an interestingyout employed for White Moon¡¯s agencies of force.

    The Night Watchers could be found in the south. The Inspectorate in the north. A military base in the west. The provincial government in the east.

    If the Night Watchers were viewed separately from the Inspectorate, the four major agencies were perfectly arrayed in the four cardinal directions. They encircled the city, leaving the city center avable formerce and some of the city government¡¯s organizations.

    An old building only six stories tall in the southern quadrant was the headquarters of the renowned Silver Moon Night Watchers. It stirred to life when night fell. People came and went from its doors; activity surrounded the building.

    This agency patrolled the night, so th0se were naturally its hours of operation. It was also when most supernaturals preferred to be awake.

    <i>The sixth floor.</i>

    <i>Director¡¯s office.</i>

    A limber Hou Xiaochen with shoulder-length hair was in the middle of assessing some thorny cases. Next to him, arge screen abruptly activated with a subtle ripple of mysterious power. He raised his head for a look¡ªthis was the core method of messaging for the Night Watchers. It utilized ancient technologies to break certainmunication boundaries and facilitated real-time messaging. It was the foundation of how the government¡¯s agencies exercised authority over their territories.

    ¡°Urgent report. Silver City, 8:50 pm. Yuan Shuo of Silver City fought an alleged Sr. Battle was over in ten minutes. The Sr has disappeared. Yuan Shuo has returned safely. Director Liu Long of the Silver City Night Watchers led all Silver City Night Watchers into battle. The exact results are unknown. Inspector General Mu Sen of the Silver City Inspectorate executed a Plenilune inside Inspectorate grounds...¡±

    The report was long. Despitecking precise details, it fully conveyed events that had taken ce inside the city that night.

    Hou Xiaochen steepled his fingers. Another Sr! And this one¡¯s whereabouts were unknown. Had they escaped, or were they dead?

    After a moment of silence, he waved a line of etched words into the screen. ¡°Continue observing, use your discretion. Pay no attention if there are no transgressions. Yuan Shuo¡¯s morale is high after advancement. Refrain from interference unless his life is in imminent danger!¡±

    Although mysteries swirled in the report, such as the Sr¡¯s origins, why Yuan Shuo had made a move, what role did Li Hao y in all of this as the heir to the eight families...

    None of it was important.

    So long as none of these people broke thew or ughtered innocents, Hou Xiaochen would readily leave Yuan Shuo to his own devices if the professor was confident of resolving a supernatural battle. While Hao Lianchuan fretted over whether this might affect the uing partnership, Hou Xiaochen did not think the same.

    As the highest leader of the Silver Moon Night Watchers, his vision stretched further. Whether it was Red Moon or Yama, they would not rip up the partnership for a small matter like this. And what of it even if they did?

    If they decided to pull out of the excavation?

    As they wish!

    It wasn¡¯t the Night Watchers begging for their involvement in the expedition. They shouldered their way on the basis of formidable strength. A bloody fight was sure to develop after all of them entered the ruins. It was just heralded by some cooperation.

    Hou Xiaochen pressed a button after he responded to the message. A knock sounded on his door shortly thereafter. He kept his head down in paperwork, but raised his voice.

    ¡°Investigate everyone associated with the Qiaos of the Silver City Qiao Mining Industries. I want specifics! Additionally, pull up information regarding Srs located in Silver City. See if any of them showed abnormalities tonight, particrly fire Srs...¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The person who entered quickly jotted down notes. They were about to leave when Hou Xiaochen stopped them with a new question.

    ¡°How many blood pearls do we have in storage?¡±

    ¡°Nine.¡±

    ¡°Only nine?¡± Hou Xiaochen gave it some thought. ¡°Retrieve a Sr blood pearl, one Sunre, and three Darkmoon. Have Huang Yun deliver them to Silver City on the double and give them to Hao Lianchuan. Tell him they¡¯re for Yuan Shuo and the rest as a reward for their actions in ying enemies!¡±

    ¡°Director!¡± gasped the woman in front of him. ¡°We only have one Sr and two Sunre blood pearls in storage.¡±

    The Night Watchers had paid a high price to obtain them, but they were now being freely given to Silver City!

    ¡°These items are very useful to martial masters and have middling effects on supernaturals. They would be a waste on thetter. Since Yuan Shuo has be first among Silver Moon martial masters, it would be their best use if they are given to him.¡±

    ¡°But... Yuan Shuo is not a Night Watcher...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen raised his head with a slight smile. ¡°It is not a bad thing if he¡¯s not. He will not think of opposing us so long as his enmity with Red Moon of the three great organizations has not faded. Under such circumstances, we are the only ones who can shelter and help him.¡±

    Was it really only the Night Watchers who could render this aid?

    His subordinates might think so; Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t care either way. Someone like Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t necessarily have to be recruited into the agency. He just needed to be closer to them than other factions and have goals that were more or less aligned with them.

    Characters like Yuan Shuo abounded everywhere. Not everyone was willing to work for the government, but they were willing to help if the government came knocking in times of need.

    As hesitant and reluctant as the secretary may be...

    She wasn¡¯t a secretary in the usual sense of the word¡ªshe was also the overall manager of the Night Watcher headquarters. She knew how rare these blood pearls were. They¡¯de by after repeated battles with Red Moon and the director personally killing a Sr.

    Formless and intangible, it was due to the director¡¯s capabilities that they were reshaped into pills that could be eaten. And now they were going to be gifted to Yuan Shuo...

    But since the director had made up his mind, she could only execute on her orders. No one in Silver Moon, including Hao Lianchuan who was also a Sr, dared disobey one of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s decisions.

    ¡°I understand, but will Huang Yun run into danger along the way?¡±

    Huang Yun was just an initial Sunre. He was being tapped as the delivery service because hemanded superior speed as a wind supernatural.

    ¡°It will be fine.¡± Hou Xiaochen said nothing more. Based on his current judgment, there would be no trouble along the way.

    ......

    While rxing on vacation, Huang Yun abruptly received an order from headquarters. He was to deliver treasure to Silver City to reward their Night Watchers for eliminating enemies.

    Huang Yun was perplexed when he took custody of a sealed box as he¡¯d yet to receive word of what¡¯d taken ce in that city. He looked at the secretary. ¡°Manager Yu, what¡¯s happened in Silver City now?¡±

    It¡¯d only been a short period since thest battle, how had they already earned new merits of distinction?

    ¡°The Silver City Night Watchers were officially established today and killed a few troublesome supernaturals.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Huang Yun nodded. ¡°How strong were these supernaturals?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure.¡± She was indeed in the dark since the director hadn¡¯t said anything. Who knew what kind of person Yuan Shuo had killed this time as the director wanted to give a Sr blood pearl as a reward?

    ¡°Very well then, I¡¯ll be back soon!¡± Huang Yun traveled speedily and he didn¡¯t wish to spend too much time in that city. Yuan Shuo was difficult to talk to. Thankfully, he wouldn¡¯t have to interact too much with the professor since Director Hao was also present.

    Huang Yun sped outside with the box, bounded up into the air and...nded by a small car. He climbed into the driver¡¯s seat and started the engine!

    Indeed, he was taking the car. He would drive until he reached an uninhabited part of the wilderness outside the city. Only a fool would fly the entire way¡ªthat was a needless consumption of mysterious power. There were a couple hundred kilometers of rugged roads between the two cities that cars would struggle with. That was when he would fly.

    ......

    <i>Silver City.</i>

    The reception was over. Superhumans gingerly streamed out of the hall, as if deathly afraid of disturbing someone.

    Each of them felt the relief of surviving certain death when they left the Inspectorate. More than one heaved a long sigh and elected to walk home. They didn¡¯t even dare drive their cars away. Who knew what kind of disturbance might raise someone¡¯s ire and result in a de straight to the face??

    ¡°This was highly effective!¡± Liu Long abruptlyughed. Killing the chicken to teach the monkey a lesson¡ªthe supernaturals didn¡¯t know that the chicken was the monkey. It¡¯d been a case of killing the monkey to teach the chickens a lesson. The effects were all the same. Silver City superhumans would beying low for a while.

    Hao Lianchuan couldn¡¯t be bothered with him. He spoke up when he saw Li Hao escorting Yuan Shuo out.

    ¡°Come by the Inspectorate tomorrow. Headquarters just sent word that they will be sending treasures tomend your deeds of valor.¡±

    Yuan Shuo looked back at him with surprise and smiled when it didn¡¯t seem like Hao Lianchuan was joking.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen is much more charismatic than you. But... I won¡¯t want anything to do with ordinary treasure.¡±

    ¡°Yuan Shuo, it¡¯s one thing if you¡¯re rude to me!¡± Hao Lianchuan frowned. ¡°You should be more polite to Director Hou! Don¡¯t forget who it was that protected you in your time of need! Who forced back Red Moon when they demanded you to be handed over? Even central headquarters is wary of someone like Ying Hongyue. Director Hou withstood enormous pressure to save you!

    ¡°Although you¡¯ve explored many ruins for the Night Watchers over the years and harvested many treasures for us, martial masters keep a clear record of their personal scores! Would you have willingly worked with us all these years if we¡¯d forced you against your will?¡±

    There was a story behind all this as Yuan Shuo had offended the leader of Red Moon¡ªa powerful figure far from run-of-the-mill.

 Chapter 160: Hou Xiaochen (II

    <h4>Chapter 160: Hou Xiaochen (II</h4>

    Not much was known about the supernatural domain in the past as everyone was unfamiliar with it, but now it was public knowledge that Ying Hongyue was certainly greater than Sr. He hadn¡¯t been weak before that either.

    Ying Hongyue once made a trip to Silver Moon to redress the humiliation he¡¯d suffered, but Hou Xiaochen forced him to withdraw. The two didn¡¯t exchange blows¡ªHou Xiaochen killed a Red Moon executive and brought in reinforcements from the central region to prevent battle from erupting.

    ¡°I am not someone who does not appreciate a favor rendered.¡± A morose Yuan Shuo took a moment topose himself. ¡°I have always kept Hou Xiaochen¡¯s help in mind. Otherwise... do you think the Night Watchers could¡¯ve gained so much from me over the years? But how old is he, am I supposed to call him Daddy Hou to show the depths of my appreciation?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan had absolutely no idea what to say and waved his hand instead. ¡°Forget it, there¡¯s nothing worth saying to an old man like you! You take advantage of your age to spout drivel!¡±

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t dignify the outburst with a response; he climbed into a car in front of him. Liu Long wanted to say something when he saw Li Hao sit in the driver¡¯s seat. Wang Ming flicked a nce at Mu Sen and chose to keep quiet when the inspector general seemed unconcerned.

    That car belonged to the Inspectorate, and it seemed to be Mu Sen¡¯s vehicle!

    Its future viability would be unknown after tonight. Wang Ming congratted himself for not buying a car. That was a hefty expenditure and he¡¯d be put in a tough spot if Li Hao wanted to borrow his car.

    Mu Sen seemed to discover something amiss only after the car snaked its way out of the Inspectorate through a very special route. He murmured to Liu Long, ¡°Is Li Hao driving like that to avoid being followed?¡±

    Liu Long bit down hard on his tongue. ¡°Yes!¡±

    The inspector general looked skeptically at him for a while. ¡°It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s just a car. I can give it to Elder Yuan. Ites out of public funds, anyway!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Liu Long was done with the situation and headed inside. Mu Sen wanted to say a few more words when the chief turned back. ¡°This is an internal Night Watcher meeting. You can leave now, Inspector General Mu. What are you following me for?¡±

    <i>The hell, you bridge burner!</i> Mu Sen actually wanted to ask Liu Long why he felt different from before. As strong as Hao Lianchuan was, he was not a martial master. Mu Sen was a martial master!

    Being a fellow martial master, he was more sensitive to the changes in his peers. Something had felt off about both Liu Long and Li Hao tonight. He could ignore the young man, but when he registered something in Liu Long as well, things were certainly wrong.

    ¡°Do you have time to chat, Liu Long?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Liu Long didn¡¯t even look back.

    Mu Sen looked at his back, gloomy and unwilling to give up the fight. <i>C¡¯mon now, talk to me! Have you had some sort of breakthrough?</i> No way. A silly man like Liu Long hasn¡¯t evenprehended the aura. What kind of transformation could he undergo?

    But Yuan Shuo must have given him a pointer or two. Even so, aura could not be grasped through just one or two pointers. Not to mention that it wouldn¡¯t make a difference if Liu Long understood the aura as the injuries resulting from his Nine Forged Force were too severe. Forcefullyprehending the aura wasn¡¯t a good thing¡ªit could worsen his injuries instead.

    It was why Mu Sen never broached the topic with the man; he was too familiar with Liu Long. Once the man sought to perceive the aura, he wouldn¡¯t be able to refrain from experimentation. He would be truly crippled then.

    ......

    <i>Inside the car.</i>

    Li Hao chattered away as he drove. ¡°Teacher, is Director Hou really strong?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± Yuan Shuo answered weakly, like he¡¯d just woken up. ¡°But he¡¯s one of the earliest Srs of the province. He was apparently injuredter on and has been trapped in Silver Moon ever since. As a result, his reputation has steadily declined. He was quite domineering back in the day¡ªthat was when the three great organizations rampaged through the province. Hou Xiaochen killed many of their members to corral them into a semnce of order. Otherwise, Silver Moon would¡¯ve fallen to madness long ago.¡±

    ¡°So he¡¯s the one who assured teacher¡¯s safety?¡± Li Hao was a candid sort and he was close with his teacher. Asking these sorts of questions was fine.

    A slightlyplicated expression crossed Yuan Shuo¡¯s face and he nodded after a long moment. ¡°Yes! But I... don¡¯t really like him!¡±

    ¡°Why not?¡±

    ¡°With who I am, of course I would be grateful to him for protecting me. I don¡¯t think twice aboutpleting some tasks for the Night Watchers, epting some gigs, and exploring some ruins. It is due to him that I stand here, after all.¡± With that, Yuan Shuo sighed. ¡°But the guy likes to put a price tag on everything. He decreed that I must excavate thirty sets of ruins for him before my debt is paid off. He will reimburse me for any that I explore beyond the thirty. It was a life debt, but he turned it into a transaction! In that case, I give just as good as I get. This is an official rtionship then, with no talk of fellowship or gratitude.¡±

    <i>Hou Xiaochen...</i>

    Li Hao asked no further. He could tell that his teacher had mixed feelings about this man in every way possible other than romantic. Hou Xiaochen seemed to be an interesting person. He was so pragmatic that he didn¡¯t care about ties of friendship or brotherhood.

    <i>I saved you, so you work for me. There¡¯s no talk of anything else.</i>

    Honestly, that seemed like a nice mode of operation as well.

    ¡°Teacher, are we going to the ruins that the Night Watchers found?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Yuan Shuo answered. ¡°But that¡¯s not our most pressing matter. Let¡¯s set that aside for two days. I¡¯m going to take you to the mines...¡± He lowered his voice with a mysterious lilt. ¡°There may be something unique about them. I seemed to sense the presence of sword energy, but in an even more special way as there was also the presence of de energy. They appeared to be mixed together, but I didn¡¯t investigate in detail.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes lit up!

    <i>Really??</i> If that was the case, didn¡¯t that mean his sword¡¯s energy could be replenished? He urgently needed more sword energy to neutralize mysterious power, distill the five elements, and heal wounds. His rapid pace of improvement had much to do with the sword energy. Without it, he was kept to the same process as everyone else and had to take one step at a time.

    Thus, a fire rose in his heart. It burned so hotly that the car shuddered as it crashed into something.

    Yuan Shuo raised a brow, then recalled that this wasn¡¯t his car. It was Mu Sen¡¯s, so it could run into whatever it came across. Mu Sen drove an Inspectorate car.

    But his car! Ah... the kid had crashed it into the building. Well, it was scrap metal now.

    ¡°You haven¡¯t absorbed all of the mysterious power that I traded for and now you¡¯ve obtained arge amount of fire energy from the two of us killing that guy. Mysterious power is useful only when it¡¯s transmuted into actual strength. I don¡¯t need it for now, so just let me know if you need any.¡±

    Li Hao nodded at his teacher¡¯s reminder. Killing another Sr meant at least one thousand cubes of mysterious power. He needed to reassess the situation. Everyone apart from Liu Long had a decent share. They could talk more if Liu Long needed any.

    ¡°In addition, take this!¡± Yuan Shuo handed a small disc to Li Hao.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The car had just started up again when it crashed into something else. Yuan Shuo inwardly cursed at himself. What was he doing, giving something to the kid now??

    Li Hao properly stopped the car and took the disc with curiosity. ¡°Teacher, what is this?¡±

    ¡°I found it on Qiao Feilong, it¡¯s a treasure. He probably used this to conceal his supernatural presence. Since you¡¯ve just encountered the aura and don¡¯t have a deep understanding of it, you easily leak presence of your own. I do not as I¡¯ve grasped the aura for many years. No one can sense mine. You¡¯ve improved so quickly that your foundations are superficial. If you carry this on you, even martial masters will be hard pressed to discover your condition.¡±

    Li Hao was improving swiftly and his aura in a fledgling state. It was too easy for others to discover him. Hao Lianchuan might not have noticed tonight, but Mu Sen had looked a little strangely at thed. Perhaps he¡¯d guessed something. That was not good.

    Li Hao easily drew attention with his abnormal rate of improvement.

    Delighted, Li Hao toyed with the disc. When he infused it with a surge of internal force, the round disc blossomed with faint splendor that instantly extinguished. Although it wasn¡¯t sustained, Li Hao keenly felt something different. The disc seemed to have bloomed with a membrane of light that enveloped him.

    This was very easy to use! It didn¡¯t require mysterious power, internal force activated it just as easily.

    ¡°They probably found it in the ruins¡ªit can perfectly conceal a Sr¡¯s presence, possibly even stronger! It¡¯s a wonderful object, so don¡¯t let others is it. Emanation of mysterious power is difficult to control for supernaturals, so it¡¯s difficult for them to hide from each other. This object isn¡¯trge, but it can shroud the entire body. Ice crystals are less than this!¡±

    If one wanted to use ice crystals to conceal a presence, crystals needed to physically enclose the person without a single crack. Under normal circumstances, the crystals would shatter as soon as the person moved. Thus, it was less than practical. In contrast, Yuan Shuo found this item much more useful and portable.

    Li Hao was overjoyed and bobbed his head in agreement. He shoved the disc into his pocket, nning on adding to the chain that the little sword was on so he wouldn¡¯t drop it. What a wonderful person Qiao Feilong was, this treasure was right up his alley!

    One should keep a lower profile when going about business and refrain from making a fuss! Just look at the chief¡ªthe entire team knew he was a Dominator as soon as he broke through. It would probably bemon knowledge before long, whereas few knew that Li Hao was a Sunderer.

    ......

    Silver City was eerily silent on this night.

    Li Hao rested well. He and Yuan Shuo were both tired after the battle; lessons were canceled for the day. The young man didn¡¯t even make it home and slept at his teacher¡¯s instead.

    A little ck dog sneakily crept inside in the middle of the night. Both upants paid it no heed. Panther had been worried that it¡¯d be held ountable for not helping with the ck shadow, so it ran off under the guise of scouting the premises after it killed a supernatural. Li Hao wasn¡¯t too concerned about its safety, so let it run off.

    As expected, the dog slunk backter that night.

    ......

    <i>August 2. Morning.</i>

    Li Hao rose early, as did Yuan Shuo. The young man understood how badly his teacher was injured when he saw that the professor¡¯s face was still pale. The Incantation of the de of Blood was a method of mutual destruction. Although his teacher had absorbed a bit of sword energy, it wasn¡¯t enough. What he¡¯d consumed wasn¡¯t replenished at all.

    This situation couldn¡¯t be allowed to drag on. They needed to visit the ruins in the mines as soon as possible. Strictly speaking, this wasn¡¯t Li Hao¡¯s fault. The ck shadow would¡¯ve ambushed his teacher if not for the young man, but it was also because his life was in danger that his teacher utilized the Incantation of the de of Blood.

 Chapter 161: Hou Xiaochen (III)

    <h4>Chapter 161: Hou Xiaochen (III)</h4>

    ¡°Teacher, absorb energy from the sword first.¡± Li Hao ran through a boxing technique as they conversed. ¡°We can go to the ruins and figure something out if that¡¯s the end of it. There should be a way to replenish the weapon.¡±

    The energy in the jade sword seemed to be running out, but there should still be a little left. Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t absorbed it all, possibly out of concern that they¡¯d be unable to refill the weapon once it was empty.

    ¡°There¡¯s no rush!¡± The professor was also running through a boxing routine. ¡°I won¡¯t die that easily. This way is better, so we should maintain this condition for a few days. Hao Lianchuan is able to discern a thing or two. It¡¯d raise his suspicions if I¡¯m suddenly recovered.¡±

    With that, Li Hao dropped the topic as well. They finished their morning training and ate the breakfast that the Institute delivered. After that, Li Hao received a call from Liu Yan¡ªsomeone hade from Night Watcher headquarters.

    Huang Yun!

    The old man from White Moon City who¡¯d been scared off by his teacher. To think that the Night Watchers really would send them rewards. How rare!

    Li Hao looked at his sunbathing teacher after he hung up. ¡°Teacher, will you be paying a visit to the Inspectorate?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s go. We still need to show Hou Xiaochen face, given that he sent someone with the items,¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°But he has nothing good to give, I know all of the treasures that the Night Watchers possess. I personally dug many of them up and they¡¯re not useful to me.¡±

    Neither teacher nor disciple held high hopes, but they would ept whatever it was since it¡¯d been delivered to their doorstep. It was an unnecessary waste otherwise!

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>Thew enforcement building.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan was rather surprised. He couldn¡¯t help but look at Huang Yun and growl with curses. ¡°Those guys didn¡¯t listen to orders and went rogue, but Director Hou is rewarding them so richly for it? Isn¡¯t that encouraging them to do the same thing next time??¡±

    Blood pearls, and five of them! There was even one belonging to a Sr being given away!

    Hao Lianchuan knew a little about them. Some Red Moon powerhouses carried them on their body, but they were very hard to locate and extremely difficult to extract. He¡¯d spected that their Brokensky owned one, but didn¡¯t have the ability to retrieve it. Only Director Hou could with the origin weapon, but the director never left White Moon City. So while Hao Lianchuan thought there was likely to be one on the Red Moon powerhouse, he didn¡¯t think of trying to im it.

    The Night Watchers held very few of them in storage. This one from a Sr was the only one of its level.

    The agency used this material to nurture new talent. They gave Darkmoon blood pearls to rookies, facilitated their breakthroughs to yer, then crossed over to the supernatural domain. Most directly entered Darkmoon and saved everyone a great deal of time.

    Take Wang Ming, for instance. He¡¯d received a Darkmoon blood pearl at the beginning, though he hadn¡¯t known what it was. Director Hou was rewarding the Silver City branch with so many!

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, '''' replied an innocent Huang Yun. ¡°Manager Yu wanted me to deliver them, so here I am, the errand boy.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s nothing to do with you!¡± Hao Lianchuan retorted with dejection. How should he assign them? Although Director Hou hadn¡¯t given instructions, he knew that the Sr level one had to go to Yuan Shuo.

    The Sunre one must be for Liu Long. As for the three Darkmoons... supernaturals didn¡¯t have much use for them, so they were probably meant for Li Hao, Liu Yan, Wu Chao, and Chen Jian. But what was the point of only providing three blood pearls? There should be four!

    Hao Lianchuan suspected that Director Hou didn¡¯t know that Li Hao had be a martial master, or that he knew and hoped that the young man would make the crossover in the future. That was why he didn¡¯t send one for Li Hao, out of concern that thed would find it difficult to ascend after he improved as a martial master.

    ¡°So this means that the director wishes for Li Hao to be supernatural, and not to advance further on the path of martial dao?¡± Hao Lianchuan thought rapidly. Although Director Hou hadn¡¯t said anything, he could more or less guess the director¡¯s meaning.

    Did he think well of Li Hao or not?

    Liu Long and the others arrived as Hao Lianchuan mused over the possibilities. Wang Ming beamed radiantly when he saw Huang Yun. He was very familiar with this particr Sunre as they¡¯d carried out missions together. It was also Huang Yun who sent him to Silver City.

    What a good man he was!

    Although Silver City was a bit disorderly and killed people left and right, Wang Ming had obtained 120 cubes after killing someone. He needed to thank Huang Yun for sending him here!

    The current Wang Ming didn¡¯t even want to return to White Moon anymore. Although unexpected gains asionally took ce at headquarters, they were in the form of one or two cubes for a small mission. It was a tidy sum over the course of a year, but couldn¡¯t hold a candle to 120 cubes at once after killing a Sunre.

    Pangs of guilt struck Huang Yun¡¯s conscience to see Wang Ming and the others. He hadn¡¯t thought battle would break out in the city so soon after he sent them here. But when he saw Wang Ming¡¯s brilliant smile, he took a second guess. Was the boy actually satisfied with these arrangements?

    He couldn¡¯t tell!

    The door swung open as he guessed at the answer; Li Hao walked in supporting Yuan Shuo.

    Huang Yun swiftly got to his feet, petrified of giving offense. The old demon was growing ever more domineering and Director Hou had said that he¡¯d possibly fought another Sr. Damn, the old man was terrifying!

    ¡°Director Hou sent Huang Yun with rewards.¡± Hao Lianchuan skipped the pleasantries. ¡°Five blood pearls! They¡¯re a precious medicine that can enhance a martial master¡¯s internal force and enhance their physical body! Yuan Shuo, Liu Long, Li Hao, Wu Chao, and Chen Jian will each receive one!

    ¡°The others will go without for now since these treasures are ineffective for supernaturals.¡±

    Wang Ming and the others didn¡¯t mind; Li Hao stayed silent. It was fine that he didn¡¯t receive any. He didn¡¯t really care.

    But when Hao Lianchuan took out the sks in the box, Li Hao¡¯s eyes darted around. Yuan Shuo¡¯s pupils shook as well when he sniffed the fragrance. The professor wasn¡¯t familiar with blood pearls because he¡¯d never received one, but he was rather surprised in this moment.

    <i>Blood pearls?</i>

    Their presence... seemed a bit like the unique energy ripples stemming from scarlet shadows. He could also sense one of them particrly brimming with energy. It was richer than the scarlet shadow that Li Hao had absorbedst time.

    ¡°What is this?¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t help but ask. ¡°Where is it from?¡±

    ¡°Director Hou expended a lot of effort to obtain them,¡± Hao Lianchuan answered curtly. ¡°Ordinary people can¡¯t extract it. He even utilized an origin weapon to secure them! Use them well, Professor Yuan. This is the only Sr level blood pearl in all of the Night Watchers!¡±

    <i>Sr level?</i>

    <i>Blood pearl?</i>

    Yuan Shuo mused deeply, first ncing at Hao Lianchuan, then at Li Hao. He had some guesses¡ªperhaps... these came from Red Moon. Hou Xiaochen once killed a Red Moon executive outside White Moon City. Was it then that he obtained their scarlet shadow?

    <i>Origin weapons...</i>

    If ordinary people were unable to extract blood pearls, they might be able to when equipped with origin weapons. Of course, Red Moon might have their own unique methods.

    This was a marvelous item! Last time Yuan Shuo was heavily injured, he¡¯d used both sword energy and scarlet shadow energy to recover. Thetter was even more effective when neutralized by sword energy.

    The professor had found it quite regretful when the scarlet shadow energy was exhausted, so to think that Hou Xiaochen would send over a Sr level treasure at this time! Not only that, but there was another one that looked to be Sunre.

    Yuan Shuo nced at Liu Long and suddenly said, ¡°Liu Long, you don¡¯t need yours. I¡¯ll buy it off you for three hundred cubes.¡±

    Liu Long was a Dominator. A Sunre scarlet shadow was additional splendor to his strength, but not much use. Therefore, Yuan Shuo wanted to give it to Li Hao. If the young man absorbed it, he might swiftly progress to mid orte Sunderer!

    Added to that the effect of aura, that would propel Li Hao into Dominator faster.

    ¡°Professor Yuan, you cannot force a transaction...¡± Hao Lianchuan frowned.

    Three hundred cubes of mysterious power was a lot! However, Director Hou inly wished for Liu Long to utilize the blood pearl to set foot into the Dominator level or heal his old wounds. The item was also very useful fortent injuries.

    It was very normal for a veteran Sunderer like Liu Long to have umted wounds. The blood pearl would enable him to make a full recovery and enter Dominator of Thousands.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t know about the benefits of this item and wouldn¡¯t care if he did. His injuries were healed.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± He nodded. ¡°Take it if you like it, Elder Yuan. I don¡¯t care about mysterious power...¡±

    ¡°Now that would be robbery,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Three hundred cubes it is. It¡¯s worth this amount. The item¡¯s effects are different from person to person, but just know that it won¡¯t be that effective for you.¡±

    ¡°I trust Elder Yuan.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan had to interrupt. ¡°Don¡¯t agree so easily, Liu Long. He won¡¯t dare do anything while I¡¯m here! This item can heal your wounds and help your cultivation take a step forward. It¡¯s much more valuable than mysterious power for you!¡±

    It was one thing if he didn¡¯t know, but once he did, Liu Long cared even less about it. <i>I¡¯ve already broken through! No wonder Elder Yuan says it won¡¯t be effective.</i>

    ¡°Thank you, Director Hao, but I don¡¯t need it. I¡¯ll find a way to progress myself...¡±

    <i>Idiot!</i> Hao Lianchuan cursed. These Silver City people werepletely intractable! Liu Long didn¡¯t understand a word he said, so it was his own fault for being tricked by Yuan Shuo!

    <i>I wash my hands of this!</i>

    He passed three blood pearls to Wu Chao, Chen Jian, and Liu Yan. He tossed the remaining two to Yuan Shuo and walked downstairs. ¡°I¡¯m going back, you guys do as you wish!¡±

    A ce like Silver City gave him high blood pressure every time he visited.

    Huang Yun hastily caught up to the director. He didn¡¯t want to be alone with Yuan Shuo.

    Laughter traveled out of the office when they left.

    ¡°Looks like Director Hou¡¯s ticked off,¡± Liu Long chortled.

    Yuan Shuo chuckled as well, then reminded the team, ¡°Don¡¯t brashly eat the blood pearl. Fatty and skinny, you two need to think carefully. You¡¯ll easily break through to Sunderer if you take it, which means ascending to the supernatural will be very hard for you. You need to consider things carefully!¡±

    With that, he pped Li Hao on the shoulder. ¡°We¡¯re going back!¡±

    Blood pearls formed from scarlet shadows!

    Yuan Shuo was in a very good mood. His injuries might be healed if he took the Sr level one. Of course, he¡¯d rather use sword energy if there was enough of it. His student wouldn¡¯t be able to digest the Sr blood pearl. If he could neutralize it with sword energy, it mightunch him one step forward on the path of Dominator.

    Hou Xiaochen really had given them a good treasure this time!

    Yuan Shuo quickly descended the stairs with Li Hao in tow. The young man was also worked up. The Sunre blood pearl was likely for him. So... did this mean he could grow stronger again?

 Chapter 162: Secrets of the Eight Trigrams (I)

    <h4>Chapter 162: Secrets of the Eight Trigrams (I)</h4>

    <i>The Yuan residence.</i>

    Li Hao and Yuan Shuo stared fixedly at the two pills in front of them. The scarlet shadow energy they were familiar with had been shaped into the form of pills.

    ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought that Hou Xiaochen would really send us some treasure?¡± Yuan Shuo was quite agitated. ¡°He must¡¯ve obtained this after killing Red Moon powerhouses. If origin weapons can extract them, I wonder if the stone de can?¡±

    This was his focus. He¡¯d thought that only Li Hao could touch the scarlet shadows, so despite Yuan Shuo having some ideas or wanting to kill Red Moon members for their shadows, there was nothing he could do. He couldn¡¯t even see them, much less feel them. How could he extract their energy?

    But if Hou Xiaochen could do it, why couldn¡¯t he? Wasn¡¯t the stone de an origin weapon?

    At the very least, Yuan Shuo felt it highly likely that the family weapons were also origin weapons. There must be something special about them that enabled them to extract blood pearls. His thoughts moved rapidly with this new possibility.

    He wanted to kill people!

    Kill who?

    Red Moon, of course.

    His desires hadn¡¯t run so deeply before and he hadn¡¯t been able to ovee Red Moon, so there was no need to seek revenge against the organization. He¡¯d easily make a target out of himself instead.

    But what if he could extract their scarlet shadows after killing their members? This energy was an ultimate treasure for martial masters!

    Yuan Shuo was delighted not only because he¡¯d obtained blood pearls, but also that it was better to teach someone how to fish rather than just give them fish. He wanted to learn from Hou Xiaochen how to extract Red Moon¡¯s power.

    With that, he would be able to hollow out the organization. Well, the caveat was that he survived his ambitions and wasn¡¯t chased down by the organization¡¯s powerhouses.

    ¡°This won¡¯t do, I need to talk to Hou Xiaochen!¡± Rare excitement flickered across Yuan Shuo¡¯s face. ¡°After I get the method, I¡¯ll make a clean sweep of them when the urge strikes me. Perhaps we¡¯ll strike it rich! This and the sword energy means you¡¯ll quickly set foot into Dominator.¡±

    Li Hao also grinned broadly. What a happy asion!

    ¡°Teacher, I feel that this Sunre level blood pearl seems only a little weaker than the big shadow fromst time. Was that shadow not a Sr?¡±

    ¡°Probably not. Brokensky was only initial Sr, so his shadow was possibly just peak Sunre.¡± Yuan Shuo had absorbed most of the peak Sunre shadow¡¯s energy and left a small portion to his student. Li Hao had utilized it to progress to initial Sunderer. This time, he wanted Li Hao to absorb all of the Sunre blood pearl. The young man should be able to project internal force from his torso after that. He might not be able to from his head¡ªthere was still danger in that, but he shouldn¡¯t be too far off.

    Combined with his preliminary understanding of the aura, that would ce Li Hao at peak Sunderer. Once his grasp of the aura improved, he would sessfully set foot into Dominator.

    Having paved the road for his final disciple and plotted out his future, Yuan Shuo felt ever more certain that he could not remain in Silver City for long. He needed to leave and take everyone¡¯s attention with him.

    ¡°We go to the ruins tonight!¡± The professor suddenly decided. ¡°We need to do this quickly. If we can¡¯t open them this time, we wait. I¡¯ll think of a way to conceal the ruins and you¡¯ll pretend they don¡¯t exist. We¡¯ll explore them again once we umte enough strength.¡±

    He¡¯d only needed to nce at the ruins to know they were more than met the eye. He¡¯d given the door a try and punched it¡ªit remained unmoving. If both Li Hao¡¯s sword and his de couldn¡¯t budge it, they would have to wait for better timing.

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao nodded, staring fixedly at the red pill. Anticipation grew in his eyes. He¡¯d absorbed a decent amount from the scarlet shadowst time and dual cultivated with his teacher, giving most of it to his teacher. This time, they each had one. Perhaps the effects would be so much more than he expected.

    Teacher and disciple said nothing more. They nursed their own thoughts and busily painted a wondrous future. Visiting the ruins was on the agenda for tonight. Hao Lianchuan had left and they called the shots in Silver City now. Any disturbance they kicked up would be easily quelled.

    ......

    The sky slowly darkened. It waspletely dark at 9pm.

    <i>The Yuan residence.</i>

    Teacher and disciple elected to walk on foot instead of taking the car. Two shadows leapt and bounded through the night. They moved exceedingly fast and were as light-footed as apes and monkeys. The two wore ck outfits as they shifted soundlessly through the gloom.

    Although Yuan Shuo¡¯s injuries were yet to fully heal, he far outstripped his student. Li Hao began employing the ape style topensate, but he couldn¡¯t catch up with his teacher no matter how he tried.

    The young man set aside the ape style once they left the city. He exuded a faint aura when he stomped his foot and borrowed the force of earth to further understand the aura of earth. Thebination of blood qi and aurast time had been a great improvement as he¡¯d deepened his understanding of the aura.

    Now as he ran over the ground, he focused on satisfying feedback from the earth when his feet connected with it. Li Hao ran faster and faster as he increased hisprehension.

    Up ahead, Yuan Shuo looked back with a smile and also increased his pace. <i>How nice!</i> Thed explored his own unique understanding of the aura and didn¡¯t continue his teacher¡¯s path. That wasn¡¯t a bad thing. On the contrary, Yuan Shuo was gratified and proud of his disciple.

    He himself was strong and the professor also thought that his aura was very domineering. However, that didn¡¯t mean he wished for Li Hao to be the same as him and walk the exact same path. He was foremost when it came to the aura of the Five Styles. It would be very hard for Li Hao to surpass him, which was not what Yuan Shuo wished to see.

    As Yuan Shuo picked up the pace, so did Li Hao think furiously behind his teacher. <i>Not fast enough! </i>It was nice to nt his feet on solid ground, but his speed seemed a little too slow for his liking.

    Of the Five Styles, both the ape and bird style could elerate. Meanwhile, Li Hao rarely practiced the deer style. The tiger and bear styles were suited for attacking, the ape and bird styles for fleeing. Only the deer style was neither here nor there.

    It couldn¡¯t fly as high as the birds, be as nimble as the apes, or bring as much strength to bear as tigers and bears. ording to the New Book of Five Styles, the deer style focused on being light on one¡¯s feet.

    But could it be as light as the birds?

    A variety of thoughts ran through Li Hao¡¯s mind. He thought back to what his teacher said of apes and monkeys darting nimbly through the mountain forests, of birds flying without restriction in the sky. The open ins, however, were the domain of the deer. Even ferocious tigers and leopards found it exceedingly difficult to capture deer. As light-footed as a deer wasn¡¯t hyperbole¡ªthey were faster than some premier hunters when they erupted with full potential.

    The deer style centered on being natural and flexible. It drew strength from the waist instead of the legs, a major difference from the other styles.

    Logically speaking, shouldn¡¯t speede from the churning of legs? For deer, it came from their waist. They exerted themselves through the stomach to propel their legs.

    <i>How interesting! </i>Li Hao suddenly thought through a lot and decided to deploy the style that he normally didn¡¯t think much of. Activation through the stomach, lifting his waist, and lightening his body!

    He suddenly felt lighter, simr to when he absorbed wind energy. The strength in his legs didn¡¯t change, but he was much faster than before.

    He sped over the ground like he was the wind. The earth seemed to be the grassy ins that he sped over. Li Hao ran faster and faster; he even wanted to throw his head back to the sky with a howl and vent the agitation clouding his heart!

    He¡¯d been subject to attention from all sides after the eight families were exposed, but this kind of life wasn¡¯t the one he wanted. He didn¡¯t like being followed with interest. He wished to live out his days in peace, not like the ones he experienced now.

    His body rose and fell like a buck, gently undting over thend. Li Hao elerated the more he strode toward his destination.

    Up ahead, Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t help but turn back for a look. Another peculiar expression crossed his face. <i>Nice going, kid!</i>

    He¡¯d thought that Li Hao only knew the ape style of the Five Styles and had decided to focus on teaching that style in the future. But judging from this demonstration, perhaps thed just hadn¡¯t been diligent before. He didn¡¯t seem like a rookie and also utilized the deer style very well.

    Yuan Shuo abruptly paused and waited for Li Hao to catch up to him. He gently bent over, curved his waist, and ced his feet apart from each other. The professor chuckled lowly, ¡°Follow me!¡± He bounded forward like an elk on a grassy in, covering more than ten meters in a free and easy manner.

    Li Hao fixed his eyes on his teacher¡¯s movement, detecting a hint of difference from his own. He slightly corrected his posture and swiftly caught up to his teacher.

    An old man and a young man sprinted through the wilderness. Instead of a burning urgency, they exuded a simple effortlessness. They even forgot about the ruins!

    ¡°The ruins are just an external object. Martial masters need to rely on themselves!¡± Teacher and disciple had a pressing need for the ruins because they wished to enhance themselves. Running like this was also training. Whether it was Li Hao or Yuan Shuo, they both knew that this kind ofprehension was worth spending the time to experience.

    ......

    <i>Inside the mines.</i>

    Hu Hao jerked to alertness and scrambled to his feet. He darted out of a mine entrance and looked into the distance. Chen Jian was close behind and carried a rocketuncher in his hands.

    The two had been chatting moments ago. Chen Jian had traveled back for the morning meeting and returned with some food, as well as his blood pearl. He was discussing with Hu Hao if he should take it or not when his supernaturalrade said that someone wasing.

    Two ck figures shot toward the mountain under the cover of night. They were like leopards on the hunt, their speed so quick that it made Hu Hao¡¯s heart pound with rm.

    ¡°Who is it?¡± he muttered.

    Chen Jian looked on gravely. ¡°I don¡¯t know... Chief didn¡¯t say that someone would be by.¡±

    It wasn¡¯t Liu Long.

    Li Hao and Yuan Shuo originally nned to notify the watchers when they reached the foot of the mountain, but the two had long forgotten that in their focus on the deer style and sped toward their destination.

    Hu Hao yanked Chen Jian into the air and hid themselves among a backdrop of the gloomy sky. As Chen Jian scanned the ground, he was stunned by what he saw.

    ¡°Martial masters!¡± he muttered. The two were martial masters, not supernaturals. He would think it was Li Hao and Yuan Shuo if one of them was slightly slower, but both were exceedingly fast. It skewed his judgment as he recalled that while Li Hao was ruthless, he was a martial dao rookie and a kid at yer of Tens.

    Chief would say something if he was nning on swinging by, so who were these two?

 Chapter 163: Secrets of the Eight Trigrams (II)

    <h4>Chapter 163: Secrets of the Eight Trigrams (II)</h4>

    Chen Jian nervously tightened his grip on the rocketuncher and prepared to fire. As he fretted over a decision, the two on the ground suddenly shot up like birds and glided through the air.

    The martial master blinked.

    ¡°It¡¯s the Five Styles!¡±

    Indeed, it was the Five Styles. Then the two must be rted to Yuan Shuo. One of them might be the professor, but who was the other?

    Stepping on air, gliding through the void,nding, then leaping upward again...

    As a supernatural who didn¡¯t practice martial dao, Hu Hao suddenly found the sight quite aesthetically pleasing. It was so natural,fortable, andcking in the slightest sense of ugliness. There was only the beauty of melding into nature.

    The two rxed slightly when they realized it was the Five Styles, but were both confused as to who the second person was. If one of them was Yuan Shuo, was that another disciple?

    The professor had more students prior to Li Hao¡ªthey were older as they were from earlier on. Li Hao was the only disciple in Silver City at the moment. Had another disciple returned?

    As the two in the air brainstormed, the two on the ground pushed up off their feet and jumped ten meters into the air. That put them level with Hu Hao, giving the supernatural a clear view at their faces. The neers wore only a ck outfit and didn¡¯t obscure their faces.

    Hu Hao focused his gaze and... nearly fell out of the sky!

    It wasn¡¯t that his mentality and focus were so poor, but that he was incredibly surprised to find that the other person was Li Hao!

    Chen Jian¡¯s jaw dropped as well and he nearly lost his grip on the rocketuncher.<i> Li Hao</i>! And here he was wondering which of Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciples the other person was! It was the yer of Tens, Li Hao!

    How was this possible?

    ¡°Li Hao...¡± Chen Jian murmured incredulously. Was that really Li Hao?

    So was Hu Haopletely taken aback. Li Hao was a yer, wasn¡¯t he? Didn¡¯t they say that it hadn¡¯t been long since he became familiar with martial dao? How was this a yer?? Ordinary Sunderers wouldn¡¯t be able to catch up to him!

    Rounding his jump through the air, Li Hao came back to his senses when he saw shocked gazes cross the two faces in front of him. He¡¯d been too conspicuous.

    His earlier state had been so smooth and sofortable that he couldn¡¯t resist the temptation to utilize the Five Styles the entire way. He¡¯dpletely forgotten to return to being a yer when he reached the mines. How could a yer run so fast and jump so high?

    He immediately fell down from the sky, somersaulting like a monkey in the air beforending on his feet. He created a small hole in the ground,nding on solid footing without falling over. But... wasn¡¯t this a bit inappropriate? Since he¡¯d fallen from such an incredible height, shouldn¡¯t he stumble or something like that?

    At the same time, they were at the mines. The ground was so dirty, so was it a bad idea to fall over?

    Hu Haonded with Chen Jian as the young man hesitated. The portly man was the first to ask, ¡°Li Hao, how... how can you jump so tall?¡±

    ¡°I broke through to Sunderer tonight!¡± The young man grinned.

    ¡°Huh?¡± Chen Jian paused, stupefied. He¡¯d yet to reach Sunderer, but Li Hao had managed the deed! Meanwhile, a knowing expression appeared on Hu Hao¡¯s face. It was only logical that Li Hao had advanced as he wouldn¡¯t be so fast otherwise. Not only had he progressed down his path, but he adeptly employed the Five Styles. It was astounding!

    ¡°Teacher gave me a lot of mysterious power and walked me through the process step by step. Thankfully, I managed it in the end,¡± chuckled Li Hao.

    ¡°Congrattions...¡± Chen Jian didn¡¯t know what else to say.

    A smiling Yuan Shuo walked over. ¡°You guys are almost there as well. You¡¯ll all have your chance. It¡¯s normal that he improves a bit faster seeing as he¡¯s with me.¡±

    Alright then, they could only ept this given Yuan Shuo¡¯s presence.

    ¡°We¡¯ll go inside for a look. You guys stand guard outside,¡± the professor continued.

    Chen Jian quickly bobbed his head while Hu Hao nodded his minutely. Thetter couldn¡¯t help another nce at Li Hao. A Sunderer!

    His little senior brother in name was apparently only a mundanest month. Now here he was, a Sunderer in the blink of an eye while Hu Hao remained a Darkmoon¡ªand a peak Crescent at that. He wasn¡¯t even a Halfmoon!

    Granted, reaching Halfmoon shouldn¡¯t be a problem given all of the mysterious power he¡¯d received from theirst mission, but strictly speaking... he and Li Hao were the same level at the moment.

    Inadequacy suddenly struck Hu Hao.

    ¡°I¡¯m going in then, Brother Hu, Brother Chen.¡± Li Hao smiled innocently. ¡°If there¡¯s anything nice that all of us can use, I¡¯ll share it with everyone...¡±

    Chen Jian gave an honest chuckle without saying a word, whereas Hu Hao sighed softly.

    ¡°No worries, it was yours to begin with. We¡¯ve already received a lot of rewards. Not to mention, you and I are from the same discipline...¡±

    Li Hao blinked. What same discipline? The young man hadn¡¯t been present for Yuan Shuo¡¯s earlier speech.

    ¡°I¡¯ve taken Wang Ming, Hu Hao, and Li Meng as three honorary disciples,¡± Yuan Shuo exined calmly.

    ¡°Eh?¡± It was Li Hao¡¯s turn to be surprised. So this had taken ce at some point?

    ¡°We can discuss thister!¡± The professor pressed on before his student could ask further.

    Li Hao could only sh an apologetic grin and whisper, ¡°Let¡¯s chat about this when I get back!¡±

    The two on guard watched Li Hao and Yuan Shuo enter the mine. Hu Hao remained quiet, but Chen Jian couldn¡¯t help himself.

    ¡°Ole brother Hu, do you think martial masters are better or supernaturals are better?¡±

    The supernatural domain that he¡¯d dreamed about didn¡¯t seem all that impressive anymore.

    Hu Hao suppressed an eye roll. <i>I¡¯m a supernatural and you¡¯re a martial master, yet you¡¯re asking me this?</i>

    ¡°I thought that martial masters advance really slowly, but... look at Li Hao.¡±

    ¡°Is he the norm?¡± Hu Haoughed. ¡°It¡¯s your choice. I¡¯m not familiar with martial dao, so I can¡¯t make aparison.¡±

    Alright then. Chen Jian suddenly wondered if he shouldn¡¯t be so wholeheartedly devoted to the supernatural as he was. Should he take the blood pearl and ascend to Sunderer instead?

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao followed Yuan Shuo through various twists and turns around the mine. They passed by an iron door before long, one with what seemed to be ice crystal shards around it.

    ¡°Is this the door?¡±

    Was it special? His teacher had mentioned there was a door here.

    ¡°You need to get your eyes checked. This is inly a door they crafted to keep others out. It was embedded with ice crystals before to prevent supernatural presence from leaking.¡± Yuan Shuo pushed the door open on a spacious karst cave. It was ratherrge and illuminated by several crystalmps.

    A karst cave inside a mine? Now this was a special scene.

    Some daily necessities were scattered around, but many rocks had fallen from overhead. Some more shards resolved themselves as ice crystal shards. inly, the Night Watcher barrage from earlier had shaken this area.

    Li Hao sensed a faint energy as soon as he set foot inside. Just as his teacher said, it seemed to be a mix of sword and de energy.

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing good here, someone¡¯s taken all of it. Any treasures here were long consumed by Qiao Feilong and his people.¡± Yuan Shuo was familiar with the area since he¡¯d visited once before. He brought Li Hao further inside.

    The cave wasrge and deep, but it wasn¡¯t rugged or rough. inly, the Qiaos had developed this location for a while. Everything that should be here could be found. Li Hao even saw some toiletries and cutlery. It appeared that the three Sunres would cook here in normal times. They certainly tried hard to make themselvesfortable. Li Hao had no idea how to cook.

    Some reliefs appeared on the walls as they followed the cave in. Li Hao took a look at them, but didn¡¯t identify anything special. They were just simple reliefs that may have been carved by the ancients since they were hard to make out.

    The young man stopped before long. Yuan Shuo sensed his movement and looked back at his student. ¡°It¡¯s up ahead!¡±

    ¡°No, I mean... Teacher,e look at this!¡± Li Hao called out.

    Yuan Shuo walked over with a frown and followed his student¡¯s gaze, locating a blurry stone carving. It was one of an indistinct person wielding a sword. The image was too unclear to make out, but the item should be a sword as it was very thin and long.

    The person seemed to be standing in front of a door. They were about to enter it and had twisted their head to look backward.

    Yuan Shuo studied it for a bit, but didn¡¯t learn too much.

    ¡°It¡¯s a person entering a door with a sword. What of it?¡± He looked at his student. ¡°Do you think it has to do with your sword?¡±

    Li Hao nodded slightly. ¡°Yes, that¡¯s what I¡¯m getting.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just an ordinary relief that is no longer clear. Come on, let¡¯s continue forward. Perhaps we can find more things up ahead.¡±

    Li Hao said nothing else and walked forward with his teacher.

    ......

    They seemed to be in another area after walking a bit more¡ªa vast, underground hall. The hall waspletely empty; the Qiaos had likely made off with every single treasure. Thus, the first thing they saw was a stone door.

    Or, the structure seemed like a stone door. It stood to the fore of the great hall. The energy that teacher and disciple sensed most likely came from behind the stone door.

    ¡°Be careful!¡± Yuan Shuo reminded. ¡°They were camped here most likely to open that door. It¡¯s probably why Qiao Feilong¡¯s wife turned into that state.¡±

    They could vaguely make out scorch marks stemming from explosives and fire. The Qiaos had obviously been trying to open this door all along.

    Yuan Shuo walked over and carefully observed it. ¡°Come here!¡±

    Li Hao quickly approached and immediately saw what was different about it. There was a tiny indentation in the door.

    ¡°A mechanism?¡± The young man regarded it curiously. ¡°Will I be able to open the door if I put my family¡¯s sword in it?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure.¡± Yuan Shuo looked at it a bit longer. ¡°We can try... but absorb some sword energy first and restore your body. You and I will then take our blood pearls, just in case something unexpected happens and I don¡¯t react in time.¡±

    He was worried of trouble descending if they ced an item inside. They would be done for then. The stone de in his hand stirred upon sensing the energy. Li Hao¡¯s sword was doing the same, so they might as well heal their injuries first.

    ¡°Alright!¡± Li Hao imitated his teacher and stepped away from the stone door. He sat down cross-legged only when they were a slight distance away. Even here, the sword in his hands seemed quite lively.

    The young man brightened after a quick iteration of the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. He didn¡¯t need the jade sword¡ªhe could absorb a rush of energy all the same. It was, however, a little different from what was contained inside the sword.

    ¡°Teacher, this seems to be a mixture of several types of energy. It¡¯s not just sword energy.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°I sense it too. There¡¯s de energy within too. It might be abination of all eight families. What we should focus on right now is absorbing sword energy to recover from our injuries...¡±

 Chapter 164: Secrets of the Eight Trigrams (III)

    <h4>Chapter 164: Secrets of the Eight Trigrams (III)</h4>

    Yuan Shuo looked at Li Hao. ¡°ce the sword between us. I can sense that the stone de is absorbing de energy via stripping it out from the energy mixture. The sword should be doing the same. The energy mixture seems very strong, but it¡¯s not suited for simply healing wounds.¡±

    Li Hao ced the little sword in the center between teacher and disciple. It trembled as it absorbed a surge of unique energy. Sword energy intensified around them and after some thought, Yuan Shuo relocated the stone de further away to avoid interference.

    Teacher and disciple began operating the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Yuan Shuo did so primarily to heal his wounds. Meanwhile, Li Hao was less injured. Most of the problems resulting from his overuse of powerst night were quickly resolved after absorbing a good deal of sword energy.

    Yuan Shuo issued reminders as he trained, ¡°You can operate the Breathing Method of the Five Styles while you absorb the Sunre blood pearl. Coordinate with the sword energy here to digest it. Just this energy alone makes this trip worthwhile, to say nothing of anything else!¡±

    ¡°Mm.¡± Li Hao swallowed the blood pearl without another word. His blood boiled the moment it entered his body and he entered the state he attainedst time the scarlet shadow invaded his body.

    His eyes lost focus as his blood frothed. He seemed to see through the stone ceiling when he raised his head and once more saw the massive diagram of the eight trigrams overshadowing Silver City!

    As he was prepared this time, Li Hao wasn¡¯t nervous. He was just curious¡ªwhat was this diagram?

    He took a close look. There were eight strings, of which one ran down and was tied to him. The other seven were, likest time, aggregated in one direction. That direction didn¡¯t look to be in Silver City.

    Li Hao widened his eyes, wanting to take a closer look. What did the eight trigrams mean?

    He... seemed to catch a vague hint of something. It seemed to be the cosmos, and it seemed not to be. He tried to blink the image into focus and saw a person in the center of the eight trigrams.

    <i>A person?</i>

    Li Hao paused. He was seeing things, wasn¡¯t he? The figure disappeared when he tried to take another look.

    The young man¡¯s heart skipped a beat and he decided to take a closer look at the red thread over his head. He followed it upward. What would he see at the top?

    He strained his eyes and actually did see something special. There was a figure at the end of it¡ªa person!

    ¡°Hmm...¡± Li Hao jerked with shock. The person looked simr to the relief that he¡¯d seen outside! It was the person with a sword on his back!

    One person, one sword.

    The figure seemed to sense something when Li Hao saw it and suddenly looked downward. What kind of gaze did it hold in its eyes?

    Arrogance?

    The notion that it was unconquerable?

    Or was it an act of overlooking themon people?

    ¡°The sword is Creative [1] and suppresses monsters!¡±

    The sentence reverberated in Li Hao¡¯s mind. His eyes turned bloodshot as something seemed to stab into them. Blurry vision afforded him the sight of a man wielding a sword and piercing the heavens!

    ¡°I can sever immortality with a sword! With life as the sword, I can cut down the heavens, the earth, the self!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s mind seemed to explode. He saw... he saw that person tear through the firmament with one stroke and destroy the cosmos. He saw that person subvert the heavens with that stroke and shatter the stars...

    Two streaks of blood trailed from his eyes.

    A swordsman!

    This was a premier swordsman!

    ¡°Pah!¡± Li Hao spat out a mouthful of blood that welled up in his throat. It came infused with a ray of sword qi that was peerlessly sharp. The resting Yuan Shuo subconsciously raised a hand to prevent blood from sttering him...

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    The professor went ck jawed with shock as his hand was pierced through!

    <i>What?!</i>

    A mouthful of blood¡ªand Li Hao¡¯s blood¡ªdrove through his aura, broke through his consciousness, and pierced his palm!

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t stop to think. He exploded into motion and grabbed his student. What was going on?

    Li Hao blearily opened his eyes, finding his eyeballs seized with extreme pain and his vision hazy. He coughed weakly with some pain. ¡°Teacher... I saw... a person with a sword... tear through the firmament... and destroy the cosmos...¡±

    ¡°Bulls...¡± Yuan Shuo was ready tounch into a lecture when he paused with shock. ¡°Where did you see it?¡±

    ¡°In the sky!¡± Li Hao pointed upward with difficulty. ¡°So scary! It was so scary that I felt they could kill me through a hundred million kilometers. They could kill me even though they¡¯re a ray of sword qi¡ªno, they can kill everyone!¡±

    It¡¯d been petrifying!

    Although he¡¯d seen it clearly, the other had inly been very, very far away from him. So far that they were an incredible distance away. He¡¯d only seen them and note in contact with them¡ªin fact, he¡¯d only seen an impression instead of the real thing. Even so, that stroke had almost killed him!

    Sword intent!

    In this moment, he knew what sword intent was.

    The little sword ced between them suddenly trembled and emanated faint sword qi. The mouthful of blood that Li Hao had spat out had also touched it.

    Blood of sword qi!

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s expression was exceedingly grave and he looked up, but didn¡¯t see anything. ¡°Is there more?¡±

    ¡°The... the diagram of the eight trigrams... seems to correspond to some people... There also seemed to be a person in between...¡± Li Hao coughed blood once more. ¡°He said that his sword could sever the heavens, the earth, and immortality...¡±

    The young man was a bit lost. ¡°Teacher... can humans... really be like as I saw and break through the sky with one stroke? Or was it an illusion?¡±

    That gentle stroke would obliterate Yuan Shuo and Srs alike. It was an unfathomable blow!

    Yuan Shuo stilled and said softly after a long while, ¡°I don¡¯t know. Perhaps there really was such an existence in the ancient civilization. And if you¡¯re fine, that person might be... an ancestor of you Lis.¡±

    ¡°An ancestor?¡± Li Hao paused with surprise, then chuckled ruefully. ¡°No way! If my ancestors were this strong... then my family would rule thends! No, they¡¯d rule the entire world! Would we be in these straits?¡±

    Of course, no one could say for certain, but that immense strength was burned deep into his brain. He would remember that stroke for the rest of his life. He didn¡¯t know what the person was cutting down, just that the blow severed everything. It would annihte the strongest enemy, wouldn¡¯t it?

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t have an answer. ¡°How are you?¡±

    ¡°Awful...¡± Li Hao suddenly realized something else. ¡°But the blood pearl¡¯s strength seems more pure. I¡¯m absorbing it bit by bit.¡± He jerked with astonishment and raised his hand for a look. ¡°Teacher, do you think my skin¡¯s gotten paler?¡±

    Yuan Shuo subconsciously followed the young man¡¯s gaze and took a gentle breath in.

    ¡°Not paler, but more unadulterated! That ray of sword qi... no, it might not be sword qi. It might be sword intent through the air. Whichever it was, it seems to have further purified your physique.¡±

    What kind of ability was this? Teacher and disciple looked at each other; neither had any idea.

    Yuan Shuo looked down at his hand¡ªthe bloody hole was slowly starting to close. His rate of healing was exceedingly slow even after absorbing sword energy.

    ¡°Teacher, let me heal you...¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head with sudden fervor. ¡°I want to keep this scar and this hole! Indestructible! What kind of strength is this? It feels even stronger than de energy. Just one droplet of blood dyed with the sword intent ran straight through my hand and punctured everything about me. If that¡¯d hit my head, I would be dead!¡±

    He was a powerhouse who¡¯d in Srs, but could¡¯ve died to a mouthful of sprayed blood. There would be no ce to redress his grievances if he¡¯d truly died. How terrifying!

    Yet, it was this kind of terror that excited him.

    ¡°This might be a fortuitous opportunity, Li Hao. Our greatest opportunity lies in the road ahead!¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly had a goal and motivation. This was the direction forward. ¡°One stroke to cleave the heavens and one stroke to sever the firmament...¡±

    He stared at his hands and purposefully prevented the wound from healing. The professor wished to quietly study the ray of sword qi, but there was nothing there. There was no sword qi to begin with, just Li Hao¡¯s mental perception.

    This was both astounding and petrifying!

    As for Li Hao, he discovered with surprise that after vomiting a few mouthfuls of blood, he could... project internal force from his torso! This was strange. Was he mid Sunderer now?

    <i>So easy!</i>

    In this moment he felt that this was all there was to mid Sunderer¡ªit was weak. It was incredibly weakpared to even his teacher, to say nothing of the figure he¡¯d seen. Rtively speaking, mid Sunderer wasn¡¯t even a child.

    Neither Sr nor Dominator could begin topare to the scene he¡¯d witnessed. If he could be thus, what need did he have to be to be afraid of Red Moon? He¡¯d hack them apart with one stroke!

    ¡°Teacher!¡± Li Hao eximed.

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°Is my sword a bit bigger?¡±

    Yuan Shuo hastily ducked his head. Indeed, the little sword on the ground had originally been the length of a finger, but now it seemed to be approaching the length of a pair of chopsticks. It¡¯d gotten bigger!

    ¡°It absorbed some blood...¡± Yuan Shuo nced sharply at his student. ¡°Your blood was tinged with something special, which in return was absorbed by this treasure. It might be partially unsealed. Does this sword look simr to what that person was using?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head, he couldn¡¯t be certain of that. All he¡¯d seen was light from the sword and nothing else. It was a good thing that his sword had gotten bigger, but with it approaching the size of a pair of chopsticks, it¡¯d be difficult to hide in the future. He couldn¡¯t wear it on his back; this would be a little troublesome to resolve.

    The young man picked up the sword and carelessly stuck it into the ground. It soundlessly pierced through the rock below it, stunning both teacher and disciple again.

    <i>So sharp!</i>

    They didn¡¯t have an inkling that it¡¯d be so sharp to the point that it easily stabbed through rock. The hall fell silent. Yuan Shuo suddenly felt that the secrets of Silver City and the eight families were possibly greater than anyone imagined.

    1. The Chinese is Ç¬Ìì, the first of Earlier Heaven <i>bagua. </i>Officially tranted as the Creative, it refers to natural force. ?

 Chapter 165: Breaking Through (I)

    <h4>Chapter 165: Breaking Through (I)</h4>

    Li Hao had seen an unrivaled swordsman through the eight trigrams. Through absorbing some of his blood, the seal over Steris loosened. While the young man had bled onto the little sword before, this result had never appeared.

    inly, the unsealing of the little sword might have something to do with that figure. It also enabled Li Hao and Yuan Shuo to realize a possibility¡ªthe swordsman really might be a Li ancestor.

    A premier powerhouse!

    Yuan Shuo tamped down agitation, fear, shock, and a tiny thread of anticipation stirring in his heart. ¡°Let¡¯s forget about this for now,¡± his voice was strained. ¡°It¡¯s too far removed from us and involves ancient experts. Our most pressing task at hand is to strengthen ourselves!¡±

    He came back to his senses¡ªpersonal strength was the foundation of everything. The waters of this world ran deep, possibly so deep that the ancient civilization and all of its heritages were submerged. Only some ruins remained, as well as the incredibly debilitated eight families of Silver City.

    No, there was only one family left now. Technically speaking, there was only one person.

    Li Hao grit his teeth and expelled everything from moments ago out of his mind. He didn¡¯t dare dwell on them. Uncontroble fear and excitement shook him whenever he thought of that stroke...

    Was that person still human?

    He gingerly picked up the little sword from the ground and suddenly regarded it with new worry. ¡°Teacher, it¡¯s... too sharp. Will my own sword be the death of me if I carry it around?¡±

    Yuan Shuo blinked and ventured with difficulty, ¡°Perhaps... supernatural objects should not be viewed through the lens of ordinary rules. Some supernatural objects recognize their owners. Poke yourself with it, maybe it won¡¯t hurt you.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Was his teacher being serious? The thing was so sharp! What if it <i>could</i> hurt him and poked him to death?

    Fine. Just a light poke shouldn¡¯t result in anything major, right? His teacher¡¯s words could be trusted. Who could he trust if not his teacher?

    ......

    Secondster.

    Li Hao looked at his arm dripping with blood and then at his teacher. He had no idea what to say.

    ¡°Um...¡± An awkward expression crept across Yuan Shuo¡¯s face and he looked around, conflicted. ¡°It might hurt you because it hasn¡¯t fully epted you as its master yet. It¡¯ll be fine in the future. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll fashion a scabbard for you when we go back and you can carry it around as a dagger.¡±

    <i>I¡¯ve got nothing else.</i>

    Yuan Shuo looked at the stone de close at hand and slightly rejoiced that it was a curved de made of stone. It wouldn¡¯t hurt him like the sword even if it was unsealed in the future, right?

    Li Hao said nothing more and wiped down his arm. It was just a flesh wound, no big deal! Teacher was right 99% of the time. This was the 1% when he was wrong, so Li Hao shouldn¡¯t form the habit of questioning his teacher. He really shouldn¡¯t, really!

    Despite that, Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but say, ¡°Teacher, can you think before speaking next time something involves self harm?¡±

    <i>I still really trust you, so don¡¯t abuse your creditworthiness like this! It¡¯ll make me doubt your omnipotence.</i>

    ¡°You little brat!¡± Yuan Shuo cursed. <i>Who you talking to like that? It¡¯s just a little poke! Your mouthful of blood almost killed me just now, did I say anything?</i> ¡°That¡¯s enough of this nonsense. You absorbed some of the blood pearl earlier, didn¡¯t you? What are you doing now? Don¡¯t waste it!¡±

    Alright, that drove everything else out of Li Hao¡¯s mind. <i>Digest energy!</i>

    He operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles¡ªsword energy from the void seemed to surge in faster than before. Yuan Shuo sensed it as well; his eyes lit up. The seal loosening over Steris seemed to be having a great effect! They gathered sword energy faster than before!

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s injuries were much better and the mental energy that he¡¯d consumed for the Incantation of the de of Blood was greatly restored. A red pill appeared in his hand¡ªthe Sr level blood pearl. It was stronger than the scarlet shadow that Li Haost killed.

    The professor hadn¡¯t formed many reflections about Dominator of Thousands after setting foot in this level. He wasn¡¯t even sure how to differentiate the various Dominator stages. From that, it was apparent that he¡¯d been talking out of the side of his mouth when he imed to be peak Dominator. He didn¡¯t even know the various stages of this cultivation level and what their characteristics were, so how could he identify which stage he was at?

    However, Yuan Shuo was truly on the Dominator path and progressed rapidly at a tremendous pace. It had to do with how much he¡¯d umted before and also the scarlet shadow, sword and de energy.

    He started daydreaming as he looked at the red pill in his hand. <i>Can I possibly soar above Dominator after I eat this?</i> Martial dao did not record any cultivation levels above Dominator. <i>What¡¯s above it?</i>

    <i>Supernaturals are all trash. They go from Sunre to Sr and then what, Super Sun? Theyck culture! </i>Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes and debated if he should name the realm above Dominator. He couldn¡¯t just keep calling it ¡°above Dominator¡±.

    ¡°yer of Tens, Sunderer of Hundreds, Dominator of Thousands...¡± Yuan Shuo sank into deep thought before brightening, ¡°yer, Sunderer, Dominator... what about Vanquisher of Ten Thousands?¡±

    One person quelling ten thousands, how about it?

    Lofty sentiments lifted his heart as he thought about it. An army of ten thousand was regarded as arge army in ancient times. Those who liked to boast would upgrade an army of ten thousand to one of eighty thousand. Such an army reduced opponents to gibbering messes through sheer killing intent alone. But martial masters at that level could stand against ten thousand by themselves!

    One suppressing ten thousand!

    ¡°Not bad, I think that works...¡± Yuan Shuo was satisfied with his naming acumen. When might he set foot into such an august level? Would any qualitative changes ur?

    That was a thought for another day. He swallowed the red pill without further contemtion. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles enabled him to instantaneously absorb the massive power and swiftly digest it. He was starving as he¡¯d exhausted his internal force in the battle with Qiao Feilong and resided in a hollow state since. With sustenance from the red pill, he felt that he could battle a Sr again.

    <i>I really want to find another Sr to fight!</i>

    Too bad Hao Lianchuan was gone or he would¡¯ve found an excuse to spar with the man. Going a few rounds with a vastly experienced Sr might enhance understanding of his own strength. Qiao Feilong was a blockhead, Brokensky had fallen to an ambush¡ªYuan Shuo had never directly fought a veteran Sr.

    The professor waded through his fantasies with delight.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao was also absorbing the scarlet shadow¡¯s strength and daydreaming of breaking through tote Sunderer. <i>If I can, I¡¯ll count as peak Sunderer because I¡¯ve grasped a rudimentary aura. Peak Sunderer... what day of the month is it?</i>

    <i>The second!</i>

    <i>When did I be yer of Tens?</i>

    <i>...mid ofst month. Ah, so it hasn¡¯t even been a month.</i> Li Hao was in high spirits and had shoved the memory of that stroke deep into the bottom of his heart. He did notpare himself to that figure. Some people loved topare themselves to others too far ahead of them and grew more despondent the more they dwelled on it. They crushed their own confidence in the end. Not him, however. He wouldn¡¯t follow in their footsteps.

    His goal was currently Liu Long. His next goal might be his teacher. The swordsman in the eight trigrams might not be his goal for the next ten years¡ªthey were too harrowing.

    Teacher and disciple quieted down once more, a different quiet from before. They swiftly absorbed the billowing scared shadow energy, some of which gradually drifted outward. Yuan Shuo¡¯s heart suddenly quailed, as did Li Hao¡¯s. He reacted a tiny bit slower than his teacher.

    Yuan Shuo grabbed his student¡¯s head before the young man opened his eyes. Yes, his head, and dragged him out through the karst cave. A massive explosion shook where they¡¯d been sitting the moment they left!

    Powerful force ripped through where they¡¯d been. Several dozen meters away, Yuan Shuo roared like a massive bear and flung Li Hao away. The young man mmed into the rock wall and almost vomited blood; his bones felt like they would break.

    Yuan Shuo erupted with the aura of the Five Styles. The mental forms of tiger, bear, deer, ape, and bird red in unison and became one, crashing into a ferocious force. He went flying with a loud bam and hovered in the air, spewing out mouthfuls of blood. A nk look entered Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes as he thought...<i> I need a blood bag.</i>

    He¡¯d thrown up too much blood over the past two days, a pitiful state that hadn¡¯t caught him even when he fought Srs. Li Hao had just ripped through him and now the energy did so once more. Who knew how much blood he¡¯d lost?

    ¡°Teacher...¡± Li Hao gasped with shock.

    ¡°Cough cough cough!¡± Yuan Shuo looked into the distance as he crashed into the ground, the look in his eyes changing. ¡°I¡¯m not dead!¡±

    Li Hao quickly ran over to help his teacher up. Various expressions flickering through his face, Yuan Shuo panted for a while.

    ¡°Red Moon!¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°Red Moon might have something to do with the eight families... They created the scarlet shadows and sword energy can neutralize that energy. But once ites in contact with the mixture of the eight energies, it elicits a violent conflict that results in an energy explosion.¡±

    The seepage of scarlet shadow energy had melded with that of the eight families and caused a gigantic detonation. It¡¯d almost blown up a Dominator! How horrific.

    Li Hao blinked. ¡°Do you mean that the power of the eight families and the scarlet shadow are inherently opposed to each other?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s very possible!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded and spat out another mouthful of blood. ¡°This is good!¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Had his teacher lost too much bloodtely and gone insane? How was being blown up like this a good thing? Li Hao brightened as he thought of something the next second. ¡°Yes, this is good!¡±

    ¡°You think so too?¡± Yuan Shuo looked at his student with surprise.

    Li Hao bobbed his head rapidly. ¡°Teacher, we should collect the eight energies! And then get some scarlet shadow power to create a super bomb! If it can send even you flying, it¡¯ll blow right through a Sr!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    The young man looked raptly at Yuan Shuo. ¡°Teacher, you think so too right, which is why you think this is good?¡±

 Chapter 166: Breaking Through (II)

    <h4>Chapter 166: Breaking Through (II)</h4>

    ¡°......¡± Yuan Shuo looked silently at his student. <i>No, that¡¯s not it. My mind doesn¡¯t work as fast as yours and nowhere am I that ckhearted. Kid, I''m really curious what your heart looks like!</i>

    The professor said the interaction between the scarlet shadow energy and eight families was good because they could lure Red Moon powerhouses to this ruin in the future, break their scarlet shadow, and possibly create a very unique situation. Red Moon members would be blown up by themselves.

    Fine, that was essentially the same thing. He just hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would pursue that line of thinking and think of transporting energy out to proactively use as a bomb!

    Teacher and disciple shared simr thoughts, but Yuan Shuo felt that he was much more benevolent than the kid. He just wanted to lure people in, but Li Hao wanted to go on the offensive. The kid was seriouslybative!

    Yuan Shuo said nothing further and simply frowned. ¡°This energy will likely be hard to collect!¡±

    It was a mixture of eight energies and not much exuded. Most of what they could collect was sword and de energy. It might have something to do with the two weapons physically being on site.

    The Qiaos had probably been collecting this energy all along, but found it difficult to amass as well. The ice crystals were unlikely to be effective¡ªQiao Feilong would¡¯ve stockpiled mass quantities of energy otherwise.

    Li Hao nodded and dropped the subject. ¡°Teacher, let¡¯s go out and finish digesting the scarlet shadow energy or we might be blown up any time. That would be a huge loss.¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, that¡¯s true!¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s mirth faded into sorrow as heughed. Damn it, he was so unlucky today! He was a right and proper Dominator, but had almost died on two asions. This lousy ruin was too dangerous, it felt more perilous than the one the Night Watchers had found. While it looked like there was nothing here, it would easily turn into his grave in a moment of carelessness.

    Teacher and disciple didn¡¯t dare train further on site. Yuan Shuo picked up sword and de, carefully following his student out to finish digesting the scarlet shadow energy. Otherwise, if they identally utilized this strength and it spread into the surroundings again, they would meet their doom here tonight.

    Both weapons seemed to have absorbed a great deal of energy, so there should be enough for their purposes for now.

    ......

    The two left the hall and returned to the karst cave. When Li Hao passed by the relief, he looked at it for an extra moment.

    ¡°Teacher, the person I saw could be the one in this carving. With the sword on his back, it¡¯s obvious from a quick nce that he¡¯s a stunning powerhouse.¡±

    ¡°Stop looking at him, there¡¯s no point. He¡¯s too far removed from us.¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°We need to work hard so that one day, you and I can set foot on this path as well. Remember, this is not an obstacle to your training, but motivation for progress!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    Teacher and disciple encouraged each other for a bit before returning to absorb scarlet shadow energy in the karst cave. Li Hao could sense internal force forming in his head. It was a very peculiar sensation, somehow slightly numbing like a dog was licking it.

    <i>Wait, this isn¡¯t a feeling.</i>

    Li Hao was struck speechless when he opened his eyes. <i>Panth? The fuck?? How did the dog get in here?</i>

    He hadn¡¯t brought the little ck dog when he and Yuan Shuo set out this evening, how did it find this ce? And it really was licking him!

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther looked tearily at Li Hao, as if saying<i> how could you bear to leave this doggy behind?</i> It¡¯d sniffed the wonderful fragrance of energy, so it¡¯d run furiously through the night. It was almostpletely exhausted by the time it found this ce. This had been a lot to ask of it!

    Yuan Shuo also opened his eyes and was jarred intoughter when he saw Panther. ¡°The dog¡¯s got some skill to follow us through dozens of kilometers! I underestimated you, huh? I thought that it wasn¡¯t a good idea to let you grow stronger since you¡¯re bing more than a dog, but look at you chasing after us anyway.¡±

    He¡¯d left Panther behind on purpose. It wasn¡¯t a bad thing for Li Hao¡¯s dog to grow stronger, but a dog was a different species in the end. There were stories from the central region that monster spirits had eaten Srs with one gulp. That was horrifically frightful. This dog knew too much, so what if it turned on Li Hao in the end?

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther barked fawningly.

    ¡°This is part of your destiny since you¡¯vee!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Looks like I won¡¯t be getting rid of you anytime soon! Absorb as much of the energy that leaks out, I won¡¯t purposefully give any to you.¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther was satisfied. It didn¡¯t care that it was getting scraps¡ªjust scraps were enough.

    Li Hao closed his eyes and continued digesting the scarlet shadow¡¯s power. Some energy leaked out from teacher and disciple in the process, or the explosion from earlier wouldn¡¯t have urred. The young man once more felt a numbing sensation on his head, but it wasn¡¯t from a dog licking him. It was the true cirction of internal force that was affecting his head.

    A gaze that crackled with electricity! Li Hao understood the saying when he opened his eyes. Internal force exploded around his eyes, making it seem like electricity ran through them.

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t need to open his eyes to sense what was taking ce. ¡°It¡¯s very dangerous when internal force enters the head inte Sunderer!¡± he whispered. ¡°Of course, this danger is only rtively speaking. Everything will be fine if you don¡¯t take any foolish action...¡±

    He suddenly cursed and opened his eyes. ¡°Stop! Are you daft?? Aren¡¯t you afraid of going blind by directing internal force into your eyes?¡±

    ¡°Aren¡¯t we supposed to project it out of us?¡± Li Hao asked with bafflement.

    ¡°You idiot!¡± Yuan Shuo cursed again then sighed, ¡°Alright, I forgot to remind you because you improve so quickly that you advance before I¡¯m done talking. I don¡¯t even have enough time to teach you.

    ¡°The eyes are very weak. Although internal force is gentle and not as domineering as mysterious power, you¡¯ll go blind all the same if it injures the eyeballs. Everything in due time. Internal force needs to first nurture other tissues, then follow internal systems to gradually meld with the eyes. It is a sign of you having reachedte stage Sunderer after it flows into the eyes. Don¡¯t be in a rush, take it one step at a time...¡±

    Li Hao shoved internal force into his nose as soon as the professor stopped talking and gave himself a violent nosebleed.

    ¡°You focus too much on instant sess!¡± Yuan Shuo frowned.

    ¡°Teacher speaks truly, but I wasn¡¯t brashly forging onward.¡± Li Hao¡¯s nosebleed was so severe that tears streamed out of his eyes. ¡°My thinking is that I possess sword energy that heals any injury so long as it is one that can be recovered from. In that case, I can be appropriately bold. Teacher, it would be a waste of this blood pearl if I don¡¯t digest it all today. Who knows when we¡¯ll nexte across a Sunre level one?

    ¡°I can¡¯t always live under teacher¡¯s protection, you have your matters to attend to as well. As teacher¡¯s final disciple, I should be rebuffing teacher¡¯s various enemies in ordance with tradition. Take Red Moon, for instance. Custom dictates that I should be in the field since they have trodden on our threshold. I should either kill or cripple them, not hide behind teacher and enjoy days of peace!¡±

    The young man shed a bashful smile. ¡°¡®Teacher, do you think my words are right?¡±

    Yuan Shuo suddenly didn¡¯t know what to say. <i>A final disciple... I epted you not to bolster my side against strong enemies. I just wanted you to inherit my knowledge.</i>

    This changed the moment Li Hao set foot onto the path of martial dao. He became Yuan Shuo¡¯s martial disciple!

    The professor remained silent for a while before shing a smile. ¡°That¡¯s right! You are very simr to when I was young. I was just like you when I was a kid, then idled my time away in my middle age. I grew despondent with the rise of the supernatural, so I rather hope that you are always this sessful!¡±

    With that, he no longer curtailed Li Hao¡¯s drastic impetus. Perhaps the young man was right. Yuan Shuo could not protect him forever, he needed to shoulder certain responsibilities himself and grow.

    Blood continued to flow out of Li Hao¡¯s nose. He¡¯d been very bold and decisive. Of course, this was built on the foundation of sword energy. Otherwise, such a violent impact of energy would lead to severe consequences. On the whole, martial dao was a process of following proper order and advancing gradually.

    <i>Nose, ear, mouth...</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s internal force began erupting in certain ces. His inexperience shone through his first time wielding such power and his internal force rampaged so ferociously that his soft tongue also seeped blood. It hurt the first time and was an ordinary urrence the next.

    Yuan Shuo watched silently as he digested the scarlet shadow¡¯s power. The more he assessed his student, the more satisfied he was. Low profile, intelligent, bold, ruthless, and sinister... These were just his own thoughts as he would still say to others that Li Hao was very kind.

    As a martial master, how could one not be treacherous? They had to be sinister and cunning, even vicious! Unassuming sweet souls died quite early.

    A gaseousyer slowly enveloped Li Hao¡¯s face¡ªa sign of internal force about toplete projection from the body. Internal force formed a unique defensive system once it could be projected from the entire body. Martial masters were able to avoid certain ambushes at that stage and attacks couldmence from any part of the body. Any body part could be a lethal weapon.

    ¡°Hhnnn...¡± Li Hao grunted softly as he couldn¡¯t withstand the enormous pain. Even his tears were blood-red. He furrowed his brows and clenched his teeth against the pain. ¡°Teacher, the eyes are too fragile. I¡¯m not afraid of death, but I am afraid of going blind. Is there a way to avoid that?¡±

    ¡°So you¡¯re also afraid at times too, ya little punk?¡± Yuan Shuo snorted, but quickly smiled. ¡°I told you to study literature, but you wanted to practice martial dao! And it¡¯s one thing if you train, but can¡¯t you read a few more books? I already told you to utilize your own body system to strengthen the eyes!

    ¡°Your tear nds are located in the bone over your eye socket. Do you know what tear nds are?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re used for tears!¡±

    ¡°So you already know!¡± Yuan Shuo finally found a way tofort himself. ¡°Cry some and send the power of the scarlet shadow into your tear nds. The same goes for your internal force, don¡¯t pressure it into your eyes. That¡¯s too dangerous. Just cry, cry as much as you can without fear of wasting your tears. Each tear is a strengthening!¡±

    <i>Cry?</i> Li Hao thought of something. ¡°Can Li Meng¡¯s third eye be strengthened in the same way?¡±

    ¡°Yes, but that girl is careless and impetuous¡ªshe cannot be taught. If I teach her, you might see a person with a blind third eye tomorrow morning.¡±

 Chapter 167: Breaking Through (III)

    <h4>Chapter 167: Breaking Through (III)</h4>

    Teacher and disciple couldn¡¯t help butugh.

    ¡°It¡¯s better for Li Meng to take things slow and incrementally improve her strength,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°I also don¡¯t rmend your current course of action, by the way. I¡¯m afraid you won¡¯t be able to cry in the future if you produce too many tears now.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no scientific basis for that, teacher. There is no finite amount of tears, the body continuously produces them...¡±

    ¡°You lil bastard!¡± Yuan Shuo cursed with a smile. <i>Do you think I don¡¯t know? I¡¯m just making a joke.</i>

    Li Hao took his teacher¡¯s advice and slowly soaked his tear nds with internal force. It was safer than directly incorporating it into his eyes, but still dangerous nheless. For those who walked the path of martial dao, however, a bit of danger was mandatory. Even if he ended up ruining his tear nds, he just wouldn¡¯t be able to cry in the future.

    Bloody tears welled up in his eyes, a particrly horrifying sight!

    Yuan Shuo cocked his head and silently watched his student. <i>However much blood you shed today is however much you gain. Li Hao, I hope you understand that the best teacher and most abundant energy is still less than internal strength. And you... are much stronger than I anticipated.</i>

    A true powerhouse was never strong on the outside, he was strong when it came to cultivation level. Did those so-called Srs and above necessarily possess the heart of a powerhouse?

    The professor thought through a great deal in this moment. He hadn¡¯t thought that the normally unassuming and polite Li Hao would be able to endure this kind of suffering and pain.

    When the young man¡¯s vision was blurry from tears, Yuan Shuo gently broke the silence. ¡°Have you decided what path you¡¯ll take in the future?¡±

    ¡°I have.¡± Li Hao smiled through his tears. ¡°My first major goal is that Red Moon must be toppled! My second is to understand what the eight trigrams are. I want to see whatever and whoever¡¯s inside. My third is that I want to provide for my elderly teacher and make sure you receive a fitting sendoff...¡±

    <i>The fuck?? </i>Yuan Shuo nearly erupted out loud. <i>Who are you cursing to die?!</i>

    ¡°Forget about the third, I can live to at least one hundred after setting foot into Dominator. Send me off after you live to that age. I even want to find a wife for you to respect!¡±

    ¡°...cough! Cough cough cough!¡± Li Hao nearly choked on his spit. <i>Hey, I mean what I say! A final disciple is supposed to care for their master in theirst days and take care of the final arrangements. Isn¡¯t that what I¡¯m supposed to do?</i>

    Teacher and disciple chatted andughed, distracting Li Hao from his pain. The young man knew that his teacher was teasing him on purpose to help him forget the suffering from training. He wouldn¡¯t breathe a word of his anguish, he would just remember it. He would remember that Red Moon brought him this kind of pain. Yes, Red Moon. He would remember it with every fiber of his being!

    After an indeterminate period of time, Li Hao¡¯s tears finally stopped flowing when the scarlet shadow¡¯s power was almost exhausted. He was almost out of tears as it were¡ªhe was severely dehydrated. His tongue and lips were dry to the point of cracking, but his high spirits could not be denied.

    Everything seemed to be brighter in front of him. He¡¯d recovered his previous eyesight and could see further and brighter than before!

    He closed his eyes, then shot out a ray of killing intent when he opened them. It wasn¡¯t the kind that he¡¯d sensed earlier, but a tangible ray of killing intent resulting from internal force!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Internal force oscited through the surroundings and hit Panther. The little ck dog turned around to look at Li Hao and wagged its tail. It didn¡¯t hurt and was actually slightlyfortable, like a massage. It felt good! <i>What¡¯s up?</i>

    ¡°This is enough, even if we don¡¯t obtain anything else tonight!¡± Yuan Shuo shed a thankful smile. His injuries were healed and Li Hao had broken through three levels in a row! Thed had gone through mid Sunderer tote Sunderer and could be considered peak Sunderer since he possessed an aura. This was much faster than he¡¯d anticipated; Yuan Shuo was highly gratified.

    ¡°Am Ite Sunderer, teacher?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°My killing intent is so weak that it doesn¡¯t feel like I¡¯ve improved. I sensed something different when I was mid Sunderer...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s different!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°This is only the beginning, what you need to do next is consolidate all of your internal force!¡± The professor debated how to teach the next lesson.

    ¡°Please enlighten me, teacher.¡±

    ¡°Use the consciousness to observe form!¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s voice rang with authority. ¡°This is the prep work for bing a Dominator. Take me, for instance. My consciousness is as if animals and the aura of the Five Styles. You might sometimes feel that I am a tiger or a bear during battle. That is not a delusion, but the manifestation of my consciousness!

    ¡°Liu Long, for example, fashions his after the waves and tidal wave. It is not your imagination either, but an exhibition of his observations.

    ¡°You will undergo the same experience in times toe. However, you will not be as Liu Long and directly set foot into Dominator because you are still a ways away. Though he was yet toprehend the aura before, he¡¯d finished consolidating his internal force and was skilled in his cultivation level. Hecked only the final observation of form.¡±

    Li Hao only seemed to partially understand and quickly asked, ¡°Teacher, do you mean that I need to simte the form of the earth to consolidate my internal force and then break through to Dominator?¡±

    ¡°Not necessarily.¡±

    The young man blinked. <i>Not necessarily?</i>

    ¡°There¡¯s no rule that there must be one kind of aura. For me, the convergence of all five animal auras makes for the Five Styles!¡± Yuan Shuo exined. ¡°Although the key to your advancement may be to understand the aura of the earth, don¡¯t forget that your heritage may be a family of swordsmen! I think it might be more appropriate for you to meditate upon a sword, like the one you just saw! The sword that ys and can sunder heaven, earth, and immortality!

    ¡°Which do you think is stronger, that sword or the earth?¡±

    Li Hao thought deeply for a moment before answering solemnly, ¡°That sword! I think that sword can cut through the earth and annihte anything that stands in its way!¡±

    ¡°And do you think the earth is more powerful at offense or that sword?¡±

    ¡°The sword, of course!¡±

    ¡°Then you have your answer. Observe the sword if you wish to pursue mighty offense. Of course, you can also meditate upon the earth at the same time. The earth can focus on defense while the longsword is adept at offense. That will ensure you possess both defense and offense.¡± The professor disyed an exceedingly high level of knowledge as he shone a light on the way forward.

    ¡°I should not let you be distracted at this point as you¡¯ve already grasped an initial understanding of the aura of earth. You should deepen thatprehension. However, this is a rare opportunity. I did not personally witness that stroke, but I can already tell that its power is limitless. Add to that the fact that you own your family¡¯s sword... I cannot bear to have you forgo this opportunity.¡±

    The gaze in Li Hao¡¯s eyes shifted as he didn¡¯t blindly ept everything his teacher said, but Yuan Shuo did indeed make sense. The particrs of that sword were impossible to imagine. If he could deploy the same stroke, would there be a need to fear Ying Hongyue?

    ¡°Where should I start, teacher?¡±

    ¡°With the sword in your hand!¡± Yuan Shuo pointed at the weapon that Li Hao was keeping enclosed. ¡°You should perceive the treasure first and then consider the might of that sword. Have your internal force slowly converge as one and transform into that sword. Not just internal force, but also your aura!

    ¡°You will have seeded when your aura is like a sword. That will be an initialpletion of all training that should ur at the Sunderer stage. You can gradually fortify what you know as you officially set foot into Dominator.¡± Yuan Shuo gave a detailed overview of the training process from Sunderer to Dominator. He worried that he wouldn¡¯t have a second chance to exin as the little fellow improved too quickly.

    ¡°A sword...¡± Li Hao caressed the small sword in his arms. He was familiar with it.

    Too familiar.

    He¡¯d worn it around his neck for a dozen years and it¡¯d always been with him. He didn¡¯t even need to look at it to know what it looked like.

    <i>Perceive it?</i> What was to perceive? inly not its shape. Teacher wanted him to sense the killing qi of the sword, its strength, its attacks. But this one... wasn¡¯t a threat at all.

    The little sword stirred in his hands as his thoughts flitted from idea to idea. A thought struck the young man and he abruptly gripped the sword, blossoming with internal force and thinking back to the scene of the other sword.

    To sever heaven and earth!

    A mighty sword stroke!

    <i>Hummm!</i>

    The short sword seemed to cut through the void and faint sword qi hung in the air. Panther was long out of sight before the strokended, while Yuan Shuo watched with bright eyes. He knew that his student could do it! And this was just the beginning.

    Li Hao burst forth with different might each time he swung the sword. The little sword was only the length of a pair of chopsticks, but deployed longer sword light each time Li Hao shed with it. This was the effect of internal force melding with the sword.

    Once, twice, thrice...

    Stroke after stroke followed as Li Hao envisioned the scene he¡¯d seen in the eight trigrams. Not only had he not forgotten the blow, but it was growing clearer in his mind¡¯s eye.

    <i>ng!</i>

    The little sword rang happily and trembled, emitting a metallic hum. Inspiration struck Li Hao and he turned the sword on his teacher. Experience was the best mentor!

    Yuan Shuo smiled and rose, answering with a punch from a prowling tiger.

    Teacher and disciple exchanged a furious flurry of blows in the karst cave. Yuan Shuo avoided meeting the weapon head-on as it was too keen. Although he had many ways to eliminate Li Hao, being too brutal was out of the question as this was an exercise in feeding moves to his disciple. A teacher skilled at imparting knowledge could draw a student¡¯s strengths out of them, not stymie them with no ce to showcase themselves.

    ¡°The sword is the gentleman of all weapons. This is not meant for you to be a gentleman, but that you must be quick and ruthless with a sword. Your opponent does not suffer if you kill with one stroke¡ªthey die in a quick and straightforward manner. That is the manner of a gentleman...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped and he almost faltered in his movements!<i> Teacher, don¡¯t misguide your student! Is that really how one interprets the meaning behind ¡°gentleman of all weapons¡±? Attacking swiftly, urately, and decisively to kill the enemy with one stroke so they feel no pain... And isn¡¯t the saying to be the lord of all weapons?</i>

    Yuan Shuo sent him flying with a punch and frowned. ¡°It¡¯s just an analogy. The point to focus on is that you must be swift, urate, and unrelenting! You need to hit their critical points with one stroke and kill them after one blow! That¡¯s how you can understand it. Not inflicting unnecessary pain on your enemies is also the hallmark of a gentleman, do you understand?

    ¡°So just think of it in that way. Your goal now is to kill me with one stroke, so bring up your speed!¡±

    Li Hao moved faster without a word, soundlessly stabbing forward with speed, uracy, and ruthlessness! Every stroke targeted Yuan Shuo¡¯s vital points, his internal force projected out of his body and sword qi erupted. The short sword that measured the length of a chopstick zed with sword light a meter long.

 Chapter 168: Breaking Through (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 168: Breaking Through (IV)</h4>

    As teacher and disciple sparred over an unknown period of time, Li Hao grew faster and steadier in his movements.

    <i>Kill!</i>

    There was no need to worry about his teacher¡¯s safety as he couldn¡¯t possibly harm his teacher. The memory of that stroke reverberated in his mind, as well as the swordsman who¡¯d dered that he would tear heaven and earth asunder. As for the Divine Brokensky that his teacher had killed before... that guy was less than shit!

    Internal force abruptly erupted from the young man as he lived the stroke again and a faint sword intent blossomed from his body.

    <i>sh!</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s speed was unparalleled and he cut through the air with a hum. Yuan Shuo pushed the sword away with his palm, but the sword light grazed his hand. The young man immediately halted his movements and looked at his teacher¡¯s palm.

    It was slightly wounded; the injury was part of the previous bloody hole.

    Yuan Shuo also stopped and looked at his hand, then at his student. He smiled with an incline of his head. ¡°You haven¡¯t fully seeded, but you¡¯ve greatly improved. If you continue onward, you¡¯ll be a true peak Sunderer before long!¡±

    Li Hao beamed radiantly. <i>Worth!</i> Tonight was so worth!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go, we¡¯ve pretty much fully digested the scarlet shadow energy. Let¡¯s see if we can open the stone door. If not, we¡¯ll have the sword and de absorb more energy,¡± chuckled Yuan Shuo. He didn¡¯t have much hope for opening the stone door as he had a hunch that all eight weapons needed to be present to manage that. Qiao Feilong had tried and failed for so many years, so brute force was inly not the answer.

    ......

    Teacher and disciple returned to the great hall. The stone door stood unmoving at the end. Li Hao approached the indentation with his sword, Yuan Shuo with the de. When the young man ced the little sword into the hollow, he felt that it wasn¡¯t a good match. Neither did the stone de fit.

    Yuan Shuo closely studied the indentation for a while and suddenly smiled. ¡°How interesting!¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°<i>Qian kun zhen xun, li kan gen dui</i>,¡± Yuan Shuo softly recited the eight trigrams. ¡°The sword of the Lis, de of the Zhangs, fists of the Zhaos, footwork of the Lius, the big turtle kept by the Wangs...

    ¡°We are in the <i>li</i> fire position. Qiao Feilong and his people all received the power of fire, so there must be a weapon among the eight that corresponds to fire! ording to the folk song, it¡¯s likely to be the turtle shell of the Wangs... But a turtle shell sounds like a defensive treasure and is most likely attributed with earth...¡±

    Yuan Shuo frowned. ¡°Or is it that the turtle shell is a fire supernatural object?¡±

    If it wasn¡¯t the turtle shell, was it the mallet of the Hongs or the spear of the Zhous? The professor looked intently at the indentation again.

    ¡°Li Hao, what do you think this hollow looks like? A turtle shell or a mallet?¡±

    It was rounded, which meant it had to be a turtle shell or a mallet. It didn¡¯t look like the outline of a spear.

    ¡°A... mallet?¡± Li Hao bent his nose to it as well. ¡°Teacher, do you mean...¡±

    ¡°There might be eight doors like these out there!¡± A strange look gleamed in Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes. ¡°And they¡¯re all beneath Silver City! Of the eight stone doors, one should be a match for the sword and another for the de. Perhaps all eight of the doors need to be open for us to sessfully ess the ruins.¡±

    Eight doors!

    ¡°There¡¯s <i>eight</i> ces like these?¡± Li Hao gasped with shock.

    ¡°Indeed. I thought there was only one such ruin, but now it looks like that this isn¡¯t the case. Otherwise, the sword and de should fit. They don¡¯t, so that proves this isn¡¯t the only door. The convergence of all eight doors or their simultaneous opening is the key to essing the true ruins of the eight families!

    ¡°I¡¯ll need to study a map of Silver City when we get back and conduct some secret investigations,¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°For now... let¡¯s absorb some energy and get out of here. We can¡¯t open these ruins, but we can seal them away. We cane back when sword energy is exhausted and collect some more. It doesn¡¯t look like much is seeping out.¡±

    ¡°Why don¡¯t I shed some blood, teacher...¡±

    ¡°Hah!¡± Yuan Shuo snorted. ¡°Forget it. Do you think you¡¯re the only heir? You bled earlier¡ªit would¡¯ve reacted if it was going to. This ce is probably going to need all eight weapons to open.¡±

    Eight doors!

    Li Hao suddenly thought of something. ¡°Teacher, can we reap more benefits from the other ces even if we can¡¯t ess them, because the Qiaos haven¡¯t excavated them?¡±

    ¡°Probably!¡± Yuan Shuo smirked. They might be striking it rich soon. They wouldn¡¯t be extremely wealthy, but they¡¯d definitelye into a small fortune. Of course, the caveat was if they could find the other seven doors. Everything was just spection for now.

    ¡°Heh heh...¡± Teacher and disciple cackled. It didn¡¯t matter that they couldn¡¯t open this door. If they could locate the other seven sites, they might have unexpected gains. Even Qiao Feilong could rise to Sr and raise three Sunres. If they found seven more... could they create seven Srs and twenty-one Sunre?

    Hot damn, they¡¯d be able to dere war on the Silver Moon Night Watchers if they wanted to!

    ¡°Hurry up and have your sword absorb energy faster. Let¡¯s get out of here as soon as possible. Too many people have their eyes set on us these days, so I want to seal off this area in case anyone discovers anything.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± Li Hao brought out the small sword and began operating the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Yuan Shuo did the same. They should replenish their weapons before anything else.

    As for departing with the energy mixture... Li Hao didn¡¯t have any good ideas. He needed a medium first¡ªthat couldeter. The energy mixture was a potent killing weapon whenbined with scarlet shadow energy.

    ......

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t take in any more after a long period of time. There didn¡¯t seem to be enough energy left to absorb, what little that wafted out from the door wasn¡¯t sufficient to be drawn in.

    Teacher and disciple decided to call it a day. When Yuan Shuo walked out of the hall with Li Hao, he punched a massive piece of rock down from the wall. The man hauled it up and sealed off the area around the iron door. Just this precaution alone, however, would be insufficient to evade the detection of certain people.

    Yuan Shuo stared at his work and clenched his jaw. ¡°Why don¡¯t we blow up this ce and copse the entire mountain...¡±

    ¡°Teacher, it¡¯s not a good idea to cause too big of a disturbance, right?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true... Forget it, we¡¯ll think of something when we go back or this will be easily exposed. Granted, it¡¯s not like other people will be able to ess it even if they find it.¡±

    The two left without regrets, swiftly departing the karst cave with Panther in tow. Li Hao looked back at thest moment.<i> This ce... will be mine one day. No one can take it from me!</i>

    Whaty behind the door? The swordsman looked to have gone through the door in the relief. Was it this stone door? What a pity that he had no way or strength to explore it.

    <i>Red Moon... they might have six of the other eight weapons. </i>The young man increasingly hated the organization the more he thought about it. <i>Not only do they want to kill me, but they also want to steal my family¡¯s treasures! </i>The eight families were one and with the others gone, the treasures of the eight naturally went to him.

    Red Moon stealing their treasures was actually stealing his!

    When put in these terms, a rage built in Li Hao¡¯s heart. <i>I¡¯ll end you guys sooner orter!</i>

    A resigned Yuan Shuo thought his student was loath to leave like this when he saw the young man gnash his teeth. <i>Why is the kid getting greedy at this time? Isn¡¯t it enough that you set foot into peak Sunderer tonight?</i>

    <i>What an insatiable kid!</i>

    <i>But... I like that!</i>

    ......

    The two humans and dog felt like they¡¯d been gone for an eternity when they exited the mines. It¡¯d only been a short while, but they¡¯d experienced so much, particrly Li Hao. His vision of that scene from an unknown point in time instantly broadened their worldview.

    Hu Hao and Chen Jian were still present outside the mine. They didn¡¯t know that teacher and disciple had immensely improved in just a few hours.

    It was 3am and Hu Hao immediately approached them when he saw the two walk out.

    ¡°Eld¡ªTeacher, the dog barged in earlier. I remembered seeing it with you and Li Hao before, so I didn¡¯t...¡±

    Yuan Shuo waved him off. The dog had found them inside the mine, there was nothing to be conflicted about.

    Panther wagged its tail appeasingly¡ªit was terrified of the older human.

    ¡°You can withdraw from this post,¡± Yuan Shuo said, surprising the two. Hu Hao knew what the ruins entailed, and that a few hours weren¡¯t sufficient to excavate them.

    Yet they were to leave?

    ¡°Teacher Yuan, are we not... exploring them anymore?¡±

    Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°The Qiaos took nearly everything, there¡¯s nothing left. Even if there are a few areas that haven¡¯t been excavated, they¡¯re not ces that we can attempt at the moment. We might be able to in a few years.¡±

    <i>Can¡¯t attempt at the moment? </i>Hu Hao understood. These situations urred from time to time, such as the ruins they were about to explore next. The Night Watchers had been unable to venture deep into them due to inadequate strength and had to set them aside.

    In fact, these situations weremon and also represented that the ruins beneath them were umon. They could tell just how much of the ruins had been emptied from the fact that Qiao Feilong had set foot into Sr. All of the treasures had been digested into their strength.

    ¡°So then we just... leave it, Professor Yuan?¡± Chen Jian scratched his head. ¡°Isn¡¯t that such a pity?¡±

    These were ruins! Unlike supernaturals who¡¯d explored a ruin or two in their lifetime, he¡¯d never encountered one. All he knew was that there were supposedly treasures inside a ruin. But Li Hao and Yuan Shuo had returned empty-handed... It looked like they hadn¡¯t found anything. Wouldn¡¯t it be a huge pity to give up, just like this?

    ¡°Not at all,¡± Li Hao exined softly. ¡°There¡¯s no point in insisting on explorations at this stage. We cane back when we gain enough strength.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m worried about other people finding them...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t be.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°If even my teacher can¡¯t, will others seed, Brother Chen? Of course, it¡¯s another story if someone stronger than Sres. But if that¡¯s the case, we won¡¯t be able to do anything if they just take it from us.¡±

    The young man made sense!

    Both Chen Jian and Hu Hao fell silent. The ruins were Li Hao and Yuan Shuo¡¯s battle spoils. If both of them felt there was no need to continue, then there was no need for the two watchers to say anything else.

    If they didn¡¯t need to guard the spot, then they could retreat.

    ¡°None of us drove, why don¡¯t I fly back with everyone...¡± Hu Hao offered.

    ¡°Forget it, there¡¯s too many of us. That¡¯d be a huge hassle.¡± Yuan Shuo pped his hand. ¡°Just fly back with the fatty. Li Hao and I will run back.¡±

    Flight also consumed mysterious power, Hu Hao would be tired enough flying back with Chen Jian. The fatty was as heavy as teacher and disciplebined.

 Chapter 169: The Entire Team Breaks Through (I)

    <h4>Chapter 169: The Entire Team Breaks Through (I)</h4>

    After a few more pleasantries, Li Hao and Yuan Shuo returned the way they came¡ªby running. They were joined by a little ck dog this time.

    <i>Within the wilderness.</i>

    Two humans and one dog sprinted across thend, the first two leaping and bounding like elk. Li Hao detected another increase in his speed; he was faster than before. <i>Peak Sunderer... </i>and he¡¯d barely set foot into this level! What hecked was a connection between his internal force and aura. Once that was forged, he would shape them into a sword andplete the final consolidation.

    Of course, the end product might not be a sword. He wanted to wield both offensive and defensive capabilities if possible. A sword was fine enough, but it would be just as good to form a link to the earth. The young man wasn¡¯t in a hurry for this step.

    If Li Hao tripped over himself to enter Dominator, he might end up like Liu Long. But if he could build a connection to both sword and earth, then he might turn out like his teacher. The former could only fight initial Sunre, whereas thetter could kill Srs. The gap between the two was enormous!

    A high cultivation level was nice, but that would not be to Li Hao¡¯s liking if it was paired with weak battle strength. He had to attain some sort of midpoint. For example, if he couldn¡¯t kill Srs like his teacher, he should at least be able to fight peak Sunre.

    ......

    Li Hao sensed the power of the earth as he ran. He closed his eyes, not needing vision to guide the way. He relied on tactile feedback and a burgeoning perception.

    Martial masters could call upon their aura when they reached Dominator; it functioned as their eyes. They were able to sense their surroundings even when they closed their eyes. This was what Li Hao needed to practice next. He¡¯d improved so quickly that it caused him to becking in many areas. And what of his Five Styles after he progressed to Dominator?

    The method¡¯s strength would be immensely diminished without its corresponding aura. He would be far less than his teacher, of that there was no doubt. In the same vein, if the Nine Forged Forcecked its aura, it wouldn¡¯t matter if it wasyered nine times.

    <i>Can I utilize Nine Forged Force through the sword?</i> Li Hao wondered as he ran. The Five Styles, aura of the earth, sword intent, and Nine Forged Force. Could all of these methods and secret arts bebined?

    The Five Styles hade about through his teacher¡¯s painstaking efforts before their aura was fullybined. This was one of the reasons why the method was so formidable. Could he try to do the same in the future?

    Too many ideas floated to the fore; they¡¯d made it back to the city at some unknown point in time. Although it was early, there were already denizens out and about. A loud hubbub rose from the marketce and mouthwatering fragrances wafted out from breakfast stalls. The city was alreadying awake at this hour.

    ......

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    Liu Long inclined his head as he listened to Chen Jian¡¯s report. He didn¡¯t ask about the ruins. Since Chen Jian and Hu Hao had returned, that demonstrated that the ruins could not be excavated for the time being. He found it a bit regretful as obtaining treasures from a ruin would strengthen both Yuan Shuo and Li Hao at an opportune time. It would also be a good development for him.

    ¡°Since Elder Yuan says we can set it aside, we set it aside!¡± Liu Long dered and turned to Chen Jian. ¡°Are you sure you don¡¯t want to cross over to the supernatural, that you want to be a Sunderer?¡±

    Chen Jian hesitated, then nodded resolutely. ¡°Yes! I haven¡¯t been able to find the energy that suits me after all this time. I tried absorbing earth energy because I think I¡¯m skilled at defense, but I didn¡¯t seed in crossing over. I¡¯m also worried that being used to defense, I¡¯ll struggle to adjust to suddenly gaining healing powers or something like that.

    ¡°Not to mention, martial masters aren¡¯t weak! Elder Yuan has killed Srs as a Dominator and you have in Sunres. Since there is a future ahead for martial masters, why do I not walk that path?

    ¡°If it turns out that I can¡¯t make it to Dominator, it¡¯s not like I can¡¯t cross over as a Sunderer. I¡¯ll just have to consume more mysterious power.¡± Chen Jian couldn¡¯t help a chuckle. ¡°Chief, we¡¯re obtaining mysterious power more than one hundred times faster than before. If I remain as a yer and can¡¯t participate in the next battle, how will I earn more mysterious power then?¡±

    On a whole, the team was much stronger than before. Only he and Wu Chao were still yers. They felt it was sufficient before, but now realized that if this continued, they would be rendered sooner orter.

    Liu Long inclined his head. ¡°So long as you are willing. Martial masters are not weak at all!¡± He felt this acutely after setting foot into Dominator. ¡°I may not be as strong as Elder Yuan, but I am sure of one thing after fighting those Sunres. Regardless of whether or not they are rookies, supernaturals are in no way superior to martial masters of the Dominator level, no matter their special attributes.¡±

    Martial masters were indeed less than their supernatural counterparts prior to Dominator due to the unique abilities of the supernatural domain. Flight and shifting through earth was possible for thetter. When martial masters encountered such supernaturals, they could only passively suffer beatings. But at the same time, that didn¡¯t mean all Sunderers were less than Darkmoon.

    Chen Jian quickly bobbed his head up and down.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll take the blood pearl, chief. I wonder if I¡¯ll be a real Sunderer afterward...¡±

    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t have an issue.¡± Liu Long had asked a simr question of Wang Ming. ¡°Elder Yuan says you can wait a few days to take the blood pearl. There¡¯s no rush.¡±

    ¡°Oh, alright then!¡± Chen Jian didn¡¯t ask further.

    The meeting was over after a few more simple exchanges. They were used to living in thew enforcement building, a habit that carried over even now. Therefore, meetings in the middle of the night could be held at a drop of a hat.

    ......

    Li Hao was the same as usual, reporting to work on his rundown bike when the work day began. He wasn¡¯t pretending to be poor, but that he really didn¡¯t have a car to drive. His teacher¡¯s car was gone, his own car was wrecked, and the Inspectorate refused to lend him a car. He could only return to using his bike.

    He¡¯d just parked at the Inspectorate front doors when he heard someone calling his name. He could identify them simply through hearing their voice.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± came a slightly feisty voice. A dashing Chen Na grumbled as soon as she saw the young man turn back. ¡°Alright now, you¡¯ve forgotten your old friends after being promoted and given a raise, huh!¡±

    Li Hao smiled to see his old colleague. ¡°When did I ever forget an old friend, Sis Na?¡±

    ¡°Dare you say you haven¡¯t?¡± Chen Na knew a few things as the Night Watchers were no longer a secret in the Inspectorate. They were an open secret after a branch was established in Silver City. She even knew that Li Hao seemed to have been promoted to an executive position in the shadowy organization. But... so what?

    ¡°Didn¡¯t you guys say that you were going to recruit people for your back office? It¡¯s a promotion, raise, and an opportunity to see more of the world. Why didn¡¯t you ask me?¡±

    ¡°ssified Affairs is a leisurely ce...¡±

    ¡°Pfft!¡± Chen Na rolled her eyes and quickly broke out in giggles. ¡°I hear Little Ming is an executive at your department? Captain Liu is inmand while you and Little Ming are his seconds?¡±

    ¡°Sis Na is as well informed as ever.¡± Li Hao smiled and walked inside with the girl. These days, he spent every hour with supernaturals and martial masters. It¡¯d only been a few days since hest saw Chen Na, but suddenly encountering a mundane gave him a different feeling.

    The year he¡¯d spent at ssified Affairs seemed so nice in retrospect. No one worried about finding a girlfriend for him anymore when he reported to work each day. He¡¯d found it annoying before, but now he missed it.

    Humans. Suchplicated creatures.

    The two didn¡¯t work in the same building anymore, so Chen Na only exchanged a few words before they parted ways at a crossroad. She didn¡¯t mean to force Li Hao into promoting her. Li Hao turned for thew enforcement building and headed straight for Liu Yan¡¯s office instead of his.

    ......

    ¡°A rare visitor hase!¡± Liu Yan seemed to have just finished her morning exercises. She was wearing a small vest that perfectly disyed her curvaceous body. The only detail that marred the sight was her slightly charred hands.

    It¡¯d been a day since the previous battle. Li Hao hadn¡¯t been in a hurry to heal Liu Yan due to Hao Lianchuan¡¯s presence and ack of sufficient sword energy. Another key had been Liu Yan¡¯sck of visible pain.

    But now that the young man took a closer look, he could see that her scorched hands seemed to be splitting open. Even some yellowed bone was visible¡ªthis was after Yun Yao had treated Liu Yan.

    inly, the woman¡¯s wounds were not as lighthearted as she made them out to be.

    Li Hao furrowed his brow, then quickly smoothed it out. ¡°Sis, didn¡¯t upstairs reward you with a pill? If you take it now, I¡¯ll use special internal force to help you digest it. Your hands should heal and you might take another step forward into mid Sunderer.¡±

    ¡°Special internal force?¡± Liu Yan curved her lips into a half smile.

    ¡°Yep, my teacher taught me.¡± Li Hao grinned widely. ¡°It¡¯s amazing!¡±

    ¡°How amazing?¡± Liu Yan winked coquettishly.

    Li Hao¡¯s lips ttened wordlessly. As expected, he was no match when it came to discussing these sorts of things with a thirty year old woman. Her hands were almost gone, but she had the mindset to wink at him.

    Liu Yan dropped her teasing and walked toward Li Hao without bothering to change her clothes. ¡°Little Hao Hao, then big sis will have to trouble you to help heal me.¡± She drew close to the young man. ¡°When big sis¡¯ hands are healed, I¡¯ll give you a massage as a reward...¡±

    <i>Oh enough of that! I don¡¯t want any.</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t take her seriously. He gave her a few reminders on how to digest the blood pearl¡¯s energy before he started operating the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. He absorbed a little bit of sword energy to help Liu Yan digest the blood pearl and heal her hands.

    As Hou Xiaochen had refined the blood pearl into a pill, one could digest it without the use of sword energy. However, the rate was slow and efficiency very low, leading to severe waste. A Darkmoon level blood pearl was insufficient to help Liu Yan break through to mid Sunderer because half of it would be wasted. But if paired with sword energy, it would be utilized to the greatest degree possible.

    This was why Yuan Shuo and Li Hao didn¡¯t want people to be in a hurry to take the blood pearls. Every iota of strength they could wring from the pearls would be one iota more. As for sword energy, these people also knew about this kind of energy.

    Li Hao was sometimes quite open-minded. Some secrets had to stay hidden for a reason, but when some others were an open secret, he couldn¡¯t be bothered to continue concealing them. Special internal force was just his way of glossing over the topic.

    Inside the office, Liu Yan¡¯s face flushed red. The scarlet shadow¡¯s energy was quite potent the first time it was absorbed. Her hands healed at a rapid pace, the sensation so numbing and tingling that she couldn¡¯t help but groan.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind it as he¡¯d done the same when he and his teacher first absorbed it. However, he¡¯d forgotten that they were in thew enforcement building and that this was Liu Yan¡¯s office.

 Chapter 170: The Entire Team Breaks Through (II)

    <h4>Chapter 170: The Entire Team Breaks Through (II)</h4>

    <i>Outside the office.</i>

    Wang Ming¡¯s ears were perked up when he happened to casually pass by Liu Yan¡¯s office. Momentster, Hu Hao and Li Meng came down the hallway, deep in discussion with document folders in their hands. They seemed to be working as they passed by.

    Seconds after that, Wu Chao and Chen Jian loitered outside the offices as if they had reports to make. After a while, even Yun Yao walked over wearing her special sses.

    Liu Long in a trench coat rounded out the crew. He joined the group and growled, ¡°Do none of you have work to do?¡±

    Wu Chao winked and waggled his eyebrows, tilting his head at the office. ¡°Chief, your girl¡¯s being stolen! Vice Captain Liu and Li Hao are too much, doing this in broad daylight!¡±

    ¡°Get outta here!¡± Liu Long cursed. Your <i>girl¡¯s being stolen! But he has a point, this is broad daylight... and Li Hao... is really...</i>

    He was too embarrassed to extend his senses into the office.<i> Can¡¯t you two consider the impact of this? Doing it right in the office with everyone listening outside...</i> Liu Long was mortified on their behalf!

    <i>How shameless!</i>

    When Wang Ming passed by again, a gossipy look couldn¡¯t help but dawn in his eyes.

    ¡°Director Liu, is office romance allowed in our department? Does this count as Li Hao abusing his power for personal gain?¡± he asked with a hint of glee.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t know what to say. <i>Are even supernaturals this interested in gossip? All of you have too much spare time on your hands! </i>He suddenly tensed and sprang away.

    The office door opened. Liu Long immediately turned like he¡¯d just arrived and roared, ¡°What are all of you doing here? Do you have nothing to do?¡±

    Li Hao looked wordlessly at the scene. <i>Do you think I didn¡¯t sense that you were also here earlier, chief? </i>Who would¡¯ve thought that the coldly arrogant Captain Liu would know to put on this act as well?

    Still wearing her cropped vest, a flushed Liu Yan poked her head out to look at everyone. She smiled radiantly. ¡°You¡¯re all here, huh?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Ringing silence answered her.

    ¡°Shameless!¡± Yun Yao couldn¡¯t help herself.

    Li Hao was going to give himself a seizure from all his eye rolls. He didn¡¯t bother exining. ¡°Brother Chen, Brother Wu,e in!¡±

    ¡°Us?¡± The two looked at each other with a slightly guilty conscience. <i>What? We didn¡¯t say nothing.</i>

    Wu Chao was the more guilty of the two as he¡¯d said that Li Hao was stealing the chief''s girl. Thed wouldn¡¯t take his anger out on him, would he?

    ¡°Come in! Does the word of a deputy director hold no weight?¡±

    The two hemmed and hawed, highly reluctant to enter the office. They looked pleadingly at Liu Long a few times, but the man remained nomittal like he didn¡¯t see them. He wasn¡¯t going to get involved at all.

    Despair crept into their hearts and the two resigned men entered the office. The door shut with a bang, leaving Wang Ming and the others looking at each other. What was going on?

    Momentster...

    ¡°Ah!¡± The groaning started again. It was Chen Jian¡¯s voice.

    Wang Ming¡¯s eyes shot wide open and he couldn¡¯t help but look at Liu Long, then at Yun Yao. This was astounding! What the heck was this?? Had the Demon Hunters always been this lewd? First Li Hao and Liu Yan, now Chen Jian... Wu Chao was inside as well, would he be moaningter too?

    The look in Liu Long¡¯s eyes changed and he uttered, ¡°They¡¯re training!¡±

    ¡°Oh, okay!¡± Wang Ming quickly nodded. Who the heck would believe that? He¡¯d never groaned like this when he trained, and with that kind of tone! He¡¯d never seen anyone moan like that, who was Liu Long kidding?

    Screaming with agony was more like it!

    Cultivating with mysterious power was a very painful affair; it sometimes felt like endless knives scraping through flesh. Wang Ming often heard anguished wails as mysterious power rampaged through the body, but that was inly noting from the office. It was obviously cries of pleasure!

    <i>Oh heavens!</i>

    What an affront andplete decimation of his values!

    The three supernaturals from White Moon looked at each other. Was this the key to why the Demon Hunters were so united? They subconsciously took a step away from Liu Long and Yun Yao.

    Thetter two were quite resigned by this reaction, but they could more or less determine that those inside really were training. Something else might be afoot when it was just Liu Yan and Li Hao, but after Chen Jian and Wu Chao also entered, they were obviously involved in legitimate affairs.

    Expectation shone out of Liu Long¡¯s eyes when his thoughts turned to the blood pearls... Could Li Hao, or rather, Yuan Shuo, have a way to make it easier to absorb the blood pearls? The ones inside all possessed one, and they were all martial masters!

    Wang Ming¡¯s scalp turned numb at the look in Liu Long¡¯s eyes. Li Meng also sidled up to him and breathed, ¡°Brother Wang, does it look like Director Liu wants to be inside as well?¡±

    Wang Ming nodded his head imperceptibly. It was obvious to see and truly terrifying!

    Liu Long¡¯s ears twitched.<i> Do those two think I can¡¯t hear them? Forget it, I can¡¯t be bothered with them. </i>He continued to wait, highly anticipatory of the results.

    If Wu Chao and Chen Jian broke through as well, then the entire team might be Sunderers after today. They¡¯d only had one a few days ago¡ªhim, and he was now a Dominator!

    As small as the team may be, one Dominator and eight Sunderers or Darkmoons were a formidable force no matter where they went. Silver City¡¯s defensive capabilities would reach a new peak!

    The time spent waiting was quite a torment; Wang Ming and hisrades didn¡¯t leave. They first stayed out of an overabundance to learn more gossip, but they gradually knew that something was amiss as well.

    Wang Ming¡¯s eyes darted around before he looked at Liu Long and lowered his voice, ¡°Director Liu, what are they doing inside?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s our team¡¯s unique training method,¡± Liu Long answered without skipping a beat. ¡°We cultivate in the mostfortable way possible. It¡¯s a secret, exclusive method that will usually help one through a bottleneck! I dare say that both Wu Chao and Chen Jian will be Sunderers this time.¡±

    ¡°How is that possible?¡± Wang Ming started. His thoughts turned to the blood pearl. Although he¡¯d taken one before to good effect, Wu Chao and the others had received simr ones to him. The effects weren¡¯t so swift!

    Not to mention, he hadn¡¯t moaned like this when he digested the blood pearl!

    A blood pearl without the supplement of sword energy wasn¡¯t that agreeable to the cultivator. The effects were middling and one had to endure the eruption of scarlet shadow energy. To be frank, it wasn¡¯t a pleasant experience. Thus, Wang Ming highly suspected Liu Long of lying to him!

    After roughly another hour, the door to the office swung open again. Wu Chao and Chen Jian were both flushed and exceedingly animated. Chen Jian ignored the fact that he was dripping with sweat and excitedly swung his fist. Faint internal force emanated from it.

    ¡°Chief!¡± Chen Jian hollered energetically. ¡°I¡¯m a Sunderer!¡±

    It used to be that people were dejected when they broke through, not sure if they should be happy or regretful. But after Liu Long set foot into Dominator, the team¡¯s craving for the supernatural was greatly extinguished. Breaking through to Sunderer was massive progress!

    Wu Chaoughed spookily. ¡°Me too!¡±

    Behind them, Liu Yan had thrown on an inspector¡¯s uniform that hid her curves. ¡°I¡¯ve also improved slightly.¡± She smiled faintly. ¡°I can project internal force from my four limbs. I¡¯m not yet mid Sunderer, but I¡¯m almost there.¡±

    Wu Chao and Chen Jian could only just begin to project their internal force whereas she¡¯d taken a step forward. Liu Yan was a hair away from mid Sunderer.

    Wang Ming and the others gaped with shock! This was real! All of them had advanced!

    ¡°Does this mean...¡± Hu Hao raised. ¡°That every single Silver City Night Watcher is either a Darkmoon or Sunderer?¡±

    ¡°Li Hao...¡± Wang Ming wanted to say that Li Hao wasn¡¯t when the young man interrupted him bashfully.

    ¡°Ole Wang, I advancedst night too.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Silence.

    Wang Ming¡¯s eyes shot wide open and he looked at Liu Long and the others, too bbergasted for words. ¡°The entire team... has broken through!¡±

    One Dominator, eight Darkmoons or Sunderers. This level of strength outstripped the other Night Watcher branches and ced Silver City second to only White Moon and re City! re City was the secondrgest city of the province. It had several Sunres and more than a dozen Darkmoon in residence, making it stronger than Silver City.

    Other cities that boasted of Night Watcher branches typically had one Sunre, a few Darkmoons, and several Starlight. Some weaker ones didn¡¯t even have a Sunre.

    Silver City had been the weakest as it was newly established, but it¡¯d vaulted to number three within the province in the blink of an eye. If they counted Yuan Shuo who was out of the system... that gave them a fighting chance with headquarters!

    ¡°I need a moment...¡± Wang Ming found it difficult to ept what he saw. ¡°But this is impossible! I know about blood pearls and that they¡¯re very useful for martial masters to advance to yer or for yers to continue improving. Their effects shouldn¡¯t be this good, should they?¡±

    These effects were too good!

    ¡°Of course not, but don¡¯t forget who my teacher is,¡± chuckled Li Hao. ¡°A master of martial dao, he naturally brings about different results with the addition of some unique methods. Not only that, but if we can get our hands on more blood pearls, these items may not be as useless to supernaturals either...¡±

    ¡°What?!¡± Wang Ming gasped. ¡°They work for supernaturals too?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Supernaturals absorb mysterious power to strengthen themselves. But if blood pearls arebined with mysterious power and my teacher¡¯s exclusive method, they are effective for supernaturals as well! Brother Wang, for example, is adept with the metal attribute and abilities. If equipped with a blood pearl and a few other things, you¡¯ll absorb metal energy at a faster rate and grow stronger. I think you¡¯ll soon set foot into the Plenilune stage or even Sunre!¡±

    Wang Ming lit up! Did he mean that?

    Li Meng and Hu Hao were also slightly tempted. Hu Hao couldn¡¯t help himself and asked, ¡°Um, I¡¯m... I¡¯m a flight...¡±

    ¡°That has to do with the wind element. You normally absorb wind energy, right?¡±

    Hu Hao nodded. Flight did indeed have to do with the wind; it was a kind of mutation. Not all wind supernaturals could fly.

    ¡°What about me?¡± Li Meng asked urgently. ¡°It¡¯s so hard for my third eye to improve. If I could absorb energy whenever I wished to, I would¡¯ve advanced a long time ago. I can only absorb some unattributed power to strengthen myself, but it¡¯s not a good match for me...¡±

    None of the three supernaturals from White Moon could sit still, not when they watched the martial masters in front of them improve at such a rapid pace. They remained rooted in the same position while the rest of the team advanced. People said that it was hard for martial masters to improve¡ªmuch harder than supernaturals¡ªbut why did they suddenly feel that it was the supernatural that was hard and martial masters had it quite easy?

    ¡°Alright, don¡¯t think so much for now since we¡¯re out of blood pearls,¡± Liu Long brought up. ¡°Both Wu Chao and Chen Jian have made progress today... oh, and Li Hao.¡±

 Chapter 171: The Entire Team Breaks Through (III)

    <h4>Chapter 171: The Entire Team Breaks Through (III)</h4>

    Liu Long knew that Li Hao had advanced a long time ago, but since the kid insisted that he¡¯d done sost night, the director wouldn¡¯t bother to expose his lie.

    ¡°This is wonderful news! Add to that the demise of the Qiaos, Liu Yan having her vengeance... we¡¯ll get the remaining half sooner orter!¡± Liu Long shed a rare grin. ¡°My treat tonight!¡±

    Answering smiles appeared on everyone¡¯s faces. Li Hao wanted to speak when the director continued, ¡°We¡¯ll eat at Li Hao¡¯s and save ourselves the trouble of going out. Remember to order, Li Hao!¡±

    The young man looked on wordlessly. <i>Seriously? And it¡¯s your treat? How is this your treat?? Chief is treating me with less and less respect these days!</i>

    Liu Long walked off merrily; his spirits hadn¡¯t been so high even when he became a Dominator. No one had died in the teamtely and everyone was improving. This was wonderful!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything as he watched the man leave. He walked over to Yun Yao instead. The team doctor seemed to have gotten steadily more depressed after she crossed over as a water supernatural.

    ......

    Yun Yao smiled calmly at the young man. ¡°Congrattions!¡±

    ¡°Sis Yun, can you make your sses smaller?¡± Li Hao brought up the topic of the sses instead of anything else.

    ¡°I¡¯ve been experimentingtely.¡± Yun Yao nodded. ¡°I can shrink them, but some things remain very difficult to see in them. I want to keep adjusting the sses to see if I can bring those into focus.¡±

    ¡°When you¡¯re done, Sis Yun, could I have a pair?¡±

    ¡°You want this?¡±

    Li Hao nodded. He didn¡¯t want them, his teacher wanted them. His teacher nned to hunt Red Moon powerhouses, but he couldn¡¯t see scarlet shadows. He could slightly sense them, but not in a clear sense. If the sses could reveal red dots to him, he could pair that with his perception to immediately identify the scarlet shadows.

    Yun Yao¡¯s sses were exceedingly important. The team wasn¡¯t cing enough importance on them yet. If they were presented to their superiors, especially someone of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s level who was aware of Red Moon, they would highly value the invention. The strength of the scarlet shadowsy in their invisibility. Once everyone could see red dots through the sses, these entities would be rendered much less effective.

    ¡°Sis Yun, if you present your sses to upstairs, I¡¯m afraid...¡±

    Yun Yao interrupted him. ¡°I won¡¯t be doing so in the short term. They haven¡¯t been fine-tuned yet. I know what you¡¯re getting at.¡± She suddenly sniffed disdainfully. ¡°But it¡¯s not certain whether they can be used effectively against Red Moon. It might expose the sses ahead of time instead and tip the organization off.¡±

    Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°You must know that the Night Watchers aren¡¯t a solid whole,¡± Yun Yao said softly. ¡°Things are better in Silver Moon, but the Night Watchers are splintered in other regions. The sses aren¡¯t important in Silver Moon because Red Moon isn¡¯t strong in our province. Where they¡¯ll be truly useful is where Red Moon powerhouses abound, but that¡¯s where the situation is also most chaotic. Little Hao, sometimes it¡¯s not a good thing to just offer up any treasure that youe across. And, are you sure that no one else has a way of discovering those things?¡±

    Li Hao sank into deep contemtion. Was there no other way?

    There was!

    He knew that the Night Watchers had taken away anyone who could see the scarlet shadows. Where had those people gone? Why could they see the shadow?

    He still knew too little of the circumstances. It was rather Yun Yao who knew more than him. Liu Long had mentioned that every one of the Demon Hunters had their own story, but no one pried unless someone volunteered their story. That was how Li Hao knew Liu Yan¡¯s background.

    What story did Yun Yao have?

    ¡°I¡¯ll give you a pair when I¡¯m done optimizing them.¡± Yun Yao didn¡¯t ask too many questions and was perfectly willing to satisfy Li Hao¡¯s request.

    The young man nodded. ¡°Sis Yun, I¡¯ll ask my teacher to help you advance when we get more treasurester...¡±

    ¡°No worries, there¡¯s no rush,¡± Yun Yaoughed softly. ¡°I¡¯m a doctor, it¡¯s fine if I¡¯m weaker.¡±

    Li Hao said nothing more. He wished for the entire team to be strong. Silver City was his home and there were many secrets here. Powerhouses would descend on the city sooner orter, whereas Night Watcher sentiment had not changed. They might still wish to abandon Silver City and defend only therger cities.

    He could discern this from Hao Lianchuan¡¯s desire to explore the ruins at the end of the month. The director prioritized it so heavily that everything else could be set aside. It was in to see that they highly valued the defensive origin weapon. His teacher said that it could be the turtle shell of the Wangs.

    Wasn¡¯t that in Red Moon hands, however? Li Hao was confused. Just how many weapons did the organization possess?

    ......

    Someone flung their arm around his shoulder as the young man contemted the situation. Wang Ming held him warmly and grinning widely. ¡°Li Hao, do you know that we¡¯re fellow junior brothers?¡±

    A wordless Li Hao was jarred out of his musings.<i> I know, I just learned about that yesterday. And technically speaking, I¡¯m your senior brother.</i>

    ¡°Remember to bring me along next time there¡¯s something good to be had! We¡¯re all on the same side here and actually closer than you and the Demon Hunters!¡± Wang Ming pushed hard for the rtionship and his grin turned ever more radiant. ¡°I¡¯m going to see if I can get some blood pearls from White Moon... Can you really help me advance?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say, you¡¯re so strong that one Darkmoon level blood pearl may not be enough.¡±

    Wang Ming creased his forehead. That was true.

    ¡°Then... two?¡±

    ¡°Maybe.¡±

    Wang Ming was wracked by conflict. This would be difficult to pull off. Those items were meant to nurture rookies.

    ¡°Do you know where these things originate from?¡± Li Hao asked softly.

    ¡°I don¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°I do,¡± Li Hao continued gently. "Teacher knows too. He says that they¡¯re a special product that Darkmoon level Red Moon members carry on them. You should¡¯ve felt itst time too, the intangible thing that harmed the director. They are extracted through special methods...¡±

    The look in Wang Ming¡¯s eyes shifted from shock to a bright gleam. Red Moon!

    ¡°Killing one Darkmoons us one to be made into a blood pearl. That¡¯s where the blood pearlse from!¡±

    ¡°Hiss!¡± Wang Ming sucked in a sharp breath and swallowed hard. ¡°Really?¡±

    ¡°One hundred percent. We¡¯re fellow junior brothers, so why would I lie to you?¡±

    ¡°Then... I¡¯ll have a chance to ascend to Plenilune if we kill two of them?¡±

    ¡°Yep, but the precursor to that is that there¡¯s someone to help extract them. Teacher can do it, I can¡¯t. So if you have something in mind, it¡¯s better for you to act with us. Not everyone can draw them out¡ªonly teacher and Director Hou can do so in all of Silver Moon.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Wang Ming gasped with astonishment. ¡°Our teacher really is an absolute savant!¡±

    He suddenly felt that it was well worth being Yuan Shuo¡¯s honorary disciple. Thank goodness for that development!

    The handsome young man suddenly clenched his jaw. ¡°The evil organization that is Red Moon ought to be exterminated! We¡¯ll kill whatever Red Moon member wee across next, no questions asked!¡±

    Li Haoughed. That was more like it. If he had everyone fight Red Moon for him, there might be differences in opinion at the end even if everyone was willing. But if it was for their collective benefit? Shouldn¡¯t it be a foregone conclusion that they should kill Red Moon members?

    That¡¯s what was called a win-win situation!

    ¡°You have a widework to collect more information,¡± Li Hao lowered his voice. ¡°Where might their strongholds and powerhouses be? It¡¯s tough for us in Silver City to gather intel, but you should have your ways in White Moon City.¡±

    ¡°I do!¡± Wang Ming affirmed enthusiastically. ¡°Leave this to me, don¡¯t worry about it. I say, Li Hao, don¡¯t think that I only know how to take advantage of you. I¡¯m a genius in White Moon, after all! That¡¯s part of it, the other part is that my familymands authority and power in the city. I wouldn¡¯t have received sufficient mysterious power to advance so quickly otherwise.

    ¡°Let me put it this way. My family elders do not serve in the Night Watchers because we are primarily rooted in the Silver Moon army. Li Hao, I won¡¯t speak to you like I would an outsider because we¡¯re fellow junior brothers. When you arrive in White Moon City in the future, you¡¯ve got a brother in me who can deploy troops of less than one thousand at any time, to say nothing of anything else!¡±

    ¡°What, is that allowed?¡± Li Hao frowned slightly. ¡°Is White Moon that chaotic?¡±

    Deploying the army for private purposes!

    ¡°All regions are in turmoil with the rise of the supernatural!¡± Wang Ming curled his lip. ¡°What do you think? Silver Moon is in better straits since it at least listens to orders from the central region. But the province is fractured internally. Thankfully, the factions all work together to withstand enemies.

    ¡°I can only mobilize groups of less than one thousand. Anyrger contingents are beyond me.¡±

    That was already impressive enough! Li Hao could imagine that the Wangs must be very powerful and have family members serving as army executives. Wang Ming wouldn¡¯t have the right tomand the troops otherwise.

    ¡°How big of an army is stationed in Silver Moon?¡±

    ¡°Roughly three hundred thousand, it¡¯s not that much. Apart from the Night Watchers, the army, Inspectorate, and city council all have a few supernaturals in their ranks, but the Night Watchers have the most. They have more than the army, which is why they are the government¡¯s only supernatural organization.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, adding more to his general knowledge. This unexpected junior brother of his may actually be of some help in the future. The army may seem feeblepared to supernaturals, but that was under the guise of few people. When numbers swelled and everyone was equipped with a gun, plus a fewrge scale weapons, even Srs might die when the two sides met in the while and artillery pounded the field.

    The two young men chatted for a while, with Li Meng joining not too long after. The White Moon supernaturals would never bring up the matter of being honorary disciples in the past, but now they wanted nothing more than for the entire world to know that they were one family.

    Li Hao suppressed hisughter. He hadn¡¯t asked his teacher why he¡¯d taken honorary disciples; it went without saying that it must have been an amusing process. His teacher might¡¯ve forced them to acknowledge him as their teacher¡ªthat was highly likely.

    The entirew enforcement building was filled with joy this day. Those who broke through exulted and those who didn¡¯t saw the light of hope. All of them were highly agitated and burned to eliminate Red Moon right this very second.

 Chapter 172: Going or Not? (I)

    <h4>Chapter 172: Going or Not? (I)</h4>

    Peace returned to Silver City once more.

    The Night Watchers focused on training diligently after they broke through. As they weren¡¯t short on mysterious power, everyone¡¯s goal was to further consolidate their cultivation. Even the swiftly progressing Li Hao had room for improvement. There was much of his teacher¡¯s power of the five elements that he¡¯d yet to utilize.

    Although he wouldn¡¯t advance again in the short term, he could focus on strengthening his organs. That would prove very useful to him after he became a Dominator.

    ......

    While Silver City fell silent, all was not calm in the outside world. A massive canyon could be found to the south of Silver City, roughly one thousand kilometers away. Locals gave it the name Rift Canyon twenty years ago as it split the province into two.

    With Rift Canyon as the marker, Silver Moon was divided into a northern and southern section. Silver City was to the north, White Moon City to the south. The province name was taken from the two major cities in the north and south back in the day, with Silver City in front.

    One had to cross Rift Canyon to travel from White Moon City to Silver City. It was inessible by cars and used to hold a suspension bridge. No one built more bridges after it was damaged. This was why Huang Yun and other powerhouses elected to fly if they needed to travel through Rift Canyon.

    This didn¡¯t mean that mundanes couldn¡¯t pass¡ªthey just needed to follow a winding path into the canyon, traverse it, then follow the path back up. The less straightforward process added a few dozen kilometers to the journey.

    Rift Canyon was exceedingly long and frightfully wide. Though it was called a canyon, it was more like a basin. It spanned more than thirty kilometers at its widest portion; powerhouses didn¡¯t choose to fly through that area either as it was too wide.

    On this day, a few tents marked the usually empty Rift Canyon. They were found to the north of the geological structure. More tents were being erected around the canyon, each of them separate from another. Some were ced close together whereas others were several hundred or thousands of meters apart.

    A dozen tents were erected in the northernmost tip. If Li Hao and the others were here, they¡¯d recognize one of the people milling about. It was the speedy Sunre, Huang Yun.

    The supernatural acted as a supervisor as several Starlight raised tents. He frowned as he watched them work and looked in a certain direction. A figurended from the sky momentster. It was tall, hulking, and appeared more like a demon god. Extremely thick leather boots d their feet; they fractured the earth with a single stomp.

    The Night Watchers assembling tents in the surroundings snapped to solemn attention and quickly gathered together. Huang Yun stepped forward as well.

    ¡°Hu Po, what are you doing here?¡±

    The stocky man swept a slightly dismissive nce over the Night Watcher. ¡°Step aside, we wish to set up camp here!¡± he intoned.

    ¡°Yama¡¯s campgrounds are not here.¡± Huang Yun frowned. ¡°ording to our previous agreement, your territory is three thousand meters in that direction...¡±

    ¡°I will set up camp here today!¡± The man named Hu Po speared Huang Yun with a frosty look. ¡°To put it inly, I want this ce! Its feng shui is good, I like it!¡±

    ¡°Hu Po!¡± An angry expression crossed Huang Yun¡¯s face as fires of fury burned in his heart.

    Hu Po was the resident Yama powerhouse in Silver City. The three great organizations had branches in Silver Moon province as well. Their structure was simr to the Night Watchers, perhaps even stronger.

    There was a Yama court master holding down the fort in Silver Moon. ording to Night Watcher intelligence, the leader of the Yama organization called himself the favored son of Yama¡ªthe Yama King. There were ten court masters below him. The one in Silver Moon was the tenth court master, one who called himself the Revolution King. [1] He was a Sr, and this Hu Po was one of his heavyweights.

    The Revolution King was low ranked in the Yama organization. He was the weakest of the ten court masters, but only rtively speakingpared to the rest of the organization. In Silver Moon, a Sr was heaven.

    This time, the Night Watchers partnered with various major organizations to jointly explore the ruins. As the location site was known ahead of time, these people were here to set up camp in advance and await their main force.

    Hu Po was the Yama powerhouse in charge of their campground. He was a formidable Sunre who might even be slightly stronger than Huang Yun.

    All sides had settled on where everyone would pitch their tents, so it was thest thing on Huang Yun¡¯s mind that Yama would trespass. Hu Po was inly doing this on purpose and not as a brash impulse! This was premeditated; the Night Watcher could even sense some strange gazes in the vicinity paying attention to them. It might be those from other organizations.

    <i>Why is this happening? </i>Huang Yun thought quickly. Did they think the Night Watcher site was better or held certain secrets? Or did they just want to probe the government¡¯s supernatural organization?

    Numerous possibilities shed through his mind, but Huang Yun knew that there was no backing down from this. Once he gave way, the Night Watchers would be caught on the back foot before the expedition evenmenced. Hao Lianchuan would take him to task then!

    ¡°Hu Po!¡± he snapped back. ¡°Is this your intention or the Revolution King¡¯s intention? Or does thise from other Yama powerhouses, or even other supernatural organizations?¡±

    ¡°I already told you, it¡¯s because I like this ce!¡± Hu Po looked coolly at him. ¡°Wind Demon, don¡¯t think you¡¯re on equal footing with me just because you can run fast. You will either step aside or see what true strength is today!¡±

    Huang Yun cursed inwardly, his ire rising.

    ¡°So you wish to challenge me?¡±

    ¡°And what if I do?¡± Hu Po sneered. ¡°I can snap your tiny arms and legs with a quick p. But I won¡¯t kill you, since you¡¯re a Night Watcher. The Night Watchers are so...<i> impressive!¡±</i>

    Huang Yun could sense collective fury behind him and knew that if the situation continued, the general public would be disappointed in the Night Watchers. He cut the talk and coalesced a sword of gale wind in his hand.

    ¡°Hu Po, I will help you along since you insist on courting death. You have been wanted by the Night Watchers ever since youmitted murder in Silver City. We would¡¯ve killed you long ago if it wasn¡¯t for the Revolution King stopping us. You¡¯ve got some nerve toe shooting your mouth off today...¡±

    ¡°Hahaha!!¡± Hu Po threw his head back withughter. ¡°Wanted? The Night Watchers have a wanted notice out for me? I¡¯m so scared, so very very scared!¡±

    He flung a punch at his opponent, one as domineering as Mount Tai! A mountain seemed to descend upon Huang Yun¡ªthe power of earth, and not of the defensive sort. Each ability might map to its origin element, but that didn¡¯t mean there weren¡¯t differences between abilities.

    Earth could defend and attack. Arge mountain bore down on Huang Yun. He shouted and waved a baleful wind into existence, sending it churning through thend.

    Two Sunres thus shed in battle.

    ......

    Off in the distance, people watched the battle. Figures shed in and out of sight on a cliff face, each of them wearing a ghostly face mask. This was the trademark characteristic of Red Moon.

    ¡°Hu Po has improved extremely rapidly since setting foot into Sunre, but the guy¡¯s very cocky.¡±

    ¡°He has a right to be. It¡¯s only been roughly five years since he joined Yama? But he¡¯s already a Sunre and can get the upper hand against a veteran supernatural like Huang Yun. He has the right to be arrogant.¡±

    ¡°I hear that Hu Poes from Silver City?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm. Liu Long of the Silver City Inspectorate¡ªno, Night Watchers now, has an old feud with him. Hu Po seems to have killed his girl¡¯s man...¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, then isn¡¯t he Liu Long¡¯s savior? How is that a feud? Liu Long should pour tea and wine for Hu Po!¡± Several Ghostfacesughed jeeringly. They didn¡¯t have a good impression of Silver City. Divine Brokensky had died there and upstairs bided their time out of consideration for the greater picture. But Red Moon had be a supernatural tyrant starting twenty years ago, how could its members endure such humiliation?

    If it wasn¡¯t for them being strictly forbidden from action and a Yuan Shuo who could kill Srs, these people would¡¯ve long rushed over and razed the city.

    After more ridicule, another Ghostface asked, ¡°Will Hu Po be able to swap out his campground?¡±

    Hu Po¡¯s actions naturally came with a reason¡ªan unspoken ord between the three great organizations. They would not give what the Night Watchers wanted, that was the right and proper order of things.

    Due to ack of knowledge about the ruins, the organizations didn¡¯t know whether the Night Watchers had randomly picked a spot or purposefully chosen their campground. Regardless, they would shatter the Night Watchers¡¯ ns.

    None of the three great organizations were fools. They¡¯d shed with the Night Watchers over these ruins many times. That the agency had abruptly voluntarily given way didn¡¯t necessarily bode well. Perhaps they wanted to use the three great organizations as scouts and cannon fodder.

    This was a possibility that everyone understood, but also felt that there was no reason not to partake in a feast that¡¯d been delivered to their doorstep. Not only did the three great organizations wish to be involved, they wanted all of the mid and small sized organizations in Silver Moon to be a part of it. There was safety in numbers, and it was up to individual strength as to whether or not an organization would have any share of the pickings.

    The battle in the distance intensified as the Ghostfaces spoke. Winds howled and cut through the earth like knives, ringing with metallic collisions when they collided with opposing energy. But it was apparent from the flow of battle that Huang Yun was suppressed. Arge mountain bore down on him, crushing the winds out of existence.

    Even the Ghostfaces were surprised. So it would seem that regr Sunre really couldn¡¯t withstand Hu Po¡¯s Mountain Suppression technique! Huang Yun was a veteran supernatural of more than ten years¡ªthat was a very long tenure in the supernatural domain. His battle experience was rich and varied, yet it was ack of strength that created his losing position.

    ¡°Hu Po disys the style of a martial master...¡± someone raised.

    ¡°That¡¯s normal, he was a martial master in the beginning. As a yer, he was once the captain of a security detail for a Silver City corporation. How would he keep the situation under control if he didn¡¯t have some strength to his name? I have to say, martial masters do indeed possess better physique than ordinary supernaturals after they cross over. Martial masters advanced on the battlefield back in the day, so they have real strength to their name.¡±

    Even though martial masters had declined, their battle experience remained valuable. All of them were valuable assets in the field. Many premier supernaturals were conversions from martial masters.

    A loud explosion traveled from the distance as Red Moon conversed. Huang Yun howled and raised gale winds, surrounding the mountain. He was bringing his full strength to bear!

    Mysterious power exploded and sent countless rock fragments flying. It was at this moment that the mountain exploded, making room for Hu Po to stride through the air.

    ¡°This is called your full strength?¡± he snorted. ¡°Wind Demon, you¡¯re too weak! Forget it, this bores me. Night Watcher Srs will be along for my head if I kill you, hahaha!¡±

    With that, he left through the sky, leaving behind a Huang Yun with blood welling from his mouth.

    1. Revolution as in rotation, cycle. This seemed the least silly name. ?

 Chapter 173: Going or Not? (II)

    <h4>Chapter 173: Going or Not? (II)</h4>

    ¡°Chief Commissioner Huang!¡± A group of rookie Night Watchers rushed up behind Huang Yun, each of them worried and conflicted.

    Huang Yun had been defeated.

    Although their opponent voluntarily retreated in the end, Huang Yun was injured and his opponent unscathed. inly, Huang Yun had lost the battle. Battle ended only because the other didn¡¯t wish to cause additional trouble.

    An unpleasant expression hung on the wind supernatural¡¯s face. He¡¯d lost! And to a newly ascended Hu Po! Huang Yun had three years under his belt as a Sunre, whereas Hu Po had ascended only at the beginning of this year. That made for roughly half a year, or at the very least, less than a year.

    Yet, a veteran Sunre such as him had lost!

    Losing in battle was not a horrifying oue as geniuses abounded in the world. Losing to a wanted criminal, however, and at a time like this was too much of a blow to Night Watcher confidence.

    Huang Yun looked in the direction that Hu Po had left in, his teeth clenched with fury. This was a probing maneuver from the three great organizations and he had not responded with a demonstration of strength! On the contrary, he disyed Night Watcher weakness, showing that this was all there was to Night Watcher Sunres.

    If he¡¯d struck back with domineering force or even imitated Yuan Shuo and killed his opponent, that would strike fear into the hearts of the various organizations. It wasn¡¯t the three great organizations that were the crux of this expedition, but the mid and small organizations that were involved.

    What was termed mid-sized were organizations active within a province andcking any existences beyond Sr. Those whocked any beyond Sunre were a small organization. Those whose strongest were Darkmoon didn¡¯t even count as a supernatural organization. Darkmoon was the most basic supernatural level. These days, Starlight was regarded as a quick springboard to Darkmoon.

    Silver Moon counted a few mid and small organizations among its ranks. Apart from the three great organizations, there were two mid sized and a dozen small sized organizations involved with the excavation. Mid sized organizations, in particr, were not any weaker within the confines of a province than the three great organizations.

    The three great organizations were spread out across thend and their powerhouses pulled in many directions. They might have one or two Srs in residence in a province, with two or three at most. That was the limit of their capabilities as they didn¡¯t dare put everything on the line all at once.

    Mid sized organizations, on the other hand, might send their leaders for these expeditions¡ªSrs. One possible side effect of this battle with Hu Po was that the other organizations would see how weak the Night Watchers were and decide to swear fealty to the three great organizations. It would then be the three great organizations calling the shots for the entire supernatural side.

    Overwhelming regret seized Huang Yun! He regretted his impulsiveness¡ªHu Po might not have attacked had he not made a move. But at the same time, he¡¯d judged that he had a chance of oveing the other since he had three years of experience as a Sunre.

    Unfortunately, he¡¯d overestimated himself and underestimated Hu Po. Three years as a Sunre was not a short time considering it¡¯d only been twenty years since the supernatural world developed, but he¡¯d lost all the same!

    Night Watcher rookies behind him ground their teeth, while those with more experience understood the factors at y.

    ¡°Chief Commissioner Huang did not properly demonstrate his strength just now!¡± thetter shouted lowly. ¡°That was direct frontalbat, whereas the chiefmissioner is more adept at speed! He didn¡¯t utilize his abilities because he wanted to protect us!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    ¡°So what of the three great organizations? The Night Watchers are the only legitimate, orthodox organization! Don¡¯t forget that Red Moon lost a Heaven Favored when they invaded the miniscule Silver City. That Heaven Favored was a Sr, and it was a Dominator who killed him!¡±

    ¡°Professor Yuan ising this time too! Let¡¯s see who dares throw their weight around when he¡¯s here!¡±

    Some said this to raise morale, others said it because they truly believed their words. Yuan Shuo was a known factor to many as he¡¯d often partnered with the Night Watchers to explore ruins. Much of the group¡¯s fear dissipated when they thought of the professor.

    Indeed, so what if Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t a Night Watcher? To the Night Watchers, Yuan Shuo was one of them and he¡¯d killed a Sr! This was the first Sr to die in Silver Moon¡ªthe first publicly known one, at the very least. Hou Xiaochen had killed one too, or he wouldn¡¯t have obtained a Sr level blood pearl. But he hadn¡¯t spoken of it in order to keep the peace with the three great organizations.

    Huang Yun gradually recovered his calm. ¡°Alright now, I was no match for him,¡± he rumbled. ¡°I¡¯m old, after all, and my potential is limitedpared to a youngster¡¯s. You all are the future of the Night Watchers. Take vengeance for my loss in the future¡ªa fist is afraid of youth! You guys are younger than him, and it¡¯s you who I wish to see win.

    ¡°I hear that Wang Ming has killed a Darkmoon in Silver City. All of you are in the same cohort as him, so I hope that none of you are not left behind.¡±

    ¡°Brother Wang¡¯s killed someone?¡±

    ¡°And a Darkmoon? I hear that he was almost beaten to death by one when he carried out his mission in Silver Cityst time. So he¡¯s redeemed himself?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The hearts of the young were not as convoluted. They immediately shook off their earlier despondency at the change in topic.

    Huang Yun didn¡¯t say anything and let them discuss as they would. He walked into a tent in the rear, falling silent for a while when he was alone. He took out a crystal monitor that exuded faint mysterious power. Momentster, Hou Xiaochen¡¯s face appeared on the screen.

    The image shook, as did the director''s voice. ¡°Signal is weak near the ruins... be quick with whatever you need to say...¡±

    ¡°Director, Hu Po taunted us just now and I... I met him in battle in an impetuous moment. I failed! Hu Po is the same as I¡ªa Sunre. I may even be peak Sunre whereas he is only initial Sunre, but I... I was defeated.¡±

    ¡°Hu Po?¡± It took Hou Xiaochen a brief moment to recall the person. ¡°It¡¯s that wanted criminal, the hired gun that the Qiaos of Silver City once employed?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s him.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Hou Xiaochen was still calm. ¡°That¡¯s fine, this is normal. You¡¯re a wind type and not skilled at offense. He¡¯s an earth type, right? And further specializing in heavy earth. Although his attribute is officially that of earth, there¡¯s some gravity mixed in with it. If you don¡¯t run or out maneuver him with speed, your only oue is to be suppressed by him.¡±

    Although the director hadn¡¯t been present for the fight, he instantly drew the correct conclusion.

    ¡°Next time you run into him, run circles around him with your speed! Don¡¯t be worried about anything else,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°Those of the heavy earth attribute are very strong in offense, but their drawback is that they pause for a split second when they shift between deploying a move and defense. It¡¯s easy to kill him if you identify that timing!¡±

    The director didn¡¯t berate Huang Yun, but thetter was still mortified.

    ¡°Director, powerhouses from all organizations were observing that battle, but I...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s of no matter!¡± the directorughed. ¡°Do you think those guys will decide who to throw in their lot with from one battle alone? If they decide to stand with the three great organizations, that means they decided to do so a long time ago. You don¡¯t matter.¡±

    Huang Yun was first reassured, then let down by this response. <i>I... don¡¯t matter?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen also seemed to realize this wasn¡¯t an optimal way of putting things. ¡°It¡¯s not that you don¡¯t matter, but that Sunres aren¡¯t important...¡±

    That hurt even more!

    The director coughed awkwardly. ¡°This isn¡¯t the most pleasing to the ear, but it¡¯s the truth. Battles between Srs draw attention in Silver Moon, while it has to be ones above Sr that are paid attention in the central region.

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan and I are present among the Night Watchers here, so these guys will think it through carefully. Yuan Shuo will also be attending this time. Although I won¡¯t be there myself, the various organizations will thoroughly debate how best to make their moves so they won¡¯t be exterminated.

    ¡°Although the mid and small organizations are weaker, that doesn¡¯t mean they¡¯re fools. If they brashly enter our struggle with the three great organizations, it¡¯s just us that go down if they get the better of us. That might draw powerhouses from the central region in retaliation¡ªnone of them will make it home alive if that happens.¡±

    Huang Yun was much assuaged after this exchange.

    ¡°Then director, I...¡±

    ¡°Just direct operations at the site with peace of mind. They won¡¯t do anything now and Hao Lianchuan will be there in a few days.¡± Hou Xiaochen thought for a bit, ¡°Hu Po... if Hu Po¡¯s gone... I see!¡±

    He hung up, his face vanishing from the screen, leaving Huang Yun speechless.<i> What do you see? </i>Regardless, he was much more at ease after the call. It was good that this wouldn¡¯t affect anything. He seemed to have overestimated himself.

    This was just as well! The director really knew how tofort people. If It¡¯d been Deputy Director Hao, he would¡¯veid about with curses.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen knocked his fingers against his desk and thought for a bit before pressing a button. The limber Manager Yu walked in before long.

    ¡°Director.¡±

    ¡°What have you learned from investigating the Qiaos?¡±

    ¡°There aren¡¯t many clues, but based on the defection of their security detail captain to Yama, the Qiaos may have some dealings with that organization. It¡¯s been too long, so we¡¯re unable to confirm Qiao Feilong¡¯s history before he returned to Silver City.

    ¡°At the same time, that doesn¡¯t mean we¡¯vee up empty. Qiao Feilong may be hiding his strength or raising powerhouses in secret. Some merchants went missing or died in Silver City a few years ago¡ªthey all shed with Qiao Feilong in matters of business. One of the ones that died had a Sunderer among their ranks!¡±

    ¡°How long ago was this?¡±

    ¡°Five years ago.¡±

    Five years! The Qiaos had been able to kill a Sunderer five years ago. Hou Xiaochen rapidly considered the implications.

    ¡°Have Inspector General Mu Sen tell Liu Long that Yama has sent a Sunre on the expedition. They are a heavy earth expert called Hu Po¡ªtheir true name is Li Dahu. He defeated Huang Yun moments ago and his true strength is unfathomable!¡±

    ¡°Understood, director.¡± Manager Yu nodded. ¡°Will there be anything else?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen briefly hesitated, then said, ¡°Also tell Mu Sen to let Yuan Shuo know that a Red Moon powerhouse has gone missing from the central region. Their whereabouts are unknown.¡±

 Chapter 174: Going or Not? (III)

    <h4>Chapter 174: Going or Not? (III)</h4>

    ¡°Has this Red Moon powerhousee to Silver Moon?¡± Manager Yu¡¯s expression shifted slightly.

    ¡°Possibly.¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. ¡°Just ry my words in full and tell Yuan Shuo that he might know this vanished person. They¡¯re a martial master who left Silver Moon twenty years ago¡ªQimei Staff King Sun Yifei! [1] Based on what we know, he should be ate Sr now.¡±

    Manager Yu¡¯s eyes widened with dismay. ¡°Late Sr?¡±

    ¡°Yuan Shuo has already killed a Heaven Favored that was initial Sr,¡± Hou Xiaochen said calmly. ¡°Do you think Red Moon will send a mid Sr to just barely suppress him? They most certainly want to kill him. If they want to kill him, they¡¯ll send ate Sr!

    ¡°Even if it was just an ident or ambush that Yuan Shuo killed Brokensky, Ying Hongyue knows better than us how sinister and insidious Yuan Shuo can be. They¡¯ll absolutely send ate Sr. If it wasn¡¯t for the demands of battle, Ying Hongyue woulde in person since he knows that Yuan Shuo has broken through Dominator!¡±

    Ate Sr quite surprised the manager, but she wanted tough after hearing the director¡¯s assessment. Sinister and insidious? Was this the director¡¯s impression of Yuan Shuo? And judging from his words, it was an opinion shared by the leader of Red Moon¡ªa powerhouse greater than Sr.

    ¡°Director¡­ can the central region not¡­ stop them?¡±

    ¡°Stop them?¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°It is a tense situation over there and they¡¯d rather prefer that the pressure was alleviated with one lesste Sr. It¡¯s fine that Red Moon sends people to Silver Moon, they can¡¯t wait for that to happen. I¡¯m here with the origin weapon. No matter how that missing guy causes trouble, he won¡¯t do anything of note. This shifts some of the burden off their shoulders and they¡¯ll actually see it as meing to their aid. So you tell me, will they hinder Red Moon¡¯s movements?¡±

    ¡°But¡­¡± Manager Yu objected angrily.

    ¡°Enough!¡± Hou Xiaochen waved her off. ¡°Just pass on my messages. It will be enough that Yuan Shuo knows about Sun Yifei. He¡¯ll have time to make his preparations, and it¡¯s up to him if he can actually handle the man.¡±

    There was nothing for Manager Yu to do but leave the office and ry the information.

    Hou Xiaochen sank into deep thought when she left. Sun Yifei, ate Sr. Silver City was a small ce with only one million denizens. It was unlikely enough that they¡¯d given rise to a singr Yuan Shuo. He was a Dominator of Thousands who¡¯d killed one Sr, could he kill a second?

    No, could he kill a third?

    Indeed, a third.

    If he could kill Sun Yifei, then Red Moon would incur heavy losses this time.

    And that Liu Long, had he also be a Dominator as well?

    Various thoughts flickered through Hou Xiaochen¡¯s mind as he made his ns. He pushed another button after a while, summoning Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°You wanted to see me, Director?¡±

    ¡°Come with me!¡± Hou Xiaochen led his subordinate into the depths of his office; there was a suite there.

    Hao Lianchuan was confused. Go in there? Why? The suite adjoining the director¡¯s office was his personal resting quarters and he didn¡¯t normally receive guests there. Although questions swirled, he followed his superior nheless.

    He jerked with shock at what greeted him inside. A spear was unceremoniously tossed onto the coffee table. ming red, Hao Lianchuan¡¯s eyes shot open with surprise when he sensed it!

    It was real! It was the origin weapon that kept this region under control, the most important treasure in Silver Moon¡ªthe ming Phoenix Spear!

    ¡°Familiarize yourself with it.¡± Hou Xiaochenzily reclined on the couch. He pointed at the spear. ¡°Spend the next few days limating to it.¡±

    ¡°Director, this¡­ isn¡¯t appropriate, is it?¡± Hao Lianchuan said hesitantly. ¡°I won¡¯t be able to hold down the fort here if you leave! Why don¡¯t¡­ you have upstairs send someone else in your stead?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen started, then looked at the man. It took a second for him to understand what his subordinate meant.

    ¡°You¡­ can¡¯t wait for me to leave, huh?¡±

    ¡°Not at all!¡± Hao Lianchuan protested innocently. How would he?

    ¡°Do you want to be the director instead?¡±

    ¡°Absolutely not!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a futile wish even if you wish to be.¡± Hou Xiaochen flicked a nce at him. ¡°I didn¡¯t say that I¡¯m leaving. I¡¯ll probably be here long after you.¡±

    ¡°Then¡­ the origin weapon¡­¡±

    ¡°Take it to the ruins!¡± Hou Xiaochen said softly. ¡°There might be several Srs in attendance this time, with more peopleing as reinforcement from other regions. Take the ming Phoenix Spear with you to ensure that nothing goes wrong.¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t do, Director. If I lose this treasure, we have no hope of nurturing a new generation¡­¡±

    ¡°Cut the crap!¡± Hou Xiaochen asserted. ¡°Do as I say. You happen to be a fire type. You¡¯ll be able to use it quickly after getting used to it. That¡¯s the end of the matter. Leave with the spear.¡±

    ¡°But¡­¡± Hao Lianchuan really was apprehensive. This wasn¡¯t something for him to just take! They would be in enormous trouble if it was lost and stolen. The Silver Moon Night Watchers only had one origin weapon¡ªso many eyeballs rested on it!

    Hou Xiaochen couldn¡¯t be bothered with him; he impatiently pped his hand at his subordinate.

    After a brief struggle, Hao Lianchuan picked up the weapon. He seemed to see a phoenix spit out mes that seared the air as soon as he touched the ming Phoenix Spear. How terrifying that such a change had urred the second he grasped it!

    The conflicted vice director left with the origin weapon. If he didn¡¯t, the director would physically throw him out of the office.

    ¡­¡­

    What took ce at Rift Canyon and White Moon City heralded the dangers in the uing expedition. Li Hao¡¯s side swiftly received word as well.

    Liu Long¡¯s office.

    Only Li Hao and Liu Long were present. Typically not a smoker, Liu Long had lit a cigarette and quietly puffed on it. The young man waited silently for a long while until the chief gave a long exhale.

    ¡°There¡¯s two pieces of news. First, Red Moon has sent a powerhouse from the central regionte Sr Sun Yifei. I know this person, he was once called the Qimei Staff King. He¡¯s got quite a reputation and reached peak Sunderer on the path of martial dao. Your teacher must know that he might appear at the ruins!¡±

    Li Hao nodded without surprise. There was nothing to say, it was one of his teacher¡¯s enemies.

    ¡°The second is that Li Dahu was seen around the ruins.¡±

    ¡°Li Dahu?¡±

    ¡°The guy who killed Liu Yan¡¯s husband. He defeated Huang Yun today¡ªyou know that supernatural.¡±

    Li Hao frowned as he looked at Liu Long.

    ¡°I¡¯m debating what to do,¡± the man continued evenly. ¡°I¡¯m going to the ruins and will find a way to kill this guy. What I¡¯m debating is whether or not I should take Liu Yan with me. What say you?¡±

    ¡°Chief¡­ I¡­ why are you asking me this?¡± Li Hao struggled with a response. What was he supposed to say?

    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with that?¡± Liu Long barked withughter. ¡°You¡¯re a deputy director, isn¡¯t it normal that I ask your opinion? I want to let Liu Yan kill the guy herself, but I¡¯m afraid of her dying there! You¡¯re sinister and insidious, kid, so give me some ideas.¡±

    Oh what the hell? You¡¯re the sinister and insidious guy around here! Why does chief have such a huge misunderstanding of me?

    ¡°We should ask Sis Liu.¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°Of course she¡¯ll want to go, we don¡¯t need to ask her that. Chief is not conflicted whether or not we should bring her, but whether or not we can kill Li Dahu. We¡¯ll feel worse if we can¡¯t, right?¡±

    Liu Long inclined his head. Indeed, he wasn¡¯t confident. Although he¡¯d already killed Sunres, the opponent was very strong if they could defeat Huang Yun. Not to mention, it was a group operation this time, not a solo killing.

    There were powerhouses from Yama present. Under the circumstances, how to kill Li Dahu was the real question.

    Of course, there was also the possibility that the team would die instead.

    ¡°Let¡¯s do it, I¡¯m going as well!¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°My teacher will be there. I think ruins that can be essed are worth fighting for. They are both danger and opportunity. Sis Liu isn¡¯t a child, she¡¯s very aware of everything. Sometimes, we don¡¯t need to think too much, chief.¡±

    ¡°Ai!¡± Liu Long sighed without saying anything else. Think too much? Not at all, he¡¯d just be a bit indecisive after losing so many brothers and sisters on the battlefield. This was especially true when it came to the Demon Hunters. It¡¯d been so difficult for them to survive to this point.

    ¡°Chief, does the newse from White Moon City?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°From Mu Sen.¡±

    Li Hao furrowed his brows with thought. ¡°They made a point of telling us¡­ Chief, do you think that upstairs knows something?¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Liu Long jerked with surprise. ¡°That I¡¯ve broken through?¡±

    ¡°Possibly!¡± Why else would they tell Liu Long something they didn¡¯t need to bring up?

    ¡°So what if they know? I haven¡¯t broken anyws and I¡¯m the director of a Night Watcher branch. So what?¡± Liu Long suddenlyughed as he thought about it. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll think about what to do with Liu Yan. Your teacher¡¯s issue is the real trouble. Sun Yifei is probably actually here for him. If I remember correctly, your teacher shares some grudges with him.¡±

    Li Hao was used to it. His teacher had too many enemies! Ying Hongyue might only be the strongest, there was possibly a horde of enemies behind him!

    More likely than not, it would be very difficult for his teacher to take on ate Sr. An initial Sr had been difficult enough¡ªa Sr level blood pearl wouldn¡¯t immediately ce him on par with ate Sr.

    They had to think of a n.

    Li Hao was alsoing to terms with the dawning realization that things were much more than they seemed for the expedition. Who knew, maybe existences above Sr would appear! That would make things even more dangerous.

    The young man walked out of the office with some worries on his mind. He was also concerned about the tone at the top from White Moon. Did they want his teacher to go or not by sharing this information? It would be very normal for his teacher to cancel his participation if ate Sr was present.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen¡­¡± Li Hao murmured, uncertain of this person¡¯s character and temperament. He wanted to learn more about the man as the director was his true supervisor.

 Chapter 175: The Sweet Thrills of Fighting (I)

    <h4>Chapter 175: The Sweet Thrills of Fighting (I)</h4>

    Li Hao ced more importance on the expedition now that he knew multiple powerhouses would be attending it.

    The Yuan residence.

    There was nothing else the young man could do after bringing word to his teacher. He could only throw himself into studying and training so he could advance to Dominator of Thousands as soon as possible. Only then would he have the right to join some of the battles involving heavyweights.

    Li Hao continued down his path of cultivation in the yard. His internal force was slowly coalescing into a sword. It was a painfully slow process, at least for him. A few months were required regardless in normal times. It was but a transitory period to most Sunderers, so they went about their business without another thought. They would be peak Sunderer in just a few months, what were they in a rush for?

    Li Hao was in a rush.

    Yuan Shuo sat on a nearby wicker chair, creaking back and forth as he contemted something. He shouted when some thoughts connected in his mind, ¡°Sun Yifei, Qimei Staff King, adept at staff techniques and dominated Silver Moon with the Qimei staff back in his day. There was almost no one who could stand against him!

    ¡°There were the Seven Swordsmen of Silver Moon, the Three Spears, the North and South Fists, and only the Qimei Staff King for those who practiced the staff!

    ¡°It takes one month to learn the staff, one year to learn the de, and one lifetime to learn the spear. The staff is easy to pick up, but hard to master! Qimei Staff King Sun Yifei attained the acme of perfection with his skill. While he wasn¡¯t a Dominator, he was indeed fearsome as a Sunderer!¡±

    Li Hao continued running through his boxing routine as he listened quietly to his teacher. His teacher rarely talked about the past, so he wanted to listen to the sudden inspiration that¡¯d blossomed.

    ¡°Sun Yifei and I did not share any grudges back in the day¡ªwe didn¡¯t feud with each other. I was younger than him and he had a disciple roughly my age.

    ¡°Who among martial masters wasn¡¯t a brash, impetuous youngster? His disciple and I argued over trivial matters one day and I was in a period of fast growth. My blowsnded too hard when we fought and I killed him with three blows,¡± Yuan Shuo sighed with emotion.

    ¡°It¡¯smon for martial masters to end up killing their opponent when they fight. It¡¯s why the government banned violence¡ªthey were right to do so. And so, Sun Yifei and I established a blood feud. We agreed to battle at Rift Canyon¡ªthere was still a Rift Bridge then. We settled on dueling on the bridge and that whoever left the bridge was the vanquished.

    ¡°Sun Yifei was roughly ten years older than me then. However, the heaviest fist cowers in front of youth. I happened to be in my prime and took the upper hand as soon as battle began. I used the tiger style to break his arms and snap his Qimei staff. Sun Yifei was unable to bear the humiliation and jumped off the bridge.

    ¡°Rift Bridge was several hundred meters above the canyon, so I thought he died.¡± Here, Yuan Shuo sighed. ¡°But to think that he¡¯d join Red Moon! It looks like after Ying Hongyue lost to me and founded Red Moon, he reached out to martial masters that I¡¯d defeated.¡±

    ¡°Teacher, Ying Hongyue was weaker than you then.¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help his curiosity. ¡°How could he establish such a massive organization like Red Moon?¡±

    The man had been far inferior to his teacher twenty years ago!

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure, we crossed paths roughly twenty-five years ago. I was almost fifty then and the fellow a little younger than me. He probably thought I was in decline and wanted to build his reputation off of my back. But I¡¯d alreadyprehended the auras of the Five Styles, I just hadn¡¯t consolidated them yet. Despite that, I still beat him intoplete submission¡­¡±

    ¡°Teacher, you always fully exterminate the enemy, why didn¡¯t you kill him?¡± This was what Li Hao found the strangest of all. Why were so many of his teacher¡¯s enemies still running around in good health?

    ¡°I don¡¯t kill just anyone!¡± Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes. ¡°You make me sound like a demon. I only kill people in the heat of battle, when I lose control. It¡¯s either they¡¯re too weak, they¡¯re too strong, or we¡¯re evenly matched¡­¡±

    And that was when he killed people.

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped when he turned over his teacher¡¯s words. So his teacher killed weaklings, people stronger than him, and peers who were evenly matched. He killed them all, so er¡­ didn¡¯t that make him a demon?

    ¡°People like Ying Hongyue survive for various reasons. Either they recognize the inevitable oue of battle and surrender when they¡¯re about to lose, or we¡¯re both heavily injured and continued fighting would lead to a pyrrhic victory. Another possibility is that they have such a strong backer that I can¡¯t afford to kill them.¡±

    Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Ying Hongyue numbered among thetter. He had someone behind him¡ªI didn¡¯t know who¡ªbut I could feel someone locking onto me as we fought. Now that I think about it again¡­ they must¡¯ve been a peak Sunderer or Dominator!

    ¡°I was no fool and realized that the mysterious person might intend to temper and train Ying Hongyue. I would be in trouble if I really beat him to death.¡±

    Alright then, Li Hao understood. His teacher had thought Sun Yifei was dead after the man jumped off the bridge. Ying Hongyue had someone backing him up, so his teacher didn¡¯t dare beat the man to death.

    The young man returned his attention to the sword, shaking his internal force andyering it four times to break through the air!

    ¡°Don¡¯t make a sound.¡± Yuan Shuo frowned. ¡°Do you think that¡¯s cool? When you¡¯re up against powerhouses, it¡¯s easy for them to lock on to where you are if you audibly rip through the air. You¡¯ll have to dominate them with sheer strength, or you''ll lose as soon as you make a sound!¡±

    It was easy to attack with sound and very difficult to attack silently. Strong internal force broke through drag in the air when it erupted. The split second of eleration from a sword stab would break through the sound barrier and naturally create some noise.

    This could be avoided only if one maintained this speed and continuously broke the sound barrier, ensuring that the stroke was over when sound finally arrived. Therefore, one either needed to be extremely fast or extremely slow in order to be soundless.

    Li Hao struck again¡ªthere was still sound. He tried a straightforward stab without internal force. The attack was silent, but so incredibly weak.

    The young man furrowed his brow. It was¡­ so hard to be quiet when attacking!

    ¡°I¡¯m not versed in the sword,¡± Yuan Shuo said. ¡°But whether it is the fist or the sword, the logic is the same. Either the punch is so fast that I am already done by the time you hear it, or it is so slow that I hit you before you can sense it.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, these were part of his considerations.

    ¡°Teacher, I am a little ways from breaking the sound barrier¡­¡±

    ¡°Then be slower!¡±

    Li Hao moved slowly¡ªit felt so awkward.

    ¡°Not that kind of slow,¡± Yuan Shuo said with resignation. ¡°You know how I normally deploy the Five Styles?¡±

    ¡°Yes, they¡¯re more like exercise to stay in good health. But teacher is very, very fast when battling, not slow.¡± Li Hao still didn¡¯t understand.

    ¡°You don¡¯t get it. Whether fast or slow, one does not need to stand in ce,¡± the professor exined. ¡°I move slowly, but I erupt with great speed! Take our current positions, I am five meters away from you. I will attack very slowly for the first four meters, so slow that you don¡¯t care. But when I¡¯m only one meter away¡­¡±

    He rose and leisurely brought a soundless first toward Li Hao. When he was less than one meter away, a fist suddenly blurred beyond the capabilities of the eye. The young man¡¯s hair flew up as Yuan Shuo¡¯s first broke numerous strands of hair.

    ¡°Do you see that?¡±

    Bam!

    A sonic boom ripped through the air.

    ¡°Sparring and battle is a process of creating killing opportunities!¡± Yuan Shuo said solemnly. ¡°We do not pursue beautiful styles through battle. We only have one goal¡ªkill our opponent!

    ¡°Or rather, we can say that all battle leads to that final stroke or fist! Everything before that is a process that paves the way for that opportunity. You achieve your goal in thest moment and deliver that fatal blow! That is battle!¡±

    This was a real martial master, the real way to kill someone! Based on Yuan Shuo¡¯s words, everything that took ce in a fight was just preparatory work leading up to the final strike. One needed to deliver the fist or sword to its intended position during this process, erupting at thest possible second andpleting the deed.

    Whether it was secret arts or supernatural techniques, their ultimate goal was to kill.

    ¡°Remember this, Li Hao. The final aim of all battle is to kill! There is no such thing as sparring, do you understand? No such thing as stopping at first contact! From the moment martial techniques were invented and the second that the supernatural domain appeared, the strength of a superhuman is used to kill!¡±

    Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Training to strengthen the body or to be healthy is all bullshit. All that rot about the supernatural benefiting society is also bullshit. Is there no way to benefit society without supernatural strength? No way to grow stronger? Therefore, there is only one goal for superhuman strength¡ªto kill!¡±

    Li Hao nodded solemnly once again.

    ¡°You will most certainly see blood on this expedition!¡± Yuan Shuo growled. ¡°This will be a different trip from before. You could hide behind me in the past and maybe even employ a few tricks on others. But this time, you must fight and face danger alone. I have many enemies and too many who wish to kill me. Your life might even be in danger before you enter the ruins proper.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯ll attack before we go inside?¡± Li Hao questioned.

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say,¡± Yuan Shuo postted. ¡°It depends. Everyone knows you¡¯re my final disciple. If we face a martial master who insists on doing things by the book, then you might have to fight for me. You may not face them, but rather, their student, disciple, or heir.

    ¡°Although martial dao has declined after the rise of the supernatural, some customs still have to be adhered to if martial masters insist. We can ignore them if no one else is around, but we must follow the rules if there¡¯s an audience.

    ¡°I don¡¯t actually want you to go, but I¡¯ll worry about your safety in Silver City if you don¡¯t. Why don¡¯t I send you to White Moon City?¡±

    Not only would this be a dangerous trip for Yuan Shuo, but it would also be a dangerous undertaking for Li Hao. The professor could break the rules when no one was around, but if there were others¡ªand possibly stronger than him¡ªone had to observe custom. When that was the case, the rules would actually be protecting him.

 Chapter 176: The Sweet Thrills of Fighting (II)

    <h4>Chapter 176: The Sweet Thrills of Fighting (II)</h4>

    Li Hao shook his head in the face of Yuan Shuo¡¯s obvious resignation. The professor knew that his student wouldn¡¯t stay behind, but he had to try. He would not bring it up again after Li Hao refused.

    ¡°Alright then, keep training. Try to consolidate your internal force before we set off. You¡¯ll be a true peak Sunderer if you achieve that...¡±

    But there might not be enough time. Yuan Shuo spoke again when his thoughts traveled here.

    ¡°I know you too well. Those who are too much stronger than you might not be able to give you the stimulus you need. You should go find Liu Long andmence practical battle! Tell him to do whatever he likes as long as he doesn¡¯t kill you.¡±

    Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath. Chief? The chief would really make things hurt.

    ¡°Teacher...¡±

    ¡°Cut the crap and go! Additionally, I¡¯ll give you a basic overview of the ruins when youe back the next couple of nights. You need to collect some rudimentary intelligence for the Night Watchers as well. To know the enemy is to know thineself. When that is attained, one can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao said no more.<i> If I go to chief, I¡¯ll have to expose my full strength. It looks like I can¡¯t keep it a secret anymore.</i>

    Indeed, even the heavens went against someone who wished to keep a low profile.

    ......

    <i>Thew enforcement building.</i>

    Busy with his matters, Liu Long¡¯s hands stilled when he heard Li Hao. ¡°You want to spar with me?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao shook his head solemnly. ¡°I¡¯d like to ask chief for pointers!¡±

    <i>Spar? How can I possibly spar with a Dominator? I can only ask for a pointer or two.</i>

    ¡°I¡¯m busy!¡± Liu Long answered curtly. ¡°Don¡¯t you have eyes? I¡¯m very busy! Pick anyone you want from the team if you want to spar with someone. Any of them will do!¡±

    <i>You¡¯re just an initial Sunderer, everyone¡¯s stronger than you! </i>Granted, the kid had taken the blood pearl, so maybe he was a mid Sunderer now? Was he getting too big for his britches? But so what if he was a mid Sunderer? Would Liu Yan not do? Even if she wasn¡¯t a mid Sunderer yet, she was so highly experienced that she would be quite a handful for him to handle!

    And if she wouldn¡¯t do, he could go to Wang Ming!

    ¡°Go find Wang Ming,¡± Liu Long said when his thoughts traveled here. ¡°You can also increase your experience fighting supernaturals. You won¡¯t alwayse across martial masters and you know too little of supernaturals.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s not a good choice!¡±

    ¡°Why not?¡± Liu Long asked curiously.

    ¡°He¡¯s...¡± Li Hao searched for the right words. ¡°He won¡¯t give me enough pressure to improve. He has too little battle experience.¡±

    <i>Damn!</i> Liu Long was taken aback. Thed looked down on Wang Ming for insufficient battle experience? That supernatural had conducted numerous missions, at the very least, and killed people. He¡¯d even killed a Sunre earlier...

    Although they kept saying that Wang Mingcked experience, that waspared to veteran martial masters. If viewed in the context of the supernatural domain, he was in a solid position. Wang Ming was second only to those who lived on a knife¡¯s edge, yet Li Hao spurned him!

    ¡°I don¡¯t have time...¡±

    Li Hao had to pull out his trump card when the chief declined once again. ¡°Chief, my teacher sent me.¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Very well then, Liu Long had risen to Dominator thanks to Yuan Shuo. There was nothing he could do once Li Hao brought out his teacher, but he really was very busy.

    <i>Kid, you insist oning to me when I tell you to go for someone else. Today, I¡¯ll help you know why the flowers are red!</i> [1] He¡¯d give Li Hao such a thorough beating that he wouldn¡¯t daree to Liu Long again!

    ¡°Very well, then let¡¯s do it now. I need to get back to my business when we¡¯re done and you can go do whatever you should be doing.¡±

    Li Hao smiled, this was great!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go to the basement, chief. I don¡¯t want to damage our surroundings...¡±

    ¡°Sure!¡± Liu Long agreed readily. <i>Just you wait. This will be over in a jiffy¡ªI¡¯ll defeat you in a split second and have you know that you won¡¯t be able to gain any experience with me. It¡¯spletely useless to spar with me.</i>

    Both Night Watchers headed to the basement together.

    ......

    <i>The basement.</i>

    Only Yun Yao was present, no one else was here. She usually spent her days in the basement, no one knew what she busied herself with. Li Hao wanted to ask her to go on a walk, but she didn¡¯t even look at them. Yun Yao ducked into her room as soon as she saw the two, attending to unknown affairs.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t intend to send her away, he wanted to finish this as quickly as possible.

    ¡°Let¡¯s begin!¡± He didn¡¯t even take his trench coat off.

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was beginning to feel humiliated. <i>Chief, you should take your trench coat off, at least. Forget it, it¡¯s on me since I¡¯m a weakling.</i>

    ¡°Is it alright if you suffer some scrapes and bruises?¡± Liu Long asked before the young man could finishforting himself. ¡°Your teacher won¡¯t say anything, will he?¡±

    <i>What the... he really sees me as a prodigal young master!</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know what to say. He walked to the side and selected a sword. His own might be too sharp, so he shouldn¡¯t use it carelessly.

    ¡°Chief, I¡¯ll use a sword!¡± He hefted the longsword.

    ¡°Whatever you want!¡± Liu Long really didn¡¯t care. Was there a difference between a sword or a fist? It would all be over in one move.

    Li Hao took a deep breath. Seeing as his opponent was a Dominator, it was to be expected that Liu Long would look down on him. He wasn¡¯t mad at all, just debating how to take advantage of his opponent underestimating him.

    Of course, he might receive a worse beating after taking advantage of the stronger Liu Long¡ªbut that may be what his teacher wished to see. How would the young man improve if he wasn¡¯t serious about things?

    ¡°Be careful, chief!¡± Li Hao unsheathed the sword and broke through the air with his first move.

    Liu Long nced at it casually. <i>Not bad, he¡¯s got some proper form. But... that¡¯s all there is to him. </i>The director simply called upon his internal force; he didn¡¯t use his aura or the Nine Forged Force. It would be too strong against Li Hao and he might end up beating the kid to death.

    A simple fist on the level! No flourishes, embellishments, or anything special. He would call it a day after knocking Li Hao out with one punch.

    The young man¡¯s sword arrived, but he abruptly retracted before it reached its target.

    Liu Long¡¯s fist had almost connected with Li Hao¡¯s sword. He teetered off bnce when Li Hao abruptly pulled his blow. He¡¯d taken his opponent far too lightly.

    Li Hao struck again, stabbing forward extremely slowly while his feet moved nimbly like a monkey¡¯s. He evaded his opponent¡¯s fist and gently shifted the sword forward.

    He didn¡¯t make a sound, and the hairs stood up on the back of Liu Long¡¯s neck when the longsword approached him! The young man¡¯s cial pace spontaneously sped up like lightning and the sword jabbed straight at his throat.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t trying to kill¡ªhe knew that it was difficult to y a Dominator. He just wanted the chief to know that it was wrong to underestimate him. It was wrong to think lightly of anyone!

    Danger somehow pricked at Liu Long in this moment. His indifferent attitude immediately shifted and he roared, instantly returning the blow. His right arm trembled with ayer of a wave. It connected with a loud roar as he swiftly backed away.

    Internal force erupted from Li Hao and heyered it over the sword. Layer afteryer until it reached fouryers in the blink of an eye.

    <i>ng!</i>

    Liu Long was a Dominator, after all. His reaction time was so timely that he raised a metallic ng as he punched the longsword.

    There was no time to celebrate,¡ªLi Hao was still waving the longsword around. The young man sent a shudder through the earth with a stomp. Liu Long was as immovable as a mountain, but he swayed ever so slightly with the trembling of the earth.

    Astonished, the man shifted his fist into a w and grabbed the sword, wanting to drag Li Hao over. Such an ordinary sword wouldn¡¯t hurt him. However, the young man gave up the sword just as Liu Long yanked on it. <i>His</i> hand was also curved like a w and he followed momentum to grab Liu Long¡¯s arm. Internal force burst out of Li Hao¡¯s fingers on his right hand and he dug into Liu Long¡¯s arm, scratching five bloody holes out of it.

    Pain twinged in Liu Long¡¯s arm and he erupted with internal force, projecting it out of his limb. He bounced off Li Hao¡¯s fingers with a bang, whereupon the young man threw himself forward in a tiger prowl. ck Tiger Heart Gouge made straight for Liu Long¡¯s heart.

    The man was hesitated over whether he should let loose with his aura and Nine Forged Force when Li Hao¡¯s gaze suddenly sharpened. He red at Liu Long and slightly opened his mouth, emitting a tiger roar that shook the four corners!

    ¡°Roar!!¡± A sound wave exploded with a rumble; Liu Long was shocked beyond belief by the re. It wasn¡¯t that Li Hao was too strong, but that there was internal force inside his eyes. This was a sign of ate Sunderer! That tiger roar also came at the perfect timing. The director had to set everything out of his mind at this moment because Li Hao... had reached perfection!

    No, half step perfection.

    The young man hadprehended a rudimentary aura and was just a hair''s breadth away from sess because his internal force was yet to be consolidated as one. But a Li Hao in this state could not be taken as lightly like before.

    Liu Long fully called upon the Nine Forged Force, and not just through his arms. Waves undted through his chest as he projected his internal force. Enormous waves built upon each other until his internal force explosively collided with Li Hao¡¯s palm!

    The tremendous internal force shook the young man¡¯s palm to the point of blood spraying out, but it was like he didn¡¯t feel a thing. He stomped his foot again and sent the ground trembling.

    Feet and fists in unison!

    Liu Long was actually forced back a half step, but he still wasn¡¯t using his full strength. Despite that, it was astounding that someone of his experience and strength was forced back a step, even if he¡¯d belittled his opponent.

    ¡°You won¡¯t do, chief!¡± Li Hao suddenly jeered. Liu Long wanted to say something, but another massive roar interrupted him when he opened his mouth. ¡°Roar!!¡±

    The man grunted with irritation and flung out a punch almost too swift to be seen, connecting with the hand that Li Hao had just flung over. A loud p sounded as he split skin apart!

    Liu Long regretted his reaction as soon as he made it. He¡¯d punched subconsciously and employed too much strength! He wanted to stop immediately, but Li Hao threw out his other hand and ripped through the director¡¯s trench coat, digging into his arm again. Five more bloody holes appeared that turned into five bloody trails!

    Liu Long went ck jawed with shock and rapidly shot backward, evading Li Hao¡¯s next attack.

    ¡°Perfection...¡± he muttered incredulously. Peak Sunderer! <i>The fuck!? Am I crazy, or is Li Hao crazy?!</i>

    ¡°Again, chief!¡± Li Hao ignored him and sent the longsword flying into the air with a stomp. He grabbed it with one hand and thought back to the stroke in his mind¡¯s eye. The stroke that ended heaven and earth!

    <i>sh!</i>

    <i>Fast!</i>

    This time, he wanted to be so fast that the enemy had no ce to run to when he attacked. And yet, the weapon shattered before he had a chance to deploy it. The young man paused, frowning at his empty hand.

    1. A Chinese saying in which the flowers are dyed red from blood. This means to beat someone so badly that they bleed profusely. ?

 Chapter 177: The Sweet Thrills of Fighting (III)

    <h4>Chapter 177: The Sweet Thrills of Fighting (III)</h4>

    Across the way, the hairs on the back of Liu Long¡¯s neck stood up again.

    ¡°Stop!¡± He couldn¡¯t help himself and looked at Li Hao with shock. ¡°You wanted to deploy your sword... what kind of technique was it?¡±

    The young man shattered his longsword before he had a chance to execute his move! Granted, it was just an ordinary sword, but its quality was still up to par if it could be stored here. It seemed to havepletely shattered when it couldn¡¯t contain the killing intent it was being infused with.

    ¡°My teacher taught me,¡± Li Hao answered with resignation. ¡°That¡¯s why he wants me to fight you, chief. He wants me to consolidate my internal force so that I can shape it into a sword.¡±

    ¡°Wait... wait!¡± Liu Long shook his head. ¡°Aren¡¯t youprehending the aura of the earth?¡±

    I¡¯m so confused. Why are you fashioning your internal force into a sword?

    ¡°I need to attack <i>and</i> defend!¡±

    Liu Long both understood and was surprised at the same time. Thed wanted tobine <i>two</i> auras! The man looked down at his arms, at where nine bloody holes gaped out of them from the two times that Li Hao had grabbed him. His trench coat was ripped and the young man¡¯s first stroke had been quite a surprise. It¡¯d left a tiny mark on his chest.

    Liu Long was at aplete loss for words!

    He looked at Li Hao¡ªthed seemed better off as only his palm had split open. That a Dominator had been forced to these straits... It didn¡¯t matter that he¡¯d underestimated his opponent so much before that he didn¡¯t even care about the young man.

    ¡°I thought too little of you!¡± Liu Long sighed with emotion and returned to seriousness. ¡°And I wondered why you were so insistent on training with me. I see¡ªyou want me to force you into consolidating your internal force, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    ¡°You should¡¯ve said so earlier, I wouldn¡¯t have made light of you so much...¡±

    ¡°I was thinking that chief might not have believed me if I said something!¡± Li Haoughed innocently.

    <i>Oh for...</i> Liu Long found himself at a loss for words. But it was true, that was highly likely. Would he have believed Li Hao if thed said that he needed Liu Long to help him consolidate his internal force?

    He¡¯d sooner believe that pigs fly!

    The director was about to respond when Yun Yao suddenly spoke from the depths of the basement. ¡°Fight if you will, stop roaring. You¡¯re being too noisy!¡±

    She returned to her room, but shock reared in her heart. Li Hao... had forced their Dominator captain into retreat! Although she knew that it was chief who¡¯d underestimated the young man, who was Li Hao?

    He¡¯d been a mundane a month ago, someone that Chen Jian sent flying with one p. But now, he could match their captain in the blink of an eye!

    ¡°A genius? Perverse talent? Or is the bloodline of the eight families that stunning?¡± Yun Yao found it difficult to regain calm after she returned to her room. She thought of many things, things that were sealed by the past. Could this little team reallye into its own? Could it be strong enough to reach that moment?

    It hadn¡¯t seemed possible before. After three years since formation, there were more than twenty dead and their strongest was Sunderer¡ªthe rest were yers.

    Too weak!

    This level of strength was fine in Silver City, but it would be the smallest scale team in White Moon City. And in the central region... it would be the local guard for a vige.

    Indeed, even viges in the central region could field this level of strength. In times of war, any vige that managed to survive would have a local guard stronger than the Demon Hunters of old.

    The team¡¯s strength underwent an astounding change less than a month after Li Hao joined. Yun Yao... was lost.

    ......

    <i>Outside.</i>

    Li Hao scratched his head awkwardly. Were the roars too loud? Fine, he won¡¯t roarter. It was useless to roar at a prepared opponent anyway. He put Yun Yao¡¯sint out of his mind.

    ¡°Chief, show me your real skill! How are you going to force me into full effort with just this?¡±

    ¡°Okay!¡± Liu Long grinned. ¡°I expected too little from you before. Li Hao, you¡¯re more... frightening than I imagined!¡±

    Not in terms of strength, but in rate of improvement.

    <i>In that case, I really won¡¯t hold back. I¡¯ll have you know that a Dominator is far beyond a Sunderer!</i>

    Waves reared to the heavens with his next punch. Liu Long even deployed his aura!

    Li Hao suddenly felt that his opponent had locked onto him; an aura bore down on him. But having endured his teacher¡¯s aura before, this little bit of aura wouldn¡¯t keep him down. He kept his feet nted and red the aura of the earth. Internal force and blood qi erupted as well, taking the shape of a dragon. The young man stomped his foot and remained as unmoving as a mountain.

    After stabilizing his figure, heunched himself upward and pounced on Liu Long. Two sets of fists from four hands rapidly collided with each other. Li Hao was opting for a frontal attack!

    Taken aback once again, Liu Long¡¯s jaw dropped. A front attack? <i>This is how you respond when I¡¯m a Dominator?</i>

    Currently, however, Li Hao did not unleash the power of the Five Styles. Rather, there seemed to be sword qi shimmering over his fist. When the longsword shattered, it gave him the inspiration of using his body as a sword. His body was incredibly durable; his punch was as if a sharp sword being unsheathed.

    Skin and muscle split with a soft sound¡ªwhite bone gleamed out of Li Hao¡¯s knuckles. At the same time, Liu Long was also injured by the keen fists¡ªindeed, the fists were sharp! Both of his hands were bleeding after the sh and the bones of his hand could also be vaguely glimpsed.

    ¡°A sword?¡± The man grew more and more astonished. What kind of secret art was this?? It was so destructive! Not only that, but it emanated a suffocating feeling! Did Yuan Shuo know this kind of sword method? He¡¯d never heard about it before!

    ¡°Break!¡± Liu Long grunted and waved his fists again. He kicked out at the same time and raised an immense wave.

    Li Hao continued waving punches around like he would a sword. Fists shot straight at waves and he abruptly shifted them into ws. He wanted to imitate his teacher and sink his hands into a direct hold on Liu Long¡¯s aura.

    ¡°How dare you!¡± Liu Longughed from sheer anger. <i>I¡¯m a Dominator! You¡¯ve got balls of steel to attempt this!</i>

    The wave exploded in Li Hao¡¯s hands and erupted with domineering internal force instead. It turned his palms into sieves; blood dripped onto the ground. The young man finally experienced the strength of a Dominator, and he was quite gleeful! It wasn¡¯t that he was brash and impetuous, but that he wanted to see how strong a Dominator and their aura were.

    And now, he knew. They were very strong!

    The scene he¡¯d seen that day once more floated to the fore. To sever the heavens, earth, and immortality! All auras were obliterated beneath that stroke.

    Sword intent rose in his eyes and internal force bloomed, condensing into a sword outside Li Hao¡¯s body. He shed it forward!

    <i>Humm!</i>

    The sword qi had already been deployed when the resulting sound wave arrived. It shed into the dragon made of towering waves¡ªthe attack that¡¯d justcerated Li Hao¡¯s palms waspletely annihted by a stroke of internal force.

    The waves were extinguished. Meanwhile, Li Hao took advantage of a sudden favorable situation and tightened his grip on the sword infused with internal force. He wanted to sh forward again when a fist connected solidly with his weapon.

    The sword exploded into tiny fragments and Li Hao vomited blood!

    Liu Long did not follow up on the move. Instead, he looked quietly at where a new bloody mark had appeared on his palm. He regarded the young man for a long moment.

    ¡°You will practice one hour with me everyday, starting from today! Forget everything¡ªyour fists, your Five Styles. Use the sword of internal force to practice with me!¡±

    ¡°One hour?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°Is that too much?¡± Liu Long frowned. ¡°It¡¯s not. If you can persist for one hour everyday, I believe that you¡¯ll officially reach the realm of perfection at the end of the month and fully consolidate your internal force!¡±

    One hour was indeed a very long time to martial masters. Battle was usually over in a few minutes. Li Hao, however, startedughing.

    ¡°Chief, why don¡¯t we... fight until we¡¯re exhausted? What do you think?¡±

    ¡°Are you sure?¡± Liu Long ran through some calctions. For a peak Sunderer to fight until he was exhausted... that would be roughly an hour. Thus, he nodded. ¡°It¡¯s all the same!¡±

    Li Hao smiled radiantly. <i>You¡¯re the one who agreed to it! </i>How was it possible that he¡¯d be exhausted? Sword energy was invincible! <i>I¡¯ll be able to fight forever if I absorb sword energy at the same time. A Dominator as a free sparring partner? How sweet!</i>

    ¡°Then let¡¯s start now, chief!¡±

    ¡°Now? Can you still fight?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± Liu Long didn¡¯t mind either way. His business could wait. It was much more important to help Li Hao set foot into peak Sunderer.

    The two started exchanging blows again. Li Hao flew out with a bang momentster, unable to move from his prone position on the ground. Liu Long rxed slightly. He¡¯d depleted some stamina, but it was eptable at roughly twenty to thirty percent of his capacity. All the same, fighting for too long would tire him out¡ªhe¡¯d finally beaten the kid into exhaustion.

    He was about to rx when the prostrate Li Hao suddenly sprang to his feet. One heartbeatter, the young man marshaled high spirits and flung himself at the director!

    Liu Long blinked...

    There was no time for his jaw to drop. Li Hao¡¯s attacks were crazed and each blow gave Liu Long the feeling that if he was fighting thed with his pre-Dominator condition, he could die to any of Li Hao¡¯s strokes!

    It was the fact that he was a Dominator that he couldn¡¯t meet the young man with full strength. He might easily beat Li Hao to death. However, it was very tiring having to constantly pull his punches.

    Liu Long sent Li Hao flying again after an indeterminate period of time¡ªthere were new bloody marks on his own body. They¡¯d alle from Li Hao, but the young man was much more heavily injured.

    But he sprang up again in less than a minute!

    ¡°Let¡¯s continue, chief!¡±

    ......

    Again and again, it was like Li Hao had discovered a whole new world. He was jubnt at having found a Dominator sparring partner. He didn¡¯t need to be concerned about anything other than fighting as hard as he could. There was no worry of him killing Liu Long!

    <i>Bang bang bang!</i>

    Collisions rang out from the basement from 1pm to 5pm, to 6pm, 7pm...

    It wasn¡¯t until Yun Yao walked out that they stopped.

    ¡°Are you still not done yet today? Are you not going to eat? Are you not going to rest??¡± she demanded irritably. ¡°You¡¯ve been fighting since 1pm, it¡¯s been seven hours!¡±

    ¡°Hoo...¡± Liu Long heaved for breath. While he was a Dominator, it was tiring to fight someone for seven hours.

    Li Hao also panted heavily and looked around blearily. ¡°Seven... seven hours?¡±

    <i>So fast! I thought it was only one or two!</i>

 Chapter 178: The Sweet Thrills of Fighting (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 178: The Sweet Thrills of Fighting (IV)</h4>

    Yun Yao looked wordlessly at two figures covered in blood. Li Hao was one thing, but Liu Long¡¯s trench coat was ripped to shreds, leaving him only in his boxers. She didn¡¯t know what to make of the situation.

    Chief was a Dominator... how was he in these straits? There were numerous bloody marks on Liu Long¡¯s body, many of them still bleeding.

    ¡°How about we stop here for today?¡± Liu Long panted a few times. He needed to rest! There was something very, seriously, absolutely wrong with Li Hao. Seven hours straight of battle for a normal Sunderer would incapacitate them to the point of being unable to fart, much less bring internal force to bear!

    But Li Hao? It felt like he could still fight!

    Li Hao nodded with a parched mouth. ¡°Alright... let¡¯s continue tomorrow... Chief, do you... need to recover from your injuries? Will you be back to full heath tomorrow?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not an issue!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good...¡± Li Hao heaved for breath and stuck his thumb up. ¡°Chief, you¡¯re... amazing!¡±

    Liu Long smiled faintly, his smile rather rueful. <i>That¡¯s it? Just amazing? I¡¯m crazy to agree to fight you everyday!</i>

    ¡°I¡¯lle by earlier tomorrow morning, chief. Let¡¯s say 6am. We can fight for the entire day, today wasn¡¯t enough...¡± With that, Li Hao turned and walked outside.

    When Yun Yao saw Liu Yan standing outside the door after Li Hao opened it, she remarked faintly, ¡°Are you happy to be not wearing much and having that shameless woman take advantage of you?¡±

    By the door, Liu Yan crossed her arms and assessed the young maning toward her. ¡°He¡¯s not bad, just bleeding. Otherwise, it should be nice to feel him up considering how fair and tender he looks!¡± She smiled craftily.

    Li Hao looked wordlessly at the woman. He didn¡¯t feel the slightest bit shy¡ª<i>look if you will, I still have boxers on! </i>He turned around to put on a new outfit.

    Liu Yan watched silently from the door before returning to a serious expression. She considered Liu Long. ¡°Chief, if you¡¯re done sparring with him, spar with me next!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>Go to hell!</i> Scowling ckly, Liu Long stomped off to change clothes. <i>Spar your ass!</i>

    inly, Liu Yan was prompted to action by the scene. Anyone could tell from Liu Long¡¯s condition that Li Hao was far stronger than they estimated. She said nothing as she walked in to assess the basement¡¯s status. Many ces were shattered or dented. Liu Yan¡¯s heart quailed as she made a quick evaluation.

    <i>So strong!</i>

    She nced at Yun Yao and walked over, keeping her voice down. ¡°What level is he?¡±

    ¡°Perfection!¡± Yun Yao flicked a sideways nce at her before returning to her room, leaving behind a stunned Liu Yan.

    <i>Perfection! Peak Sunderer!</i> She¡¯d thought that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t improve so quickly after setting foot into Sunderer, but he was now a peak Sunderer!

    Abrupt dejection assailed her, as well as envy and jealousy. She barreled into Yun Yao¡¯s room and grit her teeth. ¡°You and I will fight tonight! I¡¯m a peak initial Sunderer and you¡¯re a Crescent Darkmoon. We¡¯re evenly matched. Do you want to improve yourself?

    ¡°Absorbing mysterious power through normal ways is too slow,¡± Liu Yan talked over whatever Yun Yao wanted to say. ¡°Only when we beat each other half to death can we absorb it quickly! I haven¡¯t been able to stand the sight of you for a very long time now, so I think I cannd painful blows if I go against you!¡±

    ¡°Same!¡± Yun Yao wanted to refuse, yet found herself agreeing after thinking back to the events of the day. She snorted softly, ¡°I¡¯ll kick your ass!¡±

    Liu Yan thrust her chest out with a sniff. ¡°I think I might actually beat some growth into you instead! Let¡¯s do it!¡±

    shes and shadows from weapons flickered in the tiny room.

    ......

    Li Hao ran off as soon as he finished changing. He was starving and felt like he could eat a cow!

    No, wait, the cow could be saved for another day. He needed to go back and eat the five elements. Absorbing another one hundred cubes seemedpletely doable tonight! He would eat himself silly and report to the Inspectorate tomorrow morning for another day of fighting with the chief.

    Damn, this was nice! Li Hao quite loved the sensation of every punch connecting with solid flesh¡ªit was such a thrilling way to fight! So this was what fighting was like; this was so much better than pulling a dirty trick on someone!

    Not only that, but Li Hao felt that it might only take a few days to fully consolidate his internal force if the situation continued like this. It would take a few months under normal circumstances; no one could be like him and remain in peak condition after fighting for seven hours straight. His sparring partner had matched his every move within the seven hours. This was an opponent that regr people would find it impossible to find!

    ......

    <i>At this moment.</i>

    A suddenly worried Liu Long sneezed in thew enforcement building. Were they really going to fight until they set out for the ruins? What if he couldn¡¯t hold up?

    Dominators were only human in the end...

    ......

    Time passed through days of endless sparring. Li Hao¡¯s typical schedule was fighting, absorbing sword energy, digesting the five elements, sleep, and more fighting...

    It was a continuous cycle and he loved it. However, Liu Long was just as unhappy as the young man was delighted. This was exhausting!

    He couldn¡¯t erupt with full force in case he identally killed Li Hao. He couldn¡¯t be too careless lest the young man counterattacked in a moment of his carelessness and inflicted a myriad of wounds.

    At the same time, happiness tinged Liu Long¡¯s struggle. He could clearly see Li Hao¡¯s level of strength and rejoiced that it was increasing at a speed visible to the naked eye. The young man was growing stronger by the day and making noticeable progress toward consolidating his internal force.

    All Silver City Night Watchers immersed themselves in the joy of cultivating.

    Liu Yan and Yun Yao sparred for half a day starting at night. They beat each other ck and blue until their faces were swollen and refused to see anyone the second day. After spending daylight hours resting in their rooms, they continued to fight the next evening.

    Once Wu Chao and Chen Jian learned that the captain sparred daily with Li Hao, and Liu Yan with Yun Yao, they faced off against each other as well. They¡¯d both just ascended to Sunderer and were evenly matched.

    And so, thew enforcement building became quite lively internally. It was very closed off to outsiders; there was no movement from it other than a bit of disturbance on the agency¡¯s day of formation. The Night Watchers didn¡¯t even leave their office building.

    It was a very nonsensical sight to those who were paying attention to this new government agency. Were Liu Long and the others not working? Apart from Li Hao clocking in and out as usual, only the White Moon transfers were asionally seen out and about. Those Night Watchers sometimes showed themselves in strict calls of leisure. Indeed, Li Meng was once followed out to a shopping trip.

    She really was shopping!

    Their watchers were extremely frustrated. What was with this group of people??

    ......

    <i>Thew enforcement building.</i>

    Wang Ming had a lot of time on his hands these days. There was nothing in particr he needed to do and no one scrutinized his movements. Liu Long was busy practice sparring with Li Hao and didn¡¯t have energy to care about anyone else when he was done.

    He was wandering around the first floor lobby when his eyes lit up at seeing someonee in. ¡°Li Hao!¡± He quickly walked up to wee his colleague.

    ¡°Ole Wang!¡± Li Hao was in fine spirits and beamed widely. He¡¯d just ridden over from home. ¡°Do you need me for something?¡± He was in a hurry to go to the basement.

    His internal force felt ever more taking shape as a sword these days. He seemed on the brink of sess and might finish consolidating his internal force any day now. When internal forcebined with aura, he would be a true peak Sunderer!

    Wang Ming wasn¡¯t in a hurry to exin his purpose. He sized up the other first. ¡°Director Liu looks like he¡¯s putting his life on the line and has crazy dark circles everyday fromck of sleep. Howe you¡¯re alright?

    ¡°Li Hao, seeing as you¡¯ve just be a Sunderer, you shouldn¡¯t be gaining much from your practice sessions with Director Liu, right?¡± He could understand it if his colleague fought anyone else, but he didn¡¯t understand Li Hao practicing with Liu Long. To be honest, he wouldn¡¯t gain much himself if he sparred with Sunres, so what was the meaning behind Li Hao¡¯s actions?

    It was ever more mystifying considering that Liu Long was perfectly willing to keep the young manpany.

    ¡°It¡¯s alright!¡± Li Hao was surprised to see Wang Ming follow him upstairs. ¡°What are youing upstairs with me for? Do you need something? You can also spar with Hu Hao and Li Meng...¡±

    ¡°What would I spar with them for?¡± Wang Ming shook his head. ¡°Hu Hao is a flight supernatural and Li Meng possesses the eye of reality. I focus on the offensive. No one¡¯s of the same system, so we can¡¯t practice with each other. It¡¯s differentpared to martial masters.¡±

    He wasn¡¯t beingzy, but that there truly wasn¡¯t a point to sparring with his White Moon fellows. If he fought Hu Hao, what was he supposed to do if Hu Hao flew into the sky? Just look up at the man from the ground? Fire off a sword from the ground and try to shoot Hu Hao down?

    What a joke.

    ¡°At our current level, we supernaturals focus on absorbing mysterious power. It¡¯s alright¡ªI¡¯ve still made progress recently. We were allotted a lot of mysterious power before. I think I¡¯ll be a Plenilune after absorbing it all.¡±

    He was currently a Fullmoon. Supernaturals did not need coordination from the aura when they progressed from Fullmoon to Plenilune, nor did they need to understand the aura. Even Sunres didn¡¯t reallymand an aura.

    The two cultivation systems were different. Rising to Sunre wouldn¡¯t be so much easier otherwise.

    Li Hao had some knowledge of the supernatural system, but he wasn¡¯t too familiar with it.

    ¡°Then I congratte you in advance!¡± He smiled.

    ¡°Don¡¯t congratte me so quickly!¡± Wang Ming quickly said. ¡°Remember when you said that we would absorb mysterious power at a faster rate with the aid of a blood pearl? Did you mean it?¡±

    ¡°What, you don¡¯t believe me?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that...¡± Wang Ming exined. ¡°The Night Watchers don¡¯t have many blood pearls left. If it really works, then I can pay the hefty price and obtain some for a try. But if they¡¯re ineffective, won¡¯t I be wasting them? I¡¯ve asked around and learned that the Night Watchers only have one Sunre and three Darkmoon pearls left. That¡¯s it!¡±

    Only four blood pearls! There¡¯d been nine to begin with, but half of them had been awarded to Silver City.

    Li Hao was a bit startled by the situation, but quickly understood. So Director Hou hadn¡¯t killed Red Moon members for a while.

    ¡°You¡¯ve got some ability alright, to learn even that.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s normal!¡± Wang Ming chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m a genius, after all. I¡¯m recorded in the White Moon register. Upstairs won¡¯t keep it from me if I ask how many blood pearls are left and how I can trade for one. It¡¯s not like they¡¯re origin weapons to be kept a secret from me.¡±

 Chapter 179: Peak Sunderer

    <h4>Chapter 179: Peak Sunderer</h4>

    Li Hao had always nursed a question in his heart. He couldn¡¯t help but voice it when Wang Ming mentioned the topic again at this time.

    ¡°Ole Wang, you keep saying that you¡¯re a genius. How do supernaturals define what a genius is?¡± He was very curious about this.

    Did fast progress make for a genius? Some possessed a lot of mysterious power, some very little. It depended on one¡¯s family background¡ªthose with power or money could obtain a lot of mysterious power. Absorbing a vast sum of energy resulted in a speedy rate of improvement. Was that a genius?

    Didn¡¯t that make for a sloppy definition of a genius?

    ¡°Are you doubting me?¡± Wang Ming grew anxious.

    ¡°No, I¡¯m genuinely curious.¡±

    The handsome young man snorted, visibly dissatisfied. But knowing that Li Hao was truly in the dark, he exined, ¡°Supernatural geniuses are determined by several different dimensions. First, the efficacy of mysterious power absorption. For example, I can retain 0.7 cube of one cube of metal mysterious power. Only 0.3 cube will dissipate as waste.¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow at the detail. Efficacy of absorption! A seventy percent conversion rate was quite impressive. Mysterious power tended to drift away and disappear in its natural state. Li Hao¡¯s absorption rate was high due to the addition of sword energy. Without it, he would retain only fifty or sixty percent when trying to absorb mysterious power by itself, even in conjunction with the Breathing Method of the Five Styles.

    Other people would retain even less due tocking the breathing method. Liu Yan and the others usually only absorbed twenty or thirty percent.

    That Wang Ming could convert seventy truly made him a genius from this point alone! Of course, he counted as a genius only in terms of potential.

    ¡°That¡¯s one facet,¡± Wang Ming continued. ¡°The second is the number of supernatural locks one locates!¡±

    Li Hao stered an attentive expression on his face. He really didn¡¯t know any of this.

    ¡°All humans have supernatural locks inside their bodies, even the Heaven Favored!¡± Wang Ming lectured. ¡°The Heaven Favored just have theirs open from birth¡ªbut not all of the locks. ording to current supernatural knowledge, there are nine locks in our bodies! You are Heaven Favored if one of them is opened when you are born. That indicates you innately possess the strength to be Starlight, that you don¡¯t face any obstacles setting foot into this level.

    ¡°Two supernatural locks open at birth means you can ascend to Darkmoon without any difficulty. You¡¯ll instantaneously set foot into that level the second you absorb enough mysterious power. And so on and so forth for the rest of the levels. Three open locks means you¡¯ll directly set foot into Sunre...¡± Wang Ming waxed eloquent with envy. ¡°That makes for the Heaven Favored! So far, the strongest we know had three locks open at birth. His starting point was Sunre... Sunre! The final destination for many, but only the beginning for him!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, that was very awe-inspiring. A connate Sunre! Setting aside their future and potential, their starting point was everyone¡¯s end. This was an existence that many would never catch up to, even if that Heaven Favored didn¡¯t improve for the rest of their lives.

    The Heaven Favored... were well deserving of their name.

    ¡°People like us can only slowly explore on our own,¡± Wang Mingmented. ¡°Not all supernatural locks are apparent from the start. Each supernatural needs to gradually locate and unearth their locks. Some can discover three or four locks when they¡¯re Starlight. Being able to find so many means that they have the potential to be Sunre or Sr!

    ¡°If people still don¡¯t pinpoint their fourth lock by the time they reach Sunre, it means that Sr is likely out of reach for them. They aren¡¯t able to open the fourth lock because they don¡¯t even know where it is!¡±

    One was unable to break the confines of the body, even as a peak Sunre, due to an inability to open the next lock. It wasn¡¯t that it was too difficult to do so, but that one didn¡¯t have the potential to do so because one couldn¡¯t unearth the fourth lock.

    Li Hao understood his colleague¡¯s overview and asked, ¡°How many locks have you discovered?¡±

    Wang Ming was a Darkmoon, so that meant he¡¯d opened two locks. Had the guy found three, or maybe four?

    ¡°Five!¡± the handsome young man answered proudly. ¡°Impressive, right?¡±

    ¡°Very!¡± Li Haoughed with a nod. ¡°But Ole Wang, supernatural locks are located inside my own body. Doesn¡¯t that mean I¡¯ve discovered however many I say that I¡¯ve discovered? No one can overrule me. How would anyone know that I haven¡¯t really found one hundred locks?¡±

    ¡°You think too lightly of supernatural methods!¡± Wang Ming shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s not that simple! Of course, it¡¯s hard for regr methods to detect the truth. The Night Watchers, however, have a test for rookies. Rookies need to pass the origin weapon¡¯s inspection¡ªthe origin weapon can confirm how many locks you¡¯ve discovered.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± That piqued Li Hao¡¯s interest. ¡°How?¡±

    ¡°What do you need to know this for? You¡¯re not a supernatural.¡±

    ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll be one in the future?¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Besides, I feel like I have at least ten supernatural locks in me!¡±

    Wang Ming shed a polite and uninterested smile. <i>Nice bullshitting! Keep at it!</i>

    While Li Hao talked like he was joking, he really wasn¡¯t. Ten supernatural locks? He felt he had more than that! His supernatural locks materialized during some of his training sessions and he¡¯d sensed roughly ten around his organs alone. There were locks around his head and they seem present around his limbs as well.

    He had a ton!

    They twined and wrapped around him as thickly as stalks in a field. Sometimes, he suspected it was the heavens themselves that didn¡¯t want him to ascend to the supernatural domain. Li Hao had thought that he needed to open all of the locks, but now it seemed that breaking just one was enough.

    <i>Should I give it a try?</i>

    <i>Nah!</i>

    He recalled his teacher¡¯s admonishment that he shouldn¡¯t consider joining the supernatural in the near term.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t exin further, even though he could tell that Wang Ming didn¡¯t believe him. ¡°Ole Wang, where does it ce you among the Night Watchers that you¡¯ve discovered five?¡± he asked curiously.

    ¡°It makes me a premier genius!¡± Wang Ming answered proudly. ¡°Three locks indicate Sunre, four locks point to Sr, five mean that I have the potential to be greater than Sr!¡±

    ¡°What about nine?¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Since you mention the extent of supernatural knowledge is nine total locks, there must be someone who¡¯s discovered all nine before. If one lock equates one cultivation level, then nine... must be unfathomable!¡±

    Wang Ming shook his head. ¡°A Heaven Favored in the central region discovered all nine¡ªhe¡¯s a veteran who¡¯s rumored to be greater than Sr. Based on what we¡¯ve heard from him, supernatural locks be harder to break the more we¡¯ve already opened. This is a normal phenomenon.

    ¡°In the same vein, the more locks we¡¯ve opened, the more dangerous it is to open even more. Unanticipated danger often strikes! I believe only up to five locks have been broken thus far. I¡¯m not definitively sure if someone¡¯s opened a sixth lock and entered yet another level higher than Sr!

    ¡°But it¡¯s only a matter of time!¡± the handsome young man added. ¡°The supernatural domain is developing at a fast pace. There were only Starlight at the beginning twenty years ago. Darkmoon appeared in less than a year and Sunre less than three. When I asked around, I learned that Sr have been around for more than ten years! Also, existences above Sr were present in the central region five years ago!¡±

    Five cultivation levels had appeared in a scant two decades. It¡¯d been five years since thest level appeared. Based on this rate of development, it was highly likely that a sixth cultivation level would appear in the near future.

    Li Hao inwardly reeled with shock. This truly was monumental speed! Perhaps there would be powerhouses of the ninth level at the end.

    ¡°Are there many heavyweights greater than Sr in the central region?¡±

    ¡°Tons!¡± Wang Ming responded casually without exining further. ¡°Now do you know why I¡¯m a genius? I absorb mysterious power fast and at a high efficacy, and I have tremendous potential! Hu Hao and Li Meng are also well off in the Night Watchers, but they¡¯ve only discovered three locks. It means they have a path to Sunre, but no future beyond that.¡±

    He raised himself up and in the process, lowered hispatriots down a notch.

    How shameless!

    It was already a worthy feat to locate three locks. Some people never found their third and could only ponder over the path to Sunre while dallying as a Darkmoon. Supernatural locks were the barrier to progress in this domain.

    ¡°So does this mean you just need to break your third lock to immediately ascend to Sunre? You won¡¯t encounter any major bottlenecks?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Wang Ming chuckled merrily. ¡°That¡¯s why I want to use the mysterious power we were awarded withst time to set foot into Plenilune. And then, I want to borrow the strength of a blood pearl. If it¡¯s really as you say and can enhance the effects of mysterious power, then it might help me open the third lock and set foot into Sunre!

    ¡°And if that¡¯s the case, then my rate of improvement isn¡¯t any slower than the Heaven Favored!¡± he said excitedly. ¡°So Li Hao, don¡¯t be ying me. I want to put in a request to headquarters for the Sunre blood pearl. I¡¯ll be in trouble if this doesn¡¯t work.¡±

    ¡°You can request something like that?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Wang Ming nodded. ¡°The Night Watchers are all about deeds of merit. Treasures are there to be traded for. Director Hou says that treasures and resources have value only when they circte. Not many trade for the blood pearls because they¡¯re useful for rookies, but rookies didn¡¯t want to pay the hefty price for it. Thus, some are left in storage and people don''t pay attention to them. If you¡¯re certain of what you say, I¡¯ll find a way to request it.¡±

    ¡°How much does it cost?¡± Li Hao was curious. ¡°What¡¯s the price tag for the Sunre level blood pearl?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not just price!¡± Wang Ming exined. ¡°It also requires the appropriate grade in the Inspectorate system! Sunres are open only to chiefmissioners. I¡¯m just amissioner inspector, so logically speaking I can¡¯t request one. But I know many chiefmissioners and our director is one too, so I can ask them to trade it for me.¡±

 Chapter 180: Peak Sunderer (II)

    <h4>Chapter 180: Peak Sunderer (II)</h4>

    ¡°And the price?¡±

    ¡°Two hundred cubes of mysterious power!¡±

    ¡°That cheap?¡± Li Hao blinked. ¡°My teacher spent three hundred cubes to buy the one off our director, and Director Hao said he couldn¡¯t sell it!¡±

    <i>Cheap??</i> Wang Ming was at a loss for words. This reaction and tone... was so damned arrogant!

    But to tell someone whose teacher had killed two Srs that two hundred cubes was very expensive... Forget it, this guy didn¡¯t know jack!

    ¡°It¡¯s different!¡± Wang Ming doggedly exined. ¡°There¡¯s a limit to the number of treasures we can trade for, or else everyone would be sending in requests to upstairs. Treasures that are traded for are rtively cheaper because there¡¯s restrictions ced on them. There¡¯s no such limitations on rewards. Opportunities like this one are quite rare for most people.¡±

    <i>Fine then, but being one hundred cubes more expensive than the going price doesn¡¯t make it cheap.</i>

    On the other hand, two to three hundred cubes of mysterious power could be extracted from Sunre powerhouses. It was a simr estimate for scarlet shadows, so the price was reasonable. Any higher would mean that one might as well cultivate with mysterious power. That energy was more convenient for supernaturals than the scarlet shadow.

    Wang Ming should be able to afford two hundred cubes. He¡¯d been allotted one hundred cubes from the earlier operation and his family was wealthy and powerful. That sum should be no problem for him. But judging from the looks of things, the guy seemed quite conflicted and highly concerned that it¡¯d prove ineffective. So... two hundred cubes appeared to be a massive sum for him.

    Li Hao grasped a deeper understanding of the supernatural domain now, but was rather surprised that Wang Ming said he had the potential to be greater than Sr.

    ¡°Go ahead and put in your request. If you don¡¯t want it, I¡¯ll buy it off you for three hundred cubes. You¡¯ll actually turn a profit. Does that work?¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± Wang Ming brightened. Was such a lovely deal just falling into hisp? He¡¯d be benefiting even if he sold it instead of using it. This was gifting him money!

    Otherwise, Liu Long should be willing to put in a request for Li Hao if the young man went to the director. Even if the limitation was that he could only ever trade once for it, Liu Long most likely wouldn¡¯t care if he used his only chance for Li Hao.

    Li Hao nodded. Would this be a loss to him?

    Not at all. Not to mention, he couldn¡¯t find a suitable person to trade for a blood pearl. While he didn¡¯t know if such a trading opportunity was important or not, the chief might need this chance in the future since he¡¯d just set foot into Dominator. They were scheduled to excavate the ruins next, so anything might be on the table then.

    ¡°Don¡¯t ask chief to help you, you have your own path to walk, so you should resolve this yourself!¡±

    Wang Ming nodded. He was just voicing possibilities, he hadn¡¯t nned on actually asking Liu Long for help.

    ......

    The two continued heading downstairs. Li Hao was truly surprised to see Wang Ming still walking by his side. <i>I¡¯ve said everything I want to say, so trade for the blood pearl if you want. What are you still following me for?</i>

    ¡°You...¡±

    ¡°I want to see how you and Director Liu fight. Is it open to spectators?¡± Wang Ming exined himself. ¡°I¡¯m also practicing the Five Stylestely, right? But teacher gave us nothing else apart from a booklet. I don¡¯t really feel at liberty to ask him either, I can only fumble around on my own. I feel like I¡¯ve improved, but not really either. Li Hao, can I watch how you fight?¡±

    He, too, was interested in martial dao these days and was studying the Five Styles. Sadly, Yuan Shuo had only given his honorary disciples the secret method and regr breathing technique. Thus, Wang Ming felt that progress was out of reach.

    ¡°I¡¯ve been using the Five Styles less these days,¡± Li Hao answered honestly. He focused onprehending aura and the sword more, so their sparring did not center on the Five Styles.

    ¡°Very well, I can take a hint. Look at you being so mysterious! Next time I spar with someone, you can watch however you like!¡±

    Li Hao smiled without a word. He might reach perfection over the next couple of days and not to mention, it was better to keep a low profile. Too many people knew about his strength now. While Wang Ming was a decent person, he was too connected to White Moon City. It would hardly be ideal if Li Hao¡¯s secrets were leaked... This guy talked too much¡ªinly put, he was too naive. He answered whatever anyone asked of him!

    A lot of what Li Hao asked was confidential, but the guy answered without second thought. If Li Hao was Hou Xiaochen, he wouldn¡¯t say a second word to a guy like Wang Ming and also forbid him from speaking to others!

    The guy even gave a thorough overview of origin weapons! If it wasn¡¯t for Wang Ming not knowing the particrs, Li Hao believed that the young man would spill the beans if he delved into that as well.

    ......

    Li Hao and Wang Ming parted ways. The supernatural turned back to look at Li Hao entering the basement and curled his lip with amusement.

    ¡°You must really think I¡¯m a fool, heh. The guy¡¯s very possibly entered mid Sunderer. Damn, that¡¯s terrifying!¡± Wang Ming was very proud of himself! <i>My guess must be right¡ªlook at Li Hao trying to hide it from me!</i>

    <i>So fast!</i>

    He bumped into Li Meng before long and sighed with emotion, ¡°Work harder, Li Meng. Li Hao¡¯s going to leave you behind in the dust if you don¡¯t enter Halfmoon soon. He seems to be a mid Sunderer now!¡±

    Li Meng¡¯s heart clenched with surprise. <i>So fast? </i>The buns that she¡¯d just bought spontaneously lost their allure.

    It wasn¡¯t long before the White Moon trio learned that Li Hao was possibly a mid Sunderer. Hu Hao was also quite nervous when he became aware.

    Li Hao had guessed correctly. Wang Ming was willing to say anything to someone he thought was a good person. He was willing to voice even spections.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>In the basement.</i>

    Liu Long took a deep breath and looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°I feel that you¡¯re almost there! I¡¯m going to act differently today¡ªI¡¯ll be primarily using my aura for today¡¯s fights! You know the aura as well. I¡¯ve only used it in passing before and never employed my consciousness to pressure you. But now that you¡¯re almost there and you recover impossibly fast... I won¡¯t be worried about hurting you.¡±

    He¡¯d discovered Li Hao¡¯s perverse characteristic a few days ago. In that case, it was time to push the young man harder. Perhaps he could even let the young man experience what true life and death were!

    Yuan Shuo was correct¡ªLiu Long was sometimes daring enough to really bring his full strength to bear.

    ¡°Let¡¯s do it, chief.¡± Li Hao nodded uncaringly. ¡°I also want to see the true strength of a Dominator! After all, I might run into Dominator or Sunre level powerhouses anytime when I reach perfection. Experiencing their full strength ahead of time will let me know how to better handle them in the future...¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡±

    Immediate pressure bore down on Li Hao as he finished talking and the young man sank a few millimeters into the floor! Liu Long held nothing back¡ªapart from not using the Nine Forged Force. If he utilized that, he would no longer be a typical Dominator. That was a method that he assessed could break the defenses of a Sr.

    His consciousness was on full disy!

    A hatchet appeared in Liu Long¡¯s hands to cut through all obstacles, cleaving through Li Hao¡¯s aura of the earth. When they first exchanged blows a few days ago, Liu Long ended the day withcerated fists. After that, the two opted for weapons as they thought.

    He hacked forward with the hatchet and nearly split the ground with a boom!

    Li Hao finally experienced the real might of a Dominator of Thousands; the world teetered beneath him. He roared viciously and stomped his foot.

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    The entire basement trembled. With how fractured the floor already was, it sank in slightly. Li Hao nted himself firmly with one stop, brandishing a longsword that his teacher had given him. Although it wasn¡¯t a supernatural object, it was much more formidable than the ordinary longsword he¡¯d used before.

    A mighty sh cut through the air¡ªsword and hatchet shed into each other with a ng!

    The exchanges were no longer an even match. Overwhelming pressure crashed down on Li Hao and the longsword spun out backward. The part of his hand between index finger and thumb split open, but the young man didn¡¯t have time to react before the hatchet came for his head.

    Li Hao hastily stumbled backward, sensing tremendous waves circting around him. They seemed to have locked onto him. Despite tilting his head to the side and bending sideways, he was unable to avoid Liu Long¡¯s descending hatchet. The sharp de sliced through his shoulder until it hit bone. Incredible pain wracked Li Hao to the point that it didn¡¯t feel like his right arm belonged to him anymore!

    Hesitation dawned in Liu Long¡¯s eyes, but it quickly vanished. The young man was fine! Yes, the injury was severe, but Li Hao could recover from it. Liu Long had identally broken a few of Li Hao¡¯s bones a few days ago, but the young man quickly recovered as well. While the wound ran deeper this time, Liu Long trusted that Li Hao was fine.

    At the same time, this kind of sparring ran outside the confines of other people¡¯s imagination. Liu Long applied more pressure to the buried hatchet, giving the impression that he really did want to split Li Hao apart with one stroke.

    It was true that the director wasn¡¯t keeping much strength back. The stimulus of life and death... Well, this was stimulus enough, wasn¡¯t it?

    ¡°AHH!!¡± Li Hao roared with extreme pain. He reached his left hand toward the hatchet to grab it away from his opponent, whereupon Liu Long yanked it out and swung it at the young man¡¯s left hand.

    Defeat was certain for Li Hao! He didn¡¯t have room to maneuver for a response as they were too close to each other. Liu Long fully suppressed him. But when the hatchet sliced forward, Li Hao did not withdraw his left hand. Liu Long¡¯s eyes widened with shock¡ªthis would sever the young man¡¯s arm!

    However, the hairs on the back of the man¡¯s neck suddenly rose. A third hand had appeared near his crotch and it came with a tendril of sword qi!

    ¡°Be careful, chief!¡± Li Hao grabbed for his target before he finished speaking. The Hand That Brings Back Life!<i> You¡¯re the one who hacked at me first, so don¡¯t mind if I do.</i>

    Cold horror pinpricked Liu Long¡¯s neck. <i>A third hand?? How is he doing it??</i> He hadn¡¯t realized that Li Hao had swung a fake left hand over. He¡¯d fought the young man in close quarters so many times, yet hadn¡¯t discovered where Li Hao kept his third hand. Or had thed worn a prosthetic on his left hand the entire time?

    That prosthetic was too real if that was the case!

    Liu Long rapidly backed up, but still felt a stinging pain as sword intent had split his pants. He quickly shuffled a few more steps back before steadying himself.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao didn¡¯t care about this. He circted sword energy for a full revolution inside his body, greatly alleviating the agony. His next sword stroke was much stronger than before!

    An explosion of sword intent!

    A stroke soundlessly stabbed forward, running through the hatchet with a soft plink. Liu Long¡¯s throaty exposed behind it!

 Chapter 181: Peak Sunderer (III)

    <h4>Chapter 181: Peak Sunderer (III)</h4>

    There was an audience behind the sparring duo. Liu Yan and Yun Yao watched silently, their hearts clenched with anxiety as it didn¡¯t seem to be a practice session at all. It was a struggle to the death between hated rivals! Every move targeted the vitals!

    This was often the case, but the situation seemed more dangerous today.

    The two on the sidelines watched the fight without saying a word or discussing anything. Offeringments on the site of two battling powerhouses was disrespect to the twobatants. If the audience wished to make conclusions, they should wait until after the battle concluded.

    Both Liu Yan and Yun Yao reaped great benefits from their observation. They were both martial masters¡ªYun Yao had been an experienced yer before she ascended to Darkmoon. Naturally, both of them understood the perils and horrors epassed by this fight. They could not afford to undergo this type of practice.

    If they were in Li Hao¡¯s shoes, they would¡¯ve been crippled long ago and could not recover. Liu Yan¡¯s mouth opened as she watched and she wanted to gasp, but she forced the urge down.

    Liu Long suddenly relinquished the hatchet and threw it at Li Hao, breaking through the young man¡¯s sword intent. A fist quickly followed it, breaking Li Hao¡¯s rib cage with a thunderous crunch. The young man was also sent flying by the blow.

    Advancing relentlessly, Liu Long didn¡¯t give time for Li Hao to struggle back to his feet. He swiftly advanced and punched once more!

    A boom so loud sounded that it was as if Liu Long had punched a human drum. The young man vomited blood; the look in his eyes grew unfocused...

    He hadn¡¯t felt that a big gap between him and Liu Long a few days ago, but after these punches today and a fully deployed aura, Li Hao was suppressed to the point where he could barely muster any resistance. Any ambush heunched was instantly evaded.

    With Liu Long in close quarters and no longer pausing between blows, Li Hao felt that he would die from the next punch. He really would die!

    Blood sprayed across the basement and the young man hit the ground heavily. Liu Long still did not show mercy and ruthlessly stomped down! He¡¯d hoped to draw out Li Hao¡¯s potential, but perhaps he¡¯d been too unrelenting. The young man did not have a chance to strike back¡ªif this continued, their practice was over for the day.

    It was at this moment that Li Hao suddenly opened his eyes wide. Sword intent brimmed in them! He¡¯d been thinking back to the stroke he saw that day; the sh that severed heaven and earth was constantly on his mind. But now that he mused over it, he suddenly thought that perhaps... the focus of that stroke was on severing immortality and the self!

    The swordsman had cut down his own unending life so he could create that move!

    It was initiation without return, one stroke to crown oneself victorious. Either the enemy was vanquished or the swordsman perished. Each stroke was the final stand of his life!

    Li Hao seemed to partiallyprehend in thest possible second and reached a faint resonance with that stroke. The swordsman he¡¯d seen had not considered the possibility of survival when he initiated his move. There¡¯d been only one thought on his mind¡ªy the enemy!

    As Liu Long¡¯s foot loomed in his line of vision, the young man finally realized that he¡¯d been focused on the wrong area. To sever heaven and earth was just a battle cry to that person. The true core of his intenty in severing the self, destroying the path of retreat, and going down with the enemy!

    The sword must see blood when it was deployed, whether his own or the enemy¡¯s!

    ¡°Hup!¡± rang out a massive yell, a tiger¡¯s roar. The aura of the earth trembled! A protective film appeared in front of Li Hao¡ªsuch was the aura of earth. It immediately stopped Liu Long and halted his foot.

    Li Hao waved his hand around¡ªhis palm like sword! This sword carried with it the conviction of mutual destruction with his enemy. There would be no retreat or surrender!

    Killing intent flooded the basement, a chilling sensation felt by even Liu Yan and Yun Yao hiding in the back. The arctic tinge made their scalps crawl with numbness.

    The young man¡¯s palm split open, unable to endure his killing intent, but he didn¡¯t care! Either his enemy died or he would stand no longer!

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    A huge collision rang out when the stroke mmed into Liu Long¡¯s foot, fracturing his bones. Visible shock in his eyes, the man swiftly backed away. The stroke carried such heavy killing intent it was like the swordsman wanted to go down with his enemy!

    Liu Long grit his teeth against the pain and punched outward. Li Hao remained firmly in ce and neither evaded nor dodged the blow. There was no retreat for his sword! It either ended the enemy or was his downfall!

    He pped his left hand against the floor to prop himself up, flinging his right hand forward as a sword again.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Another massive collision rocked the area as the stroke cut through Liu Long¡¯s wave. Li Hao¡¯s hand mmed down like a sword, cutting into Liu Long¡¯s fist with a wet thwack and spraying blood everywhere. The young man, however, did not deviate from his original intention and switched direction, sending his hand at Liu Long¡¯s head!

    The man roared and propelled another giant wave through the premises. He shouted consecutively,yering waves and internal force upon each other. His life was under threat! Liu Long could bear it no longer and ceased holding back on the Nine Forged Force.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The tremendous method crashed into Li Hao and deformed his palm, twisting it until it snapped. Liu Long raised a foot and connected solidly with the young man, sending thetter flying. The director didn¡¯t follow up his attack, choosing to touch his throat instead. His hand came back with blood! His throat had suffered a flesh wound!

    It was Li Hao¡¯s sword intent!

    Liu Long looked at himself with aplicated gaze, sorrow welling up from his heart. This was another day of injuries. His throat was bleeding, his hand and foot were almost broken... Not even a Dominator could be tormented like this!

    This time, Li Hao remained prone on the floor for a very long time. It was his turn to die after the sword stroke with his entire strength failed to kill the enemy. Thankfully, Liu Long didn¡¯t intend to actually kill him.

    However, it still took almost eight minutes before the young man could slowly struggle back up with a pale face. He¡¯d suffered grave wounds even with the aid of sword energy.

    ¡°Chief...¡± Li Hao suddenly smiled at Liu Long. ¡°I... seem to be able to deploy the sword at will now!¡±

    Liu Long inclined his head. ¡°You havepleted your consolidation of internal force. I¡¯m more curious about how you suddenly erupted in that moment. Did you think of something?¡±

    ¡°I need to sever the self!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    <i>Sever the self?</i>

    Liu Long turned over the response in his mouth and abruptly frowned. ¡°This sword technique and method are too brutal! I¡¯d thought it was exquisite before and just apanied with too much killing intent. But yourprehension inly indicates that this is a move that must be fed blood when it is utilized!¡±

    This blood could stem from either the enemy or the wielder. Liu Long abruptly understood that Yuan Shuo had not invented this!

    ¡°The inventor must be a fanatic swordsman! He kills with every move he makes or ends himself instead! He kills for the sake of killing...¡±

    ¡°Teacher says that the moment martial dao and the supernatural domain appeared, it was for killing!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°So I rather think that this stroke demonstrates that admirably.¡±

    ¡°You...¡± Liu Long wanted to say something, but sighed wordlessly without saying anything else. Indeed, whether it was martial dao or the supernatural, they both focused on killing. However, there was also defense, withdrawal, and fleeing as possibilities as well...

    Li Hao¡¯s stroke truly only focused on killing. There was nothing else to be found within it.

    ¡°Your move is very strong!¡± the directorplimented it highly. ¡°My throat might¡¯ve really been slit if I didn¡¯t bring out the Nine Forged Force just now!¡±

    He utilized his entire aura, but had still almost died.

    Slightly embarrassed, Li Hao smiled bashfully. Liu Long nearly scowled. <i>Don¡¯t smile like that! Bah, that¡¯s disgusting!</i>

    ¡°You¡¯re heavily injured, chief. I don¡¯t need to spar anymore now that I''ve consolidated my internal force with sword intent. Come with me to my teacher¡¯s so he can look after you. We don¡¯t want any aftereffects to result from your wounds!¡±

    Liu Long rolled his eyes. <i>Your teacher? Forget about that! I¡¯m not an idiot after all of these days! </i>He¡¯d known a long time ago that any special healing method was likely from Li Hao¡ªincluding the energy he¡¯d used to break through. The young man¡¯s fast recovery from all of his injuries possibly had to do with the sword that he kept on him. How would Liu Long still be oblivious at this stage?

    Of course, knowing was one thing. Liu Long did not intend to expose the young man. It was enough to know, there was no need to bring it out in the open and portray himself as smarter than others.

    ¡°Shaping your internal force into a sword and consolidating your sword intent... You¡¯re really something, Li Hao!¡± Liu Longplimented again. ¡°If this was twenty years ago, you¡¯d be able to earn a title of Sword King or something simr in the martial world of Silver Moon! My father was one of the Three Spears, your teacher was king of the Five Styles. Your current aplishments rival them...¡±

    It was incredible. The young man, however, shook his head.

    ¡°I¡¯m far from it! Chief, a reputation is earned from fights and battles. It¡¯s not awarded just because I reach that cultivation level.¡±

    He himself knew that there was quite a gap between him and the greats of yore. What did heck?

    True ughter!

    His teacher and those peers had forged their aplishments step by step. Li Hao just benefited from a higher starting point. The excavation toe was when he would truly grow and develop.

    Aplishing the consolidation of his internal force meant that he¡¯dpleted all of the training avable at the Sunderer level. From now on, he could focus on preparing to advance to Dominator. It was only now that he truly sensed the strength of being a Sunderer¡ªhe was finally a peak Sunderer!

    While he technically counted as one when they were in the mines, that condition was a far cry from what hemanded today. The most apparent difference was that he could easily direct his internal force wherever he¡¯d like. All of his force traveled wherever he pointed.

    This was most likely one of the greatest trademarks of peak Sunderer.

    ......

    Li Hao no longer practiced with Liu Long after reaching perfection. He brought Liu Long to his teacher so that the injuries umted over these days could be addressed. Liu Long observed propriety and thanked Yuan Shuo, but he kept his eyes trained on Li Hao.

    <i>You sure can act, huh, kid!</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind. One day¡¯s acting was one day gained. He would give up the act only when there came a day in which he couldn¡¯t keep it up anymore.

    <i>So long as I don¡¯t feel awkward, the awkward ones are you guys. None of you are rude enough to expose me.</i>

 Chapter 182: Ghost Shadow Sword (I)

    <h4>Chapter 182: Ghost Shadow Sword (I)</h4>

    Time paused for no one; it marched inexorably onward. It was mid August in the blink of an eye.

    The entire Silver City Night Watcher branch improved by the day. Everyone steadily digested the gains from killing multiple powerhouses in theirst battle. The harvest from one operation eclipsed gains that the Demon Hunters umted over the years. All members advanced at a rapid clip.

    Liu Yan finally set foot into mid Sunderer. Although Wu Chao and Chen Jian didn¡¯t take another step forward, they were close to mid Sunderer as well.

    The supernaturals of the branch showed even faster progress. All that Darkmoons required was sufficient mysterious power to swiftly improve. If one had already found the third supernatural lock, they only needed sufficient mysterious power to open it and set foot into Sunre. Thus, Li Meng and the others made great strides forward.

    The fastest rate of improvement came not from Li Meng or Hu Hao. They possessed unique abilities and could only absorb unattributed mysterious power in the absence of energy that matched them. Hu Hao was better off in that he could take in some wind energy to strengthen himself. These days, Li Meng was interested in martial dao and devoted her efforts there. This resulted in her making the modest move from initial Crescent to peak Crescent. She didn¡¯t even reach Halfmoon.

    Yun Yao showed the fastest rate of improvement. A water supernatural now, she was previously a peak yer. Crossing over as a martial master meant that her physique was stronger than homegrown supernaturals and she had a pool of internal force to convert. Thus, she set foot into Halfmoon before Li Meng did.

    Hu Hao was previously peak Crescent and also reached Halfmoon.

    This left Wang Ming and his high rate of energy conversion. Although he hadn¡¯t been a Fullmoon for long, he ascended to Plenilune on August 15 after furiously absorbing mysterious power. Now it was time for him to prepare to be a Sunre¡ªthis was a development that he didn¡¯t anticipate before arriving in Silver City.

    He¡¯d thought it would be good enough to take a step forward after half a year in his new post. Who would¡¯ve thought he¡¯d make the leap less than a month after arriving? He¡¯d advanced during each of the two times he visited Silver City! By now, Wang Ming felt that this city was more like hisnd of fortune and prosperity.

    ......

    For more or less, every member of the branch found progress. Eliminating the Qiaos handsomely benefited all of the Silver City Night Watchers. After Li Hao broke through to peak Sunderer, he spent the rest of his days studying the little sword. Not only that, but he also asked his teacher for sword methods.

    The stroke he knew of cut down the enemy and the self. It was best not to use it until thest possible second. In that case, the young man wished to learn some sword techniques and basic sword methods.

    The New Book of Five Styles centered on the fist, w, and foot. It did not involve weapons. While Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t versed in sword methods, he knew of them. His knowledge and experience was so vast that there was almost nothing he didn¡¯t know.

    <i>The front yard of the Yuan residence.</i>

    Yuan Shuo thought for a bit upon hearing his student¡¯s request. ¡°There were once the Seven Swordsmen of Silver Moon. Known throughout the province, I don¡¯t know how many are left as most of them are dead.

    ¡°One of them was known as the Shadow Swordsman! He was renowned throughout the Silver Moon martial world for his technique of the Ghost Shadow Sword! Soundless and formless, it was as dogged as a shadow. Covert, sinister, and vicious were its core ts¡ªand speed!¡±

    The professor thought for a moment longer. ¡°He was a peak Sunderer and hadprehended the aura of the shadow. It was like night fell when he deployed his sword. The gloom concealed everything about his move, enabling him to frequently upy the upper hand when it came to battle.¡±

    The Ghost Shadow Sword! Li Hao was very interested in this technique.

    ¡°Teacher, I call my move the Sever Self Stroke! Its key lies in being fast, vicious, and keen, but it''s mostly used in direct frontalbat. If I also know the Ghost Shadow Sword, people will think that I¡¯m skilled with unpredictable sword methods that are easy to maneuver. If I then deploy the Sever Self Stroke in a moment of surprise, I think most won¡¯t be able to react in time.¡±

    Simply put, he wanted to learn the Ghost Shadow Sword.

    ¡°I can teach you if you want to learn!¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°I happen to know the technique and its breathing method.¡±

    Why did he know that? Li Hao nced at his teacher. ¡°...teacher. How many of the Seven Swordsmen did you kill?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yuan Shuo red at him. <i>You make me out to be a demon!</i> ¡°What how many? I didn¡¯t even kill half of them, just three! It has nothing to do with me if the rest are dead!¡±

    <i>I knew it! </i>Li Hao couldn¡¯t hold back his curiosity any longer. ¡°Teacher, has no one teamed up to take vengeance on you given that you¡¯ve killed so many people?¡±

    It must¡¯ve been so hard for his teacher to survive till present day!

    ¡°You stick your nose in a lot of areas!¡± Yuan Shuo red at him. So the little guy was poking around in his affairs now, huh? <i>And does it look like I¡¯ll tell you just because you¡¯re curious? </i>Some of his past was indeed nothing upstanding to talk about. Thus, the professor evaded the topic.

    ¡°If you learn the Ghost Shadow Sword, you¡¯ll know three secret arts. When ites to martial masters, it¡¯s best to walk the path of one method from beginning to end!¡±

    Why was that?

    Because of the breathing methods associated with each art.

    One of the major drawbacks of martial dao was that each art possessed a proprietary breathing method. Switching to another method necessitated adjusting one¡¯s breathing. The slightest hup could result in missteps that the enemy could take advantage of.

    Therefore, even someone as strong as Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t omnipotent. He didn¡¯t know how to utilize weapons. When he wielded the stone de, he did it as an extension of his w or fist. He didn¡¯t really use it as a de.

    The secret arts of martial masters would not be rendered obsolete with the times. The stronger one was, the stronger the secret art. Thus, one art was often sufficient. Experts that focused on one art were famed in Silver Moon¡¯s martial world back in the day. They were uniquely skilled in either the sword, staff, fist, or spear.

    While Yuan Shuo naturally wished for his student to be strong, he still cautioned, ¡°Everyone wishes to be a martial master adept in all disciplines. But a jack of all trades is a master of none. This can be a grave problem!

    ¡°Powerhouses often die when they need to switch between breathing methods. This is their most probable likelihood of fatality!¡±

    A martial master proficient in identifying battle timing easily captured split second pauses.

    ¡°I understand.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Teacher, the Five Styles were separate when you first started practicing them. Youter incorporated them into one and unified them with one breathing method, right?¡±

    This was one of Yuan Shuo¡¯s greatest aplishments in his life. However, the professor frowned and didn¡¯t speak for a while.

    ¡°Firstly, there are simrities between the five animals! Secondly, I didn¡¯t create the Five Styles wholly from my imagination. It was recorded in ancient records, so I did not build a towering building fromying the foundations. I stood on top of its rubble and built up from what was already there.¡±

    He looked at his student. ¡°While I do not think I am lesser than anyone, I do not have the confidence to say that I can create the Five Styles from scratch.¡±

    He wanted to warn Li Hao to not aim too high! Even he, a savant of ancient knowledge and sage of modern wisdom, dared not say he could consolidate the Nine Forged Force, Ghost Shadow Sword, and Five Styles into one through a new breathing method.

    The young man didn¡¯t say anything else.<i> Let¡¯s just take things one step at a time. </i>In any case, he still needed to learn a sword method.

    Yuan Shuo was just offering a reminder, he knew Li Hao wouldn¡¯t give up. Not to mention, the young man <i>should</i> be picking up the sword.

    ¡°Think on it and I will teach you the Ghost Shadow Sword today!¡± Yuan Shuo rose and lifted his hand, summoning a longsword from the rack of weaponry in the yard. As a grandmaster, he wielded the sword with more poise than Li Hao, despite not being practiced at the weapon.

    The longsword swept through the air while Li Hao watched raptly. He knew that his teacher was putting on a demonstration for his benefit, so he drank everything in.

    The longsword flitted through the air like a shadow. Despite it being broad daylight, only a hint of light and shadow could be seen. There was no sound.

    Fast, discrete. Such were the characteristics of the Ghost Shadow Sword. The resulting noise of the weapon breaking through the air seemed to be concealed by its breathing method. As Yuan Shuo breathed in and out, he created a void around the sword and ced it in a vacuum. That made it possible for the sword to dance even more gracefully and for it to be utterly silent.

    It was a very unique sword method!

    Li Hao carefully sensed everything. If he could utilize this method in his other arts, it would be quite a feat to make both his fists and swords soundless.

    <i>A vacuum...</i>

    A vacuum wasn¡¯t the true absence of sound; it just eliminated sound to the greatest degree possible. This was an exceptional technique for assassins and killers! How had his teacher killed the Shadow Swordsman??

    Yuan Shuo deployed twelve strokes in quick session. Li Hao could tell from their trajectory that this was a brutal sword technique. Each stroke stabbed straight at a vital point.

    Momentster, Yuan Shuo retracted the sword and heaved an exhale. It was as if a p of thunder and a beam of white light shone out of nothing, piercing through the air.

    ¡°The final stroke of the Ghost Shadow Sword lies not with the sword, but in this breath!¡± Yuan Shuo said solemnly. ¡°Under most circumstances, opponents will only care about your weapon. When you put it away, they¡¯ll think you¡¯re switching to another method or are about to surrender. No one knows that this final stroke is the most treacherous!

    ¡°The Ghost Shadow Sword breathing method continuously devours the air around it and umtes qi as force. All of it is exhaled in thest moment, creating a mouthful of sword qi that exceeds the strokes from before. That is the true core of the Ghost Shadow Sword!¡±

    Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Thisst stroke was the one that almost killed me...¡± Yuan Shuo continued, not afraid to reveal his weakness. ¡°I, too, thought that hecked the strength to battle on when he returned his sword to a defensive position. I wanted to destroy him with my next move, but he suddenly breathed outward and almost shattered my heart with that final stroke!¡±

    He sometimes thought back to his fight with the Shadow Swordsman. He¡¯d almost lost his life that day, despite upying the upper hand throughout the entire battle. It was apparent from this that battle was not a simple matter of who was stronger. He could¡¯ve died in a moment of carelessness. Thank goodness the stroke had been a little off center and missed the fatal point of his heart!

 Chapter 183: Ghost Shadow Sword (II)

    <h4>Chapter 183: Ghost Shadow Sword (II)</h4>

    ¡°This technique must be very strong if even teacher was taken in by it.¡± Li Hao shed a smile. ¡°But... the veterans of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world all know about it, right?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°The Ghost Shadow Sword would not be a secret art if people knew about its final move! Those who fought the Shadow Swordsman either died to thest stroke or killed him instead.

    ¡°Anyone witnessing hisst stroke was in danger of losing their life, so they would kill him even if they didn¡¯t want to before. Therefore, he dies unless he kills his opponent!¡±

    And so, the Shadow Swordsman had died.

    To Yuan Shuo¡¯s hands.

    ¡°That¡¯s perfect!¡± Li Hao said delightedly. He liked this secret art¡ªit was a marvelous technique for ambushing others, much like the Hand That Brings Back Life. Added to that the stroke recorded in his mind... the young man suddenly felt that he had many fatal aces up his sleeves.

    Such was the benefit of being under the wing of a formidable teacher who knew anything and could bring out any secret art! Other martial masters could only gaze upon Li Hao with longing and envy.

    Next, Yuan Shuo taught his student the breathing method of the Ghost Shadow Sword. This was the fundamental of the art. Breathing came first, then the technique. The technique was the external manifestation of the art and did not remain unchanging. It could be adapted to different battle conditions, circumstances, and opponents. Techniques should not be stagnant.

    Take the Five Styles, for instance. A ferocious tiger altered its hunting style based on the number, type, and strength of prey. It didn¡¯t always leap up to attack with one swipe.

    Li Hao bent his mind to the task. His memory was very good and he could remember at least seventy percent of everything his teacher said. He couldn¡¯t memorize everything on the first pass, that required a second pass.

    After hemitted the knowledge to memory, he started experimenting himself. The cruxid with the adjustment of the breathing method. Each breathing method was tailored to its techniques. Using another would only lead to harming himself.

    .....

    Li Hao started his next round of arduous training.

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan was preparing to set out. The excavation was set for August 28, leaving roughly ten days until the expedition began. He needed to arrive ahead of time and conduct some preparatory work. The deputy director also needed to visit Silver City, primarily to escort Yuan Shuo to Rift Canyon. It was also a convenient time to give Wang Ming the final Sunre level blood pearl in the Night Watcher vaults.

    The Night Watcher genius had requested it through someone else and paid two hundred cubes of mysterious power to obtain it. The cubes came from the Wangs. Wang Ming had promised his family that if he received the blood pearl, he would one hundred percent set foot into Plenilune and bear a thirty percent chance of bing Sunre...

    The young man was shrewd for once as he worried the family wouldn¡¯t be willing to front such an enormous expenditure. He didn¡¯t make it known that he was already a Plenilune, mostly because the distance between the two cities was too great. Wang Ming could keep a secret for once becausemunication was inconvenient.

    In this way, he wouldn¡¯t feel guilty if he didn¡¯t progress to Sunre. He was already a Plenilune and had an exnation ready if he didn¡¯t ascend. A wealthy scion like him didn¡¯tck for money, but mysterious power was so precious that it could not be wasted willy-nilly, particrly in sums of two hundred cubes.

    Hao Lianchuan would not go alone this time. The Night Watcher headquarters was an entire building. He was bringing twenty people with him¡ªall experts. Darkmoon was the bare minimum, there was a handful of Sunre, and him at Sr. The agency was sending a full force for this exploration.

    Apart from a few Sunres that truly could not be redeployed from missions at hand, the Night Watchers were sending all of the Sunres they had. When adding Huang Yun who was already on site, that made for seven Sunres total from the Night Watchers.

    There was also Yuan Shuo who could kill Srs, and if Liu Long had set foot into Dominator as well... Those two together would make up nearly half of the Night Watcher contingent in terms of strength.

    Hao Lianchuan was waiting. The others waited as well.

    A figure walked down the stairs after a while. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s expression was calm as he approached the gathering: he didn¡¯t carry himself with his usual majestic poise. The director typically strode like a dragon or prowled like a tiger¡ªhe was just very rxed today. It helped taut heartstrings rx.

    ¡°Director!¡± the group called out. Some of the younger Night Watchers were simply ovee by the sense of authority, whereas older Night Watchers were more fanatic.

    It should be that the older one was, the more unruffled andposed. The situation was the opposite way around as it¡¯d been a long time since Hou Xiaochenst fought. Veteran Night Watchers, however, had witnessed the director¡¯s might on the battlefield for themselves.

    Red Moon once attacked many years ago to force Yuan Shuo to show himself and make the province stand down. They just wanted to kill Yuan Shuo; if the Night Watchers dared intervene, they would exterminate the agency.

    During that incident, Hou Xiaochen charged out with his spear and yed a Sr in domineering fashion. It was a simr happening to Yuan Shuo killing a Sr, just many years earlier. Not only that, but the director killed numerous Sunres as well. He trounced the supernatural organization so thoroughly that Ying Hongyue himself appeared in the end.

    Hou Xiaochen did not back down a single step in front of Ying Hongyue. Fortunately, that was also when central region reinforcements arrived. The central Night Watchers sent multiple powerhouses in aid, which finally persuaded Ying Hongyue to retreat.

    While Hou Xiaochen did not exchange blows with the leader of Red Moon, he was still a god in people¡¯s eyes. The director had withstood pressure from one of the three great organizations and didn¡¯t fear Ying Hongyue!

    The greater Ying Hongyue¡¯s subsequent battle achievements in the central region were, the more it testified to Hou Xiaochen¡¯s greatness.

    The director ignored the crowd¡¯s reaction and spoke in an even tone that was calm and gentle. ¡°I wish everyone a smooth and fruitful trip. It is best if we are sessful, but survival is our bottom line. Pay attention to Yuan Shuo¡¯s words when you are in the ruins, but do not grow too close to him.

    ¡°He¡¯s offended too many people,¡± chuckled Hou Xiaochen. ¡°So there might be powerhouses waiting to ambush him. He is a professional and should be respected ordingly, but it will be dangerous to stay too close to him!¡±

    Although his words were full of caution and danger,ughter rippled through the assembly. Listen, but stay far away from the demon. Everyone understood that.

    ¡°Director Hao is a steady and dependable man. While he is a fire supernatural, hecks the brash violence that is their trademark. In my view, someone who can hold themselves in check is someone who will find sess!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan smiled. It felt so good to beplimented!

    ¡°But your Director Hao sometimes thinks too much...¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°There are seven Sunres among this contingent, with Yuan Shuo and Hao Lianchuan making for nine total. If there is a conflict with the three great organizations, your Director Hao may hesitate. At that time, if five people agree to fight, you can engage in battle without having to report it to headquarters! If less than nine are present and the majority agree to fight, you canmence battle immediately as well!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan bit back what he wanted to say.

    ¡°I¡¯m not downgrading your authority.¡± Hou Xiaochen nced at his subordinate. ¡°Just that I am well aware of your shorings. Our people know to a certain degree as well. They will listen to you when they should, but it¡¯s better to be more prepared than not in all things!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan nodded and said in a muffled voice, ¡°The director makes it sound like I¡¯m afraid of the three great organizations!¡±

    ¡°Not afraid, just having to consider too many things.¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned. ¡°You always worry about incurring heavy losses if we fight them, that the agency will be unable to find its footing in Silver Moon.

    ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way. So long as I am alive, the Silver Moon Night Watchers will not be toppled for the foreseeable future. Therefore, you can be at ease.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan nodded. He did indeed fret over too many reservations at times. As the second Sr of the province, he was in charge of administrative minutiae since Hou Xiaochen normally didn¡¯t set foot outside headquarters. He¡¯d watched over much of the Silver Moon agency develop and couldn¡¯t bear to see them die in front of him.

    ¡°That is all I will say. If our expedition is sessful, the province will be impregnable!¡± Hou Xiaochen breathed out gently and waved his hand. ¡°Go forth! I hope however many set out today will be however many that return!¡±

    ¡°Director, I will bring everyone back in full!¡± Hao Lianchuan dered solemnly. ¡°Move out!¡±

    Approximately two dozen people swiftly departed in uniform steps. Standing in the lobby, Hou Xiaochen quietly watched them set off.

    However many that set out will be however many that return?

    That was almost impossible!

    He was well aware of that, Hao Lianchuan was well aware of that. Everyone in the delegation and not in the delegation was aware of that.

    It was impossible.

    This wasn¡¯t their first exploration of Rift Canyon. They¡¯d lost many on previous expeditions thatcked participation from the various organizations. With the three great organizations and some mid and small organizations involved this time, they would be lucky to have seventy percent of their peoplee back.

    ......

    August 20.

    A clear day.

    Twenty days of furious training and maddened absorption immensely improved the entire Silver City Night Watcher branch. Li Hao emerged from his practice of the Ghost Shadow Sword when word came that Director Hao was here again.

    The Silver City Night Watchers were quite familiar with him as he¡¯de several times in a short period of time.

    <i>Thew enforcement building.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan looked at the group in front of him with a strange look in his eyes. It wasn¡¯t easy for him to detect improvements in martial masters, but he could easily sense the changes in supernaturals.

    Wang Ming was a Plenilune! Yun Yao and Hu Hao were both Halfmoon, and even Li Meng was almost there!

    This exceeded his expectations. They¡¯d improved too quickly! ording to his calctions, it would take them another half year to reach these aplishments. Here they were, having already seeded!

    inly, they¡¯d reaped great gains from thest battle. Perhaps they¡¯d obtain more mysterious power than expected. Was it really Darkmoons that they¡¯d killed? That was what Liu Long had said...

    Confusion shed through his mind before Hao Lianchuan quickly tamped it down. This wasn¡¯t important, any improvement was good.

    Liu Long arrived not long after Li Hao entered the room. The nine members of the Silver City Night Watchers were all present.

    Hao Lianchuan had taken time out of his schedule to visit. He couldn¡¯t stay for long and cut straight to the chase. ¡°Director Liu, I mentioned before that the expedition to Rift Canyon is about to begin. You said you would consider joining, have you decided?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll go!¡± Liu Long responded. ¡°Not only that, but I want to bring people with me!¡±

 Chapter 184: Ghost Shadow Sword (III)

    <h4>Chapter 184: Ghost Shadow Sword (III)</h4>

    ¡°It¡¯s too dangerous, this isn¡¯t ark!¡± Hao Lianchuan frowned. ¡°The Night Watchers have primarily sent Fullmoons and Plenilunes for the excavation. There will be a few Starlight and weaker Darkmoon on standby outside, render to offer any assistance needed and to stop mundanes from passing through...¡±

    There wasn¡¯t a single Halfmoon among the expedition team to enter the ruin. While theirs wouldn''t be thergest delegation, it excelled in that it was filled with elites.

    ¡°Director Hao, we Silver City Night Watchers have long dwelled in the battlefield and possess a rich breadth of experience!¡± Liu Long said calmly. ¡°Besides, I don¡¯t want to bring that many¡ªjust Liu Yan and Li Hao. Li Hao¡¯s actually with Professor Yuan, so it¡¯s just Liu Yan.¡±

    <i>Liu Yan? </i>A faintly frowning Hao Lianchuan looked at the woman. He understood the connotations of the request¡ªHu Po was in the field. What if something undesirable developed!

    ¡°Well...¡±

    Liu Yan looked at the deputy director and interrupted, ¡°Director Hao, I¡¯m not a supernatural. It won¡¯t affect the Night Watchers if I die!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that!¡± Hao Lianchuan rumbled. ¡°We¡¯re all Night Watchers here, so there¡¯s no talk of anyone¡¯s death being negligible. No one can die! You¡¯ve just entered Sunderer...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m already mid Sunderer!¡± Liu Yan rified, further surprising Hao Lianchuan. He quickly came to terms with it as the gap between initial and mid Sunderer wasn¡¯t too difficult to bridge. He mused over the decision when Wang Ming also spoke up.

    ¡°Director Hao, I want to go too!¡±

    ¡°Me too!¡±

    ¡°And me!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Everyone from the Silver City branch volunteered.

    ¡°Is this a mutiny??¡± demanded a livid Hao Lianchuan.<i> If all of you go, what¡¯s going to happen to Silver City?! Do you all want to go to your deaths?? A peak Crescent like Li Meng is a greenhorn over there. She¡¯ll be better off guarding the outskirts.</i>

    ¡°Director Hao, I¡¯m a Plenilune!¡± Wang Ming said urgently. ¡°If all goes well over the next couple of days, I¡¯ll set foot into Sunre! A Sunre is a powerhouse no matter where we go, right? It¡¯d be a waste if I didn¡¯t go!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan looked at him with obvious astonishment and paused for a bit. ¡°You can set foot into Sunre?¡±

    He didn¡¯t believe it! Not even though Wang Ming had said the blood pearl was useful to him. It wasn¡¯t as if a supernatural hadn¡¯t absorbed a blood pearl before, the hell was it useful for? It was slightly useful, but far less useful than two hundred cubes of mysterious power.

    ¡°We lose nothing by trying...¡± Wang Ming said sheepishly. ¡°Director Hao, let me go too!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan truly hadn¡¯t considered that Wang Ming could already be a Plenilune. ¡°It¡¯s not out of the question for you to go...¡± He thought for a bit. ¡°It¡¯s good for youngsters to temper themselves. But it¡¯s out of the question for the rest!¡±

    To put it bluntly, they were too weak. They¡¯d be going to their deaths! An excavation wasn¡¯t a leisure jaunt; he didn¡¯t have the energy or attention to spare for too many.

    Chen Jian and the others weren¡¯t willing to ept this oue. They were also Sunderers and this trip was apparently a mission of revenge! They¡¯d heard that it was to kill Li Dahu!

    There were strong bonds between the Demon Hunters. When would it be a better chance to kill Li Dahu, if not this time?

    ¡°Director Hao, I¡¯m a Sunderer too!¡± The normally taciturn Chen Jian got to his feet. ¡°Martial masters are more discreet than supernaturals! I¡¯m skilled in defense. The three great organizations must be deeply familiar with the Night Watchers and more likely than not unfamiliar with us. I think we should be of some help if we go.¡±

    ¡°A Sunderer?¡± Hao Lianchuan repeated with surprise, then looked at Wu Chao.

    ¡°I¡¯m also a Sunderer!¡± the manughed wispily.

    The deputy director rocked back on his heels, truly surprised! All of these people had broken through to Sunderer in this tiny Silver City. This was a bit frightening. Sunderers were almost the equivalent of Darkmoon¡ªnot a very strong level, but not the baseline either in the Night Watchers.

    Liu Long interjected, ¡°It will be Liu Yan, Wang Ming, and Li Hao for the expedition. The others will stay and defend!¡±

    He knew about the dangers they would encounter and what was on everyone¡¯s mind. They could not lose the entire department on this trip! Four out of nine attending was already arge number.

    A grin spread across Wang Ming¡¯s face. He wanted to go because there might be benefits to be had, and he knew how strong Liu Long and Yuan Shuo were. If Li Hao wasn¡¯t afraid of death with them, then he was even less afraid of death! Perhaps unexpected gains would be in store on this adventure.

    This might also be a chance for Wang Ming to build his reputation! If the Night Watchers were to be highly regarded in the province, it had toe about on the battlefield! If he could ascend to Sunre and kill a Sunre, he would be famed throughout the supernatural domain. He was only twenty years old. Killing a Sunre at twenty years old meant that he would be one of the top dogs in Silver Moon!

    ¡°Chief!¡± Wu Chao and the others protested. They wanted to go too, the Demon Hunters always acted in concert.

    ¡°Train well!¡± Liu Longmanded. ¡°All of you better improve while we¡¯re gone. I¡¯ll conduct an inspection when I return. There will be plenty of chances to fight and to kill. We might be in open war with the three great organizations after the excavation concludes, so there will be plenty of opportunities in the future!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s expression shifted slightly. <i>These words... forget it, this is a distinct possibility. </i>So that made for four people on the team¡ªLiu Long and Wang Ming possessed sufficient strength. Yuan Shuo wanted to bring Li Hao, so that was fine too. It was Liu Yan...

    She probably wanted revenge, and ardently at that. If they didn¡¯t let her go and she slipped away in secret, that might be even more dangerous and troublesome.

    ¡°Then it¡¯s you four!¡± Hao Lianchuan nodded after repeated deliberation. ¡°Li Meng and Hu Hao were supposed to go as Professor Yuan¡¯s protection detail. Since he has the ability to protect himself now, and there are more and stronger powerhouses from the three great organizations than expected, you two don¡¯t need to go anymore!

    ¡°We officially enter the ruins on the 28th! Make sure to arrive before then, I will not being to get you.¡±

    He had other business to attend to at their campsite; Hao Lianchuan also needed to ascertain how many experts the other organizations had sent for this exploration.

    ¡°Director Hao, I¡¯ll be there in time with my people!¡± Liu Long nodded.

    ¡°Then that¡¯s all!¡± Hao Lianchuan threw a sk at Wang Ming. ¡°Wang Ming, think about it before you use it. It¡¯s not cheap and mostly suited for martial masters. Sell it to Liu Long if you¡¯re not confident enough!¡±

    With that, he quickly left.

    ......

    ¡°Chief, why aren¡¯t you taking us with you?¡± Chen Jian was still reluctant to ept the oue after Hao Lianchuan had departed.

    ¡°I¡¯m not the one calling the shots!¡± Liu Long frowned. ¡°White Moon is in charge. Also, do you guys think that Silver City is very safe right now? Who¡¯s going to defend the city if we all go?¡±

    ¡°But!¡±

    ¡°No buts!¡± Liu Long interrupted and looked at the others. ¡°Keep a weather eye on the city. Trouble might arise before we¡¯re out of the ruins! Also,rge numbers of powerhouses are entering the ruins. With both me and Elder Yuan gone, be careful of people sneaking into the city. Silver City is not safe.¡±

    Wang Ming wasn¡¯t interested in the rest of their conversation. He tugged Li Hao off to the side and whispered, ¡°Li Hao, I have the item. So do you think... do we...¡±

    Li Hao chuckled to see him in such a hurry and thought for a moment. ¡°Alright,e to my teacher¡¯s tonight. I¡¯ll help you absorb the blood pearl.

    ¡°Give it to me first, I need to make some preparations beforehand.¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± <i>Give it to you?</i> Wang Ming worried. <i>You¡¯re not going to take it for yourself, are you?</i>

    Li Hao remained looking at him; the handsome young man apprehensively handed over the precious item after a moment. ¡°Don¡¯t... don¡¯t break it.¡±

    Li Haoughed and didn¡¯t bother with a response. He had his considerations. He didn¡¯t need the blood pearl after reaching peak Sunderer. He needed more to grasp the aura and set foot into Dominator instead.

    Blood pearls, however, were more useful for martial masters. He wanted to give it to Liu Yan. She might set foot intotter Sunderer¡ªor rather, she would have no difficulty doing so. It would just be difficult for her to grasp the aura.

    The expedition would be very dangerous for her.

    As for Wang Ming, Li Hao wanted to use the sword energy to extract some metal mysterious power andbine it with sword energy to make it easier to digest. The mixture might help Wang Ming ascend. It would be more effective than the blood pearl.

    Blood pearls were not as effective for enhancing the supernatural as one might think. Li Hao needed to utilize a portion of metal mysterious power and arge quantity of sword energy. The transaction was a loss for him, but he didn¡¯t care.

    No one had ostracized him after he joined the Demon Hunters. Although he was just bait, everyone protected him in critical moments. Liu Yan dragged him along in her wake even when she was being chased by a Sunderer.

    These memories were imprinted on Li Hao¡¯s heart, so if he could help the team, he would do what he could. If Wang Ming could progress to Sunre and Liu Yan tote Sunderer, that would make the Silver City team so much stronger. They would be much more equipped to protect themselves.

    Li Hao sidled over to Liu Yan after exchanging a few words with Wang Ming. ¡°Sis,e to my teacher¡¯s tonight...¡± he whispered.

    ¡°Not your ce?¡± The woman swept him with a coquettish look. ¡°Is it appropriate to go to your teacher¡¯s?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao pretended not to hear the response. ¡°There are good things to be had!¡±

    ¡°...don¡¯t you take Wang Ming¡¯s blood pearl for yourself!¡± said Liu Yan after she thought for a bit. ¡°As annoying as that guy and his big mouth are, I wouldn¡¯t dare use a treasure that costs two hundred cubes even if you gave it to me!¡±

    She guessed that Li Hao wanted to im Wang Ming¡¯s possession for himself. If that was the case, she didn¡¯t want it! No matter how much she wished to break through, she wasn¡¯t going to unfairly take her teammate¡¯s treasure.

    Li Hao was taken aback by her reaction¡ªwas it this obvious? <i>Is my character that bad? Wang Ming suspects me and Liu Yan also guessed it in a few seconds?</i>

    ¡°That¡¯s not it, don¡¯t worry. Just keep watching if you don¡¯t believe me. I won¡¯t take it unless Wang Ming ascends!¡±

    <i>So you¡¯ll take it if he does?</i> Liu Yanughed. What would be left of the blood pearl after the supernatural advanced? Well, it didn¡¯t matter as much to her anymore. ¡°Very well, am I spending the night? Should I bring a change of undergarments? What kind of style do you like?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao spun on his heel and left. Young widows were terrifying!

 Chapter 185: Opening Supernatural Locks (I)

    <h4>Chapter 185: Opening Supernatural Locks (I)</h4>

    <i>Nighttime.</i>

    <i>The Yuan residence.</i>

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t say anything upon hearing Li Hao¡¯s thoughts and arrangements. He simply offered, ¡°Don¡¯t think of Wang Ming as a fool. He¡¯s not stupid. The metal mysterious power that you extract... If I¡¯m topare it to other metal attributed mysterious power, I would actually call yours metal elemental power.

    ¡°The elemental power that you distill is pure and of a single element. Any supernatural that¡¯s absorbed energy before will instantly detect its difference. Setting aside the fact whether or not he¡¯ll know that¡¯s elemental power, you¡¯ll be in big trouble once he opens his mouth.¡±

    There were already too many who knew about the sword energy. If word got out that Li Hao could extract elemental power, that would be even more trouble.

    Li Hao sat down cross-legged on the floor and nodded as he listened. He¡¯d thought about all of this already.

    ¡°I understand, but I also know that when there are too many debts, one stops worrying about them. Red Moon knows a lot, Yama might know some about me, and the Night Watchers have possibly guessed another portion. In that case, does it matter if people know a little more?¡±

    The young man shed a smile. ¡°There¡¯s two possible oues in this scenario. First, Wang Ming will be so grateful that he will keep my secret and help me here and there in the future. Second, he harbors other motivations and tells others, whereupon I gain another enemy.¡±

    Did he care about one more enemy?

    Not anymore.

    After weighing up the pros and cons, this was simply the conclusion he came to. His impression of Wang Ming during this period of contact was that, aside from a tendency to run his mouth, the young man was decent enough. He did seem to be able to keep secrets as he¡¯d never spoken of the tenth person that Li Hao told him about. The precursor was that he needed to be reminded ahead of time.

    Yuan Shuo nodded. He normally didn¡¯t interfere in his student¡¯s decisions if they were backed up by proper thought. He would only clearly exin the advantages and disadvantages.

    ¡°Then it¡¯s up to you, but be prepared for the consequences!¡± That was all he would say on the topic. One walked one¡¯s path alone. Even if there were bumps and obstacles along the way, it would be a good thing if one learned that the human heart was to be feared.

    ......

    Wang Ming was the first to arrive after teacher and student waited for a while. The handsome supernatural beamed widely when he saw Yuan Shuo. ¡°Teacher!¡±

    An honorary disciple was still a disciple at the end of the day. The handsome young man also wanted to curry some favor, given how strong Yuan Shuo was. Unfortunately, the professor gave them a very imposing and dignified impression. Other than Li Hao, the others were a little too timid to approach Yuan Shuo.

    The professor sized up the supernatural. ¡°My original ns were not to interfere too much,¡± he said calmly. ¡°You¡¯re just an honorary disciple and you should be well aware of why I epted you. However, your little senior brother insists that I use a secret art to help you break through. Helping you is a small thing, but when word spreads of your abnormal rate of improvement... Do you know what it means to the supernatural world if you can easily advance?¡±

    ¡°I understand, teacher,¡± Wang Ming responded solemnly. ¡°So I¡¯m very thankful to Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°He is your senior brother!¡±

    Wang Ming fell awkwardly silent. That honorific was too hard for him to voice!

    Yuan Shuo dropped the topic. ¡°I only have one request, button your lips! If you seed and others ask you...¡±

    He thought for a moment. How should Wang Ming reply when asked how he¡¯d ascended so quickly? Because of the blood pearl?

    No way! He wasn¡¯t the first to utilize the treasure.

    ¡°Say it¡¯s because you know the Breathing Method of the Five Styles! Thebination of breathing method and blood pearl results in exceptional results at critical moments. It makes it easier to smash through bottlenecks!¡±

    The Breathing Method of the Five Styles!

    Li Hao wanted to speak up, but Yuan Shuo swept him a severe re. It was the breathing method if he said so!

    The outside world knew that Yuan Shuo possessed an exclusive breathing method that was useful for supernaturals. The Energy Induction Method that the Night Watchers used contained hints of his involvement. The Five Styles version was almost never taught to outsiders, which was why Brokensky had been tempted by the breathing method.

    If it was further known that the Breathing Method of the Five Styles was useful for bottlenecks, it would elicit even more attention and entice more powerhouses to try and seize it.

    ¡°The Breathing Method of the Five Styles is not taught to outsiders!¡± Yuan Shuo asserted. ¡°If anyone asks you, tell them that you learned a simplified version. The main crux was that I operated the breathing method for you so you could absorb the blood pearl!¡±

    Various thoughts ran through Wang Ming¡¯s mind. ¡°Teacher... this...¡± he said softly. <i>Will this bring trouble?</i> ¡°Why don¡¯t I just say that I have good potential...¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡± Yuan Shuo cursed. ¡°You¡¯d be a Heaven Favored if your potential was that good! You can say that to regr people, but if those like Hou Xiaochen ask you, respond with my exnation.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Wang Ming hastily nodded.

    ¡°Go inside!¡± Yuan Shuo pointed at the training room. ¡°Clear your mind after you head in and don¡¯t think about anything. Start training when you sense energy entering the room and ignore everything else!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Wang Ming quickly entered the room without daring to say anything else.

    Yuan Shuo closed the door with a wave of his hand and looked at his student. ¡°Send it through the air. It¡¯s fine if you waste some or part of it dissipates. He won¡¯t be able to say much if he does tell others, which will avoid certain trouble.¡±

    It wasn¡¯t unfeasible to send energy through the air, but some dissipation and waste would be unavoidable.

    Li Hao thought for a bit before nodding. He didn¡¯t say anything as he knew this was his teacher¡¯s greatest effort in protecting him. They sat down in front of the training room. Yuan Shuo took out a storage box; it was filled with metal attributed mysterious power.

    The professor had traded part of his previous gains for one thousand cubes of the five elements and given them to Li Hao. The young man had absorbed roughly five hundred, leaving five hundred untouched and some unattributed mysterious power. Of those, there were one hundred cubes of metal. That should be enough.

    A Darkmoon would never be able to absorb one hundred cubes in one go under normal circumstances. Sunres would be hard pressed to achieve the task, but Srs wouldn¡¯t have a problem.

    Li Hao grasped at the air without another word; metal attributed mysterious power surged into his hand while faint sword energy shimmered over the little sword. Although they¡¯d absorbed a great deal of energy at the entrance to the Qiao ruins, their consumption had also been significant as ofte and energy from the sword didn¡¯t seem as rich as before.

    Sword energy melded into metal energy and began bifurcating it. A ball of golden energy was swiftly stripped out¡ªit was pure gold!

    The energy surged toward the lungs, the organ that corresponded to the metal element. Instead of absorbing it, Li Hao quickly circted his internal force and shoved it out of his body, sending it through the air into the training room.

    ......

    <i>Inside the room.</i>

    Wang Ming paced back and forth. There didn¡¯t seem to be anyone else entering the room¡ªwas energy somehow supposed to appear for him to use? He didn¡¯t understand the process, but all he could do now was wait.

    A ball of golden energy suddenly appeared in his field of vision as he grappled with his thoughts. Indeed, he could sense its existence. As he wondered what this was and if it was dangerous or not, the ball of energy enveloped him without forewarning!

    Wang Ming¡¯s pupils oscited violently! <i>What??</i>

    The golden energy swiftly flooded his body and assimted with his own mysterious power in the blink of an eye. It catalyzed a reaction with a loud rumble; all of the mysterious power in his body trembled with forceful ripples. Everything felt like it was going to explode!

    His mysterious power agitated furiously and surged in all directions, roiling toward his supernatural locks.

    Supernatural cultivation centered on breaking supernatural locks. The first lock opened differed from person to person. Take Wang Ming, for instance. He first opened a lock around his lungs. He hadn¡¯t truly understood the action, but became a metal supernatural after that. His second lock was the one of his right arm.

    Based on the nine locks that were known to current supernatural knowledge, there seemed to be five locks around each of the five viscera organs [1], four around each of the limbs, and apparently one around the head. No one had discovered that one yet, it was just spection that there should be a tenth lock around the head.

    Golden energy surged into the handsome young man¡¯s body, thundering toward his lungs with arge amount of mysterious power. The young supernatural jumped with shock¡ªthe five organs were very fragile even for supernaturals. He didn¡¯t dare let this energy flood his lungs!

    Thus, he forcefully operated the Energy Induction Method. It was also a way of directing mysterious power¡ªhe sent it toward his left arm. Out of the five locks he¡¯d discovered, the first was around his lungs, then his arms, and finally his legs. Wang Ming was yet to sense the locks around his other organs.

    This time, he nned to send this massive surge of energy against the lock in his left arm.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A muffled collision rang from his body¡ªboth Li Hao and Yuan Shuo heard it. It rumbled like the energy was ramming something!

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s lips vibrated outside the door. ¡°He¡¯s attacking the supernatural lock! Supernatural cultivation is much simpler than ours, even Sunres don¡¯t need toprehend the aura. They ascend when they open their locks!¡±

    Li Hao nodded and continued extracting metal elemental energy to send it inside the house. Waves of golden energy undted into the room while Wang Ming cried out with pain. The mysterious power was less painful than he expected, but the process of opening a lock was heart wrenching all the same.

    This was already quite good for the handsome young man. Not only had his previous processes of opening the lock been incredibly painful, the impact of mysterious power rampaging through his body was also extremely agonizing.

    Half of the anguish was absent from the equation this time! His eyes widened with excitement, not knowing how Li Hao and Yuan Shuo managed the deed. Too many experienced a mental breakdown during this process because they could not endure the pain. This was a frequent sight. Right now, his hopes of breaking through seemed immensely higher!

    A small chain appeared over his left arm, it was tangible! There was a saying in the supernatural world that these locks were chains restricting the potential of the human body. Breaking them freed the potential, which was why the supernatural grew stronger.

    However, Yuan Shuo saidst time that these locks were possibly protection instead. Wang Ming could not give consideration to this in his current straits. He would ascend first before thinking of anything else.

    1. The organs in the main cavity of the body. ?

 Chapter 186: Opening Supernatural Locks (II)

    <h4>Chapter 186: Opening Supernatural Locks (II)</h4>

    Surges of golden energy mmed against the supernatural lock. While this energy was milder, its ramming effects were better. It seemed to be more forceful than regr mysterious power.

    <i>Rustle!</i>

    The sound of chains shifting traveled into Wang Ming¡¯s ears. The chain that¡¯d manifested on his left arm was thinning from the endless waves of golden energy washing over it. As it grew fragile, so did joy intensify on Wang Ming¡¯s face. His chances of sess seemed particrly high!

    While he rammed the lock again and again, Yuan Shuo suddenly spoke from outside the door. He¡¯d been quiet for a very long time.

    ¡°If you trust me, meld the lock¡¯s fragments into your other locks when it breaks!¡±

    Wang Ming shook with shock!

    Meld the broken lock with his other locks? That would increase the difficulty of opening the other locks. Supernatural looks were fetters and a special energy. Under normal circumstances, it dissipated after it broke. And yet, the professor wanted him to gather the fragments and incorporate them into the locks that were still intact!

    Numerous thoughts shed through Wang Ming¡¯s mind, some of them quite uncharitable. But they quickly faded away into nothing.

    ¡°Okay... thank you... teacher!¡± he responded with difficulty. He didn¡¯t know if this was the right course of action, but there was no reason for Yuan Shuo to lie to him. As for whether or not this would make future ascension harder, that was a matter for the future. Who knew how long it¡¯d take to ascend to Sr after he reached Sunre? There were many Silver Moon Sunres, but only two Srs in the Night Watchers. He was young, there was time to slowly look into thister.

    Wang Ming continued attacking the lock, but in a slightly different way from before. He¡¯d sought to just ram it open in the past; it was fine if itpletely shattered to smithereens in the process. This time, he controlled himself more and fixed his target in one location. That would prevent the lock from scattering too much when it was broken, preserving the rest to be incorporated into his other locks.

    Although that would make the remaining locks harder to break, he would follow things through to the end since he trusted Yuan Shuo. Otherwise, he¡¯d just meld a tiny portion of his broken lock.

    ......

    Outside the door, Yuan Shuo breathed out gently when he finished speaking. He¡¯d said his piece and wouldn¡¯t interfere with how Wang Ming decided. Wang Ming was not Li Hao. If it was Li Hao in there, he would issue amand instead of advice.

    Li Hao continued to extract more metal attributed mysterious power. Thirty cubes, forty cubes... he soon reached fifty cubes. It was an astounding speed; Wang Ming would never absorb so much under normal circumstances. But not only did the handsome supernatural inside the training room absorb energy swiftly, the rumbles of ramming the lock and shaking of chains also persisted.

    Li Hao had to continue.

    <i>Rustle rustle rustle.</i>

    Chains shook and trembled as Wang Ming howled with pain. Outside, Li Hao pondered¡ª<i>is a normal ascension supposed to be this painful?</i>

    Ascension was an extremely natural process in his view. Just as his teacher and Liu Long hadn¡¯t experienced any difort when setting foot into Dominator, it was supposed to be an extremelyfortable process.

    Sunres and Dominators were theoretically the same level, but if breaking supernatural locks was always this painful, it rather did seem that supernaturals were defying heaven¡¯s will and going against the natural order.

    ¡°Give me more at one time,¡± Wang Ming suddenly roared. ¡°I¡¯m going to make my final attempt!¡±

    Li Hao increased his extraction speed without a word and shoved all of the metal energy into the room. The more he sent in this manner, the more dissipated, but that wasn¡¯t anything to be concerned about in this moment.

    <i>RUSTLE!!</i>

    The sound of chains rattling grew clearer and crisper to the ear. It was apanied by increasingly loud howls from inside. Just as one hundred cubes of metal mysterious power were almostpletely exhausted, Wang Ming shouted with ferocity!

    <strong><i>CRACK!</i></strong> came a clear breaking sound. As Wang Ming howled with agony, metal power burst in the room. Yuan Shuo waved the door open, giving Li Hao a clear look.

    A chain was breaking. The second it broke, a massive surge of strength erupted from the left arm to meld with the energy in Wang Ming¡¯s body and spontaneously strengthen the young man! His metal mysterious power absorbed a great deal of energy in a split second.

    In Li Hao¡¯s eyes, Wang Ming morphed from a bright moon to a small sun. The broken chain was apparent in front of him and beginning to dissipate.

    The newly ascended supernatural grit his teeth and circted his mysterious power, shunting all of the broken chains into the locks around his legs. Two more chains manifested on his legs, ones that kept him constrained. They grew clearer with the incorporation of the broken chain from his left arm.

    Wang Ming didn¡¯t care. Mysterious power burst through his body and increased rapidly. There seemed to be a massive pool of energy sealed within the left arm¡ªall of it surged out now to be one with him.

    Wang Ming brightened with resplendence! His cries of pain were heightened by excitement; he was so agitated that he wanted to crow with joy!

    He¡¯d really done it and it¡¯d taken only one try! The golden energy from an unknown source had been domineering beyond imagination. It wasn¡¯t painful, just dominating enough that it rammed straight through the supernatural lock. This had been a much simpler process than when he set foot into Darkmoon.

    Wang Ming continued absorbing energy and grasping after what wanted to dissipate into the surroundings. The golden mysterious power in his body continuously grew stronger.

    It was a very fast process; the energy in the air dispersed before long and his left arm returned to normal. It no longer felt like it was erupting with power.

    Even Wang Ming¡¯s pupils were golden in color. He heaved a long exhale and looked around, eyes dancing with excitement. ¡°Teacher, Li Hao, I¡¯ve... I¡¯ve ascended!¡±

    Sunre!

    That¡¯d been so easy!

    ¡°So you have!¡± Yuan Shuo sighed instead of congratting the supernatural. He¡¯d witnessed a few things when Wang Ming smashed through the lock and was of the increasing opinion that the supernatural locks should not be brashly opened.

    A great deal of energy surged out of Wang Ming¡¯s left arm after he opened the lock. The young man absorbed it in full to help him swiftly develop to Sunre. But while he was stronger, Yuan Shuo had a hunch that the handsome supernatural had further depleted his potential.

    The lock and chain seemed more like a nurturing mechanism, one to nourish the body! Although Wang Ming¡¯s left arm hadn¡¯t been able to deploy much strength prior, could the special force it contained have naturally undone the lock if the lock hadn¡¯t been forcefully ripped through?

    Would that result in even greater strength?

    Would martial masters have to feel for their supernatural locks to take another step forward? Not in the sense of breaking them, but to encourage them to open on their own? Would that create greater potential and strength?

    Yuan Shuo sank into deep contemtion, feeling a distinct absence of joy for Wang Ming¡¯s ascension to Sunre. It was Li Hao who shed a broad grin.

    ¡°Congrats, Ole Wang!¡±

    Wang Ming beamed widely, delight written all over his face.

    ¡°I¡¯m only twenty, so I might be the youngest Sunre in the province!¡± He might¡¯ve set a record today!

    ¡°Then that¡¯s even more cause for celebration!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°You¡¯re the youngest Sunre, Sunre Wang!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s all good!¡± Wang Ming was beside himself with happiness, but could tell that Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t seem to be as happy as he portrayed himself to be. ¡°Teacher, I know that you think the supernatural may not be the proper path, but I¡¯m thinking that the legitimate way and future you speak of might be very far off! They might be beyond, or far beyond Sr, but can I make it to that step?

    ¡°Now that there are powerhouses above Sr in the supernatural world, my dream is to catch up to them! I don¡¯t ask anything of the future, only that I live a magnificent here and now! If therees a day in which it¡¯s possible to make up for my potential, it might be easier to do so if I¡¯m stronger. If it¡¯s impossible to recover, then I have no regrets in life either. At least it was a magnificent one!¡±

    These didn¡¯t sound like sentiments Wang Ming would hold. Li Hao grew lost in thought as he listened¡ª<i>I only ask that I live a magnificent here and now...</i> The future was unfathomably remote!

    Would the straight-shooting, at times oblivious Wang Ming harbor this kind of awareness?

    That seemed beyond Li Hao¡¯s imagination.

    Yuan Shuo also started and looked at the honorary disciple he didn¡¯t pay much attention to. <i>I don¡¯t ask anything of the future, only that I live a magnificent here and now!</i>

    ¡°You...¡± the professorughed a differentugh from usual. ¡°Well said! I¡¯m the one who is stuck in a mental loop. That¡¯s true, leading a resplendent present and sweeping through thend is just as well! Martial masters¡ªregr martial masters¡ªare riddled with old wounds by the time they reach Sunderer. The stronger the martial master, the greater thetent wounds. I was so injured when I was a peak Sunderer that I could not make it to Dominator. Did I never think about this before I reached Sunderer? That the more I battled, the more I would be injured?¡±

    Of course he did!

    But even so, he still issued challenges all over the ce. As he thought of his younger self and how he advised Wang Ming and the others now... he suddenly found himselfughable. These were all youngsters!

    He felt they should not be implementing their current course of action because he¡¯d been in their shoes before. But who wasn¡¯t like this in their youth? Any regretster on could be addressed, with no losses suffered if they could not be recovered from.

    ¡°Not bad, Little Ming!¡± Yuan Shuo smiled and nodded in approval. Wang Ming also chuckled happily.

    Li Hao, however, muttered, ¡°Are these words really from you?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Ming¡¯s expression dimmed and he huffed after a while, ¡°No, they¡¯re from Director Hou. I¡¯m just borrowing them. Some say he was injured when he was younger and thus impeded his future, that he shouldn¡¯t have reached beyond himself in the field. The director says that he once shone with so much brilliance that even Ying Hongyue had to bow his head. That is enough, he has no regrets!¡±

    The leader of one of the three great organizations had to give way in front of Hou Xiaochen. He retreated without the enemy he¡¯de for. It was one of the few times that Red Moon suffered a defeat.

    On the other hand, Hou Xiaochen walked away with an injury that he could not recover from. Some felt it wasn¡¯t a worthwhile trade, but he did not agree. He¡¯d once reigned over Red Moon¡ªnot a branch, but its headquarters!

    Yuan Shuo sank into thought once more, it was Li Hao¡¯s turn tough.

    ¡°That¡¯s more like it, I was wondering how Ole Wang could say something so heroic!¡±

    ¡°And why can¡¯t I?¡± Wang Ming half rolled his eyes. ¡°Li Hao, I¡¯m a Sunre now!¡±

 Chapter 187: Opening Supernatural Locks (III)

    <h4>Chapter 187: Opening Supernatural Locks (III)</h4>

    A smiling Li Hao looked at Wang Ming. So what of Sunre? He wanted to test what a newly ascended Sunre without the aura of a martial master was capable of. There was nothing to fear about this level!

    When it came to battles between Dominators and Sunre, Li Hao was of the opinion that Dominators were more frightening. Sunres just possessed stronger energy.

    ¡°That¡¯s enough.¡± Yuan Shuo smiled to see the two young men bickering. ¡°Little Ming, you should focus on controlling your mysterious power since you¡¯ve just ascended. Don¡¯t let the energy dissipate! Have you mastered the breathing method that I taught you?¡±

    ¡°I have!¡± Wang Ming hastily bobbed his head up and down. The simplified version of the Breathing Method of the Five Styles was easy to pick up, he¡¯d learned it long ago.

    ¡°Operate the breathing method twenty-four hours a day for the next couple of days. While it¡¯s not on par with my Breathing Method of the Five Styles, it¡¯s better than the Night Watcher Energy Induction Method. Keep it going to reabsorb mysterious power that would otherwise dispersed. It will also somewhat suppress your supernatural ripples. If it isn¡¯t a powerhouse or someone specifically paying attention to you, it¡¯ll be difficult for them to discover that you¡¯ve broken through.¡±

    Wang Ming blinked. Operate the breathing method twenty-four hours a day? Supernaturals didn¡¯t need to do so.

    ¡°Remember, have it in constant motion!¡± Yuan Shuo repeated. ¡°Try to fashion it into muscle memory and sheer instinct, so that it operates even when you are unconscious or dead. This is something that martial masters must do. You are not one, but I hope you can do so!¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s benefits to this, Ole Wang!¡± Li Hao quickly bobbed his head. ¡°Continuous operation creates the same effect as holding your breath. Utilizing it through instinct will strengthen your body and keep you in a state of constant vignce.¡±

    ¡°I understand, then I¡¯ll try to do so over the next couple of days.¡± Wang Ming nodded.

    ¡°Stay here during that time and leave only when you exude the same amount of mysterious power as you did before. This will prevent you from being detected by others¡ªit¡¯s important to keep some aces in your back pocket!¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s ears suddenly twitched and he looked at Li Hao.

    The young man was looking back at him. He¡¯d also heard something; perhaps Liu Yan had arrived. They¡¯d started off auspiciously tonight¡ªWang Ming had sessfully ascended. If Liu Yan also made it tote Sunderer, then the weakest of the expedition team this time would bete Sunderer.

    Li Hao even wondered if their group was strong enough to go head-to-head with some of the organizations joining the expedition. Two Dominators, one Sunre, himself at peak Sunderer, and anotherte Sunderer... that made for a formidable squad!

    ¡°I need to leave for a bit!¡± Li Hao excused himself to his teacher¡¯s nod.

    Wang Ming wanted to say something, but Yuan Shuo cut him off. ¡°Stay here and absorb some of the other four elements as well!¡± He plonked down a storage box. ¡°There¡¯s some of the others in here. Absorb them in minimal quantities.¡±

    <i>I¡¯m a metal supernatural, what do I need other elements for? </i>Wang Ming wondered with confusion.<i> That will cause mysterious power to conflict with each other.</i>

    ¡°Just absorb it!¡±

    <i>Very well then,</i> Wang Ming rposed his expression. He didn¡¯t dare ignore Yuan Shuo even though they were technically of the same cultivation level now. The professor cut down Srs like he drank water. Wang Ming couldn¡¯t do the same, not by far.

    ......

    <i>Outside the house.</i>

    Li Hao opened the door to see Liu Yan standing in the yard. The woman cast a quick look around and whispered, ¡°Who¡¯s here? I could sense a burst of cutting mysterious power from far away. Is it a Sunre?¡±

    ¡°Guess!¡± Li Hao grinned.

    She brainstormed for a moment and asked incredulously, ¡°Has he really ascended?¡±

    Everyone knew that Li Hao was going to help Wang Ming absorb the blood pearl, but... had thetter really seeded in advancing? That was incredible!

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Li Hao nodded merrily. ¡°That¡¯s anotheryer of protection for exploring the ruins!¡±

    Delight dawned on Liu Yan¡¯s face as well. The stronger their team was, the better. At the same time, she looked oddly at Li Hao.

    ¡°You¡¯re the same age as him and even a few months older. Li Hao... are you really not jealous?¡±

    It seemed very strange to her sometimes. Was the young man really as indifferent as he appeared to be? He was a peak Sunderer and thus superior to Wang Ming, but now that the youngerd had progressed with Li Hao¡¯s help, didn¡¯t he feel overtaken and left behind in the dust?

    ¡°What am I jealous of?¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Sis, everyone¡¯s path is different and we seek different goals. The more important thing is that Wang Ming is not a bad guy, he just talks too much. Plus, he¡¯s technically my junior brother!¡±

    What was there to be jealous of? He¡¯d truly never envied the handsome young man¡ªthere was no need to. When Li Hao recalled the stroke of that day... that was where he set his sights at. He wouldn¡¯t be jealous even if Wang Ming advanced to Sr, to say nothing of Sunre.

    And so what of Sr, so what if one was greater than Sr? They would only meet with one oue if they fought against that blow. Death!

    Li Haobored strenuously so that he could one day deploy such a stroke!

    Liu Yan took a deep breath and said nothing else. Li Hao kept a very low profile, one so low that not many knew he was already a peak Sunderer. Butpared to that, what was so frightening was the high visibility portion of his humility.

    So what of Sunre? He meant it when he said he wasn¡¯t jealous. If he was, he wouldn¡¯t have helped Wang Ming advance. Meanwhile, the young man said nothing more other than to lead Liu Yan to another room.

    It was much easier tobine a blood pearl with sword energy than to split out mysterious power. All he needed to do was have Liu Yan swallow the blood pearl, infuse some sword energy into her, and wait for them to naturally meld together. There was no need for other action on his part.

    A Sunre level blood pearl and sword energy was enough for Liu Yan to digest for a while. She stared at it for a long time when Li Hao took it out. She¡¯d guessed that the young man might keep some of the blood pearl for her use when he told her toe by, but she hadn¡¯t thought that he¡¯d retain the entire pearl!

    That indicated that Wang Ming hadn¡¯t utilized it in his ascension.

    Liu Yan lowered her head, not saying a word. A whileter, she swallowed the blood pearl, still not saying a word.<i> The Demon Hunters...</i>

    She thought through a lot in this moment. She thought of Liu Long and the others. There were very few members in the Demon Hunters, but they all cared deeply for each other.

    Liu Long was a warm-hearted team captain. While he appeared coldly aloof, Liu Yan knew that was only a facade. He¡¯d decided to exact revenge for Liu Yan the second he heard that Li Dahu was in the ruins.

    And not just Liu Yan¡ªif anyone else on the team encountered a simr situation, Liu Long would take action without extraneous speech. He silently looked after everyone and kept all of their secrets. And today, Liu Yan suddenly felt the same from Li Hao.

    Trustworthy and dependable!

    Liu Long was irreceable in the team¡¯s hearts; he could be fully trusted. No one else knew all of the secrets, just him. He never voluntarily spoke of secret knowledge to outsiders and utilized all methods possible to help the team.

    Liu Yan swallowed the blood pearl with aplicated look in her eyes. As she stared at Li Hao, she suddenly said, ¡°Don¡¯t be so good to me in the future, I¡¯m afraid I might develop feelings for you. There is... no room in my heart for you!¡±

    Li Hao started. This didn¡¯t seem like her typical teasing or a joke. <i>There is no room in her heart for me...</i> The young man didn¡¯t think much of it, just that it sounded like there was someone already upying her heart?

    Liu Yan smiled happily, but her lips were also curved with a trace of loneliness. A figure gradually materialized in her mind¡¯s eye. He was eternally standoffish and coolly arrogant, but the more one got to know him, the more one understood that this was a true, indomitable man!

    But she never voiced or even demonstrated her feelings. Liu Yan was very affectionate toward all newbies. She was thus to Li Hao and had been so to Wu Chao and Chen Jian. She¡¯d also acted this way to their deadrades¡ªhe was the only one that she rarely put on a coquettish act for.

    The more one cared about a person, the less one would act that way.

    Liu Yan closed her eyes and ceased thinking about the topic.

    Li Hao seemed to have guessed something and asked carefully, ¡°Does... the chief have a wife?¡±

    He really didn¡¯t know.

    Liu Yan¡¯s eyes snapped open and she looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°She¡¯s dead!¡± the woman answered after a prolonged pause.

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t press for details. So Liu Long was also a widow? Did he upy Liu Yan¡¯s heart? The young man wasn¡¯t sure of the details.

    Everyone said that there was something between the two, but after entering the team, Li Hao found that there didn¡¯t seem to be a special rtionship between them. Liu Long treated everyone in the same caring manner. He didn¡¯t pay particr attention to Liu Yan.

    The young man put all of that out of his mind. If Liu Yan really did like the chief... that was just as well! The captain was a good man. Other than trying to y it cool by wearing a trench coat day in and day out, there didn¡¯t seem to be anything bad about him.

    <i>I wonder what he does when he vanishes for a day or half a day every week? Is he taking care of a man¡¯s needs?</i>

    <i>Who knows!</i>

    <i>Mm, a middle-aged widow. If that¡¯s what he¡¯s doing, that¡¯d be normal too. But anyway.</i>

    Li Hao conducted some sword energy into Liu Yan¡¯s body. There was nothing else for him to do after that. He watched and waited silently.

    ......

    Liu Yan opened her eyes after roughly an hour.

    ¡°I¡¯m almost there, I can almost project my internal force from my head. I¡¯ve umted enough, now I need to consolidate for a bit. The eyes are the main issue...¡±

    Li Hao gave an overview of what his teacher had taught him about strengthening the tear nds when he heard this. Soon enough, there was a crying woman in the room.

    The young man swiftly backed out. It¡¯d be impossible to exin himself if someone saw him in a room with a crying woman in the middle of the night. Outside the door, his teacher looked at him meaningfully.

    ¡°She seems... the captain...¡± A resigned Li Hao said softly.

    ¡°That¡¯s normal.¡± Yuan Shuo inclined his head with a smile. ¡°Someone like Liu Long is quite appealing. His brains just aren¡¯t good for much. Other than that, there¡¯s not much one can criticize about him.¡±

    Li Haoughed awkwardly. Likely everyone¡¯s brains weren¡¯t good for much in his teacher¡¯s eyes, himself included.

    ......

    No one said a word that night. Wang Ming and Liu Yan focused on consolidating their new cultivation level and growing ustomed to their new strength. Instead of resting, Li Hao and Yuan Shuo perused books ofmon knowledge, as opposed to martial dao. On the other hand, Li Hao strongly suspected a book from the third row hidden under his teacher¡¯s book cover.

    Liu Yan left first in the morning. Wang Ming stayed to further consolidate his level.

 Chapter 188: The Martial World of Silver Moon (I)

    <h4>Chapter 188: The Martial World of Silver Moon (I)</h4>

    Li Hao and Yuan Shuo stayed up all night reading. Wang Ming opening his supernatural lock left asting impression on the two. The professor mused over certain notions throughout the night. In the morning, he suddenly looked at his student.

    ¡°Wang Ming has seen five supernatural locks¡ªone around each of his limbs and one around his lungs. From there, he set foot on the path of being a metal supernatural.¡±

    Li Hao put down his book and looked at his teacher.

    ¡°If we look at it from the perspective of single elements, opening the lock of the heart would probably make one a fire supernatural,¡± Yuan Shuo continued.

    Li Hao nodded, those were his thoughts as well. Thinking deeply, the professor gently rapped his knuckles against the table.

    ¡°What if all five elemental locks were opened?¡±

    <i>All five?</i> Li Hao looked quizzical.

    ¡°Like you strengthening the five visceral organs¡ªif someone discovers all five supernatural locks of these organs and opens them at the same time, what happens then?¡±

    The young man thought for a moment and responded, ¡°Neutralization between the five elements and then... equilibrium? And transmutation into internal force?¡± Li Haoughed after voicing this theory. However, his teacher remained very calm.

    ¡°And why not?¡± he said apathetically.

    Li Hao cut off midugh. What did his teacher mean by that?

    Yuan Shuo tapped his head and sank into contemtion. ¡°Even if the bnced five elements are internal force, they shouldn¡¯t count as simple mysterious power. When I entered Dominator of Thousands, I sensed my internal force nurturing the five elements!¡± Caught in the throes of mental struggle, he looked at his student. ¡°There is no path beyond Dominator! What can withstand tens of thousands?

    ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking that the weaknesses of martial masters at this level lie with the internal organs. If my organs reach unparalleled heights¡ªif I can cultivate them to the point where their locks naturally open, will there be a surge of strength like the supernaturals experience? Will I be transformed from inside out and enter a new domain?¡±

    Yuan Shuo had felt Wang Ming¡¯s surge of power all too clearly when the young man opened the lock on his left arm. The human body was a treasure trove! He didn¡¯t want to forcefully smash the lock and cause his internal force to be devoured, his body upied by external energy. What would it look like if his own organs were strong enough to open the locks?

    ¡°You¡¯ve been nurturing your organs.¡± The professor looked at Li Hao. ¡°Do you think your locks have be stronger or weaker?¡±

    ¡°Stronger!¡± Li Hao answered honestly and thought for a moment. ¡°I could sense their existence before, but now they¡¯re harder to detect! It¡¯s like a wooden barrel has be deeper and can hold more energy, so it¡¯s harder for my supernatural locks to appear.¡±

    ¡°Are they still there?¡±

    ¡°They are!¡± Li Hao nodded emphatically. ¡°They must be. I would sense it if they weren¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°Then what if your organs are strong enough to open the locks? If the locks can be opened normally, do you think you¡¯ll erupt with power?¡±

    The young man mused silently. This was unknown territory, it was difficult to say. From what his body told him...

    ¡°It¡¯s possible!¡± Li Hao answered with reasonable confidence. ¡°The five organs have absorbed so much elemental energy, but they¡¯ve only grown a bit stronger. Where has all the mysterious power gone? Has it dissipated? Impossible! There must be a ce inside the organs that stores all of this energy!¡±

    ¡°That is my guess as well!¡± Yuan Shuo smiled, then said slowly, ¡°The five visceral organs store energy so that it does not fade away. They should be full, yet not congested.¡± [1]

    Li Hao understood this notion. The ancient tomes recorded that the five viscera were organs that stored qi, holding it in so that it did not scatter.

    ¡°The five viscera are often corrted with the six bowels.¡± Yuan Shuo thought a bit more. ¡°The five viscera should be full, yet not congested, whereas the six bowels should be congested and not full...¡±

    He mused over numerous theories, taking a while to say, ¡°Let¡¯s set the six bowels aside for now, they¡¯re even more abstract! The five viscera are sometimes called the five viscera spirits or the five spirits. Dominators nurture the mind and spirit! The spirits are connected to the five viscera and from them spring the five spirits...¡±

    ¡°I use the five animals to nurture my spirit!¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly said after rapidly processing his thoughts. ¡°The spirits of the five animals... the spirits of the five viscera... One spirit per organ! I nurture the five spirits to break my supernatural locks. Do you think I have a chance to climb higher if I employ this method?¡±

    Li Hao swiftly postted the feasibility of this suggestion. He understood that his teacher meant to use the five auras of the Five Styles to smash through the supernatural locks of the five viscera organs. Or rather, he meant to absorb or further nurture them, not just simply break them. He would then meld the five auras and spirits of the five animals to break through to a new cultivation realm.

    Was that possible?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know; the only thing he was certain of was that it might be very dangerous. Roads to the unknown were always thus. Each step was fraught with peril, but also apanied by great harvest.

    What kind of cultivation level would his teacher be if he seeded? The Vanquisher of Ten Thousands that he spoke of?

    No!

    Certainly not!

    If the spirits of the five animals broke the locks of the five viscera, that would be the equivalent of breaking five supernatural locks. In the supernatural world, that would make one of the fifth level¡ªgreater than Sr. Therefore, his teacher would skip past the Sr level and set foot straight beyond Sr.

    Of course, that was based on supernatural divisions. It was different for martial masters.

    ¡°I think it¡¯s worth a try!¡± Yuan Shuoughed when the young man looked at him. ¡°How will we know if it¡¯s feasible or not if we don¡¯t try? Apparently, Sun Yifei will be in attendance at the ruins. I may not be able to match him with my current strength. Or rather, it will be nearly impossible to!¡±

    Regardless, the professor didn¡¯t find that embarrassing. ¡°He is ate Sr,¡± he sighed with emotion. ¡°I had to put my life on the line when I killed the initial Sr that was Qiao Feilong. If I fight Sun Yifei... I might die. I can lose to anyone, but I refuse to lose to someone I once defeated!

    ¡°Those who I have conquered must always live with the specter of my magnificence over their heads. I will not have it be the other way around when I am old. Sun Yifei won¡¯t do, and I will have my revenge on Ying Hongyue sooner orter when the opportunity presents itself!¡±

    ¡°So you¡¯ve decided, teacher?¡± Li Hao asked solemnly.

    ¡°I have!¡± Yuan Shuo mulled over his response. ¡°I started considering this when you began nurturing your five organs. My thoughts solidified when I saw how much power resides within after Wang Ming opened his supernatural lockst night. I want to cultivate the five organs! Fortunately, my Five Styles is a perfect match!

    ¡°The five organs foster the five auras and cultivate the five spirits. When the five spirits emerge from the five viscera, I either die or I ascend beyond Dominator!¡± The professor looked at this student. ¡°The heart, liver, spleen, lung, and kidney correspond to tiger, bear, deer, ape, and bird. One viscera for one animal! Heart, fire, and ape. The fire attribute rules the heart and the ape is attributed to fire! The heart nurtures the ape, while the spleen nurtures the bear as both are of earth! The tiger walks into the kidney, strengthening it and the body. The bird corresponds to the liver and deer to the liver...¡±

    Yuan Shuo reeled off strings of theories and various trains of thought, assigning the five spirits to the five viscera so they would ultimately break free¡ªsmash through the locks.

    Li Hao listened intently, understanding that if anything happened to his teacher, that would be the end of his heritage. Was it correct to have the five organs nurture the five spirits? If there was a way avable to the ancients, they would not walk it in this manner. They could not have all practiced the Five Styles, to say nothing of anything else. Not everyone would¡¯ve mastered the auras of the Five Styles, so his teacher¡¯s road was his alone.

    Perhaps it traveled in the same direction as the ancients, but the details were most certainly his teacher¡¯s own invention. Li Hao may not even be able to imitate his teacher due to the need to master five auras, but it was a way at least!

    ¡°Little Hao, I want to cultivate my five organs right now!¡± Yuan Shuo smiled toothily. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t see a change in strength in the short run, but I most likely won¡¯t see further improvement if the five spirits do not break free of the viscera. So I think about it a little more... and probably first use the fire energy from Qiao Feilong to see if I can raise a fire heart ape.¡±

    ¡°As it should be, teacher!¡± Li Hao hastily said. ¡°We have four hundred cubes of the five elements and two hundred unattributed left. Use it all, teacher!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d wanted to save them for you to swiftly strengthen the five organs after you ascend to Dominator.¡± Yuan Shuo nced at the young man. ¡°But now... we will not be short of them if I seed! However, I¡¯ll need a portion of sword energy too...¡±

    ¡°As you¡¯d like, teacher!¡± Li Hao took out the small sword and offered it to his teacher.

    Yuan Shuo might meet with powerful enemies in the ruins. Late Srs were strong, but if his teacher brought his full strength to bear as well as the stone de and Incantation of the de of Blood, he might not lose. If there were powerhouses greater than Sr, however, he would be dead without a doubt!

    He might stand a fighting chance if any one of the five viscera spirits could be formed. Of course, it¡¯d be better if all five spirits could be nurtured. They didn¡¯t have enough time for that though. There was only enough to try for a fire heart ape.

    ¡°I¡¯ll make an attempt with one viscera spirit,¡± Yuan Shuo said. ¡°If I fail, you should do the same if you have a chance to in the future! Equilibrium between the five organs might be the best result. One organ dominating the others might lead to drawbacks.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry teacher,¡± Li Hao responded solemnly. ¡°I havemitted everything to heart. If you fail, I will kill all of your enemies and bring their heads to your grave when my spirits break free of their organs!¡±

    Yuan Shuo threw his head back withughter. Was this demoralizing? Not at all! Only gratification. <i>Well said! </i>This was how things should be. He would walk this path first and leave some experience behind for Li Hao. It would be a beautiful story if the young man seeded and offered his enemies¡¯ heads at his grave.

    ¡°I¡¯ll take the sword and de, as well as all of the mysterious power,¡± Yuan Shuo concluded. ¡°Based on my calctions, I should see some initial results within five days. Go home ande back after five days. If I seed, we will head to Rift Canyon that day. If I fail and my heart shatters, take everything and hand the real sword and de to Hou Xiaochen. He will protect you!¡±

    The real sword and de! inly, Yuan Shuo felt that Hou Xiaochen had likely guessed that Li Hao had given him a fake sword. If the professor failed, there would be no one protecting Li Hao. Liu Long could not do so. The only one who could in all of Silver Moon was Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Teacher!¡±

    Yuan Shuoughed when his student wished to speak. ¡°Go on! I would like to carve a path through martial dao myself. Inspiration has struck today. Since I have determined the direction, I should try it. Whether I fail or seed, I will have a clear conscience!¡± He patted Li Hao¡¯s shoulder with a benevolent smile.

    Li Hao lowered his head, not saying a word. ¡°Then... master... I will return home!¡±

    <i>Master...</i>

    In the world of martial dao, one who passed on knowledge was both teacher and master. Li Hao was just used to calling Yuan Shuo teacher as he¡¯d learned civil subjects before, not martial dao. The habit stuck after he started learning martial dao, but today, he changed the honorific.

    This was the first time, and it might be thest.

    Both master and disciple were decisive sorts. Since Yuan Shuo had decided, Li Hao knew there was no stopping him. Neither did he have the right to. He sank to his knees and kowtowed.

    ¡°I await your emergence from seclusion, master! If you fail, I will go to White Moon City and keep a low profile for a few years. When I seed, I will eliminate all of your enemies from this world!¡±

    1. In Chinese medicine, the five viscera are viewed to store qi, whereas the six bowels of the galldder, small intestine, stomach,rge intestine, urinary dder and triple energizer deal with food and water. Qi fills an organ, whereas food and water congests the organ. They should be handled by the appropriate set of organs ?

 Chapter 189: The Martial World of Silver Moon (II)

    <h4>Chapter 189: The Martial World of Silver Moon (II)</h4>

    ¡°Hah!¡± Yuan Shuo barked withughter. ¡°I¡¯d still rather do it myself!¡±

    ¡°Then the two of us will cut down all of teacher¡¯s enemies together!¡±

    ¡°Your bloodlust is too strong... Get outta here!¡±

    Li Hao rose and left. Yuan Shuo watched him go with a smile. A momentter, he exhaled softly. Spirits of the five viscera, the fire heart ape... <i>From today forth, I will raise this ape! People say that I am an evil monkey spirit. Very good! I¡¯ll show you a true evil simian when my fire heart ape takes shape!</i>

    <i>Sun Yifei? Late Sr? You want revenge on me, don¡¯t you? Bring it! I beat you into jumping off the bridge in Rift Canyon all those years ago and we meet on the same battlefield this time. Don¡¯t you think you¡¯re something after throwing yourself under Ying Hongyue¡¯s banner¡ªhe¡¯s also someone who knelt at my feet all the same!</i>

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>The border of Silver Moon province.</i>

    A person walked across thend. Tall, limber, and in his forties at most, he bore a long <i>qimei</i> staff on his back. Though his hair was graying, the look in his eyes was umonly sharp. He didn¡¯t appear that old apart from unkempt hair that flowed past his shoulders. Several youngsters followed behind him.

    ¡°Master, we¡¯ve finally made it to Silver Moon province!¡± One of them eximed with joy when they saw the territory marker. They were finally here!

    Up ahead, the Qimei Staff King also nced at the stele erected in the ground. His lips curved in a smile tinged with mncholy. Twenty years! It¡¯d been twenty years since he left, twenty long years since hest set foot in his homnd.

    After he lost to Old Demon Yuan, the demon was trapped in Silver Moon for these twenty years. Sun Yifei had thought the old man would die a Sunderer, but to think the old guy would reach into Dominator and y a Sr!

    That was just as well! Bullying the weak was beneath him; revenge was more his pursuit. But neither was killing a Sunderer on his deathbed worthy of his attention.

    Ying Hongyue wished to kill Yuan Shuo not just for revenge. He also nursed other motives such as interrogating the old man for the contents of certain ancient tomes, locations of ancient ruins, and the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Sun Yifei, however, didn¡¯t care about any of that. He was back for one reason only¡ªto kill Yuan Shuo and tell the old man that Sun Yifei was back!

    Not only that, but he¡¯d brought some of his most prized disciples as he¡¯d heard that Yuan Shuo had been moved to take action for his final disciple Li Hao. Red Moon was also apparently after the young man.

    It didn¡¯t matter! He brought his disciples with him so they could kill Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple. They were all martial masters, not supernaturals. He¡¯d raised them over the past twenty years to inherit his martial legacy!

    It might not be fair if he easily killed Yuan Shuo. He wanted his disciples to kill Li Hao so as to prove that the Qimei Staff was greater than the Five Styles.

    His disciples were respectively peak yer, peak Sunderer, and half step Dominator. He didn¡¯t know what level Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple was. Li Hao might be very weak, but the weakest of his disciples was a peak yer. Thus, Sun Yifei brought his weakest disciple on this trip. If Li Hao couldn¡¯t fight even his weakest disciple, then he couldn¡¯t be med for bullying others with superior force.

    ¡°Master, are we going directly to Rift Canyon or to Silver City?¡± asked the half step Dominator in the rear. ¡°With master¡¯s strength, I don¡¯t think there¡¯s anyone in Silver Moon who can stop you. If going to the canyon takes too much time, why don¡¯t we head straight to Silver City, kill Yuan Shuo, execute his disciple, and end the Five Styles legacy!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t think too lightly of Silver Moon!¡± Sun Yifei looked back at his disciple. ¡°Even our leader suffered a defeat when he once visited the province.¡±

    ¡°Yes, this disciple understands! I heard that it was the leader of the Silver Moon Night Watchers¡ªHou Xiaochen¡ªwho took a stand. But it was because reinforcements came from the central region that our leader was forced to leave. Hou Xiaochen simply benefited from internal reinforcements...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that simple!¡± Sun Yifei flicked a sideways nce at him. ¡°Our leader was already present when Hou Xiaochen made his move. Why didn¡¯t our leader stop him? Was it only because Hou Xiaochen possessed a high status that our leader waited for him to finish killing so they could fight alone?¡±

    Youngsters always thought too simply. Sun Yifei valued these martial disciples more than he did his supernatural disciples. He... didn¡¯t actually like the supernatural that much, even though he was one himself now. Learning and inheritance weren¡¯t too important in the supernatural world. Other than a few supernatural techniques, there wasn¡¯t much knowledge to speak of. It was just absorbing energy, breaking locks, and learning some techniques.

    It was a marked difference from the path of martial masters. The master and disciple rtionship in martial dao made it easier to foster bonds of kinship and pass on experience, battle methods, techniques and others. So while he had a few supernatural disciples who were already Sunre, he didn¡¯t really care about them.

    Sun Yifei wasn¡¯t meant to reach Dominator back in his day. After he was defeated as a half step Dominator and his aura damaged, he had no choice but to cross over to dy his decline. He would never return to the path of martial dao. Therefore, he hoped that one of his disciples would be able to advance to Dominator.

    His eldest disciple who¡¯d spoken, for instance, already grasped a rudimentary aura. There was hope for him to rise to Dominator, so Sun Yifei held high expectations for him.

    ¡°Moxian, do not think little of Silver Moon!¡± Sun Yifei truly valued his eldest disciple, so he made this an earnest teaching moment. ¡°Located on the bordends since the ancient times, Silver Moon¡¯s martial culture thrives and prospers! Her martial masters were renowned throughout thend twenty years ago, before the supernatural appeared!

    ¡°Martial masters from Silver Moon dominated the ny-nine provinces of the world. After the Skystar Dynasty united the world, they had to order a temporary ban on martial activity due to unrest among Silver Moon martial masters!

    ¡°Though it was the end times for Silver Moon¡¯s martial world twenty years ago, they still produced numerous powerhouses¡ªincluding old demons like Yuan Shuo. While he wasn¡¯t a Dominator, he killed many Heaven Favored in the initial days of the supernatural rise and made his name known throughout thends!

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s martial world is built with deep foundations. Who knows what nook and cranny might hold a Dominator?¡± Sun Yifei waxed eloquent. ¡°There aren¡¯t many shes between supernaturals and martial masters these days. Some of the older martial masters have either retired to their mountain abodes or bide their time, waiting for the right moment. Some have evenpletely changed themselves to be leaders of supernatural organizations.

    ¡°Of the three great organizations, the leader of Red Moones from Silver Moon. Additionally, the leaders of Celestial and Yama are both rted to the province to a certain degree. There are many powerhouses in the titanic central region of your eyes, but what of it?¡±

    Sun Yifei still spoke highly of his homnd, despite his enemy residing here. Powerhouses yet remained in Silver Moon. Many walked out of the province¡¯s martial world. Ying Hongyue, for instance, was a representative figure of their time despite being at odds with the government. He came from Silver Moon. So while the province gradually declined in the supernatural world, the name of Silver Moon was still well known in Skystar Dynasty.

    And despite its continuous downturn, the dynasty that¡¯d conquered the world was not yet fully toppled. Who knew if Ying Hongyue could lead his organization into carving out territory for himself?

    ¡°This disciple understands!¡± Sun Moxian bobbed his head. Next to him stood a young woman wearing a long staff on her back. Her hair was tied in a neat updo, presenting an exceedinglypetent demeanor.

    ¡°Master,¡± she asked. ¡°I have heard of the might of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. But no Dominators havee from it in recent years. It¡¯s the central region that has produced quite a few, and many are active on supernatural battlefields. There are even rumors of Dominators looking to advance beyond Dominator, so why has martial dao declined so rapidly?¡±

    She often heard of the magnificence of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. Not only did her master speak of it, but so did martial masters of the older generation. But based on what she knew, no Dominators hade from Silver Moon in many years. A rare sight of them could be glimpsed in the central region. She and her master had visited several of them; none of them hailed from Silver Moon.

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s decline...¡± Sun Yifei shook his head with resignation. ¡°Its martial world has not truly withered. If we must be frank, it has to do with us. We elerated its downfall. Many of Silver Moon¡¯s martial masters carried the hope of ascending to Dominator back in the day¡ªmany, not just one or two!

    ¡°Those times were denoted as Silver Moon¡¯sst frenzy! Whether it was me, our leader, or that Yuan Shuo... we all fought with extreme viciousness and killed many half step Dominators. Among our opponents were the Seven Swords of Silver Moon, the Three Spears, Fists of North and South, de Kings of the Cardinal Direction, Thunder Legs, Worldcarver, Iron Shirt...¡± The powerhouses that Sun Yifei listed were almost all half step Dominator. Even the ones who weren¡¯t were practically there.

    There were a lot of people!

    It had been a resplendent era, the final era of madness before the rise of the supernatural. Silver Moon¡¯s martial world had been on the cusp of its ascendency, yet...

    Sun Yifei sighed emotionally. ¡°Out of the Seven Swords, three died to Yuan Shuo. Two of the de Kings did as well and he pierced through Iron Shirt with his Five Styles. That old thing took out half of the martial world by himself! The rest were dispatched by me, our leader, and a few others...¡± he chuckled.

    And so, Silver Moon¡¯s martial world declined!

    Jaws dropped among the baffled disciples. So Silver Moon¡¯s martial world had been ended by its own people!

    ¡°Then... why did Yuan Shuo never reach Dominator?¡±

    ¡°His ambitions were too great!¡± Sun Yifei responded coldly. ¡°The guy practices the Five Styles and trains in the auras of the five animals. Most martial masters have focused on one aura since the start of time, but that wasn¡¯t for him! He wanted five auras and tobine them all! ¡°Therefore, I¡¯m not surprised at all that he can kill a Sr after bing a Dominator. Either he never breaks through, or he is a premier Dominator once he does. Just melding five auras into one makes itpletely reasonable that he can cut down Srs!¡±

    He valued Yuan Shuo highly. Or rather, everyone ced great emphasis on every martial master from Silver Moon back in the day. This was a guy who yed half of the province¡¯s martial world, one whobined the auras of five animals!

    Even the lofty Ying Hongyue would be pping his own face if he said that Yuan Shuo was trash because he didn¡¯t set foot into Dominator. Which other Sunderer could meld five auras together?

    Hou Xiaochen protected Yuan Shuo not only because the man could explore ruins, but also because he held the faintest sliver of a hope that the professor could rise to Dominator, that the final hope of the province¡¯s martial world would remain alive.

    ¡°The five auras of the Five Styles...¡± Sun Moxian was left speechless. ¡°Did he really do it? I can¡¯t do two, much less five!¡±

    He finally began to understand why his master ced much importance on this man. This kind of character was not to be underestimated, even though he¡¯d only just set foot into Dominator. Being a half step Dominator himself, he fully understood how hard it was to advance with one aura.

    But five??

 Chapter 190: The Martial World of Silver Moon (III)

    <h4>Chapter 190: The Martial World of Silver Moon (III)</h4>

    ¡°Master, so it was through true strength that Yuan Shuo was able to kill a Sr, not by employing cheap tricks?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Sun Yifei answered emphatically. ¡°How can any tricks be involved? What tricks are there to be yed in the absence of true strength? The supernaturals of the central region are arrogant and outrageously conceited. They think it¡¯s pure coincidence that Yuan Shuo killed Brokensky, that it was an ident or an ambush. Bullshit! Those fellows belittle martial powerhouses just because they lucked into strength. There¡¯s no growth possible for them!¡±

    Although he himself was a supernatural, contempt was clear in his voice. It didn¡¯t necessitate an exnation. Sun Yifei looked around with obvious pride.

    ¡°I would still rather be a martial master if I have the chance to. I will be one that exceeds Dominator! So what ofte Sr? Remember this well, Moxian, martial masters have a far brighter future than supernaturals!¡±

    Such words from ate stage Sr would shake the supernatural world if it became public knowledge.

    Sun Moxian quickly nodded and couldn¡¯t help himself, ¡°Then... master...¡±

    ¡°Are you worried that he¡¯ll kill me?¡± Sun Yifei chuckled. ¡°I am no ordinary Sr. Remember, I am a martial master who almost made it to Dominator! I have also killedte Srs in the central region¡ªthey¡¯re nothing worth mentioning! Yuan Shuo is strong in my eyes, but he dyed his development for many years. I actually wish that he has the strength to fight me! It would be a real pity if I kill him easily.¡±

    His battle spirit red to life; he looked forward to their battle with extreme anticipation!

    ¡°Master, which do you think is stronger¡ªYuan Shuo or Grandmaster Cloud Above?¡± asked Sun Moxian.

    Grandmaster Cloud Above was a premier martial master in the central region. He once yed a peak Sunre with one sword stroke on a supernatural battlefield and met a Sr in directbat. While he wasn¡¯t able to kill that Sr, he injured the supernatural to the point that the Sr had to run for his life.

    There were a few elite martial masters in the central region who could defeat Srs. It kept the embers of hope and anticipation alive for some of the martial masters in that region.

    ¡°Cloud Above...¡± Sun Yifei thought for a bit. ¡°Cloud Above¡¯s been in closed door cultivation after injuring that guy a few years ago. Some say that he¡¯s found the path beyond Dominator. If it¡¯s Yuan Shuo, the old man should only be on par with Cloud Above from a few years ago since he¡¯s just broken through. Yuan Shuo should still be unable to rival him for the moment.¡±

    <i>That¡¯s good! </i>Sun Moxian rxed. Cloud Above had only injured an initial Sr, but his master was ate Sr who¡¯d crossed over from being a martial master. In that case, it seemed that despite being very strong, Yuan Shuo would not be able to match his master.

    They stood next to the boundary marker as they conversed about Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. The names of central region powerhouses came up one by one. Dominators and Srs were the usual, with very few Sunres or those above Sr.

    After a while of conversation and a brief overview of the glories of yesteryear, Sun Yifei took onerge step forward and entered Silver Moon territory. He set course for Rift Canyon instead of Silver City. He wanted to defeat or even kill Yuan Shuo in Rift Canyon! That was where he¡¯d once been defeated, and that was where he¡¯d crawl back up to regain his dignity!

    ......

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen sat in an office chair, watching messages fly by. One caught his eye. ¡°Sun Yifei has crossed Silver Moon borders with three disciples!¡±

    ¡°Sun Yifei...¡±

    <i>He¡¯s here!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen drew his brows together. This was a thorny character. Would Hao Lianchuan be able to manage him? It was too soon after Yuan Shuo¡¯s breakthrough, so he likely wasn¡¯t a match for Sun Yifei. Even if he advanced rapidly and reached peak Dominator, he would still be hard pressed to rival a martial master turned supernatural. It was rather Hao Lianchuan and the ming Phoenix Spear who might be able to defeat or hold off the neer.

    A knock sounded from the door before Manager Yu entered. ¡°Director, there¡¯s news from the central region that a rebellion has started in our neighbor, the Northern Ge province. The situation is critical, so they wish for the director to travel to Northern Ge with the origin weapon and help settle the chaos!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s eyes narrowed sharply; he recovered his calm in the next second. ¡°Reply that Hao Lianchuan has led a team to the ruins. There is no one else to hold down the fort at White Moon City, so I cannot leave!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Manager Yu lowered her voice. ¡°The Revolution King of Yama and Violet Moon of the Red Moon organization would like to meet with the director outside the city.¡±

    ¡°And what are they afraid of?¡± Hou Xiaochenughed.

    ¡°That the director will secretly make a move from the shadows!¡± Manager Yu smiled. ¡°They are well aware of the director¡¯s strength, so they want to take up your attention with everything possible so that you will not be free to go to the ruins.¡±

    Such was the strength that Hou Xiaochen employed! The leading representatives of Yama and Red Moon in the province hade together to prevent Hou Xiaochen from leaving the city.

    ¡°Very well, tell them I await them at the summit of Mt. White Moon. Don¡¯t they dare not show up!¡± chuckled the director. ¡°And what of Celestial¡¯s Half Mountain?¡±

    Celestial also had a leading representative in Silver Moon. He styled himself as ¡°Half Mountain¡± and was exceedingly mysterious.

    ¡°There is no intelligence regarding Half Mountain. It has been very long since hisst appearance in the public eye. Either he is in seclusion from an injury, or he¡¯s ascended!¡± Manager Yu gave her judgment.

    Hou Xiaochen inclined his head. It was possible that the supernatural had broken through.

    ¡°Forget it then, ignore him. There¡¯s nothing that can be done if he¡¯s advanced. The Celestial organization operates in an even more bizarre manner than Red Moon. They are very difficult to get a handle of.¡± Hou Xiaochen looked in Silver City¡¯s direction, retracting his gaze after silent consideration.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s reappearance had induced him to change some ns. How much remained of the Old Demon Yuan? The old demon who¡¯d almost single handedly caused an extinction event in Silver Moon now focused on health and refinement of character. With his low profile, it was difficult to determine his current strength.

    Chuckling, Hou Xiaochen looked in the direction of the central region. It was such chaos there that even the Night Watchers were affected. Some were in favor of war, some didn¡¯t want to fight. Some wanted to defend, others wanted to attack. Complete pandemonium reigned!

    Who knew if Skystar Dynasty could continue its rule? What kind of bem would engulf the ny-nine provinces if it fully copsed?

    ......

    Time passed day by day.

    <i>Silver City.</i>

    Li Hao immersed himself in martial dao these days, training without sleep for hours on end. He rarely returned to his massive house, spending most of his time in thew enforcement building and training, constantly training.

    <i>The Nine Forged Force, Five Styles, and Ghost Shadow Sword.</i>

    He repeatedly practiced the three secret arts. While he¡¯d reached five levels with the Nine Forged Force, it wasn¡¯t enough. Liu Long could employ all nine when he was a half step Dominator. His father could also utilize nineyers, so Li Hao felt that he was far from enough. Fiveyers was too little.

    He also experimented with how to rapidly switch between the Ghost Shadow Sword and Nine Forged Force, particrly thetter!

    The Nine Forged Force required its own breathing method, consigning the Five Styles and Ghost Shadow Sword to supplemental positions. This was not to Li Hao¡¯s desires as he could not utilize them in conjunction. He polished every step and move, trying to examine how he might use them together.

    After an indeterminate period of time, he stabbed forward with his sword and swiftly withdrew it. His next exhale became a sword of white smoke! He immediately tried to shift to the Nine Forged Force when he breathed out, wanting to exhale fiveyers of sword qi in one breath. His first breath was sessful, but while he instantaneously switched breathing methods, there was nothing in his second breath.

    ¡°It still doesn¡¯t work!¡± Li Hao frowned. The key to shaping his breath as a swordy in his lungs. The lungs were of the metal attribute and could open it''s supernatural lock if it was strong enough. Then, could he connect the second stroke to his move if he stored more qi?

    All he could manage now was one sessful exhale¡ªit was hard to keep going. This was due to limitations created by insufficiently strong lungs.

    ¡°Teacher says that the spirit of the lungs is the bird...¡±

    Of the Five Styles, the bird aura corresponded to the lungs since both were of the metal attribute.

    ¡°Assigning auras of the Five Styles to the five visceral organs... But it doesn''t necessarily have to be this way. That¡¯s just the best choice because teacher seeded with his auras of the five animals.¡± Li Hao¡¯s thoughts turned back to himself. He¡¯d grasped a sliver of the aura of earth. The earth element mapped to the spleen, where blood and qi were strengthened. Now he looked to master the aura of the sword. The sword mapped to metal, and metal to the lungs. Was it a logical conclusion to draw that he could use the aura of the sword to rece that of the bird?

    Though he theorized as such, Li Hao didn¡¯t dare make the attempt. The aura of the sword was so sharp that there was nothing but death ahead if he wasn¡¯t careful.

    Not to mention, he wasn¡¯t even a Dominator yet.

    What he needed to do most at the moment was to strengthen his aura of earth and condense the aura of the sword¡ªnot achieve the same aplishments as his teacher and meld five auras into one. He would be entirely satisfied if hebined the aura of earth with that of the sword. That would open the door to Dominator and even ce him beyond Liu Long as the chief only possessed one aura. Not to mention, his sword aura was hardlymonce!

    He¡¯d only created a sword of internal force at the moment. The real aura of the sword was yet to appear. Li Hao was well aware that it might take the spilling of blood for the true sword aura to form!

    How was there a sword that never saw blood? It might take this expedition to the ruins for him to hopefullyplete the aura of the sword.

    Li Hao turned over many notions and trained for a while longer. He performed a general clean up when he looked at the clock on a nearby wall, then strode out of the basement. It was already dark outside. Midnight.

    His teacher had said to go to him after five days. It was the fifth day as the clock had already ticked over to August 26. The expedition was set to begin on the 28th.

    ......

    <i>The Yuan residence.</i>

    Li Hao waited in the yard, watching silently. It¡¯d been five days! Would his teacher emerge from his closed door cultivation of the fire heart ape?

    A yawning Wang Ming walked out of the house. He¡¯d been here these days as well, focusing on making the breathing method an instinctive reaction. He operated it day and night without leaving the house. He wanted to talk to Li Hao when he saw the young man, but thetter waved him off as he was unwilling to talk. Wang Ming had to stay silent as well.

    He knew a little of the situation after these days. Yuan Shuo seemed to be in seclusion and wasn¡¯t even eating as he hadn¡¯t walked out of his study. After a few days of absence, Li Hao¡¯s sudden appearance meant that the professor was possibly wrapping up.

    The two sat in the yard, waiting silently. The sky was still dark and there was no movement from the room. There were no ripples of internal force or surge of mysterious power. Just dead silence.

    The sky brightened after an indeterminate period of time. Liu Long arrived, bringing Liu Yan with him. It was the 26th and there were roughly a thousand kilometers to travel before they reached Rift Canyon. They couldn¡¯t drive the entire way and it¡¯d take at least a day to reach the location. They might miss the exploration if they didn¡¯t set out today.

    Liu Long nodded at the two young men when he saw them waiting in the yard. He didn¡¯t say anything, just quietly waited off to the side. He¡¯d guessed that Yuan Shuo might be looking for the way forward during these days of continued unavability. Liu Long could only look up to Yuan Shuo for doing so.

    He himself had just entered Dominator, so he was far from the next level. Yuan Shuo had only broken through a few days before him, but he was already marching toward the next cultivation level.

    <i>An unknown level!</i>

    Various thoughts and concerns kept the fourpany as they waited for the professor to emerge.

 Chapter 191: Fire Heart Ape, Nurturing the Spirit (I)

    <h4>Chapter 191: Fire Heart Ape, Nurturing the Spirit (I)</h4>

    <i>Inside the study.</i>

    Yuan Shuo felt like he was sitting in a cauldron. A massive ape shimmered into existence in his heart, one that was extremely irritable and struggled madly!

    A fire heart ape!

    His heart was the cauldron to refine the ape. Apes were vigorous and nimble, yet also hot-headed and testy. The consciousness hearkened to the spirit and mind, which meant that the aura possessed a bit of a consciousness. Under such circumstances, subduing the ape of the Five Styles so that it willingly resided in the heart was a very difficult task.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s heart pounded furiously, beating faster and faster! Bringing the fire heart ape under control would impact the cultivation of all five organs and how he reached the next step. The heart was strong¡ªwas it feasible to break the bnce of the five organs with it?

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t know, so he could only try. He didn¡¯t have time to cultivate the five organs at the same time.

    ¡°Huff, puff, huff, puff...¡± The massive ape huffed and puffed in his heart, struggling as it wanted to break free of the heart. It wasn¡¯t willing to be constrained thus.

    It <i>could</i> not be restrained!

    Yuan Shuo had exhausted all methods over the past five days, but failed to keep the ape in ce. Although this was just a spirit, he was hard pressed to control it if it didn¡¯t wish to remain in the heart.

    <i>Five days!</i>

    He could sense the passage of time, but sess seemed out of reach. Yuan Shuo was neither disappointed nor panicked. He¡¯d still made a few gains after these five days.

    ¡°You¡¯re forcing my hand!¡± he sighed. <i>You won¡¯t listen!</i>

    His heart agitated as a chain materialized over its surface. This was the lock that supernaturals spoke about¡ªthe lock of the heart.<i> Since you won¡¯t listen and stay in ce, don¡¯t me me for pping you in chains!</i>

    He hadn¡¯t been willing to try this earlier out of concern that his fire heart ape was too strong. What if it broke the chain? Would he be forced into crossing over as a fire supernatural?

    That would be the least desirable oue, yet there was nothing left to do now but try. He was betting that the ape could not tug the chain apart, that his heart was very strong. He¡¯d absorbed a great deal of fire elemental power and enhanced his heart¡ªwhich also meant strengthening his lock.

    The supernatural locks of ordinary people might snap upon first contact, but when martial masters strengthened an area, they strengthened their locks as well. The fire heart ape may not be able to break it. If it did... then that may be when he broke through.

    Yuan Shuo made up his mind and directed the chain of his heart toward the ape.

    ¡°Huff, puff, huff, puff...¡± The huffing and puffing grew so loud that it was thunderous! The ape roared furiously and iled with both arms, smashing its fists against the chain as it refused to be shackled.

    Despite its struggles, the chain descended with inexorable momentum. The lock of the heart confined the heart. There was no escape once the ape entered the heart. Despite its obvious strength, the massive lock stifled it with a tremendous rumble. This rumble sounded only in Yuan Shuo¡¯s heart.

    Momentster, the fire heart ape was crushed under an enormous lock and chain¡ªthe lock of Yuan Shuo¡¯s heart was gigantic! No matter how the ape struggled, its efforts were futile. The heart jumped violently as its upant fought and raged against its constraints.

    <i>Boom... boom... boom...</i>

    This was the sound of his heart beating. It pounded ponderously for a very long time while blood bubbled out of the corners of Yuan Shuo¡¯s mouth without pause. Eventually, the professor shed a brilliant smile. Sess! He¡¯d captured it!

    ¡°So this proves that the path to the next level requires strengthening the five organs and supernatural locks...¡± Hemitted every part of the process to memory. All of this had to be part of his heritage. He didn¡¯t have time to admire his handiwork¡ªYuan Shuo stared fixedly at the heart, focusing all of his attention on its changes and every trace of modification.

    The moment the fire heart ape waspletely confined, the heart beat faster. The other four visceral organs also trembled violently in unsteady fashion.

    The equilibrium of the five organs was shattered! Blood seeped from the spleen and lungs, a reflection of how it was a little too difficult for these organs to endure the increased rate of blood flow from the strengthened heart.

    ¡°So subduing one viscera means the other four need to be strengthened at the same time. Otherwise, they¡¯ll be easily torn apart... The stronger the supernatural locks, the better! If they¡¯re too weak, an aura will shatter them once it grows too strong. The lucky be supernaturals, the unlucky will find their organs in pieces along with the lock...¡±

    The fire heart ape ceased its struggles as Yuan Shuo focused on new revtions. However, he quickly found something else amiss. While the ape no longer struggled and the chain settled down, it abruptly returned to activity momentster. It was now entangled with the supernatural lock.

    Wielding the chain, the ape started howling in his heart.

    <i>Fire!</i>

    Countless mes appeared in its eyes as the fire heart ape turned into one of fire. Inspiration struck Yuan Shuo and he red the aura of the Five Styles. Tiger, deer, bear, and bird were still as before, but the moment the aura of the ape appeared, it immediately separated itself from the other four. A powerful fire ape materialized in the air, one with chains wrapped around it.

    <i>Rustle!</i>

    The sound of swinging chains echoed through the air. As the ape agitated, it suddenly sent out a chain¡ªthe blow seemed to pierce through matter!

    ......

    <i>Within the yard.</i>

    Liu Long and the others sensed a hint of abnormality; they waited. The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes shifted as he saw a ming red chain shoot out of the house. It came with an incredible aura!

    It wasn¡¯t due to his special vision that he saw it¡ªeveryone could see it. Whether it was Li Hao, Liu Long, or Liu Yan, they jumped and rolled to evade the chain. Wang Ming, however, grew excited to see the chain snake toward him. Maybe it was due to his recent ascension, an inability to dodge, or thinking that he didn¡¯t need to dodge. He might even think that Yuan Shuo was testing them!

    The young supernatural formed a golden sword without a word and sent it at the chain!

    <i>ng!</i>

    After a metallic ng, Yuan Shuo roared from the house, ¡°Get back here!¡±

    The golden longsword smashed to smithereens with a bang and turned to dust. And yet, the chain continued forward. Wang Ming¡¯s eyes widened with dismay and blood welled up in his mouth. His head was about to be pierced through when the chain was suddenly yanked back, like it was under another¡¯s control!

    The door opened to reveal a flushed Yuan Shuo. He nced at Wang Ming and took a second to speak.

    ¡°What were you doing?¡±

    ¡°Weren¡¯t... you testing us, teacher?¡± Wang Ming swallowed hard with lingering fear.

    ¡°......¡± Yuan Shuo could find no words for a response.<i> Test your ass!</i>

    The fire heart ape had raged out of control for a split second and tried to resist. The uncontrolled blow had been a result of its defiance. Of course, it was under Yuan Shuo¡¯s sway as it was locked up, so it was brought to heel again in the end. It was a greater surprise to the professor that Wang Ming was such a naive...ly stupid person!

    <i>Test? What test? What is there to test?</i>

    ¡°Congrattions, teacher!¡± A joyful Li Hao straightened up from his roll and casually dusted himself off. Had his teacher seeded? What was that chain? Dominators were martial masters, but that chain hade out of nowhere and crushed a Sunre¡¯s longsword of metal. This showed supernatural tendencies!

    Did the zing red chain have something to do with the spirit of the heart?

    Yuan Shuo first looked at his contemtive student, then at Liu Long offering him a cupped fist salute. He smiled faintly. ¡°This is just the beginning, there is nothing to congratte!¡± He nced outside as he spoke¡ªthe sky was brightening.

    Wang Ming came back to his senses and wiped off blood from the corner of his mouth. He looked dumbly at Yuan Shuo. ¡°Teacher... what was that?¡±

    Yuan Shuo was a martial master! A characteristic of martial masters was that they were invincible in close quarters and feeble at long range. He knew of the Dominators¡¯ aura, but that chain had not felt like the aura. It was a long range attack!

    A Dominator had instantaneously smashed his sword of mysterious power! It was incredible and iprehensible!

    ¡°Who says that martial masters can only attack close at hand?¡± Yuan Shuo looked at him sideways. ¡°Did you think I couldn¡¯t do anything to you because you were far away from me?¡±

    ¡°No... that¡¯s not what I...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s exactly what you meant!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled.

    Wang Ming smiled sheepishly. He¡¯d thought that he would be able to at least run for his life from Yuan Shuo once he reached Sunre. He wouldn¡¯t be able to withstand the professor, of course, but that blow sent his head spinning.

    ¡°Alright, all of you,e in!¡± Yuan Shuo turned without speaking further and entered the house, followed by Li Hao and the others. The professor¡¯s hair was unkempt and he entered the bathroom to shower without attending to his guests.

    ......

    Wang Ming grew animated as soon as Yuan Shuo left. ¡°That attack was incredible...¡± he eximed. ¡°How did teacher do it?¡±

    To attack through the air and leave no room for him to respond... it was terrifying!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. Liu Long was also thinking back to the blow. What kind of secret technique was that? He¡¯d never seen it before. It wasn¡¯t a weapon¡ªhe wouldn¡¯t need to be so shocked if it was. It¡¯d felt like a supernatural ability!

    Was Yuan Shuo a supernatural then? Had he crossed over from Dominator and be a Sr?

    All sorts of thoughts ran through his head. The group fell silent for a while. Yuan Shuo walked back out in a set fresh clothing after eight minutes. He sat down in a chair, his hair still dripping wet.

    ¡°What are you all looking at?¡± he chuckled when the four looked at him. ¡°Still thinking about it? It¡¯s not a supernatural ability, it¡¯s one of martial dao! I told you long ago that martial masters are not any worse than supernaturals, that they are stronger! Subduing the five visceral organs is key¡ªI subdued the heart. The heart corresponds to fire, which makes it look simr to fire supernaturals. In reality, it¡¯spletely different!

    ¡°Supernaturals employ mysterious power, but I use the aura, the consciousness!¡±

    ¡°A physical manifestation of the consciousness??¡± Liu Long gasped. Was that possible? The consciousness was just a kind of aura, a kind of pressure. How could it be tangible?

    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much.¡± Yuan Shuo nced at him and collected his thoughts. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you one thing¡ªnurture your organs with internal force! Your aura of water can be directed more toward the kidneys.¡±

    Liu Long raised an eyebrow. Wang Ming also looked at him with shock and surprise. The director didn¡¯t react at first, but when he did, his expression chilled. ¡°And what are you thinking of?¡±

    Wang Ming coughed drily. Nothing! Heughed awkwardly and winked at Li Hao, as if saying, ¡°The director has kidney problems! So he¡¯ll have problems with... ahem ahem!¡±

    Li Hao was speechless. Not only did Wang Ming not understand any of this, but his mind seemed to be filled with random crap. Although his teacher hadn¡¯t said so outright, telling Liu Long to nurture the five organs, especially his kidney, was a tacit guide to the next step.

    His teacher had seeded!

    Li Hao was overjoyed, but didn¡¯t have time to say anything before Yuan Shuo said, ¡°Everyone out. Li Hao stays!¡±

    This indicated he was going to pass on private knowledge to his disciple. An honorary disciple like Wang Ming didn¡¯t have the right to secret knowledge like this.

    Liu Long rose and left without a word. Liu Yan followed him after smiling at those in the house. Wang Ming however, was a bit reluctant. <i>Why can¡¯t you tell me? </i>But he, too, left after thinking about it.

 Chapter 192: Fire Heart Ape, Nurturing the Spirit (II)

    <h4>Chapter 192: Fire Heart Ape, Nurturing the Spirit (II)</h4>

    When everyone left, Yuan Shuo rumbled, ¡°The five organs must be strong, very strong, or you¡¯ll easily die in the bacsh! Second, while the supernatural locks are very durable, there are limitations to them. The prerequisite to melding the aura into the five viscera is gauging whether or not the lock can contain the aura!¡±

    ¡°Contain the aura?¡±

    Yuan Shuo said nothing, he simply turned into a massive ape! A long chain was wrapped around him.

    ¡°Teacher, is that the supernatural lock?¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes shone with light.

    ¡°Correct!¡± responded the fire ape as it turned back into Yuan Shuo. ¡°Or rather, it¡¯s a bridge between the five viscera and the body...¡± The professor sank into deep thought. ¡°These chains don¡¯t just function as locks. They give me the sense that they lead to all of the secret stashes within the body! The human body is a vault and these chains have it locked away, but also serve as a link.

    ¡°We don¡¯t necessarily have to break them... If we do, that means your secret stash is being released.¡±

    Li Hao nodded thoughtfully. ¡°Then, does this mean you¡¯ve ascended, teacher?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°I¡¯ve simply gained more enlightenment and made certain discoveries today. Cultivating the five organs at the same time is as difficult as ascending to the heavens! It is not simply vanquishing tens of thousands after Dominator. I only have one spirit in one of my viscera, so strictly speaking, I have not yet broken through. I¡¯ve just taken one step further in the Dominator level and not yet officially surpassed it.

    ¡°In my view, one nurtures the spirit above Dominator. The five viscera summon their respective spirit! Perhaps this stage can be divided into five stages as each organ holds one spirit!¡±

    <i>Summoner of Spirit!</i>

    This was the name that Yuan Shuo gave this new cultivation level. Martial masters of this level restrain the spirits in order to nurture them.

    ¡°One has fully summoned the spirits when all five viscera contain their own. After the spirits are grown, it is time to ess the secret locales of the five viscera. I would like to call that Refiner of Spirit!¡±

    yer of Tens, Sunderer of Hundreds, Dominator of Thousands, Summoner of Spirit, Refiner of Spirit!

    ¡°Does a Summoner rival a Sr?¡± asked Li Hao.

    ¡°Just barely!¡± Yuan Shuo exined. ¡°Don¡¯t draw a direct parallel to the supernatural levels, there¡¯s not much meaning in doing that. Only through battle will we know if Summoners can match Srs and if they are of the same level.

    ¡°But now that I have a fire heart ape after entering Summoner of Spirit, I feel that I might be able to match the previous Qiao Feilong in terms of pure strength!¡± [1] inly, Yuan Shuo felt that his current situation could be categorized thus; he viewed himself as an initial Summoner. This level focused on nurturing the spirits of the five elements. It would be an incredible feat once he seeded.

    ¡°Teacher, you are truly beyond this world!¡± Li Hao exhaled. Yuan Shuo had zed the path and broken through the defined hierarchy of martial dao!

    ¡°I¡¯m only mapping it out in a general sense.¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°Many problems still exist, such as how does one meld the five spirits after they are summoned? Surely they¡¯re not meant to be used separately all the time, that lowers their effectiveness.

    ¡°Additionally, is it better to nurture spirits one at a time, or summon them into all of the viscera at once? Which is ideal?

    ¡°Not everyone can withstand the breaking of this equilibrium. A cultivation level is greeted with universal acim when everyone can reach it, not just one person alone. Cultivation levels essible to only one are not cultivation levels!¡±

    A level that others could not set foot into was not a new cultivation level.

    ¡°I absorbed a lot of fire elemental energy to reach this stage, as well as your sword energy. No one else has ess to these resources¡ªhow long will it take to nurture the five viscera then? A decade? Two? Fifty years?¡±

    He couldn¡¯t imagine how long it¡¯d take to fortify the five viscera so they could withstand the aura if one had to cultivate step by painstaking step.

    ¡°Therefore, our breathing methods need to further improve at the Dominator level. It¡¯s not enough to just adjust the body and strengthen the organs!¡± Yuan Shuo intoned. ¡°The Breathing Method of the Five Styles is no longer sufficient. I felt that it didn''t matter after I entered Dominator, but now I debate how to improve the breathing method so it can nurture the five viscera as well. We need to make use of internal force and not the five elements, because only you have sword energy. That¡¯s an external resource!¡±

    Was everyone supposed to stop on the path of cultivation once sword energy was exhausted? Yuan Shuo thought further in this moment¡ªhow might he modify the breathing method so that this fundamental knowledge could strengthen the five organs? How would he make it essible to all cultivators?

    It wasn¡¯t that he wanted to teach outsiders, but that his disciple needed to learn, as did future grand disciples. Were they supposed to always rely on Li Hao¡¯s sword energy?

    The young man admired his teacher¡¯s desire to improve the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Truth be told, he¡¯d never considered this as he felt that sword energy was enough for the two of them. His teacher, however, looked to the distance. Yuan Shuo meant to advance the entire field of martial dao!

    But was it possible?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t raise any objections as he could neither support nor convince his teacher otherwise in courses of action. They were onpletely different nes!

    ¡°You have very good foundations as you¡¯ve been strengthening the five viscera this entire time. It won¡¯t be apparent at your current level, but once you set foot into Dominator, you¡¯ll save a lot of timepared to other people and may be able to immediately summon your spirits!¡± Yuan Shuo sighed with emotion. ¡°You might surpass me one day... The speed in which I nurture my other four viscera may not match yours.¡±

    ¡°Teacher, you can also absorb sword energy to swiftly develop them!¡±

    Yuan Shuo smiled and tossed the little sword to Li Hao. ¡°Tell me what you sense!¡±

    Li Hao quickly operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles when he caught it. ¡°Is it almost empty?¡± he asked with resignationt

    The sword seemed to be running out!

    ¡°I absorbed a little more than nned over the past couple of days because my heart couldn¡¯t take it,¡± Yuan Shuo coughed drily. ¡°I didn¡¯t dare im thest drops of energy because we don¡¯t have time to seek out the other stone doors. We might have use for it at Rift Canyon, so I saved a little in case of dire need.¡±

    It really was almost entirely depleted! Li Hao had used a great deal of the refill from the stone door, Yuan Shuo had absorbed a good amount to summon his spirit, so it was fast on its way to fully empty.

    <i>Very well then!</i> Li Hao quite understood why his teacher wanted to modify the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. If he didn¡¯t and there were no more stone doors to be found, were they supposed to stop cultivating after sword energy was exhausted?

    Yuan Shuo said nothing else; he was actually a little embarrassed. He¡¯d had to draw on the sword to save his life. Sword energy could always be replenished, but Li Hao would be in great trouble if his teacher died.

    The professor then went over some of the problems, troubles, and potential situations he¡¯d run into throughout the course of nurturing his spirits. He might be the only one with such experience. It was hard to say if Dominators in other regions had also set foot into this level. If there were, they wouldn¡¯t walk the same path.

    ......

    Master and disciple conversed for roughly half an hour. The two walked out of the house after a while; they were greeted by the sight of others in conversation. It was mostly Wang Ming doing the talking as he was a young man of more words and questions galore.

    ¡°Teacher, have you ascended to Vanquisher of Thousands?¡± Wang Ming asked excitedly when he saw the two emerge.

    ¡°......¡± <i>What Vanquisher of Thousands!</i> Yuan Shuo shook his head.

    The young supernatural drooped slightly. No? What a pity! He was at least Yuan Shuo¡¯s honorary disciple. If the professor really had broken through, the young man would be able to make use of this rtionship and give himself a strong patron, no?

    Liu Long cast a few nces at Yuan Shuo and didn¡¯t ask anything. He¡¯d vaguely understood that it might have to do with the next step when Yuan Shuo told him to nurture the five viscera as soon as they met. The director had been feeling quite lost after entering Dominator. What should he do next? How could he improve?

    There was a lot to do after reaching Dominator, such as strengthening his aura and internal force. The roads had just unrolled in front of him, but they were also attainable given sufficient time. There woulde a day in which his internal force and aura could not be stronger.

    What then? There was no path!

    Today, Yuan Shuo provided a hint.

    ¡°Do we move out today, Elder Yuan?¡± Liu Long didn¡¯t mention anything at hand. ¡°Director Hao and the others traveled to Rift Canyon a long time ago. It will take us at least a day to make the trip and we might run into trouble along the way. We¡¯ll have to proceed on foot when we¡¯re close to the canyon. We¡¯re setting out a bitte, so we might not make it in time.¡±

    They were almost out of time and still needed to rest after they arrived. He was concerned that Yuan Shuo wouldn¡¯t be able to move at the moment. Closed door cultivation of many days was a significant drain on resources.

    ¡°Let¡¯s set out! All we need is some food!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Hao Lianchuan is probably beside himself with anxiety and cursing all of us!¡±

    The agreed upon time was yesterday. The others might be there, but he wasn¡¯t. The director had to be cursing up a storm!

    Liu Long also chuckled, this was highly likely.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, Rift Canyon.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan was indeed swearing inside a tent. He was supremely irritated. ¡°Find a way to get a message to Silver City, what is Yuan Shuo doing??¡±

    The professor didn¡¯t seem to have set out yet! It was already the 26th and Silver City was approximately one thousand kilometers away. The roads weren¡¯t easy to take and not everyone in that group could fly. They might have to cover thest bit on foot, were they trying to make it down to the wire?

    But it would consume a lot of resources for martial masters to walk here, wouldn¡¯t that just be reading trouble for himself?

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t understand it. Was Yuan Shuo throwing his weight around so much that he¡¯d forgotten martial masters could not fly? Did he think his Birdshot technique could cover a thousand kilometers?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t be in a rush, Director Hou,¡± said a middle-aged woman beside him. ¡°There¡¯s no need to be in a rush now. The other factions won¡¯t dare start the expedition without Yuan Shuo. He¡¯s the leading expert in this field, after all...¡±

    Hao Lianchuan cursed inwardly instead of responding. That was easy to say! The key thing was that the 28th was the most suitable day for explorations; it was why the Night Watchers had chosen this date. They might have to wait a month if they missed this day, and who knew what would happen during this time?

    1. Indeed, Yuan Shuo is contradicting himself from moments ago where he says he has not broken through. I¡¯m not sure what to make of this, maybe we get more rityter. ?

 Chapter 193: Joint Administration From Nine Offices (I)

    <h4>Chapter 193: Joint Administration From Nine Offices (I)</h4>

    ¡°Do you want me to bring them here?¡± asked a brawny man in a muffled voice. ¡°Or have Huang Yun go?

    Huang Yun was extremely fast and skilled at moving through the earth.

    ¡°That¡¯s alright!¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head. ¡°Now is not a good time to leave¡ªeveryone¡¯s keeping an eye on everyone else. Be careful of being assassinated if you move by yourself.¡±

    There wasn¡¯t much danger to Yuan Shuo as one, it would cause a great disturbance if one of the powerhouses left and two, everyone still hoped that the professor could be involved in the expedition. Thus, they wouldn¡¯t raise a hand against him in the short term.

    Hao Lianchuan breathed out heavily and changed to a solemn topic. ¡°Has anyone caught sight of Sun Yifei?¡±

    ¡°No, but someone in Rift Canyon saw him by the bridge a few days ago...¡±

    True worry appeared in Hao Lianchuan¡¯s face. Would Sun Yifei attack Yuan Shuo before the excavation began? If that was the case, all sides would erupt in war before anyone entered the ruins. The Night Watchers would never let Yuan Shuo die like this.

    What a hassle!

    ¡°These people were the instigators of bem in the history of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world,¡± someone sighed explosively. ¡°People died everyday then. Now that Sun Yifei is back and Yuan Shuo ising... the chaos of the martial world won¡¯t be returning too, will it?¡±

    The assembly immediately fell silent. Some still recalled the events of decades ago!

    ......

    <i>Silver City.</i>

    Li Hao and the others hopped into a car¡ªit was Liu Long driving. There was quite a distance between Silver City and Rift Canyon. He wasn¡¯t at ease letting Li Hao or Wang Ming drive.

    There were four humans and a dog in the car. Panther had beelined for the car and jumped straight in. Neither Li Hao nor Yuan Shuo minded. If Panther didn¡¯t go where the two of them went, that would make it a stray dog. They woulde back together if possible. If not, all three could go down together in the ruins.

    <i>The passenger seat.</i>

    Liu Yan was in charge of rying intelligence. Some came from the Night Watchers, some from Silver City¡¯s own efforts.

    ......

    ¡°Rift Canyon is approximately one thousand kilometers away. It¡¯s very wide at another one thousand kilometers across. Widely regarded as a cmity for birds, it extends three hundred meters into the earth at its deepest and several dozen meters at its shallowest.

    ¡°Rock cliffs form both sides and some ruins can be found in its depths. Based on ancient records, it might have been a city in times long past. The entire city was buried in the canyon after the ground caved in.

    ¡°On this expedition are the Silver Moon branches of the three great organizations, two mid-sized organizations, and fourteen small organizations. This does not rule out the participation of independent supernaturals!¡± Liu Yan looked back at Li Hao. While Wang Ming and Yuan Shuo most likely understood the situation, Li Hao did not. ¡°Based on our information, supernatural organizations with Srs are considered mid-sized. Those with only Sunres are small organizations. On this excavation, the mid-sized organizations can possibly match the three great organizations. The three greats have not stationed their main force in the province, whereas the mid-sized organization may be sending out most of theirs!¡±

    Li Hao nodded as he knew she was talking to him.

    ¡°Of the two mid-sized organizations, one is called Light Ind and the other is Sword Sect,¡± Liu Yan continued.

    Li Hao nodded again and his teacher suddenly interjected, ¡°The leader of Sword Sect should be the Earthturner Sword of the Seven Swords¡ªHong Yitang.¡±

    ¡°Do you know him, teacher?¡± Li Hao wasn¡¯t asking whether or not his teacher knew the man, but if there was a grudge between the two. <i>Please speak frankly! You killed three of the Seven Swords and even obtained the heritage of the Ghost Shadow Sword! So how severe is the grudge between the two of you?</i>

    ¡°There¡¯s no enmity between us!¡± Yuan Shuo huffed as he grasped the connotations behind his student¡¯s question. ¡°I¡¯m not familiar with him. The guy was more low profile back in the day¡ªsome of the other Swords were more prominent, some more mysterious. The Earthturner Sword was neither here nor there. He didn¡¯t stand out or catch the eye. Not many people like him died then as no one would reallye kicking down his door!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The rest didn¡¯t know what to say.<i> Kick down his door? So that¡¯s what all of you guys did in those times?</i>

    ¡°Is the Sword Sect¡¯s swordmaster Hong Yitang?¡± asked Liu Long from the driver¡¯s seat. ¡°There¡¯s nothing about that in our intelligence ande to think of it, my father was in touch with the Earthturner Sword back in the day...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t try to call on old ties, there¡¯s no point!¡± Yuan Shuo remarked faintly. ¡°Your father¡¯s been dead for many years, so whatever rtionship they might¡¯ve had scattered long ago!¡±

    It was as if the lights were extinguished when one died in the martial world. Unless it was a friendship for the ages, a descendant would gain nothing after the person in question was dead for so many years. What rtionship was there to speak of?

    Liu Long said nothing further.

    ¡°Does this mean a lot of martial master powerhouses from those times have crossed over to the supernatural world?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but ask. ¡°Why do we see so few of them in the Night Watchers?¡±

    Whether it was Hao Lianchuan or Hou Xiaochen, neither were renowned martial masters before they became supernatural.

    Yuan Shuo remained silent.

    ¡°Um... I know a little about this,¡± Wang Ming whispered. ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s martial world was a chaotic bed of unrest in that era. Martial masters rampaged through thend even in the early days of supernatural rise. When the Night Watchers were established, the orders from upstairs were that we should avoid recruiting martial masters whenever possible!¡±

    The Skystar Dynasty had even ouwed martial activity for a while! This was all due to the sheer mayhem caused by martial masters. While martial masters didn¡¯t harbor ambitions of supremacy like modern day supernaturals did, they were more brazen, unscrupulous, and wanton.

    They could fill the countryside with corpses in their quest to be greatest beneath the heavens. If you attack me today, I¡¯ll attack you tomorrow!

    Thus, the Night Watchers didn¡¯t dare add martial masters to their ranks. That made for a scarcity of former martial masters to be found among the agency¡¯s ranks. It was at the supernatural organizations and theirpleteck of scruples that martial masters could be found aplenty. Some organizations were even founded by martial masters.

    ¡°There will certainly be Srs from the three great organizations among the expedition,¡± Liu Yan continued. ¡°As for how many and who, we have no information on that. The two mid-sized organizations will likely also send Srs. Meanwhile, we will see plenty of Sunres from the fourteen small organizations. Director Hao is leading the Night Watcher team and we¡¯ve sent seven Sunres ourselves.¡±

    The Night Watchers had fielded quite an expedition team as well. Yuan Shuo kept his eyes closed in repose as he listened to Liu Yan¡¯s overview.

    ¡°Don¡¯t pay attention to only the people.¡± He opened his eyes. ¡°There¡¯s also the ruins themselves to consider! When I explored them three years ago, I nearly died there!¡±

    The injury to his heart was from that excavation.

    ¡°A Sunre led the team, but he died there. We also had some Darkmoons with us. Keep in mind that Sunres were very valuable three years ago. The supernatural has developed so quickly that three years ago, all Sunres had hope to be Srs!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Wang Ming piped up when he thought of something. ¡°I¡¯d just joined the agency three years ago and remember a supreme powerhouse dying on that mission, along with some Darkmoons...¡±

    Yuan Shuo ignored him and continued, ¡°Those ruins are not ordinary ruins. They¡¯re an ancient city!¡±

    Ruins were delineated by size. A grave could be called a ruin, but the one on the agenda this time was a city! Of course, the bigger the ruin, the greater the harvest and opportunities.

    ¡°An ancient city?¡± A solemn Liu Long kept his eyes on the road. ¡°An underground city?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Yuan Shuo responded calmly. ¡°A city buried beneath the ground, but it retains its original appearance due to the presence of an ultimate treasure. That treasure envelops the city and is what the Night Watchers want!¡±

    A city buried underground, yet preserved in full because a treasure had halted the immense destruction resulting fromndslides.

    ¡°One treasure can protect an entire city?¡± Liu Long¡¯s eyes widened. Could it still safeguard the city after all these years and changes wrought by time?

    ¡°It can.¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°A treasure like that does indeed exist! That¡¯s why the entire supernatural domain of Silver Moon has gone into a frenzy. Even though the Night Watchers and three great organizations do not get along and are at each other¡¯s throats in the central region, they are willing to explore together for this purpose.

    ¡°Profit propels the heart. How many other treasures must reside in a pristine ancient city? Ancient tomes, origin weapons, ancient technology, martial dao and supernatural knowledge of the ancient era... Perhaps all of that awaits discovery. There might also be other rarities that are mightier than we can imagine!¡±

    The professor murmured to himself when he recalled a certain memory. ¡°I excavated a ruin once, not a big one, but guess what I found?¡±

    No one had an idea; they listened raptly.

    ¡°A tree!¡± Yuan Shuo revealed. ¡°A tree that had been buried for countless eons. It¡¯d withered away, leaving only its trunk behind. No one paid attention to it at first, but when someone identally knocked a hole into the trunk, everyone felt a powerful force¡ªvitality!¡±

    The professor was both nostalgic and yearned for the tree of his memories. ¡°We saw a drop of water, a different kind of water, buried in the center of the trunk. It evaporated as soon as the trunk was opened, but the power it exuded caused some of the ancient trees around it to spontaneously bud and grow branches. They instantly turned into towering trees. When we were swept by the power, all of us felt that we¡¯d be ten years younger!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head with wonder.

    ¡°It has much to do with that drop of water that I can maintain prime condition at seventy years of age. If it wasn¡¯t for my injuries, I might¡¯ve even set foot into Dominator. This is a rarity, a gem left by the ancient civilization!¡±

    Emotions swelled in the car! A drop of water sealed for tens of millions of years had reverse-aged people and elicited new growth from old trees when it evaporated. What kind of treasure was this??

    It was unimaginable!

    Seventy years old was indeed the beginning of decline for martial masters. But Yuan Shuo still had his sights set on Dominator when he was seventy. It was a pity that he was injured, or he might¡¯ve seeded a long time ago.

    ¡°Elder Yuan, are there treasures like that in this city?¡± Liu Long rumbled.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but it¡¯s possible,¡± Yuan Shuo responded. ¡°This ancient city has yet to be excavated because we¡¯ve been unable to enter it. To be more exact, we made it to its outskirts. Just the outskirts alone killed a lot of our people.

    ¡°The outskirts? What¡¯s the source of danger there?¡± Liu Long continued to ask. Yuan Shuo was one of the few who knew these things; others who also knew might not be as forting.

    ¡°I¡¯m not entirely sure what it is.¡± The professor hummed uncertainly to himself. ¡°Sparks exploded when we entered the area and burned a lot of people to death!

    ¡°That was only the beginning. Countless des shot out of the darkness not long after that and killed many people. Finally, when there was only me and the Sunre left, we heard footsteps...¡±

    Footsteps??

    Living people?!

    The others jerked with shock. There were people alive in the city? How was that possible?? How many years had it been since the city stood in the ancient times?

    No one was sure; it was impossible to determine. The era recorded in the ancient records waspletely cut off from present day. It was now the time of the Star Calendar. There couldn¡¯t be anyone alive in a city like this, even if it¡¯d been perfectly preserved!

    They would¡¯ve long dposed to nothing!

 Chapter 194: Joint Administration From Nine Offices (II)

    <h4>Chapter 194: Joint Administration From Nine Offices (II)</h4>

    ¡°It was indeed footsteps we heard, but of course, they might¡¯ve belonged to a puppet.¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t determine if the source had been living or not. ¡°In any case, we only heard the footsteps and didn¡¯t see their source. But we were ambushed¡ªan existence in the darkness attacked us! It was very strong, I only saw a sh of light before the Sunre died!

    ¡°I quickly ran away and couldn¡¯t divert enough attention to the dangers we¡¯d encountered before. A sharp de drove itself through my heart. Thankfully, I am a martial master and my internal force can contain itself. I hastily sealed off the hole and was lucky to make it out alive.¡±

    The professor sighed. ¡°I don¡¯t actually want toe back to this sted ce, but I must. The Night Watchers have sent in people over the years, but very few survive and most don¡¯t discover anything. Therefore, they wish for me to help them explore again.¡±

    ¡°So teacher, does this mean you didn¡¯t actually see anything?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°I saw <i>some</i> things,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°I saw many things at first. There was even some light for us to see the entire city by! The darkness didn¡¯t appear untilter, like someone had turned off the lights. From what the Night Watchers report back,ter expeditions were met with nothing but pitch ck!

    ¡°All of us must be careful. Very, extremely careful.¡± Yuan Shuo hesitated before saying, ¡°I¡¯ll tell you a secret that you¡¯re not allowed to share with others!¡±

    The group quickly nodded.

    ¡°Keep one thing in mind after you head instead, try not to leave the ground!¡±

    Leave the ground? What did that mean?

    ¡°Do you mean we should stand in ce?¡± Wang Ming quickly asked.

    ¡°Not that,¡± Yuan Shuo said softly. ¡°I mean try not to take to the air if possible. Don¡¯t fly. I suspect there¡¯s an anti-flight restriction in the ancient city. A lot of people died that day, and the conclusion I eventually reached was that it might have had something to do with the fact that they all flew or jumped. This isn¡¯t to say that you cannot leave the ground at all, but that there are certain limitations in ce. Also, take note if there¡¯s the sound of footsteps around you.¡±

    A city that may have prohibitions over its airspace. Any vition of the rules resulted in death, and it was still in operation despite eons of burial. What terrifying technology!

    Modern day cities could not do this by far. If there was an anti-flight restriction, it had to be enforced manually. Visual confirmation had to take ce. Any that were overlooked would be permitted to carry on.

    ¡°Don¡¯t tell anyone about any of this!¡± Yuan Shuo said meaningfully. ¡°The Night Watchers have gained some of this intelligence, but a lot of the other organizations are exploring the city for the first time! The more the city takes out, the better!¡±

    Everyone nodded again. Such was the benefit of experience. Yuan Shuo hade back with certain gains after surviving his encounter.

    ¡°There are many more dangers apart from this,¡± Yuan Shuo continued. ¡°Threats might appear around any corner. Remember another thing¡ªdon¡¯t touch anything. Don¡¯t even touch the ancient weapons and treasures that you see. Danger mighte for you if you disturb them.¡±

    ¡°We can¡¯t touch them?¡± Wang Ming asked with disappointment. ¡°Then what are we exploring for? If any treasures we find have to remain untouched, aren¡¯t we just on a field trip to our deaths?¡±

    What was the point in that?

    ¡°Their main target is inside the city! They believe that the key to controlling the city is at its core. It might be the origin weapon that envelops the entire metropolis! Whoever ims the origin weapon will reap all the profits. Therefore, everyone¡¯s primary goal should be the origin weapon!¡±

    An origin weapon that could shroud an entire city and still operate after countless years of suppression beneath the earth¡ªhow strong would it be?

    Some supernatural organizationscked a solid base. If they imed the ultimate prize and could subsequently withstand the Night Watchers¡¯ annihtion level weapons, they would be able to swiftly forge a massive city and migrate some citizens over. That would create a sound bulwark to their rear and truly make their name!

    Supernatural organizations were mysterious affairs even to this day. It was one of the reasons why they didn¡¯t dare reveal their headquarters. Srs and Sunres might be able to escape being locked onto by hot weapons, but the weaker members couldn¡¯t. Once their weaker members were dead, the organization was dead. Without a future and just a few powerhouses, what kind of organization was this?

    ¡°Then this means everyone¡¯s going to be gunning for the origin weapon inside the city,¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°I understand this motivationing from the mid-sized organizations, but the small ones? Do Sunres want toy hands on it too?¡±

    In their dreams!

    ¡°That¡¯s not it.¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°Their primary goal is the treasures inside the city. They want a piece of the pie after therger organizations im the origin weapon. They don¡¯t know that they can¡¯t touch the other treasures, so they¡¯re all here for a share of the profits. Not only that, but why shouldn¡¯t they fight for a chance to possibly im the origin weapon?

    ¡°If they get it, they can throw everything else away,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Who cares about the organizations or their homnd then? Take the origin weapon elsewhere and hide for a period of time. They can show themselves when they¡¯ve grown into their strength. Who will dare provoke them then? Therefore, some are here with that kind of mentality.¡±

    Li Hao was well aware of the benefits of the origin weapon. Take Steris, for example. No matter how it was as a treasure, the energy it contained was incredible. Li Hao¡¯s fast rate of improvement and Yuan Shuo setting foot into Summoner of Spirit all had to do with the little sword.

    An origin weapon that could protect an entire city was also inly incredible beyond words. It could withstand endless eons of dirt and rock, holding up against pressure exerted by hundreds of millions of tons of matter. What if that power was used to protect one person? Would it mean that no one in the world could smash such defenses?

    Invincible defensive power!

    Li Hao thought back to what his teacher said to himst night, that this ancient city might have something to do with the eight families. The professor seemed to recall seeing a turtle on the gates to the city.

    Indeed, a turtle.

    There was a line in the folk song of a big turtle kept by the Wangs. Although that made for a forced connection between the eight families and the ancient city, if the eight families had been mighty in the ancient civilization, the ruins were only one thousand kilometers away from Silver City. Would this ancient city have nothing to do with a nearby satellite city?

    It was one thousand kilometers now, what if the two cities had been very close in ancient times? If all powerhouses were as fast as the swordsman that Li Hao had seen, what did a thousand kilometers matter?

    Modern day flight supernaturals could cross this distance in roughly three hours. Powerhouses of that era might instantly bridge the distance! One thousand meters was no separation at all.

    Thus, when his teacher mentioned that the city might have something to do with the eight families and that the origin weapon might be the turtle of the Wangs, Li Hao started pondering what he might be able to do this time.

    <i>Stone door, ancient city...</i>

    Did the stone door have something to do with this ancient city? His teacher guessed that there were eight stone doors total and that the indentation at the one they¡¯d visited could be filled by either a turtle shell or mallet. It was a round shape, in any case. Could the turtle shell here be the key to opening that stone door?

    The car left Silver City as the group conversed. Li Hao had rarely left the city since birth. He¡¯d visited the neighboring city once when his parents still lived, then stayed in Silver City after growing up. He might be least knowledgeable about this world out of everyone in the car.

    They continued driving down the road when the car exited Silver City. It was a very spacious road that made for easy driving.

    ¡°You look like you¡¯ve never seen this before,¡± Wang Mingughed heartily as he knew Li Hao didn¡¯t know anything. ¡°This is a road that Skystar Dynasty built two years ago. The government wished for roads to cross all ny-nine provinces to better administer their territory, but things have been a mess since the rise of the supernatural.

    ¡°Some ces are inessible as the roads weren¡¯t maintained. Some were repaired, but there¡¯s been ack of chances,bor, and resources to maintain the rest after all these years. Therefore, many roads are impassable throughout thend.

    ¡°Some people even purposefully destroy the roads so they can break free of the dynasty¡¯s control,¡± Wang Ming sighed. ¡°There are nearly ten billion people scattered over ny-nine provinces! One province is a kingdom unto itself. The overseers of some ces have long wished to be independent.

    ¡°Silver Moon is part of the bordends and it¡¯s rare that we are so quiet.¡±

    <i>The bordends...</i>

    The ny-nine provinces were so vast that they covered more than half of the world. But that didn¡¯t mean this territory ran without end. To the north of Silver Moon and past a few mountain ranges was another nation. However, Skystar citizens rarely paid attention to it.

    There was once war between the two sides, possibly one hundred years ago. Silver City had been the heart of Silver Moon then. It was a city of war that could wage battles against their neighboring nation. But after one hundred years, the two countries were nearlypletely isted from each other.

    Silver City was no longer a strategic locale and Skystar Dynasty had almost forgotten there was another nation on the other side of the mountain. The importance of the border greatly decreased.

    Without enemies, the borders represented nothing but distance. Who cared about a piddling little nation who hadn¡¯t dared attack for one hundred years? Apparently, their territory wasn¡¯t even as big as Silver Moon.

    Even Li Hao had only read about the other side in books. His father and grandfather¡¯s generation had had no dealings with them. There was no war. He vaguely recalled that the other side was called Great Li.

    As for why it was called thus, what its governing system was, what its poption numbered, had the supernatural appeared among them... no one knew. No one cared!

    There¡¯d been no war for a hundred years and there were several massive mountain ranges in between. They were nearly two different worlds. The Skystar Dynasty could barely keep ahold of its ny-nine provinces, so who had time to spare for the other side?

    A province on the fringes like Silver Moon was very unimportant these years. If it wasn¡¯t for some of her powerhouses still being active in the scene, the people might¡¯ve forgotten that the dynasty had such a province.

 Chapter 195: Joint Administration From Nine Ministries (III)

    <h4>Chapter 195: Joint Administration From Nine Ministries (III)</h4>

    Various thoughts floated to the fore of Li Hao¡¯s mind. He gazed upon rises and falls of the grassy in around them, watching wild rabbits cross the road. Trees lined the road, some withered away, some snapped into two. It didn¡¯t seem likely that anyone was maintaining this road either.

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s not too chaotic, so why is the provincial government sox when ites to the surroundings around the cities?¡± asked Li Hao. The others might understand this, but he truly didn¡¯t.

    ¡°The supernatural world appeared twenty years ago and the Night Watchers were formed after that.¡± Being a White Moon native and hailing from a powerful family, Wang Ming more or less knew some of the particrs. ¡°The agency¡¯s formation didn¡¯t have much of an impact at first, but as thend¡¯s powerhouses grew stronger, the Night Watchers needed to wield more authority.

    ¡°Conflict already existed between the provincial council, army headquarters, and Night Watchers. While it wasn''trge-scale conflict, it existed all the same, particrly from the provincial council. The provincial council directly answers to the dynastic government, yet the Night Watchers are under the Inspectorate. Though they¡¯re not of the same system, the provincial council has long wished to take Night Watcher reins. And so some shes urred...¡±

    Li Hao looked on silently. It looked like struggles for power were inevitable no matter where one was.

    ¡°Has Skystar Dynasty lost control over the provinces?¡± the young man continued asking.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Wang Ming answered with a half smile. ¡°They say that roughly twenty provinces are still under dynastic control. But apart from that, the dynasty does not exercise authority in the other regions.¡±

    Three-fourths of their domain was out of control! This exceeded Li Hao¡¯s expectations! He¡¯d thought that only a province here or there was disorderly, but to think that all of the others were intractable apart from two dozen!

    Skystar Dynasty was the first dynasty in all of history to unify thend. When it came to unification, one didn¡¯t mean just a few provinces¡ªit was all of the central ins! Everything beneath the heavens had been conquered!

    Only some of the more remote kingdoms, such as the Great Li Dynasty, were deemed too small and too far to be worth the effort. Separated by multiple mountain ranges, they remained unconquered.

    It¡¯d taken fifty years of battle to conquer thend and establish the dynasty. It was nearly two hundred years since its founding and the imperial family had long retreated behind the scenes.

    Eighty years ago, Skystar Dynasty proposed a system of joint administration from nine ministries. The imperial family then stepped behind the curtains to enjoy the fruits of theirbor, but no longer participated in actual government. That was given over to the nine ministries, of which one was the Inspectorate!

    Of course, not a small branch like the one in Silver City, but its headquarters. Even now, the Night Watchers were grouped under the Inspectorate. It was a testament to its strength that it could stand toe-to-toe with the dynasty¡¯s military faction and local army.

    The local army was relevant only to Silver Moon¡ªit answered to the Ministry of Military Justice. All of the dynasty¡¯s military power answered to this ministry.

    The Ministry of the Inspectorate was in charge of local security. In some ways, it was weaker than Military Justice, but it oversaw more matters and thus boasted of more personnel in its ranks. It was more deeply involved in the dynasty¡¯s particrs.

    ¡°The Night Watchers are still the government¡¯s only official supernatural agency,¡± Wang Ming continued. ¡°But I hear that the central region is starting to build other supernatural agencies! The Skystar Troops that the Ministry of Military Justice is forming are said to be all supernaturals.

    ¡°The Ministry of Administration is creating a Supervisory Office, apparently to recruit supernaturals.

    ¡°The Ministry of Commerce is establishing the Trade Security Committee, also to recruit supernaturals...¡±

    Li Hao listened intently, these were the trends of the times! He hadn¡¯t paid attention or cared about them before. He¡¯d yet to explore all of Silver City, much less the world. The world was big, far too big! Many were those who never walked out of Silver City, and if they did, many were those who never walked out of Silver Moon!

    What central region, what nine ministries, what imperial family... Everything was far too removed.

    ¡°Then why don¡¯t all of the ministries build up the Night Watchers together?¡± he asked.

    ¡°Heh!¡± Wang Mingughed, as did Yuan Shuo and the others.

    ¡°Such is bnce!¡± Yuan Shuo called out. ¡°You¡¯re too young, Li Hao. The Inspectorate is just one of the nine ministries. The supernatural wasn¡¯t that strong when the agency was first formed, so it was fine to give it jurisdiction over the supernatural world. But now that the supernatural grows stronger by the day, do you think the other eight ministries arefortable letting the Inspectorate oversee all of that domain?¡±

    Very well then! Li Hao understood the logic, but he still felt that the government should concentrate its strength when facing the various supernatural organizations. It was too decentralized as things stood.

    ¡°Have the three great organizations grown so powerful?¡± The young man frowned. ¡°To a certain degree, most of the ny-nine provinces still listen to the nine ministries. Add to that hot weapons that operate on arge scale... are we unable to bring the three great organizations to heel?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that simple!¡± Yuan Shuo was the one to answer as he had more knowledge. ¡°We¡¯re not sure how strong the three great organizations are either, and they definitely have some provincial backing! The provinces use them to gue the central region and curb the dynasty¡¯s power. They seek independence and supply intelligence, weapons, people, and resources to the organizations. Meanwhile, the organizations areprised of supernaturals with perplexing methods of operation and numerous heavyweights. Thus, it¡¯s hard to eliminate them!¡±

    There wasn¡¯t a singr, straightforward reason for why the supernatural world had risen to such prominence. An important reason was that it had significant backing. The dynasty had been in control for two hundred years and ruled over ten billion people. Troubled times were upon the world and Skystar was losing control. Many ambitious characters hoped for the world to grow even more chaotic and for the government to fully lose control!

    This wasmon knowledge, but what of it? There was no evidence of anyone¡¯s ulterior motives, and even if there was, the highly ced personages ready to mutiny had long made their preparations. A chain reaction would ur as soon as they were threatened.

    The entire world would spontaneously copse.

    ¡°I will not make considerations or pass judgment since I do not sit in that position!¡± sighed Li Hao as he didn¡¯t fully understand their rationale. ¡°Based on my thoughts, governance by the nine ministries is an optimal system. Apparently, the times were truly chaotic eighty years ago when the imperial family still held power. No one checked their authority and they randomly killed innocents, haphazardly proimed judgment, and utilized an unclear set ofws and regtions. That was real disarray! But now that the nine ministries jointly administer thend,merce booms, agriculture prospers, urbanization increases, everyone goes to sleep with a full belly, and all manner of technology is improving...¡±

    What was the point of overthrowing the order of things? It was the people who suffered when unrest gripped the world. The young man regarded the nine ministries with a certain favorable light. While they weren¡¯tpletely fair and held their share of problems, at least no one in Silver City had heard of anyone dying from hunger in eighty years of ministry rule.

    That had been amon urrence eighty years ago.

    Now that the imperial family was curtailed, it wasn¡¯t as unbridled as in years past, despite exercising numerous privileges. It kept an exceedingly low profile¡ªwasn¡¯t this a good system of governance?

    Did the lofty personages up there wish to be the next emperor? But after experiencing the rule of the nine ministries, did the people want an emperor over their heads again?

    Li Hao was willing to bet that if the general public was polled right now, ny-nine percent of the poption would not be willing to be under the fist of an emperor. The rest were either idiots or would somehow benefit from an imperial arrangement. How could one seed without support from the citizenry?

    While those were his thoughts, he didn¡¯t voice them. All of this was too far removed from him, it was the concern of greater characters. Silver Moon didn¡¯t show signs of wanting independence, or perhaps he was too far down in the rank and file andpletely oblivious to the desires of those higher.

    The car sped over the road, leaving Silver City behind until it vanished in the rearview mirror.

    ......

    ¡°A car¡¯sing!¡±

    The road was damaged beyond repair on Rift Canyon¡¯s outskirts, less than fifty kilometers from the canyon proper. It used to run straight through the terrain, to Rift Bridge at its end. The bridge that spanned the entire canyon had cost a colossal amount of effort and resources to build. It¡¯d been blown up a dozen years ago, severing the connection between north and south of the province.

    North and south were fully connected when Rift Bridge stood. Commerce flowed freely between the cities of either side in a thriving picture of prosperity. Now that north and south were separated, the entire province¡¯s economy had shrunk.

    Silver Moon made multiple attempts to rebuild the bridge, but they ended without result. Fewer and fewer people these days raised the idea of restoring Rift Bridge.

    Someone at the end of the road stared at the approaching car and muttered, ¡°Do we rob it?¡±

    ¡°Do you have a death wish?! Can¡¯t you see that¡¯s an Inspectorate car?¡±

    ¡°So what? It¡¯s not like the Inspectorate¡¯s hand stretches here!¡±

    Murmuring could be heard behind a massive boulder. The Inspectorate was an organization of note, but that was within city walls. What of it outside the cities? It¡¯d long lost its prestige upon the rise of the supernatural. It was one thing if it was Night Watchers in the car, but even they had to exercise caution in the wilderness.

    Several martial masters and Starlight conversed quietly from their cover. In modern society, those who daredmit robbery in the wild were no ordinary people. Certain martial masters and Starlight were weak, yet unwilling to answer to others. Thus, they turned to a life of robbery and thievery.

    If they were lucky, they nabbed a few treasures for themselves. If not and they ran into a powerhouse, then that was the way the chips fell. Since they were unlucky, they were wood on the chopping block for their would-be targets.

    As the conversation carried on, the current speaker suddenly realized there was no sound around him. His face drained of color when he looked back and he twitched to get away, but a staff mmed down and smashed his head to pieces!

    Three people walked out from behind the boulder. They were two young men and one young woman; eight corpsesy strewn around them. Some had been smashed to death by a staff, others had their throats crushed.

 Chapter 196: Letter of Challenge (I)

    <h4>Chapter 196: Letter of Challenge (I)</h4>

    Sun Moxian walked at the head of the trio and considered the car in the distance.

    ¡°Is that them?¡± he asked softly.

    ¡°It should be!¡± the young woman murmured.

    ¡°Why doesn¡¯t mastere here and kill this Yuan Shuo?¡± frowned the youngest¡ªa yer. ¡°What are we issuing a letter of challenge for?¡±

    Indeed, a letter of challenge. Sun Yifei was neither here in person nor in hiding. He sent his disciples to intercept Yuan Shuo on the route that the professor was sure to take. He wanted to openly deliver a letter of challenge in public view!

    ¡°This is the custom of the martial master world,¡± Sun Moxian replied softly. ¡°Remember this, junior brother! When master agreed to fight Old Demon Yuan and lost at Rift Bridge, that resulted in an internal demon...¡±

    ¡°An internal <i>demon?¡±</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s not what you think, it might be better described as a lingering knot of emotion. Master left for distantnds after losing to Yuan Shuo. He then crossed over to the supernatural and became a Sr, but still bears the name of the defeated in the world of martial dao! If he wishes to redeem himself, he must issue an open challenge to Old Demon Yuan and emerge victorious. Only then will he wash away the disgrace of yesteryear!¡±

    ¡°But...¡± The yer junior brother didn¡¯t understand. Was there a need for this? It was a different style from the central region.

    In the central region, strength was king. It was enough to win¡ªthere was no need for letters of challenge or whatnot. One could win through even ambush or assassination. The dead had no right to talk. Since master was stronger than Yuan Shuo, he should charge over and smack the old man to death! Who would dare say his master was lesser then?

    ¡°These are the rules of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world!¡± Sun Moxian repeated in solemn tones. ¡°Be on good behavior in a moment.¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± The young man and woman looked strangely at him. Be on good behavior?

    ¡°This is Yuan Shuo¡ªOld Demon Yuan!¡± As their senior brother, Sun Moxian had to remind them. ¡°He is merciless and cruel, the murderer of half of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world back in the day. We are here to deliver a challenge, not to die. If he kills us for perceived slights, we¡¯ll have died for nothing, even if master kills him!¡±

    The two sucked in sharp breaths, that was true. They faced an absolute fiend! This was an existence that¡¯d killed countless people.

    The trio said nothing else and began waiting. The car in front of them slowed to a half. The rest of the road would jolt the vehicle too much, so the upants might as well walk. Four humans and a dog alighted after a moment.

    ......

    Liu Long walked in front, Yuan Shuo behind him. After a while, Liu Long looked into the distance with a faint frown. He furrowed his brows. ¡°There¡¯s a scent of blood!¡±

    Blood was in the air as soon as they arrived near Rift Canyon. There was almost no one to be found here, had a fight broken out between the supernaturals?

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t say anything¡ªhe simply looked in the relevant direction and continued walking forward. Li Hao also swept a nce over the area. There were no supernaturals there as he saw no balls of light. He also remained silent. Even if there was anyone, they were either a mundane or martial master.

    ¡°What are we afraid of!¡± Wang Mingughed heartily in an abundance of courage. ¡°With our strength, even Srs will die if theye for us!¡±

    They had a Dominator who¡¯d killed a Sr, another Dominator, one Sunre, and two Sunderers. This level of strength afforded oneplete impunity no matter where one was. Well, maybe not in the central region. There were too many powerhouses there.

    The silent group made steady time on foot. There were several dozen meters to Rift Canyon. That wasn¡¯t too far for martial masters. It was almost dark from when they¡¯d set out this morning. They still hoped to reach camp before night fell, just in case anything happened in the darkness.

    They saw an enormous rock after walking a while longer. Three people stood next to it, dressed in slightly different outrementspared to Silver Moon. Identifiable as martial masters, they seemed better off than the Silver City group. Their materials were obviously more luxurious than the ones used in Silver Moon; golden thread could be seen glimmering from their hems.

    The group was unfazed as it was three youngsters. In fact, they could hazard a guess at the trio¡¯s identity because each of them bore a long staff on their back.

    <i>The Qimei Staff King!</i>

    Of course, the three in front of them weren¡¯t likely to be him. They were more likely to be disciples.

    Li Hao darted forward without waiting for Yuan Shuo to issue amand.

    ¡°Li Hao of Silver City, disciple of the Five Styles King. What business might the senior brothers and sister have?¡±

    <i>Li Hao! </i>Sun Moxian awkwardly raised cupped fists, unsure whether he was performing the courtesy properly. Whatever, it was fine so long as it was close enough.

    ¡°Sun Moxian of the Sagittarius province, eldest disciple of the Qimei Staff King! I am here on my master¡¯s orders to deliver a letter of challenge! My master will meet the Five Styles King in battle tomorrow on Rift Bridge!¡± A letter shot at Li Hao as he spoke, sandwiched between internal force. The energy was powerful and the paper fragile, yet it was not destroyed.

    The internal force erupted when Li Hao reached out a hand to ept it. The young man utilized his fingers as a sword and instantly crushed the force, calmly catching the letter. ¡°I ept this letter on behalf of my master, as for the challenge...¡±

    ¡°I will be there on time!¡± Yuan Shuo responded calmly behind his disciple. ¡°Tell Sun Yifei to drop this act¡ªhe¡¯s a supernatural now! I¡¯d like to see tomorrow if he¡¯s improved after all these years in the central region running around with Ying Hongyue!¡±

    Sun Moxian shook, but didn¡¯t dare say anything. He raised a cupped salute again. ¡°The letter has been delivered, we await the Five Styles King tomorrow!¡± He swiftly departed, followed by his junior brother and sister.

    It wasn¡¯t until they were a distance away that the yer muttered, ¡°Senior brother, why didn¡¯t we say any of the tough talk that master wanted us to deliver?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Sun Moxian didn¡¯t respond until they were yet further removed from the scene. ¡°Those are master¡¯s words, we don¡¯t need to repeat them. There¡¯s no point in talking tough, that old demon doesn¡¯t y by the book. It¡¯d absolutely be a loss if he beat us to death. And if battlemences tomorrow... Silver Moon¡¯s martial world has the custom of disciples fighting first to warm up the field. I will meet that Li Hao in battle!¡±

    The other two blinked. Why?

    ¡°Senior brother...¡±

    ¡°I infused the letter of challenge with a hint of aura, wanting to knock Li Hao down a peg. But he easily crushed it, which means he¡¯ste Sunderer or half step Dominator!¡±

    Both of the youngsters¡¯ eyes widened.

    ¡°Surely not? I heard from Red Moon that Old Demon Yuan epted him only three years ago, and he wasn¡¯t taught martial dao at first. He¡¯s a yer at most, how can he be a Sunderer?¡±

    ¡°Even if he is, initial Sunderer is the most he can manage. How can he be ate or even half step Dominator? That requires theprehension of the aura...¡± The two couldn¡¯t believe it. Was this possible?

    Sun Moxian shook his head after momentary consideration. ¡°It¡¯s tough to say, we just need to be more careful. It is just as master says, powerhouses abound in Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. We¡¯re martial geniuses in the central region, but here it seems that Sunderers can be easily found in the streets.¡±

    The trio quieted down and swiftly departed.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    ¡°He¡¯s still the same after almost two decades,¡± Yuan Shuo sneered upon ncing at the letter. He looked at Li Hao. ¡°Why did you catch it? I thought you¡¯d choose to dodge it.¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t let master lose face!¡± Li Hao smiled innocently. ¡°You¡¯re martial masters of the same era and his disciple was here with a challenge. A life is nothing, dignity is everything! How could I lose face for my teacher? Face is more important than living for those of us in the martial world!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yuan Shuo nearly burst outughing. <i>What are you talking about?? </i>He held himself in with effort. ¡°That Sun Moxian is not a simple character. He seems to haveprehended the aura. To think that Sun Yifei can raise such a young half step Dominator¡ªthat is quite something!¡±

    A half step Dominator was much more difficult to attain than a Sunre. All Sunres needed to do was break three locks, a feat that depended on potential and absorbing mysterious power. Enlightenment, however, was required for martial masters to enter half step Dominator. Enlightenment was a very mysterious, abstract concept at times. Someone whose intelligence was unparalleled might findprehending the aura out of reach.

    ¡°I understand why Sun Yifei has brought his disciples with him!¡± Yuan Shuo looked at Li Hao again. ¡°Think carefully on this. Stay off the battlefield if you can tomorrow!¡±

    They¡¯d remained in hiding for so long; there might be arge audience for the challenge. It was not a good development if Li Hao was exposed.

    The young man liked to keep a low profile, but shook his head this time. ¡°This is different! Teacher once dominated Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. Upon your withdrawal, you have epted a final disciple in Silver City. Wouldn¡¯t it be the height of mortification if I can''t handle even Sun Yifei¡¯s disciple?¡±

    It had truly been an era in which face was more important than one¡¯s life, particrly for the old guard of martial masters. Biding one¡¯s time depended on the period. It would be true humiliation only if Li Hao lost without a fight. Supernaturals might not understand or care about this, but martial masters would.

    ¡°I¡¯ll go!¡± Wang Ming seemed to have understood as well. ¡°Teacher, I¡¯m your honorary disciple. Honorary disciples are disciples too! Watch me wipe the floor with that guy!¡±

    ¡°You?¡± Yuan Shuo flicked a nce at him. ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m underestimating you, but if Sun Moxian isn¡¯t a rookie... It¡¯s 70/30 if you¡¯re in the field!¡±

    What did that mean?

    <i>70/30?</i>

    ¡°70/30... Does teacher mean that I only have a seventy percent chance of winning?¡±

    <i>That¡¯s too low! I¡¯m a Sunre and he¡¯s not a Dominator yet.</i>

    ¡°You¡¯re thirty, he¡¯s seventy!¡±

    Wang Ming¡¯s nostrils red with indignation, now this was insulting him!

    ¡°I¡¯m a Sunre...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve just be a Sunre!¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°Is that impressive? It can be, and Liu Long might not be a match for you if he wasn¡¯t a Dominator. As a peak Sunderer, he was yet toprehend the aura despite his strength reaching perfection. A false half step Dominator like him would never stand against a Sunre.¡±

    Martial masters without an aura would never be able to go against a Sunre. It was a difficult call to make once they grasped it. 70/30 might be a bit over the top, but it would certainly be even odds. It was hard to tell who would win.

    ¡°I would never defeat a Sunre if I didn¡¯tprehend the aura!¡± Liu Long also inclined his head. ¡°Enlightenment depends on the strength of the aura, one¡¯s experience, and one¡¯s level. It is indeed tough to determine who would be the victor.

    ¡°Elder Yuan, Sun Yifei set tomorrow as the date in his letter, didn¡¯t he? But it¡¯s not time for the expedition yet and everyone hopes for you to be a part of it. Is Sun Yifei going against everyone¡¯s wishes...¡±

 Chapter 197: Letter of Challenge (II)

    <h4>Chapter 197: Letter of Challenge (II)</h4>

    ¡°Who knows?¡± Yuan Shuo answered calmly. ¡°Either Sun Yifei is so dominating that none of the three great organizations or Night Watchers can stop him, or he¡¯s probing for someone else. Or perhaps his mission is to injure me so gravely that I have no choice but to obey orders once we¡¯re inside the ruins. That prevents me from giving them trouble with the amount of strength I have.¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s brows were tightly knitted together. He looked at Li Hao, then at Yuan Shuo. ¡°If we answer the letter and Elder Yuan¡¯s strength is exposed... Will it adversely impact the expedition toe?¡±

    Their capabilities would be revealed ahead of time. Everyone would be on guard if the professor was stronger than Sun Yifei. At the same time, he might very well be beaten into severe injuries if he was weaker than the Qimei Staff King. It wasn¡¯t likely that Yuan Shuo would die, because the excavation hadn¡¯t happened yet.

    No matter how they looked at it, it seemed a losing proposition.

    ¡°Then we¡¯re exposed!¡± Yuan Shuo snorted. ¡°We keep a low profile only when weck sufficient strength. It¡¯s fine to stand out from the crowd once we have the capabilities to back it up. Whoever dares provoke us will find their faces beaten in!¡±

    He rather seemed like the old demon of old in this moment. So they would be exposed then! He could beat everyone to death if he could kill Sun Yifei. In fact, his old opponent would be a perfect barometer to examine the strength of Summoner of Spirit so that he didn¡¯t overestimate himself. Yuan Shuo kept his nose down before due to ack of strength. But now... he wasn¡¯t afraid!

    ¡°You caught the letter of challenge so excitedly without concern for exposing your strength.¡± The professor suddenly looked at his student. ¡°Out with it, do you have something in mind?¡±

    ¡°I do, teacher.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°That sword requires bravely forging ahead! To sever the self and seek blood... That disciple looks quite strong to me and he knows the aura. He¡¯s a perfect opponent! My own aura of the sword might take shape if I¡¯m able to cut him down.¡±

    ¡°So... you n on concealing the aura of the earth?¡± Yuan Shuo brightened.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Very few will think that I¡¯veprehended the earth since my internal force presents itself in the shape of a sword. I¡¯d like to use the strength ofte Sunderer to fight him. I may stand a chance ofprehending the aura of the sword if I win!¡±

    He wouldmand two auras if one of the sword also took shape. If he then melded two auras together, Li Hao might set foot into Dominator.

    Wang Ming abruptly realized something at this point and eximed, ¡°What are you talking about? Aren¡¯t you mid Sunderer, Li Hao?¡±

    The situation seemed less right the more he listened to it! Late Sunderer? Perfection? The heck? Didn¡¯t he know what level Li Hao was at? Why did it seem like he¡¯d slept for decades in the blink of an eye?

    Li Hao smiled without responding.

    ¡°Let¡¯s head over to the Night Watcher camp.¡± Neither did Liu Long reply. ¡°We should discuss with Director Hao no matter what. Who knows how many will be watching tomorrow, so it¡¯s best to have someone keeping an eye on things.¡±

    The group nodded and made quick time to Rift Canyon.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, at the bottom of the canyon where a patch of tents stood.</i>

    ¡°Someone under Master Sun has brought a letter of challenge to Yuan Shuo!¡±

    <i>Ghostfaces.</i>

    <i>The Red Moon camp.</i>

    ¡°Let him do so since Sun Yifei insists!¡± rang an uncaring voice from the tents. The speaker addressed Sun Yifei by his name, making the speaker a Sr at the very least. inly, Red Moon wasn¡¯t very satisfied with Sun Yifei¡¯s challenge.

    For one, it exposed his presence at Rift Canyon. The organization was none too pleased at how brazen Sun Yifei had been upon arriving in Silver Moon. He didn¡¯t bother to conceal himself or his traces whatsoever.

    Two, everyone needed Yuan Shuo to lead the way. Not to mention, more than one faction had their eyes on the professor. This was someone who killed Brokensky, after all! He still possessed a high level of strength. If he actually hurt Sun Yifei, that would be a blow to Red Moon.

    Thus, the others were happy to watch the show. Only the Night Watchers and Red Moon were in for a headache. It was ate Sr facing off against a martial master who could kill Srs. Everyone would be happy if either one of the two died, or both were heavily injured. Even if they lost an expert with Yuan Shuo¡¯s death... They could ept his death if it really came to that.

    ¡°Should we stop it?¡± hesitated the Ghostface outside the tent.

    ¡°How?¡± the one inside answered quietly. ¡°It¡¯s hardly the first time that Sun Yifei has been so cocky in Red Moon. Who does he listen to, apart from the leader? Not even Violet Moon will be able to order him around if shees.¡±

    The organization¡¯s highest representative in Silver Moon was Violet Moon, but she wasn¡¯t here at the moment as she was at White Moon City. Thus, the speaker inside the tent was in charge of the campsite. He was also a Sr!

    Thus was the might of Red Moon on disy. The dead Brokensky, Sun Yifei who¡¯d just rushed to Rift Canyon, Violet Moon at White Moon City, and the Sr on site here made for four Srs already. Without Sun Yifei, it meant that three Srs were stationed in Silver Moon.

    As for Ying Hongyue¡¯s son killed in earlierbat... No one cared about him. Ying Hongyue had plenty of sons and grandsons. One sent to Silver Moon either possessed too little potential and was thus unsuited for the central region, or needed to be tempered because his potential was too strong.

    inly, the one who¡¯d died didn¡¯t have the best potential. Granted, his father was only initial Sunre, hardly an impressive cultivation level.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher camp.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan also received word. He paced inside arge tent, a headache hammering at his temples. How unlucky to run into this as soon as they arrived!

    ¡°Damned Sun Yifei!¡± Hao Lianchuan cursed. ¡°Making trouble before the expedition even starts. He¡¯s ate Sr looking to battle a newly ascended Dominator. What the hell, how shameless can he be?! I¡¯ll meet him myself tomorrow!¡±

    He was beside himself with infuriation! He¡¯d thought that Sun Yifei would wait until the expedition was over to issue a challenge. The man had to keep the bigger picture in mind, didn¡¯t he?!

    Just look at him, he didn¡¯t care at all. He wanted to fight tomorrow! Was Hao Kong over at the Red Moon campplete trash?? Why couldn¡¯t he keep his own people in check??

    Hao Lianchuan cursed at the Sr in charge of the Red Moon delegation. Being another Sr, he¡¯d thought that Hao Kong could induce Sun Yifei to toe the line. Now he realized this was the furthest thing from the truth. Sun Yifei didn¡¯t care about him in the slightest!

    Huang Yun and others were also present inside the tent. The atmosphere was a bit grave. Ate Sr! They were still wary of such characters. Apart from Director Hou, who among the Silver Moon Night Watchers could guarantee a victory against Sun Yifei?

    ¡°Director Hou, although it¡¯s not good news... it¡¯s not bad news either!¡± someone said softly. ¡°Sun Yifei is certain to participate in the expedition, so it¡¯s a good thing to get a gauge of his abilities now. Otherwise, we¡¯ll be going in blind. We know he¡¯s ate Sr, but how strong is ate Sr? We can have Yuan Shuo suss him out and find a way to interrupt the battle at a crucial moment.¡±

    Lack of knowledge during the excavation would make it difficult to manage their foe.

    ¡°Who knows how many people are waiting to watch the show tomorrow!¡± Hao Lianchuan frowned. ¡°They can¡¯t wait for the two to fight to the death. These old guard martial masters still go at it with the same style!¡±

    Such was the culture of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. It¡¯d always been this way! These fellows fought to the death at the drop of a hat, even knowing full well that strong enemies encircled them on the outside. It left openings for outsiders to swoop in. Such situations urred many times in the past, it wasn¡¯t just limited to Sun Yifei and Yuan Shuo.

    The key thing was, these martial masters learned nothing from past lessons. Or rather, they insisted on this course of action despite knowing what the results would be!

    ¡°I¡¯ll persuade Yuan Shuo to abandon the challenge when he arrives.¡± Hao Lianchuan¡¯s temples throbbed. "If Sun Yifei darees, I¡¯ll let him know that this is Silver Moon, not the central region. His word is notw here!¡±

    He was ready to raise the ming Phoenix Spear if Sun Yifei darede. He would st the shit out of the man! Although it wasn¡¯t his preference to expose the origin weapon so early, he had no other choice.

    The assembly of Night Watchers looked at each other, no one knowing what to say. Sun Yifei¡¯s appearance did indeed upend a lot of ns.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Conversations abounded in all of the major campsites. Sun Yifei had issued a challenge to Yuan Shuo! Martial masters from two decades ago, and enemies at that, had run into each other at Rift Canyon. They were about to engage in battle. Some people were expectant, others were nervous.

    ......

    <i>At another campsite¡ªthe Sword Sect campsite.</i>

    A middle-aged man with a sharp look in his eyesughed when he heard the news. ¡°As I thought, the Qimei Staff King and Old Demon of the Five Styles are certain to fight when they encounter each other! When Sun Yifei was defeated at Rift Bridge, he couldn¡¯t stand the humiliation and jumped off the bridge. We all thought he died, to think he¡¯de back alive and be ate Sr!

    ¡°I am so looking forward to this fight. What a pity that one has be a supernatural and the other has just set foot into Dominator. Their strength is not of the same level. But Old Demon Yuan has melded the auras of the five animals, so he shouldn''t be too weak even though he¡¯s just set foot into Dominator. Brokensky well deserved his death. We¡¯ll have a good show on our hands even if the old demon is defeated tomorrow!¡±

    inly, he had high confidence in Yuan Shuo. It wasn¡¯t that he believed Yuan Shuo could win, but that he would present a peak battle between the two greats even if he lost. That was Yuan Shuo!

    ¡°Father,¡± said a young woman next to him. ¡°Was Yuan Shuo really that powerful back in the day? Why does it look like he¡¯s the worst now? Ying Hongyue and Sun Yifei of Red Moon, as well as father have all long made it to the supernatural world. Why has he remained at Sunderer for twenty years?¡±

    If the old demon was so strong, why hadn¡¯t he set foot into the supernatural earlier? Perhaps he¡¯d be the same level as Ying Hongyue now.

    The man in front of her was the Earthturner Sword of the Seven Swords of Silver Moon, Hong Yitang. He mused over his daughter¡¯s words and shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s hard to say, but it might have something to do with his enormous umtion of foundations.¡±

    <i>Enormous umtion?</i>

    His daughter somewhat understood, but not really.

 Chapter 198: Letter of Challenge (III)

    <h4>Chapter 198: Letter of Challenge (III)</h4>

    ¡°Yuan Shuo was a half step Dominator in his heyday, one that melded five auras together,¡± Hong Yitang exined. ¡°Regr Sunderers might need one thousand cubes of mysterious power to break their supernatural locks, whereas Yuan Shuo could need five thousand!

    ¡°Where was so much mysterious power supposed toe from in that age? Not to mention, he was forced to cower in Silver Moon after Ying Hongyue came into his strength. He had to withdraw to Silver City, which naturally meant that he missed the best possible timing for a breakthrough.¡±

    ¡°Is he that strong?¡± his daughter eximed. ¡°Five times the usual consumption??¡±

    She knew of her father¡¯s historical feats and the enormous amount of mysterious power he¡¯d exhausted in order to cross over. It was thanks to his backers that he barely made the ascension. He was now a Sr, a powerhouse in his own right, and had founded the Sword Sect.

    Yuan Shuo needed five times what her father required! No wonder he¡¯d been unable to ascend.

    ¡°Do you think there¡¯s no reason behind his title of Old Demon Yuan?¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°He calls himself the Five Styles King, which is what others say to his face. In reality, they call him the Beast King! The Less Than Human King! He¡¯s cruel and ruthless¡ªhe would¡¯ve died to enemies long ago if he didn¡¯t have some skill to his name! Three of the other six swords that bore the same title as me died in battle against him!¡±

    ¡°Was father less than him as well?¡± This was the adoration of a daughter toward her father. Under normal circumstances, some casual boasting from Hong Yitang would be the end of it. However, the man thought for a long moment and shook his head.

    ¡°Indeed, I was less than him!¡±

    Astonishment crossed the girl¡¯s face. Her father always brimmed with confidence when he spoke of the martial world of the olden days. A lofty pride filled his face and he was dismissive of any martial master from the central region, even if they bore an illustrious reputation now. But he just admitted to his daughter that he did not rival Yuan Shuo. Was this person that terrifying?

    ¡°It¡¯s the truth!¡±ughed Hong Yitang, unbothered by his daughter¡¯s surprise. ¡°It¡¯d be one thing if we were approximately of the same strength or he was just barely stronger than me, but he was <i>far</i> better than me! I¡¯ll let you in on a secret, I never went anywhere he was back in those days, just in case that brought trouble down on my head. He liked to spar with strong people¡ªbut often ended up killing opponents when he sparred!

    ¡°That¡¯s why I didn¡¯t ept the two letters of challenge that he issued. You wouldn¡¯t be here today if I did.¡±

    ¡°Father, can we watch the fight tomorrow?¡± Hong Qing¡¯s interest was piqued. On one side was a powerhouse that even her father proimed inferiority to. He had just entered Dominator of Thousands, but could beat Srs to death. On the other was the famed Qimei Staff King of the martial world. He¡¯d built a name for himself in the central region after reachingte Sr. It would be so cool to watch the two of them fight!

    ¡°That¡¯s just as well, you can get to know more of the world!¡± Hong Yitang nodded after thinking it over. ¡°You are a Sunderer now, if you cannot break through to Dominator, you should prepare to cross over to the supernatural as a Sunre. These people have all grasped the aura, particrly Yuan Shuo! It might help you to observe them.¡±

    Older generation martial masters looked down on the supernatural even when they themselves were supernatural. They trained their children in martial dao and had them reach Sunderer first. Only when their offspring continuously failed toprehend the aura did they consider letting the younger generation absorb mysterious power and cross over to the supernatural world. Progress would not be hindered in this way and Sunderers usually made the direct leap to Sunre.

    Advancing to Dominator was the first choice if it was a possibility. The martial master would try to sense the aura, then opt to cross over to the supernatural if that was out of reach. This wasmonly seen not only in Silver Moon, but the central region as well.

    The powerhouses dominating the central region were mostly of this ilk. They either had their roots in martial dao or were Heaven Favored. These two types were the thorniest characters in the central region.

    ......

    The news spread all over Rift Canyon before Yuan Shuo arrived. Countless powerhouses hoped to witness a battle between two martial masters so well known that they were household names.

    Li Hao¡¯s group arrived when the sky turned pitch dark. A row of tents stood in front of them. While the rest of the group was unfamiliar with the setup, Wang Ming knew it well.

    ¡°We¡¯re here, I see familiar faces!¡± he said excitedly when they were still a distance away.

    ¡°Professor Yuan¡¯s here!¡± someone called out lowly up ahead.

    ¡°The people from Silver City have arrived!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan walked out to meet them before they reached the campsite, disregarding how it might reflect on him.

    ¡°It¡¯s one thing to be sote,¡± he grumbled before reaching the group. ¡°It¡¯s another to ept a letter of challenge!¡±

    <i>What in the world?!</i> epting a letter of challenge in the Silver Moon martial world meant agreeing to battle. There was room to maneuver only when the letter wasn¡¯t epted.

    Yuan Shuo flicked a nce at the man and ignored him. Li Hao, however, stared dumbly at the director. Indeed, he wentpletely wooden as Hao Lianchuan looked very different from before. There seemed to be a zing phoenix scurrying inside him!

    <i>What the heck?</i>

    The phoenix seemed to be alive and exuded an unparalleled presence of fierceness from Hao Lianchuan¡¯s body. It wasn¡¯t a supernatural presence, but an unspeakable one of power and might!

    Hao Lianchuan was talking to Yuan Shuo when he sensed the gaze. He was jolted by surprise when he saw the look in the young man¡¯s eyes.<i> What you looking at me like that for? This kid is as bad as they can get!</i>

    He would think that he¡¯d scared thed if things were as before, but now he would only suspect the boy was cooking up another devious scheme.

    Li Hao ducked his head as soon as the director looked over, as if he was afraid. He was more shocked than anything. What was that? Was that... the origin weapon? That was the only possibility that came to mind. Could origin weapons be concealed in the body? Why couldn¡¯t his sword do the same? How convenient it¡¯d be if he could manage the same with Steris! He could take it out whenever he wished and not worry about losing it.

    And it felt... so incredibly powerful!

    There was an extra person between them and the origin weapon was hidden inside Hao Lianchuan¡¯s body, but it still gave Li Hao an overwhelming sense of dominance. It was as if there really was a phoenix waiting to break out of the man.

    Li Hao ceased looking at Hao Lianchuan and surveyed the surroundings instead. There were many little moons¡ªall Darkmoons. There were many little suns¡ªSunre. There were even a few close to Qiao Feilong¡¯s level¡ªpeak Sunre. The Night Watchers had indeed invested a great deal of resources in this expedition.

    Next, he turned his gaze to a very low key woman in the crowd. Standing next to a Darkmoon, she bore undistinguished features and was thirty-some years old. Like the rest of the crowd, she regarded the neers with curiosity and happened to meet Li Hao¡¯s gaze.

    The young man instantly shifted his eyes away like a shy and timid boy. He snuck nces around him through lowered lids, but inwardly cursed up a storm. <i>Who says there¡¯s only two Srs in the Night Watchers?! Who says Hao Lianchuan is the only one here?! What¡¯s with that woman??</i>

    She was a Sr, and a very strong Sr. She was stronger than Qiao Feilong and even a bit stronger than Hao Lianchuan. She might be a mid Sr!

    <i>Liar! You¡¯re all liars!</i> Li Hao continued swearing. The intelligence wasn¡¯t urate at all. Perhaps the woman carried a treasure simr to Li Hao¡¯s mirror, one that hid her presence. No one else seemed to detect her, even his teacher.

    <i>She¡¯s hiding herself deep! Can she possibly be an... enemy?</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s heart skipped a beat. It was hard to say. Perhaps she was a spy from the three great organizations. Should he tell Hao Lianchuan? But if she was from the Night Watchers, Hao Lianchuan might not know anything. Perhaps Hou Xiaochen was behind this. Would he be identally causing trouble if he revealed this to Hao Lianchuan?

    <i>And how am I supposed to exin how I know about her when no one else does? </i>A headache troubled Li Hao. <i>Why do I seem to have run into trouble right upon arrival?</i>

    ......

    The woman that Li Hao took note of looked at the young man, then continued assessing Yuan Shuo and the others with the same curiosity as the crowd when nothing untoward presented itself.

    She paused briefly when she saw Wang Ming.<i> Sunre! </i>She knew about Wang Ming, but he¡¯d only been a Fullmoon when he left. He¡¯d crossed over Plenilune in just a few days and entered Sunre. This kind of speed was unfathomable!

    The woman took a few more nces before quickly changing her focus. She cared more about Yuan Shuo and Liu Long¡¯s condition. Liu Long was hard to determine, he seemed to have reached Dominator. As for Yuan Shuo... he was impossible to make out. There was only the faint sense that he seemed to have a fiery temper, that there was fire inside of him!

    It felt like a volcano about to erupt! The woman blinked, surprised. As expected, there was no one undeserving of their name when it came to an illustrious reputation! Yuan Shuo was very strong.

    The professor nced sharply at her as she continued her observations. Coldness glinted out of his eyes like light from a sword. He frowned at the woman, then looked at Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°Have your people cease their usage of surveince arts on me. You won¡¯t be able to handle the consequences if I lose my temper!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan blinked. Was there someone doing that? He looked behind him and didn¡¯t discover anything out of the ordinary.

    ¡°Don¡¯t randomly peep at someone!¡± He frowned all the same. ¡°To do so is very rude, behave!¡±

    He¡¯d issued reminders to everyone beforehand, was someone still probing Yuan Shuo? He hadn¡¯t sensed any supernatural ripples; was old fart Yuan purposefully picking at him? That was also very likely!

    Irritation brewed in Hao Lianchuan. <i>I¡¯m just lecturing you with a few words, look at you getting impatient! You use your age and the fact that you set foot into Dominator as an excuse. You really don¡¯t respect me after killing a Sr!</i>

    ¡°You¡¯re not allowed to fight tomorrow!¡± He stormed off after these words. Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t allowed!

    Yuan Shuo flicked a nce at the huffy director and chuckled. ¡°Has Hao Lianchuan forgotten that i¡¯m not actually a Night Watcher?¡± he muttered to Liu Long.

    ¡°......¡± Liu Long had nothing to say.

    Those around them heard the response. Everyone¡¯s expression was tight¡ªsome wanted tough while others wanted to erupt with anger. The reply even made it to Hao Lianchuan''s ears. He, too, was resigned, but didn¡¯t bother saying anything else.

    Yes, he¡¯d indeed forgotten that the old thing wasn¡¯t one of them, but his student was!<i> I¡¯ll summon your student for a talk tonight and send him back to Silver City if you don¡¯t listen! </i>And truly, Li Hao needed to speak some sense into his teacher. What was he being so eager about going to his death for?

 Chapter 199: A Low Key Arrogance (I)

    <h4>Chapter 199: A Low Key Arrogance (I)</h4>

    There were limited numbers of tents in the campsite. Therefore, it was rather decent treatment that the Silver City delegation was given arge one of their own. As for no special consideration for the fact that one of their members was a girl... that was all too normal. As superhumans, this was to be expected.

    It was rather the presence of a dog that elicited surprise from some and indifference from others. Superhumans were an entric lot. No one cared so long as the dog didn¡¯t interfere with proper business at hand.

    ......

    The Silver City group made a perfunctory round of their tent. Yuan Shuo wanted to rest, Liu Long wanted to discuss their uing mission and tasks with Hao Lianchuan. Li Hao grabbed Wang Ming to make new friends.

    ......

    ¡°Li Hao, this is Elder Huang, you know him!¡± Wang Ming was quite free-handed at times. Under normal circumstances, people usually brought new friends to meet others of the same level. Wang Ming was still a Darkmoon in many people¡¯s eyes, but the first person he introduced Li Hao to was the Sunre Huang Yun.

    The two had met before, after all, so they were familiar with each other. Making a social call meant an introduction, a request to look after the one being introduced. Being a Sunre powerhouse, Huang Yun shared his tent with only one other person despite not being assigned one of his own. There was a bulky man in his tent who was as dark as night. He seemed to be an honest, friendly person. Dense earth energy surrounded him, an obvious sign that he was an earth supernatural.

    Huang Yun smiled when he saw Wang Ming visit with Li Hao in tow. He was quite close to Wang Ming and familiar with Li Hao.

    ¡°Hello, Elder Huang!¡± Li Hao said bashfully with a tone of inexperience. He was obviously a young man wet behind the ears when it came toworking. The young man looked at the earth powerhouse after greeting Huang Yun. ¡°Greetings to this big brother!¡±

    ¡°Big brother?¡±ughed the earth powerhouse. ¡°I¡¯m old enough to be your dad! My name¡¯s Zhao Huan and I¡¯m a chiefmissioner from White Moon City!¡±

    ¡°Zhao Huan is an earth supernatural,¡± introduced a smiling Huang Yun. ¡°He¡¯s very good at earth bending! It¡¯s hard to fly through the skies, but even harder to fly through the ground!¡±

    They weed the two young men into the tent.

    The tents were big at this campsite, making for spacious lodgings. Thanks to an earth supernatural in residence, simple structures had been raised inside. There was a table, a raised tform for a bed, and others. It was much morefortable than the other tents and moreprehensive.

    Wang Ming walked inside with Li Hao, looking enviously at the cups and bowls on the table. ¡°It¡¯s definitely better to be where Uncle Zhao is! Earth supernaturals will excel in building cities if there are no battles to be fought!¡±

    ¡°Little Wang, your metal attribute is not bad either,¡± Zhao Huan threw his head back withughter. ¡°If there really are no battles in the future, I¡¯ll build a city and you reinforce it with metal. We¡¯ll craft a metropolis together!¡±

    The two were inlyfortable with each other given how they joked around. They didn¡¯t ignore Li Hao either. Huang Yun waved them into chairs and looked kindly at theirtest addition.

    ¡°Li Hao, you should speak some sense into your teacher regarding Sun Yifei¡¯s letter of challenge. Your teacher doesn¡¯t have any friends or family, he¡¯s in contact with you the most over these years. You¡¯re his final disciple and his personality is fiery and stubborn. Sun Yifei is so very strong atte Sr. Brokensky absolutely cannotpare to him...¡±

    He wanted to influence Yuan Shuo through Li Hao. It was not the best choice to fight at this moment. It would benefit all of the other factions to the detriment of only the Night Watchers and Red Moon. In fact, Red Moon wouldn¡¯t be affected much. It was the Night Watchers that would suffer the most.

    ¡°I¡¯ll try!¡± Li Hao nodded solemnly. ¡°But my teacher can be inflexible, so my words may not have much of an effect.¡± He shook his head with some regret and lowered his voice. ¡°Elder Huang, I asked Brother Wang to bring me here because I want to understand the situation. I¡¯m embarrassed to ask other people and have bumped into Elder Huang a few times...¡±

    ¡°What would you like to know?¡± Huang Yun smiled.

    ¡°Well... um... I¡¯m wondering if there¡¯s anyone among us Night Watchers who can handle Sun Yifei, apart from Director Hou?¡± Li Hao asked worriedly. ¡°I hear that many organizations might have sent Srs for the expedition and none of the factions are too pleased with us. We¡¯re very strong¡ªElder Huang and everyone are premier Sunre elites. But... can we... handle so many Srs?¡±

    He actually wanted to know if these people knew about that woman¡¯s existence. Sunre was the core of Silver Moon''s strength. If they didn¡¯t know, then he¡¯d have to probe Hao Lianchuan. The sudden appearance of a mid Sr was someone he had to get a handle on.

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to worry too much about that,¡± Huang Yun responded after some consideration. ¡°The various organizations are not a tight knit whole, even when ites to acting against the Night Watchers. Differences in opinion exist. The two mid-sized organizations actually partner with us more because they¡¯re local factions. The three great organizations only have branches here¡ªtheir main force is in the central region.¡±

    ¡°So this means that Director Hao is our only Sr?¡± Li Hao had to ask directly since this wasn¡¯t what he wanted to hear.

    Huang Yun nodded, there was nothing to hide about this. ¡°There¡¯s no helping it, only Directors Hao and Hou are Srs among the Silver Moon Night Watchers. Director Hou can¡¯t leave his post, which means Director Hao is here alone.

    ¡°But don¡¯t be thinking that this makes us weak! We have seven Sunres with us for this expedition. Other than me and Ole Zhao, there are two peak Sunres among the rest!¡±

    He was an initial Sunre and Zhao Huan was a mid Sunre. Li Hao didn¡¯t ask about them because their suns seemed too small to his eyes. As for the peak Sunres... The young man cross referenced against the suns he¡¯d seen earlier. It should be one man and one woman, both middle aged.

    ¡°Director He of the water attribute, and Director Zhou of the metal attribute,¡± Wang Ming interjected when a baffled look appeared on Li Hao¡¯s face. ¡°There is one director and five deputies among the Silver Moon Night Watchers. Director Hao is the first deputy director below Director Hou. Of the remaining four, we have Director He¡ªpeak water Sunre. You know, the crabby looking auntie...¡±

    Huang Yun and Zhao Huan raised their eyebrows at him. <i>This kid has some nerve! Although she </i>is<i> on the auntie level, that doesn¡¯t mean she likes being called that. You¡¯ll be in for it if she catches you!</i>

    ¡°I know Director Zhou better!¡± Wang Ming chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m a metal supernatural too, so I often ask Director Zhou for pointers. He¡¯s the handsome uncle who was standing next to Director Hao, he had a sword on his back! He¡¯s a peak Sunre and who I think is most likely to be the third Sr among the Night Watchers.¡±

    Metal supernaturals were adept at offense. Since Director Zhou was the same attribute as Wang Ming, thetter was very familiar with him and quite worshiped the man.

    Huang Yun and Zhao Huan did not refute the handsome young man. Director Zhou was ferocious when attacking and he was a veteran Sunre. It wasn¡¯t impossible for him to progress to Sr.

    Li Hao shed a grin. He was now familiar with four out of seven Sunres. After exchanging some more words with the two in the tent, he made his excuses. This was just a social call, so it wouldn¡¯t do to stay too long. It was dark outside, so they couldn¡¯t continue chatting forever.

    ......

    Wang Ming left with Li Hao after a while. Since they were making rounds, they would visit everyone one by one. Thus, the handsome supernatural brought his colleague to meet some of the other Sunres. Everyone was very polite to Yuan Shuo¡¯s student.

    Gu Mei was a mid wood Sunre and the healer of the entire group. Liu Ping was an initial thunder Sunre with tremendous offensive ability. His stature was diminutive as he was a full head shorter than Li Hao, but he packed quite a loud voice.

    Li Xiangdong was a mid Sunre of unique abilities. He shared the same surname as Li Hao and his abilities were so special that it made him the eyes of the team. Li Xiangdong was in charge of surveince. ording to Wang Ming, this Night Watcher could hear everything within a few kilometers¡ªeven ants crawling over the ground.

    The setup of the team made sense. Offense, intelligence, medical, and defense were all ounted for. Add to that the wind attributed Huang Yun being adept at escape, it made for a formidable delegation.

    ......

    When Li Hao walked out of thest metal supernatural Zhou Huaimin¡¯s tent, his cheek muscles were almost frozen in ce. He¡¯d been smiling for so long! As a junior and meeting all of these great personages for the first time, he naturally had to present an amiable front.

    Everyone was nice to him on the surface. The two deputy directors even gave him a pep talk. Of course, many were those who wished him to talk some sense into Yuan Shuo and not fight with Sun Yifei.

    ¡°Ole Wang, why don¡¯t we also visit the Darkmoons?¡±

    Wang Ming almost stumbled over his feet! He was tired as he was the one to make the introductions each time. His mouth was dry and his throat was scratchy after repeated openers. Now they were to visit the Darkmoons? What was the point of befriending Darkmoons?

    That could wait until tomorrow. A casual conversation could be struck if they ran into the Darkmoon Night Watchers.

    ¡°That¡¯s enough for now, Li Hao!¡± Wang Ming wasn¡¯t very willing.

    Li Hao smiled and looked silently at hispatriot. His stare made Wang Ming ufortable. <i>What are you looking at me for? Show some respect for powerhouses. I¡¯m a Sunre! </i>Regardless, he capitted with resignation after a while.

    ¡°Fine! But I¡¯m not too familiar with some of the Darkmoons either. Not all of them are from White Moon City, some were redeployed from elsewhere. The same goes for the Sunres, somee from re City.¡±

    Li Hao nodded and turned to a tent with a massive sun. That woman was in there.

    ¡°That seems to be...¡± Wang Ming followed his line of sight. ¡°Let me think... Oh, where the female supernaturals are gathered.¡± He narrowed his eyes at Li Hao. ¡°Are you going to pay your respects or trying to pick up girls?¡±

    The kidid eyes on thedies¡¯ tent as soon as he looked around!

    The Night Watchers had sent roughly fifty people for the excavation. Not all of them would enter the ruins, a portion would stay outside. Roughly thirty would actually be part of the expedition, and there were approximately ten females total. The Darkmoons slept four or five to a tent. Li Hao was looking at one of them.

 Chapter 200: A Low Key Arrogance (II)

    <h4>Chapter 200: A Low Key Arrogance (II)</h4>

    ¡°Let¡¯s go take a look!¡± Li Hao shed a grin and beelined for the tent ofdies. He muttered as he walked, ¡°Female supernaturals... and so many in one ce. That¡¯s a rare sight. Ole Wang, do you think I can sire a Heaven Favored if I marry a female supernatural?¡±

    Wang Ming was at aplete loss for words. <i>Where the heck did you get this idea from?! I haven¡¯t heard you speak of it before, ever! Look at you showing your true colors as soon as we¡¯re away from home!</i>

    Li Hao chuckled and didn¡¯t bother to exin himself. Was that person listening? It was best if she was!

    ......

    <i>Inside the tent.</i>

    Thedies were awake. Some were cultivating, others were chitchatting. They were all Darkmoons and the expedition was close at hand. General nerves stretched heartstrings taut, making it impossible to sleep.

    ¡°Someone¡¯sing!¡± One of them broke off their conversation.

    ¡°Who?¡±

    ¡°Hello!¡± Wang Ming¡¯s voice rang out. ¡°I am Wang Ming and I¡¯m here with Professor Yuan¡¯s student to visit everyone. May Ie in?¡±

    ¡°Wang Ming?¡± One of them recognized the name and lowered her voice, ¡°It¡¯s Big Mouth Wang...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t say that, he¡¯s not bad. He¡¯s got good potential¡ªapparently he¡¯s discovered five locks. He¡¯s strong and a metal attribute...¡±

    ¡°And Professor Yuan¡¯s student, is it the little boy that gets shy easily?¡±

    ¡°Should be.¡±

    <i>Murmur murmur.</i>

    The chattering of women traveled out from the tent. Nothing flickered across Li Hao¡¯s face, but Wang Ming¡¯s expression changed. As a Sunre, his hearing was much better than before.

    Big Mouth Wang??

    Who¡¯d given him that nickname?!

    <i>You¡¯re the big mouth! Is my mouth big?? Not at all!!</i>

    <i>This is all Li Hao¡¯s fault. I didn¡¯t want toe!</i>

    The tent ps quickly lifted and the woman that Li Hao had taken note of walked out. Falling on the thin side, she looked to be between her thirties and forties. Wang Ming seemed to know her and smiled when he saw their greeter.

    ¡°So Sis Zhang is here!¡±

    ¡°Brother Wang, introduce me,¡± Li Hao quickly said in a small voice. He was a shy little boy who didn¡¯t even dare raise his voice!

    Wang Ming chuckled merrily as he cursed inwardly. <i>Yeah yeah yeah, keep putting on that act! </i>How would he not know what type of person Li Hao was after being in contact with the young man for so long? This was a fellow who didn¡¯t react to Liu Yan teasing him. Did he have a shy bone in his body?

    ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Zhang Ting, a water Fullmoon!¡± The woman dimpled when she heard Li Hao¡¯s words and extended her hand, seeming to want to shake Li Hao¡¯s.

    Supernaturals rarely shook hands during introductions. The same went for martial masters¡ªthey only shook hands if they wished to test each other. The gesture easily revealed many things about the superhuman, particrly martial masters. Internal force was contained inside the body and difficult to detect from external appearance.

    <i>This woman wants to shake my hand...</i>

    Li Hao was a rookie and a weakling in other people¡¯s eyes. There was nothing about him to hide. Shaking hands was an exchange between equals, a show of respect.

    Wang Ming didn¡¯t think much of it.

    Li Hao shed a bashful smile and stretched out his hand, lightly sping the other¡¯s. He quickly withdrew his hand and quietly said, ¡°I¡¯m Li Hao. I¡¯m from Silver City.¡±

    The otherdies also walked out of the tent, regarding Li Hao with curiosity before greeting Wang Ming.

    When Zhang Ting saw that no one paid attention to Li Hao, she drew him into a conversation like the understanding big sister she was.

    ¡°Li Hao, is this your first trip away from home?¡± she asked softly with a gentle smile.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I was always in Silver City before.¡±

    ¡°Then how are you here at such a dangerous time? You¡¯re a yer, right? You haven¡¯t made the crossover yet, right?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not a yer...¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°My teacher doesn¡¯t want me to say anything, but I¡¯ll tell you a secret, Sis Zhang. Don¡¯t tell anyone¡ªI have great martial potential! I¡¯m a Sunderer, but Brother Wang and the others don¡¯t believe me.¡±

    Zhang Ting chuckled delightedly. What a cute little greenhorn! <i>A Sunderer!</i> She¡¯d sensed it earlier that Li Hao may not be a yer. The handshake had only been for a split second, but she¡¯d perceived that Li Hao might be a Sunderer. Indeed, little greenie here didn¡¯t know anything and spilled his secrets without further ado. He rather resembled Big Mouth Wang in that regard.

    ¡°Big sis believes you!¡± Zhang Ting chuckled. ¡°You cane to me if you need any help in the ruins. You¡¯re so young, so you can ask me about anything you don¡¯t understand.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, Sis Zhang!¡± Li Hao bobbed his head up and down with pleasure; his mind rapidly flew through calctions. <i>This woman is absolutely a mid Sr and a water supernatural like she ims. Not only that...</i>

    <i>She seems to have an origin weapon on her.</i>

    It felt different from Hao Lianchuan¡¯s fire phoenix¡ªthat phoenix seemed alive. It was very obvious and detectable at a single nce. It flew around with immense strength. When it came to the woman, Li Hao didn¡¯t notice it with his first impression. Now that they were face to face, they were so close that he could see everything about her.

    The young man postted that she had an origin weapon because he saw a small snake swimming through the big ball of light that was a hallmark of Srs. It was a very transparent snake that was very small. One might not notice it if they didn¡¯t look at it carefully, particrly when a Sr¡¯s light was so bright.

    Now that Li Hao knew more about the supernatural world, he seemed to be able to notice more. He could even observe certain unique qualities, such as the other¡¯s light being particrly bright around the four limbs, but that the left arm was noticeably dimmer. This indicated that the woman had opened the locks on her right arm and legs. Water was attributed to the kidney, so she¡¯d likely opened the lock around her kidney as well.

    Opening four locks made one a Sr, so her left arm was possibly a source of weakness. The strength between her four limbs was not bnced.

    <i>A mid Sr with an origin weapon...</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know if it was an origin weapon or not, but he knew that anything that could be stored inside the body was not an ordinary object. This woman was terrifying if it was an origin weapon! Hao Lianchuan¡¯s weapon seemed to be stronger, but she wouldn¡¯t necessarily lose if they faced off in frontalbat. She was holding her cards close to her chest.

    If there was an ambush... Hao Lianchuan might suffer misfortune.

    <i>Who arranged for her to be here? </i>

    Wang Ming concluded his conversation and looked merrily at Li Hao. ¡°Let¡¯s go to our next stop. We¡¯ll be on our way then, Sis Zhang.¡±

    Zhang Ting nodded and watched until they were out of sight.

    ¡°Do you have a fetish or something?¡± Wang Ming muttered after they¡¯d put some distance between themselves and the tent. ¡°You talked to Sis Zhang instead of the chicks next to you. She¡¯s thirty, if not forty! And her looks... there¡¯s something seriously wrong with you, man!¡±

    ¡°She speaks softly and I like her voice,¡± Li Hao answered pleasantly. ¡°The younger ones only wanted to talk to you. What was I supposed to do?¡±

    ¡°Pfft, it¡¯s not like I like them!¡± Wang Ming stuck his nose in the air. ¡°I¡¯m different now and need to look further. Perhaps I¡¯ll be able to take a Sr or greater than Sr for my wife in the future...¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re all really old!¡± Li Hao reminded.

    ¡°And what do you know, that¡¯s just in Silver Moon!¡± Wang Ming sniffed. ¡°Some of the Heaven Favored in the central region awaken as Sunre! They cross into Sr in less than three years. Apparently, the youngest Sr is only twenty years old.¡±

    ¡°Wow, that amazing?¡±

    ¡°Of course, so I¡¯m setting my sights there!¡± The two made their way to other tents as they chatted. Li Hao turned into a bystander, watching Wang Ming carry on conversation. He offered a few words only when people addressed him, the very image of a socially awkward person.

    ......

    The sky waspletely dark after two hours. Li Hao finally returned to his tent. Liu Yan was missing.

    ¡°Liu Long just came back,¡± said the resting Yuan Shuo without lifting his head when Li Hao disyed a confused expression. ¡°He took her in the direction of Yama¡¯s campsite. They may be around there.¡±

    ¡°Teacher, won¡¯t that result in conflict?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°With Liu Long there, it shouldn¡¯t.¡± The professor nced at Li Hao. ¡°You¡¯ve been off since we arrived here and run around with Little Wang. Out with it, what have you discovered?¡±

    The young man looked around them.

    ¡°Someone who can eavesdrop on my conversation is not worth guarding against,¡± Yuan Shuo saidzily. ¡°It¡¯s all the same.¡±

    If there was such a powerhouse, it wouldn¡¯t matter if they could hear the conversation or not. Li Hao swiveled his head at Wang Ming. The handsome supernatural had just entered the tent; Yuan Shuo called out, ¡°Find whoever¡¯s in charge and get me some food. There¡¯s nothing to eat around here!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Why don¡¯t you send Li Hao? Fine, I¡¯m more familiar with this ce.</i> Wang Ming left without a word.

    ¡°Zhang Ting, water supernatural,¡± Li Hao began only when they had the tent to themselves. ¡°Mid Sr, possibly has an origin weapon. She was seventh to the left of us. A skinny woman in her thirties.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°I felt being pried into when she looked at me. I thought it was a special ability, so this is the case!¡±

    He was neither surprised nor angry, just very calm.

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan likely doesn¡¯t know about her. She¡¯s either Hou Xiaochen¡¯s hidden pawn or one of an even higher up Night Watcher. Or, she belongs to the three great organizations.¡±

    These were the only possibilities, none other.

    ¡°To be part of the Night Watchers until now and pulling the wool over everyone¡¯s eyes right under Hou Xiaochen¡¯s nose...¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°Forget that. I¡¯m going to meet Hao Lianchuanter. I won¡¯t say anything and tell him to use the specialmunication method to contact Hou Xiaochen. I¡¯ve been wanting to speak to the man for a while. You cane with me and observe Hou Xiaochen. Get to know him.¡±

    <i>Hou Xiaochen!</i>

    Li Hao was very curious about this person. His teacher was impressive alright! He was still debating whether or not to tell Hao Lianchuan while his teacher was already preparing to contact Hou Xiaochen.

 Chapter 201: A Low Key Arrogance (III)

    <h4>Chapter 201: A Low Key Arrogance (III)</h4>

    Yuan Shuo rose to his feet and walked outside, bumping into Wang Ming returning with food.

    ¡°Are you not eating anymore?¡± he asked with surprise to see teacher and disciple leave.

    ¡°Nope, you eat!¡±

    <i>Fine then! </i>Wang Ming was a bit dejected. A real disciple was best. Woe for an honorary disciple like him!

    ......

    <i>The center of the campsite.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan had arge tent to himself. He was mulling over whether or not to summon Li Hao for a chat when his eyes darted to the tent p. They lifted, admitting Yuan Shuo!

    <i>Maybe he¡¯se to his senses...</i>

    ¡°Contact Hou Xiaochen, I want to speak to him!¡± Yuan Shuo said merrily before Hao Lianchuan had a chance to speak.

    ¡°......¡± The director¡¯s face instantly darkened with irritation. ¡°You can tell me anything you want to say! The director may not be in. Apparently, Red Moon and Yama¡¯s representatives have been spotted near White Moon City. The director might have left headquarters.¡±

    It would be difficult to contact him if he wasn¡¯t physically present.

    ¡°Try. Even if he has, they shouldn¡¯t meet until the 28th. What, are they in a rtionship to be meeting ahead of time?¡±

    Hao Lianchuan was the epitome of wordlessness at Yuan Shuo¡¯s response. ¡°Is there a need for this, Yuan Shuo?¡± he couldn¡¯t help himself. ¡°Have I offended you in some way?¡±

    ¡°Nope.¡±

    ¡°Then why...¡±

    ¡°You want to listen in?¡± Yuan Shuo asked with resignation. ¡°Do you really want to listen? This has to do with ssified information, so it¡¯s not necessarily a good thing for you to listen. Of course, I can¡¯t stop you if you want to. You can just stand off to the side, how about it?¡±

    Hao Lianchuan started and stopped several times before finally managing, ¡°Forget it. I warn you, don¡¯t think of causing trouble for me day in and day out. If I¡¯d known you¡¯d be like this, I wouldn¡¯t have added you to the expedition team.¡±

    ¡°I know!¡± Yuan Shuo waved him off; he couldn¡¯t be bothered.

    Hao Lianchuan felt that he¡¯d been marginalized again and grew all the more depressed for it. Meanwhile, Li Hao was trying to suppress hisughter. He didn¡¯t have any ill will toward Hao Lianchuan, just that it was fun to see the man being thrown around thest couple of times.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s tent was different from the primitive environment of the other tents; his seemed more like a base of operations. There was arge disy screen in the middle.

    ¡°To think that you¡¯d reallye up with this!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°It¡¯s good formunications, right?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s alright, so long as the distance isn¡¯t greater than three thousand kilometers. Most connections go through, but they might end if there¡¯s supernatural interference. Entering the ruins will most likely cut off contact with the outside world.¡± Hao Lianchuan shifted someponents around and infused a small hole with mysterious power. He finished with pressing some buttons.

    It waste at night, but the screen brightened in less than ten seconds. A youthful face appeared on it, one with anguid air. He was about to speak when he saw Yuan Shuo on the other side.

    ¡°Professor Yuan, long time no see.¡± A smiling Hou Xiaochen snapped to mental alertness as he leaned against a chair.

    ¡°Director Hou!¡± A light danced in Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes. ¡°It has indeed been a long time.¡±

    ¡°Director, he insisted on contacting you...¡±

    ¡°Mm, I understand.¡± Hou Xiaochen inclined his head. ¡°You can attend to the rest of your affairs, I¡¯ll speak with Professor Yuan.¡±

    ¡°Very well!¡± There was nothing for Hao Lianchuan to do but leave. He nced at Li Hao as he vacated the premises¡ªit was like the young man didn¡¯t see him. Thetter kept his head down without a word and didn¡¯t move. He was a fixture by Yuan Shuo¡¯s side.

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan mentally threw his hands up at the situation and left. He disliked being in the same room as this teacher and disciple duo. It always put him in a bad mood.

    ......

    <i>Inside the tent.</i>

    Li Hao shifted a chair over for Yuan Shuo. The professor sat down jovially. Hou Xiaochen assessed Li Hao with a smile.

    ¡°This must be Li Hao.¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s not bad.¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. ¡°Indifferent to favor or humiliation¡ªbeing able to bide one¡¯s time is a blessing. He suffered in silence for an entire year after a friend¡¯s grisly death and did not reveal a single hint. He has a much better temper than you.¡±

    The director looked at Yuan Shuo again after proiming his judgment. ¡°You must have something to say since you¡¯re calling me in the middle of the night.¡±

    ¡°Zhang Ting!¡± was the professor¡¯s only response.

    ¡°Zhang Ting...¡± Hou Xiaochen turned the name over in his mouth. ¡°Born of the Southern Range province and joined the Silver Moon Night Watchers three years ago. Originally serving at the Southern Range Inspectorate, she was reassigned to Silver Moon after offending her peers. She was of the Inspectorate to begin with and given an induction chance after winning marks of merit for her actions in executing missions. Thus she became one of the Night Watchers and her registered strength is Fullmoon...¡±

    ¡°Do you know her current strength?¡± Yuan Shuo asked bluntly.

    Hou Xiaochen fell silent for a bit. ¡°Are you in possession of something like an origin weapon? You have one of the eight family weapons, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°What makes you say that?¡±

    ¡°How can you see through Zhang Ting without an origin weapon?¡± Hou Xiaochen asked in return, then curved his lips in a half smile. ¡°Or has your student done so? Is the bloodline of the eight families that wondrous?¡±

    ¡°Friend or foe?¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t be bothered to answer.

    ¡°Hard to say.¡±

    ¡°Hard to say?¡± Yuan Shuo frowned.

    ¡°She¡¯s most likely not of the three great organizations. My guess is that she¡¯s here because some fellows want to prevent me from dering independence. Her mission is most probably to keep an eye on me.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re preparing to secede??¡± Yuan Shuo was astonished. ¡°Do you nurse this kind of ambition?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°But I will when I should. There¡¯s no need to be overly surprised. The central region has been requisitioning personnel to itself and whittling away the strength of the borders. Everyone¡¯s being thrown into the central region battlefield, resulting in countless casualties. Geniuses are absorbed into the central region, powerhouses are sent to the meat grinder... This is one way to restrain and suppress those who wish to dere independence. I quite approve.

    ¡°But for our Silver Moon, we only have so many powerhouses. We can¡¯t even beat off the three great organizations. It is thus inappropriate to redeploy our troops and put our geniuses into their reserves! They¡¯re dissatisfied after I refused them a few times and so sent Zhang Ting to watch me.¡± The directorughed, ¡°If they keep forcing me, I¡¯ll just secede!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s shock was evident while Li Hao¡¯s jaw couldn¡¯t be picked up off the floor. He¡¯d discussed this matter in the car with Wang Ming and the others, but felt that Silver Moon hadn¡¯t been so inclined. But now, the boss of the provincial Night Watchers was brazenly saying that he was preparing to be independent!

    ¡°Don¡¯t widen your eyes at me.¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at Yuan Shuo. ¡°You¡¯re nothing good yourself, what do you care about this?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t,¡± the professor suddenlyughed. ¡°I just hadn¡¯t fathomed that you¡¯d be harboring these kinds of thoughts. Based on my impression of you, you should be presenting yourself in the central region to ask for a flogging.¡±

    ¡°And why should I?¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°Silver Moon would be safe and secure if they sent people to clean out the three great organizations. It would not be out of the question if I fought in the central region then. But with the situation as it is, trouble gnaws at the province. Silver Moon is abandoned if I leave, so why should I go?¡±

    Heughed gently. ¡°The Night Watchers, Inspectorate, and local army have reached an ord. Only the provincial government is not in agreement with us. Are you interested in joining us, Professor Yuan?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yuan Shuo found himself in an extremely awkward situation. He was just asking after the man in a general sort of way, but the director responded with an invitation to rebel! He replied in a muffled voice, ¡°Ack of strength will see the gun shooting the bird that takes the lead!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, for sure,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°So I¡¯m in no hurry, we can take it slow. Seizing the defensive origin weapon on the expedition is also preparation for this goal. It might not fully be to your tastes if you join us now, but wouldn¡¯t it be so satisfying when you can take another step forward and exercise your old style? You can kill to the point where people shudder at your name!¡±

    A migraine was settling in for Yuan Shuo. He took a while to collect his thoughts. ¡°What about Zhang Ting?¡±

    ¡°As you wish. She will not move against the Night Watchers or you, but don¡¯t look to her for help if you run into danger. And if she dies, well then, she dies!¡± Hou Xiaochen waspletely indifferent. ¡°It¡¯s fine if she dies, but Hao Lianchuan cannot die! Resolve some of his problems for him if you have effort to spare.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m a Dominator, he¡¯s a Sr.¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s headache intensified.

    ¡°Uh huh!¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded smilingly. ¡°That¡¯s alright, do as you see fit. Ah, yes, do you want the method to extract blood pearls from scarlet shadows?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yuan Shuo stayed quiet.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll tell you. It¡¯s simple. Use the soul of the origin weapon if you have one and directly draw upon the shadow. However, the weapons of the eight families might be different... That¡¯s fine. Hao Lianchuan took the ming Phoenix Spear with him. You can borrow it.

    ¡°Kill everyone from the three great organizations if you¡¯re able to when you¡¯re in the ruins! If you can¡¯t, go on the run once the expedition is over!¡±

    ¡°Run where?¡± Yuan Shuo frowned slightly at the director.

    ¡°Wherever you want. Send Li Hao to White Moon City.¡±

    ¡°I will!¡± Yuan Shuo agreed after some thought. ¡°So on the surface, it will be me who takes the defensive origin weapon, is it?¡±

    ¡°If that sits well with you, then it will be.¡±

    Yuan Shuo considered silently for a moment. ¡°Very well, I¡¯ll think about it. I will not owe you anything after this!¡±

    ¡°You never owed anything to begin with, it¡¯s all up to you!¡±

    Yuan Shuo turned to leave; Hou Xiaochen spoke up just before the professor departed. ¡°I can give you a guarantee that the ruins of Silver City belong to Li Hao. I will not interfere!¡±

    The professor shook, but didn¡¯t say anything. He left with Li Hao.

    Hou Xiaochen fell silent on the screen, resuming speech only when Hao Lianchuan entered after a while. ¡°You can lend the ming Phoenix Spear to Yuan Shuo in critical moments!¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s all!¡± The screen darkened.

    Hao Lianchuan cursed under his breath.<i> Again? These guys are so irritating!</i>

    ......

    Li Hao was still gripped by shock when they walked out of the tent.<i> Independence?</i> The notion had never urred to him before, but he heard it from Hou Xiaochen today. At the moment, all thought of Zhang Ting and the three great organizations flew out of his mind. He knew full well what would happen the moment Silver Moon seceded.

    It would be suppressed by the central region and attacked from all sides. Skystar Dynasty had not toppled yet, after all, nor had it fully lost control. There were plenty of personages harboring great ambitions, but no one dared openly dere itself an independent nation. No one would possibly dare!

 Chapter 202: Old Friends Meet (I)

    <h4>Chapter 202: Old Friends Meet (I)</h4>

    A camel that starves to death was still greater than a horse. In times of danger and true chaos, few were the initial instigators that lived to im the final victory. Anyone familiar with history knew full well that whoever dared stick their head up at this time would be the next to die. Not to mention, there were very few border factions who ultimately upied the central region after insurrection. This had ever been the case since ancient times.

    Various thoughts floated to the fore. Next to Li Hao, Yuan Shuo was also quiet.

    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much,¡± the professor finally said when they were almost back to their tent. ¡°It¡¯s not a big deal. Even if a minor Silver Moon does dere itself a self-reliant nation, that will not cause too much of a ripple.

    ¡°As for Hou Xiaochen... He won¡¯t dare do so and will not do so unless he has absolutely no other options left.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, but looked at his teacher with further questions. ¡°Teacher... why do you think he wants to do this? Or is even thinking of doing it?¡±

    And shouldn¡¯t the director keep these kinds of thoughts a secret? He¡¯d talked about it so openly!

    Yuan Shuo mused for a while before saying slowly, ¡°He has no choice.¡±

    ¡°No choice?¡±

    The professor nodded. ¡°I ask you, if Hou Xiaochen listens to orders from above and leaves Silver Moon to answer the call of war in the central region, will the Night Watchers keep the province stable under Hao Lianchuan¡¯s leadership? Can they withstand the three great organizations?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head upon thinking it over. Most... probably not. Hao Lianchuan wasn¡¯t that strong and he was a more honest and frank person. He didn¡¯t possess sufficient prestige¡ªa detail easily observed.

    Everyone revered the mention of Hou Xiaochen, Wang Ming was no exception. But when it came to Hao Lianchuan, Wang Ming smiled. Not in a jeering fashion, but because he found the deputy director interesting. The people quite liked him, but a person like this did not impart peace of mind in critical moments.

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s Night Watchers will lose their footing if Hou Xiaochen leaves," Yuan Shuo said calmly. ¡°The province will be in trouble if control slips out of their fingers! Yet, he is defying orders if he doesn¡¯t go! Once... twice... thrice... Time and time again. If you are a person of note of the central region, do you think someone like Hou Xiaochen should remain in his position?¡±

    That was why the professor said he had no choice.

    ¡°Why isn¡¯t upstairs taking this into ount?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°The province will be in danger if Director Hou leaves.¡±

    ¡°Taking this into ount?¡± Yuan Shuo smirked. ¡°The central region is engulfed by chaos and the bordends have long been forsaken. Right now, they seek to concentrate power and pacify the central region¡ªthat is their first priority! When ites to a small province on the border, they¡¯ll give it up if they have to. The world is still theirs so long as the central region is still under dynastic control!¡±

    Did the central region not know that the situation was veryplicated?

    They did!

    But they still chose to proceed down their chosen course of action and issue a redeploymentmand again and again, wanting Hou Xiaochen to proceed to his new post in the central region. The director simply refused to leave. Otherwise, he should¡¯ve left years ago.

    ¡°What level of strength is Director Hou?¡± Li Hao¡¯s brows knit together. ¡°How does the central region have the resources to spare when they¡¯re in such disarray? They send a mid Sr with an origin weapon to keep an eye on him. It¡¯s not worth that effort if the director is ate Sr... is it?¡±

    Sending a mid Sr to lie in wait for three years just for the purpose of surveince. Was this a worthwhile task? Zhang Ting might have ascended tote Sr in the central region, matching Hou Xiaochen¡¯s strength. Would there be a need topel the director then?

    ¡°It depends.¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°Perhaps upstairs suspect that he¡¯s fully recovered from his wounds. If he has, he was a peak Sr back in the day. He might be greater than Sr now!¡±

    He really wasn¡¯t sure about this hypothesis. Only Hou Xiaochen knew if his injuries were healed or not. He didn¡¯t mention if his injuries were severe, nor did he say he wasn¡¯t wounded. As it stood, no one was certain of the situation. So while the three great organizations hadrge numbers of Srs in their ranks, they didn¡¯t dare easily provoke him.

    ¡°Are you really going to leave Silver Moon, teacher?¡± Li Hao dropped the topic and thought back to what Hou Xiaochen had just said.

    ¡°I have to leave!¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°I made all of my preparations before I came. Whether I kill Sun Yifei or he kills me... I can¡¯t go back to Silver City after this. My old friends will miss me dearly once my strength is revealed. I¡¯ll bring more trouble to you guys if I stay. Not to mention, martial dao has declined in Silver Moon and there isn¡¯t much to the supernatural world. It¡¯s hard for me to have more opportunities if I don¡¯t go.

    ¡°Additionally, Red Moon has been keeping a watch on Silver City. But if they must choose between you and me, their main focus will still be on me. Ying Hongyue knows my character. Once I leave Silver City, I will seek revenge on him!¡± the professor spoke matter-of-factly. ¡°If I kill a Red Moon Sr and vanish after this expedition, he¡¯ll guess that I¡¯ming for him. He might still send people to Silver Moon at that time, but he¡¯ll certainly send more people to look for me!¡±

    Because Ying Hongyue had once lost! He knew what kind of person Yuan Shuo was. When a powerhouse of this level disappeared from public sight, he would find a way to fish out Yuan Shuo and utilize everything possible to kill him.

    ¡°That¡¯s why I wish for you to break through to Dominator.¡± Yuan Shuo patted his student¡¯s shoulder with a smile. ¡°Only then will you have the ability to protect yourself. If I leave and you do not have the strength of a Dominator, I won¡¯t be able to help you resolve your troubles in the future.¡±

    Li Hao lowered his head.

    ¡°It¡¯s time to grow! Good boy, who doesn¡¯t experience some trial and hardship?¡± Yuan Shuoughed heartily. ¡°I left my home early on when I was young and began my tempering. My enemies can be found everywhere beneath the heavens. I don¡¯t know how many I¡¯ve killed or terrorized to reach my current heights.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m worried about you, teacher,¡± Li Hao said in a muffled voice. ¡°If you really are going to seek revenge on Red Moon, they have many Srs and probably those above Sr. These are just bits and pieces we hear on the border. They may be much stronger than that!¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that good?¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°The stronger they are, the more of a challenge! I¡¯ve only just started nurturing the five spirits in my viscera. I still need to refine them and my organster on! The road ahead is long and I¡¯ll feel no pressure if my enemies are alway Sunre and Sr.

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s martial world was very strong in those days, but why were there no Dominators in my era?

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t that we weren¡¯t good enough, it was that we were too good. We were so much better than previous generations, but the drawback of mine was that we did not have any pressure from Dominators above us. Half step Dominator was sufficient to dominate the martial world, no one felt a sense of urgency. And so, a bunch of half steps never made the full step to Dominator!

    ¡°If there was even one of us who made the breakthrough, there would¡¯ve been at least seven or eight Dominators to emerge from our martial world!¡±

    The professor was half regretful and half self-satisfied when he reached this point. ¡°The me goes to me for those little bastards not breaking through. I dominated them sopletely that they couldn¡¯t breathe. I was only half step Dominator, so how did they dare be stronger?

    ¡°If I¡¯d advanced back then... Ying Hongyue, Sun Yifei, and others would¡¯ve all stepped into Dominator. But I didn¡¯t, which sapped their drive.¡±

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but break out inughter. It washed away his pensiveness from moments ago.

    ¡°Then the battle tomorrow...¡±

    ¡°Of course we fight!¡± Yuan Shuo replied calmly. ¡°Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow! I couldn¡¯t employ my true strength before because we faced only supernaturals. Whether it was me crushing others or others crushing me, I couldn¡¯t utilize my full potential as the opponent was not a martial master. Sun Yifei is a very good opponent!

    ¡°As for the ruins... they¡¯re just an add-on! Defeating Sun Yifei is the real gain¡ªone far beyond treasures. Treasures can be had anytime, but an opponent who is a good match is the impetus for life¡¯s purpose.

    ¡°Therefore, don¡¯t be concerned about exposing our strength. If we can kill them all, we¡¯ll kill them. If we can¡¯t, then we kill as many as we can. We can kill them all the same even if they¡¯re on their guard!¡± The professor turned cocky again. ¡°Little Hao, you should shine with extraordinary brilliance when the asion calls for it! No one bes a powerhouse from constantly keeping a low profile. I know your misgivings about revealing too much¡ªthat means danger increases as well.

    ¡°However, powerhouses emerge from danger! Hou Xiaochen keeps a low profile now, doesn¡¯t he? Yet, he was a far cry from that back in his day. He was so prominent that he dared erupt in open hostilities against Ying Hongyue! It¡¯s because of that that no one thinks little of him now.

    ¡°Qiao Feilong kept a low profile, didn¡¯t he? He was so low key that he didn¡¯t have time to flex his magnificence as a Sr before I killed him!¡±

    The two he spoke of had entirely different endings. One kept his head down all the way to Sr and died before he could exhibit anything. The other was very conspicuous for a long time, stepping down after he was injured. He was so quiet after that everyone thought he was at the end of his rope, but his preeminence of yesteryear still existed. No one dared run afoul of him and those in charge had to send a Sr to keep an eye on him.

    These were the results of two different choices.

    Li Hao nodded without a word. Teacher and disciple soon returned to their tent; Liu Yan and the others were back. Everyone was extremely quiet. Liu Yan didn¡¯t say anything, Liu Long didn¡¯t say anything. The young man didn¡¯t ask if they¡¯d seen Hu Po tonight.

    The Silver City delegation kept to themselves this night to give Yuan Shuo time to rest. He would answer the challenge tomorrow and his opponent was ate Sr from the central region. Although the group was fully confident in the professor, they were still secretly apprehensive. Srs were one level higher than Dominators, particrlyte Srs!

    ......

    <i>At the same time, beneath the broken Rift Bridge.</i>

    Sun Yifei did not erect a tent to rest in. The sky was his nket and the earth his bed. He leaned against a rock and looked up at the stars.

    Resplendence twinkled overhead.

    His three disciples made rounds of the surroundings, clearing away bugs and pests. In actuality, no snakes, rodents, or bugs dared approach the area. After an indeterminate period of time, the taciturn Sun Yifei suddenly broke the silence.

    ¡°Moxian, does Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple really have the strength ofte Sunderer or half step Dominator?¡±

    ¡°Most likely.¡±

    ¡°A disciple of the Five Styles...¡± Sun Yifei thought it over. ¡°You will take the field tomorrow! Bring your full strength to bear and see if you meet a worthy opponent. If he matches you, he will be very helpful for your progression to Dominator!

    ¡°If I fall tomorrow... Take your junior brother and sister back to the central region!¡±

 Chapter 203: Old Friends Meet (II)

    <h4>Chapter 203: Old Friends Meet (II)</h4>

    ¡°Master...¡±

    ¡°Listen to me. The ruins are not important. Do not be the de in another¡¯s hand,¡± Sun Yifei said calmly. ¡°Although I am fully confident, my opponent is Yuan Shuo. Necessary preparations must be made. There is a ny-nine percent chance that only one of us walks off the battlefield tomorrow. Whether it is him or me... it doesn¡¯t matter!

    ¡°My greatest regret back in the day was that I could not advance to Dominator. I hope you willplete that dream for me! If you cannot ovee Li Hao, forfeit in a timely manner! It is no shame to lose¡ªmartial masters are not afraid of loss. No one wins forever and I will not send you to your death so easily...¡±

    ¡°I will defeat him, master!¡±

    ¡°It is good to be confident.¡± Sun Yifei nodded with a smile. ¡°Regardless, leave as quickly as you can if I am defeated! Yuan Shuo will not stop you. Our grudge is one of our generation. The rules of the martial world are that disaster does not extend to the family! As long as you do not die to Li Hao, I will not target Li Hao after my battle concludes with Yuan Shuo. Neither will hee for you...¡±

    The three disciples listened worriedly, but also didn¡¯t quite believe that their master would lose. How was that even a possibility? He was ate Sr, one crossed over from a martial master! Only those above Sr could defeat him even in the central region. They were in Silver Moon province, yet a Dominator was inspiring their master to arrange his final affairs!

    ¡°Master, then... why don¡¯t we go back to the central region!¡± The female disciple couldn¡¯t bear it. They didn¡¯t have to fight!

    ¡°Nonsense!¡± Sun Yifei snorted. ¡°I came here to do battle with Yuan Shuo! Whether I live or die, it is what I seek. Remember that as martial masters, you can lose, but you cannot withdraw without a fight! Unless you are a Sunderer against a Sr, the difference between you and the enemy will not be too great. When that is the case or if you are even in an advantageous position, choosing to retreat marks the end of your road!

    ¡°The path of a martial master is more difficult to walk. If you cannot ept that, you can choose to be a supernatural when you return. Your path will be your own then.¡±

    With that, he closed his eyes and ignored his disciples. Rest was in order so he could meet Yuan Shuo in the field.

    Worry and unease filled the faces of Sun Moxian and his junior brother and sister. They couldn¡¯t sleep after their master¡¯s speech. They weren¡¯t the only ones tonight¡ªsleep was elusive for many.

    ......

    August 27.

    The sky had just brightened. Hao Lianchuan might not have slept all night as he rushed to the Silver City tent first thing in the morning. Yuan Shuo puttered around inside, feeling no sense of urgency at all. He briefly washed up, ate breakfast, and cleaned himself up again before walking outside.

    Hao Lianchuan looked at him with reddened eyes. ¡°Must you battle?¡± He¡¯d wanted toe to the professor all night long, but held himself back. He really couldn¡¯t help the urge when morning came.

    ¡°Are you a martial master?¡± Yuan Shuo looked at him.

    ¡°I¡¯m... not?¡± Hao Lianchuan answered after a long beat.

    ¡°So you won¡¯t do!¡± Yuan Shuo walked past him and pressed forward. ¡°Silver Moon martial masters rarely avoid battle. Those who do are either truly much weaker than their opponent, or they¡¯re a lily-livered weakling.

    ¡°Martial masters bravely forge ahead. They do not avoid battle if they think they will not lose, that they can fight. Such is the case at any time, any ce! Hong Yitang of the Sword Sect refrained from battling me back in the day because he knew he was less than me. He admitted that he was a wimp, so I couldn¡¯t be bothered challenging him a third time when he avoided me two times.

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan, you¡¯re a decent person. What a pity that you did not ascend as a martial master. If you had, you would be stronger than you are now!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan looked on wordlessly. There were plenty of supernaturals who did not ascend from martial dao. Who said that those who used to be martial masters must be stronger?

    ¡°But Sun Yifei is ate Sr...¡±

    ¡°I can beat him all the same!¡± Yuan Shuo brimmed with confidence.

    ¡°In that case, stop at first blood...¡± Hao Lianchuan changed tactics upon seeing that he was making no headway.

    ¡°There¡¯s no such thing in our battles, unless we¡¯re teaching our disciples. I will stop at first blood if Sun Yifei admits he¡¯s my disciple!¡±

    <i>This isplete bullshit!</i> Hao Lianchuan nearly lost his mind. ¡°I¡¯m doing this for your own good!¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s a kind of love called ¡®for your own good¡¯. But you¡¯re not my parents, so I don¡¯t need your love. Hao Lianchuan, as opposed to wasting your efforts on this, you should consider what the consequences might be if I kill Sun Yifei.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan utterly gave up! This was hopeless!

    ¡°What consequences?¡± he said weakly. ¡°You¡¯ll be the strongest of the gathering if you kill Sun Yifei. The other organizations will not give up the excavation, but they¡¯ll likely band together. They¡¯ll start off scattered, then unite the more we explore. We¡¯ll just need to be on guard against alliances once we enter the ruins.¡±

    <i>Give up?</i>

    That wasn¡¯t a possibility. If the other factions did so and the Night Watchers took the defensive origin weapon, the organizations wouldn¡¯t be able to sleep at night anymore. Thus, they wouldn¡¯t leave. They would just tighten what was a loose alliance.

    Of course, this wasn¡¯t important. What did matter was the potential consequences of Hao Lianchuan taking a stand and preventing Sun Yifei from killing Yuan Shuo. This was what had kept Hao Lianchuan up all night. He thought of Director Hou¡¯s arrangements when his thoughts traveled here¡ªhe could lend the ming Phoenix Spear to Yuan Shuo!

    ¡°You don¡¯t have any weapons do you?¡± He caught up to the professor and lowered his voice. ¡°I can lend you a spear... Do you know how to use spears?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t need it!¡± Yuan Shuo turned him down.

    Hao Lianchuan was extremely close to stamping his foot with indignation. ¡°This weapon is different!¡± He clenched his teeth and kept his voice down with effort. It was an origin weapon!

    ¡°Don¡¯t need it, we¡¯ll have greater trouble if it¡¯s exposed. If we¡¯re to use it, we should wait until we¡¯re inside the ruins.¡± Yuan Shuo still turned the man down. He knew what the spear was, but he didn¡¯t need it.

    The ming Phoenix Spear was Silver Moon¡¯s only origin weapon. It might result in greater trouble if it was unmasked. It might even attract uninvolved personnel¡ªthey¡¯de solely to take the origin weapon. It was the weapon¡¯s first departure from Hou Xiaochen. No one dared attack the director, but it was another case entirely with the Silver Moon Night Watchers.

    ¡°But...¡± Hao Lianchuan said worriedly. ¡°Really, you don¡¯t stand a chance. You¡¯ll have some hope with it in your hands.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t need it, don¡¯t worry, You can lend it to me after I win and we enter the ruins. You¡¯ll witness some unexpected surprises then,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled.

    It was an unexpected surprise when the enemy realized they hadn¡¯t fully seen through you. Yuan Shuo was only going to utilize the fire heart ape against Sun Yifei. He didn¡¯t even want to expose the stone de. As for whether or not he can match his old opponent, that would be apparent once they exchanged blows.

    Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t willing to use these powerful weapons against Sun Yifei; neither was he concerned that the man might use underhanded tactics against him. Such was the unspoken ord of martial masters.

    It would be an open and aboveboard battle!

    Of course, it was normal to see vicious techniques being employed. Some specialized in this arena, so ruthless or brutal moves were eptable. On the other hand, would Sun Yifei have a scarlet shadow with him?

    Yuan Shuo deemed it unlikely. If the man knew about the shadows, his first reaction would be to kill and eat it. He wouldn¡¯t nurture it. Ying Hongyue would be aware of that as well, so even though Yuan Shuo could not see the entities, he knew that his opponent wouldn¡¯t have one.

    In that case, what was the point of bringing to the ming Phoenix Spear?

    The others caught up to them as the two spoke. Some were anxious and others excited. They were about to watch a battle between Srs! Most of them had never seen such a high level battle before.

    Some tents stirred with activity in the distance. A few supernaturals kept pace from afar, also anticipating the battle.

    ......

    Only shattered remains could be found where the bridge once stood. A group of Ghostfaces hovered in and out of sight around Sun Yifei. The man was cleaning up the premises, creating a clearing beneath the bridge. He didn¡¯t seem to take note of the Ghostfaces behind him.

    ¡°Senior Sun,¡± Hao Kong spoke up when it was apparent that Sun Yifei wouldn¡¯t address him. ¡°Do you insist on fighting Yuan Shuo?¡±

    Sun Yifei sent arge rock flying with a sweep of his staff. He tilted his head with a side nce. ¡°Is there a problem?¡±

    ¡°Not at all!¡± Hao Kong answered in a muffled voice. ¡°We just hope for the senior to show mercy and not to kill Yuan Shuo. That will easily cause conflict between Red Moon and the Night Watchers.¡±

    ¡°Fists and legs have no eyes. Life and death are not of consideration in the ring! Whoever shows mercy is always the one to die!¡± Sun Yifei was obviously declining Hao Kong.

    The Sr in charge of the campsite kept a firm grip on his temper. ¡°Senior, this is also Violet Moon¡¯s inclination.¡±

    ¡°Violet Moon?¡± Sun Yifei turned back with a smile. ¡°When Red Moon was established, the seven moons of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet soared into the sky! The Violet Moon now is not who she was before. To me, Violet Moon is still the little girl from that year. She died, and the one who inherited her position is trash. You threaten me with her??¡±

    Supernatural power surged around him as many Ghostfaces raised their heads with anger. Whether it was real or fake anger, Violet Moon was their leader in Silver Moon. If they didn¡¯t stir to indignation when she was being insulted, they would be in for it if she found out.

    ¡°All of you, stay away from me.¡± Sun Yifei flicked another nce at Hao Kong. ¡°You rather disgust me. It is ever harder to see through Ying Hongyue after he founded Red Moon, especially those things beside you. I may not be able to see them, but I can more or less sense them. Don¡¯t get too close to me, or I¡¯ll want to kill you and take one of them to see if I can eat it.¡±

    Hao Kong¡¯s eyes widened with dismay and he fell silent.

    ¡°In that case, as you wish, senior! But I hope you do not take the bit in your own mouth too much when we enter the ruins. We¡¯ve made arrangements, so please do not ruin the entire n.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll see!¡± Sun Yifeiughed and pped his hand, as if shooing them away.

 Chapter 204: Old Friends Meet (III)

    <h4>Chapter 204: Old Friends Meet (III)</h4>

    Hao Kong said nothing else and vanished along with the Ghostfaces. They reappeared several hundred meters away, standing on part of a cliff that jutted out. They were inly settling in to observe rather than leave.

    Another group of people in ck appeared a whileter. They wore cloaks and chose another precipice to observe the battle. Sun Yifei flicked a nce at the group¡ªthe Celestial delegation. Red Moon liked ghost face masks. Although he was part of the organization, he didn¡¯t wear one and no one forced him to. Celestials liked ck outfits and cloaks. Their style of operation was even more peculiar than Red Moon.

    When it came to Yama, not many of their people covered their faces, but they were wreathed with dense killing intent. They were probably the most bloodthirsty out of the three great organizations and killed in a very gory manner.

    A group of rather ominous people also imed a spot as Sun Yifei ruminated. Theirs didn¡¯t jut out far enough, so they sted away at the stone wall and had earth supernaturals create an observation tform for themselves.

    The delegations of the three great organizations were thus all in attendance. The rest were not far behind. In a few minutes, people from the two local mid-sized organizations also came.

    Those of Light Ind wore white outfits and counted numerous female members among their ranks. They steered a floating ship to the premises¡ªa supernatural object instead of a flying ship. It didn¡¯t reach the level of an origin weapon. The organization docked their ship in the air and looked down upon the earth, quite visible in their presence.

    As for the Sword Sect, Hong Yitang broke through the air with a longsword on his back. He stopped at a far distance away and raised cupped fists. ¡°Big brother Sun!¡±

    Sun Yifei tilted his head at thetest addition and actually addressed the man.

    ¡°Hong Yitang,¡± he jeered. ¡°Rankedst among the Seven Swords, to think that you¡¯d be living a fine life while the others are dead!¡±

    ¡°Perhaps I treasure my life more.¡± Hong Yitang sighed, not angry in the slightest. He nodded at his own disciples. ¡°Big brother Sun seems to have brought some outstanding disciples with you. If there¡¯s a chance, we can let the younger generation conduct some exchanges with each other when your challenge is over.¡±

    Sun Yifei followed his line of gaze and saw a young woman behind Hong Yitang. The look in her eyes was sharp and she held herself with the air of a swordswoman. She also wore a longsword on her back and was dressed differently from usual supernaturals.

    ¡°Has she grasped the aura?¡±

    ¡°Not yet.¡± Hong Yitang shook his head with some regret. ¡°The aura is difficult toprehend. If there¡¯s a reason for the decline of martial dao, this would be it!¡±

    Sun Yifei nodded, not voicing any condescending opinions. ¡°Let today be the day! Hongxiu, you¡¯ll spar with this young woman in a bit!¡±

    Hong Yitang looked at Sun Yifei¡¯s female disciple with surprise.

    ¡°Hongxiu is ate Sunderer,¡± Sun Yifei exined calmly. ¡°Your daughter is roughly the same, correct? She looks like your daughter as the resemnce is striking. However, she feels stronger than you as you didn¡¯t have this air of keenness around you back in the day!¡±

    ¡°She is my daughter. Hong Qing, greet Uncle Sun!¡±

    Hong Qing swiftly walked forward and raised cupped fists. ¡°Uncle Sun!¡±

    ¡°Spare the pleasantries, there¡¯s no point to them! I don¡¯t think much of your father, so don¡¯t imitate him and be too scared to answer a letter of challenge when ites for you.¡±

    Hong Qing felt a bit awkward, whereas her father didn''t mind. ¡°I might not be standing here if I¡¯d epted it. I¡¯m less than him, big brother Sun, so why go looking for trouble?¡±

    ¡°Trash!¡± Sun Yifei cursed, thenughed. ¡°But you¡¯re right, you know yourself well!¡±

    ¡°Do you intend to go by the rules?¡± Hong Yitang looked at his remaining disciples.

    ¡°Can I not?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that, but Yuan... Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciples don¡¯t seem to be by his side. He only has a junior disciple that he took in a few years ago, and that one seems to have focused on civil subjects at first. He walked the path of martial dao onlyter and his tenure is less than three years.¡±

    He meant to say, <i>who¡¯s going against him from your side?</i>

    Sun Yifei couldn¡¯t be bothered to answer. <i>What do you know?</i>

    ¡°Step aside, I don¡¯t have time to reminisce about the past with you!¡± He impatiently waved away the other.

    Hong Yitang chuckled and walked back to the Sword Sect delegation with his daughter. As they moved away, Sun Yifei suddenly said, ¡°Hongxiu and your daughter will be the opening act. They fight to first blood and the focus is sparring. You don¡¯t have other opinions, do you?¡±

    Hong Yitang¡¯s expression shifted slightly¡ªnot because it was bad to be an opening act, but that the opening act was usually meant as an appetizer. The brutal fights would follow after, as would the strongest opponents.

    What did this mean?

    The sword master thought that Sun Yifei would send his yer disciple to open the matches with Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple. inly, this wasn¡¯t what he intended. He was going to send his senior disciples into the field!

    Though confused, Hong Yitang wasn¡¯t at liberty to ask too many questions. ¡°We can do that!¡± He nodded.

    ¡°Mmhmm, good!¡± Sun Yifei smiled and looked at his female disciple when the surroundings were clear. ¡°We can¡¯t have you make this trip in vain. Hong Yitang¡¯s daughter is quite strong and roughly on the same level as you. That¡¯s good. A good match makes for the best opponent! Don¡¯t underestimate her.

    ¡°While I don¡¯t think much of her father, there are no weaklings among the Seven Swords of Silver Moon! As the Earthturner Sword, Hong Yitang turned heaven and earth upside down when he unsheathed his sword. Being a swordswoman as well, his daughter will not be weak. Swordsmen are still very strong among martial masters...¡±

    Hongxiu nodded and asked hesitantly, ¡°What about senior brother, master?¡±

    ¡°His opponent is that Li Hao! You and Hong Yitang¡¯s daughter will be sparring¡ªtreat it as a practice match between another of the same sect.¡± Sun Yifei looked at Sun Moxian. ¡°Meanwhile, you and Li Hao don¡¯t need to have any reservations. You are on a battlefield! You will attack without regret even if he can¡¯t take a single one of your blows. If you kill him, that¡¯s his fault for being too weak!¡±

    Sun Moxian nodded heavily!

    A new group of people walked in at this time. The Night Watchers had arrived!

    Sun Yifei saw that person from a long distance away, that familiar figure that haunted his mind these many years. He straightened upright. ¡°Yuan Shuo!¡±

    ¡°Sun Yifei!¡± Yuan Shuo grinned, as if seeing an old friend. ¡°I thought you really did die that year, but to think that you¡¯re still alive! That¡¯s quite worthy of congrattions! Few are those who live after an encounter with me. I¡¯d like to see if I can still beat you to death after all these years of living!¡±

    ¡°Give it a try!¡± Sun Yifeiughed heartily. ¡°I¡¯d like to see if you still possess your demonic air after cowering for so many years. I had the time of my life killing people in the central region. You had the same hiding in Silver Moon, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    Yuan Shuo chuckled without a response. Neither did Sun Yifei say anything else.

    The professor waved everyone back and walked forward with Li Hao. An empty clearing of roughly one hundred square meters had been cleared beneath the bridge. It stood out as it was level and free of rocks.

    ¡°Same old rules?¡± Their exchange was blunt.

    ¡°Same old rules! We don¡¯t need to say anything else!¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°This is my disciple Li Hao. Are yours going to attack together ore one by one?¡±

    ¡°Only Moxian is needed!¡± Sun Yifei responded faintly. ¡°I choose the venue, you set the rules. Nothing else needs to be said between us. Will our disciples be sparring or dueling?¡±

    In sparring, one did not fight to the death. Opponents fought to the death in a duel!

    ¡°Have you gone soft?¡± Yuan Shuo smirked.

    ¡°I¡¯m worried that you¡¯ll be distracted when your disciple dies!¡± Sun Yifei sneered. ¡°In that case, we duel!¡±

    ¡°My wishes as well!¡± Yuan Shuo nced at Li Hao. The young man nodded, a motion echoed by Sun Moxian. Both sides were ready to destroy each other.

    ¡°Big brother Yuan,¡± Hong Yitang called out. ¡°Big brother Sun says that my daughter and his female disciple can open the matches. Do you agree, big brother Yuan?¡±

    Yuan Shuo tilted his head with a smile. ¡°I do!¡±

    Hong Yitang smiled back. Even though he was a Sr now, he was still less than fully confident when facing two martial masters of the same era as him. It wasn¡¯t that he was weaker than them, but that he¡¯d never felt confident in front of them. That was the case then, as was the case now.

    ......

    Yuan Shuo backed out of the circle with Li Hao and lowered his voice. ¡°This is just as well, you can observe the girl¡¯s moves. Since she¡¯s also from the <i>qimei</i> staff discipline, her techniques and secret arts will be simr. While I believe that you¡¯ll win... it¡¯s best to be careful!

    ¡°Forfeit the match when you find yourself unable to win. Don¡¯t force yourself to remain in the arena! If he kills you because you refuse to concede, that will make things dicey for me too!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. That was all Yuan Shuo had to say. Some things weren¡¯t that simple either. If Li Hao was defeated and had to forfeit in front of the public eye, that might heavily damage the aura of a younger martial master¡ªparticrly one that had to sense their aura.

    The ancient records spoke of nurturing an aura of invincibility! If the martial master suffered a defeat during this process, it was the worst kind of failure to endure. Nine out of ten would falter at this step and never be a Dominator.

    Much of the me for so many Silver Moon martial masters being unable to break throughy at the feet of Yuan Shuo and the others. The candidates either died or were defeated during their process of nurturing the aura. How was it possible to advance to Dominator then?

    Hong Qing strode over from the Sword Sect delegation, a longsword on her back. Sun Yifei¡¯s disciple Hongxiu also walked out with an aloof expression, a long <i>qimei</i> staff in her hands. Various powerhouses on all sides cast their attention to the two girls.

    Two Sunderers! And twote Sunderers at that. This was a practice match of the Fullmoon level; it drew a lot of interest. Most in attendance were Darkmoons, this was a fight they could understand. Few were those that¡¯d crossed paths with martial masters, so they looked forward to this sparring match as well. How strong were martial masters?

    ¡°They¡¯re really strong!¡± someone grunted with shock when the two entered the field.

    There was nothing to see yet, but internal force red when the two set foot into the ring. Gusts whipped around the area and sent some small rocks flying, enabling certain supernaturals to sense the might of martial masters.

    Li Hao watched intently as well, not underestimating them just because they were weaker than him.

 Chapter 205: Duel (I)

    <h4>Chapter 205: Duel (I)</h4>

    ¡°Sword Sect, Hong Qing!¡±

    ¡°Red Moon, Sun Hongxiu!¡±

    Martial masters did not exchange an abundance of greetings when they sparred, just brief self introductions. Hong Qing unsheathed her sword and stabbed forward. Smoke and mist coiled around the two opponents, kicking up sand and dust in a massive wave of pebbles.

    ¡°Break!¡± Hongxiu grunted and mmed her staff into the ground. The earth trembled¡ªthe entire surface shook. Within the haze, she raised her staff and brought it down on Hong Qiu¡¯s head.

    The two young women instantly shifted tobat readiness and met each other in battle. They didn¡¯t exchange probing moves as both sides knew they were evenly matched at a simr cultivation level. It woulde down to experience and proper usage of their arts.

    Sword light shot in all directions while the staff danced through the air. Their moves were fast and ferocious! Some Darkmoons on the side were bewildered by the sight.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher delegation.</i>

    ¡°They¡¯re so strong!¡± Sharp gasps abounded. ¡°Why does it feel like they¡¯re much stronger than the martial masters we met before?¡±

    Why?

    Because these were true martial masters with a heritage to draw from, not dabblers. Whether in terms of secret arts or physique, the two on the field were in peak condition. These kinds of martial masters were nothing that amateurs in martial dojos couldpare to. Neither were secret arts avable by the side of the street.

    <i>Currently, inside the clearing.</i>

    Hongxiu spun her staff so quickly that not even water droplets would touch her body. She swiftly advanced on Hong Qing. Longsword and staff shed against each other; sparks flew in all directions amid a cacophony of clinks and ngs.

    Twote Sunderers upied a lot of space when they fought. The clearing created by Sun Yifei was instantly pockmarked with holes.

    <i>Outside the clearing.</i>

    Someone eximed with surprise. Hong Qing¡¯s sword stabbed forward, past the <i>qimei</i> staff, and traveled straight for her opponent¡¯s throat. Sun Hongixu¡¯s eyes glinted coldly as her staff spun fiercely like a meat grinder. It rotated at high velocity, seeking to envelop Hong Qing¡¯s longsword and the right arm that wielded it. It wanted to churn her arm to pieces!

    inly, the opening for Hong Qing¡¯s sword was a weakness purposefully showcased by Sun Hongxiu.

    The two young women fought with extreme viciousness despite their youth. Many supernaturals held their breath and watched with wide-open eyes. Some wore expressions of worry, as if unable to bear the thought of either of them being injured.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher delegation.</i>

    Liu Long, Wang Ming, and Liu Yan impassively watched the fight. Wang Ming observed with a rapt look in his eyes, quite worked up by the battle. After a while, he turned around to see Liu Long and Liu Yan watching with nk expressions.

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you guys nervous?¡± he asked curiously.

    ¡°It¡¯s just an opening match,¡± Liu Long replied after a moment. ¡°It looks pretty enough!¡±

    <i>What does that mean?</i>

    ¡°They¡¯re being so vicious to each other,¡± Wang Ming responded with bafflement. ¡°Look, that Hong Qing¡¯s arm is about to twisted apart. How is that pretty?¡±

    From his perspective, this battle represented the might of martial masters and how dangerous it was to cross paths with one. It was very exciting!

    ¡°Vice Captain Liu, what do you think?¡± Wang Ming looked at Liu Yan. Liu Long was too strong as a Dominator, it was normal that he didn¡¯t think much of the fight. Then what about Liu Yan?

    The woman flicked a nce at him and paused for a beat before saying, ¡°They¡¯re sparring!¡±

    Wang Ming turned the response over in his mind. <i>Sparring? </i>So Liu Yan also wasn¡¯t too impressed by the perilous fight that was beautiful in a deadly sort of way?

    ¡°This is the most amazing martial encounter that I¡¯ve ever witnessed!¡± the handsome young supernatural said after a while. ¡°Listen to the hum of the sword and the staff breaking through the air. Sand and rocks fly everywhere and the ground splits open... It seems so precarious! Director Liu, aren¡¯t real martial masters supposed to be like this?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll see soon!¡± Liu Long said calmly.

    ¡°Professor Yuan and Sun Yifei?¡±

    ¡°Maybe not!¡± Liu Long didn¡¯t say much. <i>Who says that Li Hao won¡¯t bring a real martial master fight to you?</i>

    The captain didn¡¯t have much experience facing off against martial foes, but he¡¯d fought Li Hao plenty of times. Li Hao bore the demeanor of a martial master. If Sun Yifei¡¯s disciple was also a real martial master, then the assembly today would be blessed with a sensational fight below Dominator.

    ......

    <i>Inside the clearing.</i>

    The harrowing battle continued. Supernaturals around the perimeter gasped and exhaled sharply, like they were the ones who would die at any time.

    ......

    <i>Immediately around the clearing.</i>

    Sun Yifei furrowed his brow. Although they¡¯d said it was a sparring match, it still didn¡¯t quite satisfy him. He looked at Sun Moxian standing next to him. ¡°What do you think?¡±

    ¡°Not bad.¡± Sun Moxian chuckled. ¡°Junior sister has solid foundations.¡±

    ¡°And?¡±

    The young man fell silent. There was no and. That was it. She was performing eptably and her foundations were solid. What else was there to say?

    Sun Yifeiughed when his disciple didn¡¯t say anything else. <i>Very good! </i>As it should be, as he expected. Other than a pretty fight and solid foundations, there was nothing else to point out. Of course, Sun Hongxiu was less experienced than Sun Moxian and hadn¡¯t killed many enemies yet. She was to bemended for matching her opponent to this degree. The girl would have no problems handling ordinary supernaturals. Just listen to those reactions around them!

    Derision appeared deep in the depths of Sun Yifei¡¯s eyes. It wasn¡¯t targeted at anyone; he simply scorned all supernaturals that were not born of martial masters. They were all trash!

    The battle continued, but Sun Yifei wasn¡¯t interested in it anymore.

    Neither was Sun Moxian. They looked into the distance at the same time, at Yuan Shuo and Li Hao.

    ......

    Li Hao and Yuan Shuo happened to be looking at them as well. Four pairs of eyes met. Li Hao smiled bashfully and quickly ducked his head. Yuan Shuo jeered and smirked at Sun Yifei.

    The four swiftly retracted their gazes.

    ¡°Sun Moxian will not be an easy person to handle,¡± Yuan Shuo muttered. ¡°Martial masters can discern a thing or two from posture and the look in one¡¯s eyes. Don¡¯t treat his junior sister¡¯s strength as a barometer for his strength.¡±

    ¡°Mm, I understand.¡± Li Hao nodded. He wouldn¡¯t underestimate the other; he¡¯d only treat his opponent like the captain. He would put himself in the mindset of theirst battle, when the captain nearly beat him to death.

    Li Hao wanted to coalesce the sword aura before the fight. Once battlemenced, he would only have one goal. The goal of a martial master was simple¡ªkill the enemy! Everything else could be set aside in pursuit of killing the opponent.

    Master and disciple on both sides were deep in hushed conversation while grunts and shouts abounded inside the clearing. A massive collision rang through the air, followed by two muffled thumps.

    Hong Qing was struck square in the chest and flew backward, blood welling from her mouth. The ground fractured when she mmed into it. Sun Hongxiu wasn¡¯t better off. Her arm was pierced through and blood gushed from it. She took a dozen steps backward before stabilizing her footing. She breathed heavily, maintaining a tight grip on the staff. A proud look gleamed out of her eyes.

    She was the victor! Although injured, she had indeed won. The Qimei Staff had defeated the Earthturner Sword!

    ¡°I concede!¡± A depressed Hong Qing spat out another mouthful of blood. She¡¯d made a name for herself in the modern day martial world of Silver Moon. Even the older generation of martial masters numbered on her list of challenges. She won more often than she lost. Thus, Hong Qing considered herself to be very strong in martial dao.

    But today, a disciple of the Qimei Staff King on par with her cultivation level had defeated her in a sparring match! It was a tough pill to swallow.

    Off in the distance, Hong Yitang didn¡¯t say anything. It was normal to win or lose. A disciple of the Qimei Staff King was no ordinary person. As strong as his Earthturner Sword was, neither was the Qimei Staff for show. So his daughter had lost. It wouldn¡¯t have a great effect since she was yet to gather her aura. One failure was just as well. It would teach his daughter that there was always someone better.

    ¡°Big brother Sun teaches his disciples well! I wholeheartedly concede defeat!¡± Hong Yitang offered pleasantries while beckoning to his daughter. Hong Qing walked off in low spirits.

    For some reason, she suddenly muttered when she passed Li Hao, ¡°Don¡¯t you lose too. Our Silver Moon martial world has already lost once. Another loss would be humiliating!¡±

    She left withrge strides, still hopeful that Li Hao would win. He was also of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. Who knew where that Sun Moxian was from? He wasn¡¯t of Silver Moon, in any case. His master had long left the province.

    ......

    Li Hao was caught off guard by the sudden exhortation, but didn¡¯t pay attention to it. Instead, he thought for a bit and asked, ¡°Um... can I borrow your sword?¡±

    He recalled that he only had Steris; there were too many people present and the sword was too sharp. It wasn¡¯t ideal to expose it. No one else he was with had a good sword, but this woman¡¯s was quite nice. He watched it pierce through a piece of rock and emerge undamaged.

    <i>Nice sword!</i>

    ¡°My sword?¡± Hong Qing blinked. Wasn¡¯t he of the Five Styles discipline? That was a discipline that was skilled at the fist, palm, and w. It wasn¡¯t adept with the longsword!

    Despite those thoughts, she handed the sword to Li Hao. This was for the glory of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world!

    Hong Yitang frowned and sighed inwardly. His daughter... was too naive. This wasn¡¯t good! It might give rise to unnecessary trouble if Li Hao used the sword to defeat or even kill Sun Moxian.

    Of course, Sun Yifei might not mind¡ªHong Yitang was just too used to being cautious. He immediately quelled the slightest bit of dissatisfaction. The sword had been lent out, he might offend Yuan Shuo before Sun Yifei if he took it back.

    ......

    Li Hao flicked the de with his finger when he received the weapon. He smiled at the ensuing crisp sword hum. <i>Good sword! </i>He took off his jacket, leaving a vest paired with Inspectorate issued leather boots. It made for an odd outfit, but he didn¡¯t care.

    Across from him, Sun Moxian took down the staff he wore on his back and nodded at Li Hao. The two walked toward the center at the same time.

    ¡°Disciple of the Qimei Staff King, Sun Moxian!¡±

    ¡°Disciple of the Five Styles King, Li Hao!¡± The two were very polite in the arena.

    Around them, supernaturals watching the fights were regretful that the first had concluded. Someone wondered in a carrying voice, ¡°Apparently, Li Hao hasn¡¯t been a disciple for long and learned martial dao for less than three years. Is he just going to his death?¡±

    ¡°What a pity, that first match was a sight to behold. But it¡¯s no loss either way, we saw a great martial master fight!¡±

    The conversation among supernaturals was that the uing fight would be nothing worth watching. It wouldn¡¯t be as exciting as the first one, in any case.

    <i>Within the clearing.</i>

    Li Hao and Sun Moxian looked at each other, not paying attention to anyone else. They had eyes only for each other. Li Hao¡¯s gaze was solemn. This was his first time truly meeting a half step Dominator¡ªand in a duel, not a sparring match.

    This was not an ambush, it was directbat!

 Chapter 206: Duel (II)

    <h4>Chapter 206: Duel (II)</h4>

    Li Hao stuck the longsword into the ground; he was in no hurry to use it. Instead, he settled in the stance for the Five Styles. Likewise, there was only Li Hao in Sun Moxian¡¯s line of sight. He raised his staff; the two looked at each other. No one was in a hurry to attack, both were waiting for the right opening.

    After a while, the crowd on the perimeter started agitating impatiently when the fight didn¡¯t begin.

    ¡°Why aren¡¯t they starting yet?¡±

    ¡°Are they ying house? Two guys looking at each other. Are they falling in love or what?¡± Those raising a ruckus were more from the small organizations. Not that many spoke up in therger organizations as their hierarchy was more defined. The rank and file didn¡¯t dare utter a peep if those in charge didn¡¯t say a word.

    Yuan Shuo gently stomped his foot on the ground. A piece of rock splintered into eight pieces and shot in all directions. The fragments moved so quickly that it was astounding!

    <i>Pfft pfft pfft! </i>Puncture sounds echoed as the pieces connected with eight catcalling supernaturals. Half of them were dead on the spot!

    The action stunned the crowd; those that survived did so with the aid of powerhouses who halted the fragment for them. Tempers rose exponentially until a long staff descended from above. Sparks crackling around the weapon, itnded with a boom!

    A Sunre was pulverized to dust¡ªdead!

    The premises instantly quieted down. Yuan Shuo had kicked the rocks and Sun Yifei flung the staff. The two powerhouses didn¡¯t say anything, they just continued to observe the fight. The perimeter was now so silent that a pin drop could be heard in the canyon.

    Hong Yitang had long withdrawn to a remote distance and snorted at the situation. It was one thing when it was just a sparring match, now both side¡¯s prized disciples were dueling to the death. <i>You idiots run your mouths without stop, I¡¯d suspect they were two entirely different people if they didn¡¯t kill you for the offense!</i>

    These two fellows might ughter the entire crowd first if they didn¡¯t shut up, thenmence their own duel. Hong Yitang was all too familiar with their style because he¡¯d been one of them back in the day.

    Hard swallows could be heard throughout the assembly. This disy of strength was too brutal! It only took a few words of opinion before the two martial masters butchered eight Darkmoons in quick session, as well as a Sunre!

    Sunre was the peak of Silver Moon strength. Srs were enigmatic personages who could not be fathomed. It was only on an asion like this could they be found in abundance¡ªthey usually stayed out of sight in ordinary times.

    The assembly was shocked, furious, and terrified. A Sunre hadn¡¯t been able to withstand a single blow through the air! This was horrifying!

    ......

    The two in the clearing blurred into movement. They¡¯d sensed fluctuations in each other when their masters attacked¡ªopportunity hade!

    Soundless and motionless, ck Tiger Heart Gouge!

    A hand ripped through the air while a long staff jabbed for the head. Li Hao dodged adroitly and threw his head back with a howl. Tiger Roar Shakes The Heavens!

    He wed forward the second the staff hesitated and connected with a wet squelching sound. Blood and flesh flew through the air! The halted staff swiftly descended, as if pausing just to dispel Li Hao¡¯s faltering. It smashed down on its target!

    ¡°Hup!¡± the young man roared and sprang off the ground. He grabbed at the staff, which created an opening for it to crash down on his head. Blood spurted in all directions, but Li Hao maintained a firm grip on the staff and didn¡¯t let it connect with full force. Though blood dyed his face, he was utterly fearless.

    Both hands sping the <i>qimei</i> staff, he rose from the ground and erupted with the bear style. He followed the length of the weapon and brought his hands down in a hammer blow like he was a massive bear!

    Sun Moxian shook his weapon, sending force reverberating up its length. Internal force exploded like des, leaving bloody marks on Li Hao¡¯s hands. Thetter continued following the staff to finish his double-handed blow. It connected with a massive boom while a roaring Sun Moxian yanked away his weapon. He mmed it against the ground, shattering any rocks in its way. The fragments sprayed into the surroundings.

    The two moved extremely swiftly, exchanging a dozen moves before most of the crowd recovered from two powerhouses killing those who¡¯d given offense. Li Hao wed bloody gouges into his opponent¡¯s chest, whereas Sun Moxian broke the skin on Li Hao¡¯s head.

    The moment the long staff swung down, Li Hao ttened himself and followed it upward, like a water ripple. Hands and feet moving in unison, the two youngsters kicked each other on the ground. Rocks once more shattered explosively!

    Smoke and sand billowed around them as Li Hao utilized the Five Styles to their extreme amid the dusty blowout. Sun Moxian was equally versed in fist and foot. While his staff was long, it was very agile. He drew it out and mmed it forward!

    Li Hao suffered another blow to his chest ¡ªbones broke with a loud crunch. His fingers darted out like a sword, grabbing his opponent¡¯s wrist to rip arge chunk of flesh out of it!

    Both young men backed away. Li Hao leapt into the air before either side took another breath and kicked his leg out. A staff immediately hovered beneath his foot in response¡ªthe staff was like a spear and it wanted to run Li Hao through!

    At the moment, Li Hao¡¯s leg was so nimble that it didn¡¯t seem human. It was more like a snake or the tail of a monkey! His leg wrapped around the staff and he curled the rest of himself around it with incredible flexibility. Waving his fists around, he punched Sun Moxian. Internal force roiled and explosive sounds tore through the air.

    Sun Moxian spun the staff around and mmed it down on the ground!

    Li Hao followed like a shadow, twining himself around it as if a monkey. He brandished his fists, asionally curving them into ws and sometimes balling them up, delivering an incessant barrage on his opponent.

    Those around the perimeter quickly found their attention held again. Li Hao was wrapped around the <i>qimei </i>staff and attacking along its length. He soon wed bloody strips from his opponent and was in turn covered in blood when mmed into the ground.

    Was there any beauty to their fight?

    None at all!

    There was none of the artistry from the first match, just violence! Indescribable violence!

    Blood and flesh flew through the air as sand and stone sprayed everywhere. The fracturing of bone and squelching of flesh...

    The surroundings were terrifyingly quiet¡ªnot only due to the earlier warning, but because such gory scenes didn¡¯t leave the crowd in the mood to discuss anything else. The only thing they knew was nerves that grew tauter the more they saw.

    So this was a duel! They could understand the difference between this battle and the previous one. While the one prior had also been deadly, the two opponents had nursed too many misgivings. They didn¡¯t go for the crotch, pierce the throat, or stab the heart. Neither did they ruthlessly gouge the chest or smash through the head with incredibly violent strokes!

    Martial masters were born for ughter. Were they still martial masters if they didn¡¯t target weaknesses and just poked at their opponent¡¯s strong suit?

    ......

    Standing next to Hong Yitang, Hong Qing clenched her fists tight and stared fixedly. Her father also watched quietly, thinking back to the old days of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. This was how it¡¯d been¡ªblood was shed in the arena and to shed blood was to kill!

    What sparring matches? Those didn¡¯t exist! With the decline of martial masters after the rise of the supernatural, it¡¯d been too long since he witnessed such a sight.

    ......

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    Sun Yifei watched gravely. Sun Hongxiu and her junior brother were also very nervous.

    ¡°Shameless!¡± Sun Hongxiu grunted before her master sent her stumbling with a p! She lowered her head without a word.

    Neither did Sun Yifei say anything. He disciplined his disciple because Li Hao¡¯stest hand w had nearly connected with Sun Moxian¡¯s private parts. While thetter evaded the blow, his pants had split open and blood was dripping down.

    Was the move shameless?

    It was indeed shameless!

    Other people could say so, but Sun Yifei¡¯s disciple could not! This was a duel to the death¡ªif his own disciples found the moves dishonorable, what were they martial masters for?

    The lofty martial masters of stories and legends were dead! All of the survivors hadmitted such deeds at one point or another. Grabbing the crotch and gouging the heart were normal moves. True martial masters could endure such tests. Those who couldn¡¯t were dead, and nothing needed to be said about the dead.

    Sun Yifei only looked on silently. This was just the beginning. His disciple¡¯s aura was yet to be unleashed.

    ......

    In the clearing, Sun Moxian roared before sweeping the four corners with his staff. He forced Li Hao to hop and skip, jumping to and fro like a monkey! The former panted heavily. He was covered in blood stains that¡¯d dyed his shirt. Li Hao was in no better shape as his face was full of dust. One of his legs was twisted. It seemed to have been broken by one of the staff strikes.

    Suddenly, the look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes changed slightly.

    ¡°What should be demonstrated from the Five Styles and Qimei Staff has been put on disy. Shall we get a bit more serious?¡± Sun Moxian regarded his opponent coldly and thrust his staff into the earth.

    A rustle ran through the surroundings, but no one dared say a word. <i>Get a bit more serious?</i>

    Li Hao took a few steps back and pulled out the longsword in the ground.

    ¡°My master is known for the Five Styles.¡± He shed a grin. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dare call myself of the Five Styles discipline if I didn¡¯t fully showcase their ingenuity!¡±

    Sun Moxian pulled out his staff in response. A surge of aura roiled through the area, sweeping away smoke and fog!

    ¡°The earth?¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened after he took his measure. Indeed, the earth! He sensed the ripples of the earth¡ªSun Moxian hadprehended the aura of the earth! What a coincidence. If it wasn¡¯t for his teacher telling him to learn the aura of the sword, Li Hao would be using the one of earth at this moment too.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that a Qimei Staff disciple wouldprehend the aura of the earth? It was slightly different from Li Hao¡¯s¡ªhe sensed the vigorous firmness of the element! The staff seemed to be connected to the ground and its power enveloped the weapon. The earth sang with happiness when the staff was pulled out!

    ¡°Kill!¡± Sun Moxian¡¯s momentum changed¡ªhe was a veteran general on the battlefield. No matter who it was in front of him, they would die from his blow!

    The staff was like a spear¡ªmarvelous, intricate, and mighty. Sun Moxian was significantly stronger than before when he utilized his aura. The ground split open before the staff even connected with the earth.

    Li Hao¡¯s sharp eyes tracked it! The earth? <i>Fantastic, I like that.</i> His sword shot out, but it was a swordprised of internal force!

    A sh of sword light twinkled without sound and vanished. Li Hao also vanished on the spot. When he reappeared, the sword was about to stab into his opponent¡¯s throat.

    ¡°Ghost Shadow Sword!¡± Sun Yifei identified slowly and looked sharply at Yuan Shuo. The old thing was adept at the Five Styles, yet passed on Ghost Shadow Sword to his disciple! This was unexpected.

 Chapter 207: Duel (III)

    <h4>Chapter 207: Duel (III)</h4>

    In this moment, the battle seemed to be Sun Moxian¡¯s alone. His staff broke through the air with unparalleled ferociousness; the hum from Li Hao¡¯s sword was nearly imperceptible. Thetter moved like a shadow, swiftly drawing near and swiftly backing away.

    Li Hao immediately retreated when his weapon didn¡¯t connect with the enemy. Such was the Ghost Shadow Sword, as if an assassin.

    The two sides became entangled with each other once more. The staff swung again and again, blurring into such motion that not even a droplet of water could get past it. It ensured that Li Hao¡¯s sword couldn¡¯t prate its defenses.

    Sun Moxian abruptly roared and split the ground open. The four sides around the clearing caved in, revealing Li Hao¡¯s figure. The staff instantly honed in on him and shot straight at his head. The aura of the earth had been deployed to great effect, fissuring the four sides around the clearing without anyone knowing. The aftershocks made Li Hao lose his footing and exposed his whereabouts.

    ¡°Kill!!¡± Sun Moxian roared. His staff seemed to split the air as rocks flew apart before the weapon even touched them. Danger was upon Li Hao!

    He didn''t expect his opponent to fracture the earth; Sun Moxian¡¯s aura was also stronger than he anticipated. Both his feet were off the ground¡ªthe situation was hard to endure and the descending staff even more terrifying. Li Hao still didn¡¯t use the aura of the earth¡ªhe might not have time to deploy it even if he did.

    In that case...

    A ray of sword light exploded forth. A second and third followed in the blink of an eye...

    The Nine Forged Force!

    He instantlypleted a switch of breathing methods. The more critical the moment, the moreposed he was. He activated another secret art at this dire juncture!

    ¡°Break!¡± Li Hao shed forward with six rays of sword light inteid over each other. The longsword shed out!

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    A violent collision sounded instead of crisp contact. The staff mmed down on Li Hao; hended solidly on his feet. Although his feet sank into the ground, he erupted with just as much strength as before. He mercilessly pushed off and put full force behind a return stroke. The longsword followed the staff¡¯s momentum in a domineering sh!

    It was fast!

    So fast!

    The look in Sun Moxian¡¯s eyes altered slightly. This was incredible strength! He shifted the staff with his right hand. Otherwise, the sword stroke would cut off all of his fingers.

    Li Hao grabbed the staff the second it moved, thrusting forward in a violent fashion. It thumped into Sun Moxian¡¯s chest¡ªthe young man¡¯s rib cage broke and he spewed out a mouthful of blood!

    The liquid arced toward Li Hao, who exhaled a mouthful of sword qi!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Blood and gas exploded in the air; bedazzled onlookers held their breaths. Everyone understood that the two were deploying moves and reacting extremely quickly. The slightest misstep would result in one of their deaths, particrly Li Hao! The two had suddenly exploded in the air...

    Only Liu Long and the others knew how perilous the fight was. The nervous team captain wiped off sweat from his forehead. That had been too fast. If Li Hao had been unable to instantaneously switch breathing methods, he wouldn¡¯t have been able toyer his force six times and withstand that blow!

    ¡°Nice going, kid!¡± Liu Long watched with amazement. Li Hao had reached sixyers of the Nine Forged Force! And the key thing was, the young manpleted a switch in methods during battle. Howposed did he have to be for that?

    Logically speaking, it was a feasible action. But it required <i>absolute</i> calm. Was the kid born for martial dao? Who could retain suchposure in a fight to the death? The staff would smash him into oblivion at the slightest slip-up. Wasn¡¯t he afraid?

    ......

    Within the arena, Li Hao instantly reversed the battle situation with the Nine Forged Force, injuring Sun Moxian with his staff instead. The two immediately shed again. Even though Sun Moxian was the only employing aura, Li Hao still wasn¡¯t suppressed. It was thus apparent how strong he was.

    His strengthened organs and physique, the Nine Forged Force, and various secret arts leveled the ying field. His body could withstand too much!

    Even Sun Yifei had to frown in the distance. Under normal circumstances, the opponent would suffer internal bleeding if they caught Sun Moxian¡¯s blow. Their organs might shatter as he was deploying his aura, but Yuan Shuo¡¯s final disciple had strengthened his beyond imagination!

    He was fine! This shouldn¡¯t be the case!

    He looked at Yuan Shuo, who happened to be smirking back at him.

    ¡°So what about the aura?¡± the professor¡¯s lips vibrated. ¡°The Breathing Method of the Five Styles is unparalleled beneath the heavens! How do martial masters have any weaknesses? Their organs are still a major strength!¡±

    Sun Yifei did not respond; he looked back at the arena and lost a degree of confidence in his disciple. Although Li Hao did not seem to have his own aura and looked to beprehending the one of the sword, thebination of the Nine Forged Force, Ghost Shadow Sword, Five Styles, and powerful internal organs meant that his disciple didn¡¯tmand any advantage against Li Hao.

    He¡¯d thought that was all there was to Li Hao when the two went through their opening moves. It looked like Sun Yifei had rather underestimated Yuan Shuo and his disciple.

    ......

    <i>Inside the clearing.</i>

    Flesh and blood flew everywhere as Li Hao and Sun Moxian pummeled each other with punches and kicks. When Li Hao took a step back, Sun Moxian also took a few steps back. The two were equally solemn.

    Li Hao still bled from his head whereas Sun Moxian¡¯s wounds had run dry. Thetter tightened his grip on the blood-stained staff. Li Hao yanked out the longsword that he¡¯d stuck in the ground and charged with a loudugh!

    This wasn¡¯t enough pressure!

    The stroke from that day resurfaced in his mind. Attack! Sever the self! Kill the enemy!

    Sun Moxian¡¯s face twitched and he roared, bringing his staff down in a dozen swings. <i>Bam bam bam bam...</i>

    Both weapons were precious treasures. With how Li Hao was using the sword, the staff splintered and the sword cracked from the stress. A loud explosion sounded as both exploded into fragments, shooting in all directions!

    ......

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    A grave Wang Ming¡¯s eyes widened when he saw a fragment from the swordunch at him. He reached forward, wanting to catch it, but suddenly looked startled and manifested a pair of golden gloves around his hands. They were made of his metal energy.

    <i>Screech!</i>

    An ear-piercing sound assaulted the ears as the longsword fragment and a bit of sword qi sliced through the gloves. <i>Drip drip drip...</i> blood flowed from Wang Ming¡¯s hands. Gone was his usual joking banter¡ªonly a weighty solemnity was in its ce.

    <i>I am a Sunre!</i>

    These were just fragments from the two¡¯s ruined weapons. His mysterious power defenses were cut through when he tried to stop it. It continued through to injure his hand and nearly slice through that as well!

    The pain didn¡¯t register. Lost in thought, Wang Ming stared at the cut that ran to his bone.

    Powerhouses around the perimeter also tried to stop the fragments, as did a few supernaturals wish to pit themselves against martial master might. A Darkmoon emanating fiery sparks from his hands wanted to burn a fragment away, but it drilled through his power like it didn¡¯t exist and sted his head apart!

    Silence!

    Deathly silence!

    The two in the clearing were just Sunderers, the equivalent of Darkmoon. All Darkmoons in the audience quieted down; some Sunres regarded the duel with incredible gravity. They no longer disparaged the fight in any way.

    This was what it meant to be a Sunderer?

    Was this what martial masters truly were?

    ......

    ¡°Idiot!¡± Hong Yitang cursed lowly. Even initial Sunres might die if the dueling disciples attacked together! Both were Sunderers¡ªone hadprehended the aura and the other was nearly on the same level. That blow had been the equivalent of two martial masters inmand of the aura shattering each other¡¯s weapons with full strength.

    How dare Darkmoons attempt to catch the fallout?? Who would die, if not that idiot?

    Supernaturals of small organizations were ignorant, alright! Did they think they could look down on martial masters just because they wererger than life? How had they not learned their lesson when Yuan Shuo and Sun Yifei acted earlier?

    ......

    Attention refocused on the center of the clearing. The longsword had shattered and the staff snapped into splinters. Wounds crisscrossed the twobatants¡ªa byproduct of each other¡¯s internal force.

    Sun Moxian heaved for breath, his panting clearly audible. He flung his right hand at Li Hao, the aura of the earth enveloping his fist. Punch after punch resounded, sending his opponent back again and again.

    Still operating the Nine Forged Force, Li Hao didn¡¯t have a chance to switch to the Five Styles. He could only take the blows head-on. Regardless of how strong his organs were, blood began bubbling at the corners of his mouth from the relentless barrage.

    This was what was meant to be a martial master! Blow after blow of gore and violence!

    Fatigue didn¡¯t seem to touch Sun Moxian¡¯s battle craze. He alternated between hands as he continued punching, wanting to hold down his opponent until he beat the other to death!

    Fist collided with fist, hand with elbow, and feet against feet. Their pant legs had long been shredded by the fight, revealing bloody legs.

    It took quite a toll on Sun Moxian to overwhelmingly suppress his opponent in this manner. His own organs weren¡¯t strong enough and the recoil almost too much to bear. Some of them were giving out and bleeding internally. But he didn¡¯t give up, retreat, or stand down. It was the best time to go for the kill when his opponent faltered!

    Li Hao was stronger than anticipated, but that was a source of excitement. Killing Li Hao was his goal! That would disrupt Yuan Shuo¡¯s mindset and might help the next duel toe.

    The same thoughts ran through Li Hao¡¯s mind. In Silver Moon¡¯s martial world, the disciples fought first. Whichever side won saw a boost in momentum and hammered at enemy morale. Victory between evenly matched powerhouses was often determined by whoever¡¯s disciple won the earlier fights.

    Killing the other side¡¯s representatives first was frequently the key to triumph. It was Liu Long who once mentioned this, not Yuan Shuo.

    Although Li Hao was doggedly receiving a beating in the face of a heavy offensive, the look in his eyes was clear! His teacher had said that all aspects of battle and techniques were preparations for the final move. Everything was preliminary work to killing the enemy. Thus, this was only part of the process.

    When Sun Moxian pulled back for another punch, Li Hao abruptly roared and spat out white mist that was as if sword light!

    Sun Moxian subconsciously followed through his action, breaking the sword light apart. That, however, wasn¡¯t Li Hao¡¯s final move. He raised his right hand with a grin, baring teeth through bloody spittle. The Nine Forged Force erupted once more!

    Internal forceyered over his right hand as he thought back to that stroke. He fashioned his internal force into a sword, splitting his hand as force shot out of it.

    In the distance, Sun Yifei¡¯s expression changed drastically.

    ¡°For...¡± He wanted to call out forfeit¡ªsomething about this felt different!

 Chapter 208: Duel (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 208: Duel (IV)</h4>

    A ray of sword intent!

    Sun Yifei wanted to step into the clearing himself and stop Li Hao. His feet shifted as a reflection of his desire; the far off Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t move from his position. It didn¡¯t seem that he would stop his opponent.

    However, Sun Yifei¡¯s footsteps halted and anguish appeared in his eyes. His disciple... wasn¡¯t forfeiting!

    A frown crossed Yuan Shuo¡¯s forehead and he flicked a nce at his age-old rival. Sun Yifei may be an outstanding martial master and excellent teacher, but he was not a good master. He did not make a move at this time. He hesitated because of the rules! The rules of the martial world!

    Sun Yifei fixed an expectant look on his disciple. <i>Forfeit... I won¡¯t let you die if you forfeit!</i>

    ......

    Sun Moxian also sensed danger in this moment. The situation was very dangerous! There was an exceedingly sharp sword intenting from Li Hao¡¯s hands.

    But meanwhile, Li Hao seemed to be dithering over something....

    Indeed, he was waiting. He waited for Sun Moxian to concede the duel. Although he wanted to kill his opponent and thereby cause Sun Yifei¡¯s heart to waver, doubt crept through his thoughts when he looked into his opponent¡¯s unfamiliar face.

    <i>Let¡¯s give him a chance to forfeit...</i> It was the same as being defeated.

    Sun Moxian, however, did not concede the match. His master had lost once and spent decades trying to regain his mental footing. This was the precise bridge that his master had jumped from!

    <i>Master might be gratified if I forfeit and live, but that might bring about a more severe impact than dying. Master might be stronger if I die. A grief-stricken heart might help him erupt with more power!</i>

    <i>Not to mention, I am in the stage of gathering my aura. If I lose now, and to a rookie, how much motivation will I have left to eliminate my internal demon and set foot into Dominator?</i>

    A grin spread across Sun Moxian¡¯s face. Outsiders were ever hard pressed to understand the resolve of a martial master! A staff of internal force appeared over his fists!

    ¡°Staff of Qimei!¡± he roared angrily. The blow seemed to contain a tangible aura of the earth¡ªit threatened to shatter heaven and earth with an explosive roar!

    <i>I may die... but I haven¡¯t lost yet! Doesn¡¯t master say that the victor is never determined until the final moment?</i>

    The blow was iparably threatening and aimed square for the center of Li Hao¡¯s forehead. Sun Moxian wanted to smash his opponent to death with this final strike. <i>No matter how strong your sword is, you have to be faster than me! Let¡¯s see who can stand firm in the face of danger!</i>

    Sun Yifei watched with agitation. His disciple neither yielded nor waited for death, Sun Moxian was stronger than him! It had been the same scene that year when he lost. When he lost to Yuan Shuo, he chose to jump off Rift Bridge instead of die to his opponent. His disciple was stronger than him!

    Yuan Shuo, however, frowned slightly with worry. He hadn¡¯t thought that Sun Moxian would still be able to erupt with a final strike at this moment. The young man¡¯s internal force had melded with his aura¡ªa sign of stepping into Dominator of Thousands.

    Sun Moxian was breaking through at this critical moment! This was a feat that the Sun Yifei of yesteryear hadn¡¯t been able to manage! Could Li Hao stop this blow? Life and death would be determined here and now. There would be a victor a heartbeatter!

    Yuan Shuo was worried, he wanted to intervene! He was a teacher, a master, and a father. A teacher could stick to the rules and have his disciple die by the rules, but a father couldn¡¯t! He would fall to a moral low ground against Sun Yifei if he intervened, but so what?

    Li Hao roared with fury the moment the professor wanted to act! With hand as sword, strike!

    One staff and one sword churned spatial turbulence into existence between them. The air exploded, as did the gravel around them. Supernaturals in the distance eyed the clearing warily!

    ¡°The killing intent of dual auras!¡±

    Li Hao seemed to haveprehended the aura! These were two powerhouses ready to set foot into Dominator, not the rookies they were previously thought of. Even Srs grew nervous and gathered their attention, staring fixedly at the fight.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A collision that shook the heavens rang out. Sun Moxian looked nk as sword qi inexorably cut through his staff. How was this possible?? It wasn¡¯t possible! That blow had been the pinnacle of his life. It was so unrivaled that he felt it was on the Dominator level!

    But still it¡¯d been severed by a sword!

    A line of blood appeared on his forehead. There was nothing about this situation that he didn¡¯t ept, he was just a bit confused. His lips shifted in a soundless question.

    ¡°It is not a blow of the mortal world!¡± Li Hao answered in between heavy panting, despite not hearing anything.

    <i>That sword was not of the mortal world! So you didn¡¯t lose to me in terms of strength or aura, but that we have not seen the same worlds. I have witnessed that stroke, but you have not.</i>

    An expression of potential understanding spread across Sun Moxian¡¯s face. He slowly toppled over after a long moment, hitting the ground with a bang. The line of blood crept from his head down his entire body.

    Li Hao watched silently, neither agitated nor excited. This was the martial world! There was no grudge or hatred between them; this was only because their masters stood on opposite sides. They bathed in each other¡¯s blood so that their masters could upy a superior position in the battle toe.

    ¡°Moxian!¡±

    ¡°Senior brother!¡± Anguished cries traveled upon the wind. Sun Yifei instantly appeared inside the clearing, looking at his fallen disciple with grief. He... seemed to have made a mistake. He should¡¯ve stopped the fight!

    Killing intent rose in his eyes when he looked at Li Hao, but he instantly quelled it.

    ¡°I will kill you!¡± He pivoted toward Yuan Shuo and clenched his jaw.<i> I will!</i>

    ¡°I await you!¡± Yuan Shuo answered coldly with a grave expression. His student had won, yet Sun Yifei did not break from the setback. He grew stronger instead.

    <i>But... so what?</i>

    Li Hao furrowed his brows and didn¡¯t say anything.

    Remarkably, Sun Yifei didn¡¯t fly into a rage. He looked wordlessly at Sun Moxian on the ground. Raising a half hearted cupped fist salute, he stiffly walked out of the center of the clearing.

    <i>Well done,d. </i>Yuan Shuo looked at Li Hao.<i> I will win too!</i>

    Sorrowful wailing rose in the air. Sun Hongxiu hugged a bloodstained corpse and keened with agony. ¡°Li Hao, I¡¯ll kill you!¡± she screamed hoarsely. ¡°I will!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t look at her. This was how martial masters should be. They did not cut down everyone on the other side today, and awaited their enemy¡¯s vengeance tomorrow. Year after year, duel after duel, until they themselves died in battle one day. Due to the rules, his teacher wouldn¡¯t kill Sun Hongxiu even if he won today.

    Was this trite and cliche?

    A little.

    But Li Hao knew that his teacher was already someone who flouted more of the rules among martial masters. Compared to him, people like Sun Yifei were even more sticklers to irrelevant minutiae. This wasn¡¯t a bad thing at times. Adhering to cliche ideals meant that martial masters might bear more qualities that promoted ties of kinship.

    A variety of thoughts ran through Li Hao¡¯s mind as he walked out of the clearing. He sagged to the ground as soon as he was clear; pain finally set in. He burned with so much pain all over. He¡¯d won.

    In the first battle, the crowd witnessed the magnificence of martial masters. It was a gorgeous spectacle and martial dao was indeed not bad. But by the second battle, no one was in the mood to offer anypliments. That had been only brutality! It was then that the supernaturals understood what was the martial society and world. Such had been Silver Moon twenty years ago. People died everyday¡ªeither on the way to deliver vengeance or falling to someone else¡¯s revenge.

    What did they fight for?

    For reputation, for profit. One could say that the core essence of a martial master was ughter. Martial masters were born to kill, to exceed the strength of mortals and explore the limits of the human body. They sought to make a name for themselves and exceed those who came before them.

    That was the way of the martial dao.

    <i>Why... did someone have to die?</i> The thought rose in countless supernatural minds. As cruel as the supernatural world was, it was usually in pursuit of profit and treasure. The martial masters fighting in front of them did so for a grudge that was decades old, one that¡¯d carried over to the next generation.

    Some were surprised only in thest second, while others looked at Li Hao incredulously. Even Hao Lianchuan couldn¡¯t believe his eyes. This was Li Hao? A young fellow who¡¯d only grown familiar with martial dao in thest couple of years? He just killed a half step Dominator in a duel!

    What if it¡¯d been a supernatural in the ring? Would an initial Sunre kill Li Hao or be killed instead?

    The might of martial masters was on full disy the moment they grasped the aura. It was pressure on a mental level! If martial masters became Dominators, supernaturals of the equivalent cultivation were no match at all. Simply bringing the aura to bear would weaken ny percent of supernatural abilities¡ªspecial abilities were the only exception. Those that specialized in offense would not be able to stand against a martial master of their level.

    Establishing his reputation with one battle!

    The name of Li Hao, disciple of the Five Styles, would ring throughout Silver Moon after this battle. It¡¯d been many years since a young powerhouse like this roamed the martial world.

    <i>Up ahead.</i>

    Liu Long and his people quickly walked forward to help Li Hao up. The captain frowned at all of the blood on the young man and helped him to the perimeter without a word. The atmosphere here was too oppressive! It hung so heavily that a Dominator like him wanted to leave.

    Everyone around the canyon also felt it; Sun Yifei was a volcano ready to erupt. He left Sun Moxian¡¯s body in Sun Hongxiu¡¯s care and barely moved his lips.

    ¡°Go!¡± <i>Take your senior brother¡¯s body and go! Go back to the central region!</i>

    The moment Li Hao killed Sun Moxian was the moment Sun Yifei knew that he might not be leaving today. If Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple had improved so much in a few years, what about Yuan Shuo?

    He could choose to avoid battle, but... was that truly an option? He was the Qimei Staff King! His disciple had already paid the ultimate price on his path of vengeance, could he leave after that?

    Could he abstain from fighting?

    No, he couldn¡¯t!

    ¡°Master!¡± sobbed the two surviving disciples. They clutched Sun Moxian¡¯s body as they wept.

    They were too young. If Sun Moxian still lived, he might understand his master¡¯s motivation. Sun Hongxiu and her junior brother were too young to have experienced much. They didn¡¯t understand.

    Sun Yifei stared at Sun Hongxiu and patted her shoulder. With Sun Moxian dead, the legacy of the Qimei Staff fell to her shoulders. He had other disciples, but he¡¯d brought the most promising and smartest ones on this trip. These were the ones most worth cultivating¡ªeven the yer of Tens. He didn¡¯t wish for all of them to die here and end his legacy.

 Chapter 209: Qimei Staff, Fire Heart Ape (I)

    <h4>Chapter 209: Qimei Staff, Fire Heart Ape (I)</h4>

    Tears streamed down the faces of Sun Hongxiu and the other young man. They quickly wiped their eyes dry. Sun Hongxiu knelt on the ground and kowtowed to her master, then put the corpse on her back to leave.

    ¡°Sun Yifei,¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly spoke from a distance. ¡°Why not bury Sun Moxian in Silver Moon? He should remain here if he has no other family. Silver Moon¡¯s martial world is the homnd of martial masters. Since he has fallen in battle here, he should be buried here!¡±

    The martial world of Silver Moon!

    Sun Yifei looked at him and smiled after a moment. He raised his staff to the sky and smashed a massive pit out of the ground.

    ¡°He has no family, I am his family!¡± Sun Yifeiughed. ¡°Very well, you make sense for once, Yuan Shuo. If you die, I will offer your head to my disciple!¡±

    ¡°And if you die, I will bury the two of you together!¡± Yuan Shuo responded calmly.

    ¡°That is just as good!¡± Sun Yifei¡¯s smile broadened. He stepped forward and reimed Sun Moxian¡¯s body. Amid his two disciple¡¯s teary gazes, he ced the corpse into the pit for burial. Sun Moxian had no family or master in the central region. It would be a lonely eternal rest. <i>You might as well stay here! This is master¡¯s home.</i>

    Whether it was Sun Moxian or Sun Hongxiu, they were all war orphans. Hence, their surname was Sun.

    A long staff pointed at the heavens! Dust and rocks churned, filling the pit in the blink of an eye and leaving behind a covered grave. Sun Yifei withdrew his weapon and looked at his two living disciples. Sun Hongxiu hesitated briefly when her master looked at her, then spun on her heel and grabbed her junior brother¡¯s hand. She took off running, departing from thisnd of heartbreak.

    Such was meant to be a martial master!

    It was to ensure one¡¯s legacy carried on and await a chance for vengeance. Sun Yifei never spoke of giving up revenge¡ªthat concept did not exist. So long as the legacy of the <i>qimei</i> staff endured, then vengeance would be had until this inheritance fully vanished from the martial world. Otherwise, its heirs would one day arrive in Silver Moon and battle the heirs of the Five Styles again!

    Yuan Shuo knew this, Li Hao knew this, all martial masters knew this, yet no one stopped the two young disciples.

    Martial masters were always like this. They were a savage and cruel group, but also seemed hypocritically kind. It was very rare for an entire discipline to be exterminated over a duel. Despite knowing the benefits of eradication, very few people were truly willing to do so.

    They knew that someone would be along for revenge, and so they waited for that eventuality. Or at the very least, they would not bring the fight to their enemy¡¯s door before the enemy grew into their strength. As one aged and taught disciples, one epted a final disciple to guard the home. They would await for the enemy toe knocking instead of visiting the enemy when one still had the strength to.

    The reason for all this? The rules!

    No one defined custom; it was just passed on from generation to generation. Yuan Shuo had killed so many people in his time, but mostly in the arena. He rarely moved against their disciples, not unless those disciples went on the offensive first. Thus, he had a lot of enemies. More than could be killed!

    It would take these people thinking that they could never have vengeance or for their legacy to naturally disappear in the martial world for these feuds to fade away.

    ......

    Sun Hongxiu and her junior brother left. No one stopped them, no one dared even move. Sun Yifei swept the surroundings with a vicious look, projecting especial ruthlessness. He stared at everyone except Yuan Shuo, waiting for his disciples to get a little further or even leave the province entirely. He didn¡¯t look at Yuan Shuo as he knew his old enemy would wait.

    In the distance, a cold grip wrapped around the hearts of anyone he looked at¡ªwhether Sunres or Srs. The gaze was tyrannical, maniacal, and bloodthirsty.

    This situation continued for another half hour. Everyone in the canyon suffered in silence with Sun Yifei. Whether it was the three great organizations or Night Watchers, all were in tacit ordance. No one wished to provoke thete Sr Sun Yifei in his berserk state. As for his two disciples, their strength was evident for all to see. No one cared about them, whether they bore a grudge or not.

    Half an hourter, Sun Yifei suddenly took to the sky. He soared a hundred meters in the span of a breath andnded on the broken Rift Bridge. This was the bridge where he¡¯d been once defeated!

    Yuan Shuo likewise pushed off the ground and shot up like a rocket. He arced through the sky and easilynded on the other side of the bridge like a birding to rest. The matters of the martial world would be resolved in the martial world.

    Down below, expressions shifted among the crowd. The two martial masters had easily ascended one hundred meters! While ordinary Sunres could do the same, the two had aplished it effortlessly through martial master means. This was very out of the norm.

    ......

    Li Hao was drained after his battle. He tilted his head toward the sky, then quickly frowned. There was a flying ship partially obstructing his side view¡ªthe Light Ind delegation. They¡¯d parked their vessel close to Rift Bridge, approximately one hundred meters away. There were quite a few people on board.

    Yuan Shuo and Sun Yifei faced off overhead. A duel between martial masters was usually limited to a small area. Even if the two expanded their arena, they would most likelynd to continue the fight. Thus, Light Ind hovered in ce instead of relocating elsewhere. This was the best ce to watch the battle. It afforded the best and clearest view.

    Li Hao continued to frown. A cold glint appeared in Liu Long¡¯s eyes when he followed the young man¡¯s gaze. They were courting death!

    Martial masters did indeed stay within a limited confine when they fought¡ªthe same went for supernaturals. They wouldn¡¯t infinitely erge their battlefield, not to mention that when the opponent was in the air, it was tough to extend the arena in any way unless both sides were in the air.

    Whether it was martial masters or supernaturals, they rarely fought in the sky unless theymanded an ability of the sky. The earth was where they belonged. However, were Yuan Shuo and Sun Yifei ordinary people?

    ¡°Ignore them,¡± Li Hao whispered. ¡°There¡¯s always some people who think they¡¯re very special and beyond the ordinary. Light Ind is formed by a Heaven Favored, right?¡±

    Wang Ming nodded beside him. Light Ind differed from Sword Sect in that a martial master had established Sword Sect, while a Heaven Favored with great potential formed Light Ind. Their founder was an early Sunre and swiftly ascended to Sr not long thereafter. He was one of the few Srs in Silver Moon.

    For martial masters, the second battle between disciples had been splendid. To others, that was just a fight between initial Sunres. It was too far removed from Sr. Some were extremely thickheaded; the leader of Light Ind fancied himself exceptional. Wouldn¡¯t it be downgrading himself if he suddenly shifted his vessel?

    In the meantime, Li Hao knew that they were ced much too close. They didn¡¯t understand a martial master¡¯s aura! What was one hundred meters once his teacher fully deployed his aura? The Sr might be fine, but anyone below Sr would be injured or die to the incredible impact.

    They absolutely had a death wish.

    Li Hao turned his gaze back to the twobatants. He hoped that Sun Yifei would be affected by Sun Moxian¡¯s death, or his earlier duel with Sun Moxian would be a little bit meaningless.

    ......

    <i>In the air, upon a bridge broken from the middle.</i>

    One person stood on each side. Tyranny still raged through Sun Yifei¡¯s eyes, but he¡¯d recovered a modicum of calm. He stared at Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°You were the downfall of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world!¡±

    ¡°You can say that,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°So you¡¯ve learned to bring the principles of righteousness down on my head?¡±

    Could he say that? Well, he could!

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s inability to be a Dominator twenty years ago had a great impact on Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. If he advanced, so many more half step Dominators would¡¯ve lived. The remaining ones might¡¯ve broken through.

    Such were martial masters¡ªthey were an interesting bunch. So long as the great oppressor Yuan Shuo did not progress, everyone else seemed to be bottlenecked as well. But if Yuan Shuo had stepped forward, then Dominators would¡¯ve sprang forth like bamboo shoots after the rain. This was seen in multiple eras past¡ªone person determined the upper limits of the martial world!

    Many people rose with the wind when this limit was smashed, breaking through in quick session and locating the next upper bound. If that limit constantly remained in ce, that would be the extent of that era unless someone killed them.

    It was an exceedingly marvelous state.

    ¡°I¡¯m not bringing anything down on you!¡± Sun Yifei was calm. ¡°I¡¯m just filled with hate and regret! Your limitation prevented us fromprehending the beauty of Dominator of Thousands. We could not make any progress! I hate that we were unable to defeat you and pull you off from your throne!

    ¡°My second hate is that I became a supernatural and cannot use the strength of a martial master to battle you!

    ¡°My third hate is that I am less than my disciple. Perhaps I should¡¯ve valiantly fought to the veryst that year. Jumping from the cliff is my eternal shame!¡±

    ¡°You can fight to thest this time.¡± Yuan Shuo nodded at him.

    ¡°I hope you don¡¯t disappoint me!¡± Sun Yifei raised his staff with one hand and pointed it at Yuan Shuo. ¡°To battle!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Leaping mes roared into existence before any technique deployed. They burned with a fury to immte heaven and earth!

    A fire supernatural! This attribute was suited for offense. Many supernaturals who excelled at attacking were of the fire attribute. Fire represented explosiveness.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s eyes widened when the mes appeared. He was also a fire supernatural and a Sr. But when Sun Yifei¡¯s fire manifested, he suddenly felt that his mes were so much more inferior. They were both Srs, yet the gap between them was so great! It was iprehensible.

    He might be able to wield such might if he utilized the ming Phoenix Spear. Although Sun Yifei¡¯s <i>qimei</i> staff was forged from premium materials, it was far from an origin weapon.

    Across the bridge, Yuan Shuo narrowed his eyes. The leaping mes were concentrated on the staff, turning it into a ferocious fire dragon. Sun Yifei¡¯s intent was clear¡ªhe wanted to use the methods of a martial master to defeat Yuan Shuo. He was only using fire supernatural abilities as internal force.

    Yuan Shuo underwent a change as the mes were too hot for the human body to endure. The professor seemed to turn into an ape of fire, an image that shone into the eyes of all those watching. The fire heart ape was upon him.

    Sun Yifei¡¯s eyes lit up¡ªhe seemed to see and discover something! He looked at his foe with unconcealed euphoria and the glee of meeting a good opponent!

 Chapter 210: Qimei Staff, Fire Heart Ape (II)

    <h4>Chapter 210: Qimei Staff, Fire Heart Ape (II)</h4>

    Others might not understand, but Sun Yifei did. Below them, Hong Yitang frowned with vague understanding and not fullprehension.

    The ape style of the Five Styles!

    The swordsman had seen it before¡ªthis was simr, yet not the same. It somehow made him feel... mediocre as a Sr.

    Disturbances shifted the Red Moon, Yama, and Celestial delegations around the canyon; a shocking scene yed out before they had a chance to guess. A fiery ape struck first in the sky, holding up the firmament with one hand and mming its palm down. The void seemed to split open!

    It was the ape style of the Five Styles!

    ¡°To battle!¡± Sun Yifei shouted with glee and struck with his staff, as if tearing heaven and earth apart. Staff met palm in an explosive collision, throwing off sparks in all directions. The two simultaneously switched positions and bounded higher in the air.

    <strong><i>Rumble!</i></strong>

    If Li Hao and Sun Moxian disyed mortal techniques in their sh, then these two truly demonstrated the methods of walking gods. The entire sky was dyed red from their confrontation.

    Ate Sr battling a Summoner of Spirit!

    There was no trace of Yuan Shuo¡¯s usual rxedposure to be seen. He was as if a crazed elderly ape, waving his fists around with fire in his eyes and sweeping his long arm through the sky. He mmed a hand into the staff, grabbing it despite the fire that ignited over it.

    mes spread to the four corners as they fought. <i>RUMBLE!! </i>They were so fast that Li Hao and the others couldn¡¯t keep up¡ªthe audience couldn¡¯t register all of the moves. This level of battle was far beyond them.

    Other than a few Srs who could still more or less see things clearly, even Sunres were hard pressed to make out how the two were fighting. They could only see that the fire heart ape was tyrannically domineering in punching again and again. Sometimes, it delivered a barrage of a dozen punches that appeared as only one to the assembly.

    Meanwhile, the <i>qimei</i> staff rose and fell with incredible beauty.

    The twobatants abruptly shifted orientation and glided through the air, swiftly moving away from their starting points.

    One hundred meters?

    What did one hundred meters mean to them? It was the span of one footstep!

    ......

    <i>In the sky.</i>

    There were nearly one hundred people on Light Ind¡¯s flying ship. While that was arge delegation, there were also numerous Starlight among them. They would not be entering the ruins.

    Everyone on the ship watched the fight, enthralled. However, a young Heaven Favored frowned slightly. The battle... seemed to be approaching them. He¡¯d parked the ship here to demonstrate Light Ind¡¯s might and didn¡¯t feel a need to move further away when Yuan Shuo and Sun Yifei entered the sky. That would be too embarrassing.

    He was a Heaven Favored, one of Silver Moon¡¯s few Srs! He¡¯d experienced smooth sailing ever since setting foot onto the supernatural stage and sessfully establishing Light Ind, turning it into a powerful organization. Even the three great organizations and Night Watchers showed him certain respect. They were unwilling to sh with the local Sr.

    Therefore, the master of Light Ind was very arrogant. He had the right and credentials to. But at the moment, his back prickled with fear.

    <i>This looks bad!</i>

    ¡°Hurry and¡ª¡± He wanted to say something when a long staff broke through the void and descended with unstoppable momentum! Aghast, the master of Light Ind snarled with anger and quickly punched forward. His fist was as if the sun shooting through the sky¡ªDivine Light Punch!

    These two were doing this on purpose! He could sense it that these two bastards were purposefully shifting their fight toward him! But when he deployed his Divine Light Punch, an enormous fist of firended on him. There seemed to be a colossal ape swinging its fists through the air!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    An incredibly menacing aura exploded like a volcano. It burst through the young Heaven Favored¡¯s mind¡ªhe saw an ape raising the sky and hewing the earth open! The look in his eyes turned cloudy.

    This was the aura of a martial master. Those who¡¯d neverprehended ore in contact with it would not understand how strong Yuan Shuo¡¯s aura would be at his cultivation level. The master of Light Ind was a Heaven Favored, but he didn¡¯t know martial masters.

    <i>In the far off distance.</i>

    Hong Yitang snorted withughter, then shook his head with emotion. There was never a shortage of pigheaded people in the world. It was one thing to watch from the ground, but that fellow dared look down upon the two from the sky, as if he was watching circus animals perform tricks! <i>These are two majestic personages that we¡¯re talking about! They¡¯re old demons that terrorized an era, how dare you watch them from up high?</i>

    <i>You really have a death wish!</i>

    Heaven Favored? A Sr? There might not be a Light Ind anymore from this moment forth. Srs were strong enough, but the context of who they faced also had to be considered.

    A stunning scene developed in front of the assembly¡¯s eyes. The unquestionably powerful master of Light Ind was sent flying right after he deployed his Divine Light Punch. An even bigger fist broke through his move and shattered his defenses. A zing red staff descended in that very moment!

    The staff blow was so unrivaled that it instantly immted everything. The hovering ship broke into two with a loud rumble and the master of Light Ind at its center... vanished!

    No, he left behind a trace of light energy.

    The enormous fist in the air fullynded and smashed the two ship halves into smithereens!

    Cries and wails of agony abounded. A few Light Ind supernaturals who survived fell down, their speed incredibly fast! New screams of horror sounded when their flight supernaturals realized that they couldn¡¯t fly!

    This expanse of the sky full under the aura¡ªone could even call it a domain. As the supernaturals were unable to break the aura¡¯s blockade, their abilities were constrained. <i>Bam bam bam! </i>These supernaturals unable to call upon their power crashed into the ground from a height of one hundred meters!

    Most were instantly smashed to meat pies. A lucky few were caught by other supernaturals¡ªthey had to, otherwise the iling survivor would smash right into their delegation. Some other lucky ones grabbed onto the edges of the canyon and escaped from the jaws of death.

    Other than a handful of survivors, the mighty Light Ind and nearly a hundred of its supernaturals had been instantaneously eradicated by two people! Their leader, a Sr, was decimated by a singr punch and staff blow!

    It all happened in the blink of an eye, leaving behind only moans of suffering from the survivors.

    ......

    <i>The Celestial delegation.</i>

    A group of powerhouses were petrified, freezing in positions of heads tilted up at the sky. Shocked eyes were the only thing to be seen beneath their hoods.

    Could martial masters reach this level?

    Everyone knew about Yuan Shuo killing Brokensky, but no one knew that he could kill Srs so easily!

    ......

    <i>Red Moon.</i>

    Hao Kong¡¯s expression shifted drastically. He was equal parts horrified, incredulous, and angry. How was Yuan Shuo so incredibly strong? He¡¯d sted through a Heaven Favored¡¯s defenses with a direct punch¡ªthat¡¯d been a Sr, not a Sunre!

    Weren¡¯t Dominators only barely on par with Sunres? This wasn¡¯t possible! He could understand Sun Yifei being so strong, but not Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°How is that...¡± he murmured, still disbelieving and not wanting to believe. <i>Greater than Dominator? </i>The thought urred to many in this moment, not just him. But that wasn¡¯t possible!

    Although there were rumors of martial masters in the central region setting foot into this level, they were barely glimpsed in the world these days. These mysterious powerhouses had vanished from the central region battlefield. Legend had it that they¡¯d found the path beyond Dominator, but that was unsubstantiated whispers from the central region.

    Today in Silver Moon, in this decrepit martial world, they saw a martial master kill a Heaven Favored Sr with one punch!

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher delegation.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s expression changed again and again. Was this Yuan Shuo?

    Light Ind was... no more. While there was a scattering of its members left, the organization was dead. A mid-sized faction, a Sr, and multiple Sunre had been obliterated by one punch and one staff blow.

    It boggled the mind!

    ......

    Wang Ming¡¯s mouth was wide open next to Li Hao. He was bewildered and frozen. That¡¯d been a Sr, not a Darkmoon¡ªand that wondrous heavyweight was gone, just like that?

    ¡°Teacher!¡± He breathed out, his eyes startlingly bright. ¡°I want to learn martial dao!¡±

    Indeed, he wanted to practice martial dao now. <i>My heavens, is this what it means to be a martial master?</i> He was self-conscious enough when facing Li Hao¡¯s strength, but after seeing Yuan Shuo, he understood that Li Hao wasn¡¯t worth shit. His colleague employed mortal methods; Yuan Shuo was a true god amongst mortals. That was why his level was hailed as a walking god. He was so unfathomably dominating that he could pierce through the firmament with one punch.

    Could a Sr or anyone greater withstand such a punch?

    <i>No!</i>

    Even the prodigious Director Hao would likely quail beneath such a punch. Wang Ming looked at Hao Lianchuan¡ª<i>see, look at his wide eyes and dropped jaw!</i>

    Director Hao was inly stunned beyond his senses.

    ......

    <i>In the air.</i>

    The two swiftly flew back tond on the broken bridge. Their faces were calm, as if they¡¯d just swatted a few gnats.

    How dare someone stand over their heads and look down their noses upon martial masters? If they weren¡¯t punished for it, the world would think this was all there was to martial dao! At the very least, the martial masters who¡¯d died twenty years ago would turn in their graves if Yuan Shuo and Sun Yifei didn¡¯t kill them.

    Anyone who dared be so rude back in the day would be beaten to death for their impudence, so why not these supernatural brats?

    The two seemed to be in good moods after teaching those unruly bastards a lesson. It was as if they really had just pped some flies out of existence; neither of the two mentioned Light Ind. Sun Yifei shook his staff and took a long look at his opponent.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo, you win on the path of martial dao!¡±

    His old rival had reached another level.

    ¡°What level is this?¡± an expectant Sun Yifei asked with yearning. Battle had just begun, but he wanted to know so badly. Was there another path beyond Dominator? He might never have a chance to ask if he didn¡¯t do so now. He needed to know.

    ¡°Summoner of Spirit!¡± Yuan Shuo answered calmly. ¡°I have just entered it, and there is another level above it¡ªRefiner of Spirit!¡±

    ¡°Summoner... Refiner...¡± Sun Yifei murmured. He was excited, he was forlorn, and he was reluctant to ept the situation. He looked at Yuan Shuo. ¡°You have created a new expanse for martial dao. There is hope for all martial masters in the world!¡±

    Even he himself didn¡¯t know if he was happy or sad. He smiled radiantly at Yuan Shuo. ¡°This battle is truly worth it to learn that there are more cultivation levels above Dominator. Yuan Shuo... a Summoner... Come, show me the might of a Summoner!¡±

 Chapter 211: Qimei Staff, Victory! (I)

    <h4>Chapter 211: Qimei Staff, Victory! (I)</h4>

    ¡°As you wish!¡±

    ¡°ROAR!¡± The enormous ape reappeared, looking a bit different from before. It wielded chains and threatened to smash a hole in the sky when it flung them out. Meanwhile, a staff ran from the ground to the heavens.

    The great battle was upon them. This was when the two sides brought their full strength to bear. Looks of shock and awe filled the faces beneath them. Summoner of Spirit!

    The attacks that instantly felled a Sr were just a casual demonstration from these two powerhouses. In that moment, the audience also felt the might of mes that seared the heavens and broke the earth. Whether it was Hao Kong or the Yama delegation, both tried to find a way to contact the outside world.

    The world as they knew it would change from now on!

    Sun Yifei battled Yuan Shuo; Yuan Shuo had progressed beyond Dominator to be this era¡¯s first Summoner. Martial masters in all ny-nine provinces would certainly be startled and stunned when word spread. There really was a path beyond Dominator! Were those secluded martial masters greater than Dominator true Summoners or fake ones?

    They didn¡¯t know, but Yuan Shuo was absolutely a real one. A Dominator could not suppress ate Sr¡ªparticrly a Sr who¡¯d ascended from being a martial master.

    ......

    Rumbling sounds roiled through the void like crashes of thunder or an erupting volcano. Two figures shed through the air as they collided. The fire heart ape broke the sky with every wave of its chains while the unparalleled <i>qimei</i> staff began fracturing the ground with every swing. One had to keep in mind that both opponents were still in the air!

    Below them, Li Hao stared fixedly at the battle. His face tightened when he saw the fire heart ape being suppressed and sent flying with a sweep of the staff. The young man was so nervous that his internal force red and sword qi leaked from his body. His teacher was strong, but had summoned only one spirit. In terms of supernatural levels, he was an initial Sr.

    And yet, his opponent was ate Sr! Regr Srs wouldn¡¯t mean anything, but Sun Yifei was inly cut from a different cloth.

    A sudden impulse gripped Li Hao¡ªhe should break through to Dominator right this very moment and summon his five spirits so he could participate in this battle. He would fight the enemy with his teacher!

    At the same time, he knew that his teacher wouldn¡¯t let him onto the field even if he summoned all five visceral spirits. This was Yuan Shuo¡¯s battle, the final dignity of a martial master! It was also a continuation of that glorious battle from his shared past with Sun Yifei.

    As Li Hao scanned the premises, he smiled to see expressions of fear, worship, and envy. Perhaps this was the true motive in his teacher epting the challenge. Silver Moon¡¯s martial world yet lived, it had not declined! Supernaturals cowered when enshrouded by martial master splendor!

    <i>You have to win, teacher! </i>Li Hao called out inwardly. <i>You must win!</i>

    ......

    The duel continued; the two no longer fought over the bridge. Yuan Shuo operated the Five Styles to its utmost, as well as its breathing method. White smoke wafted from his body as he breathed¡ªa sign of intense inhales and exhales. As the cooler air from the surroundings passed through his organs, the difference in temperature caused a certain amount of evaporation.

    But to outsiders, he looked like a mythical being wreathed in clouds and emitting fog. Perhaps this was how some legends in the ancient times developed. Standing on high with white smoke billowing around him¡ªdidn¡¯t he seem to swallow the clouds and breath mist?

    Meanwhile, Sun Yifei looked to be a god of fire. The mes didn¡¯t touch him, but the staff zed with red. Swing after swing forced a Yuan Shuo wearing the fire heart ape form back. He was so strong!

    Sun Yifei continued to walk the path of martial dao after entering the supernatural world. He was a martial powerhouse to begin with. Although there was no internal force for him to call on anymore, abundant mysterious power facilitated explosive strength for the <i>qimei</i> staff.

    Who said supernaturals could only use supernatural techniques?

    Sun Yifei walked his own path along the supernatural way. He utilized mysterious power as internal force and employed his martial method¡¯s breathing method. It didn¡¯t give rise to too many drawbacks.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    One side of the bridge remnants copsed when the staff pounded the ground. Yuan Shuo stepped through the air like a bird. He pounced as a tiger, fashioning his hands into bird ws and grabbing for the staff!

    A grand eagle swooping upon a rabbit!

    Yuan Shuo was a majestic eagle as he loomed over Sun Yifei with hands outstretched. He wed long streaks of sparks from the staff, whereupon Sun Yifei brandished his weapon and shoved it forward. It crashed through heaven and earth, forcing Yuan Shuo into rapid retreat. Despite his speed, the staff still pierced through his palm.

    Momentum unabated, the staff mmed into a nearby cliff face and sted a massive cave out of the stone. The force behind Sun Yifei¡¯s response altered the terrain!

    The long staff flew back out of the cliff face when its owner beckoned to it; the fight increased in intensity!

    Fiery qi frothed over Sun Yifei, giving rise to multiple suns around him. This was a true Sr¡ªas searing as the sun and formidable beyond bounds. The gaping difference between him and Silver Moon¡¯s Srs was extremely apparent. They were lesser in terms of killing intent, battle consciousness, experience, and methods.

    Having wrought a path of blood out of the province, then hacked his way out of the central region¡ªSun Yifei had spent thest dozen years in violence and gore. The brilliant color of his staff was not only that of fire, but also of blood!

    Yuan Shuo roared, the fire heart ape flung its chains forward again!

    The chain wrapped around the staff with a rattle so loud it could be heard throughout thend. At the same time, Yuan Shuo threw his head back with a howl.

    Li Hao and the others on the ground swiftly covered their ears. A ferocious tiger had trulye prowling out of the woods in the mountain. A wild roar multiple times greater than what a tiger could bring to bear rang out¡ªa massive monster was here!

    <strong>¡°ROAR!!¡±</strong> The cry shook heaven and earth. Weaker supernaturals on the ground could not withstand it even though they red their mysterious power. Blood trickled from numerous pairs of ears as their ear drums shattered.

    Retreat, and retreat again! Horror-stricken, some supernaturals couldn¡¯t conceal their fear as they backed away. Some small organizations sped to a safe distance of a thousand meters. Finding it still dangerous, they quickly shuffled further out.

    Only the Sword Sect was left of the mid-size organizations. Hong Yitang gestured for his people to move back, but he remained. He watched the two in the air with a fervent expression. Martial dao! The path of martial masters, the Silver Moon martial world...

    He firmly believed that after this battle, martial masters of the world would flock to the province to continue their pursuit of a barely discernible future in martial dao. It would be their pilgrimage because the future was finally at hand!

    Yuan Shuo had broken the limits of Dominator of Thousands!

    After all these years, even Hong Yitang¡¯s heart zed to life. Martial masters! Through martial dao could one reach the divine! Even though Yuan Shuo was yet to ovee Sun Yifei and looked to be suppressed instead, Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t douse the emotions running high. Old Demon Yuan was upon them again, Silver Moon¡¯s martial world was back!

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± A series of roars reverberated through the canyon, their echoes deafening to the ear. Yuan Shuo glided through the air, the Five Styles dominating in the extreme. He utilized the tiger style in conjunction with the ape style¡ªthe fire heart ape bore the demeanor of a bloodthirsty tiger and reared with killing intent.

    The five auras melded as one!

    Yuan Shuomanded other auras apart from the fire heart ape. They swiftly integrated into a ferocious tiger that stood side by side with the ape. When the two auras collided, they exploded with greater power.

    ¡°HUP!¡± Yuan Shuo thrust both fists forward at the same time andunched himself at Sun Yifei¡¯s head. Joint hammer blows!

    Sun Yifei detonated a sonic boom as he swept his staff outward, shaking the auras of the Five Styles. Yuan Shuo wavered as he stood against his opponent¡¯s frenzied barrage. Afterimages blurred in the void as Sun Yifei hacked and chopped with his weapon, forcing his opponent back with each move.

    The two constantly traded the upper hand; it was a very even match. As strong as Yuan Shuo¡¯s aura was, he couldn¡¯t withstand his opponent¡¯s incredible reserve of mysterious power. It was an opposite sight of the battles between their disciples.

    When Li Hao fought Sun Moxian, his organs had been so strong that Sun Moxian¡¯s formidable aura couldn¡¯t break his organs. In the end, he was killed in turn.

    In the same vein, there was no question of how colossal Yuan Shuo¡¯s auras were, but his internal force was not as abundant as his opponent¡¯s mysterious power. Sun Yifei¡¯s massive reserves greatly detracted from his opponent¡¯s attacks.

    Not only could Li Hao read the situation, but so could others. Strange looks crept into their eyes. This was the opposite of how it should be! It had led to Li Hao killing Sun Moxian in the previous battle. If things continued to develop in this manner, Sun Yifei would kill Yuan Shuo instead.

    The battles of masters and disciples ran in diametrically opposite directions!

    ......

    <i>In the air.</i>

    No matter how Yuan Shuo shook his chains, he couldn''t find an opening in the other¡¯s staff offensive. He roared and raged, the very image of a wild and violent ape.

    Sun Yifei grew more aggressive the more he battled. A hint of joy sparkled out of his arctic re, but more killing intent could be found within his eyes. He could die now that he¡¯d seen the future of his dao, but that didn¡¯t interfere with him killing Yuan Shuo. It was enough that there was a way forward for martial dao!

    After another violent collision, Yuan Shuo managed to grab the staff. He left deep w marks in the weapon, but Sun Yifei still sent him flying with a punch. Thetter stepped backward with his weapon, watching Yuan Shuo¡¯s blood spray through the void as he flew backward.

    The professor¡¯s face was slightly pale when he found his footing; he looked a little tired.

    Sun Yifei flushed red and coughed. ¡°Is this all there is to you?¡±

    Just this?

    ¡°Where¡¯s the second spirit?¡± he leered. ¡°A Summoner whomands five auras, I see you¡¯ve only nurtured one spirit! There would be no need for a fight today if you¡¯d summoned all five, Yuan Shuo. I would be dead without a move! Just one spirit? That is not enough to kill me!¡±

    Yuan Shuo heaved for breath as he looked at Sun Yifei. The man was too observant! He¡¯d caught wind of some clues after the prolonged exchange. It would be a foregone conclusion that Yuan Shuo would be invincible against Srs if he nurtured five spirits. He wouldn¡¯t even need five¡ªjust three would give him unquestionable dominance.

    But he didn¡¯t have those!

    He only had one. That could power a tremendous offensive for a while and enable him to easily overwhelm ordinary Srs. But today, his opponent was Sun Yifei, a martial master undaunted by repeated disappointments. All his opponent needed to do was to weather the initial barrage before he could counterattack.

    ¡°Just listen to yourself!¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°Look at you throwing your weight around! Not many who did so in front of me have ever lived!¡±

    He transformed into a fearsome tiger with a roar! Waves of yin qi rolled off the tiger¡¯s back. Cloud and mist wrapped around its feat¡ªa water aura. Of the Five Styles, the tiger corresponded to the yin and was attributed to water. Water hearkened to the kidneys. He¡¯d summoned his second spirit!

    The kidneys¡¯ element was the water. His weren¡¯t strong enough and hadn¡¯t been tempered enough. Forcefully summoning a spirit like this might shatter them, but so what?

    Who could bear to concede at this point of the battle? He, Yuan Shuo, had dominated an era. The opponent in front of him was just someone he¡¯d defeated! If one spirit was hard pressed to take him down, how about two??

 Chapter 212: Qimei Staff, Victory! (II)

    <h4>Chapter 212: Qimei Staff, Victory! (II)</h4>

    A tiger¡¯s roar shook thend. Fire and water intermixed with each other as Yuan Shuo¡¯s ape and tiger seemed to be one. He was a creature with a tiger head and ape body. When he punched, the fist morphed into a w!

    It was frighteningly fast and wed Sun Yifei down from the sky. The blow sank into his ankle and ripped out pieces of blood and flesh. Instead of dismay, Sun Yifei was delighted!

    The second spirit! He was witnessing the second spirit! If possible, he¡¯d love to see all five spirits. However, he knew that wasn¡¯t feasible. This was Yuan Shuo¡¯s limit and he¡¯d die before making a move if he summoned a third spirit. This was enough!

    ¡°Well met!¡± Sun Yifei barked withughter. His power of fire erupted with full strength and concentration.

    Li Hao sensed something a little different from before; the young man looked at Hao Lianchuan. The deputy director¡¯s expression was shifting rapidly. The phoenix in his body seemed to sense something and agitated wildly within. It wanted to rush out and greet this ze of fire from Sun Yifei.

    Li Hao watched solemnly¡ªthe enemy had utilized an origin weapon! His teacher was in trouble. This water tiger of his was truly a bit intangible. Itcked sufficient energy of water and his teacher¡¯s kidneys were not strong enough. Prolonged battle would inflict great harm on the professor.

    The young man looked around them; his eyesnded on certain things.

    ¡°Chief.¡± He swiftly turned to Liu Long. ¡°Have the Night Watchers collect all of the mysterious power from the fallen supernaturals...¡±

    Liu Long blinked, quickly understanding Li Hao¡¯s intentions. He trotted over to Hao Lianchuan.

    Momentster, the deputy directormanded the Night Watchers to move out. The battle overhead continued and everyone watched with their hearts in their mouths, yet the Night Watchers began harvesting power from dead supernaturals.

    Others would fight for this loot in ordinary times, but no one dared do so today. No one was to move before the two concluded their duel, not even Red Moon. Hao Kong was well aware that while Yuan Shuo might show some mercy to the Night Watchers, Sun Yifei would not do the same to his organization.

    If they were identally disturbed in a moment of slight carelessness, Red Moon wouldn¡¯t be able to stand against theirbined fury. In Hao Kong¡¯s eyes, only Violet Moon would be able to intervene in the battle now.

    He was far from it.

    Joint efforts from both Celestial and Yama might barely hold off the two. It would have to take the death of one and heavy injury to the other to benefit the assembly atrge.

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes reflected his rapidly shifting thoughts as he watched people collect mysterious power. He looked at Zhang Ting out of the corner of his eye. A Night Watcher and a mid Sr! She might have a water origin weapon on her. While he wasn¡¯t sure if it was an origin weapon, he was certain that his teacher¡¯s kidneys might explode after this battle, even if Yuan Shuo won. The light energy within the mysterious power they were collecting might mend a thing or two, but it wouldn¡¯t be enough.

    It should be sufficient if he added a water origin weapon to the mix!

    Li Hao adamantly believed that his teacher could win, but swift recovery after battle was key. Otherwise, greater trouble mighte for his teacher.

    <i>My apologies... Director Hou also said that it¡¯s up to us if we want to kill you or not...</i>

    Sunderer Li Hao was actually nning on killing someone for their treasure, and a mid Sr at that! It would shock the four corners of the world if this got out, but he really was nning on doing so!

    Did it matter that Zhang Ting was from the central region and a nt in the Night Watchers?

    The thought had just taken shape in Li Hao¡¯s mind when Liu Long pressed down on his shoulder. The captain seemed to have guessed something, or he might¡¯ve simply detected the rise of killing intent in the young man.

    ¡°Hold your horses!¡± he rumbled. ¡°Everyone¡¯s waiting right now, so you should too! The bird that takes the lead is the one targeted, I¡¯m sure that Elder Yuan doesn¡¯t wish for you to take risks in this moment. Just stay here and recover from your wounds!¡±

    Li Hao ducked his head without a word, trying to get a grip on his anxiety. A second spirit! Sun Yifei was stronger than anticipated. The young man had thought that his teacher would win with one spirit, but even the arrival of a second spirit didn¡¯t cinch a victory.

    ......

    <i>Up in the sky.</i>

    Wearing a tiger¡¯s head and an ape¡¯s body, Yuan Shuomenced another powerful attack. He broke through the air in domineering fashion; his fists and legs were invincible and his body unmatched in swiftness.

    Punch followed punch, fully suppressing his opponent for once. Although Sun Yifei was forced to retreat, heughed wildly through mouthfuls of blood!

    ¡°Is this all there is to you? Not enough, Yuan Shuo, this isn¡¯t enough!¡±

    The second spirit was too insubstantial!

    Despite that, blood ran freely from newly inflicted injuries and vital liquids bled profusely from his being. Sun Yifeiughed with utter joy and erupted with a counterattack, furiouslyying about with his staff!

    <i>Bam bam bam!!</i>

    Enormous collisions resounded; both sides focused on offense. There was no defense! Attack and attack again!

    Yuan Shuo snarled after a long interval and punched so ferociously that he snapped the staff!

    The incredibly durable <i>qimei</i> staff finally shattered after hundreds of blows, after Yuan Shuo felt that his own fists were about to break!

    <i>PFFT!</i>

    Sun Yifei¡¯s chest caved in and he even up bits of his internal organs as he was thrown backward. His weapon had been obliterated by his opponent! And yet, he grinned. ¡°How... much more strength do you have left?¡±

    Yuan Shuo swayed in the air, coldly aloof in his refusal to answer. How much strength? Not much, what of it?

    ¡°Sun Yifei, you will always be someone who I defeated!¡± Yuan Shuo stepped through the air once more, keeping a steady pace.

    Sun Yifei smiled even as he coughed up more blood. ¡°It was a day like today when I lost to you... You broke my <i>qimei</i> staff, I was on the ground with heavy injuries, and you walked toward me just as you are now. I knew I would die, but I refused to die to you. Therefore... I jumped off Rift Bridge!

    ¡°Yuan Shuo, that will not happen today!¡± He shed a radiant grin. ¡°Not today! My disciple has told me that there is a chance of hope even in the most dire of circumstances. I will not give up, I have not lost as I am not dead!¡±

    Unrivaled power of fire exploded from his body! This time, it was apanied by gasps from the crowd on the ground.

    <i>Mysterious power!</i>

    Indeed, this was the same case as when Yuan Shuo gave up mysterious power upon realizing it consumed the internal force. Doing so meant cutting off his hopes of entering that world.

    Sun Yifei, however, was already a supernatural. Mysterious power was the source of his strength and the origin of the supernatural. He held a new <i>qimei</i> staff in his hands again. Just as his disciple had utilized thest of his strength to coalesce a new staff, this one was made out of Sun Yifei¡¯s mysterious power.

    If this one shattered, his mysterious power would break and he would die without a doubt. This was hisst, mad dance!

    ¡°I will not concede! I did so once before and I will not do so again!¡± Sun Yifei roared withughter. ¡°Yuan Shuo, I will not lose today even though you¡¯ve broken my staff again!¡±

    The him from that moment was dead. <i>Come break it again!</i>

    <strong>¡°KILL!¡± </strong>Sun Yifei roared and swung his staff forward. The gravely injured Qimei Staff King glowed with new vitality and emitted unparalleled strength. The <i>qimei</i> staff was upon them again!

    He wanted to win!

    Even if it was only one time and only for a split second, he wanted to win!

    ......

    ¡°He¡¯s insane!¡± Hao Lianchuan murmured to himself. Sun Yifei really had gone crazy! Thete Sr had gathered his mysterious power into a <i>qimei</i> staff. If it was broken again, his mysterious power would disperse and there would be no other oue for him other than death. He was putting his life on the line!

    Although this was a duel, Sun Yifei would potentially be crippled if he won. Even if he wasn¡¯t, he would fall to a lower cultivation level. Damage to mysterious power was too big of a loss to a supernatural.

    <i>Is this what it means to be a martial master?</i> Hao Lianchuan wondered. Yuan Shuo had asked him if he was a martial master¡ªhe was not. Thus, Yuan Shuo said that he didn¡¯t understand martial masters and that he wasn¡¯t strong enough!

    Martial dao had declined for twenty years, but who among the assembly would dare say that today?

    No one!

    Even the supernatural Sun Yifei demonstrated the bearing of a martial master in this moment. He didn¡¯t count as a pure supernatural in this battle against a martial master.

    The other Sunres next to Hao Lianchuan watched with unprecedented gravity. At this point in battle, it would be a pyrrhic victory. Yuan Shuo was inly at the end of his tether and Sun Yifei wasn¡¯t much better. Either both would go down together, or one would die and the other be incapacitated.

    They¡¯d thought that danger for this trip would only start inside the ruins. Who would¡¯ve thought that Light Ind would be no more before they began? And now two powerhouses who might be top three in Silver Moon would either die or be crippled.

    ......

    <i>Up in the sky.</i>

    A staff blow blotted out a ferocious tiger roar. Sun Yifei was growing ever more insane and berserk. Strike after strike¡ªthe staff illuminated the sky with fiery sparks.

    ¡°Concede!!¡± he howled. He just wanted to win for once! Why didn¡¯t Yuan Shuo admit defeat?! He wanted to hear Yuan Shuo forfeit even though that was an extravagant hope!

    <strong><i>BOOM!</i></strong>

    Yuan Shuo hit a cliff face and smashed arge pit out of it. Sun Yifei swept dozens of boulders into dust as the two brought their fighting into the canyon wall.

    They instantly shot back into the sky, whereupon the cliff face beneath them copsed with a rumble. The battle continued!

    The fire heart ape and fierce tiger grew more resplendent, as did the staff. Both sides were exhausting their foundations and the fight turning ever more brutal.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo!¡± Sun Yifei panted. ¡°Can you not break my staff? I know you can! C¡¯mon, break it or I break you!¡±

    <strong><i>BAM!</i></strong>

    Another m of the stuff!

    ¡°Pfft!¡± Yuan Shuo spat blood. He was lightheaded and a bit sad. ¡°I¡¯d wanted to hold a little back... and go explore the ruins with the others... But you really want me to put everything out there... The hell with this man!¡±

    ¡°Bastard!¡± Sun Yifei raged with utter disbelief. He hadn¡¯t thought that Yuan Shuo really would have more trump cards left to y. His next blow carried unbounded fury, some reluctance, and more madness. ¡°Come then! I want to die at my peak if I am to die in battle! I don¡¯t want to slowly go downhill and be beaten to death by a barrage from your fists like I¡¯m a city hoodlum!¡±

 Chapter 213: Qimei Staff, Victory! (III)

    <h4>Chapter 213: Qimei Staff, Victory! (III)</h4>

    Indeed, Sun Yifei was starting to fade, as was Yuan Shuo. Both of them couldn¡¯t maintain their condition; they were no longer in the optimal status forbat. Sun Yifei could ept dying in peak form. He didn¡¯t wish to repeat the events of yesteryear where he steadily faded in battle and then was out of strength to do anything but jump from the bridge.

    Yuan Shuo spat out another mouthful of blood. He smiled at his opponent. <i>Do I have a trump card? I sure do! The Incantation of the de of Blood! </i>But he wanted to wait for the other to start declining. That would increase his odds of killing his opponent because he was a martial master, and martial masters excelled with the physique!

    Supernaturals were strong when it came to power. Sun Yifei would not be able to maintain his current state once too much mysterious power dissipated. That would put the odds of Yuan Shuo winning at seven to three!

    The professorughed when he heard Sun Yifei¡¯s roar. ¡°You... are... damned stubborn!¡±

    <i>So stubborn that I almost have the urge to give you the best treatment I can, even if the consequences will be very severe.</i> Such was the impulse that threatened to grip Yuan Shuo. He nced down at Li Hao¡¯s position and smiled apologetically. <i>I wonder if thatst bit of sword energy will be enough if I survive this...</i>

    <i>Actually, it doesn¡¯t matter if it¡¯s enough or not. It will probably be depleted if I live through this. </i>Yuan Shuo smiled. To hell with it! He would just find a way to get more sword energy or obtain a solution if his disciple ran out.<i> I just want to run madly, just once, and keep this lunaticpany. Let¡¯s go wild together!</i>

    <i>Look at him being so adorable. He¡¯s so adorable that I want to kill him and send him on his way. </i>Yuan Shuo tightened his grip on the stone de and ruthlessly pulled on its energy. It instantly sank into his body. He rarely absorbed from the stone de like this, but how could he bear to not let Sun Yifei witness his strongest state at this point in battle?

    The fire heart ape and ferocious tiger vanished when Yuan Shuo drew on the sword. All five auras disappeared! The aura melded into the stone de, as did de energy with internal force...

    Sun Yifei didn¡¯t stop him. Instead, he furiously heightened his condition and red his fire energy with abandon. The staff in his hand was almost too red for this part of the world. He smiled with utter delight. He was so very happy!

    <i>Yuan Shuo, you old demon, you really kept something back! You think I can¡¯t take it? I can and I will! You think too little of Sun Yifei!</i>

    ......

    Wind and clouds surged in all directions. The assembly shifted with disbelief. The presences in the sky were still rising!

    ¡°Is this... really the level of a Sr?¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t believe his senses¡ªneither did the other Srs. Surely they were witnessing a battle beyond Sr! How were these two still growing in strength at this time? They didn¡¯t understand it at all! Did martial masters really possess unbounded potential?

    Li Hao, however, knew the reason behind this. The Incantation of the de of Blood. His teacher had utilized it again¡ªforcefully summoning a second spirit wasn¡¯t enough, he also used this secret method. Had his teacher gone crazy?? There wasn¡¯t enough sword energy left!

    <i>Unless...</i>

    The young man stilled when he thought of something and silently watched the battle.

    ......

    <i>In the sky.</i>

    Sun Yifei shook¡ªnot from fear, but anticipation. <i>Can you be even stronger, Yuan Shuo?</i>

    ¡°I¡¯ll send you on your way then, Sun Yifei!¡± Yuan Shuo was ready now. The stone de in his hand magnified to a de the color of blood. He spoke in solemn tones, ¡°Go well to the underworld!¡±

    ¡°The same to you!¡± Sun Yifei barked withughter and struck with his staff!

    This blow surpassed everything before and indeed, everything in this world. It seemed to rip through the void. Despite being very slow, it came with such prodigious pressure that those below felt they would suffocate!

    ¡°Die!¡± Yuan Shuo roared, shing with his de and leaving behind a bloody shadow that was several hundreds of meters long!

    His de struck forward! This stroke also exceeded his capabilities. Staff and de mmed into each other in the air. They didn¡¯t make a sound¡ªonly light glimmered around thebatants.

    The staff suddenly broke. It didn¡¯t snap from the middle, but was sliced into two. The de cut right through the <i>qimei</i> staff that was made of everything Sun Yifei. Unabated, the keen de qi continued forward and descended!

    Sun Yifei grinned to see his opponent¡¯s weapone down on him. He suddenly seemed to lose his mind and teleport away from his spot. He vanished in the split second that the de descended, before a bloody trail appeared on his head.

    He magically reappeared next to a Yuan Shuo who was beginning to feel weakness set in. Sun Yifei¡¯s grin broadened, the bright-red line on his head etching itself deeper. He stretched out a hand and punched Yuan Shuo in the throat.

    It was such an impotent punch that Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t even feel difort. He looked at Sun Yifei, who looked back at him. After a beat, the Qimei Staff King forced out with difficulty, ¡°I... win... You... jump...¡±

    <i>Jump from the bridge! When I lost, I jumped! I¡¯ll give you a chance instead of killing you, jump!</i>

    Though his body was starting to fall apart, a hint of pleading entered his eyes.<i> Jump! I win! Even though I¡¯m already dead, I still win!</i>

    He wanted to see Old Demon Yuan fall at his feet and be forced into jumping off the bridge!

    As Yuan Shuo looked at his age-old foe, he suddenly smiled and dismissed the strength in his body. He abruptly sagged with weakness and fell off the bridge.

    Sun Yifei looked down, seeing Yuan Shuo jump and fall to the ground...

    ¡°I win!¡± He smiled, pieces of flesh dropping from him as cracks fractured his body. He¡¯d won... Even if that punch wouldn¡¯t have killed Yuan Shuo, he was still confident of crushing the man¡¯s throat given thetter¡¯s condition. If Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t die from that, he would be even more greatly injured.

    But... what was the point in that?

    He saw Yuan Shuo smash into the ground¡ªhe saw it with his own eyes.<i> </i>He¡¯d glimpsed the second spirit and witnessed the splendors of the next level beyond Dominator. He¡¯d observed Yuan Shuo¡¯s strongest stroke and reduced the man to a bedraggled state...

    It was worth it, even though he was going to forfeit his life here. He¡¯d finally returned to his roots on this trip back to Silver Moon and defeated an internal demon of more than twenty years. There was nothing clouding his heart anymore.

    <i>Moxian, you and I bore witness to the rise of martial dao!</i>

    Finally, Sun Yifei gave voice to hisstugh. ¡°Qimei Staff, victory!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A ball of fire radiated the void with an explosion. The Qimei Staff King triumphed over the Five Styles Beast King and was rewarded withplete annihtion!

    ......

    Bleak silence filled the surroundings. Yuan Shuo broke an uncountable number of bones when he crashed into the ground, but he raised his head all the same. He, too, smiled at that fellow who¡¯d given everything in that duel.

    There was one less old friend that roamed the world now. <i>You win! The Qimei Staff wins!</i>

    Yuan Shuo smiled radiantly and vanished in the next second. He disappeared on the spot¡ªno one saw where he went. A startled gasp echoed in the canyon as a de appeared on a cliff face.

    The de struck!

    It was fast, impossibly fast, incredibly brutal, and unountably ruthless! It exceeded all the blows before it!

    ¡°Bastard!¡± Fear intermixed with a furious howl that rang through the perimeter. <i>Red Moon!</i>

    Hao Kong of Red Moon looked on with dismay, his mysterious power exploding like it was worthless.

    But it was toote.

    His head hit the ground with a thud!

    Disaster hade so quickly that a Sr hadn¡¯t been able to flee. He was decapitated in a split second!

    Off in the distance, Li Hao remained impassive. He¡¯d guessed this would happen. He guessed it as soon as he felt there wasn¡¯t enough sword energy for his teacher after the Incantation of the de of Blood was employed. His teacher would kill instead, and kill those of Red Moon!

    What could teacher and disciple do without sword energy? The scarlet shadows were almost as good! If those of Red Moon didn¡¯t take advantage of this time to flee, they were consigning themselves to doom so long as his teacher had the ability to fight. Yuan Shuo would make full use of the lingering effects of the secret method!

    ¡°Yuan Shuo!¡± Powerhouses rebuked from all sides. The supernaturals of Celestial, Yama, and even the Sword Sect converged together instead of running. They were terrified and worried!

    Yuan Shuo had gone mad to kill Hao Kong! Did he not want to stay in Silver Moon anymore?? The organization had a deep feud with him to begin with, but now he killed Hao Kong in broad daylight withplete abandon... Red Moon would take revenge, there would absolutely be a reckoning!

    But did Yuan Shuo care?

    Not at all!

    He executed Hao Kong with one stroke and shed his weapon through the air, slicing off head after head and executing supernatural after supernatural. He bared his teeth in a feral manner.

    ¡°I let Sun Yifei have that move, but what are you lot worth?¡± He swept the premises in an imperial gaze. ¡°What are you lot worth?¡±

    <i>Who do you think you are? Are you worthy of watching me fight? I¡¯ll kill Red Moon members if I wish, what can you do about it? The Incantation consumes too many resources, how am I supposed to recover from that if I don¡¯t kill some of you?</i>

    Heughed wildly as the bloody de burst with scintiting light. None of the others saw anything, but Li Hao¡¯s eyes captured the de absorbing countless shadows. inly, his teacher had learned a few methods of how to use the stone de from Hou Xiaochen. He was absorbing scarlet shadows directly from their handlers. Li Hao saw a particrly big one disappear¡ªthat one had belonged to Hao Kong.

    Yuan Shuoughed uproariously after ughtering the Red Moon delegation and vanished into the air. His voice echoed in Li Hao¡¯s ears, ¡°I can¡¯t deal with this, so I¡¯m gonna run. Hou Xiaochen will take care of the ensuing danger!¡±

    He was already gone. Li Hao stiffened with surprise. <i>He¡¯s... gonna run?</i>

    ¡°Oh, right, don¡¯t forget to create a memorial tablet for Sun Yifei...¡± came Yuan Shuo¡¯sst words.

    Everyone around the perimeter was frozen with horror and keptpletely quiet until they were certain that Yuan Shuo would not reappear. Only then did faint breathing sounds reappear¡ªaplicated mix of mostly fear hung on everyone¡¯s faces.

    The battles they¡¯d witnessed today were hard to believe!

    The Qimei Staff King died, the Five Styles King ughtered the Red Moon delegation, Light Ind was no more.... All of this would swiftly spread to the four corners and stun anyone that heard of them. It would shake even the central region!

    There was Summoner of Spirit above Dominator of Thousands!

 Chapter 214: Another Blaze of Fire in Chaotic Times (I)

    <h4>Chapter 214: Another ze of Fire in Chaotic Times (I)</h4>

    The duel was over.

    A sh that everyone thought would roll right over Yuan Shuo had instead demonstrated the domineering might of the Five Styles. Li Hao killed Sun Moxian and Yuan Shuo broke through Dominator to kill Sun Yifei.

    The souls of powerhouses from the central region had finallye home. A falling leaf would eventually return to its roots. Sun Yifei¡¯s battle was destined to leave a deep mark on the martial world of Silver Moon.

    And yet, the ensuring ripples from this duel were only just beginning. The surroundings were quiet for just a moment. Someone bounded into the air the next second and shot for the upper skies, to where Sun Yifei had died. Thete Sr didn¡¯t leave anything behind when he died; there was only some powerful mysterious power that¡¯d yet to disperse. However, a broken staff could be seen shimmering in and out of sight.

    A <i>qimei</i> staff!

    Not the first one he¡¯d wielded, but the er coalesced through mysterious power!

    This was impossible to fathom! It was made from mental will so strong that it left part of the staff behind in thest possible second.

    This was now a treasure!

    Everyone knew that it stemmed from ate Sr and was crafted from powerful will and unparalleled battle intent in hisst moments of life. Even though it wasn¡¯t a supernatural object, it exceeded many supernatural objects.

    One person making a move for it was swiftly followed by many more. There were Srs and Sunres¡ªthose weaker didn¡¯t dare attempt to im it. Even Li Hao stirred with bloodlust.

    <i>None of you are worthy of touching it!</i>

    Indeed, they weren¡¯t worthy.

    Although Sun Yifei had died in battle and although he was an enemy, Yuan Shuo had respected him after he fell. Li Hao also considered the man a striking martial master. What right did these people have to take the weapon of a grandmaster??

    He sprang into the air with Steris in hand, throwing himself at a Sunre. A loud roar split the air before he caught up to the other, ¡°All of you, piss off!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan soared into the void amid a pir of fiery light. ¡°How dare you! How dare you touch that?!¡±

    He was enraged beyond belief, but he didn¡¯t know why. Perhaps it was because Sun Yifei had been a fire supernatural? Hao Lianchuan smashed out a fiery punch that illuminated the area. While the Sunres backed away, there were a few Srs on the scene. Srs from Yama, Celestial, and the Sword Sect were present.

    An aloof middle-aged man from Yama said coldly, ¡°Yuan Shuo has left. Are you going to stop us in his stead? You think too highly of yourself, Hao Lianchuan, and think too highly of the Night Watchers!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan was ready to unleash his fury¡ªhe wanted to bring out the ming Phoenix Spear andmence a glorious ughter!

    <i>Damn it! Who do you think you are?? Do you think you still hold a great advantage after the elimination of Red Moon?</i>

    The Night Watcher deputy director red at Hong Yitang. ¡°Do you want to fight for it too??¡±

    Hong Yitang¡¯s brow furrowed and he shifted away slightly. ¡°I don¡¯t mean to vie for the treasure, I just don¡¯t wish to see big brother Sun disturbed in death. If that half of the <i>qimei</i> staff goes to me, I promise I will not use it. I will have someone take it to the central region and deliver it to Sun Hongxiu!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan frowned as well when he heard those words. They were not pleasing to the ear. Deliver it to Sun Hongxiu? Wouldn¡¯t that girle for Li Hao if she really gained something from it, or was bolstered by Sun Yifei¡¯s dying intent? Her threat had been voiced for all to hear, there was a blood feud between the two youngsters now!

    Although Hao Lianchuan pitied Sun Yifei, Yuan Shuo and Li Hao were the ones that belonged to the Night Watcher camp. Of that, he was well aware of. No matter if Hong Yitang truly meant to deliver the item to Sun Hongxiu or not, he could not have the treasure.

    ¡°The rules of the martial world apply, Hong Yitang! Sun Yifei died to Yuan Shuo, so his <i>qimei </i>staff is loot that belongs to the professor! Yuan Shuo has left, but his final disciple is still here. How does the treasure ever go to you?¡±

    Hong Yitang¡¯s frown remained on his face and he nodded. ¡°Very well, I do not have the intention to seize another person¡¯s possession. Whether you believe me or not, I would not have imed big brother Sun¡¯s relics. We are both of the martial world!¡±

    He stepped aside and shifted a sizable distance back. It might be out of prudence, it might be a trueck of desire to scrabble over the treasure. In this moment, he elected to give up the fight.

    That left three Srs facing each other in the clearing¡ªthe cold-faced middle-aged man from Yama and a mysterious cloaked individual from Celestial. Thetter scanned the surroundings and soundlessly disappeared on the spot. They reappeared in the middle of the Celestial delegation and waved their hand. The entire contingent swiftly vanished.

    They relinquished their ambitions as well.

    The Yama powerhouse paused with a frown. He wasn¡¯t afraid of Hao Lianchuan, but since the Celestial delegation had left and Hong Yitang of the Sword Sect watched from the side... Although Yuan Shuo had departed, he could potentiallye back. Despite the crowd specting that he¡¯d had to flee due to severe injuries, one had to be on guard against the old demon.

    ¡°The Night Watchers... Yuan Shuo...¡± he murmured before breaking through the air. The Yama powerhouses on the ground also withdrew from the clearing. With their leader gone, they didn¡¯t dare linger.

    They needed to digest the insights from today¡¯s battles and spread the word of everything they¡¯d seen. As for the treasure that Sun Yifei left behind... the Night Watchers may not be able to retain possession of it either. Someone else would vie for it, if not them. There might be secrets to be gleaned from that half of the stick. Yuan Shuo¡¯s secrets, information about Summoner of Spirit, and why Sun Yifei was able to leave a portion of his mysterious power behind when he died.

    There could be a significant portion of valuable knowledge to be discovered from the treasure.

    The small organizations lost their nerve when Yama left as well. They scattered for safety and pelted out of the area. Who knew if the expedition tomorrow would stillmence after how the battles ended today? Some of the small organizations already wanted to withdraw.

    Should they retreat? It was too dangerous!

    This was supposed to be a simple exploration of a ruin. Therger organizations would cut their share of the meat while they ate the scraps. But now look at the situation¡ªLight Ind was eliminated before they saw any sort of scrap! They¡¯d be the meat, and Red Moon had lost two Srs in a row! If they added Brokensky from before, it meant that the organization had lost three Srs in Silver Moon in quick session.

    Srs were a rare sight before, but now that they appeared with increasing regrity, they didn¡¯te with the expected air of invincibility. They were killed one after another, and by the same person!

    It would seem that Old Demon Yuan¡¯s reputation was not snatched out of thin air. He¡¯d gone from Brokensky to Sun Yifei and to Hao Kong. If the assembly also knew about Qiao Feilong, how horrified would they be to learn that Yuan Shuo averaged a Sr every ten days?

    They¡¯d already forgotten about one person¡ªthe master of Light Ind! He was a renowned powerhouse and a Heaven Favored. However, he¡¯d been too insignificant in the day¡¯s matters. Hao Kongmanded more mental space than he did. Thetter had Red Moon in his corner; everyone knew that the organization wouldn¡¯t let things rest after his death. But the master of Light Ind? Forget it. He was dead and his organization eradicated. Who cared about him?

    Therefore, everyone forgot about him. A Sr Heaven Favored was less memorable in death than Sun Moxian.

    ......

    <i>In the sky.</i>

    When Hao Lianchuanid hands on the half of the staff, it struggled very briefly. As hended on the group, someone approached him¡ªLi Hao.

    The young man looked at Hao Lianchuan, the deputy director looked back at him. After a moment, Li Hao said in a muffled voice, ¡°Thank you, Director Hao!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t know what to say. What did that mean?

    ¡°Thank you for retrieving the staff for me, Director Hao!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Ah, he understood now. This was shaping up to an awkward situation. He actually wanted to keep the item and send it to headquarters for the director to study. But... he¡¯d just said that this was Yuan Shuo¡¯s battle loot.

    ording to the rules, it belonged to Yuan Shuo and by extension, Li Hao.

    ¡°Ah, Li Hao, this...¡±

    ¡°Thank you, Director Hao!¡± Li Hao repeated in a muffled voice.

    ¡°......¡±

    The young man wanted that half of the <i>qimei</i> staff. Not because the item was a treasure¡ªhe had one himself and didn¡¯t fully understand his sword yet. It was because the staff had been the weapon of his teacher¡¯s enemy, a person who¡¯d pulled his punch at thest possible second. The young man had seen it clearly.

    <i>This part of the staff...</i> Li Hao wanted to take it and possibly send it back to the central region when the timing was ripe. He would return it to the heir of the Qimei Staff King.

    Indeed! Even though he knew that she would not be grateful and even burn to take his head, he still wanted to send it back to her.

    The person may be dead, but the heritage lived on. There was still someone to pass on the Qimei Staff King¡¯s inheritance to. Was this desire trite and cliche?

    It was as he thought before, very cliche. It was one thing to not fully eliminate the enemy, but to return an item that contained the Qimei Staff King¡¯s lingering will? Was he a fool?

    Yes he was, but weren¡¯t all martial masters like this? He was a martial master!

    Li Hao¡¯s blood had not yet cooled at this stage in life.

    Hao Lianchuan floundered for the right words. ¡°There are too many people watching this right now. I¡¯ll give it to you when we return to headquarters.¡±

    ¡°Thank you!¡± the young man expressed. He nced up at the sky and then at Sun Moxian¡¯s grave in the distance. Li Hao walked over, looking for anything that could prove the Qimei Staff King¡¯s identity.

    It couldn¡¯t be too precious, like that half of the <i>qimei </i>staff. There would be a daily stream of grave robbers if he buried that in there.

    Li Hao found some scraps of cloth momentster; they were left behind from the earlier battle. There was also a tiny portion of a staff¡ªthe first one from the very beginning. It was such a tiny stub that it wouldn¡¯t draw any attention.

    The young man buried all of these things into the newly wrought grave. He paused in deep thought after locating arge stone, then etched just a few characters on it.

    <i>Qimei Staff King Sun Yifei. Qimei Staff King disciple Sun Moxian.</i>

    There was nothing about their achievements, battle records, dates, or any other details. This was enough.

    A person appeared by Li Hao¡¯s side¡ªHong Yitang. He was with his daughter and sighed at the tombstone. ¡°Your wish was granted, big brother Sun.¡± He inclined his body. ¡°You witnessed the birth of Summoner of Spirit. I think you went willingly when the final moment came for you. The martial dao legacy of Silver Moon is not broken...¡±

    A mixture of emotions assailed him. They were one more fewer now.

 Chapter 215: Another Blaze of Fire in Chaotic Times (II)

    <h4>Chapter 215: Another ze of Fire in Chaotic Times (II)</h4>

    ¡°You¡¯re not bad yourself.¡± Hong Yitang looked at Li Hao. ¡°Don¡¯t think too much. This is how martial masters should be! The martial world does not exist anymore, but it will spring to life again once your master walks out of Silver City. I believe that the legends of Silver Mono¡¯s martial world will continue onward!

    ¡°Take care of yourself, Li Hao. Your master killed Sun Yifei and broke through the shackles of Dominator to reach Summoner. Now that he¡¯s left, I¡¯m sure that people will soone for you if they can¡¯t find him.

    ¡°Whether it¡¯s to spar in a practice match or to kill you, they won¡¯t let you rest easy. You must know that martial masters have declined!¡±

    It was adviceden with meaning and some sorrow. Martial masters had been reced. Their dao had been supnted by the glorious supernatural world. Would it tolerate the return of their predecessors now that an anomaly had appeared?

    Not necessarily!

    The rise of the supernatural world was apanied with murders of many martial masters, and many on the martial path were forced to cross over. If it was now proven that martial dao was instead superior... wouldn¡¯t that be a p in the face to many? Particrly the martial masters that¡¯d switched to the supernatural track.

    Not everyone was Sun Yifei and hoped for the renewed rise of martial dao. Some wanted nothing more than to avoid that possibility. They loathed the idea! It indicated that the choice they¡¯d made all those years ago was wrong.

    No one liked to admit they were wrong!

    Thus, the full copse of martial dao was much more in line with their desires. Hong Yitang was also a martial master-turned-supernatural and could fully understand the mentality. He left unvoiced the bit of regret that set in when he saw how strong Yuan Shuo had be. As difficult as the martial master path was, were they actually stronger than supernaturals?

    The thought quickly dispersed, leaving behind regret that could not be erased.

    He felt himself to be an open-minded individual who didn¡¯t nitpick at details. If he wasn¡¯t, he would¡¯ve suffered from the humiliation of not answering Yuan Shuo¡¯s challenges back in the day. If even he felt a bit of regret at the path he¡¯d chosen, what of the other martial masters who¡¯d converted to the supernatural path?

    ¡°This junior understands!¡± Li Hao looked at Hong Yitang and slightly bent at the waist. ¡°But I am not afraid if theye in an honorable and open manner! My master hacked his way to safety and so can I! If they want to assassinate or ambush me, then Swordmaster Hong thinks too little of the Night Watchers!¡±

    The young man smiled faintly. ¡°The Night Watchers are found throughout the ny-nine provinces and it is still Skystar Dynasty that rules the world. Would-be attackers have to first get through the Night Watchers if they want to kill me, and even if the agency agrees, these people need to remember that my teacher is still alive!¡±

    It wasn¡¯t like he was dead!

    ¡°So long as you have your own preparations in mind,¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°The expedition tomorrow may not be smooth sailing. Even if it is, you best not enter the ruins. It¡¯s too dangerous.¡±

    ¡°Thank you for your warning, Swordmaster Hong!¡± Li Hao turned to Hong Qing next to him. ¡°Miss Hong Qing, I¡¯m sorry that the sword broke. I will have a new sword forged when I return to headquarters and deliver it to you.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± Hong Qing looked curiously at him and shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s just an ordinary sword, not a supernatural object. It doesn¡¯t matter that it broke.¡± She couldn¡¯t contain her curiosity. ¡°Have you really only cultivated for three years?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Impressive!¡± Hong Qing marveled. His tenure really was three years; he was a genius! It¡¯d been more than ten years since she started cultivating as a young girl. Being ate Sunderer was very impressive, but the person in front of her was able to kill Sun Moxian after three years of training... Sun Moxian had been a genius who¡¯dprehended the aura and was about to set foot into Dominator!

    What a pity that those two martial masters had died today. She would feel the same if Li Hao and Yuan Shuo had died. They were all geniuses and powerhouses on the path of martial dao. She would be saddened no matter who died.

    ¡°You praise me too highly!¡± Li Hao left without another word. He didn¡¯t like chatting with strangers. As friendly as Hong Yitang came across, to know a man¡¯s exterior was not to know his heart. Who knew what the swordmaster-turned-supernatural¡¯s real thoughts were?

    ......

    The others were picking up the pieces when Li Hao returned to the Night Watcher camp. The Red Moon delegation was dead and the battlefield needed to be cleaned up. There was mysterious power to be collected. No one else dared conduct the task, but the Night Watchers didn¡¯t mind. The me for everything was falling on their heads regardless!

    Outsiders didn¡¯t think the same as Yuan Shuo, despite the professor saying that he wasn¡¯t a Night Watcher. In their eyes, he became one of them when Hou Xiaochen took a stand to protect the old man. In that case, Hao Lianchuan would take full advantage of the situation.

    No one could see the scarlet shadows that Yuan Shuo had taken after killing the Red Moon members. Therefore, they all thought that he¡¯d killed for the sake of killing. Plenty of mysterious power could still be found in the field as numerous powerhouses had died today. Fire energy dissipated in the sky, but no one dared collect it. Even though Hao Lianchuan felt it a bit of a pity, he elected to give it up.

    While Sun Yifei was part of Red Moon, Hao Lianchuan admired the martial glory disyed in battle today. A powerhouse like him should not be insulted or tormented after death. This had nothing to do with which faction everyone belonged to. It was simple respect.

    Li Hao would hold the entire organization in high regard if they were all like this. Sadly, those like Sun Yifei were few and far in between.

    ......

    Wang Ming sidled up to Li Hao with a look of dejection. ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought that the duel would end like this, senior brother!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>Huh.</i>

    Li Hao was stunned, Liu Long was stunned. Liu Yan was stunned, and even Hao Lianchuan was stunned like he was meeting Wang Ming for the first time.

    <i>What was that? Senior brother?</i>

    ¡°Senior brother,¡± Wang Ming continued in worried tones, like he didn¡¯t see their expressions. ¡°Did teacher leave because his wounds are too severe? We all saw the injuries he suffered. Once word of today¡¯s battle gets out, there¡¯s going to be an endless number of people who want to kill him or force the secrets of the next cultivation level out of him. Teacher is in a very precarious position. Do you think we can help him, senior brother?¡±

    ¡°Ole Wang...¡± Li Hao responded with difficulty.

    ¡°Call me Little Ming!¡± Wang Ming corrected firmly. ¡°The proprieties of martial masters cannot be abolished. I did not understand before, but I¡¯ve felt it firmly today that the hierarchy of seniority must be respected. You are my senior brother, I am your junior brother. Even if I wasn¡¯t a little younger than you, you still shouldn¡¯t call me Ole Wang. Just call me Little Ming!¡±

    The group didn¡¯t know what to say, but was there anything to be argued about this?

    <i>No.</i>

    Wang Ming was indeed Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple. An honorary disciple was a disciple all the same. When Yuan Shuo wanted to pave the road for Li Hao, he didn¡¯t anticipate his student progressing so swiftly. Neither did he think that he¡¯d set foot into Summoner of Spirit this quickly. The three honorary disciples he¡¯d epted as an insurance policy now found themselves with a bit of fame.

    Disciples of the Five Styles!

    An odd look shone out of Hao Lianchuan¡¯s eyes and he quickly smiled. ¡°That¡¯s right, Li Hao, let us know if there¡¯s anything we can do to help. As for Wang Ming... converse with your senior brother often. There is still a bright future in martial dao.¡±

    He was happy to endorse this development and even felt a bit of schadenfreude. He¡¯d found it slightly inappropriate when Yuan Shuo forced them to acknowledge him as their teacher, but now look at the situation! <i>Heh, Yuan Shuo, you didn¡¯t think about this possibility, did you? Your honorary disciples are the ones sticking to you now.</i>

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with anything. This was how Wang Ming was sometimes.

    ¡°Don¡¯t call me senior brother in front of others,¡± he said casually. ¡°Don¡¯t think it¡¯s a good deal you¡¯re getting. You should keep in mind that however many want teacher dead is however many want me dead too.¡±

    Martial masters, supernaturals, Red Moon... There might even be Night Watchers who didn¡¯t want Yuan Shuo alive. Li Hao thought back to the conversation with Hou Xiaochen¡ªif those in charge continued to force his hand, he would rebel!

    That would be a horrifying turn of events indeed. And now there was a mid Sr in their vicinity, silently keeping them under observation. It would easily raise attention if he said too much.

    His teacher hadn¡¯t absorbed sword energy when he left¡ªhe only took the scarlet shadows. Who knew if they could help him recover? And with the forceful summoning of the second spirit, his kidneys must be extremely damaged. Li Hao was rather worried.

    He understood why his teacher had run. If Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t run now and word spread before he returned to full health, he¡¯d be a sitting target! It was too easy to be surrounded in the canyon.

    ¡°We¡¯re in a difficult spot with the ruins then!¡± A solemn Hao Lianchuan also thought of these possibilities. ¡°News may be spreading as we speak, so I need to report this to Director Hou immediately! Li Hao, you¡¯re with me!¡±

    He led the young man back to the Night Watcher camp. The matter seemed beyond his abilities now¡ªnot seemed, it was entirely beyond his abilities. They were in enormous trouble! Thank goodness Yuan Shuo had gone on the run. Trouble would be greater if he hadn¡¯t.

    If Yuan Shuo had stayed, the three great organizations might send their premier elites at the fastest speed possible. Reinforcements woulde from neighboring provinces at the very least, if not the central region depending on the distance.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    The news had indeed spread.

    <i>At the foot of Mt. White Moon, in a tea house.</i>

    The Revolution King had just reached the foot of the mountain when a mirror in his pocket vibrated. He pulled it out for a look and grew more solemn the longer he looked at it. A leaden expression hung on his face at the end.

    There wasn¡¯t much information, but it was extremely shocking.

    Yuan Shuo had broken through to Summoner of Spirit. There was a path for martial masters beyond Dominator! He had in Sun Yifei despite thetter utilizing an origin weapon. Yuan Shuo¡¯s strength approached the limits of Sr!

    This was terrifying news!

    There was an addendum that Yuan Shuo was heavily injured and fled. Before he ran, he ughtered the entire Red Moon delegation, as well as Hao Kong.

    That put a smile on the Revolution King¡¯s face. It wasn¡¯t Yama¡¯s people that¡¯d been hurt. The three great organizations both worked together and against each other. It was always a cause for celebration when one of the others died. Granted, he wasn¡¯t going to jeer at Red Moon for their loss.

    Moments away from ascending the mountain, he suddenly turned around and took to the sky, heading for Rift Canyon. Curbing Hou Xiaochen was no longer important, he needed to leave!

    A furious roar echoed around the mountain momentster as a violet figure floated into the sky. Violet Moon of the Red Moon organization!

    She¡¯d also received word despite her delegation being ughtered. One of the supernaturals at the scene had told her. It didn¡¯t matter who¡ªRed Moon¡¯s intelligencework had always been strong.

 Chapter 216: Another Blaze of Fire in Chaotic Times (III)

    <h4>Chapter 216: Another ze of Fire in Chaotic Times (III)</h4>

    <i>The peak of Mt. White Moon.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen was drinking tea in the gazebo at the mountain¡¯s summit when Manager Yu hastily brought a screen to him. ¡°An urgent report from Director Hao!¡±

    ¡°Put him through!¡± Hou Xiaochen already knew something was amiss. He sensed it when Violet Moon and the Revolution King left. What was it that set them off in such a hurry? Had Hao Lianchuan taken out the ming Phoenix Spear and they were on their way to seize it?

    This possibility had been among his calctions, so it was fine that they left! An origin weapon wasn¡¯t that easy to snatch; Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t that worried.

    He still had the peace of mind to smile when his subordinate¡¯s face appeared on the screen. ¡°Howe you¡¯re not running yet?¡± <i>What are you still doing there after the origin weapon¡¯s been exposed?</i>

    ¡°Run?¡± Hao Lianchuan blinked, then hastily asked, ¡°Should we retreat, director?¡±

    ¡°What else?¡±

    ¡°But...¡± Hao Lianchuan protested. ¡°This is great timing. Red Moon has suffered heavy losses, so this is an opportunity for us.¡±

    ¡°Give me a brief overview.¡± Hou Xiaochen seemed to be inplete control. He¡¯d predicted a lot of things, so he had arrangements in ce even if the unexpected happened.

    ¡°Director, Yuan Shuo has advanced to Summoner of Spirit and located the martial path beyond Dominator. He killed Sun Yifei, exterminated the Red Moon delegation, obliterated Light Ind...¡±

    <i>Crack!</i>

    A tea cup snapped to pieces.

    ¡°Director?¡± Hao Lianchuan asked with confusion. Didn¡¯t the director already know about this?

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Hou Xiaochen inclined his head without a change in expression. ¡°What else?¡±

    Shock roiled in his heart. What was this? Yuan Shuo... a Summoner of Spirit?

    The professor triumphing over Sun Yifei hadn¡¯t been entirely out of his expectations. He¡¯d considered Yuan Shuo being able to draw on tremendous power with the ming Phoenix Spear in hand. That was a very real possibility.

    Yuan Shuo erupting with one of the mysterious weapons of the eight families and defeating Sun Yifei was also a possibility.

    On the other hand, Yuan Shuo falling in defeat and having to run for his life had also been a consideration.

    The only eventuality that Hou Xiaochen hadn¡¯t given thought to was that Yuan Shuo would kill Sun Yifei on the basis of pure strength. Indeed, no one, not even the gods, would¡¯ve regarded it as a viable likelihood. The professor had only just progressed and somehow swiftly found the path beyond Dominator a monthter, then set foot in it!

    Summoner of Spirit??

    Hou Xiaochen was truly astonished, shocked, and incredulous. How was this possible?! And yet... he¡¯d been so coolly unconcerned earlier that he couldn¡¯t disy how taken aback he was now.

    Only Manager Yu could see that the normallyposed director had almost crushed his tea cup to dust.

    ¡°Director, Yuan Shuo has fled with grave wounds after he eradicated the Red Moon delegation. Do we give up the ruins, abandon the expedition, and retreat right now?¡±

    <i>Retreat?</i>

    <i>Retreat your ass!</i>

    Rift Canyon would soon be the center of attention. They couldn¡¯t leave now¡ªthat would be the end of the ruins. There would be vast numbers of powerhousesing along shortly to explore the secrets of the canyon. The Night Watchers had toplete their own excavation before outsiders arrived, and Hou Xiaochen needed to be there in person!

    He had to give up even White Moon City. It wasn¡¯t just him¡ªnone of the three great organizations or his superiors had effort to spare for the capital now. Who in the world would care about White Moon City after all that?

    They needed to find Yuan Shuo, or barring the professor, his disciple would do too!

    ¡°I¡¯ll be there immediately!¡± Hou Xiaochen hung up and barrelled down the mountain. ¡°Contact the local army headquarters!¡±

    Manager Yu swiftly dialed themunicator and gave it to her superior when it connected. ¡°Set everything aside. Move your camp to Rift Canyon and cordon it off. Cover the canyon with your weapons! In addition, go to level onebat readiness. You can use those things at critical moments andy down a wide range of attacks!¡±

    ¡°Director Hou?¡±

    ¡°Trust me. There¡¯s going to be some trouble this time.¡±

    ¡°Alright, understood, but... it¡¯s just that if we do this, it might lead to negative consequences.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, we¡¯re ready. If worstes to worst... we¡¯ll just follow that particr n.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen turned things over in his mind and contemted for a bit. He dialed another number. ¡°Make it widely known and publicized in all avenues that Yuan Shuo has broken through to Summoner of Spirit. He has set foot beyond Dominator and killedte Sr Sun Yifei with three moves! He is now headed to the central region to y Ying Hongyue with the strength of a Summoner. Ying Hongyue is to clean his neck and scrub behind his ears so Yuan Shuo can take his head off!

    ¡°Also, Yuan Shuo is of the mind to re-form Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. He is willing to pass on his knowledge to any who share his path and is willing to kill Red Moon members. He will ept them all...¡±

    Manager Yu¡¯s eyes darted around rapidly as she listened. Was this... appropriate? Of course, this would more than likely ensure that Ying Hongyue and his people would keep their eyes fixed on Yuan Shuo and wait for him in the central region. Most of the martial masters in thends would also seek out the professor there. Whether their goal was to kill Yuan Shuo or Red Moon members... that would be a tough call.

    As for whether or not people would believe what they heard... why wouldn¡¯t they? This tone was straight out of Old Demon Yuan¡¯s ybook. Anyone who was familiar with him wouldn¡¯t suspect a thing.

    Having fired off a series of instructions, Hou Xiaochen regained his calm. He wasn¡¯t as astounded or disbelieving as before.

    ¡°Patch me through to the central region!¡± he said after some more thought. ¡°Tell them we need backup and have them send a couple Novas with origin weapons. We won¡¯t be able to hold off the onught otherwise!¡±

    ¡°Are we really going to send that kind of report?¡± Manager Yu shook with surprise.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°Make the report just like that! Also notify them to support Yuan Shuo when he¡¯s in the central region. He¡¯s secretly sworn fealty to the Night Watchers. Tell headquarters that he¡¯s agreed to give us theplete method for Summoner of Spirit if we help him kill Ying Hongyue. Not only that, but he¡¯ll resolve some supernatural problems for us and teach us the more advanced version of the Breathing Method of the Five Styles...¡±

    It was a bunch of random bullshit, but it sounded exceedingly like what Yuan Shuo would say.

    ¡°As for me, I am forced to travel to Rift Canyon in my injured state. Tell headquarters to bring a Nascent Soul Pill for my wounds when theye or I won¡¯t be able to hold on for long!¡±

    Manager Yu swiftly took note of all of themands; her veneration for the director deepened the more she heard. He was incredible!

    ¡°Finally...¡± Hou Xiaochen looked into the distance as he stopped halfway down the mountain. ¡°Publicize another piece of news that the blood pearls of Red Moon are the key to Yuan Shuo breaking through. Anyone with an origin weapon can extract it¡ªannounce the method of how they can do so!¡±

    He grinned widely as Manager Yu shivered with horror. Once this word traveled, any organization with an origin weapon would be tempted, no matter supernatural or martial master. Whether it was for study or hoarding, they would absolutely be enticed by the notion of the blood pearls.

    This piece of news wouldn¡¯t have been useful before because no one would believe it. But now? Everyone would!

    ¡°Make sure you¡¯ve got the details straight. He killed Brokensky first, seized the blood pearl, then quickly advanced. After his grave injuries from the duel, he killed Hao Kong for another blood pearl. Yuan Shuo might be an even stronger powerhouse the next time he reappears in the public eye. All of this must be leaked. From the trajectory and speed of his improvement, this is the treasure that is most suitable for his breakthrough!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s mind spun rapidly, creating scheme after scheme in a split second. They were impervious and could stand up to close scrutiny.

    ¡°Also, let it be known that the Night Watchers gifted him a Sr level blood pearl before. He went into closed door cultivation for many days after receiving it. All of this needs to be shared in great detail through the nts and covert agents we have in ce!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Manager Yu¡¯s respect continued to reach new levels, as did her silent sorrow for Red Moon. Even if the organization could withstand the pressure, they wouldn¡¯t be able to cause trouble for Silver Moon or Silver City in the short term. They needed to take care of themselves first!

    ......

    Li Hao was blithely unaware of everything, or he would¡¯ve considered his teacher with even greater admiration. No wonder his teacher had said that the ensuing trouble would be Hou Xiaochen¡¯s to clean up. inly, his teacher felt that Hou Xiaochen was able to resolve these difficulties and lower danger to the greatest degree possible.

    Hou Xiaochen lived up to expectations. It took only the blink of an eye for him to rattle off several courses of action. After all of the news was made public, it wouldn¡¯t be Yuan Shuo or Li Hao in the hot seat, but Red Moon.

    Blood pearls helped one break through and killing Red Moon members would reap the method to advance. Anyone with ambition would take some action. How would they be willing to let Red Moon members go without killing some to experiment?

    Even if the information was possibly false, there would still be powerhouses willing to experiment. There absolutely would be! It might turn out that Red Moon experts wouldn¡¯t be able to right the ship either.

    ......

    The news spread in certain circles before Hou Xiaochen arrived at Rift Canyon.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo has broken through to Summoner of Spirit and be greater than Dominator. He killed Sun Yifei who was almost a Nova!¡±

    ¡°Big news, huge news! The old demon of Silver Moon¡ªYuan Shuo who dominated the martial world twenty years ago¡ªhas risen above Dominator. He killed the Nova level Sun Yifei with one stroke! His breakthrough was facilitated by Red Moon themselves¡ªtheir divine shadows are the key to martial masters taking a step forward!¡±

    ¡°No wonder! Didn¡¯t I say long ago that Red Moon¡¯s divine shadows are different? Ying Hongyue raises them, but never lets martial masters touch them. It¡¯s always his supernatural members, and the shadows are withdrawn after a period of time. Can it be that he¡¯s retained his internal force?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    ¡°The world is changing! There¡¯s a martial master above Dominator, which puts him on par with a Nova supernatural! The most critical part of his ascension is the divine shadows of Red Moon. They¡¯re treasures that carry humongous power! Many Red Moon members have them¡ªwe only need three Sr level ones to break through to Summoner of Spirit!¡±

    ¡°Really??¡±

    ¡°Absolutely, it¡¯s known through all of the provinces by now!¡±

    ¡°Just their Srs are enough? C¡¯mon, let¡¯s get ready. We need the origin weapon, right? Bring that with us. We¡¯ll kill a few before other people do the same!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    All of Skystar Dynasty was in an uproar. It wasn¡¯t a notable feat to kill ate Sr¡ªit wasn''t as if that level of powerhouse hadn¡¯t died in the central region before. Even Novas died in battle.

    But a martial master behind the deed? That was tremendous news. Not to mention, the martial master had broken the limits of martial dao. Many people and organizations hadn¡¯t fully forsaken martial masters because they knew how strong this group was after they made the crossover!

 Chapter 217: Blinded By The Sight (I)

    <h4>Chapter 217: Blinded By The Sight (I)</h4>

    Many organizations raised martial masters¡ªthe three great organizations were no exception. Crossing over as a martial master made for a much stronger supernatural. Thus, certain people agitated into a frenzy when they heard that a cultivation level above Dominator was possible, that it rivaled the Sr or Nova level.

    It wasmon knowledge that martial masters generally advanced an additional level when they crossed over. So if they ascended as a Summoner, wouldn¡¯t that make them a Nova or even stronger??

    If the stories were true and Yuan Shuo matched a Nova, didn¡¯t that mean he¡¯d be greater than a Nova when he ascended and reach an ultimate peak that was yet to appear in the current supernatural world?

    This was a possibility that no organization would let slip through their fingers. Chaos descended, the aftereffects officially rippled through society!

    Yuan Shuo, Red Moon, blood pearls... These were the keywords for powerhouses of all localities. Much of the momentum was secretly incited by Hou Xiaochen. Countless organizations began inquiring into the uracy of the news. They utilized agents nted in Silver Moon or the Night Watchers in hopes of obtaining the real facts.

    What Hou Xiaochen leaked was... particrly true, especially as Yuan Shuo had improved rapidly after setting foot into Dominator of Thousands and killing Brokensky. Hou Xiaochen had indeed sent over a Sr level blood pearl. After a few days in seclusion, Yuan Shuo met Sun Yifei in battle as soon as he emerged. All of this was as real as could be!

    No matter who it was, no one could find any problems with the information that circted.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple Li Hao was a student of martial dao for three years and entered half step Dominator after taking a Sunre level blood pearl. He then killed Sun Moxian¡ªa martial master who¡¯d grasped the aura. This piece of intelligence quickly appeared in many factions as well.

    A rookie of three years swiftly advancing to half step Dominator further confirmed the veracity of the information!

    Due to this, Li Hao received a great deal of attention. If they couldn¡¯t find Yuan Shuo, then they could go to Li Hao. The prerequisite was that they killed a Red Moon powerhouse and extracted a blood pearl first. Otherwise, what could they do if he told them the method after they went to him?

    Li Hao inly didn¡¯t have any more¡ªhe would¡¯ve used it a long time ago if he did. How could these organizations make the trip empty-handed?

    ......

    Further confusion engulfed the already disorderly Skystar Dynasty. Multiple Red Moon powerhouses vanished before the organization had a chance to react to thetest developments. Not dead¡ªvanished. Their powerhouses vanished without a trace!

    It was one thing if it was weaklings that went missing, but several Srs also disappeared without ceremony. There were no hints whatsoever as to their whereabouts or condition. It was only less than an hour since the information was publicized¡ªa clear sign of how strong some organizations were in the shadows.

    ......

    <i>The central region.</i>

    In a secret locale, an exceedingly handsome man with a slightly feminine cast to his looks narrowed his eyes.

    ¡°Bastard!¡± Ying Hongyue raged. If Yuan Shuo was here to see him, he¡¯dugh at the man for being too uptight. It¡¯d been so many years, but Ying Hongyue still maintained the same appearance he always had. He was inly an old geezer, but still yed the part of young fresh meat.

    As furious as he was, Ying Hongyue quickly hollered, ¡°Hurry and withdraw all of our power in the various provinces. Everyone is to destroy our strongholds and go into hiding to await further orders!¡±

    <i>Damn it!</i> His liver hurt from the force of his wrath. He¡¯d simply responded a bit slower, but there was already no answer from several Srs in residence at other provinces. Why was that?

    Did that bear asking??

    <i>Bastard!</i>

    Much of this had to do with the variousrger organizations and the Night Watchers. How else would Srs disappear so easily? Origin weapons were also required, of which the small organizations didn¡¯t have any!

    ......

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s matter enticed many powerhouses to set course for Silver Moon. There would¡¯ve been more to make the journey, but Red Moon suffered from their fair share of trouble as word spread. A portion of the heavyweights sought to hunt down Red Moon members, so fewer than expected came for the province.

    Still, numerous martial masters set out for Silver Moon.

    Greater than Dominator of Thousands!

    Those yet to reach Dominator came with a reverential attitude. Dominators visited because the road ahead was broken for them. There was no path to walk! They could not cross over to the supernatural and there was nothing ahead of them. So now, even if there was only the slightest bit of opportunity, they desired a nce no matter how indistinct it was.

    Yuan Shuo was gone¡ªwho knew if he¡¯d actually gone to the central region? What they did know, however, was that his final disciple Li Hao was in Silver Moon. His whereabouts were publicly known and martial masters such as Yuan Shuo typically passed on his legacy.

    Such was what was meant to be a martial master! They were afraid that they might die in the next second, so they passed all of their legacy onto one person. Rarely did one hoard experience and knowledge. Martial dao had declined, after all.

    ......

    <i>Rift Canyon. The Night Watcher campsite.</i>

    Many people were nervous as they¡¯d realized the issues at hand after the duel concluded. Yuan Shuo had broken the limits of martial dao. Just that secret alone would send countless people into a frenzy, to say nothing of Red Moon¡¯s revenge.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s brows were deeply etched with a frown. The director said everything was fine when he contacted headquarters, but was everything really that under control? Did they move forward with the expedition? If they didn¡¯t, would the ruins remain theirs given the growing number of powerhouses that set their eyes on Silver Moon?

    The more he thought about it, the more his head ached. He knew Yuan Shuo shouldn¡¯t have answered the letter of challenge! Now look at this mess! That old demon was born a troublemaker!

    Hao Lianchuan nced at the docile Li Hao. <i>Will this little guy be a second Yuan Shuo? Is he a tiny demon in the making?</i> Docile? Hah, he¡¯d never believe that. The young man demonstrated some of the ir from a young Yuan Shuo when he fought Sun Moxian. He was quick, decisive, ruthless, and vicious. Sun Moxian was outstanding among martial masters, but he¡¯d still fallen at Li Hao¡¯s hand.

    Who would believe this quiet, biddable act now?

    They stood in silence for a bit, until Hao Lianchuan broke it. ¡°The director should being soon. Just us was enough at first, but looks like that¡¯s not the case anymore!¡±

    ¡°Should we enter the ruins ahead of time?¡± asked a handsome middle-aged man. He wore a longsword on his back and was another Night Watcher deputy director. His surname was Zhou and he was a metal supernatural.

    ¡°We can¡¯t!¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head. ¡°You weren¡¯t here for the previous explorations, so you don¡¯t know that we didn¡¯t choose the 28th simply because it¡¯s an auspicious day. It¡¯s due to the fact that danger is most minimized on this date. It will be a lot more hazardous if we enter ahead of time! When we failed to pick the best time on prior excursions, it led to massive losses!¡±

    ¡°The 28th?¡± Director Zhou asked with surprise. ¡°Is there something special about it?¡±

    ¡°Moonlight!¡± Hao Lianchuan hadn¡¯t nned to keep it a secret. He only refrained from speaking about this to prevent it from bingmon knowledge. ¡°The 28th is when Silver Moon sees the weakest production of moonlight. Some of the ruins¡¯ mechanisms are possibly activated by moonlight! The weaker the moonlight is, the safer they are. You have a death wish if you choose to explore when the moon is full!

    ¡°The ancient city in the ruins has been buried for countless eons, but it still stands in pristine condition. Therefore, it cannot be drawing on internal stores of energy. Our joint consensus is that its inner workings are powered by moonlight.¡±

    ¡°Why not the sun? Wang Ming asked curiously. ¡°The moon isn¡¯t necessarily seen everyday, but the sun is. Shouldn¡¯t the ancients have considered using the sun more when they designed these mechanisms?¡±

    Indeed, why was it the moon? It was a very normal question, but anything from this fellow¡¯s mouth bore hints of arguing for arguing¡¯s sake.

    Hao Lianchuan flicked a nce at him, but still exined, ¡°Because the sun doesn¡¯te out at night. The ancients set guards on the city in the day and rest at night. Mechanisms are activated at this time to prevent trouble at night!¡±

    That was why they needed a nighttime source of energy.

    ¡°Then are we free from the moon¡¯s interference when we enter in the day?¡± Wang Ming still didn¡¯t understand.

    ¡°Energy is umted.¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head.

    ¡°So isn¡¯t the sun better? It umtes during the day, which makes its energy avable at night!¡± He was really digging his heels in, but his rebuttals made sense. Hao Lianchuan¡¯s theory of needing an energy source at night didn¡¯t make sense.

    The deputy director was stymied by the response. <i>This kid has grown bolder after bing a Sunre!</i>

    ¡°That¡¯s just the way it is. Moonlight is most scattered on the 28th, which means the traps inside the ruins are at their weakest!¡±

    Wang Ming wanted to continue, but quickly fell quiet when he saw an unfriendly look from Hao Lianchuan. <i>Fine, you¡¯re the big guy, whatever you say is right.</i>

    The group understood the 28th to be the most suitable time period. They would have to wait until the next 28th otherwise. However, it was difficult to say if the ruins would still belong to the Night Watchers after a month. Dismayed expressions spread across everyone¡¯s face.

    ¡°Red Moon¡¯s delegation is pretty much all dead.¡± Liu Long had been keeping quiet as he didn¡¯t quite understand the situation. ¡°Light Ind is no more. Neither Yama, Celestial, nor the Sword Sect are stronger than us on an individual basis. We should be in a better state than before. Even if they can call upon reinforcements, so can we!

    ¡°The Night Watchers holding our own against them in the central region means that we are still very capable in battle! If they redeploy people from the central region, our headquarters can do the same.¡±

    Since they could maintain a bnce before, there was no reason to think that their circumstances were more dangerous after killing some people, right?¡±

    ¡°The central region wants nothing more than for the major organizations to withdraw their people from the central region,¡± bit off the metal supernatural Director Zhou before Hao Lianchuan could say anything. ¡°The borders being unstable is a border thing! The more people that die here, the better!¡±

    Liu Long started and Hao Lianchuan rebuked, ¡°Nonsense!¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re all of Silver Moon, so what¡¯s not to say?¡± Director Zhou replied coolly. ¡°The dynasty has lost control over the border and has no time to devote to it. In the same vein, they need to worry about the border provinces dering independence. Therefore, the more of a mess we are, the better! That gives them enough time to pacify the central unrest and slowly put their affairs in order here.

    ¡°The attitude from the central region is quite clear. It doesn¡¯t matter how chaotic we get so long as we impede the enemy. However many and much we lose is not within their consideration.¡±

    Liu Long looked on, dazed. He hadn¡¯t heard of this before, so it was quite a blow to his worldview. The central region... wouldn¡¯t support the bordends?

 Chapter 218: Blinded By The Sight (II)

    <h4>Chapter 218: Blinded By The Sight (II)</h4>

    Liu Long looked at those around him, particrly Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°Director Hao, Silver Moon is part of Skystar Dynasty,¡± he said in aplicated tone. ¡°Does the central region not care that we¡¯ve run into trouble? The province is not undermined by unrest yet and we¡¯ve always bowed our heads to dynastic rule. We recognize the government¡¯s authority and consider ourselves part of Skystar. No one is calling for independence or a rebellion. Why has ite to this?¡±

    Hao Lianchuan took a moment to gather his thoughts and answered slowly, ¡°Perhaps it is not that they don¡¯t care, but that they really don¡¯t have the ability to. The chaos in the central region is preupying too much of their resources. They, too, wish for some breathing space.

    ¡°It¡¯s good if some of the enemy is redeployed. Wouldn¡¯t the government just be continuing the war, but in Silver Moon, if they sent more people to the province in response? As for Silver Moon itself... we are too far from the central region!¡±

    Silver Moon was on the bordends of the ny-nine provinces. There were roughly twenty provinces that constituted the central region, demarcating an enormous domain. Silver Moon wasn¡¯t immediately found outside that cluster of provinces. One had to draw a line all the way to fringe territory before reaching Silver Moon.

    All that Skystar Dynasty wanted to do at the moment was to expel the various supernatural organizations out of the central region and consolidate their rule. They would then slowly turn their sights outward¡ªit was a policy that conformed with keeping the bigger picture in mind. Otherwise, splitting up the army could result in losing the central region as well.

    Their direction was correct and their strategy appropriate, but it represented forsaking the border provinces that remained loyal to the dynasty. For Silver Moon, seeking to migrate the smaller cities torger ones was also a type of relinquishment. Not to mention, the central government was outright abandoning them. It was a blow that was immensely hard to swallow for many.

    ¡°We don¡¯t need to pay too much attention to this,¡± Hao Lianchuan continued. ¡°It¡¯s not a bad state of affairs. All we need to do for peace in the province is to eliminate the enemies thate. The dynasty isn¡¯tpletely throwing us to the wolves. They sometimes send over supernatural resources and others...¡±

    He still offered some cating words so that general disappointment wouldn¡¯t transform to anger. That would not be good. It also wasn¡¯t the best time to talk about this.

    ¡°Please hold your horses, everyone. All trouble will pass when the director arrives.¡±

    <i>Hou Xiaochen.</i>

    The air of untargeted fear abated somewhat when people heard that the director wasing. Although it¡¯d been many years since he¡¯d taken the field, the director was a pir of strength in many people¡¯s eyes. There wouldn¡¯t be much of an issue with him present.

    Li Hao had been silently observing the crowd and came to a preliminary conclusion when he saw their expressions. Hou Xiaochen truly had a magnificent reputation in their hearts.<i> I wonder if he won everyone over a long time ago because he wants to be independent one day? Or did he repeatedly disobey orders because he really wants to protect Silver Moon?</i>

    The young man was unfamiliar with the man, so he only half believed what the director said. Silver Moon¡¯s current straits were a result of dynastic indifference¡ªthat also stemmed from Hou Xiaochen refusing to listen tomands. In Li Hao¡¯s view, no superior would be satisfied with such a subordinate.

    In the heat of battle, a fieldmander must make the decisions, even if they went against their liege¡¯s orders. The theory sounded correct, but the central region was caught in the grip of war and a general on the border refused to go back to help. This was no different from mutiny in the central government¡¯s eyes.

    Each side had their own version of events. Li Hao wasn¡¯t aware of the particrs, so he could only stand on the sidelines.

    The group was no closer to any good ideas after a while of discussion, so they decided to await Hou Xiaochen¡¯s arrival.

    ......

    They didn¡¯t wait long, but it wasn¡¯t Hou Xiaochen who came to Rift Canyon. Hao Lianchuan frowned and walked out of his tent when a towering presence shot into the sky.

    A violet shadow shed in from the distance and appeared in front of the assembly. The deputy director greeted it with solemnity.

    ¡°Violet Moon!¡±

    Red Moon¡¯s leading representative in Silver Moon!

    She wasn¡¯t wearing a ghost face mask and appeared to be a woman of moderate age¡ªthirty at most. Her eyes were violet and lightning crackled faintly around her. A thunder supernatural!

    She swept the crowd without a word and identified Li Hao standing at the back.

    ¡°Hand over Li Hao. You know the reason why, Hao Lianchuan!¡± she said calmly. Li Hao¡¯s master had ughtered her delegation. Now that Yuan Shuo was on the run, she had to give her iing superiors an exnation. Her voice was measured, but a wrathful rage brewed within. ¡°I do not wish to dere open war on the Night Watchers right this minute, but that doesn¡¯t mean you can shelter disciples of the Five Styles!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan cursed to himself. Where was the director? Why wasn¡¯t he here yet? Violet Moon was very strong¡ªpossibly stronger than Sun Yifei.

    Red Moon had seven representative characters¡ªred, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Red Moon was Ying Hongyue, Violet Moon was ranked seventh. Her cement didn¡¯t represent strength as she wasn¡¯t the first generation Violet Moon. Regardless, her status was very high all the same. It indicated that the organization quite valued Silver Moon.

    It wasn¡¯t just Red Moon, but so did the other organizations also treat the province with this level of importance. Too many powerhouses hade from the province¡¯s martial world. Of course, this was the reason they gave before. Now it looked like it might have something to do with the eight families.

    In any case, Hao Lianchuan knew he was no match for her, not even when reinforced with the ming Phoenix Spear. Violet Moon would have an origin weapon on hand as well!

    There weren¡¯t that many origin weapons in the world, but some could be found in every province. They were categorized by level of strength and special effects. The one that everyone was fighting over in the central province was less valuable as it wasn¡¯t as powerful when it came to offense. Someone as instrumental as Violet Moon was sure to have one!

    ¡°Violet Moon!¡± Hao Lianchuan rumbled. ¡°It is up to the director whether or not we hand over Li Hao! I cannot make the decision in this and don¡¯t think of seizing him either. Otherwise, there will be war between Red Moon and the Night Watchers when the director arrives!¡±

    ¡°So what?¡± Violet Moon speared him with a frosty look. ¡°Are you threatening me? Hao Kong is dead, Brokensky is dead, Sun Yifei is dead. How am I to exin myself if I don¡¯t take Li Hao? Since it¡¯s trouble no matter how I look at it, let things be a bit more chaotic then!¡±

    She grabbed at Li Hao as soon as she finished speaking! Her palm was as if a thunderp, it blotted out the skies and brought incredible pressure to bear on everyone. She really was attacking!

    Hao Lianchuan roared with outrage and punched with a torrent of fire. A massive explosion forced him back¡ªhis fist was covered with lightning that sizzled into his arm. Violet Moon remained unmoving and made another grab at Li Hao.

    She wanted the young man firstly for Yuan Shuo and secondly for his identity as an heir to the eight families. Violet Moon knew that she might be able to redeem herself if she captured Li Hao. At the very least, she wouldn¡¯t be reprimanded when she returned to headquarters. If she didn¡¯t take him, she would be in grave trouble.

    Her Silver Moon branch had suffered too many losses. Several Srs had died, including the Sun Yifei who¡¯d just rushed here. Many provinces didn¡¯t have a single Sr in residence, just Sunres, because they weren¡¯t important. Several Srs had been assigned here due to the eight families and Hou Xiaochen. Now that she was the only one left, those upstairs would be beside themselves with fury.

    ......

    Li Hao stood impassively among the crowd. He simply watched the woman repeatedlyunch herself at him and Hao Lianchuan repeatedly fend her off.

    <i>You want to capture me?</i>

    He wasn¡¯t afraid of death¡ªor rather, he wasn¡¯t afraid that he would die at this moment because Violet Moon would not be killing him right now. Silver City¡¯s matter was not yet concluded, the eight trigrams were still there, and there was the stone door...

    Red Moon might know all this. They needed him and might even be waiting for the next rainy season so they could extract his bloodline. Thus, they wouldn¡¯t kill him now. Li Hao simplymitted this person to memory.

    And if Violet Moon was here, where was Hou Xiaochen?

    Some Sunre Night Watchers joined the fray. One Sunre was naturally no match for a Sr, but multiple Sunres quickly muddied the waters.

    Violet Moon snorted; something seemed ready to surge from her body.

    Li Hao watched silently, making out an indistinct beast that was ready to rush forward. It should be her origin weapon. That made for multiple origin weapons that he¡¯d seen in a short period of time. He looked at Zhang Ting out of the corner of his eye...

    The mid Sr potentially from the central region also wielded an origin weapon, but chose to retreat from action and hide among the crowd.

    Next to Li Hao, Liu Long remained put all this time. He simply shielded the young man with his body. Yuan Shuo was gone and he¡¯d brought Li Hao here. Right now, he was the young man¡¯sst line of defense. It didn¡¯t matter that he was an ordinary Dominator, not a grandmaster like Yuan Shuo.

    Warmth briefly touched Li Hao¡¯s heart. Not everyone was like Zhang Ting at a critical moment like this. Hao Lianchuan and his men were all resisting. All it would take was handing the young man over for trouble to go away, but they refused to concede. It would seem that the Night Watchers still possessed some shreds of dignity and hot bloodedness.

    Violet Moon halted her attacks just as the thunder beast was about to materialize and took a few steps back. Two figures walked in from the distance at a slow pace.

    It was a man and a woman.

    Li Hao recognized the man¡ªHou Xiaochen. He didn¡¯t know the woman. An arctic expression hung on her face and she helped the director along to the crowd.

    ¡°Director Hou!¡± Hao Lianchuan greeted them with delight. The director was here!

    No one paid attention to Manager Yu. She¡¯d taken care of Hou Xiaochen for many years and people couldn¡¯t be bothered to gossip if there was anotheryer of rtionship between the two. Director Hou had no family and neither was the manager attached. Therefore, whatever might be going on between the two was boring fodder.

    Violet Moon also looked at Hou Xiaochen. Even though the man was sickly and needed someone¡¯s help to walk, no one dared take him lightly. He¡¯d killed a Red Moon Sr right in front of Ying Hongyue back in the day. Ying Hongyue should¡¯ve been a Nova then, but had no choice but to witness one of his subordinates die right in front of him.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen!¡± Violet Moon addressed with a cool hint. ¡°The Night Watchers stick their hands in far too much. Are you also going to shelter Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple?¡±

    ¡°Li Hao is a Night Watcher, correct?¡± asked a smiling Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Hao Lianchuan hastily called out.

    ¡°Then that¡¯s that.¡± He turned with a smile. ¡°Alright, don¡¯t be mad, Violet Moon the third. Wait for your organization¡¯s powerhouses toe before saying anything else. Why ask for trouble when you¡¯re here by yourself?¡±

    Violet Moon¡¯s eyes narrowed dangerously!

 Chapter 219: Blinded By The Sight (III)

    <h4>Chapter 219: Blinded By The Sight (III)</h4>

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°I¡¯m not afraid of you. I am not afraid even if I am less than who I was before. I killed Violet Moon the second, and I did so in front of Ying Hongyue. You don¡¯t want me to facilitate another handover among you Violet Moons, do you?¡±

    Violet Moon¡¯s face colored slightly. Indeed, it was her predecessor who¡¯d died in front of Ying Hongyue that year! It was hardly a pleasant thing to bring up again, but it was true that this was why she was wary of Hou Xiaochen.

    A figure shimmered in and out of sight in another direction. Hou Xiaochen chuckled when he cocked his head at it. ¡°Revolution, does Yama want a piece of the action? Red Moon has lost a great deal, but Yama hasn¡¯t suffered at all. Are you here because you wish to even the scales?¡±

    Spookyughter came back on the wind. ¡°Not at all, this is a misunderstanding, Director Hou! I just happened to sense the supernatural ripples in this area and came for a look. Since Director Hou hase, we take our leave!¡±

    Several figures vanished in the distance while Hou Xiaochen approached at a leisurely pace.

    ¡°Violet Moon,¡± he said softly. ¡°There¡¯s been no sight of Celestial¡¯s Half Mountain to this day. Are you in contact with him? Where has he gone? Or is he in hiding and preparing to break through?¡±

    Violet Moon regarded him coldly and vanished on the spot, disappearing like a bolt of lightning. She was¡¯t willing to exchange further words with Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°That youngster has good potential. What a pity...¡± The director didn¡¯t mind her reaction. ¡°What a pity she¡¯s not the most polite. When ites down to it, I am her benefactor. I am the reason why she was promoted to the third generation Violet Moon. Shouldn¡¯t she be thanking me?¡±

    Ringing silence answered him.

    ¡°Director,¡± Hao Lianchuan took a while to say. ¡°Howe you¡¯ve just arrived?¡±

    <i>You were slower than the others!</i>

    ¡°I¡¯m sick.¡± Hou Xiaochen nced at him. ¡°So I walk slower. Don¡¯t you know?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Fine, it was an airtight excuse. But alsoplete bullshit! The director shouldn¡¯t be in this condition even if he was yet to recover from his wounds. It wasmon for powerhouses to nursetent wounds, but they wouldn¡¯t appear in such a frail state even if not at full health. It would at most affect their strength somewhat.

    ¡°The director¡¯s here!¡± The rest of the Night Watchers started hollering with excitement.

    ¡°Let¡¯s see if that Violet Moon will dare be so arrogant now. There¡¯s no ce for her after the director¡¯se!¡±

    ......

    By Li Hao¡¯s side, Liu Long also looked at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Don¡¯t say too much!¡± he muttered to the young man. ¡°This man... is not an ordinary person and isn¡¯t as easy to talk to as Director Hao.¡±

    He could joke around with Hao Lianchuan and even pull the wool over the deputy director¡¯s eyes for a little bit, but when it came to Hou Xiaochen, the man was as his reputation. Taking a stand against Ying Hongyue all those years ago had crafted striking renown for him. Even their enemy, Violet Moon, didn¡¯t dare remain on the scene and swiftly departed upon his arrival.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. He simply looked at the figure shaking moderate length hair, slightly disheveled from multiple days of travel, and looking a bit wan. Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t too tall¡ªhe even seemed slightly shorter than Li Hao. His Night Watcher uniform looked brighter than the ck of Li Hao and the others as it was more of a navy blue.

    Hou Xiaochen seemed to be in his thirties, but Li Hao knew that he was more than forty. The young man wasn¡¯t sure if he was fifty. In any case, he wasn¡¯t as young as he appeared to be. The faint smile on his face and pallidplexion made for a very genteel effect. But it was this one who saidst night that he was ready to dere independence!

    As he observed Hou Xiaochen, the director turned to Li Hao. He approached the young man with a smile. ¡°Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple? Heir of the eight families?¡±

    Very few people mentioned the eight families, but Hou Xiaochen directly brought it out in the open.

    ¡°I am a disciple of the Five Styles. As for the eight families...¡± Li Hao ducked his head. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. I¡¯ve just heard about them. Red Moon seems to think I am, but I¡¯m not certain of the particrs.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, not bad!¡± Hou Xiaochen inclined his head and turned to Hao Lianchuan. ¡°Send people to Yama, Celestial, and the Sword Sect campgrounds. Invite their delegation leaders toe for a chat. If they don¡¯te now, we¡¯ll ess the ruins and be the only ones to enter tomorrow!¡±

    ¡°Now?

    ¡°Now!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Hao Lianchuan immediately sent runners with invites.

    Hou Xiaochen looked at Li Hao without issuing further instructions. ¡°Do you have time to apany me to the previous battlefield?¡±

    ¡°To the bridge?¡± Li Hao asked.

    The director nodded.

    ¡°This way, director!¡± the young man quickly responded. He had no reason to turn down Hou Xiaochen.

    The man waved off others who wanted to follow and had only Manager Yu support him. He followed Li Hao to the dueling grounds and didn¡¯t say a word along the way.

    ......

    Li Hao was very curious about Hou Xiaochen, but he suppressed his curiosity. He wouldn¡¯t say what he shouldn¡¯t and wouldn¡¯t ask what he shouldn¡¯t. He was just a Sunderer in thepany of the leader of the Silver Moon Night Watchers. The difference in their positions was great.

    They arrived at the site before long. Hou Xiaochen looked at the far off grave, then at the sky. With a gentle cough, he floated into the air. He conducted himself as if he was strolling through a garden. The director asionally reached out for a handful of air, sensing what had taken ce earlier.

    Momentster, hended back on the ground, a bit emotional. ¡°Old Demon Yuan did not quietly live out his days in the end! He set foot into Dominator overnight, then made it into Summoner a few dayster. The amalgamation of five auras is impressive indeed!

    ¡°The fire heart nurtures the ape, the water kidney nurtures the tiger. So Summoner of Spirit is to nurture the five visceral spirits? Are the five auras used to summon the spirits of the five visceral organs?¡± However, the man then frowned. ¡°But this way is not suitable for others!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen was keenly observant, yet also felt that Yuan Shuo¡¯s path could not be walked by others.

    ¡°If this is the case, then the rise of martial masters remains a dream. The strength of one does not mean the strength of all!¡± He shook his head. ¡°Not everyone is Yuan Shuo and not everyone can nurture five areas! He killed countless people to finally manage their melding and almost severed his own path to Dominator.¡±

    This path was not avable to others! If that was the case, Yuan Shuo¡¯s strength was not sufficient for the world to rise in an uproar.

    Hou Xiaochen seemed faintly regretful. A strong Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t much cause for attention if he was the only one strong. He wished more that the professor had trulyid a new path for everyone, so that all martial masters had new hope.

    Although Dominator was an obstacle that disqualified many people, that level was vast and unbounded. Martial masters improved ever more quickly with the presence of mysterious power and there was certain to be many who¡¯d sensed the aura. Martial dao would prosper if everyone could be a Summoner of Spirit!

    ¡°Teacher has just set foot into this level.¡± Li Hao kept his head down. ¡°He is attempting to make it avable to all.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen nodded and smiled kindly at the young man. ¡°And you?¡±

    ¡°Me?¡±

    ¡°Yes, you should be setting foot into Dominator as well. Although your foundations are not on par with your teacher¡¯s, I don¡¯t think Sunderer is where you¡¯ll be content to stay for the rest of your life. What are your ns for the future?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m still young...¡±

    ¡°Twenty isn¡¯t that young,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°There are twenty year olds in the central region who¡¯ve made their way to Sr! With the advent of the supernatural and appearance of mysterious power, supernatural ascension is easy. Heaven Favored progress so quickly it feels like they¡¯re anointed by the heavens themselves. Even martial masters have it ten times easier than before if supplementing with mysterious power during their cultivation. You should have some ns as a twenty year old.

    ¡°Not to mention, you¡¯re Yuan Shuo¡¯s student and the heir to the eight families. You¡¯ll be caught up in a lot of trouble if you don¡¯t grow stronger.

    ¡°And another thing, everyone has their own intrinsic value. You are not my student or my child, but I am still willing to help you here and here because you are a Night Watcher. If the trouble you attract one day exceeds your value, do you think a stranger will continue to help you without bounds?¡±

    It was a very pragmatic question. Li Hao pondered silently for a bit.

    ¡°My teacher is gone, so I am the only one with the core heritage of the Five Styles. I am also the only one who knows the process of breaking through to Summoner of Spirit and its theory.¡±

    ¡°Is that it?¡± Hou Xiaochen asked with disappointment. ¡°If that is it, then there¡¯s not much value to your knowledge. It¡¯d be one thing if it was a road that could be applied to all. As it is, it seems useful for one person only.¡±

    The young man fell silent again. After an indeterminate period of time, when Hou Xiaochen prepared to leave, he suddenly said, ¡°I am the heir to the eight families!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled and turned around. ¡°Weren¡¯t you uncertain?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m certain!¡± Li Hao ducked his head with embarrassment. ¡°Teacher says not to speak of it to outsiders, but I am! The eight families were possibly extraordinary in ancient times. They may have something to do with certain secrets and ruins!¡±

    ¡°That passes muster.¡± The director nodded after thinking it over. ¡°Then it¡¯s settled!¡±

    He set out for the campsite, Manager Yu at his side like an invisible person. She didn¡¯t say anything from beginning to end. Li Hao followed quietly by their side. He couldn¡¯t read the director¡ªor rather, he didn¡¯t really dare look at the man. But the manager, he could see a thing or two. She was such an enormous sun that it almost blinded him.

    Poor Hao Lianchuan!

    The first deputy director was less than a woman. This Manager Yu was far more than met the eye, but she willingly lowered herself to be a housekeeper of sorts. It was in to see that Hou Xiaochen was the true final boss of the Silver Moon Night Watchers. Therefore, Li Hao kept his head lowered from beginning to end. He¡¯d be blinded by the manager before even seeing the director if he lifted his head.

    The young man thought about a lot¡ªhe was more confused regarding Hou Xiaochen than anything. Why... didn¡¯t he sense too much mysterious power from the man? Was he keeping everything in his body? Or was he actually a martial master? Surely not?

    Numerous questions floated in his mind, but Li Hao chose to stay quiet. It was best to pretend he was ignorant of everything when he was with these shrewd, calcting personages.

 Chapter 220: Hu Dingfang (I)

    <h4>Chapter 220: Hu Dingfang (I)</h4>

    Li Hao reverted to a prudent and cautious state in his teacher¡¯s absence. It was always a good idea to keep a low profile in front of top brass. Thrusting himself into the spotlight might earn him Hou Xiaochen¡¯s high regard, but was there a need for that?

    The young man wasn¡¯t familiar with the Night Watcher director and they didn¡¯t have a rtionship. He didn¡¯t need the man to think well of him. All he needed was for Hou Xiaochen to resist a bit of pressure for him in the short term. It wasn¡¯t a deal between him and the director, but an agreement that his teacher had reached with Hou Xiaochen.

    Thus, Li Hao judged that the director wanted him to disy his value not because it had to do with whether or not the Night Watchers would continue to protect him. After all, would Hou Xiaochen hand him over if the young man proved uninspiring?

    No!

    Someone who spoke of independence would destabilize his own Night Watchers if he gave up Li Hao. Even if everyone understood that yielding the young man would save them a lot of trouble, it was an incontrovertible truth that Li Hao was a Night Watcher. Who would be loyal to a ruler who handed over his own in exchange for temporary peace?

    Revealing some secrets would result in more resources at most, but that might cause him to pay a higher price. This was what Li Hao was weighing up. Therefore, he kept his nose down in front of Hou Xiaochen and didn¡¯t demonstrate anything special. As for the strength of a half step Dominator, the director might not think much of it.

    Li Hao was not the Yuan Shuo who¡¯d dominated half an era. He was just a rookie young man.

    Havingprehended the aura of the sword and earth, Li Hao was in a state of strengthening his auras. He was also attempting to meld the two together. While it felt that he could break through to Dominator at any time, he was in no hurry. He would only be the next Liu Long if he did so now. That was thest thing he desired.

    His teacher had fused five auras together, so he would have to manage at least two. That would ensure he could swiftly develop after bing a Dominator, putting him on par with mid tote Sunre or even peak Sunre. He didn¡¯t want to be capable of defeating only a few initial Sunres. That would be such a waste of time.

    These were the thoughts running through Li Hao¡¯s mind as he followed Hou Xiaochen. He then thought of the ruins again.

    <i>The expedition should move forward, Hou Xiaochen and them won¡¯t give it up. There won¡¯t be any opportunities left if they wait until there¡¯s too many considering it with interest. Therefore, the excavation should stillmence tomorrow. It¡¯s just that the people entering...</i>

    Li Hao thought for a bit. There might be a few more or a few less powerhouses. Would Violet Moon join the expedition after the death of her entire delegation?

    It was just as well if she decided to attend. He rather hoped she would as that might mean he would have an additional helper at a critical time. As of now, Red Moon did not wish for Li Hao to die in the ruins. It would depend on whether or not Ying Hongyue had given differentmands to Violet Moon.

    <i>I need to quickly begin preparations for the Summoner level after I enter Dominator. Teacher nurtures five auras¡ªI can concentrate on one for now. Whether it¡¯s the one of the sword or of the earth, I just need sufficient earth or metal energy.</i>

    The sword corresponded to metal and the earth to earth energy. His teacher¡¯s fire heart ape had taken almost a thousand cubes of fire energy¡ªthe full vitality of a Sr¡ªbefore it was satiated. While Li Hao had absorbed some energy before, he needed at least one thousand cubes for his purposes. All that he considered now was how to obtain so many cubes of earth or metal energy.

    <i>I need one Sr or five Sunres. The Night Watchers are out of the question and only Violet Moon is left of Red Moon. Light Ind is no more and it¡¯s hard to move against Sword Sect since I don¡¯t know their particrs. Celestial or Yama? Yama¡¯s the first target...</i>

    Li Hao thought of Yama¡ªthat organization might suit his purposes best.

    <i>I¡¯m in no hurry to foster a water aura, but I can prepare for it ahead of time since Zhang Ting¡¯s a good candidate.</i>

    <i>I know Li Dahu is an earth supernatural on the Yama side, but he¡¯s just an initial Sunre. Their leader, on the other hand, is a Sr...</i>

    Would the newly arrived Revolution King participate in the expedition?

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts were traveling far upon the wind. He was just a Sunderer, but had his sights set on Sunres and Srs. Anyone who knew what he was thinking would think him nuts.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Hou Xiaochen suddenly called out from ahead.

    The young man swiftly caught up and kept his head down. ¡°Director!¡±

    A smiling Hou Xiaochen turned to look at him. ¡°You seem to have a lot on your mind, are you feeling some sort of pressure?¡±

    <i>A lot on my mind?</i> Li Hao suppressed a jerk of surprise.<i> I¡¯m just thinking things over, can you see even that?</i>

    ¡°Not much, I¡¯m just worried about my teacher.¡±

    ¡°Ah, Yuan Shuo... Don¡¯t worry, he¡¯s been through the trials and tribtions of life. He won¡¯t suffer a setback for something as minor as this. Not to mention, he must have made preparations for his departure ahead of time. This was not an impromptu action.

    ¡°Do you have any good ideas for extracting and absorbing blood pearls?¡± The director talked as they walked.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say good ideas,¡± Li Hao immediately responded. ¡°The director knows the way to extract blood pearls. Absorption is even easier. If martial masters take them, they will absolutely see an improvement. But the efficacy of ordinary breathing methods is a little lower. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles is more efficient than the norm.¡±

    ¡°Low efficacy?¡± Hou Xiaochen sank into deep thought. ¡°Will your teacher mind it if others learn the Breathing Method of the Five Styles?¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t do!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°I don¡¯t know his thoughts since teacher didn¡¯t speak of it, but I cannot teach outsiders the method if he didn¡¯t approve beforehand.¡±

    He didn¡¯t know what Hou Xiaochen was nning, but it was not a suitable moment to propagate the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Of course, if his teacher sessfully revised the method and turned it into something beneficial for nurturing the five visceral organs, it would be suitable to make avable for others.

    Just as Yuan Shuo had taught others the simplistic breathing technique after he created the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, this was the core of martial master legacy. They always kept something behind that was exclusively reserved for their core disciples. They weren¡¯t so selfless that they freely disseminated the heart of their knowledge.

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t speak further on this. ¡°Do you wish to join the expedition tomorrow? The ruins are dangerous and your teacher tasked me to keep you safe. I won¡¯t insist on your participation if you don¡¯t wish it. You can stay in the canyon with me.¡±

    ¡°Are you not going, director?¡±

    ¡°I won¡¯t be,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°No one else will dare go inside if I do. I¡¯m also worried that when I emerge, the Night Watchers will be no more on the outside.¡±

    He had to hold down the fort outside and wait for other reinforcements to arrive. His presence would be a deterrence. If he entered the ruins and lost contact with the campsite, the entire supernatural system of Silver Moon would be rocked with unrest.

    ¡°What about Manager Yu?¡± Li Hao asked.

    ¡°She won¡¯t be going inside either.¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°She¡¯s just a civil secretary and not a superhuman heavyweight. Is she supposed to go inside just so she can be protected by others?¡±

    Next to the director, Manager Yu shed a faint smile. Li Hao nodded without saying anything. <i>It¡¯s whatever you say, man.</i>

    ......

    Li Hao parted ways with Hou Xiaochen after returning to the campsite. He returned to his tent. His teacher had been here this morning, and now his whereabouts were unknown. Would he recover from his wounds? How many powerhouses woulde in pursuit of his teacher this time?

    As strong as his teacher was, the rise of the supernatural meant that just a few morete Srs would prove too much for Yuan Shuo to handle, to say nothing of those beyond Sr.

    His teacher had protected him before, being Li Hao¡¯s final backer even when facing enemies and assorted danger. Who could he depend on now?

    Li Hao sat on a simplistic stone bed and thought over everything.

    <i>Momentster.</i>

    Liu Long entered the tent. He saw the young man sitting nkly on a bed, deep in thought. ¡°Don¡¯t join the excavation tomorrow.¡±

    ¡°I need to!¡± Li Hao lifted his head and smiled at the captain. ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t I? Chief, do you also think that I should tuck tail after teacher¡¯s departed? That it¡¯s best if I hide so thoroughly that I find a ce with no one else in it and take cover until teacher appears again?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not it, it¡¯s just that you¡¯re in a very dangerous position right now...¡±

    ¡°I know!¡± Li Hao interrupted. ¡°Chief, can you do me a favor?¡±

    ¡°Speak.¡±

    ¡°Teach me how to extract mysterious power.¡±

    Indeed. Li Hao didn¡¯t know. Liu Long might know, even though it was Yun Yao who oversaw the deed. The young man felt that it shouldn¡¯t be too hard and there should be quite a few who knew how. He didn¡¯t ask the Night Watchers as he felt more at ease asking Liu Long.

    The man frowned slightly, but quickly responded, ¡°The old methods were an extreme hassle¡ªit¡¯s much easier now. After all the Sunres and Srs that died this time, their bones are the best storage items!

    ¡°Also, you know about the storage boxes that are a recent invention. Energy does not disperse that quickly after a supernatural dies. It remains concentrated in the flesh and blood. If you have a storage box, you can shove it directly into the box.

    ¡°Break the flesh and bones when you need it, the energy will naturally seep out then.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. It was much easier with the storage boxes. In that case, he should look to bring one in with him.

    ¡°People from the Sword Sect, Yama, and Celestial havee!¡± Wang Ming rushed in as they conversed. ¡°It looks like the expedition is going forward.¡±

    Li Hao swiftly walked out of the tent. There was a group of people in the distance. They hovered outside the campsite perimeter and waited for the Night Watchers to emerge. The young man trotted in their direction, too fast for Wang Ming to grab him.

    ¡°What are you doing?¡± whispered the handsome supernatural as he quickly caught up.

    ¡°To check out the fun!¡± Li Hao fobbed him off. More like to pick his target!

    Earth and metal powerhouses were his priority pick. He needed to first understand which of these heavyweights fulfilled his needs. He also needed to determine if there were any hidden powerhouses that he needed to stay away from.

    This was perfect, they all presented themselves to him here. They¡¯d been too far away when teacher fought Sun Yifei. He could see balls of light, but not too clearly. Now they were front and center and very clear to his eyes.

    Take Violet Moon, for example. He could see that she was very strong and carried an origin weapon. She was stronger than Sun Yifei, so she might be peak Sr or greater than Sr.

    It wasn¡¯t likely that she was greater than Sr, so she was probably peak Sr.

    He saw a simrly shaped ball of light in another direction. That was probably the Revolution King.

 Chapter 221: Hu Dingfang (II)

    <h4>Chapter 221: Hu Dingfang (II)</h4>

    Yama¡¯s leading representative seemed to be on the same level as Violet Moon; he also looked to possess an origin weapon. As Li Hao scanned him from a hundred meters away, the young man vaguely made out something that was either a dragon or a snake swimming through his body.

    These origin weapons seemed to take animal shape. Or, that was how they appeared in the balls of light, at least. Their tangible forms may be some sort of weapon. Could it be that animals or monster spirits had been used to forge these weapons back in the day? Animals such as Panther?

    Panth barely counted as a dog spirit for the moment¡ªit wasn¡¯t truly one in name. Li Hao also wasn¡¯t too concerned that he hadn¡¯t seen the little ck dog all day. The dog was smart as hell and had likely found a ce to hide after sensing the abundance of powerhouses.

    <i>He¡¯s not of the five elements! </i>Li Hao determined with one look at the Revolution King. The shape of his ball of light seemed more like that of a wind supernatural. It drifted around the man¡ªbehavior that was simr to the one around Huang Yun.

    Li Hao kept looking, there should be another Sr within the Yama delegation. As he thought, he saw the second Sr after the Revolution King shifted slightly. His ball of light was smaller¡ªon par with Hao Lianchuan¡¯s. He might be peak initial Sr.

    <i>Mm, this guy is good! He¡¯s a metal supernatural! </i>Li Hao registered with interest and quickly moved his gaze. A metal supernatural was good, but sadly, he was a Sr.

    The young man continued to scan the neers; the delegations would likely send all of their powerhouses to forestall any trouble from arising if any stayed behind. Or it might be that they were ready to enter the ruins and couldn¡¯t be bothered to return to camp.

    There weren¡¯t that many from Yama¡ªroughly thirty. There were even fewer from Celestial, just twenty cloaked figures. Sword Sect showed up with thergest numbers at almost fifty. inly, many supernaturals had joined the local organization. It was in quality that they fell short. Judging from the balls of light, some were only initial Darkmoon and even Starlight.

    Some small organizations that¡¯d yet to leave also slipped in among the crowd.

    <i>Two Srs from Yama and... two Srs from Celestial!</i> Li Hao realized with shock. Celestial had sent such a tiny delegation, but there were still two Srs present. He didn¡¯t, however, see anyone on par with the Revolution King¡¯s existence.

    The young man was further surprised when he looked at the Sword Sect. They seemed to possess another Sr apart from Hong Yitang, but that one kept a very low profile and stayed hidden within the crowd. There were also a few martial masters among their ranks that Li Hao couldn''t see through.

    <i>So the Sword Sect also has two Srs! </i>The young man concluded with astonishment. This meant that if it wasn¡¯t for Hou Xiaochen and Manager Yu, the Night Watchers would be less than the Sword Sect. They only had one Sr in the form of Hao Lianchuan.

    What the heck was this situation? It was one thing for the Night Watchers to be less than the three great organizations, but they shouldn¡¯t stand even lower than the Sword Sect!

    <i>These guys are still so powerful even without Red Moon!</i>

    There were even more Sunres if he was to count that level. Celestial had the most number of Sunres, not Yama or the Night Watchers. A startled Li Hao made a careful count. Out of Celestial¡¯s twenty-two cloaked figures, two were Srs and a potential thirteen were Sunres. Seven looked to be Darkmoon, and they were stronger than Fullmoon.

    <i>The fuck??</i>

    Didn¡¯t they all say that Sunres were a rare sight? The Night Watchers had sent seven in their delegation due to the importance of the ruins. Li Hao thought that was a sizable amount, but it turns out that it wasn¡¯t much? Had these fellows emptied out their provincial strongholds?

    ¡°After some thought, I¡¯ve decided that the expedition shall take ce at 6am tomorrow.¡± Hou Xiaochen walked over and skipped the pleasantries. ¡°Does anyone wish to withdraw? If not, we will enter in the morning! All of us can enter together and then decide whether or not to separate when we run into several forked roads. If we don¡¯t go in together, the doors to the ruins open only once a month. You¡¯ll have to wait for next month or for the others to exit...¡±

    ¡°We can go in together,¡± the tall Reincarnation King said from a distance. ¡°But there are other details that we need to discuss first.¡±

    ¡°Go ahead.¡±

    ¡°There needs to be a limit on the number of people.¡±

    ¡°How so?¡± Hou Xiaochenughed.

    ¡°Twenty from each faction!¡± the Reincarnation King said calmly. ¡°It¡¯s not good for too many people to go inside. Conflicts will easily arise and we¡¯ll interfere with each other¡¯s explorations. Yama, Celestial, the Night Watchers, and Sword Sect will send twenty people each. The smaller organizations can send abined twenty people. A total of one hundred is enough.¡±

    Too many was indeed not ideal. A disorganized situation would more easily set off extraneous mechanisms.

    A cold snort sounded in the midst of their discussions as a violet shadownded from the sky. ¡°Revolution,¡± she said coldly. ¡°Have you forgotten Red Moon?¡±

    ¡°I haven¡¯t.¡± The man frowned. ¡°But Red Moon...¡±

    <i>Is all dead, isn¡¯t it?</i>

    His eyes shifted rapidly as his voice trailed off. Figures wearing ghost face masks rushed to join them, giving rise to strange expressions throughout the assembly!

    Red Moon still had people! After losing their entire delegation and a few Srs, they still had people to send! Just how many members had the organization sent to Silver Moon?

    One had to know, this was just a border province. Out of the ny-nine provinces of the Skystar Dynasty, Silver Moon was neither here nor there in terms of importance. The three great organizations valued the province, but neither Yama nor Celestial could do as Red Moon and swiftly assemble another batch of powerhouses after a band of elites were ughtered.

    There were roughly twenty of them and they were all quite strong! Several Sunres could be sensed among them; no one could tell if there were Srs.

    Li Hao, however, could. There were no Srs. It looked like Red Moon had lost all of their Srs in the province, but Violet Moon was one herself. Would she be joining the expedition? The young man was stunned by the organization¡¯s might. They were incredible to quickly put together another team after losing so many!

    He quickly lowered his head as he discovered that not only Violet Moon, but many of the newly arrived Red Moon members were focused on him. Their attention wasn¡¯t too overt, but he sensed it all the same. It was the perception of a martial master. These people were all eyeing him!

    <i>Damn it! </i>This meant that Red Moon¡¯s bigger target was still him. Was it because of Silver City¡¯s matter?

    ¡°Red Moon is the strongest of the three great organizations, alright!¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°Impressive!¡±

    Thepliment was an obvious attempt to sow discord. But the instigation wouldn¡¯t work as the three great organizations didn¡¯t care aboutments like these.

    ¡°We all have roughly the same sized delegation,¡± Hou Xiaochen continued with a smile. ¡°So limiting numbers doesn¡¯t seem as significant a matter. Those who are willing to enter can enter. There aren¡¯t that many of the Night Watchers present and a portion of us will not be joining the expedition.

    ¡°Since Violet Moon is also here, shall we discuss who amongst us should not be attending?¡± The Night Watcher director¡¯s smile deepened. ¡°Me, Violet Moon, and Revolution will not be entering. Half Mountain of Celestial isn¡¯t here, so we can set him aside. How about the three of us act as checks on each other?¡±

    The Revolution King had no opinion, but Violet Moon bit off coolly, ¡°I naturally wouldn¡¯t go inside if Hao Kong was alive. Now that he¡¯s dead, and by Yuan Shuo¡¯s hand, shall I kill Hao Lianchuan first before we discuss this further?¡±

    If she stayed outside as well, there would be no Srs among the Red Moon delegation. What was the point of them attending the expedition then? Just to send their members to their deaths?

    Hao Lianchuan nced at her and cursed inwardly. <i>So now you think of me when you want to kill someone. Why don¡¯t you talk about killing Director Hou?</i>

    ¡°You are a peak Sr and wield an origin weapon,¡± Hou Xiaochen sighed. ¡°The situation will be difficult to handle if you are part of the team as well. I¡¯d wanted everyone to jointly explore the ruins, but with your personality, you¡¯ll start attacking as soon as you¡¯re inside. Then there won''t be much of a point to this coborative excavation.

    ¡°Not to mention, Revolution will want to enter if you¡¯re there, so I have to be a part of it as well then. Why don¡¯t we just dere war on each other right here and now?¡±

    Stone-faced, Violet Moon didn¡¯t respond. She was going inside! Not just for the ruins, but also because she wanted to capture Li Hao while inside. With Hou Xiaochen present on the outside, it did deter her from taking action.

    Of course, the prerequisite was that Li Hao would be part of the expedition as well.

    Hou Xiaochen dithered in an awkward position. The Revolution King chuckled at this time. ¡°I have to be part of the delegation if Violet Moon joins. If you¡¯re interested, you can partake as well, Director Hou!¡±

    Would Hou Xiaochen dare? Silver Moon would be engulfed with pandemonium as soon as the doors closed.

    ¡°You¡¯re putting me in a checkmate!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed and thought briefly. ¡°What a pity that Yuan Shuo ran for it. Let¡¯s wait for a little bit, I¡¯ve notified someone toe. It¡¯s up to you whether or not you wish to participate after he arrives!¡±

    Some looked askance at each other. Who was it? Why did Hou Xiaochen think they could stand against the Revolution King and Violet Moon?

    Hao Lianchuan was also very curious. <i>Are there any other Srs apart from me, and one that can counterbnce powerhouses such as Violet Moon?</i>

    ¡°Then it¡¯s settled,¡± Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t borate. ¡°Additionally, I have to say this even though I may be speaking out of turn. It¡¯s best that we cooperate with each other after heading inside! This ancient city is far more than it seems. Otherwise, we Night Watchers would¡¯ve finished our explorations a long time ago. This joint expedition would never be on the table.

    ¡°Being in a rush to eliminate your opponents after entering the ruins is not a good idea! If a mad ughter begins after you¡¯re all inside, you¡¯re more likely to consign everyone to death!

    ¡°Additionally, you¡¯ll have to wait until midnight that day after the doors open. If you enter in the morning, you¡¯ll have to wait until midnight to exit. You won¡¯t be able to open the doors yourself. Novas can¡¯t manage it, to say nothing of Srs.¡±

    Strange expressions crossed faces. So the doors of the ruins were that durable? Of course, it also represented just how extraordinary the ruins were. There was no need for Hou Xiaochen to lie to the assembly.

    The director wasn¡¯t willing to say anything else. He turned to walk back to the tents. ¡°That will be all. Come with us tomorrow morning. If all of you stay here, it will look like you want to encircle and mob the Night Watchers.¡±

    The supernaturals outside didn¡¯t say anything. They quickly returned to their campsite, which happened to be quite close to the Night Watcher tents.

 Chapter 222: Hu Dingfang (III)

    <h4>Chapter 222: Hu Dingfang (III)</h4>

    Li Hao ignored the outsiders and nced at Liu Yan next to him. He followed her gaze when he saw her fix a vicious re on someone. The target of her look was a muscr man. His ball of light ced him as a Sunre.

    <i>That¡¯s probably Li Dahu, isn¡¯t it?</i>

    ¡°Big sis?¡±

    Liu Yan had turned extremely taciturn since arriving at Rift Canyon. She barely said a word these days. <i>She must be burning for vengeance, yet unable to do anything. </i>Her enemy was right in front of her, but there was nothing to be done. It would be a horrible feeling indeed.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Liu Yan murmured. ¡°I saw Red Moon¡¯s people looking at you. You should probably stay out of the ruins...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯ll be okay,¡± Li Hao chuckled and shook his head. ¡°Sis, just find a chance to kill that guy. Don¡¯t lose sleep over it.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t think about it, Little Hao. Just keep an eye on your own safety.¡± That was all that Liu Yan would say. It would be more trouble if she said too much and caused the others to seek out Li Dahu without considering the consequences. Revenge wouldn¡¯t immediately jump to the top of her priority list as soon as she entered the ruins. The right timing had to be identified.

    A curious Wang Ming walked over. ¡°Who do you think the director is bringing here? They must be pretty strong. Can it be a powerhouse from headquarters?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head. He had no idea. Perhaps Manager Yu would be going inside? Her ball of light was a little stronger than Violet Moon¡¯s. Perhaps she was the Nova that the director spoke of. Even if not, she was at least a peak Sr. If she entered the ruins, she would absolutely be able to handle the other two.

    ......

    The Night Watchers were also waiting. Since Director Hou had confirmed that he wouldn¡¯t be entering, whoever went in his stead was critical. Hao Lianchuan sulked off to the side¡ªno one paid attention to him. inly, everyone thought that he wouldn¡¯t be able to stand against Violet Moon and the Revolution King.

    A loud rumble sounded near midnight, startling everyone awake. Was it more powerhouses?

    Li Hao walked out with the rest and glimpsed an aircraft in the sky. Or rather, a helicopter.

    <i>It¡¯s from the army!</i>

    The thought shed through the crowd¡¯s minds when they saw it. Only the military would have equipment like this. It was said that civilian versions existed in the central region, but Silver Moon didn¡¯t have any. Only the military did.

    A figure jumped down from the sky, splitting the ground with a roar!

    Such a massive disturbance rmed even the organizations on the outside. They approached the Night Watcher camp as well. The assembly saw an expressionless person when the dust cleared. He was roughly forty years of age with very short hair. His ck army uniform was simr to an inspector uniform, but not quite. It was a bit more domineering.

    Wang Ming started to see the man, a bit dazed by shock. ¡°My... heavens... why is it him?¡±

    ¡°You know him?¡± Li Hao asked quietly. This person was very strong! It wasn¡¯t that his light was intense¡ªhe seemed simr to Sun Yifei. It was the feeling that this person emanated, his temperament. It indicated that he was very, very strong!

    ¡°Do you know the local army?¡± Wang Ming whispered. ¡°There¡¯s three hundred thousand of them stationed in Silver Moon, I told you about it before, right? My family has a bit of power and influence inside. The army is split into three parts, roughly one hundred thousand each. This is Commander Hu of the Tiger Wings, one of the three parts. Hemands the Tiger Wings, but the army and Night Watchers rarely act in concert...¡±

    The middle-aged man nodded at Hou Xiaochen and looked at the perimeter.

    ¡°Piss off!¡± His look was as arctic as could be. ¡°If you want to die, I¡¯ll grant your wish once we enter the ruins!¡±

    A few more figures materialized in the distance. Violet Moon looked on gravely. ¡°Hu Dingfang, since when did the army get involved in these affairs?¡±

    <i>Hu Dingfang!</i>

    Those who didn¡¯t know him memorized the name.

    Hu Dingfang swept her a cold re and answered aloofly, ¡°Violet Moon, I told you to piss off. Who gave you the right to look down and fly in front of me? Director Hou doesn¡¯t take you to task for it, but I, Hu Dingfang, will not tolerate you! If you don¡¯t piss off now, I¡¯ll eliminate the Red Moon delegation first!¡±

    ¡°Hmph!¡± Violet Moon sniffed, but said nothing else. She turned and left.

    <i>Hu Dingfang!</i>

    This was out of their expectations. They thought that the Night Watchers would send more powerhouses, but it was the army instead. And it was Commander Hu Dingfang of the Tiger Wings! Since when had the mysterious agency reached an agreement with the military? They hadn¡¯t anticipated this at all!

    ¡°Ole Hu, it¡¯s enough that you¡¯re here,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°Why fuss over them?¡±

    Hu Dingfang inclined his head, his expression still remote. But perhaps he was just naturally that way and not an uncaring person. He scanned the Night Watchers instead of responding.

    ¡°I¡¯m not familiar with you guys. Director Hou invited me here just to counteract Violet Moon and Revolution. Do as you should tomorrow. If Violet Moon and Revolution don¡¯t make a move, I will not help as well.¡±

    Now these words were truly indifferent. Hao Lianchuan curved his lips.

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan.¡± Hu Dingfang suddenly settled his gaze on the man, as if he¡¯d seen the gesture. ¡°Would I need to be involved if not for your ipetence?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan nearly exploded on the spot. He answered irately, ¡°Hu Dingfang, I¡¯m not one of your subordinates!¡±

    ¡°You will be tomorrow!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan was stunned into speechlessness and looked at Hou Xiaochen. Surely not? This guy was in charge of the team? He knew Hu Dingfang, this was an unequivocally merciless, callous, and bloodless fellow. Hao Lianchuan itched all over at the idea of being on the same expedition team as him.

    Hou Xiaochen smiled with gratification. There was no helping it, he had to ask the army for help since he wasn¡¯t at liberty to enter the ruins. The Night Watchers were used to freedom, so they had to just grin and bear it. Hu Dingfang was from the army and ustomed to rules and regtions. He was a very stern person, so it was inevitable that the Night Watchers were unused to his style.

    Hao Lianchuan abruptly felt that there was nothing worth living for. He was done for!

    Merriment twinkled in the depths of Hu Dingfang¡¯s eyes. He ignored Hao Lianchuan and continued looking around, finally stopping in Li Hao¡¯s direction. He likely wanted to identify who was Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple.

    After a while, he gave a faint nod. Li Hao blinked and looked at Wang Ming next to him. As he expected, the young supernatural brightened and quickly called out, ¡°Uncle Hu!¡±

    Hu Dingfang started and focused on him, nodding after a moment and reverting to indifference.

    Wang Ming paused, perplexed. <i>Huh? Didn¡¯t you nod at me just now? I wouldn¡¯t bother with a greeting otherwise. </i>He was a bit too afraid of this one.

    Neither Wang Ming nor Li Hao could make sense of what¡¯d just taken ce. That¡¯d been strange, it was as if Hu Dingfang had been greeting thetter. <i>But I don¡¯t know him, does he know teacher?</i>

    That was a possibility.

    ......

    Hu Dingfang quickly entered a tent with Hou Xiaochen.

    <i>Inside themand tent.</i>

    ¡°Thank goodness you¡¯re here,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°It would be a dicey state of affairs otherwise. Did you see Li Hao? He insists on going in, there¡¯s nothing that can be done about it.¡±

    ¡°Good! As disciples of the Five Styles should be!¡± Hu Dingfang responded faintly.

    ¡°You sound like you¡¯re one of the Five Styles as well,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°But I suppose you do count as half of one. Did Yuhua say anything to you before you came?¡±

    Hu Dingfang smiled faintly at the mention of Yuhua. His lips shifted into a barely perceptible curve, but he was indeed smiling. ¡°She said to kill everyone from Red Moon! And to make sure her junior brother gets back safely. Old man Yuan¡¯s disappeared, so she needs to look out for thed as his senior sister.¡±

    <i>Senior sister!</i>

    If Li Hao was present, he would understand. He knew he had a senior sister, one many years older than him. She was in her thirties and ording to his teacher, an old hag. She didn¡¯t have much of a future and worked a few jobs in White Moon City to support herself.

    However, Yuan Shuo never mentioned that she had anything to do with Hu Dingfang.

    ¡°Do as you see fit.¡± A merry Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t surprised. ¡°Old man Yuan¡¯s made a run for it and left us with a great deal of trouble. Yuhua should be fine as she isn¡¯t out in public much. Now that you¡¯re here, Li Hao will be much safer.¡±

    ¡°If you ask me, there¡¯s no need to go to so much trouble!¡± Hu Dingfang said coldly. ¡°We¡¯ll act tonight and kill them all! We can target the others with a full barrage when they arrive and kill anyone thates. It will naturally intimidate this group if we kill the entire delegation!¡±

    ¡°You... Ah, forget it.¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head and refused the suggestion. ¡°You can take action inside the ruins, but what¡¯s the point of destroying a delegation on the outside? You¡¯re too impulsive, so just speak less.¡±

    ¡°Never mind, then!¡± Hu Dingfang rose to his feet. ¡°I¡¯m going to turn in for the night. I¡¯ll be there tomorrow morning. Also, can I hit Hao Lianchuan if he doesn¡¯t listen to orders?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen stayed quiet for a very long moment. It was a tough question to answer. Finally, he said in a muffled tone, ¡°It¡¯s up to you.¡±

    ¡°Good, then I can hit him!¡± Hu Dingfang turned on his heel and left.

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. <i>It¡¯s not like Hao Lianchuan has offended you, but you always want to hit him! All he did was exchange a few words with Yuhua back in the day and ask if she¡¯d like to join the Night Watchers. Is there a need for this?? So many years have passed and you still carry this grudge. Who says that soldiers are straight shooters and don¡¯t nurse a grudge?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen sighed. It looked like he needed to let Hao Lianchuan know in advance. The man may have forgotten his past actions, but Hu Dingfang remembered them clearly! He was very petty in this regard!

    ......

    <i>August 28. 5 am.</i>

    Activity bestirred the campsite. The delegations were to enter the ruins at 6 am, but Li Hao didn¡¯t even know where the ruins were. All he knew was that they were an ancient city. Rift Canyon was massive. Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t had the time to exin where the city was and the young man didn¡¯t ask the Night Watchers. He just needed to follow the crowd.

    The sky was still gloomy, but the Night Watchers were raising a noisy mor. Supernaturals of the other organizations decided to go without sleep this night. They showed signs of movement as well.

    A group of them swiftly congregated at the center of the campsite. They were arge group, but many of them wouldn¡¯t be entering the ruins.

    Hou Xiaochen walked out with Manager Yu¡¯s support. No one reacted in particr and Li Hao managed to keep his calm, but Wang Ming really wanted to gossip. Did those two sleep togetherst night?

    But as he looked at Hou Xiaochen¡¯s smiling face... fear prickled at his back. He didn¡¯t even dare whisper.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t say anything. Hu Dingfang quickly walked over and stood in front of the crowd, usurping Hao Lianchuan¡¯s position.

    The deputy director cast a sidelong nce at him. People said that soldiers were honest and frank, but he somehow felt that this guy was awful to the core. Hu Dingfang liked to pick on him for no reason at all. He intensely disliked the bastard.

    ¡°Stand up straight! Did you not eat enough for breakfast?¡± Hu Dingfang turned his head with a rebuke.

    Hao Lianchuan wanted to throw fists! <i>Who are you yelling at?! I¡¯m the deputy director here, and the first deputy director!</i>

 Chapter 223: Entering the Ruins (I)

    <h4>Chapter 223: Entering the Ruins (I)</h4>

    ording to official government hierarchy, the Night Watchers were half a rank lower than the military. After all, they were subordinate to the Inspectorate to begin with. When it came down to it, the provincial inspector general of Silver Moon was their direct supervisor. He was ranked the same as themander-in-chief of the local military.

    As for Hou Xiaochen, he could be viewed on par with Hu Dingfang. Thetter was just one of themanders of the three armies, which meant that Hao Lianchuan was indeed half a rank lower than him.

    Hu Dingfang¡¯s hectoring put odd expressions on people¡¯s faces. Hao Lianchuan was their superior at the end of the day, so some found the rebuke inappropriate. Not to mention, Hao Lianchuan was a Sr and a decent guy. There are quite a few who were put out with the fact that their supervisor was being publicly reprimanded¡ªeven if the person issuing the lecture was here to help them!

    Hou Xiaochen wanted to say a few words, but Hu Dingfang preempted him in a mild tone. ¡°What are all of you looking at? Hao Lianchuan and I have a personal grudge that has nothing to do with you. Or does someone want to take over his faults for him?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Silence.

    A personal grudge? Night Watchers looked curiously at each other. What grudge could these two share?

    ¡°Hu Dingfang.¡± Hao Lianchuan was equally at a loss for words. ¡°What kind of grudge do I possibly have with you? Just be frank if you have me in your sights!¡±

    Hu Dingfang ignored him, whereas Hou Xiaochen broke out inughter.

    ¡°Hmm... you do have a bit of one... Just a tiny one. Alright, don¡¯t ruin the pleasant atmosphere now.¡±

    He left withrge strides, leaving behind a Hao Lianchuan deep in thought. <i>Do we really share a grudge? But I don¡¯t remember anything!</i>

    He truly couldn¡¯t recall any run-ins with the man. <i>A tiny one?</i> No wonder the guy wouldn¡¯t give him the time of day when they bumped into each other before. <i>So we really have one? Howe I don¡¯t know about it?</i>

    Baffled, Hao Lianchuan slowed his steps and whispered to Manager Yu when Director Hou and Hu Dingfang were deep in murmured conversation. ¡°Secretary Yu, do you know anything about this?¡±

    His memory wasn¡¯t offering any clues. If the director knew, then the manager should know as well.

    Manager Yu flicked him a nce and couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. Hao Lianchuan was growing irritated. <i>The hell! So you won¡¯t tell me, what¡¯s with that expression?</i>

    But after thinking it over, he caught up to the manager and muttered, ¡°I¡¯ll tell you a secret, the director doesn¡¯t like spicy food! He always waits for you to leave before secretly throwing it out!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Manager Yu looked at him for a while. Director Hou also looked at Hao Lianchuan, but simply lowered his voice, ¡°Don¡¯t be too out of line when ites to Hao Lianchuan. We¡¯re on the same side here and you can wait to leave the ruins first before beating him...¡±

    Hu Dingfang inclined his head in understanding.

    ¡°It has to do with his wife,¡± Manager Yu finally said. ¡°Think on it yourself!¡±

    <i>Has to do with his wife? </i>Hao Lianchuan thought carefully. <i>I know his wife Chen Yuhua, she¡¯s pretty. We chatted for a while a few years back. She¡¯s a decently strong martial master. Yuan Shuo was coborating with the Night Watchers then, so I sought her out a few times...</i>

    <i>A few times? So it¡¯s because of this? Surely not!</i>

    <i>Hu Dingfang shouldn¡¯t be this petty and we only talked for a while. It¡¯s not like we did anything. Can it be because of Yuan Shuo?</i>

    Enlightenment dawned on Hao Lianchuan. <i>Was it because Yuan Shuo was injured three years ago? His wife thinks it¡¯s my fault, so she sent Hu Dingfang against me?</i>

    That was very possible!

    <i>But... it was Director Hou who sent Yuan Shuo into the ruins, not me.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan suddenly looked at Hu Dingfang in a new, derisive light. <i>You coward who only picks on easy targets. You don¡¯t dare cause trouble for the director, so youe for me instead. I understand now! So this is the case.</i>

    The deputy director was more put out with this fellow than ever. <i>Coward!</i> But his wife really was very pretty. <i>What a pity that she¡¯s matched with this stony-facedmander. </i>On the other hand, it was due to his wife¡¯s pillow talk that he treated Hao Lianchuan in this manner. That meant his wife was no kind soul either. <i>Hah! Nothing goodes out of Yuan Shuo¡¯s discipline!</i>

    Hao Lianchuan snuck another nce at a Li Hao keeping such a low profile inside the crowd that he¡¯d almost disappeared. <i>The kid ys a pitiful soul who keeps his head down and is oh-so-innocent... he¡¯s nothing good either! He¡¯s just like his teacher¡ªthey almost fade out of view when they¡¯re not strong enough, but when they are?</i>

    <i>They¡¯re the height of arrogance!</i>

    ......

    As Hao Lianchuan¡¯s mind churned with gossip, the Night Watchers walked out of their campground. The perimeter was very quiet and divided into several factions. Red Moon, Celestial, Yama, and the Sword Sect were the four main organizations. An additional forty members from small organizations or independent supernaturals rounded out the gathering. They weren¡¯t too strong, but neither were they too weak. Darkmoons formed their bulk; there were roughly a dozen Sunres as well.

    Out of the fourteen small organizations that¡¯d originally been present, some had run off after yesterday¡¯s battles. Most stayed, but left their weaker members behind. Multiple Srs were attending the excavation and even characters like Violet Moon were entering the ruins. The supernaturals of small organizations were also afraid of death. It was bold enough that they left approximately forty of their members behind.

    When totaled with the Night Watchers, there were nearly two hundred people for the expedition team.

    The assembly swiftly stirred to motion when they saw Hou Xiaochen and the others walk out. They didn¡¯t catch up to the Night Watchers, instead following behind them.

    Arge crowd of people made decent time under the hazy sky. After roughly twenty minutes, Hou Xiaochen stopped in front of a cliff face. Perplexed, people looked around and found nothing out of the ordinary. Hou Xiaochen pointed at the rock in front of them, ¡°The entrance is here!¡±

    A handful of supernatural ripples manifested to probe the cliff face, but didn¡¯t find anything.

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to discover!¡± said the Night Watcher director. ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for Yuan Shuo leading us here in the first ce, we wouldn¡¯t know that this location hides an ancient ruin.¡±

    ¡°How did Yuan Shuo find it?¡± someone asked in the crowd.

    ¡°We don¡¯t know, he didn¡¯t say.¡± Hou Xiaochen was calmly collected. ¡°My agreement with him was that he would explore thirty ruins for me. I didn¡¯t ask about anything else. I don¡¯t know how he found this ce, just that he almost died in the excavation three years ago. Since you are all here, I¡¯m sure you know a thing or two.¡±

    ¡°Does Yuan Shuo breaking through to Summoner have something to do with this set of ruins?¡± someone asked.

    At the same time, various nces were cast at the Red Moon delegation. Some eyed them very oddly indeed. They¡¯d inly received yesterday¡¯s news and were familiar with the scarlet shadows and blood pearls. Given how many from Red Moon were here, did this mean that some had brought their blood pearls?

    No one desired to take action if theycked origin weapons, but everyone knew that the Revolution King must have one, as did possibly Hao Lianchuan. When it came to Celestial, no one knew if they carried one since Half Mountain wasn¡¯t here. And since Hong Yitang could establish the Sword Sect and raise a few supernaturals, who knew if he had an origin weapon?

    Since this was the case, perhaps these people might have other ideas in mind.

    Violet Moon had clearly received the same news and looked around her with a frosty re. Headquarters had sent wordst night for her to be careful. Reinforcements would soon arrive, but she needed to keep a low profile after the expedition. The central region had suffered attacks and some strongholds had been entirely uprooted.

    Their losses were heavy! Multiple Srs disappeared after one night and even some Sunres had vanished.

    ¡°Do all of you want to die?¡± she snapped upon seeing people stare at her delegation. ¡°Either Yuan Shuo released that information or someone wants to fish in troubled waters. If this was the case, Red Moon would¡¯ve had a Summoner of Spirit a long time ago!¡±

    No one responded. It was up to them if they believed or not.

    ¡°Violet Moon, there¡¯s no point in discussing this now,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°I would like to remind everyone of one thing before we set off. Cooperate when you can inside. It¡¯s not that I am worried about you turning on the Night Watchers, but that we truly wish to explore the ruins. If we don¡¯t take full advantage of this chance, it will be tough to say if the ruins belong to the central region or Silver Moon after this.¡±

    The group silently turned over his words. He made sense. Would this ce still be theirs after the central region sent their people?

    ¡°I won¡¯t say anything else!¡± Hou Xiaochen sent a ray of mysterious power at the cliff face. Hao Lianchuan followed with a ray of fire energy. Other supernaturals mimicked their actions in short order.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t pay attention at first, but he blinked when everyone¡¯s energy was present and became lost in a daze.

    <i>Metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, thunder, dark...</i>

    Each of the eight energies seemed to upy their own positioning. Upon closer inspection, this bore simrities to something¡ªthe eight trigrams!

    So it seemed that eight energies were required to ess the ruins. The key point was that theiryout echoed the eight trigrams.

    <i>The eight trigrams?</i> Li Hao suddenly thought of the diagram over Silver City. Did these ruins have something to do with Silver City? His teacher had mentioned the tiny turtle pictograph on the main doors to the ancient city. Ever since the professor learned about the eight families, he felt that the two might be rted. There was a line in the folk song that sang of "the big turtle kept by the Wangs¡±.

    Other than this, Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t have any supplemental evidence to prove that there was a link to the right families. But why did the method to ess the ruins seem so simr to the eight trigrams?

    Li Hao found it regretful that his teacher wasn¡¯t present. Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t mentioned this part before, so the young man would have loved to ask how his teacher found the ce and discovered how to open it.

    <i>Perhaps there really is a connection...</i> Li Hao tightened his grip around the little sword by his waist. If there was, the sword might be pivotal.

    The cliff face seemed toe under an influence as the eight energies were infused into the rock. After a while, the stone morphed into something simr to a mirror¡ªit was bing translucent!

    Some supernaturals gasped with awe and astonishment.

    ¡°The ancient civilization was amazing!¡± someone sighed. The technologies of the past were beyond incredible. Many modern marvels came from exploring ancient ruins, and even martial dao had much to do with the ancient civilization.

 Chapter 224: Entering the Ruins (II)

    <h4>Chapter 224: Entering the Ruins (II)</h4>

    Despite being a neer, the supernatural world was also rted to the ancient civilization. There was more, particrly in terms of technology, that stemmed from the past. The cars that ran on the roads and the helicopter fromst night were all inventions from history.

    That Skystar Dynasty had progressed from an agricultural society to its current mix of half sophisticated technology and half supernatural society was all due to the ancient civilization.

    The Veteris Institute of Silver City was established for the ancients and Yuan Shuo had originally taught there.

    It was said that the dynasty was able to conquer the world thanks to the ancient civilization. The imperial family had possibly excavated a massive ruin back in the day and obtained arge sum of sophisticated items from the rubble. City-level annihtion weapons might have alsoe from there.

    These discoveries made the unification of thends possible. Otherwise, with the level of development of society in the past, conquering a province meant nothing as one might lose it in another few days. The key thing was, the liege lord might not even know that he¡¯d lost part of his territory.

    Not only did the supernaturals gasp with awe, so did Li Hao sigh with appreciation. There was anothernd behind the cliff face! Did this mean that Rift Canyon had existed since the ancient times? The entrance shouldn¡¯t be in the cliff face otherwise. If it¡¯d existed for so long, then the city truly had been buried, right? It couldn¡¯t have been constructed underground to begin with, right?

    If it had, the ancients were truly remarkable!

    Undtions speed across the cliff face like water ripples as it slowly returned to calm. Hou Xiaochen nced at it and spoke again, ¡°You can enter now. The entrance will be essible for half an hour. You can go in together or go in one by one. After it closes, the earliest it can be opened again is midnight tonight. It can be opened at midnight for the next three days, but after that, you¡¯ll have to wait a month. However, if you have to wait a month... you likely won¡¯t make it out alive!¡±

    The assembly jerked with shock.

    ¡°Has someone among the Night Watchers lived inside for a month before?¡± The Revolution King frowned.

    ¡°No.¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head. ¡°There¡¯s enormous danger inside. It¡¯s already a great feat to make it out alive within the first three days, to say nothing of a month. We explored only the outer city before¡ªthe city beneath us is divided into the inner and outer city. There¡¯s nothing valuable in the outer city, it¡¯s all held in the inner city.

    ¡°Therefore, we hope that everyone works together on this joint expedition and makes it to the inner city!¡± The man smiled. ¡°That will be all for now. You know better than me if you¡¯re familiar with what I speak of. It¡¯s not like you haven¡¯t sent people inside before. What¡¯s the point in asking all these questions?¡±

    Would the great organizations enter without any sort of preparation beforehand?

    Absolutely not!

    There were plenty of Night Watchers in the agency and not all of them were loyal. There were double agents among them who¡¯d long shared intelligence of the explorations.

    No one among the crowd said anything, while Hong Yitang exined, ¡°I really don¡¯t know much. Please don¡¯t misunderstand, Director Hou.¡±

    The director smiled without a word.<i> Is that so? It is if you say so.</i>

    As the water ripples stilled, the various organizations stared fixedly at the entrance. Do they go together or separately? Was there danger inside? They turned their gazes to the eager members of the small organizations.

    ¡°You go in first!¡± Violet Moon suddenlymanded coolly.

    The small organizations hesitated at the directive. Some were apprehensive while others were excited. They knew that they were being used as scouts. At the same time, they were already here. Were they afraid of anything? Those still on the scene were either unafraid of death or hoping to strike it rich. It might be more dangerous to be the first inside, but it also meant they may have greater gains. Although the Night Watchers had already conducted a few explorations, that didn¡¯t mean anything.

    A couple of figures shot forward without requiring a second exhortation from Violet Moon. They smashed into the rippling cliff wall and vanished like a drop of water into a liquid surface. The figures vanished from sight.

    Some powerhouses among the crowd utilized special powers to scan the stone surface with shining eyes, but they quickly frowned. They couldn¡¯t see anything. Just as their intelligence reports told them, one lost contact with the outside world after entering the ruins. Only a wall separated them, but they were unable to probe what was happening inside.

    After precedent was set, the remaining heavyweights of the small organizations threw caution to the wind.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go in!¡± one of them grunted. ¡°We¡¯re here because we want to take a gamble. There¡¯s nothing to hesitate about!¡±

    Another group of people rushed at the cliff face. It might be safer to head in earlier. If they were one of thest ones in, they would have to be on their guard against ambush from therger organizations. Now that was true danger.

    Forty members of the small organizations had all gone inside in the blink of an eye. The Night Watchers were in no hurry.

    ¡°Let¡¯s make good use of time!¡± Hou Xiaochen remarked upon seeing that the assembly wasn¡¯t at ease. ¡°How about this, the Sword Sect first, then Celestial, the Night Watchers, Red Moon, and Yama.¡±

    The Revolution King turned to him with a frown. Why were theyst?

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter what the order is, so long as we¡¯re in the middle,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°This is to prevent you guys from allying together and quickly taking us out if you enter first. This is also out of interest for peace.¡±

    ¡°Celestial goesst,¡± amended the Revolution King. ¡°Half Mountain isn¡¯t here, so they have no voice at the table!¡±

    It was fine for the Sword Sect to enter first. They could be the first line of defense against danger, and they weren¡¯tpetent enough to do anything if all was safe.

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t mind. He gave way to the arrangement with a smile. ¡°Then we¡¯ll be off. Everyone, see you inside!¡±

    He was the first to enter the cliff face, followed swiftly by his sect members and daughter. As for danger... if Hong Yitang died inside, there wouldn¡¯t be a good ending in store for his daughter. These veteran martial masters held quite a clear understanding of the world. It was better to keep his daughter by his side so that she wouldn¡¯t be a hostage in another¡¯s hands.

    The Revolution King acted decisively after the Sword Sect entered; he quickly walked in with his Yama members. Off to the side, Celestial didn¡¯t protest their positioning. These people in cloaks kept a startlingly low profile.

    It was the Night Watchers after Yama¡¯s people. Liu Long grabbed Li Hao with one hand and Liu Yan with the other.

    ¡°Stay with me, be careful of getting separated!¡± he muttered. There was no need to look after Wang Ming¡ªthe young supernatural knew plenty of people here.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything, he looked around with a bit of bafflement. Where was Panther? Had someone killed it and made it into dog stew? Surely not!

    The dog was very smart. Did its absence mean that it was unwilling to enter the ruins? He was about to go in!

    That was just as well if it didn¡¯t want to. The situation was bound to be dangerous inside, it was just that the outside may not be safe either. Numerous powerhouses might arrive after they left¡ªmaybe they would itch for a taste of dog spirit meat when they saw Panth?

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t able to continue dwelling on this matter, so he set it aside.

    Hu Dingfang was the first to enter on the Night Watcher side, Hao Lianchuan would bring up the rear. There were a few in line ahead of Li Hao¡¯s trio. When they were all inside, the three rushed the cliff face.

    After them, Red Moon and Celestial entered the ruins. There were only a few Night Watchers and a scattering of members from other organizations left outside before long. Not all of Red Moon went inside; some Darkmoons remained on the outskirts. It wouldn¡¯t be a loss if they died. If no one touched these Darkmoons, they could wait for reinforcements to arrive. Various heavyweights were rushing to Silver Moon on ount of Yuan Shuo¡¯s matter. they just needed a bit of time to make the trip.

    Those who stayed behind swiftly vanished. Each of them were highly on edge as they were deathly afraid Hou Xiaochen would kill them.

    The Night Watcher director, however, didn¡¯t deign to look at them. It was pointless to kill them. He simply watched the stone wall gradually return to a cliff face. A ck dog appeared at thest possible second and rammed itself at the wall.

    Manager Yu was about to stop the animal when Hou Xiaochen shook his head.

    ¡°Let it go inside,¡± he chuckled. ¡°I hear that it¡¯s Yuan Shuo¡¯s dog.¡±

    ¡°Yuan Shuo...¡± The manager looked around with furrowed brows. ¡°Is he still nearby?¡±

    Being a martial master, it was easy for Yuan Shuo to hide himself if he wished to.

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say. Whatever Yuan Shuo does is normal. Who knows where he¡¯s holing up to recover, or perhaps he¡¯s not in hiding at all,¡± Hou Xiaochen continued chuckling. ¡°Let¡¯s go, the entrance has been sealed off. Let¡¯se back for a look tomorrow night. I wonder if anyone will rush here today. Our neighbors might arrive if they¡¯re fast enough¡ªI don¡¯t think we¡¯ll see anyone from the central region yet.¡±

    The central region was so far away that some more time was needed. However, there were other provinces near Silver Moon. The variousrger organizations might redeploy their powerhouses on an ad hoc basis, more neighboring Night Watchers might present themselves. Who knew?

    Manager Yu helped him back to camp. ¡°Will battle break out as soon as they¡¯re all inside?¡± she asked softly.

    ¡°It shouldn¡¯t, they¡¯ll want to get a handle on the situation first. They¡¯re all supernaturals¡ªwhile impulsive, they¡¯re not idiots. If they start killing as soon as they¡¯re inside, who knows if anyone will make it out alive?¡±

    ......

    <i>At the same time, above the cliffs of Rift Canyon.</i>

    A figure appeared with a soft cough, itsplexion pale. It looked at Hou Xiaochen in the distance and at the newly sealed off cliff face. A faint smile spread across its face.

    ¡°It¡¯s up to you now!¡± The figure looked to the horizon. There would be powerhouses here soon. It walked away from the scene and was soon greeted by a person stepping out from a boulder.

    Yuan Shuo coughed and looked at the neer with surprise. ¡°What are you doing here?¡±

    ¡°Master!¡± The neer appeared very young and delicate, but wore a sturdybat outfit and a braided ponytail. She half grumbled, ¡°I came with Dingfangst night, but I dropped out of the helicopter first. I knew you would still be here!¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Yuan Shuo frowned.

    ¡°Junior brother is here, would you leave ahead of time without watching him enter the ruins or seeing if Hou Xiaochen handed him over?¡± Chen Yuhuained. ¡°You¡¯re deeply injured, but you¡¯re still lingering in these surroundings. I knew that you¡¯d rx only after personally seeing junior brother enter the ruins. As I thought, I found you here!¡±

    ¡°What are you doing, waiting for me?¡± Yuan Shuo frowned and left withrge strides.

    ¡°Master, are your injuries bad?¡± Chen Yuhua quickly caught up to the professor. ¡°Everyone¡¯s looking for you,e back to White Moon City with me. The army barracks are the safest. No matter how bold they are, they won¡¯t dare attack the army! The Tiger Wings¡¯ campsite is perfect for you to rest and recover in...¡±

    ¡°Piss off!¡± Yuan Shuo snapped impatiently.

    ¡°Master!¡± Chen Yuhua protested in hurt tones.

    ¡°Who¡¯s your master?¡± Yuan Shuo denounced cold as he talked. ¡°When I epted you, I wanted to have you inherit my legacy. You¡¯re my final disciple on the path of martial dao, Li Hao was meant to be the heir to my knowledge! The Five Styles, the Breathing Method of the Five Styles! Which one didn¡¯t I pass on to you? My thoughts were that you¡¯d strengthen my Five Styles discipline if you could cross over to Dominator.

    ¡°But you decided to go to White Moon City. I don¡¯t care if you decided to join the army or Night Watchers, but you taught my breathing method to Hu Dingfang!¡± Yuan Shuo snarled with fury. ¡°I would¡¯ve pped you to death with one palm strike if this had been twenty years ago! This is a betrayal of your master! Would Hu Dingfang have his aplishments of today with that potential? You good-for-nothing!¡±

 Chapter 225: Entering the Ruins (III)

    <h4>Chapter 225: Entering the Ruins (III)</h4>

    Yuan Shuo was livid with rage! The woman in front of him was the final disciple he¡¯d been prepared to pass on all of his martial heritage on to. Li Hao was an ident; the boy hadn¡¯t been ready to learn martial dao. But this woman, his youngest disciple back in the day, had privately handed out martial tutge to others!

    This was why Yuan Shuo very rarely mentioned a senior sister to Li Hao. On the rare asion that he did, he described her as an old hag and said there was nothing noteworthy about her. It was apparent from this that the professor was still put out with this disciple. And given his temper, he really would¡¯ve cleaned house if this happened when he was younger!

    ¡°Master, I know I¡¯m at fault.¡± Chen Yuhua looked woeful. ¡°But you had so many enemies back in the day and Dingfang was already a high ranking officer in the army. His potential is good and he can protect master if he¡¯s stronger...¡±

    She¡¯d only hoped to better protect her master, but unauthorized dissemination of martial dao was indeed a great taboo in the martial world. Granted, the martial world had almost vanished by that time.

    Yuan Shuo remained stony-faced and strode ahead of her.

    ¡°Master, look, Dingfang can protect junior brother now that he¡¯s strong.¡± Chen Yuhua followed behind the old man. ¡°Hou Xiaochen is a wily old fox and junior brother may not be safe by his side. With Dingfang present, he¡¯ll have to consider Dingfang¡¯s feelings even if he doesn¡¯t think of you...¡±

    ¡°Piss off!¡± Yuan Shuo snapped; he couldn¡¯t be bothered with what the woman was saying.

    ¡°Master, you can refuse to recognize me,¡± Chen Yuhua continued doggedly. ¡°But you¡¯re in a very dangerous situation right now. Junior brother will also face danger when he exits the ruins. I¡¯d like junior brother to enter the Tiger Wings. He¡¯ll be safer there than with the Night Watchers.¡±

    Yuan Shuo turned back to regard her with a frown. ¡°If you dare make haphazard arrangements or intervene carelessly, I¡¯ll execute both you and Hu Dingfang! Is ate Sr supposed to be very strong? And you, just look at how you are after setting foot into Dominator! Are you worthy of calling me master?! You¡¯re less than Liu Long as a Dominator! Don¡¯t call me master, you don¡¯t have the right to!

    ¡°I taught you a perfectly good Five Styles and the five auras,¡± the old man breathed out balefully. ¡°Gathering all five is very difficult, so I told you to break through after collecting two or three. You decided to advance at one!

    ¡°It¡¯s harder toprehend the aura as a Dominator!¡± Yuan Shuo raged. ¡°Why do people like us continuously refuse to set foot into that level? Are you that highly capable? You¡¯re a trash Dominator! You taught martial dao to Hu Dingfang without my permission! Fine, I won¡¯t speak of this. But you broke through to Dominator ahead of time for that piece of shit! Do you have any respect for your master??¡±

    Chen Yuhua couldn¡¯t muster a response. She had indeed advanced prematurely in order to save Hu Dingfang. She¡¯d grasped only one aura, and the weaker deer aura at that. It created the situation that although she was a Dominator, she wasn¡¯t that strong. She was more on par with an ordinary supernatural. Even though it¡¯d been a few years since her progression, she could only fight some mid orte Sunres. Peak Sunres were beyond her.

    inly, this did not measure up to Yuan Shuo¡¯s expectations. The old man was thick in the throes of anger.

    ¡°Your potential is exemry and you grasped the aura early on. You were the greatest hope of my Five Styles discipline, but these results?! I could¡¯ve forgiven you for privately passing on knowledge if you¡¯d melded the five auras together. But you crippled your martial dao for him! I¡¯ll kill him sooner orter!!¡±

    This was his true final disciple¡ªwould he have epted someone with poor potential andprehension? But after a trip to White Moon City, she lost herself, the secret art, and her martial dao future.

    The deer aura? She might as well not break through then!

    No one would¡¯ve guessed that this particr Yuan Shuo disciple had entered Dominator a long time ago. Everyone thought that those of this cultivation did not exist in the martial world. Yuan Shuo never mentioned it to outsiders. He didn¡¯t praise or boast about it because it was a humiliation, not an honor.

    A Dominator whoprehended only the deer aura? <i>What use is that? To run away with? Is this all that the strongest heir to my Five Styles is good for?</i>

    Chen Yuhua had nothing to say. She lowered her head and changed topics after a while. ¡°Master,e to the army barracks. It¡¯s safer there. I¡¯ve prepared good food and wine for you. I¡¯ve also notified people to hunt down Red Moon powerhouses to see if we can extract some blood pearls for your recovery. Also, Dingfang said that he would emerge from the ruins with some blood pearls...¡±

    ¡°Piss. Off!¡± Yuan Shuo shouted once more.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be mad, master,¡± Chen Yuhua continued in the face of her teacher¡¯s wrath. ¡°It¡¯s been so many years. Not to mention, junior brother is a Sunderer now too, right? You¡¯ve entered Summoner of Spirit and the Five Styles discipline is known far and wide. I¡¯m just a woman¡ªI¡¯d be losing face for you if I¡¯m considered your final disciple. Junior brother seems quite good. See, I can send my husband to look after him now that you¡¯re indisposed. Otherwise, how can a Dominator like me look after him, wouldn¡¯t you say so?¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡± Yuan Shuo cursed again.

    ¡°Master, we can¡¯t stay here for too long,¡± Chen Yuhua consoled. ¡°The enemy mighte for us! Come with me first. Ah, yes, I got in contact with senior brother two years ago. He¡¯s doing well enough! We can find a day to catch up with him...¡±

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s footsteps halted and he frowned. ¡°Is that one still alive?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t hold your grudges for so long, master,¡± Chen Yuhuaforted. ¡°Senior brother was only protecting you that year...¡±

    ¡°More bullshit!¡± Yuan Shuo snorted. ¡°He¡¯s not my disciple either, Li Hao is my only disciple! How the fuck does a yer who crossed over to the supernatural dare say he¡¯s my disciple? I told him to ascend as a Sunderer, he insisted on doing so as a yer! Tell him to get the hell away from me!¡±

    He wasn¡¯t opposed to his disciples joining the supernatural world, but he¡¯d hoped for his senior disciple to ascend as a Sunderer. The man couldn¡¯t help himself and crossed over as a peak yer. It¡¯d caused Yuan Shuo no end of heartburn for a long time.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be like that, master,¡± Chen Yuhua said quietly. ¡°You need to ept it even if for junior brother¡¯s sake! Senior brother¡¯s done quite well for himself, he joined the Skystar Troops that the Ministry of Military Justice created in the central region! It¡¯s the ministry¡¯s premier supernatural division and he¡¯s now a Sr...¡±

    ¡°Hah!¡± Yuan Shuo jeered again. ¡°Are Srs supposed to be something? I¡¯ve already killed a bunch of them! If he¡¯d listened to me and ascended as a Sunderer, he might be greater than Sr now given it was the early days of the supernatural world. A Sr? Don¡¯t embarrass yourself!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Chen Yuhua waspletely speechless. ¡°Master, not everyone can meld the five auras like you. Otherwise, the martial world wouldn¡¯t have only one Old D¡ªGrandmaster Yuan.¡±

    A livid Yuan Shuo looked at her. What had she wanted to say? Old Demon Yuan? Was that something she could say?

    ¡°Hu Dingfang, is it?¡± he asked coldly. ¡°You learned it from him because he calls me that everyday, doesn¡¯t he?¡±

    ¡°...no!¡± Chen Yuhua hastily shook her head. This was bad! Dingfang would be done for if she confessed!

    ¡°I¡¯ll collect from that piece of shit sooner orter!¡± Yuan Shuo snorted coldly. ¡°I won¡¯t fuss about this because I¡¯m in a good mood. Don¡¯t im to anyone that you¡¯re my disciple.¡± The old man sniffed dismissively. ¡°You grasp the deer aura. The deer corresponds to the liver and the liver to the wood element. You can try nurturing your five visceral organs. The deer aura can be melded into the liver to summon the spirit of the wood deer!

    ¡°But don¡¯t try this brashly,¡± he said after a few pointers. ¡°You can ask Li Hao if there¡¯s anything you don¡¯t understand.¡±

    ¡°Master!¡± Chen Yuhua eximed with excitement. Was her master... not as angry anymore?

    ¡°Don¡¯t say you¡¯re my disciple, you¡¯re not anymore!¡± Yuan Shuo sneered. ¡°I tell you this only to let you know that martial masters have a far brighter future than your Hu Dingfang!¡±

    He pushed off into the air and swiftly vanished into the sky. Chen Yuhua quickly followed in pursuit, but it was impossible to catch up to the old man. Yuan Shuo had vanished amid the deste ins.

    Although the professor had been angry earlier and wanted to shake off Chen Yuhua, he¡¯d done so through walking. There was no leaving anyone behind when walking. All he needed to do was operate Birdshot if he truly wished to be free of Chen Yuhua. He hemmed and hawed for a long while, even exining the process for attaining Summoner in the end.

    It was all in interest of taking a few more nces at this disciple he¡¯d once held great expectations for. Chen Yuhua had followed at his side for a full ten years¡ªa time much longer than Li Hao.

    Yuan Shuo was truly heartbroken, a state that eased only when he himself broke through to Summoner.

    Chen Yuhua gave chase, but could no longer catch sight of Yuan Shuo. Sorrow set in; it was difficult for her to ept this oue. Her master was too stubborn. She¡¯d gone to Silver City a few times over the years but was always thrown out. Yuan Shuo smashed everything he couldy hands on and threw an incredible fit, refusing any chance of her returning.

    Things were a bit better now, possibly because of his new disciple. Her little junior brother performed well when it came to martial dao, bringing splendor to her master¡¯s sealed heart.

    Chen Yuhua sighed as she failed to catch up to Yuan Shuo, then quickly roused her spirits. Master had given her the method to Summoner, indicating that he still thought of their rtionship. He was just too stubborn to speak of it. This was good!

    The caveat was that nothing happened to her junior brother. Otherwise, with her master¡¯s temper, if her junior brother was lost and Chen Yuhua unsessful in attaining major aplishment in martial dao, the traces of warmth she¡¯d seen today would quickly freeze over.

    <i>Dingfang, you have to protect junior brother well. If he dies in the ruins... master might really execute you!</i> Chen Yuhua grew worried again. Her husband was leading the expedition team, but it would be enormous trouble if her junior brother was injured at all. Hu Dingfang would never find favor in her master¡¯s eyes then.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, inside the ruins beside massive city walls.</i>

    Hu Dingfang¡¯s head was about to split open.

    ¡°Where¡¯s Li Hao?!¡± A headache was going to break his brain! His wife had urged again and again that he needed to ensure Li Hao¡¯s safety, so where was the young man?!

    Stubborn old fart Yuan Shuo had wanted to move against him for the longest time, so Hu Dingfang had hoped to alleviate the tension by protecting Li Hao well on this expedition. But where had the young man gone??

    The armymander panicked. <i>I¡¯m dead! </i>They¡¯d alle in together, but Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan were mysteriously missing when he counted heads. <i>Fuck! </i>Those two could vanish, but nothing could happen to Li Hao!

    Hu Dingfang wanted to cry. He was the vauntedmander of the Tiger Wings, but he really wanted to bawl his eyes out somewhere.

    <i>Why is life so hard??</i> He looked around, finding that those who¡¯de in earlier were already gone. Those enteringter swiftly vanished near the entrance. Only the Night Watchers remained, and they were all looking at him.

    ¡°Li Hao and the others are gone?¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t have much of an expression on his face, he was just confused. ¡°Did they get transported elsewhere? But it¡¯s fine, this has happened before, it¡¯s just a rare sight. Three vanishing at the same time is even rarer¡ªthey might really have been transported elsewhere.¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± Hu Dingfang seemed to see a ray of hope and grabbed the man¡¯s arm. ¡°He¡¯s not dead?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you?¡± Hao Lianchuan blurted out. <i>The heck? Why are you reacting like this instead of leading the team? They were just transported elsewhere, it¡¯s not like this has never happened before!</i>

    Hu Dingfang was overjoyed instead of angry. <i>As long as he¡¯s okay, as long as he¡¯s okay. It¡¯s fine if you die, Hao Lianchuan, but Li Hao can¡¯t. If he dies, life won¡¯t be worth living after I go back.</i>

    ¡°Come, let¡¯s explore the ruins!¡± Hu Dingfang waved his people onward. He needed to find Li Hao as soon as possible. Although the young man wouldn¡¯t necessarily die in the transportation, it was also a hassle that he was lost.

    <i>If he identally runs into danger and I¡¯m not by his side... I might as well despair now than for him to be beaten to deathter.</i>

 Chapter 226: Mysterious Ancient City (I)

    <h4>Chapter 226: Mysterious Ancient City (I)</h4>

    Lights seemed to be shing in the distant gloom, like the eyes of wild beasts glowing in the wilderness. That was how it came across to Li Hao.

    It was dead silent around them. They walked on hard stone blocks and traveled down an uninhabited alley. That was, uninhabited until faint breathing sounded next to them.

    This was when Li Hao realized they were not alone. He tilted his head to see a very nervous Liu Long next to him. The man wasn¡¯t in clear focus given the dark, but the eyesight of a Sunderer was very decent. He could make out most of the shapes he saw¡ªbeing only slightly affected by noise and interference.

    Liu Yan was also panicking on the other side and whipped her head to and fro. Having just set foot intote Sunderer, the deathly quiet was a bit stifling.

    Footsteps seemed to sound by their ears, but it was like they were separated by anotheryer¡ªthey weren¡¯t that clear. The trio thought it was the Night Watchers at first, then quickly realized that it wasn¡¯t.

    These footsteps rose and fell and continued without end, but they didn¡¯t approach the trio. It was as if they circled around the group, but didn¡¯t draw closer.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s words echoed in their minds at this time. <i>You will hear footsteps in the ancient city. When you hear footsteps, that means danger is upon you! </i>But he¡¯d also said that the footsteps sounded only in thest, innermost part of the city he¡¯d prated. He¡¯d entered through the city gates and explored his way further, almost reaching the inner city before hearing the footsteps.

    ¡°Gulp!¡± someone swallowed hard. Li Hao didn¡¯t think it was himself, was it Liu Yan? Or... was it the captain? The captain was afraid?

    To be honest, the young man was also a bit frightened. Where were the others? Where was the rest of the delegation? Based on Hou Xiaochen¡¯s words, they should be together after entering the ruins. They should all be at the entrance. Why was there only the three of them at this ce?

    ¡°Chief...¡± Li Hao called out softly. Echoes suddenly returned to their position. ¡°Chief...¡±

    The three jumped with shock!

    Reality was rapidly proving that audaciousness wasn¡¯t truly the middle name of martial masters. The three subconsciously drew closer to each other, wanting to draw warmth from theirpanions. This forsaken ce was chilly and sinister, it was terrifying!

    They felt a certain degree safer after establishing close proximity to each other, but the footsteps by their ears never stopped. They paused briefly when Li Hao called out ¡°chief¡±, making the trio pale with horror. Had they been heard??

    They looked at each other. Liu Long forced himself to snap out of his terror as he was the team leader and a Dominator, but he was cursing up a storm inside.<i> I knew the ruins were dangerous, but I didn¡¯t know that they¡¯d be so scary right upon entering!</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid!¡± he mumbled very softly. Only martial masters would hear him with their superb hearing. However, he didn¡¯t speak with a lot of confidence. Thank goodness they were here together. If one person had suddenly appeared here by themselves, they would likely be petrified with fear.

    Liu Long looked around¡ªthey were in a tiny alley. Tall walls surrounded them and some light could be glimpsed up ahead. The lights that were as if ghostly fire also came from the end of the passageway.

    The three looked at each other. What should they do now? Do they wait or move forward? Both retreat and advancement were tough to decide. Li Hao was the bolder one in the end. There was no helping it, they were here already.

    He¡¯d felt the same way when scarlet shadows visited him everyday and he¡¯d been the only one who could see them. While their current circumstances were more terrifying, at least there were three of them. He caught the other two¡¯s attention and gestured to the front.

    <i>Go there!</i>

    They couldn¡¯t remain here forever. This little alleyway wasn¡¯t spacious. Once enemies were upon them and attacked from both front and back, there would be no ce to run. They couldn¡¯t see how tall the walls were around them and if the structures were easy to destroy. The trio didn¡¯t dare mount brash attempts at this point in time, in any case.

    Li Hao stooped and felt the ground. The durable stone felt cool to the touch, but a careful mental probing brought heart palpitations. These stone blocks... seemed to contain a terrifying power! Something brewed inside and there was no edge to be felt. The young man followed the block to the walls, his expression stiffening as he did so. They seemed to be one entity! There were no cracks between the ground and walls, it was like they were one whole!

    His teacher had said to not haphazardly leave the ground. Li Hao swallowed hard. Who would dare leave the ground? It was terrifying! What kind of awful ce was this??

    The three didn¡¯t make a sound; Liu Long was exploring as well. When he touched something that looked like a crack underneath, he realized that it wasn¡¯t a crack. It might just be decoration to break up the smooth surface of the stone.

    The three carefully picked their way forward, their movements so light it was as if they imitated cats. The sound of footsteps up ahead grew clearer and the light grew brighter as they approached. The sound was frightening them out of their wits. Each step seemed to stomp on their hearts.

    When they approached the end of the alley, Li Hao nearly screamed to feel someone pinching his arm. He barely forced the reflex down and wanted to erupt with curses when he saw that it was Liu Yan gripping him!

    <i>What are you pinching me for at a time like this?! Go pinch Liu Long!</i>

    In actuality... he quickly discovered that she was pinching both of them. This woman was bold and killed without blinking, but she was truly terrified at the moment. She shook as she looked ahead, the men followed her gaze. They¡¯d been too distracted by her pinch to notice, but they froze when they saw what she was looking at!

    There was a humanoid figure pacing around in the patch of light up ahead. Footsteps echoed in their ears¡ªit came from that figure¡¯s feet! Yuan Shuo had said that the footsteps might belong to people in the darkness!

    The ancients?

    How was that possible?!

    There was no possibility of living people here. This ce had been sealed for countless eons. It was impossible for anyone to survive without food, drink, or knowledge. But their eyes defied that reality, and the figure seemed to sense something as well. It suddenly stopped at the end of the alleyway, casting a nce in Li Hao¡¯s direction.

    The trio¡¯s hearts almost stopped in their chests! They were unafraid of a strong enemy, just of the unknown. They wouldn¡¯t be fearful if the figure suddenly introduced itself and said it was a Sr or Nova. But the figure didn¡¯t say a word!

    That was the most horrifying part of the encounter. To suddenly find someone staring at them in the darkness of an ancient city sealed for eternity, and to be able to see that person... What kind of feeling was that?

    <i>I do not move if the enemy does not move.</i>

    The trio remained still as long as the figure didn¡¯t move. Everyone seemed to be caught by a petrification art. After an indeterminate period of time, possibly one minute, three, or five minutes...

    The three heaved a sigh of relief when the figure vanished and footsteps appeared again. It was suddenly much more rxing to hear the sound of footsteps. When they suddenly vanished would be another source of fright.

    The three advanced gingerly, hunched over and movements gentle as could be. A short distance took several dozen seconds to cover before they reached where the figure had paused. Li Hao poked his head out of the alley¡ªhis scalp immediately crawled with numbness and he stiffened in dread! Liu Long likewise stuck his head out when he felt the young man¡¯s tension. His scalp also tingled with horror! Liu Yan was the next to carefully look outward, finishing off a trio of heads that didn¡¯t dare move.

    There was arge avenue outside the alley and many, many dark figures within it. To their left was the figure that¡¯d just disappeared from their alley; there were many more of its brethren to be found on the right!

    The three heads shot back into the alley. More footsteps were approaching them. The sounds were so uniform that they seemed to originate from one person, but the trio could tell that it was a small squad. It looked to be roughly eight figures¡ªno one dared take a clear look.

    The footsteps were growing closer. Li Hao wanted to retreat, but Liu Long pressed down on his arm with a slight shake of the head and held his breath. This was not a moment for action¡ªit would too easily draw attention.

    Three stiff Night Watchers waited on the spot in apprehension. A small team of ck figures steadily approached. The trio was afforded their first clear nce of the figures when the first one passed by the alley.

    Soldiers!

    Shock shook their hearts. These weren¡¯t random ck figures, but soldiers dressed in ck armor! Their armor was cast from a solid whole, even their helmets, and fully enveloped their wearers. Weapons hung by their sides.

    It was a team of ancient soldiers! They moved along the avenue like wraiths, stepping forward in unison and passing by the alley. No one looked at the trio, no one noticed them, or perhaps no one discovered the three trespassers.

    The footsteps continued inplete tandem. This was a highly trained squad of elites. They seemed to be on their usual patrols. Day after day, year after year!

    Liu Long, Liu Yan, and Li Hao were so stunned that they could barelye back to their senses. Were these people alive? Patrolling soldiers?

    It was hard to imagine¡ªwere there reallyrge numbers of living people in this ancient city?

    Li Hao¡¯s expression shifted slightly and he shook his head. ¡°They... don¡¯t seem to be alive!¡± he murmured in a barely audible voice when the footsteps receded. The senses of martial masters were very keen. He couldn¡¯t sense any breathing, heartbeats, or balls of light beneath the armor. What were these things?

    Neither did the young man believe that anyone could survive in thispletely sealed off city for so long.

    ¡°Puppets?¡± Li Hao offered after thinking it over. He¡¯d memorized many old tomes and some recorded the existence of puppets in the ancient times. They were sometimes indistinguishable from real people¡ªcertain techniques and methods could create puppets that even had flesh and blood. The only thing theycked was a consciousness.

    Could that have been a team of puppets used to patrol the ancient city back in its day?

    The trio didn¡¯t know and couldn¡¯t theorize an answer. The ancient civilization was too far removed from them.

 Chapter 227: Mysterious Ancient City (II)

    <h4>Chapter 227: Mysterious Ancient City (II)</h4>

    The three didn¡¯t dare leave the small alley. Just seeing the soldiers when they poked their heads out had been too terrifying. Now that the squad moved away, they dared take another peek.

    This time, they were overawed by the sight. An enormous wall towered roughly one hundred meters ahead of them. The entire one hundred meters between the wall and alley was the avenue.

    It was an exceedingly spacious throughway!

    Was this an ancient passageway? Were all of the ones in this city so spacious?

    And that wasn¡¯t the reason behind the awe. The trio¡¯s gazes followed the wall up, their jaws dropping as they did so. It was so very, very tall. Li Hao finally saw its top after a long while¡ªit was almost one hundred meters tall!

    A one hundred meters tall wall?! That was almost thirty stories tall! And this was a wall of the ancients?? <i>Are you kidding me, this is more like a city wall! No, not even city walls are this tall!</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s gaze sharpened as he took a close look. There seemed to be dark figures on the wall¡ªpuppet soldiers! A tower on the wall was also staffed with dark figures. More soldiers?

    Liu Long found what Li Hao was looking at and once more swallowed hard. What kind of ce was this??

    ¡°An inner and outer city...¡± Li Hao shook as he remembered something. ¡°This looks to be the intersection between the inner and outer city. Teacher mentioned that this was where he heard the footsteps, and here he saw a city door etched with a turtle!¡±

    Was that where they were? The alleyway belonged to the outer city and the wall in front of them was the wall around the inner city?

    ording to Night Watcher intel, they were ced within the outer city after entering the ruins. Explorers were usually deposited next to the outer city gates. Residential neighborhoods could be found in the outer portion, and they had to travel through various dangers before arriving at the inner city.

    Could it be that the trio had been dropped off here? Why weren¡¯t they with the others?

    Li Hao sank into deep contemtion and stroked the little sword. Did it have to do with Steris? If that was the case, why wasn¡¯t he sent directly into the inner city? Why was he at the intersection of inner and outer? Both advancement and retreating were impossible!

    If they went back, that would be the outer city. It¡¯d be fine if they encountered the Night Watchers, but what if they ran into Red Moon or Yama?

    And if they advanced... who were they kidding?

    No ripples emanated from those dark soldiers, but ording to his teacher¡¯s words, footsteps often appeared in the darkness. When they did, they represented danger. A Sunre could die to a single sword stroke.

    The swords were the weapons that the soldiers were equipped with. That meant to say that these soldiers without any superhuman ripples were strong enough to kill a Sunre with one blow. That was horrifying!

    This was as far as his teacher had made it to, he hadn¡¯t been able to enter the inner city. Thus, Li Hao knew nothing about it and didn¡¯t dare brashly investigate. As he turned over these thoughts in his mind, a shriek seemed toe from behind them.

    The marching soldiers vanished on the spot and sprinted toward the source with extreme speed. Not only that, but the trio¡¯s shocked eyes registered more ck Armors from the darkness. They quickly vanished and ran for the outer city.

    inly, the shriek had alerted these soldiers.

    ¡°It''s the people who entered the ruins!¡± The three quickly determined. Judging from the sound, they weren¡¯t too far away, but that voice had been very soft. Even if they were close by, they wouldn¡¯t be visible without a bit of travel. And yet, they¡¯d rmed the soldiers that patrolled for countless eons!

    ¡°The ck-armored soldiers are extremely fast... They seem on par with Sunderers in my view.¡±

    At least forty soldiers had taken off running. Meanwhile, the patrols in this area weren¡¯t affected. ck shadows still roamed the city wall and more soldiers appeared in the premises. They continued to make their rounds like the shriek from the outside city hadn¡¯t urred.

    ¡°Elites!¡± Liu Long exined next to Li Hao¡¯s ear. ¡°If these soldiers aren¡¯t puppets, they¡¯re elites among elites! Even Hu Dingfang¡¯s Tiger Wings, supposedly the most elite force in Silver Moon, pale far inparison to these soldiers!¡±

    Their demeanor, efficiency, speed, reaction time, and defensive system were invincible. Men were quickly on the scene if something developed, but the patrols, sentries, and defensive systems that should be in ce continued to operate smoothly. Liu Long considered that if these soldiers were all Sunre level, it would be unimaginable.

    An army that was so well coordinated... If that was the case, then even a ten person squad of initial Sunres could withstand a Sr. Under normal circumstances, ten initial Sunres were hard to stand against Srs. Mid orte Sunres wouldn¡¯t have the same problem.

    ¡°What should we do?¡± Li Hao wasn¡¯t thinking of this. He looked at Liu Long with a question. <i>What do we do now? Forward or backward seem like tough calls either way.</i>

    They didn¡¯t dare continue forward and didn¡¯t dare start backward. Should they just stand here, wait for others to arrive and follow them? ...who were they kidding with thatst option??

    Liu Long also looked at Li Hao. <i>What should we do? I don¡¯t know either. I don¡¯t know anything about this ce, how do I know what we should do?</i>

    If they advanced, they were faced with arge expanse and watchtowers. If they were discovered, how would they fight so many soldiers? Even though the group hadn¡¯t personally seen the soldiers attack, they could tell from speed alone that these ck Armors weren¡¯t useless ornaments.

    Liu Long struggled with the decision and threw it back to Li Hao. ¡°What do you say? You¡¯re a student of the Ancient Civilizations department. You should know better than me in these circumstances.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao had nothing to offer. The man made sense! <i>But... but... I¡¯ve never encountered ruins with soldiers that still existed in them. The Institute¡¯s never taught us about them either! They taught us how to determine our location, analyze feng shui, identify true or fake ruins, locate sources of water... these kinds of things. If only teacher was here!</i>

    How he missed his teacher! If Yuan Shuo was here, he¡¯d just need to follow his teacher¡¯s instructions. He was too young, inexperienced, and wet behind the ears. He was in a panic himself.

    But after hearing Liu Long¡¯s response... Li Hao decided to make the call. <i>The team captain¡¯s right, I¡¯m from the Veteris Institute and my teacher is an excavation expert. Am I supposed to dishonor his name? Can I not grow and develop in his absence?</i>

    Momentster, Li Hao fished out a small disk from his pockets. Under Liu Yan and Liu Long¡¯s confused looks, he busied himself for a bit. When he finished his preparations, he plucked one of his hairs and blew it onto the disk.

    The hair started spinning on the disk and eventually slowed down. Its two ends happened to point at the two ends of the alley. Liu Long could tell that Li Hao was determining their position and identifying the best way forward, but wasn¡¯t it a waste of effort with the hair pointing to both entrances?

    Li Hao, however, observed the disk carefully and muttered, ¡°We go from the back, not the front!¡±

    ¡°Why?¡± Liu Yan whispered.

    ¡°This is the method of plotting via force fields,¡± Li Hao murmured. ¡°The hair root points at the inner city because the force fields are stronger there and more dangerous. Therefore, let¡¯s go to the outer city first. I don¡¯t know why we were separated from the others and sent here. Perhaps that gives us first mover advantage, but we¡¯ll more likely than not turn into cannon fodder since we don¡¯t know anything about the inner city!¡±

    It was a certainty that there were plenty of treasures in the inner city. If Li Hao had his teacher¡¯s abilities, he would head directly inside and save himself a lot of trouble. The key thing was, he didn¡¯t possess that strength. In that case, appearing here was a very futile oue. They should head to the outer city instead!

    He didn¡¯t want to be someone else¡¯s canary in a coal mine, that was far too dangerous. It might also be a good opportunity to ambush someone else from the front. If there was a good chance and the proper timing, it might result in unexpected benefits.

    ¡°We can ignore the greatest treasure inside the city. For us, killing some bad guys and stripping them of their mysterious power may not be worse than entering the inner city. We can even hunt down some Red Moon members and extract their blood pearls.¡±

    What could be found inside the inner city? So what if there were piles of origin weapons? Could theyy im to it? Could they take it outside?

    Li Hao¡¯s mind operated clearly again. There was nothing more important than improving his strength. He wasn¡¯t a Dominator yet.

    Liu Long and Liu Yan didn¡¯t say anything. The young man suddenly had the lead as he was a student of the Veteris Institute and his teacher a known excavator of ruins. He quietly led them into turning around and walked toward the other end of the alley.

    ¡°Try not to create any sound and don¡¯t talk much. These soldiers seem to hone in on location from sound! That shriek drew a lot of them away. They didn¡¯t see us even when we were hiding just next to them. If they¡¯re puppets, they may be equipped with sound recognition systems...¡±

    The two listened without asking questions. All they needed to do at the moment was to just follow Li Hao.

    The alley was only five hundred meters long. The trio set a moderate pace and approached the other end after a while. Footsteps could be faintly heard again. Li Hao held his breath; they saw a ck shadow pass by the alley after a while. It was one of the ck Armors, but just one.

    When it left, Li Hao took a peek outside. This time, he could identify where they were. They were in one of the streets of the outer city, one that ran into an ancient marketce. He saw some unique gs with characters on them. They were different from modern writing, but being the professional that he was, Li Hao could still call upon his knowledge though he¡¯d withdrawn from school.

    He could barely make out one word¡ªtea!

    The ce in front of them with a banner hanging from the front might be a tea shop. Time seemed to rewind in this moment, painting a scene of people jostling in crowds that throned a busy street. Food vendors hollered for business, passersby shopped various wares and stopped for tea or food...

    The young man grew momentarily dazed. This was his first time seeing such a perfectly preserved ancient ruin! He¡¯d perused some simr material before, but they were all recorded after the ruins were destroyed and buried in the ground. None of them were able to mentally transport explorers away like this and ce them in how life had been back in the day.

 Chapter 228: Mysterious Ancient City (III)

    <h4>Chapter 228: Mysterious Ancient City (III)</h4>

    Li Hao quickly snapped back to his senses. This was no time to marvel at archaeology, it was very dangerous! His teacher had said that these ruins were hazardous, filled with sharp des that suddenly appeared, footsteps that heralded death, and mes that instantly burned a person to death. Perils lurked everywhere.

    Another shriek echoed in the distance; it was slightly pained!

    Li Hao¡¯s ears twitched¡ªit wasn¡¯t too far away from them. It might be from the next street over! There were also faint sounds of weapons shing against each other. Were the ck-armored soldiers fighting the newly arrived supernaturals?

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Li Hao darted out of the alley and made for the street across the way. Liu Long and Liu Yan quickly caught up to him. While they didn¡¯t know the young man¡¯s goal, all they needed to do was follow him at this stage. They didn¡¯t know anything here.

    ......

    As Li Hao drew close to the shriek, he saw a battle underway in a za. Just as the young man surmised, it was ck-d soldiers on one side, roughly forty of them. On the other were the independent supernaturals and small organizations that¡¯de in first.

    Blood sttered the ground. ck-armored soldiers had suddenly appeared alongside the footsteps, but their arrival brought the extinguishment of light. It used to be that Li Hao and the rest could see things clearly because there was illumination, but now this ce was frightfully dark.

    It wasn¡¯t until a fire supernatural lit his mysterious power that the crowd could see that armored strangers had suddenly appeared around them. Color drained from their faces¡ªhow could there be anyone here??

    ¡°It¡¯s the Night Watchers!¡± someone roared. Only the Night Watchers had explored these ruins before, so their first thought was that these people were all Night Watchers! The agency had left people behind!

    Footsteps sounded; a ck Armor appeared next to him the moment he called out. The soldier walked on the ground instead of flying or leaping around. A sword was unsheathed with a <i>schick</i> and sank into flesh, separating head from neck. The person who¡¯d cried out was summarily executed without another word!

    He was decently strong as a Fullmoon, but counted among the weak for this expedition. Even so, Fullmoons were powerhouses in Silver Moon. And yet, he¡¯d been in with one stroke by a ck Armor!

    Not only that, but the fire supernatural who¡¯d lit a me gasped as footsteps sounded in his ear. Three swords shot out of the void, aimed high, middle, and low. They sealed off all directions and connected at the same time, sectioning the man into three.

    Spontaneous elimination!

    The fire supernatural was a Plenilune close to Sunre, but he hadn¡¯t been able to defend against the attack either!

    Firelight faded away. Someone wanted to scream with terror among the crowd, but another person with a rapidly shifting expression quickly said, ¡°Don¡¯t make a sound and don¡¯t create light...¡±

    He felt danger around him as soon as he spoke, but he needed to remind his peers! Instead of creating more sound, he punched outward and sought to dive into the ground. Shock filled his face instead.

    He couldn¡¯t!

    He couldn¡¯t bend the earth!

    Damn it, his skills were inapplicable here! He never thought there would be a ground that could inhibit the earth bending skills of an earth supernatural. His punch hade with considerable force and sent a soldier reeling. But because he couldn¡¯t escape into the earth, a sword appeared in front of his chest the next moment and stabbed deep.

    Powerful earth energy exploded to defend its master, but more footsteps sounded in the blink of an eye. Five swords appeared, jabbing at his head, throat, temples... All of his vital points were targeted by a sword, and enormous force powered them!

    One sword sank into his throat with a soft sound, followed by a second, a third...

    All of the swords found their target and the earth supernatural sagged to the ground. He was a Sunre! Not only did his skills prove ineffective in this ce, but he died without understanding the circumstances.

    Quiet draped over the premises while the group was horrified beyond belief. They didn¡¯t dare make a sound or create light to see by. Darkness shrouded them, freezing their thoughts with fear. Enormous regret assailed them! They shouldn¡¯t havee! What were these soldiers in ck armor? Night Watchers? Who were they kidding?

    The Night Watchers would¡¯ve brought out this force a long time ago if they possessed it. Others had been able to estimate these soldiers as moderate Darkmoons. But they didn¡¯t exude energy ripples, making them more like martial masters.

    Martial masters, however, at least breathed and had a heartbeat. These soldiers didn¡¯t seem to have anything. They deployed their weapons in a very methodical way as opposed to random haphazardness. They were so well-coordinated that it was unbelievable!

    One could avoid the first stroke, but maybe not the second. And after that came a third and fourth!

    There were only approximately forty people present from the small organizations, roughly the same number as the ck Armors. Some had died before reaching this spot, and now more had just died to the soldiers. Even though there were numerous Sunres among the group, none of them dared make a sound or move a limb. They didn¡¯t even dare give rise to stronger energy ripples.

    When supernaturals didn¡¯t dare utilize their abilities, their reaction speed, battle capabilities, night vision, and other skills were less than martial masters. Martial masters excelled in terms of physique. Their bodies were very durable even if they didn¡¯t deploy their internal force. Thus, martial master night vision was excellent, but supernaturals had to rely on their mysterious power to bolster their eyesight in the dark.

    They could only vaguely discern faint outlines in the gloom. When someone in the expedition activated their power for a better look, sharp swords swiftly cut through the air. That educated the remaining supernaturals that energy ripples, sound, and light would all attract attention. It was safer to not move.

    These ck Armors didn¡¯t seem to be alive, utilizing sound and supernatural ripples to determine the direction of their targets. So... did that mean the survivors would be safe if they didn¡¯t move?

    Flight supernaturals could no longer contain themselves when they felt a ck shadow approaching them. One of them swiftly shot into the sky to escape from this ce!

    Being able to fly was often the most surefire way to preserve oneself. This particr supernatural was fine at first when he soared into the sky. As he exulted in the joy of escaping, a ray of light abruptly shot through the air. He didn¡¯t have time to stop or evade it. Instead, he exploded like he¡¯d been hit by a missile!

    The ray of light also illuminated the ground, revealing the supernaturals in hiding. They cursed inwardly and were shocked out of their senses. What was that?? A flight supernatural had been obliterated by a ray of light!

    The key thing was, the ray brought rity to the situation on the ground. ck Armors searching for the interlopers focused with sudden uracy and attacked.

    ¡°Ah!!¡± Screams and shrieks abounded!

    ck metal swords shed through multiple throats or ran through numerous heads. A powerhouse couldn¡¯t withstand the pressure and unleashed fire energy with a roar, sending out searing mes with a burst.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A ck Armor was sent flying and fell to the ground. While it wasn¡¯t incinerated, everyone could see it struggle to regain its footing. That brought hope to the heavyweights in the crowd. Joy dawned on their faces!

    While these soldiers were strong, they weren¡¯t invincible. They could still be taken down! Some more Sunres rose in resistance at the sight, further exposing the limits to ck Armor strength. Despite their synchronization, multiple soldiers were sent flying. Since the supernaturals were fighting, they didn¡¯t care about making sound anymore.

    ¡°These suits of armor seem to be supernatural objects, they¡¯re hard to destroy! Knock them back and attack them through the air. Also, don¡¯t fly ourselves. There might be an air restriction in ce here...¡± Those more knowledgeable and experienced quickly identified the various prohibitions of their area.

    They could not fly! Flying past a certain height would result in that ray of light that annihted a Sunre. Who dared fly after that? The supernaturals fought back en masse!

    Some took advantage of the chaos to run. Cursing, the Sunres caught in battle fled as they fought. There were more people entering the ruins behind them. They needed to find therge organizations as those had Srs and origin weapons. They didn¡¯t want to needlessly go to their deaths anymore!

    As strong as the ck Armors were and as many as the soldiers had killed, they could only watch as multiple powerhouses fled the scene.

    Soldiers that¡¯d fallen to the ground picked themselves up after a while. They gave chase, chasing the trespassers to the end of the za. As the survivors fled for their lives, these soldiers seemed to receive amand that recalled the entire squad.

    ck Armors vanished in the dark, walking toward Li Hao and the others. The sound of footsteps slowly faded away.

    When they were gone, the trio finally dared to exhale their breaths and wipe away foreheads dripping with sweat.

    <i>Fuck, that was scary!</i> Those soldiers looked to be only Darkmoon, but they were undying. Those that¡¯d been incapacitated could stand up at the end and walk off like nothing had taken ce. There¡¯d been at least a dozen Sunres in that group of supernaturals. A couple had died in the blink of an eye and more than a dozen Darkmoon in. They¡¯d lost half of their number, but didn¡¯t take out a single ck Armor.

    This was horrifying!

    Out of the trio, only Liu Long could truly stand against initial Sunre at the moment. Li Hao might be able to, whereas Liu Yan would have a difficult fight on their hands. If they ran into a handful of ck Armors, that would be the end of the road for them.

    It was awful! And there hadn¡¯t been that many soldiers on the scene. The trio knew that there were plenty more near the inner city.

    <i>Fuck!</i>

    Could this ancient city even be explored by humans?

    ¡°Let¡¯s... go....¡± Liu Long was wavering. There was a difference between being brave and rushing to one¡¯s death. After seeing the soldiers in action, he felt that just five of them would absolutely be enough to kill him. And the key thing was, the enemy wouldn¡¯t die! That was the most despairing of all!

 Chapter 229: Threeâ€™s Company

    <h4>Chapter 229: Three¡¯s Company</h4>

    ¡°Go? Chief, are you crazy?¡± Li Hao licked his lips. The chief had gone crazy! Go where? ¡°So many people have died up there, that¡¯s all mysterious power!¡±

    The chief must be crazy. He loved mysterious power, but wanted to leave when the ground was covered by it?

    Liu Long¡¯s jaw dropped at the young man. <i>You¡¯re the crazy one! What are you going to do if the ck Armorse back? You want to be rich so badly that you¡¯re going to throw your life away for it!</i>

    ¡°Chief, they¡¯re just killing trespassers and are alerted by light, sound, and flight. That¡¯s not much of a problem if we keep the noise level down. They must be back to the inner city by now. Let¡¯s hurry before someone elsees along and brings the soldiers back.¡± A bold thought suddenly struck Li Hao. ¡°Chief, why don¡¯t we... just follow these guys from now on?¡±

    If they kept quiet, didn¡¯t talk too loudly, didn¡¯t create light, or fly... then the ck Armors may not be able to discover them. The guys from outside might not know all this and fights may break out. The trio could follow the soldiers around and collect the corpses! There was so much mysterious power for the taking, which was exactly what he needed. Energy of the five elements was best. Wind and thunder would do too.

    Liu Long and Liu Yan gaped. To seek fortune in the midst of danger was something they could do given their daring, but approaching the battle site before the soldiers responsible for this ughter were safely far away...

    They truly hesitated at the idea.

    ¡°C¡¯mon!¡± Li Hao ignored them. What was there to fear? ck Armors didn¡¯t seem alive. If they were puppets, they must be subject to specificmands. There would be no issues so long as the trio didn¡¯t vite thosemands. This was also recorded in some ancient books.

    <i>Chief and Liu Yan don¡¯t get it, they just know to be afraid. In these circumstances, it¡¯s more dangerous to randomly run around.</i> Li Hao tossed all worries to the back of his mind. Was there anything more alluring than mysterious power at this time?

    He swiftly ran up to the za, but turned pale as he scanned it. The ground... seemed to be devouring the flesh and blood! Not only that, but it was drinking the dissipating mysterious power as well!

    The young man swallowed hard as his heart skipped a beat. <i>The earth!</i> He¡¯d sensed a unique power in it before. Did... it devour corpses and mysterious power?

    <i>My heavens! Is this city alive?</i>

    Sweat beaded his forehead, but he couldn¡¯t give any consideration to this. He set his jaw and began picking up therger body chunks.

    No wonder the soldiers didn¡¯t clean up the battlefield or move the corpses, there was no need to. The remains would vanish after a while like they never existed. A demonic air and unspeakable evil permeated this ancient city! It was horrifying beyond belief!

    Li Hao quickly gathered a few body parts and fled when he filled his storage box. This was damned terrifying, the ground ate people!

    ......

    It wasn¡¯t until the trio returned to their earlier alleyway, putting some distance between themselves and that za of execution, didposure start to make its way back. Li Hao gave a long exhale. Danger filled every nook and cranny of this ancient city!

    They didn¡¯t dare enter the shops that lined the streets. Li Hao had wanted to go inside one, but he and Liu Long sensed danger at the same time¡ªit was the instinctive reaction of a martial master. Thus, they didn¡¯t dare set foot inside and ran back to the alley.

    They didn¡¯t know whaty in wait inside the shop. Perhaps something simr to ck Armors? Regardless, it was not a ce to venture into.

    Li Hao contemted for a moment as he looked at the energy storage box in his hand. ¡°Chief, sis.¡± He looked at Liu Long and Liu Yan. ¡°Stand guard at the two ends for me for a bit. I want to cultivate.¡±

    ¡°Now?¡± Liu Long frowned. This wasn¡¯t a good time to train. It wasn¡¯t a problem for them to stand guard as the young man cultivated; he had no need for pure mysterious power after he became a Dominator.

    It was simr to how Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t cared about mysterious power at first. It was useful to him only when Li Hao could distill pure elemental energy for him to strengthen his organs. Liu Long was the same, so he didn¡¯t think of being cut in for a share when Li Hao collected the energy.

    Liu Yan was even less likely to say something. She knew the young man had a unique energy that was very useful to martial masters. Li Hao training at this critical moment might result in significant progress into Dominator. If that was the case, that would help everyone.

    ¡°Now!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Some of the supernaturals from the small organizations have escaped. They¡¯ll certainly encounter those who entered afterward and probably join forces with them. In that case, the soldiers might not be able to stop them if their forces swell. We don¡¯t dare enter the inner city, so we¡¯ll bump into them sooner orter. Therefore, I want to use this opportunity to see if I can make it to Dominator.¡±

    Liu Long said nothing else and walked to the end closest to the inner city. He stooped without making a sound. His position would prevent ck Armors from entering. Liu Yan went to the other side.

    Li Hao calmed his breathing and decided to grab his final opportunity with both hands. There wasn¡¯t much sword energy left. His teacher had chosen to absorb scarlet shadows instead of sword energy because he wished to preserve the final dregs for his student. Yuan Shuo likely hoped he could set foot into Dominator.

    The young man grasped two kinds of aura, but neither of them were that strong. They were only fledgling auras, but they might be strengthened if he melded them together. That could be enough to propel him into Dominator.

    <i>Melding...</i>

    There was no ideal opportunity that gave rise to the blending of sword and earth. But somehow, his teacher had managed to fuse five auras together in his past. That spoke to a requirement of skill and talent. ording to Yuan Shuo¡¯s teachings, there weremonalities between all auras. Finding those, magnifying themonalities, and focusing on those would give one the chance tobine the auras.

    It was very simple, yet also difficult.

    Li Hao¡¯s present task wasn¡¯t to meld his auras, but to strengthen his organs. The auras and rising to Dominator wouldeter and could be situation dependent. Strengthening the organs was the true foundation to future progress. When he was a Dominator, he could choose to quickly summon his spirits as opposed to slowly walking through the method. He needed to enhance his organs so that when he was a Summoner, the elevation of one organ would not shatter the other four.

    Before the Breathing Method of the Five Styles was modified, it was likely only Yuan Shuo and a few veteran Dominators would be able to nurture the spirits without destroying the organs.

    These veteran Dominators would subconsciously strengthen their organs if they didn¡¯t find a way forward after dozens of years at their cultivation level. A strong inside and outside was the goal of all martial masters.

    A new martial master such as Li Hao would find it easier to ascend to the heavens than strengthen his organs if he didn¡¯t have the aid of elemental power. He reached a hand into his storage box and took out a piece of bone.

    Blood and other liquid still clung to it, but he was impassive to sights such as these now. After scanning it with his senses, he determined that this was fire energy. Fire energy was moremonly found and it strengthened the heart!

    As the Breathing Method of the Five Styles operated, sword energy seeped out of the sword at his waist. Compared to what it had been before... Li Hao could only say that he¡¯d been oblivious in his youth and wasted it extravagantly. Even the dog had enjoyed a great deal of it! Now that he sensed how feeble the current was, there was nothing to do but regret past actions. Thankfully, the sword energy could still distill mysterious power despite the slower flow.

    Fire elemental energy was swiftly extracted, leaving behind unattributed mysterious power to strengthen the body. Meanwhile, fire elemental energy enhanced the heart. The bone appeared to be from a Darkmoon as it didn¡¯t contain much energy. Li Hao continued with another piece when it was quickly depleted.

    It was said that mysterious power was stored at some organizations¡¯ secret bases or in ruins. Some origin weapons could also produce it on their own, or produce it with the help of certain methods. Mysterious power contained by the human body was the lowest quality and least efficient. Beggars couldn¡¯t be choosers, though; this was the only way avable to Li Hao as he needed such a vast sum.

    Yuan Shuo had absorbed one thousand cubes of fire energy to strengthen his organs and nurture the fire heart ape. If Li Hao wished to reach his teacher¡¯s level or even approach it, his organs would have to absorb another eight hundred cubes after the two hundred of each element he¡¯d taken before. Only then could he safely summon his spirits.

    Of course, strengthening all five visceral organs was an immensely difficult task. He could simply focus on one at first. Li Hao set his concerns aside first and absorbed however much he could take in. He didn¡¯t differentiate and took in any energy that came his way. Wind energy lightened the body. Thunder energy strengthened the physique. All of that could be absorbed.

    The crux of the issue was the dwindling reserve of crucial sword energy. Would there be a chance to replenish it within this ancient city? After all, it looked to be connected to the eight families.

    One minute, five minutes, ten minutes...

    Booming sounds traveled from a distance after half an hour. A solemn Liu Long quickly returned to the young man.

    ¡°Cease cultivating as soon as possible. A team of one hundred ck Armors just vanished, probably to stop more neers. It¡¯s not just ck Armors this time, I saw one that was potentially a centurion because its armor was bronze!¡±

    Bronze-armored soldiers had appeared after the ck ones! If ck Armors were Darkmoon, what were Bronze Armors?

    Sunre?

    These soldiers were highly trained and undying. How strong would a Bronze Armor be? Just their ck-armored brethren could kill multiple Sunres, so would a Bronze be capable of killing a Sr?

    Li Hao gravely contemted the situation and swiftly paused his absorption. There wasn¡¯t much left. At the same time, it had been a decent harvest. He¡¯d absorbed roughly eight hundred cubes of mysterious power, which filled him to capacity. However, it hadn¡¯t been an even distribution of elements. Fire had been the most at three hundred. He¡¯d managed to absorb some of the other five except water, which meant that his kidneys were noticeably weaker than the others at the moment.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go take a look!¡± The young man rose to his feet and swiftly congregated with Liu Yan at the other end.

    ¡°Be careful,¡± the woman kept her voice down. ¡°This street didn¡¯t seem all that right just now...¡±

 Chapter 230: Threeâ€™s Company (II)

    <h4>Chapter 230: Three¡¯s Company (II)</h4>

    The street hadn¡¯t seemed that right? Their locale was dusk and gloomy¡ªhad Liu Yan seen a Bronze Armor instead?

    ¡°Just now...¡± she continued as Li Hao turned over her words. ¡°I don¡¯t know if it was because of that battle in the front, but an earth supernatural suddenly crept in from that direction. He happened to bump into patrolling ck Armors, so he ducked into a nearby house. A ghastly scream sounded almost immediately and I¡¯ve heard nothing from the house since then.¡±

    That supernatural had inly wished to utilize distraction from the fighting to explore the surroundings. He had to look for cover when he ran into more soldiers and encountered danger as soon as he entered a house.

    <i>He¡¯s dead!</i>

    Li Hao and hisrades poked their heads out, looking at the houses on the two sides of the street beyond the alley. The city appeared particrly sinister at the moment. The teahouse¡¯s banner still fluttered in the air, but none of the trio had the desire to investigate the premises.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Another explosion sounded from the street over. The disturbance was much greater than before; a powerhouse must be on the scene. Multiple Srs were in attendance this time. As strong as ck Armors were, they were only of the Darkmoon level. They weren¡¯t able to bring their previous level of domination to bear. The soldiers were ted for death and destruction¡ªthere was no alternative as the gap between them and Srs was too great.

    Explosions echoed repeatedly and even roaredmands could be heard. ¡°These ck-armored men are strongest because of their equipment. Their strengthes from the ground, so earth types shall put down ayer of rock on the ground to cut off their source of strength!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know how the other side was fighting, but he sucked in a faint breath when he heard the instructions. Who was this? They were really something!

    It wasn¡¯t until now that he understood why ck Armors never left the ground. He knew that there was something special about the city¡¯s ground, but who would¡¯ve thought that this mysterious powerhouse would identify the key detail in the blink of an eye?

    ck Armors drew their strength from below!

    So did this mean that the ground provided a bottomless source of energy for these soldiers, enabling them to be undying and constantly battle ready?

    ¡°ck Armors...¡± Liu Long thought rapidly. ¡°Does this mean we can take out these soldiers as long as they¡¯re not allowed to touch the ground?¡±

    ¡°This may not be a good development.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°Those guys wille across us soon after they eliminate the soldiers!¡±

    He didn¡¯t know why he and hisrades were in front of all of the explorers, but the Night Watchers were assigned to the middle of the pack. ording to the entrance order, it was very likely the Sword Sect or Yama fighting in front of them. He couldn¡¯t draw definitive conclusions when it came to the Sword Sect¡¯s attitude, but Yama... Li Hao at least knew that he and Yama wouldn¡¯t mix together.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go take a look!¡± The young man decided to observe from close quarters. It might¡¯ve been a Yama powerhouse calling out earlier¡ªit didn¡¯t sound like the Revolution King¡¯s voice. It might be the other Sr within their delegation. He hadn¡¯t spoken during the assembly outside, but it looked like he possessed a keen eye.

    ......

    A pitched battle was underway when Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan surreptitiously made their way over. It was both Yama and Sword Sect delegations. Li Hao observed two Srs among the Sword Sect. There was a female apart from Hong Yitang¡ªpossibly his wife, bed partner, or disciple.

    Who cared? Li Hao didn¡¯t.

    The two organizations were temporary allies for the being, pitting four Srs against ck Armors. There was also a peak Sr in the form of the Revolution King to consider. The other three Srs didn¡¯t make a move. No... Yama¡¯s metal supernatural was on the field. He was fighting the Bronze Armor that Liu Long had spoken of. The other Srs were more observing the battlefield.

    Numerous ck Amors had fallen to the ground and a few were suppressed by earth supernaturals! Li Hao saw Li Dahu, self-styled Hu Po, confine a ck Armor with a single punch. It was like he¡¯d brought Mount Tai down on his opponent, sealing the soldier away within a mountain of dirt.

    The soldier struggled at first, but its movement gradually weakened until it stilled.

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened with surprise. Therge organizations were different, alright! The small organizations possessed a fair sum of Sunres, but they werepletely helpless in front of the soldiers. There weren¡¯t that many powerhouses in action at this moment, but they quickly broke through thebined battle array of one hundred ck Armors.

    Soldier after soldier was restricted. They were either sealed away or isted from the ground. When cut off from their energy source, their strength began to gradually weaken.

    There were approximately eighty people present from the tworge organizations and of smaller organizations that¡¯d fled earlier. ck Armors did not hold an overwhelming numbers advantage. On the other hand, with Srs anchoring the sh for the expedition, the battle was entirely one-sided.

    The Darkmoon ck Armors were gradually weakened to the point in which they couldn¡¯t lift their heads. Only a dozen ck Amors and that Bronze Armor was still fighting after the blink of an eye.

    The Sword Sect, Yama, and others had lost only a dozen people. That was a far more superior feat to the earlier group of would-be explorers.

    Li Hao and hispanions didn¡¯t even dare to breathe too loudly. Thank goodness they were all martial masters. Otherwise, they wouldn¡¯t dare sneak in peeks at such a close distance.

    <i>So strong!</i>

    They were finally witnessing the might of the great organizations. The metal Sr brought overwhelming strength to bear against Bronze Armor. Although bronze d soldiers were just Sunre, their defenses were invincible when equipped with the armor. It swiftly shattered confinement from earth supernaturals; it would take more than that to seal it.

    ¡°It¡¯s just mid Sunre.¡± The Revolution King frowned from the back. ¡°But the de and sword can¡¯t seem to hurt it. A Sr can¡¯t break through it... which makes this set of armor a first rank supernatural treasure!¡±

    This trip would be well worth it if they could seize these suits of armor. Instead of emerging with an overall loss, they would have benefited handsomely instead. The nearly one hundred sets of ck armor were also far from ordinary. They could be used to raise a supremepany of troops, and they also seemed to be more suited for martial masters!

    Martial masterscked supernatural ripples and the armor seemed to be able to conceal one¡¯s presence. Martial masters also possessed immense physique, so if they were equipped with the ck armor...

    The Revolution King¡¯s mind churned rapidly through various possibilities.

    Thanks to Yuan Shuo, martial masters were showing signs of an upswing these days. The various organizations had never forsaken nurturing martial masters, primarily due to a desire to train reserve troops for supernaturals.

    But what if martial masters could be equipped with these suits of armor? This equipment contained high defenses against supernaturals! So long as the martial master inside didn¡¯t die, a Sunderer would be able to withstand a Sunre.

    The Revolution King reached out for a ck Armor as he mused, demonstrating the power of a peak Sr. The soldier struggled in his grasp for a bit, slowly ceasing to move. The man closely observed his quarry, frowning slightly.

    ¡°Is that... not a person inside?¡±

    It didn¡¯t seem to be!

    He wasn¡¯t sure what the specifics were¡ªit wasn¡¯t optimal timing to ess the inside of the armor. He could force it open if he wished to. A soldier on par with a Darkmoon could not withstand his attacks.

    At the same time, this was treasure. Why damage it? Weren¡¯t they conducting this exploration for treasure?

    The soldiers began sagging upon losing their connection with the ground. They didn¡¯t hold themselves with the same support as before.

    ¡°Revolution King, let¡¯s open one up,¡± said Hong Yitang. ¡°Let¡¯s see the internal structure of these things and what makes it possible for them to exist for so long!¡±

    The Revolution King thought for a moment, then nodded. A de of wind appeared in his hand. Powered by a peak Sr, the de easily sliced open armor that Darkmoons and Sunres were unable to damage.

    Everyone, including Li Hao and hispanions, fixed their stares at what was inside. Although the trio couldn¡¯t see the scene too clearly, they were also very curious what could be found within.

    ¡°Hmm?¡± A startled exmation came from the battle site.

    ¡°A skeleton?¡± Hong Yitang was likewise stunned.

    Li Hao and the others¡¯ hearts skipped a beat when they heard this. A skeleton? So there really <i>were</i> people inside?

    ¡°They¡¯re really... soldiers!¡± eximed the Revolution King. ¡°But they¡¯re dead soldiers. So this city used to employ these suits of armor and martial masters as soldiers?¡±

    That was incredible!

    Someone really had been inside the armor, but they were a decayed skeleton. The bones crumbled away the moment the armor was opened and blew away as dust, instantly gone! The skeleton had been preserved in the first ce due to the armor creating a perfect seal. Thus, it spontaneously disintegrated when the armor was opened.

    The Revolution King turned his attention to the armor and flicked a nce at Hong Yitang. Being quick on the uptake, thetter quickly said, ¡°If Yama desires these items, they naturally belong to you. But if there are more treasurester, the Sword Sect is a major organization as well. We cannot leave empty-handed. What say you, Revolution King?¡±

    He knew that the Yama leader had his eyes on the armor. Although the soldiers lost their endless source of energy once isted from the unique terrain, just the armor¡¯s structure and durability alone made it exceedingly valuable treasure. If they could be copied and used to forge a martial master army... the results were unimaginable.

    ¡°Very well, my thanks to Swordmaster Hong!¡± The Revolution King smiled. Although he didn¡¯t want to give any treasures to his counterpart, that was another Sr he spoke to. Hong Yitang had numerous Sunres under hismand and with the danger of the ancient city right in front of them, it wouldn¡¯t do to erupt in open hostility.

    Hou Xiaochen was right. They weren¡¯t of a mind to kill each other after witnessing these dangers for themselves. Just one group of a hundred soldiers had caused them significant casualties. The two great organizations had lost roughly a dozen men and the independent supernaturals roughly two dozen. That made for more than thirty supernaturals dead, and only two hundred were present on this expedition.

    They¡¯d lost one-sixth of their strength just by scratching the surface of these ruins! Although most of the dead were Darkmoons and a few Sunres, they were all elites in the outside world! Silver Moon¡¯s premier strength on disy in this expedition.

    It was best that Hong Yitang recognized the situation that he was in.

    ¡°Yao Cheng, take care of that Bronze Armor as quickly as possible!¡±

    Yao Cheng was the other Yama Sr. He quickly answered, ¡°Milord, I just can¡¯t bear to damage this armor!¡±

    The Bronze Armors were even stronger! It wasn¡¯t that he couldn¡¯t subdue his opponent, but that he didn¡¯t want to bring force to bear. As a metal supernatural, he was most adept at attack. He could bring down a mid Sunre soldier, but what if he damaged the armor beyond repair in a furious rally?

 Chapter 231: Threeâ€™s Company (III)

    <h4>Chapter 231: Three¡¯s Company (III)</h4>

    ¡°That¡¯s true...¡± Upon further thought, the Revolution King couldn''t bear to damage the suit of bronze armor either. Metal supernaturals were only good for attacking, they had no other abilities to their name. They suddenly seemed a bit worthless to him.

    Of course, the Revolution King didn¡¯t say any of this.

    A wild gust of wind swept through the air, sweeping up the tirelessly fighting Bronze Armor. The wind then transformed into chains that locked the soldier into the air! However, the soldier was not attacked while held in the sky. inly, the airborne attacks did not target the soldiers.

    Bronze Armor continued to struggle, but it was futile. The Revolution King was a peak Sr and carried an origin weapon. He stood at the pinnacle of Silver Moon. A mere centurion in bronze armor would not defy him!

    Cut off from its source of energy when separated from the ground, Bronze Armor¡¯s struggles began to weaken. Just when the Revolution King felt that the target was in hand, light erupted from the soldier and it exploded into pieces!

    ¡°What?!¡± gasped the Revolution King. It¡¯d exploded? Self detonation? How was that possible??

    In his view, these soldiers simply followed gut instincts from the ancient times. They were long dead and their intelligence scattered with life. It was some finalmands thatpelled them to follow standing orders and kill trespassers.

    How would one self-detonate after being captured and severed from its source of power? And how could such resilient armor break like that?? What was the reason behind all this?

    Unless... it wasn¡¯t the soldier that¡¯d initiated the self-detonation, but the armor itself that was equipped with special abilities. For instance, it would trigger a self-destruction sequence if it continuously failed to find a source of energy.

    The Revolution King cast a quick nce at the ck Armors. He heaved a sigh of relief to see that they were fine.

    ¡°The bronze armor is likely higher level equipment,¡± he postted. ¡°The city lord might not have wanted it to end up in the hands of others and programmed it to self-detonate if it lost its source of energy. The ck armor was possibly just standard issue, so it was not programmed in the same way.¡±

    He bore a keen eye and quickly determined the reason for the destruction. Now this was a bit of a pity. This meant they could only bring back the sets of ck armor. Who knew if they could cancel thatmand for the bronze armor? It might take venturing into the inner city to do so.

    ¡°Milord,¡± asked the metal supernatural Yao Cheng. ¡°The Night Watchers have explored this area many times, so might they own a few sets of ck armor? They might have been unwilling to reveal that possession before.¡±

    Did the Night Watchers have any? They couldn¡¯t possibly have left empty-handed every time they explored. Perhaps they had some, and maybe they¡¯d already raised an army of martial masters in the dark. If that was the case... they¡¯d hidden this trump card well!

    This was the other organizations¡¯ first time in. If they retreated now, they could leave with almost one hundred sets of ck armor when the door opened tonight. While the Night Watchers weren¡¯t too strong, they weren¡¯t weaklings either. If they came again and again, even just once a month, that made for thirty-six visits in the three years since they¡¯d discovered these ruins.

    While such gains may not be on the table each time, they could have more than one thousand sets in storage if they weren¡¯t too greedy.

    Hearts pounded with rm at the possibility. Was this the case? If so, the Night Watchers had hidden themselves deeply! Even without sufficient numbers of martial masters to suit up in armor, three years was enough to raise a new crop of martial masters.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure about the Silver Moon Night Watchers...¡± The Revolution King rummaged through his memories instead of immediately responding. ¡°But the ck armor reminds me of something. Apparently, there¡¯s a troop of elite imperial guards in the central region that are heavily armored martial masters! They were active when the imperial family was still conquering the world¡ªthey stood invincible against any opponent they met. Do you think that the Skystar imperial family found a set of ruins like these back in the day?¡±

    He suddenly turned his thoughts to the ruling imperial family. They¡¯d risen with extreme speed and swiftly built arge army. The linchpin to their military might were elite imperial guards that could not be matched by anyone else. In that era before the supernatural rose, their martial masters were almost invincible when they put on their armor!

    Could it be that this ancient city wasn¡¯t the only one?

    If that was the case, then it was a further demonstration of its importance. The explorers didn¡¯t know how many ck Armors there were. If there were a lot, they could slowly whittle away at the soldiers and form a great army themselves.

    This was a terrifying existence!

    ¡°Forget it, take these sets of armor with us and continue forward.¡±

    ¡°Do we still move on, milord?¡± someone asked softly. They¡¯d made great gains. Wouldn¡¯t they run into more ck Armors if they continued forward? There were a limited number of them, after all.

    ¡°Yao Cheng, take some people and probe ahead. The rest of us will await Red Moon and the others.¡± The Revolution King thought it over. ¡°Although our harvest is richer if we¡¯re the first ones in, the danger is much greater as well. A higher price needs to be paid and more will end up dying. This will damage our strength too much, so send some people out as scouts first!¡±

    They had to wrap their heads around <i>some</i> information, at least.

    ¡°Remember, try not to use your supernatural abilities. Do not make a sound or cast light. You will attract attention from the ck Armors again. And finally, do not fly. That is the most dangerous action you can take!¡±

    Yao Cheng hesitated, but quickly epted his orders. Whether it was ck or Bronze Armors, neither could harm him. There wasn¡¯t much danger so long as he didn¡¯t run around haphazardly and blunder into the inner city.

    He waved a hand and quickly walked to the depths of the street with eight other powerhouses. Yao Cheng was very careful in his movements and didn¡¯t dare exude too much mysterious power, for fear of arousing a response on a greater scale.

    Hong Yitang murmured a few words to his people. A few disengaged from the delegation and walked forward.

    The independent supernaturals that¡¯d survived their first engagement looked around the area. Some of them darted out again; the two great organizations did not stop them. The more people who wished to risk themselves for finding the correct route, the better. If it wasn¡¯t for the information they¡¯d brought back earlier, the organizations would¡¯ve all brashly taken to the sky. Who knew how many would die with that action?

    So sometimes, these wandering cultivators were still proved to be useful. It didn¡¯t matter if they walked away with a few benefits. As rich as one person¡¯s harvest may be, they could notpare to the big organizations. Yama had already reaped one hundred sets of ck armor from the earlier fight.

    Of course, the Revolution King was no fool. He quickly backed out of the za with his people staying behind, taking the armor with them. This zone potentially drew more attention from ck Armors if anyone set foot in it. While he wasn¡¯t afraid, he didn¡¯t know how many of the enemy there were. Would he lose the war of attrition if he didn¡¯t kill them all at once?

    The streets were quiet once more. However, a few new shadows could be seen shifting through the streets. The two main organizations and independent supernaturals disappeared into an alley. Spearheaded by a Sr, they were a crew of more than twenty.

    ......

    The trio had long since shifted from their za location. When they returned to their original alleyway, Liu Long heaved an emotional sigh and muttered, ¡°Srs are terrifying indeed!¡±

    He was ever more reverential when he thought of Yuan Shuo. The professor yed Srs while just being another Dominator. When Liu Long thought of himself, he knew there was no hope for him to battle a Bronze Armor in the same way that the Sr level Yao Cheng had.

    When the chains easily caught the Bronze Armor, Liu Long realized that it¡¯d only take a split second before he died to the same attack. The gap between them was too great!

    But Yuan Shuo nned on shattering this distance! Liu Long fancied himself on the same level as the professor when he entered Dominator. The more he thought about it now, the more he was mortified. Forget it, there was just toorge of a difference between them! Not to mention, Yuan Shuo was a Summoner of Spirit now.

    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about something else for a second, chief,¡± Li Hao suddenly muttered. ¡°When Yama sent out their scouts, I saw Li Dahu among them!¡±

    As an earth supernatural, it was normal to be tasked for investigation duty. They were more effective against ck Armors if there was a chance encounter. Earth supernaturals could seal off the ground and cause the soldiers to lose their flow of energy. That left the coast clear for even an initial Sunre like Li Dahu to eliminate the enemy.

    Liu Long inclined his head, but still cautioned, ¡°I see that Yao Cheng is with them as well...¡±

    ¡°Then we follow them and wait for them to split up!¡± Li Hao whispered. ¡°They can¡¯t stay together forever. They¡¯ll certainly explore different areas so long as danger isn¡¯t imminent. Arger group will attract more attention and whether it¡¯s a supernatural or martial master, who doesn¡¯t want to find treasure by themselves? An entire outer city is open to them right now, do you think they¡¯ll be able to restrain themselves, chief? Will Yao Cheng lead all of them together the entire time?¡±

    <i>No way!</i>

    At least, Li Hao didn¡¯t think so.

    Liu Long¡¯s eyes darted around as he thought rapidly. ¡°Then let¡¯s follow them!¡± He nodded.

    ¡°It¡¯s too dangerous.¡± Liu Yan was the one hesitating. ¡°Any fighting that breaks out will immediately attract ck Armors and other powerhouses... Why don¡¯t we wait for Red Moon and the Night Watchers toe as well...¡±

    ¡°We can¡¯t,¡± Li Hao swiftly interrupted. ¡°There will be people everywhere then, which will make it more dangerous! All we need to do now is keep our movements more contained¡ªthey¡¯ll think that theirrades have run into ck Armors! The soldiers are like us and don¡¯t have supernatural ripples emanating from them...

    ¡°It¡¯d be better if we can get three sets of armor and be imposter soldiers!¡± the young man said sadly, but then brightened. ¡°You know what, why don¡¯t we... actually go get three suits?¡±

    They knew an effective way against the soldiers thanks to the Revolution King! One just needed to sever their connection to the ground. The only difficulty would be opening the suit of armor, but that didn¡¯t matter. They could force their way in. His sword could absolutely create an incision, to say nothing of anything else. It was fine if they damaged the armor a little!

    ¡°It may not work...¡± Liu Long¡¯s mind worked rapidly, but he followed Li Hao¡¯s reasoning. ¡°Real ck Armors might be able to detect something amiss with us. Otherwise, the Night Watchers could¡¯ve done the same if they collected any and made it into the inner city uncontested.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. There might be some identification mechanisms between the soldiers. <i>But we¡¯re not looking to get into the inner city! We just want to pretend to be them and kill people! We don¡¯t need to pull the wool over the soldiers.</i>

 Chapter 232: Threeâ€™s Company (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 232: Three¡¯s Company (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Whatever,¡± Li Hao whispered. ¡°We stand a high chance of sess. I¡¯ve noticed after a few times that it¡¯s only one ck Armor patrolling at the back end of the alley, while onees first at this front end, then the squad of ten! We can remove the two who patrol by themselves and think of a way to get a third suit of armor. There looks to be ck Armors on every street. They¡¯re either solo or part of ten!¡±

    Prolonged observation had helped him collect some information. The squads of ten were difficult to manage. It wasn¡¯t that they were impossible to fight, but that once the disturbance grew too big, it would bring over a much more sizablepany.

    The solo ck Armor that came first might be a scout for the rest of the squad. Li Hao didn¡¯t really care about the particrs. If the soldiers mobilized en masse, it would likely be for the Yama delegation.

    Liu Long quickly came to a decision after thinking it over. ¡°Let¡¯s do it!¡±

    Liu Yan wasn¡¯t part of the decision-making process at a time like this. Since the two hade to a consensus, they sprang into action. Hunched over, they crept to the back end of the valley and waited for the individually patrolling soldier to pass by. There was already a n of action when it did.

    ¡°Chief, I¡¯ll erupt with the aura of the earth and shake the ck Armor off the ground! Your task is simple¡ªattack fiercely. Throw it up into the air until it loses support from the ground and reverts to being a suit of armor. We win then! We¡¯re not supernaturals, so we don¡¯t have special crowd control skills. It¡¯s all up to you!¡±

    All previous efforts would be in vain if Liu Long let their quarry hit the ground! This would be an immense test of a martial master¡¯s mastery of control.

    ¡°I watched Yama¡¯s fight with them earlier. It takes approximately a minute before ck Armors are unable to put up a fight. The squad of ten arrived roughly one minuteter. So you have to find a way to keep things moving, chief. Drag it into the alley if possible!¡±

    Liu Long took a deep breath. <i>Hot damn, your requests are getting harder and harder to fulfill! </i>But he still nodded after thinking it over. ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡±

    ck Armors were just Darkmoon, he was a Dominator. Although it would be difficult, he could still aplish the task.

    ......

    <i>Momentster.</i>

    A ck Armor marched their way with resolute steps, mechanically scanning the premises around it. Li Hao activated the aura of earth when it approached the alley. A soundless tremor ran through the ground, but the young man wanted to vomit blood. The ground contained a unique energy that came with a bacsh. It nearly shook him to the point of coughing up blood!

    However, earlier experimentation told him that he would be able to maintain the operation of his aura under these circumstances.

    As expected, ck Armor was jolted off the ground. Liu Long struck like a cheetah, dashing out to punch the soldier up into the air like a missile strike. This required extreme control; the man executed it with trepidation. Thank goodness these soldiers didn¡¯t make a sound! He¡¯d wrapped his fist with the waves to deaden the sound of impact as much as possible. Neither did he dare take to the air to continue the job. He could only wait for the soldier to fall down before carefully punching it again.

    This was simr to preventing a balloon fromnding on the floor. He couldn¡¯t hit the soldier so hard that it deviated from its original trajectory. If it flew toward the other end of the alley, it would quickly bump into the team of ten.

    Liu Long punched rhythmically with great apprehension. As he cocked his hand back for the next blow, ck Armor suddenly struggled off the flight path and redirected itself toward the other end of the alley.

    Liu Long jerked with shock and Li Hao rushed forward. The young man punched forward as well, throwing the soldier back to the path they determined for it. Both martial masters were drenched with sweat! The crisp sound of impact from Li Hao¡¯s blow traveled a little too far in the quiet streets.

    Li Hao swallowed hard. When the soldier next drifted down, Liu Long grabbed it by the head and dragged it into the alley. Heart in his mouth, Li Hao quickly followed hispanion. Repositioned inside the alley, the two of them furiously punched the soldier upward.

    Time ticked by as ck Armor began to stiffen. The next time it descended, Li Hao and Liu Long grabbed its legs and head, pinning it in ce. Both of them froze, waiting for something.

    The expected footsteps sounded once more. A small team passed by the alley they were in. The two were soaked with sweat when the soldiers moved away; there was no further movement from their ck Armor.

    Li Hao smiled, Liu Long answered with a grin. They¡¯d gotten their first suit of armor!

    The young man groped around their battle spoil. This thing seemed to be one solid whole¡ªhow did one put it on? There had to be a special way, but this wasn¡¯t the time to study the treasure. Li Hao gripped Steris and tried to pinpoint where to make an incision. They needed to be able to wear it properly after he damaged it¡ªit couldn¡¯t split open in the middle of battle.

    ¡°Go in through the crotch area!¡± Liu Long whispered. ¡°We¡¯ll burrow in from a small hole there. While martial masters aren¡¯t in the habit of practicing body contortion, we can do it when the situation calls for it. No one pays attention to the crotch, it''s more discreet!¡±

    Cutting an opening in the seams of the crotch and crawling in through there wouldn¡¯t be too conspicuous. Thus, Li Hao nodded after some thought. It was a good idea.

    He quickly shed his sword over the armor. There was no questioning Steris¡¯ keen edge. Armor that Sunres could not damage quickly gave way to his de. While Liu Long didn¡¯t say anything, his mind swirled with judgment.

    This was the true sword of the Lis! Its sharpness knew no bounds!

    Li Hao saw a faint glimpse of white bone when he sliced the armor open¡ªit was quickly reduced to dust and vanished inside the armor. He didn¡¯t feel much for these ancient soldiers. They faithfully executed their standing orders in an admirable disy of professionalism. But sadly, he needed their equipment. There was no time to grieve or honor these ancients.

    The young man looked at himself, then at Liu Long. The captain¡¯s body shape seemed to fit this suit of armor more.

    ¡°Chief, you go in!¡±

    Liu Long cursed under his breath and lifted the suit up. He shoved his head into the crotch area, bones popping and cracking as he did so. He fitted himself inside after a while, but his legs were still exposed outside. He tried withdrawing his legs; it took numerous attempts before he stuffed them into the armor. However, that widened the split in the crotch in the process.

    Li Hao took a close look at the armor after Liu Long was fully inside. There weren¡¯t any abnormalities to be seen so long as one didn¡¯t look at the crotch area. Liu Long had ripped his own pants as he shifted into his equipment. The young man couldn¡¯t help but say, ¡°Chief, your legs are kinda pale. They¡¯re a bit conspicuous in the dark!¡±

    Since there was an opening in the lower body and they didn¡¯t have a way to close it, some shes of white could be seen from the inner thighs. Liu Long¡¯s legs really were a bit pale. The captain cursed lowly, a sound mostly muffled by the armor.

    Li Hao ignored him and scuttled over to one of the walls, swiping some ck dust from the corner. He quickly ran back to wipe it over Liu Long¡¯s legs. That more or less covered the shes of white.

    Liu Long tested his new equipment with a few punches. ¡°The armor is durable, but very agile to control on the inside,¡± he remarked with appreciation. ¡°It¡¯s very soft. The ancient civilization was incredible! This doesn¡¯t affect martial master prowess at all!¡±

    A solid set of armor was a shackle at times, but this one didn¡¯t detract from his movement at all. Liu Long was astonished. This kind of craftsmanship had truly reached its peak in the era of the ancient civilization!

    ¡°Stop admiring it, we need to get another!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t have time to talk about this with the man. Red Moon had entered shortly after Yama. There might be arge crowd of supernaturals here soon, so they needed three suits of armor as quickly as possible.

    As for whether or not Yama would pose as ck Armors themselves... They could if they could bring themselves to damage the armor. Not to mention, this equipment didn¡¯t seem suited for supernaturals. If that kind of superhuman wore it, it might iste their mysterious power.

    While Li Hao was yet to confirm this theory and wasn¡¯t a supernatural himself, he¡¯d noticed that none of the earlier supernatural attacks had pierced through the armor. If it was ineffective from the outside in, would it be effective from the inside out?

    It wasn¡¯t likely!

    Martial masters were the only possible candidates. Of the three great organizations, the strongest martial master that the young man knew was Hong Yitang¡¯s daughter. She was ate Sunderer, so he wasn¡¯t worried at all about her. The others, including Hong Yitang himself, were all supernaturals.

    Therefore, Li Hao wasn¡¯t worried about meeting fake ck Armors. If he did, they were looking to die. He had the Dominator Liu Long on his side. Even if they ran into a disguised Sr, that supernatural was just going to their death since the armor restricted supernatural abilities.

    The trio began their second hunt. Armed with previous experience, they conducted the second hunt with skill and quickly bagged their second suit of armor. This one went to Liu Yan because it was much shorter. Li Hao was concerned that his calves would remain outside if he tried it on.

    The third set was harder to obtain because they needed to visit the street that Yama¡¯s scouts were on. They would find the third solo ck Armor there.

    Two ck Armors and one young man ran toward the street ahead. Some ngs could be heard in the distance¡ªmore supernaturals had likely encountered the soldiers. None of the trio were in the mood to gather information. They needed to disguise themselves first.

    ......

    The process for the third suit was full of excitement. Some supernaturals arrived as soon as they immobilized the soldier. Thankfully, the trio ran off too quickly to be seen. The streets were no longer quiet as others had arrived. inly, Red Moon had reached this area throughout the course of them handling ck Armors. The bulk of their delegation was yet to convene¡ªthese were their scouts.

    ......

    Three ck Armors stood on the streets a few minutester. They seemed a bit awkward and stiff, their footsteps unable to be in unison like regr ck Armors. If one observed them closely, they would discover damage to the crotch area.

    However, this was the best disguise that the trio could think of.

    A group of three was also a stark contrast to the other soldiers. They were usually one or a team of ten. However, Li Hao was betting on the fact that the other explorers wouldn¡¯t notice this peculiarity.

 Chapter 233: Slaying Sunflare (I)

    <h4>Chapter 233: ying Sunre (I)</h4>

    Footsteps sounded on the streets. A supernatural held his breath in a corner, freezing in ce. His mysterious power waspressed into his body; not a particle leaked out. Listening intently in the darkness, he sighed with relief when the sound slowly faded away.

    Srs easily handled ck Armors, but he couldn¡¯t. As a Plenilune, he could summon the wind and rain in the outside world so long as he didn¡¯t run afoul of the three great organizations and Night Watchers. Not even the Sword Sect would easily move against a Plenilune.

    But here, all of the organizations had sent their elites. More importantly, a group of Sunres had died as soon as they entered the ancient city. Darkmoons weren¡¯t worth anything inparison.

    These ck Armors were easily identifiable as the lowest level soldiers of the ancient city. However, they could still kill Darkmoons or even Sunres! There were too many restrictions against supernaturals in this ce.

    A tragic tinge crept into the supernatural¡¯s thoughts when his thoughts traveled here. He didn¡¯t want to explore anymore, but as a Yama member, there would be nothing but death in store if he dared desert now.

    Yama had raised them. Desertion was betrayal. No one who betrayed arge organization ever met with a good end.

    The hairs stood on the back of his neck while his thoughts kept himpany. A sharp sword stabbed forward in the dark!

    <i>Pfft! </i>A head tumbled to the ground. Three ck Armors soundlessly appeared behind him.

    The soldiers were apanied by the sound of footsteps. When the footsteps drifted away, that indicated the soldiers were gone. Anyone who made the observation would draw this conclusion, and this was the proper concept to hold. ck Armors walked on the ground, but these three were fake.

    When the footsteps disappeared was when supernaturals were most rxed. After the fake trio created the sound of footsteps, they quickly silenced it in the darkness. At that time, it was child¡¯s y for martial masters to noiselessly approach supernaturals that were doing their best imitation of mundanes.

    Everyone knew to not release mysterious power when ck Armors were around. But without their superhuman abilities, supernaturals were just ordinary people. They died to a single sword stroke!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t recognize his victim. Judging from the apparel, it was someone from Yama. Other than staying away from Night Watchers when he was on the hunt, it didn¡¯t matter which of the others he killed. A Plenilune was better than nothing. They might gain fifty cubes from this supernatural¡ªthis was no Sunre, after all. These also weren¡¯t ideal circumstances to fully extract mysterious power. It would be a job well done to im a portion. Thus, he¡¯d get roughly twenty-five cubes from this Plenilune. That amount would be quickly absorbed.

    There was no need to clean up the corpse as the city¡¯s ground was the best processor. This area would return to what it was before long. Everything and the body would be swallowed whole.

    This was a city that ate people! So long as one was not seenmitting the deed, the darkness hid many evil and dangerous things.

    Momentster, footsteps sounded again. This was the cue for the living to take cover! Their suits of ck armor were the best possible protective tool. As for mysterious power, Li Hao absorbed it as they walked. Who cared if some was lost with this crude procedure?

    There were supernaturals everywhere, so many for the taking! They could kill another one after digesting this one. There would always be another that came along.

    Li Hao bore no goodwill for the major organizations. The same went for Liu Long. Other than the Night Watchers, supernaturals were all heretics in his eyes. They were the source of misfortunes that gued the world. One dead was one less that roamed thend!

    Behind them, the headless body slowly sank into the ground.

    ......

    <i>In a location not too far away from Li Hao and the others.</i>

    Hu Po¡ªLi Dahu¡ªwaited with two Darkmoons. Their expressions grew consecutively darker the longer they waited. Staring at the house ahead of them, they had to conclude that theirrade was dead.

    Li Dahu had had three Darkmoons under hismand moments ago. He sent one of them into a structure that was possibly a tavern. Instead of a deeper investigation, however, all that came back was a muffled thump and no sign of other movement.

    These houses seemed to be monsters that ate people. Anyone who went in never ventured out again.

    ¡°Damn it!¡± Li Dahu cursed, irritated. The guy was dead! This ce was too dangerous! They needed to avoid the constantly patrolling ck Armors while exploring the premises. All of the houses were off limits. Whoever entered one disappeared.

    Should they turn back now? How would they exin themselves if they did? Was he supposed to report that the houses ate people and... nothing else?

    Li Dahu looked in the other direction of the street. There was some faint light to be found there. It might be the inner city that the Night Watchers spoke of if as was brighter there. Maybe they should take a look in that direction?

    But what if it was very dangerous?

    ¡°Screw it!¡± he hissed. There was no need to continue to wait, that subordinate was likely dead. The next wave of ck Armors would soon be upon them if they continued to stay here. They were familiar with the patrol schedule by now. A squad of ten would pass by in roughly ten minutes.

    Although he and his men were Sunre, Li Dahu didn¡¯t dare run afoul of these soldiers. He might not be able to defeat ten, and even if he did, he¡¯d attract more soldiers to his position once he utilized his supernatural abilities. He was dead then as well.

    What a pity that they hadn¡¯t run into one patrolling alone! He was also very interested in these suits of armor. Unfortunately, the soldiers in this area all moved in packs.

    In actuality, there were ones patrolling alone as well. It was just that those that surveyed the immediate three streets had all fallen to Li Hao and hispanions. There were certainly more than three streets in this city. The solo ck Armor on the others might¡¯ve been eliminated by others or not discovered yet.

    Footsteps sounded at this time. Li Dahu¡¯s ears twitched and he ttened himself to the ground with his two men, retracting his mysterious power into his body. A strange look entered his eyes. There didn¡¯t seem to be that many footsteps.

    Indeed,pared to the other teams of ck Armors, they could immediately tell from the echoes that this one was small. The others were easily identifiable as a sizable contingent.

    The soldiers slowly came into view through the gloom¡ªit was indeed a small number!

    ¡°Three!¡± muttered the Darkmoon next to Li Dahu. He kept his voice down, but still received a vicious re for his efforts. They weren¡¯t supposed to talk!

    Li Dahu was also surprised. <i>Only three? </i>That meant the Yama scouts faced only three Darkmoon. If there weren¡¯t that many soldiers, then the level of threat they posed would lessen enormously. He was an earth supernatural and thus somewhat effective against these ck Armors. He could put down ayer of stone over the ground beneath their feet. It wouldn¡¯t be arge area, but would be suitable for their purposes.

    Three ck Armors!

    Li Dahu was tempted. With how few of the soldiers there were, he¡¯d be iming three suits of armor by himself if he could capture all three. The Revolution King had paid the price of a dozen lives and required the personal efforts of a Sr to obtain roughly eighty. If he could im three here...

    He¡¯d earn significant merit if he offered them up instead of hiding them for himself, wouldn¡¯t he? Perhaps he could reconvene with the main body if he had these three. He wouldn¡¯t have to risk himself in further investigation. And with this level of merit, perhaps he¡¯d be rewarded with an audience with the Revolution King.

    Li Dahu had originated as the captain of a security detail. The Qiaos seemed to be in frequent contact with Yama before, but they¡¯d been eliminated in the recent past. Although he was a Sunre, it felt that something was missing without the Qiaos. That family had been a constant source of money and wealth to trade for mysterious power. Now that hecked this channel...

    Various thoughts tempted Li Dahu, but he kept a firm grip on his desires for now. <i>Let¡¯s keep an eye on them for a bit longer!</i>

    ......

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    Since Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan weren¡¯t ck Armors, they moved ording to instinct. Being martial masters, their eyesight was very keen. They easily caught a glimpse of the three hidden underneath a nearby eave. While they were unmoving, the trio would have to be blind to overlook the three living people.

    Liu Long suddenly raised his arm to hold Liu Yan back. However, she hadn¡¯t made a move. Liu Long thought that she wouldn¡¯t be able to control herself, but she did. Aftering to the ancient city, she understood how dangerous this trip was. While she was crazed with hate even as a veteran martial master, it didn¡¯t make her stupid. She knew long ago that there was a connection between the Qiaos and Yama, but still controlled herself.

    She bided her time even when Qiao Peng continuously harassed her. It was obvious that Liu Long was underestimating her capacity to hold it together!

    <i>Li Dahu!</i>

    Indeed, they were seeing Li Dahu¡ªalso known as Hu Po in the Yama organization. He was who Liu Long and Liu Yan wished most to kill on this expedition.

    Liu Yan¡¯s footsteps remained as if before. They didn¡¯t alter just because she saw her husband¡¯s murderer. Liu Long was more at ease to see that she carried on as usual.

    The three continued walking like they didn¡¯t see the Yama members. Their footsteps marched in unison as they slowly left the others behind. However, the trio soon sensed something different. The Yama members... were following them?

    The Night Watcher trio didn¡¯t immediately attack because it was harder to eliminate arger group. It would easily give rise to an undesirablyrge disturbance. Thus, they chose not to take action even when they saw their targets. Who would¡¯ve thought that the supernaturals would be so bold as to follow them instead? The Night Watchers weren¡¯t thinking of attacking, but the Yama members were!

    How... impressive!

    There was another ten soldier squad on this street. Li Hao and the others knew that it would be here soon, so they continued walking without a hint of anything out of the ordinary. Out of sight from their followers, Liu Long made a gesture with his hand.

    <i>Do we kill them?</i>

    The three were following them! Supernatural levels were easy to identify, not to mention that Li Hao was able to tell with a nce that they were one Sunre and two Fullmoons. It ced them on simr footing with the trio¡ªone Dominator and two Sunderers.

    But the Night Watchers were ck Armors at the moment and their opponents didn¡¯t dare employ too much mysterious power. If there were no surprises, it was the trio that upied more advantages. Their only concern was that the ck Armors behind them would arrive before they had a chance to exterminate the Yama members. That was the real point of trouble. Escape would be nigh impossible once they were embroiled by the ten soldier squad.

 Chapter 234: Slaying Sunflare (II)

    <h4>Chapter 234: ying Sunre (II)</h4>

    Li Hao was suddenly very regretful that he didn¡¯t know how to transmit his voice. His teacher knew! Of that, the young man was well aware of. When he once asked how to learn, his teacher responded that it required fine precision over the aura or for a supernatural to enter the Sr level. Otherwise, one had to speak out loud.

    They¡¯d be able to discuss a n of attack if he knew how to transmit his voice. Although Liu Long was a Dominator, he hadn¡¯t mastered the skill as he¡¯d only just grasped the aura. He was yet toprehend its intricacies. But he was close since he was a Dominator. He¡¯d soon learn the skill that didn¡¯t seem very useful, but in actuality was quite handy.

    When Liu Long asked if they should kill their followers, the most bloodthirsty Liu Yan responded with a minute gesture<i>¡ªno.</i> However much she burned for revenge, she didn¡¯t wish for everyone to act on an impulse. That would expose the trio.

    The squad of ten soldiers would be here soon. If it was just one Yama member following them, the trio would be confident of swiftly eliminating that person. But when it came to three, any one of the supernaturals could easily get away if the slightest mishap urred. Alternatively,rge disturbances might echo through the area and drag down the three Night Watchers into danger.

    Li Hao focused on thinking things over instead of replying. After a while, he ever-so-slightly pointed at his feet. They couldn¡¯t talk and hand gestures weren¡¯t universal. This would be a test of their teamwork. If the two of them couldn¡¯t understand him, then they would have to give up the opportunity.

    Within the armor, Liu Long first thought that the young man meant that he was going to shake the ground through his aura. But Liu Long quickly realized he was wrong. Being the team captain, he swiftly understood Li Hao¡¯s meaning.

    <i>The supernaturals¡¯ first n of attack against ck Armors is to separate them from their connection with the ground. Earth supernatural Li Dahu will certainly use his abilities to iste the soldiers. Without energy from the ground, the soldiers will gradually lose their ability to move. So... we¡¯ll attack when they think the ck Armors are incapacitated?</i>

    Liu Long was no fool. As captain of the Demon Hunters, he¡¯d continuously led with a mixture of vignce, boldness, and attention to detail. Granted, he was an idiot in Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes, but he grasped the young man¡¯s intention!

    They should seize the opportunity to ambush Li Dahu!

    Immobilized ck Armors would put the three Yama members at ease. At the same time, martial masters were the group with the strongest powers of concealment. This was a marked difference to supernaturals; thetter found it difficult to even y dead. Any powerhouse that drew near a supernatural would sense the vitality of their mysterious power.

    Liu Long thought it through and felt this was a very viable tactic. However, he was the same as Li Hao¡ªworried that Liu Yan didn¡¯t understand.

    If Liu Yan chose to attack the Yama members even when the earth was under thetter¡¯s control, then not only would the n be in shambles, but it would also draw attention from the organization. It might even result in a massive battle that brought unwanted consequences to them.

    Gazes from two ck Armors flicked to Liu Yan. Li Hao registered that Liu Long seemed to have understood him. The chief had some skill to his name and could understand the n. The key was Liu Yan...

    It wasn¡¯t that he thought women were dumb or that she was a bimbo, but Liu Yan nursed a deep enmity toward Li Dahu. What if rage overcame her reason when the other was close? That would be the greatest trouble of all.

    Liu Long had to make another hand gesture when there was no response forting from their third team member. <i>y dead!</i>

    Hand gestures were only useful for shortmands. y dead, ground, earth...

    Liu Yan understood thebination. <i>Got it!</i>

    However, Li Hao and Liu Long remained concerned. They couldn¡¯t afford a misunderstanding at this juncture!

    As if she knew that herrades didn¡¯t trust her, a resigned expression crossed Liu Yan¡¯s face. Were women just supposed to suffer prejudice like this? She really understood the n! It was one thing for Liu Long to think of her this way, but Li Hao was a rookie! How dare the little bastard doubt a veteranmissioner inspector??

    <i>Aren¡¯t we just supposed to y dead and pretend we¡¯re immobile when Li Dahu locks the ground away? Do you really think I¡¯m an idiot? And then we take advantage of the opportunity to counterattack. Who wouldn¡¯t understand this logic??</i>

    While irritated, she also knew that this was no time to be careless. She had to make another gesture. <i>You, shorty!</i> Liu Yan directed this at Li Hao.

    The young man understood! So everyone really was on the same page. She wanted him to take care of the shortest of the three. The tallest was Li Dahu¡ªit went without saying that Liu Long would focus on him.

    If Li Hao was in charge of the shortest, then the remaining Yama member was naturally in Liu Yan¡¯s purview. Once their targets were set and the n decided, there would be no misunderstandings or extraneous trouble during execution that would result in one of their quarry escaping.

    Li Hao and Liu Long finally rxed upon seeing Liu Yan¡¯sst hand gesture. It would be easy for Liu Long to take out Li Dahu. All he needed was to utilize the Nine Forged Force in the ambush and kill the initial Sunre with one punch. He¡¯d be utter trash if he couldn¡¯t manage the deed. A Dominator Yuan Shuo could kill Srs! If Liu Long couldn¡¯t kill an initial Sunre under the cover of a sneak attack, then even Li Hao would think less of him.

    Honestly speaking, the Night Watcher trio wasn¡¯t afraid of direct frontalbat. But this wasn¡¯t the time for it. Li Hao sorelycked earth energy and one Sunre could supply roughly three hundred cubes.

    The Yama members continued following stealthily behind them. They were quite bold as to keep only a short distance between them and the soldiers. When the footsteps began fading away, Li Dahu muttered, ¡°Those three ck Armors are all Darkmoons! It¡¯ll be easy if I spontaneously iste them from the ground and their energy source. The key thing is, we need to be quick about it! Based on my observations, another team of soldiers will be here shortly. We need to capture these ck Armors before theye. If we do, we can reconvene with therger group and be much safer in these ruins!¡±

    The two Darkmoon were sorely tempted. This was shaping up to be a very dangerous ce. Unfortunately, Darkmoons had no right to offer their opinions in this expedition.

    ¡°It shall be as Milord Hu Po says!¡± the two swiftly responded. So long as their superior could control the three soldiers and prevent them from being reinforced by the city, they were confident of eliminating the three ck Armors. Isting them for a minute would fully immobilize the soldiers. They could then bring the suits of armor back to their main delegation.

    Li Dahu hesitated at this time. Should he send one of them to stand guard? What if they failed to notice the arrival of more ck Armors? But... since the soldiers were apanied by the sound of footsteps, there didn¡¯t seem to be a need for that.

    What he should be concerned with was fellow supernaturals blundering in and taking advantage of the situation. But their ripples of power were noticeable, so he only needed to consider the martial masters of the Sword Sect...

    The sect¡¯s strongest martial master was Hong Yitang¡¯s daughter. The man wouldn¡¯t send her out as a scout. Any of his other martial masters were initial Sunderer at most. Even if they ambushed him... he was an earth Sunre. Was he afraid of being attacked by an initial Sunderer?

    Li Dahu wanted to snigger at the thought. It wasn¡¯t a good idea to be too prudent! This uncharacteristic concern was all thanks to the influence of their environment.

    ¡°Then you two need to quickly corral them when we go in a moment. Don¡¯t let those ck Armorsnd outside the range of my control. We¡¯ll be in for it then,¡± he reminded. ¡°Also, make sure they stay within range during that one minute. Don¡¯t let them run out of the area!¡±

    They¡¯d learned through previous battles that one minute was the duration it took to immobilize the soldiers. If that wasn¡¯t met, it was possible that the suits of armor would retaliate.

    ¡°Also, minimize your supernatural ripples to the smallest degree possible. Don¡¯t throw off light or create sound.¡± He looked at one of them. ¡°You¡¯re a fire supernatural, so your light is the most noticeable in battle. You¡¯re in charge of observing the surroundings!¡±

    ¡°Yes, milord!¡± The two didn¡¯t dare say much. Fire supernaturals indeed couldn¡¯t behave too wantonly in these battles, not unless they were attacking with therger delegation. Fire was too tant in an ambush. The other supernatural was a wind supernatural and wouldn¡¯t stand out too much in the fight toe.

    The three caught up with the soldiers after deciding on a course of action. ck Armors didn¡¯t move that quickly, but were very speedy in battle. Although they¡¯d fallen behind, the Yama members soon drew even with the soldiers again. They smiled to see the three ck Armors ahead like the fat sheep they would soon be.

    ......

    Li Hao and hispanions also smiled beneath their visors. They¡¯d thought that the Yama members had given up on the idea when they ceased following the soldiers. Good, they were in pursuit again! This was very good, it wouldn¡¯t waste their discussion.

    Whether it was supernaturals or martial masters, they were very decisive once they decided on what to do. The three soldiers were walking when a very faint burst of mysterious power snaked toward them. They reached for their swords at the same time, but their feet seemed to sink into a swamp. Layers of earth energy covered the ground and mired the trio¡¯s feet in something akin to mud.

    As for whether or not it would halt the supply of energy¡ªhow would the trio know? But they¡¯d seen what ck Armors would do under these circumstances. They struggled to walk through the swamp and pulled out their ck swords, waving it around.

    The Yama members rushed out of the darkness. Mysterious power emanated from Li Dahu as he grunted, ¡°Hurry and attack them. Exhaust their reserves of energy!¡±

    The wind supernatural released des of wind, keeping the disturbance to a minimum. ck Armors made no sound to begin with and the Yama members were concerned they¡¯d draw attention if their movements were too big, so they purposefully kept their voices down too.

    Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan struggled fiercely! But they did so with decreasing strength as time went on. Upon seeing that he was almost out of the supernatural swamp, Liu Long began regretting struggling so ferociously. <i>How am I supposed to keep the act up if I walk right out of his control zone?</i>

    As much as he regretted his actions, Li Dahu was even more horrified. These ck Armors put up a bigger fight than the soldiers they¡¯d met before. He had experience attacking them, they didn¡¯t have so much strength to their name!

    They¡¯d almost made a huge blunder! He was forced to increase the amount of mysterious power he was bringing to bear and throw it at the biggest soldier. Was it the bigger the ck Armor, the stronger it was? He¡¯d almost let this one get away!

    While Li Dahu was frightened into sweating massively, Liu Long sighed with relief to feel the power increase around him. <i>Damn that was close. We would seriously have a problem on our hands if I managed to walk out. If I somehow stopped moving at the perimeter... Li Dahu¡¯s not an idiot.</i>

    <i>Thank goodness!</i>

 Chapter 235: Slaying Sunflare (III)

    <h4>Chapter 235: ying Sunre (III)</h4>

    Seeing as it was Liu Long¡¯s first time posing as a ck Armor, he now knew how to adjust for more appropriate struggles during their next heist.

    Both Liu Long and Li Dahu were immensely stressed by the troublesome situation that could¡¯ve developed!

    The three struggled increasingly weakly as time went on. des of wind crashed into them, sending them reeling to and fro. When they eventually sank to the ground, ayer of earth energy enveloped them!

    Li Dahu and his men waited for a while, then crowed silently when the soldiers remained unmoving. They¡¯d seeded, and without fanfare!

    Li Dahu grabbed a cage made of earth energy and swiftly dodged to the side. The other two did the same, whereas Li Hao and hisrades stayed motionless.

    Footsteps were upon them again. Everyone prayed for these ck Armors to leave as soon as possible. Li Dahu prayed that they wouldn¡¯t discover anything amiss. Li Hao¡¯s crew prayed for the soldiers to leave quickly. It would be difficult to act otherwise, and impossible once more people were on the scene.

    The uniform footsteps drew close as a team of ck Armors swung into view. Li Dahu and his men barely dared to breathe. As the soldiers marched off into the distance, the Yama members were still deathly afraid that the suits of armor would discover some of their brethren had been captured.

    Li Dahu exhaled softly when the footsteps traveled away with finality, unable to hide the grin on his face. They¡¯d seeded! Three sets of ck armor... They¡¯d struck it rich!

    Even if they turned the sets in to their superiors, this was still a massive mark of merit. One good thing about the bigger organizations was that they normally kept a proper record of deeds and aplishments. Few would work for them otherwise. Thus, credit usually went where it was due. The only exception was if the achievement was too big for the organization to pay out... That wasn¡¯t impossible either.

    Subdued on the ground, Li Hao and hisrades didn¡¯t need to converse before they attacked at the same time! Liu Long deployed the Nine Forged Force at maximum strength¡ªthe sound of waves pped against the air. Even though a Sunre like Li Dahu was right in front of him for an ambush, he needed to bring his full strength to bear to avoid mistakes from happening.

    Li Hao grabbed Steris and stabbed his sword at the wind supernatural shorty. He even utilized the sword aura in his attack! Liu Yan wielded a shortsword and shed it across the fire supernatural¡¯s throat!

    The two sides were standing nearly face to face. Li Dahu had even retracted the constraints of earth energy to avoid supernatural ripples from being detected. It was safe to do so as he knew that ck Armors would not return to their previous activity even if they came in contact with the earth now. They would remain inert instead. Of this, they were experienced with.

    But he was wrong.

    Li Dahu¡¯s reactions were better than typical Sunres as he used to be a martial master. Though he¡¯d only been a yer of Tens, that was still sufficient for him to bring a shield of earth to bear when Liu Long¡¯s fist crashed toward him.

    <i>What the heck is going on?</i> Were the ck Armorsing back to life? But that didn¡¯t make any sense. <i>Wait... this is aura enveloping me! This is an ambush!</i>

    It was a martial master, one thatmanded an aura.

    Who??

    A Dominator?! Yuan Shuo?

    How was that possible? Would Yuan Shuo need to ambush him if the professor wanted to kill him? Who was it?

    Li Dahu thought of someone when he sensed the iparably keen aura of the sword next to him. Li Hao¡ªYuan Shuo¡¯s student! The young man had used a sword when he fought Sun Moxian.

    Li Hao... Silver City...

    <i>Liu Long!</i>

    The Yama member abruptly realized who was punching him. Liu Long!

    <i>Impossible!</i>

    Absolutely impossible. Liu Long was part of the Night Watcher delegation, which was behind Yama. How could these two be in front of them?

    <i>Bam!</i>

    A loud collision rang out. Liu Long and Liu Yan couldn¡¯t focus on minimizing disruption anymore. There would be greater trouble if they didn¡¯t kill their targets as soon as possible. Compared to them, Li Hao had it much easier.

    His opponent was just a Darkmoon and he could utilize the aura of the sword. They were in such close quarters that as he wielded Steris... one stab immediately ran the other through! When he sliced the small sword across, it sectioned half of his opponent¡¯s body away!

    Liu Yan likewise shed across her opponent¡¯s throat, but he didn¡¯t die. Fire energy erupted and illuminated a small patch of the city. Her second shortsword appeared in her hand and she shoved it into his temple!

    Her opponent was eliminated with two strokes, but at the cost of throwing light on the streets and undtions of supernatural ripples! There was also the sound of them fighting... If nothing unexpected happened, then the soldiers that¡¯d just left would soon be by. But Liu Long was yet to finish his fight.

    He swung with the mightyyers of the Nine Forged Force and crashed through the shield of earth. Li Hao and Liu Yan could hear the sound of ribs breaking, but Li Dahu was also a ruthless person. Not only did he not dodge when his shield broke, but he thrusted his chest forward to take the heavy blow head-on. The enormous force shattered his organs, but he didn¡¯t care. He needed the immense momentum behind this punch to help him fly out further!

    He might not make it if he escaped under his own impetus. Such was the decisiveness of one who used to be a martial master!

    Li Dahu knew that these three were his enemies and wanted to kill him. The soldier on the side was ny-nine percent Liu Yan. Thus, he chose to suffer a more severe injury to help him escape. He wouldn¡¯t die even if all of his organs shattered, but he would absolutely die if caught in a fight with them.

    Although Liu Long broke his opponent¡¯s rib cage with the first blow and almost ran the man through, he subconsciously realized Li Dahl¡¯s merciless intent. Thus, he pulled back for a second blow andyered it with a stickier kind of internal force, but his opponent was already flying backward from the first!

    The captain¡¯s punch was so heavy that it flung his opponent out a long distance at a high speed. Perhaps the heavily injured Li Dahu might die to the soldiers rushing back to the scene... but what if he didn¡¯t?

    Indescribably upset, Liu Long could only watch as his second punch missed and his opponent careen backward, leaving his range of attack. Liu Long regretted his actions so immensely that he wanted to vomit blood!

    The ground shuddered at this moment and a massive aura of the earth exploded. The floundering Li Dahu sensed a wall behind him a second before he crashed heavily into it!

    <i>Impossible!</i>

    He¡¯d made a sweep of the area when they were in hiding. There was nothing behind them, there couldn¡¯t be a wall stopping him...

    Li Hao sweated profusely, a condition hidden by his visor. He¡¯d emergency deployed his second aura and vibrated the ground, shaking force outward to form a wall of air.

    Liu Long¡¯s second punch arrived at this time and smashed Li Dahu¡¯s head. Li Hao stabbed forward and sank his sword into thetter¡¯s heart. Liu Yan¡¯s twin des also scythed through the air and shed across the other¡¯s throat.

    Li Dahu¡¯s eyes stared wide open. Even though his face was misshapen from Liu Long¡¯s punch, he still stared fixedly at his killers. He didn¡¯t ept this fate! He was a Sunre! These Silver City guys had never been worthy of consideration! Whether it was Liu Yan or Liu Long, they were all trash! So what of Sunderer??

    It¡¯d taken him just a few short years to be a Darkmoon after he joined Yama, then another two to Sunre. He was an offensive focused heavy earth Sunre. But here, he didn¡¯t even have a chance to showcase his true abilities before someone beat him to death in the unknown street of an ancient city.

    He wasn¡¯t a Sunre from those small organizations, he was of the three greats! He was a powerhouse from Yama! He¡¯d defeated the Night Watchers¡¯ veteran Sunre, the one they called Wind Demon Huang Yun!

    He had a glorious future ahead of him, and he died today simply because he¡¯d killed an engineer back in the day...

    Li Dahu opened his eyes wide, wanting to see the trio clearly before he died. But they didn¡¯t grant him hisst wish. Liu Yan punched once more, smashing their target¡¯s eyeballs to pulp.

    ¡°Sorry!¡± he muttered with annoyance and self-recrimination. He hadn¡¯t eliminated their target with one move and almost let Li Dahu get away... As the captain of the Demon Hunters, this was his first time making such a serious mistake. If it hadn¡¯t been for Li Hao erupting with the aura of the earth at a critical time, what could¡¯ve happened if the Yama member had made good his escape? He might die, but there was always a possible other oue!

    Liu Long realized in this moment that he¡¯d overestimated his Nine Forged Force and underestimated the opponent. Li Dahu was harder to kill than regr Sunres! As Liu Long had killed Sunres before, that¡¯d erroneously affected his judgment. Theirte target¡¯s defenses had been stronger than some mid Sunres. That¡¯d been a fatal mistake!

    ¡°Hurry!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t have time to spare for this. He waved his sword around to shred the corpse!

    Liu Yan also swung both des at the same time to hack chunks out of the body. Liu Long quickly recovered hisposure. This wasn¡¯t the moment to discuss their errors. They needed to collect some body pieces and leave with mysterious power. They needed to flee! Footsteps could already be heard!

    ck Armors had discovered the abnormalities of this zone!

    Liu Yan didn¡¯t wallow in the jubtion of taking vengeance. She didn¡¯t throw her head back with a long howl. Whoever did so at this moment was an idiot. She hadn¡¯t even had the time to throw down a vicious line or two when they killed Li Dahu.

    Hacking off chunks, then shoving them into a storage box. The trio abandoned the corpse in the blink of an eye and fled. They vanished on the spot.

    A team of ck Armors rushed to the scene a heartbeatter. They sensed the blood and gore in the air and felt the ripples of mysterious power, but a confusing sight greeted their eyes.

    Dead!

    They paused for a moment before restarting their patrol. Footsteps faded away into the distance.

    Other supernaturals approached after a while. The bodies on the ground were almost gone and the blood devoured. There were a few scraps of identifiable clothing left, however. Some frowned at the pieces¡ªa Yama member was among them. Their expression shifted upon taking a closer look!

    The organization¡¯s hierarchy was very clearly delineated; this was one of the uniforms reserved for Sunres. Had a Sunre died?

    It was difficult to determine who, but several Darkmoons and a Sunre had certainly died here. There were only so many Sunres sent out to scout. They¡¯d know who died when they reconvened with the main delegation.

    ¡°Did ck Armors kill them?¡±

    There couldn¡¯t be anyone else apart from the soldiers. But... this group had sensed the battle from afar. It didn¡¯t feel like the ck Armor style. Not to mention, the soldiers were rather dumb. They couldn¡¯t sense anything so long as the disturbance was kept to a minimum, there was no light, and there was an absence of supernatural ripples.

    Were the Yama members idiots? Had they attacked the squad of ten themselves?

 Chapter 236: Slaying Sunflare (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 236: ying Sunre (IV)</h4>

    More supernaturals rushed to the scene in short order. Someone knelt for a close look and whispered, ¡°This is strange. These clothes show irregr cuts and damage. ck Armors use swords... Are they not the ones behind this?¡±

    He was examining thete Li Dahu¡¯s clothing. It was a portion that Liu Long had punched through, thus leaving a hole. Although the clothes had been hacked to pieces and it looked like a sword had done it, there were certain other traces to be found as well.

    Li Hao and hisrades had left in such a hurry that they didn¡¯t have time to collect the clothing or create a more realistic aftermath.

    Some supernaturals vanished as soon as these words were uttered. No matter if they were true or not, they meant that this ce was bing ever more dangerous. It was fine if this posttion was false, but if true... Didn¡¯t that mean there was internal strife between supernaturals?

    Who knew how these Yama powerhouses had died? What if some other organizations had purposefully lured the soldiers here? Or perhaps they¡¯d been fighting each other and the ck Armors appeared to kill them all!

    The observing Yama powerhouse swiftly left with a piece of clothing. He needed to find Yao Cheng as soon as possible to tell him that someone had died, and possibly not to the soldiers! He¡¯d sensed a hint of lingering aura, so it might be martial masters behind it!

    Of course, he couldn¡¯t easily voice this aloud. Once he did, the Sword Sect woulde under the greatest suspicion. However, this faction always presented a neutral, nonthreatening front. It wasn¡¯t a good idea to brashly dere war upon them.

    Additionally, they didn¡¯t appear to have any martial masters that knew the aura. Hong Yitang once grasped it, but he was a supernatural now.

    Quiet gradually returned to the streets.

    ......

    <i>In the alley from earlier.</i>

    Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan heaved for breath, their hearts still racing.

    ¡°I made a severe mistake,¡± Liu Long raised his earlier point again. ¡°These battle spoils have nothing to do with me. That¡¯s one point. The other is that I¡¯ll be bait from now on, the two of you stay back!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. These were the team rules set by Liu Long himself. The young man wouldn¡¯t oppose it if the captain wished to follow them.

    Liu Yan was panting as well and grunted, ¡°I have my revenge! I don¡¯t need any rewards either. You can have it all, Li Hao!¡± Joy and a bit of helplessness crept into her voice. ¡°I killed Li Dahu! I...¡±

    ¡°Revenge your ass!¡± Li Hao hissed. ¡°Yama is your enemy. They sheltered the Qiaos and Li Dahu despite their crimes. Do you think killing just one Li Dahu is sufficient revenge? You¡¯re so naive!¡±

    Liu Yan¡¯s joy at executing her vengeance immediately vanished. Yama weighed on her like a massive mountain from overhead. That carefree sense was nowhere to be found. Indeed, Yama was the chief offender, but damned if Li Hao wasn¡¯t annoying!

    Delivering these words at this time was too much of a blow to her mentality. Liu Yan didn¡¯t know what to say and felt an emptiness in the wake of the joy that vanished. <i>Fine then, pretend I didn¡¯t say anything.</i>

    ¡°Keep an eye out for me,¡± said Li Hao. ¡°I need to absorb some more mysterious power. We collected a bit of earth, wind, and fire this time. What a pity that we haven¡¯te across any water energy!¡±

    It was getting a bit painful, his kidneys were at too great of a deficit! Of the five elements, he¡¯d absorbed the most of fire and earth energy. Metal and woodgged far behind, and there wasn¡¯t any water to be had this time. If this continued, his visceral organs would be gravely imbnced!

    A person shed through his mind¡ªa mid Sr. There would be no more imbnce if he absorbed all of her energy. His kidneys would be the strongest then! A mid Sr would contain at least 1500 cubes of water energy.

    The thought left as soon as it formed. That person would not be easy to take down. While a mid Sr might turn into a real pig after ying the pig for too long, their spontaneous reaction time and defensive ability wasn¡¯t something that a Sunderer like him could break. He could try as a Dominator, especially armed with Steris and the aura of the sword. He might be able to defeat her then!

    A sense of urgency nipped at Li Hao¡¯s heels. He would break through as soon as he melded the two auras together. As for five auras? His teacher could have fun with that. He was fine with two. It didn¡¯t matter if it was harder toprehend the aura as a Dominator. He could deal with that when he was a Dominator.

    In this environment, his very survival was at stake if he wasn¡¯t a Dominator.

    Li Hao furiously absorbed their new gains along with dwindling energy from the little sword. He was worried that there wasn¡¯t sufficient sword energy for him to advance to Dominator. How was he supposed to replenish it given current circumstances?

    Tendrils of mysterious power flowed into his body, bolstering his five visceral organs apart from the kidneys. His heart and spleen, in particr, were noticeably stronger than the others.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Yao Cheng of the Yama organization regarded a scrap of cloth in his hand with an unpleasant expression. ¡°Hu Po is dead!¡±

    Hu Po was a Sunre that¡¯d crossed over from being a martial master and was quite strong. The organization had ced great value on him as a budding talent in Silver Moon. But now he was dead!

    Earth energy was highly useful when it came to the ck Armors. Losing one earth supernatural at this time was a greater loss than two or three fire supernaturals. Fire was too heavily restricted at the moment.

    It was because earth energy was so effective that he sent Hu Po out with some men. Yao Cheng estimated that they¡¯d be able to minimize danger within eptable parameters even if they ran into the soldiers.

    But Hu Po had still died!

    Yao Cheng glowered. Were ck Armors really behind this? Why didn¡¯t that seem to be entirely the case? Hu Po was no idiot. Why would he antagonize a ten soldier squad? Was it that someone didn¡¯t want the earth supernatural to live since that gave Yama more chances to capture ck Armors?

    ¡°How many are dead?¡± he asked.

    ¡°Uncertain,¡± a subordinate murmured. ¡°Other than confirmation of Hu Po and his men, our uniforms have appeared at other locales as well. There¡¯s at least five Darkmoons and one Sunre that¡¯ve died!¡±

    Yao Cheng¡¯s face darkened. It¡¯d only been how long, but they¡¯d already lost six! This was the least of their losses as well. There were still some groups outside with their current status unknown. If this continued, wouldn¡¯t they lose all of their people after exploring the nearby streets?

    He¡¯d brought eight with him and was joined by a few moreter on. They numbered roughly a dozen. There weren¡¯t that many Yama members in the ruins, how was he supposed to exin himself to the Revolution King that he¡¯d lost so many at once?!

    He brooded as his thoughts traveled here. ¡°I need to report to the Revolution King. Be careful. Also, we can¡¯t be the only ones to scout these streets. It¡¯s far more dangerous than we expected, we need to work together with the others!¡±

    The situation couldn¡¯t continue as is!

    His men didn¡¯t have any opinions, so he swiftly vanished on the spot.

    ......

    <i>Within the darkness.</i>

    There was a clearing outside the ancient city whererge numbers of supernaturals were gathered. Hu Dingfang swept a look over the surroundings a few times and glowered when he didn¡¯t see Li Hao.

    When Yama members came forward to demand an exnation as to why the Night Watchers hadn¡¯t previously mentioned the soldiers in armor, Hu Dingfang stared coldly at the Revolution King.

    ¡°And are you willing to tell me what treasures and dangers that exist in the ruins that Yama has discovered?¡± he asked frostily. ¡°Is something wrong with your brains or mine?¡±

    ¡°Hu Dingfang, do you really think you¡¯re invincible here?¡± The Revolution King wore an arctic expression on his face. ¡°Do you honestly think ate Sr is on par with a Nova?!¡±

    In terms of strength, Hu Dingfang was a bit weaker than them, but the guy¡¯s arrogance knew no bounds! He showed no face to Violet Moon or the Revolution King. Did he think the Night Watchers reigned high and mighty??

    Celestial had ever been a mysterious organization and might not participate in this encirclement, but the same might not go for Violet Moon. It would be more than easy for the Revolution King and Violet Moon to move against Hu Dingfang and Hao Lianchuan. Did this guy have a death wish?

    ¡°Go ahead, just try!¡± Hu Dingfang answered calmly. ¡°The Tiger Wings haven¡¯t prepared that many city annihtion missiles, just ten. If I don¡¯t make it out¡ªif I¡¯m not the first one out of those doors¡ªyou can yourselves to eat ten missiles. Don¡¯t think too highly of yourself, Revolution. Do you really think I didn¡¯te prepared?¡±

    He red sharply at them and sneered, ¡°I bet you haven¡¯t the balls to do anything! Or do you think reinforcements from the central region can hold off the missiles for you?¡±

    The Revolution King scowled! Not just him, but so did Violet Moon send a chilly look at Hu Dingfang.

    <i>City annihtion missiles!</i>

    This was part of the basis for the army¡¯s confidence. These weapons of mass destruction were top secret. Each province only had a few and they were all army property. As capable as the three great organizations were, they weren¡¯t strong enough to infiltrate the higher levels of the military. In fact, the military partnered with the supernatural organizations in some provinces. That was another story entirely.

    In Silver City, only themanders of the three armies could wield city annihtion missiles. Hu Dingfang was one of them as well as the other twomanders. The overallmander-in-chief had such authority as well.

    Violet Moon¡¯s indifferent voice cut through the air as soon as Hu Dingfang finished speaking. ¡°So this means that the missiles will be fired if you die in the ruins? We have to ensure your safety as well? How ridiculous!¡± she snorted. ¡°Let¡¯s see who has the right tomand the missiles when you¡¯re not around.¡±

    ¡°My wife!¡± answered Hu Dingfang. ¡°My wife is wonderful in aspects, but not in keeping the bigger picture in mind! If I die and don¡¯t make it out, she won¡¯t think of the bigger picture. Try her if you don¡¯t believe me!¡±

    The assembly frowned. Who would¡¯ve thought that Hu Dingfang would go to these depths? They said nothing more after thinking it over. If city annihtion missiles were indeed fired, then everyone would die. Violet Moon and the Revolution King stood a chance of survival as they carried origin weapons and held the strength of a peak Sr. They should be fine if they needed to escape at a pivotal moment. At the same time, heavy injuries were inevitable.

    However, if everyone they came with died, they wouldn¡¯t be able to exin themselves either. They were just the leaders of a branch, not headquarters.

 Chapter 237: Quietly Causing Trouble (I)

    <h4>Chapter 237: Quietly Causing Trouble (I)</h4>

    Hu Dingfang snorted and ignored those around him. He swept the surroundings again out of the corner of his eye. There was still no sign of Li Hao and the others. He couldn¡¯t help but nce at the structures that seemed like a small town in the distance¡ªthe outer city.

    Had Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan blundered into the outer city? That would be very troublesome!

    He wouldn¡¯t mind heading inside for a look right now if he was here alone. But he¡¯d pledged his support to Hou Xiaochen and there was a band of Night Watchers following him. If he left, Hao Lianchuan wouldn¡¯t be able to hold off Red Moon and Yama if the organizations decided to attack the agency.

    Frustrated, there was nothing Hu Dingfang could do. Thus, he showed an ever more unfriendly face to Violet Moon and Revolution. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that he was indeed a bit weaker than them... Well, perhaps not, since he was very confident in himself. He was a supernatural who¡¯d crossed over from being a martial master and was well versed in the Five Styles.

    The Five Styles weren¡¯t a secret art. But under normal circumstances, it was useless without its breathing method. He knew the breathing method, which made the Five Styles highly effective. Thus, he wouldn¡¯t be the slightest bit timid if facing any one of them. But both of them together... was likely too much for him.

    A figure as fast as the wind darted out of the city at this time. It sped out through the za and took to the air without fear when it was clear. Although the figure was a wind Sr, it still didn¡¯t dare fly inside the city.

    The person quicklynded by the Revolution King and whispered a few words in the man¡¯s ear. His lips moved, but no sound emitted.

    Everyone looked at Yao Cheng. Nothing flickered across the Revolution King¡¯s face, but he cursed inwardly¡ªtrash! They were just scouting ahead and knew the soldiers¡¯ weaknesses. How were they not trash to still lose a Sunre?

    He flicked a nce at Hong Yitang in the distance, somewhat confused. Hong Yitang used to be a martial master and he still had many martial disciples. They were mostly yers or Sunderers, so none of them could possibly be behind Hu Po¡¯s death.

    Who had done it? Was it really the soldiers?

    ¡°Yao Cheng has made a thorough investigation,¡± he announced. ¡°There are nine streets in the outer city. Each is patrolled by ck Armors to either ten a team or one individual. There are roughly one hundred ck Armors in the outer city and they mobilize swiftly when supernatural ripples re or a disturbance breaks out. This is just the outer city. The parts closer to the inner city are filled with even more soldiers! Yao Cheng nced at it from afar. The ones we killed before mighte from that area.¡±

    He gave a brief overview of the situation to pull the other organizations to his side. <i>Since the Night Watchers won¡¯t tell us this, I will. </i>The secrets that he spoke of were easily obtainable if he was willing to expend the people necessary to plumb their depths.

    ¡°My thoughts are to first cleanse the outer city of ck Armors and use it as our base of operations. We can then slowly eliminate the soldiers in the inner city. Only then do we have a chance of essing it.

    ¡°Also, I want to ask the Night Watchers why we can¡¯t enter the houses in the outer city? What¡¯s inside? Some of our supernaturals entered and they all vanished without a trace!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re asking us?¡± Hao Lianchuan snorted withughter. ¡°How would we know? Whoever goes inside the houses dies. Figure it out yourself if you¡¯re so capable!¡±

    The Revolution King glowered darkly. Off to the side, Hong Yitang asked a question in the interest of ying peacemaker. ¡°Director Hao, I have a question. Are those soldiers unable to leave the outer city?¡±

    ¡°Correct!¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t keep anything from them. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve also discovered that the source of their strength is the ground. Their ground isid to the za on the fringes of the outer city. The soldiers lose their source of strength upon exiting the za. They go to their deaths then!¡±

    ¡°Then is it possible to lure them to the za so we can barrage them from the air? Can we eliminate them bit by bit?¡± asked Hong Yitang. This was potentially feasible. Being not martial masters, supernaturals could attack from a distance.

    Many looked at Hao Lianchuan after this suggestion was raised. Perhaps the Night Watchers had attempted this before. If it was feasible, it could be tried.

    Hao Lianchuan thought for a bit when the crowd regarded him. ¡°They won¡¯t respond so long as we don¡¯t enter the outer city. As for attacking from a distance... you¡¯ll have to break their armor. There¡¯s not much use to these actions otherwise! And, they can also retreat! too¡±

    They wouldn¡¯t stand there forever and take a beating like fools.

    Frowns spread through the crowd again.

    ¡°So this means that they¡¯ll redeploy soldiers from the inner city if we enter the outer city?¡±

    ¡°Not exactly,¡± Hao Lianchuanughed. ¡°The soldiers won¡¯t pay attention to us if we don¡¯t make a sound, stay on the ground, or refrain from supernatural abilities. Based on Night Watcher observation, the soldiers only attack those who don¡¯t listen or break their rules. What are the rules? There is a taboo against fighting in both the inner and outer city!¡±

    Muttered curses could be heard through the crowd. A taboo against fighting? None of these supernaturals were here to be tourists. They even wanted to break into the inner city. What was the point of this expedition if fighting wasn¡¯t allowed?

    ¡°Will the ck Armors attack us if we draw near them without taking action?¡± someone asked. ¡°We won¡¯t use supernatural abilities either. Is simply being close to them enough to raise the rm?¡±

    New possibilities ran through people¡¯s minds. If the soldiers didn¡¯t mind people simply approaching them, then things would be much easier. Whether it was an ambush, sneak attack, or setting up traps¡ªthey were all more convenient than killing soldiers outright.

    ¡°And if supernaturals can¡¯t conceal themselves, what about martial masters?¡± the person added.

    Hao Lianchuan looked at the speaker¡ªthey were from Celestial. The quiet organization had finally raised their voice.

    ¡°Supernaturals give off ripples from their mysterious power even when they don¡¯t utilize their abilities. The ripples are very noticeable and the soldiers will treat it as provocation if a supernatural is nearby. They¡¯ll go on the attack!

    ¡°Meanwhile, martial masters don¡¯t usually elicit a response. They are attacked only when martial masters proactively attack a soldier. Martial masters excel in closebat, but the ck armor provides a highly effective defense. Therefore, we don¡¯t rmend martial masters to approach the soldiers either.¡±

    <i>That¡¯s true, </i>thought the crowd. Martial masters couldn¡¯t seal away the soldiers. Even if one could send a soldier flying with a punch, such a sizable disturbance would raise other attention. The obvious ripples from a supernatural was one of their biggest drawbacks.

    ¡°We need to form a n!¡± said Revolution. ¡°Surely the Night Watchers didn¡¯t investigate so many times only for the ck Armors. You probably want to make it to the inner city this time since you called for a joint expedition. Are you confident in your chances of sess if our losses are too heavy?

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan, have the Night Watchers truly not made any preparations for the goal of sessfully traversing the outer city and eliminating the soldiers?¡± Revolution finally asked a key question.

    That the Night Watchers had gone to a great deal of effort and even opened up the ruins to other factions was naturally because they wished to enter the inner city. But if the expedition¡¯s losses were too great beforehand, who knew how the unknown dangers in the inner city might be ovee?

    Now wasn¡¯t the time to consider the grudges between the various organizations. Everyone wanted to reap some gains after witnessing the durability of the armor. If nothing else, leaving with a hundred sets of armor would make this trip well worth it!

    Whether it was supernaturals or martial masters, they were both pragmatic groups of people. If they focused on killing each other right now, that would only benefit those from the central region. In that case, it was better to take what they could for the moment.

    Hu Dingfang wouldn¡¯t interfere in this. He was just responsible for protecting the Night Watchers. It was up to the agency itself to decide how matters should be undertaken. He¡¯d known from the second that Hao Lianchuan revealed his knowledge that the Night Watchers wished to enter the inner city.

    As expected, Hao Lianchuan chuckled, ¡°The best n is a war of attrition. Wearing away at the ck Armors is the easiest! As for how many there are...

    ¡°There¡¯s about a thousand if we include the ones near the inner city gates. It might be a cohort of one thousand! Well, there¡¯s probably eight hundred left since you captured a hundred.¡±

    No one asked about the other one hundred. Those were most likely in Night Watcher vaults. But eight hundred... was still a massive headache!

    That was too many soldiers¡ªit was the equivalent of eight hundred peak Darkmoons. not to mention, there were centurions per one hundred soldiers, so that made for at least eight Sunres. What if there was another officer thatmanded one thousand soldiers? Did that mean there was an undying Sr out there?

    Srs weren¡¯t intimidating, there were plenty on the scene. But one supplied with unlimited energy and invincible defenses...

    ¡°Are there any soldiers above Bronze Armors?¡± asked Violet Moon.

    ¡°We¡¯ve never seen one!¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head. ¡°To be honest, if there¡¯s such an existence, our entire delegation would die if the director isn¡¯t with us. We wouldn¡¯t dare provoke such a being either. But based on this logic, there might be one such personage.¡±

    He ended his response on a cautionary note since logically speaking, such a soldier could exist.

    ¡°Eight hundred...¡± murmured a concerned crowd.

    ¡°How intelligent are the ck Armors?¡± Hong Yitang asked. ¡°Will they act together or will individual teamse separately like before?¡±

    ¡°More observation and deduction needs to take ce before we have an answer for that!¡± Hao Lianchuan gave it some thought. ¡° An equivalent number of ck Armors appears each time we enter the city. If we send one or two hundred, that¡¯s how many they send. Perhaps that¡¯s a sufficient number of soldiers to eliminate the enemy ording to their directives!

    ¡°There¡¯s one exception, and that¡¯s if we¡¯re still here after all of the ck and Bronze Armors are dead. They¡¯ll send more ck Armors then...

    ¡°We once defeated a dozen of them and stayed in the city. Thirty some ck Armors appeared after a while, and a Bronze Armor. A lot of people died on that expedition!¡±

    ¡°Then what about hunting the soldiers alone?¡± Hong Yitang continued to ask. ¡°Will it result in their retaliation if we kill ck Armors by ourselves?¡±

    ¡°It depends on the situation. What retaliation is there to be had if you hide your tracks well and evade their pursuit? The soldiers have limited methods to track people down. They might not be able to find you so long as you swiftly make a getaway after you kill a ck Armor!¡±

    The response tempted many in the crowd. Didn¡¯t this mean that they could hunt in the outer city and slowly eliminate the ck Armors? This operation was beyond Darkmoons, but Sunres and Srs stood a chance.

 Chapter 238: Quietly Causing Trouble (II)

    <h4>Chapter 238: Quietly Causing Trouble (II)</h4>

    ¡°Why don¡¯t we have all of the Srs and Sunres enter the city to stamp out the one hundred soldiers in the outer city?¡± someone suggested. ¡°We¡¯ll whittle them away bit by bit!¡±

    ¡°Can we use the suits of armor that we¡¯ve collected?¡± asked another. ¡°If so, our defenses will greatly increase if we wear them...¡±

    No one was able to open the armor in its intended way yet. Sheer violence was the only method to force it open. However, damaged armor saw a great reduction in defensive capability. Yama had reaped the greatest harvest thus far, but they couldn¡¯t bring themselves to damage a single one. That was too much of a waste!

    Proposals and suggestions flew one after another in the assembly. It was only the Sunres and Srs of the bigger factions who spoke. All Darkmoons remained listening silently. There was no ce for them at the table!

    ¡°What ns do the Night Watchers have?¡± pivoted one of Celestial¡¯s cloaked members. ¡°We only have three days, that¡¯s not much time. If we don¡¯t leave after three days, we¡¯ll have to wait until next month. Will we make it to then?¡±

    ¡°ns?¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°Not really. Sunres and Srs entering together to kill the outer city guards is a good idea.

    ¡°It will be hard for them to react properly if we attack en masse on all nine streets at the same time. We can easily eradicate all one hundred if we¡¯re quick about it and retreat just as swiftly. As for the soldiers by the inner city gate, we can try luring them over in small groups.¡±

    There were nine Srs among the expedition¡ªtwo with the Night Watchers, one with Red Moon, two from Yama, and two from the Sword Sect. Of course, thest faction proimed to only have one Sr. The same went for Celestial. There were two Srs among their delegation, but only one was showing their strength.

    If the concealed Zhang Ting was included, there was a very ample contingent of ten Srs on this excavation. If Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t killed anyone beforehand, he and his two vanquished would¡¯ve made for thirteen Srs.

    While this might not be all of Silver Moon¡¯s highest talents, it was more than half at the very least. Yet, there were only seven known Srs at the moment.

    The crowd petered out into silence. Could the Night Watchers be trusted? They worried when the agency didn¡¯t say anything, and they worried when the agency did speak of a n.

    Another shriek echoed from the outer city at this time¡ªan area in which Yama was exploring. The Revolution King frowned. Was it more of his men that¡¯d died?

    The soldiers of the outer city were out in the open. There wouldn¡¯t be much trouble if one took pains to avoid the ck Armors. How were more people dying?

    ¡°Are there other dangers in the outer city apart from the houses and soldiers?¡± He looked at Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°Yes!¡± The deputy director didn¡¯t shy away from anything. ¡°There¡¯s also the danger in the sky that you know about. There are also surprises that we¡¯re unable to pinpoint the origin of. Sharp des and others often appear, kill someone, and vanish just as spontaneously. They¡¯re impossible to defend against!¡±

    ¡°Sharp des that suddenly appear?¡± An undercurrent of vignce ran through the assembly now. Was a mere outer city really this dangerous?¡±

    ¡°We can¡¯t continue like this,¡± interrupted the Celestial powerhouse. ¡°Only more will die if we continue the exploration in this vein. There¡¯s only two hundred on this trip and we''ve lost at least forty already. That¡¯s one fifth of the expedition!¡±

    Granted, most of the dead were Darkmoons and a few Sunres. The elite core of the force remained intact.

    ¡°I notice that the nine streets aren¡¯t arranged in city blocks. They¡¯re nine horizontal lines parallel to each other in front of us. The most dangerous one is the street closest to the inner city. We can forgo that one!

    ¡°There shouldn¡¯t be a problem with eliminating the soldiers on the other eight streets...¡± continued the Celestial powerhouse. ¡°And it¡¯s not that people should get nothing in return for their efforts. Whoever eliminates a soldier owns their armor! The suits of armor are indeed treasure and they already make this excavation worthwhile even if we find nothing else on this trip!¡±

    ¡°I agree.¡± Hao Lianchuan nodded. ¡°But the Revolution King and Violet Moon are the strongest among us. Why don¡¯t they be in charge of the two streets closest to the inner city gates? How about it?¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t Hu Dingfang fancy himself stronger than everyone?¡± sneered the Revolution King. ¡°He can go! The Night Watchers need to pay a price if they want to enter the inner city!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not how to put things,¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°How about this, we¡¯ll put two Srs forward and take over two streets. If any faction ims only one street, then they need to be assigned one that¡¯s more dangerous!

    ¡°The Night Watchers, Celestial, Yama, Red Moon, and the Sword Sect... Let¡¯s exclude the others from this assignment. That makes for five factions in charge of eight streets. The Night Watchers and Yama will take two and can choose which ones we want. Is there any one out of the other three who is willing to be responsible for two streets? Fielding more Sunres will do in lieu of another Sr. Battle will be over just as quickly!¡±

    The Revolution King finally didn¡¯t have a dissenting opinion at thetest proposal. This was how things should be! Expending the most effort <i>and</i> being in charge of the most dangerous areas... Who was that big of a fool?? Not to mention, who says that the mysterious Celestial only has one Sr?

    Indeed, the cloaked spokesperson of Celestial said slowly, ¡°Then we are willing to take over two streets as well. While weck sufficient Srs, we do have a few Sunres. We should be able to handle our part if we exercise more caution!¡±

    Three factions were willing to be responsible for two streets. That left Red Moon¡ªit was impossible for Violet Moon to offer to take two. They¡¯d suffered grave losses on this trip and currently had a severe drop-off in strength after Violet Moon.

    Hong Yitang of the Sword Sect kept a startlingly low profile. He was caught in difficult straits, but still nodded, ¡°Alright, I am not as strong as Violet Moon and my faction is a small one. I can be in charge of the third street!¡±

    Everyone abandoned the street closest to the inner city. And inly, Hong Yitang wished for Violet Moon to volunteer for the second street. The assembly looked at her, a gesture that indicated everyone was in agreement except Red Moon.

    The woman frowned. She was a peak thunder Sr and carried an origin weapon on her, so she wasn¡¯t afraid of those soldiers. She was only concerned about drawing masses of ck Armors since her assignment was too close to the inner city.

    She didn¡¯t care about ck Armors, but what if there were soldiers stronger than Bronze Armors?

    ¡°If an enemy that is beyond your abilities really appears...¡± offered the Revolution King at this time. ¡°Whether it¡¯s out of our own interests or for a more sessful excavation toe, we will not leave you to the wolves!¡±

    The prerequisite was that the enemy was still within the Sr level. If they were above and killed Violet Moon on sight, then all bets were off.

    ¡°Fine!¡± Violet Moon agreed after some consideration. ¡°But I also have a suggestion. Hu Dingfang is in charge of the fourth street, Revolution of the fifth, and is Ding Chen the spokesperson for Celestial at the moment?¡±

    ¡°It is I,¡± answered the cloaked figure from Celestial. ¡°What an honor it is for the venerable Violet Moon to remember me.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re in charge of the sixth street, Hao Lianchuan of the seventh, Yao Cheng of the eight, and the Celestial Sunres of the ninth...¡±

    This would ensure that the Night Watchers weren¡¯t on the outermost perimeter and couldn¡¯t run away the quickest. Otherwise, she was concerned this may be a trap.

    The assembly didn¡¯t object to her arrangements. They were fair. With the course of action decided upon, the group discussed when to make their move. They had to strike together. If one person acted ahead of time, it might lead to a riot from ck Armors in other locales. That would be very troublesome.

    After some confirmation, the powerhouses headed for the outer city without further word. It was time to eliminate some ck Armors!

    ......

    Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan were unaware of the developing situation. They were further ignorant that their position was a small alley between the first and second streets.

    Li Hao had absorbed a significant amount of mysterious power at this time. His spleen and heart were starting to feel too full. Breaking the bnce of the five elements was starting to turn quite ufortable.

    ¡°It¡¯s been a while,¡± Liu Long quickly said when he saw the young man stop taking in energy. ¡°The various organizations and Night Watchers might enter this area soon. Cover will be difficult to find then. Exposure is easy when there¡¯s too many people.¡±

    Li Hao nodded; he was concerned about this as well. There were a lot of people on this expedition as well as Srs. The ck Armors weren¡¯t a threat. In fact, the trio was more of a threat since they were wearing armor. He was about to respond when he heard footsteps¡ªthe young man snapped his mouth shut.

    ¡°There aren¡¯t many ck Armors in the outer city, so the soldiers won¡¯t stop them in any way,¡± Li Hao said after the footsteps vanished. ¡°We aren¡¯t here to stop them from entering the outer city, nor do we have the strength to. Our most urgent task at hand is to increase our strength and eliminate some enemies!¡±

    He looked at Liu Yan. ¡°Sis Liu, do you think you can swiftly grasp the aura?¡±

    Liu Yan shook her head after a period of silence, disappointing Li Hao. So it would seem that the aura truly was the biggest obstacle that martial masters faced.

    ¡°Chief, do you have any room for improvement?¡±

    ¡°I do... but it¡¯ll be hard for me. Your teacher rmended I nurture my kidneys. That requires a lot of water energy and ideally, a blood pearl. We haven¡¯t seen anyone from Red Moon yet and there doesn¡¯t seem to be any water supernaturals around for the killing!¡±

    ¡°There is!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°There¡¯s one, but she¡¯s difficult to kill and perhaps chief might not be bold enough to kill her!¡±

    ¡°Who?¡±

    ¡°Zhang Ting of the Night Watchers...¡±

    Liu Long frowned. Li Hao could sense his disapproval even through the armor. inly, the captain thought he¡¯d gone crazy and was willing to kill someone on their own side in pursuit of personal gain. The Night Watchers were their own, no matter how one looked at them.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t start, chief! It¡¯s not me who wants to kill her, but Director Hou said that we can if we want to. She¡¯s no ordinary Night Watcher either. She¡¯s a mid Sr with an origin weapon!¡±

    Liu Long sucked in a sharp breath. A mid Sr? And with an origin weapon? Was she even possible to kill?

    Even if she was a viin, he wasn¡¯t arrogant enough to think that he could kill a mid Sr! His Nine Forged Force at full strength might not break through a Sr¡¯s defenses. He¡¯d brimmed with confidence before, but toned down his high spirits after failing to kill Li Dahu with one punch.

 Chapter 239: Quietly Causing Trouble (III)

    <h4>Chapter 239: Quietly Causing Trouble (III)</h4>

    ¡°I need water energy and you need water energy, chief,¡± said Li Hao. ¡°Killing her satisfies both our needs, and more! I have a feeling that if I bnce my five elements, I might be able to advance to Dominator...¡±

    He had a hunch that after his five elements were in equilibrium again, his sword and earth auras would improve slightly and even meld together. Sadly, the current imbnce caused his sword aura to veer on the weaker side and the earth aura to be a little too strong. The earth aura was intimately tied to earth energy, so it was affected by his copious absorption of earth energy.

    The young man needed a vast sum of water energy to bnce it out.

    ¡°If she¡¯s a bad guy and Director Hou has given such orders...¡± Liu Long furrowed his brows. ¡°Then we can kill whoever she is. But, do you think I can manage the deed?¡±

    Not at all!

    ¡°We might stand a chance if we ambush her. Her defenses will give you trouble, but if you use my sword and the Nine Forged Force, you might be able to seed!¡± Li Hao responded. ¡°We just need the right opportunity and a time when there aren¡¯t other Srs around.

    ¡°I¡¯m hoping more now that everyone floods into the city. We¡¯ll be less obvious in the crowd. We¡¯ll be much more conspicuous if everyone waits outside and we continue to be absent or just walk out of the city.¡±

    The young man was beginning to feel caught between a rock and a hard ce. It wasn¡¯t a good course of action to remain here indefinitely, and it¡¯d be dangerous ifrge numbers of Srs came instead. It was fine if they ran into Hao Lianchuan and Hu Dingfang, but if they bumped into anyone else... Li Hao felt that all of them might kill him, even Hong Yitang who seemed quite friendly.

    Yuan Shuo had challenged him twice back in the day. The man had been so terrified that he¡¯d shut himself behind closed doors, earningplete and utter humiliation from the martial world. Face was more important than anything for a martial master. Did he really not bear any resentment from that time?

    How was that possible??

    He just didn¡¯t dare disy any dissatisfaction in front of Yuan Shuo on ount of how strong thetter was.

    Liu Long¡¯s expression abruptly shifted as they conversed. Li Hao and Liu Yan immediately fell silent when he pulled on them. The three froze in ce and held their breaths.

    The team captain exhaled softly after a long moment and muttered, ¡°Don¡¯t move, there seems to be powerhouses around...¡±

    He didn¡¯t need to say anything as Li Hao had sensed it even earlier! It was just that Liu Long¡¯s powers of perception were quite strong and he acted as soon as he sensed something.

    Li Hao looked outside their alley, his jaw clenching with annoyance. Srs really were here, and the key thing was, this ball of light was damned huge and... a bit familiar?

    <i>Violet Moon? The fuck?</i>

    There was more than one Sr¡ªthe neighboring streets seemed to host ones as well. They were in trouble now, Srs hade en masse. Li Hao¡¯s eyes turned into the best detector under these circumstances. These Srs were so close to him that he could see their balls of light. Each one was so bright that he¡¯d have to bepletely blind to not see them.

    The one that belonged to Violet Moon halted nearby and stopped moving. The young man guessed that she wanted to hunt down the squad of ten soldiers. Hong Yitang seemed to be on the next street over, possibly conducting his own hunt as well...

    So this meant that the Srs wanted to cleanse the outer city of ck Armors? And Violet Moon was assigned closest to the inner city? How had the woman agreed to this arrangement? Her street was very close to the inner city. The trio could see it from the alley and often sawrge numbers of ck Armors patrolling the premises. It was an utterly different sight from the rest of the outer city.

    Li Hao silently approached the alley entrance that was closer to the inner city. Liu Long and Liu Yan quickly followed behind him. The three gingerly picked their way forward, unwilling to stay in close proximity to the second street. In their eyes, soldiers were better than Violet Moon. ck Armors didn¡¯t do anything so long as one didn¡¯t antagonize them.

    The three carefully evaded several patrol routes when they exited the alley. Security was much heavier here and soldiers often came by.

    ¡°It¡¯s too dangerous for us to be here!¡± Liu Long kept his voice down.

    ¡°Better than Violet Moon next door!¡± Li Hao nced backward¡ªthe woman¡¯s ball of light was still present. ¡°Chief, do you still have Sis Yun Yao¡¯s crystal balls?¡±

    The crystal balls were the supernatural bombs that Yun Yao had invented. They were ss balls that fit into the palm of one¡¯s hand and created an explosion when smashed on the ground. Yun Yao had used many against Red Moon¡¯s people, but to little effect. It couldn¡¯t even kill Darkmoons.

    ¡°No!¡± Liu Long shook his head. He didn¡¯t need such tools after bing a Dominator, so he didn¡¯t keep any on him. They were too weak!

    Li Hao nodded with disappointment, but Liu Yan said, ¡°I have some!¡±

    The young man raised his eyebrows with surprise. <i>You have such a bad rtionship with Yun Yao, how do you have any?</i>

    ¡°She used them on me all the time when I sparred with her.¡± Liu Yan couldn¡¯t read the confusion in the young man¡¯s eyes. ¡°So I took someter on. They¡¯re stronger than their earlier iterations¡ªshe created stronger ones after crossing over. These can even threaten a Darkmoon¡¯s life...¡±

    Then they were indeed much stronger than before. Li Hao didn¡¯t bother considering whether Liu Yan had stolen or forcefully taken them.

    ¡°What do you want with them?¡± Liu Long whispered.

    ¡°How about we throw them at Violet Moon?¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s armor shook as soon as the young man voiced his idea. Li Hao didn¡¯t know if the shaking was from anger or fear¡ªmore likely anger.

    ¡°Don¡¯t misunderstand.¡± he grinned. ¡°I want to bury them on the ck Armors¡¯ patrol routes. The balls will explode when the soldiers step on them and the explosion of mysterious power will attractrge numbers of ck Armors. If we calcte their positioning right, we won¡¯t have to show our faces to send soldiers converging on Violet Moon. I¡¯m not an idiot¡ªshe¡¯ll kill us before we run off if we actually throw them at her.¡±

    The young man nced at a possible location of the city gates. There were so many ck Armors there, and even some Bronze Armors that could be faintly glimpsed. Their attention would quickly be raised if the crystal balls exploded.

    The closer one was to a supernatural, the clearer one sensed supernatural ripples. The soldiers should be able to sense Violet Moon¡¯s existence if they drew near. If ten ck Armors were useless, what about one hundred?

    How about several hundred?

    It was best if they brought in a Bronze Armor! That would deal a heavy blow to Violet Moon even if she eventually managed to get away.

    Liu Yan started fishing through her pockets without a second word. After patting herself for a while, she realized she was poking her armor. She had to retract her hand from the armor and rummage through her pockets. Several ss balls soon emerged through the damaged crotch area of her disguise.

    Li Hao stretched out a hand to receive them; there were only eight. He looked at the patrol routes and then at Violet Moon¡¯s position. The young man¡¯s lips stretched in a smile. Violet Moon hadn¡¯t moved all this time¡ªshe seemed to be waiting.

    <i>Here, have a nice surprise!</i>

    Bent at the waist, Li Hao quickly scuttled over. He buried a few crystal balls directly opposite Violet Moon¡¯s location, separated by the alley. Based on his experience, a team of soldiers would march by in roughly two minutes and step on these things.

    He whirled around and signaled to the other two that they needed to run for their lives. There might be a massive battle here soon. They needed to get out of here as soon as possible, as far away as possible!

    With Li Hao¡¯s eyes and the audible footsteps of the ck Armors, they could avoid supernaturals and the soldiers. The trio fled, focusing on uninhabited areas. While there were supernatural powerhouses inside the city, no one ran into them. It was hard to discover the trio since they were purposefully avoiding everyone.

    ......

    <i>The second street.</i>

    Violet Moon waited silently, waiting for the signal that everyone was in ce and ready to act. <i>Almost there!</i>

    She could already see ten soldiers up ahead. While ck Armors weren¡¯t weak, they were easily disposed of for a powerhouse of her level. The hardest part was to keep their armor intact. All of these gains would belong to Red Moon after the fact.

    She saw a faint sparkle of starlight outside the city¡ªthat was the signal to begin their operation. It wasn¡¯t bright, but it was sufficient for all of them to see.

    Violet Moon immediately exploded into action and unleashed thunder and lightning! Soldiers were sted into the air with a soft <i>bam. </i>Rather than one or two, all of them were swiftly flung into the air. ck Armors were too weak when pitted against her.

    She continuously released bolts of lightning, preventing the soldiers fromnding on the ground. These guys would be done for if she maintained this barrage for a minute!

    Violet Moon began decreasing her range of attack so that ck Armors further in the distance wouldn¡¯t sense it. It was at this moment that <i>KABOOM!</i>

    A massive explosion rang out! A team of patrolling soldiers on the first street were blown sky high. Although none of them were injured, the disturbance was significant and supernatural ripples immense!

    That location wasn¡¯t too far from the city gates. A Bronze Armor quickly arrived with some ck Armors. The ck Armors didn¡¯t sense anything, but the Bronze Armor turned its head in a certain direction...

    Across the way, Violet Moon was ashen-faced with dismay. Did the other side have supernaturals? Damn it! And they attacked when she happened to be making her move?! Who was it?! She wanted to kill someone!

    A Bronze Armor appeared before she could decide to retreat or wait a few seconds longer for her ck Armors to lose their battle capabilities. She didn¡¯t even have time to fly into a rage!

    <i>WHAM!</i>

    The Bronze Armor shed its sword down, crashing it into the lightning and sending mysterious power everywhere.

    <i>Damn it, I can¡¯t stay here any longer! I¡¯ll be in bigger trouble if I do!</i>

    She was too close to the inner city gate. There wererge numbers of ck Armors there¡ªroughly eighty converged on her location in the blink of an eye. Violet Moon had to give up on the ck Armors that were almost hers and run for her life. She didn¡¯t dare fly, that was to ask for death.

    The soldiers behind her gave chase in a loud mor. More were redeployed from the inner city gates.

    Hong Yitang was wrapping up his operations on the third street, but immediately about-faced and made a run for it. <i>You¡¯re such trash, Violet Moon! A peak Sr raising such arge disturbance against a few ck Armors, and leading so many soldiers to us?! Damn!</i>

    He had to run too!

    Srs utilized high speed even when they couldn¡¯t fly. But the ck Armors moved swiftly when they found an enemy inside the city. The streets were soon crawling with soldiers that rushed for Violet Moon¡¯s location.

 Chapter 240: Quietly Causing Trouble (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 240: Quietly Causing Trouble (IV)</h4>

    Violet Moon was cut off from the front and back. She was as strong as the public thought she was and sent the Bronze Armor flying with a p of thunder, but her scalp crawled with horror when eighty swords shed at her in the blink of an eye.

    She wasn¡¯t afraid, but was caught in a difficult situation because these things were undying. She didn¡¯t have time to keep them airborne for a full minute. If soldiers continued to increase at this rate, she wouldn¡¯t be able to hold them off either.

    ¡°Come help me!¡± She couldn¡¯t help herself and roared for reinforcements the next second. If they didn¡¯t, she would run in their direction with all of these ck Armors behind her!

    And yet, who dared approach her street at this moment?

    Off in the distance, the Revolution King eliminated his share of ck Armors and shouted, ¡°Retreat from the outer city. Run!¡± He wasn¡¯t responding to only Violet Moon, but also the other Yama powerhouses inside the city.

    <i>Everyone, run for your lives! Idiot Violet Moon raised such a ruckus just to kill a few ck Armors!</i> They were even seeing some unusual circumstances from the inner city. Perhaps whatever was there sensed Violet Moon¡¯s strength.

    A ray of white shed by the outer city. Something was flying!

    This was the expedition¡¯s first time seeing powerhouses in flight inside the ruins. It was a warrior in silver armor! It¡¯dunched off the towering city walls and wielded a silver broadsword. No presence spilled over from its being, but everyone knew that they were in trouble! They¡¯d brought a stronger existence down on their heads, a Silver Armor!

    Violet Moon¡¯s expression shifted drastically and she threw caution to the wind. <strong><i>RUMBLE!</i></strong>

    Enormous bolts of lightning erupted and sted ck Armors away. She fled with her full strength, widening her sphere of supernatural influence and attracting more ck Armors to her.

    ......

    Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan had long taken their armor off. The young man sucked in a sharp breath¡ª<i>just look at this show of force! I wanted Violet Moon to suffer a loss, but look at all the ck Armors teeming in the outer city!</i>

    <i>We need to make a run for it!</i>

    ¡°Do we leave the city or what?¡± Liu Long was likewise anxious.

    Joy blossomed across Li Hao¡¯s face when he scanned the surroundings. ¡°Hurry, we need to follow that person. It¡¯s Director Hao!¡± He¡¯d located Hao Lianchuan¡¯s ball of light!

    Very well, now was a good time to slip out of the city. He wouldn¡¯t dare do so if he didn¡¯t see Hao Lianchuan. But since he had, it was time to leave before considering anything else. The deputy director might even be able to help him since he had his sights set on a certain person.

    Liu Long and Liu Yan didn¡¯t question the young man. Some things didn¡¯t need to be asked. Since Li Hao said he saw the deputy director, then he probably did.

    ......

    Hao Lianchuan was also fleeing for his life. That damned Violet Moon was seriously good for nothing! <i>It¡¯s just a few ck Armors! Did you blow up their barracks or what? You¡¯ve even drawn out a Silver Armor officer!</i>

    He had absolutely no words for the situation!

    The number of ck Armors within the city swiftly increased. Ghastly shrieks echoed nearby when they happened across supernaturals yet to fully withdraw. Hao Lianchuan was sprinting full out when his footsteps faltered and his eyes widened.

    ¡°You guys...¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re here to support you, director! Let¡¯s get out!¡±

    <i>Bullshit! Why don¡¯t you think before lying, huh? What support? I was wondering where you guys had been transported to and thought it might be here, but who would¡¯ve thought that you¡¯d bepletely fine? You even have the effort to spare to locate me. You¡¯ve really got something up your sleeves!</i>

    The outer city was quite dangerous for the Night Watchers, but there wasn¡¯t a scratch on these three. In fact, it looked like they¡¯d had a good time of things.

    Well, damn!

    That was all Hao Lianchuan had time for. He pulled them close to him and cursed as they ran, ¡°Violet Moon is more like Violet Trash! Are all Red Moon members this idiotic? We already told her that that street is close to the inner city, but she went and brought more ck Armors and even a Silver Armor to her!¡±

    Liu Long didn¡¯t make a sound. Such a massive disturbance had likely been thest thing on Hao Lianchuan¡¯s mind, and he didn¡¯t know that it was Li Hao casually cing crystal balls that caused it.

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    Explosions rocked the air as thunder and lightning ripped through the void, illuminating the entire outer city. A Silver Armor swung his broadsword in an overhead swing and smashed through the lightning. Hao Lianchuan sucked in a sharp breath from the sight.

    ¡°Late to peak Sr... and an undying existence. Violet Moon is in real trouble this time!¡±

    It was fine if the enemy died, but the key point was that this fellow was too strong. They¡¯d have to get past him if they wished to enter the inner city. That would prove difficult.

    ¡°You bunch of bastards!¡± Violet Moon howled. She took to the air, ignoring the potential danger in the sky. Shooting across the firmament, she turned herself in Hong Yitang¡¯s direction. The man widened his eyes, incensed!

    <strong>BOOM!</strong>

    White light sparkled in the air and mmed into Violet Moon¡¯s body. Armor encased by thunder and lightning materialized over her body in response. A loud ringing echoed through the void! She tumbled down from the sky, but was still alive as shended by the sprinting Hong Yitang.

    The man didn¡¯t say a word. Neither Srs said anything as they abruptly set a course for Hu Dingfang.

    Themander was also in a dead sprint; he raised an internal litany of curses at this development. How had these fellows turned killing a few ck Armors into this absurdity?? They were being forced to bring out their origin weapons!

    The ground was covered with ck Armors and dotted with an asional Bronze Armor centurion. Numerous longswords jabbed for their vital points! And not only that, but another sound broke through the air.

    City mechanisms that hadn¡¯t been activated before sprang to life now. Sharp des zipped through the void, running through a supernatural that hadn¡¯t yet escaped! Even Srs felt the sting of pain when they were hit. The intangible des that Hao Lianchuan had spoken of were here!

    Hao Lianchuan towed the trio in his wake and roared as he ran, ¡°Retreat! Retreat! You¡¯ve turned on those mechanisms!¡±

    He was incredibly frustrated, but thank goodness they weren¡¯t too far from the city perimeter. He could already see the za. They¡¯d be safe once they made it out of that area.

    Li Hao and the others looked back, seeing the entire city lit up by tremendous power of thunder. Numerous Srs pelted out of the streets. They could stand against one Silver Armor, but there were also eight hundred ck Armors on the streets as well now. The Srs didn¡¯t dare meet the enemy in directbat. That was just a death wish, pure and simple.

    Violet Moon was the worst off¡ªshe¡¯d been hit by the air restriction. While her origin weapon had defused most of the blow, her hair was disheveled, blood leaked out the corner of her mouth, and she wanted to lose herself in mindless rage. Who was it that¡¯d attacked in that direction?!

    Granted, there was no need to investigate anymore since whoever it was must already be dead!

    And yet, a knot of fury clogged her heart.

    The silver broadsword descended with another enormous bang. Hong Yitang picked up speed since he knew he was weaker than Violet Moon. He bounded forward with a mighty leap and left the sword stroke for his peer.

    Violet Moon wanted to smite him down for his impudence, but drawing Hong Yitang into battle now would only mire them both in danger. She had to settle for erupting with lightning to defend against the blow and utilize the momentum to run even faster.

    Hu Dingfang howled like a tiger in front of them, forcing the ck Armors back. He churned his legs in the Revolution King¡¯s direction. If he was going to suffer, then they might as well all go down together!

    ......

    Chaos engulfed the outer city! Supernaturals of various organizations rushed toward the za, but didn¡¯t dare enter it. Worry spread across everyone¡¯s faces. Why had the situation gotten to this point?

    A ray of light shed by. Hao Lianchuan had made it back. He threw Li Hao and the others into the crowd. No one had attention to spare for the trio. They craned their necks anxiously at people running out of the city.

    ¡°Enter the za and deploy your supernatural abilities!¡± Hao Lianchuan roared. ¡°Lure the ck Armors here so that the Srs have a chance to make it out, or we¡¯re all dead!¡±

    Those outside the za could safely make it out of the ruins, but their organizations would have hard questions for them if they lived while their Srs were dead!

    People rushed into the za and released their powers, attracting countless ck Armors. A horde of soldiers rushed toward the za, greatly lessening the pressure on the Srs.

    Li Hao and hisrades took advantage of the confusion to witness the grand spectacle. Liu Long looked wordlessly at the young man. <i>Just look at you putting on this great act! You¡¯re so innocent like all of this has nothing to do with you!</i>

    No one knew that the young man was behind the pandemonium, and here thed was, putting on an extreme of concern. <i>What are you concerned about?!</i>

    But Li Hao was indeed concerned. What if Violet Moon didn¡¯t die after all this? It would be so lovely if she did! Well, she was in for a world of trouble even if she didn¡¯t die. The massive silver broadsword furiously hacked at the woman. <i>Oh dear, poor Violet Moon!</i>

    Li Hao did feel some sympathy for a brief moment. <i>Thank goodness I¡¯m not in the city anymore, or I¡¯d be dead as well.</i>

    <strong>¡°AH!!¡±</strong> the woman¡¯s enraged screams rose and fell. She soared into the air again at an extreme speed. Rays of white light immediately converged upon her, forcing her armor to materialize. This time, however, lightning crackled over the treasure as it bore the brunt of the attacks.

    She doggedly flew back in the face of such punishment. When Li Hao looked at her, he saw the beast of thunder¡ªthe origin weapon¡ªcurled up inside her body. It seemed to have consumed a great deal of resources as it was unmoving. Was it about to die?

    Violet Moon¡¯s ball of light was also smaller than before. She¡¯d expended a lot of energy and suffered immense injuries. Violently heaving for breath, hate glinted out of her eyes. <i>Damn it! </i>

    Her origin weapon was heavily damaged, but she wouldn¡¯t have made it back if she hadn¡¯t flown.

    The assembly saw a sh of sword light the next moment; a raging Hong Yitang charged out with a mighty sword sh. The earth shook as the Earthturner Sword demonstrated its might, ramming through the armored soldiers around the man. Hong Yitang crossed one hundred meters with a mighty bound and rushed for the za.

    Various Srs emerged in bedraggled shape, inwardly cursing up a storm! It was an indescribable mess inside the city!

 Chapter 241: Director Haoâ€™s Earnest Teachings (I)

    <h4>Chapter 241: Director Hao¡¯s Earnest Teachings (I)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care what happened to the others; he stared intently at Violet Moon. The Red Moon organization nursed nothing but resentment for him these days. His teacher had also killed multiple Red Moon Srs. These people would never show him mercy if they had a chance to act on anything.

    He watched her to see how her injuries were and to locate her scarlet shadow. Most Red Moon members walked around with scarlet shadows, but there wasn''t a sign of one around her. This was what Li Hao found strange. She hadn¡¯t utilized her scarlet shadow even when she faced overwhelming danger before.

    Did she not have one? Or was her shadow not here?

    Violet Moon was very strong, so if she had a shadow, it should be on par with a Sr. Why didn¡¯t he see one?

    Li Hao was baffled, but there was no one who could give him answers.

    Violet Moon heaved for breath off in the distance and snuck a nce back at the Silver Armor. She suddenly turned in Li Hao¡¯s direction. She could sense someone watching her. Although many people were looking at her, this particr gaze made her quite ufortable.

    Her eyelids fluttered when she looked over¡ªthe heir of the Lis!

    She was yet to see Li Hao in the ruins before this, but with the Night Watchers entering ahead of Red Moon, she hadn¡¯t been certain if he¡¯d entered the city to investigate or gone off elsewhere. When she continuously failed to see him, she began worrying that he¡¯d died.

    Thank goodness he was still alive. More than anyone, Violet Moon did not wish for Li Hao to die in the ruins. The organization¡¯s standingmand was that she had to ensure his survival to the best of her efforts, if not capture him. The caveat was that he did not have a chance to grow stronger. His quiet progression to Sunderer was already a source of grave dissatisfaction to those upstairs.

    It was best if she could take him alive!

    Red Moon¡¯s bottom line was that if the young man did die, she had to bring back an intact corpse. That was herst course of action. She was to guarantee his survival if it was the slightest possibility.

    Thus, Violet Moon didn¡¯t care how the young man was looking at her. Some of her brewing resentment at being injured dispersed¡ªLi Hao was over there, he was still alive!

    She knew more about the eight families of Silver City than most. It was a very important matter and the organization had made preparations for many years for it. They¡¯d wanted to soundlesslyplete their ns, but missteps urred in theirst operation. It was a huge pity.

    The organization had managed to disguise the other families¡¯ deaths as natural causes and stayed under the radar. Now, however, the eight families of Silver City were a hot topic.

    Another loud explosion traveled out of the city¡ªHong Yitang was being run down. ¡°Commander Hu!¡± he had to plead.

    Up ahead, Hu Dingfang jerked his head back for a look. The Silver Armor was flying through the air at top speed. It would be hard to outrun this fellow on the ground. Should he save Hong Yitang?

    The man¡¯s Sword Sect was stronger than the three great organizations and Hong Yitang was a Silver Moon native. His faction wasn¡¯t a menace to provincial citizens, so while the three great organizations were officially listed as evil organizations, the Sword Sect was not.

    After a split second, Hu Dingfang turned and threw a st of iparably sharp metal energy through the air. Being a metal supernatural, he condemned his power into a ball of light, flinging it at the Silver Armor!

    <i>Kaboom!!</i>

    The soldier stumbled a few steps backward, providing enough breathing space for Hong Yitang to put some more distance between himself and his pursuer.

    ......

    <i>In the za.</i>

    Li Hao looked at the Sword Sect instead of the outer city. Many of its members were highly worried and the Sr that he¡¯d taken note of before, the one who seemed to be Hong Yitang¡¯s partner, was also anxious. She seemed ready to rescue the sect leader at any time.

    The young man only had time for a quick nce as many ck Armors marched into the za. Hao Lianchuan and the other powerhouses that¡¯d returned safely pushed back the soldiers inrge swathes. Some were even thrown out of the za. Those thatnded outside city confines quickly lost their battle capabilities.

    ¡°The rest of you can withdraw now!¡± Hao Lianchuan shouted. They¡¯d brought a horde of ck Armors to them. At this rate, the Silver Armor would change focus to the group in the za. That would turn everyone here into cannon fodder.

    The assembly quickly retreated beyond the outer city¡¯s perimeter. Wang Ming squeezed himself out of the crowd and heaved a sigh of relief to see Li Hao and the others. ¡°Are you guys okay?¡±

    The trio had disappeared as soon as they entered the ruins. They¡¯d returned now, thankfully.

    ¡°We¡¯re fine!¡± Li Hao chuckled and lowered his voice. ¡°Director Hao arranged a special mission for us toplete, so we split up from everyone aftering inside. We didn¡¯t expect Violet Moon to antagonize such a strong entity. What a pity, we¡¯d almost finished our task.¡±

    <i>What special mission?</i>

    Curiosity sparked in Wang Ming, but Li Hao shook his head without an answer. Although regretful, Wang Ming didn¡¯t press further. It was better not to ask when the matter involved ssified affairs. He knew that he had trouble keeping his tongue still sometime.

    Zhang Ting¡¯s ears twitched not too far away. It was a very minute movement, but she clearly captured their conversation.<i> A mission? Purposefully split up?</i> Didn¡¯t Hao Lianchuan say that something had gone wrong with the transportation to cause their separation? So that hadn¡¯t been the case!

    The martial masters had vanished and entered the outer city... They did indeed hold some advantages in the city as ck Armors couldn¡¯t discover them as easily. These three weren¡¯t that strong, however, so what kind of special mission could they undertake?

    Zhang Ting looked at the fighting Hao Lianchuan. This man seemed open and aboveboard, as well as a bit ipetent. So it seemed that he nursed his own ns as well! She was highly concerned with Li Hao. The young man was part of the eight families of Silver City and the heir to the Lis.

    It wasn¡¯t that the central region didn¡¯t care about Silver City after its matters were made public, but that they werepletely engaged in the war. There really was no personnel to spare. But since Li Hao was part of the Night Watchers, certainmands came from upstairs.

    One, obtain as much information about the eight families as possible. All information was to be collected.

    Two, it was best if they could obtain the sword that Li Hao had handed in.

    Three, approach Li Hao to see if they could gain special information.

    Four, Red Moon was not to be allowed to seed. As for how their sess could be foiled, that was up to the operative¡¯s own decisions. Zhang Ting knew full well what this meant. There was no need to be involved in anything when there were no issues. Once trouble was upon them, her first reaction should be to save the young man. If that proved impossible, she was to kill him so that Red Moon¡¯s people could not have him!

    It was fine to leave the eight families¡¯ secrets buried so long as Red Moon¡¯s ns were foiled. The government knew less than the supernatural organization.

    Zhang Ting turned over these thoughts in her mind and looked at the Silver Armor in the distance. The look in her eyes shifted slightly. Silver Moon¡¯s ruins were far stronger than they¡¯d imagined! She had to make a report of this!

    Just the one thousand ck Armors, additional Bronze Armors, and the Silver Armor were priceless, to say nothing of anything else! It would make for a martial master army of one thousand strong if they were all turned in! This kind of battalion would trample right over many provinces in a horrifying disy of might!

    And they were only in the outer city. What about the inner city?

    There was at least one origin weapon there, and it might be exceedingly strong. It could be a legendary divine origin weapon...

    Origin weapons were divided into ranks. Anything that bore the characteristics of an origin weapon could be categorized thus. For example, absorbing mysterious power of its own volition to supplement the wielder¡¯s consumption, being able to minimize or erge the item, being able to store it within the wielder¡¯s body...

    All of those formed the definition of an origin weapon. However, they were also divided ording to strength. Hers was the weakest and the ming Phoenix Spear of Silver Moon was one of the stronger. It would be a rare sight even in the central region.

    Zhang Ting nced at Violet Moon; she hadn¡¯t known what origin weapon thetter carried, but now she knew. It was the Armor of the Thunder God! This was an arcane level item that was one degree higher than her gold level weapon.

    As it was an armor type, it was more valuable inparison. But any item that was an origin weapon was precious, no matter its type. Given that she was one of the seven moons, it was normal for Violet Moon to wield an arcane level weapon.

    Zhang Ting observed silently. She hadn¡¯t entered the ruins with too many missions. After she reported in, upstairs gave her only onemand. <i>Just keep an eye on things and don¡¯t make a move, but don¡¯t let the defensive origin weapon fall into Hou Xiaochen''s hands!</i>

    The item was no secret to many people. ording to her superiors, thismand was to prevent Hou Xiaochen from mutinying and dering independence. He might do so at any moment once his concerns back home were resolved.

    Would Hou Xiaochen revolt?

    Zhang Ting didn¡¯t know, but she knew that he¡¯d defied orders many times. He refused to participate in the battle of the central region. Upstairs had sent her to oversee Silver Moon in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s absence, but the man refused to leave. This was already a deed of rebellion!

    Zhang Ting¡¯s mind ran through many calctions. She looked at the Red Moon organization and at the ck Armors being thrown out of the city. Where were the ones that the Night Watchers had obtained before? Was Hou Xiaochen secretly raising powerhouses in preparation to rebel? She needed to make a report of this as soon as possible! Hou Xiaochen might really be ready to take up arms!

    <i>But why?</i>

    Well, it had nothing to do with her.

    As a Sr who¡¯d spent thest three years in a backwater province, she might¡¯ve reachedte or peak Sr long ago in the central region. She was growing impatient after wasting all this time. This time, she hoped to obtain concrete evidence of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s impending rebellion. The central region might give orders for his arrest then. That would be fully justifiable if the proof dered it.

    As for resistance from the three great organizations...

    They wouldn¡¯t. They wanted nothing more than for him to leave. That left Hu Dingfang to consider...

    Violet Moon looked in themander¡¯s direction. Collusion with the army was a severe transgression, to say nothing of anything else. The army was an independent entity. ording to dynasticws, the Inspectorate and military were two separate systems that could not collude at any level. Any sign of untoward partnership was an omen of revolt!

    Although this was on Hu Dingfang¡¯s personal schedule, he was themander of the Tiger Wings. Perhaps she¡¯d be able to eliminate even Hu Dingfang this time.

 Chapter 242: Director Haoâ€™s Earnest Teachings (II)

    <h4>Chapter 242: Director Hao¡¯s Earnest Teachings (II)</h4>

    As Zhang Ting observed others, Li Hao would asionally watch her. The young man quickly turned his gaze to the za.

    The Revolution King had made it back. Hu Dingfangunched himself with a loud howl, crossing one hundred meters and arriving in the za. Behind him, Hong Yitang also threw himself into the safe zone, his face full of dust while he coughed up blood.

    The Srs had reconvened!

    Wielding a broadsword, the Silver Armor in the distance didn¡¯t follow its ck-armored brethren in rushing to the za. It emitted an iprehensible shriek that grated on the ear. Whether it was ck or Bronze Armors, all of the soldiers inside the city withdrew and gathered toward it.

    The expedition team shook with shock! Did a consciousness still exist inside the Silver Armor? Or did it have a different set ofmandspared to the rest? It could direct the other soldiers! While the explorers knew beforehand that they faced an army, the ck and Bronze Armors were silent even when attacking. It was apletely different situation from what faced them at current.

    ck Armors surged toward the Silver Armor. Eight Bronze Armors stood at the head of their respective troops. Split into eightpanies, they stood in a peculiar battle formation. The Silver Armor gazed ahead, brandishing his broadsword.

    The Srs were still in the za and looked solemnly back at it.<i> Let¡¯s see what else this army has up their sleeves!</i>

    The Silver Armor waved its sword!

    Thepanies of one hundred beneath it immediately split up and pulled outrge shields from their armor. Shield warriors!

    There¡¯d been no sight of their shields to be glimpsed prior to this. Massive shields now blocked the soldiers from view. They seemed interconnected and transformed into a wall of iron and steel. Not only that, but anotherpany of one hundred behind them suddenly shifted their swords into spears. A spear formation!

    <strong><i>RUMBLE!!</i></strong>

    Footsteps!

    Uniform footsteps propelled the formidable army forward. Being a t stretch ofnd, the za was perfect for their movement. Or rather, it could be better said that this terrain was created to gather the army in the first ce.

    Eight hundred armored soldiers in formation marched like they were one, advancing on the Srs. Violet Moon was the first to respond among the supernaturals, she hated these things! A bolt of lightning struck from the sky!

    If before, it would send the soldiers flying. She would even break some of them apart if she put more force behind the attack. But this time, the one hundred shields instantly dispersed the lightning. Under everyone¡¯s watchful eyes, the remaining power sank into the ground.

    Violet Moon jerked with shock!

    The army was upon them. The shields spontaneously vanished, reced by one hundred spears!

    <i>Whoosh!</i>

    The air broke before them. Blood-red qi trailed behind the weapons¡ªit seemed to be killing intent. This was an army well experienced in the battlefield and certainly not what the world fielded in modern days. Even Hu Dingfang regarded the sight with a rapidly shifting expression. Would the one-hundred-thousand-strong Tiger Wings be able to withstand this thousand-strong army?

    The Tiger Wings were mostlyprised of mundanes and very few supernaturals. If guns and other weapons could not damage these soldiers, then it would be a one-sided ughter!

    ¡°Attack!¡± The other Srs sprang into motion as well. They wanted to probe the depths of this army and flung attacks through the air. Supernatural ripples violently shook the void!

    Large shields appeared again in response to the counterattack, butbined Sr might smashed through the individual shields with loud cracks. No matter how durable these shields were, they could not hold up against the collective strength of the Srs.

    It was at this moment that someone sensed impending danger. A Sr from the Celestial organization felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up!

    Everyone¡¯s attention was on the Silver Armor; the group had forgotten the eight Bronze Armors. Those eight suddenly appeared behind the shields. Eight longswords materialized behind a broken shield, moving as one and sealing off all possible avenues of evasion. Eight swords struck at once!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The Celestial supernatural erupted with mysterious power, but was still pierced through. Bloody marks appeared on his chest and head. He swiftly backed away and was fortunate that there were more Srs beside him. Although there were those who wished him dead, everyone knew that losing a Sr at this time would be too grave a blow to morale.

    The Revolution King and Hu Dingfang pivoted at the same time, rendering aid. A massive boom rebuffed the eight swords.

    ¡°Be careful!¡± Hao Lianchuan suddenly shouted. Everyone¡¯s attention was on the Silver Armor. Shields raised upward as it suddenlynded among the army and was hidden from view.

    Hearts pounded with apprehension. These armored soldiers did note with a notable presence. That guy could be behind any of the shields now. Who would it attack?

    The shields vanished as thoughts ran wild. Jaws dropped with shock as people scanned the soldiers. The conspicuous silver armor had disappeared! It was gone! Where? Where had it gone?

    Yama¡¯s Yao Cheng suddenly looked in front of him with horror. A ck Armor was bringing its sword down on him¡ªan action he ignored as ck Armors were too weak. However, a rising terror told him that there was much more to this stroke than met the eye!

    ¡°Not... good...¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A massive collision rang through heaven and earth as the ck Armor brought more strength to bear than Yao Cheng. It was a peak Sr!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Yao Cheng¡¯s de of wind shattered and he rapidly threw himself backward, but one of his arms was still struck. It was severed with a soft <i>schick. </i>Face pale, he ignored the happening and flew out of the city.

    All of the Srs promptly retreated without a word! The za was a no-man¡¯snd and fighting impossible! How could the Silver Armor change the color of its equipment?! It could change to ck and imitate the ck Armors. How was battle possible under such circumstances?

    ck Armors did note with a presence and they all seemed cut from the same mold. One could not bring full strength to bear against every single one of them. Mysterious power would be exhausted in short order if that was the n of attack. But as soon as one¡¯s guard rxed, that was when a fake ck Armor swooped in for the kill!

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan!¡± The Revolution King red viciously at the Night Watcher. Yao Cheng, on the other hand, looked at his amputated arm with unspeakable bitterness. He¡¯d been ambushed and the Silver Armor had set its sights on him from the beginning. Did the soldier think that he was the weakest?

    He¡¯d almost died to a single sword stroke! Thank goodness there were other powerhouses beside him and he was able to make a quick getaway. It wouldn¡¯t have been possible to pull survival out of the jaws of death otherwise.

    They¡¯d just wanted to test these soldiers, but that simple probe had caused a Sr to lose his arm.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s brow was furrowed tight and he answered irritably, ¡°What are you yelling at me for? I didn¡¯t know about this! The Night Watchers have never run into this before. I would¡¯ve told everyone if I¡¯d known he could hide among the soldiers and change color. What good does it do for me if all of you die now?!¡±

    His head ached, he was telling the truth! He really didn¡¯t know that the Silver Armor could hide amongst ck Armors and turn itself into one of them. It was impossible to determine¡ªsome clues were gleaned only in the second it attacked as its style was very simr to a martial master¡¯s.

    They were in trouble!

    The assembly was out of ideas. Meanwhile, the army quickly withdrew. The Silver Armor flew into the air after a short moment and looked outside the city. It then headed back to the inner city. Its departure was a signal for the remaining ck Armors to disperse. They would not act so long as the enemy did not enter the city.

    The Darkmoons and Sunres standing at the back sagged with relief when all of the ck Armors were gone. That¡¯d been horrifying!

    On the Yama side, the Revolution King took quick assessment of the situation. His face darkened as he looked around. Yama had been the first to arrive, so quite a few of its members had entered the city. That spontaneous eruption of ck Armors resulted in random ughter, so it was mostly Yama supernaturals who¡¯d died!

    There weren¡¯t that many of them to begin with¡ªjust three dozen. There was only half of that number clustered around him now!

    Half of his delegation was dead!

    Other than the independents, it was Yama who suffered the worst losses. The organization was also missing a few Sunres¡ªlikely dead in the outer city as well.

    The Sword Sect had also lost a fair bit of people. It¡¯de with a sizable delegation, but eight of its members died in the outer city. Hong Yitang was likewise glowering. So many of his people had died with such a simple exploration of the outskirts!

    The other organizations didn¡¯t suffer to the same degree. When it came to Yama, their greatest loss was Yao Cheng¡¯s arm. Supernaturals were less affected by a loss of their limbpared to martial masters. Thetter would see an enormous reduction of battle strength if they lost an arm. All the same, some of Yao Cheng¡¯s battle strength would be affected. The key point was the blow to his confidence. If even Srs were in danger of losing their lives, then it was a grievous blow to the entire expedition!

    The Revolution King swept a nce at the Night Watchers, suddenly sharpening his gaze at Liu Long and the others. ¡°Where were the three of you before?¡±

    Liu Long frowned faintly, then responded calmly, ¡°Exploring the other city!¡±

    ¡°Exploring the outer city?¡± coldly questioned the supernatural. ¡°When? Yama and the Sword Sect were the first ones here and sealed off the area. We didn¡¯t see you enter the outer city! The Night Watchers know more about the ruins than us and you three are martial masters. You suddenly disappear, then abruptly reappear, and such a massive disturbance takes ce as soon as you return. You¡¯re involved with this!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan cursed inwardly. <i>You¡¯re right, but this guy is obviously just looking to pick a bone!</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t think that the Revolution King truly believed what he spoke of. It was just that Yama had suffered such heavy losses that he must have ulterior motives with this questioning. The three stayed silent.

    ¡°Revolution, what do you mean by this?¡± Hao Lianchuan brooded. ¡°You know full well what happened. Violet Moon acted too slowly and her mysterious power raised attention from those guys. What does it have to do with my people? I sent them into the outer city to investigate certain things. You¡¯re just looking to make trouble!¡±

    ¡°So this means that you have another way into the city?¡± Revolution demanded frostily. ¡°This za seems to be the only way in as all other areas are shrouded under a defensive membrane. How did they enter? Tell me!¡±

    He was indeed just looking to pick a bone, but he also wanted to gain more information. The Night Watchers were certainly concealing important intelligence.

    As Hao Lianchuan frowned, the others joined the censuring. ¡°Hao Lianchuan, do you Night Watchers want to take advantage of this opportunity to eliminate us all?¡±

    ¡°Is there only one such passageway into the outer city? The ck Armors keep this ce under heavy guard. We easily raise their attention when we enter this way!¡±

    ¡°What are the Night Watchers plotting?!¡±

 Chapter 243: Director Haoâ€™s Earnest Teachings (III)

    <h4>Chapter 243: Director Hao¡¯s Earnest Teachings (III)</h4>

    Hao Lianchuan frowned deeply and said after a long pause, ¡°There is another passageway, but it is much too dangerous. It¡¯s safer for martial masters, but supernaturals will die nine times out of ten if they attempt it! This is just the outer city, there¡¯s no need to try anything that would result in such massive losses...¡±

    ¡°Where is it?¡± Eyes lit up in the crowd. So there really was another way in? They needed to find a second entrance as the Silver Armor might be keeping an eye on this area at all times now! It was too dangerous. To think there really was another avenue!

    Li Hao and the others blinked. Was there really a second way? Or was this just a bluff? Hao Lianchuan certainly knew that the three of them hadn¡¯t taken an alternate route, but had been directly transported in. He was obviously aware of certain things since he hadn¡¯t asked why they were in the city.

    In that case, talk of another entrance was most likely fake.

    ¡°I said it¡¯s very dangerous, that¡¯s not a lie!¡± Hao Lianchuan¡¯s brows were still knitted together. ¡°We identally discovered it on a prior expedition and lost a lot of people, so we were forced to give it up. Martial masters don¡¯t elicit much of a reaction from it, so it¡¯s safer for them to go in. I had Liu Long and the others enter first so they could investigate the distribution of the ck Armors. Theiryout is different every month...¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t need you to tell us about the dangers,¡± the Revolution King rejected coldly. ¡°We just want to know where it is!¡±

    ¡°I said it¡¯s very dangerous...¡± Hao Lianchuan frowned with budding irritation.

    ¡°Do you think we¡¯re afraid of danger?¡± sneered the Revolution King. ¡°There¡¯s nothing you want more than for all of us to die. Would you be so kind hearted as to remind us of danger? Hao Lianchuan, there¡¯s something special about this alternate way, isn¡¯t there?¡±

    The deputy director struggled for a bit, conflict visible on his face.

    ¡°We¡¯ve lost quite a great deal at this point,¡± Violet Moon hissed. ¡°Do you think you can continue to keep it from us, Hao Lianchuan?¡±

    The deputy director looked at Hu Dingfang, who ignored him. He couldn¡¯t call the shots in this, it was up to Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°Fine,¡± the man sighed. ¡°There¡¯s a house on the first street with a front door different from the others. It happens to face outside, so we can enter the ancient city through it. Like I said, it¡¯s very, very dangerous. Martial masters without supernatural ripples stand a ny percent chance of survival. Supernaturals, on the other hand, have maybe ten percent!¡±

    Eyebrows raised in the crowd. Enter directly through an ancient house? What was inside it and what did they stand to gain from it?

    ¡°Is there a difference between entering through the ancient house and through the za?¡± Violet Moon quickly asked.

    ¡°Yes,¡± a reluctant Hao Lianchuan answered grumpily. ¡°We haven¡¯t discovered any benefits yet for martial masters, but if supernaturals take that path, their supernatural ripples won¡¯t be obvious when they fight. Just like martial masters, they won¡¯t result in too much attention...¡±

    The expressions of Violet Moon and the others shifted drastically. The Revolution King broke out inrge curses.

    ¡°You bastard, why didn¡¯t you say so earlier?! The Night Watchers want to end us all, alright!¡±

    ¡°You idiot!¡± Hao Lianchuan roared back. ¡°How many will die from mere supernatural ripples? There¡¯s only a ten percent chance of survival with the house, so you tell me which is the greater loss! And I want to end you guys? If I want to do that, I would¡¯ve told you this from the get-go and let you all die! I didn¡¯t say anything because I want us all to face the enemy together, or I would¡¯ve taken that route myself!¡±

    ¡°Who knows if you speak the truth or not?!¡± Revolution snorted. ¡°Perhaps you want to use the soldiers to kill us first and then take the way through the ancient house!¡±

    No matter what, they¡¯d gained a very important piece of information. Masking supernatural ripples! This meant that they would be able to attack without reservation. The ck Armors might not be able to pinpoint their location even after the expedition team killed some soldiers. This meant that the Srs could ambush the soldiers, and that the Silver Armor may not find them if they went into hiding!

    Damn that little bastard Hao Lianchuan! The Night Watchers were holding a lot of secrets, alright! They didn¡¯t want to share! st that entire organization!

    It was normal for enemies not to share information, but it was Hou Xiaochen who¡¯d called for general cooperation. The guy was a hypocrite! What kind of partnership was this??

    The crowd didn¡¯t say anything, but people started shifting in the direction of the first street. Hao Lianchuan wanted to protest, but swallowed his words. He desperately wanted to speak some sense into the assembly from the looks of his expression, but sighed after a long pause and couldn¡¯t be bothered saying anything.

    He looked at the trio, as if berating them fornding the Night Watchers in this mess. Li Hao was both surprised that there really was another passageway and also found that the deputy director¡¯s acting was a bit over the top!

    <i>Your expression is so ying cat and mouse, and this reaction... Perhaps you really hadn¡¯t nned on saying anything, but the more you¡¯re like this, the more tempted people are, aren¡¯t they?</i>

    So Director Hao had quite a few tricks up his sleeve!

    Exposing the second entrance decreased the amount of attention on Liu Long and the others. Since there was another way in and these three were martial masters, it was truly possible that they¡¯d been arranged to enter ahead of time. As for why the three had dropped out of sight from the beginning, perhaps they¡¯d taken a different route in the first ce. Who knew if the Night Watchers had that avable to them as well?

    ¡°Hu Dingfang, keep an eye on things here,¡± Hao Lianchuan sighed. ¡°I¡¯ll apany them to make sure they don¡¯t get up to other antics. It won¡¯t do for too many to die! Li Hao, you guys are with me!¡±

    The trio quickly followed in the deputy director¡¯s footsteps.

    ¡°If anyone asks you guyster,¡± Hao Lianchuan transmitted as they walked. ¡°Say that it¡¯s pitch ck inside and that you couldn¡¯t see anything. You don¡¯t know what was in the house, just that it felt like countless little hands were touching you. That¡¯s pretty much what it feels like. As for where you went after exiting the house, say you just randomly poked around.

    ¡°Also, remember to mention that you seemed to see a medallion right before you came out. It bore some resemnce to the city entry medallions as recorded in the ancient tomes. But remember, don¡¯t say anything unless someone forces it out of you! Liu Long and Liu Yan, let Li Hao do the talking. This guy is good at lying...¡±

    Li Hao looked on with wounded innocence. <i>There must be a misunderstanding, a very deep one! </i>He¡¯d just felt that Director Hao had some tricks up his sleeves and wasn¡¯t necessarily a good guy, so why did he suddenly seem so... calcting?

    ¡°Lastly.¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t care what the young man thought. ¡°Don¡¯t tell anyone that you were directly transported into the outer city. There must be something special about that. It¡¯s not like we haven¡¯t sent martial masters in before, but they weren¡¯t like you. It must have something to do with Li Hao! I told you long ago that you absolutely have something to do with this ce. There¡¯s a diagram of arge turtle over the inner city doors. This ce might actually be rted to the eight families.¡±

    It was apparent that the deputy director was no fool. He¡¯d always yed the part to give nothing away.

    ¡°And remember not to wander off anymore from now on! Follow me closely. We might have a chance to enter the inner city. Li Hao, I think it¡¯s still up to you to see whether or not we can im the origin weapon that covers the entire ancient city. Things will be dicey if you¡¯re dead. Your teacher wille looking for us, to say nothing of the origin weapon!

    ¡°And another thing that I almost forgot¡ªif I¡¯m busy when we run into danger, you can go to Hu Dingfang. That guy will definitely protect you! Your teacher¡¯s wanted toe for him multiple times and even nned to assassinate him. He was talked out of it each time, but the guy¡¯s dead upon exit if he doesn¡¯t protect you well in the ruins!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was a bit dazed. Was Hu Dingfang an enemy? Why else would teacher want to kill him?

    ¡°He... learned the Five Styles!¡±

    That¡¯s fine, many people knew the method. So long as he didn¡¯t know the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, what would his teacher care about this?

    ¡°He knows the core too!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s expression shifted slightly and his eyes took on a hard cast. The core? The breathing method? How was that possible?!

    ¡°Don¡¯t be mad, it has nothing to do with you. It¡¯s a long story, one that your teacher threw awayter on. Anyway, just remember to stick by his side when you run into danger!¡±

    Li Haomitted the advice to heart and took another nce at Hao Lianchuan. The deputy director usually presented a jovial, somewhat silly facade. It seemed he was just as vicious as the rest when he decided to scheme against someone!

    Hao Lianchuan ignored the look.<i> I didn¡¯t say anything, do you have proof? I transmitted everything, which makes even recordings impossible. Sue me if you have the evidence to! Hu Dingfang you bastard... you can be responsible for the insane trouble that is Li Hao!</i>

    The deputy director would take off his head to kick around like a ball if the unrest inside the city had nothing to do with Li Hao and the others.

    ¡°Director, can I talk now?¡± Li Hao whispered.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Hao Lianchuan responded with surprise. ¡°Why not? Is there anyone who can eavesdrop on our conversation?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The trio blinked.<i> Then... what did you transmit your voice for? We thought there was someone listening in and didn¡¯t dare say anything.</i>

    ¡°Um... there¡¯s a bad person in our team...¡± said a wordless Li Hao in a muffled tone.

    ¡°I see!¡± Hao Lianchuan nodded, then suddenly grinned. ¡°Are you talking about yourself?¡±

    ¡°...no!¡± Li Hao still decided to put his cards on the table. Otherwise, what if this one was nearby when the young man conducted his ambush and thought that he was killing one of their own? Hao Lianchuan might kill him in return!

    ¡°I know who you speak of.¡± The deputy director frowned before Li Hao continued. ¡°But remember, even though the director says that it doesn¡¯t matter, you can¡¯t really treat it like it doesn¡¯t matter. Keep in mind that we¡¯ll be in great trouble if that person dies. There will be anotheryer of crime levied on the director! It will also make some people feel that the director really is of the mind to... when that¡¯s not the truth! The director just can¡¯t be bothered to exin...¡±

    Li Hao looked dumbly at the man. <i>What the heck? Howe you sound like youpletely know what¡¯s going on?</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, I¡¯m not blind to all things!¡± chuckled Hao Lianchuan. ¡°That one¡¯s not a professional in this arena and sometimes lets some things slip. They¡¯re not an easy target to eliminate, do you understand me? Taking action means that trouble would soon be upon us.

    ¡°Another point is that what if they send a more deeply concealed nt if anything happens to her? That¡¯s not even taking into ount the criticism and censure that might follow. This one is at least a known factor and thus easy to defend against.¡±

    ¡°I... Ick water energy.¡± Temples throbbing with a headache, Li Hao scratched his head.

    Hao Lianchuan rolled his eyes and looked at the young man. ¡°What can you do with water energy if we give it to you? Can you immediately set foot into Summoner like your teacher?¡±

    ¡°No... but I have hopes for Dominator.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan hesitated with internal debate. ¡°In any case, you can¡¯t take action against that person. You won¡¯t necessarily resolve the issue if you do. But if you really want to, you can do so when there¡¯s no one around. Remember, that¡¯s when there¡¯s no Night Watchers around. The caveat is that you must be confident of sess...¡±

    Instead of further opposition, he told Li Hao to refrain from action when the Night Watchers were around. That person may not be the only agent among the group¡¯s ranks. She was just the one who¡¯d concealed her strength. Perhaps there was another nt out in the open.

    Li Hao understood.

 Chapter 244: The Second Passageway (I)

    <h4>Chapter 244: The Second Passageway (I)</h4>

    ¡°All you need to do when ambushing a Sr is to break through the defenses of their mysterious power,¡± Hao Lianchuan continued transmitting. ¡°Also keep in mind that ambushes are less effective when Srs carry an origin weapon on them. You saw what happened with Violet Moon¡ªthe Armor of the Thunder God instantly appeared over her and rendered extreme defensive capabilities. Not even the attacks in the air could kill her.

    ¡°If you want to eliminate that one... Figure out a way to get her into the sky and have the city hit her with a few blows. You stand a chance only after breaking the origin weapon!¡±

    The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes grew increasingly odder. <i>Didn¡¯t you say that I shouldn¡¯t kill her? But now you¡¯re giving me ideas how to?</i>

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t care about the young man¡¯s reaction. Anything he transmitted had nothing to do with him.

    ¡°She won¡¯t be too strong even with the origin weapon. She¡¯s still less than Violet Moon. Her weapon is possibly the lowest at yellow level, whereas Violet Moon¡¯s is the arcane level. An arcane level can take five or six attacks, whereas a yellow can do three or four the most. But that will require her to be in the air for approximately ten seconds¡ªwhich is where the true test of your capabilitieses in.¡±

    ¡°Director, why don¡¯t you...¡± Li Hao said this aloud.

    ¡°Me what?¡± A startled Hao Lianchuan looked at the young man and continued transmitting, ¡°I¡¯m a Sr and everyone¡¯s eyes are on me. You want me to kill one of my peers? Don¡¯t even go there. I¡¯ll be suspended for a formal investigation if someone sees memit murder. Do it yourself if you want her head. You live a good life flowing with milk and honey. And, no one will believe you if you say I put you up to it, not to mention I¡¯ll never admit to it!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. This one was seriously taking a casual tone to things! <i>Do you really think I can fling a mid Sr into the air for ten seconds? You gotta be joking! I won¡¯t be able to do that even with Liu Long helping me!</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s not that hard!¡± came Hao Lianchuan¡¯s transmission again. He exined in deed and words, imparting his earnest teachings. ¡°I¡¯ll split you guys into your own team and you can run for the thickest group of ck Armors. Attract as many as you can. They won¡¯t pay attention to you since martial masters are good at concealment. She¡¯ll have to take to the air if there¡¯s soldiers all around her!

    ¡°And, go to the inner city gates if you still can¡¯t handle her. She¡¯s dead without a doubt if the Silver Armor steps forth. Don¡¯t you want water energy? Just act a bit faster and bring some back before the ground absorbs it all...¡± Hao Lianchuan finally fell silent after thesest words.

    ¡°Director...¡± Li Hao began.

    ¡°Cut the chatter!¡± Hao Lianchuan rebuked. ¡°You three, stay out of trouble!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan looked at each other, strange looks in their eyes. My heavens, what a two-faced guy! Director Hao was nothing good! He gave them a guide to killing Zhang Ting and the key thing was, the fatty refused to take the fall for it. Everything was conveyed through transmission and never mentioned aloud. Viins were always undercover, alright!

    ......

    <i>The end of the outer city.</i>

    There was indeed a house that looked different from the other houses in the city. Not only that, but there was a signboard over it. The front door was open.

    ¡°Rein Hall.¡± Li Hao recognized the ancient characters. As a student of ancient studies, he recognized the basics of ancient literature. He wasn¡¯t the only one as the major organizations had also brought field experts on this expedition.

    ¡°Is this a reference to reining oneself in at the edge of a precipice?¡± someone asked hesitantly. What did this mean? Why was a passageway to the city named this? Did it mean for people to discard their evil intentions at the door? Or was it simply a sign for people to rein their horses in at this door?

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan, you guys have gone in before,¡± said the Revolution King as he saw Li Hao and the others arrive. ¡°So did these guys too. Tell us, Li Hao, what¡¯s inside?¡±

    He knew Li Hao and could even identify the young man! inly, it wasn¡¯t that these organizations didn¡¯t care about the eight families or about Li Hao, but that the young man was too weak for them to pay too much attention to for the moment.

    But now, the Revolution King identified Li Hao before the crowd.

    Hao Lianchuan was the deputy director of the Night Watchers, Liu Long was a veteran inspector. As for Liu Yan... who could trust what a woman said, not to mention one with a grudge against Yama? Inparison, Li Hao seemed more genteel.

    The young man frowned, took a look at the Revolution King, then at Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°What are you looking at me for?¡± Hao Lianchuan said faintly, ¡°You¡¯re a Night Watcher...¡±

    ¡°Shut up, Hao Lianchuan!¡± roared the Revolution King. He looked at Li Hao with an icy look. ¡°Li Hao, tell us what you experienced and saw. In addition, I wish for you to apany the others for another attempt.¡±

    The young man remained frowning and said after a long moment, ¡°It¡¯s very dangerous. I¡¯m afraid you won¡¯t be able to bear the consequences if I die.¡±

    ¡°Are you thinking of Yuan Shuo?¡±ughed the Revolution King.

    ¡°No, I¡¯m thinking of Red Moon!¡± Li Hao answered calmly. ¡°Ask Violet Moon if Ying Hongyue will kill you for causing my death.¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Silence. The look in Revolution¡¯s eyes shifted while Violet Moon frowned slightly in the distance. She didn¡¯t say anything. If Li Hao really did die here... It would cause enormous trouble¡ªand not from Yuan Shuo. If the Revolution King was the cause, Red Moon might actually hunt him down for it.

    The Night Watchers were easy to bully, but Red Moon was one to avoid provoking. The government agency had to consider the rules and the bigger picture at times. Red Moon did not.

    ¡°You can ask me though, I¡¯ll answer honestly,¡± Li Hao said calmly. ¡°But a Sunderer like me is not taking the risk again, so you can spare the threats!¡±

    ¡°Look at a young man like you with such sharp wits,¡± the Revolution King chuckled meaningfully. ¡°You think of threatening me with Red Moon!¡±

    How interesting! It wasn¡¯t Yuan Shuo or the Night Watchers that the young man thought to employ, but Red Moon! Was that ludicrous?

    Very!

    But it was this ludicrous threat that the Revolution King had to give respect to.

    ¡°Tell us what you saw and what happened when you entered the house!¡±

    ¡°One hundred cubes of mysterious power!¡± Li Hao replied.

    ¡°What??¡± The Revolution King thought he¡¯d heard incorrectly and looked at the young man with surprise.

    ¡°One hundred cubes!¡± Li Hao set his jaw stubbornly. ¡°I want fire attributed mysterious power! I¡¯m telling you only after you give them to me! A big organization like yours won¡¯tck for a little bit of mysterious power!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The Revolution Kingughed. ¡°It¡¯s fine if you don¡¯t say anything. We¡¯ll have someone from the Night Watchers make the trip!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan looked at him with a half smile. ¡°Are you sure about that?¡±

    The Revolution King¡¯sugh turned into a frown and he turned back to Li Hao after a moment. ¡°One hundred cubes is nothing so long as you answer honestly. But we don¡¯t have any fire energy, I can give you water energy!¡±

    ¡°Water energy...¡± Li Hao mumbled. ¡°I need fire energy though... the fire heart ape...¡±

    He abruptly shut his mouth, but the rest had their ears perked up. This must have something to do with the Summoner of Spirit cultivation level! What Yuan Shuo had deployed before was the fire heart ape. The power of fire made one feel that it was simr to supernatural abilities. As they thought, Li Hao needed fire energy as well!

    The assembly drew some quick conclusions and knew that they had to make a report to their respective senior councils when they left the ruins. They needed to tell their superiors to prepare more fire energy. It was general knowledge that the fire heart ape had much to do with the blood pearls. But now, it seemed that fire mysterious power was required as well.

    The more the young man protested, the more the Revolution King smiled. ¡°We really don¡¯t have any fire energy. Water energy is just the same! I¡¯ll give you 150 cubes¡ªyou can trade for 150 cubes of fire energy when we leave. And if you can¡¯t, go to Hao Lianchuan. He¡¯s a fire supernatural. If he umtes his strength for a month or two without using it, that will easily provide 100 cubes as well.¡±

    Li Hao was unsatisfied and nced at Hao Lianchuan. The deputy director was likewise frowning. Sensing that he couldn¡¯t gain any more, the young man acquiesced in a muffled voice, ¡°Give it to me!¡±

    Something shaped like a human bone was tossed over. The young man didn¡¯t reach out for it. Hao Lianchuan cursed inwardly and caught it instead. He probed it with his senses before deeming it safe and throwing it to Li Hao.

    ¡°It was pitch ck after I entered the house,¡± the young man began. ¡°And it¡¯s much bigger than what we see now! It¡¯s impossible to determine direction inside, it¡¯s like you¡¯repletely lost! It feels like someone¡¯s watching you the whole time and there¡¯s countless little hands touching you, feeling you in the dark!¡±

    Li Hao paused, then continued, ¡°It was suffocating! There was a sensation in the gloom like something was about to seal you away. I didn¡¯t understand before, but I¡¯m guessing that it was to seal away mysterious power. Or perhaps not seal... it just felt like something was blocking all of your pores. It was awful! But I¡¯m a martial master, so the sensations weren¡¯t that apparent to me. Maybe supernaturals will feel it more keenly.¡±

    ¡°Were you attacked?¡± the Revolution King suddenly asked.

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao shook his head.

    ¡°How long did it take for you to enter the outer city?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure, it felt like a split second... I didn¡¯t measure the exact time thatpsed. It¡¯s difficult to calcte as time is hard to determine in there.¡±

    ¡°The three of you went in together? Was anyone hurt?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°It was just hard to endure. It felt like surfacing from water when we entered the city, like we¡¯d survived certain disaster.¡±

    ¡°Did you pass by the inner city gates when you entered the outer city?¡± Violet Moon abruptly interrupted.

    ¡°The inner city gates?¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°There¡¯s no need, there are a lot of little alleys in the streets. We ran into ck Armors before long and knew about their strength. The Night Watchers also told us about the dangers¡ªDirector Hao said to avoid them. We left through an alleyway.¡±

    ¡°Which one?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s after six... houses on the right after entering the outer city. Or the seventh, if not the sixth. If you enter the second street after leaving it, you¡¯ll find a teahouse at the intersection...¡±

    Violet Moon frowned, then asked, ¡°You three are martial masters. Did any supernaturals enter?¡± She was wondering if the supernatural ripples that urred on the first street had something to do with these guys.

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Supernaturals only have a ten percent chance of survival if they try this way. Not to mention, you guys were right behind us and know how many of us came in. You¡¯d see if any supernaturals vanished.¡±

    That was true! These three were the only ones of the Night Watchers who¡¯d disappeared. All of the supernaturals were ounted for.

    ¡°Is there anything else?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao shook his head, but did so with some guilt in his eyes. He ducked his head and didn¡¯t dare meet anyone¡¯s eyes.

    The Revolution King and others stirred with interest. There was more! The kid was holding something back!

 Chapter 245: The Second Passageway (II)

    <h4>Chapter 245: The Second Passageway (II)</h4>

    ¡°Li Hao, martial masters are all about integrity!¡± the Revolution King said coolly. ¡°You must speak of whatever you know since you¡¯ve taken my payment. Although your teacher and us do not really see eye to eye, he is one who keeps his word. As a martial master and the final disciple of the Five Styles discipline, dare you swear on your teacher that everything you speak of is the truth, that there is nothing omitted?¡±

    ¡°Why should I swear?¡± Li Hao raised his head with annoyance. ¡°Is there a point to swearing? My teacher is my teacher, why should I be swearing on him? Don¡¯t you think that¡¯s so juvenile? You¡¯re all powerhouses, but you want an oath... What a joke!¡±

    Was itughable? If it was so ludicrous, why didn¡¯t the young man dare swear?

    ¡°Li Hao.¡± A smiling Hong Yitang muddied the waters. ¡°Don¡¯t mind this. We¡¯re in a partnership here and everyone hopes to enter the inner city. If the situation continues as is, we won¡¯t be able to take care of even the outer city in the time we have left. It¡¯s also good for the Night Watchers if they can conceal their supernatural ripples. Did you make any other discoveries in the house?¡±

    Li Hao remained silent.

    ¡°I see that you¡¯ve grasped the aura of the sword,¡± Hong Yitang continued. ¡°You¡¯re not far off from Dominator of Thousands. Do you wish to continue along the path of martial masters, or switch to the way of supernaturals?¡±

    ¡°Martial masters!¡±

    ¡°Wonderful!¡± Hong Yitang nodded. ¡°I sense that you¡¯re not far away from Dominator. You¡¯ll make it there as soon as your aura strengthens enough. I¡¯ve given up on martial dao and see that you don¡¯t have a good sword. If you don¡¯t mind, you can have my Earthturner Sword!¡±

    The gift of a sword?

    Li Hao blinked. The Earthturner Sword was no ordinary sword! This was the sword with which Hong Yitang had built his reputation! The man modified it many times after he entered the supernatural world, making the Earthturner Sword a supernatural object. While it wasn¡¯t on par with an origin weapon, it was much stronger than regr supernatural objects.

    <i>He¡¯s just giving it to me? The hell? There¡¯s no need for him to go to these depths if he just wants to y peacemaker!</i>

    The others were also surprised. What was Hong Yitang doing, offering up his beloved sword?

    The Earthturner Sword flew toward Li Hao without another word. ¡°I don¡¯t wish for us to be bogged down by small issues like these.¡± Hong Yitang smiled. ¡°This will dy more important matters. This sword will suit you for the moment, Li Hao! You¡¯ll likely have no use for it after you be a Summoner.

    ¡°Tell us what you found so that we can better be prepared.¡±

    Li Hao hesitated, then looked at the sword floating in front of him. ¡°Thank you, martial uncle Hong!¡± he said in a muffled voice after a while.

    Martial uncle was the polite term of address in the martial world. The various martial worlds were one family, as was Silver Moon¡¯s martial world one family¡ªeven though this family often killed each other and never saw a moment of peace.

    ¡°I¡¯ll speak about my discoveries on ount of martial uncle Hong, then,¡± Li Hao continued his narrative. ¡°I turned back for a nce the second I walked out of the house. There was suddenly a medallion in the darkness. Some ancient characters were etched on it and I could vaguely make out a ¡®king¡¯ character! There was a turtle carved on it, one that seemed very lifelike.

    ¡°I wanted to take it, but when I took another look at it, I found that it was gone.¡± The young man assessed his memories again. ¡°Not only that, but I sensed a peculiar power from the medallion. It was very special! It¡¯s hard to describe, but it felt quite vast. There was the enclosure of the cosmos, an invincible defense, and a destruction that wasplete annihtion!¡±

    Violet Moon¡¯s expression shifted at this. A peculiar power! She seemed to know what it was. This ce... really did have a connection to the eight families!

    <i>The enclosure of the cosmos, an invincible defense, and a destruction that wasplete annihtion...</i>

    Her heart shook with shock. This might really be the ruins of the eight families!

    Li Hao spoke of his experience so clearly it was like he¡¯d seen it with his own eyes. Even Hao Lianchuan was a little dazed.<i> I told you to lie to the others, not to yourself! Have you fooled even yourself with your lies?</i>

    <i>Even I think it sounds so real! These details are incredible! What turtle, what ¡®king¡¯ character, what special power? I didn¡¯t teach you any of this!</i>

    <i>Impressive!</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s recounting was too realistic. Those who¡¯d never seen the medallion and felt the power for themselves wouldn¡¯t be able to describe it. Whether it was the Revolution King or Violet Moon, both of their faces twitched. The cloaked Celestial powerhouse also held his breath to listen intently.

    The three great organizations seemed to know more things than the Night Watchers. They instantly thought of certain things when Li Hao mentioned what he saw.

    Violet Moon forced herself to remain calm in the face of extreme urgency. ¡°Did you not manage to take the medallion?¡± she asked with a veneer ofposure.

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°But I have a feeling that if I¡¯m a Dominator... I might be able to capture it with the aura!¡±

    He hesitated again, a pause captured by Violet Moon.

    ¡°What else is there?¡± she quickly asked.

    The young man stayed silent before responding irritably, ¡°Nothing.¡±

    He must be keeping more to himself!

    Li Hao¡¯s irritation grew as he saw how eager the woman was. ¡°Isn¡¯t Red Moon more familiar with it than me? What are you asking me for? I say there¡¯s more than one medallion, that there¡¯s eight! I only had one detailed nce in the dark¡ªthere might be more there. There should be eight medallions total and special effects might ur with all of them in hand. As for what they are, I don¡¯t know. Red Moon should know better than I do!¡±

    <i>Eight medallions!</i>

    Violet Moon immediately shut her mouth and didn¡¯t ask further questions. Eight families! This city must have something to do with the eight families!

    It wasn¡¯t just her, but all of the others who understood in this moment as well. No wonder Li Hao hadn¡¯t mentioned it. This made his identity as the heir of the eight families even more important, which was also a dangerous development. Hong Yitang grasped the ramifications and looked apologetically at the young man.

    ¡°Martial uncle didn¡¯t know about this before...¡± he said in a lowered voice. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have asked you if I¡¯d known.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine!¡± Li Hao mumbled. ¡°It¡¯s not the first day that they¡¯ve had their eyes on me. I just think there¡¯s more to this ancient house than meets the eye... Whatever, you guys are the ones going inside, not me!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan was also frowning off to the side and looking at the others. ¡°We... didn¡¯t notice this medallion before.¡±

    Did people believe him?

    Maybe!

    If they hadn¡¯t discovered it before, then it might have something to do with Li Hao¡¯s bloodline. Naturally, no one asked anything further at this point. They¡¯d understood what they needed to understand, the rest woulde with experimentation.

    A grumpy Li Hao retreated behind Hao Lianchuan. The deputy director looked over the sword before returning it to the young man. Li Hao was still out of sorts. He¡¯d revealed his secrets for a measly one hundred fifty cubes of water energy and an Earthturner Sword! He rather regretted his actions!

    Okay, so he didn¡¯t regret <i>that</i> much. Perhaps these guys would¡¯ve given him more if he asked. What did any of this matter to these people? One hundred fifty cubes was nothing!

    <i>Damn, I really asked for too little. The Earthturner Sword was an ident. When Violet Moon opened her mouth, I should¡¯ve asked for a few blood pearls. Maybe I could¡¯ve gotten some!</i>

    <i>Oh these missed opportunities!</i>

    Liu Long grunted with disapproval and lectured in an exceedingly quiet voice, ¡°Idiot! Hong Yitang¡¯s not necessarily a good person either. How could you tell him these things? You idiot, you¡¯re in trouble now. Everyone¡¯s eyes will be on you!¡±

    Although he kept his voice down, it was still audible. The three Srs could make out his words. Hong Yitang¡¯s expression remained unchanged, as if he hadn¡¯t heard a thing.

    Li Hao kept his head down, dejected. ¡°They wanted to force me to swear on my teacher,¡± he ultimately responded in a muffled voice. ¡°Those of the Five Styles can fall in battle, but cannot let our masters suffer humiliation. I can¡¯t just use his name like that. Teacher saved me from certain death multiple times andid down his life to wrestle more benefits for me. I... couldn¡¯t bear to curse him like that. Not to mention, there are indeed gods and spirits in the world. Even the heavens favor a certain group of people. How can I live up to him if something really doese true?¡±

    Liu Long sighed and said nothing more. The premises fell silent.

    ¡°Liu Long, is it?¡± the Revolution King suddenly said. ¡°You¡¯ve gone inside before. How about the Night Watchers send Liu Long in with us this time? Of course, we won¡¯t have people make the trip in vain. Whether it¡¯s Liu Long or anyone else, those who are willing to go inside will receive one hundred cubes if they make it out alive!¡±

    The crowd rustled when they heard the offer. One hundred cubes? How generous!

    For the leaders of the great factions, it was best if people willingly entered the house. They weren¡¯t afraid of spending resources¡ªthere would be payouts only if these people survived the encounter.

    They needed to stay alive first.

    Volunteers were much better than coerced participation. Anyone forced into the house might conceal important information.

    ¡°In addition, hefty rewards will go to anyone who obtains that medallion!¡± continued Revolution. ¡°Yama is willing to purchase it for a high price. I¡¯m sure we all know that some things cannot be imed even if youy your hands on it.¡±

    This, the assembly was well aware of. And it wasn¡¯t like they were guaranteed to gain the medallion either.

    ¡°Milord Revolution King,¡± asked a Sunre survivor from one of the small organizations. ¡°Is everyone one hundred cubes? Both Darkmoon and Sunre?¡±

    ¡°Sunres will receive two hundred,¡± chuckled Revolution.

    ¡°Milord is wise!¡± The Sunre smiled. Two hundred cubes of mysterious power was no small sum. He¡¯d just asked off the cuff¡ªwho would¡¯ve thought that really would increase the payout?

    As expected of arge organization! They were magnanimous and strong!

    ¡°If you make it out alive, you can also join Yama!¡± continued Revolution. ¡°Yama wees all those unaffiliated with an organization!¡±

    Some more independent supernaturals were tempted after this. Yama was one of the three great organizations! These organizations had taken allers at the beginning of their formation. But with the rise of the supernatural world, its stabilization and increasing numbers, these organizations now had quite the set of rules and conditions for recruitment.

    It wasn¡¯t easy for those of small organizations to join the three greats.

    Neither Celestial nor Violet Moon said anything. They needed to survive braving the house first! Not to mention, joining Yama at this stage meant bing cannon fodder. Only when a new recruit exited the ruins did they have a chance of bing an official member. Hence, the other organizations couldn¡¯t be bothered with saying anything.

 Chapter 246: The Second Passageway (III)

    <h4>Chapter 246: The Second Passageway (III)</h4>

    ¡°Is there anyone who wishes to try the house?¡± the Revolution King asked again. After momentary hesitation, four independent supernaturals walked out of the crowd.

    ¡°Are there any from Yama, Celestial, or Red Moon willing to go?¡± he asked. ¡°Rewards will be doubled for those of the three great organizations who make the attempt!¡±

    Some walked out from the three greats after histest offer. It was more than apparent that Revolution wished for his own people toe out alive. It would bring them the greatest amount of intel. He just wasn¡¯t forcing their participation.

    ¡°I¡¯ve already gone once, I don¡¯t wish to go again,¡± said Liu Long. ¡°It¡¯s useless for me, anyway!¡±

    ¡°And what if I want you to go?¡± Revolution replied faintly. He would bring force to bear if persuasion didn¡¯t work! The man looked at Hao Lianchuan. ¡°If Liu Long is unwilling, then the Night Watchers will send a few supernaturals to go inside!¡±

    ¡°Why?¡± Hao Lianchuan frowned.

    ¡°Because you didn¡¯t tell us about this before!¡± Revolution snapped back. ¡°You need our cooperation, Hao Lianchuan, if you want to make it into the inner city together!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan cursed inwardly and had no choice but to look at Liu Long. ¡°Liu Long... you... will head inside one more time! I¡¯ll reward you with a hundred cubes on behalf of the Night Watchers when you return!¡±

    Liu Long frowned, but still nodded. ¡°Understood, I will do as ordered!¡±

    Director Hao was his superior, so there was no denying what he requested. However, he looked at the Revolution King. ¡°I want two hundred cubes and I want them now! I don¡¯t trust you. Also, I want water energy!¡±

    Liu Long stared intently at the Revolution King.<i> I want water energy! Are you going to give it to me or not? You didn¡¯t give Li Hao fire energy when he wanted it, so it¡¯s not like you¡¯ll give that to me instead now, is it?</i>

    ¡°You want water energy?¡± chuckled the Revolution King. ¡°I just gave the rest to Li Hao, you can trade with him for it. I only have some earth, wind, and metal energy left. It¡¯s all the same!¡±

    <i>I won¡¯t give you anything you want! </i>He threw out a few bones that contained vast sums of mysterious power. Some were still slick with blood¡ªthe Revolution King had obviously collected them from those who¡¯d died in the previous za battle. He was the strongest in the field at that time and had no use for these. It was a perfect opportunity to reuse trash that he¡¯d obtained for free.

    Liu Long frowned wordlessly. He handed the bones to Li Hao and muttered, ¡°Take care of our other brothers in Silver City for me if I don¡¯te out!¡±

    The young man nodded emphatically.

    With Liu Long added to the mix, a ten person team was quickly formed. Four independent supernaturals, Liu Long, one supernatural each from the three great organizations and Sword Sect, as well as another Sunderer from the Sword Sect. The Sword Sect inly wished to experiment on the differences between supernaturals and martial masters. While they sent two, neither of the two were that strong. They didn¡¯t have many martial masters to begin with.

    The group chose to enter all at once as opposed to one at a time. Thetter might be safer, but also slower and harder to discern differences between the two. Would variances be a result of supernatural ability, luck, martial master, or energy system?

    The ten that formed the group all possessed their own unique characteristics. Metal, earth, wood, thunder, water... Not a single attribute was repeated. The leaders of the variousrge organizations wished to test the differences between all traits in one go.

    ......

    Worry lurked deep in Li Hao¡¯s eyes¡ªwhat if something went wrong with Liu Long? This ce might be a trap! However, Hao Lianchuan¡¯s voice sounded by his ear. ¡°It¡¯ll be fine, we tested this passageway before! This is a special ce that offers a very high rate of survival for martial masters. It¡¯s not low for supernaturals either, but the weaker the supernatural, the higher the chance of survival! The stronger, the lower the chance of survival!

    ¡°If these guys are tempted and think they¡¯ll be fine because weaker supernaturals made it back out, or if they¡¯re enticed by the medallion... then all the better! It¡¯ll be good to ensure some of their deaths on this expedition, even if we don¡¯t im the origin weapon.¡±

    The deputy director was already prepared¡ªhe would weaken the three great organizations if he couldn¡¯t make it to the inner city. Violet Moon and the others would have an exceedingly low rate of survival if they dared attempt the house.

    Li Hao remained staring silently ahead and didn¡¯t say anything. Liu Long took the lead and entered the ancient house without a word. He possessed the courage of martial masters in spades. Since the situation was thus, he would go in. There was nothing to worry about!

    He vanished soundlessly into the darkness; the others were a little more apprehensive. But when they thought of the benefits to be had, the remaining nine quickly charged into the house.

    <i>Silence!</i>

    There was no movement forting. Some powerhouses found nothing when they sent their consciousnesses into the house. Just as the crowd rxed into the quiet... a ghastly scream rang out! Frowns crossed faces. Any manner of noise should be audible from the house, but the first and only thing they heard was the scream. Was this an attempt to create a sense of danger?

    That scream had belonged to an independent supernatural. He might be dead!

    Expressions remained the same in the crowd. No one was fearful just because someone had died. That was just a wandering supernatural. It was within expectations even if they all died.

    Another ghastly scream echoed after a while. There was no further disturbance from the house. After an indeterminate period of time, figures appeared on the street behind the ancient house. Those on the other side peered through the protective membrane with widened eyes. They were out!

    The figures swiftly ran toward the za. These had been their previous instructions. They were to leave as soon as possible if they made it out! Some of the members of the three great organizations also bore special missions on their shoulders. They were to test the ck Armors¡¯ reactions!

    The Revolution King headed for the za without a word. The others were hot on his heels. They weren¡¯t worried as the za wouldn¡¯t disappear, they cared more about whether the survivors had obtained the medallion or any other treasure.

    Li Hao heaved a slight sigh of relief. Liu Long should be fine since he hadn¡¯t heard the captain¡¯s voice. If only two had died, then this rate of death wasn¡¯t that high. Hao Lianchuan¡¯s im of a ten percent survival rate rather seemed like an exaggeration! It was further proof that the man was just in the business of scaring people away!

    ......

    The crowd arrived outside the za before long. A figure leading the pack sprinted to them¡ªLiu Long. He didn¡¯t dare linger in the city and ran back as soon as he exited the house. He wasn¡¯t the only one, there were several more figures behind him that were each faster than the rest.

    When Hao Lianchuan saw that they were about to exit the za, he quickly said, ¡°Don¡¯t brashly leave the outer city. The protective film that you just received will vanish as soon as you do so! You¡¯ll have to go through the house again if you wish to conceal your supernatural ripples. This effect isn¡¯t permanent. It persists inside the city and disappears soon after you leave it!¡±

    The supernaturals on the za were startled into indecision. Liu Long didn¡¯t care; he walked right out. Being a martial master, he didn¡¯t sense any protective film. What did he care about leaving the city! He didn¡¯t want to stay inside.

    Another person ran out from the city¡ªa Red Moon Darkmoon. He was very agitated and approached the edge of the za. Panting, he called out in a fearful tone, ¡°Mdy!¡±

    ¡°Go ahead and speak.¡± Violet Moon inclined her head. All of the organizations had sent people inside, so there was nothing to hide.

    ¡°Mdy, I.... I just approached within ten meters of a ck Armor and demonstrated some of my supernatural abilities. The soldier really didn¡¯t have a reaction!¡±

    Eyebrows raised in the crowd. The ck Armors didn¡¯t react when someone within ten meters used supernatural abilities?

    Violet Moon subconsciously wanted to enter the za to assess what was different about her subordinate.

    ¡°The Silver Armor hasmitted your presence to memory,¡± Hao Lianchuan said quietly. ¡°It might be here shortly if you enter now!¡±

    Violet Moon frowned, but didn¡¯t say a word as this was possible! Instead, she looked at her man. ¡°Come out of the city!¡±

    The man followed orders and quickly set foot outside. Violet Moon surrounded him with the power of thunder the moment he did. She immediately sensed something different. There¡¯d seemed to be ayer around the man that was connected to the ground. It was broken as soon as he walked out!

    ¡°The ground?¡± She looked down; Hao Lianchuan nodded.

    Understanding dawned on the group. It looked like the protective film came from the ground. It might be a simr case to the ck Armors. Walking through the house gave one the protection of the earth, but setting foot outside the city meant severing this connection with the earth. Hence, the protective film vanished and the person in question needed to go through the process once more.

    ¡°What did it feel like?¡±

    ¡°The house was pitch ck and pretty much like Li Hao said. But... I didn¡¯t see a medallion.¡± The person looked suspiciously at the young man. The others didn¡¯t mind his findings. It was normal for Li Hao to see it and it was normal for this Darkmoon not to see it. There might really be something special about the bloodlines of the eight families.

    ¡°Did you run into danger?¡±

    ¡°There was a little bit of danger...¡± came the frightened response. ¡°Someone seemed to put a cloth bag over me at one point¡ªmaybe that was the feeling of getting the protective film. I felt like I was going to suffocate, but it quickly dispersed and I made it out.¡±

    ¡°Did you discover anything else?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    Violet Moon frowned and continued to wait. The others emerged after a short while. Two were dead out of eight¡ªone was an independent and the other was a Yama member. The Revolution King wanted to vomit blood. His organization, again!

    ¡°Two are dead¡ªone Plenilune, one Fullmoon. One fire and one thunder...¡± Violet Moon murmured. ¡°Was it because their offensive abilities were too strong? But the metal supernatural is still alive...¡±

    When it came to offense, metal was stronger than fire. The metal supernatural was still here! But it was also true that more offensive supernaturals had died. Additionally, no one had seen the medallion.

    If anyone had, it might be treated as a fake. Since only Li Hao saw it, then the crowd believed it might really exist. These eight just hadn¡¯t been lucky enough or possibly possessed the right bloodline.

    ¡°So supernatural ripples can indeed be obscured!¡± said the Revolution King. ¡°What now? Should we all take that path?¡±

    The danger was high at a twenty percent death rate.

 Chapter 247: The Second Passageway (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 247: The Second Passageway (IV)</h4>

    ¡°I¡¯m not going into the house!¡± Hao Lianchuan frowned. ¡°Deciding my fate through luck... I¡¯m better off relying on strength instead! I ept the oue even if the soldiers kill me. You guys can go through the house if you wish, I won¡¯t be and the Night Watchers aren¡¯t allowed to! If we must, then those below Sunres can make the attempt. They stand a good chance of seeding!¡±

    Some among the Night Watchers scratched their heads. They couldn¡¯t hide their supernatural ripples. If everyone else could, then the agency would be at a great disadvantage! But since the deputy director had given his orders, they weren¡¯t in a position to contradict him.

    Perhaps they¡¯d be in an even more disadvantageous position then. The others might treat them as protective charms¡ªif they were going to be discovered, it was the Night Watchers who would draw notice first.

    At the same time, there were indeed those who felt that it was better to rely on one¡¯s own strength than luck.

    ¡°Whatever you wish of your own volition!¡± said the Revolution King. ¡°But those who don¡¯t take that passageway will retain noticeable supernatural ripples. They will form a team to draw ck Armor attention and create opportunities for others. I trust the Night Watchers have no second opinion about this?¡±

    Seeing that Hao Lianchuan was about to refuse, Revolution insisted coldly, ¡°There¡¯s risks to both options! There¡¯s danger in the second passageway and there¡¯s danger to being bait. If you think being bait is more dangerous, then go through the house!

    ¡°No one is an exception!¡± He turned to the crowd. ¡°Either you walk through here or you¡¯re bait to distract the soldiers! Those who take the passageway will listen to orders and work with the bait team to ambush ck Armors! Our expedition will be a failure if we don¡¯t clear out the soldiers!¡±

    It was a good proposal that factored in the risks of all sides. Hao Lianchuan acquiesced after thinking about it for a moment.

    ¡°That works! The Night Watchers will not be going through the second passageway. Anyone else who is unwilling can stay with us!¡±

    Therge organizations conversed among themselves, splitting the crowd into two. There were roughly one hundred and fifty people left in the expedition team. A little more than half¡ªapproximately eighty¡ªchose the house. Only a few Srs were willing to try this path¡ªYao Cheng of Yama, Violet Moon of Red Moon, and Hong Yitang of the Sword Sect.

    The two Srs of Celestial didn¡¯t opt for this, neither did the female Sr of the Sword Sect or the Revolution King. Li Hao was a little surprised by the distribution. Hadn¡¯t they all been raising a fuss to take the second route? And now the Revolution King chose to stay behind!

    Perhaps he did so to counterbnce the Night Watchers. Who knew the true reason? As for Violet Moon choosing the passageway, Li Hao guessed it was because she was injured. The Silver Armor had his sights on her after attacking her for so long earlier. She might be concerned that noticeable supernatural ripples would result in continued attention from the soldier.

    <i>Die! Please die! </i>Li Hao prayed. None of these people would be missed if they died inside. ording to Hao Lianchuan, the stronger one was, the higher the fatality rate. However, that didn¡¯t mean there was no chance of survival. Perhaps the deputy director had attempted the passage before. Li Hao didn¡¯t ask if he had. If this was the case, then being alive now meant that there was still a chance for Srs to survive the house.

    ¡°We¡¯ll split into two groups. The bait group will go into hiding as soon as they enter the city. They¡¯ll draw attention from the ck Armors when the second group leaves the house. Violet Moon, bring those people over and attack them from behind. The Silver Armor is our first priority. We also need to throw all of the ck Armors out of the city as much as possible. There is nothing to fear about the Silver Armor when it doesn¡¯t have an army behind it!¡± The Revolution King detailed several arrangements.

    ¡°Additionally, don¡¯t brashly approach the inner city. While there may be more to harvest there, there may be greater danger! This expedition is obviously very different from previous excavations. Don¡¯t throw away your life for a moment of greed! If the second group does not appear a minute after we¡¯ve engaged the soldiers, then we¡¯ll withdraw as well!¡±

    He couldn¡¯t give these people an opportunity to strike off on their own. Although Yao Cheng was part of the second group, the Revolution King still had to be on his guard. If there was no sign of the second group after a minute, the bait group would retreat. The ck Armors would certainly eliminate the second group when they returned to their posts.

    ¡°Don¡¯t go thinking that everyone is as despicable as you, Revolution!¡± sneered Violet Moon.

    ¡°It¡¯s just a precaution!¡± The Revolution King said nothing further after they decided on the n of attack. Violet Moon walked off with those who wanted to try their luck; all the first group needed to do was wait. A messenger woulde back after everyone left the house. That was when the offensive would start.

    ......

    The group acting as bait waited in silence. Hu Dingfang walked up to Li Hao and looked expressionlessly at the young man. ¡°Stay close to me in the fighting toe, but not overly close. It¡¯ll be too dangerous if you¡¯re right next to me!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. The armymander silently flicked another nce at him. It was good enough if thed didn¡¯t wander off.

    The group waited patiently and with some anticipation as to the results. Most were hoping that the second group lived, whereas Li Hao wanted nothing more than for all of them to be dead.

    A dark figure shed through the city after roughly ten minutes. A cloaked person swiftly ran over¡ªa Celestial member. That organization had also sent their people inside.

    The messenger¡¯s presence was slightly weighty and not very stable. It murmured at the edge of the za, ¡°Things aren¡¯t looking too good... Master Yao Cheng of Yama didn¡¯t exit the house. Master Violet Moon¡¯s injuries seem to have gotten worse. Swordmaster Hong appears to be fine...¡±

    The Revolution King¡¯s presence fluctuated when he heard the report. <strong><i>What?! </i></strong>Yao Cheng was dead?! Why?? He wanted to explode with anger! How was this possible!! Yao Cheng was a Sr! How could he disappear without a sound like this?!

    ¡°We suffered significant losses aside from the great personages. Twenty-two are dead, only sixty made it out alive...¡±

    One-fourth of the second group had been lost!! Was this a worthwhile trade?

    It was difficult to say whether it was worthwhile or not. The groups had been formed out of personal preference and death was inevitable. However, no one fathomed that they could possibly lose a Sr.

    The Revolution King was beyond livid! He didn¡¯t care about the others, but Yao Cheng!! Damn it! Yama had lost too much since the start of this expedition! He forced down raging frustration in his heart and replied ponderously, ¡°Understood!¡±

    The Yama powerhouses around him were likewise in somber moods. Apart from Red Moon, Yama had suffered the most on this excavation.

    Taking a deep breath, the Revolution King turned to the others. ¡°Hu Dingfang... Hao Lianchuan... Are you ready?¡±

    ¡°We can go anytime!¡±

    ¡°Then... let¡¯s begin!¡± They needed to eliminate these ck Armors as soon as possible.

    Powerhouses set foot into the za and roused their mysterious power. Formidable supernatural ripples roiled through the city. A Silver Armor appeared in the sky after the span of a breath, ck and Bronze Armors swiftly converged beneath his feet and ran for the za at high speed.

    Battle was about to break out once more!

    ......

    <i>Inside the city.</i>

    Violet Moon was ashen-faced in a small alley, as was Hong Yitang white as a sheet. The two Srs viewed their actions with slight regret at the moment.

    It was difficult to describe what¡¯d taken ce in the house, but they¡¯d lost Yao Cheng and suffered severe injuries themselves. Violet Moon¡¯s heart ached the most for her Armor of the Thunder God. It was gravely damaged and could no longer manifest around her. It had to stay inside her body to be nurtured back to proper condition. That was the root cause of her anguish.

    Her own strength would be severely affected by theck of an origin weapon. Her defensive skills had been very strong before, but now they were enormously weakened!

    As pained as she was, she still smiled to see the Silver Armor fly away. The second passageway was effective. Otherwise, the soldier should be flying to her since she was closer. Although she¡¯d paid a hefty price, the trouble toe belonged to the Revolution King and others.

    ¡°We¡¯ll wait a minute before setting out!¡± she transmitted to Hong Yitang. It was time for those guys to feel the pressure and suffer some casualties. ¡°Did you see the medallion?¡±

    ¡°I think I did...¡± Hong Yitang transmitted back after some thought. ¡°But it seemed to be separated by ayer of something. Did leader Violet Moon see it too?¡±

    ¡°I saw a sh of golden light... I¡¯m not sure if it was the medallion or not.¡±

    The two fell silent, yet certain that there was treasure inside the house. What a pity that they couldn¡¯ty hands on it. Violet Moon was already considering if she should grab Li Hao when there was a chance to and force him inside the house for a look.

    Explosions rang in the distance. Battle was underway!

    The second group waited a little while before following Violet Moon and Hong Yitang¡¯s lead in surreptitiously approaching the za. Their obscured supernatural presences gave them the opportunity to ambush the city¡¯s defenders.

    ......

    Li Hao struck out with the Earthturner Sword and sent a ck Armor flying. The situation was chaotic around him as fights broke out everywhere!

    There were many soldiers, but the Srs were as if their illustrious name. They were also quite bold in this engagement and rushed directly into groups of soldiers! Hu Dingfang and the Revolution King jointly preupied the Silver Armor. The remaining Srs charged into the ck Armors and threw them out of the za in droves!

    However, there were too many soldiers to contend with at the end of the day. Bolstered by the ground and possessing strong defenses through their armor, it meant that only Srs exercised a slight advantage against the ck Armors. Sunres were unable to gain the upper hand and the eight Bronze Armors were also no end of trouble.

    If reinforcements failed to arrive soon, they would have to withdraw.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about that. He simply struck again and again, utilizing his sword aura. These soldiers were perfect targets! There was no need to worry about damaging them; all he needed to do was focus on attacking. He had to give it to Hong Yitang¡ªthe man¡¯s sword was very powerful. The earth shook with every stroke that Li Hao deployed and it didn¡¯t show signs of breaking when he melded his sword aura with it. Previous swords started shattering as soon as he attempted that fusion. What a good man!

    Li Hao was in the stage of nurturing his aura. All of these ck Armors were his sparring partners. An anguished scream echoed in his ears; he ignored it. He had effort only to spare for himself at a critical moment like this.

    He clutched a bone in the chaos and operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. It was the bone that the Revolution King had given him earlier. Water energy surged into his body¡ªhe wasn¡¯t the only one to do so. Supernaturals absorbed energy throughout the course of battle to replenish their reserves. Thus, the young man didn¡¯t stand out for his actions.

    Li Hao was very irritated that the Revolution King had given him water energy instead of fire, and an additional fifty cubes at that! What if his kidneys were so fortified that it propelled him into Dominator? That would be incredible trouble!

    With all these people around him, he wanted to make the breakthrough with none the wiser. Hence, Li Hao kept himself in check. He needed to be restrained even after he bnced his five elements again.

    As strong as the ck Armors were, they were truly ipetent when it came to determining direction. They relied solely on supernatural ripples and sound. Li Hao started trying different methods against them, such as flicking them into the air with a sword stroke!

    He wanted to practice how to send opponents flying; these soldiers were the best targets. ck Armor after ck Armor rose into the air as Li Hao had a great time on the battlefield. He drew near Hao Lianchuan whenever the situation became a little too dangerous. Although the deputy director wanted him to stay close to Hu Dingfang, themander was fighting the Silver Armor. Li Hao wasn¡¯t in the habit of courting death.

    After bncing his five visceral organs and strengthening his internal force, the young man started practicing the Nine Forged Force...

    A minute passed in the blink of an eye. Powerful surges of mysterious power erupted at the rear of the soldiers!

 Chapter 248: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (I)

    <h4>Chapter 248: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (I)</h4>

    Without supernatural ripples giving the enemy¡¯s position away, not even the Silver Armor noted the arrival of a second group of intruders. ck Armors suddenly went flying andnded outside the city confines.

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± The Silver Armor gave full voice to its rage and hacked into the crowd with its broadsword. The Revolution King and Hu Dingfang had no choice but to focus on protective retreat. Violet Moon, Hong Yitang, and the others at the back swiftly joined the fray.

    Soldier after soldier was tossed into the air, giving the upper hand to the outsiders for the very first time. The ck Armors were utterly routed.

    <i>Bam bam bam!</i>

    Soldiers quickly lost their mobility when they fell outside the za and remained unmoving on the ground. Wrath gripped the Silver Armor and it shrieked with anger that struck fear into the hearts of listeners. It sounded rusty and out of practice, but everyone heard the shrieks loud and clear!

    ¡°Keep it preupied!¡± Hao Lianchuan shouted.

    ¡°Hurry and defeat the ck Armors!¡± yelled the Revolution King. ¡°Help us!¡±

    The Silver Armor went into a rampage! It didn¡¯t care about the situation around it and hacked with stroke after stroke! ck Armors were swiftly dwindling on the ground; the Silver Armor roared once more at this juncture. Some Bronze Armors immediately withdrew with their portion of ck Armors. Most were prevented from leaving the battlefield, but a contingent still made their escape.

    ¡°They... can run?¡± The crowd viewed this development with shock. These guys could even flee? Incredible!

    No one cared about the ones that¡¯d gotten away and continued to attack. The remaining ck Armors continuously lost their impetus and piled up outside the za. Just these gains alone were enough to inspire euphoria from the organizations!

    The second passageway hadn¡¯t been undertaken in vain. Although they¡¯d lost a few people, this pincer movement wouldn¡¯t have been executed so easily if not for their undetected reinforcement. Morale greatly swelled in this moment.

    Battle grew easier when a portion of ck Armors withdrew. Even though the Silver Armor refused to leave and continued to erupt with strength on the battlefield, it was hard pressed to stand against the increasing numbers of Srs in the battlefield.

    It threw its head back with a roar as a searing light exploded from its armor. Leaping into the air, it shook off its opponents on the ground. Battle was difficult to conduct once the Silver Armor was in the sky. The Srs were restricted from following their opponent due to the overwhelming air restriction in ce.

    Thus, the group could only watch as the Silver Armor powerhouse left through the air and vanished from sight. Despite that, their battle results were already exceedingly resplendent.

    The battle continued! This time, it was one-sided in favor of the expedition team. <i>Bam bam bam! </i>ck Armors were tossed off the battlefield and the premises cleared out after a few minutes.

    Smiles spread across faces. They¡¯d eliminated at least five hundred out of eight hundred ck Armors! That was more than half in one fell swoop! There were only three hundred left from the one thousand strong army in the city, and three Bronze Armors had been smashed to pieces in the za.

    Bronze Armors were impossible to capture as they exploded when they left the perimeter of the city. Therefore, no one thought of seizing them and just attacked until those suits of armor were destroyed.

    One officer, five centurions, and three hundred ck Armors escaped the za. The expedition team had aplished something magnificent in this battle!

    Despite the achievement, the ck Armors were still exceedingly terrifying foes. More than twenty expedition members had died braving the ancient house, and another twenty died in a minute of direct engagement.

    There were approximately one hundred supernaturals left¡ªhalf of what had entered the ruins. Those that died were the weaklings. Darkmoons numbered the highest among the casualties; there weren¡¯t that many Sunres. Yao Cheng was the only incredibly unlucky Sr to have perished in the second passageway.

    While the expedition had lost arge sum of people, their battle strength wasn¡¯t actually affected that much. Even the Night Watchers lost a few Darkmoons in thest fight. As strong as Hao Lianchuan was, he wasn¡¯t able to keep an eye on the entire situation since he wasn¡¯t willing to expose the ming Phoenix Spear. The ck Armors weren¡¯t weak, so a few Darkmoons down on their luck were executed on the spot.

    However, the delegations had been prepared for this possibility before entering the ruins. It was impossible to not suffer fatalities when exploring the ancient ruins. The Night Watchers were better off as all of their Sunres were still alive. Compared to Yama... the Revolution King was beside himself. More than three dozen had entered the ruins. If he was counted among their number, there were only nine members left from his delegation! Five had taken the second passageway, he and three others hadn¡¯t.

    <i>Nine people!</i>

    The Revolution King didn¡¯t feel the slightest bit of joy. He didn¡¯t care about the Darkmoons or Sunres dying, but a Sr dying truly did impact the greater picture! <i>Yao Cheng, you piece of shit! Even Hong Yitang¡¯s still alive, but you¡¯re dead!</i>

    Of the remaining one hundred in the delegation, there were nearly twenty Celestial members left. Not many from this organization had joined the expedition, but they¡¯d lost almost no one.

    The Night Watchers were the most at nearly thirty surviving members. Red Moon and the Sword Sect possessed nearly twenty apiece. Combined with Yama, that made for almost one hundred.

    Only six Sunres were left of the independent supernaturals. Everyone below Sunre was dead. Such were the tragic circumstances of the small organizations and wandering supernaturals.

    It was difficult for Sunres to withstand danger without a resident Sr in support, not to mention helping others. It was good enough to not further muddy the situation. When it came to therge organizations, they at least had Srs that could resolve emergencies and crises every now and then.

    The group remained in the za instead of exiting the city at the end of battle. Bodies were being devoured by the ground. Li Hao and hispanions started cleaning the battlefield as well. They imed all the bodies that were former Night Watchers and stole a little portion from those that belonged to other factions. The best was any mysterious power they could glean.

    The three Srs started congregating again.

    ¡°The Silver Armor ran off with three hundred ck Armors.¡± Hu Dingfang was the first to speak. ¡°I don¡¯t know if they¡¯re scattered around the city or have returned to the inner city gates. Are there other powerhouses by the gates apart from this army of one thousand?¡±

    ¡°I can see that many ck Armors haven¡¯t gone back to the gates,¡± Hao Lianchuan responded. ¡°They¡¯re spread out around the city. Why don¡¯t we start cleansing the outer city, starting from the ninth street, and reconvene at the city gates? It¡¯s been almost a day since we¡¯ve entered the ruins!¡±

    They only had three days to spend inside; it was probably already night of the first day. They needed to purge the outer city and gather at the inner city gates for the final battle! Such was Hao Lianchuan¡¯s n.

    The group mulled over the proposed course of action and someone raised, ¡°Why don¡¯t we move as a group? Danger increases if we split up!¡±

    Splitting up at this stage was to be highly shunned! What if they ran into arge amount of concealed ck Armors? They didn¡¯t understand why Hao Lianchuan would suggest this idea, but the Srs of the various factions didn¡¯t raise any objections.

    Collective action? It was time to divvy war spoils at this point in the exploration. Whoever eliminated the ck Armor owned that treasure¡ªthat was one point. The second was that if they all moved together, how would they take care of private business? For instance, the Night Watchers had thergest surviving delegation at the moment. Was it right to allow all of them to walk around in fine health?

    The Revolution King was most incensed out of them all. He wanted nothing more than to go their separate ways! With most of the ck Armors being taken care of, the Srs could easily eliminate the remaining portion. It was fine if more died given the current circumstances.

    This was human nature!

    They were all enemies to begin with. Any talk of cooperation was a joke. As for the inner city... the harvest of ck Armors was bountiful enough even if they didn¡¯t venture into the inner city. So when Hao Lianchuan mentioned spreading out, none of the Srs dissented.

    ¡°It¡¯s only ck Armors inside the city now,¡± the Revolution King said faintly. ¡°They don¡¯t pose much of a threat. We Srs can take a look at the inner city gates and prevent the Silver Armor from appearing again...¡±

    In other words, stir up a storm of blood and gore in the outer city because the Srs will be far away from the scene! Kill ck Amors as well as other people. Such was the true nature of excavating ruins. Not only were these trips a chance to glean the riches of the ruins, but so were they an opportunity to harvest the fortunes of other supernaturals.

    This inly wasn¡¯t an unprecedented urrence as none of the supernaturals or martial masters in the crowd reacted with surprise.

    ¡°We should cooperate and work together. Only that leads to mutual gain!¡± Hao Lianchuan called out. ¡°We should eliminate the ck Armors first and then convene at the inner city gates. Whoever removes a ck Armor inside the city will own that suit of armor. Even if it¡¯s offered upwards, we will count whoever offers it!¡±

    The crowd remained silent. This was the true nature of the supernatural world and a continuation of the Silver Moon martial world. <i>It¡¯s up to you guys, we Srs will be far away. Make your way swiftly to the city gates if you¡¯re afraid of dying. If not, fight it out inside the city!</i>

    Indeed, they were still giving people an out. There was the option of reconvening with the Srs at the city gates. That saved face and ced one out of danger since people wouldn¡¯t start anything in front of the gates.

    Violet Moon was the first to leave. ¡°We¡¯re going,¡± she said coldly. ¡°Be quick about it and be careful of more powerhouses inside the city. We leave the outer city to you guys!¡±

    The Srs rapidly set out. Hu Dingfang wanted to bring Li Hao along and waved at the young man. That wasn¡¯t out of the ordinary since Hong Yitang also took his daughter with him. Li Hao, however, shook his head with a simple and honest expression. He looked at Liu Long and Liu Yan, as if saying that he wanted to follow the captain!

    Hu Dingfang frowned slightly.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Hao Lianchuan transmitted. ¡°Let¡¯s go. Red Moon has standing orders not to kill him and the others won¡¯t brashly do anything either. Not to mention, he¡¯s on good terms with the Sword Sect. There aren¡¯t that many who would really act against him and Liu Long is a Dominator. There won¡¯t be much of an issue!¡±

    Although hesitant, Hu Dingfang didn¡¯t say anything and left withrge strides. Li Hao was actually the one who wanted to say something. Celestial and the Sword Sect had concealed Srs among the crowd. Did they want to take those two with them? He wanted to let Hao Lianchuan know, but gave up the idea after some thought. It might not be a good idea if these two left. There might be unexpected gains if they didn¡¯t.

    After the Srs left, the remaining Sunres and Darkmoon looked at each other in silence. The Red Moon delegation promptly disappeared without further word because many people were silently sizing them up.

    Apparently, Red Moon had some sort of intangible scarlet shadow? Did these guys have any?

    Some looked at Li Hao¡ªwas Li Hao able to extract them? It was said that origin weapons were required for the process... That was fine. The key thing was, did Li Hao know how to use the shadows to break through to Summoner of Spirit?

 Chapter 249: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (II)

    <h4>Chapter 249: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (II)</h4>

    Ate Sunre was in charge of the Sword Sect delegation. He seemed young and nced at Li Hao with a smile. ¡°We of the Silver Moon martial world are all one family. If you need anything, Li Hao,e to the Sword Sect!¡±

    He waved his hand and left with his people. Li Hao grinned, sending them off with a smile. The other factions left as well. When the za was empty, the metal supernatural Director Zhou cautioned in a low voice, ¡°Everyone stay on your guard. None of our supernaturals entered the second passageway, so we don¡¯t enjoy their kind of cover!¡± He took a look around. ¡°We came with seven Sunres this time...¡±

    There was also Wang Ming and Liu Long who counted as Sunres, but the director didn¡¯t include them.

    ¡°We can split into two groups¡ªwe be too big of a target if we stay together. Director Hao was very clear when he left. We need to try to eliminate as many powerhouses of the three great organizations as we can!

    ¡°I¡¯ll lead one group, Ole He will lead the other!¡±

    He and Director He were both deputy directors and peak Sunres. Director Zhou was a metal supernatural while Director He was a water supernatural. The remaining five Sunres were divided among the two groups. Director Zhou took three, leaving two that Li Hao was familiar with¡ªwind supernatural Huang Yun and earth supernatural Zhao Huan. inly, Director Zhou was taking Wang Ming and Liu Long¡¯s strength into ount because those two were both assigned to the second group. This made for a roughly equal distribution of power.

    Being a water supernatural, Zhang Ting was also assigned to Director He.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know if Director Zhou had identally put him and Zhang Ting in the same group, or if Hao Lianchuan had left instructions to do so. In any case, the young man didn¡¯t care. He didn¡¯t have as much of an urge to kill the woman at present as he was yet to absorb the one hundred fifty cubes of water energy. Not to mention, they were running low on ck Armors. How was he supposed to kill a mid Sr under such circumstances?

    <i>Hao Lianchuan wants to kill her via a borrowed knife, but I¡¯m such a weak knife that there¡¯s no hope of me doing so. There might have been a chance before, but it¡¯s too difficult now. I¡¯m not going to take that risk.</i>

    The Night Watcher top brass was taking particr care of Li Hao to assign the people he was familiar with to the same group.

    Director He didn¡¯t say anything and swiftly brought his team into the streets. ¡°This is a chance for everyone to temper themselves,¡± he talked as they kept a fast pace. ¡°The variousrger organizations often employ this method to show the world to their weaker members and familiarize them with the sight of blood! Kill anyone of the three great organizations youe across. There¡¯s no need for any other considerations.¡±

    ¡°What if we run into the Sword Sect?¡± someone asked in a low voice.

    ¡°The Sword Sect... Do not antagonize them if they do not provoke us. The Sword Sect is a local organization and we asionally partner with them. The three greats are officially recognized as evil organizations, so just kill them if you see them!¡±

    The factions had been cooperating just fine moments ago and turned on each other without further ado. This was a regr urrence and illustrated the difference between the government and bandits. They treated each other with terms of endearment when necessary; they were enemies when they had no use for each other.

    Li Hao looked around without a word. Although these people had passed through the second passageway and obscured the ripples of mysterious power, their supernatural abilities remained. So at the moment he was... quite appreciative of how well they could hide without their power giving their presence away!

    There was a supernatural hidden beneath the eaves of an ancient house they¡¯d just passed by, but peak Sunre Director He didn¡¯t notice the person. One had to say, supernaturals who passed through the ancient house had gained a great deal for their hardship. They held overwhelming advantages in a ce like this.

    Unfortunately for them, these big light bulbs were particrly conspicuous in the darkness. Li Hao could also discern the supernatural situation of the street over¡ªthose further away were harder to catch sight of, but this was enough. His street and the ones on either side meant that he could see theyout of supernaturals on three streets. The only ones he needed to be on guard against were martial masters.

    The young man looked around curiously, observing each supernatural. It was possibly due to therge Night Watcher delegation that these supernaturals didn¡¯t attack. They¡¯d be courting death if they did so. Having multiple Sunres in his group meant that the Night Watchers really were unconcerned with run-of-the-mill raids. This was why Director He dared walk on the streets so tantly.

    Li Hao found it quite a pity. If he was working alone with Liu Long and Liu Yan, those guys beneath the eaves would already be dead and they¡¯d be pocketing mysterious power. Sadly, he wasn¡¯t at liberty to give pointers with others present.

    While Director He didn¡¯t discover anything, the mid Sr might have sensed a hint or two. She swept a nce in the relevant direction¡ªjust a quick nce. She didn¡¯t say anything or seem inclined to give a reminder.

    Seeing that Li Hao was looking around, Zhang Ting took the advantage to strike up a conversation. ¡°Li Hao, are you guys familiar with the cityyout after your earlier visit?¡±

    ¡°More or less!¡± The young man grinned. ¡°This is the sixth street. Each street is roughly fifteen hundred meters long with small alleyways on both sides that lead to the other streets. There were ck Armors patrolling them before¡ªthere may not be any now. The soldiers might be in hiding...¡±

    A piercing shriek rang out ahead of them! Li Hao and the rest quickly looked to its source, their expressions shifting with dismay when they saw a sight they¡¯d never witnessed before. An ancient house had its front door open, making room for a Bronze Armor to kill the supernatural hidden outside with one sword stroke. Missionplete, it closed the door and vanished!

    Shock rippled through the Night Watcher delegation. How was this possible??

    ¡°A Bronze Armor has appeared inside a house and suddenly killed someone!¡± yelled Director He. He had to ignore the fact that they needed to keep quiet as this was a major development! It was unprecedented and needed to be carefully considered. It was fine if others died, but the other Night Watcher team might not know about this turn of events. He had to notify them as soon as possible even if it meant enlightening the entire expedition!

    Disturbances erupted on various streets as soon as his words echoed. There were soldiers inside the ancient houses!

    ......

    <i>The first street, outside the inner city gates.</i>

    The gates were tightly shut and the Srs deep in discussion when they heard Director He¡¯s roar. Eyes widening, the group looked at each other.

    ¡°How is that possible?!¡± A solemn Hao Lianchuan looked back with a frown. ¡°This has never happened before! Can only Bronze Armors enter the houses, or can ck Armors as well? These are thorny circumstances!¡±

    The remaining three hundred ck Armors weren¡¯t by the city gates. A few could be glimpsed on the city walls, but there wasn¡¯t a single one outside the city gates. Had this be guerri warfare?

    Violet Moon and the others looked around, then settled on Hao Lianchuan. ¡°Have Srs ever entered the ancient houses?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± The man shook his head. ¡°Sunres have gone inside before, but nevere back out!¡±

    The group frowned. This really was troublesome. Their previous thoughts had been that the soldiers would be easy to eliminate since they wandered down the streets. But now...

    ¡°ck Armors cannot enter the houses!¡± Another roar rang out as they thought. ¡°Only the Bronze Armors can!¡±

    Thetest revtion brought some ease. Thank goodness! It looked like the Bronze Armors had higher authorizations than the ck Armors. That made sense, as Bronze Armors were part of themand rank as centurions. ck Armors were just regr soldiers¡ªtheir clearance levels should be different.

    ¡°There¡¯s only five Bronze Armors... There shouldn¡¯t be much of an issue if the delegations stay on guard.¡± The group turned back to the city gates with peace of mind.

    The enormous city gates were crafted of ancient bronze; they towered at nearly one hundred meters in height. Since flight was impossible, they could only try opening the city gates.

    The Revolution King coalesced a de of wind without further word and shot it at the gates. The de exploded upon collision, but the gates remained unmarked. These results meant that even a peak Sr such as him was at a loss for what to do.

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan, we can¡¯t fly or force it open... Are you sure these gates open?¡±

    ¡°There was hope...¡± Hao Lianchuan sighed. ¡°I invited Yuan Shuo on the expedition so that he would think of a way to open the gates. But thanks to you guys, he was sent packing before he entered the ruins. Otherwise, I think he stood a high chance of seeding given his knowledge.¡±

    The group fell silent. <i>Was it us who didn¡¯t let him in? He was the one who insisted on fighting Sun Yifei, killed the man, ughtered so many Red Moon members, as well as exposed Summoner of Spirit. What could we have done about that?</i>

    The group started studying the gates, keeping an eye out for the Silver Armor at the same time. Or rather, they wanted to lure it out because they guessed that this officer might carry some important items. A key, for instance. Could the gates be opened by a key?

    ording to custom, the key to the city gates should be held by the leader of the city defenders¡ªsuch as his sword. It looked to be a perfect fit for one of the cracks in the gates!

    Sadly, the guy was no longer in the field. The group, however, did seem to catch silver sh by on the city walls. Perhaps the Silver Armor wouldn¡¯t be able to help itself after all of the ck Armors were eliminated and the Bronze Armors disposed of.

    ......

    <i>Bam!</i>

    In the outer city, Li Hao and a few others sent a ck Armor packing. They alternated between punches and wind energy to efficiently keep a ck Armor in the air for a minute. It gradually ceased to struggle.

    This was their third ck Armor. The group hadn¡¯t met many supernaturals thus far, but rather ran into ck Armors. These soldiers did not seem to be conscious and could not hide in the ancient houses like the Bronze Armors, so their fate was to fall to the expedition.

    Up ahead, Director He and some colleagues easily disposed of two more ck Armors. The team had almost swept the street clean. Other than needing to be careful of Bronze Armors appearing on the sides, targeting the ck Armors was a walk in the park.

    Sounds of fighting came from the other streets as well, with some unlucky souls being killed instead of eliminating the ck Armors. There were still three hundred left and some spots saw more soldiers gathered. Dying to them instead was usible if one was unfortunate enough.

    Director He walked over and threw down some suits of armor. This Night Watcher team had collected ten¡ªquite a bulky burden. The director hesitated. These weren¡¯t convenient to travel with, but someone else could im them if they were left here. It wasn¡¯t as if any of the armor wasbeled with names.

    Each organization had left two or three people outside the za to watch over their gains.

    ¡°Liu Long.¡± Director He scanned the group. ¡°You, Wang Ming, Li Hao, and Liu Yan will take this armor back. Ah, forget it, Wang Ming stays behind. Your supernatural ripples are too noticeable and will affect the martial masters instead. Go quick and return swiftly!¡±

    Li Hao found themand odd. <i>Just us three? I thought you would send Zhang Ting with us too. I guess not, looks like Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t leave further instructions.</i>

    It was normal to send martial masters on a courier mission since theycked noticeable ripples of power. But ten sets were too easily seen and provided a huge target. Unless those in the city were blind, they¡¯d see the threeing from a mile away. Who cared about supernatural ripples then?

    <i>Director He... isn¡¯t trying to cause our deaths, is he?</i> Li Hao wasn¡¯t to be med for the sudden thought as even Liu Long was only officially registered as a peak Sunderer. Three Sunderers escorting ten sets of armor back would absolutely draw unwanted attention if anyone saw them.

 Chapter 250: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (III)

    <h4>Chapter 250: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (III)</h4>

    ¡°Director He, isn¡¯t this too dangerous?¡± Huang Yun raised before Li Hao could respond. ¡°There¡¯s too many sets of armor, which will make them a bigger target. While they¡¯re martial masters, they¡¯re not that strong...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, we swept the area they¡¯ll go through. Even if peoplee from other streets, we can quickly double back to reinforce them.¡± Director He looked at the street ahead. ¡°We need to wrap up cleaning this street and also stay on guard against the Bronze Armors. Liu Long is a veteran martial master. You can leave the armor behind in a critical moment. That¡¯s eptable, and it¡¯ll make it easier for you to flee!¡±

    The director shook his head when Huang Yun wanted to speak further. ¡°Say no more, there¡¯s danger everywhere. We can¡¯t absolve ourselves from all risks since we decided to enter the ruins...¡±

    Huang Yun had to shut his mouth. It was true, transporting their loot back would be safer than staying with the team.

    Liu Long frowned slightly, but quickly nodded. ¡°Understood!¡± He grabbed a couple suits. A quiet Li Hao and Liu Yan did the same, each of them dragging several suits of armor and hoisting them up. They turned back in the direction they came from; it only took a small section of walking before darkness swallowed the rest of their team.

    Liu Long frowned and muttered, ¡°What does Director He mean by this?¡±

    Although running transport wasn¡¯t a difficult mission, sending them off on their own smelled a bit like sending them to their deaths...

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind their task. He looked around them, then behind them, before curling his lip.

    ¡°Chief, isn¡¯t this your favorite tactic?¡± he whispered. ¡°Bait! He probably thinks that martial masters have thick skin and strong muscles¡ªwe won¡¯t be swallowed in one gulp. The rest of the team is following us!¡±

    Liu Long understood, but he still couldn¡¯t help but curse lowly, ¡°I wondered why he suddenly wanted to send us back! He didn¡¯t need to be so obvious about it if he wanted to send us to our deaths. But this bastard didn¡¯t even give us a head¡¯s up!¡±

    He didn¡¯t mind that much about not receiving a head¡¯s up. The crux of the issue was that he wouldn¡¯t know about their followers if Li Hao hadn¡¯t sensed them. They were inly outside his range of awareness!

    ¡°It¡¯s not my first time.¡± The young man didn¡¯t care. ¡°Didn¡¯t chief say the same thing when I joined the Demon Hunters? I was bait.¡±

    ¡°I, at least, asked you about it!¡± Liu Long was still highly dissatisfied.<i> It¡¯s not like I arranged you to be bait without letting you know about it. You were willing, so what are you talking about now?</i>

    ¡°Then let¡¯s pretend they don¡¯t exist,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Chief, why don¡¯t the three of us go off on our own? I¡¯ve found a lot more fools hiding in the shadows. We should creep up on them and see if we can take a few out and collect some mysterious power, y¡¯know.¡±

    There were no Srs in the outer city streets and they weren¡¯t afraid of ck Armors appearing. They could afford to be bolder than before. As for those following them... the trio could just leave them behind. It was easy for martial masters to shake off pursuit when they wanted to. Li Hao also wanted to use the opportunity to fight a few more times and absorb mysterious power. Perhaps he¡¯d be able to advance to Dominator.

    ¡°Then, what do we do about these?¡± Liu Long looked at the sets of armor he carried.

    ¡°Just leave them here. The others will collect the armor when theye along!¡±

    ¡°You...¡± Liu Long was at a loss for words. He was more often than not a stickler for the rules, so he still wanted toplete their task. The ck Armors were invaluable, yet the young man wanted to dump them by the side of the street!

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, chief, we won¡¯t lose them!¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°We can take them back first if you¡¯re really that worried about it. The za¡¯s not far.¡±

    ¡°We should take them back,¡± said Liu Long after thinking it over. ¡°We can lose our escorts after we do and strike out on our own.¡±

    Although Li Hao felt it was a waste of time, he respected Liu Long¡¯s preferences. The trio continued dragging the sets of armor back to the za.

    While they presented a sizable target, perhaps it was therge amount of ck Armors that prevented the two supernaturals hidden along the way from attacking. Though Li Hao noticed their position, he didn¡¯t take pains to run into them. Since he could see them, he could naturally avoid them.

    After they returned to the za and offloaded the ck Armors to the Night Watchers on duty there, Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan entered the darkness once more. This time, they made sure to lose Director He and the rest of the team. It was too inconvenient to be tied to the rest.

    ......

    <i>The seventh street.</i>

    Three figures skulked in and out of the shadows. Li Hao struck with his sword¡ªa supernatural crouched beneath an eave swiftly responded and summoned a wooden spike with a wave of his hand. He was about to follow up with more, but Liu Long suddenly appeared from behind with a massive punch!

    The blow shattered the supernatural¡¯s wooden spike. Li Hao¡¯s longsword erupted with iparably keen sword light¡ªthe Earthturner Sword was truly different from the rest. It sank into the target and executed the man without further struggle.

    ¡°A wood supernatural, not bad!¡± Li Hao exhaled. ¡°Another Yama member... Are we fated to go against Yama today or what? They don¡¯t have that many people left by now, do they?¡±

    He sat down cross-legged and started absorbing mysterious power. The young man took in whatever energy he could get his hands on. The imbnce with water was greatly rectified after one hundred and fifty cubes from earlier.

    Altogether, he¡¯d gained more than five hundred cubes of mysterious power since entering the ruins. Li Hao absorbed energy whenever he had a chance.

    Vague sounds of conflict could be heard around them. The young man scanned the surroundings as he digested theirtest gains and whispered, ¡°Chief, there¡¯s a supernatural hidden beneath the tattered table in the ninth house ahead of us...¡±

    Liu Long was used to these statements at this point! Supernaturals possessed poor vision in this environment and to be honest, martial masters weren¡¯t that much better off. Li Hao, on the other hand, was an enormous exception. He could pinpoint supernaturals from several hundred meters out. Their targets only had their bad luck to me with the young man around, and hisrades were willing to kill whoever wasn¡¯t a Night Watcher or from the Sword Sect!

    Liu Long vanished on the spot while Li Hao continued absorbing mysterious power. It felt so good to feast like this! He really did sense that he was about to enter Dominator of Thousands soon. He continuously explored the aura of earth and even connected to the ground here to perceive its unique ripples. He was also constantly strengthening the aura of the sword, but it seemed that a final spark was still missing when it came to melding the two together.

    <i>How am I supposed to fuse the auras of sword and earth together? </i>Li Hao sank into deep thought. <i>Heaven and earth... Does the sword create heaven and earth?</i>

    Using the sword to hew heaven and earth into being, just as the powerhouse he¡¯d seen had done. That one broke through the vault of heaven with one stroke. In fact, it rather seemed that he created the universe from the move.

    But if he imitated the same idea, would his aura of the sword shatter the aura of the earth?

    Li Hao hesitated. In that case, his ear aura would vanish. It didn¡¯t seem a bad idea to focus only on the sword. Focusing on just one would be more ideal for a swordsman, but Li Hao wished more that he could both attack and defend. He didn¡¯t just want to have strong offensive power and have a dire shortage of defensive ability.

    The young man was rather conflicted. He wanted to give it a try, but the loss would be too great if his aura of the earth was destroyed after the attempt. At the same time, stagnating at Sunderer of Hundreds wasn¡¯t the oue he wanted either.

    Sunres abounded in thend these days and Srs could be found in all ces as well. There might be even stronger Novasing from the central region soon. A Sunderer was too piss-poor useless in this regard. He had to sneak around to kill people.

    ¡°Martial masters should forge bravely forward without doubt! Iughed at the chief¡¯s hesitation when he broke through to Dominator and teacher also said hecked courage. Now that it¡¯s my turn, I totally get how that¡¯s easier said than done!¡± Li Haoughed at himself. It was so easy for him to run his mouth back then and self-righteously dere that the chief was a wuss. The man hemmed and hawed and dragged his feet! Yet when it came to Li Hao¡¯s turn, he found out that it was truly a difficult decision to make. The repercussions would be enormous indeed if anything went wrong.

    ¡°If I do end up destroying my earth aura... That¡¯s fine. I¡¯ll just break through with my sword aura if ites down to that. If I can reach the heights of the swordsman that I saw, just one aura will permit me to conquer the world!¡±

    Li Hao made up his mind. He would give it a try! If he failed, he would ascend to Dominator with just one aura. He wouldn¡¯t be weaker than the chief, in any case. In fact, Li Hao felt that he would only be stronger as his sword aura came from an extraordinary source.

    Having made up his mind and absorbed arge amount of wood energy, Li Hao rose to his feet. He didn¡¯t have to wait long before Liu Long came back, holding a bone dripping with blood.

    ¡°Do those Red Moon guys have any blood pearls on them?¡± The captain bared a bloodthirsty grin.

    ¡°We¡¯re in no rush and to be honest, we shouldn¡¯t extract any right now. Violet Moon might discover that something¡¯s wrong.¡± Li Hao wasn¡¯t nning on extracting any that they found, not unless Violet Moon was already dead. She was sure to guess something once she found something amiss. That was too much of a hassle.

    ¡°Chief, I want to pick a fight with a Sunre.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Will you stand as lookout for me?¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡±

    ¡°I want to break through!¡± Li Hao murmured. ¡°I want to fight one-on-one with a Sunre, just like I did with Sun Moxian. I¡¯ll be able to incorporate my internal force with the aura during the fight and deploy my consciousness. I¡¯m not like you, chief, or like my teacher. Both of you are veteran martial masters with years of experience. I¡¯m too young¡ªif I don¡¯t use this method and just try to ascend by myself, I¡¯ll probably fail!¡±

    Everyone was different. Liu Long had benefited from years of umtion, whereas Li Hao was too young. He didn¡¯t have much hope of advancing in his current state.

    ¡°I think I need to borrow the momentum of killing a Sunre,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°I¡¯ll be able to set a foot forward when I¡¯m in an invincible state!¡±

    ¡°Sunres aren¡¯t weak,¡± Liu Long responded after a while. ¡°You being a Sunderer...¡±

    ¡°I am of the Five Styles!¡± Li Hao beamed. ¡°I know the Nine Forged Force and the Ghost Shadow Sword! I killed Sun Moxian before this¡ªhe was about to break through! To be honest, that fight had a great impact on me. I think I¡¯m heading toward a transformation that will truly make me an invincible martial master!¡±

    ¡°Very well.¡± Liu Long took a deep breath. ¡°But I rmend seeking out an earth, water, or wood supernatural...¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll go with whoever I can find! Initial Sunre will do, it doesn''t matter who!¡± Li Hao looked around to see if there were Sunres working alone or with a few Darkmoons. There didn¡¯t seem to be any on this street; there were a few balls of light a thousand meters ahead. However, that was too far for him to bother with the trip. He nced at the street beside them. ¡°There seems to be a Sunre there, I don¡¯t know who. We¡¯ll forget it if they¡¯re part of the Sword Sect, but kill whoever they are if they¡¯re from another faction!¡±

    The Sword Sect had given him a sword, after all. Li Hao kept that firmly fixed in mind. Liu Long didn¡¯t say anything while Liu Yan didn¡¯t have an opinion either. They quickly headed for the next street over.

 Chapter 251: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 251: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (IV)</h4>

    ck Armors fought supernaturals through the entire outer city, as did some supernaturals fight each other. People crouched in waiting outside the ancient houses, lying in wait for the Bronze Armors to present themselves. There were also those hiding in the shadows and trying to determine if there was an opportunity to pick up scraps.

    <i>The eighth street.</i>

    A figure in ck hid between two walls in a small alley, propping itself up in the air with its legs. It silently waited for prey to present itself. Darkness wrapped around the figure. Having braved the second passageway, its supernatural ripples were obscured and further concealed it in the gloom.

    He was a dark supernatural of the Sunre level and thus held an exceptional advantage when ced in this city. If it wasn¡¯t for his supernatural ripples, he would be asfortable as a fish in water in these surroundings. Sadly, the telltale signs of his power were enormously troublesome and prevented him from drawing too close to his opponents.

    But ever since entering the second passageway and having his power obscured, he realized that this was a yground for dark supernaturals! As a Celestial member, he bore his own mission. It was simple¡ªkill as many people as possible.

    Whether it was the Night Watchers, the other two organizations, the Sword Sect, or independent supernaturals... he was to kill whoever he came across.

    Celestial¡¯s goals had always been strange and their style eerie. They were more like assassins, sometimes killing anyone of any kind and sometimes helping the very same. If it wasn¡¯t for how formidable the organization was, one as inconstant as they were would¡¯ve been jointly eliminated by others a long time ago.

    Naturally, Celestial possessed its unique strengths if it could survive to present day. They recruitedrge sums of dark attributed supernaturals, iming eighty percent of all dark supernaturals as their members. That further added ayer of mystery to the organization.

    They kept a very low profile, but were deemed sinister all the same. Randomly killing others without a clear motive was one of the reasons why. Therefore, not only did the Night Watchersbel them as a terrorist organization, but so did Red Moon and Yama exclude their brethren from the list of people they could work with.

    In the supernatural domain, they were more frequently regarded as an independent organization of assassins.

    Just as the figure reviewed his mission, his ears twitched¡ªsomeone was here. A person had slipped into the other end of the alley amid the darkness.

    <i>A mark¡¯s here! </i>The Celestial member rejoiced. The other¡¯s face gradually came into view, bing visible enough for the Celestial member to also catch a glimpse. He furrowed his brow. <i>Li Hao?</i>

    A Sunderer!

    That wasn¡¯t the key, but the young man¡¯s identity as one of the heirs to the eight families. Celestial¡¯s standing orders were to avoid killing Li Hao if possible and to get any information they could out of the young man. The best case scenario was if they could capture him alive.

    As the man pondered whether to let Li Hao go since it wasn¡¯t ideal circumstances to take a captive... The young man approached from the other end of the alley.

    ¡°You seem to be a Celestial powerhouse,¡± Li Hao suddenly said when he was ten meters away. ¡°Is it not tiring to climb these walls? It¡¯s very dangerous if you go too high. Why don¡¯t youe down and show me the might of a Sunre?¡±

    He hoped for directbat with the Sunre. His opponent might not be able to respond in time if he ambushed the man.

    The Celestial powerhouse jerked with surprise and immediatelynded on the ground. He turned to leave. Celestial members preferred operating in the dark. It was time to retreat if they were found out. He was decisive even when the target was just a Sunderer. Directbat was not the Celestial way.

    Sword aura erupted behind him as he set out to leave!

    ¡°Did you ask to be excused before trying to leave?¡±

    ¡°You court death!¡± The Celestial Sunre twitched with anger upon finding that a Sunderer dared attack him. Although Li Hao had killed Sun Moxian, a Sunderer was a Sunderer in the end. The young man was no Dominator!

    The Celestial powerhouse whirled back around with a small sword in his hand. He stabbed it at Li Hao¡¯s throat. Fast, urate, vicious, and covert! Such were the characteristics of an assassin with the dark attribute.

    <i>ng!</i>

    A clear collision rang out as Li Hao brought his sword up to check the blow. He raised an eyebrow as he was forced back a few steps. Sunres were indeed much stronger than Darkmoons. This was his first time fighting a Sunre by himself. Liu Long or his teacher had been involved on prior asions and he was just a helper.

    Li Hao swung his sword without a word, deploying the aura of the sword! At the same time, a mighty surge of earth aura manifested with a stomp of his foot.

    ¡°Eh?¡± The Celestial powerhouse started. What was going on? He seemed to see the earth rise and fall¡ªwas this what they called the aura? But... he knew that Li Haomanded an aura of the sword. <i>¡°Two</i> auras?¡±

    He suddenly grasped the situation. Yuan Shuo was known for fusing five auras together; his disciple had alsoprehended two auras! No wonder the kid dared attack him. ¡°Heh, I¡¯m not staying around to y with you. You are a genius indeed, what a pity...¡±

    <i>Humm!</i>

    A sword reverberated in the air as Li Hao stabbed it forward without a word, preventing the other from leaving. ¡°Someone must die when martial masters fight. You won¡¯t be leaving unless you die!¡±

    The two exchanged blows once more. A small sword darted in and out of the shadows. Li Hao tilted his head to the side, evading an attack, then turned for a kick. A Sunre and a Sunderer grappled with each other in the tiny alley!

    The Sunre prepared to stay¡ªor maybe he no longer had a choice in that matter. Li Hao seemed to want to test himself in singlebat. In that case, he would kill Li Hao first because he sensed more people outside the alley.

    The Celestial powerhouse abruptly understood everything. The one waiting possibly wanted to use him as a stepping stone for the young man. <i>How dare you! I¡¯ll have you taste regret when I¡¯m done with Li Hao!</i>

    A sword pierce. A soundless killing. Li Hao¡¯s sword aura shifted without noise¡ªthe Ghost Shadow Sword.

    Two swords shed against each other. The young man¡¯s sharpness knew no bounds when he drew upon his recollection of that stroke that severed the heavens. While heprehended only a fraction of what that blow entailed, every move that he deployed as a result was sufficient to raise the hairs on the back of his opponent¡¯s neck.

    Meanwhile, the Celestial powerhouse¡¯s sword was uncanny beyond belief. It struck from inconceivable angles and almost stabbed Li Hao a few times.

    The two exchanged blows in a rapid frenzy and continuously changed positions. One de sank into the target¡¯s body¡ªLi Hao was the first to be injured. The sword stabbed so deep that bone could be seen.

    He didn¡¯t care and punched with his other hand, as if a vicious tiger swiping its paw. His right hand gripped the sword and his left hand waved a fist, forcing the other back so he had space to sh his sword forward again!

    The Ghost Shadow Sword was formless and intangible; Li Hao shed a dozen times in quick session and exhaled a breath of sword qi! It pierced through the Celestial member¡¯s shoulder with a soft puncture!

    ¡°Oof!¡± A muffled grunt came back on the wind. The Celestial Sunre was shocked; it wasn¡¯t that he¡¯d never seen Sunderers before, but those who could stand toe-to-toe with Sunres were few and far in between. Or rather, he only knew of a few veteran martial masters who''d grasped the aura for many years that could aplish the deed.

    Li Hao was too young!

    The young man didn¡¯t care¡ªall he thought about right now was how to kill his opponent. He might be able to break through after that! If not, then he would have to try breaking through heaven and earth with his sword.

    The Sunre was target practice to see if he could meld his auras. After a series of probing maneuvers, Li Hao suddenly found it regretful. This guy wasn¡¯t that strong. Indeed, he might be able to win the battle if they kept fighting like this. He didn¡¯t need to advance to the next cultivation level.

    So this was all that initial Sunre was good for! Li Hao didn¡¯t find himself any weaker, not when he was equipped with two auras.

    <i>Can this guy even force me to use the sword aura to break the earth aura?</i> The young man frowned. If his opponent¡¯s caliber was too low, it would not lead to good results if he forcefully used the auras on his own.

    The dark supernatural seemed to fly into equal parts rage and urgency after his shoulder was pierced through. His thoughts of easily killing Li Hao were no more. He¡¯d wanted to save some strength for those toe, but the young man was more difficult to resolve than previously imagined!

    ¡°You have a death wish!¡± he snorted and flooded the surroundings with the power of darkness. Both the supernatural and Li Hao were pulled into a ball of dark light. Soundless and formless, not even Liu Long waiting outside sensed anything amiss.

    Li Hao, however, did. He was enveloped by the gloom and caught in a swamp of darkness. It felt like cotton filled his surroundings and deadened his senses. The next sword stroke that arrived shot straight at his throat. The young man¡¯s reaction was slower than before. He brought his sword up to check the blow, but was just slow enough that his opponent waved it aside. The thin sword once more aimed at his throat.

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened with surprise and joy. <i>And here I was, thinking he¡¯s a bit weak. So this is why¡ªhe was pulling his punches!</i>

    Internal force roiled within the young man¡¯s body as the enemy attacked him once more. The aura of the earth appeared and a faint sliver of consciousness manifested near his throat. It blocked the small sword with a ng, but a tiny bloody mark formed on Li Hao¡¯s throat.

    This was what he wanted!

    Li Hao was delighted. This was the kind of opponent he hoped to meet, one that could threaten his life!

    The dark supernatural grew more rmed as the fight rmenced. He no longer held anything back, but he still couldn¡¯t defeat Li Hao. The boy was growing fiercer the more they battled!

    The two were snarled in the murk. Bloody marks appeared on Li Hao¡¯s body, but each one excited him further and he continuously tried to meld the two auras together. Although he was unpracticed, he tasted some sess when he asionally attacked and defended in the same breath.

    The battle formation of ck Armors appeared in his mind¡¯s eye. The shields focused on defense and gave way for spears and swords to jab outward. That was also a type of coordination between attack and defense, and it was very strong! A group of ck Armors had withstood a crowd of Srs. If it hadn¡¯t been for enemies to their rear as well, the expedition team wouldn¡¯t have so easily defeated the soldiers.

    <i>The moment defense vanishes is when I attack! Attacking is a type of defense too, killing the enemy is naturally defending myself.</i> Li Hao sensed the coordination and fusion between the two auras ording to his ownprehension. Did the sword have to break through heaven and earth?

    Not necessarily! Had the swords and spears smashed the shields? No! Coordination wasn¡¯t necessarily at the cost of one or the other.

    Li Hao suddenly had a deeper understanding of the two auras. The aura of the earth vanished, instantly reced by an upwelling of the sword. The Earthturner Sword shed forward and left a trace on the Celestial powerhouse¡¯s body. The dark supernatural¡¯s heart spasmed with surprise.

    Li Hao was growing stronger!

    Meanwhile, the young man exulted in this coordination of his auras.

 Chapter 252: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (V)

    <h4>Chapter 252: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (V)</h4>

    <i>The aura of the earth contains the aura of the sword, and the aura of the sword contains the aura of the earth. ...Earth encloses sword?</i>

    Li Hao coined a new term and turned his thoughts to earth supernaturals. Some of them utilized spikes of wood and asionally embedded sharp rocks in the spikes to stab the enemy to death! His earth aura abruptly shifted and a sword seemed to grow from the ground. On strict defense up to this point, Li Hao abruptly struck with the sword!

    It cut into his opponent, causing the dark supernatural¡¯s heart to jolt with fear. The urge to run gripped him. Was this kid about to ascend to Dominator of Thousands? The man wanted to flee! His body shifted as he prepared to escape, but a vigorous aura of the earth swelled around him. There seemed to be numerous intangible walls within his vicinity!

    Li Hao stepped forward and shed at his target. Spikes jutted out of the formless walls at the same time, all aimed at the Celestial Sunre!

    The man shouted with fury upon seeing that he couldn¡¯t get away. He jabbed back in response, finding a perfect opening to pierce through. However, a wall seemed to appear over Li Hao¡¯s sword. The supernatural¡¯s sword slowed like it¡¯d sunk into a swamp; he found it impossible to advance further. It was then that Li Hao swung his sword in a reverse sweep and severed his opponent¡¯s arm!

    ¡°Ahhh!¡± A pained gasp broke out of the Celestial member. He stared incredulously at Li Hao, shocked that an earth aura had risen out of a sword aura. What was that??

    Li Hao, however, was overjoyed. Who cared what his opponent thought?? He swung again and again, his sword aura as unending as the force of the earth. It shot forth from all directions, leaving countless marks on the supernatural¡¯s body.

    Seeing his opponent wracked with pain and about to roar with fury, Li Hao abruptly changed the sword aura around his weapon. It was now exceedingly robust, as weighty as Mount Taiing down on his target! Hints of a keen de were intermixed with sturdy presence at the same time, forming a strength that could destroy all things!

    Thebination of earth and sword aura!

    The earth aura enhanced strength¡ªwho said that the earth was only good for defense? It could also attack! Li Hao¡¯s sword stroke was simr to the heavy earth attacks of earth supernaturals, but contained an indomitable power of destruction as well!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Rumbles rang out as sword light enveloped the shadow. At the end of the alley, Liu Long widened his eyes for a look when he heard the disturbance. There appeared to be a mountain bearing down in the sword light, one that was of des and fire!

    <i>Craaaaack!</i>

    The earth aura forced the Celestial Sunre to his knees in unbearable agony. Sword light shed by and sliced him into two! Despite killing his opponent, Li Hao did not stop. He waved his sword again and summoned the Sword of Mount Tai. He shed forward!

    Faint marks were inflicted onto the ground with arge <i>bam,</i> but they quickly began to repair. The young man took a step forward and sprinted for Liu Long, his earth and sword aura exploding in unison.

    The team captain frowned and sent a wave roiling in response. Wave and a stroke of Mount Tai collided with each other. Wave was extinguished and Mount Tai was decimated with a loud explosion. Their respective wielders grunted softly. Li Hao shed forward again¡ªLiu Long met him with a punch. The young man needed a little more of a push toplete his breakthrough, just as Yuan Shuo had once furthered the process when Liu Long progressed.

    He didn¡¯t mind giving Li Hao a hand, just that this hand was extended with great difficulty.<i> It was exceedingly easy for Yuan Shuo to hit me, but damn if it isn¡¯t painful for me to hit Li Hao...</i>

    The three auras shed again with a loud <i>bang!</i>

    Liu Long pushed off from the ground as he was forced backward. Irritated, he answered with a wave of the Nine Forged Force. He was going to churn the Sword of Mount Tai away, obliterate the mountain peak, and stamp out the sword qi in one fell swoop!

    Li Hao struck once more, unending and unbounded! How could waves ever destroy the earth?

    <i>Humm!</i>

    Various noises echoed in the alleyway as a wave of nineyers could not destroy Li Hao¡¯s sword technique. The wave weakened until the young man struck a dozen times in the blink of an eye!

    Liu Long firmly nted his feet into the ground as a massive collision rang out. This time, he stumbled back more than ten steps and didn¡¯t stop until he crashed into the buildings on the other side of the alley. He almost fell into an ancient house!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Shocked, he spat out a mouthful of blood. After shock came... a mental breakdown as he could not ept the oue. How was this possible?! Even if Li Hao had risen to Dominator, thed was just an initial Dominator! <i>I¡¯ve been one for a few days now and I¡¯m a veteran martial master. What of Li Hao??</i>

    Across the way, the young man came back to his senses. His expression shifted slightly when he saw Liu Long spit out blood and he bit through his tongue, coughing out blood himself.

    ¡°Chief... is... really... amazing...¡± he panted. ¡°I¡¯ve... suffered... internal damage... If I hadn¡¯t strengthened my five organs during this time... The Nine Forged Force... would¡¯ve shattered my organs... Chief... you... were too ruthless!¡±

    Liu Long looked skeptically at Li Hao. Was this real?

    ¡°Chief...¡± Liu Long garbled. ¡°Hurry and get me... out of here. The disturbance... was too great... others will have... sensed it.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± Liu Long suppressed his skepticism and swiftly offered his back to the young man. ¡°Are you hurt?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Have you broken through?¡±

    ¡°You can say that!¡±

    Breaking through to Dominator didn¡¯t result in argemotion. That was ever the case with martial masters. Their strength extended from inside out, so any changes were contained within the body. Supernatural ascension caused a significant ruckus as the breaking of locks and chains clinked and nked without end.

    Wang Ming advancing to Sunre, for instance, had been a noticeable event. Li Hao, Yuan Shuo, and Liu Long hadn¡¯t given off external signs when they set foot into Dominator. It was a spontaneous convergence of aura and consciousness.

    Liu Yan rushed over at this time. ¡°Li Hao, how could you hit the chief?!¡± she murmured.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t, it was because... the pressure to break through... wasn''t enough. I needed... chief¡¯s strength... to stimte the change... in my aura! Chief... was too strong... and hurt my organs! We need to... retreat!¡±

    Liu Long was beginning to feel embarrassed, but he was still skeptical. <i>Am I really too strong? The hell, I feel like I¡¯m the one who was injured, so howe your wounds are worse? Were you injured when you fought the other guy earlier?</i>

    ¡°You¡¯re very strong to meld two auras together... I hadn''t thought that you¡¯d seed so quickly. Li Hao, I feel that you... you might soon exceed me.¡±

    <i>Might?</i>

    Liu Long himself wasn¡¯t certain of that. He could only keep his doubts to himself. The kid was nothing good and might not tell him the truth if he asked.

    Li Hao smiled from his position on Liu Long¡¯s back. <i>Thank goodness I acted fast enough, or chief might die from anger right now. </i>He was reliving everything that had just happened. The Sword of Mount Tai was the name that he gave his move. It was as weighty as Mount Tai, but also iparably keen. He had a hunch that killing Sunres wouldn¡¯t be a difficulty with it in hand!

    Li Hao was beginning to feel a little too pleased with himself. He couldn¡¯t! He needed to remain grounded and keep a low profile!

    <i>Teacher could kill Srs as soon as he became a Dominator because he melded five aura together. I¡¯m nothingpared to him! It¡¯s hard for me to kill mid orte Sunres at this stage. When I¡¯mpared to teacher... forget it, I need to work harder!</i>

    Meanwhile, the captain who carried him did seem a bit weak. <i>A Dominator with just one aura... is a little too weak for words! Man, I have to keep in mind that I need to show face to the chief in the future. I can¡¯t be stronger than him in front of others, he might not be able to ept it.</i>

    Li Hao happily reminisced over events that¡¯d just taken ce. The most noticeable difference of bing a Dominator was being able to direct his aura ording to his will¡ªthis was the effect of mind intent!

    The aura and mind intent were the same concept. It was called the aura in the Sunderer stage, whereas Dominators liked to call it mind intent. As mind intent, it could be directed by one¡¯s thoughts.

    Prior to this, Li Hao had to stomp his foot whenever he activated the earth aura. It wasn¡¯t that he had a particr habit of doing so, but that stomping his foot made it easier to connect to the earth. He had to think back to the sword stroke of that day whenever he deployed his sword aura because simting that scene helped him ess his aura.

    All of that took time. Granted, it was a very short period of time and wouldn¡¯t normally dy anything. But if the enemy was familiar with his capabilities, they might interrupt him when he stomped his foot.

    After he advanced to Dominator, Li Hao found that he didn¡¯t need to undergo those preparatory motions. He could call upon his aura as soon as he thought about it, such was mind intent! Not only that, but the young man realized that he had many more reflections and discoveries to sort through.

    Various bottlenecks had been shattered after he progressed. There had been limits to the amount of internal force he could store before. Now that the upper limit was broken, his body started generating more force. He could even sense the locks within himself¡ªthe so-called supernatural locks. They sealed off a lot of his body. His consciousness continued to slowly transform. Li Hao closed his eyes to let the sensations wash over him.

    Liu Long avoided other supernaturals as he carried Li Hao on his back. He carefully walked around the streets. Some movement could be heard from where they¡¯d just battled¡ªmore fighting. It was most likely people struggling over the mysterious power left by the dark supernatural.

    Neither Liu Long nor Li Hao had taken any because they wanted to stall for time. As was demonstrated, no one could ignore several hundred cubes ced there for the taking. They wouldn¡¯t bother chasing their enemies for the moment.

    Who would forgo mysterious power waiting to be imed? Powerhouses that¡¯d rushed to the site were probably already ripping at each other for the spoils. Fights like these were a frequent sight on the streets of the outer city. Who knew how many would be alive to reconvene at the inner city gates?

    Liu Long trotted to the edge of the za, but didn¡¯t set foot in it. He stopped next to the perimeter as there were fewer people here. Any fights that broke out in this proximity would be easily noticed by those standing guard outside.

    ¡°How are you now?¡± Liu Long whispered. Were the boy¡¯s injuries that bad? He¡¯d been skeptical before, but now wondered if he really had hurt Li Hao that badly. A Dominator should recover quickly enough.

 Chapter 253: An Honest and Simple Little Li Hao (I)

    <h4>Chapter 253: An Honest and Simple Little Li Hao (I)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t respond to Liu Long; he focused on quietly sensing the condition of his organs. His heart was a little stronger than the rest of the five. When taking into consideration the mysterious power that his teacher had previously given him, it meant his heart had absorbed roughly five hundred cubes of fire energy.

    Then came his spleen and kidneys in terms of amount absorbed. They respectively corresponded to the earth and water elements. After killing earth supernatural Li Dahu and receiving one hundred fifty cubes of water energy from the Revolution King, it meant that both organs had absorbed approximately four hundred cubes each.

    The liver and lungs corresponded to the wood and metal elements. They were strengthened the least at roughly three hundred cubes each. Just his five organs alone had consumed approximately eighteen hundred cubes of mysterious power. He¡¯d also absorbed some wind, thunder, and unattributed power. Thebined total was more than two thousand¡ªit was a stunning number!

    Although this wasn¡¯t a difficult amount for the three great organizations or Night Watchers to produce, it was almost impossible for one person alone to consume it all.

    Granted, the factions likely wouldn¡¯t dissent if the person in question guaranteed a swift progression to Dominator. No one would object to creating a Dominator from two thousand cubes of mysterious power.

    <i>I am unable to maintain the elemental bnce as fire energy is still the strongest in my body...</i> There was no helping it as he¡¯d truly met more fire supernaturals than the rest. The Sr Qiao Feilong and his Sunre subordinates had all been fire attributed. Even Hao Lianchuan and Sun Yifei were of fire.

    ¡°Chief.¡± Li Hao opened his eyes and looked at Liu Long. ¡°How much metal and wood energy are in the two hundred cubes that Yama gave you?¡±

    Li Hao had returned the energy to Liu Long after the man returned. The Revolution King was an interesting fellow to give them three elements while wholly missing out on fire and water.

    ¡°Roughly one hundred cubes of metal.¡± Liu Long had nced briefly at his bounty before, but was only able to give an overall estimation. ¡°Sixty of earth and less of wood at roughly forty cubes.¡±

    Metal energy amounted to the most as the Revolution King might have happened upon the corpse of a metal supernatural.

    ¡°Lend me two hundred cubes, chief. I¡¯ll return them to youter on...¡±

    Liu Long didn¡¯t need to bnce his five organs for the time being, he was still nurturing his kidneys. Therefore, Li Hao hoped to borrow his mysterious power first, particrly the cubes of metal energy. His metal and earth elements were out of alignment, representing that his sword and earth auras weren¡¯t bnced either.

    If he could obtain one hundred cubes of metal energy, that would mean he¡¯d absorbed roughly four hundred cubes of both elements. That would just barely reach a state of equilibrium between his elements.

    Li Hao was different from Yuan Shuo in that the professor¡¯s five auras were evenly matched, so there was no issue if he strengthened one organ or all five at the same time. Li Hao, however, needed to develop two auras in conjunction.

    Liu Long threw some bones to the young man without further word. Li Hao looked into the distance¡ªthe entire outer city was shrouded in darkness. He wasn¡¯t interested in participating in those struggles anymore. His organs needed to be strengthened first.

    The little sword might be fully depleted after absorbing this round of mysterious power¡ªhe¡¯d have to slowly nurture his organs on his own or obtain some blood pearls after that. Thetter provided decent effects as it fortified the entire body. While it didn¡¯t pinpoint specific areas like the five elements did, one could swiftly digest it without the need for sword energy.

    The sword at his waist sparkled with a very faint, dim hue. Li Hao started absorbing once more. He could endure more after setting foot into Dominator and digested energy more quickly than before. His capacity had grownrger after his body grew stronger.

    Satiation was forting when he previously absorbed mysterious power. The same wasn¡¯t happening even after he absorbed a few dozen cubes of metal mysterious power this time.

    His lungs were strengthened and the metal energy waspletely consumed after half an hour. The young man started on wood energy, setting aside earth energy for now as he didn¡¯t want to break the newfound bnce. He was less than ten cubes in when...

    Li Hao opened his eyes, lost and disappointed. There was no more sword energy! Although he knew that the little bit left would quickly be exhausted, it was still a forlorn feeling to suddenly run out.

    His breakthrough to Dominator had much to do with sword energy. He wouldn¡¯t have made such swift progress on the path of martial dao if not for this energy. And now, it was gone.

    The stone door ruins that Yuan Shuo had foundst time could replenish the sword, but they didn¡¯t exude energy fast enough. The vast sum that the sword had absorbed previously had umted over a long period of time.

    It¡¯d only been a few days since they refilled the weapons of the eight families. While his teacher said that there may be eight stone doors, Yuan Shuo was yet to find a second ruin after investigating Silver City for a few days. He¡¯d gone into closed door cultivation before continuing his explorations and now Yuan Shuo was gone entirely.

    Thus, there was no effective way that Li Hao could currently employ to restore his sword.

    ¡°Ai!¡± Li Hao put these thoughts out of his mind after an imperceptible sigh. This was good enough! His lungs and spleen had absorbed roughly four hundred cubes each, as did his kidneys. There was a small bnce between them too. A little less wood energy and a little more fire energy at this stage didn¡¯t affect the equilibrium that much.

    Should he start summoning his spirits? He needed to further develop his sword and earth auras, but would his three other organs be able to endure the strain?

    Nurturing a spirit was a process that permitted the usage of the aura, but that usage easily broke the bnce of elements and levied incredible stress on the five visceral organs. His teacher had absorbed nearly one thousand cubes of fire energy to sessfully summon the fire heart ape. Li Hao didn¡¯t hope for immediate sess; the process of nurturing his spirits was also one that strengthened the auras.

    <i>Teacher only has a strong heart, none of his other organs are on par with mine. He still dared forcefully summon the tiger spirit under those circumstances and even forced it into manifesting. On a whole, my organs aren¡¯t any weaker than teacher¡¯s!</i>

    ¡°Chief, keep an eye out for me.¡± He looked at Liu Long when his thoughts traveled here. ¡°I¡¯m going to cultivate for a bit. Unless I say something, you can ignore me even if anything unexpected happens.¡±

    Liu Long frowned slightly, but still nodded. The young man closed his eyes again momentster, wanting to meld his earth aura into his spleen. The earth was an expansive, tolerant entity that might be easier to tackle than the sword aura.

    The aura moves ording to the mind!

    The aura of the earth rose in his spleen in ordance with his thoughts. Yuan Shuo¡¯s auras of the five styles manifested as the five animals. Liu Long¡¯s Nine Forged aura of the sea took the shape of the waves. Li Hao¡¯s aura of the earth became a mountain.

    A mountain did not represent the earth, but it was what Li Hao focused on at the moment. It was a specialization of heavy earth and not the entire earth. The young man was unable to present the unbounded aura of the earth¡ªhe would have to reach higher levels for that to be possible.

    A mountain entered his spleen with a boom that only his heart and ears could hear. Enormous pressure exploded in his spleen, shaking it to the point of bleeding. Color drained from Li Hao¡¯s face! But he didn¡¯t panic thanks to the guide of Yuan Shuo¡¯s tutge and experience. Such was the benefit of having a good teacher, he knew what to do under these circumstances.

    He closely observed his spleen with his mind and discovered something new. A tremendous peak rammed itself against a lock in the internal world of the spleen¡ªthe supernatural lock!

    He needed to subdue the earth aura, but just as his teacher had encountered when pacifying the fire heart ape, Yuan Shuo¡¯s heart hadn¡¯t been strong enough to bring the ape to heel. The professor had to utilize his supernatural locks to help him suppress the fire heart ape and lock it away.

    This was what Li Hao nned to do now¡ªutilize the might of his supernatural locks to immobilize the mountain. The prerequisite to that was his supernatural locks needed to be stronger than his aura!

    If the lock proved weaker than the aura and broke to the mountain, then Li Hao would either die or ascend to the supernatural. It used to be that martial masters craved making the crossover, but Li Hao wasn¡¯t willing to anymore. It was not his path even though he¡¯d be stronger after rising to the supernatural world.

    <i>tter!</i>

    The faint sound of chains echoed in his ears. A sturdy and durable chain snaked toward the mountain. While thendmass wasn¡¯t as hot-headed or resisted as violently as the fire heart ape, it still shook without pause!

    Each oscition was exceedingly unbearable and umted as blood seeping out the corners of Li Hao¡¯s mouth. His other four organs were shaking as well. No wonder his teacher said that the other organs needed to be strong as well¡ªotherwise, the remaining four might shatter at any time.

    His teacher had taken a week to subdue the fire heart ape. He did so for a different purpose; Li Hao was simply temporarily locking his aura away so he could nurture it. His teacher was ready to physically manifest his auras at any time. Not to mention, that had been his teacher¡¯s first attempt. He spent most of his time strengthening the heart. Meanwhile, strengthening his organs was part of Li Hao''s daily routine. This was his final step in that stage¡ªlocking the aura in ce!

    ......

    Liu Long watched the young man silently, understanding certain things. As a Dominator, he knew what Li Hao was attempting¡ªa summoning of the spirit! To think that the young man would start summoning his spirits as soon as he reached Dominator!

    The team captain thought back to Yuan Shuo¡¯s words and how the professor had told him to strengthen his five visceral organs, particrly his kidneys. Li Hao looked to be strong enough already, so that little bastard was lying when he said he suffered internal damage earlier. The kid was awful!

    Liu Long put those thoughts out of his mind and silently watched the proceedings. Observation was a type of cultivation. In asking him to stand guard, it meant that Li Hao didn¡¯t intend to keep any part of the process a secret.

    ¡°Summoner of Spirit means for the aura to enter the five organs. I can vaguely hear the sound of chains and the fire heart ape was wrapped by chains...¡±

    <i>Chains...</i>

    <i>Supernatural locks!</i>

    ¡°So the supernatural locks keep the aura in the organs? Does this mean that the earth aura is erupting and entering the spleen right now?¡± Liu Long took a close look. Indeed, Li Hao¡¯s spleen was bleeding, some of which had oozed outside. How strong were the young man¡¯s organs?

    Liu Long didn¡¯t know, but he knew that they had to be much stronger than his. Yet, judging from Li Hao¡¯s pale face, even he couldn¡¯t withstand the process. He was having a difficult time subduing his earth aura.

    ¡°Therefore... my organs probably won¡¯t be able to endure it either!¡± Liu Long furrowed his brows, this would be difficult. It looked like a long span of time was needed to nurture the five organs.

    ¡°Should he use a blood pearl to strengthen them overall?¡± He looked at Li Hao and quickly shook his head. The young man hadn¡¯t enhanced his organs to their limits.

    Liu Long spected that the young man could so quickly fortify his organs thanks to the sword in his hand. But he¡¯d stopped soon after switching to wood energy; he¡¯d reached a bottleneck. It looked like the aid offered by the sword was no more. Otherwise, Li Hao would only need to repeat his actions from their sparring sessions and absorb that energy for swift recovery. And yet, the young man did not.

 Chapter 254: An Honest and Simple Little Li Hao (II)

    <h4>Chapter 254: An Honest and Simple Little Li Hao (II)</h4>

    <i>So the kid¡¯s being forced into summoning his spirit now because he has no other choice after running out of that special energy. Otherwise, he¡¯d wait until he was absolutely sure of sess before attempting the process!</i> Having been team captain for many years, Liu Long easily parsed the basic logic at hand.

    Yuan Shuo was just being arrogant when he called Liu Long an idiot. Who dared affix that descriptor to the man? He¡¯d deduced many things in only a few moments, including the fact that Li Hao¡¯s life-saving energy was depleted. Liu Long also found it a bit of a pity that there was no more. Whether it was handling injuries or needing to recover in situations toe, it would all be a huge hassle!

    ¡°Pfft!¡± Li Hao spat out a mouthful of blood. Liu Long wanted to move to his side when he recalled the young man¡¯s words¡ªignore him unless he said anything. Thus, Liu Long also stopped a worried Liu Yan with a slight shake of his head.

    Li Hao was battling the massive mountain. Suppression! Chains wrapped around the enormous peak as it shook and trembled. Everytime it quivered, the young man grew exceedingly concerned for his lock. <i>If this continues... my supernatural lock will break!</i>

    <i>Teacher said that suppression became much easier after he utilized his chains. Is my supernatural lock too weak for the job?</i> He¡¯d been too hasty, but he had no other choice. He was out of sword energy. Was he supposed to wait until that was replenished before locking his aura in ce? There was no need for that!

    His urgency mounted as the situation continued; failure began to loom over Li Hao. If he continued to struggle with the mountain, that would spell the end of his breakthrough attempt and possibly even damage to his organs. If he seeded, then some injury was fine. If he failed, that was a tremendous loss.

    <i>My supernatural lock isn¡¯t strong enough... </i>

    <i>My lock isn¡¯t strong enough, my foundations aren¡¯t enough... They¡¯re not solid enough...</i>

    Various thoughts shed through his mind as internal force red inside his body. Li Hao suddenly had another thought¡ªa thought that belonged wholly to himself. It was something not even Yuan Shuo could aplish.

    Internal force flowed into the spleen and strengthened the supernatural lock¡ªof that, everyone was well aware of. But what of the Nine Forged Force? Could that also replicate the lock with nineyers of force? Even two or three times would put the supernatural lock on even footing with the mountain.

    <i>If I strengthen the lock with internal force andyer it to increase its strength, then send it into motion, will that spontaneously suppress the mountain?</i>

    Only he and Liu Long knew the Nine Forged Force, no one else could walk in their footsteps. This was a process full of innovation and danger. What if the Nine Forged Force broke his supernatural lock instead?

    <i>Thump thump thump! </i>echoed from Li Hao¡¯s body. Liu Long took another look and frowned when he recognized the method. What was thed operating the Nine Forged Force for?

    <i>Nine Forged Force... Layering of internal force... Is he sending internal force to the spleen to subdue his earth aura?</i> Liu Long frowned and looked carefully at Li Hao. The young man¡¯s spleen was bleeding even more heavily. Internal bleeding often threatened life itself, so what was Li Hao doing?

    The Nine Forged Force was spontaneous destruction that came fromyering force, shaking it, and reassembling it. What did he want to strengthen?

    His aura?

    Impossible!

    Then... his supernatural lock so it could suppress the earth aura? Liu Long understood when he took another nce, but also sucked in a sharp breath. The kid was the epitome of a newborn calf not being afraid of a tiger! Using the Nine Forged Force toyer his supernatural lock would either break it, or create so much force that his spleen was ripped apart. The only other possibility was that he seeded in bringing the earth aura to heel, but that was the lowest likelihood out of the three possibilities.

    Liu Long¡¯s frown deepened as he simted everything in his mind. He spoke up when he suddenly thought of something, ¡°Don¡¯t be in a rush and don¡¯t do this. No, I¡¯m not saying to not use the Nine Forged Force. What you need to do is split your internal force into five parts and strengthen all five locks of your visceral organs at the same time! The five visceral organs are a circtory system and one whole. The strength of one contributes to the strength of all, but when all five are strong, one is strong as well!¡±

    Anyone else would be utterly baffled by these words, but Li Hao instantly understood. He¡¯d gotten sidetracked! Strengthening his five supernatural locks meant that his spleen might be enhanced as well. The danger was lower and the five organs formed a circtory system.

    Liu Long was a veteran martial master at the end of the day; he emphasized stability when it came to training. Li Hao¡¯s way of focusing on one organ wasn¡¯t impossible, but it was much more dangerous.

    The young man thought briefly and decided to listen to his elder. He wouldn¡¯t necessarilye off any worse for the wear, but he might suffer greatly if he didn¡¯t.

    Splitting his internal force into five parts was also a test of his control over internal force. Martial masters rarely lost control over their internal force as it naturally budded within the body. Not much preparatory work needed to be done as it wasn¡¯t an external resource. Control naturally followed when that strength appeared.

    Five currents of internal force surged into the five organs, strengthening five supernatural looks. The one of the spleen suddenly trembled. Li Hao tried bringing more force to bear¡ªit suppressed the mountain with a loud rumble. But for the barest moment, the young man sensed that the struggles against the lock were too great and his spleen suffered further damage. Not only that, but cracks began crawling through the chain.

    Li Hao jolted with shock. Thank goodness he¡¯d split his internal force into five or it might really have rammed through the lock.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    He dismissed some of his internal force and didn¡¯t dareyer it too many times. Just twice. The supernatural lock swiftly absorbed the force that flowed in and shook once more in the process. It mped down more firmly over the mountain and locked one corner away!

    <i>Once... twice...</i>

    Li Hao tried again and again. While his body continuously produced internal force, he weakened at a rate visible to the naked eye. Color drained from his face as the essence within his body was consumed by his five visceral organs.

    A gigantic rumble sounded after an indeterminate period of time, apanied by the tter of chains. Arge mountain towered inside the spleen, fully immobilized by the supernatural lock. Vertigo assailed Li Hao when he opened his eyes.

    ¡°How is it?¡± Liu Long quickly asked.

    ¡°I just managed to lock it away...¡± Li Hao panted. ¡°I consumed too much energy and depleted my internal force. My organs are damaged, but... it was worth it!¡±

    It was very worth it!

    When his supernatural lock melded with his earth aura, Li Hao discovered that the lock was now growing with the mountain. When there came a day that his earth aura could emerge from his spleen, he would be a Summoner of Spirit just like his teacher!

    That was out of reach for the moment. All he could do was barely utilize the earth aura and the mountain that represented it. It would have to emerge from his spleen for him to be a true Summoner. Otherwise, he was just a Dominator beginning to spy into the secrets of Summoner of Spirit.

    Even so, it was quite a feat as he¡¯d just set foot into Dominator!

    ¡°You¡¯re... gravely injured!¡± Liu Long assessed unhappily. ¡°Can you not heal yourself anymore?¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡± Li Hao nodded with a fatigued smile. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I just look weak. I¡¯ll be even stronger when my internal force recovers!¡±

    Liu Long nodded, then suddenly raised, ¡°You could withstand your aura invading your organ, but suffered heavy internal damage when my aura of the waves didn¡¯t even enter your body. Howe your organs go from weak to strong so quickly?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Silence.

    ¡°Chief, I¡¯m actually injured now!¡± Li Hao coughed softly.

    Liu Long swept him with a cold re.<i> Got nothing to say now, huh, you little bastard? </i>He couldn¡¯t be bothered to take Li Hao to task for his lie. ¡°Do you think... I can give it a try?¡±

    Li Hao opened his mouth, but didn¡¯t have a response.

    ¡°The answer is no, isn¡¯t it?¡± Liu Long¡¯s expression was a sight to behold.

    ¡°That¡¯s not it...¡± Li Haoughed dryly. ¡°But chief, we should first slowly nurture our auras and organs. My... situation is a bit unique, you know how it is. My organs are already very strong, so I decided to just give it a try. But don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll help you when I think of a way and get my hands on some goodies...¡±

    ¡°Forget it!¡± Liu Long deted, then quickly recovered hisposure. ¡°I¡¯m already satisfied with being able to set foot into Dominator! At least there¡¯s a path ahead and Dominator is just the beginning. My internal force and organs are still developing. They haven¡¯t reached their limits yet. Once they do, I¡¯ll be able to fight peak Sunre at the very least. I¡¯m in no hurry.¡±

    The path of martial dao was to be walked slowly. Li Hao had taken a shortcut, but that was his fortuitous opportunity. Or rather, one left behind by the Li ancestors. If he had an iparably strong forefather who¡¯d left behind these treasures to resolve these obstacles, he might be in a greater hurry than Li Hao or keep more to himself. The young man hadn¡¯t withheld that many secrets from the rest of the team.

    ¡°What supernatural level do you think you¡¯ll map to when you recover? Can you fight ate Sr like your teacher?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao raised his head and looked nkly at Liu Long. <i>Ate Sr? You... you really think the world of me! I¡¯m just nurturing my auras, I¡¯m not a real Summoner. There¡¯s still a difference between me and teacher. Teacher¡¯s auras had reached great perfection¡ªwhile I¡¯m not sure where mine are, I know that my supernatural locks aren¡¯t strong enough.</i>

    <i>My auras are also in an initial state, teacher¡¯s are on apletely different ne! He seeded decades ago. How am I supposed topare to him?</i>

    ¡°Chief, I¡¯ll tell you when I reach great perfection with my auras!¡± Li Haoughed wryly. ¡°I¡¯ve depleted too many resources and exhausted my internal force. I can¡¯t meld the second aura at the moment. I can try when I¡¯ve recovered!¡±

    He had to give up the sword aura for the time being. That had to wait untilter!

    The young man also felt that the sword aura would be much more difficult and dangerous. It was best not to try it for now. He couldn¡¯t help but think of the source for the sword aura. What if his lungs were pierced clean through by the sword stroke?

    A sword didn¡¯t want to be confined in the first ce, particrly the one that he¡¯d seen. If the process of nurturing the sword was simr to locking down the earth aura... then he wouldn¡¯t try nurturing his sword aura unless he strengthened his lungs to the level of one thousand cubes!

    ¡°That¡¯s just as well...¡± the young man mumbled. The sword aura for the outside and earth aura inside. Thebination of offensive outer and defensive inner suited his purposes. He stumbled as he rose to his feet and nced at the outer city. ¡°Let¡¯s go, chief. Let¡¯s go directly to the city gates and not waste time with the ones inside the city anymore. Anyone can tell that I¡¯m gravely injured, so withdrawing from training won''t be losing face for the Five Styles discipline.¡±

    The biggest lure of the outer city was the prospect of obtaining mysterious power. But without sword energy, Li Hao didn¡¯t lust for mysterious power as much.

    ¡°Alright!¡± Liu Long didn¡¯t mind. His goal was to kill Li Dahu¡ªthey¡¯d crossed that off a long time ago. Hunting supernaturals for their mysterious power... Since he was a Dominator and didn¡¯t hold hopes of ascending to the supernatural world, that energy no longer held as much allure for him.

    It was also why the Srs didn¡¯t really care about mysterious power. Breaking the fifth supernatural lock wasn¡¯t a matter of umting mysterious power. It required time¡ªtime to slowly wear away at the lock until it was broken. If one tried to ram right through it, it was more likely that self-detonation was the ending instead!

    When one reached Sr, one could also partake of mysterious power naturally produced by the world. It was what the Revolution King meant by Hao Lianchuan being able to produce more than one hundred cubes in two months.

 Chapter 255: An Honest and Simple Little Li Hao (III)

    <h4>Chapter 255: An Honest and Simple Little Li Hao (III)</h4>

    Everything remained a mess inside the outer city. Director He and the rest of the team had been resigned by the disappearance of Liu Long, Liu Yan, and Li Hao. There was nothing they could do about losing the trail as the three were martial masters. As they were too hard to locate, the second Night Watcher team had to give up the idea of using them as bait.

    Being injured, Li Hao no longer wished to run into supernaturals. He directed Liu Long away from all of them. There were much fewer balls of light in the city now. He noted the concealed Celestial and Sword Sect Sr when he looked around. They were likely up to nothing good as the young man saw multiple balls of light disappear around them.

    Who was the Sword Sect Sr hunting? And who was the Celestial Sr hunting?

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t worried about the Night Watchers as the second team possessed a mid Sr. If anyone dared attack them, they¡¯d be killed in return. Zhang Ting would finally act when her own life was in danger.

    As for the first team, metal supernatural Director Zhou was very strong as a peak Sunre. There were numerous Sunres in that team, which presented a thorny issue for an individual Sr seeking to ambush the group.

    Keeping those thoughts in mind, Li Hao and his twopanions made their way through numerous streets and drew close to the inner city gates. Balls of light abounded over there and someone heard theming from far away.

    Hu Dingfang broke through the air¡ªhe didn¡¯t dare fly, but he was extremely fast nheless. He went ck jawed with shock when he saw Li Hao on Liu Long¡¯s back. The young man was as white as a sheet, his internal force depleted, and blood stained his clothes.

    ¡°What happened??¡± Hao Lianchuan rushed over as well. He thought Li Hao was putting on an act at first, but his expression quickly changed too. It was too real to be an act¡ªthe young man had gotten thinner as a result of expending too many internal resources and emptying his internal force. ¡°Who did this??¡±

    They were both stunned. Liu Long was a Dominator and the two were with the Night Watchers. Who could still harm Li Hao to this degree?

    The two weren¡¯t the only ones concerned. Violet Moon and the others frowned when they took note of Li Hao¡¯s condition. How had the young man ended up in these straits? Violet Moon had given orders to her people to either capture Li Hao when they saw him, or leave him alone if they couldn¡¯t. Red Moon wouldn¡¯t act against Li Hao. Was it Celestial or Yama behind the deed?

    Blood trickled out of the corner of the young man¡¯s mouth when he coughed. He looked at the group and said haltingly, ¡°I¡¯m... fine. It¡¯s just my organs that are damaged... my internal force depleted... and my foundations injured...¡±

    And that was called fine?

    Faces darkened and Hu Dingfang grew irritable. ¡°Who did it?!¡±

    He wouldn¡¯t die of his injuries now, would he? Would Li Hao be able to continue cultivating even if he recovered? His condition was too critical!

    Hu Dingfang had swindled Old Demon Yuan out of one final disciple, if a second final disciple was crippled on his watch... He really wouldn¡¯t be able to exin himself.

    ¡°I¡¯m... not sure,¡± Li Hao coughed and shook his head. ¡°I... didn¡¯t even see them... They were too strong and too fast...¡± The young man took a deep breath. ¡°I only saw a sh of a dark shadow. I had time to raise my internal force for one instance of defense... They were a dark supernatural...¡±

    Many looked to the Celestial powerhouse upon hearing these words. His name was Ding Chen; most dark supernaturals came from this organization. Hidden beneath his cloak, Ding Chen didn¡¯t immediately say anything.

    ¡°They shouldn¡¯t be from Celestial... please don¡¯t misunderstand!¡± Li Hao said.

    ¡°How are you so sure?¡± Hu Dingfang frowned.

    ¡°That person... was too strong!¡± Li Hao exined. ¡°I almost died from a casual blow. Thank goodness Director Liu was beside me... Director Liu is actually a Dominator! Ordinary Sunres aren¡¯t that strong... so... that person must be a Sr!

    ¡°Cough cough cough... A Sr attacked me! Celestial only has one Sr. If he didn¡¯t leave the inner city gates, then he¡¯s not the one... I suspect... that there¡¯s more people from the outside? Otherwise, there¡¯s no reason that... people won¡¯t discover a Sr being present... Cough cough...¡±

    Strange looks appeared in people¡¯s eyes. A Sr! One that was yet to be discovered! Although Li Hao said his attacker wasn¡¯t from Celestial, their rapidly shifting thoughts were certain that it was Celestial behind this!

    That organization was skilled at concealment. If equipped with supernatural items, they might really be harboring a Sr. Celestial was a mysterious bunch that didn¡¯t show their true forms beneath their cloaks...

    ¡°It looks like Celestial came well prepared this time!¡± Hu Dingfang looked coldly at Ding Chen. ¡°You still possess quite the self-assurance even without Half Mountain!¡±

    Two Srs!

    There was no doubt about it, the unknown assant muste from Celestial! Being a group of entrics, it was very normal for them to casually deliver a punch or p if they couldn¡¯t stand the sight of Li Hao. All killers were thus.

    ¡°There is no conclusion in this matter yet, Commander Hu...¡± Ding Chen said in a low voice.

    ¡°Very well, I¡¯ll wait for your members to gather again,¡± Hu Dingfang said coolly. ¡°A Sr might go unnoticed if we weren¡¯t paying attention before, but I¡¯m sure we can see some hints if we take a close look now. If we find a Sr that doesn¡¯t belong to your organization... how about we execute them on the spot?¡±

    <i>Since you won¡¯t admit to it, we¡¯ll kill whatever Sr we find if one appearster! Dare you agree to it?</i>

    Ding Chen was highly anxious, uneasy, and wanting to cast me on his hidden counterpart. <i>What did you go and attack Li Hao for? If you wanted to do that, you should¡¯vepletely taken the young man out!</i>

    <i>Here he is, alive to tell the tale. Damn!</i> Anything Ding Chen said at this time was inappropriate. The group was right in that hidden Srs were hard to discover if one wasn¡¯t carefully observing the expedition. But once everyone returned and all Srs were focused on Celestial... it would be hard for his counterpart to remain in hiding!

    Trouble would be upon them then, so Ding Chen chose to remain silent. That was a tacit admission that Celestial possessed a second Sr.

    ¡°General Hu... don¡¯t... don¡¯t create more enemies for the Night Watchers!¡± Li Hao said at this time. ¡°I¡¯m really fine, I just need some time to recover. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s someone from Celestial, I have no grudge with them... They don¡¯t have a reason to kill me.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand!¡± Hu Dingfang barked out coldly. ¡°An organization that takes joy in killing others and makes killing their mission statement... You¡¯re too young. You are the heir to the eight families and as such, there are those who wish for you to be alive and those who wish you dead!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not it, General Hu.¡± Li Hao grew frantic. ¡°You¡¯re from the army and I... I just don¡¯t think it¡¯s Celestial...¡±

    Urgency marked his voice. Don¡¯t create more enemies for the Night Watchers! Even if it was Celestial who attacked Li Hao, let¡¯s just pretend it wasn¡¯t. It wasn¡¯t like he¡¯d died.

    Hao Lianchuan frowned and glowered at the Celestial spokesperson. ¡°No matter if it was you guys or not, Ding Chen... and I can¡¯t really say you¡¯re behind it since we didn¡¯t catch you in the act, shouldn¡¯t you summon that one for introductions? It¡¯s juniors having fun in the outer city. It¡¯s not appropriate for Srs to be involved!¡±

    Ding Chen was resigned, he really was rather resigned. ¡°I trust... that there must be a misunderstanding,¡± he said after a prolonged pause. ¡°We concealed it before because that is the Celestial way. We don¡¯t like to expose everything about us in front of others. I¡¯m sure there is another exnation for the attack on Li Hao!¡±

    He emitted a shrill whistle at the end of his words.

    Ambushing someone was no grave matter, but the key was that a hidden Sr had done the ambushing. That made it a big deal. The target being Li Hao was also a grave matter. All of this together was why everyone paid it so much attention.

    Otherwise, who cared about a Sunderer dying?

    A figure swiftly ran in from the darkness when the long whistle rang out. Upon seeing that Ding Chen was fine and everyone was looking at him, the powerhouse beneath the cloak paused with a frown. <i>What did you summon me for if nothing¡¯s happening?</i>

    ¡°Well met!¡± A fist mmed down on the neer¡ªHu Dingfang¡¯s fist!

    It was fast beyond belief; the startled neer immediately pulled out a sword of darkness and jabbed back. He went flying after a loud collision and Ding Chen quickly stepped forward.

    ¡°Commander Hu!¡± he protested.

    ¡°So you¡¯re the one who attacked Li Hao?!¡± Hu Dingfang demanded coolly.

    The injured cloaked figure coughed, mystified. <i>Me? When did I attack Li Hao? I didn¡¯t even see Li Hao in the city!</i>

    Ding Chen quickly murmured some words by his ears, bringing an aggrieved expression onto the neer¡¯s face. Killing people was a normal urrence, but he really wasn¡¯t behind this. He thought of nothing else but responding with anger, ¡°I¡¯m not behind it... If I was, I wouldn¡¯t give him the chance to escape. Someone wants to expose me...¡± His eyes darted around as he continued, ¡°There¡¯s another Sr in the city! I came across them, it might be them...¡±

    It was Hong Yitang¡¯s turn to jerk with surprise. ¡°Ah, everyone, please don¡¯t misunderstand. This person nders another!¡± he said hastily. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you the truth, that person is my wife. She rose to Sr not long ago and is still stabilizing her cultivation level. She¡¯s a wood supernatural, not of the dark attribute. How could she attack Li Hao?

    ¡°Li Hao¡¯s master, Yuan Shuo, is a peer of my time. How would I bully my junior? Don¡¯t you dare run your mouth and cast aspersions on people¡¯s character! My lover is just protecting my sect¡¯s disciples and doesn''t mean anything else by it...¡±

    Two Srs were suddenly exposed, and they¡¯d exposed each other! The reason? Li Hao¡¯s injuries.

    ¡°Martial uncle Hong wouldn¡¯t attack me,¡± Li Hao quickly protested. ¡°He gave me the Earthturner Sword, it¡¯s not him! And it¡¯s not Celestial, this is all a misunderstanding! General Hu, Director Hao, I¡¯m fine. I¡¯ll be fine after a few days, let¡¯s let the matter drop!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan nced at him while Hu Dingfang stewed. The others merely thought that sometimes... Li Hao was truly... should they say simple, or dumb? Of course, not creating more enemies for the Night Watchers at this time was a good idea. He was an interesting fellow, to be a stick-in-the-mud who kept the bigger picture in mind!

    There were many people like Li Hao in the Night Watcher ranks. They were too much of a stickler for the rules and didn¡¯t wish to pursue many things to the end in case it ruined bigger ns. The young man rather suited the Night Watcher style.

    What else could the rest of them do if he didn¡¯t wish to pursue the matter?

    The group looked at Hong Yitang; the swordsman had been in such a hurry to admit to the Sr in his organization because he was afraid that if an investigation started in earnest, it would bring trouble to the Sword Sect if it really fell to them.

    Sword intent rose to the sky¡ªa signal for his wife!

 Chapter 256: The Terrifying Sight of Oneâ€™s Back (I)

    <h4>Chapter 256: The Terrifying Sight of One¡¯s Back (I)</h4>

    Hu Dingfang frowned as they waited for the concealed Sword Sect Sr to show. ¡°Wasn¡¯t your lover... someone else before...¡±

    Hong Yitang coughed dryly and his daughter suddenly said next to him, ¡°That¡¯s my senior sister, she fell in love with father as time went on. Father remarried when my mother died!¡±

    ¡°......¡± A ringing silence greeted her words. Hong Yitang felt so awkward that he wished for the ground to swallow him whole.

    He¡¯d never spoken of this to outsiders as it was a difficult subject to raise. The supernatural world didn¡¯t care about these rtionship particrs, but in the martial world, some veteran martial masters would ridicule him for marrying his eldest disciple! It was a grant vition of martial world rules!

    Granted, it was fine now that he was no longer a martial master, but he would still be condemned and disdained by countless martial masters for his past actions. Hong Yitang coughed dryly to mask how ufortable he was.

    ¡°Eh, ah, everyone... I humbly request that you keep this a secret for me...¡±

    Hao Lianchuan and others from the Night Watchers chuckled, whereas Violet Moon and other supernaturals smirked. All the same, one faction possessing two Srs made it formidable indeed! So while knowing looks and smug looks flew through the crowd, no one said anything. Instead, shoulders rxed with relief. They¡¯d exposed two Srs in one go¡ªLi Hao was their lucky star!

    Who would¡¯ve imagined that even the Sword Sect possessed a second Sr? It wasn¡¯t that the group was wholly unprepared, but that Hong Yitang was being far from honest!

    An embarrassed Li Hao smiled apologetically at Hong Yitang from a distance. The man responded with a faint smile and inward ruefulness. Could he me Li Hao?

    <i>No!</i>

    It wasn¡¯t the young man who¡¯d exposed them. It was all because that Celestial bastard wanted to drag his wife down and nder the Sword Sect. Damn him!

    Hong Yitang was ny-nine percent certain that this fellow was behind the assault on Li Hao. What a pity the young man wished to smooth things over. If not, the sect leader was of a mind to ally with Hu Dingfang and the Night Watchers to take out the Celestial delegation first! <i>The fucking bastard!</i>

    Hong Yitang¡¯s ire mounted the more he thought about it. This wasn¡¯t just a simple case of exposing their hidden strength, but that his personal secrets were out in the open. They would be in more danger from now on!

    Hao Lianchuan pped Li Hao on the shoulder and regarded the young man skeptically. <i>You didn¡¯t inflict these wounds on yourself, did you? Nice going kid, you forced two Srs to reveal themselves with just a few words. Is even Zhang Ting going to be revealed if you say another few words?</i>

    <i>You¡¯ve really got some skill up your sleeves!</i>

    ......

    <i>The inner city gates.</i>

    Two Srs had been exposed in a matter of seconds. Hong Yitang¡¯s second wife came before long. He transmitted a few words to the woman who possessed ordinary beauty. She paused briefly before exining, ¡°The Sword Sect would not ambush Li Hao. We would not, and we dare not. Grandmaster Yuan is the leader of martial dao in our times. The Sword Sect is not so bold as to harm his final disciple!¡±

    Hong Yitang nodded hastily as well. They would not be the scapegoat for this matter! The others might not know, but he understood all too well that Yuan Shuo might really kill him if he harmed the old demon¡¯s student. No matter how, his own doom would be forting if anything happened to Li Hao. Hong Yitang knew Yuan Shuo well and Yuan Shuo knew the martial world¡¯s old guard well.

    It would prove to be more troublesome than offending the three great organizations if he ran afoul of the old demon.

    ¡°I do not believe that the Sword Sect would do this...¡± Li Hao coughed when no one else said anything. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, martial uncle Hong. I, Li Hao, will not do an injustice to anyone!¡±

    He coughed again, spitting out flecks of blood. His organs did seem to be gravely damaged and the coughing didn¡¯t sound fake.

    It wasn¡¯t fake to begin with¡ªany pretense would be quickly unmasked by all of the powerhouses present. No one believed that he was putting on an act.

    ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s let this matter pass!¡± exhaled the young man. ¡°It¡¯s my ownck of skill thatnded me in these straits. Perhaps they¡¯re not a Sr... If they¡¯re not, then it¡¯s just a normal urrence if I die in the attack. There¡¯s no need for those who walk the martial path to pursue this to the ends of the world!¡±

    He looked at Violet Moon and asked hesitantly, ¡°Leader Violet Moon... Could you give me a blood pearl? My injuries are severe and I¡¯m worried I¡¯ll die here if there¡¯s more fighting toe.¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Silence.

    Violet Moon¡¯s face was so frosty it could freeze fire itself.<i> A blood pearl?</i> That was a divine shadow! Li Hao was <i>crazy! </i>Red Moon and him were enemies, but he was asking her for materials to treat his wounds!

    ¡°I¡¯m so heavily injured and my organs damaged that regr mysterious power is useless,¡± Li Hao exined earnestly. ¡°I¡¯ll need either legendary treasures or a blood pearl¡ªthose are the best for healing martial master injuries. We don¡¯t need to go into particrs, I just need one. Leader Violet Moon, I don¡¯t think your organization wants to see me die, either.¡±

    ¡°Are you looking to die, Li Hao?¡± Violet Moon bit off. ¡°Or do you really think you¡¯re so wondrous that you cannot be permitted to die?¡±

    Li Hao sighed and didn¡¯t say anything else. Hao Lianchuan frowned at the response.

    ¡°If you really have them, Violet Moon, what¡¯s the harm in handing out one?¡±

    Hu Dingfang was already walking toward her. ¡°If you don¡¯t have any, I¡¯ll enter the city and kill some Red Moon supernaturals. I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll collect one then!¡±

    ¡°You can try!¡± Violet Moon hissed. ¡°Try and see if I¡¯ll care that my entire delegation is dead!¡±

    ¡°Then I will!¡± Hu Dingfang punched forward without further ado. A dragon howl and tiger roar ripped through the air, ferocious beyond contention. With how injured Li Hao was, there was no difference to Hu Dingfangying down his life if Violet Moon refused to offer a blood pearl. In that case, he would beat it out of her!

    Violet Moon also erupted with thunder and lightning; Hu Dingfang broke through it with one punch! His arm emerged unscathed and he continued to deploy the tiger fist!

    A ferocious tiger threw its head back to the sky with a howl!

    The scalps of those in the surroundings ran with numbness. Hu Dingfang really was very strong after learning the Five Styles and bing a supernatural. He could give Sun Yifei a run for his money. They were bothte Srs and ascended from martial masters. Hu Dingfang knew the Breathing Method of the Five Styles and his offensive capabilities were astounding as a metal supernatural. One of his punches was the equivalent of ate Sr¡¯s full strength!

    Violet Moon was injured and her Armor of the Thunder God damaged. She held no advantage at all and was forced onto the back foot.

    Sun Yifei had killed pure peak Srs in the central region¡ªpure as in homegrown supernaturals, not ones who crossed over from being a martial master. Regardless, those were still formidable and did not count among the weak. That Hu Dingfang could match him exined why he was so arrogant.

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    Collisions rang out as Violet Moon was forced back. Her power of thunder and lightning exploded with abandon.

    After a while, the quiet Revolution King interjected, ¡°You two... is there a need for internal discord like this? The city gates aren¡¯t open yet, who knows how much treasure is inside? Is this worth it?

    ¡°Violet Moon, there ought to be dead Red Moon supernaturals in the city. You need to collect your divine shadows from them, in any case. Why don¡¯t you give a blood pearl to Li Hao since he is gravely injured? It doesn¡¯t need to be too strong¡ªDarkmoon or Sunre will do. Red Moon won¡¯t miss one such divine shadow, will it?¡±

    Hu Dingfang halted his moves. He didn¡¯t want to fight to the death because the Revolution King would not idly sit by. Both Yama and Red Moon only had one Sr each. They¡¯d reached a tacit understanding even if they didn¡¯t ally together.

    A partnership!

    The Night Watchers, Celestial, and Sword Sect all had two Srs. They would be fools if they still didn¡¯t work together. As strong as they were, they would find it difficult to stand against so many enemies.

    Violet Moon¡¯s face shifted through a variety of expressions before she settled on a frosty and disquieting look. One blood pearl was nothing, but it rankled her terribly to give in!

    She looked at Li Hao. The simple and honest young man was looking straight back at her, not a hint of fear to be found on his face. He smiled to receive Violet Moon¡¯s attention. There was no sign of timidness or cowardice, a noticeable difference from before.

    There was no reason for his change other than the fact that their enmity ran too deeply to require a polite facade. He did not need to bow and scrape when it came to Red Moon! His teacher had killed multiple of their powerhouses and he was their target. There was no need for him to be as polite to Violet Moon as he was to the others. Despite killing numerous Celestial and Yama members in the dark, he was still friendly to them on the surface.

    At the very least, he wouldn¡¯t let them know that he thought of them as an enemy.

    ¡°Leader Violet Moon, do you know how to make the blood pearls? I can teach you if you don¡¯t...¡±

    Violet Moon looked coldly at him and retracted her previous assessment that he was an honest and simple young man. To Red Moon, at the very least, he brimmed with malicious intent!

    Granted, this was only to be expected. She just hadn¡¯t thought that a mere Sunderer would dare provoke her. After some more silence, she threw a red pill to Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°So Red Moon does know how to create blood pearls,¡± he said with curiosity. ¡°I thought you didn¡¯t know about the unique properties of your divine shadows before.¡±

    A frosty Violet Moon said absolutely nothing.

    Li Hao took the pill from Hao Lianchuan and sniffed it closely. He was assessing its strength, but put on a great show of seeing it for the first time. ¡°A Plenilune blood pearl, eh? I thought it was a Sunre level one... It looks like leader Violet Moon has more than one and just gave me the weakest one!¡±

    Violet Moon continued to remain silent.

    Li Haoughed and swallowed the pill. All eyes focused on him! Were blood pearls really that useful? Their organizations had hunted down some Red Moon powerhouses and even created some blood pearls ording to the leaked instructions. But they¡¯d entered the ruins too quickly to know what the effects were.

    This was just a Darkmoon level blood pearl... Would it heal Li Hao¡¯s severely damaged organs? If it could, that would make it apelling resource even if it wouldn¡¯t enhance their strength.

    Li Hao operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to digest the power within the pill. Although the effects would be poorer without sword energy, blood pearls were made for martial masters. They were still quite effective without the apaniment of sword energy.

    Being a Dominator, his aura was stronger than before and his rate of absorption even faster. He devoured half of the red energy in the blink of an eye and immediately felt its effects in his organs. A healthier flush returned to his cheeks and his body began inting like it was being filled with water. His emaciated look from moments ago improved greatly and internal force burgeoned in his body.

 Chapter 257: The Terrifying Sight of Oneâ€™s Back (II)

    <h4>Chapter 257: The Terrifying Sight of One¡¯s Back (II)</h4>

    Li Hao opened his eyes with a long exhale. ¡°What a pity... I might have made a full recovery if it was a Sunre level blood pearl, but thank you to leader Violet Moon all the same!¡±

    A variety of looks filled the crowd¡¯s eyes. These effects... were incredible! The young man had been so gravely injured moments ago, and while he didn¡¯t seem to be returned to full health, internal force circted in his body again and his organs no longer bled or shook from strain. At the very least, it didn¡¯t seem like his foundations were harmed anymore...

    And this was just a Darkmoon level blood pearl. What about a Sunre level one, or even a Sr?

    ¡°Li Hao, the previous matter really looks to be a misunderstanding!¡± suddenly remarked the Celestial spokesperson Ding Chen. ¡°I asked Kong Qi¡ªit wasn¡¯t him who attacked you. Of course, it might take some time to undo the misunderstanding...¡±

    He tossed a ring to the young man. ¡°This is a new invention from the central region¡ªa storage ring. It¡¯s small, but can hold arge sum of one thousand cubes of mysterious power. It¡¯s divided into five slots¡ªyou can store the same kind of mysterious power or five different types inside it. Let this be ourpensation to you. There¡¯s also one hundred cubes of fire energy within, the type that you need!¡±

    Li Hao was rather taken aback, he was truly surprised! <i>Celestial... is giving me a present? This is a wonderful item! </i>Storage boxes were so big and bulky; they were a hassle to carry around. They also couldn¡¯t store too much energy¡ªa couple hundred cubes was their maximum.

    So this tiny little ring could store one thousand cubes?

    A startled Hao Lianchuan looked at Ding Chen. What was this fellow investing so much for?

    ¡°I have a small question,¡± Ding Chen continued. ¡°Are blood pearls effective for all martial masters, or are they effective only for those of the Five Styles discipline?¡±

    First he built up a rtionship, then he gave a present. It seemed that the Celestial spokesperson was after this answer.

    Li Hao frowned with thought, then answered, ¡°It¡¯s effective for all martial masters, but the breathing method of the Five Styles offers the best results. Those of other disciplines won¡¯t have the same marked effects. If my discipline¡¯s conversion rate is ny percent, then the others will see at most seventy. However, the effects are miraculous all the same!¡±

    He answered honestly as these answers could be easily obtained through experimenting with other martial masters. The marvelous effects of the Breathing Method of the Five Styles was a known factor, so there was no need to keep that a secret. People wouldn¡¯t believe him if he lied too much.

    <i>Seventy percent!</i> Eyebrows raised in the crowd. That was still very impressive. Violet Moon¡¯s eyes narrowed and she looked at Ding Chen. <i>What is your purpose in asking this question at this time?</i>

    ¡°Is it effective for supernaturals?¡± Ding Chen didn¡¯t seem to see her. ¡°Can supernaturals strengthen their bodies if they absorb blood pearls?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°Generally no, it doesn¡¯t seem useful even when paired with the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. But, that¡¯s not to say that they¡¯repletely useless.¡±

    ¡°Nonsense!¡± Violet Moon roared with fury. ¡°How dare you speak nonsense, Li Hao! It¡¯s true that the blood pearls are useful for martial masters, but they¡¯re absolutely ineffective for supernaturals. They even absorb mysterious power instead!¡±

    Thisst spection absolutely could not be fact, not even rumor. The consequences would be unimaginable if it took shape. The general public was just curious for the moment. Martial masters were tempted, organizations that raised martial masters were tempted. But if it was said that blood pearls were useful for supernaturals... then Red Moon would face trouble far beyond what it faced now!

    They would run the risk of being annihted!

    The three great organizations weren¡¯t truly invincible. When everyone in the world had their eyes on you and treated you as nutrients... The dire consequences were easy to imagine!

    There was already enough killing between supernaturals because mysterious power could be used to strengthen oneself. If scarlet shadows were more effective, then what was the point in hunting supernaturals? They would kill scarlet shadows, of course!

    These things could be artificially fostered; there were even those who wished to charge into Red Moon headquarters and seize the method to create them.

    Li Hao frowned at Violet Moon and said in a quiet voice, ¡°I¡¯m not spouting nonsense, I¡¯m just talking about my findings. What are you in such a hurry to deny? Just give it a try to find out if it¡¯s real or fake.

    ¡°The power contained by the blood pearls does indeed conflict with mysterious power to a certain degree. There are no benefits to be had from absorbing it under normal circumstances, and it may give the user more pain instead.

    ¡°But my teacher discovered that blood pearls can strengthen supernatural locks! I don¡¯t know if the supernatural domain has made the same discovery that the stronger the locks are, the greater the potential released when they are broken. Therefore, enhancing supernatural locks is a good thing¡ªbut only for geniuses!

    ¡°If a genius¡¯ locks are too weak and easily broken, they¡¯ll ascend easily, but their foundations will be too weak. This is where blood pearls are useful. They can be absorbed by supernatural locks and make it harder for ascension. It¡¯s the same concept as martial masters enhancing their supernatural locks, but without the need for martial training. It¡¯s the same idea as how you guys raise martial masters in regr times!

    ¡°The key thing is that it saves a lot of time. It takes a few years to raise a yer, at the very least. But one blood pearl will easily take care of that!¡±

    Some breathed rapidly within the crowd, others looked around with shifting expressions on their faces, while yet others grappled with a surge of emotions. Li Hao¡¯s words were absolutely useless for regr supernaturals.<i> Strengthen our supernatural locks? Do you take us for idiots?</i>

    But when it came to powerhouses of therge organizations, they knew more. Enhancing supernatural locks, for instance, and then shattering them did indeed release more potential. Was this why martial masters made for a much stronger supernatural when they crossed over?

    Martial masters trained internal force, an energy that also strengthened supernatural locks. That wasn¡¯t to say that martial masters are always stronger when they ascend, but that more of their potential was released, so they could aim for higher cultivation levels.

    It was the aspect of nurturing martial masters that was time consuming and more trouble than it was worth. But if one blood pearl could resolve that problem, then didn¡¯t that mean an ordinary person could take one blood pearl, break their locks, thereby skipping past Starlight and start off as a Darkmoon?

    If that was the case, then this was incredible!

    Ding Chen asked no more questions; his thoughts flew rapidly. Could he trust what Li Hao said? All he needed was to verify it through someone. He needed a candidate with decent potential, one that ascended easily butcked strong foundations. They could take a blood pearl to see if that would turn this kind of person into a powerhouse with deep foundations.

    ¡°How do we send the blood pearl into the supernatural locks after it enters the body?¡± asked the Revolution King despite himself. ¡°You said that it conflicts with mysterious power...¡±

    Li Hao frowned without saying anything.

    ¡°You¡¯ve already talked about the crux of the issue.¡± The Revolution King smiled. ¡°Plus, we all know your true motives. Why don¡¯t you tell us a little more?¡±

    Did anyone here still not grasp what the young man intended? He spoke about all of this so matter-of-factly because he wanted to put Red Moon in even more difficult conditions!

    ¡°It¡¯s not that hard.¡± Li Hao exhaled slowly and ignored the vicious reing from Violet Moon. ¡°Those who can control mysterious power can suppress it and make room for the blood pearl¡¯s strength. Those who cannot can just exhaust their reserves. Supernaturals do not have infinite reserves of energy. There is no conflict when their bodies are devoid of mysterious power!¡±

    Abrupt enlightenment dawned on the assembly. It wasn¡¯t that they hadn¡¯t thought of this possibility, but that they didn¡¯t realize it would be so simple! The key thing was that it was hard to exhaust their reserves at their level. They had no further questions since it was so easy.

    ¡°Then Summoner of Spirit...¡± pressed the Revolution King.

    ¡°Do you think I¡¯m an idiot??¡± Li Hao roared with anger. ¡°Only my teacher can reach that level, how am I supposed to know?!¡±

    These guys were out of bounds! <i>I¡¯ve already spoke about so much, but you keep asking and want to know about Summoner of Spirit!</i>

    The Revolution King didn¡¯t respond in the same vein, he smiled instead. It was fine if the young man didn¡¯t say anything, they¡¯d already gained a great deal of important information. Blood pearls could strengthen supernatural locks and enhance a supernatural¡¯s foundations. To be honest, they knew much more at the Sr level and understood that at times, supernatural locks shouldn¡¯t be broken just because they could.

    It might lead to the supernatural¡¯s death!

    Many peak Srs or Novas wished dearly that they wouldn¡¯t shatter further locks. It was usually done prematurely at their level and led to the supernatural¡¯s death.

    Blood pearls... Red Moon!

    Violet Moon¡¯s brow was furrowed as she fell deep into thought. She looked at Li Hao without censure or irritation. Could blood pearls really strengthen supernatural locks? She didn¡¯t know!

    Divine shadows were Ying Hongyue¡¯s personal domain. Red Moon members were aware of their existence and that they were useful to martial masters, that was all.

    If they could enhance supernatural locks...

    The look in her eyes shifted as she thought of something. Was that why some Srs could fight five or six of their peers at the same time? Her leader was invincible when he was a Sr and nearly the same when he became a Nova. Were these revtions a factor in his strength as well?

    Enhancing supernatural locks was a bad thing for many people, but it was wondrous news for geniuses and powerhouses. There was nothing more they wanted than to deepen their foundations. Continuously breaking through without thought would only end up in self-detonation as they reached beyond their means!

    Everyone mused over this new information. What Li Hao revealed was very worthy of further contemtion. Not many knew of the scarlet shadows¡¯ effects before this. Although many in Red Moon did, no one dared easily lose theirs. They belonged to Ying Hongyue! Who dared use them for personal gain?

    Only a few people had obtained blood pearls over the years and they didn¡¯t dare use them randomly. Eating one was thest thing on their mind. Only someone like Li Hao and his teacher were that bold.

    Quiet descended upon the scene. Meanwhile, Liu Long and Liu Yan had been petrified by amazed shock all this time. They didn¡¯t say a word while stupefaction and incredulity gripped their hearts. Li Hao was getting better and better at lying!

 Chapter 258: The Terrifying Sight of Oneâ€™s Back (III)

    <h4>Chapter 258: The Terrifying Sight of One¡¯s Back (III)</h4>

    Li Hao was the one behind his injuries, but he not only exposed two Srs, received a blood pearl for recovery, obtained an energy storage ring, another one hundred cubes of fire energy, and put Red Moon on even more troublesome footing. Were these the horrors that the educated could inflict on their enemies??

    They created countless conflicts with just a few artfully ced words and lightly touching on a few subjects! One had to know, many in the assembly were his enemies, but not even Violet Moon spoke in this moment.

    Hao Lianchuan patted the young man on the shoulder. ¡°Don¡¯t voice nonsense. If you¡¯d offered this information to the Night Watchers, we would¡¯ve counted it as an achievement of great merit. How can you go around talking about it with such ackadaisical manner!¡±

    What a pity! Although the effects were pretty good in this assembly, Director Hou might¡¯ve used the knowledge to greater effect. <i>Little fe, youck the proper venues. This could¡¯ve caused a greater ssh!</i>

    <i>If it was disseminated to the wider public, all of the big guys in the central region would want a blood pearl. They can give it to their children if they have no use for it. Who wants their descendants to be ordinary mundanes? Practicing martial dao is so tiring!</i>

    One blood pearl could save years of effort and enhance one¡¯s foundations. All that was needed was to kill a few Red Moon members!

    ¡°Director, I...¡± Li Hao kept his head down. ¡°Either I say nothing, or I speak only the truth!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Very well then, pretend I didn¡¯t say anything.</i> Hao Lianchuan coughed in lieu of responding. ¡°Everyone, consider the matter of Li Hao¡¯s injuries settled! Hu Dingfang, stop creating trouble for Violet Moon at the drop of a hat. Who knows how irritated she might be right now? If you kill her, people might think that we¡¯ve gotten our hands on a peak Sunre blood pearl. What will you do when theye to you for it?¡±

    Hu Dingfang flicked a nce at the deputy director and didn¡¯t say anything. He naturally wouldn¡¯t raise a fuss after Li Hao was much recovered.

    It was only now that the young man had the strength to look at the inner city gates. As he expected, there was a turtle to be found! Not terribly big, it shimmered in and out of sight over the inner city. It was a very vivid, lifelike turtle!

    Li Hao then looked at two characters hovering in the air over the city. He recognized the ancient characters.

    <i>Battle Heaven!</i>

    The two words floated over the city gates. His blood boiled and emotions frothed at seeing the name.

    <i>The big turtle kept by the Wangs... </i>He thought of the line from the folk song. The Wangs hadn¡¯t seemed all that strong in the lyrics and didn¡¯t seem to possess any offensive capabilities. But when he saw the characters of ¡°Battle Heaven¡±, a surge of valor rushed into his brain. This was at odds with the Wangs of the folk song. To battle heaven... Hearken this boldness of vision and breadth of spirit!

    <i>The city of Battle Heaven?</i>

    Li Hao had the urge to throw his head back and howl at the sky as he considered the two characters.

    ¡°Do you know those two words?¡± Hu Dingfang suddenly asked the young man. He didn¡¯t. Not many present did. Hao Lianchuan did because they¡¯d dug into old records after previous expeditions. Only powerhouses skilled in battle could reach this stopping point, it was beyond the capabilities of excavation members versed only in knowledge.

    Li Hao nodded and took a deep breath. ¡°Battle Heaven!¡±

    <i>Battle Heaven?</i>

    The group mulled over the response and frowned faintly. Just listen to that conceit, yet also remarkable intrepidity! The city of Battle Heaven! Did its residents vie with the heavens themselves?

    Li Hao took another look; he stared fixedly at the characters. Who¡¯d written them? He didn¡¯t know, but it must have been a hero with grand aspirations and vision. The young man even vaguely sensed that their writer really had been ready to dere war on the heavens when he wrote them!

    Arrogant and strong!

    Was this the city of the Wangs? Li Hao didn¡¯t know, but it was very possible. The Wang family wasn¡¯t ranked too highly out of the eight, weren¡¯t they? The young man considered the characters with slight confusion. <i>If a Wang family had such a formidable city, then what about my Lis? They didn¡¯t just leave a sword behind, did they?</i>

    Various questions swirled in his mind as he studied the gate again. It was tall, very tall and at least one hundred meters. It would be hard to open it if they couldn¡¯t fly. Battlements topped the city walls, but they were difficult to make out through the darkness. He seemed to catch a glimpse of white on the ramparts.

    Was the Silver Armor up there? Were the gates impossible to open if it didn¡¯te down?

    ¡°Li Hao,¡± Violet Moon raised nomittally. ¡°You are Yuan Shuo¡¯s student and he¡¯s explored countless ruins in his lifetime. He knows much about these, so can you determine anything?¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. He simply drew near the city gates and looked upward. The two characters in the sky still sent his heart pounding.

    <i>Battle Heaven!</i>

    His gaze fell on the gates after a while and he touched them gently, feeling the cool touch of metal. He gave a light push¡ªthey werepletely still. Indestructible!

    The city gates seemed to be one solid hole, but a very thin crack could be made out with careful observation. There was another tiny crack in the air¡ªthis was possibly where a key could go. These gates could only be opened from behind, or through this crack. However, there were fifty meters up to the crack. Would they be attacked if they flew up there?

    It was a dead end!

    Of course, the Srs could stay in the air for a bit if they used their origin weapons to defend against the airstrikes.

    Li Hao took in the details and looked at the city walls¡ªthey were also very tall. When he touched them, he sensed that they were a simr material to the ground. They were truly one whole with the city walls! As opposed to breaking the walls, they might as well try the city gates.

    ¡°I¡¯m just a rookie and can¡¯t read much from this.¡± Li Hao turned back with a shake of his head. ¡°It might be better for Sr powerhouses to fly up there and use their powerful weapons to defend against the attacks in the air. The gates might be able to be opened from the back. That will save us a lot of trouble.¡±

    His suggestion was greeted with partial eye rolls. They¡¯d considered this proposal, but who was willing to make the trip? There was the Silver Armor on the city walls and who knew what else behind the gates? The attacks in the air might shatter their origin weapons and inflict enormous injuries. Who was willing to pay such a massive price?

    This wasn¡¯t a solo operation, it was supposed to be a joint expedition!

    ¡°Let¡¯s set this aside for now and have everyonee together.¡± Hao Lianchuan broke the silence. ¡°The ck Armors should be mostly eliminated. Whatever¡¯s left won¡¯t be much of a problem!¡±

    It¡¯d been almost three hours since the fighting started in the city. That was enough!

    There was indeed much less of a disturbanceing from the city, just some scuffles here and there. Either the weak were all dead or people were moving in packs throughout the city and forestalling any opportunities for ambush.

    When no one objected, Hao Lianchuan called out, ¡°All supernaturals in the city will convene at the city gates!¡±

    People rushed to the meeting point a few momentster. Some were injured, some dragged their broken bodies in. There were people with broken arms and legs. One... two...

    More and more supernaturals filtered in. The Srs silently watched as the crowd grew bigger; no more was forting after twenty minutes.

    Li Hao swept a look at the assembly. There¡¯d been more than one hundred of the expedition before, but now there were barely sixty with the Srs included. Another half had died!

    Apart from the Srs, there were roughly fifty supernaturals surviving. Twenty Night Watchers remained. They¡¯d inly suffered some setbacks, but still possessed a sizable contingent. On the other hand, there were... three Yama members!

    Indeed, only three Sunres remained apart from the Revolution King. They made for a lonely sight.

    Less than ten stood with Red Moon. At the end of the counting, it turned out that Celestial was the strongest of the three greats. With the Sr inside the city, they still numbered thirteen members under their banner.

    There were only ten left of the Sword Sect, and there were no independent supernaturals to be seen! The wandering supernaturals that¡¯d moved alone were all gone.

    Li Hao counted silently. It was expected that Yama had so few people left since he¡¯d killed quite a few. It was normal that Red Moon didn''t have many left either. But the Sword Sect had had a Sr with them. Why were they so short on people as well?

    Hao Lianchuan was also surprised by the results. There were fewer people left than he thought and the Night Watchers had lost a few. <i>Can it be...</i> He looked at the hidden Srs from Celestial and the Sword Sect. They¡¯d done their fair share of killing, hadn¡¯t they?

    If not, how would so many have died in one fell swoop?

    He wasn¡¯t the only one to think so because there were really too many Celestial survivors. There were fifteen of them!

    Indeed, fifteen included the two Srs. How many had they sent into the ruins? Twenty-two! That meant they¡¯d retained two-thirds of their people and ny percent of their battle strength. How was it possible for so many of the others to die if it wasn¡¯t for the concealed Celestial Sr rampaging through the city?

    Meanwhile, Ding Chen was also startled by the results. All of the other factions had lost too many, including the Night Watchers. The government agency had numbered more than thirty before and was greatly diminished at this point. Celestial had only lost three in thest round of bloodshed¡ªthat really wasn¡¯t a lot!

    ¡°How many did you kill, Kong Qi?¡± Ding Chen transmitted with a pained tone. Why had so many died? Everyone would absolutely think Celestial was behind everything since they¡¯d lost the fewest members. They would think that the organization had assassinated too many! How else could each organization suddenly losing so many be exined?

    The Sr named Kong Qi was likewise dejected. ¡°I... I didn¡¯t kill that many! I ambushed three Night Watchers, a few Sword Sect supernaturals, two Yama Sunres, and a Red Moon Sunre... and then I came back!¡±

    He had indeed killed people, but he hadn¡¯t exceeded ten. It was almost fifty that¡¯d died in thest round¡ªthe woman from the Sword Sect must be behind it!

    Ding Chen¡¯s shoulders slumped slightly. That was still a lot. If the one from the Sword Sect had done simr, then some infighting, as well as a portion being killed by ck Armors, ambushed by Bronze Armors... These results were only to be expected.

    If they hadn¡¯t recalled the two Srs ahead of time, the pitiful amount left now would be truly awkward indeed.

 Chapter 259: The Terrifying Sight of Oneâ€™s Back (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 259: The Terrifying Sight of One¡¯s Back (IV)</h4>

    The Revolution King wasn¡¯t as livid as everyone might have expected. He found an internal calm instead. There was almost no ensuing rage from the sight of only three Sunres left by his side. He¡¯d known that his people would die before embarking on the expedition, but leaving only three for Yama... Celestial and the Sword Sect were bold indeed!

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯tment on the situation and pivoted, ¡°Everyone, report back how many ck Armors you eliminated so we can form a bigger picture!¡±

    ¡°The Night Watchers captured seventy-two,¡± Director He said promptly. ¡°We forced one Bronze Armor into desperate straits and it self-detonated...¡±

    Seventy-two was a sizable harvest. The other factions quickly called out their numbers. The sum total came to more than two hundred ck Armors being terminated and three Bronze Armors self-detonated!

    This meant that there were less than one hundred ck Armors left within the city and at most two Bronze Armors. The army of one thousand was finally liquidated and there were no more threats left in the outer city!

    Sixty-some people stood in front of the inner gates. Sunres upied the greatest portion, with Darkmoons being in the minority. They were too weak, after all, and thus almost all dead.

    ¡°What do we do now?¡± Hong Yitang frowned at the towering wall. ¡°We¡¯ve finally made it to this stage and it seems that we must head inside the city for a look. But are we to force our way up if that guy doesn¡¯te down here? Don¡¯t the Night Watchers have a way?¡±

    ¡°There is a way!¡± Hao Lianchuan smiled.

    <i>Really? There¡¯s really a way?</i>

    ¡°Anyone who has their presence obscured by the second passageway can fly through the city!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The crowd was dead silent.

    A keen light sparkled in the Revolution King¡¯s eyes as he looked wordlessly at his Night Watcher counterpart.

    ¡°Nice scheming!¡± he finally said. ¡°You speak of this only now and didn¡¯t say anything before... You were prepared to use those who took the second passageway as scouts from the very beginning, weren¡¯t you? No wonder you didn¡¯t let any of your Night Watchers try the ancient house!¡±

    Who didn¡¯t understand what was at y after the Revolution King pointed things out! Violet Moon also looked at Hao Lianchuan with an exceedingly unpleasant expression.

    ¡°Violet Moon and Swordmaster Hong can fly without hindrance,¡± Hao Lianchuan said seriously. ¡°Just try if you don¡¯t believe me. There are no more threats in the air to you anymore, truly! This is a good thing, you have much more freedom of movement than us and can even fly over the city walls. I didn¡¯t have the courage to try the second passageway, so you guys enjoy the first mover advantage for your troubles!¡±

    He made sense, but Violet Moon still boiled over with annoyance when she thought of how no one dared fly when this bastard said they couldn¡¯t.

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan!¡± she hissed. ¡°Are you not worried that¡ª¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t be angry,¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m just an initial Sr¡ªI really didn¡¯t have the courage to take the second passageway. I didn¡¯t hide this information from you on purpose, I was just concerned that you guys would leave us behind after gaining the ability to fly. Now you can fly over the city walls and throw that Silver Armor down to us. We¡¯ll attack him together, open the city gates, and enter together. That makes it much more safe!¡±

    The Night Watchers knew quite a lot about the ancient ruins. Flying had been on the table when they brainstormed how to get past the city gates, but not even Srs dared easily give it a try. They would be going to their deaths if things went south.

    Now that the truth was proven otherwise, Violet Moon was both irate and exasperated. But upon further thought, they really did hold a significant advantage. It was so much more convenient when they could fly.

    Hong Yitang, however, cursed inwardly. <i>Holy fuck! I wouldn¡¯t have gone through the second passageway if I¡¯d known this earlier! That damned Hao Lianchuan obviously wants me and Violet Moon to be bait and lure that guy down. It¡¯s too dangerous! And here I thought that the second passageway would conceal my presence, that I would be safer if it was easier to keep a low profile. It turns out to be a trap! Hao Lianchuan is nothing good!</i>

    Violet Moon didn¡¯t say a word as she brooded over the situation. As gravely injured as she was, she didn¡¯t want to be an easy target.

    ¡°You guys can take the second passage too!¡± she dered coldly. ¡°It¡¯s not like it¡¯s sealed shut!¡±

    ¡°If even Yao Cheng died, I¡¯m dead without a doubt if I try,¡± Hao Lianchuan sighed. ¡°We might lose half of the other Srs too. How are we to withstand that one if too many Srs die?

    ¡°Since the two of you have already gone through the process, why don¡¯t you put forth just a bit more effort? You can have more of the spoils when we divvy up the goods! Get that guy down here, kill him, and we¡¯ll all feast on the inner city!¡±

    Off to the side, Li Hao could only regard the deputy director with respect. No wonder he¡¯d tricked the others into taking the second passageway! Not only did he want to weaken the other delegations, but he wasying the groundwork for this move.

    What would happen if Violet Moon and Hong Yitang refused? Would Celestial ept it, to say nothing of the Night Watchers? Would the Revolution King?

    <i>We just want you to be bait, we don¡¯t want to kill you. Can¡¯t you fly up there for a look?</i>

    There would be no further cooperation if this was the case. And let¡¯s say only the Night Watchers attacked Violet Moon at the end of the expedition, would she be able to withstand the might of the agency?

    This was inly her thought process as well. She took a deep breath and suddenly proposed, ¡°Have Li Hao try! Li Hao, force out a few drops of your heart blood and drip it into the crack in the city gates. Let¡¯s see if that opens the gates...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. <i>What¡¯s this got to do with me?</i>

    ¡°If the gates don¡¯t open after you try,¡± Violet Moon concluded coldly. ¡°Hong Yitang and I... can fly up there for a look. Don¡¯t even think about it otherwise!¡±

    She wouldn¡¯t be satisfied unless she tried all other possible avenues.

    ¡°I¡¯m from the Li family.¡± the young man frowned. ¡°This is an ancient city of the Wang family. It belongs to apletely different faction. Aren¡¯t you barking up the wrong tree?¡±

    ¡°Just try!¡±

    ¡°My wounds aren¡¯t fully healed and I suffered extreme internal injuries just now,¡± Li Hao pointed out waspishly. ¡°Are you trying to force me to death in wanting my heart blood this very moment?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Violet Moon smiled. ¡°You like blood pearls, don¡¯t you? I¡¯ll give you one! If you are unable to open the city gates with your heart blood, I¡¯llpensate you with an initial Sunre blood pearl. You¡¯ll recover then!¡±

    <i>Oh for fuck¡¯s sake! </i>Li Hao cursed. He¡¯d had a grand time shooting the shit earlier, but now he¡¯d talked himself into a corner!

    Would his heart blood prove effective? Who the hell knew? It was fine it was ineffective, but if it was... these Srs wouldn¡¯t look at anyone but him from now on!

    A headache throbbed at his temples.

    Hao Lianchuan also cursed to himself. He¡¯d forgotten about Li Hao being a factor.

    Hu Dingfang wanted to protest when the young man answered, ¡°Fine, but... I want a Sr level blood pearl. If not, then ten Sunre level ones!¡±

    ¡°Are you kidding me??¡±

    ¡°You guys are getting rich after you enter the city, what¡¯s in it for me after I pay the price of my heart blood?¡± Li Hao responded with annoyance. ¡°Is it over the top that I want some payout? No matter whether or not I open it, I¡¯m agreeing only after you give me the things first! If not, I won¡¯t do it and it has nothing to do with me if you open the gates or not!¡±

    His heart blood was likely useless, Li Hao was very aware of that! He would¡¯ve opened the stone doorst time if it had an effect. So he was just losing a few drops of blood essence, but it would be an enormous loss if he didn¡¯t recover them. A Sunre level blood pearl would absolutely do the trick.

    But the key issue was that he wouldn¡¯t be happy unless he earned something for his troubles. He didn¡¯t care about mysterious power anymore since there was no more sword energy to distill them. In that case, blood pearls were just as fine.

    ¡°Ten is too much,¡± said the Revolution King. ¡°Let¡¯s do three. How about it, Li Hao?¡± The man turned to Violet Moon. ¡°Red Moon will not be asked to pay this price. The Sword Sect, Celestial, and Yama will each pay one or a treasure of equal value! Since Li Hao is providing his heart blood, the Night Watchers are exempt from payment!¡±

    ¡°Er...¡± Hong Yitang didn¡¯t ept the distribution. ¡°I¡¯m also going up the city wall after Li Hao fails...¡±

    <i>What, am I supposed to pay for that as well?</i> Even if a Sunre level blood pearl wasn¡¯t all that costly, why should he pay that price?

    The Revolution King smiled and amended faintly, ¡°That¡¯s true. How about Yama offer two of simr value?¡±

    Why fret over small gains and losses like these at this time? If Li Hao refused to take action and Violet Moon dug in her heels as well, then were the Srs actually supposed to fight it out?

    Li Hao acquiesced to the situation with a nod. ¡°Very well, I will agree on ount of the Revolution King. If it was Red Moon... I would never, not in a million years!¡±

    Violet Moon narrowed her eyes at him. She really hated the brat at the moment! If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that they couldn¡¯t kill him, she¡¯d p him to death with one palm strike!

    ¡°There¡¯s not much use for an overabundance of heart blood,¡± Li Hao added. ¡°Being a Sunderer, I don¡¯t have that much. It won¡¯t do you any good to force me to my limit. I¡¯ll coalesce three drops, and that¡¯s it! Don¡¯t say anything else if they prove ineffective, or you might as well dig my heart out and hang it on the city gates for a try.¡±

    The group didn¡¯t say anything. Hu Dingfang ran a few quick calctions, judging it to be fine if the young man expended only three drops of heart blood. The three Sunre blood pearls would replenish his consumption and even strengthen his blood qi. That would do.

    Violet Moon threw over three pills the color of blood. Li Hao was beginning to suspect that all of these guys carried storage rings. Or were space supernaturals a thing? There wasn¡¯t any ce to store treasures on them, so where were they pulling all of this out from?

    He swallowed one blood pearl as soon as he received them, then stepped forward. He circted a breathing method and pped his chest with a soft exmation, pping out a drop of blood that glistened like a ruby.

    He sprayed it over the gates¡ªthey remained unmoving!

    Slight disappointment rippled through the crowd. Although this was within expectations, it seemed that the heirs of the eight families were truly ineffective when it came to the other families. They would have to locate the ruins of the Lis if they wanted to make use of Li Hao.

    The first drop of blood waspletely ineffective. The young man pped a second drop of blood into existence and sprayed it over the gates again¡ªstill nothing. He took a deep breath. As his back faced the crowd, it obscured the strange look that entered his eyes.

    His blood was ineffective, he could see that. But he also sensed that the two characters over the city gates seemed to want to... absorb his blood. There was an attraction to his blood. He forced himself to concentrate on spraying his blood over the gates and preventing it froming in contact with the two characters. However, his heart shook with excitement.

    Was there a meaning behind those two characters?

 Chapter 260: Reawakening (I)

    <h4>Chapter 260: Reawakening (I)</h4>

    ¡°Battle Heaven...¡±

    The two characters seemed incredibly strong. Perhaps... Li Hao could try letting them absorb some of his bloodter on and seeing if it had an effect. That was out of the question for now. There were so many people assembled that if they saw an effect on these characters, they might rip the young man apart and feed him to the writing.

    The third drop of heart blood sshed over the gate. Still ineffective! Li Hao¡¯s face was pale, but he quickly recovered with the aid of the blood pearls. He exhaled slowly and looked toward Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°Director... please burn my blood away so that Red Moon doesn¡¯t use it for some other purpose...¡±

    Violet Moon was actually so inclined and wanted to collect the young man¡¯s blood from the gates. Instead, Hao Lianchuan waved a fireball into existence and scoured the city gates of every drop of blood.

    There were no other ideas left to the assembly. It looked like the two Srs had no choice but to head up the city wall to lure the Silver Armor down. A heavily panting Li Hao backed away. He wore an unhappy expression, but inwardly capered with glee. He¡¯d made out like a bandit again!

    The key piece of new knowledge that he¡¯d gained was the particr attraction to the two characters. When he lifted his head once more to look at them, it felt like he gazed upon the diagram of the eight trigrams in Silver City.

    It wasn¡¯t the eight trigrams that he looked at, but a faint image of a person writing out the two characters in calligraphy.

    ¡°Battle Heaven!¡± The person bore a longbow the color of blood on his back and a de at his waist. It was the faintest of shadows, but it overwhelmed the young man to the point where color drained from his face.

    The figurecked the dominating presence of the Li forefather and his killing intent, so how did it seem so... terrifying?!

    It was just the faintest of images without sound; he seemed to be a very genteel, refined person. And yet, Li Hao felt like he¡¯d plunged straight into the pits of hell. He didn¡¯t dare look at the figure head-on!

    He lowered his head, sweat dripping inrge drops from his forehead.

    ¡°Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°Chief... I... lost too much heart blood... my injuries are ring up again... I¡¯m in a lot of pain...¡± Li Hao gasped for breath like a drowning fish.

    The assembly jerked with shock. How was the young man in such poor condition? That rainfall of sweat didn¡¯t seem like an act, but how could that be with just three drops of heart blood? Were his previous injuries acting up again?

    The back of that figure appeared in Li Hao¡¯s mind¡¯s eye. It didn¡¯t make a move, unsheathe a sword, or do anything at all. It simply calmly wrote out two characters, but that was more terrifying than the sword stroke that Li Hao had seen before.

    Who was that? A Wang forefather? Why did he seem so much frightful than his own ancestors? Or was he so weak that he couldn¡¯t tell the difference and subconsciously finding the man horrifying? Or had the Li forefather shown a descendant grace and dulled the sensation for Li Hao?

    Questions floated into his mind as Li Hao heaved for air. Sweat dripped onto the ground; it took a while before the voices by his ear became more clear. He felt that he¡¯d survived absolutely cmity once more. These people could cause death simply by the backs of their figures from eons ago. That was the true horror of the situation.

    <i>The Wangs! </i>Li Hao turned the surname over in his mind. Was the Wang forefather this terrifying? Could it be... that his Li family was the weakest among the eight? <i>No way!</i>

    But he had to consider the possibility with thistest development.

    ......

    The young man lowered his head, his eyes shot through with blood. He¡¯d only gotten a glimpse of that figure¡¯s back, but it was like he saw the cosmos. It wore a longbow, de, and held a calligraphy brush.

    There was no connection to the turtle of the Wangs, none at all. Yet someone like this had appeared here endless periods ago to write down these characters.

    The others didn¡¯t see anything; Li Hao hadn¡¯t at first either. It wasn¡¯t until he sprayed his blood over the city gates and drew the attention of those characters that he witnessed the frightening scene.

    The young man panted heavily, drawing strange looks from those around him. Hu Dingfang was nearly dancing in ce from frustration and a bit of regret. He hadn¡¯t thought three drops of blood essence would matter; Li Hao was getting the far better end of the deal in trading them for three blood pearls.

    But now, Violet Moon would already be dead on the ground if looks could kill!

    Even Hao Lianchuan thought Li Hao was acting at first... but he slowly dismissed the thought when the young man continued to shake and drip with sweat. How horrifying would thed be if this was a facade?

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Hao Lianchuan called out. A silent Liu Long scanned the premises with an ill-tempered expression on his face. The young man¡¯s condition was not right.

    Li Hao lifted his head after a long moment. His eyes were shot through with blood and he seemed to be in considerable pain and shock. ¡°I¡¯m... fine...¡± he gasped out. ¡°It¡¯s just that my... internal injuries seized up... It¡¯s like a burst of dark force exploded in my body... I¡¯m fine now.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan looked coldly at the Celestial delegation. Hu Dingfang directed a look that promised death at Kong Qi. A burst of dark force? They¡¯d left something behind in Li Hao¡¯s body?

    Kong Qi found himself quite innocent when the two red at him. <i>It¡¯s nothing to do with me! I really didn¡¯t attack Li Hao, I didn¡¯t even run into him! What am I supposed to attack?</i>

    But... it really was very difficult to exin himself at the moment. The young man¡¯s status did indeed appear to be the result of wounds besetting him. There was nothing Kong Qi could do. Any exnation was useless, not to mention that killers were not in the habit of defending themselves.

    The rest of the assembly was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop. Li Hao was just a Sunderer and thus inconsequential to the greater picture, but his master was one to consider. Yuan Shuo was the foremost martial master of the dynasty and an existence who could yte Srs. If something happened to Li Hao here... blood and violence will soon rain upon thends.

    A drenched Li Hao stood up after a while and smiled. ¡°Really, I¡¯m fine. My apologies for causing everyone concern. This is how martial masters are¡ªwe often deal withtent injuries. Thankfully, there''s blood pearls to make use of, so I might be able to recover very soon!¡±

    He swallowed a second blood pearl as he spoke. Of the three blood pearls that he¡¯d received, he was down to one in the blink of an eye. Normal people wouldn¡¯t go through them so quickly, but his injuries were so severe that a faster than usual rate of consumption seemed normal.

    In actuality, his organs were swiftly digesting thest two blood pearls and the Darkmoon one from earlier. As a Dominator who nurtured one aura, he consumed a great deal of resources. He wouldn¡¯t dare take blood pearls like this in regr times¡ªthe energy from these scarlet shadows had once blocked his meridians and turned them solid.

    But now, all that two blood pearls did was help his five visceral organs recover from their injuries and replenish the blood essence and internal force that he¡¯d depleted.

    Dominator of Thousands waspletely different from Sunderer of Hundreds. He¡¯d switched from a small cup to arge wooden tub in terms of energy capacity. His internal force was much stronger than before and his blood was also different. The transfusion of blood was whollyplete.

    He didn¡¯t dare look at the two characters over the city gates anymore, they were too frightening. His presence recovered greatly after he took the second Sunre level blood pearl; he was no longer as white as a sheet.

    The scene came across very differently to the rest of the crowd. Blood pearls were miraculous healing panaceas! The healing properties were incredible enough, even if they didn¡¯t enhance a martial master¡¯s cultivation level.

    ¡°Li Hao¡¯s already made his attempt.¡± Hao Lianchuan turned his attention to Violet Moon. ¡°You saw it for yourself, it waspletely ineffective. Shouldn¡¯t you two be giving it a try now?¡±

    <i>Li Hao did his part, now it¡¯s your turn.</i>

    Violet Moon¡¯s expression was calm. She flicked a nce at Hong Yitang, then at the Celestial delegation. ¡°Celestial had people take the second passageway too. Have one of them fly five meters up into the air and see if they¡¯re attacked.¡±

    Ding Chen didn¡¯t say anything in defense of his organization. Yama had paid the price of two blood pearls, they paid one. The Night Watchers sent out Li Hao, the Sword Sect offered Hong Yitang. They were indeed putting forth the least amount of effort. Thus, he simply nced at a Sunre.

    The Sunre in question said nothing when he saw his leader look at him. He pushed off from the ground and shot into the air. Three meters, five meters, ten meters...

    Interlopers were usually attacked at five meters, but nothing happened this time.

    <i>So it¡¯s true! </i>Many rejoiced. Many of the survivors had taken the second passageway. Other than the Night Watchers who didn¡¯t send a single person, most of the rest hade through that avenue.

    They were honored guests ording to the customs of the ancient city. The rest were illegal trespassers! Honored guests had a proper identity, so the restrictions weren¡¯t that strict for them. As for illegal trespassers, who cared if you died or remained in good health!

    Li Hao involuntarily looked at Hao Lianchuan when he saw that the Celestial representative now had freedom of flight. It would¡¯ve been nice to send a portion of their people through the second passageway. What if their enemies all took to the air? Liu Long had gone through the ancient house, so he should be able to fly. As for the others, including himself... Li Hao didn¡¯t know if they could. Martial masters didn¡¯t give off supernatural ripples. But he¡¯d never tried it as who knew if a martial master would also be sted to death?

    It¡¯d be one thing if he never saw the airstrike in action, but after seeing Violet Moon nearly obliterated, no one dared give it a try. Hao Lianchuan¡¯s word of warning wasn¡¯t necessary. If Srs couldn¡¯t withstand the pressure, how could they?

    Hu Dingfang frowned and transmitted, ¡°Hao Lianchuan, we should let a portion of our people take the second passageway. I can do it if you¡¯re unwilling to. Otherwise, once our partnership is at an end and Violet Moon takes to the air... How will we respond to them then?¡±

    The gap between one side being able to fly and the other being grounded was apparent. Being unable to fly was a self-imposed restriction.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± Hao Lianchuan responded through transmission. ¡°What are you in a hurry for? You¡¯d have to go up there too if you can fly with impunity. Who the heck knows what¡¯s behind the walls? What if there¡¯s a Gold Armor or something like that... Do you have a death wish? Let them go up first. That makes it easy for us to run if the situation turns south!¡±

    He knew that the Night Watchers would struggle with additional limitations if none of their people went inside the ancient house, yet it wasn¡¯t necessarily a worse situation than what it was now. Had people forgotten that Yao Cheng had died inside the house?

    It was an incredible feat that twenty Night Watchers were still alive at this stage. That they hadn¡¯t lost a single Sunre was a miracle! Hao Lianchuan felt that this expedition was well worth it even if they left now. The evil organizations of Silver Moon had suffered enormously on this excavation to the point that even their foundations in Silver Moon were affected!

    Violet Moon was more at ease when she saw that Hao Lianchuan hadn¡¯t lied to them. They could indeed fly. On the other hand, Hong Yitang was highly conflicted.

    <i>Oh, fuck! So I really have to take the risk?</i>

 Chapter 261: Reawakening (II)

    <h4>Chapter 261: Reawakening (II)</h4>

    Violet Moon looked at Hong Yitang, Hong Yitang looked at Violet Moon. Seeing that the woman showed no signs of moving after a long while, the sword master understood that she wanted him to go first.

    <i>Oh, now you want to let me have first crack?</i>

    Hong Yitang sighed without a word. He gently pushed off the ground and bounded upwards. Violet Moon followed him up only after seeing the man take the lead.

    A city wall of one hundred meters was nothing to Srs when there was no flight restriction. The two quickly climbed in the air. Just when Hong Yitang was about to reach the top of the city walls...<i> wham!</i>

    A broadsword cut down from the sky! A Silver Armor looked down with extreme fury while some ck Armors appeared over the city walls. There weren¡¯t that many of thetter and they pulled out longbows. <i>Humm!</i>

    A dozen arrows shot at the two Srs!

    The silver broadsword mmed down in a massive collision and knocked Hong Yitang out of the sky. Violet Moon erupted with thunder and lightning, smiting the Silver Armor with a bolt of lightning.

    Sizzling with electricity, the Silver Armor swayed slightly from the immense blow. Violet Moon snorted, ¡°Hong Yitang, get rid of those soldiers!¡±

    The archers on the walls weren¡¯t arge threat by themselves, but they were still a certain annoyance when they fired off a volley of arrows.

    Hong Yitang promptly leapt upward and condensed a longsword of yellowish-brown energy in his hand. He struck with the de!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The nearest ck Armor was sliced clean through¡ªthere was no room to spare for preserving the suits of armor at this stage. He just needed to eliminate them from the fight. It was highly feasible for a Sr to destroy ck Armors. Bronze Armors presented more of a challenge, and the use of an origin weapon was required for the Silver Armor.

    ¡°Lure it down here!¡± someone transmitted. Violet Moon and Hong Yitang weren¡¯t able to deal with the Silver Armor by themselves. They stood a chance only if they enticed the enemy tond on the ground.

    <i>Do you think I don¡¯t want to? </i>Violet Moon cursed inwardly. This high ranking officer was inly no fool¡ªit seemed to retain a bit of consciousness and refused to move from the wall. The two exchanged a dozen blows by the edge of the city walls¡ªshe was unable to set foot on them no matter what she tried.

    Hong Yitang had a much easier time of things. He shed again and again, sweeping ck Armors off the ramparts.

    <i>Bam bam bam!</i>

    The soldiers crashed onto the ground with loud thuds, enraging the Silver Armor. It roared hoarsely andid around with its broadsword. The frenzied rampage shook Violet Moon¡¯s very organs. No matter how it raged, however, it wasn¡¯t an easy task for it to defeat the flying Violet Moon.

    Seeing that the Silver Armor wouldn¡¯t be lured down from the walls, the Srs on the ground attacked as well. They couldn¡¯t fly, but they could send decent attacks through the air. Supernatural abilities erupted with loud roars!

    The Silver Armor was suppressed to the point where it couldn¡¯t look out over the city walls.

    ¡°Hong Yitang, take a look over the walls!¡± cried the Srs after they kept the soldier down. What did the inner city look like?

    Hong Yitang was very curious as well! He only dared act on his impulses after seeing that there was no possibility for the Silver Armor to maneuver around. Sweeping another ck Armor off the ramparts, he kicked off the city walls and made use of leverage to throw himself higher into the air. He saw inside the city!

    <i>Light!</i>

    Indeed, there was light inside the city. Everyone had thought that before, but Hong Yitang saw clearly in this moment.

    It wasn¡¯t that there was illumination in the city, but that radiance from a pagoda-like structure in the center enveloped the entire city. It was dim and soft, the intensity of streetmps at night. A turtle seemed crouched on top of the pagoda.

    <i>A turtle...</i>

    The dim and soft source of light seemed toe from that. The entire city was quiet without a sound, yet the structures remained. Hong Yitang saw numerous buildings, streets, and architecture that he didn¡¯t recognize. It was antique, quaint, and home to some unique items.

    He saw something like a ne parked in a certain area. He glimpsed many other things in this moment, but none of it was key. What was more pressing was if there were other soldiers in the city. Was the army of one thousand its only troops?

    He swept a nce over the city, noting rivers,kes, and everything but people. There was no sign of the soldiers that patrolled in the outer city¡ªnot a single one!

    There was only this isted army in the city!

    Hong Yitang grasped a motion in this moment¡ªthis lone army had been left behind, tasked to defend this city called Battle Haven. Had its people met strong foes? Had the denizens migrated elsewhere? Or had they encountered natural disaster?

    No matter what it was, everyone within the city had left. There might¡¯ve been a massive army camped here in its time; only one thousand troops were left when the dust settled. And here they were, faithfully adhering to their orders millions upon millions of yearster. They held fast against allers!

    Not even Hong Yitang could describe what he felt¡ªthis army was almostpletely annihted! There were only very few ck Armors left on the walls, and he was one of the butchers.

    One Silver Armor and several dozen ck Armors were all that was left of the ancient city.

    ¡°Hong Yitang!¡±

    The mannded and responded, ¡°It¡¯s empty inside the city! There¡¯s nothing inside but a pagoda with a turtle crouched on top of it. Only the Silver Armor and a few dozen ck Armors guard it.¡±

    The crowd rejoiced at his report!

    Really? This was fantastic news! They were highly worried that tens of thousands of troops would be waiting in formation after they broke down the city gates. There would be no course of action but to flee if that was the case. They¡¯d have to worry about these guys rushing out of the city too.

    tion overtook the assembly when they heard that these were all the soldiers that were left. Endless treasure awaited them inside the city!

    ¡°Violet Moon, pull it down from the wall!¡± yelled the Revolution King. ¡°It¡¯s smooth sailing after we eliminate it! Help her, Hong Yitang!¡±

    Who was afraid of a lone Silver Armor? Even Hao Lianchuan and Hu Dingfang were moved. A defensive origin weapon! Was it the turtle? Very possibly!

    Both offense and defense were at hand once theyid hands on the treasure and enveloped White Moon City with it! They could seal off the provincial capital just like these ruins and leave only a tiny opening. Defending just that opening would be the easiest task. If not, they could lob a few city annihtion missiles at the entrance.<i> Let¡¯s see who dares barge in then!</i>

    The Night Watchers would be impossible to defeat in Silver Moon!

    There must also be something very special about this origin weapon for it to be self-sufficient millions of yearster. It could still fully operate a city¡¯s defenses¡ªwhich was why they wanted it so ardently.

    Many origin weapons needed to be maintained and brought back to good condition. So many were decayed to the point of ruin after being buried for so many years.

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    Srs attacked again and again.

    ¡°Everyone who¡¯s gone through the second passageway, get up there!¡± Hao Lianchuan roared. ¡°Help them eliminate the ck Armors and find a way to mob that Silver Armor!¡±

    Some looked at their faction leader¡ªdamned if the Night Watchers weren¡¯t a scheming bunch! None of them had taken the second passageway. Wasn¡¯t this making others risk their lives instead?

    ¡°Get up there!¡± Ding Chen echoed. The Revolution King waved a hand as well¡ªgo! It wasn¡¯t too dangerous, and did the Night Watchers think that just because they had the most survivors at the moment, that that would still be the case when they left on the third day?

    All of the other delegations were dead apart from the Srs, did Hao Lianchuan think that calm heads would prevail then? Or did he think the Night Watchers were all powerful and undying? Was the man even thinking at all?

    The Revolution King was quickly losing all of his reservations. So many of his people had died, it didn¡¯t matter if thest three did as well. He¡¯d operate withplete impunity by himself then! Anyone who pissed them off would see the execution of every one of their people below Sr! Whichever delegation was thergest now would draw the greatest wariness.

    Such were the Revolution King¡¯s thoughts, ones possibly mirrored by others. Regardless, the powerhouses that¡¯d passed through the second passageway were directed to go up the wall. One hundred meters wasn¡¯t too tall for a Sunre either. They bounded upward and charged up the wall.

    The Silver Armor howled with fury on the ramparts! Its voice suddenly seemed much clearer than before. Thest defenders! Perhaps Hong Yitang¡¯s spections were right. This was a lone army left behind to guard the city.

    Wrathful bitterness filled the Silver Armor¡¯s howls as his men died around him. Perhaps he was dead long ago; only an empty shell with some lingering consciousness propelled the armor. His bones were rotten after so many years, but it was this army that loyally defended the ancient city after their deaths and maintained their organizational system.

    It must have been such a magnificent army back in the day, so the Silver Armor did not ept these circumstances! Would these ants have dared run afoul of Battle Heaven in the city¡¯s prime, its days of glory?

    This city once towered beneath the heavens and an unparalleled powerhouse broke through the void to bestow it a name¡ªBattle Heaven!

    The heavens could be marched on!

    Its army raised their swords against the firmament, ruled the era, and protected the age...

    The Silver Armor¡¯s memories seem to awaken¡ªlight gleamed out of empty sockets behind the visor. The waving broadsword slowed, as if the soldier clearly saw the intruders only now.

    <i>Ants!</i>

    A bunch of weaklings had obliterated the Battle Heaven Army that he was so proud of! It didn¡¯t matter that he was part of the most insignificant city guard division of the army, grief and fury assailed him!

    He looked down over the city walls, giving pause to the expedition team. That was... a sentient look! The soldiers did not have those as they were all puppets. When they were defeated and their armor opened, the only thing that remained were bones that quickly turned to dust. But right now, they sensed a look of fury, contempt, and sorrow!

    Was he alive?? That was impossible! Who could survive for so long?!

    In the annals of the Skystar Dynasty, the ancient civilization wasn¡¯t a reference to the period within the past seventeen hundred years. History existed before the Star era calendar, but that also didn¡¯t refer to the ancient civilization. The history right before the Star era was a period of time that¡¯d been toppled and their ruins were called ancient buildings, nothing more formal.

    The ancient civilization ran far beyond three thousand years in the past, but no one could live so long if they only started counting from three thousand years ago!

    ¡°Do you... wish to enter the city?¡±

 Chapter 262: Reawakening (III)

    <h4>Chapter 262: Reawakening (III)</h4>

    <strong><i>What?!</i></strong>

    The crowd reeled with shock. The Silver Armor had spoken! While his intonation was off and thenguage different, his words seem to be conveyed on a mental level. It wasn¡¯t true speech, so they could understand him.

    This was unbelievable!

    The Silver Armor stepped through the air and returned to the ramparts. He looked out over a dazed group; even Violet Moon shuddered with horror and quickly withdrew. The soldier bestowed an imperial gaze upon his audience. Despite knowing that the moment he regained consciousness was the moment that his essence would start to fade away, he was still very happy.

    Even if his awakening was due to this handful of trash harassing him and killing his troops.

    ¡°Has His Imperial Majesty returned?¡± The Silver Armor turned downcast when nk looks answered him from below. ¡°It looks like... he has not... That follows as Battle Heaven has been abandoned...

    ¡°Has the Human King not returned either?¡±

    There was still ringing silence.

    ¡°The Human King cannot possibly fail!¡± The Silver Armor¡¯s sorrow deepened. Impossible! That was an invincible liege he spoke of, the overlord of the unboundednd, the sovereign who¡¯d conquered the world!

    ¡°Is this world... still that world?¡± murmured the Silver Armor as he tilted his head to the sky. When he next gazed at those beneath, heughed soundlessly at the looks of shock. ¡°How weak, how very weak! Has the path of energy awakened once more? But... there is no future in this path!¡±

    He seemed to be jeering about matters that had nothing to do with him, but shocked dismay blossomed on the faces of the expedition team.

    The path of energy? The supernatural world?

    The Silver Armor looked again and seemed to see something¡ªhe saw Liu Long, Li Hao, Liu Yan, and a few other martial masters...

    ¡°So... this world... is still that world...¡± He looked back at the cosmos with defiance and anger. ¡°That invincible existence will not abandon us! The Battle Heaven Army will bring the fight to the firmament and return with glory holding the heads of our enemies!

    ¡°You weaklings encroach upon Battle Heaven, but considering that you are all from the human race...¡±

    The soldier suddenly fell silent. The human race! What nostalgia that evoked... What did the world look like now?

    He¡¯d wanted to use this moment to obliterate the intruders. He could do so because the defensive system still operated! But the urge faded away when he looked at the empty city. Battle Heaven was... no more!

    <i>The city that I defend is... gone!</i>

    <i>Is a city still a city when there are no people?</i>

    Downcast and lost, the Silver Armorughed¡ªor was he crying instead? d in armor, longsword in hand, he looked up at a sky that was devoid of anything to see. Yet he seemed to glimpse something¡ªthe enemy, that endless enmity.

    ¡°You... are on your own! The human race... human race...¡± The Silver Armor looked up with infinite sorrow and unbounded despondency. He turned back to the few remaining ck Armors by his side. This was no longer his era! It no longer belonged to him.

    Based on prior preferences, he would have annihted these intruders for their temerity. That was what the Battle Heaven Army would do. But when he saw martial masters and cultivators among the crowd... his heart softened. Even though the organ had long since decayed.

    The human race!

    As irritating as the path of energy was, wasn¡¯t that also part of the human race?

    <i>This world and this time is no longer mine. What need is there to kill the humans of this era? Did we not once explore the primordial ruins of our time as well?</i>

    ¡°Where are the troops of Battle Heaven?!¡± A roar rang throughout the ancient city!

    Figures materialized in the outer city, as did two Bronze Armors. The call seemed to rouse their sentience. The ck Armors that¡¯d lost everything in falling outside the city confines also trembled.

    <i>The Battle Heaven Army is here!</i>

    ¡°Everyone, our era... is over!¡± shouted the Silver Armor with pain and grief. ¡°The Human King did not return and His Imperial Majesty is yet gone. But enemies still walk the world! Are you willing to march on the firmaments with me once again?!¡±

    ¡°We are!¡± The entire city seemed to shake! Battle Armors that¡¯d yet to die appeared one after another, recreating scenes of time past!

    Li Hao and the others on the ground were ck jawed with shock. What... what was this? The city wasing alive!

    ¡°We fight!¡±

    ¡°We fight!¡±

    ¡°We fight!¡± Roars that seemed to hail straight from the ancient past rang throughout the city.

    The Silver Armor could already feel it¡ªhis soul was extinguishing and his consciousness was fading away. The power of time and traces of years gone by swiftly elerated his progress to death.

    ¡°If you see the Human King or His Imperial Majesty... Tell them... tell them that we still fight!¡± The cry reverberated in the crowd¡¯s hearts. The Silver Armor pointed his sword at the sky and shouted, ¡°We fight once more for the human race!¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡± These armored soldiers seemed to be alive again as they raised their longswords and charged at the sky, even though there was nothing there. The Silver Armor began crumbling to pieces, as did the ck and Bronze Armors...

    Li Hao and the rest could not understand the scene, they really couldn¡¯t! The Silver Armor officer seemed to have been resurrected and then... did not retaliate against Violet Moon and the others. He didn¡¯t kill them or attack any of the intruders. Instead, he raised his sword and rushed at the empty sky.

    Who did they fight? Where was their enemy? What were they doing in theirst moments?

    Fear, horror, shock... All sorts of emotion wrapped around the expedition, including Li Hao. He focused on who the Human King or Imperial Majesty might be. Was it the figure that he¡¯d seen writing the name of the city? Was his own ancestor, the swordsman who¡¯d severed the self, once part of their august ranks?

    Who did the Silver Armor advance upon? Who did he fight for? The human race? ...humans? So were there other races? Did existences like ck Panther count as monster spirits? Were they the enemy?

    Countless notions floated into Li Hao¡¯s mind as he stared dumbly at the soldier threatening the heavens. The young man was dumbfounded, he was lost.

    Figures advanced through the air as they continued upward. They leapt, flew, and soared! Their swords waved as they charged the skies with unbridled killing intent! If these warriors had done so from the very beginning, less than ten from the expedition team would remain standing here today!

    <i>So powerful!</i>

    The outsiders finally sensed how powerful these soldiers were. Even the ck Armors had been powerhouses once. Li Hao felt that they were once martial masters and not Sunderers... but possibly Dominators!

    Dominators as ordinary soldiers? The young man could barely contain his amazement. Had these soldiers declined to mere shadows of themselves after countless eons? Were they so much more in their heyday?

    He remembered the look of contempt, disdain, and scorn from the Silver Amor. It was like the soldier had been looking upon ants, even when he gazed upon the Srs. Perhaps Srs were indeed just ants in his eyes, and he¡¯d just been a higher ranking officer back in his day!

    The Silver Armor in the sky emitted one final howl. ¡°We congratte the human race with the blood of the enemy!¡±

    <i>Kill!</i>

    Apanied by boundless killing intent, ck Armors crumbled away as their sword qi shot into the clouds. Their qi shook heaven and earth!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The Silver Armor rushed into the endless darkness with a loud rumble and vanished from sight. Only Li Hao saw that he fully crumbled away at thest possible second!

    <i>Dead!</i>

    Perhaps they died countless years ago, but he was fully dead in this moment.

    The expedition was rooted to the spot. Hu Dingfang, amander in the army, had nothing but shellshock as a descriptor for his mental state.

    ¡°What... kind of army... was this...¡± He couldn¡¯t imagine! Just what kind of army had they been to wave their swords at the sky after so many eras and threaten an unknown enemy? They¡¯d erupted with everything they possessed just for that final stroke!

    As amander, he was all too aware that such an army could not be ovee. They were invincible! For morale to still remain after millions of yearster... Was this possible in the earthly domain?

    Everyone was quiet in front of the inner city gates. Although the army was annihted, no one was all that happy. The various powerhouses wore solemn expressions. After a long while, the Revolution King asked, ¡°What... cultivation level was he?¡±

    He didn¡¯t know! The strength that the Silver Armor had brought to bear at the very end might be even stronger than a few Novas! Was that possible?

    ¡°Nova?¡± Hong Yitang swallowed hard. ¡°Pro... probably?¡±

    If that was the case, what of even higher ranking officers in those times? Their deputies? And theirmander-in-chief? Just how strong were the powerhouses of the ancient era??

    The scene had been unfathomable, and it¡¯d resulted simply from a trace of consciousness left behind by an officer inmand of thousands.

    Was he really of the Nova level? He could be stronger!

    Everyonemitted an ancient military designation to memory¡ªthe Battle Heaven Army! A collection of troops who still advanced on the cosmos millions of yearster.

    Li Hao stared dumbly at the sky, thinking of the sword of his memories, the blow from the Silver Armor, and the move from the ck Armors...

    The one from his ancestor had been hazy and appeared far away, but the one from the soldiers seemed to be fully grasped in hand. This was also a type of aura, one that forged ahead without looking back!

    That was how a sword should be used.

    The sword stroke that severed the heavens and the self was far removed from Li Hao, whereas the one in front of him was possibly the one that he should be pursuing. Even the one from the ck Armors seemed stronger than the one that Li Hao could bring to bear. This was a sword derived from fire and blood!

    Killing intent of blood and qi. Was a swordsman that did not kill still a swordsman?

    The young man turned over his reflections, whereupon someone broke the silence with an inappropriate question. ¡°If he¡¯s gone... and the sword¡¯s gone... how are we supposed to enter the city?¡±

 Chapter 263: Reawakening (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 263: Reawakening (IV)</h4>

    Although bbergasted, the group came back to their senses. The soldiers were gone, they weren¡¯t alive, they were just ancients!

    In fact, they weren¡¯t even ancients. They were characters outside the records of history, hailing from a civilization before the dawn of written time.

    They weren¡¯t living, so what the expedition needed to consider now was that the sword was gone. The potential key to the gates had self-destructed in the void along with the final blow from the Silver Armor. How were they to ess the inner city now? Were those who¡¯d taken the second passageway able to fly right over the walls, and those who hadn¡¯t just out of luck?

    Excitement gleamed in Violet Moon¡¯s eyes. The stronger that army was, the more agitated she became. This indicated that there was treasure inside the city, and iparably precious treasure. How could an ancient city that harbored such an army not have any treasure in its vaults?

    And, she could fly!

    Hong Yitang could also fly, but was he a match for her?

    People surrounded her as her thoughts ran wild¡ªHu Dingfang, the Revolution King, and Ding Cheng! Meanwhile, Hao Lianchuan and Kong Qi silently closed in on Hong Yitang. They put the Silver Armor out of mind as they¡¯d realized that the city gates could not be opened. In that case, these guys that could fly would not be permitted to be first into the city!

    What if they activated some traps or mechanisms in the city that caused the death of the rest? Who knew??

    ¡°Don¡¯t be like this!¡± Hong Yitang poured out his grievances. ¡°My wife and daughter are here. How would I leave them behind?¡±

    What were these guys staring at him for??

    Violet Moon scanned the people around her with a disquieting look. Both the Revolution King and Hu Dingfang were very strong; they matched her. And since Ding Chen could lead the Celestial delegation, that meant he was no slouch either.

    The three stared intently at her, she would suffer theirbined wrath if she dared fly over!

    The situation had swiftly turned on its head. The Night Watchers and powerhouses that hadn¡¯t taken the second passageway surrounded those who had. No one was going in!

    There were plenty of survivors from the second passage, particrly from Red Moon. They¡¯d sent the most members in. There were also those from Yama, but the expedition team was less worried since their leader hadn¡¯t gone inside. The only one to worry about was Red Moon.

    That organization¡¯s survivors groaned inwardly! There weren¡¯t that many of them¡ªthe Night Watchers were the biggest delegation left, but none of them had braved the ancient house.

    ¡°There¡¯s no need for this...¡± Violet Moon took a deep breath. ¡°We took our fair share of risk when we tried the second passageway. If this isn¡¯t to your liking, all of you can try that path as well!¡±

    ¡°We can!¡± the Revolution King responded calmly. ¡°But you¡¯lle out of the city with us and walk it again as well...¡±

    ¡°Piss off!¡± Violet Moon snorted. ¡°Who do you think you are, Revolution? On what basis do you have the right to demand that?¡±

    She¡¯d almost diedst time, and now they wanted her to try again? Was she crazy or them? In that case, she might as well throw caution to the wind. She might be able to make a getaway if sheunched herself over the walls and entered the city directly.

    ¡°You don¡¯t have to go in...¡± The Revolution King frowned. ¡°But you can¡¯t enter the inner city by yourself!¡±

    ¡°And what do you want?¡± Violet Moon demanded coldly.

    The Revolution King looked at Hong Yitang instead of answering. ¡°How tall is the pagoda inside the city?¡±

    ¡°Roughly... one hundred meters? It¡¯s about the same height as the walls.¡±

    The group sank into deep thought. That meant they did all have to try the second passageway if they wanted a chance at the treasure. Otherwise, were they to watch others take the treasure from right beneath their nose since they couldn¡¯t fly?

    ¡°Is there a flight restriction inside the city?¡±

    No one could answer that question. It was best if there wasn¡¯t, but if there was... they had to take the second passageway.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t we send someone in first and have them open the gates...¡± Ding Chen raised.

    Who? Violet Moon and her organization were out of the question; only weaklings were permitted inside so that treasure couldn¡¯t be imed. No matter how many valuables existed inside the city, one would find it difficult to retain their gains if theycked sufficient strength to.

    ......

    A loud hubbub rose as the group argued. Li Hao ignored them and refrained from pressuring the powerhouses that could fly. He was still looking up at the sky, the Silver Armor¡¯s words echoing in his ears and his mind reying theirst scene of rushing to the firmament with their swords upraised.

    What the young man had witnessedpletely overwhelmed him! He¡¯d never experienced such sensations before in his limited life¡ªthis kind of unbounded faith and supreme confidence. The soldiers¡¯ resolution did not waver even in the face of despair. They firmly believed that they would win!

    They believed that their king and their emperor would return. They would not be abandoned! They believed that the enemy could be ovee, that no matter how negligible their attack was, they wished to demonstrate their might to the enemy. The human race was not to be insulted!

    ¡°The Incantation of the de of Blood...¡± Li Hao murmured. He seemed to understand why such a method existed in the ancient civilization, why they¡¯d invented a secret art that took the enemy down with the wielder.

    These powerhouses did not care about their own survival when they marched on the heavens. They only cared if they could cut down the enemy.

    <i>What kind of person, item, or goal was it that inspired suchmitment from you? </i>They couldn¡¯t even be bothered to cleanse their city of intruders, even when the intruders trespassed on their homes. Their initial fury was because someone had the temerity to run afoul of them, but that dwindled away to indifference. When the Silver Armor looked at them, it¡¯d felt that there was something different in his gaze¡ªparticrly when he looked at Li Hao¡¯s group.

    Gratification? Happiness? Or something else?

    It was hard for the young man to judge, but he knew that the soldier had set aside his killing intent. That final blow before his death might not have been able to exterminate the entire delegation, but killing a few Srs was absolutely within his grasp.

    <i>Was it because we¡¯re also humans? So it¡¯s a race thing?</i>

    It was Li Hao¡¯s first time experiencing such interesting emotions. So it turned out he evoked appreciation and pity by virtue of being human, and even offeredfort!

    But there were humans everywhere beneath the heavens. Humans killing humans was the mainstream. Who did they kill, if not humans?

    ¡°The path of energy, martial dao...¡± Li Hao¡¯s thoughts wandered off. Faith!

    He knew what heckedpared to the veteran martial masters and the soldiers that marched on the heavens. <i>Faith! They have it, what about me? Who does my sword fight for? Why does my sword kill? Is it for survival?</i>

    Thoughts ran quickly through his mind and caused his emotions to swell. Perhaps he was finally embarking on the true path of martial masters¡ªmartial dao!

    He hadn¡¯t understood before, he really hadn¡¯t.<i> </i>There weren¡¯t any treasures involved in the scene that he¡¯d witnessed and there wasn¡¯t anything else to gain. He simply witnessed the final sword stroke from the soldiers, but it seemed more thrilling than the breakthrough to Dominator. The treasures inside the city and defensive origin weapon... Those were all external objects!

    A martial master¡¯s strength came from the self. Martial dao¡¯s strength derived from invincibility!

    Of course, he wavered a little at thest second. <i>You guys can give me all of those treasures...</i>

    ......

    The uproar beside the young man continued as he contemted the meaning of life. Li Hao tilted his head for a look. The Srs were still conflicted over who should enter first and if they should try the second passageway.

    ¡°With how the situation is, let¡¯s all go through the second passageway. But we won¡¯t force anyone. I propose that Revolution, Hu Dingfang, and Ding Chen should try. The rest can go without!¡±

    Why these three?

    It was tough for one person from the Night Watchers, Yama, and Celestial to enjoy such immunity in the city. The Sword Sect and Red Moon already had their people. To put it bluntly, the Night Watchers and Celestial would still have Srs overseeing the situation even if all three died. The premises wouldn¡¯t dissolve intoplete chaos.

    Hu Dingfang didn¡¯t protest the arrangement. He was indeed more suited to take the passageway. Being a martial master to begin with, he was stronger and didn¡¯t carry an origin weapon. He knew that the ming Phoenix Spear was with Hao Lianchuan. If Hao Lianchuan died in there, the origin weapon might be lost, never to be recovered.

    The Revolution King had to make the attempt since he wanted the treasure. It only affected him if he survived or not. The remaining three Yama Sunres were on their own.

    ¡°Swordmaster Hong, it is difficult for you to vie with Violet Moon since you are less than her.¡± Hao Lianchuan looked at Hong Yitang. ¡°Why don¡¯t you and your wife, the Celestial powerhouse, and I jointly restrain Violet Moon until the others return?¡±

    Hong Yitang nodded, he had no objection. It was too dangerous to enter the city alone with Violet Moon. It was one thing to fish in troubled waters, but it was too risky if he was to fight this woman alone.

    The rest had no further opinions when they discussed the arrangements. Even the Revolution King was very confident. Although Yao Cheng had died inside, Violet Moon and Hong Yitang had made it out. While Violet Moon suffered further injuries, her Armor of the Thunder God had been damaged before this. He held more of an advantagepared to her.

    Hao Lianchuan nced at the Night Watchers, then at the powerhouses of the various factions. ¡°I rmend the rest of you to leave at midnight tonight! I think it will be very dangerous for you to continue remaining in the ruins!¡± He turned back to the Night Watchers before anyone had time to say anything. ¡°Ole Zhou, leave with a portion of people and take the ck Armors back. I won¡¯t force anyone to leave or stay, I can¡¯t rob you of your opportunities, after all! Perhaps your fortune awaits inside the city. I won¡¯t stop anyone from taking the second passageway either, just that everyone needs to responsible for their own life!¡±

    He didn¡¯t make a unteral decision since all supernaturals dreamed of ascending to the heavens with one step. They wished to obtain that ultimate treasure and be an unparalleled powerhouse¡ªthe Night Watchers were no exception!

    Staying behind meant being prepared to die.

    The crowd rustled as people weighed up the decision. Did they leave, or did they stay?

    Li Hao looked at Liu Yan and Liu Long. The team captain frowned and looked back at the young man.

    ¡°I won¡¯t be leaving,¡± Li Hao said softly. ¡°I might be in a world of trouble if I leave now. I¡¯ll go when General Hu and Director Hao leave. They¡¯re two Srs, at the very least.¡±

    Who knew how many people waited for him outside if he left now? Not to mention... he didn¡¯t want to leave. He had some thoughts about the treasure, but not much. He wanted to study the two characters more after everyone entered the city.

    In his eyes, the writing was far better than any treasure, so he was ready with his excuses.

 Chapter 264: City Gates Open (I)

    <h4>Chapter 264: City Gates Open (I)</h4>

    When Hao Lianchuan looked at the trio, Li Hao said, ¡°Director... You guys should do whatever you want. The rest of you don¡¯t need to pay attention to me either. I won¡¯t be going through the second passageway and I won¡¯t be entering the city. I¡¯ll just wait here for you, is that alright?¡±

    The crowd blinked. What was Li Hao staying for, if he didn¡¯t want to enter the city? Enlightenment was quickly forting.

    ¡°Director Hou¡¯s outside, no one will dare touch you!¡± Hao Lianchuan exined.

    ¡°I¡¯m not familiar with Director Hou, I¡¯m more familiar with Director Hao.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°If there¡¯s anyone who I can rely on in the Night Watchers, it would be Director Hao!¡± The young man then turned to Hu Dingfang. ¡°General Hu brims with a just air and is incredibly strong. I feel more at ease when I¡¯m with the two of you!¡±

    These words scratched an itch in Hao Lianchuan and Hu Dingfang¡¯s heart. Although the young man wasn¡¯t necessarily being sincere, they were so wonderful to hear!

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll stay here to protect Li Hao,¡± Liu Long offered. ¡°Liu Yan, you should leave with Director Zhou and the others!¡±

    The woman wasn¡¯t strong enough, so it would be too dangerous if she continued to remain.

    Liu Yan didn¡¯t protest or put on a show of sticking with them through life or death. That would only drag herrades down instead. She quickly nodded, nced at Liu Long and Li Hao, and softly said, ¡°Then I¡¯ll head out at midnight!¡±

    Wang Ming sidled up to them with a chuckle. ¡°Li Hao, I¡¯ll be staying as well, I¡¯ll protect you! Do you think I should try the second passageway?¡±

    He was contemting his next course of action. Although he¡¯d set foot into Sunre at a very young age, he hadn¡¯t been able to do much on this excavation. Hence, he was a bit dissatisfied at how things had turned out. but it was indeed too dangerous to enter the inner city if he couldn¡¯t fly. Even escape would be hard then.

    ¡°You should do as you wish.¡± Li Hao flicked a nce at him. ¡°But it¡¯s very dangerous, so you need to think over it carefully.¡±

    Wang Ming started agonizing over his decision again and didn¡¯t say anything. The various other factions were also deep in discussion. A certain portion of them needed to leave with the ck Armors. Their gains had been significant, even with the remaining ck Armors destroying themselves in the army¡¯s final eruption.

    The ck Armors that¡¯d been captured earlier had long been scrubbed of any lingering consciousness. These soldiers had been dead for countless years.

    Anyone who left tonight would be leaving on the second day. Their factions should¡¯ve sent more representatives to Silver Moon during this time. They wouldn¡¯t be emerging to fight a lone fight.

    All sides quickly reached a decision. Not all of the Night Watchers decided to depart¡ªa portion chose to stay. Two Sunres remained, as did Wang Ming, making for three Sunres.

    Peak Sunre Director Zhou of the metal attribute stayed, as did mid Sunre Zhao Huan of the earth attribute, and Wang Ming. Director Zhou could even offer some resistance against a Sr at critical moments. Zhao Huan¡¯s presence was likely a contingency against further existences like the Battle Heaven Army. She could iste threats from the earth at any time and even try to move through it.

    Apart from Wang Ming, the two stayed behind with specific purposes. They might have discussed their movements with Hao Lianchuan.

    As for Darkmoons, Li Hao didn¡¯t even need to look to know that Zhang Ting was remaining behind. How could she not when something this momentous was at stake?

    Whether as a scout or an agent from the central region, these ancient ruins were far beyond the imagination. Even if she didn¡¯t vie for the treasures herself, she had to stay behind to observe who ultimately imed what items. All of this needed to go into her report.

    A portion of Darkmoons chose to stay in addition to Zhang Ting. With great danger came great opportunity¡ªeveryone was well aware of that. What they didn¡¯t know was the second line of that saying¡ªone needed great strength to im great opportunity!

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t try to persuade them otherwise. Robbing someone of their opportunities was as heinous as killing one¡¯s parents. He would not stop them when they did not care about their own survival.

    What was surprising from the Sword Sect side was that everyone, except Hong Yitang, chose to retreat! Even his Sr-level wife!

    Li Hao understood after thinking it through. The Sword Sect was not subordinate to any other faction. If no Srs left with the rest, they would be sitting ducks with their bounty of ck Armors!

    If worst came to worst, his wife could choose to swear allegiance to a particr faction. A Sr still possessed certain status whether in Silver Moon or the central region.

    One had to say, Hong Yitang was a man of certain vision to send out his wife with the rest of his organization before entering the city. The Sword Sect would not fall here even if he did. If the situation was handled with a deft hand, they could sell the ck Armors to the three great organizations or Night Watchers if the loot proved impossible to retain. That would result in a sizable sum of mysterious power, assuming they could hang onto that as well.

    Everyone below Sunre on the Red Moon side withdrew. All four of their Sunres remained.

    Only one Yama member left with ck Armors, the remaining two elected to stay.

    Out of the thirteen remaining Celestial powerhouses, six decided to depart at midnight. The remaining seven were all Sunres¡ªa powerful group. It was in to see that Celestial still bore certain ambitions for this expedition. Their Srs were not the most powerful, but they were a force to be reckoned with when the seven Sunres were added to the mix!

    And so, the discussion concluded. Two Srs, three Sunres, and five Darkmoons stayed for the Night Watchers. Combined with Li Hao and Liu Long, they had thergest remaining delegation of twelve members.

    Nine remained for Celestial. Altogether, Red Moon, Yama, and the Sword Sect also amounted to nine. Only Hong Yitang remained of the Sword Sect. There was thirty left for the expedition; the rest were all departing.

    Hao Lianchuan nced at the Darkmoons in his delegation. To be honest, these people were either truly greedy beyond belief or pawns and spies of others to be staying at this stage. They wouldn¡¯t want to leave before the dust settled.

    Just look at the three greats¡ªthey only dared let Sunres remain! The Night Watchers, however, had five Darkmoons still eager to explore. Setting Zhang Ting aside, Hao Lianchuan knew that one of the other four was another faction¡¯s agent. He wasn¡¯t sure which one, but it might have to do with the government. They might be from the Ministry of Administration!

    Thus, he didn¡¯t care about the Darkmoons remaining behind. They would walk the path they chose, and it was no one¡¯s fault but theirs if they died!

    It was apparent from the Sword Sect sending out even one of their Srs that the matters toe would be very dangerous. Those in the know were aware that once treasure truly appeared, the Srs would engage in a tremendous battle. Whoever dared stay behind was willing to risk their lives!

    Hao Lianchuan wasn¡¯t worried about anyone else but Li Hao. The young man was... a little too weak. He said that exiting the ruins was dangerous, but Hao Lianchuan felt that any danger would be mitigated by Hou Xiaochen¡¯s presence. It was more dangerous to remain inside!

    ......

    A frowning Hao Lianchuan approached Li Hao when everyone was preupied elsewhere. ¡°You should leave tonight,¡± he murmured lowly. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Director Hou can protect you. If he can¡¯t handle a little trouble like this, then all of Silver Moon would¡¯ve been overrun long ago!¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t, I¡¯m not familiar with him! I trust only Director Hao among the Night Watchers,¡± Li Hao repeated firmly. ¡°I won¡¯t enter the city! You guys fight over your stuff and I¡¯ll wait at the city gates. I¡¯ll hide if a Sr doese out. They won¡¯t waste time searching for a martial master. I¡¯ll be very safe unless both Director Hao and General Hu are dead!¡±

    The young man made certain sense, but his words weren¡¯t easy on the ear.<i> You¡¯re the one dying, alright? Not us!</i>

    Hao Lianchuan gave up speaking sense to Li Hao and looked at Liu Long. The man was a Dominator; he¡¯d be able to keep himself safe so long as he didn¡¯t involve himself with the Srs. Those remaining were likely all entering the city, so he wasn¡¯t in much danger if he didn¡¯t go in.

    Nodding, Hao Lianchuan said nothing else. Those departing were readying to leave whereas he had his mission as well. He, Hong Yitang, and Kong Qi were in charge of keeping an eye on Violet Moon and preventing her from entering the city. Hu Dingfang and the others prepared themselves for the second passageway.

    ......

    Most of the remaining expedition team left for the ancient house, but Li Hao stayed. Liu Long departed with them as well¡ªhe wasn¡¯t permitted to stay behind as he¡¯d been through the second passageway before. The group was worried he¡¯d enter the city himself. Li Hao didn¡¯t matter, he hadn¡¯t gone the alternative way. He wouldn¡¯t be able to fly in even if he had the opportunity to.

    Apart from Li Hao, some supernaturals who hadn¡¯t attempted the second passageway also remained, including Wang Ming!

    The handsome supernatural hemmed and hawed, a little dejected at where he was. ¡°Li Hao, do you think I should give it a try? Director Hao said I shouldn¡¯t, that my rate of survival is one percent since I¡¯ve just ascended and my mysterious power is unstable.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s for your own good!¡± Li Hao was in full agreement. He¡¯de to understand the mechanism behind the ancient house¡ªthe stronger a supernatural was, the more mysterious power they leaked, which made it more dangerous!

    The experts could defend themselves, but Wang Ming had just ascended and his power levels fluctuated. He wasn¡¯t the strongest either, so he¡¯d be dead without a doubt. Yao Cheng must have emanated too much power after he was injured and weakened by his wounds, which led to his death during the attempt.

    ¡°Sis Zhang, howe you¡¯re staying as well?¡± Li Hao looked at Zhang Ting standing beside them.

    ¡°I¡¯m not entering the city either.¡± She smiled warmly. ¡°I¡¯m staying because my water energy is good for healing, not battle. I can treat some life-threatening injuries at a crucial moment. After all, those who don¡¯t leave tonight must wait until tomorrow night. Some wounds can be fatal if they¡¯re not addressed in time...

    ¡°So I¡¯ll be waiting outside the city with you guys,¡± she concluded softly.

    ¡°A healer?¡± Wang Ming¡¯s interest was piqued. ¡°And I wondered why you were staying, Sis Zhang! You¡¯re a real one, alright! I suffered some scrapes earlier, can you look at them for me?¡±

    It was a good idea to have a doctor stay behind. Just as she said, if someone¡¯s life was in danger and the doors to the ruins wouldn¡¯t open for a while, having a doctor on site would ensure that the patient wouldn¡¯t die too quickly.

    Her presence rather made sense.

 Chapter 265: City Gates Open (II)

    <h4>Chapter 265: City Gates Open (II)</h4>

    ¡°Sis Zhang, don¡¯t us Night Watchers have any Sunre level healers?¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°No.¡± Zhang Ting shook her head. ¡°Healers are actually very special and very rare! Wood, light, and water attributes are suited for healing, particrly the life attribute¡ªthat¡¯s a mutation from the wood attribute. But there aren¡¯t many in even the central region, to say nothing of Silver Moon.

    ¡°Light Ind had a few light attributes¡ªthey recruited most of the light attributes in Silver Moon. Thus, most organizations mainly focus on water attributes as their healers!

    ¡°Yet water can also attack, so most supernaturals of this attribute choose to focus on offense instead of healing.¡±

    ¡°The life attribute... So this also exists as well. I¡¯ve learned something new today!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Then you need to be careful, Sis Zhang. You should stay close to us since you don¡¯t have much offensive capabilities. My chief is really powerful, he¡¯s a Dominator!

    ¡°Dominators are all very strong,¡± chuckled the young man. ¡°With him here, no one will dare make trouble for us as long as we don¡¯t enter the city for the treasure.¡±

    A Dominator!

    Liu Long remained quiet off to the side.

    ¡°Congrattions to Director Liu.¡± Zhang Ting nodded with a strange look on her face. ¡°To think that you ultimately made the breakthrough in the end! I once heard of your name in White Moon City, that you would hold a city by yourself...¡±

    This was a famous saying that originated from Liu Long. White Moon City wanted him to join the Night Watchers, but he refused and insisted on returning to Silver City. That was when he voiced the heroic sentiment of defending an entire city by himself. Silver City would not fall so long as he lived!

    He¡¯d just been a Sunderer then. Now that he was a Dominator and thought back to those days... The man shook his head; there was nothing more to say. One man holding down a city had been words spoken in the heat of the moment! As the supernatural world grew stronger¡ªas evident by themon sight of Srs on this expedition¡ªit wasughable to think that one person could protect a city by themselves.

    He didn¡¯t mind Li Hao exposing him as a Dominator. The kid was diabolical! Everyone¡¯s attention would naturally be on him after he became a Dominator. Who would care about a sickly Sunderer? Li Hao¡¯s face was still frighteningly pale. Perhaps he was really injured, but... Liu Long suspected that he wasn¡¯t.

    He also knew about Zhang Ting¡ªa mid Sr of the water attribute! Li Hao had had his eyes on her for a while, but then seemed to give up. But now that the woman didn¡¯t leave and was actually sticking close to them instead... Liu Long would twist off his head and give it to thed if thetter still wasn¡¯t thinking about it!

    ¡°Sis Zhang, do you know that Ole Wang¡¯s be a Sunre?¡± Li Hao continued.

    ¡°I do, everyone does. He¡¯s the youngest Sunre in all of Silver Moon!¡± Zhang Ting smiled.

    ¡°Don¡¯t say that, I¡¯m not young, I¡¯m already twenty!¡± Wang Ming roared withughter and put on a modest air. ¡°There are twenty-year-old Srs in the central region!¡±

    He continuedughing, these words were so easy on the ear! He didn¡¯t know Sis Zhang that well, but her words were quite soothing. What a pity that she was a bit too old and showing it. He¡¯d talk to her some more otherwise.

    Someone on the side looked at them as they chatted¡ªone of the remaining Yama Sunre. The man bore a few scars on his face and nced sharply at Liu Long. ¡°You¡¯re a Dominator, Liu Long?¡±

    The team captain looked back at him, not recognizing the stranger and not wanting to respond to him.

    ¡°You¡¯re the one who killed Hu Po, aren¡¯t you?¡± The man remained staring coldly at him. ¡°You guys had already disappeared at that time and entered the city. So was Hu Po in the city. There were signs of punches on his clothing¡ªwe wondered if someone from the Sword Sect was behind it. Now it looks like you killed him to get revenge for that bitch Liu Yan!¡±

    ¡°So what if I did?¡± Liu Long flicked a dismissive nce at the speaker. He could be bothered to deny his involvement at this stage. This person might have something to do with Li Dahu.

    ¡°So it was you!¡± sneered the scarred Sunre. ¡°Liu Long I¡¯ll have you know that Hu Po followed by my side after joining Yama. I raised him from nothing...¡±

    Liu Long stared coldly at him. This man was very strong! He looked to bete or even peak Sunre, but was Liu Long afraid?

    ¡°So what?¡± cursed Wang Ming before Liu Long had a chance to respond. ¡°Do we need your permission to kill a wanted criminal? There¡¯s barely anyone left in Yama and your Revolution King might not make it back out alive. Want to take a chance that you won¡¯t leave alive either if you have a bone to pick?¡±

    He was afraid of nothing at this stage. Yama had suffered immensely on this expedition. Weren¡¯t there Night Watcher Srs to neutralize the Revolution King? And they only had two Sunres remaining.

    If it came down to a fight, what was left of the Night Watcher contingent could more than handle the organization. Of course, he himself wouldn¡¯t be able to stand against the speaker, but Liu Long was a Dominator! The two of them together was more than adequate!

    The Yama powerhouse sneered, but said nothing more. Liu Long! That bastard had indeed killed Hu Po! Being a heavy earth Sunre, Hu Po was dominating when he fought. It was an extreme pity that he¡¯d died so quickly in the outer city.

    Li Hao listened quietly to their exchange. He sometimes looked at the city gates or at the end of the streets to see if those who¡¯d taken the second passageway had returned. Hu Dingfang was attempting it this time, as was the metal attribute Director Zhou. <i>I wonder if they¡¯lle back safely...</i>

    The young man coughed up some blood, prompting Zhang Ting to say, ¡°Are you alright, Li Hao? Do you want me to take a look...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright!¡± Li Hao shook his head with a smile. ¡°A martial master¡¯s body can not easily be examined by others. Teacher says that might easily expose some secret arts, so my apologies!¡±

    ¡°I understand, I¡¯m just worried that your injuries are too severe...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine!¡± Li Hao took out the final blood pearl. ¡°This is a healing panacea! I should be fine after taking this blood pearl.¡±

    He swallowed it without further ado. Power from the scarlet shadow agitated through him, absorbed by his organs and the rest of his body. He¡¯d taken three Sunre blood pearls in quick session, replenishing his stock of internal force that was unstable after crossing into Dominator.

    Zhang Ting noted the healthy flush that returned to his cheeks and asked when the young man opened his eyes, ¡°Are they that effective?¡±

    ¡°Very!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°They¡¯re a priceless treasure when paired with the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. What a pity that I can¡¯t teach the breathing method to others, or I¡¯d teach it to whoever wants to learn it. My teacher won¡¯t allow me!¡±

    He sighed and shook his head. ¡°This is one of the drawbacks of the martial world. Everything is jealously hoarded, causing many precious arts to be lost in time!¡±

    Zhang Ting red with desire¡ªthe Breathing Method of the Five Styles! What a pity that only Li Hao and Yuan Shuo knew of it. As for Chen Yuhua... no one would consider her part the equation. She¡¯d vanished for many years and had been thrown out early on. Zhang Ting also knew that she¡¯d joined the Tiger Wings, which made her difficult to ess once she was part of the army.

    With how strong Yuan Shuo was these days, Li Hao was the best point of attack if one wanted the breathing method.

    A loud mor sounded from the distance as they chatted. The group that¡¯d tried the second passageway was returning.

    Li Hao rxed when he saw Hu Dingfang. It wasn¡¯t that he cared so much for the man, but that the situation would truly be dangerous if he died. The Night Watchers possessed additional confidence so long as he lived.

    Hu Dingfang¡¯s expression was as usual¡ªnothing could be read from it. Upon closer observation, however, Li Hao could tell that his ball of light was much smaller. The same went for the Revolution King, and the origin weapon in his body seemed to be damaged.

    It was mid Sr Ding Chen who hadn¡¯t suffered much. He was like Hong Yitang from the first attempt, and there was also an origin weapon inside his body! It wasn¡¯t that strong, just on par with Zhang Ting and a far cry from the ming Phoenix Spear. So Celestial had brought an origin weapon on this expedition as well!

    No one could see as clearly as Li Hao; there would be no secrets hidden from the young man¡¯s eyes. He could fully read who was injured and whose strength had been reduced. All of the Srs that made the attempt hade out alive. The only Sr to enter had been Director Zhou and he... seemed fine.

    Peak Sunre was neither that strong nor weak. The director had lingered at this cultivation level for many years and maintained good control over his abilities. Someone like him was the safest. Those who¡¯d emerged unharmed from the second passageway before were mostly like him, stuck at the peak of their cultivation level for a while.

    A mid Sunre like Zhao Huan did not attempt the passageway.

    ......

    The crowd gathered once more. They still numbered thirty¡ªno one had died during this attempt. Instead of being in a hurry to enter the city, they started waiting.

    What were they waiting for?

    For the doors to the ruins to open so that those who wanted to leave could depart. The otheryer of meaning was that the next time the doors opened would be tomorrow night. One day was sufficient for people to mob anyone who identallyid their hands on treasure!

    Otherwise, it was exceedingly easy for someone to escape even if the doors were open for a split second. These Srs had carefully calcted everything.

    There was a period of time before the doors opened, so Hao Lianchuan struck up a conversation.

    ¡°Everyone, do you have any thoughts or clues about the imperial majesty and Human King that the soldiers spoke of earlier?¡±

    No one answered him.

    ¡°The three great organizations have different intelligence, as do the Night Watchers.¡± Hao Lianchuan remained smiling. ¡°Why don¡¯t we share them with each other? It all has to do with the ancient civilization, so isn¡¯t it good to know more about it?

    ¡°The Night Watchers do know a little,¡± he offered. ¡°Based on the ancient records that we¡¯ve obtained, there did seem to be either someone or a title called the Human King in the ancient civilization. As the moniker indicates, he was king of the human race! It might not have been one person¡ªit could¡¯ve been passed down through the generations. The Skystar King of the current dynasty, for example, can also be called the Human King...¡±

    The Revolution King jeered as soon as this was suggested, ¡°The Skystar King as the Human King?¡± Sarcasm was thick in his voice. ¡°A royal family without any tangible authority is worthy of being called the Human King? Do you know what that title entails? The ancient record speaks of the the Human King ruling over whatever he stood on, whether the cosmos, oceans, or even the universe! Perhaps they exaggerated, but ording to written fragments, whatever he saw was either his or soon to be his. Can the current Skystar King begin topare to such an august personage?¡±

    He sniffed derisively!

 Chapter 266: City Gates Open (III)

    <h4>Chapter 266: City Gates Open (III)</h4>

    ¡°Forget about the Skystar King,¡± added Violet Moon. ¡°And don¡¯t bother mentioning the current one. If we have to hail someone as the Human King, then perhaps the one who founded the dynasty hundreds of years ago can barely qualify!¡±

    The one who established the Skystar Dynasty might possess some right to be the Human King. The one of their generation was just a figurehead. No one thought anything of the royal family since all authority was in the hands of the nine ministries.

    Hu Dingfang swept them a nce, but said nothing. Logically speaking, he should be in a towering rage. He was amander in the dynasty¡¯s army, after all. But... there was no point in that sort of reaction.

    Being a border province, Silver Moon didn¡¯t regard the royal family or nine ministries with much reverence. They were self-sufficient¡ªvery little help was forting from the central region. They even had to divert some people and resources to reinforce the central region at times instead. Even someone in the army like Hu Dingfang didn¡¯t like the central region all that much.

    Compared to the Human King... this group was much more interested in discussing the Skystar Dynasty. The ancient civilization was done and dusted, who cared about it? They also possessed so little information that no one was really willing to publicly share what they knew.

    Debates quickly broke out regarding the dynasty¡¯s current condition. Li Hao wasn¡¯t interested. All of these people were wily old foxes. There wasn¡¯t much substance to their words, just ambiguous nonsense.

    He turned his attention to the two characters over the city gates, undergoing a type of mental tempering. In contrast to his first nce that filled his eyes with blood, he could just barely endure the strain on his consciousness this time. What came into view was still the back of a figure that could barely be glimpsed!

    The young man didn¡¯t dare look at the figure for long, he kept his eyes on the de at the person¡¯s waist. He could make out the de¡¯s intent even though it remained sheathed and at rest. Unbounded intent to exterminate enemies!

    Heaven and earth crumbled when it made itself known, the firmament shattered! This was apparent even when the figure did not actively wield the de.

    Thest time Li Hao witnessed a sword severing immortality, it enabled him to understand the aura of the sword. This time, he observed not toprehend the aura of the de, but to see if he could enhance his sword aura and strengthen it!

    Whether it was the de or sword, both were weapons of ughter. Their essence was the same, but that sword stroke had been a decisive severing of the self. One either lived or died when it was deployed, and blood must be shed when it was drawn. This de, however, came with more hints of domination!

    <i>All soldiers and citizens will bow their heads before the de! Life kneels in worship when the de is drawn!</i>

    This was the kind of sensation it imparted. Li Hao didn¡¯t know if his perception was correct, but he was willing to think of it in this manner. Perhaps he would have more direct insights if he was closer to the characters.

    Imperceptible changes had already filtered into his sword aura. His notions of martial dao were not yet fixed in a final pattern, so anything newly observed resulted in more knowledge and reflections. He drank in everything he could, distilling the essence from his experiences so that he might be able to tread his own path.

    After a while, Li Hao closed his eyes and thought back to the stroke from the Silver Armor. That was even more direct since he¡¯d observed it with his own eyes! The other moves were too far away and too overpowering, they stood at a level beyond his currentprehension. He could only scratch the surface of what they entailed.

    The Silver Armor¡¯s blow, however, left a deep impression on him! There was no sense of the self in that stroke and the wielder lived to die!

    He ignored all of the discourse and distraction around him. None of these people were martial masters, they wouldn¡¯t understand. Just the Silver Armor¡¯s final strike was enough to contemte for a lifetime. What origin weapon could hope to measure up to that?

    Liu Long didn¡¯t use weapons¡ªor rather, he didn¡¯t use a sword¡ªpossibly because he didn¡¯t have a deep enough understanding of them. Li Hao kept musing over them because he counted as half a swordsman.

    His internal force shaped into a sword inside his body, sword aura wrapped around it!

    As his sword aura and internal force progressed to bing one; the earth aura locked inside his visceral organs shifted with agitation. Li Hao suddenly wanted to draw his sword and leap into battle! He wanted to try that move out for himself!

    What move?

    The one that the Silver Armor had brought to bear against the heavens! Sadly, there were too many people around him at the moment, so he suppressed the urge.

    ......

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    Hong Yitang suddenly looked at Li Hao with surprise. Were his senses... mistaken? The young man carried his Earthturner Sword. Having wielded it for so many years, Hong Yitang was highly proficient with it. He could even weakly sense it when they were in such close quarters. Just now, he suddenly felt that his former sword stirred with the desire to act of its own ord. That tiny bit of sword intent was immensely different to someone who¡¯d once grasped the sword aura as him.

    Baffled, he nced at Li Hao. He¡¯d gifted his prized sword to the young man for a variety of reasons. First, Li Hao¡¯s teacher was Yuan Shuo, first among martial masters. While there was no way back for Hong Yitang, his daughter was a martial master. This was both an investment and an olive branch. They were all part of the Silver Moon martial world. What if his daughter could set foot into Summoner of Spirit?

    Second, Li Hao had hopes of ascending to Dominator since he¡¯d cut down Sun Moxian. Hong Yitang thought rather highly of a Dominator who was the disciple of a Summoner. The caveat was that the young man didn¡¯t die an early death.

    Third, the Sword Sect was based in Silver Moon, after all. The province still answered to the central government, which made people like Hao Lianchuan, Hou Xiaochen, and Hu Dingfang the true overlords of the province!

    Li Hao... seemed to be on good terms with Hao Lianchuan. Hong Yitang knew a little of what¡¯d gone on behind the scenes with Hu Dingfang¡ªthe man counted as a partial disciple, even if Yuan Shuo would never admit to it!

    It was important to be on good terms with Li Hao if one was to operate in Silver Moon. All of this culminated in why Hong Yitang had gifted his precious sword to the young man.

    But for the moment, he was confused. Was this sword intenting from Li Hao? It¡¯d been a fleeting moment of tyranny, bloodthirstiness, and resolution. Would thise from a young martial master without much experience to speak of?

    As he looked at Li Hao, the young man happened to look his way as well. Li Hao blinked and smiled a friendly, kind smile.

    Hong Yitang shifted slightly and also smiled back without saying anything.

    ......

    Time passed bit by bit. After an unknown interval, a hubbub of shrill cries traveled back to those at the inner gates. Li Hao didn¡¯t know what was happening, but judging from the reactions of the group, it was signals from those who¡¯d left earlier. Those people had exited the ruins!

    The Srs immediately stood up.

    ¡°Everyone, you should head inside first and try to open the city gates. It¡¯s best if we can open them. If not, we¡¯ll wait for you outside!¡±

    Those due to head inside didn¡¯t respond. They didn¡¯t care if the city gates could be opened anymore or not. It was best if they could¡ªotherwise, those waiting outside would happen onto some easy gains if they fought inside.

    Hu Dingfang, Violet Moon, the Revolution King, Ding Chen, and Hong Yitang soared into the air and over the city walls. Hao Lianchuan and Kong Qi waited silently outside. Everyone looked at the massive gates. Could they be opened?

    If they could, then those who hadn¡¯t taken the second passageway also had the chance to enter the city for a look around. Perhaps there were treasures that¡¯d been left behind?

    A loud rumbling came from the massive city gates after a long while. The tightly shut gates started to move to both sides. They were opening!

    Hao Lianchuan and the rest rejoiced, it was finally open!

    <i>RUMBLE!</i>

    Gates that had been sealed for nigh eternity were open once more.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>The inner city.</i>

    The crouching turtle atop the pagoda seemed to open its eyes when the gates were opened. The gates to Battle Heaven were... open! In times gone by, the gates had always opened to a hubbub of activity and voices as people bustled in and out. Now after millions of years, the city was the same, but everything else was gone.

    ......

    There was another structure next to the pagoda. It wasn¡¯t very tall, but it upied a lot ofnd. There was a massive throne inside the structure upon which sat a person¡ªor rather, a suit of armor.

    A Gold Armor!

    It sat without moving, but held something in its hands. The item appeared to be a turtle shell, one that exuded a faint glow. It seemed to be the core of the ancient city. It enveloped and protected the city, enabling it to stand for millions of years. Energy circted through the turtle shell as if the stars and moon. It was extraordinarily captivating.

    The shell trembled for a split second when the gates opened, then quickly quieted down. It seemed to be identifying and also expectant for something.

    The Gold Armor remained unmoving, a deste silence the only thing emanating from it.

    ......

    ted jubtion rang outside the city! The inner city was finally essible!

    Numerous figures sped inside as soon as the gates opened, including Hao Lianchuan. He was also excited as the Night Watchers had tried numerous ways but failed to enter the inner city. It was finally open in front of him!

    ¡°Everyone, Li Hao, be careful...¡± He ran off after these words. He didn¡¯t factor in Zhang Ting¡¯s presence; she wouldn¡¯t voluntarily expose herself. She was just here as an observer, provided that Li Hao didn¡¯t provoke her first.

    He... probably wouldn¡¯t, right? There were no more Silver or ck Armors, so what would he start a fight with her for?

    ......

    A group of people rushed into the city, setting their sights on the pagoda near the city center. They couldn¡¯t contain themselves and ran in before the gates were fully open. Those who could fly took directly to the air.

    Only eight people out of thirty were left outside in the blink of an eye. Wang Ming wanted to charge as well... but saw that Li Hao and Liu Long weren¡¯t moving!

    ¡°Are you guys really not going inside?¡± he asked urgently. There was treasure strewn throughout the city! They could visit some of the ancient houses, if not the pagoda. Perhaps there were open treasures! Maybe there were armories to explore!

    Indeed, armories. Those suits of armor didn¡¯t appear out of nowhere, did they? Even the ck Armors were a valuable treasure! What if there were Bronze or Silver Armors in storage, or even a Gold Armor? They¡¯d be so rich!

    They didn¡¯t have to fight the exalted personages for the origin weapon, just picking up the scraps was enough for them to live a carefree life of ease!

 Chapter 267: Three Warriors Slaying A Solar (I)

    <h4>Chapter 267: Three Warriors ying A Sr (I)</h4>

    ¡°It¡¯s too dangerous inside the city,¡± Li Hao said softly as he stood at the city gates. ¡°We can just wait here, what¡¯s the rush?¡±

    The Yama Sunre next to them hadn¡¯t gone inside either. He looked quietly at them, frowning when Li Hao and Wang Ming showed no signs of moving. He¡¯d wanted to wait for everyone to leave so he could attack Liu Long...

    But now? Forget it! There was no time to waste, treasure awaited! He rushed inside with a snort. He coulde backter to take them to task for their crimes.

    Over on the Night Watcher side, the Darkmoons that¡¯d stayed behind also stirred restlessly. They didn¡¯t have to go fight for treasure either. Surely they could just walk around and take a look inside? Wouldn¡¯t it be very odd to remain in the ruins and not visit the inner city?

    Thus, they took their leave of Wang Ming and the others before filing into the city themselves.

    Only familiar faces were left in the blink of an eye. Li Hao looked at Zhang Ting. ¡°Is Sis Zhang not going to look around?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m in charge of healing and I¡¯m a Darkmoon.¡± Zhang Ting shook her head. ¡°I¡¯ll be in grave trouble if Ie across other people. Not to mention, I can¡¯t fly since I didn¡¯t go through the second passageway...¡±

    She was fine just watching from the city gates. Of course, if a fight broke out and left both sides heavily injured, she couldn¡¯t be med for attacking a hapless Sr that stumbled out then, could she!

    Standing by a tree stump to await the hare that would show up was also a good course of action. It was at this time that the young man sighed!

    ¡°What is it?¡± Zhang Ting found his reaction odd.

    Li Hao shook his head. <i>Nothing, just... what are you doing here when everyone else has left? </i>To be honest, he had no interest in attacking a Sr after depleting the sword energy; it was too dangerous! <i>But... can I get in the mood to observe those two characters if you don¡¯t leave?</i>

    He¡¯d already urged her to go, so why wasn¡¯t she leaving? Mid Sr was very strong, but ying the pig for so long would really turn one into a pig!

    Li Hao looked at the inner city; the vast premises quickly swallowed less than thirty people. This wasn¡¯t a small metropolis as it could hold at least one million denizens back in its day. Although the expedition team could glimpse the towering pagoda from the gates, it should be at least twenty kilometers away from them. Even Srs would take a while to reach it.

    The young man gazed silently into the inner city.

    ¡°Are we really going to just stay outside?¡± Wang Ming asked anxiously. ¡°Li Hao, the city¡¯s huge. We can go to a more remote location if you¡¯re scared. It¡¯s such a pity to miss out on this opportunity!¡±

    Hadn¡¯t they stayed behind for the potential benefits to be gained? He was going out of his mind with impatience!

    ¡°I said that I¡¯m staying just to wait for the director and others.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°What are you in a hurry for? Go inside yourself if you¡¯re in such a rush!¡±

    ¡°But...¡± Wang Ming protested with resignation. ¡°Aren¡¯t we a team? How can I go if you don¡¯t? Not to mention, that Yama fellow has his sights set on us. If I go and he suddenlyes back, will Director Liu be able to handle the situation by himself?¡±

    The handsome supernatural chose this moment to grow a conscience. ¡°Forget it,¡± he sighed. ¡°It¡¯s just a... such a damned pity!¡±

    He wouldn¡¯t go if these two didn¡¯t. Liu Long might not be able to defend himself if the Yama Sunre came rushing back. Srs weren¡¯t interested in petty revenge; thoughts of treasure upied their minds. But that Sunre seemed very narrow-minded.

    ¡°Treasure isn¡¯t necessarily limited to the city!¡± Li Hao suddenly said. Everyone looked at him. He tilted his head up at the sky, averting his eyes from the air over the city gates. ¡°I think that... these two characters are quite extraordinary. Do you guys think they¡¯re treasure?¡±

    The group raised their eyes to the ¡°Battle Heaven¡± characters, not making out anything after close scrutiny. Zhang Ting studied them as well, but didn¡¯t glean anything. They couldn¡¯t read ancient characters and thus didn¡¯t identify particr meaning from them. The writing just appeared to be very natural in a flowy script. But a treasure? They really didn¡¯t think so.

    ¡°It¡¯s not like we can fly up for a look either. Forget it... let¡¯s just wait here!¡± The height of regret draped over Wang Ming.

    ¡°That¡¯s not necessarily the case,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°I feel like this ce might not impose the same air restrictions on martial masters! Or rather, the prohibition against flight is applicable to energy ripples only. Otherwise, were people of the ancient civilization all mundanes? Were they punished just because they jumped a bit higher?

    ¡°There were martial masters in the ancient civilization as well. Were they supposed to die just because they flew a bit higher during training? Therefore, I think the flight restriction targets those that exude energy ripples.

    ¡°We see tall buildings in the city as well. Did anyone that want to ess a floor higher than five meters have to take the second passageway?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Ming frowned, then nced at Li Hao. ¡°So you want to go up for a look?¡±

    ¡°I do.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t do anything reckless!¡± Wang Ming cautioned. This was nonsense, he¡¯d be the death of himself! What was a Sunderer supposed to do against something that not even a Sr could withstand?

    ¡°Isn¡¯t Sis Zhang right here?¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°I might only suffer some cuts and scrapes if I¡¯m hit. I¡¯ll be fine after Sis Zhang patches me up!¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡± Wang Ming rolled his eyes. ¡°Sis Zhang is just a Darkmoon¡ªand I¡¯m not looking down on you, Sis Zhang¡ªshe won¡¯t be able to do anything about the injuries you¡¯ll receive. What kind of crazy thoughts are you entertaining? You might as well enter the city for a look if this is what you¡¯re going to get up to.¡±

    ¡°Wang Ming¡¯s right,¡± Zhang Ting interjected. ¡°I don¡¯t think you should try this, it¡¯s too dangerous!¡±

    Instead of responding, Li Hao looked at the city gates once more. He walked a lot closer this time. As he carefully studied the characters in the sky, he had a hunch that there might be unexpected gains if he was to approach them further or even touch them.

    It didn¡¯t matter that Wang Ming was by his side¡ªthe key was Zhang Ting. It was hard not to grow irritated when she was constantly hovering. A mid Sr with an origin weapon... her defenses would be hard to break. At this stage, Li Hao didn¡¯t want to take any risks that he didn¡¯t have to take.

    The gap between them was too great!

    If he was Yuan Shuo and had ascended with five melded auras, he¡¯d throw himself into an offensive right now. But he was only a Dominator with two fused auras!

    So instead, Li Hao said nothing and continued observing the two characters. Disturbances sounded from the inner city after a while¡ªpossibly people fighting again. He ignored it since it had nothing to do with him.

    Zhang Ting, on the other hand, looked curiously inside. It was a pity they were too far away, so she couldn¡¯t tell if it was Srs crossing paths or not. But judging from the scale of the disturbance, it was highly likely that Srs were fighting.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you wait outside, Sis Zhang?¡± Li Hao asked again. ¡°Looks like it¡¯s still a bit dangerous here.¡±

    ¡°Are you not going inside?¡± asked the woman instead. ¡°I should stay with you if you¡¯re not. I¡¯m a Plenilune, after all, so I should be able to help a little.¡±

    Liu Long frowned. This woman... was sticking by Li Hao no matter what. He knew her identity¡ªa mid Sr possibly carrying an origin weapon. She would be an exceedingly tough nut to crack! He didn¡¯t want to provoke her if possible!

    Zhang Ting had indeed made up her mind to stay with the young man. She was very curious about Li Hao at the moment¡ªhe said the two characters were special and looked like he wanted to bring them down. Hence, she also wanted to know what made them so special.

    Li Hao suddenly rxed with a smile. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if Sis Zhang stays, we¡¯re all on the same side here. I¡¯m going to tell you a secret, Ole Wang. You know how I sprayed my blood over the gates just now?¡±

    ¡°I did, what of it?¡±

    Zhang Ting perked up her ears. Did Li Hao¡¯s blood actually have an effect?

    ¡°I already thought those two characters were special at that time.¡± Li Hao raised his head. ¡°There seemed to be a special rippleing from it¡ªthere might be a concealed treasure tied to my bloodline. Or to be more precise, the eight families of Silver City might truly have something to do with these ruins!

    ¡°This city of Battle Heaven could be the home city for the Wang family!¡±

    ¡°Seriously??¡± Wang Ming sucked in a sharp breath. ¡°I know about the eight families too, but if just one of them has such a massive city and so many strong soldiers... Would you have been a <i>prince</i> in the ancient civilization?¡±

    It was incredible and very likely true since Li Hao spoke of it. But... what was he revealing this for with Zhang Ting present?

    Wang Ming suppressed the urge to shake the other young man. Li Hao¡¯s brains were a bit befuddled sometimes. <i>You and me count as fellow disciples and Liu Long¡¯s with us too, but even I¡¯m not too familiar with Zhang Ting. Do you know her well? Do you trust other people that easily? You should¡¯ve just not spoken it at all. What are you doing, spilling your secrets in front of strangers?</i>

    <i>And that Zhang Ting should¡¯ve known better and walked off when she realized Li Hao was talking about secret knowledge! </i>Wang Ming kept up an internal litany of grumbles.

    It was as if Zhang Ting didn¡¯t hear the young man or see Wang Ming¡¯s expression. She remained quiet, as if she didn¡¯t exist.

    Li Hao nced at Liu Long. The captain was a bit nervous!

    Liu Long was truly nervous. When he first broke through to Dominator, he felt that he could take on Srs with aplomb. <i>What¡¯s there to be afraid of? If Yuan Shuo can do it, I can do it! </i>But now, the more he knew, the more timid he became. This also wasn¡¯t an initial Sr they were eyeing up!

    He understood the look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. The young man had made up his mind to eliminate the woman. The problem was... Liu Long was confident, not even with a newly ascended Li Hao by his side. While the young man was slightly stronger than him, there were limits to his strength. Could he break the defenses of a Sr?

    Liu Long took a deep breath, drawing an odd look from Wang Ming. What was with the director? He seemed... very nervous!

    Zhang Ting also sensed it and looked over. Liu Long seemed extremely nervous as he kept takingrge breaths. This wasn¡¯t normal. She paid more attention to the man, slightly confused. The possibility of being attacked didn¡¯t register to her at all because it didn¡¯t make sense. There was no reason for him to attack a Night Watcher if he didn¡¯t know her identity. And if he did... why would a Dominator attack a mid Sr?

    That made even less sense!

    ¡°Chief, are you worried about that guy from Yama?¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°What are you concerned about? I¡¯m also a Sunderer and we have Plenilune Sis Zhang here. Is a Dominator and a Sunre supposed to be afraid of him?¡±

 Chapter 268: Three Warriors Slaying A Solar (II)

    <h4>Chapter 268: Three Warriors ying A Sr (II)</h4>

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Wang Ming nodded. ¡°That Yama guy¡¯s not a Sr even if he¡¯s a peak Sunre. We won¡¯t be outmatched if we work together! Not to mention, he¡¯s got his eyes full of the treasures inside the city right now. Who has the mind to spare for us?¡±

    Liu Long didn¡¯t respond; he looked only at Li Hao and waited for the signal.

    Starting at some unknown point in time, he felt that it was better for Li Hao to take the lead in things. It was a subconscious shift that may have stemmed from this expedition. The young man could see everything because his eyes were special, which resulted in Li Hao gradually taking the reins of authority. Liu Long liked to listen to his opinions before deciding on anything, a habit that proved to be wise. So many had died in this exploration, but their trio remained safe and sound. Not only did they not encounter any issues, but they reaped plenty of rewards instead.

    Late Sunderer Liu Yan obtained her revenge and safely exited the ancient city. She was one of the weaker ones to leave alive. Not many had survived to make it out. Most of those who left earlier were Sunres or Plenilune, very few Fullmoons counted among their number.

    Li Hao pointed the Earthturner Sword at the two characters over the city. ¡°I still want to go up there for a look. Chief, what do you say?¡±

    Liu Long, however, quietly watched the sword. That was the signal. The moment the upraised sword swung down was when the young man wanted him to attack. Now was when the man suppressed his nerves. They had a n of action against Zhang Ting. All he needed to do was to punch her into the air!

    Zhang Ting had not gone through the second passageway¡ªpossibly out of worry that she¡¯d be exposed and being afraid of death. This meant that she would be attacked as soon as she was airborne. Powerful city defenses would swiftly obliterate her.

    He needed to ensure that he kept her in the air for ten seconds in order for a chance to break the defenses of her origin weapon. That would give them a solid chance to take her out! However, that ten seconds would be an arduous duration.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s suggestion had been to make their attempt in a crowd of ck Armors. But now that there were no soldiers and no danger on the ground below her, Zhang Ting would swiftlynd on the ground again. She was no idiot.

    It was precisely for this reason that Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t think Li Hao would dare pull on a tiger¡¯s whiskers in his absence. At the same time, he didn¡¯t know that the young man had set foot into Dominator of Thousands, and with two auras!

    While Li Hao did not measure up to his teacherpared to when Yuan Shuo broke through, having just barely locked the earth aura into ce and strengthened his organs meant that the young man was much bolder than before. He really did want to take a closer look at those two characters! He also wanted to deploy the sword of his heart¡ªperhaps Zhang Ting was the perfect target to practice on!

    Was he supposed to practice on a weakling instead of someone strong? The Silver Armor didn¡¯t attack the intruders in his final moments because, after recovering his memories, these people were as if ants to him. They were also human, so he abstained from killing them.

    Brandishing their swords at the sky, advancing on the firmament to cut down their enemies¡ªthat was what the Battle Heaven Army sought!

    Longsword in hand, Li Hao asked, ¡°Chief, what do you think that Silver Armor was thinking about when he waved his sword at the sky?¡±

    ¡°Killing enemies!¡± Liu Long rumbled with a slight frown.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, he wanted to kill enemies!¡± Gripped by emotion, Li Hao waved his sword around and suddenly brought it down with heavy momentum. ¡°Is that not what we martial masters should do? We brandish our swords in the face of strong foes! Die if we must, but we die without regret!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The longsword swung down with this highly charged cry. It captured Zhang Ting and Wang Ming¡¯s attention.

    Liu Long¡¯s arm writhed as the Nine Forged Force exploded. He erupted like a pouncing tiger and pulled his arm back in an uppercut, wanting to punch Zhang Ting up into the sky! This was his target and goal!

    He didn¡¯t expect to kill her with one blow¡ªthat was impossible against a mid Sr. If he did, it would only mean that he hit the wrong person. He would¡¯ve probably punched Wang Ming in that case.

    Meanwhile, Wang Ming was caught in the throes of Li Hao¡¯s words. His emotions swelled when he heard the cry, a mindstate interrupted by a whistling sound traveling through the air. When he subconsciously turned for a look, the sight was iprehensible.

    His brain literally couldn¡¯t make sense of it!

    <i>What¡¯s going on?</i>

    <i>Liu Long... wants to attack Zhang Ting? The heck? Surely not... All she did was stay in ce when she heard some secrets. As annoying as that is, it¡¯s not to the point of </i>murdering<i> her to prevent secrets from getting out, no?</i>

    Wang Ming was slightly furious at the overreaction, but that emotion vanished in the next second because Zhang Ting snapped out of her bafflement.

    <i>What kind of joke is this? Liu Long... is attacking me? Is he crazy or am I seeing things?</i>

    A powerful surge of water energy exploded from her body and enveloped her being, turning into ice energy. It crept toward Liu Long¡¯s fist in a massive demonstration of strength. Zhang Ting wasn¡¯t a water supernatural¡ªor rather, she wasn¡¯t just a water supernatural. She was a powerful ice supernatural!

    None of her presence had leaked beyond her body, an indication that her origin weapon possessed strong qualities of concealing the bearer¡¯s presence. She was able to disy the full limits of her power without telltale signs of how strong she was.

    Beside her, Wang Ming felt that even his thoughts were frozen. Liu Long found his fist freezing as well, his aura of the waves turning solid. Leaping waves immediately fell silent and clunked into ce as ice cubes.

    <i>So strong!</i>

    The might of a mid Sr waspletelyid out in front of them; Zhang Ting¡¯s reaction speed was also quite fast.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Liu Long still followed through on his punch, but failed to send his target flying. Zhang Ting¡¯syer of ice shattered as the Nine Forged Force was still a credible threat when used in ambush. Its strength was obvious to see as it broke through a Sr¡¯s defenses with one blow!

    However, an icy hint shed over her body and another surge of power emanated outward. The origin weapon!

    Glowering, Zhang Ting red at Liu Long in a frosty look filled with killing intent! How dare he ambush her! She took a slight step backward, an ufortable feeling in her chest. The Nine Forged Force was a very strong method. She might have suffered damage to her internal organs if it wasn¡¯t for her origin weapon!

    Chilly expression on her face, Zhang Ting coalesced a sword of ice in her hand¡ªmore urately, a spike of ice! A weapon shaped like an awl stabbed at Liu Long¡¯s eyes. How dare a Dominator not on par with Yuan Shuo ambush her?! Liu Long was asking for nothing more than a painful death!

    Just as she was about to viciously end her fellow Night Watcher, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and cold gripped her body. A streak of sword light rushed into the sky!

    Li Hao had soundlessly deployed a sword stroke at some time¡ªthis was a move he¡¯d bided his time for a very long while. The sword aura was unquestionably domineering! Not only that, but the earth seemed to shake and seal off the void. A mountain appeared outside of Li Hao¡¯s body, one that was locked by chains.

    The sword of the mountain peak!

    Instead of visualizing the move by the Li family ancestor, Li Hao was thinking of the one from the Silver Armor, to y enemies! Purely to kill enemies!

    Heavy earth energybined with the Earthturner Sword, as well as the earth armor, creating abination as if fish in water. Zhang Ting¡¯s expression shifted slightly as she sensed the iing attack and she retracted the ice awl, redirecting it to Li Hao¡¯s longsword instead.

    There was much more to the young man than met the eye!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Liu Long¡¯s punch whistled through the air as Li Hao¡¯s sword stabbed forward!

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    The sword sliced through the ice awl; resplendent sword light blinded the eye as the sword stroke followed through.

    <i>Pfft! Craaaaack.</i>

    The ice that covered Zhang Ting¡¯s bodypletely shattered. A Dominator¡¯s ambush¡ªLi Hao¡¯s ambush¡ªwas more lethal than Liu Long¡¯s attack. The sword pierced right through a Sr¡¯s defenses.

    <i>ng!</i>

    It hit something that gave back great resistance. Bits of pain, fury, and ruthlessness appeared in Zhang Ting¡¯s eyes!<i> Fool! Do you think you can kill me like this? You think too little of me and too little of origin weapons!</i>

    Her origin weapon manifested from her body; it was a snake of shadow and darkness. The snake of water and shadow transformed into a thin sword that extended from her body. Itnded in her hand.

    What Li Hao¡¯s sword had stabbed into was this snake. The origin weapon! Although the lowest level origin weapon, a gold level was nothing that Li Hao and Liu Long had a hope of breaking.

    ¡°You¡¯ve miscalcted!¡± snapped out an arctic Zhang Ting who¡¯d recovered her confidence. Two Dominators had ambushed her and Li Hao was so unexpectedly strong that he could break her defenses to the point of stabbing a sword into her body... She had to give it to them, a regr Sr would either be dead or heavily injured at this point.

    These two really could kill a Sr with their ambush!

    But who was she?

    She was from the Night Watcher headquarters, a mid Sr with an important mission on her shoulders. She needed to keep Hou Xiaochen under surveince and this Shadow Snake Sword had been especially granted to her for presence concealment and defense!

    Origin weapons weren¡¯t found by the side of the street in the central region. A regr Sr wouldn¡¯t dream of obtaining even the lowest level origin weapon, they were mostly reserved for peak Srs. Only existences like Violet Moon had the chance of receiving one.

    Violet Moon was equipped with an arcane level Armor of the Thunder God because she was the branch leader for Silver Moon and needed to train new recruits. Otherwise, she would only receive a gold level one at most.

    Therefore, Zhang Ting¡¯s origin weapon was an exception! Not only did the Shadow Snake Sword block Li Hao¡¯s attack, but it also bore a snake flicking its tongue on the tip of the thin sword!

    It was dangerous beyondpare, but had the two miscalcted? Did Li Hao not know about the origin weapon?

    Of course he did!

    Both the young man and Liu Long pushed off from the ground at the same time, leaping into the air. Li Hao could fly just as well despite not having taken the second passageway.

    They were going to run!

    Zhang Ting snorted derisively and bade her world of ice creep toward the two. So they wanted to run, just like this? In their dreams!

    There was no need to show mercy or hide her abilities since she¡¯d made a move. She had to kill them!

 Chapter 269: Three Warriors Slaying A Solar (III)

    <h4>Chapter 269: Three Warriors ying A Sr (III)</h4>

    Li Hao¡¯s internal force and sword aura erupted. He turned back with a sword stroke and shattered the ice blocksing for him. He seemed to see a snake at this time! A soundless snake bearing down on him, wanting to swallow him whole!

    The Shadow Snake Sword!

    Li Hao knew this focus was due to the greater threat as posed by him. He was stronger and more lethalpared to Liu Long, so Zhang Ting would choose to kill him first. Therefore, the sword would target him!

    This was precisely the moment he was waiting for. He threw out the Earthturner Sword andunched himself at Zhang Ting, ready to take on the Shadow Snake Sword with his bare fists. Zhang Ting almost broke out intoughter, but she didn¡¯t have time tough!

    Liu Long was back and bringing an ax down on her head. Such was the teamwork between martial masters¡ªthey hadn¡¯t discussed this part beforehand, but Liu Long knew that it was what he should do!

    Li Hao would handle the sword while he took on the mid Sr. Waves churned through the area once more as his ax swung down, but they were a little different from before. They were still waves, yet carried a few hints of pressing forward without looking back. Death was as if a return to home!

    It was the final strike from the Battle Heaven Army, and it¡¯d unknowingly affected this martial master too at some point in time.

    <i>Strike!</i>

    Contempt appeared on Zhang Ting¡¯s face as an ice awl appeared in her hand once more. She stabbed forward! <i>Do you think you¡¯re worthy?</i>

    A golden longsword soundlessly burst behind her. A confused Wang Ming still didn¡¯t know what was going on, but that didn¡¯t prevent him from getting an underhanded move in. He was truly befuddled and only half sober at this stage. <i>A Sr?</i> And not an ordinary one at that. He almost jumped out of his skin to see that Li Hao and Liu Long wanted to kill a Sr!

    But... killing a Sr also meant rich pickings!

    He¡¯d quickly risen to Sunrest time they killed a Sunre together. They were going for a Sr this time... No matter who she was or why she was a Sr, she was no one good if she¡¯d concealed her strength! So who cared! Kill her!

    His sword exploded with metallic sparks!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Zhang Ting never fathomed that this cowardly little guy, one who¡¯d been terrified out of his senses, would dare ambush her under these circumstances. She was so angry she roared withughter. Were all of these people <i>crazy??</i> Even an initial Sunre dared attack her from the back! He was less than Liu Long!

    The golden sword exploded with a loud <i>bang! </i>The ice armor on her back only trembled slightly¡ªthere was no sign of any other effect. Such was the difference between the two of them!

    Although the initial Sunre Wang Ming wasn¡¯t weak, he was the only one to not break through a mid Sr¡¯s defensespared to Liu Long and Li Hao. He only caused her armor to shake, and that was when his target was in a distracted state.

    Shocked surprise filtered into his continued confusion. How was this possible? How had the ice armor not broken? Li Hao had broken it and stabbed his weapon into the enemy¡¯s body. Liu Long had broken it and continued through to a bloody blow. Meanwhile... Wang Ming didn¡¯t even manage to chip the ice?

    ¡°Hmph!¡± Zhang Ting snorted with a cold look in her eyes, piercing through Liu Long¡¯s small ax with her awl. She froze his right hand solid and was about to stab the awl into the man¡¯s throat when Wang Ming howled with indignation behind her. The golden longsword didn¡¯t explode this time; he jabbed it at the woman¡¯s head!

    <i>Who¡¯s she looking down on, huh??</i>

    <i>Hum!!</i>

    Metal attribute supernaturals were the strongest when it came to offense, alright. This blow drew a frown from the multitasking Zhang Ting¡ªit actually posed a bit of a threat to her. She couldn¡¯t ignore it!

    The ice awl didn¡¯t have a chance to pierce Liu Long¡¯s throat; he¡¯d already shattered the ice covering his fist and backed away. Zhang Ting didn¡¯t mind and waved her hand for a second blow. The ice awl swept in arge arc behind her and broke the golden longsword into pieces!

    Wang Ming spat out a mouthful of blood, registering the scene with shock and horror...

    <i>Li Hao, you damned jerk!</i> shed through his mind. They were destined to die from this encounter! <i>You guys are crazy to pit yourselves against a Sr! We¡¯re all dead meat!</i>

    Another shrill sound came from the sky. Li Hao had drawn his sword again in the air, a small sword that wasn¡¯t too long! He didn¡¯t move it in the style of the Silver Armor¡¯s blow, but the one of severing the self. He threw himself at the tiny snake¡ªthere seemed to be a real snake hovering over the Shadow Snake Sword. It had eyes and, at the moment, terror filled them!

    It seemed to remember something and had forgotten something... A sword!

    <i>This sword and its aura...</i>

    A person materialized in the snake¡¯s scant, eroded memories, one that¡¯d once deployed one such move. It was a lofty existence that one could only raise their head up to! It seemed to recall that august personage in this moment...

    ¡°Hiss hiss hiss!¡± It agitated, but it was toote. Li Hao shed forward with a grunt.

    <i>To sever the self!</i>

    He shed through the snake¡ªor possibly, the shadow of a snake¡ªand cut it clean into two. The shadow immediately dispersed, but the young man¡¯s eyes widened with surprise. As the small sword in his hand swallowed the snake; a familiar power burgeoned in the weapon...

    Li Hao was surprised, stunned, happy, and euphoric...

    <i>Sword energy!</i>

    There was no time to think of anything else. A ck short sword splintered in the air and fell to the ground with a thud. Itcked the mystical air that wrapped around it moments ago! The tiny snake that¡¯d been cut down seemed to have been its essence. Once dead, this origin weapon that was precious no matter where instantly lost its differentiating qualities.

    ¡°Pfft!¡± Zhang Ting spat out a mouthful of blood, halting in her motions to dispatch Wang Ming. She looked incredulously at Li Hao, unable to believe her eyes. How was this possible?! The Shadow Snake Sword had broken! An origin weapon had broken!

    Her eyes gleamed as she zeroed in on the sword in Li Hao¡¯s hands¡ªthe sword of the Lis!

    That had to be the sword of the Lis! She understood now. So the sword of the Lis had always been with Li Hao, not Hou Xiaochen. That made sense. If the Wangs of the eight families were this powerful as to own such a city, then what of the Lis? How could the sword of the Lis be just a simple weapon?

    These thoughts had just taken shape when Li Haounched himself like a bird and shed with his sword! Sixyers of sword light shimmered over it! As he buckled under incredible bacsh, something simr to armor materialized over his body. Rather than being an origin weapon, it was his aura!

    This was his aura of forging forward without pause, everything was disregarded! The earth aura as defense, the sword aura as offense!

    Zhang Ting was still suffering from the recoil of a broken origin weapon. She roared with anger and thrust her palm out with domineering force! The power of ice instantly sealed off all possible paths!

    <i>A Dominator like you wants to kill me? Never!!</i>

    The destruction of her origin weapon was wholly unexpected and resulted in some injuries, but she quickly recovered. <i>You won¡¯t be killing me, Li Hao! I will consign you to death and im that sword of the Lis!</i>

    That sword was possibly an earth level origin weapon, or even a sky level! She¡¯d be able to kill Hu Dingfang and the others with it, iming the greatest treasures within the city. When she finished with the defensive origin weapon with the city, she¡¯d be able to face Novas with two ultimate origin weapons in hand. This wasn¡¯t danger, but opportunity!

    Li Hao¡¯s sword was ferocious beyondpare and zed with killing intent. While it was somewhat juvenile, the killing intent was so murderous that it seemed to resonate with the ancient city. It was as if it originated from the dead Battle Heaven Army!

    He broke through the ice with one stroke and pierced forward with a loud crunch. Arcing through the void, an armnded on the ground with a thud.

    Zhang Ting¡¯s eyes widened. <i>My... my arm! </i>She¡¯d been dismembered by a Dominator! Her remaining hand pped a palm strike forward and smashed Li Hao¡¯s armor of earth aura. The young man spat out a mouthful of blood, his spleen suffering damage as well.

    The aura of earth hadn¡¯t stopped that blow, but it managed to defuse more than half of the strength behind it! Despite extremely strong defenses, Li Hao¡¯s failure to withstand that blow was evidence of the might of mid Sr.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Liu Long punched with the full power of the Nine Forged Force. He hit Zhang Ting just as she stumbled from Li Hao¡¯s blow and splintered her armor of ice. He mmed so heavily into her back that she vomited a mouthful of blood.

    The power of ice crept up his arm and numbed his limb to the point of stiffness. Liu Long frowned at their target¡¯s obvious capacity to still attack and defend. Were Srs truly this strong? Two powerful Dominators working in conjunction, a Sunre, Li Hao¡¯s sword aura destroying the origin weapon, and possessing the advantage of an ambush... They were still unable to take down Zhang Ting after repeated exchanges. His arm now seemed to be frozen solid!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Another loud rumble rang in the air. The ice armor that Liu Long had just broken through didn¡¯t have the time to reform before the terrified Wang Ming coalesced another sword and detonated it in the opening!

    Zhang Ting¡¯s back was now a gory mess and she red at him with blood-red eyes. The immense paining from her back was sending her into a frenzy. That the trash Wang Ming would be the source of this injury and not Liu Long was thest thing on her mind!

    Horror overtook the young supernatural and he quickly backed away. ¡°It... it wasn¡¯t me... I just... just subconsciously...¡±

    That was right, he subconsciously captured the proper battle timing. He was a talent indeed! He subconsciously detonated his sword of energy, subconsciously made a move, subconsciously prepared to kill a Sr...

    And this was how he so naturally and immeasurably seeded with an ambush at a critical moment, blowing a massive hole out of a Sr¡¯s back.

    Neither Li Hao nor Liu Long anticipated this. As such, they were at a loss for words. <i>Yeah he¡¯s talent!</i>

    ¡°Pfft!¡± Zhang Ting spewed out fresh blood¡ªpossibly both from anger or her injuries. Her arm had been severed, then she suffered one of Liu Long¡¯s punches to her back. Those wounds weren¡¯t too severe, but then a Sunre added to the pain and set off fireworks in her back. Her wounds were significant and extended to her organs!

    Enraged beyond belief, she mmed her palm at Li Hao again. A world of ice enveloped the young man!

 Chapter 270: Three Warriors Slaying A Solar (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 270: Three Warriors ying A Sr (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao was instantly encased in ice. Zhang Ting was putting her life on the line to immobilize the young man! Having been hit a few times and now grievously injured, she might actually fall with eternal bitterness if the battle dragged on and these shameless cretins found another opening!

    <i>Kill Li Hao!</i>

    He posed too great a threat to her, particrly that sword. It cut through everything and would score a direct hit on her body if he connected again.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao attempted something that he hadn¡¯t considered and wouldn¡¯t have dared try before. It was in the realm of possibility only due to the partial recovery of sword energy. He abruptly roared, disregarding that sound couldn¡¯t make it past the ice. Arge mountain appeared out of thin air!

    A nurtured spirit was emerging from his organ!

    He hadn¡¯t dared consider this step before because his spleen wasn¡¯t strong enough. If he tried this... he could just wait to die of a ruptured spleen. But now that he had some sword energy to y with again, what was he afraid of?

    A true warrior bravely tried the unknown. His teacher¡¯s fire heart ape had in thete Sr Sun Yifei as soon as it emerged. Would his mountain of heavy earth not be able to handle a gravely wounded mid Sr when it did the same?

    The enormous mountain transformed into a unique sword of heavy earth the moment it materialized. Li Hao shed forward with it!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    As the ice shattered, Zhang Ting sensed a mountain bearing down on her. ¡°Summoner of Spirit??¡± she gasped with disbelief. How was that possible?! How could Li Hao be a Summoner?!

    The young man could also sense his strength when the mountain emerged from his organ. He was very, very powerful. The Sword of Mount Tai erupted!

    Zhang Ting felt that she was being forced into one ce, that unbearable suppression wasing down over her. A broadsword descended from the sky, aimed at cutting her down. She refused to ept this!

    ¡°Impossible!!¡± The power of ice spontaneously erupted and turned the world into one of white. Sealed by ice!

    All of this was fake! She didn¡¯t believe that Li Hao was truly a Summoner. If this was real, he would¡¯ve killed her with the first ambush. Why wait until now? This wasn¡¯t real!

    Sealed by a million kilometers of ice!

    <i>Wham!</i>

    The sword crashed through an umtion of ice when itnded. Every block of ice blew out as powder. Li Hao flushed beet red as blood qi surged in his body. He¡¯d shattered the world of ice with a single sword stroke!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Zhang Ting vomited blood once more, fear finally creeping into her heart. She whirled around, wanting to flee! Being a Sr, none of these people were as fast as her. However, Li Hao frowned slightly and narrowed his eyes.

    <i>Damn, she¡¯s tough to take out!</i>

    Blood qi surged into his longsword¡ªthe Incantation of the de of Blood! His sword and earth auras melded into the weapon, as did his blood qi and internal force. He had many more options avable now that he could draw on sword energy again.

    The decisiveness of a martial master came into y and he chose to close in for the kill. Who knew how many secrets would be revealed if she got away?

    Off in the distance, Liu Long also delivered a punch to cut off her avenue of escape. Wang Ming split his golden longsword into tens of thousands of swords and sent them in a fiery barrage at Zhang Ting. He was a fake swordsman as he only knew his move of Heavenly Maids Scattering Blossoms, but the effect from this singr move was usually quite good.

    Zhang Ting ignored their counterattacks! She could not slow down even though she was injured. A broadsword bore down on her from behind.

    Li Hao set foot into the air like a bird, pouncing on the woman. One step covered dozens of meters; he was faster than one could imagine as he flitted through the air like a sparrow upon the wind and instantly appeared behind Zhang Ting.

    Sword qi zed red as the weapon struck!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The ice armor shattered with a massive boom; Zhang Ting kept running. She ran and ran until she split into two! Sectioned down the middle, the two halves continued running for a dozen meters until they copsed on the ground.

    Blood gushed out of Li Hao¡¯s mouth when he coughed. His spleen was bleeding profusely! His armor vanished, his longsword vanished, everything vanished. Although color drained from his face, he smiled.

    They hadn¡¯t punched their opponent into the sky, but two Dominators and one Sunre had killed a Sr all the same!

    Liu Long and Wang Ming rushed over, shock and disbelief writrge over their faces when they saw the scene. They¡¯d won? The battle hadn¡¯tsted that long¡ªless than a minute. They exchanged blows countless times during this minute and nearly died more than a few times. However, the one on the ground in the end was the Sr!

    ¡°I... killed a Sr?¡± Wang Ming murmured. Indeed, he¡¯d been part of that fight. Not only that, but he was the reason for the bloody hole in her back. She might not have been defeated so quickly if it wasn¡¯t for this blow.

    Thus, Li Hao and Liu Long didn¡¯t say anything when he said that he killed a Sr. He could im that!

    This fellow was a frivolous sort in normal times, so his actions today truly surprised the other two. They¡¯d thought that he would run when fighting broke out. Liu Long and Li Hao hadn¡¯t cared that this was the most likely oue. Wang Ming shouldn¡¯t add to the trouble, at the very least. It was enough that he wouldn¡¯t help the woman.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that he¡¯d attack instead, and with a keen grasp of battle timing? Li Hao suspected that Wang Ming was actually a battle genius, but quickly dismissed the idea when Wang Ming widened his mouth with a foolish grin.

    <i>A battle genius... can still be an idiot.</i>

    ¡°Whew!¡± Both Liu Long and Li Hao breathed out at the same time, utterly exhausted!

    ¡°Hurry, there¡¯s water mysterious power and an origin weapon!¡± Li Hao called out to Wang Ming as he couldn¡¯t walk anymore. Sword energy spread swiftly through his body and he diverted a portion for Liu Long. The captain¡¯s arm would bepletely crippled soon if no attention was given to it.

    If it wasn¡¯t for Li Hao obtaining some sword energy after breaking the origin weapon, he¡¯d still wanted to fling the opponent into the air. But they¡¯d killed Zhang Ting all the same without utilizing the city¡¯s defenses. At the same time, Li Hao fully understood that he¡¯d probably be dead without sword energy.

    <i>Once again, sword energy is the best!</i>

    His thoughts turned to the origin weapon. So origin weapons could replenish sword energy? The thought was gone as quickly as it appeared. It would send others into a frenzy if they knew. Who would break an origin weapon on purpose? Whoever thought this way was a heretic and served to be put to death!

    ¡°How is it, chief?¡± Li Hao looked at Liu Long.

    ¡°Srs... can be defeated!¡± A faint smile appeared on the man¡¯s aloof face. <i>My Nine Forged Force broke through a Sr¡¯s defenses twice!</i>

    His confidence was back! The confidence that¡¯d been dented by Yuan Shuo and Li Haopletely returned in full. <i>I, Liu Long, can bypass a Sr¡¯s defenses! I¡¯m not as weak as I thought, it¡¯s just that the people I¡¯ve met are too strong. They¡¯re crazy!</i>

    Wang Ming shrieked with excitement in the distance. So much mysterious power and other treasures!<i> We¡¯re rich!</i>

    ......

    Sword energy surged. A ruptured spleen quickly recovered, as did aura and internal force that¡¯d been depleted.

    Whether it was Li Hao or Yuan Shuo, both were wild and violent with sword energy at their disposal. Yuan Shuo kept a low profile without it, and Li Hao was even more reserved without it. The professor couldn¡¯t bear to consume itsst particles before and ran off after killing a group of Red Moon powerhouses. Given his personality, he would¡¯ve recovered to full strength had there been enough sword energy and exterminated all of the Celestial and Yama delegations as well!

    He was a truly ruthless sort! He ran only because he wasn¡¯t strong enough and his injuries were too severe. Would he have stopped at Red Moon otherwise?

    As for why he would kill Celestial and Yama... Old Demon Yuan didn¡¯t need a reason to kill someone. If he really needed one, then it was that his enemies could be found within these organizations as well!

    Indeed, a group of people had left Silver Moon¡¯s martial world back in the day. His enemies could also be found in Celestial and Yama, they just didn¡¯t live as rich a life as his enemies in Red Moon did.

    Li Hao had mostly recovered from his injuries. A majority of sword energy had been replenished after absorbing the tiny snake. It felt simr to the amount that he¡¯d taken in at the stone door. One had to know, the sword energy avable at the stone door had been the result of a vast quantity of mysterious power.

    Yuan Shuo breaking through to Summoner of Spirit, Li Hao advancing to Dominator, Wang Ming and ascending to Sunre had all expended the sword energy. The young man further consumed a great deal after needing to recover from sparring with Liu Long everyday. The newly replenished reserves of sword energy were enough for a long time.

    However, after he repaired his spleen and casually helped Liu Long as well, Li Hao felt that he¡¯d consumed arge amount again. He needed to use it sparingly! Sword energy was the true hard currency.

    A gleeful Wang Ming ran back to them, holding the storage ring that Li Hao had tossed at him. It was a gift from Ding Chen and already held one hundred cubes of fire energy. The remaining four held eight hundred cubes of water¡ªit waspletely full!

    The handsome supernatural also hauled two incredibly durable pieces of human bone. They contained roughly four hundred cubes of water energy. This was their entire harvest!

    Mid Srs contained more mysterious power than this, but this was a unique ce and the ground absorbed a portion of energy at a fast pace. Some of it was gone in the blink of an eye, so saving approximately twelve hundred cubes was a decent collection. At least the city didn¡¯t take all of it!

    Wang Ming held a broken sword in addition to the mysterious power. Although broken, the origin weapon was still a wondrous supernatural object, not to mention this particr weapon functioned to conceal one¡¯s presence. Despite being ruined, it still served to suppress his supernatural ripples when Wang Ming carried it.

    The origin weapons and mysterious power were the greatest gains. There was a small booklet as well. Zhang Ting hadn¡¯t carried too many items on her since she was under cover. Anything like an identification card was out of the question¡ªwhoever did that was a fool.

    Wang Ming couldn¡¯t read the booklet, so he tossed it to Li Hao. ¡°Take a look, what is this? Something like a secret art?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao shook his head after perusing it. ¡°It looks like a code formunication. This is amonly found and very primitive way to exchange messages. Sometimes we can only contact each other through unique methods¡ªwe might choose a few numbers that correspond to some words in a book and trante the meaning into words we understand.

    ¡°It looks like there¡¯s more than just her in Silver Moon!¡± Li Hao chuckled. Since there was a method ofmunication, that meant there were certainly others in the province. She was just the strongest one.

    Wang Ming finally came back to his senses and looked around strangely. ¡°Ah... who... was she?¡±

    He¡¯d forgotten to ask and simply killed their target! Now he recollected himself, it suddenly struck him that they¡¯d taken out a Night Watcher, right?

    Killing their own was a heinous crime!

    Li Hao looked at him and grinned broadly. ¡°A Night Watcher!¡±

    Wang Ming coughed violently. ¡°That... that¡¯s not true, isn''t it? She was so powerful that she must¡¯ve been an agent from the three great organizations...¡±

 Chapter 271: The Terrifying Ancient City (I)

    <h4>Chapter 271: The Terrifying Ancient City (I)</h4>

    ¡°No really, she¡¯s a Night Watcher,¡± Li Hao repeated.

    Wang Ming froze with shock, then swallowed hard. ¡°Stop... joking... around... We¡¯re doomed if we¡¯ve killed a Sr level Night Watcher!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, she¡¯s not from Silver Moon.¡±

    ¡°Then that¡¯s good!¡± Wang Ming rxed a little. The provinces weren¡¯t a tight-knit whole. Although it was still troublesome if she came from another province, it was at least eptable.

    ¡°She¡¯s from headquarters!¡±

    Wang Ming¡¯s jaw dropped. ¡°Which... which headquarters?¡±

    ¡°Central headquarters!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Ming sagged to the ground and clutched his head with pain. ¡°We¡¯re done for, done for! You killed her even though you knew her identity...¡±

    <i>¡°You</i> did!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°It has nothing to do with me. You said so yourself just now, you killed a Sr. What does it have to do with me?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Ming couldn¡¯t find tears to cry with!

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, Director Hou wanted us to kill her.¡± Liu Long was the one whoforted him. ¡°Director Hao knows about this as well.¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Wang Ming gulped for air, his thoughts a tangled snarl. What was going on?

    ¡°It¡¯s no big deal, just that Silver Moon doesn¡¯t wish to be under central control. The dynasty is the dynasty and Silver Moon is Silver Moon, understand?¡±

    Wang Ming... didn¡¯t. Not really. He waspletely confused. He stood up after a long moment and kept his distance from Li Hao.

    ¡°I... don¡¯t know anything!¡± he said in a muffled voice. ¡°I didn¡¯t hear anything. Please, I beg you, don¡¯t drag me into this. I can¡¯t take it!¡±

    His sky was falling in!

    Li Haoughed and threw a piece of bone over. ¡°Do you want that?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Did he want that?

    Of course he... did!

    Despite his internal conflict, Wang Ming immediately epted the bone. There were roughly two hundred cubes of mysterious power in it, that was a lot!

    Li Hao then threw over half of the origin weapon that¡¯d been snapped into two. ¡°Do you want that too?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>Yeah!</i>

    Wang Ming caught the second item as well. Although the weapon of unparalleled sharpness had lost its soul, it was still superior to most supernatural objects. He only needed to hold it in his hand to sense the keenness within.

    Could he possibly say no? This type of treasure wasn¡¯t purchasable with mysterious power! It could return to being a powerful weapon if he had someone reforge it when he exited the ruins! Although it was a water attributed weapon to begin with, its soul had been destroyed, leaving it simply an item made of durable materials. Said materials happen to be of the metal attribute, which made it a perfect match for him. He had to constantly detonate his sword of energy in battle because hecked a proper weapon to wield.

    This ruined origin weapon would be highly useful for him!

    Wang Ming swallowed and drew a little closer to Li Hao. It felt like he was tying himself to their banner of wickedness in epting the item!

    ¡°Are you a co-conspirator now?¡± Li Hao grinned.

    Still conflicted, Wang Ming wrestled with his thoughts for a bit before nodding. ¡°I guess so!¡±

    ¡°You killed Zhang Ting, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Um... well... the three of us did so together. Ahem, you two did most of the work, I was just the cleanup crew,¡± Wang Ming said sheepishly.

    Li Hao and Liu Long startedughing. When it came down to it, this guy couldn¡¯t bear to give up a share of the loot!

    ¡°You have no use for water energy,¡± Li Hao raised. ¡°Give it to chief. We¡¯ll give back two hundred cubes of metal energyter on.¡±

    ¡°Do you guys even have any?¡± Wang Ming asked curiously. They... didn¡¯t, no? There were only one hundred cubes of fire energy in Li Hao¡¯s storage ring.

    ¡°Of course we do, why don¡¯t we?¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s only two hundred cubes, we can get that from one Sunre. Let me count it up for you¡ªas of now, there¡¯s two Yama Sunres, four Red Moon Sunres, and seven Celestial Sunres. That¡¯s thirteen total Sunres!

    ¡°I ask you, are there metal attributes among them?¡±

    ¡°Pro... probably?¡± nodded a gaping Wang Ming. <i>This is what you mean by two hundred cubes? You¡¯re going to kill people?</i>

    It was then that the sometimes slow supernatural abruptly realized, ¡°How... how are you so strong?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s a Dominator?

    ¡°Am I strong? No!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°My teacher killed a Sr by himself as soon as he became a Dominator! Me? It took the three of us a very long time to kill the Sr, and we almost died in the ambush! Does that make me strong?¡±

    <i>In that case...</i> Wang Ming shook his head after further consideration. <i>No, you¡¯re not strong, just mediocre!</i>

    But he almost cried in the next second. <i>Aw fuck, who¡¯s like our teacher? He¡¯s so scary! Liu Long¡¯s a Dominator too, but he¡¯s not going around killing Srs! I¡¯m a Sunre, how am I the weakest of the three?? And here I go, running my mouth everyday on how powerful I am as a Sunre!</i>

    The traces of blood in the distance disappeared throughout the course of their conversation. The battle site had fully recovered. This was the ancient city, the terrifying ancient city. In here, murder could be kept an entirely private affair.

    Clothing and other objects were rejected by the ground. Li Hao took out a bit of fire energy when he noticed what was left behind and threw out a fireball. Everything on the ground turned to ashes and the clothing disappeared.

    Everything about Zhang Ting was erased from the world.

    ¡°Chief, you should absorb some water energy to nurture your kidneys,¡± Li Hao mentioned. ¡°You and Wang Ming should split the origin weapon and see if you can store it within your body! I¡¯m worried about trouble after we exit the ruins, if someone will check us or something like that. We should use everything that we have a use for and turn it into our own strength!¡±

    They¡¯d murdered a witness!

    Zhang Ting was a Sr from the central region and their superior. If word of their deed got out and Hou Xiaochen disavowed any knowledge of their actions, the trio would be in grave trouble. Li Hao couldn¡¯t endure the consequences of offending the three great organizations and the Night Watchers at the same time. Thus, he wanted to turn all of their gains into personal power before they left the ruins.

    Fortified by sword energy, he was cockier than before. He could absorb more mysterious power! His organs had previously absorbed roughly four hundred cubes of metal, water, and earth. Fire energy was the most at five hundred cubes, and wood energy the least at three hundred cubes.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t short on water energy at the moment, but he couldn¡¯t be med since Zhang Ting had refused to leave. He''d had his eyes set on her long ago, in any case!

    ¡°Ole Wang, keep an eye out for us. Chief and I will absorb some water energy.¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Wang Ming blinked. ¡°You... absorb water energy?¡±

    <i>What? Why?</i>

    ¡°Martial masters can absorb any element!¡±

    Wang Ming was so very envious and almost drooling over the notion. ¡°Even I want to be a martial master now. We supernaturals have limitations when ites to the type of mysterious power we can absorb and we¡¯re not as strong as martial masters. Sunre...¡±

    He¡¯d been full of himself a few days ago because he was a Sunre. And now, he felt that this level was utter trash. It couldn¡¯t match a Dominator! Just look at Yuan Shuo, Li Hao, and Liu Long. Which one of them couldn¡¯t wipe the floor with him?

    <i>Damn this is shitty! I want to be a martial master too, but there¡¯s no hope for me since I¡¯ve already broken my supernatural locks.</i>

    ¡°Shush and keep an eye out...¡± Li Hao ignored him as he swiftly used sword energy to distill water elemental power. He was in no hurry to observe the two characters. It was better to heal his wounds and grow stronger. The words were right there and he could study them next time if he didn¡¯t have a chance this time.

    He didn¡¯t have Liu Long absorb water energy on its own¡ªhe distilled arge amount of water elemental energy and released some into Liu Long¡¯s body. He then took the remaining unattributed power and said to Wang Ming, ¡°Ole Wang, have some unattributed power...¡±

    The baffled Wang Ming had no idea where this energy had suddenlye from, but who cared? Time to feast!

    Unattributed energy was just as well as it strengthened supernatural locks and the body. The only drawback was that it would make further ascension more difficult.

    The three swiftly absorbed the energy at hand. Li Hao was fine enough, but Liu Long was as if a bottomless pit. He was too weak!

    Li Hao¡¯s kidneys at least had four hundred cubes of water energy reinforcing them; it was Liu Long¡¯s first experience being baptized by water elemental energy. It hadn¡¯t been long since he became a Dominator and he was far behind Yuan Shuo¡ªhe hadn¡¯te to the stage of nurturing his five visceral organs yet.

    The man swallowed a dozen cubes of water elemental energy in the blink of an eye. As a Dominator, this was precisely when he should be fortifying his organs. This infusion of water energy came at a perfect time¡ªand it was elemental energy, a cut above regr mysterious power.

    It felt so good that Liu Long wanted to moan with pleasure! Was this what it meant to nurture his five elements?

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered to exin anything. He swiftly absorbed water energy into his kidneys.

    The three quickly depleted the stores of energy that they¡¯d reaped. Wang Ming absorbed unattributed energy, Liu Long took in water elemental energy, whereas Li Hao took in both. Twenty minutes passed before they knew it, whereupon thest piece of human bone crumbled away.

    The three opened their eyes and looked at each other, rooted to the spot. Li Hao took it in stride as he was used to this, Liu Long was absolutely not.

    ¡°Did... we... kill a fake Sr?¡± he murmured with shock. Three people had absorbed roughly two hundred cubes in twenty minutes? But... his kidneys felt very normal and he could sense that his aura had grown noticeably stronger. His mind intent was more robust than before!

    Wang Ming was likewise incredulous. No wonder Li Hao and the rest wanted to kill people everyday. First they killed Sunres, then Srs. Not even the Night Watchers could afford to keep them if they had these appetites!

    Li Hao absorbed roughly half of the two hundred cubes, with Liu Long ounting for the remaining half. By now, the young man had absorbed roughly five hundred cubes of water energy, cing it on par with fire energy. However, he nned to empty the second piece of bone as well. He¡¯d take in one hundred more cubes as well as the one hundred cubes of fire in the ring. That would ensure his fire and water maintained a bnce of six hundred cubes.

    His metal and earth would remain at four hundred, and wood... Well, his wood energy was indeedcking. He could deal with thatter.

    ¡°Let¡¯s absorb the other piece of bone as well. The rest can stay in the storage ring.¡±

    Liu Long had no objections, he wasn¡¯t feeling fully satiated yet either. This was a damned good feeling!

    No one asked where the pure energy came from, there was no need for questions. Just enjoy the bounty! They began absorbing once more; thest piece of bone crumbled after another twenty minutes.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to finish with some fire energy,¡± said Li Hao. ¡°Chief and Ole Wang, keep an eye on the inner city. They¡¯ve been in there for almost an hour and there was movement before. There¡¯s nothing now... are they all dead?¡±

    Liu Long coughed. Surely not?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care and turned his attention to the fire energy. It was time to strengthen his heart!

    One hundred cubes were consumed at a moderate pace, cing both water and fire at six hundred cubes in the young man¡¯s body and eight hundred cubes of water energy in the storage ring.

 Chapter 272: The Terrifying Ancient City (II)

    <h4>Chapter 272: The Terrifying Ancient City (II)</h4>

    Li Hao, Liu Long, and Wang Ming had improved greatly, the most naturally being Li Hao. Liu Long wasn¡¯t that far behind. When he brought his strength to bear, he noted that his aura of the waves was roughly twenty percent stronger than before. For a Dominator to be twenty percent stronger meant that he was confident of emerging victorious when battling mid Sunres!

    As forte Sunres... that could wait until he actually met them in battle!

    ¡°It¡¯s been about an hour, right?¡± Li Hao rose and looked at the inner city. It was so silent that it was disquieting. The young man frowned slightly. It was just twenty kilometers from the gates to the pagoda. Since Srs could fly, they should reach it rtively quickly. Would a fight over treasure still not be resolved after an hour? Not to mention, there was barely any movementing from that direction.

    None of the people who¡¯d entered the city had emerged. Li Hao had thought that some mighte back quickly if they found nothing, but no one did!

    There were thirty people left in the expedition at this stage. Apart from the trio at the city gates and the dead Zhang Ting, the rest of the twenty-six were gone!

    ¡°Should we go in to take a look ourselves?¡± Whether it was Wang Ming or Liu Long, both held themselves with enormous confidence. <i>We¡¯re so good that we took out a Sr! Let¡¯s check out the city!</i>

    ¡°There¡¯s no rush!¡± Li Hao cast another nce at the city, then at the two characters overhead. He still decided toprehend ¡°Battle Heaven¡± first. Although he wanted treasures and origin weapons... to break and replenish sword energy, he¡¯d also had his eyes on these two words for a while!

    The two characters took priority! No matter what the situation was, the rest of the expedition team would return in the end. It was best if everyone was injured from fighting each other¡ªthe trio outside might be able to im some easy pickings.

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts were the same as Zhang Ting¡¯s at the moment, and he¡¯d just confirmed that martial masters could fly in the city. They had freedom of movement even without going through the second passageway.

    In that case, not much held him back. He bounded upward and climbed up the massive city gates. They were his stairs and he quickly made it to the top of the gates. He took a seat; the city gates were a staggering width at two or three meters. It was like he was sitting on a bed.

    The two characters hovered in front of him, seemingly on the wall, yet not at the same time. They seemed to float in the air or even in another ne.

    Li Hao reached out to touch them, but also vaguely sensed that he couldn¡¯t! It was a veryplicated set of circumstances. After a moment, he forced out another drop of blood from his heart and shot it at the characters.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    As the blood entered the writing, Li Hao found himself in another area¡ªanother world! His consciousness faded in and out; he seemed to make out a startled exmation of, ¡°His Imperial Majesty is here!¡±

    ¡°His Imperial Majesty hase!¡±

    An entire city¡¯s denizens seemed to be surprised, cheering, and working themselves into a fervor.

    ¡°His Imperial Majesty is invincible!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s mind still wasn¡¯t the clearest. He wanted to open his eyes, but found that he couldn¡¯t. He vaguely made out a figurending from the sky. Countless figures surrounded it¡ªexcited, inspired, jubnt.

    ¡°Your Imperial Majesty, this small city is newly established. If you don¡¯t mind, we would be honored if you would give us a name...¡±

    ¡°That is far too polite of you!¡± answered a gentle voice, one far less tyrannical than Li Hao expected. ¡°We are of the same origins if we delve into the particrs...¡±

    The imperial majesty that¡¯d broken through the void seemed to say something else that elicited a cheer from the entire city. Following that, the scene shifted in front of Li Hao¡¯s eyes and he appeared in somece new. Weren¡¯t these the city gates that he was sitting on?

    Except... they seemed a little different. Lacking the air of ancient simplicity, they seemed newly formed.

    When the scene shifted in front of Li Hao again, the back of a figure was apparent in front of the young man. <i>It¡¯s that person! </i>The moment that he wrote out the calligraphy! The young man seemed... to be witnessing a different era.

    The person raised a writing brush in the dusky lighting and searched through his thoughts. The voice from eons ago sounded forth again, ¡°I¡¯m not good with names and really don¡¯t know what to call the city... I¡¯m different from that guy, he loves toe up with dubious titles and be very proud of himself for doing so...¡±

    These words seemed both self-deprecating and sarcastic.

    ¡°Very well, I bestow the name of... Battle Heaven!¡±

    The final pronouncement caused a disturbance in the crowd. Cheers rang madly, enthused shouts roared¡ªthe city¡¯s denizens were very agitated.<i> Battle Heaven!</i>

    It seemed to represent something incredible as the powerhouse who¡¯d weed this personage earlier was also moved. An old man¡¯s voice echoed by Li Hao¡¯s ears as he reacted emotionally, ¡°Battle Heaven? This... this isn¡¯t appropriate! This is Your Imperial Majesty¡¯s title...¡±

    ¡°It is alright, Battle Heaven is not truly my title either. Even if it is, it refers to times past. He is worthy of veneration, but I... I am not him! His life is one worthy of recollection, however, so let the city be called Battle Heaven! He showed a preference for nurturing talent, so my hope for the city of Battle Heaven is to produce fine sons for the human race. You may not use my name to conduct improper acts!¡±

    ¡°We would never! Your Imperial Majesty shows us great favor in bestowing us this name. Who would dare dishonor this august title?!¡± A shout reverberated through the ages! The old man was caught in the throes of fervor, he almost seemed like he was in a fit. The city¡¯s name hadid a holy mission upon their shoulders!

    Li Hao nearly vomited blood as the din of cheers and roars swelled more than ten times, a hundred times louder than before! Why were the people so agitated? He thought of the Silver and ck Armors. Battle Heaven seemed to be an exceedingly sacred title, an existence that did not tolerate indignity!

    ¡°Battle Heaven!¡±

    ¡°Battle Heaven!¡± Yells and whoops sounded in unison, shaking time itself and sending their excitement, hot-bloodedness, and a torrent of emotion through history. Li Hao¡¯s blood boiled at the happening!

    This person had only voiced a few regr words and given a name to elicit such a reaction. It was incredible! Li Hao was being shaken senseless!

    The scene brightened in front of him after a long while; the figure was already writing. Brush in hard, he carefully penned the two characters. Fiery spirits surged through Li Hao the moment the figure raised his brush. When hepleted the ¡°Battle¡±, the young man suddenly understood the people¡¯s reaction. He witnessed battle intent ring out of the character, cing himself in the center of a battlefield.

    Powerful enemies surrounded him, but he fought!

    One person against heaven and earth, fighting and killing without end. There were wild beasts and monster spirits around him, but he charged again and again to kill!

    ughter the enemy, exterminate everything! Battle did not stop when enemies yet existed!

    Li Hao was caught in the middle of the scene. He¡¯d be that person and felt it in this instance. A de! He wielded a de and sliced off enemies¡¯ heads one after another!

    There was another person in front of him, too hazy to be identified. One could just barely make out that he was rampaging in all directions without any reservation. He also wielded a de!

    Countless heads flew up into the air beneath the de. A harbinger of ughter!

    Li Hao felt both muddleheaded and exuberant with battle intent. Who was that person? Whose body was he borrowing in this era? Was it that imperial majesty?

    He didn¡¯t know!

    He only knew that whenever this person struck, it felt like the young man was the one striking out with his de. The bloodshed continued until they reached the vault of heaven and ran out of enemies!

    When they killed everyone, the figure in front of him paused and said something. Li Hao perked up his ears and focused his mind, wanting to hear what was being said. He turned all of his attention to catch one sentence that petrified with its implications.

    ¡°Damn, they¡¯ve got some nerve. They wouldn¡¯t obey when I told them tomit suicide, so I had to raise my de instead. But I killed them all in the blink of an eye?¡±

    <i>Who is this?? </i>Li Hao quailed. So arrogant! He¡¯d killed everyone on the battlefield because they refused tomit suicide? Why... did he seem more bloodthirsty than Li Hao¡¯s teacher?

    This was a true demon!

    The scene changed again as his mind reeled. He returned to where the imperial majesty was writing¡ªthe ¡°Battle¡¯ character wasplete. Next was ¡°Heaven¡±.

    Li Hao was transported to another scene the moment it was finished, one drastically different from before. He stood in the cosmos and saw a person in front of him, one that was still the person from before.

    ¡°How are you worthy of being called the heavens? You deserve to die! Heavenly Emperor? HAH!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The sun and moon shattered and the stars dimmed. A presence so powerful that it stole the breath from one¡¯s lungs had its head crushed in a split second!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Li Hao felt like his brain would explode! This person was outrageously arrogant, tyrannical, cruel, and brimmed with killing intent! And he... seemed to have killed someone called the Heavenly Emperor...

    Who dared call themselves that? A frozen Li Hao didn¡¯t know. Who dared? Did the Skystar Emperor dare call himself that?

    Of course not!

    No one dared hail themselves the emperor of the heavens, but this one who did seemed to have just been murdered! And his killer was the iparably cocky guy from before.

    ......

    Li Hao woke up. He was certain he was awake this time, truly awake. He no longer saw the bloodthirsty fiend or the imperial majesty writing characters. He saw Liu Long and Wang Ming beneath him.

    The two characters above his head seemed very ordinary now; he hadn¡¯t gained much... He only remembered that the imperial majesty he¡¯d been with had killed a few people with the de, then watched someone elsemit murder.

    Was that really all he¡¯d gained?

    Li Hao¡¯s mind wobbled¡ªno, he¡¯d gained much more! He¡¯d witnessed a different world, the strength of the ancient civilization. These people really could shatter the sun, moon, and stars! That person had crushed a heavenly emperor¡¯s head with one move!

    <i>A de...</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t have a de, so he subconsciously waved the Earthturner Sword in his hand. Some different reflections floated to the fore and he so naturally waved the sword around...

 Chapter 273: The Terrifying Ancient City (III)

    <h4>Chapter 273: The Terrifying Ancient City (III)</h4>

    <i>Humm!</i>

    Sword qi exploded downward. The city gates were one hundred meters tall¡ªsuch a distance was the limit of what martial master attacks could reach. And yet, the sword qi shot straight at Wang Ming.

    The handsome supernatural didn¡¯t think much of Li Hao casually swinging his sword around. They were one hundred meters away!

    However, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up the next moment and even his hair bristled on his head. He coalesced ten thousand swords without another word!

    The ray of sword qi broke through all of them in an uproarious mor, leaving behind a stunned Wang Ming who couldn¡¯t believe his eyes. Liu Long roared and punched outward¡ªWaves Assaulting the Sky!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The ray of sword qi began to decay after colliding with a massive wave and a Dominator at such close range. Although he overcame the sword qi, Liu Long goggled at his fist. It was speckled with blood and there were cuts that ran to the bone!

    A casual ray of sword qi from Li Hao from one hundred meters away had nearly killed a Sunre. Meanwhile, a Dominator as Liu Long barely managed to rebuff it!

    Up in the sky, Li Hao also blinked with surprise. <i>How... was this possible?</i> He hadn¡¯t put much force behind his blow, he¡¯d just waved a hand ording to the habits of the imperial majesty whose body he¡¯d upied before.

    How had this happened??

    He jumped down from the city gates and stared at the two, saying with difficulty after a while, ¡°Were you two... putting on an act?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Sweat dripped down the side of Wang Ming¡¯s face and he gaped at Li Hao like he was seeing a demon. He trembled as he cursed, ¡°You wanted to kill me! You absolutely wanted to kill me so your secrets would stay safe!¡±

    Damn it, he¡¯d almost died just now!

    ¡°How is that blow so strong?¡± Liu Long also frowned.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± Li Hao scratched his head. ¡°I really don¡¯t, it was just a casual swing...¡±

    He waved his hand again as he spoke. Wang Ming paled and ducked for cover, but there was no ensuing ray of sword qi cutting through the air this time.

    Li Hao remained staring nkly while Liu Long contemted with furrowed brows. ¡°Did you attain some kind of enlightenment just now? Were you in a state ofprehension?¡±

    ¡°Enlightenment?¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry, or even how to exin himself. ¡°If watching someone kill people is enlightenment... then I suppose so!¡±

    He¡¯d simply seen someone kill others moments ago; perhaps it was a remarkable feat. As the young man thought back to how the imperial majesty had in enemies with one stroke, maybe that was the enlightenment part of his experience. He hadn¡¯t seen anything from the fiend that mowed down enemies on the battlefield and thus, didn¡¯t learn anything.

    Li Hao exhaled softly¡ªthe stroke he¡¯d just deployed wasn¡¯t continuously avable to him. He needed to digest his findings first! It was only now that he realized that while that blow hadn¡¯t seemed like much, his body was devoid of internal force. It was a simr result to when he used the Incantation of the de of Blood. He hadn¡¯t even noticed that his energy was being depleted!

    What a terrifying finding! No wonder Ole Wang had been so horrified that he almost peed his pants. Li Hao had emptied his internal force with just a casual wave! Even though the blow hadn¡¯t been aimed at Wang Ming and there was no aura powering it, one had to keep in mind that he¡¯d just killed mid Sr Zhang Ting with a single stroke!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know how to respond to the sight of Wang Ming scurrying around for hiding ces. ¡°Stop running, no one wants to kill you! Would you still be alive if anyone wanted to?¡±

    Wang Ming red at him from a safe distance and cursed loudly. <i>This guy is too dangerous!</i>

    Liu Long also looked up into the sky, but didn¡¯t read anything from the two characters. At a loss and dejected, it looked like this opportunity wasn¡¯t for him.

    Li Hao raised his head, then quickly lowered it again. Forget it, there was no taking these characters with him. He couldn¡¯t touch them. Perhaps there¡¯d be a chance to in the future. He still needed to take some time to digest what he¡¯d gained.

    It wasn¡¯t like anyone other than him had freedom of movement. He finally had the effort to spare for the inner city.

    All remained quiet on the city¡¯s front, but he soon saw a ball of light heading their way. Instead of a Sr, it looked to be a Sunre. The young man didn¡¯t know who it was as it was too far away to be clearly identified.

    ¡°Someone¡¯sing!¡± Li Hao called out a reminder. Wang Ming and Liu Long quickly stood together and looked into the city. There was only a dim avenue in front of them with no one to be seen.

    Just as Wang Ming felt that Li Hao was pulling one over them, a form materialized in the gloom. Someone from Yama!

    Two Sunres had entered on the Yama side, but this one wasn¡¯t the one who¡¯d threatened Liu Long. It was the other Sunre. The figure paused to see others at the gates, but quickly rxed. There were only three of them! One Dominator, one initial Sunre, and one Sunderer...

    Although he was just a mid Sunre himself, there was nothing to be afraid of. He wouldn¡¯t necessarily lose if it came down to a fight. He just didn¡¯t want to take action at the moment.

    Li Hao and hisrades focused on the bundle in the returnee¡¯s hands. It was a piece of clothing wrapped around something.

    ¡°We can take things from the houses?¡± Wang Ming asked with surprise, excitement bubbling up again. No wonder no one hade out yet. They were rich if they could loot the houses! Who¡¯d want toe out then!

    ¡°Take a look yourself!¡± the person responded coldly. He grunted when he saw the three blocking the gates, ¡°Move!¡±

    He wanted out! Although they couldn¡¯t leave the ruins at the moment, he didn¡¯t want to stay inside the city anymore. It was a bit dangerous. He¡¯d already gotten his hands on treasure. He might not make it out if he indulged in greed and continued to stay. Not to mention, he¡¯d have to turn everything in if he brought out too much treasure. He wouldn¡¯t be able to keep much for himself.

    Wang Ming smiled when he saw Li Hao remain silent. ¡°Now, let¡¯s not be in a rush,¡± he said curiously. ¡°We¡¯d like to know more about the situation inside the city. Why are you the only one out and what are you holding?¡±

    The Yama member¡¯s face darkened. <i>What, are you three nning on robbing me?</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s pretty much the same inside and outside the city,¡± he answered calmly and slowly shifted away. ¡°We can¡¯t enter the closed houses, but some houses have their doors open. We didn¡¯t dare enter at first, but then found out after some experimentation that those were essible. So everyone split up to search for houses with open doors and take whatever trifles we can find...¡±

    ¡°Then let¡¯s take a look!¡± Wang Ming continued seriously. ¡°We¡¯ll let you go if it really isn¡¯t worth anything!¡±

    ¡°Are you looking to die?!¡± the person erupted with anger. ¡°Do you really think you can do anything to me?¡±

    He didn¡¯t want to fight only because he did have some treasure in his hands. These guys looked piss poor, what was the point in killing them? Not to mention, it was three against one at the end of the day. How great a loss it would be if a mishap happened and he died to them!

    ¡°Didn¡¯t the Revolution King and others go to the pagoda?¡± Li Hao asked. ¡°Why is there no sign of movement or theming out yet?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± The Yama powerhouse frowned. ¡°Go take a look yourself if you want to know!¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t know anything... Yama is nothing good!¡± Li Hao snorted, suddenly seized by the urge to kill someone. <i>Uh oh, I¡¯m being affected by that killing demon.</i> He suddenly shed out with his sword!

    The Yama member flew into a rage. How dare a Sunderer attack him! He courted death! He would kill these three first if he had to¡ª<i>do you really think I¡¯m a pushover??</i>

    Earth energy surged as he waved a great ax into being, he was an earth supernatural. Sword qi arrived as soon as his weapon formed.

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    The sword qi pierced through the defenses of earth energy and ran through his throat. A wooden look entered the Yama powerhouse¡¯s eyes.

    <i>I¡¯m... dead?</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care what he thought. He darted forward to add a blow to ensure his target¡¯s death. A gleeful Wang Ming rushed forward without needing his colleague to say anything and began cleaning up the corpse, collecting mysterious power. A mosquito¡¯s leg was still meat, not to mention that almost three hundred cubes of mysterious power were avable from a Sunre.

    It was a pity that he was an earth supernatural, however, and not metal.

    Li Hao turned his sights to the bundle, but the three paused when it was open. What was this? A bundle of stones?

    Yet, Li Hao¡¯s breathing deepened as he studied it closely. Wang Ming didn¡¯t realize it at first and thought the bundle really did contain rocks. After a while, however, he swallowed hard.

    ¡°These... these... seem to be... mysterious power stones!¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Liu Long asked nkly. He didn¡¯t sense anything out of the ordinary, these were just rocks.

    ¡°These... are treasures that powerhouses found in ancient ruins,¡± Wang Ming exined haltingly. ¡°One stone contains a lot of mysterious power! And... it might be of different attributes. The... key thing is that the energy inside these rocks is very pure and abundant! One rock might hold hundreds or even thousands of cubes...¡±

    The handsome supernatural was stunned beyond belief. ¡°They... were discovered in other ruins before, but... there might be only two or three rocks per ruin. It¡¯s said that Red Moon rose so swiftly because they found arge cache of mysterious power stones!

    ¡°They¡¯re also the key to replenishing origin weapons. The Night Watchers... have them too. Didn¡¯t I say before that each faction has their own way of raising rookies and creating mysterious power?

    ¡°These rocks are the best resource! Origin weapons can swiftly distillrge sums of mysterious power from them and they can also be used to strengthen origin weapons...¡± Wang Ming swallowed hard once more. ¡°This guy got his hands on two dozen of them??¡±

    Indeed, there were approximately two dozen rocks inside the bundle. They were rich! They were truly rich!

    No wonder he¡¯d been in such a hurry to run. If it¡¯d been Wang Mingying hands on such a fortune, he¡¯d run as fast as his legs would carry him!

    Not only would he run, but he would hide!

    Once this treasure was discovered by others, Srs and above mighte in pursuit of him. Mysterious power stones were very valuable! One or two of them might be given a pass, but a dozen at once??

    Liu Long and Li Hao were likewise stunned. Just one piece of these things was worth hundreds or even a thousand cubes? These ruins were too rich! This was just the harvest from houses with open doors, what of the ones that were closed? Unbelievable! Were the others collecting this many stones as well?

 Chapter 274: The Terrifying Ancient City (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 274: The Terrifying Ancient City (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao had taken note of the rocks¡¯ peculiarities when he scanned them; his unique eyesight revealed that they contained a lot of energy. However, he didn¡¯t fathom that they held so much! Even he felt that they¡¯d struck it rich this time.

    The young man swiftly counted their new gains. Altogether, there were thirty-two rocks of varying sizes! ording to Wang Ming¡¯s exnation and his own estimation, there were at least ten thousand cubes of mysterious power here, or even more...

    It was an astronomical amount that blew the mind!

    ¡°It¡¯s... going to be tough to bring all this out!¡± Wang Ming breathed heavily. ¡°They¡¯re not small items and we didn¡¯t enter the city. If other people see that we suddenly have a bundle of stuff...¡±

    Reaping treasure was one thing, but there were a lot of Srs inside the city that they had to face. Long faces marked the trio. Did they have storage rings they could use? How about a space attributed supernatural? Any idiot would know they bore treasure if they carried a bundle around like that fellow just had!

    ¡°If worstes to worst...¡± Liu Long set his jaw. ¡°I¡¯ll swallow them all! Martial masters have strong stomachs and organs. I can pass them through my system when we get out!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao and Wang Ming bestowed him looks of disgust at the same time. <i>Ew, gross.</i>

    But upon further thought, that might be the best way of concealing their newfound gains. It was ten thousand cubes of mysterious power! Srs and Novas wouldn¡¯t mind casually eliminating them for this harvest. And they didn¡¯t even need to consider absorbing the energy on the spot. They were full from thest round, how could they take in any more? Not to mention, they couldn¡¯t split so much mysterious power between them no matter how they tried!

    Just as they debated how to handle their wealth, golden light abruptly erupted from the center of the quiet city! Startled, the trio looked over in that direction. Thanks to the feeble light from the pagoda, they saw... a fist!

    It was a punch! Just one punch smashed a fleeing figure to smithereens¡ªthe figure was no more. It was a bit familiar... Despite their distance, everyone¡¯s vision was quite keen. That fist hade with light, illuminating the sky enough that certain details could be glimpsed.

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped; Liu Long and Wang Ming shook with horror. That had been... Ding Chen!

    Indeed, the figure running for his life was the mid Sr from Celestial equipped with an origin weapon! He¡¯d been sted to pieces by one punch!

    Li Hao also saw a thin sword race across the sky. There seemed to be a vicious beast superimposed on it. It was hard to make out, the young man gathered it was simr to the snake shadow he saw before. He¡¯d cut that snake apart; this particr beast was shivering from terror.

    The golden fist punched out once more, reducing the beast and sword into dust with a loud collision!

    A gold level origin weapon was decimated in a split second! It wasn¡¯t snapped into two or broken, it was obliterated out of existence and it happened in the blink of an eye!

    Multiple figures darted out of the city center in the next moment, they flew as fast as they could!

    Golden light shed beneath the pagoda¡ªa Gold Armor hovered in the air!

    It didn¡¯t give chase and simply watched the intruders scatter in every direction possible. He¡¯d killed Ding Chen because the man had sought to take the ck Tortoise Seal from his hand.

    The Gold Armor floated silently in the air while Srs fled helter-skelter from the city, an iprehensible shock on their face.

    A Gold Armor?! Fuck! They thought it was just decoration, but it¡¯de alive! That Silver Armor had erupted with power beyond Nova in thest possible second, so what about this Gold Armor??

    Had it recovered its consciousness?

    Possibly not!

    The soldiers seemed to fully disappear when they did. But even without his full capabilities, he was likely... a Nova, wasn¡¯t he? That Silver Armor had beente to peak Sr! Or was he even greater than Nova?

    If they backed him into a corner and forced him to regain his consciousness, would that ce him beyond Nova??

    No one dared consider the possibility. The soldier had killed mid Sr Ding Chen with one punch and an origin weapon with another. That was enough for everyone to know that there was no point in working together. They would just be picked off, one after another!

    Run! The only thing to do was run! They were all doomed if they didn¡¯t run!

    Li Hao shook with fright at the city gates. <i>Hot damn, a Gold Armor! </i>He turned and ran for safety as well! This was too terrifying!

    As he scuttled away, the enormous city gates began creaking close. The young man didn¡¯t notice it at first, but his heart skipped a beat when he turned back for a look. <i>The gates are closing?! I don¡¯t know how the others will be, but Hao Lianchuan and Hu Dingfang won¡¯t be able to make it out! They can¡¯t all fly in the city!</i>

    <i>Director Hao¡¯s done for! He¡¯s twenty kilometers away and the gates will be closed soon! And that Kong Qi too, they¡¯re the only Srs who haven¡¯t tried the second passageway!</i>

    Li Hao grew frantic. Director Hao was a good man, it¡¯d be such a pity if he died. The young man wanted to see if he could stop the gates from closing¡ªeven a little while would do. He whirled around and ran back¡ªLiu Long and Wang Ming had no choice but to follow. They¡¯d also seen the gates start to close.

    However, Li Hao started in the next moment. The gates began opening once more when he drew near them! <i>What... the heck?</i>

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    The Gold Armor nced at the city gates. The crouching turtle in the air also seemed to open its eyes and look at something in that direction.

    <i>A direct lineal descendant of the eight families? </i>It was unknown whether this thought came from the old turtle or Gold Armor.

    It dissipated as soon as it formed. Battle Heaven weed guests and all lineal descendants of the eight families. The eight families were of the same breath and branches. The city¡¯s gates should be flung wide open when one visited!

    Of course, the caveat was that the city reawakened first...

    Indeed, reawakened. Li Hao hadn¡¯t been able to open the city gates before because the city had been fast asleep. It stirred with some life now.

    The Gold Armor remained unmoving, as did the crouching turtle. Thetter seemed to be a sculpture and permitted the intruders within the city to run madly!

    Battle Heaven did not fear enemies and weed all guests so long as they weren¡¯t out of line. They did not, however, wee thieves and robbers. The ancient city once more sank into silence with the appearance of the Gold Armor. Only sounds of people breaking through the air could be heard.

    The Srs were frightened out of their wits. Hao Lianchuan was as pale as a sheet and manifested the ming Fire Phoenix beneath him. He rode something that resembled a phoenix and shot for the city gates. There was no time to consider or respect that this was the director¡¯s prized origin weapon!

    Hu Dingfang appeared to be an existence akin to a deer. All four of his limbs were on the ground as he jumped and leapt wildly, moving faster than flight. He was also terrified out of his mind.

    The same went for all of the others. No one was in the mood to fight even if they bumped into each other. Escape first, nothing else!

    ......

    Li Hao watched with a strange look at the city gates. He nced at the gates, then at the people about to arrive. The young man suddenly grabbed the mysterious power rocks and started eating them. One... two... three...

    ¡°Eat them!¡± he growled. Liu Long and Wang Ming jerked with realization and started stuffing their faces. These people might take the rocks away from them as soon as they arrived! Eat first, nothing else!

    Li Hao judged the remaining distance between the group and the gates, they looked for Director Zhou and the earth supernatural Zhao Huan. Would they make it back in time? He was going to run as soon as Hao Lianchuan and Hu Dingfang were almost here.

    Close the city gates!

    As for whether or not they could be opened again or if people could fly out... he couldn¡¯t give consideration to that!

    The Sunres and Darkmoons hadn¡¯t prated the city as deeply. Some Sunres could be seen churning their way to the city gates before long. Li Hao saw Zhao Huan and Director Zhou, but there was no sign of the Darkmoons to be seen. He didn¡¯t see any of them, but neither did he care about them. They were possibly all spies, so who cared about them! None of the Darkmoons had stayed with any good intentions.

    The Sunres made it through the gates and Director Zhou took a moment to grunt, ¡°What are you standing there for? Run!¡±

    These fools were just standing here dumbly! What were their brains made of??

    ¡°We should... wait for the director...¡± Li Hao stammered.

    <i>Fucking hell, this idiot kid!</i>

    Director Zhou grabbed him and made a run for it. ¡°Forget them, they¡¯re fast...¡±

    Li Hao felt impossibly weary. What could he say now?

    The city gates started swinging shut as soon as he was pulled away, but no one noticed it at first. It was Hao Lianchuan and the others in the distance that took note. The deputy director sweated profusely. The city gates were closing?

    <i>Run!</i>

    He propelled himself with every iota of strength and stamina, fleeing for his life. The ming Phoenix Spear picked up speed and raced at a pace even faster than missiles!

    The city gates were closing and he couldn¡¯t fly! But even if he could, he¡¯d worry that he wouldn¡¯t be able to make it out either.

    A ball of sparks zoomed past him. The Revolution King shot out like a gust of wind and Violet Moon also tumbled out as a bolt of lightning. Hong Yitang wasn¡¯t strong, but he seemed to be a giant bear rolling along the ground. Li Hao watched with a dropped jaw¡ªwhat kind of ability was that?

    Being as strong as he was, Hu Dingfang leapt out with a mighty push of his legs!

    Over on the Celestial side, Kong Qi was the weakest. He threw caution to the wind when he saw the gates creak shut and flew into the air, wanting to dive past the gates. Unfortunately, he hadn¡¯t taken the second passageway and was sted out of the sky by a ray of white light.

    He was gone! There was no sign of him to be seen!

    Celestial had suffered minimal losses before this, but they were down two Srs in the blink of an eye. The Celestial Sunres that¡¯d made it out were openmouthed with shock. That¡¯s it? They were gone? Their two leaders were dead, just like that?

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The city gates were fully closed!

    ¡°Huff huff huff...¡± Violent panting sounded in everyone¡¯s ears. Srs sweated profusely, perspiration pouring down their faces. The events of today would likely feature in nightmares toe.

 Chapter 275: Gains (I)

    <h4>Chapter 275: Gains (I)</h4>

    The city gates were closed. The Gold Armor yet hovered in the air within the city; golden radiance could be glimpsed in the darkness even through the massive city gates and walls.

    Violent panting continued throughout the horrified crowd. They could neither leave nor stay. Should they keep running? That soldier didn¡¯t seem to be in pursuit. Would he charge out of the city even though the gates were closed?

    <i>There was a small seal of a turtle shell floating over his hand...</i>

    A sliver of greed rose in everyone when they thought of that item, but it was swiftly drowned by terror.

    Too strong! Ding Chen had been annihted with one punch; he¡¯d had no room for retaliation at all.

    ¡°How much longer until the ruins open?¡± Violet Moon asked despite her wan face and shortness of breath. She¡¯d forgotten what time it was or didn¡¯t even have the ability to consider how much time had psed.

    ¡°A long time!¡± Li Hao called out while being dragged away by Director Zhou. ¡°You guys were in there for only two hours. There¡¯s another twenty-two until the ruin doors open again.¡±

    That was a very long time! They couldn¡¯t leave even if they wanted to. It was why the crowd didn¡¯t keep running¡ªthere was no ce to run to. They wouldn¡¯t even be able to fly anymore if they left the outer city and came back in. Thus, they wouldn¡¯t brashly depart the premises. They still had designs on the inner city.

    ¡°This is all that idiot Ding Chen¡¯s fault!¡± Violet Moon set her jaw with annoyance. ¡°That Gold Armor was inert and wouldn¡¯t have made a move if we didn¡¯t disturb the seal in his hand...¡±

    The Srs had swiftly run for the pagoda after entering the city, but hadn¡¯t been able to make it up the structure after prolonged attempts. They couldn¡¯t even fly up!

    They had to search around the base when they were out of ideas and found the Gold Armor in one of the ancient houses. Wary and on guard at first, no one dared approach it. The might of the Silver Armor was still fresh in their minds. But after extended tries, someone was bold enough to try attacking the soldier.

    There was no response!

    That was when other thoughts entered their mind and Ding Chen made use of the opportunity to attempt to sneak the seal away when everyone milled around in confusion.

    The results spoke for themselves. Everyone¡¯s wits flew out of their minds when the Gold Armor moved! Violet Moon was assigning all me to Ding Chen¡ªno one would object since he was dead. In actuality, everyone wanted that item. Ding Chen was just unlucky enough to be the first to touch it and die a ghastly death for it.

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t say anything, he looked at the city gates. Hu Dingfang also frowned.

    ¡°There¡¯s still people inside.¡±

    Indeed, there were still others behind the gates. There had been thirty people left on the expedition team before. Li Hao¡¯s trio killed Zhang Ting and the Yama Sunre, and another two Srs had died. That left twenty-six inside the city.

    There were five Srs standing outside, eleven Sunres that¡¯d made it out, and Li Hao¡¯s three. That made for neen total, leaving seven inside the city¡ªincluding the four Night Watcher Darkmoons. Not a single one of them had emerged. inly, they¡¯d all chosen to go deep into the city and traveled slower. Since they couldn¡¯t fly, they hadn¡¯t been able to retreat in time.

    The others looked around and saw that the Night Watchers were abruptly five less. Cold smirks appeared on faces when they saw that all of their Darkmoons were missing. How dare Darkmoons remain! They were just courting death to do so!

    The group pivoted to Yama after the Night Watchers¡ªthe Revolution King looked wordlessly at the sole Sunre left by his side. He was down yet another person!

    Of the rest, Celestial lost two Sunres and Red Moon lost one Sunre. Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t notice it at first, but then realized when he took a close look¡ªwhere was Zhang Ting? He remembered that she was with Li Hao and the others. Where was she now?

    It was normal for the other Darkmoons to be missing since they were trapped in the city, but Zhang Ting was a Sr! There were no Silver or ck Armors here, so the method he¡¯d taught Li Hao before waspletely unusable. She would swiftlynd back on the ground even if flung into the air, Liu Long wouldn¡¯t be able to stop her.

    Liu Long and Li Hao also didn¡¯t seem to be injured, which made it all the more impossible! A Dominator could not emerge unscathed after fighting a Sr.

    The look in his eyes shifting rapidly, Hao Lianchuan looked at Li Hao. ¡°Didn¡¯t Zhang Ting stay out of the city?¡±

    ¡°She went inside.¡± The young man shook his head. ¡°She said she wanted to take a look after you guys went in since it seemed safe. And then... she didn¡¯te back out!¡±

    No one had seen anything, so it was up to him however he¡¯d like to spin the story.

    Hao Lianchuan was simply curious. So she¡¯d gone inside? Then she might be alive? Those trapped inside the city might not be dead, they were simply unable toe back out.

    ¡°Do we go inside again?¡± Hao Lianchuan asked. There were only five Srs left now.

    ¡°I¡¯m not going!¡± Hong Yitang answered decisively. ¡°I¡¯m leaving as soon as the doors open again!¡±

    Who were they joking?? He wasn¡¯t going inside for any reason whatsoever anymore. It was too damned dangerous. He wouldn¡¯t have made it out just now if he¡¯d been the slightest bit slower. Who knew what would be the consequences then?!

    Violet Moon and the Revolution King also seemed to be heavily injured. They might¡¯ve been embroiled in battle after entering the inner city. Li Hao, however, didn¡¯t see anything when he swept a gaze over them. Had they obtained any treasure, or had they hidden their gains in something like a storage ring?

    That was very possible as ancient records mentioned such things existing in the ruins. There also seemed to be a space attribute when it came to supernaturals. Since such properties existed, there was a hope of producing them in modern times. Thus, the local leaders of these factions might really have such artifacts. They didn¡¯t seem to have returned empty-handed from the looks on their faces. They simply hadn¡¯tid hands on the most critical treasure.

    Li Hao wordlessly observed the crowd¡ªfive Srs and eleven Sunres. Two of the Srs were from the Night Watchers. There were only nine Sunres left of the three great organizations, one for Yama, three for Red Moon, and five for Celestial. However, losing their two Srs was the greatest loss for Celestial.

    The expedition team had shrunk once more. Apart from the twenty that¡¯d left earlier and the neen present in front of the gates, less than forty had survived from the original team of two hundred. This wasn¡¯t to say that all neen here would make it to the exit, either.

    <i>Can Hao Lianchuan and Hu Dingfang take care of the Revolution King and Violet Moon? If Hong Yitang doesn¡¯t interfere, then chief, Wang Ming, Director Zhou, Zhao Huan, and I will be five against nine...</i>

    The thought popped into Li Hao¡¯s mind. Could they consider eliminating all of the rest? Violet Moon¡¯s origin weapon was damaged while Hao Lianchuan had his ming Phoenix Spear. The deputy director stood a very real chance of oveing his opponent. As long as Hong Yitang stayed out of things, Hu Dingfang possessed sufficient strength to handle the Revolution King.

    The young man quickly dismissed the idea. They didn¡¯t have to eliminate all of their enemies! There might be more trouble if Violet Moon and the Revolution King died; it would be better if they lived. There would certainly be representatives of the three great organizations once the team left the ruins. Would they let the matter rest upon seeing that their entire delegation was wiped out?

    It would prove that Celestial¡¯s Srs didn¡¯t die to the Night Watchers if the other two Srs still lived. That would avoid certain troubles.

    Many considerations ran through Li Hao¡¯s mind. If he was here alone, he would kill everyone present. He had the strength and means to. The Night Watchers, however, needed to put down roots in Silver Moon.

    The young man exhaled gently when his thoughts traveled here. He was a little too bloodthirsty these days! That killing fiend must be impacting him¡ªhe wasn¡¯t so murderous before. He¡¯d only taken a quick look in the illusion, but the other affected him even now.

    ¡°They wouldn¡¯t obey when I told them tomit suicide, so I had to raise my de instead¡± reverberated in his mind. Was this the sentiment from anyone decent?

    <i>No! Only serial killers say that!</i> Li Hao condemned inwardly. <i>I¡¯m no one like that, I barely even killed chickens as I grew up! I¡¯m a genteel, refined person!</i>

    That man was indeed terrifying. Just a scene in someone else¡¯s memories eons ago still proved sufficient to impact him even now!

    Hu Dingfang suddenly looked at one of Celestial¡¯s Sunres as Li Hao¡¯s thoughts ran wild. ¡°What... are you holding?¡± he asked with a strange look in his eyes.

    The cloaked figures tensed with nervousness. One of them clutched a very big bag. It¡¯d been shoved into his cloak before, but could no longer remain hidden at this stage.

    ¡°I... seem to sense something as well...¡± Hao Lianchuan said slowly. Violet Moon and the Revolution King turned around as well, all of them with bizarre looks on their faces.

    Li Hao could already see the contents of the bag. The Celestial members seemed to have discovered some mysterious power stones, much like the ones that the Yama member had found. The organization¡¯s Sunres floundered in dread and apprehension. Thete Sunre threw the bag out. ¡°We picked these up... Please take them if the venerated ones have use for them!¡±

    He chose to give up his bounty in this moment because his two Srs were dead. Ding Chen¡¯s death made sense, Kong Qi¡¯s hade about from pure nerves. He took to the air even though he hadn¡¯t gone through the second passageway. Did he think he was Violet Moon and had the protection of the Armor of the Thunder God?

    The bag spilled its contents on the ground. The Srs¡¯ eyes widened when rocks tumbled out. It really was mysterious power stones!

    Hao Lianchuan wasn¡¯t in a hurry to pick them up. ¡°There are... mysterious power stones inside the city?¡± he asked with a peculiar tone.

    ¡°Yes!¡± answered the Celestial member. ¡°Some ancient houses have their front doors open. When we went inside, we discovered that some houses had stones in them. There¡¯s not that many¡ªsome hold only one, some have three to five.

    ¡°Other than us and the venerated ones who went to the pagoda, the others should¡¯ve collected a few as well. This is why we stayed in the city¡ªto look for more.¡±

    Violet Moon nced at her remaining members¡ªthey nodded back at her. inly, they¡¯d also found some. They weren¡¯t afraid of anything since their Sr was still alive.

    Mysterious power stones!

    These items were the key to faction strength! The Night Watchers possessed some as well¡ªthey typically appeared only in ancient ruins and in very few quantities, unless it was a special ruin. But just Celestial alone had collected almost sixty from the inner city! It was an astronomical sum!

    ¡°These are Celestial¡¯s findings,¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°We¡¯d be bullying you if we took them. You should put them away...¡± He nced at Violet Moon and the Revolution King. ¡°I am sure that you two are in agreement as well, correct?¡±

    Violet Moon snorted and the Revolution King agreed faintly, ¡°Ding Chen and Kong Qi died in idents. The three great organizations are of the same breath and branches...¡±

 Chapter 276: Gains (II)

    <h4>Chapter 276: Gains (II)</h4>

    Five Srs acted at the same time before the Revolution King finished speaking!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    One person for each surviving Sunre!

    The five Celestial members knew that disaster was upon them and wanted to run, but there was quite a difference between Sunre and Sr. Hao Lianchuan stabbed a Sunre to death with his spear! The others were the same and executed their targets at nearly the same time!

    Hong Yitang did so with a look of resignation on his face. He didn¡¯t want to do so! But he knew this would be the oue as soon as the Revolution King and others started speaking. Celestial¡¯s Srs were no more. Who didn¡¯t want this vast sum of mysterious power stones? It¡¯d just be creating trouble for themselves if they let the Celestial members go after confiscating all of their gains.

    In that case, none of them would leave the ruins alive!

    These Srs were ruthless and decisive when it came to decisions such as these. Since Celestial no longer had Srs at the helm, they could all die! No one would say anything if they were all dead.

    Hao Lianchuan picked at the corpses and found another twenty-odd stones from the dead. Part of the loot was extracted from the bodies.

    ¡°So many, eighty rocks!¡± he chucked. Eighty of them! So much more than they expected. He dropped the good guy act at this point since no one would be selfless when it came to divvying goods. ¡°Violet Moon, Revolution, how do you say?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want any!¡± Hong Yitang dered. He really didn¡¯t want the treasure, but he¡¯d participated in the killing all the same!

    Such was wisdom.

    If he didn¡¯t kill people and didn¡¯t want the loot, then these people might kill him as well too. Celestial wasn¡¯t a faction to provoke¡ªthere would be retribution once their powerhouses found out that their Sunres had been murdered.

    Red Moon and Yama were no exception to their vengeance; these killers didn¡¯t hold any reservations to killing anyone. Now that he¡¯d killed Celestial members with them, he would naturally keep their secrets.

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t bother with Hong Yitang after he said he didn¡¯t want any. Mysterious power stones were treasures of strategic importance. ¡°The four of us will split twenty each!¡±

    ¡°Are you certain you can hold on to so much?¡± the Revolution King asked coolly. Twenty stones? He and Hu Dingfang were iming half of the spoils!

    ¡°I can!¡± Hao Lianchuan grinned. ¡°Ole Hu and I aren¡¯t necessarily afraid of you two. Violet Moon¡¯s injuries are heavy and she can¡¯t fight anymore. Meanwhile, you should protect your sole survivor well, Revolution!¡±

    A frosty expression crept over the Revolution King¡¯s face and he countered after a while, ¡°Violet Moon and I will take twenty-five stones each. The remaining thirty can go to you!¡±

    Thirty stones held roughly ten thousand cubes of mysterious power based on the size of these rocks. Ten thousand was a lot, but wasn¡¯t that critical to the variousrge organizations. It wasn¡¯t worth killing five Celestial Sunres, in any case.

    However, mysterious power stones were different. Their worth wasn¡¯t measured in terms of cubes of mysterious power contained, but in terms of fuel for origin weapons. That made them treasures of strategic importance. While Li Hao and hispanions wanted to empty the stones of mysterious power, that was a fool¡¯s move in the eyes of the major organizations!

    If these items held three hundred cubes of mysterious power, the major organizations would be willing to buy them for one thousand!

    ......

    Li Hao and the rest were watching with dropped jaws. Wang Ming¡¯s eyes were wide open! He thought the three of them were bad enough... but it turns out that everyone was horrible in this field!

    These guys didn¡¯t even finish talking and Celestial had already handed over their treasure! The Srs hadn¡¯t conversed with each other beforehand and killed at a moment¡¯s notice! It was one thing for the others because they wanted the treasure, but Hong Yitang didn¡¯t want any part of it. He killed the Celestial members all the same! inly, he looked three steps into the future when he took one step and immediately knew the dangers ahead.

    Wang Ming swallowed hard. This world was too dangerous! He was too pure! Li Hao and Liu Long killed Zhang Ting at the drop of a hat, the Srs exterminated Celestial at the drop of a hat. What had been neen expedition members before was only fourteen now!

    ¡°Go collect the mysterious power.¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice rang lowly in Wang Ming¡¯s ear.

    ¡°Are you crazy?!¡± yelped the handsome supernatural. <i>You want me to collect mysterious power at a time like this?!</i>

    ¡°There¡¯s metal attribute power among them. We Night Watchers have the advantage in numbers and just got a smaller portion of the goods. It¡¯s right that we take the mysterious power!¡±

    <i>Then you go! </i>Wang Ming cursed inwardly. <i>But... fine, I¡¯ll take a gamble!</i>

    He cautiously crept over; the venerated personages didn¡¯t seem to pay him attention until he started collecting mysterious power. Wang Ming¡¯s scalp crawled when they looked at him and he said nervously, ¡°I... I didn¡¯t want milords anddy to dirty your hands. The ground will absorb this energy soon, so I¡¯ll collect it for you...¡±

    ¡°Take it,¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°If all of this is ours, the mysterious power stones can be divided ording to your split. I trust no one has a different opinion?¡±

    Violet Moon and Revolution didn¡¯t say anything. Five Sunres would result in one thousand cubes at most, and that was sullied energy. Killing people for their mysterious power was one of the dumbest actions one could take. One additional stone was better than killing five Sunres.

    Mysterious power contained in the body was filled with impurities and mixed with different attributes. It wasn¡¯t a necessity for powerhouses when they cultivated.

    Wang Ming sighed with relief behind Hao Lianchuan. Li Hao finally didn¡¯t trick him for once! So these people really didn¡¯t care about this. But to the trio, a thousand cubes was a sizable amount even though they¡¯d reaped some mysterious power stones. They¡¯d had to kill Zhang Ting to obtain that much before.

    Celestial had no ce at the table after their two Srs died. Their delegation was instantly exterminated. Other than the six that left earlier, the rest of the faction had died in the ruins.

    Of the remaining fourteen, the Night Watchers counted for half. Hu Dingfang ignored everyone else and simply confirmed that Li Hao was alright.

    ¡°That Gold Armor guards the origin weapon, we probably won¡¯t be able to take it!¡± he said. ¡°Weck the strength to, at the very least. These ruins will open again on ater date, so I don¡¯t rmend continuing to risk our lives at this stage!¡±

    Their gains were plenty on this expedition; the mysterious power stones and ck Armors were all treasures, not to mention what the Srs had collected when they entered the ancient city that the Gold Armor upied. It was a lot!

    Entering the inner city now was truly to court death. The remaining Srs were of a mind to retreat.

    Violet Moon flicked a nce at Li Hao. The young man was alive... that was good. It would be trouble if he died.

    This ancient city of Battle Heaven was dangerous beyondpare. There was certain to berge sums of mysterious power stones in the city¡ªthat was a guarantee. The ck Tortoise Seal was also a premier origin weapon. Apart from that, there must be ultimate treasures located on top of the pagoda they couldn¡¯t climb! They¡¯d simply excavated a portion of items avable on the surface. They weren¡¯t likely to uncover the rest, not with their strength.

    Violet Moon thought for a moment and said, ¡°If there are no other gains to be had this time, we probably won¡¯t be the ones in control of the next expedition!¡±

    She was still unwilling to ept this oue. There were already people who¡¯d exited to the outside world. Information of what was inside the ruins was surely bingmon knowledge. Whether it was the three great organizations or Night Watchers, any of them might directrge amounts of powerhouses to Silver Moon next.

    Those on this expedition were the rulers of only Silver Moon; the powerhouses of the central region hadn¡¯t paid attention to a small ruin before. But soon... they would. They might seek to enter themselves when the ruins opened next month.

    ¡°There¡¯s no helping it, it¡¯s not something we can control!¡± Hao Lianchuan sighed. ¡°I think it¡¯ll take more than one or two Novas to handle the Gold Armor, to say nothing of anything else. More Novas will be needed to take him out!¡±

    That soldier wasn¡¯t something that Srs could stand up to! An origin weapon had been decimated with one punch. Hao Lianchuan was even suspecting that this soldier was greater than Nova. Were there such experts in the central region?

    ......

    Li Hao listened quietly to the Srs¡¯ conversation. It looked like they¡¯d decided to give up. <i>The city gates will open if I walk over... </i>There was no need for a second passageway, he could fly without a problem. Was it because of his bloodline, or some other reason?

    It hadn¡¯t seemed difficult to open the city gates at first, but reality proved otherwise. The expedition team needed to take the second passageway to fly over, then push the gates open. But now... Li Hao suspected that there was something different about this city. Could Violet Moon and the others still fly over to open the gates?

    He wondered this way because he had a hunch that this city seemed more... alive than before! The Gold Armor and pagoda both seemed a bit brighter, and the city itself was less dim.

    Perhaps the Srs hadn¡¯t discovered it, but Li Hao guaranteed that they wouldn¡¯t dare fly over to open the gates anymore. He also felt that one matter less was desirable to one matter more. It was best to exit the ruins!

    His harvest this time was much more than anticipated. There were eight hundred cubes of water energy in the ring, the thirty-some mysterious power stones they¡¯d found, and one thousand cubes of mysterious power that Wang Ming had just collected. None of this was going to Hao Lianchuan!

    Additionally, there were another three hundred cubes of earth energy from the Yama Sunre and the enlightenment he¡¯d gained from the two characters. He¡¯d also risen to Dominator...

    One could say that Li Hao was the greatest winner of this excavation. He kept his usual low profile, so low profile that apart from Wang Ming and Liu Long, not even Hao Lianchuan knew that they¡¯d gained so much.

    Everyone thought that they¡¯d waited at the gates and didn¡¯t enter the city. And the fact of the matter was, they had indeed stayed outside! Thus, Li Hao was still a half step Dominator in the group¡¯s eyes¡ªone who¡¯d just advanced to that level.

    After some discussion, Hong Yitang dered that nothing would make him willing to go inside again. The others were of the same mind and decided not to continue their explorations. It was too dangerous!

 Chapter 277: Gains (III)

    <h4>Chapter 277: Gains (III)</h4>

    After the discussion was over, the Revolution King left with his sole surviving subordinate to investigate other areas in the outer city. Perhaps there were more ancient houses with open front doors.

    Violet Moon also left with her three Sunres. She didn¡¯t dare stray too far from the Revolution King due to concern about being attacked by the Night Watchers. It would take concerted action between Red Moon and Yama to withstand the Night Watchers now.

    As for Hong Yitang, he decided to stick with the Night Watchers. At times like these, the government agency benefited from a good reputation.

    The Night Watchers were gathered in one spot; Hong Yitang kept his distance. Hao Lianchuan scanned those remaining and sighed with emotion, ¡°Thank goodness we had the others leave first. We brought in such arge expedition team this time, but eighty percent of it died! This was far more dangerous than our previous explorations!¡±

    ¡°Director Hao, there are a few more of ours left in the city.¡± Director Zhou frowned. ¡°Are we really going to leave them behind?¡±

    Hao Lianchuan shook his head and looked at the sky. ¡°We can¡¯t enter the city anymore, it¡¯s too dangerous! I suspect that even those who took the second passageway won¡¯t be able to enter anymore either. Just look at Violet Moon and Revolution¡ªdo they dare fly over the walls now? There¡¯s... no saving the ones stuck inside!¡±

    Zhao Huan and Director Zhou said nothing more.

    ¡°Are you sure that Zhang Ting entered the city and didn¡¯te back out?¡± Hao Lianchuan looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°She went inside!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    Hao Lianchuan sank into deep thought. It was fine that she¡¯d entered the city. He was only concerned that she hadn¡¯t and was hiding somewhere. That would be bad as she was an agent of the central region. The Srs had actually found some secrets inside the inner city, but they were in tacit ordance and wouldn¡¯t speak of what they found.

    There weren¡¯t that many surviving at this point, so not much information would be revealed. As for the situation in the outer city, all that could be freely spoken of!

    On the other hand, Hao Lianchuan hadn¡¯t given up on the ck Tortoise Seal. It wasn¡¯t just him¡ªall of Silver Moon wouldn¡¯t relinquish the treasure. But had Zhang Ting really entered the city?

    With the uproar that¡¯d taken ce, she should¡¯ve ran for her life even at the cost of exposing her strength and identity. Equipped with an origin weapon and being mid Sr, she wouldn¡¯t die so easily so long as it wasn¡¯t to the Gold Armor.

    On the other hand, could she have died without entering the city? Hao Lianchuan found that hard to believe! Liu Long and the others didn¡¯t have the strength to kill her. He looked at Wang Ming and assessed the young man¡¯s condition, remarking with an odd tone, ¡°Wang Ming, you seem to have grown a little stronger...¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± The smiling supernatural nodded. ¡°I absorbed some of our earlier gains when you guys entered the city, Director Hao! You¡¯re amazing and have such keen eyesight as to see even this! Incredible!¡±

    He fawned over the deputy director as much as he could! Hao Lianchuan raised an eyebrow, <i>is that so?</i>

    ¡°So you were with Li Hao and the others this whole time?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Wang Ming responded with surprise. ¡°Whyever not? Li Hao himself said that he needed me to protect him. That¡¯s why I stayed. It wasn¡¯t that I was afraid, so don¡¯t misunderstand, Director Hao!¡±

    Alright then, that was fine. Wang Ming had been present the entire time¡ªhe was a good sapling being raised by the Night Watchers. If Liu Long and Li Hao had other ns in mind, they wouldn¡¯t execute them in front of Wang Ming. It¡¯d only been a few days since the young supernatural was deployed to Silver City.

    In that case, one could only conclude that Zhang Ting had been unlucky enough to blunder into some of the city¡¯s danger zones. Well then, who cared if she was dead or alive! More than one Sr had died on this expedition and Celestial had lost two. Yama lost one, whereas Hao Lianchuan and Hu Dingfang had worked alongside them the entire time. No matter how the central region conducted their investigation, none of the me would fall on their heads.

    Not to mention that they wouldn¡¯t dare voice the truth. They could only mutely endure this loss!

    ¡°Director Hao... I have something I¡¯d like to say,¡± Li Hao raised awkwardly.

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°I er... handed in a swordst time and you said that you¡¯d either give me arge sum of treasures or allow me to choose three treasures from the ruins. Is the expedition over at this stage?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Silence! Hao Lianchuan hadn¡¯t thought that the fellow would still remember this.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that I really want to bring it up...¡± Li Hao continued hesitantly. ¡°It¡¯s that we almost haven¡¯t gained anything on this trip. The ck Armors are a joint finding and have nothing to do with me or chief. That¡¯s why I¡¯m wondering...¡±

    Almost gained nothing? Liu Long remained staunchly silent.<i> </i>Sure! Probably! <i>We really don¡¯t have anything to our names!</i>

    Hao Lianchuan looked at him and didn¡¯t respond for a moment. ¡°Out with it, what do you want?¡±

    ¡°I won¡¯t be getting anything too precious,¡± Li Hao said hesitantly. ¡°And I wouldn¡¯t dare ept it either! Director Hao, do you have any origin weapons?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan paused, dazed. Hu Dingfang had his eyes closed in repose and abruptly opened them, almost choking on his next breath. <i>An origin weapon?</i>

    ¡°Do you know what origin weapons are?¡±

    ¡°I do!¡± Li Hao hastily bobbed his head. ¡°Wang Ming said that they can extract mysterious power from thend...¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡± Hao Lianchuan cut him off. ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it! My ming Phoenix Spear is Director Hou¡¯s, where am I supposed to get one for you? There¡¯s some inside the inner city, go get it yourself. It¡¯s yours if you can get it!¡±

    ¡°Then... what about water of life?¡± asked a regretful Li Hao.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°My teacher says that some ruins have water of life that can return a person to their youth...¡±

    ¡°Get out of here!¡± Hao Lianchuan roared. He knew about the legend, but he¡¯d neverid eyes on it. What was the little bastard on about?

    ¡°Then fine, I want mysterious power!¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°I want all elements other than unattributed. How about blood pearls? I want as many as possible! Let¡¯s convert everything that Director Hao promised to mysterious power, it¡¯s probably worth about five thousand cubes...¡±

    Hao Lianchuan looked like he¡¯d swallowed a mosquito. ¡°Fine!¡± he capitted. ¡°I¡¯ll tell Director Hou when we go back!¡±

    <i>Whatever, it has nothing to do with me! Director Hou can take care of it!</i>

    Five thousand cubes was a significant sum if one wanted tobel it that, but it also wasn¡¯t a staggering amount either. Hao Lianchuan had harvested more than that on this trip, he could afford to pay that much. But at the same time, he was very suspicious as to whether or not Li Hao had truly turned in the sword of the Lis.

    Who knew? That was Director Hou¡¯s matter.

    ¡°Director Hao, why don¡¯t we consider attacking Red Moon and Yama?¡± Li Hao pivoted. ¡°If martial uncle Hong agrees to help...¡±

    ¡°Do you think killing them is a good idea?¡± Hao Lianchuan murmured with a shake of his head. ¡°Not necessarily! At the very least, we know those two well. If the central region sends more powerful representatives after we kill them... that will be real trouble then! The three great organizations will certainly send people after their massive losses this time¡ªwe may not be able to coexist peacefully with them! Therefore, there will be upheaval toe with the three great organizations in Silver Moon. That may turn into a chance for us Night Watchers!¡±

    He looked at the young man with a meaningful look. ¡°Don¡¯t be so obsessed with killing. Sometimes, bloodshed isn¡¯t the only way to resolve the problem!¡±

    Li Hao mulled over his words, but also had his own thoughts in mind. <i>That¡¯s because you haven¡¯t killed enough! The man in my memories killed everyone¡ªwho could resist him then? That¡¯s true... Oh Bah! Why am I thinking of these things?</i>

    As for Violet Moon and Revolution being alive... Li Hao decided it was a fine oue after some thought. He wasn¡¯t strong enough yet and couldn¡¯t brashly take action. After he returned home, digested his gains, consolidated his cultivation level, devoured mysterious power, strengthened the five organs, summoned more spirits, then nurtured his auras to the point of emerging... Perhaps he could seek them out for an individual conversation.

    As for these people being good at concealing themselves...

    <i>Heh! With my pair of eyes, they¡¯ll have to hide in an outhouse... No, I¡¯ll find them with a casual sweep even if they¡¯re in the pit itself!</i>

    <i>Origin weapons!</i>

    Indeed, he had his eyes set on Violet Moon and Revolution¡¯s origin weapons. He needed sword energy so much! There were only two ways that he knew of to replenish it. One, find a second stone door. It exuded energy so slowly that the first one likely hadn¡¯t recovered yet. Second, break the soul of an origin weapon!

    Upon further thought, Li Hao felt that it wasn¡¯t the best time to make a move. If he did so and killed Violet Moon, he wouldn¡¯t be rewarded with her origin weapon. The Night Watchers would take it, and that wasn¡¯t his goal!

    ¡°The director is wise!¡± Li Hao shed a smile. ¡°I wondered why the director would let someone of the three great organizations go. So it¡¯s in preparation for events toe...¡±

    Hao Lianchuan cast a strange look at him. What hade over this guy today?

    ¡°Director, are those stones we found earlier useful?¡± Li Hao asked.

    ¡°It¡¯s mysterious power stones!¡± The deputy director went along with the change in topic. ¡°A treasure used in cultivation during the ancient civilization. Powerhouses abounded in that age due to this treasure, but they¡¯ve long disappeared from the Skystar domain. There are many uses for this item. The most basic is to directly extract energy from it for cultivation. But to do so would be the greatest waste of this treasure!

    ¡°The second is to reawaken inert origin weapons. Some origin weapons have gonepletely asleep and can only be returned to activity through mysterious power stones!

    ¡°The third is to activate some puppets from the ancient era. I suspect that the Gold Armor inside the city might possess many of these stones, which is how he can erupt with such power!

    ¡°Fourth is that this item is very useful to martial masters. They can be used to strengthen the body, but most people won¡¯t use them so wastefully!

    ¡°Fifth...¡±

    Li Hao listened to the list with admiration. ¡°Can you give me some?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan¡¯s smile didn¡¯t reach his eyes. ¡°This is a strategic resource, anyone who finds one must turn it in! Of course, you¡¯ll receive money for any that you hand in. Depending on the size, even the smallest piece usually fetches five hundred cubes. Do you have any?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Li Hao said sheepishly. ¡°Then can I trade my five thousand cubes for ten pieces?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it!¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head. ¡°That¡¯s not happening. All factions need mysterious power stones these days¡ªthey¡¯re the key to supernaturals being able to ascend. It¡¯s easier for rookies to advance with the energy inside. How else do you think the Night Watchers are able to induct power with such a low death rate? It¡¯s because of the mysterious power stones!¡±

    Alright then, it did seem very precious. In that case, there was no way that Li Hao was handing his in. If he hadn¡¯t taken the bag from the Yama Sunre, it would¡¯ve all gone to strengthen Yama.

 Chapter 278: Gains (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 278: Gains (IV)</h4>

    Director Zhou and Zhao Huan brought out a small bundle at this time¡ªmysterious power stones. They¡¯d discovered some as well.

    Hao Lianchuan nodded, fully expecting their find. ¡°The old rules apply,¡± he said as he took the bundle. ¡°You¡¯ll receive arge sum of mysterious power for this or anything else you want to trade for.¡±

    He took inventory of their gains; they¡¯d discovered quite a bit at twenty pieces. Whenbined with what he¡¯d taken from Celestial, they¡¯d reaped fifty pieces on this expedition.

    As for himself, the Srs really hadn¡¯te across mysterious power stones. But it wasn¡¯t that theypletelycked any gains¡ªtheirs were significant, there was just no need to go into detail with the rest of his people.

    ¡°Let¡¯s take another look in the outer city.¡± Hao Lianchuan rose after concluding his business. ¡°Although we went through it quite a few times before and didn¡¯t see any houses with open doors, we might discover something else without the ck Armors around. If we can obtain some more stones, Night Watcher strength will increase as a whole after this expedition.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan was in a very good mood as their losses hadn¡¯t been too severe and their gains significant. Meanwhile, Li Hao stared fixedly at the man, looking until he saw the bundle vanish.

    There was definitely a storage treasure on him! Perhaps he could ask for one of those. He couldn¡¯t store Steris inside his body yet, so he had to keep it hidden on him. Thankfully, it was feasible due to its moderate size. But if he lost it... Li Hao would die of tears.

    ......

    <i>At the same time. Outside Rift Canyon.</i>

    Powerful presences swept the canyon. Numerous Night Watchers were stationed around the four corners and there was even a military blockade stopping anyone from entering.

    <i>Inside the blockade.</i>

    ¡°They¡¯re almost out, what are you in a rush for?¡± Hou Xiaochen coughed a few times and looked at the furious powerhouses outside. ¡°We¡¯re not letting you in only because we don¡¯t wish for you to add to any chaos or trouble...

    ¡°Haven¡¯t we given you everything that is yours?¡± He smiled. ¡°See, which of the Red Moon, Celestial, or Yama finds have I kept instead of handing over to you?

    ¡°Cut the bullshit, Hou Xiaochen!¡± snapped a red-haired hulk in the air. ¡°We want the ruins and Yuan Shuo! If not, give upLi Hao!¡±

    ¡°You really... are a hasty one!¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled ruefully. ¡°Yuan Shuo¡¯s gone, where am I supposed to find him? As for Li Hao... he¡¯s still inside the ruins. What are you in such a rush for? Maybe he¡¯s died inside! Didn¡¯t you hear the survivors say how dangerous the ruins are?

    ¡°Look at how many went in and how many are left. Apparently there¡¯s only thirty alive inside. Added to those who came out, that makes for a maximum of fifty out of approximately two hundred... Are you sure Li Hao wille back out? Being so eager to kick up a fuss... you really don¡¯t think much of the Night Watchers!¡±

    Red Hair snorted, ¡°You¡¯re highly responsible for Yuan Shuo getting away!¡±

    ¡°Now now, how can you say that?¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head with resignation. ¡°Sadly, those who¡¯vee down in the world must endure such treatment. After all, I¡¯m no longer a tenth of who I used to be after being injured for so many years. You¡¯re a luckier one, Red Hair, to have made it to Nova. You¡¯re a hot shot now, I wouldn¡¯t dare offend you.¡±

    A variety of expressions flickered across Red Hair¡¯s face. Damn it! The more this fellow was thus, the less he dared make a move. Ying Hongyue had personally summoned him before he left the central region to give one instruction¡ªdo not break ties with Hou Xiaochen until thest possible moment.

    That was the only thing the leader said! Despite Red Hair being a Nova and Hou Xiaochen just a sickly Sr, the man knew that Ying Hongyue wouldn¡¯t voice unfounded statements like these. inly, Hou Xiaochen was not a character to run afoul of.

    The Silver Moon Night Watcher director might seem feeble and cough with every other sentence, but were the Novas maintaining order and silence out of fear of the Night Watchers?

    Of course not, they were wary of Hou Xiaochen!

    ¡°There¡¯s only ten more hours.¡± Hou Xiaochen checked the time. ¡°You¡¯ve already waited three days, what¡¯s a little more? Also, conversation needs to be conducted properly when Li Hao emerges. What does a young man, an ordinary person know? Red Moon is likely the one with the most business¡ªnone of the others look to have the same impatience.

    ¡°Everyone, it¡¯s too tiring to constantly be in the air. Why don¡¯t yound and rest inside your tents?¡±

    He didn¡¯t mind it when no one paid attention to him.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll go rest, I¡¯m not as strong as the rest of you. My body... ai, it weakens by the day!¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head and entered one of the tents under Manager Yu¡¯s support.

    The group watched him go, strange expressions crossing the faces of some powerhouses from the younger generation. These younger members of the various factions didn¡¯t know Hou Xiaochen. While overawed by superiors from headquarters, all they saw were Novas who dominated the central region not daring to make a sound in Silver Moon and keeping to themselves.

    It looked like the feeble man in front of them wasn¡¯t someone to consider offending! At the same time, they were shocked by the scale of this operation. The central region really had sent multiple Novas to a border province! Was it that important that Yuan Shuo had broken through?

    Novas were a domineering, premier force in the central region. Even if an organization possessed that level of heavyweight, they wouldn¡¯t have many. The three great organizations had almost all sent representatives of this cultivation, but no one dared make a move. This was most stunning of all.

    ......

    <i>Inside the tent.</i>

    Manager Yu frowned and whispered, ¡°Director... With so many Novas exerting pressure, Li Hao...¡±

    The young man was in a great deal of trouble!

    ¡°What are you in a rush for? The Inspectorate and Military Justice haven¡¯t sent people yet, but Novas from the other side have arrived. Our people wille, unless they¡¯ve decided to give up Silver Moon and no longer wish to administer it! We¡¯re just Night Watchers of a border region. It¡¯s naturally the central region who needs to take care of central region affairs!¡±

    Manager Yu fell silent with thought. Was that so? Or was it more that the government wanted nothing more than these neers to plumb the depths of Hou Xiaochen for them?

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± Hou Xiaochen was wracked by a hacking cough. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, if those people stay out of it, I¡¯ll announce that Silver Moon is no longer under the dynasty¡¯s purview. It¡¯s fine if that leads to chaos¡ªthe dynasty will be worried once Silver Moon secedes. They¡¯ll be afraid that it leads to a chain reaction!¡±

    If Silver Moon seceded due to the central government remaining unmoved when Novas invaded, the end result would be that numerous parties with their own ambitions would swiftly leave the dynasty after the news spread.

    When that situation developed, it wouldn¡¯t be long until Skystar Dynasty copsed. Thus, Hou Xiaochen judged that if he didn¡¯t make a move or involve himself in this affair, those fellows from the government would have to get involved.

    The director said no more; he contemted silently.<i> I wonder how things are on the inside. They¡¯ve gone into the inner city... That¡¯s not an easy ce to tread in!</i>

    ......

    <i>Inside the ancient city.</i>

    Li Hao and the others searched for a while. There were only nine streets, so it was easy to discover whether or not there were open ancient houses.

    Reality proved that they¡¯d been too hopeful. There were no houses they could enter!

    No one knew why this city had been abandoned, if its denizens had all died or migrated elsewhere. There was no way to find out now. No one dared enter the houses with closed doors to see what was inside either.

    ording to Director Zhou and Zhao Huan, some of the open houses were empty. There were only antique furniture and other trappings to be found. In the absence of treasure, their furnishings were no different from regr houses.

    After searching for a few hours, the remaining expedition team members didn¡¯t want to waste further time. They sat down to cultivate and digest their gains. There were only fourteen living souls in the entire outer city. The silence was so deafening that it was a bit terrifying.

    Hao Lianchuan and Hu Dingfang had both suffered some small injuries, so they focused on rest and recovery.

    ......

    <i>At a spot a little removed from the Night Watcher contingent.</i>

    Li Hao and Hong Yitang had struck up a conversation. Perhaps due to the fact that they were fellow martial masters or that the swordsman was a martial senior who didn¡¯t seem to share a deep grudge with his teacher... the young man was very willing to chat with the leader of the Sword Sect.

    ¡°Martial uncle Hong, are there many surviving powerhouses from the martial world of yesteryear?¡±

    Hong Yitang had nothing better to do at the moment, so he took a walk down memoryne. ¡°Although there were no Dominators forting from the Silver Moon martial world, it was still a peak martial faction in the ny-nine provinces! We had too many half step Dominators, to say nothing of anything else!

    ¡°And many left Silver Moon to be the best and brightest of the martial worlds in other provinces!¡± Hong Yitang dered with gusto. ¡°The supernatural world had yet to appear then, so Silver Moon¡¯s martial masters could be found throughout Skystar Dynasty. They defined the era! Everyone knew that if they wanted to truly forge a path in blood, they should go to Silver Moon!

    ¡°If they wanted to witness the true blood and gore of the martial world, go to Silver Moon!

    ¡°The supernatural didn¡¯t make much of a ssh when it first appeared twenty years ago. Silver Mono¡¯s martial world was so strong that the initial supernaturals¡ªStarlight, Darkmoon, and even those who swiftly made it into Sunre¡ªfound nothing but doom awaiting them. They were rookies pitting themselves against half step Dominators!¡±

    Being a Sunre twenty years ago made one a Heaven Favored. Those who survived those times were either Sr at the very least, or Nova at the most in present day. But in that age, they couldn¡¯t survive in Silver Moon because there were too many martial masters!

    It wasn¡¯t untilter that martial dao¡¯s slow pace of development that they were overtaken by the supernaturals. By the time Srs appeared, martial masters found it hard to withstand their counterparts.

    Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Martial masters are partially responsible for Silver Moon¡¯s supernatural domain not being that strong,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°We killed too many of them! A portion of Heaven Favored visited the province back in the day, and we also had a lot of homegrown ones. But too many of them died here. It wasn¡¯t just your teacher, I killed my fair share too. What a pity... those guys would be Srs and Novas now if they¡¯d survived to this day.¡±

    Li Hao nodded thoughtfully and whispered, ¡°Was Director Hou a martial master?¡±

    ¡°Him?¡±

    It was no wonder that Li Hao asked as Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t that old, but said to be very strong. Was he a martial master back in the day? No one had ever heard of such rumors. If he had been, surely he would¡¯ve bore a great reputation.

    ¡°Maybe... maybe not?¡±

    Li Hao blinked. How was that an answer? He was a martial master if he was one!

 Chapter 279: Comprehending the Sword (I)

    <h4>Chapter 279: Comprehending the Sword (I)</h4>

    ¡°There were two main factions in Silver Moon¡¯s martial world back in the day,¡± Hong Yitang continued. ¡°One of them was themunity of martial masters that you know of and the other was the talons of the dynasty. Ahem, thetter wasn¡¯t... you understand!¡±

    Li Hao did!

    Hong Yitang smiled to see that the young man was on the same page as him. ¡°The government wanted to ban martial dao, a decree that required the appropriate strength to reinforce. Therefore, the dynasty raised a crop of their own martial masters to take down the veteran martial masters. The ones from the dynasty had only one mission¡ªhunt down those from the martial world!

    ¡°No one heard of Director Hou before the supernatural domain rose, but he quickly made a name for himself in the Silver Moon Inspectorate. He reached the top shortly after the Night Watchers were formed, so we suspect that he was once one of <i>those</i> from the government!

    ¡°He might¡¯ve been a strong martial master,¡± Hong Yitang said softly. ¡°Then borrowed Skystar Dynasty¡¯s strength to swiftly cross over. He was at least a Sunre when he ascended, and with the low number of supernaturals back in those days, he only needed to grasp opportunity to swiftly be a Sr.¡±

    It was the swordsman¡¯s judgment that Hou Xiaochen was either a Heaven Favored or a martial master who¡¯d crossed over as a Sunderer. The public don¡¯t know much about Hou Xiaochen as martial masters of the dynasty had their identities concealed and names hidden. They operated in the shadows; it wasn¡¯t a good idea to build a strong reputation as that would lead to retaliation from the martial world atrge.

    ¡°I see...¡± Li Hao nodded. All could be exined if that was the case. If Hou Xiaochen had been a government martial master assassin back in the day... that would speak to a certain strength. A weakling wouldn¡¯t be able to undertake this kind of mission.

    But... talons of the dynasty didn¡¯t sound like... virtuous and upstanding people... <i>Forget it, what am I insulting myself for?</i> Li Hao stopped himself sheepishly. Weren¡¯t the Night Watchers in simr circumstances before? They worked exclusively on behalf of the government but operated in the shadows.

    Falcons and dogs of the government were what the martial world called these people. Meanwhile, those of the martial world were unstable factors of society ording to the Night Watchers. They ruined public security, fought and killed everywhere they went, created a ton of homicide cases, ignored thew...

    People like Yuan Shuo were the type that the government hated the most!

    Of course, Yuan Shuo kept a lower profile afterward and when the supernatural domain rose, theymitted even worse acts that cleared his name somewhat. In actuality, the old demon had been a wanted criminal in his time.

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t speak further when he saw that Li Hao appeared deep in thought.

    ¡°I see that you practice the sword,¡± the man continued when both of them were present in the conversation again. ¡°Your teacher practices the Five Styles and walks the path of the five auras. Although he knows the sword, and knows it quite well, he does not possess an aura of the sword!¡±

    Li Hao lit up.

    ¡°There were once seven swordsmen that were more well known in the Silver Moon martial world.¡± Hong Yitang smiled. ¡°They called themselves the Seven Swordsmen and had allprehended sword auras. There is more than one of them!

    ¡°I see that you know the Ghost Shadow Sword¡ªyou¡¯ve received its heritage, have you not?¡±

    Li Hao nodded. He loved discussing these topics with martial masters. Although his teacher possessed a wealth of knowledge, he was not a swordsman. As such, sometimes his knowledge in this area was less than these swordsmen.

    ¡°Of the seven swordsmen in times past, there was the Earthturner Sword, Ghost Shadow Sword, Thunder Wind Sword, Light Sword, Ambiguous Sword...¡± Hong Yitang continued upon seeing obvious interest from the young man. ¡°These seven people knew seven different sword auras! In my view, swordsmen are never weak. They can¡¯t measure up to your teacher, of course, he¡¯s a perverted genius to meld five auras together. He wouldn¡¯t be a match for any one of the swords if he onlymanded one aura.¡±

    Li Hao nodded while inwardly criticizing, <i>the key point </i>is<i> that teacher grasped five auras. Also, why are you ranking your Earthturner Sword as number one?</i>

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t mean to boast or unt his past aplishments. He simply decided to share some knowledge upon seeing that Li Hao practiced the sword. ¡°If you wish to walk the path of sword dao, yet not be the eighth sword of the seven... then you need to be like your teacher!¡±

    Li Hao looked on nkly.

    ¡°The sword isn¡¯t a type of sword aura!¡± Hong Yitang had to exin. ¡°The Earthturner Sword is connected to the earth. Heaven and earth are turned upside down through the strength of the ground when it is deployed!¡±

    The young man brightened.

    ¡°The Ghost Shadow Sword is vast and vicious,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°Its core lies in the shadow being formless and traceless! Isn¡¯t that simr to the dark attributed supernaturals of our times?¡±

    Li Hao turned over these words in his mind.

    ¡°The sword can go through a thousand changes and ten thousand variations, there is far more than one sword aura! No one denies that the auras of the five styles are strong, but is their connection as strong as the one between the sword auras?

    ¡°The supernatural focuses on attributes, so we can also look at sword auras in the same light. Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth are all sword auras! So can the wind, thunder, rain, lightning, dark, light, space, and void coalesce sword aura.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say anything if you were simply going to follow your teacher¡¯s path, but I can vaguely sense that you have a different understanding of sword dao. Your path may not be your teacher¡¯s path. Then I hope that another swordsman cane out of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world¡ªa powerful one!¡±

    Hong Yitang concluded with some regret, unspeakable regret. He felt the same mix of emotions as Sun Yifei did, despite thetter bing ate Sr. He had not walked his path of the <i>qimei </i>staff to the end! In the same vein, Hong Yitang¡¯s Earthturner Sword was just an empty name now.

    The martial masters of Silver Moon did not forget the days in which they shone so brilliantly! The Seven Swordsmen had swept thends until they were defeated one by one. Now some of them were dead or no longer imed the title. The Earthturner Sword was just the leader of a mere Sword Sect and not the swordsman of old!

    ¡°If your teacher can meld five auras together, why can¡¯t you do the same with the seven swords, or even eight and nine?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped and he scrambled to put his thoughts together. ¡°Ah... martial uncle Hong, even if Iprehend multiple sword auras, I¡¯ll be old before I can assimte all of them into each other!¡±

    He¡¯d never manage it!

    ¡°How can that be?¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°The first to be melded together will always be the toughest because the swordsman is searching for the right way. Hecks experience and knowledge, but the second will be easier.

    ¡°How did your teacher manage to fuse five? He must have his own method, his own rules, his own system. What you need to do is to use your superb potential toprehend more sword auras. It¡¯s fine if they¡¯re not of the sword¡ªremember that anything can be a sword!

    ¡°The earth is a sword, the sky is a sword, thunder and lightning are a sword, everything is a sword!

    ¡°A misceneous assortment is less than the essence! Everything can be defined as the sword. When you walk the path of the sword, even your teacher¡¯s five auras can be the sword. However he has put his together is how you can try with yours!

    ¡°You are likely the only one who stands a chance to. The others don¡¯t know how and your teacher probably won¡¯t teach them.¡± Hong Yitangughed in a self-deprecating manner. ¡°What a pity that we don¡¯t have potential or ability like that. You have very good foundations and a tremendous advantage in timing. Breaking through with one aura makes you an ordinary martial master. You will never surpass your teacher that way. What the martial world wishes to see most of all is for each sessive generation to be stronger than the one before!

    ¡°We want everyone to know that the martial world still exists, that martial masters still exist!

    ¡°It¡¯s an immense pity that the heritage of the Seven Swordsmen has ended,¡± the man sighed. ¡°Your teacher killed the Thunder Wind Sword, Ghost Shadow Sword, and Ambiguous Sword. He knows them very well. If you canprehend more sword auras, Li Hao...e find me. I¡¯ll teach you the Earthturner Sword!¡±

    Li Hao blinked and stared incredulously at Hong Yitang. The martial world ced a great importance on legacy! It couldn¡¯t be casually bestowed upon another, even when the speaker in question was no longer a martial master. The Earthturner Sword was no unknown man of anonymity.

    That Hong Yitang had been able to survive in the ruins indicated that his experience and others were first rate, even if his strength wasn¡¯t. Would such a person freely give away his precious sword and knowledge?

    ¡°What, do you think I have ill intentions?¡± Hong Yitang smiled. ¡°If you really master several sword auras and have the chance of surpassing Yuan Shuo, bing the premier swordsman of Silver Moon and legitimizing Silver Moon¡¯s martial world... Swordsmen are stronger than the Five Styles. No matter whose disciple you are, you would be worth making an exception for!

    ¡°And if you really do manage the feat, I''l let you in you a secret. The strongest of the seven¡ªthe Sky Sword¡ªis still alive! He is a great personage now. If you can meld sword auras together, I can introduce you to him for further tutge!¡±

    ¡°The Sky Sword?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°You can ask your teacher about him. He fought the Sky Sword three times. The first time ended in failure, the second time in a draw, and he finally won on the third attempt. But having killed so many people, did he kill the Sky Sword?

    ¡°Your teacher didn¡¯t triumph until he melded the five auras together. It¡¯s easy to tell from that how strong the Sky Sword is!¡±

    Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath. <i>Really? I¡¯ve never heard teacher speak of it. </i>His teacher couldn¡¯t win until hemanded the joint five auras... how strong did the Sky Sword have to be?

    ¡°Is he... still alive?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°Is he a supernatural now?¡±

    Hong Yitang¡¯s face dimmed and he nodded. ¡°Yes! And he¡¯s a so-called Nova. Even the Sky Sword has no choice but to be a supernatural. This is why I admire your teacher!¡±

    ¡°Well... my teacher has always wanted to be a supernatural...¡± Li Hao said hesitantly. ¡°But he¡¯s never seeded...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that he didn¡¯t seed!¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°I know what your teacher is thinking¡ªhe wanted to enter Dominator first, then make the crossover. He wanted to have a taste of the glories of Dominator of Thousands. Do you really think he wouldn¡¯t have his ways if he wanted to be supernatural?¡±

    Li Hao fell silent. His teacher had indeed mentioned it before that he¡¯d wanted to be a Dominator before bing a supernatural. However, he was injured and cut off from the path of Dominator. Hence his focus changed to directly entering the supernatural domain, but it was toote then.

    Hong Yitang sighed and said nothing further, but Li Haomitted the matter to memory. His teacher had another enemy¡ªthe Sky Sword! This one was already a Nova, his teacher really knew how to pick them.

 Chapter 280: Comprehending the Sword (II)

    <h4>Chapter 280: Comprehending the Sword (II)</h4>

    Of the Seven Swordsmen, only the Earthturner and Sky Swords were known to be alive. Yuan Shuo had killed three, leaving two unounted for. Li Hao turned over Hong Yitang¡¯s words in his mind.

    All things could be the sword!

    These were the words of a swordsman, of a veteran martial master. Perhaps they praised swordsmen too highly, but what he said made sense. Although Li Hao hadprehended the sword aura, he¡¯d always felt that it belonged to the metal attribute!

    The earth aura was naturally of the earth attribute, so he¡¯d created the Sword of Mount Tai. But this so-called Sword of Mount Tai was just wrapping the effects of gravity around the sword aura. It wasn¡¯t a true melding of the two.

    Granted, Li Hao felt that he¡¯d seeded inbining the two auras, but after hearing Hong Yitang¡¯s words, he felt that... perhaps he hadn¡¯t really seeded.

    True sess did not look like this.

    It should appear more as aplete fusion of both earth and metal in a single stroke. The sword was the sword, it didn¡¯t need further enhancement from a mountain peak. Both earth and metal could be deployed at the same time, or in a blow more than the two, or as a new type of powerbined from both elements.

    Such was the experience of a veteran martial master. Each sentence was extremely evocative of much more¡ªprovided that one possessed sufficient intelligence to understand it.

    Seeing Li Hao in deep thought, Hong Yitang watched him silently. He, too, reflected on certain things, and with a degree of sorrow. The life of a swordsman was beyond him now! Could the young man in front of him raise sword dao back to its former glory?

    Who knew!

    But he recalled the domineering sword intent that he¡¯d vaguely sensed before. Whether it was the martial world of Silver Moon, of swordsmen, or of de wielders, they¡¯d all fallen to the Five Styles. Could animals reign as king?

    <i>Bah!</i>

    The martial masters didn¡¯t ept it, absolutely not! But they were all defeated in the end, despite their refusal to bow their heads!

    If Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple could surpass his master and be known for sword dao, how interesting would that be even if it was an internal Five Styles discipline affair! Hong Yitang wanted to giggle when he thought of the possibilities.

    If Li Hao could defeat the old man through sword dao and as a martial master as well... Well, Hong Yitang wanted to whoop withughter and apud with mirth. <i>That¡¯s right, we can¡¯t defeat you, especially after you¡¯ve be a Summoner. You¡¯re so domineering and it¡¯s meaningless if we defeat you with supernatural powers. But what about a pure martial master who¡¯s also a swordsman?</i>

    Surely the Sky Sword would share his thoughts¡ªand not only the Sky Sword, but the other guy alive would think the same. But that one...

    Hong Yitang became distracted as he thought of another one of the seven. Was that person still persevering? Even the Sky Sword had given up, was there hope in holding out?

    Perhaps... there was. Yuan Shuo had found the path to Summoner. If he¡¯d known of this possibility, he would¡¯ve doggedly hung on that year as well. Sadly, the time had passed, but he hoped that that person would meet with a good end.

    ¡°Martial uncle Hong!¡± Li Hao jarred him out of his thoughts.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Hong Yitang smiled.

    ¡°Martial uncle, you say that all things can be the sword, so is the essence of the sword the metal attribute or not?¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°Metal is just the medium with which to forge a sharper sword! But if a stone sword is keener than a metal sword, would you say that the sword¡¯s essence is metal? If iron and metal hadn¡¯t been distilled, then the sword would¡¯ve remained wood, porcin, and stone. Would you then say that the sword is of the wood or earth attribute?

    ¡°Li Hao, you must differentiate between the sword and its medium! The sword is a technique, a method, an art! Of course, it¡¯s also an aura to you now and auras are not delineated by attribute. You give it its attribute!

    ¡°Do not fall into the trap of categorizing all things by attribute, that¡¯s incorrect!¡±

    The man suddenly relished in the joy of teaching a disciple and continued with relish, ¡°Does your aura have an attribute? It does not! It¡¯s all from your own imagination. Take Liu Long, for example, he thinks his aura is the waves and practices the Nine Forged Force. But do you know what attribute his father, the Silver Spear of Silver Moon, was?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head.

    ¡°It was fire ording to today¡¯s definitions! His father¡¯s spear was of fire, it zed like a fiery dragon and had nine dragons oveid upon it. The Silver Spear was also called the Fire Dragon Spear!

    ¡°But would you say that the Nine Forged Force is a fire attribute method? Of course not, and it is not of water either. That depends on yourprehension. Everyone¡¯s is different.¡±

    Li Hao fully understood in this moment. Auras were not dependent on attributes! His teacher¡¯s possessed them because the five animals happened to map to five different elements. Therefore, hisprehension was thus as well, but that didn¡¯t mean Li Hao had to follow in his footsteps.

    <i>I see!</i>

    His teacher had not spoken of this before¡ªperhaps he wished Li Hao to walk the path of the Five Styles from the very beginning. As it turned out, Li Hao proceeded down the way of the sword. The young man hadprehended the aura the day he used it, Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t had time to exin anything else at that time. A premier swordsman now filled in the gaps of Li Hao¡¯s knowledge.

    ¡°A sword is not categorized by attributes!¡± Li Hao thought of something¡ªthen his sword aura could not be melded into random auras or shunted toward the metal attribute. If he finalized a move in that direction, his sword aura would have to be of that attribute.

    He¡¯d wanted to assimte his sword into the five organs before, but perhaps he didn¡¯t need to do so now.

    ¡°Martial uncle, the sword aura is all-epassing, right?¡± asked Li Hao. ¡°If my sword aura is unattributed and Iprehend the fire or earth sword, then will they meld into one like my teacher¡¯s five auras? I won¡¯t need to purposefully look at them separately...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s exactly what I mean!¡± Hong Yitang nodded with a chuckle. ¡°You finally have a handle on things. The sword is not the one and only!¡±

    ¡°So any other aura Iprehend can be used as a sword, right?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    ¡°Therefore, the sword is the general outline and I can study the topics and subtopics beneath as I would, ultimately putting them back together in a general outline again, right?¡±

    ¡°Smart boy!¡±plimented Hong Yitang. Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple really was very smart! He was correct, the sword was a general outline!

    Li Hao was rather agitated at the moment.<i> So I can have a fire, earth, wind, and water sword... I can switch to whatever attribute sword I want so long as I¡¯veprehended that aura, and thenbine everything together! It will be an innovative sword intent!</i>

    <i>The five organs nurture the five spirits... What if I nurture five different swords in them and ultimately fuse them into a sword of general outline?</i>

    The young man contemted numerous possibilities and even tried experimenting with his ideas. He wanted to transmute the mountain in his spleen into a sword! A sword of earth!

    He¡¯d formed a new understanding of sword dao.

    ......

    ¡°Li Hao¡¯s having a good conversation with that person!¡± Hu Dingfang remarked.

    ¡°Who do you think is winning?¡± Hao Lianchuan nced at themander.

    ¡°Huh?¡± Hu Dingfang looked nkly back at him.

    ¡°What are you looking at me for?¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°Hong Yitang is very shrewd and wouldn¡¯t strike up a conversation for no reason at all. Li Hao isn¡¯t so inclined either. The two must have their own ns with how energetically they¡¯re chatting with each other.¡±

    Hu Dingfang wasn¡¯t interested in this. He frowned at the distant inner city. ¡°Do you think... we can still go inside?¡±

    ¡°Nope!¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head. ¡°There¡¯s no hope, don¡¯t even think about it! While we might be able to when powerhouses of the central region arrive, I think we can forget about seizing the turtle seal. That Gold Armor is terrifying¡ªremember how strong the Silver Armor was when he reawakened?

    ¡°These ruins cannot be explored at the moment. Even five Novas will be only going to their deaths. This was just one spot of danger in the inner city, how much of it did we explore?¡±

    A muffled grunt sounded nearby as he spoke¡ªLi Hao spat out a mouthful of blood as his organs suddenly bled. Hu Dingfang and Hao Lianchuan swiftly disappeared and reappeared around Hong Yitang. The two were frowning¡ªwhat was going on here?

    Hong Yitang looked at them innocently. <i>I didn¡¯t do anything!</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s fine... just some bleeding from the spleen.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°It has nothing to do with martial uncle Hong. It¡¯s my internal injuries that are too severe and have yet to fully heal...¡±

    ¡°You absorbed three Sunre level blood pearls,¡± Hao Lianchuan couldn¡¯t help but say. ¡°But you still aren¡¯t fully recovered? Just how severe were your injuries?¡±

    He wanted to call bullshit, but it really did seem like the young man was yet to return to full health. Look, there was internal bleeding again!

    ¡°That Kong Qi was too strong and left a surge of dark force in my body...¡± Li Hao said helplessly.

    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say before that it wasn¡¯t Celestial?¡±

    ¡°Director Hao, they had two Srs before,¡± the young manughed ruefully. ¡°I couldn¡¯t say it was them even if it was, that would just be creating trouble for the Night Watchers. It¡¯s fine if I¡¯m injured, but is it worth it to have the agency gain new enemies on my behalf? I can speak of this only because they¡¯re dead. It must have been Kong Qi... But forget it, what¡¯s the point of going through all this when he¡¯s dead?¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll go find Violet Moon and get a few more blood pearls!¡± Hu Dingfang dered with a brewing headache. How were these injuries acting up again? Li Hao had reaped nothing but wounds on this expedition, this wouldn¡¯t do. He¡¯d thought that he¡¯d be able to help the young man secure a treasure or two, but look at how the situation had turned out!

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan, take out a wood attributed mysterious power stone!¡± He suddenly set his jaw.

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    ¡°What, I have twenty of those stones, can¡¯t I ask for one of them?¡± themander said coldly. ¡°The results are wondrous when the stones are absorbed. Although it¡¯s a bit wasteful, how is he to rise to Dominator if his wounds continue to linger? Can you take responsibility when too much time is wasted? One wood stone should help him make a full recovery and strengthen his constitution. It¡¯s just one stone, can I not ask for even that?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that...¡± Hao Lianchuan answered with resignation. ¡°My point is that we can locate the best healer for him when we return or supply some wood energy. Using a mysterious power stone is too wasteful...¡±

    ¡°Then we waste it!¡± Hu Dingfang insisted.

    ¡°Don¡¯t... waste...¡± Li Hao coughed up blood.

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan!¡± Hu Dingfang roared. ¡°We obtained fifty mysterious power stones this time, so what of a single one?!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan rolled his eyes. <i>For fuck¡¯s sake, you... Fine, whatever.</i>

    A wood stone appeared in his hand after a while. The stone was green and brimmed with vitality.

 Chapter 281: Comprehending the Sword (III)

    <h4>Chapter 281: Comprehending the Sword (III)</h4>

    ¡°Wood energy stones are very rare,¡± Hao Lianchuan exined with resignation. ¡°There might only be a couple wood attributed ones out of fifty. They¡¯re extremely precious. A small piece like this can be sold for thousands of cubes in the central region!¡±

    Despite his words, he still handed the stone to Li Hao. ¡°Absorb its energy with the Breathing Method of the Five Styles! Not only will it heal your wounds, but it¡¯ll strengthen your organs, physique, and even internal force. Mysterious power stones are true healing panaceas and more valuable than those blood pearls. They¡¯re just too rarely seen and contain a plethora of uses!¡±

    ¡°Is... this appropriate then?¡± Li Hao asked with embarrassment.

    Hao Lianchuan rolled his eyes again. <i>Why do I feel like this guy is putting on an act to defraud me of a stone? But him vomiting</i> <i>blood doesn¡¯t seem fake...</i>

    <i>This is such a headache!</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s appropriate, have it!¡± Hao Lianchuan said casually. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, It won¡¯te out of your five thousand cubes! While we need to show a bit of face to Hu Dingfang, you don¡¯t. One mysterious power stone cannot be traded for the breathing method either...¡±

    Hu Dingfang furrowed his brows and nced at the deputy director before walking off without a word. He tried to stay away from this topic and didn¡¯t like it when others mentioned it either. If it¡¯d been twenty years ago... heads would be bashed in for leaking martial secrets. It would be extremely harmful to his wife¡¯s reputation if word of this spread. Yuan Shuo might not take her to task for divulging the core method of the Five Styles, but veteran martial masters would absolutely be enraged.

    Li Hao said nothing else and picked up the wood energy stone to attempt absorbing its energy. A peculiar surge of power rushed into his body when he operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. The young man contained himself with effort¡ªthis energy felt simr to sword energy!

    Of course, it was slightly inferior and not as gentle as sword energy. Its effects weren¡¯t as exceptional, but it was far better than violent mysterious power.

    Tender wood energy surged into his body, repairing the spleen that¡¯d almost ruptured moments ago. Li Hao¡¯s decision to focus on the sword aura caused extreme agitation from the giant mountain. It¡¯d almost shattered his organ.

    The young man could perceive that this energy was very useful, particrly for the spleen. The organ was being nurtured by the wood element. However, he still felt a certain regret as the energy was truly a step below sword energy. Sword energy could also extract even purer and better wood energy!

    But if sword energy could distill mysterious power, could it do the same to this wood energy stone? If it could, wouldn¡¯t the energy be made purer then?

    <i>Can this item replenish sword energy? </i>Li Hao wondered, but didn¡¯t have a chance to experiment. These mysterious power stones would be a true ultimate treasure if they could!

    His organs were strengthening and his body being enhanced, but the effects weren¡¯t noticeable.

    Hao Lianchuan frowned and gave a reminder when he saw the stone grow dim. ¡°Don¡¯t absorb it all, it can recover so long as the color hasn¡¯t fully faded away. That is the key point of this treasure!¡±

    <i>What? It can recover??</i>

    ¡°Will it recover quickly?¡± asked the young man.

    ¡°Not that quick, but most of its energy will return after three to five years. That¡¯s why mysterious power stones are a great treasure. Fifty stones can form a small mine...¡±

    Li Hao waspletely speechless! Fifty small stones as a mine?<i> You¡¯re joking! They¡¯re not even the size of a ball when they¡¯re added together.</i>

    ¡°Kid,¡± Hao Lianchuan abruptly transmitted when he finished talking. ¡°You absorb energy so quickly that you must have taken in one hundred cubes already. Howe there¡¯s no change in you? You should be undergoing some sort of qualitative change under normal circumstances. Is something wrong?¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Li Hao said aloud with obvious confusion.

    A morose Hao Lianchuan transmitted, ¡°Logically speaking, a Sunderer shouldn¡¯t be absorbing so much energy so quickly and bepletely unaffected. Have you secretly advanced to Dominator?¡±

    ¡°What are you talking about, Director Hao?¡± Li Hao yelped.

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan decided to stay quiet.

    Off in the distance, Hu Dingfang frowned at Hao Lianchuan and transmitted, ¡°What are you thering on about?¡±

    Hao Lianchuan must be talking about him behind his back! He must be! Why else would Li Hao have looked at him a few times?

    Hao Lianchuan wanted to vomit blood from pure frustration. <i>I wasn¡¯t talking shit about you! Forget it, the little bastard is incredibly cunning. All he did was look at Hu Dingfang to set the guy on me.</i>

    Li Hao ignored the two. <i>Why ask so many questions? You¡¯re interfering with me absorbing wood energy.</i>

    The young man inwardly delighted at the wood energy stone. His reserve of wood energy was being further added to as well. It¡¯d been the least before¡ªfire and water had stood at six hundred cubes, wood at only three hundred. Another one hundred was swiftly added to its numbers from the stone.

    <i>This thing is great!</i> Li Hao scanned his memory to find that there weren¡¯t many wood energy stones in the stones that he¡¯d collected either. Getting one for free was just as good!

    Of course, this was just an idental gain. The true harvest was the conversation with Hong Yitang leading to new understanding. It was another step forward in his own path of martial dao.

    Martial dao became quite disorganized after peak Sunderer. Everyone was lost as to what the path was after Dominator. Yuan Shuo was perfecting it, but his path wasn¡¯t necessarily suitable for everyone. Li Hao was also starting to debate what his road should be. Of course, he was young and had seen too little of the world thus far. He could only obtain a bit of inspiration from other people.

    He seemed to have gained quite a bit in terms of sword dao today. He¡¯d been very lost before, having seen powerhouses from the ancient civilization deploy moves such as severing the self, forging bravely forward without looking back, and marching on the heavens... The young man was uncertain how to proceed after witnessing all that.

    Today, he gained additional enlightenment. A myriad of changes did not depart from the original principle! The core meaning was still sword intent and the aura. As for how to project the aura, that depended on the situation, the battle, and the adaptation.

    Li Hao considered these concepts as he absorbed energy. Others did not register particr sensations, but Hong Yitang took a few more nces at the young man. There was a unique sword intent emanating from the fellow!

    Liu Long and Hu Dingfang also looked at Li Hao. Liu Long, of course, remained silent. Hu Dingfang was also slightly confused.

    <i>Is that... aura?</i>

    He wasn¡¯t familiar with Li Hao, but he knew a bit about the Five Styles. As Yuan Shuo¡¯s final disciple, it was... surprising that Li Hao did not practice the auras of the Five Styles. He... really didn¡¯t know what to say.

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care what anyone else thought or saw. It wasn¡¯t that he looked down on the Five Styles¡ªhis teacher¡¯s path wasn¡¯t necessarily his.

    Alright, fine, it was indeed that he didn¡¯t think that highly of the method. He didn¡¯t want to lie to himself. His forefather¡¯s stroke had cast the Five Styles in a different light!

    Other people may not understand, but his teacher surely would. Yuan Shuo had been the one encouraging Li Hao toprehend that sword. He knew as well that his Five Styles did not measure up to that formidable move! This was why his final disciple did not study the auras of the Five Styles.

    ......

    Time passed, bit by bit. Li Hao absorbed abundant wood energy and could vaguely sense that wood, fire, and water were bnced in his body. There were roughly six hundred cubes of each and the wood energy stone was much dimmer than before. As of now, he possessed the least of earth and metal. There were only four hundred cubes of them as the other three had caught up.

    The giant mountain was beingpressed in the spleen. Li Hao was consuming so much energy not just to nurture his organs, but also to convert the earth aura into an earth sword aura. The mountain began shrinking; it was now just a little bigger than a pir. The young man felt that he stood a chance ofpleting thepression before they left the ruins.

    Once he seeded, his earth aura would undergo further changes and strengthen him even more!

    One hour... two hours...

    Hao Lianchuan had to interrupt his training when ck shone through the wood energy stone in Li Hao¡¯s hands. ¡°Are your organs still not recovered?¡± He looked at the stone with heartache. ¡°You¡¯ve emptied the wood energy stone!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s... a fake stone, isn¡¯t it?¡± Hu Dingfang asked with surprise from a distance. ¡°Or it was mostly depleted already? Li Hao wouldn¡¯t deplete it no matter how he pulled from it otherwise. Even you and I wouldn¡¯t exhaust it so quickly.¡±

    ¡°It must have been used before...¡± offered a speechless Hao Lianchuan. ¡°Or that a lot of energy has been lost through so much time.¡±

    He was lost too! The wood energy stone wasn¡¯t that big, but it ought to contain five hundred cubes, no? It was all gone! Li Hao wouldn¡¯t be able to digest it all even if he was a cow!

    The young man opened his eyes and looked at the stone in his hand with embarrassment. ¡°So it¡¯s empty? I wondered why there was no more energy. Here, you can have it back, Director Hao. My injuries are much better, though they¡¯re not fully healed...¡±

    ¡°Cough cough cough!¡± Hao Lianchuan nearly spat blood.<i> Not fully healed yet?!</i>

    Li Hao sighed with regret, he¡¯d almost fullypressed the mountain. He¡¯d stopped out of concern that it¡¯d cause too great of a disturbance, but he was almost there. What would result when the earth aura turned into an earth sword aura?

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t have the strength to jeer at the young man. He picked up the wood energy stone. ¡°Come on, let¡¯s leave the city and wait at the ruin doors. It should be soon!¡±

    The doors should be opening soon. They would have to wait until next month if they didn¡¯t leave today. However, how many of them would be alive next month?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t have opinions otherwise¡ªthe group quickly walked outside.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, the inner city.</i>

    The tortoise hovering in the air seemed to open its eyes, looking in the direction where Li Hao and the others were leaving. An heir of the eight families... sword intent... Was that an heir of the Lis?

    So weak... so weak that one could not believe this was a representative of the eight families! Did the Lis¡¯ Eternal Sword discipline still exist?

    Countless thoughts filtered into its mind and were swiftly dismissed. Its line of sight fell downward and rested upon a little ck dog...

    The tortoise looked at it silently. Had the descendants of those who quelled the monster spirits for the human race be so ordinary?

    A certain scene floated up from its memories, but quickly dispersed. It was too long ago, it did not bear thinking. Disaster was upon it if it reawakened. The line of sight vanished a momentter.

    Whether it was the heritage of the eight families or the descendant of those who quelled the monster spirits, all were fragments of memory!

    The ancient city sank into silence once more and lost its luster.

 Chapter 282: The Terrifying Hou Xiaochen (I)

    <h4>Chapter 282: The Terrifying Hou Xiaochen (I)</h4>

    Li Hao nced back when he walked out of the outer city. It felt like someone was watching him.

    ¡°What, are you still thinking of those treasures?¡± Wang Ming whispered when Li Hao paused for a look. <i>Do they have anything to do with you? Look at how much you¡¯ve harvested on this trip, but you¡¯re still not satisfied!</i>

    Li Hao smiled and shook his head, continuing to walk forward. He hadn¡¯t taken this path before.

    Darkness enveloped them. The group would reach the door in the cliff face once they made their way through the gloom. There was only one road and it was very dark. This route wasn¡¯t the safest either. Something broke through the air as they walked and flew at them.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Hu Dingfang punched outward and redirected the unknown object.

    Li Hao frowned,<i> what was that?</i>

    Hao Lianchuan knew that the young man was operating in unfamiliar circumstances as he¡¯d been directly transported to the inner city. ¡°There seems to be some strange things on the two sides of this road,¡± he remarked casually. ¡°They feel like wooden spikes or possibly some sort of mechanism.¡±

    <i>Wooden spikes?</i>

    Li Hao found it strange, but didn¡¯t say anything. There was no way out from the sides, the expedition team could only follow the path to the cliff face. The wooden spikes didn¡¯t pose much of a threat, but he felt that they weren¡¯t a mechanism. They seemed more like... something alive!

    But that was impossible! How could there be living entities in this ce after being sealed shut for eons? Those suits of armor had been dead too¡ªjust a sliver of consciousness remained in them. They swiftly crumbled away after they came back to life.

    The attacks persisted for some time as the group walked forward, but were easily dispelled each time. Thus, they suffered no injuries, just as no damage had been done when the group first entered the ruins.

    Light soon appeared up ahead; Li Hao and the rest hade to a massive za. There was a door frame in a cliff ahead¡ªthe exit to the ruins.

    It was not yet time to leave, so the group stopped. More footsteps sounded in the darkness after a while, resolving themselves to be the Revolution King and the Sunre who¡¯d threatened Liu Long. Even Li Hao admired thetter at this point¡ªthat was some kind of fortune to be Yama¡¯s sole survivor in the ruins!

    Violet Moon soon joined them, three Sunres following by her side as well. Apart from those who¡¯d left earlier, these six were the only ones left of the three great organizations.

    ¡°Have you two discovered any treasure?¡± Hao Lianchuan asked merrily to see them emerge.

    ¡°It¡¯s all inside the inner city. If you want them, Director Hao, go back for them!¡± the Revolution King said faintly.

    Treasure? When would it ever be their turn for treasure in the outer city? The Night Watchers would¡¯ve imed it all a long time ago.

    Violet Moon and the Revolution King were of the same mind at the moment. The Night Watchers hadn¡¯t lost much on this excavation as both of their Srs were still present. Violet Moon and Revolution King might not walk out of the ruins alive if they chose to bicker with each other now.

    ¡°I would never dare!¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m just an initial Sr, hardly a powerhouse like the two of you! After we leave, you¡¯ll probably be able to join the next expedition even if Red Moon and Yama headquarters send people. It¡¯ll be tough to say if I¡¯m present then as well!¡±

    The deputy director sighed, ¡°An initial Sr like me doesn¡¯t have much of a voice.¡±

    Although he wasying it on a bit thick, he very possibly spoke the truth.

    Violet Moon couldn¡¯t be bothered to listen to this bout of hypocrisy and neither was she interested in learning about the man¡¯s worries. She looked at Li Hao instead.

    ¡°Li Hao, who knows how many people will be lying in wait for you when we leave,¡± she said calmly. The Night Watchers will be able to protect you if they bring their full strength to bear, but do you think that¡¯s likely to happen? How many in the Silver Moon branch are willing to protect you, to say nothing of your headquarters?¡±

    The young man didn¡¯t respond.

    ¡°Join Red Moon!¡± Violet Moon curved her lips slightly. ¡°It might not end in your death if youe to Red Moon! I know that you¡¯re afraid of us killing you, but I promise you¡¯ll live if there¡¯s any way that does not require your death. You¡¯ll live a wonderful life!¡±

    ¡°How will you execute your n of collecting the eight bloodlines if you don¡¯t kill me?¡± Li Hao said softly.<i> Who are you kidding? Do you really think I¡¯m an idiot?</i>

    ¡°That was then,¡± Violet Moon chuckled. ¡°What did the death of a mundane matter? Were we supposed to train them and bring them back to study how best to handle them? Things are different now. Your teacher has risen to Summoner of Spirit and you have reached perfection for Sunderer of Hundreds yourself. Your value is different, so your treatment will naturally be different!¡±

    ¡°I say, isn¡¯t this uh... a little inappropriate?¡± Hao Lianchuan burst outughing. ¡°Your organization killed the other eight families and wants to kill him, and you might be behind the deaths of his parents. Now you want to recruit him? I¡¯m really seeing everything today. If you¡¯re not afraid, Li Hao, have at it!¡±

    What in the zes was this? Violet Moon was going crazy, wasn¡¯t she, to propose something like this?

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing inappropriate about it,¡± the woman remained calm. ¡°You do not know Red Moon¡¯s purpose, nor would you understand it. Only through joining us will youe to learn of it and how Red Moon is far more grand than you imagine!¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± Hao Lianchuan snorted and couldn¡¯t be bothered with anything else.

    ¡°You¡¯re simply relying on Ying Hongyue and his inner circle.¡± Hu Dingfang flicked a nce at Violet Moon. ¡°But will theye to Silver Moon? What basis do you have to be so cocky if they don¡¯t?¡±

    ¡°The might of Red Moon is beyond yourprehension!¡± Violet Moon turned aloof. ¡°You are gravely mistaken if you think only our leader is strong. Don¡¯t think too highly of your Tiger Wings, Hu Dingfang! In this era of the supernatural, an army of mundanes is not worth mentioning! Sunres can fight a thousand at once and Srs can take on ten thousand. It is only a matter of time before hot weapons lose their effectiveness in the rise of the supernatural!¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re still effective at the moment!¡± Hu Dingfang was just as detached. ¡°We shouldn¡¯t have a problem blowing you up for the moment. You can give it a try if you don¡¯t believe me!¡±

    Silence.

    The two sides no longer conversed. These kinds of threats were ineffective on each other; the only thing to do now was await the opening of the ruins.

    ¡°Just stay quiet after we get out,¡± Hao Lianchuan transmitted to Li Hao. ¡°There¡¯s no need to pay attention to that woman. She thinks that the three great organizations will be able to threaten Director Hou just because they¡¯re sending more people from the central region. The director is not one to underestimate¡ªhe¡¯s a merciless character who prevented even Ying Hongyue from taking your teacher back in the day!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Was he nervous? Not really. If the Night Watchers were truly outmatched, he¡¯d just make a run for it. There was nothing to be afraid of.

    His teacher had gone on the run; he might be able to make it out too if he exercised prudence and caution. These people wouldn¡¯t immediately kill him if they captured him¡ªRed Moon even wanted to take him alive.

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    The cliff face in front of them suddenly started trembling. It wasn¡¯t long until the outside world could be vaguely seen through the rock. They hadn¡¯t been able to see inside when the expedition team entered the ruins. This entrance resembled a one-way mirror in that only the conditions of the outside could be seen clearly.

    There was no danger or anyone beyond the cliff face, just Hou Xiaochen!

    Indeed, Hou Xiaochen waited at the door!

    Violet Moon and the Revolution King grew nervous. Where were those of the three great organizations? Why was it Hou Xiaochen standing outside?

    The two were on edge and their Sunres even more panicky. Hou Xiaochen was the boss of the Silver Moon Night Watchers... Even though he had no battle achievements to speak of in recent years, he still incited fear!

    As they fretted with worry, the cliff face trembled violently and water ripples undted over its surface. That was the sign that it was time to leave! The Revolution King and Violet Moon didn¡¯t dare brashly exit the ruins. Hao Lianchuan and the Night Watcher contingent weren¡¯t as concerned. They walked out without a care in the world, Li Hao hot on their heels.

    The rest of the expedition had no choice but to follow the team out. If they didn¡¯t and the entrance closed, that would truly be a death wish.

    ......

    ¡°They¡¯re out!¡± Thankfully, Violet Moon heard a familiar voice the second she walked out. She immediately heaved a sigh of relief! There was too much pressure involved in facing Hou Xiaochen. Her heart could be at ease when she heard the voice as she knew who¡¯de!

    Red Moon had seven leaders with ¡°moon¡± in their title; they were named after the colors of the rainbow. While Violet Moon was the third generation of her position, she was one of the leaders as well. Her status was high despite not being a Nova¡ªit was due to her position as the Violet Moon.

    There were naturally certain reasons as to why she inherited this position, but she wasn¡¯t interested in revisiting those now.

    The organization possessed a few other renowned powerhouses aside from the Seven Moons. The speaker, for instance, the Red Hair Butcher, was a famous heavyweight outside of the organization. He¡¯d killed countless people and was known throughout the central region.

    He was second to only the Seven Moons inside the organization. Red Hair and a few other powerhouses formed the secondyer ofmand in the organization¡ªthe elder council.

    Red Hair hade, and he was a Nova! Violet Moon instantly rxed.

    Meanwhile, the Revolution King remained indifferent. He¡¯d recognized the speaker from his organization¡ªthe Parity King!

    Ninth among the ten court masters, the Parity King was much more illustrious than the lowliest Revolution King. Apart from being a Nova, he oversaw sixteen minor hells. Sixteen Srs answered to his banner, apanying him in his conquests!

    He was typically active in the southern region instead of Silver Moon. To think that he was here this time! While he was ranked number nine, he was so much stronger than Revolution.

    Both Violet Moon and the Revolution King were leaders of their organizations in Silver Moon, but they were the weakest when it came to strength and skill. The reason for thisid at Hou Xiaochen and Yuan Shuo¡¯s feet!

    The Revolution King was also the third generation of his title! The first had died to either Yuan Shuo or Hou Xiaochen¡ªno one knew. The second had also died, again to an unknown assant. More than one Heaven Favored had died in Silver Moon back in the day; someone like Yuan Shuo also never admitted when he killed someone. The only thing that could be certain of was that Hou Xiaochen had killed the second generation Violet Moon, and that he¡¯d done so in front of Ying Hongyue. Everyone knew of this, but the deaths of the previous two Revolution Kings were a mystery.

 Chapter 283: The Terrifying Hou Xiaochen (II)

    <h4>Chapter 283: The Terrifying Hou Xiaochen (II)</h4>

    Well, there were no true murder mysteries in Silver Moon. If an esteemed personage died in the province, their killer was either Hou Xiaochen or Yuan Shuo. Even if it wasn¡¯t, one wouldn¡¯t be making a mistake in going after these two!

    Wild thoughts ran through Violet Moon and the Revolution King¡¯s minds.

    ¡°So you¡¯ve made it out, Revolution and Violet Moon!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled at them. His smile was exceedingly benevolent as he inclined his head at the two. He then turned toHu Dingfang and the rest of the contingent, deepening his nod. ¡°Not bad!¡±

    Quite a few had survived; it looked like Zhang Ting had not. <i>It is what it is.</i> The director nced at Li Hao, then at Liu Long. He smiled again. ¡°Well done, all of you! Making it out is good news.¡±

    Those of the three great organizations quickly took to the air and flew toward the perimeter. There was too much pressure associated with remaining inside. The Parity King and Red Hair were waiting for them outside.

    ¡°Has Ding Chen note out?¡± asked a cloaked person with an eerie voice.

    Hou Xiaochen turned for a look, then pivoted back to Hao Lianchuan. ¡°This is Half Mountain, you know him, right?¡±

    ¡°Half Mountain...?¡± Hao Lianchuan responded with surprise. ¡°Hasn¡¯t he been gone all this time?¡±

    ¡°Cut the nonsense!¡± Hou Xiaochen interrupted. ¡°He¡¯s asking you a question, where¡¯s Ding Chen? Half Mountain has ascended to Nova,¡± he added. ¡°Do you think he would¡¯ve been absent otherwise? He is a Nova titan now, so be on your best behavior and answer honestly. Where is Ding Chen?¡±

    ¡°Ding Chen and Kong Qi died inside the inner city,¡± a wordless Hao Lianchuan answered honestly. ¡°You might know about the situation inside. There¡¯s a Gold Armor that killed Ding Chen with one punch and broke his origin weapon. As we ran, Kong Qi turned a bit silly and insisted on taking to the air. He was shot down by the city¡¯s defensive system!¡±

    The deputy director immediately looked at the cloaked person when he finished. ¡°Don¡¯t say that I¡¯m making up stories, Half Mountain, ask Violet Moon and the Revolution King. Red Moon and Yama do not run with the Night Watchers and they witnessed everything as well. Don¡¯t use me of foul y...¡±

    The cloaked person looked at the two mentioned.

    ¡°He speaks the truth!¡± Violet Moon confirmed with a slight frown. ¡°Not only Ding Chen, but I suffered severe injuries too. Origin weapons can¡¯t fend off those monsters!¡±

    ¡°Then... what about the others?¡± Half Mountain asked coolly. ¡°Are they all dead?¡±

    He could understand the two Srs dying to misfortune, but what about the remaining Sunres?

    ¡°Without the protection of their Srs...¡± Violet Moon responded calmly. ¡°Don¡¯t look at me, we won¡¯t protect your people for you. The inner city is dangerous beyond imagine and they were all eliminated by the Gold Armor after your Srs died. No one will go above and beyond for yours, so don¡¯t say we left them in the lurch. There was no reason to save them!¡±

    These words were cold-blooded, but they made perfect sense. <i>We did see them get killed, but who would save someone they don¡¯t know that¡¯s not of the same organization?</i>

    Half Mountain was silent beneath his cloak. Two Srs had led a contingent of multiple Sunres and carried an origin weapon, but they were all lost!

    Well, no, six had made it out. But this meant that their core strength had all died!

    The Silver Moon leader of Celestial brooded beneath his cloak. Their losses had been too great!

    ¡°So... you didn¡¯t obtain any treasures from your foray into the inner city?¡± he asked.

    ¡°We did, there¡¯s a lot of powerful origin weapons!¡± the Revolution King answered faintly not too far away. ¡°Their lowest is sky level and mysterious power stones litter the ground! We picked up quite a few just by randomly gathering them!¡±

    People on the cliffs shifted when they heard these words. There were bystanders all throughout the surroundings, they just weren¡¯t able to draw closer.

    ¡°And that¡¯s not it, there¡¯s a puppet above Nova!¡± Violet Moon jeered. ¡°Victory over Nova supernaturals is guaranteed if you can bring it back! The only thing holding you back from iming it is yourself! We weren¡¯t strong enough and could barely keep our heads on our shoulders!¡±

    They tag-teamed to showcase how horrific the situation was inside¡ªnot to help anyone, but to absolve themselves of responsibility. <i>It¡¯s not that we were weak or ipetent, but that it¡¯s too dangerous inside!</i>

    Violet Moon and the Revolution King understood that their immense losses were a grave matter. They would be in grave trouble if their organizationsunched investigations into potential wrongdoing. In that case, they would shift the me to someone else. They wouldn¡¯t assign it to the Night Watchers since it would be a disy of ipetence if they couldn¡¯t defeat even Hao Lianchuan.

    Therefore, the scapegoat had to be the ruins. Not to mention, it was indeed very dangerous inside the inner city. It was also the truth that the Gold Armor outmatched all of them.

    The premises fell silent as everyone understood the reports being made. The treasures were irretrievable as there was a powerful puppet protecting them. Its execution of the origin-weapon-equipped Ding Chen was proof enough of its awful might.

    Red Hair, the Parity King, and Half Mountain frowned. That strong? Granted, they weren¡¯t concerned since they were Novas. As strong as it sounded, a puppet was just a construct at the end of the day. It wasn¡¯t some mysterious unknown factor. It was rather the sky level origin weapons and mysterious power stones that sent their blood boiling.

    Was all of that real? Red Hair looked at Violet Moon.

    ¡°It¡¯s true,¡± she transmitted with a nod. ¡°There¡¯s at least one sky level origin weapon found in the one ce that we investigated. There are also mysterious power stones everywhere. We obtained forty, Yama about the same, and the Night Watchers a little more at fifty...¡±

    The organizations themselves had found some as well, making for total gains of approximately one hundred stones on the expedition.

    Red Hair was slightly moved when he heard the response. They¡¯d picked up so many through a random sifting? Truly? Then these ruins were a bit terrifying and incredibly important.

    As they conversed in silence, someone roared in the distance, ¡°We don¡¯t care about the ruins or three great organizations, or even the Night Watchers! I just want to know if Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple Li Hao made it out alive??¡±

    The voice was loud and sonorous!

    Seeing that someone had mentioned him by name, Li Hao looked at Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°I am Li Hao!¡± he called out when he didn¡¯t indicate otherwise.

    A coarse man swiftly ran over to a cliff face and didn¡¯te down it. ¡°You are Li Hao!?¡± he roared from the top. ¡°I ask you, has your master really advanced beyond Dominator?¡±

    ¡°Probably.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I¡¯m not certain of the particrs.¡±

    ¡°Bullshit, how do you not know?!¡± yelled the man. ¡°That means he¡¯s really set foot into Summoner of Spirit, hasn¡¯t he?¡±

    ¡°I really don¡¯t know,¡± Li Hao said once again. ¡°But my master said he was a Summoner when he killed Sun Yifei...¡±

    ¡°Then he is!¡± the man threw his head back withughter. ¡°You,e with me!¡±

    Li Hao looked on nkly. Who was this person? He was a martial master since there was no ball of light around him, but most martial masters were just Sunderers. Dominators were few and far in between¡ªeven if he was one, how arrogant did he have to be to tell Li Hao to follow him in front of all of these Srs?

    ¡°What are you looking at?¡± the man barked withughter. ¡°It¡¯s fine if you don¡¯t know me, it¡¯s enough that I know you! Come with me, the rest of these guys all want to kill you. I¡¯ll let you go when you bring me to your master. That¡¯s safer than staying with them!¡±

    Li Hao was still at aplete loss.

    The man began to grow angry when he saw that the young man remained unmoving, thenughed uproariously when he thought of something. ¡°I forgot to introduce myself. I was famous enough in Silver Moon back in the day! I am Southern Fist He Yong! I was not lucky enough to share a destiny with the supernatural throughout these long years, but managed to ascend to Dominator in the central region. However, Dominator of Thousands is not worth speaking of!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s brain rang with iprehension. Being a Dominator was... very formidable, but... it was nothing in a crowd of Srs and Novas. <i>You¡¯re... so cocky!</i>

    Southern Fist He Yong!

    The young man had heard his teacher mention the title once¡ªthe North and South Fists of Silver Moon. So this was who they called the South Fist King?

    ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid,¡± He Yong chortled. ¡°I don¡¯t share a deep grudge with your master. Let¡¯s put it this way, none of those who lived from one of his fights hold much enmity toward him. I am indeed not much as a Dominator. Let me further introduce myself¡ªHe Yong has lost face for the Silver Moon martial masters. I could not eke out a living these years and had no further path forward. I joined the Skystar royal family a few years ago as theirckey, teaching their sons and daughters martial arts. I might count as a royal martial official!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. The royal family?

    The Skystar royal family didn¡¯t have much of a presence, but this was still their era. Although the royal family had retreated behind the scenes, they yet retained their strength. The nine ministries also answered to the royal family in name.

    The martial masters of Silver Moon hated the talons of the government the most. Just as He Yong said, he was the shame of Silver Moon martial masters with his current profession! And yet, his status was high. An instructor of the royal family could even be considered the teacher of emperors.

    ¡°I don¡¯t represent the royal family on this trip,¡± He Yongughed. ¡°Nor could I ever. I just want to find Old Demon Yuan and tell him that I¡¯m still a martial master. I want to see this Summoner of Spirit level for myself! If you go with me and these guys bar the way or even kill me, they¡¯ll be antagonizing the royal family. While it isn¡¯t much in our times, a camel that starves to death is still bigger than a horse. Who would dare easily set themselves against the royal family?!¡±

    Hisughter was filled with arrogance, but also tinges of resignation and sorrow. He didn¡¯t say that he¡¯d kill whoever prevented him from leaving, but that whoever stopped and killed him would be in trouble.

    What was that, if not sorrow?

    The vaunted Southern King of Silver Moon had to make use of these kinds of threats to force some reservation into hearts...

    Off to the side, Hong Yitang could no longer stay silent.

    ¡°Brother He,¡± He was both a little angry and reluctant to ept the situation. ¡°I thought you would say that whoever dared stop you would be met with a punch to the face and a quick trip to hell!¡±

    ¡°Yo, the Earthturner Sword is still alive!¡± He Yong hooted withughter. ¡°We won¡¯t do, we¡¯re too old! Martial masters aren¡¯t good enough in an era with the supernatural! But Yuan Shuo seems to have found a way forward. Therefore, I want to see just how strong Summoner is. Can it kill those greater than Sr? Can it fight Ying Hongyue??¡±

 Chapter 284: The Terrifying Hou Xiaochen (III)

    <h4>Chapter 284: The Terrifying Hou Xiaochen (III)</h4>

    He Yong was an unbridled characterpletely out of control. His unkempt beard shook as he brayed withughter. ¡°I¡¯ve been on the road for three days and traveled without stop to get here. It¡¯s a damned shame to not see Yuan Shuo battle the Qimei Staff! Did you get to watch it?!¡±

    ¡°I did, and it was absolutely brilliant!¡± Hong Yitang called out. ¡°The Five Styles battled the Qimei Staff and the Qimei Staff won by a single move! However, the Qimei Staff King lost his life for it...¡±

    ¡°Really? The Qimei Staff won?¡± He Yong whooped. ¡°I don¡¯t believe it! Did Old Demon Yuan go easy on him? Hahaha, Sun Yifei did not die in vain. I would think it worth it too if I could witness the splendor of a Summoner of Spirit!

    ¡°Kid, are youing with me?¡± He looked at Li Hao again. ¡°Silver Moon is not what it once was. Who would daree and make trouble in those days?

    ¡°Whoever came would die!¡± he barked withughter. ¡°Whoever didn¡¯t want to die had to cower and call me granddaddy! You had to fight your way upwards and earned the right to stand in Silver Moon only after beating everyone! Wanting to make a stand without killing a few renowned martial masters? Hah!¡±

    He zed with conceit, as if the glories of yesteryear were still present and this was still his home ground. But bleak undertones lurked within his words. All that the Southern First King could do was reminisce about the past.

    ¡°So are youing with me or not?!¡± He Yong bellowed. ¡°Howe you don¡¯t have any of the fire of a martial master, kid?? They say you killed Qimei Staff¡¯s senior disciple, so I thought you were someone like Old Demon Yuan. Why are you more like the wuss Hong Yitang, who wouldn¡¯t know mettle if it bit him on the nose?¡±

    Hong Yitang smiled ruefully and didn¡¯t say a word.

    ¡°Senior, I am a Night Watcher.¡± Li Hao took a deep breath. ¡°I am a Silver Moon Night Watcher. Directors Hou and Hao are present and I have my duties to take care of. I cannot leave just like this.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t give me that fucking bullshit!¡± He Yong shouted. ¡°You¡¯re looking to those guys?? Hao Lianchuan isn¡¯t worth shit and Hou Xiaochen is a paper tiger. The only thing he can do is posture while he waits for the central region to rescue him. He would¡¯ve fought back a long time ago if he dared fight back¡ªhow could he possibly tolerate other people throwing their weight around in front of him?

    ¡°This guy killed every martial master he came across when he hunted Silver Moon martial masters!¡±

    ¡°Senior He Yong, some things can not be spoken of erroneously.¡± Hou Xiaochen frowned.

    ¡°Erroneously?¡± He Yong snorted. ¡°Would I not know about your background given my position in the royal family? You were part of the Skystar Guards when the dynasty formed this army unit, and you were even one of the threemanders! Don¡¯t you dare say that you weren¡¯t!¡±

    Expressions shifted among the crowd when this revtion wasid bare. The younger generation were unaware, but the old guard well remembered the chaos of the martial world during those times.

    The Skystar Guards assassinated many martial masters when they were active. Each guard was vicious, brutal, and seeded with uncountable targets. It reached a point where some martial masters went weak at the knees to hear of this army unit.

    Despite the strength of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world, they were raked through the coals by the Skystar Guards. Of them, their most terrifying were the legendary threemanders.

    ¡°How is that possible?¡± Hou Xiaochen responded with resignation. ¡°How old was I twenty years ago? I¡¯m in my early forties now and would¡¯ve been a teenager then. How was I supposed to be amander for the Guards? Senior He Yong... are you... confused?¡±

    Confused agreement rippled through the crowd. That was true! The Skystar Guards was formed more than thirty years ago. Even the threemanders of ater period held their posts more than twenty years ago. They were disbanded when the Night Watchers were formed. The legendarymanders were rumored to be Dominators back in the day!

    A teenage Dominator?

    <i>Impossible!</i>

    An old demon like Yuan Shuo reached that cultivation level only when he was almost fifty years old.

    He Yong was at a loss for words, but doggedly continued, ¡°Don¡¯t deny it! I don¡¯t know why you¡¯re so strong, so you must be one of the threemanders. And if you¡¯re not, you¡¯re the final disciple of one of them!¡±

    ¡°What in the...¡± Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. ¡°Whatever, I am if you say I am! Also, the Skystar Guards weren¡¯t as infamous as you say. They simply killed a portion of degenerates who gued thends and were the scourge of the martial world! See, aren¡¯t the rest of you alive and well? No one cared about proper sparring. Even a demon like Yuan Shuo only killed people during his challenges. He was wanted, but no one did anything to him. The way you put it makes it seem like the Guards were some notorious, crazed killing machines...¡±

    The assembly cast strange looks at him. <i>Er... were you really part of that army unit?</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that,¡± Hou Xiaochen sighed. ¡°Don¡¯t the Skystar Guards count as the predecessor to the Night Watchers? Whoever speaks ill of the Guards is speaking ill of the Night Watchers.¡±

    It was the same concept! One was an official organization of martial masters and the other one of supernaturals. They were all the same, so it would be off if he, a Night Watcher, did not defend the other.

    ¡°Let¡¯s stop the mischief, Senior He,¡± the director continued. ¡°The royal family has kept a low profile for many years. Would they dere war on the three great organizations for a Dominator like you?¡±

    ¡°Who knows?¡± He Yong sneered. ¡°The royal family has nothing left but their dignity! They will truly have nothing if they lose even that! The three great organizations are powerful, but so do they retain certain strength!¡±

    ¡°Sure sure, everything you say is right!¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled and turned to the other powerhouses. ¡°We¡¯re embarrassing ourselves in front of you. Li Hao¡¯s matter is trifling, the key here is the ruins...¡±

    ¡°Li Hao is no small matter!¡± Violet Moon snorted.

    ¡°How is he not...¡± However, Hou Xiaochen had no choice but to ept the rebuttal. ¡°Go find Yuan Shuo if you¡¯re of the mind to. The so-called eight families of Silver City? Please, a damned many years have passed and we don¡¯t even know the origins of those stories. Don¡¯t use that as an excuse!

    ¡°Everyone, are sky level origin weapons not more valuable than Li Hao?¡± he asked earnestly. ¡°As for Yuan Shuo... look for him yourself! If you¡¯re really out of ideas, set up an arena and proim to the world that Yuan Shuo is martial trash. He may seek you out himself! Isn¡¯t that right?¡±

    Some people blinked. That was... true, those actions might actually draw Yuan Shuo out of hiding. Of course, assuming that he came openly and not in the shadows, executing the organizers without further word for their rudeness!

    ¡°I understand if Red Moon has their eye on Li Hao.¡± Hou Xiaochen turned to the Parity King and Half Mountain. ¡°But you two should not be thus. It¡¯s not appropriate for you to target a young man when you do not grasp anything, correct?¡±

    The Parity King was an imposing middle-aged man. ¡°Director Hou does not need to worry about us,¡± he said calmly. ¡°We will withdraw if Red Moon withdraws!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded and focused on Half Mountain.

    ¡°I have no particr thoughts,¡± Half Mountain said coldly underneath his cloak. ¡°Don¡¯t direct your ire at me, Director Hou!¡±

    The two Novas held themselves in check, but Red Hair furrowed his brows.

    ¡°You should stay out of it, Red Hair.¡± As expected, Hou Xiaochen looked at him next. ¡°We can explore the ruins together and split the origin weapons. There is no need toe with so much fanfare for a Li Hao, wouldn¡¯t you say so?¡±

    ¡°You are right,¡± Red Hair said coldly. ¡°In that case, why repeatedly set yourself against Red Moon on behalf of Li Hao? Silver Moon¡¯s situation is not as good as you think! Hou Xiaochen, are you going to bury the good prospects with your own hands?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no reasoning with you!¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled ruefully and turned to the cliff faces around him. ¡°Is anyone here from the Night Watcher headquarters? The supernatural organizations got here a few days ago, but where are you? What in tarnation is this?? I am only a Sr, and an injured one at that. Is there any dignity left for the Night Watchers if you still do not show yourselves?!¡±

    No one answered his shouts.

    ¡°Is there a need for this?¡± Hou Xiaochen grew despondent.

    ¡°You know, some people want nothing more than open warfare between us.¡± Red Hair was the epitome of calm. ¡°But we do not wish for there to be open hostilities. Red Moon has never demanded an ounting for you killing the second generation Violet Moon. If you still take a stance opposite to us today, however, Red Moon¡¯s magnanimity will cease to stretch further!¡±

    He was being quite restrained. He first spoke of reason, then of the times. Regardless, taking Li Hao away with him today was the mission that he had toplete.

    Red Hair did not want to make an enemy out of Hou Xiaochen. Some people couldn¡¯t wait for the two to fight so they could determine what condition the Night Watcher was in. But... what was the point in that?

    Hou Xiaochen sighed and nced at Li Hao next to him.

    ¡°Little fellow,¡± he whispered. ¡°I told you before that I might not be able to protect you if your value isn¡¯t high enough. See here, a Nova wants you and won¡¯t take no for an answer. No one from upstairs is willing to defend you and your teacher¡¯s run off. Don¡¯t look to Hu Dingfang either¡ªSrs aren¡¯t dependable and Novas will easily do him in.

    ¡°I... am in a difficult position,¡± the man sighed. ¡°What do you think I should do, little guy?¡±

    Li Hao thought for a moment and extended his hand toward the director. Hou Xiaochen smiled and stretched out his hand as well. When the two hands sped together, an iparably keen sword qi circted in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s body. Unfathomably heavy earth aura interspersed with sword intent bloomed next in his body.

    Li Hao looked at him, unmoving. Hou Xiaochen answered with a smile as well. Their hands slowly separated.

    The director smiled and pped Li Hao¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Even if you were closer to my heart... it would still be difficult for me to take action on your behalf. But... there¡¯s no helping it since I¡¯m your director! Wouldn¡¯t that be too humiliating to let someone else take you? Who among the Silver Moon Night Watchers would follow my orders in the future, wouldn¡¯t you say?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll follow all of your orders, director!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Good boy!¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled and looked at Red Hair. ¡°Red Hair, Li Hao says that he¡¯ll follow my orders in the future and be a good boy. Don¡¯t make trouble for him. Leave when I count to three and I¡¯ll bring you into the ruinster on. There¡¯s treasure to be had.¡±

    Red Hair glowered ominously!

    What kind of tone was this? Was he coaxing a child??

    Numerous figures began appearing in the surroundings. The Parity King grabbed the Revolution King and vanished on the spot. Half Mountain immediately disappeared as well. Red Hair frowned, while Violet Moon looked around warily.

    ¡°Are you certain that you want to protect him, Hou Xiaochen?¡±

    ¡°One!¡± Hou Xiaochen raised one finger with a smile.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen...¡±

    ¡°Three!¡± He suddenly skipped two and blinked out of sight. The ming Phoenix Spear that Hao Lianchuan carried disappeared as well.

 Chapter 285: The Terrifying Hou Xiaochen (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 285: The Terrifying Hou Xiaochen (IV)</h4>

    <i>In the air.</i>

    Red Hair wanted to say something, but his expression abruptly changed drastically. A fiery phoenix with chillingly indifferent eyes appeared in his mind the next second!

    Trouble was upon him!

    Red Hair threw his head back with a howl and erupted with formidable fire energy that rivaled a zing sun. It was far more domineering than the power that Qiao Feilong or Sun Yifei had brought to bear in their peak condition. It erupted with spontaneity!

    Roaring, Red Hair smashed out a punch that threatened to split the heavens and fracture the earth!

    Others in the surroundings saw a man wielding a spear appear out of nowhere. The spear was ming red andpletelycked any presence. It was ice cold, but also zing hot. It stabbed into Red Hair¡¯s chest, running him through!

    Red Hair punched in response, but his blow came toote.

    A cough sounded in the air¡ªHou Xiaochen pulled out his spear with a cough and swept it through the void. Red Hair¡¯s eye-catching head with red locks vanished with a <i>bam!</i> A white handkerchief appeared in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s hand; he wiped his mouth upon another cough. Freely flowing blood dyed the handkerchief red. He smiled gently and brandished his spear through the sky again.

    <i>Kaboom!</i>

    A bolt of thunder and lightning crashed through the sky as Violet Moon transformed into lightning and fled for her life!

    ¡°Now now, is there a need for that?¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°I didn¡¯t say I¡¯d kill you. I can¡¯t bear to, not with how docile you are. And you¡¯re one of the Seven Moons. Ying Hongyue mighte for me if I kill you too. Red Hair¡¯s just part of the elder council, so it doesn¡¯t matter if I kill him. Honestly!¡±

    Continuing to chuckle, the man looked down and beamed at Li Hao. ¡°See, Uncle Hou is still pretty strong! It¡¯s just that I normally don¡¯t fight because I¡¯m injured. I cough blood as soon as I do anything!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The silence was stifling. There was no sound other than the escaping bolt of lightning.

    He Yong quietly felt his way back from the edge of the cliff and took off running. Half Mountain shimmered in and out of sight before fully vanishing. The Parity King turned into a gust of wind with the Revolution King and disappeared without a trace. Powerhouses in the surroundings withdrew one after another.

    <i>Run!</i>

    No one dared remain behind. That move...

    No one dared imagine it and no one could believe it! Hou Xiaochen... the sickly Hou Xiaochen almost bedridden for many years... This was his first time taking the field in all this time and his first offense, but he killed a Nova with one spear jab!

    Hou Xiaochen was so terrifying that it was suffocating.

    Some powerhouses hiding in the cliffs registered the development with highly unpleasant expressions. A few of them wore ck uniforms¡ªstandard Night Watcher issue! They quietly retreated, only solemnity and fear on their faces. Hou Xiaochen! He¡¯d... actually made a move!

    ......

    <i>On the ground.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped, Wang Ming¡¯s jaw dropped. Everyone gaped foolishly upward.

    Hou Xiaochen casually threw the ming Phoenix Spear to Hao Lianchuan and walked down from the sky, wracked by a coughing fit that intensified the color of blood on his handkerchief.

    He shed an urbane smile and approached Li Hao. ¡°Is Uncle Hou impressive?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao swallowed hard before saying nervously, ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s more like it!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed and looked around them. ¡°That did it. See, haven¡¯t they all left? They¡¯ve been running their mouths nonstop these days. I would¡¯ve jabbed them all to death a long time ago if it wasn¡¯t for Hao Lianchuan taking the ming Phoenix Spear. They were so annoying!¡±

    He looked at Hao Lianchuan with disappointed frustration. ¡°You didn¡¯t kill a single person with the ming Phoenix Spear! I wouldn¡¯t have handed it to you if I¡¯d known that would be the case!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan opened his mouth, but found himself at a loss for words. <i>If I¡¯d freaking known that you could kill a Nova with one strike, I... I... </i>He didn¡¯t know what he should say!

    It was now that everyone understood why the three great organizations didn¡¯t dare run afoul of their director, despite losing so many people in Silver Moon. He was too strong! He was ridiculously strong!

    And the key thing was, he was mercilessly decisive when he acted! He¡¯d said that he¡¯d give them to the count of three, but he attacked when he reached two!

    ¡°Alright, time to go. This ce won¡¯t open again until next month. Let¡¯s head back. Ole Hao, clean up the premises. The bones of a Nova are precious, so we can¡¯t waste them. Bring them back with us!¡± Beaming, Hou Xiaochen then patted Li Hao¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Little Li is not bad! Although you¡¯re not as strong as your teacher, you¡¯re worth one instance of protection from me. Your teacher promised to explore thirty ruins for me when I protected him, so what do you think you should do, Little Li?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t find any words. He smiled stiffly, ¡°I belong to the Night Watchers in life and my ghost belongs to the Night Watchers in death!¡±

    ¡°......¡± It was Hou Xiaochen¡¯s turn to blink with stupefaction. ¡°Ah... that¡¯s... a little overkill. Be more specific!¡±

    ¡°I attack where you point!¡± Li Hao dered.

    ¡°Very good, you¡¯ve got potential!¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned. ¡°You¡¯re better than your teacher. He didn¡¯t keep his word and ran off before he finished thirty ruins. Don¡¯t imitate him now!¡±

    Li Hao continued smiling stiffly and didn¡¯t say a word. Director Hou wrapped his arm around the young man and enthusiastically brought him up into the sky. The director was in quite a good mood!

    There were still people hidden in the surroundings; they all watched from far away.

    <i>Hou Xiaochen!</i>

    His name would be known throughout Skystar Dynasty after today! Killing a Nova with one spear thrust! Silver Moon was still the ce that once inspired fear in people¡¯s hearts! After biding his time for so many years... No, perhaps it¡¯d simply been that he hadn¡¯t found anyone worthy of protecting in all this time. Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t seem to care about keeping a low profile, or he wouldn¡¯t have killed a Nova so easily today.

    They finally understood why Hou Xiaochen hadn¡¯t been active since hisst battle. There was no one who posed a sufficient threat to him and no one who dared threaten him!

    ......

    The news swiftly traveled in all directions¡ªthe ruins were a mere afterthought in all of them. The main topic of discussion was Hou Xiaochen of Silver Moon.

    How strong was he? Were his injuries real or fake? Was he one of the threemanders of the Skystar Guards of old? That would make him a Dominator twenty years ago!

    All of Silver Moon was suddenly quiet. There were no powerhouses kicking up a fuss. The Parity King and Half Mountain were gone. Other Novas that dominated any ce they visited ran off without doing anything in the province. Only Red Hair was eternally left behind. This ce had buried too many Red Moon powerhouses already.

    ......

    <i>In the car.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen was still coughing. A petrified Li Hao sat next to him, doing his best imitation of a senseless zombie.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid, I don¡¯t bite!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed after histest coughing fit. ¡°Be a good boy and I¡¯ll give you the big red shadow when we get back. You¡¯ll be something then! A Nova scarlet shadow is an incredible nutrient!¡±

    Heughed at himself. ¡°I¡¯m actually concerned that you won¡¯t be able to digest it... Forget it, we can deal with thatter. Little fellow, you get three days off after you get back. Report to me when youe back to work, understand?¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    ¡°Good boy!¡± Hou Xiaochen ruffled his hair and then... kicked him out of the car. ¡°Go on, go back to Silver City first and enjoy your vacation. Rx some. You have my word that no one will daree for you at this moment!¡±

    ¡°Thank you, director!¡± Li Hao heaved a sigh of relief only when the car drove off into the distance.

    <i>Holy fuck that was scary! His blow felt like it rivaled the Gold Armor¡¯s punch! No, maybe it was even stronger. The soldier killed a Sr, the director killed a Nova!</i>

    ......

    <i>In the wilderness outside Rift Canyon.</i>

    An unmoving Li Hao stood dumbly on the spot. He grew lost in thought as the car slowly drove away. Someone appeared in the distance after an indeterminate period of time. Liu Long was here¡ªhe¡¯d sprinted his way over at top speed. Wang Ming bounded along in his wake.

    The two stopped beside Li Hao. Wang Ming was still in a state of being shocked senseless, whereas Liu Long¡¯s mind was clear. There was stunned amazement clear to see in his eyes.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Liu Long called out, snapping the young man back to his senses.

    ¡°Chief!¡± The young man nodded.

    ¡°Are you alright?¡±

    ¡°What can happen to me?¡± Li Haoughed, then turned serious. ¡°Chief... do you think he¡¯s really injured or fake injured?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Liu Long shook his head, hard pressed to conceal his shock. ¡°Too strong! He¡¯s so strong that I don¡¯t think we¡¯re on the same ne at all! To think that Silver Moon would host such a character!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen was well known in the province, but he was just the leader of the Night Watchers in a border province to the rest of Skystar Dynasty. He didn¡¯t rank in the top three of the provincial rankings either.

    The provincial government, the military headquarters, the Inspectorate headquarters... any of those leaders outranked him. But it was such a person today who cowed Skystar with one move! It was more incredulous than when Yuan Shuo killed ate Sr as this hadn¡¯t been a battle, it¡¯d been aplete trouncing!

    Indeed, the results were so absolute that people suspected Red Hair still would¡¯ve died had he been a little bit stronger.

    Wang Ming was still dazed; he slowly came back to himself when he heard their conversation.

    ¡°Who cares, he¡¯s our superior. This is great! The stronger the better!¡± He suddenly looked at the two with great agitation, thinking of something only now. ¡°Li Hao, we¡¯re rich!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The two stared nkly at the young supernatural. What was he mentioning this for? Yes, they¡¯d struck it rich inside the ruins, but he didn¡¯t need to wait until now to be excited, no?

    ¡°I don¡¯t mean that,¡± Wang Ming continued excitedly. ¡°I mean that the director just killed a Nova!¡±

    <i>Yeah, so?</i>

    The two failed to understand. There was a dead Nova out there that Hao Lianchuan had been asked to clean up.<i> Do you think that no one wants it and it¡¯s avable for you to scavenge? What are you thinking of?</i>

 Chapter 286: Silver Moonâ€™s Reaction (I)

    <h4>Chapter 286: Silver Moon¡¯s Reaction (I)</h4>

    ¡°Violet Moon¡¯s run off and Red Moon¡¯s people are pretty much all dead,¡± Wang Ming spoke rapidly. ¡°Have you guys forgotten that there¡¯s still three Red Moon Sunres out there? Everyone¡¯s scared witless and fleeing for their lives, no one¡¯s thinking about the Sunres! The Night Watchers are busy picking up the pieces, so it¡¯s free game!¡±

    How were they still not getting it? No one was looking after the three Red Moon Sunres that¡¯d just emerged from the ruins!

    Li Hao and Liu Long¡¯s jaws dropped as they stared at Wang Ming, dumbfounded. Hot damn! <i>This</i> was what the guy was thinking about at this time? Unbelievable! Not even Li Hao had given thought to this.

    ¡°There¡¯s a metal attribute among them...¡± Wang Ming continued urgently. ¡°I remember that one of them wields metal energy. C¡¯mon, Sunres only go so fast, they must still be in the area. Li Hao, doesn¡¯t this make us rich?¡±

    Well, fine, so this was why the handsome supernatural was thinking of those Sunres.

    ¡°Are we going or not?¡± Wang Ming urged. ¡°We need to hurry before other people realize the same thing. There won¡¯t be anything in for us then!¡±

    Li Hao looked at Liu Long, who looked back at him. They grinned ferally at each other. Although Wang Ming was being a little insatiable and probably blinded by greed, he was right. If they didn¡¯t im the three Red Moon Sunres now, there would be nothing left a whileter.

    Once the rest of the Night Watchers reacted, remembered the existence of the Sunres, and grappled with the allure of the scarlet shadow, they might truly close in. The agency was already on such poor terms with the organization that one less Red Moon member was one less enemy. There was nothing else to consider.

    Li Hao had no more questions and quickly set course for a certain direction. The Red Moon members were all too visible to him. Their scarlet shadows were an undeniable beacon. They were a threat to others in normal times, but right now, they would cause the death of their handlers. Those brightly colored things were so visible in the dead of the night that it was impossible for their keepers to hide from Li Hao! Any other supernatural might be able to make it out of the wilderness since they were less conspicuous.

    A mosquito¡¯s leg was still meat!

    Setting aside the mysterious power that the three Sunres contained¡ªthat was just a minor matter¡ªthe key was that they¡¯d all entered the inner city. Although they may have handed in all of the mysterious power stones that they¡¯d found, but... just what if?

    What if they hadn¡¯t?

    What if they¡¯d kept some for themselves?

    Liu Long and the others had kept some for themselves, would these Sunres be so circumspect as to truly turn in all of their gains? Even if they were, might they wait to do so after they left the ruins? It was very possible!

    Added to that the scarlet shadows...

    For Li Hao in his current stage of development, killing Red Moon members was to his greatest benefit. He sped over the ground, swiftly followed by Liu Long and Wang Ming.

    They were two Dominators and one Sunre going against two mid Sunre and e Sunre. No one was weak to any degree!

    Wang Ming was so bold not because he thought himself as strong, but because he knew how mighty Li Hao was. The young man had almost killed him with one stroke earlier and they¡¯d jointly killed a mid Sr together.

    Would there be any difficulty in eliminating threete Sunres, particrly when their targets were scared witless?

    ......

    <i>Within the wilderness.</i>

    Three Red Moon powerhouses shuddered with dread. It¡¯d been the middle of the night when they left the ruins, but so many powerhouses had been present at the canyon that their supernatural abilities lit up the surroundings like it was day. In actuality, it was still the dead of night.

    Three Sunres trembled in their hiding ce. They¡¯d chosen to take cover the second they left Rift Canyon¡ªthey didn¡¯t dare to attempt a brash escape. Who knew how many heavyweights were running through the surroundings? It would be disastrous if they identally ran into an enemy!

    Elder Red Hair was dead, and leader Violet Moon had fled! The rest of them who¡¯d exited the ruins had likely been arranged to leave the province early on since they came with a bundle of ck Armors. These three were the only Red Moon representatives in all of Silver Moon now and lost their wits the moment that Red Hair was run through.

    Thankfully, everyone had been shellshocked and Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t have the effort to spare for insignificant minions like them. That was how they were lucky enough to retain their lives.

    Currently, they hid inside a boulder.

    Yes, a boulder.

    One of them was an earth supernatural and deployed his power to hollow out the entire boulder. The three took shelter inside and sealed the boulder shut again, as quiet as they could be. This was the safest hiding spot at the moment.

    As for bending the earth to go underground... There was exceedingly high pressure below the surface. Their concealment would be useless if it was too shallow, but they would have to contend with the oppression by the dirt if they wanted to go further.

    The three Sunres had given it some thought¡ªwhen would they dare leave this ce? ...not for another couple of days! They apprehensively hunkered down mutely inside the boulder, fearful expressions twisting their faces and not saying a word.

    Their powerful organization had sent a Nova titan from the central region, but he¡¯d been dispatched by a single spear jab!

    How unforgettable a scene that was!

    It induced more despair and terror than the Gold Armor killing Ding Chen with one punch. Perhaps the Celestial Sunres had felt the same horror when they were exterminated. The three didn¡¯t have further effort to spare for their Celestial counterparts since they were all dead.

    The surroundings gradually quieted down; faint breathing sounded as all three softly exhaled at the same time.

    ¡°Will Lady Violet Moon... remember us?¡± one of them breathed.

    It wasn¡¯t a viable course of action to stay here forever, but they truly didn¡¯t dare make a run for it on their own. They could only hope for even stronger personages from the central region to return with Violet Moon¡ªthey would be able to leave then.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t talk!¡± hissed the third person. None of them should talk. Although they were hidden in the middle of the boulder and not a peep could get out, they could not go wrong with being prudent during this period of time.

    It was too dangerous!

    The three fell silent.

    ......

    <i>Outside the boulder.</i>

    Li Hao stared wordlessly at the three noticeable balls of light inside the boulder, then at the three blindingly obvious scarlet shadows hovering next to the rock.<i> It¡¯s crystal clear that they¡¯re here, what are they hiding like this for?</i>

    Of course, it was due to his unique abilities that he could see so much. Who would pay attention to a particr boulder in a field of rocks and investigate its internals? Normal people wouldn¡¯t do such a thing.

    Liu Long looked at Li Hao; the young man vaguely shook his head. He made a hand gesture for the chief to wait. Li Hao began umting his strength.

    umting for what?

    His strength topress the earth sword!

    Indeed, the mountain was only the size of a pir in his spleen at present. He¡¯d held off from continuing to force it smaller; now was when he wanted to try again. Rocks were just as well¡ªthey counted as the earth attribute! Would his earth sword aura be formidable? He really wanted to try.

    The three inside were the perfect targets for practice. They were unmoving and didn¡¯t pose the slightest threat. It gave Li Hao more time for his first experiment with the earth aura sword. Such nice people they were!

    The earth sword was continuouslypressed andpressed in his spleen until it was fashioned into the form of a heavy sword. After some thought, the young man finalized it as the broadsword wielded by the Silver Armor.

    That weapon¡¯s keenness had been unbounded, but its cutting force overpowering. The Silver Armor¡¯s final strike had also been unforgettable. He¡¯d felt that it wasn¡¯t a good match with the sword aura that he¡¯d perceived before, but now held the opinion that that strike was very suited to the earth sword aura!

    The Earthturner Sword trembled slightly in his hand. It was a formidable treasure¡ªHong Yitang had said it would be useful up till Summoner of Spirit. But as Li Hao shaped the earth sword aura into being, the sword trembled in response. It was as if this was the true Earthturner Sword!

    Changes gradually filtered through Li Hao¡¯s aura. When the broadsword took shape, he sensed that it could meld into the sword aura and be a true earth sword aura!

    Earth and sword as one! It was a more apparent feeling than when he set foot into Dominator. He¡¯d felt that he fused the auras together when he advanced, but that¡¯d felt very contrived and unnatural. But in this moment, they were quite naturally one.

    Li Hao shed a grin and raised the Earthturner Sword. He thought back to the Silver Armor¡¯s stroke as he looked at the giant rock in front of him...

    His aura abruptly shifted! To forge forward without pause! To strike at the nameless enemy in the firmament and view death as a return to their origins...

    ¡°Strike!¡± Li Hao grunted when he proved unable to contain his emotions. He was very agitated, impulsive, and couldn¡¯t help but give voice to his feelings with this stroke. Despite knowing that proceeding soundlessly was the best course of action, was he afraid?

    The three Sunres inside the boulder heard his grunt and reacted with dismay when they sensed the iing attack!

    The boulder split open and all three wanted to rush out. They didn¡¯t know who it was that¡¯de, but fleeing was the first course of action. And yet, it felt like Mount Tai bore down on them as soon as the rock shattered.

    An earth supernatural?

    The earth supernatural among the three roared and let loose with his power. The metal supernatural condensed countless spikes and shot them at the enemy they¡¯d yet toy eyes on. Meanwhile, thest water supernatural sent a water dragon churning toward Li Hao...

    The three reacted extremely swiftly and decisively. Not only that, but three scarlet shadows also rushed Li Hao upon a barkedmand. They¡¯d been hidden nearby out of concern for discovery. The soundless and formless shadows were often Red Moon¡¯s key to victory.

    However, they underestimated their enemy¡¯s strength this time.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    An enormous broadsword descended and sliced through the earth supernatural¡¯s shield of earth. The metal spikes were blown up and the water dragon sliced into two.

    The broadsword continued descending!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The earth supernatural stepped forward, but was pressed into the ground by the weapon and had all of his bones crushed to smithereens. When the broadsword continued its descent, the supernatural exploded loudly!

    He was stunned beyond belief even at death. What was this??

 Chapter 287: Silver Moonâ€™s Reaction (II)

    <h4>Chapter 287: Silver Moon¡¯s Reaction (II)</h4>

    Not a supernatural ability?

    ...martial master!

    This was a martial master! A person shed through the hapless Sunre¡¯s mind. It was Hong Yitang and this was the Earthturner Sword! It was his move of turning heaven and earth upside down! But why did Hong Yitang wish to kill him?

    The Sunre had no more time to think as his exploding body marked the end of his mental activity.

    The metal supernatural jerked back with wide eyes. He was the strongest among the three atte Sunre, yet he wasn¡¯t able to cut down a mid Sunre with one stroke no matter how he erupted with power. Did they face a Sr??

    He turned to flee, but the broadsword was yet to finish descending. It crashed to the ground as unbounded gravity bore down on its target, covering the supernatural with blood through cuttingly sharp rays of sword qi.

    The broadsword came to a rest with a rumble, crushing the metal supernatural to death!

    He was better off than the metal supernatural since he didn¡¯t explode, but this was the result of one sword stroke! A mid earth Sunre had been detonated and ate metal Sunre crushed by the lingering momentum...

    There was no desire for battle in the water Sunre. He just wanted to run!

    And run he did as Li Hao¡¯s sword rested in the ground, peeling away in the opposite direction of the young man. However, the sound of waves traveled into his ears and a fist appeared. Liu Long had been poised, waiting on the side. He rushed out like a leopard on the hunt and smashed out with his fist!

    The Nine Forged Force crashed into a terrified Sunre, one that only wanted to run!

    The supernatural had proceeded only twelve meters forward when the punch connected with an audible collision. Not only that, but the fist ran the target through!

    Liu Long¡¯s expression was detached as he delivered multiple hits during his attack. It rankled that he hadn¡¯t been able to kill Li Dahu with one punch on the excavation; that was a lesson engraved on his heart. He¡¯d tried to brainstorm every manner of way possible to break through a Sr¡¯s defenses when he fought Zhang Ting. His confidence grew greatly after killing the woman.

    This punch was the summation of his experiences in the ruins. It bore through the mid Sunre¡¯s chest, whereupon Liu Long¡¯s fist shed like a shadow as he delivered a dozen more. He didn¡¯t stop until the other was a quivering heap dead on the ground.

    Battle was over in the blink of an eye; the three scarlet shadows abruptly stopped right in front of Li Hao¡¯s forehead. Having lost their instructions, it was more like they¡¯d delivered themselves on a silver tter.

    Wang Ming rushed in from the distance¡ªLi Hao had wanted him to wait for a bit ande after the fighting started. He¡¯d sprinted to hisrades as soon as Li Hao made his move and...

    Nothing! The battle was over!

    Liu Long was cleaning up the battlefield and Li Hao was stabbing at empty air with a small sword. Who knew what he was doing? Wang Ming... continued to be confused.

    That was it? It was over? Three Sunres were dead? They¡¯d beaten up Darkmoons, not Sunres, hadn¡¯t they? What was he here for?

    Wang Ming waspletely befuddled. That was his state ever since emerging from the ruins. So... there was nothing else to be done?

    He didn¡¯t return to his senses until Li Hao finished disposing of the scarlet shadows and absorbed their power. The handsome supernatural looked at Liu Long, but the chief continued rummaging through the bodies instead.

    ¡°There are indeed mysterious power stones!¡± the man eximed with excitement. ¡°But not many¡ªthese guys weren¡¯t that bold and hid only one stone each. There¡¯s one of earth, metal, and water. It looks like they dared to keep just one stone that corresponded to their element.¡±

    Combined with the thirty-two that the trio had gained before, this made for thirty-five total stones!

    ¡°Um... Director Liu,¡± Wang Ming said haltingly. ¡°Let me... let me take care of cleaning up the battlefield next time.¡±

    <i>I didn¡¯t do anything and don¡¯t even have to clean up the battlefield! I¡¯m so useless! Will I be counted in for the next operation if things are like this?</i>

    <i>This won¡¯t do!</i>

    Li Hao was busy digesting the scarlet shadows. He didn¡¯t see the diagram of the eight trigrams this time. It looked like that manifested only in Silver City.

    The young man was in good spirits¡ªnot because they¡¯d killed three Red Moon Sunres or that he¡¯d killed ate Sunre with one stroke, but that he had a new understanding of the earth sword aura. Upon experimentation, he found it much stronger than before.

    So Hong Yitang¡¯s theories were useful¡ªthis blow was proof.

    ¡°Let¡¯s hurry and deal with it all so we can leave!¡± Li Hao was in wonderful spirits. They needed to vacate the premises quickly since battle had been over just as fast.

    Liu Long swiftly destroyed the battle site; Wang Ming joined in to help. Everything was soon wrapped up and the three left without further word.

    ......

    <i>Not long after.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan rushed to the scene with a couple Sunres. He looked in the relevant directions where he registered some ripples.

    ¡°There was a battle here.¡± He frowned slightly. ¡°I don¡¯t know if it involved the Red Moon members... but the site¡¯s been cleaned. There must have been deaths!¡±

    He carefully cast his senses around the surroundings. There seemed to be a ray of sword intent here, but it wasn¡¯t tant.

    ¡°Do we continue looking for them, director?¡± asked a subordinate.

    Hao Lianchuan recalled there were still a few Sunres from Red Moon present only when he finished with the Nova¡¯s body. Hou Xiaochen could forget about them, but he couldn¡¯t. Sunres were a threat. Now that they were in open hostilities with Red Moon, how could he let any of their members go after they killed one of their Novas?

    He¡¯d tracked them all the way to this spot without catching up with them. A disturbance hade from this direction earlier, but he was toote despite sprinting over at top speed.

    Had a Sr made a move?

    Hao Lianchuan wasn¡¯t too sure, but the feeling he¡¯d received earlier mapped a bit to a Sr. Countless powerhouses were hidden among the province at the moment, so it was difficult to judge who was responsible. It might very well be Red Moon¡¯s members that were dead¡ªthey were the only organization that the general public felt safe in attacking at the moment.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go back!¡± Hao Lianchuan gave up the chase. They¡¯d wasted enough time here; White Moon City would be the heart of the situation toe. Who knew how much trouble there¡¯d be after Director Hou killed a Nova with one jab?

    ......

    Serenity teeming with undercurrents of tension filled the night. It was the calm before the storm.

    White Moon City entered its highest state of alert after Hou Xiaochen returned. The Tiger Wings demonstrated increased movement; the city¡¯s Inspectorate turned out inrge numbers and began investigating the city.

    The provincial government was an uncharacteristic hotbed of activity¡ªlights zed from every corner.

    Hou Xiaochen might rebel!

    Such was some people¡¯s judgment, but they couldn¡¯t be certain. He¡¯d taken the field himself after continuously waiting in vain for reinforcements from the central region. If the man led the Silver Moon Night Watchers in open rebellion after killing a premier heavyweight... Plus the Tiger Wings and Inspectorate...

    Unrest would shake Silver Moon.

    Not only that, but precedence was often the most feared. Once he began, it might start a chain reaction across thends!

    It was a small matter if individual powerhouses ran out of control. The key thing was that Hou Xiaochen represented the Night Watchers and a partnership between the Inspectorate and local army. That wasn¡¯t a matter of one or two powerhouses, but an enormous shift in the entire governmental system. That kind of upheaval was intolerable.

    As much disorder beset Skystar Dynasty now, even with the appearance of a few hotly ambitious characters who wished for independence, there wasn¡¯t a titan that¡¯d appeared among the ny-nine provinces that called for more.

    Hou Xiaochen might be one.

    ......

    <i>The provincial government.</i>

    Not only were Silver Moon government members in attendance, but so were some special guests. One of them wore an Inspectorate uniform.

    ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought that Hou Xiaochen would keep himself so deeply hidden!¡± intoned a man with short hair and a sharp look in his eyes. He looked at the rest in the small conference room. ¡°We knew that he was no simple character when he fought Ying Hongyue to a draw all those years back. The central region has wanted to send him elsewhere many times, offering him promotions and ennoblement. The Ministry of the Inspectorate even made him the unusual offer of being deputy inspector general at headquarters. He refused them all!¡±

    Being one of the nine ministries, the central Inspectorate¡¯s inspector general was one of the nine movers and shakers within the dynasty. To be his deputy would make Hou Xiaochen a major character within the government. Compared to his current identity, it was a promotion three grades higher!

    But even so, Hou Xiaochen declined to acquiesce.

    ¡°As we thought, he wanted to mutiny a long time ago!¡± sneered the man. ¡°He refused his redeployment orders so many times and decided to step out of hiding this time. I say that he¡¯ll be rebelling very soon...¡±

    ¡°Ahem!¡± coughed an old man with slightly graying hair. ¡°Be careful with your words! It is Hou Xiaochen¡¯s mistake to refuse his orders, but his duty to kill a Red Moon Nova. He remains part of the dynasty so long as he has not hoisted his own g. We cannot speak wildly. Otherwise, which one of you will im responsibility for forcing him into rebellion?¡±

    Those in the conference room looked at the old man. He was nominally the highest leader of silver Moon¡ªthe director general of the provincial government.

    Hou Xiaochen colluded with the army and was of one mind with the Inspectorate. Only the administrative government ignored him and frequently reminded its superiors that proper attention needed to be paid to the province. Hence, those from the central region traveled here as soon as they fled Rift Canyon.

    ¡°Master Zhao...¡± The speaker wanted to continue, but was interrupted by a cough. The sound made the rest of the conference room noticeably ufortable.

    Hou Xiaochen loved to cough! Silver Moon denizens all liked to cough at random times. Apparently Yuan Shuo nursed the same habit. Were they all feeble and weak??

    This Master Zhao, Director General Zhao, had been a schr before. He was Silver Moon¡¯s highest leader when the supernatural rose. As such, those upstairs gave him abundant good treatment. He crossed over to the supernatural, but only barely made it to Sunre after twenty years.

    Sunre... while he was older, it didn¡¯t make for poor health!

    The others grumbled inwardly, but stayed silent. As weak as the old man was, his status was high. Thework of rtionships as Skystar City was veryplicated, so they weren¡¯t willing to interrupt him.

    ¡°Everyone, we should not be hasty!¡± the old man said slowly after coughing some more. ¡°We should wait to see what develops. Hou Xiaochen will not raise the banner of mutiny unless there is no other choice left to him. At the moment, I think we can still make some appropriate overtures. Keeping such strong battle strength in Silver Moon will strengthen the province. If he is willing to head to the central region, he will dominate the battlefield for the dynasty. It is not a good thing to force him to take up arms!¡±

 Chapter 288: Silver Moonâ€™s Reaction (III)

    <h4>Chapter 288: Silver Moon¡¯s Reaction (III)</h4>

    ¡°Master Zhao, do you mean that we just... leave him alone?¡± frowned the short-haired man. ¡°He purposefully called for central region reinforcements today when he inly had the strength to resolve the situation. His actions were tant insubordination!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Master Zhao chuckled and whispered, ¡°Don¡¯t think too much. Perhaps he just wasn¡¯t willing to take action. I think we shouldn¡¯te to these conclusions for the time being. After all, he¡¯s someone who killed a Nova with one jab from a spear. I trust that no one here wishes to see him forced into rebellion?

    ¡°I rmend that we all sit down for a talk! The talk should include the threemanders from the army, the inspector general from the Inspectorate, Hou Xiaochen, myself, and you representatives from Skystar City. We should have a conversation!¡±

    ¡°A conversation?¡± questioned Short Hair. ¡°Is he willing to? Maybe he¡¯ll kill us on sight!¡± He fell silent for a moment. ¡°Additionally, I have another matter to speak of. Headquarters previously sent a special agent to Silver Moon to supervise certain cases. She¡¯s gone missing!¡±

    ¡°A special agent gone missing?¡±

    ¡°Yes, a mid Sr Night Watcher with an origin weapon. She followed them into the ruins and didn¡¯te out!¡± Short Hair borated. ¡°Both person and origin weapon are gone. We made inquiries through special channels and learned that she vanished without a trace after entering the city. I suspect...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve heard about this,¡± the old man started coughing again. ¡°Apparently, the inner city is very dangerous. There may be existences beyond Nova inside. Only Hu Dingfang and Hao Lianchuan would have a chance of killing your Sr, but they stayed with the other Srs the entire time. Would Violet Moon and Revolution cover for them if they truly did anything?

    ¡°You can doubt and question Hou Xiaochen,¡± frowned the old man. ¡°But you cannot overreact to the slightest rustle! Nor can you wildly fabricate charges against someone! I am dissatisfied with certain of his actions and even more displeased by his collusion with the military, not to mention him turning the Inspectorate into a figurehead...

    ¡°But!¡± The old man¡¯s tones turned severe. ¡°That does not mean that the me for everything can beid at his feet! That is very untoward! Skystar City has sent only powerful supernaturals this time, why didn¡¯t they send a civil official with a clear head?¡±

    He ignored the less than pleasant expressions finding themselves onto the group¡¯s faces. ¡°This is most inappropriate! Might is not the only answer! If you are strong enough to do anything, then what do you need us for?

    ¡°You people are impulsive and do not proceed down the proper path!¡± he snapped out with irritation. ¡°I understand your intention¡ªyou mean to me the Night Watchers for your agent¡¯s death, regardless of what the evidence indicates. You will force someone into insurrection even if they don¡¯t wish it!¡±

    He mmed his hands on the table with towering fury. ¡°Is this how you operate?! Are you confident in subduing him if Hou Xiaochen revolts, or perhaps you¡¯re sure of killing him? You want to bring his head to Skystar City to bask in the des, don¡¯t you??¡±

    The more he listened to these people talk, the less right it seemed and the less patience he had. So these were the kind of bastards that the capital had sent!

    He was very irate!

    Some among the group scowled, while some remained silent. The old man had a high status, after all. Despite their strength and Short Hair being a Nova¡ªindeed, a premier existence and a Heaven Favored¡ªhe could only hold his temper with a frown.

    ¡°Master Zhao!¡± Short Hair¡¯s frown deepened. ¡°Very well, we will talk with him ording to your wishes, but I will not be in attendance. I leave this in your hands out of concern that we will sh as soon as he sees me. I will enter the city tomorrow morning or the day after, please keep my presence a secret.¡±

    ¡°And what is the meaning of that?¡± sighed the old man. ¡°Do you think he doesn¡¯t know you¡¯re here?¡±

    Entering the city tomorrow morning or the day after... was naturally an attempt at a disguise. It would be proof that they hadn¡¯t rushed to Silver Moon in time.

    But was Hou Xiaochen a fool?

    As the supernatural domain rose, it gave rise to a group of supreme supernaturals who upied important positions, yet were without ability, talent, and virtue! How had the government failed to send a single dependable mainstay of the dynasty to oversee the Silver Moon matter? Instead, it sent a couple of strong brutes to the border province. How would this aplish anything?

    Fatigue set in and the old man waved his hand. ¡°Very well, I understand! You should go rest. I willmunicate the best I can with Hou Xiaochen. Strife will not beset Silver Moon in the short term!¡±

    Short Hair rose without a word. He was followed by hispatriots as they left the conference room. They¡¯d reached the limits of their patience with the old man. He was just a Sunre, but dared to put on airs in front of them!

    ......

    The old man nced at his deputy when they left and sighed again. ¡°It looks like the nine ministries also think that strength is the most important character trait. Ability, intelligence, and tactics are all secondary. People like us are about to be made obsolete!¡±

    His deputy was also advanced in age and white speckled his hair. He wore sses that were almost ineffective in his years and paused in the middle of perusing some material.

    ¡°Director General.¡± He lifted his head with a smile. ¡°It is time to ept the reality that a new era is upon us! Unrest persists in the central region, the war goes on unabated, so strength is naturally king! The nine ministries are rapidly thinking of ways to increase their own. How will they keep the unruly powerhouses in check if theyck sufficient power?¡±

    ¡°What do you think I should do?¡± the old man sighed.

    ¡°You made a decision long ago, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Perhaps?¡± There was no end of sighs for the old man today as he looked around wearily.

    The contingent from the central government had given him a heavy blow. He¡¯d thought that familiar faces would arrive in Silver Moon¡ªthey¡¯d were all exceedingly clever and keen of judgment. He didn¡¯t dare say that it would dispel Hou Xiaochen¡¯s thoughts of rebellion with any of them present, but that at least the man wouldn¡¯t be impulsive even if he was of the mind to.

    But look at who was here¡ªsome good-for-nothings who couldn¡¯t wait for Hou Xiaochen to mutiny! They were deathly afraid that he wouldn¡¯t rise up¡ªwhere would their own deeds of merite from if he didn¡¯t? How would they tell their superiors that Hou Xiaochen was wrong and they were right?

    ¡°Evil and monsterse forth inrge numbers when a towering building is about to fall!¡± the old man quoted as he stood with increasing resignation. ¡°Strength is king and there is no peace for the people. How many still truly keep the people in mind these days?

    ¡°I¡¯d thought that Hou Xiaochen was the leader of a rebellion and a traitor, but now it seems that he is a rare fine person! Howmentable, absurd, and deplorable!¡±

    The old man slowly left as he shook his head. He¡¯d suppressed the Night Watchers from growing stronger all of these years and tried his best to send Hou Xiaochen away. It was too dangerous to have such a person in a border province. It was not good that he enjoyed such prestige in Silver Moon. Now it looked like the neers were more than ny-nine percent less than him!

    It was up to Silver Moon denizens to save Silver Moon!

    ......

    <i>At the same time. The Night Watchers.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen smiled in the direction of the provincial government seat. Next to him, Hao Lianchuan was giving a detailed report of the excavation. The Night Watcher director didn¡¯t seem very interested; he remained looking at the government building.

    ¡°Ole Hao, do you think Zhao isughing or crying at the moment?¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Hao Lianchuan blinked, cut off mid-sentence. <i>What are you talking about? </i>Who<i> are you talking about?</i>

    ¡°I mean the one in the provincial government.¡±

    ¡°Oh!¡± Hao Lianchuan jerked with understanding. ¡°That old fart is stubborn and pigheaded. He¡¯s probably worrying over how the director might take his head!¡±

    ¡°Then you¡¯d be wrong!¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°That old fart isn¡¯t afraid, and what would I do with his head? You make it seem like I¡¯m a bad guy. It¡¯s not good to have that kind of impression of me, Ole Hao. When have I ever done this sort of thing over the years?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Fine, Hao Lianchuan had nothing to say to that.

    ¡°Then what of the ruins, director?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s leave that for next month!¡± Hou Xiaochen¡¯s chuckle turned into a light cough. ¡°Alright, that¡¯s it then. Don¡¯te to me over the next two days unless you have official business. I¡¯m in a spot of pain as my old wounds have red up. Let me know when Li Haoes to White Moon City in three days.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Hao Lianchuan nodded, but inwardly muttered, <i>old wounds re up?</i> Is that true or not? Even he didn¡¯t believe the story of old wounds anymore. <i>Who are you fooling¡ªyou killed a Nova with one move even though you¡¯re supposedly injured!</i>

    This guy liked to consider himself a parent as he treated everyone else as children. He was a bully!

    ......

    <i>On the way back.</i>

    Li Hao frowned ferociously. Liu Long also frowned ferociously. Wang Ming was very confused by their silent brooding. What was running through their minds?

    ¡°Have you two... not collected enough treasure yet?¡± he asked.

    Li Hao came back to his senses with a shake of his head.

    "I know that my teacher¡¯s gone missing,¡± he said in a strange tone. ¡°But the key thing is... I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ve lost anything else!¡±

    <i>Huh?</i>

    The two looked at him with confusion.

    ¡°It¡¯s probably Liu Yan...¡± Liu Long sighed. ¡°I forgot to ask if she¡¯s gone to White Moon City or back to Silver City!¡±

    He¡¯d lost Liu Yan! Meanwhile, Li Hao wasn¡¯t worried about Liu Yan. She was fine¡ªHou Xiaochen had been there! He¡¯d lost the dog!

    ¡°Where¡¯s Panther?¡± The young man¡¯s frown deepened. ¡°The dog¡¯s gone missing ever since going to Rift Canyon. I didn¡¯t see it when I went inside and didn¡¯t see it when we came back out. Has it gone missing?¡±

    Liu Long was also quite regretful when he thought of Panther¡ªthis was a dog that¡¯d learned his Nine Forged Force.

    ¡°It¡¯s probably... been made into dog stew somewhere? So many powerhouses were present for the expedition and the dog is fat with a gleaming coat. Perhaps someone found it tasty.¡±

    Li Hao flicked a nce at Liu Long, the chief made sense. But he was Panther¡¯s owner and the dog had eaten a lot of his sword energy! If someone had turned it into dog stew... what a loss that¡¯d be! <i>Even I didn¡¯t want to eat Panth.</i>

    But the little ck dog was indeed missing. Li Hao didn¡¯t know if it¡¯d run off or what. He could only sigh. <i>Forget it, I¡¯ve lost even my teacher. What¡¯s another dog added to the mix?</i>

    The car slowly drove forward. They¡¯d driven to the canyon a few days ago, who would¡¯ve thought that no one would steal the car? Then again, those present at Rift Canyon were either powerhouses or power powerhouses. Who would want a car?

    A person suddenly leapt out in front of the car as they conversed. Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened with shock and Wang Ming stomped on the brakes. A martial master!

    Li Hao would¡¯ve discovered them ahead of time if it¡¯d been a supernatural. Only martial masters would spontaneously appear before they could discern who it was. He took a close look at the face stered on the windshield. The messy beard gave away who it was.

    Southern Fist!

    One of the two Fist Kings of Silver Moon. He Yong!

 Chapter 289: Return (I)

    <h4>Chapter 289: Return (I)</h4>

    South Fist King He Yong had run off in abject terror when Hou Xiaochen made his move. To think that he would reappear here at this point in time!

    Liu Long and Wang Ming jumped out of the car, both highly alert and incredibly surprised. This guy had some nerve to appear right after Hou Xiaochen left! Did he mean to attack them? Wasn¡¯t he afraid of Hou Xiaochen responding with fury if he dared act like this in Silver Moon?

    ¡°Senior He Yong,¡± Liu Long broached with a solemn tone. ¡°What business might you have?¡±

    He Yong¡¯s eyes widened when he flicked a nce at the team captain. ¡°Dominator? You¡¯re a martial master too! Kid, what is your name?¡±

    ¡°Liu Long!¡±

    ¡°Liu Long?¡± He Yong thought for a bit andughed. ¡°Silver Spear¡¯s son, right? Who would¡¯ve thought that you¡¯d rise to Dominator after your father¡¯s death? It looks like you¡¯ve received quite a few pointers from Old Demon Yuan.¡±

    He didn¡¯t think that anyone in Silver Moon could easily progress to Dominator without help from Yuan Shuo, particrly a martial second generation like Liu Long. Indeed, these martial second generations did not have the benefit of experiencing the great rises and falls of He Yong¡¯s time. That was a period of turbulent wind and rain!

    ¡°But you won¡¯t do!¡± He Yong was highly arrogant and immediately dismissed Liu Long. He couldn¡¯t even be bothered to look at Sunre Wang Ming. He instantly brought up his purpose when Li Hao alighted from the car. ¡°Little fellow, take me to your master!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know where he is.¡± Li Hao shook his head.

    ¡°That¡¯s fine!¡± He Yong roared withughter. ¡°You¡¯re his final disciple. He¡¯ll eventuallye to you even if you don¡¯t know where he is! I¡¯m in no rush, I¡¯ll wait for him!¡±

    ¡°What does senior want with my master...¡± Li Hao furrowed his brow.

    ¡°To fight!¡± He Yong dered with extreme self-assurance. ¡°I want to witness the might of a Summoner!¡±

    ¡°Sun Yifei died in battle, he was ate Sr...¡± Li Hao reminded, but he¡¯d already guessed at He Yong¡¯s motive. These older generation martial masters didn¡¯t seem to fear death. They wished to see the glories of Summoner of Spirit for themselves.

    He Yong also meant to protect Li Hao with the words that he said on the cliff. Of course, it might be that he didn¡¯t wish to see martial dao heritage be ended. He just couldn¡¯t be too obvious about thetter.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t exactly negatively inclined toward these martial masters, it was just that they loved to fight too much, which made them quite annoying at times.

    ¡°So what?¡± He Yong sneered. ¡°Sun Yifei¡¯s <i>qimei</i> staff ended a long time ago. He was a fake martial master! I am a real deal Dominator and I¡¯ve been one for many years! I¡¯ve had three blood transfusions, my bones and meridians are very strong. Do you take me for an ordinary Dominator??

    ¡°I might have failed to find the path above Dominator, but I have not been crippled over these years! The royal family has nothing but treasure! I¡¯ve strengthened my meridians, changed my blood, and even absorbed vast sums of mysterious power stones. None of this is what the likes of what you can imagine!

    ¡°Old Demon Yuan is pretty impressive at killing Sun Yifei, but I don¡¯t believe that he¡¯ll be able to run right over me!¡±

    He was very confident that if he proved to be less than Yuan Shuo, he would be able to strike back at the very least. He Yong had failed to locate the path to Summoner, but he hadn¡¯t been idle during his employment with the royal family. He¡¯d partaken of countless treasures and immensely enhanced all areas of his body.

    Li Hao could also sense how strong the man was. He might even be a bit stronger than the young man at present¡ªit was just a feeling that spoke to him. One had to know that although Li Hao had just risen to Dominator of Thousands, he¡¯dprehended the earth sword aura and absorbed vast sums of mysterious power to strengthen his organs. He did not match the current Yuan Shuo, but wasn¡¯t far off from when Yuan Shuo initially broke through.

    It was after Yuan Shuo¡¯s advancement that he fought a Sr, utilizing the Incantation of the de of Blood to kill an initial Sr. Li Hao could probably do the same in his current state!

    Of course, whether or not he actually could would have to be tested in battle. But the man in front of him possessed some real strength to his name since he appeared slightly greater than Li Hao.

    ¡°Kid, what are you thinking about?¡± He Yong demanded with impatience upon seeing Li Hao sink into deep thought. ¡°I¡¯ll follow you if I can¡¯t find your master!¡±

    ¡°Sure¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I''m going to White Moon City in three days. Senior cane with me!¡±

    He Yong¡¯s expression changed. <i>Hou Xiaochen!</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t try to scare me with Hou Xiaochen,¡± he snorted. ¡°Am I afraid of him? He¡¯s a man of the dynasty so long as he hasn¡¯t raised the g of rebellion. Would he dare kill me?

    ¡°But there¡¯s no helping it if he does mutiny...¡± He Yong mumbled. ¡°Anyway, there¡¯s no use trying to scare me off with him! I¡¯m not leaving unless your master shows his face!¡±

    ¡°Martial uncle Earthturner Sword Hong is also nearby...¡±

    ¡°Supernatural trash! Don¡¯t bother me, I don¡¯t have time for him!¡± He Yong cursed irately at the mention of the famed martial master who¡¯d made the crossover.

    ¡°Senior, isn¡¯t it inappropriate to force someone to do something against their will?¡± a frowning Liu Long interjected. ¡°We have official duties to take care of and don¡¯t have time to entertain the senior...¡±

    ¡°Entertain?¡± He Yong snapped. ¡°Why does Yuan Shuo not show himself for a battle after progressing to Summoner and demonstrating the might of martial dao to the world?¡±

    ¡°Too many people wish to kill my master,¡± Li Hao replied solemnly. ¡°Aren¡¯t you forcing him toe out to his death, senior? Is this what you wish? You would force him out to satisfy your selfish desires? How many people wille for him then?¡±

    He Yong paused, then quickly blustered in the same vein, ¡°Who cares?! I¡¯ll kill whoeveres!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao, Liu Long, and Wang Ming looked at him wordlessly. This guy was crazy. Kill whoeveres? Who do you think you are?

    ¡°What are you looking at me for?¡± He Yong sneered; he wasn¡¯t crazy. ¡°When Hou Xiaochen calls for an insurrection and Silver Moon rises with him, Yuan Shuo will have to sweat for him all the time since the old demon¡¯s enjoyed his protection these years. Who will dare kill Yuan Shuo with Hou Xiaochen there?¡±

    ¡°How can you spew nonsense like this?¡± Wang Ming grumbled. Li Hao frowned as well. ¡°Our director is wholeheartedly devoted to the public, what is this talk of rebellion? You don¡¯t have impunity to create rumors like these just because you¡¯re with the royal family!¡±

    ¡°What do you know, little shit stain!¡± He Yong snorted. ¡°Hou Xiaochen will revolt sooner orter! He has to go to the central region if he doesn¡¯t. The nine ministries will not permit such a mighty presence to stay on the border and watch tigers fight from afar so he can identify a good timing for his own ns!

    ¡°They¡¯ll make him go to the central region even if that forces him to take up arms! He¡¯s a traitor if he doesn¡¯t go! He might even be the chicken killed to scare the monkeys, and he has no choice but to be the chicken! Yes, it¡¯s a lot of trouble for there to be someone in open revolt as sparks of mes can set the prairie aze, but the dynasty will benefit once they are extinguished and thends cowed by a show of might!¡±

    New thoughts struck Li Hao and the others. Forcing Hou Xiaochen to take up arms! That was true¡ªeveryone¡¯s theories were that the dynasty didn¡¯t daremit such an action. What would happen to the other territories once the government forced a major official into a corner?

    However, the government¡¯s movers and shakers were no fools. What if they could swiftly stamp out Hou Xiaochen?

    The first to lead a rebellion was someone who killed a Nova with one spear jab. Would others with simr ambitions still nurse the same thoughts if he was swiftly executed after he dered his intentions?

    They wouldn¡¯t easily reveal their motives even if they did.

    Killing a chicken to scare the monkeys!

    Therefore, ording to He Yong¡¯s exnation, the dynasty would continue forcing Hou Xiaochen to move to the central region. They might really charge him with the crime of high treason if he refused to go!

    This was a possibility that they hadn¡¯t considered before. They hadn¡¯t thought this to be a likelihood as the border region would all be engulfed in chaos if one province fell to disarray. The dynasty wouldn¡¯t dare run that risk. But now, He Yong spoke of another potential!

    ¡°What, are just a few random words enough to scare you guys?¡± He Yong threw his head back withughter when the trio fell silent. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, it won¡¯t happen that quickly. Procedures will be observed even if they wish to force Hou Xiaochen into rebelling. They¡¯ll have a conversation first, then draft him three times with three promotions. All of those will be publicly announced!

    ¡°He might be offered the position of deputy director of the Night Watcher headquarters today, then given the chance to lead the Night Watchers tomorrow. He might be the first deputy of the entire Inspectorate the day after that. If he still refuses to obey after the three promotions, then he will bebeled a traitor!

    ¡°The dynasty follows the proper order in doing things, they don¡¯t go at it haphazardly,¡± He Yong continuedughing. ¡°Of course, that doesn¡¯t take into ount some fellows creating trouble in Silver Moon and forcing that guy down this path anyway. The situation is even easier then¡ªthey just need to be ready to take him out!¡±

    Li Hao frowned slightly and changed the topic again. ¡°Senior, I really don¡¯t know where my master is. You can follow me if you wish!¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t have any clues?¡± He Yong stoppedughing. ¡°I hear that he was injured. Has he died on the way?¡±

    ¡°Surely you jest, senior.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°My teacher is an academic matched by no other and his martial learning runs to the heavens. How would he die in a nameless ce?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± A hint of cold glinted in He Yong¡¯s eyes. ¡°It really would be a pity if he died. That old demon was no end of trouble for us back in the day!¡±

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with him. He neither liked nor disliked this man. He could follow them if he wished, Li Hao didn¡¯t care. Martial masters were just that oblivious sometimes!

    He Yong made to follow the trio when they returned to the car.

    ¡°Are you going to take the car too, senior?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°Martial masters are better served walking...¡±

    ¡°Why?¡± He Yong blinked. Why should he walk?

    ¡°Walking is the best precaution against ambushes,¡± Li Hao exined. ¡°My teacher exined this once and it doesn¡¯t matter for us since we¡¯re all amateurs. But since senior is an expert and possessed a great reputation in Silver Moon, you might have your share of enemies too. It would be such an unnecessary death if you were ambushed! We¡¯ll drive slower, senior. You can stretch your legs as you follow behind us.¡±

    He Yong thought for a moment, that did make certain sense. Martial masters did indeed like to walk, but it was more than one thousand kilometers from here to Silver City! As fit as he was, that would be the death of him!

    ¡°Senior, can it be that the Fist Kings are only adept with boxing methods?¡± Li Hao questioned upon seeing the man¡¯s reaction. ¡°I see, then hop in, senior! My master is well-rounded and usually walks because he is skilled with the Five Styles. He is first ss in both the fists and levitation skills. He walked when we traveled to the canyon and didn¡¯t fall the slightest bit behind. I thought senior would be the same, but just remembered that you are the Southern Fist, not Southern Leg!¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong stared at Li Hao, then sneered after a moment, ¡°Who do you think you¡¯re looking down on? True martial masters are all well-rounded, we¡¯re just good in different areas. Piss off, I¡¯ll follow you!¡±

    Li Hao gestured for Wang Ming to drive off. They were leaving! There was nothing else to say to this man. He was convinced that he would find Yuan Shuo if he followed Li Hao, so he would not easily give up unless he was beaten up. As someone who kept a low profile and respected his elders, why would the young man do that?

    Part of the reason was that this guy was so poor that his clothes were threadbare. There was no point to killing martial masters. He Yong traveled alone, without any possessions other than his fists. Was Li Hao supposed to kill him and cut off his hands to use as gloves?

 Chapter 290: Return (II)

    <h4>Chapter 290: Return (II)</h4>

    The car swiftly started up; He Yong was in no hurry to follow. He watched silently for a bit, snorted, and ran off to wheel out a motorcycle from behind a boulder.

    Yes, a motorcycle!

    The engine ignited with a roar. He Yong hopped on and raced off in pursuit!

    <i>Do you take me for a fool, little punk? I¡¯d be daft to run for a thousand kilometers! </i>The strongest martial master wouldn¡¯t be able to react in time if meeting an ambush when running for so long. <i>Juste out with it if you can¡¯t be bothered with me, don¡¯t spin this bullshit! You¡¯re just as bad as your master.</i>

    ......

    <i>Inside the car.</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care when he didn¡¯t see the old man upon a backward nce. He looked at Liu Long instead. ¡°Chief, are you familiar with the Southern Fist?¡±

    ¡°Superficially. Southern Fist He Yong is known for his superb boxing methods. My father once told me when I was young that He Yong is brave of heart and meticulous of mind. He looks like a brute, but is actually rather shrewd.

    ¡°He Yong vanished soon after the rise of the supernatural,¡± Liu Long rummaged through his memories. ¡°So he made it into the royal family to avoid struggles with the new domain! He was a martial master close to Dominator¡ªmartial masters were still very popr in Silver Moon then. I don¡¯t know if he advanced to Dominator before joining the royal family or if it was the other way around. Dominators are feted wherever they go!

    ¡°Although the royal family has retreated behind the scenes, they are not wholly without prestige or wealth. They still grasp some family fortune and strength. The exceedingly famous ck Armaturas [1] from years past are still under their control.¡±

    <i>The ck Armaturas!</i>

    History spoke of it as an exceedingly strong army unit that had conquered thends.

    ¡°The royal family came into their power through excavating ancient ruins,¡± Li Hao suddenly said. ¡°Don¡¯t the ck Armaturas sound like the ck Armors?¡±

    ¡°They do!¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°They¡¯re very simr¡ªboth have invincible defenses and cannot be destroyed! With martial masters forming the bulk of forces on the battlefield in those days, almost no one could break through their defenses. They swept through the ny-nine provinces and quickly took even Silver Moon. It¡¯s in to see how strong they were!

    ¡°He Yong looks to have had quite a good time of things after joining the royal family. Coming to the province to spar with Professor Yuan is certainly one motive, but he may have other ones as well.¡±

    Liu Long was also meticulous of mind and quite intelligent¡ªit was only Yuan Shuo who looked down on him. Li Hao felt that the chief was quite fine.

    ¡°He is a royal representative,¡± Liu Long continued. ¡°ording to He Yong, Director Hou exposing such tremendous strength at the canyon means that the nine ministries will either force his requisition or make the director revolt. If He Yong represents the royal family, he might have the intention of secretly contacting the director!¡±

    That wasn¡¯t impossible either. The royal family wasn¡¯t necessarily truly willing to step out of the spotlight.

    A headache started developing the more Li Hao listened. ¡°It¡¯s getting moreplicated, this is such a mess! Isn¡¯t it nice for Director Hou to hold down the fort in Silver Moon? Why do the nine ministries have to send him elsewhere. Isn¡¯t that just creating trouble?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a normal course of action,¡± Liu Long heaved a heavy breath. ¡°They¡¯re just looking at things from a different perspective. If you were their general directors, would you be at ease letting an iparable powerhouse with unparalleled prestige operate by themselves on the border? One who¡¯s refused orders quite a few times? Do you think they can sleep easy at night?¡±

    Hell no!

    Hou Xiaochen refusing to go to the central region was an enormous problem.

    ¡°So why does the director refuse to go to the central region?¡± Wang Ming couldn¡¯t help but ask from the driver¡¯s seat. ¡°There might be more opportunities there. It¡¯s a waste of his talent to stay in Silver Moon.¡±

    The trio didn¡¯t understand why Hou Xiaochen did not follow his deployment orders. Protecting the province and holding down the fort here may be only one of the reasons, but that didn¡¯t mean it was all of the reasons!

    If he really couldn¡¯t set Silver Moon aside, he could direct more resources and attention to the province from the central region. All might still be well at home then.

    Hence, there must be other factors in y that Li Hao and the others weren¡¯t aware of and couldn¡¯t be bothered to guess.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care. At the moment, he was taking inventory of their gains.

    Thirty-five pieces of mysterious power stones. Eight hundred cubes of water energy in the storage ring. Wang Ming had collected nearly one thousand cubes from the Celestial Sunres, and another eight hundred from the three Red Moons that they¡¯d just killed. That made for a sum total of almost twenty-six hundred cubes.

    One broken origin weapon, half to Wang Ming, half to Liu Long. Six hundred absorbed cubes of wood, fire, and water for himself, as well as four hundred of metal and earth. These were enormous gains as well. He¡¯d taken six Sunre level blood pearls too.

    Indeed, he¡¯d obtained another three moments ago. Although scarlet shadows weren¡¯t blood pearls, they were the same for Li Hao. It was just one step different in procedure.

    Blood and qi frothed in his body and his internal force thrummed vigorously. He was more than ten times stronger than when they embarked on the expedition! The group had left Silver City on August 26, the battle with Sun Yifei was on the 27th, they entered the ruins on the 28th, and now it was the 1st.

    September 1st! It¡¯d only been five days altogether, but incredible changes had taken ce in Li Hao¡¯s strength.

    <i>Teacher''s heart absorbed more than one thousand cubes of fire energy and he spent a few decades nurturing his organs. That¡¯s not something I can measure up to. His other four organs should contain at least five hundred cubes, so this means teacher might have absorbed fifteen hundred cubes of fire energy...</i>

    That waspared to Li Hao himself! This meant that taking in roughly five hundred cubes would only ce him on the same level as when his teacher had yet to absorb energy. Therefore, he fell far beneath Yuan Shuo.

    The young man looked at his storage ring and took stock of the mysterious power stones inside his body... A keen light shone out of his eyes. If his five elements could be bnced and reach one thousand cubes each, then he would roughly be on par with the level of his teacher¡¯s organs.

    All he wouldck then was the aura! If he could nurture multiple auras and meld them into the sword aura, then he might be the next Summoner of Spirit!

    <i>I need four hundred of fire, water, and wood as well as six hundred of metal and earth. That¡¯s a total of twenty-four hundred cubes.</i>

    There was enough mysterious power if none was shared with Wang Ming and Liu Long. As for mysterious power stones, his consideration was whether or not they could replenish sword energy. Sword energy was the key¡ªrefilling it with origin weapons was beyond his abilities!

    Mysterious power stones were beyond his abilities as well, but they happened to have thirty-five on hand.

    Li Hao had disyed two kinds of sword intent to Hou Xiaochen in order to demonstrate his value, as well as his strength as a Dominator. Now that his secrets were known, he needed to swiftly increase his strength so that these people¡¯s information alwaysgged behind reality!

    ¡°Chief,¡± he said as his thoughts traveled here. ¡°I still need four hundred cubes of water, fire, and wood...¡±

    Any of these would satisfy him at the moment, and he continued before they had a chance to respond, ¡°We only have two hundred of metal and four hundred of earth. I¡¯ll hold onto these for now¡ªthat¡¯s roughly eighteen hundred cubes.

    ¡°The remaining eight hundred are mostly water and a little bit of fire. You get five hundred, chief, and the remaining three hundred goes to Wang Ming...¡±

    Wang Ming didn¡¯t say anything as he focused on the road, three hundred was a generous allotment. He hadn¡¯t contributed much in the field. Li Hao should take the most since he killed most of their targets, but the handsome supernatural did want toin.

    ¡°I want metal energy!¡± It was fine if Liu Long wanted water energy, so was Wang Ming supposed to work with the remaining fire energy? He wanted metal energy!

    ¡°I have use for metal energy,¡± Li Hao rebutted. ¡°Also, you need to absorb some energy from the other elements. It doesn¡¯t matter if that doesn¡¯t result in increased strength. You¡¯ll die sooner orter if you take in too much metal energy!¡±

    ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°Your organs aren¡¯t in bnce!¡± Li Hao responded. ¡°Stop asking questions, this is from teacher, not me. Go ask him if you don¡¯t believe me.¡±

    <i>Fine then! </i>Wang Ming had no other choice but to fall silent. On the other hand, Li Hao wasn¡¯t the type to lie to him about this. Of course, this didn¡¯t preclude the possibility that he was pulling the wool over an honest guy because he wanted to im all of the metal energy for himself!

    Li Hao was taking eighteen hundred cubes out of the twenty-six hundred they¡¯d collected, but no one felt that it was an inappropriate distribution. The young man made some quick calctions¡ªhe would only be missing four hundred cubes of metal and two hundred of earth before reaching the equilibrium of one thousand cubes each.

    He didn¡¯t mention the five thousand that the Night Watchers had promised, that could wait until White Moon City. There were always the mysterious power stones if not. Li Hao abruptly opened his mouth and began dry heaving.

    Liu Long watched with tant disgust. Granted, his thoughts of passing the stones through his system were even more disgusting.

    The young man quickly threw up a dozen stones. ¡°We have thirty-five stones when we add the three we just got. They vary in size, so if we measure them in units of marble size, we have roughly fifty units of stones.¡±

    Given their different sizes, this was the only way to discuss the mysterious power stones as a whole.

    ¡°I¡¯ll take twenty-five, chief takes fifteen, Ole Wang takes ten. Are there any dissenting opinions? Let¡¯s talk it out if there is.¡± Li Hao was in charge of main distribution as he¡¯d killed the Yama and Red Moon members. Thus, he made the decisions without further ado.

    ¡°Nope!¡± Wang Ming grinned from ear to ear. His greatest aplishments were not here¡ªtheyid in his two advantageous moves when they killed Zhang Ting. Those had created more openings for Liu Long and Li Hao, a fact that Li Hao took into consideration. Otherwise, Wang Ming would not have been allotted so much based on hister contributions.

    ¡°That¡¯s fine!¡± Liu Long inclined his head.

    Li Hao took a piece of stone and ced it on the little sword, waiting for... nothing to happen!

    The young man¡¯s eyes widened. Was this method unviable, or was he approaching it incorrectly? The little sword had acted on its own to eat the little snake and ck shadow that Qiao Feilong¡¯s wife had turned into. Why didn¡¯t the same happen for mysterious power stones?

    Li Hao frowned, if this didn¡¯t work, then sword energy might not be enough to raise his organs to one thousand cubes each. That would be very troublesome.

    <i>Do I have to... cut into it with the sword?</i>

    Energy did not seep out of mysterious power stones. Perhaps it needed to be cracked open for it to take effect.

    Being a decisive sort, Li Hao brought his sword down on the stone. A dense surge of rich earth energy percted through the car. The little sword seemed to stir, but it stillcked the interest to absorb any energy.

    1. Latin for armor ?

 Chapter 291: Return (III)

    <h4>Chapter 291: Return (III)</h4>

    Li Hao grew frantic! Were mysterious power stones truly ineffective for the little sword?

    He called upon the Breathing Method of the Five Styles when a new idea struck him. The sword sprang more to life and energy surged out of it¡ªbut Li Hao didn¡¯t absorb it. He directed the small sword toe in contact with earth energy instead.

    There seemed to be some effect this time!

    The little sword finally sensed the existence of this energy and took some in, but with an undercurrent of... distaste. It absorbed energy only for a little bit before leaving a muddled mess riddled with impurities.

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened with understanding. Steris felt that the remaining tangle in the car was too contaminated! <i>But... the hell, man! </i>This was from a mysterious power stone, the most unadulterated form of energy in modern times. Many were those who couldn¡¯t bear to use the treasure. No wonder the little sword was never interested in mysterious power! It didn¡¯t even find mysterious power stones pure enough¡ªmysterious power was probably unwanted dregs in its eyes!

    The young man¡¯s head twinged with a headache! It¡¯d absorbed some, at the very least. He could sense that energy was a bit denser in the sword now, but it didn¡¯t abruptly thrum with life like it had when absorbing the origin weapon.

    ¡°Ai!¡± Li Hao sighed with resignation. At least some use hade out of the stone. He could absorb the rest, it felt simr to regr earth mysterious power. If sword energy could distill the essence of power... would the little sword absorb whatever it extracted?

    <i>Hang on, I¡¯m an idiot.</i> The purpose of sword energy was to purify and strengthen elemental power. That process consumed significant sword energy to begin with. Even if the little sword was willing to absorb the results and recovered some energy, wasn¡¯t that just unnecessary consumption on both ends?

    It would be a waste of both sword energy and mysterious power! He would reach parity with sword energy in the end, but be out of mysterious power. What was the point of that?

    Li Hao dismissed the tempting thought and began absorbing the earth energy left from the fragments of the mysterious power stone. Wang Ming and Liu Long were already taking it in¡ªwhat did it matter that they were not of the earth attribute? None of it should go to waste!

    The young man cultivated all the way back to Silver City. Wang Ming drove the car and He Yong followed from a far distance without disturbing them.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, as Li Hao and the others made their way back to Silver City.</i>

    There was a province neighboring Silver Moon named Near River. Arge river threaded through it, one that traversed the entire province and a dozen others. The river covered a great deal of territory and its riverhead was in Near River.

    The river was named Cloud River¡ªa river upon the clouds. It stemmed from a towering mountain that seemed to sit within the clouds. The mountain was named Cloud Mountain. Enveloped by clouds and fog year round, it hosted few inhabitants and visitors.

    An old man set foot on it today, covering dozens of meters with one step. The soaring mountain did not overtax his stride and he quickly climbed to anding halfway up the mountain. It wasn¡¯t the cleanest as it was covered by fallen leaves and some rocks.

    ¡°Are you here, old friend?¡± called out the old man in a resonant voice.

    A ray of sword light shed through the air momentster as a sword fell from the sky!

    The old man punched out with a mighty roar of a fearsome tiger. The fire heart ape manifested as well and dispersed the sword light with a deafening punch. A figure shimmered into view.

    ¡°Hahaha, the Jadelight Sword is as vicious as ever!¡± Yuan Shuoughed uproariously. ¡°Why so polite toward an old friend?¡±

    A married woman less than forty years old stood in front of him with an arctic look in her eyes!

    ¡°You¡¯re still alive, Old Demon Yuan!¡± she bit off.

    ¡°How would I die so quickly?¡± Yuan Shuo chortled. ¡°Have you heard the news?¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°That I¡¯ve set foot beyond Dominator and be a Summoner of Spirit!¡±

    ¡°So?¡± she responded coldly, belying the stunned surprise in her eyes. No wonder he¡¯d been so ferocious as to break her attack with one punch!

    ¡°So?¡± Yuan Shuo snorted. ¡°So everything! Does the Jadelight Sword not wish to advance to Summoner and revitalize the might of the Silver Moon martial world? Will you continue to cower in Cloud Mountain and wait for old age and death toe?

    ¡°I see that you haven¡¯t given up martial dao yet. Soe back out in the world and summon storms of blood and violence again!¡±

    The old man cackled like he was possessed, a far cry from what he normally presented. There wasn¡¯t a trace of the benevolence that he showed Li Hao on his stern face. ¡°You¡¯ve be a Dominator and I see that your sword aura remains as impressive as ever. You don¡¯t seem to have let yourself go...¡±

    ¡°Out with it.¡± The woman frowned. ¡°Who do you want to kill and what do you want to do?¡±

    ¡°I want to hunt Red Moon powerhouses!¡± Yuan Shuo continued cackling. ¡°And kill and strengthen ourselves! That little whelp Ying Hongyue is too big for his boots! Retribution ising after he forced me to cower in Silver City for so many years! He raises a type of scarlet shadow that strengthens blood qi and internal force. All you need to do is eat thirty to fifty Sunre level ones, or three to five Srs ones. Enhance your organs and I¡¯ll teach you what it means to be a Summoner!¡±

    ¡°Why me?¡± Completely indifferent, the woman looked at Yuan Shuo in an unfriendly manner.

    ¡°Why you?¡± The old man thought for a bit. ¡°I have too many death feuds with those of the Silver Moon martial world. I don¡¯t have any other choice but you. The others are either too weak or they¡¯re dead, or they¡¯ve crossed over. You¡¯ve persisted with the Jadelight Sword all these years, it¡¯s a clear sign that your heart of martial dao has not died down. The key reason why is that I could¡¯ve killed you back in the day, but I spared you in our fight because you were pretty. You owe me a life!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Fine, there was nothing she could say to that! But was it correct to say that she owed him a life just because he didn¡¯t beat her to death once?

    She supposed... that it was barely correct!

    Jadelight took a deep breath. ¡°Then give me a moment to pack up my things. Also, tell me where we¡¯re going...¡±

    ¡°Are you familiar with Red Moon¡¯s movements in Near River?¡±

    ¡°A bit.¡±

    ¡°Then we kill the ones here first and make our way to the central region. If all goes well, you¡¯ll be a Summoner by the time we reach our destination! If not, both of us will be dead.¡±

    ¡°I see.¡± Jadelight bounded upward and vanished from thending.

    Yuan Shuo guffawed. This woman¡¯s figure was still so good after so many years... Ahem, what did martial masters think of this for? All that mattered was that her strength remained as before. It would be difficult if her abilities had declined.

    The Jadelight Sword Wu Hongshan! One of the Seven Swords!

    Three of the seven were confirmed to be dead. Only the Sky Sword, Earthturner Sword, and Jadelight Sword were still alive. Not even Yuan Shuo knew if the Light Sword was still around.

    The Fists of North and South... The Three Spears of Silver Moon... There weren¡¯t many of them left either. Qimei Staff was also dead, who knew if Deficient Leg was still alive?

    Yuan Shuo thought of someone else as he walked down memoryne. Did Tyrant de yet walk the earth? There were numerous swordsmen and desmen in Silver Moon those years. Tyrant de dropped out of sight upon leaving Silver Moon. They could work together if he was still alive. That guy killed people in a wild torrent of violence and was unchecked in recklessness. It was beyond strange that there was no word of him. He was either dead or everyone who¡¯d seen him was dead!

    Wu Hongshan jumped down as Yuan Shuo ruminated, a small bundle on her back and a sword in her hand. She was ready to leave the mountain.

    Her preparations were that simple! There was nothing to hesitate over after Yuan Shuo mentioned killing people and advancing to Summoner of Spirit. It was time to kill! Which of Silver Moon¡¯s renowned martial masters didn¡¯t have hands covered in blood? She was no exception!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Wu Hongshan dered.

    ¡°You¡¯re fast,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Martial masters are always quick and decisive. Who knows how many hours any other woman would take...¡±

    ¡°You say a lot of useless stuff!¡± snapped out Wu Hongshan. ¡°I am not your match today, but when I set foot into Summoner, your head will fall under my Jadelight Sword!¡±

    ¡°Just listen to yourself...¡± Yuan Shuo threw his head back withughter. ¡°And my concern would be that you can¡¯t hack through my neck! To be honest, the Jadelight isn¡¯t known for its destructive abilities. You¡¯re not as strong as the dead Ambiguous Sword. I wouldn¡¯t call upon you if it wasn¡¯t for Sky Sword going to the central region!¡±

    Wu Hongshan didn¡¯t say anything. The Sky Sword was the strongest of the seven. She was indeed no match for him. But another thought struck her and she said coolly, ¡°Just you wait. My sword methods have improved greatly these years, and I¡¯ve discovered a secret. My sword method is a family heritage¡ªwhat we see is only the beginning!¡±

    ¡°A family heritage?¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s interest was piqued. ¡°Your sword methodes from your ancestors? But I¡¯ve never heard that was the case. Your family isn¡¯t an ancient house of martial dao.¡±

    ¡°I dug it out myself!¡± Wu Hongshan flicked a dismissive nce at him. ¡°I didn¡¯t have money to bury my parents when they died in my childhood. I dug open the ancestral grave and buried my parents inside, then discovered a sword manual!¡±

    Yuan Shuo was at a loss for what to say. <i>Is that so?</i> He really didn¡¯t know about this; she¡¯d literally uncovered the secrets behind her sword method. Impressive! This woman was no kind soul or even a proper human, having dug up her ancestors¡¯ grave as a child.

    He didn¡¯t say a word as they sped down the mountain, Yuan Shuo in the lead. It was an ideal day for killing people as the weather was clear. From today forth, his name would be known throughout Silver Moon and beyond the province. Everyone would know that he was back!

    Wu Hongshan remained stony-faced behind him; her eyes brightened when she thought of some records in the sword manual. The Jadelight Sword was not an ordinary sword method, there were scattered mentions in the manual that it¡¯d been an exceedingly powerful method in the ancient civilization. Its wielder was a follower of the Human King¡ªit didn¡¯t matter who this king was or how strong he was. What mattered was that there was an even stronger sword method beyond the Jadelight Sword!

    The method¡¯s owner¡ªher ancestor¡ªhad a junior brother hailed as the Eternal Life Sword Sovereign. His feats in conquest were unmatched. <i>I wonder if the Eternal Life Sword has been lost?</i>

    These were mere fragments mentioned in an ancient record, but they were sufficient to send Wu Hongshan¡¯s blood boiling. She would return the Jadelight Sword back to its former glory!

 Chapter 292: Cultivation, Temporary Leave (I)

    <h4>Chapter 292: Cultivation, Temporary Leave (I)</h4>

    The neighboring province was too far away from home. Rift Canyon was the furthest that Li Hao had ever traveled thus far in his life. All he wanted to do was return to Silver City. It was small, but there was some warmth there.

    He had his teacher after his best friend from childhood died. He wasn¡¯t too lonely even after his teacher was gone¡ªhe¡¯d befriended the Demon Hunters. Everyone, including the captain, was nice.

    The tattered car finally drove into Silver City boundaries. It was quiet as usual inside the small city. Few came to disturb its peace when both Li Hao and Yuan Shuo weren¡¯t present. At the same time, regr Darkmoons weren¡¯t able to leave the city aftering by for a look.

    The sun had fully risen by the time they returned to Silver City. It was almost noon. There were no walls around the city as it wasn¡¯t an ancient metropolis. essible on all sides, anyone could enter.

    Having just returned from the ruins, it took a moment for the trio to adjust to being back home. They warily considered the storefronts on the sides of the streets. It seemed possible that they wouldn¡¯te back out if they ventured in.

    The little car continued to the Inspectorate. Upon turning in, they saw Mu Sen before seeing anyone else. Was the inspector general waiting for them, or was this a chance meeting?

    Mu Sen looked over the group when they alighted and smiled. ¡°Wee back!¡±

    Liu Long inclined his head, neither enthusiastic nor dismissive toward the fatty. He treated his superior as a random bystander.

    ¡°Deputy Director Li.¡± Mu Sen looked warmly at Li Hao. ¡°I hear you¡¯re going to White Moon City in a few days? Congrattions!¡±

    His sources of news worked fast. Not many people knew of what¡¯d happenedst night, but he knew ahead of time. He wasn¡¯t the inspector general for nothing!

    ¡°I¡¯m just going there to be a figurehead. It¡¯s so much better being in your position, Inspector General!¡± Li Hao chuckled and quickly scanned Mu Sen. He hadn¡¯t been able to see anything before rising to Dominator, but now that he had and was summoning his spirits, he could begin to make out a thing or two.

    The inspector general... possessed an aura! That made him at least a half step Dominator¡ªLi Hao wasn¡¯t sure if he was a Dominator or not.

    ¡°Stop looking at me, Director Li.¡± Mu Sen waved him off with a smile. ¡°We¡¯re all on the same team in the future, there¡¯s no point in looking at me so closely. Allow me to reintroduce myself. This humble one is Mu Sen, a member of the Silver Moon Guards!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao stared nkly at him. The Silver Moon... Guards? He only knew of the Skystar Guards¡ªthat was the government agency once with a mission of eliminating martial masters. It was said that Hou Xiaochen might be one of their threemanders. Hence, the young man was very confused by Inspector General Mu¡¯s sudden mention of a <i>Silver Moon </i>Guards.

    Liu Long frowned as well, but waited for the inspector general to exin.

    ¡°No questions, there¡¯s no need for questions,¡± Mu Sen chuckled. ¡°You¡¯ll learn of all this when you go to White Moon City. It¡¯s good that Director Hou thinks highly of you. You are both martial masters and we y for the same team. The dynasty knows how strong Silver Moon¡¯s martial world is. Can it truly have been extinguished after twenty years?

    ¡°Also, you¡¯ll know after your visit to the ruins that the Night Watchers also own a troop of armor. You¡¯ll know all about it when you join the Silver Moon Guards.¡±

    Li Hao nodded with a smile and didn¡¯t ask further. He could guess at the general outline of everything. There might be yet another organization inside the Night Watchers¡ªor rather, a remnant of the Skystar Guards. It might be a forceprised entirely of martial masters andmanded by Hou Xiaochen.

    Supernaturals joined the Night Watchers, martial masters joined the Guards. While it was said that Night Watchers did not ept martial masters, it only meant that martial masters stayed with the Guards so long as they were yet to ascend.

    So Mu Sen was also one of them...

    Upon further thought, it made sense as all members had to be at least half step Dominators. Except, was he speaking of it so openly because he was certain that Li Hao and Liu Long would both join? Er... Wang Ming was still standing here!

    Wang Ming¡¯s head swiveled quickly between the rest. <i>Um... do I know too much?</i>

    Mu Sen didn¡¯t mind his reaction. ¡°The public knows about the events of the ruins and Director Hou¡¯s background is almost general knowledge. Previous suits of armor have disappeared and he killed a Red Moon Nova... The Silver Moon Guards will probablye out of hiding after this. There¡¯s no need to conceal our presence, anyhow.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that we¡¯re that strong either, we¡¯re just simr to the royal family¡¯s ck Armaturas. There¡¯s not that many of us¡ªless than one thousand. It¡¯s a significant force for Silver Moon, but a tiny provincial guard for the dynasty atrge!¡±

    ¡°Did you wait here for us just to say this?¡± Liu Long couldn¡¯t help but interrupt.

    ¡°Not exactly,¡± Mu Senughed. ¡°I did want to greet you and give a brief introduction. The other reason was for Ole Liu. You didn¡¯t tell us when you ascended to Dominator. If we¡¯d known, we could¡¯ve sat down and had a few drinks...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t drink!¡± Liu Long retorted. ¡°Out with whatever fart you¡¯re building up!¡±

    ¡°You really have a bad temper!¡± Mu Sen chuckled,pletely rxed. ¡°What I want to say is that there aren¡¯t that many of us in the Guards and even fewer Dominators. We do have some, just exceedingly few of them. Ole Liu, Silver City might not let you stay after you¡¯ve be a Dominator. Your mission might be different from mine and they¡¯ll send you to White Moon City...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not leaving!¡± Liu Long frowned. He was going to safeguard Silver City!

    ¡°My word isn¡¯tw,¡± Mu Sen chuckled. ¡°Not to mention, you were simply worried about the city being attacked before. But now, everyone¡¯s gaze is on White Moon City! The Night Watchers here are strong and your team is here as well. You can fight for more opportunities and resources there...

    ¡°Your personality and habits are just like Director Hou. Director Hou is beingbeled as a traitor, are you sure you want to imitate him?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Liu Long didn¡¯t have aeback. That... did indeed seem to be the case. Hou Xiaochen refused to leave when the central region sent him redeployment orders. If he did the same when White Moon requested his presence... Was he supposed to dere independence for Silver City?

    ¡°Alright now, this isn¡¯t set in stone,¡± Mu Sen finishedughing. ¡°I¡¯m just mentioning it ahead of time. There aren¡¯t many in the Silver Moon Guards and few Dominators. If you join, you¡¯re probably... no, you¡¯ll definitely be a centurion! Once you are, seek out my big brother for a chat. He has something he wishes to discuss with you...¡±

    ¡°Your big brother?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, the second-inmand of the Guards. He just barely made it to Dominator...¡± Mu Sen beamed merrily. ¡°Be at ease, we¡¯re not forming cliques. There¡¯s only so many of us, what¡¯s the point of further division? We eat out of the same pot, he probably has other matters to discuss with you. There¡¯s nothing to be concerned about, would I act against your best interests?¡±

    ¡°Hah!¡± Liu Long snorted. That was hard to say, but hemitted the task to memory all the same. ¡°We¡¯ll see,¡± he replied halfheartedly. ¡°I haven¡¯t decided I¡¯m leaving yet. Silver City is my roots!¡±

    ¡°Whatever you wish, then!¡± Mu Sen didn¡¯t care, he was just letting Liu Long know ahead of time and doing the man a favor so that he didn¡¯t fly blind into a new situation.

    ¡°Inspector General,¡± Li Hao asked with curiosity. ¡°What do the Silver Moon Guards do? Do they seize and arrest viinous martial masters like they did in the past?¡±

    With the Night Watchers already in ce and creating the Guards out of them... surely this group would be put to good use?

    ¡°You¡¯ll know when you join,¡± Mu Sen chortled. ¡°Good luck, Director Li. Do well. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be a centurion after two years as well. If your teacheres back... I think the position ofmander will be his!¡±

    ¡°My teacher probably isn¡¯t interested...¡± Li Hao smiled.

    Being amander? His teacher wouldn¡¯t want to be king! Granted, he would still put forth effort because he hadn¡¯t finished everything he¡¯d promised Hou Xiaochen after being rendered a favor. But the Silver Moon Guards... his teacher probably hated them with every fiber of his being. The Skystar Guards had been notorious back in the day; those of the martial world hated this army unit.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care. Whether it was the Guards or Night Watchers, they were all the same. Hou Xiaochen might have long wished to separate himself from the system in creating the Silver Moon Guards. Who cared!

    Mu Sen said nothing further and left with a few more words.

    ......

    ¡°Don¡¯t listen to the fatty,¡± Liu Long grumbled as soon as the inspector general left. ¡°It¡¯s just all talk! You probably have to go to White Moon, but I... will try to turn them down as much as I can! I don¡¯t want to go there!¡±

    He still wasn¡¯t willing to move. Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. It would be very fine if Liu Long stayed. The young man didn¡¯t want to leave Silver City like this. The eight trigrams, stone door, bloodlines, Red Moon... There were too many secrets here waiting to be uncovered!

    How could he give up and leave? White Moon City was just a temporary shelter. He would return when the storm passed. If Liu Long stayed, he would be able to keep an eye on the ruins. The chief was familiar with that area.

    ......

    The trio entered thew enforcement building. It was eerily silent. There weren¡¯t that many left on the team after Li Hao and the others left. They didn¡¯t have any missions, so everyone was training in the basement. It was extraordinarily quiet in the building.

    Liu Yan most likely hadn¡¯te back. It was too dangerous to travel on her own. She¡¯d probably followed the Night Watchers to White Moon City. They didn¡¯t see her earlier, possibly because she was so weak that she was evacuated ahead of time.

    The three went straight for the basement instead of heading upstairs.

    ......

    As expected, everyone was here¡ªincluding Li Meng and Hu Hao.

    General wariness hummed through the group when Liu Long pushed open the door; it was quickly reced with joy.

    ¡°Chief is back!¡±

    ¡°The director is back!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    They rushed forward with great excitement, but their faces dimmed when they didn¡¯t see Liu Yan.

    ¡°Liu Yan¡¯s alive, she went to White Moon City.¡± Liu Long smiled. ¡°We came back first.¡±

    Delight brightened the group¡¯s faces again. Good, good, she was alive! The Demon Hunters shared a tight-knit bond. They¡¯d worked together for many years prior to Li Hao joining. Having braved life and death together, no one wished to see a teammate die.

 Chapter 293: Cultivation, Temporary Leave (II)

    <h4>Chapter 293: Cultivation, Temporary Leave (II)</h4>

    Yun Yao walked out of the rear of the basement, wearing the sses that she was tweaking. She nced at a couple of people, ignored Li Hao and Liu Long, and looked at Wang Ming. <i>Sunre? </i>her expression shifted slightly. <i>So fast!</i>

    Despite the big mouth that he was, Wang Ming hadn¡¯t had a chance to mention that he¡¯d made it to Sunre before he left for the ruins. They¡¯d departed straight from Yuan Shuo¡¯s house and he¡¯d remained in closed door cultivation after ascending.

    ¡°Captain Liu, Little Hao...¡± Yun Yao greeted the others. She didn¡¯t say anything upon hearing that Liu Yan had gone to White Moon City.

    Liu Long inclined his head at the group and smiled at Yun Yao. ¡°We collected quite a bit of water mysterious power on the trip. I¡¯ll give you someter...¡±

    ¡°No need!¡± Yun Yao refused. ¡°We didn¡¯t go and loot is divided ording to contribution. We didn¡¯t contribute, so it¡¯s inappropriate to split your mysterious power.¡±

    Liu Long didn¡¯t protest. The team sometimes ardently coveted mysterious power, but were enormous sticklers for the rules other times. They were unwilling to receive someone else¡¯s gains if they didn¡¯t participate in collecting it.

    Liu Yan¡¯s desire for revenge had been too urgent. She wouldn¡¯t have dared to take Li Hao¡¯s blood pearl otherwise.

    ¡°Director Wang... is a Sunre?¡± Hu Hao suddenly asked.

    Wang Ming finally found his ce in the crowd and beamed widely. ¡°That¡¯s right, I ascended to Sunre!¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± eximed an incredulous Li Meng. ¡°So fast?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that fast, very run-of-the-mill, actually,¡± Wang Mingughed heartily. ¡°I¡¯m only initial Sunre and need a few more days for mid Sunre. I didn¡¯t improve that much this time.¡±

    <i>Is he even listening to himself?</i> Li Hao flicked a nce at the young supernatural. This guy kept a very low profile in front of him and the chief, but immediately swelled with cockiness in front of the team. Granted, Sunre was indeed worthy of admiration from Li Meng and Hu Hao.

    Wang Ming finally had a chance to strut; he¡¯d been taken down too many pegs before. When Li Hao and Liu Long both proved to be stronger than him as Dominators, he wasn¡¯t of a mind to throw his weight around. Neither did he have a chance to. Now that there were two Darkmoons in front of him, it was time to put on a show!

    Wang Ming took the stage for the subsequent duration of the reunion.

    The group listened intently to soul-stirring and heart-shaking renditions of events in the ruins. asional shock and horror crossed their faces. ck Armors were peak Darkmoon and could kill Sunre. Bronze Armors were Sunre, Silver Armors could kill Srs, and the final Gold Armor...

    The handsome supernatural understood the limits of propriety, at the very least, and didn¡¯t mention Zhang Ting¡¯s murder. Hence, Li Hao and Liu Long couldn¡¯t be bothered to keep him in check.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t interested in watching theatrics. He rose and headed for the lounge in the back. This was where he would refine mysterious power.

    It would be safer at his teacher¡¯s house, but his teacher wasn¡¯t home. Here was just as fine. Liu Long and Wang Ming hadn¡¯t appeared overly strong in the ruins, but Sunre was still peak battle strength for Silver Moon.

    With therge amounts of heavyweight that¡¯d died this time, there was a newly developed power vacuum among provincial supernaturals. If it wasn¡¯t for reinforcements from the central region and curious visitors from neighboring provinces, Sunres would reign supreme in the province.

    ......

    <i>Inside the lounge.</i>

    It was very quiet. The soundproofing was good. Li Hao thought for a moment, then decided to absorb earth and metal energy first. He¡¯d taken in the least amount of these elements.

    Mysterious power wafted through the air as the young man began absorbing energy. Sword energy purified mysterious power; there was enough in the little sword for his purposes.

    Time passed, bit by bit. Li Hao¡¯s spleen began to strengthen as he digested more earth energy. Pure earth elemental energy continuously enhanced the spleen, the effects trickling down to the sword of heavy earth inside as well. The chains grew stronger, firmly locking the sword in ce!

    The more it was thus, the harder it would be for the spirits to break out of the organs. It was also a demonstration of the depths of his foundation.

    Li Hao had made up his mind to infuse his organs with one thousand cubes each. He would supplement with the mysterious power stones if he didn¡¯t have enough energy. He wouldn¡¯t leave seclusion until the organs were in bnce.

    Time was of the essence since he¡¯d promised Hou Xiaochen that he would be at White Moon City in three days. He had to go as that one was terrifying. Of course, there was another reason as well¡ªa Nova level scarlet shadow!

    Hou Xiaochen had said he would give it to the young man, then withheld it out of concern that Li Hao wasn¡¯t strong enough to digest it. Thetter was very tempted by it¡ªhow nutritious would a Nova level shadow be!

    He actually wanted to cart it back to Silver City before eating it. The diagram of the eight trigrams had been visible before when his bloodline was activated through eating the scarlet shadows. Perhaps that was the side effect of the shadows, but it took a very powerful shadow to do so.

    The first time he saw the diagram had been through a peak Sunre shadow¡ªLi Hao had been very weak then. The second time had been through a Sunre level blood pearl and it proved exceedingly valuable for the young man. He witnessed that sword stroke!

    Now that he knew the sword aura, Li Hao felt that he might gain new insights if he could see that same stroke again. Hisprehension might deepen to the point of grasping other sword auras.

    Although such thoughts ran through his mind, he didn¡¯t dy his conversion of mysterious power. Not only was he strengthening his organs, but hard at work practicing the Nine Forged Force as well. All he could manage was sixyers at the moment, which was a far cry from Liu Long¡¯s nineyers. He wasn¡¯t nning on relinquishing the Five Styles, Nine Forged Force, or Ghost Shadow Sword. There was just too much he needed to do at present and many areas that he needed to improve upon. For the moment, hecked the time to carefully study and research the secret methods.

    Tendrils of energy unfurled within the lounge as he absorbed them. Mysterious power permeated the entire basement thanks to his cultivation. The rest of the team ceased their conversations and focused on cultivating as well. Mysterious power would soon disappear into the air if they didn¡¯t quickly absorb it.

    Liu Long and Wang Ming had both emerged from the ruins with their own harvests. They buckled down to work when they saw how Li Hao was making use of time and entered closed door cultivation to digest their gains from the expedition.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s matters were known far and wide after one night.

    <i>The southern quadrant of the city, Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    The Night Watchers that bustled to and fro from their office building today were a little nervous, yet also proud. inly, they knew of what¡¯d happened at Rift Canyon. Their boss had in a legendary premier titan with one move. It was unbelievable!

    Because of this, everyone within the agency treated him with even more veneration. It also represented that more danger was upon them.

    Hou Xiaochen had killed a Red Moon elder. Violet Moon had made it out of the province, would the organization send more people? What kind of strength would they be if there were more neers?

    Violet Moon was the weakest among the Seven Moons; the other six were no slouches. Ying Hongyue was so powerful that it was horrific! Thus, the agency couldn¡¯t help the general air of unease.

    The Night Watcher building wasn¡¯t tall. Hao Lianchuan was calcting the gains and losses from the expedition, casualties and fatalities, taking inventory of the spoils, recording deeds of merit, and calcting distribution.

    The door to his office opened as he made notes. There were very few in the agency who dared barge in without knocking first. Hou Xiaochen had said he was recovering from his injuries in seclusion, so it could only be Manager Yu who was paying a visit to his office.

    Hao Lianchuan knew the identity of his visitor without needing to take a look. ¡°Is something the matter again?¡± he asked with a new headache brewing. There was nothing good if this grand secretary hade in person. She would go to Hou Xiaochen if it was positive news.

    A faint smile appeared on Manager Yu¡¯s face before quickly vanishing. ¡°Yes, there¡¯s people from the provincial government who say they wish to hold a four-way meeting! Us, the Inspectorate, the military, and the provincial government. Since the director is resting, you must be our representative.¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Hao Lianchuan greeted the statement wordlessly. <i>Me? What good am I for? Can I actually make any decisions?</i>

    ¡°There are more visitors in Silver Moontely, which will lead to certain unrest,¡± the secretary continued. ¡°Although there won¡¯t be that manyrge-scale attacks, scuffles between supernaturals, martial masters, and the like will cause damage and loss all the same. We need you to handle some of the powerhouses.

    ¡°A group of martial masters have converged upon White Moon City. They wish to see Yuan Shuo. If not, they wish to see Li Hao!

    ¡°Representatives from organizations, aristocratic families, and the nine ministries in the central region havee with a desire to meet Li Hao. They would like to discuss the blood pearls and secrets of Summoner of Spirit.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s headache morphed into a migraine that threatened to blow his brains up!

    ¡°Is there more?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± The faint smile appeared on Manager Yu¡¯s face again; it disappeared just as quickly as the first time. ¡°The Tiger Wings wish tomandeer Li Hao for themselves...¡±

    ¡°Fuck that!¡± Hao Lianchuan might not be able to call the shots in the other matters, but he could in this one. ¡°Tell Hu Dingfang to get a life! Heh, does he want to ask about Summoner of Spirit as well?¡±

    ¡°He didn¡¯t say, so it¡¯s hard to tell,¡± Manager Yu replied calmly. ¡°Besides, will Li Hao know? Chen Yuhua was also at Rift Canyon, she might already know about the secrets of Summoner. It¡¯s probably not for this.¡±

    Chen Yuhua had been at Rift Canyon?

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t say anything. Perhaps Yuan Shuo had met his disciple in the canyon. Perhaps he hadn¡¯t. Hao Lianchuan couldn¡¯t be bothered to be concerned. He dropped thest topic after his t-out refusal.

    ¡°There are so many matters to take care of and Director Hou won¡¯t give me concrete guidelines. This is difficult to resolve,¡± heined.

    ¡°Director Hou said that it¡¯s all up to you when he entered seclusion!¡±

    <i>Up to me? What does that mean?</i>

    ¡°It means that whether you agree to these matters or not, it doesn¡¯t matter,¡± the secretary exined more inly. ¡°The director will admit to it if it turns out to be a good decision, and you''ll take the fall if it¡¯s not. We¡¯ll remove you from your post if ites down to it, it¡¯s not like we can kill a Sr like you. Therefore... do as you wish!¡±

    <i>The fuck?!</i> Hao Lianchuan wanted to curse out loud. He understood now. So these were Ole Hou¡¯s thoughts. He was damned... shameless. When push came to shove, it was Hao Lianchuan who agreed to everything. It had nothing to do with Hou Xiaochen.

 Chapter 294: Cultivation, Temporary Leave (III)

    <h4>Chapter 294: Cultivation, Temporary Leave (III)</h4>

    The deputy director glowered and didn¡¯t want to bbor his unfair treatment. ¡°Right, I forgot to mention that Li Hao wants us to fulfill our side of the bargain as soon as possible! We promised him five thousand cubes of mysterious power.¡±

    ¡°The director did mention that. We¡¯re out of mysterious power and he¡¯s spending the next couple of dayspressing the blood pearl. That is sufficient to pay off our debt. A Nova-level blood pearl is worth much more than simply five thousand cubes of mysterious power! Countless powerhouses are purchasing blood pearls these days, so Li Hao shouldn¡¯t find this unsatisfactory.¡±

    <i>Very well then! </i>Hao Lianchuan could only tip his hat at his superior¡ªOld Hou was definitely a wily old fox. He¡¯d nned on outright giving the blood pearl to Li Hao before, but was now using it as their payment. Despite the bait and switch, Li Hao would have no grounds to lodge aint.

    As for how the young man would choose...

    Hao Lianchuan put himself in Li Hao¡¯s shoes for a moment and decided that he would probably choose the Nova-level blood pearl. Those things were expensive and impossible to purchase. There might not be more than a handful Nova blood pearls in all of Red Moon. Mysterious power wasparatively much easier to obtain. There might not be another chance for a crack at a Nova blood pearl if the young man passed up this opportunity.

    ¡°Is there still no one from central headquarters?¡± Hao Lianchuan asked after exining his reasoning.

    Faint derision appeared on the secretary¡¯s face, an emotion that also pulled a vanishing act. ¡°Aren¡¯t you aware of whether or not they¡¯re here? They won¡¯t appear today, however. Perhaps tomorrow, or thetest the day after. You¡¯ll be in charge of receiving them!¡±

    <i>Me, again? </i>Hao Lianchuan wanted to cry. He didn¡¯t want this lousy task!

    Manager Yu was more or less finished with what she¡¯de to say. She was about to leave when another thought urred to her. ¡°The director says that the carrot and stick should be used in conjunction. The three great organizations, other supernatural organizations, nine ministries, and even the royal family can participate in future expeditions!

    ¡°But there is a limit to the number of representatives they can send and they need to pay the price of one mysterious power stone. You can just release this information!¡±

    <i>Damn, that¡¯s good!</i> Hao Lianchuan clucked his tongue. The director was going to run a business with the ruins! If attendance was as if before, then a two hundred person team would mean revenues of two hundred stones!

    The ruins were not a safe locale. What if the Gold Armor turned out like the Silver Armor and regained its memories at a critical moment? Would it be a... Nova?

    Perhaps not just a Nova!

    Of course, many had seen the Silver Armor awaken. The three great organizations knew about the possibility, but others didn¡¯t. They would suffer enormous losses if they weren¡¯t prepared.

    ¡°I see!¡± sighed Hao Lianchuan. There was so much random shit to get to.

    The most pressing matter was the meeting between the four provincial bodies¡ªthat was the key. They needed to sort their internal matters first before turning to face the outside world. Everything would gradually dissolve into a mess otherwise.

    There wouldn¡¯t be much trouble with the military or Inspectorate; Old Zhao at the provincial government was the obstinate goat. He was harder to deal with, and perhaps the difficulty would be even higher this time if he¡¯d already been in contact with those upstairs.

    Hao Lianchuan knocked on the table as he contemted. He suddenly smiled when a thought struck him. Picking up amunicator, he made a phone call.

    ¡°Tell Silver City to have Li Haoe as soon as possible.¡±

    <i>Li Hao!</i>

    He¡¯d thought of Li Hao.

    The young man¡¯s strength, status, and reputation were mediocre, but he had a strong teacher. His teacher was a Summoner among martial masters. The faster the kid came to White Moon, the faster he could help Hao Lianchuan with a task.

    If he¡¯d known of all this developing beforehand, he would¡¯ve brought the kid back instead of letting him go home.

    ......

    <i>Silver City.</i>

    Li Hao began feeling ufortable as he continued to absorb mysterious power. Was something going wrong with his cultivation? Surely not!

    He put it out of his mind as it was just a small aberration. It¡¯d been twenty-four hours since he entered seclusion. Nonstop digestion had filled him to the point of bursting. His organs were being swiftly fortified and had finally reached an equilibrium of roughly eight hundred cubes each. However, his sword aura wasn¡¯t much stronger.

    Auras were hard to enhance through simple energy absorption. Battle was key as well as the strength of one¡¯s enemies. Killing those weaker wouldn¡¯t result in noticeable improvement. Battling powerhouses would lead to a chance of development.

    The energy in the sword was much depleted, it felt feeble once more. Li Hao sighed and crushed another mysterious power stone. What a waste. This sword had already eaten three stones! He wouldn¡¯t be able to keep supporting it if this continued¡ªthere was just too much mysterious power that he needed to convert at the moment. Thus, there was no choice but to be this wasteful.

    The little sword sifted through a flood of energy and picked at the little bit it was willing to transmute to sword energy. Li Hao absorbed the rest, so as to not waste it.

    As the spleen strengthened, so did the other organs by virtue of their equilibrium. The earth sword was very stable in his spleen. The organ didn¡¯t rupture at its agitation anymore, a sign that the five organs were sufficient to support a re up by the earth sword.

    Prior to this, Li Hao¡¯s organs were damaged each time it erupted. If that continued, he would be like Hou Xiaochen and cough up blood every time he used his power.

    The young man sank into deep thought when his thoughts traveled here. <i>Eruption... cough... blood...</i> It was a sign of damage to the organs. Were the director¡¯s organs damaged?

    This was highly likely, if it wasn¡¯t an act. Internal damage was always the most tricky to treat. If Li Hao didn¡¯t enjoy the benefit of sword energy, he would be stymied with how to treat his organs when they were hurt.

    <i>White Moon City... may be the heart of the storm! I need to keep a low profile when I¡¯m there.</i> Li Hao once more felt that he wasn¡¯t strong enough for the task, despite having taken in one thousand cubes per organ. He was at most an initial Sr if he deployed his earth sword. He might be a little stronger if his aura emerged from his organ and could bring even more power to bear if he utilized the Incantation of the de of Blood, but that still wasn¡¯t enough!

    Summoner of Spirit!

    Summoning just one spirit was too weak. His most pressing priority was to consider summoning a second spirit after he¡¯d strengthened all five organs. He was going to treat the sword aura as a general outline, so the sword auras of the five elements could be the major topics explored underneath.

    <i>I already have the earth sword, so I¡¯m missing the metal, wood, water, and fire swords!</i>

    No matter what aura he grasped, it was enough to have a general attribute assigned to it. He could hone itter and incorporate the sword aura into it.

    He¡¯de across the earth aura through a fortuitous urrence and wasn¡¯t familiar with other auras. While he¡¯d melded two auras together, he treated them as one. It was also harder toprehend other auras after bing a Dominator because mind intent had already formed. His original aura would hinder the process of understanding more.

    <i>I do have some thoughts regarding the water aura... When the Nine Forged Force reaches its peak, I should be trying toprehend it through the waves. That¡¯s the water aura. Perhaps I¡¯ll sense another type of sword aura when I perfect the Ghost Shadow Sword...</i>

    Secret arts were often relevant to sensing aura. It was very hard to grasp an aura without fully mastering its secret art.

    <i>I¡¯ve practiced the Five Styles the most¡ªit¡¯s my foundation. The ape style is my most versed style and the fire heart ape is a kind of fire aura...</i>

    Of course, if he were to summon a fire heart ape, it would be a sword instead of an ape!

    Li Hao ran through various thoughts as he trained, finalizing his concepts as he mused over them. The path beyond Dominator was up to a martial master¡¯s own thinking. Southern Fists had mentioned that he¡¯d refreshed his blood three times and enhanced his bones and meridians. That was also a way to improve oneself.

    Perhaps he could ask the old martial master for tips.

    Every veteran martial master shared somemonalities as a Dominator, even if they didn¡¯t locate the path to the next step. Improve blood and qi, strengthen the body, enhance the organs. Everyone was enhancing their organs, they just didn¡¯t dare brashly meld auras, lock auras, and nurture their auras without experience as a guide.

    ......

    <i>The night of September 2nd. </i>

    It was the second day after they¡¯d returned to Silver City. Li Hao had broken six mysterious power stones to convert them to sword energy. He finally reached his goal at midnight! All of his organs had absorbed one thousand cubes each, making for a total of five thousand cubes!

    It was an astronomical number, but a sum that the young man felt was put to good use. He¡¯d consumed seven stones in addition to the one he¡¯d tried in the car. He had eighteen left¡ªmore like twelve, as some wererger than the others and measured beyond one stone.

    Li Hao had digested most of his gains from the ruins. He didn¡¯t know how much his strength had improved¡ªwho had a handle on that unless they fought in battle?

    ......

    <i>Morning of September 3.</i>

    Li Hao walked out of the lounge. He was much refreshed after a shower and a change of clothes. There was a new pendant around his neck¡ªthe chain that¡¯d once held Steris now held a bronze mirror. It wasn¡¯t too big and came from Qiao Feilong. The mirror had the effect of concealing the presence.

    Martial masters weren¡¯t typically exposed that easily. But once they entered Dominator of Thousands, they could easily sense the other¡¯s aura! It was noticeable to martial masters alone as ordinary people couldn¡¯t sense the aura. Meanwhile, no one detected Li Hao¡¯s auras because of this item.

    He hadn¡¯t given it much thought at first, but didn¡¯t dare let the mirror stray out of sight as he came across more and more Dominators. Otherwise, those such as the Southern Fists could easily notice some difference in him. Even veteran martial masters turned supernatural like Hong Yitang had vaguely sensed something different.

    Li Hao suspected that the bronze mirror hade from the stone door. It looked ordinary, but its function was anything but. It excelled at obscuring presences and might not be fully activated yet. It could be another origin weapon that was sealed.

    The possibility urred to him after seeing Zhang Ting¡¯s Shadow Snake Sword. The sword served a simr function to the bronze mirror, but the mirror could easily conceal presences without needing to recognize an owner.

    Therefore, in Li Hao¡¯s eyes, the bronze mirror might be better than the Shadow Snake Sword!

    The mirror swung on his chest and the Earthturner Sword was stuck at his waist. He¡¯d tied Steris inside his boots with special wrappings. The storage ring from Celestial was ced on his fingers andpletely devoid of energy.

 Chapter 295: Cultivation, Temporary Leave (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 295: Cultivation, Temporary Leave (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao¡¯s remaining mysterious power stones should be kept a secret, so he swallowed them once more. A martial master¡¯s stomach was essentially a storage ring when they reached Dominator of Thousands. It just couldn¡¯t hold much.

    Twelve stones the size of ss marbles weren¡¯t too big, he just had to throw them up each time he wanted to use them. That was disgusting, so Li Hao urgently wanted to get his hands on a storage treasure. As the number of his valuables grew, he was quickly running out of space to store them.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Newly d in a trench coat, Liu Long swiftly walked over after the young man was done freshening up. ¡°Go upstairs for a bit. Southern First refuses to budge from the front doors¡ªit¡¯s getting annoying! Also, you should make up your mind if you want to go to White Moon today or tomorrow. You¡¯ve never been, so I think it¡¯s better to have Wang Ming take you there. I won¡¯t be sending you off.

    ¡°He¡¯s familiar with the city and his family wields certain respect and power in White Moon. He can help you with a thing or two, you won¡¯t be floundering in the dark. Also, Liu Yan is there too. Have her stay there for now,¡± Liu Long spoke rapidly. ¡°Two heads are better than one. Liu Yan isn¡¯t very strong, but she¡¯s still ate Sunderer and useful for certain tasks. You¡¯ll need extra personnel or people you trust for various missions.

    ¡°White Moon is not like Silver City. There¡¯s danger and traps everywhere. She¡¯ll be useful when ites to errands and such.¡±

    ¡°Chief.¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. ¡°I¡¯m going there to report for work and might be back in a few days. Why do you make it sound like I¡¯m going up a mountain of des or down a sea of mes?¡±

    ¡°Do you think White Moon City is a peaceful ce?¡± Liu Long snorted. ¡°The ruins are opening next month again¡ªthose who¡¯ve arrived recently will not be leaving before then. Who knows how lively White Moon is right now? You¡¯re someone who makes people worry!¡±

    ¡°Chief, I never get into trouble and I have a silk banner of thanks!¡± Li Hao protested. ¡°Everyone knows my reputation in Silver City! I love to help people, I¡¯m diligent and hardworking. Go ask people in ssified Affairs¡ªthey¡¯ll all say I¡¯m a proper and honest person!¡±

    <i>What do you mean I make people worry? This is an injustice!</i>

    ¡°Since you know your reputation, keep living up to it!¡± Liu Long rolled his eyes when the young man mentioned the silk banner. ¡°I know you¡¯ve filled out your wings and have be stronger, but consider whether or not you can withstand Director Hou¡¯s blow. If not, continue to maintain a low profile!

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about Silver City, I¡¯m here unless a Sres. But even if onees, we still have some ways to fight against them.¡± The man lowered his voice at this point. ¡°Do I need to take any precautions for the mines?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Just let everything proceed as normal.¡±

    People wouldn¡¯t be able to open the stone door even if they found it.

    ¡°I¡¯m going home to pack a few changes of clothing and pay a visit to my teacher¡¯s house.¡± The young man smiled. ¡°I¡¯ll see if there¡¯s anything that needs to be packed there. If not, I¡¯ll set out tonight and be at White Moon tomorrow morning.

    ¡°Heh, if Southern Fist stays with me, that gives me an additional bodyguard. That¡¯s not bad, so I¡¯ll take him with me!¡±

    ¡°Be careful.¡± Liu Long nodded and kept his voice down. ¡°Southern Fist... may not be as simpleminded or foolish as he seems! Don¡¯t be too trusting of others when you arrive in White Moon City. Someone like Hou Xiaochen isn''t taking care of you out of the goodness of his heart. There¡¯s more of mutual profit and benefit in your rtionship. Your teacher, yourself, and your bloodline are all main reasons why he protects you and looks out for your development!

    ¡°But don¡¯t think that it¡¯s bad either...¡±

    ¡°I understand all that, chief!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°He¡¯s not my father, why should he take care of me? My teacher takes care of me because I am his student and final disciple. Our rtionship is as if father and son. Chief looks out for me because I am your team mate. We protect Silver City together and have fought side-by-side. We are as if blood brothers. I don¡¯t know anyone or anything at White Moon. Who¡¯s going to look out for me for no reason at all?

    Liu Long grinned and patted the young man on the shoulder. This was one good thing about the young man¡ªhe saw things very clearly. It was good that he understood. Otherwise, over reliance on Hou Xiaochen would lead to problems sooner orter.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll be off, chief. Oh, right, I won¡¯t be able to extract that energy for you while I¡¯m gone. Just take in whatever you can and don¡¯t be the death of yourself during this period. I¡¯ll take a look at your injuries when I¡¯m back!¡±

    The team could only strengthen themselves through absorbing mysterious power or mysterious power stones while he was gone. Regardless, that would all lead to a certain degree of injury. But it was fine, he could heal them with sword energy when he returned.

    ¡°Don¡¯t think that mysterious power stones are too precious to use,¡± the young man reminded. ¡°Raising our strength is the true task at hand. The treasures might be someone else¡¯s battle spoils if we just endlessly hang onto them!¡±

    ¡°Do I look like I don¡¯t get that?¡± Liu Long couldn¡¯t help butugh. ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯m leaving, chief. I won¡¯t being back to say goodbyes!¡± Li Hao waved a hand and breathed out. He would be back, so he didn¡¯t want to say farewell to the team. Let¡¯s just treat it as a simple field excursion.

    After another wave, he decisively strode out of the basement. Yun Yao and the others didn¡¯t emerge until the young man was gone.

    ¡°Li Hao¡¯s going too,¡± Chen Jian said with some dejection. ¡°Captain Liu¡¯s gone, and Director Wang¡¯s going with him. Chief, our team is getting smaller and smaller.¡±

    ¡°What are you whining about, they¡¯lle back!¡± Liu Long waspletely unruffled. ¡°Silver City is the heart of Silver Moon. You guys need to focus on cultivating. These days, Dominator... no, Summoner of Spirit is needed to properly walk the streets!¡±

    He didn¡¯t look at Li Hao as he believed that the young man would be back, as would Yuan Shuo! There were too many secrets buried in Silver City. Just the ruins in the mines alone was something that master and disciple wouldn¡¯t relinquish.

    ......

    <i>Outside the city.</i>

    Three people and three motorcycles traveled through thend. Li Hao and Wang Ming didn¡¯t drive a car this time. As for why it was three people... Other than bringing along Wang Ming who was very familiar with White Moon, Southern Fist had to be part of the group since he followed Li Hao like he was the young man¡¯s shadow. The two Night Watchers decided to imitate He Yong in riding motorcycles for their trip.

    As elderly as the man was, he was very fashionable. Motorcycles were apparently all the rage in the central region. There were very few in Silver City, but some of itsrger factions held some in storage. With Li Hao and Wang Ming¡¯s identity, it wasn¡¯t a problem to get their hands on two.

    The three made fast time as they zipped over the terrain. The wind was strong and they picked their way out via starlight, but that didn¡¯t affect their conversation.

    ¡°This vehicle is nice, Senior South. Do they all ride these in the central region?¡± Li Hao was very curious about the central region as the name was a broad category. There were roughly twenty provinces in the center of dynastic territory that all counted as the central region.

    ¡°It¡¯s more convenient than a car and consumes less energy!¡± He Yong shouted back. ¡°Also, my surname isn¡¯t South, so don¡¯t call me Senior South!¡±

    Southern Fist was just a moniker. Whether it was Li Hao or Liu Long, both suspected that he followed them not just to look for Yuan Shuo. There might be other motives at y; he might even be keeping an eye on the eight families on behalf of the royal family.

    But at the moment, He Yong chose to follow them openly. It meant that he didn¡¯t intend to harm or kill anyone for the time being. Granted, Li Hao wouldn¡¯t be afraid if that was on the man¡¯s mind.

    In the meantime, it was sweet to have a free bodyguard andckey by his side. How much would one normally have to pay in order to hire a Sr?

    ¡°This is a fine mode of transportation, it¡¯s different from previous generation cars,¡± He Yong continued. ¡°It only needs to consume internal force or mysterious power to run. Therefore, any martial master or supernatural whoys hands on one can use it!

    ¡°The central region is much more prosperous than you can imagine!¡± he suddenly waxed eloquent. ¡°It¡¯spletely different from the border regions. If we say that the border regions are in an isted state of partial innovation, then the central region is apletely modernized country!

    ¡°The structure of society there is different from what can be found here! There¡¯s even supernatural academies where countless supernaturals receive systematic teaching and development!

    ¡°There are also martial master academies. Although martial dao has declined, some of the old guard still hang on!

    ¡°There are also powerful financial institutions who rise quickly after excavating ancient ruins. The three great organizations that you know of develop much faster than you think in the central region! Although they¡¯ve yet to form their own nation or truly take over a province, some of the provinces in the central region have started to ept them and even establish supernatural academies just for them!¡±

    These words were as if anothernguage. An incredulous Wang Ming couldn¡¯t believe his ears.

    ¡°How is that possible?!¡± he roared as he drove. ¡°The three great organizations are evil! The central region is the heart of the nine ministries and dynasty, to say nothing else. How would they let the three great organizations recruit new members?¡±

    That was impossible and shouldn¡¯t take ce!

    ¡°Strength is king!¡± He Yong replied evenly. ¡°You should know that the three great organizations are too strong to be fathomed. Take Red Moon for example, other than Violet Moon, the rest of the Seven Moons are all Novas. There¡¯s another group of Novas in their elder council! Ying Hongyue might even be beyond this level!

    ¡°The supernatural has developed swiftly over the past twenty years and will absolutely enter the next stage in the subsequent three to five years. Starlight, Darkmoon, Sunre, Sr, Nova... that¡¯s only five stages thus far. However, more than five supernatural locks have been discovered in the body. As more ancient ruins are excavated and more treasure brought out into the light, the central region will be vastly different from before!

    ¡°Silver Moon dithers in the phase it was in twenty years ago. Truth be told, it¡¯s a bit behind the times and turning unreasonably obstinate...¡± He Yong sighed with resignation and sorrow. ¡°But it¡¯s not just Silver Moon¡ªthis is the case in the entire dynasty other than the central region. There seems to be a ss division developing between the bordernds and the central region.

    ¡°With increasing powerhouses in the central region, so does their contempt for the border grow. It¡¯s called the border, but more like the savage, undeveloped frontier in their eyes!¡±

    <i>A... savage frontier?</i>

    Both Li Hao and Wang Ming blinked at the term. Why... savage? They understood the words, but couldn¡¯tprehend the meaning. Why was Silver Moon a savage region?

 Chapter 296: First Visit To White Moon City (I)

    <h4>Chapter 296: First Visit To White Moon City (I)</h4>

    Some books introduced savage territory as ces where the natives ate raw meat and drank blood! So that was the primitive state that those of the central region assigned to Silver Moon!

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s martial world was indeed mighty twenty years ago,¡± He Yong announced loudly. ¡°But with the speed of supernatural development, Silver Moon is now so far behind the times that it cannot be seen. Other than Hou Xiaochen, there¡¯s only a few Srs barely propping up the province.

    ¡°Novas might be the premier existence in the central region today, but they might be reced tomorrow! Anyone or any organization might discover the mysteries of the next level! There are even supernatural cities in the central region!¡±

    ¡°What are supernatural cities?¡± Wang Ming asked nkly. He didn¡¯t understand.

    Or rather, he did, but he refused to believe it.

    ¡°Cities that are made wholly of supernaturals!¡± He Yong yelled. ¡°Supernaturals are very mysterious in your eyes, are they not? But do you know how many provinces and people make up the central region? More than two billion! Silver Moon is a barrennd for supernaturals, but one appears out of every one thousand in the central region...¡±

    Wang Ming made some quick calctions. One out of every thousand meant ten thousand out of every ten million, meaning one hundred thousand out of every hundred million...

    So there were more than two million supernaturals in the central region?!

    <i>Two million!</i>

    His jaw dropped and the look in his eyes was dazed. He knew a bit about the central region, but he¡¯d never been himself. He¡¯d learned a little about it through those who¡¯d visited. Two <i>million</i> supernaturals?!

    That... wasn¡¯t possible! <i>How</i> was it possible?

    There weren¡¯t many Night Watchers in Silver Moon¡¯s entire Night Watcher system, including the various branches in cities. There were at most one thousand, and many of them were just Starlight.

    The three great organizations, Sword Sect, Light Ind, and some other smaller organizations had amounted to one or two thousand at most. That made for a maximum total of five thousand supernaturals in Silver Moon!

    This was a number that included the military, Inspectorate, and provincial government. There was a poption in the hundreds of millions in Silver Moon. The central region saw one out of a thousand being supernatural, Silver Moon saw one out of twenty thousand. It was a twenty times difference!

    ¡°Why is this?¡± Li Hao was also surprised. ¡°Other than the Heaven Favored, supernaturals need to induct energy into their body. Not everyone can make the crossover. Perhaps Silver Moon doesg behind the times, but a difference of twenty times is too much! Why are there so many more supernaturals in the central region?¡±

    Two million didn¡¯t seem like much whenpared to the size of the poption, but two million supernaturals was more than thebined poption of two Silver Cities.

    Li Hao had dismissed the concept of a supernatural city. But now that he thought about it more, was it hard to construct a city for supernaturals to gather?

    Supernaturals were domineering and ran the gamut from metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. If they were truly of a mind to, they could instantly forge a city in the wilderness. There were so many talents they could draw upon.

    ¡°First,¡± He Yongughed to see the other two stunned speechless. ¡°Silver Moon avoids the topic of supernaturals. Barely any mundanes know about the domain. In the central region, everyone knows about it due to the continued war. The supernatural world is not shrouded in mystery and everyone wishes to be part of it.

    ¡°Second, the key limitation to energy induction is reserve of mysterious power. The various organizations, nine ministries, and heart of the royal family are all in the central region. There is no shortage of mysterious power there and supernatural deaths are a constant urrence due to endless battles. Mysterious power emanates from their bodies upon death and many mundanes find themselves identally making the crossover.

    ¡°Third, the central region has excavated numerous ancient ruins and even discovered a few unpublicized caches of mysterious power stones. Some strategic locales in the ancient civilization were filled with stores of stones!

    ¡°Fourth, news travels extremely fast there. Supernatural technology is swiftly disseminated once it is invented, including new variations of the induction method. Silver Moon is still stuck on the method that you invented yourselves, the one that has yet to depart from the system of martial masters!¡±

    Silver Moon¡¯s Energy Induction Method was a revision of a breathing method. The central region used a wholly different method that was more suited for inducting energy!

    ¡°Fifth, that area is the heart of the entire Ster World. Mysterious power is more densely concentrated in the central region. Silver Moon is a border territory, after all.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao and Wang Ming sank into prolonged silence with the senior¡¯s exnation. Was the central region... truly that strong?

    ¡°If they¡¯re so strong, howe their representatives aren¡¯t worth much?¡± Wang Ming quickly refuted. ¡°Look at that Nova, he was stabbed to death in one move by our director! You martial masters are still less than Teacher Yuan!¡±

    <i>Stop running your mouth! You may have two million supernaturals, countless geniuses, endless powerhouses, but you still die in one move!</i>

    ¡°Pipsqueak, you should know that Yuan Shuo is the essence of all martial masters from the previous generation. That¡¯s why he¡¯s so strong. There are so many Dominators in the central region and some have shut themselves away in closed door cultivation to search for the next step forward. All I can say is that Yuan Shuo enjoys first mover advantage, but he¡¯s not necessarily invincible among his peers!

    ¡°As for supernaturals, someone like Hou Xiaochen is one in hundreds of millions. He might¡¯ve been a Dominator in his early days and been a martial dao genius. He benefits from many years of umtion as the supernatural has developed for only twenty years. However, this doesn¡¯t mean that he¡¯ll always be this strong!

    ¡°There will be geniuses or perverse talents in any ce, but we can¡¯t draw conclusions from them that an entire region is strong. We can only say that those ones are beyond the ordinary, do you understand?

    ¡°The geniuses and powerhouses of the central region think that the border territory is beneath them. They¡¯re unwilling toe here. Keep in mind that some Heaven Favored start as Sunre and they quickly set foot into Sr. They¡¯re Novas before long. A portion of Heaven Favored have walked far down the path of being a Nova and are within reach of breaking their sixth supernatural lock. They¡¯ll soon be the next level of powerhouse beyond Nova!¡±

    Li Hao smiled. He Yong might be speaking the truth, but what was he saying all this and so much for?

    ¡°Senior, since the central region is strong, why care about Silver Moon? The three great organizations have stationed many people here and so are you also present. There are a lot of others assigned to the province, and now they¡¯re afraid of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s next steps. If the central region is so confident of swiftly resolving all issues, would it still care about Hou Xiaochen¡ªa powerhouse of an uncivilized waste?¡±

    <i>Why be afraid of this if you¡¯re as strong as you say?</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s not fear...¡± He Yong grinned. ¡°Forget it, there¡¯s no need to belittle Silver Moon. It¡¯s our home, after all. Hou Xiaochen and the others are indeed remarkably extraordinary. I say all this just so you youngsters will understand that it is not a good thing to look at the sky from the bottom of a well!

    ¡°To put things bluntly, I might still only be a half step Dominator if I hadn¡¯t left Silver Moon. My horizons have broadened after I left, so while I haven''t set foot into Summoner of Spirit, I still have some of my own unique experiences on the path of Dominator!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything; perhaps the man was right. Seeing more of the world and advancing one¡¯s outlook could indeed make one more open-minded. Take himself, for example, he¡¯d be the strongest person around a long time ago if hepared himself to the Demon Hunters. But after witnessing that stroke, seeing the back of that figure, and watching that bloodthirsty fiend...

    The young man suddenly felt that even Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t worth speaking of despite being so strong that he shook the world. What of it?

    Nothing of it.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t moved, he was just astounded at how deeply Hou Xiaochen hid himself. The man was indeed pretty strong, but to say that he was invincible? That was an enormous joke.

    Whether it was his ancestor¡¯s stroke or the ancients he saw, any of them would easily crush Hou Xiaochen beneath their fingers. If such a person appeared right now to p the director to death with one palm, Wang Ming and the others might lose their minds with shock. But all Li Hao would think was that <i>okay, so powerhouses like these exist in this day and age as well.</i>

    Therefore, he thought it to be a good idea to go out and see the world like He Yong said. However, was the world they saw so much more vast than Silver Moon?

    Not necessarily!

    Silver Moon possessed some very special ruins that Li Hao thought even the central region mightck. The stone door, for example, and the city of Battle Heaven. Were the ruins in the central region as impressive?

    ......

    Three motorcycles sped over thend. Though he operated a car clumsily, Li Hao was as if a fish in water when it came to this mode of transportation. Wang Ming couldn¡¯t extract himself from the world that He Yong had painted and was beginning to stew in self reproach.

    Li Hao had forgotten their conversation long ago. So what about the central region?

    He Yong kept an eye on them after his speech and grinned when he saw Li Hao drive on without a change in expression, as if the young man hadn¡¯t been affected at all by his words. ¡°Li Hao, do you want to take a look around the central region? You don¡¯t have to go to White Moon City, you cane with me directly to Skystar City if you want.

    ¡°You should know that Skystar is the center of the world! There will be plenty of inventions that you¡¯ve never seen before. Something you find utterly precious today might be a trinket there...

    ¡°There are many martial masters in Skystar and even more supernaturals. It¡¯s a gathering point of countless powerhouses. There¡¯s the famous Royal Institute of the Supernatural, as well as academies by the nine ministries. Endless Heaven Favored and representatives from the variousrge factions spar and exchange moves with each other, advancing the development of the supernatural domain...¡±

    ¡°Nah, I¡¯m from a small ce and have never seen a society like this,¡± Li Hao replied calmly. ¡°I might go in the future, but right now, I¡¯m just a country bumpkin who hasn¡¯t seen the world even in Silver Moon. I¡¯ve never been to White Moon City. Visiting the provincial capital is enough to broaden my worldviews.¡±

    He was a country bumpkin, a bumpkin of bumpkins! He¡¯d only been to two other cities in his life, both of which were simr to Silver City. He¡¯d never even been to White Moon City, a metropolis of thirty million people.

    Was it very prosperous there?

    He didn¡¯t know.

    What was a ce of thirty million like?

    He didn¡¯t know either.

 Chapter 297: First Visit To White Moon City (II)

    <h4>Chapter 297: First Visit To White Moon City (II) </h4>

    It was already too prosperous for the imagination when inhabitants of White Moon City spoke of their home. Skystar City was too distant for Li Hao to fathom. They would have to cross multiple provinces to get to the city. It already took Novas three days of travel to arrive in Silver Moon.

    Based on what He Yong said, they needed to take a ne, a fast car, transfer a few times in between, and then ultimately fly their way to the destination. He didn¡¯t mention flying the entire way as that would be the death of the Nova. Ten thousand kilometers was an exceedingly far distance.

    He Yong shut his mouth upon seeing that he didn¡¯t draw any interest from the young man. He was just shooting the breeze, it would be jaw dropping if Li Hao really did go. Meanwhile, thetter wasn¡¯t interested in asking anything more.

    ¡°Senior South.¡± Wang Ming recovered from his surprise and couldn¡¯t help his curiosity. His ego was ready for round two. ¡°I hear that you battle constantly in the central region and that it¡¯s incredibly chaotic. People are frequently disced from their homes and wander aimlessly. Why does it sound like such a thriving territory in your words?¡±

    ¡°The central region is too big!¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°The chaos you mentioned is just one portion and the battles are decreasing in frequency. They don¡¯t really affect themon people anymore. Even if arge battle erupts, it¡¯s not worth mentioning in the bigger picture of things!

    ¡°Silver Moon has only thirty-some cities, but the central region has almost one thousand. The battle of a city causes a great sensation in Silver Moon, but who cares about one city falling into disorder out of a thousand in the central region?¡±

    Wang Ming nodded and almost crashed his bike in his distraction. ¡°There... aren¡¯t that many twenty year old Sunres in the central region, right?¡±

    <i>I¡¯m only twenty years old!</i>

    ¡°Um... there¡¯s quite a few!¡± He Yong roared withughter. ¡°Of course, they¡¯re mostly Heaven Favored. Some seventeen or eighteen year olds start as Sunre in the supernatural academies¡ªbut there¡¯s not too many of them. You¡¯d barely count as a minor genius in the central region.¡±

    <i>A minor genius?</i> Wang Ming struggled toe to grips with thatbel.

    ¡°Senior may be speaking the truth.¡± Li Hao was asposed as ever. He decided to speak up when he saw how much Wang Ming reeled from all of the new information. ¡°But the supernatural academies that you speak of, those Heaven Favored, all live under the protection of powerhouses, don¡¯t they? There¡¯s not that many who forge their strength in fighting.¡±

    He Yong didn¡¯t reply.

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s martial world boasted of a big reputation back in the day. Everyone said to go to Silver Moon if you wished to fight! Perhaps this is the savage frontier¡¯s only advantage in their eyes¡ªwe¡¯ve all seen bloodshed!¡±

    Shouldn¡¯t that be the case for those who ate raw flesh and drank blood? Whether it was Silver Moon¡¯s martial masters or supernaturals, they didn¡¯t feel much when they killed. Violence was something that existed in the depths of their bones. Neither Li Hao nor Wang Ming had experienced significant ripples in their emotions the first time they killed someone.

    It wasn¡¯t just them, but amon trait across all Silver Moon denizens. As numerous as the battles in the central region were, those geniuses slowly developed under the auspices of stronger protectors, didn¡¯t they?

    ¡°That¡¯s true enough¡ªthere are still advantages to Silver Moon,¡± He Yong chuckled.

    ¡°As a martial master from Silver Moon, senior mentions that there are many Dominators in the central region,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°That there are many even in the royal family, yet senior is able to find his footing amid the royal family like a duck taking to water. I think that has much to do with your experience from Silver Moon, correct?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± He Yong replied approvingly. ¡°You¡¯re right on this point¡ªthere are plenty of Dominators in the central region, but it would be speaking too highly of them to put them on the same footing as us. Of course, the same can¡¯t be said aboutter generation Dominators from the martial world. Your chief, Liu Long, may not be the top of the top in the central region. But your master, I, and any of the famous martial masters in Silver Moon during our times would be everyone¡¯s martial granddaddy in the central region!¡±

    That was enough. Perhaps Li Hao¡¯s new bodyguard was a little too full of it, but it was true enough that he was respected in the royal family. How else would they let him run around withplete freedom and maybe even give him some missions?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t want to say anything else¡ªthere was no need to. The central region was too far away.

    ......

    It was one thousand kilometers from Silver City to Rift Canyon. It was another one thousand kilometers past the canyon to White Moon City, making for a total trip distance of more than two thousand kilometers.

    The newly fashionable motorcycles made quick work of the distance. They had no problem driving one hundred kilometers an hour, but the group only just made it past Rift Canyon when the sun dawned on the 4th. It would be evening before they reached White Moon.

    <i>On the other side of Rift Canyon.</i>

    The trio was strong enough that they could carry the bikes down the canyon, ride them through it, and carry them back up. Ordinary people weren¡¯t able to aplish the feat.

    They were all tired at this point. Their bodies weren¡¯t tired after a night of traveling, but they were tired on a mental level.

    Roads could be glimpsed in the distance after they passed Rift Canyon. They appeared very neat and well-kept; buildings were outlined in the even further distance. Those belonged to other cities, White Moon was still far away.

    In contrast to the bleak destion around Silver City, the environment was no longer as stark around these cities. Li Hao could even see people working the fields, whereas any ce too far away from a city on the other side was devoid of people!

    The three sat down on the ground to rest, drink water, and eat some cookies. Seeing that Li Hao was staring into the horizon, Wang Ming sidled over.

    ¡°The closest city on this side is Rift City¡ªit¡¯s only a few dozen kilometers away from us. We¡¯ll pass by re City next, then ride another two hundred kilometers to finish at White Moon!¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head as he¡¯d read the map before they started. ¡°There are thirty million inhabitants in White Moon, but I made some calctions after looking at the map and see that the city isn¡¯t that big. It¡¯s not thirty Silver Cities, at the very least. Don¡¯t you find it crowded when you live there?¡±

    Wang Mingughed, as did He Yong.

    ¡°How would we ever?¡± Wang Ming grinned with mirth. ¡°You think too little of White Moon, Li Hao. Let¡¯s put it this way¡ªthe buildings you see in Silver City are mostly three stories tall, with tall being defined as six stories, and tallest at ten stories at most. But in White Moon, buildings that are thirty stories tall are everyone!¡±

    ¡°I get it,¡± Li Hao chuckled as well. ¡°You build upwards to alleviate the pressure of limited space. Doesn¡¯t that still feel ufortable in its own way? Living among high buildings... that would make me ustrophobic.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think so!¡± Wang Ming shrugged.

    ¡°White Moon is decent,¡± He Yong interrupted. ¡°Skystar City has buildings over one hundred stories tall and there are even supernatural buildings now. An earth Nova can create a skyscraper more than one hundred or even one thousand meters tall in a day...¡±

    ¡°Li Hao, don¡¯t lose face for yourself when you arrive in White Moon,¡± Wang Ming continued. ¡°It¡¯s different from Silver City. There are a lot more cars and people in the capital. Another major difference is that while the Inspectorate calls the shots in Silver City, the provincial government, Inspectorate, Night Watchers, and military are essentially on the same footing in White Moon. The Night Watchers aren¡¯t involved in the day-to-day administration, so it¡¯s the provincial government that makes the decisions.

    ¡°What¡¯s nice about a small ce like Silver City is that there¡¯s not really anyone we have to steer clear of. We should keep a low profile in White Moon so we don¡¯t identally bump into amander¡¯s son or get into a fight with the director general¡¯s grandson. Apart from that, there¡¯s a lot ofrge business groups in White Moon that are developing in the direction of a consortium. They¡¯ve recruited a lot of supernaturals too...¡±

    Wang Ming was highly concerned that Li Hao would easily run afoul of trouble if he didn¡¯t know about the environment of his new post, so he painstakingly introduced all of the moving parts to his colleague.

    ¡°Of course, no one will dare provoke you since the Night Watcher director himself has personally recruited you. At the same time, we can¡¯t rely on the director for everything, right?¡±

    Li Hao nodded in agreement.

    ¡°But don¡¯t worry, you have me!¡± Wang Ming chuckled. ¡°My family has a bit of power and authority to its name.¡±

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t inquired more closely before¡ªhe grew curious now. ¡°Is your family also in the Tiger Wings?¡±

    ¡°Nope,¡± Wang Ming exined. ¡°The local army is split into three divisions, the Tiger Wings is just one of them. There¡¯s also the Silver Moon Division, which is the central division of the three. The other is the White Dragons, where my family is stationed.¡±

    <i>The White Dragons.</i>

    ¡°Is your dad amander like Hu Dingfang?¡±

    ¡°Ahem...¡± Wang Ming coughed. ¡°Of course not,mander? Would I be part of the Night Watchers if my identity was that amazing? My dad... my dad isn¡¯t much. It¡¯s my grandpa¡ªhe¡¯s the vicemander of the White Dragons.¡±

    His grandpa was the highest ranked out of his family. It wasn¡¯t a bad post¡ªit was actually quite impressive! Li Hao just didn¡¯t find it as monumental because he¡¯d met Commander Hu Dingfang of the Tiger Wings.

    No wonder themander hadn¡¯t recognized Wang Ming when the young supernatural greeted him, it made sense. His counterpart was themander of the White Dragons, and he¡¯d know the vicemander of course. But his grandson? That truly wasn¡¯t worthy of attention.

    ¡°Hu Dingfang doesn¡¯t seem that old, how is he themander of the Tiger Wings?¡± Li Hao wondered, was it simply due to superior strength? Did the military only judgepetency based on strength?

    ¡°Commander Hu is indeed young. He¡¯s around forty.¡± Wang Ming thought for a bit. ¡°That does make him the youngest among the divisionmanders. He assumed control of the Tiger Wings eight years ago, which made him amander in his thirties.

    ¡°I¡¯m not certain of the details, just that something happened with the Tiger Wings about ten years ago. I don¡¯t know if there was a mutiny or ambush by supernaturals... but a lot of them died during that time. Commander Hu almost died as well.

    ¡°Unrest simmered in the Tiger Wings after that and continued for several years until themander stepped forth and decisively quelled the disturbances with overwhelming strength. The army division was reconstructed and he oversaw it after that. Quite a few lost their heads in the process.

    ¡°Due to the deaths of their veteran leaders, Hu Dingfang enjoys a high prestige in the Tiger Wings despite his age!¡±

    Li Hao pondered over the fact that Hao Lianchuan had mentioned Hu Dingfang knew the Five Styles and its breathing method... Had he improved so quickly tote Sr because of the breathing method? Who¡¯d taught it to him?

    It couldn¡¯t be his teacher, his teacher would mention it otherwise. His senior sister?

 Chapter 298: First Visit To White Moon City (III)

    <h4>Chapter 298: First Visit To White Moon City (III)</h4>

    Li Hao furrowed his brows. He knew that he had a senior sister in White Moon City. She was in her thirties, but he wasn¡¯t sure what her name was. Something... Hua? His teacher had mentioned it a few times, but always quickly changed the topic afterward. It was like he¡¯d subconsciously mentioned it, then refused to speak anymore on it.

    Hao Lianchuan knew why Hu Dingfang knew the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, didn¡¯t he? Since themander was still alive after gaining that knowledge... Was it out ofck of strength or another reason that Li Hao¡¯s teacher didn¡¯t kill him? Or perhaps he¡¯d tacitly agreed to themander retaining his knowledge, or maybe he felt there was no need to raise the topic.

    Whatever it was, Li Hao nodded without asking further.

    ¡°Hu Dingfang is a good sapling from the military,¡± He Yong piped up. ¡°But when ites down to who is the most prestigious from the military in Silver Moon, that would be Commander Yu of the Silver Moon Division!¡±

    The veteran martial master knew that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t recognize the name, so he exined with a smile, ¡°Commander Yu is an old general and has overseen the Silver Moon Division for thirty years. He was themander-in-chief of the entire Silver Moon military when I left!

    ¡°He¡¯s the one you need to keep an eye out for, if just for the fact that he was quite well known through Silver Moon¡¯s martial world back in the day.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s part of the martial world?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°No, but he¡¯s a martial master!¡± He Yong shook his head. ¡°Your master dared to fight everyone and anyone when he rampaged through thend in his prime. After your master sparred with Commander Yu though, hepleted a few missions for the military. We don¡¯t know the results since neither of them spoke of it, but everyone guessed that he walked away owing a favor or that a brotherhood blossomed in the arena.

    ¡°There are reasons why someone might befriend your master after a fight. Or rather, there¡¯s a reason why each person survives. Of course, he might not have dared to kill themander as Commander Yu wasn¡¯t an ordinary individual.

    ¡°We¡¯re not too sure when ites to that one¡¯s strength. He doesn¡¯t need to suppress the martial world through strength¡ªthe martial world and military steered clear of each other back in the day. But you can indeed pay more attention to him. We¡¯re not certain if he¡¯s a supernatural or martial master.¡±

    Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°That one really keeps a low profile,¡± Wang Ming added. ¡°But he doesmand a lot of respect. My grandpa usually mentions Commander Yu in a reverent tone. Out of the three divisions, only the Silver Moon Division has participated in war. The others aren¡¯t as tested in the battlefield.¡±

    ¡°War?¡± Li Hao suddenly felt ill-informed again. ¡°Why was there ever war?¡±

    ¡°Ah, you don¡¯t know,¡± Wang Ming exined. ¡°There was war roughly twenty years ago when a few provinces rebelled and wished to secede from dynastic rule. Since we were the closest, the Silver Moon Division received orders to march south¡ªCommander Yu led his men in battle against the rebels. The dynasty¡¯s army was yet to advance when Commander Yu defeated the allied army of three provinces. I don¡¯t know what the particrs were, but there were only one hundred some thousand in the Silver Moon Division then,pared to five hundred thousand in the rebel army. It was incredible, he quelled the uprising with fewer numbers!¡±

    ¡°It also had something to do with the three great organizations,¡± He Yong added. ¡°There were shadows of the three great organizations in that insurrection. They might¡¯ve started the rebellion because they¡¯d discovered clues of the supernatural domain, we¡¯re still not sure why. It was better to keep a low profile then. But after that, people say that the three great organizations might¡¯ve already formed then, discovered something important, fought over it, and that ultimately led to the three provinces rising up!

    ¡°The central region has some information on how Commander Yu defeated the mutiny despite being outnumbered, but it¡¯s all ssified. Based on what I know, he might¡¯ve killed some of the organizations¡¯ powerhouses. He¡¯s the only one who knows the details.¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    The two filled in the gaps in Li Hao¡¯s knowledge. Wang Ming¡¯s good intentions were clear, but who knew what ran through He Yong¡¯s mind? Some of his information came from the royal family, but he freely revealed them to Li Hao without any concern.

    The young man slowly came to know White Moon better¡ªit was a hundred times moreplicated than Silver City! A lot of people who he couldn¡¯t afford to offend were here and the heart of the province was here.

    Other than current heavyweights, there were also others who¡¯d retired from the central region. In addition, some had family members that upied important positions in other provinces. There were numerous simr instances, making them all personages that Li Hao could not afford to offend.

    Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t his father, and even if the man was, there were still existences that the sons and daughters of the powerful could not afford to upset. Hou Xiaochen was yet to rebel. So long as he didn¡¯t do so, his status in Silver Moon wasn¡¯t the highest.

    Li Hao quicklymitted everything to memory.

    Wang Ming thought of something at the end and mentioned before they got into the car, ¡°Oh, right! There¡¯s also the Night Watchers themselves! Remember that Director Hou is the biggest inside the Night Watchers, but number two isn¡¯t Director Hao, it¡¯s the secretary, Manager Yu!¡±

    ¡°Manager Yu... the woman by Director Hou¡¯s side?¡±

    ¡°Yep!¡±

    Li Hao already knew that the woman was very, very strong! A Nova! He hadn¡¯t been certain before, but knew after Red Hair died. ¡°Is she Director Hou¡¯s wife?¡±

    ¡°Nope.¡±

    ¡°But they look very close.¡± Li Hao found that odd.

    ¡°Who knows? Just don¡¯t say anything about it,¡± Wang Ming chuckled. ¡°Manager Yu¡¯s been taking care of Director Hou all these years, so she¡¯s pretty much fulfilling the role even if she¡¯s not... Director Hou doesn¡¯t personally get involved in most Night Watcher affairs, it¡¯s usually the secretary giving the orders.¡±

    ¡°I would¡¯ve quit a long time ago if I was Hao Lianchuan,¡± He Yong sneered. ¡°A woman lording it over me, hah!¡±

    Wang Mingpletely ignored the man. ¡°Third highest is Director Hao. He¡¯s a nice guy and easy to talk to, everyone usually goes to him if they have an issue. They only go to Manager Yu if it¡¯s something unresolvable.

    ¡°Manager Yu can be a very harsh person, but if she says she can take care of something, that usually means she can! Director Hao... agrees easily, but can only resolve half what he promises.¡±

    Li Hao burst outughing. Even he was starting to feel sorry for Hao Lianchuan. This was what his subordinates thought of him, which meant that his execution skills... truly were mediocre.

    The motorcycles continued forward, not stopping when they passed by some people and towns. They raised a lot of attention, but no ulterior motives crossed the mind. He Yong looked wild and ferocious, who would dare run afoul of the hulk with the big beard?

    ......

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    A massive headache throbbing at his temples, Hao Lianchuan wearily walked out of the provincial government headquarters. Someone walked toward him as soon as he emerged, a young man in his twenties wearing an Inspectorate uniform. Its colors were a bit brighter than Hao Lianchuan¡¯s and the hems were gilded with gold. His hair was long and tinged with green.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s headache intensified when he saw the person approaching him. Someone from Night Watcher central headquarters!

    The central region headquarters had sent five people this time. Other than their leader keeping to himself, the others could be found all throughout the city over the past two days. The one in front of him was a thorny character.

    Yu Xiao, twenty-six, male, initial Sr!

    There were almost no Srs of twenty-six years old in Silver Moon, but plenty in the central region. There were even Srs that were twenty years old, not to mention those six years older than that. In this era, six years made one of a different generation!

    Headquarters would certainly send strong personnel on a mission to manage the affairs of the border regions, but this guy was the weakest out of their contingent! It was clear to see that the central region dquarters was taking this mission very seriously. One Nova, four Srs¡ªand two of the other Srs were peak Srs.

    ¡°Director Hao!¡± Yu Xiao approached with a hypocritical smile. No one found it false when Li Hao smiled, but this one¡¯s rang especially false to Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°Special Agent Yu!¡± Hao Lianchuan smiled back at him. ¡°Do you have business with the provincial government?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Yu Xiao continued smiling falsely. ¡°I¡¯m here for Director Hao. It¡¯s been three days since Director Hou entered closed door cultivation, is he still not done? Why don¡¯t we go take a look? Headquarters sent us with healing medicines this time that are quite effective...¡±

    ¡°Ah... I¡¯ll ask Manager Yu when I get back.¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t want to pay attention to him, but couldn¡¯t fob him off randomly either.

    Yu Xiao nodded, not that concerned. ¡°In addition, headquarters is very concerned with Yuan Shuo¡¯s matter! We hear that his disciple is about to arrive in White Moon City, possibly in the next day or two. Apparently he¡¯s of the bloodline of the legendary eight families...¡±

    ¡°Mmm, that is the case.¡± Hao Lianchuan inclined his head.

    ¡°Headquarters wishes to know if we can obtain the method to Summoner of Spirit... Of course, this can be discussed. We just want to meet this Li... Li Hao and ask him a few questions. He¡¯s a Night Watcher, so it should be fine, right?¡±

    ¡°That... should be fine!¡± Hao Lianchuan frowned. ¡°But the special agent should also know that the martial world has certain rules. This has to do with top secrets and cannot be shared...¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s a Night Watcher, not of the martial world!¡± Yu Xiao chuckled lightly. ¡°And what martial world? That was gone a long time ago! Director Hao, let¡¯s leave those stories in its day and age. If it really was around, would a bumpkin of the martial world be able to join the Night Watchers?¡±

    He was quite speechless at the fatty in front of him. The martial world? What year was it already? It¡¯d been twenty years since the supernatural rose and the martial world was long gone. The Dominators of the central world were just gasping for breath. Even if Yuan Shuo made the crossover, he would just map to Sr.

    Were Srs strong?

    Were they rare?

    Novas were even dying in the central region, to say nothing of Srs. He, Yu Xiao, was a Sr at twenty-six years old! He would be a mid Sr soon. Although Yuan Shuo had killed Sun Yifei, Yu Xiao didn¡¯t think of himself as less than Sun Yifei. That old man had long fallen behind the times!

 Chapter 299: First Visit To White Moon City (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 299: First Visit To White Moon City (IV)</h4>

    Yu Xiao wasn¡¯t much interested in the method for Summoner of Spirit, he cared a lot more about the so-called bloodline of the eight families. Even someone like Ying Hongyue cared about it. They were much more interested in Li Hao, whereas the martial masters might be curious about Yuan Shuo. Or rather, some of the higher level Red Moon personages cared, out of consideration for the entire organization.

    He didn¡¯t need to, neither did any of hisrades on this trip.

    They wanted to know whether the bloodline of the eight families could offer them anything. Or perhaps the eight families could bring them some opportunities and deeds of merit. Maybe they could bring Li Hao back to headquarters as bait and tempt Red Moon members to set foot into traps.

    ¡°I see!¡± Hao Lianchuan raised an eyebrow; he didn¡¯t t out refuse the request. ¡°I¡¯ll bring Li Hao to meet the special agents when he arrives.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good, don¡¯t worry, we¡¯re all on the same side.¡± Yu Xiao smiled. ¡°We would never harm him! It¡¯s to his good fortune that we meet him. There¡¯s more treasures in the central region, and not even mysterious power stones are that precious if we see eye to eye...¡±

    ¡°Does Special Agent Yu have other business?¡± Hao Lianchuan had absolutely no desire to respond to those words.

    Yu Xiao¡¯s brow creased into a frown that quickly smoothed itself out. It was irritating that this fatty couldn¡¯t wait to get rid of him, but he kept himself in check. ¡°There is another small thing¡ªheadquarters sent us with a mission to audit the Silver Moon Night Watcher system. Everything from finances, personnel, and equipment needs to be assessed! I trust there is no issue with that, Director Hao?¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°As things should be. After all, there¡¯s always been a problem with ghost employees, but we¡¯re not in that business. Audit whatever you wish and just let us know how we can help.¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll be frank. I hear that... there¡¯s some sort of Silver Moon Guards... There¡¯s no such subunit, we have no records of it...¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Hao Lianchuan asked nkly. ¡°You should ask the military, I¡¯m not familiar with it. It sounds like a military unit just from the designation. Why don¡¯t you ask Commander Yu?¡±

    Yu Xiao frowned and stayed silent for a long moment. ¡°We¡¯ll make our investigations¡ªthat will be all. Let us know when Li Hao makes it to White Moon City!¡±

    ¡°Yes, of course!¡± Hao Lianchuan watched him walk off, the smile disappearing from his face when the young man vanished. The deputy director sighed with a bit of disdain and resignation. <i>How pathetic! I, Hao Lianchuan, am also a Sr. That kid¡¯s wet behind the ears, but also a Sr. And the key thing is, there¡¯s nothing I can say about his cockiness!</i>

    Heughed when his thoughts reached this point.<i> Li Hao...</i>

    As he thought, everyone cared about the eight families. <i>I wonder if the kid will bring some surprises with his visit to White Moon City. </i>Hismunicator rang as he pondered.

    ¡°Director Hao, Wang Ming hase with Li Hao.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re here?¡±

    ¡°Yes, at the door.¡±

    ¡°Wait for me, I¡¯ll be right there. No one is allowed to take Li Hao with them before I get there!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan hastily climbed into his car and sped for the Night Watcher headquarters. <i>He¡¯s finally here! I would¡¯ve gone to Silver City myself to hurry him along if he still didn¡¯t show up.</i>

    ......

    Li Hao stood in the lobby of the Night Watcher building and looked around curiously. <i>So this is the province¡¯s Night Watcher headquarters? It¡¯s so small!</i>

    He¡¯d seen so many towering buildings along the way that he¡¯d thought the Night Watchers would be splendid and dazzling. But... it was just a small, old building with arge yard. That was it!

    Of course, there were many balls of light hovering throughout it. What a pity that Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t seem to be around¡ªbut Manager Yu was. Her massive ball of light was blinding. Li Hao only nced at it; he didn¡¯t see Hou Xiaochen. Or rather, he couldn¡¯t find the man.

    He hadn¡¯t dared look too closely at Hou Xiaochen when they were standing face to face. The man was also blinding, but Li Hao couldn¡¯t catch a good glimpse of him when they were far away. It was a simr case to Qiao Feilong¡ªviewable only when up close.

    Currently, Li Hao looked around in all directions like he was a country bumpkin entering the big city for the first time. He wanted to assess Night Watcher strength.

    There were no Srs. That was dismal. There was one Nova and probably one Sr that was Hao Lianchuan. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s strength was unknown. Was this all that the entire agency possessed to their name? What were they supposed to rebel with? Were their elites all with the Silver Moon Guards?

    But that was a unit of martial masters!

    Li Hao had thought that they were concealing some strength. Here, at the very least, revealed no signs of hidden strength.

    He busily peered in all directions and suddenly looked back as Wang Ming greeted his acquaintances. A woman not quite middle-aged walked into the lobby. She grew agitated when she saw the young man. ¡°Are you Li Hao?¡±

    Surprised, Li Hao nodded dumbly.

    ¡°You¡¯re finally here...¡± she wanted to speak further when a fatty quickly rushed over from the back.

    ¡°Little Hao, you¡¯re finally here!¡± Hao Lianchuan roared withughter and drew Li Hao into a hug.

    The young man waspletely baffled. What was he being so enthusiastic for?

    ¡°Ignore the woman!¡± Hao Lianchuan whispered. ¡°She¡¯s one of Hu Dingfang¡¯s¡ªhis wife¡¯s guard, to be exact. You¡¯ve just arrived in White Moon, so don¡¯t get involved in anything!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything, but newprehension was upon him. Hu Dingfang¡¯s wife¡¯s guard was not Hu Dingfang¡¯s guard. <i>The Breathing Method of the Five Styles... Senior sister?</i>

    <i>I get it!</i>

    Hu Dingfang was his senior sister¡¯s husband and she¡¯d taught the secret art to outsiders. However, teacher had not agreed to anyone not of his discipline learning that secret art.

    Li Hao understood a great deal in this moment. He was a bit stiff as he was unable to react¡ªhe seemed to want to say something, but Hao Lianchuan was dragging him upstairs. He waved to the woman, as if bidding farewell.

    Meanwhile, Hao Lianchuan cursed to himself. <i>The hell, kid! What are you doing dragging me off for? Do you even know where my office is? And you¡¯ve got some decent strength in those arms!</i>

    ¡°Director Hao, I need to officially report to my station. What are you doing dragging me off like this...¡± Li Hao continued to be dragged upstairs and said naively, ¡°Director Hao, no, Uncle Hao, I can¡¯t stay at your ce even though I haven¡¯t been assigned to a dorm yet. It¡¯s not appropriate...¡±

    <i>When the hell did I ever invite you to my house?!</i> Hao Lianchuan rolled his eyes. What¡¯d gotten into the kid today?

    The two quickly left everyone¡¯s line of sight; Li Hao recovered his smile. ¡°Director Hao, I waspletely terrified of this trip. Thank goodness you¡¯re a familiar face! I feel like I see my dead father when I see you...¡±

    <i>Oh for... </i>Hao Lianchuan waspletely speechless, but broke into a wide grin when he looked at Li Hao again. ¡°Well done!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao smiled bashfully when he determined that Hao Lianchuan truly seemed to beplimenting him. ¡°Not at all. I¡¯m not listening to anyone but you, Director Hao! You¡¯re my parent in White Moon, a person more worthy of respect than Director Hou. I¡¯lle to you with all my issues in the future!¡±

    ¡°Are youtching onto me?¡± Hao Lianchuan¡¯s grin turned stiff.

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°I truly feel close to you, Director Hao. You¡¯re family! I was scared stiff just now, but rxed when I saw you. It felt like I was at home!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan was utterly speechless. <i>I still thought too little of this guy. He wasn¡¯t this shameless before, why does it seem like he¡¯d gotten worse aftering here?</i>

    ¡°Cut the bullshit, let¡¯s go and sit in my office. Director Hou isn¡¯t out of seclusion yet, you can meet him when he¡¯s out...¡±

    ¡°Whatever Uncle Hao says!¡± Li Hao bobbed his head rapidly. <i>Your wish is mymand! I don¡¯t know anyone or anything in White Moon. Although Ole Wang says I can go to him for anything, who¡¯s giving a Sunre the time of the day? A Sr is better, and one with status and position! It¡¯s best to get close to Ole Hao as soon as possible.</i>

    Li Hao and Hao Lianchuan looked at each other with a smile. As Hao Lianchuan grinned, he suddenly sighed.

    ¡°You seem so much like my dead son!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s expression stiffened.<i> Hao Lianchuan... wut? The heck you going on about? Wang Ming never mentioned this! It looks like nothing true passes through this man¡¯s lips either.</i>

    ......

    The name of Li Hao was quickly known throughout certain circles after the young man arrived at the provincial capital.

    Heir to the eight families, Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple. These two identities were sufficient for him to draw immediate attention upon entering the city, even if Li Hao was just a Sunderer. He was amon topic between powerhouses, as was news that he and Hao Lianchuan were like father and son. It was quite surprising¡ªsince when were Hao Lianchuan and Li Hao so close?

    Did the deputy director specifically visit Silver City a few times to bring Li Hao to his side? Apparently the two wouldn¡¯t let go of each other when they met again...

    The news caused frowns to cross certain faces.

    ......

    There were six floors to the Night Watcher building. Hou Xiaochen was on the sixth.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s office was on the fifth floor, along with the offices of the other four deputy directors. One principal and five deputies formed the Night Watcher system. Li Hao knew two of the other four¡ªmetal supernatural Director Zhou and water supernatural Director He.

    However, none of them seemed to stay at the headquarters normally. Being the first deputy director, Hao Lianchuan was the main designee for all tasks since Hou Xiaochen couldn¡¯t bother himself. Hence, he was the main upant of the fifth floor.

    ¡°You saw the first floor just now,¡± Hao Lianchuan introduced as they went upstairs. ¡°It¡¯s the receiving hall. The second floor is our archives, the third floor the financial office. The fourth floor is where the secretary and driver rests, the fifth and sixth floors are offices...¡±

    ¡°Where¡¯s... everyone else?¡± The more Li Hao listened to theyout, the odder he found it. No wonder this ce was so small. Was there nothing else apart from the archives, finance, secretary, and directors¡¯ offices?

    ¡°They all have their own missions. Do Night Watchers stay at home everyday?¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°There is much afoot in White Moon. There are a lot of residents and the Night Watchers need to go on patrol as well. This is simply headquarters. Night Watchers can go home if they¡¯re off duty or to the Inspectorate. There¡¯s a ce for Night Watchers to rest there too. We¡¯re not too strict here, people don¡¯t need to clock in and out. I hear that you did that everyday in Silver City¡ªyou¡¯re a weird one!¡±

 Chapter 300: Being a Kind Person (I)

    <h4>Chapter 300: Being a Kind Person (I)</h4>

    When were supernaturals ever willing to have their movements restricted? Hence, Night Watcher management was quitex. Other than emergency missions, all that Night Watchers needed to do was toplete their regr duties. Someone who clocked in and out like Li Hao was a very strange entity from the perspective of the Night Watcher system.

    <i>Fine then!</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. Silver City Night Watchers were much more loyal to their duties. They were at thew enforcement building everyday; almost no one went home. Here in White Moon City, going home was the norm.

    Hao Lianchuan and Li Hao swiftly reached the fifth floor. The sight that greeted them from the staircase was... truly modest. There were only a few offices on the entire floor, not much else. Li Hao peeked into the other offices when the two walked past them. Only one seemed upied, the others were empty.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s office was located at the end of the floor. As the two proceeded down the hallway, the deputy director pointed upward. ¡°Director Hou¡¯s office is upstairs. He has an entire floor to himself and it¡¯s much more luxurious than mine. Ites with a rest lounge, I don¡¯t have that!¡±

    Li Hao awkwardly lowered his voice, ¡°There¡¯s nine of us Silver City Night Watchers and we utilize an entire building!¡±

    <i>Man, I pity you! My office in Silver City has a rest lounge. Poor you, yours is really tiny, it¡¯s smaller than my own!</i>

    ¡°Space is at a premium in White Moon,¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°We should cut down where we can as we¡¯re not that flush with funding. Three thousand star coins will purchase one square meter in Silver City, and that¡¯s for a high-end house. Add a zero to that in White Moon. It¡¯s exactly ten times higher!¡±

    <i>Thirty thousand per square meter?</i>

    Li Hao thought for a bit and nodded in agreement. ¡°That¡¯s really expensive! No wonder our headquarters is so small.¡±

    The average Silver City sry was a little over one thousand coins a month. They had to work three years to afford one square meter in White Moon. Even houses were beyond one¡¯s financial ability these days!

    Li Hao started making requests when he followed Hao Lianchuan into the man¡¯s office. ¡°Director Hao, I am amissioner inspector in Silver City, but a low rank one. Logically speaking, I should get a promotion with my visit to White Moon, right? Will I be a high rankmissioner inspector or a chiefmissioner?¡±

    Hao Lianchuan was rather put out and walked to his desk without answering. He nced at Li Hao and sighed after a long moment, ¡°Are you pretending, or do you mean it?¡±

    ¡°What is there to pretend? Of course I mean it!¡± The young man grinned. Who wouldn¡¯t want a promotion? What would he pretend for?

    ¡°To be honest, there aren¡¯t many Night Watchers who care about their rank,¡± Hao Lianchuan said slowly.

    ¡°That¡¯s because they know too little!¡± Li Hao replied brusquely. ¡°Ranks are very important! The dynasty is still the dynasty and the nine ministries are still the nine ministries. So long as the dynasty and nine ministries still exist, the ranks that everyone thinks aren¡¯t important are very important!

    ¡°The dynasty adheres to a strict hierarchy. If amissioner inspector contradicts a chiefmissioner, that¡¯s insubordination. No matter how strong one is, it¡¯s up to the chiefmissioner to determine if the incident is important.

    ¡°In the same vein, I can kill an inspector with one punch if they show disrespect to me. After that, I can present a just and proper exnation to the relevant departments that the person was guilty of insubordination. Not only will I not be punished, but I¡¯ll be recorded with a mark of merit!

    ¡°No one will have a reason to make trouble for me so long as the dynasty has yet to copse and follows these rules. The caveat is, of course, that we still operate within this system!¡±

    Hao Lianchuanughed, a trueugh this time. He indicated for the young man to sit and nodded merrily.

    ¡°Good thinking! I have to say, you make a lot of sense. It¡¯s just that everyone looks to the fist and strength these days.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s because we¡¯re still in a stage of fighting and killing each other.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Everyone will naturally meld into the system when peace is upon us again.¡±

    ¡°You seriously have a fondness for bureaucracy...¡± Hao Lianchuan smiled happily. Li Hao was very interesting sometimes. ¡°What do you want then?¡±

    ¡°Chiefmissioner!¡± Li Hao said boldly. ¡°There are two levels to this rank, the first is lower level like Director Liu Long and Senior Huang Yun. The other is higher level like you, deputy director. I just want the lower level one. That way, no one will rank higher than me in the entire Silver Moon Inspectorate system other than the six directors.¡±

    Of the six directors, five were high level directors. Hou Xiaochen was an even higher rank. At his grade, he was called a peacemakermissioner, often shortened to peacemaker. They were in charge of making peace within a province as well as bringing tranquility andfort to its denizens. Someone of this level was a first level provincial official that was part of the central court. In Silver Moon, only the leaders of the four government organizations were of this level.

    Hao Lianchuan looked at Li Hao. <i>This kid obviously has quite a few thoughts running through his mind.</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s not impossible for you to be promoted to chiefmissioner.¡± He smiled after a while. ¡°Under normal circumstances, we require those of this level to be Dominators or Sunres. Liu Long was an exception as he was the head of the Silver City security. How about you?¡±

    ¡°I think I can spar with the Sunre level Wang Ming.¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°Oh, you!¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°Very well, I will write up a report for you. The director needs to sign off on this, I don¡¯t have the authority.¡±

    <i>Ah, so Wang Ming was right. We can go to Hao Lianchuan if we have things that need taking care of. He¡¯ll agree to almost everything, but won¡¯t be able to actually aplish it. He¡¯ll shift everything to Hou Xiaochen when ites down to it.</i>

    ¡°You¡¯ve guessed at some of Hu Dingfang¡¯s matter, right?¡± Hao Lianchuan changed the topic.

    ¡°I have. My senior sister is his wife, correct?¡±

    ¡°Smart boy!¡± The deputy director nodded. ¡°So what are you thinking? Your senior sister has made quite a name for herself in the Tiger Wings. Hu Dingfang listens to and relies heavily on her. She wants you to go to the Tiger Wings as she thinks you¡¯ll be safer there.

    ¡°And to be honest, you will be, unless the Tiger Wings are eliminated,¡± Hao Lianchuan admitted. ¡°But if you go there, you¡¯ll be a pet bird. Your senior sister... To be honest, she doesn¡¯t understand martial masters. She has very good potential, but she¡¯s not a martial master in the true sense of the term. She doesn¡¯t understand that martial masters are half crippled when they¡¯re cocooned in a tame environment!

    ¡°Do you want to go?¡± the deputy director concluded with a solemn expression.

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Not to mention, my teacher never told me to seek out a senior sister. Hu Dingfang didn¡¯t learn his breathing method from my teacher, which means that my senior sister privately taught it on her own. That is a clear vition of martial world rules! Teacher likely couldn¡¯t bring himself to throw her out as he should¡¯ve... so how can I go against my teacher¡¯s will at this time?¡±

    ¡°You guessed it.¡± Hao Lianchuan rose to open the window. He exhaled slowly when a cool breeze brushed over their faces. ¡°I¡¯ll ask you one more time¡ªdo you wish to be a supernatural or remain a martial master? This will affect your arrangements toe.¡±

    ¡°A martial master!¡± Li Hao responded decisively. ¡°My teacher is a Summoner of Spirit. I won¡¯t consider the supernatural unless I be one too.¡±

    ¡°Very good!¡± Hao Lianchuan smiled. ¡°It¡¯s up to Director Hou as to what your exact arrangements will be. I can only tell you a little ahead of time that if you insist on continuing down the path of martial dao, you¡¯ll probably end up in the Guards. Everyone in the Guards is a martial master!

    ¡°But we can set that aside for now. There¡¯s also a lot of people who want to meet you. What do you say?¡±

    ¡°We can arrange for a meeting of martial masters.¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°The half step Dominators or Dominators can be invited. There doesn¡¯t need to be too many people. I¡¯ll use my discretion in answering their questions, and it¡¯s up to them whether they believe me or not.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, there¡¯s also other people who wish to meet you apart from the martial masters...¡±

    ¡°From the provincial government or upstairs?¡±

    ¡°Upstairs.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s best not to offend those upstairs,¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°They¡¯re probably concerned with the eight families, but I¡¯m not too familiar with the topic. We can meet, but someone should be with me. Let¡¯s say... Manager Yu!¡±

    ¡°Not me?¡± Hao Lianchuan snorted with annoyance. ¡°Why the secretary?¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t respond.

    <i>Because you¡¯re too weak! If those upstairs want to see me, I don¡¯t need to specte what the results will be. I just need to know that Manager Yu will be a powerful Nova at critical moments, that¡¯s all.</i>

    One had to possess sufficient support before erupting with all-out hostility. Hao Lianchuan... didn¡¯t necessarily provide that support.

    The deputy director himself thought for a moment and broke outughing. ¡°Li Hao, your mind works fast. I¡¯d thought that you wouldn¡¯t know how to handle these situations since it¡¯s your first time, and you being in a new environment. It looks like you¡¯ve thought of everything already.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Of course! Not to mention, he wasn¡¯t too worried since there was Hou Xiaochen backing him up. Even if a faction wanted to take him, they had to consider the director¡¯s reaction.

    ¡°Director Hao, when can I see Director Hou?¡± the young man asked.

    ¡°What are you in such a rush for?¡±

    ¡°I have matters to discuss with the director. Director Hao... may not be able to make the decision in this.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan snorted with annoyance again. ¡°Out with it, what can¡¯t I make the decisions in?¡±

    ¡°A lot of stuff!¡± Li Hao answered mercilessly. ¡°I don¡¯t have that many requests for this trip to White Moon, nor do I have the right to ask for anything. But since I¡¯ve been requested here, surely I¡¯m not here just to go through the motions. And you also said that martial masters are not kept in captivity! Therefore, I have my own thoughts regarding this matter.

    ¡°Number one, I want the right to enforce thew,¡± he began calmly. ¡°I wish to be able to implement thew on any supernatural or martial master outside the Night Watcher system. When I feel that I¡¯m in danger or that the other is a threat to society, I have the right to execute them. I need the entire Night Watcher agency to shoulder the consequences for this, not just myself!¡±

    <i>The right ofw enforcement!</i>

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s eyes darted around in thought.

    ¡°Number two, I desire immunity! Simply put, other than the Night Watchers, Directors Hou and Hao, there is no one who has the right to interfere with or punish me in the entire governmental system. I have the right to ignore anymands not from the two directors!

    ¡°Number three, I need the powers appropriate to a chiefmissioner. Based on the rules of the Inspectorate and Night Watchers, I have the right tomand all personnel within the nearby Inspectorates and Night Watcher branches in times of emergency. Any that are lower in rank or equivalent rank need to obey mymands during a temporary state of battle readiness!¡±

 Chapter 301: Being a Kind Person (II)

    <h4>Chapter 301: Being a Kind Person (II)</h4>

    Hao Lianchuan listened mutely. He hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao woulde with three very specific demands. True enough, he couldn¡¯t make the decisions in these. Hou Xiaochen was needed for these matters.

    ¡°My thoughts were that you¡¯d choose to keep a low profile in White Moon or conduct any possible business from the shadows. But judging from your words, you seem to have other ideas in mind?¡±

    ¡°I do.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I¡¯m not here to be decoration. I only keep a low profile when I have the self assurance to do so. I have none here, so I need to be granted some.¡±

    ¡°Do you think Director Hou will agree to it?¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°I have no opinion, but what right do you have to ask for special treatment straight off the bat?¡±

    ¡°What right?¡± Li Hao pondered over the question. ¡°By the right that I possess certain things that the director values at the moment. Director Hou redeployed me here partially because of my teacher, and partially for myself!¡±

    <i>For yourself?</i> Hao Lianchuan sank into deep thought. Had Li Hao be a Dominator? If he was and also knew the method to Summoner of Spirit, then thed truly did have a possibility of swiftly bing a Summoner.

    Of course, it didn¡¯t matter much to Hao Lianchuan even if the young man was indeed a Dominator now. But if Li Hao advanced to Summoner, he would be able to stand against Srs even if he was far less than Yuan Shuo. That possibility could not be taken lightly of. A Summoner was far more valuable than a Sr.

    ¡°Very well! I¡¯ll pass this along to Director Hou too!¡± Hao Lianchuan repeated. ¡°You¡¯re an interesting little fellow. I¡¯d thought that you might not be willing to help me with a small matter, but it looks like that won¡¯t be the case.¡±

    ¡°Does Director Hao need my help?¡± A conflicted expression suddenly appeared on Li Hao¡¯s face. ¡°I am very weak...¡±

    ¡°Hang on!¡± Hao Lianchuan waved him off. ¡°Hear me out first! This is precisely what I need¡ªyour superb acting skills and that honest expression. It makes people think that you¡¯re a simple, honest, and naive young man who doesn¡¯t know much of the world.¡±

    Li Hao scratched his head. What was the deputy director trying to say?

    ¡°White Moon is not at peace these days and some people keep wanting to make trouble. I need you to help me resolve the problems that they¡¯re creating.¡±

    ¡°Me?¡± Li Hao asked hesitantly. ¡°What can I do?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s simple!¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled merrily. ¡°Just do a few things for me. One, unintentionally reveal certain information that¡¯s very important, but don¡¯t reveal it all in one go. Give them the urge to interrogate it out of you!

    ¡°Two, pretend to be hurt and wholly innocent in the event. If someone bumps into you on the street, for instance, or wants to take you, or if someone has their eye on you¡ªuse your acting skills to lure them out of hiding. The rest of the troops will be there very shortly. At that time, all you need to do is act hurt, be innocent, and be caught in immense suffering. We¡¯ll take care of capturing and killing them!

    ¡°Remember, a lot of people will be watching your act¡ªthe provincial government, those upstairs, the military... No one will say anything if we act brutally when you¡¯re convincing. But if your act doesn¡¯t pass muster, that will lead to questioning and fury.¡± The deputy director shed a wide grin. ¡°It hasn¡¯t been the best of timestely. Director Hou killed a Nova, but he ran off after and left me with too many messes to take care of. It¡¯s been a lot!¡±

    Li Hao understood, he really understood! He was quite surprised and nced at Hao Lianchuan. Did the man wish to kill a chicken to intimidate the monkeys? However, that didn¡¯t jive with his reputation as a good man, so he needed a reason¡ªsomeone skilled in feigning injury to extort others¡ªto coordinate with him.

    The prerequisite was that his partner needed to be very important, very weak, and easily bullied. In this way, Hao Lianchuan would have an excuse to clean house and not be taken to task for it. It was simple, honest people had a temper too!

    ¡°Director Hao, are you certain you can take the lead on this?¡± Li Hao looked steadily at him. <i>Are you sure about this? An initial Sr is good against some weaklings, but is that all you¡¯re targeting?</i>

    ¡°I still have the ming Phoenix Spear!¡± Hao Lianchuan sneered. ¡°Anyone is fine so long as they¡¯re not a Nova! Kid, don¡¯t look down on Srs. Plus, you¡¯re a Sunderer. Do you have the right to think less of Srs? You keep your head down even if you¡¯re a Dominator!¡±

    <i>What¡¯s with the act, huh! Who do you think you¡¯re fooling?</i>

    Li Hao, however, frowned with indecision. ¡°Does Director Hou know about this?¡±

    ¡°He still wouldn¡¯t care if he did,¡± Hao Lianchuan sighed. ¡°All he needs is to push me out to take the fall at a critical time. Alright, just let me know if you¡¯ll do it or not. To be honest, it¡¯s hard to find a mark like this. Most people are automatically assumed to be bait, but you¡¯re different. You look innocent and honest. I like an incorrigible rascal like you who can present a harmless exterior!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was much aggrieved.

    ¡°Haha, that¡¯s right! That¡¯s the expression!¡± Hao Lianchuan roared withughter. ¡°Of course, this won¡¯t be without benefits. I¡¯ll try to get everything you spoke of earlier and I¡¯ll give you a list of names. Those people cannot be touched, but you can do anything you wish with the rest!¡±

    ¡°Director Hao, what if I¡¯m beaten to death before you arrive in time?¡±

    ¡°That shouldn¡¯t happen. Ordinary people wouldn¡¯t dare, and what¡¯s the benefit in killing you? You can reveal some information that makes them want to take you alive instead. I¡¯m sure you can do it!¡±

    Li Hao sighed. Fine, then! But he still made a final gasp of effort. ¡°But, I feel that Director Hao isn¡¯t paying anything for this scheme. What if you... offered some sort of reward? This is a mission, after all.¡±

    ¡°Another reward?¡± Hao Lianchuan thought for a very long time. ¡°How about this, I¡¯ll make it known that you¡¯re no different from my son. I had high hopes for you starting from Silver City. If anything happens to you, I¡¯ll ughter their entire family to avenge you. I¡¯m your father in name!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>Fuck that shit!</i>

    All joking aside, it would still benefit Li Hao if Hao Lianchuan really did publicize that attitude. The deputy director¡¯s status was high. He could represent the Night Watchers and the agency¡¯s attitude.

    Although Hou Xiaochen had killed a Nova for Li Hao, that was under different circumstances.

    The young man nodded after a while, agreeing to the partnership. He still couldn¡¯t help but ask, ¡°What¡¯s Director Hou¡¯s n? Southern Fist says that someone may be trying to force the director into irrational action. Aren¡¯t we falling right into their trap if we do this now?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Hao Lianchuanughed. ¡°I tell you, this is precisely our matter and duty as Night Watchers. Therefore, you¡¯ll have to suffer a bit for it. Otherwise, Director Hou would just outright kill them with his strength! There would be no need for all this.

    ¡°Sometimes, there exists only a fine line between revolt andw enforcement. If you kill without reason, that is revolt. If you are forced into killing, that is administering thew. Do you understand?¡±

    <i>Do I understand? Kind of? Maybe?</i>

    <i>But more or less. </i>Li Hao nodded.

    Hao Lianchuan breathed out and suddenly bared his teeth with a smile. ¡°Our first target is a superior¡ªa Sr Night Watcher. I¡¯ve had him in my line of sight for a long time now! Your task is simple, find a way to reel him in. We need to kill him before anyone else reacts, and we need to kill him with a just and proper reason!¡±

    Li Hao blinked and sucked in a sharp breath. ¡°My venerable Lord Hao, are you... being a bit too bold?¡±

    ¡°You dared to kill even Zhang Ting, and you¡¯re saying that I¡¯m bold?¡± Hao Lianchuan snorted.

    ¡°What... Is Director Hao framing me?¡±

    ¡°You know yourself if I am or not.¡± Hao Lianchuan raised an eyebrow. ¡°Cut the crap, can you do it or not? It¡¯s best if he¡¯s allowed to secretly follow you from the shadows and even conceals his identity. If that¡¯s the case, we¡¯ll bepletely upright in our actions to kill him! I want these fellows to know that the savage wildnds of their words is not a ce where they can do as they wish!¡±

    ¡°I can.¡± Li Hao nodded after thinking it through for a bit. ¡°But his mysterious power is mine after he dies.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine!¡± Hao Lianchuan agreed readily. He beamed widely and couldn¡¯t contain his joy. ¡°Ah, right, I can¡¯t appear too quickly. You¡¯ll have to hold your own for a bit and preferably give rise to some disturbance if possible. It¡¯d be for the best if you raise other people¡¯s attention. I¡¯ll then appear with the ming Phoenix Spear and finish him off!

    ¡°Will that be difficult? How confident are you?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m confident enough,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Do we need to choose a particr spot?¡±

    ¡°Nah, it can be anywhere so long as there aren¡¯t that many mundanes. It should be over quickly when I show up with the spear...¡±

    <i>You¡¯re that confident, are you? </i>Li Hao flicked a nce at the man. His ball of light was a bit bigger than before, was he a mid Sr now? But even so, could he kill a fellow Sr with one jab just because he wielded the ming Phoenix Spear?

    To be honest, Li Hao wouldn¡¯t have doubts if it was Hou Xiaochen in front of him. But when it was Hao Lianchuan... One couldn¡¯t help but question his ability. The young man began contemting whether or not Hou Xiaochen knew of what his subordinate was doing. Brashly killing a superior was a very troublesome matter. It would give rise to consequences even if the target had behaved oddly.

    <i>Of course, it has nothing to do with me! I¡¯m just an innocent bystander!</i>

    Li Hao actually found the proposal exciting. He¡¯d been bait on his first day in the Demon Hunters, and this was what Hao Lianchuan wished for him to repeat the role in White Moon. The young man rather liked the role.

    Nice and quiet, the epitome of a low profile...

    What was the point of being that in White Moon? It was better to create a mess and gain something for his troubles. It was even better to participate in some battles so he would have the chance toprehend other auras.

    Thest thing he wanted was to be protected all the time, even if it was Hou Xiaochen. Kicking up a fuss and extracting himself from it was more up Li Hao¡¯s alley.

    The two readily came to an agreement!

 Chapter 302: Being a Kind Person (III)

    <h4>Chapter 302: Being a Kind Person (III)</h4>

    ¡°Very well, let¡¯s stop here for now,¡± Hao Lianchuan concluded. ¡°I¡¯m going to see if Director Hou is out of seclusion. If so, you should meet him. If not, I¡¯ll figure out a way to get your five thousand cubes. Oh right, the director means to convert your reward into the Nova level blood pearl. Do you agree to that?¡±

    Li Hao raised a brow, but quickly nodded. ¡°I do!¡±

    He¡¯d thought he could obtain that blood pearl for free...<i> I guess that¡¯s not possible anymore.</i> It was fine. Trading his gains for a Nova level scarlet shadow was just as well. It was what he needed the most at the moment since it enhanced the entire body. That was just as good!

    Scarlet shadows strengthened the physical body and internal force; his five organs were very strong now, but his bodygged a little behind. He was nning on collecting some thunder and wind mysterious power.

    One major advantage of scarlet shadows was that they consumed exceedingly little sword energy to digest. They didn¡¯t requirerge amounts of sword energy to extract their essence, much like mysterious power did. They could be digested even without sword energy.

    ¡°Then we leave it here for today. I¡¯ve arranged amodations for you¡ªthey¡¯re right in front of my apartment. It¡¯ll be easier to look out for you that way and it¡¯s more convenient for me to appear with you. My presence won¡¯t be suspicious!¡±

    ¡°Where do you live, director?¡±

    ¡°Not too far away, about five kilometers from headquarters. It¡¯s very close. You¡¯re a martial master, so it should take you much less than half an hour to cover the distance on foot!¡±

    Five kilometers was indeed not far. It was also a sufficient distance to draw attention and create openings for many. Otherwise, no one would dare move in on Li Hao if he stayed at headquarters all day.

    ......

    Li Hao walked down alone after conversing with Hao Lianchuan for a while.

    <i>The first floor.</i>

    Wang Ming was surrounded with people listening to his tall tales. Everyone knew now that he was a Sunre. He grinned at Li Hao¡¯s reappearance. ¡°You¡¯re back! How is everything with Director Hao?¡±

    ¡°Nothing¡¯s been arranged yet, we¡¯re waiting for Director Hou to exit seclusion.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°But Director Hao said that he¡¯s arranged for me to live right across from him to make it easier to look out for me. Director Wang, do you know where that is?¡±

    ¡°I do!¡± Wang Ming nodded. ¡°I¡¯ve been there. It¡¯s actually the Inspectorate¡¯s family amodations. All of us used to be part of the Inspectorate and that¡¯s a nice ce to live. It¡¯s very safe.¡±

    ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li, are you rted to Director Hao?¡± asked someone next to Wang Ming.

    ¡°No, but the director visited Silver City a few times and is on great terms with my master,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°So he keeps an eye on me as well. He¡¯s simply making sure to take care of me now that I¡¯m in a bit of trouble. Don¡¯t misunderstand, everyone!

    ¡°I¡¯m newly arrived here and don¡¯t know anything about White Moon. I¡¯ll take everyone out to dinner once I¡¯m settled in!¡± The young man was exceedingly polite, warm, and had a very soothing smile.

    ¡°It should be us weing you instead! But that is indeed quite a journey, so we¡¯ll arrange for thatter!¡± The group was in congenial spirits. Almost everyone left at headquarters was of the Darkmoon level, there were very few Sunres. Wang Ming counted as a heavyweight among them.

    Darkmoon Night Watchers didn¡¯t know much, but they knew that Li Hao was here at Director Hou¡¯s request. The neer was also on good terms with Director Hao and close friends with the newly ascended Wang Ming...

    And so, they were even more enthusiastic in their reception.

    ......

    Li Hao and Wang Ming walked out of the lobby after a few more minutes of pleasantries. Hao Lianchuan ignored Li Hao after the initial meeting. The female guard was still present at the door and she hastily spoke up when she saw the young man, ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li, I am...¡±

    ¡°My apologies,¡± Li Hao interrupted. ¡°Director Hao said that I cannotmunicate with anyone not of the Night Watcher system! I¡¯m under partial custody, you see.¡±

    He strode out of the building. He Yong was waiting outside as well, along with a few others. None of them dared draw closer.

    ¡°You don¡¯t have to keep following me, Senior South!¡± Li Hao called from the front door. ¡°Director Hao just told me that we¡¯ll host a meeting for martial masters tomorrow. All half step Dominators and Dominators can attend! I¡¯ll respond to everyone¡¯s questions and concerns at that gathering. I¡¯ll be forting about my master¡¯s affairs too, so long as it doesn¡¯t infringe upon the secrets of the Five Styles!

    ¡°The Five Styles discipline also wishes for martial dao to be restored to glory! We will not jealously hoard the most insignificant scrap of knowledge and will share everything we can!

    ¡°Additionally, those who are not martial masters can submit their questions or concerns to the Night Watchers. If my superiors permit me to respond, I will respond!¡± Li Hao continued earnestly, ¡°I¡¯ve just arrived after a very long journey and haven¡¯t had a bite to eat yet. I don¡¯t even know where I¡¯m sleeping, so please give me some time, seniors! I will be able to better answer your questions when I am settled in.¡±

    Those beyond the front doors were no longer in a hurry after they heard the young man. They finally had a concrete time!

    ¡°Is it only martial masters?¡± someone asked. ¡°Little friend Li, some of us were forced to make the crossover many years ago and are no longer martial masters. However, there are martial masters among our disciples. If attendance is restricted to only martial masters, then we...¡±

    A look of sympathy and pity spread over Li Hao¡¯s face, but he quickly responded with embarrassment, ¡°I... cannot make the decisions in this. Seniors, you can ask the Night Watchers. I have no opinion so long as they agree. I do not have the final say.¡±

    He was quite resigned as he looked like he wanted to agree on the spot. When they saw his expression, the crowd felt that there was no need to make things more difficult for the young man. He was probably already in a slight panic at having to make the trip from Silver City to this enormous metropolis. They had to go to the Night Watchers for this matter; it was enough that Li Hao was willing to share certain things with them.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll be heading back.¡± Li Hao raised a cupped fist salute. ¡°Seniors, I will see you tomorrow!¡±

    Southern Fist He Yong looked closely at Li Hao and... scratched his head. Why did the kid feel a bit different?

    Not by much, but there was the vague sense that the young man wasn¡¯t as honest as he appeared to be. Li Hao was so pitiful with what he¡¯d just said, yet he hadn¡¯t been that way on the road to White Moon. Although such thoughts ran through He Yong¡¯s head, he didn¡¯t voice them aloud.

    The crowd settled down patiently after learning that there would be a meeting tomorrow. It was very safe in White Moon City¡ªHou Xiaochen was here. Regr people didn¡¯t dare cause trouble inside the city.

    ......

    Momentster, Li Hao followed Wang Ming to the residential neighborhood.

    Someone was following him!

    Granted, they were keeping themselves hidden very well. The young man didn¡¯t care either way¡ªany supernatural that dared to follow him was a walking target. If martial masters followed him, Li Hao was of the mindset that there weren¡¯t that many in the entire city that could fight him now. Only a few veteran seniors like Southern Fist, fortified with great instances of fortune, could stand a chance against Li Hao if they met in a fight.

    With how much his organs were enhanced, he essentially counted as a Summoner with two auras. His only difference with his teacher was that he was weaker as his auras were weaker.

    ¡°Li Hao, did Director Hao say anything? Did you see Director Hou?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    Wang Ming looked on with some regret. ¡°Ah right, I¡¯ll take you back first and then go home first myself. My home¡¯s on the western side, we¡¯re on the southern side. I haven¡¯t been back since I broke through to Sunre!¡±

    He needed to go home and brag a little, as well as ask for some rewards. The mysterious power that his family had given him was for him to break through to Plenilune. He was a Sunre now, so he should certainly go home to take a few more things from the family vaults.

    ¡°Come to my ce a few dayster and just stay with me!¡± Wang Ming chuckled. ¡°My house is much bigger than the dorms.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t speak of what you shouldn¡¯t when you go back home,¡± Li Hao transmitted after he nodded. ¡°Keep your big mouth shut!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Ming blinked and nced sharply at Li Hao. Transmission? That was the purview of Srs or experienced Dominators, but his colleague had just broken through!

    <i>What the heck, has Li Hao gotten stronger?</i>

    No change in expression took ce on Li Hao¡¯s face, but man it felt good to utilize transmission. He¡¯d realized the skill was avable to him after his organs took in one thousand cubes each. It was just a task of controlling the reverberations of some sound waves. It wasn¡¯tplicated, but required a high degree of mastery over internal force. Otherwise, whatever was transmitted would easily be leaked.

    It was why one could do it only as a Sr or Dominator. Regr Dominators did not have such a rich base of internal force.

    Wang Ming didn¡¯t say anything. He wasn¡¯t a fool, he knew what he couldn¡¯t speak of. Zhang Ting¡¯s death, for instance, wasn¡¯t something he could bring up.

    Li Hao continued observing the environment around them as they walked. He was too unfamiliar with the provincial capital as this was his first visit. The Night Watcher headquarters was situated beside some older and smaller neighborhoods with tangled streets. The southern quadrant was an older part of town andcked towering buildings. More traces of modernity could be seen in the other quadrants.

    The Night Watchers had been formed toote, so all the better locales were imed by the other agencies by the time they needed an office building.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    News of the Night Watcher meeting tomorrow swiftly traveled upon the wind. When it was confirmed that powerful martial masters could participate, many who walked the path of martial dao agitated with excitement. How desperately they yearned for the way to rise to Summoner of Spirit!

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>The eastern quadrant of White Moon City, the penthouse of an exceedingly tall hotel.</i>

    There were only five people in a presidential suite replete with an opulent living room, dining room, kitchen, and dance hall. They were gathered in the receiving room¡ªfour men, one woman.

    Other than green-haired Yu Xiao, one of the remaining three men was a young man with short hair¡ªHu Qingfeng. He was the leader of the five person team.

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan has sent word,¡± Yu Xiao took the lead on debriefing since he was the weakest out of the group. ¡°Li Hao can meet us after the martial master meeting tomorrow. However, he wishes for us to go to the southern quadrant. It¡¯s Li Hao¡¯s first time in the city and he¡¯s having trouble adjusting to a new environment.¡±

    They would rather avoid the southern quadrant if possible¡ªthat was Hou Xiaochen¡¯s territory. In contrast, the eastern quadrant was where the provincial government was headquartered. Hou Xiaochen would note here under normal circumstances.

 Chapter 303: Fishing With Oneâ€™s Life (I)

    <h4>Chapter 303: Fishing With One¡¯s Life (I)</h4>

    ¡°Is Li Hao that easily frightened?¡± Hu Qingfeng chuckled. ¡°Very well, you¡¯ll make the trip tomorrow. Take Chen Min with you. It¡¯s best if you two can return with Li Hao. If not, there¡¯s no need to start any conflict. Obtaining a sample of his blood will also do.¡±

    There was no need to antagonize Hou Xiaochen at this stage of the game. The provincial government had not taken any action thus far. Hence, even if the central Night Watchers had certain ns in mind, they needed support from some of the major local figures to ensure sess.

    ¡°A blood sample... Will Hao Lianchuan agree to that?¡± Yu Xiao frowned. ¡°He likes to give us excuses...¡±

    ¡°Figure it out yourself!¡±

    <i>Fine then.</i> Yu Xiao shut his mouth. It was just some blood, would there be any difficulty in that?

    ¡°Li Hao is our secondary target outside of the mission,¡± Hu Qingfeng continued. ¡°Our primary mission is still Hou Xiaochen! Additionally, does the Silver Moon military elder still refuse to meet?¡±

    An older, middle-aged man responded in a low voice, ¡°The Silver Moon Division says that their Commander Yu¡¯s old injuries have recently red up. He¡¯s been in recovery and needs a period of rest.¡±

    <i>More old injuries! </i>Hu Qingfeng glowered. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s old injuries had red up, that oldmander¡¯s injuries had red up, and even the inspector general of the Inspectorate said he was struggling with old injuries. Director General Zhao of the provincial government was also saying that he didn¡¯t feel too well and that his cough had grown stronger...

    Damn it, were the leaders of this vast province all sickly and feeble?! All of them trotted out the same excuse! It was either old injuries or feeling under the weather. Hu Qingfeng wanted to explode with anger. He wouldn¡¯t be faced with this kind of treatment in the central region! He wouldn¡¯t be met with a closed door no matter where he turned!

    He was a Nova and a Heaven Favored!

    Other than some of those perverts at headquarters, hemanded attention and respect no matter where he went in the central region!

    Of course, those perverts wouldn¡¯t always at headquarters. Apparently they¡¯d gone out a few days ago to cause more trouble. Who knew what they¡¯d stir up this time? They were the reason for the war in the central region.

    Irritation gnawed at Hu Qingfeng when he thought of those people. They were excellent at creating a mess and leaving it for others to clean up. They were the bane of his existence and people like him often had to step in to pick up the pieces!

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll ignore him for now!¡± Hu Qingfeng dered. ¡°Is there anything from the three great organizations?¡±

    ¡°The Parity King is outside White Moon City, there doesn¡¯t seem to be anything from Half Mountain. Apparently Blue Moon hase from the Red Moon organization...¡±

    Hu Qingfeng inclined his head and thought over these details. ¡°We can meet with them if need be. Hou Xiaochen is a thorn in their side. There are many secrets in Silver Moon and this thorn must be digging into a lot of people¡¯s sides!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The group was in no hurry to meet with Li Hao after their discussion. Everything could wait until the meeting concluded tomorrow. They also wanted to see if any secrets might be divulged during it. Was it hard for martial masters to reach Summoner of Spirit or not?

    ......

    Quiet could be found on all sides tonight as everyone waited. Li Hao¡¯s arrival was a pebble dropped into theke of White Moon City. Small ripples undted across theke¡¯s surface. Meanwhile, the young man was perfectly at ease as he looked around his new home. He admired massive balls of light through the window¡ªso bright!

    The house wasn¡¯t big, but it was very clean. inly, someone had been by to put it in order. It was a standard two bedroom apartment, but superb amodations in a ce like White Moon. Land was at a premium in the city, yet the Night Watchers were assigned units wholly for individual use.

    Hao Lianchuan was across the way from him. The man was a deputy director, yet this was his residence as well. Who knew if he was unwilling to move to a new house or if this was the best that his status could afford?

    Li Hao opened the window, enjoying the light touch of a cool breeze over his face.<i> White Moon City really is impressive! There¡¯s seven supernaturals gathered in this tiny spot and probably an unknown number of martial masters. </i>

    <i>There¡¯s two earth supernatural hidden in the ground. I wonder if they¡¯ll suffocate as time goes on? </i>

    <i>There a wind supernatural floating through the sky as a wisp of breeze.</i>

    <i>There¡¯s someone who knows invisibility¡ªit¡¯s probably a dark supernatural ability¡ªin the house across from me.</i>

    <i>And then there¡¯s three more that are further away. Maybe they have some sort of vision or ability to hear from far away.</i>

    <i>It¡¯s really impressive!</i>

    <i>Are these seven from seven different factions? I¡¯ve only just gotten here, but there¡¯s so many people keeping an eye on me already. How interesting.</i>

    A knock sounded on his door as he admired therge light bulbs. Li Hao cocked his head at the front door¡ªthere was no ball of lighting from it. Therefore, he wasn¡¯t afraid and stepped forward to open the door.

    ¡°Are you Commissioner Inspector Li?¡± smiled a bubbly woman in her thirties. ¡°I¡¯m from the Inspectorate¡¯s logistics department. We¡¯ve learned that it¡¯s themissioner inspector¡¯s first time in White Moon City. You¡¯re no doubt unfamiliar with your surroundings.

    ¡°The Inspectorate makes certain arrangements for allmissioner inspectors and those above. Just give us a call if you need anything. You can give us your dirty clothes to be washed, and do you prefer motorcycles or cars as a form of transportation? There is a free cafeteria in this neighborhood, but if themissioner inspector doesn¡¯t like it, we can arrange for your own meals...¡±

    Li Hao blinked with surprise. This level of treatment was wonderful! The Night Watchers were almostpletely separate from the Inspectorate, yet the agency was still able to enjoy this level of care from the Inspectorate.

    Amissioner inspector was a major personage in a small ce, but nothing much in the provincial capital. Many Darkmoons were given amissioner inspector position, some Sunres were only high rankmissioner inspectors¡ªthey weren¡¯t further promoted for their strength.

    Chiefmissioner was still more worthy of note.

    ¡°I see, thank you. I don¡¯t know anything since I¡¯ve just gotten here. You don¡¯t need to take care of me, big sis. I¡¯ll ask Director Hao when hees back. I¡¯ll usually eat with the director if nothinges up...¡±

    The woman¡¯s eyes lit up and she grew even more enthused. ¡°Got it, I won¡¯t disturb you then. You can reach the logistics department if you press 1 on themunicator in the room. Please let us know any time if there¡¯s anything we can do to help!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re too kind!¡± Li Hao thanked her so profusely that the woman left quite reluctantly. The young man shut the front door, a smile still on his face like he was truly very happy. ¡°How nice!¡±

    Li Haoughed, as if quite satisfied. He walked over to the window and looked down at the ground. He was moderately high up at twelve floors, but there wasn¡¯t much to see outside the window. The building directly in front blocked some of his line of vision. However, the neighborhood¡¯s greening efforts were well done.

    It waste in the day when he arrived and now night was almost upon him. The sky was dark, yet Hao Lianchuan had not returned from work yet. It looked like this deputy director of his needed to put in overtime. Poor guy.

    Li Hao was in no rush since Hao Lianchuan was still at work. He walked around the apartment, taking his measure of the ce. It wasn¡¯t very big¡ªthere was a study aside from the two bedrooms that held some books on a bookshelf. They were all elementary primers.

    The young man perused them, then reced some with his own books. He hadn¡¯t brought anything special, but he¡¯d brought some of the books from the third row of his teacher¡¯s bookshelf. They were part of Yuan Shuo¡¯s treasured collection. Li Hao had been concerned that his teacher wouldn¡¯t be able to find them when he came back, so the young man decided to bring the books with him.

    There seemed to be one missing, however, possibly because his teacher had taken it with him. His teacher really loved books more than life itself! The situation had been so dangerous then, but he still chose to take a book with him before that great battle. How touching it was!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t bring anything else with him other than the books. The agency issued clothes and other standard equipment. Public servants had no need to bring those with them; they were naturally issued some when they reached their destination.

    Ah, he also carried a bank card. Several months of his sry was saved inside. After his promotionst month, his sry and bonuses should be sizable. There might be tens of thousands in his bank ount now.

    That should be enough to treat some folks to a meal, right?

    Some sounds traveled from the unit across from him after the young man spent some time busying himself around the apartment. Li Hao nced out the window instead of his neighbor. The light bulbs in the vicinity immediately vanished, even the ones in the dirt. It looked like they were still wary of Srs. If he lived alone, they¡¯d probably stay the entire time.

    Li Hao breathed out gently. While he liked looking at light bulbs, it was ufortable to have them watching even his business in the bathroom.

    Sharp raps sounded on his front door. The young man quickly went out to open the door. A slightly weary Hao Lianchuan took a look inside the apartment and nodded with satisfaction. ¡°It¡¯s good that you¡¯re settled in. I¡¯m usually at the Night Watchers, but Ie back to sleep at night if there¡¯s nothing happening.¡±

    ¡°Have you eaten yet, Director Hao?¡±

    ¡°No, have you not either?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao smiled and whispered, ¡°How about my blood pearl?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no rush, maybe tomorrow!¡± Hao Lianchuan rolled his eyes. ¡°I asked Manager Yu after you left. She says that they might be able to give it to you tomorrow, possibly after the meeting.¡±

    ¡°How is Director Hou?¡±

    ¡°His injuries seemed to have worsened and he needs to be in seclusion for a few days more.¡± Hao Lianchuan smiled, as did Li Hao. These injuries were quite severe to still be an issue after a few days.

    ¡°I had people deliver dinner,¡± Hao Lianchuan continued. ¡°Ah, your senior sister¡¯s husband gave me a call. All he wants to say is that it¡¯s fine if you don¡¯t wish to go to the Tiger Wings. You can go to him anytime.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s quite sincere!¡± Li Hao nodded without a change in expression, inly unmoved. Hao Lianchuan was curious about the reaction.

    ¡°You¡¯re utterly shameless when you kiss up to me, so why don¡¯t you think about doing the same to him? That guy would certainly help you more if you were willing to.¡±

    ¡°Director Hao is not a martial master,¡± was the only thing that Li Hao said.

    Hao Lianchuan frowned. The young man didn¡¯t exin further.

    <i>You don¡¯t understand because you¡¯re not a martial master. A heritage can not be randomly passed on or learned!</i>

    Yuan Shuo wished to learn the Nine Forged Force, but did either Li Hao or Liu Long teach it to him despite their good rtionship? Did Yuan Shuo teach the breathing method to Liu Long?

    Martial masters adhered to basic rules. One¡¯s heritage could not be disseminated in such a manner. Even if one learned it identally, one could not disy it without permission. Hu Dingfang had employed the Five Styles in public, and the full, official version. That was a vition of the rules!

 Chapter 304: Fishing With Oneâ€™s Life (II)

    <h4>Chapter 304: Fishing With One¡¯s Life (II)</h4>

    It was one thing that Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t take Hu Dingfang to task for growing stronger through an illegitimate acquisition of the Five Styles, but themander shouldn¡¯t have used it in front of others!

    That was a grave taboo!

    He¡¯d demonstrated the secret art of the Five Styles, but was not of the discipline itself. Anyone who saw him might think that the discipline had been exterminated! That was the only way an outsider would possess core knowledge!

    ¡°Very well then, that¡¯s thest I speak of this matter.¡± Hao Lianchuan exchanged a few other simple lines before saying, ¡°I¡¯m going back to rest. You cane to me if you have further business, or you can eat by yourself if you don¡¯t. I don¡¯t want to eat with you anymore.¡±

    <i>The fatty is so narrow minded! He wanted to eat with me just now, but loses his temper as soon as I say he¡¯s not a martial master.</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. He watched Hao Lianchuan walk out of his front door, through his own, and m the door shut with a bang. The deputy director¡¯s temper was really riled up.

    ......

    <i>Inside the opposite apartment.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan turned back with a grin. The little guy was interesting! He put Li Hao out of his mind and entered his study, pulling out a tattered book after some thought.

    <i>The Chronicles of Silver Moon¡¯s Martial World.</i>

    <i>Chapter one: A listing of Silver Moon¡¯s martial heroes.</i>

    ¡°When ites to the heroes of the martial world, there are thirty-six personages as of this book¡¯s date of publication!

    ¡°We must mention Five Styles King Yuan Shuo when we speak of the martial world. His Five Styles are that of the tiger, bear, deer, ape, and bird. He dominated the martial world in seven years. Wails and cries of agony filled thend when a challenge letter arrived from the Five Styles King. Those who epted it did so frightened out of their wits, and their disciples were ready with coffins...¡±

    Hao Lianchuan read with great relish. What a pity this book hadn¡¯t been updated since twenty years ago. He hadn¡¯t perused it much before because he hadn¡¯t been interested in the characters it explored. And now, the names in these pages were appearing in front of him one by one.

    Yuan Shuo who kept a low profile, the brash and crude Southern Fist, the Qimei Staff who shook thend with one staff, the Earthturner Sword who churned heaven and earth, Silver Spear who died on his sickbed, and Ying Hongyue known far and wide. The main viins of the book were the threemanders of the Skystar Guards. They were given monikers of Cannibal, Laughter, and Sickly.

    Which one of them was Director Hou? Laughter or Sickly?

    Sickly seemed more possible. Had the director been in his condition early on?

    Hao Lianchuan felt it more likely than not that the director was one of the threemanders. Sadly, the book didn¡¯t mention Sickly much and only expounded on his many evil deeds. It was obvious to tell that Silver Moon¡¯s martial world thought very poorly of the threemanders!

    Another figure floated into his mind as Hao Lianchuan read on¡ªManager Yu. He paged through the book, but it didn¡¯t mention anyone like the secretary. The woman had been by Director Hou¡¯s side for many years and Hou Xiaochen had never been stationed elsewhere. They must¡¯ve met in Silver Moon.

    Hao Lianchuan himself had been in White Moon City for many years. Manager Yu¡¯s sudden appearance was quite bizarre and out of the norm.

    What other inspiration might this book give him today?

    He hadn¡¯t cared before and truth be told, he still didn¡¯t care now. He was just curious and really wanted toe to a deeper understanding of Manager Yu. What other identities did she have?

    The deputy director kept reading and recounting everything he knew about the secretary... Finally, he saw a very short mention at the end of the book.

    ¡°Sickly abandoned the idea of killing her. She was one of the few martial masters to escape his grasp. The martial world was in disarray and the supernatural was on the rise in the central region. It was time for the martial world to withdraw from this age. Ying Hongyue had left, the Sky Sword had left. They all chose to leave...¡±

    Hao Lianchuan read for a bit longer and carefully read through all of the identifying details once more. He flipped the pages again and again, abruptly breaking out into a grin after a long while.

    ¡°No way?¡± He smiled craftily, and with some incredulousness. A merry Hao Lianchuan quickly closed the book.

    <i>Perhaps... I know who you are now. </i>He thought of the meeting of martial masters taking ce in the morning. <i>Will some more of these legendary characters appear tomorrow? </i>These people had been stuff of myths and legends twenty years ago, existences that could not be reached. After falling quiet for so many years, they seemed to be awakening one after another.

    How many of Silver Moon¡¯s thirty-six heroes were still alive today?

    ......

    Hao Lianchuan was reading, but Li Hao wasn¡¯t in the mood to read. His muscles writhed over his arms as he operated the Nine Forged Force again and again. It would be difficult toprehend its aura if he couldn¡¯t attain nineyers. This would be one of the easiest auras for him to grasp once hepleted nineyers; everything would fall into ce then. He would naturally sense the water aura. All that would remain then was to fashion it into the water sword aura.

    <i>Almost sevenyers...</i>

    He could only manage sixyers before. It wasn¡¯t that one couldyer internal force faster simply when they were stronger, but that they needed to repeatedly hone theiryers. Li Hao hadn¡¯t spent enough time honing his.

    If he could swiftly attain nineyers and grasp the second aura, he would be able to perform his second summoning once he incorporated sword aura into it and turned it into the water sword aura.

    <i>Five auras for five organs... What about my four limbs? How should I meld the wind, rain, and thunder that Imand?</i>

    He pushed his hand out very gently, shooting out a ray of force that was visible to the naked eye. One, two three, four five...

    Sevenyers werepleted in the blink of an eye! It happened very quickly, but it was clear to see that it was ayering of seven times.

    ¡°Too slow... and too obvious!¡± Li Hao shook his head. The method was very powerful, but it was useless in anything other than offensive capability. Granted, that didn¡¯t matter to him. He¡¯d barely managed to pull off sevenyers. It might take a while longer to attain nine.

    ¡°They say that there¡¯s a sea at White Moon City... and I do see it to the east of the city on the maps. Perhaps I should go see what waves look like? Are they really that immense?¡± He¡¯d never seen the sea before and didn¡¯t know how capricious it could be.

    They said that seawater was salty and those who lived by it could eat seafood everyday. Salty water, soft beaches, and apparently women liked to sunbathe without clothes on... Perhaps his teacher would like that. Li Hao didn¡¯t care, he just wanted to see the waves.

    Learning never stopped in martial dao! No matter how strong one was, prolonged disuse orck of practice would lead to a decline in martial dao.

    His tiny rooms weren¡¯t suited for boxing routines. All the same, Li Hao threw himself around for a bit, conducted some breathing exercises, further tempered his organs, and finally went to bedte at night.

    Hao Lianchuan also rubbed his eye when Li Hao¡¯s side grew quiet and turned off the lights to sleep himself.

    Li Hao¡¯s first night in White Moon City passed by in a quiet manner.

    ......

    <i>September 5th. A bright and clear day.</i>

    The Night Watcher headquarters thronged with people early in the morning. Director Zhou was the first to report to work. He frowned at the crowd as he wasn¡¯t a fan of this kind of uproar. But there were some within the gathering that he couldn¡¯t do anything about.

    ¡°Everyone, you are all highly respected seniors,¡± he called out from the front door. ¡°Therefore, the rules should be respected. The workday has not yet started, Li Hao will naturally appear at 9 am. You can wait in the meeting hall next door, what is the purpose of lingering here for?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that we don¡¯t respect the rules,¡± an old man with white hair spoke urgently. ¡°But that you Night Watcherse to work toote! Martial masters should sleep early and rise early, how is someone still not here at 9 am...¡±

    These martial masters hade very early in the morning. Some didn¡¯t even leavest night and decided to keep watch until morning. They¡¯d thought that Li Hao woulde bright and early, but there was no sign of the young man to be found at 8 am! Was he still a damned martial master??

    It was the first time that they understood the Night Watcher system to be sox. Some martial masters set up dojos that teemed with activity at 5 or 6 am.

    Supernaturals were blessed by the heavens, alright! They didn¡¯t need to cultivate!

    These veteran martial masters were envious, jealous, and a bit contemptuous. How much battle strength could supernaturals like these possess? Regardless, they were still envious at the end of the day.

    The supernatural domain was now the officially recognized way and the sun had set on martial dao. There was no use in rising earlier than the rooster. Supernaturals wouldugh their heads off at the thought of rising at the first crow to train. Training all day and night for an entire year amounted to less improvement than one who absorbed a little bit of mysterious power.

    A car stopped in front of the building as the crowd mored. Li Hao alighted first, followed by Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°My apologies, seniors!¡± Li Hao quickly yelled when he saw the amount of people. ¡°I woke up a long time ago and wanted to rush here, but I¡¯m unfamiliar with the roads. I had toe with Uncle Hao. My apologies for making everyone wait!

    ¡°Please take your seats in the neighboring meeting hall,¡± the young man offered a few more rounds of pleasantries. ¡°I¡¯ll be right there!¡±

    Seeing that the young man was here in the flesh and being so polite, the crowd decided to disperse for now. They¡¯d simply been worried by Li Hao¡¯s absence. All was fine now that he was here.

    These martial masters melted away in the blink of an eye. Some of them looked to be only yer of Tens. How had the Night Watchers arranged things, to let even yers in?

    Hao Lianchuanughed when he checked the time. <i>Damn, they¡¯re in a hurry!</i> He caught a glimpse of someone else out of the corner of his eye and continuedughing. It looks like martial masters weren¡¯t the only ones anxious about this matter! So were others!

    ¡°Get your things and head on over!¡± Hao Lianchuan said to Li Hao. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯re right next to the Night Watchers. Nothing can possibly happen. Just don¡¯t run your mouth with nonsense!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao nodded and fell in step beside the deputy director.

    Many Night Watchers were very curious. They knew what was to take ce today and that some information was about to be released. They all wished that they could learn some of it ahead of time. It was a pity that they weren¡¯t close to Li Hao, but they knew someone who was. Those who¡¯d explored the ruins together were familiar with him.

    Huang Yun waited for Hao Lianchuan to leave the young man in the lobby before sidling over with curiosity, ¡°Li Hao, are blood pearls really that useful for martial masters?¡±

    ¡°Would I possibly lie about this, Elder Huang?¡± Li Hao nodded with a smile. ¡°You¡¯ll know in a bit. Are you going to the meeting¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d like to... but...¡±

    ¡°Thene,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s not ssified intelligence, just stuff that¡¯s about to be made public. It¡¯s no big deal.¡±

    A smiling Huang Yun nodded in agreement. That was true. Perfect, he could tag alongter and listen to the gossip.

    The receptionist called out at this time, ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li, Director Hao requests your presence on the fourth floor in Manager Yu¡¯s office!¡±

    ¡°Thank you!¡± Excitement gripped Li Hao. Was he about to receive the Nova blood pearl?

 Chapter 305: Fishing With Oneâ€™s Life (III)

    <h4>Chapter 305: Fishing With One¡¯s Life (III)</h4>

    <i>The fourth floor of the Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Quite a few people visited this floor¡ªtypically secretaries, drivers, and the like. It was a quieter floor as everyone had tasks to aplish for the various directors.

    Manager Yu possessed an office to herself. It was huge, bigger than Hao Lianchuan¡¯s.

    Li Hao knocked on the door.

    The secretary¡¯s crisp voice echoed from the other side.

    The young man pushed open the door and swiftly saluted, the epitome of respect.

    ¡°Hello, Secretary Yu!¡± Li Hao stood ramrod straight.

    Across the desk, Manager Yu inclined her head at him. She took out a box from a drawer without a word and opened it to reveal ten red pills.

    ¡°These are the blood pearls extracted from killing Red Hair. The director split the energy into ten parts because you aren¡¯t strong enough to take it all at once. Nova is the equivalent of nine suns. If initial Sr is one sun, peak Sr is almost three suns. Sr is the start of three suns, and nine suns is its peak.

    ¡°Although this Nova blood pearl is split into ten portions, each portion is much stronger than those of the Sunre level.¡± The secretary was very frank. ¡°You¡¯re just a half step Dominator, which means that the energy within one of these blood pearls exceeds the sum total of all of your internal force. I rmend that you take them only after bing a Dominator and take only one at a time. One pill is sufficient for a month¡¯s worth of digestion. If you take them all within a year, it will more than double your internal force!¡±

    ¡°Secretary Yu.¡± Li Hao was a bit confused as he listened intently. ¡°Does this mean that one of these pills is only a bit stronger than a Sunre level one?¡±

    <i>That would be such a shame! What¡¯d you go and split that shadow for? That makes a Nova level shadow just a little stronger than ten Sunres...</i>

    Li Hao was very familiar with the effects of Sunre level blood pearls. Thispletely negated his anticipation for the Nova level shadow! It was very disappointing!

    <i>I didn¡¯t tell you to split it into separate portions for me! All of it together will be much stronger than it being separated. </i>It wasn¡¯t just how much energy there was at times, there was also a matter of energy being stronger or weaker, and if it was oneplete whole. There was no doubt that taking ten Sunre blood pearls at the same time would lead to less of an effectpared to one Nova!

    A Nova level blood pearl was defined by aplete whole. The value waspletely different! One massive watermelon at five kilograms would always be more tasty than ten watermelon at half a kilogram, because thetter was yet to mature.

    Manager Yuughed when she nced at the young man¡¯s expression. ¡°If you think that splitting them apart is a waste, you can take multiple at the same time. Don¡¯t worry, they were created from the same whole. If you¡¯re not afraid of death, you can take all ten at the same time for a Nova effect! But I don¡¯t rmend you doing so. The director split them out of certain considerations¡ªhe¡¯s concerned that you¡¯ll pop from the energy!¡±

    <i>That¡¯s good then!</i>

    ¡°My thanks to the director and the secretary!¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to thank me!¡± Manager Yu dismissed casually. ¡°You traded for it with your sword. The director wishes for me to ask, do you know how to unseal the sword?¡±

    It wasn¡¯t a simple item even if it wasn¡¯t the sword of the Lis. Hou Xiaochen had his suspicions, but the trade was still well worth it as the sword might be a sealed origin weapon.

    Li Hao shook his head.

    The secretary remained unmoved. It didn¡¯t matter if the young man didn¡¯t know. ¡°Keep one thing in mind for the meetingter¡ªemphasize the effects of the blood pearl. You can do as you see fit about any other topic!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao saluted with solemnity.

    ¡°Dismissed!¡±

    ¡°Okay!¡± Li Hao excitedly put the box in his pocket.

    Manager Yu frowned slightly at the door after the young man walked out. She wordlessly shook her head after a moment. Li Hao was probably already a Dominator! She could determine that from the director¡¯s reaction that day. But that wasn¡¯t important, it wasn¡¯t like she¡¯d never seen Dominators before. She was more curious whether Li Hao would be the same kind of Dominator as Yuan Shuo.

    <i>Probably not.</i>

    The young man hadn¡¯t coalesced the auras of the Five Styles yet. He only seemed to have the sword aura. Li Hao wasn¡¯t walking down the path of the Five Styles, and the key was that Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t mind.

    He forewent an established path to attempt the one of the sword. None of the Seven Swords had been a match for Yuan Shuo. How strong had the Sky Sword been?

    The results spoke for themselves.

    Did Yuan Shuo think that his disciple would have greater aplishments in sword dao than the Five Styles?

    Manager Yu was confused, but it didn¡¯t matter. As strong as Yuan Shuo was, he didn¡¯t necessarily measure up to the director. That held true even though the old man had dominated an era. He¡¯d been so domineering only because the director hadn¡¯t paid attention to him.

    A faint smile appeared on the woman¡¯s face, one that quickly faded away. White Moon City was aplete messtely. That was fine, all would be resolved once the director emerged from seclusion. But if the situation continued, perhaps she should do something as well.

    ......

    If the Night Watcher headquarters were an antique, then the meeting hall was the epitome of modernity. Magnificent lights illuminated the massive hall, the seats were plush, and there were refreshments off to the side.

    General seating was located on the first floor, private booths could be found on the second. Perhaps the Night Watchers had borrowed a faction¡¯s auction hall instead? The setup was rather mysterious.

    Powerhouses from the major factions and agencies were present. They didn¡¯t draw much attention as they headed directly to the second floor.

    Li Hao was facing the audience and seated right beneath the pulpit; he was nked on both sides. Peak Sunre Director Zhou was on his left¡ªthe man seemed to have changed after the excavation. He was possibly headed toward Sr.

    As for Li Hao¡¯s right... Wang Ming looked around attentively. Li Hao found it strange that this guy could get a seat representing the agency at this meeting. Did he call upon his connectionsst night?

    These three were the only ones from the Night Watcher. Hao Lianchuan wasn¡¯t here, Manager Yu wasn¡¯t here. It would seem that they didn¡¯t ce much importance on this gatherin.

    Many martial masters were present in the hall. He Yong had the right to sit upstairs, but he sat in the front row of the first floor instead. He stared excitedly at Li Hao, barely able to contain himself.

    Li Hao looked out over the assembly. Most of them were martial masters, but there were also quite a few non-martial masters. <i>How¡¯d they get in here? </i>The second floor was popted mostly by balls of light. Most of them were supernatural and the ones without were possibly Dominators.

    The young man even saw a very familiar ball of light¡ªHong Yitang! The leader of the Sword Sect was here!

    Li Hao nced at the second floor; so many heavyweights hade without making a fuss! And, what was Hao Lianchuan hiding on the second floor for? Not only did the young man see the familiar sight of Hong Yitang¡¯s ball of light, there was another one he was well acquainted with¡ªHu Dingfang. There might be someone else in his booth, the senior sister that he¡¯d yet to meet.

    If there were military representatives here, then the provincial government might¡¯ve sent people too.

    ¡°Everyone¡¯s here, then.¡± After a while, Director Zhou began with clearing his throat. ¡°I¡¯ll keep it short. Li Hao just arrived yesterday and isn¡¯t familiar with everyone. We can skip the introductions. Li Hao will call upon people. Those who are recognized can ask their questions. He¡¯ll answer everything he can!

    ¡°So when ites to questions he cannot or will not answer, I hope that people won¡¯t force his hand!

    ¡°Everyone wishes to see martial dao be further perpetuated. I¡¯m sure he won¡¯t voice random nonsense or mislead us!¡± The director turned to the young man. ¡°Try your best to satisfy everyone if you can. Also, there are some martial masters from the central region here today. They might have deeper questions to ask. You can converse with them afterwards if you don¡¯t wish to answer on the spot.¡±

    Eyes darted around in the crowd. Had powerful martial masterse from the central region?

    ¡°We don¡¯t need to talk in private.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°My master says that, apart from the core method of a martial discipline, we should speak freely of everything else we know! As martial masters, none of us wish to see martial dao decline! So long as everyone does not ask about the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, I will share all that I possess!¡±

    ¡°As things should be!¡± someone whooped with approval. ¡°There should be free and open discourse in martial dao apart from our core methods. That is how we improve ourselves. None of us are rookies¡ªthose who dare ask about the core method are purposefully making trouble. There is no such allowance in the martial world! To seize one¡¯s core method is to exterminate the discipline. Those who ask such questions are fake martial masters and should be hunted down by everyone!¡±

    Arge sum of martial masters wholeheartedly agreed with his words. Although there was high interest in the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, just as Li Hao said, whoever asked about it was picking a bone. It was perfectly normal and expected if the two sides fought each other to the death on the spot.

    ......

    <i>The second floor, inside a booth.</i>

    Hu Dingfang furrowed his brows and looked at hisdy sitting beside him. ¡°Is the core method... of a discipline... really... really that important?¡±

    Being a martial master, it wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t understand this. However, neither did he fully understand it. He was a martial master of the army and the core methods that the army collected were shared with all of their own. Hu Dingfang knew that the Breathing Method of the Five Styles was very important, but the martial world had almost been stamped out when he learned it. He knew about the rules of the martial world, but had never experienced it for himself.

    It felt different today. The martial masters below could fully empathize with Li Hao¡¯s deration that core methods could not be revealed. It was as heinous as attacking one¡¯s parents and punishable by general fury!

    His wife didn¡¯t say anything and simply inclined her head. Hu Dingfang said nothing further.

    On the stage, Li Hao continued, ¡°My master once disseminated the Method of the Five Styles as a book. Quite a lot of people know it, and that¡¯s fine. The Five Styles fortifies the health and body. It¡¯s a good thing if people know a thing or two about it. That will also build my discipline¡¯s reputation!

    ¡°But I would like to speak a little more on a certain matter.¡± The young man rose with a cupped fist salute. ¡°Many are those who know the Five Styles and some have created their own variations or modified a breathing method to use in conjunction with it. That is also normal. But whether it is to kill people or in sparring, the Five Styles cannot be used in official settings! If it is, you must leave your own unique mark within! Otherwise, outsiders will think that my master is randomly killing people or that my Five Styles is in the business of establishing bizarre blood feuds!

    ¡°There is only my master and I in the Five Styles discipline now! The disciples that he epted before have gradually gone on their own ways. It is my master¡¯s generous nature that he did not retract the Five Styles when they left. But these people cannot use the discipline¡¯s name in pursuit of their nefarious aims!

    ¡°Whether it is my master or myself, we will admit to anyone we kill. Those of the Five Styles fully own up to our deeds! If anyone sees another using the Five Styles to kill people, that has nothing to do with us! Whether you wish to kill or punish them, all is fine so long as the Five Styles discipline is not involved!¡±

    The martial masters didn¡¯t react to the speech, but hushed whispers flurried in the second floor booths. Why did these words seem to be aimed at someone?

 Chapter 306: Fishing With Oneâ€™s Life (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 306: Fishing With One¡¯s Life (IV)</h4>

    Hu Dingfang didn¡¯t say anything. Meanwhile, his wife sighed softly and looked at her husband.

    ¡°Did you... use the Five Styles in front of him?¡±

    Themander nodded.

    Chen Yuhua stayed silent for a moment. ¡°Try... not to use it next time. You are a supernatural now. As strong as the Five Styles is, there are abilities and techniques in the supernatural as well. Don¡¯t use it unless you have to.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Hu Dingfang didn¡¯t protest. inly, Li Hao¡¯s words might be meant for his ears.

    ......

    <i>Within the hall.</i>

    Li Hao called on Southern Fist instead of continuing in the same vein. ¡°Senior Southern Fist, you are a respected senior of the Silver Moon martial world. You can ask one question!¡±

    He Yong roared withughter and cut straight to the chase. ¡°Does the method for Summoner of Spirit have to do with the five organs?¡±

    Eyes widened among martial masters and they stared raptly at the stage. This was the heart of what they wanted to know!

    ¡°Yes, at least my teacher¡¯s method is tied to the five organs.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I don¡¯t know about anyone else¡¯s method, but nurturing the five elements is the precursor to Summoner of Spirit. The strength of the five organs is the foundation to Summoner!¡±

    He Yong wanted to follow up, but Li Hao called upon someone else.

    ¡°How do we strengthen the five organs?¡± the martial master called out excitedly.

    ¡°There¡¯s two ways. One, use internal force to nurture them. That might take ten years, twenty years, or even a lifetime! Two, use a blood pearl. One Sunre level blood pearl can save you five years. Two can save you ten years...¡±

    The hall ignited with a dull roar. Some with hasty personalities wanted to yell their questions at the stage, but Li Hao quieted them down before they had a chance to.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be in a rush, everyone. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve all heard of the blood pearls. Does anyone have one on them?¡±

    The hall immediately stilled. It was inappropriate to bring the treasure out like this whether or not they had one. There might be Red Moon representatives present.

    ¡°I have one!¡± He Yong hooted. ¡°It¡¯s a Sunre level one. Do you have a special way for us to take it? I took one, and to great effect, but it wasn¡¯t as wondrous as you say...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s because of a difference in breathing method!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°It¡¯s wonderful that you have one, senior. Everything looks to the results. There is no use in just talking about things all the time. Senior, could I have your blood pearl?¡±

    He Yong threw the blood pearl on stage. Li Hao took a quick assessment. Good, it wasn¡¯t weak. It was at least from a mid Sunre scarlet shadow¡ªprobably a royal family creation.

    So the royal family was also preparing these resources.

    ¡°I will not test it on you since you are a Dominator, senior. Are you willing to let me experiment with it?¡±

    ¡°Of course, do as you wish!¡± He Yong didn¡¯t care. It was best if he could see some results with his own eyes.

    Li Hao looked into the crowd and pointed at a young man. His target was roughly twenty years old and seemed to be peak yer, judging from his muscles, stride, and condition.

    Of course, he couldn¡¯t be certain.

    ¡°Pleasee up here, junior brother.¡±

    The young man in question was a bit baffled, but also excited. He quickly made his way to the stage.

    ¡°Who... is he?¡± Whispers flurried through the crowd.

    ¡°Don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°I know him, he¡¯s the youngest disciple of the Iron Palm. He¡¯s pretty young and already peak yer.¡±

    ¡°Oh, one of his!¡±

    The young man was quickly identified; the discourse also traveled into Li Hao¡¯s ears.

    ¡°You¡¯re not a Sunderer yet, are you?¡± He smiled at the neer.

    ¡°No...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll instantly break through after taking the blood pearl. Not only that, but it will strengthen your five visceral organs as well. You¡¯ll be mid Sunderer or evente Sunderer soon, but it¡¯s up to you to sense the aura if you want to make it to half step Dominator...¡±

    ¡°R-really?¡± Thrills ran through the young man.

    ¡°You¡¯ll know when we give it a try!¡± Li Hao raised the Sunre level blood pearl. ¡°There¡¯s too much energy in here for you, so you shouldn¡¯t take it by yourself. Since I am a half step Dominator, I can use the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to help you digest it...¡±

    Li Hao shoved the blood pearl into the other¡¯s mouth and mmed his palm over when energy erupted. He operated the breathing method before the young man had a chance to react.

    Not only that, but he utilized a tiny thread of sword energy as well. It wasn¡¯t like the guy would know any different, he¡¯d just think that the breathing method was marvelous.

    A massive amount of blood-colored energy spread out in the air; the young disciple¡¯s internal force surged and he flushed beet red. It didn¡¯t take long before he roared and thrust out his own palm, projecting internal force with an explosive rush!

    Jaws dropped in the meeting hall. He was a Sunderer now?? How was that possible?!

    ¡°Are there any initial Sunderers present who are willing to fight him?¡± Li Hao asked the assembly. ¡°He¡¯s still digesting the energy, but his organs and physical body have all been enhanced. He¡¯ll be stronger than a typical Sunderer...¡±

    ¡°I am!¡± Someone quickly jumped out from the crowd.

    The two Sunderers were quickly embroiled in a fight. The young man who¡¯d taken the blood pearl urgently needed to vent the excess from the changes in his body. Emotions running high, he continuously mmed down instances of the Iron Palm.

    However, hisck of experience showed and he suffered multiple kicks in a row. The assembly carefully observed the proceedings with strange looks in their eyes. The young disciple¡¯s organs really did seem to be much stronger than before. The frenzied kicking only inflicted some bruises and scrapes. There was no resulting damage to his internal organs.

    The group regarded blood pearls with new fervor. The two Sunderers were still fighting, but people couldn¡¯t help but raise questions again.

    ¡°Is it... only the Breathing Method of the Five Styles that can digest the energy?¡±

    ¡°No, all breathing methods can do so, they just waste some more energy. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles is more efficient at this task.¡± Li Hao continued before the next question followed, ¡°Blood pearls are actually wasted on Sunderers. They¡¯re much more useful for Dominators as therge sums of energy can be incorporated into the five visceral organs used to fortify them. That will be very useful in helping everyone progress to Summoner of Spirit.¡±

    ¡°How do we break through after enhancing our organs?¡± A light danced in He Yong¡¯s eyes.

    ¡°I¡¯m not certain of the particrs either,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°But I know that after the five organs are fully nurtured, you can try melding your aura into the organs if it¡¯s strong enough. However, that easily destroys the bnce between the organs and causes death via their rupture!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, I¡¯ve tried that before myself,¡± He Yong frowned and agreed after a while. ¡°I can feel my organs threatening to explode as soon as my aura enters them!¡±

    He¡¯d tried before!

    Or more urately, many people had tried before. They weren¡¯t fools and could hazard some guesses when they saw the fire heart ape. However, they couldn¡¯t do it!

    ¡°I heard teacher mention it once,¡± Li Hao said after thinking it over. ¡°There¡¯s a key to this process, but he didn¡¯t go into details. He only mentioned that the process requires this key to be sessful!¡±

    And that was to lock the aura with the supernatural locks!

    No one knew about this and neither did they dare brashly experiment. Martial masters who needed to feel their way through to Summoner of Spirit were all of the Dominator level. It wasn¡¯t hard for Dominators to cross over to the supernatural, but even if they didn¡¯t, they didn¡¯t dare lightly disturb their supernatural locks.

    And yet, it was impossible to confine the aura without supernatural locks. This made it impossible for martial masters to summon and nurture their spirits, even if they knew the next step had to do with the five organs.

    ¡°There are five organs for five auras, must we have five auras to take the next step?¡± A voice traveled from the second floor.

    The method for Summoner of Spirit was meaningless if that was the case.

    ¡°Not necessarily.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°If there¡¯s only one aura... and I have to repeat myself and say that I¡¯m not terribly familiar with my teacher¡¯s research... But one thing I do know, and it¡¯s that my teacher didn¡¯t say anything even though Iprehended the sword aura. That means it¡¯s not impossible to go at it with one aura alone! We can nurture one aura in five organs, but I¡¯ll need my teacher to expand upon the particrs...¡±

    ¡°Is there no other way apart from the blood pearls?¡± asked the same speaker from the second floor. That was Red Moon exclusive knowledge. If this was the case, it¡¯d be open warfare with Red Moon and they¡¯d have to employ the use of origin weapons.

    That would not be good!

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but my teacher is attempting to modify the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. If he seeds, we might be able to directly nurture the five organs. It might be slower, but it¡¯d be a viable path. Unfortunately, I find it impossible to answer these questions now that my teacher is absent.¡±

    Eyes widened with surprise when the crowd heard the response. Modifying the Breathing Method of the Five Styles? Would it be freely shared if that was sessful?

    ¡°Commissioner Inspector Li,¡± came another person¡¯s voice from the second floor. ¡°Did Professor Yuan specifically mention anything to be cautious of before he left?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± the young man answered frankly. ¡°Teacher once mentioned that there are elements attributed to the five organs. They cannot be assimted willy-nilly with random auras. The water aura corresponds to the kidneys and the fire aura to the heart. But the five visceral organs are fragile, so they need to be strong enough to not suffer damage or bleed when the aura is directed into the organ. That is the most basic requirement for the next level. If such signs appear when you attempt to meld the aura, you must stop immediately!¡±

    Even He Yong frowned now. ¡°The organs are hard to fortify. I¡¯ve consumed countless treasures, but mine still bleed as soon as I try directing my aura into them. Can mysterious power stones enhance the five organs?¡±

    ¡°They can, but they¡¯re not as effective as the blood pearls. The blood pearls are more suited to martial masters and the proper attribute is required for the mysterious power stone,¡± Li Hao replied. ¡°Director Hao gave me a wood stone when I was injured by another before. I used it to repair my organs. The effects were decent. While they were less than blood pearls, they were much better than mysterious power.¡±

    He Yong breathed out heavily. Damn, even mysterious power stones were less than blood pearls. What else could be said about that?

    ¡°......¡± Questions flew in a thick flurry and Li Hao answered all of them honestly. The assembly was too embarrassed to ask anymore after a blizzard of questioning. If they continued, they¡¯d be asking about the Breathing Method of the Five Styles.

    Mouth dry, Li Hao took a sip of water.

 Chapter 307: Fishing With Oneâ€™s Life (V)

    <h4>Chapter 307: Fishing With One¡¯s Life (V)</h4>

    ¡°Li Hao,¡± Wang Ming whispered next to his colleague. ¡°Can the Breathing Method of the Five Styles really not be taught to outsiders?¡±

    Li Hao red at him and kept his voice down. ¡°Of course not! Don¡¯t even think about it unless you kill me and take the book about the secret method from my body! And don¡¯t get any funny ideas either. These secret arts are always only partially written down. Randomly attempting it will cause your death. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles is only half recorded in the book, the rest of it¡¯s in my mind. So don¡¯t even think about it!¡±

    ¡°How would I ever...¡± Wang Ming mumbled. ¡°But what are you carrying it on you for? Isn¡¯t that incredibly dangerous?¡±

    ¡°No shit! But should I hide it at home instead? Don¡¯t worry, only half of it¡¯s written down. It¡¯s not like all of it will be leaked if I lose it. You¡¯re teacher¡¯s honorary disciple. I¡¯ll let you read it if you do well.¡±

    ¡°Okay!¡±

    The two kept their voices so low that they were inaudible. Director Zhou on the other side didn¡¯t hear anything and didn¡¯t mind their whispering.

    ......

    However, the ears of several Srs twitched on the second floor.

    <i>Inside one of the private booths.</i>

    Hu Dingfang¡¯s expression shifted slightly. <i>That idiot! </i>He looked at Chen Yuhua and transmitted, ¡°Is there a secret record detailing the Breathing Method of the Five Styles?¡±

    His wife looked at him and transmitted back, ¡°There was before, I don¡¯t know if there¡¯s one now. Why do you ask? You already know it, so why do you need the book?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that, but your junior brother... Does he really think that people can¡¯t hear what he¡¯s saying? He¡¯s carrying it on him...¡±

    ¡°What?!¡± Chen Yuhua blinked. What was he carrying it around for?

    There weren¡¯t a lot of words in the manual for the breathing method; it mostly detailed some movements and the actual technique. To know it was to plumb the depths of its knowledge. He could destroy it after he learned it, why keep it on himself?

    ¡°Wait, you heard him?¡± she realized in the next second.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Hu Dingfang answered out loud with a frown. ¡°He said it very softly, but what level of strength does a Srmand? They¡¯ll be able to hear if they concentrate their focus on him...¡±

    Both of them frowned ferociously. This was not good! The more Li Hao demonstrated the effects of the breathing method, the more it would tempt people. Even supernaturals would be moved if this went on. He would be in grave trouble as the situation continued.

    Hu Dingfang¡¯s ears abruptly pricked forward as he heard the two voices once more.

    ¡°Li Hao, you¡¯ve got a Nova blood pearl on you¡ªwhy don¡¯t you give me one? Director Hou split it into ten for you, you won¡¯t lose much if you give me one. I¡¯ll buy it off you...¡±

    ¡°Shut up and keep your voice down. No one else knows about this, so keep quiet, you big mouth! Stop talking! There¡¯s powerhouses on the second floor, what if they hear us? You¡¯ve seriously got a huge mouth!¡±

    ¡°Pfft, we¡¯re talking so softly! Do you really think they¡¯re gods? And who cares if they hear us? Who dares touch you when we¡¯ve got the director backing us up? He¡¯ll stab them to death with one jab!¡±

    ¡°You... forget it, I¡¯m not talking to you.¡±

    That was the end of their conversation, but Hu Dingfang glowered ckly.

    ¡°He¡¯s also carrying a Nova blood pearl on him!¡± he transmitted after a moment. Even Chen Yuhua¡¯s expression changed drastically. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles and a Nova blood pearl was a perfect match! Even she herself would be tempted at this point. Their lives would be so different after killing Li Hao!

    As for the secret method being iplete, some veteran martial masters might be able to deduce the rest of the method after obtaining the first half. Their capabilities were not to be underestimated.

    A headache set in for Chen Yuhua. Her junior brother... was too foolish and she didn¡¯t know how many had heard him. Hu Dingfang heard him because her husband was ate Sr. What about the others?

    ¡°Pay attention to the reactions from the other booths...¡±

    Hu Dingfang furrowed his brows as soon as she responded. ¡°There¡¯s no reaction, it¡¯s all very quiet. Perhaps... no one heard him? We did because we¡¯re keeping an eye on him. Other people might not have noticed anything.¡±

    However, his brows remained locked in a frown. He needed to remind Li Hao the importance of being prudent. Did the Night Watchers really think that no one would take a risk just because they had Hou Xiaochen?

    Youngsters had such big mouths and needed to talk about everything! Hu Dingfang knew who Wang Ming was by now¡ªthe grandson of the vicemander of White Dragons. He¡¯d learned that the boy was a big mouth when he asked around. It would seem that he had a <i>particrly</i> big mouth and talked about everything and anything.

    ......

    Wang Ming acted perfectly normal; there was nothing out of ce. <i>Who is Li Hao trying to trick this time? Do I get any credit if he seeds? Do I get a cut of the spoils? I¡¯ll probably always be known as a big mouth from now on, but who cares! I don¡¯t!</i>

    He flicked a nce and looked at the others in the hall again. Who was his colleague¡¯s target this time and how many would take the bait? This guy was up to his old habits on his first day in Silver Moon, he was such a bad guy!

    Li Hao continued to cautiously answer everyone¡¯s questions in an earnest fashion. He focused mainly on the blood pearls and the breathing method, assigning all credit to these twoponents.

    The more the crowd listened, the more they felt that these two factors were needed in order to break through to Summoner of Spirit. Granted, the same effects could be had with more blood pearls if one did not have the breathing method.

    At the veryst when the meeting was about to conclude, Big Mouth Wang Ming whispered again, ¡°Li Hao, does Hu Dingfang know the Breathing Method of the Five Styles? I heard Director Hao say that he made it tote Sr in two years after stealing your secret art. That means supernaturals can also use it, and to great effect, right?¡±

    ¡°Shut up, seriously just shut up! Stop bbering and don¡¯t start rumors!¡± Li Hao rebuked with some anger. ¡°You can stay away from me in the future if you keep running your mouth like this! You¡¯re so damned annoying!¡±

    ¡°Okay, okay, I won¡¯t say anything anymore!¡±

    Hu Dingfang was a bit awkward, resigned, and angry from his seat on the second floor. This Wang Ming really needed a good beating! And these two fools needed to stop talking! At this rate, even supernaturals would be tempted, not just martial masters!

    <i>Sigh. I should¡¯ve interrupted them after their first sentence had I known this would happen.</i>

    ......

    <i>In another private booth.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan yawned widely and grinned. The little guy was fishing for all he was worth and fearless that he might truly attract a massive fish. He was fishing with his life as bait!

    <i>In that case... fish well.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan soundlessly departed the meeting hall. The news would make it into certain people¡¯s ears soon.

    ......

    <i>Inside the meeting hall.</i>

    Li Hao did his best to answer all the questions flung at him. Other than those he couldn¡¯t answer, he fully spoke of everything he knew.

    It was the final moments of the meeting. Someone in the crowd hesitated, but ultimately asked, ¡°Little friend Li, can you really not share the Breathing Method of the Five Styles?¡±

    There were those who still wanted to give that a try at this stage. Could it be taught to outsiders? Perhaps they were willing to in these times of martial dao weakness?

    The young man pursed his lips with difficulty and thought for a bit. Still, his response was, ¡°I cannot! At least not right now. My master needs to give approval, it is not up to me. And my master... Well, it¡¯s not entirely impossible!

    ¡°Everyone might be more familiar with my master than I am. He¡¯s stubborn, but also expresses his gratitude in spades. I¡¯ll be frank, my teacher isn¡¯t here right now partially because he¡¯s hiding for protection. If the various aunts and uncles present happen toe across him or see him when you return home, and are willing to lend a helping hand if my master is in danger... then why can¡¯t the Breathing Method of the Five Styles be shared?

    ¡°Is there a point to rules if one is about to die?¡± Li Hao spoke bluntly. ¡°If my master is still unwilling to teach the breathing method after he is saved, his savior cane find me. I will share it even if that gives him an apologetic fit!¡±

    The crowd rustled in reaction to histest words. Save Yuan Shuo?

    Indeed, Yuan Shuo was very strong now. But as strong as he was, he was not to the point of defying Novas. If he really traveled to the central region and sought revenge from Ying Hongyue, then... it wasn¡¯t out of the question that those gathered could render some aid if they came across a Yuan Shuo in need.

    The word of a martial master was very valuable. They might receive even more valuable things then, to say nothing of the breathing method.

    ¡°I see!¡± The martial master who¡¯d spoken smiled. ¡°If I really do meet an injured Master Yuan on the run in the central region, I will naturally do what I can as a fellow martial master!¡±

    ¡°My thanks to everyone!¡± Li Hao raised a cupped fist salute. ¡°I have answered all that I can and can do no more about what still remains a mystery. At thest, although I share a death feud with Red Moon, I must remind everyone that the blood pearls are formless and intangible. There is no other way to extract them other than with origin weapons. Don¡¯t take risks for the blood pearls. The best way is not to hunt down Red Moon powerhouses either, but to force the organization to hand over the method to nurture them!

    ¡°That is the true root of the situation!¡± The young smiled. ¡°We martial masters have a way forward if we can produce blood pearls ourselves. I, Li Hao, do hereby announce a promise from my master that if Red Moon is willing to hand over the method to raise blood pearls¡ªthe true method, one that is suited for the public¡¯s use¡ªthen our discipline¡¯s Breathing Method of the Five Styles can also be publicized! We are honored to do our part for the glory of martial dao!¡±

    A hush descended upon the first and second floors. Some had been thinking during Li Hao¡¯s speech that it wasn¡¯t a done deal even if Red Moon was willing to share their knowledge. Yuan Shuo would have to offer his as well.

    This was precisely what Li Hao had just added!

    ¡°Can you really make this promise on behalf of your master?¡± Some people could barely remain in their seats.

 Chapter 308: An Honest Li Hao (I)

    <h4>Chapter 308: An Honest Li Hao (I)</h4>

    It wasn¡¯t an impossible idea if everyone worked together. Red Moon was caught in obvious trouble and danger these days, Ying Hongyue might not be able to hang on forever. If the martial world united and forced him to hand over the method to nurture blood pearls, they might attain some sess.

    If the Breathing Method of the Five Styles was also avable then... that would be a perfect match!

    Li Hao nodded and intoned, ¡°I can make the decision on my master¡¯s behalf so long as we confirm that Red Moon the method is real and can truly create blood pearls. I can swear on the Night Watchers if there¡¯s people who don¡¯t believe me! If Ying Hongyue dares share his secret method, how would my discipline continue to hoard our own?

    ¡°But without the blood pearl method, only Ying Hongyue stands to benefit if our breathing method is publicized. As great the fools we may be, we will not permit Red Moon to freely benefit from us!¡±

    That made sense to the assembly. If the Breathing Method of the Five Styles became public knowledge, but not the way to foster blood pearls, then Red Moon... Red Moon would be so much stronger!

    ¡°Little friend Li is righteous!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, I think we should try for the method to nurture blood pearls since it¡¯s beneficial to martial masters. Red Moon¡¯s Ying Hongyue was once a martial master. Since the Five Styles has spoken thus, why can¡¯t they?¡±

    If Old Demon Yuan, an incredibly difficult person, was amenable to the idea, why not Ying Hongyue?

    All pressure immediately redirected to Red Moon. As opposed to scheming over how to seize the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, it was better to force out the way to foster blood pearls. That way, the breathing method would be automatically offered up. It was a move that killed two birds to benefit everyone.

    ¡°Our thanks to King Yuan¡¯s sense of honor and justice! The Five Styles are the shining example for the rest of the martial world, alright!¡± The assembly of martial masters overflowed with ttery. The old demon was proposing to give away the secret art of his heritage, whereas Ying Hongyue only needed to pay the price of an umon secret art. This disparity in importance was readily evident.

    So what if Ying Hongyue was strong? It wasn¡¯t like martial masters were pushovers. Ying Hongyue himself also knew that dominating the central region wasn¡¯t the same asmanding the world. If he didn¡¯t relinquish his method, they¡¯d kill all Red Moon members outside of the central region and assassinate all of his supernaturals!

    Celestial wasn¡¯t a match for martial masters when it came to assassination. Energy ripples gave Celestial members away. If arge group of martial masters decided to assassinate others, even Celestial would have to bow their heads and stand to the side!

    ......

    Thus the meeting concluded, leaving behind an assembly of agitated martial masters. Many of them were discussing if they should ally together to force Ying Hongyue¡¯s hand. It was too foolhardy and frankly, idiotic, to bring the fight directly to Red Moon¡¯s doorstep. So how else could they do it?

    <i>Kill!</i>

    Hunt down Red Moon members in all other provinces to the point where Ying Hongyue was forced to announce his secret method. That was the right and proper n.

    The martial masters were in agreement. Negotiations weren¡¯t reliable¡ªkilling Red Moon members until Ying Hongyue could no longer bear it was the best option.

    ......

    <i>The second floor.</i>

    Hong Yitang breathed out inside his private booth and said softly, ¡°Red Moon will find themselves in a lot of trouble in the days toe unless they announce the method ahead of time.¡±

    ¡°Won¡¯t that turn the Five Styles into a sitting duck if Ying Hongyue publishes his secret method?¡± his wife transmitted back. The Five Styles discipline would be stuck between a rock and a hard ce then.

    ¡°How would they? Not to mention, why would Red Moon ever bow their heads to a group of martial masters? They are part of the three great organizations! Although Ying Hongyue knows that acquiescing will bring certain trouble to Yuan Shuo, the invincible reputation that he¡¯s crafted for his organization over the years will be instantly destroyed! Everyone in Red Moon will wonder that, if he¡¯s willing to announce their secret method today, will he offer up their lives tomorrow?

    ¡°For arge faction like his, they cannot easily bow their head in these kinds of circumstances. They must grit their teeth and bear it to the end. Otherwise, everyone will use the same method to force Red Moon into giving way again and again.

    ¡°This is simr to the government¡¯s reactions to the three great organizations. No matter how the government is under threat, they fire city annihtion missiles at the first sign of real trouble. They do notpromise or negotiate. Why are they so decisive? To head off the possibility of a second urrence!¡±

    As the leader of the Sword Sect, Hong Yitang saw things very clearly. If Ying Hongyue was still a pure martial master and operating by himself, then he might actually hand over the knowledge if enough pressure was brought to bear. But now? He was the master of arge organization, how would he ever?!

    He wouldn¡¯t, not unless he couldn¡¯t hold up beneath the strain. Only then would they stand a chance of forcing the method out of him. He would never bow his head unless Red Moon suffered grievous harm.

    Hong Yitang¡¯s wife nodded in understanding. ¡°Did you hear Li Hao¡¯s conversation with his colleague?¡± she transmitted.

    ¡°A little...¡± Hong Yitang frowned slightly, then responded silently, ¡°We can ignore that. A reminder can be given if the opportunity presents itself, but we should not get involved. We cannot be blinded by self-interest, Hou Xiaochen still reigns in this part of the world. No one who knows these things would take the risk unless they want to be openly hostile with the man.¡±

    Of course, there were always those who werepletely reckless. Those people well deserved their deaths.

    If anything happened to Li Hao... Well, Hong Yitang felt that that might not be the case upon further thought. The young man was hardly a simple character. He appeared simple, honest, and kind, but Hong Yitang had explored the ancient city with thed.

    So many had died in there, but Li Hao and hispanions emerged alive. Were things as straightforward as they seemed? How many supernaturals had died those days, but Li Hao and Liu Long retreated unscathed? Just that alone indicated that they were far more than met the eye.

    And yet, no one on the expedition team felt there was anything remarkable about the young man. It was after they emerged that the situation struck Hong Yitang in an increasingly odd way. Li Hao was just a run-of-the-mill martial master without special abilities, yet he¡¯d survived to the very end of that harrowing expedition without a scratch on his body. Granted, the young man hadn¡¯t gained anything on the trip either. Yet... was everything as simple as it appeared to be?

    His wife had no furtherment.

    ¡°We live in Silver Moon,¡± Hong Yitang transmitted after thinking things over. ¡°The others can have two minds about their actions, but we cannot. We may be the only two Srs left unallied to a particr faction in the entire province. It¡¯s time to make a choice. Do we join Hou Xiaochen or do we draw closer to the three great organizations? Or do we migrate out of the province and see if there¡¯s a way out in the others?¡±

    These were the thoughts that he¡¯d brought to White Moon City on this trip¡ªit was a very difficult decision!

    But decide he had to¡ªwhether it was the three great organizations or the Night Watchers. The two sides had settled into mutual hostility. The Sword Sect had been able to survive in the cracks between them before, but those no longer existed. He needed to make a choice as soon as possible.

    ¡°Yitang, must we get involved? You built the Sword Sect from scratch and have poured so much care and effort into it...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no way around it!¡± Hong Yitang continued transmitting as he watched Li Hao and the others leave. ¡°Even someone as strong as Yuan Shuo has his disciple look to the Night Watchers for shelter. Yuan Shuo left by himself so he wouldn¡¯t be shackled! How many martial masters in the martial world remain free atrge these days? I can¡¯t do so, at the very least. It¡¯se time to choose whether to close ranks with the three great organizations or Night Watchers!¡±

    But he was worried that they¡¯d be treated as cannon fodder if the Sword Sect leaned toward the Night Watchers. Therefore... it was more likely that he turned to the three great organizations instead!

    He looked at Li Hao¡¯s departing back once more, a light gleaming in his eyes. ¡°I¡¯ll wait for Yuan Shuo to return!¡± he transmitted.

    ¡°Huh?¡± His wife didn¡¯t understand.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to wait for Yuan Shuo to return to Silver Moon.¡± Hong Yitang gained. ¡°I¡¯ll use that excuse to fob off the Night Watchers for a while. If even Yuan Shuo is willing to join them when hees back... The Sword Sect follows Yuan Shuo in everything we do!

    ¡°That guy is immensely flexible and adaptable, he¡¯s also very perceptive. Although he¡¯s killed so many people, he¡¯s still perfectly hale and hearty, and openly walks thend. He¡¯s now reached legendary heights with martial dao! As a martial master of the same era, we may note out worse for the wear if we follow his footsteps.¡±

    His wife still didn¡¯t fully understand and continued the transmitted conversation, ¡°Can we really say this to them!¡±

    ¡°We can! Don¡¯t worry, Hou Xiaochen must be waiting for him to return as well. There won¡¯t be a problem!¡±

    Yuan Shuo would certainly return to the province. As arrogant and unyielding as he was, he had one major outstanding quality in that he would remember where his home and disciple were. He¡¯d be back, sooner orter.

    ......

    Li Hao was naturally unaware of the Sword Sect¡¯s decision, neither was he interested in learning about their thoughts. He was on his way back to headquarters. It wasn¡¯t far, but he wasn¡¯t concerned about potential danger along the way either. That would ur on his way home at night if there was any.

    He had another group to contend with after meeting with the martial masters¡ªthe Night Watchers from central headquarters!

    Hao Lianchuan had notified him beforehand and indeed, a young man with green hair blocked his way as soon as he reached the front doors. Thetter wore a smile that didn¡¯t seem very genuine; Hao Lianchuan stood next to him.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± The deputy director beamed and waved him over. ¡°Come here for a second!¡±

    Li Hao trotted over.

    ¡°I¡¯d like you to meet a special agent from central headquarters¡ªSpecial Agent Yu!¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate him just because he¡¯s young. He¡¯s top tier when ites to strength¡ªa mid Sr powerhouse!¡±

    ¡°You praise me too much.¡± Yu Xiao smiled and presented a dignified front. ¡°Mid Srs are worth nothing in the central region!¡±

    ¡°Greetings to milord!¡± Li Hao hastily saluted¡ªrespect, admiration, and adoration on his face. The look of yearning instantly put Yu Xiao in a better mood.

    So what of Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple, the heir of the eight families? He was just a Sunderer at the moment, a Darkmoon!

    The difference between him and thed was as if heaven and earth. There was Sunre and initial Sr between them; the gap was so great that there was nothing Yu Xiao needed to admire Li Hao for.

    ¡°You¡¯re Li Hao, right?¡±

    The young man hastily bobbed his head with a biddable expression on his face. ¡°In response to milord, I am Li Hao of Silver City. I am of the Five Styles discipline and a Night Watcher. It hasn¡¯t been long since I¡¯ve joined the Night Watchers, so please look after me well!¡±

    ¡°Well met!¡± Yu Xiao was all smiles. ¡°I have some questions I¡¯d like to ask you. Is this a good time?¡±

    ¡°Of course,¡± the young man hastily responded. ¡°Please ask whatever you like, milord.¡±

    ¡°Then let¡¯s find a ce to sit and chat.¡± Yu Xiao didn¡¯t like it here, it was too stifling.

    Li Hao snuck a careful look at Hao Lianchuan. Although the deputy director frowned slightly, he still said, ¡°That¡¯s fine. Li Hao, take Special Agent Yu to the teahouse next door. Remember what you can and cannot say!¡±

    The young man nodded emphatically.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s do that,¡± Yu Xiao said indifferently. ¡°Come with me, Li Hao.¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir!¡± Li Hao was hot on the man¡¯s heels. Yu Xiao left with quick strides. He wouldn¡¯t want to be here if not for the young man.

 Chapter 309: An Honest Li Hao (II)

    <h4>Chapter 309: An Honest Li Hao (II)</h4>

    <i>Momentster.</i>

    <i>A private booth in the tea house.</i>

    Li Hao quickly poured a full cup for Yu Xiao.

    ¡°Your motions are very practiced.¡± The man smiled. ¡°Do you do this often?¡±

    ¡°I used to pour tea for teacher all the time.¡± The young man smiled simply. ¡°That¡¯s how we martial masters are. We grow and develop step by step. Certain tasks must be undertaken before our teachers are willing to pass on knowledge.¡±

    ¡°Old and decrepit traditions!¡± Yu Xiao pursed his lips with disdain. ¡°That¡¯s why martial dao has declined. Masters always keep something for themselves and jealously hoards the finest bit of anything. Supernaturals don¡¯t have to curry favor with anyone at all!

    ¡°What a pity that I cannot be a supernatural. I tried before...¡± Li Hao was both envious and resigned.

    ¡°That¡¯s normal.¡± Yu Xiao wasn¡¯t surprised. ¡°Your physical body is strong as a Sunderer, which makes it hard to break the supernatural locks and ascend. But this is also because your internal force has strengthened the locks. You¡¯ll find a way to seed if the opportunity presents itself.¡±

    Li Hao nodded with some hope, but found no words for a response.

    Yu Xiao smiled and gestured at him to sit down. The young man quickly scrambled into his seat.

    ¡°You¡¯re the heir of the Lis in the eight families, right?¡± Yu Xiao cut straight to the chase.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Li Hao first nodded, then shook his head. ¡°That¡¯s what everyone says, but I don¡¯t know anything about the eight families. Since Red Moon hase for me, however, and given all the research they¡¯ve done... I probably am.¡±

    ¡°The sword of the Lis...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve turned it into the agency!¡± Li Hao replied quickly. ¡°I don¡¯t know if Director Hao has it, or if Director Hou does.¡±

    Yu Xiao nodded thoughtfully and took a sip of tea. ¡°You said in the meeting that the Breathing Method of the Five Styles can be used in conjunction with the blood pearls to swiftly strengthen martial masters. Is that correct?¡±

    The young man nodded again.

    ¡°If you offer the breathing method to the Night Watchers, that will bring you many more benefits.¡±

    ¡°Ah...¡± A conflicted look crossed Li Hao¡¯s face. ¡°I really can¡¯t, not without my teacher¡¯s approval. He¡¯ll throw me out if I do it on my own. You may not know, milord, but this is a grave taboo in the martial world. Although the martial world no longer exists, my teacher does!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Yu Xiaoughed to see how pitiful the young man looked. ¡°I was just asking, not forcing you to hand the secret art over. Of course, if you have the intention to... Don¡¯t forget that the Night Watcher headquarters are in Skystar City. The Silver Moon Night Watchers may not be able to bear the consequences, but Skystar City isn¡¯t a ce where martial masters can run amok!¡±

    Yu Xiao¡¯sugh deepened as Li Hao looked on awkwardly. When he took another sip of tea, the young man quickly rose to fill his cup again. Yu Xiao leaned back on his chair and looked merrily across the table.

    ¡°Li Hao, there may be something special about your bloodline. We¡¯d like a sample of your blood to study it. Do you have any opinions otherwise?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao quickly shook his head. ¡°Of course the request must be fulfilled if central headquarters wants to study it! Shall I collect a sample of my blood now, milord?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>What a good little boy! </i>Yu Xiao thought that he¡¯d struggle a bit or protest. It looked like Li Hao really was treating the Night Watchers as his savior! <i>They all say that Yuan Shuo is crafty, but this disciple of his is... so simple and honest!</i>

    ¡°When ites to something like blood... Li Hao, headquarters won¡¯t mistreat you, but I don¡¯t need regr blood. I need essence blood.¡±

    That put the young man in a difficult position. ¡°Milord... essence blood... just one drop will take a lot out of me... I was already heavily injured in the ancient ruins...¡±

    ¡°Are you not willing?¡± Yu Xiao frowned.

    ¡°That¡¯s not it!¡± Li Hao hastily shook his head. ¡°How would I not? It¡¯s not like essence blood can¡¯t be replenished. I... alright, I will give milord one drop. But can you wait a day or two?¡±

    ¡°Why is that?¡± Yu Xiao smiled.

    ¡°Um... Director Hou gave me some treasures.¡± Li Hao scratched his head. ¡°I¡¯ll be able to collect some essence blood after eating them. That will minimize my losses.¡±

    ¡°A blood pearl?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded withplete honesty.

    Yu Xiao didn¡¯t mind, but subconsciously said, ¡°He¡¯s quite good to you...¡±

    ¡°Somewhat,¡± Li Haoughed happily. ¡°But it¡¯s mostly because I aplished a deed of merit in the ruins...¡±

    The young man suddenly closed his mouth and looked at Yu Xiao. He seemed to have said something he shouldn¡¯t have said and ducked his head in some fright. ¡°Right, it¡¯s Director Hou looking favorably upon me!¡±

    ¡°......¡± This was when Yu Xiao recalled that the person in front of him had entered the ruins! He¡¯d previously thought that Hou Xiaochen simply ced great emphasis on Li Hao and wanted to bring Yuan Shuo to his side. But... was there another reason behind all this?

    Yu Xiao had asked a few others about events in the ruins ande to understand some of what¡¯d taken ce. But Li Hao said that he¡¯d aplished a deed of merit. What deed? Interest immediately pricked at Yu Xiao. These ruins were a subject of general interest and there seemed to be something afoot here.

    ¡°Li Hao, are there really that many treasures inside the ruins?¡± he asked carelessly.

    ¡°Many, so many!¡± The young man quickly nodded. ¡°Mysterious power stones are everywhere...¡±

    ¡°Did you see them too when you were inside?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    Yu Xiao smiled at the young man¡¯s reluctance to say more. ¡°Oh yes, the ruins will be opening again next month. Will you be entering them?¡±

    ¡°Of course...¡± Li Hao quickly shut his mouth with a shake of his head. ¡°No no, I¡¯m so weak...¡±

    The man sniffed out secrets at y. Li Hao was going in again next month? It was said that these ruins had something to do with the eight families. Was there really something going on here that he was unaware of?

    But based on what he knew, there was nothing of note. Li Hao had attempted to open the city gates with his essence blood, but to no effect. What did he mean by this deed of merit?

    Curiosity itched at Yu Xiao¡¯s heart. Seeing as the young man was a timid sort, he put on a stern demeanor.

    ¡°Li Hao,¡± the man coughed. ¡°You should remember that I¡¯m here from central headquarters. Our mission is to ensure that the three great organizations don¡¯t reap any benefits!

    ¡°It¡¯s very dangerous and potentially a fatal mistake for a Night Watcher to conceal important information from their superiors. You might be branded as a traitor if it¡¯s serious enough!¡±

    Color drained from Li Hao¡¯s face, but he didn¡¯t dare meet Yu Xiao¡¯s eyes. ¡°I... I really haven¡¯t,¡± he said in a muffled voice.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡±

    ¡°Milord!¡± Li Hao jerked his head up. ¡°I really... really haven¡¯t!¡±

    ¡°Are you still trying to worm your way out?¡± Yu Xiao frowned forebodingly. ¡°Do you think we haven¡¯t grasped any information upstairs?¡±

    The young man was as white as a sheet and said with difficulty, ¡°I... really haven¡¯t concealed anything. I¡¯ve already reported it to the directors...¡±

    ¡°Then I ask you, is Silver Moon still under dynastic rule? Since it is and I am your superior, do you intend to continue concealing information from me after I¡¯ve asked you directly?¡±

    ¡°But, Director Hou told me not to tell anyone else,¡± muttered an abject Li Hao. ¡°I¡¯m afraid...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll keep your secret. Or do you not trust your superior officers?¡±

    Obvious conflict yed out over the young man¡¯s face and he nodded after a while. ¡°It¡¯s... actually not much,¡± he whispered. ¡°Just two small things. The first is that I didn¡¯t enter the city¡ªI waited outside for the lords anddies toe back out. I happened to see a weapon that looked like a small snake shoot from the city. I thought I was seeing things when it flew out. The little snake flew to a certain spot when something happened inside the city. I didn¡¯t dare mention it and only told Director Houter. He said not to tell anyone else about it.¡±

    <i>An origin weapon!</i>

    <i>The Shadow Snake Sword!</i>

    Yu Xiao¡¯s eyes lit up when he heard these words, he immediately understood the connotations of what the young man was saying.

    ¡°You... saw the sword fly out?¡±

    ¡°Not a sword, it was a snake.¡±

    <i>You idiot, that was the sword.</i> Yu Xiao knew that Li Hao had likely never seen an origin weapon before¡ªthe only one he knew was the ming Phoenix Spear since Hou Xiaochen had used it that day.

    ¡°Where did itnd?¡± Yu Xiao asked, his thoughts spinning rapidly.

    ¡°On the rooftop of an ancient house. I didn¡¯t dare take a look since I couldn¡¯t fly in the ancient city. I thought it was an ancient beast from the inner city, so I didn¡¯t dare stick my nose into it.¡±

    <i>An origin weapon! What an unexpected surprise!</i> Yu Xiao¡¯s face flushed with excitement. He wasn¡¯t equipped with an origin weapon¡ªZhang Ting had been because she bore a heavy mission on her shoulders. A mid Sr wouldn¡¯t be privileged enough to carry on otherwise.

    <i>If I can get my hands on it...</i>

    It looked like Zhang Ting really was dead! No wonder they were letting Li Hao back into the ruins next month. Anyone who knew the location of an origin weapon was a highly valuable asset.

    ¡°Can you identify the precise location of that ancient house?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard,¡± Li Hao replied with difficulty. ¡°But if I go inside again, I can probably find it. Or I can go back and draw a map for milord. It might not be the most urate, but it shouldn¡¯t be too far off.¡±

    ¡°Did you draw one for Hou Xiaochen?¡±

    ¡°No, Director Hou is still in closed door cultivation. When I mentioned it to him at the canyon, he told me not to tell anyone else. I came to make a full report, but the director¡¯s been in seclusion this entire time and I didn¡¯t dare talk to the others about it.¡±

    So perhaps even Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t know the precise location! Yu Xiao¡¯s eyes gleamed brightly. If that was the case... then... maybe...

    Of course, the man would emerge from seclusion one day. Once he did and questioned Li Hao, this scaredy-cat would never dare hide anything from his director. But that was fine, Yu Xiao would know then as well and might be able to be one step ahead. Hou Xiaochen might not enter the ruins himself either.

    ¡°Very well, you will give me a rough draft after you return. Remember, you may not tell anyone else about this!¡± he said solemnly.

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    Yu Xiao¡¯s thoughts traveled further¡ªwhat if Li Hao died before Hou Xiaochen made it out of seclusion? Wouldn¡¯t that mean that the Shadow Snake Sword¡¯s whereabouts would remain a mystery? Of course, that had to wait until Li Hao gave him the sword¡¯s location.

    ¡°You mentioned two things, this is one of them. What is the other?¡±

    Li Hao struggled once more, but said honestly, ¡°The second has to do with my blood.¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Yu Xiao was confused at the relevance.<i> Is your blood special? Is there really something more to the bloodlines of the eight families?</i>

 Chapter 310: An Honest Li Hao (III)

    <h4>Chapter 310: An Honest Li Hao (III)</h4>

    ¡°Well, it¡¯s like this...¡± Li Hao answered in a small voice. ¡°Director Hou... really is injured, and it¡¯s an umtion of many old injuries. His five organs are particrly damaged! I can heal him, though, and he¡¯ll be thirty percent stronger than before once I heal him.¡±

    Yu Xiao almost burst out inughter. How was that possible? <i>You can heal people? Stop lying!</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s true!¡± Li Hao exined earnestly. ¡°My blood has always had this kind of effect, I didn¡¯t think much of it before. The director was injured when he killed Red Hair¡ªI couldn¡¯t bear to see him suffering, so I gave him a drop of blood. After he took it, the director said my blood is an ultimate treasure. That¡¯s why he had me immediatelye to White Moon City. He¡¯s probably been in seclusion these days to prepare for it.¡±

    ¡°What a joke... how is that possible...¡±

    ¡°Milord, it¡¯s fine if you don¡¯t believe me.¡± The young man set his jaw with indignation and mustered up his courage. ¡°If you do... you could create a small cut on yourself right now. You¡¯ll know when I retrieve a drop of blood from myself.¡±

    Yu Xiao frowned, but his emotions were rapidly climbing. That... couldn¡¯t be true, could it? It was impossible!

    His frown deepened before he nodded after a while. ¡°Let¡¯s give it a try!¡±

    A small cut split open one of Yu Xiao¡¯s fingertips and began oozing blood. Li Hao immediately scraped his fingernails down his arm and scratched a bloody mark; a drop of blood quickly seeped out. When the young man collected the blood, he infused it with significant sword energy. He quickly wrapped it with internal force and offered it to the man.

    Yu Xiao frowned with disdain at the drop of blood. But... what if it was true? He maintained a firm grip on his disgust and swallowed the drop.

    A violent wave of emotion reared in his heart.

    <i>The hell?! </i>What was going on?? He actually felt a bit different¡ªnot just a little bit. The mark on his hand immediately healed and he could sense the blood strengthening his body. Some of his other injuries also spontaneously recovered.

    <i>Incredible!</i>

    <i>How... how... is this possible?!</i>

    Shock and astonishment filled Yu Xiao¡¯s eyes when he looked at Li Hao. This wasn¡¯t possible! If this was, then Li Hao was the most precious human-shaped medicine! And this fool walked around telling people about it!<i> Oh my word!</i>

    He was shellshocked by the depths of Li Hao¡¯s idiocy. Even if this was true, it wasn¡¯t a detail to be revealed to random people! The young fool had the most severe death wish that Yu Xiao had ever seen! He heavily suspected that Hou Xiaochen wanted to eat the kid, or was nurturing him as a human-shaped ingredient.

    Was the Silver Moon Night Watcher director injured?

    He probably... was. But no matter if true or not, could he resist this kind of temptation after experiencing the wonders of Li Hao¡¯s blood?

    A sudden impulse gripped Yu Xiao¡ªhe wanted to kill Li Hao on the spot and turn the young fool into a massive pill... <i>No, no! Hou Xiaochen knows about him! And he knows that I¡¯m meeting with Li Hao today! So I can¡¯t do that. He¡¯ll go crazy and kill me. If he can¡¯t kill me, he¡¯ll expose this and none of it will belong to me anymore!</i>

    This was an incredible supplement, more valuable than some of the ultimate treasures of legend. One drop of blood was sufficient to restore some of his youth! <i>What about all of the blood in his body? Will it... help me set foot into Nova or even higher?</i>

    Yu Xiao¡¯s mind was quickly dissolving into chaos. He was also dumbfounded by the depths of Li Hao¡¯s idiocy and stupidity. How did the young idiot never consider that someone might want to kill him for this??

    <i>Oh my word, does Red Moon know about this? Is that why they want Li Hao? Does the blood of all of the eight families have this effect? No wonder Red Moon¡¯s been hunting them... In that case, the organization¡¯s strength is understandable.</i>

    <i>Ying Hongyue... The next Ying Hongyue? Doesn¡¯t whoever possess Li Hao be the next Ying Hongyue?</i>

    Yu Xiao considered so much¡ªtoo much¡ªin a split second. He wanted to kill, he wanted to kill the young man to silence him¡ªno, he wanted to kill the young man for his blood and body! Everything about Li Hao¡¯s physical body was an ultimate treasure!

    Hou Xiaochen could not be allowed to profit from this, absolutely not. Once the director swallowed Li Hao¡¯s blood to recover from his injuries, the end result would be terrifying. The young man¡¯s blood was a supreme treasure even if the person in question wasn¡¯t injured!

    One drop of blood was more than the equivalent of a mysterious power stone. One had to know that this was just a drop of ordinary blood that they¡¯d experimented on. Yu Xiao¡¯s heart ached for the drops of heart blood that Li Hao had used in the ruins. Apparently no one had paid attention to them¡ªdamn, what a waste!

    The man wanted to extract more blood, but that was what Hu Qingfeng wanted him to do so the blood could be studied. Once thetter discovered or realized something... the situation would turn dicey.

    ¡°Does your heart blood offer better effects?¡± Yu Xiao asked sternly.

    ¡°Definitely.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Just holding it in hand results in an effect.¡±

    ¡°Then... wait a few days to collect your heart blood. There¡¯s no rush!¡± Yu Xiao couldn¡¯t bring any bloodback with him now. Li Hao would give the heart blood to him if he asked the young fool, but taking heart blood would certainly result in abnormalities of behavior. The differences would be easily discovered.

    ¡°This is a very important matter,¡± Yu Xiao took a deep breath. ¡°Don¡¯t tell anyone else, it will affect your safety! On that matter, how <i>can</i> you tell anyone about it??¡±

    ¡°I haven¡¯t,¡± Li Hao replied with a naive smile. ¡°I told Director Hou because he was injured when he took action for me. I couldn¡¯t bear to watch him suffer and vomit blood. And for milord... You are a genius from headquarters. They say that geniuses abound in the central region, so people like me might be found all over the ce. Not to mention, I can¡¯t lie to a central region superior! We¡¯re all Night Watchers and the agency represents justice, so I¡¯m not afraid!¡±

    <i>Fucking idiot! </i>Yu Xiao cursed inwardly. <i>I would eat you in a second if we were in the wild! </i>He was absolutely not going to tell Hu Qingfeng about any of this!

    Li Hao was also banking on Yu Xiao¡¯s secrecy. How would he possibly tell someone else about what he¡¯d just learned? If he did... Li Hao would call him daddy!

    Granted, it was fine if he did say something. If Hu Qingfeng had simr thoughts, he¡¯d want a taste himself. Li Hao would produce a drop of regr blood for him. Yu Xiao would then probably be beaten half to death for passing on false intelligence.

    In this moment, Li Hao knew that the man in front of him had taken the bait. He would be tempted himself, if their roles were reversed.

    <i>If you can withstand the allure of an origin weapon and rejuvenating blood that is an ultimate treasure... then you are a saint and I¡¯ve misjudged you. I will never make trouble for you so long as you don¡¯t want my head. You¡¯d be a shining example to the rest of the supernatural world!</i>

    But since Yu Xiao was nning otherwise, he had to aplish everything before Hou Xiaochen emerged from seclusion. It wasn¡¯t a matter of whether or not he could or should kill Li Hao, but that he had to! Hou Xiaochen¡¯s impending re-emergence was the man¡¯s greatest source of pressure.

    As expected, Yu Xiao suddenly asked, ¡°Do you know when Director Hou will be out?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head, but immediately said, ¡°Probably soon! Manager Yu said it¡¯d be three days at most because there are a lot of things that need to be handled in the days toe. The director must exit closed door cultivation soon.

    ¡°When he does, I¡¯ll be able to heal his wounds,¡± the young man chuckled merrily. ¡°The Night Watchers will be even stronger than before. With you noble lords in attendance as well, we might be able to capture all of the three great organizations in one go!¡±

    <i>How naive! </i>Yu Xiao sneered, urgency creeping into his heart. <i>Three days!</i>

    Three days at most... He was very short on time, particrly as Hou Xiaochen might emerge from seclusion in less than three days.

    ¡°Sketch out the draft when you return tonight,¡± Yu Xiaomanded. ¡°Have it on you at all times. I¡¯lle find you whenever I have time, you can give it to me then. Also, don¡¯t let anyone know what we talked about today!¡±

    ¡°I won¡¯t!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    Yu Xiao thought for a moment and took out a mysterious power stone. He was loath to part with it, but he handed it to Li Hao nheless. ¡°This is for you. You should know a bit about mysterious power stones¡ªthis is your reward!¡±

    Overjoyed, Li Hao took the stone with clear agitation and disbelief. ¡°Milord... is really giving this to me?¡± he asked cautiously.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°My deepest thanks, sir!¡± Li Hao gasped with delight, then looked on admiringly. ¡°Milord, how... did you... take this out? I see that Director Hao can do something simr...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just through a storage ring!¡± Yu Xiaoughed carelessly. ¡°They exist in some of the ancient ruins and the central region is also researching them. We¡¯ve produced a batch and some spatial supernaturals are also manufacturing them! They¡¯re a costly item, but not a big deal to us...¡±

    Heughed again to see Li Hao flushed with yearning.

    ¡°Perform well. I might give you one next time if you aplish another deed of merit!¡±

    ¡°Many thanks for your favor, sir!¡± Startled by the attention, Li Hao quickly offered profuse thanks.

    ¡°It¡¯s just a small matter!¡± Yu Xiaoughed heartily and sipped his tea to quell his inner turmoil. ¡°Do you live with Hao Lianchuan now?¡±

    ¡°Yes, we live in apartments across from each other.¡±

    ¡°And do you go to work and get off work together too?¡±

    ¡°We went to work together today, but I left alone. Director Hao needed to put in overtime as he has many duties, being a deputy director. Our amodations aren¡¯t far¡ªthe walk helps me better understand White Moon City. I¡¯ve only just arrived and don¡¯t know anything.¡±

    ¡°Ah, that¡¯s a good thought!¡± Yu Xiao smiled. ¡°Youngsters should be more independent!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re right, sir,¡± Li Hao agreed merrily. ¡°I must learn to be more independent. My teacher took care of me when we were in Silver City and I followed his word in everything. I never thought about being independent...¡±

    <i>So he¡¯s a good little boy! No wonder!</i> Yu Xiao finally understood why Li Hao was so innocent. <i>Yuan Shuo, oh Yuan Shuo, you¡¯ve raised your disciple into utter trash. He¡¯s a big baby! This must be what they mean by a momma¡¯s boy.</i>

    <i>No, he would be a teacher¡¯s boy?</i>

    ¡°Is your teacher good to you?¡±

    ¡°Very good!¡± Li Hao quickly nodded. ¡°He treats me like his own son. Teacher could be a Summoner because...¡± he paused, then continued in a whisper, ¡°partially because of me. Teacher said it many times that I can¡¯t let anyone know, so don¡¯t... don¡¯t tell anyone, please. My teacher would be so angry at me if he finds out!¡±

    Yu Xiao arched an eyebrow. So this was the case!

 Chapter 311: An Honest Li Hao (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 311: An Honest Li Hao (IV)</h4>

    <i>Everyone thought that Yuan Shuo was crippled and had reached the end of the road when he was heavily injured that year. His renewed rise is a shock to the entire world! So this is why... </i>Yu Xiao mused. <i>What a pity that you¡¯ve ruined your disciple so thoroughly that he speaks of it himself!</i>

    Li Hao was caught in the grip of sorrowful memories. ¡°Teacher was so good to me when he was here. He listened to me in everything other than martial training. I studied and trained hard over three years... Teacher treated me even better than my parents did! It¡¯s all that evil Red Moon! I hope Director Hou kills them all after he recovers!¡±

    The young man ground his teeth with fury.

    ¡°Ah, yes,¡± Yu Xiao recalled something. ¡°Since your teacher is so good to you, how did he agree to you joining the Inspectorate?¡±

    ¡°Teacher said that it would be safer in the Inspectorate,¡± Li Hao said shyly. ¡°That there¡¯s more people who can take care of me...¡±

    ¡°So it was your teacher who discovered that Red Moon was killing people?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded with embarrassment. ¡°Teacher let me present the report because he said that would make the Inspectorate value me more. I... I was too embarrassed to say so before. But it¡¯s fine now since teacher isn¡¯t here.¡±

    Yu Xiaoughed again. His smile softened as he thought for a bit longer. ¡°Very well, I know everything now. Work hard, Li Hao. If you do, I¡¯ll take you to the central region. Once you¡¯re there, you¡¯ll see how tall the sky and vast the world is.

    ¡°Ah yes, you¡¯re a half step Dominator, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°I am, and I killed Sun Moxian!¡± The young man raised his head proudly. ¡°I advanced then! Sir, I¡¯m very strong in battle! Director Hou says I can even match some initial Sunre supernaturals! My strength is already at the highest echelon in Silver Moon as there aren¡¯t that many Sunres among us...¡±

    Yu Xiao chuckled. <i>Yes yes, you¡¯re something aren¡¯t you. Oooh, initial Sunre, so impressive! This little idiot speaks of everything he knows in such aplete and thorough way! He answers everything he¡¯s asked, I almost like you!</i>

    <i>But a pity, what a pity! Your crime is that you possess too many valuables. Your blood is too precious!</i>

    ¡°Let¡¯s stop here today. Remember, don¡¯t say anything to anyone whoes to you¡ªincluding the others from central headquarters. Speak of this only with me. I¡¯m doing this for your own good. Not everyone is like me, understood?¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Then go back for now and go home when you get off work. Don¡¯t overwork yourself and tire yourself out.¡±

    ¡°Thank you for your concern, milord!¡± Li Hao said happily, joy blooming through his expression.

    ¡°Go on!¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯m off, sir!¡± Li Hao nearly skipped out of the room.

    Yu Xiao continued sipping his tea, suddenly smiling with satisfaction. <i>An origin weapon... Li Hao...</i>

    His imagination kicked into high gear as the man continued to enjoy his tea. Perhaps he¡¯d be able to break the fifth supernatural lock if he drank all of the young fool¡¯s blood? It seemed highly likely!

    <i>Nova? And an origin weapon...</i>

    A keen light danced in Yu Xiao¡¯s eyes. This might be his greatest fortune and opportunity to surpass Hu Qingfeng. No, what was Hu Qingfeng worth? Those perverse geniuses in the central region were his goal, and he needed to aplish this before Hou Xiaochen emerged from seclusion!

    <i>As for the secrets of the eight families and Red Moon¡¯s schemes, what does that have to do with me? Actually, this is perfect. Maybe I can dress it up like someone from Red Moon did it. I don¡¯t have a reason to attack Li Hao, but that organization does!</i>

    <i>Who would believe that I¡¯m behind it? No one!</i>

    <i>Only Red Moon would take Li Hao¡¯s body. Everyone knows how much of a price they¡¯ve historically paid to conduct their n regarding the eight families. They even retrieve the bodies of their victims when possible.</i>

    ¡°A perfect scapegoat...¡± Yu Xiao smirked. Red Moon was the perfect scapegoat after he was done! No one would suspect him!

    ......

    Li Hao returned to Night Watcher headquarters when he walked out of the tea house. He nodded smilingly at Hao Lianchuan when the deputy director nced at him.

    ¡°Is he going to do it?¡± transmitted a surprised Hao Lianchuan.

    The young man nodded again. <i>Rx, he will! Not only will he do it, he might do it faster than you think. He might even pretend to be Red Moon. No one will look twice at us for killing him.</i>

    ¡°Director Hao, it¡¯s imperative that you attack as viciously as possible and kill him in one stroke. I¡¯m not doing this next time if you don¡¯t!¡± Li Hao muttered.

    Taken aback, Hao Lianchuan nodded in return. <i>Are you sure? Those guys from central headquarters can focus on their mission pretty well. They won¡¯t attack you that easily since we¡¯re still friendly on the surface. I just wanted to give it a try... but you look so certain. What did you say to hoodwink a central region mid Sr so thoroughly that he </i>must<i> kill you?</i>

    ¡°He won¡¯te with the others, will he?¡± Hao Lianchuan suddenly thought of another possibility. That Nova better not be in attendance.

    Li Hao shook his head. That would never happen, how would he tell others about this kind of treasure?

    Hao Lianchuan considered the young man with increasing skepticism and wonder. <i>Really? Howe I¡¯m having trouble believing you?</i>

    ¡°It¡¯ll probably happen tomorrow night!¡± said Li Hao. He would go back and make the drawing tonight, thene to work with Hao Lianchuan tomorrow morning. Nighttime was the only appropriate chance for Hu Qingfeng to make his move. He wouldn¡¯t wait too long out of concern for Director Hou exiting seclusion.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s face ckened as he stared wordlessly. <i>There¡¯s even a time set? Are you really not having me on?</i>

    ¡°Alright then, I need to go do things, Director Hao...¡±

    <i>What do you need to do? </i>Hao Lianchuan wanted to ask further, yet Li Hao wasn¡¯t sparing further attention for him. The deputy director itched for some answers, but that itch had to remain unscratched. <i>Then I¡¯ll be waiting! I¡¯d like to see if Yu Xiao really wille to kill you tomorrow night. I don¡¯t believe you!</i>

    <i>And if it¡¯s true, I¡¯ll have to hail you as a god or something! </i>He couldn¡¯t make sense of the situation. How had Li Hao caused Yu Xiao to take the bait? The Breathing Method of the Five Styles? Or something else?

    But the man was a supernatural, so he might not be tempted by anything else. And even if he was, he wouldn¡¯t need to kill for it.

    Hao Lianchuan started specting, theorizing, deducing, and gave up after a while. <i>Damn it, I have no idea how the kid did it! I want to give it a try myself! This kid really has a few tricks up his sleeves, I¡¯ve underestimated him.</i>

    ......

    White Moon City was as bustling as ever. Li Hao ignored everything taking ce outside the window when he returned to headquarters and busied himself in Hao Lianchuan¡¯s office. Since Hou Xiaochen was still in closed door cultivation, the young man wasn¡¯t assigned any missions. As he was here at Hou Xiaochen¡¯s request, no one else found it right to give him a mission.

    <i>Inside the office.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s day was preupied with many affairs. Li Hao was not one to remain idle, so he took out the ten blood pearls.

    Each individual pearl was just a little stronger than Sunre. That was helpful for the current Li Hao, but not in significant terms. With how strong his organs were, he¡¯d almost reached the Summoner level. As such, Sunre level blood pearls were useless for him, so his consideration was whether he should take five or all ten at the same time?

    All ten was the equivalent of Nova, but he was worried that he wouldn¡¯t be able to digest that amount of energy. Upon further thought, however, that might not be the case. Sword energy helped with digestion. If it wasn¡¯t for sword energy, he wouldn¡¯t be able to swiftly absorb thousands of cubes of mysterious power either.

    ¡°I¡¯ll take five for now then. If I don¡¯t blow up, I¡¯ll quickly take the others.¡±

    Countless people were eyeing him; it was approaching the point where Li Hao felt that Summoner of Spirit may not be the surefire protection that he thought. His aura wasn¡¯t as strong as his teacher¡¯s, which meant that he would try to raise his physique to the limits of martial master capability instead.

    If he couldn¡¯t enhance his aura, he would fortify other areas. Blood transfusion was another route! That was what He Yong had done. Li Hao had held a conversation with a man¡ªwhile Summoner was the key next step in the path of martial dao, strengthening the body, blood, and qi was also a type of enhancement.

    It wouldn¡¯t lead to a breakthrough of cultivation level, but it would still result in undeniable improvements in strength. Dominator was the equivalent of Sunre, yet the Dominator level He Yong could battle Srs. He wasn¡¯t any less than a Dominator level Yuan Shuo equipped with five auras!

    When Li Hao asked about the key to blood transfusion, he receivedplete answers to his questions. There was also no need to hide anything about the process. It was simple¡ªone just needed to continuously strengthen the body and internal force. When the body was fortified beyond belief and the organs were also of decent strength, it was time to bring the blood up to speed. This was a path that many martial masters chose when they continuously failed to locate the direction forward after Dominator.

    Such were Li Hao¡¯s intentions as well. He needed to summon the spirits and nurture the auras. Currently, the young man only wielded the earth aura sword. Summoning or nurturing more wouldn¡¯t lead to great effect. He would have to furtherprehend the earth sword aura to see a massive increase in strength.

    Li Hao swallowed five blood pearls as such thoughts ran through his mind. Bursts of domineering scarlet shadow energy erupted in his body. His blood frothed!

    He would likely see the diagram of the eight trigrams if he was in Silver City. Sadly, he was in White Moon and saw nothing when he looked up. inly, the diagram was only located in Silver City and didn¡¯t stretch to White Moon. Red Moon had constantly wished to eliminate Li Hao in Silver City, most probably due to the eight trigrams. They very likely knew about the diagram¡¯s existence.

    A powerful force of blood and qi rushed into the young man¡¯s body, agitating his blood. Regr martial masters wouldn¡¯t be able to withstand it. Their most likely oue would be what had happened to Li Hao the first time he tried to absorb a scarlet shadow¡ªumtion inside the body and blocked meridians.

    Sword energy was still useful. It appeared as the Breathing Method of the Five Styles operated; Li Hao began breaking mysterious power stones again to supply the sword with sufficient energy. These stones were now the resources that he needed the most.

    He smashed the one that Yu Xiao had just given him¡ªenergy seeped out and was swiftly absorbed by the little sword. The conversion rate was very low, but Li Hao was satisfied. It was fine if there was waste, so long as the effect was good.

 Chapter 312: A Fierce Tiger In the Heart (I)

    <h4>Chapter 312: A Fierce Tiger In the Heart (I)</h4>

    Blood frothed and churned inside Li Hao¡¯s body. Given his domineering organs, the young man felt no pain or searing sensations from the blood¡¯s activity. His five visceral organs were too strong and five blood pearls only amounted to a Sr¡¯s level of energy. He could withstand this degree of difort.

    Since there wasn¡¯t much pressure being brought to bear, he swiftly swallowed a sixth, seventh, and eighth blood pearl until pressure mounted to significant levels.

    Blood boiled within his veins and he could feel metamorphosis beginning within his body. It was as if a vast river rushed toward his organs. Li Hao could sense the existence of his supernatural locks. One, two, three...

    Five locks appeared over his visceral organs¡ªthat was just the beginning. Four more appeared over his four limbs, making for nine that¡¯d materialized in the blink of an eye. They were all incredibly thick and sturdy.

    ording to Wang Ming¡¯s exnations, the number of supernatural locks one sensed represented one¡¯s supernatural potential. But that was meaningless to Li Hao. Immense blood qi surged into the supernatural locks to make them even stronger. He believed only his teacher. The supernatural locks represented the depth of one¡¯s foundations. The stronger they were, the more foundation they secured.

    If there came a day in which he broke through his locks with martial dao, it would be an unfathomable ascension to the other side. Therefore, despite the locks visibly growing stronger, Li Hao had no intention of stopping his intake of energy. <i>Absorb it all! The stronger the better!</i>

    The stronger they were, the less likely that melding auras, summoning spirits, and spirits emerging from the organs would shatter his locks. He would not be forced into the crossover. In his current condition, Li Hao didn¡¯t have the slightest desire for the supernatural.

    Hence, the stronger his locks were, the more confident he was. It didn¡¯t affect his strength at all.

    Seeing that his supernatural locks were smoothly absorbing the blood qi, Li Hao popped the remaining two blood pearls into his mouth. When all ten sat in his stomach, the power of a Nova scarlet shadow erupted within.

    <i>Crack crack crack </i>sounded from his bones! They were unable to endure the strain and a searing pain began spreading through his body.

    A mysterious power stone rolled out of Li Hao¡¯s mouth as he opened it. It was a thunder attributed mysterious power; he wasn¡¯t using it to replenish the little sword this time. The thunder element tempered the bones, of that he was aware of, he just rarely came into possession of a thunder stone.

    This was no time to consider how precious mysterious power stones were. He devoured the thunder energy inside and used sword energy to extract thunder elemental power. It was much more pure than mysterious power. The thunder energy burrowed into his bones the second it became one with him.

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    Thunder roared inside him as Li Hao¡¯s bones were tinged with purple. This was the effect of thunder and lightning tempering the bones! His bones continued to crack and pop.

    The young man shot to his feet and ran through a boxing routine from the tiger style of the Five Styles. It was easy to punch with sound, but incredibly difficult to punch silently. In order to avoid drawing attention from creating too much of a disturbance, Li Hao began practicing soundless punches. His teacher was much better than him in this regard. When his teacher swung, he did so without the slightest sound like he was going through a fitness routine for the elderly.

    No matter how Li Hao restrained himself, he still created a bit of sound. Thankfully, it wasn¡¯t too apparent. Not to mention no one dared to make trouble for him since he was in Hao Lianchuan¡¯s office.

    His fists darted forward like thunder and lightning!

    So fast! But speed didn¡¯t mean silence. It was a contradictory notion that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t be able to attain unless he swiftly retracted his fist¡¯s force as soon as he punched out, condensing it on itself.

    A very soft <i>bam</i> could be heard inside the room. Li Hao ignored it and continued practicing, facilitating the digestion of his new gains. He didn¡¯t care if the secret Nova powerhouse beneath him could hear; what he was demonstrating wasn¡¯t too strong. A Sunderer could indeed deploy this kind of attack. He also didn¡¯t particrly care about where he trained, so he didn¡¯t mind if others could see him.

    Energy from a scarlet shadow continued to erupt in his body¡ªthe energy density of a Nova was far more than one could imagine. Supernatural looks continued to materialize and strengthen throughout his body.

    <i>tter!!</i>

    Chains seemed to drag through the room as locks appeared and secured Li Hao in ce. There were even some locks that began appearing over his head.

    Nine?

    Far more than that!

    The potential of the human body was unlimited. Not only did the five visceral organs and four limbs have supernatural locks, but so did other parts of the body. Li Hao could even sense a massive lock floating upward from his spine.

    He was in a wonderful mood as he continued absorbing thunder energy to temper his bones. The scarlet shadow continued to strengthen his internal force, blood qi, body, and supernatural locks. He could sense his blood qi growing ever more colossal and abundant!

    ......

    <i>Downstairs.</i>

    Manager Yu tilted her head upward for a look. Her eyes seemed to peer through the ceiling and capture the sight of Li Hao. She saw the young man practicing a boxing method from the Five Styles. It wasn¡¯t too fast as there weren¡¯t too many afterimages of the fist.

    And yet... Manager Yu frowned slightly. Had he taken a blood pearl? How many did he take?

    He wasn¡¯t disying the aura or projecting his internal force, just practicing the boxing method. Under such circumstances, it was difficult to detect a martial master¡¯s strength. That was most often discerned in a fight.

    But as a powerhouse, Manager Yu could still sense some clues. An eyebrow raised as she observed.

    ¡°Dominator?¡± She knew that the young man was a Dominator, but it was hard to tell what kind he was. There were many Dominators. The weakest was the type like Liu Long¡ªa Dominator with one aura, untempered organs, and nondescript blood qi. Those slightly stronger had undergone changes in their blood, improvements to their bones, and were beginning to nurture their organs.

    Those even stronger like He Yong entered Dominator with one aura, but had undergone numerous blood transfusions, were sound of bone and body, and had started tempering their organs. Dominators beyond that was Yuan Shuo¡¯s previous condition. He¡¯d melded his five auras together and was incredibly domineering.

    What level was Li Hao?

    It was hard to judge as she didn¡¯t know how many blood pearls he¡¯d taken. Three or five? It wouldn¡¯t be all ten as he wouldn¡¯t be able to endure the rush of energy. That was Nova level strength! Even regr Srs would be hard pressed to withstand it. It was only possible if Li Hao¡¯s physical body had reached a Sr level.

    ...was <i>that</i> possible? Manager Yu sank into deep contemtion and silently sensed the room above hers.

    When it came to Li Hao, people only cared about his bloodline as an heir to the eight families and his status as Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple. The rest was negligible. While he was strong in the eyes of mundanes, particrly as he¡¯d killed Sun Moxian, he was just a martial master yet to reach Dominator to those who were truly strong.

    No matter how capable this kind of martial master was, they were barely on par with Sunre. There were so many powerhouses in White Moon these days that Sunre was hardly worth attention.

    <i>Perhaps... he¡¯s stronger than what we think.</i>

    ......

    Time passed bit by bit. Li Hao steadily punched again and again. A Nova¡¯s energy would not be consumed so quickly. Not to mention, he was also taking in energy from mysterious power stones at the same time. Instead of the five elements, he was focusing on thunder and wind. Thunder tempered the bones and wind made the body lighter.

    If he couldn¡¯t raise his speed concurrently with his strength, all he would amount to was target practice for others. He¡¯d been more concerned with physical strength before not because he didn¡¯t care for speed, but because he didn¡¯t have much wind energy. He possessed some wind attributed mysterious power stones now. Li Hao drew directly from them, not minding the consumption.

    He only had twelve stones left now, including the one that Yu Xiao had given him. It wasn¡¯t much and the little sword continued to be depleted of energy.

    After some more training, he exhausted the thunder and wind stones. He only had seven left, five of which were the five elements. Of the other two, one was pitch ck and the other icy cool. He didn¡¯t dare brashly draw from them because they might be of the dark and ice attributes. There was a lot of energy contained within the stones; he would start with mysterious power first and draw from the stones only after he knew their effects.

    He would feed the five elements to the little sword. Sword energy was the true heart of what he was.

    ......

    Hao Lianchuan was busy all morning. His schedule didn¡¯t clear up until noon, which was when he prepared to return to his office to rest. However, he frowned slightly when he approached the door¡ªthere were some noisesing from inside.

    <i>Li Hao?</i>

    Most likely!

    The guy was done for the day. He could¡¯ve gone home after the meeting or taken a walk around White Moon. And yet, Li Hao hadn¡¯t. He was a workaholic and didn¡¯t leave the office until the day was over!

    But headquarters was small, so there was no ce for the young man. He didn¡¯t have duties he needed to take care of either.

    <i>Is he training in my office then? </i>Hao Lianchuan pushed the door open. The light immediately faded from Li Hao¡¯s eyes and he listlessly punched outward. All the same, Hao Lianchuan was a Sr, so he sensed something quite piercing when he stood near Li Hao.

    The deputy director nced at the young man; Li Hao was still going through a boxing routine.

    ¡°Director, I needed to borrow your office because I don¡¯t have any ce to go. You don¡¯t mind, do you?¡±

    Hao Lianchuan nodded indifferently and put down his briefcase. He sat down on the sofa to the side and poured a cup of tea, watching Li Hao as the young man continued to practice. Thetter¡¯s bones reverberated faintly, sounding like the bones and meridians resonating with each other, as customary of the yer level.

    The deputy director set that out of his mind, focusing on the traces left in the office air. They were very faint, but delivered a piercing pain whenever he drew near them. He didn¡¯t interrupt Li Hao, just continued watching silently.

    The young man practiced as if no one was around him; there was still a third left of the scarlet shadow to digest. He¡¯d made his way through only two thirds of it in the morning, but he was digesting at a faster rate as the energy decreased. His organs were much stronger than before, but that was only part of it. More importantly was that his bones felt much more formidable than before.

    Blood roared through his veins and he almost had an impulse to punch Hao Lianchuan. Would he be able to fight a Sr without using his aura?

 Chapter 313: A Fierce Tiger In the Heart (II)

    <h4>Chapter 313: A Fierce Tiger In the Heart (II)</h4>

    Li Hao suppressed the urge to throw himself at Hao Lianchuan. Patience was required for a better eruption of power. There was no one he could trust in White Moon. His teacher was still the person he trusted the most, with the chief possiblying in second. Those of the Demon Hunters were much more trustworthy than anyone here.

    Liu Yan was part of the Night Watchers, but Li Hao had stayed away from her all this time. In the same vein, she¡¯d kept her distance as well. They were in White Moon City! Countless people were keeping an eye on Li Hao. If she came to him, that would only draw their attention and possibly bring danger to her.

    The estrangement was a demonstration of her intelligence. While Hao Lianchuan might be a good man, who knew what he was really thinking in the depths of his heart?

    A good man? Would a good man think of killing a superior who was a Sr?

    Just how many people were worthy of his trust in this vast White Moon? Li Hao could only rely on himself, his fists, and the sword in his hand! How was he to survive if the sword wasn¡¯t sharp enough?

    He continued punching as thoughts ran through his mind. They were weak, but killing intent lurked behind them. He wanted to smash a new world into being, like the killing fiend of that illusory realm had done! He would use one de to silence the world and ughter the enemy to a halt!

    <i>Red Moon, the Night Watchers...</i>

    <i>Tooplicated!</i>

    Li Hao had no desire to understand them in depth. There was no need. <i>Even if I¡¯m of the eight families, you should leave me alone. I was just an ordinary student, why drag me into your mess?</i>

    ......

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s expression turned solemn and he didn¡¯t take a second sip of tea. Li Hao¡¯s punches wereing increasingly fast and furious. What was the kid thinking about? Was he already a Dominator?

    This boxing intent wasn¡¯t the aura, but it showed hints of converting into the aura. Could it be a second aura?

    The deputy director frowned; he wasn¡¯t too familiar with martial masters. Why did Li Hao¡¯s boxing intent seem stronger than certain auras, yet wasn¡¯t an aura?

    There was only one possibility.

    He was a Dominator!

    It was harder toprehend the aura after breaking through and Li Hao already had one aura. The second one wouldn¡¯te about that easily. If he was still a Sunderer, he might be able to convert this boxing intent into an aura.

    <i>What a scary kid. </i>Everyone focused on him for his special identity and ignored his potential. Not just anyone couldprehend the aura, so it would seem the public was underestimating the kid.

    ......

    Li Hao ignored Hao Lianchuan and continued enjoying his boxing routine.

    The tiger fist! Out of the Five Styles, the tiger style was the most ferocious and focused on killing. He¡¯d once seen a tiger as a child, but just one in a cage. That seemed so simr to his current circumstances. No matter how infinitely big his cage was, he was still in a cage. He pulled his lips into hypocritical smiles and voiced words he didn¡¯t mean.

    Everyone wanted to live a life more true to themselves, but could he do that?

    He couldn¡¯t!

    Breaking the cage would release his true self, but could he break the cage?

    There was frustration in his heart that he could do nothing about. When Hou Xiaochen saved him, he revealed the earth sword aura because he needed to demonstrate his worth. Hou Xiaochen wanted him toe to White Moon City, soe he had despite wanting to stay in Silver City. Li Hao had no other choice.

    His teacher had left because Red Moon wished to kill him, and that stemmed from therge numbers of Red Moon powerhouses than Yuan Shuo had killed before. That had been on Li Hao¡¯s behalf as well.

    People were never masters of their own fate!

    Li Hao thought through quite a great deal in this moment and put the tiger style on full disy. It wasn¡¯t the delightful thrill of exulting as a ferocious tiger, but the burning desire of a highly aggrieved tiger who wished to break out of its cage!

    <i>I want to break this cage! But I can¡¯t!</i>

    Complex emotions melded into the Five Styles as he punched and retracted his fists.

    Hao Lianchuan suddenly became incredibly ufortable after watching for a while. These were bottled up suffering of punches that could not be followed through to their fullest. They were stopped halfway through and forcefully retracted. It made him want to vomit blood.

    What kind of boxing technique was this? The tiger style?

    He¡¯d witnessed the tiger style before and watched Yuan Shuo fight. It was very strong, a triumphant celebration of force, a towering surge of killing intent like a tiger descending from the mountain and terrorizing the forests.

    Yet, Li Hao¡¯s tiger style was wholly different.

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± A coughing fit overtook Hao Lianchuan. He didn¡¯t mean to, it was just so painful to watch that he could barely breath.

    Li Hao abruptly stopped in the middle of his practice and frowned at the deputy director. He was thick in the middle of things, Director Hao should not have interrupted him.

    ¡°My apologies,¡± panted Hao Lianchuan as he heaved a long breath. ¡°It was just too awful to bear. Li Hao, was that the tiger style?¡±

    Li Hao nodded faintly.

    ¡°Why... does it feel different from your teacher¡¯s?¡± Hao Lianchuan asked hesitantly after gasping for a while. ¡°And are you only punching halfway before retracting your fists?¡±

    ¡°The secret arts of martial masters will differ from person to person even if it¡¯s the same one.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°It may not be the exact same secret art being deployed each time. As for retracting my punch halfway, there¡¯s no need for that. I simply haven¡¯t found the direction and target for my punches.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan nodded slowly with understanding¡ªor did he really understand?

    ¡°Your punchesck dominance,¡± he breathed out. ¡°They feel more... suffocating instead!¡±

    Li Hao thought of his punches from moments ago. The Five Styles was the first art that he¡¯d started learning and it was the one that he¡¯d practiced the most. He¡¯d felt just now that if he was still a Sunderer, he might be able toprehend an aura from his practice. It wouldn¡¯t be the tiger aura that his teachermanded, but another one entirely.

    Who said that tigers in cagescked aura?

    ¡°Director, is there a zoo nearby?¡± Li Hao suddenly asked.

    ¡°Huh?¡± Hao Lianchuan was caught off guard by the sudden jump in thought process. ¡°Um, yeah. Ask Wang Ming, he should know.¡±

    ¡°Okay!¡± Li Hao suddenly wanted to see a tiger. He didn¡¯t want to see a typical tamed tiger, he wanted one that desperately wanted to break out of its cage. Those that had epted and were ustomed to their lot in life no longer wished to escape. They did not fit the meaning behind his fists.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll be heading downstairs, director.¡±

    ¡°Go on, be careful. Don¡¯t wander around and don¡¯t go too far. That might result in trouble.¡± Hao Lianchuan wanted to reel in Yu Xiao. It might make things tooplicated if a group of martial masters clustered around the young man.

    ¡°I won¡¯t go far.¡± Li Hao nodded. He wanted to stay close and would give up the idea if the zoo was too far away.

    ......

    <i>Downstairs.</i>

    Li Hao waited for a while before Wang Ming arrived. The guy hadn¡¯t been at headquarters¡ªhe might¡¯ve gone out for a meal as he came back with grease around his lips. Heughed heartily at seeing Li Hao. ¡°I wanted to grab you for food, but you disappeared!¡±

    ¡°Is there a zoo nearby? Or rather, is there any ce with a freshly caught tiger? One with a wild nature still in them?¡±

    Wang Ming blinked. A tiger?

    ¡°Ah... let me think about it. There¡¯s a zoo, yes, but I don¡¯t know if they have a freshly caught tiger. Let me ask around for you. The zoo may not have one, but some of my friends might.¡±

    Li Hao looked skeptically at him.

    ¡°Some of my friends became supernaturals after the rise of the supernatural domain,¡± Wang Mingughed. ¡°They like to have fun and some like to hunt. There are some mountains with old forests nearby. They often go there to catch a tiger or something like that. The times are different now, having a pet tiger is more impressive than a dog!¡±

    Li Hao said nothing. Wang Ming cut his exnation short and started contacting people through hismunicator. Hiswork was vast and he knew a lot of people. A smile spread across his face after six calls and he quickly hung up.

    ¡°Got one! One of my friends just caught a multicolored tiger two days ago. It¡¯s super wild and has refused to eat or drink the past two days. My friend¡¯s trying to break it in. Do you want to go take a look?¡± Wang Ming thought Li Hao was bored and wanted to look for excitement. Granted, there was the tiger style in the Five Styles. Maybe he wanted more enlightenment in that style?

    Who cared!

    It was just a tiger. That might¡¯ve been something they all needed to stay away from back in the day, but now it was an animal that any Darkmoon or Sunderer could easily take care of. Only beasts that¡¯d started bing monster spirits were worthy of consideration. Anything else was no threat to humans.

    ¡°Is it far?¡±

    ¡°Nope.¡± Wang Ming grinned. ¡°Are you afraid of danger? I can have my friend bring it over, it¡¯s not a problem.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine. We can go take a look if it¡¯s not far.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± A merry Wang Ming dragged Li Hao outside. He had a car to use when they were in White Moon City!

    He quickly drove out a shy red car that was particrly eye-catching. He beamed at Li Hao standing by the road. ¡°Get in, what are you waiting for? This is mine¡ªI have lots of cars in White Moon City. I couldn¡¯t ship any to Silver City when I was there, so I went carless.¡±

    Li Hao hopped in without a word. Wang Ming revved the engine and sped off into the streets. His reflexes were very fast as a supernatural; he wasn¡¯t afraid of getting into an ident. He quickly zipped past one hundred yards and steadily elerated.

    Despite thinking that this wasn¡¯t very good, Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. The inhabitants of White Moon seemed used to the sight, so there was no need for him to react.

    ¡°We¡¯ll be there soon!¡± Wang Ming yelled as he drove. ¡°My friend is a supernatural too, but a Darkmoon. He¡¯s an individual supernatural who isn¡¯t part of the Night Watchers or any organization. His dad¡¯s highly ced at the provincial government. Top ten I think, but we don¡¯t need to take that into consideration. We¡¯re not any worse than him!¡±

    Li Hao remained quiet. He didn¡¯t care, he just wanted to see the tiger.

 Chapter 314: A Fierce Tiger In the Heart (III)

    <h4>Chapter 314: A Fierce Tiger In the Heart (III)</h4>

    Wang Ming¡¯s sports car stopped in front of a mansion before ten minutes passed. They were indeed very close to the Inspectorate and were approaching the southern outskirts of the city. But even so, owning a mansion close to the outskirts of White Moon City was an umon feat.

    A young man at the front gate roared withughter when he saw the car pull up. ¡°You came fast enough, Ole Wang! You¡¯re finally back from that Silver City backwater! I thought you were being exiled for servitude on the frontier!¡±

    ¡°Pfft, you¡¯ll be exiled before I am!¡± Wang Ming chuckled. He jumped off the car and waved Li Hao over. ¡°Let¡¯s get to it, Zhou Qin, where¡¯s the tiger? My bro wants to see a fierce one...¡±

    The young man looked at Li Hao and asked curiously, ¡°Do you... want to introduce your friend?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s my senior brother!¡± Wang Ming offered no further details. ¡°C¡¯mon, what¡¯s with the questions?¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± The young man nced at Li Hao a few more times. Thetter inclined his head. Zhou Qin wanted to crack a few jokes, but suddenly felt a bit awkward. This neer... made him a bit ufortable. It was hard to describe, but the neer gave him a simr feeling to the tiger that he¡¯d caught two days ago.

    He was reminded of the animal for some reason. It stayed unmoving in its cage, but exploded with a fury whenever anyone approached. It inflicted harm at the tiniest opening and was stubbornly unyielding. He¡¯d trained it for a few days without seeing any results. The tiger refused to eat or drink and was proving impossible to tame.

    Zhou Qin was going to give it another few days, then throw it away or cook it if he still got nowhere. He was an efficient sort who didn¡¯t waste time, so when Wang Ming wanted to take a look, he led the way without hesitation. They walked past a man made mountain to where a massive cage was kept. Inside the metal cage, a multicolored tiger crouched unmoving on the ground.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be fooled by its stillness,¡± said Zhou Qin. ¡°It rears up as soon as you get close. I was almost injured a few times. It¡¯s just a normal beast, but regr Starlight may not be able to handle it. I had people get hurt when we captured it.¡±

    ¡°No way!¡± Wang Ming said with surprise. ¡°You guys are all Darkmoon, but it hurt you?¡±

    ¡°Yeah!¡± Zhou Qin answered. Li Hao was already approaching the tiger. He wouldn¡¯t be in such a hurry normally speaking, but he was in a great hurry right now.

    ......

    <i>Inside the cage.</i>

    The tiger remained unmoving even as the young man crunched over gravel. Some dried blood could be spotted on its brightly colored pelt. It was noticeably injured.

    Just as Zhou Qin wanted to issue a reminder when Li Hao drew close... a tiger roar split the air over the mansion!

    A massive tiger w shot at Li Hao; the young man looked into the animal¡¯s eyes. It was filled with fury, despair, and reluctance! It would not ept a life like this! The ws were iparably sharp as they pped at Li Hao with incredible speed!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The massive body mmed into the cage, leaving only a few millimeters between the ws and Li Hao. However, the young man remained just out of reach, causing the tiger to tear the ground with fury and shake the cage.

    ¡°ROAR!¡± echoed repeatedly until the tiger eventually gave up and crouched on the floor again.

    Li Hao watched it silently, taking in the experience, feeling everything the tiger projected. He drew a little closer, resulting in another soundless swipe from the tiger. It was faster, keener, and more ferocious thanst time!

    There were no apanying roars, just fury and bitterness!

    A loud impact rang out as the cage shook from being rammed. Li Hao suddenly stepped forward and punched the tiger¡¯s paw. Blood spurted out of its ws, but the tiger ignored the injury and swiped at the young man!

    The loathsome human remained just out of reach!

    The tiger went berserk and began biting and gnawing the cage. It struggled again and again, wanting to rush out of confinement. It was unable to do so no matter how it tried. The confrontation continued for a very long time!

    Startled, Zhou Qin stared at Li Hao. ¡°Um... what¡¯s your friend doing?¡± he muttered to Wang Ming.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Wang Ming shook his head. He really didn¡¯t know; it looked more like Li Hao wanted to torture the tiger since he¡¯d punched it a few times.

    ......

    Li Hao watched silently, sending the tiger reeling with another punch. The tiger flung itself forward, ripping at the cage and trying to w the human. Again and again it tried, not knowing the meaning of fatigue or pain.

    Despair deepened in its eyes. Just when Li Hao thought it¡¯d given up...

    The tiger bounded forward once more; a crunch apanied its actions as its teeth bit down on a bar that it¡¯d been wearing away for a while. Its tooth snapped, but it also created a massive opening in the metal bars.

    The tiger rammed the cage, snapping a bar in half with its momentum. Zhou Qin jerked with rm¡ªnot out of fear, but out of concern that Wang Ming¡¯s friend would be hurt.

    Li Hao remained unmoving and permitted the tiger to spring at him. When ws swiped at his head, the young man sent the animal flying with a hearty punch. He advanced on the tiger; it struggled despite suffering notable injuries.

    ¡°You know there is no path ahead of you, that there is only death,¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°You know that I am stronger, yet continue to attack. Are you not afraid of dying?¡±

    The tiger didn¡¯t respond, it simply continued struggling. It waved its paws around when Li Hao raised his hand. The young man caught one of them and conducted some sword energy into the animal. The tiger remained jerking and iling against its captor.

    Keeping a tight grip on its ws, Li Hao shoved it back into the cage. He turned to Zhou Qin and asked, ¡°Friend, this tiger is too stubborn to be tamed. Can I ask you for a favor and release it back into the wild?¡±

    Zhou Qin blinked.

    Li Hao took out a piece of bone from his pockets. ¡°This is five cubes of fire mysterious power...¡±

    ¡°Ah, don¡¯t,¡± Zhou Qin quickly declined when he understood. ¡°I actually already want to release it. Entertainment is what we go for in things like this, but this one¡¯s not settling down. In that case, it¡¯s just taking up space. Since you¡¯re a friend of Ole Wang, you¡¯re a friend of mine. This is no big deal, I¡¯ll have someone take it back!¡±

    ¡°My thanks!¡± Li Hao epted the proposal without further discussion. He smiled at Wang Ming. ¡°I¡¯m done here, let¡¯s go back!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re done?¡± Wang Ming repeated with surprise. What did his colleague mean? Had theye to free the tiger?

    ¡°Let¡¯s go, and remember to thank this brother for me!¡± Li Hao waved at Zhou Qin and left.

    The fierce tiger behind them seemed to understand. It remained unmoving on the ground and watched the young man leave.

    ......

    Li Hao smiled when he walked out of the mansion. Trapped within a cage, yet refusing to submit? Being fully aware of the dangers, but still wanting to break out of imprisonment just for a fight to the death?

    His teacher had observed a king among tigers, the dominator of a forest! Today, he witnessed the struggles of a caged beast. It was two entirely different feelings and auras, but Li Hao felt that what he saw today was very suited to him.

    His teacher had dominated thend as a ferocious tiger who¡¯de prowling down the mountain. He was trapped in White Moon City and beset by danger on all sides. <i>I am the tiger in the cage! These are my struggles!</i>

    Li Hao sorted through his thoughts as he walked; Wang Ming¡¯s expression gradually shifted as he followed behind. His colleague had seemed to be a tiger crouched silently, waiting for the opportunity to devour someone!

    The handsome supernatural shook with dread. What was going on with Li Hao? Had heprehended something? Wang Ming himself was also a practitioner of the Five Styles, but he¡¯d never sensed anything like this.

    ......

    Li Hao bore a ferocious tiger in his chest¡ªa cub materialized in his aura and crouched down quietly, waiting for the right moment. So what if he was confined inside a cage? There woulde a day when he broke out!

    The tiger aura had taken form!

    ......

    <i>Inside the sports car.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s presence was as if a tiger poised to spring. He was sitting quietly in his seat, but Wang Ming felt that there was a tiger next to him in the passenger seat no matter how he looked at it. Cold sweat beaded his forehead. Li Hao really was a little different today! Had he grasped his dao?

    Meanwhile, Li Hao¡¯s eyes were closed in repose. Mind intent! This was his first instance of clearly sensing mind intent and the true meaning of martial dao. There¡¯d been coincidence and luck involved when he previouslyprehended the earth and sword aura. His ancestor¡¯s eternal stroke had given rise to the sword aura. He¡¯d understood the earth aura when Liu Long¡¯s Nine Forged Force shed with his teacher¡¯s Five Styles. That¡¯d been a case of spontaneous enlightenment.

    Today¡¯s instance of grasping the tiger aura didn¡¯t quite count as spontaneous enlightenment. His emotions and martial dao had built to a critical mass that erupted on the spot. When he observed the caged tiger, he¡¯d resonated with the animal and put himself in its ce. That gave rise to the aura, and now his tiger aura was fully formed!

    Within the Five Styles, the tiger aura corresponded to water and was thus assigned to the kidneys. Li Hao, however, ignored that corrtion. Was it water?

    <i>No!</i>

    Hong Yitang once exined the nature of auras to him. They were not innately assigned to an attribute. Liu Long¡¯s Nine Forged Force was of water, but his father¡¯s was of fire. They were the same secret art and same method. In the same vein, his tiger aura was different from his teacher¡¯s. It was up to him to see which attribute it mapped to.

    A beast at bay putting up a desperate fight; a ferocious tiger confined within a cage. That was not water. Water was gentle. His tiger craved to kill, to explode with fury, to never have to suffer patiently again. It wanted to erupt like a geyser of mes and turn thend to ashes.

    There was fire in the heart!

    <i>A fire aura!</i>

    Indeed, his tiger aura was neither water nor metal. It was a tiger burning with desire. A fire aura!

 Chapter 315: Winds Rise (I)

    <h4>Chapter 315: Winds Rise (I)</h4>

    Li Hao understood that his tiger was the fire of his heart. His teacher¡¯s ape was the fire heart ape, whereas his was the fire heart tiger. It was two entirely different styles, a simr case to Liu Long and his father with the Nine Forged Force. One honed the water aura, the other trained the fire aura.

    The ferocious tiger entered his heart!

    His heart seemed to be on fire; massive chains snaked around the tiger, wanting to keep it in ce. That only served to incense the tiger even more and intensify its violence.<i> So you want to lock me down as well??</i>

    A refusal to be confined was the core nature of the caged tiger. It refused to submit to the chains that sought to restrain it! It snarled with fury, howled with madness, and tore in a frenzied rush.

    Li Hao¡¯s expression remained calm. <i>Keep it in, hold on a little longer. I¡¯m chaining you today so you can be released with even more power in the future. </i>The fire tiger sword aura was his next goal. The earth sword aura was as weighty as a mountain. It was grand and magnificent, butcked killing power.

    Li Hao began chaining the fire tiger with the supernatural lock of the heart. The chains were incredibly thick¡ªmuch stronger than when he¡¯d locked the earth mountain into ce. A Nova blood pearl had greatly increased his potential and fortified his supernatural locks.

    <i>ROAR!!</i>

    A vicious tiger snarl echoed in Wang Ming¡¯s ears. Turning pale, he tilted his head at Li Hao. What was that? Was that an aura? Had Li Haoprehended the tiger aura?

    ......

    Li Hao ignored hispatriot. He¡¯d wrapped the tiger in chains, but it continued to struggle wildly. It shook his heart so much that the organ thumped painfully.

    <i>Very good!</i>

    This was the vigor that he wanted. If the tiger settled down without a fight after being locked in ce like the earth mountain had, that would mean it was no longer a tiger in a cage. This aura might not match his earth sword aura¡ªin fact, it might even be a bit less¡ªbut it was aplete reflection of Li Hao¡¯s mentality. This drive, the burning spirit that refused to be doused, the madness that disdained to be quiet... It was a realization that only resulted from wholly cing oneself in that way of thinking.

    If Yuan Shuo was here, he¡¯d be shaken by the sight. He would tell his student that only today did the young man truly set foot into Dominator of Thousands. This was Li Hao¡¯s enlightenment on the path of martial dao, his own aplishment!

    Intent within the heart!

    This was his third aura, or in actuality, the second. He¡¯d turned the sword aura into a general outline. He wasn¡¯t going to treat it separately and turn it into the metal aura. It was going to lead all of his auras.

    The starting point of his sword aura was too high. It came from illustrious origins¡ªthe sword intent of an unparalleled powerhouse. His sword aura would be weakened if he forced it to be a metal aura.

    Lingering scarlet shadow energy inside Li Hao¡¯s body repaired the damage from earlier. His wounds swiftly healed and he fully incorporated this second aura into the heart. Now his heart and spleen both nurtured an aura. Once his tiger became a fire tiger sword and melded into the sword aura, it would grow even stronger.

    He urgently needed to attack someone to vent the fire within his heart!

    Although his eyes were closed to his surroundings, he could vaguely sense attention from the gazes of others. Someone was following him¡ªhe¡¯d left headquarters too abruptly and hadn¡¯t gone home. His watchers couldn¡¯t react in time to do anything.

    This was also the oue that he wanted.

    ......

    <i>A hotel in the eastern quadrant.</i>

    Hu Qingfeng quickly received a report.

    ¡°Li Hao just went out to... go look at a tiger?¡± he read a report with surprise. ¡°What¡¯s he doing?¡±

    Standing beside him, Yu Xiao cursed inwardly. <i>What are you running around for? Why haven¡¯t you gone back toplete the drawing? Going to check out a tiger? You¡¯ve got too much time on your hands!</i>

    ¡°That Wang Ming probably put him up to it...¡± Yu Xiao waved it off and quickly changed the topic. He didn¡¯t want Hu Qingfeng to pay too much attention to the young man. ¡°Li Hao told me today that Hou Xiaochen will exit seclusion in three days!¡±

    ¡°Hmph!¡± Hu Qingfeng snorted. ¡°It seems to me that this so-called seclusion is just a front. He might¡¯ve emerged a long time ago.¡±

    Yu Xiao kept quiet¡ª<i>I don¡¯t think so! Hou Xiaochen might really be injured. He would¡¯ve already eaten Li Hao otherwise. He¡¯s probably recovering from his wounds so he can better devour the young man.</i>

    Hu Qingfeng contemted the group¡¯s next steps instead of chatting further. ¡°Is Li Hao willing to hand over his blood?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Yu Xiao chuckled. ¡°How would he dare refuse? Plus, that kid doesn¡¯t understand anything. He looked at me with more enthusiasm than he¡¯d show his own father when I said I¡¯m from central headquarters. He probably doesn¡¯t know any part of what Hou Xiaochen¡¯s thinking.¡±

    Hu Qingfeng nodded. That made sense. In the eyes of the Night Watchers, any powerhouse from central headquarters was a figure to revere. There were only a few senior executives among the Silver Moon Night Watchers who were somewhat aware of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s intentions.

    That was the end of the conversation for Hu Qingfeng. Yu Xiao had returned saying that Li Hao needed a day or two before supplying heart blood, that the man didn¡¯t want regr blood. Hu Qingfeng didn¡¯t find anything amiss about this deration. It would be for the best if they could obtain heart blood.

    ......

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    <i>A small residence in the southern quadrant.</i>

    ¡°Gone off to look at a tiger?¡± He Yong stroked his bushy beard as he frowned at the person in front of him. ¡°And a captured tiger at that? Does he want toprehend the tiger aura? That doesn¡¯t seem likely to happen... This Li Hao possesses neither the domineering traits nor the irreceable madness as his teacher. It¡¯ll be hard for him to grasp the tiger style!¡±

    His thoughts immediately jumped to the young man wanting to understand the aura, but that was almost impossible. It very much depended on the person whether or not an aura could be grasped.

    He Yong wasn¡¯t unfamiliar with Li Hao. Even though the young man had some small plots and schemes up his sleeves, he was different from Yuan Shuo. The kid was too young and had grown up under careful protection. Being as sheltered as he was, it was almost impossible for him toprehend the tyrannical nature of a fearsome tiger.

    It was a waste of time to go look at one, not to mention an imprisoned specimen!

    ¡°Kids are so naive.¡± He Yong shook his head with a chuckle. ¡°Do they think they canmand an aura by looking at tigers and bears? The auras of the Five Styles are not an easy matter to grasp.¡±

    He dismissed the rest of the topic. ¡°Be on your way. Remember, just watch and don¡¯t brashly intervene. Hou Xiaochen is still present within Silver Moon, he¡¯s not dead. Don¡¯t be dumb like the others. Doing anything now¡ªeven if you seed¡ªwill only result in guaranteed doom when the man exits closed door cultivation.¡±

    He Yong more or less understood Li Hao¡¯s affairs. Whether it was the Breathing Method of the Five Styles or the Nova level blood pearl, none of it held interest for him. It¡¯d be nice to have them, it didn¡¯t matter if he didn¡¯t. Whoever had designs on Li Hao at this moment was betting their lives. He Yong wasn¡¯t interested in gambling his away for the sake of some trinkets. He didn¡¯tck these treasures, not as a royal instructor.

    What he needed more was enlightenment and pointers for the proper steps to take on his path.

    ......

    Everyone was discussing Li Hao¡¯stest move. The young man¡¯s sudden interest in a tiger raised a great deal of spection, but most thought that he wanted toprehend a tiger aura. Almost no one looked favorably upon his chances to seed.

    Those who knew Yuan Shuo understood what his tiger style was like. That was a true king of the mountain forests!

    Yuan Shuo came into possession of his tiger aura only after he swept through the province. He truly understood the aura¡¯s nature and its domination after fighting a dozen famous martial masters.

    Li Hao was far from that level, he wasn¡¯t even a cub!

    ......

    <i>The Night Watchers.</i>

    Li Hao set foot through the front doors with a smile on his face. Almost all of his temper was fully retracted and melded into the tiger aura. He seemed more gentle than before, like his emotions had been fed to the tiger.

    Hao Lianchuan was surprised by what he read from Li Hao upon seeing the young man again. The boy seemed incredibly pure, like he truly was just a student. He¡¯d previously given off the tiniest hint of pretense. But when he smiled now, it seemed to reallye from the depths of his heart.

    The deputy director could no longer see through Li Hao. He frowned slightly, but quickly rxed his brows.

    ¡°Hu Dingfang called mymunicator today,¡± he said. ¡°He wants me to protect you well. He heard what you said at the meeting and wants you to be careful. Also, he wants you to stay away from Wang Ming. That kid will be nothing but trouble for you!¡±

    ¡°Please thank him for me, director.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°But he doesn¡¯t need to be concerned about my matters. There¡¯s no need to exert himself on my behalf. If teacher thinks it¡¯s fine, then it¡¯s fine. It¡¯s not a good idea to try to win teacher over through me. No matter how much he helps me, it stops with me. I don¡¯t want to affect my teacher through my influence.¡±

    ¡°Why not?¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that be good?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that it¡¯s bad, but that there¡¯s no need.¡± Li Hao changed the topic. ¡°Director, I¡¯d like to go see the sea in two days. Would you like toe with me?¡±

    <i>The sea?</i> Hao Lianchuan blinked.

    ¡°I can.¡± He nodded. ¡°But White Moon¡¯s sea is just an inner sea, it¡¯s not a truly unbounded mass of water in the true sense of the word. You should head south if you wish to see the real sea. The sea there is vaster than the one in the north.

    ¡°Maybe if there¡¯s a chance to someday.¡± Li Hao looked around him. ¡°Director, can you give me an office or something? I like clocking in to work and it¡¯s not convenient to always camp out in your office.¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Are you freaking addicted to work or what? Or do you think you¡¯re going to be a deputy director in White Moon? Only deputy directors have their own offices here, as well as those in charge of finances and simr. Kid, you¡¯re a weird one.</i>

 Chapter 316: Winds Rise (II)

    <h4>Chapter 316: Winds Rise (II)</h4>

    ¡°There¡¯s no space on the fifth floor,¡± Hao Lianchuan responded after some thought. ¡°But there¡¯s an empty office on the fourth floor. It¡¯s close to Manager Yu though, do you want it?¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± Li Hao was surprised that he would actually be allocated an office.

    ¡°It¡¯s just an office!¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled without care. ¡°Not to mention... people don¡¯t really want to be neighbors with <i>that one.</i> If you don¡¯t mind, it¡¯s yours as soon as you get your things together.¡±

    While the secretary was more reliable in taking care of matters, she showed a frosty demeanor to everyone who was not Hou Xiaochen. Thus, the rest of the Night Watchers would rather stay on another floor than be her neighbor.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care. This was great! He had his own office at headquarters on the second day of arriving in White Moon City. How nice. Should he bring over the silk banner from Silver City too?

    Nah, he would be going back to Silver City one day. That banner should hang where he got it.

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t do anything else that afternoon. He cleaned up the office, put away his things, and for all intents and purposes, looked to take over the space. The other secretaries and drivers on the fourth floor were surprised by his actions. How was there anyone who dared use that office?

    Many snuck nces at Manager Yu, but found that the secretary didn¡¯t care at all. It was as if this matter wasn¡¯t happening. These people had to give up their desire to gossip and simply conclude that rookie Li Hao possessed above average courage!

    The young man was busy until the end of the work day. He was in a wonderful mood as he looked at his new office. At forty square meters, it wasn¡¯t a small office. Everything he needed for his office desk was present, as well as a sofa area for guests. Although it didn¡¯t measure up to his office in Silver City, he was in a metropolis in which space was at a premium. Thanks to knowing people in the right ces, he had a private retreat at work. All it¡¯d taken was one simple word from Director Hao.

    Li Hao walked out with satisfaction after admiring the results of hisbor. He locked his office door and put away the key in his pocket.

    <i>In the hallway.</i>

    Manager Yu happened to set foot out of her office at this time. She raised both eyebrows when she saw Li Hao lock the door. This... fellow... really was quite interesting. He was treating this territory as his own! Was he really prepared toe to work here?

    The time was 6 pm, precisely when they should get off work. Clocking into work in the mornings and leaving work precisely on time... Manager Yu didn¡¯t know how to describe what she was feeling.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡±

    ¡°Manager Yu!¡± The young man followed what the rest called her. ¡°You¡¯re off work too, manager?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Manager Yu never knew what getting off work felt like. She rarely left the building. She blinked at the question and slowly inclined her head. ¡°I¡¯m off work!¡±

    ¡°Want to go together, manager?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright.¡± Manager Yu looked silently at him for a bit before leaving withrge strides. Together for what? She never left the building, what together was there to be had?

    ¡°Then good bye, manager! I¡¯m going home!¡± Li Hao bid merrily, in a great mood. It was a happy day. Instead of taking a car or a bike when he exited street level, he walked back to the family amodations.

    The light bulbs reappeared as soon as he left the Night Watchers, but he paid them no heed. These people weren¡¯t worth dirtying his sword. Not to mention, they wouldn¡¯t give in to their impulses. They would take action only when they fully grasped everything there was about him. For one, they needed to determine if anyone was protecting him from the shadows. No one would make an attempt before they understood what the Night Watcher arrangements were.

    Li Hao seemed oblivious to his circumstances. He strolled home, buying a few buns and a bowl of beef noodle soup along the way. He didn¡¯t like troubling others. Although the Inspectorate could deliver to his door, he didn¡¯t like asking them to do so. Self-sufficiency was just fine and food here wasn¡¯t too expensive. He drew a high sry at his rank, did he care about spending a few coins like these?

    ......

    ¡°Is there really no one looking out for the kid?¡± Some watchers in the darkness were confused; it looked like no one was standing guard in the shadows. Did the Night Watchers think Li Hao didn¡¯t need oversight just because the kid didn¡¯t live too far away? Or did they think that no one dared touch the young man because Hou Xiaochen was in the city?

    They carefully observed for a while to confirm that indeed, there were no secret protectors for the young man. Out of the Night Watcher powerhouses, Hou Xiaochen was in seclusion, Hao Lianchuan was busy at headquarters, and some of the other peak Sunres attended to their own missions. Nearly all of the Night Watcher Sunres were preupied with other business.

    The only one not busy was Wang Ming, and he¡¯d driven off in his sports car after bringing Li Hao back in the afternoon. There were eyes on him too. He really had run off to pursue his own delights and wasn¡¯t present in the southern quadrant of the city.

    ......

    <i>Upstairs, through the front doors.</i>

    Li Hao smiled faintly like nothing was amiss, but was secretly quite surprised. Had Red Moon sent people to him again? There was a scarlet shadow inside his apartment.

    A Red Moon member had probably slipped into the area while Hao Lianchuan was absent. There was no sign of a supernatural, just the scarlet shadow. They probably thought it wasn¡¯t likely the shadow would be exposed, so it floated right in front of the young man.

    Li Hao would¡¯ve trembled with fear if this was in times before. But now... he was used to the sight. He even took a moment to sense that it was roughly initial Sunre. That could also be determined from its size. He¡¯d eaten so many of these that whenever he saw scarlet shadows now, it was like he saw a snack waiting to be swallowed in one gulp.

    Red Moon was certainly bold. It looked like another one of their powerhouses had arrived in Silver Moon, or had Violet Moon recovered? They were more concerned about Li Hao¡¯s wellbeing than anyone else.

    The organization was deathly afraid of the young man dying, going missing, or breaking free of their control. He often thought that they were the only ones in White Moon City who truly cared about him!

    How lonely that was, and a little sad! Red Moon was the best!

    There was nothing else on Li Hao¡¯s schedule for the night. After eating his buns, he sat down in front of the desk. The scarlet shadow watched silently next to him, as if a parent overseeing their child¡¯s homework.

    Li Hao began drawing a map of the ruins. He would fulfill his promise to Yu Xiao and produce a map for the man. Since there was no origin weapon anymore... The young man thought for a while and made a mark on the city doors. Those two characters were more valuable than an origin weapon!

    This was a true treasure map, he wouldn¡¯t lie about that. As for the scarlet shadow watching him... so it watched him.

    <i>Do you see this? Go look at the two characters over the city gates. There might be surprises in store for you. If that killing fiend rushes back from the past... Man, that¡¯ll be fun.</i>

    The scarlet shadow was still present after he finished his diagram. It would seem that a lot of people had an eye on Hao Lianchuan. They were each bolder than the rest upon knowing that the deputy director wasn¡¯t back yet.

    Li Hao ignored the shadow and resumed practicing the boxing technique from earlier in the day. His punch shot out with significant force and was aimed at the scarlet shadow. The shadows weren¡¯t afraid of physical attacks, but the blood qi of martial masters could damage them. Mind intent had an even greater effect.

    Seeing that the scarlet shadow didn¡¯t run off after extended practice, he picked up the Earthturner Sword to begin running through sword techniques!

    ......

    <i>Inside a unit of the family amodations building of the Inspectorate.</i>

    A middle-aged man with run-of-the-mill features spoke into amunicator.

    ¡°He¡¯s not doing anything.¡± The man frowned. ¡°He came back, ate, drew a little, then began practicing martial dao. He¡¯s focusing on the fist and sword, and his sword intent is rather strong...¡±

    He had no words for Li Hao. Work, home, dinner, training... Was this the lifestyle of a young man? Didn¡¯t he have any hobbies? There was nothing noteworthy about him at all!

    ......

    <i>On the other side of themunicator.</i>

    <i>Outside White Moon City.</i>

    Violet Moon looked at the city; another person next to her also looked at the city with an amused expression. He could hear the reporting from themunicator.

    ¡°This heir of the Lis... is so boring!¡± heughed softly.

    Violet Moon nodded and cut offmunication. ¡°We don¡¯t need to pay attention to him for the moment,¡± she murmured. ¡°We are beset on all sides because of the blood pearls. Hou Xiaochen killed Red Hair. What do you think we should do next?¡±

    ¡°So he¡¯s dead,¡± the man chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s enough for Hou Xiaochen to kill one, does he dare kill a second? Red Hair was too careless and too weak¡ªhe died in one move and lost incredible face for Red Moon!

    ¡°The leader gave me two missions for my trip. Number one, bring back Li Hao or his corpse! Number two, bring back Yuan Shuo or his corpse. Nothing was said about Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Therefore, the Hou Xiaochen that humiliated you isn¡¯t our primary target. Our true goal is still Li Hao! We¡¯re different from the others¡ªLi Hao is more important to us than Hou Xiaochen. Don¡¯t lose sight of our purpose, Violet Moon!¡±

    ¡°But... it¡¯s almost impossible to take him alive,¡± Violet Moon fretted. ¡°Then we can only kill him. Will he be effective when he¡¯s dead?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Blue Moon didn¡¯t care. ¡°I¡¯m just going to follow orders. Perhaps the leader has other methods. Of course, taking the young man alive is for the best. We need to wait for the next rainy season and it¡¯s almost upon us. The next rainy season will happen around December.¡±

    The intervals between killing the heirs of the eight families were growing shorter and shorter. The next rainy season was less than half a year away.

    ¡°Then... what about the ancient city of Battle Heaven?¡± Violet Moon was loath to walk away from everything just like this.

 Chapter 317: Winds Rise (III)

    <h4>Chapter 317: Winds Rise (III)</h4>

    ¡°We¡¯ll enter Battle Heaven if we can and it doesn¡¯t matter if we can¡¯t,¡± Blue Moon answered calmly. ¡°Violet Moon, the treasures and even ultimate treasures of your eyes may not be worthy of mention in our leader¡¯s eyes. Origin weapons and mysterious power stones might not be that important. Red Moon did not leave so much strength behind in Silver Moon for this. Our goal from the very start was the eight families of Silver City. That has never changed, not in all these years.¡±

    ¡°Then why didn¡¯t we confine Li Hao earlier?¡± Violet Moon frowned. ¡°He was just a mundane then and wasn¡¯t Yuan Shuo¡¯s student yet. All this trouble arose from letting him be and all these consequences have developed as a result. He could¡¯ve been secure in our custody a long time ago.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand, things aren¡¯t that simple!¡± Blue Moon shook his head. ¡°We discovered his existence only after Li Hao turned eighteen! It wasn¡¯t like we were aware of him from the beginning¡ªwe only confirmed his status as a direct descendent of the core Li family after he was eighteen. Before that, it wouldn¡¯t mean anything even if we determined he was part of the Lis!

    ¡°He was already Yuan Shuo¡¯s student at eighteen. And the leader did move against the Lis before this. His parents¡¯ death was our earlier work, but we didn¡¯t think that his father wasn¡¯t the core of his family legacy... That is what¡¯s so frustrating about all of this!

    ¡°Not to mention, it wasn¡¯t an appropriate time,¡± Blue Moon continued in a soft voice. ¡°We couldn¡¯t take Li Hao with us. It would¡¯ve been bad if we had¡ªhis bloodline would swiftly downgrade. His father may have lost the bloodline inheritance because we got to him outside the city.¡±

    Violet Moon listened silently, she had nothing to offer as she hadn¡¯t participated in any of this. She hadn¡¯t been aware of the organization¡¯s n against the eight families for that long. She was an outsider before as she¡¯d only recently inherited the Violet Moon position.

    Their leader seemed to have given up on taking Li Hao alive with thismand of bringing back the young man¡¯s corpse. She wasn¡¯t aware if there was anything involved to warrant this change.

    ¡°Blue Moon, what do the eight families represent?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t ask!¡± Blue Moon replied softly. ¡°Even I¡¯m not clear on that, but I won¡¯t ask. Asking too many questions is not a good thing, and knowing too much isn¡¯t a good thing either. Our task is simple, bring back Li Hao!¡±

    ¡°When do we make our move?¡± asked Violet Moon. ¡°Hou Xiaochen is too strong. You may not be a match for him either.¡±

    ¡°When everything falls into chaos!¡±

    Violet Moon sank into deep thought. When was chaosing?

    ¡°It¡¯ll be soon!¡± Blue Moon smirked. ¡°The Night Watcher central headquarters have sent a few kids that have no idea how immense this world is. All they think about is achieving deeds of merit and pacifying rebellion. The only thing they have in their sights is taking down Hou Xiaochen. Those kids will be our greatest help.¡±

    ¡°Hu Qingfeng?¡± Violet Moon doubted. ¡°He may be a Nova, but he¡¯s less than Red Hair. Where does he get the courage to provoke Hou Xiaochen?¡±

    <i>Is he crazy?</i>

    ¡°He¡¯s not crazy. Not only is he not crazy, but he¡¯s wide awake!¡± Blue Moon chortled. ¡°He can¡¯t take down Hou Xiaochen, but... there¡¯s people willing to help him! Like... me! And the Equality King, and Half Mountain!¡±

    The man smiled radiantly. ¡°Hou Xiaochen is a thorn in our side, so I agreed to it! Of course, this isn¡¯t important. I just need Hu Qingfeng to make a move and distract Hou Xiaochen. I can take Li Hao as soon as he does. ...no, it might be better for you to do the deed. I don¡¯t mind crossing paths with Hou Xiaochen to see how strong he really is.

    ¡°And if four Novas aren¡¯t enough, we can add more!¡± Blue Moon chuckled. ¡°There are plenty of people in the central region who wish to see where his limits are. If we can¡¯t take him this time, we¡¯ll send five, six Novas... If all of usbined can¡¯t take him, then we¡¯ll wait for even stronger existences toe!¡±

    Violet Moon took a deep breath. These people had allied together! It was an initiative she hadn¡¯t considered before because she felt it may not be the best move.

    ¡°Tell me truly, Blue Moon, is there more than you here?¡± she asked.

    Blue Moon looked at her with a stern look. ¡°I told you, it¡¯s not good to know too much!¡±

    Violet Moon was irritated, but didn¡¯t ask further. <i>Are there more here from the elder council or the other Seven Moons? They can¡¯t possibly have not prepared anything after knowing how strong Hou Xiaochen is.</i>

    As strong as Blue Moon was... Violet Moon didn¡¯t think much of him rivaling Hou Xiaochen. The man¡¯s overbearing tyranny in gently stabbing Red Hair to death was still fresh in her mind.

    ......

    Li Hao had almost toyed the scarlet shadow in his apartment to death. It vanished when Hao Lianchuan returned. The young man didn¡¯t go out to meet the deputy director. He¡¯d had enough of seeing the man¡¯s face for the day. He beganpressing the ferocious tiger in his heart after the shadow left.

    The tiger sword!

    He wanted to see if he could turn this tiger into a fire tiger sword before tomorrow night!

    Li Hao did not sleep again tonight. He kept trying topress the tiger, but it was incredibly stubborn. It refused to be shaped into a sword even though it was on the verge of deformation. It was quite a headache for Li Hao as his auras couldn¡¯t be too disorderly.

    If one was a sword, another was a tiger, and a third was a mountain, that would be disadvantageous for fully deploying their might. While that made them moreprehensive, a jack of all trades usually meant master of none. Yuan Shuo was very well rounded, and while he wasn¡¯t mediocre, he didn¡¯t hold much of an advantage when it came to pure offensive power.

    Li Hao tried for a very long time this night. Hepressed the tiger by a great amount, but was unable to create a sword. All he could do was squeeze the tiger into a morepact version.

    ......

    It was morning of September 6 in the blink of an eye. Li Hao reported to work on time, as usual. Traveling with Hao Lianchuan meant that he could bypass much unwanted attention along the way.

    It was his third day in White Moon City.

    <i>Inside the car.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan nced at the young man who had his eyes closed. The more the deputy director looked, the more he felt that the kid was different from two days ago.

    ¡°Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    ¡°Be careful tonight!¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°How much time do you need before joining me, director?¡±

    ¡°Thirty seconds at most, ten seconds at the very least! You must guarantee your own safety within these thirty seconds. Otherwise... I¡¯ll give up the n! We don¡¯t have to kill him, I just want to vent my ill will. We don¡¯t have to do this.¡±

    That wasn¡¯t too fast. A fight involving powerhouses could be over within ten seconds. Hao Lianchuan being an initial Sr... or mid Sr now... wasn¡¯t fast to begin with. He was better off with the ming Phoenix Spear, but it was still too long of an interval.

    ¡°That won¡¯t do,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I¡¯ve already arranged everything. Trouble won¡¯t leave me alone if we don¡¯t do it.¡±

    ¡°Then... make sure you know what you¡¯re doing. Otherwise, your master won¡¯t let me off the hook if anything happens to you!¡± Hao Lianchuan suddenly regretted his actions. Although he knew that the kid was bold and possessed some smarts, he suddenly recalled that the kid¡¯s master was Yuan Shuo.

    If anything happened to Li Hao, Yuan Shuo would certainly run him to hell for it, even if Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t. He abruptly regretted this chain of events, he should¡¯ve stayed away from his impulses!

    Li Hao, on the other hand, was very calm. He looked out the car window and breathed out softly. He hoped... that he would have the chance to deploy one sword stroke today. Just one would do. The tiger sword ardently wished to attack. Perhaps it¡¯d be willing to be a sword once it vented some of its grievances!

    ......

    <i>The southern quadrant of the city. Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Another quiet day began. All of White Moon was very quiet these days. Nothing happened apart from a few small problems. There weren¡¯t even conflicts above Sunre.

    Hou Xiaochen still did not appear and the other side didn¡¯t seem to be in a rush. They quietly waited for his return. No action was hastily taken just because they heard he was injured.

    Wang Ming arrived early this day as well, but he was just here to show his face and check on Li Hao. He wasn¡¯t going to stay for long.

    ......

    Wang Ming clucked his tongue with admiration and envy as he took a tour of Li Hao¡¯s office.

    ¡°Old Hao is damn good to you!¡± His colleague had his own office!

    A pity it was next to Manager Yu, though. Wang Ming even went to the trouble of keeping his voice down as he talked. Otherwise, he¡¯d want to get a taste of what it felt like to work in an office. Having an office at headquarters was a mark of one¡¯s status.

    Li Hao smiled without a word. He was polishing his longsword. The Earthturner Sword felt quite nice in the hand.

    Wang Ming naturally knew that action might take ce soon after he ran his mouth two days ago. He registered Li Hao¡¯s actions and winked at his colleague, eager and excited.

    Li Hao raised his head and grinned at the handsome supernatural. After some thought, he transmitted, ¡°The work day is over at 6 pm and I arrive home around 6:30 pm. Do something for me during this period of time.¡±

    Wang Ming wasn¡¯t surprised by the method ofmunication since he knew that Li Hao could transmit. He bobbed his head rapidly with anticipation, dearly wishing to be involved.

    ¡°There are seven surveince cameras ced along the street from headquarters to the Inspectorate¡¯s family amodations. I need all seven to stop working during this period of time and for no one to discover it. Can you do it?¡±

    Wang Ming frowned and muttered, ¡°That¡¯s an Inspectorate responsibility. It¡¯ll... be hard for me to pull that off. And maintaining it for half an hour...¡±

    It was indeed a difficult proposal. Wang Ming thought some more on it. ¡°I know what you want. I can only do that for a certain area and just a short amount of time. How about this, as soon as I hear or sense something, I¡¯ll barge into the surveince office and knock the guards unconscious. I¡¯ll take all the tapes and destroy them. How about that? No one will care about it after the fact.¡±

    ¡°Do you know where the surveince office is?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow at him.

    Wang Ming grinned widely in immediate agreement. Of course he knew!

    ¡°My friends and I used to race cars through the city and were warned a few times. We knew where it was after that,¡± he murmured. This was a small matter, he wanted to be more involved. ¡°Is there anything else I can do?¡±

    Li Hao mused over the matter given how excited Wang Ming was. He nodded. ¡°Buy dinner for me and wait for me toe back tonight.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Ming looked at him, speechless. He glowered and said no more.<i> Are you even listening to yourself??</i>

    Li Hao chuckled and ignored hispatriot. Sunres weren¡¯t worth much anymore. As strong as this fellow was, it was more than Darkmoons who wanted to move against him now.

 Chapter 318: A Fierce Battle! (I)

    <h4>Chapter 318: A Fierce Battle! (I)</h4>

    Time passed, minute by minute. Everyone went about their normal day. Li Hao went through his usual schedule¡ªtraining martial dao, practicing his boxing method, and running through sword techniques.

    Manager Yu was speechless at the continued disturbance next door. It was her first time seeing such a quiet,pletely boring fellow. It wasn¡¯t that the Night Watchers didn¡¯t have these kinds of members, but that they were usually elderly.

    Was the young man unused to his new environment, or was he always like this? Apparently, this was how he operated in Silver City as well. This kind of person was very uninteresting. While Hou Xiaochen was also a man of few words, that was his noble bearing to Manager Yu. When Li Hao was the same way, it was utterly boring.

    ......

    <i>The eastern quadrant of the city.</i>

    <i>A hotel.</i>

    The five supernaturals from the central region weren¡¯t all at the hotel. Hu Qingfeng had gone to the provincial government again and someone else was visiting the Silver Moon Division of the local military.

    There were only two left in the enormous suite. There was Yu Xiao and there was a blonde man in his thirties. The two were drinking wine and chatting.

    Yu Xiao nced at the clock on the wall. 5:50 pm. There were ten minutes until Li Hao left work. The kid was a typical office worker who didn¡¯t stay a single minute past 6 pm.

    ¡°Ole Huang, this wine isn¡¯t good enough. I smelled something extremely fragrant when I left the hotel yesterday. I¡¯ll go buy some so we can continue drinking. This sted ce is so damn boring that I can¡¯t sleep at night if I don¡¯t drink.¡±

    The blonde named Ole Huangughed. ¡°Have someone else run the errand. Is there a need for you to go in person?¡± That was such a trivial task!

    ¡°I¡¯ll go. I forgot what the store was called, but I remember where it was. It¡¯s not too far. Wait for me here, I¡¯ll be right back.¡± Yu Xiao got up to leave.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t I go with you,¡± Ole Huang chuckled. ¡°I have nothing else better to do.¡±

    <i>Absolutely not! </i>Thest thing Yu Xiao wanted was to be tied to this guy. As a peak Sr, Ole Huang was stronger than him. Hu Qingfeng was the strongest out of the five, two were peak Srs, there was a woman atte Sr, and Yu Xiao brought up the rear.

    Would anything be left for him if Ole Huang came along?

    ¡°It¡¯s fine!¡± Yu Xiao waved him off. ¡°Wait here, maybe Boss Hu and the others will be back soon. They¡¯ll be annoyed to see that both of us are absent.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true.¡± Ole Huang didn¡¯t continue to press. ¡°Just buy the wine, don¡¯t stir up any trouble!¡±

    ¡°How can I?¡± Yu Xiao roared withughter.

    ¡°I mean it,¡± Ole Huang emphasized. ¡°Don¡¯t think that no one¡¯s aware of your little habits. If you really want that, just spend some money to have women throw themselves at you. Don¡¯t go dipping into unsavory nonsense. This isn¡¯t a region in disarray, there¡¯s a big one holding down the fort here!¡±

    Yu Xiao had certain unptable habits, such as sneaking into a woman¡¯s house and being up to... no good. He had a track record, but at the same time, neither were the Night Watchers quite so distasteful. Yu Xiao didn¡¯t dare indulge in front of others; he only did so in areas torn apart by war. He¡¯d done so more than once, and Ole Huang was aware of his past deeds.

    But Yu Xiao was strong enough and close enough with Ole Huang that thetter let things slide. He didn¡¯t report it to his supervisor as there was no future in these disorderly regions. Supernatural energy was an absolute mess there and no one would ever know who was behind the deeds.

    ¡°How would I ever, Ole Huang?¡± Yu Xiao quickly said. ¡°Do you think I¡¯m an idiot? This is Silver Moon, not a war zone!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, so long as you¡¯re aware!¡± Ole Huang said nothing further. Yu Xiao smiled and left without a word.

    Old Huang furrowed his brows when the man left. This guy was in a hurry today¡ªhe¡¯d looked at the clock more than once. This was White Moon City, the capital of Silver Moon. He wasn¡¯t thinking with his small head, was he?

    Notpletely at ease, Ole Huang rubbed his temples. A matter like this could be a severe one, it could also be a slight one. But once it was exposed, the Night Watchers were on the side of order and justice. Someone would be along to take care of Yu Xiao if his deeds were known!

    The perverts at headquarters wouldn¡¯t mind casually killing or castrating him, to say nothing of anything else.

    <i>He can¡¯t be that dumb, can he? </i>Old Huang stared out the window, deep in thought.

    ......

    It was 6 pm in the blink of an eye. The day was over.

    Manager Yu heard a slightmotion from the office next door. The door closed, then locked. She listened silently from her desk, at a loss for words. How punctual! The kid was more urate than an rm clock.

    He was neither one minute early norte leaving from work. Li Hao lived like he was a preprogrammed puppet!

    ¡°The day¡¯s over, see you tomorrow!¡± A beaming Li Hao greeted people he crossed paths with. Another day over and another day down. He¡¯d spent the day tending to his own business at work and getting paid for it. What a lovely time!

    Hao Lianchuan happened to being down the stairs at the same time, he nodded at the young man when they met at the staircase. Li Hao nodded back at him and continued down to the first floor.

    ......

    The young man exhaled noisily and beamed brightly when he walked out of the Night Watcher headquarters. What a beautiful day!

    <i>Across the way.</i>

    Someone had been keeping watch from this side recently¡ªnot secretly, but out in the open. Instead of Li Hao, they waited for Hou Xiaochen to emerge from seclusion. News would be delivered to various factions the moment the man showed himself.

    When they saw the young man...

    Someone drinking tea couldn¡¯t decide if he wanted tough or cry. ¡°That kid¡ªYuan Shuo¡¯s disciple? I¡¯ve been keeping watch for two days. He gets to work exactly on time and leaves precisely on time everyday. Not a minutete and not a minute early. He¡¯s more urate than a clock! I only need to see him to know that it¡¯s 6 pm.¡±

    ¡°This must be the self discipline of martial masters!¡±ughed another person at his table.

    ¡°Hahaha, probably. It¡¯s interesting, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true, it¡¯s too boring over at the Night Watchers.¡± A merry conversation circted as they walked Li Hao leave. Everyone shook their heads. Where did this weird kide from?

    ......

    Li Hao ignored the teahouse across from him. It was all small fry¡ªballs of light so small they were nearly invisible. The Night Watchers knew of supernaturals on the lookout there, but no one cared. Various organizations had ced them there as scouts. They were permitted to remain out in the open.

    Li Hao advanced, following the street. There was no danger for the moment as he was too close to headquarters. He¡¯d have to walk at least ten minutes before running into anything.

    He¡¯d been scoping out the perimeter over the past two days and identified three spots where he was most likely to meet with danger on the way home. Given Hou Xiaochen¡¯s influence, the first spot was too close to headquarters. The second and third spots were more likely to see action.

    The second spot was a small alleyway that saw infrequent passersby. It was roughly one hundred meters long and overlooked by tall buildings on both sides. They blocked the light, making it suitable for ambush.

    The third spot was roughly five hundred meters in front of the family amodations building. It was a parking lot that wasn¡¯t often used as there weren¡¯t many White Moon inhabitants with cars.

    It didn¡¯t matter either way to the young man. Supernaturals were such a prominent ball of light that he would see them so long as he wasn¡¯t blind.

    Li Hao passed by a stall of buns after a while; he decided against buying buns today. They might go to wasteter. When he was more than three thousand meters away from headquarters, he saw several balls of light hovering around him.

    There was one beneath the ground and one aboveground. These guys haunted him like ghosts that refused to depart the world. It¡¯d been several days¡ªwho knew what was so fascinating about him?

    Li Hao continued like he hadn¡¯t seen anything. The small alleyway wasing up in one thousand meters. Ordinary balls of light were impossible to make out from such a far distance, unless they were huge!

    A smile crossed the young man¡¯s face. Yu Xiao sure knew how to pick his ces! This was where the man had chosen for his ambush. It looked like he wasn¡¯t so arrogant as to think he could strike in a brazen way. Indeed, Li Hao identified a ball of light that belonged to Yu Xiao waiting in the alley.

    Balls of light differed from each other; some were strong, some were weak. Given the different attributes, some took different shapes and forms. If he looked at them closely, he was able to determine which ones he¡¯d seen before. <i>However...</i>

    The young man frowned slightly. He knew that Yu Xiao was mid Sr, but there was another massive ball of light off to the side, less than five hundred meters from Yu Xiao. It was bigger than the man¡¯s¡ªLi Hao regarded it warily.

    There was another one? Who? Li Hao looked intently at the ball of light¡ªit was stronger than Sun Yifei. Peak Sr? It wasn¡¯t as strong as Violet Moon or the Revolution King, but it was slightly stronger thante Sr.

    To think that there¡¯d be a peak Sr in the premises today!

    It wasn¡¯t in the alleyway, but was a concerning development all the same. Five hundred meters was a distance that could be crossed in a few seconds by powerhouses. The unexpected development was perplexing and a bit annoying. Why were there two Srs present?

    Fine, maybe what he¡¯d said had drawn the attention of other powerhouses. Li Hao was quite resigned! A n could never keep pace with changes in reality. He¡¯d wanted to give the fight a shot himself even though he was alone. Could he battle a mid Sr? He was much stronger than before, so he ardently wished to give it a try.

    But with an additional peak Sr... that was troublesome.

 Chapter 319: A Fierce Battle! (II)

    <h4>Chapter 319: A Fierce Battle! (II)</h4>

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>Inside the alleyway.</i>

    A withered tree trunk had appeared amidst the quiet street at an unknown point in time. This was Yu Xiao¡¯s disguise. As a wood powerhouse, wood bending and hiding in wood was a basic skill.

    He quickly calcted the time again¡ªthe moment was almost upon them. That kid should being soon. He would have the map on him, right? He should have it, based on Yu Xiao¡¯s understanding of the young man from the previous day. He¡¯d refrained from retrieving it from Li Hao today because he didn¡¯t want to raise attention. Going to the young man two days in a row was too noticeable.

    He would have to remember to hold himself back in a short while. It wouldn¡¯t do if he pulverized the boy in a few seconds. He wanted both the diagram and theplete corpse. Neither one could be relinquished!

    However, Yu Xiao frowned lightly. Was that supernatural activity beneath the ground? An earth Sunre?

    That was quite irritating. These dirt rats were very annoying. Was this one following Li Hao or unintentionally passing by? Or was it protecting Li Hao?

    No matter who it was, Yu Xiao decided that he¡¯d have to kill this guy too if he was still there after Li Hao died. As for Yu Xiao himself, he wore a ghost face mask to conceal his identity. Someone else entered the short alleyway just as he rolled his eyes at the person in the ground.

    The neer wasn¡¯t Li Hao.

    ¡°Are you sure he¡¯ll pass by here?¡± came a faint whisper.

    ¡°Of course, I¡¯ve observed him for two days. He¡¯s on time to a fault. There¡¯s two more minutes, he¡¯ll be here.¡±

    ¡°Are you confident? We must be fast¡ªhe¡¯s not weak as a half step Dominator. He¡¯s also Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple. We can¡¯t think he¡¯s weak just because he¡¯s young...¡±

    ¡°No shit, we¡¯re <i>both</i> half step Dominators and old hats at what we do. The kid won¡¯t have a chance to react so long as we move fast enough.¡±

    Yu Xiao wanted tough from sheer anger. What the hell, why was there more? <i>Two martial masters? </i>And they were both half step Dominators. Did they have Li Hao in their sights too? Damned if the kid wasn¡¯t a hotmodity. Fine, he¡¯d just kill a bit more when he was done with his main target.

    The man¡¯s ears twitched as his thoughts ran rapidly¡ªYu Xiao¡¯s expression shifted slightly at a new finding. He could vaguely sense an aura in the area... He wasn¡¯t unfamiliar with martial masters as he¡¯d fought them before. Yu Xiao narrowed his eyes and swept his gaze around the surroundings. His eyes darted upward; he seemed to pick up something there. There was no one in the sky, but there seemed to be something in the air over the alleyway.

    <i>A Dominator! </i>Yu Xiao frowned ferociously. The fuck, what kind of winds were blowing today? Why were there so many people sticking their nose into this??

    There was an earth Sunre beneath the ground, two half step Dominators on the ground, and a Dominator in the air over this tiny alley. Dominators were known throughout thends¡ªwhich one was up there?

    Of course, Yu Xiao wasn¡¯t afraid. He would only be concerned about a martial master like Yuan Shuo or one of the veteran martial masters who¡¯d made their name decades ago. Otherwise, even a Dominator was the equivalent of a Sunre.

    He just found it odd. Had these guys all discussed it beforehand and decided to take action today? Why not any other day?

    <i>These bastards... The Dominator is the most annoying one. I¡¯ll have to take him out first in a second to make sure that he doesn¡¯t hold me back and ruin my ns! </i>Yu Xiao cursed. He wouldn¡¯t have chosen this spot if he¡¯d known about the situation beforehand. Granted, there would be nothing left for him to do but cry if someone else killed Li Hao. All he could say was that he had to help Li Hao resolve the threat of this Dominator first to ensure that his own scheme ran smoothly.

    ......

    <i>Inside the alley.</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t sense the martial masters before he walked in, but he knew the second he set foot inside. There was a Dominator keeping an eye on him; the other two martial masters weren¡¯t worthy of consideration.

    <i>Weaklings! And a Dominator? So there really are martial masters with designs on me. They¡¯ve got some nerve.</i>

    The two half step Dominators were pretending to be bystandersing from the other end of the alley. It looked like they wanted to attack when they crossed paths with the young man. As few passersby as there were in the alley, it wasn¡¯t strange to run into someone here.

    But with Li Hao¡¯s current eye for assessment, he could tell with a nce that these two martial masters had grasped the aura. At the same time, their auras were very weak, making them just half step Dominators. As for Yu Xiao¡ªthe rotted tree trunk in the alley was glowing so brightly that the young man would have to be blind to miss it.

    There was also another earth supernatural in the ground beneath them. They weren¡¯t too weak either atte Sunre. Li Hao then discovered another that even Yu Xiao didn¡¯t find. A ball of light hovered in the air one hundred meters over the small alley. It was probably a wind supernatural keeping watch from a high vantage point.

    As Yu Xiao didn¡¯t dare easily release his mysterious power, he overlooked the existence of thest person in the sky. Li Hao judged it to bete or peak Sunre, given the brightness of that ball of light. Srs weren¡¯t somon that they could be found by the side of the street, after all. Sunre was already a notable existence.

    <i>So I¡¯m treasure to all of them!</i> Instead of being mad, Li Hao was quite happy.<i> So many people care about me and came to escort me home. Who else gets this kind of treatment?</i>

    He continued forward. As short as the alleyway was, it wasn¡¯t long before he clearly made out the faces of the two approaching him. They chatted with each other, as if friends happening to take this way.

    Whether it was Yu Xiao or the Dominator, there was no sign of movement from either of them. It looked like they were waiting for these two to take action first. On the other hand, Li Hao couldn¡¯t wait any longer. He picked up the pace, as if in a hurry to go home to dinner. The distance narrowed between the two parties.

    Thirty meters... twenty meters...

    Whether it was the Dominator above or Yu Xiao below, both tensed to spring when the three people were less than ten meters apart. The sword at Li Hao¡¯s waist vibrated slightly at this moment.

    A split second! All that was needed was a split second¡ªno shadow, no trace, no sound, no presence! The Ghost Shadow Sword!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t wait to benefit from two parties fighting each other, there was no need! The Earthturner Sword instantly vanished and reappeared, shing horizontally through the air!

    Evening splendor still painted the White Moon skies at 6 pm. Radiance didn¡¯t filter into the alley because the buildings on either side cast shadows between them. The two half step Dominators continued forward, still brainstorming how to instantly kill Li Hao. Their throats suddenly itched and they wanted to cough. They were less than five meters away from the young man¡ªthey needed to make a move. When they looked at each other, they discovered something amiss. Why was there a line of blood on the other¡¯s throat?

    Where had this strange linee from?

    They turned to look at each other more fully, but their heads continued to swivel and swivel... until they felt lightheaded. Their heads toppled down from their necks!

    Shock appeared in both of their eyes. There was no pain, this moment hade too swiftly! So swiftly that, when the line of blood expanded, there was no time for blood to spurt out.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t look at them after he slit their throats with one stroke. There was no need! He sprang into the air with a powerful push of his legs and shed forward, his sword brilliance as if a mountain and his move parting the firmament!

    A wind supernatural one hundred meters in the air didn¡¯t have time to react before his scalp tingled with numbness. Mysterious power erupted and he wanted to run when a stroke cut him down from head to toe!

    A sword stroke to sever the heavens!

    The Dominator over the alley had wanted to stop the young man, but could do nothing but watch as Li Hao jumped over his head and vanished in the blink of an eye. He was still masked as he perched on top of the alley¡¯s walls, a dazed look in his eyes. He looked upward to see Li Hao sh through the firmament, sword qi running through heaven and earth!

    It was over in a heartbeat and didn¡¯t raise much attention in the backdrop of a glorious sunset. The Dominator¡¯s expression changed drastically as he grappled with the situation and he manifested a dragon over his body with a roar. He brandished a spear and rushed the young man!

    The Dominator wielded a spear!

    The descending Li Hao answered with a ferocious roar of his own¡ªTiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods! It was thirty percent more aggressive and furious than previous. A mountain shed out of the Earthturner Sword¡ªthe earth sword aura! A summoned spirit had emerged from his organ with its nurture aura!

    Color drained from the Dominator''s face¡ªSummoner of Spirit??

    Spear and Earthturner Sword collided. The massive dragon split into two after a loud snarl and the spear ttered to the ground in halves. Li Hao cut down his opponent with the sword in his right hand and his left extending in a punch!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The Dominator¡¯s arm trembled after a momentous collision and it fractured into pieces. His spear was pulverized, his mind intent damaged, and he registered a punching toward him in a bleary haze.

    A ferocious tiger roar split the air as a human watermelon exploded with a bang!

    Li Hao ignored the results of his handiwork and stomped his foot. The earth trembled from his movement, everything happening so quickly that the earth supernatural beneath the ground didn¡¯t have time to react. The earth shook around him as Li Hao stabbed his sword into the ground.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The earth split open as overbearing sword intent filtered into the ground, making straight for the earth supernatural. Only then did thetter sense the danger. He wanted to run, but infinite pressure seemed to bear down on him in all directions. He wanted to break through the pressure, but found that the earth itself seemed to be set against him.

    Sword light shed through his mind¡¯s eye¡ªit was as if a mountain!

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    A body split open beneath the ground!

    Two half step Dominators, one Dominator, a wind Sunre in the sky, an earth Sunre in the round¡ªfive superhumans that counted as powerhouses¡ªwere executed on the spot by Li Hao¡¯s Earthturner Sword!

    The withered tree trunk vanished, revealing a Ghostface. Yu Xiao heaved for air and reeled from shock. Li Hao? Was this Li Hao??

 Chapter 320: A Fierce Battle! (III)

    <h4>Chapter 320: A Fierce Battle! (III)</h4>

    Yu Xiao was too astounded for words! He¡¯d been poised to make a move and was aiming for the Dominator first. He would then take care of the young man, but Li Hao had acted before he had a chance to!

    He was at aplete loss and utter disbelief. Battle was over while he gaped with astonishment; everyone was dead. A broken body in air was falling to the ground. Too fast! Everything had happened entirely too fast, so fast that he didn¡¯t have a chance to collect his senses!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything when he revealed himself. Fire shimmered over the Earthturner Sword and the young man seemed to transform into a deadly tiger. A tiger roar shook the four corners!

    Cornered beasts still fight!

    Cornered beasts could still battle the heavens. Fiery sparks illuminated the alley and sky as Li Hao struck with his sword. His spleen and heart erupted with scintiting radiance. All he wanted to do at this moment was kill. There was nothing else on his mind.

    Mid Sr?

    <i>So what!</i>

    There was no time for Yu Xiao to talk, ask, or think why Li Hao was so strong. He manifested a green wooden sword with a howl and rushed the young man. He had to attack¡ªit felt like a mountain surrounded him and the earth would swallow him! Although he wanted to leave, it wasn¡¯t easy to manage at this stage.

    Murderous supernatural energy exploded in the alley. Wood energy was very tenacious, but it could not withstand Li Hao¡¯s blow. It shattered when the sword struck; the defenses of mid Sr seemed so inadequate in this moment.

    The sword stroke of severing the self floated up in Li Hao¡¯s mind, as did the struggles of the caged tiger from yesterday. Fury and madness appeared on the young man¡¯s face.

    <i>A tiger rages in my heart and my sword knows no return! All of you guys deserve death!</i>

    He¡¯d felt only admiration, pity, and a burning desire to win in the fight with Sun Moxian. He hadn¡¯t felt such a strong killing intent. That had been a spar between martial masters, a fight to the death. These people in front of him did not deserve his respect or attention. What the hell were they worth?!

    To sever the self!

    Frenzied madness colored the tiger¡¯s howl as resolution supported it. The Earthturner Sword broke the wooden sword with a massive impact. Li Hao rushed forward, moving earth and shaking mountains.

    Yu Xiao saw a bloodthirsty tiger, one covered with wounds. The Earthturner Sword exploded into hundreds of fragments, each fragment a killing move.

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Countless fragments abraded Yu Xiao¡¯s face and body. Blood spurted out, wounds that were instantly healed by wood energy.

    The Earthturner Sword had shattered. It¡¯d shattered!

    Yet, Li Hao didn¡¯t mind. Hong Yitang had said that the sword was powerful, but it was just satisfactory to the young man. It was to be expected that it couldn¡¯t maintain its integrity when used to deploy a blow at the Summoner level. Today, his sword intent was the primary focus, as was the tiger aura.

    He utilized his hand as a sword next and punched like a tiger pouncing on prey. A tiger head reared at the tip of his sword. Li Hao didn¡¯t seem to be differentiating between his sword intent and tiger aura anymore. He dashed forward, instantly closing the gap between the two, and pounded with punch after punch. He was in such a berserk frenzy that repeated eruptions of Yu Xiao¡¯s mysterious power could not stop the blows.

    Shock and despair filled the supernatural¡¯s eyes. How was this possible?! Was this still a martial master?? How could there be such strong martial masters in the world apart from Yuan Shuo?! Yu Xiao was a mid Sr, but had almost no room to counterattack in close quarters. Li Hao¡¯s battle style was so very simr to Yuan Shuo¡¯s in that when he upied the advantage and took the offensive, that was the beginning and end of battle.

    He either beat the enemy to death or died himself!

    <i>Bam bam bam!</i>

    A hundred punches were delivered in a split second, each stronger than the rest. The Nine Forged Force exploded with thest punch, bringing the taste of death to Yu Xiao. He snarled and concentrated all of his wood energy in his chest. Keeping his identity concealed was now hisst concern, he didn¡¯t want to die!

    He was a genius, a mid Sr. He sensed the terror of this punch! He could even sense a powerful presence drawing close to them. It was... Ole Huang!

    <i>Ole Huang is here! Did he follow me?</i>

    All thought went out of his head, he just wanted to live. Even if all of his secrets were exposed, he wanted to live. He cast his gaze behind Li Hao¡ªOle Huang was here. <i>Peak Sr, save me!</i> The colleague who¡¯d secretly followed him would now be his savior.

    Meanwhile, the man who¡¯d just set foot into the alley looked at the scene with incredulity. He¡¯de very swiftly and rushed to the scene the moment that Li Hao¡¯s sword qi erupted. He was very fast, taking only five or six seconds in total. That included the time he spent reacting, charging to the alley, and now staring in stupefaction. That was all he¡¯d spent!

    He¡¯d dithered with a slight bit of indecision because Yu Xiao seemed to have a n up his sleeve. Would it be appropriate for him to appear?

    Hence, Ole Huang had been slightly dyed, but only by ever so little.

    In this moment, he saw a fist like a tiger¡¯s ws. It was also a sword, or a bit like the waves... What kind of boxing technique was this?? He only saw the punch shatter Yu Xiao¡¯s mask, break his wood energy defenses, and run the man through!

    Yu Xiao¡¯s mouth opened and closed, as if crying out for help.

    ¡°Stop!¡± Ole Huang¡¯s voice finally rang in the alley. He was livid, fearful, and also furious. Was that... Li Hao?! He just killed Yu Xiao!

    Indeed, Yu Xiao¡¯s chest had been punctured to the point where his heart could be seen. When it ruptured, Ole Huang knew that there was no hope for Yu Xiao. He wouldn¡¯t survive this even as a wood powerhouse. Death was his only oue!

    A mid Sr Yu Xiao had been murdered right in front of him! Rage built in Old Huang, as did shock and disbelief. Was this a disguised Yuan Shuo? Was it Yuan Shuo in front of him and not Li Hao?

    Granted, he wouldn¡¯t be afraid even if it was Yuan Shuo. Yuan Shuo¡¯s best battle aplishment waste Sr Sun Yifei, whereas Ole Huang was a peak Sr.

    A body fell from the sky with a loud <i>bam! </i>Li Hao looked back at a blonde man that¡¯d just entered the alley. That was the one he¡¯d discovered high up in the air, a presence overlooked by Yu Xiao. He¡¯de too slowly, far more slowly than the young man anticipated. The body descending from the sky was the wind supernatural from earlier. It wasn¡¯t until now that the body fell to the ground.

    Li Hao¡¯s fist was covered in blood¡ªsome of it his, some of it Yu Xiao¡¯s.

    <i>Drip, drip...</i>

    Blood dripped from his fist.

    Ole Huang speared the young man with a sharp look of fury. ¡°How dare you kill a Night Watcher!¡± he demanded harshly.

    <i>Hum!</i>

    Li Hao bounded up from the ground and rushed the neer. Peak Sr? That was very, very strong! But the fire in his heart hadn¡¯t been extinguished yet. Since a new person hade, he didn¡¯t need to bother leaving.

    A sword appeared in Li Hao¡¯s hand¡ªa small sword. It wasn¡¯t as lustrous as the Earthturner Sword. In fact, it was a bit tarnished¡ªSteris. Blood and qi frothing, he infused the weapon with his mental strength.

    The young man knew that in his regr condition, he was no match for this new opponent even after dominating Yu Xiao. He could at most match his teacher with one emerged spirit. It¡¯d taken two emerged spirits for his teacher to barely kill Sun Yifei and he was heavily injured for it. The neer absolutely rivaled Sun Yifei. Thus, Li Hao would have to bring out the Incantation of the de of Blood.

    But... so what if he did?

    The Incarnation erupted and turned Li Hao into a ferocious tiger prowling in front of a backdrop of blood red.

    <i>The fire heart ape?</i> was Ole Huang¡¯s first thought. Yuan Shuo was most known for this move in his duel with Sun Yifei. But... why was this person a tiger instead? And was this the Incantation of the de of Blood that Yuan Shuo had used? The Night Watchers had record of this method, so was this person Yuan Shuo or not?

    Li Hao arrived in front of Ole Huang as the man grappled with these two thoughts. He sneered. <i>Do you think I¡¯m Yu Xiao?</i> A long spear manifested in front of him¡ªa golden spear!

    It stabbed forward with the cutting energy of the metal attribute. Countless holes pockmarked the walls on either side of the alley; the keen force nearly pulverized the structures.

    Since Li Hao had sent his internal force into Steris, his own defensive capabilities were much reduced. Endless sharps of golden qicerated his body, dying his uniform a bloody red. The young man didn¡¯t care! As a martial master, the only thing on his mind at the moment was to kill!

    He shed his sword forward, the struggles of that caged tiger resurfacing in his mind. <i>If you don¡¯t give me a way out, then I will not leave you a way to live either!</i>

    <i>Humm!</i>

    Sword qi shot into the sky, but vanished as it was withdrawn just as quickly. Li Hao spat out a mouthful of sword qi and struck with Steris at the same time. The golden spear shattered with a bang!

    When the Incantation of the de of Blood wasbined with the indestructible sword, the terrifying power reached an ultimate peak despite Li Hao being weaker than his opponent. Sword light pulverized everything and pierced through Ole Huang¡¯s shoulder.

    The man had never seen such a terrifying person before! And not just in terms of strength, but also in terms of density of killing intent and sheer violence...

    There was no greeting, no identification, no hesitation, no nothing. There was only bloodthirstiness in the other¡¯s eyes, as if telling Ole Huang that to see each other was to kill each other. One of them would die, here and now.

    Ole Huang managed to dodge slightly to the side, so only his shoulder was pierced. If he hadn¡¯t been able to do that, it would¡¯ve been his throat that¡¯d been run through. Every move was a fatal one!

    He wasn¡¯t afraid, but it seemed highly likely that he would be injured if this continued. Heavy injuries were a distinct possibility and he might even die! Damn it, what did that bastard Yu Xiao do?! Was this person Li Hao or Yuan Shuo?

 Chapter 321: A Fierce Battle! (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 321: A Fierce Battle! (IV)</h4>

    Ole Huang didn¡¯t have the mental bandwidth to spare for wondering who his attacker was. He wanted to leave this forsaken ce! All he needed to do was to tell Hu Qingfeng that Yu Xiao had died here. He rather regretted following Yu Xiao when the man left the hotel. So what if he managed to walk away victorious at this stage?

    Ole Huang began to back away!

    But would Li Hao let him go?

    The young man stomped his foot and fractured the entire alley with a small quake. Walls copsed as Li Hao charged forward with his sword!

    ¡°You...¡± Ole Huang was infuriated. It was in to see that he wished to retreat. Couldn¡¯t this person tell?? <i>Do you have a death wish?!</i>

    He knew a few details behind the Incantation of the de of Blood, that the longer one used it, the greater the chance of death.<i> You and I bear no grudge against each other, are you crazy?! Is killing Yu Xiao not enough, you aren¡¯t willing to let me go either?</i>

    He could sense some iing supernatural ripples. Their fight must be drawing a lot of attention. He didn¡¯t want to continue battling this madman! Ole Huang swiftly materialized armor of golden energy around him.

    ¡°Have you lost your mind?! You can¡¯t kill me and I don¡¯t want to kill you...¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Steris shed through the energy armor in overwhelming fashion. Blood sprayed beneath the weapon. Ole Huang grunted, setting aside his attempts to talk! That stroke had almost taken his arm!

    He looked at the sword in Li Hao¡¯s hand with shock. What was that? An origin weapon? It didn¡¯t seem like one, but it was so sharp that it was unbelievable. The weapon smashed through his defenses of peak Sr in one move!

    By now, he knew that he¡¯d made a grave mistake. He shouldn¡¯t have focused on defense! There was nothing that this sword didn¡¯t prate, so defense was an impossibility. He was stronger than his opponent and should¡¯ve attacked!

    Regathering his senses, Ole Huang punched Li Hao!

    The young man brightened and responded in kind. <i>BAM!</i>

    Immense force from the punch split Li Hao¡¯s arm open and bloodied Ole Huang¡¯s fist. Blood spurted everywhere.

    <i>Madman! </i>Ole Huang cursed. He no longer dared remain on defense and struck proactively. He punched at the young man again, whereupon Li Hao stowed Steris. A sword was a hindrance in close quarters and would cost the young man time.

    Punch against punch!

    <i>Bam bam bam!</i>

    Their fists collided innumerable times in the blink of an eye. Li Hao took a few steps back and shattered countless tiles with his feet. His right arm was drenched in blood and hung listlessly by his side. The bones within had all been smashed to smithereens!

    Ole Huang heaved for air as blood dripped down his right arm. His opponent wasn¡¯t as strong as him, but attacked in a reckless fashion without thought for his own life. After the exchange of blows, Ole Huang felt that his arm was just about crippled as well.

    Li Hao flung himself forward while his opponent panted for breath. He kicked through the air instead of swinging his fists. His leather boots were in tattered pieces, but the sound of waves came from his feet. The Nine Forged Force!

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    Kick after kick after kick...

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    The sharp cracks of bones breaking came from his feet, but he smiled. Ole Huang¡¯s arms were fractured in front of him; the man¡¯s face turned white as blood drained out of them.

    Ole Huang looked frostily at Li Hao and manifested a golden spear in front of him! <i>Supernatural powerhouses are still fine when they¡¯re crippled. We have mysterious power! But what can a martial master like you do when your arm and legs are crippled? No matter how vicious you are, our difference in strength is obvious. You¡¯re less than me!</i>

    The spear hurtled through the air, aimed straight at Li Hao¡¯s head despite theck of a wielder. The young man grinned toothily and pounced, roaring without a sound. Silent sound waves reverberated through the air!

    The spear shook!

    Li Hao¡¯s left arm was in good condition; it wielded Steris. Sword energy surged into his body as he swung the sword through the air. A streak of bright light arced through the darkness and sliced right through the golden spear!

    However, the weapon exploded like Wang Ming¡¯s Heavenly Maids Scattering Blossoms and scattered around Li Hao. Ole Huang knew this move too! His status as a peak Sr was well deserved and he was no shell shocked Yu Xiao. He was still in full battle condition.

    A tremendous explosion echoed. Li Hao went flying like a rag doll, one covered in blood.

    Face wan, Ole Huang snorted. How was this guy still not dying yet?

    The young man fell to the ground and immediately scrambled to his feet. Despite coughing blood, he smiled. A sword wreathed in mes appeared¡ªit roared with burning fury!

    ¡°Cut!¡± hollered Li Hao. He shed forward, cutting through the firmament while operating Birdshot. The young man pped forward in an incredulous fashion like he was the Silver Armor challenging the heavens. <i>All enemies that stand in my way will be obliterated! No one is an exception!</i>

    Ole Huang¡¯s eyes widened and he rapidly backed away. This guy waspletely insane and he really didn¡¯t want to fight anymore. However, a smear of fiery sparks erupted behind him. Bothbatants¡¯ expressions changed drastically. Li Hao was infuriated and burned with an anger that he could not voice.

    ¡°Kill!¡± He rampaged again, faster than before and striking with berserk determination!

    Startled, Hao Lianchuan looked at him from behind Ole Huang. All the same, he didn¡¯t stop and stabbed his weapon at the peak Sr. The deputy director was unable to describe his consternation, but there was also no time to think about it!

    Caught in desperate straits, Ole Huang quickly seized up the situation and chose to face Li Hao! His rear felt very dangerous, more dangerous than his half crippled opponent! Thus, he chose to turn head-on to Li Hao. His spear rose in the air again, turning into a dozen, a hundred spears...

    A chilly light sparkled in the void as Li Hao shot past the forest of spears. Bloody holes appeared on his body, but he still delivered a merciless stroke!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Ole Huang could only watch in horror as the sword approached him. The immense pressure behind him was so domineering that he could not retreat! He roared wrathfully and wanted to swing his fists again, but the short sword had already run through his head!

    His fist continued to swing through the air with thest vestiges of glory and sent Li Hao flying again.

    The young man crashed to the ground, looking for all intents and purposes like he was dead.

    The spear behind Ole Huang ran him through; Hao Lianchuan flicked the man away like he was tossing a piece of trash. Unending shock filled his eyes when he scanned the battlefield!

    It¡¯d taken him only twenty seconds to reach the alley. This was his promise to Li Hao¡ªten seconds at the least, thirty seconds at the most. He¡¯de as fast as he could and now he was in a shocked daze.

    Yu Xiao was dead and there were several other broken bodies on the ground! He also recognized the person that he¡¯d just flung away¡ªHuang Jie of the five from central headquarters. Peak Sr, a metal supernatural who was skilled in attack. He was a personage that Hao Lianchuan might not be able to defeat even when he had the ming Phoenix Spear in hand.

    Together with Li Hao, the deputy director had so easily forced the man to death because when he arrived, Huang Jie had only half of his strength left at most! He was naturally no match for Hao Lianchuan and the ming Phoenix Spear under such circumstances. It was Li Hao who¡¯d backed Huang Jie into this corner, no one else! A martial master who¡¯d already killed a mid Sr!

    Hao Lianchuan knew that Li Hao was behind their deaths because all of the corpses bore marks of sword light or prominent signs of the tiger aura. These were the methods of a martial master!

    It was like he was getting to know the young man for the first time. The deputy director didn¡¯t even have the mental capacity to spare for the young man¡ªhe didn¡¯t know if Li Hao was dead or alive. There was no movement forting from the prone figure on the ground.

    His incredulity was too much to fathom. Was... this really Li Hao, and not Yuan Shuo? He wouldn¡¯t think twice if it was Yuan Shuo who¡¯d aplished everything in the alley, but Li Hao??

    Rays of light erupted in the distance as supernaturals swiftly converged upon the alley. No one could be allowed to witness this scene; Li Hao¡¯s cover would be thoroughly blown. The greatest fool would be able to read the telltale signs of sword intent and the tiger aura.

    Hao Lianchuan leapt into the air, ignoring the unmoving young man on the ground. He brandished the ming Phoenix Spear, causing the approaching supernaturals to grind to a halt. They recognized that origin weapon!

    ¡°Red alert!! Battle stations!!¡± Hao Lianchuan boomed. ¡°Red Moon, you¡¯re crazy to attack Li Hao within city confines! Damn you, all of you deserve to die! Move out, Night Watchers! Seal off the city, obliterate the enemy! Please exit seclusion, Director Hou!¡±

    His roar shook thend!

    A fiery phoenix soared majestically through the sky as the city stirred to action. Powerhouses jerked their heads upward with astonishment. Red Moon? Were they insane?! Attacking Li Hao with such fanfare like this, did all of them have a death wish?

    A tremendous presence rose from the Night Watcher headquarters and light shed through the void. An overwhelming air enveloped the southern quadrant of White Moon!

    A titan wasing! Was it Hou Xiaochen? There didn¡¯t seem to be anyone else apart from him. Eyes widening, the powerhouses drawing near the battlefield reversed their motion. No one darede close. The skies were about to change!

    Red Moon had gonepletely crazy and those in the know were startled. This wasn¡¯t the n! Off in the distance, Hu Qingfeng frowned deeply. Was Blue Moon an idiot? They¡¯d agreed to move against Hou Xiaochen together, why was he acting ahead of time?

    That damned fool!

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s expression shifted rapidly in the air. It wasn¡¯t until a figure on the ground began stirring to life that he heaved a sigh of relief. All the same, stupefaction was writrge in his eyes.

    <i>How... strong... are you, Li Hao?</i>

 Chapter 322: Clouds Shift On All Sides (I)

    <h4>Chapter 322: Clouds Shift On All Sides (I)</h4>

    Supernatural energy surged from all corners of the city. A ray of light shimmered out of Night Watcher headquarters, cutting through the void to head straight for the alley.

    Up in the air, a shuddering Hao Lianchuan was still struggling to ept what he¡¯d seen. He wasn¡¯t afraid of the powerhouses surrounding him, but that the scene from earlier was so noteworthy that it was branded into his mind¡¯s eye.

    Li Hao¡¯s final blow spoke of unparalleled ruthlessness. The young man knew that reinforcements were here, but the look in his eyes remained harshly unyielding. He risked his life even in thest second to kill Huang Jie. It was a look that Hao Lianchuan was unable to describe.

    Did it belong to a wild beast that¡¯d broken out of its cage?

    Was it vengeance, or pure bloodlust found in ughter?

    The deputy director looked down again, seeing the figure on the ground still struggling to stand.

    ......

    <i>Inside the little alley.</i>

    Li Hao regained his footing with great difficulty. Sword energy surged into his body to swiftly repair some of his wounds. Thest vestiges of scarlet shadow energy were a veryplementary match for sword energy.

    The ferocious tiger returned to its cage!

    Wafting the energy of fire, the tiger sword docilely entered the heart. It seemed to be waiting for its next target as itcked the upromising struggles from before. It crouched down to bide its time, hiding within the mountain forest and looking for the next moment to pounce.

    ......

    <i>Within Mt. White Moon outside the city.</i>

    A multicolored tiger with a broken tooth swiveled its head to scan the surroundings. It gingerly took probing steps into the forest. Violence glinted out of its eyes the moment it vanished.

    Zhou Qin frowned faintly and his friend beside him shifted ufortably.

    ¡°That tiger...¡± thetter murmured. ¡°nced at us with a pretty scary look when it left. Are we letting it go just like this, Ole Zhou?¡±

    Zhou Qin was quiet for a while, but nodded without a word. Yep, they were letting it go just like this. Wang Ming¡¯s friend had asked him for a favor; it was just a tiger. He didn¡¯t ask around when it came to that neer¡ªthere was no need to. He could guess a thing or two¡ªLi Hao of Silver City, a martial master.

    <i>A martial master...</i> He thought back to how Li Hao had looked at him at their first meeting. It bore some resemnce to the tiger he¡¯d just released. Zhou Qin was no fool, he felt it likely that the tiger would want revenge. But he was more afraid of that martial master!

    He wasn¡¯t terrified, just... afraid. It was hard to put into words.

    Old Demon Yuan Shuo! Zhou Qin had asked around when it came to his disciple. By all ounts, Li Hao was supposed to be an upstanding boy. Yet, Zhou Qin felt that this was the result of a masterful act. Li Hao ought to be a cruel and brutal person as well.

    Would the old demon¡¯s disciple be a kind and benevolent soul?

    The tiger had known to bide its time and suffer quietly because itcked the strength to break out of its confinement. It mighte back for its old captor after it umted enough strength back home. In the same vein, what if Li Hao one day possessed sufficient power for his aims?

    Tremendous upheaval might take ce then!

    It wasn¡¯t that Zhou Qin was smarter or more observant than the rest; he¡¯d just seen a different look from Li Hao than other people ever had. He¡¯d witnessed a bearing that was atplete odds with the sincere, honest diligence the young man was reputed to possess. <i>Just how did those rumors start, anyway?</i>

    ......

    Within the alley, Li Hao had no mind to spare for that tiger. He scrambled to a standing position with difficulty and abruptly smiled faintly. Tilting his head back for a look, he saw a fiery phoenix soaring proudly and Hao Lianchuan standing next to it, looking back down at him.

    This time, the deputy director saw Li Hao¡¯s smile. It was such a pure smile! Horror pricked at Hao Lianchuan¡¯s heart. He¡¯d known before that the kid was nothing good, but how was he smiling so purely after killing so many people and being so heavily injured himself?

    Was this real or another disguise?

    But was there a need to keep up the facade when there was no one around? That meant his smile was genuine, so he felt...fortable and satisfied? Did he think he¡¯d done a good job killing, that all of these people deserved to die?

    Not even Hao Lianchuan knew what he himself was thinking at the moment. It was aplicated mix of emotions.

    The young man chuckled and limped over to the dead Ole Huang. He rummaged through the corpse and took out a storage ring, leaving the rest untouched. He moved on to Yu Xiao and retrieved another ring after some searching.

    Li Hao then walked up to the Dominator. Thetter¡¯s head was gone and his body a tattered ruin. The young man searched all the same and found a booklet with some pages ripped out of it. This was normal, quite a few people liked to do such a thing.

    The spear-wielding Dominator must have excised the breathing method from the manual that he carried around. There were also those who didn¡¯t carry any manuals on them¡ªthat was alsomonly seen.

    Two storage rings and one booklet detailing a secret art. Those were the only objects that Li Hao looted. Momentster, he picked up the Dominator¡¯s broken spear tip and stabbed it at Ole Huang¡¯s head. He continued with Yu Xiao and the others, matching each of his moves precisely to where he¡¯d cut into them with his sword. Traces that he could not conceal were thoroughly destroyed, obliterating traces of the sword.

    A ray of light sparkled in the sky as he finished his simple cleanup. Li Hao didn¡¯t need to look to know that it wasn¡¯t Hou Xiaochen, it was Manager Yu. It would not be the director who came. Hou Xiaochen might not be in the city. Who knew where he¡¯d gone over the past couple of days?

    The ray of lightnded in front of Li Hao. Manager Yu looked at the young man, he looked back at her and bent slightly at the waist. ¡°Greetings to Manager Yu!¡±

    The woman swept a nce across the scene and saw the bodies. She looked back at Li Hao and read some traces from his condition. Her eyes darted around and she said slowly after a long moment, ¡°Hao Lianchuan had you act as bait?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Do you know how much trouble you¡¯ve caused?¡±

    ¡°A little!¡± Li Hao nodded with a smile. ¡°But I think that Director Hou can handle it, it¡¯s just some small annoyances. Since the director needs to see my worth, I¡¯m demonstrating it to him! None of this is a problem if the director thinks I¡¯m valuable enough. On the other hand, if I think the director doesn¡¯t have the ability to protect me... I¡¯ll have to consider if I should continue to stay in White Moon or not.¡±

    ¡°There is no problem with giving you shelter,¡± responded an aloof Manager Yu. ¡°But that doesn¡¯t mean that you can continuously create trouble for the director...¡±

    ¡°Wrong!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°The director should know that I¡¯m a martial master! Old Demon Yuan¡¯s disciple! As a martial master, the requirements for giving me shelter is to resolve these troubles for me! True martial masters do not grow up in a greenhouse. My master was thus and I am thus!

    ¡°Manager Yu should¡¯ve been a martial master once too. I can sense a weak aura from you, one that was transmuted to the supernatural. Since the manager used to be a martial master who¡¯d grasped the aura, I think you understand more clearly than the director that people like us are born to make trouble!¡±

    The secretary¡¯s eyes glinted. <i>Li Hao! </i>So he¡¯d sensed some aura from her... It¡¯d been so many years that she¡¯d almost forgotten she was once a martial master. She looked around once more and said coolly, ¡°Do not do this again. You can go back first, I¡¯ll take care of the troubles here. But I must remind you, the concealment of a moment is not the concealment of a lifetime!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°It doesn¡¯t need to be too long, just until I be a Summoner. If the manager wishes to see it, I can put on a demonstration for you and the director. I can show you what it truly means to be a Summoner! My teacher is just an initial Summoner and a fair distance away from his five spirits emerging from the organs. I might be a little closer! When thates to pass, I think the annoyances of today won¡¯t be a problem at all!¡±

    <i>The five spirits emerging from the organs!</i>

    Manager Yu¡¯s heart shook. She knew a bit of what¡¯d happened when Yuan Shuo killed Sun Yifei¡ªtwo spirits had emerged from his organs. What about Li Hao?

    While Huang Jie wasn¡¯t a martial master and his level of peak Sr a little less than Sun Yifei, he wasn¡¯t that much weaker. Although Manager Yu hadn¡¯t seen the fight for herself, she could glean a thing or two. Li Hao may not have the ability to kill Huang Jie, but he¡¯d certainly fought the man. He might really only be a hair below his master, which put him above countless martial masters!

    <i>The second greatest of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world?</i>

    Manager Yu¡¯s thoughts were unreadable and her mood was a bit glum. ¡°You can go!¡± she said after a while.

    ¡°My thanks!¡± Li Hao raised a cupped fist salute and headed outside. He suddenly turned back to ask, ¡°Do you have a storage ring?¡±

    Manager Yu furrowed her brows.

    ¡°If you do, do you have any Night Watcher uniforms on you?¡± Li Hao pointed at the rags hanging off his body. ¡°These are ruined and it¡¯s too obvious I¡¯ve been in a fight. Could I have a change of clothing?¡±

    She¡¯d almost forgotten about this detail. Manager Yu breathed out softly and waved a brand new uniform into existence. She tossed it at Li Hao. It was different from regr uniforms as its luxurious fabric was apparent at a nce.

    Li Hao had seen it before! Hou Xiaochen wore this kind of uniform. The young man smiled and stripped down without a hint of embarrassment. He put on the new clothes and a new pair of boots, shaking off the blood and gore on his body with a slight vibration of internal force.

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s clothes fit him; they were a tiny bit smaller since the man was roughly three centimeters shorter. That was fine, the difference wasn¡¯t noticeable.

    ¡°Manager, do you know how to release fire?¡± Li Hao threw down his ruined clothes. ¡°If not, you can have Director Hao help.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll take care of it!¡± Manager Yu said nothing else as she nced at him.

    Li Hao nodded and strode off. He didn¡¯t take or ask about the mysterious power of the two Srs. Manager Yu and Director Hao needed to use the bodies; they wouldn¡¯t be able to give a proper exnation if the bodies were turned into a bloody mess. It would also make the Night Watchers seem like small-minded people to strip out mysterious power as soon as they killed a person.

    How could Li Hao do such a thing?

    As for storage rings, that was fine. He had to take some treasure after killing someone. It¡¯d be wasted effort otherwise.

    The manager frowned after Li Hao vanished at the end of the broken-down alley.

 Chapter 323: Clouds Shift On All Sides (II)

    <h4>Chapter 323: Clouds Shift On All Sides (II)</h4>

    Hao Lianchuan descended from the sky and looked at the end of the alley. He turned to Manager Yu with a twinkle in his eye. Although he¡¯d previously surmised that she wasn¡¯t weak, it would seem that he¡¯d still misjudged.

    ¡°Is Director Hou not here?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Manager Yu didn¡¯t say anything else. She scanned the area. ¡°Burn it all aside from that battered Red Moon mask. Don¡¯t leave anything behind!¡±

    Burn it all and leave nothing behind. She bypassed Hao Lianchuan and Li Hao¡¯s ns to pin the deed on Red Moon as she was well versed in handling these affairs. No matter how well done the cover-up was, Hu Qingfeng was certain to fly into a rage and cause trouble when he saw the bodies of his men.

    Thus, there was no need to go to so much trouble. Just destroy it all and leave nothing but half a mask. As for who died, how many died, and how they died... that could be left to the imagination!

    Hao Lianchuan''s eyes widened, but he didn¡¯t protest. Fire engulfed the alley. It stretched beneath the ground and consumed the body of the earth supernatural. Tendrils of mysterious power wafted through the small alleyway; the mixture of wind, earth, wood, and metal was particrly disordered.

    Manager Yu waved a bolt of thunder energy into existence after scanning the surroundings. The walls around them copsed, erasing the few traces of sword strokes.

    <i>A thunder supernatural!</i>

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s eyebrows shot up. This was an attribute that was exceedingly suited forbat. This grand secretary was an absolute powerhouse!

    ¡°How much power did you bring to bear against that Huang Jie?¡± Manager Yu turned to look at him after she destroyed everything in front of them.

    ¡°Thirty percent...¡± Hao Lianchuan responded after momentary thought.

    She had a good understanding of the situation now. Manager Yu once more looked in the direction that Li Hao had left in.

    ¡°I... don¡¯t know if it¡¯s good or bad for this person to stay in White Moon.¡± She took in a small breath. ¡°You should note in too much contact or have many dealings with him. These bold and impetuous matters... Real martial masters are much more reckless than you think! When Yuan Shuo tore through Silver Moon, there was nothing he dared not do and no one he dared not kill. But this young man¡¯s violent nature may be worse than Yuan Shuo¡¯s in my eyes!

    ¡°He is alone, without any ties or considerations. Other than Yuan Shuo drawing a few notes of care, he ispletely without handicap. If you don¡¯t wish to be dragged down by him, Hao Lianchuan, you should stay away from him!¡±

    The deputy director regarded these words awkwardly. It was the first time that anyone said anything like this to him. If someone had told him before that he should keep his distance from Li Hao, that the young man would drag him down and was a killing fiend, he would think it a joke. <i>Is Li Hao more threatening than I am?</i>

    But in this moment, he felt that perhaps Manager Yu was the correct one. He¡¯d only exchanged a few words with Li Hao so he could make an example out of Yu Xiao, but now even Huang Jie was dead! If it wasn¡¯t for the young man¡¯sck of strength, he suspected that Li Hao would go on such a rampage that even Hao Lianchuan himself would be terrified in the end!

    ¡°Then... Manager Yu... what now...¡±

    ¡°Now?¡± The woman flicked a nce at him. ¡°You take care of the trouble that you¡¯ve created. You¡¯re the one who killed them, so make up whatever story you wish. It¡¯s up to other people whether they believe you or not. But there¡¯s one thing you do need to mention, and that¡¯s that you didn¡¯t know their identities. The ming Phoenix Spear killed them all when it was deployed, it¡¯s that simple!¡±

    A rueful expression spread over Hao Lianchuan¡¯s face. Hu Qingfeng would realize that he was missing men sooner orter. Hao Lianchuan was in for a world of trouble when that took ce. He¡¯d thought that the burden on his shoulders might be lightened with Director Hou present. However, the secretary didn¡¯t seem inclined to help him in the director¡¯s absence.

    ¡°Then...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s it, I¡¯m going back!¡± Manager Yu didn¡¯t want to waste too many words on him. Her presence red, summoning the ming Phoenix Spear to her hand. A streak of fiery light arced across the horizon and vanished on the spot,nding in the Night Watcher headquarters.

    She left as fast as she came, leaving Hao Lianchuan in a tight spot. <i>Leave if you want, why did you take the spear with you? Are you even thinking about me here??</i>

    Mysterious power was already surging around him. inly, the powerhouses from earlier knew that ¡®Hou Xiaochen¡¯ was washing his hands of the matter with that streak of light. Since the man had left, it was time to visit the premises again. Other than the three great organizations that didn¡¯t dare openly show themselves, the other factions didn¡¯t fear putting themselves forward and weren¡¯t afraid of Hao Lianchuan.

    Contrary to expectation, the first to arrive wasn¡¯t Hu Qingfeng. A powerful presence roiled through the air, depositing two figures in the wrecked alleyway¡ªHu Dingfang and Chen Yuhua.

    A brooding Hu Dingfang had rushed to the scene with the fastest speed possible and urgently looked around. He saw only a sea of mes!

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan, where¡¯s Li Hao?!¡± The man¡¯s heart skipped a beat. The boy wasn¡¯t dead, was he??

    Chen Yuhua¡¯s expression was likewise extremely unpleasant. Was her little junior brother gone before they¡¯d had a chance to meet? What should she do now?!

    Hao Lianchuan nced at them and responded calmly, ¡°He¡¯s fine, just slightly injured. I¡¯ve already sent him back. There¡¯s no need for a Sunderer to be involved in this!¡±

    The two heaved sighs of relief as more figures dropped down from the sky. Hu Qingfeng was first on the scene. His face wasposed, but some anger lurked in the depths of his eyes. A muscr man wearing an Inspectorate uniform followed behind him. Multiple stars twinkled on his uniform; leather bootsnded emphatically on the ground. A stern expression crossed his face.

    Hao Lianchuan ignored Hu Qingfeng, but quickly called out when he saw thetter, ¡°Inspector General!¡±

    This was their nominal superior. Not just his, but Hou Xiaochen¡¯s as well. He was the inspector general of the entire Silver Moon Inspectorate and, judging from his speed, another powerhouse.

    The burly man inclined his head and looked around. ¡°Have all the evil supernaturals been executed?¡± he asked calmly, his tone less severe than one might expect.

    ¡°They have!¡±

    ¡°Is there evidence proving that they are from Red Moon?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Hao Lianchuan replied rapidly. ¡°Just that a few of them were wearing Red Moon masks. The assants only wanted to capture Li Hao, not kill him. Other than Red Moon, it¡¯s not hard for any of the other organizations to eliminate a Sunderer. There were two Srs present, yet they still only wished to capture Li Hao. Apart than Red Moon, I cannot think of any other organization who would seek to do so.¡±

    ¡°Are there any survivors?¡± Hu Qingfeng asked in a chilly fashion.

    ¡°There are no possible survivors when the ming Phoenix Spear is unleashed!¡± Hao Lianchuan answered evenly. ¡°You may be unaware, Sir Hu, that the origin weapon is imbued with Director Hou¡¯s will after being nurtured by the director for so many years. Even without his hand wielding it, it is but a small task for it toy waste to two Srs.¡±

    Some more people arrived outside the alley. Hong Yitang, He Yong, and a few others were all present. None of them greeted Hu Qingfeng.

    Eyes darting around rapidly, He Yong sized up the scene. He furrowed his brows slightly. As a premier martial master, he could vaguely sense something different in the air.

    Sword intent? Spear intent? Something like that.

    Hong Yitang was expressionless, but his heart shook with shock. Sword intent! And it wasn¡¯t just sword intent, he felt something that was somewhat familiar. He walked outside the alley in a casual manner and gently grasped at the air. An extremely fine metal shardnded in his hand. His shock multiplied to unfathomable levels!

    The Earthturner Sword!

    He was all too familiar with his sword. Other people would ignore the shard as it was too small¡ªit was only slightlyrger than a grain of rice. Who cared about that?

    He did!

    He knew that the Earthturner Sword was with Li Hao and wouldn¡¯t have found it amiss if the sword had been left here after the young man was attacked. But... it was broken! Completely obliterated!

    That alone wasn¡¯t the key¡ªthis oue was also normal since the enemy had been too strong. But these shards clearly weren¡¯t the result of the weapon being shattered. It¡¯d fragmented of its own ord, not from mysterious power, but from a sword aura!

    Countless thoughts rose in his mind; Hong Yitang even managed to reconstruct some of the scene. A premier swordsman had been attacked and erupted with his sword aura, spontaneously shattering the Earthturner Sword. Its shards shot in all directions¡ªthat sword aura had been so strong that it exceeded the Dominator level!

    This person was also a swordsman!

    Hong Yitang could faintly perceive the other¡¯s killing intent, fury, and berserk rage... It was a sword intent that was also slightly familiar. He couldn¡¯t believe it and didn¡¯t dare pursue that line of thinking further. The man thought back to a scene that¡¯d urred in the ancient city in the ruins. He¡¯d also sensed something slightly different when he gave the sword to Li Hao, but hadn¡¯t followed up on that moment.

    Today... he had to.

    The battle site had been destroyed by fire, leaving behind only half of a Red Moon mask. Everything else had been obliterated. Was there a need for Hao Lianchuan to do so when he employed the ming Phoenix Spear?

    Was he hiding something? What was he hiding?

    The look in Hong Yitang¡¯s eyes shifted rapidly. Of course he was hiding something¡ªhe hadn¡¯t killed these people. Instead, a swordsman had, one iparably strong. How many within the modern day martial world could aplish such a deed?

    Yuan Shuo?

    Yuan Shuo was no swordsman. He might be able to do so, but it wasn¡¯t him. If his sword intent was so domineering, he would¡¯ve be a premier swordsman and not the Five Styles King.

    <i>Li Hao!</i>

    The name appeared in Hong Yitang¡¯s mind with difficulty. He almost lost his footing. The young man was an unfathomable swordsman!

    ¡°What are you looking at, Earthturner Sword?¡± A voice suddenly sounded in his ears. He Yong walked over, roaring withughter. ¡°Are you terrified out of your mind at this battle scene?¡±

    Hong Yitang looked back to find He Yong staring at his hand.

    ¡°What, did you find some money?¡± joked thetter.

    Hong Yitang ced his hands behind his back and slowly melted the shard in his palm.

 Chapter 324: Clouds Shift On All Sides (III)

    <h4>Chapter 324: Clouds Shift On All Sides (III)</h4>

    ¡°I¡¯m not as lucky as Brother He.¡± Hong Yitang smiled at He Yong. ¡°I haven¡¯t found any money, I¡¯m just ovee by emotion. There weren¡¯t many Srs to be found in all of Silver Moon before, but now they¡¯re dying in droves. I¡¯m going to start fearing for my life soon if this continues. I could get by before, but now I feel that the road ahead is bumpy and living to see each sunset is a doubtful proposition!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re a rat and can always scurry away since your zodiac is the rat,¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°How are you afraid? Not to mention, you¡¯re not the one dead. What are you afraid of? Or are you behind this?¡±

    ¡°Surely you jest, Brother He!¡±

    He Yongughed happily, ignoring Hong Yitang¡¯s response. However, he transmitted, ¡°Do you... sense something off about this, ole brother?¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Hong Yitang likewise transmitted back.

    ¡°I somehow feel that... our Silver Moon may have gained another formidable martial master. Or perhaps Old Demon Yuan never left in the first ce!¡± ¡°What? Surely not!¡± Hong Yitang remarked with surprise. ¡°What makes you say that?¡±

    ¡°Forget it, you¡¯re a fake martial master. There¡¯s no point in saying so much to you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hong Yitang smiled ruefully, but didn¡¯t respond. He Yong left withrge strides to look at another area. The leader of the Sword Sect breathed out slowly when he was alone again. He Yong might have felt something, but would never think that the formidable martial master he spoke of was most likely Li Hao.

    Hong Yitang saw another group of people arrive¡ªthose from the provincial government and others from the army. Representatives from the four main institutions of White Moon City were all present. It was time for him to go; he departed a few momentster. This was not something he could be involved in.

    Hong Yitang wasn¡¯t interested in these affairs; he didn¡¯t care who was dead, so long as it wasn¡¯t himself. As for whether or not it was truly Red Moon members who¡¯d died... did that matter?

    As numerous as Red Moon¡¯s powerhouses were, they¡¯d already lost arge group at Rift Canyon¡ªparticrly several Srs. Did they still have more Srs to send to Silver Moon at this stage?

    There even seemed to be a peak Sr among the dead. Was that Violet Moon?

    That would be the greatest joke of all. She wouldn¡¯t take this kind of risk.

    It was difficult to determine who the two Srs were, but sooner orter, word would spread. What Hong Yitang cared more about was if Li Hao had killed people, was there anything he should do? He¡¯d thought it was only a matter of time before Yuan Shuo returned. Given Yuan Shuo and Hou Xiaochen¡¯s rtionship, perhaps he could lean toward Yuan Shuo and the Night Watchers. But now... he felt that Yuan Shuo had gonepletely missing. Who knew when he¡¯d be back?

    And Li Hao? The kid had hidden himself deep! But since he¡¯d taken action today, he wouldn¡¯t be able to keep himself hidden for too long. Paper could not envelop fire!

    It wasn¡¯t intuitive to draw a connection to Li Hao after Hao Lianchuan burned everything, but it was only a matter of time before the young man was exposed if any further aberrations cropped up in his behavior.

    <i>And here I gave him the Earthturner Sword... but it looks like the sword is no more.</i> Hong Yitang left while turning over these thoughts.

    A frowning He Yong reappeared after he departed the area. Had Hong Yitang discovered something? He¡¯d clearly seen the fellow pick up something, but thetter hid it when he came near! There were secrets being kept here!

    He took another look at the wrecked alley; there was nothing there apart from flickering mes. Destroying the scene of the ambush? Was it because the assants possessed a surprising identity, or was there another reason?

    He Yong didn¡¯t linger on the premises. White Moon City was growing ever more dangerous. All manner of riffraff was beginning to pop out of the cracks.

    ......

    <i>Inside the alley.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan made a report to the inspector general and concluded, ¡°Director Hou was just here and didn¡¯t stay when he heard that the enemy had been eliminated. His wounds are not fully healed yet, so he left the matter wholly in my hands!

    ¡°Red Moon was so bold as to attack the Night Watchers inside the city! I mean tomence an encirclement of the organization! Director Hou is in seclusion and too injured to take the field. The Night Watchers aren¡¯t strong enough, so we urgently wish for central headquarters to reinforce us!¡± He looked at Hu Qingfeng. ¡°Sir Hu, Red Moon thinks nothing of the Night Watchers! There happens to be special agents within the city now. Our duty as Night Watchers is to clear out all evil supernaturals!

    ¡°Whether it is out of consideration for Night Watcher dignity or to suppress crime and uphold justice, Red Moon¡¯s sins are unforgivable. Their crimes are too numerous to be recounted! Please help us, Sir Hu!¡±

    Hu Qingfeng cursed inwardly, but he could not refuse. As a special agent of the agency, Night Watcher prestige would be used to wipe the floor if he refused. No matter what other thoughts he had at the moment, he had to consider the consequences of such an action. Theirs wasn¡¯t the only clique at central headquarters. It was aplicated situation back home; he represented only a portion, not all.

    Trouble woulde looking for him if he did not performpetently at White Moon and safeguard the Night Watcher reputation.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I will not idly sit by when evil is so brazen!¡± he intoned. ¡°I¡¯ll send people to investigate traces of the organization. If their members are found, we will show them no mercy!¡±

    It was just talk, he wasn¡¯t inclined to actually do so.

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t care if his counterpart was sincere or not. He nodded and spat, ¡°Red Moon grows bolder by the day. It was one thing to attack Silver City, but now they dare invade even White Moon! They infiltrated us with two Srs, so I rmend that the city be ced under strict military control starting today! The Inspectorate, Night Watchers, and army will take over the reins until the Red Moon remnants are fully flushed out!¡±

    No one said a word. Someone looked at the representatives from the provincial government. It wasn¡¯t Director General Zhao who¡¯de, but his number one. The second-inmand at the provincial government was also an old man with white hair. He seemed quite cultured and polite.

    ¡°As you wish,¡± he sighed without protest. ¡°We¡¯ll be in charge of cleaning up. I¡¯ll have people take inventory of the losses and see if any innocent citizens were harmed or suffered losses. Can¡¯t supernaturals avoid the crowds when they fight?¡±

    He turned to Hao Lianchuan. ¡°Deputy Director Hao, Silver Moon has been stable for many years and the people live in peace. The Night Watchers must be careful. We would hope that you control the fallout if more supernaturals attack and try to avoid crowded areas as much as possible.¡±

    Finally, he looked at Hu Qingfeng. ¡°Special Agent Hu, those of you from Skystar City are formidable. Please spend some time and effort on this matter. It would be a great aplishment if we can eliminate Red Moon from the province. The provincial government will requestmendations for you!¡±

    ¡°We will.¡± Hu Qingfeng inclined his head with a smile. ¡°Be at ease, Deputy Zhou!¡±

    The old man quickly left without another word. This wasn¡¯t their field of expertise. Since the most pressing situation had been resolved, then the provincial government would not be further involved.

    A thought urred to someone in the Inspectorate and they whispered to the burly man. Thetter nodded, his approval a cue for an inspector to swiftly depart.

    The surveince cameras!

    There was a surveince camera at the head of the alley; it was destroyed at the moment. However, they might be able to discover something if they could pull the tapes or confirm the identities of the attackers. Even now, no one knew how many had died here. The only known piece of information was that there¡¯d been two Srs present.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s only answer was that he¡¯d fully unleashed the ming Phoenix Spear in his fury. It¡¯d erupted with maximum destruction and all of the attackers were dead by the time hended! Other than purposefully directing the mes to go around Li Hao, the rest were instantly incinerated. He hadn¡¯t had a chance to see how many there were or who they¡¯d been.

    The crowd dispersed upon seeing that nothing had been left behind. Hu Qingfeng left as well, walking away with ill-concealed wrath and confusion. Was Red Moon crazy? Or was someone posing as them?

    There were indeed dead Srs as the messy disarray of mysterious power was very dense. There had to be one wood and one metal Sr. The metal Sr looked to have been quite powerful, most likely on par with Huang Jie. The wood Sr could map to Yu Xiao.

    Those from the central region had reached an agreement with Red Moon, so why had the organization done this?! As important as the bloodline of the eight families was, the organization could do anything they wished after Hou Xiaochen was out of the picture. He didn¡¯t understand!

    He soon returned to the hotel. The other two members of his team hadn¡¯t struck out on their own. They¡¯d remained waiting in the suite. In a bad mood, Hu Qingfeng swept a nce over them.

    ¡°Where¡¯s Huang Jie and Yu Xiao?¡± He frowned. Where were those two bastards off to when something so major had taken ce??

    <i>...wait. </i>That¡¯s... right. How would these two run off when something so critical had urred? He left them to keep watch at the hotel.

    <i>Metal... wood...</i>

    An ominous premonition prickled. Hu Qingfeng¡¯s expression shifted and he looked at the man and woman left. ¡°Did you guys see Huang Jie and Yu Xiao when you came back?¡¯

    ¡°No...¡± answered the woman.

    ¡°Did you call theirmunicators?¡± Hu Qingfeng¡¯s face grew dark. ¡°Have you been in contact with them?¡±

    ¡°...no...¡±

    ¡°Well?! Do it!¡± he barked, making the other two jump. Unease began to set in for thetter. What was going on and why was their superior looking more and more rmed?

    Surely not! Huang Jie and Yu Xiao weren¡¯t fools. Why would they y robber for no reason at all? Did the bloodline of the eight families have anything to do with them?

    <i>No!</i>

    There really was no one apart from Red Moon who would create trouble for Li Hao. No one else understood the situation. But... there was a mid wood Sr and a peak metal Sr dead... That was too much of a coincidence! Those two would absolutely show themselves when they sensed the happenings inside the city. So where were they?!

    The more Hu Qingfeng dwelled on it, the more uneasy, furious, and solemn he grew. What if it was Huang Jie and Yu Xiao that were dead? He¡¯d be in grave trouble!

 Chapter 325: Clouds Shift On All Sides (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 325: Clouds Shift On All Sides (IV)</h4>

    Hu Qingfeng couldn¡¯t even say that two of his men were dead. He¡¯d just condemned all of the attackers as evil supernaturals. Once he admitted that Huang Jie and Yu Xiao were among the dead.. he¡¯d be in enormous trouble!

    ¡°Damn that Hao Lianchuan!¡± The look in Hu Qingfeng¡¯s eyes chilled as he recalled something. Hao Lianchuan had insisted that he didn¡¯t know the identities of the attackers, just that they were likely to be from Red Moon. He¡¯d quickly framed the assants as evil supernaturals with a few words and asked Hu Qingfeng for reinforcement.

    Not only could thetter not say that the two Srs were likely to be Yu Xiao and Huang Jie, but he also had to cover for their absence!

    ¡°Damn it, damn it!¡± He was an utter fool if he still didn¡¯t know who was among the dead. Hu Qingfeng glowered so ominously that the very sight of his face would terrify others! Hao Lianchuan had runplete circles around him! That guy definitely knew who¡¯d died! He¡¯d done all of this on purpose!

    ¡°The call... didn¡¯t go through...¡± the woman said in a low voice.

    Hu Qingfeng remained quiet. Of course not! They were dead and buried in a sea of mes. Where was that call supposed to go to?

    ¡°They¡¯re dead!¡± he said solemnly after a while. ¡°Don¡¯t say anything and tell anyone who asks that they were reassigned to another mission and left the city early this morning...¡±

    ¡°Sir!¡± gasped the other two. Dead? So the battle that¡¯d erupted before involved Yu Xiao and Huang Jie? Then... wasn¡¯t the rest of the team also in danger?

    ¡°Everyone¡¯s exchanging blows in the dark at the moment. Hou Xiaochen and the rest don¡¯t dare move against us in the open. But... White Moon City is no longer safe ofr us!¡±

    Yet, they couldn¡¯t leave right this moment. That would ce them in even greater danger.

    ¡°We can¡¯t leave just yet.¡± Anxiety finally crept into Hu Qingfeng¡¯s voice. ¡°We need to show our faces even more in the days toe. Don¡¯t go outside if you have no reason to. Stay within the provincial government buildings if you must!¡±

    The more he turned the matter over in his mind, the more uneasy he grew. He would remember fatty Hao Lianchuan, that bastard! Just as they thought, all of Silver Moon¡¯s Night Watchers were traitors! Hao Lianchuan had known who those two were, but he¡¯d still killed them! Damn him!

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>A moderately sized office in the provincial government building.</i>

    Deputy Zhou had returned from the alley and was meeting with Director General Zhao.

    ¡°It¡¯s Yu Xiao and Huang Jie who died,¡± the deputy said slowly. ¡°Hu Qingfeng doesn¡¯t know anything and is probably just discovering that something is off.¡±

    The elderly man shook his head. ¡°Hu Qingfeng is strong, but his mind is rather slow. At least half of those present had guessed who¡¯d died, for example, the inspector general and He Yong from the royal family. And yet, he was unsuspectingly led astray by just a few words from Hao Lianchuan.¡±

    ¡°Is Hou Xiaochen behind this?¡± murmured Director General Zhao, to which he quickly shook his head. ¡°No, if he was, then not even Hu Qingfeng would make it out alive. This means to say that this operation was Hao Lianchuan¡¯s own making. That little fatty has quite the nerve!¡±

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t look like that either.¡± Deputy Zhou shook his head. ¡°Or rather, the n was his, but the results were so unexpected that he had to destroy the scene of battle! if he was behind it, he wouldn¡¯t need to obliterate everything. His goal would be to confirm the attackers¡¯ identities and their connection to Red Moon. It wouldn¡¯t be to dismiss the matter entirely when there is ack of evidence.¡±

    ¡°What have you discovered?¡± The director general looked at his old friend of many years. His deputy was a meticulous person and looked to have found something.

    ¡°It might not be Hao Lianchuan who did the deed,¡± Deputy Zhou breathed out softly. ¡°It was someone else whose identity cannot be revealed. They¡¯re very strong to kill two Srs, but they cannot be known by the public. If it¡¯s not Yu Luocha, it¡¯s Li Hao!¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± The director general blinked. He ignored the first possibility and raised his eyebrows at the second name. ¡°Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Deputy Zhou thought for a while longer. ¡°For a Sunderer to remain unharmed when attacked by two Srs, that would be possible if it was truly Red Moon behind the deed. If not Red Moon, but Yu Xiao and Huang Jie, then those two must have discovered something. Is there a need for them to take Li Hao alive? Can they get away with him? Hou Xiaochen woulde out of seclusion in that case. Could they get away then? Therefore... if they made a move, it would be to kill Li Hao. They wouldn¡¯t seek to capture him!

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan arrived quite speedily¡ªlikely less than thirty seconds after the fighting began. That is a very long period of time for two Srs attacking a Sunderer. They would¡¯ve killed their target a long time ago, unless they fought among themselves. But assuming they were in full control of their mental facilities, why would they indulge in internal discord at this time?

    ¡°Therefore... another possibility is that Yuan Shuo hasn¡¯t left after all?¡±

    Director General Zhao furrowed his brows and shook his head. ¡°Yuan Shuo has indeed left! That part is true. We have word from the Near River province that Yuan Shuo has teamed up with the Jadelight Sword and conducted an incredible featst night. They jointly destroyed one of Red Moon¡¯s strongholds and killed a Sr. Yuan Shuo even left taunts for Ying Hongyue to wait for him in the central region, that he won¡¯te back before killing the man!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Deputy Zhou took a deep breath. ¡°Can there be someone else behind Li Hao?¡±

    If not... the implications were extremely terrifying. It was only now that the young man¡¯s name fully entered their line of sight.

    ¡°Forget it.¡± The director general smiled after extended silence. ¡°Let¡¯s ignore this for now and wait for Hou Xiaochen to return.¡±

    ¡°Where¡¯s he gone?¡± asked the deputy. The two seemed certain that Hou Xiaochen was not in the city and didn¡¯t mind Manager Yu¡¯s earlier appearance. They seemed to know her identity and strength beforehand.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure.¡± The director general looked outside the window. ¡°Not only is he not in the city, but that one in the army is absent as well. The two have left together, ostensibly to take down a powerful foe. Regr people don¡¯t merit this kind of attention. Hu Qingfeng¡¯s presence is their best cover, he can prove that they¡¯re inside the city. Let¡¯s wait, news will spread soon. If a Nova or major figure dies soon, that¡¯s probably where they are.¡±

    Deputy Zhou had nothing to say to that. So Commander Yu was also absent? What kind of person warranted attention from both of them at the same time? He had some thoughts, but didn¡¯t dare voice them. They couldn¡¯t be spoken aloud even though there were only the two of them in the office. If his thoughts came to pass... then the northern region would be thrown into disarray for a while.

    As a result, temporary peace mighte to Silver Moon. They wouldn¡¯t draw much focus for a bit. Whether it was Yuan Shuo or Hou Xiaochen, they demonstrated their strength to deter opponents and redirect attention elsewhere. These fellows were formidable and wouldn¡¯t take action for no reason at all, much less suddenly kill others or erupt in hostility...

    The martial world, Night Watchers, and army had reached an ord. It would seem that the situation in Silver Moon was moreplicated than previously imagined.

    Activity finally ceased at the provincial government headquarters for the night.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao was immensely enjoying his dinner. Wang Ming sat in a daze beside him and quickly offered a beverage after Li Hao had taken a few bites.

    ¡°Li... senior brother,¡± he stammered. ¡°Have a drink and wet your throat!¡±

    Li Hao took a sip and looked at the handsome supernatural. Wang Ming swallowed hard.

    ¡°Senior brother... our Five Styles discipline... is amazing!¡±

    Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°Um... I didn¡¯t see anything!¡± Wang Ming quickly changed tack. ¡°I destroyed it all, there¡¯s nothing left and no backup copies!¡±

    Li Hao nodded without a word. Wang Ming seemed to recover enough of his senses to operate normally. He looked at his counterpart with an odd expression.

    ¡°Senior brother... do you think I still have a chance to learn martial dao?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°C¡¯mon, senior brother, give me a chance!¡± Hope beamed out of Wang Ming¡¯s face. ¡°I want to learn martial dao, really, I want to be a martial master. I want to be a powerful martial master!¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll see. Teacher may have a way, I don¡¯t.¡±

    <i>Fine then!</i>

    Wang Ming was quite dejected, but he couldn¡¯t forget what he¡¯d seen. Sword qi racing to the heavens, executing a Sunre along the way, surging up to the clouds, and then...

    That was all he saw! But he knew that two Srs had died and battle was almost over by the time Hao Lianchuan arrived. This unexpected senior brother of his was damned terrifying! So terrifying that he felt perhaps Director Hao was no match.

    Not perhaps, but that he¡¯d probably die to one sword stroke if he didn¡¯t have the ming Phoenix Spear. Hot damn! Were martial masters really this terrifying??

    Wang Ming served Li Hao with passion, his thoughts in a far-off ce. Even now he couldn¡¯t forget what he¡¯d witnessed. It was crazy! Li Hao had also been incredible when he killed Zhang Ting, but not this incredible. He was improving so quickly that it almost terrified Wang Ming.

    ¡°What do we do next, senior brother? Are we going to be exposed?¡± Wang Ming asked with trepidation. They hadn¡¯t killed regr people this time.

    ¡°What about it?¡± Li Hao continued calmly munching on his dinner. ¡°If pushes to shove, teacher¡¯s already demonstrated what to do. I¡¯ll go look for him, what are you worried about?¡±

    <i>Look for teacher? </i>Wang Ming took in a sharp breath. If his senior brother went as well and all these killing fiends were gathered together... That would be even more frightening! No, exciting. No wait, terrifying!

    Wang Ming said nothing more. His mind ran with questions of how to be a martial master, a powerful one of the Five Styles. His discipline was firmly branded in his mind.

    Li Hao looked out the window. Some people would guess certain things this time, so he needed to quickly be even stronger! He wouldn¡¯t be able to keep the truth concealed from everyone¡ªnot that he wanted to. If he kept improving at such a rapid clip that he could kill Novas, it wouldn¡¯t matter if they were focused on the fact that he could kill Srs.

    The young man grinned. Hou Xiaochen, Manager Yu, Director Hao, Hu Qingfeng... Various names filtered into his thoughts. He felt that he could try jumping out of his spot and utilize absolute strength to be one of the many movers and shakers of the province. He wouldn¡¯t have to passively ept events happening to him.

    ¡°The food¡¯s pretty good, it¡¯s really tasty,¡± Li Hao said after trying all of the food. ¡°Buy some more next time, Ole Wang!¡±

    ¡°No problem!¡± Wang Ming responded excitedly.

    Li Haoughed when he flicked a nce at his colleague. <i>This guy¡¯s pretty interesting sometimes. It¡¯s not like I eat people, so what are you looking at me like this for? Are you forgetting that you¡¯re also a co-conspirator?</i>

 Chapter 326: A Bolt From The Blue (I)

    <h4>Chapter 326: A Bolt From The Blue (I)</h4>

    Li Hao was highly satisfied after eating and drinking to his heart¡¯s content. However, some doubts lingered in his mind. He thought for a bit and looked at Wang Ming. ¡°Does Director Hou often travel out of White Moon City?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, what¡¯s up?¡± Wang Ming truly didn¡¯t know as he wasn¡¯t familiar with that individual.

    Li Hao nodded without further question. No matter what the context or reason was, it wasn¡¯t a small matter that he¡¯d killed so many people tonight. Only Manager Yu hade to resolve it, and in a secretive manner without revealing her identity. Certain attempts at subterfuge were at y here.

    There was no need for the smoke and mirrors if Hou Xiaochen really was in seclusion. This could only mean that he wasn¡¯t in the city. So where had he gone?

    The director had just killed a premier powerhouse, drawing all eyes to White Moon City. If looked at through a more solemn lens, half of the dynasty¡¯s attention was focused here. Wasn¡¯t he worried about trouble developing in his absence? What was worth running off at this point in time?

    Faint footsteps sounded outside the door as Li Hao pondered.

    <i>Knock knock knock!</i>

    Wang Ming jumped with shock and nced at Li Hao. Thetter inclined his head and intoned, ¡°Open the door.¡±

    He swept the remnants of dinner into the trash with a wave of his hand and shut the lid on the trash can. Complexion slightly pale, Li Hao walked toward the door.

    Wang Ming was slightly apprehensive since he didn¡¯t know who was here, but quickly opened the door regardless. He heaved a sigh of relief as soon as he did so. ¡°Uncle Hu!¡±

    Hu Dingfang looked at the supernatural greeter at the door. He recognized the boy this time. The man inclined his head, but his expression was less than pleasant. In his view, the ambush on Li Hao had much to do with their conversation before. Wang Ming had such a big mouth!

    ¡°General Hu!¡± Li Hao eximed with surprise. He looked at Hu Dingfang with bafflement. ¡°What brings you here?¡±

    ¡°Are you alright?¡± Hu Dingfang swept a nce over the young man. Thank goodness, Li Hao seemed fine. Thed wasn¡¯t any worse off save for a pale face.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± Li Hao smiled weakly. ¡°Director Hao came quickly and the attackers didn¡¯t want to kill me. They just wanted to capture me, so I didn¡¯t suffer major injuries.¡±

    Hu Dingfang inwardly groused at Wang Ming forckingmon sense when thetter didn¡¯t leave. <i>Can¡¯t you see that we¡¯re having a private conversation here?</i>

    ¡°You cane to me if you need anything,¡± Hu Dingfang said in lieu of anything else. ¡°Also, it¡¯s not safe with the Night Watchers. If you have nowhere else to go, you cane to the Tiger Wing. Some things aren¡¯t how Hao Lianchuan has presented to you. A certain degree of coincidence and misunderstandings is wrapped up in events of the past.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan must have exaggerated a great deal! Li Hao should already know that Hu Dingfang knew the Five Styles, but in themander¡¯s eyes, the young man might¡¯ve chosen toe to the Tiger Wings all the same if it wasn¡¯t for Hao Lianchuan. That fatty was an awful person!

    ¡°I understand.¡± Li Hao quickly bobbed his head and continued in a conflicted tone, ¡°It¡¯s just... I¡¯m not at liberty to make any decisions. I have to wait until master returns.¡±

    ¡°......¡± There was nothing that a speechless Hu Dingfang could say. After some thought, he raised another topic. ¡°If you have time, you... cane to my house for dinner one day. Also, I¡¯ll find a way to get you some blood pearls. You¡¯re too weak. Sunderer is good, but the world is growing ever more disorderly!

    ¡°Silver Moon is safe enough¡ªchaos has descended upon some of the nearby provinces. The entire north has been unstable ever since the rebellion of their three provinces. While Commander Yu quelled the uprising, scattered disruptions have continued to this day...¡± The man suddenly felt that there was no need to exin too much. ¡°If martial dao proves too hard to advance in, you can consider crossing over to the supernatural. Mysterious power is easier to obtain and although your master has broken new territory for martial masters, he is not a regr person. Not everyone can take his path.¡±

    Li Hao quickly nodded again. Hu Dingfang had nothing else to say and Li Hao didn¡¯t seem inclined to keep his guest. Upon seeing that, themander turned to leave.

    ¡°Please get home safe, General Hu!¡±

    Hu Dingfang waved without a response. A while after the man¡¯s departure, Li Hao looked down from the window. As he expected, there was a woman waiting on the ground level.

    Wang Ming also sidled over for a look. ¡°Ole Hu¡¯s wife! She rarely shows herself, but she came this time as well. Are you rted to Ole Hu?¡±

    The woman seemed to sense something and raised her head for a look. However, the twelfth floor was high up, so who knows what she was able to see?

    Li Hao looked for a while and looked at Wang Ming again. ¡°Do you still not understand?¡±

    ¡°Understand what?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head with a sigh. This fellow was rather silly at times. <i>Hu Dingfang knows the Five Styles and he¡¯s pretty good at it! Do you sense nothing at all? He has something to do with the Five Styles discipline!</i>

    <i>Shouldn¡¯t ordinary people havee to this sort of conclusion a long time ago? Are your brains operating at all?</i>

    ¡°The person on the ground... Well, you should call her senior sister.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Wang Ming nodded reflexively, then blinked oddly. ¡°Oh, I get it! One of Teacher Yuan¡¯s old students? I¡¯ve never heard about her!¡±

    He understood what Li Hao was saying, then thought back to Hu Dingfang. ¡°Oh... I <i>get</i> it! Hu Dingfang knows the Five Styles and he¡¯s better than me at it. I¡¯m an honorary disciple who knows the breathing technique. He knows it too?¡±

    Li Hao smiled. <i>So he isn¡¯t aplete fool!</i>

    He wanted to retract that thought in the next second.

    ¡°So this means that Hu Dingfang is the same disciple generation as me. I¡¯m teacher¡¯s honorary disciple¡ªhe¡¯s not even that. My status is higher than him among the Five Styles discipline. If I go to him and tell him I¡¯m his senior brother... Do you think he¡¯ll beat me up?¡±

    ¡°Get outta here!¡± Li Hao cursedughingly. He watched as Hu Dingfang left with the woman. ¡°You don¡¯t need to think too much about it. Teacher is probably very disappointed!¡± He shook his head and suddenly sighed, ¡°There was great potential there!¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t you see it?¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Wang Ming inly didn¡¯t.

    ¡°Look at how your senior sister walks.¡± Li Hao raised his chin.

    ¡°Senior sister walks...¡± Wang Ming murmured in an entranced voice after poking his head out for a look. ¡°In a very alluring way...¡±

    Li Hao rolled his eyes, at aplete loss for what to say.

    ¡°Alluring your ass! That¡¯s instinctive movement resulting from making the deer style an integral part of her! She notices the surroundings as she walks and is vignt against the slightest rustle of leaves in the wind. If I¡¯m not mistaken, our senior sister is a Dominator. She¡¯s been one for many years!¡±

    ¡°What!¡± Wang Ming sucked in a sharp breath. ¡°That strong? Stronger than our teacher?¡±

    ¡°You should read more books and ask more questions if you want to practice martial dao!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Teacher melded five auras together. He¡¯s not an ordinary Sunderer or Dominator. In the modern martial world¡ªand I¡¯m speaking of only Silver Moon¡¯s, not the outside world¡ªall local cultivators who set foot into Dominator before our teacher did is trash!¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Wang Ming started. What did that mean? Dominators were trash?

    ¡°Those who weren¡¯t able to do so or advanced after leaving the province may be the true powerhouses.¡±

    Wang Ming was truly confused.

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s martial world was suppressed by teacher back in the day. He swept through the previous generation, keeping all of them down in a mental way before he progressed to Dominator. It sounds fictitious, but was very real. It was a suppression of mind intent and aura!

    ¡°That was why the Earthturner Sword Hong Yitang, Qimei Staff Sun Yifei, and others were unable to advance. If viewed through the lens of present day strength, what would they be worth as Dominators? He Yong didn¡¯t be one until he left the province either.

    ¡°Let me put it in simpler terms.¡± Li Hao counted as a martial dao authority now, so he spoke with a greater degree of understanding andposure. ¡°Of those that teacher defeated back in the day, some had such incredible potential that they didn¡¯t die in defeat. They were outstanding talents! However, they couldn¡¯t break through if they stayed in Silver Moon. But Dominator wasn¡¯t a guarantee if they left...¡±

    Wang Ming scratched his head. This was very hard to understand. What did this have to do with leaving Silver Moon? And hadn¡¯t they been talking about their senior sister?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t bother exining further since his colleague still didn''t understand. He brought the conversation back to theirst topic. ¡°Senior sister is teacher¡¯s disciple, so logically speaking, she shouldn¡¯t have broken through before teacher did. That¡¯s not to say that she couldn¡¯t, but the fact that she did means that her aura is very weak. It was so weak that teacher didn¡¯t suppress it!

    ¡°To put it inly, only powerhouses were worthy of teacher¡¯s suppression, weaklings weren¡¯t! Chief should be slightly stronger than her because he broke through while facing pressure from teacher. Even though he did so in a bit of a hurry andcked a deep understanding of the aura, he¡¯s still stronger than the usual Dominators!¡±

    Wang Ming nodded, but still didn¡¯t fully understand. But he knew a little more than before, such as all those who¡¯d advanced before Yuan Shuo had were weaklings!

    That was what Li Hao meant, right? Although Wang Ming didn¡¯t understand why, he could pinpoint that it originated from teacher¡¯s suppression. That was terrifying!

    ¡°Senior brother, do you mean that although our senior sister is a Dominator, she¡¯s actually very weak?¡±

    ¡°Well, she¡¯s not to the point of very weak, just a regr Dominator,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°If we divide Dominators into three levels, teacher sits at the strongest level. Nextes those like He Yong, ones who left after suffering a defeat and subsequently broke through. They¡¯re the old guard who have room for improvement! Third are people like the chief. They¡¯re regr Dominators.¡±

    ¡°What about you?¡± Wang Ming couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°Simr to He Yong and the others,¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Ick in terms of aura, but I¡¯m slightly better than He Yong because I¡¯m of the Five Styles. I¡¯m above them and below teacher.¡±

 Chapter 327: A Bolt From The Blue (II)

    <h4>Chapter 327: A Bolt From The Blue (II)</h4>

    Wang Ming understood!

    ¡°So you¡¯re number two in the martial world?¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dare call myself that!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I¡¯m not being humble, it¡¯s the truth. Perhaps we could say that in the current Silver Moon martial world, but who knows how martial dao has developed in other regions all these years? How many Dominators do those vast territories have and have their Dominators reached another level? Hence, we can¡¯t really say that.¡±

    Wang Ming nodded. Hu Dingfang and his wife disappeared in the distance as they spoke.

    ¡°You weren¡¯t too weing toward him,¡± Wang Ming remarked with regret. ¡°We might¡¯ve been able to borrow his strength otherwise. Hu Dingfang is quite a formidable person and his status is high as hemands the Tiger Wings.¡±

    ¡°I won¡¯t get involved in his matter with teacher.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°That can wait until teacheres back. Man... what a pity that I couldn¡¯t collect any mysterious power from all the people I killed today. What a damned shame!¡±

    It hadn¡¯t been convenient to collect the energy after he killed his would-be attackers, so he had to forgo it all. While he¡¯d strengthened his five visceral organs to the utmost that they could in such a short period of time, the more mysterious power, the better. There was a lot of energy to be harvested from two Srs and two Sunres¡ªroughly three thousand cubes!

    All of it had been wasted!

    Even Wang Ming found it a pity as he knew there was a metal supernatural on the scene. What a shame!

    ......

    Wang Ming left after a bit more conversation. One had to know when they were overstaying their wee. Li Hao had just experienced a great battle; he would be tired if someone continuously fawned on him.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao was in no hurry to take inventory of what he¡¯d looted. He showered first and thoroughly cleaned up before entering his room and taking out the two storage rings. He¡¯d never seen them before, but he had a general idea of how to use them. He¡¯d memorized quite a few ancient tomes, some of which recorded their usage.

    It was simple¡ªmental energy. Of course, modern interpretation of this concept pointed to the consciousness or aura. That special energy could ess storage rings. Li Hao didn¡¯t know how supernaturals did it¡ªthrough blood, perhaps?

    Who knew!

    His consciousness exploded and sensed something in one of the storage rings. It felt like a barrier¡ªLi Hao¡¯s mind pierced it like a sword. A flurry of light danced in front of his eyes as he entered a small space.

    It was pitch ck, as if a small house. No, it wasn¡¯t even a house. It was the size of a coffin and there wouldn¡¯t be much trouble putting a person inside. His consciousness acted as a light, probing the contents of the space.

    ¡°Five mysterious power stones... rich guy!¡± Li Hao chuckled. Not bad, there were stones for the taking! It made sense since Yu Xiao had given him one before. Granted, the guy had only done so because he felt he could take it back. All the same, five mysterious power stones were a nice find.

    Apart from the mysterious power stones, there was another familiar item. An energy ring, not a storage ring!

    Energy rings were used to store mysterious power. Li Hao¡¯s mind swiftly summoned the ring for investigation. It was simr to the one he wore¡ªfivepartments that held two hundred cubes each. Four of this ring¡¯s cubes were full of wood energy!

    ¡°Yu Xiao!¡± Li Hao understood what he was seeing. These powerhouses had brought supplies with them on their trip. Eight hundred cubes of wood mysterious power were a significant amount. There might have been more before¡ªthe ring might have been full. The fellow had likely consumed some during his trip.

    This was an unexpected gain! It was Li Hao¡¯s first time obtaining mysterious power not from a corpse of someone he¡¯d killed. These guys from the central region were wealthy upstarts, alright! They broughtrge sums of mysterious power on their trips to use as supplements. Silver Moon supernaturals couldn¡¯t begin to measure up to them.

    ¡°The five mysterious power stones can be fed to the little sword. I can use the eight hundred cubes of mysterious power to nurture my wood aura.¡±

    It didn¡¯t matter that there was no sign of his wood sword aura yet. Li Hao grinned at the other storage ring. If a mid Sr like Yu Xiao carried such treasures on him, the other peak metal Sr should have quite the riches, shouldn¡¯t he?

    Aside from the energy ring and stones in Yu Xiao¡¯s ring, there was also a motley assortment of random things. There were female undergarments that seemed to be... used!

    Li Hao could only conclude that the guy had liked to dress up as a woman. He couldn¡¯t bother with considering other implications. There were also some sets of Yu Xiao¡¯s clothing and a medallion. The young man had one of thetter as well, it wasn¡¯t a treasure. The token simply identified the bearer and represented a Night Watcher¡¯s rank.

    Being symbolic, there wasn¡¯t much use to it.

    Li Hao quickly turned his attention to the second storage ring. It was harder to open, but didn¡¯t prove too great a challenge either. The contents were simr, just slightly more mysterious power stones at eight stones.

    There was also an energy ring, but less mysterious power inside. The six hundred cubes quite disappointed Li Hao. It was in to see that the peak Sr had depleted more of his supplies. Perhaps he¡¯d used them over the course of daily training? What a waste!

    When all of his gains were summed up, Li Hao came out with two storage rings, fourteen hundred cubes of mysterious power, and thirteen mysterious power stones. It was a small resupply of his stock of mysterious power stones. He was nearly running empty on those. His injuries had been so severe this time that he¡¯d almost exhausted the energy inside the little sword.

    Li Hao had only seven mysterious power stones left¡ªthey wouldn¡¯tst long if he didn¡¯t obtain more. With the addition of these thirteen, he was adequately equipped for the short run. The two Srs had given him either mysterious power or mysterious power stones. The rest weren¡¯t worth mention. At the end, the young man looked at the booklet he¡¯d scrounged from the Dominator.

    ¡°Hmm?¡± He jerked after a simple nce. What a familiar name!

    <i>The Hundred Battle Spear!</i>

    He¡¯d heard of this spear method before¡ªit belonged to one of the Three Spears of Silver Moon¡ªBronze Spear Zhang Jinan.

    So the Bronze Spear was dead! Was the one in the alley possibly his heir or descendant?

    Li Hao frowned, but didn¡¯t mind his actions all that much. So that person was dead. Their identity was simr to his chief¡¯s identity, which made them a martial second generation. It was impressive that they could set foot over the Dominator threshold.

    However, they shouldn¡¯t have had designs on his blood pearls.

    The Three Spears of Silver Moon were renowned martial masters back in the day. They might not care about the Breathing Method of the Five Styles because their own secret art was just as strong. Now that Li Hao thought back on it, the other did show signs of the Hundred Battle when he struck with his spear.

    But since that martial master hadn¡¯t experienced the unending violence of yesteryear, his killing intent wasn¡¯t as dense as Liu Long¡¯s. Liu Long had fought multiple times during his duties in Silver City, after all. If Li Hao had killed the heir of Bronze Spear... did that mean Bronze Spear¡¯s legacy hade to an end?

    The young man flipped through the booklet as he thought. It detailed aspects that needed to be paid attention to when utilizing the spear technique and its basic principles. When he flipped to thest page, he found an absence of a breathing method. As to be expected.

    In this vein, the Bronze Spear discipline was thoroughly obliterated if there were no other heirs! Since Li Hao did not know the breathing method, he possessed form without substance. If he tried to use the Hundred Battle Spear, he would just be iling around with the motions.

    The technique was intricate and useful for spear wielders even without the breathing method. It was a pity that Li Hao neither used the spear, nor was skilled in its practice.

    ¡°Martial masters really have nothing worth coveting!¡± Li Hao shook his head. If circumstances permitted, he wouldn¡¯t be interested in killing martial masters at all. There was no point in doing so unless the other was a simr strength level to him, or even stronger. Only then was that meaningful. He would be killing for the sake of martial dao then, not just to kill.

    It was pointless to kill the weak. Theplete versions of secret arts were hard toe by and there was nothing to be had in killing a martial master. There was no mysterious power to be harvested, so what was the point?

    Yuan Shuo had obtained the breathing method to the Ghost Shadow Sword likely because Ghost Shadow Sword had been overconfident. He¡¯d been too self assured that he wouldn¡¯t lose or die. He wouldn¡¯t have left aplete record of his legacy otherwise.

    This was all that Li Hao gained from his fights. Killing someone for their treasure was not a profitable business. Under normal circumstances, powerhouses that could kill Yu Xiao and the others wouldn¡¯t think much of these items. To the young man, however, they were decent.

    Li Hao tossed the two storage rings to the side. All he needed to do was take a look at them. He wasn¡¯t that curious or enamored with the treasures . But they would indeed make his life more convenient. It was his fire sword aura that preupied his thoughts at the moment!

    He sent his mind into his heart and clearly noted the current state of the tiger aura. It was vastly different from before. The thick chains of the heart wrapped solidly around a sword¡ªa ming red sword with a tiger head! A tiger head was imprinted on the sword itself, but in an indistinct fashion. The animal seemed to be resting.

    ¡°The fire sword and earth sword have materialized. It¡¯s best if I get swords of the remaining elements next!¡± Li Hao was in no hurry to fuse the two swords together. He could wait until all five swords of the elements were present. His teacher¡¯s experience would be very useful then. His process would be simr to assimting the five auras, which would make his teacher¡¯s method highly important reference material.

    Li Hao would be able to save a great deal of time and utilize a shortcut in his next steps. The sword aura would then lead all of them! When hepleted thebination, they would emerge from his organs together and erupt with incredible strength.

    ¡°I don¡¯t have many clues when ites to metal and wood, so I should focus on water first!¡± He didn¡¯t know if he¡¯d gain any inspiration from the sea. Perhaps he would, perhaps he wouldn¡¯t. But in any case, he wished to take a look. He¡¯d only reached sevenyers of the Nine Forged Force at the moment. It would take a while longer for the ninthyer.

    Novas were very strong. His assessment was that if he could bring forth three auras, he would be able to stand against peak Sr. Four might not match him with Novas, but he¡¯d be invincible in the Sr level. When all five were present, that would truly give him a fighting chance with Novas.

 Chapter 328: A Bolt From The Blue (III)

    <h4>Chapter 328: A Bolt From The Blue (III)</h4>

    Li Hao¡¯s assessment of future strength was based on five separate auras, not abination of them. If he was able to fuse them all, then he might be able to kill Novas outright... But that was all theoretical. Reality might prove differently.

    The powerhouses of the martial world were yet to reach this stage. At the very least, he was yet to hear of anyone who could stand against Novas. Even his teacher thus far only demonstrated the strength to match peak Sr. Two of his spirits had emerged then!

    However, his teacher was different in that he¡¯d melded five auras together. His two spirits were different from Li Hao¡¯s two spirits.

    ¡°I probably have to manifest three spirits to be on par with my teacher¡¯s two spirits... But my finalbination of five auras might be stronger than teacher¡¯s...¡±

    That was due to his sword aura being stronger than any single one of the auras of the Five Styles. Where he fell shortpared to his teacher was experience, battle reaction, andck ofbination between auras. Otherwise, with Yuan Shuo¡¯s experience and strength, he would¡¯ve killed Huang Jie with Li Hao¡¯s second stroke. The young man had to rely slightly on Hao Lianchuan¡ªthe deputy director¡¯s sudden appearance had startled Huang Jie. That was how Li Hao had swiftly killed the other.

    That summed up Li Hao¡¯s self-assessment. He needed to review and appraise each battle once it was over. Identifying strengths and weaknesses would allow him to better improve himself.

    When all was said and done, he started to miss the crotchety old man that was his teacher. If his teacher was here, he¡¯d certainly help Li Hao locate a few more insufficiencies. He would then speak of his own experience and reflections, helping his student gain even more from the battles.

    ......

    <i>On the border of Near River province.</i>

    The sky was dark. A bonfire lit up the bleak wilderness. Yuan Shuo had hunted down a rabbit from somewhere and was roasting it.

    ¡°Stop training, Jadelight,¡± he chuckled. ¡°Leisure andbor go hand in hand when ites to cultivation, that¡¯s how I attained new reflections over these years. Narrowing in on training may not bring you as many benefits as a well fought battle!¡±

    Wu Hongshan cracked open an eye to look at the old man, but didn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°Why haven¡¯t you epted a disciple in all these years?¡± Yuan Shuo had nothing better to do, so he struck up a conversation.

    ¡°What¡¯s the purpose of epting a disciple?¡± Wu Hongshan said faintly. ¡°You epted quite a few, and what of them?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m doing quite well, what do you mean?¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°Take my youngest disciple, if we set all the rest aside. He reached half step Dominator before I left andprehended two auras. He¡¯s paid a visit to an ancient ruin in the few days that I¡¯ve been absent. With his skill inprehension and good luck, he might already be a Dominator!

    ¡°Do you know how many years he¡¯s cultivated?¡± the old man roared withughter.

    ¡°Ten years?¡± Wu Hongshan raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Hahaha, I knew you hadn¡¯t seen much of the world! Three years... No, one year... No wait, two months!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wu Hongshan looked down her nose at him like she was regarding a fool. <i>Go on, keep blowing hot air!</i>

    ¡°Really!¡± Yuan Shuoughed uproariously. ¡°Wasn¡¯t I injured before? I took him in three years ago and wanted to pass on my knowledge... And guess what happened? I didn¡¯t teach him anything other than the Five Styles, not even the breathing method. But the kid did good for himself and said he needed self defense when Red Moon came after him in July. He started focusing on practicing martial dao and absorbing mysterious power. He reached yer of Tens in a few days!¡±

    ¡°That kind of yer is very flimsy!¡± Wu Hongshan said faintly.

    ¡°No shit, I know that!¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°So I didn¡¯t say anything. To be honest, I wouldn¡¯t think much of him even if he swiftly became ate Sunderer. The times now are not what they were before. Sufficient absorption of mysterious power and ack of crossing over means that one can easily reachte Sunderer.

    ¡°But you know what? He thenprehended the aura!¡± the old man sighed with emotion. ¡°That was when I finally felt that he might be a genius, a martial dao genius! You know Silver Spear¡¯s son, right? I was helping him grasp the aura that day¡ªmy disciple was watching by the side. And as he watched... he somehow grasped the aura himself! Damn, that was a shocker!

    ¡°Heprehended the aura of the earth in the blink of an eye!¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t stop grinning merrily. ¡°Not only that, but when he fought Sun Yifei¡¯s disciple a while ago, heprehended the sword aura during that fight! Jadelight, wouldn¡¯t you say that he¡¯s a genius?¡±

    ¡°That... does indeed make him a genius.¡± Wu Hongshan wouldn¡¯t care about a regr half step Dominator, but inclined her head at Yuan Shuo¡¯s words. ¡°But the sword and earth aura... To be honest, they¡¯re not a good match. He¡¯s gathering a motley assortment of auras. It¡¯s better to follow a prescribed order and walk the path of your Five Styles. Another option is to focus only on one aura after bing a Dominator. The sword aura is good, but you¡¯re not versed in it, so he might not have that many chances in the future...¡±

    ¡°Woman, just say it if you''re jealous, don¡¯t pretend like you¡¯re not interested,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°These are great achievements¡ªand it¡¯s only been how long? Not to mention, who says that they can¡¯t be melded together? He still might be less than me when they¡¯rebined, but he might be stronger than you guys!¡±

    ¡°A motley assortment of knowledge doesn¡¯t mean that he¡¯s skilled at any of it!¡± Wu Hongshan was as remote as could be. So what if the boy fused two auras together? Would that be as strong as a singr sword aura? Being a jack of all trades and master of none was just wasting his potential.

    ¡°Go on, be jealous and envious!¡± Yuan Shuo concluded with augh. ¡°It¡¯s a pity that the kid¡¯s wrapped up in trouble and the martial world is no longer what it once was. Otherwise I¡¯d bring him around to all the old friends and have him increase hisbat experience through challenging some geniuses.¡±

    ¡°Like you once did?¡±

    ¡°Was there anything bad about that?¡±

    ¡°Anything bad about bing public enemy of the martial world?¡±

    ¡°What public enemy?¡± Yuan Shuo snorted. ¡°I overcame you guys through my own strength, not my family background or cultivation level. I won through real skill, how does that make me a public enemy? You guys were just jealous and throwing dirty water on me!¡±

    He normally couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond to talk of being a public enemy, but the person in front of him was a martial master of the same era. He would defend himself with a few words. <i>It was you guys who couldn¡¯t measure up, how are you still lying to yourself even now? Aren¡¯t you embarrassed by this talk of being a public enemy of the martial world?</i>

    ¡°I¡¯ve heard rumors that you epted some other disciples as well.¡± Wu Hongshan set the previous matter aside as she didn¡¯t want to get bogged down in it. ¡°That they¡¯re all pretty strong with good potential. Howe you don¡¯t talk about them?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing to talk about.¡± Yuan Shuo brushed her off. He was a doting old father who favored his youngest son. ¡°My youngest disciple does everything I say and is sensible, clever, kind, and good looking. Too bad you don¡¯t have a disciple or I¡¯d introduce them!

    ¡°Right, he¡¯s not a violent brute either. He¡¯s a schr like me, a ss in himself when ites to talent.¡±

    Wu Hongshan kept quiet. Yuan Shuo very rarely gave outpliments, even to his disciples. He obviously had too much time on his hands tonight and had decided to praise this particr one. It was one thing if the conversation remained between the two of them. How many people would be startled if word got out that Old Demon Yuan actually knew how topliment people?

    ¡°Damn it,¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly sighed. ¡°Hou Xiaochen is such an asshole! He¡¯s possibly mistreating thed...¡±

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen...¡± Wu Hongshan remained silent for a moment. ¡°Was he part of the Skystar Guards?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, who cares!¡± Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t mind. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if he was. It¡¯s nothing to do with me even if he was. Though we loathe those people, they did indeed focus their attention on martial masters that didn¡¯t follow the rules. I¡¯m one who does¡ªI haven¡¯t gone on a killing spree, killed innocents, tortured the weak, bullied women, killed officials, or rebelled. Do you think the Guards will possibly want anything to do with me?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t forget, you were once a wanted criminal!¡± Wu Hongshan suddenly smiled.

    ¡°That had to do with other things,¡± Yuan Shuo roared withughter. ¡°I got on their list because I barged into the military camp to fight Huang Yun. That ran afoul of their rules. They put me on there just for show. It was a warning to the martial world and nothing came of it!¡±

    Wu Hongshan¡¯s interest was piqued after he mentioned it. As a martial master, she was very interested in that battle¡¯s oue. ¡°Who won between you and Huang Yun?¡±

    The battle had been too mysterious as no one knew who¡¯d won, just that Commander Yu walked away fine, as did Yuan Shuo.

    Yuan Shuo took a walk down memoryne and struggled over how best to express himself. He shook his head after a while. ¡°It¡¯s hard to say! Perhaps I won... but I also lost.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°That old man might¡¯ve made it to Dominator a long time ago!¡± Yuan Shuo mused. ¡°He would be no match for me if we were both Sunderers¡ªI was invincible in that level and among my peers! But that fellow... We were both Sunderers when we fought and I held a small advantage. When I closed in for the kill though, he suddenly jumped away and forfeited the match!

    ¡°Therefore,¡± the old man sighed. ¡°He was probably a Dominator, one who¡¯d ascended many years ago. So you tell me, do I count as having won?¡±

    ¡°A Dominator of thest era?¡± Wu Hongshan wasn¡¯t surprised by the existence of Dominators back in their times. That was normal as Yuan Shuo had suppressed only those of his generation. There could¡¯ve easily been Dominators surviving from a previous generation; they just didn¡¯t appear in public much.

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°He most likely was, so I didn¡¯t continue the match after thinking it over. There wasn¡¯t much meaning to it.

    ¡°Speaking of the threemanders of the Skystar Guards, they were almost all gathered in Silver Moon then. Do you think that old man was one of them?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Wu Hongshan blinked. She thought Hou Xiaochen was one, but never thought Huang Yun might be another! He was amander of the military!

    ¡°Cannibal, Laughter, and Sickly...¡± Yuan Shuo smirked. ¡°They were all very mysterious. Almost no one ever saw them, but we all knew they existed. Their operations always lead to deaths and they were matched by no one. Things were different before. Being able to reach their heights meant that their sources of news, intelligence, methods, cleanup, and martial power were first ss. Wouldn¡¯t it make sense if Huang Yun was one of them? The intelligencework of the military has always been top notch.¡±

 Chapter 329: A Bolt From The Blue (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 329: A Bolt From The Blue (IV)</h4>

    ¡°If what you say is true, then it¡¯s not impossible that Huang Yun is a Dominator!¡± Wu Hongshan frowned. ¡°So is he Cannibal or what?¡±

    Commander Yun possessed a very upright reputation; everyone¡¯s impression of him was that of august dignity. Cannibal, on the other hand, was infamous.

    It wasn¡¯t that he actually ate people, but that he was too vicious, too cruel. Each of his targets became a bloody, gory mess. Martial masters that he killed were left without a whole corpse. Thus, the martial world mocked him as a cannibal, that he killed people as brutally as eating them.

    ¡°Who knows?¡± Yuan Shuo said casually. ¡°If Hou Xiaochen and Huang Yun are part of the threemanders, will the third also be someone from Silver Moon? Only Silver Moon martial masters can stand against Silver Moon¡¯s martial world! Outsiders don¡¯t have that kind of skill at all! If there¡¯s a third one alive, who do you think is possibly them among those of the province?¡±

    Wu Hongshan thought carefully for a second and suddenly looked at Yuan Shuo.

    The old man started. <i>What¡¯re you looking at me for?</i>

    ¡°If I have to pick someone... I¡¯d say you!¡± Wu Hongshan replied with a raised eyebrow. ¡°How many did you kill in the martial world? Silver Moon¡¯s martial world was thrown into disarray and weakened because of you. What you did was more impressive than any of the threemanders! They couldn¡¯t suppress an entire cultivation level worth of people, but you did it! So I think it¡¯s highly likely that you¡¯re one of them!¡±

    Yuan Shuo blinked, thought for a moment, and nodded. Honestly, he did seem the part! If someone imed that he was one of the threemanders, the suggestion did hold up upon closer inspection. It was just that he¡¯d always operated in the open.

    ¡°If I didn¡¯t know better, I would think I¡¯m one of them too!¡± Yuan Shuoughed ruefully. ¡°If I¡¯m one of the three... I¡¯d be Laughter, wouldn¡¯t you say? Heughed whenever he killed someone.¡±

    Wu Hongshan remained silent. <i>Who knows if you are or not?</i> Of course, no one would inquire into the matter anymore. It was highly possible that this guy was Laughter. Cannibal Huang Yun, Laughter Yuan Shuo, Sickly Hou Xiaochen...

    Was the likelihood possible?

    The woman decided to put it to rest. This was all in the past. It was no big deal even if the three were who they were suspected to be.

    ......

    White Moon City was not quiet this night. The fight in the evening put many people on edge or made them fearful. No one knew of the conversation that took ce in the wilderness that bordered Near River.

    Lights were aze all night at the provincial government, Inspectorate, military, and Night Watcher headquarters. Thorough investigations of evil supernaturals within the city and the Red Moon terrorists were underway.

    Being advanced in age, Director General Zhao was nodding off in his chair. Hu Qingfeng stayed at the provincial government all night long, seemingly devoted to the case. He brought two of his Srs to hold down the fort. They were concerned about further attacks on the government building.

    In reality, they were more worried of encountering danger at the hotel.

    Seeing that the director general remained at his post even in the middle of the night, Hu Qingfeng shed a smile. ¡°It¡¯ste, Director General Zhao. Why don¡¯t you go back and rest? I can keep an eye on things here!¡±

    The provincial government was coordinating efforts with the other agencies to soothe the citizenry. There were a lot of affairs to attend to¡ªthese minor details were sometimes more time consuming than tracking down perpetrators.

    The director general yawned mightily and smiled. ¡°It¡¯s alright, my body isn¡¯t what it used to be at my age, but I can still stay up all night. Since the dynasty values me highly, then this old man will naturally bend himself to the task and exert himself to the utmost...¡±

    A massivemunicator on the table abruptly rang with a piercing notification. Hu Qingfeng frowned slightly. Crouched over a desk not too far away, Deputy Zhou jerked his head up. Themunicator that¡¯d just rang was for emergencies. It was a specialmunication system that consumed vast resources to operate. The system was for first level provincial officials only and connected directly to Skystar Hall!

    The director general opened bright eyes and looked at Hu Qingfeng. The man rose without a word and left with his baffled men. Deputy Zhou also made to leave, but the director general pressed his hand down and indicated for the man to stay.

    It wasn¡¯t until Hu Qingfeng put some distance between himself and the office that the director general picked up the call. A short reportmenced; the call was quickly over. Deputy Zhou¡¯s eyes widened and he looked at his superior with shock.

    ¡°The skies to the north...¡± Director General Zhao breathed out softly. ¡°Have somewhat fallen in. The north is going to descend into disorder!¡±

    Silver Moon was located in the north. An important figure had just died! Someone incredibly important!

    How important?

    The three provinces that once rebelled were all northern provinces located not too far from Silver Moon. While the mutiny was quelled, unrest continued. A highly ced figure from the dynasty was deployed long ago with the royal family¡¯s blessing to suppress the rebels and oversee the provinces!

    He was a notable personage thatmanded three provinces worth of armies and kept the region quiet for many years. He killed so many people that no one dared mutter with discontent. He was venerated as the head of the region even after the rise of the supernatural. This person was a very important pir of the royal family outside the central region!

    The Night Watcher system of the three provinces and other supernatural systems were wholly in his grasp. And tonight... he died!

    Director General Zhao raised his head to look outside the window. His deputy was likewise amazed. Although they had their spections... it was still hard to believe when it actually took ce!

    The three provinces were about to erupt with chaos! That person had killed too many and suppressed the three provinces for so many years that endless resentment festered. He¡¯d been too strong and wielded so much power that grumblings were useless, even though countless people in the three provinces were discontent.

    But now, he was dead!

    Director General Zhao rubbed his face with rueful resignation. He walked out of the office to where Hu Qingfeng waited. The supernatural hadn¡¯t eavesdropped on the conversation. That kind of action was easily uncovered when it came to ssified affairs. Once he was found out, he would be in grave trouble.

    ¡°What is it, Director General?¡± Hu Qingfeng was surprised to see the old man stumbling in a lost daze. Had he received bad news? Was he about to be fired? That would be wonderful! All the old man did was pawn him off from morning to night and never spoke about true business at hand. It was better if he was gone as soon as possible!

    The director general started to speak, then stopped. He continued with difficulty, ¡°Special... Special Agent Hu...¡±

    Hu Qingfeng looked at him. <i>Out with it!</i>

    ¡°The General of Northern Pacification... is dead!¡±

    Hu Qingfeng blinked. Who was the General of Northern Pacification? A title like that was usually bestowed by the royal family. The nine ministries rarely handed out positions crafted with these words. Thus, he didn¡¯t respond at first.

    Upon seeing hisck of a reaction, Deputy Zhou supplemented, ¡°The... governor general of the three provinces!¡±

    Governor general...

    Hu Qingfeng shook when he registered the exnation! Incredulity blossomed in his eyes, he didn¡¯t believe it! How was that possible?! How. was. that. possible?!

    It wasn¡¯t sorrow or grief, just pure, unadulterated shock. How was the governor general dead?? That was Governor General Kou, the royal family¡¯s spokesperson in the north! The Inspectorate didn¡¯t care whether he lived or died, just that he was a peak Nova!

    How was this possible?! He also had countless powerhouses protecting him! It <i>wasn¡¯t</i> possible!

    Hu Qingfeng¡¯s worldview was being overturned. The first thought to surface after the shock was that the three northern provinces would erupt with the death of this one. They bordered Silver Moon, would the unrest spread to Silver Moon?

    On the other hand, that wasn¡¯t what he was most afraid of. His concern was if nearby powerhouses would be requisitioned to support those three provinces. Hu Qingfeng¡¯s shaking grew worse. Governor General Kou was dead! Who did it? <i>If I¡¯m sent in his stead, I¡¯ll be in real danger next!</i>

    ......

    No sleep was forting for mundanes on this night, it was also elusive for regr supernaturals. It was impossible to find for all of the senior councils and premier powerhouses. This wave of insomnia spread from Silver Moon, rapidly reaching Skystar City more than a million kilometers away!

    A bolt from the blue! How did two dead Srs in Silver Moonpare??

    ......

    <i>The next morning.</i>

    Li Hao reported to work bright and early. Hao Lianchuan did not return this morning or evenst night. He was probably busy handling the deaths of the Srs. Therefore, Li Hao went to work alone this morning.

    There was no sign of supernaturals watching him. Not a single one!

    The young man set foot through the doors of the Night Watcher headquarters around 8 am. Night Watchers bustled to and fro; some offered a few words offort when they saw Li Hao. The young man had been attackedst night, and while he seemed fine, they still wished to express their care and concern.

    Investigating the tracks of Red Moon was their greatest mission at the moment. Everyone was busy. There was no longer anything to be wary of when it came to this supernatural organization. It¡¯d suffered heavy losses after a few engagements and the Night Watcher director had easily in a Red Moon Nova. Agency morale soared at the moment. When they heard that Red Moon had once again attacked Li Hao, they mored to fully exterminate the organization. People straightened their uniforms and shined their boots, ready to leap into action.

    Li Hao paused before walking through the front doors and nced at the sixth floor. There was nothing to be seen from there before, but a new sensation emanated from it today. He couldn¡¯t look at it directly, a feeling he¡¯d felt when he previously faced Hou Xiaochen. The young man¡¯s eyes sometimes hurt when he looked at the director.

    That sensation had been absent for thest couple of days, so Li Hao had guessed that Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t at headquarters. But the feeling returned today, so... that meant Hou Xiaochen was back?

 Chapter 330: Blinded (I)

    <h4>Chapter 330: Blinded (I)</h4>

    Li Hao walked into the lobby with new thoughts swirling through his mind and headed toward the fourth floor. Manager Yu walked out of her office just when he reached his. She nced at the young man, aloof as ever.

    ¡°Li Hao, the director hase out of seclusion. As we said before, you are to meet him after he emerges!¡±

    <i>Come out of seclusion? Was Hou Xiaochen not here before? </i>Li Hao couldn¡¯t make sense of things either. Did Hou Xiaochen want to see him because of events from yesterday?

    ¡°I understand, Manager Yu.¡± Li Hao refrained from letting any of his thoughts appear on his face. He decided to pay a visitter, but saw that the secretary remained staring at him. There was nothing else to do but follow behind her and head upstairs together.

    When they reached the fifth floor, a Hao Lianchuan with reddened eyes happened to walk out of his office. He headed upstairs as well and nodded when he saw the young man, barely managing to squeeze out a smile.

    Li Hao thought he was fretting over yesterday¡¯s affairs, so he didn¡¯t say anything.

    The three headed to the sixth floor together¡ªthere was only one cavernous office in it. The door opened as soon as Manager Yu knocked on it. Li Hao found Hou Xiaochen sitting in a chair, the man¡¯s eyes looking off into the distance. He seemed weaker than when Li Hao saw himst. Coughs repeatedly shook the man. He inclined his head to see his visitors and didn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°Cough cough...¡± Hou Xiaochen coughed a few more times. A handkerchief appeared in his hand and he wiped the corners of his mouth with it. A smear of red vanished as soon as it was seen, promptly Manager Yu to anxiously rise to her feet.

    ¡°Director...¡±

    ¡°Come, sit.¡± Hou Xiaochen¡¯s smile was as gentle as ever.

    Li Hao surreptitiously looked around the office out of the corner of his eye. Otherwise, he kept his eyes pointed forward. There weren¡¯t that many objects within the office, just two that particrly stood out. One was a massive screen and the other a map so colossal that it took up an entire wall.

    There was another door to the rear of the office¡ªthat was probably where Hou Xiaochen lived.

    The director breathed out softly and leaned against the chair, looking weary. ¡°Well done yesterday!¡± He smiled at Li Hao. ¡°Martial masters should take action when they should. They neither kowtow to the strong nor bully the weak, and they don¡¯t fear anyone!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve created trouble for you, director!¡± Li Hao rose.

    ¡°It¡¯s just a small matter! Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°Attacking you in White Moon City shows tant disrespect for me, so kill them if you¡¯d like! You can kill two Novas if you have the ability to, to say nothing of two Srs. What of it?¡±

    Li Hao was tongue-tied. <i>I er... can¡¯t manage that!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen coughed softly and furrowed his brows when he looked at Hao Lianchuan. ¡°Your reaction speed was astonishingly slow. You had the ming Phoenix Spear with you and knew that you would have to rush to a battlefield a few thousand meters away, but you still took twenty seconds! If I sent you to a battlefield for a war, you¡¯d miss the proper battle timing every single day!¡±

    Resigned, Hao Lianchuan quickly rose to his feet as well. ¡°Director, I...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough!¡± Hou Xiaochen interrupted with a cough. ¡°You¡¯re decent to have made it to mid Sr, but you¡¯re still too slow.¡±

    Slow? Hao Lianchuan rather thought he was fine, he was making fast progress! Granted, it couldn¡¯tpare to the director.

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t seem to care what¡¯d happened yesterday. He looked at the group in front of him and said softly, ¡°What¡¯s past is past. Just pursue Red Moon with more fervor and thoroughness.

    ¡°Ole Hao went to the previous meeting of the four institutions,¡± the director changed the topic. ¡°That didn¡¯t go too well. Since I¡¯m out today, the other three wish to converse again. And so we shall.

    ¡°Li Hao, you wille too.¡±

    "Me?¡± Li Hao blinked. <i>You want me with you in this? </i>Although he was just part of the director¡¯s entourage, shouldn¡¯t it be the deputy directors that went with him? He was just a neer of a few days!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go together!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°You can broaden your horizons, meet more people, and see more powerhouses. Martial masters cannot look up at the sky from the bottom of a well. Silver Moon isn¡¯t a very tall sky, but you have yet to reach its limit in your current state.

    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t need to go if yesterday¡¯s battle hadn¡¯t happened. Since it has... Come along!¡±

    Despite his surprise, Li Hao didn¡¯t refuse. ¡°Thank you for cing so much importance on me, director!¡±

    ¡°As I should. ording to what you say, I should give you more opportunities after you¡¯ve demonstrated your worth, should I not?¡± joked the director. Li Hao could only grin foolishly in response.<i> Manager Yu really tells this guy everything!</i>

    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Hou Xiaochen joined the group in standing up. ¡°The meeting between the four institutions is today at the provincial government headquarters. They are the main institution of the province, after all. In Silver Moon, the Night Watchers are just a subordinate agency of the Inspectorate. Remember this well, Li Hao. The Night Watchers are not the be all and end all in the province.¡±

    The young man hastily bobbed his head. He didn¡¯t care about this at all. With how strong Hou Xiaochen was, who would keep to that?

    The quartet walked out the front door amid a sea of admiring and worshipful gazes. A ck car waited for them; the driver was quiet and of few words. Li Hao observed him for a while and concluded that the driver might be a martial master. He wasn¡¯t a supernatural as there was no ball of light around him. Since there was no aura to be detected, the driver was likely below half step Dominator. It didn¡¯t matter what cultivation level he was then.

    Fatty Hao Lianchuan darted for the passenger seat as soon as he reached the car, leaving a wry Li Hao in his dust. How was he slower than the fatty?? Since Hao Lianchuan had taken the passenger seat, the young man had to squeeze with Hou Xiaochen and Manager Yu in the back as the car didn¡¯t have two back rows.<i> The damn fatty¡¯s horrible! I want to sit up front too!</i>

    Although he¡¯d been ferocious in killing others yesterday, Li Hao knew just how much he was worth. He was no match for Hou Xiaochen; he¡¯d also die to a single spear jab. It was very stressful to be in close quarters with the man.

    But since the situation had shaken out thus, he had no choice but to sit beside Hou Xiaochen. The director sat in the middle, nked by Li Hao on his left and the secretary on his right. He remained coughing¡ªLi Hao could see things more clearly at this distance. He saw a faint smear of red in a handkerchief. <i>Weird, isn¡¯t that supposed to be an act? There¡¯s no one else here now, so why is he keeping that up?</i>

    But as a subordinate, he needed to express some concern. ¡°Have your wounds still not healed, director?¡± he hastily asked.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, they¡¯re old injuries. I¡¯m unable topletely do away with them.¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°Little Li, how is your understanding of the Skystar Dynasty?¡±

    ¡°There are nine ministries, the royal family, and ny-nine provinces in the dynasty...¡± Li Hao reeled off.

    ¡°Is that it?¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled.

    ¡°Well... I¡¯ve never been out of Silver City and not everything is written in books, so I...¡±

    ¡°Haven¡¯t seen much of the world!¡± A note of criticism and me crept into the director¡¯s voice. ¡°Yuan Shuo only cared about the martial world and digging up graves. He doesn¡¯t pay attention to anything else. Although you¡¯ve spent a few years by his side, you don¡¯t know much about the world.

    ¡°Little Yu, give Li Hao a brief overview of the current situation in the dynasty.¡± With that, Hou Xiaochen closed his eyes and ignored the young man.

    ¡°The Skystar Dynasty was established in 1531,¡± Manager Yu began in a calm voice. ¡°It has been 199 years since then and will be the dynasty¡¯s 200th grand anniversary next year. In the first 120 years, the royal family ruled the world. Eighty years ago in the year 1650, the nine ministries offered up a joint petition for the royal family to abdicate their power. From then on, the nine ministries administered thend together.

    ¡°The nine ministries are divided into the Ministry of Administration, Ministry of Armed Forces, Ministry of the Inspectorate, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of the Judiciary, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Rtions, and the Ministry of Examinations that determines the promotions of officials.¡±

    Li Hao listened silently. He¡¯d heard about the nine ministries before, but hadn¡¯t paid much attention then. Silver Moon didn¡¯t have some of these institutions, or their presence wasn¡¯t very evident if they did exist.

    ¡°The ny-nine provinces are roughly divided into five regions of north, south, east, west, and central. The central region is extensive and highly popted. Business booms, fortunes gather. Typically, twenty-two provinces in the center are demarcated as the central region.

    ¡°Silver Moon is part of the northern region. There are neen provinces in the north.¡±

    Manager Yu brought Li Hao up to speed on basic knowledge as the car drove. Few were those who would know all of this material if asked. The world was too vast! A province was many people¡¯s heaven and earth. Who cared about matters outside their home? But as the secretary spoke on, Li Hao slowly began to grasp the enormity of the dynasty.

    It was incredulously big! The nine ministries, royal family, and provinces...

    Silver Moon was just one of the ny-nine and it fell on the border. Apart from a thriving martial world back in the day, nothing else seemed to set it apart.

    When the car approached the provincial government building, Hou Xiaochen opened his eyes with a cough.

    ¡°The neen provinces of the north operate quite independently, but three of them are a unique case. They¡¯re closer to the central region and have been under military control for many years due to several reasons.

    ¡°The first is the province named Fog as it¡¯s enveloped by fog year round, making it seem like a city in the sky! The second province of River Origin is home to manyrge rivers, piracy, and floods. The third province of North Sea hosts arge sea within its borders. It is also the boundary between the north and central region. Crossing the natural boundary that is the North Sea puts one in the central region.¡±

    Li Hao thought back to the maps of the dynasty that he¡¯d perused before and could roughly pinpoint where these three provinces were. They were distant from Silver Moon. Of course, they didn¡¯t seem that far whenid out on a map. All one needed to do was to cross the neighboring province of Near River to reach River Origin province.

    River Origin, Fog, and North Sea formed a triangle. North Sea was the point of the triangle, whereas River Origin and Fog was a straight line to Silver Moon. If one set out from Silver Moon and traveled through Near River, that would ce them at the intersection of River Origin and Fog. Continuing some more thousands of kilometers forward would put one in North Sea. Crossing that province led one to the central region.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t quite understand why Hou Xiaochen was introducing these three provinces in detail. There were neen total in the northern region, were these three very special? And... military control?

 Chapter 331: Blinded (II)

    <h4>Chapter 331: Blinded (II)</h4>

    ¡°These three provinces form an arrowhead,¡± Hou Xiaochen picked up the conversation. ¡°Proceeding south from them gives one ess to the central region, heading north puts the entire northern region at one¡¯s fingertips. They hold back the north and peer out over the south, which is why they¡¯ve been an area that the dynasty has always paid special attention to.

    ¡°The three provinces are under one person¡¯s control¡ªall nine ministries within those provinces answer to him. He alsomands an elite troop of the best and brightest while wielding incredible battle strength himself. He is the royal family¡¯s appointed General of Northern Pacification. The nine ministries also appointed him the governor general of the three provinces. He is the only general to oversee three provinces.¡±

    Li Hao had a vague recollection of these details, like he¡¯d read about them in a book somewhere.

    ¡°Director, is this general very strong?¡± asked the young man. ¡°He became a supernatural with the rise of the new domain, right?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    <i>Okay. </i>Li Hao still wasn¡¯t very interested. All of this felt very removed from him, like he was reading a history book. Although he knew that these people lived and breathed, what did it have to do with him? Would Hou Xiaochen have to face retaliation from this person first after he rebelled?

    That was possible! So was this a... forewarning for the young man to be careful?

    The car stopped as they conversed. There was someone waiting at the door¡ªa genteel, old man with white hair. He smiled faintly when he saw Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Greetings to Director Hou.¡±

    ¡°You are too polite, Deputy Zhou! To think that you would be standing here in wait, I am ashamed!¡±

    ¡°Zhou Xingdao,¡± Hao Lianchuan introduced through transmission. ¡°Deputy director general at the provincial government and first among the deputies. He¡¯s Director General Zhao¡¯s old partner, they¡¯ve worked together for nearly forty years. They started from the rank and file, making them the dynamic duo of Silver Moon!¡±

    Colleagues for nearly forty years was a very long period of time indeed. And more importantly, they were able to be the province¡¯s most important personages together. Strictly speaking, these two were the true shot callers of Silver Moon. However, the provincial government had declined in importance after the rise of the supernatural. The administrative system had been greatly impacted as a result.

    Li Hao said nothing. He had no right to speak at a ce like this. Deputy Zhou greeted Director Hou, Manager Yu, Hao Lianchuan, then surprisingly turned to the quiet young man.

    ¡°Li Hao, is it?¡± The old man inclined his head with a smile. ¡°What an outstanding young man, as expected of Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple! A stern master produces a fine disciple¡ªYuan Shuo possessed a striking reputation back in his day. It is Silver Moon¡¯s great joy that his disciple hase into his own.¡±

    Li Hao blinked, but quickly responded, ¡°You praise me far too highly, sir!¡±

    ¡°Such a promising child!¡± Deputy Zhou smiled and led the way through the front doors.

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow; it looked like his name was known throughout certain circles now. <i>I wonder if that¡¯s a good or bad thing?</i>

    ¡°That old man has never been so polite to me,¡± Hao Lianchuan transmitted. ¡°But he¡¯s quite nice to you. Did your master beat him up many years ago?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was speechless. <i>My teacher fights only martial masters. This one¡¯s a civilian, the hell is he supposed to fight? But he might be a concealed powerhouse...</i>

    The young man saw ack of light when he looked at the deputy again. Deputy Zhou was not a supernatural and was not hiding his strength. Judging from his sagging skin, he didn¡¯t seem to be a martial master either.

    <i>What would my teacher beat him up for?</i>

    Li Hao ignored Hao Lianchuan and followed the group into the provincial government headquarters proper. It was quite spacious and there weren¡¯t many people in the lobby. Bystanders swiftly cleared out when they saw the group and made way for them to pass through. There were other supernaturals among them.

    The young man looked around curiously and saw a few balls of light¡ªnone of them were that strong. There seemed to be three Sunres on the second floor. <i>That¡¯s decent enough.</i> But since Li Hao had killed even Srs now, he didn¡¯t think much of Sunres. If the vast provincial government only had a few Sunres holding down the fort, then they would indeed lose their ce at the table.

    There were bigger balls of light on the third floor, some even seemed to be Novas!

    However, the young man didn¡¯t think they belonged to the provincial government. Those mighte from other institutions or even the Hu Qingfeng who he¡¯d yet to meet. It was a convening between the four major institutions, after all. The special agent from the central region was bound toe.

    These people would not escape his notice given the special attributes of his eyes. Unbidden, Li Hao thought of something else at this time. He¡¯d read some files during his tenure in ssified Affairs that spoke of others being able to see the scarlet shadows. They were either quickly taken away or died in idents. He¡¯d thought that he¡¯d meet them after joining the Night Watchers, but was yet to see a single one of them so far.

    Were they the same as him and able to see the balls of light? If they could, then these powerhouses hiding their strength was an absolute joke! All that was needed was for these people to take one nce to know who was hiding what level of expertise.

    <i>Where did all those people go?</i> A curious Li Hao had always wanted to ask, but hadn¡¯t had the chance or a good excuse to. Wang Ming was inly unaware. Li Hao flicked a nce at Hao Lianchuan¡ªperhaps he would know a little.

    ......

    The group eschewed the elevator and climbed the stairs to the third floor. Li Hao had discovered that these powerhouses didn¡¯t like to take the elevator. Perhaps they were worried about being ambushed in small spaces.

    <i>The third floor.</i>

    A door at the head of the stairwell led to a small receiving room. Some employees were already waiting within. Arge door stood at the other end of the room. That was where the conference room for this meeting was located.

    Li Hao scanned the employees at the door¡ªthey were all supernaturals. One Sunre and five Darkmoons. The provincial government was highly prioritizing this meeting.

    ¡°Director Hou is here!¡± Deputy Zhou¡¯s announcement opened the door. The moment it swung open...

    Li Hao thought he was going blind! He was very curious and peeked inside the moment the door opened. He thought he¡¯d blinded himself!

    Tears slowly trailed down his cheeks and he immediately ducked his head to wipe them away. He wanted to cry! He really wanted to cry! <i>Hot damn! </i>He was shocked beyond belief, stunned, and dazed. It was like when he¡¯d seen Qiao Feilong when he looked behind the door...

    One, two, three...

    The light bulbs that he didn¡¯t see before were all here and searing his eyes. The Nova ball of light that he¡¯d seen before was actually insignificant in this crowd. Li Hao thought he was dreaming!

    <i>Where am I? Who am I? Am I somewhere I shouldn¡¯t be?</i>

    ......

    There were four groups in the conference room. Other than the other three institutions apart from the Night Watcher, the fourth party was Hu Qingfeng and two of his men. An old man sat at the head of the room¡ªDirector General Zhao.

    Another old man dressed in a special military uniform sat on the left. This was the military powerhouse that many spoke of¡ªCommander Yu. Hu Dingfang and yet another old man could only sit beside him. inly, themander ranked more highly than them.

    The tall and muscr inspector general of the Inspectorate sat on the right. Several more people sat next to him. This was where Hu Qingfeng¡¯s group was located as the Night Watchers were technically under Inspectorate jurisdiction.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao almost went blind when he swept his gaze over these people. He didn¡¯t know whose light was stabbing into his eyes, but he did know that this wasn¡¯t a ce fit for anyone!

    <i>The hell??</i>

    He was so shocked that his knees threatened to knock together. <i>This is fucking crazy!</i> It was like when he saw Hou Xiaochen, but there was more than one here!

    ¡°Li Hao?¡± Hao Lianchuan gave the young man a slight push. What was he doing? Go in! Was he trying to raise attention by freezing at the door?

    Li Hao lowered his head and moved cautiously, like he was a rookie on his first day of work. ¡°I¡¯m nervous, Deputy Director Hao. I... I haven¡¯t seen big asions like this before. Can you walk in front of me? I¡¯m scared!¡±

    <i>Oh for fuck¡¯s sake... </i>Hao Lianchuan cursed inwardly. Why was the kid pulling out this act at this time? It was ludicrous! <i>You weren¡¯t scaredst night when you killed Srs!</i>

    While wordless, there was nothing else he could do. He walked in front of Li Hao, the young man carefully following him like he was a child. Too overwhelmed to put one toe out of ce, he shuffled mutely behind Hao Lianchuan.

    The door was closed behind them. Deputy Zhou headed for the chairs across from them, Hou Xiaochen sat down directly across from the director general. There were enough seats since the neers numbered only four people. No one had to stand.

    Li Hao and the others sat behind Hou Xiaochen. The young man gingerly shifted his chair so he could avoid everyone¡¯s gaze and hid behind Hou Xiaochen, squeezing Hao Lianchuan out from his ce.

    The deputy director suppressed an eye roll. <i>What are you doing?? He¡¯s being so strange today. Is he afraid that Hu Qingfeng will get to the bottom of what happened yesterday? Director Hou¡¯s here, what¡¯s he afraid of?</i>

    Hao Lianchuan kicked Li Hao¡¯s feet. The major figures were greeting each other at the moment, but the young man was in no mood to eavesdrop.

    ¡°The one across from us and sitting in front of Deputy Zhou is Director General Zhao.¡± Hao Lianchuan¡¯s transmission sounded in Li Hao¡¯s ear. ¡°He¡¯s number one in the province, but that old devil is nothing good. He¡¯s pigheaded beyond redemption and specializes in making trouble for the Night Watchers. If you get a chance when no one else is around, you can beat him up!¡±

    Li Hao kept his head lowered and didn¡¯t respond. He was wondering if someone stronger than Hao Lianchuan could hear his transmissions. Transmitting words was just the usage of a type of energy, a unique fluctuation and vibration. Weaklings were not capable of identifying, analyzing, and listening in on them. But powerhouses?

    The young man didn¡¯t know. He was very curious, so he raised his head and looked at the old man across the way. The old man was smiling while looking at Hou Xiaochen, but also seeming to look at Li Hao. There wasn¡¯t truly a light in his eyes and he looked fatigued. The old man nodded imperceptibly when the young man looked at him.

    Li Hao blinked, then looked at Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be fooled by the old guy¡¯s kind appearance,¡± the deputy director was still transmitting. ¡°He¡¯s really not a good guy and often reduces our budget and resources...¡± He raised his head upon feeling that someone was looking at him. Was it Director General Zhao? Hao Lianchuan beamed radiantly at the man but continued, ¡°Do you see that? The old devil is polite to everyone, but he¡¯s actually rotten to the core!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t make a peep.<i> I understand, and this director general can probably hear everything you¡¯re saying... You¡¯re... you¡¯re something, alright, Hao Lianchuan! And I bet more than the director general can hear you here!</i>

 Chapter 332: Blinded (III)

    <h4>Chapter 332: Blinded (III)</h4>

    ¡°Look to the left.¡± Hao Lianchuan kicked Li Hao again. ¡°The three on the left are themanders of the Silver Moon army! The one in the middle with the white hair is Commander Yu of the Silver Moon Division. That old man¡¯s really something! He¡¯s fought in wars before and personally pacified a rebellion, but he¡¯s also cocky as hell. I¡¯ve met him twice, but he¡¯s always super frigid. I don¡¯t like having to interact with that old guy!¡±

    Li Hao looked to the left and saw the three people. He also saw Hu Dingfang looking at him; the man nodded at his wife¡¯s junior brother. Next to him was a blinding existence. The old man happened to be looking their way, seeming to look at both Li Hao and Hao Lianchuan. He was expressionless and very stern.

    ¡°Now look to the right, see that big hulk on the right?¡± Hao Lianchuan continued transmitting. ¡°That massive beefy guy is the inspector general, our superior in the hierarchy of power. His name¡¯s Kong Jie¡ªlike a woman¡¯s, isn¡¯t that funny? Don¡¯t look down on Mr. Hulk, he¡¯s pretty strong as a peak Sunre. They say he¡¯s almost a Sr, which makes him just a little less than me. That¡¯s not bad!¡±

    The towering inspector general on the right also looked over at them. He seemed to speak to Hou Xiaochen in an even tone. ¡°Xiaochen, leave the riff raff behind next time we have a meeting. This just creates a mess!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan continued after a beat. ¡°He¡¯s talking about you! This guy doesn¡¯t know how strong you are, otherwise...¡±

    It was Li Hao¡¯s turn to kick the deputy director, horrified ruefulness welling up in his heart.<i> My dear Lord Hao, will you stop talking?! Shut up! I¡¯m not strong, I¡¯m not strong at all. What am I worth? I¡¯m shit!! And they¡¯re not talking about me, they¡¯re talking about you! You¡¯re donezo!</i>

    What an incredible feat it was for Hao Lianchuan to survive to present day! The ones he¡¯d talked about were all people who blinded Li Hao when the young man looked at them. <i>This is nuts! What¡¯s with Silver Moon? All of them are making me go blind, I can¡¯t look at them! It doesn¡¯t look like balls of light or auras...</i>

    They exuded a terrifying feeling to the young man, but it didn¡¯t seem like they were simple martial masters or supernaturals. He just felt that he was going blind and losing his mental facilities.

    Hao Lianchuan thought that transmission was foolproof¡ªand indeed it was. Regr Novas wouldn¡¯t be able to eavesdrop. He added another word, ¡°Blondie over there is Hu Qingfeng. He¡¯s a Nova from central headquarters. He¡¯s the second strongest here after Director Hou, so be careful of him!¡±

    Li Hao looked at Hu Qingfeng¡ªblindness didn¡¯t threaten him this time! The man¡¯s ball of light was enormous. Mmhmm, he was indeed very strong. And that was all there was to him!

    Hu Qingfeng¡¯s expression was so frosty that it was like everyone owed him money. Li Hao didn¡¯t care. He looked at Hu Qingfeng, then at the others before sighing inwardly. So someone like this hade to Silver Moon. It was only today that the young man understood a little more about the particrs of the province.

    Silver Moon was hell!

    Srs were insignificant fireflies! Not even thete Sr Hu Dingfang stood out. Li Hao began doubting his eyesight when he looked at the Deputy Zhou again.<i> Are my eyes going bad and I¡¯m just not seeing what makes the deputy director general special?</i>

    Every minute in this conference room was thought!

    There were four people on his side. Li Hao was thinking that if the newly ascended mid Sr Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t carry the ming Phoenix Spear, he wouldn¡¯t have the right to sit here at all! At least the young man found his own presence slightly more worthy! <i>Mmhmm, I¡¯m young!</i>

    ¡°We¡¯re all here,¡± announced Director General Zhao. His voice was resonant, if a bit sleepy like he was running short on sleep. ¡°We must decide on the directives today!¡± The old man nced at Hu Qingfeng. ¡°Special Agent Hu, we can discuss Director Hou¡¯s matterter. I¡¯d like to bring up the three provinces in the north first. I trust you have no other opinion?¡±

    ¡°No other opinion!¡± Hu Qingfeng affirmed.

    ¡°We received newsst night that the governor general of the three provinces in the north, General of Northern Pacification Kou Shiming, was murdered in his residence!¡± The director general coughed and continued in pained tones, ¡°General Kou quelled the uprising of the three provinces and was instrumental in maintaining the continued peace and stability of the neen northern provinces. He put an end to turmoil, but fell to foul cretinsst night! Cough cough cough... It¡¯s hard to fathom and unbelievable. Thend will reel from this event!

    ¡°We hold this meeting today also to mourn and cherish his memory. Unrest will re anew in the three provinces without General Kou at the helm. They might even spread to other provinces. Thus, our meeting is also to discuss countermeasures against this potential disorder. Silver Moon does not border them, but we are not too far from River Origin. Once Near River is under threat, it will soon spread to our doorstep!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. Director Hou had just mentioned this person! The first thing he learned in this meeting was that this legendary figure was dead¡ªmurdered! And the director had just returned to the city...

    Waves of shock assailed the young man¡¯s heart. <i>Oh. my. fuck. What kind of twisted ce am I in?</i>

    Hao Lianchuan seemed to realize something as well, judging from the sudden pallor of his face. He¡¯d also listened to the conversation in the car. Did... the death of this general have something to do with Director Hou?

    ¡°There is no need for further words,¡± Commander Yu proimed solemnly. ¡°The three great organizations must be held responsible for this. We should petition the nine ministries to grant us permission to march on the evil organizations and crush the upheaval of the north!¡±

    ¡°There is no need for the director general to be concerned,¡± the inspector general of the Inspectorate added calmly. ¡°The Inspectorate will fully mobilize starting from this day and eliminate the remnants of the organizations in our borders! We will ensure Silver Moon¡¯s security. On the Night Watcher side, Xiaochen¡¯s presence will be a certain deterrence. We must capture all of the evil supernaturals during this operation. It is just as well that Special Agent Hu is here. With a Nova in residence, we are certain to eliminate the enemy in one fell stroke and clear out the bandits guing our home!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hu Qingfeng opened and closed his mouth, unable to say a word. Two great personages had spoken and settled the matter! It started off as the death of a great general, but turned to hunting down the three great organizations and obliterating evil supernaturals in the blink of an eye.

    Director General Zhao furrowed his brows and nodded after a moment. ¡°We can do that, but we must also keep ourselves in check. Be careful not to disturb Silver Moon¡¯s peace or disrupt order. Keep in mind that only a branch of each organization is in the province! Eliminating them all is a temporary solution and does not get at the root of the problem.

    ¡°Thankfully, Special Agent Hu and the others are here. It remains to be seen just how much Director Hou can bring to bear despite his extraordinary strength. He is heavily injured, so it is fortunate that we have Novas in residence.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s mouth opened wide; he didn¡¯t make a peep. He just thought that all of these people were devious, wily old foxes! Every single one of them with no exceptions!

    When he looked at Hu Qingfeng again, he suddenly pitied the mighty Nova. Condolences should be tendered to this important figure as the other three parties¡ªno, all of Silver Moon¡ªwished for him to stay. They hoped for him to remain and exert himself on the province¡¯s behalf.

    Li Hao swallowed hard and lowered his head again.<i> I didn¡¯t hear anything, I didn¡¯t see anything. I¡¯m blind and deaf. </i>Director Hou had brought him to broaden his horizons today; the young man considered his horizons broadened. This was Silver Moon? A barrennd for supernaturals? A weak province that Srs could rampage through?

    It was said that Novas were powerful figures in the central region. A Nova like Hu Qingfeng would be able to issue orders there, despite it teeming with powerhouses. But... why did he appear so... lonesome in Silver Moon?

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± A fit of coughing started around the conference room. Led by Hou Xiaochen, the others all coughed as well. Other than Kong Jie¡¯s highly fortified physique, everyone was coughing, even Commander Yu.

    ¡°The Night Watchers,¡± Hou Xiaochen rposed himself. ¡°Will absolutely coordinate with Special Agent Hu and surround the three great organizations... But I am injured,¡± he said apologetically. ¡°Long trips are not for me. If they are in order, we¡¯ll have to ask the special agent to carry more of the load. Deputy Director Hao Lianchuan will be tasked to coborate with you!¡±

    ¡°Cough cough cough!¡± Another coughing fit circted as the conference room seemed to turn into a sick ward. An itch started in the back of Li Hao¡¯s throat, he wanted to cough too.

    Meanwhile, an aggrieved Hao Lianchuan looked on. <i>Why am I involved in this?</i>

    The others looked so approving of the decision that Li Hao strongly suspected this was their revenge! It was their punishment for someone¡¯s wild transmissions and offensive words! <i>That¡¯s right, it¡¯s you!</i>

    Coughing abounded within therge room. The meeting¡¯s participants coughed one after another, immensely irritating Hu Qingfeng¡¯s group. <i>The executives of Silver Moon are all sick cats! One of them is always sick!</i>

    Deputy Zhou suddenly interjected a statement to interrupt the group coughing session.

    ¡°Everyone,¡± he said softly. ¡°Permit me to interrupt. We need to add another line to today¡¯s agenda, and that is the topic of reinforcements!

    ¡°The three provinces are beset by problems and will surely erupt in an uproar now that General Kou has fallen. There is no other possible oue. The three great organizations are highly active in them, as well as many other ambitious factions. The inexhaustible North Sea pirates continue to operate in the waters and frequently attack the North Sea province...

    ¡°We are far away from the central region, its troops are slower to reach us. With the rise of the supernatural, many experts andrge amounts of wandering supernaturals have joined the agitators. Commander Yu led the Silver Moon Division in eliminating bandits back in the day¡ªthey hate us for it. We were unable to fully eradicate them, so they will want revenge sooner orter!

    ¡°Therefore, we need to be ready to reinforce the provinces even without an order from the central region. Both the military and supernaturals need to be ready!¡±

    The group nodded at his words. Commander Yu remained as stern as before.

    ¡°I cannot mobilize without an order from Skystar City. But Dingfang can lead the fifty thousand of the Tiger Wings to reinforce the three provinces. The Tiger Wings are a mobile unit, after all. There shouldn¡¯t be a problem so long as they do not cross the North Sea.¡±

    ¡°I will carry out Commander Yu¡¯smands to the utmost!¡± Hu Dingfang swiftly concurred.

    The old man of the provincial government didn¡¯t say anything.

 Chapter 333: Setting Strategy (I)

    <h4>Chapter 333: Setting Strategy (I)</h4>

    The three provinces of the north would be the center of trouble in times toe. That meant marching in their direction was a good decision, a very good decision. It would be chaotic there, which meant opportunity.

    The disorder would be centralized in three provinces¡ªthey would be the main battlefield of the northern region. Large numbers of powerhouses would rise from them. There were numerous reasons for powerhouses abounding in the central region, one of which was the war. Times of trouble swiftly produced mighty experts.

    Unrest in the three northern provinces would also attract powerhouses from all sides. Those from other regions woulde, not just ones from the neen provinces of the north. People who could not make it in the central region and those of the other three regions who didn¡¯t dare join the central war would congregate in the north!

    ¡°I will have Hao Lianchuan lead our people to reinforce the three provinces once the three great organizations are eliminated.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s expression contorted with more suffering. <i>Why me again?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen remained calm. <i>Of course it¡¯s you. You had your opportunity, but you didn¡¯t treasure it. </i>¡°If possible, the Silver Moon Guards will also join the northern battlefield.¡±

    ¡°The Silver Moon Guards?¡± Hu Qingfeng jerked to attention like a hunter glimpsing prey. ¡°Director Hou, what unit is this? Why isn¡¯t it registered?¡±

    Excitement blossomed. Finally some evidence after days spent searching, and it came from Hou Xiaochen himself! Of course, he didn¡¯t intend to immediately take Hou Xiaochen to task for it, neither would the man fire back with hostility either. What Hu Qingfeng needed to do was to go along with Hou Xiaochen¡¯s words for the moment and keep digging. He needed to dig for more!

    The northern provinces were in disarray; he wanted to immediately rush back to the central region. But if he did so in this state, he would be walking into trouble. Yu Xiao and Huang Jie were dead, he could only return if he had some aplishments to his name.

    ¡°Who says it¡¯s not registered?¡± Hou Xiaochen coughed calmly. ¡°The Silver Moon Guards are reformed of the few remaining after the Skystar Guards were disbanded. The unit does not fall under the Inspectorate system, so the Night Watchers naturally do not have it on our rolls. It¡¯s registered under the royal family and always has been! You¡¯ll find it if you go back and look it up. Although the royal family no longer allocates resources to it, the designation still exists.¡±

    Hu Qingfeng blinked. Under the royal family? The royal family rarely showed itself these days. He looked skeptically at Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°This is true,¡± Commander Yu said faintly. ¡°It is registered under the royal family and its military designation still exists. There aren¡¯t many of the Guards. I know that there¡¯s only around a thousand of them.¡±

    Hu Qingfeng sagged with disappointment. Was that it? While it would cause a bit of trouble for Hou Xiaochen as the royal family did not see eye to eye with the nine ministries, some potential dissatisfaction from the nine ministries wasn¡¯t worth speaking of! Raising the Silver Moon Guards on behalf of the royal family? A minor detail!

    It would be ludicrous to pin his hopes on using this to topple Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± The director¡¯s renewed coughing broke Hu Qingfeng¡¯s line of thought. ¡°In addition, Special Agent Hu should be prepared to travel to the three northern provinces when business isplete here. The central Night Watchers have only just received word and may not have time to send reinforcements.¡±

    Hu Qingfeng frowned wordlessly. He didn¡¯t want to go! What if the powerhouse that killed General Kou was still there? It was too dangerous!

    ¡°There¡¯s no rush in this, Director Hou.¡± He changed the topic without responding. ¡°My concerns are if Silver Moon will have the strength to support the three provinces once it deres war on the three great organizations. Not to mention, there is great danger to be found in the ruins of Battle Heaven. Is it a good idea to be openly hostile with the three great organizations right now? We said we would explore and bear the risks together, but once there is war between us, it will be Silver Moon shouldering all of the danger...¡±

    Did he make sense?

    A little.

    If it wasn¡¯t for the three great organizations coordinating with the Night Watchers in the previous expedition, the Night Watchers would¡¯ve suffered heavy losses and failed to make it into the inner city. Therefore, even if they were enemies, it was still a better idea to jointly assume the risks together for the excavations.

    ¡°Is there no way for us to explore without the three great organizations?¡±ughed Hou Xiaochen. ¡°That matter is hardly urgent. The ruins are there and won¡¯t run off. My thoughts are to rough them up first. We need to smack them around to the point where they know whose territory it is and how wrong they are. Negotiations can be conducted at a leisurely pace then. We¡¯ll have more of an advantage at that point.¡±

    ¡°But ording to what I know,¡± Hu Qingfeng protested. "Blue Moon, Half Mountain, and the Parity King are all Novas. There are three Novas from the three great organizations present in Silver Moon! Director Hao says you are injured and unable to take the field... Although I am also a Nova, I¡¯m afraid the heart is willing but my strength is limited...¡±

    He could sense that these guys wanted to use him as a borrowed de¡ªthis was absolutely not what he wanted. Danger would close in around him if he proceeded down this path. There were multiple Novas and peak Srs like Violet Moon and Revolution King on the other side. They also carried origin weapons, so how would Hu Qingfeng dare officially set himself against them?

    ¡°Cough cough... It''s fine!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°Director Hao will have my ming Phoenix Spear. Although he will not be able to defeat Novas, he will be able to reinforce you to a certain degree. Not to mention, Silver Moon is not without experts. There are a few Dominators among the Guards. Although they aren¡¯t too strong, they have room to maneuver when they form a battle formation...¡±

    <i>You¡¯re going to fight, no matter what.</i>

    Hu Qingfeng didn¡¯t respond. <i>I¡¯m not doing whatever you guys are thinking of! I don¡¯t care if you¡¯ve agreed to a n among yourselves, I¡¯m not doing it! Worstes to worst, I¡¯ll wash my hands of the matter and go back to the central region! I¡¯ll be censured at most if I go back.</i>

    The atmosphere in Silver Moon was strange and difficult to get a handle on. He¡¯d painted too rosy a picture for himself before he came. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s single spear jab had ruined many ns. The situation wouldn¡¯t be what it was now otherwise.

    ......

    As the group argued, Li Hao gradually came back to his senses. He ignored the discussion and carefully looked around the conference room. Of the military¡¯s representatives and the threemanders, he knew that Hu Dingfang was ate Sr. The othermander of the White Dragons looked to be in his fifties. He was a bit younger than Commander Yu and a bit older than Hu Dingfang. He was another supernatural¡ªthe young man judged him to be peak Sr from his ball of light. That made Hu Dingfang the weakest. It was to be expected since he was the youngest.

    Not many hade from the Inspectorate. Li Hao shied away from the piercing light exuding from the towering Kong Jie. The young man focused on the others; Hao Lianchuan hadn¡¯t introduced them because they weren¡¯t well known.

    There were three others apart from Kong Jie¡ªtwo men, one woman. One of the men was deeply tanned and shed a friendly smile at the young man when he sensed the gaze. Li Hao found it strange¡ª<i>who¡¯s that? I don¡¯t know him.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan took a break from cursing the room¡¯s inhabitants when he saw the exchange. ¡°You don¡¯t know that piece of charcoal, do you?¡± he transmitted.

    Li Hao suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, but also felt that it didn¡¯t matter since that one likely couldn¡¯t hear the transmission.

    ¡°You should know him!¡± Hao Lianchuan continued. ¡°He was thest inspectorate general of your Silver City Inspectorate. He was transferred to White Moon City to be the inspectorate general of the capital¡¯s Inspectorate. But his position doesn¡¯t mean much as provincial headquarters call the shots here. White Moon is the capital, but he¡¯s useless as the capital city¡¯s inspector general. He would¡¯ve been better off enjoying life in Silver City.¡±

    The misfortunes of three lifetimes culminated in being the magistrate of a provincial capital city. Conducting evil for three lifetimesnded one in the local capital.

    Being an official in the provincial capital¡ªsuch as inspector general of White Moon City¡ªwas a tragedy. Hence, the Night Watchers eschewed a branch in White Moon City and maintained only their provincial headquarters. It had to do with few numbers of supernaturals, but also forestalled a lot of trouble.

    Li Hao immediately knew who the man was after Hao Lianchuan¡¯s introduction. Thest inspector general had been well known, Liu Long had introduced him to Li Hao. He¡¯d been a martial master and trained in the Iron Shirt method. de and spear could not touch him.

    There¡¯d been an exceedingly famous Iron Shirt cultivator among Silver Moon¡¯s martial world back in the day. He stood with the Qimei Staff and others, but died when Yuan Shuo broke through his Iron Shirt and body.

    This wasn¡¯t an exclusive art, however. Many people knew it. It was a secret method that was passed on to many in the martial world.

    <i>Wang Henggang! </i>Li Hao recalled. His portrait hung in the Silver City Inspectorate, but he wasn¡¯t this tanned in the portrait. Did he spend his days in the sun aftering to White Moon City? Li Hao thought he¡¯d joined the Night Watchers as some said that he¡¯d crossed over. So he¡¯d stayed with the Inspectorate instead!

    This was not a weak individual! <i>Late Sr?</i> Li Hao judged after momentary assessment. He really was ate Sr, when had he ascended?

    The young man rummaged through his memories¡ªMu Sen hadn¡¯t joined the Inspectorate for too long. The current inspector general had been installed in his post roughly... three years ago?

    More or less!

    That meant the former inspector general became a supernatural three years ago. If he¡¯d ascended as a Sunderer, that made him a Sunre. Jumping tote Sr after three years was an astonishing cultivation speed, and he didn¡¯t stand out at all.

    Few in White Moon City knew of him, whereas Silver City still remembered their old inspector general. Mu Sen, for example, mentioned him every now and then. There was another man and woman of the Sr level from the White Moon Inspectorate. They both looked to be betweente and peak Sr.

    <i>Hot damn, this Inspectorate has multiple Srs. They have more than the Night Watchers!</i> Li Hao realized wordlessly. But when he thought of their boss, Kong Jie, he found the situation alright. It was still the Night Watchers that were stronger as Manager Yu was a Nova, at the very least. She was worth three Srs. Hao Lianchuan was the more embarrassing of the lot. As the first deputy director, only Deputy Zhou was weaker than him in the conference room. But Deputy Zhou barely had a ball of light around him!

    How pitiful!

    Commander Yu, Director General Zhao, Kong Jie, and Hou Xiaochen were eye piercing. Manager Yu and Hu Qingfeng were of the Nova level. There was another peak Sr andte Sr behind Hu Qingfeng. Apart from Deputy Zhou, that made Hao Lianchuan and Li Hao the weakest among the group.

 Chapter 334: Setting Strategy (II)

    <h4>Chapter 334: Setting Strategy (II)</h4>

    Li Hao felt that he could handle the mid Sr Hao Lianchuan, therefore...

    <i>Mmhmm.</i> After taking another look, the young man decided that this Lord Hao of his was the weakest out of everyone in the conference room. Thank goodness Hao Lianchuan had ascended to mid Sr. If he was still an initial Sr, he wouldn¡¯t be able to show his face in this meeting!

    The sound of his name traveled into his ear as the young man processed these thoughts. Li Hao blinked. <i>How am I being mentioned by name at such a gathering?</i> He immediately snapped to attention and disyed an attentive expression. It was Kong Jie who¡¯d mentioned him, not Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo has shown himself in Near River recently,¡± boomed the inspector general in a resonant voice. ¡°He should be operating within the three northern provinces now. With his personality, he¡¯ll probably stay there for a while.

    ¡°His method of Summoner of Spirit is different from the procedures to strengthen martial masters in the central region. It feels more like the next level in martial dao cultivation. There are immensely powerful martial masters in the central region, such as He Yong. He changed his blood three times and rivals a Sr! Butpared to Yuan Shuo¡¯s method, I feel that he is still slightlycking...

    ¡°There are many with their eyes on Yuan Shuo now. Since Li Hao is his final disciple, I¡¯ve been wondering if we should send him to the three northern provinces for a bit. He might be able to meet up with Yuan Shuo and talk to him, learn a few details about the Summoner method. Silver Moon¡¯s martial world dominated the world back in the day and some of the old guard is still around. Not only that, but I¡¯ve heard that there are Dominators in the Silver Moon Guards. Can we publicly announce the Summoner method, discuss some details, enhance martial master battle strength...¡±

    Li Hao was immediately the focus of attention. Nervousness appeared on his face, but he was inwardly resigned. <i>Is there a need for this? My teacher wouldn¡¯t be able to fight you guys even if he was here! These old guys are seriously conniving.</i>

    ¡°Is teacher in the three northern provinces?¡± he said quickly instead. ¡°I stand ready for my orders at any time! I¡¯m sure that teacher won¡¯t keep the method to himself!¡±

    It might be nice to visit the three northern provinces. Should they run away together if he ran into his teacher? The world was vast, there would be a ce for them somewhere. Li Hao had thought that ce was Silver Moon before, but now he realized that wasn¡¯t likely. These fellows hid themselves one deeper than the other. Given the circumstances, the young man would never believe that they didn¡¯t intend to rebel!

    Therefore, it might be a good thing to get out while the getting was good.

    ¡°There¡¯s no rush,¡± Hou Xiaochen replied with a chuckle. ¡°Yuan Shuo hasn¡¯t walked this path to its end yet, he¡¯s just started. We should wait a little longer and see! Not to mention, someone like Yuan Shuo walks far only when you let him off the leash and he¡¯s able to do whatever he wishes. He¡¯ll be restricted at every turn if kept under lock and key.¡±

    Kong Jie thought for a moment and nodded without further word.

    ¡°There¡¯s also no hurry when ites to Yuan Shuo¡¯s matter,¡± said Director General Zhao. ¡°We should talk about you, Director Hou. Director Hao couldn¡¯t say anything of value when you weren¡¯t present at ourst meeting.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan was even more dejected by these words. That old fart was so annoying!

    ¡°Please go ahead, director general,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled.

    ¡°The central region has ordered you to their posts several times,¡± the director general began solemnly. ¡°But you refuse again and again with the excuse that you are injured and unfit for their appointments. You have now killed Red Hair with one move¡ªhe was a Nova. Director Hou, you should give us some exnations and answers today as to what your goals are.¡±

    Tension built in the conference room; Hu Qingfeng was nervous. Why was the old geezer being so straightforward? <i>Yes, that¡¯s what this meeting is about, but there¡¯s no need to be so direct!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen sighed with resignation. ¡°I am indeed injured, that is not a sham. The three great organizations were powerful in the past and the cause of much unease and trouble. Apart from me, the Night Watchers were unable to suppress them. Although the central region might have sent powerful reinforcements, I was worried that they wouldn¡¯t understand the situation in Silver Moon...¡±

    ¡°So you saw fit to refuse your orders?¡± Director General Zhao asked calmly.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dare!¡± Hou Xiaochen said softly. ¡°I am simply speaking of my difficulties. At the very least, the Night Watchers would agree with me. Of course, if I am pivotal to Skystar City¡¯s survival, then send me another order and I will head to the central region!¡±

    Hu Qingfeng¡¯s jaw nearly dropped. <i>You¡¯re... willing to go?</i>

    ¡°But I need to do something before that,¡± Hou Xiaochen continued.

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°I need to obtain the origin weapon from the ancient city of Battle Heaven and provide White Moon City with anotheryer of protection,¡± Hou Xiaochen dered solemnly. ¡°I will join the next expedition and personally enter the ruins! If we seed, I will head to the central region after I emerge. But if I fail and die in Battle Heaven... then nothing else needs to be said.¡±

    ¡°Director Hou, you¡¯re going to enter the ruins?¡± Hu Qingfeng couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°Can I not?¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at him without a flicker of change in his expression. ¡°White Moon City is the core of Silver Moon. Once I leave, certain rascals might stir with other ideas in mind. I¡¯ve been worried about this over the years. If I can obtain the origin weapon that will protect the entire city, then I will have noints about wherever I¡¯m sent.¡±

    Hu Qingfeng was speechless, but decided to press his point since everything was out in the open. ¡°If I may be so blunt, what is your cultivation level, Director Hou? Please don¡¯t misunderstand, I¡¯m just curious...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve barely made it to Nova. Killing Red Hair happened only because I caught him off guard and was wielding the mighty ming Phoenix Spear. I¡¯m not as extraordinary as everyone thinks I am!¡±

    Director General Zhao gently rapped the table and stopped Hu Qingfeng from asking further. ¡°This means to say that you will follow orders after obtaining that origin weapon?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°And how long will it take?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s see how next month goes. If the three great organizations are eliminated next month, making it possible for me to enter the ruins, then I will. It will take only three days after that.¡±

    In other words, Hou Xiaochen was willing to leave in a month at most if everything went smoothly.

    Director General Zhao nodded and looked at Hu Qingfeng. ¡°What do you think, Special Agent Hu?¡±

    <i>What are you asking me for?? How would I know??</i>

    Certain things were dicey given Hou Xiaochen¡¯s sudden willingness to follow orders. Since he would do as told and redeploy for the central region, then the central region had no reason to act against him. They did so before only because the man conducted himself as a local despot and refused to leave. Once in the central region, he¡¯d have to lower his head and tuck his tail in even if he was a dragon!

    After thinking it over, Hu Qingfeng felt that this was also a good turn of events. However, it remained to be seen if they were able to obtain the origin weapon from the ruins. And, was he supposed to follow the man in?

    But Zhang Ting had already died inside. What should he do if this guy tried to kill him during the expedition?

    <i>I need to notify upstairs to send more people, or else I¡¯m not going inside! </i>Hu Qingfeng looked at the director general and nodded aftering to his own conclusions. ¡°I have no opinions, it¡¯s all up to Director Hou. He might be my superior if he really transfers to the central region, so congrattions are in order!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen ignored the smile sent his way and fell silent after giving his response.

    ¡°Do the others have any questions?¡± asked the director general as he surveyed the room. No one said anything. Nothing else was an issue if Hou Xiaochen was willing to follow orders.

    ¡°Then let us adjourn!¡± Director General Zhao announced wearily. ¡°We should resolve the three great evil organizations as soon as possible. If that cannot be done, then we should wait. If need be, we can request reinforcements from upstairs.¡±

    The old man then looked at Li Hao. ¡°Li Hao, you are of the eight families of Silver City. We don¡¯t know much about them, but Red Moon is very focused on you. We will continue to investigate the matter! Flipping through some ancient Silver City records, however, should result in certain information.¡±

    The young man snapped to attention. He didn¡¯t think that the director general would mention him for no reason at all at this precise moment. There must be a very important reason! Granted, he didn¡¯t know why this topic was being brought up in front of so many.

    Director General Zhao smiled to see the young man look expectantly at him. ¡°I don¡¯t know too much, but I had Ole Zhou page through many old books and found a passage that said ¡®when the eight guardians are gathered together and open the sealed door, that is when we ride in conquest!¡¯

    ¡°This may be relevant to the eight families of Silver City¡ªthey might have been protecting something or safeguarding a door that had been sealed for many years. It leads to an unknown location with no mention of who the conquest target is. There are no further records that give more details of thest detail.

    ¡°It¡¯s been so long that you can just treat it as a legend.¡± The old man sighed softly. ¡°Ying Hongyue might know a thing or two. Red Moon rose the fastest out of the three great organizations. If there¡¯s a chance to, you should speak to Ying Hongyue...¡±

    <i>What? Talk about what? Aren¡¯t I done for as soon as we meet?</i> Li Hao said nothing andmitted the conversation to memory. <i>Eight guardians? Sealed door? That stone door? Or the eight trigrams?</i>

    The young man sank into deep thought, searching for clues. As for conquest... that was less hazy to him. Humanity seemed to have been led by a Human King during that time. He led numerous powerhouses to fight a war somewhere. The Battle Heaven Army was a troop left behind to safeguard home. However, the conquering army never came back after leaving and even the ancient city was abandoned.

    Where had they gone? The central region? Or the boundless cosmos?

    If before, Li Hao would never consider outer space. But after the supernatural appeared and with the advent of flying powerhouses, the young man began to wonder if there might be other living beings above their world.

    He once saw a powerhouse go on a rampage in space, killing someone named the Heavenly Emperor. Was that the enemy? But he was dead!

    Therefore, the Human King might be marching on an even stronger foe. Were they all dead now?

    Who knew.

    ¡°Thank you for your pointers, director general!¡± Li Hao put it all out of his mind.

    ¡°You are wee. This meeting is adjourned!¡± The old man rose to his feet and tottered to a door behind him. There was a passageway there through which he could exit.

    Hou Xiaochen rose as well, walking outside with a calm expression. Li Hao and the others swiftly caught up to him.

 Chapter 335: Setting Strategy (III)

    <h4>Chapter 335: Setting Strategy (III)</h4>

    ¡°Director!¡± Hao Lianchuan asked nervously as soon as they left the provincial government headquarters. ¡°Are you really going to leave?¡±

    ¡°If I keep staying here, especially after killing a Nova, the central region willbel me a traitor,¡± Hou Xiaochen responded as he walked. ¡°I was ready to leave the moment I made my move.¡±

    ¡°But... what will we do when you¡¯re gone?¡± A headache was brewing at Hao Lianchuan¡¯s temples<i>. Silver Moon will be in trouble once you go! A new director will absolutely start with a purge of personnel.</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s not like I¡¯m leaving right away!¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned and climbed into the car. Li Hao had learned his lesson and shot for the passenger seat.

    Hao Lianchuan rolled his eyes. <i>Little bastard!</i> Granted, he happened to have business to discuss with Hou Xiaochen, so he took a seat in the back next to the director. Frowning, he continued, ¡°Director, why can¡¯t you use your usual excuse of being unable to travel because of old injuries ring up?¡±

    ¡°As opposed to wanting me to stay, you¡¯re better off growing stronger!¡± Hou Xiaochen nced at him. ¡°It¡¯s been a year since you¡¯ve ascended to Sr and you¡¯ve been lucky enough to recently set foot into mid Sr. At your speed, when will you ascend to Nova?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t have enough potential,¡± Hao Lianchuan admitted with resignation. ¡°I¡¯ve only discovered four supernatural locks and have yet to locate my fifth. Even if I set foot into peak Sr, I have no hope of making it to Nova.¡±

    Supernaturals improved quickly, particrly when they were in possession of sufficient mysterious power. The caveat was that one needed to identify their supernatural locks first. Even if one was unable to open all of them in one go, those like Hao Lianchuan could slowly wear away at a lock until it finally opened. Each tiny crack and fissure would grant him vast sums of mysterious power and enhance his body.

    It should be a fast track to peak Sr, but he was not that talented. He¡¯d be a Sr after breaking his fourth lock, but lost his direction after that. He had no choice but to slowly absorb mysterious power and gradually grow stronger.

    That made him the same as the kind of martial masters slowly umting their strength. He was as if a Dominator without sight of the next steps. He had to inch his way forward until the fifth lock appeared.

    ¡°However many supernatural locks you can see isn¡¯t necessarily an indication of potential!¡± Hou Xiaochen frowned slightly. ¡°Whether it¡¯s martial masters or supernaturals, just breaking the locks doesn¡¯t mean a good thing!¡±

    ¡°But ascension is impossible without breaking the lock...¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled wryly. ¡°My bottleneck is that I¡¯m unable to discover the fifth lock. I think I¡¯d be able to be a Nova otherwise. Forget it, let¡¯s think about this once I inch my way to peak Sr.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen frowned and thought for a moment. ¡°It¡¯s not impossible to find a lock that you cannot locate.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan blinked. How?

    ¡°Ask Li Hao!¡± Hou Xiaochen said after more thought.

    ¡°......¡±

    Li Hao went ck-jawed in the front seat. <i>Ask me? How am I supposed to know? Hou Xiaochen is just creating trouble for me, isn¡¯t he?</i>

    ¡°Ask Li Hao?¡± Hao Lianchuan was also surprised. ¡°How would he know? Every person¡¯s supernatural lock is in a different location. Even if they¡¯re in a simr position, I can¡¯t break it if I can¡¯t pinpoint it!¡±

    Everyone knew that there were locks around the four limbs, but so what? Could he see his? He couldn¡¯t, so how could he locate it? How was Hao Lianchuan supposed to shatter it without a clear direction?

    ¡°Li Hao can summon the spirits of the organs,¡± Hou Xiaochen exined with calmposure. ¡°The spirits need to be locked in ce. Since he can do that, he can naturally identify where the supernatural locks are...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart skipped a beast. Locking the spirits! This was a Summoner secret that he hadn¡¯t spoken of, but the director was aware of it!

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t care in the slightest what Li Hao thought. ¡°I don¡¯t know what method he used to swiftly enhance his five visceral organs and manifest his locks. The locks are employed to confine the intangible auras! But since he and his teacher can do so, that means they can swiftly strengthen a person¡¯s locks to the point where they emerge! Your supernatural locks may be so weak that you can¡¯t sense them yourself.

    ¡°An aura is a very intangible thing that cannot be confined to an organ under ordinary circumstances. Li Hao doing so also means that he has discovered a new use for supernatural locks. Ask him. If he has no idea, then I¡¯m out of ideas too.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan looked at the young man with surprise.

    ¡°Well...¡± Li Hao replied without looking at the deputy director. ¡°My teacher and I can indeed aplish that, but it probably has to do with the fact that we¡¯re martial masters. I¡¯m not sure about the others... Director Hao is not a martial master, so if his supernatural locks are weak, then they need to be strengthened first. Perhaps he can take a blood pearl to resolve that issue.¡±

    ¡°A blood pearl?¡± Hao Lianchuan quickly responded. ¡°I have, the effects weren¡¯t great.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s because the blood pearl wasn¡¯t strong enough! Take a Nova level one, that should be useful and manifest the deputy director¡¯s fifth lock.¡±

    It was a good idea! But it had to be tested to see if it worked. Li Hao and Yuan Shuo had swiftly enhanced themselves because thetter was strong to begin with, while the young man utilized sword energy to distill elemental power. None of that needed to be revealed. They could consider other methods if this didn¡¯t work.

    Hao Lianchuan¡¯s eyes glinted with a new purpose. Red Moon! He¡¯d simply wanted to exterminate them on a general principle before. Now? If things were as Li Hao said, then he needed to pay more attention to them.

    ¡°Li Hao, you¡¯re a martial master and won¡¯t see much improvement if you stay with a group of supernaturals.¡± Hou Xiaochen ignored the topic at hand. ¡°Have Little Yu apany you to the Guards tomorrow. It¡¯s time for them to take their ce on stage. Spend a few days growing ustomed to them before leaving the city.

    ¡°Beat the three great organizations either to the point of submission or to the point where theymandeer more powerhouses from the areas. You can discuss exploring the ruins with them after that. We don¡¯t have enough people for the expedition as it stands!¡±

    <i>Why not?</i>

    Li Hao rather understood some of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s concerns. Perhaps the director felt that there weren''t enough people to die in the ruins! Instead of simply killing people to establish his authority, the director seemed more inclined for the organizations to send more powerhouses instead. The neers would explore the ruins for him. <i>How devious!</i>

    The young man wasn¡¯t that interested in the Silver Moon Guards. No matter how strong they were, they couldn¡¯t be that strong. Well, with how his horizons had been broadened today, he couldn¡¯t afford to be careless either.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>Outside White Moon City, in an opulent residence.</i>

    There were numerous residences nearby¡ªa vacation spot for White Moon¡¯s affluent citizens. Several powerhouses were congregated here.

    ¡°Those in the know can tell that this is a frame-up!¡± Blue Moonined. ¡°We wouldn¡¯t choose this timing even if we wanted to take Li Hao, and we definitely wouldn¡¯t send Srs to get him. He was so close to Hou Xiaochen, we don¡¯t have a death wish!

    ¡°This is just their excuse to move against us!¡± the man snorted. ¡°Hou Xiaochen inly wants to exterminate us. Since he¡¯s made the first move, don¡¯t me us for answering in kind! Half Mountain, has Celestial reached a consensus?¡±

    The cloaked man standing across from him answered in a haunting voice, ¡°We will consider it if Red Moon gives us a Nova level blood pearl!¡±

    Blue Moon looked coldly at him; Half Mountain remained unmoved.

    ¡°That¡¯s not impossible,¡± Blue Moon said after a while. ¡°With a prerequisite¡ªwe kill Hou Xiaochen. There is no problem with the blood pearl if that is aplished.¡±

    He was casting the situation with a rosy light as a blood pearl was a nonissue if they killed Hou Xiaochen, but if they failed, there would be no need for payment.

    On the other hand, Half Mountain smiled after some consideration. ¡°Alright!¡±

    Blue Moon was surprised by the agreement¡ªhe¡¯d thought that the other would not be open to the idea. But he was, that was strange!

    ¡°Parity, what are your thoughts?¡± Blue Moon looked at the Parity King standing not too far away.

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait and see,¡± responded the Parity King with a frown. ¡°The governor general of the three provinces has been killed and those provinces are not too far from Silver Moon. Will that affect us?¡±

    The rest of the group frowned as well. Who¡¯d killed that extraordinary figure? Whoever had done so represented supreme strength and was a terrifying existence. Despite being several thousands of kilometers away, the three provinces were still close by. If unrest brewed, it would drag in Silver Moon.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Blue Moon took a deep breath. ¡°Regardless, let¡¯s take care of the troubles in Silver Moon first! The rest can wait.¡±

    The others didn¡¯t protest. There was no room for them in Silver Moon if they didn¡¯t eliminate Hou Xiaochen and the province was not territory they could give up. Otherwise, they would¡¯ve abandoned a ce after the deaths of so many Srs. It was just a border province, who cared about this ce in the span of the vast ny-nine provinces?

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    <i>Li Hao¡¯s office.</i>

    Li Hao leaned against a chair and tilted his head at the sky. He was still thinking when Wang Ming pushed the door open.

    ¡°Congrattions, senior brother!¡± the visitor said merrily. His grin broadened when Li Hao nced at him. ¡°I hear that you went with Director Hou and the others to a meeting this morning. There were only four of you. That¡¯s so impressive. Are you getting a promotion, senior brother?¡±

    Li Hao had been the lowest ranked out of the four that attended, but he wasn¡¯t interested in discussing this. Today had been a big blow to him. However conspicuous he had been yesterday was however depressed he was now. Yesterday, he¡¯d thought that he was solidly top ten in Silver Moon, if not top five. But today?

    Screw that!

    And this is what was out in the open. What about in the shadows that lurked beneath? There was so much more to Silver Moon than met the eye. Li Hao fully recognized now that the province wasn¡¯t run of the mill. A regr province would not have so much hidden strength. Why was there a need to hide so many powerhouses? All of the leaders of the various institutions were hiding their strength.

    He¡¯d been unable to get a read on Hou Xiaochen¡ªbut was the man simply mysterious, or was his cultivation too high for Li Hao to grasp? Was he stronger than Nova? What were they wary of, for all of them to be concealing themselves?

    If Li Hao¡¯sck of being able to identify someone¡¯s cultivation level meant that they were stronger than Nova, then he¡¯d seen four people stronger than Nova today. Did the central region possess any?

    Most likely!

    Were those who imed themselves to be Novas truly Novas? People such as Ying Hongyue?

    It hadn¡¯t been long since the Nova level appeared, but Li Hao had the sudden feeling that these bastards might reveal the previous level only when they entered the next. Hence, the Novas might be a step beyond and announced the cultivation level only when it no longer applied to them. There was absolutely a group of people walking ahead of the rest.

    The supernatural domain had appeared twenty years ago and a new cultivation level appeared every few years. The Nova level had been publicized in the central region for several years, whereas Silver Moon hadn¡¯t even known the name of the level before. Their news traveled so slowly that Silver Moon denizens thought the level had just appeared when, in reality, it had been present for many years.

 Chapter 336: Southern Fist (I)

    <h4>Chapter 336: Southern Fist (I)</h4>

    Frustration crept into Li Hao¡¯s mood as he considered the implications behind the powerhouses he¡¯d noted in the conference room. He quickly rxed again and smiled. Things were more interesting this way!

    ¡°Ole Wang, let¡¯s go for a ride and see an old friend.¡±

    ¡°Vice Captain Liu?¡±

    ¡°No, we shouldn¡¯t see Sis Liu for the time being. Let¡¯s go visit Senior Southern Fist.¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Wang Ming blinked. Why were they visiting Southern Fist?

    Li Hao had his own thoughts in mind. Southern Fist He Yong was the strongest martial master he¡¯d met thus far, apart from Yuan Shuo. He was a pure martial master, not one who¡¯d crossed over to the supernatural domain.

    Having undergone three blood transfusions, he matched Srs. What kind of concept was that? A Dominator with one aura was just a Sunre, but He Yong had propped himself up a cultivation level. Thus, Li Hao felt that blood transfusions were potentially a viable path as well.

    His teacher¡¯s path wasn¡¯t necessarily wrong, but the path beyond Dominator was yet to be set in stone. There might be other routes; the young man wished to understand more. Would multiple blood transfusions help him swiftly increase battle strength in the absence of grasping more auras? Those auras remained out of reach for now and were often a function of spontaneous inspiration orprehension. They were equally possible to be the bottleneck of a lifetime.

    When taking the sword aura into consideration, that made for three auras that Li Hao had already grasped. They became harder toprehend after setting foot into Dominator¡ªwho knew how much time it would take to round out his set of five? He was also yet to coax nineyers out of the Nine Forged Force, which meant it wasn¡¯t a very useful action to observe the sea. Therefore, Li Hao decided to visit Southern Fist instead of visiting the sea.

    Not only that, but he wanted to call upon Wang Henggang, the Iron Shirt expert, after visiting Southern Fist. He would visit all of the Dominators within the city confines. He¡¯d be happy to converse with the Silver Moon Guards as well if they possessed numerous Dominators or people who¡¯dprehended the aura.

    The n that brewed in his heart was to follow in his teacher¡¯s footsteps. Yuan Shuo had challenged the notable personages of Silver Moon to singlebat not only out of desire to do so, but also to learn from their strong suits, shore up his weaknesses, and perceive their auras so that he could meld his own.

    The path of invincibility as recorded in the ancient tomes was for one to challenge the four corners and gather an aura of invincibility. That meant to say that a plethora of battles and sparring was not a bad undertaking.

    ......

    Wang Ming didn¡¯t care why Li Hao wanted to see Southern Fist. His senior brother had spoken. There were no missions forting from the Night Watchers as operations had not yet begun for eliminating the three great organizations. Everyone had a lot of time on their hands.

    A sports car engine revved as it headed for an affluent neighborhood on the southern outskirts. He Yong was rich, he didn¡¯tck for wealth. He was a martial master from the royal family and bought arge residence in the southern outskirts soon after arriving at White Moon City. Full of ssical ir, he lived a carefree and easy lifestyle. It was much better than the dorms that Li Hao was in.

    <i>The mansions of the southern outskirts.</i>

    These mansions were quite a sight to behold. Two yers and two Starlight were arranged as guards. That instantly elevated the premises and guaranteed security. For many, whether it was yers or Starlight, they were all superhuman. With them on patrol in the neighborhood, it meant absolute security.

    However, they quickly opened the gates when Li Hao and the others shed their Night Watcher medallions. They let the group through without asking any questions. It was only in instances like these that the young man experienced a taste of Night Watcher prestige.

    ¡°Nice environment!¡± Li Hao nodded appreciatively from the car. These surroundings were better than the ones around his residence in Silver City. The houses were hidden out of sight behind greenery, giving off an air of solitary privacy. There were even special apparatus in ce to keep pests away. An undercurrent of mysterious power flowed through the area, ensuring the mechanisms¡¯ operations. It was in to see that much thought had gone into urban nning when this neighborhood was constructed.

    ¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± Wang Ming remarked casually with indifference. ¡°It¡¯s not too expensive, just ten million or so for a residence.¡±

    ¡°What??¡± Li Hao clucked his tongue. That expensive??

    Wang Ming rolled his eyes.<i> Ohe on! Is ten million supposed to be a lot?</i>

    Sure, it was a hefty amount and impossible to earn through sry alone. But the Night Watchers were paid in mysterious power. One cube could be sold for a million coins. Viewed through that lens, were these houses expensive?

    As for mysterious power stones, those were valued in units of hundred million in the outside world. Of course, there was no one selling them!

    After bing a supernatural, only weaklings continued to transact with mundane currency. What was the point in umting regr coins? Starlight and Darkmoon might need a bit of money to live, but Sunres could earn money no matter where they were thrown into.

    ¡°I¡¯ll give you a mansion if you like them.¡± Wang Ming couldn¡¯t be bothered with Li Hao.

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t take bribes!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Ming was speechless. <i>Who says I¡¯m trying to bribe you if I give you a mansion! The hell, dude!</i>

    The car stopped in front of a residence as they conversed.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, in arge yard.</i>

    He Yong was speaking to someone when his eyes suddenly darted to the door. A car¡¯s engine could be vaguely heard through the front gates. His visitor also heard the disturbance. He Yong tugged on his beard, appearing for all intents and purposes to be a martial brute. However, a keen light shone in his eyes.

    A delicate woman sat in front of him. She looked approximately thirty years old and had long hair cascading down her shoulders. She wore the long skirts that were fashionable among White Moon high society, the kind that covered even the soles of the foot. She nced at He Yong when she heard the noise.

    ¡°A supernatural...¡± The light in He Yong¡¯s eyes danced around. ¡°Of the Sunre level!¡±

    It was familiar... Wang Ming! What was he doing here? There seemed to be someone else with him... Li Hao!

    Right, that was Li Hao. He Yong registered with quite some surprise. What were these two doing on his doorstep? They couldn¡¯t wait to be rid of him in Silver City.

    Someone knocked on the front door as he thought and Wang Ming¡¯s loud voice traveled through the air. ¡°Open up, Senior South! We¡¯vee to see you!¡±

    The woman smiled at He Yong. ¡°A friend of yours?¡±

    ¡°Friend?¡± He Yong grinned widely. ¡°I guess, he¡¯s a young friend of mine. He just likes to talk too much.¡±

    The woman smiled and rose to her feet when He Yong did. ¡°Then I shall take my leave.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± The two walked outside together. The yard wasrge and He Yong was in no hurry, so he took his time. It meant that Wang Ming grew more urgent.

    <i>Knock knock knock!</i>

    ¡°Are you home, Senior South? I hear noises, do you not wee us?¡±

    ¡°What an impatient fellow.¡± The woman covered her mouth as she chuckled.

    ¡°He¡¯s a cocky guy,¡± responded a wordless He Yong. ¡°He kept a low profile before, but seems to have lost that fear after returning home and to the protection of people on his side.¡±

    Heughed at his own words. That was right, Wang Ming was a Night Watcher. What need did he have to fear Southern Fist after Hou Xiaochen stabbed a Nova to death in one move?

    He Yong opened the door as the two chatted. A merry Wang Ming was about to greet the senior; he paused upon seeing the woman, then smiled knowingly at He Yong.

    The man didn¡¯t exin himself; he turned to Li Hao with a nod. The woman looked at Wang Ming and the quiet Li Hao, then chuckled.

    ¡°I won¡¯t disturb you further, big brother He. Please visit me when you have a moment.¡±

    ¡°I shall!¡±

    ¡°Then I take my leave!¡± She inclined her head at the two young men and walked out of the yard. A car quickly drove up to her, she climbed in with a graceful swish of her long skirts.

    Wang Ming chuckled as he turned back to look at her, as did He Yong. Li Hao wasn¡¯t in the mood tough. He frowned when he looked at Wang Ming. ¡°Keep it together and don¡¯t show that expression to just anyone you meet. You¡¯ll be in trouble if you run into someone you can¡¯t afford to offend.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Wang Ming raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°A Dominator,¡± Li Hao replied calmly. ¡°Senior Southern Fist¡¯s acquaintances are all experts, as expected of a renowned martial master back in the day! Any one of your friends is a hard to find Dominator.¡±

    Wang Ming started. ¡°A Dominator? I couldn¡¯t tell!¡± he said incredulously.

    ¡°Your eyes are bad!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°She wasn¡¯t just a Dominator, but was a Dominator who¡¯s killed countless people! Despite her appearance, I think she¡¯s around fifty! That makes her thirty years old twenty years ago...¡±

    The young man thought for a bit. ¡°There weren¡¯t that many famous female martial masters in Silver Moon¡¯s martial world back in the day. The Jadelight and Light Sword of the Seven Swords, Willow de, Springstitch Fist, Heartbreak Palm...

    ¡°Was that one the Heartjab Daughter of the Footjab Sect?¡± Li Hao smiled at He Yong.

    ¡°Nice eyes! How could you tell?¡±

    ¡°Her skirts drag on the ground, covering her legs and feet.¡± Li Hao smiled, at ease. ¡°There were no other discerning characteristics about her body. Since she covered her legs, she might be the Heartjab Daughter. My master mentioned it a few times that she liked to strike with her legs. Faster than a de, she stabbed through many a heart with a quick kick.

    ¡°Judging from her condition, she doesn¡¯t seem to have broken through recently. That means she wasn¡¯t in Silver Moon before. Is she also from the royal family?¡±

    He Yong took a deep look at Li Hao, equal parts surprised and mystified. ¡°Kid, why do you seem much more confident and rxed than before? Are you more reassured just because you¡¯re in White Moon City?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao shook his head with a smile. ¡°I¡¯ve just thought through some things. You don¡¯t need to mind it, senior. Are you going to invite us in?¡±

    ¡°Hahaha!¡± He Yong roared withughter. ¡°Interesting,e sit! To be honest, your prudent and cautious attitude before didn¡¯t make you seem like Old Demon Yuan¡¯s disciple. Now you appear more the part. He was very arrogant at your age.¡±

    ¡°Has the senior seen my master at my age?¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°My master is in his seventies now and had probably just broken through to Sunderer in his twenties. Senior Southern Fist isn¡¯t as old as my master, right?¡±

    Yuan Shuo was an older martial master. He Yong ought to be younger than him.

 Chapter 337: Southern Fist (II)

    <h4>Chapter 337: Southern Fist (II)</h4>

    ¡°I have indeed seen your master at your age,¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°He was already a famous martial master when he was twenty. Although he wasn¡¯t as famous as he wouldter be, he followed his master in traveling all over thend...¡±

    <i>Master¡¯s master?</i> Li Hao had never heard of this man before, so he was curious. ¡°My teacher¡¯s master...¡±

    ¡°Yes, he was slightly famous in his own right, butter eclipsed by Yuan Shuo. Old Demon Yuan didn¡¯t practice the Five Styles to begin with. He dug up some graves and uncovered the method, modified it, and turned it into what we know now!¡±

    Yuan Shuo had created the New Book of Five Styles¡ªor rather, he¡¯d modified it from ancient tomes. That meant that its heritage started with Yuan Shuo. Li Hao nodded without further question.

    ¡°The Heartjab Daughter...¡± He Yong continued as he led his visitors inside. ¡°No one¡¯s called her that in a very long time. She¡¯s Madame Bai now! She didn¡¯t marry a royal and she isn¡¯t with me. We¡¯re just old friends that happened to be in Silver Moon, so she came to pay a visit. Perhaps you even know her husband.¡±

    ¡°Who?¡± Wang Ming was perplexed. ¡°I haven¡¯t heard of a Bai surnamed family in White Moon high society that has a Dominator daughter-inw. They would have to be quite something. Are there any Bai surnamed experts in White Moon City?¡±

    ¡°You already said the city name!¡± He Yongughed. ¡°Bai is the character for White.¡±

    Wang Ming blinked. ¡°...the Bai family that the city is named after?!¡± he eximed.

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    Li Hao was still lost.

    ¡°White Moon City!¡± Wang Ming garbled out an exnation. ¡°It wasn¡¯t called that before. People eventually started calling the city that and slowly forgot the city¡¯s original name. Even the official authorities ended up calling it White Moon City.

    ¡°Silver Moon is named after Silver City and White Moon City. Everyone thinks that the province is named after the capital¡¯s second character. That¡¯s wrong, but only locals know this fact after so much time has passed.¡±

    Wang Ming was a born and bred White Moon citizen, so he knew the particrs well. ¡°White Moon City gained the ¡®White¡¯ prefix because the Bai family was city lord for 120 years in a row up until eighty years ago! It wasn¡¯t until the royal family stepped behind the curtain and the provincial government was formed that the Bai family no longer sat in their position.¡±

    <i>City lord! </i>That was an ancient title. City lords were the sovereigns of a city under the old power structure of eighty years ago. The Bai family passed down the position through various generations and was always the city lord that ruled over Silver Moon.

    There weren¡¯t many that remembered them after eighty years.

    ¡°The Bai family...¡± repeated a surprised Li Hao. ¡°Senior Southern Fist says that the Heartjab Daughter married into that family?¡±

    ¡°Yep,¡± He Yongughed. ¡°The Bai family has split into two. One branch is in Skystar City, the other branch is here. Do you know about the White Dragons?¡±

    Li Hao looked at Wang Ming with tant shock.

    ¡°I forgot to say...¡± Wang Ming said sheepishly. ¡°That the White Dragons were actually founded by the Bai family back in the day. They became part of the three divisions of the provincial army after the family withdrew. That was why I immediately thought of the Bai family after Senior South gave me a pointer.¡±

    ¡°Then themander of the White Dragons...¡± Li Hao arched a brow.

    ¡°He has nothing to do with the family.¡± Wang Ming shook his head. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say that the Bai familycks powerhouses otherwise. The leader of the White Dragons is Commander Ren Tianchuan. You might¡¯ve seen him this morning.¡±

    Li Hao thought back to the attendees of the morning meeting. Themander in question was roughly fifty years old. He hadn¡¯t heard the man speak, but he wasn¡¯t weak given that he was a peak Sr.

    The three entered the house.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that the Bai familycks experts in White Moon City, they just keep a low profile. I¡¯m not pulling things out of thin air when I say you might know her husband. You know Hu Dingfang, right? Have you heard of the vicemander of the Tiger Wings, Bai Yuanqing?¡±

    ¡°Themander who can¡¯t seem to tan?¡± Wang Ming blinked. ¡°I¡¯ve almost forgotten his name. Everyone calls him General Lightbulb...¡±

    Li Hao was quite lost. He didn¡¯t know the man, and how were the Tiger Wings involved? Silver Moon was aplicated ce, alright.

    ¡°That¡¯s him, that¡¯s who Madame Bai married,¡± He Yong answered. ¡°Hu Dingfang owes a lot to the Bai family for being able to be amander at such a young age. The situation is a bitplex in the province.

    ¡°The Bai family supported Hu Dingfang because they wanted to make him their own man. The Bais have connections to the Ministry of Armed Forces in Skystar City, so Hu Dingfang is a right and proper representative of the Ministry of Armed Forces. Provincial armies answer to that ministry to begin with, so Hu Dingfanges from a strong background.¡±

    ¡°Then why didn¡¯t the Bai family support their own Bai Yuanqing to be themander?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t make sense of what he was hearing.

    ¡°Hu Dingfang is no simple character!¡± He Yongughed. ¡°He has people behind him too. It would¡¯ve been tough for him to be amander, but it¡¯s said that his wife is quite apetent person and was a major impetus behind his sess.¡±

    He looked meaningfully at Li Hao.

    ¡°She¡¯s my senior sister,¡± the young man didn¡¯t mind admitting. ¡°Why beat around the bush, senior? Whatpetency can my senior sister possibly possess?¡±

    ¡°A lot!¡± He Yongughed uproariously. ¡°Your teacher has a good rtionship with Huang Yun. I don¡¯t know the details, but they know each other and might call each other friends. Your senior sister went to Huang Yun, who then threw his support behind Hu Dingfang getting the position. The Bai family could only rub their noses and take the hit as they supported Hu Dingfang as well. They couldn¡¯t throw all that away as there were many who didn''t wish for them to rise again. Hence, Hu Dingfang received widespread support from upstairs when he took his position.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao¡¯s head ached. It was just a woman, how did it end up leading back to him? They weren¡¯t connected to begin with, but then his senior sister got involved, which meant his teacher did as well. Once his teacher was named, that became Li Hao¡¯s business again.

    The young man shook his head with resignation. Six degrees of separation really did connect people with everyone else in this world. That meant he truly did have something to do with this Heartjab Daughter.

    He Yong knew a lot about Silver Moon¡¯s situation. He grinned when he saw Li Hao losing his patience. ¡°It¡¯s best to fully understand the ins and outs of everything. You can trace everything to their roots and discover some interesting things. For example, Hou Xiaochen and Huang Yun are two people who appear to have nothing to do with each other, but they shared meals and drank together thirty years ago. They seem to have be strangers thirty yearster.¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Tracing another thread further will reveal that your Manager Yu appears at the same time when someone else disappears!¡±

    ¡°Please go on, senior.¡± Li Hao¡¯s interest was piqued.

    ¡°Do you know Red Moon?¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>No shit!</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s said that when Red Moon was established, they raised seven moons to their highest positions! Red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, blue, and violet. The first generation Violet Moon was a female expert of the Silver Moon martial world. Violet Moon has always been in residence in the province! She vanished very quickly and without a trace. Rumors had it that she was assassinated, and then Manager Yu appeared in your Night Watchers.

    ¡°The second generation Violet Moon simply inherited the position. Your Director Hou didn¡¯t seem to like this title, so he stabbed the second generation Violet Moon to death with a spear!

    ¡°Ying Hongyue might have learned his lesson when it came to the third generation Violet Moon. Do you know who the third gen¡ªthe Violet Moon that you know¡ªis?¡±

    ¡°Who?¡± asked apletely lost Li Hao.

    ¡°The current Violet Moon is Orange Moon¡¯s daughter. Orange Moon is female and was a good friend of the first generation Violet Moon. And so, the third generation Violet Moon has survived to this day...¡±

    Li Hao blinked with confusion; Wang Ming was equally nk faced, but the two understood these words. The first generation Violet Moon was Manager Yu. Second generation Violet Moon died because the title was annoying. Third generation Violet Moon was the daughter of Manager Yu¡¯s good friend¡ªwould Hou Xiaochen be thick-faced enough to keep killing her?

    <i>The heck is all this?</i>

    ¡°You can¡¯t im wild theories, senior!¡± Li Hao breathed out heavily. ¡°How is this possible?¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t believe me?¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°The first generation Violet Moon was called Yu Luocha. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s a cocky one alright, he didn¡¯t even bother changing the name and calls her Little Yu. If she¡¯s not Yu Luocha, I¡¯ll do a handstand and eat my own shit!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was having trouble holding on to his sanity. ¡°Forget it, don¡¯t talk to me of martial world gossip, senior. I¡¯m not interested! It has nothing to do with me who they are!¡±

    However, he smiled wryly at himself. The first generation Violet Moon is Manager Yu? <i>What... the heck?? I have an unending blood feud with Red Moon!</i>

    ¡°How long has it been since Manager Yu joined the Night Watchers?¡± he still asked after thinking things over.

    ¡°I told you she vanished a long time ago, maybe fifteen years.¡±

    Li Hao carefully calcted the timeline. Red Moon shouldn¡¯t havemenced their ns for the eight families yet at fifteen years ago. That set him more at ease. Otherwise, the situation would be very awkward. He wouldn¡¯t know if he should take revenge or not.

    Old fart He Yong was not a good person! He knew a lot of secrets after many years with the royal family, but decided to share ones that involved Hu Dingfang and Manager Yu. He dragged Li Hao into them and seemed to be purposefully creating trouble for the young man.

    Granted, it could also be a warning.

    Li Hao was regretting his actions in revealing the Heartjab Daughter¡¯s identity. The old man wouldn¡¯t have an opening to divulge all this gossip otherwise.

    ¡°Ignore them, senior!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I¡¯vee with a request this time.¡±

    ¡°Blood transfusion?¡± He Yong cut straight to the chase. ¡°Do you want to ask about the specific process, changes, or method?¡±

    Li Hao paused. <i>This direct?</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s simple.¡± He Yong smirked. ¡°Fight me to the point of beating me and I¡¯ll tell you! I promise I won¡¯t keep anything behind.¡±

    The young man raised a brow.

    He Yong sprawled in his chair and drawled, ¡°What, you don¡¯t have the balls to? Or you can¡¯t? Is this all that swordsmen are worth? Yu Xiao and Huang Jie died so quickly, and Yu Xiao was there first. Even if Hao Lianchuan got to Huang Jie, did Yu Xiao choke to death on his own spit?¡±

 Chapter 338: Southern Fist (III)

    <h4>Chapter 338: Southern Fist (III)</h4>

    Li Hao frowned slightly. He knew that there would be spections, but hadn¡¯t anticipated that someone would expose him to his face so quickly. He Yong... was as rumored, seemingly a bull in a china shop, but in reality abination of boldness and wisdom!

    ¡°Are you interested in sparring?¡± He Yong looked merrily at Li Hao. ¡°To be honest, I¡¯d like to witness the might of a Dominator swordsman. I fought one in the central region once, but he couldn¡¯t stand up to a single blow!

    ¡°Of course, he wasn¡¯t a swordsman of Silver Moon. There is a premier swordsman in the central region who was the Sky Sword of yesteryear. He¡¯s a supernatural now and unbelievably strong, a premier existence and a titan in the Nova level!

    ¡°Sky Sword is domineering while Earthturner cowers like a turtle. I can¡¯t be bothered with him. Jadelight is killing Red Moon all over the ce with your master. The Light Sword has gone missing... To be honest, it¡¯s almost impossible to run into a Silver Moon swordsman these days. Why don¡¯t you keep mepany?¡±

    Li Hao looked at He Yong and asked after a moment, ¡°Does... the senior wish to test our skills against each other?¡±

    ¡°I do indeed have that in mind.¡± He Yong raised an eyebrow. ¡°Of course, don¡¯t be like your teacher and want to kill whoever you¡¯re sparring with! Your master killed people because he purposefully fought others on a simr level to him. There¡¯s a ny percent chance of death under those circumstances. If it¡¯s us two... I don¡¯t know if I dominate you or you overpower me. I think there¡¯s no need for a fight to the death as there¡¯s no chance of us being on a simr footing.

    ¡°I came to Silver Moon to witness the might of Summoner of Spirit. But I want to see your master, not you.¡±

    ¡°Then forget it!¡± Li Hao shook his head.

    ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°Swordsmen do not spar, they only kill when the sword is unsheathed!¡±

    He Yong frowned and sighed after some consideration. ¡°Then... Yes, forget it. Someone else once said those words¡ªSky Sword. He also killed innumerable people in the central region and shed blood whenever he drew his sword.

    ¡°What a pity that I have certain matters to attend to.¡± The old martial master shook his head with regret. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen your master yet, so I don¡¯t wish to fight to the death with you. Even if I win, I¡¯ll be mocked for switching targets to the old demon¡¯s disciple because I couldn¡¯t fight him. It would be a loss of face regardless.¡±

    ¡°Senior might not be a match for my senior brother either...¡± Wang Ming couldn¡¯t help but say off to the side. He didn¡¯t mind injecting some opportune ttery since everything was out in the open.

    ¡°Perhaps!¡± He Yongughed silently and looked at Li Hao. ¡°I know your reason foring. Martial masters all crave to grow stronger, or rather, everyone wants to grow stronger. But blood transfusions aren¡¯t a good method for you. You have a strong physique and you may not quickly increase your strength after you change your blood.¡±

    The young man frowned. Did He Yong not wish to exchange knowledge with him? That was also a normal reaction. This was a path that the man had found by himself and not everyone was willing to freely share their knowledge. Li Hao himself had kept the crux of Summoner of Spirit to himself. It was just that he¡¯de with the thought that he would more or less gain something from this visit.

    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much,¡± He Yongughed. ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m not willing, but that there¡¯s no need! And it¡¯s not like I don¡¯t have anything to tell you.¡± The old man thought for a moment. ¡°You¡¯re a swordsman, so there¡¯s a method suited to you if you wish to grow stronger. However, it¡¯s up to you to see if you dare try it.¡±

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°The ming Phoenix Spear!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. What did that have to do with anything?

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen must have been a premier martial master back in the day¡ªhe was absolutely one of the threemanders of the Skystar Guards! He was probably already a Dominator then. I can¡¯t tell if he¡¯s still a martial master now or a supernatural. But I could see a few things when he killed Red Hair. His spear intent remains and his aura is still there!

    ¡°Go and ask to borrow his ming Phoenix Spear. Origin weapons are a bit special as some of their spirit will awaken after many years of nurturing. Once theye back to life, they inherit some of their master¡¯s legacy¡ªsuch as the aura!

    ¡°If you can borrow his origin weapon and if you¡¯re rich enough, get some mysterious power stones to activate it. Don¡¯t fight Hou Xiaochen, that¡¯s meaningless as he¡¯s so much stronger than you. But if you fight the ming Phoenix Spear by itself, you mighte across unexpected gains.

    ¡°Perceive some of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s aura and sense the fierceness of the spear killing a Nova with one jab. So long as you don¡¯t die to the origin weapon, you¡¯ll see great gains from the sh between your sword intent and the spear intent!

    ¡°You might even be able to take the opportunity toprehend some of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s aura. He was very powerful back in the day and still is...¡±

    ¡°Do you mean this, senior?¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes danced with excitement.

    ¡°No shit!¡± He Yongughed. ¡°Is there a need to lie to you? This doesn¡¯t just apply to Hou Xiaochen, but also Huang Yun. You¡¯ll gain something too if you can borrow Huang Yun¡¯s weapon. Every martial master in those days had their own personal weapon that was infused with some of their mind intent. Origin weapons are the best candidate because they have their own spirit!

    ¡°Also, some origin weapons from the ancient civilization may bear traces of their master¡¯s intent if they were sealed away. You can try unsealing them, but that can be very dangerous! Too much is unknown about those kinds of origin weapons. If their master was too strong and the lingering intent is also too strong, you¡¯re doomed if you awaken them. When the spirit stirs with life again, it¡¯ll kill you with one move.

    ¡°Therefore, it¡¯s best not to try random origin weapons. One unsealed for many years like the ming Phoenix Spear is a bit more stable.¡±

    He Yong truly knew a lot; Li Hao drank in everything that he heard.

    ¡°Thank you for your pointers, senior!¡± Although Li Hao hadn¡¯t learned the exact method for blood transfusion, He Yong had taught him a lot. The young man was very happy. He¡¯d discovered that while the old martial masters of Silver Moon adhered to the perspective of their disciplines and didn¡¯t easily teach their secret arts, they didn¡¯t mind sharing some basic reflections.

    Such was Hong Yitang, as was He Yong. Even Liu Long had gifted Li Hao the Nine Forged Force not long after they met. These veteran martial masters were quite generous in some ways.

    ¡°What are you being so polite for!¡± He Yong was in a merry mood. ¡°I¡¯m happy to see martial masters grow stronger! This is also a convenient way for me to appraise how strong Hou Xiaochen is. If his spear can¡¯t kill you, then that means his aura is within a tolerable range for me.

    ¡°But if you die, that means this guy is absolutely terrifying and I should leave Silver Moon as soon as possible.¡±

    Li Haoughed and nodded at the smirk on He Yong¡¯s face. He didn¡¯t mind being used as ab rat. ¡°Senior, are there martial masters in the central region who can stand against Novas?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t know?¡±

    ¡°Who knows? He Yong shrugged. ¡°Martial masters keep a low profile and their noses to the ground after the rise of the supernatural. They¡¯re all incredibly low key other than those who crossed over the supernatural. I know some who¡¯ve killed Srs, but Novas...? I really haven¡¯t heard of any, but that doesn¡¯t mean they don¡¯t exist.

    ¡°There may be more than one path beyond Dominator and Summoner of Spirit may not be the only way!¡± He Yong gave it some thought. ¡°For example, I know of a guy who¡¯s not necessarily weak. Sky Sword is domineering among Novas after crossing over, but that guy is also ferocious while remaining a martial master...¡±

    ¡°Who?¡±

    ¡°Tyrant de!¡± He Yong intoned. ¡°I saw him once seven years ago. The skies break and earth shatters when he strikes with his weapon! I¡¯m certain that he¡¯s still a martial master, not a supernatural. But he slew a Sr with one stroke earlier than your master. That was seven years ago, who knows what he¡¯s like now.¡±

    <i>Tyrant de!</i>

    ¡°His de gives me the feeling that he walks a different path! He didn¡¯t strengthen his body, change his blood, or enhance his organs. He improved his de intent and turned himself into a de!¡±

    ¡°Is senior saying that Tyrant de turned himself into a de by enhancing his consciousness and aura, but he himself isn¡¯t that strong?¡± Li Hao mused.

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± He Yong nodded. ¡°Tyrant de gave me the feeling that his mind intent is invincible, but his physical body is frail and weak. He¡¯s so fragile that I suspect that if I punched him before he deployed his de intent, I¡¯d beat him to death with one punch.¡±

    Enhancing one¡¯s aura and consciousness to the extreme and ignoring the body...

    Li Hao learned of yet another possibility today. Martial masters proceeded down a variety of paths in the bid to strengthen themselves, his teacher wasn¡¯t the only one. Many of Silver Moon¡¯s martial masters continued to explore.

    He Yong focused on blood and qi, Tyrant de on the mind, Sky Sword crossed over to the supernatural, and his teacher fortified the five visceral organs... Each of these old guard martial masters walked their own paths.

    They might not forget martial dao even after converting to the supernatural. In fact, it was impossible for them to forget. The martial world was an interesting ce. Li Hao quite regretted that he¡¯d never been able to experience it for himself. Tyrant de, Sky Sword, Southern Fist, the Three Spears, and threemanders of the Skystar Guard... That must have been a fascinating era.

    Of course, present day was just as well. The supernatural was filled with all sorts of profound mysteries. Li Hao didn¡¯t look down on the supernatural. While he¡¯d killed some of their practitioners, that didn¡¯t mean he had the right to dismiss them. Powerful supernaturals might run beyond the imagination.

    He Yong and Li Hao conversed for a long period of time. The old martial master spoke of the fun happenings back in the day while the young man listened. They discussed the auras and gossip of the age...

    He Yong wouldn¡¯t have spoken of this to Li Hao before; he wouldn¡¯t be interested in a conversation. But now, he was. At the same time, he couldn¡¯t be bothered to look at Wang Ming. The young supernatural wasn¡¯t worthy!

    Martial masters could be quite focused on profit and gain. Li Hao was pulled into a conversation now because the young man had killed a Sr. He Yong had deduced that, which was why he deigned to chat today.

 Chapter 339: Master and Disciple With One Heart (I)

    <h4>Chapter 339: Master and Disciple With One Heart (I)</h4>

    The sky darkened as He Yong chatted with Li Hao. Eventually, the old martial master breathed out a happy exhale. ¡°It¡¯s been a good day. It¡¯s really nice to talk to you, kid, despite your teacher not being here. That¡¯s a bit of a pity.

    ¡°It¡¯s been such a long time since remarkable juniors have appeared in the martial world. As a senior, I¡¯ll give you one final piece of information for free...¡±

    Li Hao perked up his ears. He Yong chose to transmit his next words so that Wang Ming wouldn¡¯t hear them.

    ¡°Remember to stay in Silver Moon if you want toprehend more auras! If you want to walk further down the path of martial dao, do so in Silver Moon! Silver Moon is a special ce and might¡¯ve been the center of the world a very, very long time ago. Any tree or de of grass that¡¯s old enough might be where an invincible powerhouse once attained enlightenment. Only here can martial masters grow stronger!

    ¡°Countless people have their eyes on Silver Moon. I suspect that Hou Xiaochen continuously refused to leave because he¡¯s still on the path of martial masters. He has yet to reach its end, so he won¡¯t easily leave before that.

    ¡°Not many people knew before, but now many do. Immense powerhouses will be here soon because the province may hold treasure that can resolve some thorny problems for supernaturals and make them strong again.

    ¡°Silver Moon will soon be a focal point of the world. Even if some leave for the time being, they will quickly be back. Your teacher wille back. If Hou Xiaochen does depart this time, he¡¯ll return. All of those powerhouses in the central wille!

    ¡°Ying Hongyue, the Yama King, Celestial... All of them will visit! The central region is just a route to gaining greater strength. The destination is Silver Moon!¡± He Yong smiled and concluded, ¡°The royal family wille too! There are countless threads that connect the royal family to Silver Moon. No one knows where the royal family¡¯s ruins are, but I know a clue or two. They may be in Silver Moon!¡±

    Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath and looked at the old man.

    ¡°Go on back,¡± the old martial master said aloud with a grin. ¡°Martial dao will rise again! Thisnd belongs to martial dao. It once did and it will be again! Supernaturals can be martial masters as well, they justck something at the moment. Some proceed far down the supernatural path not because they¡¯ve given up on martial dao, but because they wish to travel further on it. They are now very, very strong. Once we sort out how to convert the supernatural back to martial masters, a batch of veteran martial masters will quickly return!¡±

    Li Hao nodded without a word and raised a cupped fist salute. ¡°Thank you for your pointers, senior!¡± He looked at Wang Ming. ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±

    Wang Ming was rather confused, but he¡¯d heard the key piece of information¡ªsupernaturals could be martial masters. Ecstatic, he wanted to ask more questions, but had to catch up to Li Hao since his senior brother was swiftly departing the residence.

    ¡°Supernaturals can be martial masters, huh?? I¡¯m rich!¡± he said with quiet exuberance.

    Li Hao was speechless. <i>Did you not hear everything that came after that? There are problems having to do with this process, ones that haven¡¯t been resolved. Does this guy have selective hearing?</i>

    ......

    He Yong watched as the two young men left. He broke out in a grin when they drove off. ¡°Martial masters... martial world... the world atrge!¡±

    Things were finally getting interesting!

    <i>I, Southern Fist, will rise again on this ancientnd. Wait for me!</i>

    ......

    Li Hao did not leave his office again after visiting Southern Fist. He needed to digest the senior¡¯s words.

    <i>Within his office.</i>

    Li Hao held a pen and drew over a piece of paper. Silver Moon, the three northern provinces, the martial world, the central region... He¡¯d liked to view case files and gather information during his time in ssified Affairs. Sometimes, words spoke and gave Li Hao a lot of material.

    There were hidden powerhouses in Silver Moon who¡¯d never revealed themselves. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s exposure might be part of a bigger n. The young man wrote down a few names¡ªHou Xiaochen, Huang Yun, Kong Jie, Zhao Chengguang.

    These leaders of the four institutions had most likely reached an agreement with each other. Li Hao didn¡¯t believe that they weren¡¯t aware of each other¡¯s level of strength. Apparently, Director General Zhao had always been at odds with Hou Xiaochen. Was this a two man show, or was it a result of an unsatisfactory split of goods? Or did they simply disagree on something?

    The threemanders of the Skystar Guards... The Guards had been established by the royal family. Did these people have something to do with the royal family? If Hou Xiaochen was one of them, was he betraying the royal family right now?

    Various thoughts floated to the forefront, to which Li Hao quickly suppressed them all. It was enough to keep them in consideration, there was no need to pursue them to the bitter end. He just needed a good sense of appropriateness so that he didn¡¯t foolishly be someone else¡¯s pawn.

    <i>ming Phoenix Spear, spear intent.</i>

    Li Hao wrote down the weapon name. Could he borrow it? That was an origin weapon, and a very high level one. It might prove difficult to borrow if he brashly put in a request. But since Hou Xiaochen seemed to value him at the moment, perhaps it was a possibility.

    Strength was the foundation of everything. The ruins of Battle Heaven were still there and yet to be fully explored. Another expedition might set out at the end of the month or next month; Li Hao knew that there was a slight connection between himself and the ancient cities.

    The eight families of Silver City were likely relevant to Battle Heaven.

    He wanted the defensive origin weapon as well, despite a lot of people having their eyes on it. If he was unsessful with the origin weapon, he still needed the mysterious power stones inside the city. For the little sword to recover its energy other than sources such as the stone door and origin weapons, the easiest source was these stones.

    ¡°I need to be stronger for the next excavation!¡± Although he was short on time, Li Hao wasn¡¯t willing to give up. In his current state, the ruins of Battle Heaven held thergest amount of mysterious power stones. Any other ce might be more dangerous than the ruins.

    He drew and wrote over the sheet of paper for a bit, then shredded it and burned the fragments with sword intent from the fire tiger. Although he wasn¡¯t a supernatural, he was able to call upon some supernatural techniques after gaining the fire tiger sword.

    At the moment, Li Hao possessed eight hundred cubes of wood energy and six hundred cubes of metal energy. Those precious babies could notnguish in storage. Other than the two hundred cubes of metal energy that he was reserving for Wang Ming, he didn¡¯t need to strengthen his organs with the remainder. Instead, he could trade them for some other attributes.

    He knew the uses for wind and thunder energy. Li Hao walked out of his office when his thoughts traveled here. He didn¡¯t go next door to Manager Yu¡ªhe didn¡¯t want to be overly familiar with the first generation Violet Moon. Rather, he headed upstairs.

    Manager Yu was handling general affairs in the office next door. She briefly sensed the happenings outside of her door and didn¡¯t mind them. No one cared what Li Hao did as long as he didn¡¯t lose himself in the city or kill more people.

    ......

    <i>Fifth floor.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan was buried deep in paperwork when he saw Li Hao arrive. ¡°Do me a favor...¡±

    ¡°Do me one first,¡± the young man reversed their positions. ¡°Director, help me trade for some mysterious power.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t know what to say. <i>Can¡¯t you see that I¡¯m busy? Why are youing to me for such a trivial matter?</i>

    ¡°I got these cubes from someone else and can¡¯t trade them easily.¡±

    Fine then, he understood.

    ¡°How many and what do you want?¡±

    ¡°Twelve hundred cubes, swap them for wind and thunder.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan frowned and looked at the young man. What did he want with wind and thunder energy? Yuan Shuo had traded for plenty of the five elements before. General spection was that they had to do with the five visceral elements. Wind and thunder, however, were baffling.

    Twelve hundred cubes were neither too much nor too little. Hao Lianchuan nodded after some thought. ¡°Will do, I¡¯ll check our vaults in a bit. I¡¯ll swap them out for you if we have any. There aren¡¯t that many wind and thunder supernaturals, so not many have a need for them.

    ¡°Now you do me a favor,¡± he quickly said. ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that blood pearls can strengthen supernatural locks? I got a Sunre level one through my connections. Can you help me see if it¡¯ll work? If it does, I¡¯ll figure out a way to get a higher level one. Wouldn¡¯t we just be wasting our energy if it doesn¡¯t?¡±

    It was in to see that he dearly wished to grow stronger. Everyone wanted to.

    A Sunre level blood pearl was almost useless to Hao Lianchuan, but if it strengthened his supernatural lock by only a little, that was still hope. Many supernaturals faced simr straits. Ascension was easy, but how was one to ascend if one couldn¡¯t see the locks to break them?

    ¡°Alright, but I¡¯ll have to send my internal force through your entire body for a close inspection,¡± Li Hao responded. ¡°Are you fine with that, director?¡±

    He also wanted to gain a deeper understanding of supernaturals. Since one hade knocking at his door, he would make full use of the opportunity. ording to Southern Fist¡¯s words, supernaturals could convert to martial masters. If that was the case, then the implications were horrifying!

    Some supernaturals were domineering beyond belief. If they could be martial masters again¡ªif Novas could be martial masters¡ªthen what level would they be? How would mind intent be resolved? Or would they be martial masters without mind intent?

    They were still formidable in the absence of mind intent as their physical bodies would be enhanced to unfathomable levels. Mind intent might not be the only path.

    Purely physical martial masters?

    Li Hao was rather excited by the possibility.

    Hao Lianchuan thought it over and set his jaw, nodded without care. ¡°Very well, go ahead and try! To be honest, I haven¡¯t had any motivation since making it to Sr because I haven¡¯t been able to see my next lock. That failure means ack of a future. Many supernaturals fall into this state when theye across the same situation. They muddle through the days without purpose since this is all they can amount to.¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. This was simr to martial masters after they reached Dominator. There was no future, so what was the point of anything?

    However, true elites would try to peer into the road ahead. If there was no path, then they would walk it themselves.

 Chapter 340: Master and Disciple With One Heart (II)

    <h4>Chapter 340: Master and Disciple With One Heart (II)</h4>

    A blood pearl floated in the air. Hao Lianchuan stared nervously at it. He tended to be an even-keeled person, but it was hard to keep hisposure when the matter had to do with his future.

    Li Hao ignored him. The young man released his internal force and ced both of his hands on Hao Lianchuan¡¯s hands. Internal force traveled through their linkage and began wandering through the deputy director¡¯s arms.

    It immediately ran into a surge of fire mysterious power that pushed back against it.

    ¡°Director, suppress your energy!¡±

    ¡°Okay okay!¡± Hao Lianchuan bobbed his head and swiftly tamped his energy down. Although supernaturals could not control their internal energy as easily as martial masters could internal force, his control was decent as a veteran Sr.

    Li Hao¡¯s internal force roved through the man¡¯s body with some difficulty. The young man furrowed his brows after a while. <i>The meridians are strong enough, the body is fortified, the bones are nicely dense... but he has a lot oftent injuries.</i>

    Indeed,tent injuries.

    A variety ofrge and small cracks covered Hao Lianchuan¡¯s meridians throughout his entire body. Such was the drawback for supernaturals. They improved so quickly and mysterious power was so powerfully offensive that, apart from a handful of powerhouses whose energy had a nurturing effect, most mysterious power attacked both enemy and self.

    It was as if one furiously poured water into a wooden barrel that could only hold ten liters of water. If it couldn¡¯t overflow, it would burst the sealed barrel.

    The supernatural domain was very dangerous!

    This was Li Hao¡¯s first time investigating a supernatural¡¯s physical body. His brows were furrowed tight. These were not good findings. Once supernaturals set foot beyond a certain boundary, they might explode of their own ord.

    <i>The supernatural domain... is a dead end, isn¡¯t it?</i> Li Hao sank into deep thought.

    Well, that might not necessarily be the case. The Silver Armor of Battle Heaven had said that supernaturals did not have a wide path to walk on. This meant that this field also existed in the ancient civilization.

    The ancient civilization possessed innumerable heavyweights that were all terrifyingly powerful. If supernaturals reached a dead-end after arriving at the Sr or Nova level, then this domain¡¯s limits were too low. Silver Armor wouldn¡¯t have mentioned this system in that case. That the soldier knew of it meant that supernaturals ought to have been somewhat famous in the ancient civilization. While the field wasn¡¯t up to par with martial dao, it wouldn¡¯t be too inferior.

    Li Hao continued to investigate after noting the numerous hidden injuries. He sent his internal force around the five organs again. Avoiding the red-hot heart that he dared not touch, the young man quickly investigated the other four.

    His frown deepened with the second go-around. The other four visceral organs also boretent injuries. Since Hao Lianchuan was a fire supernatural, he must have first opened the lock of his heart. That would levy immense strain on the organ and summon incredible fire energy out of it. Although the heart had been strengthened, there were... also some injuries lurking within it.

    How was this a powerhouse??

    Li Hao found himself at a loss for words. These injuries were severe! It was only because none of them acted up that Hao Lianchuan was still a Sr. Once they did, there was nothing but death in store for him.

    <i>Are Director Hou and the others martial masters then?</i> Li Hao once more sank into deep thought. If so, the director and the others must have crossed over to the supernatural domain as Dominators and swiftly grown stronger. Then they returned to being martial masters¡ªdid that createrge numbers of injuries hidden within their body?

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s coughs might not be an act.

    There was also that group of feeble men in the conference room. One person coughing was an act, were all of them acting?

    <i>No... it might not be!</i>

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t had the chance to inspect a supernatural¡¯s body before and didn¡¯t know that there could be so many hidden injuries in one. But if Hou Xiaochen and the others knew how to convert back to martial dao and had already undergone the process, would that exin why they were so strong and at the same time, also constantly gued with injuries?

    Since Southern Fist had said so, that meant he possibly knew the conversion method. There might even be those already attempting the process in the central region! Hou Xiaochen and the others were possibly the vanguard. That would diffuse some of the young man¡¯s confusion. The group of invalids in the conference room was real!

    <i>If the five organs and particrly the lungs are damaged, that makes coughing very normal. I might be in the same situation if I was nurturing an aura in my lungs and the organ wasn¡¯t strong enough... Teacher would as well...</i>

    Various thoughts popped into his mind. The young man continued his observations. The bnce between the five organs had been shattered and the heart was too strong. The heart might explode if this continued, or the other four organs might be crushed by an overly strong heart.

    ¡°Li Hao?¡± Difort was creeping in for Hao Lianchuan. ¡°Are you done yet?¡± It was ufortable having internal force travel through his body.

    ¡°Take the blood pearl.¡± Li Hao snapped back to present. ¡°Retract your fire energy and concentrate the blood pearl on your kidneys!¡±

    ¡°What? Why?¡±

    ¡°The kidneys are of water and the heart of fire. Your fire attribute is too strong, let¡¯s see if this can suppress it a bit!¡±

    It was hardly what Hao Lianchuan expected, but he dismissed his skepticism. It wasn¡¯t like he understood any of this, so he could only follow Li Hao¡¯s instructions. The man swiftly swallowed a blood pearl; the power of a scarlet shadow exploded in his body.

    Fire energy also surged and began expelling, or even destroying, the energy from the scarlet shadow. Li Hao stared sharply at it. As he expected, the power of the scarlet shadows did not mix with mysterious power. They were even opposed to each other.

    Not only that, but energy from the scarlet shadows had elicited abined reaction from the eight families at the stone door. Just what was this energy? Li Hao wasn¡¯t able to delve more into the topic as he knew too little about it.

    ¡°Suppress your fire energy!¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t...¡± Hao Lianchuan was resigned. ¡°The power from the blood pearl doesn¡¯t seem to bebining with my mysterious power. It¡¯s being expelled as soon as it enters my body...¡±

    ¡°Give this a try then¡ªwithdraw all of your fire energy into the heart!¡±

    <i>Fine then! </i>Hao Lianchuan had no choice but to give it a try. Fire energy originated from the heart. Momentster, he barely seeded in keeping his energy under control. Meanwhile, Li Hao¡¯s internal force began guiding the energy from the blood pearl into the man¡¯s kidneys.

    The energy did not reject bing part of the body and was quickly absorbed into the kidneys. Li Hao¡¯s internal force couldn¡¯t sense anything beyond that, so he focused his mind in that area. However, that made the hairs rise on the back of Hao Lianchuan¡¯s neck. The young man suddenly seemed savage!

    Mind intent!

    Indeed, since internal force couldn¡¯t sense anything, Li Hao brought out his mind intent. A ferocious surge of sword intent also exploded, but was quickly retracted in the next moment. He was utilizing the earth sword aura instead of the fire tiger aura.

    The earth sword aura enveloped Hao Lianchuan. The deputy director¡¯s scalp crawled with numbness and he opened his mouth to speak a few times, but held it in in the end. <i>Damn, this kid¡¯s terrifying! </i>Once a martial master¡¯s aura formed at Dominator of Thousands, it usually exerted some pressure on a supernatural.

    Li Hao¡¯s mind intent probed Hao Lianchuan¡¯s body. Fire energy raged within the man¡¯s heart, as if under threat. Sweat beaded his forehead. ¡°I... You... Don¡¯t do anything rash! I can sense that my fire energy is about to go berserk!¡±

    ¡°Hold on a second!¡± Li Hao swiftly sent the earth sword aura further in and probed the kidneys. Hao Lianchuan paled as it felt like his waist was about to explode. The young man finally saw something different!

    The kidneys were absorbing the blood-colored energy, causing a tiny lock to shimmer in and out of sight within the organ. It was very weak and growing stronger as it took in the energy. inly, Hao Lianchuan wasn''t able to discover his fifth lock because it was too weak. The fire energy of his heart was also so strong that it suppressed the other organs.

    The deputy director¡¯s fifth lock was finally located through Li Hao¡¯s mind intent. The young man quickly retracted his mental energy and internal force. Hao Lianchuan¡¯s fire energy ignited with a roar and set his office on fire in an expulsion of mes. The deputy director ignored the risk of bacsh and hurriedly extinguished the mes. He yanked fire energy out of the air and cleared out his office.

    ¡°I told you not to do anything brash,¡± heined. ¡°Your aura almost killed me!¡± The kid was too scary!

    Li Hao, however, remained quietly looking at Hao Lianchuan. ¡°Take a look inside, Director Hao. Are your kidneys stronger than before?¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t sense them.¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head. ¡°Fire energy cannot be carelessly unleashed within the body. That easily damages the five organs. I am not a martial master andck your kind of aura. I do not have an internal force that can easily travel throughout myself.¡±

    Supernaturals advanced swiftly, but their mysterious power did not possess nurturing properties. Martial masters progressed slowly, but their internal force fortified their entire body.

    ¡°The supernatural path may not be suited for training.¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°It¡¯s not that it¡¯s not good, but I feel that if we train in this domain, we should have extremely strong organs to the point where they¡¯re energy incarnate.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Hao Lianchuan blinked.

    ¡°Supernaturals of a single attribute will see an effect of one very strong organ and four very weak ones. The best way to resolve this issue is to prevent energy from seeping out and turn your organs into aprehensive whole of energy...¡±

    The young man shook his head at this point. Would that supernatural even be human then?

    ¡°The blood pearl did have an effect on you, but there was too little energy within it. It only strengthened the lock in your kidneys by a very little, the lock¡¯s not viable yet.¡±

    ¡°So it really is effective?¡± That was all that an agitated Hao Lianchuan cared about. ¡°You saw it?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    ¡°The supernatural lock?¡±

    ¡°Yep. They exist, it¡¯s just a matter of being strong or weak,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I took a look, you can strengthen yours¡ªit doesn¡¯t necessarily have to be the kidneys. Director Hao has broken the lock of the heart and three of the limbs. You¡¯ve yet to find one more, right?¡±

    ¡°Correct, I haven¡¯t located the one on my left leg even till today.¡±

    ¡°Then strengthen your left leg first.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Don¡¯t do the five organs yet or you¡¯ll cause a problem. An imbnce in your organs will easily rupture them.

    ¡°Novas are those that¡¯ve broken five locks,¡± the young man suddenly said. ¡°Most of them start with the heart and the four of the limbs, so it¡¯s not hard to reach Nova. What¡¯s hard is whates after!¡±

 Chapter 341: Master and Disciple With One Heart (III)

    <h4>Chapter 341: Master and Disciple With One Heart (III)</h4>

    A supernatural had to break a second lock of the five visceral organs in order to advance beyond Nova.

    Li Hao jerked when his thoughts traveled here. That was why some problems may exist beyond Nova¡ªsuch as coughing! After breaking the second supernatural lock associated with the five visceral organs, it was highly likely for a conflict between the organs to appear as two kinds of energy shed with each other. The heart was of fire and the kidneys of water. Releasing a second kind of mysterious power would naturally damage the five organs since water and fire did not coexist together!

    Li Hao blinked. Did Hou Xiaochen and the others struggle with their condition because they¡¯d converted back to martial masters, or because they¡¯d broken the second lock of their organs?

    ¡°Are there existences beyond Nova in the central region?¡± the young man hastily asked.

    ¡°How do I know?¡± Hao Lianchuan responded with disbelief. ¡°I barely know any Novas...¡±

    ¡°Are there any notable powerhouses in the central region that like to cough?¡± Li Hao changed tack.

    ¡°Do you mean our director?¡± Hao Lianchuan burst outughing. ¡°What, do we have to cough to be a powerhouse now?¡±

    The young man sank into deep thought. If there were powerhouses beyond Nova in the central region, they would very likely be prone to coughing fits as well. Of course, coughing was just a symptom of damaged lungs. If the heart was damaged, perhaps the supernatural would have a sickly pallor since theycked sufficient blood flow. If the kidneys were damaged, perhaps there would be an issue with sexual performance. That was a more private condition that regr people would be unaware of.

    Therefore, coughing was a more directly perceived symptom. The other five organs wouldn¡¯t be as readily observable if they were damaged. Kong Jie, for example, didn¡¯t cough much. It was thus possible that it wasn¡¯t his lungs that were damaged, but another organ. He was just as eye-piercing as the rest, so his strength should be on par with them. The others coughed, but he didn¡¯t. Therefore, if everything was as Li Hao surmised, that meant that everyone in the conference room had broken the second lock of their visceral organs.

    So that was greater than Nova? Li Hao finally understood. These people were either all above Nova or supernaturals converted to martial masters! Whatever the case was, there was an imbnce in their organs. Thus, there were many implications to Summoner of Spirit. Or rather, if his teacher really could modify the Breathing Method of the Five Styles so that it could strengthen the five organs...

    Li Hao sucked in a breath. If that really happened, then both the supernatural and martial master domains would erupt with an umtion of secret strength.

    <i>Teacher... is in danger!</i>

    <i>No, teacher is safe!</i>

    Li Hao suddenly recalled what he¡¯d said at the meeting of martial masters, that his teacher was attempting to modify the breathing method so that all five organs could be fortified at the same time. Some may not have paid attention to that, but powerhouses that had broken their second organ locks would certainly have taken notice.

    They must be keeping tabs on his teacher and hoping that he could aplish that feat! Why didn¡¯t anyone else try?

    Supernaturals had no way of attempting to modify a cultivation method and all martial masters walked different paths. Someone may be progressing down Yuan Shuo¡¯s path of the five organs, but it was the renowned martial master who walked it the firmest and was the strongest!

    Li Hao suddenly smiled in this moment; Hao Lianchuan found it strange. Why was the boy smiling so happily?

    <i>So as long as teacher¡¯s breathing method isn¡¯t fully modified, some powerhouses may actually protect him from the shadows instead. But once it¡¯s finished, he could meet with horrifying danger. Certain powerhouses might choose to take it from him. </i>

    As for whether or not they would seed... that was difficult to determine. It was harder than reaching the heavens if they wished for Yuan Shuo to share it of his own ord.

    ¡°Are you alright, Li Hao?¡± Hao Lianchuan asked with concern as the boy continued smiling.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine, I just thought through some things. Interesting, Senior Southern Fist was right after all. Once you know a lot of things and follow them through, you¡¯ll find that a lot of things are quite interesting.¡±

    <i>The hell?</i> Hao Lianchuan was hardly interested in this.

    ¡°So does this mean I have a chance of seeing the fifth lock if I consume enough blood pearls?¡± he asked urgently.

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan became agitated. <i>As long as that¡¯s the case!</i>

    Li Hao suddenly thought of Ying Hongyue. Scarlet shadows! What was the man doing with so many of them? The young man seemed to finally understand part of it. He was either converting supernaturals to martial masters or strengthening supernatural locks to bnce the five organs. The scarlet shadows were not used to create a batch of powerful martial masters, but to eliminate supernatural drawbacks.

    If Ying Hongyue had reached beyond Nova, then imbnce in his organs would start to be apparent. Perhaps he¡¯d discovered this problem a long time ago and began preparing for it. If that was the case...

    Li Hao sucked in another sharp breath. If there were sufficient scarlet shadows, they might resolve the problem of the five organs not being in bnce. Had Ying Hongyue already resolved this problem and proceeded far down the path of the five organs?

    The four locks of the limbs and one of the five organs made for five supernatural locks. Breaking all of them made one a Nova! One had to break a second lock of the organs to advance beyond that. As for the head... Li Hao believed that very few dared to do that. It was safer to try with the organs.

    Therefore, most reached beyond Nova if they shattered the second supernatural lock of the organs. These people might possess two types of elemental attributes. The young man had unwittingly discovered some secrets after helping Hao Lianchuan locate his supernatural lock! The secrets of the scarlet shadows!

    His teacher had said that the scarlet shadows were puppets of the ancient civilization. Whoever devoured the shadows strengthened their bodies. It was highly likely that Ying Hongyue had used the scarlet shadow to fortify his supernatural locks and maintain the bnce of his organs!

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Hao Lianchuan couldn¡¯t bear it anymore. Why was the boy grinning like a fox?

    ¡°Nothing, it¡¯s nothing!¡± Li Hao rose with a smile and handed over two storage rings. ¡°Director, just deliver the mysterious power to my office after you swap it for me. And I¡¯ll have to trouble you for something else. Please look into all of my teacher¡¯s former students for me.¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Hao Lianchuan blinked. <i>Why?</i>

    ¡°I just want to understand how many senior brothers and sisters I have,¡± chuckled the young man.

    <i>Why do I want to know? Because I¡¯m thinking that the breathing method might have elicited interest from countless powerhouses, just not from those below Nova. If I was a powerhouse of the central region and unable to obtain it by force, what would I do next?</i>

    <i>I can target Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciples! Teacher is typically very mean to regr people, but dotes on his disciples.</i>

    Many martial masters exhibited such behavior. Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t have any children and only a few disciples. Someone like Li Hao had only needed to say that he could absorb mysterious power for the man to immediately pass on the breathing method. His previous final disciple had taught the breathing method to an outsider, but Yuan Shuo never mentioned it and tacitly allowed it in the end.

    Therefore, everyone knew that Yuan Shuo treated his disciples very well. Even if he appeared to be quite intimidating, he was softhearted. Would he teach the modified breathing method to his disciples?

    Most likely!

    Li Hao would absolutely learn it, while the others... including the previous final disciple, might obtain it too. But that could not be allowed to happen!

    Li Hao was fully aware that once others learned of the modified breathing method, that would be the start of enormous trouble. It would help certain powerhouses reach beyond Nova, so it was a given that some might kill his teacher after obtaining the method to prevent more from learning it!

    Hao Lianchuan looked strangely at Li Hao, but ultimately nodded. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll help you look into it. I won¡¯t have a detailed report for a few days. We looked into it before, but focused on your teacher. Some of the particrs won¡¯t be fleshed out.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, thank you for the effort!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re... not thinking of throwing yourself on their mercy, are you?¡± Hao Lianchuan couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°How could I!¡± Li Hao burst outughing. ¡°It¡¯s so nice in the Night Watchers, why would I leave?¡± He hesitated and continued, ¡°Look into the Bai family for me as well, the Bai family of White Moon City! And not just them, but all powerhouses having to do with Hu Dingfang. Novas warrant special attention, and also Commander Huang Yun!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan took a deep breath. <i>The hell? What are you trying to do? The Bais, Huang Yun... What are you nning?</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word. <i>What do I want to do? I want to see if someone¡¯s going to use my senior sister to obtain the modified version of the breathing method.</i>

    Even though Yuan Shuo was yet to find any sess, Li Hao and some other premier powerhouses were fully confident that he could do it. The old man¡¯s potential was very strong, to say nothing of everything else. And not to mention, the breathing method was something he¡¯d always been working on. He held vast sums of knowledge from ancient books, was an archaeology expert¡ªor rather, a tomb raider!

    He was honestly a grave robber. Why else would a martial master run off to study archaeology? Did they have too much time on their hands? It was to better excavate the old ruins, of course!

    Yuan Shuo had uncovered many Silver Moon ruins over the years of his dominance; there was arge amount of highly important ruins in the province and he¡¯d destroyed most of the important records of knowledge. He either destroyed or burned the books after ncing through them.

    He could bebeled as one of the viins responsible for a gap in ancient civilization knowledge. While he¡¯d excavated the sites himself, destroying the knowledge he found put him in the wrong all the same.

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts turned to his senior sister, Hu Dingfang, the Bais, Huang Yun, and aplicated web of rtionships. If the modified breathing method was finalized, his teacher could not randomly teach it to his disciples! That would easily give rise to trouble!

    He wanted to contact his teacher, but the man seemed to be at Near River. Perhaps he¡¯d entered the three northern provinces, so there was no way for the young man to reach Yuan Shuo.

 Chapter 342: The Silver Moon Guards (I)

    <h4>Chapter 342: The Silver Moon Guards (I)</h4>

    <i>Fog Province.</i>

    Fog wreathed thend, nketing the province with haze no matter day or night.

    <i>Inside a high-ss hotel.</i>

    Yuan Shuo chose to spend the night at a hotel this time instead of camping in the wilderness. He presented a genteel front as he wore a pair of sses. Jadelight fidgeted ufortably next to him and stared at her outfit. She was wearing a suit jacket and short skirt. Having never worn this kind of clothing in her life, she red furiously at Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°Don¡¯t lose your temper now.¡± The old man lit a cigarette, the very picture of urbane sophistication. ¡°You¡¯re my assistant for the time being. I am a professor at the Near River Academy¡ªand this is a real identity. I got it quite a few years ago, they won¡¯t find anything wrong with my background. We¡¯vee to the three northern provinces to inspect the recent aberrations in the creatures living by the sea...¡±

    ¡°Why can¡¯t we be more normal?!¡± Wu Hongshan snapped.

    ¡°Normal?¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°Can¡¯t, the three northern provinces are a mess right now. There¡¯s no way to be normal. But it¡¯s also good that they¡¯re a mess. We can fish in troubled waters. We¡¯ll take our time and stay here for a few days. My second spirit is about to emerge, the water tiger is going toe forth in full fury. My injuries weren¡¯t fully healed before, but now that we¡¯re near the North Sea, I can sense that they¡¯re almost recovered...

    ¡°I¡¯ve had some inspirationtely and further modified the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. An imbnce between the five organs due to differing strengths is the greatest disadvantage of Summoner of Spirit!¡±

    Li Hao could avoid that downside thanks to sword energy; Yuan Shuo could not. Not to mention, the veteran martial master did not know that the young man could now use mysterious power stones to supplement the sword energy. Hence, he didn¡¯t think to make continued use of the little sword to resolve his problem. He had to straighten it out himself.

    Additionally, a method that could nurture all five visceral organs was crucial if the path of Summoner was to be poprized and officially epted by all martial masters.

    At the same time, Yuan Shuo was hardly a saint. Even if he was to teach others, he would wait for his own organs to fully nurture their spirits and even for his disciple toplete the process before teaching some more optimal candidates.

    ¡°You¡¯ve adjusted it again?¡± Wu Hongshan stopped yanking at the ufortable clothes. ¡°If memory serves, you started modifying it many years ago. It¡¯s been many versions now, hasn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Yep, but constant improvement is in order for martial dao as we progress, attain newprehension, and uncover new needs. Are we to always work off of our original foundation?¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°The secret arts left by the ancients are not necessarily suited for us! We need to modify them ording to our differing needs. I¡¯vetely grasped several key clues of how to proceed. If I seed, Summoner of Spirit will no longer be my path alone. Everyone will be able to cultivate it, even if theyck five auras. One aura works all the same if the five organs are in bnce. I was able to progress when my five auras were in bnce only because that represented my five organs were in bnce.¡±

    ¡°Will you teach me after you finish revising it?¡± Wu Hongshan asked after thinking the words over.

    ¡°Of course not!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>What... the... This old guy is so annoying! Then what are you telling me all of this for?? You said you would help me reach Summoner! How am I supposed to do that if you don¡¯t teach me the method?!</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t be impatient,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Just nurture your organs for now. You can also change out your blood and strengthen your physical body. You can take it slow with your five organs. I¡¯ll teach you the old version first when I¡¯m done modifying the breathing method. It¡¯s also pretty useful!¡±

    <i>The old version!</i> What a stab to the heart.

    ¡°I need to tell my student when I¡¯m done,¡±mented a merry Yuan Shuo. ¡°Although he might not need it, he stands a chance ofbining the five auras if he knows it!¡±

    ¡°When will youplete it?¡± asked a resigned Wu Hongshan.

    ¡°Soon, in another few days. I need to summon all five spirits first. I have two thus far and almost have the third. With a few more blood pearls, the fourth and five will be an easy step.¡±

    Wu Hongshan said nothing further. The blood pearls were indeed fine items. Meanwhile, Yuan Shuo sank into contemtion. The blood pearls had a splendid effect when it came to fortifying the five organs. He bore the same thoughts as Li Hao¡ªwas Ying Hongyue using the blood pearls to bnce the five organs? Did supernaturals need to bnce their organs? Or was it to break more supernatural locks?

    Many ideas urred to him in this moment and he vaguely sensed some danger. The old demon of the martial world had a keen sense of danger. As he summoned the five spirits into his organs, he gradually sensed that the supernatural domain might urgently need a treasure or method to bnce their organs as well.

    Yuan Shuo stood in front of the window and looked around him, slightly regretful that Li Hao wasn¡¯t present. That kid seemed to be able to see things that other people couldn¡¯t. Perhaps thed could check for him if anyone had their eyes on him.

    A smile spread across the veteran martial master¡¯s face. He would know before long if there was anyone following him. He wasn¡¯t afraid and skilled at narrow escapes.

    ¡°Jadelight, I¡¯ll bring you along a big one next! Srs are trash. The three northern provinces are the old homes of the three great organizations. There might be Novas among them... I¡¯ll take you with me if you¡¯re not afraid of death!¡±

    Wu Hongshan stared unpleasantly and nodded after a prolonged pause. ¡°Alright!¡±

    <i>Why should I be afraid if you¡¯re not afraid? Nova... Is this guy going crazy again?</i>

    Yuan Shuo cackled. <i>Not only am I not crazy, but there might be someone who gives me a hand. I already said that I might be able to finish a new version of the Breathing Method of the Five Styles once I summon the five spirits. If someone is keeping an eye on me, then I might be able to pick up a Nova level blood pearl on the ground!</i>

    ......

    Li Hao did not interact with anyone in his remaining time.

    <i>Within his office.</i>

    The young man began practicing the Nine Forged Force. He wanted to reach nineyers as soon as possible. He wasn¡¯t too worried about his teacher as his teacher might be improving at an even faster rate. His teacher had melded his five auras together a long time ago and didn¡¯t need to start from the beginning like Li Hao. Since Yuan Shuo grasped the proper method, all he needed to do was somewhat strengthen his organs, send his auras into them, and that was it!

    Li Hao, however, needed to start from the basics. Yuan Shuo¡¯s basics had reached the height of sturdiness a long time ago. Who within the modern day martial world possessed more auras than him or was stronger than him?

    Even the so-called Tyrant de of the day was less than Yuan Shuo. And now, Li Hao felt that the expert was probably still less tyrannical than his teacher!

    ¡°I possess the necessary constitution to aplish nineyers, I justck experience andprehension...¡± Li Hao ran through the routine again and again, making the air snap from his attempts.

    Manager Yu next door was highly irritated!<i> Here that guy goes once more.</i>

    Li Hao had been quite the homebody after moving in next door. He was so much of a homebody that it was annoying. He never left the office and ran through boxing techniques in his downtime. Those practice runs weren¡¯t always quiet.

    Manager Yu had had enough! She was scheduled to bring Li Hao to the Guards tomorrow¡ªHou Xiaochen had arranged for it. But now, all she wanted to do was ferry this guy over right away!

    That¡¯s right, the Silver Moon Guards. The Night Watcher headquarters was filled with supernaturals, making it a boring proposition for Li Hao. It might be better for him to go to the Silver Moon Guards.

    ......

    <i>Punch punch punch!</i>

    Li Hao punched steadily. Since he hadn¡¯t reached the right level ofprehension yet, he would go at it with sheer persistence. Improvement was inevitable when he punched thirty to fifty thousand times.

    Other people¡¯s bodies wouldn¡¯t be able to endure the strain, but Li Hao didn¡¯t care in the slightest. Wind and thunder energy would be delivered to him soon, so he wasn¡¯t afraid of suffering injuries! He¡¯d reached only sevenyers thus far¡ªhe might be able to reach nineyers if he punched one hundred thousand times. Liu Long had practiced martial dao for many years, but Li Hao felt that the captain may not have gone all out and punched one hundred thousand times!

    If he had, his arms would bepletely crippled.

    When one did not possess sufficient potential or time, one had to fill in the gaps with hard work. Hard work and effort could supplement one¡¯s deficiencies!

    If anyone else knew of the young man¡¯s thoughts, they might die of incredulity. Deficiencies? Was Li Hao dumb? If he was, he wouldn¡¯t be able to quicklyprehend three auras.

    A stronger opponent was never the greatest fear. The greatest fear was someone stronger and possessing more potential while also putting in more effort. That would only incite despair in the hearts of those striving beneath him.

    Potential and intelligence were nothing to fear. If those who were naturally gifted didn¡¯t bend their minds to improvement, they would be eclipsed sooner orter. But when these people worked ten times harder than the rest... then one would have absolutely no space on the path to walk.

    Li Hao continued practicing; knocks sounded at his door. He''d sensed the disturbance a while ago, but assumed that Manager Yu was heading to the sixth floor. <i>Hou Xiaochen¡¯s out of seclusion. Why are you here for me instead of spending time with him?</i>

    ¡°Come in!¡±

    Manager Yu pushed the door open, frowning slightly when she saw that the young man was covered in sweat. She didn¡¯t like it when martial masters were covered in grime and sweat. Director Hou set a good example. He quickly washed up whenever he finished training and smelled divine. While the young man didn¡¯t stink, he... was really ugly as he exerted himself.

    Li Hao naturally didn¡¯t know her thoughts. If he did, he¡¯d probably serve her with a p¡ªassuming that he could beat her in battle.

    ¡°What is the grand secretary doing here?¡± Li Hao smiled and wiped off his sweat with a towel.

    Manager Yu avoided the sweat he was flinging around and said without a change in expression, ¡°The director wishes for you to visit the Silver Moon Guards. You can stay there if you¡¯re so interested. I¡¯ll take you there for a look.¡±

    ¡°Now?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°But it¡¯s dark out...¡± Li Hao looked outside the window and then at the clock he¡¯d bought himself. ¡°There¡¯s five minutes until the work day is over.¡±

    ¡°......¡± A wordless Manager Yu¡¯s frown deepened. ¡°Li Hao, you are a martial master, not really an office worker!¡±

    It was fine the first couple of days, but heavily annoying when he was like this everyday!

    ¡°That¡¯s fine, but when will my position as a chiefmissioner be announced?¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I¡¯ll naturally put in overtime when I¡¯m promoted. I¡¯ll be like Director Hao and work till daybreak everyday if I have to. As for an office worker... aren¡¯t I that right now?¡±

    Startled, Manager Yu looked more sharply at the young man. Li Hao seemed much bolder today. Or rather, his true self was appearing. He¡¯d been cautious, circumspect, and unfailingly polite whenever he saw her before.

 Chapter 343: The Silver Moon Guards (II)

    <h4>Chapter 343: The Silver Moon Guards (II)</h4>

    ¡°Your position will be official soon.¡± Manager Yu frowned ferociously. ¡°Not only does Director Hou need to approve the position of chiefmissioner, but so does Inspector General Kong. The provincial government also needs to respond before you can be promoted. The dynasty still exists and theplete system operates smoothly. The word of one is notw!¡±

    Chiefmissioner was a high level official. If the dynasty copsed and Silver Moon dered independence, then Hou Xiaochen¡¯s word would bew. Since that was not the case, they needed to do things by the book.

    ¡°Alright then!¡± Li Hao shrugged on his jacket. ¡°Then let¡¯s wait. I think it¡¯ll be soon. The Inspectorate and provincial government won¡¯t not show Director Hou face.¡±

    Manager Yu couldn¡¯t be bothered saying anything else. She strode out of the office, leaving the young man behind to quickly catch up. Not in the mood to talk, she headed down the stairs.

    ¡°Manager,¡± a merry Li Hao chattered behind her. ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m demanding terms, but that I still don¡¯t know what I¡¯ve been transferred to Silver Moon for. Director Hou had mee, but hasn¡¯t given me a single mission thus far. I think I have too much time on my hands. Perhaps the director will value me more after I¡¯m promoted.¡±

    <i>Bullshit!</i>

    But it was true that Hou Xiaochen hadn¡¯t arranged a single duty for Li Hao after telling the young man toe to the provincial capital. As for killing Yu Xiao, Hao Lianchuan had asked for his help with that.

    ¡°It¡¯ll be soon!¡± Manager Yu said coldly. ¡°The director had youe not so you would sit around and stare at the wall. He must have an important mission for you and also means to protect you.¡±

    ¡°Mm, that¡¯s good. I told the director that I¡¯ll attack in whatever direction he points! He has my life. We¡¯re on the same team, wouldn¡¯t you say so?¡±

    Manager Yu ignored him; the young man didn¡¯t mind. He grinned from ear to ear as they walked.

    ¡°Manager, I hear that origin weapons have a special energy inside them that strengthens the body if absorbed. The effects are quick and it¡¯s very safe¡ªis that right?¡±

    ¡°Some do.¡±

    ¡°Do the Night Watchers have only one origin weapon?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    ¡°Can I borrow it for a few days?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The aloof Manager Yu stopped in her tracks and looked at the young man squarely in the eyes. <i>Does this kid think he¡¯s about to be enthroned in heaven to be asking for that?? The ming Phoenix Spear is a premier origin weapon! While it may notpare to the likes of simr ones in the central region, it¡¯s ranked number one in Silver Moon. Li Hao¡¯s only been here a few days, how dare he ask for the origin weapon??</i>

    ¡°Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s all for the director!¡± Li Hao interjected solemnly. ¡°I want to grow stronger and be his right hand man! I don¡¯t want to rely on the director for protection and drag him down as his burden! I want to be a powerhouse like the manager so that I can support the director more. I don¡¯t want to be like Deputy Director Hao¡ªskilled at throwing a wrench in the works and fit only for minor errands. He isn¡¯t able to participate in any major events, that¡¯s all left in the director¡¯s hands!¡±

    Manager Yu frowned without a word. Was there anything wrong with what he¡¯d said?

    No!

    But it was a bit grating on the ear. Thank goodness Hao Lianchuan wasn¡¯t close by or he¡¯d be apoplectic.

    ¡°The ming Phoenix Spear isn''t just a weapon, it¡¯s also the foundation with which supernaturals ascend. It¡¯s extremely important and nothing can happen to it...¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t lose it unless I die. If I¡¯m dead, that means that enemies are at the gates of White Moon and have taken the ming Phoenix Spear form under Director Hou¡¯s nose. There¡¯s no helping it then. Wouldn¡¯t you say so, Manager Yu?¡±

    She was going to say that no borrowing was allowed, but found herself unable to deliver the words. She pursed her lips for a while. ¡°I¡¯ll go and ask Director Hou.¡±

    ¡°Oh don¡¯t. We all know that the director listens to you!¡± Li Hao beamed radiantly. ¡°If you say so, then the director will absolutely be fine with it. It¡¯s just a small matter!¡±

    Manager Yu was at a loss for words and ignored the young man. She walked off, Li Hao hot on her heels again.

    ¡°I¡¯m just borrowing it, manager, not taking it. Let me broaden my horizons. Didn¡¯t the director say as well that I¡¯ve seen too little of the world? I haven¡¯t even seen an origin weapon yet at my age.¡±

    Manager Yu¡¯s frown deepened as she continued walking. ¡°Wait for news!¡±

    Wait for news, again! Waiting for news meant no news. Li Hao would absolutely not agree to that. ¡°Then forget it, I won¡¯t trouble the director and manager. I¡¯m taking a day off tomorrow so I can visit the army barracks. I¡¯d like to pay the Silver Moon Division a visit.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡±

    ¡°I want to visit Commander Yu!¡± Li Hao said eagerly. ¡°My teacher is friends with Commander Yu and themander¡¯s also a powerhouse. As one of the threemanders, he must own an origin weapon. I want to see if I can borrow it.¡±

    Manager Yu¡¯s expression shifted slightly and she turned back to regard Li Hao with a slightly sharp look. ¡°Is this... a threat or something else?¡± What did he mean by this?!

    ¡°It¡¯s not!¡± Li Hao bared his teeth in a wide grin. ¡°I just feel that origin weapons might help meprehend some of the true meaning of martial dao. I need to improve myself and not be a piece of trash that waits for death. I need to try every possibility avable to me to borrow this treasure. What is it, manager? Can I not go borrow one?¡±

    Irritation had well and truly set in for Manager Yu! The kid had seemed honest before, but when one got to know him, the truth was that he wasn¡¯t honest at all! That exnation inly held undertones that if Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t lend him the origin weapon, that would be restricting and suppressing the young man. In that case, he would search for opportunities in the army!

    Was that a threat?

    Not really, but Manager Yu didn¡¯t like the feeling. ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll lend it to you,¡± she said coldly after a while. ¡°But for three days at most!¡±

    ¡°My thanks!¡± Li Hao hastily thanked with excitement, but he was inwardly calm. It was good that he could borrow it; it didn¡¯t matter if he couldn¡¯t. He just wanted to see how much tolerance these people bore for him and to test if the army and Night Watchers were truly as close as family.

    Thetter didn¡¯t seem to be the case. Perhaps there were some shes or conflicts of interest between the two sides. Hu Dingfang had invited him to the Tiger Wings multiple times, but the Night Watchers never agreed to release Li Hao. While that had to do with the young man¡¯s own decision, it demonstrated the Night Watcher attitude as well.

    ......

    Director Hou¡¯s car waited outside the front gates. Li Hao climbed into the front seat while Manager Yu sat in the back. It was very quiet in the car; the Silver Moon Guards were inly not nearby. The young man didn¡¯t ask where they were stationed¡ªhe would know once they arrived.

    He was curious about the Guards, but also not that curious. An army unit of martial masters might possess numerous experts and quite a few Dominators, but he didn¡¯t care about them unless they were renowned martial masters.

    It wasn¡¯t that martial masters were stronger the more famous they were, but that they were all unique. How were martial masters supposed to grow stronger if they did not fight often? How could they challenge their peers if they were not prominent? How were they to strengthen their aura if they didn¡¯t spar with others?

    If martial masters raised by the military were all cast from the same mold, then they weren¡¯t worth mentioning even if they progressed to Dominator of Thousands. The threemanders had been considered strong because they were renowned throughout thend. Where did strengthe, if not from numerous battles?

    Manager Yu wasn¡¯t inclined to chat, neither was Li Hao. The young man closed his eyes to rest and didn¡¯t bother looking at the route they were taking. His mind intent circled around him, however, so sharp that the driver found it ufortable to bear.

    Manager Yu¡¯s eyes glinted in the backseat as well. Sword aura! Li Hao had practiced his sword aura well and would¡¯ve made a name for himself in the martial world of yesteryear. To think that Yuan Shuo would find a diamond in the rough in his old age after missing the mark on so many students!

    The car headed north. The Night Watcher headquarters were in the southern quadrant and the Inspectorate headquarters were in the northern quadrant. Were the Silver Moon Guards there as well? They were so far away, did Hou Xiaochen not visit on a regr basis?

    ¡°There are very few in the Guards, less than one thousand,¡± Manager Yu offered from the back. ¡°980 to be exact. There are nine teams of one hundred and the remaining is a bodyguard troop for the officer in charge of them all.

    ¡°There are nine centurions, they¡¯re all low level chiefmissioners. The ranking officer leading the Guards is a high level chiefmissioner. The Guards themselves are almost allmissioner inspectors. There are less than one hundred yers among the 980, the remaining are all Sunderers!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook.<i> That strong??</i>

    But it made sense upon further thought. In this day and age, Sunderer wasn¡¯t difficult when there was sufficient mysterious power. Half step Dominator was the true test.

    ¡°Are there many half step Dominators?¡± he asked.

    ¡°Not many, nearly one hundred.¡±

    The young man raised a brow, that was still a lot. Almost one hundred people perceiving the aura was not a small number. The Guards were more powerful than he thought! He¡¯d felt that it¡¯d be impressive if they had a dozen martial masters who¡¯d perceived the aura, but almost one hundred? And that wasn¡¯t counting their officers¡ªthose must be Dominators.

    ¡°Ah, there¡¯s also a deputy officer, so that makes for eleven Dominators in the Guards!¡±

    Nine centurions, two of their superiors, eleven Dominators.

    ¡°How do theypare to Southern First?¡± Li Hao asked after momentary silence.

    ¡°They are inferior.¡±

    ¡°I mean their highest officers...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say.¡± Manager Yu thought for a bit. ¡°If it was back in the day, before He Yong set foot into Dominator, then theparison would go without saying. But now, he has never demonstrated his full strength in front of others, so it¡¯s hard to judge. Martial masters need to be met in battle to see how strong they might be.¡±

    ¡°Have the Guards fought Srs?¡±

    ¡°Their two highest officers have!¡±

    Li Hao understood. That meant those two weren¡¯t regr Dominators. Their centurions, however, were peak Sunre at the most. That was strong, but that was all there was to them.

    ¡°The army also possesses army formations. When they are assembled, the sum is far more than the parts. The Guards seek to assemble a formation of a thousand people and kill Novas!¡±

    Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Are you not curious?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just an army formation, what¡¯s there to be curious about?¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°They¡¯ve existed since ancient times and were recorded in the ancient civilization. The group¡¯s strength rises when the formation is assembled, there¡¯s even a chance for it to double or triple. Historic books speak of a formation that is incredibly mighty and concentrates power on one person. It borrows strength from a thousand people and might use one of the Guards¡¯ officers as the formation eye. They would have hopes of defeating those greater than Nova, to say nothing of Nova. So it looks like Director Hou doesn¡¯t possess this kind of formation?¡±

 Chapter 344: The Silver Moon Guards (III)

    <h4>Chapter 344: The Silver Moon Guards (III)</h4>

    It was true that formidable formations existed. Numerous records could be founded in ancient tomes. Li Hao knew quite a few ancient books that spoke of them; he¡¯d been forced to memorize the material due to his teacher.

    Manager Yu felt quite frustrated all of a sudden. Information that she thought was quite impressive was worthless when Li Hao spoke of it. The young man wasn¡¯t the only one to give her this feeling. She couldn¡¯t help but take a walk down memoryne¡ªthere was once an irritating fellow in the martial world who knew everything one spoke of. If someone presented a formidable secret art, he could give examples of countless arts much more powerful.

    That person was Yuan Shuo, someone so infuriating it set one¡¯s teeth on edge!

    Yuan Shuo was widely learned at a young age. Of that, the entire martial world was aware of. He knew a lot and read all sorts of books. When modern choices couldn¡¯t satisfy him, he grew curious about ancient books. Thus started his path of archaeology. By now, he knew much, much more and Li Hao showed signs of following Yuan Shuo¡¯s development. Old Demon Yuan had just returned to the world, was there going to be a Little Demon Li?

    Manager Yu instantly lost interest in the conversation. <i>You¡¯ll know when we get there!</i>

    ......

    The car headed for the northern outskirts after driving in the city for half an hour.

    ¡°There¡¯s a sea in the northern outskirts, but it''s only a bay and not a real sea. The North Sea traverses the continent and separates the central region from the north. Silver Moon holds only a tiny portion of it, we call it the Moon Sea.

    ¡°Taking the Moon Sea will deposit one in the North Sea. From there, one can travel to the central region, but it¡¯s not safe. There are robbers and pirates in the waters, it¡¯s not as safe as going bynd.

    ¡°The Silver Moon Guards are stationed near the Moon Sea. It¡¯s sparsely inhabited there and, as such, suitable for martial masters to train. The resulting disturbance from nearly one thousand martial masters is quite significant.¡± Manager Yu started giving an overview of the Guards when they were almost at their destination.

    Her introduction piqued Li Hao¡¯s interest. ¡°Manager, does this mean that the barracks is by the sea?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Then I can swim at any time?¡±

    ¡°If you¡¯re not afraid of drowning.¡±

    Li Hao was suddenly in a good mood. The Moon Sea... It didn¡¯t matter that it was a bay. He¡¯d never seen the sea before. Apparently, there were beauties there who didn¡¯t wear clothes¡ªahem, beauties there who sunbathed.

    ¡°Are there beaches near the barracks, manager?¡±

    ¡°Of course, but there¡¯s not really anyone there as that¡¯s a military restricted zone.¡±

    Li Hao was disappointed again. A restricted zone! What a pity! Not for himself, but for teacher. His thoughts had already traveled to when teacher might visit. He could take his teacher to watch sunbathing beauties! But it looked like he had to give up the idea.

    ......

    There was a patch of man-made forest near the Moon Sea. It covered an enormous area at thousands of acres. There was a clearing within its center, a perfectly square one if viewed from overhead. It was empty in the middle and upied by numerous buildings.

    This clearing spanned several hundred acres; a scattered handful of people could be seen walking through it if one took an aerial view.

    <i>In a building below ground.</i>

    Grunts and shouts abounded. But since this was a restricted zone for the military, there were no visitors. The man-made forest surrounding them also provided soundproofing so thatrger disturbances didn¡¯t travel beyond the forest.

    The buildings surrounded a massive za in the center¡ªthe sparring and parade grounds. This za was almost fifty acres itself and could hold one hundred soldiers in times of need. There weren¡¯t many within it at the moment.

    Although night had fallen, lights converged in the area and lit up the premises. Some people stood in the center of the za, a stark contrast to those training. Those martial masters wore the same uniforms that closely resembled Inspectorate uniforms, but were slightly different. They wore red badges while the Inspectorate and Night Watchers did not do so. Thetter only had shoulder patches to indicate their rank.

    The people in the za were dressed in casual orbat outfits. They represented arge variety of characters and were inly not governed by typical rules.

    A pudgy middle-aged man with eyes so small that they were slits in his face was the first to speak. ¡°Manager Yu will be visiting shortly, apparently to escort someone here. It¡¯s Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple.¡±

    ¡°Li Hao?¡± someone asked. Their sources of information were quite well informed.

    ¡°That¡¯s him!¡± chuckled the fatty. ¡°Yuan Shuo... was an old demon back in the day. Though we don¡¯t have any dealings with him since he¡¯d retired from the martial world when we became active, everyone here knows him, right?¡±

    Martial dao had not sprung up out of nowhere. There were legacies and inheritances involved. Some faces darkened in the za.

    ¡°My martial uncle died to him, I know him!¡±

    ¡°He killed my master¡¯s master!¡±

    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for the director protecting that old demon these years... We would¡¯ve killed him a long time ago!¡±

    ¡°.......¡±

    Yuan Shuo had killed quite a few notable martial masters back in the day. The speakers were all Dominators and their longest tenure at twenty years. Even with the appearance of mysterious power shortening the cultivation period required, the shortest tenure of those present was ten years. Their previous generation had been of Yuan Shuo¡¯s time.

    ¡°Mu Lin.¡± Someone looked at the fatty. ¡°I hear that your younger brother Mu Sen is on good terms with Yuan Shuo. Are you saying this to help that Li Hao?!¡±

    ¡°Now that would be a misunderstanding! How would I ever?¡± Mu Lin roared withughter. ¡°Not to mention, what am I supposed to help him with? Li Hao is a half step Dominator, not a little nobody. He killed the Qimei Staff¡¯s eldest disciple, so he¡¯s not a true rookie. His length of training is short, but he¡¯s not weak!

    ¡°I¡¯m just telling you all of this in advance.¡± Mu Sen grinned merrily. ¡°So that you know what will be done with him when hees.¡±

    There was one officer in charge of the nearly one thousand of the Silver Moon Guards and one deputy. The deputy was Mu Lin, but his centurions didn¡¯t quite like taking his orders. The fatty flinched and cowered when he fought, but was always first in line for benefits. It was quite annoying. But he naturally had his talents to be able to upy the position of deputy for the Guards, such as... instigating trouble!

    ¡°I¡¯ve given it some thought,¡± Mu Lin chuckled at seeing everyone remain silent. ¡°How about we let him be a centurion? He¡¯s Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple, after all, so we have to show him some respect. Although he¡¯s not a Dominator yet, the Five Styles is well known. Perhaps he can punch above his ss!¡±

    ¡°Out with whatever crap you¡¯re cooking up, Mu Lin. What do you want to do?¡±

    ¡°How rude!¡± Mu Lin sighed. ¡°Alright, to be honest, I don¡¯t really want to do anything. I just want to have you guys put him through his paces. I¡¯ve been wanting to create my own set of bodyguards. It¡¯s so distressing not to have a single man beneath mymand as I¡¯m a deputy. I think highly of thisd and want to recruit him to be the team captain. What do you think about testing him out?¡±

    The rest of the group frowned. What did this guy want to do? There were reasons for why Mu Lin was the deputy¡ªhis mind worked more quickly than the others, at least.

    Some didn¡¯t want to entertain him, while there were others who champed at the bit. Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple! Some wanted revenge, others wanted to humble the boy, and yet others wanted to befriend him...

    Of course, no one would actually kill him since it was Director Hou who sent him to them. But a regr exchange of skill was fine, right? Martial masters spoke through their strength. They couldn¡¯t be med for looking down on him if he joined them only through connections.

    ¡°Everyone, stop training!¡± Mu Lin announced in a sonorous voice. ¡°We are going to have guests soon! The disciple of Five Styles King Yuan Shuo, his final disciple at that, will be arriving shortly. Be ready to wee him!¡±

    A hubbub of conversation started after his words.

    ¡°Old Demon Yuan¡¯s disciple?¡±

    ¡°The old demon¡¯s disciple darese here? My master¡¯s master died to the old demon...¡±

    ¡°He killed your master¡¯s master? Pfft, keep blowing hot air! That old demon only killed famous martial masters, it¡¯s not like I don¡¯t know your background! The leader of the Iron Fists was strong enough, but he wasn¡¯t even part of the rankings back then. What would the old demon go and beat him to death for?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Discourse arose round the za. There weren¡¯t that many bearing actual hatred for Yuan Shuo because he only fought those with strength and status. Martial masters who weren¡¯t famous enough back in the day wouldn¡¯t receive his challenge letter.

    Some people like to brag about a fight with Yuan Shuo all the same. ¡°My master died to him¡± was an indication of strength. Those who received that treatment were all powerhouses in those years. Therefore, apart from those who truly came from renowned disciplines, the rest were mostly curious. There was no helping it, as a martial master¡ªand Silver Moon¡¯s martial master¡ªone could not avoid that person and name.

    Yuan Shuo!

    If he¡¯d been truly crippled and retired in Silver City, the martial world would no longer share his stories after a few years. But he¡¯d stepped into the public again!

    All of the martial masters in the barracks looked at the front gates. There was a massive set of doors there¡ªor rather, an entire structure. All visitors must pass through it.

    ......

    The car drove into the jungle. Li Hao opened his eyes and looked forward. He could see some balls of light. While he couldn¡¯t make out martial masters, there were inly supernaturals at the barracks. Not many, possibly used to supplement martial masters. Some supernatural abilities were veryplementary with martial masters, such as the ability to fly or investigate.

    The closer they drew, the more Li Hao¡¯s blood frothed. There were many powerhouses here! He sensed the aura! With nearly one hundred gathered in front of him, theirbined perception of aura created an atmosphere of pressure that loomed overhead.

    The young man suddenly sat up straight and looked back at Manager Yu. ¡°Can I kill people over the course of sparring?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The driver¡¯s hands shook, as did Manager Yu frown faintly.

 Chapter 345: The Silver Moon Guards (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 345: The Silver Moon Guards (IV)</h4>

    ¡°My master¡¯s enemies are everywhere,¡± Li Hao said in a low voice. ¡°There are so many martial masters here and I¡¯m his final disciple. There will be plenty of people who want to make trouble for me! I wouldn¡¯t care if I represented only myself, but I cannot lose face for the Five Styles discipline!

    ¡°If not, people will say this is all there is to the Five Styles!

    ¡°I¡¯m not interested in beating up weaklings. But if a Dominator provokes me and I can¡¯t pull my blows in time, will it be fine if I end up killing them?¡±

    Being a martial master back in the day, Manager Yu naturally knew what he meant. She tensed, thinking it over. ¡°With your strength, there will be exceedingly few targets that you cannot control yourself against. It¡¯s fine to inflict injuries throughout the course of sparring, but keep in mind that once you are at the Silver Moon Guards, they are your colleagues. They may not be of the same discipline as you, but beating colleagues to death is not what martial masters pursue either!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not part of the Guards yet!¡± Li Hao pointed out. ¡°Forget that. How about this, I will not seek to kill someone so long as they don¡¯t insult the Five Styles discipline, my teacher, or try to kill me!¡±

    Manager Yu had nothing else to say when the young man modified his words. She had been a martial master once and knew these particrs all too well. If the young man really did turn a blind eye and deaf ear to everything, he would not be able to find his footing in the world. No one would think much of him, even with his powerful teacher.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao was rather excited. Numerous martial masters awaited and there were many auras to be acquainted with! While the asion might not hold a candle to the prosperity of the former Silver Moon martial world, unexpected gains might await him in a ce with so many half step Dominators.

    Witnessing different auras would help himprehend different types of martial dao. It might help him with grasping more auras himself. He wouldn¡¯t be that interested if only supernaturals stood in front of him, but it was martial masters instead. There was even some hostility... No one could me him if anyone dared run afoul of him!

    The car slowly came to a half in front of massive gates.

    <i>The Silver Moon Guards!</i>

    The three characters were emzoned on a signboard hanging over the gates. They appeared extraordinary, but Li Hao merely nced once at them. It might¡¯ve been Hou Xiaochen who¡¯d written them. They paled far inparison to the characters of Battle Heaven¡ªthere was no need to study them at length.

    Overwhelming aura surged at them before the group alighted from the car. A teeming mass of people stood behind the gates¡ªhundreds of martial masters!

    Li Hao felt pressure bearing down on him as soon as he got out of the car. There was more than one Dominator in the crowd and troops of one hundred were swiftly assembling. Each troop stood in a square formation, levying more intimidation on the young man.

    There wouldn¡¯t be as much suppression on their visitor if the crowd had milled around aimlessly. A martial master stood at the front of each formation and a fatty stood at the head. He seemed a bit familiar... Upon second nce, he resembled a Mu Sen with smaller eyes. Li Hao immediately guessed that this would be the elder brother that Mu Sen spoke of. This was the second-inmand and deputy of the Silver Moon Guards.

    ¡°Greetings to Manager Yu, greetings to the one of the Five Styles discipline!¡± The fatty called out from a distance and beamed radiantly.

    The manager alighted from the car with an aloof look and didn¡¯t say much. Li Hao buttoned his cor and, after some thought, rolled up his sleeves. There was a time and ce to y the part of a timid weakling. It was meaningless to do so in front of a group of martial masters, some which were the same age as him. They inly wanted to humiliate him at their first meeting; he wouldn¡¯t permit them to have their way!

    Hou Xiaochen obviously wished for him to join the Guards. In that case, he would be the one teaching them a lesson! If one wanted to find his footing in a ce, he had to take action when he must.

    Li Hao stood next to the secretary¡¯s side and walked with her. The pressure built as they stepped forward¡ªthe stifling sensation was immense! A miasma of blood qi even appeared over the square formations. Every martial master regarded their visitor with a frosty look and coursing qi. Most supernaturals probably wouldn¡¯t be able to control their mysterious power from agitating in response at this distance.

    ¡°Mu Lin!¡± called out Manager Yu.

    The fatty jogged over with a smile. ¡°Manager Yu, please forgive us for not going out to meet you!¡±

    ¡°Are you still running drills at this hour?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, I can¡¯t help it if the brothers wish to get in more practice. I can¡¯t stop them at all!¡± Mu Lin looked merrily at Li Hao. ¡°You¡¯re Li Hao, right? I¡¯ve heard about you¡ªthe final disciple of the Five Styles! My brother often mentions you and says you¡¯re quite a talent. Nice to meet you, I can see that the rumors are true!¡±

    The young man inclined his head and said nothing in response. He focused his attention on the martial masters standing behind the deputy. All of them glowered back at him. Li Hao carefully sensed those in the surroundings. A faint air of blood could be found in their presences. It would appear that they¡¯d been in battles before. They weren¡¯t the type of martial master that shut themselves away in seclusion. Now this was interesting. Who had these martial masters once fought? It was impossible for a Dominator to battle without anyone knowing of it.

    Li Hao suddenly smiled at those standing in formation. ¡°It looks like the various seniors nurse certain dissatisfaction with me. Perhaps it has to do with my identity as a Five Styles disciple...¡±

    Some eyes widened among the crowd. Was he bowing his head?

    ¡°My master killed a lot of people back in the day, perhaps he killed some of your friends and family. But death and injuries are normal when martial masters spar. Those who cannot ept that should withdraw from the martial world as soon as possible!¡±

    The young man beamed radiantly. ¡°Since there seems to be general anger floating around, why not give voice to it? Here I am, I don¡¯t mind being a target. Those present who feel a need to spar with me can step forward! If you think you are no match for me, then all of you cane at the same time. I¡¯ll fight every one of you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Ringing silence echoed around the za before a loud hubbub started. How cocky!

    Across from him, Mu Lin started. This wasn¡¯t right! This wasn¡¯t the Li Hao that his brother spoke of! This kid was so arrogant!

    ¡°You need to think carefully about this, Li Hao!¡± a Dominator in the distance said coldly. ¡°This is the Silver Moon Guards and we might not do anything to you out of consideration for the director. Things are different if you provoke us, though!¡±

    ¡°An ax wielder...¡± Li Hao chuckled when he noted the weapon that the speaker held. ¡°Are you a disciple of Mountain Ax? The one that my master killed with three punches? My master says that Mountain Ax isn¡¯t weak, he just didn¡¯t live up to the hype. That was why my master couldn¡¯t check his blows in time.¡±

    ¡°You bastard!¡± Ax Wielder leapt into the air andnded in front of Li Hao, regarding the young man with a frosty look. ¡°You court death, Li Hao!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t give me that,¡± sighed the young man. ¡°We¡¯re both martial masters and you showed me the greatest enmity when I arrived! You want nothing more than to hack me to death in one swing, so why should I be polite?

    ¡°In that case, let¡¯s cut to the chase and be more direct. Since we¡¯re martial masters, we don¡¯t need to pretend to be supernaturals. We can speak frankly of any grudges we have with each other and then start beating each other, right?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± sneered Ax Wielder. ¡°You¡¯re kinda interesting, Li Hao! I¡¯m Chen Jin, a disciple of Mountain Ax. But I¡¯ve been a Dominator for five years and will not bully a junior. I¡¯ll have my disciple put you through your paces. I¡¯d like to see what caliber of talent this generation¡¯s Five Styles disciple is!¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to do that!¡± Li Hao took a step forward in his leather boots and cracked the ground. He sent a half-hearted punch drifting through the air. ¡°You can do the deed yourself, I¡¯m worried your disciple is too weak!¡±

    ¡°Hmph!¡± Chen Jin snorted and swung his ax. He knew that Li Hao¡¯s punch came from the tiger style. A punch of the Five Styles wasn¡¯t worth anything. It was too slow!

    Li Hao frowned upon seeing that his opponent wasn¡¯t bringing his full strength to bear. ¡°Who do you think you¡¯re belittling without even using your aura?¡±

    He roared like a tiger overseeing his domain, causing Chen Jin to cough violently. Blood seeped at the corner of his mouth as his organs shook! The man¡¯s expression changed drastically and he shouted with fury, chopping swiftly with his ax! A mountainous ax head seemed to appear above him as he made his move¡ªMountain Ax!

    He¡¯d known that he faced a strong enemy as soon as Li Hao roared. The young man struck with abandon. Since his opponent was now putting his full force behind the blows, he could answer in kind. Otherwise, it would appear that he was belittling the man.

    His punch sped up¡ªit was fast, very fast! Though he didn¡¯t use the sword aura, a ferocious tiger manifested over Li Hao¡¯s body all the same. A Five Styles disciple naturally used the tiger aura.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s punch didn¡¯t seem that fast, but it arrived first. He connected with the ax head before Chen Jin finished his swing. The tiger seemed to sniff out an enemy as it broke out of its cage. Cavernous maw yawning, it pped the mountainous weapon and shattered it!

    A meeting of auras!

    Li Hao hit the weapon with a thunderous collision and broke the iparably durable metal with a single punch! He jumped off the ground and punched again!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Another loud collision saw Chen Jin take a blow to his chest. His rib cage broke with a crunch and he flew backward. Chen Jin of the Mountain Ax discipline had his aura shattered with Li Hao¡¯s first punch and was gravely injured with the second!

    <i>Wham!</i>

    Chen Jin crashed to the ground and coughed up blood, staring incredulously at Li Hao. The entire za was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.

    Li Hao withdrew his fists and didn¡¯t press his advantage. He looked around with a smile. ¡°It looks like my Five Styles wins!¡±

    Silence rang. Disbelief filled the crowd¡¯s eyes and several centurions looked on with grave looks. Two punches had been all it took to defeat a Dominator of five years, the heir of Mountain Ax! This guy was stronger than they could imagine!

    Mu Lin¡¯s jaw dropped in his best goldfish imitation. Hadn¡¯t his brother said that Li Hao was just a Sunderer? Bullshit! How old was that information??

    Aplicated look was also flickering through Manager Yu¡¯s eyes. She knew that Li Hao¡¯s sword aura was very strong, but... that hadn¡¯t seemed like sword aura. Was that the tiger aura? Could the boy change his mind intent at will?

    Two punches were all that was necessary to heavily wound a centurion and fling him to the ground. The rest of the Guards were still collecting their wits. Were... these the capabilities of a Five Styles disciple?

    `

 Chapter 346: Joining the Silver Moon Guards (I)

    <h4>Chapter 346: Joining the Silver Moon Guards (I)</h4>

    <i>Within the za.</i>

    Li Hao took a step forward, looking around with a lilt of his head that was the height of arrogance!

    Of course, that wasn¡¯t his true attitude. No matter why Hou Xiaochen wanted him to join the Silver Moon Guards, he simply didn¡¯t want to bow his head in a ce that was filled solely with martial masters. His teacher was Old Demon Yuan Shuo!

    Having defeated the heir of Mountain Ax with two punches, his blood frothed and the tiger aura manifested.

    ¡°Director Hou wants me to join the Guards, but I don¡¯t really want to!¡± Li Hao announced. ¡°I think none of you canpare to the martial masters of the glory days, so I don¡¯t see the need to join you! If I am to fight and vie for glory, I will do so against the old guard!

    ¡°Some of them have gone to the central region, some have be supernatural. I once saw thete Sr Qimei Staff King. Although he¡¯s no longer a martial master, I feel that he still had the heart of a martial master!

    ¡°It would be happiness incarnate to fight with such martial masters!

    ¡°I visited Senior Southern Fist He Yong at noon, wanting to spar with him. He refused as either I would kill him, or he would kill me. He did not want a fight to the death because he wanted to battle my teacher! I find it a regret that such a martial master is not willing to battle me. It is my regret!¡±

    Li Hao looked around him. ¡°I know that the older generation thinks little of us, that we are young and far less than their era despite decent strength. Even when their strength reached Dominator, they were held at Sunderer!

    ¡°Therefore, I am very happy to sense your enmity and battle intent. I feel that while the old guard thinks nothing of me, if I can sweep the Silver Moon Guards, I can add you to my list of aplishments!

    ¡°When someone asks me what feats have I achieved in battle, I can answer that I single-handedly defeated the entire Silver Moon Guards¡ªthe Guards that have people shaking in their boots!¡±

    Killing intent soared into the air after he finished speaking. A woman dressed in a ckbat outfit jumped out.

    ¡°Li Hao, do you think you can make a clean sweep of us?¡± she asked frostily.

    ¡°I think I can!¡± The young man nodded with a smile. ¡°Not only can I do that, but I don¡¯t think there¡¯s anyone here who can take ten moves from me. None of you can!¡±

    ¡°Xie Lan of the Jade Sword Sect! Please show me your skill!¡± shouted the woman as she swung her sword!

    Li Hao was tantly humiliating all of them¡ªnot just one or two of them, but every person in the Guards. His defeat of Mountain Ax¡¯s heir allowed everyone to understand that he was strong. Martial masters, however, never admitted defeat. Even when they knew full well that they did not measure up to the enemy, they still refused to concede that they were inferior.

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    The sword pierced through the air; a sh of arctic sword light illuminated all directions. The martial masters were nervous. Li Hao had defeated Chen Jin as soon as he arrived¡ªthey dearly wished for Xia Lan of the Jade Sword Sect to find victory.

    The young man swiftly moved forward with a majestic gait. He leapt into the air and stomped down, shoving the longsword beneath the ground with a thunderous step!

    Xie Lan¡¯s fingers nearly split from her hand. She wanted to control her weapon, but found it impossible to shift.

    Li Hao punched out with Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods, his momentum was undeniable!

    <i>Too strong!</i>

    A dismayed Xie Lan hastily backed away, but Li Hao flung himself forward with Birdshot! He broke through the air and instantly appeared in front of his opponent. Xie Lan quickly kicked out, but the young man¡¯s fist was already in motion!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Xie Lan flew through the air, her right leg curled in on itself. She shrieked with grim determination and forced herself to boomerang back as she was thrown backward. With hand as sword, she pointed at Li Hao¡¯s head!

    The young man opened his mouth. ¡°ROAR!!¡± Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods!

    Li Hao was the tiger as its roars reverberated through thend. Internal force erupted and his mind intent was on full disy. Xie Lan¡¯s sword qi didn¡¯t even touch Li Hao before he grasped it with a hand.

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    It was intangible sword qi made of internal force, but it sounded like metal fracturing when the young man closed his hand. The internal force exploded as Li Hao crushed it! Tiger roars continue to echo through the void after the sword qi crumbled away. As Xie Lan reeled with dizziness, the young man punched again!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Xie Lan went flying, blood spewing from her mouth. She crashed right beside Chen Jin when shended, smashing the man t just as he was about to struggle to his feet!

    Two out of nine centurions had swiftly tasted defeat without even a chance to fight back! The rest exchanged shocked looks.

    ¡°I said that one person isn¡¯t enough and that all of you shoulde together, but you insisted on being prideful instead,¡± Li Hao said coldly. ¡°Martial masters like to fight solo, but that¡¯s predicated by a foundation of equal strength! All of you are too weak and are justing to your individual deaths. If it wasn¡¯t for myck of desire to kill you and the obvious gap between our abilities, all of you would be dead!¡±

    This was no longer face pping, it was face shitting! Three people jumped out in response. They were all male¡ªone wielded the de, another the spear, and thest bare hands. His palms were ck as all of his skill was concentrated in the hand.

    ¡°Zhang Yang of the Five Tiger Broken de Sect!¡±

    ¡°Wu Yue of the Heartsmasher Palm!¡±

    ¡°Luo Qizhao of the Luo Spear!¡±

    ¡°Please show us your skill!¡±

    The spear shed forward like a blood dragon howling with overwhelming killing intent. Tigers roared their outrage when Zhang Yang swung his de. Wu Yue sent a soundless palm toward Li Hao. The three respectively targeted the young man¡¯s throat, heart, and head. Three Dominators red their mind intent and locked onto Li Hao, as domineering as the gods!

    The martial masters watching were holding their breaths, deeply afraid to miss a single scene. It was exceedingly rare to see three Dominators¡ªthree centurions¡ªjointly attack an enemy. Two centurions had fought a Sr before, and their centurions had won!

    The Dominators of the Silver Moon Guards were not weak. Two centurions working in conjunction could defeat some Srs¡ªof course, just initial Srs, but that was already impressive enough. That the three were working in tandem meant that they thought Li Hao was stronger than the regr initial Sr.

    ......

    <i>Within the za.</i>

    Li Hao remained unmoved as the spear stabbed at him. His right hand shed out and grabbed the spear; the young man roared and yanked on the spear so hard that the heir of the Luos stumbled.

    <i>He¡¯s terrifying!</i> Luo Qizhao¡¯s eyes went wide. He shook his spear¡ª<i>vibrate!</i>

    Internal force surged, shaking the weapon. However, Li Hao¡¯s response was to throw the weapon out. Luo Qizhao could barely control his weapon from stabbing into Wu Yue¡¯s palm. Just as Li Hao flung the spear with his right hand, he clenched his left hand into a fist and raised it in a punch!

    <i>ng!</i>

    Zhang Yang¡¯s de was sent off course from Li Hao¡¯s head. The young man twisted to the side to evade the rest of the swing. He pushed off from the ground and hovered in the air like an ape for a split second. With a sh, he vanished before his opponents.

    ¡°Be careful!¡± eximed Zhang Yang. Wu Yue¡¯s expression also shifted and he wanted to dodge, but felt pressure around his neck. Li Hao had descended from the sky like a monkey and wrapped both legs around his neck.

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    His spine cracked; Wu Yue thrust his palm at Li Hao without another word. The young man tightened his legs around his opponent¡¯s neck and suddenly swung upside down, punching the backs of Wu Yue¡¯s legs!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Wu Yue sank to his knees, in too much pain to continue standing!

    Li Hao adroitly jumped down and pushed off his right leg, bounding up like a monkey flying through the air. Flicking the leg forward, he punted the kneeling man!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Wu Yue crashed to the ground. A long spear stabbed at Li Hao¡¯s waist sans disturbance or mighty roar, just ruthless determination!

    The young man snorted and grabbed it with his hand, running his grip along it like a little snake climbing a branch and drawing near to the heir of the Luos. Li Hao suddenly reached out with both arms and lifted the other in a bear hug. He was as if a bear hugging a tree to rip it up by the roots. The young man raised the heir of the Luos up and smashed him down onto the ground!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A humongous crater appeared in the ground. Li Hao had a death lock on the heir of the Luos; the man couldn¡¯t move. Thanks to the tremendous impact, Luo Qizhao was mmed straight into the ground.

    <i>The bear style!</i>

    The young man had demonstrated the tiger, bear, bird, and ape styles in short session... Other than the lightness of the deer style, he¡¯d fully disyed everything at hismand. The deer style focused on lightening the body and was more often used to escape. He didn¡¯t need that for now.

    The neer had swiftly defeated his opponents in the blink of an eye. Luo Qizhao and Wu Yue were quickly rebuffed, leaving the desman to look around in dismay. Three powerhouses had teamed together for joint effort, but one was below the ground and the other sent flying. This was astounding!

    ¡°Kill!¡± He raised his de and rushed Li Hao.

    The young man punched again, it was like the waves were upon them. Sevenyers of massive waves churned through the area, visible to the rest of the crowd.

    <i>Rumble! </i>A wave reared to the sky.<i> ng!</i>

    The enormous de broke in a shower of fiery sparks! Zhang Yang¡¯s hand fractured and blood sprayed in all directions. He stared incredulously at the punch. Was that... the Nine Forged Force?

    Silver Spear¡¯s Nine Forged Force was very famous. The name had just floated into his mind when a punch emzoned itself onto his chest.

    <i>Wham! Bang!</i>

    Zhang Yang flew backward; this punch was noticeably stronger than the rest. His chest caved in!

    Defeat! Three Dominators working in tandem had onlysted moments before being thoroughly defeated!

 Chapter 347: Joining the Silver Moon Guards (II)

    <h4>Chapter 347: Joining the Silver Moon Guards (II)</h4>

    Mu Lin¡¯s jaw dropped; Manager Yu was also startled. Li Hao wasn¡¯t employing the sword aura, but the Five Styles! The young man wasn¡¯t bringing his strongest aura to bear and had disposed of three Dominators through just the Five Styles and Nine Forged Force. It quite astonished the secretary.

    She knew that Li Hao was very strong and that he¡¯d killed Yu Xiao, but she¡¯d thought that he¡¯d employed the sword aura and put his life on the line to aplish the deed. But today, he didn¡¯t even have a chance to use the sword aura yet.

    <i>Within the za.</i>

    Li Hao exhaled and looked off to the side. He beckoned with a smile. ¡°All four of you together may not make it past thirty moves, do you still want to try? Or maybe you can bring Deputy Mu with you!¡±

    He thought nothing of the four remaining centurions. Mu Lin grinned so widely that his eyes disappeared in the folds of his face. So cocky!

    The four being addressed looked gravely at the five people on the ground. Five of their brethren had been defeated in the blink of an eye! The rest of them together might not put up a fight to Li Hao¡ªwhat a terrifying fellow! When had such a monster appeared in the martial world? He¡¯d only trained for a few years! Was this supposed to be Sunderer of Hundreds?

    Everyone looked at Mu Lin. There was no option but for the fatty to walk forward with a smile.

    ¡°Well done, Li Hao, very impressive! Let¡¯s stop here. Everyone, let us wee...¡±

    ¡°No, that¡¯s not enough!¡± Li Hao looked at the fatty with a smile. ¡°Deputy Mu, I¡¯d like to see how strong your Iron Shirt or Golden Bell Shield is! I would be too disappointed if the second inmand of the Silver Moon Guards is as weak as the rest of them!¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re all on the same team here...¡±ughed Mu Lin.

    The young man punched without a second word. Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods! <i>At this point in the game, how am I going to agree to joining you guys if I don¡¯t suss out what you¡¯re capable of?</i>

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Mu Lin took one step back at the loud collision, but his expression remained the same. He grinned at the sight of the young man¡¯s fist resting against his chest. ¡°Will this do? Why don¡¯t we stop here?¡±

    Li Hao was slightly surprised. He looked at the man, then at Mu Lin¡¯s chest. The deputy had taken one of his direct punches and waspletely fine for it! It was like he¡¯d punched a b of metal! Mu Lin was many times stronger than Chen Jian of the team in Silver City. Chen Jian was also a defensive martial master and trained a secret art called the Earth Dragon Shield. He was very strong, but not worth mentioning whenpared to this person!

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow and took a step back. All of the other martial masters in the za heave sighs of relief. It would be mortifying if the young man really beat all of them! Thank goodness their deputy was reliable in critical moments, that his Iron Shirt was iparably strong! He wasn¡¯t at all shaken by one of Li Hao¡¯s punches¡ªthose punches could send a Dominator flying.

    ¡°Impressive!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I wonder who¡¯s stronger¡ªyou or Inspector General Kong? I mean in terms of Iron Shirt skill. He¡¯s be a supernatural now and might have given up his practice of the Iron Shirt...¡±

    ¡°I may be less than him in terms of supernatural abilities,¡± chuckled Mu Lin. ¡°If that¡¯s off the table, he crossed over as a half step Dominator. How does thatpare to me?¡±

    ¡°Then does Deputy Mu know that my teacher once broke the most famous Iron Shirt with his bare hands?¡± Li Haoughed uproariously. That martial master had used Iron Shirt as his moniker! That was true strength as it meant he represented all powerhouses practicing the method in that era. No one was greater than him, and Yuan Shuo trounced him all the same.

    ¡°I know, but you¡¯re not Yuan Shuo!¡± Mu Lin smiled. ¡°That¡¯s enough, Li Hao, it¡¯s enough for everyone to know that you¡¯re very capable...¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s not enough! Powerhouses don¡¯t need to prove to weaklings how capable they are. I just need to show my might to the strong !¡± Li Hao¡¯s presence abruptly shifted and he raised his hand as a sword!

    His sword was as if a mountain, or was it a mountain as if a sword? It crashed upon Mu Lin! <i>The earth sword aura!</i>

    The deputy¡¯s expression shifted slightly. So strong! He roared ferociously and threw himself at Li Hao, golden light emanated from his body. The Iron Shirt wasn¡¯t just used for defense, it could also be employed in offense! Ramming the enemy was the best attack!

    The sword qi loomed like a mountain!

    Li Hao¡¯s right hand swung down like a sword and thunderously collided with his opponent¡¯s first.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    A crash between two bodies somehow gave rise to fiery sparks, as if two chunks of metal had hacked each other. Li Hao rapidly backed away, light on his feet like a startled deer and immediately drifted into the distance.

    Golden light sparkled over Mu Lin¡¯s fist¡ªit¡¯d been punctured. A bloody scrape could be found on it, but it vanished in the blink of an eye.

    ¡°Li Hao, you¡¯re pretty ruthless, I shan¡¯t hold back then...¡± Mu Lin rumbled. Though he was rotund, he was exceedingly agile. Heunched himself from the ground and hurtled at Li Hao. He didn¡¯t bear the slightest reservation whatsoever. The Iron Shirt was an incredible method!

    Numerous iron doors seem to manifest over his body¡ªthis was his mind intent. His defenses were invincible, he did not fear attacks!

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow and continued to wield his hand as a sword. He stabbed forth several hundred times in the span of a breath. The Ghost Shadow Sword!

    <i>Plink plink plink!</i>

    The two figures continuously tangled with each other as the sword attacked the Iron Shirt. It wasn¡¯t until now that the crowd realized their deputy was also ridiculously powerful. It was hardly apparent in regr times.

    The other centurions, including the ones that¡¯d been defeated, watched with bated breath. Nervous and excited, they ignored their wounds. Hopefully Mu Lin could defeat Li Hao!

    Mu Lin was indeed very strong, but he usually avoided fighting when he could. Today, he was forced to take a stand and the longer Li Hao fought, the more rmed he was.

    Incredible! This guy was stronger than Yu Xiao! Was this the strength of a premier Dominator? His words would be hot air if the fight continued.

    The young man snorted. Mu Lin¡¯s expression shifted as a streak of fiery light appeared. Li Hao¡¯s aura was changing again!

    The earth sword aura melded into the fire sword aura and the sword aura outline manifested! Three swords as one!

    ¡°Kill!¡± Li Hao shouted and rushed forward. The longsword broke through the void.

    Mu Lin¡¯s eyes widened and he cursed to himself, <i>shit! This guy is supposed to be a Sunderer? My dear little brother, why didn¡¯t mom and dad drown you in a manure pit when you were born?? Your report is going to be the death of me!</i>

    As he kept up a litany of insults, he decided to discard the tough response. There was no way he was going to take this head-on, running away was in order!

    Li Hao stomped his foot on the ground at this time.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The ground copsed. A mountain peak loomed overhead with a ferocious tiger trapped inside. It seemed to have been released from its cage and now raged out of the mountain!

    <strong>¡°Stop!¡±</strong> Mu Lin shouted, golden light sparkling over his body. A ray of sword light broke over him with a loud roar!

    <i>RUMBLE!!</i>

    It took a while for the scene to clear up after sword light careened through the scene. When the dust settled, the group saw that Mu Lin had been shoved into the sunken ground. His clothes were in tatters, revealing strands of wiry muscle. Blood sttered his body; the crisscrossing sword marks were a horrific sight!

    Li Hao stepped through the air to avoid the cave-in, he was breathing slightly heavier.

    ¡°Deputy Mu is quite strong,¡± he said after a long moment of regarding Mu Lin. ¡°My sword once heavily injured ate Sr, but to think that the deputy would be able to block it!¡±

    ¡°Pfft!¡± Mu Lin spat out a mouthful of blood and crawled out of the hole. He stared at Li Hao with wide-open eyes and exhorted, ¡°I told you to stop!¡±

    <i>So why the fuck did you continue with that stroke?! Thank heavens my Iron Shirt really is invincible, or that would¡¯ve been the death of me!</i>

    ¡°I would¡¯ve been the one injured had I stopped at that time.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°You jest, Deputy Mu!¡±

    Mu Lin was at a loss for words! His wounds looked terrible, but they weren¡¯t that bad. He was truly much stronger than most people imagined.

    ¡°You are... too ruthless!¡± He spat out another mouthful of blood. ¡°Too vicious!¡±

    The young man didn¡¯t say anything and continued to regard the man oddly. <i>He¡¯s really strong! I didn¡¯t expect that.</i>

    Granted, Li Hao hadn¡¯t brought his full strength to bear either. He hadn¡¯t used the Incantation of the de of Blood, nor had he absorbed energy from Steris. He hadn¡¯t tried nineyers with his punches either... but thebination of two sword auras was his current peak strength. Not only had that not killed his opponent, it hadn¡¯t even caused heavy injuries. Just that alone made Li Hao think that Mu Lin might not be weaker than Huang Jie.

    Was he closer to peak Sr? That would be terrifying! How was he a martial master? Did Mu Lin walk the path of the physical body?

    He strengthened his body again and again... and his fatty appearance wasn¡¯t true fat. It was an umtion of energy in his body and highly fortified blood. Blood qi and internal force built within him...

    Li Hao suddenly understood this person¡¯s path, he wasn¡¯t an ordinary Dominator! He couldn¡¯t truly be called a Dominator at all. Yuan Shuo called his way a summoning of spirits, He Yong focused on blood transfusion. Tyrant de might bebeled as gathering intent, whereas this Mu Lin could be categorized as body refinement?

    No matter what, it was another path entirely. He was a Dominator! To think that there would be such a person in Silver Moon¡¯s martial world, and he was just a deputy. What of the overall leader of the Silver Moon Guards?

    Li Hao narrowed his eyes, spontaneously dismissing his inclination to look down on the Guards. Their deputy rivaled a peak Sr. Would his superior officer rival a Nova? Manager Yu had said that the goal of the Guards was to fight Novas. Li Hao had originally thought it woulde about from joint effort, but maybe she meant that their officers alone could take on Novas?

    That would be terrifying!

    No wonder Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t care about Hao Lianchuan being too weak. If the two strongest of the Guards worked together, they might be able to stand against the initial Sr Hao Lianchuan. If three fought together, they might rival the current Hao Lianchuan.

    How much time, effort, and resources had Hao Lianchuan expended to reach this stage with this faction of martial masters? Ordinary people could not afford to raise this caliber of troops. If Li Hao¡¯s guess was right, they¡¯d very possibly used mysterious power stones!

    Indeed, mysterious power stones! Mysterious power had a limited effect on Dominators and blood pearls weren¡¯t avable everywhere. That left only mysterious power stones to fortify these Dominators.

    <i>Hou Xiaochen... most likely controls a ruin that contains a lot of stones! </i>Li Hao connected numerous dots in a split second.

 Chapter 348: Joining the Silver Moon Guards (III)

    <h4>Chapter 348: Joining the Silver Moon Guards (III)</h4>

    ¡°Just how in the world do you cultivate?¡± An incredibly dejected Mu Lin looked at Li Hao. ¡°You¡¯ve only cultivated for a few years, haven¡¯t you? My younger brother says you were a Sunderer before and had just broken through. Of course, we all know that you¡¯re a half step Dominator because you killed Sun Moxian, but... you should be more than that, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°The Five Styles discipline naturally has its ways to elevate me!¡± Li Hao said slowly while staring at the deputy.

    <i>Bullshit! </i>Mu Lin spat out another mouthful of blood. ¡°Do we continue?¡±

    ¡°Nah.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°There is no need to continue fighting after witnessing the deputy¡¯s tremendous strength. This isn¡¯t a fight to the death and there will be plenty more opportunities to spar with each other. If we really were fighting to the death, neither one of us would be holding back.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The martial masters around them were dead silent. What did the young man mean by that?

    ¡°So that wasn¡¯t your full strength?¡± Mu Lin raised an eyebrow. ¡°I don¡¯t believe you. Why do you like to boast so much?¡±

    To be honest, Mu Lin himself hadn¡¯t brought out everything he was capable of. He could do more than just defend! But Li Hao had done the same? The kid was just blowing hot air!

    Li Hao smiled and didn¡¯t exin further. They could believe him if they wanted to! But who knew if he¡¯d be able to kill Mu Lin if he really did bring his full strength to bear? It was tough to say when it wasn¡¯t a struggle to the death. He hadn¡¯t used the little sword and just utilized his hand as one.

    He was well and truly curious about the Silver Moon Guards now. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s army unit was umon. He must be using special methods to strengthen these martial masters; their Dominators wouldn¡¯t be so much stronger than the ones in the outside world otherwise. Any of these centurions was stronger than Liu Long!

    The chief had said before that he could fight any mid Sunre, but that it was difficult to determine the oue if he met ate Sunre. These centurions, however, could easily match ate or peak Sunre.

    It was hard to exin the sudden appearance of so many veteran Dominators.

    ¡°Forget it,¡± sighed Mu Lin as he looked at the tattered remains of his clothes. ¡°Let¡¯s drop this. Wee to the Guards, Li Hao! How was this for a wee ceremony?¡±

    Li Hao nodded with a smile. ¡°Is the ranking officer here?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s out on business, I¡¯m the boss for now!¡± Mu Linughed and waved off the martial masters watching behind them. ¡°Back to your business, everyone! This was just a sparring session, there¡¯s nothing else to see here. Those of the Five Styles are indeed strong, so everyone be more polite in the future!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go inside for a chat and talk about arrangements for Li Hao.¡± He turned to the young man and Manager Yu. ¡°I was going to have him be a deputy centurion, but I think that¡¯s gone out of the window. Which of these nine would dare be his boss?¡±

    No one wanted that loss of face! The centurions helping each other hobble away lowered their heads without a word. Indeed, who would dare give orders to Li Hao? What a joke! They¡¯d beenpletely routed in front of everyone today. How was any of them supposed to interact with him if he joined their team?

    In all of the Guards, possibly only Mu Lin and their ranking officer could keep the young man in check. No, Mu Lin might not be able to either! They¡¯d all witnessed that battle andmitted it to memory. Mu Lin¡¯s defense was powerful, but hecked in offense. Li Hao had emerged nearly unscathed, so it was hard to believe that the final blow had truly been the young man¡¯s full strength!

    ......

    The three walked into arge hall after a while. Mu Lin was already wearing a new outfit.

    ¡°Come, sit!¡± He waved his visitors to their seats and looked to Manager Yu for guidance. ¡°Does Director Hou have any specific arrangements for Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°No, he just wanted to send the young man here.¡± Manager Yu calmly sipped her tea and didn¡¯t seem to think much of it. She put it down after that one sip, turning to Li Hao. ¡°Do you want to stay here?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Li Hao nodded with a smile. ¡°The caveat is that the ranking officer isn¡¯t a trophy officer and is stronger than Deputy Mu. I like being around strong people!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s stronger than me,¡± chuckled Mu Lin. ¡°Perhaps you¡¯ve even heard of his name before.¡±

    ¡°Please enlighten me!¡±

    ¡°Golden Spear!¡±

    Li Hao paused, in a true daze. Wasn¡¯t Golden Spear... dead? That¡¯s what he¡¯d heard! Golden Spear of the Three Spears of Silver Moon?! How was that possible?

    ¡°Surprised?¡± Mu Lin roared withughter. ¡°Golden Spear is alive and has be the ranking officer of the Silver Moon Guards! He possesses the proper qualifications, doesn¡¯t he? He was the strongest among the Three Spears back in the day and stood on the same level as the Sky Sword. The Sky Sword, Tyrant de, and Golden Spear were unparalleled!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s not dead?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°If he¡¯s alive and my master hadn¡¯t broken through... that means he didn¡¯t break through in Silver Moon.¡±

    The young man didn¡¯t believe that anyone could break his master¡¯s curse! If they had, they would¡¯ve eclipsed his master. As one of the Three Spears, Golden Spear had naturally met Yuan Shuo in battle. As usual, thetter won.

    ¡°Not everyone needs to leave Silver Moon in order to break through,¡± Manager Yu said faintly. ¡°Some people were unable to progress back in the day only because Yuan Shuo¡¯s will kept everyone down. If someone pierced this intent, there would naturally be no obstacle to breaking through!¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Li Hao immediately understood. ¡°But taking a shortcut isn¡¯t necessarily a good thing.¡±

    Indeed, he did understand. <i>Hou Xiaochen!</i> It was Hou Xiaochen who¡¯d pierced his teacher¡¯s will and enabled Golden Spear to break his shackles. Thetter might¡¯ve risen to Dominator many years ago. That he hadn¡¯t walked out of Silver Moon meant that he¡¯d joined Hou Xiaochen¡¯s side!

    ¡°A shortcut? Not necessarily!¡± Manager Yu frowned slightly. ¡°When there¡¯s someone stronger than Yuan Shuo, that means Golden Spear¡¯s path will be wider...¡±

    ¡°My teacher is invincible among his peers!¡± Surprisingly, Li Hao doggedly vied for every point in this conversation. His position directly opposed the secretary¡¯s. ¡°There is no one in the world who is a stronger Sunderer than my teacher with his five auras melded together. If there is, then my teacher wouldn¡¯t still have the reputation that he does! Manager Yu, not even Director Hou would dare im that he rivals my teacher as a half step Dominator if you asked him!¡±

    Manager Yu¡¯s chest heaved; she seemed infuriated. This was a rare sight for Mu Lin. He¡¯d almost never seen this one lose her temper¡ªshe must truly be incensed. He stayed quiet. These two weren¡¯t just fighting over who was stronger, but who should be recognized as number one of martial dao! inly, Li Hao was not going to give way because he was Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple.

    ¡°They have to be at the same level for there to be a chance to determine that.¡± An aloof Manager Yu kept a firm hold of her temper. ¡°What a pity that Yuan Shuo was yet to set foot into Dominator in that era. We might¡¯ve been able toe to an answer!¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s still a chance!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°They weren¡¯t Sunderers or Dominators together, but there¡¯s a chance for them to meet beyond Dominator, right?¡±

    The secretary looked coldly at him and didn¡¯t respond.

    First among martial masters! Who was the greatest? That might not be known for a very long time. She couldn¡¯t prove either that a half step Dominator Hou Xiaochen was stronger than Yuan Shuo. No one in the dynasty dared say so as, honestly, no one couldbine five auras together.

    ¡°Let¡¯s set that aside.¡± It was only now that Mu Lin interrupted the arguing. ¡°Golden Spear is our ranking officer. Do you still think that the Guards is trash, Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡± The young man shook his head. ¡°If I¡¯d known that Senior Golden Spear is the one in charge, I would¡¯ve kept my nose down. A senior martial master like him was mentioned in the same breath as my master. Although he eventually lost to my master, I would more likely than not lose to him if we met in battle!¡±

    That was because Golden Spear had be a Dominator long ago, thanks to Hou Xiaochen breaking his teacher¡¯s will. It was a certainty that Golden Spear was very strong. He probably rivaled Novas!

    Sky Sword had be a Nova in the central region and was a premier existence among his level. Golden Spear, Sky Sword, and Tyrant de possessed simr reputations. If Tyrant de could kill a Sr seven years ago, would Golden Spear be any weaker?

    Of course not!

    As proud as Li Hao may be, he didn¡¯t think that he could match the other at this point in time. He was a bit distracted at the moment. Out of the Record of Heroes from back in the day, he¡¯d already met the Qimei Staff, Southern Fist, Earthturner Sword, and Yu Luocha. He knew that the Jadelight Sword, Sky Sword, and Tyrant de were alive, and he might meet Golden Spear soon. Silver Spear was dead and he¡¯d killed the heir to Bronze Spear...

    How... interesting!

    As for the Heartjab Daughter that he¡¯d seen before, she wasn¡¯t part of the ranking. There were only thirty-six names on the record. Some half step Dominators had their own reputations, but were not included.

    If Manager Yu really was the Yu Luocha of old, then she was someone whomanded the wind and clouds back in the day as well. When all was said and done, it appeared that Earthturner Sword had done the worst for himself, if Li Hao ignored those who were dead.

    Roughly ten among the thirty-six were confirmed dead, mostly at Yuan Shuo¡¯s hand. Were the rest alive? During Yuan Shuo¡¯s rampage back in the day, there were some that he didn¡¯t repeatedly challenge. Under the premise of simr strength, he would be able to kill a second after killing a first. If he¡¯d seen that through, more would¡¯ve died.

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts traveled to initial Sr Hong Yitang. Why did he seem less than the existences that¡¯d yet to ascend to the supernatural domain? Golden Spear and Tyrant de hadn¡¯t crossed over either, while Southern Fist felt stronger than Hong Yitang. The Earthturner Sword had been ranked number two among the Seven Swords. The young man frowned¡ªwas Hong Yitang truly crippled? He¡¯d refused the letter of challenge three times. That Yuan Shuo had issued them to him represented his strength!

    Was it due to a continuedck of fighting that led to a decline in morale, which resulted in his current mediocrity?

    Li Hao quickly set the Earthturner Sword out of his mind.

 Chapter 349: Joining the Silver Moon Guards (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 349: Joining the Silver Moon Guards (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Golden Spear is, without a doubt, very strong,¡± Mu Lin said with a smile. ¡°Even I would onlyst a few seconds if I fought him. He¡¯d probably stab me to death!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s more fun if he¡¯s strong!¡± Li Hao said excitedly. ¡°There wouldn¡¯t be much of a point ining here otherwise.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good, then!¡± Mu Linughed. ¡°The Guards will be stronger with you among our number, but it¡¯s hard to decide what your arrangements should be.¡±

    <i>Centurion?</i>

    There was a fullplement of nine already and there weren¡¯t enough Guards to give Li Hao apany of one hundred.

    If not centurion, then another deputy? But there was already Mu Lin, were the two of them supposed to ck off together if Li Hao became one as well?

    As for being the ranking officer... they didn¡¯t even need to consider it. Golden Spear was part of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s faction and very strong. Li Hao was no match for him.

    ¡°Just the same as big brother Mu will do!¡± a merry Li Hao said unceremoniously. ¡°Just make me a deputy without any real authority. Of course, big brother Mu seems to be a high level chiefmissioner...¡±

    He nced at Manager Yu, his meaning clear.<i> I want that too!</i>

    The secretary¡¯s expression shifted wordlessly.<i> This guy wants to be high up in the bureaucracy so bad that he¡¯s going crazy, isn¡¯t he??</i>

    Li Hao was just a low levelmissioner inspector for the time being. There was still low level chiefmissioner and high level chiefmissioner to go above him. He hadn¡¯t even been made a low level chiefmissioner yet, but was already thinking of another promotion!

    There weren¡¯t many high level chiefmissioners in the whole of Silver Moon. Only the deputies of the Night Watchers and the two higher level officers of the Guards were this rank; the rest were low level chiefmissioners. As for the even higher peacemakermissioners, there were only two in the entire province!

    Kong Jie and Hou Xiaochen!

    Mu Lin didn¡¯t mind the outrageous request, he was more distracted by the thought of gaining a peer. ¡°If you¡¯re a deputy as well... are we going to y chess and chat with each other everyday? I think Director Hou sent you to us because he wants you to do something.¡±

    In other words, he spent his days ying chess and looking for people to talk to.

    ¡°I¡¯m too young and don¡¯t know any military affairs,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°An empty title is enough, I shouldn¡¯t be entrusted with actual responsibilities!¡±

    These words rang a bit false. The young man didn¡¯t understand military affairs, but he knew certain army formations¡ªvery special ones at that. They were recorded in ancient records; he just wasn¡¯t interested in helping train martial masters. Otherwise, he could turn out a troop of one hundred stronger than the ones now if he was instated as a centurion. There were plenty of diagrams and descriptions he could follow from the ancient tomes, even if he didn¡¯t have firsthand knowledge of what he would be recreating.

    What Li Hao knew, Yuan Shuo naturally did as well, and more. It was just that master and disciple weren''t very interested in formations that gathered the strength of many to enhance one person. They preferred to enhance themselves!

    Hou Xiaochen had been trying to recruit Yuan Shuo simply because the director wanted Yuan Shuo to rece Golden Spear after the professor broke through. Although Golden Spear was very strong, Hou Xiaochen believed that he wouldn¡¯t refuse being disced for no reason other than Yuan Shuo truly possessing an immense reputation and had once defeated Golden Spear!

    Hou Xiaochen also believed that if Yuan Shuo was willing, the Silver Moon Guards could absolutely be raised to another level. It was a pity that the fellow was too flighty to be reliable. He stirred up a great deal of trouble as soon as he broke through and also created the Summoner of Spirit level, forcing Hou Xiaochen to abandon the idea.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s wait for Boss Golden Spear toe back and for Director Hou to decide!¡± Mu Lin concluded. ¡°I don¡¯t have the authority to make the call.¡±

    Li Hao wanted too much!

    Manager Yu¡¯s brows were tightly furrowed and she said after a long pause, ¡°I¡¯ll send in a report. I don¡¯t know if this will be approved. Director Hou wished more for you to lead a team¡ªsomething he¡¯s always wanted to do with the Guards. There are only nine teams at the moment, he wanted to round it out.

    ¡°We can recruit people for your team. The Guards will be taking their ce in front of the public eye soon. Our original n was that Liu Long could take your ce first if you hadn¡¯t advanced to Dominator, then give Liu Long another post once you did...¡±

    She had no choice but to speak some of her true thoughts¡ªwhich happened to be Hou Xiaochen¡¯s thoughts. They wanted Li Hao to lead a one hundred person troop!

    The young man sank into deep thought. ¡°Director Hou knows that I¡¯m very young... which means I know very little. Is he at ease giving me real power over one hundred people?¡±

    One hundred wasn¡¯t arge number, but one had to take into ount that they were all martial masters and nearly all Sunderers. There were very few yers among the Guard.

    ¡°Director Hou never doubts the people he uses!¡± Manager Yu dered. ¡°You are Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple, that is enough.¡±

    Not to mention, Li Hao was very strong and not the weakling that they previously thought. That was more than enough!

    ¡°The director is thinking of you with these arrangements,¡± Manager Yu continued upon seeing the young man remain silent. ¡°Martial masters are used to fighting alone, but problems cannot always be resolved by one person. You can try cooperation¡ªyou joined the Demon Hunters when you were in Silver City, so you should know that a partnership between martial masters is stronger than one person alone.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll think about it,¡± Li Hao finally offered. ¡°I¡¯m not ready to do something like this yet. Also, I¡¯m not sure what the Silver Moon Guards do and the kind of enemy they face...¡±

    ¡°I give you two points,¡± Manager Yu exined brusquely. ¡°Number one, ruins. Number two, pirates!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. <i>Pirates?</i> He ignored that point and honed in on the first one. ¡°Ruins?¡±

    ¡°Correct, you¡¯ve seen the Battle Heaven Army, right?¡±

    ¡°Do you mean...¡± Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath. ¡°That more than one ruin possesses that kind of army?¡±

    ¡°Correct!¡±

    Awareness dawned on the young man! No wonder the Silver Moon Guards didn¡¯t operate in the public eye! The enemy they faced was beyond the imagination of regr people! They targeted the remnants in the ruins and pirates on the open seas. How would ordinary people be familiar with them?

    So this was why the Guards were so strong. They¡¯d benefited heavily from the ancient ruins. This was also why they wanted his teacher. His teacher was an expert tomb raider¡ªer, archaeologist! Did they want him for the army formations, or to make tomb raiding more convenient?

    A variety of spections ran through Li Hao¡¯s mind. Did Hou Xiaochen actually have his eye on their ability to excavate ruins, as opposed to army formations? Excavations didn¡¯t take much work, to be honest. It was just a matter of knowing some feng shui and being skilled in tranting ancientnguages.

    There were many who possessed those skills, but those who did and could fight, run, survive, and remain alive to this day were few and far in between!

    It was too time consuming for a martial master to pick up these random bits of knowledge as they cultivated. Only the elderly Yuan Shuo had that much time on his hands and several decades to spare for specializing in this material, given his prolonged stay in Silver City.

    Li Hao sank into contemtion.

    ¡°There are very few supernaturals among the Guards because some ruins are safe only for martial masters,¡± Manager Yu continued. ¡°It¡¯s very dangerous for supernaturals to enter, so the Guards have never considered crossing over to the supernatural as a possibility.

    ¡°Everyone knows this, so if you agree to these arrangements, you can only recruit martial masters to your banner. Supernaturals will sometimes bring incredible trouble with them!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes danced around. Was this so? It made sense! The Silver Armor had voiced simr sentiments when it came back to life, but ended with the statement that they were all humans, so it wouldn¡¯t do anything.

    The city of Battle Heaven, however, was inly targeting supernaturals. Martial masters could fly with impunity¡ªLi Hao had tested that out. They didn¡¯t need to take the second passageway! Martial masters could fly, but supernaturals could not. Martial masters could avoid the ck Armors, but supernaturals were attacked the second their energy leaked out. These differences hadn¡¯t been apparent during the trip because there hadn¡¯t been that many martial masters on that expedition.

    After Manager Yu mentioned that there was more than one ruin like Battle Heaven, it was no wonder that his teacher had managed to survive so many excavations, but the supernaturals around him hadn¡¯t!

    ¡°It¡¯s nice being a centurion,¡± Mu Lin chuckled off to the side. ¡°There are benefits to leading a team. You have real power and you¡¯ll be able to explore ruins by yourself after the Silver Moon Guards are known to the public. You can even bring your people on some personal missions... Assuming they agree to it, of course.¡±

    Astonished, Li Hao looked at Manager Yu.

    ¡°It¡¯s inappropriate to constrain martial masters with too many fetters,¡± she said calmly. ¡°So the director has bestowed the centurions with a great deal of authority and doesn¡¯t treat the Guards like a true army. That would incite a lot of resentment if he did so.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes lit up slightly, this was nice!

    ¡°Then...¡±

    ¡°You can do anything you want so long as Golden Spear agrees!¡± Manager Yu flung down.

    Li Hao was immediately tempted. <i>I¡¯ll recruit one hundred martial masters with Hou Xiaochen¡¯s money and bring them on exterminations of Red Moon¡¯s people...</i>

    The impulse quickly faded away. Red Moon didn¡¯t seem to have that many members in the province.

    ¡°Let me think about it. If I can be a high level chiefmissioner as a centurion, then I... have no further opinions!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Manager Yu was at aplete loss for words. Just what was this fellow thinking??

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t been interested in joining the Silver Moon Guards before, but now he was. Golden Spear and Mu Lin had proceeded far down their paths. Although he was yet to meet Golden Spear, just Mu Lin alone was enough to entice the young man to stay.

    As for requesting a promotion, that was all a matter of convenience.

    Exploring ruins, fighting ancient civilizations, battling pirates... The Guards had an interesting mission statement. As vast as Silver Moon was, there weren¡¯t that many opportunities for battle. Joining them might render more chances, and it was closer to the sea here. Observing the sea was also a joy.

    ......

    <i>Within the hall.</i>

    Manager Yu ignored Li Hao¡¯s request for a promotion. It was best that he¡¯d decided to stay. As for high level chiefmissioner... she could try. It wasn¡¯t a loss, in any regard, so if the Inspectorate and provincial government really were willing to approve it, who cared?

    ¡°Are you staying to converse with them, or going back with me?¡± Manager Yu dropped the topic.

    ¡°I¡¯lle back tomorrow!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°My arrival today was too abrupt and I injured a few friends. I should give people some time to ept me.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± Mu Lin chuckled. ¡°Injuries are normal over the course of sparring. We had innumerable battles in the za when the Guards were first established. There¡¯s specialized healers here, people will recover quickly.¡±

    There were supernaturals with healing abilities on site. Back in the olden days of the martial world, severe injuries meant a difficult recovery. Many martial masters ultimately sumbed to their wounds. The rise of the supernatural domain represented new opportunities for martial dao. One no longer needed to worry as much about striking too hard or being wary of bringing full strength to bear.

    Li Hao and Manager Yu said nothing else. Mu Lin sent them off; numerous martial masters watched them walk out of the hall, past the za, and slowly drive off in the car.

 Chapter 350: The Flaming Phoenix Spear (I)

    <h4>Chapter 350: The ming Phoenix Spear (I)</h4>

    A buzz of conversation started up in the za as soon as the visitors left.

    ¡°So the old demon¡¯s disciple is this strong??¡±

    ¡°That discipline is filled with perverts, alright!¡±

    ¡°What a pity that our ranking officer isn¡¯t present. He¡¯d knock the kid down a peg or two! Li Hao was too cocky!¡± Discussions sprang up throughout the za, each of them punctuated with resignation. Golden Spear was their ranking officer, an existence on par with Yuan Shuo back in the day! But Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple hade to the Guards and nearly wiped the floor with all of them.

    Although Mu Lin had salvaged their dignity, the results of their battle was that Mu Lin was injured and Li Hao only breathing a bit heavier than usual. It was aplete rout for the Silver Moon Guards!

    ......

    Discourse rose and fell throughout the outside za.

    <i>In the hall to the rear.</i>

    Nine centurions were gathered together, as was Mu Lin. The ones who were injured wore crestfallen looks on their faces. They weren¡¯t injured too heavily¡ªthe worst among them suffered only broken bones and slightly shaken internal organs. Li Hao was far stronger than them, but he¡¯d showed mercy in his bouts of fighting.

    ¡°Mu Lin, didn¡¯t you say that he¡¯s just a Sunderer?¡± Chen Jin, heir of Mountain Ax, demanded with an unpleasant expression. This was a Sunderer?? He was the first to take the field and had been defeated in two punches! What aplete humiliation!

    ¡°What are you looking at me for?¡± Mu Linughed. ¡°What can I do about him improving swiftly? Everyone knows his details, I¡¯m not the only one to say that he¡¯s a Sunderer¡ªall the reports say that. How are you ming me for him being more than that?¡±

    The crowd fell silent. Indeed, their intelligence reports indicated that Li Hao was just a Sunderer. It was such a short period of time since then!

    Xie Lan of the Jade Sword Sect coughed¡ªshe was truly injured and not imitating Hou Xiaochen¡¯s habit. ¡°It¡¯s no big deal that he defeated us,¡± she said with a pale face. ¡°But I¡¯m thinking that if he was a half step Dominator when he fought Sun Moxian¡ªno, ate Sunderer¡ªthen it¡¯s only been ten days.¡±

    <i>Ten days!</i>

    Indeed, just ten days. Was intelligence of ten days ago old news? Absolutely not, at least not when it came to martial masters. Reality was astounding.

    ¡°There¡¯s several reasons for his fast rate of improvement.¡± Mu Lin inclined his head. ¡°One, he¡¯s been to Battle Heaven. Two, the Nova level blood pearl. Three, he seems to haveprehended yet another aura...¡±

    Altogether, it made sense why Li Hao was so strong, but it was still too hard to believe. Did bottlenecks not gue this fellow?? He could immediately grasp an aura after obtaining a treasure, break through, and instantly be stronger?

    Everyone here had at least twenty years experience in martial dao!

    ¡°Forget it, he has his fortunes and we have ours,¡± Mu Lin quickly said. ¡°Although our fortunes don¡¯t seem as great as his, we¡¯re in a much better positionpared to martial masters in the outside world! He¡¯s willing to join us now, so he will be a colleague in the future.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s willing?¡± someone asked.

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    ¡°What are we doing with him?¡±

    ¡°Director Hou means to form another one hundred person team for him to lead.¡±

    The group was much more at ease with this exnation. Mmhmm, that was fine! Life would be impossible otherwise. It would be weird whether he was their superior or subordinate. How would anyone give orders to him, and the boy was too young to be their superior. They weren¡¯t able to instantly ept such a young martial master suddenly being put in charge of them.

    ¡°Did Director Hou send him to us so we can borrow his knowledge for the expeditions?¡±

    ¡°Maybe, that and he¡¯s truly strong. His presence will make the Guards stronger!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say. If we¡¯d all worked together and assembled an army formation, we wouldn¡¯t have lost so badly!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The group was embroiled in conversation and not as repelled by Li Hao¡¯s joining. Martial masters were a pragmatic sort. It was one thing to be a weak, nameless nobody. But when the neer was Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple, the Guards couldn¡¯t be med for rejecting or even bullying him.

    Yet, it was a different matter entirely when Li Hao was so strong and Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple! Such an existence absolutely had the right to join the Silver Moon Guards and a foundation with which to be arrogant.

    ¡°The captain of my bodyguards... is gone!¡± Mu Lin sighed.

    The group fell silent and some rolled their eyes. <i>How is this what you¡¯re concerned about at this time?</i>

    ¡°Mu Lin, your defense is invincible. Someone like you would be better served as being the bodyguard captain for a swordsman,¡± Chen Jin snorted.

    He wanted Li Hao for his bodyguard captain? The fatty was more suited to be a bodyguard himself!

    Mu Lin flicked a nce at him and chuckled, ¡°That¡¯s still better than beingid t in two punches.¡±

    ¡°You...¡±

    Mu Linughed heartily and rose while ignoring the man. ¡°Everyone, dismissed! If thed reallyes to be another centurion... I¡¯m worried that he¡¯ll snag a portion of our people to be part of his team. You guys need to be careful¡ªyour people might be tempted after seeing you lose so badly today!¡±

    The various centurions grew nervous, that wouldn¡¯t do! They¡¯d honed their teams for many years; any members shifted elsewhere were quickly reced. If Li Hao was joining them and forming a new team, he would certainly take a portion of the veterans with him. They couldn¡¯t refuse to give him anyone and force him into his new position all alone.

    The group quickly dispersed after a bit more conversation. Mu Lin dawdled on the spot for a while andughed, thinking of his dear younger brother. <i>My adorable younger brother, I hope you return to White Moon City Soon. We need to ¡®strengthen¡¯ our bonds of brotherhood!</i>

    ......

    <i>Within the car.</i>

    Manager Yu closed her eyes without a word and rested. Li Hao thought back to the sparring matches of earlier¡ªthose really were just sparring rounds. Those centurions were quite a bit weaker than him, so he hadn¡¯t used much force.

    As for Mu Lin... The fatty specialized in defense. The young man had only smashed him with one sword stroke, it wasn¡¯t a true fight to the death.

    What Li Hao was thinking of was their physical bodies! They were all very strong! Even the centurions were incredibly strong, stronger than Liu Long, at the very least.

    ¡°Manager Yu, mysterious power stones can strengthen the body. Have the Guards absorbed many of them?¡± the young man asked directly.

    ¡°Yes, the harvests in the ruins are usually mostly of stones,¡± the woman responded calmly.

    ¡°Are the ck Armors of the Battle Heaven Army also here?¡±

    ¡°Yes, the Battle Heaven Army wasn¡¯t the only army of the ancient civilization. All of their armies were uniformly of these suits of armor and there were a lot of ck Armors! The Silver Moon Guards now possess five hundred suits. It¡¯s a pity that others took a lot of the ck Amors at Battle Heaven.¡±

    The three great organizations had received a lot, as did the Sword Sect walk away with a fair few.

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes moved around rapidly as his thoughts flew. Five hundred suits of ck armor made for impressive defensive capabilities. Evencking the special energy from the ground, the defenses of the ck armor were enough to cause headaches for Sunres.

    All of these martial masters could be regarded as Sunres if they were equipped with these sets of armor... That was a terrifying notion!

    Almost one thousand Sunres... No wonder the Night Watchers were so darned poor. Hou Xiaochen had sent all items of value to the Guards and created a formidable army. The Silver Moon Guards might be a premier existence even in the central region.

    They were the sum of Silver Moon power and probably the province¡¯s greatest trump card. If they were all equipped with suits of armor and assembled into battle formations with Dominators as the vanguard...

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes gleamed while he thought. Any team of one hundred would easily take down a Sr. If both Golden Spear and Mu Lin were present, then Novas wouldn¡¯t be too difficult either. That was assuming that Golden Spear couldn¡¯t capture a Nova by himself.

    Hou Xiaochen was valuing Li Hao quite highly to be sending the young man to the Silver Moon Guards...

    Li Hao thought for a while longer before asking, ¡°Do I recruit my own people?¡±

    ¡°You can, but they must pass our test. You can¡¯t recruit any random martial master wandering around thend,¡± Manager Yu responded in a level tone. ¡°All of these martial masters passedyers of tests to finally join the Guards. They also sign several nondisclosure agreements noting that they wouldn¡¯t reveal certain secrets. They weren¡¯t even allowed to leave base during their first three years unless it was on a mission. After that, they are allotted one month of vacation every year, but they must take turns with their vacation.¡±

    Being unable to leave for three years was torture for many martial masters, but it made sense upon further thought.

    ¡°Will it be the same for me as well?¡±

    ¡°Centurions and above are not subject to these restrictions! They just need to be present when the mission is being conducted.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. That was good. As expected, only officers received special treatment. If he was a bigger soldier, he¡¯d have to stay here for three years without leaving.

    He¡¯d thought through quite a lot; there were many, many benefits to the Silver Moon Guards. With his quick nce, Li Hao had noted that they were almost all Sunderers. They would have to be, after absorbing so many mysterious power stones and so much energy. It would be shameful if they weren¡¯t Sunderers!

    This was an enormous tform that facilitated martial master improvement. Li Hao thought of the Demon Hunters. But then... what of Silver City? He wanted chief and the others toe over. Liu Long safeguarded a couple of mysterious power stones like they were his life. But here, there would be plenty of opportunities like that for him to quickly catch up.

    <i>Liu Yan, Wu Chao, Chen Jian... </i>They were all Sunderers and as such, had the right to join the Guards. Being Night Watchers, there would be no problems with their background checks.

    Li Hao suspected there was a treasure here that helped everyone grasp the aura. There wouldn¡¯t be one hundred half step Dominators in a faction of one thousand, otherwise. The aura was not that easy toprehend.

    There were so many opportunities here that Li Hao felt he couldn¡¯t let the chief and others continue to dwell in Silver City. But... the city was very important. The stone door was very important, at the very least. On second thought, if people couldn¡¯t open the stone door...

    Liu Long worried about defending Silver City, but once the three great organizations were exterminated from the city, a Sunre could take over for his duties there.

    ¡°Manager Yu, can I recruit supernaturals?¡±

    ¡°You can, but they can only be support and not an official member! You will have to assemble into formations and one fewer member takes away from theirpleteness. Some areas are not suited for supernaturals, so having fewer members avable for formations will be a grave problem!¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Li Hao blinked. ¡°Does Manager Yu mean that the current formations depend on the number of members in terms of strength?¡±

    ¡°Do they not?¡± The woman frowned and looked at the young man.

 Chapter 351: The Flaming Phoenix Spear (II)

    <h4>Chapter 351: The ming Phoenix Spear (II)</h4>

    Li Hao paged through the books in his memory. Ancient army formations were not limited by numbers and some were decentralized. He knew of one array that was five people to a formation, making for twenty small formations thatbined to arger one of a hundred people.

    A formation like this held the advantage of easy coordination and adjustment. If one hundred people were to participate in onerge-scale formation, that required all one hundred to practice at the same time. Synchronized coordination and adjustment would be much more difficult.

    A decentralized formation also held the advantage that, even if ny-five people were dead, the remaining five would be unaffected and could assemble their formation all the same.

    It looked like Hou Xiaochen did not possess such a formation, so he could only set up the smallest version of one hundred to a formation. In that case, supernaturals were indeed not suited for the Silver Moon Guards. Li Hao, however, happened to know several decentralized formations. He said nothing after thinking about it further.

    <i>Let¡¯s wait and see.</i>

    ......

    The car continued driving, dropping Li Hao off at his amodations when the sky was dark.

    <i>Downstairs.</i>

    Manager Yu left with the driver after depositing the young man at the foot of the building. She politely declined Li Hao¡¯s invitation to dinner; she just wanted to curse out the boy. Li Hao had invited her to the cafeteria at the Inspectorate¡¯s family amodations!

    Did he even know what he was saying??

    Li Hao spoke about the ming Phoenix Spear at length again. Manager Yu promised to bring it to him in the morning.

    ......

    <i>Upstairs.</i>

    Li Hao had just opened his front door when the one across the way also opened. Hao Lianchuan had returned before him tonight. He looked around furtively and apprehensively addressed the young man, ¡°Li Hao, when I cultivated tonight... I felt... I felt what could be a supernatural lock on my kidneys!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good, that means the blood pearls do work,¡± Li Hao chuckled.

    Hao Lianchuan hastily bobbed his head. His eyes reddened and he clenched his jaw, muttering, ¡°I¡¯m prepared to exterminate Red Moon!¡±

    He was about to engage in a wholesale ughter!

    ¡°Wasn¡¯t that what was said all along?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s different, we were just paying lip service to it before. We wouldn¡¯t have fought them elsewhere if they didn¡¯te to White Moon City. A ce like re City shows signs of Red Moon activity as well, we just never made up our minds topletely eliminate them.

    ¡°This time, I want the Guards to coordinate with us and I¡¯ll be inviting the Inspectorate and army too. We¡¯ll get rid of Red Moon once and for all!¡±

    He¡¯d well and truly made up his mind. Scarlet shadows! Since blood pearls were so effective, killing Red Moon members meant strengthening himself.

    ¡°Do as you see fit, director.¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything else. The various parties involved had longe to a decision; Hao Lianchuan¡¯s resolve was just being affirmed today.

    ¡°Have you visited the Guards?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Li Hao opened the door and waved Hao Lianchuan in.

    ¡°I know a thing or two about them,¡± Hao Lianchuan said after some thought. ¡°What do you think about the Guards?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re strong!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°In terms of individual strength, though, likely only two are stronger than you, deputy director. But if you went alone... you¡¯d die ten times over!¡±

    ¡°......¡± These words weren¡¯t pleasant to the ear, but Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t seem to mind. He nodded upon further thought. ¡°That¡¯s to be expected. The Guards¡¯ foundations are very likely the ones that belonged to the Skystar Guards. They were already formidable martial masters then, but they might not all be after so many years. A portion of them should still be.¡±

    ¡°Were the Skystar Guards all stationed in Silver Moon?¡± asked Li Hao.

    ¡°Just the majority.¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head. ¡°Another portion was in Skystar City. Their threemanders were active in Silver Moon, but themander-in-chief of the Guards was based in Skystar City.¡±

    ¡°Themander-in-chief?¡±

    ¡°Did you think that the threemanders were the only senior officers in the Skystar Guards? It¡¯d make for an organizational mess as they wouldn¡¯t take orders from each other. The royal family established the Guards, so they naturally had their people supervising. When the Skystar Guards were founded, the threemanders¡¯ identities were shrouded in mystery as they were the actual executors of ns. Themander-in-chief was known by name¡ªa duke of the royal family.

    ¡°Current Skystar royalty,¡± Hao Lianchuan further exined for Li Hao, ¡°has an abundance of royal children and grandchildren apart from the emperor. There are also numerous royal rtives, but they¡¯re all leeches that you don¡¯t need to pay attention to. The nine princes and thirty-six dukes that the royal family conferred titles onto are more worthy of a second look. Some of them guard territories beyond the capital¡ªseveral of the ny-nine provinces are under royal control. Otherwise, the nine ministries would¡¯ve wanted to eliminate the royal family altogether.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Nine princes, thirty-six dukes... He¡¯d heard about this before, but hadn¡¯t known that there¡¯d be so many of them.

    Skystar royalty had ruled the world for one hundred and twenty years. Although they¡¯d abdicated eighty years ago, a starving camel was still bigger than a horse. Their foundations were immense. The young man didn¡¯t care¡ªthe duke in residence of the Guards had just been a formality. Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything.

    Hao Lianchuan hadn¡¯t been able to help himself and ran over to chat up Li Hao. When he was done, he ran off again without mentioning treating Li Hao to dinner. The young man inwardly cursed the deputy director for being so cheap!

    ......

    <i>The second day.</i>

    Li Hao reported to work on time, as usual.

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Li Hao nced upstairs; Hou Xiaochen was gone. Who knew where he¡¯d gone to? The young man couldn¡¯t be bothered. It was normal for these powerhouses to be mysterious and away from their posts day and night.

    <i>The fourth floor.</i>

    Li Hao made straight for Manager Yu¡¯s office. The woman didn¡¯t seem to want to talk to him after he entered. She waved a ming red spear into the air; the little sword hidden in Li Hao¡¯s army boots seemed to stir in response.

    The young man knew that the little sword possibly wanted to eat the origin weapon! The ming Phoenix Spear was very powerful¡ªthe Shadow Snake Sword that the little sword had eatenst time was just a gold level weapon. It was said that the spear was a sky rank, or was it an earth rank origin weapon?

    Who knew?

    Manager Yu¡¯s brows furrowed when she sensed the spear vibrate in her hand. She quickly put it out of her mind and introduced, ¡°This is the ming Phoenix Spear! It has recognized a master, so it is the director¡¯s origin weapon. It is durable and quite beyond the reach of ordinary people.

    ¡°Hao Lianchuan was able to use it before because of the director¡¯smand and the fact that some consciousness has blossomed in the spear. The director is now lending you the weapon, but hasn¡¯t bestowed upon you the right to use it. Therefore, you¡¯re unable to deploy it. Even if you try, you can only use it as a particrly durable weapon.¡±

    In other words, one wasn¡¯t able to summon the weapon¡¯s spirit if theycked the special ability to. Li Hao understood, but wasn¡¯t familiar with origin weapons overall.

    ¡°Manager Yu, I hear that origin weapons can create supernaturals and produce mysterious power? How do they do that?¡±

    It wasn¡¯t a major secret, so the manager said coldly, ¡°Once an origin weapon¡¯s soul revitalizes, it can absorb energy from the world. Mysterious power exuded from origin weaponscks a bit of the violent impact that it normally would. It¡¯s most suited for rookies to ascend.

    ¡°Mysterious power that is not purposefully produced in an object permeates the world. Regr people are unable to discover or extract it. You¡¯ve seen mysterious power dissipate into nothing once it spreads in the air¡ªit hasn¡¯t vanished from existence, just spread out so much that you cannot detect it. Origin weapons can.¡±

    ¡°Then don¡¯t you have ess to limitless energy if you own an origin weapon?¡± Li Hao asked curiously.

    ¡°There¡¯s an efficiency part to this equation,¡± Manager Yu continued. ¡°Gold level weapons can produce half a cube at most in a day. that¡¯s an insignificant amount! The ming Phoenix Spear is much stronger and can produce roughly ten cubes a day, but that¡¯s still not worth mentioning! Do you think three thousand cubes a year is a lot?¡±

    <i>Not at all! </i>A disappointed Li Hao shook his head. That was all there was to it? That was too little! Then the Night Watchers couldn¡¯t rely on the mysterious power from origin weapons to cultivate. Li Hao¡¯s sry alone was one cube a month as a low levelmissioner inspector. There were plenty of supernaturals in the Night Watchers. The agency would¡¯ve closed up shop long ago if they relied on just three thousand cubes a year from a single origin weapon.

    ¡°This is what applies to an offensive sort of origin weapon,¡± Manager Yu continued. ¡°Some origin weapons specialize in converting mysterious power¡ªthose can produce vast quantities of energy. The three great organizations and central headquarters might possess some of that kind, but we only have the ming Phoenix Spear.

    ¡°The mysterious power we use now was either gathered in our missions, produced by the ming Phoenix Spear, or from the ruins!

    ¡°Origin weapons have another function in that they can devour some items in ancient ruins and turn them into mysterious power. Some objects in the ruins contain energy, but we¡¯re unable to use them. This is when origin weapons should devour them...¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t upstairs give us any funds?¡± wondered Li Hao. Even if Hou Xiaochen wanted to dere independence, he hadn¡¯t so yet. Was the central region really preemptively cutting them off?

    ¡°Self-sufficiency! The entire border region and the other four regions are thus. Neither do we need to offer up anything to the central region, though.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. <i>I see. But in that case... the central region¡¯s control over the four will decrease. Why should I listen to you when you don¡¯t give me anything? I wonder what the central region is thinking.</i>

    The young man looked at the ming Phoenix Spear. It was very quiet with no sign of its soul to be seen. It seemed to be asleep.

    ¡°Can we activate it?¡± Li Hao thought for a bit.

    ¡°You¡¯d better not try it, idents will easily ur!¡± Manager Yu frowned slightly. <i>The director is out and didn¡¯t give you the right to use it. Once it¡¯s activated, it can easily turn into a weapon attacking you.</i>

    ¡°Although you¡¯re not weak, the spear is very strong. It can bring forth the power of a Sr even without someone wielding it.¡±

    So that meant it could be activated.

    ¡°How is it activated? Through swallowing mysterious power stones?¡± Li Hao asked curiously.

    ¡°......¡±<i> Is this guy listening to me or not? Thankfully, he doesn¡¯t seem to have any stones. </i>Manager Yu nodded. ¡°Yes, you can activate the origin weapon if you have fire mysterious power stones, but there¡¯s no need for that, so don¡¯t try to. I rmend you just look at the ming Phoenix Spear. The director has used it for many years, so you might be able toprehend certain things from it and gain something. Don¡¯t try anything else!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao chuckled and reached for the weapon. It trembled before he could touch it, as if not wanting toe near the young man.

    Manager Yu started. This was the first time the weapon was acting like this! She looked at the young man with a frown. ¡°You...¡±

    ¡°I what?¡± Li Hao looked nkly back at her, knowing full well that perhaps the spear was sensing Steris. Although the little sword was still sealed, the seal seemed to have loosened. That snake fromst time had been terrified.

    The ming Phoenix Spear was asleep, but its spirit had revitalized. Perhaps it could sense what stood in front of it.

    Manager Yu couldn¡¯t understand it, why was the weapon acting like this?

 Chapter 352: Compensation Package (I)

    <h4>Chapter 352: Compensation Package (I)</h4>

    <i>But... forget it, the director¡¯s already agreed. </i>With that, Manager Yu handed the ming Phoenix Spear to Li Hao.

    ¡°Origin weapons can be stored within the body, even if they¡¯re not yours! The ming Phoenix Spear is unsealed, so all you need to do is drip one drop of blood onto it to store it inside your body. That drop of blood doesn¡¯t put your ownership mark on it. It just helps the spear sense your presence so that you can make it part of yourself.¡±

    Li Hao looked askance at the spear¡ª<i>a drop of blood? Nothing¡¯s going to happen to this if my blood gets on it, right? It¡¯s not that I think highly of myself, but that the two characters of Battle Heaven were affected when Ist spilled my blood...</i>

    <i>But I¡¯m just using regr blood this time, so it should be fine? It¡¯s not like I can just walk out waving the ming Phoenix Spear around.</i>

    Li Hao squeezed a single drop of blood out of his fingertip and dropped it onto the origin weapon. It seemed to shudder when the blood hit it and a fiery phoenix manifested over the weapon. The young man looked at it curiously; the phoenix seemed to open its eyes as well.

    It vanished the second it sensed Li Hao¡¯s presence, taking all of the fiery light of the weapon with it. The origin weapon¡¯s true form was revealed! The ming Phoenix Spear looked no different from a regr metal spear. Suddenly, it was much uglier without its mes. Its previous appearance left no doubt that it was a formidable weapon. Now... it was so ordinary!

    Startled, Manager Yu looked at Li Hao. ¡°The phoenix has withdrawn, that¡¯s strange... Is there something wrong with your blood or something different about the bloodline of the eight families?

    ¡°The phoenix withdrawing means that the weapon has sealed itself away. It further means that you have no chance of activating it. All you can do now is use it as a regr weapon. It¡¯s canceled even your right to activate it!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was speechless. Was there a need for such a response? The heck did the weapon mean by this?? ¡°Can we unseal it?¡±

    ¡°Yes, the director can do that!¡±

    <i>Forget I said anything. </i>The young man was quite sullen.<i> What the heck is this?? Does it think I mean it harm and therefore sealed itself as soon as it sensed my blood?</i>

    The spear darted into his body with a quick thought; it shrank to a very small size upon entering the body¡ªa needle. It entered his organs in the blink of an eye and ceased to move.

    <i>How convenient!</i>

    Li Hao was rather envious. What a pity that his own little sword couldn¡¯t do the same. But this thing was being very unruly. It¡¯d sealed itself away! How was he supposed to use it then?

    ¡°Give it back to me after three days!¡± Manager Yu reminded. ¡°Don¡¯t think about running off with it, that¡¯s impossible. The director will sense it if it¡¯s too far away from him, so don¡¯t even consider the possibility!¡±

    Li Hao blinked, finally understanding something. ¡°Manager Yu,¡± he began, the very picture of aggrieved innocence. ¡°Even if you wouldn¡¯t lend it to me, why would you think I would take it and run?¡±

    <i>Why would you ever think that? I¡¯ve never considered doing so!</i>

    The woman waved her hand and indicated for him to leave; she wasn¡¯t interested in exining herself. <i>You know better than anyone if you would¡¯ve done it or not. The Five Styles discipline is known for brazen impulses. It wouldn¡¯t be the first time that the discipline¡¯s done something like that!</i>

    It wasn¡¯t out of the question that Li Hao would abscond with the ming Phoenix Spear and seek out Yuan Shuo. In fact, it was highly likely. This was why she hadn¡¯t wanted to lend it to the boy. Meanwhile, someone like Hao Lianchuan had been granted the right to use it because Hou Xiaochen hadn¡¯t been worried of him running off.

    inly, even Hou Xiaochen was mulling over the possibility, so he decided not to let the boy use it! If Li Hao could use the ming Phoenix Spear and truly ran off with it, they would have a difficult time retrieving it.

    A dejected expression hung on the young man¡¯s face. He¡¯d truly never thought about doing that, why were they all pointing fingers at him for a crime he hadn¡¯tmitted? <i>If you think that about me, I might as well really take the ming Phoenix Spear!</i>

    Seeing that the manager wasn¡¯t engaging with him anymore, Li Hao had to bring up, ¡°Then I¡¯ll be heading to the Guards now...¡±

    ¡°Go downstairs and get in the car. Also, you need your own car in the future. Regr cars can¡¯t go there, they¡¯ll be destroyed. Buy a car and register it...¡±

    ¡°What, aren¡¯t we assigned cars by the agency?¡± Li Hao asked with surprise.<i> I¡¯m a government employee! Besides, I don¡¯t have money to buy a car.</i>

    Manager Yu frowned impatiently, she didn¡¯t want to hear the young man talk. This guy was sometimes very irritating and constantly thought about taking advantage of others...

    ¡°Buy it yourself!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t have any money!¡±

    ¡°You...¡± The manager narrowed her eyes as she thought he was joking.

    ¡°I really don¡¯t!¡± Li Hao exined seriously. ¡°I checked my bank ount yesterday and there¡¯s a bnce of ten thousand in it. My sry didn¡¯te inst month, I don¡¯t have enough money to buy a car!¡±

    <i>Oh... my... heavens. How is this guy so poor?! He¡¯s a Dominator¡ªno, a Summoner¡ªso how is he this poor and finding it so proper to be so poor?! </i>Manager Yu sighed after a long moment. ¡°Alright! I¡¯ll assign a car to you!¡±

    Li Hao grinned from ear to ear, finally able to leave in a good mood.

    The resigned secretary stared for a while after he left and picked up amunicator to make a call. She was silent for a while longer after it was picked up. ¡°Hao Lianchuan, bump up Li Hao¡¯s monthly sry to... a million coins a month!¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Hao Lianchuan blinked. ¡°Isn¡¯t he paid in cubes of mysterious power?¡±

    ¡°Give him money!¡± Manager Yu suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. <i>It¡¯s my first time seeing such a poor martial master in all my years of living. He¡¯s an embarrassment to talk about! The kid probably doesn¡¯t care about mysterious power, but he¡¯d be delighted with a million coins. No wonder he¡¯s so stingy all the time, he really doesn¡¯t have any money.</i>

    ¡°Is he that poor?¡± Hao Lianchuan seemed to grasp the implications as well. ¡°No wonder he eats at the cafeteria everyday and simply buys a few buns at most. I thought this was a habit of his!¡±

    Both of them suddenly wanted tough, but also felt a prickle of fear as they did so. They wouldn¡¯t bat an eye if a young man of his age and strength was boastful and full of himself. It would be normal for him to take a different woman to bed every night, to say nothing of luxurious manors and shy cars. Decadent food and wine went without saying.

    However, the reality was that the young man didn¡¯t seem to entertain these thoughts. An exceedingly self-regted powerhouse of his young age was the most frightening of all.

    A new thought struck the secretary. <i>Does this guy want a promotion only because he wants a raise? If that¡¯s the case... he¡¯s crazy! Who wants a promotion for a little extra money?</i>

    ......

    Li Hao reached the first floor in a wonderful mood. That was another free car under his belt! <i>Ah, the public rice bowl is the most delicious. I wonder when I can get a house? I still don¡¯t have one under my name in White Moon City.</i>

    ......

    The car once more threaded through White Moon, past the jungle, into the vicinity of the Silver Moon Guards. Li Hao straightened his attire when he alighted, the car drove off as he did so. This was Hou Xiaochen¡¯s car and it wouldn¡¯t have brought him here if Li Hao didn¡¯t have one himself.

    Someone was already waiting at the door¡ªtheyabout Mu Lin was the best greeter. None of the other centurions were present as they had their own duties to attend to. They were all drilling troops in the distance and, well, could make time to wee a new colleague if they wished. But having been beaten up just yesterday, they couldn¡¯t bring themselves to step forward in wee today.

    ¡°Wee!¡± Mu Lin was just as polite and merry as yesterday.

    Li Hao had discovered that fatties like to smile. Smiling made them appear honest and trustworthy. The fat Deputy Director Hao also liked to smile. Mu Lin¡¯s younger brother, Mu Sen, was also a tiger that liked to smile.<i> I wonder if there¡¯s a Mu Mu in their family? Mu Lin and Mu Sen¡¯s names are written solely with the ¡°wood¡± radical, why not throw a few more woods in there?</i>

    ¡°Hello to Deputy Mu!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t call me that!¡± Mu Lin smiled. ¡°Just call me second brother Mu. I¡¯m still young in my early forties, don¡¯t plonk such a heavy title on my head. The Guards usually call my name or second brother Mu if they¡¯re showing me face!¡±

    He was the second brother because the boss was Golden Spear. He couldn¡¯t im a higher honorific.

    ¡°You didn¡¯t bring any luggage with you?¡± Mu Lin asked merrily. ¡°That¡¯s just as fine, everything you can possibly need is here. Apart fromcking all the people we want, we have everything else in abundance!¡±

    He tugged Li Hao inside as he spoke; the young man surreptitiously took his hand back. What he meant by ¡°surreptitious¡± was staring straight ahead and forcefully yanking his hand back, then pretending like nothing had happened. So long as he wasn¡¯t awkward about it, the awkward one would be Mu Lin.

    Mu Lin didn¡¯t mind at all; he remained smiling happily.

    ¡°Ole brother Li, you¡¯re unfamiliar with this ce since you¡¯ve just arrived. Let me show you around so you can get to know everything.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, Brother Second Mu!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Mu Lin blinked. <i>Brother Second Mu? I said second brother Mu, did you mishear? </i>But it didn¡¯t matter upon further thought, it was all the same.

    He took Li Hao through the gates and arrived at the massive za. It was so enormous that it would take a while to cross. Mu Lin took the young man down the right-hand side. ¡°This is the sparring grounds, most of us usually train here. If you¡¯re practicing a secret art that you find unsuited for the public eye, you can also train in a room. There are several cultivation rooms in the back that you can use.¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head. There were a lot of people in the za¡ªat least four hundred. Many of them were sneaking nces this way as they practiced, but swiftly retracted their gazes when they saw Li Hao turn in their direction.

    ¡°The entire base is split into three areas, this is one of them. The living quarters are in the back and the cultivation area in another section. Everyone has their own room in the living quarters. The centurions have a standalone section.¡±

    Li Hao was quite satisfied with what he heard. <i>So this means I¡¯m being assigned arge house? Houses in the outskirts aren¡¯t worth much, alright.</i>

    ¡°The cultivation area exists because some of our special training methods are greatly useful when ites to improving martial masters.¡±

    ¡°What kind of special cultivation methods?¡± Li Hao¡¯s interest was piqued.

    Mu Lin grinned broadly. ¡°It was very difficult for martial masters to train before the supernatural domain rose. They often trained for seven, eight, or more than ten years and were still stuck at yer.

    ¡°With the rise of the supernatural, martial masters found that unattributed mysterious power could strengthen the body. This gave them another option. Weter discovered that mysterious power stones offerprehensive improvement, making them even better than unattributed power!¡±

    Li Hao nodded continuously.

 Chapter 353: Compensation Package (II)

    <h4>Chapter 353: Compensation Package (II)</h4>

    ¡°We¡¯ve built an unattributed energy room over the years,¡± Mu Lin continued his tour. ¡°And one of mysterious power stones. They¡¯re both incredible sites that help martial masters swiftly improve. Enhancing the body is still a top-ss choice before Dominator!

    ¡°Those below Dominator can go to the cultivation room of unattributed mysterious power. Those above Dominator can go to the one of mysterious power stones.¡±

    ¡°Are the Silver Moon Guards thisvish?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°You guys don¡¯t have that many stones, do you?¡±

    ¡°True, we don¡¯t have many, but they can be replenished by mysterious power. Having the stones as a conduit for the martial master leads to very decent effects.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. ¡°Is this all?¡± All this was fine and dandy, but he felt that they hadn¡¯t touched upon the key point!

    What was the key point?

    <i>Aura!</i>

    Indeed. Over one hundred out of a thousand people in the Guards hadprehended the aura, there must be something here that facilitated martial masters grasping it!

    A light shone from Mu Lin¡¯s eyes as he looked at Li Hao. ¡°Is ole brother Li not satisfied?¡±

    ¡°What about the aura?¡± Li Hao cut straight to the chase, uninterested in talking about things in a roundabout way. ¡°One tenth of your people are half step Dominators. Are they all geniuses to so easily grasp the aura? My teacher said thatprehending the aura is the hardest step in martial dao. Martial masters would not have declined if it could¡¯ve been done easily. If we were all Dominators when the supernatural domain rose, there would¡¯ve been no need to fear supernaturals.¡±

    Mu Lin nodded. As he expected, this fellow identified the heart of things with a single look. ¡°We do indeed have treasures that help martial masters sense the aura, but... they¡¯re rare opportunities.¡±

    Li Haoughed and pointed at the martial masters. ¡°There¡¯s a hundred here who know the aura and possibly several hundred more who made the attempt. How rare are these opportunities?¡±

    <i>Not at all!</i>

    Mu Lin had no appropriate response and had to pretend he didn¡¯t hear anything. ¡°What do you think the aura is?¡±

    It was Li Hao¡¯s turn to hesitate. ¡°There are many kinds of aura,¡± he said after a long moment.

    <i>No shit! </i>However, Mu Lin quickly realized that the young man wasn¡¯t spouting bullshit.

    ¡°Based on my experience, there are three kinds of aura! The first is an eruption of one¡¯s own emotions, mood, and feelings. This kind of aura is closest to the self andes from the inner heart. I call that the self¡¯s aura!

    ¡°The second type of aura results from cultivating martial dao to its extreme. For instance, training a secret art to its utmost means I can follow the steps of seniors that came before me and try to fathom their path. If I¡¯d continued to train the Five Styles, I might have eventually grasped the aura of the Five Styles. This is the aura that a secret art inherently possesses. I call that martial aura!

    ¡°The third kind is very rare... You might witness an incredible sword sh, de stroke, or spear jab when powerhouses fight. You might sense some aura or intent left behind by predecessors and seek to imitate or copy it. That process gives rise to your own aura, the kind I call heaven aura!

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say which of the three is the strongest, but I think there¡¯s least potential in the second. The first has great potential, but not necessarily great strength. The third might have greater strength, but it¡¯s hard to discuss its potential...¡±

    Mu Lin stopped still in his tracks and stared at the young man.

    ¡°I thought you were just strong,¡± he finally sighed after a long while. ¡°But your description of the aura makes me feel that the Five Styles discipline is truly extraordinary! The division of the auras into three types... Even I might not be able to delineate them so clearly.¡±

    Very few people would go to the effort of drawing such conclusions. Martial mastersprehended one type of aura, so what was the point of such detailed categorization?

    Yet, Li Hao had outlined three types because he¡¯d experienced all of them. The fire tiger aura was a self aura¡ªit was an eruption of his own emotions. The earth sword aura hade from his own reflections and imitation after witnessing Liu Long¡¯s Nine Forged Force and his teacher¡¯s actions. It was a heaven aura, but it wasn¡¯t as strong as the other one he grasped¡ªthe sword stroke he¡¯d seen. He¡¯d intuited the sword aura from that move. The overview of the sword outline was stronger!

    These were the auras that Li Hao had grasped at the moment. What he wanted toprehend next¡ªthe water aura¡ªwas a martial aura. He wanted to reach the best he could in the Nine Forged Force and then try to fathom its aura through a secret art. Such was the martial aura.

    The aura of invincibility that ancient tomes spoke of counted as a self aura. It was an explosion of one¡¯s emotions and umtion of momentum. One was undefeated after countless battles and an internal blossoming of confidence made one impossible to defeat.

    Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t taught Li Hao these concepts; the young man summarized them by himself. Perhaps he hadn¡¯t seen too much of the world due to his young age, but others may not have encountered what he¡¯d already seen.

    He Yong said that every three and de of grass in Silver Moon might contain the auras of premier powerhouses. In that case, Li Hao guessed that the Silver Moon Guards might have some treasures that contained the auras of ancient powerhouses!

    The young man had seen such things before as well. The two characters of Battle Heaven were a kind of treasure, but they were too sophisticated for Li Hao to glean anything. The one who¡¯d written them all those years ago was too strong.

    He¡¯d also felt some things from his ancestor¡¯s sword stroke. While it wasn¡¯t a tangible treasure, other people might be able to grasp some sword aura from it if they saw it. They wouldn¡¯t necessarily sense the same as Li Hao either.

    ......

    Mu Lin¡¯s emotions were a bitplicated at the moment. <i>I¡¯m not worried about you being strong, but of you having a clear understanding of martial dao while being strong. It won¡¯t be easy to keep you down then.</i>

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t at liberty to exin before.¡± The man decided toe clean. ¡°But based on your depiction... You¡¯re right, the Guards do have some treasures that contain heaven auras. It¡¯s some traces resulting from the fights of ancient powerhouses¡ªsome sword marks, de traces, and others. They endure through the passage of time and help us more easily understand the aura.

    ¡°There are also some broken weapons found in the ruins that contain bits of will. Those help usprehend the aura as well.¡±

    ¡°What about origin weapons?¡± Li Hao thought rapidly. If broken weapons could do the deed, why didn¡¯t anyone try utilizing origin weapons to grasp the aura? Even He Yong had only told him to try and sense <i>Hou Xiaochen¡¯s</i> aura. Well, he¡¯d also said that some origin weapons might have aura lingering in them after they were unsealed.

    This time, Mu Linughed. <i>It¡¯s good that there¡¯s certain things you don¡¯t know.</i>

    ¡°Origin weapons are also left behind by ancient powerhouses, but they tend to be whole andplete. It¡¯s been so long that most of them have lost the traces of their former owners.

    ¡°When a de breaks, we can still observe the point of breakage countless yearster to determine how it was broken. The same traits do not exist in origin weapons. How are we to glean anything from aplete de that looks brand new?¡±

    What he said made sense and also didn¡¯t make sense to the young man.

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t that make origin weapons less than broken weapons?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°No!¡± Mu Lin refuted. ¡°Origin weapons are divided into two as well. The first is the situation I just mentioned¡ªreawakening after falling inert. The second is a sealed origin weapon! They¡¯re not inert, but sealed away. Once this kind is unsealed, it might immediately erupt with the will and aura of its past owner. It¡¯s best to give this kind a wide berth and not try toprehend anything from it. You¡¯ll probably die!

    ¡°It¡¯s what some powerhouses seek out though, and even try to unseal, because they wish to sense that momentary explosion of ancient powerhouse strength. This kind is exceedingly rare as there aren¡¯t many sealed weapons in the world.¡±

    Li Hao thought of Steris, the weapons of the eight families, and the sword that he¡¯d given the Night Watchers in return for a Nova level blood pearl¡ªthe one he¡¯d passed off as the sword of the Lis.

    ¡°Do the Guards have a lot of these treasures?¡± Multiple thoughts flew through Li Hao¡¯s mind.

    ¡°Not that many, and there¡¯s another problem associated with them¡ªstorage is very difficult!¡± Mu Lin said with a sigh. ¡°Some treasures perform adequately when you use them the first time, but the will inside mostly dissipates after the second use. They can be used a third or fourth time, but are ineffective beyond that! There are very few treasures who are continuously effective. We only have two or three of those, the boss looks after them himself. I don¡¯t have the right to handle them.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, finally understanding why there were so many people who knew the aura here.

    ¡°And these treasures are all from the ruins?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Mu Lin nodded. ¡°Almost all of them are, but some were also seized from pirates. There are many pirates in the North Sea and these guys sometimes dredge up treasures from the sea. Though these items aren¡¯t from ruins, they also contain special effects.¡±

    ¡°Are the pirates strong?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s strong and weak ones. They¡¯re not one faction and there¡¯s a lot of them. The North Sea cuts through the central north and flows past more than a dozen provinces. Groups on a smaller scale only have a couple dozen people, ones on arger scale are much bigger. There¡¯s a very strong oneprised of tens of thousands, and more than half are supernaturals!¡±

    Li Hao jerked with surprise. So many? How was that possible??

    ¡°Where do they get so many supernaturals from?¡±

    ¡°The war in the central region has made it impossible for many supernaturals to continue their livelihoods, or they may have enemies, or their families are broken, or they¡¯re wanted for their crimes... The three great organizations were previously strict on who they epted. They didn¡¯t want the weak or those with poor potential. The mid-sized organizations have limited ability and can¡¯t support so many supernaturals. That forced these people to be bandits, either in the mountains or the sea!¡±

    Li Hao frowned. <i>Pirates...</i>

    ¡°So what do they do to survive?¡±

    ¡°Banditry! There are many merchantpanies that cross the sea. These pirates have also once targeted a city,e ashore, swiftly ambushed it, or even razed the city to the ground. Theye and go like the wind and it¡¯s very difficult to capture them once they return to sea. Thus, pirates are a huge headache for the northern and central provinces along the coast.

    ¡°The Silver Moon Guards are tasked with cleaning up the pirates near the Moon Sea. There aren¡¯t that many of them as we aren¡¯t a prosperous province and the bigger pirate factions don¡¯t think much of us.

    ¡°Additionally, there¡¯s a lot of mysterious power in the deep blue and treasures, so there are plenty of powerhouses on the open waters.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. He¡¯d never heard of nautical threats before. The Guards must be quite strong as they¡¯d eliminated all of the pirates that came ashore. That made sense as if the Guards couldn¡¯t even handle pirates, then Hou Xiaochen¡¯s efforts all these years were wasted. It wasn¡¯t the entire North Sea, just the bay that was the Moon Sea.

 Chapter 354: Compensation Package (III)

    <h4>Chapter 354: Compensation Package (III)</h4>

    After some conversation, Mu Lin and Li Hao made their way past the za and entered the living quarters to the rear. There were some mundanes here¡ªnot martial masters or supernaturals, just regr people in charge of support, cleaning, and other tasks. There were people who cooked and washed clothes. Martial masters were a busy bunch and didn¡¯t have time for these chores. If they were tasked with living quarter upkeep, the ce would soon stink like a pig sty.

    Li Hao was never in a poor state since he always changed into a new uniform whenever his clothes were dirty. The Night Watchers had their own changing rooms and plenty of fresh uniforms to choose from. The young man was in the habit of randomly choosing one off the rack.

    There was also personnel at the Inspectorate¡¯s family amodations unit in charge of handling these affairs. The Silver Moon Guards had a fair number of minor buildings requiring upkeep. They weren¡¯t tall, most of them topping out at three floors.

    ¡°There are one hundred of these small buildings,¡± Mu Lin introduced. ¡°With six rooms on each floor, each building holds a capacity of eighteen. We can house eighteen hundred martial masters at most in a building. The rooms are spacious at nearly one hundred square meters¡ªwe can also bunk six to eight people if there¡¯s a need for it. That means more than ten thousand can squeeze into the living quarters if we have to!

    ¡°But martial masters all require some privacy, not to mention that our amodations aren¡¯t full. The officers live further back, each person has one building to themselves.¡±

    Every one of the buildings upied arge lot as they all possessedrge yards, resulting in each building iming nearly one thousand square meters of space. One hundred buildings meant one hundred thousand square meters of space. When empty space factored in, that meant the entire living quarters area was at least two hundred thousand square meters. It amounted to only three acres ofnd, which wasn¡¯t much at all.

    ¡°There¡¯s a cafeteria and shops over there, and another big building up front that¡¯s a hotel for family. Families can visit, but only veteran soldiers with over three years of experience. The background check for visiting family is very strict. We normally don¡¯t rmend families to visit. You can go back home yourself as you get a month off every year.¡±

    Li Hao nodded and looked around as he followed Mu Lin. When others saw the deputying their way, they avoided him like the gue. Those who couldn¡¯t evade in time snapped off crisp salutes. Mundanes were no different; this second-inmand was more like the boss around here as Golden Spear was often absent.

    Although the centurions didn¡¯t like him and called him by his given name, they obediently followed his orders in critical moments.

    ......

    The two reached another patch of small buildings after walking for a bit. Li Hao counted roughly thirty buildings in a quick sweep. They were ced further apart from each other and appeared nicer than the buildings up front. This was a quieter area.

    ¡°We live here!¡± Mu Lin pointed inwards. ¡°There¡¯s fourteen people in residence at the moment and sixteen empty buildings. You can pick whichever one you want.¡±

    ¡°Fourteen people?¡±

    Nine centurions plus Mu Lin and Golden Spear only made for eleven!

    ¡°Boss Golden Spear has a disciple who¡¯s also a Dominator.¡± Mu Lin smiled at Li Hao¡¯s confusion. ¡°So he has a building to himself. The captain of the boss¡¯ bodyguards is another Dominator, so he has one too.¡±

    Li Hao raised a brow. So there were two more Dominators present! That was true, how could Golden Spear¡¯s bodyguards not be strong?

    ¡°What about the fourteenth one?¡±

    ¡°That one belongs to Director Hou, but he doesn¡¯te often.¡±

    Li Hao understood. He looked around again and wasn¡¯t in a hurry to choose his residence. He could take his time. ¡°What should I do now?¡±

    ¡°Build your team!¡± Mu Lin answered swiftly. ¡°Additionally, give your team an impressive name! The Chen Jin that you beat in two punches, for example, calls his team the Mountain Openers!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>How is one hundred people opening any mountains?? And he¡¯s the heir of Mountain Ax, is this supposed to be an outstanding name? How about I make a Five Styles Army? The heck?</i>

    ¡°I have to prepare all of this myself?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°Apart from the ones here, the martial masters that I know don¡¯t even amount to one hundred!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not all up to you, of course. The boss said before he left that if Liu Long¡ªwe thought Liu Long wasing to us then¡ªcame, he could take ten people from his bodyguards to form his team.

    ¡°It¡¯s best not to transfer anyone from the other teams because they¡¯re used to their training regime and working with each other. However, you can if you really want to. You can choose three from each team at most, and centurions are not counted among this number. You can select anyone you want, they cannot refuse!

    ¡°If you utilize all those slots, that gives you thirty-seven personnel. The rest is up to you!¡±

    More than one-third coulde from preexisting teams and the rest was up to him. That significantly lowered the level of difficulty and made it easier to assimte into his new surroundings.

    Li Hao nodded, that was more like it.

    ¡°What about the Silver Moon Guardspensation package? I need to talk about pay and benefits if I¡¯m to recruit people, right?¡±

    ¡°Thepensation is great.¡± Mu Lin grinned. ¡°It goes without saying that money is on the table. Dominators receive one mysterious power stone a month! They can choose one treasure every three months and study it for a day¡ªperceiving the aura, in other words. Although Dominators have grasped the aura, perceiving the same kind of aura again is still extremely helpful!¡±

    <i>Mysterious power stones!</i>

    <i>Holy fuck! Damn these guys are swimming in money, one of these things is worth hundreds, if not a thousand cubes! A direct faction under Hou Xiaochen is a direct faction alright</i>!

    Li Hao and the others earned one cube of mysterious power a month in Silver City. It was just a thousandth of Guard pay¡ªit couldn¡¯tpare at all. The young man was green-eyed with envy. The Night Watchers were so poorly off!

    Deputy Director Hao earned a couple dozen cubes a month, but here, Dominators were paid one entire stone! Of course, that was just Hao Lianchuan¡¯s sry. If he needed to, he could also utilize mysterious power stones in emergencies. Just that stone alone was enough to tempt a Dominator, to say nothing of that chance every three months to perceive the aura.

    ¡°What about Sunderers?¡±

    ¡°Mid Sunderers receive ten cubes of unattributed mysterious power a month. Late Sunderers receive the same, but they can perceive the aura once every six months. Initial Sunderers have no need for this treatment. Half step Dominators can perceive the aura once every four months. Theirpensation is second only to Dominators, but they don¡¯t receive mysterious power stones.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. This meant that the greatest allure of the Guards was the chance toprehend and improve the aura! Therefore, the treasures that contained lingering aura and will were the Guards¡¯ most precious objects. As for mysterious power stones, there weren¡¯t that many Dominators in the Guards. It was roughly a dozen stones a month at most and a hundred a year. These guys had explored so many ruins that they could afford to spare this sum of stones.

    ¡°How are the gains from the expeditions divvied up?¡± This was another point that the young man highly cared about.

    ¡°I knew you¡¯d ask about that,¡± Mu Lin chuckled. ¡°It depends on the situation! For instance, discovering the ruins and exploring them by yourself is one type. Exploring ruins that we give you is another. Seizing ruins first discovered by the enemy is a third.

    ¡°The rules as set by Director Hou are that for ruins supplied by upstairs, it¡¯s a fifty-fifty split. Ones that you discover and explore yourself are seventy to you and thirty percent to upstairs. If you seize a ruin from the enemy, it¡¯s all yours!¡±

    ¡°We still need to give thirty percent to upstairs for ones we discover ourselves?¡± Li Hao raised a brow. He had no objection to a fifty-fifty split for ruins supplied by above. Ruins taken from the enemy meant risking one¡¯s life for, so it was normal that the martial master took all of the gains as well. But still having to offer thirty percent from ruins that he¡¯d discovered and explored himself...

    ¡°Ole brother, to put it frankly, there¡¯s a lot of people here that wield their current strength only because Director Hou threw his support behind them,¡± Mu Lin exined. ¡°Would you be able to im so many goods if you didn¡¯t have that strength? Not to mention, upstairs needs money too. They pay us a sry in return for Director Houpensating them. Can he continuouslypensate us out of his own pocket? Ancestors nt trees so that their descendants can enjoy the cool shade. The Silver Moon Guards are an army unit, after all. Striking out too much on our own as individuals makes it hard to operate sometimes!¡±

    Li Hao considered the notion, then nodded without further word. Perhaps! The key thing was that he¡¯d never experienced any of this before. He¡¯d taken everything he found when he explored the ruins with Hao Lianchuan and the others, so he wasn¡¯t familiar with this mentality. When he was in the Demon Hunters, it was Liu Long dividing all of the goods.

    ¡°These are the official guidelines from upstairs, but you can decide what you do with your share. Do you want to split it with those beneath you? If they helped you, you should. You don¡¯t have to, but they won¡¯t work for you if time goes on. They can¡¯t be med for running off to another team then, that¡¯s all because of your ipetence!¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°So this means that the Guards can also headhunt from the other teams?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Mu Lin chuckled merrily. ¡°But that normally doesn¡¯t happen because the centurions keep themselves in check. The Guards are more like a private army. Your troops are your brothers. This is what the royal family used to do and there are many drawbacks to this system, but martial masters and supernaturals are not suited for too many restrictions. Director Hou is willing to give everyone the greatest degree of freedom possible!

    ¡°But remember, there is only one rule that must be followed in the Guards. When the director gives his order, it must be executed no matter how dangerous it is! If you defy orders, you will be executed!¡±

    Li Hao arched a brow. That was more like it! It was toox otherwise, with benefits to be had as soon as one joined. That was toofortable for martial masters. Hou Xiaochen was inly a man who only cared about results and not much about the process. So long as everyone was willing to listen, he didn¡¯t care how they got there.

    Having familiarized himself with thepensation package, received a full tour, and understood the particrs, Li Hao asked a final question. ¡°How often do we go out on a mission, typically speaking?¡±

    ¡°Not that often, about once a month! Once every three months is also normal if it¡¯s slow. Ruins aren¡¯t everywhere, after all, and pirates don¡¯t attack everyday.¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± Li Hao breathed out. ¡°The benefits are good, the mission schedule is appropriate, the split is eptable... I ept this role!¡±

    ¡°These are irresistible terms under ordinary circumstances!¡± Mu Lin roared withughter. He lowered his voice with secrecy, ¡°There¡¯s another benefit that seems ordinary, but it¡¯s actually quite good. There¡¯s a library here, built by Director Hou, that contains a lot of books on secret arts and methods. There¡¯s even breathing methods!

    ¡°It¡¯s left over from when the Skystar Guards cleared out the remnants of scoundrel martial types. Your teacher dug up a lot of graves back in the day, but he also destroyed most of what he found. The director managed to save some, as well as some of theter findings from working with your teacher. We¡¯ve also collected a bit ourselves too.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened, now this was real treasure! It seemed worthless, but knowledge was priceless!

 Chapter 355: Compensation Package (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 355: Compensation Package (IV)</h4>

    ¡°That¡¯s enough for now. Ole brother Li, you should go choose your house and move in. There¡¯s nothing worth staying for in the southern quadrant. It¡¯s quiet here and more suited for cultivation!

    ¡°You can recruit any of your friends. Don¡¯t you know Liu Long? Dominators will absolutely take a step forward in progress if theye. I wanted him to be the team captain of my bodyguards and sent word through my younger brother. What a pity he didn¡¯t ept my offer.¡±

    So this was what Mu Sen had been so mysterious aboutst time¡ªLiu Long had been put forward to be this one¡¯s bodyguard captain. Li Hao was at a loss for words!

    ¡°Would Captain Liu be a centurion if he came?¡± asked Li Hao.

    ¡°He can if you aren¡¯t! He can¡¯t if you are.¡± Mu Lin shook his head. ¡°We don¡¯t have the quota for so many. One hundred more is fine enough, but two hundred is too much to feed. The Silver Moon Guards can¡¯t handle it. We¡¯ve maintained a steady one thousand over the years and that¡¯s the crux of the problem¡ªour consumption is too great!

    ¡°If you find it inappropriate, Liu Long can be a centurion and you can be his second-inmand. No one¡¯s stopping you!¡±

    Li Hao twisted his lip.<i> I¡¯m not doing that! I get more of a cut if I¡¯m a boss. When ites to the chief... I¡¯ll ask for himter.</i>

    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t forget to collect a specialmunicator,¡± Mu Lin said. ¡°It covers a thousand kilometers and can contact anything within that range. There¡¯s also a location device in it so we can maintain a grasp of your whereabouts. We won¡¯t look for you in normal times, but if something happens and we can¡¯t find you, or if you run into danger, we¡¯ll be able to quickly lock onto you. I¡¯m letting you know beforehand so you don¡¯t think we¡¯re keeping you under surveince.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. It was a good feeling. As for his location being known to the Guards... He was a living, breathing person with countless pairs of eyes on him. What did it matter if the Guards also knew where he was?

    Was he supposed to start recruiting now and aplish a big deed or two after he had his people? As for what that deed would be, it was to kill Red Moon¡¯s people and seize scarlet shadows, of course! That was just a convenient byproduct of Li Hao¡¯s own ns. If he really could bring some people with him to the Guards and help them secure benefits to enhance their strength, he might be able to explore some more ruins next. That was his true goal as he¡¯d gained a great deal from Battle Heaven on thest expedition.

    ......

    Li Hao went to the area in the back and chose a building off to the side. The man-made forest stood behind the building, the shoreline essible beyond it. Being close to the shore, it invited Li Hao to look at the sea.

    He wasn¡¯t much interested in the house since it wasn¡¯t under his name. It was just a ce to live, no matter where it was. He had a mansion in Silver City¡ªa pity that wasn¡¯t under his name either. It might be someone else¡¯s if he didn¡¯t return for a long period of time.

    The only thing that really belonged to him was his childhood home, but that was a condemned building now. It¡¯d been cordoned off and awaited demolition. Li Hao would reject any proposal that came through. That was his only real estate and he¡¯d have nothing left if it was dismantled.

    ......

    As Li Hao busied himself, several Novas gathered outside the city.

    ¡°That wuss Hu Qingfeng says he doesn¡¯t want to do it anymore.¡± Blue Moon frowned at a piece of paper he was shaking. ¡°He says Hou Xiaochen is willing to follow orders, and that idiot believes it!¡±

    It¡¯d been Hu Qingfeng who contacted them first, saying that Night Watcher superiors supported the decision to eliminate Hou Xiaochen. Now the fellow was getting cold feet?? This was because Hou Xiaochen had agreed to be redeployed and Hu Qingfeng was iming it as his credit. He¡¯d made the report to central headquarters that he¡¯d given Hou Xiaochen so much pressure that the man had to agree.

    Director General Zhao and the others wouldn¡¯t fight him for this merit, in any case. Since he had his deed of aplishment and two of his men were dead, Hu Qingfeng was afraid to further provoke the intimidating Hou Xiaochen. Therefore, he sounded the retreat and wasn¡¯t willing to work with the three great organizations anymore.

    ¡°It¡¯s normal that Hu Qingfeng isn¡¯t willing.¡± Half Mountain¡¯s voice traveled coolly from his hood. ¡°He¡¯s afraid. Yu Xiao and Huang Jie¡¯s deaths were probably a warning. This guy is known for being timid in the central region. He puts himself forward if there¡¯s something good to be had and runs if there isn¡¯t...¡±

    Blue Moon said nothing and reassessed their situation in light of this development. ¡°Is there a need to continue testing Hou Xiaochen if we don¡¯t have Hu Qingfeng on our side? Do you folks have any other thoughts?¡±

    ¡°Why don¡¯t we wait?¡± suggested the Parity King. ¡°We can wait to test him in the ruins. Hou Xiaochen seems to be preparing to enter the ancient city. We can avoid some unnecessary trouble if we wait until then.¡±

    The ruins!

    ¡°My only concern is that the guy won¡¯t be open to us entering,¡± Blue Moon raised.

    ¡°It won¡¯t be up to him!¡± the Parity King said coldly. ¡°We must enter Battle Heaven! The three great organizations have the same request this time. If Hou Xiaochen thinks he can stop us... that¡¯s his death wish!¡±

    An incredible number of people wished to share the spoils of an ancient ruin that was yet to be fully explored, one with a premier puppet in residence in its city. Now that the central region knew about the particrs, it was no longer Hou Xiaochen calling the shots.

    ¡°Not to mention, it¡¯s not just us!¡± snorted the Parity King. ¡°He Yong¡¯se from the royal family and stayed ever since. Is he here just for fun? It¡¯ll be us monopolizing the ruins next time.

    ¡°Only Hu Qingfeng hase from the nine ministries, but does that mean the other eight really haven¡¯t made any movement?

    ¡°Also, do none of the nearby provinces have any ideas? There are neen provinces in the north. Apart from the three that are disorderly, the rest have their fair share of powerhouses. Is no one tempted after hearing the news?

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen will have no way of stopping everyone.¡±

    Blue Moon nodded. The Night Watcher director wouldn¡¯t be able to stop anyone. Refusing ess might ultimately lead to grave trouble for Silver Moon. ¡°So all we need to do now is wait. The Night Watchers, army, and Inspectorate have recently teamed up to wipe out our three factions...¡±

    Half Mountain opened his mouth just as Blue Moon brought up something new. ¡°I have business elsewhere, I take my leave!¡±

    The Parity King instantly vanished as well. They weren¡¯t interested in discussing this! The Night Watchers were targeting Red Moon and hunting its members all over the ce, investigating their strongholds. They weren¡¯t bringing such pressure to bear against Celestial or Yama.

    The three great organizations weren¡¯t really onerge family. They didn¡¯t care whether Red Moon¡¯s people lived or died.

    Blue Moon sneered coldly in the direction the two had left in. Those two wanted nothing more than for Red Moon to lose more people!

    It wasn¡¯t until the two were gone that Violet Moon spoke from her position off to the side, ¡°So are we giving up moving against Hou Xiaochen?¡±

    Blue Moon inclined his head. Hu Qingfeng¡¯sck of participation only meant that they were down a Nova; action was still possible if they wished for it. But more importantly, Hu Qingfeng¡¯s absence represented certain changes. The guy might flip on them and sell them out, then ally with Silver Moon against the three great organizations.

    It was certainly a course of action feasible by that guy. He would betray even Hou Xiaochen, not to mention the three great organizations. He had absolutely no principles and turned in whichever way the wind was blowing. His fair-weather behavior meant a difference of two Novas on either side.

    ¡°Since Hou Xiaochen has said he¡¯s going to explore the ruins... that¡¯s our chance!¡± Blue Moon heaved a soft sigh, slightly irritated. ¡°We can avoid certain unexpected factors in the ruins, such as reinforcements! Silver Moon is more than meets the eye and too much can go wrong if we try to kill Hou Xiaochen inside the province.¡±

    ¡°But... the same goes for us!¡± Violet Moon raised. ¡°Entering the ruins means we lose the chance to be reinforced by headquarters. It¡¯s not just Hou Xiaochen...¡±

    Blue Moon remained silent. It was dangerous to be on the same expedition as Hou Xiaochen, but what choice did they have?

    ¡°Was Hou Xiaochen really one of the three Skystar Guardsmanders before?¡± asked Violet Moon.

    ¡°We¡¯re not sure. He might be and he might not be...¡±

    Bullshit! Violet Moon regarded his reply wordlessly, then asked slowly, ¡°Is that Manager Yu the Yu Luocha of legend?¡±

    ¡°She might be!¡± Blue Moonughed after some thought.

    ¡°You don¡¯t know?¡± Violet Moon was highly surprised. <i>How do you not know the first generation Violet Moon?</i>

    ¡°What are you looking at me for?¡± Blue Moon broke out in a grin. ¡°When the Seven Moons convened, the first generation Blue Moon was my master, not me. All of them are very mysterious, including your mother. How am I supposed to know the first generation Violet Moon if you don¡¯t?¡±

    Violet Moon nodded. The Seven Moons were a group shrouded in mystery, including the first generation Violet Moon. Was she Yu Luocha? It was just rumors, Ying Hongyue never spoke of the matter. Her mother rarely did as well, opting to be silent whenever the topic was raised.

    ¡°Be carefultely.¡± Blue Moon rose, unwilling to say anything else. ¡°We are in significant danger now that Silver Moon has decided to mobilize en masse against us. Don¡¯t be caught by them. I¡¯ll be in some trouble if you die.¡±

    Violet Moon frowned without a word.

    ¡°And don¡¯t get in contact with that Manager Yu.¡± Blue Moon¡¯s voice floated back upon the air as he drifted out of the room. ¡°Even if she is Yu Luocha, the first generation Violet Moon and your mother¡¯s best friend, she is the grand secretary for the Night Watchers now! Women do not care about friendships when they feel the rush of love. All of that bes a joke to them and she really will kill people. You might learn then how she got the name Luocha!¡± [1]

    ¡°I¡¯m not that idiotic! Violet Moon snorted, how was that possible! She wasn¡¯t going to look for Manager Yu alright, she didn¡¯t want to die! Not to mention, she¡¯d been scared out of her wits by Hou Xiaochen¡¯s spear jab. Although he hadn¡¯t killed her, she didn¡¯t dare show herself around the Night Watchers all the same.

    ¡°I hope so!¡± Blue Moon¡¯sughter lingered upon the air. He was gone.

    1. Luochas are evil spirits in Buddhist mythology that eat human flesh. ?

 Chapter 356: Birdshot, Earthturner Sword (I)

    <h4>Chapter 356: Birdshot, Earthturner Sword (I)</h4>

    <i>Within Li Hao¡¯s new lodgings.</i>

    Having an entire building to himself was such a fine arrangement. The closest neighboring structure was several hundred meters away. No one had chosen the buildings around him. The young man took out a sewing needle¡ªthe ming Phoenix Spear.

    It quickly reverted back to its spear form, but remained dull and inert. Li Hao frowned at the lifeless origin weapon. It¡¯d really sealed itself off! The ming Phoenix Spear continued to be unmoving when he took out a mysterious power stone. Manager Yu had said that Hou Xiaochen was the only one who could activate it again after it sealed itself away.

    Now this was troublesome. Was he supposed to tell the man that <i>I want toprehend and fight your will and aura, so can you activate it for me?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen would probably kill him on the spot!

    ¡°Why did you seal yourself away?¡± Li Hao murmured to himself. He fished out a sword from his boots, one that wasn¡¯t too long. When he knocked it on the spear, thetter seemed to tremble.

    ¡°It¡¯s not like I¡¯m going to hack you into two,¡± sighed the young man. ¡°You¡¯re Director Hou¡¯s weapon, would I dare? I just want to activate you to take a look at the phoenix. What¡¯d you go and do this for?¡±

    <i>nk nk nk!</i>

    The little sword tapped on the spear with sounds of metallic impact. The ming Phoenix Spear was still dull and inert.

    Li Hao pulled a long face and mumbled, ¡°I hear that the ming Phoenix Spear is an exceedingly high level origin weapon. My Steris shed through the Shadow Snake Sword and ate its soul. I wonder if it can break the ming Phoenix Spear? Probably not, right? This is supposed to be a sky level origin weapon and extremely terrifying.¡±

    The ming Phoenix Spear seemed to shudder.

    ¡°Forget it,¡± Li Hao sighed once more. ¡°If I can¡¯t activate it, I¡¯ll hack at it a few times for fun and then return it. No one will believe I did it if it¡¯s broken. I don¡¯t have the strength to break the ming Phoenix Spear, so it must¡¯ve been a fake!¡±

    ¡°......¡± A streak of fiery-red appeared on the spear when Li Hao raised the little sword!

    The young man¡¯s eyes brightened and heughed, ¡°Impressive!¡±

    This really was impressive! The ming Phoenix Spear understood human speech¡ªor rather, it could decipher the intent behind the words.

    The soul of an origin weapon! When Li Hao saw the Shadow Snake Sword, there¡¯d been a shadow of a snake within the sword. The shadow seemed to have understood Li Hao¡¯s actions when he raised his sword to cut it down. In that moment, at least, the young man had seen fear.

    Since the ming Phoenix Spear had sealed itself away when he dripped blood onto it, Li Hao guessed that the weapon might be aware! It could listen and perceive.

    His little experiment demonstrated that it did indeed understand, but the results still shocked the young man. A weapon could understand humans? What was he supposed to make of that? If the souls of weapons were the souls that he was familiar with... then were weapons alive?

    Incredible!

    And why were there shadows of monster spirits in all of them? The fiery phoenix, the shadow snake, and a thunder monster in Violet Moon¡¯s Armor of the Thunder God... What was all that?

    A kind of aura? Or will?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t understand. Or had monster spirits been used to create these weapons? He suddenly thought of the possibly dead Panther. If he¡¯d refined the little ck dog into a weapon, would that impart a dog shadow to the weapon?

    <i>My poor Panth. You ate so many good things from me and died, just like that! </i>Li Hao sighed. But that dog was smart, so it was possible that it was still alive. Perhaps it¡¯d just run away. After all, Yuan Shuo had wanted to eat it all the time when it was with Li Hao. Maybe the dog had been scared off.

    How had he suddenly thought of Panther when he was working with the ming Phoenix Spear?

    The young man looked at the fiery origin weapon. He picked it up and suddenly stabbed forward with an explosive sound. Just the spear itself was made of such durable materials that one jab broke the void.

    Fire energy dissipated through the air and brought with it a searing sensation. This was a powerful weapon stronger than the little sword! Granted, the little sword was in a sealed state. It should still be stronger¡ªwhy else would the ming Phoenix Spear be afraid of it?

    The young man stood silently with a spear in hand. He seemed to turn into Hou Xiaochen as he emted the man, trying to sense certain things. However, he shook his head after a while and put down the spear. There was nothing to be gleaned if it wasn¡¯t activated. The only thing he could y with was a vague sense of killing intent.

    <i>Southern Fist said that activating the weapon may let me sense Hou Xiaochen¡¯s will and aura... At the very least, some of it should linger from when he killed Red Hair a while ago...</i>

    What kind of aura would the director¡¯s aura be? Was he still a martial master? If he wasn¡¯t and was just a supernatural above Nova, would he still be able to deploy his aura?

    <i>A spear aura? </i>Mysterious power stones were highly valuable. It would be quite a loss if he obtained nothing after feeding one to the ming Phoenix Spear.

    Li Hao looked at the floor after gently stomping his foot. He nodded with satisfaction at what he found. The houses here were more than they seemed. Hou Xiaochen must have used public resources for his own purposes and built this base with supernatural abilities. The young man had discovered yesterday that the floor tiles here were much more durable than ones he¡¯d encountered anywhere else.

    He¡¯d smashed a Dominator into the ground during his fights yesterday. If it¡¯d been ordinary tiles, he would¡¯ve driven the man more than ten meters deep. Here, he¡¯d only managed one meter. The same went for this house, it looked to have been built by a wood supernatural.

    It was very durable, nice.

    ¡°Can you demonstrate Hou Xiaochen¡¯s will and aura?¡± Li Hao looked at the spear in his hand again. ¡°How about letting me see a thing or two?¡±

    The ming Phoenix Spear remained quiet.

    Sighing, the young man raised Steris. ¡°Then let¡¯s try hacking at you. Maybe I can bring it out of you!¡±

    The weapon still remained quiet.

    Li Hao raised a brow, summoned his sword aura, and swung his sword...

    The spear vanished before his blow could connect and reappeared several meters out, floating in the air.

    ¡°Is it a good thing for a weapon to have a soul?¡± a merry Li Hao chortled with appreciation. A weapon with a soul could protect its master, but it could also turn on its master! This wasn¡¯t necessarily a good trait!

    ¡°So it looks like you can¡¯t run off. Is this all you can manage? Will you fight me if I feed you a mysterious power stone? I¡¯ll feed you more if it¡¯s a good fight, or I¡¯ll smash you with Steris if it¡¯s not!

    ¡°Ordinary sword auras may not be able to break you, but I know a special one. The Sever Self Stroke, or should it be called the Eternal Sword?¡±

    His sword aura erupted! Li Hao called upon the stroke of his memories, the one that would pierce through the firmament!

    The ming Phoenix Spear had just been hovering in the air¡ªit trembled violently and vanished without a trace. Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened with dismay. Had it run off? <i>Fuck! I¡¯m doomed if it¡¯s run away, Hou Xiaochen¡¯s gonna kill me!</i>

    The young man rushed out of the room and jerked with surprise to see the spear tter to the ground. It couldn¡¯t seem to stray too far from Li Hao, possibly restrained by the drop of blood from earlier. That limited its range of movement.

    How interesting!

    The ming Phoenix Spear was still trembling when Li Hao picked it up. Hisst move had truly frightened the phoenix. Thebination of the Eternal Sword and Steris terrified it.

    ¡°Keep running!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°It looks like you¡¯ve got quite a bit of knowledge for an antique. You know my ancestor¡¯s move¡ªdo you think I can smash you to pieces?¡±

    The spear trembled once, as if replying to Li Hao. It did think so!

    ¡°ming Phoenix Spear, were you really a phoenix before?¡± The young man looked intently at it. ¡°Did phoenixes really exist? Did all of those monsters exist in the ancient civilization, the dragons, phoenixes, and others?¡±

    The spear trembled a single time once more, as if responding that yes, they had existed.

    ¡°Then, were you strong before?¡± Li Hao stroked his chin.

    A single tremble.

    Li Hao surmised that one tremble meant yes. So the weapon thought itself as very strong?

    ¡°Are you stronger than my Steris?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The ming Phoenix Spear shook twice.

    Li Hao was overjoyed! <i>Hot damn, this thing really can reply to people and it thinks that Steris is stronger! Does this mean... that it can reactivate if I don¡¯t feed it? I don¡¯t have to waste a mysterious power stone?</i>

    This was all that was on the young man¡¯s mind at the moment. He didn¡¯t think he needed to doubt that Steris was stronger than the origin weapon, his ancestor must have been incredibly strong! Just the sword aura alone was terrifying. The ming Phoenix Spear didn¡¯t give him the same feeling.

    ¡°Who is stronger¡ªme or Director Hou?¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t receive a response to this answer. It likely didn¡¯t know how to answer.

    ¡°Am I stronger than Director Hou?¡±

    The spear shook twice¡ªnegative. There was no hesitation, an obvious sign that it thought Li Hao was thinking too much.

    ¡°Is Director Hou a martial master?¡±

    The ming Phoenix Spear didn¡¯t move. Li Hao frowned, what did that mean?

    ¡°Does the director walk the path of energy?¡±

    One shake, two shake...

    Negative!

    The path of energy was the path of the supernatural, Li Hao had learned of this from the Silver Armor. This might¡¯ve been what the supernatural domain was called in the ancient civilization. The ming Phoenix Spear might not understand the term of ¡®supernatural¡¯.

    This wasn¡¯t a surety, either.

    Li Hao¡¯s frown deepened. Not a supernatural? Then the director really was a martial master. A supernatural turned martial master! As for the possibility of purely martial dao... Li Hao dismissed the idea after some consideration. If the director had taken that path, he shouldn¡¯t be so blinding that it hurt to look at.

    Martial masters were self-contained! They would never be blinding to the eye. Director Hou might not havepleted his conversion, so he gave off a supernatural feeling. That was why he and the others in the conference room were so ufortable to be near. Martial masters would not exude this kind of sensation.

 Chapter 357: Birdshot, Earthturner Sword (II)

    <h4>Chapter 357: Birdshot, Earthturner Sword (II)</h4>

    Caught up in the questioning, Li Hao asked excitedly, ¡°Do youmand an aura? Don¡¯t tell me you don¡¯t understand what that is! I¡¯ve seen ancient tomes that talk about auras. Shake once if you have one.¡±

    One shake.

    The ming Phoenix Spear possessed an aura!

    ¡°A fire aura?¡± Li Hao lit up. ¡°Forget it, it¡¯s all the same. Elements stem from one¡¯s personalprehension, the aura is not so...¡±

    He thought back to what Hong Yitang shared with him, suddenly finding the man to have an exceedingly unique perspective of the aura. Li Hao ceased his questions¡ªthere was no point in making the spear shake once or twice. Experiencing the origin weapon¡¯s aura was the more important task at hand!

    ¡°Let''s fight, ming Phoenix Spear!¡± Li Hao tossed the spear into the air with a flourish. It flew upward... and ttered to the ground.

    <i>Is it ying dead?</i>

    A wordless Li Hao walked over and picked up the weapon with a frown. ¡°We fight, or I smash you into two!¡±

    The spear shook. It shook many times. Li Hao regarded it with a raised eyebrow. <i>What¡¯s it mean? These weapon souls don¡¯t seem that smart at times.</i>

    ¡°You¡¯re not activated? You want mysterious power stones? Can¡¯t you activate yourself?¡± The young man wanted to save resrouces where he could.

    The spear continued trembling violently.

    <i>Fine, fine, I get it. You want a damned stone and won¡¯t do anything without it.</i> That might not be the truth either. It could also be that these origin weapons had been inert for so long that they didn¡¯t have enough energy to support themselves if theycked a master. inly, Hou Xiaochen had infused the ming Phoenix Spear with some internal force or mysterious power when he gave it to Hao Lianchuan. He hadn¡¯t done the same when he lent it to Li Hao¡ªthis was the truth behind the so-called activation!

    Li Hao took out a fire stone from his storage ring. He¡¯d reaped thirteen stones when he killed Yu Xiao and the others, adding it to the ones that he already had. He hadn¡¯t had use for themtely, so they were all present and ounted for. There weren¡¯t that many fire attributed ones, however. He counted only three among his storage.

    <i>One piece willst for a long time, right?</i> Li Hao looked at the ming Phoenix Spear again and was unable to withstand temptation. <i>Let¡¯s give it a try!</i>

    As precious as mysterious power stones were, there would be chances to obtain moreter. Meanwhile, he only had three days with the origin weapon.

    Li Hao set his jaw and crushed the mysterious power stone. Fire energy surged out¡ªSteris couldn¡¯t be bothered with it. Under ordinary circumstances, the young man had to operate the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to force the little sword to absorb some. It was picky.

    The ming Phoenix Spear was not; it furiously took in energy the moment the stone shattered. It was apparent from this point alone that the little sword was a higher ss than the spear. Steris must have feasted only on the good stuff before; the ming Phoenix Spear was supplied with lower level energy.

    A fiery phoenix shimmered in and out of sight when the origin weapon absorbed a vast quantity of fire energy! Scorching heat filled the living room.

    Li Hao brightened. Was the origin weapon active? What was this that¡¯de out? Would the soul of the weapon attack, or was it the weapon itself that would take the field? He didn¡¯t know as it was his first time manipting an origin weapon. He¡¯d chosen to make his attempt at the Guards because he was worried about an overlyrge disturbance at the family amodations building. He might demolish Hao Lianchuan¡¯s home.

    A modest-sized phoenix appeared over the ming Phoenix Spear. Just as Li Hao thought that it was about to make a move and excitedly settled into his starter position... The phoenix vanished!

    It was gone!

    Li Hao blinked and waited for a while, but there was no further movement. He walked up to take a look at the weapon¡ªit seemed brighter than before. But... there was nothinging from it?

    ¡°Let¡¯s fight!¡± Li Hao called out, but the ming Phoenix Spear trembled, as if saying itcked strength because it hadn¡¯t eaten enough.

    The young man blinked, understanding the origin weapon¡¯s meaning after a while. His face darkened, ¡°Damn, I¡¯ve been tricked by a weapon!¡±

    <i>Do you really take me for a fool??</i> Li Hao gnashed his teeth and suddenly raised his longsword, bringing it down on the phoenix!<i> Eat some more, why don¡¯t you?? This is bullshit! There was a lot of fire energy in that stone, so how can¡¯t it activate you?? You¡¯re ying me! Imma cut you down and see if you still justy there!</i>

    The ming Phoenix Spear abruptly shifted just as he was about to connect. It was an extremely sudden movement thatunched itself at Li Hao¡¯s throat. The spear was incredibly fast, like the action was premeditated and just waiting for Li Hao to draw near. The young man¡¯s heart skipped a beat¡ªa strong sense of danger dawned on him.

    <i>This thing knows how to ambush people?</i>

    The ming Phoenix Spear disappeared before the sword stroke and reappeared near Li Hao¡¯s throat. The young man rapidly backed away, deploying the deer style to the utmost and floating backward through the air like a feather.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Fire ignited around the spear! It threatened to consume heaven and earth, making Li Hao feel that he was in the middle of a sea of fire. The furniture around him was undamaged, but he sensed that his mind was burning!

    What kind of attack was this?

    Immensely taken aback, he suddenly understood how Red Hair had died! This spear attacked the will! It didn¡¯t destroy the physical body first, but the mind. The body was dead if the mind was dead, so Red Hair didn¡¯t have sufficient time to evade. His will was constrained the moment the spear stabbed into his body, or it might¡¯ve already been burned to death!

    ¡°Hup!¡± Li Hao roared. A caged tiger was breaking free and a ferocious tiger appeared in his heart! Being bolstered by the tiger, the young man deployed his sword. It didn¡¯t seem to be rooted in reality, but was rather a battle of wills!

    A phoenix appeared in his mind¡¯s eye¡ªthe phoenix immted the heavens! Sharp ws apanied by fire grabbed for the tiger. The spear also stabbed toward Li Hao¡¯s throat. The young man waved his sword around, shing and hacking as the tiger of his mind leapt out to the cage with a snarl!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    An explosion rang in the mind as Steris shed forward. It knocked the ming Phoenix Spear slightly off center, but the spear didn¡¯t break as it was durable beyondpare.

    Li Hao immediately came to his senses¡ªthe tiger seemed to match the phoenix. He looked at the origin weapon close at hand and then at the sword in his grip. The ming Phoenix Spear... was fine? <i>Then what were you afraid of before?</i>

    He quickly understood certain things¡ªthe little sword might only be able to cut down souls, so the origin weapon¡¯s soul refused to materialize. Was it the case that origin weapons could be smashed after their soul was obliterated?

    The young man didn¡¯t quite understand, but he was worried about truly ruining the ming Phoenix Spear. He shoved the little spear into his boot with a grin. ¡°I won¡¯t use this, so there¡¯s no need to be afraid. That was impressive just now! Show me the true ming Phoenix Spear,e at me with everything you got!¡±

    He had the benefit of experience this time. A phoenix image hovered in the air as soon as he put the little sword away. As deduced, the ming Phoenix Spear was indeed afraid of the little sword. The spear itself wasn¡¯t, the soul was.

    The phoenix morphed into a spear that swept through the air! A living spear!

    The weapon was incredibly agile; Li Hao was forced into a rapid retreat, he didn¡¯t immediately strike back. The ming Phoenix Spear shook out numerous copies of itself¡ªthe young man couldn¡¯t immediately tell which one was real, or if they were all real. The spear was so quick that he only saw afterimages.

    Transforming into a ferocious tiger, he punched with a snarl. A vicious tiger pounced on its prey, but the punch connected with empty air!

    The spear vanished, reappearing near his head. Li Hao shot backward and tilted his head, yet proved unable to stop the attack. It grazed past his ear in the blink of an eye, scraping his right ear lobe with its aura despite his hasty head turn. Blood sttered the ground as a piece of flesh fell off. Keen spear qi abraded his cheek, covering his face and neck with blood and burn marks!

    The young man sucked in a sharp breath and bounded up from the ground, frantically evading the spear¡¯s second move. The ming Phoenix Spear was more nimble than a human! This ran far outside expectations¡ªit was so fast that Li Hao couldn¡¯t catch up to its tempo.

    The spear flew into the sky like a bird as soon as heunched himself, arching through the void and aiming for Li Hao¡¯s crotch. It wanted to run him through!

    Li Hao broke out in a cold sweat. He hadn¡¯t felt this way even when fighting peak Srs. There wasn¡¯t much he could take into ount at the moment, he roared and kicked with his foot. The spear trembled from the loud impact and transformed into a small snake, seeking to entwine itself around the young man¡¯s legs.

    This was one of Li Hao¡¯s preferred moves. With his knowledge of the Five Styles, he sometimes likes to utilize his agility to wrap around the enemy¡¯s weapons and follow them to defeat their wielder. Who would¡¯ve thought that the ming Phoenix Spear would teach him the same lesson today? <i>What you know, I know too!</i>

    Li Hao shook his legs and opened his fists, curving his fingers into ws and shooting for the phoenix!

    The spearhead abruptly transformed into a beak of wind and fire. Glinting with sharpness, it pecked at Li Hao¡¯s hand.

    <i>Is this the tip of the weapon?</i> The young man thought dazedly. Was he fighting a phoenix instead of a spear? It was hard for him to articte what he faced, but it reminded him of his teacher¡¯s Five Styles!

    His teacher gave enemies this kind of feeling when they fought. Although the opponent thought they were battling a human, Yuan Shuo seemed more like a real tiger, bear, or bird...

    <i>The bird style... </i>shed through Li Hao¡¯s mind. His hands also imitated bird beaks and pecked the phoenix in return!

    <i>ng!</i>

    Fiery sparks sprayed in all directions as pain red in the palm of Li Hao¡¯s hand. His palm had been run through and a bloody hole was in it!

    The young man cursed to himself.<i> It¡¯s too sharp! This isn¡¯t Hou Xiaochen¡¯s aura, it¡¯s the phoenix¡¯s own skill! </i>He was such a fool to try poking the spear with his fingers! There was no effect at all. His palm was strong, but a physical body was of the mortal world. The phoenix he looked at wasn¡¯t alive. This was a spear, an iparably durable spear. He¡¯d used his hand to smack a spearhead, of course he was injured!

    He couldn¡¯t be faulted for his actions, however. The phoenix was too realistic!

    Li Hao came back to his senses and put everything out of his mind. He grasped certain things in this moment¡ª<i>don¡¯t treat this thing as a weapon or a phoenix. It¡¯s a Yuan Shuo that knows the bird style!</i>

    Correct, the young man saw to the heart of things! This was a powerhouse that knew Birdshot. If he couldn¡¯t handle it, that would mean that he wouldn¡¯t be able to stand against a Yuan Shuo who only knew Birdshot.

    <i>Birdshot eh... That¡¯s interesting!</i> An image of a tiger pouncing on a bird rose in his mind. It didn¡¯t matter what Hou Xiaochen¡¯s aura was, tigers could still catch birds!

    The tiger and phoenix truly seemed to exist in this moment. They furiously exchanged blows in the tiny room. Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods, Phoenix Call Through the Nine Heavens!

 Chapter 358: Birdshot, Earthturner Sword (III)

    <h4>Chapter 358: Birdshot, Earthturner Sword (III)</h4>

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Mu Lin swiftly rushed to the officers¡¯ living quarters and looked at a building in the distance with a foreboding expression. What in the zes?? Had an expert trespassed into their territory to assassinate Li Hao?

    He¡¯d drawn near because he sensed two iparably strong auras shing with each other. Martial masters were very sensitive to aura. One of them was Li Hao¡¯s tiger aura and the other seemed like a fire aura, or more like a bird aura...

    It gave him the perception that Yuan Shuo hade. Was this an internal conflict between the Five Styles discipline? The bird style against the tiger style? The deputy hesitated because of this. Had Yuan Shuoe back and was instructing his disciple?

    It was quite a thorny issue for Mu Lin. After momentary dithering, he decided to rush in. Even if Yuan Shuo hade back, it wouldn¡¯t do to start a fight here without notifying them first! Would the Guards have any shred of dignity left if he misjudged and identally killed his disciple?

    A figurended from the sky just as he was about to rush into the building! A towering man stood in front of him and grabbed Mu Lin. The neer stood ramrod straight, like he was a spear. He looked to be in his fifties and possessed a particrly sharp glint in his eyes. He gave one the feeling of a spear ready to strike at any time.

    ¡°Boss!¡± Mu Lin blinked. What was the boss doing back?

    It was Golden Spear!

    The man¡¯s eyes zed with an intent look as he stared at the little building hundreds of meters out. He seemed to see right through it. It wasn¡¯t the building¡¯s reflection in his eyes, but a tiger and a phoenix tangled in battle!

    Golden Spear¡¯s gaze was intensely keen; he thought for a moment. ¡°Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°Yes, boss, he seems to be under attack...¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s not!¡± Golden Spear stood unmoving, the sharp look in his eyes slowly fading away. ¡°It¡¯s an origin weapon!¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t get it.¡± Golden Spear didn¡¯t exin too much. It wasn¡¯t that Mu Lin didn¡¯t understand, but that he hadn¡¯t experienced it before. It was Director Hou¡¯s weapon, the ming Phoenix Spear!

    <i>Li Hao... </i>He¡¯d heard Hou Xiaochen mention this person before, this was Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple. Thed was very bold! And very strong, of course. He was very adept with the tiger style. Director Hou was also a ruthless sort to truly lend out the ming Phoenix Spear. Wasn¡¯t he concerned about the weapon revitalizing and killing Li Hao?

    Golden Spear watched silently, as if seeing the Yuan Shuo of years past.<i> Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods... Dominating the four corners of thend... Can this disciple of yours suppress the ming Phoenix Spear?</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s not Yuan Shuo, boss?¡± Mu Lin asked nervously.

    ¡°No shit, of course not!¡± Golden Spear barked out coldly. ¡°It¡¯s a phoenix. Li Hao is very daring as to use the ming Phoenix Spear to temper himself. I wonder if he¡¯s trying to deepen his understanding of the Five Styles or to probe Director Hou¡¯s will... This is only the beginning. Let¡¯s see how he handles this as the will of the phoenix is only the first stage!¡±

    Li Hao was either idiotic, crazy, or supremely confident to use the director¡¯s weapon as his whetstone. <i>When you defeat the phoenix, that¡¯s when you¡¯ll ess the true beginning! It¡¯s up to your skill as to whether or not you can see Director Hou¡¯s will in the second stage.</i>

    Apart from Golden Spear, only Mu Lin had a slight chance of seeding. The caveat was that Mu Lin had to avoid being reduced to ashes by the phoenix first.

    ......

    <i>Inside the room.</i>

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t thinking of killing the phoenix. After employing the tiger aura for a while, he suddenly jerked with realization. <i>I¡¯m not doing this to kill the phoenix, I¡¯m doing this to learn! The phoenix... The bird style! I didn¡¯t spend a mysterious power stone to </i>kill<i> the beast.</i>

    The tiger returned to the mountain with this change in mentality. A mountainous armor materialized around the young man as he abruptly imitated the phoenix, swaying in the wind and spreading his wings to soar through the sky. The scene suddenly morphed into one of a phoenix pping after an indistinct little bird.

    The bird was buffeted by the wind and rain! It couldn¡¯t fly¡ªor, at least, didn¡¯t seem to be able to fly. It didn¡¯t reach too high in the sky and appeared more like a chick harried by an eagle!

    Yes, that was precisely the feeling. Li Hao found himself a chicken in the grass while the phoenix was an eagle overhead. He fled for his life instead of shing against the origin weapon!

    He used Birdshot to escape, discovering that imitation might help him enhance the skill. Birdshot needed to witness a real bird soaring and hunting from the air. What kind of bird was more powerful than a phoenix? It would have to be more ferocious than an eagle!

    Li Hao twisted his body and extended his arms, evading the phoenix¡¯s sharp ws and pointed beak. His movements were ugly and ungainly.

    The phoenix beak fractured Li Hao¡¯s mountain armor with a loud <i>bam.</i> The armor immediately recovered¡ªarmor of the earth! He didn¡¯t dare really be pecked. That was the equivalent of being run through by the ming Phoenix Spear. He¡¯d be gravely injured, if not outright dead.

    The phoenix continuously gave chase in the tiny room while Li Hao ducked and dodged for all his worth. After a while, he set his jaw and barreled outside. When the ce was too small, it wasn¡¯t conducive for him to evade.

    He seemed to transform into a bird, one that flew proudly through the sky. A phoenix followed behind him in hot pursuit.

    Mu Lin soon saw this scene as well. His jaw dropped at the sight of a phoenix chasing after a very, very small bird. Golden Spear saw it too. There were some mundanes around them¡ªwhat they saw was entirely different. They saw a person walking through the air in a crooked pattern while being chased by a ming-red spear.

    Others in the distance saw it too. Those who hadprehended the aura saw the animal manifestations. Those who hadn¡¯t saw a spear in pursuit. The differences in vision separated the Silver Moon Guards into two levels.

    ......

    <i>Within the air.</i>

    Li Hao circled around as the phoenix pursued him doggedly. He suddenly imitated the beast and stretched his arms out, reaching ahead of him and rising into the air like an arrow.

    Upon the ground, Golden Spear¡¯s eyes widened when he raised his head for a look. The kid was a fast learner. He was imitating the phoenix! Instead of fighting head-on with it, he wanted to copy it. Those of the Five Styles were full of surprises, alright. But... would imitation result in one¡¯s own path?

    Yuan Shuo had also imitated the five animals, but ultimately found his own path. Outright copying the phoenix may not result in a bird aura. What was the core of the bird aura? Golden Spear knew a little about it. It wasn¡¯t speed or flight, but freedom!

    At the very least, that was what Yuan Shuo¡¯s bird aura felt like. It wasn¡¯t offense or defense, but a free andfortable state of bliss. Like a small bird, one could fly wherever they wished and go wherever they wished without constraint.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao seemed to be only pursuing speed. The look in Golden Spear¡¯s eyes changed rapidly.

    In the air, the young man wasn¡¯t thinking that much. His only thought at the moment was to be faster, a little faster! Be faster than the phoenix! If he deployed his sword fast enough, that would be a kind of aura as well.

    He cut through the void like an arrow and shot into the sky. The spear chased him relentlessly. Human and weapon disappeared within theplex. Golden Spear pushed off his feet and bounded upward when he saw this,unching himself like a cannonball and vanishing on the spot.

    Mu Lin¡¯s eyes shone and he threw himself forward as well, his speed as fast as lightning as he also followed the weapons! He, too, wanted to see what the final result was.

    Several centurions swiftly arrived on the premises, confusion and expectation in their eyes. They wanted to see the results. What was that? Li Hao was being chased around by a spear. It... seemed to be the ming Phoenix Spear! ......

    <i>Over the jungle.</i>

    The spear turned when Li Hao turned. The spear flew in a straight path when the young man flew in a straight path. An asional wave of fire roiled over as well.

    The beak descended!

    Li Hao¡¯s heel ached¡ªthe spear had caught up to him and pecked him. He turned into an ape the next second and darted into the jungle, swinging from one tree to another.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The spear ran through arge tree with a massive boom. Li Hao was still debating, what was the core of the bird style? Was it to be fast? The height of speed? He looked at the phoenix¡ªit was fast, but also immensely powerful. Was that the bird style and the key to the bird aura?

    ¡°No... not necessarily... Not to mention that everyone¡¯s aura is different. Whether it¡¯s speed or enormous offensive power, the extremity of speed is an advantage!¡± Li Hao suddenly thought of water. When a droplet of water was elerated to the utmost, it was keen without end. The phoenix¡¯s beak was so ferocious and instantly pierced through his body and defenses because it was too quick! It was the same case for its ws.

    Eagles dove from the sky to hunt their prey because that gave them speed. A quick descent provided a stronger destructive force... The Five Styles was a secret art of destruction, the bird style was no exception!

    ¡°Therefore, the core of the bird style isn¡¯t to flee or speed, but that moment of eruption resulting from the extremity of speed!¡±

    A droplet of water could break through steel if it was fast enough. Then, did the bird style mean that any part of the body could be a vicious weapon at high enough speeds?

    Li Hao looked back again and abruptly slowed down. The phoenix grasped the chance and pecked once more. Li Hao moved slowly enough that his arm was run clean through. Blood didn¡¯t even have time to drip because it¡¯d been so fast! The beak had gone right through the body!

    Golden Spear¡¯s eyes widened with dismay. What¡¯d just happened?

    Li Hao¡¯s movements had suddenly slowed down, allowing the ming Phoenix Spear to injure him substantially. His arm had been drilled through¡ªwhich was the spear piercing the young man¡¯s body!

    Mu Lin¡¯s expression changed below as well. Why had Li Hao suddenly slowed down? Was his store of internal force not deep enough?

 Chapter 359: Birdshot, Earthturner Sword (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 359: Birdshot, Earthturner Sword (IV)</h4>

    Extreme anguish racked Li Hao! He reached out with his uninjured left hand at the same time to grab at the ming Phoenix Spear. The phoenix pecked him again when he did so!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    His defenses were pierced through as the beak sank into his left arm, but this time, it didn¡¯t go all the way through! The young man smiled as he sensed the two kinds of pain.

    That was right! It was different! His right arm was wracked by pain after being run through, but the intact nature of his left arm meant that the spear¡¯s power had weakened!

    <i>I see... so the bird style focuses on speed, but its core is that momentary explosion of ultimate speed...</i>

    The young man¡¯sprehension was vastly different from Yuan Shuo¡¯s, but the paths of martial masters all differed from one another. Li Hao didn¡¯t find anything amiss with his conclusion. He took to the air as he suddenly thought of something. He was fast, much faster than before.

    The ming Phoenix Spear kept up the pursuit!

    Li Hao elerated and elerated, and continued to elerate... He sped up until he could go no faster and suddenly turned back. He punched, transforming all of his speed into an eruption of spontaneous sharpness!

    It was a process of eruption, retraction, and eruption again!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A massive collision rang out. The ming Phoenix Spear fell back from the punch, leaving the young man¡¯s hand covered in blood. He didn¡¯t care! He smiled as he thought of something and bared his teeth at the origin weapon. ¡°Run! Run as fast as you can or I¡¯ll hack you into two!¡±

    The spear erupted reflexively and fled! The young man followed it with every bit of strength!

    <i>Faster!</i> He thought back to the process he¡¯d gone through for eleration and erupted with all of his power, relentlessly giving pursuit. His speed picked up until he transformed into a bird that continuously pecked at the void!

    <i>Humm!</i>

    A sound echoed in the air as Li Hao ripped through the void, his right hand curved in a w. He grabbed the handle of the ming Phoenix Spear and yanked on it!

    The young man¡¯s fingers broke with a loud crack, but a few w marks also appeared on the durable origin weapon. They instantly vanished, returning the spear to a pristine condition, but the phoenix manifested from it bore a hole in its body!

    Joy deepened in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. However, the phoenix promptly disappeared and left the spear ttering to the ground. The young man blinked at it, then realized that it¡¯d been depleted of energy! The power from the mysterious power stone was gone!

    There might have been a bit left, but the phoenix absorbed it when hisst attack injured the weapon. That was the end of the energy reserve.

    Li Hao grabbed the ming Phoenix Spear and wanted to vomit blood as he stared at it. ¡°That fast??¡±

    <i>That was an entire mysterious power stone! You consumed it in the blink of an eye?! What the hell?!</i>

    Irate, the young man frowned ferociously. He ignored his wounds, despite both arms being pierced through, his palm and foot run through as well. Li Hao had suffered quite a few injuries in a short amount of time. His ear lobe was even more of a bloody mess.

    He really didn¡¯t mind the state of his body¡ªhe didn¡¯t even feel pain. All he felt was despondence, but his eyes were bright.

    ¡°I see...¡± murmured the young man as he thought through something. ¡°Birds... fly exceedingly fast and can transform into a keenness that kills... The metal attribute?¡±

    Golden Spear paused in the process of drawing near the young man. What was that? He knew full well that the bird style was used for escape. It was a very unique body method that was employed in defense. What was Li Hao talking about?

    The height of speed and a keenness that killed? The bird style could kill?

    Although the young man was still putting his thoughts together, Golden Spear interrupted, ¡°The bird style is one of unfettered freedom and carefree ease. That is what it means to be a bird!¡±

    He didn¡¯t want the old demon¡¯s disciple toprehend a wrong concept or for a martial dao genius to take a wrong turn.

    ¡°Nonsense!¡± Li Hao blurted out. ¡°No matter what kind of bird it is, even a lofty eagle, they are living creatures and need to hunt. The Five Styles is a method that kills and injures. What is this talk of unfettered freedom and carefree ease? There is only ughter. The root of the secret method is to kill!¡±

    What did this random voice know? The Five Styles imitated the hunting styles of different animals and so, the five kinds of secret arts were all used to kill people. What was this ridiculous talk of being free and easy?

    Complete bullshit!

    The young man jerked to his senses after responding and observed a figure that rose like a spear in the distance. He realized who it might be and coughed, ¡°Greetings to the ranking officer. I thought it was Brother Second Mu and cracked a joke!¡±

    Golden Spear, however, didn¡¯t respond. A confused trace appeared in his eye. <i>The Five Styles... are all for killing? </i>He frowned, this differed from Yuan Shuo¡¯s Five Styles.

    The Five Styles was aprehensive secret art that wasn¡¯t employed offensively, but Li Hao¡¯s instinctive answer was apletely different concept. Or rather, it was different from Yuan Shuo¡¯s interpretation. But Yuan Shuo was the creator!

    Who was right and who was wrong? And did Li Hao truly possess such a bloodthirsty attitude? A secret method used for fleeing was one of immense violence to him! Toprehend the bird style as an ultimate move for killing...

    One had to say, it was hard for a veteran martial master like Golden Spear to suddenly turn his thinking around. Yuan Shuo¡¯s impact on them was too profound and they weren¡¯t able to walk out of the shadow that he cast over the Five Styles.

    Li Hao once more studied the old man in front of him. Golden Spear should be roughly the same age as his teacher, but appeared to be in his fifties. In actuality, he should be in his seventies. As for what the man had just said, the young man mulled it over and took in the meaning behind the words. Golden Spear was likely referring to his teacher¡¯s mind intent!

    However, his teacher¡¯s path wasn¡¯t the only path. Golden Spear was heavily influenced by his teacher! Yuan Shuo himself had once said that Li Hao didn¡¯t need to walk the same Five Styles as he did. Hong Yitang also noted that auras differed ording to person. Liu Long¡¯s father manifested a fire dragon spear, but Liu Long¡¯s was a water wave ax. The same secret art absolutely could lead to different results.

    In this moment, Li Hao suddenly felt that Golden Spear might not measure up to Hong Yitang! Indeed, that was his perception. Not in terms of strength, but understanding of martial dao and aura.

    Golden Spear was undoubtedly very strong, the young man knew that without needing to probe the man. He just needed to stand there to give Li Hao an unbeatable feeling. But as strong as he was, Golden Spear didn¡¯t project a sense of wisdom.

    Indeed, wisdom! Hong Yitang exuded that most out of all the martial masters Li Hao had met. He Yong... partially. Yuan Shu definitely did. Due to prolonged exposure to Yuan Shuo, Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought much when he first met Hong Yitang. But right now, he blinked dazedly after being acquainted with Golden Spear and others like He Yong.

    Although Hong Yitang was no longer a martial master, he seemed to have a very deep understanding of martial dao! Even if Manager Yu was Yu Luocha, she didn¡¯t give him the same feeling. Hou Xiaochen slightly did, but he exuded more mysteriousness and not the rity of seeing through all things.

    Li Hao grew lost in his thoughts. Was Hong Yitang... the cowardly martial master of the thirty-size heroes and the second among the Seven Swords... really that bad? He blinked, suddenly seized by an impulse to see the man and witness his sword aura! Not even Golden Spear¡¯s presence could quench his desire.

    Why did Hong Yitang walk the path of the supernatural? Was it just to be stronger? Li Hao was more curious about Hong Yitang than Golden Spear. The Earthturner Sword was more interesting and Golden Spear inly just an old stuck-in-the-mud martial master. That was Li Hao¡¯s only conclusion. No matter how strong the ranking officer was, there wasn¡¯t the feeling of having learned something from him.

    ¡°Sir and Brother Second Mu, I¡¯m injured and need to make a trip back to town...¡± Li Hao abruptly ran off. Having just made it to the scene, Mu Lin started with astonishment. <i>What are you running away for? What is this?</i>

    Golden Spear also blinked. What... had happened to Li Hao? As a notable figure in the martial world, Golden Spearmanded reverence and respect from many martial masters that he met. He didn¡¯t demand the same from Li Hao, but wasn¡¯t it inappropriate to leave them here and run off by himself?

    <i>Does the old demon often speak ill of me in front of his disciple? </i>Golden Spear couldn¡¯t help the turn of his thoughts. A small smile appeared on his stern face. This would be interesting. He refrained frommenting on Li Hao¡¯s earlierprehension of the bird style. Perhaps the young man was right. It wasn¡¯t like Golden Spear was his teacher, so there was no need for the man to say anything further.

    ......

    Li Hao traveled at full speed. He didn¡¯t let anyone give him a ride¡ªinstead, heunched himself into the air like a bird and covered one hundred meters with one stride. He shot out with lightning speed because he suddenly had the thought of going to see Hong Yitang. Even though Golden Spear was close at hand... he had no desire to discuss martial dao with the man.

    A thousand cups was too few when drinking with a good friend.

    The young man hadn¡¯t had much interaction with Golden Spear and, in fact, exchanged only one sentence. Yet, this sentence alone let Li Hao know that they were not the same type of person. Golden Spear might be a good person, a good teacher, a good general, and a good martial master...

    But none of that was important. All Li Hao wanted was someone with a unique perspective on martial dao. The renowned Golden Spear had given Li Hao a particr impression in that split second. The young man thought of certain people he knew before, some ssmates that hadn¡¯te to mind for a very long period of time.

    They followed the prescribed order, gave the standard answers, and vied for the position of valedictorian. They always received full marks on tests!

    Li Hao¡¯s grades were fine¡ªhe wouldn¡¯t have been epted to Silver City¡¯s Veteris Institute otherwise. But good grades didn¡¯t mean that he aced tests with full scores. He was actually a problematic student in some teachers'' eyes as he often voiced strange thoughts. The answers were fixed on tests, but he wanted to make arge circle and ignore the proper form, taking a few twists and turns before returning to the proper destination.

    Only Yuan Shuo thought that it was wonderful that the young man didn¡¯t walk the conventional path. Not everyone was Yuan Shuo. Thus, when Li Hao heard Golden Spear say that the bird style was one of unfettered freedom, he understood that the martial master was a prim and proper, old-fashioned man. He didn¡¯t know what true freedom was.

 Chapter 360: Such Marvelous Luck (I)

    <h4>Chapter 360: Such Marvelous Luck (I)</h4>

    <i>No wonder Golden Spear didn¡¯t break teacher¡¯s will by himself. He can¡¯t do it! </i>The thought came to Li Hao as he ran. At the same time, certain pressure formed about his future in the Silver Moon Guards. Someone as stern as Golden Spear might not approve of his style. Li Hao suddenly thought of Mu Lin. Mu Lin was another person who seemed off the cuff. Perhaps Golden Spear didn¡¯t like him much either.

    Someone like the ranking officer liked those who were quiet and biddable. Li Hao quickly forgot about him; he moved speedily through the air. Having just partiallyprehended what sharpness to the extreme meant, he ran as if an arrow streaking through the sky.

    Li Hao set foot into the northern quadrant of the city before long. This was Inspectorate territory. Someone was on patrol as soon as he entered the area; they were a bit nervous on ount of his speed. A medallion appeared in Li Hao¡¯s hand, ¡°Night Watcher on duty!¡±

    The inspectors breathed sighs of relief to hear the self-identification.

    ¡°Where is the Sword Sect branch office in White Moon City?¡± the young man asked hastily.

    There were three inspectors in front of them, one of them older than the other two. He drew a quick conclusion after looking at Li Hao and answered, ¡°Close to the southern quadrant, near the watchtower...¡±

    ¡°Thanks!¡± Li Hao vanished with a leap, leaving behind inspectors staring with admiration. Was that a Night Watcher?

    They knew about the secret agency and had met some Night Watchers before, but that was under normal conditions. When Li Hao approached from a distance, they saw him move as fast as lightning!

    ¡°Man, are guns even useful anymore with people like that?¡± sighed one of the inspectors. It was hard to see the target when it moved at that speed, much less aim and hit them with a gun. The notion was aplete daydream!

    The other two sighed with envy over superhumans while the veteran inspector calmly spoke into amunicator.

    ¡°An ordinary life is the real existence,¡± he said after finishing his report. ¡°The stronger one is, the greater the danger. There are many dangers in the world of superhumans.¡±

    With that taskplete, he continued his patrols. Youngsters liked pursuing thrills and stimtion. They would know at his age that no excitement was worth amonce routine. Being superhuman was nice, but that came with a constant risk of imminent death.

    ......

    <i>The branch office of the Sword Sect.</i>

    The sect upied a building of six floors in White Moon City. As a local supernatural organization, it wasn¡¯t one of the evil organizations. It asionally assisted the Night Watchers. Neither did the governmentbel the Sword Sect as an evil supernatural organization, mainly because the Sword Sect resembled a sect of the martial world.

    The Sword Sect retained some martial world culture and mannerisms. Whether it was their supernaturals or martial masters, they participated in the world of martial dao and not that of mundanes. Therefore, supernaturals of the Sword Sect rarely disturbed ordinary people.

    Supernatural organizations that did not gue mundanes were typically not deemed as evil by the authorities.

    There weren¡¯t many people at the branch. Establishing a branch in the capital city was just to prove to the Night Watchers that the Sword Sect was a legitimate, aboveboard organization. They were an upright existence that could take their ce in the light.

    <i>On the first floor of the branch.</i>

    Hong Yitang shared a meal with his family in arge private room; he ate with his daughter and second wife. He¡¯d staunchly remained in White Moon City over the past couple of days. The Sword Sect could not be headquartered in White Moon, but Hong Yitang lingered at the capital due to therge number of people gathered here. He stayed in order to swiftly respond to potential developments and sought to remain until the ruins next opened, or until Hou Xiaochen left Silver Moon.

    The family of three chatted throughout the meal. Hong Qing had much to say as she wasn¡¯t subject to the old martial rule of not talking while eating or before sleeping. Hong Yitang doted on his daughter, so he didn¡¯t enforce that many rules.

    ¡°Dad, are we going to keep staying here? When can we go home?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait a bit longer.¡±

    Hong Qing wasn¡¯t dissatisfied with their present circumstances as the sect¡¯s headquarters was stationed in a remote location. She rather liked living in White Moon City. It was bustling with a lot of restaurants, shops, and entertainment. However, her father often seemed distracted these days. Perhaps he missed home.

    Deep in thought, Hong Yitang picked up some food with his chopsticks and abstained from drinking. His wife added some more food to his bowl when she saw his state.

    ¡°Focus on eating when we¡¯re eating, don¡¯t think of anything else,¡± she said softly.

    ¡°Mmhmm, you guys eat too.¡± Hong Yitang smiled.

    ¡°Dad, are the Night Watchers going to make trouble for us?¡± Hong Qing asked curiously. ¡°If it can¡¯t be helped, we can offer all of the ck Amors we took. Wealth stirs up feelings, they must be after us for the one hundred suits of armor we collected!¡±

    Nine hundred ck Armors had been settledst time, with over eight hundred being imed. The wandering supernaturals all died, making the three great organizations, Night Watchers, and Sword Sect the biggest winners.

    Many died from the three great organizations, leaving the Sword Sect to take home numerous sets of armor due to having two Srs on the scene. If it wasn¡¯t for the sect voluntarily taking a step back, they could¡¯ve imed two hundred sets with the strength they had left.

    ¡°Let¡¯s trade some of the ck Armors for mysterious power,¡± his wife suggested. ¡°While we have many members, we don¡¯t have that many martial masters. We don¡¯t need so many sets and it brings us to people¡¯s attention instead.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d love to give some away, but it¡¯s hard to!¡± Hong Yitang smiled. He didn¡¯t really care about the armor and also wanted to give them away. But certain things couldn¡¯t be gifted just because one wanted to. He¡¯d been inmunication with the Night Watchers and their response was simple¡ªthey couldn¡¯t seize and take from another! They would ept a gift of this caliber only from one of their own people!

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s meaning was very clear. Either join his side, whereupon these items would naturally belong to the Night Watchers. Otherwise... hold onto it yourself!

    Holding onto the suits of armor wasn¡¯t a good thing. The three great organizations knew of the Sword Sect¡¯s riches, how would they not be tempted? So what of a mere two Srs in residence?

    Hou Xiaochen was trying to recruit the Sword Sect without dirtying a single de! His method was so sophisticated that nothing could be said about it. Could the Night Watchers be med for not wanting the treasure under these circumstances?

    Should the Sword Sect offer it to the three great organizations instead?

    Very well, then that was collusion with evil organizations, which would make the Sword Sect an evil organization. Thus, even Hong Yitang sighed over his next steps these days. Hou Xiaochen was killing without shedding a single drop of blood!

    It was one thing to openly attack someone, it was another and the peak of shrewdness to stand atop the clouds, looking down at his target and having said target offer allegiance without lifting a finger.

    The Sword Sect was a powerful faction in the province, standing at two Srs, a dozen Sunres, a dozen Sunderers, and hundreds of yers and Starlight. The Night Watchers would be immensely bolstered if they brought such a faction to their side.

    The key thing was, the Sword Sect also had decent foundations and was self sufficient. It didn¡¯t need to be nurtured from scratch.

    Thest expedition to Battle Heaven had resulted in the obliteration of Light Ind, heavy losses to the three great organizations, and clearing out the incredibly bold wandering cultivators. By now, Hong Yitang long realized that perhaps news of the ruins had been purposefully leaked and the joint expedition a calcted move.

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s true goal had been to clean house of the province¡¯s supernatural domain! Every step had been within his calctions and extremely sophisticated methods, yet there was nothing for people to do but obediently set foot into the trap.

    The center of his forehead jumped as he considered these irritating affairs. His wife sensed it momentster and frowned. ¡°Is someoneing?¡±

    The sensation wasn¡¯t too apparent, so it shouldn¡¯t be a supernatural. A martial master?

    Augh traveled through the door after a while. ¡°Li Hao of the Five Styles is here to visit martial uncle Hong!¡±

    The three in the private room blinked. <i>Li Hao? </i>Hong Yitang found it odd. What was thed doing here?

    ¡°Come in, you¡¯re too polite!¡± Hong Yitang stood up to wee his visitor when the room door opened with a gust of wind. Li Hao stood in the doorframe.

    Some Sword Sect disciples gaped behind the young man. So fast!

    ¡°Master!¡±

    ¡°Sect leader!¡±

    ¡°......¡± All of them opened their mouths, some extremely fearful that they¡¯d let someone barge in.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine!¡± Hong Yitang waved them off and looked at Li Hao with a smile. ¡°Li Hao¡¯s here, have you eaten yet?¡±

    It was lunchtime.

    ¡°Not yet.¡± Li Hao raised a cupped fist salute to thedy. ¡°Greetings to Madame Hong!¡± He then nodded in a friendly manner to Hong Qing. ¡°Thanks for the swordst time!¡±

    The girl said nothing and just looked curiously at Li Hao. What was he doing here? Madame Hong smiled, but shock roiled within her heart. This Li Hao was very fast!

    ¡°Then let¡¯s eat together, martial uncle?¡± Li Hao casually dropped into a seat and rubbed his stomach when he looked at the table full of dishes. ¡°I really am a bit hungry...¡±

    Hong Yitang¡¯s look shifted slightly and heughed. ¡°Then let¡¯s have some together, but we¡¯ve already dug into the dishes. I¡¯ll have someone bring hot ones out...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to go through that hassle!¡± Li Hao picked up an unused bowl and set of chopsticks, digging in with relish. He was so at ease that Hong Qing and Madame Hong stared. This was something that only very intimate disciples or brothers would do; his actions represented their closeness! Buting from an outsider, it was impoliteness.

    They looked at Hong Yitang, who didn¡¯t seem to mind. He sat down with a smile and watched the young man eat. ¡°Don¡¯t you usually go to the cafeteria at noon? What brings you to my sect¡¯s branch office today?¡±

    ¡°I miss the martial uncle!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hong Yitang had no response. <i>Is our... rtionship to this point?</i>

    ¡°And I mean to apologize. I¡¯m terribly sorry about breaking martial uncle¡¯s Earthturner Sword. I didn¡¯t cherish it properly.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°I gave it to you, so it was yours.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s broken?¡± Hong Qing gasped. ¡°The Earthturner Sword is very durable and mighty! How did it break?¡±

    ¡°It shattered when I hacked at someone two days ago.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°They wanted to kill me, so I struck back and identally broke it.¡±

    ¡°But... that sword is really very strong. Did someone switch it out on you?¡± Hong Qing was in disbelief.

 Chapter 361: Such Marvelous Luck (II)

    <h4>Chapter 361: Such Marvelous Luck (II)</h4>

    Madame Hong directed a quick nce at her husband; Hong Yitang nodded imperceptibly at her. Her pupils shook violently with understanding! So Li Hao was behind the deaths of Yu Xiao and the others. Unbelievable!

    She was all too familiar with the Earthturner Sword¡ªit wouldn¡¯t have broken unless unfathomable power coursed through it. Had Li Hao already reached that state?

    Meanwhile, the young man was very hungry and stuffed his face. He prepared to speak when Hong Qing suddenly said, ¡°Were you ambushed by someone again? Why are you covered in blood? And your ear... how...¡±

    ¡°No, I was just training.¡±

    Hong Qing regarded him wordlessly. <i>How do you get yourself in this state just through training?</i>

    ¡°Martial uncle, I¡¯vee to you because I have some questions to ask.¡±

    He wouldn¡¯t have visited without a purpose in mind!

    A smiling Hong Yitang understood. ¡°Tell me, what can be stumping Li Hao?¡±

    The young man thought for a bit. ¡°Does the ultimate peak of speed mean even stronger explosive force?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    Li Hao blinked.<i> No?</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s not just speed that results in explosive force!¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°You¡¯re a learned person, so you understand that explosiveness is corrted with eleration. This process umtes energy and aura, which makes explosiveness strong!

    ¡°To put it simply, you need to continuously explode with force and elerate to increase your impact. If your speed continuously increases in the process instead of remaining fixed, then you¡¯ll explode with greater strength!¡±

    ¡°Ah, that¡¯s true!¡± Li Hao nodded with abrupt understanding. ¡°So the power you erupt with is what you¡¯ve umted in the process. It¡¯s still your own, but just a process that quickly stacks it together like the Nine Forged Force, right?¡±

    ¡°You know it yourself, so is there a need to ask me?¡± Hong Yitang didn¡¯t understand what Li Hao wanted to do, but he didn¡¯t mind chatting with the young man.

    ¡°So it¡¯s still a process of umting aura...¡± Li Hao murmured to himself. ¡°Just that this process is sectioned into parts and culminates in one kind of aura, correct?¡±

    ¡°You can say that.¡± Hong Yitang mulled over his response. ¡°The ancients mentioned umting aura, but your question is one of dynamic umtion. It¡¯s an easier and faster way. The ancients also had a method of static umtion. They would hold their breaths and erupt at a key moment...¡±

    Li Hao blinked with sudden realization again. He also knew those ancient tomes. This would help him understand the bird style more.

    ¡°But this aura is snapped into two when I turn or counterattack,¡± the young man raised another point of difficulty. ¡°I can only maintain it if I chase someone, but that means I¡¯m stronger than them. In that case, I can¡¯t umte the aura. What do I do then?¡±

    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t ask me that,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°You should ask your teacher, and not Yuan Shuo, but your physics teacher. Have you learned about parabs? Who told you that the peak of a parab is the fastest speed and greatest explosive force?

    ¡°Must you operate in a straight line when you exercise? Are parabs uneptable? Or any sort of curve?¡±

    Li Hao blinked and looked at Hong Yitang. <i>Dang, am I getting a physics ss from you?</i>

    Hong Yitang took a sip of tea and ignored the odd looks from his wife and daughter. He looked at the young man and thought for a moment. ¡°Whether in chase or escape, none of that needs to take ce in a straight line. Eagles do not dive at their prey in a singr line, their prey runs. An eagle continuously adjusts direction in the process.¡±

    Li Hao nodded thoughtfully and picked up more food. Some of his earlier questions were being answered.

    ¡°Then how does the extremity of speed transform to aura and mind intent?¡±

    <i>Mind intent? </i>It was Hong Yitang¡¯s turn to cast a startled look. <i>Does this fellow want toprehend another type of aura?</i>

    ¡°Jadelight is very fast among the Seven Swords, as fast as light itself!¡± the man responded. ¡°It¡¯s difficult for me to exin how you should understand it, so I can mention Jadelight as a reference.

    ¡°She has a brief umtion period before she draws her sword, which makes it the best timing to kill her. She demonstrates a momentary pause, but explodes with incredible strength once her sword is unsheathed!

    ¡°To put it simply, she draws her weapon slowly, yet deploys it very quickly! Her swordnds even faster, which is an immense test of her arm, wrist, and reasonable channeling of internal force. She often deployed her sword like this, year after year until she finallyprehended her Jadelight sword aura.

    ¡°Something like a sword aura sometimes depends on potential, but is other times contingent on effort. If brandishing the sword ten thousand times is not enough, then do so one hundred thousand. If not, then one million until the act of drawing your sword <i>is</i> the aura!¡±

    <i>Drawing the sword is the aura?</i> Li Hao pondered over those words. Sword techniques floated into his mind and he drew his mental sword. Fast, faster, fast to the extreme, a spontaneous eruption...

    An explosion as scintiting as fireworks!

    Yes, fireworks...

    Rising into the air, eleration, and explosion! A spontaneous eruption of light!

    ¡°Does the Jadelight Sword technique explode like a firework?¡± Li Hao looked at Hong Yitang.

    Most people wouldn¡¯t be able to follow the jump in logic, but Hong Yitang didn¡¯t mind. He thought for a bit and nodded. ¡°A bit! It didn¡¯t ur to me until you spoke of it. Fireworks need an umtion from fire if they¡¯re to rise into the air. Gunpowder ignites and creates propulsion, which in turn facilitates a resplendent sight. It¡¯s a process of umtion!¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± answered the young man.

    ¡°That¡¯s good.¡±

    Their conversation baffled Hong Qing and Madame Hong. What were these two talking about? It was fireworks one moment, parabs the other. They jumped from topic to topic¡ªthe point of their conversation was impossible to determine.

    In reality, what the two discussed was very simple. The extremity of speed, a fast eruption, and the formation of aura... That was what they¡¯d been exploring all along. Li Hao knew that Hong Yitang would understand and the man did. If he¡¯d brought this up to anyone else, they¡¯d say he was spewing nonsense!

    Li Hao took a deep breath. He¡¯d reached an initial understanding, but this aura needed some time and practice. It wouldn¡¯t be shaped in an instant.

    ¡°Martial uncle, I¡¯d like to see the Earthturner Sword technique,¡± he changed the topic.

    ¡°I don¡¯t practice the sword anymore,¡± Hong Yitang smiled. ¡°But I can teach you if you¡¯re interested.¡±

    ¡°No, not teach!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°There¡¯s no hurry for this. I need to digest today¡¯s reflections first, but I¡¯m serious, martial uncle. I¡¯d like to find some time to spar with you. It¡¯s all good, whether it¡¯s with full strength or a fight to the death. If you can pull your blows, then please do so. But if not, that¡¯s alright too. I wish to witness the Earthturner Sword!¡±

    Both Hong Qing and Madame Hong frowned. They were even irritated. Was this a challenge? A challenge between martial masters? Li Hao¡¯s teacher had issued a challenge back in the day, but that had been when Hong Yitang was still a martial master.

    ¡°I decline.¡± Hong Yitang smiled.

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was quite dejected and felt like climbing a wall. He really wanted to witness that move for himself. Truly! It didn¡¯t matter that he might be injured or even die for it. It really didn¡¯t matter.

    There were only a few ultimate ends for martial masters¡ªdeath in the hands of an even stronger powerhouse, old age and sickness, or reigning invincible throughout thend! All martial masters thought of potential death when they took action, so Li Hao really could ept death from sparring. That just meant that his skill was less than his opponent¡¯s.

    ¡°I am a supernatural now, not a martial master!¡± Hong Yitangughed to see the young man¡¯s crestfallen expression. ¡°The rules of martial masters are ineffective for me. Even if they still applied, I am no match for you as an initial Sr. What would be the point of such a fight?¡±

    Li Hao breathed out gently and dropped the subject. ¡°Does martial uncle have any half step Dominator disciples? Ones who haveprehended the Earthturner Sword?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°My most capable disciple is my daughter, who is ate Sunderer.¡±

    Hong Qing rolled her eyes and looked at her stepmother. <i>Nah, I can¡¯t be bothered to say that your most capable disciple isn¡¯t me, but your now wife!</i>

    ¡°I¡¯ve joined the Silver Moon Guards,¡± Li Hao suddenly said. ¡°Director Hou is letting me create a personal team of one hundred with impressive benefits! Dominators will have an annual base sry of twelve mysterious power stones and can sense aura from the ancients once every three months. Late Sunderers can do that twice a year...¡±

    Hong Yitang blinked.

    ¡°There¡¯s plenty of mysterious power to go around,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°Joining the Guards means bing part of the Night Watcher system, but with fewer restraints. With the Guards, you¡¯d only need to listen to me. As for the ranking officer Golden Spear, I can be the liaison. My people don¡¯t need toe in contact with him...

    ¡°In other words, I make the call. You are justice if I say you are!¡±

    Hong Yitang did a double take at the young man.

    ¡°I don¡¯t think that the Sword Sect has much use for its ck Armors,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°I don¡¯t have any and the new troop will need them. I can convince the Guards to purchase them with treasure! When ites to the Guards, Senior Golden Spear seems like a martial master of noble character and integrity. Someone like him... can be deceived legitimately! Director Hou is not in residence these past couple of days, so the senior can make the decision. He¡¯ll absolutely buy the ck Armors!¡±

    Hong Yitang¡¯s jaw sagged.

    ¡°I can take just part of you guys, it doesn¡¯t have to be everyone,¡± Li Hao pointed out. ¡°If part of the sect joins the Guards, you¡¯ll answer to the army and won¡¯t just be the Sword Sect anymore!¡±

    Hou Xiaochenughed with great resignation and some doubt. ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid of Hou Xiaochen?¡±

    Wouldn¡¯t this be ruining Hou Xiaochen¡¯s ns?

    Li Hao shook his head. ¡°The director just wants less trouble and may not really desire the Sword Sect¡¯s strength! Perhaps he values only Earthturner Sword and doesn¡¯t think much of the rest!

    ¡°It would be a deration from Earthturner Sword if the Sword Sect and ck Armors join the Guards. Your attitude would be made even clearer if your daughter was one of the members. Director Hou will understand that a powerful swordsman would rather break than bend, that this is the best oue!¡±

    ¡°I am no strong swordsman,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m not as strong as you.¡±

 Chapter 362: Such Marvelous Luck (III)

    <h4>Chapter 362: Such Marvelous Luck (III)</h4>

    Li Hao ignored Hong Yitang¡¯s deration of weakness and thought for a moment. ¡°The Sword Sect focuses on the sword and I am also a swordsman. If Earthturner Sword no longer wishes to take up the sword... then send some of your martial masters to join my banner. It might be of some help to them. This arrangement is to our mutual benefit!

    ¡°As Silver Moon attracts more attention and Director Hou reveals his strength, that means the margin of survival for the Sword Sect is closing. Some things within Silver Moon cannot be easily disturbed. If they are, Director Hou and some others will be very dissatisfied.¡± The young man looked at Hong Yitang and said softly, ¡°Does martial uncle think that Director Hou is the greatest of Silver Moon?¡±

    Hong Qing and Madame Hong blinked with astonishment. Was he not? How was someone who¡¯d killed a Nova with a single spear jab not the greatest of the province? He¡¯d be a premier existence even in the central region!

    ¡°Is this coincidence or fate?¡± Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t help butugh. ¡°We happen to want to draw close to the Night Watchers and have one hundred sets of ck armor in our possession. You happen to be a swordsman ande to me at this time¡ªeverything is just such fortuitous timing. I don¡¯t seem to have a reason to refuse you.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, it¡¯s destiny!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Am I right that martial uncle isn¡¯t surprised that Senior Golden Spear is with the Silver Moon Guards?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s there to be surprised about?¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°That¡¯s good, it suits him! Golden Spear... is... how do I put this. Those who utilize spears are upright, honest people! They are as straight as their weapon. They strike without regret and press forward without looking back! Spears are more unswerving than swords!

    ¡°While I can¡¯t say that all spear wielders are good people, most of them are! Golden Spear was the first spear of Silver Moon and we all thought that he should¡¯ve joined the army. His current circumstances suit his preferences. He is certainly stronger after joining the Silver Moon Guards. The dao of the spear doesn¡¯t have to be a unique one. So long as one carries themselves with righteousness and integrity, their dao will only grow stronger!¡±

    Such was Hong Yitang¡¯s evaluation of Golden Spear. Li Hao nodded; he wasn''t familiar with Golden Spear, but Hong Yitang must have his basis of understanding to speak thus.

    ¡°My Sword Sect doesn¡¯t have many martial masters,¡± Hong Yitang raised at this point. ¡°Do you want them all, or just Sunderers?¡±

    ¡°I want them all, it¡¯s not hard for yers to be Sunderers in this day and age! Late Sunderer isn¡¯t hard either, the difficulty lies withprehending aura! Those who have caught martial uncle¡¯s eye and been epted must be good talents. But I will have one limitation for them, which is that they cannot cross over to the supernatural.¡±

    Hong Yitang considered the term and nodded. ¡°Alright, twenty yers and ten Sunderers. These are all the martial masters that the Sword Sect possesses at the moment. My yers are not initial yers, so it shouldn¡¯t be too hard for them to break through to Sunderer.¡±

    <i>Thirty people!</i> Hong Qing and Madame Hong gaped.

    ¡°Dad, we... we...¡± Hong Qing couldn¡¯t help but protest. Had her father agreed, just like this? She and the others had been sold with just a few words? Sold to the Silver Moon Guards and to Li Hao, with no negotiation at all? Selling them to Hou Xiaochen was better than Li Hao!

    ¡°This is very good!¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°You have a chance ofprehending the aura after you join the Guards. Only then do you have hopes of bing a Dominator. I can¡¯t bear to let you go, of course, but I have to as a martial master!

    ¡°I can¡¯t bear to let you risk your life fighting others or engaging in death duels. I can¡¯t bear to let you go either. But the fledgling has grown and it is time for you to learn how to fly. To keep you by my side my entire life... The times are different now!¡±

    The man sighed with emotion. The times were indeed different¡ªthe Earthtuner Sword was no longer Silver Moon¡¯s supreme swordsman!

    Li Hao ignored Hong Qing and transmitted to Hong Yitang, ¡°Martial uncle, there seems to be many drawbacks to supernaturals converting to martial masters! It appears to be very troublesome to fully abandon mysterious power, the key point being that there is one violent impact during the process. Those whose organs aren¡¯t strong enough find it hard to endure and will have to break the supernatural locks of their organs at the same time...¡±

    Hong Yitang slightly raised his brow.

    ¡°Martial uncle was a half step Dominator many decades ago, so you crossed over as a Sunre. Sr should not be too difficult for you to attain. Not only do martial masters possess many supernatural locks, but they can also discover these locks. Therefore... martial uncle may have been strengthening your locks and organs all along to prevent bacsh! Perhaps your locks are at an incredible peak now.

    ¡°Breaking four locks makes one a Sr, another one of the five organs makes a Nova. Martial uncle may have broken all four locks on your limbs, but your attribute doesn¡¯t seem that apparent. Are you fire, metal, or earth? I¡¯ve seen several hints each time martial uncle makes a move, and you seem to be of the earth attribute to the outside world...¡±

    The young man wasn¡¯t making sense, but Hong Yitang continuously raised his brow. ¡°Li Hao,¡± he transmitted. ¡°I¡¯m old and don¡¯t quite understand what you mean.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Li Hao transmitted with a grin. ¡°But blood pearls really are very helpful when ites to strengthening the five organs! Martial uncle may not have realized it before, but I suspect that this is how Ying Hongyue walks his path. He strengthens the five organs and their supernatural locks in preparation for returning to martial dao. Blood pearls are truly unique!¡±

    Hong Yitang sank into deep thought.

    ¡°Be at ease with your people in my care, martial uncle,¡± Li Hao continued aloud. ¡°I won¡¯t hurt them. However, Red Moon powerhouses are tasty treats these days. If martial uncle wants a bite, you better hurry. Someone else might make off with them otherwise!¡±

    Hong Yitang burst out intoughter after flicking a nce at the young man. He raised his tea cup instead of responding to thosements. ¡°Then I¡¯ll have to trouble you to look after Hong Qing and the others! I¡¯ll have them report to you soon. As for the one hundred sets of armor, I¡¯ll take whatever the Guards can give. It doesn¡¯t matter how much it¡¯s worth.¡±

    Li Hao raised his tea cup as well. ¡°Very well, thank you for your support, martial uncle!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re wee!¡± The two tossed back their tea cups like they were drinking alcohol.

    With that, Hong Qing was at aplete loss for words. Was that... it? What was her father thinking?? And what was Li Hao thinking??

    ¡°Martial uncle is wee toe find me when you think I am worthy of a fight...¡± Li Hao rose with a smile. ¡°I now have the fire and earth swords. I will coalesce the metal sword soon and the water sword is within my considerations. I don¡¯t have much inspiration for the earth sword yet, but when my five swords areplete, I hope Earthturner Sword freely instructs me with his knowledge!¡±

    The young man opened the door and walked majestically, utilizing the same high speed to instantly vanish from the private room.

    <i>Within the room.</i>

    Hong Yitang furrowed his brows. The fire and earth swords wereplete, so was the eruption of speed today from the metal sword? The water sword... woulde from the Nine Forged Force?

    Swords of the Five Elements! The Five Styles!

    The man understood certain things in this moment. The Five Styles summoned the five spirits. Had Li Hao formed his second sword when he killed Yu Xiao and the others? If the young man could kill a mid Sr with two swords, would he kill ate or even peak Sr with three swords?

    What about four or five?

    <i>Damn, you think highly of me. You want me to find you when you¡¯veprehended five swords... You want to fight me as a Nova?</i>

    As Hong Yitangughed to himself, his daughter¡¯s urgent voice traveled into his ear. ¡°What are you thinking about, dad? How did you agree to just send us to the Silver Moon Guards?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a good idea!¡± Hong Yitang¡¯s chuckles continued. ¡°The Guards are safer than the sect and you¡¯ll have a chance to temper yourself. There are benefits and treasures to be had¡ªkilling so many birds with one stone is wonderful!¡± Seeing his wife look at him with some worry, he reassured, ¡°It¡¯s fine, Li Hao is... quite a decent fellow!¡±

    ¡°Yitang, should I go too...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re a supernatural, what are you going for?¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°You should hold down the fort at the Sword Sect. I may need to enter closed door cultivation for a bit and think over certain questions. I won¡¯t emerge for a few days. Who will run the sect if you¡¯re not here?¡±

    ¡°Closed door cultivation?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Hong Yitang nodded, the look in his eyes remote as he looked out the window. It opened in a southerly direction... the south!

    Making one¡¯s way down south would ce one at the North Sea. The central region was past the North Sea. Yuan Shuo was possibly in the North Sea or even central region now, wasn¡¯t he? Ying Hongyue and the others were all there¡ªTyrant de, Sky Sword...

    Silver Moon¡¯s people were certainly found all over the world. Her martial masters were extraordinary no matter where they were. <i>What a pity that the name of Earthturner Sword no longer rings throughout the world.</i>

    Hong Yitang stood after drinking thest cup of tea. ¡°Let¡¯s leave things here for now. Hongxiu, you stay until Qing¡¯er and them enter the Silver Moon Guards. Bring the other disciples back to headquarters with you. I¡¯m going back first to take care of some small errands and then going into seclusion. I¡¯ll visit Qing¡¯er when I¡¯m out.¡±

    ¡°Dad...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s settled! I¡¯m off, I have business to take care of!¡± Hong Yitang quickly rushed off, leaving behind a resigned and aggrieved Hong Qing. Li Hao was the one who¡¯d barged in, but she was somehow part of the Guards after he left. Her father had made an expeditious exit, leaving her with nothing but questions!

    ......

    Hong Yitang swiftly drove off in a car. Indeed, he was driving. The car drove very fast as it made its way out of the southern quadrant and headed straight forward!

    He turned left and right after leaving White Moon City, veering from the direction of the Sword Sect. Hong Yitang¡¯s car didn¡¯t stop until he reached arge manor. He stood outside the door, finding no one when he peered inside. It seemed to be empty.

    Frowning, the man scanned the premises with his senses and spat after a while. ¡°Damn!¡±

    Who knew who he was cursing?

    He climbed into the car after a while, still cursing. This time, he drove in the direction of the Sword Sect. He¡¯de for nothing, they¡¯d left so quickly! So the second generation Blue Moon had run off? His people had seen them here!

    What a damned shame! Were blood pearls really that effective?<i> I really don¡¯t know how good a Nova level one might be, what a pity!</i> He hadn¡¯t paid attention to these treasures before. Now that he did, everyone was looking for Red Moon members. There was no chance for him to locate one.

    <i>Hot damn, I was a step toote!</i> If he hadn¡¯t been, he could¡¯ve collected a Nova level blood pearl and witnessed its effects. If it was highly useful... Forget that, it should be since Li Hao almost had three swords after strengthening his organs. It must have very good effects.

    Yuan Shuo summoning his five spirits had to do with the blood pearls and Ying Hongyue was fashioning more... If everyone was crafting them and said they were good, then they must be good.

    ¡°What a pity that the second generation Blue Moon left so fast!¡± Although regretful, Hong Yitang put it out of his mind and drove for headquarters. He¡¯d made haste when possible, but had still proven to be a step toote.

    Hong Yitang sighed¡ªhe could only enter seclusion then. He¡¯d have to be in seclusion until heid hands on a few blood pearls. Who knew if that¡¯d be toote?

    As for the various probing words that little Li Hao had said... He couldn¡¯t be bothered with that.<i> I ignored your master¡¯s challenges, so why would I entertain yours? I can¡¯t be bothered with you even after you finish the five swords.</i>

 Chapter 363: Understood (I)

    <h4>Chapter 363: Understood (I)</h4>

    <i>At the same time, in another manor.</i>

    ¡°Milord Blue Moon,¡± a Ghostface ventured timidly. ¡°Someone just went to our previous base.¡±

    Blue Moon wasn¡¯t surprised¡ªhe just asked casually, ¡°The Night Watchers?¡±

    ¡°No, it was the leader of the Sword Sect.¡±

    ¡°Earthturner Sword?¡± Blue Moon blinked with surprise, then smiled. ¡°Does he want to join our banner? The Sword Sect is caught between the Night Watchers and us three. Is he finding it too difficult to maintain and looks to seek shelter? What a pity that he is no longer the mighty Earthturner that he once was. Initial Sr is someone powerful here, but no one in the central region.¡±

    Blue Moon shook his head, not interested in Earthturner Sword. He would only consider it if the other showed up with the suits of armor in tow. He also couldn¡¯t be bothered to meet the man. It would be worth it if Earthturner was a Nova or peak Sr, but for the moment... they had to keep a low profile so that Hou Xiaochen wouldn¡¯t discover them.

    His mood lifted when he decided there was no need to see Earthturner¡ªhis previous bad spirits were swept away. Blue Moon smiled. Following one¡¯s heart was the most natural state of being, alright! He might be even more ufortable if he went to meet the man.

    Blue Moon thought of nothing else when his thoughts traveled here. It was no big deal that their previous hiding spot had been discovered. They hadn¡¯t particrly concealed their traces over the past couple of days and even wanted to lure Hou Xiaochen over. He gave up the idea only after Hu Qingfeng changed his mind and swiftly withdrew from their previous hideout.

    ......

    Li Hao did not return to the Silver Moon Guards after leaving the Sword Sect branch office. Instead, he headed for the Night Watcher headquarters. He mulled over some of Hong Yitang¡¯s words.

    Was Earthturner Sword truly crippled?

    The young man didn¡¯t think so. Repeated instances of probing the man yielded martial knowledge in abundance, but no other chinks in the wily old fox¡¯s armor. Li Hao couldn¡¯t immediately ce his condition either.

    If he wanted to conceal his strength, why not just keep quiet on everything and y dumb? Based on his performance in the ruins, the reality of the situation was that Hong Yitang had emerged safe and sound, if a bit bedraggled. Though he¡¯d been besieged by danger and nearly died a few times, nothing happened in the end.

    <i>There are quite a few hidden powerhouses in Silver Moon, but... why? </i>Li Hao sank into deep thought. Why did so many mighty experts in the province choose to conceal themselves? Could it be that there were too many powerhouses in the central region that were stronger than them?

    There must be a reason for so many hiding their strength. It wasn¡¯t all to y the pig! As a fellow martial master, Li Hao knew full well that continuous concealment and prolongedck of battles might one day turn one into a real pig, despite a high cultivation level and powerful strength.

    How would these veteran experts of Silver Moon¡¯s storied past not understand a concept that even he knew? And when it came to rebellion, strength was needed even more there. Who among the nobility of thends would think well of them if they all hid themselves?

    Would the people? Would the supernaturals?

    This wasn¡¯t the right course of action, even if one only considered a potential rebellion. With so many titans, some of them should¡¯ve been known throughout thends a long time ago. Li Hao shook his head as he turned over the conundrum.

    <i>Forget it, this has nothing to do with me.</i> A small smile appeared on his face. At least his trip hadn¡¯t been in vain. He¡¯d confirmed some of his thoughts and obtained a great deal from the Sword Sect. One hundred sets of ck armor and thirty martial masters!

    There were only five hundred sets in the entire Silver Moon Guards, which meant that nearly half of the Guards were not provisioned with them. His entire team was outfitted in one fell swoop!

    Of course, the Sword Sect was handing them in to the Guards and the Guards wouldn¡¯t give them all to him... but Li Hao wouldn¡¯t let that possibilitye to pass.

    ......

    ¡°What are you doing back here?¡± Manager Yu frowned. This guy had only been gone for a morning. He was back quick. And judging from his bedraggled state, had he fought with someone? Golden Spear?

    Possibly.

    Golden Spear hadn¡¯t been present yesterday and most likely returned today. Mu Lin wouldn¡¯t be able to harm Li Hao; only Golden Spear possibly could so in all of the Guards.

    ¡°Mu Lin wants me to build a one hundred person team in the Guards, but I don¡¯t know anything.¡± Li Hao scratched his head with resignation. ¡°I¡¯m penniless, strapped for resources, and without a reputation. Even if I do have some fame, it¡¯s tarnished from my master. His enemies are everywhere, how am I supposed to recruit people?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Manager Yu could not find a proper response. That was true, it was a very tall task for Li Hao and one that quite tested his skills. But if he seeded, it would be of enormous help to him. Martial masters could be independent, but if they were so independent that they were without friends or connections, that would make one the next Yuan Shuo with enemies all over the ce.

    ¡°Then... what do you want from me?¡± Manager Yu grasped that the young man was here to ask for help. The hint of a smile yed on her face. Li Hao had been quite the honest boy when he first arrived, but soon revealed his true colors. He was just as self-assured as his teacher and didn¡¯t think much of anyone. That was also what he thought about Hou Xiaochen.

    Logically speaking, both master and disciple owed Hou Xiaochen a life, so Li Hao had joined the Night Watchers to pay back his debt. And sooner orter, Yuan Shuo would have to take action one time on Hou Xiaochen¡¯s behalf. Favors of this kind were the hardest debt to pay off.

    ¡°I¡¯m penniless and strapped for resources...¡± Li Hao pondered over the matter for a bit. ¡°I¡¯d like the manager to give me some special privileges.¡±

    ¡°Speak.¡±

    ¡°First, my promotion has to be secured. I can dangle it in front of people only when I have the title of a high level chiefmissioner¡ªno, I mean that people will understand how highly ced I am when I show them my identity. Otherwise, they¡¯ll treat me as a joke if I try to recruit them as a low levelmissioner inspector!

    ¡°I can¡¯t stab everyone I meet to prove that I¡¯m strong, now can I?¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°This is when background and identity are very important.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± Manager Yu agreed after some thought. ¡°I¡¯ll make a trip to the Inspectorate and provincial government in the afternoon and try to finalize that for you as soon as possible.¡±

    Li Hao was correct in this, a low levelmissioner inspector was too humble. As for strength... he wasn¡¯t a supernatural, so how would people know unless he took action? He couldn¡¯t beat up everyone he came in contact with, right?

    ¡°Second, I¡¯d like to obtain some sponsors...¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Manager Yu frowned. Sponsors?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve only just got here and am afraid of making trouble for Director Hou if I keep asking him for resources,¡± Li Hao exined. ¡°A new team will certainly result in greater consumption. Will it cause discontent with the other brothers in the Guards if the director gives me everything I need? But if he doesn¡¯t, I won¡¯t be able to build my team...¡±

    That made sense. Upon further thought, the secretary said, ¡°It¡¯s your first time building a one hundred person team, so some basic requests can still be satisfied...¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t be enough!¡± Li Hao answered. ¡°I want some other things, but they aren¡¯t that important. I¡¯d like some honorary low level chiefmissioner positions. I want to use them to entice some sponsors¡ªI won¡¯t be giving them out randomly, of course!¡±

    As for the sponsors he obtained, that would naturally all go to him.

    Manager Yu frowned slightly. Even honorary positions couldn¡¯t be given out lightly as chiefmissioners were an executive position. After some thought, she shook her head. ¡°That won¡¯t do¡ªchiefmissioners also need to be approved by the various ministries. How about this, I can give you somemissioner inspector positions. Only an internal report is needed for those!¡±

    Chiefmissioner was out of the question. There were manymissioner inspectors, they didn¡¯t matter. Apart from yers, almost everyone in the Guards was amissioner inspector. They were all the low level kind, which made the position worthless. As for whether or not Li Hao could trade the title for some benefits... that was up to him.

    Li Hao found the response troublesome and thought for a while. ¡°Alright then!¡± He finally nodded. ¡°I¡¯d wanted to wave a chiefmissioner title in front of Wang Ming. His family has money and they¡¯re part of the military. Maybe they could¡¯ve offered some funds. But if it¡¯smissioner inspector, he¡¯s already one.¡±

    The young man sighed helplessly. A speechless Manager Yu suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. <i>So you wanted to trick some sponsorships out of Wang Ming? The Wangs do have money, but they need to develop their own people too. How much can they give you? What are you plotting?</i>

    Upon thinking of Li Hao¡¯swork... Manager Yu didn¡¯t think that the young man would receive much support either. The key point was that he¡¯d been in that tiny town all along. Only Liu Long possessed some strength in Silver City, yet strength didn¡¯t necessarily mean support.

    The young man¡¯s two points weren¡¯t outrageous, but neither were they truly meaningful. Manager Yu smiled to see the frown on Li Hao¡¯s face. It put her in a good mood to see Li Hao fret over this matter.

    ¡°Do you have any other requests?¡± She didn¡¯t mind giving him some real support at this stage.

    Seeing that she was in a good mood, Li Hao didn¡¯t hold back and ventured carefully, ¡°Manager, can you give me usage of a treasure that contains sword aura? I know the Guards possess them, but they¡¯re all under Senior Golden Spear¡¯s control. I¡¯ve only just arrived and need to establish some authority. Having a treasure like this will help convince people!

    ¡°For example,te Sunderers can sense the aura only once every six months in the Guards. But I¡¯m penniless and strapped for resources, can I wait for half a year? I can entice them only if I draw on these benefits ahead of time. What do you think?¡±

    Manager Yu raised a brow as she listened. ¡°These items are rare even in the ruins, not just any item will do! The kind you want is obviously the ones that are multi-use instead of using them once or twice...

    ¡°Treasures that we canprehend the aura from arebeled daoprehension weapons. They facilitateprehension of dao and are exceedingly expensive. There¡¯s no market for them as they¡¯re hard to purchase even with mysterious power stones...¡±

    Li Hao nodded continuously. Manager Yu was in a talkative mood today, which meant that there was room for negotiation!

    Indeed, the secretary suddenly smiled. ¡°I can give you one as the director thinks highly of you. It wouldn¡¯t be right not to offer you any support. But, ites with a request.¡±

    ¡°Please speak frankly!¡± Li Hao hastily said.

    The woman looked at him for a while and smiled... ¡°You must seize the origin weapon in Battle Heaven for the director!¡±

    Li Hao paused and looked quizzically at the secretary.

 Chapter 364: Understood (II)

    <h4>Chapter 364: Understood (II)</h4>

    ¡°The eight families are of the same breath and branches,¡± the manager said calmly. ¡°Battle Heaven is confirmed to be the ancient city of the Wangs among the eight families. Under normal circumstances, it is as difficult as ascending to the heavens if we wish to enter the inner city and take the origin weapon!

    ¡°But someone of the eight families can likely aplish the task. The caveat is that you¡¯re still alive before you attempt to retrieve the origin weapon.¡±

    Li Hao frowned and said calmly after a long while, ¡°It¡¯s not undoable, but that it¡¯s not a proportional trade-off between payment and gain! I¡¯m developing talents for the Silver Moon Guards, not putting things in my own pocket. Hence, even if you give me a daoprehension weapon, I¡¯ll be using it on the Guards. But for that, I need to pay an extremely high price and possibly even my life...?

    ¡°It¡¯s not out of the question. However, it¡¯s not worthy of a daoprehension weapon. If I help Director Hou with the origin weapon, then the debts incurred by me and my master for saving our lives will be annulled! I will still be part of the Silver Moon Guards, but just with the regr rtionship of supervisor and subordinate, not as someone who had their life saved. Director Hou also once said that everythinges with a price!

    ¡°He doesn¡¯t feel like he saved our lives. He had my master explore thirty ruins for him, but my master didn¡¯tplete the task. Battle Heaven will count as me exploring on behalf of my master...¡±

    ¡°Alright, then your master¡¯s debt will be paid off.¡± Manager Yu raised a brow. ¡°And yours? Do you wish to use one expedition to pay off two people¡¯s debts?¡±

    She understood the director¡¯s intentions, so if Li Hao said this was to pay off debt... then it was to pay off debt. When it came to martial masters, a favor owed was easy grounds for ordering them around. But Hou Xiaochen further understood that if this favor was the only tie holding the martial master to them, trouble would arise sooner orter. Some people could not be held with just favors alone. That meant the bond would end as soon as they paid off their debt.

    ¡°The ruins of Battle Heaven are far from ordinary,¡± Li Hao said solemnly. ¡°They are also far more dangerous than usual. Even Novas run the risk of dying. Director Hao may know better than me and he may have investigated the ancient city before. He should be well aware of the risks within! Not to mention, the origin weapon of Battle Heaven is remarkable. I think it¡¯s worth both mine and my master¡¯s lives!¡±

    ¡°Are your lives worth so little?¡± chuckled Manager Yu. ¡°The director thinks that your lives are so much more valuable than this treasure.¡±

    ¡°The director thinks too highly of us!¡± Li Hao said softly. ¡°Not to mention, the director will be part of the expedition as well. If the director himself seizes the origin weapon, there won¡¯t be any need for me. If he can¡¯t, that means the danger is greater than we thought. So if I¡¯m sessful, it should be worth two lives!¡±

    Manager Yu thought for a moment and nodded. ¡°Very well! I agree on behalf of the director and will give you another daoprehension weapon. But it can¡¯t be used too many times¡ªit will dissipate in roughly ten times if Sunderers draw upon it. It can be used by Summoners only three to five times.¡±

    So it would appear that differences in strength made for different rates of consumption. If Sunderers could only study it ten times... It wouldn¡¯t be an especially fine item.

    ¡°Very good!¡± Li Hao breathed out. This was an additional benefit!

    It was not bad as well. The Sword Sect¡¯s people needed to be met with more presents upon their admittance. It was just as well if some of their Sunderers could grasp the aura and be half step Dominators. As for Dominators, it would be an exercise in bolstering their auras. That would depend on their luck.

    Comprehending and bolstering the aura was just a process. The question of whether or not one could set foot into Dominator was up to the umtion and foundation of the individual martial master. Some martial masters could swiftly break through after sensing the aura.

    The aura was their permit for passage. If one grasped the permit and still could not set foot into Dominator, that meant they weren¡¯t worth much. Times were hardly as they were when in a martial world suppressed by Yuan Shuo¡¯s will.

    ¡°Then that¡¯s it for now, is there anything else?¡± Manager Yu was in a good mood. <i>You can leave if there¡¯s nothing else.</i> She normally sent people on their way after a few words unless they were discussing business. This extended conversation with Li Hao was already an exception.

    ¡°One more thing!¡± Li Hao quickly brought up. ¡°If I have Director Liu Longe here, I wish for the Night Watchers to send a Sunre in return to Silver City. Can it be Senior Huang Yun? He¡¯s a wind supernatural, so he can get away easily if he runs into trouble.¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    <i>Huang Yun? An initial Sunre...</i> He¡¯d reaped some benefits from the ruins, so was now a mid Sunre. This veteran Sunre had remained at this cultivation level for many years.

    <i>A mid Sunre...</i>

    If things were as if before, a supernatural of this caliber would never be sent to a minor Silver City. There were thirty-two cities in Silver Moon and Silver City was the smallest of them all. But now there was Liu Long in the city, a Dominator! It was absolutely fine to trade him for Huang Yun.

    Manager Yu nodded. ¡°That can be arranged!¡± It was a small matter for a Sunre to hold down the fort in Silver City.

    Li Hao had seen many Srs by now, but that didn¡¯t mean they were truly everywhere. His horizons were just raised an infinite number of times. The Srs he were familiar with were the top echelon of Silver Moon, the powerhouses from the central region. His line of sight had swiftly climbed from a tiny Silver City to the peak of Silver Moon. In reality, supernaturals were still rare in the province and Sunre remained the height of provincial strength.

    ¡°My deepest thanks!¡± Li Hao grinned at aplishing his goals. He didn¡¯t want to stay any longer, he had a team to build! The young man wasn¡¯t so inclined before, but since he¡¯d epted the job, he had to get on it.

    There was power in numbers, not to mention his own ns that he had in mind.

    ......

    Li Hao set course for Hao Lianchuan¡¯s office.

    ¡°Director, can we contact Silver City?¡±

    ¡°You want to talk to Liu Long?¡± Hao Lianchuan flicked a nce at him.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°You can, but try not to mention anything ssified. Although we have cross-citymunicators, they¡¯re easily intercepted...¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t ask how that was possible, he wasn¡¯t interested. He wasn¡¯t going to talk about anything ssified, anyhow.

    After Hao Lianchuan granted permission, he led the young man to an office on the fifth floor that was normally shut. There were people inside, but they rarely came out. There were some massive machines inside that Li Hao could not identify. They seemed to be antiques excavated from somewhere, or they might¡¯ve been crafted in an antique style.

    ¡°Contact Mu Sen of Silver City!¡± Hao Lianchuan ordered and looked at Li Hao. ¡°The Night Watchers of Silver City are newly established and haven¡¯t had time to set up amunication system. Mu Sen has one, though.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, watching the people around him swiftly get to work. Mu Sen¡¯s portly face soon appeared on the big screen. Mu Sen and Mu Lin were very much alike! Mu Lin was even fatter, which cast Mu Sen in a skinnier light. Thetter saw Hao Lianchuan as soon as he focused his gaze and beamed, ¡°Director Hao!¡±

    Li Hao looked at the machine instead of saying anything. It consumed mysterious power, making it a supernatural object. It was no ordinary electronicmunications device.

    ¡°Have Liu Longe here, on the double! Li Hao has business with him!¡±

    Mu Sen immediately ordered Communications to contact Liu Long. The man wouldn¡¯t be too far away since the Night Watchers were next door at thew enforcement building. Liu Long was usually present in the office as well.

    He strode into view less than three minutester, wearing his usual trench coat. Liu Long greeted Hao Lianchuan when he saw the deputy director, then turned to Li Hao.

    The young man ignored the others and said baldly, ¡°Chief, I joined the Silver Moon Guards and now lead a hundred person team myself. I don¡¯t have people on my team. If you don¡¯t mind, bring the Demon Hunters here. There¡¯s more opportunity in White Moon.¡±

    Mu Sen was rather surprised by these words. Li Hao was building a team by himself? He was a Dominator? That was fast! Although startled, he found the situation easy to ept after thinking it over. Dominator was normal since Li Hao had been a half step away before. He¡¯d simply gone through a fast rate of improvement.

    It was just astonishing that an initial Dominator would be epted so quickly to the point of building his own team! Meanwhile, Liu Long frowned.

    ¡°The Night Watchers will send Senior Huang Yun to take up residence in Silver City instead. I¡¯ll have Wang Ming go as well if we really need it.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan flicked a nce at Li Hao. <i>Well well, you have quite the authority now, don¡¯t you? Are Sunres people you can order around?</i>

    Wang Ming was a true genius among Night Watchers¡ªhe¡¯d sensed five supernatural locks. His path was not at an end, he¡¯d simply just broken three locks at the moment. If all went well, he would eventually be a Nova.

    Of course, potential was just potential. It was still up to his fortunes and luck as to whether he would actually seed on his cultivation journey. However, Wang Ming¡¯s transfer wasn¡¯t something that Li Hao could decide¡ªnot unless Wang Ming himself wished the move. But was that possible?

    <i>Not likely, </i>were Hao Lianchuan¡¯s thoughts.

    Liu Long thought for a moment before responding, ¡°Is it everyone, or just me?¡±

    ¡°All martial masters cane and they should alle. As for Sis Yun Yao and the others, chief can ask what they want. But if theye, they can only join the Night Watchers or the Guards support system.

    ¡°Clouds surge and winds rise in White Moon City,¡± Li Hao concluded. ¡°The opportunities may be greater here! You can be at ease about Silver City! Also, there are a lot of old seniors here¡ªEarthturner Sword, Golden Spear, Yu Luocha, Southern Fist, the Heartjab Daughter...

    ¡°The martial world is back!¡± The young man grinned.

    ¡°Golden Spear?¡± Liu Long¡¯s eyes widened. He had been one of the three premier martial masters of Silver Moon, alongside his father! So he was... still alive? Liu Long didn¡¯t use the spear anymore, despite being Silver Spear¡¯s son. However, his father¡¯s reputation continued to deeply impact him. The Liu family spear had once been known throughout thends!

    Liu Long thought rapidly. If Li Hao wanted him to go, thed must think that the current Silver City was no longer the center of disorder. The stone door ruin could also be set aside for now. Hence, he nodded after some thought. ¡°Alright! I¡¯ll pack up today and be at White Moon in three days. However, Huang Yun must be here within three.¡±

    ¡°No problem.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Senior Huang Yun can fly and he¡¯s a wind supernatural. He¡¯s very fast, one day is enough.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan wanted to conspicuously roll his eyes! <i>You talk like Huang Yun is one of your subordinates! It should be me saying these words.</i>

 Chapter 365: Understood (III)

    <h4>Chapter 365: Understood (III)</h4>

    Liu Long and Li Hao continued to ignore Hao Lianchuan. Liu Long wanted to leave immediately and get to work, but another question came to mind. ¡°Is there anything you need me to bring or do?¡±

    Who knew when he¡¯d be back in Silver City upon this departure?

    ¡°Not much.¡± Li Hao smiled after searching through his thoughts. ¡°But I left too hastilyst time and forgot to burn some joss paper for my friend. If I could trouble you to make a trip, chief, and bring him a message for me that next time I visit, I¡¯ll bring him quite a few Red Moon heads!¡±

    Killing intentced the words, but Li Hao spoke them very calmly and matter-of-factly. Even Mu Sen suppressed the urge to shiver through the screen. The young man seemed to have changed greatly on this trip to White Moon City.

    Liu Long blinked before nodding without further word. He vanished from the screen as he left.

    Mu Sen wanted to chat, but Li Hao cut him off as soon as he opened his mouth. ¡°Inspector General Mu, Deputy Mu Lin says that he misses you very much and wishes for you to return to White Moon City as soon as possible.¡±

    Mu Sen blinked. <i>He misses me? Bullshit! But Li Hao wouldn¡¯t lie... there¡¯s no need to.</i>

    ¡°I¡¯ll go back on my next break.¡± The man nodded. ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought that my big brother would suddenly turn so sentimental?¡±

    Li Hao smiled and said nothing else. Hao Lianchuan indicated for someone to hang up. When the line was closed, he looked at Li Hao with curiosity. ¡°Mu Lin would tell you that he misses his younger brother?¡±

    ¡°He wants to beat up Mu Sen!¡±

    Hao Lianchuan found himself at a loss for words. The kid was really turning crooked!

    ¡°Do you need my help forming the team?¡± Now that Hao Lianchuan knew about the team, he was very eager to lend a hand.

    Sadly, he wasn¡¯t a martial master, so Li Hao shook his head.

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t linger for too long at the Night Watcher headquarters. He was a very busy person. He had sword dao toprehend and a new team to prepare for. He wouldn¡¯t have returned to headquarters if he didn¡¯t have other stuff to do and Liu Long to contact.

    ......

    <i>One hourter.</i>

    Li Hao was once more at the Guards barracks¡ªhe¡¯de back on a run. It was very tiring, but he couldn¡¯t use Director Hou¡¯s car whenever he wanted to. There was no choice about it.

    Mu Lin sniffed him out as soon as he entered the building and immediately appeared. He looked at the young man up and down and chuckled, ¡°Was that the ming Phoenix Spear?¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s good that you¡¯re back, the boss wants to see you!¡±

    <i>Golden Spear!</i>

    Li Hao was embarrassed to have just left the man behind earlier. ¡°I really had matters to attend to earlier and also address my wounds. Senior Golden Spear isn¡¯t mad, is he?¡±

    ¡°He won¡¯t be,¡± Mu Lin said as they walked. ¡°Our boss is a generous person, just slightly forbidding and old fashioned. The only thing you have to do is follow the rules! Remember to watch yournguage in front of him, he doesn¡¯t like it when people crack jokes.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. The two headed for the office area.

    ¡°Additionally, he knows about your fights with the centurions. He didn¡¯t say anything, but don¡¯t go nuts and challenge him. He¡¯s very strong!¡±

    ¡°How strong?¡± Li Hao asked curiously. It was difficult to judge a martial master¡¯s strength from visual appraisal. They would only know that the person in question was strong, but it was difficult to determine how strong.

    ¡°How strong?¡± Mu Lin thought for a bit, unsure of how to respond. ¡°He¡¯s just very strong. When we explored a ruinst year, the boss sent a peak Sr flying with one spear thrust. If he¡¯s not on par with a Nova... I think he¡¯s just about!

    ¡°He was strong in the early years, after all. Director Hou supported him a great deal then, so it shouldn¡¯t be out of the question for him to rival an initial Nova now?¡±

    Li Hao narrowed his eyes in thought, that did indeed make Golden Spear quite strong. But... strictly speaking, if the man had set foot into Dominator years ago and benefited from Hou Xiaochen¡¯s support all along... and rivaled a Nova... That might make him the weakest in the trio with Tyrant de and Sky Sword.

    Tyrant de had killed a Sr seven years ago. Sky Sword could kill some Novas in the central region. But considering that Golden Spear had relied on Hou Xiaochen to break Yuan Shuo¡¯s will, Li Hao didn¡¯t think further on it.

    The two quickly arrived at a small building. A young man stood ramrod straight in front of it and looked at Li Hao. He seemed to be just thirty years old, if that.

    ¡°This is the captain of the boss¡¯ bodyguards, his name¡¯s Wang Qing,¡± Mu Lin transmitted. ¡°He set foot into Dominator two years ago and is quite strong. He¡¯s a de user instead of a spear wielder.

    ¡°When ites down to it, he might have a bit of a grudge against you. Your master killed two of the Four de Kings in Silver Moon, leaving only Tyrant de and Berserk de alive. This person is Berserk de¡¯s disciple...¡±

    <i>If Berserk de is alive, where¡¯s the grudgeing from? </i>Li Hao thought for a bit and felt there was no other source aside from his teacher having beaten up Berserk de before. The man survived, which meant a grudge formed.

    The young man knew a bit about Berserk de. Ever since characters from Silver Moon¡¯s martial world began appearing one after another, he¡¯d done some research. Tyrant de was the strongest among the Four des. Berserk de was quite strong as well to survive Yuan Shuo¡¯s challenge¡ªhe disappeared from public view for many years after that.

    Berserk de was said to be adept at the Blood Eruption Berserk de. Yuan Shuo once mentioned that this was a very ferocious de method of the ancient civilization. ording to what the professor read, the Blood Eruption Berserk de was just one out of a series of de methods. There were even stronger ones such as Emperor yer de or Divine Annihtor...

    Just those names alone were stunning. However, they all seemed lost to the passage of time. Berserk de was known through Silver Moon, but he used only the Blood Eruption Berserk de.

    The two carried on a transmitted conversation as the evenly-proportioned Wang Qing noted at Mu Lin. The man¡¯s right arm was slightly thicker than his left arm; he turned to Li Hao and said calmly in a neutral tone, ¡°Centurion Li, we should spar when you have a free moment.¡±

    Li Hao looked at him and nodded. He didn¡¯t say anything in refusal. Berserk de¡¯s disciple! He may not be weak, but could he be stronger than Mu Lin?

    ¡°Boss is upstairs, please head up!¡± Wang Qing stepped aside to let the two through.

    ......

    Mu Lin transmitted as he took the stairs, ¡°That kid is very strong and knows the core essence of the Blood Eruption Berserk de. He¡¯sprehended de intent.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, is his master still alive?¡±

    ¡°He is,¡± Mu Lin responded silently. ¡°Berserk de has always been alive, just not in Silver Moon these days. He¡¯s only just returned a few years ago and now works for the army. I haven¡¯t inquired about specifics, but I hear that Commander Yu values him highly.¡±

    <i>He¡¯s joined the Silver Moon Division?</i> Li Hao¡¯s eyes darted around. Many of these veteran martial masters had chosen to join various institutions. Golden Spear was in the Guards, Berserk de to the Silver Moon Division, and Southern Fist joined the royal family... They¡¯d all received innumerable benefits, hadn¡¯t they?

    ¡°Why did Wang Qinge to the Guards then?¡±

    His master was in the Silver Moon Division, why wasn¡¯t he there?

    ¡°Wang Qing¡¯s de intent is different from his master¡¯s, it¡¯s more simr to our boss¡¯ spear intent. The spear shes out like fire and is ferocious withoutpare! Although Berserk de¡¯s weapon is also fierce, itcks a bit of forcepared to our boss¡¯ spear intent. Thus, Wang Qing himself chose toe here because of our boss.¡±

    Li Hao understood. The two reached the second floor as they conversed. It was a massive ce that was entirely Golden Spear¡¯s. A receiving room greeted them at the head of the stairs. Golden Spear was in an office further inside. He had no secretary¡ªWang Qing functioned as his secretary.

    ¡°Come in!¡± came Golden Spear¡¯s voice before Mu Lin announced themselves.

    Mu Lin walked in with Li Hao. Golden Spear sat both upright in his chair and disyed a stiff smile when he saw his visitors.

    ¡°Sit!¡± Mu Lin sat down without hesitation. Li Hao followed his head.

    Golden Spear stood up and scanned Li Hao¡¯s face. ¡°Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple, I have seen some of your strength. You are a credit to your master.¡±

    ¡°Thank you for your high praise, senior!¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to call me senior. We are in the army, so call me sir!¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir!¡± Li Hao was very biddable. He raised his head to meet Golden Spear¡¯s appraisal as he wasn¡¯t afraid of the veteran martial master. The look in his eyes was very sharp and his body extremely tall and strong. He looked to be in his fifties and had a boxy face. Stately dignity emanated from his face.

    Silver Moon citizens tended to be on the towering side as the province was situated in the north. People in the north were taller than those in the south.

    Golden Spear looked back at the young man staring at him. He simply gazed silently without ring his aura. Upon seeing that prolonged consideration brought no fear into Li Hao¡¯s eyes, a small smile appeared on the man¡¯s face.

    ¡°You¡¯ve got courage! But there are certain rules that must be followed after one joins the army. As a martial master, I know very well that martial masters do not like being constrained!

    ¡°But since you¡¯ve decided to join, then certainpromises need to be made! Li Hao, I will not oversee you in normal times, but you must listen to orders when we conduct missions. You may not make unteral decisions!

    ¡°This is one rule, the second is that you are permitted to build your own team, but you must be responsible for them to thest! Losses are permitted, but you are unfit for your position when the losses grow too big. You are to resign if you lose more than thirty percent of your people!

    ¡°Martial masters like adventure, but some like to use other people in their adventures. For all of their pros, martial masters have a severe con of being too alone and selfish! This is a universally acknowledged w. Other than one¡¯s own family and discipline, everyone else¡¯s life is up to fate! Such are the rules of the martial world, but you must recall that this is the army!¡±

    Golden Spear pointed at Mu Lin. ¡°This guy likes to go at things alone too! He was once a centurion, but quickly lost nearly half of his men. Thus, he was removed from his position. Although he¡¯s a deputy now, that¡¯s just a nominal title. He doesn¡¯t lead any troops as he doesn¡¯t have the right to!¡±

    Mu Lin looked on dejectedly. He swiftly defended himself when he saw Li Hao look at him. ¡°That¡¯s not it! I was just unlucky that time and ran into huge danger. I was as responsible as I could! Forget it... I won¡¯t exin myself. The army doesn¡¯t give us chances to exin ourselves.¡±

    He was morose as although the position of deputy was high, it didn¡¯t have the true authority that the centurions wielded. He wanted to lead troops too... but Golden Spear wouldn¡¯t give him the chance.

 Chapter 366: Understood (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 366: Understood (IV)</h4>

    ¡°No excuses.¡± Golden Spear ignored Mu Lin and looked at Li Hao. ¡°Li Hao, here is where you might learn what thinking for the greater good and responsibility are! The Guards will slowly teach you those concepts!

    ¡°As martial masters, we do not have to think of the greater good or keep responsibility in mind! But as the Silver Moon Guards that the province has heavily invested in, you must!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, but didn¡¯t feel one way or another about what the ranking officer was saying. Golden Spear understood his mentality quite well, most martial masters were of the same mind when they first entered the Guards. Sooner orter, they would all learn!

    Of course, people might die in the process, but death was inevitable for a martial master. It was just the matter of a worthwhile death or not.

    When Hou Xiaochen established the Silver Moon Guards, he¡¯d recruitedrge sums of martial masters. Some of the martial masters from the martial world, used to their own style and rules, had eventually changed after bing part of the army.

    ¡°Yu Luocha just sent me a message telling me to give you a daoprehension weapon. I can give that to you, but you must remember that every treasure in the Guards costs human lives!

    ¡°Everything you take now will require equal payment in the future!¡±

    Li Hao was reminded of Liu Long. The chief had said simr things when he first gave Li Hao mysterious power. Some things hade about through human lives. It would demonstrate ack of conscience to use them matter-of-factly andin that there was too little of them.

    Talents were nurtured and supported in hopes that one day, they would contribute back to the organization that¡¯d raised them. If paying it forward was not forting, it was only a matter of time before the team copsed.

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Good!¡± Golden Spear abruptly changed the topic. ¡°You¡¯ll understand thister. Your master seems to be in the three northern provinces. It¡¯s been a long time since he¡¯s left Silver Moon. Ying Hongyue has sealed off all possible avenues of travel for him. He built Red Moon over the years to prevent Yuan Shuo from leaving the province and left him no chance whatsoever. Do you know why?¡±

    ¡°He is afraid of my master?¡± Li Hao offered after some thought.

    ¡°Correct!¡± Golden Spear affirmed solemnly. ¡°Don¡¯t think of Yuan Shuo as impotent after you¡¯ve met some powerhouses. Your master may have been locked away in Silver Moon for twenty years, but there have been eyes on him all this time. They haven¡¯t let him out of Silver Moon out of concern that he¡¯ll soar into the open skies and leap over the dragon¡¯s gate!

    ¡°Ying Hongyue doesn¡¯t care if people like us leave the province. The only one he¡¯s wary of is your master!

    ¡°Therefore, Ying Hongyue is the one who wants Yuan Shuo''s head the most now that he¡¯s left Silver Moon. The leader of Red Moon knows all too well what will result if your master is granted sufficient time and opportunity!¡±

    Li Hao looked at Golden Spear, not understanding what he meant.

    ¡°ording to what I know, the Orange and Yellow Moons have recently disappeared among the Seven Moons. They¡¯ve probably gone to kill your master!¡± Golden Spear said frankly. ¡°The second and third strongest of Red Moon have gone for your master! They have stunning battle aplishments in the central region and have killed Novas!

    ¡°Orange Moon was once a Silver Moon martial master. She was known far and wide, you might know her through the moniker ck Spider!¡±

    ¡°The ck Widow?¡± Li Hao raised a brow.

    ¡°Yes, but she prefers to call herself ck Spider.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Li Hao said after thinking for a bit.

    <i>What do you see? </i>Golden Spear was puzzled.

    Li Hao did indeed see. <i>The third generation Violet Moon is Orange Moon¡¯s daughter, so I need to capture Violet Moon and use her to threaten Orange Moon. How would I not understand this? If Orange Moon dares do anything, I¡¯ll grab Violet Moon and cut off her arm one day, then her leg another...</i>

    Would Orange Moon dare do anything then?

    If these powerhouses had the temerity to visit Silver Moon, Li Hao would ask the hidden powerhouses to take them out. As for whether or not they would take action, he had his ways. Therefore, he did see.

    Capture Violet Moon to threaten Orange Moon. That was what Golden Spear meant, correct?

    The ranking officer was rather skeptical¡ª<i>do you really understand?</i> He meant to tell Li Hao the importance of constant vignce, that cking off was not permitted just because he was very strong now. <i>Your master is caught in the middle of danger. Someone like him may die at any time and the same goes for you. Therefore, you need to cultivate even harder! If therees a day in which your master is killed, you¡¯ll need that bit of strength to take revenge.</i>

    Mmhmm, that was what he meant.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. So what if ck Widow was very strong and had killed Novas? She may be listed in the Record of Thirty-Six Heroes, but he didn¡¯t fear these people. His teacher once mentioned ck Widow in passing, to say nothing of anything else. He¡¯d told Li Hao not to mind these people who relied on their looks and seduction to trick victims. They were no kind of powerhouse.

    ck Widow had earned her moniker due to her eight dead husbands. She was the only one who knew how they died and certainly cared about this daughter of hers. She was the ck Widow, not the ck Mother. Li Hao didn¡¯t know how many children she had, but since Violet Moon had been arranged to be one of the Seven Moons, Orange Moon inly cared a lot about her.

    As for whether or not Manager Yu would be involved... Li Hao didn¡¯t care. <i>If you kill my master, I kill your daughter. And if Manager Yu interferes, I¡¯ll tolerate her for a bit and kill her as well after some time passes...</i>

    He quickly shoved this thought down. He couldn¡¯t think that way. The secretary was quite nice at the moment.

    The conversation was over; a confused Golden Spear watched them go. This fellow had demonstrated such intense killing intent for a second. What had he understood?

    ......

    Li Hao returned to his amodations. He had no duties at hand since his team was yet toe together. ording to the thoughts of Golden Spear and the others, it would be quite a feat if Li Hao could gather his team by the end of the year.

    Therefore, the young man had a lot of time. It was only mid September, leaving him more than three months until the end of the year.

    ......

    <i>Inside the new lodgings.</i>

    After Li Hao¡¯s fight with the ming Phoenix Spear, the few pieces of furniture that were damaged were already switched out. The building itself was fine. Structures made by supernaturals were very sturdy.

    Li Hao walked up to the balcony on the third floor. He sat down cross-legged, finally having a moment to think over his reflections of the day. The extremity of speed!

    He brought out the ming Phoenix Spear again¡ªit no longer threw off fiery light. It was back to its dim self. Perhaps the phoenix soul was also digesting what it¡¯d gained from the mysterious power stone.

    Li Hao knew what he knew and understood what he grasped, but he had not grasped a new aura. Hong Yitang had said that once he knew the feeling, he should practice. If a hundred times didn¡¯t do it, then a thousand times. If not, then ten thousand times until Li Hao could deploy the aura. He already knew it, had the target and the direction. All he needed was the process.

    The extremity aura could be found in speed and eruption.

    After some thought, Li Hao rose to his feet. Practical application was best for martial masters. Sitting cross-legged took ce only when absorbing energy. In other instances, it was best for the weapon to be close at hand.

    He began practicing the sword!

    In order to minimize the disturbance, Li Hao practiced the Ghost Shadow Sword. He waved Steris around again and again, seeking only the ultimate peak of speed.

    ......

    <i>Off in the distance.</i>

    Golden Spear could barely make out the figure on the balcony of the small building. Other than Wang Qing, there was also a young woman next to him. She appeared to be the same age as Li Hao.

    Wang Qing was watching the figure as well. He broke the silence after a while, ¡°Milord, why doesn¡¯t Old Demon Yuan¡¯s disciple walk the path of the Five Styles and instead pursue sword dao?¡±

    ¡°The Five Styles...¡± Golden Spear suddenly recalled what Li Hao had said before. ¡°There is only the question of appropriateness in martial dao, there is no fixed path to pursue. Perhaps he is more suited for sword dao. Additionally, the Five Styles aren¡¯t limited to fist or palm either...¡±

    Wang Qing was not satisfied by this answer. The young woman on the other side of their superior said softly, ¡°The Five Styles is just a foundation. They can be called the Five Styles Sword or Five Styles Spear. The de, spear, sword, halberd, fist, palm, leg, and foot are all external forms. Whether martial dao or auras, the core is the same. whether or not a weapon is involved does not matter.¡±

    ¡°Well said!¡± Golden Spear nodded in approval, a small smile crossing his face. ¡°In the path of martial dao, some are suited to teach, some are not suited. I¡¯m actually not that suited. Youyun is right, Yuan Shuo is more adept at teaching than I am and can adapt his tutge to the need. Since Li Hao is willing to walk the path of the sword, then so he does...¡±

    Wang Qing said no more and asked no further questions. Golden Spear was very strong, but sometimes he felt that his superior... wasn¡¯t very talented at exnations or descriptions of certain inspiration. He had incredible potential, but perhaps he was more suited for individual cultivation.

    He cast a look at the young woman with them. Golden Spear¡¯s disciple must have marvelous potential and powers ofprehension. Otherwise, she might be crippled throughout the course of learning from Golden Spear.

    ¡°Master, what cultivation level is he?¡± asked the young woman.

    Golden Spear searched for the proper words. ¡°Based on strength, he should be mid Defier of Ten Thousand.¡±

    <i>Defier of Ten Thousand!</i>

    Prior to Yuan Shuo introducing the concept of Summoner of Spirit, certain martial masters had reached beyond Dominator of Thousands with their strength. Unbeknownst to Yuan Shuo, the martial world of the central region had coined a term for the next cultivation level¡ªDefier of Ten Thousands.

    This cultivation level greater than Dominator had many possibilities to it. There were many paths and choices avable to martial masters, so it was difficult to describe each level of strength. Hence, they could only tie the partitions to corresponding level of supernatural ability.

    Defier of Ten Thousand mapped to the Sr level. Dominators could fight Sunres, whereas Defiers could battle Srs. One against ten thousand.

    Among the Guards, Mu Lin belonged to this level. Strictly speaking, Golden Spear also belonged to this level. The peak of this level could match Novas. As Berserk de¡¯s disciple, Wang Qing was slightly below them, but beginning to grasp this level as well.

 Chapter 367: Gathering (I)

    <h4>Chapter 367: Gathering (I)</h4>

    ¡°Li Hao hasn¡¯t trained for that long, but he¡¯s already so strong!¡± eximed the young woman. ¡°Is big brother Wang not a match for him?¡±

    Obviously not. Wang Qing knew that, Golden Spear knew that. Therefore, Golden Spear didn¡¯t sugarcoat it.

    ¡°No!¡± The man shook his head. ¡°But if it¡¯s just sparring, it¡¯ll be like the fights with the other centurions. He¡¯s stronger than Wang Qing, so there won¡¯t be a case of identally using too much force. There are great benefits to be had in sparring.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to fight him because of any grudge,¡± Wang Qing murmured. ¡°My master¡¯s not dead, so there¡¯s no hatred to speak of. I just want to see how strong the Five Styles discipline is. He¡¯s young, so I really want to broaden my horizons!¡±

    Golden Spear nodded.

    ¡°Master, then I...¡± the young woman was tempted.

    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t go,¡± Golden Spear reminded. ¡°You¡¯d have to be careful of dying to him!¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± eximed the young woman.

    ¡°You are a little stronger than Wang Qing,¡± Golden Spear eximed. ¡°And have barely crossed the threshold to Defier. Your will poses a threat to him. The way of the spear is one of violence and ughter. His killing intent is very strong. Li Hao may be able to pull his blows with Wang Qing, but he might not be able to do so with you.¡±

    The young woman was on par with a Sr, and she was very young!

    Off to the side, Wang Qing wasn¡¯t surprised at all. This was to be expected as Kong Youyun not only had a powerful teacher, but also a noteworthy family. Her father was Inspector General Kong Jie of the Inspectorate. Kong Jie had been a martial expert back in the day, or he wouldn¡¯t sit so firmly in the position of inspector general.

    But after he ascended to the supernatural domain, he no longer passed on martial dao. Hence, he sent his daughter to learn from Golden Spear. It further emphasized that the Night Watchers and Inspectorate were two sides of the same coin. The Inspectorate had inly known about the Guards long ago and provided significant help.

    Kong Youyun didn¡¯t say anything further. Since her teacher had spoken, there must be a certain rationale to his thinking.

    ¡°Master, what level is the Five Styles King now?¡± she asked instead. ¡°He defeated thete Sr Qimei Staff... Is he possiblyte or peak Defier?¡±

    ¡°Him?¡± Golden Spear gave it some thought. ¡°He¡¯s at least peak Defier, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to kill Qimei Staff otherwise! Although Qimei Staff was only ate Sr, his martial will was never extinguished! His battle strength was exceedingly strong, which puts Yuan Shuo at peak Defier at the very least!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s improved so quickly!¡± Kong Youyun sighed. ¡°He just broke through to Dominator and reached another level in the blink of an eye. No wonder he was the greatest demon back in those times!¡±

    Golden Spear remained quiet, Yuan Shuo¡¯s form appearing in his mind¡¯s eye. This was a brazen, unbridled, and utterly cocky person. Yuan Shuo had caught his spear with bare hands in their fight. If it hadn¡¯t been for how durable the spear was, he would¡¯ve snapped it in two.

    After losing to Yuan Shuo, Golden Spear fell from the cusp of breaking through to Dominator. He never reached it again. Every time he stood poised on the threshold of Dominator, he was assailed by an incredibly ufortable feeling to the point where he couldn¡¯t breathe. It wasn¡¯t until Hou Xiaochen stabbed his internal demon to death did he manage the final step.

    Golden Spear himself also understood that this meant it was very hard for him to ever surpass Yuan Shuo. So long as Yuan Shuo¡¯s path stretched onward, he would most likely be the victor if the two met again!

    An internal demon was difficult to vanquish. Beside him, Kong Youyun noticed something and said softly, ¡°Master, I will challenge the Five Styles King when I perfect my path of martial dao!¡±

    ¡°Forget it, the grudges of the past generation have nothing to do with you.¡± Golden Spear shook his head. A challenge wasn¡¯t a spar, it was a very serious matter. Yuan Shuo would kill her in such a fight.

    When Qimei Staff challenged Yuan Shuo, thetter hadn¡¯t necessarily wanted to kill his opponent. But neitherbatant cared about that when the interest seized them. In some people¡¯s eyes, it was a mark of respect to kill their opponent.

    Golden Spear looked at Li Hao on the balcony. The young man clumsily shed forward again and again. Golden Spear didn¡¯t find anything wrong with this sight; this was how the spear should be practiced. Perseverance prevailed, so he quite admired this kind of attitude.

    But... that also meant he wasn¡¯t out recruiting people.

    ¡°Master, then... do we still go to the ruins?¡± asked Kong Youyun. ¡°We didn¡¯t gain too much from ourst trip. Although they aren¡¯t as dangerous as Battle Heaven, I feel that we¡¯ll still collect a lot if we fully explore it. Why don¡¯t we take Second Brother Mu and Li Hao with us? That might bring us other rewards.¡±

    Golden Spear sank into deep thought. He¡¯d been exploring a particr set of ruins over the past couple of days. Although they weren¡¯t intact like Battle Heaven after millions of years, there was still notable danger within them. Danger meant opportunity.

    He¡¯d emerged empty-handed after three attempts. This time, he was of a mind to bring some Guard experts with him.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t Li Hao the disciple of the Five Styles King?¡± Kong Youyun pointed out. ¡°The Five Styles King is most adept at exploring ruins...¡±

    That tempted Golden Spear. He nodded after some thought. ¡°Mm, notify him that he will go with me after five... no, ten days. We¡¯ll be in charge of exploring virginnd. The Guards can follow if we are sessful!¡±

    This was a Silver Moon Guard tradition. The strongest took the first crack and thus reaped the greatest harvest. The weak were allowed into the ruins after the biggest dangers were defused. There would still be danger left, but it was much reduced.

    Granted, idents were still possible. There¡¯d been instances of severe casualties when danger was overlooked by the first team. It couldn¡¯t only be veterans filling the ranks of the Silver Moon Guards after so many years. Many of the veterans were long dead. The modern day Guards were the second or third generation of troops.

    ......

    Immersed in training, Li Hao was unaware that he would so quickly be assigned a mission. He was unable to extract himself from the joys of repetitive movement. The figure on the balcony hacked from morning to night. Thanks to sword energy, he wasn¡¯t concerned about umting injuries from overexerting himself. On the other hand, Golden Spear and Mu Lin were worried about the eventuality since the young man could be a bit too feverish at times. He would easily hurt himself if he continued in this vein.

    However, their rtionship with him wasn¡¯t that close, so no one stepped forward to speak some sense.

    ......

    <i>The second day.</i>

    Li Hao disappeared.

    He didn¡¯t leave the Silver Moon Guards. The young man continued his game of chase with ming Phoenix Spear in the jungle next to his apartment.

    One human and one spear darted swiftly through the trees. It was just mysterious power stones¡ªLi Hao was quite willing to spend when he needed to. Manager Yu was only lending the weapon to him for three days. How wasteful would it be if he didn¡¯t utilize it to its fullest extent?

    ......

    Li Hao was blind and deaf to the affairs of the outside world as he trained. A group of neers arrived at theplex on this day. Manager Yu was in the lead, as usual, but a dazed look was found in her eyes.

    Hong Yitang¡¯s wife had sought out the Night Watchers that morning with this group of people. She was looking for Li Hao. Manager Yu learned of the situation after a brief conversation. <i>Sponsors...</i>

    Li Hao really had gotten himself a sponsor, and not an ordinary one! The Sword Sect was giving him most of their martial disciples. This was the fullest disy of support that they could give. While their strongest waste Sunderer, the Sword Sect¡¯s martial masters solidly cultivated their way to this level of achievement. They rarely employed mysterious power, so their foundations were very sound. Although Hong Yitang was no longer a martial master, he gave his disciples a thorough grounding and training process. He grasped a very deep understanding of martial dao.

    These Sword Sect disciples might soon enter a period of fast development once they join the Silver Moon Guards. Manager Yu also knew that the director quite had his eye on the Sword Sect.

    ording to Hou Xiaochen, Silver Moon¡¯s martial masters had declined with the rise of the supernatural. There were very few systems within the province that continued to focus on raising martial masters and helping them learn and grow. Some sects touted themselves with martial heritage when, in reality, they utilized supernatural methods. They swiftly strengthened themselves with mysterious power with the goal of ascending to the supernatural once they reached peak yer.

    Some with greater ambition aimed for Sunderer so they could cross over as a Sunre. There were very few who remained on the straight and narrow of martial dao.

    These people didn¡¯t care about passing on martial tutge. There were supernatural techniques to be had once the crossover was made, so why waste time on learning to fling hands and feet around? Only a secret art that could take one to Sunderer was needed.

    Such was the problem that existed with many martial masters of modern times.

    Never could Manager Yu fathom that the faction the director had his eye on for the longest time would throw their lot in with Li Hao! Although Li Hao was also a Night Watcher, it didn¡¯t make sense to the secretary. Was Li Hao more dependable than the director? Hou Xiaochen would surely ept them if Hong Yitang went to him; there wouldn¡¯t need to be someone else between them.

    ......

    <i>In front of the Silver Moon Guards building.</i>

    Golden Spear himself stood in wee. He was startled to learn that these people came from the Sword Sect. <i>Earthturner Sword¡¯s disciples. </i>He inclined his head after sweeping them with a nce, surprised by their bearing and mood that inly spoke of excellent condition. Theycked the lost dejectedness found in most martial masters of the day. Some martial masters were in exceedingly poor condition due to continued failure to ascend to the supernatural!

    They were so obsessed with crossing over that they¡¯d long lost the self-assured carefree poise that should be found in a martial master.

    Earthturner Sword Hong Yitang had been quite famous back in his day. He¡¯d be aughing stock after avoiding several of Yuan Shuo¡¯s challenges. Ridicule became attached to his name, one that was just as striking as the mighty Sky Sword of the Seven Swords. It wasn¡¯t for no reason that people spoke of skies churning and earth turning when the swords were unsheathed!

    Golden Spear swept a nce over Hongxiu, knowing some of the inside story. Hongxiu had been Hong Yitang¡¯s eldest disciple. ...forget it, he couldn¡¯t be bothered saying anything since both of them had be supernaturals. Golden Spear didn¡¯t even have the desire to tease them. He didn¡¯t consider Hongxiu for too long, but quickly turned to Hong Qing with some curiosity.

    She had very solid foundations! All of the Sword Sect martial masters did, but Hong Qing was Hong Yitang¡¯s daughter. Being as mighty as he was, Golden Spear easily determined Hong Qing¡¯s¡¯s strength with a quick nce. <i>Hong Yitang¡¯s an interesting one!</i> The other disciples more or less showed signs of mysterious power, even with reduced usagepared to other martial masters. The traces were obvious when mysterious power was employed, Li Hao was no exception either!

    But Hong Qing was a bonafidete Sunderer, one who¡¯d never supplemented with mysterious power. It was extremely rare to train tote Sunderer at her age without resorting to mysterious power!

    Granted, there was also the possibility that she¡¯d employed mysterious power stones instead. Mysterious power stones barely left traces of energy on the user.

 Chapter 368: Gathering (II)

    <h4>Chapter 368: Gathering (II)</h4>

    ¡°Luo...¡± Golden Spear began and was instantly served an extremely aloof expression from Manager Yu. He was at a loss for words. It was just a habit, one that still existed after so many years. This exchange had taken ce countless times, but he was still used to calling her that.

    ¡°Manager Yu!¡± Golden Spear forced out the awkward title. ¡°This...¡±

    ¡°Swordmaster Hong has reached an agreement with Li Hao. These Sword Sect disciples will be joining Li Hao¡¯s team. Additionally, Swordmaster Hong is gifting one hundred sets of ck armor to outfit the team...¡±

    The martial masters watching the show winded their eyes with surprise. Hot damn! That generous?? Li Hao was being made a centurion right after his arrival, and here he was being delivered people and ancient armor without evenpleting his team yet?

    ¡°What¡¯s with Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°Is he bing Earthturner Sword¡¯s son-inw?¡±

    ¡°I hear that¡¯s Earthturner¡¯s daughter up front. Li Hao¡¯s juste to the Guards andcks people. Here they are, giving him people and money. Damn if that isn¡¯t sweet...¡±

    ¡°Think about how hard we had it when we first came!¡±

    ¡°......¡± A low muttering started in the crowd. Some were envious, others emotional.

    The centurions were green-eyed with envy. They¡¯d all had to build their own teams and knew how difficult the process was. They¡¯d expendedrge amounts of time, effort, resources... sometimes even their senior brothers, junior brothers, martial uncles and nephews... Some sects were recruited as a whole. The Mountain Ax discipline, for example, had be the Mountain Openers.

    Therefore, how could they not be jealous of Li Hao?

    And just that wasn¡¯t it. The Guards didn¡¯t have many suits of armor. There were approximately one hundred to share between all of the teams. It was nice to be allotted a dozen sets per team. The Night Watchers counted five hundred total sets after thest expedition to Battle Heaven, half of which went to the Guards. But even so, the centurions tried their utmost to im more and brought all of their ideas to bear for that pursuit. Despite their best efforts, they were unable to fully outfit their teams. They could only let the weaker members wear the armor so that the team¡¯s average strength clustered closer together.

    But when it came to Li Hao? He had a fullplement of armor before he had all of his people! The Guards knew how impressive the armor was. The inherent defensive capabilities were astounding, to say nothing of anything else. Sunres were hard to defeat armor-d Sunderers, making the troop nearly invincible!

    The crowd was envious, jealous, and resentful! Even Mu Lin found himself tongue-tied. Damn, what could he say about this? Was the kid utilizing certain assets to make a woman support him?

    Earthturner Sword had a deep-running grudge with Yuan Shuo. Thetter had insisted on issuing challenges three times, resulting in significant impact to Earthturner¡¯s reputation when they were declined. If he¡¯d been someone who counted a good name among his valued possessions, this would¡¯ve been a death feud!

    Yet here he was, sending over so many of his people and treasures.... Did he mean to im Li Hao as his son-inw?

    <i>In front of the crowd.</i>

    Golden Spear was also surprised. The sect was sending suits of armor in addition to martial masters? But he foundposure from years of experience and simply said, ¡°Li Hao seems to be in a training session. Come on in, don''t stand at the door. I¡¯ll have someone fetch him. Is Hong Yitang with you?¡±

    ¡°My husband is in closed door cultivation,¡± Madame Hong said softly. ¡°His energy has been agitatedtely and he¡¯s yet to fully recover from the wounds he suffered in Battle Heaven. He nned on meeting Senior Golden Spear with me, but a pity...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s just as fine.¡± Golden Spear waved her off. ¡°As for being hailed senior... I wouldn¡¯t dare. I had just entered the martial world when Earthturner Sword made his name. In terms of age, I am only two or three years older than him...¡±

    <i>Is that so? You seem pretty old.</i> Hongxiu kept these thoughts to herself.

    Hong Qiu looked at Golden Spear with curiosity and worship. This was the head of the Three Spears, a great personage on par with Sky Sword and more famous than her father! She found it quite regrettable that her father no longer participated in the martial world after bing a supernatural. She loved hearing stories about that world. Her father didn¡¯t like to speak of them, but her stepmother liked telling her about them. Theirs was a good rtionship.

    With Hong Yitang¡¯s wife in the lead of the delegation, Golden Spear showed them abundant face. Manager Yu was present as well¡ªthe three quickly entered the hall to converse. Hongxiu was a generation lower than them, but they were now all peers and could chat for a while.

    The others did not enjoy simr privileges. Hong Qing and the others had to wait outside the building until Li Hao arrived. Mu Lin, Kong Youyun, and a few others kept thempany. They were also quite curious about the Sword Sect.

    When she saw that her master was entertaining Yu Luocha and Earthturner¡¯s wife, Kong Youyun introduced herself. ¡°I¡¯m Kong Youyun, Golden Spear¡¯s disciple. Are you Senior Earthturner¡¯s daughter?¡±

    ¡°Greetings to senior sister!¡± Hong Qing nced and nodded at Kong Youyun.

    ¡°Hello.¡± The two chatted while Mu Lin listened. He struck up a conversation with another Sword Sectte Sunderer after a while.

    As the group buzzed with discussion, a figure shed in from the distance and hovered over the ground. Sweat evaporated off Li Hao; his face was flushed. When he caught his breath, he strode over to the group. Sword aura gathered around him before he reached them, soaring into the air withplete disregard of Kong Youyun and Mu Lin!

    As he padded over, the Sword Sect disciples that were looking around in all directions suddenly felt a surge of pressure rear over them, bearing down with the pressure of Mount Tai! Kong Youyun stopped talking. Li Hao ignored her¡ªhe didn¡¯t recognize her, but he didn¡¯t mind. Judging from her aura, she might be Golden Spear¡¯s disciple and was decently strong.

    But that was all! His focus was on the Sword Sect disciples. Li Hao red his aura only because he wanted to put their quality to the test. They wouldn¡¯t be of much use if their caliber was too poor.

    He walked forward step by step. When the young man was thirty meters out from the group, half of the twenty yers were forced to back out of range due to difficulties with breathing.

    Li Hao pressed forward. Another few yers retreated when he was twenty-five meters away. When he was twenty meters away, the remaining three peak yers also backed away. That left the ten Sunderers, Kong Youyun, Mu Lin, and a few others.

    Li Hao¡¯s sword aura loomed like Mount Tai bearing down on the assembly; he continued walking. The ten Sunderers were swaying with effort now, shocked expressions on their faces. How was the young man so strong?!

    It was just an aura¡ªit wasn¡¯t like they¡¯d never seen an aura before. But they sensed an overwhelming pressure and keenness from this one. As disciples of the Sword Sect, they trained sword methods. However, their swords seemed incredibly weak in front of Li Hao!

    At their head, Hong Qing set her jaw and looked at Li Hao. She seemed to see her father in this moment. Indeed, the Earthturner Sword was one that could churn the skies and turn the earth. It naturally contained some earth aura. Li Hao was utilizing the earth sword aura at the moment.

    <i>The Sword of Mount Tai!</i>

    Several Sunderers broke out of the circle when Li Hao was fifteen meters away, all of them stunned and reluctant to ept their limits. More fled for safety when Li Hao reached ten meters. There was blood in some mouths as well as plenty of unwillingness.

    Only Hong Qing was left at five meters. There was more than e Sunderer in the Sword Sect delegation, but she was the only one who could remain standing within the range of Li Hao¡¯s aura. She grit her teeth and was prepared to struggle to the bitter end, but Li Hao suddenly retracted his sword aura.

    Hong Qing stumbled and nearly fell over. Kong Youyun reached out to steady her and looked at Li Hao with an odd look. ¡°Why did you stop, Centurion Li?¡± she asked softly.

    ¡°I¡¯m just testing them, not killing people,¡± he exined with a surprised look. ¡°Since I¡¯ve plumbed the depths of their capabilities, there is no need for further probing.¡± He raised a cupped fist salute. ¡°Li Hao!¡±

    Kong Youyun wasn¡¯t used to cupped fists, she inclined her head. ¡°Kong Youyun, disciple of Golden Spear.¡±

    ¡°Well met!¡± Li Hao responded with a pleasantry and turned his attention to Hong Qing. ¡°You¡¯ve got a fantastically solid foundation. All of you, even the yers, have well-founded bases! You guys are stronger than I was before¡ªI had to absorbrge amounts of mysterious power to progress to yer. When my teacher brought his aura to bear against Director Liu Long¡¯s, the resulting sh was less forceful than mine. However, I couldn¡¯t move even from far away.¡±

    Some happiness crossed the faces of the Sword Sect disciples. It was a cause for celebration to be praised by a strong martial master. Much of their earlier dejection was swept away.

    Hong Qing was likewise happy for a moment, then returned to her gloom. She¡¯d seen Li Hao just a while ago¡ªnot yesterday, but when he fought Sun Moxian. Although he was strong then, she felt that she could¡¯ve fought him too. She didn¡¯t measure up to him, but she could fight him. But now, just his aura alone nearly swept her off her feet. The gap between them was too great!

    ¡°How... how did you suddenly get this strong?¡± she couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°The Five Styles is formidable and I took a lot of blood pearls,¡± Li Hao responded upon some thought. ¡°I enhanced my organs to an incredible degree and also perceived the aura, so I became stronger! Your foundations are solid, so you¡¯ll swiftly step into Dominator with unstoppable momentum as soon as you grasp the aura. You¡¯ll enter a stage of rapid growth! Although none of you haveprehended the sword aura yet, martial uncle Hong has given you wonderful foundations. You¡¯ll improve quickly again once you sense sword aura!¡±

    ¡°But I¡¯ve yet to grasp it even now...¡± Hong Qing responded with regret.

    ¡°That¡¯s because you haven¡¯t experienced dangerous enough situations yet!¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡±

    ¡°Battle Heaven was a great opportunity!¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°But your father kept you by his side, preventing you from striking out on your own. That was such a pity! Your foundations are good, but youck sufficient killing nature. Not just you, but everyone here. A killing nature is very important for sword cultivators!¡±

    Being a sword expert now, the young man spoke of certain reflections. ¡°Whether it is the spear or de, all of them draw upon the killing nature. Martial masters live for ughter and violence. Simple training will not give rise to the aura!¡±

    Hong Qing sank into thought, whereas Kong Youyun countered, ¡°Centurion Li, pure ughter and violence may not be the true meaning of martial dao! If killing is the only path, then a hundred flowers wouldn¡¯t bloom in unison for martial dao. For a defensive martial master like Second Brother Mu, does he only have violence in mind when he cultivates?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, he does!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°......¡±

 Chapter 369: Gathering (III)

    <h4>Chapter 369: Gathering (III)</h4>

    With that, Li Hao said nothing more and ignored Kong Youyun. There was no need to converse with those who liked to take an opposing stance in a conversation for the sake of doing so. He was speaking to those of the Sword Sect. If people who practiced the sword didn¡¯t kill with it, were they looking to be sword dancers?

    What was the point of this opposing viewpoint?

    His teacher once said that if he ran into these people, he could go along with their conversation for a bit and then hack them to bits if they didn¡¯t leave him alone! Of course, Li Hao wasn¡¯t like that, but he could tell that Golden Spear¡¯s disciple had her own understanding of martial dao.The young man didn¡¯t seek to have everyone agree with his theories¡ªthat was impossible. Variations and entricities abounded on the path of martial dao. Everyone had their own thoughts.

    Kong Youyun was strong enough and her aura mighty enough, so it was normal that she had her own conclusions. However, Li Hao would not identify with the thoughts of outsiders.

    Kong Youyun was still waiting for Li Hao¡¯s big idea, but she heard the young man say, ¡°Don¡¯t just stand here, junior sister Hong. I¡¯ve already talked to Brother Second Mu. The thirty of you are assigned to two different buildings. I reserved them ahead of time, they¡¯re over there.¡±

    Li Hao pointed into the distance and continued talking as he walked, ¡°Come with me, there¡¯s also a few reminders I¡¯d like to give everyone.¡±

    He walked off with the crowd, leaving a frowning Kong Youyun behind him. She looked at Mu Lin. ¡°Did I say something wrong?¡±

    She didn¡¯t think she¡¯d offended Li Hao, she¡¯d simply spoken of her own viewpoints. It was Li Hao who was the impolite one.

    ¡°You didn¡¯t.¡± Mu Lin smiled and thought for a bit. ¡°But everyone has their own understanding of their path. It¡¯s not wrong when he tells the Sword Sect that ughter is the core of the sword. If you say right now that it¡¯s not the only way... Well then, it¡¯s normal for him to ignore you.¡±

    Kong Youyun found herself at a loss for words.

    ¡°Don¡¯t try to change someone else¡¯s thinking, martial masters have their own insistences,¡± Mu Lin said. ¡°Some might think it¡¯s luck that swiftly propelled Li Hao to his current aplishments, but can luck really create a sword cultivator who¡¯s grasped multiple auras? Your family background is impressive, your father is strong, and your teacher is mighty. But do you think it¡¯s family backing alone that brought you to your level of strength?¡±

    Kong Youyun said nothing else after thinking it over.

    ¡°That guy moves quick, he¡¯s got thirty people in the blink of an eye,¡± Mu Linmented. ¡°If he transfers some of the Guards to himself, his team will be almostplete.¡±

    Li Hao had the right to move thirty-seven people to his team if he wished to. Added to that the thirty from today meant that he could quickly assemble more than sixty martial masters. That was extraordinarily quick work!

    ......

    Li Hao was no longer as restrained when there was no one else around them.

    ¡°I went to martial uncle Hong yesterday to invite you guys to my team,¡± he chuckled as he walked. ¡°But not so you can enjoy life! I have a few goals, of which I can share with you. Number one, kill people! Number two, grow stronger! Number three, get rich!¡±

    The first two were understandable, but Hong Qing couldn¡¯t understand thest one. ¡°Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°Call me centurion!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Fine, she would change her honorific. ¡°Centurion, what do you mean by get rich?¡±

    ¡°By the meaning of the word!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Blood pearls, mysterious power, mysterious power stones, origin weapons... Are there ever too much of those resources? Do you want daoprehension weapons that you can sense the aura from? Only when you¡¯re rich can you grow stronger. Those without money have to eat the earth, whereas when you grow stronger, you can kill people...¡±

    ¡°Centurion, when you say kill people, who do you have in mind?¡± asked a man in his thirties. He stood next to Hong Qing.

    ¡°Those who should die! Don¡¯t worry, they¡¯re not mundanes or on the side of good!¡±

    The man nodded without further question.

    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± Li Hao asked.

    ¡°Hong Hao.¡±

    ¡°You share the same Hao character as me?¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s the one for vast!¡± Hong Hao shook his head.

    ¡°Then your rtionship with martial uncle Hong...¡±

    ¡°I am master¡¯s third disciple, but I grew up by his side.¡±

    <i>Third disciple...</i>

    That meant there were two more. He knew one of them¡ªshe was Hong Yitang¡¯s wife now. So there was a second disciple who wasn¡¯t here? The one in front of him seemed to be the oldest.

    ¡°Has martial uncle¡¯s second disciple note?¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t beat around the bush.

    When Hong Hao didn¡¯t respond, Hong Qing exined, ¡°Second senior brother is not in Silver Moon. He has wonderful potential and became a half step Dominator early on. He became dissatisfied that he didn¡¯t break through, so he left for the central region a few years ago.¡±

    Li Hao nodded slightly, then broke out in a wide grin. ¡°There are many opportunities in the central region, but also many in Silver Moon! Here, I just need people to follow me and be willing to fight with me. We¡¯ll be powerhouses, sooner orter!¡±

    No one said anything. They couldn¡¯t be powerhouses just because someone said so!

    The group soon reached their destination. Li Hao pointed at one of the buildings.

    ¡°Settle in. I have other business to attend to over the next two days, so familiarize yourself with the environment. Some more people will being during this time¡ªlook after them for me, Hong Qing. One of them is Liu Long, son of Silver Spear. He was my old team captain and is now a Dominator. There are also a few of my old colleagues from Silver City, they¡¯re all Sunderers...¡±

    He gave a brief overview; his team would be immensely fortified once the Silver City crew arrived. However, there were still spaces to fill. He wouldn¡¯t fill them all with people from elsewhere in the Guards.

    Some others came to mind, but Li Hao wasn¡¯t at ease when he thought of them. Hu Dingfang, for instance. Was his senior sister still there? Had she passed on more martial knowledge over the years? Hu Dingfang was once a martial master, did he have disciples?

    But... he didn¡¯t really want to go to them.

    He Yong seemed like a decent fellow, but he belonged to the royal family. Otherwise, an addition of disciples from the Southern Fist discipline sounded nice.

    ¡°Southern Fist, Earthturner Sword...¡± Li Hao suddenly thought of someone¡ªWang Henggang, the powerhouse of the Iron Shirt discipline and part of the Inspectorate. This person¡¯s identity passed muster and he was from Silver City. They hailed from the same hometown! So... did he have any peers or disciples?

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t concerned about spies or pawns infiltrating his ranks. He wasn¡¯t going to rebel with his team. If he really was going to rebel, just one hundred alone wasn¡¯t enough!

    With that in mind, he wasn¡¯t in a hurry to search out more people. His focus was on honing the sword of speed. He needed to make good use of time toplete the sword. Once it was finished and infused with the metal sword aura, he would take his people to aplish the great deed of capturing Violet Moon!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about the Nova that¡¯de from Red Moon. Someone would be along to take care of that one. Almost all of the major institutions were targeting Red Moon these days. The young man was very bold. He either did nothing or he had Violet Moon in his sights. Thanks to his eyes, he¡¯d stare at every clod of dirt and rock if he had to. He¡¯d find his target!

    ......

    Li Hao spent only a little bit of time attending to the Sword Sect delegation before returning to his training. The forms of the young man and the ming Phoenix Spear soon reappeared in the artificial forest.

    ......

    Silver Moon was not at peace these days. Although the three great organizations abandoned the n against Hou Xiaochen, the province¡¯s four institutions began their concerted efforts to eliminate the organizations. Hao Lianchuan urgently desired to obtainrge amounts of blood pearls and devoted all of his efforts to tracking Red Moon members. He raced around the province with his men to kill them.

    Violet Moon and Blue Moon didn¡¯t dare rashly show their faces in public, and that wasn¡¯t all of Red Moon¡¯s troubles. A group of bold martial masters from Silver Moon¡¯s martial world also moved against them. Not only that, but some mysterious people also targeted Red Moon powerhouses. As if that wasn¡¯t enough, immensely strong existences from the shadows likewise stirred to action.

    Red Moon repositioned some Srs from neighboring provinces into Silver Moon, but they vanished after a few days before having a chance to showcase their power and prestige!

    ......

    <i>Within a manor.</i>

    Blue Moon mmed his palm down on a table and smashed it to smithereens. He was livid over the uneptably heavy losses of the past few days. Large numbers of their strongholds had been obliterated and he¡¯d met the new Srs only once before they disappeared. He didn¡¯t even have a chance to assign missions before being unable to find them!

    Was there a need to exin what had happened? Others had surely killed them all. The key thing was that it happened in Silver Moon. The Srs¡¯ mysterious disappearance was certainly not due to desertion. It was more than likely the work of some mighty personages.

    Srs continued to be the most lofty existences in certain provinces, so that they¡¯d disappeared without raising a fuss was very hard for Blue Moon to swallow. Silver Moon was a province that many people were unfamiliar with in the central region. The older generation sometimes only mentioned it with an emotional sigh over the province that martial dao had once thrived in. These days, it seemed more terrifying than the central region!

    <i>There¡¯s still a period of time before the ruins open, this can¡¯t be allowed to continue. We must send even stronger powerhouses here or Red Moon will lose the right to speak in Silver Moon! </i>Blue Moon clenched his jaw. If worst came to worst, the northern neen provinces could center on Silver Moon and congregate here!

    Ying Hongyue had summoned Blue Moon for an audience before he set out for Silver Moon. The leader had said that if there was a need, he could call for all of the Red Moon branches in the north.

    There was so much more to Silver Moon than met the eye! ording to Ying Hongyue, thisnd hid too many secrets! They had to maintain a foothold here even if they were to abandon the other northern provinces. If they couldn¡¯t manage that now, it would be difficult for them to do so in the future.

    However, Blue Moon still frowned despite making up his mind. This entailed relinquishing the profits in all of the other provinces. If they all came to Silver Moon and were still hit heavily, the losses would be too great to endure. Even he wouldn¡¯t be able to shoulder the responsibility.

    But if this continued, they would be run out of the province!

    Sighing, Blue Moon confirmed his decision. All neen Red Moon branches were to converge upon Silver Moon! This province could not be lost even if it was just for the ruins of Battle Heaven. There were many powerhouses in the other eighteen provinces and multiple Srs. A Nova elder could be found in the three northern provinces, so Blue Moon had to stabilize the situation in Silver Moon as soon as possible.

    ......

    On this day,rge sums of Red Moon experts streamed to Silver Moon from the other northern provinces. Even the three northern provinces saw activity as Silver Moon appeared safer in their eyes. Almost one hundred Red Moon supernaturals had died in the three northern provincestely¡ªall to the Five Styles. Yuan Shuo was responsible for all of their deaths, and the fact that he was in the three northern provinces was soon public knowledge.

 Chapter 370: Silver Moonâ€™s Eighth Sword (I)

    <h4>Chapter 370: Silver Moon¡¯s Eighth Sword (I)</h4>

    <i>The Silver Moon Guards.</i>

    It was September 12 in the blink of an eye, the third day since Li Hao¡¯s arrival. More neers arrived in the living quarters on this day.

    Constant shock colored the face of simple and honest Chen Jian. He¡¯d seen numerous martial masters along the way, all of them domineeringly strong. Multiple people exuded the overwhelming presence of the aura, something that should onlye from half step Dominators. But here, it seemed that every other person possessed the aura. He¡¯d thought that he and Wu Chao would count among the more powerful in a group of martial masters after absorbing incredible mysterious power. They¡¯d swiftly progressed from initial Sunderer to mid Sunderer, but when they arrived at White Moon, they found that... Sunderer was incredibly weak!

    The gaunt Wu Chao was likewise startled, no sign of his usual carefree ease to be found. He was so taken aback that he seemed to float his way over the path¡ªthere were so many powerhouses here!

    The only one who kept hisposure was Liu Long. Nothing could be discerned from Liu Yan, apart from some urgency and admiration deep in the depths of her eyes. She¡¯d swiftly broken through tote Sunderer thanks to Li Hao¡¯s help, but half step Dominator was beyond her reach. No insight into the aura was forting.

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t gone to see her after he arrived at White Moon, but sent Wang Ming to her once. The handsome supernatural had told her to be as careful as possible and not to go to Li Hao if it could be helped. Their situation wasn¡¯t the safest. These instructions had caused her a bit of anguish, but she knew that under those circumstances, it was safest not to meet.

    Now that she was part of the Guards, Liu Yan felt an increasing sense of urgency and suffering. There were so many martial masters here that ate Sunderer like her seemed very ordinary. Reality disproved her fantasy of being a powerhouse in the absence of supernaturals.

    Liu Long walked calmly, not a flicker of change in expression. He followed a young man¡ªnot Mu Lin, but the captain of Golden Spear¡¯s bodyguard, Wang Qing.

    The young man was curious about Liu Long, that was all. This was Silver Spear¡¯s son! The Three Spears were once known throughout Silver Moon. When one spoke of spear powerhouses in the province, these were the only three mentioned. Bronze Spear¡¯s legacy seemed to have ended and Silver Spear¡¯s son no longer employed the weapon. Wang Qing did not sense spear dao from Liu Long. He was curious about the son of Silver Spear who insisted on remaining in Silver City, but after seeing him... There didn¡¯t seem much to the man!

    This was his most honest assessment. Liu Long didn¡¯t give him the slightest pressure¡ªjust the calmness of a water¡¯s surface without ripples. It was this martial master who once told the Night Watchers of White Moon that he would protect a city with his strength alone. He¡¯d withstood the temptation of bing a supernatural and decisively left White Moon, building the so-called Demon Hunters in the tiny Silver City.

    The people by his side were the team members he¡¯d cultivated over the years, weren¡¯t they? Three Sunderers...

    Sunderers might be nice in a small ce like Silver City, but they were the bread and butter of the Silver Moon Guards. They were the starting point and numbered more than half of the vast army unit. The rest were yers about to make the breakthrough.

    ¡°Chief Commissioner Liu, up ahead is where you¡¯ll live,¡± Wang Qing introduced. ¡°Centurion Li has been busy trainingtely and should not be disturbed. But he left instructions ahead of time that Chief Commissioner Liu should do as you see fit when you arrive, and for you to help him straighten out some internal affairs. Centurion Li has already established his team¡ªthere are thirty members at the moment, all from the Sword Sect.¡±

    ¡°Many thanks!¡± Liu Long replied coolly as he inclined his head.

    ¡°You¡¯re wee.¡± Wang Qing led the group to the small building and thought for a bit before saying, ¡°Chief Commissioner Liu can visit our ranking officer after you¡¯re settled in. He has a few words he¡¯d like to say to you.¡±

    Liu Long nodded.<i> Golden Spear! </i>He¡¯d known beforeing that Golden Spear was in charge. The man had had decent rtions with Silver Spear; his father had spoken some of the Three Spears when he was still alive. Liu Long met the man once when he was young, but that had been so many years ago that the impression had long grown hazy.

    Liu Long watched Wang Qing march off. He wasn¡¯t in a hurry to seek out Li Hao or meet the Sword Sect members. Instead, he led the members of the team into the room he¡¯d been assigned.

    All of the team members were present within the room, apart from Yun Yao who was a supernatural. He¡¯d sent her to the Night Watchers because Liu Long didn¡¯t want to cause trouble for Li Hao. Since the Guards were unwilling to ept supernaturals, the Darkmoon was much better off in the Night Watchers.

    ¡°After all these twists and turns... the Demon Hunters have stille to White Moon City,¡± Liu Long said softly and looked outside the window. ¡°Since you¡¯ve alle with me, there is nothing further to say. I am no longer your chief from this day forth. Li Hao calls the shots here. Although I am a Dominator, my strength is far less than Li Hao¡¯s. Not only is my strength less, but so are my methods and courage.¡±

    The small group was silent.

    ¡°Wang Qing looked at me up and down no less than ten times along the way, possibly thinking that <i>this</i> is Silver Spear¡¯s son? He is so weak, how is his father worthy of being mentioned alongside Golden Spear?

    ¡°Golden Spear¡¯s bodyguard captain personally weed me undoubtedly to assess my capability. He saw it, but was disappointed. Otherwise, he would request to spar with me. He didn¡¯t even mention that, so inly, he doesn¡¯t think much of me.¡±

    These words stoked anger in the group, but they didn¡¯t know what to direct their anger towards. Was Wang Qing wrong in not offering to spar with the chief?

    No, but it did give one the feeling of being belittled.

    ¡°You have all been with me since the formation of the Demon Hunters,¡± Liu Long continued. ¡°It¡¯s been almost four years and I haven¡¯t brought anything to you guys other than a body covered by injuries. Before Li Hao arrived, I was the only Sunderer on the team.

    ¡°If you¡¯d been willing toe to White Moon early on, you might already bete Sunderer if you¡¯d joined any faction, organization, or agency when the supernatural domain rose. You might even be a supernatural right now. After all these years, I¡¯ve only brought roughly twenty insignificant cubes of mysterious power to you all.¡±

    Silver City was too small and weak. That was all the mysterious power they¡¯d obtained after all these years of killing Darkmoons from the shadows. There would certainly be a market for these peak yers if they¡¯de to White Moon City early on. It was easy for yers to ascend as Darkmoon and it¡¯d be so much better than what they could earn in Silver City.

    ¡°Chief!¡± Chen Jian said in a muffled voice. ¡°It was what we wanted too! Not to mention, I think things were fine! If you¡¯re notfortable here, we can go back to Silver City!¡±

    ¡°No, we won¡¯t be going back!¡± Liu Long smiled. ¡°At least not right now. Silver City is too small, even though it is our hometown. With Huang Yun there, Silver City will be fine. Only when wee here, see more of the world, and obtain more benefits, will we have a chance of catching up to others.

    ¡°Are those in the outside world stronger than us? Not necessarily! They¡¯ve just seen more and gained more. The benefits ofing from a small ce like ours means that not all of our potential has been excavated yet. We¡¯ll catch up to them sooner orter if a suitable opportunity presents itself!¡±

    The group nodded their heads rapidly.

    ¡°I¡¯ve decided to stay in the Guards!¡± Liu Long breathed out softly. ¡°Dignity is earned, not given by others. The Demon Hunters are first rate no matter where we go! We were before and we will be in the future! Just remember that here, Li Hao is our heart. Don¡¯t let others make a mockery of us!¡±

    The group nodded again. They understood Liu Long¡¯s meaning, they just felt bad for the chief. He¡¯d always been the heart of the team; he¡¯d raised Li Hao from humble beginnings, but now the young man was their superior. It was Liu Long who needed to make the biggest adjustment.

    ¡°Li Hao...¡± Chen Jian scratched his head.

    ¡°Don¡¯t use his name in the future,¡± Liu Long reminded. ¡°We¡¯re in the army, so let¡¯s go by his title. People mightugh at us otherwise and think that those whoe from Silver City have no manners.¡±

    ¡°Alright then!¡± Chen Jian agreed with resignation. ¡°The centurion... that¡¯s his title, right? If the centurion isn¡¯t here, shall we go meet those from the Sword Sect?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Liu Long smiled. ¡°We should strike up good rtionships with them because we¡¯ll be eating out of the same pot in the future. The centurion had mee also due to the fact that he has no foundation in White Moon City. He wants us to help him create a solid footing. So just remember that while we can suffer a bit, we cannot let other people suffer. We¡¯re all on the same team behind closed doors, so we need to pull them to our side as well.¡±

    He knew full well why Li Hao wanted him to be here, so Liu Long reminded yet again, ¡°We are the centurion¡¯s eyes and tongue in the team when he¡¯s not here, does everyone understand?¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Everyone nodded.

    Liu Long breathed out again without saying anything. He trusted that the team would be able to aplish it, but he still couldn¡¯t help but feel some apprehension and unease. With this trip to White Moon... who knew if he¡¯d be able to find his footing in the end or flee back to Silver City in shambles?

    He¡¯d done thetter years ago.

    Did Li Hao wish to make a name for himself in White Moon, or was it enough to keep himself safe? Liu Long wasn¡¯t fully cognizant of the young man¡¯s goals at the moment.

    ......

    <i>Inside the jungle.</i>

    Li Hao waved stroke after stroke, his sword quick to the extreme. It suppressed the ming Phoenix Spear and every move was iparably swift, but the more Li Hao struck, the more anxious he grew.

    The sword aura was still not taking shape! The metal sword didn¡¯t seem that easy to manifest.

    The ming Phoenix Spear dulled, a sign that thetest mysterious power stone was about to be depleted. Li Hao had fed it nine times over the past three days! That was nine stones!

    If it wasn¡¯t for the replenishment from earlier, what he had left wouldn¡¯t be enough. Nine mysterious power stones were the equivalent of several cubes of mysterious power and they were all being wasted. It was a worthwhile trade if the metal sword aura could appear. But when all he had to show for his efforts was simply food for the origin weapon, it gave Li Hao a feeling of enormous loss.

    His sword strokes were faster and faster these days, so fast that a sonic wave formed long after hisst stroke swung. The Ghost Shadow Sword was being practiced to perfection, but he still hadn¡¯t seeded.

 Chapter 371: Silver Moonâ€™s Eighth Sword (II)

    <h4>Chapter 371: Silver Moon¡¯s Eighth Sword (II)</h4>

    ¡°I still can¡¯t do it!¡± Li Hao sent the ming Phoenix Spear flying with a ng. The origin weapon dimmed¡ªthe ninth mysterious power stone had been exhausted.

    The young man breathed out heavily and sagged to the ground. He frowned at the dull spear. It¡¯d eaten so many mysterious power stones, but remained just the equivalent of a training partner. The effects were decent the first couple of times, but the process grew increasingly boring as the situation progressed. The phoenix didn¡¯t seem as strong as before and wasn¡¯t much of a threat to Li Hao toward the end.

    The young man scanned the mysterious power stones he had left¡ªeleven pieces. He looked hesitantly at the ming Phoenix Spear, wondering if he should feed it another piece. Manager Yu was probablying for it tomorrow.

    ¡°My sword is very fast now, but the sword aura refuses to manifest. Is it insufficient pressure? Or something else?¡±

    Three days wasn¡¯t long, but whether it was the earth sword aura, the fire sword aura, or the sword overview auraprehension had been swift each time after he grasped the heart of the concept. Identifying the main threads of the aura was the precursor to rapid sess, so Li Hao thought it would be the same case this time. Were three days not enough?

    Apparently, it was not.

    Li Hao picked up the ming Phoenix Spear and gently caressed it. ¡°You¡¯ve been bringing the phoenix aura against me the past couple of days, but I¡¯ve yet to sense Director Hou¡¯s will or aura. He can¡¯t possibly have refrained from utilizing them, you must know them. He was already strong beyondpare when he broke my master¡¯s will twenty years ago, so why don¡¯t you use his remaining will and aura against me?¡±

    He Yong wanted him to borrow the ming Phoenix Spear so that the young man could perceive Hou Xiaochen¡¯s will. But Li Hao was yet toe in contact with it throughout the past couple of days. The origin weapon was keeping certain things to itself!

    Li Hao frowned when the ming Phoenix Spear shook. It was sometimes quite onerous tomunicate with a weapon. He could only guess what it meant.

    ¡°Are you worried that disying the director¡¯s will might kill me?¡±

    The weapon shook, just once, indicating that it was indeed worried. But after a while, it began shaking again.

    ¡°You need more mysterious power stones?¡± Li Hao guessed.

    The weapon shook again.

    The young man understood. One, the ming Phoenix Spear was worried about killing him and two, it wasn¡¯t being supplied with enough stones. inly, the energy it was being fed now was insufficient for a self-activated spear to bring forth Director Hou¡¯s will. This meant that the director¡¯s will was stronger than the phoenix soul!

    He Yong had said that it was a measure of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s strength if Li Hao survived the director¡¯s will. Was He Yong strong? The young man felt that his own assessment might not be urate. The man might not be weak¡ªcould he be an initial Sr? It was difficult to say.

    Li Hao looked at the ming Phoenix Spear and said, ¡°How many stones do you need to bring out Director Hou¡¯s will?¡±

    The spear shook once, twice, thrice...

    Three times!

    It needed at least three stones to summon the lingering will. That brought a tight frown to Li Hao¡¯s forehead. So many stones were needed for momentary disy? One stone contained hundreds of cubes of mysterious power! Nearly two thousand were sufficient fuel for only a small eruption?

    This was over the top!

    The ming Phoenix Spear must be embezzling some energy, the young man was sure of it! He took a deep breath as he looked at the eleven pieces in his storage ring. He¡¯d only have eight left if he went for it... and it wasn¡¯t like he was spending them for an enjoyable time. He was spending his wealth to abuse himself. It would be an incredible loss if he still didn¡¯t gain anything from this expenditure.

    Was Hou Xiaochen¡¯s will worth such a hefty price? Li Hao hesitated only briefly beforeing to a decision. He experienced continued difficulties in manifesting the metal sword aura. Perhaps there wasn¡¯t enough pressure being brought to bear on himself. If there was more pressure, he might be able to encourage himself to perceive the aura and break through.

    There was no need for further consideration. Li Hao took out three mysterious power stones, all of the metal attribute. These were the only three metal stones he had left. He didn¡¯t choose the fire attribute despite the ming Phoenix Spear being of fire. It was a spear, so the metal attribute could bring its strength into y as well.

    He crushed the mysterious power stones as soon as he took them out. The spear immediately started absorbing them; it seemed to be very happy.

    Li Hao adjusted his mentality and began waiting. Could the ming Phoenix Spear give him a surprise?

    Three stones worth of mysterious power vanished in the blink of an eye. The spear sparkled and Li Hao seemed to see a small phoenix moving through it. This was different from before; the weapon seemed to be gearing up for something.

    A faint aura brewed within the origin weapon¡ªvery, very faint. As Li Hao stared fixedly at it, the scene in front of him shifted. He sank into an illusory realm while his focus shifted in and out of a trance.

    A spear appeared in his mind¡¯s eye¡ªone spear to pierce the heavens! It bore down soundlessly upon Li Hao, the weapon breaking through everything! He could even hear some sounds¡ªHou Xiaochen¡¯s voice.

    ¡°To break the will!¡±

    Aloof, tyrannical, arrogant. The will broke when the spear was unleashed! The Broken Will Spear!

    Li Hao was in a daze. He seemed to see Hou Xiaochen standing in front of him, stabbing the spear at him just like how he¡¯d killed Red Hair. As Li Hao¡¯s mind wandered, he also felt the sensation of being cut down.

    Death... was right in front of him. His mind started splitting apart with the spear on one side and the suffocating sensation of death on the other. He seemed to return to the day that his good friend was murdered. It was the same stifling feeling... His heart was clenched by an iron grip as he watched from a few meters away.

    That had been his first time seeing the scarlet shadow and witnessing the power of the supernatural. It was like his soul had been plucked out of him. He could only watch as his friend died meters away, staring as his friend struggled in agony and soundlessly warned him to run.

    <i>Run! Danger!</i>

    It was that same despairing feeling, the feeling that he would be next! It was present again and the first time in a year that Li Hao sensed such helplessness and an overwhelming stifling sensation of death. His heart clenched tight.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>Rift Canyon.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen suddenly frowned and looked toward White Moon City. His expression was dark and unpleasant. The ming Phoenix Spear... waspletely active!

    Who¡¯d done it?

    He knew about the weapon being lent to Li Hao, but he¡¯d sealed off the spear so it couldn¡¯t be activated unless it encountered imminent danger. Li Hao wouldn¡¯t be able to do so even with mysterious power stones.

    Little did Hou Xiaochen know that the ming Phoenix Spear had absorbed so many stones that it¡¯d long broken through his seal. He didn¡¯t know either that the phoenix was worried about being cut into two if it didn¡¯t satisfy Li Hao. Steris would strike it down. It didn¡¯t want the Eternal Sword toe for it, so the phoenix didn¡¯t hold back in the slightest. Li Hao could see what Li Hao wanted to see.

    Frowning, Hou Xiaochen looked wordlessly in the direction of his weapon. It was toote to go back and he didn¡¯t know what¡¯d happened to Li Hao. Had the ming Phoenix Spear encountered something? At the same time, Hou Xiaochen knew that once his spear intent erupted, even a peak Sr¡¯s mental spirit might be cut down by it.

    Mental spirit was mind intent. Both martial masters and supernaturals possessed them. It wasn¡¯t that supernaturalscked it, just that they were unable to use it. How could strong supernaturals notmand it?

    Once the ming Phoenix Spear was activated, his lingering will would crush the opponent¡¯s mind! Hou Xiaochen waited for a while and set the matter aside. There was nothing he could do. He could sense this happening because the ming Phoenix Spear had recognized him for its master. They were so far away from each other that it was the limits of possibility for him to feel something, however faint. It was impossible to suppress the weapon again when he was hundreds of kilometers out. He wouldn¡¯t be able to do that no matter how strong he was.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Someone else was also startled. Golden Spear sensed a familiar presence the second Li Hao activated the ming Phoenix Spear. He disappeared on the spot and reappeared several hundred meters in front of the young man. The look in his eyes shifted and his expression was displeased. Why had Li Hao suddenly provoked Director Hou¡¯s will out of the weapon? And the key was, the ming Phoenix Spear was erupting with too much force! It was like the director was right in front of him!

    It reminded him of when the director pierced through his internal demon with a singr spear jab. He¡¯d also seen vague hints of Hou Xiaochen smashing through five beasts at the same time. It was a kind of mental suppression from the five beasts, which he¡¯d broken on a mental level.

    ¡®Director Hou¡¯s spear intent doesn¡¯t connect with the body... This is bad!¡± Golden Spear looked on with an unpleasant expression. He wouldn¡¯t be afraid of meeting this move head-on, but the Broken Will Spear had already been deployed. This was now a battle of mind intent and the consciousness. Although he could suppress the weapon now... it wouldn¡¯t be of any use. The spear¡¯s will had already entered Li Hao¡¯s mind intent. Golden Spear wasn¡¯t capable of expelling the attack from the young man¡¯s mind.

    ......

    <i>Not too far away.</i>

    Blood streamed from Li Hao¡¯s orifices as his body swayed. There was only that inexorable spear in his eyes¡ªit was about to kill him.

    ¡°The scarlet shadow...¡± Li Hao murmured to himself. He could see a scarlet shadow in this moment. While the two could not be more unalike, they both brought to him the enormous risk of death.

    <i>I was once terrified into retreat!</i>

    Zhang Yuan had been so close to him, yet Li Hao had been so worried, afraid, and terrified that he didn¡¯t step forward despite wanting to.

    If Yuan Shuo was the internal demon of Silver Moon martial masters, then the scarlet shadow might be Li Hao¡¯s. Even though he¡¯d killed multiple scarlet shadows by now, Zhang Yuan was still dead. Li Hao had shrank back in fear that night. Even though he knew it wasn¡¯t his fault and he¡¯d just been a mundane, he was still deeply afraid when he saw that kind of scene. He was so afraid that he shook.

    It was a fear he could not control.

    But when the same sensation came upon him today, a crazed glee dawned in his eyes after the initial terror.

 Chapter 372: Silver Moonâ€™s Eighth Sword (III)

    <h4>Chapter 372: Silver Moon¡¯s Eighth Sword (III)</h4>

    Ever since Li Hao came in contact with the supernatural and officially set foot into martial dao, he¡¯d continuously grown stronger, searched for opportunities, and constantly taken risks. Whether it was killing Zhang Ting, taking a chance to hunt the powerhouses of the three great organizations, killing Yu Xiao or Huang Jie... his thoughts were simple. <i>I don¡¯t wish to experience that scene of impotence for a second time.</i>

    On his first asion of killing people, he¡¯d done so with such cold-bloodedness that Liu Yan and the others eximed he was a pervert. Was he afraid then?

    A little.

    Had he found the scene gross?

    A little.

    But he hadn¡¯t been that afraid as he¡¯d witnessed more horrifying things than that. <i>Do you think you can scare me this time? Not happening!</i>

    The fire sword aura, earth sword aura, sword overview aura... The auras spontaneously manifested in his mind¡ªa mountain peak, a ferocious tiger, the stroke of his ancestor, and the resplendent rise of the Silver Amor¡¯s final strike!

    What fear could the Eternal Sword not sever? If there was such a fear, that only meant one¡¯s sword wasn¡¯t strong enough!

    ¡°Kill!¡± came a cry from the mind. It erupted as Li Hao swung his sword! It contained all of his knowledge and power! All of his reflections and umted considerations centered on this stroke. He wanted to hack the ming Phoenix Spear into two and cut through the night that¡¯d imprinted the terrors of the scarlet shadow on his mind.

    Sword intent arose! It coalesced into a sword of severing the self. It struck, aiming for the Broken Will Spear that pierced through the firmament. That may be Hou Xiaochen¡¯s will, but who cared?

    The ming Phoenix Spear shuddered in the real world. Li Hao didn¡¯t deploy his sword with the greatest speed; a little sword shed out in a moment of spontaneous eruption. The ming Phoenix Spear was startled by the reaction and broke through the void, vanishing on the spot.

    A surge of sword intent locked onto the origin weapon. The phoenix materialized over the spear, fear in its eyes. It darted behind Golden Spear when it spotted the man nearby.

    It needed to flee! It was afraid!

    It was afraid of Li Hao and the sword intent. It recalled such a stroke in the depths of its fragmented memories and found it terrifying to the extreme. The ming Phoenix Spear hadn¡¯t nned on paying further attention to Li Hao after it brought out Hou Xiaochen¡¯s move. But now, it was forced to run and hide behind Golden Spear!

    Regardless, a domineering surge of sword intent billowed over. Golden Spear¡¯s expression shifted minutely as well. Was Li Hao... striking back?

    The young man could counter attack despite being suppressed by Director Hou, and strike with a heretofore unseen move! Golden Spear didn¡¯t want to meet it head-on and shifted to dodge the blow, but he could sense that the sword had locked onto him!

    The man threw everything to the back of his mind and summoned a spear himself, jabbing it forward with a grunt!

    The spear lit up the void with a trail of fire. Spear intent was on full disy! Iparably formidable, just the internal force within the weapon sent the void shaking. The trees around them shattered¡ªGolden Spear well deserved his reputation!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A tremendous boom erupted as a hot wave roiled in all directions. Tightly gripping his weapon, Golden Spear focused his spear intent and smashed through Li Hao¡¯sbined sword intent, scattering it into the air.

    His spear intent copsed at the same time.

    Golden Spear stood dumbly on the spot, unmoving and staring at the young man off in the distance. He seemed to see the other spear and sword of Li Hao¡¯s mind intent, shing and engaging each other in a series of explosive collisions...

    Li Hao¡¯s sword intent had already dissipated. He and Golden Spear had only causedrge-scale destruction of nearby flora. Nothing else was damaged.

    Golden Spear stood unmoving, his hand still gripping his weapon. A tiny bloody mark appeared on his forehead after an indeterminable period of time. A single drop of blood slowly slid to the ground.

    It was only now that the man gently caressed his forehead, shock hard to conceal in his eyes. When the sword dissipated, a certain resolution and extremity of speed exploded in thest possible second. They delivered some bacsh that pierced the skin of his forehead.

    It was just a small wound that Golden Spear could heal with a quick cirction of his internal force. And yet, peace was hard toe by his heart. His emotions were not tranquil at all.

    Such a disturbance had urred only three times in his life. The first when he was defeated by Yuan Shuo. The intent behind the Five Styles hadpletely overwhelmed him, preventing him from striking back. It was a defeat that tormented him for many years.

    The second when Hou Xiaochen broke through the demons left by the Five Styles and helped him set foot into Dominator. He¡¯d experienced the same scene that Li Hao had just undergone¡ªthe spear and Five Styles had fought in his mind¡¯s eye. Hou Xiaochen had won because he was too strong.

    Shock from the first two times had lingered for many years. The third time was this moment.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t that strong, at least, not as strong as Golden Spear. However, the stroke that he struck with unsettled the man¡¯s emotions in a way that was difficult to describe. He gained further insight into the young man in front of him the moment the sword qi exploded.

    Unwillingness, refusal to submit, and refusal to give ground! It didn¡¯t matter if Hou Xiaochen stood in front of him! I, Li Hao, will not give way to the Hou Xiaochen who killed a Nova with one move...

    There were very few people like Li Hao among the younger martial masters. Or rather, it¡¯d be more urate to say that Golden Spear had never met one. Whether it was Wang Qing or Kong Youyun, neither of them were so determined that they were loath to concede.

    Why did Li Hao possess such grim resolution?

    Golden Spear knew of Li Hao¡¯s background; the young man didn¡¯t seem to have experienced rough sailing in his life. His had been an easy one as he smoothly became Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple, weathered the dangers of Silver City, walked out of Battle Heaven, killed Yu Xiao...

    Li Hao¡¯s resume spoke of an effortless journey that wasn¡¯t filled with too many obstacles, much less setbacks. So what was the reason for what Golden Spear felt?

    As the man puzzled over his findings, a sh detectable only by mind intent thoroughly unfolded.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    It was a collision of the mental level! The scene blurred in front of Golden Spear as two people seemed to appear. Li Hao wielded a sword and Hou Xiaochen grasped a spear. Sword and spear smashed against each other in the air, both of them domineering to the extreme and giving rise to an incredible explosion!

    The spear split the sword with unparalleled spear intent, but the longsword immediately red with unprecedented fury and reluctance, like a caged tiger springing free of its prison. Fire zed through thend and reduced the spear to ashes!

    The mountain peak broke and the tiger struggled upon the verge of death!

    Golden Spear saw Li Hao waving his hand, using his hand as a sword that blurred with such speed that it made one overlook space and time. There was only a pure sword stroke that swung at the firmament!

    The struggling tiger melded into his arm and the broken mountain peak reappeared in aplete whole. With arm as sword, the young man swung at the broken spear.

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    It was a cry that echoed only in the mind, one that reverberated in all directions. Golden Spear blinked dazedly, as if seeing mountains and rivers crumble away and the sky split open. What was this? He¡¯d never seen a scene like this in his life; it seemed like the very cosmos were shattering.

    ¡°I¡¯m not afraid of you!¡± A hoarse roar filled the mind. It was Li Hao, and he was saying that he wasn¡¯t scared!

    ......

    Li Hao vented the fury brewing in his heart. <i>I¡¯m not afraid of you! Little Yuan, I¡¯m not afraid of this thing and I¡¯ll never back away again. My legs will never shake to the point where I can¡¯t move. I¡¯m not afraid. I¡¯ll crush everything!</i>

    His arm shattered as Li Hao swung at the firmament, crushing thest section of spear. He snarled again and swung once more, aiming at the scarlet shadow that could not be seen.

    <i>I¡¯m not afraid of you either, Ying Hongyue!</i>

    ¡°Kill!¡± Only this roar echoed beneath the heavens. There was just one person observing the battle; no one else sensed the skirmish. Golden Spear was the only witness¡ªhe saw Li Hao cut down the spear and obliterate Hou Xiaochen¡¯s spear intent!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Another loud crash rang out as the ming Phoenix Spear shuddered. Li Hao spat out a mouthful of blood and his arm exploded with rays of sword qi and arrows of blood.

    Blood streamed down his right arm as the young man heaved for breath. He was a dying fish greedily gasping for oxygen. Blood ran from his orifices, but his lips stretched in a smile as he looked at the nearby Golden Spear.

    ¡°I¡¯ve made a fool of myself in front of you... sir!¡±

    ¡°You... took too much risk!¡± said Golden Spear after looking at him for a while. What a crazy fellow! He¡¯d summoned the director¡¯s spear intent and somehow, incredibly, smashed through it!

    Other than admonishment for taking such a risk, he didn¡¯t know what to say to the young man. <i>What are you afraid of and what are you crushing?</i> No matter what it was, Li Hao had won.

    Golden Spear suddenly grew lost in thought.<i> If I could¡¯ve been like Li Hao back in the day and shown just as much resolution in breaking the pressure from the Five Styles, could I have broken through to Dominator myself?</i>

    <i>Would I be stronger today?</i>

    Some regret crept in, of which was quickly reced by resignation. <i>I tried, but I couldn¡¯t break that curse! </i>Showing further regret now would only highlight his ipetence. He knew full well that if Li Hao had been the martial master that Yuan Shuo suppressed, he might¡¯ve been able to break the curse and walk on a new path.

    It boggled the mind to consider.

    Li Hao heaved for breath and wiped away the bloody traces on his face. The wounds on his arm were ghastly. He took off his shirt and wrapped his arm with it so that others wouldn¡¯t see how bad it was.

    He smiled, feeling aplete depletion of energy as he struggled to his feet. He was drained of internal force and mental spirit. It was like when he utilized the Incantation of the de of Blood¡ªit might be even worse than that.

    The difference was that one felt empty after deploying that method, but this time, he felt reborn. One walked toward death and the other new life.

    Golden Spear returned from his memories and didn¡¯t know what to say when he looked at Li Hao. Finally, he voiced, ¡°Go back and rest, Li Hao. It will be a new life when you awake!¡±

    With that, he left.

 Chapter 373: Mask of Pain (I)

    <h4>Chapter 373: Mask of Pain (I)</h4>

    As Golden Spear walked away, he regretted not voicing what was on his mind. He wanted to say that if there¡¯d been the Seven Swords of Silver Moon twenty years ago, it would be the Eight Swords of Silver Moon today. Not only that, but Li Hao would rank number one or two among the eight.

    In Golden Spear¡¯s eyes, the young man was second to only Sky Sword. He might even rival Sky Sword. Perhaps there would be a seat for Li Hao among the Record of Thirty-Six Heroes, and it would be close to the front.

    Did Sky Sword break Yuan Shuo¡¯s suppression back in the day?

    Golden Spear didn¡¯t know.

    Perhaps Sky Sword had, perhaps he hadn¡¯t. The man had left, so no one knew if he¡¯d smashed through it before he left. With Sky Sword¡¯s personality, would he be willing to leave like that if he hadn¡¯t thrown off Yuan Shuo¡¯s will?

    ......

    Back in the clearing, Li Haoughed. He tottered to his feet with inexplicable glee. He suddenly raised his middle finger toward the south. That was all Ying Hongyue was good for! <i>The scarlet shadow is no longer my internal demon. In fact, it¡¯s you, Ying Hongyue!</i>

    Neither would the move that Hou Xiaochen employed against the Nova stir up any more emotion in him.

    ¡°I have seen the sky beyond the sky, so how can I be kept under your heel...¡± Li Haoughed and beckoned to the ming Phoenix Spear in the distance. ¡°Come here, I won¡¯t sh at you anymore. I¡¯ll break you into two if you keep running though!¡±

    The origin weapon was afraid, but still flew back into Li Hao¡¯s hand after a slight struggle. The young man waved it around and suddenly smiled, infusing thest vestiges of his strength into the spear. He stabbed it forward with no hesitation whatsoever, breaking through the void and sending fire through the air!

    If Manager Yu or the others were here, they would find it impossible to recover from their shock. Origin weapons only had one master. Unless their master lent the weapon out, no one else could bring the weapon¡¯s ferocity to bear before the master died.

    And yet, Li Hao only needed to simply wave it around for the ming Phoenix Spear to immediately erupt with its true force!

    ¡°The spear¡¯s nice, it just doesn¡¯t feel that smooth in the hand...¡± Li Hao shook his head, then smiled again. ¡°The Broken Will Spear... So Director Hou¡¯s spear is called Broken Will.¡±

    Not the ming Phoenix Spear, but the spear method that Hou Xiaochen employed. The will was broken when the spear was deployed. He seemed to have read about this method in an ancient tome somewhere. The young man sank into thought as he walked. But right now, his brains didn¡¯t seem up for the task. He felt rather muddle-headed.

    <i>Forget it, who cares. I¡¯m not a spear user.</i>

    The ming Phoenix Spear was as gentle as a kitten and permitted Li Hao to wave it around as he would. It didn¡¯t even stir when he used it as a walking staff. If it¡¯d been Hao Lianchuan, the spear would¡¯ve long immted the man.

    ......

    <i>In this moment, Rift Canyon.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen abruptly paused and stared at White Moon City in the distance.

    ¡°Is it Li Hao?¡± he murmured. The kid that he valued only because of his bloodline seemed... a little different.

    <i>My spear intent has faded away at a faster speed than anticipated. Did a powerhouse break my spear intent or Li Hao?</i> It didn¡¯t mean much if it was a powerhouse. That was just will he¡¯d left behind, it didn¡¯t mean that the other could defeat him. But if it was Li Hao who¡¯d triumphed over his will... Did that mean the young man was stronger than those of his level?

    ¡°First Yuan Shuo, then Li Hao... Is this discipline really that strong?¡± Hou Xiaochen suddenly smiled, suddenly expectant. He hoped for the young man to grow into his own, to reach Hou Xiaochen¡¯s level. Perhaps they could determine which of them was stronger then.

    If it really was Li Hao who had broken his spear intent, then Silver Moon might soon see another premier martial master among its ranks, one that could rival Tyrant de and Sky Sword. Breathing out softly, Hou Xiaochen vanished on the spot. He would know if it was Li Hao as soon as he returned.

    ......

    Li Hao stumbled his way back to his amodations. He didn¡¯t have time to see Liu Long and the others before toppling over to sleep like a log.

    It was a particrly sound sleep with a beautiful dream. He dreamed of the old days when he and Zhang Yuan secretly roasted game in thetter¡¯s backyard. The spits turned with such fragrant fare that Li Hao¡¯s drool threatened to pool on his face.

    He took a closer look and raised an eyebrow when he saw that they were roasting scarlet shadows. Some of them were fried to perfection!

    They ate one delicious scarlet shadow after scarlet shadow, brimming with fiery light after they finished that Li Hao thought they were on fire. Upon further observation, it was an abundance of blood qi that made them glow with a bloody light.

    ......

    Li Hao woke up, full from his dream. He¡¯d eaten countless scarlet shadows with Zhang Yuan. They baked, stewed, and fried the shadows in all manner of scrumptious preparation. He¡¯d eaten so much that he couldn¡¯t anymore, so he awoke.

    Surprisingly, he did feel full when he woke up. Li Hao blinked. <i>I ate scarlet shadows in a dream... Did it actually have an effect? I feel a bit more internal force in me.</i>

    He was resigned to the situation when he made a closer exploration of his body. The little swordid in a dull fashion next to his body, depleted of sword energy. The young man raised his head, at a loss for words. He¡¯d probably operated the breathing method in his sleep. It wasn¡¯t that he¡¯d eaten his fill, but that he¡¯d absorbed so much sword energy that he was full.

    The little bit of sword energy in the sword had all gone to him because he needed energy supplements after his body was injured. Thus, he¡¯d drained the little sword.

    Li Hao looked around wordlessly. <i>And I really thought I killed people in my dream and ate scarlet shadows! I was devouring my own things and depleted the sword energy again. </i>However, the injuries on his arm were recovered. The injuries within his body after that stroke were also healed.

    ¡°I¡¯m meant to be poor!¡± Li Hao shook his head with a sigh. <i>Forget it, let¡¯s just pretend the meal in the dream was on me. Little Yuan ate half. I didn¡¯t have money to treat him before, so I brought him a big meal today. He should be very satisfied. Ah, I¡¯m such a generous person!</i>

    Li Hao smiled when his thoughts traveled here. He found his internal force to be stronger than before when he assessed his current condition. His blood qi was more abundant, his meridians thick, his bones durable. The knot in his heart loosened greatly.

    When the young man took out three mysterious power stones and crushed them, the ming Phoenix Spear stirred, wanting to absorb them. Li Hao picked up the little sword instead, operating the breathing method. Steris took in the energy with some reluctance; the origin weapon immediately quieted down. If it didn¡¯t, the hungry little sword might decide to take a bite out of phoenix leg instead.

    Three mysterious power stones enabled a partial recovery for the little sword. Li Hao fretted as he looked at the five stones in his storage ring. He was spending them too quickly! How quickly had it taken for his stores to dwindle by so much? If it wasn¡¯t for the earlier replenishment, he would¡¯ve spent them all a long time ago. Were these ancient weapons all gluttons?

    Li Hao took stock of his body again, focusing on the lungs. Something strange had newly appeared there. The young man sent his senses at it. It didn¡¯t seem to be an aura, but what could it be if not?

    His sword stroke had exploded with the extremity of speed. Li Hao felt that he should¡¯veprehended the aura after that move¡ªhis third aura, the metal sword aura. And yet, the thing in his lungs didn¡¯t seem to be an aura.

    The young man poked at it with his consciousness, a strange look building in his eyes. It should be the aura, but his earth aura was a mountain, his fire aura a tiger. He thought his metal sword aura would be a phoenix or a bird. It came from the bird style, so creating a bird would be very normal.

    Reality proved otherwise. Li Hao took a close look¡ªit was just a dot. A dot that was a round ball, like a marble.

    ¡°Is it a ball? Or a dot?¡± Li Hao wondered nkly. Why did his metal sword aura look like this? That shouldn¡¯t be. Auras were rted to the underlying secret art orprehension. No matter which it was, the metal sword aura shouldn¡¯t just be a dot.

    The young man frowned, had he failed to coalesce his aura? Was this a preliminary understanding and his aura too weak, thus creating this situation?

    He thought about it and decided to give it a try. He shifted the little dot into the center of the lungs to be locked away. It was time to lock his third aura!

    The metal sword aura was very docile when it entered the lungs; it appeared quite weak. Li Hao found it odd as it didn¡¯t seem that the aura should be weak. Whether it was the mountain or tiger, all had struggled fiercely when they entered the five organs.

    The metal sword aura didn¡¯t shift at all.

    <i>Forget it, let¡¯s give it a try. </i>A massive chain floated up from Li Hao¡¯s lungs¡ªhis supernatural lock. It snaked toward the ball. This was when the tiger and mountain would struggle, but the ball was so still that it made Li Hao uneasy. The lock could approach as it would.

    As the young man¡¯s unease mounted, the dot in his lungs suddenly erupted. It was so fast that he didn¡¯t have time to react. A crisp explosion rang in Li Hao¡¯s mind.

    ¡°Pfft!¡± His newly recovered body was once more covered in injuries after the impact. Li Hao paled and continuously spat out blood. His expression changed drastically; the dot of light had vanished!

    Enormous changes took ce in his lungs as the metal dot of light returned to its original state. Still and unmoving. However, a noticeable crack appeared on the chain. Li Hao regarded it with horror!

    He instantly sent his supernatural lock out of sight and transported the dot of light out of the lungs. Fear and shock were writrge over his face. Hot damn! That was an explosion of extremity! The thing yed tricks and spontaneously erupted, nearly breaking his supernatural lock!

    The consequences would be disastrous once the lock broke¡ªhe would instantly be a supernatural, a metal supernatural at that. But was this what Li Hao wanted? He¡¯d finally made it to his point andprehended three auras. Smooth sailing was ahead for his martial path. If his supernatural lock broke now, he might quickly be a powerhouse among supernaturals... but was that what he wanted?

 Chapter 374: Mask of Pain (II)

    <h4>Chapter 374: Mask of Pain (II)</h4>

    Terrified, Li Hao took stock of his current status. The supernatural lock of his lungs was damaged, there was a crack on it. Some mysterious power was seeping out and modifying his lungs. The young man didn¡¯t dare leave it unattended¡ªthis was not a good development. At least not right now.

    One¡¯s supernatural locks might eventually be broken, but that timing could not be now. They kept one¡¯s potential locked away. If broken, the martial master either became a supernatural or fully released the potential of their body.

    Li Hao was yet to reach this stage.

    He swiftly directed internal force into his lungs and hastily broke a mysterious power stone to absorb its energy. Although the metal attribute stones had been consumed, mysterious power stones were able to strengthen the entire body as a whole.

    The young man replenished the lungs with internal force, blood qi, and energy. He was shocked beyond belief that the lungs, already fortified with one thousand cubes, could not contain the dot that was the metal sword aura.

    ¡°The metal sword aura... dot... An ultimate eruption from the dot for a split second that exceeds the fire tiger aura.¡± Li Hao drew certain conclusions about this new kind of aura that¡¯d appeared. The extremity of sudden force!

    It was quiet and docile in regr times, but when activated, it was the strongest among the three auras even though he¡¯d justprehended it.

    ¡°This one creeps up on you!¡± Li Hao clucked his tongue. There would have been a massive problem if his supernatural lock had been just a bit weaker. But in either case, his lungs were insufficient to amodate the item.

    He would have to continue strengthening the lungs alongside his five organs, or he¡¯d have to let the metal sword aura exist alone. It couldn¡¯t be locked away, which meant that it wouldn¡¯t meld into the sword overview like the fire tiger and earth sword auras had. It could only be used alone.

    ¡°A pair of lungs with a thousand cubes of energy can¡¯t contain you?¡± Li Hao sensed the dot within his mind intent. He¡¯d thought that the tiger aura was ferocious and strong enough, but the momentary eruption of the metal sword aura was far greater.

    ¡°It¡¯s strong... but to the point of crippling someone!¡± Li Hao sighed with resignation, both happy and in pain. He liked a strong aura, but when it was so strong that his lungs couldn¡¯t contain it, that was a problem. His five organs were in bnce with each other. It wasn¡¯t that they couldn¡¯t be further strengthened¡ªhe could obtain more mysterious power if he needed to¡ªbut that his organs were too strong. He would have to fortify the rest of his body and bones to keep everything aligned.

    In this way, he would require more sword energy. Extracting mysterious power also required sword energy. In other words... he was out of money. He still had the twelve hundred cubes of wind and thunder he¡¯d traded from the Night Watchers and four mysterious power stones remaining after the one he¡¯d just consumed.

    The little sword had just absorbed three pieces. It would mean seven total if it devoured his remaining stores. That wasn¡¯t much, but it would just barely help him convert all of his mysterious power.

    The little sword required money, his body required money... They were so voracious that a rich guy like Li Hao was finding it difficult to keep up. He sighed and temporarily set aside the thought of strengthening his organs. The metal sword aura could not be melded into the rest at the moment. He couldn¡¯t handle the strain!

    In that case, he would absorb the wind and thunder energies first and enhance his bones and body. Otherwise, with the increasing power of his auras as his organs grew stronger, his body would be the limiter. While he was also nurturing his internal force, that was a slow process of umtion. If one wanted instant results, that still required sword energy.

    Li Hao looked outside the window, it was dark. His watch read three o¡¯clock¡ªlikely three o¡¯clock in the morning. This wasn¡¯t a good time to visit anyone.

    Thus, he decided to take out his storage ring and absorb the wind and thunder energies. The little sword probably wouldn¡¯t be sufficient for this use since it¡¯d only absorbed three mysterious power stones. Hopefully, he¡¯d be able toplete the deed before depleting the other stones. He could continue to work on the organs only after he strengthened his body. As of now, his organs were noticeably stronger than his physical body.

    It wouldn¡¯t do for the organs to be too weak as they wouldn¡¯t be able to support his cultivation then. It wouldn¡¯t do for the organs to be too strong either as that would ce too much strain on the body. A bnce was necessary, or he¡¯d turn into someone sickly and feeble who coughed all day. He might also be a fragile schr who saw his body ripped apart by fierce blood qi in a moment of carelessness.

    Li Hao began cultivating again. He tempered his joy ofprehending another aura. The appearance of the metal sword aura did indeed enhance his strength, but not by much. The crux of the issue was that it didn¡¯t assimte into the sword overview, so it couldn¡¯t be used to summon a spirit.

    In other words, he was too poor and didn¡¯t have enough money. While he¡¯d gained a lot, he improved so quickly that his ample stores of mysterious power and stones could not withstand the young man¡¯s furious rate of consumption.

    On this evening, Li Hao continued to absorb energy and strengthen his body. His body often broke when he employed it as a sword. That was a sign that his body wasn¡¯t strong enough to endure the manifestation of aura. He was stronger now; even if he used his body with abandon, all he would do was give himself some cuts and scrapes.

    Strengthening the body and skeleton was imperative.

    ......

    The sky brightened. Li Hao was still absorbing thunder energy. His bones popped and snapped as thunder energy circled around him, tempering his bones. Thunder and lightning dissipated after a long while, leaving the young man free to open his eyes and assess his body. His body and bones were much stronger than before, but... he sighed heavily.

    He¡¯d consumed more than three pieces of mysterious power to absorb twelve hundred cubes of wind and thunder energy! Three pieces hadn¡¯t been enough! He¡¯d had to smash two more pieces, leaving him with just two in his possession. The little sword was devoid of energy once more.

    Li Hao stared at his two remaining pieces, one was of the dark attribute and the other of light. He¡¯d wanted to try their properties for himself, but now... forget it. He was uneasy when the little sword was devoid of energy. Sword energy was his greatest guarantee.

    ¡°I earn money to spend it so I can be stronger. Then I earn more money to continue the positive feedback cycle,¡± Li Haoforted himself. He thought of nothing else and crushed thest two stones, feeding it to the little sword. He was now out of mysterious power cubes and stones, but all of it had been worthwhile.

    He¡¯d paid such an enormous price toprehend a third aura, strengthen his body and bones, and ratchet up his strength to a new levelpared to before. He might be able to fortify his organs a bit next.

    The most pressing course of action was to meld his metal sword aura into the organs. Once he sessfully assimted three auras together, Li Hao felt that he could stand at the peak of the Sr level. At least, he wouldn¡¯t be weaker than the Huang Jie he¡¯d met before. This was probably when he¡¯d surpass the Yuan Shuo of old when the man battled the Qimei Staff.

    His teacher had melded two auras together then; Li Hao had just finished three auras. Based on his current thoughts and judgment, he might be a little stronger than his teacher. But there were limits to his strength. The particrs depended on actualbat¡ªhis teacher was much more experienced than him.

    ¡°It was August 27th when teacher left... It¡¯s September 13 now...¡± Li Hao realized in a daze. It felt like such a long time ago, but was only sixteen days when it came down to it.

    His teacher had been an unparalleled existence sixteen days ago. Now if his teacher hadn¡¯t improved recently... Li Hao rather felt that he could flex his muscles at his teacher.

    ¡°Can teacher finish summoning the third spirit in sixteen days? His organs aren¡¯t strong, but he¡¯s apparently killed a lot of Red Moon memberstely. If he has sufficient blood pearls to strengthen his organs, then perhaps he¡¯s finished incorporating his third aura!¡±

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s process wasn¡¯t thatplicated. All he needed to do was to strengthen his organ and input his aura into it. He didn¡¯t need toprehend or try anything, just shove his aura in. Thus, it was possible for him toplete his fourth and fifth aura if he possessed sufficient blood pearls, to say nothing of his third.

    Some thoughts that¡¯d just popped into Li Hao¡¯s mind instantly vanished. He... likely still couldn¡¯t defeat his teacher, not unless he finished the fusion of the five auras before his teacher did.

    When the young man rose, it took him a few seconds to limate to his strengthened body. It didn¡¯t take him long to do so, however. His three auras were more like four auras given the fortitude of his mind. Li Hao¡¯s mind intent was growing ever stronger. His mind intent was strong, his mentality was strong, which cast his body in a weak light. On the other hand, it wasn¡¯t hard to adapt to his condition.

    Regr martial masters strengthened the body first, then mind intent. Li Hao had gone about it in the opposite direction. His mind intent was growing ever stronger! Ordinary Dominators would likely have issues withstanding him if he let loose without control.

    The sunlight was bright and beautiful outside the little building. Shouts and calls from martial masters echoed in the distance. A new day of training had begun.

    Li Hao was in an excellent mood; his spirits further lifted upon thinking that the chief should already be here. What a wonderful day!

    A figure shed to the door before Li Hao set out to look for Liu Long. Manager Yu looked at him with a frosty expression. She¡¯de quite early.

    ¡°Where is the ming Phoenix Spear?¡±

    <i>How miserly!</i> Li Hao bared his teeth. <i>It¡¯s not like I said I¡¯m keeping it.</i> He reached out and manifested a spear, tossing it to Manager Yu. He¡¯d seen all that he wanted to see, so the spear was of no further use to him. Other than it being a durable weapon, there wasn¡¯t a single redeeming point about it. He couldn¡¯t be bothered keeping it.

    Manager Yu caught it with a quick shift of her eyes. She looked at Li Hao. ¡°You... seemed to have changed some. Did you activate the spear?¡±

    Director Hou had sealed it away, so how had the young man done it?

    ¡°Nope!¡± A tant lie!

    Manager Yu furrowed her brows, but didn¡¯t say anything. It was fine so long as the ming Phoenix Spear had been returned in one piece. ¡°I hear that you¡¯ve been training all day and night the past couple of days. There is a path of training and a path of rxation. It is not a good idea to be constantly training.¡±

    Li Hao nodded in agreement.

    ¡°The manager speaks true, so I won¡¯t be training starting from today.¡±

    The secretary took a few more nces at Li Hao without saying anything else. The young man seemed to be in a good mood, so it looked like he¡¯d gained quite a lot. The air of mncholy between his brows had dissipated.

 Chapter 375: Mask of Pain (III)

    <h4>Chapter 375: Mask of Pain (III)</h4>

    ¡°Then I¡¯m off,¡± said Manager Yu. ¡°Additionally, you should refrain from walking around too freelytely. Large numbers of Red Moon powerhouses have surged into Silver Moon to stand against the operations conducted by the four institutions. All powerhouses from neen northern provinces have congregated upon us. Hao Lianchuan was injuredst night, the Night Watchers have lost a few, and all four institutions are being impacted. We¡¯re discussing amongst ourselves if we should give up our earlier ns and no longer seek to eliminate them...

    ¡°You are a thorn in their side, so you should be careful. Granted, they don¡¯t have the nerve to enter White Moon City.¡±

    ¡°Large numbers of powerhouses havee from Red Moon?¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes darted around.

    ¡°Correct!¡± Manager Yu nodded, then frowned faintly again. ¡°The four institutions haven¡¯t killed that many Red Moon powerhouses, but some others are acting from the shadows. The blood pearls previously elicited quite a great deal of attention. We¡¯re not the ones killing so many Red Moon members that they¡¯ve been forced to gather in Silver Moon.¡±

    The four institutions possessed limited strength; powerhouses among their ranks were mostly hidden or concealed. Therefore, they didn¡¯t have that much of an impact on the supernatural organization. The institutions had only managed to kill a few supernaturals below Sr. Although Red Moon lost quite a few Srs, that didn¡¯t have much to do with the Night Watchers. Hao Lianchuan himself was only a mid Sr, so it wasn¡¯t easy for him to kill Sr powerhouses.

    Blue Moon might not have called all the nearby Red Moon members to Silver Moon if it was just the four institutions targeting them. inly, it was hardly just those four.

    Silver Moon¡¯s martial world, martial masters all throughout thends, and even Yama and Celestial were acting from the shadows. This was why Blue Moon had staked everything on a single throw and summoned all powerhouses to Silver Moon in a fit of anger.

    ¡°Are there many Red Moon powerhouses in the neen northern provinces?¡±

    ¡°Many.¡± Manager Yu was as aloof as always. ¡°If there¡¯s roughly fifty in each province, that makes for almost one thousand supernaturals in the northern region. They all start at Darkmoon and there¡¯s plenty of Sunres. Even if there¡¯s only two or three Srs per province, that¡¯s a couple dozen! Rumors say that a Nova might be hiding among them as well. There was a Nova in residence at the three northern provinces, but those are in such disarray now that our intelligence indicates the Nova mighte here. So you should stay within the city if possible!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao nodded solemnly. A Nova! He couldn¡¯t afford to offend that, not even if he¡¯d melded three auras with his organs. He could fight a peak Sr and possibly have a chance of killing such an opponent, but a Nova? Absolutely not.

    When he melded two auras together, he¡¯d had to employ the Incantation of the de of Blood to triumph over a peak Sr. That only put him on par with his opponent, or even a little less. He might not have killed Huang Jie if it wasn¡¯t for Hao Lianchuan¡¯s appearance. So when Li Hao heard that a Nova might havee... he was very nervous.

    <i>Gotta be careful! Can¡¯t piss that one off! But what else am I afraid of? Not Red Moon¡¯s people! Their first thought is to take me alive, not kill me. </i>That was why Li Hao wasn¡¯t that apprehensive. If he ran into Celestial or Yama¡¯s Novas, however, he¡¯d be terrified out of his mind.

    Manager Yu was simply giving him a warning. Li Hao was no child, he had his own thoughts, so she turned and walked off without a word.

    The young man thought for a bit and still decided to ask, ¡°Manager, what do you think about me attacking Violet Moon with my people?¡±

    The woman¡¯s footsteps slowed and she looked back with an arctic look. ¡°You can cease your tiresome probing. I left Red Moon many years ago and I am not interested in your affairs. Red Moon was just an organization in the shadows when I departed. I am unfamiliar with the current Violet Moon and have not been in contact with the ck Spider for many years. Are you satisfied?¡±

    ¡°Satisfied, very satisfied,¡± Li Hao hastily responded. ¡°Don¡¯t misunderstand, I¡¯m just afraid of hurting someone on the same team.¡±

    ¡°Additionally.¡± Manager Yu took another few steps before turning back. ¡°You better not execute such a n! The current Violet Moon may very well be Ying Hongyue¡¯s daughter... I¡¯m not certain of the particrs. The ck Spider has a unique personality and most people would not be able to convince her to birth a child...¡±

    ¡°Ying Hongyue¡¯s appetite is that expansive?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°Ying Hongyue... is an interesting character!¡± Manager Yu suddenly smiled. ¡°You¡¯re right to wonder if his appetite is thatprehensive. Your master killed one of his sons not too long ago, but Ying Hongyue has an entire hall of them. He has at least eighty, if not one hundred children. However, he quite values Violet Moon. She may be different from the trash that died before.¡±

    <i>A stud stallion! </i>Li Hao took a sharp breath, only now understanding that Ying Hongyue had so many freaking descendants! Just his sons and daughters numbered nearly one hundred¡ªif his grandchildren and great grandchildren were also totaled, then wasn¡¯t he creating a massive organization of nearly a thousand people strong by himself alone?

    Hot damn!

    Ying Hongyue deserved to have the title of Old Lecher affixed to his name!

    ¡°I see!¡± Li Hao nodded, secret glee blooming in his heart. Ying Hongyue¡¯s daughter? That was even better! It would mean more to threaten or kill her.

    Ying Hongyue wouldn¡¯t care about a son or daughter he didn¡¯t value, such as the initial Sr that his teacher had killed. But if Violet Moon was dead, Ying Hongyue might erupt in a rage.

    Manager Yu furrowed her brows, unsure of what Li Hao was thinking while also understanding something else. <i>Forget it!</i> She disappeared in front of the young man. She was only here for the ming Phoenix Spear.

    ......

    Momentster, Li Hao was overjoyed to see Liu Long and the others.

    ¡°Chief, Sis Liu, Brother Chao, Brother Jian...¡± Wreathed in smiles, Li Hao stepped forward with his arms outstretched. Liu Long wasn¡¯t used to this kind of greeting and was about to step forward with a hug when Li Hao circled past him to hug Liu Yan. Liu Long blinked, nonplussed.

    Liu Yan simply smiled coquettishly. ¡°Why the sudden passion?¡±

    ¡°Long time no see, Sis Liu!¡± Li Hao dropped his hug as soon as he touched the woman. ¡°You¡¯ve gotten prettier! I would¡¯ve visited you a few days ago had I known! Are you in a better mood because you¡¯re seeing the chief again?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Liu Yan rolled her eyes at him and couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t pick up the conversation either. He looked at Li Hao and asked in a low voice, ¡°You¡¯ve been training hard the past couple of days. Have you improved again?¡±

    ¡°More or less!¡± Li Hao responded merrily. ¡°But not that much, I¡¯m probably not up to my teacher¡¯s level yet...¡±

    <i>What kind of response is that? </i>Liu Long wondered gloomily. <i>What do you mean you¡¯re probably not up to your teacher¡¯s level? When your teacher left, he killed the Qimei Staff, someone on par with peak Sr. So you mean you also have a chance of killing peak Srs?¡±</i>

    ¡°Perfect timing, chief. I have some business to take care of, let¡¯s go together.¡±

    ¡°To do what?¡±

    ¡°To meet Wang Henggang and ask him for some people. I want to see if there are any Iron Shirt powerhouses that can join my team. They can work with Brother Jian and form a defensive squad. When they¡¯re equipped with ck armor... Heh, Sunres won¡¯t be able to damage them and even Srs will gape with shock!¡±

    ¡°Wang Henggang?¡± Liu Long frowned. ¡°Are you familiar with him?¡±

    ¡°No, but chief is.¡±

    <i>The heck! </i>Liu Long was indeed familiar with the man as Wang Henggang had been present in Silver City for many years. However, the man frowned. ¡°While I do know him, we broke off in open hostilities years ago. He insisted on leaving Silver City and I wanted to return, so we left on bad terms.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s better to get rid of a grudge than to keep it alive. Chief, does he have any people under hismand?¡±

    ¡°He certainly would,¡± Liu Long exined. ¡°He¡¯s a powerhouse of the Iron Shirt discipline and made it to half step Dominator years ago. He¡¯s one of the more renowned martial masters in this locale and took a few martial master experts from the Inspectorate when he left. That was why our Inspectorate grew weaker, so I¡¯m full of ill will toward this guy...¡±

    ¡°Then we should go see him. Right, he¡¯s either ate or peak Sr now, so let¡¯s be polite when we see him, chief.¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Liu Long started. He nodded without further word. <i>Peak Sr? Wang Henggang?</i> This rate of improvement was zingly fast. But it made sense since he¡¯d crossed over to the supernatural years ago. He should¡¯ve done so as a Sunre, so bing a Sr a few yearster was only normal. Martial masters possessed significant potential. It was just that peak Sr was still a bit beyond expectations.

    ¡°Sis Liu, you guys chat with the Sword Sect people first. Chief and I will be back soon!¡±

    ¡°Okay!¡±

    ......

    Li Hao and Liu Long quickly left the barracks, taking a car that Li Hao had requested from Mu Lin. The Guards had its own cars; Mu Lin was very generous and lent Li Hao his own car.

    <i>Inside the car.</i>

    Liu Long drove. Li Hao wanted to drive, but Liu Long didn¡¯t let him.

    The young man felt that the chief thought too little of him. It was true that he¡¯d struggled with control during his first drive, but he was so strong now and much more experienced! It was inappropriate that the chief still didn¡¯t think much of his skill.

    Liu Long ignored Li Hao and spoke as he drove, ¡°Wang Henggang is a Silver City native and not that old. We¡¯re about the same age. He was a good inspector general¡ªyou know how safe the city was when he was at the helm. I formed the Demon Hunters after he left. Before that, regr supernaturals didn¡¯t dare trespass in Silver City when we were both in residence.

    ¡°The two of us wanted to join the Night Watchers together. His ascension was sessful, mine was not. He wasn¡¯t willing to leave White Moon after he crossed over. My dissatisfaction toward him doesn¡¯t stem from his refusal to leave, but from his refusal to support my proposal of opening a Night Watcher branch in Silver City. He would be the director, we would be his subordinates. He was a Sunre then, perfectly adequate for overseeing the situation.

    ¡°Sunres were still the peak of supernatural strength four years ago. There weren¡¯t that many in the entire Night Watcher system, but he refused the notion...¡±

    ¡°To each their own.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°That¡¯s not important. If he has men, he can lend me some martial masters.¡±

    ¡°I might know some of them if the old guard¡¯s still there.¡± Liu Long nodded after further thought. ¡°He took more than a dozen yers with him that year and a Sunderer. I don¡¯t know if they¡¯ve be supernaturals or continued the path of martial masters.¡±

    These people were the foundation of the Silver City Inspectorate back in those days, but they were all moved to White Moon.

 Chapter 376: Mask of Pain (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 376: Mask of Pain (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao thought for a bit more. ¡°Is it possible that he knew of certain things, such as Mu Sen being pretty strong, so Silver City would be fine with Mu Sen there...¡±

    He wanted to say a word or two on the man¡¯s behalf because he¡¯d met Wang Henggang once. The deeply tanned man seemed to be a nice guy. Of course, to know one¡¯s face was not to know one¡¯s heart. From Liu Long¡¯s perspective, Wang Henggang was an incredibly loathsome person for taking away the Inspectorate¡¯s powerhouses and leaving the city¡¯s defenses in a very weakened state.

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Liu Long said softly, not as angry as he was all those years back. ¡°Not to mention... It now looks like it was a good thing that he took those people with him! What would they gain if they remained in Silver City? It¡¯s still the same after all these years without the slightest hint of improvement. Wu Chao and the others stayed with me and refused to go. You see how they were. If it wasn¡¯t for your support, they would still be yers!¡±

    He shook his head with a sigh. ¡°Hence, he might¡¯ve given the people a better future in taking them with him. There is no talk of me to go around, just a little disgruntlement.¡±

    The car headed for the White Moon City Inspectorate as they conversed, not the Inspectorate headquarters. The provincial capital had its own independent Inspectorate; its sense of existence was so weak that most people didn¡¯t know the capital had its own independent Inspectorate.

    ......

    <i>The White Moon City Inspectorate.</i>

    Wang Henggang was hard at work. He was very busy afterrge numbers of Red Moon powerhouses surged into the province. He needed to prevent the organization from assaulting the capital. Hismunicator rang while he was face down in work.

    The voice of someone from downstairs traveled into his ear when he picked up. ¡°Inspector General, someone¡¯s here to see you. It¡¯s a chiefmissioner and amissioner inspector from the Night Watchers...¡±

    <i>The Night Watchers? </i>Wang Henggang blinked. He didn¡¯t have much to do with the Night Watchers, why was someone here to see him? A chiefmissioner was at least a Sunre.

    ¡°What are their names?¡±

    ¡°One¡¯s surnamed Liu and says he¡¯s from Silver City...¡±

    Old memories suddenly gripped Wang Henggang. He thought of Liu Long, the fellow with the stubborn temper. Wang Henggang had chosen toe to White Moon City three years ago, but Liu Long chose to stay in Silver City. They had a close rtionship before that. One was the inspector general of the Inspectorate and the other the team captain of thew enforcement team. The entire city had been within their grasp and security was very good. They¡¯d worked together for many years in a happy partnership.

    <i>What a pity...</i>

    ¡°Let theme up...¡± Wang Henggang breathed out softly. ¡°Forget it, take them to the reception room. I¡¯ll go down.¡±

    ¡°Inspector General...¡±

    ¡°Leave it at that!¡± Wang Henggang stood up and dithered for a moment before walking downstairs. Had Liu Longe for him? To fight? To yell? To make trouble? Or to persuade him to return to Silver City?

    Regardless, this fellow had chosen to visit today after many years. It didn¡¯t seem like he came with friendly intentions.

    ......

    <i>Within the reception room.</i>

    Li Hao looked around calmly, Liu Long was a bit silent.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, boss. If you¡¯re really ticked off, we can beat him up before we go!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Liu Long looked at him wordlessly. <i>This is the White Moon Inspectorate! You¡¯re going to beat up their inspector general right here? You already said he¡¯s a peak Sr! Do you realize how arrogant you¡¯re being??</i>

    Footsteps sounded as he mentally censured Li Hao. They were a bit heavy, inly on purpose. The door swung open, revealing a heavily tanned man.

    Wang Henggang looked at Li Hao, learning only now that the other person was the young man. He turned to Liu Long instead and smiled, ¡°Ole Liu... It¡¯s been a while.¡±

    Liu Long flicked a nce at him and nodded. ¡°It¡¯s been a few years.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s grab a drink tonight?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s not, I¡¯m busy with official duties.¡±

    ¡°Then...¡± The two ignored Li Hao, who didn¡¯t mind.

    Liu Long started first, ¡°Let¡¯s not stand on pleasantries, there¡¯s no need to do so. Do you know the Silver Moon Guards?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Henggang raised an eyebrow, but nodded. ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s a new one hundred person team there who needs people. Do you have any suitable talents?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Wang Henggang nodded. ¡°You know the group of brothers from all those years ago. Apart from a couple who ascended to the supernatural, the rest are still martial masters. There are seven Sunderers and nine yers. Is that enough? They¡¯re willing to follow you if you ask them. They¡¯ve wanted to go back for you all these years, but I stopped them. I said we can go back when there¡¯s really a need, that it wasn¡¯t the time. It¡¯s too hard for us to improve in Silver City.¡±

    Sixteen martial masters, seven of which were Sunderers. That wasn¡¯t too few. It was clear to see that Wang Henggang thought Liu Long had joined the Guards and that the Dominator needed to build a team.

    ¡°Not me, but Li Hao!¡± Liu Long corrected.

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Wang Henggang blinked and looked at the young man. Li Hao was the centurion? ¡°Li Hao... is a Dominator?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao smoothly inserted himself. ¡°It was just luck, pure luck! I know that big brother Wang¡¯s from Silver City, so I grabbed chief here toe looking for some support. I¡¯ve only just arrived and don¡¯t know anyone or anything. I can only look to big brother Wang.¡±

    ¡°Then you...¡± Wang Henggang looked at Liu Long.

    ¡°I¡¯m Li Hao¡¯s helper,¡± the man responded calmly. ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, he¡¯s stronger than you! I was your subordinate for many years, why can¡¯t I do the same for Li Hao? Go ask those brothers if they¡¯re willing toe. Tell them clearly that it¡¯ll be more dangerous than their current gig. They cane if they¡¯re willing, no one will be forced into something they don¡¯t want. It¡¯s going to be dangerous work that puts our lives on the line, not going shopping on the streets.¡±

    ¡°Do you think they won¡¯t be willing?¡± Wang Henggangughed, then quickly frowned. ¡°Li Hao¡¯s also here, so I¡¯ll be frank. It¡¯s not that I don¡¯t think much of you, but I wonder if you¡¯re too young...¡±

    Liu Long turned to Li Hao without further ado. ¡°Give him a punch and see how much of the Iron Shirt skill he still retains!¡±

    Li Hao beamed happily, could he?

    ¡°A try is just as good!¡± Wang Henggangughed. ¡°Li Hao, bring your full strength to bear. To be honest, I¡¯d befortable letting Liu Long take the men away. But if it¡¯s you... I¡¯m a little uneasy. So bring your full strength to bear...¡±

    ¡°Then, big brother Wang, you... need to bring your full strength to defend!¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Wang Henggang smiled.<i> I know you¡¯re strong, but do you know that I¡¯m a peak Sr?</i>

    ¡°I mean it, big brother Wang, it has to be your full strength for defense!¡± Li Hao reminded. ¡°I¡¯m very strong, I¡¯ve already killed a Sr!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Henggang blinked, a light dancing in his eyes. Killed a Sr? Yu Xiao?

    ¡°Then... I¡¯ll punch you?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡±

    Li Hao cocked his hand back with everything he had, not using the earth or fire sword aura, but the spontaneous eruption of the metal sword aura! <i>BOOM!</i>

    A massive collision exploded as the fistnded on a metal wall. The eruption of the metal sword aura was domineering in the extreme! Wang Henggang flew backward with a rumble and smashed a hole out of the wall.

    Li Hao shrugged.<i> I told you to bring your full strength to bear. This punch is for the chief.</i>

    Indeed, Liu Long grinned from ear to ear. He was in a fantastic mood. The Inspectorate promptly exploded with activity, to which Wang Henggang calmed with a roar, ¡°I¡¯m fine, this is a spar between friends. Back to your duties!¡±

    Momentster, the man walked back and nodded at Li Hao. ¡°Very good, you can take the men with you. You¡¯ve got a bright future ahead!¡± He patted his chest like he was brushing dust off. ¡°I¡¯m going to change my uniform as it seems to have ripped. That doesn¡¯t look proper, so I¡¯ll be a few moments...¡±

    He turned and left, a rictus of pain twisting his face a few stepster. He sucked in air through bared teeth, the breath hurting his lungs. Agony was written over his deeply tanned face as he showcased a mask of pain!

    <i>Fuck!</i>

    The boy... that punch... was too damned brutal! Wang Henggang felt that his bones were about to shatter. Judging from the other¡¯s nonchnt attitude, that hadn¡¯t been his full strength. If it were, it wouldn¡¯t look like this.

    Wang Henggang¡¯s expression was so twisted that it confused those who saw him. The inspector general immediately regained hisposure.

    ¡°Go about your duties...¡± He vanished out of sight. It hurt so much! <i>That bastard Liu Long, I was wondering why he was so agreeable to everything. He set up a trap for me!</i>

    ......

    <i>Back in the reception room.</i>

    Li Haoughed. <i>That¡¯s a stiff upper lip, alright!</i>

    Wang Henggang was thetest he¡¯d met in a series of powerhouses adept at defense. Mu Lin was the other¡ªboth of them probably walked the Iron Shirt path. One had be a supernatural and the other a martial master.

    Wang Henggang walked the path of the supernatural. Li Hao had briefly sensed him¡ªhe should be an earth supernatural, a good match for martial dao. He was a peak Sr, but unknown as to whether or not he counted as a strong peak Sr. The young man had met a few peak Srs by now. Violet Moon, the Revolution King, Huang Jie, Wang Henggang...

    But their strengths varied wildly and the presence of an origin weapon was also a deciding factor. One also needed to see if they were crossed over from martial masters, such as thete Sr Qimei Staff and Hu Dingfang. Those two were also very strong, giving Li Hao the feeling that they were stronger than Huang Jie.

    Wang Henggang might be an even stronger peak Sr since he was a martial master first. He was the first martial-master-to-peak-Sr that Li Hao had met. The rest, such as Violet Moon and the Revolution King, were inly not former martial masters.

    Although Li Hao¡¯s earlier punch had drifted lightly without strength, he¡¯d utilized the metal sword aura because he knew that his opponent focused on defense. The metal sword aura specialized in spontaneous eruption, so this punch would not be weak. Added to that the natural increase in Li Hao¡¯s strength, the gap between his punch and the sword stroke he brought to bear against Mu Lin wouldn¡¯t be that great.

    He¡¯d mmed Mu Lin into the ground and covered the man in wounds. When it came to Wang Henggang, Li Hao judged his force to cause minute cracks in the man¡¯s bones at most. For powerhouses like them, those were easily recovered from. Of course, one was still in for a world of pain.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t use any force that reverberated, he was just testing the inspector general. He didn¡¯t want to kill anyone¡ªshaking the organs would lead to more severe injuries.

 Chapter 377: The Five Styles Leap Over the Sea (I)

    <h4>Chapter 377: The Five Styles Leap Over the Sea (I)</h4>

    Liu Longughed for a while before sighing, ¡°This guy really did improve very quickly, so he wasn¡¯t wrong to move to White Moon City. Seven of the brothers who left with him have be Sunderers...¡±

    ¡°Is that a lot, chief?¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°We also have three Sunderers, me and you as a Dominator, and Sis Yun Yao who¡¯s a Darkmoon. We don¡¯t seem to be worse off than him, do we?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s now.¡± Liu Long smiled. That hadn¡¯t been the case before.

    ¡°It¡¯s all the same,¡± Li Hao continued merrily. ¡°The inspector general is stronger than chief, but whates next after peak Sr is Nova and that¡¯s incredibly difficult. On the other hand, you have a lot of room for improvement. There are many paths avable to Dominator and plenty of ces where you can strengthen yourself.¡±

    Strengthening the body, blood qi, consciousness, the five visceral organs... Based on current knowledge, there were four tried and true ways that one could enhance oneself. All that peak Srs could do was smash the fifth supernatural lock. It was up to luck whether or not they would seed, and there was no path avable to them if they couldn¡¯t locate their lock like Hao Lianchuan.

    Liu Long nodded and dropped the subject. ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought that there¡¯d be so many brothers still pursuing martial dao? Sixteen of them... The guy took twenty with him that year, which means there have been no fatalities in all this time. He¡¯s got some skill.¡±

    The man grew despondent again. No one died following Wang Henggang, whereas his people died in droves. The Demon Hunters had lost many, but they chose him and didn¡¯t look back, each and every single one of them.

    ¡°That¡¯s different!¡± Li Hao said. ¡°The Inspectorate is only in charge of inner city security. This is White Moon City with countless powerhouses. The Night Watchers oversee the critical issues and the army is also here. Who would dare make trouble in White Moon City? Executing daily missions naturally minimizes losses. It¡¯s apletely different situation, chief.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Liu Long knew that Li Hao wasforting him, so he swiftly regained control of his mood.

    His mindset had always been alright, but seeing the old friend that he¡¯d disagreed with back in the day had set him back a little. He saw for himself how strong the other was, how the brothers he¡¯d taken with him were all safe and well. In the meantime, Liu Long was weak and half of his brothers were injured or dead.

    Li Hao had nothing further to say. He thought for a bit and made certain calctions. Thirty from the Sword Sect and another sixteen here made for forty-six total. Added to that Liu Long, Liu Yan, Wu Chao, Chen Jian, and excluding himself, that made for fifty. He¡¯d managed toplete just half of his team.

    This wasn¡¯t including Golden Spear¡¯s promise of being able tomandeer thirty-seven people from the Guards. If they were included, that made for eighty-seven. He would be very close topleting his team then. However, he had no intention of shifting people from the other teams. Everyone flowed smoothly through practice, losing a member here or there could immensely irritate the teams.

    Fifty people were enough. He would make fifty-one. Two Dominators, twenty Sunderers, twenty-nine yers. There were quite a few Sunderers and naturally, his ratio of yers to the rest of the team was highpared to the rest. But he had suits of ck armor, so it didn¡¯t matter. yers would field equally powerful defensive capabilities if they wore it.

    Ah yes, could the armor be opened? They should be, possibly thanks to Hou Xiaochen. The armor was hard to sh through even with Steris. It was possibly the only weapon that could.

    ¡°If all twenty-nine yers be Sunderers... Strength of internal force is the only consideration when ites to yers setting foot into Sunderers. The aura is irrelevant, so blood pearls, sword energy, mysterious power stones, and unattributed mysterious power are all very effective methods to enhance yers!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s first thought was to raise his entire team to the Sunderer level. Outfitted with ck armor, this would be a formidable team. He wouldn¡¯t need to worry about being attacked by Sunres. Two or three Sunderers working in tandem could absolutely turn the tables. The big caveat was if their speed could keep up. These Sunderers were a little less than ideal as their speed couldn¡¯t necessarily catch up to others.

    Various thoughts floated into Li Hao¡¯s mind. Wang Henggang walked back in at this time, wearing a fresh uniform. Smiling faintly, he waved his hand and instantly filled in the broken wall. Such are the terrifying capabilities of earth supernaturals! They were first ss at building structures!

    ¡°Heroese from the young, alright!¡± Wang Henggang sighed with appreciation, finally having the ability to closely inspect Li Hao. ¡°With your strength... probably only Golden Spear can defeat you in the Guards!¡±

    He sat down with a shake of his head and looked at Liu Long. ¡°What brings you to your senses and to White Moon City? You weren¡¯t willing when I invited you, but you¡¯re willing when Li Hao does?¡±

    ¡°Was your timing the same as the timing now?¡± Liu Long sneered. ¡°Supernaturals ran rampant everywhere then, but they¡¯re mostly dead now. The four institutions are cleaning house and individual supernaturals can¡¯t run fast enough. But in those times, these lone wolves werepletely out of control and killed people everywhere. If I left then, Silver City would be long destroyed!¡±

    ¡°I understand everything you say, Ole Liu, but you know Mu Sen. He¡¯s not weak. Silver City¡¯s safety was guaranteed with him present.¡±

    ¡°Inspector General Mu hides himself too deeply,¡± Li Hao interjected. "We normally can¡¯t tell.¡±

    Wang Henggang thought for a bit and nodded in agreement. That fatty was just as shameless as his brother. He knew Mu Lin and had a rtionship with the man. As two practitioners of the Iron Shirt discipline, they¡¯d once engaged in a sparring match. Wang Henggang won by a small margin, but he wasn¡¯t much stronger as Mu Lin was also very strong.

    The inspector general set the affairs of yesteryear out of mind. Each decision had their own pros and cons, there was no talk of right and wrong. He didn¡¯t think that he¡¯d done wrong either.

    ¡°Ole Liu, I¡¯ll have them report to the Silver Moon Guards tomorrow. No one will decline when they know that it¡¯s you.¡± Wang Henggang turned to Li Hao. ¡°We¡¯re all Silver City brothers, Li Hao, so I¡¯ll speak frankly. These days, someone from a shared hometown is more reliable than outsiders, so this warrants special attention. I know a bit about the Guards¡ªit¡¯s a very dangerous ce, much more dangerous than the Inspectorate. Some of these brothers aren¡¯t spring chickens anymore. They won¡¯t have another chance if they miss this one.

    ¡°I considered having them join the Guards after the faction moved toward taking its ce in the light. Now that you and Ole Liu have found your footing in the Guards, the situation is better than I thought it would be.¡±

    He¡¯d agreed so readily due to this consideration. He¡¯d already thought of sending his men to the Guards when it emerged from the shadows. Apart from the Guards, it was supernaturals that dominated all other fields. Martial masters were not in a good spot in this world.

    Since he¡¯d discussed this possibility with his men early on, he didn¡¯t bother asking for their opinion now. There wouldn¡¯t be much opposition and this turn of events was even more up their alley. While Li Hao may not be familiar with them, Liu Long would be! Liu Yan and the others had also worked with the people he¡¯d taken¡ªthey¡¯d all been part of thew enforcement team.

    It could be said that Li Hao¡¯s arrival fit in readily with his ns!

    ¡°Then it¡¯s settled!¡± Liu Long rose to leave. The discussion was concluded and he couldn¡¯t be bothered to say another word to Wang Henggang.

    The inspector general raised a hand to stop him. ¡°What are you in such a hurry for? We old friends are finally meeting after so many years. Stay for a meal.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to eat with you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Henggang broke out inughter and looked at Li Hao. The young man shrugged. <i>Don¡¯t look at me, what chief says goes.</i>

    ¡°Let¡¯s share a meal and I¡¯ll send the brothers with a nice treasure when they go to the Guards tomorrow.¡± Wang Henggang grinned.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°A supernatural! The Inspectorate hasn¡¯t been stuck in ce over these years. Apart from nurturing martial masters and supernaturals, we¡¯ve also created some special weapons. There isn¡¯t much to the rest, but the supernatural is quite something!

    ¡°Ites from the central region and even mundanes can use it. A supernatural weapon is fashioned from arge containing ice crystals mixed with other special materials. Not even Sunres are able to withstand it if thees down over the target. Their strength is suppressed and their mysterious power immensely affected...¡±

    ¡°Why doesn¡¯t Silver City have this?¡± Liu Long raised a brow.

    ¡°There are very few of them. The Night Watchers took a few, leaving only three for the Inspectorate. I¡¯ll have them bring one over tomorrow. The production method is so unique that imitations are impossible.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s interest was piqued. ¡°Is it effective only against Sunres?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Srs are too hard to cope with!¡± Wang Henggang shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s already fast progress to create a supernatural object effective against Sunres within twenty years. Sunres are the peak of power to mid and low level power structures. Srs rarely appear in the public eye, which makes this enough.¡±

    There were too fews. The central region sent a dozen over. Wang Henggang had been able toy hands on three because the White Moon Inspectorate was in charge of handling the capital¡¯s affairs.

    Liu Long considered the proposal, then nodded. They could eat together!

    Wang Henggang smiled and had men ry orders for people to prepare a meal at the Inspectorate. He was the inspector general, no one would gainsay him.

    ......

    <i>Noon.</i>

    <i>The Inspectorate¡¯s internal cafeteria, the second floor.</i>

    Wang Henggang didn¡¯t normally drink, but he had plenty of wine prepared today. He insisted on pouring for Liu Long. Liu Long didn¡¯t drink either, but didn¡¯t turn the man down.

    ¡°Ole Liu, I want to say something from the heart. When I chose to stay in White Moon, I also meant to fight for Silver City. I don¡¯t care if you believe me or not, I have no reason to lie to you.

    ¡°The province wanted to migrate all of the small cities then, but no one could speak on Silver City¡¯s behalf in the capital. No one would help us. I stayed and searched for opportunities, climbing to the position of inspector general of White Moon City after a few years. If migration was on the agenda again, at least I had a seat at the table...

    ¡°Those guys wanted to split up the people simply because we had no one backing us!¡± Wang Henggang sneered. ¡°If we moved, there were only a million of us to settle. White Moon is a metropolis that contains thirty million people. Any of its supernaturals could mobilize to create a small city near White Moon. It would be no trouble to shelter a million denizens!

    ¡°Fertile farnd can be found all around White Moon, much of it lying fallow. Silver City people are a sturdy bunch. If we settle down here, it would only be a few years before we recovered...¡±

    Liu Long didn¡¯t say anything. Only Wang Henggang himself knew if these words were real or fake.

 Chapter 378: The Five Styles Leap Over the Sea (II)

    <h4>Chapter 378: The Five Styles Leap Over the Sea (II)</h4>

    But if Wang Henggang really continued upward and reached Kong Jie¡¯s position, then a mere Silver City with its one million inhabitants would bepletely up to his discretion even if it was ted for migration.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t normally drink, yet he followed the other two in taking a sip. It burned all the way down; he smacked his lips and drank some tea before chuckling, ¡°Big brother Wang, why did you have your sights set on White Moon City? As small as Silver City is, emptynd borders us on every front. You can expand in any way you want from north to south to east to west!

    ¡°Silver City was the capital of Silver Moon back in the day. When we grow stronger, we¡¯ll call the shots! What talk of migration... It should be more of you guys migrating to us!¡±

    ¡°Those are nice ambitions!¡± Wang Henggangughed uproariously, truly treating it as a joke.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t weak and he wasn¡¯t weak. They were powerhouses from Silver City. But it was almost impossible for the vast Silver Moon to treat it as its core again. Silver City did indeed have numerous empty lots around it. It¡¯d been quite big before and some of the older neighborhoods were outright abandoned when it declined.

    It used to be the province¡¯s capital, after all. It was a pity that transportation was inconvenient and its infrastructure outdated. A massive mountain range was found in the north, supposedly bordering other nations. Moving toward Silver City would truly be asking for trouble.

    Wang Henggang was also well aware of how many powerhouses White Moon possessed. All of them hid and concealed themselves. As one of their number, he knew some of the details. Li Hao was spewing utter drivel; the kid had only needed a small sip to be inebriated!

    ¡°Wang, you treat it like a joke, but I think of it as real!¡± Liu Long was abruptly filled with heroic air. ¡°Why not? Silver City isn¡¯t worse than any other ce. While it may not be the capital again, what¡¯s wrong with having two cores of the province? With Rift Canyon as the boundary, everything to the south falls to White Moon City. Everything to the north can be assigned to Silver City. What¡¯s so inconceivable about that?

    ¡°We can rebuild Rift Bridge to connect north and south again. Silver Moon is most suited for a twin core situation. When only White Moon City is the heart, the sixteen cities in the north suffer untold bitterness!¡±

    It was a coincidence that Rift Canyon split the thirty-two cities of Silver Moon into sixteen on each side. The province had indeed operated under a twin core in the past; Silver City had beenter demoted. The sixteen cities in the north truly eked out a tough existence; the southern sixteen basked beneath the glow of White Moon City. And with re City rapidly developing, the southern sixteen cities as a whole were more prosperous than the north, which naturally made for more powerhouses.

    ¡°Twin cores?¡± Wang Henggang blinked, then quicklyughed. ¡°Let¡¯s work in that direction then!¡±

    He wasn¡¯t discouraging them. He wanted to do the same thing, but knew that it was too hard. It wasn¡¯t just a matter of strength, but also ofbor, resources, and vast sums of day-to-day living from the citizenry. These were all hard to resolve.

    While old grudges were not fully eliminated after a meal, no one mentioned them again. After lunch, Li Hao and Liu Long took their leave.

    ......

    <i>Inside the car.</i>

    Li Hao drove back while Liu Long stared off into space in the passenger seat. He jerked to his senses after the young man veered into arge rock. Used to such urrences, Liu Long suddenly asked, ¡°Li Hao, do you think my earlier boasting is possible?¡±

    ¡°Is it supposed to be hard to achieve?¡± Li Haoughed and rolled down the window, pointing ahead of them to crush therge rock beneath the tire. The car continued forward. ¡°A twin core system works the best for Silver Moon, but Director Hou and the others aren¡¯t willing to split their attention between two ces after the rise of the supernatural. It will only create openings for others to move in.

    ¡°Silver Moon possesses wealth, resources, and people. It justcks powerhouses to anchor the north. If we develop to Director Hou¡¯s level and don¡¯t need White Moon to shoulder any costs, the capital will naturally approve of our n.¡±

    ¡°Director Hou¡¯s level...¡± Liu Long became lost in a daze. Killing a Nova with one spear jab? Was that possible?

    ¡°Chief, I¡¯ve got it,¡± Li Hao raised. ¡°The team can familiarize itself with each other over the next two days and run some drills. After that, we¡¯ll take them past Rift Canyon and toward the north!¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll sweep the northern sixteen cities of their supernaturals!¡± Li Hao said merrily. ¡°The four institutions are present in the south, so we can¡¯t get a share of the pie. Therefore, we should head north. That¡¯s where our home city is located and there ought to be numerous active supernaturals there right now...

    ¡°Additionally, let¡¯s call our team the Demon Hunters! The Silver City Demon Hunters... Forget it, it¡¯d be inappropriate to affix Silver City to it. Not that many in the Sword Sect are from Silver City, so let¡¯s just call it the Demon Hunters!

    ¡°We can¡¯t let our little team disappear like this. Our mission statement is still the same as before¡ªto uphold justice!¡±

    <i>Upholding justice... hunting down demons!</i>

    Liu Long looked around nkly and nced at Li Hao, unable to make a sound for a long time. Did the team he¡¯d created still exist? It ran beyond his expectations that Li Hao would name this new team the Demon Hunters.

    ¡°Chief...¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Liu Long blossomed with joy and asked excitedly, ¡°Then... we call it the Demon Hunters?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± chuckled the young man. ¡°Let¡¯s not go back yet, I¡¯ll take you to view the sea. How about it, chief?¡±

    ¡°The sea...¡± Liu Long¡¯s eyes widened and he nodded. <i>Let¡¯s go look at the sea.</i> It¡¯d been a long time since he¡¯d visited.

    ......

    <i>The Moon Sea.</i>

    A car stopped several thousand meters away from the Guardsplex. The beach was ahead, an unbounded ocean on the other side.

    Li Hao stopped the car, alighted, and sank deeply into the sand when he stepped down with his leather boots. He looked into the distance with appreciation, ¡°This is a bay formed by the sea? There doesn¡¯t seem to be an end to it... and it¡¯s only part of the sea?¡±

    He could look very far into the distance. But no matter how far he peered, he couldn¡¯t see the end. If this was just part of the North Sea, how majestic and imposing must the North Sea be?

    The sea was very calm at the moment with no sign of the surging, billowing waves that everyone spoke of. Liu Long also got out of the car and smiled into the distance.

    ¡°The Moon Sea is big, but it¡¯s said that the North Sea is even grander! I¡¯ve never been to the North Sea, I¡¯ve only ever seen the Moon Sea.

    ¡°What a pity that there are no waves today or you¡¯d see more than this. Although the Moon Sea is just part of the sea, it¡¯s still immensely frightening when the wavese!¡±

    ¡°Chief, has your water wave aura improvedtely?¡±

    ¡°A little.¡±

    ¡°Then... would you like to have some fun in the sea?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Liu Long looked nkly at Li Hao.

    ¡°The water wave aura is most suited for a ce with water. There are no waves here, chief. As a Dominator, a walking god... You can go create waves when there aren¡¯t any. Show me what it means to be a real god!¡±

    Liu Long blinked. <i>The hell?! You want me to get in there to create waves for you?? Get this straight, this is the sea! It¡¯s not a river or a pond. I can easily overturn any of those, but this is the Moon Sea! The kid thinks too highly of me!</i>

    ¡°Go and try, chief!¡±

    ¡°You...¡± Liu Long was speechless, but suddenly smiled. ¡°Alright!¡±

    <i>I¡¯ll give it a try! </i>He shot upward and raced for the sea. <i>Here goes nothing!</i>

    This was his first time visiting the Moon Sea afterprehending the aura. It was a calm and quiet day without wind or waves. That made it rather pointless to look at the sea. One needed to gaze upon its grand scale if observing the deep blue!

    Liu Long shot out and appeared over the sea in the blink of an eye. He touched down lightly on the surface, walking on water. Meanwhile, Li Hao also shot up and swiftlynded within the waters.

    A heroic air suddenly seized Liu Long and he strode out several hundred meters along the water surface until he was almost one thousand meters away from shore.

    ¡°I can¡¯t create waves if I¡¯m too close!¡± he called out. ¡°This is good. Li Hao, I¡¯ll let you see the water ripple aura!¡±

    He punched out when his words fell. <i>Boom! </i>A massive waveyered nine times appeared as a fist punched through the water surface. Some ripples appeared in the tranquil sea, disturbances that were quickly absorbed by the sea and creating a small wave in the distance.

    On Li Hao¡¯s side, the water surface simply undted once with almost no reaction. Who knew, perhaps this undtion existed to begin with. The calmest water surface would certainly experience some ebb and flows.

    Liu Long looked on a bit awkwardly from afar. He roared again and punched once more. Water sttered everywhere as nineyers of waves swept through the area!

    A small vortex formed with the explosion this time and caused fluctuations in the nearby currents. But... that was all!

    Liu Long frowned and roared another time! Punch after punch came as theyers of waves built. Li Hao watched silently, eventually glimpsing a wave building in the distance. It wasn¡¯t big as it rose only a little over the water surface. The wave started churning toward shore, one building upon the next...

    It was still very calm, there was nothing frightening about the phenomenon at all. Liu Long brought his full strength to bear as he hollered with all his might, punching to create a white line along the water surface.

    Waves began rolling through the sea as they towered, each higher than the one before! The waves came in an unceasing roll, apanied by the roar of the water. They moved toward Li Hao¡ªfive hundred meters, three hundred, one hundred...

    When they were one hundred meters away, the umted waves were several meters taller than the water surface. The waves moved faster; Li Hao¡¯s eyes sharpened when they were less than thirty meters from him.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The somewhat weak waves pped the reefs by the shore. The waves exploded and sea spray covered Li Hao! The young man didn¡¯t step away¡ªhis eyes darted around as he punched out. He could vaguely hear the sound of waves through his blow.

    His punch shattered only the water in front of him. More waves crashed upon him after that!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    It was just sprays of water, but they crashed upon the stones with the roar of a missile bombardment. Li Hao¡¯s face stung from the force of thest wave.

    <i>The waves andyering them!</i>

    These were just Liu Long¡¯s creations. He waved his fists around again and again a thousand meters away, continuously creating waves. He was in a fine mood as he punched with gusto, but he soon sensed something different.

    His face immediately changed when he looked into the distance. There seemed to be thunderclouds gathering there and a faint wind slowly building. The sea wind wasn¡¯t big at first, but it started whipping into a bigger gale. The thunderclouds also approached at fast speed...

    The wind was overwhelming in the blink of an eye. Liu Long ran as soon as he registered the development. He was in over his head! No, this wasn¡¯t his yground anymore. The sea breezes truly had picked up today. So Li Hao wanted to see the waves? He had his chance to now!

 Chapter 379: The Five Styles Leap Over the Sea (III)

    <h4>Chapter 379: The Five Styles Leap Over the Sea (III)</h4>

    Li Hao was still pping the waves by the shore. He smiled when he saw Liu Long rush back.

    ¡°Chief, this is nice, but it doesn¡¯t seem that much different than river water. Well, seawater is salty...¡±

    Liu Long wanted to give him a warning, but decided not to say anything when he registered the young man¡¯s attitude. No matter how big they were, they wouldn¡¯t kill Li Hao, right?

    ¡°Mm, they¡¯re alright. Wait a bit longer, watch out for another surge of small waves iing.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± Li Hao chuckled merrily. The wind soon picked up where he was and grew so big that it was ufortable to endure. When he looked up at the sky and saw that patch of thunderclouds... There was a tall white wall in the distance¡ªno, that wasn¡¯t a wall, but something created by the towering waves.

    The look in the young man¡¯s eyes shifted. Were these the real waves? Were they mighty? He wanted to give them a try!

    <i>Splish ssh!</i>

    Water undtions abounded as Liu Long made it back to the shore. Heughed when he saw that Li Hao was still waiting. <i>Kid, you¡¯ll get it in a moment. You won¡¯t think you¡¯re all that afterward!</i>

    A p of thunder echoed among the clouds just as Liu Long cackled!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A wave crashed down like thunder and lightning! Li Hao swayed in the wind and rain. He stomped down on seawater and leapt into the air, punching with a furious tiger roar that was drowned out by the waves. He wanted to see if this wave could suppress his fist!

    <i>WHAM!</i>

    Li Haoughed as he punched straight through a wave, so that was all there was to it! He jerked his head up with astonishment the next second. There was more?

    A second wave reared!

    Li Hao roared as well. <i>WHAM!</i> Another wave scattered.

    He didn¡¯t have a chance to look before the third wave crashed down and smacked him in the face, turning him into a bedraggled drowned cat. The young man shouted and waved his fist around!

    <i>Wham!</i>

    <i>Wham!</i>

    <i>Wham!</i>

    Unceasingyer afteryer unfurled like the Nine Forged Force. Giant waves came one after another. Li Hao was exceedingly strong to be able to break them each time they came. But once, twice, thrice...

    He couldn¡¯t keep up after several hundred times and started cursing inwardly. <i>That¡¯s enough!</i>

    Every wave he punched through caused subsequent waves to churn even stronger. Each wave was higher than the one before. This was when Li Hao finally realized that the power of nature was truly interminable without end!

    He would¡¯ve beaten his opponent to death a long time ago if they were human. But he faced waves, not a human. The waves were inexhaustible and tireless, growingrger the more one hit them!

    Li Hao roared and sent the tiger punch outward, boom!

    An even taller wave bore down on him, crashing so utterly that the ferocious tiger fell silent. Another punch and another crash!

    Li Hao furiously fought the waves like a demented fool. Meanwhile, Liu Long frowned as he watched from the shore. The waves were growing stronger. They hadn¡¯t been that big before, but thed was smashing them into everrger versions of themselves.

    Li Hao seemed to be a mad dog who didn¡¯t know the definition of weariness. Everything he punched out was absorbed by the sea to create even stronger waves. Would he punch a tidal wave into existence if this continued?

    ¡°He... shouldn¡¯t! Right?¡±

    ......

    ¡°Hoo!¡± Li Hao panted, in an excellent mood. The waves,yered force... This was his first time sensing theyered nature of the waves, an unending motion that consecutively arrived. He was very excited and wanted to holler a few times. This ce was very suited to practice the Nine Forged Force! It was a natural enemy that did not require anyone¡¯spany to train. All one had to do was continuously punch the waves for a training partner.

    <i>Punch, punch, punch...</i>

    Nineyers ovepped each other. Li Hao¡¯s powers of imitation were very strong. Simply perceiving the continuous intery of force between the waves and the unending interaction between them brought him deeper understanding of the Nine Forged Force.

    He didn¡¯t want to perceive the aura yet, he just wanted to swiftly propel his understanding to eightyers. When hepleted nineyers after that, it might naturally give rise to the water ripple aura.

    The waves in front of him grew stronger, as if angry that a human would dare bring their strength against the heavens!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Li Hao stumbled slightly when the waves crashed into him. This was stunning, they were starting to physically move him! These waves were growing ever stronger!

    ¡°Li Hao,e back!¡±

    ¡°Wait!¡± roared the young man. What was he going back for? This ce was eminently suited for practicing the Nine Forged Force! He punched out again.

    <i>Wham!</i>

    The waves towered overhead...

    Unceasing without end, the unending waves were met with Li Hao¡¯s equally untiring fists. He was very strong. Though he couldn¡¯t beat the waves to death, he felt that he could stand here and punch for a few hours with no problem.

    The waves picked up speed as his thoughts ran wild. It wasn¡¯t one wave this time, but a series that crashed consecutively onto the shore. There was no break between them as they mmed into Li Hao. Finally, internal force manifested over Li Hao¡¯s body to defend against the onught. He could sense that eightyers of force were on the verge of manifesting. It was so nice to train here!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Another loud collision sounded as Li Hao was mmed into the sand by an incredibly tall wave. He was plowed deep into the ground. The young man swiftly crawled out and was promptly met with another wave that pped his face.

    ......

    <i>By the shore.</i>

    Liu Long sighed. That idiot... was being so childish at his first sighting of the sea. This was the sea, not ake. There were borders to ake that stopped even the greatest wave and prevented it from further umting strength. The sea, however, was boundless without end. The more one resisted, the more strength it answered with. Waves from the back propelled waves in the front. As undtions fluctuated, they sometimes sentrge waves from elsewhere toward the one resisting.

    <i>You¡¯lle back with a face full of snot and tears after a while, kid.</i> Liu Long sat down to quietly appreciate the show.

    Li Hao tirelessly fought enormous waves in the sea, roaring and snarling with effort. The cries had a difficult time traveling¡ªonly the sounds of waves churning through the water did.

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    The area quickly turned into one of exploding thunder and lightning. The sound reverberated so much that the nearby Silver Moon Guards felt the craziness of the waves.

    Ten minutes, twenty minutes...

    An incredible wave sent Li Hao flying after half an hour; the young man crashed into the water. An even stronger wave smashed down before he had a chance to crawl back up. They gave him no chance to react; waves drilled him into the water one after another.

    Upon the shore, Liu Long frowned. This wouldn¡¯t kill the kid, would it? The waves were starting to reach him on the shore.

    Off in the distance, Li Hao was thrown up into the air. He quickly scampered for higher ground, but was brought down into the water again. He was quickly expending stamina and couldn¡¯t help but yell, ¡°Chief, when will this thing... cough cough... stop!¡±

    Liu Long could barely make out his words and had no response.<i> It doesn¡¯t stop. It¡¯s not like there¡¯s no solution though, just stop resisting and quietly enjoy it for a bit. The sea will naturally stop when it¡¯s had its fun.</i>

    Li Hao seemed to understand the logic this time. He stopped resisting and allowed the sea to fling him wherever it would. He was thrown out of the sea and mmed down again, then flung elsewhere...

    He was buffeted back and forth like a ball by the enormous waves. It took more than ten minutes for the waves to gradually die down; no tsunami was forting.

    ......

    Half an hourter, Li Hao crawled up from the beach covered in sand. Liu Long reached out to pluck a crab off his head.

    ¡°How do you feel?¡± he asked with a smile.

    ¡°Damn nice!¡± Li Hao panted happily. ¡°I definitely learned something new today! Nature is the most fearsome! The more I hit back, the more it came at me until I conceded! But I was also worried about affecting the Guardsplex if I created an even bigger wave. Otherwise I could¡¯ve hung on!¡±

    Liu Long was speechless. Hadn¡¯t this guy expended enough internal force already? Granted, he¡¯d been able to fight for a full day when they sparred. There was nothing he could say. If he¡¯d been the ones struck by the waves, he would¡¯ve lost the strength to counterattack long ago.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go, we can have some seafood when we get back...¡± Liu Long picked up anotherrge crab, a sea fish, and some shellfish...

    Li Hao cackled and spat out some sand. He took stock of his body and suddenly punched out, running away as he did so. The punch brought forth eightyers of force! Overjoyed, the young man continued running.

    Liu Long blinked and looked at Li Hao, lost in thought. He was so distracted that he was drenched by a counterblow from the sea. He didn¡¯t mind much and smiled at the fleeing Li Hao. The kid seriously had talent! Eightyers of force! Although it wasn¡¯t the full Nine Forged Force, it hadn¡¯t been long since he¡¯d learned the method!

    Even if his physique was so strong that it was ridiculous, being able to create eightyers of force in one punch within such a short period of time was immeasurable.

    ¡°Chief, I¡¯m going to fight the sea again when I can manage nineyers!¡± Li Hao roared withughter off in the distance. He couldn¡¯t beat it now; the sea was boundless without end and the waves never stoppeding. He was tired after his earlier exertions.

    Liu Long shook his head without a word. He looked at the recovering sea and suddenly punched out. Waves spread from the point of impact¡ª<i>boom!</i>

    Arge hole appeared in the deep blue as seawater churned into a vortex. Liu Long watched for a bit, leaving only when the vortex slowly dissipated. He had some new reflections to mull over¡ªtheyering of waves and the power of a vortex...

    ......

    <i>At the end of the Moon Sea, upon an even greater expanse of water.</i>

    A ferocious tiger roared as it swallowed a mighty powerhouse. Its ws shed out to rip apart the humanoid shadow in its stomach!

    The tiger disassembled into a human figure. Yuan Shuo heaved for breath and cackled. The water tiger aura!

    His fire heart ape had reached perfection, as had his water kidney tiger. Not only that, but his third aura was on the verge of perfection as well. When these three were melded together, he¡¯d dare fight even a Nova¡ªbut it was unknown whether or not he¡¯d win.

    Yuan Shuo breathed out after killing the peak Sr. He shed a scarlet shadow out of the void, it disappeared as the stone de absorbed it with gusto. Yuan Shuo transformed back into a ferocious tiger and padded away on the water surface, vanishing on the spot.

    Li Hao¡¯s tiger was of fire, but Yuan Shuo¡¯s was of water. A tiger was the king of the mountain, but this one was the tyrant of the seas and cavorted throughout the North Sea.

    Another figure descended a long while after Yuan Shuo left. Unfortunately, all traces of fighting had been washed away by the waters. There was nothing to observe. A powerful personage looked around with a frosty look.

    Yuan Shuo... really was something!

    He¡¯d thought that the Five Styles King would be powerless within the sea, but it turned out he was still as mighty as ever. The Five Styles... the five beasts... When did they start running through the sea?

    ¡°Send word that Yuan Shuo might have crossed the North Sea and entered the central region!¡± someone said grimly as more figures converged. Nearby Ghostfaces immediately vanished.

    Yuan Shuo might be entering the central region.

 Chapter 380: The Demon Hunters Assemble (I)

    <h4>Chapter 380: The Demon Hunters Assemble (I)</h4>

    It was another day in the blink of an eye.

    September 14th. A sunny day. With the arrival of sixteen martial masters from the Inspectorate, the Demon Hunters suddenly had fifty-one members.

    <i>In the training za.</i>

    All fifty martial masters of the team were present and feeling a bit of trepidation. The Demon Hunters team could be split into two factions¡ªthe Silver City faction and the Sword Sect faction. Those from the Inspectorate were Liu Long¡¯s old acquaintances. Some were even his formerw enforcement members who¡¯d left with Wang Henggang many years ago.

    Whether it was the Sword Sect martial masters or Inspectorate martial masters, everyone was slightly apprehensive. They were unfamiliar with Li Hao and hadn¡¯t personally requested this opportunity to join his team. It was their sect master or inspector general who¡¯d rmended the action. Both Hong Yitang and Wang Henggang spoke very highly of Li Hao¡ªbut the group in the za felt the young man might be overrated.

    There were many other martial masters on the sidelines watching the show. No one had thought that Li Hao would so quickly collect his team. Although he hadn¡¯t filled out a fullplement of one hundred, it¡¯d only been a few days! Already recruiting fifty was an immense surprise.

    Other than the Silver Moon Guards, there really weren¡¯t that many martial masters in the wild anymore. The Sword Sect might be the province¡¯srgest martial dao sect these days, even though their sect master was a supernatural.

    Li Hao was yet to arrive; gossip flurried through some of the martial masters.

    ¡°A bunch of rookie plebes!¡±

    ¡°But honestly, they¡¯re decent enough. Apparently, both the Sword Sect and Inspectorate think highly of that one. There¡¯s quite a few Sunderers and one Dominator among them.¡±

    ¡°Liu Long?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, that¡¯s him.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not bad, but it¡¯s not like he¡¯s that strong since he¡¯s just set foot into Dominator.¡±

    ¡°Do you think that guy will transfer some of us? There¡¯s only fifty in his team at the moment. Sir Golden Spear apparently said that he can pull three from each team and ten from his bodyguards.¡±

    ¡°Are you going?¡±

    ¡°Hells no!¡±

    ¡°Then that¡¯s it. I¡¯m not going if he wants me to go either. They¡¯re just a bunch of rookies. They may be strong, but so many of them relied on mysterious power to get where they are. They¡¯re even less than those supernaturals with a variety of measures to get stronger!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Comments flew thick and fast. The martial masters kept their voices down, but so many people were discussing the neers that it created quite some pressure for the Demon Hunters team. There were almost one hundred half step Dominators in the area. The congregation of so much aura made the subjects of discussion nervous. After all, their strongest waste Sunderer. Liu Long was a Dominator, but he was as still as a Buddha statue at the moment. He was so unmoving that no one knew what he was thinking.

    The martial masters from the other teams weren¡¯t the only observers¡ªDominators on the stage near the center of the za were also watching. They just weren¡¯t as overt as the martial masters crowding the Demon Hunters.

    ¡°He¡¯s fast enough,¡± snorted the ferocious Chen Jin. ¡°He¡¯s got so many people after just a few days. Earthturner Sword¡¯s willing enough¡ªhe even sent his own daughter!¡±

    The sight of Li Hao deeply irked Chen Jin as he was the heir of Mountain Ax. That feeling remained even after being beaten up by the young man. Next to him, the towering heir of the Luo spear¡ªLuo Qizhao of the slender armsughed at those words.

    ¡°You should talk more softly,¡± he said in a low voice. ¡°Or have you not been beaten up enough?¡±

    Chen Jin flicked a nce at him. ¡°And were you not beaten up yourself?¡±<i> Who are youughing at!</i>

    Out of the nine centurions, five had lost to the young man and the remaining four didn¡¯t even have the chance to take the field.

    ¡°Couldn¡¯t help it, we were no match for him.¡± Instead of flying into a rage, Luo Qizhao smiled. ¡°But he¡¯s brought in Liu Long... Silver Spear¡¯s heir. He¡¯s got some strength. What do you guys think, will we be able to handle Liu Long if he wants to fight?¡±

    ¡°Him?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s a fresh Dominator, all of us have been at this stage for several years. We¡¯ve spent a lot of time with various daoprehension weapons and absorbed mysterious power stones... There¡¯s been arge share of treasuresing our way. Liu Long falls short in this regard.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t forget though, Silver City people are freaks. Setting aside the Five Styles King, how long has it been since Li Hao set foot onto the path of martial dao? Liu Long might be the same as them.¡±

    Silver City¡¯s Dominators had progressed this year, but each was stronger and more terrifying than the rest. They improved at an unbelievable speed.

    As one of the few female martial masters, Xie Lan interrupted their discussion with a frown. ¡°Is Li Hao officially establishing his team by assembling his people here? He hasn¡¯t filled out his ranks yet and they don¡¯t know the Guards¡¯ Skyjade Formation... It won¡¯t be convenient for him if he starts practicing first and slowly fills in the gaps after.¡±

    The Silver Moon Guards possessed an army formation called the Skyjade Formation. It could be fielded with one thousand or one hundred people. They usually trained one hundred to a formation, but the entire army unit trained together every five days to familiarize themselves with the formation. This ensured they would be able to respond adequately in the case of meeting with a strong enemy.

    Li Hao did not have a full one hundred yet and his people were all new. It would be difficult for them to learn the formation.

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to train with him,¡± Chen Jin snorted. ¡°Not to mention, the formation can only host one thousand people. We already have 980 of us. They would put us over the limit...¡±

    ¡°Chen Jin!¡± rebuked a martial master off to the side. ¡°Enough! We know that his master killed your master, so it¡¯s normal for you to be irritated at the sight of him. But don¡¯t forget that this is the Silver Moon Guards. No one will say anything in normal times, but be careful of problems developing if you continue to nurse resentment!¡±

    Grudges abounded among martial masters. In the martial world, those on opposing sides either never crossed paths again, took revenge, or forsook their hatred. But after joining the Silver Moon Guards, all of that was left in the past. Enormous trouble would develop if martial masters pursued their feuds to the bitter end.

    Although Chen Jin spoke no more, bitterness overflowed from his eyes. The others didn¡¯t try to speak more sense into him. If this was out in the world, the two would have to fight to the death if they met. It was good enough that they could coexist peacefully.

    Li Hao approached from a distance as the group chatted. He was followed by Golden Spear and Mu Lin. Upon seeing thetter, everyone knew that the young man was truly establishing his team today.

    ......

    ¡°Li Hao,¡± Mu Lin transmitted. ¡°You don¡¯t have a full contingent yet and you¡¯re not willing to transfer the veterans... Isn¡¯t it too early to formally establish your team? Both boss and the director mean for you to do this at the end of the year...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s about time!¡± Li Hao replied without a change in expression. ¡°Establishing it early means getting to work early. That means we earn money earlier! I¡¯m almost too poor to live.¡±

    Mu Lin didn¡¯t have a response for that, neither did the young man say anything else. He swiftly walked ahead, parting the way through the observing martial masters. This one was not a kind soul and was not someone to provoke.

    Li Hao walked very, very quickly until he reached his people. He cut straight to the chase without pleasantries or greetings. ¡°I won¡¯t bother with extraneous words. Everyone¡¯s here because we want to grow stronger! I, Li Hao, am a rookie who doesn¡¯t know anything about operations or partnership. Thus, the Demon Hunters need everyone to work together with utmost sincerity so that we can make a name for ourselves!

    ¡°I don¡¯t have that many merits, but neither do I have that many demerits. If I am to prove myself to you, I speak only of strength!¡± He pointed at the centurions standing in the distance. ¡°I defeated five of those nine Dominators a few days ago and the remaining four didn¡¯t dare fight me together. If that still doesn¡¯t prove my strength, all of you can attack me in however many numbers you want. What you say goes if you defeat me, if not, my word isw!¡±

    He spoke loudly enough that unpleasant expressions appeared on the centurions¡¯ faces, but they didn¡¯t say anything. They had indeed been defeated, what could they say about that? Li Hao was stepping on them in public, but they had to resign themselves to their fates.

    Over on the Demon Hunters side, not everyone knew about what his spoke of. Some of them looked at the centurions with strange looks, shock reverberating in their hearts. What their leader said was real! None of the nine was a match for him. So this disciple of the Five Styles is very, very strong¡ªat least among martial masters!

    No wonder the sect master (inspector general) praised him so effusively. Martial masters spoke of strength; all the rest could be spoken ofter. So long as Li Hao led with a rtively fair hand and didn¡¯t nitpick at his people or purposefully send them to death, he would be a good leader in their eyes. Martial masters were that simple at times. These words were easy to say, but hard to execute.

    ¡°There are only fifty in our hundred person team at the moment,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°If I¡¯m not included, we happen to have precisely half of the amount we need. I don¡¯t intend to recruit more for the moment as too many people makes it inconvenient. Fifty is enough, and we¡¯ll be called the Demon Hunters in the future!

    ¡°Just call me leader¡ªcenturion is too small of a title!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Golden Spear and Mu Lin watched silently from behind. The title was too small? Was this boy even listening to himself?

    ¡°Our deputy is Liu Long. He used to be my chief in Silver City and he¡¯s also a Dominator!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°We¡¯re all martial masters, so let¡¯s be more direct. Speak of any dissatisfaction openly, don¡¯tin or whisper behind someone¡¯s back. That just harms the ties that bind us together. I¡¯m close with martial uncle Hong and big brother Wang. They¡¯re willing to let youe naturally because they trust me, and I won¡¯t let their trust be given in vain!

    ¡°The Demon Hunters are officially established today. What does that mean? It means we will be executing missions from now on and getting to work. We¡¯ll be growing stronger, earning money, and growing stronger again. We won¡¯t be waiting for retirement in the base!¡±

    Some martial masters on the outskirts were unhappy at thest pronouncement. What was he insinuating? Martial masters didn¡¯t have to run missions everyday to be properly living life¡ªrest andbor went hand in hand. They conducted missions every month to every three months. Their lives were on the line each time!

    Why did it turn into waiting for retirement from Li Hao¡¯s mouth?

    ¡°I see you looking around, Hong Qing.¡± Li Hao suddenly pointed at the girl. ¡°Do you have something to say? Just yell out ¡®question¡¯!¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    ¡°Say you have a question! Have you never been to school?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The awkward Hong Qing really hadn¡¯t gone to school before. The Sword Sect had a private school, but that was different from a regr school.

    She was embarrassed to be singled out and it felt that everyone on all sides was looking at her. Her face grew even redder. She usually carried herself with carefree poise, but was now nervous beyond belief.

 Chapter 381: The Demon Hunters Assemble (II)

    <h4>Chapter 381: The Demon Hunters Assemble (II)</h4>

    ¡°Say whatever you want to say!¡± Li Hao dered loudly. ¡°What are you afraid of? I used to be afraid of crowds too and got ufortable in front of them. But then I realized there¡¯s nothing to a crowd. They won¡¯t dareugh at you if you¡¯re stronger than them or talk louder than them. They won¡¯t even dare talk badly about you behind your back¡ªthey¡¯ll be afraid of you hearing them!¡±

    Hong Qing burst outughing and quickly calmed herself. ¡°Question! L... leader... You mentioned executing missions. W-what kind of missions are we going to be doing?¡±

    ¡°Killing people!¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    ¡°Killing people!¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°Whether it¡¯s soldiers or martial masters, the only goal in this war-torn era is to kill people! It¡¯s my first time being a soldier, so I don¡¯t know much about it or understand this role, but at the very least I know that we should kill those cretins whomit wrongful acts, disturb the people, kill others for their goods, or cause disturbances. It¡¯s not like we have a good understanding right now of defending home and country or safeguarding the nation, but we might in the future. That can wait untilter!¡±

    Since the Silver Moon Guards had the word ¡°guard¡± in it, that also made them soldiers. When Li Hao said he didn¡¯t understand concept, he really didn¡¯t understand. The duties, obligations, and mission of protecting the nation or defending home and country were beyond his reach. They also didn¡¯t seem necessary to grasp at this time.

    Hong Qing seemed to understand. She nodded without further question. The answer was to just kill! Li Hao¡¯s answer was very simple.

    Over on the Inspectorate delegation side, someone squirmed awkwardly before opening their mouth, ¡°Question, leader!¡±

    ¡°Go ahead!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d like to ask if we have any rules or a code of conduct, or standards throughout the course of conducting missions. Do we have a reward and punishment system, a set period of missions, an officer who records aplishments, and a system to go along with that...¡±

    Li Hao stared back at the man. His mind was aplete nk. It wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t know anything about these concepts, but that he hadn¡¯t given any thought to it.

    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± He smiled.

    ¡°Milord, I¡¯m...¡±

    ¡°I am your leader!¡±

    ¡°Leader, my name is Li Heng!¡±

    ¡°So we¡¯re from the same family!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°We¡¯re both from Silver City and the same family... Good, I have high hopes for you. Write up a detailed analysis and description of what you mentioned. Since you asked, you must have some understanding of these ideas. You can ask other people and teams for what you don¡¯t. I¡¯ll make you the examination officer if you finish this report!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The speaker wasn¡¯t that old¡ªin his thirties at most. He was at a loss for words and nced at Liu Long. The man didn¡¯t say anything; there was no issue with what Li Hao had said.

    There weren¡¯t that many among the Demon Hunters¡ªjust fifty people¡ªso there wasn¡¯t much meaning in creating too many systems. Those that were necessary could be formed. He wouldn¡¯t bother with this if this was the Demon Hunters of old, but they were no longer in these times.

    It was normal that Li Hao didn¡¯t really understand them¡ªneither did Liu Long. Hence, his Demon Hunters hadn¡¯t cared about them at all. It was all up to his personal authority that merits and rewards were doled out.

    ......

    ¡°Boss!¡± transmitted a pained Mu Lin. ¡°I think Li Hao is less reliable than me! If ites down to it, I can be a centurion and he can be the deputy of the Guards. I¡¯m worried that his Demon Hunters will all be dead in a few days!¡±

    Golden Spear watched, unmoved. He transmitted in response to Mu Lin¡¯s nagging, ¡°We¡¯ll know his mettle once he showcases his abilities! Li Hao said that he wants to take his people out to practice for a few days and help the team adjust to each other. After that, he¡¯ll hunt down the three great organizations alongside the four institutions. Let¡¯s just wait a few days.¡±

    ¡°What? He wants to bring out his people right now?¡± Mu Lin blinked. They¡¯d only just established the team. Li Hao didn¡¯t even know all of them yet, did he? Wasn¡¯t he worried about a myriad of issues cropping up?

    On the other hand, the man smiled when a new thought struck him. ¡°That¡¯s just as well. A certain degree of safety is ensured around White Moon City. Although a lot of Red Moon supernaturals havee to the provincetely, they don¡¯t dare approach the capital. A lot of them have gathered near Rift Canyon, however.¡±

    It was good to take the team out to temper the members. Safety wouldn¡¯t be a concern with Li Hao around. Not to mention, one wouldn¡¯t necessarily run into the three great organizations just because one was in the field. The organizations weren¡¯t staffed by idiots. Who would take the risk of poking their heads out knowing full well that they were being targeted, unless they were confident of being victorious?

    They were all deep in hiding.

    The Night Watchers might not encounter a single one of their members when they went on patrol. There were hundreds of millions of people in Silver Moon. How was one supposed to locate a thousand supernaturals if they hid themselves well and retracted their mysterious power?

    Such were Golden Spear¡¯s thoughts. Hence, he didn¡¯t refuse Li Hao¡¯s proposal. It was fine if the young man didn¡¯t seek to walk the beaten path and wasn¡¯t willing to slowly forge his team. If he wanted to just bring his team into the field... that could be done as well.

    There were the ruins that he wanted to explore with Li Hao¡ªthose could wait for a few days. The other ruins of Battle Heaven wouldn¡¯t open until the 28th¡ªthat was another half month. They might not even open this time. If they didn¡¯t, everyone would have to wait for next month. It was still very early.

    ......

    ¡°There are many powerhouses in the Silver Moon Guards!¡± Li Hao spoke in a ringing voice. ¡°We have fifty-one members in the Demon Hunters. Two Dominators, twenty Sunderers, and the rest of yers. We¡¯re very weak without even a half step Dominator!

    ¡°Therefore, our first goal is simple. The entire team needs to reach Sunderer! The rise of the supernatural is not without benefits to martial masters. I¡¯ve decided that we will head out of the city tomorrow to search for the three great organizations and kill their people! Mysterious power, blood pearls, and mysterious power stones will fuel our transformation!

    ¡°Red Moon members in particr carry blood pearls on nearly all of them. I¡¯ll find a way to borrow an origin weapon to extract them. So long as we kill more of them, everyone will be ate Sunderer!

    ¡°I hear that Red Moon has sent a batch of powerhouses to Silver Moon!¡± his voice rang like a bell. ¡°These people are the basis for our strength and rise! Once everyone quickly bes ate Sunderer, I have a daoprehension weapon that will allow ten people toprehend the aura. The ten Sunderers who kill and aplish the most can perceive the aura. Seeding is another matter entirely, but at least you stand a chance!

    ¡°If you¡¯re lucky like me, you¡¯ll be a Sunderer today, ate Sunderer tomorrow,prehend the aura a day after that, and perhaps be a Dominator in a few days. Everything is possible!¡±

    His logic was simple and raised excitement in a group of young martial masters. The older ones, however, remained unfazed.<i> I know how to paint a picture in the sky just as well, it¡¯s not that easy. Red Moon members are part of the three great organizations¡ªthey have a lot of powerhouses among them. You might not even find any, but you speak of them like they¡¯re apples ripe from the picking. That¡¯s a little too full of it.</i>

    Plus, who knew who¡¯d do the killing if the two sides ran into each other? As strong as Li Hao was, a Dominator was on par with a Sunre. So maybe he was extraordinarily strong and couldpare to a Sr¡ªdid Red Moon not have Srs?

    Therefore, only a few Sword Sect disciples were caught up in the speech. Those like Hong Qing were young and rarely conducted missions, so they agitated with expectation. Others from the Inspectorate were old hats andpletely unmoved.

    A fullplement of Sunderers? He spoke of that so easily. Advancement would be much easier with the aid of mysterious power, but it wasn¡¯t like that would lead to automatic breakthroughs. And for blood pearls... they would require one per person, at least. Twenty-nine yers meant that twenty-nine Darkmoon blood pearls were necessary. They¡¯d have to kill twenty-nine Red Moon Darkmoons, or even more than that!

    Not all of their members seemed equipped with blood pearls. Not to mention, would there be no Sunres or Srs around them? Were the Darkmoons just standing around, waiting to be killed?

    The more they thought about it, the more they felt that Li Hao was just empty talk. And this was his first goal? So he had more and stronger ones?

    ......

    The other martial masters on the scene watched with amused expressions. Someone kept his voice low, ¡°This one... has quite the charisma! The Silver Moon Guards have been established for so many years, yet still have nearly half our number as yers.¡±

    The Demon Hunters were just forming, but aimed for all of their people to be Sunderers. They were Sunderers today, Dominators tomorrow! If it was that easy, then wouldn¡¯t there be more Dominators in the Guards?

    There were many half step Dominators among them, but that was also a threshold that one could be stuck at. They¡¯d grasped the aura, but usually through the ancient weapons. There was an inherent drawback to those as aurasprehended from them weren¡¯t easily strengthened!

    Ack of deeper understanding of the aura caused nearly one hundred half step Dominators to fail to take the final step.

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care whether people believed him or not. He just wanted to speak of his goals. They would believe him when he aplished them. If not, his eyes werepletely useless. If he couldn¡¯t help even twenty-nine yers bridge the gap to Sunderer, then what use were the Guards? A martial kindergarten?

    People would know that he wasn¡¯t boasting when he aplished his words.

    ¡°I now proim that the Demon Hunters are officially established! Ranking officer Golden Spear and Deputy Mu Lin are in attendance as witnesses. I am yourmanding officer from henceforth!¡±

    Golden Spear and Mu Lin inclined their heads behind him. Golden Spear wanted to say a few words... but Li Hao didn¡¯t give him a chance to. The young man felt that there was no need to say anything, and that perhaps the experienced senior Golden Spear didn¡¯t want to waste time in long-winded fluff.

    ¡°My thanks to the two esteemed personages for witnessing our formation today, we send you off in style!¡±

    <i>p p p! </i>The young man began apuding. Martial masters around them started rolling their eyes. What a... perfunctory establishment ceremony. Golden Spear and Mu Lin found themselves at a loss for words. <i>This guy...</i>

    What could they say now? Forget it, he¡¯d recruited the Demon Hunters himself and hadn¡¯t taken one single coin from the Guards yet. It wasn¡¯t time for the monthly sry to be paid, so he could do whatever he wished. If the young man went to the trouble of causing all of his people¡¯s deaths, then Wang Henggang and Hong Yitang would naturallye for his head.

    The two of them wouldn¡¯t permit him to be so reckless if he¡¯d taken some of their people. Golden Spear and Mu Lin left, unwilling to apany Li Hao in this farce. In their eyes, the young man wasn¡¯t taking this seriously enough. Taking the team out to train? He was going on a leisure jaunt, wasn¡¯t he?

 Chapter 382: The Demon Hunters Assemble (III)

    <h4>Chapter 382: The Demon Hunters Assemble (III)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about his audience. He looked at the Demon Hunters in front of him and continued, ¡°Additionally, we¡¯re going to select five team captains! It¡¯ll be ten people to a minor team. The other nine will listen to the team captain when we¡¯ve decided upon them, you are not allowed to set out on your own!

    ¡°In the future, I will give missions only to the team captains!¡± The young man scanned his troops. ¡°You probably won¡¯t like it if I choose for you. There¡¯s not many of us and just twenty Sunderers. Let¡¯s choose from the Sunderers! Of course, yers who think they can kill enemies above their level can also participate!

    ¡°Whoever among the twenty is willing to be a team captain can spar among yourselves.¡±

    The group looked at each other, hesitant to leap into action.

    ¡°None of you are inclined?¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Then let me be more detailed. Based on current Guard rules, all of the gains we obtain on a mission belong to us. As the leader of the Demon Hunters, I have the right to distribute the spoils. I don¡¯t want much, just thirty percent! Deputy Liu will take ten percent, which leaves sixty for everyone.

    ¡°Forty-nine people will divvy up the sixty percent. Each team captain oversees nine people and can im another ten percent of their team¡¯s distribution when all is said and done. That¡¯s the equivalent of a doubled share!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Eyes widened when this was announced. Setting aside the question of whether there would be gains or not, the team captain would receive an additional ten percent of loot! It was only ten percent less for the team members, which didn¡¯t seem like a lot, but it equated to double the reward for the captain!

    That difference was enormous!

    ¡°Leader,¡± Hong Qing couldn¡¯t help but pipe up. ¡°Doesn¡¯t this mean there will be arge gap between those who are team captain and those who aren¡¯t?¡±

    ¡°Certainly!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Strength speaks! Fight for the position if you have the confidence to! If you win it, opportunities will follow. Additionally, the position isn¡¯t set in stone. If a team of ten wishes to change their captain everyday, that is permissible too. It won¡¯t affect much. In fact, the team captains will be redetermined every month. You can submit a challenge for the position if you think your strength is sufficient. Everyone stands a chance.¡±

    ¡°But yers are weaker than Sunderers to begin with, we¡¯re losing ten percent without being able to do anything about it!¡± Some yers grew frantic. No one would keep silent when profits were at stake.

    ¡°It¡¯s easier for yers to improve and catch up to Sunderers so long as the Sunderers haven¡¯tprehended the aura yet,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Be more confident in yourself. Not to mention, is it fair that those weaker want arger share of the spoils? Fairness stems from a basis of simr strength!

    ¡°The captains will be expending more effort and energy. They¡¯ll be the first in a fight, it¡¯s not like they¡¯re just sitting there and waiting for money to roll in. There¡¯s only so many Demon Hunters and I¡¯m not blind. Will I not be able to see who¡¯s putting in the work and who¡¯s not?¡±

    The Sunderers were stirring to action. Although there were no gains to speak of at the moment, obtaining the position of team captain first was still well worth it.

    There were eightte Sunderers among the twenty¡ªa high proportion at forty percent. If onlyte Sunderers were allowed to participate, that meant at least three of them would be denied the position. There were also some mid Sunderers who harbored certain ambitions.

    Sunderer wasn''t a level delineated by massive strength gaps. There was no hope for a Sunderer to challenge a Dominator, but quite a few mid Sunderers could win out over ate Sunderer.

    There wasn¡¯t much of a chance for an initial Sunderer, however. The gap there was too big. They possessed less than half the internal force of ate Sunderer, which made it very difficult for upsets.

    Twelve people presented themselves not long after Li Hao finished speaking. Eightte Sunderers threw their hats in the ring, as did four mid Sunderers. Three of the Silver City Demon Hunters chose to participate. Liu Yan was ate Sunderer, Wu Chao and Chen Jian were mid Sunderers.

    The young man knew some of the remaining nine. Hong Qing went without saying, as did her senior brother Hong Hao. Those from the Inspectorate also participated¡ªthe Li Heng who¡¯d spoken up earlier. He was young, but also a mid Sunderer.

    ¡°We¡¯re picking five from twelve of you, so that means seven need to be eliminated...¡± Li Hao nced at the candidates. ¡°Let¡¯s fight one on one first so that six are left. The six who lose have one opportunity to challenge the winners, but you cannot pick the same person. If you win, you can rece the previous victor! Let¡¯s make this more efficient and have all the fights go at the same time. It wastes too much time to fight round after round...¡±

    He had his own thoughts, but didn¡¯t voice them. Li Hao grabbed a nearby branch and cut it into twelve segments.

    ¡°Pick your segment¡ªthey¡¯re of varying lengths. Whoever picks the same length is each other¡¯s opponent. There will certainly bete Sunderers matched against mid Sunderers, but don¡¯t think that gives you an unfair advantage. You are the one choosing your own fate!¡±

    Everyone stepped forward to draw their lots, swiftly splitting off into six groups.

    ¡°Let the fightsmence at once. We¡¯ll have our results soon!¡±

    Everyone looked at each other with hesitation. Granted, they were in arge area so they wouldn¡¯t interfere with each other¡¯s fights.

    ......

    Li Hao ignored them and walked to the side with Liu Long. The others made way too, leaving space for thebatants. The twelve martial masters took their measure of each other in the za. No one was in a hurry to begin.

    ¡°Do you think... that Liu Yan and the others can be team captains?¡± Liu Long asked softly.

    ¡°Sis Liu won¡¯t have much of a problem. She¡¯s vicious and will probably outmatch most martial masters she meets. The Sword Sect members haven¡¯t experienced as many life and death situations and the Inspectorate representatives seemed to have lived a cushy life. Big brother Wang takes good care of them. They don¡¯t have a ferocious presence and are more like oily politicians.¡±

    Liu Long inclined his head. He¡¯d seen the same as well. He knew the ones from the Inspectorate, but some were really much more slippery than how they¡¯d been in Silver City.

    ¡°As for Brother Chao and Jian... it¡¯s hard to say. They have experience, but it¡¯s not like their opponents are rookies. Martial masters all have certain degrees of battle experience and they¡¯re only mid Sunderers.¡±

    Those two had only just reached mid Sunderer, so it would be difficult for them to win.

    Battlemenced as they conversed. First to conclude wasn¡¯t Liu Yan, but Hong Qing. She shed extremely quickly with her longsword against ate Sunderer from the Inspectorate. It took less than ten seconds for her to send him flying with a bloody mark on his body.

    Liu Long frowned sharply at this! He was very familiar with the defeated¡ªthis man had been his deputy back in the day. He was stronger than Liu Yan, but appeared to have lived in ease andfort for too long. He was ate Sunderer, but didn¡¯tst ten moves in Hong Qing¡¯s hand!

    The girl beamed happily, quickly followed by Liu Yan stabbing both des into her opponent¡¯s throat. She didn¡¯t drive them in, but left a bloody mark all the same. Her Sword Sect opponent paled with horror and was deathly afraid that the woman would kill him.

    Two fights were over in the blink of an eye with the women being victorious. They¡¯d gone up againstte Sunderers, leaving the four mid Sunderers to face off against each other. No one was matched with someone not of their level. It was clear to Liu Long that Li Hao must have cheated. This coincidence wouldn¡¯t be possible otherwise.

    A third fight concluded after a short while¡ªHong Hao sent Chen Jian flying with a mighty sh. A dejected Chen Jian didn¡¯t scramble up from the ground. He wanted to make use of his premier defensive abilities to fight the man, but he¡¯d still lost very quickly.

    ¡°Earthturner¡¯s sword skills are still very capable,¡± Liu Long sighed softly. ¡°His disciples mayck experience, but their foundations are solid. This Hong Hao is strong¡ªhe matches how I was when I becamete Sunderer. He justcks in killing intent...¡±

    It was high praise! Liu Long had made his way to his position through gradual bloodshed.

    Li Hao nodded and continued to watch the fights. The fourth wasn¡¯t far from concluding. Fights were usually over very quickly if there was a disparity between martial masters. A chubby martial master from the Inspectorate headbutted a mid Sunderer from the Sword Sect out of the way and imed his spot.

    ¡°Wang Chao, Wang Henggang¡¯s nephew,¡±Liu Long muttered. ¡°He trains in the Iron Shirt discipline as well and it looks like he¡¯s done well for himself. His foundations are very solid!¡±

    Li Hao nodded again, they were indeed good. This man seemed much stronger than Chen Jian.

    With four fights out of the way, that left two ongoing. Wu Chao faced ate Sunderer from the Inspectorate while Li Heng faced ate Sunderer from the Sword Sect. Being adept at speed, Wu Chao spent his fight dodging his opponent. It caused an extreme headache for the Inspectorate martial master. He could not end the fight if he couldn¡¯t hit his enemy.

    Seeing that four fights had concluded and he was yet to even touch Wu Chao, the Inspectorate martial master was so irritated that he started cursing. ¡°Damn your skinny ass, Wu! Are you done running yet or what?!¡±

    inly, they knew each other. Perhaps they¡¯d been friends before since they both hailed from the Silver City Inspectorate.

    ¡°Cut the crap and catch me first!¡±

    The two ran around the training grounds while Li Hao nced at Li Heng¡¯s fight. Li Heng was just a mid Sunderer, but he was strong. The Sword Sect was skilled with the longsword. Li Heng¡¯s sword methods were graceful and floated upon the air. Hecked the ponderous keenness that was customary of his sect. He drifted through his motions in a way reminiscent of the Ghost Shadow Sword.

    ¡°Li Heng used to be part of thew enforcement team as well,¡± Liu Long introduced. ¡°He doesn¡¯t talk much and he¡¯s not that old at thirty-two years old. He might be turning thirty-three soon, if not already. His sword method has a bit of history to it. There was once a swordsman in Silver City that no one knew was a martial master. He was forced to take action a few times and happened tond his eyes on Li Heng. After taking Li Heng as his disciple, he passed on some sword techniques before dying on a trip. We learned that he was the heir of the Weeping Willow Sword when White Moon notified us to collect a corpse...¡±

    Weeping Willow had not been one of the Seven Swords, but might have been part of the ranking if it was the Ten Swords. To be able to ce in the top ten of swordsmen during Silver Moon martial world¡¯s most glorious heyday made that person quite an exalted personage. Their second generation disciple wouldn¡¯t be too weak either. Although Li Heng was a mid Sunderer and facing a disciple of Earthturner Sword, his Weeping Willow techniques made it hard for his opponent to muster an effective counterattack.

 Chapter 383: The Demon Hunters Assemble (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 383: The Demon Hunters Assemble (IV)</h4>

    The Earthturner Sword technique was certainly not weak! But even the same sword method produced varying results when different people practiced it. After a few minutes of stalemate, Li Heng stabbed his opponent¡¯s wrist with his sword and disarmed the man. He was the first mid Sunderer to triumph over his opponent.

    Li Heng panted heavily, but smiled brilliantly. His fight had ended; Wu Chao and the Inspectorate martial master were still busy running circles. Li Hao raised an eyebrow at them, finding a fast speed irritating for the first time. All of the other fights wereplete¡ªhad these two exchanged a single blow?

    Wu Chao¡¯s tongue lolled as he panted; he really could run. Thete Sunderer chasing him could barely catch his breath and certainly couldn¡¯t catch his opponent. Whenever he stopped to rest, Wu Chao jabbed at him in a sneak attack. It was too tiring to deal with.

    After a while, the martial master roared with irritation, ¡°That¡¯s enough!¡±

    ¡°Are you conceding?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not, but I¡¯m not fighting you anymore either. There¡¯s still six people if you make it, Wu. One more needs to be eliminated. As fast as you run, there¡¯s going to be someone faster than you!¡±ined the Inspectorate martial master as he gave up the fight. He was much slower than Wu Chao and would never catch the man. It was impossible to have a fair fight.

    Delighted, Wu Chao was ready to be challenged. He¡¯d just continue running. Being fast was nothing to be ashamed of.

    The six victors stood in a line; the six vanquished stared at Li Heng and Wu Chao. These two were the weakest. What a pity they only had one chance to issue a challenge, and that only one person could fight either of the two. Conflicted, the six debated what to do. What if all of them chose those two?

    No one wanted to consider Hong Qing, Liu Yan, or Hong Hao. Wang Henggang¡¯s nephew Wang Chao was skilled at the Iron Shirt method, making his defenses hard to break. No one thought they could im an easy victory, which made the two mid Sunderers easy targets.

    ¡°It looks like everyone only wants to challenge Wu Chao and Li Heng.¡± Li Hao smiled at the six. ¡°The other four are assured of their victory then. The two who lost to Wu Chao and Li Heng can step to the side. If you can¡¯t fight even a mid Sunderer, there¡¯s no point in further mounting a challenge. The remaining four of you can battle it out among yourselves. The victor can choose any opponent you want. Having to fight an extra battle is also fair since you lost your first one!¡±

    No one had an opposing opinion; the remaining four hadn¡¯t fought each other yet. The ones who lost to Hong Qing and Liu Yan quickly stepped forward and picked an opponent,mencing their next battle.

    Li Hao watched for a while before looking away. These martial masters didn¡¯t possess an aura. Those without an aura simply called upon stronger fist or leg techniques. There wasn¡¯t anything too special about them. That two mid Sunderers could defeat theirte Sunderer opponent spoke of their abilities.

    After another ten minutes, a profusely sweating Li Heng utilized the Weeping Willow Sword to defeat his opponent. He¡¯d fought two battles in a row against opponents of a higher cultivation level. Exhausted, the taciturn martial master couldn¡¯t say a single word.

    Drops of Wu Chao¡¯s sweat hit the ground as he ran and evaded his Sword Sect opponent. Thetter was rather incensed as he hacked and shed his sword around, each stroke more cutting than thest. Regardless of what he tried, he was unable to defeat Wu Chao.

    ¡°Brother Chao is pretty fast.¡± Li Hao hadn¡¯t paid this much attention before, but was now a bit confused. ¡°Did he learn from a famous teacher as well?¡±

    Chen Jian¡¯s Iron Shirt could be found in a lot of practitioners. But famous teachers whomanded body methods were few and far in between. Li Hao had known before that Wu Chao was very fast. He¡¯d run away with Panther and Yun Yao when facing Red Moon supernaturals and still managed to shake them off. Now as the young man took a closer look, he felt that Wu Chao was much faster than regrte Sunderers.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t want to mention certain things before,¡± murmured Liu Long after thinking it over. ¡°But I said that everyone on the team carries some secrets and they¡¯re willing to stay in Silver City for their own reasons. Wu Chao... Wu Chao is Wu Xinghong¡¯s grandson...¡±

    <i>Wu Xinghong?</i>

    Li Hao turned over the name, drawing a nk. He looked at Liu Long, who smiled. ¡°You might not know his name. He had the moniker of Flies Over Grass.¡±

    ¡°Oh!¡± Li Hao understood. ¡°That one! He was well known back in the day. He¡¯s not in the Record of Thirty-Six Heroes only because he wasn¡¯t strong enough. He was number one when it came to body methods, so many people said that he should be named in the record!¡±

    Someone not of the thirty-six, yet hailed as the greatest practitioner of body methods in Silver Moon was certainly a force to contend with. Wu Chao was his grandson?

    ¡°What¡¯s Brother Chao doing in the team then?¡±

    ¡°Someone killed Wu Xinghong and the entire Wu family. Rumors say Celestial might¡¯ve done it, that one of their supernaturals wanted the family method. No one knows the details, but the Wus were indeed eliminated.¡±

    ¡°Celestial?¡± A headache brewed for Li Hao. The team was certainly an interesting gathering. His enemy was Red Moon, Liu Yan¡¯s enemy was Yama, and now Wu Chao¡¯s enemy was Celestial. They¡¯d collected all three great organizations!

    ¡°Mmhmm, Celestial possesses many assassins thate and go without a trace. Although they may not have a use for martial body methods, would Celestial not be interested in the foremost body secret art of Silver Moon?¡± Liu Long shook his head with a sigh. ¡°Wu Chao survived because he wasn¡¯t at home at the time. He came to Silver City after that because we¡¯re a remote location. Your teacher was here then, Wu Chao knew that the Night Watchers were protecting your teacher, so he came for shelter.¡±

    Li Hao understood. He now knew Liu Yan and Wu Chao¡¯s story, leaving only Chen Jian and Yun Yao¡¯s untold. They inly had their own reasons too, but Li Hao didn¡¯t particrly care. All three great organizations wereplete. Having one more or less additional enemy didn¡¯t make a difference.

    Wu Chao continued running and jumping as the two conversed. The Sword Sect martial master decided to give up in the end. He couldn¡¯t hit his enemy and Wu Chao was an old colleague of Li Hao and Liu Long. After thinking it over, the man elected to forfeit.

    With that, battle was over. Looking at the exhausted Wu Chao and Li Heng, then at the other four, Li Hao announced, ¡°The other four don¡¯t need to be further tested and can be directly made team captains. Do you agree with that, Wu Chao and Li Heng?¡±

    What could they not agree with? Thetter two barely had a thought in their heads. Any person who fought them now would easily defeat them. They did feel a bit of reluctance and resignation, however. This meant that one of them would be eliminated.

    Li Heng was very nervous because he knew that Wu Chao hade with Liu Long and was Li Hao¡¯s former teammate. If it was up to the leader to choose, he wouldn¡¯t stand much of a chance.

    ¡°Leader...¡± Li Heng quickly said. ¡°I know Ole Wu from before¡ªhe runs fast, but I¡¯m not that slow either. Why don¡¯t the two of us form a team? He can be in charge of reconnaissance and I¡¯ll take point in killing enemies. We can be team captain and vice captain. We¡¯ll both share part of the profits from the other eight members of the team...

    ¡°We¡¯re a little weaker than the other team captains, but the two of us together don¡¯t make us that weak!¡±

    What a self-righteous spiel when he was just concerned about being eliminated!

    Li Haoughed¡ª<i>you said it all before I had a chance to! </i>Wu Chao huffed and puffed, agreeing after some thought. ¡°Leader, I think it¡¯s a good idea. Although Li Heng possesses only surface level knowledge of the Weeping Willow Sword, his technique is fine enough...¡±

    Li Heng flicked a nce at the man and cursed inwardly. <i>I didn¡¯t get along with this guy when we were both at Silver City. Do you think I want to work with you now?</i>

    ¡°Then that¡¯s settled!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t want to go through further hassle. ¡°These are our team captains, you can choose your own team members! It¡¯s best if they¡¯re willing to be part of your team. If not, you guys can take turns choosing who¡¯s left!

    ¡°It¡¯s better to form a team with some distinguishing characteristics. Either you can attack just as well as you defend, or you focus solely on defense or offense. Don¡¯t try to be everything at the same time orpletely overlook a certain capacity. Look at Wu Chao, for instance. What will the others do if your team has all the runners and is always the first out of sight?¡±

    The Demon Hunters roared with amusement.

    ¡°Let¡¯s stop here for today and regroup. Complete your teams tonight, we¡¯ll be setting out first thing in the morning!¡±

    Liu Long repressed an eye roll. Wasn¡¯t that too fast? But he knew what Li Hao had in mind¡ªthe young man wanted to aplish something big. He didn¡¯t want to be mired in scuffles and back alley fights.

    He caught up to the quickly departing young man and muttered, ¡°The group¡¯s just formed and they¡¯re not familiar with each other. In fact, most of them are strangers to one another. Won¡¯t it be too abrupt to set out first thing tomorrow morning?¡±

    ¡°We need to make best use of time!¡± Li Hao responded in transmission. ¡°I¡¯m not afraid of danger. Our defenses increase greatly when we wear the ck armor. We can iron out the kinks along the way. I¡¯ll pick a few weaklings for them to hone themselves first, I won¡¯t go for someone strong straight off the bat. You trust my judgment, don¡¯t you chief?¡±

    Liu Long nodded, that he did, in this area.

    ¡°Then if we run into a strong existence...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not afraid of anyone below Nova! If we do run into one, lead the team away from the scene and I¡¯ll hold them off!¡±

    <i>Nova!</i>

    This once profound and mysterious cultivation level was run-of-the-mill when Li Hao spoke of it. The young man would stop the enemy if a Nova appeared.

    Liu Long didn¡¯t say anything. As strong as the young man was, were they really going to let him stand against a Nova?

    ¡°I see,¡± Liu Long answered in a muffled voice.

    Li Hao headed for Golden Spear¡¯s office. He wanted to borrow some mysterious power stones¡ªyes, borrow. He¡¯d return them when he came back. Injuries were inevitable and if he didn¡¯t want to lose people, he needed to ensure ample sword energy. He¡¯d borrow a couple dozen or a hundred for now. When he returned, he¡¯d have the funds to repay his debt.

    As for the possibility of exposing sword energy, that didn¡¯t matter either. He could offer another exnation when that happened.

    Li Hao nursed certain ambitions at the moment. If he could build up this iteration of the Demon Hunters, he would have ample helpers at his beck and call toe. As convenient as fighting alone was, it was sometimes very time consuming.

    He walked out of the office before long. Golden Spear had greeted his request wordlessly, offering thirty stones for fifty suits of armor. If Li Hao couldn¡¯t return the stones, the remaining fifty would also belong to the Guards.

    Fifty suits of armor were inly more valuable than thirty stones. The stones were consumables, the armor was not. Li Hao didn¡¯t think about haggling. He was confident that he would be able to return the riches.

 Chapter 384: A Ferocious Tiger Emerges From the Mountain (I)

    <h4>Chapter 384: A Ferocious Tiger Emerges From the Mountain (I)</h4>

    <i>September 15.</i>

    A team of fifty assembled at the front doors of the Silver Moon Guards before the sky fully brightened. Hong Qing, Hong Hao, Wang Chao, and Liu Yan had sessfully assembled their teams. It went without saying that Hong Qing and Hong Hao filled theirs with swordsmen and women¡ªthey were all Sword Sect disciples.

    Wang Chao and Liu Yan had taken nearly exclusively Inspectorate members. Only Li Heng and Wu Chao had to choose from the leftovers. Their team was a bit of a motley array.

    The Demon Hunters were rather apprehensive. For some of the Sword Sect disciples, this was their first official mission. Although training was arduous and grueling, it was still nerve-racking to actually think of killing someone.

    Li Hao strode up to the group and scanned his people. ¡°We¡¯re all here.¡± He inclined his head. ¡°Get in the cars. The team captains will teach you how to use the armor!¡±

    After obtaining his armorst night, Li Hao also learned how the Silver Moon Guards made use of it. There was a special contraption within them that appeared smooth, but was punctuated by some bumps. Pressing on them in the proper configuration opened the suit of armor. This was a possibility that Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought of and he wondered how Hou Xiaochen hade to know of it.

    There were two mini trucks parked in front of the Guardsplex. They belonged to the Silver Moon Guards and were outfitted with a special driving system. These cars could drive themselves without needing human drivers.

    ¡°Teams one and two on the car up ahead. Three, four, five will take the one behind!¡± instructed Li Hao. Liu Long was also in the first car. Teams one and two were the ones led by Hong Qing and Liu Yan. They¡¯d imed most of the few female martial masters in the Demon Hunters.

    The teams quickly filed into their cars. Although they¡¯d never received professional training, martial masters understood and swiftly executed these easymands. The ones from the Inspectorate, in particr, had received systematic training and were used to this kind of operation.

    ......

    Three teams climbed into the second car. Li Hao vanished in front of the group¡¯s eyes instead of taking one of the cars. These cars belonging to the Silver Moon Guards were specially made. The carriages weren¡¯tpletely sealed shut; there was no car roof. Openings were scattered around the carriage to make it convenient to locate enemies.

    Li Heng liked to talk. He started chattering as soon as he saw Li Hao wasn¡¯t in their car. ¡°There¡¯s thirty of us in one car and twenty in the one up ahead. My team with Ole Wu actually only has nine people. Deputy Liu is a Dominator and the leader has lumped him in with us. Are we actually supposed to give the deputy orders?¡±

    Everyone ignored him.

    ¡°Also,¡± continued a dejected Li Heng. ¡°We just got to know our teamsst night. We don¡¯t know any of the other teams. The leader is hastily pushing us into the field to run missions. That¡¯s just... so... ugh!¡±

    He¡¯d never seen someone like that! Thankfully, they were probably just going out for a spin. Most people were treating this as a leisure outing. Their new leader wanted to go through the motions. Li Heng understood the concept after many years at the Inspectorate. Li Hao just wanted to obtain some acknowledgement and put himself out there.

    Wang Chao ignored him. As Wang Henggang¡¯s nephew, the inspector general had told him one thing before he left. Li Hao was not a kind soul. Although young, there was nothing simple about Old Demon Yuan¡¯s disciple. Wang Chao was warned to be careful and keep his head down at the Silver Moon Guards.

    Therefore, he didn¡¯t say anything and turned to his team. ¡°Put the armor on!¡± He helped his curious team members limate themselves to their new battle gear.

    ¡°Captain Wang,¡± someone soon said. ¡°It¡¯s rather heavy and impacts my movement. Why don¡¯t we take it off? We¡¯re still in White Moon City...¡±

    ¡°Keep it on!¡± Wang Chao responded in a muffled voice. There was a certain weight to the armor, but it wasn¡¯t too heavy for martial masters. It didn¡¯t impact their movement much and the armor wasn¡¯t stiff, so there actually wasn¡¯t arge effect on the wearer¡¯s motions.

    There wouldn¡¯t be issues after they grew ustomed to it. inly, the ancient powerhouses had considered this as well and didn¡¯t haphazardly create equipment that would negatively impact battle capabilities.

    Hong Hao directed his team to put on the armor too. The car wasn¡¯t that big, but suitable enough for three teams to squeeze together. It became rather crowded once they were all dressed for battle.

    Li Heng continued toin when he saw that the other two teams were putting on the armor, but he also directed his team to do the same.

    The car was quickly filled with ck armored warriors.

    ¡°Does anyone know where we¡¯re going today? The leader didn¡¯t give a destination...¡±

    ¡°Why do you have so many questions?¡± Wu Chao couldn¡¯t help but say behind his visor.

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you curious, Ole Wu?¡±

    ¡°Nope.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, you worked with the leader before. Ole Wu, would you say that he¡¯s um... ahem, reliable?¡±

    Wu Chao ignored him. <i>Reliable? How would I know?? Li Hao¡¯s reliable enough, but he¡¯s also crazy bold. </i>The man had chatted with Liu Longst night. Although the chief didn¡¯t say anything, he¡¯d hinted to be careful on this mission. Li Hao had grand ns in mind.

    ......

    Two mini trucks steered out of the Guardsplex. Li Hao was up in front, running instead of taking one of the cars. He easily kept up with the cars and found a drowsy Wang Ming in a sports car before long.

    Wang Ming didn¡¯t sense Li Hao¡¯s approach until thetter was near. He sprang up with alertness. ¡°Li Hao... you¡¯re so early!¡±

    Li Hao flicked him a nce and cut straight to the chase. ¡°I told you everythingst night, are you sure you want to be in on this?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Wang Ming piped up excitedly. ¡°The Night Watchers are so boring after being out with you a few times. I hear that you¡¯re going on a training trip. Take me along, I promise I won¡¯t give you trouble.¡±

    ¡°The Guards don¡¯t recruit supernaturals partially because it¡¯s difficult to work together, and partially out of concerns for concealment. Do you understand?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Wang Ming nodded. Of course he did, Li Hao had mentioned it in themunicatorst night.

    ¡°I won¡¯t refuse your participation,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°Your only mission is to be bait! Supernaturals are easily discovered and you¡¯re not weak as a Sunre. It¡¯d be best if you can lure out some supernaturals who want to do you harm!

    ¡°You won¡¯t be traveling with us, you¡¯ll be alone and I won¡¯t be responsible if anything happens to you! The dangers are sizable¡ªany powerhouse can swiftly manifest and kill you. I¡¯ll be at least one thousand meters away from you, so it¡¯ll be up to you to dodge or evade attacks!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t turn down Wang Ming¡¯s request to join, he happened tock bait. As good as his eyes were, he couldn¡¯t really scan every de of grass or leaf. It was best if Wang Ming could lure out a group of supernaturals.

    However, being bait meant epting a great deal of risk and danger.

    ¡°That¡¯s no problem so long as I receive amensurate payout!¡± Wang Ming grinned. ¡°This is the kind of life worth living! We¡¯ll have to kill a few Srs to make it worth waking up so early, won¡¯t we?¡±

    This guy¡¯s appetite had certainly grown. Li Hao raised an eyebrow. Ole Wang was growing bolder and bolder. Li Hao nodded slightly.

    ¡°Ah, right. Li... senior brother,¡± Wang Ming coughed gently. ¡°Can I bring someone?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°Zhou Qin fromst time... the one who had the tiger,¡± exined Wang Ming. ¡°It¡¯s suspicious if I run around by myself. A Sunre poking around without doing anything? Supernaturals aren¡¯t idiots and will easily tell that I¡¯m bait. If Zhou Qin¡¯s with me, we can race cars or wander around, looking like dandies out for some fun. I don¡¯t look the part if I¡¯m by myself.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s a Darkmoon, right?¡±

    ¡°Yes, a Fullmoon. That does make him a bit weak...¡±

    ¡°You know best that we¡¯re out to kill people,¡± Li Hao said calmly. ¡°You know how dangerous it is! This isn¡¯t a leisure jaunt. You can bring him if you want, but I won¡¯t care if he dies!¡±

    A Darkmoon looking for a good time... Li Hao wasn¡¯t a babysitter and he hadn¡¯t told Wang Ming to bring anyone else. He wouldn¡¯t do a thing if Zhou Qin died. <i>A Zhou surname... I wonder if he¡¯s rted to Deputy Zhou from the provincial government?</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t really care, in either case.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, he dies if he dies.¡± Wang Ming grinned widely. ¡°The guy likes exciting stuff. No one will say anything if he dies. To be honest, senior brother, my friend is already dying from boredom. Would he capture a tiger for fun if he¡¯s right in the head? If we can, we should take him and twodies on a drive. Now that would really be a leisure jaunt! And if we have a couple of bodyguards with us... We¡¯ll look like rich scions loafing around. No one will suspect a thing!¡±

    Such were his thoughts to really look the part. If the bait was two guys that were supernaturals, would it make sense?

    ¡°If senior brother okays it, I¡¯ll find someone right away,¡± Wang Ming borated when Li Hao remained silent. ¡°I promise I¡¯ll have it done quick and won¡¯t hold us up! Thedies will also be my friends. They¡¯ll be daredevils who won¡¯t me anyone if they die! It doesn¡¯t matter if we have bodyguards or not. We¡¯re all supernaturals and young. It¡¯s normal that we¡¯re bold and don¡¯t think much of anyone.¡±

    Li Hao frowned at him, not understanding what went on in these people¡¯s heads. These second generations seemed a little different. They weren¡¯tckadaisical good-for-nothings who spent their days partying. They had the strange urge to look for fun and exciting things.

    If he was part of them, Li Hao felt that he¡¯d never share the same mindset.

    ¡°We can forget about it if you don¡¯t think it¡¯s appropriate, senior brother,¡± Wang Ming quickly backtracked when he still failed to receive a response from Li Hao. ¡°I was just thinking of making the disguise moreplete.¡±

    ¡°Are there any descendants of major personages among your friends?¡± Li Hao thought for a while. ¡°The kind that will make trouble if their descendants die?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Wang Ming immediately answered. ¡°Even if there were, they wouldn¡¯t make trouble either. Don¡¯t worry, senior brother. Would I cause trouble for my own people?¡±

 Chapter 385: A Ferocious Tiger Emerges From the Mountain (II)

    <h4>Chapter 385: A Ferocious Tiger Emerges From the Mountain (II)</h4>

    Li Hao raised a brow and looked at Wang Ming. ¡°Ole Wang, you can do as you see fit. I won¡¯t order you around for the next part. You do your thing, I¡¯ll do mine. We don¡¯t have to be inmunication,you just need to lure outrge numbers of supernaturals with malevolent intent. I don¡¯t care about the rest!¡±

    ¡°Then the target is...¡± Wang Ming nodded.

    ¡°Take the road to Rift Canyon! I¡¯ll contact you when you reach the canyon. We might cross it, or we might stay and sweep it out. There must be supernaturals hiding there!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Wang Ming hastily bobbed his head with excitement. His colleague wanted to do something big! Life had be quite boring ever since they returned to White Moon. There were¡¯t many missions to go around and there was an absoluteck of exciting fights. Wang Ming was only one step away from mid Sunre, but was never able to take it.

    The minor missions from the Night Watchers no longer piqued his interest. Even though the agency started moving against the three great organizations a few days ago, it was a lot of fanfare for not much action. The strongest that Hao Lianchuan killed was a Sunre¡ªbattle was over quickly.

    A bunch of Night Watchers had mobilized for just a few Red Moon powerhouses. The benefits they reaped were barely enough to look at!

    Li Hao turned and left without a word. Wang Ming¡¯s sources of news worked fast, but it wasn¡¯t like Li Hao had nned on keeping any secrets from the supernatural. If he wanted to take risks, then he could. Such was Li Hao¡¯s attitude toward these martial masters and supernaturals.

    They were all adults, they had to be responsible for themselves. Wang Ming was right, his preparations would make them seem more like rich scions out for a casual jaunt. Granted, that was also the truth.

    ......

    Li Hao swiftly caught up to the Guards¡¯ two cars. He jumped onto the second car instead of continuing to run. Li Heng and the others were so startled that they thought enemies had ambushed them. Sighs of relief were forting when their new addition resolved itself to be Li Hao.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen had returned and was caressing the ming Phoenix Spear. He seemed to be probing for something andughed softly after a while, understanding certain things.

    <i>Li Hao!</i>

    <i>So it was you!</i>

    <i>Who would¡¯ve thought that you¡¯d break the mind intent behind the Broken Will Spear! </i>That was rather unexpected.

    ¡°Li Hao¡¯s gone out with his team,¡± Manager Yu murmured, entering the room after knocking. ¡°They¡¯re a team that formed yesterday and some of the members might still be unfamiliar with each other. He decided to take them out anyways¡ªLi Hao¡¯s resume didn¡¯t mention that he¡¯s a brash, impulsive person!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s resume was clear, he was a young man who nned and strategized first beforeing to a decision. He wasn¡¯t as impetuous as he behaved. That Red Moon¡¯s series of murders had been exposed in Silver City was all due to Li Hao. If it wasn¡¯t for the young man¡¯s determination and secret investigation spanning more than a year, even his death might not have been enough to prompt discovery of this connection. Red Moon had acted very covertly.

    So why was the young man in such a hurry today?

    ¡°He has his own thoughts.¡± Hou Xiaochen gently ran his hand up the spear. ¡°Perhaps he senses a difference in strength after seeing more of the world. He might also want to support Yuan Shuo or ease some of the pressure. Yuan Shuo is marching toward the central region with great fanfare to kill Red Moon members. Do you really think he¡¯s that crazed?¡±

    Manager Yu thought for a moment and said softly, ¡°So the director means that... Yuan Shuo is so bold and cocky because he also wants to redirect Red Moon¡¯s attention?¡±

    ¡°Why else?¡± Hou Xiaochen sighed as he looked into the distance. ¡°His disciple is a thorn in Red Moon¡¯s side and Silver Moon has be troubled territory. If Yuan Shuo doesn¡¯t step forward to distract those powerhouses, the Orange and Yellow Moon hunting him might be on their way to eliminate Li Hao instead!¡±

    If Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t throw a wrench into the works, who would Red Moon pull out so many powerhouses for?

    Only Li Hao!

    Many people understood this logic, including Ying Hongyue. Butpared to the nondescript young man, Yuan Shuo was a more pressing concern. Everyone was well aware of the old demon¡¯s terrors. The man had broken his fetters; if left unchecked, he would soon turn into a general cmity!

    If it wasn¡¯t for Ying Hongyue himself being indisposed, he¡¯d personally mobilize against Yuan Shuo. He directed the second and third strongest of his organization to set aside their affairs in the central region and focus on Yuan Shuo. The significance of the old demon was well apparent from that alone. Ying Hongyue ced extreme importance on him!

    Blue Moon and Violet Moon were also in the province; they were here for Li Hao. Any talk of the ruins or Hou Xiaochen was of secondary importance. Blue Moon¡¯s previous n was to sneak Li Hao away when they fought Hou Xiaochen. Red Moon had sent four of their highest executives against the master and disciple duo!

    ¡°You said it yourself that Li Hao is someone who acts after working out a n. Why does he not n now?¡± Hou Xiaochen asked. ¡°It¡¯s only because he has no time. His master is braving the central region alone for his sake. Who would locate Yuan Shuo otherwise if he kept a low profile? Li Hao also understands this. Just because he doesn¡¯t speak of it doesn¡¯t mean he doesn¡¯t understand. If you think he doesn¡¯t, that¡¯d be doing the young man a disservice!¡±

    Manager Yu inclined her head, but still didn¡¯t quite understand. ¡°Yuan Shuo has more than one disciple and it¡¯s only been three years since he epted Li Hao. They might have a good rtionship, but is one Li Hao worth such a hefty price?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s only part of the equation, the other part is that Yuan Shuo himself refuses to ept the situation!¡± A merry Hou Xiaochen seemed to understand Yuan Shuo very well. ¡°He¡¯s unwilling to ept that those who were less than him before can step on him now!

    ¡°He didn¡¯t reveal what he was capable of before as he was despairing or depressed. But now that he sees a chance... People like him can bring a hundred percent of their efforts to bear if they grasp a single chance or opportunity. Yuan Shuo also wants to give himself some pressure. From the dangers of life and death stems a greater hope to catch up to those who have surpassed him.

    ¡°Sky Sword, Tyrant de, and the others are all still alive and doing well for themselves. Ying Hongyue is even more so. Southern Fist and Golden Spear are well off too, and some of his old friends are also in the central region. Do you think he¡¯s willing to go down like this?¡±

    Multiple reasons contributed to Yuan Shuo¡¯s madness. He¡¯d embarked on a frenzied rampage from Near River to the central region. Although he concealed his movements, he exposed himself every time he killed someone. Yuan Shuo constantly ced himself in a state of perpetual peril.

    Such craziness also made those who were paying attention to him uneasy. If he didn¡¯t die, he would eventually be their doom.

    Having started off with Srs, Yuan Shuo had moved on to killing peak Srs. Jadelight Sword traveled with him and was rumored to show signs of entering Summoner of Spirit. She was barely able to withstand weaker initial Srs at first, but news soon spoke of her swiftly dispatching initial Srs. These veteran martial masters quickly grew strong whenever the opportunity presented itself.

    Manager Yu was fully aware of the situation now.

    ¡°Can you not see it yourself? Why ask me?¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled.

    Yu Luocha was no fool. A fool could not be grand secretary of the Night Watchers. She was the one who handled the agency¡¯s affairs. Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t actually oversee much of his agency.

    ¡°I can discern some of Li Hao¡¯s ns, I¡¯m just slightly baffled,¡± Manager Yu offered after some thought. ¡°He¡¯s very confident¡ªor rather, very calm. He¡¯s respectful whenever meeting Golden Spear or an even stronger existence, but he¡¯s not terribly surprised or shocked. It doesn¡¯t fit his identity¡ªhees from the small town of Silver City and didn¡¯t visit elsewhere when he was young. How does he remain soposed?¡±

    ¡°One bes this way after seeing more of the world.¡± Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t surprised. ¡°Perhaps he¡¯s seen something incredible or unparalleled distances. That is why he dares wave the sword around and sever the Broken Will Spear! While his own strength is not up to par, why should he be shocked by a lower world after witnessing a higher ne?¡±

    ¡°Then... do we need to send people to protect him from the shadows?¡± Manager Yu asked thoughtfully.

    Li Hao was a thorn in Red Moon¡¯s side. The organization cared deeply about his movements. They might not know now, but they would find out sooner orter that the young man had left White Moon. That would be when danger came for him.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine...¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°Every martial master walks their own path. He won¡¯t die so easily. If he does, that means hecked a bit of luck. We just need to continue exerting pressure on Red Moon and suppressing their powerhouses. It¡¯s up to Li Hao to see if he can break through their blockade.¡±

    ¡°You were not this way toward Yuan Shuo back in the day...¡±

    ¡°Does Ying Hongyuepare to the likes of Blue Moon?¡± Hou Xiaochen turned solemn. ¡°Although Yuan Shuo and his disciple regrly denounce Ying Hongyue, you are familiar with him as a person. Being able to rapidly build up Red Moon puts him far beyond trash like Blue Moon. Not to mention, Blue Moon is only the second generation of his title!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen ced great importance on Ying Hongyue. In reality, no one dared to not do so. He led one of the three great organizations and could walk around with impunity in the central region. Whoever dared overlook Ying Hongyue did so at their own risk.

    ¡°I understand!¡± Manager Yu said nothing else and prepare to leave.

    ¡°You... can also make your preparations!¡± Hou Xiaochen decided to say when she almost left the office. The secretary¡¯s footsteps paused.

    ¡°It¡¯s time to give it a try,¡± Hou Xiaochen said softly. ¡°Those from Nova and above can try. The drawbacks still cannot be fully resolved for now, but there¡¯s some ways to make up for them. The blood pearls have decent effect, but they are not infinite. There aren¡¯t many Nova level blood pearls and Red Moon will retrieve them all sooner orter...

    ¡°So let¡¯s make our moves as fast as possible before Red Moon does so!¡±

    The blood pearls could settle some of the drawbacks of their current situation, but there wasn¡¯t an infinite supply of them. It addressed the symptoms, not the root cause. Only when Yuan Shuo sessfully modified his Breathing Method of the Five Styles would it truly address the root cause. So many powerhouses had their eyes on him because of it. It didn¡¯t matter if the method was slightly worse than the blood pearls so long as it was truly suited for the task.

    Otherwise, what could they do after the blood pearls ran empty? Not everyone could use external objects to solve an internal problem, and neither was that the proper path!

 Chapter 386: A Ferocious Tiger Emerges From the Mountain (III)

    <h4>Chapter 386: A Ferocious Tiger Emerges From the Mountain (III)</h4>

    ¡°Alright!¡± Manager Yu breathed out softly with a nod. The day had finally arrived to return to being a martial master! She no longer used the name Yu Luocha because she had long ceased to be her. But if she sessfully converted back to martial dao, then the Yu Luocha of yesteryear would be back.

    ¡°Although I¡¯ve made some preparations, they may not be enough,¡± Hou Xiaochen was solemn. ¡°If I fail...¡±

    His supernatural abilities would fade away, his physical body would be gravely injured, and he¡¯d be crippled if not outright dead. It wasn¡¯t that easy for a supernatural to convert back to a martial master. The cost of failure was nearly the same as death. Seeding would also leave a host of problems that might take an even greater opportunity to supplement.

    ¡°It will be fine!¡± Manager Yu didn¡¯t mind. She wasn¡¯t afraid of failure.

    ¡°Then go back and spend a few days in quiet training. Don¡¯t bother yourself with minutiae over the next few days.¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡± The secretary left.

    Hou Xiaochen coughed gently when she left and shook his head with a sigh. He looked out the window, wondering if someone had fully dispelled the aftereffects. Those in Silver Moon couldn¡¯t do so. What about the central region? The royal family? The nine ministries? The premier existences within the three great organizations? How were those fellows hiding in the shadows of various provinces doing?

    The first person to take a step in this field might ignite a full uproar. Equilibrium was still maintained at the moment. Who knew how many existences like him were out there? They wouldn¡¯t be rare, and they were all waiting for the right timing.

    ......

    <i>At the same time in a ce of darkness.</i>

    It seemed to be a mountain cave or a karst cave. The surroundings were dark; a figure suddenly appeared in the quiet surroundings.

    ¡°Pavilion Master, Li Hao seems to have left White Moon City.¡±

    People in cloaks¡ªCelestial. Celestial powerhouses that oversaw operations in a province were hailed as pavilion masters. inly, Half Mountain was present in this locale.

    His voice slowly trailed out of the darkness. ¡°Li Hao... isn¡¯t keeping his nose down in White Moon. Red Moon members havee inrge numbers to gather in Silver Moon. Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple is just as bold as him!¡±

    ¡°Do we need to do anything, Pavilion Master?¡±

    ¡°No, just continue to keep an eye on him! Red Moon has operated in the province for many years, Hou Xiaochen won¡¯t uproot all of their nts that easily. He can hoodwink them for a period of time, but not forever. They¡¯ll discover Li Hao¡¯s movements sooner orter! Let¡¯s keep watching for now!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The cloaked person making a report vanished. Some light appeared in the mountain cave before long. There was more than Half Mountain in the darkness¡ªthere was another cloaked individual that¡¯d been deathly silent earlier. Thetter was so starkly quiet that the earlier Celestial member hadn¡¯t discovered them.

    ¡°Elder, is Li Hao truly the only heir of the eight families?¡± asked Half Mountain.

    <i>Elder.</i>

    Celestial was an unusually mysterious organization that even the Night Watchers knew very little about. They were simr to an organization of assassins, killing whoever they were paid to target. Of course, they were paid in cultivation treasures instead of money.

    The Night Watchers weren¡¯t too familiar with the Celestial structure. They were the most obscure organization out of the three. The agency only knew some general details, such as the existence of an elder council that contained premier killers.

    The elder¡¯s voice was hoarse beneath the cloak. ¡°There might be other survivors, but Li Hao is the only one out in the open! However... maybe that one from Red Moon is also from the eight families. His knowledge of them is greater than ours and Red Moon has been the one making the first move all these years. We have always been limited to following closely behind. Is Ying Hongyue¡¯s surname really Ying?¡±

    Half Mountain fell silent. That was right, Ying Hongyue was also of the Silver Moon martial world. Both Celestial and Yama had previously wondered if he might be of the eight families. There weren¡¯t many clues that pointed either way, and it didn¡¯t affect anything whether he was or not.

    After Li Hao was exposed in Silver City and the eight families became widely known, Ying Hongyue no longer bothered to hide anything.

    ¡°Should we strike first then? Uncontroble developments might result if Li Hao is taken by Red Moon. They¡¯ve been extremely cautious and spent a dozen years setting up ns in Silver City in pursuit of the eight families. It¡¯s obvious that they are seeking a great deal!¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait and see...Wwith Hou Xiaochen and the others still here, they won¡¯t let Red Moon seed!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    The conversation was over, but Celestial wouldn¡¯t really sit on their hands. As emissaries of the dark, they would continue to keep an eye on things.

    ......

    Two trucks slowly drove out of White Moon. The prosperous city dwindled in the rearview mirror. Li Hao looked ahead and peered around them, looking for balls of light. His departure from the city might¡¯ve drawn some attention. Was anyone following him?

    He didn¡¯t notice any supernaturals in pursuit after a while. There were no balls of light within one thousand meters, or perhaps they were so weak that he couldn¡¯t see them.

    The trucks traveled down major roads, tossing and jolting along the way. Many people were nodding off after several hours. Only when the trucks traveled through a patch of jungle did the teams struggle back to wakefulness. Li Hao¡¯s voice sounded in their ears before they had further time to think, ¡°Get out of the cars!¡±

    Martial masters quickly jumped off. Some that didn¡¯t react swiftly enough were dragged off by a surge of strength. Two trucks worth of martial masters in ck armor were all on the ground. Meanwhile, the trucks continued driving forward.

    Large rocks appeared out of thin air in Li Hao¡¯s hands. He shoved them into the carriages and closed the roofs, obscuring the view of whatever was inside. His voice rang in the drivers¡¯ ears, ¡°Keep driving without pause until you reach re City. You can alight for food then. We¡¯ll take care of our own meal!¡±

    These were drivers arranged by the Guards, but they weren¡¯t particrly strong. They followed orders to the letter and wouldn¡¯t defy ones from a centurion. The two drivers continued driving without much thought, other than the second car being quieter than before. Chatterbox Li Heng no longer seemed to be talking.

    ......

    Li Hao looked ahead and spoke only when the trucks were far away. ¡°Keep your movements small and don¡¯t leave too many traces behind. We are in the forests of Sky Mountain. We will proceed on foot, reach the peak, and continue after dark!¡±

    The group looked at each other, doubtful of the need for such an action. However, no one objected. Martial masters that knew the particrs of this forest inwardly groaned to themselves. The forest spanned arge area; it wasn¡¯t a long distance to travel straight through it. But going over the top and continuing through it added at least fifty kilometers to the trip. As they were all wearing ck armor, even martial masters would find the journey exhausting.

    Momentster, a group of fifty-one moved softly and began making their way through the forest, vanishing from the road.

    ......

    <i>Outside the forest of Sky Mountain.</i>

    Someone held a pair of specially crafted binocrs and looked intently through them. They frowned when the trucks drove out of the forest. The roofs were open before, why were they closed now? Was it because the sun was too bright, or did the upants seek to hide something?

    Regardless, it made observation difficult. This was one of the drawbacks to martial masters. Nothing was observable if one wasn¡¯t in close quarters, it was quite a hassle. It would be a different case if it was a truck full of supernaturals. They¡¯d stick out like a sore thumb no matter where they went. Powerhouses would easily pick up on their traces.

    ......

    Li Hao¡¯s trip out of White Moon City elicited a great deal of attention. The trucks filled with martial masters were kept in many people¡¯s line of sight. No one drew near for close inspection as they knew that Liu Long was a Dominator and Li Hao was very possibly a Dominator. The auras of Dominators were sensitive things.

    It wasn¡¯t until the trucks made it to re City and continued to remain still after the drivers returned from lunch that they drew further attention. However, there was still no one who dared approach for a closer look.

    The sky eventually grew dark. Meanwhile, a group of rich children drove out in style in a sports car. Handsome young men and beautiful young women had a ball of a time racing to Rift Canyon. They raised some attention, but no one was overly concerned. It was just a group of youngsters seeking fresh air.

    Li Hao took the Demon Hunters through several forests and evaded all spots where there were balls of light. Fifty-one people disappeared from the public eye with none the wiser.

    ......

    <i>The outskirts of the Sky Mountain forests.</i>

    Night was upon them. Li Hao stood unmoving on the spot like a stone sculpture. Some of the armored warriors behind him panted softly, dog-tired. They¡¯d run all day through mountain trails while being d in armor. This was true field training¡ªthey hadn¡¯t had a bite to eat or a drop to drink.

    What was Li Hao doing? Looking for enemies? Searching for members of the three great organizations? But... was this how one searched? They were going to reach Rift Canyon if they continued like this. In that case, it was better to ride in the trucks. It¡¯d be an easier journey.

    The Sunderers were holding up, but some of the yers could barely stay on their feet. They were beyond exhausted. No expressions were visible since everyone¡¯s faces were obscured by ck visors, but resentment was inly fomenting within the team. They didn¡¯t understand and were discontent with Li Hao¡¯s decision because the young man didn¡¯t offer any exnations.

    ¡°Rest here for half an hour,¡± Li Hao said at this time. ¡°Eat some and drink a bit of water. Relieve yourselves if you must, but do not walk off from your team. Do your business here. We continue after half an hour!¡±

    Someone couldn¡¯t help themselves any longer and muttered, ¡°Question, leader! Where are we headed to?¡±

    ¡°Just follow me!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t give a straight answer as he didn¡¯t know what the destination was either. His destination was wherever there were members of the three great organizations.

    Liu Long took out some rations and water to split among the team. Apart from Li Hao, he was the only one with a storage ring¡ªthe young man had given him the one he wore. After killing Yu Xiao and Huang Jie, Li Hao owned two. He¡¯d given one to Liu Long so that the chief could also be in charge of collections.

 Chapter 387: A Victorious First Battle (I)

    <h4>Chapter 387: A Victorious First Battle (I)</h4>

    Liu Long walked over momentster. He and Li Hao were the only ones not in armor. His expression was stern as he looked at the young man. He knew that Li Hao was taking this route to evade certain people¡¯s line of sight, but that also meant he¡¯d strayed from the Guards and Night Watcher vision as well.

    The Guards had a special tracking device, but the young man tossed it into the truck when he alighted. At the moment, the Demon Hunters were a lone army unit that¡¯d lost contact with headquarters. None of the others had had a chance to be outfitted with the tracking device. They¡¯d joined the Guards too recently.

    ¡°Do we have a target?¡± Liu Long asked in a low voice. Li Hao took out a map and pointed at a specific area. ¡°Here are the Night Watchers. Director Hao did some preparatory work before and locked onto certain areas that may be strongholds for the three great organizations. He¡¯s paused from further investigation because Red Moon has entered the province inrge numbers. I benefit from his efforts instead.¡±

    Was that really benefiting?

    ¡°This particr spot is closest to Rift Canyon,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°It might be a Red Moon stronghold. I sent Wang Ming there first to see if he can bait some people out.¡± With that, he bought into his own picture of grandeur that he was painting. ¡°We¡¯ll slip in at night. It¡¯s early yet, so if all goes well, they¡¯ll be distracted by Wang Ming. We¡¯ll follow them to their nest and clean out the entire lot!¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s another fifty kilometers to that spot.¡± Liu Long studied the map. ¡°Can people hold up?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m doing that on purpose. yers don¡¯t have much internal force, I want to deplete them!¡± Li Hao muttered. ¡°Only then will new force be born to extend the old force. Any scarlet shadows or mysterious power that we absorb will show the greatest effect!¡±

    That was the theory, but Liu Long felt that it might give rise to someints within the team. After some thought, however, he set it out of his mind.

    ¡°We move out!¡± Li Hao grunted after half an hour. ¡°I¡¯ll knock out anyone whogs and leave you here. Don¡¯t me me if wild beasts, supernaturals, or martial masterse across you and kill you!¡±

    Some yers nearly broke out in curses when they heard this. <i>Are you human?! </i>But one had to lower their heads when under another¡¯s roof. As great as their resentment was building, they had to silently follow behind their leader. The Sunderers gave them a hand sometimes, particrly during difficult stretches of the path.

    Martial masters weren¡¯t weak, but they were no different from mundanes when their internal force was depleted.

    ......

    There was argeke surrounded by trees roughly twenty-five kilometers from Rift Canyon. It was a beautiful environment with a gorgeous view. Since it was far from the city, however, not many visited on a normal basis. It was extremely quiet at night.

    Two young men and three young women had set up camp here tonight. They built a bonfire and enjoyed themselves with a party. Their tents were set up by theke.

    The five chatted andughed with joy, enjoying grilled food and partaking fragrant wine that traveled upon the wind. Theirughter was loud, but close inspection revealed certain nervousness in the depths of their eyes.

    One of the young men was Wang Ming, the other was Zhou Qin¡ªthe one who¡¯d captured the tiger. Zhou Qin was munching on a skewer and chortling at a joke, but tension filled his eyes. Some incidents had urred at this spot before, people often went missing. This wasn¡¯t a good ce to be.

    And yet, this was precisely where they wanted to visit. Excitement and thrills were what they pursued.

    ¡°Ole Wang...¡± Zhou Qin kept his voice down after a few more bites.

    Laughing heartily, Wang Ming shook his head when he noticed that Zhou Qing wanted to say something. ¡°This ce is beautiful! White Moon is such a bore. It¡¯s so stifling after staying there for long!¡±

    The women quickly tittered in agreement. All of them were tense, but a certain glee marked their alertness. Daredevils, all three of them. They knew full well what this trip was about and wanted nothing more than for people to be watching them in the surroundings.

    ......

    The truth was, there were indeed people watching them from the shadows. They saw five rich scions that were all supernaturals. There were no storage rings to be seen, but all of them wore energy rings. The mboyant Wang Ming wore five energy rings between his two hands.

    Energy rings were also quite valuable, but more importantly, they containedrge quantities of mysterious power. One ring often held one thousand cubes. These youngsters might not possess that much, but even if there were only one hundred cubes in a ring, Wang Ming alone carried five hundred cubes. Any supernatural apart from the premier powerhouses would find this massively tempting.

    There was more than Wang Ming present, there were five people total! Zhou Qin also wore an energy ring on his hand.

    Two figures shed through the ground roughly five hundred meters away from the small group. One of them emanated earth energy as he created a space underground. The other¡¯s ear twitched as he noticeably extended it forward.

    ¡°They¡¯re just chatting about inconsequential things,¡± Extended Ear whispered after a while. ¡°But one of them mentioned an identity¡ªthere¡¯s a Wang surnamed initial Sunre among them. His status is high as his family has some authority within the White Dragons.¡±

    ¡°White Dragons?¡± The earth powerhouse thought for a bit and muttered, ¡°Their vicemander is surnamed Wang. I think I know who this person is¡ªWang Ming of the Wang family! He¡¯s hailed as a peerless genius and a Night Watcher supernatural...¡±

    ¡°A Night Watcher?¡± Extended Ear frowned.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, so what if he¡¯s a Night Watcher?¡± whispered the earth supernatural. ¡°It looks like they¡¯re out to have fun. Let¡¯s go back with this report. We just need to be a bit more careful.¡±

    The two shifted quickly and burrowed into another area. They ran into open space after advancing for a while¡ªearth supernaturals had fortified an underground base that spanned one acre.

    People bustled to and fro from the underground buildings; there were quite a few of them.

    They were only a few thousand meters away from theke that Wang Ming and the others were at. Being several dozen meters underground in the wilderness, no one would discover them under ordinary circumstances.

    An expert in a Ghostface mask met them upon their return. ¡°Long Ear¡¯s back! Well, what¡¯s the situation?¡±

    ¡°Five rich second gens that are descendants of officials in White Moon City...¡± the two quickly summed up.

    A hulking man in the distance walked over; he didn¡¯t wear a mask. ¡°A Night Watcher... Are they bait?¡±

    ¡°We didn¡¯t see anyone following them,¡± replied the earth supernatural. ¡°If they¡¯re bait, they¡¯re all children of powerful people and one of them¡¯s a Night Watcher genius. It¡¯ll be troublesome if anything happens to them, so would they be used as bait?¡±

    ¡°Even if they are, we can take them with Hao Lianchuan being absent and Hou Xiaochen not stirring from his office!¡± someone elseughed.

    ¡°It¡¯s one Sunre and four Darkmoons... They¡¯re not weak, but they¡¯re not worth anything either.¡±

    ¡°We should think this over carefully and not take rash action. Their camp is too close to our base. If they disappear, that¡¯ll draw a deeper investigation from actual heavyweights...¡±

    Discussion flourished as some wanted to kill these people, while others advocated for caution. Indeed, this was one of Red Moon¡¯s strongholds. It held only ten or so people before, but swelled to nearly fifty when greater numbers of Red Moon powerhouses arrived in the province.

    It was because of this that the base was a bit disorderly. There were too many people that came from different areas¡ªmembers from three different provinces were crammed into this tiny stronghold. They didn¡¯t feel much of a connection with each other, so a variety of voices and suggestions abounded when they talked.

    They weren¡¯t too far from Rift Canyon and were camped here for one mission¡ªto kill supernaturals wandering around on their own. Any that didn¡¯t belong to Red Moon were fair game. Those who were too strong to kill should be taken note of.

    The based possessed a few supernaturals adept at investigation¡ªLong Ear, for example. Although he was only a Fullmoon, his ears could hear anything within one thousand meters. It was an exceptionally useful ability.

    There were also supernaturals skilled at observing things in the distance. The hour had grown toote for their ability, so they hadn¡¯t been present earlier.

    There were also powerhouses present, such as the hulking man. He was a peak Sunre and the temporary leader of the camp. A headache brewed as the group squabbled and he cut them off, "That¡¯s enough! Be quiet! There¡¯s nothing noteworthy about the Night Watchers and we¡¯ll kill them if we need to. We¡¯ll get these guys so long as this isn¡¯t a trap. These bastards have killed enough of us recently as it is! Since when did Red Moon fear the Night Watchers?

    ¡°The Silver Moon government and us have shared a death feud ever since Hou Xiaochen killed Elder Red Hair!¡± The man thought over his next steps. ¡°Keep watching them for a bit to make sure they¡¯re not bait from the Night Watchers. Also, have our people in White Moon investigate to see if the Night Watcher powerhouses have made any movementstely.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The group dispersed. They spent their days beneath the ground crowded among too many people. It was impossible to properly train and they were all beginning to go stir crazy. Smiles spread across faces as they thought of the three tender women outside and the rich Wang Ming. They finally had something to do!

    ......

    ¡°Huff... puff...¡± Heavy panting sounded in the team. A group of nearly exhausted soldiers ran through the darkness. Some stabbed their longswords into the ground as walking sticks, ignoring how precious the weapon was and that it should not be used for this purpose.

    Li Hao stopped up ahead. He looked back at Liu Long and transmitted, ¡°Wang Ming seems to be nearby. I¡¯m going to take a look first. If he¡¯s lured some people over, we¡¯ll attack right after resting for a bit!¡±

    Liu Long was also growing resigned with the young man. They¡¯d been running for a full day and night!

    Li Hao ignored him and vanished on the spot.

 Chapter 388: A Victorious First Battle (II)

    <h4>Chapter 388: A Victorious First Battle (II)</h4>

    Li Hao spotted five balls of light after a while. Wang Ming¡¯s was sizable, the other four were lesser.

    ¡°This guy really isn¡¯t afraid of death. He¡¯s brought four Darkmoons with him!¡± Li Hao was struck dumb by what he found. Light and nimble on his feet, he swiftly approached the group that¡¯d set up camp. He¡¯d absorbed a good deal of wind energy and was skilled in the deer style. A few leaps in the darkness propelled him several hundred meters forward so that hended gently on a tree.

    Looking in the direction of the bonfire, Li Hao saw Wang Ming and Zhou Qin, as well as three girls who weren¡¯t that old. He didn¡¯t look too closely at them. Having a party in the middle of the night would draw attention from anyone keeping an eye on the location.

    The young man looked around, casting his eyes below the ground as well. His eyes were particrly bright in the darkness. They soon darted back to a spot¡ªhe vanished where he was and reappeared on another big tree. A ball of light was within his vision. It wasn¡¯t big, so it was likely a Fullmoon level. It was <i>inside</i> the tree instead of below the ground¡ªa wood supernatural!

    So there was a wood supernatural hidden nearby, observing the group.

    Li Hao looked around again, wanting to see if there were any scarlet shadows around. Red Moon members loved sending out their shadows to surveil the target because the shadows were formless and intangible. They were oftentimes more useful than supernatural abilities.

    The young man did indeed pick up a moderately sized scarlet shadow after looking around. It floated at a location further away from the ball of light, directly facing the wood supernatural. Had the supernatural set it there out of concern for being targeted by someone?

    ¡°So it really is a Red Moon supernatural...¡± Li Hao smiled from his vantage point. They hadn¡¯t run all this way for nothing. Darkmoons wouldn¡¯t dare target Wang Ming and the others, so there must be a Red Moon base nearby. He¡¯d just failed to discover it during the earlier reconnaissance.

    The young man waited silently for a bit and suddenly sensed movement underground. Ears twitching, Li Hao focused his eyes on a ball of light that¡¯d suddenly appeared. An earth supernatural!

    The earth supernatural quickly burrowed to the wood supernatural and poked his head up. The two were very close to each other, making their conversation impossible to identify.

    He didn¡¯t mind either way; Li Hao watched the swiftly departing earth supernatural and ignored the one on watch duty. The earth supernatural abruptly vanished after asking almost a thousand meters.

    Li Hao blinked. The ball of light had disappeared? The young man frowned. If the ball of light had disappeared... that meant the other had burrowed deep into the ground. Regr earth supernaturals wouldn¡¯t go that far down because too much pressure would be exerted on them.

    ¡°The base is underground?¡± Li Hao was slightly surprised, but also found it perfectly logical. As more powerhouses joined the Silver Moon branch, they would jointly create a new headquarters. An underground ce didn¡¯t seem that hard and offered more privacy.

    However, it would interfere with his observations if they were too far down.

    The young mannded gently on the ground and thought for a bit, sending a surge of earth sword aura below him. As the aura drilled down, his mind intent spread out and afforded him arger range of observation. His vision expanded alongside his mind intent and he sensed certain supernatural ripples.

    Supernatural ripples were noticeable and easy to pick up if one was near them. Li Hao silently took stock of them and had an estimation after a while.

    ¡°Four or five Sunres, thirty-some Darkmoons. It¡¯s a decently sized stronghold!¡± He looked into the distance again and saw a few more scarlet shadows. These Red Moon members had hidden their shadows deep, positioning them on paths that people were certain to pass through. The supernaturals would be quickly alerted when someone found this locale, making it very difficult to hunt them down.

    Li Hao vanished on the spot after making observations for a while.

    ......

    <i>Momentster.</i>

    Li Hao returned to where the Demon Hunters were. Some of the Guards were lying inplete exhaustion on the ground¡ªfeeling much better after momentary rest. Everyone returned to their feet upon seeing their leader return.

    ¡°I¡¯ve discovered the enemy!¡± Li Hao cut straight to the chase. ¡°There¡¯s a Red Moon stronghold up ahead with roughly forty people and four or five Sunres. The rest are almost all Darkmoons.¡±

    A disturbance shifted the crowd¡ªhe¡¯d discovered a Red Moon nest just like that? That easily? They weren¡¯t rookies and knew that the three great organizations kept their spots under strict concealment. It was hard to catch even a hint of one. Li Hao had simply gone out for a walk to find one?

    If his information was true, it was a strong hiding spot.

    ¡°It¡¯s just a few Sunres... You guys are in ck armor that they won¡¯t be able to break. Added to that Sunderers on our side, it¡¯ll be easy to defeat them!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Do keep in mind that these are all Red Moon members. They¡¯re tasty tidbits for the taking! Blood pearls do exist and they¡¯re the biggest treasure for martial masters. Killing the people here and taking their blood pearls will meant that a lot of yers will be Sunderers tonight!¡±

    The group stared with agitation and Hong Qing quickly asked, ¡°Leader, will you be making a move too?¡±

    ¡°No, you guys are in charge of the battlefield. Deputy Liu and I will be covering the surroundings. We¡¯ll eliminate anyone who gets away!¡± Li Hao wasn¡¯t going to be part of the fighting, a decision that worried Hong Qing and the others. Their enemies were not weak.

    Also, the Demon Hunters weren¡¯t too familiar with each other yet. The teamsprised of Sword Sect or Inspectorate members were better off, but those with intermixed people would have a difficult time coordinating since they were unfamiliar with each other¡¯s strengths.

    ¡°Go on!¡± Li Hao ordered and described the area that the enemy was in.

    Underground... was a difficult proposition for martial masters. However, Li Hao knew that once they appeared in Red Moon territory, they would soon raise the organization¡¯s rm and attack. The presence of the Demon Hunters meant that they¡¯d been exposed!

    ......

    ¡°Are we really not going to do anything?¡± Liu Long frowned as they walked off. ¡°It¡¯s their first time working together and they may not be able to utilize the armor to its full advantage...¡±

    ¡°The enemy¡¯s a motley array as well. They¡¯re shoved together from a bunch of other provinces and have no coordination to speak of. Running drills is too much of a hassle. We¡¯ll naturally grow familiar with each other through fighting...¡± Li Hao changed focus. ¡°You can take care of the wood supernatural near Wang Ming. I¡¯ll keep an eye on things here. Regr Sunres won¡¯t be able to kill martial masters outfitted in ck armor, but that peak Sunre might actually kill some. Having people die under my nose in our first battle... that would damage morale!¡±

    No one could die in the beginning. When the team grew familiar with fighting and morale was high, that was when they¡¯d be able to ept losing some of their own when encountering danger. They needed to win every single fight from the start!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t understand military affairs, but he did understand one concept. Even a worm would dare fight a dragon if the worm won every battle.

    ......

    <i>Within the underground base.</i>

    A loud hubbub roared as Red Moon members seemed ready to eliminate Wang Ming and the others. Just as some resident experts prepared to move, Long Ear suddenly frowned. ¡°Hold on!¡±

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s footstepsing from the ground. Eh? There¡¯s more than one... there¡¯s a lot of people...¡±

    The group blinked when they heard his report. A lot of people?

    Long Ear continued to listen intently and frowned ferociously at the ceiling above him. ¡°Their footsteps are very heavy, as if they¡¯re moving with equipment. There seems to be... forty or fifty people.¡±

    ¡°That many? Is it a merchant convoy?¡± Someone else sensed the ground above them and didn¡¯t detect mysterious power ripples. So many who were not supernaturals... then it was merchants?

    No one considered the possibility of martial masters. Who would send nearly fifty martial masters out together? Martial masters were hard to locate in the vast Silver Moon. Although the Silver Moon Guards were more or less public knowledge now, not everyone knew about them.

    ¡°Forget them. If it¡¯s just a merchant convoy, we¡¯ll take it out when we¡¯re done with business at hand. Nothing will be left after a handful of mes!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± The crowd mored excitedly, not paying this any heed.

    Some supernaturals, however, tilted their heads with wariness. ¡°The divine shadows seem to have picked up on something. This... doesn¡¯t seem to be a merchant convoy, but army troops?¡±

    Someone¡¯s scarlet shadow had detected something and sent back a few images. Brows knitted together when they reviewed the images. Armor?

    An army unit wearing armor? Were they trying to relive the ancient past? None of the modern day armies were outfitted with such equipment¡ªalthough there were rumors of the royal family possessing troops of ck armor.

    The group of Red Moon supernaturals were perplexed by thetest development. An armored unit? If it wasn¡¯t for the size of the crowd here, some would think that they¡¯d traveled back to the ancient past. Where did such an army unite from in this day and age?

    ¡°It¡¯s not the ck Armaturas, is it?¡± someone snorted, mostly cracking a joke. The ck Armaturas resided in Skystar City to protect the royal family. They didn¡¯t even participate in the war of the central region, so how would they possibly appear in a forgotten ce like Silver Moon?

    ¡°Shall we go take a look?¡± someone raised. Further discussionmenced, but the hulking peak Sunre suddenly frowned. His eyes widened with dismay.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The world underground shook with a loud rumble. The sturdy buildings began trembling like an earthquake was upon them. Multiple supernaturals panicked as they were dozens of meters below the surface. Infinite soil was over their heads. The earth supernaturals might be fine in the event of a cave-in, but the others would be out of luck.

    Was this an earthquake?

    ¡°Go up!¡± Everyone started running for the passageways that led upward. The base wasn¡¯tpletely sealed off as that meant they were all doomed without earth supernaturals.

    As people ran for the outside world, some earth supernaturals quickly flew through the dirt.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, directly over the buildings.</i>

    Li Hao stomped his foot and reverberated the earth sword aura. After shaking the earth a few times, he vanished on the spot. Noting out? Then have a good taste of the earth sword aura!

    The Demon Hunters rushed over as soon as he left. Heads popped out of the ground at the same time, catching both sides off guard. They¡¯d encountered the enemy before anyone was prepared.

    ¡°Kill!¡± Liu Yan was very clear headed. She¡¯d encountered many situations like this and grunted without a word, manifesting her twin des and stabbing it at the nearest head!

    Hong Qing quickly regained her senses and shed with her sword!

    All of the martial masters reacted properly now. The encounter was unexpected, but they were slightly more prepared than the enemy because they were here to kill Red Moon members.

 Chapter 389: A Victorious First Battle (III)

    <h4>Chapter 389: A Victorious First Battle (III)</h4>

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Sword qi ignited; there were a lot of Sword Sect disciples on the scene. Rays of sword qi raced through the area. The earth supernaturals in front had time to jump back with shock and reenter the earth, but those who¡¯d just popped up didn¡¯t have space to react.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A series of techniques rained down on their heads. Internal force exploded and ripped the ground apart. Two earth supernaturals who didn¡¯t have a chance to retreat were killed beneath the ground.

    The Demon Hunters were attacking in a haphazard way. Everyone had their eyes on the same target and sometimes got in each other¡¯s ways. When the team captain noticed the disarray, they roared for order.

    ¡°Split up, don¡¯t clump together!¡±

    There were too many people crowded together in an attempt to take out the enemy. People jostled for position and shoved each other out of the way. As disorganized as they were, so was Red Moon. The ground abruptly opened up as a boulder moved out of the way, disgorging a dozen supernaturals. The two sides looked at each other before Red Moon members yelled, ¡°Enemies at the gates, it¡¯s martial masters!¡±

    The Demon Hunters immediately realized that the boulder was covering the entrance.

    ¡°They¡¯re underground, hurry and kill them!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Several martial masters rushed over as the supernaturals regained their footing. Some of thetter called upon supernatural abilities while others summoned their scarlet shadows. A chaotic melee developed between the two sides.

    ......

    Li Hao watched silently from a tree in the distance. Liu Long returned before long, fresh blood on his ax.

    ¡°It¡¯s done!¡± he breathed out.

    Li Hao nodded; Liu Long followed his gaze down and frowned. ¡°Too disorderly! They¡¯re aplete mess and the teams are all jumbled together. Some of the Sunderers show absolutely no desire to work together. They¡¯re all going after the enemy in their own way...¡±

    He¡¯d be beside himself with urgency if he was in charge of the group. But with Li Hao here, he was much more at ease, even if the disarray in front of him was immensely irritating.

    ¡°That¡¯s why we skipped the training portion and sent them directly into the field.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°They¡¯ll know what the problems are after this battle.¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Battle continued in an eruptive fashion beneath them. As more Red Moon Sunres charged up from below, they quickly forced back the martial masters that held an advantage. One of the peak Sunres was a metal supernatural. He punched out and sent the charging Wang Chao flying. Although thetter was ate Sunderer wearing a suit of armor, his head still spun from the blow!

    ¡°Defensive types up front while I take care of the Sunre!¡± Liu Yan roared angrily. ¡°Don¡¯t get pushed around!¡±

    Hong Qing was also in a frenzy. She was very strong, but kept out of the action by her own fellow disciples. ¡°Team one, charge to the left!¡±

    ......

    The Red Moon powerhouses thought they¡¯d encountered the ck Armaturas at first. But once a full pitched battle was underway, they could tell that these ck armored martial masters were even more disorganized than themselves. Only a few supernaturals died at the start!

    The hulking leader¡¯s eyes darted around as he thought of something. ¡°Kill them! These are suits of ck armor and it¡¯s the Sword Sect inside! How dare the Sword Sect ambush us! Hong Yitang is probably nearby too, so hurry up and kill them! The armor is highly valuable and upstairs will give us one mysterious power stone for each set!¡±

    ck armor, martial masters... The Sword Sect was the first to spring to mind. The armor was no longer a secret after Battle Heaven, and the sect had been lucky enough to walk away with some. The only factor that Red Moon needed to take into consideration was that Sword Sect Srs could be nearby.

    If they weren¡¯t, then this jumbled assembly of martial masters would be theirs sooner orter, even with strong defensive abilities.

    Eyes grew bloodshot when the supernaturals heard that each set of armor would fetch one mysterious power stone. Someone soon yelled, ¡°Work together, everyone work together! Martial masters are trash before they reach Dominator. Set up an earth trapping formation ording to our routines, c¡¯mon!¡±

    The Red Moon members mobilized concerted action as orders were called out. Earth supernaturals shook the ground and formed pits in the dirt. The martial masters were confined to one area and were easily tripped up by random holes in the ground if they tried to advance.

    ¡°Fire types are in charge of long range attacks, wood types trip them up, flight types close in for directbat. Let¡¯s go!¡± The Red Moon supernaturals limated to the situation more easily than the Demon Hunters. They had extensive experience fighting in many areas. While the group was unfamiliar with each other, it was enough to split up duties in a generalized fashion.

    Balls of fire hurtled toward Liu Yan¡¯s group!

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    Martial masters wearing ck armor were forced back. Wood energy surrounded them and elerated the growth of shrubbery on the ground, tangling martial masters in their branches. The armor was hard to break and possessed immense defensive abilities, but did nothing to prevent capture.

    Several Sunres were in charge of the offense. A peak metal Sunre punched martial masters into the air, incapacitating them even if he wasn¡¯t able to kill them. The flight supernaturals quickly knocked their targets back down, whereupon countless branches stretched out from the ground. If a martial master was skilled enough to avoid the branches, they mightnd in a huge hole and be covered by an endless stream of dirt.

    Having just taken the upper hand, the martial masters were quickly forced back as the battle continued. The team captains struck fiercely, able to harm and kill the enemy because they themselves were quite strong. However, the effects were less than ideal and they quickly had no alternative but to retreat.

    If it wasn¡¯t for their equipment, the Demon Hunters would¡¯ve quickly lost half their number over the short course of the engagement. While the Red Moon sidecked superior equipment and had been ambushed, they lost only eight supernaturals before stabilizing the situation.

    ......

    Liu Long frowned ferociously. ¡°Ai!¡± he sighed and looked at Li Hao. This was the team that the young man wanted to lead in battle against powerhouses. To be honest, they were a motley crew. There were already eight martial masters that¡¯d been captured. They were either locked in ce or buried by dirt, unable to move.

    As strong as the sets of ck armor were, the martial masters inside would be shaken to death if power reverberated through them. They weren¡¯t invincible!

    Li Hao watched silently, thinking back to the army of Battle Heaven. They might not be stronger than these martial masters if fifty of those troops were here, but half of these supernaturals might be dead after their concerted opening moves. It would take another charge at most to fully eliminate the supernaturals.

    Such were the elite troops of the ancient civilization. These martial masters were a scattered bunch without clear leadership.

    Li Hao had taken a position to prevent their quarry from running, but now... these supernaturals weren¡¯t trying to run at all. They wanted to eliminate the Demon Hunters and seize the armor. If it wasn¡¯t for their Sunres being wary of Hong Yitang and sending their scarlet shadows to find the man, the Sunderer team captains would¡¯ve long fallen to thebined pressure of Sunres and scarlet shadows.

    The armor could prevent part of the shadow¡¯s incursion, but the martial master was still affected. A scarlet shadowy on Liu Yan and attempted to invade her body through the, eating away at her internal force.

    As more martial masters were captured and there was still no sign of Hong Yitang to be seen, the Sunres were emboldened. Roaring, they attacked with increasing viciousness and forced Liu Yan and the others back. A powerful defense only ensured preservation of one¡¯s life. It didn¡¯t enable any sort of effective counterattack.

    The other team captains grew frantic. They¡¯d thought it¡¯d be an easy mission, but reality gave them a harsh blow. More and more martial masters were captured and immobilized off to the side.

    ¡°Switch up!¡± Li Heng roared. ¡°Sword cultivators on one team, defense on one team, and close quartersbat on another...¡±

    The teams were so unorganized to the point that they were severely interfering with other people¡¯s operations.

    ¡°Sword Sect disciples, follow my lead,¡± Hong Qing immediately followed up. ¡°Don¡¯t lose yourposure!¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡± The remaining martial masters abandoned their preset teams and made adjustments themselves. Defense in the front, offense to the rear, some people smashed the ground with internal force so that the ground could not serve as the Red Moon base.

    Such was actualbat. This was when they could make swift improvements. It would be hard to see effects that quickly in outright training.

    ¡°Those adept at body methods follow me. We kill the flight supernaturals!¡± Wu Chao roared and leapt into the air. He was exceedingly fast as he raced into the sky, followed by some martial masters confident in their body methods. They all aimed for the supernaturals in the sky!

    Supernaturals were superior whether in the sky or on the ground. There were very few techniques that martial masters could employ inparison, but the armor closed the gap somewhat.

    Casualties appeared on both sides as the situation stabilized. Liu Long¡¯s knitted brows rxed. Martial masters were not idiots, after all. After a few adjustments in the face of danger, they¡¯d finally found their footing despite losing a third of their number. They could now hold their own against the enemy.

    ¡°Hoo!¡± Liu Long breathed out. Li Hao smiled faintly as well. There were still people with their heads on straight in the Demon Hunters. To be honest, he didn¡¯t really understand military formations. But some of the team had naturally assembled into them, making it much easier for them to withstand supernatural attacks.

    He observed closely, taking everyone¡¯s performance into ount. It was roughly five minutes since battle started and the disturbance was significant. Thankfully, they were in the wild. If supernatural ripples continued to oscite as they continued, it was only a matter of time before greater powerhouses happened upon the scene.

    Just as both sides iled at each other, the leading Sunre jerked his head up in rm. A ray of sword light shed through the air, like a ferocious tiger breaking free of its cage. The strongest Sunres standing in the front exploded when the light arced through the void!

    Four Sunres were dead on the spot! The supernaturals dissolved into instant mayhem. Hong Qing and the others were gripped by shock. Sword aura! That was Li Hao¡¯s sword aura!

 Chapter 390: A Victorious First Battle (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 390: A Victorious First Battle (IV)</h4>

    ¡°What are you standing around for?? Kill, kill them all! Hurry up!¡± Li Hao¡¯s decisive killing of the Sunres vanquished the battle intent in the other Red Moon supernaturals. They focused their efforts on fleeing.

    ¡°How dare you ambush Red Moon, Hong Yitang!¡± one of them yelled. ¡°The Sword Sect will be ended for this!¡±

    inly, the Red Moon members had mistaken Li Hao for Hong Yitang!

    The young man couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond and stabbed the ground with his sword. Sword aura pulverized supernaturals fleeing through the earth. Up ahead, Hong Qing and the others erupted with full fury. Sword qi criss-crossed through the scene and killed every supernatural seeking to run.

    The flight supernaturals in the sky wanted to soar away, but a personnded from above before they had a chance tounch themselves in motion. Liu Long hacked a supernatural to death with one ax stroke and swiftly twirled his weapon across the void, eliminating all of the Darkmoons in the blink of an eye!

    Liu Yan and the others also made their moves. The scene was quiet in the quick span of a breath. Heavy panting abounded. Liu Yan cut through the restraints with a casual sh and freed the martial masters that¡¯d been immobilized. More than a dozen people bounded to their feet, their faces beet red with embarrassment. Their expressions were impossible to make out through the armor, but it was no mark of honor to be captured in battle.

    ¡°Clean up the battlefield, collect the mysterious power, and send someone to sweep through their base,¡± Liu Yan instructed calmly. ¡°You have ten minutes before we move out!¡±

    No one said a word, but some folks quickly walked down the passageways in the ground. Others made sure the enemy was dead while more began collecting mysterious power. Everyone was very quiet. If it wasn¡¯t for their armor and impressive leader, they might¡¯ve all been lost.

    Li Hao grabbed the metal peak Sunre and utilized his energy ring to store roughly three hundred cubes of metal mysterious power.

    ¡°This goes to our bait, make sure that¡¯s recorded.¡± He looked at Liu Long.

    ¡°Understood!¡± Liu Long nodded, neither envious nor finding it inappropriate. Although the bait hadn¡¯t done anything, they¡¯d assumed extreme danger. Any slight misstep might¡¯ve resulted in all of their deaths.

    ......

    <i>Not too far away.</i>

    Wang Ming and the others stared with dropped jaws. They¡¯d rushed over when they heard the disturbance and were in time to see the battle between the two sides. They witnessedrge numbers of supernaturals dying and Sunres being run through with one sword stroke. Four Sunres weren¡¯t able to stand against one stroke! Other than Wang Ming, the rest had their hearts in their throat!

    ¡°Ole Wang, your... your senior brother is crazy strong!¡±

    ¡°Seriously, he killed those Sunres with one move! That¡¯s insane!¡±

    ¡°And is the other one Liu Long? Dominators are definitely incredible, he hacked so many flight supernaturals to death...¡±

    ¡°......¡± They were highly flushed and excited. Almost none of them had seen such a massive battle scene before¡ªmore than one hundredbined martial masters and supernaturals had shed with each other, but it was the supernaturals that were routed.

    This kind of incident was very hard toe across in Silver Moon. This trip was well worth it. Being able to watch this battle alone made everything worth it.

    A figure shed in front of their eyes; Li Hao threw an energy ring to Wang Ming. ¡°This is for you, there¡¯s three hundred cubes of metal mysterious power in it. You guys can divide it yourselves among yourselves, it¡¯s your payment for this operation! Keep going. The more powerhouses you attract, the greater the gains, the more you earn! Of course, the more danger associated with the operation. I won¡¯t be able toe so quickly each time and may not make it in time for every encounter. It¡¯s up to you guys if you want to back out!¡±

    The young man vanished after those words.

    Three hundred cubes... It wasn¡¯t much to these rich second generations, but they were keyed up all the same. Although each of them wouldn¡¯t receive that much after the distribution was made¡ªjust a couple dozen that their families could easily afford¡ªthey¡¯d earned this by themselves!

    ¡°I... Ole Wang, I¡¯ve earned mysterious power!¡± Zhou Qin said excitedly.

    They¡¯d been highly nervous as they would be partially participating in battle. It was both a thrilling and nerve-wracking idea that there would be so many supernatural powerhouses around. They would¡¯ve been done for if Li Hao and the others hade a bitter.

    But now, none of them wanted to leave. There was only excitement and exhration in their eyes. It felt so different to earn their own riches!

    ¡°This is nothing!¡± Wang Ming snorted. ¡°Let me tell you guys something, I¡¯ve killed a Sr before!¡±

    ¡°What??¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s true, my senior brother and I did it together. Obviously, don¡¯t tell anyone about this. Remember when someone ambushed my senior brother in an alley? It was that time!¡± He didn¡¯t speak of Zhang Ting¡¯s matter, but the events of the alley were no secret.

    Wang Ming preened with pride. He could finally boast about this! No one would believe him if they hadn¡¯t just seen what¡¯d happened with their own eyes.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t my senior brother something?¡± Wang Ming chuckled. ¡°How long would it take for us to earn three hundred cubes in the Night Watchers? C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go to the next location. It¡¯s dangerous, but if we keep our heads on straight, we can all make it rich tonight and witness even stronger battles!¡±

    Excited beyond belief, the group quickly dismantled their camp and set course for the next location, as loud and proud as they could be along the way.

    ......

    ¡°What are you all depressed about?¡± Li Hao smiled at the swiftly regathering Demon Hunters. ¡°Didn¡¯t we win? C¡¯mon, let¡¯s find a ce to rest for the night and think about the events of the day. Should you reform your teams? This was just a small skirmish. If you¡¯re dejected about what happened today, how will you do greater thingster on?¡±

    Hearts shook at his words¡ªLi Hao wasn¡¯t ming them!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go, I¡¯m a rookie too. We can slowly get to know each other. We gained a fair bit tonight, so I hope that we¡¯re all Sunderers by tomorrow!¡±

    They¡¯d reaped a fair deal after killing more than forty supernaturals. Only now did the team experience the thrills of victory.<i> We... killed a lot of Red Moon supernaturals tonight!</i>

    The group now had full faith in Li Hao. The young man was so strong, very mysterious, possessed numerous methods up his sleeve, and had found a base in the blink of an eye. As martial masters, they knew how hard it was to locate the three great organizations.

    Liu Long watched them silently and nced at Li Hao, smiling at what he saw. This team wasn¡¯t fully fleshed out yet, but it¡¯d grow stronger through more battles. They would be more coordinated with each other and Li Hao... would gain more prestige. Did the kid really not know any of this, or did he just have unusual methods? How else could one have be part of this team in a more natural way?

    Their first battle hade with a lot of war spoils, yet Liu Long knew that this was only the beginning. If Red Moon was unable to swiftly deter them or identify where the Demon Hunters were heading, the organization would only suffer increasing losses.

    ......

    <i>In the wilderness.</i>

    A group of martial masters sat on the ground in a valley between two mountains. Everyone was silent. Some meditated cross-legged, others contemted the battle that¡¯d taken ce earlier.

    All forty-nine were present and ounted for. Some were injured, however. There were those who¡¯d bore the brunt of mysterious power reverberating through them and those who¡¯d been attacked by Sunres. Although they hadn¡¯t died, they¡¯d suffered internal injuries all the same. But even so, no one daredin.

    They were all thinking back to the battle and reflecting on various actions. A lot had gone wrong during that skirmish.

    Li Hao came back at this time with several red pills in his hand. ¡°These are blood pearls. Only origin weapons can extract them. You might¡¯ve sensed something before¡ªthey¡¯re formless and intangible, but you can still sense a little of their presence.

    ¡°Our most pressing task isn¡¯t to properly divvy up the spoils, but to use our gains to help everyone swiftly grow stronger. Therefore, the loot will be divided ording to need for the moment. We can consider other factors when we are all stronger.¡±

    Twenty-nine pills shot toward certain martial masters in the crowd,nding in front of their recipients. They were all yers!

    ¡°Swallow these, absorb, and digest them! Tell me if you¡¯re unable to do so fully, I¡¯ll use the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to help you digest them. They¡¯re almost all Darkmoon level blood pearls, which is precisely what you guys need.¡±

    Some were tempted among the twenty-nine, but others were too embarrassed to take the gift.

    ¡°Leader, we... did not aplish anything in this battle,¡± muttered one of the yers. ¡°We were swiftly captured by the enemy when we fought and would be long dead if it wasn¡¯t for the armor.¡±

    ¡°From shame springs valor.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°You did indeed drag us down because you¡¯re too weak! Therefore, I hope you guys can be stronger in the future. It¡¯s a sess if you can be Sunderer after devouring one blood pearl, otherwise... you¡¯ll hold us back in even worse ways.¡±

    The group said nothing more. Someone picked up their blood pearl and ced it by their mouth. The visor parted to let the blood pearl pass through. After this precedent was set, everyone else followed suit. The Sunderers watched them silently.

    ¡°You can reform your teams tonight,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°Don¡¯t change them anymore after finalizing them. I¡¯ll teach you an army formation after you reconvene. I trust that we all understand now that there isn¡¯t necessarily always strength in numbers. Coordination is vital.

    ¡°If we wish for thebined whole to be stronger, for one plus one to be greater than two, then we might throw ourselves forward as a mob. That, however, is the tactic of street thugs. We are not street thugs.¡±

    ¡°Leader, can the smaller teams use army formations as well?¡± asked Hong Qing.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    Hong Qing was skeptical, but didn¡¯t say anything. There were only ten people in each small team. A formation for ten... She¡¯d spoken with some martial masters over the past two days. The Guards did not have any formations staffed by only ten people. The lowest number required was one hundred.

    While the Sword Sect possessed some formations, they were just for support purposes. True army formations went far beyond support. Were those the type that Li Hao meant?

 Chapter 391: Luring the Snake Out of the Cave (I)

    <h4>Chapter 391: Luring the Snake Out of the Cave (I)</h4>

    Li Hao quickly cleared up Hong Qing¡¯s confusion. ¡°The formation I¡¯m referring to is the Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation. It¡¯s a very unique army formation dug up from an ancient ruin. Everyone is to use the same breathing method when it¡¯s in operation. Internal force from martial masters connects with each other and circtes in a loop. There is a formation master for each one.

    ¡°Ten people can share the internal force when the formation is operating, or it can all be concentrated on one person¡ªthe formation master. Each formation requires ten people to form a closed loop. If there are a hundred people, then the ten formation masters can form another circtory loop. The formation master of that version can hold the internal force of a hundred people...¡±

    Expressions shifted when people heard the leader¡¯s exnation. An ancient formation! A true ancient formation at that, not one that was meant for support or coordination purposes. This was one that facilitated an exchange of internal force. Being martial masters, the Demon Hunters were no fools and understood what this implied.

    ¡°The formation method needs to be kept a secret and cannot be leaked!¡± Li Hao proimed. ¡°The core lies in the breathing method that should be employed at the same time. When it is in y, the attributes of internal force are in alignment and they resonate at the same frequency.

    ¡°At that time, a formation made of ten yers can absolutely fight a Sunderer. In the same vein, a formation of ten Sunderers stands a chance against a Dominator...

    ¡°Defensive abilities are also enhanced when wearing the ck armor. If a hundred person formation can be assembled from a group of Sunderers and their internal force is centered on a Dominator, then you¡¯ll definitely be able to challenge someone of a stronger level!¡±

    The caveat was that the center point of the formation was strong enough to withstand so much internal force and could also bring it to bear.

    The group¡¯s mouths ran dry as they visualized the impressive sight that Li Hao painted.

    ¡°Is there really such an ancient formation?¡± Liu Long couldn¡¯t help but ask. ¡°Are there any special requirements for it?¡±

    ¡°Of course. We can¡¯t have someone drop the ball and break one of the loops. As long as there¡¯s no purposeful sabotage, the others can quickly reconnect the cycle even if one link is defeated.

    ¡°Ten people is the optimal number, but it can be done with nine or even a bit less...¡±

    Liu Long looked meaningfully at Li Hao. <i>Can you really just teach others knowledge like this? You¡¯ll be in a lot of trouble if any word of this gets out. How long have you known the people in the team? Do you really think they¡¯re all loyal to you?</i>

    He didn¡¯t understand what Li Hao was doing. Although the young man did this in pursuit of strengthening the team, some of these people came from the Sword Sect and others from the Inspectorate. How many were truly of one mind with Li Hao?

    ¡°Leader, is this appropriate?¡± Hong Qing feltpelled to speak up as well. ¡°There are many of us... and I¡¯m not saying that any of us will purposefully leak this knowledge, but what if someone identally mentions it in passing? ording to what I know, there is no formation like this that currently exists in Silver Moon, right?

    ¡°Even the Silver Moon Guards¡¯ Skyjade Formation doesn¡¯t seem to work like this. It simply enhances battle strength when everyone is working in tandem, but cannot facilitate internal force connecting together...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s because their formation is a lower level one.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°The Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation should be a higher level one. As for it leaking to others... I can¡¯t control all of you. If it really is leaked to others, I¡¯ll just conduct an investigation. Whoever I trace the crime to will suffer my wrath. What else can I do if I can¡¯t find them?

    ¡°I can¡¯t jealously hoard all the methods to improve and send all of you to your deaths,¡± the young manughed. ¡°Not to mention, this is just a formation. Its key effect lies in utilization by a number of people. One person alone won¡¯t be able to do anything with it. Whether we reap more for our efforts or not depends on everyone, not just me alone. I might be stronger than all of you, but I might need your help if I run into trouble and get caught by it.

    ¡°The yers should digest the blood pearls first while the Sunderers listen to the breathing method that I¡¯m about to teach you. This breathing method is called the Mountain Seal Breathing Method. ording to ancient records, ites from a faction called the Blessed Paradise in the ancient civilization.

    ¡°My teacher has another exnation when ites to this faction, that it might not be the name of a single organization. It could be the overall reference for an entire collection of powers. This name appears in many ancient tombs, but it¡¯s not that important.¡±

    Blessed Paradise!

    The group made a note of it, but Li Hao was right, it wasn¡¯t that important. It didn¡¯t matter where the method came from, the ancient civilization was long gone. No one really cared what the specifics of society were back in the day.

    Li Hao began teaching the breathing method. It wasn¡¯t too hard. In addition to the breathing methods that they had to learn over the course of their cultivation, martial masters were typically aware of other breathing methods to varying degrees. Li Hao knew a few, as did the other martial masters present.

    As the young man taught, some people¡¯s breathing began showing signs of change. From this, their abilities ofprehension and intelligence were readily apparent. For example, being Hong Yitang¡¯s daughter, Hong Qing was truly clever. It took her only a short while to effect change in her breathing method and to show slight differences in the projection of her internal force.

    Her internal force was as strong as ever¡ªit didn¡¯t show a change in level of strength. But there seemed to be an additionalyer of something else there, brought about by the breathing method.

    As soon as Hong Qing grasped the method, so did Hong Hao. Then came Li Heng, then Wu Chao, Liu Yan, and Wang Chao...

    The six team captains were the first to seed, followed shortly by the Sword Sect disciples. The martial masters from the Inspectorate were the slowest of the bunch, a clear indication of the gap between the two groups.

    The Inspectorate martial masters all hailed from Silver City¡¯s Inspectorate. Some started studying martial daote in life, others were self taught and had an odd collection of knowledge. Yet others followed Wang Henggang and Liu Long in training.

    Meanwhile, Hong Yitang had personally selected all of the Sword Sect disciples. They learned very quickly, to say nothing of anything else.

    Hong Qing curiously tried out the new breathing method and spontaneously connected with Hong Hao. The internal force fused together! Surprised and stunned, her reaction was masked by her visor. Waves of shock roiled in her heart. How was this possible?! Internal force really coulde together??

    Sword Sect disciples trained the core Earthturner Sword method. They were of the same discipline and practiced the same method. Other than being individually different, everything else about them was the same, but their internal force never showed signs of linking together. Howe this breathing method could aplish the feat?

    Hong Qing did not understand.

    The talkative Li Heng understood even less and decided to ask, ¡°Leader, we have fellow disciples among us and utilize the same breathing method. Howe we don¡¯t see this kind of effect in our own training?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    The group blinked.

    ¡°I really don¡¯t know,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Perhaps the breathing method of a formation is more unique¡ªwhy else would it be speciallybeled as a formation method? There would be no need tobel them differently if they were all interchangeable. Everything would be a formation method if being from the same discipline is all it takes.

    ¡°Or perhaps the secrets held within are too high level and our level is currently too low to peer into them. Maybe there really are some different characteristics involved with a formation¡¯s breathing method.¡±

    The group nodded, excitement quickly gripping them again. Everyone tried connecting to each other. The breathing method was just one aspect of the formation.

    ¡°Aside from the breathing method, the second most important factor of the Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation is the position you stand in! Your positions must be precise as this formation is suited for jointly attacking existences stronger than oneself and not against those weaker.

    ¡°It is apparent from its name that the formation is a sealed loop. We will encircle the enemy and seal them away to the point where they cannot strike back...¡± Li Hao exined. This was all recorded in the ancient texts, he¡¯d never tried it before himself.

    Yuan Shuo had taught him so much old knowledge he¡¯d yet to sift through and understand. The only thing he could do was remember everything, so that he could share it with someone at an appropriate time.

    As he spoke of the formation, he was suddenly reminded of his teacher. Yuan Shuo had dug through so many ancient tomes and knew an exceedinglyrge number of them. But other than the Five Styles, he seemed to have only studied the Incantation of the de of Blood. Was it that he was toozy to use anything else?

    ¡°Team captains, remember what I¡¯ve said and exin it again to those who don¡¯t understand.¡± Li Hao looked at the assembly. ¡°It¡¯s up to you to decide how to determine positions and utilize the formation.¡±

    With that, he ignored the group and looked at the yers. They were still digesting the blood pearls, but efficiency was low since there was no sword energy to help them. Not only that, but their conversion rate was low as well.

    Almost all of them were peak yers, which meant they were nearly guaranteed ascension with a Darkmoon blood pearl. But if their conversion rate was too low, that would make things difficult.

    As Li Hao nced at the cultivating yers, he suddenly took out three mysterious power stones. While they¡¯d killed a fair number of people earlier, they¡¯d only obtained one mysterious power stone. Only the metal Sunre had one, which meant these three hade from Golden Spear. Few were the Sunres that possessed this level of treasure.

    His movement caught many people¡¯s eyes.

    ¡°Mysterious power stones?¡± someone asked in a low voice when they recognized the item.

    ¡°Mmhmm, I borrowed them from our ranking officer.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°If we don¡¯t obtain sufficient stones to pay him back, the rest of the ck armor will go to the Guards as well. The Sword Sect brought them to us... I¡¯m going to use the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to crush the stones and help you digest the power within the blood pearls. This debt will fall on your heads if we don¡¯t obtain enough mysterious power stones to fill in the hole!¡±

    He crushed the stones, operated the breathing method, and absorbedrge currents of energy. He quickly raised a small tide of energy, but that was secondary to his true purpose. Li Hao made use of the disturbance to release a little bit of sword energy and meld it into the other energy. The energy instantly shot toward twenty-nine people.

    Those who were having trouble breathing immediately felt a difference when the energy entered their body. The blood energy instantly calmed down!

    Joy beamed from their faces as¡ªboom! Someone¡¯s internal force exploded in external projection. The other Sunderers gaped¡ªso this was the Breathing Method of the Five Styles?? It was incredible!

 Chapter 392: Luring the Snake Out of the Cave (II)

    <h4>Chapter 392: Luring the Snake Out of the Cave (II)</h4>

    At the same time, the Breathing Method of the Five Styles was just as ridiculous as it was impressive. It consumed three mysterious power stones in the blink of an eye! That was the equivalent of a thousand cubes of mysterious power, no?

    Only rich people could make use of this method!

    The appearance of a first Sunderer was quickly followed by a second. The energy contained within three mysterious power stones was very dense. Continuous operation was sufficient to help these yers finish digesting their blood pearls.

    The energy dissipated after twenty minutes¡ªthose who could make use of their gains had done so. Li Hao looked over at the yers. Of the twenty-nine martial masters, twenty were from the Sword Sect and nine from the Inspectorate. The difference hadn¡¯t been apparent before he looked. Once he did, he saw that everyone from the sect had broken through.

    That was terrifying. Only six of the nine Inspectorate martial masters had seeded. Three had failed¡ªor rather, they didn¡¯t achieve the state of projecting their internal force. Those three were abjectly depressed for their failure.

    They were the only ones to fail out of the twenty-nine martial masters and the opportunity hade at quite a price! One blood pearl and the energy from the mysterious powers meant the equivalent of consuming over one hundred cubes. And yet, they¡¯d failed!

    ¡°Leader... we...¡± The three were beside themselves. Any thoughts they might¡¯ve nursed before faded away, leaving only the notion that <i>we are utter trash.</i> They were older than the Sword Sect disciples on average, but all of thetter had advanced. One third of the Inspectorate nine had failed¡ªthat was too high a rate of failure. It was not three out of twenty-nine.

    Wang Henggang¡¯s nephew¡ªWang Chao¡ªregarded the scene with a heavy expression. It was readily apparent the difference in caliber between the people from his uncle and the Sword Sect. Those from the Sword Sect all possessed high potential. Those from the Inspectorate were mediocre inparison.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind much. That everyone from the Sword Sect had advanced made them stronger than expected, but caliber would not be apparent until half step Dominators grasped the aura. If they couldn¡¯t, then there was no further discussion of martial potential needed.

    ¡°It¡¯s no big deal¡ªit¡¯s not like you¡¯re walking away empty-handed just because you didn¡¯t break through. You¡¯re one step away and might seed by the morning!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t say much and turned to those who¡¯d advanced. ¡°There¡¯s no need to be overly happy even though you¡¯ve seeded. We don¡¯t have much time left, so hurry and familiarize yourself with your new strength. Have your captains teach you the formation...¡±

    With that, he ignored everyone. The Demon Hunters stirred with activity as a me lit in people¡¯s hearts. The minor goal that Li Hao had mentionedst night was pretty muchpleted after one day. So it really was no major undertaking for everyone to ascend to Sunderer!

    The three who¡¯d failed received generalfort from the rest. They would just try again after this failure. With this time¡¯s experience, attaining Sunderer next time would not be that difficult.

    ......

    Li Hao breathed out gently when he walked out of the mountain valley and looked into the distance. There seemed to be a massive fissure in the distance, as lit by moonlight. The ground seemed to have split open¡ªRift Canyon, the geological feature that split north and south Silver Moon.

    Liu Long quickly ambled over.

    ¡°Do you have any thoughts, chief?¡± Li Haoughed softly.

    ¡°You¡¯re too wasteful!¡± That was Liu Long¡¯s chief consideration. The young man had quickly spent all of the blood pearls he collected and another three mysterious power stones. Although he¡¯d also gained quite a bit of mysterious power, Li Hao received almost nothing from this battle. He poured everything back into the team.

    ¡°When they¡¯re all stronger as Sunderers and know the formation, each minor team will be able to take on a Sunre. Ten armored Sunderers to a formation and ate Sunderer as the center point means that each team will be able to kill a Sunre!

    ¡°And thus the feedback cycle is formed. We kill enemies, grow stronger, and soon the Demon Hunters might bring me enough profits!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°I¡¯ll invest some before they reachte Sunderer. When ites time toprehend the aura, there¡¯s no need for further resource consumption if they can¡¯t set foot into half step Dominator...¡±

    ¡°True.¡± Liu Long nodded. ¡°When do we go back then?¡±

    ¡°When we can¡¯t continue improving or when Red Moon is so alert that they start chasing us,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°We¡¯ll be moving out at night from now on. We¡¯ll rest during the day and practice the formation.¡±

    Liu Long left as he had no further questions, leaving the young man to look into the distance with anticipation. He¡¯d brought out the Demon Hunters with some of his own goals in mind. He wanted to collect sufficient high level blood pearls¡ªSr at the very least. Nova... was out of his reach for now.

    Mysterious power stones were another goal. Only Srs would have those. Thus, they must kill a few Srs this time. He didn¡¯t really care about those below Sr. He might¡¯ve viewed those gains as precious treasure a month ago, but now they were all inconsequential.

    ......

    The sky brightened in the blink of an eye. September 16.

    The battlefield ofst night was long emptied. Wang Ming and the others had driven off in their sports car, heading for the next possible locale with powerhouses.

    The Red Moon base was as quiet as usual. A figure in a ghosty mask appeared outside of it after an indeterminate period of time, making some sounds above ground. When no response was forting, it darted beneath.

    Hastily scrambling back out momentster, the figure fled the area. It was empty below the ground. It hadn¡¯t noticed it at first, but there were clear signs of battle in the area. An ident had urred and someone had discovered this stronghold!

    ......

    <i>Outside White Moon City.</i>

    <i>The same manor. </i>

    There were a lot more people milling through it now as powerhouses from the north continued to gather in Silver Moon. There were quite a few Srs. As Blue Moon addressed them, the idle Violet Moon standing off to the side suddenly said, ¡°I¡¯ve just received a report that the base near Skywave Lake has just been destroyed. All of the members have gone missing and there are signs of battle at the scene with blood to be found!¡±

    ¡°There were a lot of people at that base, no?¡± Blue Moon furrowed his brows.

    ¡°Quite a few¡ªfour teams worth.¡±

    Four teams meant forty supernaturals and four Sunres. That set Blue Moon on edge, despite receiving aid from all neen northern provinces. ¡°So many disappearing together? If I remember correctly, there was a peak Sunre in residence there. They should be able to hold their own even against a Sr if they worked together!¡±

    His heart ached at the thought of so many supernaturals dying all at once. Who¡¯d done it?? Disappearing meant death, there was no need to harbor hopes of theming back. That would not be happening.

    ¡°The Skywave Lake base wasn¡¯t too far from Rift Canyon,¡± Violet Moon mused. ¡°The Night Watchers have shown no movementtely. Hao Lianchuan is holed up in White Moon after being injured. Hou Xiaochen won¡¯t take the field against some Darkmoons and Sunre. ording to the report, there is a mess of footprints at the scene. Their number indicates a group of people acting together, but they aren¡¯t too strong...¡±

    There wouldn¡¯t be a group of people if a powerhouse had made a move.

    ¡°Is it Celestial or Yama?¡± asked Violet Moon. Other than those two, there was no other faction in Silver Moon who could sendrge numbers of people against forty supernaturals. Since the Night Watchers were confirmed to not be involved, they were naturally not in the course of consideration.

    A couple Srs from other provinces raged in the hall. ¡°Celestial and Yama have quite the nerve! They can¡¯t wait to pile on the misery when we¡¯re down on our luck. Milord Blue Moon, why don¡¯t we seek out some of their bases and take revenge! They¡¯ll think Red Moon is an easy target if we don¡¯t knock them down a few pegs!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    ¡°Should we send someone to Skywave Lake, like those skilled at tracking and tracing? Perhaps they¡¯ll find something. It only happenedst night, so it¡¯s not like all the traces are gone yet even if the ones who did it got away!¡±

    Red Moon was immensely fortified by strong forces at the moment. Large numbers of their people had convened in the province, but they¡¯d still lost one of their important strongholds. It infuriated the Srs from various areas; they were already harboring grievances from being targeted by people stronger than them. They¡¯d gathered at Silver Moon to find strength in numbers, so how was this <i>still</i> happening??

    Blue Moon also looked on with an unpleasant expression. These people were much too bold. Red Moon was the greatest faction in the province at the moment. No one dared refute an organization with nearly one thousand supernaturals! There were a dozen Srs in this hall alone and more arrived everyday.

    Just when he thought that no one would dare provoke them in the short term, reality pped him upside the head. This was a tant p in the face!

    ¡°Don¡¯t be in a hurry toe to conclusions yet,¡± Blue Moon took a breath and recovered his calm. ¡°It may not be Celestial and Yama. While the three great organizations are not of one body and mind, this is not the time for open hostilities either. Our enemy is not too weak given that our Skywave Lake base has been destroyed. We must still conduct our investigation. Jin Jiu and Duan Chao, take some supernaturals skilled at tracking to the site...¡±

    ¡°They might have Srs with them if they were able to destroy that base,¡± said Violet Moon. ¡°And there may be more than one. While our two leaders are Srs, they may not be able to defeat the enemy in an encounter.¡±

    Blue Moon first nodded, then shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s just an investigation, there¡¯s no need toe in contact with the other if there¡¯s real danger. We can¡¯t send too many people as Hou Xiaochen and the rest of the four institutions have just met again. I¡¯ve received word that they¡¯ll conduct an even more thorough cleansing over the past two days. Hao Lianchuan, Hu Dingfang, Wang Henggang, and the Silver Moon Guards that we¡¯ve only heard about before will all be participating. We must be ready.¡±

    The official authorities of Silver Moon were stirring to action once more. If Red Moon sent out too many Srs, they wouldn¡¯t have enough capacity left for this battlefront.

 Chapter 393: Luring the Snake Out of the Cave (III)

    <h4>Chapter 393: Luring the Snake Out of the Cave (III)</h4>

    ¡°Then let¡¯s add another,¡± Violet Moon suggested. ¡°Three Srs should have an easier time of things.¡±

    Blue Moon thought for a bit and nodded in agreement, calling upon another person. ¡°Zheng Ping, you go too!¡±

    A man with nondescript features nodded in the crowd. The others paid more attention to him¡ªhe was stronger among his peers as he was ate Sr. The previous two had been initial and mid Sr.

    The group looked at Violet Moon, startled that just a few words from her had induced Blue Moon to add more personnel. Blue Moon was a Nova, but it looked like he quite respected Violet Moon. She was just a peak Sr, but he had to show her face when she spoke up.

    Three Srs, of which one was ate Sr. Violet Moon had nothing else to say now. These three would be able to ovee their enemies even if they met a peak Sr and would stand a chance of defeating the other. They wouldn¡¯t have much trouble unless they ran into a Nova.

    The matter of the Skywave base being destroyed hade to an end. They had much more to do at the moment. Blue Moon had summoned so many powerhouses to Silver Moon not just for the ruins of Battle Heaven, but also the more important task of capturing Li Hao!

    ¡°The coordination of the four institutions, the involvement of the Silver Moon Guards, and the fact that Li Hao has gone to the Guards...¡± Blue Moon¡¯s intelligence reports were thorough enough. ¡°Two transport trucks left the Guards yesterday, some say that it was Li Hao taking his team out for training. But after a thorough investigation through the night, we did not find any traces of the Silver Moon Guards.¡±

    Red Moon attached quite a bit of importance to the urrence and sent people for a close look. However, the report that came back was that it was two empty cars. Earlier reports indicating that there were upants in the carriages could not be confirmed.

    ¡°We need to continue setting a watch on them,¡± Blue Moon determined. ¡°And to continue exerting enough pressure on Silver Moon. If the Guards really mobilize, we might be able to draw Li Hao out of the city!¡±

    There were only rumors of the young man setting foot outside the capital with no actual sighting that indicated he was truly out. Therefore, Blue Moon desired to further suppress Silver Moon so that they sent out the Guards. Li Hao would very potentially be with them in that case. Even if he wasn¡¯t, Red Moon was confident of destroying the Guards¡¯ base as soon as they deployed en masse.

    The Guards were located on the northern outskirts of White Moon City, close to the Moon Sea. If they snuck in through the sea, Hou Xiaochen wouldn¡¯t be able to react in time if they were fast enough.

    A hubbub of conversation broke out. Not many were aware that their main mission was Li Hao instead of Battle Heaven! Although they all knew that the organization highly valued the matter of the eight families, they¡¯d thought that Red Moon¡¯s powerhouses were converging for the purposes of the ruins and Hou Xiaochen.

    To many people, Li Hao was still the half step Dominator who¡¯d killed Sun Moxian. After all, it¡¯d been less than a month since that fight.

    ......

    <i>Evening of September 16.</i>

    An abandoned town could be found on the northern side of Rift Canyon. Typically, only sand and dust swept through the area, but there was certain activity to be found there tonight. Some upants were in town,ughing and chatting as fragrant meat and wine wafted from a zing bonfire.

    It was the same trick asst night, a camp that proimed to the entire world that here were rich children out for ark. Wang Ming¡¯s energy ring was particrly eye-catching in the firelight.

    ¡°This ce is nice, it¡¯s so quiet! There¡¯s a different kind of beauty to it!¡± he roared withughter. ¡°We don¡¯t need to worry about safety¡ªwho dares provoke us in Silver Moon? We don¡¯t need to be afraid of the three great organizations either, they can¡¯t afford the consequences if they do anything to us!

    ¡°The White Dragons will immediately dere war on us if they so much as touch us! My grandpa is someone they cannot offend!¡±

    His voice was loud and carried far; the threedies quickly chimed in with agreement. All of them started boasting how much influence they wielded in their families and how great their status was. If anyone dared cross them on this leisure jaunt, those miserable souls were asking for death!

    The group of five had conducted themselves in a very mboyant manner during the day. Anyone in the area would¡¯ve noticed them a long time ago.

    <i>Within the darkness.</i>

    Li Hao stood on a dpidated roof and looked around coolly with sharp eyes. There were supernaturals around Wang Ming¡¯s group! However, the young man frowned. These supernaturals looked to be operating solo and weren¡¯t part of the three great organizations. Had they not attracted those of the organizations this time?

    Loud shouting started in the distance as some supernaturals could no longer hold it in. They ambushed the group, but Wang Ming and the others quickly noticed them. The two sides were embroiled in a scrappy melee and a supernatural called out, ¡°Work with us, nearby brothers! We¡¯ll take out these fat cats together and split the spoils!¡±

    Some more supernaturals appeared to join the fray. One of them was a Sunre. Li Hao remained watching silently and didn¡¯t interfere or care about their fight.

    ¡°You¡¯ve got some nerve to attack us!¡± Wang Ming¡¯s voice was furious and brash in the darkness. ¡°I¡¯m going to butcher you all and take your mysterious power!¡±

    <i>RUMBLE!</i>

    The sounds of fighting traveled out far. Li Hao¡¯s eyes shifted as he focused in one direction several hundred meters away from the battle site. A small ball of light hovered there, quite noticeable in the darkness.

    The young man grinned¡ªnow that was more like the three great organizations! As brazen and arrogant as they were, they were cautious in most situations to avoid falling into a trap. The supernaturals first on the scene had been out in the open. That did not jive with the style of the three great organizations, so he¡¯d determined that they were working alone.

    What took ce now was more their modus operandi, so which of the three hade?

    Li Hao¡¯s form jumped from ce to ce as he kept an eye on the proceedings. The ball of light swiftly disappeared after observing the situation for a bit. The young man quickly tracked it through the darkness. He lit up after several thousand meters¡ªso many balls of light!

    There were at least twenty of them and no Srs, just Darkmoons and Sunres. There were no signs of scarlet shadows, so it was probably Celestial or Yama.

    ......

    Fightingmenced in earnest after half an hour. The Demon Hunters were much more ferocious tonight and worked in tandem. Although a lot of problems still gued their coordination, the martial masters were swiftly improving upon them.

    Their opponents were people who loved smearing paint on their face¡ªYama.

    Celestial had a fondness for capes, Red Moon liked masks. Only Yama didn¡¯t have requirements when it came to outerwear, but they liked putting paint on their faces to indicate how different they were. It was also a sign of their identity¡ªthe three great organizations all had their unique characteristics.

    Even Liu Long was thick in the middle of things. Yama¡¯s supernaturals were of high caliber and they had several Sunres in the field. It hadn¡¯t been long since Liu Long progressed to Dominator, a level that put him on par with Sunres. Thus, he was part of the fighting to increase his experience battling Sunres.

    The battlefield was slightly chaotic as impacts sounded continuously. ck armor was continuously sent flying, but always swiftly reced by more. Some of the minor teams were practicing their Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation; Liu Yan was leading her team in killing a mid Sunre. Their movements weren¡¯t synchronized, but she was able to collect the internal force of ten people after battle hadmenced for ten minutes and drive her des into the enemy¡¯s heart.

    Hong Qing chose differently from Liu Yan. Her team was also assembled in a formation, but not to concentrate their power on her alone. Ten swordsmen struck at the same time and sent sword qi racing over the scene. The Earthturner Sword was present, churning the skies and overturning the earth!

    The ground ruptured from the blow, as did the Sunre that they¡¯d surrounded!

    Sunre after Sunre fell as Yama was quickly defeated. The sound of martial masters cheering rose from the crowd. They were so much stronger in their second battlepared to the inaugural one ofst night. The team was further ted by the might of the formation!

    Morale soared and one of the yers that didn¡¯t advancest night seeded over the course of battle.

    The ughter continued for a while, ending when Liu Long erupted with the Nine Forged Force and hacked ate Sunre to death.

    Then it was time for cleanup and mysterious power collection...

    The team was old hats at this part of the process. The dead were moved to another locale for burial. After their mysterious power was collected, there was no further use for their bodies. Being exposed one dayter would buy the Demon Hunters more time.

    ¡°Demon Hunters!¡± Liu Long growled, raising an answering wave of shouts from the rest.

    ¡°Demon Hunters!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s instructions weren¡¯t needed this time. The team captains directed their teams to retreat and locate a hiding spot for the night. They would strike again tomorrow night.

    Significant gains after two big victories buoyed everyone¡¯s spirits. Martial masters were further overjoyed that their minor teams had killed Sunres by themselves. The saying that martial masters below Dominator were less than supernaturals seemed to have been overturned.

    ......

    And so the Demon Hunters became active throughout thend, killing members of the three great organizations. More than one hundred supernaturals were dead or missing after four days, stirring up currents of activity throughout Silver Moon.

    ......

    <i>Within a mountain cave.</i>

    ¡°Celestial has lost a branch!¡± Half Mountain dered coldly. ¡°Seventeen supernaturals have gone missing, which means they are probably dead. Not only us, but the same goes for Red Moon and Yama. Intelligence indicates that martial masters may be behind it. That brings one person to mind¡ªLi Hao!¡±

    Celestial had been the first to receive word that Li Hao had left the Silver Moon Guard camp. However, the young man vanished after that.

    ¡°Additionally, I¡¯ve received another report having to do with the grandson of the White Dragons vicemander. He and his merry band have been having a ball throughout the province the past couple of days. They are frequently sighted at ces close to where the branches disappear!¡±

    Wang Ming and his friends had raised attention from the three great organizations after all, since they were an ostentatious group that happened to show up close to where a base would disappear. It raised the suspicion that they were possibly bait thrown out by others.

    Losing more than a hundred supernaturals over four days was an enormous loss for any organization.

 Chapter 394: Triple Kill! (I)

    <h4>Chapter 394: Triple Kill! (I)</h4>

    After Half Mountain exchanged a few words with the elder, he quickly said, ¡°I¡¯m going to see Blue Moon and the Parity King. Perhaps... it¡¯s really Li Hao and his vanished group of Guards behind all this!¡±

    ¡°What do you wish to do?¡± the elder asked in a low voice from the shadows.

    ¡°Eradicate this troop of missing Guards!¡± Half Mountain growled. ¡°They¡¯re so lively everyday and go around killing supernaturals like they¡¯repletely insane. I can¡¯t think of anyone else this crazy other than Li Hao. He¡¯s crazy because his teacher is Yuan Shuo¡ªthese methods are right out of the old man¡¯s ybook! ughter follows wherever he goes. Very few people like him have appeared in Silver Moon in thest couple of years.¡±

    Yuan Shuo!

    Indeed, Yuan Shuo was like this as well. He killed wherever he went. He¡¯d crossed the North Sea by now and all of the powerhouses in the central region knew that Yuan Shuo of Silver Moon had arrived to begin his career as a demon!

    Yuan Shuo was making his name known throughout the dynasty after walking out of the province. His disciple was unwilling to stay out of the limelight and did his part in leading a group of martial masters on a wild rampage against supernaturals in Silver Moon.

    The elder stayed silent in the darkness for a while before saying, ¡°Very well! But don¡¯t forget those guys in White Moon City. There has been much movement in the city these days. Be careful of a sudden ambush from Hou Xiaochen!¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± Half Mountain vanished on the spot. It must be Li Hao! That guy was just as crazy as his teacher.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen coughed and looked into the distance. ¡°Are you... going to usher in troubled times by yourself?¡± he chuckled after a long moment. ¡°What a mad little guy!¡±

    ording to the reports he¡¯d received, more than one hundred supernaturals had died over four days. Other than the expedition to Battle Heaven, this was the first time that so many supernaturals had died in such a short period of time in the vast territory of Silver Moon. The key thing was, that fellow¡¯s methods were stunning!

    He never missed when he struck!

    Wang Ming and the others acting as bait were equally brazen. Not only did they follow in Li Hao¡¯s wake, but they stayed with the young man all four days.

    ¡°There is... no peace to be found in Silver Moon!¡± Hou Xiaochen sighed. An equilibrium had barely been maintained before, but Li Hao had gone and smashed it to pieces with a single trip. Red Moon would receive word soon, the young man wouldn¡¯t be able to stay hidden forever.

    Death would starting for him next.

    ¡°I... can only hold off some of the powerhouses for you, but not all of them...¡± He shook his head gently and looked at the secret chamber in the back. He could¡¯ve sent Little Yu to help thed if these were times past. He couldn¡¯t do so now, so Li Hao was on his own.

    ......

    No one had a quiet night. Li Hao also knew that the real battle was yet to begin. He¡¯d seen traces of Srs over the past couple of days and led the team past them each time. There¡¯d been three sightings¡ªonce with three Srs, twice of one Sr. He refrained from action each time.

    If he¡¯d done anything, that might scare off the others. He could wait until more people gathered. Hadn¡¯t he done all this killing over the past four days to lure out these people?

    ¡°My hands are itching after so many days of no action!¡± Li Haoughed and looked at the balls of light in the darkness. The team¡¯s coordination had improved markedly after so many days. He didn¡¯t have much of a chance to make a move.

    The opportunity might be here tonight.

    ¡°There might be a ce for me in Silver Moon after tonight!¡± Li Hao grinned at the balls of light rising in the distance. He¡¯d purposefully left some clues behind everyday. It looked like the three organizations were about to locate him. They were certainly efficient!

    ¡°Six Srs...¡± The young man looked in the four cardinal directions. They didn¡¯te from the same direction. It would be difficult to continue concealing the truth about the situation after tonight.

    ......

    The Demon Hunters had gone on a rampage over the past four days. Was Li Hao unaware of the possibility that the three great organizations would ultimately think of him?

    Of course not.

    It was impossible to indefinitely conceal the tracks of so many martial masters. It was sufficient to hide them for a few days. He¡¯d also considered the notion that the three great organizations wouldn¡¯t sendrge sums of powerhouses for him in the beginning. What they sent today, however, would do. Six Srs hade from the various organizations. They were thinking highly of him to do so!

    Such a showing of strength could be brought to bear against a Nova, a clear sign of how much importance the other side ced on this. At the same time, Li Hao felt that they didn¡¯t think highly enough of him. Red Moon alone sent several Novas against Yuan Shuo, with some even possibly peak Nova. Orange and Yellow Moon were very possibly peak Nova existences. But not a single Nova hade for him?

    Was he that much worse off than his teacher?

    Irritation brewed in Li Hao. Who were they looking down on, huh!

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    In the south.

    Three Srs flew through the air. Late Sr Zheng Ping suddenly frowned and looked to the west. ¡°Celestial seems to have sent Half Mountain¡¯s disciple,¡± he snorted. ¡°He¡¯s sneaking through the air, behaving like a ghost despite being a peak Sr!¡±

    <i>Peak Sr!</i>

    Celestial had sent only one person, but this person was incredibly strong. A peak Sr of the dark attribute, he was incredibly talented at covering his tracks. He was revealing traces of his presence because he¡¯d discovered the other Srs. Misunderstandings would easily arise if he fully concealed himself. They were all here for Li Hao, it wouldn¡¯t do if they started fighting among themselves.

    Zheng Ping had also sensed the two from Yama on another side. They¡¯d sent a mid Sr and ate Sr.

    The three organizations were taking this very seriously indeed. Red Moon¡¯s three Srs were matched by three from their counterparts.

    ¡°Be wary of their intentions,¡± Zheng Ping transmitted. ¡°They may not be here for Li Hao. They may want to take him from us or kill the boy.¡±

    Why else were so many powerhouses being sent against a group of martial masters? Their strongest was just Liu Long and Li Hao, two martial masters who¡¯d just set foot into Dominator. Was there a need for so many heavyweights?

    Jin Jiu and Duan Chao nodded solemnly. They weren¡¯t afraid of Li Hao¡ªthey really weren¡¯t. Who would be afraid of a martial master who¡¯d been a Dominator for less than a month? They would be Srs for no reason at all if they were.

    Yuan Shuo was an exception. He¡¯d bided his time for many years and wasn¡¯t a rookie like Li Hao. Even so, he hadn¡¯t raised much attention after bing a Dominator. It wasn¡¯t until he reached Summoner that he drew scrutiny again.

    Those from Red Moon were more worried that the other two would capture Li Hao or even kill him. That would mark theplete failure of their mission. Capturing Li Hao was their first priority. Death was on the table only if that waspletely out of the question. Even if they killed him, they must im the body. That was Red Moon¡¯s bottom line.

    Zheng Ping¡¯s nondescript features maintained an expressionless face. He scanned the surroundings out of the corner of his eye and transmitted, ¡°ording to our reports, Li Hao and his people should be hiding nearby! These martial masters operate at night and rest in the day. If we¡¯re attacked, the two of you will hold off Yama and Celestial¡¯s people. Only I am needed for Li Hao and his men. We¡¯ll retreat as soon as we have him!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± the highly nervous two quickly sent back. Red Moon was sometimes forced into protecting Li Hao.

    At the same time, three scarlet shadows soundlessly rushed forward. The three wanted to find Li Hao before the others did and put the young man under control. It was the best oue if they could quietly settle this issue and take Li Hao back with them.

    ......

    <i>To the west.</i>

    A figure in ck wearing a cloak strode over the ground. The corners of its lips turned upward. <i>Zheng Ping?</i> Red Moon had sent three Srs, but their strongest was Zheng Ping. If the figure killed Li Hao after Red Moon took the boy into custody... would Zheng Ping dare fight him?

    A smile crossed the young face wearing the cloak before the figure fully vanished. No presence leaked this time. He¡¯d made his greetings, so he could not be used of striking from the shadows. Perhaps he¡¯d be the one to grab Li Hao first and take him away. The heir to the eight families... How interesting.

    ......

    <i>In the east.</i>

    One of the Srs was naked from the waist up and covered in tattoos. It was a magnificent sight. The other was an incredibly beguiling woman.

    She looked in the other two directions for a bit and smiled seductively. ¡°Celestial has sent Yue Pu. That guy¡¯s powers of concealment are first ss and I hear he assassinated a peak Sr a while back. I wonder if that¡¯s true.¡±

    ¡°A killer? Assassinate?¡± sneered the muscr man next to her. ¡°That¡¯s because he didn¡¯t meet me. He can try ambushing me and see if he breaks my defenses!¡±

    He was an earth supernatural, ate Sr, and one exceedingly skilled at defense. He¡¯d been a martial master before crossing over, but not a very strong one at just peak yer. He was very proud to have sessfully crossed over.

    Supernaturals that had once been martial masters were typically stronger than regr supernaturals. Although the other was a peak Sr, he was not afraid. A peak Sr that could only walk in the shadows had to get past his defenses first.

    The woman was a mid Sr and tittered, ¡°That¡¯s true, everyone knows that Yama¡¯s Iron Wall possesses invincible defenses. There is likely barely anyone stronger than you in this regard among the neen northern provinces.¡±

    <i>Barely anyone? </i>Iron Wall sneered. Other than the Novas, who had stronger defenses than him? He knew a few peak Srs as well as other earth supernaturals. No one was stronger than him. Therefore, he considered himself the greatest in defense among Srs of the north.

    Of course, it would bring some trouble to him if he said this out loud. So he didn¡¯t, but he certainly thought this way.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go and take a look at the kid. He¡¯s got some nerve¡ªdoes he really think he¡¯s Yuan Shuo?¡± Iron Wall coolly called out to his counterpart.

    Li Hao... a little guy whose name was lost among the masses. If it wasn¡¯t for Yuan Shuo and the eight families, Iron Wall wouldn¡¯t bother looking twice at someone like this. The kid had certainly found his balls to eliminate a Yama branch!

    Red Moon wouldn¡¯t be taking him with them tonight!

    Iron Wall didn¡¯t think much about the three from Red Moon, but he did pause when it came to Yue Pu from Celestial. He wasn¡¯t afraid of being ambushed, just considering the fact that the man was a peak Sr.

 Chapter 395: Triple Kill! (II)

    <h4>Chapter 395: Triple Kill! (II)</h4>

    Three sides were closing in on their targeted site. They all had clues that pointed to Li Hao most likely hiding within the small mountain ahead of them on this night. The mountain was perfect¡ªit made escape hard. It would be a perfect grave for this team of the Silver Moon Guards.

    ......

    The young man in question watched silently, watching three sides rush to him and three massive scarlet shadows soar overhead. All of them were treating him as meat on a chopping block and someonepletely blind. <i>Those shadows are huge and there¡¯s three of them, do you really think I can¡¯t see them?</i>

    But six Srs... that made for a lot of pressure. Steris manifested over his hand. Li Hao crushed eight mysterious power stones and had the little sword quickly take in the energy. Part of it was diverted into his body. He looked back and smiled at the armored martial masters.

    ¡°You¡¯ve all improved a great deal after these days of fighting. However, trouble hase to us as well. Six Srs from the three great organizations are currently rushing us from different directions...¡±

    The crowd shifted with unease. Srs! And six of them!

    ¡°I haven¡¯t done much the past couple of days, but have taken a great deal of the gains. Since I am your leader, I cannot take without giving back,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°They all say that my master Yuan Shuo is the first among martial masters, but my master says that the student eclipsing the master is what he wants. My master made his name through his battle with the Qimei Staff. I wonder if the name of Li Hao will be known throughout thends after tonight!

    ¡°Deputy Liu!¡± Li Hao called out. Liu Long was also wearing his suit of armor at this time.

    ¡°Here!¡± he swiftly called out.

    ¡°The Demon Hunters have a simple mission¡ªwatch the show and defend!¡± Li Hao said calmly. ¡°Stay here and watch the proceedings. The Srs are here first, but that doesn¡¯t mean there won¡¯t be Sunres toe along. They may be bringing up the rear...¡±

    ¡°We should be able to hold back a Sr if we coordinate our actions and utilize the formation,¡± Liu Long said hastily. ¡°We won¡¯t be able to kill them, but we¡¯ll have no problem obstructing them. My brothers and sisters, don¡¯t be afraid. We¡¯ve...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no need!¡± Li Hao raised his hand and cut him off with a smile. ¡°Believe me! If I can¡¯t kill these guys, there¡¯s not much point to you guys stopping one of them.¡±

    Could they stop a Sr?

    The power of all fifty gathered on Liu Long made it very possible. But was there a need to do so? Who should they stop? The ones traveling alone were peak Sr. A lot of the Demon Hunters would die if the team was to dy them by only a little. The armor wasn¡¯t truly invincible, it could just fend off Sunre attacks.

    ¡°It¡¯s enough to have such sentiment. I¡¯m d to see that we are no longer afraid of Srs! Kill any Sunres thate!¡± Li Hao took a deep breath and looked into the distance. Who should he target first? Those from Red Moon?

    No, they could wait. Red Moon would not brashly move against him. they would keep themselves in check if they attacked him. It was the other two organizations that would aim for his throat as soon as they made a move.

    <i>The peak Sr, then?</i>

    Li Hao thought for a bit andughed. That was just as well. One should eliminate the strongest if one was to take action. However, he had to make sure that he wouldn¡¯t scare off the others. He wouldn¡¯t be able to catch them if they made a run for it. He just needed tomence his moves in closer quarters!

    The young man bounded up over the mountain peak when his thoughts traveled here. A few hops and skips sent him through the air like he was flying. He swiftly approached his chosen direction, leaving Liu Long and the others watching ponderously behind him.

    Six Srs! Li Hao was out of his mind.

    Only now did Liu Long understand why Li Hao hadn¡¯t been too bothered with cleaning up the battlefield the past couple of days. He didn¡¯t even really conceal his tracks. He¡¯d refused when people suggested sweeping their footprints away.

    The young man had said that there was no need. Mmhmm, there indeed was no need as he¡¯d beenying the groundwork for arger operation.

    ......

    The earth sword aura and fire tiger aura stirred restlessly within Li Hao¡¯s organs. The dot that was the metal aura didn¡¯t move. He¡¯d yet to sessfullybine the third aura with the rest. In his hand, Steris seemed to be longer than before. It was only the length of a pair of chopsticks previously¡ªit would be more urate to term it a dagger than a sword. It was the length of his forearm now and could be considered a real sword, though it wasn¡¯t as long as regr longswords.

    <i>Thebination of two auras puts me barely on par with a peak Sr. I won¡¯t be able to kill them...</i>

    He hadn¡¯t been able to forcefully kill Huang Jie when they met in the alley. He¡¯d had to utilize the Incantation of the de of Blood and rely on support from Hao Lianchuan to pin down the man in order to finish the deed.

    Thus, thebination of two auras might help him rival ate Sr¡¯s strength. He would have to fuse all three or utilize the Incantation of the de of Blood if he wanted to kill a peak Sr.

    Li Hao was much stronger in his current condition, his body and blood qi well fortified, his mind intent a noticeable step above his previous high. If he utilized the incantation in his current condition, he could at least ensure a stable footing, even if he couldn¡¯t easily kill the target.

    <i>If I want to guarantee victory.... I must assimte all three auras!</i>

    A light sparkled in Li Hao¡¯s eyes as he continued forward. The third aura that he wanted to fuse together wasn¡¯t the metal dot¡ªthat was too cutting. He¡¯d turned his sights to the water aura that came after the Nine Forged Force!

    What a pity that he couldn¡¯t fully deploy the method yet. It¡¯d also only been a short while since he attained the eighthyer. But... he could give it a try. What was there to be concerned about? If he couldn¡¯t do it, he would just force the assimtion to take ce.

    ......

    Li Hao moved exceedingly quickly, but quietly. He ran straight for the biggest ball of light and stopped when he was one thousand meters away. The other balls of light in the other directions weren¡¯t too far from him.

    The young man stopped in the midway point between all parties, waiting quietly. The fierce tiger in his heart snarled and tore at the ground. It dragged the chains around, eager to walk out and witness even better glories.

    Nine hundred meters... eight hundred... The biggest ball of light proceeded at a moderate pace, but it was a bit strange. It ran left and right and left again, as if it was ying hide-and-seek by itself.

    A dark attribute supernatural! Li Hao remained unmoving, like he was a stone sculpture.

    ......

    <i>Off in the distance.</i>

    Celestial¡¯s Yue Pu seemed to see someone ahead. They were like a shadow in the darkness, maybe it was difficult to see them.

    <i>Is there... someone ahead?</i> Yue Pu started. Who woulde to the wildness in the dead of night? They weren¡¯t a supernatural, he didn¡¯t feel any energy ripples.

    <i>Is it Li Hao? </i>The group of people with Li Hao? Was it them fishing again?

    Yue Pu grinned radiantly beneath his outfit. <i>Are these guys addicted to being bait?</i> They¡¯d done so so many times over the past couple of days that the three great organizations were aware of their tactics. These people had the same habits and tricks, <i>and</i> they liked repeating themselves.

    Did they think of everyone else as idiots?

    The more Yue Pu drew closer, the more confused he was. The person up ahead wasn¡¯t wearing armor¡ªbut that made sense, for bait. His eyesight was fine in the darkness and this person seemed vaguely familiar...

    Wait, wasn¡¯t that Li Hao?

    The three great organizations had records of Li Hao¡¯s likeness. <i>Li Hao? What is the boy doing here, and by himself? </i>This was very strange! Did this fellow not know that the three great organizations wanted his head, or was he cultivating here because he thought they wouldn¡¯t be able to find him?

    ......

    The Red Moon contingent was the second to discover Li Hao. Their scarlet shadows had also discovered him here.

    ¡°Hurry, Yue Pu¡¯s nearby!¡± Zheng Ping transmitted urgently. The three picked up speed!

    Li Hao was out in the wild and standing by himself. Yue Pu was only several hundred meters away from him! The Red Moon trio were dismayed and Zheng Ping quickly instructed, ¡°Send the divine shadows to hold off Yue Pu. Jin Jiu, use yours to get Li Hao!¡±

    Two scarlet shadows dove at Yue Pu to prevent him from doing anything to Li Hao. The other zoomed at the young man.

    The trio¡¯s movements were big enough that they raised attention from the Yama duo. They¡¯d yet to see Li Hao, but Red Moon¡¯s sudden agitation was exnation enough that Li Hao might have been sighted.

    The two quickly changed course in the direction that everyone was heading in.

    ......

    Li Hao raised his head to see a scarlet shadow flying at him. He also saw another two shooting at a cloaked figure.

    Yue Pu had wanted to spend more time observing the situation, but he sensed the shadows. The creeping sensation moving towards him alerted him to the fact that Red Moon¡¯s blood pearls were nearby.

    ¡°Hmph!¡± he snorted.<i> I wanted to take a look first, but you guys are in such a hurry that you made the first move. Then don¡¯t me me for answering strongly!</i>

    He shed toward Li Hao, prompting dismay from Zheng Ping. Yue Pu was so fast and adeptly concealed that it was difficult to detect the man. He had no choice but to yell, ¡°Li Hao, you need to leave! Celestial¡¯s killer is close to you! Abandon resistance and let the divine shadow take you away...¡±

    Now wasn¡¯t thatughable? It was a Red Moon member who gave Li Hao a warning at this time. The young man, however, wasn¡¯t surprised in the least. This organization was likely the enemy who wanted him alive the most.

    He didn¡¯t move.

    Yue Pu appeared in front of Li Hao, discarding his concealment. What was there to hide? He was a peak Sr, was he afraid of Li Hao picking up on his movement?

    He crossed thest several hundred meters like an arrow, even finding the time to rebuff the scarlet shadow for Li Hao. Dark attributed mysterious power exploded over Li Hao¡¯s head, shoving back a shadow with a boom.

    Regr methods could not be brought to bear against the scarlet shadows, but someone of Yue Pu¡¯s level could vaguely sense their existence. Celestial and Yama had certain countermeasures for these entities. These things had to do with a mental level. All the supernatural needed to do was to intermix some mental energy into their mysterious power to effectively hit the shadows.

    A loud rumble exploded over Li Hao¡¯s head.

    ¡°Red Moon wants you so they can skin you alive and extract your bones,¡± Yue Pu said eerily. ¡°Come with me...¡±

    <i>Celestial might not kill you and might even negotiate with Red Moon.</i>

    Yue Pu approached the young man to grab him. Mysterious power surged out, forming a massive to capture Li Hao. Even now, thetter remained unmoving, as if he¡¯d been scared out of his wits.

    He might not have this kind of opportunity in the future. Right now, everyone underestimated him.

 Chapter 396: Triple Kill! (III)

    <h4>Chapter 396: Triple Kill! (III)</h4>

    The peak Sr was standing less than five meters away from a martial master. If Li Hao survived this encounter, likely no Sr would ever dare stand so close to him again. Yue Pu drew closer, almost stering himself against the young man...

    Li Hao moved!

    Light shed in front of Yue Pu¡¯s eyes as a domineering mind intent mmed into his brain like a tiger burrowing in. A towering mountain descended in the next moment!

    Mind intent!

    Sword light streaked out and illuminated the four corners, throwing radiance around the area. Sparks ignited over Steris as Li Hao stabbed the sword forward. Soundless, traceless, his mind intent red to the utmost. Two auras melded together as an impossibly fast sword struck at Yue Pu!

    A lost look dawned in the man¡¯s eyes before he quickly snapped back to his senses. He roared with fury and clenched his hand into a fist, smashing it at Li Hao¡¯s little sword. What was with this kid??

    The attack from the mind intent left him mentally off bnce. Meanwhile, Li Hao snarled despite rarely speaking in battle, venting the violence in his heart!

    ¡°Sever the self!¡± Sword light cut through the void!

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    Bones snapped crisply as the little sword sliced past Yue Pu¡¯s fist. The bones being cut through emitted a bit of sound before his entire right forearm fell off. The little sword continued onward, cutting through its target¡¯s right arm and continuing toward the head.

    Yue Pu fully came back to his senses and retreated with a howl. But he was a moment toote as his entire right arm had been split open from the shoulder¡ªthe gash ran down to his waist. One third of his body had been cut off!

    There was no pain as it¡¯d happened too quickly! Yue Pu saw his right arm and a portion of his right waist drop to the ground. His defenses as a peak Sr were as if paper. They¡¯d been pierced through by a single stroke!

    Huang Jie had seen Li Hao kill Yu Xiao at the very least, so he¡¯d given certain respect to the young man. Yue Pu did not have the benefit of such an experience, so his wariness of Li Hao was less than Huang Jie¡¯s had been!

    Aghast with horror, Yue Pu¡¯s left arm became a sword of darkness that he raised against Li Hao! On the other side, the young man was standing almost face to face with his target due to the earlier stroke. His left hand curved into a w and struck, sinking his fingers deep into the other¡¯s left arm and gouging out a bloody hole that could be seen through.

    With a grunt, Li Hao closed his hand and crushed the bone underneath. He raised his knee high and shoved it forward!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Yue Pu¡¯s chest shattered from the blow. Li Hao gripped the little sword with his right hand and made a small flourish to grasp it more tightly, then stabbed it into the other¡¯s back.

    Yue Pu was utterly baffled and stunned. His eyes happened to meet Li Hao¡¯s. Ruthless, merciless, and bloodthirsty! Was this supposed to be a new Dominator? He didn¡¯t believe it! He himself was a peak Sr!

    The other five Srs shooting his way could see a thing or two, but not clearly. They were just instinctively drawing closer to Li Hao. But the five gained an extraordinarily clear view in the next moment. Li Hao had driven his sword into the other¡¯s back and heart. Yue Pu was curled up like a shrimp since all of his organs had been ruptured by Li Hao¡¯s knee.

    And yet, Li Hao did not stop. His left hand grabbed the other¡¯s arm and twisted around it like his arm was an ape¡¯s. He quickly made his way to Yue Pu¡¯s head and firmly gripped the man¡¯s neck. A quick flex of his hand was followed by the sharp crack of a broken neck. Li Hao¡¯s left hand proceeded upward for a quick shake. Yue Pu¡¯s head flew off of his neck andnded in a corner of the darkness.

    <i>Dead!</i>

    The five Srs had almost reached them and were roughly only one hundred meters away from Li Hao. They were struck dumb by what they saw and their bafflement quickly morphed to shock. Yue Pu... was dead!

    His head was off his neck. He wouldn¡¯t be a Sr if that still wasn¡¯t enough to end him. Peak Sr Yue Pu had drawn too close to Li Hao and was promptly killed on the spot. Even the young man felt that it¡¯d happened too quickly. How did the guy dare be face-to-face with him? He really thought nothing of martial masters!

    The young man jumped into the air and shed through the void, hacking a scarlet shadow into two halves. Ignoring the other two scarlet shadows, Li Hao dove at the two Yama representatives like he was a bird. He ignored the Red Moon trio.

    Iron Wall¡¯s expression shifted drastically while the woman next to him shrieked. A sound wave unfurled through the air, aimed at the young man. Li Hao roared back like the ferocious tiger he was!

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± The sound wave exploded and waves of sound currents undted in all directions. The mountain rock on the ground exploded into dust.

    Li Hao transformed into a tiger of fire and approached the two. Iron Wall shouted, summoning armor of heavy earth onto his body!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The armor remained absolutely still after suffering a blow, but Iron Wall vomited blood as his organs were too heavily shaken. There was no time to run since the young man was closing in on them.

    ¡°Hurry and help us! This person has be disaster incarnate...¡± Iron Wall roared.

    The Red Moon members hesitated, but that didn¡¯t change Li Hao¡¯s mind from killing them all tonight. On the other hand, the Yama duo wanted to make sure that Red Moon stayed. Li Hao had been entirely too stunning when he killed Yue Pu. Once the Red Moon members left, both he and the woman beside him would most likely die.

    ¡°Hurry, he can¡¯t break my defenses that easily. Team up and kill him, or Red Moon remains his biggest enemy...¡±

    Minute changes urred in the expressions of the three Srs. Zheng Ping grunted and rushed Li Hao; the remaining two scarlet shadows also flew at the young man.

    Five Srs! Two of them werete Srs and two mid Srs... And with two scarlet shadows, this level of strength might be able to put up a fight against a Nova.

    When the Red Moon trio reacted, their first reaction was that Li Hao had be a cmity. He would be great trouble for them as a second Yuan Shuo! If they didn¡¯t take the young man tonight, the organization might suffer from berserk retaliation afterward. They didn¡¯t even have time to react to his shocking killing of a peak Sr!

    A frosty hint appeared in Li Hao¡¯s eyes as he watched three Srs rapidly draw close. The earth powerhouse in front of him possessed formidable defenses while the woman continued to shriek her attacks into being...

    Blood qi erupted explosively and shot through the air, dyeing the night sky the color of blood. The Incantation of the de of Blood!

    Mind intent connected with the little sword, bringing forth the metal sword aura. While Li Hao didn¡¯t utilize thebined auras, waves of water rose and fell on his sword!

    The Nine Forged Force!

    Oneyer, twoyers, threeyers... Eight werepleted in the blink of an eye. The metal sword aura was most adept at sudden eruptions and breaking through. Whenbined with mental strength in the Incantation of the de of Blood, that put Li Hao at a level thirty percent stronger than the Yue Pu he¡¯d just killed.

    ¡°Break!¡± A sword shed out, breaking through the world of red in the void. Iron Wall¡¯s jaw dropped and his armor of heavy earth broke from one sh! It broke! Defenses that he viewed as invincible had been cut through by one of Li Hao¡¯s sword strokes!

    ¡°Piss off!¡± Iron Wall shouted and threw a punch at him. It was as heavy as a mountain as the man was crazed with anger.

    <i>Li Hao wants to kill me? Dream on! I just need to hold on for a bit longer so the Red Moon guys have time toe. When that happens, Li Hao¡¯s dead without a doubt!</i>

    <i>Bastard! </i>Iron Wall threw another punch that was as magnificent as a mountain. Li Hao shed forward in response, no hesitation or regret in the weapon. The young man didn¡¯t show the slightest inclination of backing away.

    Li Hao stabbed his sword into Iron Wall¡¯s head, taking the full brunt of the punch instead. The blow was immensely domineering. Flesh and blood flew everywhere, bones broke. Their fight was over amid the woman¡¯s shrieks.

    Iron Wall¡¯s head had been run through, whereas a bloody hole appeared in Li Hao¡¯s chest. The young man¡¯s beating heart could be seen through it, one with some damage to it that was being swiftly healed. The young man¡¯s heart had almost been punched through.

    There was no longer any seduction to be found in the woman¡¯s eyes, just abject fear and horror. It upied all her thoughts and she stopped shrieking. The only thought on her mind was to run! It didn¡¯t matter that the three Red Moon Srs were already here, Iron Wall had been skilled at defense and was ate Sr. He¡¯d been run through all the same, to say nothing of her. She was just a mid Sr and she wasn¡¯t skilled at offense. Sound waves were her strongest attack, alongside another ability of creating illusions. However, when she¡¯d tried that, a ferocious tiger had ripped through them before they had a chance to appear!

    Therefore, she couldn¡¯t bring any of her power to bear as a support Sr. At the same time, how would Li Hao let her get away just because she wanted to? He transformed into a bird and vanished. <i>Charge!</i>

    The metal dot coalesced over his arm¡ªthe metal sword aura!

    Li Hao stabbed his sword forward like a bird pecking food, running his weapon through the back of the woman¡¯s head. He instantly smashed all defenses and his internal force surged out. The beautiful head exploded before the shrieks in the air fully dispersed.

    Triple kill! Li Hao hadpleted his third kill in the blink of an eye.

    A massive explosion sounded behind him as a surge of domineering metal power red. The explosion made Li Hao stumble and fall to the ground. He hit it with a tumble much like a monkey would and rolled around a few times on the ground. Although he was covered in blood, he¡¯d evaded the second attack.

    Red Moon¡¯s Srs had arrived!

    Two scarlet shadows darted into his body; he frothed his blood and qi and melted the blood shadows with a muffled snort. When they disintegrated, they emitted piercing noises.

    Zheng Ping and the others widened their eyes. The divine shadows were no more, just like that? Too fast, it¡¯d all happened too fast. Iron Wall was already dead when they arrived, while the woman with the moniker of Seduction had her head blown up. Assassin Yue Pu had died before all of them!

    It¡¯d been less than ten seconds from beginning to end, but the young man in front of them had killed all of the Srs from Celestial and Yama. The hole remained in his chest; Zheng Ping had created another on his back. One could see clear through Li Hao in a few areas.

    However, the young man in front of them remained ruthless! There was only hate in his eyes!

 Chapter 397: Known Throughout the Lands (I)

    <h4>Chapter 397: Known Throughout the Lands (I)</h4>

    Zheng Ping and the others swallowed hard, only one thought on their minds. If this guy didn¡¯t die here tonight, he would be even more of a problem than Yuan Shuo in the future. He was more brutal, so an injured Li Hao was their perfect opportunity to kill him!

    ¡°Kill!¡± They didn¡¯t shrink back. As Srs, they understood that attempting to flee would be their death sentence. Everyone had seen what happened to Seduction!

    To run was to die. If a martial master caught up to them in close quarters, they wouldn¡¯t be able to bring their full strength to bear. Their defenses would be easily punctured and... that would make them sitting ducks.

    They needed to kick a dog when it was down and finish the deed!

    Thoughts of taking the young man alive were no longer on their mind. This person needed to die; everyone had underestimated him. He was behind tonight¡¯s setup as he was ready to kill some Srs.

    ......

    Li Hao had one knee on the ground. He breathed heavily, the beating of his heart still visible to others. Three Srs swiftly approached him¡ªmetal, water, and fire. The young man was very injured! And though the three Srs were yet to reach him, they¡¯d already sent surges of mysterious power toward him.

    There was no thought of fleeing on his mind. Why would he flee? He was here to kill them all so that he could grow stronger! A surge of water ripples burst forward!

    <i>The Nine Forged Force!</i>

    <i>Boom!</i>

    He punched the air and detonated the mysterious powering for him ahead of the Srs. Li Hao pushed off the ground and soared into the sky,nding with a sword stroke that shook nine provinces!

    Srs converged upon him from different directions! The metal attribute was the strongest, the water the weakest. Li Hao ignored the weakest and focused on the metal supernatural. He swung his sword around and ripped through metal mysterious power again. Zheng Ping stumbled in the air while the two continued forward without pause.

    No one said a word, there was no need for words. It was a fight to the death. A surge of water energy detonated around him and encased him in a water bubble. Li Hao stabbed at it with his sword and broke through to be faced with a sky of fiery sparks!

    These Srs that worked extremely well together could deal greater harm and trouble than the ones from earlier.

    Li Hao was in peak battle condition, having called upon the Incantation of the de of Blood. And yet, these three Srs still suppressed him to the point where advance was impossible. They also didn¡¯t let himnd on the ground. He wanted to readjust his position a few times, but they flung him into the air again.

    Zheng Ping and the others were extremely solemn. How was this guy still so domineering when he was this injured? It would truly be hard for them to stand against him if he hadn¡¯t been injured earlier.

    ¡°Hoo...¡± Panting sounded from all four of them. This kind of high intensity battle was difficult to keep up.

    Blood flowed freely from Li Hao; he¡¯d yet to fully digest the power from the scarlet shadow. He¡¯d only absorbed part of it, leaving the rest in his body. It obstructed the operation of his internal force as it¡¯d been a Sr level scarlet shadow, not one of the initial Sr level.

    Battle erupted in the distance. The Sunres of the three great organizations had followed their Srs, but were obstructed by the Demon Hunters. Pitched battle had broken out. Whether it was the three great organizations or Demon Hunters, they fought in silence apart from the explosions of mysterious power or secret arts cutting through the void. Only when they faced death did cries of pain sound.

    They were all elites!

    Li Hao ignored his team and put Steris away. As sharp as the little sword was, it was too short and didn¡¯t feel that good in the hand. Other than being sharp, its only useful attribute was sword energy. Thus, it was actually in his way at this time.

    When he stowed Steris, he balled his fists up for a punch! The tiger style! The tiger roared and snarled; the young man changed his breathing method halfway through deploying his fist. The Nine Forged Force!

    <i>Eruption!</i>

    <i>Boom!</i>

    This punch was much stronger than before. Li Hao broke the water bubble with a punch and jumped out of it. When the water supernatural wanted to trap the young man again, he roared imperiously. A ferocious tiger emerged from its cage!

    Oveid with a tiger form, Li Hao transformed into a tiger and leapt into the air, going higher with each jump!

    ¡°He wants to get away!¡± Zheng Ping shouted. ¡°After him!¡±

    The young man wanted to run!

    <i>Run?</i>

    How would he ever? He stomped down like Mount Taiing to rest, crushing mysterious power beneath his foot. The water supernatural¡¯s energy was sted straight out of existence! He was a mid Sr and vomited blood as Li Hao annihted his energy. Shock filled his face. How was this possible?!

    It felt like the young man was the mountain as he ground to a rest with loud rumbles. The three Srs were immensely concerned and made their moves. They were about to bring defenses to bear against the descending mountain when Li Hao¡¯s foot abruptly exploded, sending metal energy in all directions. It was like a bird¡¯s beak¡ªsharp without parallel¡ªas it pierced through the water supernatural¡¯s defenses. With his foot like a sword, Li Hao caved in the other¡¯s shoulders!

    The young man struck while the iron was hot and kicked in a circle with both legs, opening his arms to imitate a bird. He hovered in the sky and oversaw all directions!

    <i>Bam bam bam!</i>

    A series of explosions echoed, as did the sound of metallic objects. Li Hao was as if a vicious beast that didn¡¯t know the meaning of fatigue. He kicked the weakest fire supernatural away andnded on the ground, breaking the earth apart beneath his feet. Blood continued to flow from him and dyed the area red. Li Hao¡¯s leather boots had disintegrated and revealed the bones of his feet.

    ¡°Pfftt!¡± The young man spat out a mouthful of blood as he panted heavily. The three Srs closed in on him again; everyone bore some injuries.

    Li Hao, however, was growing tired. He¡¯d yet to make any progress with the Nine Forged Force and while the books blithely spoke of breaking through in battle... Most battles didn¡¯t give one that much time to think and advance. The young man was stumped¡ªhe¡¯d wanted to use this opportunity to make a breakthrough and coalesce the water aura. Once his three auras were fused together, it would be easy to kill a few Srs!

    But now... reality proved otherwise.

    Li Hao spat out more blood and chuckled. Forget it, he wouldn¡¯t force the issue. Since he wouldn¡¯t progress in the heat of battle, then he would try to assimte the metal aura to create the metal sword aura!

    The metal sword aura was very strong; he¡¯d wanted to strengthen his lungs more before making the attempt, but that was no longer a consideration at this point. If worst came to worst, he¡¯d just cough for a bit like Hou Xiaochen and the others. He¡¯d recover when his organs were in bnce and could amodate the metal sword aura.

    A surge of metal strength exploded in his lungs. The supernatural lock rang with sounds of impact and deep grooves were etched on it¡ªit nearly broke! Li Hao didn¡¯t care because there happened to be scarlet shadow energy lingering within his body. It rushed into his lungs to strengthen the supernatural lock. He¡¯d been debating what to do with the energy he¡¯d yet to digest!

    The marks on the supernatural lock were swiftly erased. Metal power red from Li Hao, prompting the other Srs to widen their eyes.

    ¡°Hurry and kill him!¡± Zheng Ping roared. The young man seemed to be undergoing a special change.

    Li Hao had suffered quite some impact to his lungs and blood sprayed in every direction. He coughed violently.

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± Blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. Melding the metal sword aura was the hardest. It also meant that the metal sword aura represented the extremity of spontaneous eruption. If he was able to turn it into his other auras, Li Hao¡¯s strength would increase greatly.

    Steris appeared once more to give all of its sword energy to Li Hao. His injuries swiftly healed and ceased worsening. The damage to his organs recovered as well. He ran like a deer, footsteps light and nimble. The young man disappeared beneath Zheng Ping¡¯s sword. The hair rose on the back of thetter¡¯s neck in the next moment!

    Li Hao¡¯s mind intent manifested as he thought back to his forefather¡¯s sword stroke!

    The aura of three swords!

    The metal dot vanished into the tiger¡¯s head¡ªa ferocious tiger emerging from its cage!

    <i>Hummm!</i>

    The air exploded when Li Hao stabbed his sword forward. Sword qi broke through the void and the ground ruptured. The young man was exceedingly fast. Zheng Ping wanted to evade the sword and was on the verge of seeding when Li Hao stomped his foot and sent his opponent back in ce with a small quake!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    The sword pierced through Zheng Ping¡¯s back, but Li Hao also suffered attacks from fire and water at the same time. The other two supernaturals didn¡¯t care if those of their side fell within their line of fire. They decided to just attack!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Explosions rang out. Zheng Ping¡¯s eyes widened as mes covered him and water arrows ran him through. He looked in Li Hao¡¯s direcion with difficulty. The young man had stabbed his short sword into the man¡¯s heart! mes had scoured his face and body to the point of being unrecognizable.

    However, Zheng Ping broke out in a grin. He didn¡¯t mind that hispanions had included him in their attacks. If it was him in their shoes, he would have done the same. He grinned because Li Hao had underestimated the supernatural!

    Although the kid had abruptly grown strong enough to the point where he could vanish and reappear behind Zheng Ping, thus stabbing the man through the heart, he was also suffering on his end. Attacks from Srs were not so easily weathered. In his drive to kill Zheng Ping, Li Hao was also gravely injured!

    But this was when Zheng Ping jerked with shock!

    A unique energy bloomed in Li Hao¡¯s body as he took a deep breath. Light shed across his deeply burned body and while his wounds didn¡¯t immediately fully heal, they didn¡¯t worsen. There was even new flesh and blood burgeoning in his body.

    Sword energy!

    Li Hao looked coldly at his target and punched Zheng Ping¡¯s head to smithereens.

    <i>And what are you looking at? What are youughing at?? I may not know what you¡¯reughing about, but do you think I can¡¯t do anything after just because I¡¯m injured?</i>

    The remaining two Srs left without a word when they saw the development. If the gravely wounded Li Hao could instantly recover, then what were they fighting for?

    <i>Run!</i>

    They didn¡¯t run before because the young man was heavily injured. But they¡¯d seen with their own eyes that Li Hao could fully repair his wounds with just a single breath. How were they supposed to fight this?

    Li Hao changed his breathing method with another deep breath in, exhaling a breath of sword qi! The Ghost Shadow Sword!

    The sword qi was the extremity of speed and pierced through the void. The water supernatural that¡¯d just taken to the air was run through from behind, stumbled down, and fell to the ground with his mysterious power dispersing.

    The initial fire Sr was already in the air and looking to soar to safety. Li Hao unsheathed his sword, the three swords as one!

    A cough sounded, as if the signal of death. ¡°Break!¡± rang out a solemn cry.

    <i>I will break your life!</i>

    <i>Humm!</i>

 Chapter 398: Known Throughout the Lands (II)

    <h4>Chapter 398: Known Throughout the Lands (II)</h4>

    Sword qi raced to the heavens and illuminated thend. In this moment, the sword stroke ran through heaven and earth. When it vanished with a boom, the fire Sr in the air stopped and looked down wryly. He exploded with a loud rumble!

    The water Sr on the ground was the only one alive; terror gripped him. Dead! They were all dead! Five out of six Srs were dead in the blink of an eye!

    ¡°Demon Sword...¡± murmured the water Sr. This person... was stronger than Yuan Shuo. Compared to when Yuan Shuo killed the Qimei Staff, the current Li Hao was indeed stronger than his teacher.

    A ruthless expression dawned on the water Sr¡¯s face; he pounced on Li Hao the moment the young man approached. He wanted to make hisst stand¡ªhe would grievously injure Li Hao even if he couldn¡¯t kill the young man!

    Li Hao stomped on the ground like he was a massive bear and opened his arms wide, permitting the other to leap at him. He wrapped his arms around the other and called upon the bear style, infinitely increasing the strength in his arms.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Death through bear hug!

    Li Hao¡¯s arms were as if iron bands locking the other in ce; he hugged the water Sr to death. The Sr¡¯s arms broke, his rib cage copsed, and his organs ruptured. His head hung, but he looked at Li Hao out of the corner of his eyes.

    <i>Why??</i>

    Why was the young man so strong?!

    Why could he spontaneously heal from his injuries?

    <i>Why?!</i>

    He didn¡¯t understand any of this and died with great reluctance.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t in the mood to guess what the man was thinking. He threw away the water Sr¡ªnow a pile of broken bones¡ªand looked around him. Focusing on a bearing below, he leaped into the air and chopped down with his sword!

    A terrified supernatural with his mysterious power withdrawn stood unmoving in the void. He¡¯d hoped that the night sky could conceal his movement. However... sword qi came for him the next second!

    The supernatural in the sky split apart on the spot!

    Li Hao continued when hended on the ground, jumping back up to descend upon a new spot and causing a partial copse with a stomp, crushing a Sunre to a mashed pulp!

    The young man still looked elsewhere. A tiger roar shook thend, squeezing someone out from another part of the void. Highly incredulous, they roared, ¡°Impossible!¡±

    Thistest was a Celestial killer who wasn¡¯t too strong, but possessed a very special ability. He could hide within the darkness and be one with it, making detection impossible. He¡¯d even assassinated a Sr before and was a Celestial genius with high potential and hopes of ascending to Sr or Nova.

    He couldn¡¯t believe that Li Hao had forced him out of hiding with one roar, but then the young man punched him into bloody pieces without further word.

    <i>Impossible? There¡¯s a massive sun right in front of me, what isn¡¯t possible about that? Figure out how to hide from my eyes first before you guys whine that it¡¯s impossible.</i>

    He looked in the four directions, finally seeing ack of balls of light. However, Li Hao knew that some had gotten away earlier. This battle would not remain a secret. He¡¯d sensed a few Sunres around when he killed Yue Pu¡ªthey¡¯d probably fled as soon as they witnessed the young man¡¯s terrible might.

    With how long the fierce battle took, he had no way of tracking where the Sunres had gone. It was impossible to cordon off the news. He¡¯d killed these people after taking out the Srs because they stayed to watch until the very end. They courted death!

    However, the only ones who got away were those who¡¯d left early. They¡¯d only seen him kill Yue Pu in an ambush, but didn¡¯t have an inkling that sword energy could heal injuries or that he had melded three sword auras into one. It put Li Hao more at ease.

    They likely didn¡¯t see the Incantation of the de of Blood being deployed either. Then all was fine.

    A team of martial masters in ck armor rushed over.

    ¡°Supernaturals attacked us on all sides!¡± Liu Long was drenched in blood. ¡°We killed them, but some hiding in the shadows seem to have gotten away. There were also a few earth supernaturals that fled through the ground. We were unable to catch them.¡±

    Those that they killed were the supernaturals that¡¯d stayed behind. There wasn¡¯t anything that the Demon Hunters could do about those who¡¯d run. Everyone looked ardently at Li Hao with traces of passionate worship. One person against six Srs, and he¡¯d killed them all!

    Li Hao grinned and raised a hand, waving it around in a clenched fist. ¡°Demon Hunters!¡±

    ¡°Demon Hunters!¡± answered roars that reverberated through the wilderness! Li Hao would be known through thend after tonight!

    Another heavyweight had appeared among martial masters, one that might eclipse Yuan Shuo because Li Hao was so young and his achievements so stunning. He¡¯d fought one against six and killed them all!

    Fleeing supernaturals in the distance nearly wet themselves when they heard the roar! Run! Run as fast they could! Li Hao had won! Six Srs and a dozen Sunres hade from the three great organizations to kill him, but the young man led his people in a victorious fight against them all. Only four had made it out. The rest were buried in this nameless mountain.

    ......

    <i>In the wilderness.</i>

    Killing intent filled the air. They hadn¡¯t battled that many times, but the Demon Hunters appeared particrly berserk at the moment. They were almost fanatic and itched to follow Li Hao to the central region.

    This was their leader! Someone who¡¯d killed six Srs by himself in the same battle, and not through umted fights! Srs were titans to these people, but a half dozen of them had died here tonight.

    ¡°Clean up the corpses and battlefield, be quick about it!¡± Li Hao coughed. ¡°We need to retreat¡ªI¡¯ll give you ten minutes to go with me. We might really be running for our lives this time. There could be Novas after me soon... Cough cough cough!¡±

    He coughed violently, reminding people of Hou Xiaochen. But when they looked at Li Hao again, they threw thoughts of the director to the back of their mind. So what of Hou Xiaochen? Was he as mighty as Li Hao at the young man¡¯s age?

    Not to mention, Hou Xiaochen was Hou Xiaochen, Li Hao was the one who brought them on battles around the province and helped them grow stronger.

    The group swiftly spread out and began cleaning up the battlefield. Six Srs and a handful of Sunres... Their gains were significant after this battle.

    Srs typically carried storage rings on them¡ªan immense step up from Sunres. They also had mysterious power stones, energy rings, and contained at least one thousand cubes of mysterious power within themselves, essible when they died.

    Li Hao waved his hand after ten minutes; fifty-one people swiftly withdrew into the darkness.

    ......

    Not long after they left, news began spreading thanks to the escaped supernaturals. The world shook!

    ......

    <i>A Red Moon base.</i>

    Blue Moon briefly lost his train of thought and didn¡¯t know what to say to a room full of powerhouses. No one heard the content of his call, so they remained looking at him. Shocked senseless, Blue Moon promptly set Hou Xiaochen aside. It didn¡¯t matter if the four institutions sought to suppress them or were doing so as they spoke...

    He was very much in a daze.

    ¡°Blue Moon!¡± Violet Moon¡¯s voice woke him. ¡°What is it?¡±

    His mouth dry, the man swallowed rrbefore saying slowly, ¡°Zheng Ping and the others caught up to Li Hao on the other side of Rift Canyon...¡±

    That was good! The group was confused.

    ¡°And then...¡± Blue Moon smiled bizarrely. ¡°Celestial¡¯s Yue Pu arrived, as did Yama¡¯s Iron Wall and Seduction. The six Srs were going to capture Li Hao together...¡±

    Those assembled waited for the results. Blue Moon sat on a chair and leaned back, breathing out, ¡°But they¡¯re all dead!¡±

    <i>What?! </i>Shock rippled through the assembly.

    ¡°How dare Yue Pu and the others ambush Zheng Ping...¡± It also felt like a bolt from the blue had struck Violet Moon. It was only natural that she thought of this. Internal conflict!

    Well, it didn¡¯t really count as internal conflict. All that could be said was that the three great organizations had erupted in quarreling and brought about each other¡¯s deaths.

    Blue Moon smiled, as rueful as he could be. ¡°No... Li Hao killed them all!¡±

    ¡°WHAT?!¡± Now that was truly impossible to believe.

    Blue Moon¡¯s smile disappeared and he breathed out softly, holding a fan in his hand. He waved it around, as if pacifying the agitation in his heart. ¡°They¡¯re all dead¡±, he said when he regained calm. ¡°Li Hao killed Yue Pu at the first opportunity¡ªit didn¡¯t take him long. Large-scale battle brought out after that. Someone said he defeated the defense-focused Iron Wall with one stroke. And then... there is no further information beyond that!¡±

    Blue Moon chuckled. ¡°Everyone says that Yuan Shuo is powerful, that Hou Xiaochen can be scary... But why has no one ever mentioned that Li Hao is also terrifying?¡±

    Had anyone ever said that before?

    <i>No.</i>

    All that was mentioned when they spoke of Li Hao was ¡°Yuan Shuo¡¯s final disciple¡± or ¡°the only heir to the eight families¡±. No one said that Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple was a powerhouse himself¡ªthis battle wouldn¡¯t have turned out like this if they did. The three great organizations had spent six Srs and more than a hundred supernaturals to prove Li Hao¡¯s might.

    The entire hall quieted down, so silent that a pin drop could be heard. They were digesting the news, but it was so far-fetched that they could barely believe it. Li Hao... Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple! He¡¯d barely managed to win against Qimei Staff¡¯s disciplest month. Had he hidden his strength then, or had he improved to such a terrifying degree in less than a month?

    He must have concealed his strength!

    They didn¡¯t believe that someone could progress from Sunderer to killing six Srs in the span of a month. This kind of strength would ce him in the upper echelon of Srs, despite the young man making use of ambushes and everyone underestimating him. Who knew, perhaps he¡¯d be able to fight Novas!

    The entire Red Moon organization quieted down to digest the news. Violet Moon did so as well. She was the only one present who¡¯de in contact with Li Hao for an extended period of time. Had he been so terrifying when they¡¯d traveled to the ruins?

    The young man had seemed honest and simple then. Was he truly the same Li Hao that¡¯d killed six Srs tonight?

    ......

    A massive wave swept through all of Silver Moon.

    <i>The Night Watchers.</i>

    Manager Yu was finally out from seclusion; her face was pale. She walked out into frenzied activity as the entire agency was being mobilized.

    ¡°Director...¡± A stupefied Hao Lianchuan stood dumbly, reciting his report like he was a puppet, ¡°Li Hao... Li Hao killed six Srs in the northern area of the province tonight. One peak Sr, twote Srs, two mid Srs, and one initial Sr. The news has spread far and wide and Novas have surfaced in the three great organizations. They seem to be heading toward the northern reaches of the province...¡±

 Chapter 399: Known Throughout the Lands (III)

    <h4>Chapter 399: Known Throughout the Lands (III)</h4>

    Hou Xiaochen quietly perused the report. He said softly after a while, ¡°Some of the supernaturals that made it out say Li Hao should be hailed Demon Sword. What do you think?¡±

    <i>What do I think? I don¡¯t think anything!</i> Hao Lianchuan stood ck-jawed, not uttering a peep. It wasn¡¯t just facing Srs in singlebat. If that was the case, he¡¯d seen that before and wouldn¡¯t be so taken aback. It was one against six and Li Hao had killed them all! That was most terrifying about everything.

    <i>Can Li Hao challenge Novas now? Six Srs working in tandem should be able to fight a Nova, right? There should be no problem, but... Li Hao killed them all.</i>

    Regardless of how many idents or coincidences there might¡¯ve been in the process, it was undeniable that Li Hao had won.

    ¡°Director... do we send reinforcements?¡± Hao Lianchuan wondered.

    ¡°Reinforcements?¡± Hou Xiaochenughed with a cough. ¡°Nope! You, on the other hand, should hurry and form a team to sweep the southern part of the province! Not only you, but Little Yu should go as well. I¡¯ll participate when necessary and bring the others back as well. We¡¯ll run through the entire province!¡±

    Reinforcements? That¡¯d just be following the three great organizations. If the four institutions swiftly marched through the southern part of the province, the three great organizations would be too weary to handle everything. Should they continue to hunt Li Hao on the northern side of Rift Canyon, or should they work together to defy the provincial authorities? It would be a choice they would have to make.

    This was the best move that Hou Xiaochen could see!

    ¡°Have the Guards move out en masse! Li Hao¡¯s Demon Hunters will be known throughout thend after tonight. Even the central region will learn of him and this newly established army unit soon. Golden Spear has bided his time for too long, it¡¯s time to show his face again!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen stood up and smiled to the north. <i>Li Hao! You really are something! I knew that someone who could break my lingering will would not be a simple character. So you did hide most of your strength and erupted with all of it tonight. It looks like you will hide yourself no longer.</i>

    Hao Lianchuan quickly left without a word. He needed to contact all relevant parties tomence a massive sweep! They needed to force the three great organizations to keep their elites in the south of Rift Canyon. Otherwise, Li Hao¡¯s people would find it hard to escape.

    It was too dangerous to consider a rescue. The three great organizations might have sealed off the canyon area. Anyone who approached would be unexpectedly mired in the situation.

    ......

    <i>The provincial government.</i>

    Director General Zhao coughed weakly beneath the feeble light and smiled at Deputy Zhou. ¡°Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple... As we expected, like master, like disciple. Yuan Shuo is not one to provoke. If the bloodline of the eight families fully erupts, it will be beyond the capacity of ordinary people to endure...¡±

    He coughed and asked, ¡°What is your grandson being involved for?¡±

    ¡°Him?¡± Deputy Zhou grinned. ¡°He¡¯s just curious and chafes under strict rules at home, so he went looking for some thrills. Those little guys are probably running as fast as they can back here...¡±

    ¡°The three great organizations are all headed north to hunt Li Hao. Those little guys will be in danger.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, there should be no issue.¡± Deputy Zhou shook his head. ¡°I haven¡¯t heard of them being involved tonight. They probably ran off after receiving word ahead of time. Li Hao and the rest are martial masters, so they can hide. The little guys can¡¯t, so they probably started running as soon as the fighting started.¡±

    The director general nodded. Based on Li Hao¡¯s resume, he would consider this point as well. He was someone who acted after nning and wouldn¡¯t let his people be needlessly exposed to die.

    ¡°Someone says that Li Hao should be hailed the Demon Sword... what do you think?¡±

    ¡°Demon Sword or not,¡± Deputy Zhou took a deep breath. ¡°I know that Silver Moon will be the center of attention again after this battle. The master and disciple duo seem greatly fearful that we¡¯ll fall out of the spotlight and keep creating incidents.¡±

    ¡°Indeed, they¡¯re killing people in the north and south. Yuan Shuo killed a peak Sr tonight as well and ran after. He probably thought that would attract some attention, but now no one will notice. They¡¯ll all be focused on his disciple, the little guy who stands at the peak as soon as he emerges!¡± the director general waxed eloquent. This young man was truly frightening¡ª<i>do you know, Yuan Shuo? Your student has grown to terrifying heights and his battle aplishments are starting to surpass yours. You hemmed and hawed for so many days to kill a few Srs, but Li Hao¡¯s already taken out eight!</i>

    No, wait, maybe more than that.

    Zhang Ting was dead and Hao Lianchuan said he wasn¡¯t behind it. That left Li Hao, didn¡¯t it? So... nine Srs? Were there any more unknown Srs out there?

    The master and disciple duo were quiet when they didn¡¯t take any action, but when they did, lofty Srs turned into clowns they could eliminate at any time. They¡¯d killed double digits worth of Srs in the blink of an eye!

    ......

    All factions stirred with shock as news spread madly upon the wind.

    Demon Sword Li Hao!

    Old Demon Yuan¡¯s final disciple killed six Srs in one battle in Silver Moon today. He trod upon the corpses of the three great organizations to make his name known beneath the heavens!

    ......

    <i>The central region.</i>

    The first province beyond the North Sea was called Seashore. Thetest news of the day flurried over like a hurricane.

    Yuan Shuo had just killed a Sr and was busy running and hiding. His hiding spot was unusual¡ªa Celestial base¡ªso he casually cleaned out the area of supernaturals as well. A mirror next to him abruptly lit up with lines of text.

    Busy recovering from his wounds, Yuan Shuo¡¯s jaw dropped when he happened to nce at it. Jadelight was also attending to herself and looked at Yuan Shuo when she heard the disturbance. She found him with his mouth wide open and a wooden expression on his face. What was it? Were enemiesing?

    She followed his gaze to the text on the mirror.

    ¡°Emergency report: Great happenings have taken ce in Silver Moon tonight. Li Hao, disciple of Yuan Shuo, fought six Srs alone in the northern region of the province. He killed our powerhouse Yue Pu as well as Jin Jiu, Duan Chao, and Zheng Ping of Red Moon, as well as Iron Wall and Seduction of Yama.

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s level of danger is hereby upgraded. Li Hao¡¯s troops of the Demon Hunters areprised of fifty martial masters. They have killed more than one hundred supernaturals and are a bloodthirsty crew that far exceeds Yuan Shuo!

    ¡°Li Hao¡¯s level of danger is hereby upgraded, with a rmendation of the Nova rating. If any members ept a mission involving him, it is rmended that mid Novas and above go into the field.¡±

    Wu Hongshan¡¯s eyes shot wide open as she whipped her head around to stare dumbly at Yuan Shuo. <i>This... is talking about your student, isn¡¯t it? The biddable, mature, and young man of culture Li Hao?</i>

    Indeed, that was how Yuan Shuo had always described the boy. It coincided with Wu Hongshan¡¯s memory of a refined and elite child who was well-read, obedient, and liked to smile. So... what was this in the mirror? Someone of the same given name and surname? And someone else with the same given name and surname as Yuan Shuo, right?

    Fighting six Srs by himself!

    Yuan Shuo snapped out of his dazed expression and recovered his cool aplomb. He smiled at seeing Wu Hongshan look at him. ¡°What are you staring at me for?¡±

    ¡°Your disciple?¡±

    ¡°Yes, what about him?¡±

    ¡°Didn¡¯t... you say he¡¯s obedient?¡±

    ¡°Yes, is he not?¡± Yuan Shuo roared withughter that petered out as resignation. ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, I don¡¯t know how this kid is improving so quickly either. I just know he very quickly became a Dominator and could soon fight Srs. But... but... I don¡¯t have a freaking clue how he can fight six at one time! And win at that!

    ¡°The kid¡¯s in deep trouble now,¡± the old man muttered with resignation. ¡°I finally took the heat off him when I came here, but now he¡¯s gone and brought the spotlight back to him. He¡¯s even more dangerous than me now!¡±

    What the heck did he do that for? Who was covering for who now? Also, how had the kid done it at all?

    Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t wrap his mind around it. He might be able to reach Li Hao¡¯s level in his current condition, but that was with integrating his three auras. When that step wasplete, all that was missing was an inability to deploy the Incantation of the de of Blood. However, there was no helping that as hecked sword energy.

    If he haphazardly employed it, he would be dead without a doubt since he hadn¡¯t had time to obtain scarlet shadows. Therefore, he would not use it without cause.

    Even so, Yuan Shuo was already ridiculously strong. He may not be able to stand against Novas, but he fancied himself invincible and a domineering presence among his fellow Srs. His disciple seemed right up there with him!

    ¡°Your disciple is incredible!¡± Wu Hongshan took a deep breath. ¡°But if even Celestial is notifying all of its people, I¡¯m afraid that the entire dynasty will know of your disciple¡¯s feats after tonight. That¡¯s not good.¡±

    ¡°What are you afraid of?¡± Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t mind. What were they afraid of? They¡¯d kill anyone who came! They¡¯d run if they couldn¡¯t or acquiesce to fate if they could not.

    ¡°Not bad, kid!¡± he started chuckling. ¡°But your master isn¡¯t bad either. I killed a Sr tonight too, that makes for the tenth Sr so far on my trip! Mmhmm, I need to keep this up so that the kid doesn¡¯t surpass me. Jadelight, hurry and recover from your woods. We¡¯ll continue killing when you¡¯re healed. My disciple is almost catching up to me in terms of the number of Srs killed, but we¡¯re the ones running to and fro everyday. Now isn¡¯t that embarrassing!¡±

    Wu Hongshan didn¡¯t say a word, but the emotion in her heart was hard to calm. Yuan Shuo¡¯s student, his youngest disciple, had killed six Srs tonight. It was a tough pill to swallow¡ªshe¡¯d just spent hours fighting an initial Sr. It had Yuan Shuo suppressing the other for her to sessfully kill the target.

    Compared to Li Hao, she felt her cheeks burn with mortification!

    ......

    All parties reeled with shock as the various great organizations heatedly discussed this topic.

    <i>The southern outskirts of Silver Moon.</i>

    Southern Fist sighed with great emotion in arge manor. ¡°Damn, he¡¯s something! Thank goodness I didn¡¯t agree to his offer of a spar¡ªI¡¯d be used to wipe the floors if I did!¡±

    It was the same woman next to him asst night, the Heartjab Daughter, now known as Madame Bai. A single woman and man sitting next to each other in the middle of the night... and the woman being married as well... If Li Hao was present, he¡¯d deliver a litany of criticism.

    The Heartsick Daughter was likewise astounded, but she quickly came back to her senses. ¡°This Li Hao is indeed a source of surprise! But, truth be told, it involves the Bai family as well, no? Hu Dingfang is his senior brother-inw. Tell us, Brother He, do you think we can bring Li Hao to our side?

    He Yong leered and looked meaningfully at her. ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it. This kid is more ruthless and merciless than Yuan Shuo. He¡¯s also cold-blooded as well! You¡¯d have to worry about being eaten in return if your recruitment spiel proves unsessful.

    ¡°I¡¯ve met the kid once and knew from that one meeting that he¡¯s no kind soul. He watched without the slightest flicker of change in his expression when Hou Xiaochen killed Red Hair¡ªhe didn¡¯t even blink! He wasn¡¯t distressed at all by the deaths of innumerable powerhouses. It¡¯s best to stay away from these kinds of people if possible!¡±

 Chapter 400: Known Throughout the Lands (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 400: Known Throughout the Lands (IV)</h4>

    He Yong had seen it clearly that day and followed Li Hao around the subsequent days. The young man wore a smile on his face, but he was even more ruthless and coldhearted than Yuan Shuo when it came down to things. He Yong was well aware of Li Hao¡¯s situation.

    He was an orphan with a master on the run and a friend killed by Red Moonst year. Liu Long and the others hadn¡¯t known him for long. The young man was a person without much warmth in his bones. All of his affection was likely centered on Yuan Shuo. It was not a good idea to antagonize the fellow.

    Madame Bai inclined her head and didn¡¯t repeat the idea of recruiting Li Hao.

    ¡°Also, don¡¯t let Hu Dingfang and his wife try,¡± Southern Fist warned. ¡°ying on emotions may not be a good move. That guy reached out to Wang Henggang of the Inspectorate and an unfamiliar Hong Yitang, but didn¡¯t go to his senior sister and martial brother-inw. He might actually nurse the idea to clean house for his master, so be careful.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo will keep their rtionship in mind, but he won¡¯t. Not to mention, there¡¯s no rtionship between them. It¡¯s a verymon urrence for final disciples to do some house cleaning for their masters. You¡¯re a martial master too, so you understand!¡±

    The look in Madame Bai¡¯s eyes hitched and she nodded, fully dismissing the notion. Indeed, final disciples were sometimes ced more highly than founding disciples. If he really was going to tidy up the discipline, Yuan Shuo might not say anything once he found out. But she still asked, ¡°Does Brother He think he can make it out?¡±

    Could Li Hao escape the encirclement of Novas from the three great organizations?

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say!¡± He Yong intoned. ¡°Only Red Moon has set their hearts against him. Yama and Celestial might not have their Novas continuously chase him down. After all, the ruins of Battle Heaven are about to open and the three great organizations will not let that slip through their fingers. Red Moon probably won¡¯t give up¡ªtheir elders are likely headed that way as we speak. Elder Tidal Wave is traveling over from the three northern provinces.¡±

    There was an elder in residence in the three northern provinces before. Being near the sea, he was a water powerhouse. Blue Moon likely wouldn¡¯t leave his post even with the elder arriving in the province, he had to stay on guard against Hou Xiaochen. That would leave the elder free to pursue Li Hao.

    Half Mountain might being from Celestial. As for Yama, it remained unknown if more powerhouses would rush to Silver Moon. Otherwise, the Parity King might not go after the young man. If the Revolution King went, he would be the one dead in an encounter, so he wouldn¡¯t go either.

    He Yong quickly ran through several possibilities and breathed out with a smile. ¡°Let¡¯s keep looking. Additionally... I want to go watch the fun too. I¡¯ll be back when the ruins open.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re going?¡± Madame Bai blinked. <i>What are you going for?</i>

    ¡°I want to watch the show.¡± A chuckling He Yong walked out of the room. ¡°They won¡¯t dare run afoul of me, I represent the royal family, after all...¡±

    He vanished after those words, leaving a Madame Bai with a shifting look in her eyes. Southern Fist had remained here all this time and was suddenly seized by an interest to participate. Nothing... untoward would develop if he went, right?

    ......

    The winds were minor on this day. Li Hao¡¯s name was known throughout Silver Moon after one night and made its way toward the various corners of Skystar Dynasty. The martial masters of Silver Moon once more stepped into the limelight and the eight families became a point of note again.

    A man sitting in the center of a main hall in an enormous mountain pce located in the central region flipped through some reports. He blinked when he looked at atest report and cursed lowly, ¡°The fuck! My daughter¡¯s still there! I thought you¡¯d keep quiet for a while, but damn if you didn¡¯t act fast!¡±

    He cursed up a storm in a fit of temper!

    <i>Bastard! I thought you¡¯d spend some time training your troops, but you did all this in just a few days??</i>

    He vented his anger with a hearty round of cursing and spat at the end for good measure. He pulled a long face as he looked at the bodies littered over the ground. ¡°Are all the Novas dead? I killed everyone in this massive base and stayed here for another two days, but not a single Nova hase by to assess the situation?¡±

    <i>Sigh. Forget it, let¡¯s withdraw. Ying Hongyue¡¯s probably in a bad mood after Li Hao¡¯s antics, he doesn¡¯t have time for me.</i>

    ......

    <i>The northern reaches of Silver Moon.</i>

    After making a name for himself in that battle, Li Hao was fleeing to the north with his Demon Hunters. They ran four hundred kilometers in one night¡ªthis was no exaggeration. They really covered four hundred kilometers, keeping up a fast pace every hour and reaching fifty kilometers an hour at top speed.

    On foot!

    Some of the martial masters were beyond exhausted. Martial masters were strong enough to maintain this speed for an hour or two. But an entire night? Even some of thete Sunderers were hard pressed to keep up.

    And yet, no one said anything.

    Some hadined when they traveled through the mountain forests on the first night, finding Li Hao a poor leader. But this time, they all grit their teeth and continued running, even those with aching internal injuries. They¡¯d been won over by the young man in front of them through the span of a few days. This was a real martial master!

    With him present, the Demon Hunters would dominate the four corners and hunt down supernaturals, disying the glories of martial masters once more. Some of them supported each other and a few even carried injuredrades on their backs. They were now brothers-in-arms!

    None of them were soldiers, but after consecutive days of fighting, they understood what it meant to be brothers-in-arms.

    The heavy ck armor was making it difficult to breathe for some, but no one took it off. This was lifesaving equipment. Otherwise, some of them absolutely would¡¯ve diedst night with all the Sunres that were on the scene.

    There were no fatalities thanks to thebination of armor, Liu Long, and formations. Only some people were shaken by mysterious power.

    The sky brightened¡ªthere was no one present in the destion around them. Li Hao coughed a few times and raised his hand. The group behind him immediately stopped and looked at him with ardent eyes.

    ¡°Do you see therge mountain ahead?¡± Li Hao chuckled. It looked close at hand, but was quite far away. Although it¡¯d long appeared in front of everyone, it was still very far away despite running after it for a long period of time.

    ¡°That mountain is called Ash Mountain!¡± The young man looked into the distance. ¡°There¡¯s a small city there called Silver City! Silver City lies on the border of Silver Moon and the border of the dynasty! Books says that it¡¯s another nation after we cross Ash Mountain, one called Great Li!

    ¡°Silver City is my home!¡± Li Hao dered with emotions. ¡°The furthest ce I traveled to as a child was Ash Mountain. Today, I bring you there! It is a precipitous ce that¡¯s long been imed to be as difficult as scaling the mountains...

    ¡°We will head east from Ash Mountain, past the peak and past the range. We will not go north as that is where Great Li is. Although the two nations have stayed out of each other¡¯s affairs for one hundred years, we do not know what the situation is in Great Li. We head east, passing through the north of the province until we reach its end and connect with Rift Canyon again. We¡¯ll return to the canyon!

    ¡°We¡¯ll let them think that we ran away.¡± Li Hao smirked coolly. ¡°That we ran off to Great Li. But we haven¡¯t! Silver Moon is ournd, why should we leave? We¡¯ll rush back from Rift Canyon. As strong as the three great organizations are, they¡¯re nothing after we kill all of their supernaturals!

    ¡°We¡¯ll kill our way back and then hunt the demons! Demon Hunters!¡±

    ¡°Demon Hunters!¡± roared his people in fine fettle. <i>We¡¯re not leaving! We¡¯ll make our way back through Ash Mountain and Rift Canyon, covering the entire province!</i>

    Silver Moon was very vast, but they were willing to follow Li Hao and brave the thistles and thorns of the province if for no other reason than the fact that martial masters loved this kind of challenge.

    Li Haoughed and coughed a bit. Liu Long frowned at his reaction. He hadn¡¯t paid attention to the young man¡¯s coughing before, but now he was worried. Li Hao had coughed here or there along the way¡ªwere his internal organs damaged?

    ¡°Come, let us enter Ash Mountain! There¡¯s a lot of rain in the mountain that can erase our tracks!¡± Li Hao waved his hand to send his people in at a dead run. Although they didn¡¯t know what the situation inside the mountain might be, they weren¡¯t worried with Li Hao in the lead. The mountain was a bright path that would lead them to renewed heights!

    ......

    After running full tilt for more than an hour, Li Hao¡¯s group shifted from precipitous mountain paths into the mountain range of Ash Mountain. Towering trees, birdsong and animal calls, as well as fresh air seemed to bestow them new life.

    Dense leaves effectively concealed their footsteps. Liu Long, Li Heng, and the others held a murmured conversation before they caught up to the scouting Li Hao.

    ¡°Leader, we have the collection results!¡±

    ¡°Speak.¡±

    ¡°Mysterious power rings in the most at twelve thousand cubes! Most of ites from the Srs. Apart from their own energy, they also carried some energy rings.¡±

    Six Srs alone had contributed nearly eight thousand cubes. Added to that their energy rings of several hundred cubes each meant that the Srs equated more than ten thousand cubes. The rest hade from the Sunres. Each person reaped nearly three hundred cubes. Much of the energy had dissipated when Liu Long killed them, so only twelve thousand total cubes were forting from thest fight.

    ¡°Twenty-seven mysterious power stones! The Celestial powerhouse carried the most. He had nine pieces whereas Red Moon had the least...¡±

    Li Hao furrowed his brows. That wasn¡¯t much! Just twenty-seven? One had to know that he¡¯d crushed eight just to refill the little sword. He¡¯d refilled it againter on for a total of twelve stones, yet they hadn¡¯t collected many...

    ¡°There are twenty-two energy rings, six storage rings, as well as a few treasures we don¡¯t recognize...¡± Liu Long hesitated. ¡°But there¡¯s supernatural ripples over them, so they should be supernatural objects.¡±

    That was quite a lot of energy rings; only Srs would have storage rings. Li Hao made swift mental calctions. He was dissatisfied with these gains. They fell below expectations as he thought these Srs would give him at least forty stones.

    <i>What a bunch of poors!</i>

    They were worse off than the two Night Watcher Srs!

 Chapter 401: The Fortune of Five Auras (I)

    <h4>Chapter 401: The Fortune of Five Auras (I)</h4>

    Celestial¡¯s powerhouse was adequately outfitted. Their peak Sr was highly valued.

    These were only the profits from today. The Demon Hunters had killed many supernaturals over the past few days and obtained nearly five thousand cubes of mysterious power. Trickles of power from close to one hundred supernaturals umted to a significant amount in the end. Unfortunately, the Demon Huntersted only three mysterious power stones from those supernaturals

    Indeed, they were all very poor. Only certain Sunres possessed stones out of the one hundred¡ªthe stones were likely awarded from upstairs. It made for a total harvest of thirty stones thus far on their trip. Li Hao had consumed nearly twenty, resulting in a profit of ten stones.

    He¡¯d borrowed thirty stones from Golden Spear, which meant he carried forty stones on him at the moment. The team had collected seventeen thousand cubes of mysterious power.

    He looked back at the tired assembly with a smile. ¡°Did you all hear that? Profits. C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go find a safe ce to absorb mysterious power. I¡¯ll use the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to convert the energy to mysterious power more suited for everyone¡¯s cultivation.

    ¡°Seventeen thousand cubes... are we going to leave that as war spoils for the enemy? No, we¡¯re going to spend it all! There¡¯s only so many of us¡ªfifty-one if you include me¡ªwhich means at least three hundred cubes each. We¡¯ll live it up tonight!¡±

    General glee seized the crowd! More than three hundred cubes each! Before they¡¯d joined the Demon Hunters, it was enough to extract twenty cubes from a Darkmoon. How many Darkmoons would they have to kill for the bounty they were receiving today? To these martial masters, a Darkmoon was on par with a Sunderer, so that meant more than a dozen times of putting their lives on the line, and they had to win each time!

    Whether it was the Inspectorate or Sword Sect, both Hong Yitang and Wang Henggang were very strong, but they wouldn¡¯t give their disciples too much. After all, they weren¡¯t that rich themselves. Not even the Night Watchers were that well off, to say nothing of themselves.

    ¡°Additionally, I have a daoprehension weapon on me,¡± Li Hao mentioned as he walked. ¡°It¡¯s a broken sword from a swordsman of the ancient civilization. It can be utilized ten times, so the captains andte Sunderers who¡¯ve killed the most people can give it a try!

    ¡°If you can be a half step Dominator, breaking through to Dominator won¡¯t be too far away!¡±

    The Demon Hunters were further delighted by Li Hao¡¯s words. The young man said nothing else, he was focused on swiftly recovering from his wounds. Not only that, but he brought out some energy rings from his storage ring. He wanted to cultivate as well.

    He possessed energy of all five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, as well as that of wind, thunder, and dark. They¡¯d killed so many supernaturals that he didn¡¯tck any attribute. Li Hao executed the rules of distribution to the letter. Thirty percent of the gains went to him, which meant he was iming nearly five thousand cubes himself. He¡¯d killed all of the Srs by himself, so he could take even more.

    Therefore, he didn¡¯t need to follow the Guards¡¯ rules of distribution.

    Li Hao looked over the selection and chose five hundred cubes of the five elements, wind, and thunder. After brief hesitation, he chose another five hundred of dark mysterious power.

    Four thousand cubes of mysterious power, but it would require roughly twenty energy stones to digest them all. One stone could convert nearly two hundred bucks of mysterious power. He was also injured, so he needed at least twenty stones for his purposes.

    Ten needed to be held back as reserves out of the remaining twenty. The remaining ten would be converted to sword energy¡ªthat would supply mysterious power for the rest of the team so they could swiftly strengthen themselves.

    Whatever they¡¯d reaped needed to be quickly spent. Spending their harvest was the true strength. Who knew who it¡¯d benefit in the end if they hoarded their treasure?

    Ten mysterious power stones wouldn¡¯t convert too much out of the remaining thirteen thousand cubes, but the team wasn¡¯t able to absorb much either. A couple cubes was more than enough for a Sunderer. Out of the two thousand that Li Hao could convert, it would be quite an abundance for each person to absorb forty cubes.

    Li Hao continued down the mountain path, exiting a natural path a whileter and entering some trails that were very difficult to pick through. He even climbed a few cliffs and led the team another hour into the mountain before finding a natural-made mountain cave.

    He quickly sealed off the entrance after entering the cave. ¡°Start cultivating now. A state of total exhaustion is perfect for our purposes. Don¡¯t rest¡ªresting will cause your attention to ck!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± chorused the team, all of them very hopeful. No one took off their armor.

    Li Hao crushed some mysterious power stones and startedrge-scale energy conversion. There was mysterious power of the five elements and unattributed power stripped out from them. The energy filled the void, avable for martial masters to freely absorb.

    It wasn¡¯t their first time doing so. While they found Li Hao¡¯s methods astounding, the team was used to it after several urrences. They could sense the advantages of this converted energy¡ªit was easier to absorb and also enhanced the physical body and organs in an evenly distributed manner.

    They couldn¡¯t fully appreciate the benefits of such energy at the moment. Only when they reached Dominator would they understand the significance of enhanced organs. It meant that the path to Summoner of Spirit was unfolding in front of them.

    Liu Long was the one who understood this the most out of the team. He¡¯d gained quite a great deal over the past couple of days. Being a Dominator, he absorbed energy very quickly and focused on the five elements. He could sense a noticeable improvement in his organs by now.

    The man was highly envious of the rest of the team. They lived in thep of abundance and knew it not!

    None of them recognized their good fortune. Only after they entered Dominator and began pursuing the path to Summoner would they understand how beneficial it was to strengthen the organs during the Sunderer stage. Each instance of absorbing energy would save them several years of cultivation.

    More than ten thousand cubes of mysterious power was just a number. The true benefits were far greater than the energy. If Hou Xiaochen and the others knew what was taking ce, they¡¯d likely be willing to pay ten times or a hundred times the price to trade for this special energy.

    ......

    Li Hao set the team out of his mind and began his own recovery and cultivation. His lungs continued to seep blood and heal. The metal sword aura was too strong and erupted too ferociously. It also continued to struggle. Each time it struggled brought about another coughing fit.

    His five organs still weren¡¯t strong enough!

    Their weakness stemmed from an inherent weakness in flesh and bone, so the young man needed to strengthen those first. Wind and thunder energy was his first choice. Sword energy surged out and raised a series of rumbles in his body.

    All he needed was pure elemental energy¡ªhe expelled the unattributed energy for the other martial masters to absorb. Unattributed energy also strengthened the body, it just didn¡¯t have much of an effect for Li Hao. But for Sunderers, unattributed mysterious power had a much better effect than regr power.

    It was deathly quiet inside the cave of fifty-one people. Only Li Hao¡¯s coughing and thunder roaring within his bones asionally sounded, bringing a hint of life to the absolutely still cave.

    Demon Hunter members continuously progressed through their dao. Mid stage enteredte stage, initial stage entered mid stage.

    The yers who hadn¡¯t broken through earlier had all seeded a long time ago. They all progressed to mid Sunderer. Somete Sunderers were feeling their way around the aura¡ªnot through the daoprehension weapon, but through their own powers of understanding.

    Hong Yitang¡¯s daughter Hong Qing, Hong Hao, Wang Chao, and the others came to their own conclusions. So did Liu Yan and Li Hang, martial masters equipped with unique heritages. Wu Chao, Li Heng, and Chen Jian had progressed tote Sunderer. All of them had improved greatly over the past couple of days.

    A few days of battle and cultivation was the equivalent of several years or a decade of hard work on their own!

    There was a noticeable increase in the number ofte Sunderers among the Demon Hunters; Liu Long had also taken remarkable steps forward. He was attempting to lock his aura in his organs, such as the water aura in the kidneys. However, his organs veered on the weaker side, so the process delivered stabbing pain to his organs. And yet, this was already a tremendous improvement. It meant that he proceeded toward peak Dominator.

    He was much stronger than before and could take onte Sunres with ease. He could even battle peak Sunres, but the oue would depend on the situation. Liu Long looked quietly at Li Hao. All of this hade from this guy. This little fellow was the scariest of them all!

    The group quickly lost themselves in the joys of cultivation. There was none of the usual pain associated with absorbing mysterious power, justfort.

    ......

    As Li Hao¡¯s group traveled through the night to Ash Mountain, others crossed the northern reaches of Silver Moon to where battle had taken cest night. Several powerhouses stood in the air and silently observed the traces left behind by yesterday¡¯s battle.

    A middle-aged woman with hair tinged blue casually summoned a piece of broken rock into her hand and looked at it closely. ¡°He is the Demon Sword alright!¡± she said softly. This sword qi was unparalleled in its keenness! It was still domineering after a night of dissipation. The wielder had inly reached unfathomable heights when it came to sword dao. Who among Silver Moon swordsmen couldpare?

    Sky Sword?

    He was probably the only one who could stand against this one.

    Powerhouses had ever hailed from Silver Moon. As expected, talents still emerged from this ce despite its decline. An ignoble fellow such as Li Hao was now known through the dynasty after a night of battle.

    A cloaked figure bent down not too far away and scrutinized a broken corpse. He shook his head gently. ¡°This person was shaken to death beneath the ground. Li Hao is also skilled at the earth aura!¡±

    ¡°Sword aura, earth aura, and possibly the fire aura...¡±

    ¡°No, the metal aura!¡±

    ¡°......¡± After a flurry of conversation, the powerhouses fell silent. Li Hao was too perverse!

    ¡°Although Li Hao does not cultivate the aura of the Five Styles, we can still look at his aplishments through that lens. He¡¯sprehended at least three auras, possibly four thus far. He¡¯s developing very simrlypared to Yuan Shuo¡¯s Five Styles!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s impossible for him to grasp so many in a month!¡± the blue-haired woman said coldly. ¡°I would believe it if he advanced from yer tote Sunderer in a day, but to understand so many auras in a month is not feasible! Therefore, he must¡¯ve grasped them beforehand!¡±

 Chapter 402: The Fortune of Five Auras (II)

    <h4>Chapter 402: The Fortune of Five Auras (II)</h4>

    Everyone understood the methods of improving the physical body and blood qi when it came to enhancing strength. Hope sprang eternal for these paths so long as one possessed sufficient treasure. Butprehending the aura was not contingent on treasure.

    Gazing upon a daoprehension weapon day in and day out was not sufficient to guarantee further understanding an aura. Hence, the powerhouses scrutinizingst night¡¯s battle scene judged that Li Hao should¡¯veprehended the aura a long time ago¡ªpossibly more than a year ago.

    Therefore, everything written in his resume was bullshit.

    Li Hao might¡¯ve been more than an ordinary martial master when Yuan Shuo epted him as a disciple. He might¡¯ve been a martial master long ago or received the old demon¡¯s true teachings three years ago, not the two or three months that wasmonly quoted.

    One aura per year for three years was feasible for a premier genius.

    ¡°Tidal Wave,¡± Half Mountain addressed the middle-aged woman off to the side. ¡°What level do you think he¡¯s at now?¡±

    ¡°Peak Sr, one who¡¯s just reached that level,¡± Tidal Wave immediately discerned. ¡°Of course, he¡¯s a martial master with domineering mind intent and numerous auras, so he¡¯s stronger than regr peak Srs. However, there¡¯s a limit to his strength. Judging from the signs of battle, he killed those of my Red Moonst in a bitterly fought battle. He looks to have suffered significant injuries in that fight.

    ¡°If he can rival Novas, he wouldn¡¯t have needed to bring so much effort to bear for those three!¡±

    ¡°Yue Pu fell to an ambush.¡± Half Mountain inclined his head. ¡°Although Li Hao finished the deed very quickly, that doesn''t mean he¡¯s much stronger than Yue Pu. He does look to have just reached peak Sr.¡±

    These powerhouses possessed the ability to determine the overall situation from just a few traces. Even so, this was a frightening conclusion.

    Li Hao was just in his twenties, but he could already kill peak Srs. He was more powerful than some premier Heaven Favored in the central region, and he was just a martial master, not a supernatural! If he could cross over right this second, wouldn¡¯t he instantly be a Nova?

    That was extremely terrifying!

    Of course, it was very difficult to ascend to the supernatural at Li Hao¡¯s level. He might not do so even if he could. If he was a supernatural, he would be a Nova... Only the most perverse of powerhouses in the central region could match such an aplishment. The three great organizations and Night Watchers had some Novas, but very few.

    Of those they had, they were all active in the central region. None of them hade to Silver Moon. Someone hade from Yama¡ªnot the Parity King, but the Revolution King. The wind supernatural kept a lower profile in front of the two Novas, but wasn¡¯t overly fearful of his counterparts.

    ¡°I met this Li Hao in thest expedition,¡± he dered coldly. ¡°He masqueraded as a Sunderer then and I failed to see through his disguise. No wonder the three great organizations suffered such immense lossesst time... It goes without saying that someone was striking from the shadows!¡±

    They¡¯d all thought that the Night Watchers had been luckyst time, but no one thought that now. It must¡¯ve been Li Hao acting without their knowing.

    Tidal Wave didn¡¯t mind this, she simply frowned, ¡°He¡¯s run off with his people. Red Moon is not skilled at tracking and tracing, but Celestial is. Half Mountain, how goes your pursuit?¡±

    As an organization of killers, they must be adept at hunting down their targets. Each Celestial member was very skilled at following others. Half Mountain, however, frowned beneath his hood.

    ¡°Elder Tidal Wave should send your divine shadow after him!¡± His voice was calm.

    ¡°I cannot!¡± Tidal Wave shook her head. ¡°I suspect that Li Hao possesses the heavenly eye and can see the divine shadows! Why else can he so quickly discover our people each time? Therefore, he might notice the divine shadows.¡±

    ¡°The heavenly eye?¡± Half Mountain blinked before thinking of something. ¡°The unique group of people who can see existences on the mental level?¡±

    ¡°Correct, them!¡± Tidal Wave affirmed. ¡°Li Hao possesses a powerful mind intent and a bit of resemnce to them. These people might not be the strongest in martial dao or the supernatural domain, but they can see unique material. They are utterly terrifying once they progress to Nova. Their mind can control everything¡ªsuch foreboding existences have appeared in the central region already!

    ¡°Divine shadows are simr to such entities. Regr people can¡¯t see it, but Li Hao... possibly can!¡±

    Why else would he so quickly discover Red Moon¡¯s people each time? The divine shadows didn¡¯t seem to inflict any damage on the young man either. Based on the traces at the scene, Li Hao seemed to have taken the divine shadows with him. She could even hear their keening howl before they were snuffed out.

    People like him were everywhere, but few were those who survived. They often exploded throughout the course of cultivation. But if they survived and surpassed certain obstacles, they would swiftly develop to preeminent experts. It was a horrifying proposition.

    All sides secretly searched for such people, but there were very few of them with any aplishments to their name. Most of them were dead, leaving a few at various headquarters to participate in certain research. There were even some who remained in the ruins. They could glimpse dangers and opportunities that others could not.

    Tidal Wave¡¯s hypothesis left the others grave. If that was the case... it would impact Red Moon the most. There wouldn''t be that great of an impact on the other two organizations.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao could also see the mysterious power within the body. This was out of reach of those with the heavenly eye, but he didn¡¯t know that. Neither would this group understand the differences within.

    Someone who¡¯d cultivated to Li Hao¡¯s level was very difficult to handle. Certain unique tactics were ineffective when it came to him. Realms of illusion, supernatural powers of hypnosis, and subterfuge were hard pressed to pull the wool over those with the heavenly eye.

    ¡°Half Mountain, this Li Hao doesn¡¯t hate just Red Moon alone,¡± Tidal Wave pointed out. ¡°Has he ever shown any mercy to Celestial or Yama? Although Yuan Shuo is stronger than him, Yuan Shuo only targets Red Moon. Li Hao is perfectly happy to make trouble for anyone!¡±

    Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t only moving against Red Moon either, but he wouldn¡¯t go for the other two organizations under normal circumstances. He would only take action if he happened to run into them as they didn¡¯t possess scarlet shadows. Li Hao, on the other hand, didn¡¯t care who he encountered. If his victimcked a scarlet shadow, then he¡¯d kill them for mysterious power.

    That was what made the young man truly frightening. In his eyes, there were only those who could be killed and those who could not. Few were those who could not, most were perfectly eptable targets. He did not care if he offended all three great organizations or just one of them.

    ¡°I can help.¡± Half Mountain nodded after some thought. ¡°But not indefinitely. If we do not find him within five days, I must leave.¡±

    As for where... Rift Canyon, of course. The ruins of Battle Heaven might open on the 28th. If he didn¡¯t go back and left only a Nova level elder there, problems would easily arise.

    Red Moon didn¡¯t care about losing a Nova, they had almost thirty Srs left among their ranks. Yama and Celestial could notpare to this¡ªthey weren¡¯t nearly as insane as Red Moon to concentrate the strength of neen provinces on one. The more that came, the more that died. They¡¯d all seen how many powerhouses Red Moon had lost during this time. They¡¯d lost nearly ten Srs in Silver Moon alone!

    It was September 19, leaving only nine days until Battle Heaven opened again. He was showing Red Moon face in helping them for five days. Of course, Half Mountain also wanted to capture or kill Li Hao. The young man was turning into someone frightening!

    ¡°What about you, Revolution?¡± Tidal Wave nodded and looked at the Revolution King. ¡°I¡¯m sure that more than the Parity King hase from Yama. Are none of the other ten free? Aren¡¯t you worried of being killed in return by Li Hao?¡±

    A peak wind Sr with an origin weapon was not weak, but might still fall to Li Hao if one was not careful. Only Novas were guaranteed to take the young man down now. Yama looked to have sent only one Nova to Silver Moon on the surface¡ªthe Parity King. But there were eight other court masters in Yama, had none of the reste?

    The war in the central region had calmed down much more these days. Red Moon pulled four Moons to hunt down Li Hao and Yuan Shuo, Yama sent the Parity King, and Celestial had sent one of their elders. At the same time, Half Mountain was also a Nova.

    The Revolution King frowned. ¡°You don¡¯t need to consider me, Elder Tidal Wave. I can wait. The masters of the sixteen hells under the Parity King will be here soon...¡±

    Tidal Wave and Half Mountain said nothing more; they treated this response with gravity. It looked like Yama was paying attention to this matter as well.

    The Parity King was a Nova, his subordinates were different from the Revolution King¡¯s. They oversaw the sixteen hells and were almost all Srs. When all of them were assembled... they would be no less than Novas.

    Ifbined with the peak Sr Revolution King and an origin weapon, not even Tidal Wave would be their match. Half Mountain likely also wielded an origin weapon. Only Tidal Wavecked one.

    While Tidal Wave was an elder, there weren¡¯t enough origin weapons to go around for every elder to be assigned one.

    People like Violet Moon and the Revolution King were in charge of holding down the fort, so they nominally possessed high statuses. Tidal Wave was just an elder, of which there were many in Red Moon.

    At the same time, they¡¯d heard that Celestial had lost an origin weapon in Battle Heaven in thest expedition. It might have belonged to Half Mountain, so he would not possess one at the moment.

    ¡°Li Haoes from Silver City... Silver City is a small ce...¡± Tidal Wave looked into the distance.

    ¡°You want to threaten Silver City to force Li Hao into showing himself?¡± someone newughed. ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it and don¡¯t do anything brash! You¡¯ve killed his parents, his best friend, and run off his teacher. He¡¯s all out there by his lonesome, and now you want to use his hometown? Don¡¯t go mucking around and creating bigger trouble for yourself. No one will be able to save you!¡±

    Tidal Wave looked coolly in a certain direction where a figure had appeared¡ªSouthern Fist.

    ¡°He Yong?¡± Some blinked. What... was he doing here?

 Chapter 403: The Fortune of Five Auras (III)

    <h4>Chapter 403: The Fortune of Five Auras (III)</h4>

    ¡°What, can I note?¡± He Yong roared withughter. ¡°It¡¯s the Night Watchers who have dered war on you, not the royal family! Are you trying to drag the royal family into this as well? I¡¯m not interested in your business, I want to find Li Hao too. This guy is really something, I want to fight him! His teacher¡¯s run off, but he¡¯ll do...¡±

    ¡°The royal family?¡± Tidal Wave looked coldly at him. ¡°You¡¯re just a martial teacher, how are you fit to represent the royal family? I¡¯d like to see if the royal family really does emerge from eighty years of seclusion and retaliates on Red Moon if we kill you!¡±

    He Yong was draping himself with the royal banner to impress people! Just look at him strut around!

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you give it a try?¡± He Yongughed fearlessly. ¡°Do you think I really have just run out from the royal family for the heck of it and refuse to go back? The royal family is also interested in the eight families! Want to share what you know, Tidal Wave? If I¡¯m entertained, I¡¯ll wave a hand and summon some dukes or even princes to help you eliminate Hou Xiaochen!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Silence.

    <i>Dukes and princes...</i>

    These ancient titles of nobility were rarely mentioned in modern society. However, everyone knew that these people still possessed actual power and authority! He Yong seemed to be saying that he was here on behalf of some special missions.

    The three great organizations were aware of the conflict between the royal family and the nine ministries. After the royal family was forced to abdicate eight years ago, they fixed looks of burning hatred on the nine ministries. Those were filled with scum who¡¯d stolen their nation!

    Bnce was maintained only on the surface in present time.

    Tidal Wave briefly thought about it, then ignored the neer. There was no need to offend the royal family, but also no need for extended contact. Some of Red Moon¡¯s intelligence reports indicated that the royal family was not content to slink off into the night. At the very least, their ck Armaturas remained steadfastly guarding the pce that no one dared enter.

    Although the Skystar King who¡¯d abdicated eighty years ago was dead, this generation¡¯s king was purported to be a powerhouse and rankled at being an ornament. He wanted to revitalize the family¡¯s rule and sovereignty. Those of the royal family all possessed certain strategies and strength...

    Tidal Wave no longer wished tomunicate with He Yong when her thoughts traveled here. Southern Fist didn¡¯t mind. The royal family name was very useful at times. In situations like these, at least, the three great organizations and nine ministries weren¡¯t willing to be entangled with the royal family. It was an incredible hassle!

    Take the situation at hand, for example. Tidal Wave and the others ignored him, but also didn¡¯t do anything to him. If it was those of the nine ministries standing in front of him, they would absolutely attack him.

    The powerhouses probed each other briefly before leaving separately. Half Mountain left with Tidal Wave. Just as Southern Fist had said, would using Silver City against Li Hao prove fruitful? His family and friends were dead, his teacher had run off. Were they supposed to use random bystanders in the streets against him?

    Li Hao was no saint!

    Not to mention, they would raise the crazed ire of Silver Moon¡¯s authorities if they moved against Silver City. The situation would be much worse than it was now. Tidal Wave quickly abandoned the notion after further thought.

    The Revolution King transported himself away to await the arrival of the masters of the sixteen hells. inly, Yama also wanted to try and capture Li Hao for themselves.

    Southern Fist jumped to the previous battle site when everyone was gone. He came to several preliminary conclusions after poking around for a bit. <i>Damn, looks like Li Hao¡¯s going to walk the path of summoning spirits into his five visceral organs! He¡¯s going to do like his teacher did and put an aura in each organ. It looks like he has the metal, fire, and earth auras. So he¡¯scking water and wood?</i>

    <i>Melding three auras together permits him to kill peak Srs... Yuan Shuo utilized two and Incantation of the de of Blood to kill Qimei Staff. That guy counted as peak Sr as well...</i>

    ¡°Is master and disciple squaring off? So this means that Li Hao is now as strong as Yuan Shuo from that day. But Yuan Shuo¡¯s manifested his third aura, so that makes him a bit stronger than his disciple...¡± He Yong¡¯s thoughts flew rapidly, estimating that master and disciple were roughly on the same footing. If Yuan Shuo proceeded down his path, it was only a matter of time before he seeded with all five auras. Li Hao, on the other hand, would run into trouble. It wasn¡¯t that easy toprehend another two auras.

    ¡°The water aura... Liu Long seems tomand the water aura¡ªdoes that map to the Nine Forged Force? So he¡¯scking the wood aura then. Does the kid have any hint as to what he wants to do?¡± He Yong analyzed the situation, unsure whether or not Li Hao had any ideas in mind. He probed the traces left by the Nine Forged Force¡ªthere were hints of waves in them. Perhaps the young man already had an inkling of the water aura.

    ¡°The wood aura...¡± He Yong thought for a bit before suddenly grinning. He actually did know of a wood aura sword method in Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. It was said to have been excavated from an ancient ruin. Its master back in the day was hailed the Wooden Swordsman. However, the method wasn¡¯t that well known.

    ¡°Weeping Willow Sword... Wooden Swordsman...¡±

    Did Weeping Willow Sword have an heir? The swordsman was dead and his only heir seemed to have died a few years back. So was the inheritance broken?

    Weeping Willow Sword had not been one of the Seven Swords of Silver Moon. While it was said that a ce among the top ten swordsmen of Silver Moon was absolutely Weeping Willow¡¯s due, who cared about those who weren¡¯t listed in the Record of Thirty-Six Heroes?

    ¡°If this kid can obtain Weeping Willow¡¯s heritage, he¡¯ll stand a chance ofprehending the wood aura. What a pity that it¡¯s been lost. I don¡¯t know if there¡¯s word aura sword techniques with the other methods.¡± Southern Fist shook his head slightly and put the matter out of his mind.

    Li Hao might be lucky enough to obtain the method; other ruins might have ancient tomes that recorded it. If not, it would be up to his own powers ofprehension. Perhaps there were other secret arts or enlightenment out there that would bring him a wood aura.

    It was just that Weeping Willow¡¯s method would systematically lead Li Hao to the wood aura and save him a lot of time.

    Southern Fist looked around a while longer and quietly departed. More people arrived after he left and stayed long enough for a quick nce around.

    There were more than the three great organizations and Night Watchers keeping a watch on this area in Silver Moon. The royal family had their representatives, the nine ministries and other esteemed personages also had eyes on the situation.

    Detailed reports regarding Li Hao quickly reached all corners of thend. Three kinds of aura! He might be walking the path of melding the auras like the Five Styles as Yuan Shuo had. Li Hao¡¯s martial path was yet to reach its end.

    .....

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao concluded his training inside a cave and gave a long exhale. His body felt much stronger and the damage to his organs was mostly healed. There was still a bit of difort in his lungs, however. As for the dark attributed energy, he¡¯d fully absorbed that.

    He didn¡¯t sense any major difference apart from his presence being more containedpared to before. That didn¡¯t seem very useful as he wasn¡¯t in the business of ambushing people. Martial masters were already hard to detect, so what use was this sted dark energy to make him even harder to detect?

    ¡°The coughing is finally better...¡± He¡¯d had to cough every few minutes before, but now could resort to coughing gently every few hours. His lungs still felt out of sorts¡ªthey¡¯d absorbed fifteen hundred cubes of mysterious power. Surely they would be fine at two thousand cubes.

    However, he¡¯d consumed too many mysterious power stones in the process and didn¡¯t have more stones to expend.

    ¡°My body, bones, and organs are all stronger. I¡¯ve improved overall, but not that much. It¡¯s my auras that are the key. I haven¡¯t grasped the water aura yet, but I have some clues so it should be soon.

    ¡°The wood aura is the issue!¡± Li Hao sighed softly. He should be stronger with four auras as one and would be able to take on the greatest of peak Srs or initial Novas. He¡¯d also fight initial Novas without a problem if also deploying the Incantation of the de of Blood.

    It was the fifth aura that he didn¡¯t really have an inkling of! How should he startprehending the wood aura?

    In the Five Styles, the deer style corresponded to the wood aura. However, his path was different from his teacher¡¯s. The Five Styles was not a sword technique, so there weren¡¯t that many points of simrity between the two. The deer aura that the young manprehended might not be of the wood attribute.

    Although auras did not possess an attribute in of themselves¡ªthat came from subsequentprehension and assignment¡ªstarting off on the wrong foot meant that the aura one understood would not be the desired attribute.

    As Li Hao was lost in his thoughts, Li Heng enthusiastically stabbed forward with his sword not too far away.

    ¡°I think I¡¯ve almost got the aura!¡± he boasted in a low voice to Wu Chao next to him. ¡°I¡¯m such a genius! It¡¯s only been two days since I becamete Sunderer, but I already feel that I¡¯m about to understand the aura. Willow leaves drift through the air and tree branches intertwine around each other when the Weeping Willow Sword is deployed. I have a hunch that once my aura manifests, I will be able tobine offense and defense together. What will you bring against me then, Runaway Wu!¡±

    ¡°The Weeping Willow Sword...¡± Li Hao blinked and looked at Li Heng. He was aware that Li Heng was the heir of the Weeping Willow Sword. Thest heir had lingered in Silver City for some time back in the day, but was quickly discovered and killed. Li Hang was an amateur who didn¡¯t have a firm grasp of the technique. He wasn¡¯t able to deploy the true dominance of the Weeping Willow Sword.

    Hence, Li Hao started with surprise when he heard that Li Heng was about to grasp the aura. That fast? This indicated that the technique itself possessed traits that led straight to the aura. Not all secret arts naturally progressed to the aura at certain levels of mastery. The Nine Forged Force and Five Styles could, but they were premier secret arts.

    Those of the thirty-six heroes possessed such arts back in the day, did Weeping Willow do the same?

    <i>Willow leaves drift through the air and tree branches intertwine around each other... to attack and defend?</i>

    Li Hao looked at the other, why... did this sound like a wood aura? Strange emotions percted through Li Hao¡¯s heart. Had a pillowe knocking on his door just as he was drifting off to sleep? But Li Heng was a boastful type. Was he running his mouth, or did he really sense the beginning of an aura?

    Hot in the middle of preening, Li Heng suddenly sensed a direct gaze on him. He swallowed when he realized it was Li Hao looking at him and shut his mouth. These days, he had only respect and veneration for this one. Even if his idental master came back to life, he would only suffer the oue of being squeezed out of the rankings by Li Hao. Li Hao would absolutely be ranked among the thirty-six.

    The subject of his adoration looked silently at him. This was all in Li Heng¡¯s mind and he was the sort to talk a big talk. <i>Let¡¯s just wait and see!</i> His aura would appear soon if he really had begun to grasp it, so Li Hao might be able to ask about it then.

 Chapter 404: A Bustling Ash Mountain (I)

    <h4>Chapter 404: A Bustling Ash Mountain (I)</h4>

    Secret arts were valuable and not typically taught to outsiders. But as an amateur, Li Heng might be willing to trade the secret art for some other benefits. If Weeping Willow was still alive, Li Hao would naturally not go through Li Heng. He would go to the source¡ªsuch were the rules of the martial world. But since Li Heng was thest of his discipline... then there wasn¡¯t much of a problem with that.

    Li Hao set the matter aside. His most pressing concern was understanding the water aura. Once the water aura formed, he would have the foundation to stand against Novas!

    ¡°So long as my strength builds by the day, all of the information you hold will be outdated!¡± Li Hao looked into the distance. Even with rocks blocking the view, he could sense that there were Novas looking for him.

    <i>Let¡¯s see who hunts who in the end! I¡¯m almost to the point of sensing thest step of the Nine Forged Force. When my water aura forms, I¡¯ll seek you out if you haven¡¯t found me yet. I need so many more mysterious power stones. Novas should have a lot of them, right?</i>

    Li Hao smiled as he looked at the martial masters in his team. There were now numerous mid Sunderers among the Demon Hunters; initial Sunderers were the minority. There were also manyte Sunderers. He could even sense that there were a few who could grasp the aura by themselves.

    Indeed, battles of life and death were the best opportunities for martial masters to attain new enlightenment. No wonder martial masters loved to fight and were headstrong. They lived to spar or engage in battles to the death.

    If the team could gain a few more Dominators and if Liu Long could set one foot into Summoner, then the Demon Hunters would be able to kill Srs next. They were improving so fast that Li Hao felt the Demon Hunters would soon be known throughout thend!

    ......

    The team rested sufficiently after a day in the mountain cave. They absorbed an appropriate amount of mysterious power, ate some rations, drank some water, and recovered their vitality. On a whole, they were noticeably stronger than before. But to Li Hao, this wasn¡¯t enough.

    There was no hurry, however.

    Once everyone became a Dominator, he would have fifty Dominators supplying internal force to him if he was the center of the formation. They would be an entirely different sight to what they were now. And if that was out of reach, then fifty Sunderers were still of enormous help to him in a formation. It just wouldn¡¯t be much of an improvement over current circumstances, so he was not so inclined toward that possibility.

    ¡°Finish your preparations, everyone. We¡¯ll set off in a moment!¡± Li Hao announced.

    The group started packing up, but there wasn¡¯t much to put away. All they needed to do was to erase the traces they¡¯d left behind. They were soon finished; Li Hao rolled back the stone at the mountain cave and walked out. He looked around the area and furrowed his brows.

    Jumping upward, he vanished and reappeared on a small peak not too far away. There was a creature that looked like a panther in front of him. It turned to look at Li Hao before bounding off.

    The young man¡¯s frown deepened. He¡¯d seen a small ball of light just now¡ªvery faint¡ªand had thought it was a supernatural. But it wasn¡¯t, it was a panther.

    <i>A panther spirit?</i>

    He knew that there were a few wild beasts in the central region that had be animal spirits¡ªthe monster spirits that everyone spoke of. There were almost none in Silver Moon, other than Panther who¡¯d be a dog spirit. It was said that powerful monster spirits in the central region could devour Novas.

    Li Hao had never considered the issue prior to today, yet he¡¯d discovered a panther about to be a spirit as soon as he entered Ash Mountain. This was only the outer fringe!

    He looked sternly into the depths. Would there berge monster spirits in the mountains? He¡¯de to Ash Mountain because the terrain was perilous and thickly forested, making it good for concealment. He wasn¡¯t here with a death wish.

    It was fine if they were supernatural monster spirits, he could see those. But... what if they were martial dao monster spirits? Did those exist?

    <i>Possibly. </i>Wasn¡¯t the little ck dog a martial dao monster spirit? They¡¯d be in trouble if they ran into those. Ash Mountain was too big, who knew if big monster spirits like those of the central region would appear here? While he¡¯d yet to hear of any, the north may hold some if the central region already had them.

    Perhaps those things like to stay in the mountains and were toozy to go out. Li Hao silently watched the panther run away and didn¡¯t make a move. It would be bad to raise attention from a bigger monster spirit if he beat the younger one up. The situation was unclear and he wasn¡¯t prepared to move against these creatures yet, lest it brought greater trouble.

    ......

    Li Hao returned to the mountain cave after a while. ¡°Everyone, be careful. Some wild beasts in Ash Mountain seem to have be monster spirits.¡± His words caused a small disturbance and Hong Qing quickly walked over.

    ¡°Leader,¡± she whispered. ¡°My dad once said that some monster spirits appeared when the supernatural first rose. The supernatural domain turned even some of the domesticated animals. Monster spirits can be found everywhere to varying degrees. But I¡¯ve also heard that there are no monster spirits in Silver Moon...¡±

    Li Hao blinked. No monster spirits in the province? Why?

    True, other than Panther, he¡¯d met no other monster spirits in the province. Were they out of Silver Moon¡¯s boundaries now?

    Hong Qing didn¡¯t know the particrs, she¡¯d only heard her father mention it before. ¡°My dad says that Silver Moon is a bit unique. Monster spirits naturally shy away from Silver Moon and the province¡¯s native creatures have a difficult time of bing spirits. They can¡¯t absorb enough mysterious power. Silver Moon is and barren of mysterious power, which makes for few supernaturals as well. We have to borrow from external sources, such as mysterious power stones and origin weapons, to receive sufficient energy.

    ¡°In some ces in the central region, one can absorb mysterious power simply through cultivating. Silver Moon seems to have be more destitute over the past twenty years.¡±

    Li Hao blinked. No one had mentioned this to him before. This meant that Silver Moon was not suited for supernaturals to train in. The supernaturals born here were converted through either the three great organizations or Night Watchers. An induction process was needed, apart from the Heaven Favored and those who were identally subjected to enough mysterious power to cross over.

    There didn¡¯t seem to be any who¡¯d naturally broken through to the supernatural over the course of cultivation.

    ¡°Do you mean that there are those in the central region who can train and be supernaturals on their own?¡±

    ¡°Yes, don¡¯t you know that, leader?¡± Hong Qing looked curiously at Li Hao. Wasn¡¯t thismon knowledge?

    The young man stayed quiet. He didn¡¯t know. No one had mentioned it before, possibly because they thought he already knew. But what could a country bumpkin from Silver City possibly know, apart from the secrets that Yuan Shuo himself had mentioned before? Li Hao had run off from White Moon a few days after arriving there. Meanwhile, Southern Fist and the others wouldn¡¯t think much of this, so they naturally wouldn¡¯t tell him.

    In that case, supernaturals were easily born in the central region and mysterious power filled the air. The same should go for Silver Moon, but reality proved to be otherwise. If a Sr like Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t consume any energy and spent a few months training and umting, he might be able to produce almost one hundred cubes.

    However, was there a point to a Sr umting several hundred cubes a year without expending any of it?

    ¡°I see!¡± Li Hao suddenly understood.

    It was as difficult as scaling the heavens for Silver Moon denizens to be supernatural, not to mention that these wild beasts didn¡¯t have any intelligence. They could only rely on naturally deriving mysterious power to be monster spirits. There wasn¡¯t enough energy to go around for humans, much less wild beasts.

    That there were plenty of monster spirits in other areas was due to bountiful energy in the air. Although it didn¡¯t reach the stage of being found everywhere, a wild beast could partake some if they were lucky enough.

    The same did not hold true for Silver Moon. Why?

    Southern Fist had said that the province was a very ancient ce, that every de of grass here might contain the echoes of great dao from the ancient civilization. It was the center of the world back then, so why was there so little mysterious power here?

    The Silver Armor had said there was no future for the path of energy¡ªit meant the supernaturals. Did this mean that Silver Moon itself repulsed the supernatural domain?

    Various thoughts rose in Li Hao¡¯s mind. This might be why it was so hard to cross over in the province, yet it was rtively easy to be a martial master. That was why it¡¯d been a sacrednd of the martial world back in those days.

    The young man lifted his head to the sky. He could not see the diagram of the eight trigrams here, but he suddenly thought of it. Very rarely did supernaturals appear in Silver City. Although there were few supernaturals to begin with in the overall province, there was a pitiful number of native supernaturals in the enormous Silver City with its one million strong poption. He¡¯d never heard of a Heaven Favoreding from Silver City, and any supernaturals it did have was transferred from elsewhere.

    The longer one stayed in Silver City, the harder it was to ascend. <i>Liu Long, Liu Yan...</i> These were the leaders of martial dao in Silver City, yet it was exceedingly difficult for them to ascend. Only Yun Yao had done so¡ªshe was the only one to do so in the team.

    Some spections burgeoned in Li Hao¡¯s mind. Did theck of supernaturals in Silver City have to do with the diagram? A suppression? Or a sealing? Or some other reason?

    Wang Henggang and the other martial powerhouses had had to leave Silver City and utilize mysterious power to make the crossover. Did Liu Long¡¯s continuous failure have to do with ack of mysterious power or... that it was just impossible?

    One could not ascend in Silver City!

    Li Hao turned to Liu Long as these thoughts swirled in his mind. ¡°Chief, have there ever been Heaven Favored in Silver City?¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Liu Long jerked and thought for a bit. ¡°I don¡¯t think so, there¡¯s too few of us in the city. It¡¯s not that easy with just one million in Silver City.¡±

    ¡°Are there very few Heaven Favored to go around?¡± Li Hao asked. ¡°If there¡¯s not even one in a million, then it¡¯d take several million or ten million to produce one. Is there only a dozen Heaven Favored in Silver Moon?¡±

    ¡°There are very few in Silver Moon, period!¡± Liu Long shook his head. ¡°Hong Qing already mentioned that Silver Moon is a barrenndscape for supernaturals. We did have some Heaven Favored at first, but the older generation of martial masters killed them. There have barely been any since, but quite a few from the outside. There¡¯s more elsewhere, we have too few!¡±

    <i>There are very few in Silver Moon!</i>

    Li Hao suddenly thought of the ruins of the stone door. It¡¯d rejected the power of the scarlet shadow, but they hadn¡¯t tested it with mysterious power. Both he and Yuan Shuo were martial masters, so they didn¡¯t have mysterious power to test it with.

    The young man put a lid on his rampaging thoughts for the moment.

 Chapter 405: A Bustling Ash Mountain (II)

    <h4>Chapter 405: A Bustling Ash Mountain (II)</h4>

    Li Hao now had a deeper understanding of what Southern Fist had spoken of that day. There seemed to be many drawbacks to supernaturals converting to martial masters, so then it wasn¡¯t necessarily a bad thing that Silver Moon suppressed the supernatural and mysterious power. But this vastnd did indeed seem suited only for martial masters. The revitalization of the supernatural domain had not taken hold in Silver Moon.

    Ash Mountain was on the border of Silver Moon and technically out of the province. There might be abundant mysterious power here to facilitate wild beasts turning into monster spirits.

    ¡°While there are few monster spirits in Silver Moon, that may not be the case here. Everyone, watch where you step!¡± With that reminder, Li Hao led the team forward.

    Ash Mountain was too big; the dynasty didn¡¯t possess too many maps of it. This was originally the demarcation of the border between two nations. Gradually forgotten and abandoned, no one paid attention to it since it was just an enormous mountain range that didn¡¯t produce anything special.

    Ordinary people were hard pressed to find their way through it. Li Hao knew a little about it, but not that much. Silver City locals like Liu Long knew a little as well, but just like the young man, they were the blind leading the blind. They only knew what direction they were proceeding in, nothing else.

    Li Hao set course for roughly the eastern direction and proceeded onward. East was where the sun rose, there was no problem with that decision. Since his team was all martial masters, they could climb whatever was in their way if there was no path ahead.

    ......

    As Li Hao and the others pressed onward again.

    <i>The foot of Ash Mountain.</i>

    Two people hade¡ªHalf Mountain and Tidal Wave.

    Half Mountain frowned faintly at the mountain range wreathed in cloud and mist. It was an expression echoed by Tidal Wave.

    ¡°So... this is Ash Mountain?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Half Mountain confirmed. ¡°Ash Mountain is a mountain range that has existed since the ancient times. Old texts mention it. It extends beyond the borders of Silver Moon, so I worry that strong monster spirits will appear here!¡±

    There were no monster spirits in Silver Moon, but there might be in Ash Mountain. Half Mountain and the others knew more than Li Hao.

    Silver Moon was an impoverishednd. Any ce beyond it held denser mysterious power than the province. Thus, Silver Moon didn¡¯t have many supernaturals and the ones they did have weren¡¯t that strong.

    Everywhere else was stronger than Silver Moon; the province relied on plentiful martial masters and some that¡¯d crossed over to the supernatural to maintain its strength. Some of its martial masters had trained to the utmost of their path and were exceedingly strong.

    While one could not say that Silver Moon was the weakest of the ny-nine provinces, it definitely ranked among the bottom. Excluding special characters such as Hou Xiaochen, Hao Lianchuan might be the strongest out of pure supernaturals in the province. Hu Dingfang, Wang Henggang, and Hong Yitang were examples of martial masters who¡¯d crossed over. Of the Silver Moon Srs out in the open, only Hao Lianchuan was born and bred a supernatural. He wasn¡¯t a Heaven Favored either, but one who¡¯d cultivated to his position.

    ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of any major monster spirit appearing in Ash Mountain.¡± Tidal Wave frowned. ¡°If there are any, we should detect some disturbances given how close the mountain range is to the province. There are some in the North Sea. I once saw a whale monster spirit that was quite forbidding, but it wasn¡¯t bloodthirsty. A Sr tried attacking it, but didn¡¯t even get through its defenses. It was at least a Nova level monster spirit.¡±

    Monster spirits were considered major at the Sr and Nova levels.

    ¡°So Li Hao¡¯s gone into Ash Mountain...¡± Tidal Wave frowned. As a water supernatural, she didn¡¯t like mountains or ins. She vastly preferred areas with water in them.

    This wasn¡¯t much of an issue, however.

    ¡°Li Haoes from Silver City.¡± Half Mountain studied the peak in front of them. ¡°Ash Mountain is close to it, he¡¯s probably familiar with it. It makes sense that he¡¯d run here. But... I will withdraw if we encounter a major monster spirit. The presence of one means the presence of two. It is not a good idea to be mired down here.¡±

    Tidal Wave didn¡¯t say a word. This Half Mountain was aplete coward! As expected of a Celestial member, they were used to the dark and could not stand being in the light!

    ¡°That¡¯s fine, you¡¯ve made your point!¡± Tidal Wave set foot in the air and entered the mountain range.

    Li Hao and the other martial masters didn¡¯t sense it, but she did as soon as she entered the mountain. Mysterious power was surprisingly very dense here, possibly stronger than the ambient power of many other provinces. Why did no one from Silver Moon train here?

    Half Mountain entered after her, sensing the same feedback.

    ¡°Even if those of Silver Moon aren¡¯t willing to leave their province, this mountain is not bad,¡± Tidal Wave voiced her bafflement. ¡°Why do supernaturals not cultivate here? Better here than the province, no?¡±

    Half Mountain didn¡¯t respond. He frowned with thought only when the woman turned to look at him. ¡°I don¡¯t know, perhaps people doe here. I¡¯ve never visited before, this is my first time. Either people secretlye here to train, or they do not return after visiting.¡±

    The first possibility was likely and nothing worth taking note of. The second possibility... Tidal Wave¡¯s expression changed slightly. <i>They do not return!</i>

    That was right. If all the supernaturals that entered the mountain died, then naturally no one would know that mysterious power was very dense here.

    Even Tidal Wave felt a flutter of panic at these words, but she quickly stifled it.

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if they weren¡¯t able to make it back,¡± she chuckled. ¡°Silver Moon has too few supernaturals and they¡¯re too weak. Even Srs are few and far in between. Those whoe here are likely Starlight and Darkmoon. What are we?¡±

    Novas!

    They were preeminent powerhouses even in the central region. Would they be afraid of a mountain on an improverished province¡¯s borders?

    Half Mountain spoke no more. Hended on the ground and carefully probed around. Martial masters were difficult to track since theycked mysterious power. nt growth abounded in this ce and the mountain peak obstructed one¡¯s view. It would be quite difficult to locate Li Hao in an area like this.

    Granted, they had to leave certain traces behind given the size of their group.

    After a while of searching, Half Mountain settled on a direction and started moving forward. He looked into the distance at the dark depths of the mysterious mountain. He frowned anew. There... wouldn¡¯t be strong monster spirits in Ash Mountain, would there? Martial masters didn¡¯t exude supernatural ripples, there wasn¡¯t much of an issue there. Supernaturals, however, did, unless they were obscured by certain treasures. Monster spirits were very sensitive to such ripples.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    The mountain range appeared to be a massive dragon crouched at the bottom of an abyss when viewed from overhead. It was also an ovepping series of ravines and gullies, as if multiple dragons hunched over on the ground.

    There was a small mountain valley roughly one fifty kilometers away from Li Hao¡¯s group, one beyond numerous other peaks. A smallke sat in its center, the waters still beyondpare. A lotus flower swayed gracefully in the wind from the waters.

    A ferocious tiger prowled around theke. A massive snake was coiled directly across from it. A golden eagle sat on arge tree to one side of theke and a tremendous ape with golden fur on its head could also be glimpsed in the premises.

    There were beasts all around theke, but everything was very quiet and still. They left each other alone, as if waiting or expecting something.

    The lotus bud swayed in the center of theke, asionally revealing some golden lotus seeds within. They shifted in and out of view, prompting agitation from the beasts each time they came into view.

    A gigantic hawk circled through the air at this time, calling out to the assembly. The golden eagle standing atop the tree jerked its head up, light glinting out of a keen gaze. The hawk was a scout patrolling the perimeter of Ash Mountain. Its cry meant that humans were trespassing.

    However, the golden eagle settled down after ncing at the lotus in the center of theke again. It didn¡¯t move. The same went for the snake, ape, and tiger. None of them seemed to hear the hawk.

    This wouldn¡¯t be the case in regr times. But right now, none of them were willing to leave. The golden eagle answered with a piercing, resonant cry a momentter, sending the hawk away. The giant ape pped the ground, shaking it with tremors. It drew the attention of the other beasts and the ape disyed a hint of dejection. Itid back down and didn¡¯t p the ground again.

    These four beasts seemed to have gained intelligence. They guarded the tinyke and refused to leave.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao looked into the sky as he seemed to hear something. He could see some shadows, but it was flying too high to be identified. The young man did discover an abnormality, however¡ªa ball of light!

    The bird flying through the high reaches seemed to have a ball of light around it. Its strength was too far away to be assessed. But that he could see it at all meant that it wasn¡¯t weak.

    <i>There really are monster spirits around!</i> Li Hao took a deep breath. He¡¯de to Ash Mountain simply because he felt it to be argendmass with dense forests and ovepping peaks. It wouldn¡¯t be easy for supernaturals to discover them. But it hadn¡¯t been long into their foray that they saw two monster spirits.

    ¡°Everyone, stick more leaves to yourselves...¡± the young man reminded the team. Bird vision was very keen. They could see their prey moving on the ground.

    Of course, the monster spirits wouldn¡¯t necessarily care about them since they weren¡¯t supernaturals. However, less trouble was always preferable to more. Who knew what level of strength the bird possessed? It would be difficult if it suddenly swooped and attacked them.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know anymore if Ash Mountain was a good ce to be or not. <i>Let¡¯s just take things one step at a time.</i>

    The group moved forward, sticking more leaves to themselves. This resource was found in extreme abundance here. As night fell, the group moved silently through the woods in their pitch ck armor andck of supernatural ripples. Li Hao steered them away from the balls of light, regardless of size. In this regard, their journey was smooth.

 Chapter 406: A Bustling Ash Mountain (III)

    <h4>Chapter 406: A Bustling Ash Mountain (III)</h4>

    As effortlessly as the Demon Hunters traveled, Tidal Wave and Half Mountain did not proceed as smoothly.

    Tidal Wave shot down a suddenly descending python with a water arrow. She frowned as she looked at it. ¡°These monster spirits are incredibly weak and attack us through sheer instinct. Do they not sense the danger that we bring?¡±

    She and Half Mountain had been ambushed numerous times along the way. There were snakes, birds, creatures ofnd, panthers... The creatures were all very weak and some were just simple beasts, yet they¡¯d dared attack the supernaturals all the same. Did they not sense the danger exuding from their prey?

    They didn¡¯t pose a threat to the two supernaturals, but fending off constant attacks was rather annoying and dyed their tracking of the target.

    Half Mountain looked around silently and said after a long moment, ¡°There might be a major monster spirit in the mountain. Tidal Wave, we should not remain here for long! We seem to have caught its eye and it¡¯s sending the minor monster spirits against us.¡±

    ¡°I do sense a thing or two, but what are you afraid of?¡± Tidal Waveughed. ¡°Even if there is, that thing doesn¡¯t daree against us in person. It onlypels minor spirits against us. Is it expecting some Starlight, Darkmoon level creatures to do any damage to us? Does it mean to exhaust us?

    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, then that¡¯s all there is to these major spirits and the Srs have overestimated them! If that truly is the situation, we might evene across unexpected gains instead.¡±

    What unexpected gains?

    Treasure could typically be found at any ce with major monster spirits. There were eitherrge amounts of mysterious power stones buried, artifacts from ancient civilizations, or naturally produced treasures. Some of these monster spirits were born alongside thetter.

    ¡°I hear that some of the major monster spirits in the central region protect these ancient ruins,¡± Tidal Waveughed. ¡°Ash Mountain has few upants now, but perhaps this was a ce where powerhouses secluded themselves in the past. We mighte across some ancient dojos or simr.¡±

    Half Mountain frowned. This Tidal Wave was a greedy sort. He was prudent and cautious; he¡¯d wanted to leave as soon as these monster spirits started attacking. It was best if they could kill Li Hao, but no particr concern if they couldn¡¯t. Celestial had lost a significant Sr, true, but it was best not to barge into an unknownnd of peril like Ash Mountain if they could help it.

    Tidal Wave grew irritated when her counterpart remained quiet. How could a Nova be so indecisive just because some monster weaklings had attacked them? Li Hao and his people might be far off into the distance after so long.

    ¡°Half Mountain, it¡¯s just some weak monster spirits that¡¯ve gained some sentience!¡± she snapped. ¡°I¡¯ll kill it if ites. You can take all of the treasure it guards!¡±

    Half Mountain said nothing. He bent down to examine the clues and walked ahead in a certain direction a few momentster. He chose to continue, but he also had his own considerations. He would stay for another three days at most. He couldn¡¯t stay too long, and these were just the outskirts of Ash Mountain. Who knew if Li Hao would venture further into the depths?

    ......

    The Revolution King swiftly came upon the scene with a group of Srs in camouge paint after Tidal Wave and Half Mountain departed. He quickly assessed the surroundings and scrutinized the python that had just died.

    ¡°There are so many monster spirits in Ash Mountain!¡± He frowned at the unwee discovery. ¡°This ce is either special, or there might be a small mine of mysterious power stones somewhere.¡±

    Mysterious power stones were generally located in ruins, but were sometimes found in caches buried underground in arrangements simr to mines. These were very rare and often discovered in abandoned mines. It also indicated that mysterious power stones possibly existed inrge numbers in the ancient civilization. They were stored underground; perhaps there were true mines of stones. Their energy had ebbed after countless eons, turning the vast majority of stores into useless stones.

    Behind the Revolution King, a supernatural that resembled a malicious ghost shrieked, ¡°Court Master Revolution, you have been in residence at Silver Moon for many years! Have you never visited Ash Mountain?¡±

    A faint frown crossed the Revolution King¡¯s face. Not even the Parity King was this arrogant, but these hellish ghouls underneath his banner were certainly each cockier than the rest. They weren¡¯t too polite to him.

    While Revolution wasn¡¯t a Nova, his status was still higher than them since he was one of the ten court masters. And yet, none of these masters of the sixteen hells showed him much respect.

    ¡°Ash Mountain is not within Silver Moon territory, it lies on the border,¡± he responded coolly. ¡°Great Li can be found on the other side. Trouble is easy to stir up if we brashly venture into it.¡±

    ¡°Great Li?¡± cackled one of the demons. ¡°That barbaric little country that apparently warred with Skystar Dynasty one hundred years ago and has never appeared since? The one that might¡¯ve copsed long ago?¡±

    Silver Moon was already the savage frontier. Great Li was essible beyond countless mountain ranges and was a small nation deep in their depths. Wasn¡¯t that make it a vige of savages? How was that a country?

    No one had heard of this little state in a hundred years. It was to Yama¡¯s credit that they knew of such a kingdom beyond Ash Mountain.

    The Revolution King didn¡¯t say anything. He knew about Great Li as well. Indeed, there¡¯d been no sign of them for the past one hundred years. Perhaps they¡¯d been eliminated by the process of natural selection. All the same, these fellows following him were too full of themselves.

    ¡°Enough of this, let¡¯s continue chasing them!¡± He couldn''t be bothered with responding. The demons behind him deployed their various abilities and soon determined a direction. They quickly proceeded forward.

    ......

    Wave after wave of people appeared on the spot. A new figurended as soon as the Yama delegation left¡ªSouthern Fist!

    He, too, looked at the discarded python and then at the surroundings. Finally, he raised his head up to the sky and said softly, ¡°This is not normal... Ash Mountain is not a good ce. It¡¯s very dangerous here!¡±

    As a Silver Moon martial master, he¡¯d visited the mountain before even the rise of the supernatural. He¡¯d vaguely detected something amiss then; Yuan Shuo was aware of this as well. Thetter said that he had resided in the mountains for many years toprehend the auras of the Five Styles. Ash Mountain was that ce. The extraordinary qualities of a locale with beasts that enabled him to understand the fearsome Five Styles were in to see.

    Ash Mountain¡¯s wild beasts were already stronger than regr beasts many years ago. After twenty years of supernatural development, some terrifying existences might really have sprung forth in these mountains.

    What was Li Hao doing here? And those of the three great organizations were truly fearless to venture into these mountains as supernaturals! It was one thing to be a martial master moving through the area, but these supernaturals were obviously being targeted.

    <i>I wonder if any of the beasts that Yuan Shuo observed back in those days are among these monster spirits. If so, this will be interesting. They were already ferocious all those years ago. They¡¯ll be even stronger now!</i>

    ¡°The Five Styles of the tiger, bear, deer, ape, and bird...¡± He Yong tilted his head back at the sky. Martial masters possessed keen vision, so he could make out a tremendous hawk circling in the upper reaches. Did Yuan Shuo derive his bird style from that hawk? That would be too much of a coincidence, wouldn¡¯t it?

    He Yongughed and continued on his way, following the group in front. He didn¡¯t have that many goals on this visit to the northern reaches of Silver Moon and Ash Mountain. The man was taking things one step at a time. Perhaps Li Hao would bring him some surprises. Thed also knew the Five Styles; these mountains were a chance to strengthen that method. But it was also unknown whether the opportunity would turn into a dead end.

    ¡°If the wild beasts that Yuan Shuo observed back in the day have be major monster spirits... hahaha, Li Hao will be in for a wonderful time! The old man beat up quite a few beasts in his day!¡± He Yong suddenly couldn¡¯t wait for such a scene to appear. For example, if the tiger that Yuan Shuo once thrashed was now a tiger spirit, would it maul the young man to death as soon as he deployed the Five Styles?

    It was no joke that Yuan Shuo¡¯s enemies could be found all through thend. There were animals in addition to people!

    He Yong¡¯s eyes abruptly darted to the side and he looked behind him. He jumped into the air and vanished on the spot. Someone else arrived with incredible speed just as he left,nding where He Yong had just been.

    ¡°Southern Fist?¡± The person raised an eyebrow as they looked into the distance. What was He Yong doing here?

    The guy was entirely too full of himself. Did he take everyone for a fool and think that no one could tell he¡¯d enhanced his blood qi to the utmost? But... he could at most fight Novas. What was he being so unbridled for?

    Hong Yitang kept up a long list of criticism. <i>Pompous little bastard! Watch yourself, Northern Fist is still alive and he¡¯ll smash you to death with one punch!</i>

    After watching for a while, Hong Yitang sighed with some resentment. What were they doing here? This was Ash Mountain! Multiple Sr level monster spirits could already be found here ten years ago. <i>Li Hao you bastard, you¡¯re going wherever there¡¯s danger to be found, aren¡¯t you? My poor daughter... Daddy¡¯s here to save you, run a little slower!</i>

    Hong Yitang¡¯s head ached at the thought of those monster spirits. That had been ten years ago! After another ten years... damn, they might be Nova level now or even stronger! Even he didn¡¯t dare venture into this sted ce.

    Was Great Li really dead because they didn¡¯t send people? It was more likely that whoever they¡¯d sent had been eaten by those major monster spirits! He¡¯d met a few of their people a couple of years back, but they¡¯d been running for their lives. Ash Mountain was not a good ce to hide!

    ......

    The Demon Hunters proceeded soundlessly. The further in they traveled, the more rmed Li Hao was. <i>Holy shit, have we walked into a den of snakes? Why does Ash Mountain feel more dangerous than the outside world?</i>

    He saw a ball of light again, one with some dots sparkling near it. This was far from his first sighting and they were bing moremon the further in the group traveled.

    Monster spirits! They were everywhere inside the mountain.

 Chapter 407: One After Another (I)

    <h4>Chapter 407: One After Another (I)</h4>

    Li Hao even saw a Sr level monster spirit soar overhead at one point. His timely evasion prevented trouble from developing. He wasn¡¯t afraid of Srs, but this was just the outskirts of the mountain.

    If there were Sr monster spirits here... wouldn¡¯t it be more dangerous further in?

    Liu Long also sensed some dangerous presences and walked up to Li Hao, keeping his voice down. ¡°Let¡¯s keep to the fringes as we head east. We should avoid prating the mountains. ording to some Silver City elders, Ash Mountain is made of nine mountains and eighteenyers¡ªnine enormous mountain ranges have be what we know as Ash Mountain.¡±

    There would be trouble if they went further in and entered the second mountain.

    Li Hao nodded and determined their direction, then shifted slightly to the side. He hadn¡¯t followed the foot of the first mountain because that was too obvious and made it impossible to cover their tracks. But now that he sensed the dangers within, he wasn¡¯t in the mood to court death.

    After a while, the young man exhaled heavily and changed direction. When Liu Long looked at him, he transmitted, ¡°There¡¯s a Sr monster spirit ahead. We should walk in another direction.¡±

    Liu Long was likewise resigned. Were Srs everywhere in this sted ce? Why did it seem so terrifying?

    They proceeded another span of the path before Li Hao scratched his head. He was beginning to sweat as he adjusted their direction again, prompting another nce from Liu Long.

    ¡°There¡¯s another Sr ahead!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Liu Long was dumbfounded. He was from Silver City and the mountain was right next to them. When had it be so dangerous? If the monster spirits residing in Ash Mountain liked to take walks in the ins, then wouldn¡¯t Silver City have been destroyed long ago?

    The young man didn¡¯t say a word. They continued forward; there were no monster spirits on this path. Li Hao heaved a sigh, there was finally a normal route they could take.

    He wasn¡¯t familiar with monster spirits or the habits of major monster spirits. Records regarding these creatures had long disappeared. The ancient tomes that Yuan Shuo taught from rarely spoke of them. Therefore, it wasn¡¯t just Li Hao, but the entire modern world thatcked understanding of monster spirits. Whether it was supernatural, martial masters, or others, very few knew that these kinds of creatures did not congregate in packs. The major monster spirits went a step further and oversaw their own territory.

    If there was an empty clearing devoid of monster spirits found amid several major spirits, those of the ancient civilization would warn to not proceed there! That emptiness represented there were even stronger spirits inside. These were so strong that the minor spirits nearby didn¡¯t dare approach.

    Such was the experience of the ancients. Apart from central region powerhouses possessing some understanding of major spirits, modern superhumans werepletely ignorant. They just knew that monster spirits were strong and asionally appeared with some treasure.

    ......

    No monster spirits appeared along the way. Li Hao and the Demon Hunters were able to make quick time. Seeing that dawn was at hand, Li Hao decided to rest. He bade the team to stop.

    ¡°I¡¯ll find a safe ce for shelter. We¡¯ll rest up and travel at night again,¡± he transmitted.

    It was September 20. He was counting the days and trying to estimate if they would make it past the mountain before the 28th and enter the east side of Rift Canyon. There were eight more days left. Based on their current progress, there would be a bit of difficulty. However, it wouldn¡¯t be a big problem if they picked up speed. elerating progress was possible once they shook off their pursuers or killed them.

    Reminding his people to wait here, Li Hao struck out alone to find a safe ce to rest. He ducked, rolled, jumped, and leapt. The young man moved fast when no one was following him and threaded through the endless mountain like an ape.

    There were no signs of monster spirits to be seen along the way, making him uneasy. Why wasn¡¯t there a single one? While numerous sightings before kept him on edge, he was also apprehensive when all of them disappeared.

    Continuing forward through the forest, he seemed to glimpse a small mountain up ahead. No, it was more like a mountain valley with the terrain rising on four sides around it. The center was sunken in¡ªthis was a good spot. And was that water vapor rising from the center? Was it ake in the mountains?

    The team had brought rations with them on this trip, but not much. They¡¯d brought even less water with them. Having not run intokes along the way, the Demon Hunters were a bit short on water.

    ¡°Water source... where there is a water source, there will be congregations of animals.¡± Li Hao was well aware of this, so he didn¡¯t dare rx his guard. He was a bit of a distance away and separated by some mountain rock. Unable to see if there were balls of light inside the valley, he cautiously crept forward and kept his presence strictly contained.

    He¡¯d absorbed dark energy earlier, which contributed to his concealment. He was also carrying the bronze mirror he¡¯d taken from Qiao Feilong, so there truly was no hint of his presence leaking. Li Hao spread his arms wide, as if soaring through the sky, and quickly approached his target.

    Momentster, hended on a rock in the middle of the shrubbery. There wasn¡¯t a single tree here, which made hiding difficult. Thankfully, the sun was yet to fully rise¡ªthe sky was only reddening to the east.

    Li Hao walked up, finding the mountain to be unique. It looked like someone had dug through it. There was no mountaintop and nothing beyond the halfway point of thendmass. Thend was sunken along the four sides.

    Li Hao pushed off gently and climbed swiftly, reaching the top in a matter of moments. It was exceedingly t, like someone had sheared off the mountaintop with a knife and dug a hole in the center. The young man sighed with emotion at nature¡¯s exquisite work. A ce like this would be a tourist spot anywhere else.

    He walked toward the end of the tform, curious about what could be found below. A bigke? There was no path leading to it so... would there be monster spirits? He was yet to see any balls of light even now.

    When he reached the end of the walkway, Li Hao looked down and... quickly retracted his gaze, tears glittering in his eyes. Every hair on his body stood on end as he spun on his heel to pick his way back to where he started. His movements were so small that he barely felt them as he slid across the ground.

    After that, he glided off the mountain without daring to raise the sound of the wind. His eyes were still teary and red, like a suffering child who¡¯d been beaten. When he reached the foot of the mountain, he vanished on the spot without a look back. He wouldn¡¯t return to this ce even if someone called him their daddy!

    He¡¯d nearly been blinded when he stuck his head out¡ªit was simr to when he entered the provincial government building. When he saw Director General Zhao, Commander Huang Yun, Kong Jie, and Hou Xiaochen, they¡¯d nearly rendered him sightless from the force of theirbined strength.

    Li Hao saw the same thing today, noting a snake, an ape, a golden bird, and a ferocious tiger... Four kinds of animals and four kinds of light. He was blind!

    <i>My heavens, what kind of forsaken ce is this?? They¡¯re on the same level as Hou Xiaochen and the others given how bright they are. </i>For a moment, the young man thought he¡¯d gone back in time to that meeting at the provincial headquarters and was meeting those four wily old foxes again.

    There happened to be four monster spirits here!

    In fact, Li Hao was even contemting that those four had be major monster spirits and hid themselves here. Why else would their light be so simr, and four of them?? <i>What kind of sted area is this?!</i>

    Cold sweat beaded the young man¡¯s forehead and he glided outward without a look back. All he wanted was to leave this unlucky ce as soon as possible. This was too close to where the team had stopped¡ªless than three thousand meters. LI Hao wouldn¡¯t be searching for shelter here otherwise.

    <i>We need to leave, as soon as possible! </i>As Li Hao reeled from shock, he was also curious about what the four monster spirits were waiting here for. To have a drink of water together? There was indeed ake at the center of the valley and there almost seemed to be a flower...

    A flower?

    Li Hao blinked. Were those monster spirits waiting for that flower? To eat it?

    <i>Forget it, it¡¯s not important.</i> Although he was fearless, he didn¡¯t wish to meet his end. Just one Hou Xiaochen alone would be his doom. Four Hou Xiaochens... he would die a very grisly death!

    ......

    <i>As Li Hao ran off.</i>

    <i>Within the valley.</i>

    Four major monster spirits lifted their heads at almost the same time. They were just taking a look. The ape looked at the golden eagle, the eagle looked at the snake, the snake looked at the tiger...

    <i>Someone¡¯s there!</i>

    The four monster spirits shared the same look in their eyes. <i>You go take a look! Someone¡¯se, go take a look! You¡¯re looking at me and I¡¯m looking at you... C¡¯mon, go look!</i>

    In the end, no one moved. They weren¡¯t going. Whoever did was an idiot. There was nothing to fear about a human on the scene; there was much to fear that the golden lotus would appear as soon as they left. There would be nothing remaining for the one who moved, which would be the greatest loss of all.

    They¡¯d kill the human if it really entered the valley, but it didn¡¯t¡ªan obvious sign that it wasn¡¯t that strong. Although there was no hint of presence, the disturbance it caused was still there. It wasn¡¯t a very strong existence.

    In that case... who was afraid of the human robbing them?

    As Li Hao rejoiced that he hadn¡¯t been discovered, he remained blithely unaware that he was alive because he¡¯d seen four monster spirits. If he¡¯d seen only one... he¡¯d be dead on the spot. None of the four were willing to leave because they awaited the maturation of the golden lotus.

    In the middle of theke, the lotus flower petals were gradually turning golden. If one looked carefully, there were eight petals and golden seeds in the middle that bore a hint of green. The golden color kept spreading, however. It would be soon.

    The four monster spiritszily stood guard, no one shifting a muscle. They knew that humans hade to Ash Mountain. Some minor spirits were harassing them to interfere with their travels. It wasn¡¯t that the monster spirits were afraid of the trespassers, they just didn¡¯t want the humans to arrive too quickly and interfere with the Sky Golden Lotus.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that one of them would find the valley regardless?

    <i>A martial master?</i>

    <i>Probably.</i>

    The major monster spirits turned over the possibilities. One of them suddenly recalled a scene from long ago. The crouching tiger remembered a human who pinned it to the ground for a thorough beating. Those days were the most humiliating of the tiger¡¯s life. Some bastard wanted it to roar, go berserk, or even go into heat so that the human couldprehend a so-called aura of the Five Styles... He beat the tiger if it didn¡¯t cooperate!

 Chapter 408: One After Another (II)

    <h4>Chapter 408: One After Another (II)</h4>

    The tiger by theke had been a juvenile cub then. Well, it was a full-grown tiger ording to a wild beast timeline, but based on its current mindset, that was when it was still a baby.

    Martial dao... how long had it been since it¡¯d seen a martial master? The world had apparentlypletely changed in the outside world. Martial masters that once dominated thend were either dead or had gone quiet. As for supernaturals... the tiger had seen a few in its time. They were too weak¡ªthey died with one swipe.

    It sometimes thought back to that person and wondered if he was still alive. When he perfected his five auras, that arrogant human had dered that it would dominate thends after it left Ash Mountain and unite the martial world. He would set foot into Dominator and pioneer the martial path beyond it...

    Was he dead too?

    The golden eagle also took a walk down memoryne as the tiger rifled through its memories. That had been a martial master, hadn¡¯t it? A martial master of Skystar Dynasty. Its presence had not been apparent, so it wasn¡¯t a supernatural. The eagle was once thrown down a mountaintop by a most viinous human. That human wanted it to hunt and fly. He beat the eagle if the eagle refused or ran away. A beating was in short order even if it flew too high!

    The beatings came in mixed format as that scoundrel had been too strong. Any random pebble he tossed into the air reached several hundred meters high. There had been nothing the eagle could do. Now that it thought about it, that was all there was to the situation.

    The giant ape on the other side didn¡¯t think too much. It did recall a strange human who liked to imitate it a long time ago. The human lived with the ape and ate with the monster spirit, doing whatever the ape did. It hadn¡¯t seen the human in a very long time¡ªhe was probably dead.

    The ape snuck a nce out of the corner of its eye at the tiger and eagle not too far away. Those two had been beaten up by the human, right? It couldn¡¯t recall if it was those two. Its memory during that time was hazy, a far cry from the rity it possessed now.

    It was difficult to say if these two had been the ones of his memories. The ape had asked a few times, but both denied it. Perhaps it was other members of their species? Who knew.

    Only the enormous snake of the four monster spirits didn¡¯t have much on its mind. It didn¡¯t care about the human that¡¯d just escaped, it only had eyes for the Golden Lotus. How much could it im this time? They would have to wait another five years if they missed this opportunity. This area was their joint territory. Whether it was equal division, a fight to determine one victor, or any other manner, they¡¯d yet to settle on a conclusive method.

    The four monster spirits immediately forgot about that person. Whether the human had run off or was spying on them, they didn¡¯t care so long as there was no interference in their division of the spoils.

    ......

    Li Hao quickly returned to where the team waited, his clothes soaked through with sweat. Liu Long and the others wanted to greet him when they saw the young man, but he transmitted, ¡°No one talk!¡±

    An instant hush prevailed.

    ¡°We need to circle around this area...¡± Li Hao swallowed hard, finally able to rx slightly. Thank goodness he hadn¡¯t been discovered, that would be horrifying. Knowing that the team was confused, he transmitted a further exnation, ¡°There¡¯s major monster spirits further inside, all of them unparalleled in strength! They¡¯re so strong that they might be Director Hou¡¯s level!¡±

    Everyone¡¯s movements stilled as they stiffened. What level was Director Hou? Someone who killed a Nova with one spear jab!

    Major monster spirits, plural? Liu Long¡¯s scalp crawled with numbness. When had Ash Mountain turned this terrifying? It was lucky that Li Hao had discovered them so early without mishap. Otherwise, the team was done for!

    Li Hao swallowed hard. A light glittering in his eyes, he tore off a tiny piece of his clothes. It was so small that regr people wouldn¡¯t see it with their eyes. He looked toward the mountain entrance¡ªwhere the three great organizations still following him?

    If they were, they had certain tricks up their sleeves. And if they followed him here, they would certainly press forward. Anyone would be curious when they saw the unique broken mountain.

    He didn¡¯t make too many arrangements. Too many would ring too falsely. Anyone slightly sharper on the uptake would find something amiss. Some fibers from his shirt caught in a moment of carelessness would be the best temptation. Regr people wouldn¡¯t detect it and they wouldn¡¯t care if they did.

    <i>I hope you idiots don¡¯t keep chasing me. If you do, even Novas will meet their doom if you barge into that ce!</i>

    Four Novas, much less one, would be the work of a few moments for the monster spirits even if they were on Hou Xiaochen¡¯s level. Li Hao turned back to the group and transmitted, ¡°Step lightly. It¡¯s best if each of you can carry arade on your back and leave as few traces as possible. We need to stay far away... If it reallyes down to it, we¡¯ll go back the way we came in. If someone¡¯s followed us into Ash Mountain, we¡¯ll avoid them on our way back!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The Demon Hunters paused. Wasn¡¯t the n to go out through the eastern side to emerge in Rift Canyon? Why were they retracting their footsteps?

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, we¡¯ve already run into almost ten Sr level monster spirits along the way. There¡¯s four here on par with Nova or even greater! I¡¯m afraid of all of us dying before we reach the east. If someone¡¯s following us, they¡¯ll run into the Sr monster spirits before reaching this ce. Let¡¯s take stock of the situation first!¡±

    Li Hao wanted to retreat. Could they really make their way past Ash Mountain and keep heading east? This ce was sending chills down his spine. Thank goodness for his eyes or they¡¯d be dead a long time ago!

    That flower seemed to be a treasure. Ordinary martial masters or supernaturals might try to take it if they saw it. Li Hao didn¡¯t go because he saw the balls of light. Those monster spirits might be existences like Hou Xiaochen¡ªtheir presences were retracted. Regr people wouldn¡¯t sense anything amiss and might treat them as regr monster spirits. That would make for quite a show!

    Li Hao put this out of his mind and quickly led his team elsewhere. Traveling through such perilous conditions was also a type of training. Sweat drenched backs when the Demon Hunters cautiously crept through another Sr monster spirit¡¯s territory. They¡¯d seen this level of monster spirit before and weren¡¯t that afraid. The true fear was that if the monster spirit discovered them and attacked, would that arouse the attention of the major monster spirits that were on par with Director Hou?

    That was a truly horrifying proposition that even Li Hao was concerned about. Therefore, he didn¡¯t dare do anything to the monster spirits they came across. He carefully steered everyone out of danger before finding a suitable spot to rest.

    There was a buffer territory between Sr monster spirits that nothing resided in. It was possibly the demarcation between their domains. Li Hao led the Demon Hunters to a massive nest formed by a copse of trees growing randomly. Vines trailing down shrouded it from view and created an enclosed space beneath them.

    Panting sounded only when everyone settled down. The group kept their voices low.

    ¡°Will we catch the attention of that monster spirit?¡± Liu Long muttered. They¡¯d been less than one thousand meters away from the spirit overseeing the territory that they¡¯d just traveled through. Those with keener eyesight had seen the monster spirit¡ªit was a lion that was either sleeping or napping. Whatever it was, it hadn¡¯t moved, but its presence was formidable. The Demon Hunters were terrified to be so close to it.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, we¡¯re martial masters and the armor further conceals our presence.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°I¡¯ve observed it, it¡¯s fine.¡±

    He observed the monster spirit¡¯s supernatural ripples as opposed to its form. The appearance of supernatural ripples would mean that the monster spirit had discovered them. Lack thereof would mean that it hadn¡¯t. This was an ability that the others did not possess.

    Major monster spirits might also pretend to not notice the group, but their energy would give them away. However, who could read supernatural ripples?

    Li Hao could.

    The young man was finding his eyes to be supremely useful. They were sometimes more useful than sword energy. So... what had happened to the others who could see the scarlet shadows? There¡¯d been multiple in Silver City, at least ten in one million. Even if some had died, one per one million meant that Silver City could produce one hundred.

    Where had they all gone?

    No one among the Night Watchers mentioned these people. If they possessed the same abilities as he did, it would be a snap of the fingers for the agency to uncover supernatural hideouts.

    Despite the questions running through his mind, Li Hao didn¡¯t intend to probe into the matter. He¡¯d just ask about it obliquely.

    ¡°Chief, you guys stay here. I¡¯m going out. Don¡¯t go out without reason. If you need to answer nature¡¯s call, do so here!¡±

    Liu Long looked solemnly at the young man. Where was he going?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t exin himself. He wasn¡¯t going to fish in troubled waters or shadow the major monster spirits. He just wanted to see if anyone was following him. If so... he wouldn¡¯t mind stirring up some trouble and luring them all to that ce!

    The young man didn¡¯t consider the notion of being a fisherman that benefited from a fight between snipe and m. There was no such possibility with those four monster spirits present. The only potential was for his pursuers to be killed and him to wait around to collect their corpses.

    Did monster spirits eat people?

    They seemed to.

    Did they eat storage rings?

    Who knew, but maybe the rings would pass through their systems.

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts were traveling too far, but they were also very simple at the same time. What if the monster spirits didn¡¯t eat his pursuers after killing them? What if monster spirits produced fecal matter? They didn¡¯t use storage rings, right? In that case, he might be able to pick up something once the monster spirits left.

    It was more convenient to operate alone; dark mysterious power helped restrain one¡¯s presence. He also had the bronze mirror on him.

    Li Hao suddenly stopped and took out an energy ring, preparing to absorb more dark mysterious power. He¡¯d found it useless before as he didn¡¯t think himself in the insidious business of ambushing others. Martial masters took the fight to the enemy¡¯s face! What need was there for dark mysterious power!

    But now he felt that he should absorb some¡ªnot for ambush, but to further weaken his presence so that he wouldn¡¯t sh with the monster spirits. Humans and monster spirits could coexist peacefully.

    He quickly absorbed the mysterious power and crushed another two stones, leaving only eight in his storage ring. The young man had absorbed nearly five hundred cubes of dark energy by now. He didn¡¯tck it as peak Sr Yue Pu had supplied nearly two thousand cubes. He¡¯d only absorbed half of his gains.

    The sky darkened when he finished absorbing five hundred cubes. Li Hao¡¯s figure shifted like a shadow before blending into the darkness. Dark energy didn¡¯t strengthen him, but it did decrease his sense of being.

 Chapter 409: One After Another (III)

    <h4>Chapter 409: One After Another (III)</h4>

    ¡°Sr!¡± Half Mountain proimed. ¡°There¡¯s a Sr monster spirit ahead!¡±

    A <i>luopan</i>-esque object rested in his hand. Light sparkled over it as it functioned like a supernatural probe. It wasn¡¯t normally that urate, yet was more or less reliable if the other did not conceal their presence.

    ¡°A Sr major monster spirit...¡± Tidal Wave¡¯s eyes gleamed. ¡°It¡¯s not easy to get up to the Sr level. Perhaps it¡¯s the one that sent us the minor spirits harassing us along the way. We might be able to obtain some treasure if we kill it.¡±

    Half Mountain, however, was on guard. ¡°Tidal Wave, it¡¯s better not to take rash action. The further in we venture, the more dangerous I find this ce. Perhaps... there are Nova level monster spirits present! We¡¯ll easily create trouble for ourselves if we do anything.¡±

    Tidal Wave frowned fiercely. This Half Mountain was afraid of this and that. How did he manage to get to Nova?

    ¡°Half Mountain, we¡¯re already here. Are we supposed to just pretend we didn¡¯t see anything? Are we giving up the chase? Stop scaring yourself. Even if there are Nova monster spirits, you and I are both Novas as well. Is there a need to be so wary?

    ¡°We haven¡¯t seen the bodies of Li Hao and his team yet. If they can avoid trouble, is there a need for us to be afraid?¡±

    Sunderers were freely walking ahead of them, what was a Nova being so scared for?

    ¡°Sr level monster spirits will have some mysterious power stone reserves at the very least. If not, their flesh and blood are treasures too. I¡¯ve heard that their blood can sometimes unseal some special origin weapons! You know just as well that there are souls within the origin weapons¡ªweapon souls! They¡¯re very simr to these origin weapons and it''s said that blood from the same origin can activate them!

    ¡°Most origin weapons are inert these days and can¡¯t be activated. There wouldn¡¯t be so few of them otherwise. But if blood from major monster spirits can rejuvenate them... There are those in the central region who specialize in these monster spirits. They focus on the trade of activating origin weapons and each transaction brings a fortune!¡±

    Monster spirits were walking treasures. These origin weapons seem to have something to do with them.

    Half Mountain was silent for a while before nodding. ¡°Go take a look then. It¡¯s best to stay away if there¡¯s trouble, however. Let¡¯s try not to kill anything if possible.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± Tidal Waveughed and flew into the air. She soared one hundred meters before seeing a snake next to a marsh in a copse of trees. it was enormous and churning through the marsh. This was the Sr monster spirit they¡¯d sensed before.

    Greed glinted in Tidal Wave¡¯s eyes. A Sr monster spirit was an excellent find! Some mysterious power stones were also being churned out of the marsh with the snake¡¯s exertions. They shimmered with light.

    The busy snake seemed to sense something and swung its ponderous head around to look into the air. It abruptly rolled itself and swam rapidly through the area, vanishing into the jungle and swiftly getting away.

    A powerhouse!

    ¡°We were discovered!¡± Tidal Waveughed. ¡°It ran off... Should we chase after it, Half Mountain?¡±

    The man didn¡¯t respond, so the woman continued, ¡°I saw it swallow some dirt when it slithered off. There were at least twenty stones glittering in the muck...¡±

    Twenty mysterious power stones was no small sum to them. And yet, Half Mountain still elected to quiet.

    ¡°Let¡¯s take care of it along the way.¡± Tidal Wave had already flown away. ¡°Perhaps Li Hao is over there. It would be a waste to not im this unexpected fortune since it¡¯s presented itself!¡±

    Some words were on the tip of Half Mountain¡¯s tongue, but he followed the woman in the end. <i>Hopefully, nothing happens. </i>No other points of light appeared on the <i>luopan.</i> The snake spirit seemed to be the only monster spirit in the area.

    ......

    The big snake thrashed furiously through the forest at top speed. It sensed danger and proceeded along the path that would lead to the sheared off mountain. inly, it knew that safety could be found there.

    Li Hao saw three balls of light approaching at a quick clip; he rapidly backed away. One of the balls was of the Sr level¡ªit was a monster spirit that he¡¯d seen before. It was time to get out of its path!

    The other two balls of light... were veryrge! Novas!

    People from the three great organizations?

    One of them seemed slightly familiar¡ªthere was some darkness in the ball of light. <i>Celestial! </i>He¡¯d seen a Celestial Nova the day he emerged from the ruins of Battle Heaven. Was this... Half Mountain of Celestial?

    <i>This fast? </i>Li Hao¡¯s heart was his throat. He¡¯d made quick time with his people and his pursuers were tracking him, not simply following him. And yet, they¡¯d found him so quickly! He¡¯d underestimated their methods by far.

    <i>Are they hunting that Sr monster spirit?</i> Li Hao avoided them and waited for the monster spirit to get away. Two balls of Nova light shed in front of him momentster. They vanished in the direction of the sheared off mountain.

    <i>Oh? They¡¯re going to their own deaths without needing me to lure them there?</i> A strange look entered the young man¡¯s eyes; he came to a sudden halt just as he was about to follow them. A mild breeze blew through the area before long as balls of light manifested.

    ¡°Court Master Revolution, those two seem to be chasing a major monster spirit. Is there treasure to be had?¡± Voices could be heard on the wind.

    ¡°Shall we follow them? We¡¯re not afraid of them¡ªthere¡¯s sixteen hell masters here. Who cares about two Novas? They may not be able to match us!¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s follow them, treasure can always be found where monster spirits are. Celestial¡¯s Half Mountain is not bad, though. He¡¯s headed in the same direction that we determined before Li Hao disappeared. We¡¯ll find the kid sooner orter if we follow them!¡±

    A group of people vanished from sight as Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath. <i>The fuck?? Yama has so many Srs to call upon? Seventeen of them!!</i>

    Indeed, there were seventeen balls of light. The number scared the wits out of Li Hao. He¡¯d thought that people mighte from Yama, but he¡¯d anticipated one Nova. Seventeen Srs was an astounding number. Where did the organization get so many Srs from?? And they were all peak Srs with the Revolution King leading the group. The man wielded an origin weapon! If they worked together as one whole, the two Novas might not be a match for them.

    <i>Are they crazy?</i> Li Hao found it incredulous. He could understand Red Moon sending a Nova after him and... probably understand Celestial sending a Nova. Yama, he couldn¡¯t wrap his mind around. Did those seventeen Srs want his head or that of the two Novas?

    The young man frowned ferociously. Those fellows had tracked him here and proceeded at high speed. Based on their progress, they might catch up to him tomorrow.

    <i>But are they all crazy? They¡¯re all running for that ce, do they want to die? </i>Li Hao wondered to himself, seriously doubting their sanity. Even with all of these powerhouses on the scene, there were four major monster spirits that rivaled Hou Xiaochen in that direction. The trespassers were still dead without a doubt even if they were bolstered by another Nova or two!

    The young man didn¡¯t want to watch the inevitable chaos for fear of being dragged into the mess. His ears twitched just as he was about to leave. Another figure shed across his vision, one that came with some hints of blood qi. There was no apanying ball of light. Li Hao blinked, who was this?

    A martial master?

    They were too far away for him to sense the other clearly, but it felt vaguely familiar. <i>Umm... Southern Fist?</i>

    Was it that fellow? What was he doing here?

    Li Hao remained motionless and locked his auras away. When it came to martial masters, they relied on sensing their opponent¡¯s aura if they wanted to identify where the other was. His were locked in his organs. These people would find it nigh impossible to detect him if he kept a firm grip on his auras.

    <i>What a party!</i> Li Hao could sense that Southern Fist had already disappeared and inwardly shook his head. Things were certainly lively, so many powerhouses had barged in all of a sudden. Southern Fist... wouldn¡¯t follow them, would he? If he did, he would be in for quite some trouble.

    But the young man wasn¡¯t kindhearted enough to reveal himself to give the man a word of warning. Southern Fist came from the royal family and his attitude was ambiguous. It was impossible that he didn¡¯t have designs on Li Hao with his foray into Ash Mountain.

    Perhaps he was here to kill the young man, who knew? As for saving Li Hao... how would he be so kindhearted? The young man didn¡¯t believe that the other would take such a risk to save him. Their rtionship wasn¡¯t to that degree.

    Was there anyone else? Li Hao remained still and quietly waited. One minute, two minutes...

    He tensed to leave after ten minutes when a very faint sensation arose and promptly vanished.

    Confusion appeared on the young man¡¯s face. Had he made a mistake, or had someone truly passed by just now? Southern Fist had been apanied by the sensation of blood qi, but thisst hint was quite imperceptible. It was like a furl of wind had brushed by.

    Li Hao furrowed his brows. If that had been a person, they were like a martial master¡ªand a very strong one. He could sense a thing or two about Southern Fist, but the one who just came only gave him a very faint feeling.

    <i>There¡¯s no such martial master in Silver Moon, is there?</i> And yet, Li Hao suddenly thought of someone. No... way? That one¡¯s in closed door cultivation! And, is that one really that strong? He had a ball of light around him before, he was a supernatural. It¡¯s not him.

    The young man was well familiar with the light of initial Srs. Martial masters came devoid of light. Therefore, Li Hao overturned his hypothesis. It wasn¡¯t the one he thought of, another powerful martial master hade.

    <i>Golden Spear?</i>

    Very possibly!

    Warmth flooded Li Hao¡¯s heart. Had Golden Speare to save him? How nice of him! Li Hao couldn''t think of anyone stronger than Southern Fist in Silver Moon. If that person had had light around him, he would¡¯ve guessed Hong Yitang.

    <i>Golden Spear...</i>

    Urgency suddenly gripped Li Hao. Although he wasn¡¯t familiar with that person, he couldn¡¯t let the man go to his death if he was here to save his subordinate.

    Li Hao quickly rushed off in the relevant direction.

    ......

    <i>Up in front.</i>

    Hong Yitang suddenly looked back with confusion. Was there... someone nearby? <i>No, right? Is there anyone who can evade my senses? Supernaturals can¡¯t, and what martial master can hide from me?</i>

    There was no time to think further on it. He quickly departed the premises to catch up to the people ahead. Those fellows were so impetuous and reckless. Hopefully they didn¡¯t lure out any stronger existences and doom his daughter.

 Chapter 410: A Great Show (I)

    <h4>Chapter 410: A Great Show (I)</h4>

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>Rift Canyon.</i>

    Four major monster spirits remainedzing on the banks of ake. The giant snake suddenly lifted its head and looked upward. The others followed its motion with surprise and bafflement. They weren¡¯t afraid, just confused. Were these humans crazy?

    The monster spirits couldn¡¯t be bothered with the one that¡¯d just left, but now more were here? What was going on? And they seemed to be attacking the descendants of Snakey¡ªpoor little snake.

    The other monster spirits looked at the giant snake. It straightened its body and rose upward until it drew level with the mountain valley and appeared above the sheared off surface. This geographic feature that was one hundred meters deep wasn¡¯t as long as the monster spirit!

    The head hovered over the tform of the broken mountain and looked into the distance with two massive eyes that looked more like shining discs. A dirty python was frantically slithering this way. It was extremely fast, but it couldn¡¯t shake off the enemy.

    How fast were two Novas? A Sr level monster spirit would never get away! A water arrow sted a bloody hole through the python¡¯s durable skin with a fearsome explosion.

    The giant snake watched from the valley of the broken mountain. Silent, still. The other three spirit monsters looked at their reptilian brethren.

    The snake churned to action a few secondster. Its ponderous body slithered up the cliff face and vanished in the blink of an eye without making a sound or reflecting the weight of its bulk. The abrupt motion left the other three surprised.

    Snakey had run off? But the Golden Lotus was about to bloom.

    The enormous ape pped the ground, as ifughing at their reptilian brethren for being distracted. Oh well, one less was one less portion to be divided.

    The golden eagle twitched its ws with indifference. So what if it was gone? The little snake was very strong and would have no problem handling those humans. The problem was that the eagle liked eating snakes. If the little snake hadn¡¯t gone, it wouldn¡¯t have an issue with the eagle eating the corpse of its descendants, would it?

    What a pity!

    The ferocious tiger crouched on the ground, not bothered with any of the happenings. It didn¡¯t matter if the little snake had gone or not. It was best if they all left!

    ......

    <i>Bam!</i>

    An explosion left the python overturned on the ground, bleeding profusely. Tidal Wave frowned and collected the blood with a casual grab in the air. It gathered together and shot toward her. Monster spirit blood was precious and should not be wasted.

    She wanted to leave an intact corpse to this monster spirit, but the python was so thick-skinned and densely packed with flesh that it might get away if she didn¡¯t utilize her more lethal techniques. The mountain forests were its territory, after all.

    Explosions sounded anew as water arrow followed water arrow. The python rasped hoarsely, fury and madness in its eyes¡ªeverything but fear. Why should it be afraid? These two human bastards were taking advantage of the fact that its father was away because the Golden Lotus was close to full bloom. How would they hurt it otherwise?

    It was very close to the valley of the broken mountain, its father should¡¯ve sensed its plight. The only thing that the python was concerned about was that its father might note. The Golden Lotus was soon to bloom and if its father wasn¡¯t there... The other powerful existences would certainly seize all of the flower and not leave anything behind.

    The Golden Lotus was an ultimate treasure!

    The python screeched, it didn¡¯t know... if father... woulde... but it wanted to live!

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    More blood flowed; Tidal Wave smiled. The defenses of a Sr were truly immense. She¡¯d attacked so many times to finally wound the monster spirit. All the flesh, blood, and mysterious power stones made this trip worth it even if she couldn¡¯t catch up to Li Hao.

    They hadn¡¯t had time to search the marsh where the python had been earlier. She could go back for a look after securing the monster spirit, there might be more stones there.

    As she rxed in delight, Half Mountain suddenly said, ¡°Something¡¯s off...¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Tidal Wave had already coalesced numerous water arrows to finish off the python. She paused, not understanding her counterpart. What was it now?

    Meanwhile, Half Mountain¡¯s heart nearly stopped beating. He could barely breathe. There was a sensation of a brewing storm that was stifling. He breathed out softly and was about to respond when he vanished from the spot with a sh of his body. The darkness shattered with a boom as soon as he left!

    Light seemed to have returned to the mountains. A pair of enormous eyes¡ªif they were eyes¡ªilluminated the premises with green light. It was light that resembled ghostly fire!

    A mammoth snake tail that towered like a pir of the heavens broke through the void and cracked into something with a loud snap, sending a figure flying back.

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    The bloody figure spat out a mouthful of blood, its cloakid in tattered shreds. A wan face looked out.

    <i>Half Mountain!</i>

    The man reeled from shock; a small shield manifested in front of him. The soul floating upward from it seemed a bit distracted.

    An origin weapon!

    Tidal Wave likewise froze with shock. Was this... a snake? Only now did she fully see the other¡¯s appearance¡ªan incredibly ginormous snake that was several dozen meters tall even when coiled together. Its eyes were huge!

    It¡¯d retracted its tail¡ªthis had been the item that¡¯d flicked the fleeing Half Mountain. The man vomited blood while the shield hung in front of him. He cursed inwardly as he looked at Tidal Wave. This old woman only knew to create trouble, alright!

    He¡¯d thought that something felt amiss when the python slithered forward at all costs to a barren mountain. It was much safer in the jungle, but still the monster spirit proceeded in this direction. It inly had another goal in mind. As he thought, the old one came in search when they beat up the younger one.

    This snake was terrifying!

    Half Mountain looked on solemnly. He¡¯d wanted to run because he thought the neer would attack Tidal Wave first. It was the woman who kept attacking the snake, but no, he was the target instead. This meant that the big snake wanted to kill them all!

    He instantlyprehended the meaning behind its actions and no longerined. Working in tandem at this time was the only way to withstand this trouble.

    Tidal Wave also looked on solemnly, fully alert against the snake. She swiftly closed the gap with Half Mountain and looked around them out of the corner of her eyes, trying to identify an avenue of retreat.

    The big snake made no further moves after sending Half Mountain back to his starting point. Killing intent entered its eyes only after the python slithered behind it with great difficulty.

    Half Mountain deeply regretted his actions! He and Tidal Wave had been on guard as they were worried the snake would continue to attack. That it was waiting for the small snake to convene was beyond his expectations.

    Snakes were cold-blooded animals, weren¡¯t they? Even as monster spirits? Why did this snake care about the survival of the smaller one?

    The giant snake looked at the two Novas only after the small snake arrived behind it. A unique influence locked onto the two as massive eyes nced at the shield. It also reconsidered Half Mountain. Half of the force behind that tail whip had been defused by the shield. The human had taken the remaining half.

    Nerves were beginning to set in for Tidal Wave. She knew that they¡¯d disturbed a den of snakes this time, and that the major monster spirits could understand human speech.

    ¡°Venerated powerhouse, this is a misunderstanding,¡± she began. ¡°We didn¡¯t know this was your territory... We will immediately back away. Aspensation for harming another of your... race, we offer this!¡±

    She took out a few mysterious power stones. The great snake was too fast, she wasn¡¯t confident of escaping before it reacted.

    The monster spirit looked coldly at the mammoth before a mammoth tail abruptly broke through the air andnded toward her.

    ¡°Fight! Talking¡¯s not going to work!¡± Half Mountain roared. Tidal Wave was trash that couldn¡¯t do anything right, what was she talking for? Would she be willing to trade a few stones for the lives of her children? Idiot!!

    Half Mountain disappeared, shifting into the darkness. A small sword the color of darkness appeared and stabbed toward the snake tail!

    Tidal Wave shouted angrily. The great sea bestirred herself in the form of water as the power of the element churned through thend.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The tail whipped through the water energy and was about to hit Tidal Wave when she transmuted into a water current and reformed behind the tail. The might of a Nova was on full disy! Although the monster spirit was very strong, the two Novas were confident in their abilities. They could not easily give in to their urge to run away even if they didn¡¯t prove up to the task. Half Mountain had wanted to run before the monster spirit could react, but failed. It would be gambling with his life if he tried to do so again.

    He would be gambling whether the snake would kill Tidal Wave or him first, or if it could catch up to him after killing Tidal Wave. He was not willing to take this bet, so he chose to strike back instead.

    The ck sword shed across the snake¡¯s tail with a massive screech, giving rise to fiery sparks. The durable scales were as imprable as armor.

    Half Mountain shook¡ªwhat incredible defenses! He was a Nova! How could he not break the other¡¯s defenses even with an ambush?? This snake was at least a peak Nova!

    Terrifying!

    But the snake was so big, meaning that it might sometimes be clumsy. As nimble as it appeared to be, therge mass would create opportunities for the humans. The two Novas were much smaller, a possible indication that it would be easy for them to get away.

    Half Mountain disappeared again after a spray of fiery sparks. The snake tail whipped through the air again and struck nothing.

    The man disappeared as Tidal Wave coalesced tens of thousands of water arrows, directing them at the snake¡¯s eyes!

    The great snake closed its eyes, <i>ng ng ng...</i>

    A series of collisions sounded amid a rain of sparks. All of the arrows broke, leaving Tidal Wave open-mouthed with shock. Too strong! She turned into a water current again and retreated further away.

 Chapter 411: A Great Show (II)

    <h4>Chapter 411: A Great Show (II)</h4>

    Tidal Wave shared the same thought as Half Mountain at the moment. Fight first, interfere with the massive snake¡¯s movements, then retreat together¡ªfighting while they backed away. With the two of them working together, the big snake would not be able to defeat them that easily.

    Yama members were behind them. Being Srs, they were slower, but they would be here soon. If seventeen Srs joined them, they would be most amenable to a joint effort due to their speed. They would find it impossible to get away. If they all withstood the giant snake together, they might be able to defeat it!

    Both Tidal Wave and Half Mountain felt the same way now. They wanted to take down this enormous snake! A peak Nova monster spirit was terrifying beyondpare, but once it was theirs, the riches would be too abundant to imagine. And was there some sort of ultimate treasure being kept in the massive mountain valley that the snake had been in?

    They could vaguely make out golden splendor shining from the valley. Greed intensified when the giant snake wasn¡¯t able to kill them with one blow. There was danger, but also opportunity.

    As the two fought, the Revolution King seemed to sense something. The man transformed into a gust of wind and rapidly closed the distance until he was a thousand meters away from the snake. The look in his eyes changed!

    <i>A monster spirit!</i> And an incredibly powerful one at that. It was wiping the floor with two Novas.

    The Revolution King turned to leave, but the sixteen hell masters arrived at the same time and saw the gigantic snake.

    ¡°So big!¡±

    ¡°A major monster spirit!¡±

    ¡°Nova... No, peak Nova!¡± They couldn¡¯t actually make out the monster spirit¡¯s strength, but since it could suppress two Novas to the point where the supernaturals couldn¡¯t really retaliate, the snake must be incredibly strong. However, it should not be stronger than Nova.

    The Revolution King wanted to go, but the sixteen hell masters looked on with glittering eyes and stirred to motion.

    ¡°We should work together to kill the snake!¡± Half Mountain called out sternly. ¡°It goes without saying there are benefits to be had, but if you leave and we¡¯re defeated, it¡¯s so much faster than a Sr. You won¡¯t be able to get away!¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    He was distracted as he spoke, giving the mammoth snake tail a chance to loom over his head. A huge collision sounded, turning the faint form on his shield even wispier. Half Mountain coughed up blood and flew backwards. He darted into the darkness before the tail could arrive again and vanished once more.

    <i>Too strong!</i>

    If it wasn¡¯t for the snake having difficulty hitting them, they would be dead after a few whips of the tail. Was this monster spirit really a Nova? Or was it stronger than a Nova?

    Half Mountain reeled from shock. The shock stemmed from the fact that it could match the previous Hou Xiaochen¡ªthe director had been thus when he killed a Nova. Red Hair hadn¡¯t been able to dodge in time. Meanwhile, Half Mountain knew that he was only suffering damage instead of outright dying because he had an origin weapon defending him.

    <i>Peak Nova?</i>

    ......

    The sixteen hell masters looked at the Revolution King; thetter wanted nothing more than to leave. They could run while the big snake was entangled with the two Novas. It was too dangerous here. The hell masters, however, itched to throw themselves into the fray.

    ¡°Ultimate treasure!¡± One of the hell masters peeked at the mountain valley behind the big snake and stared at the rays of golden light with a shifting look in his eyes. ¡°It must be a treasure born of nature and extraordinary if the snake is guarding it. It might be thepanion treasure that will enable it to metamorphose to an even higher level of existence...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s very strong, but no matter how strong, it¡¯s still a Nova at the end of the day,¡± said the other hell masters before the Revolution King could respond. ¡°If we work together with those two Novas, we¡¯ll be able to kill it!¡±

    Seventeen Srs, two Novas, and Revolution¡¯s origin weapon... Victory was guaranteed to be theirs!

    The snake itself was an ultimate treasure as well. ¡°The snake blood, flesh, and gall are all treasures that enhance strength!¡± A hell master licked his lips. ¡°Snake skin is the best ingredient to forge superhuman weapons. We might be able to gaze upon the Nova threshold ourselves! Court Master Revolution, let¡¯s do it!¡±

    ¡°Are you crazy?!¡± the Revolution King transmitted to them. ¡°We need to retreat! This snake is so strong that Half Mountain is suppressed to the point where he can¡¯t fight back. We¡¯ll die in a split second of carelessness if we join the fight!¡±

    ¡°Opportunities and riches are sought through danger! Is Court Master Revolution used to a life of retirement in Silver Moon? You are the only one among the ten court masters who is not a Nova. The opportunity is close at hand, but you don¡¯t know how to grasp it?!¡±

    The sixteen other Srs charged before Revolution could respond! They didn¡¯t rush their target as a mob, but erupted with supernatural ability and formed a unique cage¡ªthe Hell Cage!

    ¡°We¡¯ll work together to kill the snake!¡± cried out one of the hell masters. ¡°We can discuss distribution afterward. Both of you are smart people, we¡¯re sure you won¡¯t do anything untoward for momentary profit!¡±

    ¡°We won¡¯t, don¡¯t worry!¡± Half Mountain shouted.

    Tidal Wave surged through the void as a water current, shooting out arrows of water at the snake¡¯s eyes wherever she could. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯re not idiots...¡± she said at the same time. As greedy as she might be, not even Tidal Wave would think of scheming against others when such a strong enemy was present. That was too dangerous and might lead to everyone¡¯s demise.

    The powerful snake was growing irritated. It¡¯d flicked previous supernaturals to death with a single tail whip, but failed to do so numerous times after encountering two supernaturals weak as bugs. These bugs knew a variety of methods like vanishing into the air or dissolving into water vapor... This rather irritated the inexperienced snake ustomed to brute force!

    And not only that, but the sixteen hell masters spread out in four different directions and erged the cage to one with a circumference of several hundred meters. Unique rays of power formed a tremendous that loomed over the snake.

    The leading helm master grunted, ¡°Wait for us to crawl out of the cracks in the Avici Iron Net. When we lock onto it, we¡¯ll kill it!¡±

    The Avici Hell was one of the sixteen minor hells said to fall under the Parity King¡¯s overview. The hell masters deployed the Avici Iron Net, a method simr to a formation. Rays of light twinkled as they wove into a gigantic that loomed precariously over the giant snake. The cracks were huge and could normally be sealed shut, but that required a lot of mysterious power. They didn¡¯t need to do so today as the snake was huge. A tighter knit was not needed and also left room for the two Novas to burrow out.

    Once they locked onto the snake, it would be hard for it to break free no matter how strong it was. The swiftly descended, prompting fury in the snake¡¯s eyes. It whipped its tail!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A strand of supernatural thread snapped, but was instantly repaired. The snake coiled in on itself and head butted the offending. <i>Bam!</i>

    Another strand snapped, causing the sixteen hell masters to shake with incredulity! They¡¯d once jointly locked away a Nova to the point where their target could not move. The Nova was meat on a chopping block, which was why they thought nothing of the Revolution King. They¡¯d killed Novas before, so they didn¡¯t fear any Novas.

    The group also thought nothing of Hou Xiaochen who¡¯d killed a Nova in such a domineering fashion. <i>We¡¯ve done that before! </i>If they ran into Hou Xiaochen, they were confident of taking him down as well if they attacked together. And yet, this big snake was easily smashing their Avici Iron Net!

    ¡°Steady!¡± roared one of the hell masters as he erupted with mysterious power. The others followed in the same fashion.

    ¡°Half Mountain, Tidal Wave, why aren¡¯t you attacking yet??¡± another shouted.

    The two Novas took advantage of the opening to dart out of range of immediate attack. They were stunned by the development! The sixteen hell masters under the Parity King really did have some skill to their name. They were immobilizing a peak Nova with their strength as Srs!

    Although the snake snapped threads each time it rammed itself against the, there were many threads in the enclosure. Each one that snapped was quickly reced. Despite the snake¡¯s rage, it wasn¡¯t able to immediately break the entirely.

    A thought struck Half Mountain and he waved his little shield into a bigger version of itself. It overhshadowed the as anotheryer of defense. When the snake next threw itself forward, there was a tremendous crash, but no threads snapped.

    Joy dawned on the crowd! One Nova and sixteen Srs had finally stabilized the, leaving the snake asmb ripe for the ughter regardless of how strong it was. The sixteen hell masters were slightly wan as they crushed mysterious power stones to restore their energy.

    Tidal shouted with exertion as she fired more water arrows.

    ¡°Revolution!¡± Half Mountain yelled.

    The Revolution King frowned. He hadn¡¯t taken any action during this time, but there was nothing to be done now that the situation had reached this point. He would act, then. He was just irritated that the sixteen hell masters didn¡¯t listen to his orders. But after witnessing their Avici Iron Net, he understood why they were so arrogant!

    He summoned a bell-like treasure without a word¡ªan origin weapon! The wind chime rotated rapidly and sent out uncountable des of wind that were iparable in strength. They shot through the holes in the and collided with the snake!

    Half Mountain and the sixteen hell masters were in charge of locking the snake into ce, whereas Tidal Wave and Revolution were in charge of attacking it. It wasn¡¯t the first time that the three great organizations worked together; their division ofbor was very clear. Everyone chose the best way to attack without having to discuss the n of action.

    ......

    <i>Off in the distance.</i>

    A spying Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath, astounded by the snake¡¯s strength and surprised by the three great organizations. These people were very strong when they cooperated, but he was more taken aback by how smoothly they worked together!

    Based on his expectations, he felt that there would exist many differences of opinion and grudges between them. But their powerhouses partnered together without missing a beat¡ªthis was most shocking! Otherwise, any of the three were doomed if they ran afoul of the snake by themselves. But when they worked together, it was the snake that met its doom.

    Would the other three major monster spirits in the valley take action? And where were Southern Fist and Golden Spear hiding?

 Chapter 412: A Great Show (III)

    <h4>Chapter 412: A Great Show (III)</h4>

    <i>These people might actually kill the big snake if the other three monster spirits don¡¯t make a move...</i> A headache throbbed at Li Hao¡¯s temples. He didn¡¯t care about the big snake dying, but what if these people didn¡¯t go after the other three afterward and continued toe for him instead?

    With these people working in tandem, even peak Novas would find it difficult to escape. Just look at thatrge immobilizing a premier powerhouse!

    But... this snake was also the weakest among the four, wasn¡¯t it? Li Hao could clearly see the snake¡¯s light¡ªit stabbed into the eye, but it wasn¡¯t as piercing as Hou Xiaochen¡¯s or the others¡¯. The young man¡¯s eyes hadn¡¯t teared up because of this big snake. The other three were probably stronger than it.

    <i>It¡¯s pretty much one against four...</i>

    Seventeen Srs were absolutely on par with two Novas¡ªthe big snake was fighting the equivalent of four Novas. How terrifying! So this was how strong Hou Xiaochen was. No wonder Blue Moon and the others hadn¡¯t dared make a move. It would require four or five Novas to be reasonably guaranteed of taking down the man.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, inside the valley.</i>

    The other three monster spirits stirred restlessly. The little snake seemed to be trapped. As they thought, it was useless. A unique ripple reverberated around the valley¡ªit came from the tiger. More ripples floated over the other two¡¯s heads.

    ¡°Snakey is so trash that it¡¯s trapped. The Golden Lotus... seems to need a while longer to mature.¡±

    ¡°So you¡¯re going?¡± came a ripple from the golden eagle. The tiger looked at the bird, the bird looked back at the tiger.

    ¡°Stop it with the ¡®you go, no you go¡¯,¡± rumbled the ape. ¡°Snakey is crap and caused too much of a disturbance. There seems to be martial masters around apart from these supernaturals. Martial masters... they¡¯re very strong and I seem to have seen the fool from before. I¡¯m talking about the one who beat you guys... I mean those of your race!¡±

    ¡°Nonsense!¡± yowled the tiger in a weak voice.

    The ape didn¡¯t care, its nose twitched. ¡°I¡¯m just saying that there¡¯s a very strong martial master simr to him. His blood qi is exuberant, so I¡¯ll take on that guy!¡±

    The golden eagle mantled with a burst ofzy ripples. ¡°I¡¯ll help Snakey!¡±

    The tiger twisted its tail around. ¡°There seems to be another human apart from the one with strong blood qi... I¡¯ll take care of him!¡±

    The three monster spirits had decided to make a move. The golden eagle spread its wings wide and disappeared without a trace. A powerful bound sent the ape out of sight. After a final look at the lotus, the tiger also dashed away. Its speed knew noparison as it vanished from the valley.

    ......

    Seventeen Srs and two Novas furiously pummeled the giant snake. Some of its sturdy scales had crumbled; it rasped with fury. One drop of blood fell to the ground, shaking the earth when itnded. It continued to hover protectively over a small snake. A new ripple washed over the scene at this time¡ªeveryone knew instantly what contained.

    ¡°So weak and so stupid, Snakey. You really don¡¯t have much ability to your name...¡±

    Anger, as well as a certain degree of insecurity, appeared in the snake¡¯s eyes. Was that true?

    A smear of gold burst onto the scene, stunning the humans when a hell master was ripped apart by a pair of golden ws that tore through the void. A Sr was shredded to pieces in the blink of an eye!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The snake erupted in a frenzy of activity and rammed through the. Caught in a fit of wrath, itshed out with its tail and smacked the little shield away. The next flick of its tail smashed one of the hell masters into meat paste!

    The golden eagle was much faster than it. Aureate light sparkled as¡ª<i>pfft pfft pfft!</i> A series of popping sounds traveled through the air; eight of the cocky hell masters were promptly mauled out of their lives!

    The abrupt development stunned everyone present. Half Mountain spun on his heel and ran off without a word. This was insanity! There was another major monster spirit here!

    A loud collision sounded as a new figure flew out of the void. Southern Fist shot back in the air with a bellowedint, ¡°I haven¡¯t done anything bad...¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The enormous ape almost shattered the sky when it punched out! Southern Fist was so despondent that he nearly spat blood. <i>How... damned unlucky am I?? I¡¯m just here for a peek, how was I supposed to know that all of you are here? I didn¡¯t do nothing, but the ape found me through smell alone and it¡¯s damned fast!</i>

    Southern Fist also punched out!

    <i>BAM!!</i>

    The skies and earth roared; He Yong flew backward with a mouthful of blood. <i>Fucking hell, it¡¯s strong! Peak Nova? No!! Probably stronger!</i>

    ¡°Hmm? That¡¯s strong... Are you the Crippled Fist King of the Thirty-Five Rookies?¡± An astonished voice traveled into Southern Fist¡¯s ears. Immensely taken aback, his eyes snapped to the giant ape when he realized something between mouthfuls of blood. As expected, there was a puzzled look in the monster spirit¡¯s eyes.

    <i>Crippled Fist King?? The hell is that?? </i>It went without saying where the monster spirit had heard the nickname from¡ª<i>Yuan Shuo! It must be him! This ape must be one of the ones that he learned the five auras from.</i>

    The massive ape was very curious and punched again!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Heaven and earth shattered once more; Southern First broke through the void and fled for his life. <i>Are you kidding me?? The monster spirit¡¯s too strong! I¡¯m bloody strong too, but I need to stay away from this one!</i>

    A tiger roar shook the skies the second he escaped. <i>Bam! </i>Sword light illuminated thend while the skies churned and earth overturned. The ground split and the firmament was torn asunder!

    ¡°I¡¯m just passing through!¡± A resigned voice protested in the distance. <i>Truly!</i>

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± snarled the tiger, shaking the mountain and decimating countless trees to dust. They revealed arge clearing where the earth had been shaken apart.

    ¡°I really... don¡¯t mean to cause any trouble...¡± A man with a longsword looked around helplessly.

    Keen light shone out of the tiger¡¯s eyes! ¡°One of the thirty-five trash?¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>The heck??</i> Hong Yitang asked wearily, ¡°Are you the tiger that Yuan Shuo once beat up?¡±

    ¡°ROAR!!¡±

    ¡°Ahem, sorry! My apologies!¡± Hong Yitang swiftly retreated, longsword in hand. ¡°This is a misunderstanding! I¡¯ll be on my way, you guys continue doing whatever you were doing. I¡¯m only here to look for my daughter, so let¡¯s not engage in anything. If we really fight to the death... This isn¡¯t the only ce of treasure in the nine mountains and eighteenyers of Ash Mountain. We might lure stronger existences to us...¡±

    The tiger red coldly at Hong Yitang. ¡°One of the Seven Trash Swords?¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Oh fuck you!</i> Why was even a tiger that Yuan Shuo had beaten up so irritating?

    Off in the distance, Half Mountain was dumbfounded by the giant ape and Southern Fist that showed up in the first direction that he ran in. When he changed tack, he stumbled across a ferocious tiger and... Hong Yitang?

    This was unbelievable!

    He didn¡¯t dare contemte anything and quickly ran in the only direction that didn¡¯t contain anyone. Half Mountain didn¡¯t have the courage to linger. Agonized shrieks rose and fell behind him as the golden eagle and gigantic snake quickly ripped all of the sixteen hell masters to pieces. The Parity King¡¯s strongest troops were eviscerated in the blink of an eye!

    The golden eagle was much stronger than the snake; Half Mountain¡¯s scalp went numb as he ran. Aureate light shed overhead and the void broke thunderously. Golden ws materialized over his head. Half Mountain¡¯s face ckened with dismay even though he vanished into the darkness!

    An invisibility method!

    And yet, light filled the eagle¡¯s eyes. It broke the darkness! When Half Mountain reappeared, a w descended to crush one of his arms with a sickening crunch. The man used the opportunity to escape again.

    A stern look entered the eagle¡¯s eyes. One sharp cryter, it broke through the air and vanished on the spot. When it came back into sight, it plucked Half Mountain out of the darkness!

    Horrified, the man spun and ran for Tidal Wave.

    The woman had suffered a blow from the snake¡¯s tail and flew out from the loud collision. She didn¡¯t dare remain on the scene and used the momentum to flee. There was no time to pay attention to her severe injuries. The sixteen hell masters had been eliminated in the blink of an eye and their joint offensive instantly smashed to smithereens.

    Whether it was the snake or eagle, both were unparalleled existences¡ªand there were two more! Thankfully, those two were preupied by Southern Fist and Earthturner Sword. No, it would be more urate to say that the two monster spirits were obstructing them.

    No one had the mind to spare for why these two were so strong and why they were following the bigger group. There was no need to think about anything other than how to escape and survive!

    Who would¡¯ve thought that four major monster spirits would be living in Ash Mountain? And the key thing was, rather than attack each other, they helped each other in times of distress! That was the most frightening!

    Earthturner Sword looked over at the one-armed Half Mountain, the gravely injured Tidal Wave flying backward, then at the Revolution King madly running for his life with a wind chime over his head... He dearly wished for all of them to live. They needed to be hale and hearty so they could buy him some time! Sadly, all of them were trash and about to die.

    Hong Yitang then looked at the suppressed Southern Fist¡ªthe ape kept beating mouthfuls of blood out of the man. As he thought, Southern Fist was trash too. He was slightly stronger than anticipated, possibly mid Nova. But still, he couldn¡¯t stand up to the ape!

    Of these four monster spirits, one was a peak Nova and the other three were at critical moments of metamorphosis. They would be greater than Nova when theypleted the change¡ªthey could be hailed peak perfection Novas or a half step beyond.

    The tiger in front of him was one of them.

    ¡°Brother Tiger, why run down a bystander?¡± Earthturner Sword continuously retreated with a smile on his face. ¡°My sword isn¡¯t weak. You guys seem to be protecting something and awaiting the chance for transformation. You might be injured if you fight me, which might dy your change. Wouldn¡¯t that be a great loss? I haven¡¯t done anything against you, have I?¡±

    The fearsome tiger stared coldly at him, its limbs trembling. It wasn¡¯t afraid, but ready to pounce at any time. The human was very strong! But, so what? Humans were all wicked! This person reminded it of that evil guy many years ago. The tiger didn¡¯t want to listen to anything, it just wanted to kill the human!

 Chapter 413: A Great Show (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 413: A Great Show (IV)</h4>

    The tiger floated through the air like a patch of clouds. A gust of white mist rose and enveloped Earthturner¡ªa water tiger!

    Hong Yitang cursed to himself, but didn¡¯t pay much attention to the attack. He parted the mist with a sword sh and ran off. Meanwhile, Southern Fist was sent flying by another punch and utilized the momentum to draw nearer to Hong Yitang.

    ¡°Take me with you!¡± he bellowed with tragic resignation. ¡°Brother Hong, let¡¯s go together. Don¡¯t run off by yourself!¡±

    <i>Oh, for... </i>Hong Yitang didn¡¯t respond.<i> Go fuck yourself! Get away by yourself! I don¡¯t want to be with you! One tiger is hard enough to shake off already¡ªherees another giant ape. Do you want the two of us to die together??</i>

    A massive boom echoed in the distance. The Revolution King¡¯s body was breaking after being whipped by the snake tail, but he utilized the strength of his origin weapon to turn into a gust of wind and churn through the snake¡¯s blockade. He convened with Half Mountain and Tidal Wave, erging the wind chime without a word and enclosing all three with it. The other two immediately infused the origin weapon with endless mysterious power.

    The golden eagle settled its ws around the wind chime and closed them with a crunch!

    The origin weapon did not break¡ªit would require more than that to break it. Not even the formidable eagle could shatter it like that!

    The three acted like they¡¯d worked together for years. The Revolution King directed the wind chime to protect the trio as they swiftly shot for the outskirts of Ash Mountain. All three were vomiting blood, but they ignored their state of being and infused their mysterious power into the origin weapon. That enabled the origin weapon to elerate to new heights¡ªthey would make it out if they could go past the mountain!

    A frosty look in its eyes, the golden eagle gave chase. It was followed by a swiftly slithering snake. The former was so fast that it caught up to the wind chime in a thunderous dive and forced it to slow down. Cracks even appeared in the origin weapon¡¯s exterior defenses! The three powerhouses shrieked and wailed, filling the wind chime with as much mysterious power as they could bring to bear.

    ......

    Li Hao took note of everything; the young man was so terrified that he couldn¡¯t move. All four major monster spirits were on the hunt! This ran so far beyond his expectations that he only absentmindedly scanned the golden light emanating from the distant mountain valley. He couldn¡¯t be bothered to consider it more fully. <i>What should I do?</i>

    <i>Run? Will that raise attention? Also, Southern Fist is pretty strong. He¡¯s stronger than I thought.</i>

    <i>Mm, there¡¯s Hong Yitang as well. So it¡¯s not Golden Spear, that¡¯s surprising. Where¡¯s Hong Yitang¡¯s ball of light? This guy¡¯s really perversely strong. That tiger is incredible, but it still can¡¯t take him.</i>

    Additionally, the powerhouses of the three great organizations were much stronger than anticipated. Sixteen Srs were dead, but the three remaining representatives could still work in such harmony. It made Li Hao wonder¡ªdid the senior executives of these organizations often partner together?

    Otherwise, to cooperate so well on their first attempt... That would be a reflection of utmost battle consciousness. But was that possible?

    At the moment, this tiny part of the woods hosted eight Nova level powerhouses and one peak Sr equipped with an origin weapon. There were sixteen dead Srs on the ground... It was a battle that exceeded all the ones that¡¯d ever taken ce in Silver Moon. Hou Xiaochen hadn¡¯t given rise to such a scene when he killed the Nova!

    Li Hao abruptly made up his mind. y dead!

    He would y dead without shifting a finger. They weren¡¯t traveling in his direction, so he could lie low and wait for the situation to clear. The sparkling golden light probably meant that the flower was mature, but he wasn¡¯t interested or had designs on it.

    His only thought was that with it matured, these monster spirits might depart and go home after eating it. This ce was obviously not their normal camping grounds. Therefore, he would survive if he ousted them. As for iming that ultimate treasure for himself... The young man didn¡¯t wish to die. As soon as those monster spirits discovered that the item was gone, they would search through the air, ground, water, and trees. As opposed to thinking he could make it to safety, the young man thought it would be better to pray that all parties died together!

    Not to mention, the Demon Hunters were nearby. If he took the treasure, that would cause the monster spirits to search high and low. That would certainly expose the team and cause their demise.

    He might¡¯ve been able to try if he was here alone. But in these circumstances, he was better off suppressing the impulse.

    Li Hao fell to the ground like he was dead, still covered in leaves and awaiting the end of battle. As for Hong Yitang whom he did have good rtions with... <i>Forget it, it¡¯s not that I¡¯m not saving you, but that I don¡¯t have the right to! Not to mention, nothing might happen to him. He¡¯s so damned strong!</i>

    The young man thought back to the earlier conflict as heid on the ground. Who would survive at the end of it all? Did Southern Fist have a hope of seeing it through? What about the powerhouses of the three great organizations? Even if thetter did, would Southern Fist and Hong Yitang permit them to walk out of Ash Mountain? They¡¯d concealed their strength for so many years; it was all exposed today.

    <i>I am so very weak... </i>Li Hao sighed to himself. The weakest present was the Revolution King, but he might not measure up to the man either. It was quite a blow to his ego.

    Tiger roars shook the air far away, followed by piercing calls from the golden eagle. Crashes and collisions abounded!

    The entire mountain seemed to have quieted down; all wild beast noises had vanished. Only the major monster spirits could be heard in all directions. Some fervent cursing from Southern Fist and Hong Yitang could also be heard in the wind. Those two seemed to have been caught by their pursuers again.

    .......

    Rumbles and booms rose and fell, intermixed with determined yelling. That the four monster spirits were unable to eliminate their targets when they were all in the field spoke to how strong the humans were. As he yed dead, Li Hao also considered how he might get away if he was discovered.

    One must be prepared for danger in times of peace. It wasn¡¯t his turn yet, but what if he was discovered? Southern Fist and Hong Yitang were prime examples. Perhaps the former wasn¡¯t that good at hiding, but Hong Yitang had been well concealed and found out all the same.

    These monster spirits seemed quite sensitive and able to work together. That was most rming of all.

    Li Hao was still wondering if he¡¯d been discovered or not. Perhaps he¡¯d been detected, but also assessed as too weak to warrant immediate attention. It was very possible that they¡¯d decided to eliminate the stronger ones first beforeing back for the ant that was him.

    Could he really avoid those major spirits through ying dead? This was his chance, now that they were preupied with the powerhouses. He could run immediately, butplications would easily arise from him traveling with the Demon Hunters. Why not... pick over the corpses around him first?

    Sixteen Srs were dead and Half Mountain¡¯s shield seemed to have been discarded nearby. It could be fed to the little sword, whereas the mysterious power of sixteen Srs could strengthen him. The sword would be well replenished if it absorbed the shield¡ªbut that required time. How much longer did the monster spirits need to resolve the situation and return?

    Despite not making up his mind, Li Hao settled on his first decision. He would locate the shield first. Half Mountain had thrown it away when he was ambushed. The powerhouses of the three great organizations were relying on the wind chime for protection. Li Hao needed to grab the shield¡ªhe¡¯d be much more fortified with ample sword energy. Otherwise, just the eight mysterious power stones left in his storage ring weren¡¯t very inspiring.

    The young man crawled up from the ground and headed for the spot he¡¯d taken note of earlier. The origin weapon had drawn his attention as soon as it appeared. Half Mountain and the others didn¡¯t have time toe back for it, leaving ample time for Li Hao.

    Sword light illuminated the heaven and earth in the far off distance¡ªHong Yitang. The man was very formidable; it was a pity that he¡¯d encountered the four major spirits. Southern Fist had convened with him and led another powerful monster spirit to him. Which of them was stronger, Hong Yitang or Hou Xiaochen and his colleagues?

    Would Hou Xiaochen and the others be able to challenge a monster spirit by themselves if they entered Ash Mountain? They shouldn¡¯t have much of an issue with the snake, but the others were inconclusive for now.

    His thoughts did not dy his search for the little shield. After a while, Li Hao found a shield on the ground not too far away. It was very small, just slightly bigger than a te. Dim and dull, ity in the dirt.

    It seemed toe alive when he approached it. An incredibly weak shadow floated out of it, like it wanted to run away. Origin weapons were quite unique. So long as its soul did not die, it had the ability to move by itself.

    Li Hao scanned it. There were four levels to origin weapons¡ªsky, earth, arcane, and gold. Zhang Ting¡¯s Shadow Snake Sword that he¡¯d snapped was apparently the lowest gold level. This little shield should be stronger, right?

    Half Mountain was Celestial¡¯s leader in Silver Moon. This little shield would be arcane level at the very least, no?

    The shadow on the shield wanted to resist when he grabbed at it, but the heavily damaged origin weapon could not put up a fight. The shadow dispersed on the spot when Li Hao¡¯s hand broke through it. It wasn¡¯t dead, just dispersed because itcked sufficient energy.

    Unless the origin weapon could devour mysterious power stones, there was nothing special about it without the support of its master. They were just durable items with special abilities that they could not utilize. If there was sufficient energy powering it, the weapon soul would bestow powerful defensive ability upon the shield.

    Li Hao was left with the shield in hand when the shadow vanished. Cool to the touch, it wasn¡¯t heavy. In fact, it was almost too light. He took out Steris. Origin weapons were hard to break¡ªthe golden eagle couldn¡¯t w through it even when the itemcked defensive power. At the same time, the young man knew that the most durable material was useless when it came up against Steris.

    The ming Phoenix Spear was purported to be a sky level origin weapon. It¡¯d still been terrified when it saw the little sword.

    All Li Hao considered now was if the little sword would devour enough energy when it broke the shield. Would it strengthen the little sword to the point of revitalizingrge amounts of sword energy?

    The young man smiled after some thought. The shield¡¯s soul always existed; it didn¡¯t impact anything after it disappeared. Half Mountain awakened the weapon¡¯s soul simply because he supplied enough power from mysterious power stones and himself.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t intend to retain the weapon¡ªquality over quantity. As good as the shield was, it wasn¡¯t better than the little sword.

 Chapter 414: Accident (I)

    <h4>Chapter 414: ident (I)</h4>

    A keen light shed through Li Hao¡¯s eyes. He stabbed the shield with the little sword!

    A weapon soul shaped in a tiny turtle manifested over the origin weapon. It revitalized somewhat when the little sword descended upon it. Some struggle ensued as it sought to run away; an innate fear was imprinted on its heart. Even though it¡¯d long lost its memory, the fear that surfaced in this moment was impossible to suppress.

    The shield wanted to break free!

    A distinct crack sounded when the swordnded; the origin weapon was run straight through! None of its powerful defensive force could be brought to bear. A small hole had formed¡ªthat was all that was needed for the little sword to break through the defensive barrier. Powerful suction erupted, pulling the iling weapon soul into the little sword.

    Domineering sword energy surged back out a momentter. The little sword seemed very interested in origin weapons¡ªfar more than in mysterious power stones, in any case. Not only did it brim with a vast amount of sword energy in its refreshed state, but it was even a bit longer than before, as if it was gradually unsealing.

    Previously as long as the young man¡¯s forearm, it was a bit longer than that now. The little shield was possibly stronger than anything the little sword had evere across before. Li Hao could clearly sense incredibly dense energy within it. This might be the first time he¡¯d felt such concentrated sword energy since he obtained the weapon.

    Joy dawned in the young man¡¯s eyes! The shield was a high level origin weapon indeed!

    ......

    The three powerhouses were furiously making their getaway when Li Hao cut into the shield. The golden eagle and giant snake pursued them relentlessly. The eagle closed its ws around the wind chime a few times, but never found sess. Continued failure drove it into towering rage.

    Terror abruptly shed out of Half Mountain¡¯s eyes before he spat out a mouthful of blood! His mental strength immediately wilted, impacting his flow of mysterious power. Energy sted through his body, raging out of control. To lose control at this stage was an unmitigated disaster!

    Being a premier powerhouse, the eagle instantly seized the opening and struck!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    It wed through the wind chime¡¯s outer defenses and shed through to the injured Half Mountain. Half of his body was mutted to a bloody mess; fury and refusal flooded the man¡¯s eyes!

    <i>Why??</i>

    The three of them stood a good chance of escape! They could live if the wind chime maintained its function until they fled the mountain. Why had his origin weapon suddenly severed its connection to him?!

    As the master of the origin weapon, he infused it with some of his mental strength when he refined it. That was how he could control and use it effectively. It was almost never the case that an origin weapon would recoil on its master, not unless it broke.

    But in this day and age, how many people could break an origin weapon? Even that golden eagle couldn¡¯t manage it! And yet, that was what¡¯d happened to his shield!

    Horror-stricken, furious, and despairing, Half Mountain was also confused. Who¡¯d done it?? Was there an even stronger monster spirit inside the mountain that¡¯d discovered the little shield and broke it?

    If that was the case... there was nothing he could say about that.

    While he understood the particrs, the Revolution King and Tidal Wave did not. Tidal Wave shrieked with madness. What was this bastard doing?! They frantically infused the wind chime with even more mysterious power, hoping to repair the gap and maintain its defenses.

    However, Half Mountain had been an integral part of the trio. He was almost dead and had no effort to spare for defense. The wind chime steadily weakened, prompting the Revolution King to despair as well. He set his jaw as a ruthless look entered his eyes. Next thing they knew, he kicked away the erupting Tidal Wave!

    Indeed, he chose to save himself in this moment!

    Tidal Wave waspletely caught off guard when she was booted out of safety. She gaped incredulously at Revolution, but he was already fleeing with the wind chime. Tidal Wave would cover his getaway; he¡¯d already thrown out the dying Half Mountain.

    The monster spirits would have to expend some time to kill the two Novas despite both of them being close to death. Revolution wouldn¡¯t have done so if Half Mountain hadn¡¯t suddenly stumbled. In these critical moments, he would seize any additional hope of survival there was. He didn¡¯t want to die like this, and he didn¡¯t flee for the mountain¡¯s outskirts. The world beyond Ash Mountain was very far away. Instead, he headed for Hong Yitang¡¯s direction. His hopes nowy with those two powerhouses. If they could distract these monster spirits in a chaotic battle, that would give him a bit more hope to escape.

    As for Half Mountain and Tidal Wave, one was near death and the other raged with bitterness. Tidal Wave shrieked with wrath and erupted with water energy to fend off the eagle¡¯s ws.

    ¡°Revolution!¡± she shrilled with the knowledge of certain death. ¡°You shit stain! Have you forgotten the agreement between the three great organizations?? How dare you betray us in this moment...¡±

    <i>Agreement? </i>The word floated into Revolution¡¯s mind to be promptly forgotten. They were almost dead, what agreement was there to consider?

    There was indeed an ord between the three great organizations that applied only to senior management. Whenever they met with danger or enemies that were not of the organizations, they were to ally together against the enemy. However, this proved insufficient in the face of his desire to live.

    Revolution fled madly without turning back. A ghastly wail sounded behind him as the golden eaglepletely ripped through Tidal Wave¡¯s body. The monster spirit threw the woman to the rear. She was alive, but her despair deepened because the eagle had tossed her to the slower snake.

    Tidal Wave had harmed the snake¡¯s descendants earlier, so the eagle was inly giving the snake a chance to exact revenge.

    The snake¡¯s enormous eyes looked cold at Tidal Wave. A massive tail reared to the heavens and smashed down on her!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A hole several dozen meters deep appeared in the ground. There was no Tidal Wave in the hole, just dissipating water energy and ttened flesh. At the same time, Half Mountain looked at the Revolution King. There was no bitterness, only sardonic amusement.

    <i>Do you think you¡¯ll live? There¡¯s no hope for that!</i>

    The man was regretful as he watched the eagle¡¯s ws approach him. There were too many things he¡¯d yet to aplish in life and too many secrets stored in his heart. s, life was full of the unexpected and danger lurked around every corner for supernaturals.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that two Novas and seventeen Srs would be lost in a bid to hunt Li Hao? The three great organizations had suffered an enormous loss this time, one that rivaled the sum total of their losses in the central region war over the past two years.

    That war was violent and intense, yet it hadn¡¯t even taken Hou Xiaochen to act against them in Silver Moon for them to be the end of themselves. How ironic.

    A jeering look appeared in Half Mountain¡¯s eyes¡ªaimed at possibly himself, the Revolution King, or everyone. There was nothing he feared in his final moments. A massive w ran him through in the next second! As light faded from his eyes, his only thought was wondering what Hong Yitang and the others sought to aplish in hiding themselves so thoroughly.

    Celestial¡¯s leader also seemed to be the same. None of the leaders of the three great organizations made moves in public, all of them concealed themselves deeply. Why was that? Since they wished to vie over the world and seize the dynasty, what was their n in proceeding like this?

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The corpsended heavily on the ground! The eagle retracted its ws and flew off without a nce down, soaring to Hong Yitang and He Yong. Once the snake finished with Tidal Wave, it also quickly slithered over.

    ......

    <i>At this time.</i>

    Hong Yitang panted heavily; multiple bloody marks scored the tiger in front of him. The giant ape warily looked at the humans while Southern Fist had his back to Hong Yitang. Bathed in blood, thetter held on with sheer force of will. He¡¯d simply followed these people on ark, who knew that it¡¯d be such an unlucky decision?

    Hong Yitang was quite resigned to see Half Mountain and Tidal Wave summarily disposed of. What the heck? Why were these guys so damned weak and died so quickly?

    Hong Yitang breathed out with effort and looked at the tiger with resignation. ¡°Is there a need for us to go to this step? The two of you must be familiar with Yuan Shuo...¡±

    ¡°Roar!!¡± snarled the tiger.

    ¡°Then you know that Silver Moon martial masters were the strongest entities in thend back in the day,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°The four of you are indeed domineering when you work together, but there¡¯s nothing good in it for you guys if you force our hand.¡±

    The Revolution King barreled over, ignoring the monster spirits. The wind chime swayed in the wind as the man roared, ¡°Earthturner Sword, my wind chime¡¯s defenses are unparalleled and its offense it also first ss. Martial masters can control origin weapons too. With your strength, we can raise a defense that they can¡¯t break!¡±

    Origin weapons were not exclusive to supernaturals. During the ancient civilization, martial masters were possibly the rightful way. Thus, they were naturally able to utilize origin weapons.

    Revolution had thrown himself here in the face of tant danger and was deathly afraid that Hong Yitang wouldn¡¯t agree. ¡°If I survive, I¡¯ll tell you guys all the secrets of the three great organizations that I know,¡± he gabbled. ¡°There are some secrets that only we know. I am one of the ten court masters and know a lot of secrets...¡±

    Hong Yitang guffawed, this fellow had quite some nerve!

    The golden eagle and big snake gathered as well. Sweat dripped down Southern Fist¡¯s face and he snuck a nce at Revolution. <i>Trash! We¡¯re in for it now! </i>Granted, he¡¯d run over to Hong Yitang because he wasn¡¯t able to handle the ape either. Hong Yitang had also cursed at him for being trash.

    The four monster spirits were gathered in one spot, surrounding the Revolution King and others. The tiger red coldly at Hong Yitang instead of attacking. It hadn¡¯t even prevented Revolution from forcing his way in. The human had locked onto it. If it tried to stop the neer, a dominating sword sh to the face might answer for its efforts.

 Chapter 415: Accident (II)

    <h4>Chapter 415: ident (II)</h4>

    With a deep exhale, Hong Yitang turned to the Revolution King. ¡°This wind chime is very powerful.¡± He smiled. ¡°As expected of one of the ten court masters. This is at least an earth level origin weapon. Yama has invested quite a great deal in you.¡±

    The Revolution King beamed and was about to speak when the scene darkened in front of his eyes. He exploded as sword light descended!

    Hong Yitang killed the Yama representative with one sword stroke and summoned the wind chime to him. ¡°Not bad,¡± he chuckled. ¡°Not bad at all. Ah yes, you guys didn¡¯t kill Tidal Wave¡¯s scarlet shadow, did you?

    ¡°The blood pearl of a Nova is excellent nutrition.¡± The man nced at the golden eagle and snake.

    ¡°Brother Hong, what did you kill him for?¡± He Yong transmitted behind him. ¡°The origin weapon will go dark with his death. We stood more of a chance with him around.¡±

    Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond and looked at the major monster spirits surrounding him. He grinned broadly. ¡°I really don¡¯t want to be in open hostilities with you all. I have no desire to cause trouble on this trip, I¡¯m just here to look for my daughter...

    ¡°I¡¯m decently strong, but I have a small problem. My organs can¡¯t withstand an eruption that goes overboard. They¡¯ll easily rupture, and I¡¯m only one of many with this problem.

    ¡°Therefore, outsiders think we¡¯re all insidious, devious sorts who are hiding our strength. That¡¯s not the case. We do this out of resignation because we¡¯re too strong. Who can endure a daily stream of challengers? Constantly fighting for no reason at all will eventually be the death of us.¡± Hong Yitang¡¯s organs shook under strain as he talked; towering sword intent wafted through a radius of one hundred meters. His smile grew tight. ¡°But you guys are ridiculous! You want to force me to my death! In that case, I don¡¯t mind releasing all of my battle strength. So my organs will break! I¡¯d like to see if I can kill you four for it!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Sword intentshed through the air, making the monster spirits shift uneasily. Shock filtered into the ape¡¯s eyes, the tiger took a slight step back. The snake flicked its tongue and the golden eagle took to the skies.

    Behind him, He Yong was also astonished. ¡°So... you¡¯ve... reached that step?¡±

    ¡°What step?¡± Blood bubbled at the corner of Hong Yitang¡¯s lips when he coughed. ¡°Do you know which step is what step? You¡¯re just a Nova, shut up!¡± He looked at the monster spirits with a devil-may-care grin. ¡°Cough cough cough... Don¡¯t force my hand or I¡¯ll let you have a taste of the might of the Earthturner Sword. I couldn¡¯t be bothered with Yuan Shuo when he challenged me all those times¡ªhe suppressed you guys and beat you half to death. Are you trying to act tough with me now?¡±

    ¡°To think that you would be so strong...¡± A special ripple emanated from the golden eagle. ¡°Forget it, leave behind this man of strong blood qi. You may go...¡±

    He Yong cursed to himself.<i> Are you guys bullying me?! </i>He grit his teeth and punched his heart. Something seemed to shatter from the loud impact; his vibrant blood qi frothed with agitation!

    ¡°Fuck your ancestors!¡± he swore loudly. ¡°Let¡¯s do it! I won¡¯t be able to look myself in the eye if I don¡¯t butcher one of you today! You absolute fucking bastards, this is my supernatural lock we¡¯re talking about! Fuck it!¡±

    He kept up a litany of hotheadedness. Not only did his blood qi churn, but tongues of me appeared over his being. He seemed to have broken the lock of his heart.

    Unable to restrain his temper, He Yong looked around with a violent re and snarled savagely. He stared fixedly at the golden eagle hovering overhead and dered with some madness, ¡°Featherbrain! It¡¯s not you letting me go anymore, but me working with Earthturner Sword to stick you guys like the pigs you are! There seems to be treasure in that mountain valley, maybe that will make up for our losses...¡±

    The two were already enduring heavy losses. Although their strength had climbed dramatically, they¡¯d paid a heavy price to do so and even sacrificed some of their future. How would He Yong not be incensed at this?!

    ¡°Not bad!¡± Hong Yitang remarked with surprise. ¡°You¡¯re able to open it!¡±

    ¡°Do you think you¡¯re the only one who¡¯s improved these years?!¡± He Yong spat. ¡°Fucking hell, are we doing this or not?! If we kill these four, drink their blood, eat their flesh, and scoop up some treasure in the valley... It might be able to salvage our situation!¡±

    ¡°He Yong, this personality of yours...¡± Hong Yitangughed. He abruptly struck with his sword. ¡°Let¡¯s do this!¡±

    The situation had progressed to the point where he¡¯d unleashed his five organs and He Yong had broken his supernatural lock. Their losses were too grave. He wouldn¡¯t go quietly if they didn¡¯t do something incredible in return!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The ground was ripped asunder by the sword. A fissure several hundred meters long shot toward the monster spirits. The tiger leapt out of the way, but the snake wasn¡¯t fast enough to avoid being grazed by it. Its mighty scales were ripped apart like paper; blood and flesh flew through the sky.

    Southern Fist roared with fury and ignored the ape. Heunched himself upward, hand extended in a punch that aimed straight for the eagle. The bird might be the leader of the four and it was the one that¡¯d wanted his head just now.

    <i>You want my head, is it? I¡¯ll have yours stuffed and mounted first!</i>

    <i>Bam!!</i>

    Fist and gigantic w shed against each other, erupting in a spray of fiery sparks. The eagle was sted into the upper reaches of the sky with bloody marks on its undeniably durable ws. Blood also covered He Yong¡¯s fist¡ªbut it wasn¡¯t apparent if it was his or the eagle¡¯s. He punched at the ape the second hended!

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    The enormous sh far eclipse what had taken ce prior!

    ¡°Are you stillughing at me for being weak, Earthturner Sword??¡± He Yong howled as he pummeled the ape.

    Hong Yitang swept his sword around him and snorted, ¡°You¡¯re still a piece of trash¡ªyou¡¯re doing this all from destroying your supernatural lock! Whether it¡¯s Sky Sword or Tyrant de, either of them are stronger than you if they do the same!¡±

    ¡°Fuck you motherfucking fuck!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The four monster spirits were caught between a rock and a hard ce. They¡¯d felt a prickling of unease when the two humans erupted with power. Ceasing hostilities had actually been on their mind. They¡¯d only continued the pursuit because they felt they were guaranteed of taking down their prey.

    But now, it wasn¡¯t that they wanted to conclude the hunt, but that the two were unwilling to stop because they¡¯d suffered too much damage and wantedpensation for their losses!

    After his strength increased explosively, He Yong beat the enormous ape into the ground! Hong Yitang was even more terrifying¡ªhe chopped off the mammoth snake¡¯s tail with a few strokes and shoved it underground, like a mountain was sitting on the snake. With a quick flick and turn, his sword entangled the eagle and tiger!

    These two were so incredibly strong, but He Yong could only take on one monster spirit. The truly shocking was Hong Yitang going one against three! Unfortunately, a growing amount of blood frothed at his lips. He kept up a violent coughing fit as he fought. He Yong was better off, but the mes around him continuously intensified!

    There was no joy to be found in the two despite their prowess, just resignation. They were done for! Even if they won, they were done for. All these years of umtion and preparation had been destroyed by a few monster spirits!

    ......

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    Li Hao was collecting the bodies and storage rings of these Srs when... he paused and peered ahead. Dazed, he shot into the air in the next moment to look further out. Southern Fist and... Earthturner Sword? Weren¡¯t they being chased just moments ago? How was this change possible??

    The two were now iparably domineering, but Li Hao looked sternly at the scene. There hadn¡¯t been balls of light around the two before, but a fiery ball of radiance had suddenly enveloped He Yong!

    ¡°Fuck you all!¡± Southern Fist¡¯s enraged howl echoed through thend. ¡°If I be a fire supernatural, I¡¯ll butcher all of you bastards!!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s... broken the lock of his heart?¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°And erupted with his potential?¡±

    That was the notion that immediately urred to him. Hong Yitang was slightly better off, but his ball of supernatural strength that¡¯d previously vanished had reappeared. Multicolored in its glory, it wasn¡¯t as before. What kind of condition were these two in? Would special changes ur if they broke the locks of the five organs?

    A tiger was sted into the air with a loud collision. Sword light also shed through the air, piercing through heaven and heart to send a golden eagle flying.

    ¡°I said I was just passing by,¡± sounded Hong Yitang¡¯s cool voice. ¡°But you insisted on attacking. Do you really think that Ash Mountain¡¯s monster spirits are invincible?? To turn the skies!¡±

    The sky seemed to overturn with a low grunt! Indeed, sky and earth swapped ces. The eagle had been soaring overhead, but it suddenly dropped to the ground. The tiger was running on the ground, but abruptly found itself hovering in the air!

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± Violentbat erupted between six powerhouses. A massive snake burrowed out of the ground only to be punched flying and m heavily back down!

    As the sh grew more out of hand, it afforded more rity of the situation to Li Hao. He could sense the two powerhouse¡¯s fury and reluctance! It was a mixture of emotion that one did now know how to voice. Their eruption of strength to the point where the four monster spirits could only defend themselves did not satisfy the two. They grew even more enraged in the depths of their anger!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A sword descended from the skies and drilled through the eagle¡¯s wing. A quick backhand with the weapon rendered the tiger¡¯s ws a bleeding mess. Some of them were cut straight through!

    Entranced by the disy, Li Hao wanted to draw closer. He knew what was happening and hesitated, unsure if he should reveal himself and expose some secrets. Hong Yitang and He Yong were decent people, but thetter came from the royal family and Hong Yitang had always hidden himself deeply.

    And yet... the young man had once witnessed the kind of despair that was creeping over the two. It was not the despair of impending death, but that of their future being ruined.

    He¡¯d seen it in his teacher before!

 Chapter 416: One Step to Heaven, One Step to Hell (I)

    <h4>Chapter 416: One Step to Heaven, One Step to Hell (I)</h4>

    Yuan Shuo once described to Li Hao a simr performance of despair when the old man¡¯s heart tore and there was no hope for him to break through to Dominator. He¡¯d spoken of it with equanimity in his expression, but his tone and the look in his eyes spoke of hopelessness.

    Hong Yitang had once taught Li Hao and He Yong had also given him a few pointers...

    Martial masters!

    They were martial masters of Silver Moon and the vast territory of the province belonged to martial masters!

    Li Hao decided to take a chance and bellow, ¡°Hurry and finish the fight, martial uncles! I have a way of doing up the supernatural locks again!¡±

    A sword shook heaven and earth after his words; Hong Yitang brightened!<i> Li Hao?</i> Doing up the supernatural lock again?

    He Yong lit up. He sent the giant ape flying with a punch when a new thought struck him. ¡°What do you need?¡±

    ¡°Countless mysterious power stones and an origin weapon!¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    He Yong lost his mind as he punched again and again, fighting so ferociously that it was like his fists were the only thing that existed in the world.

    ¡°Hand over one thousand mysterious power stones and cease fighting, or you all die!¡± Hong Yitang shouted. He forced the four monster spirits back and bellowed this demand for good cause!

    Of the four major spirits, the snake was drenched in blood, the tiger¡¯s ws were shattered, the eagle¡¯s wings had been run through, and the snarling ape never had a chance to seize the initiative from He Yong¡¯s fists.

    Hope dawned for the two powerhouses after they heard Li Hao. Would the young man lie? There... wasn¡¯t a need to, not at this time!

    Urgency nipped at their heels; they wanted nothing more than to make up for their losses. Otherwise, even killing these four wouldn¡¯t be worth the effort.

    ¡°Make haste!¡± Hong Yitang¡¯s sword intent became more concentrated as he exhorted, ¡°If you drag your heels in making a decision, all of you will die when my organs are fully unsealed. Of course, I might go down with you too!¡±

    He Yong punched himself in the lungs, coughed, then shrieked like a banshee, ¡°Don¡¯t force me to break my second supernatural lock! Hurry up!¡±

    Shocked amazement appeared on the monster spirits¡¯ faces. These martial masters... could be even stronger?? Why?! Did they intend to go down with their enemies?

    ¡°We... don¡¯t have that many mysterious power stones...¡± came the eagle¡¯s unique ripple.

    ¡°Every stone counts! Cough them up and I¡¯ll have your head if you dare hide any!¡± Hong Yitang roared. Even if the monster spirits didn¡¯t have that many, there would be enough with so many people dead at the scene and the origin weapons, right?

    He looked at Li Hao up in the sky and shouted, ¡°Do you need monster spirit blood?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The four monster spirits grew solemn. At this stage in the battle, they could tell that the two humans seemed to have tapped into their potential. If that could not be supplemented, they might really put their lives on the line and go down fighting.

    ¡°Not yet!¡± Li Hao called back. ¡°But it might be better with the treasure inside the valley...¡±

    At this point in the game, anything he could get would be wonderful.

    The monster spirits shot severe res at the young human in the distance.

    ¡°Just give us half,¡± Hong Yitang snapped out. ¡°You brought this upon yourselves. If this can make up for our losses, we won¡¯t cause further trouble for you!¡±

    A cold light glinted in the eagle¡¯s eyes, but it acquiesced upon seeing that the two humans were growing stronger and beginning to rage out of control. ¡°Very well!¡±

    Hong Yitang flew upward without another word. Some body parts and two storage rings appeared in his hand. He hadn¡¯t forgotten about the Novas¡¯ bodies either. There might be some mysterious power stones on them.

    He Yong followed in his wake; the two shot for Li Hao. He was both nervous and excited. He could barely contain the fire energy in his body. Southern Fist would be a supernatural if this continued!

    ......

    The oue of battle was rewritten after the two Silver Moon martial masters erupted with everything they had. The ferocious martial masters once more proved that they were masters of thend!

    However, there seemed to be certain faults and drawbacks to martial masters. Or rather, simr issues cropped up in all of the pioneers because there was no further road ahead. Thus, they had to lock their strength away and couldn¡¯t easily erupt with it. They needed to bide their time, ordinarily speaking, or show a weak side to others.

    It wasn¡¯t that they didn¡¯t wish to put their full strength into a fight, but that they couldn¡¯t afford to do so. If they did, that meant the painstaking effort andbor of many years were destroyed in a few moments.

    Southern Fist and Earthturner Sword barreled toward Li Hao. They weren¡¯t afraid of the monster spirits running away or that they were waiting for the two to fully break through their supernatural locks. Although that meant the duo¡¯s future was no more, their battle strength would increase explosively. The monster spirits might die a quicker death then.

    The four monster spirits were keenly aware of the situation. Suppressing the two was the best choice at this time. They could not force the humans into further unsealing their battle strength¡ªthat would only result in grave injuries to both sides.

    In fact, they hoped that the weak martial master in the distance could help the two to bring their raging strength under control. A battle to the death was inevitable otherwise!

    ......

    He Yong was in more of a rush than Hong Yitang. Only thetter¡¯s organs were damaged, but he was about to be a supernatural! This wasn¡¯t what he wanted, so he threw himself forward even faster than Hong Yitang.

    He rushed to Li Hao in the blink of an eye, his temper on the verge of annihting the mountain. He was almost a full supernatural!

    ¡°How?!¡± He Yong roared. ¡°Can you do it? If you can¡¯t, I¡¯m going to rip those four animals apart!¡±

    He was almost out of his mind! So many years of painstaking effort for this path! No one knew how much effort he¡¯d invested and what price he¡¯d paid to strengthen his blood qi! Only proponents of this path knew how many thistles and thorns filled the way. He¡¯d cut through them all and nearly died more times than one could count.

    There was no way ahead! That kind of despair forced martial masters to search out their respective destinations on the path of martial dao, and now, he was about to be a supernatural!

    He Yong was covered in blood; urgency and desire shone out of his eyes. Could a supernatural lock that was about to snap really be recovered?

    As for blood pearls... There was only one Nova blood pearl around them. What good was that for?? It wouldn¡¯t repair his lock!

    Li Hao felt an iing heat wave wash over him! That was the strength of erupting fire energy. He could even sense that He Yong¡¯s heart was breaking. The man might not seed in crossing over. He Yong¡¯s heart might not be able to endure the strain and just explode.

    None of these people had strong organs. Both He Yong and Hong Yitang were partially bluffing. They might be able to erupt with greater strength if they continued, but they were equally likely to die from rupturing all of their organs.

    It was a fifty-fifty likelihood of either oue, but the four monster spirits might all die if they were to take the bet.

    Li Hao said nothing and quickly operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Sword energy surged into his body, then to He Yong¡¯s. A surge of force answered in kind, shaking the young man almost to the point of vomiting blood!

    Such incredible blood qi shocked Li Hao. It was... too strong! Was this the strength required to beat major monster spirits into the ground? Was this just three transfusions? Bullshit! He Yong had changed out his blood at least ten times, that terrifying guy!

    ¡°Martial Uncle He, try absorbing the energy into your heart. Has your supernatural lock fully broken yet?¡±

    ¡°No...¡± He Yong devoured the energy without further discourse. He didn¡¯t know what it was, but this wasn¡¯t the time to care. His eyes lit up as sword energy rushed into his body, but they quickly dimmed. ¡°There¡¯s an effect, but it¡¯s just a cup of water for a bonfire!¡±

    <i>A cup of water for a bonfire?</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. He¡¯d sent over quite a lot as sword energy was densest after it devoured an origin weapon. He hadn¡¯t been stingy, but it was negligible to Southern Fist!

    The young man drew upon the little sword and sent it into He Yong¡¯s body. The man furiously absorbed it andpressed it all into his heart. He knew how to enhance his supernatural lock without needing guidance from Li Hao.

    However, mes erupted from his body after a short while. ¡°It¡¯s not working, there¡¯s too little energy...¡± He sweated profusely with panic.

    Li Hao was stupefied by the reaction. Too little? He was transferring sword energy for all he was worth. He was being more generous than he was to his own teacher! This could only mean one thing¡ªSouthern Fist¡¯s supernatural lock was too strong!

    The young man took out eight mysterious power stones without skipping a beat. He also took out multiple storage rings and retrieved whatever stones he could find in them. As he searched, he continued to transfer more energy to Southern Fist.

    The sword energy converted from an origin weapon was very plentiful. Vast sums of energy flowed into He Yong¡¯s body, gradually quenching his fiery aura. Although sparks still appeared from time to time, the situation wasn¡¯t worsening.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t even blink. The mysterious power stones he¡¯d gathered from sixteen Srs totaled roughly one hundred pieces. This was the greatest amount he¡¯d ever seen in one go.

    He crushed them all; their energy enveloped him. He Yong¡¯s face twitched¡ªthis was a lot of stones to him, but Li Hao...

    He felt aplicated mix of emotions, but didn¡¯t say anything.

    Hong Yitang arrived momentster, continuously coughing up blood. However, he didn¡¯t interrupt He Yong. The man was worse off than he was. He was just suffering from heavy internal damage, but He Yong was about to be a supernatural. He should naturallye first.

    Hong Yitang swiftly rifled through the storage rings of two Novas and one peak Sr. There were naturally quite a few mysterious power stones among their possessions. The Revolution King and Half Mountain, in particr, were rich. Tidal Wave wasughably poor.

    Being the representative leaders of their organizations, the Revolution King and Half Mountain¡¯s storage rings produced nearly two hundred stones. But Tidal Wave... only had thirty!

    <i>Cheapskate! How was a Nova so poor??</i>

    Hong Yitang threw the stones and wind chime on the ground. He flew without pause and shot toward the sheared off mountain.

 Chapter 417: One Step to Heaven, One Step to Hell (II)

    <h4>Chapter 417: One Step to Heaven, One Step to Hell (II)</h4>

    ¡°Roar!!¡± The four monster spirits were hot on Hong Yitang¡¯s heels andnded behind him. The man coughed incessantly and blood bubbled out of the corner of his lips. ck longsword in hand, he turned to face them.

    ¡°I want... all of your mysterious power stones! And... the lotus in this valley... I want half of it...¡± He could see that the lotus was now golden in color instead of green. The man bared his teeth. ¡°I told you... that I was just... passing by, but you wanted to fight! Now both sides... are heavily injured... You will pay the price... of the stones and half of the flower. And we... if we cannot stop our worsening condition... you will bear... the consequences... of which you are well aware of!¡±

    The four monster spirits were likewise highly aggrieved and full of suffering. No one was well off at this stage, but... <i>who knew that you guys are so strong? If we¡¯d known, we wouldn¡¯t have wanted to kill you.</i>

    Unbidden, they were reminded of that person of yesteryear. Martial master... Were the martial masters of Silver Moon this terrifying?

    ¡°We can give you mysterious power stones,¡± responded the eagle. ¡°If that is enough to recover your seal, then...¡±

    <i>Can we not give you the Golden Lotus? It¡¯s too important!</i>

    Hong Yitangughed and didn¡¯t respond, he stared down the four monster spirits. A vicious hint shed through the tiger¡¯s eyes and the ape snuck a nce at Southern Fist, tensing to take action.

    Hong Yitang chuckled and pointed his sword at the eagle. ¡°Right now, this instant! Don¡¯t think that it¡¯ll benefit you to drag out the situation. If this really drags on... there might be surprises in store for you given the disturbance we¡¯ve created! There are countless monster spirits in Ash Mountain, but how many dare enter Silver Moon? Why don¡¯t you try it today?¡±

    A keen light glinted out of the eagle¡¯s eyes. It dove without another word and grasped the blooming Golden Lotus. There were eight flower petals, but six seeds. The eagle sent four petals and three seeds to the human as it climbed back into the air.

    ¡°This is not a treasure to enhance blood qi,¡± came a ripple from its mind. ¡°It may not be useful to you. If not, we hope that we can trade for it with other treasures!¡±

    It would be such a waste of this treasure if the humans couldn¡¯t use it. This was the Golden Lotus, a unique treasure, not one to enhance blood qi or the physical body. This was a treasure that bestowed intelligence and was effective on the mind and spirit.

    ¡°Cough cough...¡± Hong Yitang smiled as he inspected the treasures he held. ¡°How would we not find it useful? Do you think I¡¯m that bumpkin Southern Fist? This is an item that enhances mind intent! The lotus of golden petals is recorded in the ancient records, but I don¡¯t know about these seeds... I¡¯ve never heard of them. This is the flower I¡¯m thinking of, right? It blooms with eight petals, but the ancient records also say that this exists in a very special sea...¡±

    The man nced at the smallke below. ¡°Thiske is far from ordinary! This lotus shouldn¡¯t grow here under normal circumstances, but that¡¯s nothing to do with me. In this case, our battle today is concluded!¡±

    Golden eagle and the other monster spirits remained quiet. They watched as Hong Yitang flew away, whereupon the tiger suddenly sent out a ripple. ¡°Is that demon still alive?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°He¡¯s fallen behind because he¡¯s been kept under guard for a few decades, but I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll soar to the skies soon. Although he¡¯s entirely too cocky, I have to say that his talents and potential are unparalleled! You guys might see him soon!¡±

    Shifting looks appeared on the faces of the monster spirits. Still alive! That person had been the strongest among the thirty-six that year, but now one of the Seven Trash Swords and Crippled Fists of North and South that he spoke of demonstrated unparalleled strength. They were terrifying!

    So... what of the demon?

    The swordsman said that he¡¯d fallen behind, but that he would catch up. Also, just two of the thirty-six Silver Moon powerhouses were already this strong. How many more like them existed in Silver Moon?

    ¡°Are you the strongest of the thirty-six?¡± the eagle suddenly asked.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°You can try fighting them or asking around. I only know that Sky Sword and Tyrant de are pretty good. Southern Fist is likely less than them, I don¡¯t know where Northern Fist is. Golden Spear shouldn¡¯t be on my level, and you can ask around for the others.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The monster spirits were silent. Sky Sword, Tyrant de... Didn¡¯t they say that the martial masters of Silver Moon had faded into obscurity? Was this the obscurity that they spoke of?

    ¡°Oh, I forgot to say, there¡¯s someone else who¡¯s certainly very strong! Ying Hongyue, the master of the water Nova from earlier...¡± Hong Yitang guffawed. ¡°You can go have some fun with him. He¡¯s apparently been preparing all along, so I think he can probably beat all of you into the ground with one punch each.¡±

    The four monster spirits remained silent. Ying Hongyue!

    ¡°That guy is really very, very strong. He¡¯s probably just waiting for the right time like me, but he¡¯s definitely stronger than me. Ick some things, he might not!¡± With that, Hong Yitang floated away. The strongest of the Thirty-Six now might be Ying Hongyue. He¡¯d nevercked for blood pearls, so he might¡¯ve shored up some ws long ago.

    ......

    <i>Off in the distance.</i>

    Li Hao continuously withdrew sword energy, gradually extinguishing the sparks over He Yong. They were a little ways off from a full dousing, however. The young man permitted sword energy to emanate for a bit more before stopping.

    ¡°Is there no more?¡± He Yong asked frantically.

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Martial Uncle He¡¯s supernatural lock should be up to the task now. Martial Uncle Hong¡¯s organs are breaking, so I should treat him first.¡±

    ¡°I...¡± He Yong didn¡¯t finish his sentence. His lock responded again, true, but... it was so weak. He wanted to absorb more energy. Yet seeing that Hong Yitang had returned, he had to keep his mouth shut. The guy was almost dead. If he didn¡¯t remain on his toes, Hong Yitang would just as soon hack him into two.

    He Yong was rather satisfied at the moment. Only confusion and shock lingered. What was this energy from the young man? It could meld into the supernatural locks and repair them! That was incredible!

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s sudden recovery from his wounds, subsequent breakthrough to Dominator, and swift ascension to Summoner must have something to do with it.

    Hong Yitang returned as He Yong mulled over the energy. The former flicked a nce at Southern Fist and coughed, ¡°What are you thinking about?¡±

    ¡°Nothing.¡±

    ¡°Are you plotting something?¡±

    ¡°How would I?!¡± He Yong grew irate. ¡°Are you belittling my character??¡±

    ¡°Do you <i>have</i> character?¡± Hong Yitang snorted. ¡°What character? You¡¯ve enved yourself to the royal family, so what character do you have to speak of?¡±

    ¡°Enough of that!¡± He Yong harrumphed. ¡°Are you any better than me?¡±

    ¡°Of course! At least I don¡¯t do the royal family¡¯s bidding!¡±

    ¡°Hmph!¡±

    ¡°You can snort, but it¡¯s still the truth,¡± Hong Yitang coughed. He looked at Li Hao with a twinkle in his eye. ¡°Howe you decided to help us? You could¡¯ve waited for us to fight to the death with the four monster spirits and then scavenge a ton of treasures. We might be dead after killing those four, so all of the treasure will belong to you then!¡±

    If that scenario yed out, Li Hao would soar to the heavens with one step. The bodies of two iparable martial masters, four major monster spirits corpses, aplete Golden Lotus, origin weapons, mysterious power stones...

    It would more than likely take ce. If the conflict had extended to that stage, Hong Yitang might not have been able to control himself either.

    Li Hao nced back at the man and thought over his answer. ¡°Emotion.¡±

    ¡°Emotion?¡± Both men blinked. What emotion?

    ¡°My teacher¡¯s emotions,¡± Li Hao exined calmly. ¡°My teacher told me one day that he had no hope of progressing to Dominator. His heart was damaged, so he¡¯d settled down in Silver City to retire. If it couldn¡¯t be helped, he could erupt one final time to kill the trespassing Red Moon supernaturals.

    ¡°There was a certain emotion he carried with him, perhaps... despair? Or reluctance? I¡¯d wanted to stay in hiding and perhaps even watch the show, but the same emotion appeared in you and Senior Southern Fist. That¡¯s why I shouted and revealed myself.¡±

    Hong Yitang fell silent. A variety of expressions yed out over He Yong¡¯s face, he didn¡¯t have any words either. Had they despaired?

    Very much so. His despair reached a peak when he broke his own supernatural lock. He¡¯d thought that his life was over with; he wouldn¡¯t ept the oue even if he became a supernatural powerhouse.

    The young man¡¯s words had been a lifesaver, a beacon in the dark.

    ¡°Your methods are... extraordinary!¡± Hong Yitang said after a long moment. ¡°The eight families really are something!¡±

    He summarized his thoughts with a chuckle. Li Hao didn¡¯t respond, he continued to quietly induct sword energy into Hong Yitang. The man seemed to be a bottomless pit. Any sword energy that was directed into his body promptly vanished without a flicker of change. He instantly digested any sum of sword energy that was conducted into him.

    A flurry of mysterious power stone shards added to a growing pile on the ground. The four monster spirits delivered a batch of stones as well. It wasn¡¯t much at approximately six hundred stones. Hong Yitang felt that monster spirits of their status should have much more. Whenbined with the gains from the three great organizations, that totaled to roughly nine nine hundred stones.

    They continuously shattered as unending energy surged into Hong Yitang. He rose when there was roughly one hundred left and smiled at the young man. ¡°That¡¯s enough, you should keep the rest of the stones for yourself.¡±

    He tossed a storage ring over. ¡°There¡¯s a jumbled assortment of crap inside that belonged to the Revolution King and others. I¡¯m also giving you one flower petal and one lotus seed as payment. Don¡¯t... use them randomly. Make use of them when you¡¯ve melded five auras together, or you¡¯ll strengthen one aura beyond salvage and lose your equilibrium!¡±

    Li Hao collected the remaining stones. There was still plenty of energy left in the little sword¡ªwhat it¡¯d absorbed from the origin weapon had been replenished. This meant that the two had consumed the equivalent of eight hundred mysterious power stones to recover from their wounds. Not that much had been needed in actuality, their cultivation should be more fortified than before.

 Chapter 418: One Step to Heaven, One Step to Hell (III)

    <h4>Chapter 418: One Step to Heaven, One Step to Hell (III)</h4>

    When Li Hao collected the mysterious power stones, Hong Yitang gestured to the wind chime with a jerk of his chin. ¡°Take that too!¡±

    The young man stowed the wind chime with his belongings and rose to his feet. He silently considered the two men, a calm gaze in his eyes and one hand behind his back. No one could tell what he was thinking

    He Yong looked at Hong Yitang, whoughed and breathed out. ¡°You walk your path however it should be walked. Southern Fist and I will cultivate here for a day and have a chat with these monster spirit brothers.¡±

    He Yong pursed his lips, but didn¡¯t object.

    Li Hao took another look at the two and quietly walked off. Hong Yitang watched him and called out, ¡°Don¡¯t forget the corpses on the ground! You can gather mysterious power from them. We have no use for it, but you should.¡±

    Although much of it had dissipated, two dead Novas and seventeen Srs still produced a bbergasting amount of mysterious power. Srs typically supplied one thousand cubes. Novas, being known as three times the suns of a Sr, held at least three times the mysterious power within their bodies. Thus, even the weakest Nova would produce roughly five thousand cubes. The fiercer ones could hold ten thousand cubes. It would take at least ten times that for a Nova to train from Starlight to Nova.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t reply; he swiftly threaded through the woods and quickly extracted mysterious power, as well as arge pile of energy rings. The four monster spirits were watching warily from the mountain valley. They kept a sharp eye on the two humans, wondering if they¡¯d brought themselves under control. They rxed at seeing that the humans weren¡¯t erupting with the same presence as before.

    The situation was finally over and done with!

    ¡°Hong, you¡¯re not waiting for me to leave before going back for him, are you?¡± He Yong suddenly asked. Hong Yitang ignored him. He Yong snuck a few nces at him. ¡°It¡¯s that little sword, right?¡±

    Hong Yitang continued to ignore him.

    ¡°Since you¡¯re a swordsman, you might be invincible with it in your hand!¡±

    ¡°Is that so?¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°Will a pair of boxing gloves make you invincible? Is it just the weapon that makes one strong and not the person themselves?

    ¡°Does the weapone first, or the person? We have the weapon, but was it not forged by man? The ancients crafted them, so are we stuck to using only their creations as we seek to dominate the world?¡±

    He Yong didn¡¯t have an appropriate response.

    ¡°He Yong, do you think that he was prepared to... cut us down just now?¡± Hong Yitang looked in the direction that Li Hao had disappeared in. ¡°Did his brain short circuit for him to take the foolish path of saving us? Can you believe that he¡¯s Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple?¡±

    That might¡¯ve been the most dangerous moment that Li Hao had encountered thus far in life. It was more dangerous than any time! The young man had already drawn his sword and was ready to throw himself into battle against two powerhouses. What wasughable was that he¡¯d been saving both of them seconds ago.

    The three martial masters were all well aware that this was a gamble¡ªa gamble with Li Hao¡¯s life as forfeit. Most hrious of all was that the forfeit hade knocking on their doors.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t think anything like that!¡± He Yong said irritably. ¡°You¡¯d be the one taking any action! I¡¯m not as strong as you¡ªyou might even attack me if you¡¯re of the mind to!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t need to.¡± Hong Yitang flicked a nce at him. ¡°Not to mention, can we utilize the weapons of the eight families without their bloodline? Isn¡¯t this so much better¡ªwe can ask him for help so long as we bring some mysterious power stones to him. Any action you take would be killing the goose for its golden eggs. Wouldn¡¯t you weep to find out that you¡¯re unable to use it?¡±

    He Yong¡¯s eyes darted around as his thoughts spun rapidly.

    ¡°Therefore, I¡¯m not tempted because I¡¯m intelligent,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°You... mayck that sort of intelligence.¡±

    ¡°Keepughing at me, why don¡¯t you!¡± He Yong cursed. ¡°I¡¯ll beat you to death with one punch!¡±

    ¡°No, you won¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong had no wittyeback because... he really wouldn¡¯t be able to do it. He scratched his head with irritation. ¡°Forget it, I won¡¯t beat you up. Just gimme a petal and seed!¡±

    ¡°Why?¡± Hong Yitang snorted. ¡°Tell me, why? Can you survive by yourself in these mountains? I have a hope of doing so, but not you. So how do you think you have the right to demand those treasures from me?¡±

    ¡°You...¡± He Yong fumed. ¡°You have two seeds and three petals, that¡¯s too much. I¡¯ll help you digest some, okay?¡±

    ¡°Nope!¡±

    He Yong was so dejected that he nearly wanted to spit out blood. He¡¯d been so damned unlucky on this venture! Thank goodness his heart lock hadn¡¯t shattered. In fact, it¡¯d grown stronger instead. That counted as snatching good from misfortune, right?

    ¡°I haven¡¯t taken you to task for running to me when the monster spirits attacked,¡± Hong Yitang continued. ¡°That¡¯s already showing you enough face!¡±

    He Yong kept up a storm of inaudible curses. <i>You would¡¯ve been in for it too had I not run to you! </i>He exhaled heavily and peeked at the four major monster spirits in the distance. ¡°Are these guys the strongest in Ash Mountain?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, we¡¯re only in one area of the nine mountains and eighteenyers. Perhaps there¡¯s even stronger ones waiting somewhere.¡±

    ¡°So Great Li has fallen?¡± He Yong frowned. ¡°Surely not. Great Li¡¯s martial masters are also formidable and may not be any worse than Silver Moon¡¯s. Those savages are still a force to be reckoned with at the end of the day. Rivers of blood flowed when they shed with Silver Moon¡¯s martial masters. Perhaps they¡¯re just waiting for the opportunity to invade again!¡±

    ¡°Who cares,¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°What does it have to do with us? I¡¯ve seen a few Great Li citizens here and there, but there¡¯s nothing to be concerned about. They need to put their own affairs in order first.¡±

    Southern Fist inclined his head, then looked in Li Hao¡¯s direction again. ¡°This fellow¡¯s in big trouble once he makes it out! The three great organizations have lost so many people in their hunt for him. Although they don¡¯t know about it right now, they¡¯ll know sooner orter.¡±

    Hong Yitangughed and looked in the direction of the monster spirits. ¡°What does it have to do with him? Aren¡¯t the monster spirits behind it? The three great organizations won¡¯t dare make trouble for them. We all know of the dangers of Ash Mountain, as do Ying Hongyue and the others!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just that no one thought that these creatures would improve so quickly.¡± He Yong inclined his head. ¡°The royal family has records of them, but they only speak of the truly powerful being in the center of the mountain. Who knew that the outskirts would be so uncanny as well!¡±

    They didn¡¯t mention Li Hao again, but only they knew what was really on their mind. Had thoughts of eliminating thed crossed their mind? The most important characteristic of formidable martial masters was self-control. Whether or not they were of the mind to, they restrained themselves in this moment.

    Martial masters were violent, cruel, and cold-blooded, but true grandmasters could control the desires of their heart. That applied to Yuan Shuo, Hong Yitang, He Yong, and Hou Xiaochen... These experts killed without blinking, but sometimes showed tenderness as well. Li Hao had saved them and given them hope, so they suppressed their impulses no matter how strongly their emotions red.

    The two powerhouses stooped on the ground and began roasting monster spirit flesh. The great snake¡¯s tail had been hacked off in the earlier battle. They were hungry, so they availed themselves of what was nearby.

    A violent glint shone out of the snake¡¯s eyes when it looked upon its severed tail, but the radiance quickly faded away. It could not afford to provoke those two. As for why the two humans hadn¡¯t left, the monster spirits knew that they were waiting for the weak human to put some distance between them.

    ¡°Did any of you...¡± came a ripple from the ape. ¡°See how the weak one left?¡±

    The golden eagle didn¡¯t respond. It had indeed observed something. Meanwhile, the tiger looked into the distance. ¡°He¡¯s... that one¡¯s disciple!¡±

    ¡°So it <i>was</i> the two of you!¡± the ape eximed.

    ¡°......¡± His tworades did not respond, they couldn¡¯t be bothered to. So what if it was? <i>What are you going to do about it?</i>

    ¡°That person really isn¡¯t dead! The one that left also grasped some unique auras, but they don¡¯t seem to be like the ones that person knew.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s normal. Based on what they say, one person walks one dao. A myriad of changes exists in martial dao. Those who learn from me live, those who imitate me die. Martial dao should be a journey of one¡¯s own undertaking.¡±

    The monster spirits fell silent; the great snake attempted to speak a few times, but didn¡¯t say anything. There were four petals and three seeds left. Did they split that up? The petals could be evenly divided, but there was one less seed to go around. It... was more likely than not that the snake would go shorthanded.

    None of the other monster spirits said a word, inly wanting the snake toe to its own understanding and eptance. They wanted it to volunteer a relinquishment of the entire flower. Only then would they possibly give one petal to it...

    The snake lowered its head dejectedly. Those guys were truly one clique. It wasn¡¯t part of them since it¡¯d never been beaten by that human.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Drenched with sweat, Li Hao quickly fled without a word. He was soaked through and had almost unsheathed his sword in the final moments. He didn¡¯t regret his own actions, it¡¯d just been a solemn moment.

    However, they¡¯d stayed their hands in the final moment. Was it out of consideration that he¡¯d saved their lives? Or thinking that the two of them wouldn¡¯t be able to properly divide the loot? Regardless, he¡¯d escaped from sure death, and with a hefty harvest himself.

    Li Hao had witnessed a magnificent battle and saw with his own eyes the moves of multiple premier powerhouses. It hadn¡¯t taken ce through an illusory realm or other obstruction. He¡¯d obtained many treasures¡ªthe lotus petal and seed resting in the storage ring that Hong Yitang had given him was immensely valuable.

    There were approximately one hundred mysterious power stones¡ªa number on par with what he¡¯d collected from the corpses himself. Seventeen Srs and two Novas had also yielded thirty thousand cubes of mysterious power. His energy rings were almost out of space.

    There were also many energy rings rattling in his pockets. He hadn¡¯t taken inventory of them, but it would be tens of thousands of cubes even if each person carried just a few hundred on them. Combined with what was left... Li Hao estimated that he held nearly fifty thousand cubes!

    It was a staggering figure that was an underestimation. Half Mountain and the Revolution King had been the leaders of their faction in the province. They wouldn¡¯t possibly only have a few hundred cubes on them. That would be belittling the three great organizations. Tidal Wave would be the poorest among them.

 Chapter 419: One Step to Heaven, One Step to Hell (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 419: One Step to Heaven, One Step to Hell (IV)</h4>

    <i>The three great organizations are probably going to go crazy after all these people have died here.</i> Li Hao inwardly shook his head to himself. <i>The organizations won¡¯t be able to endure the deaths of so many at once, but it has nothing to do with me. The more the merrier. I can keep that wind chime as a backup n though. If therees a day when I¡¯m out of sword energy and mysterious power, I can use it to save my skin.</i>

    He¡¯d gained something else from the battle¡ªhis water aura might have benefitted from observing Tidal Wave. But the key wasn¡¯t his water aura, it was his sword aura!

    Hong Yitang¡¯s sword!

    What a pity that he couldn¡¯t experience it for himself. Otherwise, the young man mightprehend something different from the greatest swordsman of the era¡ªassuming he didn¡¯t die in the attempt. Li Hao didn¡¯t dare consider Sky Sword. Who knew what level that personage was at? And, he might be weaker than Hong Yitang.

    Li Hao soon returned to where the Demon Hunters were waiting. Liu Long was standing guard outside and heaved a sigh of relief to see the young mane back.

    ¡°I thought you were dragged into a fight with the others,¡± he said worriedly. ¡°The entire mountain went quiet earlier before sounds of battle broke out. Did the three great organizations sh with the monster spirits?¡±

    ¡°Yep!¡±

    ¡°How did it turn out?¡±

    Everyone looked worriedly at their leader. So the battle was over? What was the oue?

    ¡°The three great organizations suffered aplete defeat!¡± Li Hao exhaled ponderously. ¡°Seventeen Srs and two Novas are dead. Half Mountain, the Revolution King, and what should be a water Nova from Red Moon are dead...¡±

    Jaws dropped and sharp intakes of breath could be heard. They were all dead? That was horrifying!

    ¡°All dead?¡± Liu Long swallowed hard. ¡°Then... what about those major monster spirits?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re fine.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s terrifying!¡± Liu Long fought to regain calm. ¡°Thank goodness they didn¡¯t discover us. Otherwise... But we should go. Ah, I thought you¡¯d made a move because there was also a sword aura on the scene. Wasn¡¯t it you? Or are there formidable martial masters among the three great organizations?¡±

    They were quite far from the battle site, but oscitions from Hong Yitang¡¯s sword intent had still traveled over. Li Hao swept a nce at Hong Qing¡ªhe couldn¡¯t see her face since it was obscured by the visor. However, he could still sense some admiration. The young man didn¡¯t know what to say.

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t me,¡± he offered after a moment. ¡°There was another swordsman, but... he died!¡±

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered telling Hong Yitang¡¯s daughter anything if the man himself didn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°That¡¯s a pity...¡± Liu Long sighed. ¡°But it¡¯s good that another powerhouse of the three great organizations is dead. That swordsman must¡¯ve been very strong. Our weapons shook when his sword intent traveled to us!¡±

    ¡°Yeah, he was so strong!¡± Hong Qing piped up. ¡°My sword kept shaking, it was terrifying! Thank goodness he¡¯s dead, or my sword would¡¯ve flown away if it continued!¡±

    <i>Thank goodness he¡¯s dead... You should repeat those words to your father when you have a chance.</i>

    ¡°That¡¯s right, it¡¯s a well deserved death!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Hong Qing, tell your father about this the next time you see him. Say that a powerful swordsman appeared on this trip, he might know this person.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± Hong Qing blinked. Should she tell father? What could he do even if he knew this swordsman? The swordsman was already dead.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go while the major monster spirits are quaking from the battle that just ended. We¡¯ll follow the original n and proceed along our path!¡±

    They were to head east to Rift Canyon. It was no longer viable to retrace their steps. There were four major monster spirits behind and they might run into Hong Yitang and He Yong. That would be quite an awkward encounter.

    Li Hao felt that there wouldn¡¯t be any powerful existences ahead after this battle. They just needed to follow the fringes of the first mountain. If the team did run into stronger entities... then he bowed to fate.

    The Demon Hunters made quick time. Li Hao turned his gaze to the golden lotus petal and seed in his storage ring. The little sword was longer than before, making for a morefortable heft in the hand. That battle once more appeared in his mind¡¯s eye¡ªnot just the moves from Hong Yitang and the others, but also how the monster spirits had fought. The golden eagle, ferocious tiger, and giant ape mapped to the Five Styles. He¡¯d witnessed some of the true five auras this time!

    <i>But they seem to be connected to teacher... Were they his study subjects back in the day?</i>

    If that was the case, should he prepare a coffin for his teacher if Yuan Shuo ever wanted to visit Ash Mountain again? He had too many enemies lying around! Additionally, his teacher had indeed fallen behind the other thirty-six heroes.

    Even with Yuan Shuo fully summoning his spirits, Li Hao felt that he would be hard pressed to match the Hong Yitang of today. It was difficult to say if Yuan Shuo went against He Yong. Southern Fist possessed limited strength if he didn¡¯t break his supernatural lock¡ªhe looked to be a mid Nova.

    His teacher with three spirits summoned was invincible among Srs. If all five were... He Yong might not stand on the same level if his supernatural locks remained intact. Not to mention, that was also an option for his teacher as well.

    <i>Teacher can catch up to Southern Fist, but Earthturner Sword will be hard!</i>

    Yuan Shuo might have to break through past Summoner of Spirit to match Hong Yitang. Various thoughts shed through Li Hao¡¯s mind as he began to understand why these powerful martial masters all yed dead. Any fight that put their lives on the line could be one that ended their future. It would seem that this also applied to Hou Xiaochen and the others.

    <i>If the organs are weak, so are the supernatural locks. Those are huge problems. In the best case scenario, their locks break. In the worst, their organs give out...</i>

    Li Hao shook his head and put these thoughts out of his mind. He was far from reaching this step and these limitations wouldn¡¯t have much of an impact on him when he did. <i>Just watch me enhance my organs to the point of ten thousand cubes each! I¡¯ll scare the bejeezus out of you guys!</i>

    ......

    The Demon Hunters swiftly departed the area, not daring to linger for too long. There was no rush to absorb their stores of mysterious power. It was already September 21. There was only one week until the Battle Heaven ruins opened again.

    ......

    <i>At the same time. Rift Canyon.</i>

    Regardless of whether or not the ruins would actually be opening, people thronged the valley as the countdown continued. There was yet to be an ord among all parties present¡ªthe three great organizations and provincial authorities were only a small part of the representatives onsite. They were outnumbered by powerhouses from the other neen northern provinces and some that¡¯d made the trip from the central region.

    The entrance to the ruins was sealed off by a cohort of Night Watchers and military. Although they weren¡¯t that strong, no disputes arose. Hou Xiaochen was present. No one dared cause trouble so long as he was alive or on the scene.

    As numerous people took stock of the situation, massive booms ripped through the air! A group of neers fled toward the valley. They wore ghostly masks¡ªRed Moon! It was a decently sized group as there were several Srs in the lead. However, they were fleeing for their lives in an absolute panic.

    The supernaturals milling around the valley quickly gave way. Although many of them had secretly acted against Red Moon, the three great organizations were still domineering on the surface. No one dared directly oppose them, so they immediately moved themselves out of the group¡¯s trajectory when a group of Red Moon powerhouses barreled toward the valley.

    Another party was in hot pursuit¡ªmany of them wore ck armor. One of them looked to be an elder in his fifties. He didn¡¯t wear armor and wielded a spear, stabbing it forward!

    The spear whistled through the air, prompting multiple Srs of the fleeing Red Moon contingent to turn back for a counterblow. Their mysterious power erupted, but was instantly pierced through by the spear. An initial Sr vomited blood as he was nailed to the ground.

    ¡°Golden Spear!¡± shouted one of the surviving Srs. ¡°You are stronger than Sr, yet still attack us! Are you not afraid of Red Moon erupting inplete hostility and general ughter??¡±

    Soldiers fought soldiers, generals fought generals. This was the unspoken rule. Otherwise, powerhouses on both sides would cause an uncontroble bloodbath and far too many dead.

    Eyes widened when the crowd heard the moniker of Golden Spear. This was the leader of the Three Spears of Silver Moon! He was the strongest martial master known to the public and greater than Sr. He was likely the foremost expert among the modern day martial world!

    Hong Yitang and He Yong were not part of this conversation and Sky de had crossed over to the supernatural. Apart from close friends knowing that Tyrant de was still alive, everyone else thought he was dead. Yuan Shuo had only killed a peak Sr thus far; he was yet to fight a Nova in directbat.

    Golden Spear had exchanged blows with Blue Moon yesterday. Both retreated from the sh, but to emerge unscathed after encountering a Nova made Golden Spear the undisputed first among the martial world.

    Since Yuan Shuo was yet to fight a Nova, his strength was impossible to determine.

    Golden Spear, Yuan Shuo, Li Hao...

    The names of these three martial masters were known throughout Skystar Dynasty and deterred all those who heard it. They were martial masters beyond the conventional meaning of Dominator and had truly set foot into the next level.

    The group further understood the circumstances when they heard it was Golden Spear pursuing the Red Moon contingent. No wonder the Srs were running so fast. Their pursuers were the Silver Moon Guard!

    ¡°Who says I¡¯m stronger than Sr?¡± Golden Spear retorted coolly. ¡°Not to mention, you guys are the more shameless ones when ites to breaking the rules. Who can tell me where Tidal Wave and Half Mountain have gone?¡±

    <i>Who broke the rules first? In that case, how dare you mention the rules!</i>

    ¡°Kill!¡± Golden Spear roared.

    ¡°Kill!¡± Martial masters behind him charged forward. They were indomitable when equipped with ck armor. This unit was stronger than the Demon Hunters as there were numerous half step Dominators. They bore down on their enemy with undeniable momentum, following their leader in smashing through the Sr blockade and killing Red Moon supernaturals.

    Wang Qing, disciple of Berserk de, and Kong Youyun, daughter of Kong Jie, took on the Srs by themselves! This group was Golden Spear¡¯s bodyguards¡ªjust eighty of them¡ªand extremely mighty.

    There were twenty half step Dominators among the eighty, the rest werete Sunderers. All of them wore ck armor, making them true elitespared to Li Hao¡¯s Demon Hunters. Even Srs had to retreat when facing their joint offensive.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Explosions rang out as Srs fought bitterly for their lives. A p of thunder exploded near Golden Spear. The man roared and stabbed with his spear!

    <i>Kaboom!</i>

 Chapter 420: All Parties In Attendance (I)

    <h4>Chapter 420: All Parties In Attendance (I)</h4>

    Another p of thunder exploded with a roar as Violet Moon came walking through the air. ¡°Golden Spear!¡± Her expression was unpleasant. ¡°Must you be like this when the ruins are about to open?¡±

    ¡°You have no right to speak of these things!¡± Golden Spear denounced coldly. ¡°It would be more appropriate for your mother toe. I¡¯d like to see how strong the ck Widow is now!¡±

    Violet Moon¡¯s scowl deepened.<i> ck Widow! </i>She snorted at Golden Spear. ¡°If my mother were here, you would notst three rounds with her!¡±

    It was only to be expected that the second-inmand of Red Moon would be domineering. Perhaps notsting three rounds was¡¯t purely empty talk. Regardless, peak Sr Violet Moon¡¯s arrival, along with the Armor of the Thunder God, made her a formidable force to reckon with.

    Golden Spear waved his bodyguards to him so they would stop fighting. Red Moon¡¯s remaining supernaturals swiftly congregated near Violet Moon. Not only that, but numerous other Srs appeared behind the woman. There were six of them, which meant there were a total of ten Srs from Red Moon when the two groups became one.

    Only then did Violet Moon breathe slightly more easily. These martial masters... were terrifying!

    Golden Spear had been the leader of the Three Spears and proceeded far down the path of martial masters. He was undeniably powerful and when reinforced by his bodyguards, it was an offensive unit that the Night Watchers could not measure up to.

    Red Moon didn¡¯t feel much pressure when it came to the Night Watchers¡ªHou Xiaochen was the exception. But when it came to the Silver Moon Guards, they¡¯d fully mobilized these days and spilled so much blood that supernaturals cowered at the sound of their name.

    Silver Moon martial masters had once more entered the public eye. Even though there were few powerhouses among martial masters, those that existed enabled supernaturals to see how strong martial masters could be when assembled into an army unit!

    It would take at least a Sr to stand against each team of one hundred, but Srs weren¡¯t cabbages to be found by the side of the road. Red Moon had gathered thirty-some Srs after summoning their experts from neen provinces. Many of them were already dead¡ªjust Li Hao alone had killed three.

    Srs died faster in Silver Moon than in the central region. Disturbances unsettled the three northern provinces as ofte, but only three Srs had died in them. When their deaths were public knowledge, the uproar was so great that it was like everyone had lost their fathers.

    In Silver Moon... a Sr had died the day the Silver Moon Guards mobilized. Golden Spear killed another yesterday, making for two dead at the hands of the Guards in a very short amount of time. The one nailed to the ground struggled feebly, not long for the world.

    An irritated Violet Moon frowned, it was not a good idea to wage war with the province. Srs died in droves here. Li Hao killed three, Golden Spear killed three, Yuan Shuo killed three, Hou Xiaochen killed a Nova, and four more had gone missing a few days ago...

    Red Moon had lost thirteen Srs and one Nova in a short month! This level of loss was uneptable to both Blue Moon and Violet Moon. Blue Moon took action himself yesterday, wanting to kill Golden Spear. However, Golden Spear caught him off guard instead. Although Blue Moon was a mid Nova, he couldn¡¯t immediately regain the upper hand against his opponent!

    Neither could Golden Spear do anything to him¡ªhe was a hair weaker than Blue Moon. But when martial masters reached his level, they were difficult targets to easily eliminate.

    None of this was the key.

    The key was Blue Moon¡¯s absence today. He hadn¡¯t run off, but had caught a woman¡¯s eye. He was thick in the midst of trouble and Violet Moon¡¯s expression changed slightly when she thought of the woman.

    <i>Yu Luocha!</i>

    She¡¯d finally made her move and cowed the four directions as soon as she did so. She sent Blue Moon packing in bedraggled glory¡ªthe man didn¡¯t know if he¡¯d escape with his life yet.

    Silver Moon was bing ever more dangerous!

    A low rumble sounded as Violet Moon was lost in her thoughts. Figures descended from the sky. Blue Moon was disheveled and glowering instead of presenting his usual leisurely demeanor. He hadn¡¯t suffered any injuries because a cloaked personnded beside him at the same time, as well as a man with a stern, boxy face.

    ¡°The Parity King!¡±

    ¡°And an elder from the Celestial elder council?¡± Someone gasped from the crowd. Esteemed personages hade! But... their manner of arrival did not seem that smooth.

    A lonesome figure floated down from overhead, her face slightly pale and killing intent in her eyes. She inclined her head at Golden Spear and looked again at the three standing in front of her.

    ¡°What a bunch of trash!¡± she pronounced coldly.

    ¡°......¡± The three esteemed personages did not respond. The Parity King furrowed his brows, Blue Moon brooded, and the elder beneath the cloak had his face hidden.

    <i>Yu Luocha!</i>

    The crowd looked at the woman, then at Golden Spear; some had already recognized them. A wizened martial master standing behind arge boulder eximed with emotion, ¡°I knew that this Manager Yu of the Night Watchers was more than met the eye! It¡¯s her alright!¡±

    ¡°Who, master?¡± asked a young martial master with curiosity.

    ¡°Yu Luocha!¡±

    ¡°Ah? One of the thirty-six heroes?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± affirmed the excited old martial master. ¡°It must be her! Only persons of this level can deter with power and threat to dominate thend! What were supernaturals worth when Silver Moon martial masters were known throughout thend? They were so beaten down by martial masters when their domain first rose that they didn¡¯t dare set foot in the province. It wasn¡¯t until we reached Dominator and could go no further, whereas the supernaturals ascended to Sr and Nova, did martial masters decline. But now... some of us have found the way forward!¡±

    ¡°Ahem... cough cough. Master, um... Yu Luocha... seems to be a supernatural.¡±

    ¡°So what if she is? She¡¯s still a martial master!¡± The old man flew into a rage and red angrily at the disciple who was speaking. Who said she was a supernatural?! She was a martial master! Even though the subject of their discussion had already crossed over, the old man still didn¡¯t wish to admit that martial masters were less than supernaturals.

    His disciples didn¡¯t say a word. Whatever their teacher said was the truth. Not to mention, Yu Luocha had indeed been a premier martial master back in the day. She was listed in the Record of Thirty-Six.

    ......

    Conversation buzzed all. Some people stood on a nearby cliff face. White hair dappled one of their number, despite his young age. He stood at their head and looked at where everyone¡¯s attention was gathered.

    ¡°That is Yu Luocha?¡± Composure and inexplicable self-assurance resonated in his voice.

    ¡°Yes, that is her!¡± intoned an old man behind him. ¡°Golden Spear and Yu Luocha have both sought the Night Watcher banner! Those who were once well known in Silver Moon are still active in the dynasty¡¯s territory! I speak of Yuan Shuo, who has just left the province. Earthturner Sword, who has created his own sect of sword dao. Southern Fist, who has traveled to the north of the province. Jadelight Sword travels with Yuan Shuo. Sky Sword in the central region and Berserk de who serves the army.¡±

    Who said that the martial world of Silver Moon had declined? It was alive and well, just in a different format. Everyone walked their own paths and had found their own homes. Many of the thirty-six were hale and hearty.

    The young man inclined his head and whispered, ¡°You forget that Red Moon possesses many of the thirty-six as well. Orange Moon, the ck Widow, Ying Hongyue...¡±

    ¡°That is true.¡± The old man nodded. ¡°Many of the organization¡¯s Seven Moons are part of the thirty-six.¡±

    ¡°Yu Luocha was one of them,¡± the young man asked curiously. ¡°Why did she betray Ying Hongyue?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re not sure, it might have to do with the conjecture that Hou Xiaochen really is Sickly. It¡¯s said that he spared her life once...¡±

    The young man nodded again. ¡°Silver Moon is indeed a blessed ce that produces many talents! No wonder everyone wants toe here, but they seem to be waiting for something. We¡¯re here as the vanguard to assess the situation...

    ¡°And to join the fun!¡± he chuckled. ¡°Let¡¯s take a look at the ruins of Battle Heaven. If possible, perhaps we can im strong origin weapons as well!¡±

    ¡°Sir, it¡¯s best to give up the idea as soon as possible!¡± the old man urged. ¡°It¡¯s said that Hou Xiaochen will enter himself! If he really is Sickly, then he was a premier martial master very early on. Martial masters only grow stronger when they be supernaturals, not to mention a preeminent martial master like them. Just look at his subordinates of Golden Spear and Yu Luocha. Hou Xiaochen is either peak Nova or even stronger...¡±

    ¡°Just because he killed Red Hair with a single spear jab?¡± The young man furrowed his brow. ¡°That jab doesn¡¯t represent anything. Even a mid orte Nova might kill an unprepared Red Hair with one blow if they had a sky level origin weapon to utilize!¡±

    There was no doubt that Hou Xiaochen was powerful, but it was difficult to determine what level Nova he was.

    ¡°Red Hair couldn¡¯t possibly have beenpletely caught off guard.¡± The old man shook his head. ¡°Therefore... don¡¯t underestimate Hou Xiaochen.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not, I just think that the three great organizations won¡¯t let him off easy if he enters the ruins. Not to mention, there may not be only the three great organizations there.¡± The young man smiled. ¡°There are plenty of people who want Hou Xiaochen dead.¡±

    The old man said no more. That was the truth. Hou Xiaochen was a thorn in the side of many. Even some within the Night Watchers wished for his demise. He would face more than the three great organizations if he entered the ruins.

    ¡°Oh yes, I hear that Old Demon Five Styles¡¯ disciple killed six Srs two days ago and fled into Ash Mountain in the northern part of the province,¡± the young man changed the topic with interest. ¡°Has there been any news?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± The old man shook his head. ¡°Ash Mountain is not a safe ce. The family has some records of it being an exceedingly dangerous locale. There are many major monster spirits there, some even greater than Nova. It¡¯s a terrifying ce!¡±

    ¡°What a pity, I hope he doesn¡¯t die in there. There seem to be very few young genius martial masters around,¡± chuckled the young man. ¡°There are a few in the central region, but they don¡¯t seem all that impressive. That this one can kill multiple Srs means that he¡¯s got real skill to his name. As expected as the final disciple of Old Demon Five Styles, the head of the thirty-six heroes...¡±

    The old man didn¡¯t continue the conversation. It went without saying that Li Hao must have true skill to his name. However, the young man spoke with condescending notes that the old man didn¡¯t care to address. Perhaps the young man was very strong or even stronger than Hu Qingfeng that the Night Watchers had requested from their central headquarters.

    No martial master was to be belittled. If Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple crossed over, he would be a Nova. He might not be weaker than the young man. upying a lofty position... only caused one to lose their alertness.

 Chapter 421: All Parties In Attendance (II)

    <h4>Chapter 421: All Parties In Attendance (II)</h4>

    As the two on the cliff face conversed, someone else waved at them¡ªa inly dressed woman who was rather young. She chatted with another group of people on the cliff face.

    The young man inclined his head in return and transmitted to the old man, ¡°Madame Bai is certainly a social butterfly. Isn¡¯t her husband in Silver Moon? What is she doing being involved with the Lius?¡±

    The Lius of Skystar Dynasty were quite famous and known by the nickname of the God of Wealth. Of the nine ministries, the inspector general of the Ministry of Finance was the old man of the Lius. He was incredibly intimidating, but it should be only some side branch members of the family who¡¯de to the province. While they were also noteworthy, the young man didn¡¯t care since they weren¡¯t from the main branch.

    ¡°The woman is not a simple character either,¡± the old man transmitted back. ¡°Although she is not one of the thirty-six, she is still a renowned Silver Moon martial master from back in the day. She married into the Bai family and her husband is the vicemander of the Tiger Wings. The other Bai branch is on good terms with the Ministry of Armed Forces in Skystar City. It¡¯s said that they¡¯re involved with the royal family... They are absolutely not what they seem.¡±

    The young man inclined his head once more.

    ......

    Heartjab Daughter Madame Bai was chatting with a few other young men and women. She waved a greeting to a young man with frost in his hair and murmured, ¡°What is that one doing in Silver Moon?¡±

    A young man next to her took a look in the relevant direction and responded with casual contempt or possible jealousy, ¡°Perhaps he¡¯s too heavily suppressed in the central region by those people and came here for a breather.¡±

    Another younger woman next to him¡ªor rather, a girl¡ªasked curiously, ¡°Brother, who is he?¡± She didn¡¯t seem to be aware of this person.

    ¡°Xu Feng.¡± The young man didn¡¯t want to respond, but did so curtly when his younger sister remained curious.

    <i>Xu Feng.</i>

    The girl thought for a bit, puzzled, then thought of something. ¡°Is he... is he the Icefrost Swordsman Xu Feng on the Divine Masters Ranking?¡±

    ¡°What Divine Masters Ranking!¡± grumbled the young man. ¡°It¡¯s just an unofficial ranking that some amateurs put together. Look at you treating it like a real thing!¡±

    ¡°Brother, are you jealous?¡± giggled the girl.

    ¡°Why would I be jealous of him?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s one of the ny-nine dragons and phoenixes on the ranking!¡± she tittered. ¡°The Divine Masters Ranking records ny-nine of the best powerhouses younger than thirty. One major province typically only has one person on the list. Although Xu Feng is ranked in the rear¡ªI think ny-seven a few days ago? He¡¯s still very strong!¡±

    Or it could be better put as super amazing strong! Although it was only a listing of those below thirty years old, it still included a lot of powerhouses as the supernatural had only been around for twenty years.

    The girl was immensely excited. Madame Bai smiled next to her and didn¡¯t say a word. The Divine Masters Ranking was simr to the Record of Heroes back in the day. It wasn¡¯t an official ranking, just something cooked up by interested parties. It wasn¡¯t a definitive ranking either as there were those who preferred a low profile while others basked in the limelight. Not everything could be taken into consideration.

    When it came down to it, the Ranking was not as famous as the Record. The Record of Thirty-Six Heroes was acknowledged by the entire martial world, while the Ranking was popr only in the central region. The provinces of the four directions would not recognize it. None of their powerhouses had fought in the central region, how would they admit that the youngsters there are stronger than them?

    The Central Youngsters Divine Masters Ranking might be a more appropriate title.

    Xu Feng was an ice Heaven Favored of the mid Nova level. Incredibly domineering, he was only ranked ny-seven. inly, there was still some merit to this ranking despite its limited poprity. Someone like Hu Qingfeng had not made the list.

    A loud rumble overhead interrupted the thoughts of Madame Bai and the rest of the group. They raised their eyes overhead to see Yu Luocha thrust her palm out. Thunder and lightning erupted with a roar and forced Blue Moon and the others back.

    <i>A thunder powerhouse!</i>

    There was something special about Yu Luocha¡¯s power as it appeared purplish-ck. It exploded with extreme force. The p of thunder brought everyone¡¯s attention back to their sh.

    ......

    <i>Over the canyon.</i>

    Manager Yu¡¯s expression was as frosty as usual. She didn¡¯t follow up her palm thrust with another move. Instead, she coolly denounced, ¡°Have all of Red Moon¡¯s hidden personnele out, Blue Moon! There can¡¯t be just one Tidal Wave from the elder¡¯s council. She was already in the three northern provinces. You alone are not worthy since Red Moon has decided to go against the director!¡±

    <i>You are not worthy!</i>

    Blue Moon flushed with indignation and anger crept into his eyes.

    ¡°Has Indigo Moone? Or is it Green Moon?¡± An aloof Yu Luocha looked in the four directions, speaking slowly. ¡°Since you¡¯re here, why note out? Blue Moon and Violet Moon are respectively their second and third generations. That¡¯s fine against the youngsters, but I am not young anymore.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re all young, younger sister Violet Moon.¡± Laughter traveled in from the distance, along with aint. ¡°Since when did we get old?¡±

    Violet Moon blinked, then realized that the neer wasn¡¯t talking about her. She was talking about Yu Luocha, the first generation Violet Moon!

    ¡°Violet Moon is young, but I am old.¡± Yu Luocha smiled¡ªit was a bizarre sight for a smile to appear on such a standoffish face. ¡°I thought it would be Indigo Moon here, but to think it¡¯s Green Moon...¡±

    A figure abruptly appeared in front of Blue Moon and the others. A plump body d in a long green skirt, her green locks flowed in the wind. The sunny smile on her face appeared particrly inviting.

    Green Moon of the Seven Moons!

    ¡°It¡¯s... you, Green Peacock!¡± Golden Spear frowned. ¡°How are you worthy of being Green Moon? I¡¯ve often wondered how Ying Hongyue ranked his Seven Moons and why Yu Luocha is thest as Violet Moon. I thought I understood when I learned that ck Widow is Orange Moon. He is rather shameless to grant those who¡¯ve slept with him a higher ranking!

    ¡°My theory is confirmed today, but how dare you be ranked ahead of Yu Luocha when you are less than even the Heartjab Daughter??¡±

    Normally of few words, this string of denouncements was a clear indication of Golden Spear¡¯s annoyance!

    Not only did Green Moon¡¯s expression shift, but so was Madame Bai in the distance equally resigned. <i>What are you dragging me into this for?</i> But... she really hadn¡¯t known that Green Peacock was Green Moon. As expected, Golden Spear was widely experienced. Green Peacock possessed some fame, but as Golden Spear said, Green Peacock was less than her back in the day.

    ¡°The times have changed, Golden Spear!¡± Green Moon looked frostily at Golden Spear, the smile dropping off her face.

    Golden Spear answered with a surge of blood qi and roared, ¡°No matter how they have changed, it is never a slutty peacock¡¯s turn to lecture this old man! I would curse Ying Hongyue to his face for being shameless if he was here! How dare he put a whore he¡¯s slept with over Yu Luocha?! Don¡¯t forget, he was once one of the thirty-six! He has no right to humiliate Yu Luocha!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Even Yu Luocha was speechless now. <i>That¡¯s enough, old man!</i> She didn¡¯t really care about this, but it appeared that he did. Thank goodness she couldn¡¯t be bothered to hold a conversation with him before, or they would¡¯ve dissolved into exchanging insults long ago.

    Golden Spear was furious about none other than Ying Hongyue cing one of the thirty-six heroes as thest of the Seven Moons. The ignoble Green Peacock was ranked ahead!

    He could ept ck Widow since she was part of the thirty-six as well, but Golden Spear did not ept Green Moon no matter what! It was an affront to the entire Record of Thirty-Six!

    ¡°Ying Hongyue¡¯s lost his brains with all the sleeping around he¡¯s done!¡± raged Golden Spear. ¡°I¡¯ll chop off his empty head sooner orter!¡±

    He suddenly seemed to understand why Ying Luo had turned on her former organization. This was too great of an insult!

    Manager Yu was at quite a loss. She knew that the old man was stuffy and old fashioned, but it was her first time seeing just how far he could take the mindset. He was beside himself for just an enemy¡¯s ranking!

    Green Moon red her presence; a domineering sensation surged over the scene. Late Nova!

    Such overwhelming force shook even Golden Spear, but the old man remained unmoved and stared coldly at Green Move. So what? That was very normal! Blue Moon was a mid Nova and there was an Indigo Moon between them. It wasn¡¯t out of the norm that Slutty Peacock had reachedte Nova. He just wasn¡¯t satisfied by the situation. Her aplishments were all the result of Red Moon, not her own skills!

    When did ite to her being ced over Yu Luocha??

    Green Moon stared coolly at the man, her presence building until suddenly¡ª<i>wham!</i>

    A de¡¯s hum rang through heaven and earth! de light broke through the void. Standing behind Golden Spear, Wang Qing smiled.

    A tall and muscr man wearing a navy blue military uniformnded on the ground. He looked expressionlessly at Green Moon. ¡°What, do you show utter disrespect toward us just because you¡¯re a supernatural now, Slutty Peacock?¡±

    de intent soared to the heavens when he took a step forward!

    ¡°There stands three people in front of you today who were existences that you once looked up to. Do you think yourself something just because you have a little bit of strength? You would have more dignity to your name if you had the ck Widowe. You? Hah!¡±

    An exceedingly unpleasant expression spread across Green Moon¡¯s face! She was a right and properte Nova, one of the Seven Moons of Red Moon. She was a preeminent existence even in the central region. Everyone showed her some face! But here, she was the target of snubs and insults!

    And yet... and yet, she was also a Silver Moon martial master and knew how brazen these people once were. Who would¡¯ve thought that they¡¯d still be so arrogant yearster?

    ¡°Berserk de!¡± she snapped back. ¡°Don¡¯t live in the past! It¡¯s been twenty years since the rise of the supernatural and martial masters are relics of the past! Recognize the times you live in!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s one thing for someone else to say that,¡± Golden Spear sighed. ¡°As trash as you are, you were once a Silver Moon martial master. To think that you¡¯d say the same thing too... As expected, trash is trash!¡±

    They could pretend not to hear it if supernaturals voiced these sentiments, but to think that a Silver Moon martial master would say the same thing, and with pride and jeering! They disdained having anything to do with her!

    When others said so, they did so with a sigh, regret, or reluctance. But there was absolute schadenfreude in her voice! No wonder martial world experts couldn¡¯t bother themselves with her. Only Ying Hongyue liked the taste of her.

 Chapter 422: All Parties In Attendance (III)

    <h4>Chapter 422: All Parties In Attendance (III)</h4>

    Green Moon snorted coldly and didn¡¯t deign to respond to the criticism. Neither was she willing to discuss events from the past.

    ¡°I feel there¡¯s no need to continue senseless ughter! The ruins are about to open, or are you talons of the government ready to im it all for yourself?¡±

    If they insulted her, she would curse them back!<i> You¡¯re not that much better off if I¡¯m shameless! Aren¡¯t you all dogs and hunting birds of the dynasty? This is just the pot calling the kettle ck!</i>

    As expected, even Golden Spear didn¡¯t respond after herment. He stared forward frostily and spoke no further. They had all once held the Guards in contempt, but now were part of the group. Golden Spear was even their leader. He was ready for others to jeer at him for this; there would be nothing he could say in return.

    But thank goodness it was Green Peacock doing the cursing, he could ept that. He likely couldn¡¯t ept it if it was one of the thirty-six insulting him. That would be too mortifying. Golden Spear didn¡¯t mind that his strength didn¡¯t measure up to Green Moon¡¯s. There was a discernible direction for the path of martial dao. They would surpass the powerful supernaturals of the day sooner orter, so what was there to be afraid of?

    Manager Yu didn¡¯t mind either that attention had been taken away from her. She spoke calmly when they were done. ¡°Green Moon, summon Tidal Wave before we start discussing business. Otherwise, the extermination of your faction will not stop! So what if you¡¯vee? The director just isn¡¯t willing to leave the city. Do you think you would have any chance of victory otherwise?

    ¡°Also, Half Mountain seems to have gone as well...¡± Yu Luocha looked at the cloaked powerhouse. ¡°Which Celestial elder are you?¡±

    ¡°My surname and given name have long been forgotten.¡± The man¡¯s voice was hoarse. ¡°They are too unrefined for these august circles. I do have a moniker, however. I don¡¯t know if Yu Luocha has heard it before¡ªI am known as Crimson Light!¡±

    <i>Crimson Light?</i>

    Yu Luocha pondered a moment when she heard the name and smiled faintly. ¡°I believe... I¡¯ve heard it before! There was a rumored peak Dominator assassinated in the central region seven years ago. Apparently a Celestial powerhouse was behind it. The killer was... Crimson Light, that¡¯s you, right?¡±

    ¡°Yu Luocha is indeed clear sighted!¡± the elderughed in raspy tones. ¡°That my humble name can be recalled by others is my honor!¡±

    He¡¯d assassinated a peak Dominator seven years ago and was now a Nova. In the era of supernaturals, powerhouses improved at a rapid clip. One had to possess stunning battle aplishments to be a Celestial elder. Whether it was assassinations or fights in the open, Crimson Light would be formidable at both.

    Manager Yu didn¡¯t say anything else. There were four Novas in front of her and possibly more in the shadows. While everyone regarded Green Peacock with contempt, she was a bonafidete Nova. The manager didn¡¯t continue fighting these people as she may note off better in the trade if a true fight broke out.

    The Parity King was very strong and Crimson Light would not be weak as well. They were just watching the show earlier and hadn¡¯t taken a stand, resulting in Blue Moon losing face. While the three great organizations worked together, sometimes theypeted against each other as well.

    ¡°Have Half Mountain and the others return before we discuss the ruins!¡± Manager Yu dered, not wanting to say too much. ¡°The director has also given orders that he wishes to see Li Hao stand here in perfect health. Otherwise, none of you will be entering Battle Heaven!¡±

    The Novas frowned slightly.

    ¡°Violet Moon...¡± Green Moon began frostily.

    Yu Luocha stared her down.

    ¡°Forget it, I¡¯ll call you Yu Luocha since you¡¯ve thrown our prior rtionship away,¡± Green Moon chuckled. ¡°Hou Xiaochen does not call the shots for the Battle Heaven ruins. Look at how many powerhouses are present! There are those of the nine ministries apart from us, some young geniuses from the Divine Masters Ranking, various overlords of nearby provinces, as well as princes and dukes.

    ¡°Is Hou Xiaochen prepared to offend everyone in the world? Or is he really treating himself as the king of Silver Moon? When did the province be his?¡±

    Malicious intent heavilyced those words! Yet Manager Yu remained coollyposed.

    ¡°So what if he is the Silver Moon King? He <i>is</i> the king of Silver Moon! What of the nine ministries or royal family? They have to tuck in their tails in Silver Moon! Just try us if you don¡¯t ept that!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The premises were frighteningly quiet. This was someone close to Hou Xiaochen, and she was speaking such words!

    Unbelievable! Was this what Hou Xiaochen himself thought? Or was Yu Luocha digging a hole for him?

    Green Moon was astounded. Had this person in front of her lost her mind??

    ¡°What are you all looking at me for?¡± Manager Yu remained calm. ¡°If the director goes to Skystar City to petition for a title of nobility from the royal family, will they not give it to him? They cannot wait for the director and nine ministries to be at odds with each other! Being the Silver Moon King is nothing!¡±

    Now that was arrogance! However, it made the crowd quiet down. This... was a distinct possibility!

    Green Moon frowned, not wanting to go down this path of nonsense. ¡°Tidal Wave and the others have gone to Ash Mountain. They¡¯ve been out of contact for many days. Perhaps Li Hao will return in a while. Are you going to offend everyone in thend for a mere Li Hao?¡±

    Losing contact was true, not wanting to retreat was also true! No one wanted Li Hao more than Red Moon. They also least desired for him to have more time to grow and develop. If they couldn¡¯t capture the boy, then they would kill him!

    This was the true issue that no one wished to give way on.

    Another group of people walked in from a distance at this time. They weren¡¯t that strong and were escorted by a group of soldiers. A panting old man quickly presented himself, taking a while to catch his breath.

    ¡°Good, you¡¯re all here!¡± He smiled. ¡°Listen to me, everyone. Silver Moon is caught in the grip of chaos. Casualties from battle have been high and the hardships are too great for the people to endure. The provincial government has given orders for all sides to cease hostilities and focus on negotiations!

    ¡°The ancients left us the ruins of Battle Heaven, they do not belong to one house alone. The essence of ancient civilization is avable to all regardless of region or strength. Do not easily think to take up arms in this pursuit...¡± The old man swayed back and forth, reciting a speech in front of these powerhouses. ¡°Director General Zhao has given orders that all sides can enter the ruins. But since the ruins are located in Silver Moon, that makes us the host. If other parties enter... suitablepensation must be rendered. The exact details can be discussed with the Night Watchers.

    ¡°We hope that all powerhouses think carefully before taking action! The provincial governmentmiserates with the people and does not wish for the mes of war to burn on. If any dissatisfaction lingers, the director general has also given orders to shoot ten city annihtion missiles at Rift Canyon every month. They will be fired each time the ruins open. Therefore, please reconsider if you¡¯d like to force your way inside!¡±

    The old man smiled after his speech and exhaled a long breath. ¡°Such are the orders from the Silver Moon authorities. Please take them to heart!¡±

    ¡°Deputy Zhou,¡± Golden Spear grumbled. ¡°The three great organizations are hunting one of my centurions. Do we let them off the hook just like that?

    ¡°Every bite and every sip is preordained,¡± sighed the deputy. ¡°Li Hao... drew first blood and has now entered Ash Mountain. That does not fall within Silver Moon purview, so we can only hope for his continued good fortune.

    ¡°But if the three great organizations insist on continuing the hunt after he re-enters Silver Moon territory, the provincial government will certainly report it to the nine ministries. Anyone of the Silver Moon government will jointly execute the transgressors!

    ¡°Silver Moon is still of the dynasty!¡± Deputy Zhou dered righteously and looked around him. ¡°We of the provincial government may not pay attention to other matters, but if those of the nine ministries do not follow our lead in our territory, that marks them as traitors! That designation will not be overturned unless someone else conquers Silver Moon. Those of the nine ministries will still be wanted throughout thends even after returning home!¡±

    Some powerhouses hidden in the darkness cursed softly. That old fart was excellent with official jargon! And they had no choice but to go along with it. Their only alternative was to join the three great organizations or be wandering cultivators. Otherwise, being employed at the nine ministries, they could not afford to be deemed a traitor by an official government authority of the dynasty. Even though that designation could be appealed, it was very troublesome for their careers!

    ¡°I leave it at that,¡± Deputy Zhou panted. ¡°Everyone, a bad peace is better than a good fight! Although the three great organizations are evil organizations, Silver Moon is willing to let bygones be bygones. So long as you are willing to see the light and turn over a new leaf, we are willing to open a door and extend an olive branch to the three great evil organizations...¡±

    Being repeatedly termed evil made their powerhouses grind their teeth!

    ¡°Violence and bloodshed is not the way to resolve problems,¡± Deputy Zhou continued. ¡°The provincial government does not wish to see further conflict break out. From today forth, the official arrests of the three great evil organizations are temporarily halted! We hope that you will respect Silver Moon¡¯sws and do not impede your own futures!¡±

    With that, he turned and left. The deputy left the three great organizations, observing powerhouses, and even Night Watchers speechless. How... unexpected that the government had gotten involved!

    Was this giving a way out for both sides? It... was a situation difficult to resolve otherwise.

    Deputy Zhou left as quickly as he came. He climbed into a car waiting in the distance and looked back at the scene with a shake of his head. ¡°Bunch of brutes! Killing each other from day to night... There¡¯s no end to that, so why kill each other?¡±

    Kill all of the enemy in one go if it came down to that. Otherwise, were they really going to fight each other to the bitter end when it was clear that they were evenly matched? Both sides had dug their heels in and there was no one to smooth over the situation. Then the provincial government would be the lubricant. Hopefully with this way out, everyone¡¯s attention would refocus on the ruins.

    They could settle any grudges in the ruins. There wouldn¡¯t be much of an effect if they raised hell or all died in there.

    The old man thought that it was better to let these fiends all enter the ruins when his thoughts traveled here. The unrest would stop as soon as they were inside. Their perfectly fine Silver Moon was being ruined by all of these devils!

 Chapter 423: South Below and North Above (I)

    <h4>Chapter 423: South Below and North Above (I)</h4>

    <i>Ash Mountain.</i>

    Li Hao and the Demon Hunters made swift time. As expected, there were few major monster spirits residing in the woods after they passed the territory of the four they¡¯d encountered earlier. However, the hawk in the sky continued to apany them. It might be to follow them, and it might be to protect them. Or it might be worried that the group would cause another sh between the two premier martial masters. The four major spirits already knew that the swordsman¡¯s daughter resided among the group.

    That was of secondary importance. The primary importance was that the demon¡¯s heir was among them!

    When it came to Yuan Shuo, three of the four major monster spirits were fearful of the man. They could not forget how strong he was. Surely he was a force to be reckoned with even though Hong Yitang said that he¡¯d slightly fallen behind the other thirty-six.

    ......

    The Demon Hunters walked for a full day and night, traveling two hundred and fifty kilometers. That was their limit on these winding and twisty mountain paths. Li Hao could continue, but the others could not. He called for a halt when he heard breathing grow heavy.

    ¡°Stop and rest!¡±

    Many sagged to the ground as soon as he stopped. Their nerves were stretched taut and they¡¯d traveled at a punishing speed. Most of the Demon Hunters were exhausted.

    Hong Qing walked over,pletely drenched with sweat inside her armor, yet holding up beneath the difort. She normally avoided conversation with Li Hao as the young man intimidated her with his brusqueness. However, she approached with some apprehension at this time. ¡°Leader!¡±

    ¡°Yes?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. Did this martial dao second generation find the pace too grueling?

    ¡°Um, ah... My sword method seems to have improvedtely, but I still fall short when ites to the aura. Since the leader is a swordsman and the greatest in Silver Moon these days, could you... give me a pointer or two?¡±

    Li Hao looked askance at her. <i>Give you pointers? And me the greatest swordsman? Your dad¡¯s way stronger than me. </i>But it made sense seeing how deeply Hong Yitang hid himself.

    ¡°You can ask me any questions you have.¡± He nodded. ¡°Not only you, but any of the others as well.¡±

    Hong Qing beamed! Li Hao was a grandmaster alright!

    ¡°My sword technique is well-honed and I have some thoughts when ites to the aura. However, the key to the aura lies in presentation of mind intent. I have many ideas in mind, but am never able to fully act on them and present the sword aura that I envision...¡± Hong Qing understood the sword aura and had certain theories about it, but she was unable to really disy it.

    Li Hao immediately identified where the crux of the problem was. It wasn¡¯t a difficult issue. He thought for a moment before responding, ¡°Youck a stimulus.¡±

    ¡°A stimulus?¡±

    ¡°Youck a battle in which you will find full satisfaction. The enemy cannot be too strong or too weak. They must be equal in strength to you. You saw how my battle with Sun Moxian went. That was when I coalesced my sword aura...¡±

    ¡°Wasn¡¯t that an act?¡± Hong Qing blinked.

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao blinked back at her, understanding her meaning only after a moment. He grinned ruefully when he looked at the rest of the team. inly, they all thought that he¡¯d been pretending in that battle, that he hadn¡¯t been a Sunderer then. They thought he was just presenting the same level of strength as his opponent.

    He didn¡¯t bother exining himself. ¡°Many of youck this opportunity, and it is indeed a kind of fortuitous opportunity. You need to find an evenly matched opponent who happens to be an enemy. They must disregard their own life and be willing to fight to the end with you, to bring forth everything theymand and know!

    ¡°It won¡¯t be difficult for you to manifest your auras if you meet this kind of opponent. Of course, there are other ways apart from that.

    ¡°You can observe stronger auras, but that might not result in the kind of aura that you wish. You might reap some other gains if you witness a sword aura of the same origins.¡±

    Li Hao thought of Hong Yitang. If the man disyed his aura to his disciples, some of them mightprehend the sword aura. The reasons that he hadn¡¯t were also vaguely apparent to the young man. Perhaps Hong Yitang didn¡¯t wish all of his disciples to follow his path. In martial dao, particrly when it came to the aura, one¡¯s own enlightenment was stronger than observing someone else¡¯s.

    However, Li Hao also knew that not everyone was Hong Yitang. The pupil could not always exceed the master. Hong Yitang¡¯s expectations for his disciples were too high. It would be most ideal if he could personally demonstrate the sword aura for his disciples.

    Hong Qing was hesitant, but still asked, ¡°Leader, can you demonstrate your sword intent for us? Show us how powerful a sword aura can be from a real powerhouse.¡±

    Li Hao looked speechlessly at her. If he didn¡¯t know that she didn¡¯t know her father¡¯s true condition, he¡¯d think that she was mocking him. She was choosing not to learn from her dominating father and wanting to learn from him instead!

    Well, it wasn¡¯t impossible for him to demonstrate his sword intent.

    ¡°I can.¡± Li Hao nodded after some thought. ¡°But you might not gain anything from it. My sword intent hasn¡¯t reached perfection yet either. It might be more inspirational when I improve. I was there when my teacher set foot into Dominator and gained a lot from it. Therefore, my rmendation is for you guys to wait a bit longer.¡±

    The Demon Hunters mightprehend more from his aura once his five swords were one and the perfect swords of the five elements.

    ¡°Then we await the leader¡¯s perfected sword intent.¡± Hong Qing had no choice but to conclude. In reality, she felt that Li Hao might not be willing to teach them. That was only to be expected and nothing out of the ordinary.

    The young man said nothing further. He spoke the truth, that Hong Qing and the others wouldn¡¯t receive much if they studied his sword intent in its current state.

    The topic was dismissed and the group focused on their respective cultivation again. Late Sunderers turned their attention to sensing the aura. Mid Sunderers took advantage of the respite to improve once more and set foot intote Sunderer.

    Li Hao began training as well. His training happened to push the rest forward on their martial path as unattributed mysterious power wafted from him as a result of distition by sword energy. It was stronger than regr unattributed mysterious power and fortified the constitutions of the Demon Hunters.

    The young man was hard at work at the pile of mysterious power he sat on. If he just let it be, it would be another person¡¯s spoils sooner orter. Thus, he distilled elemental energy out of it.

    Each of his organs already stood at fifteen hundred cubes. One mysterious power stone produced nearly three hundred cubes through sword energy under ordinary conditions. The range of deviation wasn¡¯t great.

    He¡¯d gathered arge sum of stones this time, but consumed most of it to save Hong Yitang and He Yong. There were one hundred and sixty pieces left. Based on his previous distition efficacy, that would result in forty-five thousand cubes of power.

    Li Hao might not be able to absorb so much energy as there were still limits to the body. His goal was to reach five thousand cubes in each organ, as well as his physical body and bones. That meant the organs required seventeen thousand and five hundred cubes, and that the body and bones required eight thousand.

    That would ensure that his body, bones, and organs were at five thousand cubes each. It would make him three times stronger than current. In that way, even if his sword aura didn¡¯t improve, he himself would show massive advancement.

    Twenty-five thousand cubes of mysterious power... Not even a premier Nova would be able to absorb that sum under normal circumstances. But since martial masters constantly resided in a state of enhancing their supernatural locks, that didn¡¯t hold true for them.

    The young man sat down cross-legged, thinking of his teacher again while perusing these thoughts. Yuan Shuo¡¯s heart had absorbed one thousand cubes of fire energy when he left. While he¡¯d nurtured his organs for a few years, his heart had been damaged then. Therefore, his teacher¡¯s organs might not be that strong.

    It now looked like they were only at the fifteen hundred cubes level. While he¡¯d killed some Red Moon members these days and extracted their blood pearls, Li Hao felt that his teacher¡¯s absorption efficacy would be limited without the aid of sword energy. It would be providence from the heavens if his teacher could reach two thousand cubes each.

    Li Hao could not surpass his teacher in terms of aura for now, but the foundation of his body and organs would likelypletely outstrip his teacher after this incident.

    A smile spread across the young man¡¯s face; energy percted through the crowd. Whether it was Li Hao, Liu Long, or the others, all of the Demon Hunters quietly absorbed the drifting energy. To them, strength of the body didn¡¯t seem that useful and any potential strengthening was limited. However, they knew that Summoner of Spirit had something to do with the strength of the organs. Thus, they were slightly hopeful that after theyprehended the aura... perhaps the path of Summoner would be essible to them.

    ......

    Time passed second by second. It was another day in the blink of an eye. September 22nd now, the little valley that Li Hao and the others were in was now obscured by energy. A hawk circled overhead a few times, but didn¡¯t darend. It watched with confusion and surprise from afar. Were these humans cultivating? That miasma of energy was so dense!

    ......

    Rumbles echoed from Li Hao¡¯s body! Bolts of thunder and lightning shook his bones while the power of wind strengthened his body. Of the five organs, all of the supernatural locks gleamed with reinforcement. The lock of the lungs that¡¯d barely managed to lock the metal aura aura now mped firmly over it. The metal aura could no longer struggle free!

    Close to Li Hao, Liu Long¡¯s organs shook and his blood thrummed furiously without rest. Waves reared near his kidneys. The man had wanted to lock the waves into the kidneys a few times, but always fell a bit short.

    His organs weren¡¯t strong enough and he¡¯d yet to reach the level of locking his auras. Once he did, that was a precursor to Summoner of Spirit. It would mean that the martial master¡¯s cultivation level was the equivalent of a Sr, but that his actual battle strength might be stronger than an initial Sr.

 Chapter 424: South Below and North Above (II)

    <h4>Chapter 424: South Below and North Above (II)</h4>

    Liu Long absorbed a great deal of energy as he sat next to Li Hao. Unattributed mysterious power strengthened the entire body without focusing on a particr area. What he would take in from Li Hao over the day would immensely fortify his physique. But... it still wasn¡¯t enough!

    In his current state, he was yet to reach an average of five hundred cubes per organ. No matter how much unattributed energy he took in, it didn¡¯t have the targeted effect of quickly enhancing the five organs.

    Just as Liu Long grew irritated and wanted to give up with regret, a new surge of energy entered his body. Shock gripped him and he opened his eyes with a jerk of his head. Li Hao happened to open his eyes at the same time and nced at the man, not saying a word. Liu Long shut his eyes again, but sensed energies of the five elements surging toward him from the young man.

    inly, Li Hao had sensed something and extracted the five elements to help Liu Long nurture his organs. Thetter¡¯s face ran through a variety of expressions, but he didn¡¯t say anything. Emotions assailed his heart.

    He knew a little of the Summoner of Spirit level, and that possessing auras for each of the organs was the best. Would a Summoner with just one kind of aura be strong? Perhaps he¡¯d rival a Sr, what next? Did he continue to strengthen just that aura? What should go into the other organs?

    He knew that Li Hao¡¯s ultimate goal was tobine five sword auras. Yuan Shuo¡¯s goal was to summon spirits with all five of his auras as well. But he... only had the water area of the Nine Forged Force.

    Liu Long suddenly felt quite depressed and aggrieved. Was there no future for a Dominator with one aura? Must he reach perfection?

    He suddenly recalled his father, the second spear of Silver Moon¡ªthe formidable Silver Spear. His father had been known throughout thend due to hismand of a fire dragon spear.

    <i>That means... the Nine Forged Force isn¡¯t just meant for the water aura, that one aura may be able to split into five!</i>

    It was all theory to Liu Long. In his current state, he wouldn¡¯t possibly turn one aura into five without relevantprehension and additional gains. It was better to set foot into Summoner of Spirit first.

    He ignored the issue and energy flowing into his body. Whatever Li Hao was giving him, he would store it for now.

    As Li Hao¡¯s strength improved, he began meeting more opponents that were each more terrifying than thest. While he improved quickly as a Dominator, to the point of being able to defeat ate or even peak Sr, that was still far from enough!

    If he could sessfully lock the water aura into his kidneys, he might be able to stand toe-to-toe with Srs in conflicts.

    ......

    Li Hao was devoted to his meditation, but took note of Liu Long¡¯s condition during the process and sent the man some elemental energy when appropriate. He ignored everyone after that.

    The team captains knew how to lock the auras into their organs, but it was another matter entirely if they would seed. After all, they hadn¡¯t been Dominators for long. They weren¡¯t like Li Hao and could use sword energy as a shortcut. Massive quantities of sword energy had enhanced the young man¡¯s body beyond imagination. He was possibly second to only Southern Fist.

    He Yong¡¯s blood qi was forceful, indicating that his body wouldn¡¯t be too weak. It wouldn¡¯t be able to endure such fierce blood qi otherwise.

    Li Hao absorbed, distilled, and digested cube after cube of energy. Shards of mysterious power stones continuously added to a pile on the ground. Large sums of energy flooded his body as his organs swiftly grew stronger.

    ......

    Another day passed in the blink of an eye.

    Many on the team were saturated with energy and walked out of the cultivation circle, electing to practice their boxing routines and sword techniques to work it off. Some mid Sunderers depleted as much energy as they could when they left so they could return to absorb more, hoping to set foot intote Sunderer if possible. Many were those who¡¯d taken that step over the past two days.

    Apart from Li Hao and Liu Long,te Sunderers were the majority of the Demon Hunters. There were more than thirty of them now, with a few martial masters stuck in mid Sunderer. Late Sunderers could release their internal force from the head. That still proved difficult for a few people.

    They¡¯d been yers to begin with and left White Moon City with Li Hao on September 15. It was now September 23¡ªremarkable progress in less than ten days.

    Some who¡¯d beente Sunderers to begin with were working on their auras. That included the originally mid Sunderer Li Hang, Wu Chao, and Chen Jian... Everyone was trying hard toprehend the aura.

    Liu Yan had beente Sunderer at the start¡ªshe waved her twin des around. There was no sound from the group other than that of training. The Demon Hunters asionally snuck a nce at their leader who was still furiously absorbing energy. The only other was Liu Long.

    The sound of chains dragging asionally sounded from Liu Long¡¯s body, raising questions in the others. The sound of chains? Where did theye from? These people had yet to probe the depths of Summoner, that was a bit too far from them.

    This instance was Li Hao¡¯s longest one of absorbing energy.

    ......

    <i>September 24. Night.</i>

    Li Hao breathed out a long sigh before opening his eyes. He felt almost reborn after three days and nights of continuously absorbing mysterious power. His organs were now approximately five thousand cubes each. His Five Styles might not be any weaker than his sword aura now.

    His auras hadn¡¯t grown any stronger¡ªthey just felt fuller.

    The group as a whole had consumed a great deal of mysterious power over the past day. Li Hao himself depleted twenty thousand cubes, whereas Liu Long also absorbed thousands of the five elements thanks to his care. That made for almost thirty thousand cubes of mysterious power and one hundred and ten pieces of mysterious power stones. There were only roughly fifty left in his storage ring. Plenty of mysterious power was left¡ªmore than forty thousand cubes of all attributes.

    Li Hao rose to his feet and took a deep breath, punching out with a fist!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A massive collision sounded¡ªit was stronger than expected. However, the young man frowned. The initial burst of force wasn¡¯t as strong as he wanted it to be. He punched again, observing carefully as he followed through. There were some problems that he took note of.

    His organs were too strong, his body and bones strong as well. However, his blood and qi had be detriments. They couldn¡¯t keep up. While his blood qi had increased alongside his organs, they didn¡¯t improve at the same pace.

    <i>Southern Fist...</i> Li Hao thought of He Yong¡¯s indomitable blood qi. His was significantly stronger than the young man¡¯s. How had the man done it? His organs were so middle-of-the-road, so how was his blood qi so strong?

    While Li Hao¡¯s body was incredibly strong, the stronger he grew, the more he discovered that there were too many ces that one¡¯s body could be strengthened. It was almost impossible to not have any weaknesses.

    No wonder martial masters stuck to one path. Either they focused on blood qi or the physical body. The sword aura was strong or the de intent...

    Hong Yitang¡¯s sword aura was domineering and his body not bad, but even someone such as he had only managed to strengthen two aspects of himself. His organs were weak, thus leaving a gaping hole in his capabilities.

    <i>It¡¯s too hard for martial masters to beprehensively powerful. </i>Li Hao sighed to himself and erupted with the metal sword aura with a gentle wave. The metal aura used to break through his body, but was now contained to his fingertip. There was only slight bleeding. If things were as before, his entire finger would be blown off.

    The young man familiarized himself with his increased strength; it didn¡¯t rage out of control due to outstripping his capabilities. He was simply less familiar with his new strength. That was quickly rectified as he slowly gained full control over his enhanced capabilities.

    His fortified body even led to further development of the Nine Forged Force. Li Hao¡¯s muscles writhed as he punched out gently. Once, twice... eight times in simultaneous session. Eightyers were no burden for him anymore, but he¡¯d yet to reach the ninthyer.

    The young man frowned slightly and punched again. Once, twice... eight times once more!

    He tried again and again while chains rattled out of Liu Long¡¯s body. The man was suppressing the water ripple aura and looked to have entered the stage of locking his aura. Once he did, he would count as having set foot into Summoner of Spirit.

    However, Li Hao didn¡¯t know what Liu Long¡¯s next step should be. The man should focus on strengthening one aura first.

    Yuan Shuo had theorized the Summoner level ording to his own cultivation methods. Li Hao was currently not qualified to overturn his teacher¡¯s thoughts or change certain cultivation methods. He¡¯d thought of having five organs nurture one aura, but he didn¡¯t know how it looked in practice.

    The young man ignored Liu Long and punched repeatedly. Hints of a ninthyer were present when the night was fully dark. However, there was still something off about it. It didn¡¯t flow as the previousyers did.

    Li Hao smiled. That was good enough! It meant that he could deploy the ninthyer. He just wasn¡¯t practiced enough with it and needed more time to familiarize himself. It wouldn¡¯t take long so long as he held fast. His Nine Forged Force was almostplete!

    Li Hao walked over to the practicing Li Heng. Thetter was practicing his sword and whirled around when he sensed someone behind him. He jumped with shock when he saw his visitor and quickly paused. ¡°Leader!¡±

    ¡°Well done.¡± Li Hao inclined his head with a smile. ¡°The Weeping Willow Sword... turns the heavy into the light. Outsiders think this technique is soft and without force. They don¡¯t know that it really hurts to be whipped by a willow. Its softness contains stiffness and pain.¡±

    ¡°You have a great eye, leader.¡± Li Heng smiled; it was concealed beneath the visor. ¡°The Weeping Willow Sword is very strong. I haven¡¯t trained it to that level yet.¡±

    ¡°Are there different levels to the Weeping Willow Sword?¡± Li Hao asked curiously.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Heng held nothing back upon seeing that his leader wished to chat. He tried to gauge Li Hao¡¯s thoughts as he spoke, ¡°There aren¡¯t that many, just four levels. The first level is the basics. One reaches it after learning the breathing method and technique. The second manifests internal force as a sword. That part¡¯s rather hard.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. This was rather impressive!

 Chapter 425: South Below and North Above (III)

    <h4>Chapter 425: South Below and North Above (III)</h4>

    It¡¯d taken Li Hao reaching half step Dominator before he could manifest his internal force as a sword. It was this feat that catapulted him into half step Dominator.

    ¡°Perfection of the second level is naturally toprehend the sword aura.¡± Li Heng smiled broadly. ¡°I think I¡¯m almost there... but even if I do sessfully shape my internal force into a sword, I¡¯m still a long ways off from reaching perfection with the Weeping Willow Sword.

    ¡°The third level is of a keen sword without an edge, and the fourth level is willows swaying in the wind!¡± The young manughed diffidently. ¡°These aren¡¯t my words, they¡¯re recorded in the secret manual. If one reaches the third level, that means even a sword without an edge can bring the sharpest edge into y. That is the core goal of the Weeping Willow Sword.

    ¡°The technique imitates the sway of willow branches and drifting of catkins. Utilizing it in peak condition is to flow like the catkins. One flies and kills wherever the wind blows. Where there is a catkin, there is sword intent...¡±

    Li Hao nodded, mulling over this unique state. It must be incredible. To float gently like the willow¡¯s catkins and move ording to the wind. Wasn¡¯t that the sensation of ten thousand swords striking at once?

    ¡°Can you teach your secret method to outsiders?¡±

    <i>To outsiders?</i> Li Heng blinked and looked hesitantly at Li Hao. ¡°Leader, do you mean...¡±

    ¡°I want to learn.¡±

    Li Heng stopped. Although the Weeping Willow Sword wasn¡¯t weak, it wasn¡¯t one of the Seven Swords. And Li Hao? He knew the Five Styles, Ghost Shadow Sword, Nine Forged Force... These methods were from the thirty-six heroes. The strength of their wielders was a direct nod to how formidable the method was.

    The more was not the merrier when it came to secret arts. Not to mention, Earthturner Sword¡¯s heir was among the team. Earnturner Sword was also much more famous that Weeping Willow Sword. Why was Li Hao setting aside Earthturner Sword to learn from Li Heng??

    ¡°You¡¯re Weeping Willow Sword¡¯s only heir,¡± Li Hao continued when the other remained silent. ¡°That makes you the equivalent of the boss of the discipline. You have the right to teach others. Of course, I¡¯m not going to force you into anything. You can counter with your conditions or refuse to teach outsiders altogether. It¡¯s fine. As martial masters, we hold as a basic t that the core of our secret methods should not be taught to others not of the discipline. I won¡¯t hold a grudge against you if you refuse. Don¡¯t worry.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m worried about,¡± Li Hengughed drily. ¡°It¡¯s just... Leader, you know plenty of secret arts. Why do you want to learn the Weeping Willow Sword? If my memory serves correctly, you know the Ghost Shadow Sword, right?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°That one¡¯s much more famous than Weeping Willow Sword.¡±

    ¡°I have use for your method,¡± Li Hao answered simply.

    ¡°To be honest, that conveniently gained master of mine died not long after teaching me.¡± Li Heng thought for a bit. ¡°He did mention before leaving to not let the inheritance of the Weeping Willow Sword to be lost. But...

    ¡°I can only teach it to a disciple!¡± Li Heng suddenly made up his mind and set his jaw. ¡°It¡¯s not hard if you want to learn it, leader. But... but first, you must join the Weeping Willow discipline!¡±

    Li Hao frowned and thought of a possible solution. ¡°Can I be an honorary disciple? I don¡¯t need to learn the third and fourth levels, I just want to stop at the second level so I can manifest my internal force with a unique technique.¡±

    <i>An honorary disciple!</i>

    Li Heng mused deeply for a moment and nodded. ¡°This will do if you don¡¯t intend to practice thete stage levels. But you willck the heart of the Weeping Willow Sword, so you¡¯ll only be able to learn the motions, leader.¡±

    This was the equivalent of Wang Ming and hisrades receiving only the most basic breathing technique of the Five Styles. They did not have a chance to touch upon the heart of the method since they were just honorary disciples.

    Li Hao dismissed and exined, ¡°My teacher still lives, so the Five Styles discipline remains. I wouldn¡¯t mind much of anything if my teacher was no longer of this world. I could even be the heir of the Weeping Willow discipline without thinking twice of it. But unless my master is killed in the central region, I can only be an honorary disciple for now.¡±

    ¡°......¡± These words weren¡¯t that pleasant to the ear. Li Heng inwardly raised an eyebrow. <i>So... do you want your teacher to be beaten to death or not?</i>

    ¡°Additionally, I won¡¯t be taking your knowledge for free,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°If I am to be an honorary disciple, I would not be yours or your teacher¡¯s. Can you ept me on behalf of your martial forefather?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Heng paused. So this kind of action was eptable as well?

    ¡°I¡¯m not taking advantage of you,¡± exined Li Hao. ¡°It¡¯s because my teacher is the same generation as your teacher. The Weeping Willow Sword and Five Styles King are of the same generation as well. If you do ept me as an honorary disciple... Well, I don¡¯t care about my position in the hierarchy. But if it¡¯s something that will bring dishonor to my teacher, this is something all veteran martial masters will care more about.

    ¡°None of these problems will exist if I be Weeping Willow¡¯s honorary disciple!¡±

    It was Li Heng who greeted the suggestion wordlessly. <i>There </i>will<i> be a problem, I¡¯ll have another martial uncle!</i>

    But on further thought, that wasn¡¯t to his detriment. If Weeping Willow was alive and knew of the circumstances surrounding Li Hao, no one would say a word if Li Hao was epted as a core disciple, much less an honorary one. Weeping Willow wouldn¡¯t even mind if Li Hao was still known as of the Five Styles discipline. How wonderful it was to have a swordsman who knew multiple sword auras join the Weeping Willow discipline!

    ¡°In order to have Weeping Willow Sword rest at peace in the other world, I can supply five thousand cubes of mysterious power and ten mysterious power stones to the sect,¡± Li Hao offered.

    ¡°......¡± Li Heng¡¯s jaw dropped. Was that necessary? The leader was only learning up to the second level of the sword method, was such heftypensation truly necessary? Or were the first two levels already some stunning secret art through the ages?

    Li Heng couldn¡¯t make sense of it, but he nodded after some consideration. ¡°That can be done, but... leader, are you giving me so much out of special consideration? Are you trying to ensure that my high potential doesn¡¯t go to waste?¡±

    Li Hao blinked. What was this fellow thinking about?

    Li Heng decided that this must be the truth and was very touched by the sentiment. ¡°You don¡¯t have to do this, leader. As good as my potential may be, I was dyed by several years. There are those in the team who are younger than me and with brighter futures. It¡¯s not right to waste so much on me. The others will think this treatment is unfair...¡±

    Li Hao quietly watched his performance for a few moments before saying, ¡°I need the Weeping Willow Sword toplete my sword aura. None of this... has much to do with you.¡±

    Li Heng paused in his disy of emotions.<i> Really?</i> Forget it, he couldn¡¯t be bothered to think about this in greater detail. ¡°Then very well, I ept if you insist, leader.¡±

    Five thousand cubes of mysterious power and ten mysterious power stones was an astronomical sum! It would be worth it to teach all four levels of the method, to say nothing of just the first two. Li Heng didn¡¯t say anything about Li Hao¡¯s desire to adhere to martial world rules and thus his unwillingness to join the Weeping Willow discipline. He quickly ryed the rudimentary knowledge of the first two levels, as well as the core breathing method.

    The material wasn¡¯t too hard and Li Hao¡¯s memory was very capable, so he quicklymitted the information to heart.

    Li Heng then demonstrated it a few times, ensuring that his leader fully grasped the core knowledge of the method. However, there might be difficulties in manifesting his internal force as a sword because he¡¯d already done so once before. Li Hao might need to locate another way toplete the secondyer of training for the Weeping Willow Sword.

    As for whether or not he would sessfullyprehend the wood sword aura from the Weeping Willow method... that remained to be seen.

    Another violent tter of chains sounded as the two practiced. An explosive roar rang out! There was no blood at the corner of Liu Long¡¯s lips, but his kidneys hurt. He frowned and roared, leaping upright and punching outward!

    A massive explosion ripped through the air as a powerful wave churned through heaven and earth. It exploded in the blink of an eye! A chain broke out of the wave when it exploded and pierced through the void.

    Liu Long heaved a long exhale while the Demon Hunters around him regarded him with shock. This move seemed much more explosive than before! Li Hao rushed over and took a nce at Liu Long, then sighed.

    The man was puzzled. Wasn¡¯t this a feat worthy of celebration? He¡¯d sessfully locked his aura in ce! Although it was just one aura and his organs being weaker than Yuan Shuo when he was of this level, he was still a Summoner of Spirit no matter what. He may not be as strong as Yuan Shuo when the old man was an initial Summoner, but Liu Long could take on Srs now!

    <i>What are you sighing for after I¡¯ve improved so much in such a short period of time?</i>

    Li Hao began to say something, stopped, and decided on transmission. ¡°Ah, chief... Strengthen your kidneys more in the future. They can barely withstand the impact from your aura. It might mean... ai!¡±

    <i>That your kidneys arecking and therefore your sexual ability!</i>

    This was when Liu Long realized what the young man was implying and raised a wordless eyebrow at the young man. Why the hell was the kid thinking of <i>this</i> after seeing all that? What was wrong with him??

    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much, as martial masters...¡± he transmitted back.

    ¡°Martial masters also need to procreate and get a wife!¡± Li Hao¡¯s return transmission cut him off. <i>My poor chief, he wanted to strengthen his water aura first, but his kidneys aren¡¯t up to the task. Every bit of strength from that organ is used to lock his aura in ce, leaving nothing left for any other function. This might have been a simr situation when teacher forcefully summoned his water tiger... but teacher is old, so it doesn¡¯t matter. Chief is still in the prime of his life!</i>

    Liu Long waspletely speechless and couldn¡¯t be bothered with the young man. This was a joyous asion and the kid was dampening the celebration! He took a look at the sky¡ªit was pitch ck.

    ¡°It¡¯s the 24th, isn¡¯t it? And almost the 25th. We¡¯re still very far from Rift Canyon. I¡¯ve held us here for a long time. Will we still make it before th ruins open?¡±

    There were at least fifteen hundred kilometers from one side of Ash Mountain to Rift Canyon on the other side. The Demon Hunters had only crossed seven hundred and fifty kilometers, leaving half to be traversed. They also needed to make it to the ruins after they entered the canyon. While the roads would be easy to take then, they would still need a lot of time. There may not be enough.

    They could depart Ash Mountain now and head directly toward Rift Canyon, that would be faster. There was a city near where they were. Ash Mountain made it easy to hide one¡¯s tracks, but it was too difficult to travel through.

 Chapter 426: South Below and North Above (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 426: South Below and North Above (IV)</h4>

    ¡°If we enter the other side of Rift Canyon from this direction, we will be afforded maximal concealment.¡± Li Hao gave it some thought. ¡°If we head down the mountain from here, we might run into others and give rise to unforeseen developments...¡±

    It wasn¡¯t that they must remain on their path, but that it was easier to hide when they did. That would avoid some trouble, and if Hou Xiaochen and the others weren¡¯t there when the Demon Hunters finally reached the ruins, that also meant there would be norge-scale battle taking ce.

    But now that the three great organizations had lost a batch of powerhouses, they might not have the strength to stand against Silver Moon. It was Li Hao¡¯s estimation that the ruins stood a ny-nine percent chance of opening this month. Given Hou Xiaochen¡¯s personality and the fact that all sides had sent representatives, he would want nothing more than for the ruins to open so these guys could be cannon fodder.

    Thus, given these considerations, Li Hao decided to try to make it back in time for the ruins¡¯ opening.

    ¡°Let¡¯s exit the mountain from here then. We¡¯ll conceal our tracks and hide where we can. If we continue on our original path, we might not make it in time.¡± He decided to make the ruins their priority. As for why Half Mountain and the others didn¡¯t emerge when the Demon Hunters did... Well, what did that have to do with him?

    The young man put everything out of his mind after assessing the situation. The Demon Hunters quickly threaded through the mountain forests to leave. Their escort, the giant hawk, followed them until they passed through the forests and exited the mountain range.

    When day broke, the Demon Hunters entered a modestly sized city. It was one of the sixteen in Silver Moon¡¯s northern territory. Here, Li Haomanded his people to take off their armor and ce it in arge car. This turned the Demon Hunters into a team of martial bodyguards that ran missions throughout the province¡¯s northern territory.

    Transport became aplex issue upon the rise of the supernatural. These days, martial masters and some weaker supernaturals might choose to be bodyguards and safeguard the wares ofrge corporations. Thus, this became the Demon Hunter¡¯s disguise. They were escorting a car of valuable cargo toward Rift Canyon.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, inside Rift Canyon.</i>

    Hong Yitang and He Yong left without a backward nce when they saw the hawk return. The four major monster spirits watched them leave. The two humans had said that they would stay for just one day, but they lingered for multiple! It made the monster spirits too apprehensive to split up, lest they be eliminated one by one.

    ¡°They¡¯re gone!¡± A ripple traveled from the golden eagle when the two humans were out of sight.

    ¡°The demon¡¯s heir is gone too.¡±

    ¡°It looks like these Silver Moon martial masters are all connected to each other.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The major monster spirits conversed for a while. That the two stronger humans had waited until Li Hao was gone made them realize that Silver Moon martial masters were sometimes very united.

    Of course, it also had to do with Li Hao helping them suppress the catastrophic changes in their body.

    ¡°Silver Moon... is a ce we should tread lightly!¡± came the tiger¡¯s ripples. ¡°The situation is veryplicated there and there may be even more powerful existences present than those guys!¡±

    ¡°There certainly is,¡± responded the golden eagle. ¡°There might also be monster spirit experts too! I once flew beyond Ash Mountain and entered Silver Moon territory. There was a stifling presence there not long after I entered the province! It was everywhere, so I suspect that there are many preeminent powerhouses present in Silver Moon. There are also noble monster spirits present. I seem to see a giant turtle somewhere...¡±

    A solemn air fell over the four monster spirits. Silver Moon was too close to Ash Mountain. No wonder some of the powerful presences within the mountain refused to explore thend to the south. They would rather expand to Great Li in the north.

    ¡°It will take the Golden Lotus another five years to mature again. Do we stand guard here? Or do we travel to the north and take a look at Great Li?¡± This question came from the tiger as it didn¡¯t want to remain here the entire time. There hadn¡¯t been much pressure with their circumstances before, but now there was quite a great deal.

    ¡°The north is not safe and might be even more dangerous,¡± answered the eagle. ¡°There are many experts in Great Li... I happened to see one of their heavyweights rip apart a Jademoon Rhino that was the same strength as me.¡±

    ¡°What are you afraid of!¡± A violent ripple came from the giant ape. ¡°There are many powerhouses in Great Li, but they¡¯re all very straightforward. They¡¯re called savages, which means they¡¯re more direct. You can tell with a quick look if they¡¯re strong or weak. It¡¯s a better option than Silver Moon, in any case! Silver Moon people all look weak, but they¡¯re actually incredibly domineering...¡±

    It might as well say that Silver Moon denizens were treacherous humans! That was basically what the ape meant.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s head to the north.¡± The eagle inclined its ponderous head after some thought. ¡°We need more resources and treasures, as well as to observe more experts. I can already sense that Silver Moon hides many secrets. Some of them are stirring into wakefulness. We cane back when we fully take the next step!¡±

    Three of them resided in a state of metamorphosis. Snakey was a little behind them, but almost at the stage as well. If they could all break through, then they would count as Novas ording to the Silver Moon hierarchy. Four Novas wouldn¡¯t be so easily beaten in the province, would they now?

    The four major monster spirits were decisive creatures once they came to a decision. They set some Sr level guards on the sheared off mountain. It would be another five years until the Golden Lotus matured again.

    The four immediately set off north. Along the way, the great snake finally couldn¡¯t contain itself and said, ¡°I¡¯ll just take one lotus petal. You guys split up the seeds!¡±

    Due to its initiative, it quickly received the lotus petal of its dreams. There was naturally no share of the seeds for it. It caused the snake to despair. This would only widen the gap between it and the rest of them!

    Mirth twinkled in the eyes of the other three monster spirits. It was good that Snakey recognized the situation it was in. Division of the loot would be difficult otherwise.

    As Li Hao headed south, the four monster spirits headed north. They entered thend of Great Li that no one mentioned in Skystar Dynasty these days.

    ......

    <i>Rift Canyon.</i>

    As the moment approached for the next opening of the ruins, some buildings appeared in the canyon. Some of the supernaturals no longer wished to camp in the wild and built themselves residences. Not only that, but a group of merchants selling mysterious power and mysterious power stones appeared!

    In addition, There were sellers hawking ancient weapons that were hard to verify. Antiques, ancient books, and secret martial dao methods could also be found.

    A bizarre marketce sprang up in Rift Canyon, thanks to the ruins. It was bizarre because only powerhouses had the right to disy their wares here, or those with the patronage of other factions. Otherwise, one wouldn¡¯t live to spend their earnings if they tried selling goods.

    The three great organizations also set up base camps in the canyon. Everyone waited to visit Battle Heaven. A figure abruptly shot into the sky, raising the attention of all supernaturals inside Rift Canyon.

    ¡°Everyone, I am Hao Lianchuan, deputy director of the Silver Moon Night Watchers! ording to a multteral agreement between the official authorities and the three evil supernatural organizations, the ruins of Battle Heaven will open on the 28th. The entrance will be open for half an hour.

    ¡°yers and Starlight who wish to enter must pay ten cubes of mysterious power. Sunderers and Darkmoons must pay thirty cubes. Dominators and Sunres must pay one hundred cubes. Srs must pay one mysterious power stone and Novas ten stones. The three great evil organizations are exempt from this requirement. The funds will be used to maintain the operations of the ruin entrance!¡±

    His words caused a general uproar. The price was fine for the weaklings¡ªeven one hundred cubes wasn¡¯t that expensive. But mysterious power stones?? <i>Srs</i> had to pay a stone to enter, that was too expensive!

    A Sr within the canyon asked, ¡°Director Hao, isn¡¯t it too much to require a mysterious power stone from Srs? ording to what I know, Battle Heaven is divided into an inner and outer city. There are almost no treasures in the outer city, just the inner. The inner city is dangerous beyond belief and we put our lives on the line when we explore...¡±

    ¡°Then don¡¯t go inside!¡± Hao Lianchuan looked down his nose at the man. ¡°Why enter if it¡¯s that dangerous?¡±

    The speaker glowered, but kept a firm grip on his temper because this was the other¡¯s territory. ¡°Then does this mean entrance is free for three great organizations and Silver Moon authorities?¡±

    ¡°Of course! The three evil organizations will be paying another price. You need not worry about that!¡±

    ¡°Then what about the Night Watchers or government agencies of other provinces...¡±

    ¡°Pay up!¡± Hao Lianchuan yelled gruffly. ¡°You can avoid paying if you join the Silver Moon Night Watchers. The situation is unclear in the other provinces. To prevent the admission of malevolent forces, you can join my Night Watchers first and submit to a background check. Once you pass that, your entrance is naturally free!¡±

    <i>No shit! </i>The crowd looked at him wordlessly. What background check? The real trouble began after one joined the Night Watchers. Would they dare not listen to a superior then? They would be turned into cannon fodder without a choice!

    ¡°Then what if we don¡¯t have mysterious power stones?¡± yelled a dejected Sr.

    ¡°One thousand cubes will do too!¡±

    That was also expensive, it was almost the value of a mysterious power stone. And if one didn¡¯t have the mysterious power... then the answer would be to not enter the ruins. What else could they say?

    The loud hubbub of anticipation immediately quieted down.

    ¡°Is there a limit on the number of people allowed in?¡± asked a smiling young man.

    ¡°No limit!¡± called out Hao Lianchuan. ¡°Additionally, the entrance will not be open until three dayster!¡±

    It used to be that the entrance was open once a day at midnight. That had been key for many people¡¯s survival before. The announcement caused another furor of discussion. Some supernaturals frowned with dissatisfaction.

    ¡°We only want to explore for a day or two. Doesn¡¯t that mean we have to wait until the final moments to exit?¡±

    If they happened toy hands on some treasure in the first couple of days, it would be much safer to exit first. If they all waited until the final moments, what good would there be for wandering supernaturals who¡¯d obtained some treasure? They would be squeezed in with all the powerhouses at the exit and not even know how they¡¯d died!

 Chapter 427: Returning to Rift Canyon (I)

    <h4>Chapter 427: Returning to Rift Canyon (I)</h4>

    ¡°These arrangements are for everyone¡¯s safety!¡± Hao Lianchuan boomed. ¡°If we open the entrance again halfway through, it will bring greater danger to everyone if powerhouses force their way in or sneak into the expedition. To prevent that from urring, we will be sealing the premises after everyone enters. The Silver Moon Guards, Night Watchers, and Silver Moon army will be camped here. City annihtion missiles will lock onto the area. The blockade will be lifted only after everyone exits!

    ¡°You can forgo this chance to explore the ruins if you find it too dangerous. We will not endanger therger group for the sake of one!¡± Hao Lianchuan emphasized. ¡°In addition, Silver Moon is not responsible for any risks or danger encountered within the ruins. There are certain risks inside, so caution must be exercised during the excavation!¡±

    That was fine. No one expected that Silver Moon would look out for their safety after entering. That was impossible and did not make sense!

    All was quiet below, the three great organizations were also silent. Indeed, this had been the agreement. No one else knew what price they needed to pay.

    ......

    <i>Above the canyon, in an army camp.</i>

    The area was sealed off and under the purview of the army. It was responsible for the external safety of this expedition. City annihtion missiles were supposedly ready at headquarters, ready to be lobbed at Rift Canyon anytime.

    <i>In the center of camp.</i>

    Rather than the sparse crudeness seenst time, various houses had been erected. Earth supernaturals had reinforced the structures and wood supernaturals nted flora to break up the monotony of thendscape. Greenery poked through the barrenndscape.

    Several important figures were gathered at the biggest house in the center. Hou Xiaochen, Huang Yu, Hu Dingfang, Ren Tianchuan, Director General Zhao, Deputy Zhou, Kong Jie, Hu Qingfeng... All of the powerful, strong, or influential heavyweights of Silver Moon were present.

    Ren Tianchuan,mander of the White Dragons, was addressing the group. A darkened map was present in front of him as he exined, ¡°This is a map of the inner city, but it¡¯s not detailed. It¡¯s just a rough sketch ording to those who enteredst time.

    ¡°The military has divided Battle Heaven into five sections! The city gates that we enter through is the eastern portion. Upon entering from the outer city, wee across the residential area first. There is somemercial activity here, but it is not the main focus of this area.

    ¡°Nextes the northern portion. Based on reports fromst time, it might have been the military area back in the day. Some people apparently saw airnes parked here, but that is yet to be confirmed.

    ¡°The southern portion is the truemercial district. Someone saw a lot of storefronts there.

    ¡°The western portion is the industrial area!¡± he exined. ¡°Residential, military,mercial, and industrial. With the pagoda in the center as thendmark, that should be the true core of the city. The city lord¡¯s manor and all sorts of institution headquarters are found there, as well as an archives area with arge sum of ancient tomes.

    ¡°Thus far, only one Gold Armor has been spotted in the entire city...¡±

    Hu Qingfeng listened quietly in the crowd, making mental notes and observations. As a Night Watcher, he was collecting a great sum of secret intelligence in this meeting of senior executives. No one in the central region knew anything about the inner city, but here Silver Moon was, in possession of some information. That he now knew about the five divisions of the inner city was already cause for celebration.

    Themercial district would have the most in terms of wealth, but the military district might haverge stores of mysterious power stones. It was difficult to say what might be found in the industrial district. Who knew what kind of industry the ancient civilization specialized in? If it was rted to the military... that would be incredible!

    ¡°How strong is this golden guy? Has Silver Moon analyzed him?¡± a young man suddenly asked in the crowd. Everyone looked at him, Hu Qingfeng included.

    <i>Know-it-all, why can¡¯t you keep your mouth shut! </i>He knew the young man. Looking to be in his early twenties the most, he was handsome and with a sunny disposition. Instead of being from the Night Watchers, he was from the Ministry of Administration. This ministry was the direct superior to provincial governments and the nominal head of the nine ministries. The young man was from the Ministry of Administration in Skystar City.

    Skystar City was of a mind to participate in the expedition on a significant scale. All of their representatives joined in a ndestine manner, but this fellow had openly reported to the Silver Moon provincial government to join the excavation in the name of the central government.

    Hu Qingfeng was aware of him as the young man was well known¡ªQi Gang of the Ministry of Administration. Thetter was a Heaven Favored, the same as the perverse geniuses from the Inspectorate. He was very strong at mid Nova, making him slightly stronger than Hu Qingfeng and on par with those geniuses.

    These youngsters were all names on the Divine Masters Ranking. The ny-nine powerhouses of the ranking included members of the nine ministries, royal family, three great organizations, seven divine mountains, and the rich and powerful families around thend.

    The three great organizations were indomitable factions when it came to the supernatural world. The seven divine mountains weren¡¯t that strong, but there were powerhouses in residence at them. Sky Sword from Silver Moon, for example, was one of the masters. There was a representative from his mountain today. The other mountains were spearheaded by premier martial masters who¡¯d converted to the supernatural, or had major monster spirits holding down the fort.

    Indeed, there were monster spirits on the ranking. However, their ages were hard to determine.

    Many monster spirits that¡¯d risen to prominence in thest couple of years were listed, regardless of their age. Their age of awakening was the basis by which their age was judged. Those that¡¯d awakened less than ten years ago were assessed in terms of their strength post-awakening. In actuality, they wouldn¡¯t have been that strong prior either. Monster spirits didn¡¯t typically live too long prior to the rise of the supernatural domain.

    These powerhouses from strong factions dominated the ranking. There were some wandering cultivators that could be found among the ny-nine. They were lone wolves and Heaven Favored, having opened their locks at birth and were incredibly strong.

    Hu Qingfeng was nothingpared to them. His thoughts ran wildly, first touching on Blue Moon. Thetter was also on the ranking, the only one of the Seven Moons to be listed. The rest were either too old or like Violet Moon, too weak.

    One of the ten court masters of Yama was also on the list. An elder from Celestial¡¯s elder council could also be found.

    Some of those perverse geniuses from the Night Watchers were also emzoned on the ranking. This Qi Gang in front of Hu Qingfeng was one of the three Inspectorate heavyweights listed. He was very young, apparently only twenty-six. He¡¯d opened his locks nine years ago and had already made the frightening progress to mid Nova! His attribute was metal, making him a formidable force to be reckoned with.

    The Divine Masters Ranking was not yet public knowledge, so while Hu Qingfeng knew about it, these Silver Moon bumpkins might not. If they did, they might not wee Qi Gang¡¯s addition.

    As such thoughts raced through Hu Qingfeng¡¯s mind, Hou Xiaochen smiled and said softly, ¡°The Gold Armor¡¯s strength is hard to determine, Emissary Qi. From what we know, the Gold Armor should be somewhere between peak Nova and the metamorphosis beyond.

    ¡°It killed one of Celestial¡¯s Srs with one punch and broke a gold level origin weapon. Origin weapons are so durable that Novas in metamorphosis find it difficult to break them. It goes to show how fierce the Gold Armor is that it can break an origin weapon that is admittedly lower level than it...¡±

    ¡°Thank you for your rification, director,¡± Qi Gang quickly said. ¡°Is it possible that it¡¯s beyond Nova?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Hou Xiaochen affirmed solemnly. ¡°That¡¯s possible. You must know that the ancients are not us in present time. We need to carve out the path ahead of us bit by bit. Perhaps the road we are developing above Nova was just run-of-the-mill back in those times. If the Gold Armor was powerful in its era, then it''s possible for it to still retain strength above Nova now.¡±

    Qi Gang grew lost in his thoughts, then smiled when he saw that everyone was looking at him. ¡°I have no further questions.¡±

    ¡°Director Hou.¡± Hu Qingfeng had questions if the genius youngster didn¡¯t. ¡°What level origin weapon is the ck tortoise seal in its hands?¡±

    ¡°Sky level at the very least,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s possible that it¡¯s even stronger. As you are all well aware of, the division of origin weapons was set by us based on our knowledge and breadth of vision. It¡¯s not necessarily urate. ording to some ancient records, the origin weapons we have now may have just been standard issue. Take this ck tortoise seal, for example. It might be the core origin weapon of a city, making it stronger than what the rank and file carried. It possibly rivals the item in the central region.¡±

    Several expressions shifted minutely with these words. The item in the central region? The one they¡¯d taken from Yama, right?

    The war in the central region had ignited because it could determine supernatural potential. Using it on a person would quickly reveal what supernatural attribute they were a match with and what potential they possessed. Its secondary usage was that powerhouses could use it to locate their supernatural locks!

    Some experts might be able to only discover six locks. This treasure, however, could help them discover more. Some souls of origin weapons could even facilitate the manifestation of the locks! That made them ultimate treasures!

    Such a treasure was now in Night Watcher hands. However, it was rumored that the nine ministries were levying pressure on the agency to share the wealth and not hoard it for themselves.

    The central region was in absolute disarray because of that item, but now Hou Xiaochen said that this ck Tortoise Seal might be another one... Even Qi Gang¡¯s eyebrows shot up when he heard the im.

    ¡°Do you mean that, Director Hou?¡± the young man asked hastily.

    ¡°This sealpares to the Heavens Dictate?¡± Hu Qingfeng gasped.

    The treasure in the central region was a ruler shaped item known as Heavens Dictate. One ruler to determine the heavens! It seemed to possess other unique abilities in addition to what they knew, but Hu Qingfeng wasn¡¯t fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of it. The senior executives of the Night Watchers had said that as useful as it was, it came with some problems that they were working to resolve.

 Chapter 428: Returning to Rift Canyon (II)

    <h4>Chapter 428: Returning to Rift Canyon (II)</h4>

    ¡°It¡¯s tough to say since all things are possible,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°Who can be certain when the ck Tortoise Seal is not in hand?¡±

    His response quieted the group. Director General Zhao interrupted the conversation with a cough.

    ¡°Let¡¯s set that aside for now. How shall things be arranged this time? We can¡¯t send too many people, but neither can we send too few. Who is to go? The province might easily descend into chaos if too many go.

    ¡°And is the director going himself?¡± He looked at Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve already dered my intentions. There¡¯s no helping it, and it suits everyone¡¯s desires, does it not?¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°I won¡¯t be bringing many from the Night Watchers. It will be me, Golden Spear, Mu Lin, Little Yu, and Li Hao if he gets back in time.¡±

    Reactions rippled through the crowd. Although only five were going, the list included all of the agency¡¯s powerhouses other than Hao Lianchuan.

    ¡°Just you five?¡± Director General Zhao went into a coughing fit. ¡°None of the Guards?¡±

    ¡°Forget it.¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head. ¡°Have them seal off the perimeter. They¡¯re good enough against some Srs, but will be able to do nothing against Novas. Silver Moon is too weak and we¡¯ll have to rely on the military if any Novas cause issues.¡±

    The solemn-faced Huang Yu of the military nced at the group and said, ¡°We won¡¯t be sending too many from our side either. Hu Dingfang, Ren Tianquan, Bai Yuanqing, and Wang Pengju. Adding in Berserk de makes for five.¡±

    The first four were themanders and vicemanders of the White Dragons and Tiger Wings. Berserk de¡¯s addition rounded out the contingent to represent the Silver Moon military. Huang Yu himself did not choose to join.

    ¡°The Inspectorate will be represented by myself and Wang Henggang.¡± Kong Jie smiled.

    ¡°All of you guys are going...¡± coughed the director general. ¡°I¡¯d like to send someone from the provincial government as well, but sadly I don¡¯t have anyone to send. Ah well, Qi Gang is here. He¡¯s said to be a premier genius in the central region, so let¡¯s have him represent the provincial government!¡±

    Hu Qingfeng made to speak up, then checked himself.

    ¡°Special Agent Hu can do as you¡¯d like,¡± Director General Zhao chuckled. ¡°It is to your discretion whether you would like to go or not. You can also bring your subordinates if you wish. That will also fortify the delegation of the Silver Moon authorities.¡±

    Hu Qingfeng inclined his head.

    ¡°This means that with me, Hu Qingfeng, and his two subordinates... that¡¯s sixteen of us?¡± Qi Gang furrowed his brow. That was too few! Granted, this was almost the sum total of the government¡¯s powerhouses.

    What puzzled him was that Huang Yu of the Silver Moon military wasn¡¯t joining the expedition. He¡¯d thought for certain that the man would participate.

    ¡°Many are going from the three great organizations,¡± Qi Gang continued. ¡°Orange Moon and Yellow Moon are said to be pulling off their mission to kill Yuan Shuo and heading our way. They are premier heavyweights.¡±

    The situation would be very dangerous then.

    ¡°Quality over quantity!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°We have enough! Our safety is ever more assured with ourtest addition! Commander Yu needs to remain in position to curtail disorder. Director General Zhao and the others are advanced in age. The provincial government truly doesck powerhouses, as does the Inspectorate. It is already the limits of what we can draw upon with Inspector General Kong and Wang joining the team.

    ¡°If we add more people who are weaker, they¡¯ll only be everyone¡¯s targets once inside!¡±

    ¡°Is Deputy Director Hao Lianchuan not joining?¡± asked Hu Qingfeng. ¡°He is a mid Sr. Having hime along will be helpful.¡±

    Although there were numerous Novas ted to enter the ruins, Srs were still the core battle strength. And yet, the Silver Moon delegation wasn¡¯t nning on taking a single Sr!

    ¡°We can forget him,¡± Hou Xiaochen coughed and shook his head. ¡°He can stay behind to guard the ce. We can¡¯t all be taken out in the ruins, after all. That would be enormous trouble. If anything happens to us, he¡¯s still a mid Sr who can stabilize the situation. Add to that the Silver Moon Guards... we¡¯ll be able to hold our own for a bit even if Novase.¡±

    Hu Qingfeng spoke no further. This meant that their delegation would be very small indeed, and Hou Xiaochen would truly be in danger. Apart from the director, only Yu Luocha was at the Nova level. Although Golden Spear counted as one, his strength was difficult to determine. Berserk de seemed to only rival a Sr as well. Meanwhile, Hu Qingfeng and Qi Gang would certainly not be helping Hou Xiaochen in the event of trouble.

    ¡°That Li Hao is Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple,¡± Qi Gang suddenly said. ¡°If he reallyes back and enters the ruins, won¡¯t that raise hostile attention from the three great organizations?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s all the same,¡± Hou Xiaochen replied indifferently. ¡°His battle strength is umon as he¡¯s already killed six Srs. Even the three great organizations have assessed him at peak Sr. That level of strength will be of great help to us.

    ¡°Additionally, he explored the ruins during thest excavation. If Hao Lianchuan is not part of our expedition this time, that leaves him as the only one who is more familiar with they of thend. The rest won¡¯t have his experience to draw on.¡±

    Hu Dingfang had also been one of the prior participants, but Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t mention that detail.

    ¡°Will Li Hao really make it back?¡± Qi Gang asked curiously. ¡°Half Mountain and Tidal Moon haven¡¯t returned yet, and even the sixteen hell masters under the Parity King as well as the Revolution King have gone off to hunt him.¡±

    He quickly exined himself when Hou Xiaochen leveled a look at him. ¡°I¡¯m just curious, I mean nothing else. The sixteen hell masters beneath the Parity King are quite famous, to say nothing of the others. The Parity King is active mostly in the south. He¡¯s a mid Nova, which means he isn¡¯t quite top tier. But he is quite renowned when acting in concert with his sixteen hell masters. Not even some peak Novas dare provoke him then.

    ¡°Although they¡¯re just sixteen Srs, their joint Avici Iron Net and the Parity King¡¯s own formidable abilities makes this ninth court master much stronger than Blue Moon.

    ¡°While Blue Moon is on the Divine Masters Ranking, his ranking is toward the back like us. The Parity King is not listed because he is over thirty years old, yet those who are listed near the front of the rankings dare not easily offend the Parity King...¡±

    Qi Gang didn¡¯t care much about Blue Moon of the Red Moon organization, but he paid a great deal of attention to the Parity King.

    ¡°They¡¯ve gone to Ash Mountain,¡± Hou Xiaochen said after some thought. ¡°Li Hao is a martial master¡ªhe won¡¯t have much trouble if he¡¯s careful and evades pursuit. The matters of before will be annulled after he returns. Once a few more of their Novas die inside the ruins, which of the three great organizations will recall what took ce before?¡±

    ¡°......¡± No one had aeback to that.

    ¡°The others are just along for the ride,¡± the man chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s Emissary Qi and Special Agent Hu who are the true pirs of support that we of the Silver Moon authorities depend upon! With me and Little Yu, we¡¯ll be able to take care of any threats even if a few more Novase from the three great organizations. I will be leaving Silver Moon after this, so whatever trouble I can take care of for everyone, that is all for the best.¡±

    ¡°You think too little of us, Ole Hou,¡± Kong Jieughed. ¡°I¡¯m a peak Sr when ites down to it. Do you take me for empty air?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait until you reach Nova.¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned.

    ¡°Almost! I think I see the threshold!¡± Kong Jie roared withughter.

    ¡°So it¡¯s settled!¡± Huang Yu said coldly, seemingly out of patience. ¡°You guys... cough cough cough, must look after Dingfang and the others while inside. The White Dragons and Tiger Wings will be in a tight spot without them!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Commander Yu!¡± Hou Xiaochen reassured. ¡°They will receive our care so long as we are fine. We look to you and Director General Zhao to take care of matters on the outside.¡±

    ¡°Tell Ole Huang that,¡± coughed the director general. ¡°The only thing I can do is proactively submit reports upstairs so they send more powerful reinforcements.¡±

    And so the meeting was over. Qi Gang looked at the others as they went on their ways. After some thought, he caught up to Deputy Zhou. He trailed behind and whispered, ¡°Deputy Zhou, it¡¯s said that the Skystar Guards were encamped primarily in Silver Moon back in those days. The identities of the threemanders were shrouded in shadow, but word of them is now circting...

    ¡°Does the provincial government have any files on them in the archives? I asked the Ministry of Administration¡ªthey told me that apart from the royal family, Silver Moon¡¯s government would also have a copy. Is that true?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s... true.¡± A surprised Deputy Zhou looked at the man. ¡°But those files were destroyed. When the Skystar Guards designation was canceled and the Night Watchers formed instead, Hou Xiaochen came to headquarters to take them away and destroy them!¡±

    ¡°So the provincial government never looked at them?¡± Qi Gang whispered. ¡°Surely you must know something.¡±

    ¡°We do know a little. At the very least, we know that Hou Xiaochen is indeed the Sickly that he is rumored to be. There is other evidence that points to Commander Huang Yu... Ahem, that is all I will say.¡± Deputy Zhou kept his voice down. ¡°There is no point anymore in pursuing whether some matters are what they are made out to be.¡±

    Qi Gang nodded, but still couldn¡¯t help his curiosity. ¡°I just want to know who thest person is. Was the thirdmander a senior executive of Silver Moon, someone in the martial world, or Yuan Shuo as some surmise?¡±

    ¡°That I don¡¯t know.¡± Deputy Zhou shook his head. ¡°But the truth wille to light sooner orter! Can it be kept a secret forever? Let¡¯s move on from these boring topics. Emissary Qi, I hear that you are quite renowned in the central region. You are formidable and a very busy man, but they¡¯ve sent you here in person this time! So central headquarters values this expedition quite highly. Have none of the other ministries sent their powerhouses?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure, they may not have taken the same travel route that I did. Maybe they¡¯re hidden among the supernaturals...¡± Qi Gangughed. ¡°I don¡¯t count for much either. Talents abound in the central region and powerhouses are as plentiful as the clouds. Most keep a low profile. We are just more visible in order to suppress the three great organizations.¡±

    ¡°The three great organizations are a scourge and a cancerous tumor!¡± Deputy Zhou sighed. ¡°I do wish for Emissary Qi to fully disy your abilities inside the ruins. Please kill as many as you can. Hou Xiaochen is hotly ambitious, so thank goodness we managed to get him to agree to leave after the excavation. Whether or not he obtains the origin weapon or dies inside, he must be forced out of the province!

    ¡°If he does, I hope that Emissary Qi will stay in Silver Moon. With a titan such as you in residence, we will sleep soundly at night.¡±

 Chapter 429: Returning to Rift Canyon (III)

    <h4>Chapter 429: Returning to Rift Canyon (III)</h4>

    Qi Gangughed dryly without saying a word. What was the deputy thering on about? Hou Xiaochen was a Night Watcher, not of the provincial government. Qi Gang wouldn¡¯t be able to join the agency even if he stayed. It¡¯d make more sense for the Night Watcher central headquarters to send new people to rece Hou Xiaochen.

    Deputy Zhou continued in a curious vein when Qi Gang remained quiet. ¡°Those guys at the central Night Watcher headquarters cause trouble day in and day out. Howe they haven¡¯te to Silver Moon this time to watch the show?¡±

    ¡°Them?¡± Qi Gang considered his response before responding, ¡°They¡¯ve... probably gone to watch a bigger show, or to cause greater trouble!¡± He shook his head. ¡°Those youngsters want nothing more than for chaos to seize the world! I have no idea what the Night Watchers are thinking to let them roam around freely like this. I hear that they went to one of the Seven Divine Mountains a few days ago¡ªSky Roc Mountain.

    ¡°They pestered the roc that¡¯s about to advance to the next stage and said they wanted to capture its young to train as their steeds. When I left, I heard there was a major monster spirit of Sky Roc Mountain chasing them. I don¡¯t know where they are now.¡±

    Deputy Zhou also shook his head with a sigh. He didn¡¯t ask further. It looked like those people wouldn¡¯t be able to make it to the ruins. Ah well.

    ......

    Rift Canyon was noisy and boisterous these days as everyone waited for the ruins to open again. They wanted to see the Gold Armor with their own eyes and set foot in the inner city. There were apparently mysterious power stones littered on the ground in the inner city!

    Arge truck stopped at the small town closest to Rift Canyon on September 26. The ruins would open the day after tomorrow. The town was only fifty kilometers away from the canyon¡ªthe team could make that in an hour at a forced march. They made faster time when walking through the barren ins.

    However, Li Hao still called for a rest. He¡¯d avoided everyone on their way back, particrly any balls of light he saw. There should be no one aware that he¡¯d returned.

    Naturally, he did not conceal their movement to ambush a target. He just wanted to understand the current situation. After checking in at an inn, he dialed a number. It rang¡ªas he thought, that guy was close by.

    Themunicators were ineffective beyond five hundred kilometers out of White Moon City. That was barely the distance to Rift Canyon, but the other needed to be close by for themunicator to work.

    ¡°Are you... here?¡± Wang Ming asked excitedly on the other side.

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    ¡°Where?¡±

    ¡°Where are you?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m at the military camp... My grandfather hase and will be entering the ruins. He¡¯s grounded me and won¡¯t let me walk out of the camp!¡± Wang Ming grumbled with resignation. ¡°I only went for ark around the wilderness near White Moon City with my friends, what did anything about disappearing evil supernaturals have to do with me? What¡¯s the point of grounding me?

    ¡°Hey, lemme tell you something, I¡¯m mid Sunre! I think I¡¯m close tote Sunre too, hahaha!!¡±

    ¡°Oh, congrats,¡± Li Hao mumbled. ¡°Collect information for me, I want to know all of the powerhouses in the canyon! It¡¯s best if there¡¯s a picture of them too. Additionally, help me find out whether the leader of the Sword Sect has emerged from closed door cultivation yet. Is Southern Fist at Rift Canyon? So much has happenedtely, give me aprehensive report on everything.¡±

    ¡°I... need to write it out?¡± Wang Ming¡¯s jaw dropped.<i> You might as well take my life! I¡¯ll tell everything if you¡¯de in person.</i>

    ¡°Cut the crap,¡± Li Hao interrupted. ¡°I¡¯ll pay you one hundred cubes of mysterious power. Will you do it or not?¡±

    ¡°Eh, um...¡±

    ¡°And another mysterious power stone of the metal attribute.¡±

    ¡°No problem!¡± Wang Ming was overjoyed. ¡°I¡¯ll have it done overnight. When do you want it?¡±

    ¡°Walk out of camp when you¡¯re done, I¡¯lle get it from you.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡±

    Li Hao shoved themunicator into his storage ring once he hung up, severing its connection to the outside world. He thought over his next steps and walked through the door of the neighboring room.

    ¡°Chief,¡± he transmitted. ¡°We go to Rift Canyon tonight. The others can stay here for now. Battle Heaven is too dangerous.¡±

    Liu Long nodded. It was indeed dangerous. He¡¯d gone inside before and knew full well how terrifying the Golden Armor was.

    ¡°Are you going to convene with the rest of the Guards or Night Watchers?¡±

    ¡°Not for now,¡± Li Hao responded. ¡°We¡¯ll put on our armor and try to blend in with the other Guards entering, if there are any. We¡¯ll keep a low profile if there aren¡¯t, so we don¡¯t be a public enemy before we¡¯re even inside the ruins! It¡¯s best to avoid showing our faces before people know we¡¯re back. Otherwise, the status of Half Mountain and the others will be easily exposed as well.

    ¡°It¡¯d be best if we can fool even Director Hou. If not, we¡¯ll just tell them the truth.¡±

    Liu Long nced at the young man and said nothing. He nodded; he didn¡¯t have an opinion on the matter. After some thought, he transmitted, ¡°You should go through the second passageway this time. Although I didn¡¯t gain anything from it, I vaguely sensed that there really was treasure inside. I couldn¡¯t discover it, but you might with your sharp eyes.¡±

    Befuddled, Li Hao still nodded in acknowledgement. <i>Very well. </i>The second passageway wasn¡¯t dangerous to martial masters. No martial master had died in there.

    After some conversation, the two settled in to wait for nightfall.

    ......

    Two figures traveled swiftly as soon as it was dark, rushing toward Rift Canyon.

    <i>Approximately one hourter.</i>

    Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath, his teeth aching at what he saw. <i>Holy fuck! </i>There were balls of light on all sides. The canyon was filled with supernaturals! An area of several thousand meters was as bright as day to him. Light was everywhere, so brilliant that his eyes watered.

    Just how many supernaturals hade to this ce??

    There were too many Sunres to be counted, a few dozen Srs, and an asional Nova that sparkled so fiercely that he was about to go blind. How many were this, thousands of supernaturals?? Li Hao was highly taken aback that the ruins of Battle Heaven had drawn so many. Weren¡¯t they afraid of death?

    Battle Heaven was not safe. He strongly suspected that the city¡¯s greatest danger came not from the army in residence, but a creature with a consciousness!

    When he left, he¡¯d sensed someone observing him. He would not be mistaken in that. Although he didn¡¯t see any big ball of light, it only indicated that the other wasn¡¯t a supernatural. They might be a martial master.

    <i>All of you guys are here to die! </i>Li Hao thoroughly sneered at them, suspecting that Hou Xiaochen might have another goal in mind with purposefully leaking the existence of Battle Heaven.

    Otherwise, with the director¡¯s strength and the abilities of Silver Moon¡¯s wily old foxes, there wouldn¡¯t have been a joint expeditionst month. How would Violet Moon and her ilk be worthy of being enemies with Hou Xiaochen and the rest?

    But this was just as good. Li Hao actually needed to thank the man. If it wasn¡¯t for the director¡¯s actions, supernaturals would not visit Silver Moon. The young man wouldn¡¯t have a chance to do everything he¡¯d done.

    Li Hao led Liu Long away from some heavyweights and probed further in, also taking stock of each faction¡¯s strength as he did so.

    <i>Inside Rift Canyon.</i>

    Li Hao walked around the ce with Liu Long in tow. Almost no one discovered them when they concealed their presences. So long as they didn¡¯t purposefully approach the powerhouses or disy enmity, martial masters were unparalleled when it came to hiding. Even Li Hao wasn¡¯t able to discover martial masters around him.

    However, the young man quickly found something amiss. A grave look entered his eyes. He motioned for Liu Long to quietly climb a cliff face.

    ¡°Chief, have you also noticed something off?¡± he transmitted.

    A stern Liu Long nodded. ¡°There seems... to be some martial masters among the crowd!¡±

    Indeed, there were quite a few more martial masters among the delegation this time. It would seem that some secrets had leaked from thest expedition. Whether it was the three great organizations or other factions, all of them had brought some martial masters. It was difficult to gauge the strength of the new additions, but many of them had ayer of internal force around them. That meant they were at least peak Sunderer.

    Martial masters could fly inside the city and easily take the second passageway. They could also conceal their presence to evade attack by ck Armors. Although there were no more ck Armors, it could also mean that the Gold Armor wouldn¡¯t be able to discover them. Therefore, all sides had brought martial masters for this excavation.

    Some were renowned veteran martial masters, others were valiant talents that the organization had secretly trained. They were certainly all powerhouses. While none of them would be stronger than Sr, there should be Dominators. And for greater than Dominator... there might be, if sufficient mysterious power stones and other treasures were poured into them. That was a difficult conclusion to draw.

    Apart from that, some of the Novas immensely surprised Li Hao. He saw a very young fellow being waited on, like he was a noble scion. There were people acting like servants in a barren ce like the canyon, fetching water, preparing a bath, and even warming the bed...

    Li Hao heard this through instructions being given by an old man. He couldn¡¯t determine the old man¡¯s level of strength either. Thetter should be a martial master; one that wasn¡¯t that weak.

    The youngster was a Nova, and judging from his ball of light, stronger than Half Mountain and the others! This was crazy. Li Hao had never seen a martial master live such a pampered life, supernaturals had it good!

    It wasn¡¯t that martial masters didn¡¯t like afortable life, but that strong martial masters wouldn¡¯t think of bringing servants under such circumstances. It was such a boring proposition.

    Li Hao waspletely stunned after a walk through the area. The camps of the three great organizations were the only ces that he didn¡¯t investigate. Just the small patch he¡¯d wandered through showed him three Novas and eleven Srs!

    Since when did Novas and Srs be somonce? Didn¡¯t they say that Novas were rare even in the central region?

    Perturbed, Li Hao frowned deeply. His forehead quickly rxed when he understood. inly, Battle Heaven had raised a great deal of attention. The Gold Armor that¡¯d destroyed an origin weapon with one punch was a hot topic of discussion, as was the powerful ck Tortoise Seal origin weapon.

    <i>Is it the turtle of the Wangs?</i> Li Hao wondered. It was feted on all sides, whereas no one seemed to be paying attention to the sword of the Lis. Did they all believe that the Night Watchers possessed the sword, or were they just pretending to not know that he had one too? Were they waiting for the right timing and purposefully not mentioning it at the moment?

    He held both the sword of the Lis and de of the Zhangs, but he¡¯d given the de to his teacher. <i>I wonder if teacher has discovered anything else special about it, other than its powerful offensive capabilities? It¡¯s terrifying that so many powerhouses havee... I can¡¯t even fight an initial Nova.</i>

    Li Hao sighed inwardly, quite resigned by the situation.

 Chapter 430: Secrets (I)

    <h4>Chapter 430: Secrets (I)</h4>

    After Li Hao melded four auras together, he would stand a chance of fighting Novas. But as of now, he only had three and the Incantation of the de of Blood. Despite his incredibly fortified physical body and organs, he still wasn¡¯t confident enough to dere that he could stand against Novas.

    His body and organs were much stronger than before, but the auras did not fall into the same system. His auras had remained at approximately the same level, which meant that his offensive power did not improve at the same rate. It was his defensive capabilities that¡¯d increased many times over.

    Li Hao put these thoughts out of his mind and set out to look for Wang Ming. He would cross-reference everything with who was in the canyon, then supplement the information of those who weren¡¯t officially registered. That would be the best way to discover all the powerhouses that¡¯de. Even if he missed some, it wouldn¡¯t be too many.

    ......

    <i>Half an hourter, outside the military camp.</i>

    d in ck armor, Li Hao stood outside the entrance as opposed to sneaking in. He raised a lot of attention¡ªwhat was a Silver Moon Guard doing here? Their camp wasn¡¯t here.

    ¡°I¡¯m looking for Wang Ming!¡± Li Hao called out gruffly beneath the visor. ¡°Please let him know that a friend hase.¡±

    He struck a waiting pose and also took the chance to scan the balls of light in the military camp. There were quite a few! Of the Novas, he knew Hu Qingfeng¡¯s ball of flight. There was someone else stronger than him that Li Hao didn¡¯t recognize, and there was another that was also very strong. It startled the young man.

    Three Novas? When did the military have so many?

    While Hou Xiaochen and the others were possibly also here, they were too far away for Li Hao to catch a glimpse of. He could only see their piercing light when they were close. He was here posing as a Silver Moon Guard¡ªno, he <i>was</i> a Guard. He was here with a concealed identity to await Wang Ming.

    The handsome supernatural didn¡¯t present himself, but someone else who Li Hao recognized did. He didn¡¯t look at the old man, pretending not to recognize the other. Instead, the other beckoned to him.

    ¡°Come here!¡± The old man waved his hand again when Li Hao didn¡¯t move after a nce. ¡°Yes, you. Stop looking ande here!¡±

    Baffled, Li Hao had to walk over since the old man was indeed summoning him. ¡°Greetings, sir!¡±

    ¡°Do you recognize me?¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir. Deputy Zhou of the provincial government!¡±

    ¡°Good!¡± The old man nodded with a smile. ¡°I need to make a trip out and require an escort. You¡¯re perfect, the Guards are all quite strong.¡±

    Li Hao was struck dumb! <i>You... want me to be your bodyguard? Yo, you¡¯re from the provincial government and I¡¯m from the Silver Moon Guards. We don¡¯t belong to the same system and our institutions aren¡¯t exactly friendly with each other. What do you want with me? Get someone from the military!</i>

    <i>...or has he recognized me?</i>

    But that didn¡¯t seem that possible because Li Hao had withdrawn all of his presence. Under normal circumstances, no one would discover him. Deputy Zhou was the only one of the senior executives that he couldn¡¯t read. He might be a mundane, he might be a powerhouse. Regardless, the old man shouldn¡¯t have identified Li Hao through theyer of armor, bronze mirror, and martial master... right?

    ¡°Sir, I¡¯m waiting for someone...¡±

    ¡°Let that person wait,¡± Deputy Zhou chuckled. ¡°You¡¯ll do. I can¡¯t be bothered locating someone else at this hour. Someone from the Guards sets me at ease. Plus, you¡¯re obviously part of the core troops since you have a suit of armor. It¡¯s a Night Watcher dereliction of duty if anything happens to me!¡±

    Li Hao could say nothing. He could only mumble, ¡°Yes sir! Where would you like to go?¡±

    <i>Where does a moldy old fart like you wanna go in the middle of the night?!</i>

    Deputy Zhou had already set foot outside camp. ¡°Just follow me.¡±

    Li Hao was incredibly dejected, but he couldn¡¯t refuse. A Silver Moon Guard had no right to refuse escorting this personage. Even though the Silver Moon Guards and the provincial government weren''t of the same official system, thetter outranked the Guards. Even Hou Xiaochen would have to bow his head.

    Deeply resigned, Li Hao had no choice but to let Wang Ming wait and follow the old man. The paths were winding and twisting in Rift Canyon. The old man almost fell over when he stumbled in the dim light.

    Li Hao quickly reached out to give him a hand. <i>You should be staying in camp at your old age! What are you doing out here sote at night??</i> Other thoughts ran through his head at the same time. <i>Did he seek me out, or is this really a coincidence?</i> He couldn¡¯t afford to underestimate any of the Silver Moon senior executives. All of them were terrifying people. Thus, he wouldn¡¯t dismiss even an old man that appeared perfectly normal to his eyes.

    Take Hong Yitang, for example. Li Hao had seen the light of a Sr around him before, but there was no light when they met again in Ash Mountain. Not only was there no light, there was nothing at all. Hong Yitang appeared to be a martial master.

    Therefore, sometimes Li Hao¡¯s eyes lied to him. As he grabbed Deputy Zhou, he wondered¡ª<i>are you really not afraid of anything bad happening to you? You¡¯ve asked an unknown guard to escort you alone!</i>

    ¡°I¡¯m old now... I used to be able to walk fifty kilometers in one night and eat five bowls of rice in one meal. I¡¯m old in the blink of an eye...¡± sighed Deputy Zhou, thinking back to his youth. ¡°I envy you youngsters.¡±

    ¡°Surely you jest, Deputy Zhou,¡± Li Hao said in a muffled voice. ¡°I¡¯m not young either, I¡¯m almost seventy.¡±

    ¡°Now look who¡¯s joking.¡± Deputy Zhou continued forward merrily. ¡°I can tell from your voice that you¡¯re not too old, kiddo. You¡¯re joking with an old man like me.¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be thinking that it¡¯s a bad thing to escort me. It¡¯s a good thing, not a bad thing! You¡¯re lucky that you ran into me tonight.¡±

    Li Hao was instantly vignt and highly skeptical of the man. <i>He¡¯s not trying to lure me to an empty ce and suddenly erupt like Hong Yitang so he can kill me, is he?</i> Regardless of what the old man had in mind, something was off with his sudden appearance in the middle of the night.

    Li Hao was on high alert and poised for action.

    ¡°Kiddo, good karma results from good deeds.¡± Deputy Zhou smiled as he walked. ¡°You should choose your friends more wisely next time.¡±

    Li Hao blinked, what did the deputy mean?

    ¡°Thank goodness that I¡¯m the one who came out.¡± The deputy continued walking. ¡°If I was a bit slower and Huang Yu or the others saw you instead... you¡¯d be in trouble.¡±

    Nerves stretched taut, Li Hao didn¡¯t even dare continue walking forward.

    Deputy Zhou turned back and gestured with a smile. ¡°Come on, keep up. Howe a bold fellow like you is losing your courage now?¡±

    Now Li Hao could be certain, the other knew who he was! He stepped forward, but didn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°You should stay away from people like Wang Ming. They¡¯re too dumb and will only drag you down. He¡¯s running around asking this and that in the middle of the night, wanting to know all sorts of secret intelligence. He even grabbed colleagues from ssified Affairs to pump them for information. If it wasn¡¯t for his grandfather, he¡¯d already been thrown into the dungeons!

    ¡°Everyone¡¯s curious who he¡¯s collecting this information for, or if he just wants to sell it for some pocket money. And here youe along. If Huang Yu hade out before I did, he would¡¯ve casually run you through on the spot.¡±

    Li Hao could find absolutely no words to express himself. <i>Ole Wang... you¡¯re... such a blithering idiot! I told you to gather information, but you¡¯re running straight to ssified Affairs?? You might as well announce through a bullhorn that you want top secret information!</i>

    <i>You absolute fucking idiot!</i>

    Granted, Li Hao also knew that Wang Ming had no other options. He was grounded, so what did he know? But he wanted to make money and satisfy Li Hao¡¯s request for more rification. He probably thought it wasn¡¯t a big deal if he was discovered. His grandfather would protect him, and it wasn¡¯t like he was truly looking for sensitive information. He hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would visit him openly... and be caught in the act.

    The higher-ups in the military were keeping an eye on the development, wanting to find out who Wang Ming was working for. It was most likely Li Hao, but since Li Hao had yet to return even now, he didn¡¯t seem to be a likely candidate. A caller hade for Wang Ming, but wasmandeered by the deputy as soon as he showed up.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word, finding the old man to be exaggerating things. No matter what, Commander Yu wouldn¡¯t kill him without asking a single question. In fact, the man wouldn¡¯t do anything at all after learning that he was Li Hao. Themander would just fake the honor of doing the young man a favor!

    Li Hao had appeared out in the open because he wasn¡¯t terribly concerned about being exposed. He just hadn¡¯t expected to be exposed so quickly. Ole Wang was such an idiot that he barged around like a bull in a china shop!

    ¡°That¡¯s very funny, Deputy Zhou!¡± Li Hao replied in a muffled voice. ¡°I¡¯ve simply been asked by others to visit Wang Ming. I¡¯ve done nothing and am part of the Silver Moon Guards. How would Commander Yu kill me for no reason at all? Even if he wanted to, he would ask Director Hou first. And so... don¡¯t scare me, deputy general.¡±

    <i>Who does this old far think he¡¯s scaring? He¡¯s trying to tighten me in the middle of the night so he can do me a favor. It¡¯s obvious from your words that you have something to ask of me.</i>

    Deputy Zhou startedughing. He kept walking and headed for an area that was illuminated. ¡°I really do have something to take care of tonight. I brought you along as a matter of convenience. Do you know what¡¯s ahead?¡±

    ¡°Rift Canyon.¡±

    <i>No shit! </i>Deputy Zhou¡¯s jaw nearly dropped. The little guy was better at nonsense than he was!

    ¡°I mean if you know which faction¡¯s camp it is.¡±

    ¡°Nope.¡± Li Hao peered ahead and saw a massive ball of light. There was a Nova there! Anyone who was a Nova was a well known individual, but he was indeed unaware of their particrs.

    ¡°You have a need to meet them,¡± said the old man as he continued walking. ¡°There¡¯s someone there from the military, but he has not dered his identity. Do you know what the military¡¯s supernatural organization is called?¡±

    ¡°Yes, the Skystar Troops!¡± Li Hao knew of it because Wang Ming had told him about it before. The Inspectorate was the first to create an official supernatural agency¡ªthe Night Watchers. Then came the Supervisory Office of the Ministry of Administration, the Skystar Troops of the Ministry of Armed Forces, and the Trade Security Committee of the Ministry of Commerce...

    As the Night Watchers grew too strong to control, the nine ministries ceased supplying them with supernatural recruits and created their own instead. They¡¯d poured their resources into one agency at first because there¡¯d been no other option. They needed an official supernatural agency to quickly find its footing in the changing world. Now that the ministries were in control again, they flexed their muscles as the heart of the dynasty and quickly built their own supernatural agencies.

 Chapter 431: Secrets (II)

    <h4>Chapter 431: Secrets (II)</h4>

    ¡°Mmhmm, it is indeed the Skystar Troops.¡± The old man walked forward, leading Li Hao to their destination. ¡°The person in this camp is from them and hase with the goal of exploring Battle Heaven. While the Skystar Troops have not publicly revealed his identity, they¡¯ve made a report to the provincial government. They intend to have one of their agents in the open and one in the shadows. That makes for greater convenience.

    ¡°Ten people havee from the Skystar Troops¡ªone Nova as their leader and the remaining nine of Srs. They are exceedingly formidable and part of the military. They have a desire to work together with us, which sets them apart from typical Srs and Novas.¡±

    Li Hao listened quietly, simply wondering <i>what does this have to do with me?</i>

    ¡°Parts of the situation are veryplicated as of this moment,¡± said the old man. ¡°I brought you with me so you could meet the Skystar Troops. My hope is that you don¡¯t be involved in this matter, that those of the eight families do not be cannon fodder.¡±

    As he thought! Li Hao was now certain that the old man really did recognize him!

    ¡°The Skystar Troop representative is an initial Nova who just ascendedst month. Logically speaking, his cultivation level isn¡¯t that stable yet due to his recent progress. He should stay behind and not be involved in the expedition. We all know that idents easily ur in Battle Heaven if one does not have a firm grip on their cultivation. But he is an initial Nova. Tell me, do you think there¡¯s anything wrong with this picture?¡±

    ¡°Most likely.¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°He either has a special identity, or someone wants to use the ruins to plot his death.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps.¡± Deputy Zhou smiled. ¡°This person¡¯s name is Yuan Xingwu.¡±

    ¡°I see.¡± Li Hao absentmindedly inclined his head, then frowned.<i> Yuan Xingwu? Yuan... </i>His teacher? Did this person have something to do with his teacher?

    There were too many people with simr surnames in the world, however, so he quickly put it out of his mind. He didn¡¯t quite understand what the deputy meant, but the old man would probably exin since he was the one who¡¯d called out to Li Hao.

    ¡°Yuan Xingwu is Yuan Shuo¡¯s first disciple!¡± Indeed, the old man continued when he received ack of reaction. ¡°Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t take disciples in his early years, he always operated alone. It wasn¡¯t until the rise of the supernatural and him being forced to reside in Silver City for fifteen years that this changed. The first disciple that he epted fifteen years ago was Yuan Xingwu! He took a second disciple not long thereafter, then a third one that was Chen Yuhua. He said then that she was hisst disciple, that the number three was the utmost and enough.

    ¡°However, some problems developed with all three disciples. Yuan Shuo was also gravely injured three years ago¡ªpossibly ambushed by a Copper Armor. His heart was injured and it ruined his chances of ascension. That was when he took another disciple, hoping to pass on some of the knowledge in the ancient books that he¡¯d destroyed. All sides were happy to see that change of heart. They didn¡¯t wish for all of that information to go with him to the grave either!¡±

    <i>Yuan Xingwu! </i>Li Hao frowned, his teacher¡¯s first disciple. The man had called Yuan Shuo his master fifteen years ago, but was now a Nova powerhouse of the Skystar Troops. However, none of that was important!

    Correct, none of it was important.

    What was important was that Yuan Xingwu had brought soldiers back to Silver Moon and represented the military¡¯s supernatural organization for the uing expedition. If Li Hao¡¯s identity was exposed now, it would mean a lot of things.

    Firstly, Yuan Shuo¡¯s eldest disciple was back! It wasmon knowledge that Hou Xiaochen was Yuan Shuo¡¯s primary protector all these years. Everyone knew that Yuan Shuo had entered the Summoner of Spirit level and that his final disciple killed six Srs a few days ago. Li Hao was also a Summoner, and the heir to the eight families.

    Battle Heaven was possibly the Wangs¡¯ ancestralnd. Yuan Xingwu¡¯s arrival happen to coincide with its opening. There was also Chen Yuhua in White Moon City, Hu Dingfang, the Bais, the White Tigers, and the royal family...

    It was all interconnected! Southern Fist had analyzed it for him before.

    Hu Dingfang had support in the military from above and below. The Bais supported him, the military supported him, and even Commander Yu threw his support behind him. Thus, Hu Dingfang was promoted to his position.

    Madame Bai had gone to see Southern Fist¡ªshe might have a tie to the royal family then. And now Chen Yuhua and Yuan Xingwu were in the same location. Hu Dingfang ought to know his wife¡¯s senior brother, yes? They were one family when it came down to it. There wasn¡¯t arge gap between Yuan Xingwu and Chen Yuhua being epted as disciples. They should¡¯ve studied together, so they might be old acquaintances very familiar with each other.

    Would there be further ties within this web of rtionships and would it have more to do with Li Hao? No wonder Deputy Zhou had wanted to bring him here, but Li Hao still didn¡¯t quite grasp his intentions.

    Their distance to the other camp shortened as the deputy continued walking forward. ¡°Forget Yuan Xingwu. Let¡¯s talk about Battle Heaven. We have more information about it than you might already know about.

    ¡°Battle Heaven is indeed the city of the Wangs of the eight families. Or rather, their ancestral grounds. The item that the Gold Armor holds is called the ck Tortoise Seal. ording to the records, it has a highly symbolic purpose in addition to being a weapon! It is the control hub of the entire city!

    ¡°Having it in your possession might ce all of Battle Heaven in your hands. The weapons of the ancients were terrifying propositions. The city might be part of the seal, which would make it much more than an important token.

    ¡°In the ancient civilization, the eight families were of the same breath and branches. If something untoward happened to one family, then the core disciples of the other families could wield their tokens in times of emergency!¡±

    Li Hao frowned. These important tokens... might be a sword or de? But his teacher could also use the de, so perhaps the de could be used by whoever wielded it. Was his teacher one of the eight families, or was the de not truly being utilized?

    He was starting to be confused by the old man. While he¡¯d gained some information, he still wasn¡¯t certain what the deputy intended or wanted.

    ¡°Deputy Zhou, I am just an ordinary Silver Moon Guard. I don¡¯t understand why you share this with me.¡±

    The deputy paused, at a loss. ¡°Don¡¯t they say that you¡¯re very smart? Forget it, I¡¯ll be direct. Everyone else can stay away from Battle Heaven for this expedition, but you must enter. Whether it¡¯s Hou Xiaochen or Yuan Xingwu, those who know a little of these secrets hope for you to enter the inner city or even take the ck Tortoise Seal. You might be the only one who can!

    ¡°We know it, the royal family might know it, the nine ministries may not be unaware of the possibility, and the three great organizations are also possibly acquainted with this information. In other words, apart from those with no backgrounds, everyone might know that you are the key!

    ¡°Your circumstances are both very safe and very dangerous! You are safe in that no one might hurt you before you im the ck Tortoise Seal. But as soon as you do, it may be your death sentence. If you take it, that also means the item is unsealed. It can be directed to recognize a new master or divested of certain destructive abilities...¡±

    Li Hao remained quiet. What did that have to do with him and what did the deputy want?

    ¡°I don¡¯t mean anything by this. You might know my grandson, Zhou Qin, the one with the tiger. I¡¯m just reminding you of a few things. Both you and Yuan Shuo are very loyal people, but don¡¯t let this affect your judgment.

    ¡°And secondly, don¡¯t brashly try to obtain the ck Tortoise Seal! Remember, don¡¯t be greedy!¡± Deputy Zhou cautioned solemnly. ¡°It¡¯s not a good development that the seal or Battle Heaven has appeared. The city¡¯s materialization means that some other problems will swiftly ur or even great trouble aroused as a result. The internal workings of Silver Moon are not a united whole. While we¡¯re not at the point of tant enmity with one another, we do have certain differences in philosophy!

    ¡°The ancient ruins of the eight families represent eight seals. Unsealing one of them might affect the rest. It could cause some ancient existences to descend upon us once more. It could be good, but it could also spell our doom!

    ¡°The secrets of Battle Heaven are not as simple as they seem. They¡¯re so much moreplex!¡±

    Li Hao could no longer contain his shock and confusion. ¡°Where does the deputy know all this from?¡± he muttered.

    ¡°Ancient records,¡± Deputy Zhou sighed softly. ¡°There are many who know this, not just us. They know it and pretend not to. Let¡¯s put it this way¡ªwe say that the supernatural domain appeared twenty years ago, but it was here much earlier. It started from Silver Moon. Our province is the origin of the supernatural rise!

    ¡°Outsiders think it started in the central region, bah humbug! The supernatural erupted in Silver Moon! Why else do you think Ying Hongyue and the others could set foot in it so quickly? They were earlier than those in the central region!

    ¡°It was just that all of the mysterious power that came into being in the province was instantly absorbed by a mysterious existence or seal! It turned us into an incredibly impoverishednd for energy.

    ¡°Ying Hongyue knows about this, some of the credit for the supernatural awakening goes to him. Some people explored a certain ruin back in the day and broke some things, causing our world to shift. These people are now titans of various factions!¡± Deputy Zhou sighed with emotion. ¡°They are Ying Hongyue, the Yama King, and the Celestial Sword Immortal. Also among their number was themander-in-chief of the Skystar Guards, the lord of Yonder Mountain¡ªone of the Seven Divine Mountains...

    ¡°They are now renowned throughout thends!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook. So these people had all been part of the same team? Or had they just known of each other and happened to explore the same ruin, causing the supernatural to erupt? So they knew the changes to the world that wereing and were able to make preparations beforehand, leading to the rise of the three great organizations?

    What were the Seven Divine Mountains? This was his first time hearing of them. And who was themander-in-chief of the Skystar Guards? He knew of Cannibal, Laughter, and Sickly, but not who their leader was. The martial world only knew of the threemanders.

    He¡¯d never fathomed that Silver Moon was the origin of the supernatural rise!

    ¡°Remember this, there are only two possibilities after Battle Heaven is unsealed,¡± Deputy Zhou emphasized. ¡°First, the supernatural might erupt again and vast quantities of mysterious power will raise the dynasty¡¯s supernaturals up another level. Countless people might swiftly break through and reach the next level of existence. The second is of disaster!

    ¡°Regardless of which possibility it is, it means disaster all the same at this stage. It is not a good idea to suddenly facilitaterge numbers of powerhouses through the opening of a second wave of the supernatural domain.¡±

 Chapter 432: Secrets (III)

    <h4>Chapter 432: Secrets (III)</h4>

    ¡°Who... are you?¡± Li Hao¡¯s heart shook. Was the old man really just a deputy director general?

    ¡°Me?¡± Deputy Zhou smiled. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I mean you no harm. Not just me, but the entire provincial government means you no harm. Neither I nor Director General Zhou wish to see any mishap befall you. I tell you this only to help you understand... and not be hoodwinked by certain people.¡±

    ¡°Director Hou?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°The director wants nothing more than to im the ck Tortoise Seal. So this means that he wants to do something to me too?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not necessarily it, just that Hou Xiaochen has bigger ambitions than most. It¡¯s normal for him to have his own thoughts. He wants to leverage this opportunity to set foot into the next stage. The director doesn¡¯t wish to live out the rest of his life like the rest of us. Thus, he¡¯s been raising the greatest fuss in Silver Moon over these years.¡±

    Li Hao was already repeating a litany of <i>fuckity fuck fucks</i> to himself.<i> What the hell?! So the internal dispute in Silver Moon is centered on Hou Xiaochen and the provincial government? So that argument they had before wasn¡¯t an act, but an actual disagreement? And Deputy Zhou is representing the government in this conversation because he doesn¡¯t want me to help Hou Xiaochen get the ck Tortoise Seal?</i>

    The young man understood the situation now! No wonder this old man insisted on a walk in the middle of the night to say all these things to him. This was employing both logic and emotion to prevent Li Hao from being a spear in someone else¡¯s hand. But who knew if the provincial government wasn¡¯t trying to do the same?

    If he believed the deputy, that would create a rift between him and Hou Xiaochen. If Li Hao could take the ck Tortoise Seal and decided not to, that might cause another set of problems. Maybe all of this was to move against Hou Xiaochen instead!

    Li Hao¡¯s litany of internal swearing grew more varied. Damn it, there were no good people here! They were all making trouble for him in the dead of night. However, these words did give rise to second thoughts in the young man¡¯s mind. Perhaps this was exactly what the deputy wanted; he might also represent Director General Zhao.

    The deputy had specifically mentioned Yuan Xingwu¡¯s arrival. Was that to warn Li Hao away from Yuan Xingwu, or to express that the provincial government didn¡¯t trust the man?

    A headache throbbed at Li Hao¡¯s temples, but he quickly discarded everything he¡¯d just heard. <i>Screw all this! </i>He had his n of attack. If He Yong and Hong Yitang joined the expedition, then he would stick to their sides like glue. Forget Hou Xiaochen and the others. He Yong and Hong Yitang were also powerhouses and he¡¯d saved them once. That they hadn¡¯t attacked him then most likely meant that they wouldn¡¯t attack him at all. They would protect him even better knowing that he could help them suppress what they didn¡¯t want.

    <i>So all of you can forget tricking me! </i>Li Hao cursed silently. <i>I¡¯m going to be with two powerhouses and I¡¯ll have Ole Hong erupt with full glory at key moments.</i> A Hong Yitang at full strength might even be stronger than Hou Xiaochen. One down was one less to worry about then. <i>I¡¯ll kill you all!</i>

    Mmhmm, he wouldn¡¯t do anything to Hou Xiaochen so long as the man didn¡¯t do anything to him. After all, the director had truly sheltered Li Hao and Yuan Shuo. That was not a facade. There was no need to make an enemy out of Hou Xiaochen for the sake of an unfamiliar Deputy Zhou.

    Li Hao was much more at ease when he sorted his thoughts out. <i>I have two backers and I recently found them by myself! None of you know about them, eh?</i>

    Those two knew that the young man could help them suppress undesired states, and that each incident further strengthened their locks. They would likely be very willing to help Li Hao so long as there were sufficient mysterious power stones around that the young man could make use of.

    Deputy Zhou grew resigned when the young man continued to be quiet. This kid could really keep himself in check! They arrived at the camp he spoke of momentster.

    An extremely dignified middle-aged man in his forties walked out to greet them. He was Yuan Xingwu, meaning that he¡¯d been in his twenties when he became Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple. That was an older age to be epted as a disciple. Li Hao had only been eighteen when he joined Yuan Shuo.

    No, he hadn¡¯t even been eighteen and had felt he was old enough already. Was Yuan Xingwu really as old as he looked?

    Li Hao said nothing despite the thoughts running through his mind. Was there a mistake somewhere? But this man was indeed a Nova.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t mistaken; Yuan Xingwu looked older than he was, but he was close to Li Hao¡¯s estimations. He was thirty-eight this year and had be Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple when he was twenty-three. However, he¡¯d possessed some martial foundations then and wasn¡¯t aplete rookie like Li Hao.

    Neither did it count as him joining Yuan Shuo as an already trained individual. Yuan Xingwu was yet to be a yer when he was twenty-three. The supernatural had just begun its rise in that age and progress was difficult for martial masters. Arduous training that led to establishing oneself as a yer in one¡¯s twenties was a respectable showing.

    On the other hand, Yuan Shuo had only prepared to bide his time for a short while. Who would have thought that it¡¯d turn out to be more than ten years in the small backwater of Silver City?

    Yuan Xingwu had been given the Yuan surname from Yuan Shuo. The eldest disciple lost his parents at a young age and was thus regarded as a natural harbinger of disaster. Despised for his misfortunes, he didn¡¯t even have an official name until Yuan Shuo epted him. Yuan Shuo shared his surname with his disciple and also gave him the name of <i>xingwu</i>¡ªrevitalizing martial dao.

    The name bore a significant meaning. Martial dao was already showing signs of decline then. Bestowing his first disciple with such a name reflected Yuan Shuo¡¯s unique thoughts.

    Li Hao observed the man through his visor. He¡¯d never heard his teacher mention this man, but had heard of Chen Yuhua a few times. That Yuan Xingwu had made it to Nova meant that he had a certain amount of experience in the supernatural domain. Perhaps he¡¯d crossed over many years ago. Li Hao frowned, but didn¡¯t think more on that.

    Everyone had their own paths. Persisting with martial dao might not have been a good choice in that age. When even Yuan Shuo had been bottlenecked at Sunderer of Hundreds, where did that leave others? Veteran martial masters like Sky Sword had chosen to set foot into the supernatural, so taking this step wasn¡¯t necessarily a mistake.

    Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t opposed to crossing over to the supernatural either. He hadn¡¯t been against that path for Li Hao and had even been ready to be supernatural when he was a Dominator. It was onlyter that he discovered the great drawbacks to this field and gave up the n, also warning Li Hao not to take that step.

    Yuan Xingwu spoke, interrupting Li Hao¡¯s thoughts. ¡°You can just summon me if you have need, Deputy Zhou. There is no need for you to go to the trouble of making a trip in the middle of night.¡±

    ¡°No worries, I¡¯m just stretching my legs!¡± the deputyughed. ¡°I¡¯m here to see General Yuan as a representative of the provincial government. I have certain things to discuss with the general.¡±

    ¡°This way, please!¡± Yuan Xingwu weed the deputy into the tent without further word. Li Hao also made to enter, but a Sr blocked his way.

    ¡°This is the Silver Moon Guard that¡¯s escorting me...¡± Deputy Zhou smiled.

    ¡°That means he¡¯s one of Director Hou¡¯s, isn¡¯t he?¡± Yuan Xingwu frowned faintly. What was the deputy doing, bringing one of the Guards as his bodyguard in a meeting with him, nheless!

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, the Silver Moon Guards have aplicated background. Not everyone there is deathly loyal to Hou Xiaochen. This Guard is a descendant of a friend and has always been on good terms with me.¡±

    Yuan Xingwu gestured to his man, permitting Li Hao into the tent. The young man didn¡¯t care if he was inside or not, but he might as well listen in on the meeting since he was here.

    ......

    There was almost another world inside the tent¡ªit was very spacious. The two men sat across from each other; Li Hao stood behind the deputy, a quiet and still figure.

    ¡°I¡¯m here on behalf of Director General Zhou with three questions. So long as General Yuan gives me a straightforward answer, the provincial government and Commander Yuan won¡¯t have any opinions about what you do.¡±

    ¡°Please go ahead!¡±

    ¡°Firstly, have the Skystar Troopse here to prevent Hou Xiaochen from taking the ck Tortoise Seal?¡±

    Yuan Xingwu frowned, then nodded. ¡°Yes! This is not my personal desire, but orders from upstairs. As part of the military, the Skystar Troops must follow orders.¡±

    ¡°Good!¡± Deputy Zhouughed. ¡°Secondly, will you be taking the the ck Tortoise Seal if you can remove it?¡¯¡¯

    ¡°Yes, we will take it with us if we can im it.¡± Yuan Xingwu readily admitted his intentions without any attempt to conceal his thoughts. ¡°Because if we can touch it, that means the ck Tortoise Seal is just an ordinary origin weapon!¡±

    ¡°Thirdly, Orange Moon and Yellow Moon might give up hunting Yuan Shuo ande here instead. Will the Skystar Troops kill them if you encounter each other in the ruins? Granted, chances are low that you can do so.¡±

    ¡°We will if circumstances permit!¡± Yuan Xingwu rumbled. ¡°But if circumstances do not permit and taking action will lead to the deaths of my brothers... I will not risk their lives!¡±

    ¡°Very well, I understand now.¡± Deputy Zhou smiled. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind, could you answer something off topic?¡±

    ¡°Please speak frankly, Deputy Zhou.¡±

    ¡°Li Hao mighte as well and enter Battle Heaven. Will you risk your own life to save him if he runs into trouble?¡±

    ¡°Does Deputy Zhou care deeply about this?¡± Yuan Xingwu frowned. Did this have to do with the provincial government?

    ¡°I am just curious because Li Hao is a very bold person and easily opts for a risky decision. His feud with the three great organizations runs deep. I¡¯m worried that the Skystar Troops will create some unnecessary trouble if they act haphazardly.¡±

    Yuan Xingwu pondered the question. ¡°My answer is the same as before. I can take the risk, but I won¡¯t have the others do so. Li Hao is my junior brother in name, but I am unfamiliar with him. I am duty-bound to save him, but my brothers have no reason to lose their lives for a stranger!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, very well!¡± Deputy Zhou concluded his questioning and rose to his feet. ¡°That is all I have.¡±

    Just three questions¡ªor four, rather. No one knew what Yuan Xingwu was thinking now, whereas Li Hao was very calm. He wasn¡¯t surprised by the responses and even felt that there was no need for the other to save him. Yuan Xingwu was right, they weren¡¯t familiar with each other. In fact, it was the young man¡¯s first time hearing of this name.

    If it was up to him, he might¡¯ve replied with, ¡°I¡¯ll save him if I can and I won¡¯t if I can¡¯t¡±. Therefore, Li Hao didn¡¯t find anything inappropriate with the response. However, had Deputy Zhou asked this to demonstrate that Yuan Xingwu did not bear kind intentions toward Li Hao?

    If that was the case, then the deputy¡¯s efforts would be in vain.

 Chapter 433: Secrets (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 433: Secrets (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao was much moreposed than the deputy thought. The young man never held the opinion that there was a need for anyone to go to any trouble on his behalf. Even when he encountered the scarlet shadow, he only hoped that his teacher would help him after he first helped Yuan Shuo progress to Dominator. Before that, he¡¯d rather take everything in his own hands.

    Favors were the hardest debt to discharge in the world! Some could never be paid off. They were too troublesome.

    ......

    Li Hao escorted Deputy Zhou back to the military camp after they left the tent. Yuan Xingwu sent off the deputy, his thoughts a mystery.

    ¡°Wang Ming¡¯s information isn¡¯tplete,¡± Deputy Zhou said when they walked a long distance away. ¡°I have aplete copy that¡¯s more or less correct, unless someone¡¯s hidden themselves very deep. Have a look.¡±

    He fished out a small pamphlet from his pockets. ¡°This is all the information that we¡¯ve collected so far. Also, what you see and hear may not be true. None of your teacher¡¯s disciples are simple characters. It was already quiteplicated when Hou Xiaochen asked Hu Dingfang to lead thest expedition. Hu Dingfang is Chen Yuhua¡¯s husband, while Yuan Xingwu is Chen Yuhua¡¯s senior brother. Therefore, the Skystar Troops say they¡¯re at odds... but reality is difficult to gauge.¡±

    Li Hao pretended to not hear any of it. <i>Don¡¯t talk to me about this nonsense! There¡¯s no use! My goal in the ruins is very simple¡ªget stronger. </i>He wanted toprehend the water and wood auras, as well as collect mysterious power stones and origin weapons for the little sword. As for other matters... he¡¯d promised Hou Xiaochen that he would help the man obtain the origin weapon, so he would. Who cared about a second eruption of the supernatural or disaster developing when the city was unsealed?

    <i>Why think so much? What does it have to do with me? Is the world ending relevant to me? If we¡¯re going to die, we can all die together!</i>

    Deputy Zhou suddenly felt that he was preaching to deaf ears and was quite disheartened by the situation. The young man kept himself in check very well! Nothing he said was getting through! He¡¯d said so much, but it was like Li Hao hadn¡¯t heard a word he said. He didn¡¯t offer anything in response and didn¡¯t seem interested in learning more about Yuan Xingwu.

    ¡°Li Hao,¡± the deputy finally voiced what he was most curious about when they were almost back at camp. ¡°Why don¡¯t you ask about how many secrets we know? I might tell you.¡±

    The young man remained silent, baring his teeth in a grin when the deputy remained looking at him. ¡°When ites to secrets... there are no more secrets when the enemy is all dead. Secrets can be buried!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Deputy Zhou furrowed his brows and looked sharply at Li Hao. This answer was wholly unexpected. What did the young man mean by it? Were his bloodthirsty tendencies that strong, or was he saying this on purpose to elicit a reaction?

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered to share more of his thoughts. It wasn''t that he was bloodthirsty or not curious, just that he was thinking back to what that murderous fiend had said in the illusory realm. <i>Surrender if you know what¡¯s good for you. I¡¯ll kill all those who don¡¯t!</i>

    Everytime Li Hao thought of these words, he felt that there was no point in interrogating enemies for secrets, showing mercy, or forcing them to capitte. <i>I have the strength to kill you all, and I will if you don¡¯tmit suicide!</i>

    Mmhmm, things were just that simple! That free and easy mindset was what he should look up to!

    Therefore, Li Hao was truly not interested in the secrets that these people kept. Perhaps they considered those little pieces of information near and dear to their heart and were deathly afraid of others knowing. Whatever it was, it was all jokes.

    When he possessed sufficient strength, he would kill them all with one stroke no matter what the secret was. <i>Just hang onto your precious little bits. You have nowhere to share them in death! </i>One¡¯s greatest regret might be having unvoiced secrets at the moment of death. What a pity that would be!

    Deputy Zhou gave up the notion of holding a conversation. He walked forward, sighing to himself. This was exceedingly bizarre. Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t taught Li Hao how to kill, so was the young man truly too bloodthirsty in his very nature, or had some unexpected urrences taken ce along the way?

    Li Hao watched Deputy Zhou return safely and thought back to everything he¡¯d heard and seen today. He suppressed it all in the depths of his heart. So there was civil discord in Silver Moon. How interesting. But was it real or a sham? Regardless, whoever survived to present day in Silver Moon was no kind soul.

    He walked forward instead of leaving the camp. Wang Ming was still waiting for him. The handsome supernatural suspected the oing armored soldier as Li Hao, but he wasn¡¯t certain.

    ¡°You were looking for me, brother? Answer me this first, what kind of animal is Panther?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao jerked to a halt. This kid exercised caution when he shouldn¡¯t and waspletely blind when he should! ¡°A dog!¡±

    Wang Ming beamed. ¡°You¡¯re finally here! Where were you earlier?¡± <i>I waited a long time for you!</i>

    ¡°Come out!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m grounded.¡±

    ¡°Come out, it¡¯s fine.¡±

    Alright then. Wang Ming looked at the soldiers guarding the entrance and took a step forward. Much to his surprise, they didn¡¯t react. They wouldn¡¯t let him leave before. Therefore, Wang Ming set this aside and quickly walked toward Li Hao.

    The young man turned and left, leaving Wang Ming to catch up to him. They put some space between themselves and the military camp before Li Hao addressed Wang Ming.

    ¡°Who told you to ask ssified Affairs for information?¡± he asked wearily.

    ¡°Huh?¡± Wang Ming blinked. ¡°I... didn¡¯t? What would I do with them? I just asked some friends to poke around for me.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t know what to say. <i>Ooookay.... so Deputy Zhou didn¡¯t say a single true word just now, did he?</i>

    Well, granted, the man hadn¡¯t known who he was at first. So he¡¯d said that on purpose? <i>I have absolutely fuck all to say about what I just endured then.</i> These people lied at the drop of a hat after being officials for so long. They felt absolutely no cognitive dissonance about it. It was impossible to say which of the deputy¡¯s words had been true and which had been false. Neither did Li Hao want to dwell further on this.

    ¡°Where¡¯s the information?¡± Although he¡¯d gotten a copy from Deputy Zhou, Li Hao trusted Wang Ming more. Besides, a quickparison would reveal truth from falsehood.

    ¡°Right here...¡± Wang Ming took out arge notebook from the inside of his jacket. Li Hao casually tossed a ring at him.

    ¡°Storage ring. Don¡¯t shove everything into your clothes next time, that looks pitiful!¡± He didn¡¯tck storage rings for the moment as he¡¯d collected a great deal. The six Srs possessed storage rings, as did the seventeen Srs and two Novas that¡¯d diedter. Yu Xiao and Huang Jie also had one each, which meant that Li Hao had twenty-five of them. He¡¯d given one to Liu Long and kept the rest for himself.

    Wang Ming was overjoyed! This was an expensive object.

    ¡°You¡¯re the best, senior brother!¡± He fawned over his senior brother as best he could, but Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered to listen. He took a look at the handsome supernatural and thought for a bit. ¡°Breakthroughs are easy for supernaturals, all you guys need to do is to break your locks. You see five of yours, right?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Wang Ming affirmed excitedly. ¡°I¡¯m a genius!¡±

    Five supernatural locks meant that he could make it to Nova. The caveat was that he possessed sufficient capital to do so. Otherwise, seeing even nine locks would be useless. However, five locks did make him a genius. Hao Lianchuan could see only four and thus stopped as a Sr. He would have to pay an incredible price to manifest his next supernatural lock.

    ¡°Will you be able to ascend to Sr if I give you enough metal mysterious power?¡± Li Hao considered the problem.

    ¡°I can¡¯t.¡± Wang Ming shook his head after mulling it over. ¡°It¡¯s not just a matter of mysterious power at that stage and it¡¯s rather dangerous for us to ascend as well. There seems to be another test to go from Sr to Nova. I¡¯m not sure of the details, but it might have to do with some stuff on a mental level. Sr is not a problem with sufficient energy, but it needs to be absorbed bit by bit.¡±

    He couldn¡¯t digest so much at once.

    ¡°What if there was sufficient power of the kind that helped you break through to Sunre?¡±

    Wang Ming¡¯s eyes lit up! He¡¯d advanced to Sunre because of special metal energy that Li Hao had sent him. He couldn¡¯t forget it even now. Itcked the violence of mysterious power and was very gentle. It was quitefortable to absorb and he¡¯d almost moaned in pleasure.

    Most importantly, the effects were amazing! It didn¡¯t tax his body as much after he broke through. Thus, he looked at Li Hao with a burning gaze. Was his senior brother going to give him more valuables?

    Li Hao looked back at him and said after a moment, ¡°I know many supernaturals, but not that many are close to me. Those willing to help me at crucial moments are even less. You guys count as my junior brothers and sisters at the very least. Would you be willing to take a stand for me if I run into danger?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Wang Ming quickly said. ¡°Is there any doubt? But... you... can¡¯t go against my family. I won¡¯t stand for that.¡±

    ¡°Why would I ever do that?¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Take this batch of mysterious power to Hu Hao, Li Meng, and Yun Yao. I won¡¯t be visiting them. As for you, let¡¯s wait until I exit the ruins.¡±

    He knew many supernaturals, but these were the first that he¡¯d met and his teacher had epted them as honorary disciples. Although that¡¯d been a random impulse, it meant there was still a tie between them.

    Supernaturals found it easy to ascend, martial masters found it hard. If the amount of energy that¡¯d gone to Liu Long¡¯s organs had been gifted to Wang Ming instead, thetter would¡¯ve be a Sr a long time ago. It wasn¡¯t exaggeration, just the truth. He would be far down the Sr path.

    There were many drawbacks to the supernatural domain and their truly powerful wanted to convert to martial masters. It could be seen from this that their people knew of their path¡¯s inherent problems. Thus, their next step at the Nova level was to consider how to convert to martial dao.

    However, Li Hao didn¡¯t think that the supernatural was all bad. Some of their methods were very formidable. He tossed another storage ring to Wang Ming. ¡°There are some items for cultivation inside.¡±

    ¡°You really are the best, senior brother!¡± Wang Ming fawned. Too bad he wasn¡¯t a girl, it would be much morefortable that way.

 Chapter 434: The Ruins Open Again (I)

    <h4>Chapter 434: The Ruins Open Again (I)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind Wang Ming¡¯s ttery and was ready to leave when the handsome supernatural said, ¡°Oh, wait, my grandfather says that the official Silver Moon authorities won¡¯t be sending that many people when the ruins open tomorrow. Director Hou got you a spot, but the others can¡¯t go inside...¡±

    Li Hao frowned slightly. ¡°What about wandering cultivators?¡±

    ¡°They can enter if they pay the entrance fee!¡±

    Struck dumb by the response, Li Hao nodded and quickly departed.

    An exuberant Wang Ming peeked into the storage rings when Li Hao left. His joy deepened as he took stock of what he had. So many storage rings! Why had Li Hao suddenly be so generous?

    He quickly returned to the army camp and jumped in fright when his grandfather appeared as soon as he came back.

    ¡°Did you go out to meet a friend?¡± he asked calmly instead of berating his grandson for flouting orders.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°I hear they were a Silver Moon Guard?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Wang Ming nodded. ¡°A martial master friend I used to know. He¡¯s doing well for himself in the Guards, so he came to me to catch up.¡±

    ¡°You need to think things through.¡± Wang Peng looked at his grandson. ¡°I won¡¯t interfere with your matters, but you need to be very cognizant of one point¡ªeven though no one speaks of it and everyone avoids it, the eight families can detonate at any time!¡±

    With that, he left. He didn¡¯t say too much as he just wanted his grandson to see certain things clearly. The eight families were an enormous keg of gunpowder. Red Moon had always set their eyes on the eight families and quite a few others were silently watching them. That no one talked about them didn¡¯t mean that no one was paying attention.

    In reality, all of the true powerhouses were keeping a close eye on the matter!

    It wasn¡¯t necessarily a good development that his grandson was growing so close to Li Hao. However, Wang Peng didn¡¯t spell it out. It was up to Wang Ming¡¯s own choices.

    Wang Ming curled his lip after his grandfather left, not thinking much of the warning. They can detonate at any time? So what? Fortuitous opportunities wille only if that gunpowder ignites! His grandfather lived a life of prudent caution, which resulted in him losing the position of the White Dragonmander. It should¡¯ve been his and was almost certain to go to the Wangs.

    The family had sent Wang Ming to the Night Watchers to stabilize their footing afterward, but as it turned out, Hou Xiaochen¡¯s attention was on the Silver Moon Guards instead of the Night Watchers. It turned out to be another bad investment!

    At the end of the day, his grandfather earned nothing for his efforts apart from a middle-of-the-road title that would¡¯ve been his regardless. What use was that?

    And for Wang Ming, he was assigned to Silver City after bing a Full Moon and advanced rapidly. He was already a mid Sunre now and Li Hao had just mentioned a desire to invest more heavily in the young man. Perhaps bing a Sunre or even Nova wouldn¡¯t be a problem!

    Wang Ming might have a big mouth and look very silly at times, but he wasn¡¯t a fool. The energy that¡¯de from Li Hao had been too special. Wang Ming felt that if there was enough of it, he¡¯d be a solid peak Sr, if not Nova. It wouldn¡¯t take too long either.

    His grandfather had started exploring the supernatural twenty years ago, but just barely made it into peak Sr. He¡¯d only done so because pressure had grown too muchtely and the family had exhausted its coffers to push Wang Peng to those heights.

    Since the family itself wasn¡¯t destined for great fortune, then Wang Ming would create their fortune through drawing close to someone who could. He immediately threw his grandfather¡¯s words to the back of his mind. <i>The eight families... What a pity that my Wang family isn¡¯t the Wangs of the eight. But at least I¡¯m Yuan Shuo¡¯s honorary disciple.</i>

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care how Wang Ming was. As bumbling as he might be, he was sometimes very reliable. At the very least, he always aplished the tasks set to him. Li Hao perused the information from Wang Ming andpared it to his observations, slowly grasping a clear picture of the situation. There was no hurry to look at what the deputy had given him.

    A figure shed out of the darkness¡ªLiu Long.

    ¡°Who did you walk off with earlier?¡± He¡¯d been waiting outside and had been confused to see Li Hao leave with an old man.

    ¡°Deputy Zhou of the provincial government.¡±

    ¡°Ah... he recognized you?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    Liu Long was surprised, but not that startled. He fell in step beside Li Hao. ¡°It¡¯s best to have as little to do with those guys as possible. They¡¯re schrs who¡¯ve been officials for decades. They¡¯ll say whatever they need to whoever they wish at whenever they want.¡±

    Li Hao startedughing. ¡°Chief, have you heard of Yuan Xingwu?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± A surprised Liu Long nodded. ¡°Of course, your eldest senior brother. Both he and your master were in Silver City when I was on duty there, so of course I know him. We met a few times. Other than being a bit extreme at times, he¡¯s a fine guy. I rather admire him.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s extreme?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Liu Long exined. ¡°He can be a little much. Your master was suppressed by others after the rise of the supernatural, but he was more agitated and furious than your master. He eventually went against Yuan Shuo¡¯s wishes and left home. That¡¯s pretty much it, I¡¯m not sure where he went after that. You saw him?¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t offer anything else. ¡°The ruins will open the day after tomorrow. Will you be going inside, chief?¡±

    ¡°I want to, and I will if I can. If I can¡¯t... you¡¯ll be on your own.¡± Liu Long did want to participate in the expedition, and not for the potential treasure. He just wanted to see more fights between powerhouses. As a martial master, he wouldn¡¯t be able to improve if he always fought those weaker than him. He¡¯d just barely set foot into Summoner. Now was when he should spar with powerhouses and quickly improve.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s wait and see,¡± Li Hao hummed with thought. ¡°If ites down to it, we¡¯ll pretend to be wandering cultivators. But that¡¯ll be more difficult because they might all have our pictures. If we have to, we can wear a mask or cloak or something like the three great organizations. I¡¯m sure no one will look that closely at us then.¡±

    The three great organizations had always been thus¡ªwhen had the person beneath the disguise ever been investigated? Many wandering cultivators would be doing the same.

    ¡°Are you not going to wait for the director?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s get inside first.¡± Li Hao led Liu Long back to the little town that the Demon Hunters were resting at.

    ......

    <i>September 27.</i>

    There was no grand challenge this time. The battle between Yuan Shuo and the Qimei Staff was just a month ago, but it seemed like it¡¯d been eons for many.

    Yuan Shuo was still rampaging through the central region. Red Moon remained hunting him, but they couldn¡¯ty hands on the old man. He had an incredible plethora of methods and techniques. He could conceal his presence, change his appearance, hide, counter track...

    He was skilled at them all since he had nothing else better to practice during all those years in Silver City. Not only that, but Yuan Shuo was particrly familiar with the terrain, people, and culture of the central region. He escaped being surrounded multiple times and came back to kill his pursuers instead. The Red Moon powerhouses were being run into the ground as the old demon of yesteryear once more disyed his tenacity and brutality.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    The three great organizations stirred uneasily.

    <i>At the Red Moon camp.</i>

    Blue Moon frowned ferociously, an expression echoed by Green Moon. There was no sign to be seen of Tidal Wave. ording to their agreement, she was to return before the 28th even if she couldn¡¯t kill Li Hao. They were to enter the ruins together. The presence of a Nova was significant to the expedition.

    ¡°It¡¯s not just Elder Tidal Wave, but the Revolution King and the sixteen hell masters under the Parity King have yet to return as well,¡± Violet Moon gave a quick report. ¡°Our people have gone to Ash Mountain, but it¡¯s a very dangerous ce. There are major monster spirits there and they ran into a Sr level one along the way. They decided to retreat after losing a few. They were unable to find traces of Elder Tidal Wave or the others.¡±

    ¡°So many people hunting a few martial masters...¡± Green Moon grumbled. ¡°The strongest of them is Li Hao and he has not reached the Nova level. And they still lost him?? Is Tidal Wave an idiot?¡±

    It was not good that the elder had not returned even now.

    ¡°Forget her if she really doesn¡¯t make it in time...¡± Blue Moon said after some thought.

    ¡°Forget it?!¡± Green Moon snapped. ¡°It¡¯s not just the problem of one Nova. It would¡¯ve been best if Tidal Wave had captured Li Hao. Killing him would also do. If worst came to worst, she could call off the hunt and both of them coulde back. We have more chances in the ruins! Now look at this, both of them have disappeared and you want to forget it??¡±

    She snorted with obvious dissatisfaction. Blue Moon was trash! He¡¯d summoned so many people here, but made a grave misstep all the same! It was only to be expected, that bitch¡¯s son was pure and utter trash!

    Blue Moon flicked a nce at Green Moon. As the second generation of his position, his status naturally wasn¡¯t as high as this one. But as one of the Seven Moons, it wasn¡¯t the first time that Green Moon had treated him in this manner. It was rather Violet Moon that she showed some respect to, even though Violet Moon was a third generation.

    Violet Moon had an impressive backer. He did not.

    ¡°Then we wait,¡± he said calmly. ¡°We can wait another day. If she is still not back tomorrow, we¡¯ll have to set out for the ruins and then see.¡±

    What else could they do? Green Moon only knew how toin; she didn¡¯t do anything proper.

    Violet Moon could bear the situation no longer. Although Blue Moon sometimes took thew into his own hands, he still actually took action, despite not finding much sess. Upon seeing that Green Moon wanted to continue her tirade against him, Violet Moon spoke up.

    ¡°Aunt Peacock, let¡¯s first discuss what we should be doing in the ruins after we enter the ruins tomorrow.¡± The day was at hand, but the delegation didn¡¯t have any ns.

    Green Moon¡¯s furious expression softened slightly when Violet Moon spoke. ¡°Our leader gave us a few words before we came. Our first target is still to either capture Li Hao or bring his corpse back. The second is to determine the true nature behind Battle Heaven...¡±

    ¡°What true nature?¡± Violet Moon asked with surprise. Wasn¡¯t it just to seize the treasures? Origin weapons and others, no?

    Green Moon wasn¡¯t that certain herself, she could only say, ¡°That¡¯s what our leader said. He didn¡¯t set any concrete targets. Also, don¡¯t touch anything in the city and be careful of Hou Xiaochen. It will be very difficult to kill him, but we can try to force him to continuously use his strength.¡±

 Chapter 435: The Ruins Open Again (II)

    <h4>Chapter 435: The Ruins Open Again (II)</h4>

    The Red Moon delegation collectively frowned, not understanding their leader¡¯s intentions.

    ¡°When I left, the leader said that Hou Xiaochen cannot sustain long intervals of strength. He is very strong, but he must conclude battle quickly. Therefore, we will whittle away at him bit by bit.

    ¡°Additionally, all we need to do when we reach Battle Heaven is to determine if it is the real Battle Heaven.¡±

    ¡°......¡± This left the group even more confused. The real Battle Heaven? What did that mean?

    Green Moon was equally resigned. This was how their leader operated at times. His words made absolutely no sense.

    ¡°Our leader means to say... he means... I don¡¯t know how to exin it either. You guys know his style. All he said that we¡¯ll naturally know if it¡¯s the real Battle Heaven. If not, we won¡¯t feel it either.¡±

    The group exchanged wordless nces with each other. Forget it, they weren¡¯t going to dwell further on this. They understood in the sense that Ying Hongyue didn¡¯t have specific demands, other than Li Hao being the only concrete goal. inly, the young man was more important than any origin weapon in their leader¡¯s eyes.

    It was all the more confusing. Was Li Hao really that important? In that case, why didn¡¯t they bring their full strength to bear against the young man? Why did they split up their forces to hunt Yuan Shuo? Or was Yuan Shuo equally as much of a threat?

    Additionally, their leader couldn¡¯t easily leave their headquarters, or it¡¯d give government agencies such as the Night Watchers a chance to dismantle a core Red Moon position. But there were many powerhouses among the elder council, some of whom were listed on the Divine Masters Ranking. Why had they gone missing as well?

    While the Seven Moons of Red Moon were the leading figures of the organization, things were a bitplicated. Whether out of loyalty to past rtionships or simply a lecherous nature... Ying Hongyue had assigned purely women to the first generation of Seven Moons.

    It wasn¡¯t until the second generation that men such as Blue Moon were chosen. Therefore, the strength of the Seven Moons was inconsistent. Some were weaker than those of the elder council, but none of the eldersined. Everyone knew that Red Moon answered to one family. Ying Hongyue was the leader, so it didn¡¯t matter if his lovers were the leaders or not.

    Although some of the delegation were still very confused as to their mission in the ruins, they also knew that Ying Hongyue had an entric temper. He would exin more if one caught him in a good mood, but explode with rage if asked when he was in a sour mood. An irritable Ying Hongyue was a frightening prospect.

    ......

    Not only was Red Moon discussing their ns, but so was Yama. The Parity King was the most infuriated of all. He stalked around their camp with a glowering expression. It was one thing that the Revolution King had yet to return, but his sixteen hell masters had also gone missing!

    He¡¯d given orders that if they failed to catch up to Li Hao, they should rush back before the ruins opened. And yet, his men were well aware that the ruins would open first thing tomorrow morning, but there was no sign of them to be seen.

    Where the hell were they??

    Ash Mountain was very dangerous.

    Parity¡¯s strength would greatly increase with his sixteen hell masters. He was just a mid Nova if they did not return. Highly cantankerous, he kept sending scouts to look for his men.

    <i>You bastard Revolution! Die if you must, don¡¯t drag my people down with you!</i>

    ......

    As the three great organizations urgently waited for word of their own, the night grew long without any clues. The clock ticked over to the 28th.

    The ruins would open again when dawn broke; people crowded the entrance before any rays of sunlight hit the horizon.

    A group of Night Watchers and Silver Moon Guards surrounded the cliff face, preventing the crowd from pressing up to the entrance. The two government institutions were under enormous pressure as there were too many people and experts present. Most were here for treasure, but quite a few were here for Hou Xiaochen.

    More people gathered the more time went on. Some renowned personnel made themselves known as well.

    ¡°Xu Feng¡¯s here!¡± Someone recognized Xu Feng in the distance. The entrant on the Divine Masters Rankingnded on a cliff face instead of jostling with the crowd.

    ¡°The Liu family of Skystar City is here!¡±

    ¡°Those are people from Near River province¡¯s government, right?¡± Some within the assembly recognized those from Silver Moon¡¯s neighboring province.

    Near River¡¯s hierarchy of power slightly differed from Silver Moon¡¯s. The four institutions were on even footing in Silver Moon. Near River was simr, but its director general enjoyed high status and exercised great authority. He upied absolute advantage and spoke for the rest of the province. He¡¯dbined the various institutions into one¡ªthe Near River Director General Office. He was the first of Near River in both deed and name. Those from his office were here.

    The canyon bustled with activity as more powerhouses arrived. A loudugh cut through the assembly. ¡°Everyone¡¯s here early!¡±

    An unkempt, unshaved man walked through the air. He shattered a few rocks when hended with a rumble. Some recognized him as well.

    ¡°Southern Fist is here!¡±

    ¡°That guy? This isn¡¯t a ce for him to throw his weight around. People show face to the royal family outside the ruins, but who will care about a royal instructor once they¡¯re inside? He¡¯s just a martial master and though he¡¯s said to be strong because he changed his blood a few times, putting him on par with Srs... That¡¯s nothing on this venture.¡±

    Southern Fist¡¯s arrival raised a flurry of discussion, but not that many people cared. Even those from Skystar City swept a quick nce over the man and moved on to other topics.

    ......

    <i>On the cliff face.</i>

    Xu Feng of the white ents in his hair chuckled when he looked at He Yong. ¡°Southern Fist... I hear he¡¯s changed his blood three times and possesses the battle strength of a Sr?¡±

    The old man next to him cast aplicated look at He Yong and nodded. ¡°That is indeed what they say.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Xu Feng looked into the distance with a frown. ¡°Qi Gang¡¯s here as well.¡±

    That was his true opponent. As a fellow peer on the Divine Masters Ranking, Qi Gang came from the Ministry of Administration and was ranked much higher than him. They were both mid Novas, but Qi Gang was stronger.

    Xu Feng was aware of numerous people in attendance who were also listed on the Divine Masters Ranking. There was Blue Moon of the Red Moon organization, Qi Gang of the Ministry of Administration, and a famous elder from Celestial called the Umbra Swordsman. The swordsman had once assassinated a Nova.

    Just as Xu Feng observed the premises, so were those around him doing the same. Many heavyweights had responded to the lure of these ruins.

    ......

    Li Hao was also present in the crowd. Instead of his suit of ck armor, he was wearing a mask. It was one of a ferocious tiger instead of the Red Moon ghost face. The mask would be conspicuous in normal times, but quite normal as of the moment.

    There were numerous other masks around him as wandering cultivators were also worried of harm befalling them. If someone learned of their identity after they secured some treasure, they¡¯d be hunted in the outside world after leaving the ruins. Thus, concealment from the very beginning was necessary.

    Li Hao ignored them. He looked around, identifying quite a few people thanks to the information he¡¯d obtained a few days ago. Mid Nova Xu Feng was one of the more famous. The mid Nova rushing in from a distance was Qi Gang from outside government authorities. The young man also knew initial Nova Hu Qingfeng.

    Many hade from Red Moon¡ªLi Hao saw a few balls of light belonging to Novas with a quick scan. One of them was even stronger than Qi Gang. That was probably Green Peacock, also known as the Green Moon.

    Apart from the two Novas of Green and Blue Moon, Red Moon possessed another two Novas. One was initial Nova and the other was...te Nova! Their ball of light wasn¡¯t that obvious and they were listed in what he¡¯d obtained. It looked like they were obscuring their identity.

    It was the oldest trick in the book! These people loved pulling these ruses, but none of it fooled Li Hao.

    His eyes abruptly settled on a young man on the Red Moon side. Thetter was also looking around, a strange look in his eyes. Li Hao followed the young man¡¯s focus, a strange look entering <i>his</i> eyes as he did so.

    The Red Moon youngster was looking at all the people who Li Hao had identified as concealing their identities! He was pinpointing all the powerful ones, including some martial masters!

    ......

    At the same time, on the Red Moon side.

    ¡°There are a couple Srs in the crowd,¡± transmitted the young man as he nced around. ¡°I can¡¯t tell if there¡¯s any Novas yet, but the Srs can¡¯t conceal their broken supernatural locks. I can tell that four of their locks have broken...

    ¡°There are also some formidable martial masters present with aura around them.¡±

    The youngster¡¯s eyes were slightly different¡ªhe had more whites in his eyes. However, that was only discernible through close examination.

    Green Moon didn¡¯t mind. ¡°Look at Hou Xiaochen!¡± she transmitted.

    Hou Xiaochen had arrived in the distance.

    Blood flooded the young man¡¯s eyes. He grunted before responding, ¡°I can¡¯t see anything... just a spear that threatens to split the void. I can¡¯t keep looking at him. If I do, my eyes will be crippled!¡±

    Green Moon greeted these words solemnly. That strong? The youngster in front of her was one of the Heaven¡¯s Eyes.

    It was very difficult to train one. Although the organization didn¡¯t have many of them, they¡¯d gone to the trouble of bringing a veteran Heaven¡¯s Eye to Rift Canyon so they could better observe the various factions and the dangers within the ruins. Who would¡¯ve thought that they¡¯de up short against Hou Xiaochen?

    ......

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen looked at the Red Moon delegation and smiled at the youngster. He murmured to the person next to him, ¡°A Heaven¡¯s Eye... how nice to have one¡¯s heavenly eye opened. They can see things that others cannot. It¡¯s rumored that Li Hao also has his open. What do you guys think?¡±

    No one replied.

    Kong Jie was also looking around and asked after a while, ¡°Ole Hou, do you think Li Hao¡¯s here?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re too humble!¡± Kong Jieughed. ¡°He should be. Forget it, he must have his own thoughts. Ole Hou, there are a lot of powerhouses here this time. Are you confident?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll need the inspector general to look after me.¡±

    ¡°Hah, nah, I can¡¯t do it!¡± Kong Jie chuckled.

    ¡°Earthturner Sword is here again?¡± Hou Xiaochen suddenly frowned at a person far away.

    ¡°......¡± The group followed his gaze and saw Hong Yitang burrowing into the crowd like he was an ordinary person. Hou Xiaochen remained quietly frowning, while Golden Spear raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Earthturner Sword... is growing ever more dispirited these days.¡±

    How was that how the second sword of the Seven Swords shouldport himself?

    Manager Yu and Berserk also looked over without a word.

 Chapter 436: The Ruins Open Again (III)

    <h4>Chapter 436: The Ruins Open Again (III)</h4>

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    Hong Yitang was alone for this month¡¯s expedition. He squeezed his way through the crowd and identally stepped on someone¡¯s foot. He stood on tiptoe to look around, befuddled as to where Li Hao was hiding.

    The man continued to push forward like he was in a market, raising cries ofint wherever he went. If it wasn¡¯t for the powerhouses of various factions intermingled in the crowd, someone would¡¯ve already hit him.

    ¡°Martial Uncle Hong is here too?¡± someone transmitted to him as he pushed through another knot of people.

    ¡°......¡± Hong Yitang looked around with confusion, scanning a martial master with a tiger mask not too far from him. ¡°How are you concealing your aura?¡±

    The aura was very difficult to hide. Supernaturals might not detect it, but it was nearly impossible to hoodwink a fellow martial heavyweight.

    ¡°Just a small trick!¡± Li Hao answered excitedly. ¡°I¡¯m at ease now that martial uncle is here!¡±

    Hong Yitang rolled his eyes. <i>What are you at ease for? What is there to be at ease about?</i>

    ¡°Do you have any targets in mind, martial uncle?¡±

    ¡°Nope, I just want some blood pearls for my weak heart. Or do you have some you can give me?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t have any either.¡±

    ¡°Then what are we talking for?¡± Hong Yitang truly didn¡¯t have many goals this time, he just wanted some blood pearls. As for Li Hao... forget it, he didn¡¯t want to ask for help from the treacherous young man.

    ¡°Martial uncle, shall we head in togetherter?¡±

    ¡°No, you walk your own path!¡± Hong Yitang declined.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t respond; a martial master wearing a tiger mask appeared behind Hong Yitang after a moment. He was sticking to the man from now on! Hong Yitang was already here and they¡¯d made contact, what was this tough act for? <i>I¡¯m with you!</i>

    The young man didn¡¯t believe that Hong Yitang was entering the ruins just for blood pearls. Granted, he didn¡¯t think it aplete lie either. Hong Yitang had an unorthodox and curious style. No one knew what he was thinking. He didn¡¯t establish a powerful sect or take a high position like Hou Xiaochen and the others. Instead, he resembled a wandering cultivator, but rarely poked his head out. He kept a much lower profile than the Sky Sword and others.

    No matter what, though, Li Hao knew how strong he was. This was a great thigh totch onto!

    Up in front, Hong Yitang was quite resigned. <i>This kid is sticking to me??</i> Forget it, that was fine. It didn¡¯t matter.

    ¡°Those who have registered and paid can go inside!¡± Hao Lianchuan¡¯s voice rang in the air. ¡°Those who haven¡¯t registered and are determined to conceal their strength will pay a Nova price! Martial masters will pay a Sr price!

    ¡°You can demonstrate your strength if you don¡¯t want to pay such a high price. Supernaturals must ept being scanned by a supernatural probe. It¡¯s fine if you wish to conceal your strength, just pay the Nova price!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Muttered curses rose and fell in the assembly. Damn, they were something! No one was willing to have their full strength exposed, so who would ever submit to a probe?

    The Nova price was ten mysterious power stones¡ªhow many people could afford that?! Martial masters being assessed at the Sr price was also harrowing!

    ¡°How many martial masters are of the Sr level?¡± called out a martial master. ¡°ording to our current power system, Summoner of Spirit maps to Sr. Martial master strength is difficult to determine and Dominator is pretty much the apex. Being priced at Sr is too expensive!¡±

    Arge table stood in front of Hao Lianchuan as he replied calmly, ¡°Then don¡¯t go inside. Dominators are on par with Sunres, so you¡¯d just be going to your deaths if you did. What, are all of you martial masters supposed to fight each other just because your strength is hard to determine? Pay up, one mysterious power stone each. We¡¯re being nice enough to not levy the Sr price on you. Don¡¯t go inside if you don¡¯t want to!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The crowd started cursing again. This was too expensive!

    Li Hao also growled, but Hong Yitang transmitted to him, ¡°Pay for me in a bit. I gave you all my mysterious power stonesst time and am out of money.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The young man was shocked senseless. <i>This is... nuts!</i>

    He quickly followed the flow of the crowd to the table. When it was his turn, Hao Lianchuan asked without even raising his head, ¡°Martial master or supernatural?¡±

    ¡°Martial master.¡±

    ¡°How many?¡±

    ¡°Two.¡±

    ¡°Two mysterious power stones or two thousand cubes of mysterious power!¡±

    ¡°......¡± This was how real money was made! Li Hao waspletely ovee. The price alone might disqualify many as it was too expensive. He took out two full energy rings.

    Hao Lianchuan briefly scanned them, then tossed two empty energy rings back. He also gave them two medallions with the ¡°martial¡± character on them. They were just crudely hewn items made of iron.

    ¡°You and yourpanion shall each hold one when the ruins open. Ah, do you want to buy a couple more? Those without medallions will not be permitted entry.¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao looked wordlessly at the deputy director. How was he making a business out of this? The Night Watchers were going to earn quite a bit from this expedition.

    Hao Lianchuan bent his head without another word, ready to process the next person. Energy rings covered the table in front of him before long. He waved them all into a storage ring, catching certain people¡¯s eyes. The Night Watchers had gathered tens of thousands of cubes in a short while and more than a dozen mysterious power stones!

    And this was just from the people signing up before the entrance opened. There were plenty more from people who¡¯d registered beforehand. Silver Moon was making out like a bandit from the ruins opening this month!

    Li Hao took a look; even he wanted to rob Hao Lianchuan! But forget it, he wouldn¡¯t make a move against one of his own. Not to mention, there were a lot of powerhouses watching. However, he¡¯d have to make sure to demand the return of his funds after the expedition. Since he didn¡¯t need to pay for entrance, this was aplete waste.

    As a growing number of people obtained medallions, those whocked sufficient funds could only watch opportunity slip through their fingers. They were dejected and morose, but Li Hao felt that if one was so poor that they couldn¡¯t even gain admittance, it was better not to gamble with their lives!

    The most likely oue was to return empty-handed or even die inside.

    As the sun rose, Hou Xiaochen called out, ¡°The ruins will now be opened. Enter in an orderly fashion, don¡¯t cause disorder!¡±

    Rays of energy hit the stone wall, water ripples undted across the surface again. The ruins were open once more!

    ......

    <i>At the same time, inside Battle Heaven.</i>

    The floating old turtle still resembled a sculpture, but a few more hints of sentience sparkled in its eyes. It looked into the distance. People hade again.

    A ck dog napped with boredom on the ground, shaking its tail when it heard something. <i>So this ce is open again? Can I leave now? I¡¯m so hungry that I¡¯m all skin and bones!</i>

    The Gold Armor still sat on a tform in the residence below, the ck Tortoise Seal in its hands. Everything was like before, as if the intrusion ofst month was but a dream.

    All was quiet inside the vast city. No sounds echoed.

    ......

    In the outside world, the ruins were officially open. Armed with experience from thest excavation, the crowd wasn¡¯t in a hurry to enter. There was nothing in the outer city and the inner city doors weren¡¯t open. They might as well go through the second passageway. Since supernaturals couldn¡¯t fly in Battle Heaven, they didn¡¯t need to worry about intruders. And with the Gold Armor, they were even less concerned about being beaten to the treasure.

    The same custom fromst time applied. Wandering cultivators were the first ones in, each of them in a great hurry to snatch up treasure. They would be the first ones to die; all of them died in thest expedition!

    Li Hao and Hong Yitang were now wandering cultivators. They¡¯d paid their way in. A Sr¡¯s price was the same as a martial master¡¯s. No one said anything when they saw the medallion in Hong Yitang¡¯s hand. Since the Sword Sect had joined the Silver Moon Guards, it might¡¯ve been fine if he refused to pay.

    Hou Xiaochen and the others looked at Hong Yitang, then at the person in a tiger mask closely following the man. Was that... Li Hao?

    It was hard to tell. Li Hao didn¡¯t seem that familiar with Hong Yitang, but would thetter have sentrge numbers of Sword Sect martial masters to the Demon Hunters if they weren¡¯t close?

    A figure shed across the scene as the Night Watchers pondered. He Yong shot forward, roaring withughter. ¡°Then I¡¯ll go inside and take first crack at all the goodies!¡±

    The powerhouses outside looked coldly at him. What was he in a rush for? To die? Did Southern Fist think this was still the martial world of yesteryear? The Northern and Southern Fists had long be a relic of the past. Old Demon Five Styles could find no shelter from the endless hunts baying for his blood.

    And yet, He Yong didn¡¯t care. He jumped up and threw himself into the rippling stone wall. Li Hao and Hong Yitang stirred to action as well, entering the cliff face. Meanwhile, Liu Long was concealed among the crowd of wandering cultivators. Li Hao didn¡¯t pay any attention to him. It might be safer for the man if he wasn¡¯t with the young man.

    ......

    When the scene brightened in front of Li Hao again, arge tform could be seen in front of him. Hong Yitang was very familiar with it, he¡¯de herest time. It was currently crowded with the wandering cultivators that¡¯d entered earlier. He Yong was present as well.

    He merrily ran over when he saw Hong Yitang and took a look at Li Hao. ¡°It¡¯s my first time here, so will you guys show me the ropes?¡± he transmitted. Both of these people had visited before, so it was a better idea to follow them than to barge around on his own.

    While he was strong, great dangers might exist in an ancient ruin like Battle Heaven. It would be normal for stronger existences to lose their lives in a ruin, to say nothing of him.

    Someone among the wandering cultivators seemed aware of the situation and shouted, ¡°We should move together! The three great organizations and Silver Moon authorities are very powerful. If we strike out on our own, we might be their scouts! Also, there¡¯s a passageway ahead. We need to follow it and not deviate. Anyone who walks out of it won¡¯t be returning!¡±

 Chapter 437: Fine Wine For Fine Guests (I)

    <h4>Chapter 437: Fine Wine For Fine Guests (I)</h4>

    He Yong looked at Li Hao; the young man rolled his eyes.<i> Don¡¯t look at me, I was transported to the outer cityst time. I don¡¯t know why I wasn¡¯t this time. Am I too strong for the transportation system now? Have I gotten heavier?</i>

    But he¡¯d walked through the passageway when he returned, so he transmitted, ¡°There¡¯s a pitch ck tunnel ahead that leads to the outer city. It¡¯s not that dangerous, but don¡¯t leave it. Although I don¡¯t know what will happen, it''s best to stay put inside. There seems to be something outside the tunnel!¡±

    ¡°Better be careful, the tunnel might be a tree hole,¡± Hong Yitang transmitted as well. ¡°Enormous danger could lurk outside it. It¡¯s possible that the tree envelops the entire outer city and is connected to Rift Canyon on the outside. It could also be the key as to why Battle Heaven hasn¡¯t been buried by the passage of time.¡±

    Li Hao blinked. <i>A tree? A tree hole?</i>

    ¡°Be careful when you¡¯re inside and watch yourself in the tunnel,¡± Hong Yitang cautioned. ¡°The situation can be much more dangerous than we think. I sensedst time that there are asional attacks from tree breaches. They¡¯re somewhat alive, but not too strong. Srs can easily dispose of them, but it¡¯s best to be careful!¡±

    He Yong raised his eyebrows. Since Li Hao and Hong Yitang had both shared information, he didn¡¯t hold back either. ¡°It looks like Battle Heaven really is dangerous. There¡¯s some mention of it in ancient records. The royal family told me that it once weed a supreme heavyweight who left some ultimate treasures in the city. Those raised the city to a transcendent level of existence that represented his will. My information isn¡¯t detailed, but it does suggest that there is particr meaning to this city.¡±

    Li Hao was reminded of the scene he saw before¡ªa supreme heavyweight? The one called His Imperial Majesty? When he decreed the ¡°Battle Heaven¡± characters, it sent the city into a furor of agitation, excitement, and fanaticism. There seemed to be incredible meaning behind the characters. The elderly city lord had been so ovee that he nearly fainted.

    It looked like the royal family grasped many things indeed, to know even this. Of course, there truly should be records from the ancient civilization. As momentous a happening as this one would leave traces behind somewhere. That personage had seemed extremely powerful and important.

    ¡°Also, there might be certain things of that person left in the city,¡± He Yong continued. ¡°Even his will and intent! If that¡¯s the case... then that would be incredibly valuable! Someone that the ancient powerhouses hailed as a supreme heavyweight might be stronger than we can imagine. Finding those treasures would be the real wealth!¡±

    <i>Something like those two characters? </i>Li Hao didn¡¯t transmit this to the others. Some things could be spoken of, some things could remain unsaid.

    ¡°Do we move with the wandering cultivators or by ourselves?¡± He Yong asked.

    ¡°Who says I¡¯m traveling with you?¡± Hong Yitang snorted. <i>I don¡¯t want to!</i>

    ¡°Who else, if not me?¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°The two of us can look out for each other, and with Li Hao as well, we¡¯ll sweep the enemies in the city. No one will stand before us¡ªwe¡¯ll have Hou Xiaochen crying for his daddy if hees!¡±

    Hong Yitang had absolutely nothing to say.

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll head to the second passageway.¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t care. ¡°I didn¡¯t take itst time, but Martial Uncle Hong did. Are there any benefits or effects to be had from it?¡±

    ¡°The effects are mediocre,¡± Hong Yitang transmitted as he walked. ¡°They might be better for supernaturals. For martial masters... they¡¯re insignificant. However, it does seem to somewhat assimte visitors and change our presence so that it matches the city more. We will be able to evade some dangers this way.

    ¡°As for supernaturals that die inside it... it¡¯s probably because they struck back or their energy ripples were too strong. That was interpreted as provocation and resistance against management. We¡¯ll just walk through naturally in a moment.¡±

    Li Hao understood. The trio ignored the rest of the explorers and headed inside. A dark tunnel appeared in front of them. It came alive with rustles as soon as they set foot inside, like there was something crawling on the ground. However, none of the three saw anything.

    Something broke through the air before long; Li Hao punched it reflexively. Though it vanished just as quickly, the young man seemed to see something that shed by. He thought of what Hong Yitang had said before¡ªit did seem to be branches that whipped in and out of sight. They weren¡¯t too strong, just Sunre at most. He hadn¡¯t had a chance to take a close look on thest expedition and didn¡¯t experience them for himself since a Sr led the way.

    A branch shook violently when Hong Yitang grabbed it for closer inspection; the entire tunnel began trembling. He quickly let go.

    ¡°Don¡¯t do anything to these branches, just shoo them away. Bigger trouble might arise if we break them or cut them off! The weaker one is in a ce like this, the safer! You wouldn¡¯t be able to break a branch if you¡¯re too weak. Powerhouses might die ghastly deaths if they¡¯re too arrogant!¡±

    Sometimes, it was those who knew how to swim that drowned. Those who didn¡¯t how to knew fear. When they learned how to swim, they lost that fear. In the same vein, it would be quite normal for someone to be surprised if they fancied themselves familiar with the ruins and strong enough for them. Not even Hong Yitang dared be careless here.

    The tunnel wasn¡¯t that long. A sharp cry sounded behind them when the trio reached halfway, followed by a shriek. Some of the weaklings couldn¡¯t even handle the branches. They were either Darkmoons or weak Sunres who couldn¡¯t react in time and were run through by the branches.

    The three ignored the disturbances. Entering the ruins meant epting the possibility of death. No one had forced them inside to seek fortune from thend of danger. Danger was upon them; dying here meant that one was too unlucky and too weak.

    Cries of surprise repeatedly sounded behind them. A lot of people had entered this time. There were almost a thousand wandering cultivators alone, a number that far eclipsed thest expedition.

    ......

    Li Hao and the others walked forward. Branches harassed them; they beat them back without issue. After a while, a faint light appeared ahead. Li Hao knew that it signified the perimeter of the outer city. The za woulde next, a ce where quite a few had diedst time.

    The young man¡¯s footsteps paused briefly when they were about to emerge. Hong Yitang¡¯s did as well. Their pace faltered briefly in unison, drawing a curious look from He Yong. Surprise and shock were clear in Li Hao¡¯s eyes.

    The same went for Hong Yitang. He looked past the za, at where several ck shadows shed across their line of vision. He gaped at Li Hao.<i> ck Armors!</i>

    Indeed, they couldn¡¯t be mistaken. That had been ck Armors in motion at the other end of the za.

    ¡°What is it?¡± He Yong asked curiously.

    ¡°ck Armors!¡± Li Hao transmitted. ¡°We defeated the army of one thousandst time and took the armor with us. But just now... I saw ck Armors!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s either leftovers fromst time or... there¡¯s more than one troop of ck Armors,¡± Hong Yitang transmitted after observing for a while. ¡°There may be many more that didn¡¯t appear on thest expedition, or that they guard another direction. We can only enter through this direction this time. Are there city gates in the other directions? That could represent that there are four sets of gates and four troops of one thousand. We only eliminated one of them.¡±

    There was another possibility in that ck Armors also resided inside the city and had been deployed to the outer city. Regardless of what the truth was, it meant that the level of danger had risen. The brash He Yong abruptly quieted down as well.

    ¡°What do we do now?¡±

    ¡°Screw it, we head forward! We¡¯ll go to the second passageway before the others have arrived and enter the outer city, then head to the inner city. We¡¯ll avoid the Gold Armor and locate some mysterious power stones for self defense!¡± Hong Yitang¡¯s response raised He Yong¡¯s approval.

    That¡¯s right! They needed sufficient stones to ensure that they wouldn¡¯t be supernatural when their seals were undone.

    The three quickly walked forward. Some of the wandering cultivators behind them seemed to know that the ck Armors had diedst time. They felt that there was no threat in the outer city, which meant they boldly set foot into the outer city. They moved swiftly, as if deathly afraid of running intopetition. It wasn¡¯t long before agonized wails rang out!

    These ck Armors were hard pressed to take down Srs, but Sunres were easy. While the soldiers moved soundlessly, their footsteps were apparent. However, the intruders were charging so quickly that they didn¡¯t care about footsteps. They thought it waspetition catching up to them and died grisly deaths for it!

    The ground started absorbing the blood and bodies again.

    ......

    Just as Li Hao¡¯s trio started through the second passageway, powerhouses entered the ruins. Faces twitched when they heard the screams from the city. They looked at Hou Xiaochen¡¯s group.

    ¡°We exterminated the ck Armorsst time, it looks like more have appeared!¡± The director frowned slightly. ¡°Brashly entering the city is a dead end. We have to be strong enough or these ck Armors will be enough to give us a very hard time!¡±

    ¡°We eliminated them allst time, why are there more?¡± Violet Moon called out.

    Hou Xiaochen couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. <i>Figure it out yourself!</i> He looked in the direction of the second passageway. Hong Yitang and the others hade in earlier with Li Hao. Were they at the ancient house, or were they in the city already?

    There were people everywhere; a loud cacophony erased the quietness of the city. A pronounced din rose over the city to the point where someone decided to fly into the outer city.

    They exploded with a loud detonation.

    Hou Xiaochen could barely suppress an eye roll. Did they know nothing? To be honest, anyone who asked around a bit would know some of the dangers. So this meant that there were people who came without making any preparations and then just... died?

    Did these supernaturals think they were the greatest beneath the heavens and not fear anything? As Hou Xiaochen and his colleagues thought, strength that was rashly gained was not treasured. No one knew the meaning of prudence. They were a bunch of idiots!

    ¡°Are you fools?!¡± someone yelled in the crowd. ¡°You can¡¯t fly, you have to take the second passageway first! There¡¯s an air restriction in ce that can kill even Srs!¡±

    Only then did general understanding percte¨á

 Chapter 438: Fine Wine For Fine Guests (II)

    <h4>Chapter 438: Fine Wine For Fine Guests (II)</h4>

    Not everyone had failed to do their homework, it was just some lone wolves that hadn¡¯t put much thought into things. They heard there were treasures for the taking and benefits to be found everywhere, so they¡¯de.

    Quite a few were dead in the blink of an eye. Some stronger wandering cultivators had wanted to form cliques outside the entrance, but their efforts were in vain. It wasn¡¯t until the tunnel that the crowd realized the ruins weren¡¯t safe! People quickly clustered together and looked to coborate with the stronger wandering cultivators.

    Violet Moon stepped forward and called out, ¡°Don¡¯t brashly enter the city! There are ck Armors inside with strong defenses. Any supernatural that gives off energy ripples or exudes energy will attract their offensive!

    ¡°There is a restriction in the air that is the doom of anyone below Nova, even peak Sr if theyck the protection of a premier origin weapon. If you are willing to wait for a moment, you can enter with the Red Moon delegation!¡±

    They had to look for cannon fodder! The Red Moon group was suddenly very worried. Did this mean that the Silver Armor from thest expedition might appear again? That would be devastating!

    While the Silver Armor was just a Sr, that was when it hadn¡¯t awoken. Once it did, it possessed the strength of a Nova and was very troublesome.

    Taking the second passageway was incredibly dangerous, but everyone knew that they didn¡¯t have another choice this time. The troubles they would run into without the protection of the second passageway were even more thorny. They wouldn¡¯t be able to enter the inner city at all if not.

    And so, all factions headed toward the ancient house.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s trio set foot in the house with the second passageway.

    It was pitch ck. The young man felt like he walked intoplete darkness when he entered the house. There was no sound around him; it was as if Hong Yitang and He Yong had vanished. His eyes adjusted after a while and could make out a few things.

    He seemed to be in a small, square house with a door in front of him. That was the exit; there was no one else around. A descended from above, one incredibly dim that lowered mechanically.

    It was a surprising sight. The sensation of being sealed away that people spoke of should be this. Did it contain mysterious power so supernaturals could walk around inside the city?

    Li Hao stared at the, uncertain if there were any drawbacks to letting it touch him. It didn¡¯t seem avoidable, but where were the other two?

    Was there more than one house and everyone entered a different one? Were they free to leave after the stamped the visitors?

    <i>Is this a mechanism? But why can I see it? Does it have to do with my eyes?</i>

    Li Hao ignored the slowly descending since he couldn¡¯t avoid it. He looked around him; the door was shut. The square walls were roughly six meters on each side, making for a modestly sized house.

    He approached one of the walls and pressed on it. It felt like pressing down on cotton. Soft and pliable, his hand sunk in.

    ¡°What is this?¡± Li Hao found the material strange. It was very durable and very soft. Though he pinched it fiercely, he wasn¡¯t able to break it. And how did those who entered die? That was another question.

    Did it have to do with the? Did the kill them? Liu Long said there was treasure inside this house that he wasn¡¯t able to take. But after the young man took a look around, he saw nothing. What treasure? It was empty, the house was it.

    He looked around once more and still found nothing. Li Hao sighed. What bullshit treasure? The chief wanted treasure so much that he was seeing it everywhere.

    The big fully descended at this time. Li Hao wanted to try and stop it, but found that it was formless and intangible. It didn¡¯t exist in reality, making it more like the scarlet shadow. When itnded on Li Hao¡¯s body, it suddenly disappeared!

    Just as the young man was mystified at almost feeling nothing, a key appeared in the air. Yes, a key! It looked like the ancient keys he¡¯d read about in books. Li Hao blinked, then swiped it out of the air. It hovered only for a brief moment and seemed that it would vanish if he didn¡¯t take it.

    He easily plucked it out of the air. Li Hao brought it close for a look, but light abruptly spilled in when the closed door suddenly opened. It seemed to indicate that he could walk out.

    Li Hao was very confused. What was going on? He scanned the key as he walked out. There were words on it¡ªhe knew the script of the ancient civilization.

    ¡°Room 302, third floor, Equal Fortune. Seventh street of the southern quadrant.¡± The young man started again. Why... did it sound like the key to a hotel room?

    Countless notions floated into Li Hao¡¯s mind. Everyone entered the house to be stamped by a permit of approval. They were then allotted a room in a hotel, representing that the visitor had a right of residency. Was this how this worked?

    The young man¡¯s eyes darted around. What did it mean to be a resident? What was in it for him? Why hadn¡¯t anyone else taken a key? What did it mean if they didn¡¯t have one?

    This ce seemed open to multiple re-entry. Could it be that one received a key every time they entered? What good would that do?

    It was weird! ...no, the houses in the city were off limits. They weren¡¯t avable to a random visitors, but did this mean that anyone with a key could enter?

    Various questions appeared in Li Hao¡¯s mind. He followed the light after a brief pause and walked out onto the first street. He Yong and Hong Yitang were already waiting.

    ¡°Something seemed to cover me and seal me away,¡± He Yong transmitted with a frown. ¡°Was that the flight permit that you guys spoke of? Also, I seemed to see something else sh by. It happened so quickly and I was in a hurry to leave. Did you see it?¡±

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t make a sound. There was a key in his hand¡ªthe item he¡¯d felt on hisst attempt. He hadn¡¯t been able to grab it then as it was so dark he could barely see anything. He didn¡¯t dare put a toe out of ce then.

    He seeded this time and had thought it was treasure, but it was more like a key. There were words on it¡ªhe knew how to read some, but couldn¡¯t make it all out. It was difficult to recognize all of them if one wasn¡¯t a student of ancientnguages. He was, however, able to decipher some. For instance, he recognized the character for south.

    Confusion swirled in his heart and Hong Yitang looked at Li Hao, recalling that thed studied the ancient civilization with Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°Li Hao, you recognize the writings of the ancient civilization, right?¡± he asked after a moment.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°What is this?¡± Hong Yitang drew a character in the air. Li Hao looked at him with surprise.

    ¡°It¡¯s the character for garden. What are you looking for, martial uncle? Yihong Garden?¡± [1]

    ¡°......¡± Hong Yitang looked wordlessly at the young man. <i>The hell are you talking about?? A garden? South something garden...</i>

    Li Hao was beginning to wonder if Hong Yitang had also received a key. Why would he ask about this otherwise?

    Meanwhile, the man hesitated over whether or not to show the key to the kid. Perhaps he would know what it was since he specialized in this field of study. Hong Yitang was truly unfamiliar with it as he wasn¡¯t the fanatic grave robber that Yuan Shuo was.

    There seemed to be people heading their way, so Hong Yitang walked off. ¡°Let¡¯s go inside first!¡±

    ck Armors approached from the front. The trio ignored them and walked straight past them. The soldiers didn¡¯t respond.

    One, they were martial masters. Two, the soldiers didn¡¯t seem to pay attention to anyone who¡¯d taken the second passageway unless they were attacked by mysterious power.

    After a while, a hesitant Hong Yitang took out the key and handed it to Li Hao. ¡°Take a look at what this is. I previously found it when I explored another ruin. Is it useful here?¡±

    Li Hao had no words to say. <i>Aw fuck outta here!</i> None of these people spoke a single word of truth. This key was simr to what he¡¯d just received. On it was written Fragrant Cloud Pavilion of Hibiscus Garden. Fifth street of the southern quadrant.

    Was it another hotel?

    Li Hao renewed his theories. Every person seemed to receive a key when they entered the city. It denoted their assigned living quarters. But why werepanions traveling together scattered across amodations rather than put into one?

    And they were to the south.. where was the southern quadrant? It waspletely dark all around, no one could tell which direction was which. The fifth and seventh streets were easier to understand.

    Li Hao lived at Equal Fortune whereas Hong Yitang was at Hibiscus Garden. It appeared that the young man only had a small room, whereas Ole Hong had an entire pavilion to himself. It would be more luxurious, wouldn¡¯t it?

    Li Hao looked back with a frown. Could the others obtain keys too?

    It might be very difficult on the first try, but could be much easier after that experience.

    ¡°Do you recognize it?¡± Hong Yitang transmitted again when Li Hao remained quiet.

    ¡°Yes. Fragrant Cloud Pavilion of Hibiscus Garden. Fifth street of the southern quadrant.¡±

    Hong Yitang blinked. This was the Battle Heaven of their dreams? How odd!

    He Yong looked skeptically at Hong Yitang. <i>Where did you get this from?</i>

    Li Hao tossed the key back to Hong Yitang without a word. They were almost at the city gates.

    ¡°As I thought,¡± Hong Yitang dered in an ominous tone. ¡°The Silver Armor is here again!¡±

    There was a sh of white on the city wall, one that faded in and out of sight. A Silver Armor!

    ¡°Martial Uncle, do you recall what level strength it was at when it awakened ?

    ¡°At leastter Nova or peak Nova. That final streak rivaled the four major monster spirits. It was a little stronger than even the big snake!¡±

    Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath. That strong??

    1. An ancient brothel mentioned in the Dream of the Red Chamber. ?

 Chapter 439: Fine Wine For Fine Guests (III)

    <h4>Chapter 439: Fine Wine For Fine Guests (III)</h4>

    Hong Yitang was still frowning.

    ¡°Do we have to eliminate the soldiers in order to enter the city?¡± Li Hao thought it over. ¡°We¡¯ve gone through the second passageway, they might view us as guests. Can¡¯t we get in the regr way?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Hong Yitang had never tried it before, so he had no idea. But that had been on his mind after obtaining the key. This was how guests were treated, so were they able to enter through the city gates now?

    Li Hao recalled how the city gates opened when he approached themst time. It didn¡¯t matter if he had a key or not, did it?

    He couldn¡¯t enter the first time because he didn¡¯t utilize his blood. He dripped his blood on the two characters the second time. Perhaps he could enter directly now?

    Li Hao wanted to make haste before the rest arrived. He quickly walked toward the city gates. ck Armors patrolled beside it, but it was like they didn¡¯t see the trio.

    The three humans soon presented themselves in front of the doors. Li Hao hesitated, looked at the Silver Armor overhead, thought for a bit, then walked forward. The characters over the gates twinkled before the long-sealed gates swung open without a sound!

    Hong Yitang paused, stunned, and stared at Li Hao. The young man didn¡¯t say a word as he headed inside! A shocked Hong Yitang quickly followed. How was this possible??

    The Silver Armor silently drifted down and looked at Li Hao. Balled in a fast, his right hand thumped his chest in what seemed to be a salute. Strange beyondpare, Li Hao swallowed hard. This was very different fromst time!

    He didn¡¯t dare show disrespect and quickly thumped his chest with his right hand as well, by way of return. The Silver Armor was no weakling!

    The ck and Bronze Armors around them all thumped their chests with their right hand, eliciting ringing ngs!

    Li Hao¡¯s scalp crawled with numbness, but he was much stronger this expedition than before. He tamped down the shock roiling through his heart and strode in. Hong Yitang followed him without issues. A baffled He Yong made to do so the same, but the Silver Armor extended his sword and blocked the man¡¯s path. The empty eyes turned to He Yong, as if waiting for something.

    He Yong¡¯s scalp likewise crawled with numbness! Hong Yitang had mentioned the soldier¡¯s strength, but why was this happening? Li Hao could enter, Hong Yitang could enter, why was he the only one being stopped?

    Li Hao frowned in thought for a bit, then took out the key in his storage ring with some resignation. He tossed it at He Yong. The man caught it reflexively, unable to piece together the pieces.

    And then... the Silver Armor withdrew his longsword. He Yong stared nkly before he quickly darted into the city.

    The three hastily left the vicinity of the city gates once they were all inside. The gates silently swung shut again. He Yong finally had the chance to ask, ¡°Don¡¯t they say it¡¯s really hard to enter?¡±

    <i>We¡¯re inside! Right into the inner city! What the heck? And the key...</i>

    Li Hao took the key from his hand while his thoughts ran wild and shoved it back into his storage ring.

    ¡°So we can only enter if we have a key, right?¡± Hong Yitang mused with a strange look in his eyes. ¡°Anyone with a key doesn¡¯t need to sh with the city defenders. They won¡¯t stop us. Battle Heaven... seems to be a very hospitable host.¡±

    They didn¡¯t attack guests with keys at all. Those without keys outside trying to force their way in were the city defenders¡¯ targets. The za in the outer city was a loophole, or perhaps there hadn¡¯t been a tunnel there at first. Only the second passageway existed¡ªso that meant everyone who entered through the za was a trespasser?

    ¡°Seriously, what the heck is going on??¡± He Yong couldn¡¯t contain himself anymore. ¡°Why can we just waltz into the inner city? Where did those keyse from? You and Hong Yitang both have them, but I don¡¯t! And that Silver Armor seemed to perform an ancient military salute to Li Hao, why?? I know a bit of what happened on thest expedition, why is everything different?!¡±

    <i>The hell?!</i>

    Li Hao ignored him and scanned the premises. This was his first time in the inner city. He looked at a fixed map on a plinth off to the side; it seemed to be a directory of the city¡¯s quadrants. The young man deciphered meaning from the ancient characters that still remained.

    <i>The southern quadrant...</i>

    He quickly located it and headed straight in that direction. There was very little disturbance from their movement; houses lined the side of the street. Most of them were closed. Only one or two were open on a given street. They looked to be ordinary houses.

    Li Hao eventually found the courage to duck into one of the open ones. It held simple furnishings that looked no different from those of a regr residential neighborhood. However, he saw a piece of mysterious power stone in a corner. It was attached to what looked to be a wallmp, the stone was embedded in themp. It seemed to be depleted.

    Li Hao frowned, what did this indicate? That residents of the ancient civilization used mysterious power stones as energy sources for their lighting? How opulent!

    The young man quickly withdrew. When Hong Yitang saw him continue to head south, he asked, ¡°Are you... going to the southern quadrant?¡±

    The true treasure was in the center. The Gold Armor and ck Tortoise Seal was there.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go to what¡¯s written on the key.¡± Li Hao nced at the empty streets. ¡°Let¡¯s take a look since they¡¯ve given us rooms. Perhaps we¡¯ll have unexpected gains.¡±

    ¡°That works.¡± Hong Yitang nodded thoughtfully. ¡°We can also investigate the open rooms along the way. People obtained many mysterious power stones from the housesst time, but the ones close by might have already been emptied out. Let¡¯s head further in for a look.¡±

    He Yong waspletely baffled and couldn¡¯t begin to make sense of anything. He still didn¡¯t understand why they¡¯d gained direct admittance to the inner city... But those two weren¡¯t bothering to exin the situation. He had no choice but to follow them.

    This must have been a very prosperous metropolis back in the day. The streets were wide and level, the houses still durable after the ravages of so many years. There were no cracks or degradation anywhere.

    This area might have been a residential neighborhood. There were no storefronts on either side of the street, just standalone houses. It took a long period of walking before the first tiny storefront came into view. Its door was closed, indicating danger.

    One could not enter a structure with a closed door, death awaited! Those who entered without wee were thieves. Battle Heaven did not take kindly to thieves.

    Li Hao closely observed the houses on either side to see if any had open front doors. Thest expedition had reaped arge sum of mysterious power stones¡ªmore than one hundred in total. There were also a few people who hadn¡¯t made it out of the inner city in time. Were they all dead?

    He was discovering that the city was a stickler for the rules. A very strong stickler. So long as one followed their rules, danger would never be close. But if one broke the rules, death was nonnegotiable. Who knew how many of the supernaturals toe would die this time!

    If they awakened the Silver Armor, who wouldn¡¯t it kill with its final strike other than a select few like Hou Xiaochen, Kong Jie, and others?

    Li Hao suddenly looked at the center of the city after prolonged walking. There was a tall pagoda there with light exuding faintly from it. Despite the feebleness of the radiance, it illuminated the entire city. Some other areas could be seen through it. There seemed to have been a line of vision originating from it earlier.

    Was someone watching him? Li Hao frowned, moving about more prudently. Obeying the rules was number one here! He couldn¡¯t barge around, that would be too dangerous!

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    A dog beneath the pagoda sniffed the air, its nose twitching when it caught wind of a familiar scent. Its tail wagged as it wanted to run in that direction. Raising its head for a look at the floating turtle, Panther swiftly jumped down the tform when it saw that the turtle hadn¡¯t seemed to notice anything. It streaked through the streets and ran for the southern quadrant of the city.

    The big turtle was silent and still, as if it was just a sculpture. Its gaze turned in a southerly direction as various thoughts began to form in its mind.

    Destiny was a marvelous thing. The descendent of the monster spirit emissary followed the heir of the Lis. Had it forgotten that the Li ancestor had nearly hacked its ancestor into two with one sword stroke?

    The turtle grew lost again when it thought of the Li forefather. Did those people still exist in this world? Were the domineering Human King and others truly dead? Was the turtle itself dead or alive?

    It looked outside the city. A lot of people were gathered there. Did they think the city was dead? For fine guests there was fine wine, for enemies there were... coffins!

    The light in the turtle¡¯s eyes dimmed and the Gold Armor in the city lord manor suddenly stood up. It seemed to sense something as the seal in its hand floated into the air.

    Momentster, troops of intermixed ck and Bronze Armors from the west and south followed a Silver Armor¡¯s lead and trotted through the city, heading for the eastern city gates. Enemies hade!

    There were four armies to guard the four directions of the city. The eastern army had fallen, so those of the other directions convened in the east.

    The ck Tortoise Seal exuded a faint light. The city seemed to be awakening.

    ......

    Powerhouses that¡¯d passed the second passageway swiftly gathered near the city gates. Some champed impatiently at the bit and jumped up to fly over. Those who¡¯d taken the second passagewayst time could fly. The only danger was the Gold Armor.

    But a loud <i>bam</i> echoed as soon as someone flew over the city walls! Spears and swords bristled. A troop of ck Armors struck swiftly and riddled a wandering peak Sunre with holes!

    There were defenders on the city gates! A Silver Armor hovering in position caused others to look on with rm. Violet Moon and the others had previously witnessed the other¡¯s ferocity.

    ¡°Don¡¯t make any moves,¡± she transmitted. ¡°The Silver Armor is very strong and might awaken to full sentience. Once it does, it wields the strength of a Nova¡ªand not just a regr Nova. Be careful!¡±

    A frowning assembly looked at the city gates. Soldiers had appeared again! So they had to repeat the events of thest expedition and pass this difficulty level again?

    Hou Xiaochen also looked around with a strange look; he failed to see Li Hao and the others. That was very odd. Had they already gone inside? If so, that would be very interesting!

 Chapter 440: Picking Up Money From The Streets (I)

    <h4>Chapter 440: Picking Up Money From The Streets (I)</h4>

    Were they supposed to pass this difficulty level one more time?

    No!

    This wasn¡¯t a level in a game! This was a city, the city of Battle Heaven! The enemy was at the city gates and flouted the rules. They challenged the city defenders again and again. It was sphemy against the greats!

    <i>Above the city.</i>

    Three Silver Armors convened. Theymanded thirty bronze centurions and three thousand defenders. The city and army of Battle Heaven!

    Light glinted out of the Silver Armors¡¯ eyes as they considered the supernaturals milling around below. This went beyond the pale! The defenders only protected Battle Heaven, but today, the enemy was bullying them on their doorstep!

    ¡°Kill!¡± A word spoken with ancient ir rasped out of one of the Silver Armor¡¯s mouths. It rang with a dense mechanical sensation.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A ck torrent descended! Charge! y enemies! The Battle Heaven Army could still take the field after countless eons!

    ......

    <i>Outside the city.</i>

    Supernaturals were still squawking over why there were ck Armors again. Some were proiming, ¡°This is great! The armor is valuable. Look at the Silver Moon Guards¡ªone suit of armor is more valuable than a piece of mysterious power stone. We¡¯ll be rich if we get our hands on several...¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Countless ck Armors jumped down from the walls and began a furious ughter. Spears, swords, des... An army formation assembled as thirty Bronze Armors formed an assault formation and advanced in the array of a de.

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    ¡°AHH!!¡± Ghastly shrieks rose and fell, startling those deep in discussion. Even the powerhouses jerked out of their conversations.

    ¡°Hurry and kill the enemy!¡± roared the heavyweights.

    ¡°Damn it, aren¡¯t we supposed to be safe after taking the second passageway??¡± shrilled those in front.

    ¡°Why is this happening?!¡±

    ¡°Why are there so many soldiers? Weren¡¯t they all eliminated??¡± Shouts, yells, and general pandemonium reigned.

    This particr expedition wasprised of many different organizations and factions. Too many were present this time. More than two thousand were already inside and more trying to enter. Some walked through the za, some traveled the second passageway.

    A handful supernaturals panicked when the army descended upon them and shot into the air. Those who hadn¡¯t taken the second passageway were blown out of the sky. Those who had were almost no better off because three Silver Armors soared through the air and engaged them in battle!

    ¡°Exterminate!¡± called out the mechanical voice. These soldiers were enraged that someone dared challenge Battle Heaven!

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    Fierce fighting erupted as ck Armors rivaled Sunres when they operated within the city. Three thousand of them working in tandem meant that they could scythe through Srs just as easily. Some Novas looked on with unpleasant expressions, they were losing the first encounter! It was unfathomable that such a mishap had urred as soon as they reached the city gates.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen, this is a Night Watcher scheme, isn¡¯t it?!¡± someone roared.

    Off in the distance, Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t reply as he quickly withdrew with his people. <i>Scheme your ass! This has nothing to do with me! </i>He was indeed ready with certain ns, but they weren¡¯t meant tomence here. Who knew that Battle Heaven would suddenly be reinforced with three thousand defenders? It went without saying that the troops of the four directions must have congregated on the eastern gate.

    ¡°We need to get rid of them,¡± shouted the Parity King of Yama. ¡°These ck Armors are worth a fortune! We have many heavyweights among us and these ck Armors are just Darkmoons wearing armor. No matter how many there are, they are still ants!¡±

    There were many ck Armors, but the Bronze Armors were the equivalent of peak Sunre and the Silver Armor just Sr when they were not awakened. How many Srs and Novas were on this expedition? It was an easy task for them to join forces and eliminate all three thousand ck Armors.

    However, the various organizations and heavyweights were quickly retreating. No one wanted to be the vanguard. The first retreat led to many more. Those who were originally holding up beneath the brunt of the wave swiftly backed away when others did so as well.

    The ck Armors charged without a sound, their killing intent so dense that it was almost tangible. Large numbers of supernaturals were in on the spot. Even those strong enough to put up a fight were soon defeated when faced with so much killing intent.

    Grim wails rang loudly in the ear!

    ......

    <i>To the rear.</i>

    Manager Yu looked at Hou Xiaochen. The director¡¯s face was calm, as if he didn¡¯t see anything.

    ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought that there¡¯d still be so many ck Armors?¡± Kong Jie crossed his arms with a smile. ¡°Ole Hou, looks like your Silver Moon Guards will be fully outfitted after this expedition.¡±

    Three thousand ck Armors!

    Hou Xiaochen remained observing. ¡°Why do you think the city¡¯s army has suddenly attacked us? They wouldn¡¯t provoke us before if we refrained from the same after taking the second passageway. But now... do you think these dead soldiers are more alive?¡±

    ¡°Do you mean to say that... someone¡¯s directing them?¡± Kong Jie blinked.

    ¡°Yes.¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at the towering city gates. He seemed to peer through them, toward the back. suddenly rising into the air, he looked into the city. There... appeared to be some light somewhere.

    Or it might be a reflection of golden armor. Had the Gold Armor awoken again?

    Hou Xiaochen frowned, very startled by the change. Did it have something to do with Li Hao and the others? Were the eight families really so tightly interconnected countless many eonster?

    It was all very strange!

    ......

    <i>Inside the city.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s trio also heard the disturbance. The young man was climbing up the rooftop of an open house and peering out into the open. He could vaguely see outside the city as this was a tall building just a little shorter than the turtle pagoda.

    As Li Hao stood on the roof, he watched with great amusement. He Yong and Hong Yitang followed him up.

    ¡°There... are so many ck Armors, why are they attacking the expedition? Don¡¯t they say that the soldiers won¡¯t attack after we go through the second passageway?¡±

    ¡°There are so many supernaturals down there, it¡¯s aplete mess,¡± Li Hao replied calmly. ¡°Maybe someone¡¯s done something to provoke them. This is a group of soldiers that abide by logic and rules. Maybe someone¡¯s broken the rules and disyed abative position. Maybe someone flipped over the city walls. Maybe someone attacked the gates. This will all elicit the army¡¯s enmity and be viewed as provocation!¡±

    ¡°You seem more rxed thanst time.¡± Hong Yitang nced at Li Hao.

    ¡°I¡¯m stronger thanst time, so I¡¯m naturally more at ease. Also... I¡¯ve realized that Battle Heaven is an interesting ce. It¡¯s a ce that follows the rules. In that case, we won¡¯t run into any major danger if we follow their rules. There¡¯s no reason for them to attack guests.

    ¡°I treatedst time as simple exploration and didn¡¯t have many reflections. I thought this was a ruined city and came to look for treasure!¡±

    ¡°And this time?¡±

    ¡°This time... I feel that this is a city with a soul,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Compared to those outside, perhaps these dead soldiers are possibly more endearing. Although they¡¯re long dead and are just lingering obsessions, they give me the feeling that they¡¯re true flesh and blood! I¡¯m thinking that these are the true martial masters and soldiers, not the ones of modern day that set up regimes by force of arms to dominate an area!¡±

    ¡°So you think that the current Ministry of Armed Forces is not to your liking?¡± Hong Yitang raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°That¡¯s not it.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°They¡¯re decrepit... and close-minded! Perhaps such are the drawbacks of an iplete reformation. When the royal family abdicated and the nine ministries took up the reins, the reforms weren¡¯t thorough enough. I find that whether it¡¯s the nine ministries or the official institutions of the various provinces, everyone¡¯s focused on themselves.

    ¡°They don¡¯t care whether war rages or if the people are dying. They don¡¯t care if transportation is inconvenient or if there¡¯s enough food to eat. They don¡¯t care if the cities are in disarray, they don¡¯t care about any of it!¡± The young man smirked. ¡°They¡¯re consumed by their petty desires and little military cliques to raise their own powerhouses. All they want is to install themselves as lord of a territory.

    ¡°Up till now, the only military unit that I¡¯ve met in the true meaning of the phrase is Demon Hunters of Silver City! They drove back the darkness under Captain Liu Long¡¯s leadership! They are very weak, but they focus on how to let the people of Silver City live at peace and enjoy their lives.

    ¡°Silver City may be a small ce, but it is very safe. Apart from the problems created by Red Moon because they are too strong to be handled, no violent crime has urred in this small ce for thest twenty years.

    ¡°After entering White Moon City, I find that despite possessing the four institutions and countless powerhouses, the thirty million of this sprawling metropolis do not seem to lead better lives than Silver City denizens.

    ¡°Do White Moon¡¯s three military divisions act the same as these ck Armors when facing enemies? Do they charge out without concern of life or death just so they cannd one stroke on their foes?¡±

    Emotions suddenly gripped Li Hao as he watched the charging ck Armors, then at the empty city behind him.

    ¡°Look, they are still willing to unsheathe their swords to protect this city endless eons after they have perished. Martial Uncle Hong, where do you think their faithes from? That pride,posure, willingness, and unceasing desire to fight. What kind of faith is it that lets them persevere to this step?¡±

    It was incredible!

    Hong Yitang thought silently for a long while before sighing. ¡°Many reasons, I suppose. Strong enemies, a charismatic leader, a beautiful home, united conviction, same goals, confidence in their nation... All of this will fill one with fighting spirit!

    ¡°Warriors like these still exist, they¡¯re just not that apparent anymore! You say that the three military divisions of the Silver Moon won¡¯t act the same, but that may not be true. However, do you know why these soldiers don¡¯t seem to have any faith or fighting spirit to speak of?¡±

    ¡°Please enlighten me, martial uncle!¡±

 Chapter 441: Picking Up Money From The Streets (II)

    <h4>Chapter 441: Picking Up Money From The Streets (II)</h4>

    ¡°Goals and conviction... Who do they fight for, why do they fight, and what is their ultimate goal?¡± Hong Yitang intoned. ¡°When armies fight now, it is always an internal dispute! This dynasty is still one whole, so everyone is a soldier of the dynasty. Unless we fight the three great organizations, dering war on anyone means civil discord!

    ¡°Does fighting our own inspire passion and conviction?¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°It doesn¡¯t! Therefore, everyone focuses on the powerhouses and overlooks the army. To be honest, if Silver Moon really dered independence, set itself a lofty goal, underwent significant reforms, and someone appeared to lead the people on a new path and out of deterioration... That might be when the three military divisions of Silver Moon shine again.¡±

    He looked outside the city, at the powerhouses soaring through the air. ¡°Independence is not a precursor to vying for supremacy! The time has not yet arrived, Silver Moon can still hold on. Once the situation is truly difficult, it might awaken the people¡¯s beliefs if someone is willing to step forward and raise a hand in leadership!

    ¡°We are not that far off from those times,¡± he murmured in a low voice. ¡°The fires of war burn unceasingly and many problems have appeared in the central provinces due to the chaos of war. It¡¯s just that many haven¡¯t noticed the issues yet. Several ces in the central region have collected no harvest for the past couple of years!

    ¡°The various officials of the central provinces are poised for action. They move in the shadows and secretly purchase grain. The price of food in the marketce has tripled, and this is just the beginning! As war engulfs more regions, the daily amount consumed by the hundreds of millions in the dynasty is a staggering figure!

    ¡°Some fertile regions and wheat belts used to be rich areas that produced plenty of grain. They are now lying fallow and deserted. People no longer dare till fields far away as they receive nothing for their efforts after a battle!¡±

    Hong Yitang sighed. ¡°The effects of prolonged war are not yet noticeable due to the dynasty¡¯s wealth, vast territory, and rich resources. But the ensuing problems will soon be apparent in an explosive manner!

    ¡°Many people are watching and waiting for that kind of situation to develop. When such chaotic times are upon us, that is their chance. From chaoses heroes as well as those with great ambitions!¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°Silver Moon is better off as its provincial government carries out its responsibilities to a certain degree. It¡¯s been promoting wide-scale nting over the years, pushing new discoveries, experiences, and technologies... But even so, the province won¡¯t remain quiet if everywhere around it is engulfed in chaos.¡±

    Li Hao listened with a deep frown. He Yong raised a brow and looked at his counterpart.

    In the modern domains of martial masters and the supernatural, everyone pursued strength. Very few people considered these matters. Those would-be ambitious heroes might see things clearly, but they were also facilitating the worsening of the situation!

    They even voluntarily stopped nting theirnds to add to theck of harvests.

    Mundanes were weak, but once they were hungry to a certain limit, the strength that they collectively erupted with would topple the dynasty, raising the curtain on yet more wars and revolutions.

    The people didn¡¯t ask for much, but they couldn¡¯t let go hungry! When people experienced the extremity of hunger, they would do anything. Supernaturals were the minority, after all. They could suppress ten thousand, a hundred thousand, even one million. But what of ten million, one hundred million, and hundreds of millions?

    Li Hao turned slightly pale as he considered the information. The churning tides of change seemed to be roiling right in front of him. He looked at Hong Yitang. Although the young man was a civilian, Silver City denizens were well enough, so it was hard to imagine that scenes from history would y out before his eyes!

    From his viewpoint, famine should not ur in a time erupting with sophisticated technology and prizing of ancient skill. But with Hong Yitang¡¯s description... he seemed to see it happen. Rearing momentum churning through thend, skeletons sparkling beneath the sunlight, the heaven and earth shattering!

    The people¡¯s will could not be denied!

    ¡°That¡¯s a bit much, isn¡¯t it, Ole Hong?¡± He Yong couldn¡¯t help himself.

    ¡°You think I¡¯m exaggerating?¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m not, I speak only the truth. Some people pretend to not see it, others really don¡¯t see it. Some are purposefully putting this scene on the stage, and the rest... really are idiots!

    ¡°Therefore, when Li Hao asked why the soldiers of this era are not the same as the ancient era¡¯s, I gave him the answer that it is not yet time! When this era falls into utter mayhem and when these people feel that their home may be destroyed, they¡¯ll erupt with such scintiting brilliance that we can barely imagine!¡±

    Hong Yitang pointed at those outside. ¡°Some of them may understand and others may not. But when ites to those times, some of them will be saints, others turn into devils. Some will be tyrants and others butchers!¡±

    He looked at Li Hao. ¡°And you?¡±

    The young man looked nkly back at him. <i>What about me?</i>

    ¡°You¡¯re the same as them, aren¡¯t you?¡± Hong Yitang grinned. ¡°You see it and even sense it, but don¡¯t you also feel that it has nothing to do with you? The situation is as far removed from you as possible! Does the fate of this era have anything to do with you? Your parents are dead, your friend is dead, you only have a teacher who counts as your family. Therefore, do you truly care about Silver City?

    ¡°Liu Long¡¯s faith is to safeguard Silver City, and you? You¡¯re thinking that you¡¯ll just listen when you¡¯re weak, but are you really listening?

    ¡°You redeployed Liu Long to White Moon¡ªthe man is thinking that he¡¯ll return to guard his home when he grows strong enough. And you? You¡¯ll kill everyone in Red Moon when you¡¯re strong enough, but have you given any thought to Silver City?¡±

    Hong Yitang shook his head with a soft chuckle. ¡°Everyone lives for themselves in this era. The human heart is selfish and human nature is egocentric. To be honest, whether it is the modern day martial world or supernatural domain, how many truly think for the people?¡±

    Li Hao was dazed, lost in thought. <i>I...</i> Hong Yitang was right, the young man had never considered this matter. Liu Long¡¯s rallying cry of ¡°to uphold justice¡± was just a slogan in Li Hao¡¯s mouth. He simply felt that it would ce him more on the side of good. But what really was justice?

    He didn¡¯t know!

    The young man looked nkly at Hong Yitang, but the man didn¡¯t say anything. There was nothing else to say as this wasn¡¯t a concept that could be exined by one or two sentences. Either one didn¡¯t understand, or one did!

    Only when Li Hao felt heartache, pity, self recrimination, and regret at seeing bodies filling the wilderness and suffering throughout thend would he truly understand. If he felt that just a bunch of ants had died... then there was nothing further to discuss. And even if he felt emotional on behalf of those who died, he needed to match his feelings with actions. If not, it was just momentary pity for the people!

    ¡°Hong Yitang, you¡¯ve said so much, but what about yourself?¡± Changes flickered through He Yong¡¯s expression. <i>And what have you done?</i>

    ¡°Me, what can I do?¡± Hong Yitang smiled self-deprecatingly. ¡°I cannot do anything. The only thing I can do is to make the Sword Sect a safer, more peaceful ce in which no one goes wanting for food or clothing. I support the sect and the families of my disciples. They are also working hard to live and grow richer through the sweat of their efforts. Not needing to worry about the necessities of life and being isted from the madness outside is what I can do.

    ¡°I am only a regr person, I am no saint,¡± Hong Yitang sighed. ¡°I did not see any of this before, nor did I understand. As one of the martial masters that journeyed through the world in earlier times, we ate and drank with gusto wherever we went. To be honest, what did civilians have to do with us?

    ¡°I happened upon a group of orphans one day. Some of their parents had died from hunger, others from war. Some died due to confusion in the martial world, others were left behind when their parents became powerhouses and traveled elsewhere. It was then that I had the tiniest bit ofprehension!¡±

    Just a little bit!

    He never presented himself as a saint because he truly wasn¡¯t! There were just a few more orphans to be found in the Sword Sect than most. Perhaps such was a rare demonstration of pity from a powerhouse to be found in this day and age.

    That was why he could speak of these matters to Li Hao today. Otherwise, he would simply say that modern day soldiers were less than the ancients because they were weaker!

    But were they weaker?

    Not at all!

    The two thousand supernaturals outside were very strong and would easily defeat the three thousand if they worked together. But... what of it? Did they have conviction? They only knew to grow stronger and seize treasure. What kind of conviction was that?

    And yet, the same applied to the three on the roof. People of this age were cold-blooded.

    Li Hao looked blearily at the torrent of ck Armors still charging. They were as if sharp des scything into their opponents. This army fought on endless yearster!

    Why did they fight? The young man shook his head and looked at Hong Yitang. This person... was terrifying!

    Indeed, terrifying. It¡¯d taken only a few moments for Li Hao to be caught up in his spell. He was lost and his faith wavering.

    Momentster, the young man took a deep breath and walked off of the building. He didn¡¯t want to watch anymore. He just wanted to find some treasure, grow stronger, walk out, and then... exact revenge from Red Moon.

    Mmhmm!

    He was the selfish and self-centered type that Hong Yitang had spoken of, but why couldn¡¯t the young man do as he wished?<i> Does it have to do with me that the world is stupid and about to fall into chaos?</i>

    Nothing at all!

    <i>I am one of them and also a victim, but no one¡¯sing to save me.</i> Well, there was his teacher, Liu Long, Hou Xiaochen... All of these people had saved him once. But why did thatpel him to save others?

    That doesn¡¯t make any sense at all!

    Li Hao felt that Hong Yitang was thinking too much. The people he talked about were neither his friends nor family. Why should he worry himself with him? So what if the world suddenly ended?

    ......

    <i>Behind Li Hao.</i>

    He Yong frowned ferociously and transmitted, ¡°Hong Yitang, what have you beenprehending these years? Why have you be rather concerned with the state of affairs and the people?¡±

    That was not what was meant to be a martial master!

 Chapter 442: Picking Up Money From The Streets (III)

    <h4>Chapter 442: Picking Up Money From The Streets (III)</h4>

    ¡°I¡¯ve been pondering the path of martial masters and the purpose for our existence!¡± Hong Yitang chuckled when he looked at He Yong. ¡°I once read an ancient book that spoke of heroes acting bravely for the sake of righteousness, that they championed the cause of justice and redressed wrongdoings for people and nation. I treated it as a joke and felt that was quite an exaggeration. How can martial artists be heroes?

    ¡°What are heroes? They punish evil, support the weak, redress wrongdoings, act boldly for a just cause, and are concerned about the people and nation. Those are heroes! What heroes are there in the modern martial world? We¡¯re just a bunch of martial blockheads obsessed with increasing their own strength at any cost!

    ¡°You are, I am, Yuan Shuo is, and so is everyone else!

    ¡°I paged through the ancient book again these years and came to some different thoughts. Perhaps these thoughts are immature or idealized, but I¡¯ve been thinking about what the purpose of growing stronger is. Is it to gain eternal life? Be at peace with the world? Hold oneself as invincible throughout the world? And then?¡±

    Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°And then... we turn into skeletons in the ground! No one will remember us after a certain number of years. Would even those of Silver Moon remember someone as strong as Yuan Shuo if he died in Silver City? Has he brought any changes to the province? Has he improved the lives of thousands of families? Has his strength brought a single bit of help to the hundreds of millions of souls in the world?¡±

    He Yong¡¯s throat bobbed up and down. Had Yuan Shuo? Of course not! It was impossible for any of that to have taken ce as martial masters were a headstrong,petitive bunch that rampaged through the four corners of the world. Their actions were all in pursuit of growing stronger, finding the right path, and reaching enlightenment...

    What came after enlightenment?

    Nothing!

    What else was there?

    Southern Fist suddenly looked at Hong Yitang with fear. This guy was terrifying!

    ¡°Hong Yitang... What... are you thinking of?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s with that look on your face?¡± Hong Yitang broke outughing. ¡°I¡¯m just pondering over my life. People always say that martial masters and supernaturals exist to kill. I find nothing wrong with that, but is the purpose of killing just to kill? We kill because we can? That¡¯s such a narrow-minded perspective!

    ¡°Killing is but a process, not a goal! Don¡¯t confuse the two concepts. Li Hao is of the same mindset¡ªI grow stronger to kill others. And then what? Whates next after exterminating your enemies?¡±

    Cold prickled at He Yong¡¯s scalp and he looked at Hong Yitang, wanting to move as far away as possible! This person was impossible to read sometimes.

    ¡°Stop looking at me like that, I¡¯m not a saint. I¡¯m just thinking. Do I have to be constrained in even my thoughts? The ancient books say one¡¯s thoughts cannot be constrained. One¡¯s body can, but the thoughts run ever freely. I am alive so long as my mind is alive. I am truly dead when even my thinking is curtailed.

    ¡°Skystar Dynasty is rotten to the core!¡± Hong Yitang said as they walked. ¡°The dynasty restrains the people¡¯s thoughts! The ts of education are not developed and the people¡¯s minds do not advance. Everything must be derived from ancient civilizations. We do not build or study anything on our own.

    ¡°Our education systems are iplete! Take Silver City for example. How many out of one million are cultured and knowledgeable? Their Veteris Institute is their crown jewel, but there¡¯s less than two thousand students in attendance. Is this number of cultured people among one million a proper ratio?

    ¡°The vast Silver Moon boasts of one hundred million in poption. While my observations andptions have not produced a total number of schools, there are only thirty-seven institutions of higher learning. There are roughly two hundred thousand in attendance and approximately fifty thousand graduate every four years.

    ¡°If the average working lifespan is forty years, then two million graduates from schools of higher learning within these forty years are the entirety of our society¡¯s elites and upper ss. Two million out of one hundred million? Do you think that¡¯s a lot or too little?

    ¡°That puts the percentage of advanced students at two percent, with mid to low students ten times that at the very, very most. Twenty percent is definitely a high estimate! Our literacy rate is twenty-two percent of the poption. What do you think about this proportion?¡±

    ¡°Is that low?¡± He Yong asked. He didn¡¯t think it was! ¡°That¡¯s a very high rate at more than twenty percent, right? I remember it wasn¡¯t this high before. This means that one person out of five can read and write. Only one or two out of a hundred could read a few decades ago. Is there a problem here?¡±

    He really didn¡¯t think so. This was great!

    ¡°You really are...¡± Hong Yitang shook his head with augh. ¡°Forget it, I can¡¯t be bothered speaking to you! Read some more books, especially the ancient books, and think on why the ancient civilization was so powerful! What would you think if I told you that the literacy rate in the ancient civilization was ny-nine percent? Indeed, everyone could read and write apart from a very few!

    ¡°Literacy was the basis for the rise of a nation and people! Don¡¯t expect knowledge out of a bunch of people who can¡¯t read or write, much less change your life or strengthen your path. Could Yuan Shuo have created his own dao if he wasn¡¯t literate?¡±

    Hong Yitang suddenly felt that he was ying the lute to a cow in talking to He Yong. <i>Forget it, what am I telling him all this for!</i>

    ¡°And another thing, there is no ministry out of the nine that is in charge of education. The ces of higher learning were established by local authorities in a haphazard manner. Additionally, the ancients knew to encourage and support farmers. Our age is so advanced that we have nes and missiles, but we don¡¯t have a specific agriculture department to help people reim wastnd and cultivate new seeds... We just know to live off the sky, mountain, or whatever¡¯s nearby.

    ¡°The dynasty¡¯s reformations are a joke! The royal family retreated behind the scenes only because their strength was less than others. Everyone only cares about strength, no one cares about anything else.

    ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s provincial government is well enough. Zhao and Zhou have done a decent job over the years, but they cannot see the wood for the trees!¡±

    He Yong stared dumbly at his counterpart, suddenly feeling like he didn¡¯t know Hong Yitang! Was this the Earthturner Sword that he knew!

    ¡°You are a martial master...¡±

    ¡°Correct, which is why I say that I cannot be one of those who hold the nation and people in their hearts. I am a martial master, not a hero!¡±

    Much less a knight errant of old!

    Hong Yitang chuckled without a care in the world. He wasn¡¯t worthy of being hailed a hero¡ªno one was in this era. They were all just martial masters. Perhaps heroes of that caliber would one day be seen in their time? He looked at Li Hao in front of him and shook his head. <i>Not him!</i>

    Li Hao was just a martial master as well, the same as the rest of them. It was good enough that he didn¡¯t kill innocents. He was destined to be unable to be a hero as well.

    The key point was that no one seemed to nurse such concepts. That martial masters should work to further the lives of regr people? This was not a notion found since the ancient times.

    ¡°No... Liu Long...¡± Hong Yitang suddenly thought of someone a little strange. Here was an interesting fellow. His strength wasn¡¯t that impressive, but it was very unique to possess a heart of wanting to protect the people in this day and age. Of course, he was only concerned about Silver City, so perhaps he might be hailed as the hero of Silver City.

    That was enough, it ced him above many martial masters! To the rest, their homnd was just a ce to rest. If it was destroyed, they would simply move on to a different ce.

    ......

    The sounds of fighting continued outside the city, but Li Hao was lost in a daze. The big turtle above looked silently at a person¡ªnot Li Hao, but Hong Yitang. The turtle was also in a daze. It seemed to have heard and felt something.

    <i>A hero...</i>

    Who among this world and four directions could call themselves a hero? This person might not be able to, but he reminded the turtle of another¡ªan extremely valiant existence, a king of humans in a peculiar age, one who often spoke of ¡°education above all. As poor as we might be, we cannot stint on education.¡±

    This was a very long time ago, and this person on the streets below wasn¡¯t very much like that lofty existence. He was so, so much worse! That person had been the light of his era and the personal mentor of theter Human King. There had been many characters like him in that age.

    They knew what they were fighting for and what was the future. They also knew that standing on their own two feet and every person rising like a dragon was the foundation of a strong era. Thus, they created that unique period of time, the one that was hard to repeat afterward. Living in that period was the pride of all its denizens!

    No matter how tiring or dangerous it was, onemand saw thousands of people charge and battle to thest drop of blood in their veins! No one regretted it as, when they turned back, they saw that they dispelled the darkness and weed the light.

    And now, perhaps... they had all sunk into the darkness.

    Who would light the res of Battle Heaven in the modern world? Who could lead the city in severing the firmament?

    Likely no one!

    The old turtle closed its eyes once more. No one... There was no spark of hope in this age. At least, it didn¡¯t see or feel it. That person might¡¯ve been thest spark, but he didn¡¯t seem to amount to much. The turtle¡¯s thoughts shifted...

    Hong Yitang paused between steps and looked down at where a storage ring had appeared. He blinked and picked it up, freezing when he looked inside.

    Li Hao and He Yong looked at him when they sensed the disturbance. A storage ring? Hong Yitang had found it?

    The man blinked fiercely, thinking he was dreaming. He suddenly kicked He Yong, sending the man into a rage.

    ¡°What are you doing?!¡±

    ¡°He Yong... I just found riches on the ground. Do you think the heavens have taken pity on me because they think I¡¯m too poor?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    ¡°What did you pick up, Martial Uncle Hong?¡± Li Hao was incredibly curious. ¡°Is there anything inside?¡±

    Hong Yitang nodded woodenly and summoned the contents. Li Hao and He Yong¡¯s jaws dropped and their eyes widened. It was... a mysterious power stone bigger than their heads!

 Chapter 443: Picking Up Money From The Streets (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 443: Picking Up Money From The Streets (IV)</h4>

    <i>Holy shit?!</i>

    Not only was the mysterious power stone bigger than their heads, light danced inside it. It was clear and translucent throughout¡ªa far cry from the dim murkiness of usual stones. One might even suspect that it wasn¡¯t a mysterious power stone!

    But after the trio probed it with their senses... they found that it did seem to just be a mysterious power stone!

    Hong Yitang took a sharp breath. <i>Hot damn! What did I do? I just randomly walked around and somehow picked up a storage ring with the huge stones inside it. No, huge treasures!</i>

    He could barely process the development as there were three stones such as this one inside the storage ring. <i>Three</i> of them!

    Not only that, but there was also a small sealed sk of liquid. It seemed quite precious; he didn¡¯t know what it was and wasn¡¯t inclined to open it yet. A baffled state of mind was all he could manage at the moment.

    Hong Yitang peered around him and suddenly raised a cupped fist salute. ¡°What a paradise of treasure! Battle Heaven is my second home and perhaps my ancestors were once part of this ce. Li Hao and He Yong, pay your respects to the city! This ce is incredible!¡±

    He Yong was still gaping at the stone. He swallowed hard and finally forced out, ¡°This... is an ultimate mysterious power stone... It should make for three thousand pieces if it¡¯s cut, should it not?¡±

    One piece from this rock was possibly the equivalent of three typical stones that they were familiar with in this day and age, so Hong Yitang held ten thousand stones in his hands! He Yong was truly shocked out of his wits.

    Li Hao was also inert with stupefaction. He couldn¡¯t help but look at the turtle in the distance. To be honest... did Old Hong finding wealth on the ground have anything to do with the sentient creatures inside the city? Why had this happened? There was nothing in Battle Heaven; its streets were clean and the ground absorbed whatever was on it. How could a storage ring still be here after it was dropped endless millennia ago?

    What the heck??

    This was possible if there were conscious beings still inside the city, but why give something to Ole Hong?

    Li Hao scratched his head, finally wondering if it had something to do with the man¡¯s words. Was that speech of his worth cities? Had it resonated with a being in the city? The young man sank into deep thought. He didn¡¯t mind the massive hunk of mysterious power stone. To each their own fortunes. There was no rule that Hong Yitang could not have his fair share.

    Li Hao simply considered the notion that if existences within the city found these words valuable, then perhaps those were his greatest gain on this expedition. He looked at Hong Yitang again, suddenly finding the indolent and raggedy man rather mysterious.

    A wide beam split Hong Yitang¡¯s face as he put away his newfound riches. What kind of good day was this? He was so happy! The city was wonderful!

    ¡°Come, let¡¯s go to my lodgings. Since we¡¯re here already, let¡¯s rest and walk around...¡± Hong Yitang chuckled and looked at the buildings around them. ¡°There are so many schools for such a small city. I think I¡¯ve seen at least five on our way here. Did the ancient city sense my proposition of building more schools and rewarded me for my thoughts?¡±

    It was so very strange!

    Li Hao looked around as well when he heard this, seeing another school in front of them. There did appear to be numerous simr structures along the way. The young man raised an eyebrow¡ªwhy were there so many schools? This street held a capacity of one million at most, no? They weren¡¯t at the end of the street yet, were there more than one hundred schools in the city?

    If that was the case, these ancients really had a lot of money! Not only that, but vigor as well. If Li Hao recalled correctly, there were a dozen schools in Silver City, and that was already a good sum.

    In this day and age, it was far more preferable to start working and earn money as soon as possible. Studying was a waste of time. Li Hao only pursued his studies because his grades were good. If they¡¯d been poor, he would¡¯ve given up his education a long time ago.

    The trio continued without speaking, soundlessly observing their premises. The tiny Battle Heaven imparted a different perspective to them. He Yong looked around as well. The city was very small and far less prosperous than Skystar City, but their buildings spoke of how happy and content the ce had been back in the day.

    The people lived in peace and enjoyed their work, satisfied in their well-being. Such a city was worthy of protection from the soldiers in the outer city, was it not? In contrast, how many would be willing to step forward for Skystar City if it fell into disarray?

    As the three walked down the street, the hubbub outside the city was a stark contrast to the serenity inside the city. <i>I protect you on the outside, you enjoy your day to day on the inside. Let us create a beautiful and harmonious life together.</i>

    Perhaps such was the ancient civilization!

    Li Hao suddenly thought of Liu Long. The Night Watchers had received some baskets of flowers, fruits, and local delicacies one day. No one knew who sent them and no one cared. Only Liu Long broke out in a wide grin when he bit into an apple.

    If the army outside the city was victorious and returned triumphant, they would be greeted with flowers, apuse, good food and drink if there were still people inside the city, wouldn¡¯t they?

    <i>What an... intoxicating feeling! </i>The thought crossed the young man¡¯s mind. It seemed like a very interesting notion. <i>Who knew? I¡¯ve never experienced or entertained these ideas.</i>

    He Yong was also thinking back to an incident from a long time ago. He¡¯d killed a ferocious tiger guing the people not long after he became a martial master. He didn¡¯t think much of it, but the vigers plied him with food and drink. The man had drunk his fill and what had they called him?

    A warrior? A hero? Or... a knight errant?

    He couldn¡¯t remember, it was all too long ago. He only remembered how delicious that wine had been! But where did such wonderful winee from in a small country vige?

    Thoughts of flowers and wine passed by briefly in their minds, just as Hong Yitang¡¯s words faded away after lingering for only a little while. Perhaps they would be aroused again one day, but for the moment, it only caused Li Hao and He Yong to think a little bit more. It didn¡¯t really change anything.

    Neither did Hong Yitang bear those lofty notions. He was simply caught in the moment and thinking of his own path. It wasn¡¯t his intention to advise or change anyone. He just couldn¡¯t help but think, ponder, and reflect if he had been right or wrong to dominate the martial world for all those decades?

    The Earthturner Sword was renowned throughout the world, butter fell behind when he cloistered himself. That had also been part of his thinking process. No one could understand him and neither did he need to be understood. He was doing what he wanted to do. It was sufficient to exude a sliver of the strong pitying the weak during the undertaking.

    All of it was a pale shadow to the shock that the storage ring brought to him. He was rich! Therefore, Hong Yitang was wreathed in smiles. His bleak mncholy of moments ago was gone, reced by joy and excitement. He¡¯d ever seen so much money in his life. How blissful he was!

    He Yong was quite jealous. Li Hao smiled as well, a crafty curve to his lips. Would Earthturner Sword look to him for help? If he did and was so rich... should the young man demand two thirds?

    Ahem, alright, one third. Two thirds was too much. One third would be a tip for the little sword. It was Steris, after all! Was it right not to exact any payment if it was put to work?

    The three reached the southern streets as they chatted. Fragrant Cloud Pavilion of Hibiscus Garden. Fifth street of the southern quadrant.

    The southern quadrant was themercial district. There were some tall buildings here, but not that tallpared to the outside world. The streets were broad here and storefronts were found everywhere. Tea, Wine, Meals, Clothes... gs fluttered in the wind asrge sign boards enabled patrons to clearly identify where they wished to go. The stores were almost all shut, so Li Hao looked to and fro at the banners.

    He led them in a certain direction momentster. He Yong waspletely lost as he didn¡¯t know anything. Hong Yitang could recognize a few ancient words, so he could barely keep track of where they were.

    The massacre continued in the outer city. All was particrly peaceful on the quiet streets in the inner city. A manor of ancient ir loomed in front of them after a while. Hong Yitang quickly took out his key, matching the words on it to the ones on the signboard.

    ¡°Hibiscus Garden?¡± He looked at Li Hao. The young man nodded and looked around them. All was very quiet. The garden upied arge plot ofnd and some rooftop eaves could be seen over the walls.

    The enormous doors were closed. Could they be opened? Fragrant Cloud Pavilion might be just one of the houses in the garden and not the entireplex.

    ¡°Martial Uncle Hong, take a look inside,¡± said Li Hao.

    Hong Yitang shoved the key at He Yong. ¡°Ole He, you go.¡±

    He Yong brooded! <i>This key might only ess the Fragrant Cloud Pavilion! The garden¡¯s gates are closed! Will I die if I open the doors?</i>

    ¡°It should be fine,¡± Li Hao spected. ¡°Hibiscus Garden should be a wee center for guests. We¡¯re entering a public area and not private property. Nothing should happen to us ording to Battle Heaven rules. Martial Uncle He, try pushing on the door.¡±

    He Yong looked at Li Hao and then at Hong Yitang. <i>Why... aren¡¯t you guys trying? If it¡¯s fine, why are you sending me?</i>

    Both Hong Yitang and Li Hao looked silently at him. <i>Of course you¡¯re going! Li Hao is too weak and Hong Yitang can stay back as a contingency. You fall in the middle, so who else if not you? Not to mention, we got you safely into the inner city. It¡¯s time for you to take some risks or you¡¯ll share none of the treasure we findter.</i>

    He Yong had nothing to say in his defense. Although no one said a word, he understood their meaning. He took a deep breath, cursed inwardly, and screwed up his courage to push open the door.

    It gently creaked open, seeming to have just been slightly closed as opposed to fully shut. The doors opened as He Yong pushed on them.

 Chapter 444: What One Sees and Hears in an Ancient City (I)

    <h4>Chapter 444: What One Sees and Hears in an Ancient City (I)</h4>

    The trio peered into the garden momentster. A small path of blue stones led to a winding dry riverbed. Pavilions and gazebos lined the path while manmade mountains could be glimpsed behind them. This was a beautiful hotel in an exquisite environment.

    What a pity that the flowers and grass were withered and the waters dry. Only a few traces of the charm of yesteryear remained. But it was very clean, just a bit sparse of greenery since it¡¯d all wilted.

    ¡°Hoo!¡± He Yong breathed out. Thank goodness, everything was fine. He was fine.

    That had been terrifying!

    Li Hao had already crossed the threshold and set foot inside. ¡°Let¡¯s close the door,¡± he said when the other two followed him. ¡°So that no one whoester will see that it¡¯s open.¡±

    Normal people wouldn¡¯t dare push open a door since a shut door meant danger. He Yong quickly shut the front door without another word. Li Hao walked toward another signpost, one imprinted with several location names and indication arrows.

    ¡°Cloudwater Pavilion.¡±

    ¡°Fragrance Pavilion.¡±

    ¡°Water Harmony Pavilion.¡±

    So on and so forth, until Li Hao finally saw Fragrant Cloud Pavilion with an arrow pointing to the inner depths of the garden.

    ¡°Let¡¯s head inside!¡± Li Hao strode forward, leading an ufortable He Yong in his wake.

    ¡°Is there a point to us locating this ce?¡± He Yong transmitted as they walked. ¡°This is probably a ce to rest, can there possibly be treasure here? Would you leave treasure in a hotel?¡±

    He felt it a better use of time to look for residences that were essible.

    ¡°Idiot,¡± a disapproving Hong Yitang rebuked in transmission. ¡°This ce is so opulent! Just think of the luxury hotels in our times, are they devoid of nice things? Will a regr residence have more valuable items than the ones inside a hotel?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Alright then, He Yong felt that this made sense. What could be found inside a hotel would indeed be precious.

    ¡°It¡¯s not just treasure, but that we should try to gain more rity into the situation and rules,¡± Li Hao exined. ¡°This is a room that Battle Heaven has assigned to us, there may be exnations of the local rules inside. When we check-in to a hotel, for example, we often find introductions of the local sites and sounds, as well as descriptions of specialties or distinguishing characteristics.

    ¡°Battle Heaven wees guests from all around. They can¡¯t possibly exin to every single guest the do¡¯s and don¡¯ts of the city. In that case, there might be a guide in the room.¡±

    Hong Yitang and He Yong nodded. These words were logical and heightened their anticipation for the room. Perhaps a further understanding of the rules would help them have an easier time in the city and obtain first mover advantage. Those without keys would not be so lucky.

    They saw a few other rooms along the way, but everyone left them alone. These lodgings were standalone properties, making for an opulent hotel indeed. Based on current terminology, this would be a vi resort.

    They wandered through the garden until Li Hao finally saw a detached property with a yard outside. A signboard hung over the front door¡ªFragrant Cloud Pavilion. They¡¯d found it!

    The trio rushed forward, the garden wasn¡¯t locked by a separate padlock, but there was a lock hole on the gate that matched the key. Li Hao and Hong Yitang looked at He Yong again; the man cursed loudly to himself!

    <i>The royal family never treats me like this!</i> He was quite the authority figure as he was the martial instructor for the royal children. Unfortunately, that identity wasn¡¯t much use here. Hong Yitang was stronger than him, Li Hao was more useful than him. He had no choice but to be the advance guard.

    He Yong took a deep breath and shoved the key into the keyhole; his hand shook. If the room here was closed, barging in meant their deaths. Almost no one made it out alive from entering a room with a closed door¡ªnot almost, but no one entirely!

    <i>Click!</i>

    It was the slightest sound, but extraordinarily attention grabbing in such a quiet environment. The three waited nervously, but thankfully a small crack appeared in the yard¡¯s door with the click. Some light leaked out of it and joy brightened the trio¡¯s eyes. The room door was open!

    He Yong took a deep breath and pushed the yard door open. An ancient building two stories tall came into view. Illumination glowed from the ground¡ªgroundmps. Groundmps eons old were lighting up with the opening of the yard door!

    They were inly powered by mysterious power stones or connected to the rest of the city, drawing upon the energy source below the ground for light.

    ¡°Go in!¡± Li Hao looked at Hong Yitang. He should be first since he was the guest assigned to this residence.

    Hong Yitang walked in without a word; the other two carefully followed behind him since they were not the upant. It should be fine for the master of the residence to entertain two guests, right?

    The yard was modestly sized. There were no flowers, but the remaining flowerbeds bore witness to the beauty present in its heyday. A few steps into the yard saw the building¡¯s door open automatically. There was no need for the key this time.

    Hong Yitang led the way, followed by the other two. It was dark at first, but lights automatically red to life when there was movement over the threshold. It was everyone¡¯s first time seeing such brilliant radiance in Battle Heaven.

    The city was normally wrapped in dark gloom with some feeble light. Yet here, the entire house was illuminated. The first floor fell into everyone¡¯s line of sight.

    Antique sofas stood in a massive living room with a conference table off to the side. A fur carpet of unknown animal pelt lined the floor and a massive pane of ss offered ess to the views outside.

    Rooms could be found to the left and right. Li Hao scanned the area, his eyes falling on a beautiful advertisement pamphlet. This was what he¡¯de here for! He rushed forward, already scanning the words on the ancient text.

    ¡°A Travel Guide to Battle Heaven City!¡± Li Hao beamed. Just as he thought, something like this did exist in the hotel.

    ¡°Look! What is that?!¡± Next to him, He Yong suddenly shouted with excitement.

    Li Hao looked at the man and followed his finger out the window. The heavily bearded man was hollering with so much excitement that he seemed crazy. There was a hot spring outside the window¡ªthe young man identified it as such because there seemed to be water bubbling in therge pool, even today. Hot mist was rising from it!

    The pool seemed to have been activated for use again with the arrival of a guest.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t think much of it at first, but his eyes narrowed in thought when he took a closer look and he set the pamphlet aside. He stered his face to the window like He Yong and observed it in detail.

    ¡°This is... a hot spring for guests to bathe in, right?¡± Hong Yitang raised an eyebrow. ¡°Is there something off about the water though?¡±

    All three looked intently at the water¡ªthere seemed to be some other colors swirling within it. It shimmered with luster, giving one the feeling that it was treasure. Was the water something precious?

    ¡°Hurry and find out if we can go there, Li Hao,¡± He Yong spoke urgently. ¡°It seems to be in our backyard, can we go?¡±

    The young man quickly paged through the travel guide. He quickly located the page that spoke of Hibiscus Garden and ran his finger down the text. ¡°This pool is called the Pool of Life. ording to the description, an ancient tree of life once grew here and infused the hot springs with the Water of Life. They have the effect of nourishing the body, healing wounds, andplementing cultivation. Each detached residence has a side spring for guests to use.

    ¡°However, we need to pay a price to use it. It¡¯s not avable for free.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the price?¡± He Yong quickly followed up. ¡°Pool of Life... I think I¡¯ve heard about it before.¡±

    ¡°How luxurious!¡± Hong Yitang breathed out gently. ¡°I know about this. Some formidable monster spirits in the ancient civilization¡ªthe nt type¡ªcultivated to a certain level and nted their roots on enormous mines of mysterious power stones. It¡¯s said that they could extract some of the legendary Water of Life that way. The effects are stunning! Li Hao, I suspect that the energy you used on us before is simr to this legendary water. Healing wounds, repairing internal damage, strengthening the body...

    ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought that a simple hotel would offer this kind of service! It¡¯s hard to imagine just how the residents of Battle Heaven lived in thep of luxury during their times.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not necessarily the case!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°This is for guests, and important guests. Martial Uncle Hong probably received a better key than me. It might be assigned ording to level of strength. The regr residents of Battle Heaven might not have the right to enjoy this treatment.

    ¡°And we also need to pay a price before we can start using the pool.¡±

    ¡°So what¡¯s the price??¡± He Yong demanded. ¡°This is a great treasure and of vital importance to us if it contains even a little bit of the Water of Life!¡±

    ¡°Energy stones... meaning mysterious power stones,¡± Li Hao identified softly as he looked at the pamphlet. ¡°We need to toss mysterious power stones into the pool before we can use it. The payment is used to ensure the operations of the pool, and we need to offer high purity payment!

    ¡°The energy stones that the ancients speak of may be different to what we have in mind,¡± he said after another close look. ¡°They also specify purity degree.¡±

    Hong Yitang fell silent and looked at He Yong. Thetter stared innocently back at him. <i>What you looking at me for? I don¡¯t have money!</i>

    ¡°How much?¡± Hong Yitang looked at the young man instead.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, it doesn¡¯t say, just to toss in a piece. I don¡¯t know how big a piece was in the ancient civilization, if it¡¯s our piece or the one that martial uncle just found!¡±

    Hong Yitang gaped, <i>are you joking?! That piece is worth a stunning fortune, I¡¯m not giving that up!</i>

 Chapter 445: What One Sees and Hears in an Ancient City (II)

    <h4>Chapter 445: What One Sees and Hears in an Ancient City (II)</h4>

    A high degree of purity... so regr ones wouldn¡¯t do?

    ¡°Give it a try, Ole Hong,¡± He Yong urged. ¡°Something like this is hard to buy with all the money in the world. We¡¯re finally in, so let¡¯s just give it a try!¡±

    ¡°Are you paying?¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong immediately fell silent with resignation. <i>I don¡¯t have any stones.</i>

    ¡°You have no mysterious power stones? I hardly believe that!¡± Hong Yitang snorted. ¡°You¡¯ve been part of the royal family for so long. Who are you fooling with the idea that you haven¡¯t gained anything for your time?¡±

    There was nothing Hong Yitang could say to that. ¡°I do have some,¡± he harrumphed after a while. ¡°But their degree of purity may not be enough.¡±

    ¡°Give it a try!¡± Hong Yitangmanded. ¡°This is my room, Li Hao led us into the city, which leaves you the only one without a single contribution yet. Come, let us go to the backyard!¡±

    The three weren¡¯t in a hurry to see anything else. They could try this curiosity first. It was a great find in a great ce!

    They swiftly made their way through the building and entered the backyard through the back door. There was a simrck of grass and flowers here, but the spring still flowed with water. There seemed to be ayer of ss over it. The trio found themselves unable to approach the spring when they drew close.

    There was a tiny basin next to the pool; some words were etched on it. Li Hao stooped down for a look and said, ¡°Right here. It says that we will be able to use the hot spring if we input sufficient energy.¡± The young man took out a piece of stone. ¡°I have some left, let¡¯s try with a piece.¡±

    There was absolutely no response from the basin after he dropped his stone in. Not only was there no response, but there was no change at all. It plopped into the water like it was a regr stone and didn¡¯t elicit anything.

    He Yong grit his teeth when he saw the situation and pulled out arger piece of mysterious power stone from his storage ring. Its shine was brighter than the one Li Hao paid. The basin reacted slightly when the second stone was dropped in.

    The water surged slightly and crushed the stone with a brush, but while the energy disappeared and the stone crumbled away, the shield over the basin remained.

    ¡°That was the equivalent of twenty times the energy of a regr stone!¡± He Yong said with a pained expression. ¡°One of those is worth twenty of yours! How is that not enough?¡±

    ¡°There was a reaction!¡± Li Hao quickly said. ¡°That¡¯s better than how mine did. It probably wasn¡¯t enough. Put some more in, Martial Uncle He.¡±

    <i>Fuck you! </i>He Yong griped. <i>This is so expensive! How much will it take for the pool to open? And the key thing is, what if we just can¡¯t open it? What if the effects are mediocre? Although the waters are still flowing, it¡¯s been countless years since it was established. What if the thing that inputs the Water of Life has died?</i>

    Then it would be a waste of their stones!

    But He Yong was also quite tempted and ced another piece in with a determined clench of his jaw. The stone immediately crumbled away like before and the energy instantly absorbed.

    There was still no reaction.

    He Yong sweated profusely from the anguish of spending so much. But since he¡¯d offered two pieces, here came a third... A fourth, a fifth...

    He couldn¡¯t bear it after the fifth piece was consumed and moaned, ¡°I have no more. I did umte some wealth from my time with the royal family, but I¡¯ve had to cultivate these years as well. That was my life¡¯s savings, I put it all in there!

    ¡°That was worth one hundred mysterious power stones!¡± He Yong wailed. ¡°ording to market prices, one piece is worth one thousand cubes. That was ten thousand cubes of mysterious power! I can¡¯t do it anymore if that still isn¡¯t enough!¡±

    It was too expensive! Li Hao also looked on with a pained expression¡ªthis spring was frightfully expensive. ¡°Has it been too long and some of the mechanisms have degraded...?¡±

    ¡°So you mean we can¡¯t ess the spring at all?¡± He Yong gasped.

    Who knew? It¡¯d been countless years, who could say for sure?

    Hong Yitang frowned at seeing He Yong ready to lose his mind. ¡°Shut up, what are you putting this act on for? One hundred mysterious power stones is a lot, but I don¡¯t believe that this is your entire fortune! Would you have been willing to pay it all if it was, you bastard? We consumed eight hundred pieces at Ash Mountain and you didn¡¯t even bat an eye.¡±

    ¡°No, but those...¡±

    Were spoils from battle! It didn¡¯t hurt to spend something that wasn¡¯t theirs!

    Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond and thought for a moment. Although it hurt to do so, he took out the massive piece of mysterious power stone that he¡¯d just picked up. He carefully scraped off a piece¡ªa very tiny piece!

    The water churned when he put it in the basin¡ªit still wasn¡¯t enough. Hong Yitang took a breath and scraped off some more, and some more. The water frothed with action, as did the pool beside the basin. The barrier flickered in and out of sight, but didn¡¯t fully vanish.

    Hong Yitang scraped ever smaller shavings so as to not waste any. After a dozen times, the barrier disappeared with a pop. Humid air wafted over their faces¡ªthe pool was open for business!

    Delighted, He Yong tensed to charge over, but Hong Yitang grabbed him by the shoulder. The man addressed Li Hao without even looking at He Yong.

    ¡°Go get some water and see if there¡¯s any benefits to it.¡±

    Li Hao smiled and walked up to the pool. There wasn¡¯t that much water, but it kept flowing into the pool. There was some color and luster to the water, making for a pretty sight.

    The young man reached out tentatively and grabbed a handful of water. He could sense a unique energy rippling through it as soon as he touched it. The energy sank into his arm, a simr sensation to sword energy, but not entirely the same.

    The energy didn¡¯t seem as dense as sword energy upon further consideration, but Li Hao could sense that his body was indeed being enhanced as it flowed further in.

    Some dead skin suddenly appeared on his arm. Li Hao regarded it with curiosity. This energy was very unique, it imparted the feeling of returning to one¡¯s youth. It reminded him of a dead tree that his teacher once spoke of finding. The tree trunk had suddenly split open and a drop of water evaporated. Yuan Shuo had only absorbed a little, but it gave him the feeling of returning to a younger state.

    Of course, that description was different from what was taking ce now. Li Hao looked carefully at the water and absorbed some more energy. Perhaps... this was the diluted form of that water droplet?

    ¡°Don¡¯t take it all for yourself, Li Hao!¡± He Yong called out. ¡°How does it feel?¡±

    ¡°Decent!¡± Li Hao smiled and withdrew his hand. ¡°It improves the constitution in a gentle manner and should have good effects for both of you. The mysterious power stones were not wasted as it should fortify the entire body. The effects are actually quite decent and will help heal some old injuries.¡±

    It bore simr effects to sword energy, but it was hard to determine the specifics and if it could extract energy of the five elements. The energy had seeped into the water and was thus hard to extract again for use.

    Hong Yitang released He Yong¡ªthe man¡¯s first instinct wasn¡¯t to jump into the water, but bend by the edge and open his mouth. He sucked in a mouthful of water and swallowed it!

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao and Hong Yitang stared at him. <i>This is bathing water!</i>

    But Li Hao had done something simr before. He¡¯d even wanted to drink water that a dog already had tasted, much less bathwater.

    He Yong silently observed his body after swallowing arge mouthful. ¡°This is great!¡± He brightened. ¡°But it doesn¡¯t seem as wondrous as the ancient books make it out to be. They say that one drop of the Water of Life can even regrow limbs. Why don¡¯t I feel the same way?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s been diluted!¡± Li Hao exined. ¡°Are they really going to give you an entire pool of that treasure? It''s good enough that these waters contain a little bit of it, and it may just be left over from all those years ago.¡±

    Very well then! He Yong was slightly disappointed.

    Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t be bothered to engage in conversation. He took off his clothes, leaving only his undergarment. The waters frothed when he jumped in, drawing a muttered curse from He Yong.

    <i>Ohe on! Just drink it, what are you really bathing in it for??</i>

    Li Haoughed and also jumped in. The pool was modestly sized and could fit three. But if He Yong wanted to drink it, then he could drink it.

    ¡°What are you guys doing?¡± He Yong cursed. ¡°This is such a waste, just drink it all...¡±

    ¡°Since they want us to soak in it, then we¡¯ll follow the rules!¡± Hong Yitang replied indifferently. ¡°Maybe they added something that makes it unsuitable for drinking. Drink it yourself if you want to.¡±

    He began operating a breathing method, as did Li Hao with the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Sword energy was excellent, but this energy was slightly different. Sword energy could heal and enhance, yet itcked other abilities. When this energy rushed into the body, Li Hao discovered that some of his surface injuries were disappearing.

    As he thought, this energy was very special. After a while, he found that his skin was turning paler. He was tanned from the sun before and injuries were inevitable throughout the course of training. Sword energy could heal injuries and hasten their closure, but it didn¡¯t erase scars.

    There were many scars on his body¡ªthey were all turning fainter now. And of course, this wasn¡¯t important.

    What was important was that the five organs felt like they were being tempered anew as energy rushed in. It wasn¡¯t the tempering from a single element¡ªthat required absorbing exact amounts of energy to maintain a bnce between the five organs.

    The five organs seemed ensconced in the energy; it contained a uniqueplete bnce, but the effects were slightly less than elemental energy. It seemed simr to blood energy, but blood energy wasn¡¯t this gentle.

    He Yong quickly jumped in. The three furiously operated their breathing methods to absorb the energy within the spring.

    Li Hao opened the pamphlet again at the same time to glean more information.

 Chapter 446: What One Sees and Hears in an Ancient City (III)

    <h4>Chapter 446: What One Sees and Hears in an Ancient City (III)</h4>

    ¡°Battle Heaven City¡ªck Tortoise Pagoda!¡± In the pamphlet, Li Hao noted the description of a very important spot. ording to the information, the city¡¯s ck Tortoise Pagoda was itsndmark building. It was also a great weapon.

    Li Hao blinked. The pagoda was a great weapon? Then... what about the ck Tortoise Seal? The young man quickly paged through the guide, but didn¡¯t find any introduction of the seal. The young man was left rather confused. Hou Xiaochen and the others wanted the seal at all costs, but the pamphlet spoke of the pagoda instead of the seal.

    At the same time, it was just a guidebook, so it might not touch upon all of the city¡¯s secrets.

    ¡°The southern quadrant is themercial district, the eastern is the residential.. Curfew is at midnight every night. Those who venture outside must carry their residence tokens at all times or they will be expelled from the city. The defense system will activate and kill trespassers who refuse to follow orders and be expelled.¡± Li Hao scanned the points to pay attention to, a new thought striking him.

    These rules meant that visitors needed to return to their lodgings before midnight everyday. One could linger outside, but needed to carry their key on them to prove that they were the city¡¯s guest.

    These were very humane rules! Lacking a key only meant that one would be expelled at first opportunity and not killed. Only those who resisted the authorities would be killed.

    <i>They give people this many chances? </i>The overseers of the city didn¡¯t seem the bloodthirsty sort. They were understanding and reasonable, even flexible, and offered many chances. Trespassers were only thrown out and no further trouble made for them.

    Granted, Li Hao didn¡¯t know what manner of banishment took ce. Regr people might resist if they didn¡¯t understand. All would be over for them then.

    <i>So we are safe only with the key on us?</i>

    Li Hao continued flipping through the pamphlet. It also denoted some other conditions such as guests being forbidden to enter residences and storefronts. That was private property and as such, sacred and invible.

    There were exceptions, however. The army could open doors and carry out legitimate inspection duties. A final point could be found on this page¡ªhow to join the Battle Heaven Army.

    The northern quadrant belonged to the military and the recruitment center was also located there. Visitors could visit the northern quadrant to join. There were numerous benefits to joining the army; a highpensation package went without saying, one would also receive support from the city¡¯s fortifications.

    The entire city was an enormous weapon that supplied massive quantities of energy to the army. All were wee to be a part of it. One could be a proud member of the glorious Battle Heaven Army if they were approved and passed the test. The army possessed one important mission¡ªto protect all of humanity and safeguard the city...

    There weren¡¯t that many rules, but one point in particr was emphasized. Deserting the field of battle meant death without mercy! The soldiers needed to be bold and lion-hearted.

    Li Hao was briefly tempted when he read the description, but resignation quickly set in. There was no army anymore, just suits of armor with lingering obsessions. They probably weren¡¯t recruiting, were they?

    Well.... that was difficult to say! Perhaps they could try?

    The training facilities in the army seemed superior and more sophisticated than the ones in the hotels. It was the army that enjoyed the best treatment in the city.

    Li Hao continued to flip through the pamphlet, finding more rules that stated visitors were not to set foot on military property, that they should refrain from entering important bases, and that some free facilities could be found throughout the city for no charge.

    The biggest library, for instance, was avable to guests with keys and residents with IDs. Thosecking such items were forbidden from entering. One should not destroy public property without cause. Compensation would be demanded in those instances and consequences would be levied if it was not paid!

    And so on and so forth. There were numerous rted rules.

    In addition, the pagoda tree tunnel outside the city was also a point of interest. The special tunnel formed by a pagoda tree ten thousand years ago should not be defaced by carvings, graffiti, or other uncivilized actions. One could not gather the tree¡¯s vitality without permission, but could toss some mysterious power stones in a certain area. If the tree was willing, it might trade some vitality in return.

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. <i>So the long tunnel outside the city really is a tree? A tree spirit? </i>He flipped to another point in the pamphlet¡ªvisitors were strictly forbidden from entering the city lord manor. The manor was a stronghold of authority and off-limits to tourists. But those with business or a member of the eight families could head to the city lord manor for an audience...

    Li Hao blinked. This was his first time seeing the eight families clearly denoted in an ancient text. It spoke of not the eight families, but the eight guardian ns.

    <i>Guardians... </i>Director General Zhao had once said the same time.

    Li Hao quickly paged through the pamphlet, not minding that the pool¡¯s energy was dwindling. Both He Yong and Hong Yitang seemed much younger. Their hair was ck, as was He Yong¡¯s beard. Their newfound youth was an obvious sign that the benefits they¡¯d gained from the pool were far greater than the stones they¡¯d paid.

    He Yong was ted and wanted nothing more than to soak himself in the pool a few more times!

    Li Hao finished looking through the pamphlet. It was just a guide and not an encyclopedia. Some things were mentioned only in passing, as opposed to a detailed description. But that was enough!

    The young man raised his head with joy, but quickly nced at He Yong. ¡°Martial Uncle He... You should probably go out now and take the second passageway again. It¡¯s best if you can get a key. If you can¡¯t, you should try the ancient house again and again until you do. Otherwise, you¡¯ll have a tough time surviving here!¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong blinked and stared at the young man. ¡°Um... must I? Aren¡¯t I just fine right now?¡±

    ¡°Then you¡¯ll have to stay here and not leave. This is fine for the day, but not at night.¡±

    <i>Is there even day and night here?</i>

    ¡°Why?¡± mumbled a baffled He Yong.

    ¡°The city expels all unauthorized visitors at midnight. It¡¯s expulsion the first time and execution if resistance is shown! Do you think you can withstand the attacks from the city, martial uncle?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Of course not.

    ¡°Must I really get a key?¡± He Yong asked with distress. That was the crux of the problem.

    ¡°You¡¯ll face no restrictions in the outer city,¡± Li Hao responded. ¡°We stayed there three daysst time without being thrown out or killed. Martial uncle can stay there too.¡±

    He Yong looked on with resignation.

    ¡°There¡¯s another method we can try¡ªjoin the army!¡± Li Hao offered after some thought.

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    ¡°Be a soldier and part of the Battle Heaven Army!¡± Li Haoughed as he nced outside. ¡°The army is recruiting. We¡¯ll have a legitimate identity once we join them.¡±

    ¡°But they¡¯re all gone...¡± He Yong said nkly.

    ¡°So what¡¯s fighting outside then?¡±

    That was true!

    The trio looked at each other. After a moment, Hong Yitang said, ¡°Then let us try. Perhaps joining the army will bring us more benefits. We can also experience for ourselves how strong this Battle Heaven Army is.¡±

    ¡°However, joining now might mean that we¡¯re deployed to the frontlines,¡± Li Hao interjected. ¡°Which means the eastern city gates and fighting with the city defenders!¡±

    He Yong and Hong Yitang started; both looked at the young man.

    ¡°Repelling enemies is the duty of the Battle Heaven Army!¡± Li Hao dered staunchly. ¡°It is up to you two whether we go or not. If we do, we might have to fight the supernaturals outside.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s do it!¡± He Yong licked his lips and snorted. ¡°What are we afraid of? Not to mention, it¡¯s a fight either way. Those guys outside will be easier than these armored soldiers!¡±

    Li Hao said nothing more. The three quickly climbed out of the dry pool, steamed their clothes dry, then headed for the northern quadrant. Let¡¯s see if they could join the army first.

    The sounds of fighting outside began dying down as the supernaturals retreated for the moment. The army called for a withdrawal and clustered inside the city gates.

    Li Hao ignored the development. Now was their chance before everyone entered the inner city. They moved swiftly toward the northern quadrant. Thanks to the travel guide, they were extremely familiar with the situation inside the city. They didn¡¯t stop despite seeing numerous houses with open front doors.

    There was no hurry to explore that for now. They would have all the time in the world if they could hold the city.

    People could not spend a month in Battle Heaven because they could not survive for so long inside. Regr patrols and cleaning house by the soldiers would eventually be the death of anyone who stayed in the city. One also couldn¡¯t linger too long in the outer city as it would eventually be swept by the army as well.

    This was why no one from previous expeditions was ever seen after the ruins were sealed off after three days. But if they obtained legitimate identities, they would be able to stay here indefinitely.

    ......

    The three ran at top speed. Battle Heaven wasn¡¯t toorge¡ªthey entered the northern quadrant before long. It seemed to be an enormous military barracks.

    The trio was blocked at an entrance before they could enter the barracks proper. It seemed to have been a guard post in the past, but there was no one here now. Only a long guardrail blocked their way. Barging into military territory was cause for death and there was also a sign hanging in front written ¡°Military: Restricted Area¡±.

    The three came to a halt. Li Hao looked around them, there was no one. There was a guard office by the guardrail, but it was empty and devoid of people. The guardrail was down and it wasn¡¯t too high.

    ¡°We can flip over it...¡± He Yong transmitted.

    Li Hao immediately shook his head. That would be inappropriate! The city was awake, flipping over the rail might lead to irredeemable consequences.

    The young man walked up for a look. The office was empty, but the door was open. There was a system in the office, but Li Hao wasn¡¯t familiar with it. He saw several buttons, one of which was a call button.

    He paused, should he press it? Would anyonee if he pressed it? Or would trouble appear instead?

 Chapter 447: The New Twelfth Troop (I)

    <h4>Chapter 447: The New Twelfth Troop (I)</h4>

    ¡°There¡¯s a call button here, do I press it?¡± Li Hao looked at the two behind him.

    Hong Yitang thought for a bit. ¡°Press it! Entering without invitation is the act of thieves. There is no one here upon our arrival and if there is no response after we hail them... then we are not thieves.¡±

    He was treating this city as a living city as well. Otherwise, there was no need to be so cautious. Li Hao thought it over, nodded, and pressed the button.

    There was no movement, but they still waited. Perhaps there would be something different forting.

    It took less than a minute before the look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes shifted and Hong Yitang went on the alert. Two figures appeared behind the guardrail. There was someone there! The city was still operational! It was not ck, Bronze, or Silver Armors that came to wee them, but two soldiers in red armor.

    <i>Red Armors!</i>

    Li Hao blinked and looked closely at the two soldiers. There was small text on their arm¡ªsupervisor. This was a different military branch!

    He Yong¡¯s expression changed rapidly¡ªthere was another type of soldier they didn¡¯t know about in Battle Heaven! This was a special troop as the two armored soldiers in front of them seemed to belong to another system. Their exact strength was currently unknown.

    ¡°Supervisor!¡± Li Hao transmitted. ¡°Their armor says supervisor. It¡¯s possibly the army¡¯s internal corps or supervisory office, the type that looks after internal affairs.¡±

    The two men nodded, but were also at a loss. How should theymunicate with the soldiers? Was that even possible? Although the soldiers inside the city could still fight, they seemed to have lost the ability tomunicate. That was possible only when they revived, but it also meant thatplete death was soon to arrive.

    Li Hao thought rapidly when the soldiers quick-marched their way. He quickly took out the ¡°Travel Guide to Battle Heaven City¡± and flipped it to the recruitment page. When the soldiers approached him, he raised the pamphlet high to indicate that he wanted to join the army!

    As for whether or not this method would work... who knew!

    The two soldiers stopped in front of the guardrail. There seemed to be empty air inside the Red Armors, or perhaps of lingering sentience or obsession thatpelled them to carry out their missions in life.

    Recruitment!

    Whether it was seeing the pamphlet or knowing that any visitors that visited at this time would want to join, one of the Red Armors waved their hands and opened the iron guardrail with a sparkle of light.

    <i>Can we?</i> The thought shed through the trio¡¯s minds.

    The other Red Armor pointed at Li Hao and Hong Yitang, gesturing for them to enter. Li Hao found it odd, but walked inside. So did Hong Yitang do the same. But when He Yong tried to enter...

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The Red Armor drew its de and shed it downward. The weapon crashed on the ground in front of He Yong instead of on the man, blocking his way. A beam of red light shot out of the Red Armor¡¯s visor in warning!

    He Yong looked on with an unpleasant expression, both morose and depressed. <i>Damn it!</i> Was this what happened to someone without a key? He didn¡¯t even have the chance to be a soldier! <i>Motherfucker!</i>

    Li Hao was also startled. Would this not work? So would it be very difficult for He Yong to obtain a legal identity?

    The young man rapidly considered their options, then tossed the key in his hand to He Yong. He took out Steris; the sword emanated a faint hue under the watchful gaze of the Red Armors.

    The two soldiers abruptly imitated the earlier Silver Armor and balled up their right hands to thump their chests. Li Hao hastily returned the gesture¡ªthe exchange suddenly felt rather sacred. These ceremonies were quite manly. The young man¡¯s thoughts wandered and a random question popped into his mind¡ªit was fine for men to perform the gesture, but would it be painful for women?

    The Red Armors seemed different from the Silver Armor; they hadn¡¯t recognized his identity at first. Some perception dawned only after Steris was drawn. Did this mean that they were lower level than the Silver Armors?

    Silver Armors were ranking officers. The ck Armors hadn¡¯t sensed Li Hao at first either, they performed the salute only after the Silver Armor did. Meanwhile, the Red Armors had to see the weapon before saluting.

    Key in hand, He Yong wasn¡¯t attacked when he tried to cross the guardrail again. Perhaps it was also due to Li Hao¡¯s identity, but the two Red Armors didn¡¯t move. The man smiled ruefully. Thank goodness for Li Hao! He would have such a difficult time of it even though he was in the inner city.

    The Red Armors didn¡¯t move after their salute. They waited for a while, as if soundlessly imparting something. Momentster, they waved the guardrail shut again. They took point and led the way, the trio followed with trepidation.

    The group moved through the massive barracksplex, a stern wave of destion washing over them. And so they moved forward...

    Arge hall appeared in front of them after five minutes. Li Hao brightened at the sight.

    ¡°The Recruitment Hall!¡± he transmitted. ¡°This is where they recruit people, these two Red Armors do know what we want to do! Do you think they¡¯re conscious?¡±

    The soldiers really had brought them to the recruitment point!

    Hong Yitang and He Yong found it odd. Were these soldiers really just moving mechanically, or did some consciousness still exist in them and they were just unable to speak?

    The hall doors were open and Li Hao seemed to see some armored warriors inside when he swept a nce at it. There were still soldiers posted at their stations even when battle raged outside.

    The Red Armors stopped in front of the doors. A Bronze Armor walked out after a while. Its empty gaze ran over the three neers before turning to wave them into the hall.

    Li Hao quickly walked forward, as did the other two. But upon the young man¡¯s first step, he suddenly felt a drag on his clothes. Jerking with surprise, he turned to see a Red Armor had reached out with its armored arm to pull him back.

    The soldier pointed in another direction as Li Hao stared nkly at him, while the other Red Armor made an inviting gesture to walk in another direction. The young man gaped, what did this mean?

    He Yong and Hong Yitang also stopped, but a Red Armor unsheathed its sword and smacked He Yong like it was shooing a fly. The rough and tumble man forced himself not to react.

    ¡°We should go,¡± Hong Yitang said wryly. ¡°These two want us to follow the bronze centurion, while Li Hao may be going elsewhere. I get it, a young master joins the army at a different ce than us!¡±

    He Yong rolled his eyes and couldn¡¯t restrain himself anymore. ¡°The fuck man? It¡¯s been countless years, but the ancient civilization still practices preferential treatment? Someone from the eight families gets different treatment when they join the army?¡±

    He finally understood now. There was another ce ready to host Li Hao. The two of them were to follow normal recruitment procedures; they werepletely different.

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry either. Who knew? Perhaps it was very normal for the eight families to receive preferential treatment in the ancient civilization. What could they say?

    Nothing at all!

    Seeing that the Bronze Armor in front of them was about to vanish from sight, the two quickly caught up to the soldier.

    ¡°Go on,¡± Hong Yitang transmitted to Li Hao. ¡°Perhaps being different from us is good!¡±

    ......

    Li Hao scratched his head. To be honest, he hadn¡¯t experienced special treatment anywhere on ount of his eight families bloodline. Who would¡¯ve thought that it would happen in Battle Heaven? He was well and truly feeling the uniqueness of his bloodline. It was nice being a young master!

    He walked forward with the Red Armors; they stopped after roughly ten minutes. The Red Armors remained put. One of them knocked on the door of the small building that they stood in front of. The door opened amid Li Hao¡¯s astonished gaze and another Red Armor walked out.

    Contrary to the two leading the way, this one did not wear a supervisor medal. The three Red Armors held a brief exchange before the newest one cast its empty gaze at Li Hao. It looked on the shortsword in his hand, as if it recognized the weapon and what it represented!

    It mechanically reached out and waved at Li Hao. The young man quickly stepped forward! The Red Armor stepped back into the building, whereupon the other two saluted and left.

    Li Hao quickly returned the gesture, not daring to view these soldiers as mere puppets anymore. They were possibly still alive¡ªnot in the physical sense, but in the spiritual sense.

    The Red Armor led Li Hao into the building. It appeared modest on the outside, but was quite spacious after one entered it. There was more than one Red Armor inside¡ªthere were many bustling to and fro in their duties. This building was still operational.

    Li Hao of the special treatment felt something different here. Red Armors consistently saluted him and he continuously returned the salute. It truly felt like he was in a massive barracks¡ªthe feeling was much more apparent than when he was in the Silver Moon Guards. This atmosphere wasn¡¯t really present there.

    They walked down a long hallway and reached an office at the end. It opened automatically when the Red Armor knocked. The soldier entered, returned after a moment, and indicated for Li Hao to go inside. Its mission wasplete.

    An apprehensive Li Hao hesitated for a second before quickly walking in. He was stunned as soon as he did so. The office was set up very simrly to modern offices, but... there... was... a Gold Armor sitting inside!

    Li Hao nearly swallowed his tongue! How were there more Gold Armors?! How was this possible??

    If Silver Armors were ranking officers, then that meant Gold Armors were likely themanders. But one had already appeared in the city lord manor, which meant it was most likely the city lord. There shouldn¡¯t be any others!

    So how was there another one here? What was the one in the city lord manor? The city lord? But it looked the same as this one¡ªfirst rank gold?

    A myriad of thoughts ran through Li Hao¡¯s mind as he quickly saluted. He absolutely treated this one as a living person.

    The Gold Armor rose to its feet, saluted, and sat down again. Its assessing gaze fell on the shortsword, as if that was the heart of the matter.

    Dead silence reigned for a while before a fist suddenly appeared in front of Li Hao¡¯s baffled eyes.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    It connected before the young man could react and sent Li Hao flying. He smashed into the wall and slowly slid off like he was boneless.

 Chapter 448: The New Twelfth Troop (II)

    <h4>Chapter 448: The New Twelfth Troop (II)</h4>

    Li Hao¡¯s mind rang with shock! He swiftly sprang onto his feet and prepared to strike back, but saw that the Gold Armor had already sat back down like it hadn¡¯t moved. It was as if the young man had dreamed the entire incident.

    While Li Hao reeled from confusion, the Gold Armor lowered its head and considered a piece of paper in front of it, pondering something. After a while, it picked up a brush and began writing something!

    Li Hao blinked and paused, looking silently at the soldier. It finished the missive after a minute. A knock on the table summoned the Red Armor that¡¯d led the way. It entered to receive the piece of paper. Li Hao rose on tiptoe to take a peek at the contents, managing to read some of the filled sheet.

    ¡°The bloodline of the Lis and heir of Steris is too weak and fragile to be trained. The core of the eight families should be conferred a position of general when joining the Battle Heaven Army, but due to his substandard strength, he is to be given the position of a field grade officer...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. Weak and fragile? Those words cut deep! So that had been a test of his strength? The Gold Armor found him too weak because he hadn¡¯t been able to withstand even one punch, so his entry rank was demoted as a result?

    The core disciples of the eight families seemed to start as generals when they joined Battle Heaven, that was incredible! What a pity he seemed to have lost face for his family and been heavily demoted!

    The Red Armor finished reading the text and looked at Li Hao, indicating for the young man toe with it. Li Hao looked at the Gold Armor with resignation, but realized that the soldier was now ignoring him! His assessment was over before he knew it was beginning.

    A rueful grin crossing his face, Li Hao followed the Red Armor out. They walked straight out of the building and entered another structure. It might be the weaponry as it was a Silver Armor on duty here. After taking the piece of paper, it gathered some items and ced them before the mystified young man.

    One medallion, one set of armor, one pamphlet, one storage ring, and a piece of paper that seemed to require Li Hao¡¯s signature. The armor was silver. Li Hao goggled at it¡ªhe was going to be a Silver Armor! So they were the field grade officers? Would that make the Gold Armors the generals?

    One had to know that while sets of ck armor could be taken out of the city, the higher ranked bronze and silver armor could not. They would detonate if moved out of the city¡¯s confines!

    <i>Will I be able to leave the city after I put on the silver armor? Will it blow me up too if I exit the city¡¯s perimeter?</i>

    But the Red Armor was staring at the young man and there was another Silver Armor in front of him... Li Hao clenched his teeth. The situation had progressed thus and there was a Gold Armor nearby... If he refused the equipment, would he be executed on the spot as a deserter?

    That wasn¡¯t out of the question! This city was very much one of logic and principles. Deserters were sure to be executed.

    Li Hao clumsily fumbled for the armor, but didn¡¯t know how to use it. He knew how to utilize ck armor, but it was his first time seeing this iteration of armor.

    A sense of wordlessness exuded out of the Red Armor who¡¯d led him here. It reached out, took Li Hao¡¯s hand, and pricked the young man¡¯s fingertip with a spike that formed on the red armor. A droplet of blood beaded on Li Hao¡¯s fingertip; the Red Armor moved Li Hao¡¯s hand over and dripped the blood onto a protrusion on the silver armor.

    A new sensation flooded into the young man. The armor in front of him seemed to be part of his body now. It easily fit over him with a single thought. Not only that, but new information filled his mind. There seemed to be someone telling him how to utilize his new equipment.

    Li Hao was now a Silver Armor. A longsword appeared in his hand with a thought, shifted into a long de, then a spear... His eyes widened with astonishment. This equipment was incredible! It came with its own weapon that could transform into various forms!

    <i>Knock knock knock! </i>The Silver Armor of the Weaponry knocked on the table. ¡°Neer, sign the document!¡± Stilted words appeared in Li Hao¡¯s mind.

    The young man gaped with shock and jerked his head toward the Silver Armor! The soldier was very impatient and knocked on the table again.

    ¡°Getting in through connections, huh? You have to sign even if you¡¯re a member of the eight guardian ns. Are <i>you</i> going to make <i>me</i> pay for a missing set of equipment?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re alive?!¡± Li Hao goggled. Although he spoke aloud, his words didn¡¯t seem to have an effect. The other either didn¡¯t hear him or didn¡¯t understand. Li Hao thought back to the armor¡¯s instructions that¡¯d just filled his mind and awkwardly fumbled through the maniptions with his consciousness.

    He finally grasped what he wanted to do just as the Silver Armor seemed ready to beat him.

    ¡°You can talk?¡± A surge of mind intent flowed out. It was received as an impatient voice echoed back in his mind.

    ¡°Stow your thering, newbie, or I¡¯ll kick you dead! Cut the nonsense, hurry up, sign, and get out of here!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao could barely breathe in his shock! But sensing the other¡¯s impatience, he docilely signed his name on the paper.

    The irate Silver Armor ripped up the paper as soon as he finished and pulled out another sheet. ¡°I¡¯ll execute you for the crime of obstruction if you doodle again!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao waspletely lost, but then quickly realized something. He tried again with ancient characters¡ªLi Hao!

    It was ripped up again!

    ¡°Are you challenging me, newbie?!¡± raged the Silver Armor. ¡°Use a mental brand to write your name! Do you not understand or are you toying with me?!¡±

    Li Hao paused, mystified. His thoughts swirled through the silver armor tomunicate with the other. ¡°I don¡¯t understand...¡±

    ¡°Trash!¡±

    ¡°......¡± He¡¯d been lectured! Li Hao was troubled and vexed. Mental brand... mental brand... Did the soldier mean mind intent?

    He tried again with his mind and imprinted therge characters of Li Hao. The paper was swiftly tucked away by a finally satisfied Silver Armor. Meanwhile, the Red Armor that¡¯d led the way gestured for Li Hao to put the other items away.

    The young man tried sending a message to it, but found his efforts futile. Just how did this work? Could hemunicate only with fellow Silver Armors? Could he notmunicate with any soldiers of another system? Or did heck the proper authorization?

    Scratching his head, Li Hao picked up the medallion, pamphlet, and storage ring. He quickly scanned the storage ring and took a sharp breath.<i> Hot damn! </i>There was nothing special inside, just ten mysterious power stones. Compared to his, however, these ones sparkled with luster. It was apparent from a quick nce that his were trash and these were the real treasure!

    Were these... military rations?

    Apart from the stones, there were also sets of undergarments and two sets of outerwear. They were regr casual wear instead of armor, seemingly meant for day-to-day use. They were military uniforms and looked quite striking.

    There was nothing else in the ring other than a key that turned up with careful perusal.<i> Room 109 of the Field Grade Officer Dorms.</i> This seemed to be his dormitory.

    He then examined his medallion¡ªthere was a line of text on it that said the Ninth Division of the Ninth Troop Reserve Defenders of the Battle Heaven Army. Li Hao scratched his head again. So they were... the reserves? He wasn¡¯t part of the frontlines?

    He quickly paged through the pamphlet. Various regtions, military rules, points of consideration, and special notes were denoted in it. Their first duty was to obey orders!

    Li Hao was beginning to feel the weight of his station. There were so many strict regtions! It looked like he would lose his head at the slightest misstep. Was this a good course of action? Was it a good idea to join the city¡¯s army?

    The young man turned his attention to his armor and slowly sensed something different about it. His explorations abruptly caused faint light to bloom from the armor; energy from the ground surged in! Not only could he absorb this energy, but it also enhanced the armor¡¯s defensive capabilities. It also seemed to impart other uses, such as the ability to fly!

    He couldn¡¯t fly in terms of the conventional definition, but he could connect to the entire city¡¯s defensive system when d in his armor. It would take a while longer for him to be familiar with the details.

    A technical voice sounded in Li Hao¡¯s mind at this time. ¡°Wee to the Battle Heaven Army! The Ninth Division is full and training of new recruits has ceased. Troop Leader Li Hao of the Twelfth Troop in the Ninth Division, recruitment has be difficult. The Recruitment Hall has newly epted two rookies who have yet to undergo the army¡¯s training regime. Their battle capabilities are weak. Are you willing to ept them in your troop?¡±

    Li Hao blinked, then suppressed the urge tough. Two new rookies with weak battle capabilities... wasn¡¯t that Hong Yitang and He Yong? <i>So I¡¯m a troop leader now? But I¡¯m just a nominal officer, probably like one of those ranking officers. There¡¯s no avable troops to assign to me, so the two new guys are being given to me, the figurehead?</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry, but he quickly followed the operation instructions to ept the men. Information appeared in his consciousness¡ªthe two rookies were indeed Hong Yitang and He Yong.

    <i>They didn¡¯t use false names? That¡¯s surprising. Or maybe it doesn¡¯t matter.</i>

    Hong Yitang was a lieutenant¡ªa Bronze Armor the equivalent of a centurion. He Yong was... a regr soldier!

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow. How did this work? How had they been assessed and assigned? He Yong was mid Nova even when he didn¡¯t call upon his full strength, but he was just a regr soldier? Did they not assign ranks ording to strength?

    Possibly.

    Had an exception been made for Hong Yitang because he was so strong?

 Chapter 449: The New Twelfth Troop (III)

    <h4>Chapter 449: The New Twelfth Troop (III)</h4>

    Li Hao had many questions, but no one was giving him answers. The Silver Armor that¡¯d spoken to him impatiently ignored his questions. Thus, the young man left with the Red Armor.

    Momentster, another Red Armor led a Bronze Armor and ck Armor in from the distance.

    ¡°Li Hao, I¡¯ve received word that we¡¯ve been added to the Twelfth Troop of the Ninth Division,¡± came He Yong¡¯s voice. ¡°Ole Hong is my superior as the leader of the firstpany in the Twelfth Troop and I¡¯m just a damn ck Armor!¡±

    ¡°Cut the bullcrap,¡± said an equally resigned Hong Yitang. ¡°I¡¯ve received word too that I have a superior officer¡ªTroop Leader Li Hao! I¡¯m to report to the troop leader!¡±

    Although Li Hao was wearing a suit of silver armor, both of the men knew that it was the young man. As their superior in the army, a warning shed across their visors even though they were far away.

    <i>Alert! The troop leader is in the vicinity!</i>

    Hong Yitang was quite at a loss. Were the eight families that big of a deal? Pfft! Li Hao was a Silver Armor troop leader as soon as he joined, and a powerhouse such as him was just a Bronze Armor! In the same vein, he could take somefort in the fact that He Yong was the truly pitiful soul. The man was a soldier under hismand, hah!

    ¡°I¡¯ve figured out some things,¡± Hong Yitang continued. ¡°Li Hao, this armor is incredible! Its defensive capabilities are very strong. I feel undeniable powerful even as just a Bronze Armor. Perhaps we weren¡¯t using them properly before, making the sets of ck armor only on par with Sunre. Ask Old He, his armor seems highly capable...¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I think this equipment is nuts!¡± He Yong immediately piped up. ¡°Of course, it depends on your strength. The stronger one is, the greater the defense and the more energy extracted from the ground. But I can¡¯t seem to leave the ground. Once I do, I¡¯m reduced to the regr armor¡¯s capabilities.¡±

    There were certain limits to the sets of ck armor; Li Hao convened with them.

    ¡°I¡¯ve discovered some things as well,¡± the young man¡¯s voice traveled out of the silver armor. ¡°You guys seem to have be my direct subordinates and I can send messages to you through the internals of the armor...¡±

    His mind intent rippled, but stayed within the armor. However, Li Hao¡¯s voice rang in the men¡¯s minds. ¡°Isn¡¯t this fun?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    ¡°I can do it too.¡± Hong Yitang immediately tried. ¡°But I can only do that to Ole He. If you grant me the authorization, though, I seem to be able to make reports to you...¡±

    ¡°This armor is incredible!¡±

    ¡°These soldiers must have been ridiculously strong in the ancient civilization, as were the armors¡¯ craftsmen! And this is just an internalmunication system that facilitates efficient execution of orders.¡± Both He Yong and Hong Yitang were full of appreciation and amazement. This was astounding, and it was just for a reserve army left to safeguard the city! The skill and resources required for constructing these suits of armor were out of reach for the current Skystar Dynasty.

    A newmunication rang in Li Hao¡¯s armor.

    ¡°Troop Leader Li Hao of the newly designated Twelfth Troop of the Ninth Division, the Ninth Division is under attack at the eastern gates. The enemy is strong¡ªis the Twelfth Troop willing to reinforce the division? As a new troop with weak battle capabilities and insufficient personnel, you can refuse the request. You can wait until your personnel and training isplete...¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow. Where was this voiceing from? The Gold Armor inside the city, or was this also part of the armor? If the Silver Armor could speak through this system, then so could the Gold Armor.

    He didn¡¯t want to stay here. ording to the rules in his pamphlet, new recruits must undergo three months of training. If he didn¡¯t head into battle, he¡¯d have to take his two rookies and endure three months of grueling work within the barracks!

    <i>Are you kidding me? No way I¡¯m wasting three months on that.</i>

    Hence, Li Hao epted the mission.

    ¡°The newly formed Twelfth Troop will immediately march to the battlefield and await further orders. Resist the enemy and fight for humanity and Battle Heaven!¡± Some emotion entered the vigorous voice as it rang in Li Hao¡¯s mind. A voice rang in Hong Yitang and He Yong¡¯s minds as well.

    ¡°Advance, newly formed Twelfth Troop! Kill!¡±

    The two Red Armors behind them saluted, as if knowing that the trio had epted the mission. They thumped their chests with loud ngs!

    Not only that, but soldiers everywhere seemed to have heard the directive. Chest thumps abounded as they saluted another troop about to head to the battlefield. Soldiers seeing them off could be glimpsed everywhere the eye could see.

    ¡°It¡¯s an oddly... hot-blooded atmosphere,¡± He Yong murmured. ¡°It¡¯s like we¡¯ll disappoint everyone if we don¡¯t return in triumph...¡±

    It was a strange feeling! They were going to march against modern humans, of which they were a part of. Had they be turncoats to their entire era? A bizarre feeling assailed the three. Had they be traitors of their time? They¡¯d joined an ancient army and epted orders to fight present-day humans...

    The question briefly shed through their minds. Who cared! It was the feeling of being saluted by everyone that lingered.

    ¡°No one sent me off like this when I set out from the Silver Moon Guards,¡± Li Hao muttered as they walked. ¡°If they had, I might¡¯ve been a bit worked up too!¡±

    Such was the truth. At times, the most inconsequential of actions were the most unforgettable. Soldiers saluted them wherever they went and still saw them off even after the trio walked out of sight. It was like they were joyously sending heroes off on a grand mission. Just this alone was very satisfying to Li Hao.

    The three reached theplex entrance before long. A new Red Armor was here. It swiftly raised the guardrail and thumped its chest with a loud smash. The trio felt that it might have shouted something if it could speak.

    They walked out amid this odd atmosphere that also made their blood run with passion. He Yong exhaled slowly when they were out. ¡°I feel like... if we spent a long time in there, we¡¯d definitely be assimted by them. What a terrifying feeling!¡±

    It was a sensation of constantly being brainwashed and fed a certain line of thinking. It was more frightening than what Hong Yitang had said earlier.

    ¡°This is why these soldiers are so strong!¡± Hong Yitang sighed. ¡°We have our own thoughts and aren¡¯t even of this time. It¡¯s only been a short while since we joined this army, but we already have a solemn sense of duty. We¡¯d probably feel this more acutely after three months of training. This is a terrifying ce!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything as he¡¯d received another directive. ¡°Let¡¯s go. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯sing from upstairs or what, but we need to get to the battlefield in one hour. We¡¯ll be punished ording to military regtions if we¡¯rete!¡±

    They weren¡¯t too far from the eastern gate, so one hour was plenty of time. It would seem that upstairs was being lenient to the newly designated troop. Li Hao took to the air, exulting in the feeling of flight. He soared proudly through a sky without obstacles.

    The two below looked at him while simply running toward the eastern gate. ¡°Don¡¯t be too conspicuous,¡± Hong Yitang transmitted. ¡°Your strength is on par with an unawakened Silver Armor. You don¡¯t measure up to an awakened one, so be careful of powerful Novas attacking you. As high level as Silver Armors are, that may not necessarily be a good thing!¡±

    Cackling, Li Hao immediately turned his armor ck. ¡°As a Silver Armor troop leader, I have the special privilege of disguising myself. There¡¯s nothing to be afraid of!¡± He¡¯d witnessed this ability in actionst time and now he was the one putting it to use.

    ¡°We¡¯re going to have a great time,¡± Li Hao barked withughter. ¡°I¡¯m going to kill as many of the three great organizations as I canter. They¡¯re in for some pain!¡± He¡¯d finally found a chance to face his enemy head-on!

    The two below didn¡¯t say anything as they dwelled in their own thoughts. Bing part of the Battle Heaven Army ran outside of their expectations. They didn¡¯t know how to conduct themselves from this point¡ªthey¡¯d just take it one step at a time.

    They were here to seize treasure, but now they were part of the city defenders!

    Meanwhile, Li Hao didn¡¯t think that much. There was another Gold Armor in the military barracks, making for two in the city. Even without the trio¡¯s interference, the expedition team might not find sess this time.

    The young man suddenly looked into the distance after flying for a while and did a double take. <i>Am I seeing things, or did I just see a ck dog running through the streets?</i>

    <i>That was weird! Was it Panther?</i>

    A ck dog reminded him of Panther, but that was impossible. Panther had run off a long time ago. It wouldn¡¯t be here even if it hadn¡¯t. Li Hao put it out of his mind. He couldn¡¯t see anything anymore, so he would head to the eastern gate first.

    ......

    <i>At this moment, the eastern gate.</i>

    There was a great lull in the great battle. The supernaturals had retreated ] from the city gates and congregated in the distant za. A loud hubbub arose, many of the would-be plunderers sad and suffering. What the heck was this?? A fight had broken out as soon as they arrived and they didn¡¯t reap any rewards for their trouble.

    Almost four hundred supernaturals were dead in a short while! This kind of battle was rare even in the central region!

    As the crowd agitated with shock and dismay, the powerhouses of the three great organizations frowned. This excavation felt different fromst time, the situation hadn¡¯t developed like thisst month. The ck Armors seemed more difficult to manage and were acting in concert! They also seemed to be more intelligent¡ªor was this because someone was directing them? The Gold Armor inside the city?

    No one cared about the couple hundred dead¡ªit wasn¡¯t their people and mostly wandering cultivators. So what if they were dead? The dead were from different factions and the three great organizations were taking some time observing the situation.

 Chapter 450: The Twelfth Troop Takes the Field (I)

    <h4>Chapter 450: The Twelfth Troop Takes the Field (I)</h4>

    The newly formed Twelfth Troop made quick time and arrived at the eastern gates in less than an hour. A Silver Armor was waiting for them. He weed their arrival with a loud rumble upon seeing them. Solemn and dignified!

    The Silver Armor thumped his chest with his right hand as a ripple appeared in Li Hao¡¯s mind, ¡°I am Troop Leader Jiang Shixun, leading the Seventh Troop of the Ninth Division Reserve Defenders. We wee our brothers¡¯ reinforcement!

    ¡°You are newly formed and do not have a fullplement. Your equipment is iplete, so you will assist the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Troops in ad hoc defense!

    ¡°Centralmand has issued standing orders that the chain ofmand shall pass down in order of seniority! If we all fall in battle, the Third Troop of the Ninth Division will answer to you! In the same vein, your men will fall under mymand if you perish in the battlefield!¡± announced the Silver Armor as soon as Li Hao presented himself.

    The soldier looked at the young man, solemn respect in its empty gaze. ¡°We are to defend our homes and resist enemies! No retreat, no desertion! Our sacrednd lies behind us, the people live if the city stands, the people die if the city falls! Our orders are to stalwartly defend the eastern gate! We are not to take a single step back without receiving such orders, do you understand?¡±

    ¡°I do!¡± Li Hao thumped his chest.

    Some derision entered the Silver Armor¡¯s empty gaze. <i>That was wrong! But whatever, you guys are a newly formed unit and it looks like you haven¡¯t undergone training. Then forget it, it¡¯s rare enough that rookies are willing to reinforce the frontlines, what else can we ask for?</i>

    <i>I just hope they don¡¯t disturb the army formations! How long has it been since fresh blood joined the Ninth Division?</i>

    Endless eons! So long that the division had forgotten when thest batch of recruits was.

    The army hadin quiet for countless years before revitalizing with bits and pieces of their memories. That was already rare enough for the Silver Armor. And with the arrival of new recruits, it put the leader of the Seventh Troop in great spirits.

    ¡°As a mobile unit, you will assist the three troops in defending the eastern gates. Your merits will be counted at double the rate after battle. This is an exception for new recruits, so treasure the opportunity well!¡±

    ¡°Merits?¡± Li Hao blinked. What merits?

    The Silver Armor was used to idiotic questions from new recruits and didn¡¯t bother answering.

    ¡°The enemy has temporarily retreated, but they will soon attack anew. There are some powerhouses among them, it is a pity that our souls have been scattered to the four winds and our strength is less than ten percent of what it once was. Otherwise... But there is nothing to be done when a tiger that goes down to the ins is bullied by dogs. We are weak and fragile, so we must be cautious and prudent. We cannot take rash action!¡±

    <i>Less than ten percent of their strength...</i>

    Li Hao was bbergasted by the statement. So in the past, these Silver Armors had been stronger than when they reawakened! How terrifying was that! And this was just a troop leader. There were division leaders,manders, ranking officers, themander-in-chief... He could fathom the hierarchy just from the medallion he¡¯d received.

    This was also just the reserve defenders of the Ninth Division! So that meant there were at least nine divisions with multiple troops to them, then they would roll up to a corp...

    The scale of the army gave him heart palpitations! Did it number in the millions at its peak? Perhaps there were one hundred thousand in each of their corps! Just how glorious was the ancient civilization?? It boggled the mind!

    This particr troop leader seemed quite busy. He quickly set Li Hao aside and dashed up the city walls, appearing over the ramparts. Li Hao followed him in a sh of light. There were two more Silver Armors on top to begin with, and now there were four total.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>Outside.</i>

    Someone in the za squinted at the city gates. ¡°Look over there! Is there an additional Silver Armor on the gates?¡±

    His words raised a disturbance through the crowd and many followed his gaze. Some people¡¯s eyesight proved sharp enough, others could not. Those who could see the neer jumped with shock.

    ¡°Another Silver Armor means another one thousand ck Armors!¡±

    ¡°So we¡¯ve got one thousand more enemies?¡±

    ¡°Oh my... heavens... we¡¯re doomed!¡±

    ¡°Why is there another one? Didn¡¯t they say there¡¯s only four because of the four directions? Is it five now? Just how many ck Armors are there in the city??¡±

    A hubbub of discussion arose as some fretted while others cursed. The hell was this! They were just here to earn money, not to die. Hundreds of them had died as soon as they entered, and now there was a new Silver Armor!

    ......

    Hou Xiaochen was also frowning. The new Silver Armor perplexed him and overthrew some of their previous theories. There might be more than defenders of the four directions in the city. There could be other army units.

    Each unit rivaled the Silver Moon Guards and they were more powerful inside the city. Their terrifying might was awful to consider. Hou Xiaochen had only raised a thousand people over the years, but an army several thousand strong had appeared in a short period of time. And this had just been an army left behind to stand guard in the ancient civilization!

    The Parity King, Green Moon, Elder Crimson Light, and others walked over. They were also finding the situation difficult to manage.

    ¡°Director Hou, this was not within our expectations.¡± The Parity King frowned. ¡°How many ck Armors are there inside the city? We won¡¯t have much of an effect if we continue to devote our effort here¡ªthe enemy just grows more numerous!

    ¡°We don¡¯t have much time, only three days. If we don¡¯t leave then, there doesn¡¯t seem to be stories of anyone surviving a month yet. We won¡¯t make it to the next opening!¡±

    They would either have to abandon the inner city after three days or try to brute force their way! They needed to breach those defenses!

    The major factions had observed the action thus far and waited for the right moment. It was time to settle on a n. Do they go for a strong offensive or what?

    If they chose to give up... Everyone had waited for a month and made ample preparations for this excavation. They¡¯d finally entered the ruins, so what was this talk of giving up! They¡¯de with so many Novas that were yet to take the field!

    It was just a few thousand ck Armors. They were nothing if the Silver Armors didn¡¯t erupt with full strength. That made thetter peak Sunre at most, a level that could be found all throughout the expedition.

    The more the situation stood thus, the more that people felt there was a lot of treasure inside the city. Even if there wasn¡¯t, a few thousand sets of ck armor were a priceless treasure. One or two hundred wasn¡¯t much, but thousands or ten thousand could create an elite military unit!

    Ten thousand troops with Sr defensive capabilities charging together... That made for a terrifying scene! Even now, a few thousand ck Armors rushing together had still killed several hundred supernaturals, despite powerhouses in residence.

    ¡°What thoughts do you guys have?¡± Hou Xiaochen asked calmly.

    ¡°We work together!¡± The Parity King cut straight to the chase. ¡°We¡¯ll mow down the ck Armors and assign one of the four Silver Armors to the three great organizations and Silver Moon authorities. Each faction will take care of one Silver Armor. The rest can handle the ck Armors!

    ¡°That should cover our bases. Even if the Silver Armor awakens, it will bete Nova at most. We should be able to contain e Nova with all the strength we¡¯ve brought, so we¡¯re not afraid of that eventuality either!¡±

    As strong as the Silver Armor was, each of the four factions was confident in their abilities to handle e Nova. Green Moon herself was ate Nova, what was there to be afraid of?

    As for the numerous ck Armors, so were there many supernaturals present. ck Armors were initial Sunre at most; most in the expedition were Sunres, with plenty of Srs present. There were a few wandering Novas as well, such as Xu Feng and some other formidable martial masters.

    ¡°Has anyone seen Southern Fist?¡± asked Elder Crimson Light from Celestial. ¡°The guy¡¯s gone missing, has he slipped into the city?¡±

    He Yong was a loud and abrasive fellow. It was an unfamiliar sight that he hadn¡¯t been present for the earlier battle.

    ¡°Did he die in the second passageway?¡±

    ¡°Who knows?¡±

    ¡°......¡± No one knew where He Yong had gone, but some had indeed died in the second passageway. There were many casualties in the earlier melee as well. When all was added together, only fifteen hundred were left of the nearly two thousand expedition team.

    Arge portion was gone! Of course, it was survival of the fittest. Those who¡¯d died were fools, idiots, or weaklings who hadn¡¯t done any homework before entering the ruins. Who else should die, if not they? They only knew that mysterious power stones covered the ground here. It was a good thing they had died, it would make the rest of the group exercise their wits more.

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t say anything. Southern Fist? He wasn¡¯t the only one. Li Hao and Hong Yitang were also nowhere to be found!

    ¡°Alright!¡± He nodded after some consideration. ¡°We¡¯ll take care of one Silver Armor, but there are many ck Armors and the rest might not be able to unite as one...¡±

    Someone representing the wandering cultivators approached them from a distance¡ªXu Feng!

    The dapper gentleman strode in with dashing ir. ¡°Seniors, it is my honor to receive everyone¡¯s approval and represent the wandering cultivators to discuss how we might handle the trouble we find ourselves in...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen smiled and didn¡¯t respond. Green Moon flicked a disdainful nce at the young man. Celestial¡¯s Elder Crimson Light didn¡¯t make a sound. Only the Parity King¡¯s stern face split with a slight smile.

    ¡°We happen to be discussing with Director Hou as well. We will take care of the Silver Armors while the wandering cultivators and some of our people eliminate the ck Armors. Without their superiors, the ck Armors are easy to manage. They lose their battle capabilities after one minute away from the ground!

    ¡°The Bronze Armors are harder to handle, but with a Nova like Sir Xu on the wandering cultivator side, you should be able to eliminate Sunres like the Bronze Armors. Are you amenable to this division, Sir Xu?¡±

    There were indeed a bit too many ck Armors, but they were weak. Strictly speaking, the reawakened Silver Armors were the most frightening.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Xu Feng smiled. ¡°We look to the seniors to eliminate the hardest opponents. Leave the rest to us!¡±

    This was absolutely fine and even better than they thought. They¡¯d been worried that these guys would continue watching from the sidelines.

 Chapter 451: The Twelfth Troop Takes the Field (II)

    <h4>Chapter 451: The Twelfth Troop Takes the Field (II)</h4>

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>Over the city gates.</i>

    ¡°Troop Leader Jiang,¡± Li Hao asked curiously. ¡°Can we not utilize our defensive system? The aerial defense system is very strong, if we can use it...¡±

    ¡°It can only be used passively due to ack of energy!¡± the seventh troop leader¡¯s voice rang hollowly. ¡°Battle Heaven needs energy, we are severely short at the moment. The death of so many is why we have awoken slightly. The more that die, the more energy that is absorbed, the faster our reawakening. Otherwise, we remain in a quiet state of inertness!¡±

    <i>So the ground absorbing energy is to hasten the city¡¯s awakening!</i> Li Hao took in the new information.

    ¡°Then those who¡¯ve gone through the second passageway¡ªthe small house with the¡ªcan they evade the aerial defenses?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± the troop leader responded emptily once more. ¡°That is the Visitor Pavilion and all those whoe through it are guests. These people however, do not wish to be guests. They desire to be bandits instead, but the Visitor Pavilion gave them certain privileges. Our authorization level is insufficient to revoke them. The city lord andmander-in-chief are not in the city. The Visitor Pavilion¡¯s authority matches ours. No one can revoke the privileges unless the guardian awakens!¡±

    <i>The guardian? So the city lord isn¡¯t in the city? Then who¡¯s the Gold Armor?</i>

    Li Hao was very confused. That meant the Gold Armor in the city lord manor was likely not the city lord. Who was? And who was this guardian?

    ¡°Troop Leader Li, a moment of silence before battle!¡±manded the seventh troop leader when Li Hao wanted to ask more questions. The neer talked too much, he could barely think through it all!

    They were dead, after all. Recalling memories took a lot of effort. All they had now were some instincts and pitiful scraps of memory. Each question that Li Hao asked required them to expend mental strength to relive the past. As time went on, that would facilitate theirplete awakening and premature return to their peak. That, in turn, would lead to a quick death.

    Li Hao was morose, but he asked no further. It looked like these soldiers had awakened, yet didn¡¯t have ess to many memories. It was sufficient for them to answer some of his questions. He walked to one of the city walls. His two men were here¡ªit was very obvious!

    The young man had thought that he wouldn¡¯t be able to identify them after they stood among the ck Armors. Reality once again proved how incredible the armor system was. When he scanned the rows of thousands of ck Armors, one of them glittered with some light.

    Some information appeared when he focused his gaze on the sparkles.

    ¡°New receipt He Yong of the First Company of the Twelfth Troop!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was somehow amused. These ck Armors were easily identified by their officers, but this authorization extended only to his men. Scanning the other soldiers didn¡¯t bring up any information.

    ¡°New recruit He Yong!¡± The line suddenly appeared in He Yong¡¯s voice. Hidden in a mass of ck Armors, he quickly turned his head in Li Hao¡¯s direction. As expected, the young man was staring at him from a few dozen meters out.

    He Yong blinked. <i>You can tell that I¡¯m hiding here? Da hell? Why? Do you have full control over me just because I¡¯m wearing armor? Damn my ck armor is pitifully low level!</i>

    His only avable function was to hail hispany leader, and that was because he was granted more authorizations as the only soldier in hispany. Otherwise, he might be limited to just his captain.

    A resigned He Yong stepped out, quickly joined by Hong Yitang. The three congregated on the city walls.

    ¡°What are you calling us over for?¡± asked a dejected He Yong.

    ¡°I¡¯m thinking that we may not be able to stand up to the people outside...¡± Li Hao frowned as he looked out. ¡°To be honest, they¡¯re very strong. They have a lot of Novas and Srs. You guys saw it too that we may not be able to hold them off if they bring their full strength to bear. These remaining units of the Battle Heaven Army might not be able to either.¡±

    ¡°Then let¡¯s run...¡± He Yong suggested, but Li Hao shook his head.

    ¡°No, I want to protect this city!¡±

    The man paused in his tracks,<i> why?</i> As fired up as he¡¯d been in the barracks, he was back to normal once outside. It didn¡¯t matter to him whether or not the city stood. In fact, it was just as well if it fell, there might be more loot he could swipe in that case. Safeguarding the city might not have much of an effect.

    ¡°Why do you want to protect the city?¡± Hong Yitang asked as well. <i>You have no friends or family here, what¡¯s the point of taking a stand for an empty city? Those guys outside are not people you want to provoke!</i>

    ¡°I don¡¯t want the three great organizations or anyone else to gain anything!¡± Li Hao responded calmly. ¡°I¡¯ve given it some thought... This city might belong to me!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The two were at a loss for words. <i>Why??</i>

    ¡°It also belongs to you two! Isn¡¯t it better for one person¡ªno, three people to enjoy the benefits, as opposed to everyone? The soldiers here are dead and don¡¯t further consume resources. They appear only when there¡¯s fighting. How nice would it be to have them as our guards? Why should we let them die?

    ¡°Think about the Pool of Life and all those treasures inside the city. I¡¯d rather the three of us split them up than share them with so many.

    ¡°Strictly speaking, this ce belongs to no one because they are ruins. But as the city of the Wangs in the eight families, I have more of a right toy im to it than anyone else. Of course, that isn¡¯t the point at the moment, but it¡¯s obvious that sharing with just three people is much better than sharing with a couple of thousand.¡±

    ¡°But...¡± He Yong wanted to say that it was impossible to hold off everyone outside, even with the three Silver Armors awakening!

    ¡°This city won¡¯t be so easily conquered!¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°There¡¯s another Gold Armor inside the barracks and that might not be the only one. There could be more apart from the one inside the city lord manor. They just don¡¯t seem to be willing to awaken ahead of time as that will lead to their death.

    ¡°We might be able to use the opportunity to rue some military merits! Maybe we¡¯ll receive additional rewards. The weaponry seems to be in good order. When I collected my equipment, a Silver Armor walked into the back to retrieve my allotment. I feel that there¡¯s a lot of treasure in those depths...¡±

    ¡°So what¡¯s your n?¡± Hong Yitang asked inly. ¡°We stand almost no chance against them.¡±

    ¡°Why not? This is our home ground!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Don¡¯t forget that I¡¯m the troop leader! As a troop leader, I have a specialbat identity and can enter the homes of residents. I can enter the closed homes in the outer city!

    ¡°Not only do I have the privilege, but I can give you simr authorization. We can conduct guerri warfare in the outer city or even directbat. If we hide in the houses, they can only wait outside to be ambushed by us. Remember how passive we werest time after the Bronze Armors took shelter in the houses?¡±

    Bronze Armors had entered the ancient houses on thest expedition. ck Armors could as well, but they seemed to have lost their sentience and couldn¡¯t act voluntarily. The Bronze Armors seemed to retain a bit of their minds.

    Both men blinked at the suggestion. Enter the ancient houses to ambush the powerhouses around them? That would be a position easy to advance and retreat from!

    The ancient houses were one with the ancient city; one should not enter without an invitation. If a trespasser barged in, they were attacked by the city¡¯s entire defensive system. This was something that Li Hao had newlye to understand¡ªthe people who entered the ancient houses on the prior expedition had been killed by the city¡¯s defensive system!

    Thieves were unequivocally sentenced to death by the city¡¯s rules, even if they¡¯d passed through the Visitor Pavilion.

    ¡°Also, there are thirty Bronze Armors outside that also possess the same sentience,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°I¡¯m going to try and borrow some of them, then hide in the ancient houses with you guys. We¡¯ll be like fish in water if we conceal our presences. If our ambushes are sessful, killing some powerhouses will be an easy task!

    ¡°You two are so powerful that you¡¯ll kill with one strike. You can dash back to the ancient houses afterward, not even Novas will be able to do anything against you. We hold aplete advantage, there¡¯s no need for directbat!

    ¡°The three remaining army units have their duties and obligations to fulfill. They remain so long as the city stands. We are a mobile unit and just need to help their efforts, but they <i>must</i> safeguard the city. Not to mention they¡¯re not as intelligent as they were when alive, so they only know to dig in their heels. We¡¯re different!¡±

    He Yong stroked his beard¡ªthere was no beard to stroke anymore, more was the pity. ¡°Is this a good idea? Li Hao, we¡¯re on the same side as those outside... Do we kill even the Silver Moon authorities?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao cut off mid word. <i>The fuck dude? This is what you¡¯re really thinking, isn¡¯t it?</i>

    Hong Yitang roared withughter and also transmitted, ¡°It¡¯s feasible, I¡¯m just worried of drawing suspicion! The Battle Heaven Army is an army of dead souls in people¡¯s eyes. If we start ambushing...¡±

    ¡°It happenedst time too. The Bronze Armors started ambushing us toward the end, remember?¡± Li Hao reminded. They wouldn¡¯t be setting a precedent, and so what if they drew suspicion?

    ¡°Not to mention, you two only have the strength of Srs outside the city. Who will think that much? No one will know if the people you attack die and it wouldn¡¯t amount to much if they did!¡±

    ¡°Then what about the official authorities?¡± Hong Yitang grinned.

    ¡°What does Martial Uncle Hong think?¡±

    ¡°What do I think? Does what I think matter? You¡¯re the troop leader.¡±

    Li Hao looked at the man wordlessly. So <i>now</i> you say that?

    ¡°Forget it, we don¡¯t attack them. If the official authorities are weakened, that might cause some trouble for the province...¡±

    ¡°Do you care whether or not trouble finds Silver Moon?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not a sociopath,¡± Li Hao transmitted with augh. ¡°Even if I don¡¯t, I don¡¯t want unrest to rock the province. The stronger the authorities are, the more stable Silver Moon is. Martial Uncle Hong, I may not be a saint and wish to save the world, but I¡¯m not in the habit of creating unnecessary disturbance. Are you thinking a bit too much?

    ¡°I kill the three great organizations because they are evil and we share a grudge. It¡¯s not like I go around killing everyone.¡±

    Was the man truly considering him a demon?<i> Even if I don¡¯t help the official authorities, I have no need to kill them.</i>

    Hong Yitang was startled intoughter. That was true! His thoughts had gone off on a tangent!

 Chapter 452: The Twelfth Troop Takes the Field (III)

    <h4>Chapter 452: The Twelfth Troop Takes the Field (III)</h4>

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll listen to you, you¡¯re our troop leader!¡±

    <i>Enough of that. You listen to me when there¡¯s loot to be had, but toss me to the side when the loot¡¯s been had!</i>

    Li Hao concluded the conversation and walked up to the three Silver Armors, transmitting through his armor, ¡°Troop Leaders, I would like to lead some of the centurions in guerri tactics against these guys! I will destroy the enemy outside the city walls. They will not set a single foot through our gates!

    ¡°The three troop leaders need to stand guard here and my Twelfth Troop possesses insufficient personnel. We need some reinforcements...¡±

    The words of destroying the enemy and outside the city seemed to strike a chord. Agitated ripples emanated from the three Silver Armors. Eliminating the enemy outside the city walls was a military tradition. Sadly, the Ninth Division of the Reserve Defenders had lost face for the overall army and could only hold down the fort inside the city.

    Li Hao¡¯s other words apart from borrowing the Bronze Armors were just hot air. He didn¡¯t know that some of them would strike such a deep chord that it would start to recover some faded memories for the Silver Armors.

    ¡°Approved!¡± came the Seventh troop leader¡¯s voice. ¡°The three troops can offer support of ten centurions, no more. If more are allotted, the army will start to lose some of its basic functionality. Our ck Armor brothers have already lost their sentience. They must be led by a centurion to revert to some use...¡±

    Just ten!

    Li Hao thought for a moment. That was good enough, that would do! ¡°My thanks!¡±

    ¡°As we should. Be careful, Troop Leader Li!¡±

    <i>ng! </i>Li Hao thumped his chest with his fist. He was familiar with this gesture now. The other three troop leaders returned the gesture, seemingly impressed by their newrade.

    Ten Bronze Armors stood in front of Li Hao before long. His Silver Armor listed some information about them.

    ¡°Hu Xinwu, leader of the thirdpany of the Seventh Troop, reports to Troop Leader Li!¡±

    ¡°Wu Kaifu, leader of the ninthpany of the Eighth Troop...¡±

    ¡°......¡± A series of ripples traveled to Li Hao. The soldiers were slightly rigid, as if they only knew how to obey orders. They possessed some basic instincts, but weren¡¯t as nimble as the three Silver Armors.

    ¡°Alright, you will follow my orders from now on!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± came affirmative yells. There was more emotion in them this time.

    Li Hao discovered that their authorizations were now connected to his armor. He was ever more admiring of this equipment infrastructure. It must have been a fantastically convenient and unified process for the army to mobilize in concert back in the day.

    Everyone could hear as themands were issued through the armor. A great deal of trouble was spared when only those with high clearance could speak to those with lower clearance.

    The young man turned himself into a ck Armor, but it didn¡¯t affect the soldiers. They could still recognize Li Hao.

    ¡°Ready yourselves, brothers. Troop leaders, I require your assistance to go about your daily patrols. Our fishing begins!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The three Silver Armors didn¡¯t quite understand, but they could grasp that their newrade needed cover. Thus, squads of ck Armors quickly began patrolling the streets.

    There were eight streets in the other city, they overlooked the first street. No trespasser dared linger in the first street. Ten teams of ten were assigned to each street. Eight hundred ck Armors were sent out to begin their daily patrols.

    The army¡¯s movement caught the eye of the supernaturals in the distance.

    ......

    ¡°The ck Armors are on the move!¡±

    ¡°What are they doing?¡±

    ¡°They seem to be... patrolling... That¡¯s weird, why are they patrolling at a time like this? They¡¯ve definitely be puppets, alright. They don¡¯t have much intelligence left. Coming out at a time like this is just delivering themselves on a silver tter.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re hard to take out when they¡¯re clustered together, but as ten to a troop... We can take out eight hundred per street. That¡¯s what the expedition team didst time and rolled in the riches!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The supernaturals agitated with anticipation. The situation was developing as it hadst month! The Silver Armor stayed staunchly by the city gate while the ck Armors patrolled the streets. The soldiers were caught off guard when the explorers struck back and many ck Armors eliminated in the surprise.

    It was because of this that numerous suits of armor were collected. It¡¯d been the expedition¡¯s thoughts that this wouldn¡¯t happen again, but here the patrols were! Although there were more soldiers thanst time, the strength of supernaturals this time was also greater.

    Hou Xiaochen and the others, however, frowned. Why was this happening? Those Silver Armors from earlier seemed perfectly sentient and even intelligent. Sending the ck Armors out now was aplete act of idiocy! It gave the enemy a chance to rout the defenders!

    Three thousand ck Armors gathered together were difficult to eradicate, but streets of eight hundred each were feasible targets if the humans acted swiftly enough. In this regard... if the soldiers continued to be fools after they lost this first batch of eight hundred... could the expedition team slowly whittle them away?

    Otherwise, they would have to pay a high price to terminate all three thousand ck Armors. At least five hundred of the remaining fifteen hundred explorers would die in the process. Considering the opportunity, the wandering cultivators rustled with activity.

    ¡°Let¡¯s move about freely!¡± someone hooted. ¡°We won¡¯t keep the ck Armors if we get any. We¡¯ll sell it to you guys! What are people willing to pay for them?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, we don¡¯t have experience fighting as a group and won¡¯t be able to coordinate well. It¡¯s better to head off on our own in small teams.¡± The wandering cultivators lost theirposure before the three great organizations or Silver Moon authorities said anything. They didn¡¯t want to attack the ancient city as was previously proposed, that was too dangerous!

    The perfect opportunity was at hand for them to split up in twos or threes. They could strike if they came across a good situation. Bringing down one team of soldiers meant ten ck Armors! If one set could be sold for five mysterious power stones, one operation meant fifty stones! That made the entrance fee more than worth it! Fifty thousand cubes of mysterious power was a crazy sum! They¡¯de out with bulging pockets even if ten people worked as a team!

    Meanwhile, the three great organizations and Hou Xiaochen frowned. Wandering cultivators were an unruly bunch, so it was impossible to corral them into joint action.

    ¡°If anyone collects a set of armor and sells it to the Night Watchers, we will pay one mysterious power stone per set!¡± Hou Xiaochen called out.

    ¡°That¡¯s too stingy!¡±

    ¡°This is a superhuman object, we know it can withstand Sunre attacks! You guys are paying one stone for a treasure like this??¡±

    ¡°Uh huh! Too stingy!!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t bother replying.

    Green Moon smirked. ¡°Red Moon will pay three stones per armor!¡± As for whether or not these wandering cultivators could actually obtain any armor... that was up to them! She could make empty promises as well as the rest of them. Who knew how many of these guys would make it out alive?

    Green Moon was just listing a high price to stick it to the Night Watchers and to goad the wandering cultivators. It would be a good thing if they could actually eradicate all of the ck Armors. Without the basic soldiers, the Silver Armors would be easier to manage.

    As for whether the city army had suddenly made such a foolish move due to ack of intelligence or seeing up a trap... who cared? Wandering cultivators could die whenever!

    Besides, some of them possessed real strength. They should be able to bring down some ck Armors with them even if they died. That was just as well.

    A few noticed that a Silver Armor was missing¡ªit might be hiding among the ck Armors! But that a peak Sunre Silver Armor was moving on its own might afford opportunities for them.

    ¡°Celestial will also offer three stones per armor!¡±

    ¡°Yama follows suit!¡± called out the other two organizations.

    Hou Xiaochen nced at them and smiled, not saying a word. <i>You guys are rich, we¡¯re poor. I can¡¯t even make empty promises like you, so I won¡¯t say a thing.</i>

    The wandering cultivators were thoroughly riled up now. Stamping out one squad meant thirty mysterious power stones! Stones, not cubes! Many of them had never seen a single one before, they were all gonna be rich!

    As for whether or not they¡¯d leave the ruins alive with their treasures... that was up to individual ability.

    ¡°Will you pay on the spot?¡± someone asked urgently.

    ¡°Of course,¡± Green Moon responded faintly. ¡°Eliminating all of the ck Armors means only three thousand sets. With the joint coffers of the three great organizations, we can afford nine thousand stones!

    ¡°Not to mention, you won¡¯t possibly take them all. iming half would be good enough. Forty-five hundred stones means that each of us will be paying fifteen hundred. Do you guys think that we noble organizations cannot afford that much?¡±

    Fifteen hundred stones was a princely sum, but the three great organizations could indeed put together that many stones! They¡¯d made many preparations for this excavation and had brought many powerhouses. They could scrounge up that amount. If not, there was mysterious power as well.

    Not to mention... so what if they shortchanged the wandering cultivators?

    ¡°Ole Hou, do you think they''ve really brought that many stones with them?¡± Kong Jie transmitted. If this was true, then it was very tempting! Silver Moon was not that rich.

    ¡°Everyone be careful,¡± Hou Xiaochen transmitted instead of responding. ¡°Let¡¯s wait and see, I find something odd about this! The Silver Armors gave appropriate orders before and were in high morale. It doesn¡¯t make sense that they¡¯ve suddenly lost their minds. Although there is this precedent, this situation is not right. Do not brashly enter the outer city!¡±

    What in the zes was going on? Even Hou Xiaochen, who¡¯d thought everything was within his calctions, frowned with bafflement. He was well and truly confused!

    He heaved a sigh of dismay to see supernaturals eagerly throw themselves into the outer city. This was not good! How many of them would die this time?

    Some Srs had also snuck in. It looked like the mysterious power stones were sufficient to move their hearts. But that made sense, it wasn¡¯t hard for a Sr to eliminate ten ck Armors by themselves. If they had a storage ring, they only needed to make one trip for thirty stones.

    Even Hou Xiaochen was tempted! What a rich reward for this mission! But was money really that easy to earn?

    Some of the powerhouses from the three great organizations were also part of the crowd. It looked like they wanted to collect information or take the opportunity to im a few ck Armors.

    ¡°Are we really not going to go?¡± Hu Qingfeng transmitted from the Silver Moon authorities. ¡°Even if we don¡¯t, we should send some people in to assess the situation. Novas cannot easily make a move, but Srs can!¡±

    While there weren¡¯t many here from the official authorities, there were quite a few Srs. Did they all just wait here?

 Chapter 453: The Twelfth Troop Takes the Field (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 453: The Twelfth Troop Takes the Field (IV)</h4>

    Hu Qingfeng didn¡¯t really want to enter the outer city as who knew if they¡¯d run into the vanished Silver Armor? Although the soldier was just a peak Sunre and could do nothing to him, he wasn¡¯t willing to take the risk.

    ¡°Director, I¡¯ll go!¡± Golden Spear volunteered. His battle strength was formidable, so he wouldn¡¯t fear anything, even if he met an unawakened Silver Armor. He was the more ideal choice as martial masters were masters of concealment.

    Since Golden Spear had stepped forward, Mu Sen could no longer y dead. ¡°Director, I¡¯ll head in with the boss!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen considered the two¡ªMu Sen¡¯s defenses were strong and Golden Spear¡¯s offensive was domineering. They should be able to take care of themselves if they encountered danger.

    ¡°Go on, but be careful.¡± He gave his approval. ¡°Don¡¯t touch the ck Armors, just assess the situation. Watch and observe. There is something wrong about what¡¯s happening!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The two quickly walked into the outer city. Dark and gloomy, it appeared like a bloodthirsty mouth. It was a rather horrifying sight.

    Hou Xiaochen remained frowning and looked at the inner city gates. He sighed softly, feeling quite helpless. <i>Li Hao... are you guys behind this? Or are you just searching for treasure inside the city and aren¡¯t involved?</i>

    He sank deep in thought while holding a key in his hand. As a guest with a key, could he avoid certain dangers if he refrained from raising a hand against the army? After a while, he slipped Manager Yu the key while he patted her shoulder.

    ¡°Hold on to it and don¡¯t throw it away. You just need to remember to keep it in your hand!¡± The woman nodded without saying a word.

    A group of people watched the wandering cultivators and others entered the outer city. ck Armor footsteps rang through the outer city. All was as if thest expedition. The street patrols continued.

    ......

    <i>Inside a teahouse.</i>

    Li Hao ducked inside. There was nothing in the establishment apart from some chairs and stools. He did see a couple mysterious power stones, but was not at liberty to touch them. How would a Silver Armor troop leader be tempted by this kind of meager gain? Not to mention, military regtions denoted that soldiers could not touch a single item of civilian belongings.

    <i>I, Li Hao, am a person who follows the rules!</i>

    The young man peered intently through the door ts and wanted tough at what he saw outside. A ball of light was right in front of him. This was fun! He could hide in the ancient houses and urately determine the enemy¡¯s location with his eyes. He was invincible!

    <i>I can see you guys!</i>

    In everyone¡¯s understanding, the ancient houses were not to be entered. Thus, Li Hao cracked open the door, reached toward an unsuspecting Sunre, dragged him in and broke his neck!

    There was no hesitation whatsoever and no need to investigate the other¡¯s identity. The official authorities hadn¡¯t brought Sunres on this expedition. Their weakest was Sunre, so there was no need for the young man to observe further. Whether it was the wandering cultivators or the three great organizations, only the provincial delegation was off limits. Everyone else was fair game.

    The Sunre died as soon as he was hauled inside. He probably hadn¡¯t thought that he would die as soon as he entered the outer city.

    ¡°New recruit He Yong, there¡¯s a Sr outside your house. Strike and drag them in!¡± A voice sounded in He Yong¡¯s mind as he observed from a house in the distance. He blinked and looked around him. Was Li Hao nearby? How did he know? That was strange!

    He Yong didn¡¯t have a clear read on the Sr as the target had gone through the second passageway. After supernaturals were concealed, they were difficult to detect even for Silver Armors. But now, Li Hao was urately identifying him from a distance.

    Since the young man had spoken, He Yong would act! He opened the front door, grabbed the first supernatural he saw, and sted out with a punch!

    The Sr died; He Yong vanished with the body and entered another house. When others came to investigate, there was nothing to be seen. They looked at each other, mystified. Where did the loud sounde from?

    In between bouts of his own activity, Li Hao continued to observe the surroundings. He could at least see the neighboring streets and knew where his people were. If a target of appropriate strength approached, he quickly gave an order.

    The ten Bronze Armors were on par with peak Sunre. Added to that two soldiers that were secretly powerhouses and the peak Sunre that was Li Hao... the outer city abruptly became the killing fields!

    Sunre after Sunre disappeared. Li Hao found it more difficult to defeat Srs, but the other two had an extremely easy time. Six Srs disappeared in short order with none the wiser.

    ......

    <i>In the za.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s brows knitted tightly together. ¡°Ole Kong, go inside and... find Golden Spear and Mu Sen,¡± he transmitted. ¡°Tell them to get out!¡±

    Kong Jie started. <i>Me? Are you sure?</i> There was no need for him to go inside unless abnormal danger was on the horizon. Golden Spear wasn¡¯t weak as he was a Nova. No one would easily eliminate him.

    ¡°Ole Hou...¡±

    ¡°Go in!¡± Urgency made Hou Xiaochen¡¯s tone snap. The situation had grown out of hand. Something was wrong! He could vaguely sense that some Srs had suddenly disappeared!

    This wasn¡¯t information from his supernatural senses as Srs who¡¯d taken the second passageway had their presences mostly obscured. That was a good development, but also a drawback. If in prior instances, everyone would sense the disappearance of a Sr in the outer city. But now, to vanish from sight was to vanish from their senses. Everyone could conceal their presences, so no one knew if someone disappeared.

    In that case, no one on the outside would be aware if a powerhouse died inside.

    Hou Xiaochen looked at the young man from Red Moon¡ªthe one with the heavenly eye. That Heaven¡¯s Eye seemed to have sensed something as he was looking at the outer city, but he was also frowning with resignation as he couldn¡¯t see anything.

    Kong Jie had no choice but to quickly enter the city. <i>What is going on that requires my personal presence?</i> After running into the gloom, his face twitched with shock when he saw a door open and a ck Armor drag a supernatural inside an ancient house. Both of them vanished before he had a chance to react!

    ¡°Retreat!¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice rang in He Yong¡¯s mind. ¡°Get out of there! There seems to be a... powerhouse near you. It¡¯s either Hou Xiaochen or Kong Jie, retreat!¡±

    He Yong jerked with shock. <i>Da fuck? You know even that?</i> How was the kid making these discoveries? Was it further functionality of a silver armor? How he envied that level of armor! He hadn¡¯t discovered Kong Jie at all¡ªhe wouldn¡¯t have made a move if he had.

    He Yong yanked the door open, it wasn¡¯t good to be blocked in here. He quickly threaded through the streets and vanished in front of Kong Jie¡¯s openmouthed gaze. Cold sweat beaded thetter¡¯s forehead.

    Nova! That was absolutely Nova level strength! Fucking hell, ck Armors were Novas?? What?! And they could conduct ambushes from ancient houses; the expedition team was done for! Most of the guys who¡¯d entered the outer city this time would probably die.

    Kong Jie didn¡¯t have time to dwell on the strange ck Armor. He quickly went to find Golden Spear and Mu Sen so that they wouldn¡¯t lose their lives here.

    ......

    As Kong Jie departed, He Yong, Hong Yitang, Li Hao, and ten Bronze Armors struck swift and true.

    ¡°There¡¯s Bronze Armors in the houses!¡± someone shrieked. That rather set those outside at ease.

    <i>Man, and here I was getting scared. There were Bronze Armorsst time, so it looks like these soldiers are up to their old tricks. The Bronze Armors are strong, but that¡¯s all there is to them. They don¡¯t pose much of a threat to Srs!</i>

    Hearts that had been in throats could settle back down. Meanwhile, the outer city grew quiet. Some disturbances sounded every now and then when supernaturals fought ck Armors. Wandering cultivators ran out in great excitement, dragging suits of armor. The expedition team was still sessful at times.

    Smiles graced some of the powerhouses¡¯ faces when they saw the sight. It looked like these wandering cultivators were still useful and the soldiers in the outer city would be eliminated in due course.

    Therefore, those powerhouses stirred with desire. Some of the Srs and even Novas of the three great organizations looked at their leaders. <i>Shall we go in too?</i> Golden Spear, Mu Sen, and Kong Jie on the Night Watcher side had entered. They couldn¡¯t be allowed to im more treasure!

    Green Moon looked at her counterparts; momentster, some Srs set out from the three great organizations. Obtaining more ck Armor was good for them too.

    ......

    Li Hao and his men were scything their way through the enemy. They grabbed people, dragged them into the ancient houses, and quickly executed them! Being able to see the balls of light was of greatest help to the young man unless he faced a martial master. However, there weren¡¯t many martial masters that were stronger than him in the expedition team.

    A row of data appeared on Li Hao¡¯s visor after he killed another Sunre.

    ¡°Troop Leader Li Hao of the newly designated Twelfth Troop: 11 merits!

    ¡°Company Leader Hong Yitang of the First Company in the newly designated Twelfth Troop: 14 merits!

    ¡°Soldier He Yong of the First Company in the newly designated Twelfth Troop: 17 merits!¡±

    These numbers had appeared several times¡ªsometimes shing after they killed one person, sometimes manifesting after they killed several. What did eleven merits mean?

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t sure, yet he could tell that He Yong was an excellent soldier. He had more merits than Hong Yitang!

    The young man made some swift calctions. Three Sunres might amount to one merit, one Sr might be one. He¡¯d killed more than twenty Sunre and three initial Srs, but he¡¯d only collected eleven merits.

    It looked like He Yong had killed quite a few, and some not through his directions. The guy would strike on his own after observing the situation. While he protested that this wasn¡¯t the best course of action, he was more brutal than anyone in action!

    Hong Yitang had also killed more than Li Hao. All of these people said one thing but meant another. As the young man thought, martial masters were nothing good. They were all horrible people!

    <i>I wonder what the elven merits are good for? A promotion? Or rewards? The armor infrastructure is really incredible, alright! Even deeds of merit are clearly calcted. They didn¡¯t even need examination officers in the ancient civilization. Who designed this?? Damn they¡¯re good!</i>

 Chapter 454: Majestic (I)

    <h4>Chapter 454: Majestic (I)</h4>

    <i>Outer city.</i>

    Increasing numbers of people disappeared after they were dragged into ancient houses. The more that died, the uneasier that those in the za grew. It was one thing if not that many died, but the three fiends ughtering through the outer city were inexorable and ruthless. As the number of dead mounted to one hundred, the fewer that wandering cultivators returned.

    A couple brought back some ck Armors in the beginning, but those that returnedter did so empty-handed. Explosions could be heard from the city, but armored footsteps also grew heavier. It seemed that the soldiers were patrolling with a firmer tread.

    ......

    <i>In the za.</i>

    Some powerhouses frowned and looked at the other city.

    ¡°Is the fourth Silver Armor scything through the people from the shadows? Why does it feel like the supernaturals are bing less active?¡±

    Some still itched for action, others looked at the inner city. Three Silver Armors hovered in the air and looked down in their direction, as if waiting for something. A few of the Novas in the crowd grew impatient and fidgeted restlessly.

    ¡°Let¡¯s just go on the offensive!¡± someone snapped. The gloomy outer city felt incredibly inauspicious. No one responded to him¡ªthe wandering cultivators were in a disarray!

    There was no one to withstand the ck Armors if the wandering cultivators lost their organization. The Silver Armors were still manageable, but three thousand ck Armors might ovee Novas if there was no concerted response against them.

    Great wealth was a source of great temptation. Not even Sir Xu could control the wandering cultivators. He was a representative when they needed him for something, but absolutely nothing when they did not.

    ......

    Hearts shook with trepidation in the za while Li Hao¡¯s trio killed at will with the Bronze Armors in the outer city! Li Hao¡¯s armor recorded increasing merits. He Yong was as brutal as before¡ªhe was far in the lead. Although Li Hao and Hong Yitang¡¯s numbers kept increasing, he was always out in front. He¡¯d gone from seventeen points to twenty-seven in less than twenty minutes, a sign of how many more powerhouses he¡¯d killed!

    ¡°There¡¯s powerhouses...¡± A shrill cry pierced the air.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The shout was followed by a loud collision. The one who shrieked swiftly died¡ªa mid Sr powerhouse. As strong as he was, he died quickly all the same!

    Inside an ancient house, He Yong smacked himself on the forehead. He¡¯d miscalcted! With his strength, there shouldn¡¯t be a chance for his target to cry out when he ambushed someone an entire level lower than him. But that little bastard Kong Jie had been nearby when he¡¯d taken action. He¡¯d been distracted by his surprise.

    ¡°Kong... is quite strong!¡± A violent light danced in his eyes as he grumbled. Li Hao had said not to attack the Silver Moon authorities and he followed those orders. Kong Jie, however, seemed to be following him. He Yong had run into him a few times.

    He sent out a thought ripple from his armor. The nearby Hong Yitang received his message.

    ¡°Ole Hong, do you want to put Kong Jie through his paces?¡±

    Hong Yitang was wiping off his longsword inside an ancient house and looking at it with appreciation. The sword of a Bronze Armor was quite strong. In fact, the entire set of equipment was quite strong. The Bronze Armors in the field now weren¡¯t bringing their full strength to bear.

    It might have to do with the fact that they didn¡¯t have much strength left to them.

    Put Kong Jie through his paces? Hong Yitangughed. He¡¯d thought that He Yong had mellowed out some, but it would seem that the man was just as ruthless as ever. The Northern and Southern Fists had been quite brutal back in the day. The current He Yong only appeared easier to talk to than before and even a little foolishly honest.

    He was hardly what he seemed to be.

    ¡°Not interested! You can go for it if you want. You have mysterious power stones too and strengthened your supernatural locks in the pool. You can probe his strength by yourself.¡±

    ¡°Then forget it!¡¯ He Yong responded. ¡°I¡¯m no match for him by myself. Kong Jie was a powerhouse in the Inspectorate a long time ago and suppressed the martial master unrest by himself before the Skystar Guards made it to Silver Moon. He won¡¯t be any weaker than you or I after all these years.¡±

    Kong Jie¡¯s background was very clean. He had been an Inspectorate heavyweight early on and spearheaded the Inspectorate¡¯s operations to suppress martial disturbances before the Skystar Guards were founded. After the Guards arrived, they took over the duty to the point where martial experts forgot about Kong Jie.

    But would those such as He Yong and others forget? They¡¯d all fought him in the early days¡ªKong Jie was very strong. His reputation was just overshadowed as time went on.

    ¡°Ole Hong, I¡¯ve got twenty-eight merits. Not bad, right?¡± He Yong transmitted again when Hong Yitang fell silent. ¡°How many do you have?¡±

    As a ck Armor, he could see his own and no one else¡¯s. Hong Yitang could see He Yong¡¯s since he was a Bronze Armor, but he could not see Li Hao¡¯s. The man checked his score¡ªtwenty-five. He was a few points less than He Yong, but he didn¡¯t mind.

    Hong Yitang peered through the door frame. He wasn¡¯t as bored as He Yong and looked to kill for the sake of killing. He¡¯d mostly targeted Red Moon members so he could collect some more scarlet shadows.

    While he hadn¡¯t been able to see the shadows before, he could sense them. They were visible in a hazy sense after he put on the armor. Hong Yitang also marveled at the equipment¡¯s designer. Even the lowest level ck armor was a valuable treasure. It was worth far more than a few mysterious power stones!

    The sets of armor held by the Silver Moon Guards and three great organizations were far from being fully utilized. They were dormant and only deploying their innate defensive capabilities. They could not disy their total capabilities.

    The ck Armors in the city were a group of dead obsessions without the slightest hint of a spirit. Even so, they could stand against Sunres. Their strength would surely increase many times over if a powerhouse could fully manipte them. If Li Hao¡¯s Demon Hunters wore fully active armor, their strength would reach new heights.

    A variety of thoughts ran through Hong Yitang¡¯s mind. He wasn¡¯t in the mood to chat with He Yong. There was a Red Moon powerhouse in his sights!

    Red Moon had sent quite a few experts on this expedition. Blue Moon and Green Moon were Novas out in the open, there were two more under the surface¡ªan initial and ate Nova. The presence of twote Novas was proof enough just how much Red Moon valued the ruins.

    Hong Yitang had been tracking his target for a while, but hadn¡¯t dared to make a move. After long consideration, he messaged He Yong. ¡°I have a big mark to take down, do you want in?¡±

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°It might be Yellow Moon! Late Nova, if my senses are true. She should be the divine girl of Sky Mountain back in the day¡ªher move of Scattered Plum Blossoms knew nopare. Although she wasn¡¯t part of the thirty-six, she¡¯s definitely strong. She¡¯s not an ordinaryte Nova, she¡¯s possibly even peak Nova!¡±

    He Yong was quiet for a very long time before responding, ¡°Are you even human? She counts as an old friend. I wondered why there was no movement from your side¡ªyou have your eyes set on her!

    ¡°Red Moon¡¯s people are not easy to kill, especially those guys. Ying Hongyue might go crazy if you kill them. He loves all of thedies, but also likes to pretend that he loves deeply. He¡¯s extremely hypocritical and mighte in person for revenge if you kill Yellow Moon!¡±

    ¡°There are many reasons for killing her,¡± Hong Yitang continued, ignoring He Yong¡¯s concerns. ¡°Number one, it will result in many merits. Number two, while she doesn¡¯t have a scarlet shadow on her, the titr third-in-charge of Red Moon will surely carry many treasures. Number three, we might find some blood pearls instead. After all, Ying Hongyue will surely look out for the women he took with him back in the day...

    ¡°What¡¯s the point of all of these little scuffles? Li Hao doesn¡¯t dare do anything because he¡¯s weak, but are we to imitate him?¡± All Hong Yitang wanted to do at the moment was to aplish something grand. There was no point in killing Srs¡ªhe was even depressed to keep killing them. As a strong martial master, there was meaning only in fighting those stronger than him.

    Of course, Yellow Moon was probably weaker than him. But wouldn¡¯t killing someone of her level be more satisfying than those weaklings?

    ¡°Wait a bit longer!¡± He Yong thought for a bit. ¡°The disturbance will be too great if we kill her. We should get some more merits first with the other guys. If my guess holds true, we¡¯ll be able to trade these merits for a lot of treasures. The ancient civilization put a lot of emphasis on military merits!¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll wait for you!¡± Hong Yitang shook his head, returning to watching the supernatural on the street. They were clearly here for the Silver Armor. Ate Nova that¡¯d crossed over from being a martial master wouldn¡¯t think much of those ck Armors.

    ......

    The ughter continued in the outer city. While all sides had realized something amiss, it had nothing to do with them since those who died were mostly wandering cultivators. Thus, they chose to stay silent. Even a Sr yelling that there were powerhouses present didn¡¯t cause much of a ripple.

    <i>At the same time, over the city walls.</i>

    Three Silver Armors stood side by side. They couldn¡¯t see much or even where Li Hao was since the Twelfth Troop did not fall under them. However, they knew that the new recruit should¡¯ve killed a lot of enemies. The tenpany leaders that they¡¯d sent with him were still umting military merits. The guerri tactics were having a significant effect.

    Dead quiet reigned on the city walls.

    ¡°Leader of the Seventh Troop, what do you think of this age¡¯s cultivators?¡± The ripple came from the leader of the Eighth Troop.

    "In what regard?¡±

    ¡°All aspects.¡±

    The Seventh Troop leader thought briefly. ¡°I don¡¯t know, I just know that they look to live quite good lives.¡±

    Quite good lives!

    The three Silver Armors fell silent again. Indeed, that looked to be the case. The situation would not be thus beneath them otherwise. It looked like humanity was still the ruler of thend. That meant the world was safe after their death. Those noble personages on high might have won. If they didn¡¯t, at least they hadn¡¯t lost.

 Chapter 455: Majestic (II)

    <h4>Chapter 455: Majestic (II)</h4>

    ¡°Where is the leader of the Twelfth Troop?¡±

    ¡°Him?¡± The leader of the Seventh Troop thought briefly. ¡°I don¡¯t know, I¡¯ve just met him. But from the looks of things so far, he doesn¡¯t seem particrly impressive. He is far less than the soul-stirring powerhouses of yesteryear whose charisma reached the heavens!¡±

    The two troop leaders fell silent without further question. This was the first time that the army had gained new recruits after so many years, so it drew some interest. But just some. It looked like that one wasn¡¯t as magnificently superb as they thought he might be. Perhaps the Battle Heaven Army would continue to be quiet...

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know that hisrades were discussing him. He was feeling ufortable with the situation as he didn¡¯t dare attack those who were too strong, but those who were too weak were useless. He focused on Sunres and initial Srs, not daring to target mid Srs. That might cause too great of a disturbance.

    It was good to be able to easily advance or retreat, but that also gave rise to bottled frustration. The adrenaline rush he¡¯d felt when battling six Srs at once was far more preferable to his current situation.

    He also seemed unable to manifest the aura of the Nine Forged Force because of these limitations. While the young man could just barely manage nineyers, the spontaneous ease that¡¯de from enlightenment when Liu Long deployed the Nine Forged Force was out of reach.

    Li Hao breathed out slowly, this was probably the essence of martial dao... It was unfeasible from even a mental perspective to grow stronger from constantly killing the weak.

    <i>I am almost invincible in the Sr level and perhaps I rival the Revolution King with an origin weapon. But at this rate, I still won¡¯t be able to match Novas!</i>

    He saw a mid Sr pass by, but let them go. He¡¯d heard Hong Yitang and He Yong¡¯s conversation because he was a Silver Armor. Patently, Hong Yitang was also growing impatient. The strong were fierce and stubborn. If it wasn¡¯t for the military merits, they would¡¯ve long lost their tolerance for killing Srs and Sunres.

    Li Hao turned his gaze to a nearby street. A peak Sr had lurked there for a period of time. He hadn¡¯t considered such a target before, but now he was tempted. ughter wasn¡¯t their goal¡ªkilling the enemy was good, but there wasn¡¯t much meaning to whittling away their weak. Killing their strong to intimidate the weak would lead to even better results.

    ¡°Peak Sr...¡± Li Hao was yet to kill a true peak Sr. There had been a peak Sr among the six he battled, but he¡¯d ambushed that one and killed him instantly, preventing him from showcasing his strength.

    While the water aura of the Nine Forged Force was yet to materialize, the young man understood the crux of the problem. The method was ferocious and valiant beyondpare. How could hobbled fights bring its aura into reality?

    ¡°Martial Uncle Hong!¡± Li Hao¡¯s transmission raised both men¡¯s attention. ¡°We¡¯ve cleared out most of the Srs, so there¡¯s no point in continuing our operation. People will sense our movement sooner orter as well, that will scare off some people from entering the city. We should take advantage of this opportunity to strike together and cut down a few powerhouses. After that, we¡¯ll retreat!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯ve wanted to say for a while!¡± Hong Yitang responded. ¡°I have a target in sight. If He Yong doesn¡¯t want to act with me, he can find one himself. What about you?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got one too, a peak Sr! I¡¯ll test myself against him first. If the effects are good... I¡¯ll go straight to a Nova next time!¡± Li Hao was also itching for action. The difficulties in manifesting his water aura and being stuck between Sr and Nova created a very ufortable state.

    ¡°That¡¯s good, you can give it a try,¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°As a martial master, it¡¯s a fantastic feeling to challenge our limits! It¡¯s not easy for us to find opponents, but yours can be had everywhere. The younger you are, the more fire and spirit you should have. That falls away in old age.

    ¡°They say that a strong fist is afraid of the young and that the old fight timidly. A youngster¡¯s style is more murderous as they are unafraid of injury or enemies. It doesn¡¯t matter if your identity is revealed. It¡¯s both surprising, yet not, that the heir of the eight families has be a Silver Armor.¡±

    He knew that many concerns ran through Li Hao¡¯s mind, especially after receiving some identities to conceal. The young man was deathly afraid of revealing himself!

    However, those fears would also impact his actions and make it difficult for him to give himself over to the fight. That wasn¡¯t a good development once time dragged on. One could walk in the shadows when appropriate, but still had to act at the right times.

    Hong Yitang was one who usually kept a low profile, but threw caution to the wind in times of need. He¡¯d acted in Ash Mountain and also once killed arge group of supernaturals in the central region. He¡¯d been content to await retaliation from a Nova then. Sometimes, one had to set aside considerations of one¡¯s identity being exposed.

    ¡°Await mymands,¡± Li Hao said after a while. ¡°It¡¯s fine if we cause a greater disturbance in our next fights. A lot of people in the outer city have sensed danger and arge sum of powerhouses has already retreated...¡±

    ......

    Li Hao walked out of the ancient house after a round of instructions. Momentster, he melded naturally into a troop of ck Armors that came marching by. The group of ten was now eleven. He gave an order within his armor and sent the troop down the next street.

    <i>On a rooftop of the next street over.</i>

    A strong man crouched silently on the roof, scanning the surroundings with a particrly calm gaze. He was a peak Sr from Yama and was in the outer city with one mission¡ªdetermine where the Silver Armor was hiding.

    The three great organizations had discovered that a Silver Armor was missing from the city walls. It was very possibly in the outer city and responsible for the high death toll that was still climbing. But being from Yama, he was not afraid. He¡¯d even fought a Silver Armor in a regr state before. It was not weak, but so long as it didn¡¯t reawaken, the soldier wasn¡¯t stronger than him.

    All he needed to do was engage it for a while so he could notify those outside. Reinforcements would soone along to eliminate the enemy with him.

    Up until now, not a single expedition had killed the Silver Armor. The one who died before had died of its own ord.

    Could a Silver Armor¡¯s equipment be removed? That would be incredible if it could¡ªit would bestow Nova strength on a Sr. By now, everyone had obtained numerous sets of ck armor, but no one had any bronze or silver armor.

    The Yama expert slowly inched forward while observing the patrolling ck Armors. He was aware that Silver Armors could hide themselves as ck Armors, but he could sometimes sense if the soldier was strong or not.

    He¡¯d already discovered some things from his vantage point on the roof. The number of dead increased, but there was no sign of their bodies. Perhaps the soldiers were hidden in the ancient houses.

    A troop of ck Armors approached from a distance. The Yama expert Xie Gang didn¡¯t notice it at first, but took a few more nces when something seemed off. Was there... too many ck Armors in that troop?

    He counted them. There were indeed too many. There were eleven!

    Had a soldier from another troop joined them, or was it the Silver Armor? It was perplexing as Silver Armors possessed some intelligence since they could hide themselves, but they wouldn¡¯t do so in such a tant fashion, would they?

    Such an obvious deviation made Xie Gang hesitate instead.

    ......

    Li Hao had also seen the person on the roof and confirmed his identity after careful observation. This Yama expert was in the information that Deputy Zhou had given him. Xie Gang, peak Sr, a mutated earth supernatural. Rather than the conventional earth attribute, he was skilled in rock techniques. Strictly speaking, he would be a rock supernatural if such a category existed.

    Others utilized earthen walls and awls in their techniques, but he summoned boulders and meteorites. He was known throughout the peak Srs and came from anotherrge province in the north¡ªHeavy Earth province. He was one of those that Yama had gathered for the expedition.

    Xie Gang was in charge of the Yama branch in Heavy Earth, making him a simr figure to the Revolution King. He wielded an origin weapon, but it could be seen that his position was less than the Revolution King¡¯s from his weapon¡¯s caliber. As a fellow leader of a provincial branch armed with an origin weapon, his weapon¡¯s strength came up shortpared to the Revolution King¡¯s wind chime. However, a peak Sr with an origin weapon still made for a difficult opponent.

    <i>So it¡¯s him! </i>Li Hao realized with some relief. Good, this was very good. While Xie Gang was less than the Revolution King, he shouldn¡¯t be that much weaker. It was a worthwhile endeavor to fight this guy before they withdrew. Would he inspire Li Hao to manifest the water aura of the Nine Forged Force?

    If not... he might have to really pick a fight with a Nova if he wanted to bring forth the water aura in a short period of time.

    Li Hao shed upward without deliberation when he approached the roof. He appeared in front of the supernatural.

    Xie Gang jerked with shock. So he¡¯d really run into the Silver Armor? Was the soldier¡¯s mind truly gone to appear in front of him like this? Bronze and ck Armors could not fly as they lost the support of the city if they left the ground. Only Silver Armors could fly.

    The man looked around him, but didn¡¯t see anyone. The za wasn¡¯t too far away. Powerhouses would make fast time to his location, so should he call for help? After all, Silver Armors were difficult to handle.

    The one in front of him suddenlymenced action that made Xie Gang¡¯s jaw drop. A storage ring appeared over an armored hand; resplendent mysterious power stones floated out of it! Their luster was so bright that it was startling!

    Li Hao picked up all of the mysterious power stones and shoved them into his mouth¡ªinto his armor. He wouldn¡¯t use them, but Xie Gang would think that he was refueling through eating the stones.

    As expected, the man jerked with shock. So Silver Armors needed to eat mysterious power stones to maintain operations! This one had eaten so many at once and their sheen was frightfully brilliant. How many mysterious power stones were in that storage ring??

 Chapter 456: Majestic (III)

    <h4>Chapter 456: Majestic (III)</h4>

    Li Hao then opened a crack in his armor with a swipe of his hand, one that looked like a pocket, and stuffed in the storage ring that he¡¯d just manifested. Xie Gang¡¯s eyes nearly fell out of his head!

    He¡¯d just seen more than a dozen storage rings in that pocket-like slit. There was also arge number of energy rings stuffed inside. How incredible! How was the Silver Armor this rich? Where did it alle from?? Was it from people it¡¯d killed before or from earlier?

    Xie Gang¡¯s heart quailed; he was suddenly unwilling to summon others for help. He could handle an unawakened Silver Armor by himself and would have plenty of time to call for help if it awakened right before death.

    Not to mention, he didn¡¯t have to kill the Silver Armor. There wasn¡¯t much point to that. The slit in its armor had appeared with a quick swipe. Could he break the armor or simply inflict a crack? Would all of those rings be his then?

    Most important were those iparably pure mysterious power stones. Xie Gang possessed a high status with his cultivation level, but he¡¯d never seen stones with such rity before...

    This hesitation was precisely what Li Hao wanted. The young man understood martial masters all too well. Or rather, all humans were thus¡ªgreedy, avid, grasping...

    Few were those who could control those impulses; not even Li Hao was an exception. He found it hard to restrain himself as well. His self-control had grown only after he saw more of the world. If before, he would¡¯ve taken any risk if someone was willing to pay him one hundred cubes.

    Why should Xie Gang seek help for treasure that he could im by himself? Would there be any left for him if powerhouses were on the scene? Such were modern day supernatural and martial masters. Only a small portion of martial masters could check themselves; most supernaturalspletely gave over to their inner desires. Their rapidly increasing strength only served to enhance their greed.

    <i>C¡¯mon, show me a thing or two... You want to fight me, don¡¯t you? </i>A smile creased Li Hao¡¯s eyes. ¡°We can begin!¡± he messaged through the armor system. He flung himself at the supernatural with a longsword!

    Xie Gang was still lost in thought and debating whether to notify his organization. He automatically responded with a punch, smashing into the armor like a boulder and even leaving a tiny dent on it...

    The man blinked, then beamed! So these Silver Armors could be damaged? Why should he call for anyone then? This soldier didn¡¯t seem that strong.

    Xie Gang punched again like a meteor descending, creating a sonic wave with his blow. Li Hao tumbled off the roof and crashed to the ground. Xie Gang was overjoyed at the sight. This Silver Armor wasn¡¯t all that!

    He quickly caught up to the soldier,mencing a ferocious battle in the streets. Collisions sounded again and again. Instead of attempting to meld the three auras together, Li Hao utilized only the Nine Forged Force, the armor¡¯s innate durability, and his highly fortified organs to sh with the other again and again!

    The young man was noticeably less than Xie Gang without the supplement of the three auras. However, Li Hao didn¡¯t care. This was the kind of battle he wanted. He employed the Nine Forged Force with impunity and even put away his longsword. He called upon the bear style of the Five Styles to smash his fist into his opponent again and again.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Fistsnded with eruptions of the Nine Forged Force. Surges of power followed one after another.

    The more Xie Gang fought, the more astonished he was. The soldier wasn¡¯t that strong, but it was very agile and didn¡¯t seem like a dead puppet. It rather appeared that it possessed its own sentience.

    Their fight drew some attention, but that attention was quickly captured elsewhere. Even more fierce fighting broke out on the next street¡ªthunderous collisions rang nonstop!

    ¡°Damn it!¡± a woman shrilled¡ªa Red Moon powerhouse. Li Hao knew who she was. Hong Yitang had mentioned that she was Red Moon¡¯s Yellow Moon. She¡¯d apparently been chasing down Yuan Shuo, but now she was here and had caught Hong Yitang and He Yong¡¯s eye.

    Xie Gang was momentarily distracted. What was that? The fight next door seemed more vicious than his own. Was... the one in front of him not a Silver Armor? Had another entered the outer city?

    As lost as he was, Li Hao continued to pummel him. The young man deployed his fists at a faster speed and began umting his strength. He settled in afortable rhythm. Xie Gang¡¯s was very strong and his defense sufficient to the point where it reminded Li Hao of the sea. The waves had crashed upon each other in session and were greater than the one before as they broke over the boulders.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, in the za.</i>

    Powerhouses were startled by the disruption and looked at the dim outer city. Some looked sharply, others frowned tightly. What was going on? Had people encountered the Silver Armor? But there seemed to be more than one battle raging... and the ripples indicated a fight beyond Sr.

    Hou Xiaochen was also deeply perplexed. He could sense some sword intent and boxing intent from one of the fights. Southern Fist? Earthturner Sword? These were the two that came to mind. But...

    He nced at the solemn Green Moon. ¡°Green Peacock, who is it that¡¯s entered the city?¡± he rumbled. ¡°They shouldn¡¯t be a regr member as they are very strong. Tell us so we can be prepared!¡±

    Green Moon frowned, ignoring him. She was both shocked and astonished at the moment. She knew who was inside¡ªYellow Moon. Also ate Nova, Yellow Moon was slightly stronger than her and could fight a fully awakened Silver Armor. Her safety should have been assured, but the situation seemed to be going awry.

    From the ripples traveling back and some indistinct shouts, Yellow Moon might be on the losing side. But how was that possible??

    Not even a fully awakened Silver Armor would find it easy to swiftly suppress Yellow Moon. She didn¡¯t have a moment to cry out for help, an indication of how much trouble she was in. She couldn¡¯t take a breath from fighting, lest it throw her off bnce and create an opening for the enemy!

    Next to Green Moon, Blue Moon also sensed the danger. ¡°Something seems to have gone wrong,¡± he transmitted. ¡°We need to immediately go to her aid...¡±

    Yellow Moon ranked number three of the Seven Moons. There would be grave trouble if anything happened to her here!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go! We enter the outer city!¡± Green Moon hesitated no longer.

    ¡°Kong Jie, bring everyone out!¡± Hou Xiaochen snapped in response, sending his voice into the city to quickly withdraw his men. He didn¡¯t want to be involved in this. The outer city had be a strange ce¡ªpossibly due to Southern Fist and Earthturner Sword. He didn¡¯t want to be caught in a conflict with them, especially if they were the ones attacking Yellow Moon. It meant that they were stronger than he anticipated.

    Just as Hou Xiaochenmanded for his people to be brought out, the Yama and Celestial powerhouses darted in with sharp glints in their eyes. Some of the wandering cultivators also seemed to sniff the scent of something and entered the city!

    Who was it that was embroiled in a fight inside the city? One of Red Moon¡¯s powerhouses? One of the Seven Moons? There might be a show to watch and loot to pick up!

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Hong Yitang and He Yong had indeed engaged Yellow Moon. The shocked woman watched as He Yong brought punch after indomitable punch to bear, ones infinitely stronger than Li Hao on the next street over!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    They left her no room to breathe or even the ability to cry for help. She didn¡¯t dare because the momentary rxation would bring about her death. Yellow Moon could barely recover from her shock¡ªshe recognized the one who was punching her! Southern Fist He Yong! It must be him! Who else¡¯s fists would be so domineering and prating?

    Of the two Fists, Northern Fist was more audacious than Southern Fist, but Northern Fist did not fight like this. His fists were boundless and majestic, descending with the inexorable finality of judgment and causing his opponents to be ashamed of themselves.

    Southern Fist was the epitome of ruthless domination, apletely different style.

    Yellow Moon couldn¡¯t make sense of it, why was Southern Fist wearing a suit of ck armor? Had he killed one and was impersonating a soldier?

    That was possible, but what about the Bronze Armor next to him? No one had been able to obtain a set so far, was that another imposter inside? That person didn¡¯t need to do much but inflict a single stroke to leave a deep bloody gash on her. It was a swordsman, and an iparably powerful one. She couldn¡¯t even immediately tell who it was.

    One of the Seven Swords?

    Sky Sword?

    But this didn¡¯t seem to be Sky Sword¡¯s sword intent. His was all-conquering. This person¡¯s was impartial and mild; itcked the sense of the height of keenness. But the more it was thus, the more terrifying that was.

    Sky Sword was like Southern Fist¡ªdomineering and prating. This person¡¯s sword was more like Northern Fist, a restrained majesty. Yellow Moon couldn¡¯t begin to think where these two hade from. How were they here?

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Her thoughts in disarray, she suffered one of He Yong¡¯s blows and backed up a few meters. Blood frothed at her mouth, but she didn¡¯t dare further retreat. The swordsman had locked onto her from behind.

    He Yong took a moment to catch his breath and smiled. ¡°Someone else ising, we need to end this!¡± His presence red to one more berserk and imperious than before. He was abruptly thirty percent stronger.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    There were only his fists between heaven and earth. Hong Yitang swung his sword on the outside and raised a chorus of screams. Some powerhouses that¡¯d snuck in were instantly executed! Only Kong Jie in the distance was left standing. He looked on sternly as he grabbed Mu Sen in a fierce retreat. Golden Spear, however, looked back again and again. He withdrew only with Kong Jie¡¯s repeated reminders.

    A somber Golden Spear left the outer city. He¡¯d recognized the two with a mix of emotions! They were old acquaintances, how could they not know each other? It was Earthturner Sword and Southern Fist!

 Chapter 457: Majestic (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 457: Majestic (IV)</h4>

    He Yong and Hong Yitang were so strong that it made Golden Spear shudder. At the same time, an unpleasant feeling of being left behind stole into his heart. He¡¯d thought that he proceeded far down his pathpared to his crowd of old acquaintances.

    But today... today... it looked like... perhaps... His heart was heavy with suffering. Earthturner Sword and Southern Fist both seemed to have created their own dao. <i>And myself?</i>

    Even Qimei Staff, someone weaker than Golden Spear, had left behind some of his staff intent in his final moments battling Yuan Shuo. That intent which remained as a solidified staff brought so much pain to Golden Spear that he nearly copsed!

    He¡¯d broken free of Yuan Shuo¡¯s suppression thanks to Hou Xiaochen¡¯s help and advanced to a deeper level. He¡¯d strengthened his body, blood qi, and mind intent these years. Everything that was him seemed to grow stronger and bncing out. These had also been pointers that Hou Xiaochen had given him.

    But somewhere along the way, he seemed to have missed something and be mediocre. He seemed to have lost his soul. When he looked at the Bronze Armor across the way, he seemed to see wordless judgment emanating from an aloof gaze. Though he did not glimpse Earthturner Sword¡¯s eyes, the man seemed to be saying¡ªis this what the first spear of Silver Moon has amounted to?

    Golden Spear lost his focus. In his distraction, he suddenly tilted his head at another street. There was a ck Armor there erupting with strength. It punched again and again, as if He Yong reborn. And yet, that boxing style was not like He Yong. They came one harder than the other!

    ¡°Silver Spear...¡± Golden Spear murmured, thinking of Silver Spear Liu Hao. That kind of boxing intent reminded him of the spear expert who delivered blows with increasing ferocity. Kong Jie followed his gaze, surprised at what he found.

    Li Hao punched unceasingly, immersing himself in the Nine Forged Force and the leaping waves of the sea. Each wave was stronger than the one before. His blood qi and internal force erupted with fury!

    He¡¯d started off being suppressed by Xie Gang, but could now return blows on an even footing and begin to overpower the man. Li Hao grew increasingly excited. This was what he wanted! While there were powerhouses casting their focus in his direction, he didn¡¯t really want to stop. This feeling of breaking his shackles was what he sought!

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    Violent collisions sounded on both sides. Sounds of people cutting through the air echoed through the city. An angry Li Hao wanted to snarl with fury. These people were so hateful to interrupt his process ofprehension!

    A surge of blood qi bubbled up in him¡ªhe still wasn¡¯t utilizing the three auras. Instead, he called upon the Incantation of the de of Blood and aroused his own mental strength and blood qi so that his fists would be ever more prating and berserk!

    ¡°A de of blood...¡± Xie Gang started, finally sensing something wrong. Only the living possessed blood qi! This person knew the Incantation of the de of Blood! He¡¯d heard of it before, that it was the secret art of the Five Styles and had been exceedingly famous in the ancient civilization.

    <i>Li Hao...</i>

    The name shed through his mind, but he immediately thought of Yuan Shuo instead. Yuan Shuo was skilled with the Five Styles and boxing, whereas Li Hao was skilled with sword auras. The person in front of him wasn¡¯t using the sword. Was it Yuan Shuo fighting him??

    Startled, Xie Gang roared and smashed a punch forward that exploded like a meteorite. Not only that, but a suit of armor manifested over his body. The yellowish-brown protection was his origin weapon. His defenses were much more formidable with an origin weapon at hand!

    Li Hao continued undaunted, swiftly drawing close to his opponent. Seeing as he was d in silver armor, he didn¡¯t find himself any less equipped than with an origin weapon.

    The two met with their fists!

    One punch, two punches, three punches...

    The Nine Forged Force erupted with indescribable might as Li Hao punched in a demented frenzy. He shook his opponent¡¯s armor with his blows, pummeling Xie Gang¡¯s organs to pieces. Xie Gang also hit the silver armor and shook Li Hao¡¯s internals.

    Both of them were only attacking without defending. They both knew that whoever fled or retreated first would suffer misfortune.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Li Hao saw balls of light swiftly approaching them. Enraged beyond belief, he was the maniacal sea that just wanted to destroy everything in front of him. The Nine Forged Force was the method that he¡¯d identified the earliest as one that he couldprehend an aura from, but now that he¡¯d already grasped the metal, earth, and fire auras, he was growing frantic that the Nine Forged Force was the only method that he hadn¡¯t produced an aura from yet!

    Novas were almost on the scene¡ªhe roared andyered all of his internal force. Oneyer, two, three... Nineyers ovepping one another erupted at the same time!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Another loud collision sent Xie Gang flying. He spat out blood and pieces of his internal organs, but alsoughed. He sensed Novas on their way!

    The guy in front of him looked to be Yuan Shuo, no wonder he was so strong! What a pity for him that he¡¯d failed to kill his opponent. So this was all Yuan Shuo was good for, huh!

    A violent light glinted in Li Hao¡¯s eyes as he snorted coldly. And even stronger force exploded from him. This time, not only did the Nine Forged Force erupt, but so did the metal sword aura spontaneously collect and detonate!

    <i>Explosion!</i>

    Li Hao appeared like a sword in front of Xie Gang and smashed down his fists, each of them the unsheathing of a sword!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Another earth-shattering explosion marked the fracturing of Xie Gang¡¯s armor defenses amid his baffled eyes. His organs exploded into smithereens!

    Li Hao furrowed his brows and collected the body with a wave of his hand. He looked at the powerhouses rushing to the scene¡ªone of them seemed to be that Xu Feng...

    The young man snorted to himself. He¡¯d been so close to coalescing his aura from the Nine Forged Force! Although he¡¯d grasped some of the sensation, his process had been halted halfway. Who knew when he¡¯d be sessful?

    That damned bastard!

    Li Hao refrained from lingering and swiftly jumped into the next street. Here, He Yong roared before sending Yellow Moon flying with another punch. Meanwhile, Hong Yitang seemed to have been waiting for Li Hao. Heughed to see the young man hop over and projected his voice by Li Hao¡¯s ear. ¡°You wanted to see my sword, didn¡¯t you? I¡¯ll let you have a look today!¡±

    Li Hao tensed with surprise and quickly looked over. He didn¡¯t think much of Hong Yitang¡¯s move at first, just that it was majestic and vast. It carried some hints of peace and didn¡¯t seem that sharp.

    However, his expression abruptly shifted drastically!

    The majestic sword epassed all like the great earth. As Yellow Moon struggled, she suddenly felt like the earth and sky had been inverted. It was like her entire being was suppressed¡ªfear shone through her eyes!

    Earthturner Sword!

    This was Hong Yitang¡¯s Earthturner Sword!

    The vast sword of earth didn¡¯t appear all that fast, but all Yellow Moon could do was to be dumbly rooted to the spot and simply watch as itnded on her head!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A loud collision ripped through tremendous defenses! The heavy sword without an edge smashed down like the skies were falling. It was what the scene reminded Li Hao of. Yellow Moon was pulverized to pieces from the stroke, iprehension and shock flooding her eyes as she died. Wasn¡¯t Earthturner Sword long crippled? Why was he so strong?

    ¡°Let¡¯s go! I waited a long while to show you this stroke!¡± Hong Yitang¡¯sughter rang in Li Hao¡¯s ear. He reached forward to grab a storage ring. ¡°The others will be here before long if we stay here!¡±

    The three bounded through the streets and vanished on the spot; Li Hao still marveled over what he saw. Was that the true Earthturner Sword? His own earth sword aura seemed so weak inparison!

    Hong Yitang seemed to have waited a long time to be able to demonstrate his move to Li Hao. The young man thought back to what he once said, that he would teach the Earthturner Sword to Li Hao if there was time. Today¡¯s disy... had been a lesson.

    The young man¡¯s bottled resentment at not forming the water aura evaporated. The majestic stroke had given him different inspiration.

    ......

    A group of people arrived moments after the trio fled. They were already very fast, but everything had disappeared by the time they arrived.

    Green Moon¡¯s eyes darted around, not seeing Yellow Moon in the vicinity. However, she suddenly focused on a pile of mangled flesh and blood in the distance. It was swiftly being devoured by the ground!

    She rushed forward to examine it, horror overwriting her expression.

    ¡°Retreat!¡± She roared and promptly led her people out. Fear warred with shock in her heart! Something had gone drastically wrong! This city was much more than it appeared to be. Yellow Moon was dead, and dead very quickly! Who¡¯d killed her?

    ......

    <i>In the za.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen looked ahead and sighed softly after a while. ¡°I¡¯ve overlooked this person... His heavy sword is without an edge and heavy weights are nothing to him. He is indeed the greatest swordsman beneath the heavens!¡±

    Manager Yu looked at him with widened eyes.

    ¡°Earthturner Sword,¡± Hong Yitang said softly. Manager Yu¡¯s eyes widened further¡ªremarkable! How was this assessment possible?

    ¡°I know who the person that stopped me that year is!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed.

    ¡°You mean... twenty years ago?¡± gasped the manager.

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Impossible...¡± she murmured subconsciously...

    ¡°it¡¯s him alright,¡± Hou Xiaochen¡¯sugh deepened. ¡°I didn¡¯t think of it then. It looks like he¡¯d already broken through then, so no wonder he turned down Yuan Shuo¡¯s challenges. What a frightening fellow!¡±

    Manager Yu fell silent, trying toe to terms with what she¡¯d just heard. So Earthturner Sword had already been a Dominator then? <i>My goodness!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen was recalling an incident in which he¡¯d wanted to eliminate some people, but someone had stopped him. They¡¯d said nothing other than stand in his way. The two parted ways after a quick fight, and it now looked like that mysterious person was Hong Yitang!

    How interesting!

 Chapter 458: Metamorphosis (I)

    <h4>Chapter 458: Metamorphosis (I)</h4>

    Fear and unease.

    All of the Red Moon powerhouses who knew the inside scoop looked around in abject fear. It¡¯d taken just a short while for Yellow Moon to turn into a puddle of flesh and blood! She was ate Nova and hadn¡¯t even had time to cry out. That was an indication of how strong her attacker was¡ªhow domineeringly powerful that she hadn¡¯t had the chance to resist.

    At the very least, she would call out for reinforcements or identify who the enemy was. But none of that had happened. How could they not be afraid?

    ......

    Li Hao¡¯s trio swiftly darted toward the city gates. Instead of returning to the city walls, they convened at a tavern on the second street and hid inside.

    <i>Inside the tavern.</i>

    Hong Yitang¡¯s bronze armor faded away to reveal the man underneath. He brought out a jug of wine and raised an eyebrow at Li Hao. ¡°Let¡¯s have a drink?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao breathed out and took off his armor as well. The silver armor transformed into a round ball the size of a button and hung around his neck. This was one of the greatest attributes of the armor. Through it, Li Hao learned that gold armor could be stored entirely within the body, manifesting only in times of need.

    The silver armor was a slightly lower grade, so it couldn¡¯t be fully stored within his body. Silver armor was interchangeable, while gold armor was customized for the generals. Silver armor needed to be returned when promoted or demoted, gold armor did not. That was one¡¯s personal equipment.

    He Yong was the worst off. He had to take off the ck armor through a series of slightlyplicated maneuvers and ce it in a storage ring. ck armor was cabbage by the side of the street; not much care needed to go into its craftsmanship since there was so much of it. ck Armors had to find ways to store their own equipment.

    The three sat down in the tavern and ignored the frantic crowds outside. Hong Yitang poured them wine. He Yong threw his back as soon as he received his cup. Li Hao hadn¡¯t drank wine before¡ªalright, well, he¡¯d snuck a few sips at times, but he¡¯d never found pleasure in alcohol.

    The young man picked up the cup and forced himself to take a small sip, finding something different in this tasting. A dense fragrance exploded on the tip of his tongue! It was slightly peppery and acrid, but also vored with hints of mellowness. It was different from what he¡¯d drunk before.

    Hong Yitang smiled at his expression and raised his cup to his lips. ¡°I sensed your fight next door just now. Li Hao, you think too much!¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Your dao is not pure because you think too much!¡± Hong Yitang grinned. ¡°Take He Yong, he fights when he wants and ys dumb when he wants, but he never lets himselfe away worse from an exchange or build resentment. You, however, think and consider too much. You sometimes punch and strike decisively, but oftentimes a bit of hesitation and restraint marks your straightforwardness.¡±

    He Yong wanted to erupt with outrage at his characterization, but decided not to bother after some thought. ¡°That¡¯s right. Li Hao, you¡¯re a little lesspared to your master! Of course, this is very normal since you¡¯re young. But... you are a bitcking in the fearless drive to go forward without looking back. For me, I dare step into battle even if my enemies number in the thousands!

    ¡°Your martial dao potential is very strong¡ªmore than just regr genius, you are truly gifted. I can see that from yourprehension of the aura. But when you fight... you¡¯re ferocious... you¡¯re just not...¡± He Yong groped for the right word. ¡°You¡¯re just not brutish enough!¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Li Hao looked at him, confused.

    ¡°This is amon problem with the educated. You like to think in aprehensive manner, but keep in mind that you can¡¯t be thorough on the battlefield! You prefer to make ns beforehand, perfect your preparations, make sure all eventualities are taken care of, and fight those who are either weaker or on par with you.

    ¡°Dare you fight those stronger than you? You probably never have, huh? That¡¯s not a good thing. You knew that Ole Hong and I were on the next street over holding down the fort, but you still fought in a cowering manner. That¡¯s not to our taste.¡±

    ¡°But I have,¡± Li Hao replied seriously after some thought. ¡°I killed a Sunderer when I was a yer!¡±

    <i>Really!</i>

    He Yong rolled his eyes and Hong Yitangughed. ¡°Alright then, you must¡¯ve felt very aplished and exulted in the thrill of battle, right?¡±

    Li Hao thought back for a bit and nodded. He did!

    ¡°And now? Did you find pleasure in beating a peak Sr?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head and took a sip of wine. ¡°But I¡¯m no match for Novas...¡±

    ¡°Why do you think that?¡± Hong Yitang frowned. ¡°You have three auras, right? You know the Incantation of the de of Blood and don¡¯t suffer major aftereffects if you use it, right? Your organs are strong, your body is strong, you have the silver armor and that indestructible sword. Why are you afraid to fight a Nova under such circumstances? Must your cultivation be higher or domination a certainty before you dare attempt a battle?¡±

    Li Hao scratched his head, unable toe up with an answer.

    ¡°You can already kill peak Srs without utilizing your auras.¡± He Yong massively rolled his eyes. ¡°Apparently you can meld them together like Yuan Shuo, so you can obviously try fighting Novas. Do you think your master fought Dominators when he was a Sunderer?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head, he didn¡¯t know the answer.

    ¡°He did!¡± Hong Yitang answered for him. ¡°When Yuan Shuo fought those veteran martial masters, many of them were Dominators. They were rare in Silver Moon, but a few could be found in the central region. Do you think Yuan Shuo was only famous in Silver Moon? He also imed impressive battle achievements in the central region and killed more than one Dominator...

    ¡°Of course, that was when he perfected his five auras! In actuality, many Silver Moon martial masters also had stirring aplishments and issued challenges above their stations to fight Dominators. The province¡¯s martial masters are the strongest, so there have indeed been cases of people battling those stronger than them.

    ¡°Thus, we only talk about how many Silver Moon martial masters that Yuan Shuo has defeated. We rarely mention the central region ones because Silver Moon¡¯s martial world is proud. We find that Dominators elsewhere are less than the half step Sunderers of Silver Moon.

    ¡°You can test yourself against a Nova at this stage. As long as you don¡¯t pick someone who crossed over from martial dao or alreadyprehended the aura, your victory is guaranteed without a doubt!¡±

    Li Hao looked uncertainly at him.

    ¡°I alone am invincible!¡± Hong Yitang sighed. ¡°Didn¡¯t you read about that in the ancient books? Whether or not it is true, you must firmly believe that you can win! Li Hao, you cannot blindly follow what you read in books. You¡¯ve spent too little time learning from Yuan Shuo. Not to mention that he was at a low point in life¡ªit means there is much you haven¡¯t learned from him. Youck certain things. If he was here, he would teach you now!

    ¡°Therefore, we stand in his stead to teach you some basic knowledge.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± He Yong nodded. ¡°Yuan Shuo does teach these things, but the rules require you to travel through the martial world and visit each faction to issue challenges and spar with them. He would¡¯ve taught you bit by bit through this process on how to be a satisfactory Silver Moon martial master.

    ¡°This is how each of us grew in Silver Moon. Of course, that was a long time ago. Silver Moon martial masters now are a far cry from what they were before. They¡¯re not necessarily stronger than those in the rest of the world.¡±

    The two men exchanged meaningful nces with each other. ¡°Back in the day, we had to fight our way up if we wanted to be up there,¡± Hong Yitang waxed eloquent. ¡°We needed to make our reputation on the back of our battles! We weren¡¯t invincible just because we sat at home and cultivated our way to Dominator. That would be a joke. You needed to create your reputation with your bare hands so that everyone in the world knew you!

    ¡°When we heard that you killed six Srs in northern Silver Moon, we all felt that we finally had a sessor. Southern Fist followed you partially to look out for you...¡± It was a rare urrence that Hong Yitang didn¡¯t mock He Yong. ¡°I believe that Sky Sword and Tyrant de in the central region will also think that the Silver Moon martial masters have a sessor when they hear of this news.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo¡¯s final disciple does indeed hold himself with the bearing that we once did! They will also look at you in a different light and wish toe and give you a hand. Whether it¡¯s Yu Luocha or the other old martial masters, they¡¯ll think you have a bright future as well.¡±

    Dazed, Li Hao suddenly realized why he¡¯d bumped into these two at Ash Mountain. So... they¡¯d followed him just for him. Not because he was the heir to the eight families or anything else, but because he¡¯d demonstrated the ir of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world with that fight and brought their future into existence. The old guard felt that he showed promise!

    <i>I see!</i>

    ¡°We have our grudges and feuds, but seeing someone strong finally emerge from the younger generation... is wonderful,¡± He Yong murmured. ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s martial world has declined and the younger generation is not up to the task. We¡¯d like to see if you can walk further down your path. We don¡¯t mean to force you to fight to your death, but that you don¡¯t need to be concerned with so much at certain times. Trust us when we say that even if your identity is revealed, Golden Spear and Berserk de wille save you even if Hou Xiaochen stops them!

    ¡°They will save you because you are you, Li Hao, nothing else. You are the pride and joy of this generation¡¯s martial world. Why do you think your master is fine after killing so many back in the day? When he killed Dominators in the central region, many Silver Moon veterans stood forward to support and even fight for him so he could withdraw unscathed!

    ¡°Martial masters are selfish, ruthless, coldhearted bastards, but they also know one principle in that an era needs a leader!

    ¡°Why is our generation strong? Because we had many powerhouses! Any who could break your master¡¯s shackles is a heavyweight. Your master was the guide of our time. Those who threw off his influence could walk further. Every generation of martial masters could walk further because they had someone like that to look up to, the shining example of the times. And you, Li Hao, do you not wish to be the barometer of yours?¡±

    He Yong didn¡¯t mince words and imed that his generation of martial masters was the strongest. Seventy percent of that credit went to Yuan Shuo. Without Yuan Shuo and the pressure he levied, not even Dominators would possess their present day aplishments.

    Li Hao looked at Hong Yitang. <i>You¡¯re quite strong yourself to have never lost to my teacher!</i>

 Chapter 459: Metamorphosis (II)

    <h4>Chapter 459: Metamorphosis (II)</h4>

    ¡°What are you looking at me for?¡± Hong Yitang smiled. ¡°Your teacher is very strong. To be honest, I wasn¡¯t certain of my chances when he challenged me. Thus, I stepped back. It wouldn¡¯t be a glorious victory and it would¡¯ve been an even more humiliating defeat. He forced me to grow stronger so I wouldn¡¯t be in the position of losing face! My teacher hailed me as the greatest genius of my time, I was a Dominator a long time ago. I¡¯m not sure if I was faster or Hou Xiaochen, but we both made it to that level very quickly.

    ¡°Therefore, I felt certain pressure in rejecting your teacher¡¯s challenge. It forced me to continue moving forward. Otherwise, would I have the face to show myself in the martial world if I, a Dominator, was defeated by Yuan Shuo?¡±

    Li Hao was surprised at first, then quickly let the point go. So Hong Yitang had been a Dominator long ago!<i> The greatest genius...</i> And Hou Xiaochen had broken through a long time ago as well. All of these people had; they were thus stronger than his teacher. But these Dominators felt incredible pressure from a Sunderer. It was in to see just how arrogant and brazen the Five Styles Beast King had been then!

    Yuan Shuo with his auras melded together was indeed terrifying. These two powerful martial masters were now teaching his student for him. It was Yuan Shuo¡¯s duty to undertake and he would¡¯ve carried it out had he not left. What a pity he hadn¡¯t enough time to impart these notions and experience!

    Both martial masters were sharing their personal experience to give Li Hao pointers and prevent him from taking a wrong turn. At the same time, the young man was forming a personal reflection of the old guard of Silver Moon martial masters.

    ¡°The two martial uncles mean to say that sometimes I am... too calm?¡± he asked after some consideration.

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± He Yongughed. ¡°Martial masters should be hot-blooded! Look at those Battle Heaven soldiers. They¡¯re dead now, but their blood probably ran hot when they were alive. They had faith and aspiration! They never considered what their path of retreat looked like when they threw themselves into battle. And you, Li Hao, are not afraid of death, but you¡¯re afraid of this and that. Just what are you afraid of?

    ¡°So what if you make an enemy out of the entire world? Your sword presses forward without pause, but your person... that remains to be determined!¡±

    ¡°It is a good thing to consider gain and loss as well as to know retreat and advance.¡± Hong Yitang inclined his head. ¡°It¡¯s not that this is bad as your master also knew to be afraid and run when he met a strong enemy. No one is that fearless or dumb enough to go to their deaths. But if we¡¯re thirty percent sure of things, we can give it a try. A fifty percent chance is an equal chance of victory, yet you seek out eighty or ny percent. That¡¯s being a perfectionist!¡±

    Li Hao quaffed his wine and sank into deep thought. Was that so? To be honest, he¡¯d never thought about this before, but at the moment, this did sound like the case. It probably had to do with his experience, orck thereof.

    It hadn¡¯t been long since he set foot on the path of martial dao and he¡¯d always had a habit of keeping something back in front of others. He didn¡¯t like revealing all of his secrets. This was part of the vignce that he¡¯d developed over the past year, which was why he always appeared somewhat reserved in front of others. He always held back thirty percent of his strength when he fought as he worried about beingpletely seen through by people.

    He¡¯d fought to his heart¡¯s content and full abilities when he killed the six Srs because he knew that there would be no problems resulting from his fight once he killed them all. But this time, he knew that there were powerhouses nearby that he could not kill. Therefore, he chose to withhold some of his strength and refrain from exposing too much of himself.

    Thus, it hadn¡¯t been nearly as enjoyable to kill Xie Gang as it¡¯d been to kill the six Srs. It fell below the satisfaction he¡¯d received when killing Yu Xiao and Huang Jie. He¡¯d felt hobbled at every turn.

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought much of it at first, but now that the two seniors spoke to him about it and their opinions percted through his mind...

    ¡°Don¡¯t pause to consider your responses every time we have a conversation!¡± He Yongined with a brewing headache. ¡°Be more natural and direct. It¡¯s fine if you get things wrong, no one will me you! You¡¯re in your twenties, but act like you¡¯re in your sixties or seventies. Yuan Shuo really hasn¡¯t done much for your tutge!¡±

    Li Hao felt incredibly awkward.

    ¡°Anyway, it¡¯s good that you know now. Ole Hong and I are here, so just view everyone else as already dead. Think of it as they¡¯ll be unable to make it out alive. Do whatever the hell you want and if anyone does exit the city alive, we¡¯ll deal with it then!¡±

    ¡°You mean that I should pretend none of them will be leaving the ruins alive, so it doesn¡¯t matter how much of myself I expose? That the dead keep their secrets, right?¡± That had been Li Hao¡¯s mindset when he fought the Srs.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Hong Yitang smiled. ¡°It may be hard to quickly turn your mindset around, so just think of it this way! You¡¯ll punch or strike with your sword much more smoothly. It won¡¯t be like earlier¡ªI felt so ufortable watching you use the Nine Forged Force!¡±

    It¡¯d been as maddening as being unable to finish the act of procreation¡ªso unbearable that Hong Yitang wanted nothing more than to take Li Hao¡¯s ce!

    ¡°Why can¡¯t your Nine Forged Force coalesce its aura? It¡¯s not just because your opponents aren¡¯t strong enough or caught you off guard, it has to do with your mentality. Find an initial Nova next time and fight them without consideration of anything else. You don¡¯t necessarily have to use the Nine Forged Force, you¡¯ll stille to certain reflections even without employing it. I feel thatprehending the aura is only a matter of time in that case!

    ¡°Do you know why I showed you that stroke in the final moments of thest fight?¡± Hong Yitang asked in conclusion. ¡°I wanted to tell you that you should adopt a more majestic demeanor in your style! If you really can¡¯t, then be like He Yong and be more tyrannical or ruthless! Your potential is so good¡ªbe it the bloodline of the eight families or yourprehension of aura¡ªthat we can¡¯t bear to see you cripple yourself on the path of martial dao...¡±

    The current Li Hao was so incredibly strong, but Hong Yitang was mentioning the idea of being crippled and He Yong looked to be quite in agreement! inly, both of them didn¡¯t approve of some of Li Hao¡¯s current methods.

    With the young man¡¯s personality, he rejected whatever he didn¡¯t ept, but he was an amateur when it came to martial dao. If there was someone willing to teach him, he was willing to learn with a humble heart. This was a field he wasn¡¯t adept in, so he would listen to the experiences of his elders.

    The two exchanged a look and rxed with relief. The kid really had a wondrous potential. They couldn¡¯t bear to watch him proceed down the same path, which was why they¡¯d waited until he came to deploy that move. Otherwise, Green Moon and the others wouldn¡¯t have seen anything at all. Battle would¡¯ve been over a long time ago.

    It looked like that sword stroke had not been in vain.

    ¡°Killing Yellow Moon increased my merits by a lot.¡± Hong Yitang changed the topic with a chuckle. ¡°I now have thirty-five points, a full ten points more than before! Ole He, you have less than me now, don¡¯t you?¡±

    He Yong snorted and didn¡¯t reply. He did indeed have fewer points at thirty-one. He¡¯d been at twenty-eight before. While he didn¡¯t receive credit for killing Yellow Moon, aiding in the efforts had won him a sizable three points! This was their first sign that one did not have to kill the enemy to umte merits.

    Li Hao verified his numbers. Although he¡¯d taken off his armor, its functions were not affected since it was still on him. He stood at... twenty-one points. This was less than the other two, much less.

    He Yong was at thirty-one, Hong Yitang was at thirty-five. The gap was suddenly enormous between them and Li Hao. Killing Xie Gang had granted him only two points and initial or mid Sr only seemed to be worth one point. Late or peak Sr were worth two points.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t fully knowledgeable of the grading rubric, he would just watch as points shed across his visor.

    ¡°The outer city is probably a bit of a mess now,¡± he said instead of continuing the topic of merits. ¡°The Red Moon delegation is probably panicking now that Yellow Moon is dead. There are also quite a few other casualties as well¡ªwe killed roughly thirty Srs and one hundred Sunres... Everyone¡¯s withdrawn and can soon count heads to know how many are dead. Ambushes will be harder to carry out next.

    ¡°But they¡¯re still very strong despite so many dying... Martial uncles, do you have any ideas of what we can do?¡±

    ¡°Not really.¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°Just that we¡¯ll deal with whatever crops up! We fight if we can and to be honest, so what if the Battle Heaven army is truly defeated? Will these people be able to take the city just like that? Don¡¯t forget there are even more powerful existences inside the city, and that we haven¡¯t fully explored the barracks yet. Who knows if there aren¡¯t stronger entities inside? The Red Armors might not be weak either. As supervisors, they may just be thest ones in the field...¡±

    ¡°Then I won¡¯t think that much either.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll do as the martial uncles say and find a chance to fight an initial Nova! It¡¯ll be a sweeping sess if I can grasp the water aura, and I might be lucky enough toprehend the wood aura too. The world¡¯s my oyster then...¡±

    ¡°What a pity that we don¡¯t know the Weeping Willow Sword!¡± He Yong sighed.

    Li Hao blinked. What did he mean?

    ¡°You don¡¯t know what the Weeping Willow Sword is? That¡¯s a normal reaction, it¡¯s been lost. It¡¯s a sword technique that¡¯s suited forprehending the wood aura. Or it might not be the wood aura since everyone¡¯s perception is different. It can give you some sort of insight into the wood aura, though.¡±

    ¡°Um... I know it!¡± A thought stuck Li Hao.

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°I know the Weeping Willow Sword. Martial Uncle He, will it really help with the wood aura?¡±

    He Yong fell silent and looked meaningfully at Hong Yitang. <i>Holy fuck,</i> the look in his eyes seemed to say. <i>This kid not only has good potential, but his luck is incredible too. Of course, he¡¯s the heir to the eight families. His luck has to be first rate to survive to this point.</i>

    ¡°Then that¡¯s fine.¡± Hong Yitang rose without a word. ¡°It¡¯s good that you know. You should do as you see fit. We won¡¯t participate in the particrs of how you cultivate. Yuan Shuo will say that we¡¯ve taught you wrongly in that case. We¡¯re just giving you advice, we¡¯re not your masters.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go back, there¡¯s no point to ambushes now. You should fight with the army a few times next and gain different reflections. Martial masters liked to join the army back in the day and fight with them on the battlefield. It¡¯s how Sunderers and Dominators rose to their level. Where else would they find so many enemies to kill? Keep at it, you have much to learn apart from improving your strength!¡±

    Li Hao bobbed his head. ¡°They say that having an elder at home is the most valuable treasure. You are truly kindhearted, martial uncles!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The two ignored him and his words. <i>Who you calling old! We¡¯re martial masters, we¡¯re not old!</i>

 Chapter 460: Metamorphosis (III)

    <h4>Chapter 460: Metamorphosis (III)</h4>

    ¡°Martial Uncle Southern Fist said it first,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°That it¡¯s fine if I act without thought sometimes. You don¡¯t mind, right martial uncles?¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong rolled his eyes; he couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. He hauled out the ck armor while muttering, ¡°Don¡¯t be too cocky, kid! I¡¯ve been a royal instructor for many years and know more than you. The royal family values martial dao a lot. Some of the royal descendants are very strong. They have the best teachers and prime resources. Their teachers are an entire team instead of one person. Some of them are downright terrifying! Even I wouldn¡¯t say that I¡¯d be guaranteed victory against them.

    ¡°The royal family keeps a very low profile and has waited patiently since their forced abdication. They¡¯ve just been umting their strength this entire time.

    ¡°Also, don¡¯t underestimate the nine ministries!¡± heughed after putting the ck armor back on. ¡°Why do you think the nine ministries were able to force the royal family into stepping back? Was it through a position of moral superiority or public sentiment? That¡¯s bullshit, it was through pure strength! They were already quite strong eighty years ago¡ªwhat they disy now is just the tip of the iceberg. Do you really think the ministries rule through logic and reason? After so many years of biding their time, do people like Hou Xiaochen really dare openly rebel?¡±

    Li Hao manifested his silver armor as well. ¡°So why do they hide themselves?¡± he asked curiously.

    ¡°Those old guys are mostly the same as us¡ªin neither a state of advance nor retreat. It hurts to fight on the battlefield, so they have to pretend to be weak. That is one of the reasons. The other is that the nine ministries, three great organizations, and the royal family all know certain secrets. I know some as well, but I won¡¯t tell you as there isn¡¯t a point to that.¡±

    <i>Then don¡¯t even mention secrets! </i>Li Hao half rolled his eyes and didn¡¯t ask further. <i>Deputy Zhou put on a show like he had a lot of secrets and obviously wanted me to ask him. I couldn¡¯t be bothered.</i>

    It was the same case now. <i>Just talk about them if you want to!</i>

    Hong Yitang chuckled, not minding the conversation and walked out of the tavern. ¡°Don¡¯t listen to his thering,¡± he said as they headed back to the inner city. ¡°There¡¯s another main reason, and it has to do with a struggle between some of the ministries and the royal family. The conflicts involving some of the border provinces is actually a process of shuffling cards. A lot of people want to eliminate their opponents and even crown a new Human King!

    ¡°The people¡¯s hearts are not one and morale is low. Some are purposefully creating war and hardship to inflict suffering on the people. They conceal themselves in the chaos and demonstrate weakness to their opponents, hoping to im the final victory and be the dynasty¡¯s only sovereign! The nine ministries, royal family, and provinces are the three major factions in y. The three great organizations are just borrowing the hands of some ambitious characters to eke out afortable survival. Or did you think it was that easy to find one¡¯s footing in the early days of confusion?¡±

    <i>Human King?</i>

    ¡°A Human King?¡± Li Hao burst outughing.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Aren¡¯t they thinking a bit much?¡± Liu Yan chortled. ¡°I know there was one in the ancient civilization who was terrifying beyond belief. Can such an existence be born today?¡±

    ¡°Our times are not necessarily less than the ancient. Li Hao, don¡¯t think so little of modern man just because you¡¯re well acquainted with the might of the ancients. Everything is possible and unknown!¡± Hong Yitang emphasized. ¡°If you think this way, then you can give up cultivation, breakthroughs, and your search for dao. If you already deem the ancients to be greater than you and unsurpassable, why cultivate when the ancient civilization has already fallen?

    ¡°People die. Dying now is death, dyingter is death. Why bother seeking dao? Your teacher must be touched in the head to explore bing a Summoner.

    ¡°The ancients are indeed strong, of that there is no doubt. We are just learning how to walkpared to them. But take the supernatural domain for example, even if we speak of nothing else. There might be existences above in Nova in just twenty years of development. We couldn¡¯t surpass the ancients in twenty years, but how about thirty, forty... or even one hundred or two hundred?

    ¡°If the modern man¡¯s goal is not to surpass the past, then there isn¡¯t much value to our existence!¡±

    Li Hao paused as he stared at Hong Yitang.

    ¡°Your teacher is not here, or he¡¯d p you across the face!¡± Hong Yitang continued walking. ¡°Do you think that in Yuan Shuo¡¯s heart, he believes he is better than the ancients and will exceed them sooner orter? Why else did he modify the Five Styles? Do you think the version he excavated wasn¡¯tplete? It must have been, but he felt that he could create an even greater one! Referencing the ancients, extracting the essence to leave the dross, imitation, catching up, and then surpassing... That is the path of modern humanity!¡±

    Li Hao nodded solemnly. Indeed, modern society was less than the ancient past in his heart. He¡¯d witnessed stronger existences, his forefather¡¯s move, the imperial majesty who wrote the characters for Battle Heaven, and someone who was possibly the Human King reign unrivaled in the battlefield...

    He¡¯d always found the modern man to be weak and fragile inparison, but couldter descendants truly not outstrip their forebears?

    The young man thought of his teacher. Hong Yitang said that his teacher would p him if he was present¡ªwould he?

    Perhaps!

    Li Hao thought of his teacher¡¯s reaction to the streak of sword qi running through his palm. His memory was a bit hazy, but he could recall how his teacher was first afraid, startled, and then... excited!

    He¡¯d been excited!

    It was the agitated confirmation of something he¡¯d suspected¡ªthat there was a stronger existence and path out there. It was such an agitation that he hadn¡¯t been willing to let Li Hao heal his wounds. He¡¯d maintained that bloody hole until it healed on its own.

    In this moment, Li Hao found himself deeply inferior to his teacher. He perked up the next moment, finding himselfcking to a great many people. Hong Yitang, He Yong, Hou Xiaochen... all of these people were stronger, more tenacious, thoughtful, and knowledgeable than him.

    <i>But I am young! My path has only just begun! Strictly speaking, I¡¯ve only been on it for less than three months!</i>

    <i>I¡¯ll leave them in the dust one by one so long as I continue to improve.</i> Li Hao¡¯s spirits brightened. <i>Yes, I can do that. I¡¯ll surpass everyone first, then the ancients, then my ancestor, then the imperial majesty, then the Human King...</i>

    He¡¯d gained so much on this trip to Battle Heaven¡ªnot only in terms of battle strength, but a metamorphosis in terms of mentality. He had a deeper understanding of martial dao and a new positioning of his life goals.

    The young man continued to change. No one was born invincible or a wless saint. He had too many failings, but he was improving bit by bit. Li Hao followed the two veteran martial masters with a humble attitude of learning. All of them possessed points of sparkle and wonder that were worthy of him to learn from.

    ......

    When the three Silver Armors saw him again, they felt something different about their newest brethren.

    The Seventh Troop leader looked at the young man with confusion. ¡°Well done, Troop Leader Li, but why... do you seem a little different?¡±

    ¡°Learning has helped me improve!¡± Li Hao sent humble thought ripples back. ¡°Elder brothers, as a fellow member of the Battle Heaven army, what should I keep in mind in the great battle toe?¡±

    ¡°Charge!¡± The Seventh Troop leader answered mechanically. ¡°Charge until the enemy no longer exists! Do not retreat, do not flee, and trust yourrades, your brothers-in-arm. Your enemies are simply those in front of you. You do not need to think of anything else so long as there arerades around you. The Battle Heaven army is a unit worthy of trust. Perhaps the times change, but people are still people and yourrades are still yourrades. That does not change!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, not sure if he¡¯d gained anything from the response.

    The Seventh Troop leader looked into the distance, at the supernaturals in the za. ¡°If they work together, they are sure to breach our defenses. It will be quite a pity... and that victory goes to the side that is united! That has ever been the case since time immemorial. Such was the truth even in our times, when powerhouses such as the Human King rose to prominence. They were not born invincible, but made their way upward on the bodies of their enemies.

    ¡°If the Human King was one person, he might not have made it to the peak himself. The group of people he could trust was key. Victory is always guaranteed when hearts are united!¡± He suddenly raised the longsword in his hand and spoke with a bit more emotion. ¡°Therefore, as a new recruit, you can observe first when battle breaks outter. I will teach you how to be a good soldier! A true soldier is invincible. He is defeated only in terms of strength, not heart!¡±

    Li Hao nodded emphatically, reaffirming to himself that his greatest gains this trip was not from battle ability, but the thought patterns of the ancients. He¡¯d walked out of his tiny hometown to observe the world atrge. Rapidly transforming, he was changing some of his own thoughts.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Large sums of wandering cultivators retreated back to the za. Fear percted through the crowd when they registered that some powerful existences had gone missing. There were a lot fewer now!

    On Red Moon¡¯s side, Green Moon¡¯s expression was incredibly unpleasant. While she normally kept her face unreadable, there was a time and ce for that. With Yellow Moon dead, she was perfectly right to disy noticeable shock and fury.

    Blue Moon and Violet Moon remained quiet, prompting questions from others. What had happened for such a heavy atmosphere to drape over these three leaders?

    ¡°When I rushed over just now, I saw a ck Armor killing someone.¡± Xu Feng came back at this time. ¡°It was incredibly powerful and killing Yama¡¯s Xie Gang. It might¡¯ve used a martial dao secret art!

    ¡°I suspect that there are powerful martial masters who¡¯ve put on the armor to conceal their tracks while they kill others!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen flicked a nce at him and couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. Idiot! What was the point of announcing this r? Did he simply want to create more panic? <i>You don¡¯t have to speak of it just because you know it. Voicing it aloud won¡¯t show how strong you are. It will only make people fearful and cause wandering cultivators to doubt those around them. These central region powerhouses are too green!</i>

    Indeed, the wandering cultivators rustled with unease after the young man¡¯s words. Martial masters were subject to sidelong nces all around.

 Chapter 461: Metamorphosis (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 461: Metamorphosis (IV)</h4>

    The old man next to Xu Feng frowned faintly and stepped forward.

    ¡°Sir,¡± he transmitted. ¡°Let¡¯s wait for the three great organizations and Silver Moon authorities to make their moves. We don¡¯t need to concern ourselves with this for now.¡±

    Brows furrowed, Xu Feng looked at the old man and nodded. Thetter said nothing more. Instead, Hou Xiaochen looked at him, smiled, and turned away. Golden Spear skeptically regarded the old man, finding him a bit familiar, but unable to ce the face. Frowning, Golden Spear¡¯s thoughts returned to contemting Earthturner Sword and Southern Fist.

    ¡°Director,¡± Manager Yu transmitted to Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Why does this person seem... a bit familiar... yet a bit alien? Do theye from Silver Moon?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Does the director know who they are?¡±

    ¡°Yes, but we don¡¯t need to discuss them. They¡¯re very strong, so be careful. There might be another reason for them joining the Xu banner. Since they¡¯ve changed everything about them, they probably don¡¯t wish for old acquaintances to recognize them. Let¡¯s give them space!¡±

    Manager Yu stopped asking, but began pondering to herself. If the director himself was saying that this person was very strong... then he really was very strong. And he was a pure martial master at that. A pure martial master at this level should be well-known to her. Could it be... Northern Fist?

    Surely not. That was a very strong and proud person. Would he willingly put himself down as a servant? If not him, then who?

    Names shed through her mind, but the manager couldn¡¯t guess who it was. There were only so many candidates. If it was one of them... then it really was an old acquaintance.

    ......

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    The old man looked at the Silver Moon delegation and inclined his head when Manager Yu nced at him, but didn¡¯t greet the woman. He followed Xu Feng, aplicated gaze at the bottom of his eyes. Everything had changed about Silver Moon. He cast an emotional nce at the city. <i>Earthturner Sword, Southern Fist... Are you unwilling to stay away from the limelight as well?</i>

    First Yuan Shuo left Silver Moon, then Hou Xiaochen killed a Nova, then Yu Luocha made her move. Golden Spear and had Berserk de appeared, and now so were Earthturner Sword and Southern Fist present. Sky Sword and Tyrant de in the central region also seemed to be making names for themselves...

    Jadelight Sword had fallen behind¡ªwho knew if she could catch up? Yuan Shuo went without saying, he surely could. Jadelight possessed too much of a solitary streak, but she had a one-track mind. Perhaps she could quickly catch up thanks to Yuan Shuo¡¯s guidance.

    <i>And Golden Spear?</i>

    The old man looked at Golden Spear¡ªthetter seemed to be stuck in his own world. Was he suffering from what he¡¯d observed? A smirk appeared in the depths of the old man¡¯s eyes. Golden Spear deserved his mental turmoil!

    He¡¯d insisted on taking a shortcut back in the day. If he¡¯d broken Yuan Shuo¡¯s shackles by himself, he¡¯d be so much more than an initial Nova now. He chose to believe Hou Xiaochen¡¯s nonsense instead. It was now up to Golden Spear himself whether or not he could break the additional chains that Hou Xiaochen had pped on him.

    Hou Xiaochen was stronger than Yuan Shuo. If Golden Spear could manage the feat, then he would snatch fortune from the jaws of disaster.

    The old man looked up at the city wall, at where a new Silver Armor stood. It might be the ck Armor that Xu Feng had just spoken of, that martial master... Various thoughts filtered through the man¡¯s mind. <i>Battle Heaven... the eight families... Can that be Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple?</i>

    Nostalgia dawned in the old man¡¯s eyes, but he quickly dismissed the emotion. He took one final nce at Xu Feng.<i> Power easily obtained is difficult to subdue. Smooth sailing is not necessarily a good thing. I hope Battle Heaven bes the key to your metamorphosis. If not, you will neverpare to the true elites.</i>

    Even supernaturals had a chance of surpassing themselves. While the true elites in the central region were supernaturals, not even those such as Sky Sword dared dismiss them in the slightest. It was only a matter of how one used their energy, that didn¡¯t represent anything.

    The old man suddenly exuded a different aura. Off in the distance, Golden Spear turned sharply. He¡¯d been jarred out of his thoughts to look at the old man with surprise! He keenly assessed his object of scrutiny and wanted to say something, but ultimately chose to remain quiet.

    Hou Xiaochen looked over with nothing more than a smile before turning back. Kong Jie stroked his chin, flicking a half smile at the old man. He crossed his arms with the stance of simply enjoying the show. This ce was bing ever more interesting!

    It turned out to be a good thing that Ole Hou had openly issued a challenge involving the Battle Heaven ruins. Kong Jie was seeing a lot of old friends here. If Sky Sword, Tyrant de, and Yuan Shuo were all here... and Huang Yu and the others gathered as well... Heh, it¡¯d make for a fun Silver Moon martial world reunion!

    What a pity that Qimei Staff was dead. That demon Yuan Shuo should stay as far away as possible. How many old friends had he killed by now?

    These powerhouses didn¡¯t seem fazed by Yellow Moon¡¯s death. What was there to be afraid of? They¡¯d witnessed more brutal happenings before. It was just a divine girl of Sky Mountain that¡¯d died. She wasn¡¯t even part of the thirty-six. Dead was dead, her death was less than Qimei Staff¡¯s. They¡¯d been sad when Qimei Staff died and heartily cursed out Yuan Shuo for randomly killing people again!

    They didn¡¯t think much of this loss. It was her honor that Earthturner Sword and Southern Fist had killed her together. Ying Hongyue wouldn¡¯t be able to say anything even if he was present.

    Just as these powerhouses nursed their own thoughts, the Parity King called out, ¡°We cannot dy any longer! We need to join forces in a strong offensive! Otherwise, we should throw in the towel now and just wait for the three days to be over!¡±

    Their numbers would only continue to dwindle at this rate and the situation would be ever more perilous. Some Novas could sniff out the scent of danger creeping in around them.

    ¡°Director Hou, do you have any ideas?¡±

    ¡°None,¡± Hou Xiaochen replied calmly. ¡°If we work together, we follow the previous n. If not, then all of the factions are on their own to enter the inner city. You guys have more people, so what you say goes!¡±

    The rest of them silently cursed him out! They really wanted to just set everything aside and kill him first. That bastard always presented such a coollyposed demeanor, like he really was that much better than them!

    ¡°Then we make use of our current momentum and take the gates.¡± Green Moon clenched her teeth. ¡°If we can¡¯t or if someone holds back... then we withdraw!¡±

    She was flustered after losing Yellow Moon. Hou Xiaochen smiled and nodded. Currently, he was more curious about what Li Hao¡¯s trio was up to. Perhaps some light would be shed soon. Those guys had interfered with his ns again, particrly Hong Yitang...<i> I really want to fight you!</i>

    Given therge numbers of supernaturals and Srs that¡¯d disappeared, the remaining wandering cultivators no longer dared strike out on their own. As important as making money was, their lives were even more so. Wandering cultivators went where the wind blew them. Great ambitions or lofty expectations did not motivate them, they just wanted to profit where there were gains to be had.

    Not only had they not secured treasure during this expedition, but a lot of them had died. Some wanted to leave, but the door wouldn¡¯t be open for another two days. Unless they retreated from the ancient city, they¡¯d still have to move with the pack.

    From danger came opportunity, some wandering cultivators still hoped to strike rich in the inner city. What with so many Novas still around, this panicky group still fell in step with fear, worry, and some anticipation.

    ......

    <i>On the city walls.</i>

    Li Hao saw that the supernaturals were on the move again. Instead of their previous split action, they¡¯d gathered together in a stronger show of unitypared to before. Numerous losses had taught them that joining forces was their best hope of surviving.

    <i>There are a lot of Novas...</i>

    Li Hao saw three in Red Moon, three in Yama, and three in Celestial. That was nine from just the three great organizations. Silver Moon¡¯s official delegation was more frightening¡ªGolden Spear, Hou Xiaochen, Manager Yu, Kong Jie, Qi Gang, Hu Qingfeng... Each and every single one of them was formidable.

    The wandering cultivators boasted of Xu Feng, Yuan Xingwu of the Skystar Troops, and three that operated alone...

    And considering the dead Yellow Moon, that meant there might be some powerful martial masters lurking beneath the surface.

    It was a terrifying contingent that¡¯d entered the ruins as there were more than twenty Novas alone. If it wasn¡¯t for the two that¡¯d died in Ash Mountain and vast sums of Srs that followed them, this expedition team would possess more powerhouses than the entirety of the northern provinces.

    ......

    Li Hao considered his own side. While the three Silver Armors would be incredibly strong if they reawakened, they might not be able to stand against Hou Xiaochen¡¯s people. He Yong and Hong Yitang were equally strong, but there were only two of them.

    The young man looked at the inner city. He wasn¡¯t able to picture a winning scenario without the presence of the Gold Armor. As strong as three thousand ck Armors were, there were a lot of wandering cultivators and Srs left.

    Defeat was inevitable!

    Of course, he could try hiding in the city and luring the enemy in. He would repeat his tactics from the outer city and conduct guerri warfare from the ancient houses.

    How could the Battle Heaven army win?

    Behind Li Hao, the three Silver Armors stood so aloofly that it was like they were truly dead!

    Three thousand ck Armors gathered beneath the city gates again, forming a ck current. Some had been lost in the earlier skirmishes, but not that many. It didn¡¯t affect the overall camp that much. Where there was battle, there would be loss. These troop leaders had experienced countless battles and were unaffected by this.

    As Li Hao pondered the next course of action, the three looked at each other in possiblemunication. They left the young man out of their conversation, probably considering him too green to be worthy of inclusion.

    They seemed toplete their strategizing the next second and raised their longswords high! Three thousand ck Armors followed suit with spear and sword. Thoughpletely silent, it was a forebodingly magnificent sight!

 Chapter 462: The Battle To Defend the City (I)

    <h4>Chapter 462: The Battle To Defend the City (I)</h4>

    A troop leader¡¯s voice sounded in Li Hao¡¯s visor. It was coldly dignified as it echoed in all soldiers¡¯ minds.

    ¡°To battle the heavens! Kill the enemy! The Battle Heaven Army has been forgotten after countless years of quiet. Do not forget who we are¡ªit was His Imperial Majesty who bestowed his name upon us! The army once swept the four corners. Although we are just a defending branch, we must establish the prestige that is the Battle Heaven Army!

    ¡°How dare these cretins insult us! KILL!!¡± The roar reverberated across minds.

    Li Hao blinked. The other three Silver Armors rose into the air brandishing broadswords, directing the flood of three thousand to pour out!

    <i>Thump thump thump!</i>

    Footsteps pounded the ground like they were battle drums. A solemn air of killing intent nearly suffocated Li Hao. The three Silver Armorsmenced battle without a spot of hesitation as they sought to repel the enemy from the city walls.

    The same stifling feeling traveled to the supernaturals in the distance¡ªthis was more nerve-wracking than the first time! The powerhouses of the three great organizations regarded the situation gravely. It was unbelievable that a long dead army would still possess such battle strength and influence!

    ¡°Fight fight fight!¡±

    ¡°The heavens can be broken, the earth can be shattered, the firmament can be severed!¡± Ringing battle cries resonated in Li Hao¡¯s mind. Three thousand ck Armors rushed out of the city gates and smashed into the enemy camps. This was a group of real warriors, not the decrepit soldiers of Li Hao¡¯s imagination that were limited to defending the city.

    Battle Heaven¡¯s defenders were a veteran army unit. At times like these, they were well aware that cowardice and avoidance of battle would just lead to a faster death. They needed to rip an opening into the enemy, massacring them to the point in which they shuddered and lost morale. The strongest enemy would be routed in that sort of state.

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    The two sides shed with an eruption of supernatural ability.

    ¡°Kill!¡± Green Moon and the others roared. ¡°Earth types, restrain the soldiers! Wind types, blow them away. Water types, seal them off...¡±

    Multiple powerhouses were directing action on the battlefield. That was unavoidable as this wasn¡¯t one supernatural army, but a joint collective of countless wandering cultivators and the three great organizations. There was only one thought running through the wandering cultivators¡¯ minds¡ª<i>who gives a shit about themanders. I¡¯m hitting whatever I see!</i>

    Collisions and explosions broke through the air; the Novas swiftly set their sights on the three Silver Armors. All three great organizations shifted toward them.

    ¡°There¡¯s another on the city walls! That one we leave for Silver Moon!¡± shouted the Parity King through a transmission.

    Hou Xiaochen looked strangely at the unmoving Silver Armor up high. Wasn¡¯t that... Li Hao? <i>Leave him to us?</i>

    Li Hao still didn¡¯t move. The Seventh Troop leader had told him to watch and observe, to join the battle when the time came. Therefore, he silently peered down from the city gates. Hong Yitang and He Yong were by his side as well.

    They watched the army rush into the enemy. They watched as ck Armors were counterattacked. They watched as soldiers toppled over, were sent flying, or even shattered from singr powerful palm strikes. There were Novas among the enemy that could outright break the ck Armors, revealing white bone within. The bones swiftly disintegrated to dust¡ªthest signs that this warrior of the Battle Heaven Army ever existed.

    And yet, the soldiers continued to charge, heedless of the carnage of their brethren. When they marched on the four corners of the world and wreaked unparalleled ughter, they¡¯d faced all manner of strong enemies. Why would they be afraid of these ones?

    The three Silver Armors quickly made contact with the Novas. Ringing explosions deafened the ear as the soldiers were quickly surrounded. Their formidable armor granted them tremendous defensive ability, but they were long dead, after all. They were only peak Srs now.

    <i>RUMBLE!</i>

    Green Moon sent a Silver Armor flying; there was even a handprint left on the armor. And this was only the beginning.

    The supernaturals were incredibly powerful and individually stronger than the soldiers. After ck Armors started falling in droves, there were also Bronze Armors that werepletely obliterated. However, they took down supernaturals with them in fiery explosions, seemingly having detonated their armor on purpose. Supernaturals also began perishing inrge swathes on the battlefield.

    ......

    <i>On the city walls.</i>

    Li Hao watched the two sides sh together. He took a breath, then another breath... He saw faces instead of the Battle Heaven Army. Faces with solemn and respectful expressions. These warriors had been human back in the day. After all these years dead, they were still defending the city.

    ¡°Martial uncles,¡± he said softly as he looked at the two powerhouses around him. ¡°You say that I just need to do as I will, that I have support with you here. Then... I will take full advantage of this reinforcement!¡±

    Hong Yitang nced at him and feltpelled to say, ¡°Um... just don¡¯t pick a target that¡¯s too strong...¡±

    <i>Why do I suddenly feel uneasy?</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything as he turned his armor ck, joining the army with a leap off the walls.

    ¡°The Silver Armor has descended!¡± Green Moon howled from a distance.

    Hou Xiaochen inclined his head and walked through the air. He flew toward Li Hao.

    ¡°We promised the kid, so we can¡¯t go back on our word now!¡± Hong Yitang looked at He Yong when he noticed the Night Watcher director¡¯s movement. ¡°Leave this side to me, I canplete my old battle with that guy. You keep an eye on Li Hao!¡±

    He Yong smiled and jumped down, vanishing from sight to catch up to the young man.

    Hong Yitang took in a small breath and rose into the air. Bronze Armors normally didn¡¯t leave the ground, but he walked through the air and enveloped the surroundings with a majestic sword intent!

    Many Novas in the crowd looked at him, as did Hou Xiaochen. The director¡¯s eyes widened. Overwhelming sword intent surged as Hong Yitang unsheathed his weapon to cut his opponent down!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    A spear materialized in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s hands and he stabbed it forward. The skies shattered and the earth fractured. It was like a hole had been pierced through the firmament!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    An enormous explosion rang through the battlefield. All ck Armors around them were sent flying and all supernaturals below Sr exploded. Horrified Srs staggered away with grievous wounds.

    Green Moon¡¯s face went ck with terror. Now they knew how Yellow Moon had died!

    <i>A supreme powerhouse!</i>

    There was an unparalleled powerhouse behind that bronze armor. Perhaps it was the disguised Gold Armor!

    Earthturner Sword was well known, but he¡¯d stayed out of the public eye for many years. Numerous people could recognize his moves, but not this group of supernaturals. Green Moon, on the other hand, had been a martial master back in the day. She¡¯d been the rtively famous Green Peacock.

    The woman found the sword intent somewhat familiar, but couldn¡¯t immediately ce it. Just whose sword intent wasing from Battle Heaven? Earthturner Sword wasn¡¯t a guess that immediately came to mind.

    ¡°This person is fierce without equal,¡± Hou Xiaochen proimed calmly. ¡°Silver Moon will be in charge of only him. Does anyone have any contrary opinions?¡±

    No one said a word, not even Green Moon and the others. This Bronze Armor might be the disguised Gold Armor¡ªit felt even stronger than a reawakened Silver Armor! What else could they say?

    Whether it was ck Armors or supernaturals, everyone on the ground swiftly backed away. The uing sh would be terrifying!

    Hong Yitang¡¯s face was hidden within the armor. He brandished his sword and sealed off heaven and earth. The four directions became barriers as his sword swung¡ª<i>boom!</i>

    Another massive collision rang out as a phoenix soul manifested over the ming Phoenix Spear.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen, I don¡¯t like your expression of holding everything within the palm of your hand. Don¡¯t smile at me next time, it¡¯s so... aggravating!¡± Ripples undted outward as the Earthturner Sword turned everything within one hundred meters into hell. The ground tilted as the city¡¯s impregnable city floors fissured! There was only one sword between heaven and earth!

    Off in the distance, Manager Yu and the others gaped. Too strong! And yet, this wasn¡¯t all!

    An even stronger aura rose to the forefront. Hong Yitang¡¯s organs ruptured while the skies and earth overturned amidst Hou Xiaochen¡¯s shocked eyes. The intent behind his Broken Will Spear waspletely suppressed!

    A longsword cut through the sky and overshadowed Kong Jie, Golden Spear, Berserk de, Manager Yu, Qi Gang, Hu Qingfeng... Everyone was shrouded in a circle, and yet, the sword intent was still growing stronger! It was so overwhelming that it couldn¡¯t beprehended!

    Hou Xiaochen looked askance at the Bronze Armor. ¡°What are you doing?¡± he transmitted. Was Hong Yitang looking to die? He was just here to spar with the man, not to fight to the death.

    ¡°What am I doing? Killing you!¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°As a Silver Moon martial master, to spar is to fight to the death! You¡¯ve gotten confused in your old age. When I said to leave the Silver Moon authorities to me, I meant to leave them all to me! Hou Xiaochen, Kong Jie, you two can attack together!¡±

    His longsword smashed down like it was oveid by the earth! Hou Xiaochen frantically jabbed with his spear; Kong Jie¡¯s eyes widened as well. He seemed to feel countless Hong Yitangs attacking¡ªthe guy was mad! But... he wasn¡¯t afraid!

    Golden Spear roared and stabbed with his spear! A stern Manager Yu thrust out her palm!

    <i>Then fight we shall!</i>

    The martial masters made their moves; Qi Gang of the Divine Masters Ranking yelled a battle cry. He materialized a golden sword that was instantly destroyed by another¡¯s sword intent. Qi Gang stared at his empty hands with disbelief¡ªhis longsword was instantly obliterated!

    He snarled and manifested a peculiar ck longsword next. It wasn¡¯t coalesced out of supernatural energy like before, but an origin weapon!

    The powerhouses were bringing their strongest moves to bear as they charged Earthturner Sword¡ªthe madman who¡¯d unsealed his organs to fight!

    While Hou Xiaochen and Kong Jie didn¡¯t understand Hong Yitang¡¯s actions, they guessed that he might have the means to control what would happen to him next. They put those eventualities out of mind and made their moves¡ªone with the spear, the other with the fist. Both were incredibly formidable and the strength that they spontaneously erupted with exceeded that of the golden eagle in Ash Mountain.

    Those of the three great organizations watched with open mouths! All this for just a Bronze Armor? They¡¯d thought that the soldier was strong, but the battle strength that the Silver Moon authorities exploded with was beyond the imagination. Green Moon was counting her lucky stars that it was these guys up against the terrifying swordsman.

    Was that really a dead soldier?

    The sword was like heaven and earth. One sword overturned the skies and earth, no one could stand against it in any direction. The Silver Moon authorities had brought so many powerhouses with them, but they were all blocked by one soldier with a sword.

 Chapter 463: The Battle To Defend the City (II)

    <h4>Chapter 463: The Battle To Defend the City (II)</h4>

    Hong Yitang smiled beneath his visor. Whether it was Hou Xiaochen or Kong Jie, both matched him in terms of strength. But... so what? They didn¡¯t dare unseal their power!

    <i>In that case, don¡¯t me me for taking advantage of the situation! I¡¯ve long wanted to take you down a peg or two, Hou Xiaochen. You really think of yourself as a god and schemed after my loot of ck armorst time! I was in White Moon City for so many days on myst trip and you didn¡¯t even bother seeing me!</i>

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The longsword cleaved through the air, one stroke after another like the earth rearing up. Everyone could clearly witness each magnificent brilliance, but no one could block it! Even Hou Xiaochen and Kong Jie could only frown and respectively jab with his spear or punch with his fist. Golden Spear and the others erupted with force.

    Tremendous battle strength overawed bystanders on all sides. Whether it was Golden Spear or Manager Yu, the power they brought to bear was so ferocious that even some Novas were shocked.

    Most terrifying of all was that all of these peoplebined could do nothing but steadily retreat in the face of a singr opponent.

    Mid Nova Qi Gang, a powerhouse on the Divine Masters Ranking, was armed with an origin weapon and could only hover on the sides. He was forced into continuously backing away, his face flushed and a shocked look in his eyes.

    Initial Nova Hu Qingfeng started vomiting blood as the sword descended mercilessly! Initial Novas seemed particrly weak in a battlefield like this. There was only fear in his heart¡ªtoo strong! Not only was the soldier in front of them strong, but everyone around him was also so much stronger than he imagined. He knew that Hou Xiaochen was powerful, but not that Kong Jie was extremely formidable as well. That punch came with such an aura that Hu Qingfeng felt like he was being ripped into two.

    Why were there so many powerhouses among the Silver Moon authorities??

    ......

    As battle raged in one corner of the city, Li Hao struck with his sword. He didn¡¯t look in the direction of the fighting or even think about how strong Hou Xiaochen and the others were, how strong Hong Yitang was at the moment...

    The only thought in his mind was to charge and kill! Multiple supernaturals were cut down at the waist when he shed with his sword.

    ¡°It¡¯s that Silver Armor!!¡± screamed a nearby, horrified supernatural.

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Li Hao ran him through, blood spraying everywhere when the young man pulled his sword out. ck Armors charged by his side, gathering together to block supernaturals from converging on their officer. All of them roared soundlessly and fought a bloody battle, centering on Li Hao as the vanguard to pierce through the enemy¡¯s battle lines.

    As shouts and screams abounded, several Srs stepped forward on the wandering cultivator side. Not only that, but quite a few Novas stirred to action as well. They ripped through the ck Armors around them and forged their way toward Li Hao!

    When Xu Feng saw the Silver Armor, he set course for his new target. The old man behind him furrowed his brows, following his ward. His attention was held elsewhere before he could catch up and he looked off to the side, at where a ck Armor seemed to be looking at him.

    ¡°Sir, let¡¯s just watch first,¡± transmitted the old man as he came to a halt. ¡°Don¡¯t do anything yet!¡±

    ¡°I know!¡± Xu Feng answered absentmindedly and continued pushing his way toward Li Hao.

    The old man looked at the ck Armor and sighed softly. ¡°What do you want?¡± he transmitted.

    ¡°Nothing, just stand there and don¡¯t move!¡± He Yong answered. ¡°Your master is strong. He¡¯s a mid Nova and on the so-called Divine Masters Ranking. He¡¯s renowned in the central region, but I don¡¯t care about him! You, you¡¯ll stay here! Don¡¯t me me for reacting harshly if you move. I may not be able to do anything to you, but when Yuan Shuoes back and learns that you bullied his disciple, I¡¯ll bet my surname that he beats you to death!¡±

    A formidable powerhouse such as He Yong said that he might not be able to do anything to the old man! Thetter remained quiet.

    He Yong ignored him; it was just a warning. ¡°Also, martial world rules apply,¡± he transmitted. ¡°They still apply to you and they also apply to your master. Li Hao is much weaker than him, so I can save him once. You, however, cannot! If your master dies, he dies, understood?¡±

    ¡°He Yong, I¡¯m just visiting home,¡± the old man transmitted. ¡°I just wanted to take a look at Silver Moon...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to waste time talking to you! I¡¯ll just put in a little bit of effort to stop you if you insist, but I¡¯ll see if Yuan Shuo will kill you when he returns!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The old man was speechless. Yuan Shuo! A martial master with only peak Sr strength at the moment was very, very weak in their eyes. And yet, someone like He Yong was saying <i>if I can¡¯t kill you, I¡¯ll wait for Yuan Shuo toe kill you.</i>

    Those kinds of words would inspire one to turn up their nose at the speaker, but the old man didn¡¯t treat it as empty boasting. An internal conflict seized him. Even though Xu Feng greatly outmatched Li Hao, what if... something unexpected happened? What should he do if an ident urred?

    If an unwanted development took ce and he intervened, would that raise Yuan Shuo¡¯s ire and dissatisfaction? If that guy knew he¡¯d involved himself in a battle involving Li Hao, the old demon would lose his mind and exact retribution! He absolutely would!

    The old man took a deep breath and didn¡¯t say anything. He withdrew to the side.

    He Yongughed and casually punched a supernatural to death. ¡°I know a little about your affairs, but don¡¯t forget that you¡¯re still a martial master! You hold yourself with none of the ease of one!¡±

    He vanished from the spot, needing to look in on Li Hao. The only person that he was wary of in the battlefield was this old man. Hong Yitang could handle the rest.

    As the old man watched him leave, he turned his sights to Xu Feng close at hand. The young master was approaching Li Hao, wanting to form a n to study or capture the Silver Armor.

    ......

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Li Hao hacked a Sr into two and suddenly sensed a pair of eyes on him. He looked over to see the guy who¡¯d ruined his moment in grasping the water aura.

    Xu Feng! Mid Nova and listed on some ranking. He was so strong that Li Hao was sure to be unable to rival him. Therefore, he ignored the young master. If he couldn¡¯t match the guy, he would only suffer a beating or even be killed. He wanted to locate an initial Nova for a fight.

    Apart from this guy and Yuan Xingwu, there were three more Novas among the wandering cultivators. One of them was a mid Nova, the other two were initial Novas. He had his eyes set on one of the two.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t want this guy, but this guy wanted him. Xu Feng suddenly darted in front of him when Li Hao next wanted to charge. The mid Nova stood right in his path. Li Hao¡¯s expression turned unpleasant beneath the visor; he was in trouble now. He was just a peak Nova, he stood no chance! There might be hope if he¡¯d grasped a fourth aura, but currently he only had three.

    Where was Southern Fist? <i>Didn¡¯t that old guy say he¡¯d let me do as I wish? He should be stepping forward to stop this guy!</i>

    ¡°Give it a try, what¡¯s there to be afraid of?¡± He Yong¡¯s voice sounded by his ear. ¡°He¡¯s a young master of arge n, a Heaven Favored who improved rapidly and set foot into mid Nova in recent years. He didn¡¯t cross over from marital dao. I think your strength is the equivalent of initial Nova. Even if you can¡¯t defeat him, you can get a sense of how strong the supernaturals on the rankings are.¡±

    Li Hao cursed inwardly. <i>Fucking hell, that¡¯s easy for you to say! That¡¯s a mid Nova you want me to fight, are you kidding me? You told me to take a small risk with an initial Nova, is this a small risk??</i>

    This was a death risk!

    ¡°Go on, have your fight. I¡¯ll step in if you really can¡¯t take it!¡±

    Li Hao took a deep breath and clenched his teeth, still cursing up a storm. He put everything out of his mind. <i>Fine! I¡¯ll do it! What else can I do now? </i>The three sword auras immediately converged as one.

    Xu Feng had just wanted to put the Silver Armor through its paces and see if he could activate the so-called reawakened state. He blinked with surprise¡ªwas that... aura? Did Silver Armors know aura? And sword aura at that! There certainly were a lot of swordsmen in the Battle Heaven Army.

    Li Hao contemted for a split second and erupted with the Incantation of the de of Blood. Blood qi filled the air, prompting a frown from Xu Feng. He seemed to be familiar with this technique, what was it?

    Li Hao melded three auras together and deployed the Incantation, striking without hesitation!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    It was formidably strong. Xu Feng responded with a surge of ice energy. The longsword bit into a massive ice cube. It was so durable that although it split beneath the sword, a strong recoil traveled up Li Hao¡¯s arm.

    ¡°How interesting!¡± Xu Feng looked at Li Hao. ¡°Why do I think that you¡¯re alive?¡±

    The soldier seemed to be alive, but was that possible?

    The young man was quite rxed. He waved countless ice arrows into existence and charged Li Hao. A smile hung on his face. How fun, this Silver Armor seemed different from the other three. It wasn¡¯t really alive, was it?

    If that was the case... that was incredible. Was it a living ancient, or was it someone on the expedition team?

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    Countless ice arrows exploded on Li Hao. The young man couldn¡¯t evade in time as Xu Feng was very fast. Ice arrows condensed in the blink of an eye, leaving him no room to react. The young master was much stronger than the supernaturals he¡¯d met before.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t make a sound as he jumped up from the ground and stuck with the sword again! The weapon emitted no noise¡ªGhost Shadow Sword!

    Humm!

    A sonic boom emitted only after the longsword pierced through the ice. Xu Feng¡¯s eyes widened with surprise!

    In the distance, three presences suddenly red and the Seventh Troop leader¡¯s voice sounded in Li Hao¡¯s mind. ¡°We are about to awaken! If we are unable to defeat the enemy and you live, then you must defend Battle Heaven!¡±

    Li Hao blinked.<i> Boom!</i>

    Xu Feng punched with a fist of ice and sealed Li Hao away. Li Hao erupted with internal force and broke out of the ice, but still felt a cold air drape around him. Xu Feng was a mutated water supernatural¡ªan ice supernatural.

    There was no time to consider anything else. Li Hao stared at his opponent and transformed his longsword into Steris. Silver Armors could use their own weapons¡ªthey would be enclosed with the armor¡¯s standard issue weapon. From the outside, it still appeared to be the longsword, but the effects would be vastly different.

 Chapter 464: The Battle To Defend the City (III)

    <h4>Chapter 464: The Battle To Defend the City (III)</h4>

    Li Hao no longer thought about or looked elsewhere on the battlefield. He struck with his sword and erupted with the auras of three attributes. A ferocious tiger roared, the earth overturned, and the metal sword exploded!

    Xu Feng shifted as well and abruptly disappeared. Li Hao, however, pushed off his feet and followed right beside his opponent, shing out with a longsword that was enveloped by killing intent!

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    A crisp fracture sounded as the ice in front of Xu Feng crumbled away. It¡¯d shattered much faster than he expected. He couldn¡¯t dodge in time and took the sword to his chest. And yet, arge impact sounded as a mirror hovered in front of his chest. A Heart Protector!

    Xu Feng looked at Li Hao, then at his mirror. His eyes widened as they shot back to the sword in Li Hao¡¯s hand. That sword was too sharp! There was a small mark left on his mirror!

    Not only that, but there was a shuddering weapon soul inside the mirror. No matter how hemanded it, it refused to emerge. It only used the innate durability of the mirror to withstand the Silver Armor¡¯s sword. What in the world was going on?

    The soldier wasn¡¯t weak¡ªXu Feng could sense that it was roughly initial Nova. His estimate wouldn¡¯t be too far off the mark. Whatever level it was at, it was far weaker than him. And yet, his supernatural technique of the ice shield was instantly shattered!

    This was astounding, and what had been that tiger howl? Xu Feng frowned, finding the situation increasingly odd.

    Yuan Xingwu also furrowed his brows in the distance and looked in Li Hao¡¯s direction. He was confused¡ªhad that been a tiger roar just a moment ago? He¡¯d heard many tiger roars before, but that one had been different from his master¡¯s. In the martial world, only the Five Styles could emit such a stately tiger roar.

    Yuan Xingwu then turned around to look at Xu Feng. The look in his eyes shifted slightly as he registered how strong this person was. He naturally knew of someone on the Divine Masters Ranking. He looked at the Silver Armor¡ªwhen it cut through the air with thebined might of three sword auras, the resplendent radiance it erupted with was vastly different from the style that the other three Silver Armors battled with!

    ¡°Three sword auras... tiger roar... blood qi... Incantation of the de of Blood...¡± Incredulity dawned in Yuan Xingwu¡¯s eyes! He was reminded of one person among the information that he¡¯d gathered¡ªLi Hao! The junior brother that he¡¯d yet to meet, Li Hao!

    That Silver Armor was a disguised Li Hao, but how??

    Li Hao¡¯s sword strokes followed one after another. He didn¡¯t care if his identity was exposed as he was using not only the sword, but the Five Styles as well. He shifted up and down at an extreme speed, one moment like a ferocious tiger, the other like an ape. Anyone who knew Yuan Shuo would recognize it after a moment¡ªthis was the Five Styles discipline!

    Off in the distance, Hu Dingfang was not part of Earthturner Sword¡¯s encirclement. He looked over, eyes widening as he recognized Li Hao. Thed had somehow entered Battle Heaven and be a Silver Armor! He was fighting a mid Nova, how incredible!

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about anyone. All he focused on was producing the water aura! There wouldn¡¯t be any trouble with locking it so long as it manifested. His organs were exceedingly strong and he¡¯d be able to contain his fourth aura instantaneously. If hebined four auras together and employed the Incantation of the de of Blood in conjunction, he might be able to stand against his opponent!

    Li Hao stopped throwing himself against Xu Feng; to be impetuous didn¡¯t mean to nurture a death wish. He stuck to his opponent¡¯s side like glue instead.

    ¡°You¡¯re not an ancient...¡± Xu Feng realized something at this point. ¡°Your moves are more like the fabled Five Styles discipline of Silver Moon. You¡¯re... Li Hao!¡±

    He gaped. Li Hao?? A guy who hadn¡¯t spent much time in martial dao was on par with a Nova? What kind of fortuitous opportunity had he stumbled upon?!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t respond.<i> So what if you recognize me? You guys are all gonna die! </i>He darted back into the darkness with his next blow. <i>So what if you¡¯re a mid Nova?</i>

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Ice sealed off the four corners as a powerful surge of supernatural energy swept the area. The locale that Li Hao stood in froze over.

    ¡°I was worried about the so-called reawakening because I thought it was a Silver Armor. You only have your strength because you utilized the Incantation of the de of Blood. You won¡¯t be able to undergo that reawakening!¡± Xu Feng dered coolly.

    In that case, there was no need to be cautious or hold anything back. He was very curious as to how Li Hao became a Silver Armor!

    Ice sealed off the premises and a frosty air permeated the void. As he moved through the darkness, Li Hao was forced to reveal himself. The moment he did so, a fist of frost mmed at his face!

    Li Hao wanted to run, but his path was sealed off by ice. He stomped his foot to crack it through ring the earth aura, but it cost him time. The punch connected!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The young man felt an incredible reverberation through the armor. If it wasn¡¯t for the strength of his organs and body, he would be like ordinary Srs and shaken to death!

    As expected of a genius renowned in the central region.

    Xu Feng was surprised to see Li Hao still standing after one of his punches. He continued waving his fists around and deploying ferocious power of ice. He was so domineering that Li Hao had no room to counterattack.

    However, strong organs, blood qi, and the Silver Armor ensured that Li Hao could swiftly recover despite being knocked down again and again. Sword energy supplemented his depletion and healed his injuries.

    The young man slowly found his footing amid the frozen ground, his eyes glittering with light. This guy didn¡¯t seem able to kill him! He thought back to his spars with Liu Long. So long as his opponent couldn¡¯t beat him and he possessed sufficient sword energy, then he would win through simple attrition!

    Li Hao waved his sword to return the blow. The keen Steris was indestructible; Xu Feng had to give way. That created an opening for Li Hao to bound into the air and kick repeatedly with the Nine Forged Force!

    He held no reservations, just the thought of demonstrating his strongest force possible. He would exhaust Xu Feng¡¯s mysterious power even if he couldn¡¯t kill the guy! Supernaturals didn¡¯t have a limitless source of power, they required time to recuperate.

    <i>Kaboom!</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s legs kicked toward Xu Feng¡ªthey were promptly encased in ice. The ice shattered in the blink of an eye and a sword crashed out, forcing Xu Feng back. Li Hao continued waving his sword, brandishing his fist, and kicking his legs, utilizing the style of a martial master to the utmost.

    The more Xu Feng fought, the more infuriated he became. Was it impossible for this guy to suffer injuries?? His force had reverberated through the armor many times. Was the armor so strong that it negated all of his power? He didn¡¯t understand! If that was the case, then this armor was an ultimate treasure!

    Close by, He Yong grinned and casually punched an approaching Nova back. The horrified supernatural quickly fled. Damn it, why were there so many powerhouses among the ck Armors?? He was a Nova, but the soldier managed to injure him with one blow! This was horrifying!

    He Yong turned back to the battlefield after beating off a Nova. The three Silver Armors seemed to be awakening; their strength was climbing and their presences growing. The leader of the Seventh Troop shook a Red Moon peak Sr to death with one sweep of his sword.

    Green Moon and the others gaped with shock. The reawakened Silver Armors were strong beyond belief. They were starting to move beyond Nova to metamorphosis!

    ¡°Defense!¡± someone roared. ¡°Their time is limited after they reawaken. They¡¯ll dissipate soon, there¡¯s no need to go head to head with them!¡±

    As for retreat... There was likely no way to withdraw now. The supernaturals had to focus on defense and wearing down the soldiers so that the Silver Armors died when their time expired. This was primarily why they weren¡¯t afraid of the soldiers reawakening. Based on thest expedition¡¯s experience, the Silver Armors wouldn¡¯t be able to fight for a long time.

    ¡°Everyone stronger than Sr is to lend a hand, we defend together!¡± another person roared.

    Chaotic action reigned around the battlefield as some Bronze Armors seemed to be awakening as well. They spontaneously ripped through some of the supernaturals in front of them. Two different parties of supernaturals shed into each other as wails abounded!

    ......

    Li Hao put everything out of mind. His only thought was to exhaust that little bastard!

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    Feet and fist struck at the same time¡ªeven his tiger roar made a reappearance!

    ¡°Roar!!¡± The berserk roar shook nearby supernaturals to the point where blood streamed out of their orifices. They quickly backed away; Xu Feng was shaken to the point of dizziness. Why was this fellow so strong? Was he an undying existence?

    The killing continued. As more supernaturals died, the more ck Armors were rendered obsolete.

    ......

    At the same time.

    <i>Inside the city.</i>

    The Gold Armor held the ck Tortoise Seal and hovered in the center of the city lord manor. It looked in the direction of the eastern city gate and raised its head at the old turtle. The turtle was silent, simply watching the battlefield.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that... also a kind of release?¡± came a ripple from the turtle. Indeed, wasn¡¯t the reawakening a release? It wasn¡¯t that the soldiers couldn¡¯t be saved or stopped from their actions, but that it was torture to be confined within their armors for millennia!

    It was the most painful agony! They had no memories, no souls, just a lingering obsession. This revitalization at thest second to remind them of their past¡ªwasn¡¯t that a bequeathment and release?

    A ripple stirred from the Gold Armor. ¡°But... we... are... willing!¡±

    Willing to stay and defend! Willing to safeguard the city!

    Some emotions gripped the old turtle. ¡°Then go!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± came the mechanical assent. The Gold Armor shot out with extremely dense killing intent!

    <i>We are willing. We are willing to endure this loneliness and pain. This so-called release isn¡¯t important.</i>

    <i>We protect the city because that was the vow we took when we joined the Battle Heaven Army. Instead of humanity, we fight for this empty city now. Even so, it tastes as sweet as sugar plums!</i>

    The Gold Armor swiftly approached the eastern city gate. Meanwhile, a foreign emotion appeared in the hovering turtle¡¯s eyes. So they were willing to continue enduring this pain?

    It¡¯d wanted to free them as this torment was too much. Was the Battle Heaven Army not willing to disappear?

 Chapter 465: Sword Unsheathed (I)

    <h4>Chapter 465: Sword Unsheathed (I)</h4>

    Battle raged outside the city; Li Hao was the epitome of ferociousness. His three swords were as one and the Incantation of the de of Blood freely demonstrated. Sword energy protected his body and nurtured his wounds.

    He was frozen again and again, but stood up again and again. He struck with the sword, the sword light violent and ominous!

    A ck Armor exploded into pieces near by him. ¡°Out of my way!¡± Li Hao could no longer hold it in. These soldiers had either received particr orders or were naturally equipped with a certain obsession to protect the army leaders. He¡¯d been knocked off his feet a few times¡ªck Armors swiftly appeared each time to be a human shield.

    However, the Sunderer level soldiers were only on par with Sunre. They couldn¡¯t withstand a single blow from a mid Nova, not even their armor. A Nova¡¯s might ensured that they shattered from one strike.

    These ck Armors stepped up simply to go to their deaths. One time, two times, three times...

    Li Hao didn¡¯t think much of it at first. These soldiers were dead to begin with, so it was nice to have such a distraction. The ck Armors could impede his opponent and exhaust some of his stamina.

    But as the soldiers tirelessly put themselves forward, heedless of the dangers and unknowing of death, Li Hao grew angry to see them destroyed again and again!

    As more ck Armors were broken, a Bronze Armor appeared around Li Hao.

    ¡°Kill!¡± The ripple that emanated was the Bronze Armor¡¯s call.

    When Li Hao was next sealed away, the Bronze Armor charged with a handful of ck Armors. He wielded a broadsword and fearlessly rushed forward¡ªkill the enemy!

    ¡°Battle Heaven!¡± An indistinct cry exploded by the ear!

    Li Hao instantly shattered the ice, but the Bronze Armor continued undaunted and detonated with a loud roar. The explosion rocked Xu Feng on his heels¡ªhe took a slight step back. Though uninjured, he was once more impeded.

    Growing irritation nipped at Xu Feng! It was one thing if he was unable to kill Li Hao, but these ck and Bronze Armors were ants that¡¯d been dead for endless years. It was annoying that they kept getting in his way!

    <i>What is the purpose of this? What can you change with your actions? You stop me for a second and then what? I¡¯ll keep trouncing Li Hao! There is no point to any of this!</i>

    Li Hao shattered the ice and looked at the Bronze Armor that¡¯d just exploded. It was the same set of equipment as the rest, but he seemed to recognize the newly dead.

    <i>Hu Xinwu, leading the thirdpany of the Seventh Troop...</i>

    A nk look entered Li Hao¡¯s eyes before he immediately regained his calm. These soldiers were long dead! They were just following their instincts. Not even the Bronze Armors possessed much sentience. They were willing to put themselves forward again and again because he was a troop leader. They charged forward to buy time for him, for the Silver Armor.

    <i>Strike! My sword shall be the zing sun!</i>

    His killing intent deepened by thirty percent when he struck. Li Hao leapt into the air and struck all around him.<i> Boom!</i>

    Some of the supernaturals in the vicinity died, adding to his sword qi! Even Steris seemed to grow impatient with a continued failure to kill Xu Feng. Li Hao dashed out with a stern look in his eyes, racing toward the crowds in the distance instead of attacking Xu Feng!

    ¡°Trying to leave?¡± Xu Feng snorted. <i>You know you¡¯re my target, but you still want to leave? In your dreams!</i>

    He shed in front of Li Hao. Thetter was so incredibly quiet in his motions that not even his breathing made a side. He sidled past Xu Feng with a twist of his body and struck again, killing another Sunre.

    Supernaturals around them scattered, pursued by a relentless Li Hao.

    <i>umting the aura!</i>

    Whether it was fury or some other indescribable mix of emotions, Li Hao¡¯s mind had changed from his original intentions. He¡¯d wanted to bring everything he had to bear in a fight at first, that it didn¡¯t matter if he won or lost. He Yong was keeping an eye on things, so he wasn¡¯t afraid.

    But now, he just wanted to kill this person!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Xu Feng waved another fist, obliterating ck Armors as soon as they jumped to him. He couldn¡¯t be bothered to look at what he destroyed as he gave chase. These metal gnats were so annoying! Another one exploded, giving way for him to see Li Hao run through a Sunre with one stroke. Thetter¡¯s killing intent no longer wafted outward¡ªit was all held within him as he rushed toward another location.

    Supernaturals fled before his wake, but the ck and Bronze Armors continued throwing themselves at Xu Feng. The Seventh Troop leader had said that one only needed to charge on the battlefield! There was no need to pay attention to anything else. So long as the Battle Heaven Army existed, there was only the enemy to be found in the front!

    Such had been his words spoken so matter-of-factly!

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought much of them before, but now as a mid Nova chased him, ck Armors led by Bronze Armors still presented themselves for sacrifice. Even when he stopped to kill people and Xu Feng was blocked from reaching him, they paid the price of being eradicated to impede the enemy¡¯s footsteps.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    <i>Thirty-two!</i> Li Hao counted to himself. That was the thirty-second soldier that Xu Feng had killed. They were dead to begin with, so why... why was he expending effort to remember the dead? Their skeletons had long turned to dust. They were just lingering obsessions!

    <i>Humm!</i>

    A sword broke through the air, delivering a bloody hole to the back of the head of a horrified initial Sr. It ran through his head and left his body flopping to the ground!

    Aghast cultivators shrieked and ran for their lives. Srs were dying! Killed by one thrust!

    ¡°That¡¯s not an armored soldier! That¡¯s Li Hao, Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple Li Hao! How dare you kill the innocent, Li Hao! We¡¯re not of the three great organizations, so what are you doing, you bastard??¡±

    They weren¡¯t of the three great organizations and shared no grudge with Li Hao, but the little bastard dared kill them!

    Li Hao looked on expressionlessly. <i>You guys were killing Battle Heaven soldiers too. You guys drag their armor on the ground, like you¡¯ve collected some great treasure. I am the leader of the Twelfth Troop. Once the three Silver Armors die, I am the highest ranking officer here. You kill my men, so why can I not kill you?</i>

    <i>Humm!</i>

    The longsword broke through the air¡ªhe ignored the power of ice behind him because he knew that there would berades along to help him block it. Indeed, a loud explosion ripped through the air behind him as a Bronze Armor exploded!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t look back, but he seemed to know the Bronze Armor¡¯s name. He¡¯d joined Li Hao in the guerri warfare of the outer city.

    <i>¡°Wu Kaifu, leader of the ninthpany of the Eighth Troop!¡±</i>

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Xu Feng demanded curtly. ¡°Is it fun manipting these metal gnats? Is there meaning to ughtering weak supernaturals? Come fight me, I may not kill you. I might even protect you a bit if you take off that armor and give it to me!¡±

    He wasn¡¯t interested in killing Li Hao, he more so wanted that armor! It was fascinating and seemed to be able to control the ck and Bronze Armors. If he could obtain aplete specimen... this treasure would rival a sky grade origin weapon. That sword also seemed indestructible, so it might be an ultimate treasure as well.

    The sword of the Lis?

    His thoughts touched upon the rumors. If this was the case.. then he would have enormous gains on this expedition!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Li Hao ran through another person; blood sttered his armor when he withdrew his weapon. He didn¡¯t turn back to look at the dead Bronze Armor. He didn¡¯t even pay attention to the soldiers rushing in from all directions to protect a troop leader... He just forged onward!

    He sent a ripple through the earth with a stomp of his foot, throwing someone to him to be run through by his sword. A ferocious tiger roar stunned another senseless, blood streaming down his face. They stopped so that he could cut them down!

    He flew through the crowd like a bird and smashed a supernatural to pieces!

    In this moment, Li Hao could pierce through the supernatural defensive line because the powerhouses were on the front lines fighting others.

    The three Silver Armors were reawakening, bringing incredible strength to bear. As many powerhouses were with the Silver Moon authorities, they were preupied defending themselves against Earthturner Sword. The man¡¯s sword aura was growing ever stronger, almost to an uncontroble point. Some weaklings in the crowd were already gravely injured.

    An outsider like Hu Qingfeng was covered in blood, despite being a Nova. He was in ghastly condition.

    Only Xu Feng continued to chase Li Hao. Some Novas wanted to give chase too, but were quickly scared off. A few that didn¡¯t want to give up pursuit were immobilized on the ground. An initial Nova cultivator was being held under He Yong¡¯s foot. A frosty look in his eyes, he punched out while stepping on a Nova!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The Nova¡¯s head was obliterated!

    He Yong didn¡¯t care for killing these people, but they refused to be biddable after he fired a warning shot. In that case, he would show them no mercy.

    ¡°Southern Fist!¡± Yuan Xingwu¡¯s eyes widened in the distance. He recognized Southern Fist, which meant he instantly thought of the other person¡ªEarthturner Sword, Hong Yitang! What a terrifying Silver Moon martial world!

    He turned his gaze toward the rampaging Li Hao and Xu Feng hot on his heels. Yuan Xingwu twitched to move, but He Yong¡¯s presence locked onto him. ¡°Yuan Xingwu, is it? Whether you want to help him or hurt him... don¡¯t go over there! My fists won¡¯t stop because of who you are and Yuan Shuo doesn¡¯t admit that you¡¯re his first disciple. I don¡¯t need to show you mercy!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s no match for Xu Feng,¡± Yuan Xingwu answered solemnly. ¡°Xu Feng is listed on the Divine Masters Ranking and is a mid Nova. He will die once he runs out of protection from the soldiers! If the senior wishes to help him, you should fight Xu Feng yourself.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t need you to give me reminders!¡± He Yong ignored him. Would Li Hao die? Who knew if he wasn¡¯t forced to his limits?

 Chapter 466: Sword Unsheathed (II)

    <h4>Chapter 466: Sword Unsheathed (II)</h4>

    He Yong considered Li Hao slightly indecisive when it came to battle, but not in terms of executing on his goals. The young man fiercely pummeled the weak, yet was overcautious when it came to the strong. Was there any point in that?

    <i>I¡¯ll let you y with a strong guy this time!</i>

    He Yong was quite irritated that Li Hao was skilled at bullying the weak and cowered in front of the strong. He¡¯d wanted to find an opportunity to knock the young man down a few pegs. Of course, he would naturally lend a hand if it looked like Li Hao really was going to die.

    The old man nearby would have nothing to say if he pulled Li Hao out of harm¡¯s way just once. The difference in strength between the two youngsters was too great. He would have the right to help even if this was back in the glory days of the martial world. This was a specific assistance offered to the weak to ensure that martial masters wouldn¡¯t hem and haw when challenging the strong.

    ......

    These concerns were not on Li Hao¡¯s mind at the moment. He took a breath after killing another fleeing Sr; the longsword in his hand became ever more withdrawn in terms of presence.

    There was no one in front of him anymore. Even if there was, they¡¯d fled to the outer city for shelter. The groups of supernaturals on the battlefield had been forcefully disbanded. He wouldn¡¯t find many targets for his sword if he wanted to kill more.

    Another explosion sounded behind him.

    <i>Thirty-six! </i>Li Hao repeated to himself. Thirty-two ck Armors, four Bronze Armors. The might of a Nova was on full disy against these soldiers. Xu Feng¡¯s target remained Li Hao all this time, but he¡¯d still killed thirty-six Battle Heaven soldiers.

    The young man paused and turned.

    Xu Feng was panting slightly; he smiled at Li Hao¡¯s motion. ¡°You¡¯ve finally stopped running huh.¡±

    The ck Armors around them were either scattered or dead. The closest ones were several dozen meters away and rushing their way, breaking through the supernatural blockade.

    ¡°Li Hao, my words stand from before. Hand over the armor, I have no interest in killing you.¡± Xu Feng grinned. ¡°It is difficult for martial masters to reach this level of strength. I quite value talent, so you cane help me. Of course, you can also refuse to join me, I won¡¯t be angry. The armor does not belong to you to begin with. I¡¯llpensate you with some mysterious power stones if you hand it over. What do you say?¡±

    Li Hao had said nothing all this time. ¡°You¡¯ve... killed thirty-six warriors!¡± he finally broke his silence.

    Xu Feng blinked, then smiled. ¡°Don¡¯t be silly, Li Hao, and stop stalling for time. There¡¯s no point to that. The Silver Armors will soon fade after their reawakening. I can let you go, but the three great organizations will not. You still have time to flee after handing over the armor. If not... you won''t have time, even if I decide to show mercy!¡±

    ¡°I want to kill you!¡± Li Hao replied seriously. ¡°Sadly, your life won¡¯t be worth theirs and you only have one. I rarely say anything to the dead, but I¡¯m not certain that I¡¯ll be able to kill youter. However, I will do all that I can to kill you!¡±

    ¡°Stubborn as a goat!¡± Xu Feng snapped. ¡°Who do you think you are?! Do you really think martial masters are that formidable? Do you think your teacher Yuan Shuo is very strong? You¡¯re delusional! One of your so-called thirty-six is a servant for my family...¡±

    What a ludicrous fellow! As Xu Feng snorted to himself, Li Hao made his move. He walked on the ground instead of taking to the air. Throwing himself forward, he nted one foot on the earth. Power surged into his body¡ªthat of the ancient city.

    Li Hao extracted some power from the earth and tore through the air with his sword!

    Xu Feng sniffed dismissively at the longsword and erupted with ice energy again. This time, the ice cubes transformed into sheets of mirrors and extended throughout the vicinity, sealing it off.

    A world of ice! Only ice cubes could be found within a dozen meters in every direction. Not only that, but Xu Feng waved out a bronze mirror to ensure that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t run again and to prevent interruption by ck Armors!

    This was his origin weapon¡ªit expanded into a massive barrier that locked onto the four corners.

    Xu Feng¡¯s long locks swayed in a wind that carried ice crystals within it. ¡°Try and run now, why don¡¯t you!¡± He looked at the charging Li Hao.

    <i>Go on, run!</i>

    Xu Feng punched with a fist of frost and seemed to freeze the void itself. Li Hao¡¯s longsword broke throughyers of defenses, but was ultimately frozen by countless ice cubes!

    <i>So that¡¯s all there is to you!</i>

    Li Hao growled and rose up as a ferocious tiger. A gout of me erupted and shattered the ice. Nineyers of waves erupted on the longsword as it broke free and erupted!

    <i>ng!</i>

    A massive collision came from a pair of boxing gloves that¡¯d suddenly appeared on Xu Feng¡¯s fists. ¡°I have more than one origin weapon!¡± He smiled. <i>Do you think that I can¡¯t defend myself without the bronze mirror? Li Hao, you know too little of the world.</i>

    Origin weapons were precious and rare even in the Xu household, but as the most talented heir and a powerhouse on the Divine Masters Ranking, he¡¯d received two. The Heart Protector was meant for defense, the boxing gloves for offense. Both defense and offense were fully covered!

    That was why he¡¯d used the Heart Protector to seal off the premises. Otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t dare easily toss out the mirror knowing the keenness of Li Hao¡¯s de. But just as the Heart Protector, the weapon soul within the boxing gloves stayed firmly inside. It made the origin weapon lose some of its supplemental attributes, a development that both annoyed Xu Feng and filled him with more greed.

    He could sense that his origin weapons were afraid of Li Hao¡¯s sword. That was good! This meant that the sword was very high level and thus suppressed the power of his.

    Li Hao once again stabbed with his sword. Xu Feng waved his fists, sending the longsword off to the side with one fist and opening the palm of the other to grab at the longsword! Although the boxing gloves were not reinforced by its weapon soul at the moment, the weapon itself was exceedingly durable. Thus, he wasn¡¯t afraid of anything.

    After his first fist sent the longsword astray, it continued toward Li Hao¡¯s head. This damned little bastard!

    The silent Li Hao suddenly opened his mouth and created an opening in his visor where his mouth was. A mouthful of internal force spewed forth as his internal sword erupted!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    He¡¯d held this breath in for a very long period of time. It avoided his fists and made straight for Xu Feng¡¯s head. Thetter¡¯s eyes narrowed as an ice shield automatically appeared in front of him.

    It shattered with a thump, scoring bloody marks across Xu Feng¡¯s face with the ice shards. One of his fists hit Li Hao¡¯s head. The young man spun dizzily, finding his head gripped with pain, but shed a smile. He¡¯d finally injured his opponent!

    Up to this point, his opponent had made use of the Heart Protector, boxing gloves, and formidable ice shields to emerge unscathed despite being pierced by Steris a few times. Only this time, with the explosion of sword qi and ice shield, did he leave blood traces on the other¡¯s face!

    Xu Feng glowered. He grabbed the longsword with a snort and smashed his fist toward Li Hao. <i>Bastard!</i>

    Li Hao shook his head and swung with his other hand as well. The Nine Forged Force erupted¡ªboom!

    Both fists collided¡ªLi Hao felt like his hand was about to shatter, even though the armor. He ignored the pain and flooded his body with sword energy. Roaring like a ferocious tiger pouncing, he swung his fist again!

    <i>Bam bam bam!</i>

    The two exchanged a hundred blows in quick session. There even seemed to be a fracture developing on the silver armor. Li Hao¡¯s hand was a mangled mess inside the armor, but sword energy swiftly repaired his injuries. It could not regrow flesh and blood, but it could swiftly seal wounds for him so that he did not continue to lose blood.

    His left hand was starting to lose strength; his right hand continued to wield the sword. Steris shook violently, but was unable to leave the other¡¯s death grip.

    Xu Feng gripped Li Hao¡¯s sword and punched with his right hand. His hand within the boxing glove was alsoing off worse for the wear. <i>This guy can seriously hold out!</i>

    Panting sounded in both of their ears. Li Hao heaved for air while Xu Feng¡¯s breathing was also heavier. It was so much harder fighting Li Hao than an initial Nova. What was with this guy?

    Li Hao erupted with the Nine Forged Force again and again, punching with abandon. A wave starteding into formation and surged out, pping Xu Feng¡¯s fist back with nineyers of waves!

    ¡°The Nine Forged Force, is it?¡± Xu Fengughed as he sucked in a mouthful of air. ¡°So the Liu family of Silver Moon have taught you their family method. It looks like Silver Gun¡¯s descendants are truly trash...¡±

    Li Hao was smiling as well. It was a fantastic feeling to fight a mid Nova to his heart¡¯s content! The two quickly exchanged another hundred blows. His arm was about to shatter as well, but it felt so good. Just as He Yong had said, to be brash was to be martial dao!

    His longsword continued to vibrate, but it couldn¡¯t break free of the other¡¯s grasp. Li Hao didn¡¯t mind. Steris had its own dignity and temper, this was good.

    The wave of water grew in volume. The water aura that¡¯d been unable to take shape when he killed Xie Gang was slowly manifesting. Li Hao breathed out gently, almost emotionally. He¡¯d spent the longest timeprehending the water aura out of his four auras.

    The earth aura had been the easiest, to think of it was to manifest it. The fire aura had been stronger, but putting himself in the proper frame of mind after observing a ferocious tiger break free of its cage was enough for sess. The metal aura had easilye into existence when he broke the Broken Will Spear. Only the water aura had continuously remained out of reach.

    He knew how toprehend it and practiced the Nine Forged Force to its utmost. He¡¯d observed the sea and watched Liu Long deploy it multiple times...

    It turned out that purposefully learning was the most difficult for Li Hao!

    He¡¯de in contact with the Nine Forged Force a long time ago. Perhaps it didn¡¯t count as long for other people, but it was what he¡¯d learned when he first set foot into martial dao. It took until today for the water aura to gradually reveal itself.

    It¡¯d been too hard!

 Chapter 467: Sword Unsheathed (III)

    <h4>Chapter 467: Sword Unsheathed (III)</h4>

    The wave manifested with sea spray around it, like a dragon. The water dragon struck¡ªXu Feng ignored it as it didn¡¯t seem too strong. He punched straight through it with a hint of derision!

    Not bad, this aura, it could go against peak Srs. Butpared to Li Hao¡¯s sword aura... it was very weak. If the sword aura couldn¡¯t do anything to him, then the water dragon would do even less!

    The water dragon didn¡¯t seem willing to dissipate. It reappeared with some determination, but promptly vanished again. A chain unfurled from Li Hao¡¯s kidneys and snaked around the water dragon, locking it in ce!

    Previous instations of auras into his organs had been difficult, but this one today was incredibly easy. His fortified organs and body gave Li Hao a different kind of confidence. The summoning of the spirit wasplete in a split second.

    Of his five organs, the lungs locked the metal aura, the heart locked the fire aura, the kidneys locked the water aura, and the spleen locked the earth aura. Apart from the liver remaining empty, there were auras in residence in the other four organs.

    Li Hao and Xu Feng still pummeled each other with their fists. A frowning old man in the distance wanted to take a closer look, but he suddenly whipped his head back. Even He Yong looked back as a glint of gold sparkled in the distance!

    The three great organizations, Hou Xiaochen and his people, paled with horror. A Gold Armor! The Gold Armor within the city was making its appearance!

    ¡°This is bad!¡± gasped the crowd. A reawakened Silver Armor was horrifying enough. The three great organizations could barely keep the three Silver armors contained. They could only passively defend.

    They¡¯d thought that only after entering the city and disturbing the ck Tortoise Seal would they elicit a reaction from the Gold Armor. At that time, they would¡¯ve already eliminated the city¡¯s army, so jointly acting against the Gold Armor wouldn¡¯t be a problem. But now... no!

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s expression shifted dramatically once again.<i> BAM!</i>

    A sword descended with the momentum of a copsing Mount Tai. The skies churned and earth overturned in all directions. Hong Yitang didn¡¯t care about the Gold Armor¡ªhe shed down then the group was distracted!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Hong Yitang was thrust into the ground. He coughed out a mouthful of fresh blood and looked on with shock and fury. <i>Hong Yitang!</i>

    There was a cut on Kong Jie¡¯s fist that oozed blood; he also dropped to the ground. Several other powerhouses stirred weakly from prone positions. Golden Spear was vomiting blood, as was Manager Yu.

    This joint collective of powerhouses had been struck from the sky! Hu Qingfeng was in the worst state¡ªone of his arms had exploded. White as a sheet, he ran for Qi Gang. Thetter was also trying to prevent himself from vomiting all of the blood in his system.

    <i>What are you running toward me for?? </i>he cursed inwardly. <i>I should¡¯ve stayed away from this forsaken ce! I¡¯m someone on the Divine Masters Ranking, but I¡¯m just a ceholder here and nearly lost my life. I¡¯d probably be in pieces if that guy really wanted our lives!</i>

    Silver Moon was too dangerous.

    He caught sight of the Gold Armor flying their way and looked urgently at Hou Xiaochen and Earthturner Sword. Hou Xiaochen coughed gently and spat out some blood. ¡°Satisfied now?¡± he breathed heavily as he looked at Hong Yitang.

    ¡°You sound like you¡¯re asking a child if candy tastes good,¡± Hong Yitang said calmly. ¡°Hou Xiaochen, you can strut around in front of others, but in front of me... Unseal your organs if you have the nerve to! I¡¯d like to see which one of us will kill the other when you¡¯re fully unsealed!¡±

    ¡°Is there a need for that?¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at him with a wan face¡ªa sign of his internal injuries guing him. ¡°I rarely made trouble for you over these years and only moved against the Sword Sectst time because unrest hade to Silver Moon. I needed some help¡ªyou¡¯re going to fight me to the death for that?¡±

    ¡°Enough is enough, Hong Yitang,¡± said Kong Jie as well. ¡°We are indeed no match for you if we do not unseal ourselves. But even if we don¡¯t, the gap between us is not that big. There is no need to make a fool out of ourselves in front of others...¡±

    Color drained from the faces of Hu Qingfeng and the rest of the delegation from the official authorities. These words... were quite tant in their meaning, and that meaning was horrifying. Unseal? What did that mean? Could it be... that Hong Yitang was shockingly powerful and that both Hou Xiaochen and Kong Jie were on the same level?

    If that was the case, that was astounding!

    Hong Yitang wanted to say a few more words, but his eyes quickly darted elsewhere. He was annoyed by Hou Xiaochen and wanted to cause more trouble for the man, but he now frowned at the distance¡ªnot at the Gold Armor behind them, but elsewhere.

    Hou Xiaochen and Kong Jie also followed his gaze a split secondter. The others were slower.

    ......

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    Li Hao had secured his fourth aura. The water aura flowed into his longsword with a shake of the weapon. The old man watching the Gold Armor whipped his head back and thought of something when he looked at the young man¡ªSummoner of Spirit!

    Summoning the five auras!

    The old man immediately set one foot through the air and teleported. At the same time, raging blood qi exploded!

    He Yong appeared, punching his own heart. The heart chain almost snapped into two, followed swiftly by the lung and liver chains. An incredibly formidable presence surged forth, one that exceeded his eruption at Ash Mountain!

    He¡¯d only broken one supernatural chain then, but for the old man, he broke three! He Yong punched with a fist amid the old man¡¯s furious re!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The earth and sky shattered, making Hong Yitang and the others in the distance pause with surprise. Hou Xiaochen ached from the implications of the move. Was Southern Fist... crazy? He was less than Hong Yitang and the rest of them, he might not even be on par with Manager Yu...

    Indeed, this was a regr show of strength for a mid Nova. Manager Yu was even stronger than regr mid Novas. But after breaking three supernatural locks in a row, fearsome blood qi enveloped the world. A massive fist hovered in the void when He Yong punched out!

    Tyrannical, cold, and crazy!

    ¡°He Yong!¡± howled the old man. ¡°You¡¯re crazy!¡±

    A longsword threaded through thend, its sword light illuminating the void and projecting into the firmament. The entire ancient city seemed to be flooded with light. Sword intent threw light on the world when the longsword appeared!

    ¡°Light Sword... you¡¯re the crazy one!¡± He Yong snorted. ¡°I¡¯d like to see if the number three of the Seven Swords is stronger than Hong Yitang!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Fist met sword; the fist broke through the void and smashed the longsword shadow to pieces. The old man roared angrily and reached out with a hand, manifesting an even stronger sword of light beneath the heavens!

    <i>He Yong, you bastard, Xu Feng can¡¯t die yet...</i>

    Meanwhile, He Yong flew into an utter rage to see the old man summon a more powerful sword. Were the Seven Swords supposed to be strong? It was one thing if he was less than Earthturner Sword, but Light Sword was just number three! Did he think himself as number one of the Seven Swords??

    In the Record of Heroes, both Sky Sword and Earthturner Sword had been ranked above Southern Fist. But the third of Light Sword only rivaled Southern Fist.<i> How dare you defy me when I¡¯ve snapped three locks?!</i>

    ¡°You court death!¡± He Yong snarled as another chain snapped amidst a loud rumble. The fourth chain dangled, almostpletely broken. Another surge of power rose; Hong Yitang sucked in a sharp breath in the distance. This was bad! This madman waspletely ignoring the consequences now that his ire waspletely roused.

    Snapping four chains... even if they weren¡¯t fully broken... would easily give rise to a chain reaction throughout his body. Li Hao may not be able to repair everything. <i>Three is the limit, why do you seek to gain more?</i>

    The old man¡¯s eyes widened with dismay.

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    The longsword was obliterated into particles of dust. He Yong punched again, as if concentrating thousands of fists into one...

    Even the void ruptured!

    Countless swords of light appeared around the old man, but they exploded one after another. The iparable He Yong was thirty percent stronger than when he fought the golden eagle. He was almost exceeding Nova¡ªor one could say that he pretty much had.

    The old man was likewise formidable, but couldn¡¯t evade being struck when his opponent was a rampaging He Yong! He flew backward, bones broken and blood spurting out of his mouth! He crashed heavily into an ancient house, shaking the indestructible structure.

    He Yong hovered in the air, indomitable and aloof! Light Sword was indeed very strong¡ªhe might not be able to triumph over the old fart if he didn¡¯t break four locks. <i>Do you dare do the same? I dare! I smashed you out ofmission with absolute strength in one punch. It¡¯s your fault for being so damn arrogant!</i>

    To the rear, Kong Jie and Hou Xiaochen grappled with migraines. Another one?! He Yong was the weakest out of them all if they fought a fair fight without unsealing anything. But at the moment... the madman had gone crazy and unsealed four of his organs. The two of them would probably be sent flying even if they fought him together. He was too brutal!

    Hou Xiaochen said nothing now. Keeping a low profile was the name of the game. Hong Yitang wanted to say something, but didn¡¯t.<i> Stop the act and hurry your ass over to Li Hao! If you don¡¯t seal the four locks again, you¡¯ll die instead of bing a supernatural. Your organs will explode!</i>

    He Yong¡¯s sudden eruption distracted people from their earlier observation. A streak of sword light red when Light Sword was defeated!

    ¡°Sever!¡± Li Hao roared, ignoring everyone else on the battlefield. What did Light Sword or He Yong have to do with him? His enemy was the bastard in front of him!

    Xu Feng¡¯s face ckened with shock as the hand that was gripping the longsword split apart. Cracks crawled up the boxing gloves, revealing a terrified weapon soul appeared. The gloves suddenly flew away!

    The Eternal Sword!

 Chapter 468: Sword Unsheathed (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 468: Sword Unsheathed (IV)</h4>

    Xu Feng panicked when he lost the boxing gloves. Mysterious power sted forth as he roared in fury. He wanted to dodge Li Hao¡¯s blow, but he¡¯d already sealed off the premises and used the Heart Protector to reinforce the icy blockade...

    There was no time to run and no ce to run!

    Off in the distance, Light Sword staggered to his feet and threw himself into the air. ¡°Li Hao, a thousand mysterious power stones...¡± he shouted in resignation and anguish.

    Li Hao¡¯s momentum continued unabated, as if he hadn¡¯t heard the iplete sentence. He struck with a blow that held fourbined auras and deployed the Incantation of the de of Blood to the utmost! All of the sword energy within Steris surged out as well, transforming into strength. He struck!

    <i>What mysterious power stones?</i>

    <i>Do you think I care?</i>

    <i>Go to hell!</i>

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Countless ice cubes exploded when his sword descended. Steris also seemed enraged that this person had continuously suppressed it. The sword erupted with heretofore unseen resplendence!

    The sword descended!

    The Gold Armor that¡¯d just reached the city walls looked in the sword¡¯s direction with a keen glint in his eyes. That was the legacy of the Sword Sovereign!

    Xu Feng roared, ring his mysterious power once more. It flooded out of his body to form an ice shield, wanting to stop the sword stroke.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Blood poured out of Xu Feng as the shield of ice exploded. The sword continued to descend. Xu Feng punched at Li Hao, but his arm disintegrated when it hit Li Hao!

    Incredulity dawned in Xu Feng¡¯s eyes and he looked at Li Hao. ¡°You do know... that I am from the Xu n!¡± he said after a moment. Pieces of flesh were falling off his face, as did the rest of his body. However, he didn¡¯t cry out with pain or despair. He was only taken aback. ¡°Do you... know the Xus??¡±

    The person in front of him was killing him! Not everyone dared provoke the Xus, even in the central region. Neither the nine ministries nor the royal family dared to easily kill a Xu. Not even the three great organizations dared! Where did this guy find the balls to do so??

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± Li Hao spat out a mouthful of blood and punched with a final rumble thatpletely broke his opponent into pieces! He swung with a punch, and another punch! He punched thirty-six times until Xu Feng was a pulped mass. Li Hao spat derisively. ¡°The Xus huh? Are they as glorious as my Li n?¡±

    <i>Pah! Who do you think you are? I haven¡¯t boasted about my family background yet, how is it your turn? Do you know who the Lis of the eight great families are? Do you know how strong my ancestor was?? Wanting topete in family background with me... Pfft, up yours! Your family ain¡¯t worth shit unless you¡¯re the imperial majesty or the Human King¡¯s family!</i>

    Dead silence reigned. Xu Feng was dead. His body had been desecrated by his furious opponent and minced to a pulp!

    Li Hao dismissed the armor and revealed his true form. He smiled at the supernaturals around him and waved at the three great organizations. ¡°Nice to meet you. I am Li Hao of the Lis in Silver City, Li Hao of the Five Styles discipline. Greetings to all!¡±

    No one answered him. He Yong grinned in the air¡ª<i>well done! </i>His expression immediately changed drastically¡ª<i>shit, I can¡¯t hold this! </i>He immediatelynded next to Li Hao. The ice cubes had vanished and the Heart Protector had fallen to the ground. He ignored all that and grabbed the young man¡¯s hand, transmitting, ¡°Save me!¡±

    On the surface, however, he yelled, ¡°Are you alright, Li Hao? What bullshit Xu n¡ªI¡¯ll chop all of their heads off if anything happens to you!¡±

    Formidable blood qi raced through the clouds! It was so domineering that Light Sword paled and halted in the middle of flying over. Southern Fist was too strong!

    Those of the three great organizations also looked at each other with dismay. <i>Damn it, what kind of forsaken ce is this! Why are these martial masters each more terrifying and shocking than thest!</i>

    Some supernaturals in the distance felt that they were about to pop from the pressure. They nearly crashed into each other in their haste to get away.

    He Yong glowered in all directions, but continued his rapid-fire transmission, ¡°Save me, hurry and save me, quick! Li Hao, I¡¯m done for, hurry!¡±

    Li Hao took his hand, but his expression soon shifted. ¡°That energy... is depleted!¡± he transmitted back.

    All of the color drained out of He Yong¡¯s face beneath the visor. <i>Are you kidding me?!</i>

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Blood qi roiled, along with some supernatural strength. The valiant Southern Fist was the most eye-catching existence on the battlefield. He eclipsed the three Silver Armors and the Gold Armor approaching the outsiders!

    ¡°Battle Heaven Army, kill!¡± he roared despite his wanplexion.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    He grabbed Li Hao and jumped into the air, punching at Hou Xiaochen...

    The director¡¯s mouth twisted as he swiftly evaded, but couldn¡¯t dodge the blow. The fist sent a furious man flying and coughing up blood. <i>What have I ever done to you??</i>

    He Yong leapt up the city walls with Li Hao in tow and vanished without a look back. Help! He¡¯d gone overboard!

    He left a mystified crowd in his wake, but a golden broadsword promptly smashed down from above. Itnded on the Red Moon delegation and obliterated all of its Srs! Peak Sr Violet Moon made it to safety thanks to the efforts of Blue Moon and Green Moon. The remaining Red Moon Nova could only watch the other three escape. Their difference in status was clear to see in this moment. He was less important than Violet Moon. The swordnded with a giant boom!

    The Nova was smashed to pieces¡ªnot shed, but smashed!

    ¡°Run!¡± Yama and Celestial¡¯s powerhouses fled. Not only that, but a Hou Xiaochen who¡¯d been bowled off his feet by the fallout also called for retreat.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Countless sword shadows appeared when the broadswordnded and smashed supernaturals to death like they were mountain peaks!

    ¡°Army of Battle Heaven, charge!¡± emitted a voice with ancient ir from the Gold Armor. ¡°How dare insignificant robbers and bandits strut around in borrowed might!¡±

    These trespassers were nothing more than bandits! How dare they invade Battle Heaven! If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the soldiers shouldn¡¯t easily reawaken, the Gold Armor would¡¯ve exterminated them long ago!

    The remaining Battle Heaven soldiers struck with a ferocious surge! Under the Gold Armor and three Silver Armors¡¯ leadership, ck Armors charged like dark tidewaters. Ghastly shrieks rang unceasingly wherever they struck.

    The supernaturals were swiftly defeated; it wasn¡¯t enough for them to retreat to the za. No one considered that they would have to take the second passageway again if they exited the city. They all pelted for outside the city!

    The Gold Armor stopped only when he reached the edge of the za. A vicious glint shone in his eyes as he looked at the scattering supernaturals. What a pity that the passage of time was merciless and the army was long dead. This turned the city outskirts into a haven for bandits instead!

    What a pity, what a pity...

    Losing his physical body and soul meant losing everything. Even he could not walk out of the ancient city¡¯s range. He could only watch as the trespassers celebrated surviving a cmity.

    ¡°Return to your posts!¡± The remaining soldiers withdrew upon this order to defend the inner city.

    Powerhouses outside the city gasped for air, all of them slightly terrified. The sudden change in situation and the Gold Armor¡¯s strength exceeded their expectations. Red Moon was suddenly down to only their three leaders. All of their Srs and one Nova had died to one sword stroke. Before that, the army¡¯s greatest battle aplishment was killing a mid Sr. Was this city truly alive again?

    Hou Xiaochen breathed out silently and looked at the inner city with resignation. He¡¯d been beaten several times in a row today!<i> He Yong and Hong Yitang... you bastards!</i>

    ......

    Fear and horror suffused the perimeter of the ancient city. Although the powerhouses had run fast enough when the ck Armors charged at the behest of the Gold Armor and three Silver Armors, most of the wandering cultivators and weaker supernaturals weren¡¯t that fast.

    Nearly two thousand were initially present on the expedition team. Several hundred had died in the first round of battle, Li Hao killed more than one hundred through his guerri warfare, and thest battle had caused another round of deaths. By now, the supernaturals were thoroughly routed and the casualties too many to count.

    When the Gold Armor stopped near the za and returned to defend the city, Hou Xiaochen couldn¡¯t help but sigh inwardly as he looked around him. People died in the pursuit of riches!

    A sizable portion of the expedition team was supernaturals, but now there were at most five hundred left. Their losses had been heavy and the surviving supernaturals seemed scared out of their wits. Making it out of this particr encounter alive didn¡¯t mean that they¡¯d continue to do so!

    Once superhumans were terrified to the point where their mentality copsed, it was hard to take another step forward. Besides, was exiting the ruins that straightforward?

    It¡¯d been only one day since the expedition started¡ªthe doors wouldn¡¯t be open until tomorrow night at the earliest. It would also require those on the outside to facilitate the opening. They¡¯d already said that they would not open the doors before then. If the third day dawned, the doors would open themselves even if there was no help from outside.

    There were two more days of this hellish torment toe!

    Hou Xiaochen looked around him; it¡¯d taken such a short period of time to further whittle away at their Novas. Red Moon had just lost another, leaving Blue Moon, Green Moon, and the horrified peak Sr Violet Moon.

    The Parity King was still present on the Yama side, but he seemed to have lost a certain group of people that normally served under his banner. Thank goodness he still possessed two more Novas. That meant all three Novas in his group were alive.

    On the Celestial side, they¡¯d lost an elder, leaving two remaining. No one knew if the dead elder had fallen prey to one of the Silver Armors.

    On the wandering cultivator side, there¡¯d been Xu Feng, Yuan Xinwu, and a total of five Novas. It was a decent number, but now there were three. Xu Feng was dead and another one fell victim to one of He Yong¡¯s fists.

    Light Sword was standing by himself not too far away. The look in his eyes continuously shifted; no one knew what he was thinking.

 Chapter 469: After the Battle (I)

    <h4>Chapter 469: After the Battle (I)</h4>

    Manager Yu and the others were badly shaken from the various disys of might, but they quickly recovered themselves. The manager studied someone not too far from them and eximed, ¡°He¡¯s Light Sword?¡±

    As one of the thirty-six, she¡¯d found the old man familiar and guessed at several possibilities. Light Sword was the only one that didn¡¯t enter her mind. Northern Fist or even Tyrant de had been on her list of candidates, but not Light Sword!

    It was normal for an old acquaintance to alter their appearance and conceal their identity so others wouldn¡¯t recognize them. However, that didn¡¯t extend to the point of a woman turning into a man, did it?

    Indeed, Light Sword was the only other female swordsman among the Seven Swords. The other was Jadelight Sword.

    Sky Sword, Earthturner Sword, Light Sword... She was third among the Seven Swords and very strong. It wasn¡¯t out of the ordinary that she possessed her current strength, though it did eclipse many of the other fellow thirty-six. Manager Yu just hadn¡¯t thought that the old man would be Light Sword!

    <i>She¡¯s changed even her gender?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen looked over and shook his head. ¡°It hasn¡¯t changed!¡±

    ¡°Then...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t ask,¡± Hou Xiaochen interrupted. He knew some of the inside story, but wasn¡¯t at liberty to say much. It also appeared that Light Sword was rather despondent at the moment, so he didn¡¯t want to say anything else.

    There was likely quite a backstory to Light Sword joining the Xus. Manager Yu didn¡¯t ask further either.

    The remaining powerhouses of the three great organizations swiftly gathered together. They still possessed seven Novas¡ªthose congregated first. There were more than twenty Srs left, they quickly formed another group.

    Theirs was the strongest faction out of the survivors. Not only that, but Green Moon barked at the remaining wandering cultivators. ¡°What are you waiting for? All of this might be a scheme! Look at how many are dead, especially Novas!

    ¡°Yellow Moon is dead, Xu Feng on the Divine Masters Ranking is dead. Southern Fist and Earthturner Sword have hidden themselves well all this time, but choose to expose themselves today. Hou Xiaochen and the others have incredible battle strength. Do you still not understand the situation?!¡±

    She didn¡¯t need to put it more inly after that. There were three Novas left among the wandering cultivators. Two of them immediately drew closer to the three great organizations. Yuan Xingwu frowned, but didn¡¯t move.

    The three great organizations umted nine Novas within the blink of an eye. There were another dozen Srs among the wandering cultivators that moved with the Novas. That side was immensely bolstered.

    Apart from the unmoving Yuan Xingwu at the head of his Skystar Troops, only Light Sword continued to look inside the city. She was distracted, unheeding of the two camps that the entire outskirts had divided into. It was the Silver Moon authorities versus the three great organizations.

    On the side of the official authorities, Hu Qingfeng was gravely wounded and horrified by the development. Qi Gang brooded as he silently recovered from heavy injuries as well. Both of them felt a deep sense of danger. If it wasn¡¯t for the circumstances, they¡¯d want to run. Indeed, some things could not bear further consideration¡ªthat would be too terrifying.

    Why had so many veteran Silver Moon martial masters suddenly appeared in the Battle Heaven ruins? And none of them were weaklings. They were all too powerful to be imagined. So this was how strong martial masters were!

    The two camps were clearly delineated and stood on opposite sides from each other. The three great organizations would likely leave immediately if the entrance was open. But they didn¡¯t dare depart now. What if the other side immediately colluded with those inside the city as soon as they left!

    There was also the possibility that there were some disagreements between Hou Xiaochen and Li Hao. Why else would Earthturner Sword keep them preupied for so long? Without Earthturner Sword... No, it would be incredibly frightening if the other side allied with Earthturner Sword. Southern Fist was also a terrifying existence.

    Green Moon looked at Light Sword standing apart from them. ¡°Light Sword, you can only join us if you want to save yourself. Otherwise...¡±

    The old man turned toward Green Moon and seemed to brieflye back to his senses. He looked at her for a while and smiled in an ugly fashion, ¡°Peacock, you guys probably won¡¯t be leaving either!¡±

    Green Moon¡¯s expression shifted drastically! What did he mean? Was Hou Xiaochen going to murder them all in the ruins? But there were multiple Novas on their side and numerous Srs on their side. If it came down to a fight to the death, the other side wouldn¡¯t get off easy either.

    ¡°Don¡¯t start stories,¡± Hou Xiaochen said calmly after a nce at Light Sword. ¡°We have no such intentions or interest. I¡¯m more interested in whether the three Silver Armors will fully perish? I saw the Gold Armor take them into the city!¡±

    There were currently no Silver Armors or Gold Armor on the city walls. The inner city seemed to have returned to quiet. Hou Xiaochen was indeed considering the fates of the three Silver Armors. There might be a chance yet if they werepletely dead. But if they lived and could continue to reawaken... that would make them the equivalent of three peak Novas. They would be difficult opponents, particrly with Southern Fist and Earthturner Sword on their side, not to mention the even more horrifying Gold Armor.

    Light Sword ignored him and continued to peer into the city. Where were Southern Fist and Earthturner Sword? Were they not afraid of opening their supernatural locks? Or was there something inside the city to help them recover?

    Green Moon and the rest were on high alert. Most of the wandering cultivators drifted to their side, each horrified beyond belief. They¡¯de here to get rich quick, who knew so many other matters would be involved instead??

    The Silver Moon martial masters boggled the mind and seemed impossible to defeat. Some of them had even joined the Battle Heaven Army, an iprehensible fact! The more they knew, the more dangerous their situation was! Everyone was well aware of that. In that case, could they sessfully make it out of the ruins?

    Despair shrouded many hearts¡ªtheir chances of survival looked dim.

    On the other hand, if a powerhouse like Light Sword joined them... Hu Qingfeng and Qi Gang also seemed to be wavering on the Silver Moon side. They might choose to rebel. If that was the case, then they might stand a chance!

    The two Novas among the wandering cultivators were respectively a mid Nova and initial Nova. Well, they weren¡¯t true wandering cultivators in the sense of the term, as how could Novas appear among wandering cultivators?

    One of them was a young man from the Lius of the Ministry of Finance. He was an initial Nova. The other was a mid Nova from the Director General Office of the neighboring Near River province. He was a powerhouse under the director general¡¯s banner and an exceedingly famous executive in the province.

    There¡¯d been a distinctck of Novas in Silver Moon on the surface until Hou Xiaochen made his move. That was when everyone learned that he was a Nova. After Manager Yu and Golden Spear also revealed their capabilities, the general public came to know that Silver Moon did possess Novas, and strong ones at that.

    Near River had always disyed strength greater than Silver Moon¡¯s. Currently, however, the general from the Director General Office reeled with shock. How would he ever think again that his home province was stronger than Silver Moon? None of these people were what they seemed!

    Some of the Srs among the wandering cultivators also hailed from major factions. They¡¯d simply concealed their identity. This wasn¡¯t an optimal time to reveal it, so they could only fall in line with the three great organizations and hope to obtain protection that way. They would make a report of the updated situation as soon as they left the ruins.

    Reality was intensely frightening! Hou Xiaochen and Kong Jie of Silver Moon were ferocious beyond belief, and was that it? Were there more powerful existences out there?

    Earthturner Sword and Southern Fist blew the group away with their strength, and apparently Li Hao was only a peak Sr who could kill Srs. Bullshit! Could a peak Sr kill someone on the Divine Masters Ranking?

    Everything was fake! Silver Moon martial masters were treacherous little snakes that¡¯d hidden their true strength!

    At the moment, the two sides barely managed to maintain peace. No one knew if anyone would be making it out alive. But so long as the ones inside the city didn¡¯t ally with the Silver Moon contingent, then the other side may not be afraid of the Silver Moon authorities. If those two worked together, however, then the three great organizations were doomed.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, inside the city.</i>

    He Yong put down Li Hao and quickly took out everything in his storage ring, including the storage ring that Li Hao hadn¡¯t had a chance to collect when he killed Xu Feng. He Yong had also grabbed the boxing gloves that wanted to run away and the bronze mirror that¡¯d ttered to the ground.

    The Nova he¡¯d killed before also owned a storage ring, as did all the people he killed previously. He Yong dumped out everything in the rings and piled all of the mysterious power stones together. There were more than six hundred pieces, primarily from Xu Feng and another Nova. There were also the two origin weapons from Xu Feng. The other guy didn¡¯t have one.

    ¡°Will that do?¡± He looked urgently at Li Hao and turned to Hong Yitang when the mannded. ¡°How about you? The storage rings you got from when we killed people in the streets and the one from Yellow Moon¡ªhurry and take them out!¡±

    Hong Yitang greeted him wordlessly. <i>Weren¡¯t you extremely cocky just now?</i> The man shook his arm and produced a rain of mysterious power stones. There weren¡¯t as many as the ones in front of He Yong¡ªjust four hundred at most. It made for one thousand stones for Li Hao to draw from.

    ¡°And that big one!¡± He Yong said urgently. One thousand stones was a lot, but he and Hong Yitang had consumed eight hundred stones before. The two of them had snapped more locks today, would one thousand be enough?

    ¡°Hurry... please... don¡¯t be unwilling to share. Ole Hong, big brother, Master Hong... I can¡¯t hold on!¡± He Yong was on the verge of tears. He¡¯d had a fantastic time beating people up earlier, but was paying it back in spades now. He¡¯d broken four supernatural locks! If it wasn¡¯t for fortifying his organs recently and Li Hao helping him once, then the bath in the hot spring, he¡¯d already be dead.

    Hong Yitang cursed inwardly, but still took out a big piece of stone. It was the one he¡¯d cut into by the spring. He couldn¡¯t bear to bring out the other two wless pieces. The broken one he was handling was likely only the equivalent of three thousand pieces, but its quality was much higher than that. He offered his head to anyone who could buy this rock for three thousand pieces!

    Li Hao promptly stuck the sword into thergest piece of stone. His sword energy waspletely depleted. Hong Yitang raised a hand to stop the young man, but dropped it with a mournful sigh. ¡°You could¡¯ve started with the small ones...¡±

    Why go straight to the top!

 Chapter 470: After the Battle (II)

    <h4>Chapter 470: After the Battle (II)</h4>

    ¡°We don¡¯t have enough time!¡± Li Hao said urgently. ¡°The small ones convert too slowly. We need big ones like these that are pure enough!¡±

    Indeed, they didn¡¯t have enough time. Well, they were fine so long as He Yong could control his body, it was the little sword that couldn¡¯t wait. For the treasure that could barely bother with mysterious power stones before, this was its first time tasting anything so delicious. It was the first urrence of something that could be repeatedly feasted upon, so it¡¯d champed at the bit. It guzzled mysterious power as soon as it was thrust into therge rock!

    The little sword trembled from delight. Everything it¡¯d eaten before was trash! Origin weapon souls were good enough, but those were snacks. It¡¯d been starved of a main meal for so long, all the snacks did were prolong its suffering.

    Dense sword energy bloomed in the blink of an eye. The little sword grew rapidly¡ªit¡¯d already been the length of a forearm before. It started growing longer again.

    Li Hao swiftly drew on the sword energy and sent it into He Yong¡¯s body; he also absorbed some in the process. The sword energy seemed to be of higher caliber this time. The young man had suffered grave injuries in hisst fight and was finding it difficult to control four melded auras.

    He¡¯d been able to kill Xu Feng partially because the guy had been too arrogant. Xu Feng had depleted from the earlier chase, his boxing gloves ran off, and he¡¯d ensured his own death through sealing off the four corners. Otherwise, Li Hao wouldn¡¯t necessarily kill a mid Nova even through an ambush¡ªdespite melding four auras together.

    He might be able to match his opponent, but killing Xu Feng? That was in all likelihood difficult to do.

    Li Hao swiftly drew power from therge mysterious power stone. The three sat down cross-legged to furiously absorb energy. He Yong finally breathed out with ease while Hong Yitang remarked, ¡°Remember, you owe me three thousand mysterious power stones now. I¡¯m not charging you too much as thisrge piece can¡¯t be had for that sum!¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong could say nothing to that. ¡°You... absorbed some energy too...¡±

    ¡°I just need a little, I don¡¯t need that much. I¡¯m not like a certain someone who broke four supernatural locks to put on an impressive showing. Why would we be consuming so many stones otherwise??¡±

    Exhausting nearly four thousand stones in one go¡ªof which three thousand came from arge stone that was worth more! Even the three great organizations would go bankrupt at this rate! Granted, they were as good as nearly bankrupt after thest battle.

    It¡¯d been a fabulous fight with an equally fabulous price tag. Hong Yitang red viciously at He Yong. This madman had no money, so he shouldn¡¯t have been so brazen! That hadn¡¯t been a fight, that was just setting money on fire!

    Breaking three locks was sufficient against Light Sword¡ªeven one would be just barely enough to stop her. This guy had snapped four so he could put on an awe-inspiring performance. How else would he have sent the swordswoman flying with one punch, and Hou Xiaochen as well? But was there a point to that?

    <i>If I¡¯m willing to waste my money like you, I¡¯d put on an even better show! </i>Hong Yitang cursed to himself. <i>I didn¡¯t do anything, but here you go with guns a-zin¡¯. The key thing is, you¡¯re spending my money to do so! I should¡¯ve just let him die at Ash Mountain and not let him borrow anything!</i>

    He Yong looked on sheepishly, knowing that now wasn¡¯t a good time to talk. ¡°I did so to protect Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡± Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t be bothered to entertain that argument. <i>What protect Li Hao? You didn¡¯t need to go to the extreme! One thousand stones would be sufficient for an eruption likest time.</i>

    Hong Yitang blinked in the middle of castigating He Yong and looked to the side. Sword energy and mysterious power stones were being depleted at a fast rate and the key thing was, there seemed to be someone else here apart from the three of them absorbing the energy.

    He jumped with shock when he turned his head. A ck dog had appeared at some point, one that was almost skin and bones. Its tongue lolled and excitement filled its eyes as it took in sword energy like the energy was delicious fare that it hadn¡¯t seen in many days.

    How was there a dog in the city? Hong Yitang looked around alertly. An ancient dog? His look turned to skepticism when he nced at Li Hao. The young man remained directing energy with his eyes closed and also sent some to the dog.

    How surprising!

    As surprising as this was, Li Hao didn¡¯t have the capacity to dwell on it. Panth seemed to be starving; since they¡¯d run into each other here, he¡¯d feed it some. He was being generous with someone else¡¯s wealth anyway, it wasn¡¯t his money.

    Well, some of it was since a portion of the mysterious power stones on the ground had belonged to Xu Feng. Butpared to what they were absorbing, those stones were just a paltry tip.

    What surprised Hong Yitang was none other than the dog seemingly operating the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. He Yong sensed it as well and turned for a look. He was dazed by the sight and blinked with iprehension. A... dog had suddenly appeared and it knew the Breathing Method of the Five Styles!

    Both of them raised an eyebrow at each other. The dog also seemed very strong! A martial master dog? There didn¡¯t seem to be supernatural ripplesing from it, but it¡¯d approached them soundlessly and wasn¡¯t discovered until it started absorbing energy. It was clear to see that the dog was very skilled at concealing itself.

    Now that was terrifying! Where did this major monster spirite from? This dog spirit couldpare to those ones at Ash Mountain. Of course, it was hard to determine anything without a fight.

    When the two men saw Li Hao send energy over, they guessed that Li Hao knew the dog. They didn¡¯t say anything; only He Yong looked mournfully at the young man. <i>This is energy that I¡¯m taking out a loan for! Use it sparingly!</i>

    Three humans and one dog absorbed sword energy. The Gold Armor suddenlynded with the fading Silver Armors and nced at the gathering. ¡°Leader of the Twelfth Troop, head to the city lord manor when you have a moment!¡± it said mechanically and swiftly left with the three Silver Armors.

    Hong Yitang looked in their direction with a strange look in his eyes.

    ¡°The three Silver Armors seem to be dying!¡± He Yong transmitted. Hong Yitang inclined his head, he could feel it too. The Silver Armors were about to perish.

    Li Hao opened his eyes and looked thoughtfully in the Gold Armor¡¯s direction. Were they... about to dissipate?

    ......

    <i>The city lord manor, below the Tortoise Pagoda.</i>

    The Gold Armor stood still and waited with the three wavering Silver Armors. ¡°Please show them mercy, Guardian!¡±

    ¡°Are you... certain you wish to do this?¡± asked the old tortoise.

    ¡°I am certain!¡± The Gold Armor answered emphatically. ¡°They are surely willing as well to be weapon souls like me. They will be the weapon souls of their armor until the day the Battle Heaven Army and the Human King returns...¡±

    Weapon souls! To fully refine the fragments of their souls and lingering obsessions into the armor. This meant that they would fully be part of their equipment, just like the origin weapons.

    Origin weapons were unique byproducts of a great war between humans and monster spirits in the ancient civilization. Monster spirits were killed in an exceedingly cruel way and their souls extracted to be made into origin weapons. After the war was over and their emissary determined, the method of creating origin weapons was destroyed and banned.

    Even monster spirits found it cruel, much less humans. To be part of the weapon meant that one would never die, only gradually lose some memories and the remaining fragments of one¡¯s soul.

    ¡°Guardian... we... are willing!¡± came one of the three Silver Armors¡¯ thought ripples. ¡°We... are not willing to fade away like this! There was insufficient power within the city when the leader of the Tenth Troop faded away, so he could not entertain this particr hope... We have killed more than one thousand practitioners of the path of energy... The city¡¯s reserves should be sufficient... Please grant us our wish!¡±

    The Silver Armor on thest expedition had chosen to brandish his sword against the heavens because the city¡¯s reserves were very low at the time. He wouldn¡¯t have been able to be part of his armor even if the chance had been offered to him. It was possible today. The Silver Armors wished to remain in this world because they had too many wishes left unfulfilled. It was fine to take even one glimpse of what they hoped for.

    The old tortoise¡¯s mind shifted with a soft sigh. The Silver Amors vanished and reappeared at the top of the pagoda. A peculiar me wafted over them, raising agonized shrieks inside the armor. The refinement process was exceedingly cruel, which was why origin weapons had been banned.

    The old tortoise had once undergone it as well, but it had been so long ago that it¡¯d forgotten.

    The Gold Armor breathed out in relief beneath the pagoda. This was good. At least, it wasn¡¯t any worse than their situation now. Bing a soul of the weapon and continuing to manipte their armor wasn¡¯t necessarily a less ideal oue than their current straits.

    ¡°The people at the gates...¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t need to pay attention to them for now!¡± responded the tortoise. ¡°I have observed all of the events of the day. We will take heed of their actions first, then their hearts. The Battle Heaven Army will not carelessly recruit even the heir of the Sword Sovereign. We have enough Silver Armor troop leaders at the moment!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± affirmed the Gold Armor as he vanished on the spot.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Three humans and one dog devouredrge quantities of energy. When all of the mysterious power stones on the ground were shattered, that meant they¡¯d consumed more than four thousand pieces. Their injuries werepletely recovered and their organs slightly stronger again.

    He Yong raised a proud head!

    ¡°Remember, three thousand stones,¡± Hong Yitang reminded. ¡°Interest is ten percent every month!¡±

    He Yong¡¯s face dropped. ¡°You...¡±

    ¡°Cut the bullshit and just try dodging your debt!¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong was highly aggrieved and dejected. This fight had not only bankrupted him, but saddled him with infinite debt! It¡¯d been such a thrill, but also so tragic that all his years at the royal family hadn¡¯t provided him enough wealth to repay his debt!

    Li Hao had recovered from the aftereffects of four auras erupting at once and the consequences resulting from the Incantation of the de of Blood. His injuries were all healed.

    The young man ced the two origin weapons on the ground into his storage ring. There were now four origin weapons in his possession. There was the wind chime from the Revolution King, the boxing gloves and Heart Protector from Xu Feng, and the yellow armor from Xie Gang of Yama. Heart Protector, the wind chime, and boxing gloves were of a high level; the yellow armor looked to be a lower level.

    Four origin weapons! He also had quite a reserve of mysterious power stones and his rations of ten pure stones. He¡¯d also collected some from thest battle, but he hadn¡¯t had time to take an inventory.

 Chapter 471: After the Battle (III)

    <h4>Chapter 471: After the Battle (III)</h4>

    ¡°How many merits do you guys have?¡± He Yong suddenly chuckled. ¡°I have fifty-five!¡±

    Hong Yitang flicked a nomittal nce at him. ¡°I have sixty.¡±

    ¡°What??¡± He Yong blinked. <i>Nuh uh, you didn¡¯t kill anyone, so howe you have more than me?</i>

    ¡°Merits don¡¯t juste from killing people. I stopped the enemy at the gates, so I received some credit!¡± Hong Yitang wasn¡¯t surprised by his score. The infrastructure behind the military equipment was veryplete, so this kind of oue was normal.

    Li Hao remained silent. He wasn¡¯t about to tell them that his score was higher than theirs. He¡¯d killed quite a few supernaturals on the battlefield, some Srs, and a mid Nova. His score stood at seventy-eight!

    Even he was surprised at how his merits were suddenly so high, and he still had no idea what they could be used for. All the same, the high score felt nice.

    ¡°The battle to defend the city is at a temporary lull,¡± a mechanical voice suddenly sounded in their minds. ¡°The supervisory troops have audited everyone¡¯s military achievements. The newly designated Twelfth Troop undertook their first battle with an iplete roster of personnel. Being brave and ferocious, their merits will be counted at double the rate!¡±

    Li Hao sensed that his merits were immediately doubled! 156! Not only that, but the other two started as well. This was... quite some efficiency.

    It meant that the military system was still operational. The supervisors were aware of the happenings. Were the Red Armors in charge of auditing whether merits were being awarded reasonably so that certain problems wouldn¡¯t ur?

    ¡°The newly designated Twelfth Troop waged a brave and ferocious battle!¡± Another line appeared in Li Hao¡¯s mind. ¡°Their people rendered exemry service to the Battle Heaven Army! Troop leader Li Hao is awarded an additional thirty merits for exceptional leadership! Firstpany leader Hong Yitang is awarded an additional twenty merits for fending off formidable enemies! Soldier He Yong of the firstpany is awarded an additional ten merits!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s merits suddenly stood at 186 points. Hong Yitang was first increased to 120 points, then awarded a bonus of twenty to make for 140 points. He Yong now possessed 120 points.

    Li Hao scratched his head. So he received an additional reward because he was the troop leader? Not bad! The extra thirty points was the equivalent of killing thirty initial or mid Srs. That was a lot. Although none of them knew what the merits could be used for, surely they were nothing bad. The more the merrier.

    Only now did Li Hao have a chance to look at the ck dog next to him. Panther was so full that it was burping. Highly excited, it pounced on Li Hao and knocked the young man to the ground. Licking and snuffling his face in a frenzy, the dog left the newly unarmed Li Hao in a state of wordless shock.

    <i>Damn! Panth¡¯s gotten so strong!</i>

    ¡°Panth, stop!¡± Li Hao roared. Panther furiously wagged its tail, but stopped. The young man frowned slightly after assessing it. The dog was thinner, but felt much stronger. He couldn¡¯t tell much more because the dog was different from the major monster spirits of Ash Mountain. It didn¡¯t have a ball of light around it!

    So... was it a thorough martial master dog? It didn¡¯t have any mysterious power!

    ¡°Did youe in with thest expedition team?¡±

    Panther quickly bobbed its head up and down.

    ¡°Can you talk? I¡¯ve seen major monster spirits that can talk...¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther shook its head, surprising the young man.

    ¡°You¡¯re... not strong enough?¡± The four monster spirits of Ash Mountain couldmunicate through thought ripples. Panther couldn¡¯t, which meant that it didn¡¯t count as strong. However, the strength it disyed when pouncing on the young man had been quite significant!

    Panther shook its tail without responding, because it didn¡¯t know either what was strong and what was weak. It just knew that when the fights broke out earlier, it would¡¯ve been able to bite a few of those people to death. This Big Beard, for example. The dog felt that it would be able to bite him to death if he didn¡¯t turn into that scary version of himself!

    Big Beard was too scary after he transformed¡ªPanther shook its tail. Too scary, it wouldn¡¯t be able to fight the human.

    What a pity that the dog couldn¡¯t talk. Li Hao didn¡¯t ask further, he just found it odd that Panther could remain in the ancient city for an entire month. That meant that the dog had gained the city¡¯s eptance¡ªdid it also have a key?

    That didn¡¯t seem likely! Then why could it stay here?

    ¡°This dog is quite strong,¡± Hong Yitang transmitted. ¡°Although I don¡¯t know the specifics, its presence is contained within itself to the point where I think it¡¯s a martial master. That¡¯s strange. Monster spirits these days absorb a certain amount of mysterious power, but this dog... has none. That¡¯s so strange!¡±

    He found it very strange, as did Li Hao. So the dog he¡¯d seen in the inner city before really had been Panther. ¡°Panth, did you see the huge battle outside just now?¡±

    The dog quickly bobbed its head up and down.

    ¡°Do you think... you can beat me?¡±

    Panther rapidly shook its head! It was a dog, but not a dumb dog. Of course it couldn¡¯t answer any other way. There would be no yummy sword energy for it otherwise! It was starving!

    ¡°Then... what about the Silver Armors before they reawaken?¡± Li Hao stroked his chin. That was peak Sr. He agreed with Hong Yitang that Panther seemed quite strong. Was the dog on par with a Sr?

    After some thought, the dog inclined its head! Li Hao drew a sharp breath¡ªthat was quite strong indeed! So the dog was either a peak Sr or initial Nova! How had it done that?

    ¡°Did you get anything good from the city?¡±

    Panther nodded and looked at the pagoda in the distance. Shivering, it whined as if to say¡ª<i>I¡¯m not ever going back even if you beat me! That was too painful!</i>

    ¡°Not bad!¡± Li Hao patted it on the head with surprise. ¡°I put my life on the line fighting outside, but I wouldn¡¯t be a match for you if it wasn¡¯t for me melding four auras together. Damn, that¡¯s something!¡±

    The dog was very lucky! Thanks to following him, it drank the first brew from Steris and then received benefits from the ruins. Why did it seem like it had better luck than he did? His luck was already decent enough, but the dog¡¯s put his to shame!

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther barked and licked Li Hao¡¯s hand. Its tail wagged, as if saying that we¡¯re on the same team. <i>Me growing stronger is you growing stronger.</i>

    The young man didn¡¯t say anything, it was nice that the dog was back. He¡¯d thought that it died or ran away. So it was here all along. However... he still smacked it on the head. ¡°I was fighting to the death outside, but you didn¡¯te to help even though you were watching from the city walls!¡±

    Panther responded with a look of innocence¡ªit hadn¡¯t dared to join the battlefield. Hong Yitang had been rampaging through it. The dog might¡¯ve been killed by mistake if it went down, it¡¯d been terrifying!

    ¡°Let¡¯s set the dog aside for now.¡± Hong Yitang stood up. ¡°Li Hao, are you interested in paying the barracks a visit? I¡¯m curious as to what the merits can be used for. 140 points is a lot.¡±

    He couldn¡¯t be bothered with the people outside. The Gold Armor seemed to be on the city walls in person to stabilize the situation and collect ck Armors. This was the first day of the ruins¡¯ opening, no one could leave for the moment. They had time to deal with those outside¡ªit¡¯d be nice if the merits could be traded for something nice.

    Hong Yitang only had two big pieces of stone left; he couldn¡¯t bear to use them. It was all bastard He Yong¡¯s fault for wasting one of his! Granted, their organs had improved again, creating more power to be deployed in battle.

    Li Hao was likewise curious and nodded in agreement. He, too, wanted to see what merits could be used for. Could they be used for a promotion? It might be nice to trade them for a set of gold armor.

    Meanwhile, all He Yong was focused on were mysterious power stones. He was too poor at the moment! Hong Yitang would absolutely be the death of him if he didn¡¯t repay his debts. The word of a swordsman was not a joke and Hong Yitang likely just wanted an excuse to end him.

    ¡°So the old man earlier is Light Sword?¡± Li Hao asked curiously as they walked. ¡°I heard that she¡¯s a woman! Also, what¡¯s the story behind the Xus? My information doesn¡¯t have many details on them, so I don¡¯t get why Xu Feng was so arrogant.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a bitplicated.¡± He Yong pursed his lips. ¡°Light Sword is indeed a woman, but there are some issues with her cultivation method. It¡¯s an ancient art of light and sun. Cultivators can change their gender at its peak. But with an abundance of yang and void of yin... she is neither a woman nor a man now! Her joining the Xus likely has something to do with their secrets. Maybe they can solve her problem.

    ¡°As for the Xus...¡± The man thought for a moment. ¡°They¡¯re really something. If ites down to it, we need to start from when the dynasty was established. Skystar Dynasty received help from three great families when it was founded¡ªthe Xus were one of them.

    ¡°The patriarchs of the three families wereter titled Founder Dukes of the Nation, a title that is hereditary. The Xus possess the Steadfast Duke title and are responsible for the eastern provinces. After the nine ministries forced the royal family to abdicate, the three founding ns also took their ces behind the curtain. If not, the eastern provinces would answer to the Xus. The other two ns sit in the west and south. As for us in the north, we are too poor and chaotic thanks to activity from martial masters. A royal prince held down the fort here¡ªthe founder of the Skystar Troops!

    ¡°After the rise of the supernatural, the Steadfast Duke in the east received many benefits. They are very strong in the eastern region. Xu Feng had a ce on the Divine Masters Ranking in the central region because he was always active there. The Xus have a branch in Skystar City and they are the royal family¡¯s ardent supporters. In reality, however, they probably have their own ambitions for independence. The three dukes may not be of one heart with the royal family!¡±

    He Yong reeled off these details like they were precious jewels in his care. ¡°Also, they might be secretly supporting one of the three great organizations! There are many hands in the shadow behind the organization. Since the Xus are in the east, the royal family has wondered if the tyrannical Yama counts them as a backer.

    ¡°Therefore, whether it¡¯s the three great organizations, nine ministries, or the royal family, they all show face to the Xus. It wouldn¡¯t do to cause a ruckus in the absence of evidence.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Li Hao replied after a moment. ¡°No wonder he was so cocky. But... I thought they were a family from the ancient civilization. So they¡¯re just a founding family, what are they so arrogant for?¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong found himself at a loss. <i>You¡¯re... pretty cocky yourself! Is being one of the three founding families of the nation not worthy of lofty pride?</i>

 Chapter 472: The Merit Exchange Manual (I)

    <h4>Chapter 472: The Merit Exchange Manual (I)</h4>

    The Gold Armor wanted Li Hao¡¯s trio to visit the city lord manor. The three were in no hurry since the Gold Armor was busy on top of the city walls. They strolled toward the barracks.

    <i>The northern quadrant.</i>

    There were guards at the gate when the trio arrived. The barracks had been a bit quiet on theirst visit¡ªit seemed more alive now. Not only were there guards, but so were there Red Armors in the distance carrying out duties. The guardrail lifted automatically when the trio approached the guard post.

    <i>Thump!</i>

    The soldier on duty thumped his chest with his right hand, slightly agitated, like he was weing the triumphant return of victorious soldiers. Li Hao and the other two were used to the reaction¡ªthey saluted in return.

    The trio entered the northern quadrant.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go to the armory,¡± Li Hao proposed. ¡°Perhaps we¡¯ll find something there. There¡¯s a Silver Armor there that seems stronger than the rest. He had a bit of an attitudest time I met him, I wonder if he¡¯ll be better today.¡±

    The northern quadrant was enormous and popted with numerous buildings. As new recruits, they didn¡¯t dare wander around. However, the trio knew where the armory was.

    Other soldiers they met along the way quickly saluted the three. Apart from the Red Armors, there seemed to be more ck Armors this time around. That quite startled Li Hao and the two men. There¡¯d been no ck Armors walking around the barracks before, so why... were they here now?

    Had they already been present before, or had more of the city unsealed with the battle and provided enough energy to awaken more soldiers?

    Li Hao leaned towards thetter as there hadn¡¯t even been guards here before. It might be that all of the ck Armors apart from the four defending armies had fallen silent.

    Battle Heaven¡¯s barracks were enormous. There might have been a million people living in the area when the army was encamped here. And perhaps the city was just one of the posts in which the defending army cycled through.

    The three reached the armory after ten minutes. Li Hao hade here before, but the other two men hadn¡¯t. They¡¯d been outright presented with their bronze and ck armor in the recruitment hall. They weren¡¯t as important as a Silver Armor.

    Additional ck Armors could be seen here as well; they saluted upon seeing the trio. Li Hao assessed them with an increasingly odd look. This meant that there were numerous ck Armors that¡¯d awakened in the barracks. Was this good or bad?

    Li Hao saw the Silver Armor in the distance after they entered the armory. He saw Li Hao too¡ªa familiar ripple sounded by his ears before the trio reached him.

    ¡°Well done, kid who came in through connections!¡± The Silver Armor seemed to know what had taken ce outside. ¡°The eight families are the eight families alright. The guardian ns are quite powerful. As weak as you are, you¡¯ll do!¡±

    Li Hao suppressed an eye roll! This guy must¡¯ve been a chatterbox when he was alive and someone just begging to be beaten up. But there was a certain point of interest to his words. His intelligence seemed high. In fact, he seemed sharper than the three Silver Armors outside.

    ¡°What does the senior go by?¡± Li Hao offered a pleasantry as he stepped forward, despite feeling like this guy was asking for a fist to the face.

    ¡°I am Zhang Liang, deputymissioner of Military Supplies in the Ninth Division of the Reserve Defenders!¡± the Silver Armor reported proudly.

    Did a deputymissioner of Military Supplies outrank a troop leader? Both of them were in silver armor. Li Hao felt that this soldier¡¯s sentience seemed to be in good shape¡ªat least he spoke smoothly and seemed more enthusiastic than before. He dropped the pleasantries and asked, ¡°Commissioner Zhang...¡±

    ¡°Deputy Commissioner!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Do you really have to be so serious?</i> ¡°Deputy Commissioner Zhang, we¡¯ve earned some merits and don¡¯t know how to use them. Will you give us a few pointers?¡±

    ¡°Merits... they are such good things!¡± Zhang Liang beamed. ¡°Battle Heaven values merits and all of the human race values merits! The merit system is exceedingly important and was even a mainstream system for the race during war.

    ¡°There are many uses to military merits. You¡¯re new, but you would know their importance if you had participated in the rookie training! I¡¯ll go over a few simple uses. First, you can exchange them for cultivation treasures. Second, you can exchange them for currency. Third, you can umte them for promotions. Fourth, you can exchange them for chances toprehend dao¡ªpowerhouses will teach you martial dao. Fifth... I forgot!¡±

    Zhang Liang was an interesting fellow who saw nothing wrong with admitting that he¡¯d forgotten something. ¡°My memory is damaged and I only recall certain inherent knowledge. But I remember that merits can be used elsewhere. Perhaps I¡¯ll remember in the future.¡±

    Li Hao and the other two nodded as they listened to the exnation. This was simr to their previous spection.

    ¡°Can we exchange them here?¡± Li Hao quickly asked.

    ¡°You can!¡± Zhang Liang proimed. ¡°They¡¯re not usually exchanged here, but at the Hall of Merit Exchange further in. That part¡¯s been cordoned off for now. ording to the rules of wartime, Military Supplies takes over some responsibilities when systems begin faltering. Therefore, you can temporarily exchange your merits here with me.¡±

    <i>A Hall of Merit Exchange? </i>The trio looked at each other with surprise. There were even agencies specifically rted to military merits. It would seem that Battle Heaven Army¡¯s system was quiteplete, and that there were many wartime provisions to ensure that operations would not be paralyzed.

    ¡°But I must remind you that many things are out of stock!¡± Zhang Liangmented. ¡°They are unavable for exchange since they have not been replenished. Also, I am only a deputymissioner. Certain things require themissioner¡¯s signature for approval.¡±

    ¡°Where is themissioner?¡±

    ¡°He is... dead,¡± Zhang Liang responded calmly. ¡°He and I held down the fort together here, but he grew antsy and weary of loneliness in his old age. He desired to leave the city, so he did, and... died. Although I can fill in for part of his duties, I was not promoted, after all. The city is asleep, or I would''ve been promoted a long time ago!¡±

    <i>Alright then! </i>Li Hao could say nothing to that. ¡°What can I trade for?¡±

    ¡°How many merits do you have?¡± Zhang Liang swept him a nce.

    ¡°One hundred some...¡±

    ¡°Not bad!¡± boomed the Silver Armor. ¡°Even if your merits were counted at double the rate, it¡¯s a job well done to umte so many from your first battle!¡± He tossed out a booklet. ¡°Take a look yourself! These are all the items that can be traded for below one thousand points. There are several exchange manuals, but there¡¯s no point to you reading the higher leveled ones. You cane to me for exchange when you¡¯re done! But remember, not all of them are in stock.¡±

    ¡°I understand, my thanks!¡±

    Zhang Liang sat down instead of responding, finally appearing like one of the quiet soldiers. It was in his unmoving moments that Li Hao could sense that these people were truly dead. This was a city of the dead with no one alive.

    ......

    The trio found a seat nearby. They were all curious, but He Yong found his hands tied. He scratched his head with regret, ¡°I should¡¯ve learned some ancientnguages. I can¡¯t read a thing!¡±

    It was a damned shame! Both Li Hao and Hong Yitang wanted tough, but Hong Yitang was barely better off. He knew some ancient characters, but couldn¡¯t read a book when it was written entirely in the ancientnguage.

    It was a heartbreaking prospect!

    Meanwhile, Li Hao could read almost the entire manual because he¡¯d learned at Yuan Shuo¡¯s side for two years. His only task during those two years was to learn this type of knowledge; it was an adequate span of time for him to grasp anguage. There were also some links between the ancientnguage and modern text.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that hard, both of you can learn it with some time.¡±

    He Yong ignored the young man. <i>Stop showing off!</i>

    Li Hao opened the booklet¡ªthe Merit Exchange Manual. This version went up to one thousand points and perhaps started with the highest value item, so the first to greet the reader was a treasure valued at one thousand points.

    ¡°One thousand merits for apany leader to advance to troop leader!¡± Li Hao recited for the other two since they couldn¡¯t read the text.

    ¡°......¡± Hong Yitang blinked with astonishment. ¡°One thousand points? A Nova gives you ten points, so you need to kill one hundred to be promoted? You¡¯re joking!¡±

    ¡°One Nova is worth ten points, a Sr worth one point,¡± Li Hao said after some thought. ¡°Existences above Nova might be one hundred, so you only need to kill ten of those. I think that when the troop leaders were alive, they were possibly all stronger than Nova! Therefore, for those who want to be promoted, killing ten peers seems reasonable. We have to keep in mind that the Ninth Division only has twelve troops even now. This... seems normal.¡±

    That did indeed appear to be the case after some thought. True enough! So this meant that Li Hao had benefited from one thousand points for no reason at all! Hong Yitang had wanted to obtain a set of silver armor himself before¡ªit looked like that was out of the question.

    ¡°The Goldensky Lotus is valued at one thousand merits per flower,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°Each flower has eight petals with the extraordinary ability of nurturing mental strength.¡±

    ¡°The Goldensky Lotus?¡± Hong Yitang repeated.

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve seen what we obtained from Ash Mountain recorded in ancient tomes. That¡¯s the Goldensky Lotus!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao blinked. He still had one petal and seed in his storage ring. That¡¯s the Goldensky Lotus?

    The item that the four great monster spirits were guarding was listed in the Merit Exchange at a high price! But one thousand points for eight petals... meant each petal was worth 125 points. So his furious ughter of so many resulted in only one petal?

    ¡°The de system of Blood Eruption, Emperor yer, and Divine Annihtor are three methods of the system. They are worth one thousand merits total.¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t think anything of what he read, but Hong Yitang registered the names with surprise.

    ¡°If... I recall correctly... Berserk de practices the Blood Eruption method, doesn¡¯t he?¡± There was a de method system to be had here!

    A system meant that one could start with the first book, graduate to the second book, and then move on to the third book. Each book represented a different stage.

    ¡°Berserk de only knows the first method, but he¡¯s a peak Sr that¡¯s close to Nova.¡± A light danced in Hong Yitang¡¯s eyes. ¡°I can tell, however, that he doesn¡¯t have much strength to carry on. If he couldy hands on this de system... things will be very interesting then. He might swiftlyplete the second method and attempt the third...¡±

 Chapter 473: The Merit Exchange Manual (II)

    <h4>Chapter 473: The Merit Exchange Manual (II)</h4>

    Ancient methods were on the exchange roster! Of course, this was to be expected since they were in a ruin of the ancient civilization.

    ¡°Help me take a look to see if there are any tomes regarding sword methods,¡± Hong Yitang quickly asked.

    Li Hao carefully perused the page and paged through the manual before saying, ¡°There aren¡¯t many sword methods, but there¡¯s a Mind Sword Fusion Method. It¡¯s probably rted to the sword, but you need five hundred merits to trade for it.¡±

    Hong Yitang fell silent, whereas He Yong took over. ¡°How about boxing methods?¡±

    Ancient boxing methods were great points of reference, some could be outright cultivated. Of course, martial masters walked their own paths. If theyid hands on one, it would be mostly used as a source of information instead of a guide.

    ¡°There are indeed boxing methods.¡± Li Hao quickly flipped the pages. ¡°The Fists of the Bloody Lion King. Eight hundred points!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Both men fell silent.<i> Damn, that¡¯s expensive!</i>

    But expensive meant that it was good. Otherwise, a promotion to troop leader was just one thousand points. These secret arts required several hundred or a thousand at a drop. It was mind-boggling!

    While there were secret arts listed in the exchange manual, there weren¡¯t that many. It would seem that the military was a more centralized body, to prevent obstacles in concerted action if everyone wielded different methods. It was mostly resources listed as avable for exchange. Li Hao¡¯s eyes fell on a certain treasure that wasn¡¯t expensive.

    ¡°The Mind Fruit nurtures mental strength and costs ten points per fruit.¡±

    Mental strength was what the ancients called mind intent. There were certain differences between the two, but they were very simr. A treasure that nurtured mind intent only cost ten points! Li Hao was quite tempted when he took a look. <i>I wonder if there¡¯s any left!</i>

    ¡°There are energy stones on here, I wonder if it¡¯s mysterious power stones. Energy stones for cultivation cost ten points per portion. I wonder how much a portion is?¡±

    ¡°Are there others?¡± Hong Yitang asked after some thought. ¡°Methods to nurture the five organs, perhaps?¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t tell.¡± Li Hao scratched his head. ¡°There are more secret methods, but they all have... pretty crazy names. Look at this one called Divine Annihtor. If it wasn¡¯t for the words ¡®de method¡¯ associated with it, I would have no idea what it¡¯s used for.¡±

    There were many secret arts listed in the manual, but each of them bore ludicrous names. It was difficult to tell from a nce what their purpose was. The key thing was, all of them cost a lot of merits.

    ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s go ask themissioner of Military Supplies...¡± Hong Yitang breathed out.

    Li Hao nodded and walked toward Zhang Liang. ¡°Deputy Commissioner Zhang, there are some parts of the manual that I don¡¯t understand. Are there any methods that teach one how to nurture the five organs?¡±

    ¡°Nurture the five organs?¡± Zhang Liang was rather surprised. ¡°Why do you need that? I can see that you¡¯ve manifested your mental strength and have long surpassed the stage of training the five organs...¡±

    Li Hao blinked. What did the soldier mean?

    ¡°The manifestation of mental strength, and at a strong level at that, means that the five organs should already be pretty strong. What do you want something like that for?¡±

    ¡°Ah...¡± Li Hao found the response strange. ¡°So Deputy Commissioner Zhang means to say that the ancients train the organs first, then mind intent¡ªmental strength, is that so?¡±

    ¡°Is that not the case in your era?¡±

    ¡°No!¡±

    Alright then, Zhang Liang wasn¡¯t too surprised. ¡°The cultivation systems of each time period may differ¡ªyours should have differences from ours. Regr methods for training the organs may not work in your situation, but there isn¡¯t aplete void of simrity when ites to martial dao!¡±

    The deputymissioner seemed to be recalling something. ¡°Strengthening the five organs may not be of any use to you. My memory is damaged, so I cannot determine your exact condition. There is a method that will be useful, however. It¡¯s not that effective when ites to strengthening the organs, but it can connect them as one. Strengthening one organ is to strengthen all five.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart stirred with desire. Strengthening one organ equals strengthening all five? That was great!

    ¡°Commissioner Zhang...¡±

    ¡°Deputy Commissioner!¡±

    ¡°Ah, yes. Deputy Commissioner Zhang, can we trade for this method?¡±

    ¡°I think so, I can¡¯t remember. Look for the Building Five Bridges method. It breaks the bulwark between the five organs and creates five bridges to share energy. In this regard, a cirction cycle between the five results in strengthening all five when one is strengthened!¡±

    Hong Yitang and He Yong stepped forward with agitation. They¡¯d never heard of the Building Five Bridges method before¡ªso the five organs could be connected to each other?? They were deeply nervous and deathly afraid that they didn¡¯t possess enough merits.

    Li Hao quickly paged through the manual, finding the secret art¡¯s name and discovering that... it wasn¡¯t expensive!

    ¡°Just thirty points?¡± the young man identified with surprise. He¡¯d thought that it would require hundreds or a thousand! No wonder he hadn¡¯t seen it earlier. It was ced in the back since it wasn¡¯t expensive.

    ¡°It¡¯s not expensive to begin with!¡± Zhang Liang exined. ¡°It¡¯s just a regr cultivation method that some of the academies made avable for free back in the day. Not everyone in the army attends the academies, so we charge a small amount for it out of respect for the academies¡¯ copyright. Anyone who serves for three years can obtain it for free. You guys can also have it for free after three years!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Silence answered him. <i>Forget it, we don¡¯t want toe back in three years.</i>

    ¡°Is it hard to practice?¡± Li Hao quickly asked.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. It wasn¡¯t hard in our times, but our cultivation system is different from yours. You three should have strong organs because your mental strength is already on disy, but yours are somehow weak. It even looks like they are not in bnce for you. I don¡¯t understand your system.¡± There was indeed a disconnect here as, although everyone practiced the ancient methods, there were certain revisions made. Some ancient methods weren¡¯t meant for modern use¡ªproblems would arise if they were employed as is.

    Based on Zhang Liang¡¯s words, the trio should be very strong after the manifestation of mental strength. They shouldn¡¯t have to worry about their organs, but that was the greatest worry of modern martial masters!

    ¡°The Building Five Bridges method is a neutral and mild cultivation method that does not require exact steps. It might be very suited for you guys. Having to focus on only one organ might save a lot of time.¡±

    The trio bobbed their heads rapidly. Indeed! That was right!

    Li Hao was quite excited. If he could give this to his teacher, then his teacher might be able to create a new method very quickly! Building Five Bridges seemed to be great reference material.

    ¡°Ah... can we teach this method to others?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Zhang Liang seemed to be regarding Li Hao with an assessing look. ¡°It could not be taught privately before and there was no need to. All of the martial universities possessed it, as did the military. We charge a fee out of respect for the creator! They need some encouragement after creating the method¡ªsome inspiration and respect. But the times no longer belong to us. You can teach it to others on a small scale so long as that isn¡¯t done haphazardly.¡±

    ¡°Then the three of us...¡±

    ¡°The three of you cannot teach each other!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The trio paused.

    ¡°You are of the military and cannot teach each other in private. All three of you must trade for the method, and if the people you teachter join the army, they need to pay the fee as well. There is no problem if they do not join.¡±

    <i>What, so this means we need to pay extra? All three of us have to make individual exchanges? And it¡¯s teaching outsiders that¡¯s no problem since the army¡¯s hand doesn¡¯t stretch that far? But it stretches to us!</i>

    ¡°Will this method break the supernatural locks?¡± Hong Yitang asked urgently.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°The supernatural locks!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about,¡± Zhang Liang replied. ¡°The times are different, perhaps there are differences even in the physical body. I am not familiar with some of your terms. But like I¡¯ve said, the Building Five Bridges method is a neutral and cid method. You can give it a try or use it as reference. You should not trade for the other methods because they might bepletely useless!¡±

    The soldier was unaware of supernatural locks! Li Hao was surprised¡ªwere there no such things in the ancients?

    The trio put the method down for exchange on all of their lists. ¡°The energy stones for cultivation that cost ten points¡ªhow many are in a portion?¡± asked the young man.

    ¡°The ten that you received before is a portion!¡±

    Li Hao blinked and was then ovee with joy! <i>Are you kidding me? Such a pure mysterious power stone is only worth one point? Hot damn! That¡¯s so cheap! </i>Granted, it wasn¡¯t that cheap since killing a Sr rendered only one point. Butpared to the prices earlier, it was cheap.

    ¡°This type!¡± Li Hao quickly took out a stone. ¡°One stone is worth one point. One of these is worth ten of ours!¡±

    He Yong¡¯s eyes darted to it. He looked at Li Hao, then at Zhang Liang as he furiously ran calctions through his mind. One point for ten stones. He had 120 points, minus the thirty needed for the Building Five Bridges method... that meant he could trade for nine hundred stones. Nine hundred was what these stones mapped to in their terms. He had an outstanding debt of three thousand!

    Zhang Liang looked at He Yong. ¡°Does this one not wish to save trade for a higher position? The authorization for a ck armor soldier is very low. You¡¯ll have some more benefits if you be apany leader. It only takes one hundred points!¡±

    ¡°One hundred points forpany leader?¡± He Yong grimaced. ¡°I...¡± <i>only have 120 points and I want to trade for that method! I won¡¯t have anything left if I go for a promotion!</i>

    ¡°What¡¯s so good about being apany leader? I don¡¯t see the point...¡±

    It only seemed toe with a stronger suit of armor. In that case, he really didn¡¯t care about that.

 Chapter 474: The Merit Exchange Manual (III)

    <h4>Chapter 474: The Merit Exchange Manual (III)</h4>

    ¡°Do you not feel it?¡± Zhang Liang asked. ¡°It goes without saying that your armor will be stronger, but you¡¯ll also be able to lead a hundred troops as apany leader. Their aplishments will bring you some additional merits since you are their leader. That is one aspect. The second is that your wages will increase. As a soldier, you receive one such cultivation stone a month. Company leaders receive three, troop leaders receive ten. You can collect them at the end of every month...¡±

    He Yong was still uninterested.<i> It¡¯d be faster for me to just trade for the stones. One hundred points means one hundred stones. If I took wages of two a month, it¡¯ll take me four years to gain the same amount.</i>

    ¡°Aspany leader,¡± continued Zhang Liang, ¡°You have the right to use one hundred sets of ck armor. You can activate one hundred of them, but those who are to use them must pass the military¡¯s background inspection. You can freely make use of them if they pass muster!¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong blinked, as did Li Hao. ¡°So Deputy Commissioner Zhang means that I can recruit my own men if I¡¯m apany leader?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Zhang Liang nodded. ¡°But they¡¯ll need to be vetted by Supervisory first.¡±

    ¡°Deputy Commissioner Zhang...¡± Li Hao asked. ¡°I actually have one hundred sets of armor, but I er... when the eastern defenders fell previously...¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± the deputymissioner responded calmly. ¡°But those that leave the city or are captured have their ess revoked. They be ordinary armor that is not connected to the military system. As a troop leader, you can activate one thousand sets. However, those who utilize the armor must fulfill our requirements!¡±

    <i>What requirements?</i>

    ¡°Are the requirements difficult?¡± Li Hao asked with agitation.

    ¡°Not that difficult. First, there is a temporary moratorium on epting practitioners of energy. There is another military unit for them, we are not of the same system. Second, they must be strong of body and mind. We do not ept the feeble! Third, they must pass through the inspection from the Visitor Pavilion to prevent infiltration by unstable factors. Fourth, they must participate in the rookie training.

    ¡°You guys are temporarily reprieved from training as it is currently at a standstill and needs time to reactivate. You must wait for the system to be operational again before you can recruit new soldiers. Li Hao, you entered through a different channel and the other two received guest authorization. If any of your people also obtain that authorization, they can skip training as well.¡±

    ¡°Do you mean that key?¡± Li Hao asked.

    ¡°Yes!¡± responded Deputy Commissioner Zhang. ¡°The key does not appear for just anyone! One must be of upright morals! Those without cannot obtain the key¡ªthey will see it without being able to touch it...¡±

    He Yong blinked. <i>Are you talking about me? My morals are just fine!</i>

    Li Hao and Hong Yitang also looked at him. Does this one... have a suspect character? He Yong could find nothing to defend himself with!

    ¡°Upright morals simply means ack of enmity toward Battle Heaven.¡± Zhang Liang looked at him with empty eyes. ¡°The Visitor Pavilion possesses such a verification system.¡±

    ¡°It can manifest my thoughts?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help himself. ¡°Not to mention... to be honest, we¡¯re here for treasure. How did Hong Yitang receive his, then?¡±

    The young man made direct reference to Hong Yitang¡¯s name. The man shed a half smile back at him. <i>You guess!</i>

    ¡°Seeking treasures does not mean enmity,¡± Zhang Liang continued. ¡°It is normal to be curious about ancient ruins. It is perfectly expected to want to harvest some gains. But those who bear certain greed and desire toward the city at the core of their being will not be epted!¡±

    Li Hao still didn¡¯t understand, but he caught a keyword¡ªdesire! Control of desire! Hong Yitang seemed to have controlled his well, so he received a key. Meanwhile, He Yong¡¯s was too strong for him to be offered one!

    The young man turned his thoughts to considering his proposed exchange instead. ¡°I want the Building Five Bridges method and another ten Mind Fruits...¡±

    That was 130 points. He had 186 merits total and wanted to use the remainder for energy stones. That would give him the equivalent of approximately five hundred mysterious power stones.

    ¡°There is supposed to be an energy shortage inside the city,¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help himself. ¡°Why does Military Supplies still have mysterious power stones avable for exchange?¡±

    ¡°The energy we need is not of this kind! Let me put it in a better way, it is the energy of life! The greater the powerhouse, the more they carry. This was not necessary at first and killing others to reawaken the city is not what we wish. We had protective nt spirits around us and didn¡¯t need to do so. But General Pagoda has fallen silent and the stones you speak of are what we have in abundance. We ourselves are already dead and do not have sufficient life energy to activate certain formations or systems...¡±

    Li Hao only seemed to half understand. It wasn¡¯t this kind of energy that Battle Heavencked, but another kind. General Pagoda? Did he mean the pagoda tree outside the spirit? A nt spirit? The passageway they¡¯d taken to reach the city was the inside of a tree!

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll trade the rest of my merits for energy stones!¡±

    ¡°I want a copy of Building Five Bridges and eleven Mind Fruit!¡± Hong Yitang dered crisply. He had 140 points and no need for mysterious power stones.

    He Yong looked on with a conflicted expression. He wanted a promotion as that seemed useful, but... he also wanted treasure!

    ¡°Can merits be transferred?¡± Li Hao suddenly asked.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Zhang Liang responded. ¡°Ordinary soldiers cannot do so, butpany leaders can reward soldiers with some merits through setting missions. Troop leaders can do the same, but the results need to be verified by the Supervisory Guard so that under-the-table dealings do not ur. That would be an insult to the merits. If discovered, all merits will be confiscated and some punishment might be in order!¡±

    Li Hao looked at He Yong to see that the man was still hesitant. ¡°That soldier protected me before, can I award him ten points?¡±

    ¡°You can try issuing that mission through the silver armor. You can if the Supervisory Guard approves. If not... then probably not.¡±

    ¡°Will my merits be withdrawn?¡±

    ¡°If it¡¯s your first time doing so and you¡¯re a rookie, probably not.¡±

    Alright then, Li Hao looked at He Yong. ¡°Martial Uncle He, I¡¯ll try rewarding you with ten points. Being a ck Armor is too low level. It¡¯s best if you secure a promotion and the Building Five Bridges.¡±

    He Yong grinned widely and quickly nodded. Li Hao studied his army for a bit and attempted to issue the mission. He began waiting for the Supervisory Guard¡¯s answer.

    ¡°If I want to be a general... one of the Gold Armors, how many merits do I need?¡±

    ¡°Not many, just ten thousand!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao wanted to cry. He¡¯d lost ten thousand merits for no good reason at all¡ªno, nine thousand!

    As one of the eight families, he was eligible to be directly made a general. But he¡¯d been so weak that the Gold Armor demoted him straight off the bat!

    ¡°Can we exchange for Water of Life?¡± asked Hong Yitang.

    ¡°You could before!¡± Zhang Liang shook his head. ¡°Not anymore. General Pagoda has fallen silent and can no longer supply us with any. There are traces left in some ces around the city. The Hibiscus Garden that you guys stayed at before holds some dregs!¡±

    Hong Yitang found this regretful, then thought of the storage ring he¡¯d picked up. Apart from the three big pieces of mysterious power stones, there was also a small sk of liquid. He strongly suspected that it was Water of Life. So that was thest of it! Then... why had he picked up some? It wasn¡¯t as if there was no one inside the city. Although they were all dead, could they not see even a storage ring?

    Zhang Liang spoke no further. After a while, Li Hao received a message that the mission was epted and approved. A delighted He Yong looked at his increased merits. He wanted to use them for mysterious power stones, but decided to go for a promotion first. There were more enemies outside the walls!

    There was still a chance to earn money. Obtaining that promotion first would be convenient. At least he¡¯d be able to directly talk to Li Hao and not have to rely on Hong Yitang each time instead.

    ......

    Zhang Liang walked into the back,ing back out after a while with a bundle of items for each of them. ¡°The Mind Fruits are kept in the storage ring. They will certainly still have an effect, but perhaps a weaker one since so many years have passed. It won¡¯t be much use for you, but there should be something there.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be in a hurry to utilize the Building Five Bridges method. Read it first, understand its meaning, then try.¡± He turned to Li Hao and Hong Yitang. ¡°Work hard! Although Military Supplies isn¡¯t the designated exchange agency, we have a sword method that is very suited to you too! The Voidbreak Incantation was created early on by a supreme personage...¡±

    Hong Yitang¡¯s eyes lit up when he heard the sword method¡¯s name.

    ¡°You... look like you¡¯ve heard of it?¡± Zhang Liang turned empty eyes toward the man.

    ¡°Yes.¡± Hong Yitang nodded frankly. ¡°But I was unable to obtain a copy of the secret art. It is said that its creator was an invincible existence in the ancient civilization.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Zhang Liang nodded, his ripples carrying respect and admiration. ¡°That was indeed an invincible personage. Although this is just his early work, it will be an immense benefit for any of you sword cultivators. The Sword Sovereign from the Li family once received pointers from him...

    ¡°The Sword Sovereign is also an invincible entity.¡± Zhang Liang turned to Li Hao. ¡°But he received quite a bit of tutge in the beginning andter on from the owner of the Voidbreak Incantation. If you can obtain it, that will be of enormous help to you!¡±

    Li Hao grew lost in thought. His ancestor had received help from the master of this sword method? What kind of personage could he be?

    ¡°Was... was my ancestor very strong, back in the day?¡± he couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°How aboutpared to the one who named Battle Heaven?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Zhang Liang shook his head after momentary silence. ¡°The two didn¡¯t sparter on. It would certainly be the Sword Sovereign in the beginning. He left for a period of time and continued to develop then, but it is too far for us to consider!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t ask further since it was apparent there were no answers to be had.

    ¡°Let us speak to here!¡± Zhang Liang grew impatient when Li Hao wanted to ask other questions.

    ¡°Wait, how much for that sword method?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not expensive, just ten thousand points!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>Go fuck yourself!</i> Li Hao nearly cursed. <i>What was the point of saying all that? You might as well leave it since it¡¯s that expensive. I have to kill ten thousand Srs for that, who are you kidding??</i>

 Chapter 475: Enormous Gains (I)

    <h4>Chapter 475: Enormous Gains (I)</h4>

    Li Hao walked out of Military Supplies with an additional book¡ªBuilding Five Bridges¡ªand a sk with ten fruits. It had to remain sealed until he wanted to use it; the fruit inside might expire as soon as he opened the sk. They might¡¯ve rotted away and decayed long ago if they were held inside a storage ring.

    He also had forty-six small stones that were very translucent. Their caliber was far beyond what ordinary mysterious power stones measured up to.

    He Yong and Hong Yitang also had the book in their possession. Hong Yitang had traded the rest of his merits for Mind Fruits and He Yong headed to the Recruitment Hall to be promoted to a Bronze Armor. That was something not distributed at Military Supplies.

    The three paged through the book. After a while, He Yong sighed, ¡°I need to learn how to read!¡±

    He didn¡¯t know ancient text! It felt so awful to have a secret art in his hands and be unable to decipher it. Damned awful. Indeed, He Yong wasn¡¯t able to make any sense of what he read after flipping through the book. Meanwhile, Hong Yitang gleaned a bit of meaning and sank into deep thought.

    Li Hao paged through the entire book and discovered it to be an interesting theory. One could categorize it as a cultivation method, but it wouldn¡¯t enhance one¡¯s strength. It was a very unique method in the young man¡¯s eyes.

    <i>Five bridges...</i>

    The five bridges of heaven and earth were to be built between the five organs, creating a massive cirction cycle that connected them. Just that theory alone was thought provoking, not to mention the book indicated that this was a rudimentary cultivation method back in the day. This meant that everyone cultivated in this manner during the ancient civilization.

    <i>But what of the supernatural locks? The book says that the five bridges are amunication of energy. Are the bridges the supernatural locks?</i>

    There were five locks, each corresponding to one of the five organs. The young man didn¡¯t have inspiration at present as to how to build the bridges, but perhaps the supernatural locks could be a key link between them.

    ¡°Martial Uncle Hong, do you think we can use the supernatural locks as metal suspension bridges to connect the organs?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°The ancient civilization¡¯s cultivation system is some parts different from ours. The modern system has independently developed to present day, sketched out by generations of martial masters. It might not measure up to ancient knowledge, but it has its own unique characteristics.

    ¡°Take our mind intent, for example. To be a Dominator is to possess it¡ªit¡¯s a middle of the pack aplishment. But in the ancient civilization, mind intent is hard to manifest, much less cultivating five at a time like your teacher.¡±

    Li Hao understood some of the differences between the modern and ancient systems. ¡°There¡¯s great value in using ancient knowledge as a mirror, but it might not actually be useful.¡± He nodded. ¡°We can give it a try. It will be a great thing if it seeds!¡±

    Hong Yitang nodded, whereas He Yong asked restlessly, ¡°Um... can you trante this for me? It was pretty expensive and aplete waste if I can¡¯t read it.¡±

    The book would be a paperweight for him then.

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait until I have time.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°There isn¡¯t much text, but mistakes might crop up with an impromptu trantion. They use different terms in the ancient civilization, so I need to corroborate with other ancient texts to make a proper trantion. If I just go at it, some of what I say won¡¯t make sense.¡±

    <i>Fine then!</i> He Yong could only wait. This further reinforced his desire to learn how to read. Just look at his current straits!

    He headed to the Recruitment Hall to trade-in his equipment when they passed by. A satisfied He Yong remerged momentster, equipped with a Bronze Armor. Li Hao noticed some new data in his armor¡ªsoldier He Yong had be the leader of the Second Company!

    ¡°I¡¯m finally an officer!¡± He Yong exulted. Being apany leader was the equivalent of a centurion. He would start getting depressed if he didn¡¯t receive a promotion for long. Being a soldier was no fun.

    He held no resentment over spending one hundred merits for the upgrade. A bronze armor¡¯s defensive ability andfort were much stronger than a ck armor. ck armor could not withstand attacks from Srs or Novas; it was even easily ripped apart by Novas. And while Novas could send their energy into bronze armor, it was much more difficult to rip that equipment apart.

    Bronze Armors had died over the course of holding off Xu Feng, but that¡¯de through self detonation. Xu Feng hadn¡¯t been able to punch through them in one blow, and that was under the circumstances of those soldiers being long dead. For someone like He Yong wearing bronze armor, a Nova didn¡¯t have much hope of breaking his equipment.

    The trio walked outside after they were newly equipped. Metallic nging sounded before long¡ªa Red Armor presented itself. Its color was more vividpared to the ones they¡¯d seen before.

    Unique ripples traveled out of its armor when it caught up to the three. ¡°Troop Leader Li, are you headed out of the barracks?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°ording to wartime regtions, you are not to leave the barracks without an urgent mission as you are new recruits who have yet toplete your training!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The three pause, what did this mean? <i>We can¡¯t leave?</i>

    ¡°Um... will I explode if I exit the city?¡± Li Hao thought something.

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    ¡°Not only you, but the armor of apany leader will also explode!¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong was no longer happy. Dazed, he cursed himself for obtaining that promotion!

    But since the Red Armor had caught up to them, it did so for other reasons. ¡°Themander has issued orders that you three are not martial cultivators of our time or ordinary rookies. As the city is nearly asleep, you may not be able toplete your training if you remain here.

    ¡°Thus, themander wishes for me to convey to Troop Leader Li that you should go to the Mission Hall if you wish to leave Battle Heaven. epting an outside mission will permit you to leave the city. Although these missions have long expired, they can still be epted. In fact, it¡¯s better that they have expired. You can remain outside indefinitely. But you cannot directly leave Battle Heaven¡ªyou¡¯ll be marked as traitors and be in a lot of trouble then!¡±

    <i>Commander? </i>Li Hao thought of the Gold Armor, the one who¡¯d demoted him! Otherwise, the two of them might be the same level. Then <i>he</i> was themander of the Ninth Division.

    If themander wore gold armor and the one in the city lord manor wore gold armor, then what of themander-in-chief of the Reserve Defenders? Was there another color of armor beyond gold?

    One could leave the city only with a mission in hand. Thank goodness the army had sent someone with a reminder. The trio would be in such trouble if they left outright!

    ¡°I see, where is the Mission Hall?¡± Li Hao asked.

    ¡°Do you wish to go right now? I can lead you there.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s go take a look!¡±

    The Red Armor headed off without another word; the trio made use of this opportunity to take a close look around. A parade ground, dorms, buildings...

    It was all very simple, but a veryrgeplex. A unique stone formed the ground¡ªthe same material as the one outside, but one that looked even more durable.

    ¡°Is this the headquarters of the Battle Heaven Army?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but ask after they walked for a while.

    ¡°No, this is the Ninth Division. Headquarters is located further in. The city houses only the Reserve Defenders. The other divisions are encamped elsewhere and frontlines only returns in between battles...¡±

    <i>Further in... </i>The trio looked in the relevant direction, but didn¡¯t see anything other than pitch ck. So this meant that there was amander-in-chief in residence in the city?

    ¡°Is themander-in-chief of the Reserve Defenders present?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, we are not aware of his movements. We have not seen him in many years. Perhaps he has left, perhaps he has fallen silent.¡±

    ¡°Have you never been tempted to leave after the others did?¡± He Yong couldn¡¯t help his curiosity.

    ¡°No, our mission is to protect the city and the people within.¡±

    ¡°Then...¡± He Yong hesitated before his next question. ¡°Are the people... dead?¡±

    ¡°Yes, some died of old age, some left of their own volition.¡±

    ¡°Are there other cities nearby?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The Red Armor seemed to be rifling through its memories and also considering whether or not it could reveal this information. ¡°Yes! The eight guardian ns built eight cities throughout Silver Moon to safeguard the Star Gate!¡±

    ¡°......Star Gate?¡± the trio quickly followed up.

    ¡°My memory is lost, I have forgotten what the Star Gate is!¡±

    Had it truly forgotten, or was it unwilling to say? Li Hao thought of the stone doorway in Silver City. Was that the Star Gate?

    These ancients knew a lot. Battle Heaven¡¯s greatest wealth was in these dead people, not resources. The information they knew and the cultivation system of the ancient civilization was all worthy of reference.

    The eight guardian ns built eight cities to safeguard the Star Gate. So that meant there were seven other cities in Silver Moon? And this ce had been called Silver Moon since the ancient times?

    Li Hao was rather confused. Silver Moon came from the names of Silver City and White Moon City. Why did this one hail this ce as Silver Moon?

    ¡°Has this locale always been known as Silver Moon?¡± asked Hong Yitang.

    ¡°This is thend of the silver moon, so of course it is Silver Moon! This part of the cosmos is all hailed as Silver Moon because its moon is the most beautiful color of silver!¡±

    Silver? The trio blinked. But... it wasn¡¯t! The moon in the sky was marked with some red. What silver was there?

    Li Hao looked around dazedly. This entire part of the cosmos was called Silver Moon... not just this locale.

    The Red Armor led them to another hall.

    ¡°There were eleven troops in the Ninth Division, making for eleven thousand people,¡± Li Hao suddenly said. ¡°With one thousand dead, there should be another ten thousand. If there are three thousand outside the city, that means there are seven thousand here?¡±

    The Red Armor did not respond.

    ¡°Can you not speak of that?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°Not... the one thousand dead you speak of is wrong! We are all dead,¡± the soldier replied calmly. ¡°The Tenth Troop was just the first to fall, we are all dead! There are more than eleven thousand in the Ninth Division as we need to take into ount the officers, Military Supplies, Supervisory Guard, Education, and Training... There are fifteen thousand people in the Ninth Division.¡±

    One division possessed fifteen thousand members!

 Chapter 476: Enormous Gains (II)

    <h4>Chapter 476: Enormous Gains (II)</h4>

    ¡°How many divisions are there in the Reserve Defenders?¡±

    ¡°Ten total, they are all full!¡±

    That made for approximately one hundred fifty thousand people in one reserve troop, that was terrifying! Li Hao, Hong Yitang, and He Yong were currently just seeing the Ninth Division.

    ¡°That means there are more than one million in the Battle Heaven Army, but the city isn¡¯t big enough for those numbers!¡± He Yong suggested. Battle Heaven was just the size of Silver City.

    ¡°This is the city in miniature,¡± Red Armor replied matter-of-factly. ¡°There is a currentck of energy to power operations, so Battle Heaven has shrunk by a lot to improve defense.

    ¡°We spanned arge area before, what you see now is the city after it¡¯s been folded upon itself. At its peak, the city contained fifty million people and one million soldiers. General Pagoda sat in residence within the city and twelve nt spirits were in charge of supplying energy. The city could take to the skies at any time to conduct battle from the air...¡±

    The soldier pointed ahead. ¡°Let¡¯s set that aside, this is all in the past. Current day Battle Heaven is only so big! The Mission Hall is here, go and receive your missions. There should be someone here as some of the dead soldiers revived today...¡±

    The trio was still reeling from what they¡¯d just heard! An enormous city that could hold fifty million, one that could fly though the sky! Was... that still a city?? And it could shrink? It could fold upon itself? The more they knew, the more insignificant they felt! This city was a wondrous weapon!

    Dazed, they wandered into the Mission Hall. It was a ce popted by many service windows, but some were empty and others staffed by Red Armors lying on the ground, as if entirely dead. Only a few sparkled with light to indicate that they were still operating. A quick nce showed that four were operational out of at least one hundred.

    It would seem that this city was indeed only partially awake. Some additional sections had opened today due to the number of people that¡¯d died in the earlier battle. The trio walked toward a window sparkling with light.

    When the Red Armor inside saw Li Hao, it rose with a salute. ¡°Troop Leader!¡± It sat back down without waiting for a response, light dancing in its eyes. ¡°Is the troop leader here to secure a mission?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Li Hao nodded, despite the difort he felt at such treatment. ¡°I would like to im a mission that takes me out of the city, one with an indefinite time period. Do those still exist?¡±

    ¡°Yes, some missions have been active for a very long time without being canceled. They might¡¯ve been forgotten or just continued to operate...¡± came the mechanical response. The soldier quickly brought out something that looked like a screen. ¡°Troop Leader Li, there are three missions on here that meet your needs. You can choose one of them!¡±

    Li Hao focused on his look.

    ¡°Mission one: Battle Heavencks sufficient life energy and the skies have overturned. The eight cities have lost contact with each other. One is to head to the other seven cities and reopen the life transmission system to restoremunication between the eight cities and the flow of life energy. Reward: One hundred thousand merits!

    ¡°Mission two: the Forbidden Sea is flowing backward into Ash Mountain. Find the point of backflow and seal off the passageway. Reward: Ten thousand merits.

    ¡°Mission three: contact has been lost with Skystar Fortress of Skystar Ind. The ind is suspected to have been lost to the enemy. Travel to the ind with due haste to ascertain the situation and restoremunication. The energy mine of the fortress is not to fall into enemy hands. Reward: Ten thousand merits.¡±

    Li Hao blinked rapidly when he read the missions. <i>Skystar Ind? Ash Mountain? Hot damn, that¡¯s a lot of familiar names. Skystar Dynasty... Our Ash Mountain... Are they rted to these ancient records?</i>

    ¡°Where is Skystar Ind?¡± he couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°In the depths of the sea!¡± answered the Red Armor handing out missions. ¡°Skystar Ind is an important energy base as there is an enormous energy mine there, overseen by the fortress! It is in charge of supplying energy stones to Battle Heaven and some of the other major cities. We lost contact with it in the initial days of celestial unrest. The men we sent to investigate never reported back. Perhaps they were ambushed by the enemy!¡±

    He Yong hadn¡¯t understood the missions¡ªhe paused at this moment. ¡°Skystar Ind... Skystar Fortress... Is this ind... big?¡±

    ¡°Very big!¡± responded the Red Armor. ¡°It sits over the enormous mine and is supplied with ample energy. It bears the duty of pacifying the seas with a garrison of one hundred thousand. It is a military town. If you ept this mission... It doesn¡¯t matter anymore, but if you can find some clues... As useless as they might be, you should be rewarded with the relevant merits when you return.¡±

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t care about this. ¡°I recall that the ancient records state that the Goldensky Lotus grows in the Forbidden Sea. Is that true?¡±

    ¡°Correct!¡±

    The trio lit up at the response. The valley of the severed mountain! They¡¯d discovered a Goldensky Lotus there. Li Hao hadn¡¯t understood the second mission at first; he regarded it anew. Was that valley the point of backflow? So theke was actually seawater?

    ¡°What is the Forbidden Sea?¡± the young man quickly asked.

    ¡°The sea!¡±

    <i>No shit! </i>Li Hao looked on wordlessly.

    ¡°It was formed in the primordial past when a powerhouse perished and their blood dripped into the sea. It corrodes everything within it, but was pacified when the Human King conquered the world. However, parts of the corrosive properties still remain...

    ¡°Which mission does Troop Leader Li wish to take?¡±

    ¡°Can we take all three?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The Red Armor checked its records. ¡°You can!¡±

    Li Hao held a bit of hope. What if he couldplete the missions? It didn¡¯t cost anything to ept them, so ept them he would. Three missions soon appeared in his visor. There were no time limits and the personnel selected were the trio. Every member of the Twelfth Company was to muster out!

    The three wanted to ask more questions after they epted the missions, but the soldier closed the window. Li Hao regarded it with resignation. Had it specifically opened for business just for them?

    ......

    ¡°This city likely hasn¡¯t awakened properly because of ack of energy.¡± Hong Yitang turned back for a look when they walked out of the hall. ¡°Skystar Ind... I wonder if Skystar Dynasty obtained some heritage from the ind? Their ck Armaturas might be the soldiers left behind at the Skystar Fortress. If that¡¯s the case... is the central region... an ind?¡±

    ¡°It might be!¡± He Yong eximed. ¡°Skystar Ind... Skystar Dynasty... Is such a coincidence possible? An energy mine... what a pity that it probably doesn¡¯t exist anymore even if it was there!

    ¡°But if the ruins of Skystar Fortress are still there... overseeing a massive mine... What the ancients termed enormous must be huge. How else could it support a big city like Battle Heaven? It must¡¯ve had many reserves. I feel that the royal family has many mysterious power stones, but it hasn¡¯t explored the ruins much. Can it be that they have the city instead?

    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, then they¡¯ll have many mysterious power stones and their strength will be much more fearsome than I anticipate!¡±

    Skystar Fortress had been in charge of the entire ind and housed the garrison that supplied energy stones. How much in reserves would a city like that contain? Not much energy would¡¯ve been lost to time if they¡¯d been stored in storage rings. Just the very thought was frightening.

    ¡°And there¡¯s another seven cities out there... Li Hao, you¡¯re rich, kid!¡±

    ¡°How am I rich?¡± Li Hao rolled his eyes at He Yong.

    ¡°Your family might have a city too¡ªno, it must have one. You¡¯re rich once you find it! You¡¯re an outsider here, but you¡¯re the young lord in your own city!¡±

    Li Hao rolled his eyes again. That¡¯s nonsense! Without sufficient strength, he would probably end up in the same straits if there were also armored soldiers present. He¡¯d be sent flying with a punch and deemed too lowly for anything!

    The trio felt that their worldviews had been broadened, and that everything they¡¯d seen before was far too insignificant. A city that could house fifty million, that could fly and fight, and was staffed with one million soldiers was just one of eight! The weakest of their soldiers still possessed the equivalent of a modern Dominator. Then their Sunderers back in the day were likely a Dominator at minimum, correct?

    There were one million such soldiers in the city and eight of them back in the day! Added to that a few small towns... It boggled the mind to consider how strong they would¡¯ve all been. The ancients counted mysterious power stones in terms of mines, not stones. One mine here, one mine there... Just look at that, that was true wealth!

    ¡°If it¡¯s possible, I would love to witness the glories of the ancient civilization!¡± He Yong sighed with appreciation. ¡°With my strength, I would be a Silver Armor if there was more flexibility to the system in the ancient past, right?¡±

    ¡°......are you sure?¡± Hong Yitang asked meaningfully. ¡°Those Silver Armor troop leaders are peak Nova or beyond when they awaken. That¡¯s without a physical body too. How strong do you think they were back in the day?¡±

    <i>Alright then!</i> He Yong thought. ¡°I may not be weaker than them when I unseal my supernatural locks!¡±

    <i>I hope so, at least!</i>

    ¡°Enough, there¡¯s no point discussing this. Let¡¯s go. There¡¯s anothermander in residence at the barracks. We should keep our distance in case we irritate them and they punch us to death with one blow!¡±

    The three headed outside of the barracks.

    ......

    Panther was waiting at the doors. It hadn¡¯t gone in earlier because the guards didn¡¯t permit it. It looked like the dog wasn¡¯t part of the military system. Perhaps someone else had given it benefits before.

    <i>Outside of the barracks.</i>

    ¡°Where to now?¡± Li Hao looked at the two. ¡°To the city lord manor? I wonder if that Gold Armor has returned yet... Does it want me there to give me something or another punch?¡±

    He still had lingering fear from theirst meeting. These fellows were very strong, even when dead. They probably really could¡¯ve killed him with one punch when they were alive.

 Chapter 477: Enormous Gains (III)

    <h4>Chapter 477: Enormous Gains (III)</h4>

    ¡°Let¡¯s go take a look!¡± Hong Yitang looked at the pagoda in the distance. ¡°We collected some treasures on ourst trip¡ªeveryone did. We all took some ancient books and baubles from the city lord manor. It wasn¡¯t until we tried to take the ck Tortoise Seal that we infuriated the golden one, which led it to killing the guy from Celestial.¡±

    The group of powerhouses had infiltrated the city lord manorst time. This time, he wanted to openly walk in for a look. As one of the eight families, Li Hao could visit the city lord manor as well. The guidebook said that he¡¯d be treated with courtesy.

    After some thought, the young man decided to go for a look. There were many ces in this city that he¡¯d yet to explore. The city lord manor was one ce that he was very curious about.

    Three humans and a dog headed in the appropriate direction. Panther was a bit ufortable and not the most willing. It didn¡¯t want to go there, that ce was terrifying!

    However, Li Hao wanted to go, so the dog had no choice but to follow.

    ......

    <i>The city lord manor.</i>

    Battle Heaven¡¯s city lord manor stood next to the Tortoise Pagoda. It upied arge expanse ofnd and the front doors were open. When Li Hao and the rest passed by, he couldn¡¯t help but look at the pagoda next to it. A massive turtle was carved on it¡ªlight sparkled off its shell. It was the source of the illumination in the ancient city.

    The three were met by three Silver Armors when they arrived.

    ¡°Troop Leader Li!¡± The one in front hailed Li Hao, more emotion in his voicepared to before. It seemed to hint at mirth. ¡°We¡¯re going to the eastern gate to resume defense duties. Come join us for a chat when you¡¯re done!¡±

    Li Hao blinked, then beamed widely. ¡°Troop Leader Jiang, you guys are alright?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    The three troop leaders were the ones that¡¯d safeguarded the eastern gate. Li Hao had thought they would disappear upon the wind after their reawakening, much like thest Silver Armor. But here they were, alive and well. Well, alright, perhaps alive was the wrong word to use. These three were fine, however. It was quite a surprise.

    The note of joy in the Seventh Troop leader¡¯s voice was a marked difference from before. ¡°Then we¡¯re off, you guys go in. Director General Wang from Security is waiting for you inside.¡±

    ¡°Director general...?¡± Li Hao repeated with surprise.

    ¡°Mmhmm, that office is in charge of the city¡¯s day-to-day safety. He¡¯s the one you guys saw before. The military doesn¡¯t normally oversee this, that falls under his jurisdiction. He¡¯s also in charge of securing the city lord manor. He¡¯s been in charge of managing this area since the city lord left...¡±

    Li Hao finally understood! The Gold Armor in residence here wasn¡¯t the city lord, but someone akin to the inspector general of the Inspectorate. This analogy delivered clear understanding. Then themander of the Ninth Division was likely someone of Huang Yun¡¯s role, or perhaps lower like Hu Dingfang? The one sitting inside was the equivalent of Kong Jie. As for which Gold Armor held a higher status, that was difficult for Li Hao to determine.

    The three thought for a bit and were about to walk inside when a voice ripple traveled out. ¡°Only Li Hao need enter!¡±

    He Yong rolled his eyes. Hong Yitangughed and didn¡¯t insist on anything. He stood by the side of the door and didn¡¯t enter. Li Hao walked in with some apprehension, passing through the square that came into view first.

    An open hall loomed momentster. A Gold Armor sat inside with a massive seal on the table in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, Li Hao saw that it resembled a turtle. Was this the ck Tortoise Seal?

    Light glittered in the Gold Armor¡¯s eyes¡ªone couldn¡¯t tell if he truly had eyes or not, so it was rather frightening.

    ¡°Time is merciless. The Li family of the day and descendants of the Sword Sovereign have declined to these depths...¡±

    A wordless Li Hao didn¡¯t know what to say.

    ¡°Battle Heaven had gonepletely quiet,¡± the Gold Armor changed the topic. ¡°It would¡¯ve disappeared into history in a few more years! But someone seemed to break some sort of seal a few years ago and suffused the barren soil of Silver Moon with energy. We recovered some of our consciousness and revitalized the city.¡±

    <i>The rise of the supernatural!</i>

    Li Hao understood what the Gold Armor was referring to and why Silver Moon had be such impoverished territory. The ancient cities had absorbed the energy and caused there to be a shortage of mysterious power.

    ¡°We wouldn¡¯t have thought anything else if we¡¯d fully fallen asleep. But since we¡¯ve reawakened, we would like to aplish some things.¡± The director general of Security seemed to be looking at Li Hao. ¡°As part of the bloodline of the eight guardian ns and wielder of Steris, I do not wish to speak to you of responsibilities or obligations. The times have changed, so none of that matters anymore. Each generation has their own purpose. We have ours, you have yours! Restoring our glory and battling the firmament once more is no longer your responsibility or obligation!

    ¡°But since we share enough of a destiny to meet at Battle Heaven, I would like to ask you for a favor. Of course, I willpensate you ordingly.¡±

    ¡°Please go ahead, general!¡± Li Hao finally responded.

    ¡°I am not a general... but it¡¯s fine, you can call me whatever you wish. The eight guardian ns have eight heritage weapons! These ancient weapons must still exist as they are indestructible! Your Steris is one of them. One of the other seven is in Battle Heaven. The other six are lost. I do not know if they¡¯re in the other cities or if the descendants of the eight families took them away...

    ¡°If possible, I would like you to collect these weapons.¡±

    ¡°What use is there apart from them possessing formidable might?¡± Li Hao asked curiously.

    ¡°They are keys... Of course, it doesn¡¯t have much to do with you.¡±

    <i>Oi, you talk like I don¡¯t hold Steris. Of course it has much to do with me!</i>

    ¡°Does the general mean to say that I should collect these weapons and give them to you?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± the director general responded ponderously. ¡°Just lend them to me for a bit, I will return them to you after! There¡¯s no rush as countless eons have passed. It¡¯s just a lingering wish of mine.¡±

    Li Hao blinked, then suddenly asked, ¡°Does the general know about a diagram of the eight trigrams and a stone door...¡±

    The director general was deathly still before finally responding, ¡°Have you... seen that ce?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Ai!¡± he sighed. ¡°It looks like... they truly didn¡¯te back! Let¡¯s set the diagram aside¡ªthere¡¯s more than one stone door. There¡¯s eight, but I¡¯m not sure what lies behind the doors. The city lord might know. I think that there might be some heritage left behind by the powerhouses of the eight ns behind the doors. In our age, promising talents from the families were transported through them to receive some benefits.

    ¡°Of course, it¡¯s hard to say now since it¡¯s been too long! Your Steris is still sealed. That¡¯s good, as you wouldn¡¯t be able to use it if it¡¯s unsealed. The stone door... Don¡¯t be in a rush to go through the door of the Lis if you see it. You¡¯re so weak that unexpected danger might ur after you cross it!

    ¡°As for the eight diagrams... you should not explore that yet. It¡¯s too dangerous for you¡ªyou¡¯ll easily lose your life!¡± The director general added, ¡°And don¡¯t try to unseal it either...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s a seal?¡± Li Hao blinked. ¡°But someone has destroyed the legacy of the eight families. Everyone else is dead apart from me. I see seven lines out of the eight in the diagram being held by one person!¡±

    The director general quieted again. ¡°Is that so? Then the person manipting the lines should be a descendant of the eight. Outsiders cannot control them. It looks like traitors have appeared in the eight guardian ns after so much time has passed... That makes sense, their calling is too far removed! It is normal to forget their ancestors¡¯ glories. There is no need to demand too much from them.¡±

    It would seem that the director general kept a very open mind and was magnanimous about things. However, he still said after some thought, ¡°You must be careful if this is the case! That person is certain to be strong! He wille for you if you don¡¯t go for him. He¡¯ll attempt to take your life since he knows certain things!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s tried to kill me multiple times.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°He did so from the shadows at first and didn¡¯t mean to kill me in the beginning. He wanted to use a bloody shadow to devour my bloodline...¡±

    ¡°He just wants to unseal Steris.¡± The director general knew quite a lot. ¡°Steris is the heart of the eight ancient weapons. If Steris is strong enough, it might be able to rece the other seven if they¡¯re lost.

    ¡°It looks like this person understands quite a lot. Otherwise, it would be too foolish to make his attempts whilecking the ck Tortoise Seal of the Wangs.¡±

    Li Hao was confused by the conversation because he knew too little. Ying Hongyue knew more, and it looked like he might be one of the eight!

    Well, maybe not! What if there was someone else behind him? Who knew?

    ¡°Be careful.¡± The director general said nothing else or offered advice on how to withstand Ying Hongyue. ¡°I¡¯ve seen the bloody shadows you speak of, it¡¯s those things outside the city, yes? Those are blood puppets and nothing good. Be careful of bacsh if you keep a blood puppet around! Theye from devouring the blood qi of others. Prolonged nurturinges at the cost of one¡¯s own health. Of course, there are scoundrels who borrow the vitality of others to raise their blood puppets. The people outside might be the subordinates of the one you speak of, or their enemy.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re all from Red Moon. The leader of Red Moon is the scoundrel that I speak of!¡±

    ¡°It would seem that these people haveid hands on the legacy of a deviated path. They do not walk the true path,¡± concluded the director general. ¡°Kill them if you can. If not... there¡¯s no need to do anything. They¡¯ll be caught in their own trap soon enough as they¡¯ll be the death of themselves! Avoid them, they¡¯re quite strong. I saw that some of the blood puppets outside are fine specimens. Although it hurts others, it benefits the master.¡±

 Chapter 478: Enormous Gains (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 478: Enormous Gains (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao nodded. There was no doubt that Ying Hongyue was very strong. His organs were likely formidable beyond belief as well. How could they not be with a daily diet of blood pearls?

    But judging from the Gold Armor¡¯s tone, this wasn¡¯t a good thing. The supernaturals that nurtured the scarlet shadows might all suffer some sort of bacsh, they just weren¡¯t aware of it yet.

    ¡°You may go, I have no further business with you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao regarded the director general wordlessly.<i> Isn¡¯t there anything you want to give me? You called me here just to have me collect ancient weapons? You¡¯re... a bit stingy!</i>

    The director general of Security seemed to read Li Hao¡¯s mood. ¡°Stop looking at me,¡± he said calmly. ¡°I have nothing for you! Nothing is given for free in this world, you must pay a price to receive anything. Everything is traded for equal value! Conflict is inevitable in martial dao, fight for it yourself!

    ¡°Everything that martial masters are are a result of their own efforts, not even the eight families are an exception. When the Human King came into his own, he could kill countless others for a piece of energy stone, to say nothing of the eight families. He gained his power from stepping on the bodies of innumerable others. It is an advantage conferred by your bloodline that you¡¯ve joined the Battle Heaven Army. The rest... you should trade and fight for it yourself. Battle Heaven is just a tform for you!

    ¡°Your ancestors have wrested certain advantages for you, do not think of anything else!¡±

    <i>Aright then! </i>Li Hao nodded after some thought. It made sense. Victories were sweeter when they were a result of his own hands.

    ¡°Then... thank you, general. I take my leave!¡± Li Hao turned and left. He didn¡¯t have too many regrets. Although he hadn¡¯t received anything, he¡¯d learned some knowledge. At least he knew that the bastard Ying Hongyue was very strong and might be an heir to one of the eight families. That was enough.

    The director general seemed to think of something when he was about to leave. ¡°I cannot give you benefits, but I can give you a clue. The eight families established a martial university back in the day to train their descendants. It¡¯s named the Silver Moon Martial University. You might happen upon some surprises if you can find this ce. It was built for the eight families!

    ¡°Some of the eight families¡¯ battle techniques, methods, and specific training methods can be found within. However, with the changing of the times, I am no longer sure where the university is. It was in the center of the eight cities and shouldn¡¯t be far from the diagram of the eight trigrams that you speak of!¡±

    Li Hao turned back. ¡°Thank you, general!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just a clue, the rest is up to your own fortunes. Perhaps it¡¯s long fallen apart!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, I understand!¡± The young man left.

    ¡°...Guardian, can we really not give him a pointer or two?¡± Gold Armor asked after momentary silence.

    ¡°Our time is not what they are now. Body constitutions and paths of strength are all different. We cannot interpose the past onto the present. He may not be able to practice the formidable methods we give him and it may impede his path instead. These people train in a vastly different way. Look at how strong his mental strength is, it far exceeds the physical body. Most people outside the city are thus. Would this have been the case in our time?

    ¡°There is no talk of good or bad to be had here. Perhaps this is the method most suited to them. He will lose himself in strong methods and possibly bepletely crippled in the end.¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± The director general said nothing more. He¡¯d want to give Li Hao additional benefits, but the guardian had stopped him. That could not take ce! It might harm the young man instead.

    Supplemental methods such as Building Five Bridges could be used as reference. If they gave him aplete cultivation system, that would just turn Li Hao into a typical ancient cultivator. If one practiced ancient methods in this day and age... the most likely oue was that the cultivator would embark on a path not as strong as their own could be.

    After sending Li Hao off, the director general once more sank into quiet.

    ......

    Three humans and one dog left the city lord manor. Li Hao looked up at therge turtle in the sky when they departed the premises. The sculpture was so lifelike that it was as if a real turtle.

    It was massive!

    Battle Heaven was said to have shrunk many times over. Had the pagoda been even bigger before?

    The group soundlessly walked outside. Halfway out of the city, Li Hao looked at Hong Yitang with slight confusion. ¡°Martial Uncle Hong, if an existence as strong as the ancient civilization perished, does that mean there is no need for martial dao to persist?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hong Yitang served him with an odd look. ¡°What are you suddenly thinking about this for?¡±

    ¡°No reason.¡± Li Hao shook his head with a sigh. ¡°I just suddenly thought of a saying¡ªthe people suffer in times of prosperity, the people suffer in times of demise. A bunch of supernaturals and martial masters cause suffering day in and day out, turning a good student like me into a killing machine! It¡¯s bullshit, is what it is!

    ¡°And now look at the bunch of pitiful souls left behind after the ancient civilization toppled...¡± He looked behind them, then at the eastern gates. ¡°I just feel that they must be constantly suffering.¡±

    Perhaps they themselves didn¡¯t think so, but Li Hao felt so. The soldiers were quiet for countless eons and had to endure tremendous torment upon awakening. They had to continue to defend their homes.

    It wasn¡¯t anything specific that Li Hao could voice. Perhaps he was too young to know the kind of fervor that etched itself in one¡¯s bones. All he was doing wasining, nothing else. He suddenly felt a bit lost when it came to the future and his life. But upon circling back to the idea that there were many tasks waiting for him to aplish, he quickly flung everything to the back of his mind.

    The enemy was not yet dead, what was the point of thinking so much? He wasn¡¯t brainstorming any magnificent goals or ambitious ns to retrace the footsteps of the ancient civilization. It was just musings over what he¡¯d seen and heard on this trip to the ancient city. He shoved these thoughts into the depths of his heart and didn¡¯t disy any of it.

    Hong Yitang flicked a nce at Li Hao. The young man might be a bit lost, but what should be said had been said. It was up to him to walk his path. Everyone had their pursuits¡ªold fart Yuan Shuo was probably chasing his quite hard at the moment. He¡¯d found his life¡¯s purpose and might have established himself in the central region.

    What about himself? Hong Yitang¡¯s thoughts traveled to himself. He was strong enough, but also weakpared to those of the ancient civilization. He wanted to reach the levels seen in those days and held certain thoughts when it came to martial dao. But wasn¡¯t he equally as lost as the young man? Was there anything he could change? Or should he live as heartlessly as He Yong and focus only on martial breakthroughs?

    This era... seemed very boring. Itcked something.

    Hong Yitang subconsciously knew what itcked, but he couldn¡¯t achieve such a goal. Hecked the determination to do so. It would require a saint to aplish, not a mere human. He was no saint.

    Therefore, he could only speak of lofty goals. Hecked the confidence and courage to actually seek them.

    Hong Yitang became quiet when he saw that Li Hao no longer said anything. He Yong sensed his change in mood and transmitted, ¡°What are you thinking, Ole Hong?¡±

    ¡°Nothing.¡±

    ¡°Tell me, what are you afraid of? We¡¯re old friends. Are you worried I¡¯llugh at you?¡±

    ¡°Piss off!¡±

    He Yong grinned. ¡°I sense something off after circling through the ancient city. Ole Hong, don¡¯t you think the current dynasty is a pool of dead water? The peopleck creativity and dig up whatever they need. Everything can be found in the ancient civilization. The war between supernaturals and martial masters also seems pointless. What are we fighting for? We rampage through thend just to crown ourselves sovereign of a territory...

    ¡°Weck the unity, fiery spirit, and faith of this ancient city, don¡¯t we?¡±

    ¡°And you know about this?¡± Hong Yitangughed.

    ¡°No shit, I¡¯m not a fool! What do you think, did Hou Xiaochen and the others kill the General of Northern Pacification?¡±

    ¡°What makes you say that?¡±

    ¡°If it was them, then the unrest in the three northern provinces will embroil the entire northern territory. Severe chaos is at hand¡ªHou Xiaochen and his gang have quite the ambitions. None of them are kind souls! He talks about heading to the central region, but leaves behind a mess in the north. I say he¡¯ll have toe back sooner orter, and heads will roll when he does...¡±

    ¡°Were you just thinking of why no one in our era considers being a regr person?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the point of being a regr person?¡± Hong Yitang broke out intoughter. ¡°Only a fool would do so, what¡¯s the purpose of considering them? There¡¯s no difference if more mundanes die. Weck innovation andbor¡ªmost of our technologies have been excavated from the ancient civilization. Everything from smelting iron to nes and bombs. Even our architecture style bears ancient influences.

    ¡°Our time period is built on the carcass of the old. We made it to our current heights through absorbing the essence of the ancient civilization. Our journey has be abnormal!¡±

    Theirs was a deformed era! The world possessed nes and bombs, even city annihtion missiles. There were supernaturals and martial masters, but the people had to depend on the weather when it came to their crops. The heavens dictated how much harvest was. The climate had been kind to them in recent years and produced bountiful harvests.

    Everything was about to be destroyed upon the rise of the supernatural and the ensuing war. Humanity would face extinction sooner orter!

    Granted, superhumans would be fine. They would take whatever theycked and never go hungry. Food, clothing, housing, and transportation were the pirs of survival. Transportation was inconvenient these days and food barely sufficient. Housing was nothing worthy of particr notice...

    Development continued, but the people seemed to be stuck in the same ce despite how everything developed. They were numb to the humdrum reality of their lives.

 Chapter 479: Judgment (I)

    <h4>Chapter 479: Judgment (I)</h4>

    ¡°What kinda pissed off crap are you saying!¡± He Yongughed. ¡°Ole Hong, do you have a grudge against Hong Yitang to suddenly target him in thest battle? Do you think he killed the General of Northern Pacification and is sitting by to watch the northern territory descend into chaos? Did you p his face because you feel that he¡¯s the reason why the people can¡¯t live in peace?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t, and <i>you¡¯re</i> the one who punched him!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t care,¡± He Yongughed. ¡°He¡¯s ugly when he smiles and I only punched him gently. You¡¯ve always kept yourself removed and indifferent about the situation. It¡¯s quite something for you to go all out and pit yourself against him!¡±

    ¡°What are you trying to say?¡± Hong Yitang didn¡¯t want to waste further time talking to the man.

    ¡°Not much,¡± He Yong responded. ¡°I just want to pay back my debt. Don¡¯t I owe you three thousand mysterious power stones? I won¡¯t be able to pay them back quickly, so why don¡¯t we cut a deal? I¡¯ll have the royal family bequeath you a minor title and a small fiefdom. You can be your own boss and won¡¯t have to answer to anyone. You can take in anyone you want to. I¡¯ll get you a bunch of provisions and some orphans from the war...¡±

    As crude as the man typically acted, he was no fool. He¡¯d seen something in Hong Yitang. ¡°You can do whatever you want behind closed doors. I don¡¯t think you¡¯re in the mood to go for general conquest, you¡¯re different from Hou Xiaochen and the rest. They might be thinking further and seek to do more. I feel that you¡¯re more down-to-earth, Ole Hong. What do you say?¡±

    ¡°Go screw yourself,¡± Hong Yitang transmitted. ¡°This is how you want to pay back three thousand stones?¡±

    ¡°Do you want it or not!¡± He Yong responded in kind. ¡°I¡¯ll choose a good ce for you. There are plenty of good fields close to your Sword Sect, but they all belong to others. No one¡¯s been tilling them for a while and much of Silver Moon has fallen to the wilderness these years. Since you don¡¯t have high ambitions, you might as well be the king of your own little ce. Isn¡¯t that just as well?¡±

    ¡°Get outta here. Not to mention, this isn¡¯t up to the royal family.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, the royal family just needs to legitimize you. It¡¯ll be a better circumstance than iming your own plot ofnd¡ªthat would be rebellion. If anyone makes trouble for you after the royal family gives you a title, then <i>they¡¯re</i> the traitors. You won¡¯t need to be afraid of them. All you need is that title.¡±

    Hong Yitang sank into deep thought.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say this to just anyone, but you have a taste of the ancients about you, Ole Hong. Although it¡¯s very little... I can help you! Your Sword Sect is only so big, but you¡¯ve taken in several hundred orphans. I know that you¡¯re used to keeping a low profile, yet you built up the Sword Sect reputation to intimidate the nearby supernaturals, did you not? You might do better if you have a greater expanse of territory. The world is about to fall to unrest!

    ¡°The three northern provinces are a mess, the central region is a mess, the whole world is about to be a mess! That¡¯s also good as that will facilitate the new. As opposed to spending our days in a foggy haze, it might be better to have the people wake up from chaos. You have some thoughts in your brain, I saw how you looked at those schools. You mentioned the general literacy rate¡ªmore evidence that you have some ns in mind! Then you should materialize those ns...¡±

    Hong Yitang walked in silence for a bit, then shook his head. ¡°I can¡¯t, I can¡¯t do it!¡±

    <i>I¡¯m just talking about it. I have neither the courage nor the charisma.</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t be like that. Why are you afraid when you¡¯re so strong? Do whatever you want. Are you still a martial master if you¡¯re afraid of hard times? Can anything be harder than you crouching at home the three times that Yuan Shuo came for you?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The hell?! Hong Yitang cursed to himself. What bullcrap was this?? Were they even the same concepts?

    ¡°Don¡¯t you find that you¡¯re very calm inside the city? And you feel at ease. There are ck Armors on duty outside, so you can live at peace. If you could, I¡¯d say you probably want to bring your wife and daughter here. Just think about it, have the children of the Sword Sect shared simr thoughts? They are reassured when you¡¯re there, but are they the same when you¡¯re gone?¡±

    ¡°Those aren¡¯t the same concepts, stop trying to misdirect me. You¡¯re saying all this just because you don¡¯t want to pay off your debt, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± He Yong cackled in direct admission. ¡°If you want me to pay you back... I really don¡¯t have that much money! I won¡¯t be able to pay it off even with the help of military merits. When ites to ordinary items, however, I think I can get them for you!¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s table that until we leave the ruins!¡± Hong Yitang didn¡¯t say anything else, he didn¡¯t want to say anything else.

    He Yong grinned proudly, knowing that he¡¯d tempted his counterpart. Paying off his debt suddenly looked so much easier.

    Mysterious power stones were difficult toe by, but basic resources were easy for him given his status, strength, and identity. Everyone cared more about the resources avable for supernatural training. As for those employed by mundanes, that wasn¡¯t even a topic of discussion.

    He Yong had heard what Hong Yitang murmured when the old man entered the ancient city. Li Hao just happened to wax eloquent in a sudden outpouring of emotion. He Yong could guess at what Hong Yitang was thinking by the look of lost hesitation in the man¡¯s eyes.

    Indeed, Earthturner Sword didn¡¯t turn down his proposal too emphatically. There was hope in sight for He Yong to pay off his debts! <i>But I wonder if it¡¯s wrong to goad Ole Hong into doing this. Is it right to make him the leader of an orphanage? Would that cause his martial dao to be stronger orpletely decline?</i>

    Who knew?

    Would the guy not do anything just because He Yong didn¡¯t mention anything? All he needed to consider was that he¡¯d be able to pay off his debts after voicing this possibility!

    ......

    Up in front, Li Hao didn¡¯t think that much. They approached the eastern gate. The young man flew into the air¡ªthere weren¡¯t that many ck Armors below. They were all on the gates defending. One could see supernaturals in the distance outside the city.

    There were fewer supernaturalspared to before¡ªat the very least, there wasn¡¯t a teeming mass of them. Approximately six hundred were left.

    Li Hao¡¯s sharp gaze caught Light Moon, who continued to look at the city. This old man.... old woman... er, martial master who was difficult to determine a gender for... seemed to be in a very strange mood after Li Hao killed Xu Feng.

    It wasn¡¯t the fury or grief of losing a family member, but Light Sword had lost someone important all the same. Her emotions were soplex that Li Hao couldn¡¯t begin to make sense of them. He didn¡¯t sense the unbridled hatred of someone who would want revenge. If she didn¡¯t want revenge... then why did she keep staring in Li Hao¡¯s direction and at where Xu Feng had died? It was so weird.

    Li Hao ignored her and turned to the two sides that were clearly delineated. There were those who wanted to leave, but couldn¡¯t, and those who wanted to enter, but didn¡¯t dare. It would seem that they were in a much more painful conditionpared to him.

    ......

    Those outside saw Li Hao when he appeared on the city wall.

    ¡°Director!¡± Manager Yu transmitted. ¡°Li Hao hase out.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen had been staring off into space and jerked away. He saw Li Hao when he looked over as well. The little guy was no longer hiding anything and took off his helmet, revealing his face. The young man did so because venttion was poor inside the armor; it was stifling.

    ¡°He¡¯s certainly a bold one,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°It looks like he feels much more confident after killing Xu Feng.¡±

    ¡°What do we do now, director? Three Silver Armors have appeared on Battle Heaven¡¯s side, along with that Gold Armor. Now that they¡¯re reinforced with Li Hao and a few others, their battle strength is incredible. It won¡¯t be easy to enter the inner city to take the ck Tortoise Seal!¡±

    Much less than not easy, it would be hell!

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t seem to mind. He transmitted, ¡°Pay it no heed, we¡¯ll leave it alone if we can¡¯t take it. Right now, you should focus on how to exterminate the three great organizations!¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡±

    ¡°The three great organizations are gathered here and continue to draw more attention to Silver Moon. Whether it¡¯s frightening them off or inflicting heavy casualties, we will not permit them to live! We can... let Battle Heaven stand as is.

    ¡°Find a chance to enter the city and speak to Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°Me?¡±

    ¡°Yes, go on, it¡¯ll be fine. You haven¡¯t done anything to their army, so take my key and approach the city gates. They¡¯ll open for you. When you find Li Hao, ask him if he can convince the others to work with us and destroy these people together!¡±

    Manager Yu blinked, but didn¡¯t say anything. If the director said it was fine, then it was fine. No one dared enter the city as they were afraid of being surrounded by the army¡¯s powerhouses. The manager was also worried, but if the director said she wouldn¡¯t be targeted, then she believed him.

    Thank goodness no one heard the transmission, or they might¡¯ve mocked Yu Luocha for not thinking clearly!

    ¡°Ah, what about Hu Qingfeng and Qi Gang?¡± Manager Yu transmitted. ¡°I say that they¡¯re scared out of their minds. They¡¯re not making a sound and their eyes dart around frantically. Perhaps they have some other thoughts in mind. Will they turn on us?¡±

    There weren¡¯t that many people on the expedition¡ªjust a few outsiders in the official delegation. They were Hu Qingfeng, his two men, and Qi Gang. The previous string of developments had scared them out of their wits. They probably wanted nothing more than to run.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll take care of it,¡± Hou Xiaochen transmitted back.

    Manager Yu dropped the topic.

    ¡°Gentlemen!¡± Hou Xiaochen started a new transmission channel.

    ¡°......¡± Hu Qingfeng¡¯s hair stood on end and his head snapped up with a look of terror. Qi Gang was slightly better, but he was also hard pressed to conceal his worry as he looked at the director.

    ¡°Special Agent Hu, you previously set up certain ns with Blue Moon and the others to kill me. Why did you give up on them?¡±

    Terror flooded into Hu Qingfeng¡¯s eyes! He only had one thought on his mind, run! <i>Damn it! He knows!</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t run, don¡¯t be afraid. I don¡¯t mean to kill you. If I did, I would¡¯ve done so earlier and let you die to Earthturner Sword.¡±

    Hu Qingfeng didn¡¯t say a word as he went weak at the knees.

    ¡°You¡¯re part of Yellow Dragon¡¯s faction, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    Hu Qingfeng quelled his horror and shrank in on himself. ¡°Yes!¡± he transmitted back.

 Chapter 480: Judgment (II)

    <h4>Chapter 480: Judgment (II)</h4>

    The Night Watchers naturally possessed their own web of internal cliques and factions. Some were pro-independence, others were war hawks, some were hotly ambitious. There were characters from all walks of life as not everyone was willing to work for the dynasty or nine ministries aftering into their own power.

    <i>If we¡¯re so strong already, is there a need to risk our lives for others?</i>

    Yellow Dragon was a heavyweight in the Night Watchers, one of the deputy directors in headquarters. He was also a deputy director at the central Inspectorate. Meanwhile, the general director of the central Night Watchers was a deputy director at the central Inspectorate. That put the two on the same footing in terms of rank, but with one principal and one deputy, the general director¡¯s ranking was still higher.

    It was due to this bizarre concurrent post that caused the two to be at slight odds with each other. Yellow Dragon felt that his standing was no less than the general director¡¯s and nursed certain ambitions since he had mighty talents under his banner. The Nova Hu Qingfeng was one of his.

    ¡°How strong do you think Yellow Dragon is?¡±

    Hu Qingfeng didn¡¯t dare not respond, but was also deeply afraid of irritating Hou Xiaochen if he didn¡¯t answer correctly. He hesitated before transmitting, ¡°Very strong, I think... I think... he is as strong as Director Hou.¡±

    ¡°Is that so? How about Earthturner Sword?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m... not sure about that. From the methods disyed... perhaps... a little weaker?¡±

    ¡°Earthturner Sword unsealed his strength. I am the same level as him, do you understand?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Fear deepened in Hu Qingfeng¡¯s eyes. This he already knew as they¡¯d discussed it before. These people were all terrifying to the extreme. They were already so strong, yet had not fully unsealed all of their strength. He could barely wonder if they¡¯d all exceeded Nova. It was possible as the methods they employed didn¡¯t seem avable to Novas.

    ¡°I¡¯ll most likely head to the central region after exiting the ruins. I¡¯m considering whether I should ept the position of deputy director at central headquarters. Are you willing to follow my lead? I don¡¯t know many people there and am unfamiliar with the central region, so think about it.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hu Qingfeng¡¯s mouth dropped with shock. <i>What the heck? You don¡¯t want to kill me? And... you want to win me over to your side?</i>

    ¡°Dir... Director Hou. I don¡¯t understand...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing to understand. I will be newly arrived and need some helpers since I don¡¯t know anything. I can¡¯t go around telling people I¡¯m strong, can I? Everyone will treat me like a joke! Assistance from others is required in some aspects. As an initial Nova, you¡¯re not weak and can pitch in a thing or two.¡±

    A light danced in Hu Qingfeng¡¯s eyes, but his blood ran cold when he saw the smile on Hou Xiaochen¡¯s face. He didn¡¯t dare entertain any other thoughts and transmitted, ¡°Director Hou... my... position in headquarters... isn¡¯t that high. Apart from the directors at headquarters, there are several who are much stronger than me, as well as the fivemanders-in-chief... I am just small fry who runs errandspared to them...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s exactly who I want!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°I¡¯ve studied your file and you have many negatives. You like to exaggerate your aplishments, bully the weak and fear the strong, you¡¯re timid as a mouse, and your talents do not match your ambitions...¡±

    Hu Qingfeng flushed with indignation at his words, but had to force down his fury when he thought of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s strength. This was pure and simple humiliation!

    ¡°But I looked into things and found that you¡¯re not that bad. You have your positives, such asplete obedience to those who are much stronger than you...¡±

    <i>Is that a positive? </i>Hu Qingfeng wanted to vomit blood. <i>I¡¯m a Nova, alright? I¡¯m a genius! I¡¯m not that bad!</i>

    ¡°And another thing, your people have done a lot of vile deeds. So not only are you dumb, but you can¡¯t even control your people. This is a chance for you to live all over again. As for colluding with the three great organizations... I can¡¯t even be bothered to speak on that. There are too many who conduct such things in the central region. If we¡¯re to investigate them all, we would never conclude our investigations.¡±

    Hu Qingfeng held his tears back. ¡°Director Hou...¡± he transmitted again. ¡°Do you want me to follow your orders?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Are you afraid of Yellow Dragon? Don¡¯t worry, there¡¯s nothing to fear.¡± Hou Xiaochen beamed radiantly. ¡°Yellow Dragon won¡¯t kill you outright. You should be more concerned with whether or not you¡¯ll be able to walk out of here alive, no?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hu Qingfeng promptly transmitted, ¡°You¡¯re right, director! I am your man from now on!¡±

    Qi Gang¡¯s scalp ran with numbness as he, too, found himself wordless at Hu Qingfeng¡¯sck of a spine and shame. Why did Hou Xiaochen want someone like that? <i>And why is he letting me listen to all this?</i>

    ¡°How about you, Qi Gang?¡±

    ¡°What...¡± Cold sweat beaded the man¡¯s head.

    Hou Xiaochen smiled at him. ¡°Do you not understand? They all say you¡¯re very smart, so how are you so dumb now?¡±

    Qi Gang struggled fiercely with himself before transmitting, ¡°Director Hou, I am of the provincial government...¡±

    ¡°So what?¡± Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t care at all. ¡°It¡¯s all the same and don¡¯t go around thinking that the nine ministries are the be all and end all. No matter how the central region is, Silver Moon is much moreplicated than you think! There are plenty of people like me, both in the central region and Silver Moon! Since you¡¯ve discovered us by happy chance,e join us. If you don¡¯t... surely someone as smart as you will understand the implications.¡±

    ¡°I do, but I¡¯m more so worried that Director Hou is doing this just to cate me. We have seen so much and have no room to resist in a ce like this. Is the director not worried about us spilling your secrets when we leave?¡±

    ¡°Why would I?¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled a very gentle smile and continued transmitting, ¡°I said that you¡¯re a smart person, so why would you possibly reveal our secrets? Is there any benefit in doing so? I mean for you to work for me here and there, not openly swear your allegiance. You can go back to the provincial government and do whatever you need to do. Rewards might not be forting if you speak of what you know, but you can strike a friendship with me if you don¡¯t. The number of one¡¯s friends determines the number of roads avable. Must you take yours to a dead end before you are satisfied?¡±

    ¡°I understand the director¡¯s meaning, you speak truly!¡± Qi Gang heaved a long sigh.

    ¡°Mmhmm, it¡¯s easy tomunicate with another sharp person. Hu Qingfengcks brains, so I had to be blunt and clear.¡±

    Hu Qingfeng remained quiet off to the side and didn¡¯t say anything. He was wondering what might happen if he blew the whistle to Yellow Dragon after he left the ruins. Tragically, he came to the conclusion that Yellow Dragon might not be able to do anything to Hou Xiaochen. There were too many powerhouses in Silver Moon. The only certainty from that course of action was death, given these people¡¯s personalities!

    Thus, running his mouth after he left would just lead to his demise.

    ¡°If fighting breaks outter, you two don¡¯t need to do much other than draw near the three great organizations. It¡¯s even better if someone secretly recruits you, you can outright join them. We want to take care of these irritating fellows in an easy manner, do you understand?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°We do!¡± They quickly responded. They did, they were to be turncoats! This was a role they were familiar with.

    ¡°Right, your two men...¡± Hou Xiaochen transmitted to Hu Qingfeng. ¡°Take care of them yourself!¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    ¡°Huh what?¡± The director¡¯s expression was calm. ¡°They¡¯ve done their fair share of evil deeds, just like Yu Xiao. After suddenly receiving power, they conduct themselves like they¡¯re gods. You take care of them yourself, I can¡¯t be bothered.¡±

    A variety of expressions ran through Hu Qingfeng¡¯s face before he ultimately transmitted, ¡°Alright!¡±

    ¡°This will count as your official deration of loyalty!¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned. ¡°I¡¯ll make a record of it and if you refuse my orders in the future, I¡¯ll write you up for murdering your colleagues and collusion with the three great organizations, then execute you. Do you understand?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hu Qingfeng didn¡¯t dare say a word as he cursed to himself, but he somehow felt more reassured. It was better when he was being threatened¡ªit felt more safe somehow. Otherwise, the entire issue sat uneasily with him.

    Hou Xiaochen ignored the two. It didn¡¯t matter if they decided to lose their sense of reason and took some action. He looked into the distance, at Li Hao and the two men beside him. ¡°I¡¯m going to take a look to see if the ruins doors will open tonight.¡± He suddenly left. ¡°There¡¯s no need to stay here anymore!¡±

    His abrupt departure rmed Green Moon and the others. However, they were at ease upon seeing that he was really gone. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s presence induced a lot of pressure. They wanted nothing more than for Kong Jie to leave as well¡ªthat one was also stressful!

    ¡°I¡¯m going to see if there¡¯s another path out.¡± Kong Jie smiled, as if hearing their inner thoughts. ¡°Don¡¯t try anything, everyone. We¡¯ll be nearby and wille for you first if anything happens. We¡¯ll all make it out of the ruins if we stay nice and quiet. That¡¯s the best oue.¡±

    He vanished on the spot as well, leaving the rest to heave sighs of relief! It was good that he was gone, but they had to be careful of any schemes brewing in the background.

    .....

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao frowned to see Hou Xiaochen and Kong Jie disappear. What were those two doing? He was considering how to discuss future ns with them, or whether it was even possible to.

    The young man nced at the three Silver Armors¡ªthey couldn¡¯t leave the city. Meanwhile, the expedition team hid outside the city. Just thebination of himself, Hong Yitang, and He Yong likely wouldn¡¯t eradicate the enemy.

    With everyone hiding outside the city, he would catch their eye if he approached. He might be mobbed by the group. With Light Sword also present, he didn¡¯t have a death wish. He Yong and Hong Yitang had expended a lot of resourcesst time. If they had to exert themselves again... it would be quite the ouy.

    He Yong sidled over as Li Hao contemted; he looked outside the city with a chuckle. ¡°Sneaky bastard Hou Xiaochen probably has something up his sleeves again to run off like that. Is he setting a trap or what?¡±

    He didn¡¯t seem to like Hou Xiaochen much¡ªhe¡¯d been cursing the director¡¯s name the first time Li Hao met him.

 Chapter 481: Judgment (III)

    <h4>Chapter 481: Judgment (III)</h4>

    Hong Yitang thought for a while when he saw that the two had disappeared. ¡°Let¡¯s be prepared. Hou Xiaochen and Kong Jie have probably gone to cut them off. They¡¯re going to force the supernaturals into the city so we can band together to kill them all.¡±

    ¡°How are... the martial uncles seeing this?¡± Li Hao blinked. He didn¡¯t read that intention from Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°We¡¯re old acquaintances and well familiar with each other,¡± He Yong said dismissively. ¡°That guy is Sickly¡ªhe was the most calcting out of the threemanders, which was why he was born with a feeble constitution. Even the heavens found him too evil and penalized him in other ways.¡±

    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that there aren¡¯t many bad guys who know the spear?¡±

    ¡°Yes, and he¡¯s one of those few!¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°He deserves to cough everyday!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough, cut the nonsense and rumormongering,¡± Hong Yitang said gruffly. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter whether or not he¡¯s evil. The Broken Will Spear that he practices contains such a strong mind intent that his body cannot support it. That¡¯s why his health hasgged ever since he started martial dao.

    ¡°That mind intent turned even more unbearable when he started strengthening his organs. He actually ran the risk of bing supernatural before as he broke his lock, whichter healed by itself. I will probably be no match for him if he truly unsealed himself. He¡¯s terrifying!

    ¡°He Yong is nothingpared to him. Although He Yong sent him flying with one punch, Hou Xiaochen would run him through with one jab if he did that again!¡±

    He Yong curled his lip. <i>Who are you looking down on? One jab? Of course not! It¡¯ll take three to five!</i>

    Startled, Li Hao stared at the two. ¡°Are you saying that he¡¯s... stronger than you guys?¡±

    ¡°Stronger than me, at least,¡± He Yong had to grumble despite his reluctance. ¡°He¡¯s not necessarily stronger than Ole Hong though. They might be the same. Kong Jie is slightly weaker, but that bastard is a hair stronger than me. However, I dare unseal myself, do they? So if it reallyes down to it and our lives are on the line¡ªI¡¯ll die, but they won¡¯t be any better off for it!¡±

    Li Hao looked at He Yong. <i>So... you¡¯re the weakest!</i>

    ¡°What about Light Sword?¡±

    ¡°Her?¡± He Yong mused for a bit before replying. ¡°She¡¯s not bad, generally on par with Kong Jie. She cultivated very quickly, but there¡¯s drawbacks as well¡ªones that are much more obvious than ours. You can tell from her current appearance. Other than those four, it¡¯s me, Yu Luocha, then Golden Spear. Berserk de... is a bit weaker.¡±

    ¡°Yu Luocha isn¡¯t weak, I think she¡¯s converted back.¡± Hong Yitang gave a half smile.

    ¡°Pfft!¡± He Yong snorted. ¡°Yu Luocha should find her own path first. What¡¯s so impressive about relying on Hou Xiaochen! Have her unseal her strength and see if she¡¯s as strong as me. I¡¯ll kill her in three punches!¡±

    He was very willing to admit someone was stronger than him. But if someone was weaker, he would never speak well of their capabilities. He didn¡¯t think much of Yu Luocha since she depended on Hou Xiaochen. Granted, she was strong in her own right.

    From this, Li Hao drew the conclusion that the manager was probably weaker than Southern Fist. Or they matched each other at best. Otherwise, He Yong wouldn¡¯t speak in such firm tones. Even so, she was very strong. Perhaps she could unseal her strength like the others. If that was the case, then she was not to be underestimated.

    ¡°Can Golden Spear and the others not unseal themselves?¡± Li Hao asked.

    ¡°What do you think?¡± He Yong half rolled his eyes. ¡°Not all martial masters can unseal themselves. Golden Spear has yet to reach the limit of his path¡ªhe needs to attain the peak of a certain aspect, whether it¡¯s blood qi, the physical body, or mind intent. A martial master strengthens his supernatural locks only when he is no longer able to improve himself. The locks need to be at a certain level before they can be undone.

    ¡°Otherwise, it¡¯s not an unsealing, but a direct crossover to the supernatural. If Golden Spear breaks his, he¡¯ll be a supernatural. He won¡¯t bring out more battle strength from himself!¡±

    ¡°You need to reach a certain level and a certain strength of supernatural lock before you can unseal it.¡± Hong Yitang inclined his head. ¡°Golden Spear is a little below that level. But if he breaks Hou Xiaochen¡¯s mind intent, then the possibility is there!¡±

    ¡°Him? I say zero possibility.¡± He Yong shook his head. ¡°It happened too early¡ªhis thoughts were affected so many years ago. He might have some hope otherwise, or he can imitate Yu Luocha and fully abandon his own system. He can just follow Hou Xiaochen in everything¡ªhe might have a chance then. This guy is stubborn and keeps flip-flopping between wanting to make his own way or putting his hopes in Hou Xiaochen. Even his concentration is a bit inferior to the rest.¡±

    Li Hao knew a little of what they spoke of, but not really. It seemed that Golden Spear and Berserk de were unable to unseal their strength, more was the pity.

    ¡°So do you two mean that they wish to work together to eliminate the three great organizations?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good then!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°From my observations, it seems that the three great organizations don¡¯tck for Novas and Srs. Just us or the official authorities alone won¡¯t be able to take them. Together, however, there shouldn¡¯t be a problem!¡±

    He looked at the three Silver Armors with contemtion. ¡°Then Director Hou probably means for us to attack with the three troop leaders and director general of Security. If the two martial uncles and me are included, that should grant us an easy victory!¡±

    ¡°It is somewhat difficult for the three Silver Armors to face Novas if they do not reawaken,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°They probably hope for you to convince the Gold Armor. Hou Xiaochen doesn¡¯t wish to unseal himself as he¡¯s afraid ofplications arising. Otherwise, he would do it himself.¡±

    Li Hao understood the situation and jumped off the city walls instead of saying anything else.

    ¡°Where are you going?¡±

    ¡°To ask Director General Wang for help!¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re just guessing, you...¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care; he ran toward the city lord manor. Just a guess was enough. His own logic resulted in these conclusions as well. It wasn¡¯t just the director general,but he was also prepared to look for themander!

    Indeed, themander who¡¯d punched him.

    The Gold Armor¡¯s purpose would be straightforward and easy¡ªstay in hiding to guard against Hou Xiaochen and the others! Such were Li Hao¡¯s thoughts. Who knew what Hou Xiaochen and the others thought? Perhaps they would turn their eyes toward Battle Heaven after eliminating the three great organizations. If the Gold Armor made its move then, even the province¡¯s highest authorities would be captured!

    No one knew that there was another Gold Armor inside the city. It would be quite a shock when it appeared! Although He Yong had said to do whatever he wanted, Li Hao had to keep something back if he needed to.

    ......

    <i>Half an hourter.</i>

    A satisfied Li Hao walked out of the manor. The director general hadn¡¯t had any other opinions. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that he couldn¡¯t leave the city, he¡¯d want to eradicate the outsiders himself. Since that opportunity was on the table, there was nothing to refuse.

    ......

    <i>The military barracks.</i>

    Li Hao entered that office again with the Red Armor in the lead. Themander seemed to be busy with work; what kind of work was there to be had when the soldier was dead? The young man didn¡¯t know whether to y it cool or not. This Gold Armor didn¡¯t seem as friendly as the director general.

    ¡°Speak!¡± barked themander in cold tones.

    After Li Hao exined himself, the soldier raised his eyes for a look at Li Hao. ¡°You mean for me to hide and take action only when those people show signs of attacking?¡± His voice was exceedingly calm.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Then why don¡¯t we make the first move? Why must we wait?¡±

    Li Hao blinked before saying, ¡°They are Silver Moon... officials of the province that I currently serve in. Silver Moon is a decent ce and their Director Hou has saved me before. I cannot break with him before he betrays me.¡±

    That had been his mindset all along. So long as Hou Xiaochen treated him in a friendly way, so would Li Hao show him the same courtesy back. The young man was abruptly confused when questioned¡ªwas this a good way of thinking?

    Themander contemted as Li Hao thought. ¡°Alright then, that is indeed the case! I would like to not take action if I can help it. Me and the one inside the city lord manor expends a great deal of the city¡¯s energy whenever we engage in battle. Compared to killing people, decreasing our consumption is more important.¡±

    ¡°Oh, thank youmander!¡±

    ¡°You need to correct this bad habit!¡± themander snapped. ¡°Next time you say understood! Or order received! This means you¡¯ve heard it and understand your orders. Do not be so cavalier in front of your superiors, understood?¡±

    ¡°Got it!¡±

    ¡°...get out of here!¡± The Gold Armor waved him off and couldn¡¯t be bothered with him.

    Li Hao blinked, then quickly realized. ¡°Understood!¡± He left with a neat turn of his heel. <i>This guy¡¯s got such a huge temper! Director General Wang is much better. That was just a subconscious response because I was still processing. He¡¯s so mean!</i>

    Themander thought for a moment and pulled out a sheet of paper¡ªthe one discussing Li Hao¡¯s condition. He added a line after some thought. ¡°Possesses an intuitive discernment of right and wrong. Adequate potential. Intelligence... remains to be seen!¡±

    He thought for a moment longer and added a final line. ¡°Impudent of regtion, disorderly without rity. He must undergo training when the New Recruit Hall recovers function!¡±

    Li Hao was inly oblivious of what had just taken ce and knew even less that themander had added some additional lines of assessment. He¡¯d clearly written that Li Hao must undergo new recruit training to understand what true rule and regtion were.

    If he knew, he would probably regret ever going to this guy. Right now, he was in good spirits. Agreement from both Gold Armors meant he was highly confident of the operation toe. He would earn a round of merits too. Would they be doubled again this time?

    He returned to the city walls and looked into the distance, ready to await the next happenings.

 Chapter 482: Commencing (I)

    <h4>Chapter 482: Commencing (I)</h4>

    Night had fallen. Day and night were simr in the ancient city¡ªthe Tortoise Pagoda¡¯s light dimmed slightly at night. The expedition team had entered the ruins on the morning of the 28th. It was now the second day and the night of the 29th. The third day would be up tomorrow evening and everyone would be free to leave.

    All was quiet. The three great organizations no longer wished to enter the inner city. They just wanted to leave as soon as possible.

    ......

    <i>At the tform at the end of the tree tunnel.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen looked at the wall. It sparkled with luster when midnight arrived. That meant that people could leave the ruins so long as there were those outside working in tandem to open the way.

    However, the Night Watcher director didn¡¯t make a move. He waited and watched. The illumination would vanish after half an hour, leaving those inside to wait until tomorrow evening. That was twenty-three hours in between that the ruins would be entirely sealed off, giving no chance for anything to leave.

    There seemed to be some movement in the surroundings¡ªthe three great organizations had sent scouts to follow the Night Watcher director. Some wanted to try the wall when they saw it sparkle, but had to give up the inclination when they saw Hou Xiaochen standing there.

    Those following the man gave up entirely when the wall no longer shimmered and returned to being an ordinary wall. There was nothing else they could do!

    However, some of their fear abated when they thought of how everyone would leave tomorrow.

    <i>On the tform.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen watched silently and smiled faintly when the wall returned to an inert state. No one was leaving the city in the next twenty-three hours. The rest was up to the fellows that¡¯d be part of the Battle Heaven Army. He turned and walked toward the tree hole. Those that¡¯d followed him quickly dispersed. Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t care about them¡ªearlier,ter, it didn¡¯t matter.

    Kong Jie suddenly appeared when he walked out. Hou Xiaochen nced at him. Thetter¡¯s arms were crossed and shed a smile in response.

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid of the three great organizations ganging up on you in the central region after this?¡± he transmitted. ¡°Their wealthy patrons are also likely to be in a rage.¡±

    ¡°What does that have to do with me? It¡¯s just so very dangerous inside the city.¡±

    ¡°Who¡¯s going to believe that?¡±

    ¡°Who cares? We just need an excuse.¡±

    Kong Jieughed and said nothing more. He turned to look at the inner city and sank into deep thought. ¡°Things will be fine on Yu Luocha¡¯s end, right?¡±

    ¡°They should be fine. It all depends on what Li Hao thinks.¡±

    ¡°Him? Can¡¯t Hong Yitang and He Yong make the call?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head after some thought. ¡°Don¡¯t forget that the Silver Armor is Li Hao! That guy looks easy to talk to, but he really isn¡¯t. He acts timid, but he¡¯s actually rotten to the core.¡±

    Kong Jie nearly burst outughing. <i>Who are you to say someone else is rotten to the core?</i> He didn¡¯t respond to that point and continued chatting with Hou Xiaochen.

    The three great organizations and wandering cultivators looked in their direction, watching the two discuss something. The three temporary leaders of Green Moon, the Parity King, and Elder Crimson, as well as the young man from the Liu family of the Ministry of Finance and the wandering cultivator from the Director General Office in Near River held their own conversation.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen and Kong Jie are definitely plotting something. Everyone be careful!¡± Their side was very strong with the three great organizations, wandering cultivators, and nine Novas. Although theycked Light Sword and Yuan Xingwu, there were thirty-two of them in total when the Srs were included. Theirs was a formidable group.

    The remaining five hundred wandering cultivators were nearly all Sunres; the weak ones had died long ago. Many elites hade from various northern provinces and the central region. Sadly, the number of circting northern wandering cultivators would ebb after this excavation.

    Green Moon was well versed in the ways of the world and was dismayed to see the two chatting. She quickly transmitted warnings to all sides.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen, Kong Jie, Golden Spear, and Yu Luocha are all on par with Novas. While Berserk de is less than them, he still manages to count as a Nova. There¡¯s also Hu Dingfang and other strong powerhouses from the military that are peak Srs... If Qi Gang and Hu Qingfeng are added to them, their Nova level battle strength is fearsome despite their small delegation!¡±

    While the Silver Moon official delegation was small, every single person was a heavyweight. Their weakest waste Sr. The group went on the alert after Green Moon¡¯s words.

    ¡°Um...¡± Blue Moon suddenly transmitted. ¡°Hu Qingfeng has contacted us to ask that if he... He and Qi Gang are wondering if we¡¯ll ept them in crucial moments. What do you say?¡±

    ¡°Can Hu Qingfeng be trusted?¡± Elder Crimson quickly asked.

    ¡°We should be able to,¡± responded the Parity King. ¡°I don¡¯t know about Qi Gang, but Hu Qingfeng is obsessed with aplishing something great, yet is as timid as a mouse and deeply afraid of death. He previously thought that he could take down Hou Xiaochen and contacted us for a joint operation. At the very least, he wanted to force Hou Xiaochen into open rebellion.

    ¡°He then felt that Hou Xiaochen was too strong when two of his men were killed. He immediately abandoned the n when he sensed danger. He is under Yellow Dragon¡¯s banner¡ªYellow Dragon doesn¡¯t actually wish for Hou Xiaochen to enter the central region as that would mean anotherpetitor...

    ¡°I¡¯m not too familiar with Qi Gang, but Hu Qingfeng should be well aware of his circumstances so long as he is no fool. He¡¯s seen too much and won¡¯t make it out alive if he doesn¡¯t throw himself on our mercy.¡±

    The three great organizations were more or less familiar with Hu Qingfeng. The youngster from the Liu family of the Ministry of Finance transmitted, ¡°That¡¯s right, Hu Qingfeng is someone who fawns over those superior to him and steps on those beneath him. It¡¯s true that he¡¯ll do anything to survive. His first reaction upon running into danger is to hide. All of the Novas know a little about him.¡±

    The various sides focused on Hu Qingfeng, thinking that the man must be scared out of his wits. And that indeed was the case. If it wasn¡¯t for Hou Xiaochen recruiting him, Hu Qingfeng would have no other thought in mind other than to turn to the three great organizations and seek protection. Thus, the group wasn¡¯t terribly surprised about his expression of loyalty.

    ¡°Does anyone know Qi Gang well?¡± Green Moon was more curious about this person. ¡°He¡¯s from the provincial government, will Hou Xiaochen touch him? He¡¯s here on behalf of Silver Moon and if he¡¯s the only one to die while the others are fine...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think there¡¯s a need to think about that. No matter what, it¡¯s best if we can all settle on a united front at this moment! I¡¯m most worried about Earthturner Sword and Southern Fist allying with Hou Xiaochen from within the city!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s side was very strong, but he would suffer losses all the same if the two camps met in a sh. The only way that would be avoided was if Hou Xiaochen exploded with the same ferocious strength that Earthturner Sword and Southern Fist had.

    ¡°Those inside the city can¡¯te out. We need to be cautious of Earthturner Sword, Southern Fist, and Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°......¡± The group chattered one after another, not knowing what the best course of action was. But afterparing their strengths, they felt that it was best to cate Hu Qingfeng and Qi Gang for the moment.

    Meanwhile, Green Moon tried contacting Light Sword. Thetter was likely to ignore whoever reached out to her, but Green Moon had been a Silver Moon martial master. Although she hadn¡¯t been that famous, they could at least exchange a few words. She hoped to bring the illustrious swordswoman over to their side.

    Light Sword was exceedingly powerful. Southern Fist had gone on such a thorough rampage, but she¡¯d only flown backward with minimal injuries when he punched her. She seemed fine at the moment, a testament to her formidable strength.

    As for Yuan Xingwu... no one bothered reaching out to him. The three great organizations knew of his background as Yuan Shuo¡¯s eldest disciple. While this person led a few Srs from the Skystar Troops and quietly hid off to the side without joining the Silver Moon delegation, the three great organizations wouldn¡¯t trust one of Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciples. They would take He Yong over one of Yuan Shuo¡¯s line any day. The three great organizations didn¡¯t trust a single person from the old man¡¯s faction.

    ......

    <i>The inner city.</i>

    Manager Yu silently crept over. The ck Armors at the gates didn¡¯t move against her, they remained very quiet. Even the three Silver Armors on the city walls watched her silently. The key in her hand was the proper token. She hadn¡¯t caused any trouble in the fight against Hong Yitang and had refrained from killing soldiers of the army. Thus, although the three troop leaders knew that she was an outsider, they elected to ignore her.

    The rules were that simple at times. The Silver Armors did not have the authorization to modify the rules of the Visitor Pagoda. No one apart from the city lord andmander-in-chief could aplish that.

    Manager Yu looked up at Li Hao on the wall instead of continuing to move forward. The young man smiled at the woman hidden in the darkness. Hong Yitang and He Yong were right on the money.

    ¡°Manager, we¡¯ll strike if you can force them into the outer city! The Gold Armor will attack those inside the city, as will the three powerful Silver Armors...¡±

    Manager Yu considered Li Hao. The young man looked quite at ease. She thought for a while and transmitted, ¡°We need the three of you to assist us outside the city!¡±

    ¡°We can¡¯t!¡± Li Hao declined. ¡°We have the army supporting us when we¡¯re in the city, but it¡¯s too dangerous if we leave. I don¡¯t mind, however, the two martial uncles aren¡¯t at ease when ites to the director. There¡¯s nothing I can do.¡±

    Leaving the city to help created the biggest problem of the Battle Heaven Army being unable to help the three. They would be in grave trouble if it was a trap. What if Hou Xiaochen colluded with the three great organizations to eliminate the trio first?

    Was that possible?

    Very likely!

    This kind of result was uneptable to the young man.

    Manager Yu was speechless. What martial uncles not being at ease? <i>You¡¯re the one worried!</i> Li Hao was too paranoid!

    ¡°What are you suspicious of, Li Hao? The director would¡¯ve acted long ago if he wanted to. You wield the true sword of the Lis. He¡¯s known that for a while and still lent you the ming Phoenix Spear and killed Red Hair for you. You think too much!¡±

    ¡°I just told you, I can leave the city, but the two martial uncles are worried. They both attacked the director earlier, so Martial Uncle Southern Fist refused to work together. I spent a long time convincing them and resolving the martial uncles¡¯ worries. Don¡¯t make things tough for me, please. I, for one, trust the director.¡±

 Chapter 483: Commencing (II)

    <h4>Chapter 483: Commencing (II)</h4>

    ¡°......¡± Manager Yu didn¡¯t want to say anything else. Li Hao continuously name-dropped ¡°martial uncles¡±, ¡°Southern Fist¡±, ¡°making things tough¡±, and ¡°trusting the director¡±. In reality, those two hadn¡¯t made a peep. She understood there was no room to negotiate. ¡°Await our signal!¡±

    The woman vanished on the spot.

    He Yong chuckled on the city walls and transmitted to Li Hao, ¡°Kid, do you lie at the drop of a hat without even breathing hard?¡±

    ¡°I did that for my martial uncles.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Not to mention, I want to see how strong Director Hou and the others are. They aren¡¯t weak. Even if Light Sword joins the skirmish, I think they have a chance of holding the battle in the outer city. Martial Uncle Hong simply needs to suffer some consequences when he unseals himself some, can¡¯t Director Hou and Inspector General Kong do the same?¡±

    He Yong didn¡¯t respond. The group of them stood silently on the city walls and waited for the Silver Moon authorities to make their move. They did indeed need to be careful¡ªHou Xiaochen was too cunning.

    ......

    <i>Outside the city.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen looked into the distance, then nced back at Kong Jie. ¡°Then let us begin. I¡¯ll leave the three Yama Novas to you while I take care of Green Peacock on Red Moon¡¯s side. She still has some strength left to her. Little Yu and Golden Spear can take care of Celestial. Qi Gang will face the guy from Near River, and Hu Qingfeng... can y with the kid from the Lius.¡±

    All of the Novas had their targets, but Kong Jie transmitted, ¡°What about Light Sword?¡±

    ¡°We can ignore her!¡±

    ¡°How are you that confident?¡± Kong Jie was worried. Hou Xiaochen inly felt that the swordswoman wouldn¡¯t intervene. However, wasn¡¯t she concerned about the possibility that they¡¯d all turn on her once they eliminated the others?

    ¡°Trust me, Light Sword hasn¡¯tpletely lost her mind!¡±

    ¡°Then what about Yuan Xingwu and those from the Skystar Troops?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen frowned at this possibility, but abruptly grinned. ¡°Don¡¯t care! We can leave that to Li Hao!¡±

    Indeed, he had a n for that as well. Yuan Xingwu was hard to manage, so he could be left to Li Hao! Hu Dingfang was also here, he should be familiar with Yuan Xingwu. Perhaps the two had worked together before. It was indeed a difficult proposition to neutralize the man. Therefore, he could be Li Hao¡¯s problem. It would be an opportunity to assess Li Hao¡¯s methods and his thoughts as well.

    ¡°Then the wandering cultivators and Srs...¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll just disperse them, they can¡¯t get away. What do you think they¡¯ll do once Novas start fighting?¡±

    Attack en masse?

    Absolutely not! If a bunch of terrified fellows could mob supreme powerhouses at a moment like this, that would make them elite troops instead of wandering cultivators. Even the Silver Moon Guards might find it difficult to keep their footing in simr circumstances.

    Meanwhile, the army inside the city still possessed their morale and mettle. They could probably strike back if faced with such a development. When it came to the wandering cultivators... Hou Xiaochen thought nothing of them.

    Their numbers weren¡¯t the strength that the three great organizations thought of so fondly. When so many wandering cultivators were gathered, they could probably beat several dozen Srs to death. However, strength wasn¡¯t a simple mathematical equation. Five hundred wandering cultivators might not bring the strength of fifty supernaturals to bear. They could fight when they were on the winning side, but when the odds were against them?

    Kong Jie smiled. All there was left to do was to wait for Yu Luocha¡¯s return.

    ......

    <i>On the outskirts of the other city.</i>

    Light Sword kept looking into the city, permitting Green Moon to chatter on. She ignored the Red Moon member. When she saw a shadow sh past out of the corner of her eye, Light Sword focused to see that Yu Luocha had appeared close by. These people were inly about to make a move.

    Green Peacock was too unfamiliar with them! She was still trying to sway her counterpart when Light Sword coughed gently.

    ¡°Ying Hongyue is as confident as ever,¡± she sighed softly. Green Moon blinked, why were they talking about the leader?

    ¡°I¡¯m going into the city for a look, you guys have fun!¡± Light Sword coughed again and darted into the outer city, her movements catching people by surprise.

    How did anyone dare enter the city now? Wasn¡¯t she afraid of the Gold Armor and Earthturner Sword? She¡¯d been sent flying by one blow from Southern Fist earlier, wasn¡¯t she just going to her death now?

    Green Moon blinked, unable toprehend Light Sword¡¯s actions. Even if revenge was on her mind, she should wait until they resolved certain problems together or reached another ord. Waiting for that moment would be much safer than now.

    Light Sword said nothing; she strode straight toward the inner city gates.

    Hou Xiaochen was poised for action not too far away, but abruptly paused when he saw the development. Confusion swam in his eyes as he looked at Light Sword.

    ......

    <i>The inner city gates.</i>

    Li Hao and the others were likewise surprised by Light Sword¡¯s decisive momentum. What was she doing inside the city, not having taken the second passageway? Of course, martial masters could fly so long as they didn¡¯t let their power leak. Li Hao had tried that before. The key thing was, this was Li Hao¡¯s territory.

    Light Sword reached the inner city gates momentster and looked up at those on the city walls. Her gaze ultimately settled on Li Hao; she smiled at the young man. ¡°Li Hao, Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple, is that right? Perhaps Earthturner Sword and Southern Fist has told you about my strength. Do you think I can kill you if I snap all of my supernatural locks? Or do you think those two can stop me before I get to you?

    ¡°They can recover their locks and they dare not snap them all to release all of their potential. I, however, dare.¡±

    Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°You shattered some of my hopes, which is no different from taking my life,¡± she murmured to herself. ¡°You should not have killed Xu Feng. Or rather, I wouldn¡¯t mind if you¡¯d waited a bit longer to exterminate all of the Xus. You should not have killed Xu Feng in this moment.¡±

    ¡°So what if I did?¡± Li Hao raised a brow. ¡°Does the senior wish to kill me? Or fight to the death right here and now? You are very confident and I believe that senior is formidable, but you think too little of Battle Heaven if you think you can kill me here!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that I think too little of the ancient city¡ªbut aren¡¯t there people waiting for you outside the city?¡± Light Sword coughed, her presence began growing. ¡°Promise me one thing, Li Hao, and I will drop the matter of Xu Feng¡¯s death.¡±

    ¡°A condition?¡± Li Hao looked at the androgynous elder. ¡°Please go ahead, senior.¡±

    Light Sword was quiet for a moment before beginning, ¡°It must have something to do with you that both Southern Fist and Earthturner Sword are willing to erupt with full strength. There¡¯s no need to deny anything. Southern Fist has kept to himself all these years in the central region, but he finds his courage as soon as hees here. You or the city must be the key, but overall, it must have something to do with you.¡±

    Li Hao thought for a bit and nodded. That was true.

    ¡°I know that you might not be willing to do anything else, but I only have one request. If therees a day in which I have to break my supernatural locks, I¡¯ll do my utmost to prevent them from snapping all the way through ande to you. You must help me suppress them that one time!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. What... was this? What did she mean?

    ¡°Not now, but perhaps... sometime in the future!¡±

    ¡°And if I don¡¯t agree?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°That¡¯s not a big problem,¡± Light Swordughed. ¡°Your enemies will just increase by another martial master who can break her locks at any time and unleash power that is double or triple what He Yong brought to bear earlier. This is both a threat and not a threat! You have severed my path and if you continue to refuse me, you will force me down another path!¡±

    Li Hao remained silent. Was it a difficult condition?

    Not really, it was just expending resources. The crux of the issue was, he was being threatened into helping the other. Light Sword¡¯s meaning was clear¡ªhim dispatching Xu Feng disrupted some of her ns or solutions to her problems.

    Off to the side, He Yong curled his lip. <i>What are you carrying on about? Double or triple my strength? Bullshit!</i>

    Granted, the woman would be very strong if she broke all of her supernatural locks. He Yong and Hong Yitang decided to hold their peace and see how Li Hao would respond.

    ¡°Senior¡¯s condition is not a simple one!¡± Li Hao breathed out gently. ¡°I fought Xu Feng in openbat, he deserves his death! But an older onees along after I killed the younger one... Fine, I bow to the situation! But since the senior is acting this way, we shall follow the rules of the martial world. You bully the weak and I cannot measure up to the senior. Let us wait for my teacher¡¯s return! If my teacher desires a match after he returns, I hope the senior will ept the challenge!¡±

    A light glittered in Light Sword¡¯s eyes. Li Hao was being very clear¡ªhe acquiesced to the situation he was in, but she was bullying the weak. If Yuan Shuo came back, he was certain to exact revenge from her. Whether it was a fight to the death or not would be determined then.

    Yuan Shuo was very weak at the moment, initial Nova at most. But he wouldn¡¯t be weak forever¡ªeveryone believed that!

    Light Sword didn¡¯t anticipate that Li Hao would send out his teacher instead of dering that he would seek revenge himself. In fact, both He Yong and Hong Yitang were rather surprised. Li Hao had just killed a mid Nova, after all!

    Though all of them looked askance at Li Hao, the young man didn¡¯t say a word. There was nothing to it! He wanted to give his teacher some motivation and pressure. <i>Your disciple¡¯s being bullied by others who¡¯vee calling. Are you done melding the five auras together yet? If not, I¡¯m going to take revenge myself!</i>

    Li Hao had already thought things through¡ªhe was going to release the news when he left the ruins so that his teacher knew that Light Sword was bullying him. Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t willing toe back to Silver Moon yet. If he did, Li Hao had a lot of sword energy to share with him. The old man could meld five auras anytime he wanted to. In contrast, how many Red Moon members would he have to kill to obtain sufficient blood energy toplete the five auras?

 Chapter 484: Commencing (III)

    <h4>Chapter 484: Commencing (III)</h4>

    ¡°Alright!¡± Light Sword said nothing else. Since Li Hao had said so, then let it be so. She would wait for Yuan Shuo!

    He Yongughed and looked meaningfully at the swordswoman. Veteran martial masters were all highly confident in Yuan Shuo without considering how strong he actually was at the moment. Light Sword had likely just created enormous future trouble for herself.

    The woman took in a deep breath and turned without a word. She would wait! If she seeded, she wouldn¡¯t be afraid of Yuan Shuo even if hepleted training that so-called Summoner of Spirit.

    ¡°She looks to be in a hurry!¡± Hong Yitang suddenlyughed out loud when she left. ¡°And Li Hao, you¡¯re going to release the news, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Then... things will be interesting. Your teacher will likely have to fight Ying Hongyue to the death in the days toe. I don¡¯t know if your news is forcing yourself, your teacher, or Ying Hongyue down a narrow path.¡±

    Li Hao smiled as well. ¡°It¡¯s all the same. With pressurees motivation. My teacher is thus, I am thus.¡±

    As Light Sword walked out of the city and the group conversed, a massive explosion rang through the air!

    ¡°You¡¯re crazy, Hou Xiaochen!¡± Green Moon howled. ¡°How dare you attack us! Do you think those in the city will really help you?!¡±

    Decisive to a fault, Hou Xiaochen had made his move. He couldn¡¯t be bothered to wait after Light Sword left. Battlemenced in a split second.

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    Consecutive explosions sted through the air and a ming red spear illuminated the void. It swept through the air and suppressed thete Nova Green Moon and mid Nova Blue Moon.

    Kong Jie¡¯s fists mmed down, forcing the Parity King backwards. He kept the three Yama Novas at bay all by himself!

    The battle was on!

    Just as Hou Xiaochen thought, the wandering cultivators scattered in all directions when the Novas shed. No matter if there was another way out of the ruins or not, they fled in panicked horror!

    ......

    He Yong itched to join the action. ¡°It¡¯s merits as far as the eye can see!¡± He looked down the wall. ¡°Li Hao, are we really not going out there?¡±

    Li Haonded on the ground inside the city and swiftly flew toward the gate. ¡°Let¡¯s wait by the gate, but stay inside. Be careful that our director might take us down with the rest of the enemy.¡±

    The trio swiftly flew to the gates, followed shortly by the three Silver Armors. Director General Wang did not make an appearance. Panther ran with the group, excitedly following his human.

    ......

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    While the battle had erupted with abrupt ferocity, both sides were prepared. The three great organizations had been afraid of the Silver Moon authorities taking action, so they were ready to respond. Even so, Green Moon and the others came under enormous pressure when actual battle was joined!

    Hou Xiaochen ripped through all of their defenses with jab after jab. Blue Moon and Green Moon could not withstand the awful pressure and threw caution to the wind, summoning their origin weapons.

    The Party King was the same. An origin weapon shaped like a house floated to the fore, enveloping the area and turning it into a sinister hell. Countless minor ghosts appeared in the hell and pounced on Kong Jie!

    Kong Jie¡¯s blood qi was ferocious enough to rip through innumerable ghosts with one massive explosion. ¡°I was yet to clearly sense Yama¡¯s bloodlust before,¡± he sighed. ¡°But now, I can feel some of it. Parity, your origin weapon is nothing good. These dead souls are your victims, aren¡¯t they? There are thousands here, did you once massacre a city?!¡±

    A vicious expression hung on the Parity King¡¯s face as he cursed to himself. If it wasn¡¯t for theck of his sixteen hell masters, it should be them wielding the origin weapon. Combined with the Avici Iron Net, his strength would be sufficient to ovee even a peak Nova! But now... damn it!

    How he raged at his circumstances! Yama had been quite confident in sending him here as he was very strong and reinforced by the sixteen hell masters. He was stronger than Green Moon, but now he was a far cry from that. It was all Li Hao¡¯s fault... Where had his hell masters gone?! Were they dead?? He quite regretted letting Revolution leave with them.

    ¡°Stop forcing me, Kong Jie!¡±

    ¡°Looks like that¡¯s what I wanna do!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Another punch sted forth as Kong Jie sent blood qi soaring to the heavens! He was as if a roaring lion, a ferocious tiger broken out of its cage!

    Li Hao turned to He Yong with surprise. ¡°Is he Northern Fist?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± He Yong shook his head. ¡°Northern Fist doesn¡¯t fight like that. His fists are like Ole Hong¡¯s sword¡ªboundless, majestic, and vast. Kong Jie¡¯s fists are those of bloodlust. Mine are of domination! If this guy hadn¡¯t joined the government, we would¡¯ve been the Three Fists of Silver Moon. Since he did, we didn¡¯t give him a ce on the ranking.¡±

    ¡°Is he one of the threemanders?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± He Yong shook his head again. ¡°Hou Xiaochen is one of them, the other is like Huang Yun. Thest... could be your Director General Zhao. We¡¯re not sure.¡±

    ¡°Deputy Zhou also seems to be a powerhouse...¡±

    ¡°Him?¡± He Yong thought for a bit. ¡°Who knows? He¡¯s worked with Zhao for many years. Perhaps the thirdmander is two people?¡±

    Li Hao blinked, that was a possibility he hadn¡¯t considered before. But, considering their many years of partnership, that was possible. As a royal instructor, He Yong knew a lot of inside intelligence. Since he had said so, he must have his reasons and theories.

    As they chatted, the first to re with power was none other than Yu Luocha!

    Manager Yu¡¯s presence was like a demon¡¯s¡ªsinister and malevolent! Her opponent was Elder Crimson of Celestial, a mid Nova assassin. He¡¯d disappeared into the void, but suddenly reappeared with an ominous air around him. Yu Luocha mmed her palm outward, delivering a nauseating sensation with a pungent scent of gore so dense that it was putrid.

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. Her killing intent was so strong! How many had she killed to umte that?

    ¡°Yu Luocha¡¯s Luocha Palm is honed through killing. She was no kind soul either in her day. Without your teachermanding attention after killing some famous martial masters, the demon of the martial world would be her!¡±

    ¡°The threemanders didn¡¯t kill her?¡± Li Hao asked with surprise. Her hands were covered in blood. Had Hou Xiaochen shown her mercy just because she was a woman?

    ¡°Her story isplicated,¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°She joined the martial world for revenge. Shees from a family of martial masters, but her family was butchered by others. She forged her way in blood, reaping the lives of her enemies. Although she killed many in the name of avenging her family, Hou Xiaochen likely had his own rules of assessment. He didn¡¯t kill her.

    ¡°Old lecher Ying Hongyue then set his sights on her, she left with him when the supernatural rose. She doesn¡¯t cleave to a sense of right or wrong and joined Hou Xiaochen probably because he was a handsomed back in the day. He showed her mercy, she became his fangirl, and so you have your Manager Yu.¡±

    Li Hao said no further, simply watching Yu Luocha¡¯s bloody palm. Its killing intent was so strong and the scent of gore so dense that even the premier assassin¡¯s cloak was ripped to shreds. A young face came into view¡ªElder Crimson was rather young!

    ¡°Yu Luocha...¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Crimson wanted to say something, yet Yu Luocha was in no mood to talk. She thrust palm after palm in a frenzied fashion, atplete odds with her usual calm. She stopped when a ck origin weapon manifested in front of the other. When his battle strength soared, Yu Luocha grunted and summoned a pair of thin, scarlet gloves to her hands.

    The scent of gore increased by thirty percent when she mmed her hand down and the nauseating sensation permeated throughout the outer city.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Elder Crimson could not withstand Yu Luocha! This powerhouse that¡¯d assassinated Novas before hardly seemed the part now. He quickly fled into the void again, wanting to escape. Li Hao turned to watch other parts of the battlefield.

    Golden Spear faced a Celestial initial Nova. Thetter was being beaten away by the man¡¯s spear and had no room to return blows.

    The young man wasn¡¯t surprised. Golden Spear was a pure martial master with extra battle strength. As agile and unpredictable as the other¡¯s movements were, he was fenced in when meeting Golden Spear. The tremendous spear intent pierced through the darkness and reflected through the gloom, leaving no ce for the other to hide.

    Off on the other side, Hu Qingfeng seemed to be just going through the motions. He approached Kong Jie as he fought the Liu youngster, possibly wanting to ambush the man. Qi Gang fought the Near River general to a standstill. Hu Dingfang and the others were chasing after some wandering cultivators...

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow at the sight, it seemed that the Silver Moon authorities didn¡¯t need them. They could dispatch their opponents all on their own. Granted, difficulty would still be high if they wanted to kill their targets.

    Light Sword did not act. After delivering some threats to Li Hao, she¡¯d walked out of the outer city and was leaving with the wandering cultivators. Li Hao wasn¡¯t sure what the old woman was thinking.

    It was then that the unexpected urred.

 Chapter 485: Commencing (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 485: Commencing (IV)</h4>

    Hu Qingfeng likely wanted to find an opportunity to ambush the Liu youngster. The two went through the motions of fighting as they moved toward Kong Jie. But before Hu Qingfeng could find his chance, he was sent flying by the Liu youngster!

    Heavily wounded, he spat out blood and looked at his opponent with incredulity. <i>Didn¡¯t we agree on ambushing Kong Jie together? Why did you change your mind?</i>

    The Liu youngster looked at him coldly. <i>Idiot! Do you think I¡¯d really believe you?</i> He about-faced and rushed Qi Gang. Coordinating his efforts with the one from Near River¡¯s Director General Office, they jointly beat back Qi Gang.

    Off in the distance, the busy Hou Xiaochen wordlessly registered the scene. <i>Damn, he¡¯s trash!</i>

    Hu Qingfeng was trash among trash. He couldn¡¯t lie or be an undercover agent. Something must have gone wrong somewhere and he¡¯d yed right into the other side¡¯s hands. He hadn¡¯t even been on guard against them and was so arrogant that he felt they were absolutely convinced by his act!

    Wasn¡¯t this nice, he was sent flying in the blink of an eye! Even Qi Gang teetered on disaster now. If Hu Qingfeng wasn¡¯t a Nova... Hou Xiaochen thought that he wouldn¡¯t be bothered to look twice at the man.

    ......

    <i>Within the city.</i>

    Li Hao was likewise at a loss. Was Hu Qingfeng the weakest Nova that he¡¯d ever met? <i>I feel like I can beat him right after melding my three auras together!</i>

    ¡°Li Hao, Earthturner Sword, Southern Fist, let¡¯s make this quick!¡± Hou Xiaochen called out. ¡°I don¡¯t have any other ns in mind. I¡¯m not in a condition to unseal too much as my situation is worse off than yours...¡±

    His Broken Will Spear was too strong, the spear intent continuously suppressed his body to the point where he coughed all day. He was in much worse shapepared to Earthturner Sword and the others. This also indicated that he might be stronger when he unsealed himself. But in regr fighting, he found it difficult to kill the martial master converted Nova Green Moon.

    Li Hao still wasn¡¯t veryfortable with Director Hou, but Hong Yitang transmitted at this time, ¡°Let¡¯s make our move as well! At the very least, we¡¯re confident of retreating back into the city. That guy hasn¡¯t recovered from his fight with me yet.¡±

    The young man considered possible courses of action4, then broke through the air without another word! Although he wanted to wait longer, he would take action because Hong Yitang had said so. There were two Gold Armors inside the city, Hou Xiaochen and the others wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything against them.

    Li Hao threw himself at the Near River general; thetter was a mid Nova. While there¡¯d been elements of surprise on his side when Li Hao killed Xu Feng, this general was his best training partner at the moment!

    His sword cut through the air!

    Sword light glittered and four auras melded together. Qi Gang had been doggedly hanging on as he faced two people¡ªthe scene brightened in front of his eyes and sword light shed across the void!

    He Yong smashed his fist at the Yama origin weapon, shaking the weapon that¡¯d trapped Kong Jie. Hong Yitang was even more direct and pierced through heaven and earth with his sword. He killed the Celestial elder battling Golden Spear with one strike!

    Golden Spear stared dumbly at him, Hong Yitang looked calmly back. ¡°Think on it, your fighting is growing ever more disorganized. Silver Spear and Bronze Spear are dead out of the Three Spears, you¡¯re the only one left. And yet, you don¡¯t seem to have made the Three Spears known throughout the world!¡±

    Golden Spear lowered his head, appearing quite helpless and agitated. He looked to the four corners and suddenly felt a mental breakdowning on.

    The Two Fists of North and South, Seven Swords of Silver Moon, Four de Kings, Silver Moon¡¯s Three Spears...

    The others all had representative characters, but the Three Spears seem to have truly declined!

    Li Hao was in his element as he stabbed again and again. The injured Qi Gang breathed out with relief and ran off to challenge the Liu youngster, leaving the general to Li Hao!

    The young man thought of nothing else other than to practice his sword! Sword qi raced through the area, the Five Styles erupted, he struck with sword, fist, and foot... It appeared a bit of a muddled mess at first, but the various methods gradually found harmony with each other and melded together.

    He hadn¡¯t had a chance to experience the fusion of four auras when he killed Xu Feng. Today, he relished it firsthand.

    As the three joined the battlefield, the three great organizations knew that victory was slipping through their fingers! The martial masters of Silver Moon were too strong!

    Green Peacock roared and let loose with her blood qi amid a rumble. Her strength increased by thirty percent, but her face was pale. ¡°Red Moon will not forgive you if we die here!¡±

    Did she speak of Ying Hongyue or Red Moon? Hou Xiaochen knew that she actually spoke of Ying Hongyue. He coughed gently with a smile. ¡°It¡¯ll have to wait if Ying Hongyue won¡¯t forgive me. Who knows, maybe it¡¯s me who won¡¯t forgive him!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A spear erupted with radiant light sparks as it cut through the void. A phoenix ripped through everything and bore down on Green Moon!

    ¡°Isn¡¯t it normal for a peacock to die in a phoenix¡¯s hand?¡± Hou Xiaochenughed softly as a massive phoenix erupted with domineering mind intent. It felt that the firmament was torn asunder as it pierced through everything!

    Green Moon visibly wilted and she looked at Hou Xiaochen with some dejection. ¡°Why... haven¡¯t any of you... declined?¡±

    Why had Silver Moon¡¯s martial masters retained such formidable battle strength? She¡¯d left with Ying Hongyue all those years ago because martial masters had begun to taper off. When the supernatural rose, she chose that and relinquished the path of martial masters.

    ¡°Because... Ying Hongyue hasn¡¯t given up either!¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned. ¡°He¡¯s a martial master too, isn¡¯t he? Silver Moon martial masters have dominated thend for many years and will not go away so easily. You... are a bit of a fool!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Green Moon exploded into pieces. Hou Xiaochen sighed, ¡°There is one less Silver Moon martial master in the world now!¡±

    But Green Peacock had long lost her martial master heart, so it wasn¡¯t a pity that she was dead. She was just a fake martial master!

    Blue Moon was beside himself and utterly despairing. There was no hint of his former ease to be found when he looked at Hou Xiaochen. Violet Moon was likewise lost. Her strength wasn¡¯t even worth mentioning at this point. If Green Moon was dead, so were they.

    Hou Xiaochen looked at the two with another sigh. ¡°You¡¯re the descendants of old friends and I didn¡¯t want to bully you. What a pity that I¡¯m about to leave Silver Moon and cannot leave you to trouble the province. You should go with her!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The spear pierced through heaven and earth again. The look in Blue Moon¡¯s dejected eyes immediately dimmed. He toppled over, but his mind had long been torn to pieces. Violet Moon looked around in confusion¡ªhow was she still alive?

    ¡°I¡¯ll save you for Little Yu and Li Hao!¡±

    One of them was her mother¡¯s friend and the other¡¯s teacher was being chased by her mother. Hou Xiaochen simply injured her gravely, but didn¡¯t kill her. He smiled, vanished, and reappeared in the Yama section of the battlefield!

    These people had no hope when a group of premier Silver Moon martial masters joined hands! Novas dropped like leaves. Li Hao roared with fury and ignited the Incantation of the de of Blood, cleaving the other into two with mighty effort!

    He then threw himself into the outer city without another look back, leaving everyone staring. Hou Xiaochenughed after a moment. The kid held a very deep misunderstanding of him!

    Li Hao panted, then shouted, ¡°Chief, stop running around!¡±

    Liu Long was still sprinting with the wandering cultivators, he might be killed by ident!

    Li Hao looked in another direction after he yelled. The quiet Panther suddenly popped up in a strange fashion. It wed outward with nineyers of force!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Chi Ming was busy evading Yu Luocha when he gaped at the ws that suddenly appeared in front of his chest...

    He turned his head and saw the back dog vanish with his storage ring and ck longsword. Yu Luocha jerked with shock as well and looked at the fleeing dog. She could barely recover from her surprise!

    Although she¡¯d suppressed Chi Ming, the man could still fight. In the end, he was ambushed by a dog!

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped¡ªthat was a mid Nova! Panth had killed him with one swipe! That shouldn¡¯t have happened even with Yu Luocha present!

    Panther ran as fast as the wind. It shot through the entire battlefield and collected some battle spoils that their owner hadn¡¯t had a chance to collect. It quickly reached Li Hao and threw everything at the young man¡¯s feet. The dog looked up with expectation and anticipation. Was this enough for some sword energy?

    It seemed to know that Li Hao was very weak, so it¡¯d seized a lot of storage rings. It knew that there was good stuff inside that could feed the sword!

    Li Hao stared in a daze. <i>Holy shit! The dog¡¯s pretty good! Panth is stronger than I imagined! It wed Chi Ming to death with one swipe¡ªit definitely has the strength of a mid Nova! How is that possible?!</i>

    When he killed the Nova, he had to utilize the Incantation of the de of Blood! But the dog... Li Hao sighed, suddenly doubting his own strength.

 Chapter 486: Departure (I)

    <h4>Chapter 486: Departure (I)</h4>

    The three great organizations were a lost cause after Hong Yitang and He Yong joined the fray. Earthturner Sword, Hou Xiaochen, Kong Jie, Southern Fist, Yu Luocha, Golden Spear...

    These martial masters known throughout the world were united as one today in killing the enemy. All of them had reached exceedingly high levels with their cultivation. They faced middle-of-the-pack Novas of their respective organizations. How were these supernaturals supposed to match them?

    One of Kong Jie¡¯s fists sted a massive hole in the Parity King¡¯s body. He stared at Kong Jie with reluctance, even in his final moments. ¡°My sixteen hell masters have yet to return...¡±

    ¡°They''re all dead!¡± Li Hao called out in the distance.

    ¡°......¡± The Parity King looked at the young man and closed his eyes, fully departing the world. They were all dead! That in itself was afort. They would¡¯vee back otherwise, which lessened the grievances and muttering in the Parity King¡¯s heart.

    ¡°Strengthes from the self,¡± Kong Jie snorted. ¡°So what if your sixteen hell masters had returned alive?¡±

    He Yong killed the two remaining Yama powerhouses with one punch after the Parity King died. That marked the end of all of the powerhouses from the three great organizations. Qi Gang captured the Liu youngster and looked hesitantly at the crowd. ¡°He¡¯s from the Liu family of the Ministry of Finance...¡±

    The Liu family oversaw the ministry. Although the youngster wasn¡¯t the core of his generation, he was still of the nine ministries. The youngster¡¯s face was pale; Hou Xiaochen flicked a nce at him.

    ¡°As I said before,¡± he responded calmly. ¡°The nine ministries can join the Silver Moon delegation, but he decided to join the three great organizations... Therefore, kill him!¡±

    Qi Gang¡¯s heart jolted¡ªwere they really going to kill him? This wasn¡¯t the three great organizations or a general from a neighboring province that they were talking about. This was one of the masters of the nine ministries, a member of the Lius!

    ¡°You and Hu Qingfeng take care of him!¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at him calmly, then at Hu Qingfeng ying dead off to the side. Thetter turned as pale as a ghost. His injuries weren¡¯t that severe, but it was too dangerous to fight a Nova. Thus, he pretended to beatose when Li Hao and the others joined the battlefield, but now...

    Hu Qingfeng swallowed hard when he read Hou Xiaochen¡¯s aloof gaze. He quickly got up, no longer toppled over from his injuries. The Liu youngster that Qi Gang injured made a desperate plea and heaved for breath as he looked at Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°You won¡¯t have an easy time of things if I die! The three great organizations do not dare kill a direct descendant of the nine ministries¡ªan agreement was made long ago! With everyone from the three great organizations being dead, the world will know that you¡¯re behind this as soon as this expedition is over!

    ¡°All of the debt will fall on your head!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen was calm in the face of such threats. He remained looking quietly at Qi Gang and Hu Qingfeng. Thetter grit his teeth and mmed his palm down on the young man!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Gravely wounded to begin with, the youngster¡¯s meridians and tendons snapped from the blow. Qi Gang¡¯s blood ran cold, but he didn¡¯t dare say anything. He set his jaw and grunted with a punch!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The young man¡¯s organs exploded, his eyes widened and he froze stiff. All of the Novas were dead now, except for Light Sword and Yuan Xingwu.

    Yuan Xingwu had been standing off to the side all this time. He didn¡¯t run as he wouldn¡¯t get away either, but neither did he participate in battle. He didn¡¯t help Hou Xiaochen and the others, but neither did he help the three great organizations. No one knew what he was thinking.

    Logically speaking, the Skystar Troops could¡¯ve absolutely joined the operation against the three great organizations. With Yuan Xingwu¡¯s identity and taking advantage of the situation, they could ensure that Hou Xiaochen wouldn¡¯t easily move against them.

    A deration of loyalty was required, but they didn¡¯t make a move from beginning to end.

    ¡°Little Yu, take care of the others!¡± Hou Xiaochen¡¯smand sent Manager Yu vanishing on the spot.

    Sounds of battle traveled in from the distance as Hu Dingfang and others had alsoe on the expedition. The Srs went off to pursue the panicked wandering cultivators. There were numerous Srs among their numbers as well.

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t say anything. On Li Hao¡¯s side, Hong Yitang and He Yong retreated to the city as well. The two sides were quiet, separated by dozens of meters.

    ......

    After roughly half an hour, a group of people returned, bathed in blood. Hu Dingfang¡¯s crew seemed to have suffered some injuries. Li Hao ignored them and focused his gaze on one person in the crowd.

    ¡°Chief, c¡¯mere!¡± He raised a hand at none other than Liu Long.

    The man was also covered in blood, possibly his, possibly someone else¡¯s. Panting for breath, the man silently approached the inner city. Hou Xiaochen nced at him, but didn¡¯t say anything.

    The Silver Moon authorities hade with approximately a dozen people for the excavation¡ªthey¡¯d lost only two. They were Hu Qingfeng¡¯s subordinates. The others had only suffered injuries, not casualties. It was an enormous victory for Silver Moon.

    Manager Yu came back after a while. ¡°Light Sword says that she will leave as soon as the ruins open. She won¡¯t reveal anything and requests for Li Hao to remember his promise!¡±

    Li Hao furrowed his brow and looked at Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that we can¡¯t kill her.¡± The man grinned in seeming knowledge of an unspoken question. ¡°If we want to, all of us stand a chance together even if she unseals herself. But there¡¯s no need for that! She won¡¯t reveal any secrets and will aplish certain deeds for us if she¡¯s alive. There will be much less pressure on you, too, Li Hao. The Xus might have to expend a lot of energy because of her.¡±

    Li Hao sank deep into thought. <i>The Xus... </i>So she wanted him to suppress her locks once because she was going to cause trouble for the Xus?

    How strange!

    The young man wasn¡¯t aware of the particrs, but he didn¡¯t ask. There were four people and a dog on Li Hao¡¯s side and thirteen total on Hou Xiaochen¡¯s. There were ten with the Skystar Troops, Light Sword, and a Violet Moon prone on the ground. There were only twenty-nine humans and one dog alive in all of the expansive ruins.

    There¡¯d been almost two thousand in the beginning!

    Martial masters were vicious when they made their moves andpletely eradicated anyone they attacked. They fought without reservation and without consideration of who they could not or should not kill... To Hou Xiaochen, anyone not on his side in the ruins was an enemy and could thus be killed!

    ¡°What do you n to do with Yuan Xingwu?¡± He grinned at Li Hao.

    Yuan Xingwu looked on expressionlessly, his thoughts impossible to make out. Li Hao didn¡¯t understand what he had in mind either, to be continuously standing here. The Srs under hismand were slightly nervous and afraid. How could they not be, after watching so many die in front of them?

    ¡°Is Director Hou asking me?¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°Yes,¡± Hou Xiaochen responded calmly. ¡°You make the decision. If you think they should die, then they die. While they didn¡¯t join the three great organizations, they sat idly by when the official authorities eliminated the evil supernatural organizations. That in itself is crime!¡±

    Li Hao broke out in a grin and didn¡¯t continue that train of thought. ¡°Brother Second Mu, please give me a hand.¡±

    Mu Lin was an exceedingly nondescript existence within the crowd. He was surprised by the sudden attention and asked, ¡°With what?¡±

    ¡°Moving the bodies...¡± Li Hao pointed at the corpses. ¡°Throw them into the city!¡±

    It would be a waste to leave them outside. Far better to throw them into the city so that the ground could absorb life energy and awaken more of the city. There were so many Nova corpses!

    As for mysterious power... To be honest, there wasn¡¯t much of a point in mysterious power from killing others. It wasn¡¯t worth expending energy on. One Nova was at most ten thousand cubes, but one mysterious power stone was one thousand cubes. Ten stones were the equivalent of one Nova, which was just a regr sum used for cultivation. Additionally, one merit could be traded for them!

    Thus, fighting tooth and nail to kill a Nova, and ate Nova at that, would result in only one point worth of mysterious power. No wonder nearly no powerhouses of this level killed people for the sake of mysterious power. It wasn¡¯t worth it!

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t seen much of the world before and was so poor that he wasn¡¯t even aware of mysterious power stones. Killing others for power had been a natural course of action then, but now he could be more generous.

    Mu Lin looked at Hou Xiaochen, who looked at the young man and then at the city. After he inclined his head, Mu Lin swiftly picked up bodies and threw them into the city. They swiftly began melting when they hit the outer city and were absorbed by the ground. This was a city that devoured people!

    No matter how many people died, the ground would be renewed before long and clear without a trace.

    Hou Xiaochen looked at the petrified Violet Moon on the ground, then at Li Hao and Manager Yu. ¡°Little Yu, I leave her to you.¡±

    Manager Yu nced at Violet Moon; she responded with a look of pleading. Yu Luocha seemed to be good friends with her mother. She wanted to live!

    Yu Luocha knew Hou Xiaochen¡¯s thoughts, so she looked at Li Hao. ¡°You make the call!¡±

    ¡°Me?¡± Li Hao repeated with surprise. <i>Me again? How interesting.</i>

    Since Orange Moon wasn¡¯t here, that meant she was still chasing his teacher. Orange Moon had been a martial master back in the day, one of the thirty-six in fact. Known as ck Spider, she was either ate or peak Nova. Green Moon was ate Nova, so ck Spider was possibly peak Nova or even stronger.

    As one of the thirty-six, she wouldn¡¯t be weak. Could his teacher evade Orange Moon¡¯s pursuit?

 Chapter 487: Departure (II)

    <h4>Chapter 487: Departure (II)</h4>

    Li Hao smiled at Violet Moon on the ground. ¡°I have a question for you, Leader Violet Moon. Will your mom take revenge on us if you die?¡±

    Violet Moon didn¡¯t know how to respond and didn¡¯t dare give the wrong answer.

    ¡°Are you still in contact with your mom? Will she save you if you send word?¡±

    Incredibly nervous, Violet Moon still didn¡¯t know how to respond. Li Hao looked at her for a while before saying, ¡°Let¡¯s just kill her!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Violet Moon blurted, ¡°My mom wille save me if she knows I¡¯m captured. She¡¯ll pay any price!¡±

    She understood now!

    ¡°Very well.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°You can have her, Director Hou. Lock her up at the Night Watcher headquarters. What use would I have for her? Put her in the city and let all the soldiers take a turn slicing at her?¡±

    He looked at Yuan Xingwu not far in the distance. ¡°I¡¯m not too familiar with the Skystar Troops, so I don¡¯t know the name of Yuan Xingwu either. My teacher has never mentioned him. But since you guys are acquainted with each other, you decide! As it¡¯s official authority business, I don¡¯t have the right to say much since I¡¯m only a chiefmissioner.¡±

    He wasn¡¯t going to get dragged into this! <i>What am I supposed to say? That he can live? I¡¯m not saying that!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen was skilled at selling favors to others and wanted to create a situation that put Li Hao in his debt. Li Hao refused to take the bait as he wasn¡¯t familiar with Yuan Xingwu. Not to mention, there was Hu Dingfang from the military present as well.

    As expected, Hu Dingfang hastily interjected, ¡°Director Hou, Yuan Xingwu is... Yuan Shuo¡¯s first disciple and Yuhua¡¯s senior brother. He¡¯s always supported the Silver Moon military...¡±

    He was familiar with Yuan Xingwu. Not only that, but they exchangedmunication with each other on a regr basis. One was in Silver Moon, the other in Skystar City. One was in the bordends and the other in the central hub. They found support in each other.

    It was aplexwork of connections that supported Hu Dingfang. The Bai family had helped him to his position, as had Huang Yu and the Skystar Troops. However, Hu Dingfang knew that the most reliable was Yuan Xingwu. Thetter was on very good terms with Chen Yuhua. The Bais helped him for their own benefit and Huang Yu was purely showing him face. The man also wanted to suppress the Bais somewhat. Thus, Hu Dingfang had no choice but to beg for mercy on Yuan Xingwu¡¯s behalf!

    ¡°My apologies, Director Hou,¡± Yuan Xingwu finally said. ¡°It wasn¡¯t that I was unwilling to take a stand, but that I knew it was useless to do so. It would only interfere with your ns. Ie for several reasons this time¡ªobtaining treasure is just one of them. The most important is that I represent the Ministry of Armed Forces to discuss partnership with Silver Moon, and to determine everyone¡¯s strength. Since Silver Moon is so strong, our partnership can be moved forward...¡±

    ¡°You? You are too weak andck the qualifications to talk to me,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed.

    ¡°Yes, I know.¡± Yuan Xingwu wasn¡¯t surprised by the reaction. ¡°The ministry sent me for many other reasons as well. First, I am from Silver Moon. Second, my master is the Five Styles King. That title still holds weight in the martial world. Third, I am familiar with Dingfang and thus can speak to Commander Yu. Fourth, the ministry knows that Li Hao serves the Night Watchers and is my junior brother.

    ¡°I simply didn¡¯t anticipate that Silver Moon¡¯s martial world would still be so formidable! The brothers I¡¯ve brought with me have fought by my side for many years. They will not divulge a secret. If you are interested, Director Hou, I can ry some messages even if I can do nothing else.¡±

    Li Hao listened quietly in the distance. He didn¡¯t care if Yuan Xingwu was really here on behalf of the Ministry of Armed Forces to discuss a partnership or to search for treasure. Perhaps he was even here to act against Hou Xiaochen. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with the young man.

    All he did was watch as Mu Lin threw bodies over; he asionally extracted some special energy, such as Celestial¡¯s dark attribute. He didn¡¯tck for energy of the five elements anymore, but didn¡¯t have much of the unique attributes.

    Li Hao then inspected the storage rings that Panther delivered and conducted a simple cleanup. The dog had grabbed the Celestial delegation¡¯s origin weapon, which meant Li Hao now owned five.

    Kong Jie imed the Parity King¡¯s little house and Avici Iron Net. Hou Xiaochen took Blue Moon and Green Moon¡¯s origin weapons. Qi Gang collected the Lu youngster¡¯s origin weapon, and Li Hao didn¡¯t care enough to ask if he would be giving it to Hou Xiaochen.

    The young man thoroughly looked over the storage rings in his hands. He now had forty of these items that only Srs and Novas were equipped with. He¡¯d gained quite a lot on this trip! He focused his attention on the energy rings and mysterious power stones. At the moment, he possessed eight hundred stones! That was a horrifying sum!

    One had to know that he hadn¡¯t imed many of the storage rings from the premier powerhouses. Just the wealth from the various Srs he¡¯d killed and thisst battle had resulted in eight hundred stones! Combined with more than one hundred stones from before, this meant he possessed one thousand stones total.

    This was just in terms of ordinary mysterious power stones. He¡¯d obtained forty-six from Military Supplies and still held his original ration of ten. Those were high level stones that were the equivalent of five hundred sixty regr mysterious power stones.

    Therefore, Li Hao currently had 1560 mysterious power stones, five origin weapons, and more cubes of mysterious power than he could count. He had energy rings by the handful and almost all of their capacity was one thousand cubes. There was no need for the rings to hold more as Novas cultivated with stones, very rarely mysterious power.

    Li Hao currently possessed roughly two hundred energy rings that made for a total capacity of two hundred thousand cubes. He¡¯d used some, leaving more than one hundred and fifty thousand cubes left.

    This was insane riches!

    Li Hao transferred all of the items to his storage ring. He didn¡¯t care about those outside and moved all of the stones and energy rings to thergest storage ring¡ªit¡¯d belonged to Xu Feng. Being a young master of the Xus, his storage ring was impressive, despite his mediocre strength. Regr storage rings were the size of coffins, but the space inside Xu Feng¡¯s was the size of a house.

    Apart from mysterious power stones and mysterious power, Li Hao found a few more secret tomes. He didn¡¯t have time to take a look at them and shoved them all into the storage ring. He also found multiple blood pearls in different storage rings. inly, people were secretly killing Red Moon powerhouses.

    The Seven Moons that Red Moon had sent to the ruins weren¡¯t equipped with scarlet shadows. There¡¯d been some on the Nova level elder, but unfortunately, the Gold Armor had smashed the shadow to pieces along with the elder. Hou Xiaochen might have collected the ones with the Srs. Li Hao didn¡¯t see any sight of them.

    After taking inventory of his war spoils, Li Hao found some other treasures held in various bottles and sks. He didn¡¯t know what they were and was in no hurry to open them. Such were the items in Xu Feng¡¯s storage ring.

    The young man also possessed a petal of the Goldensky Lotus and a lotus seed. Those were treasures that he¡¯d obtained at Ash Mountain. Li Hao then took stock of his merits. The Nova that he¡¯d just killed gave him another ten points.

    ¡°Troop Leader Li Hao of the Twelfth Troop in the Ninth Division courageously met the enemy in battle and destroyed them outside the city,¡± the mechanical voice sounded by Li Hao¡¯s ear. ¡°His achievements are exemry in his leadership of the Twelfth Troop to withstand invaders. He is awarded one hundred points!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao blinked. This was likely his highest singr instance of earning merits. inly, the city felt that he was responsible for destroying the enemy outside the city. Although he wasn¡¯t the main contributor, it had been under the agreement that he¡¯d reached with the other side.

    He¡¯d been awarded one hundred points, and that wasn¡¯t all!

    ¡°Troop Leader Li Hao of the Twelfth Troop has supplied life energy with which to reawaken the city. His deeds aremendable and hereby awarded with one hundred points!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s merits abruptly reached two hundred and ten points in the blink of an eye, this time because he had someone throw bodies into the city! He looked back to see that the three Silver Armors were still there, but there was no sign of Director General Wang and themander. Li Hao suspected that he was so rewarded because those two had seen his deeds. Who would¡¯ve thought that a careless thought would result in one hundred points?

    These points could be traded for one hundred high level stones, the equivalent of one thousand regr stones! That was more valuable than the dozens of storage rings he¡¯d obtained!

    He was making out like a bandit and couldn¡¯t help the grin that stretched from ear to ear. Two hundred and ten merits! <i>Too bad there¡¯s no announcement about doubling them...</i> Li Hao was slightly regretful.

    He swept a nce over He Yong and Hong Yitang, those two had received significant gains as well. One had fifty, the other seventy¡ªHong Yitang. It looked like they¡¯d been rewarded for some valor as they hadn¡¯t killed seven Novas.

    He Yong was smiling happily when Li Hao suddenly transmitted, ¡°Martial Uncle He Yong obtained a lot of merits, didn¡¯t you? Then the ten I lent you before...¡±

    The smile dropped from He Yong¡¯s face. <i>What the heck? How did that turn into a loan? Didn¡¯t you say that was the reward I received for protecting you? The Supervisory Guard approved it, which means it¡¯s set in stone. I¡¯m not giving anything to you!</i>

    He¡¯d finally umted fifty points and wasn''t about to lose any to Li Hao.

    The young manughed and didn¡¯t mind He Yong¡¯s derisive snort. Hou Xiaochen and Yuan Xingwu seemed to have reached an agreement elsewhere; the young man didn¡¯t care.

    ¡°Manager Yu, you have a key right? The key is Battle Heaven¡¯s token and needs to be returned. Why don¡¯t you give the key to me?¡±

    Yu Luocha blinked and looked at Hou Xiaochen. The man smiled meaningfully. ¡°The keys are awarded based on individual skill. I wasn¡¯t aware they would be taken back.¡±

    Li Hao needed the item. One could join the army only with the key, or else one had to go through the new recruit training. However, that part of the barracks was yet to be activated again. He needed the key as he wanted Liu Long to join the army. As for Manager Yu and the others... he didn¡¯t want them in his troop.

 Chapter 488: Departure (III)

    Chapter 488: Departure (III)

    ¡°Then you hang onto it,¡± Li Hao said decisively. ¡°But I am a troop leader of the Battle Heaven Army, so the only choice you have with that key is to join the army. You would be joining under my banner! It¡¯s a stern hierarchy within the Battle Heaven Army and battle orders must be followed to the letter. If the director doesn¡¯t mind, you can have Manager Yu join. I won¡¯t set her any hard missions!

    ¡°As for refusing orders¡­ it¡¯s one thing if you leave the ruins. But if you stay in the city and defy orders, the entire army will hunt you down!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen raised an eyebrow. So it looked like Li Hao had aplished quite the achievements in Battle Heaven. The key wouldn¡¯t be that useful if they kept it instead of giving it to him. Did they dare join the Battle Heaven Army?

    Manager Yu would likely be a ck Armor, could a ck Armor refuse a troop leader¡¯smands? All new recruits would likely join Li Hao¡¯s troop.

    After some thought, Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°Fine, give it to him!¡±

    Manager Yu tossed the key to Li Hao without a word. The young man promptly gave it to Liu Long. He would only be a ck Armor, but at least his equipment would be activated armor. His defensive ability would be remarkable, to say nothing of anything else, and he would be able to conduct long distancemunication.

    Li Hao had inquired about the capabilities of the armor and learned that they had argemunication range. When the army used to conduct external missions, a troop leader¡¯s equipment could reach at least five hundred kilometers. It was difficult to say if that was still the case, but there shouldn¡¯t be that big of a difference.

    The targets were eliminated and the mess cleaned up. Hou Xiaochen looked at Li Hao. ¡°What are your ns?¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°Do you intend on staying in Battle Heaven?¡± the man asked serenely. ¡°You must leave at some point. I am heading out for the central region after this expedition, so what are your ns?¡±N?v(el)B\\jnn

    ¡°You¡¯re really leaving, director?¡± Li Hao blinked with surprise.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°All factions have suffered heavy losses in Silver Moon this time and probably won¡¯t dare to enter Battle Heaven again. They may not dare try any ce else either. This is not the right time for our other ruins to open, they know that.

    ¡°The central region houses the headquarters of the three great organizations, the nine ministries, seven divine mountains, powerhouses of the four seas, royal family, and three founding families. There are many, many heavyweights to be found there and some chosen children of the heavens.

    ¡°You should not underestimate the supernatural domain. Although there are many drawbacks to that path, that¡¯s because most supernaturals cannot control their impulses or desires. True geniuses will not lose theirposure even after abruptly gaining power. Are you not one of them, Li Hao?¡±

    It¡¯d been a very short period of time since Li Hao gained such prodigious strength.

    ¡°There are those among supernaturals who¡¯ve broken the barrier beyond Nova. They are much stronger than us and at the very least, we do not dare easily cross our threshold. In the supernatural domain, breaking six locks ces one above Nova. The ones of the four limbs are easy to open, opening one of the five organs grants an elemental attribute, opening a second poses a great difficulty¡ªbut that doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s impossible! There are still those who aplish it.

    ¡°As for the five organs¡­ everyone has their own way when ites to their bnce. Some even use the Water of Life to fix the problems so the organs won¡¯t explode.¡±

    Li Hao nced sharply at Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°You will only be able to passively respond to stuff if you continue to stay in Silver Moon,¡± the man continued. ¡°Are you interested in traveling to the central region with me after we leave?¡±

    Now this was wholly unexpected.

    ¡°It is true that Silver Moon is the center of thisnd, but that was a long time ago. Silver Moon now¡­ unless you explore the ruins, it¡¯s not much of a challenge to you! You can already kill those on the Divine Masters Ranking. Will more experts on the rankinge to you if you stay here? It¡¯s quite interesting in the central region as all sides have arge number of active personnel there.

    ¡°They don¡¯te here because they want to grow stronger in the central region first! That is the key to everyone¡¯s rise. Silver Moon is where the premier expertse for their final metamorphosis. You have not reached that step yet. There are many opportunities in the central region¡ªmysterious power stones, Water of Life, and ancient ruins.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen was inviting Li Hao to the central region with him! Based on his words, he was likely going to prepare for his metamorphosis as well.

    ¡°Your master may not be willing to return in the short term,¡± the man chuckled when Li Hao didn¡¯t respond. ¡°He¡¯s well aware that it¡¯s very difficult to swiftly develop to the same level as Earthturner Sword and the others if he stays in Silver Moon. Only in the central region does he stand a chance.

    ¡°It¡¯s a very, very big world Li Hao! Silver Moon will take its ce again sooner orter. But for now, let it be quiet for a while. With you here, it will be tough for the province to be at peace¡­¡±

    ¡°I¡­¡± Li Hao started with resignation.

    ¡°You¡¯re thest known descendant of the eight families, after all,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°There will be endless trouble if you stay here. It¡¯ll be better for you to be in the central region. The various factions are a counterbnce for each other! That actually gives more chances to the young¡ªthe older generation rarely attacks the youngsters of the Divine Masters Ranking. That¡¯s because the various sides offset each other.¡±

    The young man didn¡¯t say anything. He wouldn¡¯t have second thoughts if it was Hong Yitang issuing the invitation. But Hou Xiaochen¡­ He might be eaten alive if he followed the man to the central region!

    Indeed, Li Hao was still on his guard when it came to this one. He wouldn¡¯t stay inside the city otherwise and refuse to go out.

    ¡°What are you afraid of?¡± Hou Xiaochen seemed to read his mind. ¡°Li Hao, you should go see the world while you¡¯re young. Silver Moon martial masters have an exaggerated view of their battle strength. People like me can be found throughout the central region. You¡¯ll never know how wide the world is if you don¡¯t go out of yourfort zone. There are some geniuses among the Night Watchers who are unparalleled, to speak of nothing else. Although they are supernatural, they are so strong that I may not be a match for them if I don¡¯t unseal myself.

    ¡°And don¡¯t think that the three great organizations are crippled after killing Green Moon and Yellow Moon either. You¡¯re thinking too simplistically of the situation if you do that! Who¡¯s Ying Hongyue? Apart from him, the rest of the Seven Moons is just his harem.¡±

    Li Hao nced at Manager Yu; the woman stared frostily back at him. What are you looking at me for? I left many years ago!

    The young man coughed gently and swiftly looked away. ¡°Does the director mean that there are still powerhouses among the Red Moon elders?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°Not only the elder council, but there¡¯s another secret organization among Red Moon called the Ancient Guard! They rarely make an appearance as their only mission is to explore ruins! They¡¯re very simr to our Skystar Guards, but they¡¯re much stronger with a higher proportion of heavyweights¡­¡±

    A nk look appeared in even Violet Moon¡¯s eyes. She didn¡¯t know about this¡­

    ¡°Some of the Ancient Guard are martial masters, another portion are Ying Hongyue¡¯s experiments. There are also some Heaven¡¯s Eyes that are quite formidable! Heaven¡¯s Eyes are cultivators with their heavenly eye opened. Their mental strength is indomitable¡ªyou should know about that, it¡¯s a bit different from our mind intent, but equally strong. All of the three great organizations and nine ministries have some of these people in their ranks!

    ¡°How will you get to know these people if you don''t travel the world? If you keep waiting here, the only thing that wille to you is beingpletely left behind!¡±

    ¡°You can indeed visit the central region,¡± He Yong spoke up. ¡°There are many powerhouses there in addition to the factions we know. Some of them obtained heritages from ancient ruins early on or excavated ancient secret arts like your master. There are also some old families of martial dao. While they¡¯re not as mighty as Silver Moon martial masters after the rise of the supernatural, they are still a force to be reckoned with.¡±

    ¡°You should indeed consider it,¡± Hong Yitang also transmitted. ¡°It¡¯s good to experience the central region. I made a trip when I was young, as have most of the martial masters in Silver Moon. Whether it¡¯s to build their reputation or to observe more powerhouses, one has the right toe back and dominate Silver Moon only after sweeping through the central region!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just worried about Hou Xiaochen scheming against me¡­¡± Li Hao transmitted back in a forthright manner. ¡°This one has too many plots and ns in mind.¡±

    ¡°Are you afraid of him?¡± He Yong¡¯s transmission came with augh. ¡°He won¡¯t do anything to you straight off the bat, and who knows who will be scheming against who? As young as you are, you¡¯ve improved rapidly, kid. I¡¯ll protect you in the central region, what are you afraid of?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Pfft, it¡¯s not like you can beat him!

    ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll consider it!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t immediately refuse. ¡°I¡¯m going to head in and ask the generals for their opinion. Would you like toe for some tea, director?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Hou Xiaochen broke out intoughter. ¡°That¡¯s alright, you do as you wish.¡±

    The little guy¡¯s still on guard against me!

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao swiftly left without further ado. Four humans and one dog entered the city. He needed to cement an identity for Liu Long. They would certainly leave the ruins at some point, they wouldn¡¯t stay here forever. He had He Yong take Liu Long to the barracks while he headed straight for the city lord manor. Director General Wang was easier to speak to, so he would talk to that one first.

    ¡­¡­

    The city lord manor.

    It was unknown if Director General Wang had observed any of the earlier fighting. He was still sitting in his chair.

    ¡°Report!¡±

    ¡°Enter!¡± The director general was surprised. The little guy was interesting, he¡¯d learned some of the rules.

    ¡°General!¡± Li Hao cut straight to the chase. ¡°I¡¯d like to ask if I can enter again after I leave Battle Heaven?¡±

    ¡°You can. You are a member of Battle Heaven and cane and go at all so long as the Silver Armor is on you.¡±

    Li Hao beamed, as he thought! A city of my own people won¡¯t restrict its own!

    ¡°Will Battle Heaven continue to be open to the public? Can we refrain from the monthly three days?¡±

    ¡°Why should we? Are you worried someone will seize the city?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Ahem, well, that was indeed the case.

 Chapter 489: Departure (IV)

    Chapter 489: Departure (IV)

    ¡°I¡¯m just worried that there will be no one to defend the city after we leave.¡± Li Hao naturally wouldn¡¯t express his real thoughts. ¡°Those bandits might find an opening...¡±

    ¡°There is nothing to be worried about!¡± Director General Wang responded calmly. ¡°They¡¯ll just being to their deaths! If the bandits you speak of are on the same level as the trespassers that havee this time, then this city is not a ce where they cane and go at will!¡±

    That¡¯s good then!

    ¡°General, the new recruit camp has not reawakened. I¡¯d like to recruit some people in the outside world to join the Battle Heaven aAmy, but I have no keys¡­¡±

    ¡°That is not under my jurisdiction.¡±

    Li Hao was at a thorough loss for words, he didn¡¯t want to talk to thatmander. However, he also had a batch of ck armor outside that he¡¯d like to activate and equip the Silver Moon Guards with.

    ¡°There have been instances of troop leaders recruiting their own people when their troop wasn¡¯t full,¡± the director general still gave him some advice. ¡°Everyone must undergo new recruit training, but since that part of the barracks has yet to reawaken¡­ You can go to yourmander and ask for special privileges. You will see the same results after he bestows upon you temporary authority to activate some suits of armor.¡±

    Li Hao greeted his suggestion wordlessly. The key thing here is that the guy¡¯s not easy to talk to, or I would¡¯ve gone to him already. Fine then, there was no other choice avable.

    ¡°General, are there any special treasures on Skystar Ind?¡± he asked before leaving.

    ¡°Skystar Ind? Do the energy mines count?¡±

    ¡°Anything else apart from that?¡±

    ¡°Of course, and many. The pity is, who knows what¡¯s left after so much time has passed?¡± The director general took a brief walk down memoryne and shook his head momentster. ¡°I don¡¯t remember the specifics, but do recall that there was a residence of the Sea Pacification Envoy somewhere on the ind. I¡¯m not sure of the specifics and if it exists anymore.¡±

    ¡°The Sea Pacification Envoy?¡± Li Hao blinked¡ªwhat was that?

    ¡°When the human race triumphed and the Human King conquered the world, he named two monster spirit heavyweights as their race¡¯s envoys. Their presence would promote harmony between the two races. The two were respectively known as the Sea Pacification Envoy and Monster Spirit Envoy!

    ¡°The Monster Spirit Envoy oversees all monster spirits, but the sea is so vast that another envoy was named specifically for it!¡±

    ¡°Were they strong?¡± Li Hao was curious.

    ¡°Very strong,¡± pondered the director general. ¡°Of course, they don¡¯tpare to His Imperial Majesty and the rest, but they¡¯re much more powerful than regr heavyweights.

    ¡°Then¡­ how aboutpared to my ancestor?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± Director General Wang struggled with his answer. ¡°They¡¯re a little weaker.¡±

    Li Hao understood. So they¡¯re not even as strong as my ancestor! I thought they were formidable based on their titles. The manor of the Sea Pacification Envoy¡­

    Hemitted the ce to memory. Perhaps there would be something there, or perhaps nothing existed anymore. It also remained to be seen if the central region was the Skystar Ind of legend. So much time had passed since the ancient civilization that modern society wasn¡¯t aware of how much time had gone by. Who knew how the topography of thend had changed?

    ¡°Then I take my leave, general. I might not return for a very long time after this departure.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Director General Wang was as calm as ever.

    Li Hao could only leave after this response. It looked like the guy really had nothing for him, more was the pity.

    ¡°That little guy¡¯s interesting,¡± the director general said after the young man departed. ¡°He kept staring at me like he really hoped I¡¯d give him something.¡±

    ¡°He can fight for it himself,¡± responded a faint wisp at his ear. ¡°I wonder if he¡¯llplete the three missions he epted? I can vaguely sense that the other seven cities haven¡¯t entirely fallen. They may still exist! If the other seven can be contacted¡­ then we might stand a chance!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, I¡¯ll keep trying my best,¡± Director General Wang murmured.

    The inner city fell silent once more.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao carefully paid a visit to the barracks to meet themander again and briefly detail his request. He received a curt, ¡°Approved!¡± for his efforts.

    ¡°¡­¡­¡± The young man skedaddled!

    He was ever on his guard against the Gold Armor that always seemed ready to hit him again.

    Themander raised his head for a look at the young man¡¯s back and shook his head slightly. What a pity that the new recruit training system wasn¡¯t active, or they¡¯d have to keep him here for a while.

    The kid was not worthy of the heritage from the Eternal Sword Sovereign¡­ The more the Gold Armor looked at it, the more ufortable he felt.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao went to Military Supplies next, exchanging his two hundred and ten points for cultivation supplies. He was leaving the ruins and didn¡¯t know when he¡¯d be back. There wasn¡¯t much of a point to letting them umte. As for the Voidbreak Incantation¡­ that could wait.

    When everything was in order, the young man was ready to depart Battle Heaven. This would be theirst night here. Although he could leave at any time, it would raise less attention if he left with Hou Xiaochen. It would result in the biggest uproar if he left alone.

    When he walked out of the ancient city, Li Hao looked back up at the two characters hovering over the gates. Next time¡­ he¡¯de back next time. He wanted to study those two characters in greater detail, but there was nothing more he could glean in his current state. Perhaps there would be greater opportunity waiting in the future. Words from the imperial majesty could not be meant to just offer a peek at the scenes of yesteryear.

    ¡­¡­

    Li Hao did nothing else in the remaining time but cultivate. There was still a bit of time left that he wanted to put to good use. The easiest parts of himself to improve were his organs and physical body. These were hard for other people to develop, but entirely too easy for Li Hao. Nothing was a problem with sword energy avable.

    He exchanged two hundred and ten merits for one hundred and ten energy stones¡ªthe equivalent of eleven hundred mysterious power stones. When his own were added to the count, he had more than twenty-six hundred stones. The remaining one hundred points were traded for ten Mind Fruits. He had twenty now.

    Each energy stone could convert to sword energy worth approximately two hundred and eighty cubes of mysterious power, or just shy of three hundred. In other words, if Li Hao used his energy stones sparingly, he could utilize the equivalent of nearly seven hundred thousand cubes of mysterious power.

    He also had five origin weapons that could be convert to one hundred mysterious power stones. Of course, an origin weapon shouldn¡¯t be wasted in this manner. Their energy was best used to nurture itself for better effect.

    His five organs and physical body had previously absorbed roughly five thousand cubes of power. He now embarked on the path to ten thousand cubes. It sounded like a lot, but that was just mysterious power, not mysterious power stones. One stone was worth one thousand cubes, but it contained only three to five hundred cubes worth.

    If converted to mysterious power stones, that meant Li Hao had absorbed a dozen pieces per organ. The grand total of his entire body added up to more than one hundred pieces. But total absorption alone didn¡¯t directly map to how much the body would improve. He Yong and the others had absorbed a great deal of mysterious power stones as well, but their bodies did not fully reflect their intake.

    ¡­¡­

    After the melding of four auras, Li Hao¡¯s requirements of his organs grew higher. Although his body and organs needed to endure the fusion of four auras, he wanted to prepare them for five. Melding five auras might be an explosive aplishment¡ªif he didn¡¯t handle it properly with the strongest body possible, he might be the next Sickly.

    He swiftly pulled on cube after cube; the young man possessed an abundance of energy rings and mysterious power. He focused on the dark attribute when he could. Of the five elements, wind, and thunder, the light attribute remained the only one he¡¯d yet to encounter. There wasn¡¯t much of it to be found. Dark energy improved his concealment ability, wind and thunder enhanced his body and skeleton, the five elements improved the organs. Li Hao was very curious about light energy¡ªwhat did that improve?

    He collected many types of mysterious power and even owned numerous cubes of mutated forms such as ice and stone. But light¡­ he didn¡¯t find a single cube after prolonged rifling through his stores. The young man had to give up the idea.

    Did light energy have something to do with life energy? Wood energy could heal, but it wasn¡¯t as suited as light energy in this regard. Perhaps absorbing light mysterious power would make one younger?N?v(el)B\\jnn

    Who knew.

    He had wealth to spare and should use it on himself¡ªsuch was Li Hao¡¯s principle. He didn¡¯t normally hoard treasure unless he had no use for it at the moment.

    In an ancient house in the outer city.

    Li Hao spent almost a dozen hours absorbing energy until someone called outside the door, ¡°Li Hao!¡±

    It was He Yong. They knew that the young man was in here and were summoning him to tell him time was up. The ruins were about to open again.

    Li Hao assessed his organs and body to find that they were roughly at six thousand cubes each. He¡¯d absorbed almost eight thousand cubes during this period of time¡ªa much faster absorption rate than before. Otherwise, it should¡¯ve taken at least a day.

    This consumption equated to thirty pieces of mysterious power stones¡ªa drop in the bucketpared to his current wealth. He would have to wait before trying the Mind Fruits. There was also the Building Five Bridges method that would deliver the enormous benefit of not needing to pay attention to specific energy attributes. Any energy could be directly absorbed without having to cater to each organ. It would save him a lot of time and automatically bnce his organs for him.

    There were some specific details that he¡¯d yet to make sense of, however, so he wasn¡¯t in a rush to experiment.

 Chapter 490: Borrowing Books (I)

    <h4>Chapter 490: Borrowing Books (I)</h4>

    Three humans and a dog were already waiting outside when Li Hao emerged. Liu Long conversed with Hong Yitang in a low voice. He stopped talking when he saw Li Hao. Although the young man heard a murmured word or two, he didn¡¯t ask about their discussion.

    Panther stuck to Liu Long in Li Hao¡¯s absence. The dog was deeply fond of Liu Long as the man had taught it the Nine Forged Force, and had done so in a very thorough manner. Therefore, Liu Long was its favorite human when the young man wasn¡¯t around. It couldn¡¯t be bothered with Hong Yitang or He Yong.

    ¡°Have you improved again?¡± Hong Yitangughed when he saw Li Hao. The young man¡¯s presence still emanated from his being as his cultivation session had just ended. A hint or two could be gleaned from it. inly, Li Hao had taken another step forward.

    ¡°I¡¯m justying down some foundations!¡± Li Hao shook his head. This was indeed all foundational work for him. The physical body, organs, and skeleton were part and parcel of growing stronger. For him and Yuan Shuo, the keyy in mind intent and aura!

    Only when mind intent was strong and the aura perfect could they grow stronger! If the body wasn¡¯t strong enough, they could supplement with a spontaneous eruption of the five summoned spirits. The body was the base¡ªmind intent and aura were the eruption points. Without those, Li Hao would be much more mediocre even if his body was strong.

    What the young man wanted most at the moment was to swiftlyprehend the wood aura. But after grasping four auras, he suddenly wasn¡¯t in a hurry to manifest the fifth despite knowing the Weeping Willow Sword. He still reeled from how difficult the water aura had been.

    ¡°Foundations?¡± He Yong grumbled. ¡°We¡¯d love to have your foundations, too bad we can¡¯t. With qualities like yours, I would¡¯ve long opened my supernatural locks.¡±

    Li Hao was curious about this maneuver as well, so they chatted about this as they walked.

    ¡°Martial uncles, I understand some of your condition in the sense that snapping your locks releases your umted potential and spontaneously boosts your strength. But what next? You can¡¯t just keep yourself sealed forever, can you?¡±

    They seemed to have reached an odd loop in their cultivation. The locks had to be broken for them to grow stronger, but that might turn them into supernaturals or cause their outright death. Even if the five organs were strong enough to support the broken locks, a very likely oue was that they¡¯d cross over to the supernatural domain. They wouldn¡¯t be martial masters anymore, which would be an enormous spot of trouble.

    ¡°That¡¯s why we¡¯re very conflicted as we haven¡¯t found the proper path and method yet!¡± He Yong sighed. ¡°A lot of people are in the same stage. Since we don¡¯t wish to be supernatural, Ole Hong and I have discussed some ideas.

    ¡°Firstly, mysterious power appears after the locks are broken. We might be able to avoid bing supernatural if we shatter that power. I hear that your teacher has done so before?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao thought rapidly. ¡°There was a time in Silver City when he wanted to ascend to being supernatural, but sensed the mysterious power devouring his internal force during the attempt. He quickly detonated the power and gave up bing supernatural.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ve considered doing this too,¡± He Yong continued in a conflicted tone. ¡°But Yuan Shuo was very weak then and his internal force strong since he¡¯d just ascended. He immediately supplemented his internal force when his lock broke, making it stronger than the lock. That¡¯s why he could do it. We might not be able to because our locks are very strong!¡±

    ¡°Then does that mean my teacher... can break his locks without worry in the future?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not it, but that he can break one of them with peace of mind¡ªthe one that he first broke. The organ that it corresponds to will not produce more mysterious power if its lock breaks.¡±

    Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°That¡¯s the first idea. The second is to break all five at the same time. It¡¯s our spection that some unusual circumstances may ur in that case. Thebination of five types of mysterious power may give rise to a special energy instead of making the martial master a supernatural.

    ¡°The third idea is to continue to strengthen the locks, body, and organs... The locks represent potential. Both Ole Hong and I specte that at a certain level, the locks may be part of the body instead of breaking. They¡¯ll naturally release their potential then, or they may open by themselves if we reach a certain level. We won¡¯t have to force them open like we do now!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. The two hade to some valuable theories through their discussion.

    ¡°My teacher and I have discussed this before. He says that we need to summon our spirits and nurture our auras first, then meld the auras together. My teacher didn¡¯t go into specifics because he only had a general concept back then. I think he was consideringbining the aura with the supernatural lock and then breaking through it with the aura!

    ¡°That will propel the cultivator to the next stage in a very natural manner and undo the seal created by the supernatural lock.¡±

    The two men listened intently to the fledgling theories from Yuan Shuo. The man had just entered Summoner of Spirit then, so many of his theories were bound to be immature. But perhaps there was something they could glean from his knowledge.

    ¡°Also, I somehow feel that with the current Summoner of Spirit, we have not reached the peak of this level even after melding five auras together,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°We have to <i>nurture</i> them, but I don¡¯t feel like I¡¯ve had a chance to do something really like that. I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m using the wrong method or if I don¡¯t have the proper tools. Hence, I want to try the Mind Fruits.¡±

    Summoner of Spirit was a level that focused on nurturing the aura, but Li Hao had noted with the exception of the newly born aura, it was very difficult to continuously enhance one. For example, melding three together enabled him to kill peak Sr and possibly match initial Nova, but if this continued, the strongest he would be able to kill with three auras was initial Nova. That would remain the same even if he improved his body to the most he could. This was due to the auras not being strong themselves.

    The auras were strong only if they were newly born¡ªthat was wrong!

    His teacher must¡¯ve noticed something simr, which was why he hadn¡¯tbined his auras yet. Once he did, that would be their limit and peak. He would have to break through in another manner then.

    ¡°To strengthen mind intent and the aura...¡± Hong Yitang pondered. ¡°These are more arcane concepts as they can¡¯t be easily strengthened like the body can be through pills, treasures, and mysterious power stones. For martial masters, one way to strengthen the aura is through more fighting, tempering, and reflection!

    ¡°The stronger the heart is, the greater the aura! This is a process of nurturing the aura, the kind of invincibility that the ancients worked on. You didn¡¯t sense a difference before because it¡¯s been too soon since you set foot into this level.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know if the five organs can nurture the auras to stronger versions of themselves. You¡¯ll have to ask your teacher about that as we all gradually did it on our own, walking a different path from you.¡±

    Li Hao thought for a bit and nodded. That was true. Everyone¡¯s path was different and he didn¡¯t understand too much about this either. He would have to wait and see if his teacher found anything new or thought of a different way.

    As for himself, he¡¯de to a deep realization that he knew too little of the world and understood too little of martial dao. Some ancient tomes came to mind¡ªhe needed to quickly convert them to practical knowledge. Not only that, but he suddenly changed direction and headed elsewhere.

    The others blinked. Where was the young man going?

    ¡°Li Hao, that¡¯s the wrong way...¡±

    ¡°Nope!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°There¡¯s a ce in Battle Heaven that we¡¯ve yet to visit all this time, a very important ce! The library! Apparently the city has a massive library with countless books inside. While they don¡¯t speak of specific methods, there will be ones regarding martial theory.

    ¡°Although the ancient civilization has a different system from ours, a lot of modern people practice their secret arts. Since they can find some sess, that means there must be simrities between the two. I¡¯d like to borrow some of their basic theory books. If teacher was on this expedition, he would¡¯ve visited a long time ago.¡±

    The others exchanged nces without saying anything. It was normal that none of them had gone because they couldn¡¯t read any of the content inside. They just hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would pick this moment to borrow books. ...were there still books there?

    Who knew?

    ......

    Momentster, they arrived at arge building that wasn¡¯t too tall¡ªonly six floors. It was called a building because it upied arge plot ofnd. It was close to the city lord manor, but felt much bigger than it. The characters of Battle Heaven Library were written on it.

    Not only that, but there were guards at the door¡ªnot ck Armors, but Green Armors. Li Hao had never seen them before. A new type of soldier?

    He saw the words ¡°Security¡± etched on their chest when he took a closer look. <i>Ah, I see. They¡¯re from Director General Wang¡¯s division!</i> Li Hao recalled that internal security was usually managed by security guards. So there was another troop of Green Armors running around?

    <i>ng! </i>The guards at the door saluted when Li Hao approached. Their salute differed from military salutes. Instead of pounding their chest, they pointed at their heads. Li Hao didn¡¯t know how many courtesies existed in the ancient civilization. At the very least, none of these were present in the modern day Inspectorate and army.

    The guards ignored Li Hao after their salute. They were mute¡ªwhether out of inability orck of desire to speak, no one knew.

    ......

    The first floor was a cavernous lobby upon entering. Some darkened screens were scattered around them; one abruptly brightened. Perhaps the structure sensed the arrival of visitors or a powerhouse in the city had granted him some authorization.

    Li Hao swiftly walked up to the active kiosk.

    ¡°A Guide to Borrowing Books¡± was written on the screen. The young man poked it curiously, bringing up small pages that spoke of ¡°martial dao, technology, civilian livelihood, education, novels, arts and culture, science, storytelling...¡±.

    Another row of text shed: Identity confirmed. Leader of the Twelfth Troop of the Ninth Division in the Reserve Defenders of the Battle Heaven Army. Officer level personnel can read any book below the fifth floor for free. Three books may be borrowed to be returned at...

 Chapter 491: Borrowing Books (II)

    <h4>Chapter 491: Borrowing Books (II)</h4>

    The line of small text hovered for a bit. Li Hao scratched his head¡ªhe seemed to be limited to three books.

    The young man looked at He Yong and the others. When He Yong approached, it appeared that the machine could see him or sense his identity in other ways. His information appeared momentster. Lieutenant level personnel could borrow two books. Liu Long stepped forward for a try. Regr soldiers could borrow one.

    When Li Hao looked up, he realized there were no stairs or ess points to the upper floors! That was odd.

    ¡°Borrowing books.¡± Another line appeared on the screen. ¡°The system will automatically transmit books to the Battle Heaven armor upon selection. The physical copy is sealed to protect the heritage of civilization. This library is temporarily closed to the public. The Battle Heaven Army can receive their selections through textual transmission!¡±

    ¡°This must be the legendary smart system!¡± He Yong sighed with appreciation. ¡°Impressive! Sealing away physical copies for record keeping¡ªthe ancient civilization was skilled in not only martial dao, but in other areas as well!¡±

    Hong Yitang bobbed his head rapidly, that was indeed the case. Physical books could be archived to protect the civilization¡¯s legacy, but the knowledge within could be transmitted to the armor. This also prevented enemies from stealing information.

    Interest piqued, Li Hao quickly paged through the screen selection. Various titles appeared, each genre popted by an endless selection. Just the number of results to choose from was startling.

    Li Hao scanned the screen and saw that there was a keyword search at the top. He immediately understood its function and sighed with amazement. ¡°There¡¯s a library at the Veteris Institute in Silver City as well, but the organization is very haphazard. It¡¯s really hard to find a single book and sometimes we need to go through countless titles before locating it. Only experienced members can quickly hone in on specific books...¡±

    ¡°This is the power of knowledge!¡± Hong Yitang exhaled with simr sentiment. ¡°Skystar Dynasty also values this, but there are too few intellectuals in thend. Upstairs doesn¡¯t wish to expend too many resources in this area either. It¡¯s just a library, a token effort and simply having books is enough. It¡¯s the ancient civilization that properly values this area.¡±

    Li Hao nodded and thought for a bit, then wrote two characters in the search bar. <i>Martial dao. </i>Countless titles immediately filled the screen, bedazzling the young man. There were so many! How was he to find what he needed? He couldn¡¯t borrow that many titles.

    <i>Fundamental theory </i>entered the young man. That quickly cut down the number of books on his screen. There were roughly twenty books on a page and only several dozen pages left, as opposed to the thousands of pages before. That meant there were approximately one thousand books of fundamental theory in the library.

    That was still an impressive sum for the basics! Li Hao clicked his tongue with amazement. The library at Veteris Institute in Silver City was the biggest library in the city. It stored the most varied collection of thirty thousand books, a splendid figure indeed. And yet, it paled inparison to the one at Battle Heaven.

    Li Hao decided to look at the fifty pages he could choose from instead of further narrowing the field with more keywords. Since there was no way to see the specific contents of the books, he scanned their titles for inspiration.

    ¡°Fundamentals of Palm Methods... Fundamentals of Boxing Methods... de Methods...¡± There were all sorts of basic methods. He didn¡¯t know which to choose and rather wished he could take all of them, but that wasn¡¯t possible.

    Li Hao started¡ªone of the book¡¯s names was golden in color. That set it apart from the rest. <i>Fundamental Martial Dao Theory at the Martial University.</i>

    The young man blinked. He¡¯d heard about this university several times already, it was a ce that taught martial dao during the ancient civilization. That made it simr to the Veteris Institute, only that the institute didn¡¯t teach martial dao.

    The fundamental theory sses of this university... should be quiteprehensive, right? Li Hao added it to his selection and continued browsing. Since the book¡¯s title was a different color, it might represent a different level of importance. He saw another book with a peculiar name as he flipped through the pages.

    <i>Differences Between the Energy and Blood Qi Systems.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened¡ªwas the energy system the supernatural system? The Silver Armor had mentioned during his previous visit that supernaturals walked the path of energy. The young man quickly chose this as his second selection. He had one spot left. The others could choose five books total; he would help them with their selection. They might not be able to read the ancient text, but Li Hao could.

    He made his final choice a few momentster. Just the titles alone didn¡¯t give him many clues, so he made the selections in ordance with his thoughts. He chose <i>Fundamental Martial Dao Theory at the Martial University, Differences Between the Energy and Blood Qi Systems,</i> and the final title of <i>Fundamentals of Sword Methods</i>.

    As a swordsman, he chose a book regarding sword methods as his final choice. There was nothing regarding specific cultivation techniques¡ªthis type of content didn¡¯t seem to exist in the library. Li Hao didn¡¯t mind thisck as he didn¡¯t want to bite off more than he could chew. Some general theory was sufficient.

    ¡°Martial uncles, chief,e choose your books too!¡± Data flickered through the screen after he finalized his titles and connected with his armor. He saw lines of numbers inside his armor a secondter, indicating that the three books had been stored within and could be essed at any time.

    How convenient! Li Hao truly marveled at the ancient civilization¡ªthis technology was incredible! If it existed in modern times, his teacher wouldn¡¯t have to force him into memorizing all sorts of books. He just needed to transmit it as data. The suits of armor were tied to one person andpletely confidential. Others would not be able to use them if theyid hands on the equipment.

    Many secrets were lost in modern times due to confidentiality uses. Many secret arts were missing pieces here or there. When the legacy was lost, so was the art. But when it came to the ancients, they could directly transmit their data.

    Liu Long swept a nce at the screen; it was unintelligible rubbish to him. ¡°You pick one for me, I can¡¯t read the words!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s easy enough,¡± He Yong guffawed. ¡°Differences in title color means differences in importance. Two of the ones that Li Hao chose are in gold. I can go by that!¡±

    Apart from the <i>Fundamentals of Sword Methods</i>, the other two were indeed in golden font.

    He Yong wouldn¡¯t stand on ceremony. Although he couldn¡¯t understand anything, he tapped randomly until he saw a book with a golden title. ¡°This is good! The color is bright! I¡¯m choosing this one, Li Hao. What do you think?¡±

    The young man took a casual nce, then sharpened his gaze when surprise registered.

    ¡°An Illustrated Collection of Monster Spirits!¡± he read out. So the man had identally tapped his way into the genre of general subjects? ¡°This is a good choice. While there aren¡¯t major monster spirits in Silver Moon, they exist in Ash Mountain. We don¡¯t know much about them. Perhaps there¡¯s points of simrity between the ones now and the ones in the ancient civilization.¡±

    They would be better prepared next time if they were armed with knowledge.

    ¡°Told you it was good!¡± He Yongughed. ¡°It¡¯s fantastic, there¡¯s a lot of monster spirits in the central region. I may be able to learn about their weaknesses or some things that they don¡¯t know about themselves. The monster spirits in our age haven¡¯t awakened for long. If they were present in the time of the ancient civilization, then the ancients would know a lot more than us!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. The man quickly chose his second book that was also in golden font. <i>A Pictorial of the Treasures of Heaven and Earth. </i>The young man looked at He Yong. <i>Howe you¡¯re choosing these kinds of books?</i>

    ¡°This is a picture book that records the treasures of heaven and earth...¡±

    ¡°Fantastic!¡± He Yong roared withughter. ¡°¡°This is good too! We don¡¯t recognize all of the treasures we find now and it¡¯s such a pity to overlook them. We don¡¯t always know how to utilize a treasure we find in the ruins, so what¡¯s the point of even finding them? We might identally treat treasure as trash too, so this will do!¡±

    Li Hao nodded as well after some thought.

    ¡°Of course he¡¯s satisfied,¡± Hong Yitang said calmly. ¡°These are all illustrated, you just need to look at the pictures. He wouldn¡¯t be as happy if you had him choose something without diagrams...¡±

    Li Hao blinked, while He Yong snapped with irritation, ¡°Stop looking down on me! I¡¯m going to learn the ancientnguage as soon as we leave!¡±

    But that was indeed the case. All the same, He Yong was overjoyed. Two picture books were better than two he couldn¡¯t read. These books didn¡¯t seem to bemunal property, so he¡¯d have to memorize the characters, write them out for Li Hao, and wait for the young man¡¯s trantion... that was too difficult!

    Picture books wouldn¡¯t have as much text in them and when it came to drawing, He Yong possessed a fair bit of skill. He wasn¡¯t illiterate, after all. He could read, write, and possessed certain skills such as drawing. He just didn¡¯t know the ancientnguage.

    Li Hao smiled and didn¡¯t say anything else.

    ¡°Can you help me find books on raising crop yields?¡± Hong Yitang asked after some thought.

    The young man blinked. What did he want that for? Li Hao quickly entered the keyword and pulled up a list of books. There was one in golden font.

    ¡°An Encyclopedia of Raising Crops...¡± he read out. Hong Yitang quickly chose it.

    ¡°Now search for a simr encyclopedia for the people¡¯s livelihood.¡±

    Li Hao continued to look and found another before long. ¡°A Log of Basic Infrastructure...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s it!¡±

    Li Hao quietly selected the book, rounding out Hong Yitang¡¯s selection.

    ¡°Li Hao, you choose for me!¡± Liu Long said nothing else. After some thought and finagling with keywords, Li Hao pulled some one that discussed <i>A Record of Mountains, Rivers, and Terrain. </i>It seemed to be an introduction of majorndmarks in the ancient civilization.

    Li Hao wished to obtain a better understanding of ancient topography, but there didn¡¯t seem to be a full map anywhere. Or perhaps his clearance wasn¡¯t high enough. Those books might be on the sixth floor out of reach.

    They¡¯d all made their selections, rounding out Li Hao¡¯s final wish. Time was of the essence, so they quickly left the library.

 Chapter 492: Borrowing Books (III)

    <h4>Chapter 492: Borrowing Books (III)</h4>

    A shadow appeared in the library a while after the group left¡ªa turtle. When it looked at the screen, some additional titles blinked into existence. They were written in red and more conspicuous than the golden names.

    ¡°It¡¯s enough to peruse those at this stage. The rest can wait!¡±

    Titles such as the <i>Education of the Martial King, Regtions of the Nether King, Compendium of the Cast God...</i> Many of them were iplete and were the library¡¯s most valuable collection. Li Hao and the otherscked the proper authorization to ess them. They were purposefully kept away from these books due to the content¡¯splexity; they were beyond Li Hao¡¯s reach. With the group¡¯s identities, they would easily change the course of action for the martial masters of this age if they read these titles.

    The old turtle waved a foot to dim the entire library before its shadow vanished.

    ......

    At the same time, Li Hao¡¯s group was quite satisfied. They quickly walked out of the ancient city; Li Hao waved to the three Silver Armors on the walls when he passed through the gates.

    ¡°Troop leaders, I¡¯m heading out. I¡¯lle back to visitter!¡±

    ¡°Be careful and good fortune!¡± the leader of the Seventh Troop said calmly. He didn¡¯t express much reluctance as this wasn¡¯t a ce for the living to remain long. Undesirable effects might ur if they did.

    While the leader of the Seventh Troop didn¡¯t say much, the normally quiet leader of the Ninth Troop suddenly transmitted, ¡°Twelfth Troop Leader, you can try cing some energy stones in the old exchange point when you pass by General Pagoda on your way out. Perhaps... you can trade for some essence of life. General Pagoda may be simply asleep and not dead.¡±

    ¡°I see, thank you!¡± Li Hao nodded. He¡¯d seen that mentioned on the travel guide. Essence of life... was probably Water of Life. The hot spring had contained some and the ancient city was inert due to ack of this energy.

    General Pagoda... a nt spirit... was it the tree? A tree could be made a general? A tree spirit, was it?

    Li Hao waved goodbye again and departed the perimeter of the ancient city. The three Silver Armors watched them go.

    ¡°Ole Nine,¡± said the leader of the Seventh Troop when the group was fully gone. ¡°You had a lot to say just now. It¡¯s been so many years since your great-grandfather graduated from Demonic Martial, but you still curry favor with a descendant of the Sword Sovereign. Do you have no shame?¡±

    ¡°Curry favor?¡± Ole Nine responded calmly. ¡°I just gave a friendly reminder to a fellowrade! Not to mention, there¡¯s no need to curry favor with anyone. Themander is a direct disciple of Demonic Martial, take it up with him!¡±

    ¡°No way!¡±

    The three troop leaders were more sentient than before and spoke of events past after a bit of conversation. They were much more awake and alive now, and more stabilized existences after bing weapon souls.

    ......

    <i>Outside the city.</i>

    A group of twenty-eight humans and one dog convened. Yuan Xingwu might have reached an agreement with Hou Xiaochen and the others. Li Hao didn¡¯t know and didn¡¯t care. They were one less¡ªLight Sword. She was likely waiting at the tform.

    Li Hao ignored that detail as well and fell in step beside Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Director, are you giving up on the ck Tortoise Seal?¡± he asked after a while.

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen couldn¡¯t be bothered to answer a question that was so obvious.

    ¡°What if there¡¯s more people from the three great organizations waiting when we exit?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll just kill them all!¡± Hou Xiaochen replied decisively. ¡°Most of the powerhouses entered the ruins, the ones left behind are weaklings. It¡¯s not like the three great organizations will send a continued flood of personnel to Silver Moon, so we don¡¯t need to worry about that.¡±

    ¡°Did you kill the General of Northern Pacification?¡± He Yong suddenly asked. Even Yuan Xingwu¡¯s footsteps faltered; the death of that personage was causing extreme unrest in the three northern provinces. Were Hou Xiaochen and the others behind that?

    They¡¯d only somewhat suspected it at first, but now everyone was more or less certain because Hou Xiaochen¡¯s group was very strong. They were very likely to have killed that peak Nova that was protected by thousands of troops.

    ¡°What, do you seek revenge?¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. That one had been from the royal family.

    ¡°No, but if you killed him... I¡¯ll need to stay away from you.¡± He Yong raised an eyebrow. ¡°While that guy caused a lot ofints and grumbling, him being alive was far better than him being dead. The three provinces are unstable because you killed him, which will impact the neen northern provinces and Silver Moon.¡±

    ¡°Think whatever you¡¯d like.¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned. ¡°I did it if you say so.¡±

    ¡°Pfft!¡± He Yong snorted and said nothing else. Li Hao listened quietly off to the side. He was a Silver Moon denizen who didn¡¯t know much about his home province, much less the three northern provinces. It didn¡¯t matter who¡¯d died or if someone killed someone, it had nothing to do with him.

    They soon reached the tree tunnel and the young man sought out what should look like an offering table. Tourists and Battle Heaven denizens liked toe here back in the day to present offerings that might be epted for Water of Life. It might be out of order now since it looked like the tree was dead.

    After a while, Li Hao noted a table in the darkness. It was very small and covered in dust. One could easily overlook it if they weren¡¯t paying attention. He swiftly approached to look it over¡ªthere was a tiny hole on it. He regarded it hesitantly, should he put some energy stones on it?

    Based on his understanding, regr mysterious power stones wouldn¡¯t do. It had to be the energy stones that he¡¯d received from the army. He only had 166 pieces¡ªhis own portion of ten and 156 from merits. If there was no response from the tree, he wouldn¡¯t be able to get them back. Just like when He Yong paid for the hot spring, it was aplete waste if one didn¡¯t offer enough.

    Hou Xiaochen and the rest watched him, not knowing what the young man wanted to do.

    Li Hao set his jaw. Well, one couldn¡¯t trap a wolf without being willing to risk their child! <i>Let¡¯s give it a try!</i> Perhaps he would be able to obtain some Water of Life from all those years ago. It was supposed to be a marvelous item; the hot spring from before only contained some dregs, but the effects were magical all the same. It could regrow limbs and whatnot, making it possibly better than sword energy.

    One piece, two pieces...

    Hearts spasmed when they saw Li Hao shove energy stones onto the table. The kid had so much wealth that they wanted to rob him! Those stones looked different from regr ones!

    Six in a row did nothing. Li Hao began regretting his actions. Six energy stones were the equivalent of sixty mysterious power stones. What a waste! This tree was a bottomless pit... If it wasn¡¯t for what the leader of the Ninth Troop had said, he really wouldn¡¯t want to give it a try.

    ¡°Let¡¯s do another ten. I¡¯ll leave if there¡¯s still no reaction after sixteen!¡± Li Hao grit his teeth and started cing stones on the table again.

    There was no reaction after ten stones. Tears in his eyes, the young man prepared to go. He couldn¡¯t keep betting on this bottomless pit! He¡¯ll just view those sixteen as paying his dues. If not, it might be his life demandedter! It looked like General Pagoda was dead.

    Just as Li Hao was about to withdraw, Hong Yitang suddenly said, ¡°Try a few more!¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°There are some... ripples forming!¡± Hong Yitang sensed something. ¡°Put some more in.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s tears dried up and he put in a few more... then looked at Hong Yitang as he wanted to cry again. Five more!

    Still nothing.

    ¡°Continue!¡±

    The young man wanted to vomit blood, but Hong Yitang must have truly sensed something. He had to continue.

    <i>Twenty-five... twenty-eight...</i> Li Hao also sensed something at thirty pieces. The table seemed to tremble. Pausing, he ced another six pieces on the table. That made for thirty-six, a massive depletion of his stores.

    A drop of water slowly formed above the offering table. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s eyes widened; Hong Yitang flicked a nce at him and tossed a sk to Li Hao. ¡°Put that in there!¡±

    Li Hao quickly collected the droplet. Was this Water of Life? He didn¡¯t sense anything from it!

    ¡°It¡¯s sealed. you¡¯ll know when you use it,¡± Hong Yitang exined. ¡°Let¡¯s go, stop giving it stones. This seems like it¡¯s from the reserves and there may not be more if you continue. This tree... seems to be fishing for more. Don¡¯t shove in so much that you end up with nothing!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. Fishing? He didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. Surely... not?

    ¡°Li Hao, will you like to trade that with me? I can offer an origin weapon...¡± Hou Xiaochen suddenly asked.

    ¡°No thanks!¡± Li Hao said t out. <i>I¡¯m not short on origin weapons. What do I need those for?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen blinked wordlessly. That had been a... damned decisive no. He wanted to give the offering table a try too, but hecked the stones of that purity level and he could sense some of the ripples as well. Giving more to the tree was likely just throwing meat buns at a dog. It did seem to be fishing for more and might not offer anything no matter how much it received next.

    Slightly regretful, Hou Xiaochen led the group away. After they departed, the offering table trembled and the tree hole shook, like there was someone cursing up a storm...

    The old turtle in the ancient city looked over and shook its head. It looked like General Pagoda had run out of all of its wealth. Although it wasn¡¯t fully dead, it was just about.<i> Too bad we can¡¯t go out to help you. One drop less of life essence won¡¯t do anything to you.</i>

    As for the energy stones it¡¯d absorbed, they wouldn¡¯t have much of an effect. It would take hundreds or thousands of stones to rejuvenate it. Everything else was a waste.

    ......

    Light Sword was indeed waiting at the end of the tree tunnel. She wasn¡¯t afraid to see the groupe toward her. Sweeping her eyes over Li Hao, she ended up looking at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°We can open the door and leave now, right?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen simply looked at the wall. It was almost time. Momentster, he waved a hand to turn the wall translucent. The Silver Moon Guard was still waiting outside and were undergoing their preparations when the time arrived. A vortex soon appeared on the wall¡ªthe exit was open.

    Light Sword was the first out and quickly disappeared. The others filed out as well. Battle Heaven was sealed off once more when the outsiders departed and the ancient city sank intoplete stillness.

 Chapter 493: The News Spreads in All Directions (I)

    <h4>Chapter 493: The News Spreads in All Directions (I)</h4>

    <i>Rift Canyon.</i>

    Three days passed swiftly; a crowd jostled outside of the canyon on this day. It was sizable as it contained wandering cultivators that couldn¡¯t enter the ruins, delegations left behind by all sides, and representatives from the Silver Moon official authorities.

    Tension was high as people waited for the ruins to open. Today was when the expedition would emerge. Although it was midnight, the canyon was lit brightly on all sides. Standing in front of a group of Night Watchers, Hao Lianchuan fidgeted nervously. It was quite nerve-wracking that Hou Xiaochen had entered the ruins himself and taken Manager Yu with him. What was the situation now? The three great organizations had entered with quite a few powerhouses in their delegations¡ªthey hadn¡¯t done anything to the director, would they?

    Wang Ming was also nervous. Was Li Hao alright in there?

    Only Deputy Zhou looked calmly at the exit from his high vantage point. How many had died this time? The possibility of Hou Xiaochen being a casualty never crossed his mind. That wouldn¡¯t happen. Although there were plenty of heavyweights from the three great organizations inside, their caliber was less than Hou Xiaochen and Kong Jie. It wouldn¡¯t be that easy for them even if they allied together.

    If they forced Hou Xiaochen or any of the others into dire straits, everyone would be in for a difficult time once seals started being undone. Of course, Hou Xiaochen wouldn¡¯t choose that course of action if he had any other option avable to him.

    Deputy Zhou¡¯s eyes darted to the cliff face¡ªthe ruins were opening!

    A figure shed out and immediately rose into the air. Most didn¡¯t have a chance to see who it was before it disappeared. Deputy Zhou was afforded a clear look. He started, had that been...Light Sword?

    If their surmises were correct, the one who¡¯de with the Xu member was Light Sword. She¡¯d... emerged alone? Had something happened to Xu Feng?

    Deputy Zhou was rather surprised. With Light Sword present, neither the three great organizations nor Hou Xiaochen would attack her ward. Why was sheing out by herself and leaving so rapidly? She ran like she was a fugitive.

    Although Deputy Zhou was surprised by the first to emerge, he wasn¡¯t too taken aback. No one¡¯s death would be all that shocking unless Hou Xiaochen died.

    ¡°Who was that?¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t see them, they were so fast!¡±

    ¡°Was it the Xu butler?¡±

    ¡°Was it?¡±

    ¡°......¡± A hubbub of discussion arose. Some were confused, others hadn¡¯t taken a clear look, while a few managed to catch vital glimpses. More than anything, the mood was confused. How was this one the first one out?

    They were less confused secondster as Hou Xiaochen was next to appear. The man was asposed as ever. His step forward disappointed some in the crowd¡ªhe was still alive! It looked like the three great organizations hadn¡¯t moved against him in the ruins, or had they failed?

    People streamed out behind Hou Xiaochen. Manager Yu, Golden Spear, Kong Jie... Li Hao¡¯s group, and finally Yuan Xingwu¡¯s group. All of the humans were out; Panther¡¯s appearance surprised the crowd. Why was there a dog here? Had someone taken it in with them? Why hadn¡¯t they seen it before?

    There was no time to contemte as all eyes focused on the vortex on the cliff face. Where were the rest?

    Hou Xiaochen coughed lightly¡ªthis seemed to be a signal. A ming red spear manifested as his calm voice traveled outward. ¡°The three evil organizations are too wicked for redemption! They ambushed powerhouses of the various factions while inside and were ultimately beaten back with our concerted efforts!

    ¡°Supernaturals of all sides were of one heart to y evil, but they perished inside the ruins as well. I am ashamed to say that I could not bring back their bodies. The only thing I can do is to kill the remnants of the three evil organizations to avenge them!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    An enormous explosion ripped through the air as his spear detonated a team of Ghostfaces in the distance.

    ¡°No...¡± someone shrieked. Others were unbelieving and yet more shellshocked. What did he mean? That <i>all</i> of the powerhouses from the three great organizations were dead? But... so many supernaturals had entered the ruins! It wasn¡¯t just one or two representatives from each side¡ªaltogether, there were more than one hundred Srs alone! It meant that the elite wandering cultivators of neen northern provinces had beenpletely eliminated in one fell swoop!

    Where were they??

    This couldn¡¯t be all the survivors, could it?

    ¡°Ahh!!¡± Ghastly wails rose and fell as the spear swiftly dispatched a dozen Ghostfaces. Some horrified beyond belief tried running for their lives while others shouted with disbelief.

    ¡°That¡¯s impossible... Hou Xiaochen, you guys did something in the ruins!¡±

    ¡°The ruins are fake, they¡¯re a trap!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The spear eviscerated another batch of supernaturals as it ran through heaven and earth.

    Hou Xiaochen rose into the sky, his expression calm as his voice rang in the four directions.

    ¡°Every one of the three evil organizations is to be executed on sight! I had not sought to do so previously as cultivation is difficult and yours is a precious path. However, the three evil organizations continue to seek the downfall of our wondrous dynasty! I am a loyal subject of Skystar Dynasty and the proper course of action under such circumstances is to cleanse thend of these wretches! Kill!!¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A spear churned in all directions like a phoenix and immted the sky, reflecting a crimson light onto thend.

    ......

    <i>Over the canyon.</i>

    Deputy Zhou looked down with widened eyes of incredulity. Not even he dared believe that these were the only survivors out of such arge expedition. He¡¯d thought that the three great organizations would lose some people, not all of them!

    <i>Hou Xiaochen is as vicious as ever... and it looks like he hasn¡¯t been injured... </i>

    Some supernaturals fled toward Deputy Zhou; he nced at them and subconsciously influenced them to alter direction around him.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Supernaturals died every time the spear stirred to action. The victims were always those of the three great organizations. Celestial¡¯s powerhouses... Red Moon¡¯s heavyweights... There were still some Srs left from them at the moment.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen, you demon!¡± screamed one of them. ¡°That¡¯s impossible, they can¡¯t all be dead! You¡¯ll burn in hell for this, you demon!¡±

    This was iprehensible! So many powerhouses had entered from the three great organizations, just Red Moon alone sent three of their Seven Moons. Some knew even the secret addition of Yellow Moon, so that was four! Apart from Red Moon, Orange Moon, and Indigo Moon, the rest of the Seven Moons had joined the expedition as well as an elder. <i>All</i> of them are gone??

    On Yama¡¯s side, the Parity King and two Novas had entered. Celestial had also sent three elders... but every single one of them was dead!

    ¡°How is that possible!?¡± someone else yelled within the crowd. ¡°Is this everyone? Where¡¯s my Liu family representative?!¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re also missing General Mu of the Director General Office from Near River! Can someone give us an exnation??¡± echoed a Near River heavyweight. Varying numbers of representatives had remained in the canyon; not many had entered the ruins. They were all stunned beyond belief. Where was everyone? Was this it??

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s voice rang through the sky again, this time with apology and regret. ¡°Other than us, the rest were murdered by the three great organizations. There are still those from the Skystar Troops, provincial government, and central Night Watchers, however. Ah, Southern Fist from the royal family is also alive and a powerhouse left from the Xus...¡±

    The survivors were many and from numerous factions as well. <i>We¡¯re not the only ones to walk out alive. Look, there¡¯s people from the royal family, the provincial government, the Xus... Those who didn¡¯t make it out just suffered from bad luck!</i>

    The ming Phoenix Spear swept through the void again; Hou Xiaochen¡¯s voice cut through the general fear, panic, and horror.

    ¡°Night Watchers, the military, Inspectorate, and Silver Moon Guards will immediately mobilize to exterminate all members of the three great organizations within provincial borders. They are to be executed without exception!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Hao Lianchuan and the others finally came back to their senses and swiftly scattered to the four cardinal directions. The strongest members of the three great organizations had nearly been eliminated in one joint operation. They still had personnel located in various hideouts; their doomsday was truly upon them.

    Wandering cultivators were also swiftly fleeing the scene, each of them ashen faced. Some were gibbering messes while others were too horrified to speak. Heavens above! Something big was about to happen in the world. Thousands of supernaturals had entered the ruins and they¡¯d all died, that was incredible!

    Many important people seemed to have died as well. The Lius of the Ministry of Finance, a general from the Near River Director General Office, core members of the three great organizations, and a young master from the Steadfast Duke¡¯s household...

    These people were all known in the central region, their family backgrounds and factions were first rate. And yet, they¡¯d all died in Silver Moon!

    ......

    <i>Below.</i>

    Li Hao watched silently, impressed by Hou Xiaochen¡¯s words. Talking ck into white and reversing right and wrong... Everyone was quite skilled at this!

    The three great organizations had lost too much this time. Meanwhile, Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t inclined to kill the wandering cultivators. There was no need and he wanted them to spread the word for him. As for whether or not they believed him... who cared? Was there any evidence? Were they going to enter the ruins to look for evidence?

    Mu Lin led the Silver Moon Guards to hunt down the fleeing organization members. Golden Spear hadn¡¯t said a word from beginning to end.

    Hou Xiaochen had killed a few people only at the beginning. As hended, he reverted to his genteel and urbane manner with a cough. Despite looking a bit frail, no one dared underestimate him. What a terrifying person!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go up!¡± he coughed. Li Hao grabbed Panther by the nape of its neck and flew up with the dog in hand. It wouldn¡¯t do for Panth to raise attention through its skills. Granted, it¡¯d already drawn attention for having walked out of the ruins.

    Hou Xiaochen rose shakingly into the air with Manager Yu¡¯s help. He¡¯d flown around proudly before, but now needed someone to support him. Theynded in front of Deputy Zhou, quickly joined by Director General Zhao, Huang Yu, and some other Silver Moon executives.

 Chapter 494: The News Spreads in All Directions (II)

    <h4>Chapter 494: The News Spreads in All Directions (II)</h4>

    Hou Xiaochen coughed gently when everyone was present. ¡°Give the order to exterminate the three great organizations! They were so cruel that they ughtered innocents in the ruins. Unfortunately for them, their luck was poor and the existences in the ruins killed many of them in return...¡±

    Director General Zhao didn¡¯t say anything. He looked at Hou Xiaochen, then at the people behind the Night Watcher director. ¡°It¡¯s good that you guys are alright!¡± He turned to Deputy Zhou. ¡°Report the news to upstairs and notify Skystar City that the three great organizations are causing unrest in Silver Moon. We need reinforcement!¡±

    ¡°Will do.¡± Deputy Zhou inclined his head and didn¡¯t say anything.

    Huang Yu verified that his people were alright when he looked at them. ¡°Those from the military will go back with me. Yuan Xingwu, will you and your mene with me or immediately return to Skystar City?¡±

    Yuan Xingwu had wanted to stay a bit longer in Silver Moon and visit Chen Yuhua; he blinked at themander¡¯s words. There were subtle undertones of telling him to leave!

    ¡°We have missions to undertake and will not trouble Commander Yu further,¡± he said after some thought. ¡°We will immediately set out for Skystar City!¡±

    ¡°Be careful!¡± Huang Yu said indifferently. ¡°Don¡¯t wander around on your way back. Hurry and tell the Ministry of Military Justice that we really need more personnel in Silver Moon. If possible, deploy some heavyweights to us to assist in defensive efforts.¡±

    Yuan Xingwu nodded and turned his attention to Li Hao, possibly wanting to say something to the young man. Li Hao had a calm expression on his face and inclined his head at Yuan Xingwu. His response was measured and showed a distinctck of intent to engage in conversation.

    There was no helping it, he really wasn¡¯t familiar with the man. He would¡¯ve made his greetings if his teacher had mentioned Yuan Xingwu often. The thing was, Yuan Shuo had never spoken of this name!

    This senior brother of his might¡¯ve done something to hurt his teacher¡¯s feelings¡ªsuch was Li Hao¡¯s guess. Otherwise, Yuan Shuo should¡¯ve mentioned him at least once, as even his surname was Yuan. Being his first disciple as well, it didn¡¯t make sense that he was never present in conversation.

    Yuan Xingwu sighed and guessed at some of the thoughts running through Li Hao¡¯s mind when he saw the expression on the young man¡¯s face. He transmitted, "Little junior brother, I¡¯ll be going back now. We didn¡¯t have a chance to chat this time. I¡¯ll try to help our master the best I can. If I can convince the powerhouses of the Skystar Army to take action, that will naturally keep our master safe!

    ¡°As for yourself, try... to stay away from the central region and especially don¡¯t travel with Hou Xiaochen. He¡¯ll be beseiged by strong enemies when he reaches his post¡ªhis actions in setting up a separatist regime in Silver Moon have aroused prolonged dissatisfaction. Once he enters the central region, he might be attacked on all sides. The nine ministries and royal family might move against him as well. He is poised on the precipice of disaster, so think carefully, junior brother!¡±

    ¡°Thank you for your reminder!¡± Li Hao transmitted politely.

    ¡°Then... I won¡¯t say anything else.¡± Yuan Xingwu ended the conversation when he saw that Li Hao didn¡¯t seem interested in talking to him. He turned to Hu Dingfang. ¡°Be careful, the situation isplicated in Silver Moon. Go back and discuss any thoughts with Yuhua, don¡¯t be in a rush to take action and definitely don¡¯t get any other ideas in mind. You also saw what happened today. I¡¯m heading back, so be careful and don¡¯t get overly involved with the Bais...¡±

    Hu Dingfang nodded without a word. Yuan Xingwu and his men swiftly departed.

    ¡°Director General Zhao, Director Hou,¡± Qi Gang suddenly said. ¡°Hu Qingfeng and I will be leaving as well then...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re going the same way, so traveling together will be safer!¡± Director General Zhao looked at Hou Xiaochen¡ªhe nodded with a cough.

    ¡°Very well, safe travels! Traveling together will give you strength in numbers.¡±

    Qi Gang heaved a slight sigh of relief and looked at Hu Qingfeng. The man was also relishing surviving a cmity.

    ¡°I¡¯ll be taking my leave then, Director Hou, and await your arrival in Skystar City. I¡¯m heading back first to prepare the way for Director Hou. I¡¯ll be sure to make ample preparations so that everything is ready for you!¡± Hu Dingfang didn¡¯t care that Qi Gang was regarding him with a derisive look. He backed away only after bidding everyone farewell.

    The group of twelve quickly moved out. Abination of three Novas and nine Srs had nothing to worry about on their way back. At the same time, Hong Yitang transmitted to Li Hao, ¡°Then I¡¯ll be off too. As for whether or not you should head to the central region... There¡¯s no rush. If you do, you should consider whether you want to go with He Yong or Hou Xiaochen. My suggestion is that you go by yourself. That will ensure a lower profile, you¡¯ll draw too much attention with them. I might need to enter closed door cultivation for a while and won¡¯t be able to look after you...¡±

    <i>Closed door cultivation?</i>

    Li Hao looked strangely at the man. He seemed to understand and smiled ruefully. ¡°It¡¯s real seclusion. I need to think about the path toe and some other matters. Don¡¯t read too much into my words.¡±

    He did need to sequester himself a bit to contemte his next steps. Although he¡¯d made some decisions, he wasn¡¯t fully at ease with them. Not to mention, he needed to be prepared if he was to truly undertake those moves.

    ¡°I understand, then take care, martial uncle...¡±

    ¡°Ah yes, I¡¯ll make a copy of those two books and the Building Five Bridges method. Send their trantions to me when you¡¯re done¡ªI should be at the Sword Sect, which is less than five hundred kilometers from White Moon City. That should be within the armor¡¯s range.¡± Hong Yitang prepared to leave, then continued transmitting, ¡°You might be safer with Hou Xiaochen if you do go to the central region.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen is crafty and cunning, but he has his bottom line. He likes to, or is passionate about, making deals of equal value. He Yong... you should know as well that he¡¯s not as foolish or honest as he appears to be. However, he won¡¯t brashly take action against you either. You¡¯re his hope to suppress his five locks. But remember, anyone who secures their footing in the royal family has conducted their fair share of devious plots as well. Don¡¯t be fooled by what he projects.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, he had certain thoughts in mind. He¡¯d felt some of this in Ash Mountain, that He Yong might not have so easily let him off the hook if Hong Yitang hadn¡¯t been present as well. Granted, the young man also might not have saved He Yong if he¡¯d been the only one there.

    Hong Yitang was a decent person at the end of the day. He¡¯d taught Li Hao some things on the first expedition. While the young man still didn¡¯t know why he¡¯d done so, he felt that Hong Yitang was a more generous person. In return, Li Hao was more willing to deal with him.

    Hong Yitang turned to the others and raised a cupped fist salute. ¡°I have a myriad of tasks to attend to at the Sword Sect, so I shall not bother you any longer. Director Hou, Commander Yu, everyone... I take my leave!¡±

    He turned and left. Hou Xiaochen watched him go without saying anything. Kong Jie followed his movements as well, before suddenly saying, ¡°Are you interested ining to White Moon City? Ole Hou¡¯s about to leave soon. I¡¯ll guarantee you some sort of deputy position at the Inspectorate or Night Watchers if youe...¡±

    ¡°No need, my thanks!¡± Hong Yitang was gone.

    The director general and others silently watched the exchange. ¡°That guy... has reached that step,¡± Kong Jie transmitted. ¡°He trounced even Ole Hou in the ruins!¡±

    Eyes widened at his words!

    ¡°Why are you so happy that I was trounced?¡± Hou Xiaochenughed in his return transmission. ¡°But it is indeed surprising that Earthturner Sword has reached this step. His sword intent is vast and majestic¡ªit contains hints of great virtue. We don¡¯t need to worry about him doing anything untoward. He probably has personal ideals and goals in mind. Earthturner won¡¯t bemitting wrongful acts.¡±

    ¡°How is Southern Fist?¡± Huang Yu¡¯s voice echoed by their ears.

    ¡°He¡¯s alright, good enough.¡± Hou Xiaochen¡¯s assessment was mediocre. ¡°Seal off the ruins. Some of the existences inside may have fully reawakened!¡±

    Expressions shifted once more at his words. Reawakened! That was terrifying. No matter who or what it was inside the ruins, so much time had passed that no saint or viin was who they once were. Their sides no longer mattered. All that was relevant was that they were from another era, and hence should be regarded as a different race than modern humanity.

    ¡°Then Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°The eight families are indeed those eight families. Silver City is far more than meets the eye! Li Hao might¡¯ve gained a lot from the ruins, but he doesn¡¯t need to be ced under guard. We don¡¯t want to cause unexpected consequences!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The group discussed the expedition in a general sense without delving into specifics.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t offer anything. He left with Liu Long and Panther when he saw that no one was paying attention to him. A casual beckon was enough to summon Wang Ming. Thetter ignored his grandfather¡¯s look and quickly followed Li Hao.

    ......

    <i>On the way back.</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word. After they walked for a period of time, Li Hao looked at Liu Long. ¡°Chief, when we were in the city, Martial Uncle Hong spoke to you about working for him, didn¡¯t he?¡±

    Liu Long nodded.

    Li Hao thought for a bit and said hesitantly, ¡°I can understand some of your thoughts, but I obviously don¡¯t share the depth of your feelings. Martial Uncle Hong says I¡¯ve seen too little of the world and don¡¯t understand certain things. He¡¯s right.

    ¡°When we were in Silver City, you said that the Demon Hunters¡¯ mission was to protect the city. To be honest, I still don¡¯t really understand it.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, everyone has tread a simr path,¡± Liu Long responded. ¡°No one is born being kind with a sense of justice. My experiences formed my thoughts. After my father passed away from illness when I was a child, our enemies came calling. Silver City gave me a lot of help, making it possible for me to grow up and join the Inspectorate. It¡¯s because of their help and trust that I am where I am.¡±

    Hence, he wanted to give back to thend and people that¡¯d nurtured him. This was why he hadn¡¯t been in a rush to leave the city after he filled out his wings.

 Chapter 495: The News Spreads in All Directions (III)

    <h4>Chapter 495: The News Spreads in All Directions (III)</h4>

    In the wake of Silver Spear¡¯s death, his innumerable enemies hade calling. Martial masters of Silver City had stepped forward to protect his son, as did the great personages of the city. The Silver character in Silver Spear was also the Silver of Silver City!

    He had been Silver City¡¯s pride and glory. Thus, the older generation of martial masters in Silver City had fought for his son again and again. This was a very different experience from Li Hao¡¯s childhood.

    ¡°Chief, I might go to the central region,¡± Li Hao breathed out. ¡°I¡¯ll be further away from Silver City. I summoned you here from Silver City, but now I might leave again. I¡¯m getting farther away from home!

    ¡°Martial Uncle Hong is strong and I can tell that some of his ideals are to make what changes he can. If he thinks you¡¯re suitable to go with him, I think you can give it a try.¡±

    Hong Yitang had extended an olive branch to Liu Long. Li Hao had heard it, and was possibly meant to hear it. Liu Long wouldn¡¯t gain much following Li Hao around as the young man ran through the world. His personality and mind intent would not improve from killing more. Sometimes, a kind of faith and motivation were needed in addition to battle experience.

    Hong Yitang would need the help of people like Liu Long if he wished to establish his little utopia. He wouldn¡¯t be able to aplish it by himself.

    Water was gentle. Liu Longprehended the water aura because his own personality wasn¡¯t that of violent might. This was a tender mind intent¡ªhis waves veered on the ferocious side because Li Hao and Yuan Shuo had given him that suggestion, but it wasn¡¯t necessarily the most suited for him.

    Liu Long frowned and didn¡¯t say a word.

    ¡°Are you worried about Sis Liu and the others?¡± Li Hao asked. ¡°If you¡¯re worried about them, bring them with you. Or if you trust me enough, they shoulde with me.¡±

    He didn¡¯t want Liu Long toe with him, but rather Liu Yan and the others instead. That drew a surprised look from the man.

    ¡°They can only go to the Sword Sect if they follow you, chief,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°That is a safe ce good for retirement. But their personalities aren¡¯t like yours! I can see it¡ªwhether it¡¯s Brother Chao, Jian, or Sis Liu, none of them are willing to spend a lifetime cowering in Silver City. They want to rush out onto the battlefield and vent the resentment in their hearts. They bear bitterness, just like I do, and don¡¯t know how to release it.¡±

    Celestial had ughtered Wu Chao¡¯s entire family, but even now he¡¯d yet to take revenge. Yama had killed Liu Yan¡¯s husband. Although Hu Po was dead, she didn¡¯t seem to have let that go. Chen Jian¡¯s history was unknown, but he seemed to be having a good time in the Silver Moon Guards.

    These people might be more suited to travel thend with him. Residing in danger might inspire them more, whereas Liu Long wished to stand guard over Silver City. They were people with different personalities.

    ¡°Are you really going to the central region?¡± Liu Long asked instead. ¡°You have room to improve here too...¡±

    ¡°I haven¡¯t made up my mind yet.¡± Li Hao gave it some thought. ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll wait a bit longer for news from my teacher. I¡¯ll go if he still doesn¡¯te back. I was too weak to go with him before, so he left alone. But now that I have some skill to my name, how can I just sit by while Red Moon chases him?

    ¡°Only chief and my teacher were willing to take a stand for me when I was at my most helpless and surrounded with the most danger. Once chief is settled in, I¡¯m going to go look for my teacher!

    ¡°Chief fought Red Moon cultivators for me that day, despite knowing the danger.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Teacher risked his life to kill a Sr. My parents are dead and my best friend was murdered in front of my eyes. I have no other ties apart than you two! Martial Uncle Hong¡¯s heart is boundless and majestic. I may not be as benevolent as him, but I know that a drop of kindness should be answered by a spring of gratitude!

    ¡°I must look in on my teacher.¡± The young man traveled to the central region not to see the wider world or meet powerhouses of all factions, he primarily wanted to find Yuan Shuo. His teacher could not die out there. Everything else was a secondary, minor reason. He could battle Novas now¡ªhe was no longer the weakling who couldn¡¯t even hold down a chicken.

    Liu Long said nothing more.

    ¡°You¡¯re going to the central region?¡± An excited Wang Ming had been listening quietly off to the side. ¡°Are we going to look for teacher? Take me with you!¡±

    ¡°You seriously aren¡¯t afraid of death!¡± Liu Long rolled his eyes at the young man.

    ¡°Who isn¡¯t, Director Liu?¡± Wang Ming cackled. ¡°But being mediocre is even worse than death! To be honest, I like some thrills, so beingmonce is worse than death for me! I see how my grandfather struggles between being ordinary and superhuman. He expended most of his strength to enter peak Sr, but will likely never take another step forward. Look at Director Hou and the others¡ªthey¡¯re all dashing figures in their fields. If a man doesn¡¯t live like them and lives like my grandfather instead, they¡¯ll drown from their own suffering!¡±

    ¡°Won¡¯t your grandfather beat you for saying this?¡± Li Haoughed.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Wang Ming chuckled. ¡°But I do know that this kind of opportunity is rare. I may never leave the region if I don¡¯t grasp it! I don¡¯t understand the path of martial masters, but I do know that the supernatural path might be a viable one if we continue to walk down it...¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say or promise anything. It was unexpected that Wang Ming wanted to go with him, but also reasonable. The guy was quite bold. He had to be, to attack a Sr in the ruins. He had to be, to be bait. He had to be, to run around with Li Hao and ignore Hao Lianchuan and Hou Xiaochen¡¯s orders. Didn¡¯t that mean he wanted more opportunities when he followed Li Hao around?

    The handsome supernatural was fearless!

    The group walked toward a town in the distance. The Demon Hunters were waiting for them.

    ......

    News swiftly spread on this day. Silver Moon supernaturals hadpletely perished! Thousands of supernaturals had died in one fell swoop and the number of Novas dead were more than could be counted on two hands!

    The three great organizations had sent nine Novas¡ªten counting Yellow Moon. They were all lost, including some wandering Novas, someone from the Xus, Lius, and a general from the Near River Director General Office...

    Added to that Half Mountain, Tidal Wave, some Srs, and the Revolution King that¡¯d disappeared earlier, plus Red Hair from even longer ago... More than twenty Novas had died or gone missing in Silver Moon over the short span of a month!

    It was even more frightening when it came to Srs as more than one hundred of them had died! It was an incredible loss, too many powerhouses had died in the Battle Heaven ruins!

    The news elicited an uproar from all sides when it spread. Some Novas had died in the central region war after all these years, but never on a scale as seen today. One excavation of an ancient ruin had caused the deaths of multiple Red Moon leaders! Yama was the same, the Parity King was dead and the Revolution King missing!

    Some other details spread in the wake of the news¡ªthe Xu representative who escaped was the Light Sword of old. This detail came from the Night Watchers, along with the full story that Light Sword had threatened Li Hao over Xu Feng¡¯s death. She sought to capture the young man to use him against Hou Xiaochen...

    Indeed, that was the story in cirction. As for why she wanted to use Li Hao to threaten Hou Xiaochen... who knew!

    Some guessed that Hou Xiaochen might¡¯ve killed Xu Feng¡ªactually, it wasn¡¯t a guess, but the truth. This was themon sentiment. The three great organizations wanted to be active in the eastern provinces, which was Xu territory. There was no need for those organizations to pit themselves against the Xus.

    It was rather Hou Xiaochen who waspletely unscrupulous, unprincipled, and wouldn¡¯t necessarily care about much. The general public was ny-nine percent sure that he was behind Xu Feng¡¯s death.

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s brutal reputation spread throughout four corners of thend as a terrifying fellow to be wary of. No one knew what the inside scoop was, but everyone knew that Silver Moon¡¯s official authorities had barely lost any personnel. They¡¯d only lost two of Hu Qingfeng¡¯s men.

    Something was afoot here, a fact easily detectable by those sharp enough to keep their wits about them. Another piece of news traveled out at the same time¡ªout of the Seven Moons, Violet Moon of Red Moon was not yet dead. She was being held in the Inspectorate dungeons, not the Night Watcher headquarters, as it was the Inspectorate who¡¯d shut her away. The Inspectorate was spreading the news so that Orange Moon would turn herself in!

    Otherwise, it would soon pass judgment on Violet Moon. As one of the leaders of the three evil organizations, she would ny-nine percent be sentenced to death. There had never been an instance of a powerhouse from the three great organizations being tried and sentenced, Silver Moon might set the precedent.

    These pieces of information swiftly spread through thend, crossed the North Sea, and entered the central region! Even the heart of the dynasty was in a hubbub over the happenings.

    Hou Xiaochen chose this timing to announce that he was heading to the central region to take up his post. He had epted the Night Watcher redeployment order and was going to be a deputy director at central headquarters.

    That sent another wave through thend. The man who¡¯d just intimidated the world had forsaken forming his own kingdom and raising the g of independence in Silver Moon. He¡¯d given up being a traitorous king. Instead, he would take up his post at Skystar City. How astonishing!

    Everyone¡¯s attention immediately shifted from those who¡¯d died to Hou Xiaochen. That person wasing to the central region!

    ......

    <i>In the far off Skystar City.</i>

    Lights were on throughout the night at various agencies when they received word.

    ¡°While Hou Xiaochen has agreed to redeployment... who will actually dare make use of him?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, it¡¯s a huge problem as to where he¡¯ll be ced.¡±

    ¡°The three great organizations won¡¯t show him mercy. He was so ruthless as to kill more than a dozen Novas, one hundred Srs, and thousands of supernaturals in Silver Moon. As expected of one of the threemanders, he reeks of blood!¡±

    ¡°Heh, we¡¯ll just sit by and watch two tigers fight. The Night Watchers need to resolve their internal conflict. Yellow Dragon¡¯s wanted to control the agency for a while now and I think the one in charge was weaker than him. Now that reinforcement hase, I think Yellow Dragon has the biggest headache!¡±

    ¡°Haha, that¡¯s true! But I wonder if the Ministry of Finance will erupt with anything. Hou Xiaochen was too brazen and arrogant as to kill one of the Lius!¡±

    ¡°......¡± No sleep could be found throughout Skystar City tonight. News from the border, from the savage wastnd swept throughout the dynasty. Some were hopeful, some were indifferent, and yet others clenched their fists with fury!

 Chapter 496: The News Spreads in All Directions (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 496: The News Spreads in All Directions (IV)</h4>

    <i>At the same time, in a hotpot restaurant.</i>

    Yuan Shuo breathed in fragrance from his pot and thered his mouth with grease as he ate. He took out an item from his pocket¡ªa tiny jade pendant that had some characters floating on it. He didn¡¯t pay much attention to the information scrolling at the beginning, but snorted coldly when he saw thest line.

    Across from him, Jadelight Sword curiously fished pieces of meat out her pot. She found this method of eating quite novel. The woman asked curiously at seeing him snort, ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°Nothing.¡± Yuan Shuo wiped off his mouth with a sneer. ¡°The Seven Swords of Silver Moon are very arrogant!¡±

    Jadelight looked wordlessly at him. <i>Who are you talking about? </i>She didn¡¯t mind as the old man was certainly not talking about her. Starting a ughter in the central region was only one of the reasons why she followed Yuan Shuo. Jadelight was more interested in the various changes that had taken ce in the region. Their food and drink were different; she followed Yuan Shuo in partaking of various delicacies.

    The old man was very bold as he sauntered around to enjoy delicious fare every time he killed someone. It almost made Jadelight feel that she¡¯d wasted her life all these years, that she should¡¯ve conducted herself as carefree and easily as Yuan Shuo.

    Contrary to the picture of suffering under a bitter grudge that she¡¯d imagined, Yuan Shuo quite enjoyed life. He lived in hotels, enjoyed fine dining, employed all sorts of identities at the drop of a hat, and was very convincing in everything he portrayed. Hepletely led Red Moon around by the nose.

    Yuan Shuo picked up a piece of meat and munched on it. ¡°That old witch Light Sword is still alive! I didn¡¯t kill her back in the day because I felt that her method is unique and couldn¡¯t bear for the martial world to lose her legacy. But she¡¯s got some nerve to bully my disciple!

    ¡°How dare she bully Li Hao in Silver Moon!¡± A cold light glittered in his eyes. ¡°Li Hao¡¯s trained in martial dao for only a few days, but she¡¯s an old thing who¡¯s trained for several decades. How dare she interfere with the Five Styles discipline?! I¡¯ll kill her sooner orter!¡±

    It wasn¡¯t hyperbole when he spoke of killing someone¡ªhe really would do so.

    Jadelight nced at him and lowered her head to continue eating. Light Sword had made a foolish decision! It was far better to issue a challenge to Yuan Shuo than to cause trouble for Li Hao. If one must, one could send one¡¯s disciples to fight Li Hao. Despite being a killing fiend, Yuan Shuo was a stickler for the rules. He wouldn¡¯t say anything about a scrap between the younger generation. But if Light Sword did the deed herself... there wouldn¡¯t be a good ending in store for her.

    Yuan Shuo quickly recovered hisposure and continued eating. ¡°On the other hand, the little monkey has some ability to his name, eh. He managed to kill a lot of people on this expedition¡ªa ton of Novas are dead. He seems to being to the central region next.¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about happier things,¡± Yuan Shuo changed the topic with a chuckle as it suddenly felt like he was preaching to deaf ears. ¡°Little brat Ying Hongyue should be in a panic losing Green Peacock and the others. I wonder what he¡¯s thinking.¡±

    ¡°Do you think he¡¯ll care with that personality of his?¡± Wu Hongshan wasn¡¯t concerned. ¡°He¡¯s long past that period, but he¡¯ll definitely take revenge. He¡¯s got quite a vengeful streak to him.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true.¡± Yuan Shuoughed as he started eating again. ¡°I¡¯d like to go have some fun with Sky Sword. I wonder how strong he is now? Light Sword¡¯s whereabouts are unknown, but Sky Sword is a known entity. What do you think about beating up Sky Sword?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wu Hongshan couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond.<i> Do you think you can defeat Sky Sword? He could kill Novas with one stroke a few years ago, he¡¯s terrifying! You should first make it through ck Widow¡¯s hunt!</i>

    Yuan Shuo bent his head to his bowl without further word, feeling somewhat dejected. <i>They¡¯reing straight at me! It seems like I¡¯m not nearly as intimidating as before. If this was twenty years ago, they wouldn¡¯t daree directly at me even if they borrowed courage from elsewhere.</i>

    What a pity that his organs weren¡¯t fully strengthened, that the melding of his fourth aura was just a little off the mark. <i>Just you wait, you bastards! </i>He wouldn¡¯t return to Silver Moon just yet, he wouldn¡¯t go back until hebined five auras together!

    Li Hao seemed fine. <i>I wonder if he¡¯s improved at all? He could kill a peak Sr before, he can¡¯t possibly have improved so quickly that he can kill Novas now, can he?</i> There must be a reason for Light Sword seeking him out, and it certainly wasn¡¯t to threaten Hou Xiaochen with thed. It more likely involved the Xus; apparently, the old witch had joined their banner. Xu Feng had died in the ruins, hadn¡¯t he? Some guy on the bullshit Divine Masters Ranking. Li Hao couldn¡¯t be behind it, could he?

    Countless thoughts shed through Yuan Shuo¡¯s mind, some of them unbelievable. A sense of urgency rose in his heart! This wouldn¡¯t do! The saying of the pupil exceeding the master was just nonsense that he¡¯d fed Li Hao. His student always had to be weaker than him, it¡¯d be too humiliating otherwise!

    ......

    News and gossip of the Battle Heaven ruins circted madly. The entire dynasty discussed it so hotly that it overshadowed the unrest in the three northern provinces. As chaotic as the situation there was, it didn¡¯t result in the loss of thousands of supernaturals and dozens of Novas in one battle. And when it came to ordinary people, no one cared no matter how many of them died.

    More continued to suffer and die as the unrest continued, but nothing was as shocking as the death of a Nova.

    ......

    <i>In a small town.</i>

    The Demon Hunters listened to Liu Long summarize the situation in the ruins. After a long while, Hong Qing couldn¡¯t help but blurt out, ¡°Deputy Liu says that several immensely powerful sword cultivators appeared in the ruins on this expedition, and that Light Sword is the equivalent of peak Nova? My father was stronger than her among the Seven Swords...¡±

    She sounded a bit jealous! So Light Sword could fight peak Novas now? <i>My daddy was one of the Seven Swords of Silver Moon and ranked second among them!</i> Jadelight Sword now followed Yuan Shuo in rampaging through the central region. Light Sword appeared on the scene in domineering fashion. Sky Sword dominated the central region. The others were dead. Out of those alive, her father was the worst out of the bunch. It... made for unpleasant hearing.

    It felt awful! And stoked some jealousy. <i>I thought my dad was amazing when he was a Sr, but now look at him. What¡¯s a Sr worth? He can¡¯t even fight the leader.</i>

    Liu Long suddenly found himself at a loss for words. The biggest shock to him on this trip was the eruption of power from Earthturner Sword and Southern Fist. And yet, he couldn¡¯t speak of it because Li Hao was ying dumb and seemed determined to see the act through. There was nothing that Liu Long could say to refute Hong Qing¡¯s words.

    Seeing how envious and disgruntled the girl was, he really wanted to tell her that her father was incredible. He beat off a crowd of provincial officials by himself! What a pity that the man¡¯s daughter was obvious of his feats and thought that her father was still an ordinary Sr.

    Li Hao smiled as he flipped through an ancient book. ¡°Martial Uncle Hong is pretty strong. It¡¯s good to keep a low profile. People like Light Sword are too much in the limelight.¡±

    ¡°I wish my father was more in the limelight,¡± Hong Qing said enviously. ¡°What a pity...¡±

    Forget it, she was better off not saying anything!

    ¡°However, Light Sword is so shameless as to bully the weak! She¡¯s a fellow Silver Moon martial master, but doesn¡¯t follow the rules at all. Although my father is weaker than her, he often says that we need to conduct ourselves ording to custom. If everyone disregarded the rules, the world would be a chaotic mess.¡±

    Li Hao grinned and Liu Long couldn¡¯t help but ask, ¡°What does Swordmaster Hong usually do at the Sword Sect?¡±

    He was suddenly very curious and wanted to learn more about Hong Yitang¡¯s character. This was also a sign that Liu Long was tempted. It went without saying how strong the man once was, but that was all Liu Long knew about him. He wanted to know more about the man through the eyes of other people. One of the best venues was through his daughter and disciples. They happened to be everywhere here.

    ¡°What does he do?¡± Hong Qing blinked. ¡°He doesn¡¯t seem to do much. He usually teaches some martial dao, nts flowers and vegetables... Oh, and sometimes takes us out on missions. We ept the missions posted by the neighboring cities. Some of theme to us for help when harassed by supernaturals. The Night Watchers are too busy at times, which gives us a chance to earn some money to maintain our daily training regime.

    ¡°They sometimes give us some money and other resources. There¡¯s a lot of people at the sect, so that¡¯s a lot of mouths to feed.¡±

    ¡°Earn money?¡± Liu Long blinked.

    ¡°Yep.¡± Hong Qing nodded. ¡°We have a lot of members and quite a few children to house, clothe, and feed. Father likes to wander around outside and brings back children when he sees they have no home to return to. This has created nearly one thousand members at the mountain.¡±

    ¡°But... you only have maybe forty martial masters and roughly the same equivalent of supernaturals. That¡¯s not even one hundred superhumans.¡± Thirty martial masters from the Sword Sect had joined the Demon Hunters in one go! That left almost no martial masters at the sect apart from Hong Yitang. Even if there were, those who were yet to set foot into yer of Tens couldn¡¯t count as martial masters.

    ¡°But we can feed ourselves now!¡± Hong Qing said excitedly. ¡°And we¡¯ve gained a lot from this mission, a lot more than we usually earn from the small missions around the neighboring towns! We can send back some of our sry when we¡¯re paid next month. Father can pick up some more kids if he wants to then.¡±

    Liu Long looked at her with sympathy, as did Li Hao. Was this the worst off martial second generation they¡¯d seen thus far? She had a domineering father, but didn¡¯t know about it. She had to earn money through minor missions to feed herself and even send money back home after leaving home to work. She wasn¡¯t the only one, but all the Sword Sect martial masters seemed to undertake the same tasks. They were waiting for their monthly sry to be deposited and then sending money back to support Hong Yitang...

    Damn, that sucked.

 Chapter 497: A New Era (I)

    <h4>Chapter 497: A New Era (I)</h4>

    ¡°Isn¡¯t Earthturner a bit out of line to act like this?¡± transmitted a shocked Liu Long to Li Hao. ¡°Even if he hides his true strength, he shouldn¡¯t send his daughter and disciples out to work for a living when he¡¯s a Sr!¡±

    It¡¯d gotten to the point where they waited every month to be paid! Liu Long hadn¡¯t given thought to his wages in years. This was... aughable situation.

    Li Hao chortled and looked at Hong Qing, then at the others. ¡°You don¡¯t stop Martial Uncle Hong from randomly picking up orphans off the side of the street? It¡¯s hard enough for martial masters to cultivate themselves, much less raise other people as well.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± Hong Qing giggled. ¡°Some of them are really cute. They swarm around me when I¡¯m home and call me big sis. You know, leader, sometimes they¡¯re very interesting.¡±

    ¡°We were picked up off the side of a street too,¡± Hong Hao piped up. ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for the Sword Sect... Master pitied us and took us in, teaching us how to read and write and practice martial dao. Those who could not train were instructed in other aspects. They could thus make a living for themselves even if they left the mountain.

    ¡°There aren¡¯t many adults in the sect these days, most of us are kids. Many who grew to adulthood left the mountain to eke out a livelihood in the vast Silver Moon. Some became officials, some joined the Inspectorate. Others started their own business or worked for others. Most who leave the Sword Sect are willing to give back to it. A lot of people send money back to the sect once they start earning money, keeping only what they need for themselves...¡±

    Hong Hao looked at Li Hao. ¡°Therefore, we support all of master¡¯s decisions and preferences. If it wasn¡¯t for his casual care back in the day, where would any of us be now?¡±

    There hadn¡¯t always been a Sword Sect in this world! This faction was just a function of one person¡¯s outpouring of generosity in taking in a group of people. After Earthturner Sword umted some money, he gradually erged his operations until he formed the Sword Sect.

    Therefore, there weren¡¯t many powerhouses in the sect. Apart from his senior disciple Hongxiu breaking through to Sr, there weren¡¯t many Sunres in the entire sect. The martial masters were even worse off as there wasn¡¯t a single Dominator.

    Such a roster of strength was less than the Light Ind of old, the faction that Yuan Shuo had easily destroyed before the first expedition. Hong Yitang didn¡¯t purposefully search out Heaven Favored or martial dao geniuses. He simply went with the flow and taught those he took in if they were suited for martial dao.

    Thus, Sword Sect members were an even-keeled, peaceful bunch with solid foundations. Their skills weren¡¯t all that stunning; there would¡¯ve long been some Dominators among them if they were that remarkable.

    Hong Yitang¡¯s expectations for them weren¡¯t that high either. He just wanted them to be able to protect themselves in an era of chaos. It was enough that they didn¡¯tmit wrongful acts when they left the sect. As for whether or not they admitted they were a Sword Sect member, changed their background, or joined another faction¡ªhe didn¡¯t care.

    Liu Long listened quietly. ¡°Has the sect taken in a lot of people over the years?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Hong Hao shook his head. ¡°Sometimes peoplee, sometimes people go. Master doesn¡¯t stop them. People can leave whenever they want. We can go out and work once we¡¯re of age, get married, or do whatever. Master doesn¡¯t levy that many rules on us. He¡¯s an easygoing guy and rarely leaves the sect apart from epting some Night Watcher missions. But it¡¯s got to be at least... eight thousand kids over twenty years, if not ten thousand?¡±

    Who remembered? There were steady waves of peopleing and going; currently, there were roughly one thousand people in the sect. While many came back to visit, there were those who never returned after they left.

    Hong Hao was used to this. If they left permanently, so they left. At least there were still plenty of people willing toe back and give the sect some support. Much of their daily supplies and necessities were sponsored by people who visited.

    ¡°This is my father¡¯s only hobby,¡± Hong Qingughed. ¡°My senior sister... ahem, fanned the mes and has continuously supported my father in picking up more children. We¡¯ve taken in even more over these years. Otherwise, I remember that the sect maintained a constant roster of five hundred people back in the day. Now it sits at almost one thousand.

    ¡°My senior sister even encourages my father to bring back adults. Thankfully, our new additions are all decent as theye from war torn areas. They help with chores around theplex, such as cleaning, cooking, washing, and the like. We¡¯re generally much cleaner than we were before. We have too many people these days and most of them are children, so it¡¯s a dirty mess. Even I had to wash clothes once in a while...¡±

    Hong Qing wanted to cry at this point. When the Sword Sect was predominantly children, she had to roll up her sleeves when dirty clothes overflowed, even though she was the daughter of the sectmaster. It was one thing if she washed the clothes of the older children, but the younger ones who weren¡¯t potty trained yet... Those were memories she didn¡¯t want to recall.

    ¡°Master says that when you marry in the future, you¡¯ll know how to do everything and won¡¯t suffer in your new home,¡± Hong Haoughed. ¡°You¡¯ll know how to wash clothes, cook, take care of children, martial arts...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not marrying.¡± Hong Qing rolled her eyes. ¡°Martial dao is the best. Will I need to depend on someone else¡¯s favor if I be as strong as our leader?¡±

    Next to them, Li Hao said nothing and continued reading his ancient tome of the Building Five Bridges method. Liu Long¡¯s interest was piqued, however. ¡°Are all of the kids in the Sword Sect from Silver Moon?¡±

    ¡°Not all, many of them are from other ces. There are children from the central region, other northern provinces... Silver Moon is well enough since we don¡¯t see much fighting. There¡¯s more from the three northern provinces since they¡¯ve experienced continual unrest.¡±

    ¡°Does Swordmaster Hong teach anything else other than martial dao?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s all my master teaches, my senior sister teaches the other subjects. She knows a lot and is apparently from a rich family. Ahem, who knows? We don¡¯t talk about this. She teaches the girls some other skills such as cooking and cleaning, but also the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting. She also knows how to weave...¡±

    As Liu Long continued his questioning, Hong Qing had nothing else to do but keep responding. These weren¡¯t major secrets. Hong Hao listened beside them, coughing discreetly when Hong Qing mentioned subjects relevant to Earthturner Sword¡¯s martial dao. He didn¡¯t care about anything else.

    There weren¡¯t many secrets at the Sword Sect. Apart from his master and senior sister¡¯s gossip, everything else was regr day-to-day living for the outside world.

    ......

    This kind of conversation was very boring, but Liu Long, Hong Qing, and Hong Hao chatted until dawn. The crowds were gone and the Demon Hunters would travel back to White Moon City today. When everyone left, Liu Long looked at Li Hao. The young man had spent the night reading¡ªa rare sight.

    ¡°If you go to the central region...¡± Liu Long took a deep breath. ¡°I¡¯d... like to stay.¡±

    ¡°Are you sure, chief?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Liu Long rumbled. ¡°One should seek out the umon in themon! I wasn¡¯t too familiar with Swordmaster Hong before and knew only a little of his stories in the martial world. They paint him to be a timid, weak-willed person who didn¡¯t dare fight Professor Yuan. That was the martial world¡¯s greatest criticism of him.

    ¡°But after hearing his aplishments at the Sword Sect, I cannot help but think that maybe this is what he seeks instead. He drifts around the clouds like wild geese, but has shouldered some responsibility in the process. Now he wants to do more, and I think I should... stay and help him. It is a cause for pride that I have been invited by Swordsmaster Hong.

    ¡°My strength is mediocre in the central region. Here, I can help Silver City at times. Although there is no war in Silver Moon and the three great organizations have been exterminated, I worry that they¡¯ll seek revenge sooner orter...¡±

    He¡¯d decided to stay. Liu Long hadn¡¯t made up his mind at first, but the night¡¯s conversation had helped hime to a decision.

    ¡°Then stay!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Are you sure about heading to the central region?¡± Liu Long breathed out.

    ¡°I¡¯ll hold off on that for a little bit. We have a lot of resources at the moment, so I should digest them all first. Even if I go, it won¡¯t be for others to hunt me or to go to my death. If I go, I go to kill!¡±

    His eyes narrowed as hatred sharpened his tone. Who was he going to kill? Ying Hongyue was his first choice! Some hatreds were unable to be erased¡ªthat of his parents¡¯ and best friends'' death. Even his parents¡¯ bodies were gone. This kind of hatred would be hard to wipe out even if the four seas were emptied. <i>My heart will not rest until Red Moon is no more!</i>

    Liu Long could stay, but he could not. Since Red Moon¡¯s people would note, he would go to them. But not right now. He would continue to strengthen his body, blood qi, organs, and build the five bridges. He would then use the Mind Fruits to enhance his aura and practice the Weeping Willow Sword to its utmost. It would be best if he couldprehend the wood aura as well. If not, he was even of the mind to consume the Goldensky Lotus and strengthen his other auras first.

    As for whether or not that would cause an imbnce when he eventually grasped the wood aura... that was a problem to solve in the future. Thus, he had a lot to attend to at the moment. He didn¡¯t have that much free time. Hou Xiaochen could leave in such a dashing manner because he was strong. He was so strong that he would still be a titan in the central region. The same did not hold true for Li Hao.

    ......

    The Demon Hunters headed for White Moon City right after breaking their fast when the sun rose. It was October 1st.

    They crossed through Rift Canyon again¡ªthere was barely anyone there. Everyone else had either left or died. There were only a few Night Watchers or Silver Moon Guards on duty at the entrance to the ruins.

    When Li Hao and his people crossed Rift Canyon, they happened to run into a frazzled Hao Lianchuan. The man quickly rushed over when he saw the Demon Hunters.

    ¡°Are you going back to White Moon City?¡± he panted.

    ¡°Yes, where are you going, director?¡±

    ¡°To chase down the remnants of the three great organizations!¡± he huffed. ¡°We haven¡¯t stopped all night. There are so many Red Moon members and a lot of them have run. More than a thousand Red Moon supernaturals have gathered from the neen northern provinces. Many died and quite a few more ran off. I need to lead the team to the north of the province as I hear some have escaped into Ash Mountain...¡±

    ¡°Forget the mountain.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°You can ignore that area.¡±

 Chapter 498: A New Era (II)

    <h4>Chapter 498: A New Era (II)</h4>

    ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°I made a trip to Ash Mountain before¡ªit¡¯s very dangerous. Half Mountain, Tidal Wave, the Revolution King, and sixteen hell masters all died there!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan sucked in a sharp breath. He hadn¡¯t known about this. No wonder those people hadn¡¯t appeared at the ruins. He¡¯d thought they¡¯d gotten lost chasing Li Hao or were still making their way through the mountain. So they were all dead! That was terrifying!

    ¡°There¡¯s major monster spirits there, very strong ones,¡± Li Hao exined upon seeing that the man didn¡¯t know. ¡°I made it out by the skin of my teeth. Since those Red Moon members have barged in... let them. They¡¯re dead meat! Well, since Director Hao is on the move, why don¡¯t you stay in Silver City for a few days? You¡¯ll be right there in case defeated members of the three great organizations seek to attack Silver City.¡±

    There was only a Sunre in residence at Silver City. Although the three great organizations were scattering everywhere, fleeing for their lives, they mightmit some unspeakable acts if they decided they were out of options.

    Li Hao had wanted to send Liu Long back for a few days, but upon further thought, perhaps he should give Liu Long something even better. The young man himself was due to leave the province as well, meaning that he and Liu Long would part ways for a while. He had to strengthen the chief¡¯s organs before that happened.

    ¡°Me, go to Silver City?¡± Hao Lianchuan blinked.<i> I¡¯m a deputy director, you want me to hold down the fort in Silver City?</i>

    ¡°I have some treasures on hand that may be useful in helping the director locate his fifth supernatural lock.¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°Mmhmm, then I will lead the team there.¡± Hao Lianchuan abruptly swelled with righteousness. ¡°Silver City is in a remote location and close to Ash Mountain. There may indeed be danger!¡±

    ¡°Then I must trouble the director!¡± Li Hao grinned.

    ¡°Of course, all in the line of duty!¡± Hao Lianchuan chuckled. Going anywhere was all the same. He could visit Silver City ande back in a few days when everything was settled elsewhere in the province. It would be for the best if Li Hao could locate his fifth lock.

    Hao Lianchuan quickly set course for Silver City.

    ¡°Our Deputy Director Hao is a man of action,¡± Liu Long burst intoughter. ¡°No wonder Director Hou ignores everything all these years and leaves it all to him.¡±

    Look at how proactive he was! His blood nearly frothed with eagerness when he was offered some benefits.

    Li Hao¡¯s grin deepened, but he also properly contemted that he really ought to help the deputy director locate his fifth lock. If the deputy director¡¯s strength didn¡¯t improve after Hou Xiaochen¡¯s departure, he might have a difficult time in things toe. Manager Yu would likely leave with Hou Xiaochen, Golden Spear and the others might as well.

    In that case, while there would still be plenty of powerhouses in Silver Moon, Night Watcher strength would immediately plummet to a low.

    ......

    The group rushed back to White Moon City in the afternoon. It was as peaceful as ever. No one would present themselves here at this moment unless they had a death wish. Hou Xiaochen and the others were back, which meant that the provincial capital was more dangerous than any ce else in the province.

    ¡°You guys head to the Silver Moon barracks while I make a trip to the Night Watchers...¡± Li Hao issued a string of instructions before heading to the Night Watcher headquarters himself. As a member of the Silver Moon Guards, he was still Hou Xiaochen¡¯s subordinate for now. He could im other duties called when they were out in the field, but a report had to be made now that they were back. Such were the rules!

    Li Hao wouldn¡¯t care about this if times were as before, but as he thought back to a certain goldenmander¡¯s insistence on the rules... He needed to be careful of Hou Xiaochen giving him a punch to the face!

    ......

    <i>Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    It bustled with people in a very energetic fashion. Some quickly greeted Li Hao when they saw the young man. Here was a person who¡¯d killed six Srs! Even if his feats weren¡¯t impressive in the ruins and the particrs were hazy, he was still formidable to escape pursuit from the three great organizations and make it into the ruins.

    Smiling, Li Hao nodded at people and made his way upstairs. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s office was on the sixth floor¡ªhis was the only office on that floor.

    The door was open, Hou Xiaochen was inside. Manager Yu was present as well. Li Hao knocked on the door, ¡°Reporting in!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen and Manager Yu looked at him, startled.<i> We know you¡¯re here and that you¡¯re right outside the door... What''s the point of yelling so loud?</i>

    ¡°Come in.¡± Hou Xiaochen sat down behind his desk. He lifted his chin after Li Hao entered the room and indicated for the young man to sit.

    Li Hao stomped his foot with a resounding crash and sat down, ramrod straight with a stern expression on his face.

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°Are you showing off the Battle Heaven Army customs?¡±

    ¡°No, I just felt that it looked cool and wanted to give it a try!¡± Li Hao grinned.

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s smiled deepened and he looked at Manager Yu. ¡°You head over first, I¡¯ll be there shortly.¡±

    ¡°Alright.¡± The woman nodded and paused when she reached the door. ¡°Don¡¯t forget, your mission is notplete. Remember what you agreed to when you borrowed the ming Phoenix Spear.¡±

    She left with a turn of her heel. The kid was getting too big for his britches! <i>Remember what you promised!</i>

    Li Hao coughed drily without protest. He had indeed made a promise and said that he would help Hou Xiaochen obtain the ck Tortoise Seal in the ruins. That would pay off two favors¡ªone left by Yuan Shuo, the other by himself.

    <i>I do remember my promise... but you might as well kill me instead if you want me to seize the seal from Director General Wang.</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t listen to her,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°I do not seek payback when I do someone a favor. Just think of it as you owing me a weapon on par with the weapons of the eight families. The ck Tortoise Seal might be the weapon of the Wangs. Just remember that you owe me one.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was at aplete loss for words. His silence didn¡¯t perturb Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Did youe to me for something?¡±

    ¡°No, I just wanted to give a quick report.¡± Li Hao marshaled his thoughts. ¡°We killed a few people and were chased to Ash Mountain for it. I met four major monster spirits inside the mountain. They were incredibly strong¡ªHalf Mountain and the others died to them.¡±

    He sketched out the events of the past couple of days, not knowing if Hou Xiaochen was familiar with these major monster spirits or not. He might be.

    ¡°The monster spirits of Ash Mountain...¡± Hou Xiaochen inclined his head when the young man was done. ¡°Ash Mountain is much more than meets the eye. There are a lot of treasures deep in its depths and even some ruins. Great Li on the other side is a thorny issue as well. It¡¯s good that there are monster spirits in the mountains¡ªthey prevent Great Li heavyweights from invading us.¡±

    So the director did know about the monster spirits, and he also knew a lot about the mountain.

    ¡°The world thinks that Great Li has fallen, but we know better. Not only does it still exist, but it is very strong! They are stymied only by Ash Mountain, by the monster spirits that call it home. Otherwise, they would¡¯ve invaded en masse a long time ago.

    ¡°Great Li might also possess some heritage from the ruins. That is why they have a lot of powerhouses, and ones that walk the path of ancient martial dao. It¡¯s different from modern day martial dao, making for strong bodies and blood qi, but very weak mind intent. They also have high numbers of supernaturals and experts among their martial masters...¡±

    Li Hao was slightly surprised. Why did it seem like Hou Xiaochen had been to Great Li before?

    ¡°Have you visited that kingdom before, director?¡±

    ¡°Once...¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. ¡°It¡¯s very dangerous, don¡¯t go if you can help it. But sparring in martial dao when you¡¯re there will help your cultivation as well. You can learn from other¡¯s strong points, distill the essence and discard the dross. They¡¯re all ways to improve yourself. Great Li will not be able to reach us in the short term, we just need to be on guard against them reaching an agreement with the monster spirits of Ash Mountain...

    ¡°But we have our strength as well, so there¡¯s no need to be worried. It¡¯s just that we¡¯ll be in trouble if they do invade, war will be inevitable then.

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to worry about the Ash Mountain monster spirits for now. I¡¯ll set out after three days and depart Silver Moon. I won¡¯t bring too many with me, but neither can I not bring anyone at all. That will leave mepletely without proper footing in the central region. Little Yu and the Silver Moon Guards will being with me. That will be their newnd of opportunity. How do things look on your side?¡±

    ¡°Are you taking all of the Guards with you?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. ¡°All of them! It is hard for people to break through to Dominator if they stay here. There will be more battles in the central region and thus, more opportunities for tempering. Only then will they stand a chance of advancing to Dominator and creating an army of Dominators!¡±

    So the director was bringing the Guards with him, and all of them at that! That was quite unexpected.

    ¡°What about the pirates?¡± What would Silver Moon do against the pirates if the Guards left?

    ¡°Do you think the Silver Moon Guards is our only effective unit of force?¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate us. The Inspectorate, army, and provincial government aren¡¯t just lying around. The Guards and I are the only ones leaving, they¡¯ll still be here.

    ¡°And you have the time to worry about pirates. I thought you¡¯d care more about the Guards leaving and yourpensation package.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just that I¡¯ve heard people talk about the pirates being strong,¡± Li Hao started and quickly responded. ¡°But since the director has said so, then there is naturally no issue.¡±

    ¡°So what are your thoughts?¡±

    ¡°I haven¡¯t decided yet. Before he left, my teacher told me to keep a low profile. Leaving with the director... might be too high profile.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s up to you.¡± Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t try to persuade the young man otherwise. ¡°Don¡¯t keep going to the ruins. You are of the eight families, yes, but keep in mind that it¡¯s not a good thing to enter too many ruins. You might be overly affected. You can learn the ancient heritage, but not all of it and find yourself lost within. Otherwise, you¡¯ll just be the next ancient cultivator.

    ¡°Those who practice the ancient arts are very strong, but it is not a formidable undertaking to socialize in ancient martial dao. Jadelight and Berserk de walk the ancient paths. They are strong, but they are a hair weakerpared to the others.¡±

    Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Go on then and be about your business!¡± Hou Xiaochen waved a hand.

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao rose with a sharp snap, stomped his foot, and left.

    The disy actually made Hou Xiaochen slightly ufortable. He shook his head with augh after the young man was gone. Who was Li Hao putting on this act for, eh?

 Chapter 499: Cultivation, Promotion, Farewell (I)

    <h4>Chapter 499: Cultivation, Promotion, Farewell (I)</h4>

    After some thought, Hou Xiaochen dialed a number. ¡°Li Hao may not go to the central region for the time being. If he doesn¡¯t, have his Demon Hunters stand guard over the Moon Sea.¡±

    ¡°The Demon Hunters number less than fifty. Is he able to adequately protect the shoreline?¡± asked a voice on the other side.

    ¡°We¡¯ll see.¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡± The call ended. Hou Xiaochen rose and walked over to the window. He looked down to see Li Hao leaving the building. The look in the man¡¯s eyes shifted rapidly, his thoughts unknown. He watched Li Hao leave headquarters before sighing. The eight families... the guardian ns... Perhaps they were long forgotten after countless eons.

    ......

    Li Hao quickly returned to the Silver Moon Guards barracks. Golden Spear and the others were absent¡ªpossibly hunting the three great organizations. There was only one troop of one hundred left at theplex.

    The young man sought out arge training hall and summoned the Demon Hunters. He took up residence in the small central room and had the others sit outside. Li Hao prepared himself to extract elemental energy. This time, he wanted to thoroughly improve himself and use all the treasures that he could.

    With the departure of Hou Xiaochen and the others, he needed to be fully ready even if he wasn¡¯t going to leave in the short term. Compared to Hou Xiaochen, he was less acquainted with those such as Kong Jie, Director General Zhao, and Huang Yu. At the very least, Hou Xiaochen was more reliable than them.

    With the director gone, who knew if the only troop left of the Silver Moon Guards would run into trouble? What if the frequently mentioned pirates attacked when they learned that Hou Xiaochen had left with his subordinates?

    All sorts of thoughts swirled in Li Hao¡¯s mind as he began absorbing elemental energy and studying the method of building five bridges. if he didn¡¯t craft the bridges, he had to absorb equal amounts of energy each time he strengthened his organs. This bncing process was too troublesome and would gravely impede his cultivation speed.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>The Sword Sect headquarters.</i>

    This was arge mountain that the Sword Sect had established arge section of living quarters on. People came to and fro from theplex in lively fashion. The sounds of children reciting from textbooks traveled out of some of the buildings. There were fields on the outskirts and people tending to the crops.

    It was as if a paradise removed from the world.

    Hong Yitang silently looked out from the second floor of his building. He¡¯d stood there ever since returning to the mountain and watched his people for a very long time.

    ¡°You¡¯ve been there for a while, you must be tired. Do you want to eat something?¡± Hongxiu asked worriedly from behind him. It had indeed been a very long time. The magnificent man in front of her was very rarely in such a mood, as if he was about to make a major decision.

    Thest time he¡¯d resembled this state... it¡¯d been when he married her. That had been a challenge to societal convention. Hong Yitang had hesitated for a very long period of time before making his decision.

    He continued looking out the window before saying, ¡°The ancients say that we should notmit a small act of evil just because it is minor, and that we should not refrain from a small act of kindness just because it is insignificant. A small act of kindness is still a deed of good. If we are capable, then we should seek to do so.

    ¡°Such has been my personal philosophy all these years, to put forth a tiny amount of strength for the good of all if I am able to do so. I am willing to nurture an additional degree of kindness if it does not affect myself.¡±

    Hongxiu quickly nodded her head. This wasn¡¯t just a small act of kindness, it was a heart of ultimate benevolence in these times. That was why she admired and worshiped the man in front of her. She was willing to give up everything for him because people like him were all too rare in modern society.

    ¡°But I also hold the notion that it is better to focus on the self whencking in resources, and to share the abundance with others when possible. I am not able to reach the state of worrying over matters before they are a problem for the world, and to find joy in life simply because the people are happy.

    ¡°I am not an ultimate powerhouse of this world. I may not even rank in the top five of Silver Moon. I am probably not top one hundred in thend. Such is strength.

    ¡°As for power, we are a tiny Sword Sect with several dozen supernaturals and martial masters, and me who is not worthy of mention. The tyrants of our world wage war and throw around great expectations to dominate part of thend. What talents or virtue do I possess to mend the holes of our world and patch up some of its wounds?

    ¡°When others contend for supremacy and you focus on being a person of kindness, you be a hypocrite in their eyes even if you have no wish to be involved. To them, I am just building a reputation and brewing a great plot! Having a good reputation in a time of chaos is an original sin! If the harmonious Sword Sect brashly involves itself in these matters, where will our disciples go?¡±

    ¡°Real men follow their principles and undertake what should be taken, bypassing what should not be,¡± Hongxiu said softly with understanding. ¡°The Sword Sect disciples are willing to follow you, whether into war or into seclusion. We are but drifting wood in this chaotic era, without root, without connection, without ties or concerns. Whatever you wish to do, my husband, no one will gainsay. We will only support you! The people of the world were originally of one destiny, but many are those who do not know gratitude or pity. And so, our roads will not lead to the same ends.¡±

    Hong Yitang was silent for a very long period of time before turning to gently pull over the beauty next to him. He looked at those working in the fields for a while before smiling, ¡°Then... I shall follow my heart!¡±

    The earth aura churned, enveloping the massive Sword Sect Mountain with a certain influence. Voices reciting from textbooks, joy, andughter echoed throughout the mountain and spread outside of the mountain as sparks of hope.

    Someone should step forth to take a stand when the world changes. These times should not be as they are!

    ......

    Cultivation, endless cultivation. Mysterious power, elemental power, mysterious power stones...

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t nning on using any of them sparingly. His thoughts were that he should use what should be used. If he didn¡¯t use them, someone else might if he died tomorrow. If he sought revenge, he needed strength. At the moment, he didn¡¯t care about lofty ambitions or grand vision. All he cared about was vengeance.

    The day he ked his thirst for revenge might be the day that he finally set everything aside. How many could walk into his heart when it was sealed off?

    Hong Yitang, Hou Xiaochen, and the Battle Heaven Army were all seeking to change him. He was no fool, he understood. He understood every word they spoke and the meaning behind such words. What they didn¡¯t know was that revenge could cause one to lose themselves.

    Li Hao was an epted student of the Veteris Institute. Someone who could aplish such a feat in this day and age, and be epted by Yuan Shuo, was no fool. On the contrary, he was very smart. However, the smarter he was, the more likely he was to tunnel in on something and find it difficult to set aside.

    Intelligent people were unable to live blithe lives. He¡¯d bided his time at the Inspectorate, spending a year keeping such a low and humble profile that no one found anything amiss with him. He then struck swiftly in a critical moment and shattered all of Red Moon¡¯s ns. Prior to that, likely not even Ying Hongyue had fathomed that it would be Li Hao ruining his ns. He might¡¯ve considered many candidates, but the only one that didn¡¯t make his list was Li Hao.

    Dense elemental energy wafted through the hall; Li Hao didn¡¯t absorb much, he left it for the Demon Hunters. He was attempting to build the five bridges between the five organs. The more he tried, the more amazed he was.

    These bridges weren¡¯t simple connections of energy and neither were their effects merely enhancing the five organs together at the same time. The more he experimented, the more Li Hao found that there were profound mysteries to the organs. The organs summoned the five spirits and nurtured the five auras! The five auras could meld as one and the five energiesbine together.

    When he tried to utilize the supernatural locks as bridges, they erupted with iridescent power the moment the five bridges seemed to touch. It was simr to internal force, but not entirely the same.

    ¡°Five organs, five auras, five elements, five energies... What a pity that I haven¡¯t formed my word aura yet!¡± Li Hao was rather regretful¡ªhe might have some other thoughts and reflections if he also grasped the wood aura. At the moment, all he vaguely felt was that he might know what his teacher meant by melding the spirits together. And for the spirits to emerge from the organs afterwards... he was beginning to form the inklings of those thoughts as well.

    A row of numbers hovered in front of him¡ªthey came from the Silver Armor. He¡¯d selected ancient tomes containing knowledge that he needed the most and borrowed them from the Battle Heaven library. He opened the first book.

    <i>Fundamental Martial Dao Theory at the Martial University.</i>

    Indeed, a fundamental ss. It spoke of how to strengthen the body, the limbs, temper the bones, and then the organs. One eventually entered the grandmaster realm and manifested mental strength¡ªalso known as mind intent in modern cultivation.

    ording to the book, Li Hao and the others were grandmaster level powerhouses when they became Dominators. They were possibly even stronger. Grandmasters could not do what Dominators could do¡ªdemonstrate their mind intent in physical form and use it to kill. At the very least, they wouldn¡¯t aplish it so easily. The physical body could not support such immense mind intent.

    The ancient times were indeed different from modern times. The ancients seemed to have weaker bodies, which made it easier to strengthen them. The weaker organs could be strengthened and tempered at an early stage. They didn¡¯t need to worry about mind intent being so strong that it burst through the organs.

    The book also mentioned that human bodies of the ancient civilization resided in a half sealed state. There were also the three cavities that transferred vast quantities of energy to a special ce. [1] This was in stark contrast to modern humans, where the body was strong and there was no ce for energy to go other than the organs and body itself...

    <i>The supernatural locks!</i>

    Li Hao suddenly thought of the supernatural locks. They locked away energy, the organs, limbs, and concentrated power in the body. Thus, the supernatural looks weren¡¯t just simple locks, but also a self protection mechanism. Opening them meant releasing potential and relinquishing protection of the self, so there were many drawbacks to being supernatural.

    Li Hao quickly opened the second book, <i>Differences Between the Energy and Blood Qi Systems. </i>What he read gave him much food for thought. The path of energy for the ancients was the equivalent of the path of supernaturals in modern times, yet there were some differences. The ancients could turn the entire body into energy, especially the fragile organs. Those could be directly converted to energy!

    No wonder! The ancients didn¡¯t need to worry about energy invading the organs because thetter was already assimted.<i> I am energy, energy is me.</i>

    ¡°Modern day supernaturals possess mortal bodies and give up their natural defenses when they break their supernatural locks. Of course they¡¯re a lot weaker. Then... the supernatural domain is much more disadvantagedpared to the path of energy and its practitioners are likely destined for death!¡±

    1. The Three truncal cavities (thoracic, abdominal ,and pelvic) were also known as the ¡°triple heater¡±. ?

 Chapter 500: Cultivation, Promotion, Farewell (II)

    <h4>Chapter 500: Cultivation, Promotion, Farewell (II)</h4>

    Li Hao had many thoughts after reading the ancient texts. There were still differences between the two systems. The key difference was in terms of physical constitution. The ancients could utilize the three cavities to transmit energy outside of the body. Modern humans, however, concentrated all of their energy on themselves. There were no so-called three cavities.

    The three cavities were a weakening and a protection. The supernatural locks functioned in the same way, but they would ultimately erupt in the body. That caused modern humans to suffer even greater bacsh and pay a greater price.

    <i>Why is that? </i>Li Hao wondered. Why had the three cavities vanished? Following the proper order for gradual advancements might be easier if they were still present.

    ording to the ancient books, proceeding down the proper order might make for easier and stronger cultivation. The young man didn¡¯t understand why the three cavities of the books had vanished in modern society. Although the supernatural locks provided simr function, it created enormous trouble for martial masters as they umted energy that was continuously funneled into the body!

    The stronger they were, the harder they were to break in the end. Releasing the self resulted in what had happened to modern day martial masters. There was so much power contained in the supernatural locks that the body and organs couldn¡¯t withstand it. The organs of the ancients weren¡¯t necessarily stronger, their tempering seemed to be easy training in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. It wouldn¡¯t necessarily measure up to Yuan Shuo¡¯s decades of nurturing, but even Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t withstand the power of summoning spirits in all five organs.

    A variety of thoughts ran through the young man¡¯s mind. Some of the knowledge that his teacher had passed on also floated to the forefront. Li Hao thought of the ck Armors, how these soldiers¡¯ souls remained unceasing and their obsessions undying millions of years after their death. They weren¡¯t the novices that the ancients spoke of. Instead, they were likely the so-called grandmaster level martial masters since they¡¯d formed mental strength.

    This was an innumerable sum of grandmaster! This was an <i>army</i> formed of grandmasters. Otherwise, they would¡¯ve faded away after the physical body died. There would be no lingering obsession.

    Li Hao continued to read as energy flowed into his body to strengthen his organs.

    ¡°The ancients simply needed to open their passages of blood qi and construct a cirction system of energy to build the five bridges. But if we do so now, our fragile passages won¡¯t possibly support the domineering power of the five organs. This is particrly true for those of us who have strong supernatural locks and auras. A cirction system of the five organs won¡¯t work at all.¡±

    The more Li Hao thought about it, the more he felt it was the supernatural locks that could truly support such an endeavor. But could supernatural locks permit the flow of blood qi and energy? They <i>absorbed</i> energy. If blood qi passed through them, perhaps they¡¯d just devour that too. In that regard, the locks would continue to grow stronger until they reached an ultimate peak and stopped taking in energy.

    Was there such a limit to the locks?

    Li Hao frowned, he didn¡¯t know and had never heard about one. Perhaps other people were trying to find it, but he¡¯d yet to do so or reach a point of finding that his supernatural locks weren¡¯t taking in more energy.

    The young man suddenly thought of someone.

    ¡°Paging Company Leader He Yong!¡±¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong¡¯s signal traveled out of the silver armor after a while. ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Is Martial Uncle He still nearby?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m leaving after a few days, what?¡±

    ¡°I have a question, martial uncle. Is there a limit to the locks? Is there a point in which they don¡¯t absorb energy anymore and stick to a certain state without changing...¡±

    ¡°Yo, not bad kid! You¡¯re already studying that step? Of course there¡¯s limits. I told you before that those who can break their locks and unseal themselves have reached the extremity of a path. There¡¯s a sign of that limit¡ªthe locks no longer taking in energy!¡± He Yong hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would start studying this system so quickly. ¡°If we ignore the lock in the head, we¡¯ve discovered nine locks in the human boy.

    ¡°Setting aside supernaturals, martial masters like us have filled the locks of our limbs to their limits. That is the cultivation level we sit at. When the locks of our four limbs are fully saturated, that puts us on par with Nova level battle strength!

    ¡°If we continue to strengthen the locks of the five organs... that makes for the hardest step. Strengthening the locks does not also mean strengthening the organs, so the organs tend to be very weak. Not a single one of my locks of the organs are at that ultimate stage yet. Someone like Hong Yitang may have aplished it with one of his locks, so they normally disy peak Nova strength. I can only disy mid Nova!¡±

    He Yong gave a detailed overview. ¡°This is a bit far removed from you since I sense the locks of your four limbs have yet to reach saturation. Hence, Ole Hong and I didn¡¯t say anything. To think that you¡¯d be researching this so quickly!¡±

    A light danced in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. <i>I see! </i>He finally fully understood what it meant for a martial master to unseal himself. <i>The supernatural locks!</i>

    ¡°Then why don¡¯t we unseal the locks of the four limbs? Why do we open the ones of the five organs?¡± This was a question that still floated through his mind.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know about the others as our paths may differ. As for me, I tried and couldn¡¯t. While the locks of my limbs are saturated, I find that the ones of my organs are easier to budge. The ones of the limbs seem to have solidified and cannot be broken. No battle strength can be released. All you¡¯ll get for your efforts is a massive fart, which would be hrious!¡±

    Li Haoughed as well. ¡°So, this means that the locks of your five organs are saturated because the ones of your limbs are, right?¡±

    ¡°Not necessarily. Some may choose to strengthen the ones of the five organs first¡ªit¡¯s all up to individual choice. Some may even go straight for the one in the head. That¡¯s what Tyrant de did. His mind intent is incredible, so it¡¯s possible that he focused on the head first...¡±

    ¡°So what my teacher is doing is focusing on the five organs first?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± He Yong affirmed. ¡°They are the hardest¡ªor rather, they¡¯re as difficult as the head. The four limbs should be the easiest, which is what most martial masters choose these days. I am so, Ole Hong is probably so. We end up at the same destination, the only difference is how we reach that final stop.

    ¡°There¡¯s another point of difficulty to the five organs, and that¡¯s that the locks aren¡¯tpletely independent of each other. They possess five different abilities, ones that conflict with each other! This conflict is the greatest source of trouble as it easily causes the five organs to break apart. It is why we have yet to find the proper method to progress beyond this difficulty.

    ¡°Your teacher¡¯s Breathing Method of the Five Styles may resolve this limitation, so we¡¯re all waiting and hoping!¡±

    A sigh ended his words¡ªit looked like he was quite tormented by this conundrum. Strengthening the five organs was a very difficult path to walk.

    ¡°Even if your teacher seeds, he has five auras while we have one. That¡¯s another major point of difference. So you tell me, do we have any hope even if he seeds?¡± He Yong was very pessimistic.

    ¡°Don¡¯t forget the Building Five Bridges method,¡± Li Hao reminded. ¡°There might be some problems with teacher¡¯s breathing method that may be resolved when we train the five organs as one!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re studying Building Five Bridges already! Have you had any gains?¡±

    ¡°Yes, but I¡¯ve run into some difficulties that may require some of my teacher¡¯s theories...¡± And the difficulty <i>there</i> was that his teacher¡¯s organs likely hadn¡¯t reached full capacity yet. Then would his organs continuously reside in a weakened state if his teacher tempered them, with only the supernatural lock being made stronger instead?

    There were still main points that his teacher didn¡¯t mention. Perhaps he¡¯d discovered them only after he left. Had he resolved them? If he hadn¡¯t, Li Hao would have to strengthen his locks to their utmost before building the five bridges. In that case, He Yong and Hong Yitang might as well abandon hope! Who knew how long that would take?

    The knowledge that Li Hao currently possessed was insufficient for him to make some changes. Perhaps only his teacher could modify the breathing method so that the energy would be bnced and avoid being absorbed by the supernatural locks.

    The young man cut theirmunications short. He couldn¡¯t locate his teacher at the moment, anyway, so he might as well continue strengthening his organs and their locks. Since he had sword energy, it was much easier for him to do so than anyone else. Otherwise... one supernatural lock might take him many years to fully strengthen. It was much easier with sword energy at hand.

    With that in mind, Li Hao began absorbing elemental energy. Rays of energy melded into his body, mimicking the efforts of the martial masters outside. Endless energy seeped out for them to digest. A ck dog asionally took in a few mouthfuls as well. It was noticeably fatter than it was earlier and was drowsy from overeating. This ce was the best!

    Apart from Liu Long, the other forty-nine martial masters had almost all enteredte Sunderer. There were two or three who¡¯d yet to do so, but it was only a matter of time. The captains were beginning to hone their mind intent.

    There was one exception among them¡ªWang Ming. He was different in that he didn¡¯t need toprehend mind intent. He absorbed vast quantities of elemental energy to baptize his supernatural lock before absorbing it into his organs. His metal energy was noticeably stronger than the rest and he reachedte Sunre in the blink of an eye. He even began progressing toward peak Sunre.

    There were both advantages and disadvantages to supernaturals. A major point in favor was that they didn¡¯t have particrly significant bottlenecks at the moment. They simply needed to locate their supernatural and slowly wear away at it to grow into their strength. Their rate of progress was superb!

    However, he wasn¡¯t in a hurry to break his next supernatural lock. He only saw five at the moment, which would theoretically take him to Nova. But he recalled what Yuan Shuo had said, that his potential would be greater if he strengthened his supernatural locks!

    When he broke hisst lock, he¡¯d fused the fragments into his other locks. That was one strengthening. Now he absorbed more elemental energy to continue fortifying them and not just wear away at them. Since he couldn¡¯t be a martial master, he would be a powerful supernatural! There was so much energy for him to choose from. If he¡¯d followed the proper order of things, he might be making his way to Sr already.

    But after some thought, Wang Ming decided to slow his progress down. Even if he couldn¡¯t withstand martial masters of his cultivation level, he wanted to be invincible among supernaturals!

 Chapter 501: Cultivation, Promotion, Farewell (III)

    <h4>Chapter 501: Cultivation, Promotion, Farewell (III)</h4>

    Liu Long was strengthening his organs further in the distance. Everyone benefited from Li Hao¡¯s enormous gains on the expedition. All of the Demon Hunters cultivated furiously.

    Time passed day after day. Li Hao¡¯s store of mysterious power and mysterious power stones depleted at a furious rate. He¡¯d sat on more than two thousand pieces of stones before. He¡¯d shoved in thirty energy stones for the Water of Life, a consumption equal to three hundred pieces of mysterious power stones. One piece was worth approximately two hundred eight cubes of power.

    Due to therge number of people absorbing energy, he exhausted three hundred pieces over a few short days. That was almost seventy thousand cubes of power!

    Panther siphoned off quite a bit, Liu Long and Wang Ming absorbed a great deal, leaving less for the martial masters. Most of it had gone to Li Hao. And yet, the young man¡¯s body and organs weren¡¯t that much strengthened. He was trying to see how much energy it would take for a lock to be saturated, but the results of his experiment told him that he¡¯d thought of it in too simple of a way.

    He absorbed roughly half of the seventy thousand cubes, so he took in more than thirty thousand cubes of mysterious power. And yet, his supernatural locks felt like bottomless pits! His organs and body had absorbed some power in the ancient city as well, reaching six thousand cubes each.

    The past couple of days of furious absorption hadn¡¯t increased that level by much, but he¡¯d raised them to roughly seven thousand cubes each. Over this most immediate period of time, his body and organs had taken in less than ten thousand cubes. The remaining twenty thousand were absorbed by the supernatural lock¡ªand not all of them, but just one.

    Li Hao had paid special attention to the process and noticed that the lock of the heart took in all of the energy. It absorbed twenty thousand cubes by itself and was yet to be filled to saturation. That was incredible! And impossible!

    Surely He Yong and the others didn¡¯t need so many cubes to fill one lock! Li Hao could absorb so much energy because he could also call upon sword energy. If hecked sword energy and still wanted his locks to absorb twenty thousand cubes... The task wouldn¡¯t beplete until his next life!

    Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t do it either. His heart summoned a spirit at one thousand cubes. If He Yong and the others had proceeded methodically down their path of cultivation, they would¡¯ve reached saturation with numerous supernatural locks after twenty years. Could it be that all of their locks contained more than twenty thousand cubes?

    <i>No way, there must be something wrong here.</i>

    Three days had passed in the blink of an eye. Something must be amiss if not a single one of Li Hao¡¯s locks had reached full capacity yet. <i>Can it be tied to... potential?</i>

    The young man frowned. Perhaps it had something to do with his bloodline. A bloodline heritage meant that he possessed some abilities that other people didn¡¯t. His body may be stronger than others, so he needed to absorb more mysterious power.

    <i>But... this is a bottomless pit. Who knows when I¡¯ll fill it up?</i>

    And the key thing was, fusing energy into supernatural locks didn¡¯t result in a noticeable improvement of his strength!

    There was almost no improvement! This was a deal that was hardly worth it! It improved his foundations, alright, but at a hefty cost and with almost no increase to strength. What good were strong foundations then?

    Li Hao sighed and decided to give up. This wouldn¡¯t do! He needed to discuss this with his teacher, otherwise he could forget trying to build the five bridges. He needed to find a way to avoid this problem.

    The more he thought about it, the more his head ached. The strength of a supernatural lock also resulted in another issue¡ªthe five auras melded into the five organs. His heart was so strong now, but his aura was the same as before. It was now too tightly locked into ce. All of them would be nailed into the organs if this continued!

    It would be the greatest joke if his auras proved unable to break out of the organs at the end of his cultivation! He would¡¯ve strengthened the organs so greatly that they maintained a death grip on the auras. Nothing could emerge, he would¡¯ve sealed off his own future!

    <i>Ten thousand at most...</i> Li Hao estimated. He could infuse his locks with ten thousand cubes at most. His auras might be forever imprisoned if they were any stronger. That would be a thorny issue then!<i> I wonder if the Mind Fruits that I traded for will be of any use for nurturing auras...</i>

    Just then, a voice traveled through the door. ¡°Are you in here, Li Hao?¡±

    The young man vanished on the spot.

    ......

    <i>Outside the cultivation room.</i>

    The sky was not yet fully bright. Mu Lin waited outside the door. He quickly smiled when the young man emerged. ¡°Have you been cultivating during all this time?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Brother Second Mu.¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t want to disturb you.¡± Mu Lin kept smiling and ignored the weird name that Li Hao referred to him by. ¡°But today is when we leave. A deployment order hase from upstairs to transfer Director Hou to Skystar City! As his direct subordinates, the Silver Moon Guards will be going with him. I felt that I should give you a heads up because you and the Demon Hunters might be the only ones left here after today.¡±

    <i>Today?</i>

    Li Hao blinked, thinking back to an earlier conversation. They would leave after three days¡ªso it was already the fourth! So fast! Well, that made sense since he¡¯d spent some time absorbing thirty thousand cubes of mysterious power.

    Various members of the Guards were packing up; some were falling into lines to move out. A general din rose from the barracks.

    ¡°Is everyone willing to go?¡± Li Hao frowned slightly. These were all Silver Moon denizens. Were they all willing to leave their home to travel with Hou Xiaochen?

    ¡°Of course!¡± Mu Linughed. ¡°Director Hou treasures martial masters in an era where martial dao has declined. He brought us up step by step and now that his future is unknown after he travels to the dynasty¡¯s capital... the Silver Moon will naturally follow in his footsteps! Schemes and plots may abound in Skystar City, but the director will be more at ease with us at his back.¡±

    Li Hao was moved by the response. One could not think lightly of the Silver Moon Guards¡¯ loyalty toward Hou Xiaochen. They were willing to follow the man thousands of kilometers away from their homes.

    ¡°Where¡¯s Director Hou and the others?¡±

    ¡°At the Night Watcher headquarters. We¡¯re going to convene with them in a moment and drive to Cloud River. We¡¯ll be in Near River province after crossing the river, then drive to the North Sea province, then cross that sea. That will put us in the central region, where we can then drive to Skystar City.¡±

    It was truly a journey of thousands of kilometers. If they traveled on foot, it would take several months to reach their destination even if they sped through several hundred kilometers a day. Skystar City was so far away. Frequently described as thousands of kilometers away, it was more urate as ten thousand.

    In the central region, one could drive approximately fifteen hundred kilometers a day if the roads were clear. They would reach Skystar City in roughly a week. And if one was rich enough, one could take the airnes found exclusively in the central region. That was even faster, but there were so many Silver Moon Guards that they¡¯d have to split up. Hou Xiaochen most likely wouldn¡¯t choose this transportation method, so they would reach Skystar City after a week.

    Having read many ancient tomes, Li Hao knew that there was a special type of high speed car that could reach two hundred fifty kilometers an hour and cover five thousand kilometers a day in the ancient civilization.

    Modern day technology was far from that level. Excavating the ancient ruins uncovered some technologies for use, but modern products were still lesser in quality and far slower. It was only after the rise of the supernatural and their special techniques that quality of life improved. Otherwise, it was horses and buggies before them.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go together,¡± Li Hao exhaled. ¡°I¡¯ll send you guys off and bid farewell to Director Hou.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what I intended ining to you.¡± Mu Lin grinned. ¡°You¡¯re the only troop staying out of the Silver Moon Guards and there¡¯s too few of you. There should be some major personages attending Director Hou¡¯s farewell. It would do you good to familiarize yourself with them. They might look after you in the days toe.

    ¡°What a pity that we¡¯re leaving after just a few days as colleagues.¡± He¡¯d wanted to explore more ruins with Li Hao. ¡°Ah, yes, the boss seems to be looking for you. He failed an exploration of another ruin before and wanted to explore it with you. But you ran off quick and now this happened, so there probably won¡¯t be a chance to do so. Boss will probably give you the ruins¡¯ location so you can explore it yourself. But be careful, if even boss failed it... Well, you¡¯re also pretty damn strong yourself, so nothing may happen to you.¡±

    Having attended thest excavation, he¡¯d personally witnessed Li Hao¡¯s might when he cut down a Nova. Golden Spear may have failed, but Li Hao might not.

    The young man didn¡¯t say anything and walked out with Mu Lin. Someone fell in step behind them.

    ¡°I¡¯ll go and send off Director Hou too,¡± Liu Long murmured. ¡°Although I didn¡¯t make a name for myself in the Night Watchers when I tried crossing over, it was with his approval that I could return to Silver City. That was how I continued to be the captain of thew enforcement team and formed the Demon Hunters...¡±

    Thus, he felt that he should bid Hou Xiaochen farewell. Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. They followed Mu Lin to a car outside theplex.

    Trucks were already waiting outside theplex¡ªthe one thousand strong Silver Moon Guards required twenty trucks. That was only for humans; storage rings held various armor and resources.

    A person walked over¡ªGolden Spear disciple and Kong Jie¡¯s daughter, the girl named Kong Youyun. Li Hao wasn¡¯t familiar with her as they hadn¡¯t seen each other that many times.

    ¡°Centurion Li, the ranking officer is looking for you!¡± she said. A small car was parked in the front of the convoy. Li Hao thought for a bit, nodded, and followed her over.

    Golden Spear sat in the car; he seemed much older after a few days. He¡¯d seemed in his forties or fifties before, but now there was an air of the elderly about him.

    Li Hao guessed that it might have something to do with the eruption shown by Earthturner Sword and the others.

 Chapter 502: Cultivation, Promotion, Farewell (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 502: Cultivation, Promotion, Farewell (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Get in!¡± Golden Spear¡¯s tone was calm. Li Hao said nothing and swiftly jumped into the back seat to sit next to Golden Spear. Kong Youyun climbed into the driver¡¯s seat and started up the car.

    Golden Spear sat ramrod straight, like a spear. His voice was as calm as before. ¡°You guys will be the only ones here after we leave. There are some items left in the warehouses, as well as some mysterious power stones and cubes. There¡¯s also the daoprehension weapons¡ªnot in the warehouses, but in storage rings!¡±

    He tossed a ring to Li Hao.

    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t be given custody of this, but since you¡¯re the one staying, you get to keep it. There isn¡¯t much inside, we¡¯re taking most of it with us, but we won¡¯t leave you high and dry either.¡±

    Li Hao quietly caught the ring. He hadn¡¯t anticipated that the Silver Moon Guards would leave him some resources before they left.

    ¡°These are the ruins that we¡¯ve explored over the years.¡± Golden Spear handed a book to Li Hao. ¡°This is the information that we¡¯vepiled on them, take a look. Mu Lin might have told you already that I discovered a ruin a while back, but didn¡¯t have time to explore it. It¡¯s a bit dangerous inside, so do as you see fit. Their information is all inside the storage ring as well.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, sir.¡±

    ¡°No worries,¡± Golden Spear replied coolly. ¡°I couldn¡¯t explore it because Icked sufficient strength. You might be able to, so there¡¯s nothing to thank.

    ¡°Also, be careful of the pirates from the Moon Sea. We have some information on them as well and you need to be on your guard. There¡¯s no concern regarding their weaklings, but there¡¯s a possibility that their powerhouses will enter the Moon Sea to raid and loot once they learn that the director is gone.

    ¡°So be very careful! Some of them are quite strong with even peak Nova heavyweights among them. A few of them even keep major monster spirits as pets. You must exercise extreme prudence!¡±

    Li Hao nodded again.

    ¡°And don¡¯t think of ever relying on your master,¡± Golden Spear added. ¡°Don¡¯t walk in his footsteps your entire life. The Five Styles is wondrous, but I hope you can also carve out your own path. I don¡¯t have the right to say anything, but I know that once there is a heavy mountain on your head, it is too hard to try to shift it!¡±

    Despondency appeared in his eyes as Golden Spear looked around with weariness. One could not tell if his expression carried regret or resignation. He was the leader of the Three Spears of Silver Moon, but now couldn¡¯t even measure up to Light Sword of the Seven Swords. Thest expedition had crushed his pride and bestowed him unspeakable difort. He didn¡¯t know the way forward, so he couldn¡¯t progress. Golden Spear had been a shell of himselftely.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything to the man. Some things needed to be tackled by oneself. No one couldfort him¡ªneither was it needed.

    The man sat back with his eyes closed. Li Hao remained quietly next to him as they took the car to the Night Watcher headquarters.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Everyone was present on this day. Large numbers of supernaturals were present as Hou Xiaochen was about to leave. He had been the leader of the agency since the Silver Moon Night Watchers were first established twenty years ago. Today, this local tiger was finally leaving.

    Even Hao Lianchuan wore a pained expression on his face. The Silver Moon Night Watchers would greatly decline in importance once Hou Xiaochen left. The Silver Moon Guards were following the director, leaving just Hao Lianchuan, a mid Sr, holding down the fort of this massive agency. Thankfully, there were other Srs present as two deputy directors had ascended two days ago.

    The metal attribute Deputy Director Zhou and water attribute Deputy Director He had both advanced to the Sr stage. That had much to do with therge sum of mysterious power stones that they¡¯d received from the ruins.

    These three Srs were the main core of Night Watcher strength. But... was such a force... strong? They might¡¯ve thought so before, but now they weren¡¯t worth a mention.

    ¡°Director, why don¡¯t you have Manager Yu stay behind?¡± Hao Lianchuan looked on with a face of longing.

    ¡°......¡± Manager Yu served him a re that could kill.

    ¡°I won¡¯t be able to hold on by myself!¡± A mournful Hao Lianchuan ignored the woman¡¯s vicious look. The situation was oh so tragic! ¡°If we can, we should find someone else to take over as director. I can¡¯t be acting director...¡±

    Indeed, somehow he was the acting director! The central region hadn¡¯t sent anyone to rece Hou Xiaochen¡ªperhaps they were all afraid to die? And so no one was willing toe?

    Whatever it was, it left Hao Lianchuan in the position of acting director of the Silver Moon Night Watchers. Far from the joy of receiving a promotion, he was only panicked and resigned. <i>I really can¡¯t do this, especially when thest director was the domineering Hou Xiaochen.</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, there won¡¯t be much to take care of here once I am gone.¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned. ¡°The three great organizations have mostly been exterminated and they won¡¯t send further powerhouses to the province after I leave.¡±

    <i>How is that possible?!</i> Hao Lianchuan regarded his assurance wordlessly. <i>I¡¯m not a fool, it¡¯s the best time to go for Silver Moon once you¡¯re gone! Li Hao of the eight families is still here, so how are you telling me that the three great organizations won¡¯t continue to send people to us?</i>

    <i>Don¡¯t joke around, my mind¡¯s still pretty clear!</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°Find someone to help you if you really need help.¡±

    ¡°Who?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen looked outside and smiled. ¡°Help is here.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan followed his gaze and happened to see Golden Spear and Li Hao alight from a car. He blinked and looked at Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t he love being high up in the bureaucracy? Let him have his wish!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°Since he¡¯s not leaving, he can shoulder some of the responsibility. Except, he might not really care about that when old hatreds and grudges rear their heads. It¡¯s up to you. You might not have many good qualities to you, but you are genuine in your treatment of others. Li Hao needs a bit of special attention...

    ¡°Li Hao of the Silver Moon Guards is hereby promoted to high level chiefmissioner,¡± Hou Xiaochen¡¯s voice rang out in the next second. ¡°He will be a deputy director of the Silver Moon Night Watchers and assist acting director Hao Lianchuan in managing the provincial agency!¡±

    Li Hao froze in the process of getting out of the car, one foot over the ground. What in the world? He wanted that promotion a long time ago, but they never gave it to him. It was his now, but how was he also a deputy director and jointly managing the Night Watchers with Hao Lianchuan?

    A few more cars rolled to a stop in the distance; some heads poked out of windows in surprise, but no one said anything.

    ¡°In addition, the Silver Moon Guard designation remains in effect! Li Hao will be the acting ranking officer and safeguard the Moon Sea coastline to prevent pirates from attacking! He will ensure Silver Moon¡¯s peace and make it impossible for pirates to set foot on our homnd!¡±

    Li Hao frowned slightly. He might not stay in Silver Moon for much longer, but now he was a deputy director and the acting ranking officer of the Silver Moon Guards! What did Hou Xiaochen have in mind?

    The man had just wanted the young man to go with him to the central region, but gave him so many positions when Li Hao refused. What was this for? There were only so many in the Demon Hunter team!

    ¡°The Night Watchers and Silver Moon Guards must ensure the province¡¯s safety. Only then will they be worthy of the hard earnedbor of Silver Moon¡¯s citizens. Whether it is military rations or monthly supplies, all of ites from Silver Moon. You must keep that in mind, Li Hao!¡±

    Down below, Li Hao still had not said a word. Hou Xiaochen had walked out of the building and looked coolly at him. ¡°Do you not ept your orders, Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°......¡± A skeptical expression appeared on the young man¡¯s face and he struggled briefly before snapping his legs together in a sharp salute. ¡°Understood!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen smiled and inclined his head, tossing a storage ring over. ¡°This is information regarding the Night Watchers and some lists of names. I leave them in your hands. You must aid Hao Lianchuan well and ensure Silver Moon¡¯s peace and prosperity!¡±

    He took a step forward, strode across the ground, and entered a car in a series of smooth motions. ¡°We set off! Everyone, I will see you on the morrow!¡±

    ¡°We set off!¡± Golden Spear rumbled. Almost two dozen trucks ignited their engines.

    In the distance, Director General Zhao, Huang Yu, Kong Jie, and leaders of various departments alighted from their cars.

    ¡°I wish you a smooth journey,¡± someone sighed softly after a long moment. ¡°The dragon has lurked in the abyss of Silver Moon for too long. It is time to see the world!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen was as dashing and carefree as ever. He didn¡¯t exchange words with any of them and simply left with his team. Li Hao was the one left in a daze. So... the man was gone? Just like that?

    It suddenly felt very strange. His teacher had said to have Hou Xiaochen protect him when he left. Although Li Hao had had many doubts, he¡¯d always felt that he had a backer when Hou Xiaochen was present. The same went for Hong Yitang and He Yong...

    Hou Xiaochen was gone now and He Yong would also leave today. Hong Yitang hadpletely cloistered himself in the Sword Sect and refused to see visitors...

    Li Hao suddenly trembled when he looked around him! He was in a den of vipers and all of his backers seemed to have disappeared in a split second. He was abruptly back to where he¡¯d been a year ago. His best friend wanted him to run, but where to?

    Darkness wrapped around Li Hao. So it turned out that that treacherous guy had still imparted a certain degree of safety to the young man when he was here, even when he didn¡¯t do anything. What aughable realization!

    The young man was deathly silent and next to him, Hao Lianchuan seemed to have be a widower. His expression was pained as he watched Hou Xiaochen¡¯s departure.

 Chapter 503: The Skies Are Vast Enough for the Birds to Soar Through (I)

    <h4>Chapter 503: The Skies Are Vast Enough for the Birds to Soar Through (I)</h4>

    Hou Xiaochen left as soon as he said he would. The news of his departure swiftly spread throughout thend as the convoy began traveling to Skystar City.

    ......

    <i>In the central region, deep within a mountain.</i>

    A man with a slightly pale face sat on a throne within a hall. He was so handsome that it verged on the uncanny. He listened silently to reports being furnished by those beneath him.

    ¡°Leader, Hou Xiaochen has set out. Apart from Li Hao¡¯s Demon Hunters, Yu Luocha, Golden Spear and the rest of the Silver Moon Guards have all departed the province!¡±

    The man rested his chin in his hand, the very picture ofziness in his throne. He listened quietly, contemting something.

    A beautiful woman on his left wore long indigo robes; her eyes zed with a venomous look. ¡°Leader, the day that Hou Xiaochen and that bitch Yu Luocha reaches the central region is the day of their death! They trample on Red Moon¡¯s dignity again and again. Hou Xiaochen, Yuan Shuo, and all those people deserve death!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t throw out harsh words,¡± said the man in an even tone as he pressed his hands down, indicating for quiet.

    The woman immediately stopped talking. There were people standing in the aisles on the left and right below the throne. There were even some Ghostfaces within the hall¡ªthey were all as quiet as could be, shrouding the hall with extreme stillness.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen...¡± sighed the man. ¡°These people from Silver Moon want nothing more than to feast on my flesh and drink my blood. But I haven¡¯t done anything to them, so why all this hatred? I just want Li Hao...

    ¡°Whether it is the ruins of Battle Heaven or the mysteries of Silver Moon, I¡¯m not interested in them at the moment. i just want Li Hao. Tell me, do you guys think that the eight families are not meant to die out? Things have be very interesting once we turned to Li Hao. The unexpected crops up again and again. First it was Yuan Shuo, then Hou Xiaochen... Things be ever more interesting.¡±

    ¡°Leader, then let us slip into White Moon City while Hou Xiaochen is away and capture Li Hao!¡± dered the woman in indigo.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen wants nothing more than for you to do that.¡± The man seemed to roll his eyes. ¡°There is still Kong Jie, Huang Yu, and that old ghost at the provincial government even though Hou Xiaochen is not in the province anymore. Of the threemanders, Hou Xiaochen is one, Huang Yu is the other, which leaves the third in quiet mystery all these years. Kong Jie isn¡¯t the thirdmander, so I cannot think of any other candidates other than the one at the provincial government...

    ¡°Ai!¡± he sighed and shook his head. ¡°It is a season of many troubles. How odious. If I¡¯d known it would turn to thus, I should¡¯ve struck swiftly when we discovered Li Hao and taken him from Silver City. Now that he¡¯s left, he¡¯s improved rapidly and may measure up to a mid Nova. This has be troublesome.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s only killed a Sr...¡± blinked Indigo Moon. How was he a mid Nova now?

    Ying Hongyue leaned back against his chair and couldn¡¯t be bothered with an exnation. It was tiring having to exin every detail.

    Would Light Sword cause trouble for Li Hao for no reason at all? Sometimes, much could be derived from one piece of news. Even if Li Hao wasn¡¯t behind Xu Feng¡¯s death, he must have something to do with it. Just that development alone was sufficient to determine many other possibilities.

    Li Hao might¡¯ve excavated many treasures from the ruins. What a pity that the world was focused only on Hou Xiaochen. They ignored a lot of other critical details in his wake.

    That was just as well. How else would Ying Hongyue¡¯s brilliance be demonstrated if not for this? The man smiled, so handsome that he was overwhelming. In reality, he was only a little younger than Yuan Shuo; he was more than sixty years old. He was a bonafide veteran martial master, but only appeared in his thirties. He might raise delighted squeals from women if he walked around on the streets.

    Ying Hongyue seemed to be turning something over in his thoughts. ¡°Since Hou Xiaochen wishes toe to the central region, let hime,¡± he said slowly. ¡°There is no need to interfere. As for Li Hao...

    ¡°White Moon City is too formidable to be touched unless I am there present in person. Otherwise, it is doubtful that we can aplish what we wish. We will continue to lose people instead, making it much more of a loss than a gain. We don¡¯t need to pay attention to them for now and it¡¯s best to leave Li Hao alone. In fact, do not send any more people to him. Our chancees when he is forced to leave Silver Moon when he can no longer progress in the province.¡±

    After the ruins, he¡¯d fully plumbed the depths of those in Silver Moon. Sending more people now could be ying right into their hands.

    ¡°And there is Violet Moon to consider. Have Orange Moon drop her mission of hunting Yuan Shuo and go to Silver Moon!¡± Ying Hongyue smiled in an exceedingly tender fashion. ¡°Let¡¯s show them abundant sincerity. I know what they want in exchange for Violet Moon. Have Orange Moon offer ten mid Nova blood pearls and threete Nova blood pearls. Also, make a promise to Li Hao that Orange Moon will no longer chase Yuan Shuo. Have him return Violet Moon after that.¡±

    Indigo Moon listened with some jealousy and wanted to say something... but thought better of her impulse. Perhaps this was the most obvious point of Ying Hongyue¡¯s charisma. He was very generous. These thirteen blood pearls were incredibly powerful as they were all of the Nova level. There were even somete Nova specimens. It might strengthen the enemy or resolve some of their problems, but he was willing to give them up.

    If Hou Xiaochen had captured Green Moon and the others instead of killing them, Ying Hongyue would¡¯ve ransomed them back as well.

    ¡°You are wise, leader!¡± said Indigo Moon.

    Ying Hongyue rubbed his temples with a softugh. ¡°There¡¯s nothing wise about this. If I really was, I wouldn¡¯t have underestimated these guys. I knew they were dangerous, but still let Green Moon and the others go. Look at how things turned out...¡± He shook his head with a sigh. ¡°Such are the times and our destiny!¡±

    Who could¡¯ve fathomed that so many unexpected developments would ur in Battle Heaven? The three great organizations sent more than ten Novas, of which several werete Novas. They were already highly on guard against Hou Xiaochen. Based on Ying Hongyue¡¯s judgment, Hou Xiaochen did not wish to unseal himself. Since that was the case, their losses wouldn¡¯t be high. There must be other reasons at y if the three great organizations had beenpletely lost. With just Hou Xiaochen, Kong Jie, Yu Luocha, and a few others in the ruins, it would take all of them unsealing themselves to aplish the deed.

    ¡°It¡¯s all because of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s wiles...¡± Indigo Moon quickly said.

    ¡°Wiles?¡± Ying Hongyue flicked a nce at the woman and sighed again. ¡°Don¡¯t constantly dismiss or belittle the enemy. That will make me feel useless. There¡¯s nothing wrong with admitting to the enemy¡¯s strength. If the enemy is strong and I suffer great losses, that just means I was unlucky and didn¡¯t have timing on my side. If you say the enemy is trash, that exemplifies how dumb I am.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Indigo Moon was immediately struck dumb, but she wasn¡¯t afraid, just slightly resigned. The leader didn¡¯t seem to be in good spiritstely. If this was times past, he wouldn¡¯t spend so much time and effort exining himself.

    ¡°This is all my fault, I¡¯ve been too lenient on all of you over the years.¡± Ying Hongyue shook his head again. ¡°I¡¯ve always felt that women didn¡¯t need to be too strong, that women aren¡¯t born to fight. Fighting is a man¡¯s job, but this mindset has resulted in some bad influences on thedies. After you guys set foot into Nova, people show you face and don¡¯t normally attack you.

    ¡°This expedition has been a blow to the head and reminded you that the old friends in Silver Moon are all vicious sorts!¡±

    He shook his head ruefully. Indigo Moon remained silent.

    ¡°Of the six of you, Yu Luocha ran off, Peacock and the divine girl died in the expedition, leaving you and Spider alive. When Spider returns... let¡¯s try a bit harder!¡± Ying Hongyue looked down the dais and said slowly, ¡°Send word to the Steadfast Duke that Li Hao killed Xu Feng. Light Sword will turn on them, so be careful.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Someone vanished on the ground. As for whether or not this was true... it was true if the leader had said so. No one suspected anything.

    ¡°Light Sword... will turn traitor?¡± asked Indigo Moon.

    ¡°Yes,¡± sighed Ying Hongyue. ¡°The loyalty of Silver Moon martial masters is not won like that! The Xus have whetted Light Sword¡¯s appetite all this time with the Windchaser Boots, saying that Xu Feng will be in charge of them so long as the young master enters the metamorphosis stage. Light Sword has looked after Xu Feng like a mother and father these years, wanting nothing more than the young master to grow into his strength. Now that he¡¯s dead... Light Sword will surely betray them.¡±

    ¡°With Light Sword¡¯s personality, she should¡¯ve turned on them many years ago,¡± Indigo Moon asked curiously. ¡°Why wait until today? I didn¡¯t think she was that strong before, but the news now paints her as very strong...¡±

    ¡°The Xus aren¡¯t that weak either!¡± chuckled Ying Hongyue. ¡°Not to mention, they didn¡¯t lie to her. If Xu Feng had reached that stage, the family would¡¯ve given him the boots. When the yin and yange together then... It¡¯s not important that Light Sword is old or incredibly unsightly. Most importantly, Xu Feng might be able to borrow the power of pure yang to fully ascend beyond Nova. It was an arrangement that benefited both parties, but nothing of that remains anymore.¡±

    The man seemed to know a lot.

    ¡°Therefore, let¡¯s keep watching the show. It¡¯s not that I mean any harm to an old friend, I just want to remind the Xus to be careful. Once they take care of their troubles, they¡¯ll have the ability to try Li Hao and Silver Moon for me. So they better not be caught off guard by Light Sword.¡±

    ¡°Got it!¡± Indigo Moon nodded, appearing quite naive despite her age.

    A smiling Ying Hongyue admired her profile. A naive woman was good, being simple was good. He hadn¡¯t let them be involved in too much over these years because he didn¡¯t want their base nature to change. But now... it looked like that hadn¡¯t been the best decision.

    His harem lived in harmony, but it was difficult when they were actually sent out to do anything. Their chances of sess were too low and not even on par with some martial masters or supernaturals.<i> I wonder if Hou Xiaochen and the others curse me for taking care of these martial masters to the point where they¡¯ve been crippled?</i>

    ¡°Leader, don¡¯t we also need the Windchaser Boots?¡± added Indigo Moon. ¡°Why don¡¯t we take the chance to seize them?¡±

    ¡°The Liu family weapon came into the duke¡¯s hands long ago.¡± Ying Hongyue shook his head. ¡°There¡¯s no need for open hostilities with them over this. The core of the eight weapons is still the sword of the Lis. It¡¯s a pity we couldn¡¯t locate it before, but now we are certain that it is either with Li Hao or with Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°The de of the Zhangs is likely with Yuan Shuo. That indestructible de of his probably hides the de of the Zhangs.¡±

 Chapter 504: The Skies Are Vast Enough for the Birds to Soar Through (II)

    <h4>Chapter 504: The Skies Are Vast Enough for the Birds to Soar Through (II)</h4>

    Ying Hongyue thought for a while before continuing, ¡°Those of Red Moon shall note in too much contact with these people in the short term. I also need some time to prepare. Share the news that the sword of the Lis and the de of the Zhangs is in the respective hands of Li Hao and Yuan Shuo. Those two weapons have exceedingly special uses, particrly the de of the Lis. It might be the key to some of the important ruins of the dynasty.

    ¡°As for the royal family... tell them that the sword of the Lis may be able to fully unseal the Skystar ruins. They need to stop ying dead. If the Skystar King wishes to be the Human King of our era, he won¡¯t achieve it through staying behind the curtains. He needs to fight for it!

    ¡°There¡¯s never been a Human King who won through ying dead,¡± Ying Hongyueughed with a sarcastic bent to his voice. ¡°That has ever been the case since the ancient times. Someone like Li Hao is hard to handle as, instead of dying at thest possible moment, he grows stronger in return. They¡¯ll understand from the information they have, they can determine themselves what they want to do next!¡±

    Indigo Moon nodded and couldn¡¯t help but ask, ¡°Then why doesn¡¯t leader...¡± Personally take action and capture Li Hao? As dangerous as Silver Moon was, the leader could manage those Silver Moon powerhouses, couldn¡¯t he? The opportunity was right in front of them now that Hou Xiaochen was gone!

    ¡°We... should not go to Silver Moon if we can help it!¡± Ying Hongyue responded without looking back. ¡°The province has begun to awaken. When I visited, Hou Xiaochen was much weaker than me, but still killed the second generation Violet Moon. Some of Silver Moon¡¯s existences no longer wish for me to set foot on theirnd and keep me away. It will be difficult to visit again!¡±

    He vanished with another soft sigh. Indigo Moon looked down at the crowd and snorted, ¡°Keep a watchful eye on Hou Xiaochen¡¯s group! Although our leader has said not to move against them for now, keep them under close surveince!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The Ghostfaces below responded haphazardly and didn¡¯t really care what the woman was saying. What was the point of her acting tough when their leader had already spoken? However, since the favored Indigo Moon was one of the few Seven Moons left, they weren¡¯t at liberty to say anything out loud.

    ......

    On this day, some news began to circte as Hou Xiaochen¡¯s group left Silver Moon. The first to receive it was the Steadfast Duke¡¯s household.

    A magnificentplex was situated in the east of the central region.

    <i>Inside arge hall.</i>

    An old man with graying hair coughed gently. As the fourth Steadfast Duke, he¡¯d reached an advanced age. He sighed as he looked at the middle-aged men standing beneath him. ¡°It is ever a tragedy for those with white hair to send off those with ck hair. Little Feng has died in Silver Moon. There are no further spectacr talents among the younger generation of supernaturals of the family.¡±

    As he shook his head, a middle-aged man looking very simr to Xu Feng intoned, ¡°Father, Hou Xiaochen must have something to do with Little Feng¡¯s death in Silver Moon. Now that he has left the province and is in the capital, it¡¯s possible to eliminate him even if he is strong! On the Night Watcher side, Yellow Dragon probably won¡¯t let him find his footing, so why don¡¯t we...¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s leave Hou Xiaochen alone for now!¡± coughed the old man. ¡°Light Sword should be returning soon. Is there news of her?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± The middle-aged man frowned. ¡°I suspect she didn¡¯t take any action this time. Otherwise, with her strength and just a simple ruin exploration, she¡¯s fine and Little Feng is dead...¡±

    ¡°Big brother, let¡¯s not be overly hasty in our grief,¡± cautioned a slightly younger man standing behind Xu Feng¡¯s father. ¡°Light Sword is very strong and we still need her help in many things...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not your son that¡¯s dead!¡± snorted Xu Feng¡¯s father. There were many intrigues and plots against each other in a family with over two hundred years of heritage. His younger brother likely wished that he¡¯d died with his son!

    It was easy for him to persuade the rest of the family that they shouldn¡¯t transfer their anger to Light Sword. <i>You wouldn¡¯t be so calm if it was your son dead. Little Feng¡¯s death causes the ownership of the Windchaser Boots to be up in the air again. You¡¯re probably over the moon.</i>

    ¡°Ahem!¡± The old man rapped on the table to interrupt the arguing. His tone was calm and he was used to the sight in front of him. ¡°Stop arguing about this. If Light Swordes back... make the arrangements to kill her! Be careful, she¡¯s strong and a wily opponent...¡±

    Even Xu Feng¡¯s father blinked with surprise. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean it that way, father.¡± He looked at the old man. ¡°I know she¡¯s very strong and still useful to the family...¡±

    He was just grumbling and hadn¡¯t truly thought of killing Light Sword. The swordswoman was very strong and they might have to pay an enormous price to kill her. Not to mention, she was still working for the Xus at the moment. It was awful to lose his son, but it might be even more of a headache to throw in Light Sword into the mix. He hadn¡¯t thought that his father would really want to move against the woman, that was entirely unexpected!

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t seek to do so if there was any other alternative avable,¡± sighed the old man as he looked at the brothers. ¡°It would be best if Light Sword can join the family and always work for us, but you know that there aren¡¯t many who can use the Windchaser Boots. I can partiallypel it, but that ugly witch thinks <i>I</i> am too old...¡±

    The old man shook his head with augh. ¡°She was somewhat willing since Little Feng was handsome. That old witch will never do it if I am the one. I thought that it was fine to have Little Feng suffer just a little as he would gain a very powerful helper in the form of that witch. Men do not need to care about trivial details like these. When the Xus walk out of the east, we¡¯ll naturally be able to suppress her! She¡¯ll do whatever Little Fengmands then.

    ¡°But now that Little Feng is dead, we have no way out!¡± The old man rose with a heavy sigh. ¡°I do not wish to do this, but the witch will certainly want to seize the Windchaser Boots. Just kill her! These Silver Moon martial masters are wild, intractable, and deviously hard to keep control of. We can¡¯t win them to our side no matter how much kindness we show them.

    ¡°The female martial masters can only be kept in line through certain men. With Little Feng dead and her hopes ended, she won¡¯t let this quietly be...¡±

    The two brothers looked at each other with some understanding and gravity.

    ¡°Father, it¡¯s said that these martial masters can unseal their battle strength when they reach the peak of their cultivation. Has Light Sword reached this stage?¡±

    ¡°Possibly.¡± The old man wasn¡¯t sure. ¡°The peak battle strength she exposed before was that ofte Nova. She has not disyed any specifics and it is normal for martial masters to hold back in ordinary times. Summon a few of our generals to kill her together!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The two quickly nodded without further question. It looked like their father had made up his mind to kill Light Sword. The household¡¯s army dominated the east and their generals were exceedingly formidable. Any one of them might rival the General of Northern Pacification of the three northern provinces. Their father meant to utilize strength in numbers to mob Light Sword.

    ¡°Ah, yes.¡± The old man was about to leave when another thought struck him. ¡°Send some men to Silver Moon and test Li Hao¡¯s mettle after we¡¯re done with Light Sword. There¡¯s news from Red Moon that Li Hao might be behind Little Feng¡¯s death. He might also wield the divine sword of the Lis!¡±

    Xu Feng was already dead, so there was no need to expend the effort of sending people to Silver Moon to investigate Li Hao. But if it involved the divine sword of the Lis... that was different.

    Regr people were hard pressed to understand just how incredible the treasures of the eight guardian ns were. But as the Xus possessed the Windchaser Boots, they knew a thing or two. The boots had belonged to the Liu family and were marvelous!

    It was partially due to these boots that the Steadfast Duke had been able to render aid to the royal family when the dynasty was first established. The first generation of the duke had been a Dominator hailed as a walking god.

    Dominators of present day were a far cry from Dominators back in the day. Other than Silver Moon, there were very few martial masters anywhere in thend. Dominators were mysterious personages that one could not catch sight of. Such a heavyweight had sat in residence at the Xus.

    Ferocious beyondpare, that Dominator had been the key figure to the royal family securing supremacy over thend. He had been exceptionally fast and able to kill fellow Dominators due to the Windchaser Boots.

    It wasn¡¯t until several ancient tomes were discovered in recent years through more excavations that the Xus learned their boots was the family heritage of one of the eight families. They hadn¡¯t known much about the eight families at first, but as Ying Hongyue¡¯s scheme in Silver City was uncovered, the insignificant border city immediately became the center of attention to some.

    So the eight families were located in that miserable backwater... No one would have expected that!

    Before anyone could respond or set up ns, drastic changes urred in Silver Moon. Srs died, thenrge sums of Novas died. Even the Xus were at a loss of how to respond. The divine sword of the Lis was ranked first among the eight family weapons. It went without saying that it must have marvelous effects.

    Red Moon was sharing all this news simply because it was wary of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world and characters like Hou Xiaochen. Everyone knew what Ying Hongyue had in mind, but who wasn¡¯t tempted when treasure was set in front of them?

    The old man said nothing else before leaving. Light Sword... What a pity! They¡¯d finally recruited a premier Silver Moon martial master to enhance the family¡¯s strength. Now look at the situation¡ªhe had to pray that nothing went wrong in the process of taking her down.

    ......

    All sorts of news spread throughout various powerhouses and senior executives in a short day. It was a repeat of when Hou Xiaochen shared the effectiveness of the blood pearls and caused significant losses to Red Moon in a short period of time. It wasn¡¯t until Red Moon killed quite a few powerhouses in warning did that stem the bleeding.

    Rumors of the divine sword of the Lis spread by mouth. The premier powerhouses didn¡¯t care about blood pearls as they knew that unless there was a veryrge number of these items, those weak pills wouldn¡¯t be of much help to them.

    Thus, not that many elite heavyweights had been tempted by that news, but they were very much so by the divine weapons of the eight families.

 Chapter 505: The Skies Are Vast Enough for the Birds to Soar Through (III)

    <h4>Chapter 505: The Skies Are Vast Enough for the Birds to Soar Through (III)</h4>

    <i>Silver Moon.</i>

    <i>White Moon City, the Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Li Hao was yet to recover from Hou Xiaochen¡¯s departure. At the moment, he and Hao Lianchuan were busy staring at each other. It was the two of them against the entire world. Another piece of bad news arrived while Li Hao¡¯s thoughts were a tangled snarl.

    A redmunicator rang in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s empty office.

    Li Hao looked at Hao Lianchuan, Hao Lianchuan looked at Li Hao. The two were still relishing the mncholic bleakness that¡¯d washed over them. That suddenly ringingmunicator... was not a good sign.

    Hao Lianchuan focused on Li Hao and gestured with his fat chin. ¡°My head hurts and I don¡¯t want to pick it up. You get it!¡±

    Li Hao rolled his eyes! <i>My head hurts too! I¡¯ve never been in charge of people in my life! I was a ss rep once when I was a kid, but all I had to do was collect candy. The Demon Hunters regte themselves, so I¡¯m the one in a massive pickle!</i>

    However, there must be somethingrge at stake if the redmunicator was ringing now. The young man swiftly answered it.

    ¡°Is this Li Hao or Hao Lianchuan?¡±

    ¡°I am Li Hao...¡± The young man vaguely made out who it was, but he wasn¡¯t too sure.

    ¡°That¡¯s good. Don¡¯t go around by yourself these days. Either you run after Hou Xiaochen right now and head to the central region with him, or you stay put in White Moon City! There¡¯s news traveling through the central region that you wield the divine sword of the Lis, that it can ess many core ruins¡ªeven the one held by the royal family!

    ¡°You know what that means. As more information about the eight families spreads, your troubles will continue to grow bigger!¡±

    Li Hao blinked and took a moment to respond, ¡°I gave it to...¡±

    ¡°Enough, do you take everyone for fools?¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Well, it looks like not everyone is a fool.</i> So now there were people who felt that Steris was on him. And the key thing was, the news was spreading only after Hou Xiaochen left. Li Hao had be an easy target when he had no one protecting him!

    When Hou Xiaochen was present, some people yed dumb out of wariness of the Night Watcher director. Now, they dropped the act. Troubles came one after another! Li Hao stared forward with resignation.

    ¡°You¡¯re not the only one, your teacher is in a great deal of trouble too. Rumors say that he holds the de of the Zhangs. People didn¡¯t care that he was attacking Red Moon members before, but now they¡¯ll make trouble for him too. No one knows where the eight weapons are, but they¡¯re likely in the hands of major factions. You and your teacher are weak and you hold two of them. Who will people look for, if not you?¡±

    ¡°Did Red Moon spread this information?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°How did you figure that out?¡±

    ¡°Setting me aside.¡± Li Hao recovered his calm. ¡°Apart from Red Moon and Ying Hongyue being exceedingly familiar with the eight families, no one is able to guess that my teacher holds the de of the Zhangs.¡±

    It would be one thing if his teacher was left out of the stories, but once Yuan Shuo was involved, that confirmed for Li Hao that the news came from Ying Hongyue! After some thought, the young man asked, ¡°So I will be fine if I stay in the city?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°White Moon City won¡¯t be able to protect me if I leave?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    He understood! Li Hao was just asking and wasn¡¯t truly concerned. He was more resigned that some of his earlier preparations were ruined after Steris was exposed. People wouldn¡¯t be focused on Hou Xiaochen anymore. Thankfully, most simply knew that the divine weapons were strong. They were unaware of the specific effects. If they knew that as well... trouble would be never-ending!

    The only ones that knew at the moment were his teacher, Southern Fist, and Earthturner Sword. They wouldn¡¯t do anything with their information.

    As more thoughts rose in Li Hao¡¯s mind, he suddenly understood why Hou Xiaochen wanted to leave together. Perhaps he¡¯d already foreseen that if Li Hao remained in Silver Moon, there would be endless issuesing for the young man!

    ¡°Thank you for the reminder!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t have time to finish his sentence before themunicator cut off. He looked at it wordlessly.

    ¡°Who was it?¡± Hao Lianchuan asked curiously. He¡¯d heard the voice and found it familiar, but didn¡¯t recall who it was.

    Li Hao raised his chin in the eastern direction. Hao Lianchuan paused, quickly thinking of someone. ¡°Director General Zhao? How does he have a personalmunication channel with the director?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. ¡°They¡¯re both in Silver Moon and the heads of their major institutions. Is it weird that they have a personal channel?¡±

    What was going through Ole Hao¡¯s mind? Why was this such a surprise to him?

    ¡°It¡¯s not that.¡± Hao Lianchuan shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s that that old man has always had a poor rtionship with the director. It¡¯s one thing if others have a private channel with him, but him... and for him to know all this and tell you? What does he mean by that?¡±

    ¡°Who knows,¡± Li Hao sighed.

    ¡°Does this mean that trouble has grown bigger?¡± Hao Lianchuan asked after some thought.

    ¡°Probably.¡±

    ¡°What can your family sword do? If there isn¡¯t much use to it, you should just give it to the director before and avoid all this trouble...¡±

    ¡°Director Hao.¡± Li Hao served Hao Lianchuan with a long look. ¡°Why are you so timid today?¡±

    Where had his previous domineering air gone? No matter how many powerhouses the three great organizations had sent to the province before, this one always excitedly charged forward to kill Red Moon powerhouses and harvest blood pearls. But now, he seemed deathly afraid of being embroiled in trouble.

    Hao Lianchuan ignored him and continued to wallow in misery. <i>What do you think?? I¡¯m a mid Sr without Hou Xiaochen¡¯s influence to borrow from. How dare I provoke anyone right now?</i>

    <i>Ole Hou is so heartless to have me hunt down the three great organizations while knowing that he was about to leave. Look at things now! He¡¯s off high and dry, and took all of the Silver Moon Guards with him and Manager Yu! I¡¯m the only one left! What should I do now??</i>

    Hao Lianchuan drooped dejectedly on the sofa and wanted to light up a cigarette. He pawed at his pockets before recalling... he didn¡¯t smoke.

    ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s not think so much.¡± The man rallied his spirits. ¡°Good thing we took care of most of the supernaturals in the ruins. There are some stragglers left, but not that many. We can only pray that those bastards aren¡¯t all that strong and that there¡¯s no more Novas left to cause trouble. Otherwise... we¡¯ll be in for it!

    ¡°Also, you seem to be in a pickle, so you should probably just listen to what other people are saying. Stay at White Moon City with peace of mind or wait for Director Hou toe back, or... find a ce to hide.

    ¡°The director insisted on promoting you when he left. He probably wants you to shoulder some responsibilities. In that case, you can be in charge of the coastline. I¡¯ll redeploy some supernaturals to be under yourmand and supplement your defenses. As for outside of White Moon City... I¡¯ll do that since you can¡¯t leave. I hope no one has their eye set on me. We¡¯d just be proceeding as usual, I was in charge of these before as well.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan looked hesitantly at the young man and suddenly said, ¡°Li Hao, um...¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Li Hao looked warily at the man. What did he want toin about now?

    ¡°Don¡¯t take the coastline lightly! There has indeed been ack of nautical invasion in Silver Moon these years, so the people¡¯s understanding of pirates isn¡¯t deep. ording to what I know, the big cities along the North Sea might suffer attacks at any time. Each attack leads to thousands of casualties, with sometimes cities being outright massacred! A single spot of inattention from you might lead to pirates makingndfall and rushing the cities. They won¡¯t all have Night Watcher presence in them, so that might result in extreme suffering for the people!

    ¡°Moon Sea¡¯s coastline is very long and you don¡¯t have enough people! Don¡¯t think that your job is done simply after you hold the line at White Moon City. Pirates will probably stay away from the capital and more likely focus their attention on the surrounding cities.

    ¡°Of the sixteen cities in the southern half of the province, there are three closer to the coast in addition to White Moon. They are Southern Ford, Abundance, and Flowing Cloud. Only Southern Ford has a Night Watcher branch with two Sunres. The other two cities don¡¯t have any supernaturals present.¡±

    ¡°Then how did the Silver Moon Guards defend the coastline before?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°They didn¡¯t, they struck proactively instead. They cleansed the waters every so often!¡± Hao Lianchuan responded seriously. ¡°The Silver Moon Guards are still known on the open seas. Regr pirates don¡¯t dare trespass in Silver Moon territory, and it¡¯s also because we¡¯re very barren here. To those pirates, it¡¯s a better use of time to visit the North Sea because it¡¯s richer over there. But now that the Guard is gone, don¡¯t you think those pirates will wander over for a casual raid?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s temples throbbed! Three cities, plus White Moon, so four cities. He had fifty subordinates to draw from¡ªthey would be forty-fine once Liu Long left! Was he supposed to defend four cities with this number? What a joke!

    He would have to take the fight to them like the Silver Moon Guards did and destroy the pirates at the intersection of the North and Moon Seas. Defense would be entirely impossible otherwise.

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me,¡± Hao Lianchuan mumbled. ¡°It¡¯s good enough if I protect the ind cities.¡±

    He was at a loss too.

    ¡°Then the army and Inspectorate...¡± Li Hao looked at him.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that we can¡¯t ask them for reinforcements.¡± Hao Lianchuan considered the idea. ¡°But that the Night Watchers were the agency with the highest authority over superhumans along the coast and cities. Once we hand that over... we won¡¯t be getting it back. I don¡¯t mind as power struggles are not what I desire. But if we lose Director Hou¡¯s hard work as soon as he leaves...¡±

    That didn¡¯t seem to fly!

    ¡°Very well, I see.¡± Li Hao rose to leave.

    ¡°Are you doing?¡± Hao Lianchuan quickly asked.

    ¡°What else should I do?¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°I¡¯ll go back to the Guards barracks first. Also, assign some cars to me. I have to run every time I travel, it¡¯s such a loss of face.¡±

    ¡°Will do!¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t protest this easy request.

    The young man tossed over a small bottle after some thought. ¡°There¡¯s some blood pearls inside, you use them, Director Hou. It¡¯s best if you can find the fifth supernatural lock. If not... we¡¯ll think of another way.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan paused. <i>You have blood pearls?</i>

 Chapter 506: The Skies Are Vast Enough for the Birds to Soar Through (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 506: The Skies Are Vast Enough for the Birds to Soar Through (IV)</h4>

    Hao Lianchuan opened the bottle and took a sniff. There were quite a few blood pearls inside; a couple were of the Sr level.

    ¡°Where did you get this from?¡±

    ¡°From killing people,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Chin up, there¡¯s no need to be so depressed, Director Hao. There won¡¯t be many problems onnd, the main issue is the coastline, which I¡¯ll be in charge of. Send me a few water supernaturals, I don¡¯t have much use for the rest. Oh, I could use some flight types and investigative types though.¡±

    The young man suddenly paused and startedughing. ¡°Just give me Yun Yao, Hu Hao, and Li Meng!¡±

    Those three happened to be the attributes that he wanted. What a coincidence! He hadn¡¯t had a chance to think of them before, but now abruptly recalled that they¡¯d alsoe to White Moon City and were serving in the Night Watchers.

    ¡°Them?¡± Hao Lianchuan blinked. ¡°They¡¯re just Darkmoons and defending our shores is important. What good are three Darkmoons for? We have some more Sunres and Srs at the Night Watchers now. Ole He is also a water type and he just made it to Sr. I¡¯ll have him help you...¡±

    One had to say, the fatty was quite generous. There were only three Srs in residence at the agency, but he was still sending one of them to help Li Hao.

    ¡°That¡¯s alright.¡± The young man shook his head. ¡°Srs are the same as Darkmoons to me as I only need them to be scouts. In fact, Srs would be wasted in that capacity. Those three will do and it¡¯s more convenient since we¡¯re well acquainted. I¡¯m not familiar with Deputy Director He and it¡¯s kind of awkward to have a veteran be myckey.¡±

    ¡°Very well then.¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t insist upon seeing how steadfast Li Hao was. He prepared to walk downstairs with the young man. ¡°Do you think Director Hou will make it back from the central region?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao flicked him a sidelong nce.<i> Why does it sound like you¡¯re hoping he¡¯ll die there?</i> ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°Man, Li Hao, I¡¯m seriously kind of depressed,¡± Hao Lianchuan sighed heavily. ¡°I thought I was a hotshot as a Sr, but so many Novas have died recently and hundreds of Srs as well. I feel that a Sr cultivation level isn¡¯t the insurance that it once was. But Ick sufficient potential to find my fifth lock. I¡¯m crippled...¡±

    ¡°Deputy Director Hao, what are you trying to say?¡± Li Hao suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. The man had sighed for most of their time together, so he might as welle out and say whatever was on his mind!

    ¡°Ahem, it¡¯s nothing much. I just wanted to say... um... take your ole brother along!¡± The fatty suddenly beamed brightly, losing all traces of his mncholic expression.

    Li Hao paused. What did he mean?

    ¡°Ole Hou¡¯s gone, which leaves Silver Moon to us brothers!¡± Hao Lianchuan winked. ¡°I hear that you killed a Nova in the ruins? My dear little brother, don¡¯t pretend with big bro here. I¡¯ve sighed for half a day now, but don¡¯t hear you say that you want to help me. So I¡¯ll be straight, I can do anything like kill people and set fires if there¡¯s enough in it for me. Wang Ming¡¯s too weak, I¡¯m stronger than him!¡±

    <i>What... the... heck! </i>Li Hao didn¡¯t know what to say. <i>The fuck? Where did fatty hear this from? Take you along? Do you think I¡¯m a bandit?? And when the heck did we be brothers? I was calling you my uncle a few days ago, now we¡¯re brothers?</i>

    Li Hao really had thought that the fatty was simply in a bad mood after all the sighing he was doing. Why did it seem now that he was thinking he had more room to flex his muscles after Hou Xiaochen was gone?

    ¡°Deputy Director...¡±

    ¡°Call me Brother Hao!¡± Hao Lianchuan corrected solemnly. ¡°Don¡¯t stand on ceremony with me now. Wang Ming made it tote Sunre in a few short days. I¡¯m not asking for much, just let me tag along when you do something next time and get me to peak Sr!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was at aplete loss for words and didn¡¯t want to speak further to someone who wasn''t thinking clearly. He turned and left.

    ¡°The pirates also have treasure¡ªand there¡¯s a lot of precious objects in the watery depths,¡± Hao Lianchuan transmitted. ¡°Remember to bring me with you if you go out and exterminate them! I may be a fire attribute, but I can still fight in the sea. No danger troubles me onnd, that only urs in the sea. Remember me!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao broke out in a sprint. The guy was crazy!

    Hao Lianchuan was acting entirely beyond his expectations. The young man was still fretting over the situation in Silver Moon, but the fatty had already recovered and wanted to goad Li Hao into attacking the pirates together? How could he even think of that??

    ¡°Seriously, the pirates have treasure!¡± Hao Lianchuan called out. ¡°Check the Silver Moon Guards¡¯ files if you don¡¯t believe me. There¡¯s so much treasure in the sea. Apparently there¡¯s even ancient ruins in the depths of the deep blue. There¡¯s mines and Water of Life left. Let¡¯s go do something big and get rich while people think we have to hole up in White Moon City!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao ran faster and faster. He might fall to temptation from the fatty if he was any slower. <i>I haven¡¯t decided on anything yet, but here you are, thinking of how to get rich.</i>

    ¡°Go back and check the files, really! There are a few pirate factions near the Moon Sea. Once you¡¯re on the waters, it¡¯s difficult for foes to track you even if they¡¯re strong. I remember that the Guards have a ship that¡¯s an origin weapon. I don¡¯t know if it was left behind¡ªprobably? Go take a look, and be quick about it! The big pirates from the North Sea areing, so we need to take this opportunity to resolve the small pirates...¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Li Hao hadpletely vanished from sight. Hao Lianchuan sighed with a shake of his head at seeing how fast the young man had run off. Not much courage to this one, was there?<i> There won¡¯t be a chance for us to do anythingter if we don¡¯t do so now.</i>

    ......

    <i>The Silver Moon Guards barracks.</i>

    A loud din used to rise daily from a ce where martial masters trained everyday. But now, it was still. However, the Demon Hunters were training. They assembled ten to a group and practiced the Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation. Several dozen people spread out over the massive za made exceedingly little sound.

    Liu Long had returned ahead of time. He came back as soon as Hou Xiaochen left, not minding that he didn¡¯t have a chance to speak to Hou Xiaochen. Thetter hadn¡¯t addressed that many people when he left.

    There were also a few mundanes in the vastplex apart from the Demon Hunters. They were in charge of hygiene and cooking, but there was no sight of them to be seen as they stayed in the living quarters.

    ......

    This empty sight was what greeted Li Hao when he returned. He watched the group train for a little bit before leaving alone. The warehouse required a visit. The young man wasn¡¯t too familiar with the barracks, but he knew where the warehouse was.

    A single story building appeared before long, one with a guard in front of it. The martial masters may have run off, but a few support supernaturals remained on duty. The Darkmoon at the door quickly called out, ¡°Greetings, centurion!¡±

    Li Hao looked at him briefly¡ªthis Darkmoon looked to be almost in his fifties and likely didn¡¯t want to run around with the Guards anymore. Hence, he stayed.

    ¡°How many supernaturals are there in the base?¡± Li Hao inclined his head.

    ¡°Nine, including me!¡± answered the man. ¡°Eight Darkmoons and one Sunre. We are in charge of monitoring the outskirts, fixing any wear and tear to the barracks, and following the team out on missions if there is a need!¡±

    The entire artificial forest was under the watchful eye of a surveince system.

    ¡°I¡¯ll meet everyer. Now that the rest has gone, I am the acting ranking officer. I¡¯m unfamiliar with you guys, so I¡¯vee to see you.¡±

    ¡°Congrattions, sir!¡± the man immediately belted.

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao grinned. <i>As expected of someone with more years under his belt! You change your tune so quickly!</i> ¡°Open the warehouse doors.¡±

    ¡°You should have the key, sir...¡±

    <i>Is that so?</i> Li Hao took out the storage ring that Golden Spear had given him and looked into it. The man appeared to have a certain degree of an organizingpulsion as everything was neatly categorized andid out within the ring. Meanwhile, the young man had collected too many rings and stuffed them into jumbled messes. There were simply too many for him to organize.

    A quick scan of the ring revealed the warehouse key. There it was, neatlybeled and captioned. It was impossible to miss.

    Li Hao broke out into a grin. Had Golden Spear personally gone to this effort, or had the man set his disciples to the test? He put the matter to rest and took out the key to open the heavy warehouse door.

    ......

    <i>Through the door.</i>

    Everything inside was neatly arranged as well. First came the armory that stored all sorts of weapons. They looked to be in fine condition; their most eye-catching members were fiftyplete sets of armor. Li Hao blinked at the sight.

    He¡¯d put down fifty suits of armor as coteral when he borrowed thirty mysterious power stones. Upon his return, he¡¯d shut himself in seclusion and then sent off the others today. He¡¯dpletely forgotten the matter and knew that Golden Spear didn¡¯t have enough equipment. The man only had five hundred sets of armor, so it was more than likely that he¡¯d imed Li Hao¡¯s fifty.

    But here they were, safe and sound. The young man sighed with appreciation. Golden Spear was a good man¡ªon his end, Li Hao had forgotten to return the thirty stones!

    While there was no use for the fifty sets now, Li Hao had the right to activate ck armor. They might be useful in the days toe. He didn¡¯t activate the ones that the Guards were using as they were one degree of separation removed. There also hadn¡¯t been enough time for him to do so.

    Now that he thought about it, when the expedition destroyed the Tenth Troop, they¡¯d harvested nine hundred sets of armor. Part of the troop had died with their troop leader. Li Hao owned one hundred sets and the Silver Moon Guards roughly five hundred sets. The three great organizations owned one hundred each, but they didn¡¯t make use of them in Silver Moon. Therefore, it was possible that they¡¯d been transported to the central region.

 Chapter 507: Pirates (I)

    <h4>Chapter 507: Pirates (I)</h4>

    ¡°Sooner orter, I need to retrieve all of the armor!¡± Li Hao muttered. He was a Battle Heaven troop leader, after all. It was an affront that evil factions such as the three great organizations were making use of it. At the very least, the Silver Moon Guard were on the side of good.

    The warehouse was replete with Battle Heaven armor, weapons, and ordinary armor. Li Hao ventured further in to examine the treasures left behind. The Guards had taken most of it with them, leaving the shelves rather bare.

    After a while, he saw a door to a secret room. Li Hao opened the door to discover that this was the ancient archives room, where the Guards stored most of the ancient tomes that they¡¯d discovered on their expeditions. Some of them were ordinary titles, but it was a good find to the young man all the same.

    He selected one at random and flipped it open. It was in good condition¡ªthe words ¡°War of Southern Jiang¡± were written on the page. A battle record? Now this was a rare sight. The ancient books that Li Hao knew of rarely discussed topics like these.

    The first chapter started off with¡ª<i>In the first year of the New Martial calendar...</i>

    New Martial seemed to be the beginning of a new era, a particr calendar designation. Li Hao had seen it in many ancient tomes. The ancient civilization utilized the New Martial calendar, and there was another primordial civilization before that.

    The young man quickly scanned the pages. This was a book that not many would pay attention to. He didn¡¯t know if anyone else had read it or if there was even anyone who could. There should be, right?

    It was Li Hao¡¯s first time seeing general overviews of ancient powerhouses. The Human King, Martial King, Nether King...

    Monikers in lieu of names appeared in the book. ording to the book, Southern Jiang seemed to be an old haunt of the Human King during the ancient civilization. When he was out traveling the world and seeking to improve his weak self, it was invaded by an alien race called the Earth Dwellers. A massive war erupted in Southern Jiang as a result.

    The weak Human King traveled withrge numbers of human powerhouses into the enemy¡¯sir, so that the human territory of Southern Jiang wouldn¡¯t suffer damage. Although it was exceedingly dangerous to venture deep into enemynd, all of these people did so without a second thought, so as to protect the ordinary people of Southern Jiang!

    <i>Eliminating the enemy outside our home! </i>Refusing to let the enemy take half a step into human territory, even if the price was to fall in battle outside their homnd and being unable to be brought back to their final resting ce...

    Li Hao had wanted to scan the book quickly, but he fell silent and continued paging through it to read more closely. The book described a ghastly battle and mentioned a name he was familiar with.

    ¡°In the war between Southern Jiang and the Earth Dwellers, the sixth rank Eternal Sword Sovereign stunned the world by employing his sword Sever Immortality to strike down an eighth rank enemy. The Human King wailed with grief and brought a dying Eternal Sword Sovereign to his battles in the Earth Dweller home. They fought ferociously throughout thend. The battle of Southern Jiang witnessed the first taste of the Human King¡¯s might and caused the name of the Eternal Sword Sovereign to be known throughout the two worlds...¡±

    The Eternal Sword Sovereign!

    This was a name and title that Li Hao was more familiar with. People seemed to call his ancestor that. ording to the book, his ancestor was very weak then. Sixth rank... was quite weak ording to the ancient tomes that Li Hao had pored through before. He could deduce from what he¡¯d read that cultivators wouldn¡¯t even have manifested their mind intent at sixth rank. Their physical bodies would be slightly stronger than most¡ªit was eighth rank that was hailed as grandmaster. This was a fight akin to a Sunderer killing a Dominator, or perhaps a little more impressive than that.

    Ten years to hone a de and shaking off the image of trash with one stunning stroke. This hadn¡¯t even been the most impressive battle of the entire war!

    The weak and fragile Human King of the ancient civilization began his rise with this war. He took the fight to the Earth Dwellers despite being a fourth rank¡ªthe book described the enemy as ninth rank powerhouses. They might be on par with modern day Novas, whereas a fourth rank was just initial Sunderer...

    Yet in this war, the Human King killed untold numbers of the enemy, razed their major cities, and saved the Eternal Sword Sovereign. Humanity fully defeated the Earth Dwellers after this war. It was hailed as the most important skirmish in the rise of the Human King, and closely detailed his berserk fury, despair, tenacity, and wisdom in that age.

    There was such arge gap in strength, but everyone willingly charged to their deaths. Many human powerhouses died in this campaign, but a line from the book emzoned itself in Li Hao¡¯s mind.

    During the most critical moments of battle, older grandmasters called upon the Incantation of the de of Blood and detonated themselves against the enemy. In the New Martial age, there were no grandmasters that died of old age. They only died on the battlefield. When their time in the world was up and their blood qi depleted, they raced for the depths of the Earth Dweller home and fought fiercely against immense enemies. They battled to the death and never looked back!

    It was merely text on a page, but that was sufficient to make Li Hao¡¯s blood boil. He thought of the Battle Heaven Army! He¡¯d alrady thought that the army wasprised of elites among elites, but now that he looked at it... the martial masters of that era were incredible!

    They knew that they could not withstand the ferocious enemy, yet all of them still charged to their deaths. There were no elderly martial masters in their time, just martial masters dead in action! They threw themselves into the depths of the enemy camp when they reached an advanced age, fighting tirelessly by themselves...

    The young man flipped page after page, sensing the emotions behind the words and picturing the scenes in his mind... He put himself in those urrences. <i>Was this how that era had been? Then what of the Star Era that I am part of? Are there people with that kind of mentality in this day and age?</i>

    <i>But... we don¡¯t have external enemies, just civil discord. </i>Li Hao sighed after a long moment and shook his head. It was very hard for those kinds of characters to appear in the modern world. There was certainly text inside this book that was quite unforgettable to the young man.

    Martial masters of that era ventured deep into enemy camp just to keep the enemy out of their home. It was more dangerous to do so and their casualty rate was higher, but these powerful martial masters raced to the frontlines to protect ordinary people all the same. They did so heedless of consequences, finally obtaining victory at a higher price.

    They would¡¯ve lost fewer people if they let the enemy into Southern Jiang territory, but that would¡¯ve resulted in high numbers of civilian deaths.

    <i>However...</i>

    If it was modern times, how would the ruler decide if expending tens of thousands, even one hundred thousand civilians, could lead to the destruction of dozens of Novas?

    The Martial King had been mentioned in passing in the book, very few lines were dedicated to him. He¡¯d been the leader of humanity in that area and the one to give the order to take the fight to the Earth Dwellers, so that the enemy would not venture into human territory. Though the martial masters would meet death in higher numbers, they did so without regret.

    ¡°The times... are different now,¡± Li Hao murmured. The modern world was no longer that age.

    But the book also said that the New Martial era started from them, that they¡¯d founded this age. Far from naturally giving rise to a new age, it was these people who¡¯d established such a fervent era. The book ended on a note that such campaigns were just one of many thousands upon thousands. The Earth Dwellers attempted many invasions during the New Martial era, but they never set foot on human territory, no matter how strong they were!

    The enemies were formidable beyond imagination in the New Martial era, but they were ultimately destroyed beyond human territory. Lights remained on in thousands of homes, peace and prosperity flourished. The faith of humanity was shared throughout millions upon millions of people. Everyone believed in their powerhouses. Countless youngsters answered the battlefield¡¯s call and died in foreignnds, but they did so without regret.

    ¡°Complete exaggeration...¡± Li Hao muttered. This was just a book of historical fiction, there must be elements of overstatement involved. He didn¡¯t believe that this was really how the ancient civilization had been.

    At the same time, how did that exin the Battle Heaven Army?

    There was still a certain degree of mental impact to the young man. Li Haoughed wryly. What he¡¯d seen and heard the most these days was destroying the enemy outside of the gates. Had he gotten too sensitive to it, or was he thinking too much? Everytime he saw those words, it was like they reminded him to not utilize Silver Moon as a battlefield. Whether it was pirates or powerhouses, it was best if they were all destroyed outside the province. They could not be allowed to disturb the lives of ordinary people or drag mundanes into the fighting.

    Hao Lianchuan also reminded him to not wait until the pirates invaded. It was better to take the fight to them.

    ¡°The Human King... Eternal Sword Sovereign...¡± Li Hao murmured in a daze. Were these two really that strong?

    No, not strong. It was a kind of ultimate fervor and hot-bloodedness to fight the strong when one was weak. Was the Human King the killing fiend he¡¯d glimpsed?

    What kind of concept was fourth rank? He¡¯d rampaged in all directions in a ce rife with ninth rank enemies, carrying the dying Eternal Sword Sovereign by his side. He ultimately reaped stunning battle aplishments and war loot, thus marking his official rise within humanity.

    Various concepts echoed in Li Hao¡¯s mind; he swiftly put down the book and walked toward the next area. He¡¯d just wanted to take an inventory count of what was here. He should stay away from these books in the future. It gave rise to a certain impulse every time he picked one up, one to let go of all of his reservations and stop waiting patiently!

    It was not terrifying to be weak, it was terrifying to not dare let loose even once. But if he did... he might die in a moment of carelessness. Li Hao didn¡¯t want to die yet.

    He walked forward and entered another secret room. A ship that sparkled with light sat here¡ªit was very small at only one meter across. However, the young man knew that this was the origin weapon. It should be able to grow bigger if the weapon soul was awake.

    Li Hao summoned Steris and knocked it gently on the ship. ¡°Show yourself if you¡¯re awake. Otherwise... I¡¯ll chop you into two!¡±

    The ship remained unmoving. Li Hao knew that it wasn¡¯t afraid of a simple sword; he summoned sword intent with a visualized move...

    A weapon soul immediately presented itself. It looked like a big fish, but also like a bird. Li Hao frowned at it, what kind of monster spirit was this? A fish that could fly?

    ¡°I can im you, yes?¡± He ignored its trembling. ¡°The kind through blood?¡±

    While the big fish didn¡¯t say anything, the ship itself trembled. After his experiencemunicating with the ming Phoenix Spear, Li Hao took it as a tacit agreement.

 Chapter 508: Pirates (II)

    <h4>Chapter 508: Pirates (II)</h4>

    Li Hao forced out a drop of blood from his fingertip, letting it drip down and sink into the ship. As the origin weapon shook, many thoughts entered the young man¡¯s mind. It was his first time trying to im an origin weapon. Although he owned quite a few, he¡¯d never tried to assert ownership over any of them.

    Truth be told, it wasn¡¯t any easy process. However, given that the young man held Steris and it was erupting with the sword intent of the Eternal Sword, the origin weapon decided to make the process a bit easier. The fish was afraid that an overlyplicated process would inspire the sword to smash it to pieces first.

    ¡°The Vast Kun Ship...¡± Li Hao murmured, his eyes darting around. [1] The information in his mind was easy to process¡ªthis was a formidable ship that could sail through the Forbidden Sea. Now <i>that</i> was a rare find. There was some information about the Forbidden Sea among the new information in the young man¡¯s mind.

    Therefore, the North Sea should be like a little creek to the ship.

    It could carry a thousand people when erged¡ªa perfect fit for the Silver Moon Guards. Golden Spear and the others had made use of it a few times, but not to great effect since they didn¡¯t im it as their personal treasure. Many functions were inert and yet to be activated for use.

    Li Hao continued to peruse the new information that¡¯d appeared. A sheen of silver appeared over his body; he sent his thoughts into it. ¡°Can the armor pull up information?¡±

    The armor system of the ancient civilization was incredible. Could it act as a reference library?

    ¡°The data library is not activated.¡± A row of characters appeared in front of Li Hao. ¡°Data is lost and authorization insufficient. Only basic functions can be supplied...¡±

    It was in to see that the data library pertaining to this armor had not yet been repaired in Battle Heaven. That was a bit of a pity! He might¡¯ve been able to look up a lot of things and not have to rely on guesswork when studying an origin weapon.

    He put the Vast Kun Ship away¡ªit was quite convenient that these treasures could be stowed after they were imed. Li Hao continued wandering around the warehouse, walking into another secret chamber before long. This was where the Guards kept their files. He had some points of interest to look up¡ªthe ruins that Golden Spear had attempted before and what the organization knew about the pirates.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, the provincial government.</i>

    Director General Zhao sat at his desk, finishing his matters for the day. He nced at Deputy Zhou in the distance. ¡°Has the little guy gone back?¡±

    ¡°Yes, he¡¯s gone back to base,¡± the deputy chuckled. ¡°Do you think he¡¯s gone into hiding or has other thoughts in mind?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s tough to say.¡± Deputy Zhou shook his head slightly. ¡°We don¡¯t know much about Li Hao. Whether it¡¯s Hou Xiaochen or you, director general, everyone seems to want him to shoulder some responsibilities. But I think... there¡¯s no need for that. The eight families were indeed ns that safeguarded the world in the ancient civilization, but this is endless eonster. The glories and duties of his forebears should not be imposed on him.¡±

    The local powerhouses such as Hou Xiaochen and Director General Zhao seemed to very much wish that Li Hao could take on some responsibilities. And yet, Deputy Zhou didn¡¯t agree with their viewpoint.

    ¡°The eight guardian ns protected the human race of that era, not modern day Silver Moon. Li Hao is also too young, his parents are dead and his best friend suffered a horrible end. I think that the director general is too optimistic.¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t know either,¡± sighed Director General Zhao. ¡°The eight families gathered in Silver City. It is fine if they fall on the side of good, but once they do evil, they are a gue upon the world!

    ¡°You see what¡¯s happened with Red Moon. Their leader may be part of the eight families. Abject misery is inflicted upon people when the eight families veer toward evil. Hou Xiaochen and I both hope that Li Hao can stand on the side of order and justice...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s tough to levy high standards on him!¡± said the deputy after some thought. ¡°We can only influence him imperceptibly and set a good example by conduct. If we can¡¯t do it ourselves, director general, is it reasonable to have him do it? He is young and needs to be swayed through words and actions, not throughmands and coercion.¡±

    He didn¡¯t quite agree with Hou Xiaochen and the director general¡¯s methods; they weren¡¯t ideal.

    ¡°We want to, but... there¡¯s not much we can do from that angle at the moment.¡± Director General Zhaoughed ruefully with a shake of his head. ¡°Ah, forget it, he can do as he wishes. Have someone watch the seas so nothing goes wrong. As for Li Hao, let him be. I don¡¯t care what he does so long as he doesn¡¯t cause a ruckus in Silver Moon.¡±

    The deputy went back to his duties. The two had worked together for so many years that even their offices were connected to each other to facilitatemunication. This was a very rare arrangement.

    ......

    All sides had their eyes on Hou Xiaochen¡¯s group; one person in particr was calcting how long it¡¯d take the convoy to exit the northern provinces. People were also watching Li Hao of Silver Moon, but any reconnaissance was wasted since the young man didn¡¯t do anything after returning to the Silver Moon Guards barracks.

    The entire province seemed to sink into quiet stillness after Hou Xiaochen left.

    ......

    <i>The North Sea.</i>

    Waves reared and tossed a massive ship around.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen¡¯s gone, the Silver Moon Guards are gone,¡± snarled a tyrannical and irate voice. ¡°ording to our calctions, these guys might reach the North Sea tomorrow or the day after. Shall we strike and ambush them on the open waters?¡±

    ¡°Do you have a death wish?¡± answered a frosty voice. ¡°They have almost one thousand Silver Moon Guards, Hou Xiaochen, Golden Spear, Yu Luocha, and multiple other powerhouses. So many of the three great organizations¡¯ Novas have died to their hands. Ambush them? Do you have shit for brains?¡±

    ¡°But I can¡¯t just let them pass through like this!¡± raged the tyrannical voice. ¡°That bastard Golden Spear killed so many of our brothers over the years...¡±

    ¡°Then you lead people to attack them. I won¡¯t stop anyone who¡¯s willing!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The ship¡¯s hold suddenly fell quiet.

    ¡°How will we be able to do it if big brother doesn¡¯te with us...¡± mumbled the tyrannical voice with some reluctance. They really didn¡¯t have the gall to make such an attempt without their boss. Hou Xiaochen was terrifying! It was only in the seas that they stood a chance as their targets were masters ofnd. The North Sea, however, was their territory.

    ¡°Then shut up!¡± echoed the aloof voice. The speaker couldn¡¯t be bothered with the other as all thetter would do was offer ludicrous ideas. <i>Ambush Hou Xiaochen? This is something that the three great organizations wouldn¡¯t dare attempt, and you want me to ambush him? Do I look like I want to die? We spent so much effort creating this enterprise and dominating the seas. Even if I wanted to die, I don¡¯t want to go out like this.</i>

    ¡°Big brother, we should take revenge on Silver Moon even if we don¡¯t on Golden Spear,¡± raised Tyrannical. ¡°The Silver Moon Guards and Hou Xiaochen are gone. Why don¡¯t we rush to Silver Moon, ughter some of his cities, and make Hou Xiaochen and the Guards regret their prior actions!¡±

    ¡°Silver Moon is impoverished. Where is there a city rich enough for our efforts apart from White Moon City?¡± Dissatisfaction crept into Aloof¡¯s tones. ¡°There may be more than Hou Xiaochen in White Moon who¡¯s concealing their true strength. It¡¯s a very dangerous ce andpletely meaningless to attack. We might bring trouble down on our heads instead.¡±

    ¡°Then we should at least kill some Silver Moon people, even if we leave White Moon City alone. The province has some cities near the sea, we¡¯ll just raze one of them! If not, our brothers won¡¯t be willing to let things go like this, it¡¯s not just me! They¡¯ve been cooped up something fierce, they need to stretch their legs.

    ¡°It¡¯s not a good idea to head to the three northern provinces right now since they¡¯re at war. We¡¯ll just turn into targets. But we can throw our weight around in Silver Moon with no problem. We¡¯re going to go crazy if we keep staying cooped up in here!¡±

    Raucous agreement sounded in the ship.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, boss! The third master is right, we¡¯re going stir-crazy!¡±

    ¡°Yeah! Those Silver Moon Guards killed a lot of us before. Those Silver Moon damned savages are vicious!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Sentiment soared and the crowd agitated. A man in white upon a throne furrowed his brows and looked at Big Beard among the crowd. He bore a scar on his forehead that was courtesy of Golden Spear from two years ago. The man obviously itched for vengeance.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen is crafty and cunning.¡± Aloof frowned. ¡°He won¡¯t be wholly unprepared since he dared leave with all of the Silver Moon Guards. It¡¯s not like fools oversee the province. It may be a trap if we go to them now...¡±

    ¡°Boss, we¡¯re pirates, not politicians!¡± Big Beard agitated. ¡°Every bullet results in an extra inch of territory. Do we need to worry so much with our strength? Silver Moon would¡¯ve risen over the other northern provinces a long time ago if they were that strong, would they wait until now?¡±

    He was growing unhappy with the boss¡¯ indecisiveness and unreasonableness. Granted, his unhappiness was useless since he was weaker than Aloof. On the seas, strength was king.

    What was there to be wary of when it came to Silver Moon? These pirates had raided mid-sized cities along the central region coastlines before. They were only human and needed food, drink, and women to vent their furies into. It¡¯d been a long time since theirst raid since the times hadn¡¯t been right for one.

    Silver Moon had inly entered a defensive void. He wouldn¡¯t be able to look at the scar on his head if they didn¡¯t pay the province a visit. He¡¯d wring old fart Golden Spear¡¯s neck sooner orter!

    Big Beard had lost by a hair two years ago, but he¡¯d be a supernatural since then and improved quickly. There was no way that Golden Spear had matched him in pace.

    Aloof looked silently at the fidgeting Big Beard and the rest of the eager crowd. ¡°Then... take a few brothers with you and be careful,¡± he said faintly. ¡°Retreat as soon as you find something amiss. Remember, don¡¯t linger too long onnd!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯lle back as soon as we¡¯ve had our fun!¡± promised an overjoyed Big Beard. He¡¯d finally received permission!

    ¡°We¡¯re going to raid Silver Moon!¡± he roared with excitement. ¡°We¡¯re gonna kill and loot and screw their women! Silver Moon is poor, but their women are soft! You can squeeze the water out of them! And heh, their female martial masters have some fire and kick to them! Brothers,e with me!¡±

    ¡°The third master is mighty!¡± yelled the motley crew. They streamed outside with Big Beard, where severalrge ships rested.

    1. The <i>peng</i> is a giant bird that transforms into an enormous <i>kun </i>fish in Chinese mythology. ?

 Chapter 509: Pirates (II)

    <h4>Chapter 509: Pirates (II)</h4>

    A man wearing a mask walked out from behind the white-robed Aloof when the crowd stampeded out.

    ¡°You know that Hou Xiaochen is cunning and will certainly haveid contingency ns for his absence,¡± he rasped. ¡°It¡¯s not logical to let Sea Shark go to Silver Moon!¡±

    ¡°We would not be pirates if we were logical!¡± answered Aloof. ¡°Sea Shark was about to mutiny if I kept him down any longer. Must we wait for him to rebel and then kill each other?¡±

    Mask Face quieted, opting to give a simple reminder. ¡°General White, this naval unit is very useful to us. Don¡¯t lose too many of your troops. Although Sea Shark is short-tempered, he¡¯s strong and ferocious in battle. The White Shark Guards are also an important provider of sea treasures for us...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t need you to remind me of that,¡± replied White Shark. ¡°If you¡¯re uneasy, you can follow them in secret. Be careful and keep your distance. You can leave them alone if no problems develop, and you¡¯ll be able to reinforce them in time if anything does crop up.

    ¡°They shouldn¡¯t run into issues so long as they don¡¯t head to White Moon City. If Sea Shark keeps his head in the face of temptation and leaves Silver Moon when he should, I don¡¯t foresee us having any problems.¡±

    Mask Face thought for a bit before nodding. ¡°Then I¡¯ll take people with me to prevent anything untoward from developing.¡± He changed the subject from Sea Shark. ¡°There¡¯s orders from upstairs for us to consolidate all of the pirate factions in the North Sea as soon as possible...¡±

    ¡°I know, but it¡¯s not that simple!¡± White Shark frowned. ¡°There¡¯s seven renowned factions among the North Sea pirates, we make for eight. Each of them has a Nova in residence and some of them have major monster spirits supporting them from the waters. They¡¯re incredibly thorny opponents!¡±

    He represented the White Shark Raiders and while they were strong, they were only ranked number four. The three factions ahead of them were formidable and boasted a peak Nova each in their ranks. They would be extremely difficult to bring to heel!

    White Shark scratched his head irritably, but knew that with the strength that upstairs represented, he would be in grave trouble if he didn¡¯t ept. That he was in the middle of the sea didn¡¯t change that fact.

    ¡°I¡¯ll need some support if I¡¯m to consolidate everyone. The others might have their own patrons as well. Pirates of the North Sea are so bloodthirsty that it¡¯s tough for us to reach our current development without support fromnd. ording to what I know, the Sea Monster Raiders might be secretly backed by the Near River Director General Office...¡±

    ¡°The Near River Director General Office?¡± snorted Mask Face. ¡°You can ignore that one! The one in Near River has just made it to metamorphosis and that province possesses fewer than a dozen Novas. He¡¯s certainly ambitious. He should consider the fact that there¡¯s three northern provinces in front of him and Silver Moon behind him. What right does his Near River have to establish itself? He even wants independence! The day he does is the day he invites his own death!¡±

    Mask Face was quite derisive of the Near River sovereign.

    ¡°He¡¯s reached metamorphosis?¡± White Shark was puzzled. ¡°That¡¯s very fast... General Kou didn¡¯t manage it...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Mask Face shook his head. ¡°Perhaps someone¡¯s supporting him from the shadows. This is intelligence that I¡¯ve received from above. They want to let him grow stronger, possibly so he can stand against Silver Moon and restrict their expansion!¡±

    Near River neighbored Silver Moon¡ªthetter was an exceedingly important ce that various sides had started making ns for a long time ago.

    White Shark frowned without saying a word.

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to think too much,¡± Mask Face continued. ¡°You don¡¯t need to worry about backers in the dark either. You should focus your efforts on consolidating the factions in the sea. Only when you hold the North Sea in your grasp can you exercise control over the entire north...¡±

    White Shark didn¡¯t pay much attention to these words. The other thought far too highly of the White Shark Raiders if he expected them to seal off the North Sea. Sea bandits were sea bandits after all. There wasn¡¯t anything that a pirate force could do to stop the neen northern provinces if thetter really wanted to enter the central region.

    ¡°Ah yes...¡± A thought struck Mask Face. ¡°I hear that Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple, Li Hao, the heir to the eight families, is still in White Moon City. If we can capture Li Hao, then we should do so! He¡¯s very important and wields a precious treasure. Red Moon¡¯s been keeping an eye on him too. It¡¯s not just the treasure that¡¯s valuable, but that the person is key as well!¡±

    White Shark inclined his head without offering a response. He would not go if the boy was in White Moon City. The possibility would only cross his mind if the young man left the city. Therefore, he didn¡¯t care about anything Mask Face said; he simply made the right sounds. White Moon certainly had more powerhouses in residence. As strong as White Shark is, he didn¡¯t have the confidence to fight someone of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s level.

    Mask Face spoke a bit more before leaving to collect men to follow Sea Shark. Thetter was strong enough that he shouldn¡¯t be allowed to perish in Silver Moon.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao breathed out heavily after he finished reading some files. Who would¡¯ve thought that there would be so many pirates in the North Sea? ording to information left by Golden Spear and the others, there were a hundred pirate factions in the extensive north sea. Eight of them dominated and had Novas in residence¡ªwith even peak Novas in some.

    The Silver Moon Guards had met one of the more famous factions two years ago¡ªthe White Shark Raiders. Their leader White Shark was an extremely formidable person. He hadn¡¯t been present in person at thest encounter, just their thirdmander who was another Nova powerhouse.

    The three leaders of the White Shark Raiders were all Novas. There were ten thousand members of this pirate faction and the thirdmander had led a thousand people to raid White Moon City. The Silver Moon Guards rebuffed them; Golden Spear almost killed the guy. Sadly, he managed to escape.

    The Guards suffered high casualties in the skirmish, but it also meant that the faction didn¡¯t dare trespass in the Moon Sea for the next two years.

    ¡°Are there really so many Novas in the seas?¡±

    Just a pirate faction alone possessed three Novamanders. Li Hao furrowed his brows. How many Novas were there to be found in the entire North Sea then? And how were they so strong?

    After a while, the young man narrowed his eyes in thought. Perhaps... it wasn¡¯t just the bandits in the seas, but also some characters supporting them from the shadows. Whether it was to highlight their own importance by permitting enemies to prosper or having other schemes in mind... Li Hao had longe to his own conclusions about theserge factions, important personages, and famous ns.

    None of them were anything good! Why else would so many Novas choose to be pirates? They would be a sovereign of any ce they settled in onnd. They could also join the three great organizations or nine ministries. It would be a decent life in that case.

    <i>These people might not be able to hold themselves in check after the director¡¯s departure... Should I bring the fight to them?</i>

    Li Hao pondered over his next steps and came to the decision that he could go take a look. He¡¯d yet to truly explore the deep blue himself as well. It¡¯d be nice to get his bearings in the sea. This task fell to him since he was still here. The young man suddenly regretted not leaving with Hou Xiaochen. If he had, the wily foxes in Silver Moon could just y among themselves.

    ......

    <i>The za of the barracks.</i>

    It was already night by the time Li Hao emerged from the warehouses. This was the first day of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s departure. The Demon Hunters were still training. They worked very hard, possibly out of habit, or possibly having been inspired after witnessing Li Hao¡¯s strength.

    Whether it was the Sword Sect or the Inspectorate, these people all had very humble identities. Some were orphans, some were regr people in society, others had identallye in contact with martial dao and progressed from there. Aside from Hong Qing, they were all from the bottom rungs of society. No one¡¯s status was that high and not even Hong Qing felt special from her background. Apart from extra affection from Hong Yitang when she grew, she wasn¡¯t treated differently in the Sword Sect.

    She had to wash her own clothes and make her own food, a far cry from the young miss that one might imagine. Therefore, she didn¡¯t halt her daily cultivation goals when everyone trained. She worked diligently despite having recentlyprehended the aura.

    The group paused when Li Hao approached them. The young man studied them thoughtfully.

    ¡°In staying behind, we have automatically epted a mission to strengthen the coastal defenses! The pirates are the enemy we need to face. You guys might not be familiar with them...¡±

    ¡°I know about them!¡± called out a Sword Sect disciple through clenched teeth. ¡°I¡¯m from the North Sea, we were once invaded by pirates! Theymitted all sorts of unspeakable horrors, burning down houses, killing, looting, and destroying cities for the fun of it. They ughtered people for enjoyment! They¡¯replete animals!! The city I lived in beforeing to the Sword Sect suffered one of their raids and was razed to the ground. Only some elderly, women, and children barely managed to survive the horrors...¡±

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought that he¡¯d run into survivors of a pirate raid here! He was surprised, but quickly ced the disciple as someone that Hong Yitang had taken in from the North Sea. He¡¯d grown up to be a martial master.

    ¡°Leader, I¡¯ll be the first to sign up against the pirates!¡± snarled the young man. ¡°But... I know how cruel they can be, how inhumane! Silver Moon doesn¡¯t have many cities near the coast and has always been protected by the Silver Moon Guards, so the province doesn¡¯t know much about the pirates. If you wish to fight them, leader, you must be careful and be on guard against them threatening us...¡±

    ¡°What kind of threats?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Razing cities!¡± The young man ground his teeth. ¡°Never negotiate! The city I was in had supernaturals protecting it, but the pirate leader threatened our supernaturals. If we surrendered, they would only loot our valuables. If we resisted, the city would be destroyed! Our supernaturals felt that we couldn¡¯t stand against the enemy and elected to ept those terms. And then... we all died, no one was spared!¡±

    ¡°How can onepromise when the enemy is at the gates...¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°That¡¯s right...¡± answered the morose young man. ¡°But people were still afraid when faced with the cruel and mighty pirates. They didn¡¯t dare risk their lives and hoped that the pirates would leave after filling their pockets. Killing wouldn¡¯t be of use to them¡ªwe didn¡¯t have that many supernaturals. It was mostly mundanes, and what was the point of killing mundanes?¡±

    Such were the thoughts shared by many people. <i>I pose no threat to you and have more valuables, what would you kill me for?</i>

    But... would pirates by pirates if they listened to reason and spoke of humanity? They killed for fun! It was pure satisfaction to see a moment¡¯s worth of despair and hear a pained wail.

 Chapter 510: Heading Out to Sea (I)

    <h4>Chapter 510: Heading Out to Sea (I)</h4>

    ¡°But leader, the pirates are a bunch of animals that don¡¯t care about anything other than their own pleasure. Their supernaturals even research various ways to kill and ughter mundanes¡ªburning them alive, sealing them in ice, burying them alive, making them split open by first freezing and then burning, or ripping them open...¡± The young man grew more agitated as he talked and burned with fury. ¡°These animals won¡¯t stop when you howl with anguish¡ªthey just get more and more excited!

    ¡°They find fun in killing people and don¡¯t do so for cultivation or looting treasures. What¡¯s useful for them in regr cities is just food, clothes, and daily necessities. People would give them all of that if they wanted it. But they want women as well, and at that point... there are actually people who are willing to offer themselves...¡±

    Li Hao furrowed his brows, but remained silent.

    ¡°Yet they aren¡¯t satisfied with that! Cruelty runs in their veins!¡± snarled the young man. ¡°My baby sister was only five... They...¡±

    He clenched his teeth and stopped talking.

    Li Hao looked at him and asked bluntly, ¡°What is your name?¡± He didn¡¯t hide the fact that he didn¡¯t know the speaker¡¯s name. The young man had only been a yer when he first arrived. Li Hao recalled most of the Sunderers¡¯ names, but didn¡¯t know many of the yers.

    ¡°Hong Chou!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s look sharpened. That was the Hong of Hong Yitang, wasn¡¯t it? And the Chou of... of enmity for his family being ughtered?

    Li Hao nodded withoutment. ¡°As the pirates might attack, I would like to head out to sea to observe them first and familiarize ourselves with fighting on water. We¡¯re unustomed to the seas and Sunderers will find it difficult to fly over open water. The difficulty level will be high. Regardless, we epted the mission. What do you guys think, shall we take a look?¡±

    The Demon Hunters looked at each other.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Hong Qing quickly piped up. ¡°Leader, since the Sword Sect has joined the Demon Hunters, we will not shrink back!¡±

    In the distance, the stocky Wang Chao¡ªnephew of Wang Henggang¡ªsaid in a muffled voice, ¡°We of the Inspectorate are not afraid of death either! If we were, we wouldn¡¯t be part of the Inspectorate!¡±

    ¡°We are all Demon Hunters now, there¡¯s no need to separate ourselves so clearly,¡± Liu Long rified. He turned to Li Hao. ¡°Just give the order, leader. The Silver Moon Guards¡¯ first regtion is to follow orders. In Battle Heaven, the Battle Heaven Army¡¯s first regtion is also to follow orders. Since we have joined the Demon Hunters of the Silver Moon Guards, we will obey whatever order you give so long as it is not carelessly made. We will kill enemies or rush into the battlefield!¡±

    ¡°I haven¡¯t led so many people before, so it¡¯s taking some getting used to,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Then let¡¯s head out to sea sooner rather thanter. Director Hou¡¯s departure may be causing some people to stir with interest. We set out tonight. Prepare some food and water, everyone.¡±

    He thought of something and flung out a bunch of storage rings. ¡°Pick one each, they¡¯re all storage rings.¡±

    The group paused. Storage rings? The team leaders looked at each other¡ªthey knew what that item was, but the sight in front of them was incredulous. Only Srs possessed these items! Storage rings didn¡¯t require a Sr¡¯s strength to use, but that only that level of supernatural could afford to buy and hold onto one.

    How many were in front of them? Fifty? Sixty? Or even more!

    ¡°Leader, this...¡±

    ¡°Just some battle spoils from before,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°There¡¯s too many of them for me to use. I only need a few. You can bring some more food and water for the journey and store your ck armor inside. That can¡¯t be retained within the body, but it¡¯ll transform into a small round ball after I activate it. Transport will be much more convenient then.¡±

    He¡¯d yet to activate the ck armor he already owned. It couldn¡¯t be stored within the body, but could be minimized to the size of a ball after activation. The ball was much bigger than the ones of the bronze and silver armor. Its mechanisms were moreplex and were still the size of a head in ball form. It could only be stored within a storage ring; usage was very inconvenient otherwise.

    Bronze armor was different. The user didn¡¯t need to personally put it on¡ªit instantly manifested. Silver armor could be stored within the body, and what made ck armorplicated was that one needed to open the ball, turn it back into armor, then put it on...

    There had been too many Battle Heaven soldiers back in the day and ck armor was standard issue. Less care had gone into its manufacture, but even so, it was already quite formidable.

    ¡°It can turn into a round ball?¡± This piqued the crowd¡¯s interest.

    ¡°Activate? What other special functions might there be?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    ¡°I don''t know about special functions.¡± Li Hao smiled at the outpouring of interest. ¡°But I do know of one benefit, and that I¡¯ll be able to contact everyone within five hundred kilometers. Its defensive capabilities will be a bit stronger and wearing it will facilitate our assembly of the Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation. When the Battle Heaven Army fell into formation, they did so instantly. The armor is so incredible that they¡¯ll heighten the chances of sess.¡±

    This was information he read from the silver armor, it was a state out of reach for the current army. Assembling into formation required a connection between blood qi and internal force. The army was dead; only obsession lingered. It could not make use of formations. If it could, just three thousand troops would easily dismantle the Nova trespassers despite the weak strength remaining to them. That was most frightening of all!

    Less than one tenth of the army¡¯s strength remained after they lost their physical bodies.

    The Demon Hunters were overjoyed. So this degree of convenience was possible?

    Liu Longughed and suddenly took out arge ck ball. It instantly morphed into armor that he swiftly opened and put on. ¡°My set is activated. This mode is very convenient and much stronger than before. The sets that you guys are ustomed to work well against Sunres, but can do almost nothing against Srs. I¡¯ve discovered that the armor is exceedingly high quality. So long as we have sufficient blood qi and internal force, even Srs will find it difficult to break in the short run!¡±

    Surprised nces were exchanged throughout the crowd. So the armor was that impressive?

    ¡°Its defensive capabilities remain very strong,¡± Li Hao supplemented. ¡°They are just greatly reduced before activation and require the support of special energy from the city. It should be much stronger after activation.

    ¡°Also, it¡¯s possible to fly with this armor.¡±

    The Demon Hunters jerked with surprise again. Fly? Martial masters could not fly before they reached Sunderer. Once they were Dominators, they could make use of mind intent to walk through the air like birds. Sunderers had to push off from the ground to soar through the air. They could hover for a bit, but flight was out of reach for them.

    ¡°I haven¡¯t tried it with Sunderers,¡± Li Hao continued uncertainly. ¡°But both Deputy Liu and I can. However, we already possessed the qualifications to fly, so it¡¯s difficult to determine if the credit goes to the armor. I haven¡¯t fully grasped all of the armor¡¯s functions either.¡±

    Excitement swirled through the crowd.

    ¡°Also, as the armor is a fully contained system, it might be able to be used in the sea. Once again, this is just my spection. We can test it out and see if it holds up.¡± He was also surprised by how versatile the armor was, but perhaps this was only to be expected given how strong the ancient civilization was.

    ......

    Li Hao entered the office area after he left the za. Some people were waiting for him.

    ¡°Senior brother...¡± Wang Ming greeted him with a beaming grin.

    ¡°Call me troop leader!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Wang Ming had no choice but to change his honorific. ¡°Troop leader, Li Meng and the others have arrived.¡±

    ¡°I see them.¡± Li Hao appraised the three additions. Yun Yao was as quiet as usual. She inclined her head at the young man, the very picture of refined tranquility.

    ¡°Senior brother... leader... director...¡± Li Meng was the most simple out of them all. She was almost squealing with excitement. ¡°Forget, I should call you leader. Leader is the most benevolent of them all! You haven¡¯t forgotten us even aftering into your own...¡±

    The three of them hadined when they were assigned to Silver City and were even more ufortable with the situation after Yuan Shuo forcefully took them as disciples. But now... they were all excited beyond belief.

    Hu Hao was much quieter. He resembled Yun Yao¡¯s taciturn state and murmured, ¡°Leader.¡±

    The three of them were Fullmoons¡ªthe equivalent ofte Sunderer. They needed to enter Plenilune if they were to be peak Sunderers. They hadn¡¯t even set foot into Sunre yet.

    Granted, this wasn¡¯t a slow pace. It was all rtive. Compared to Wang Ming, they did appear slow. The four had been on simr footing before, but he was ate Sunre now and might already be a peak Sunre attempting to ascend to Sr if he hadn¡¯t purposefully controlled his progression.

    Li Hao waved a hand and summoned four sets of armor. ¡°Wear these. While the armor will suppress your mysterious power, it also prevents supernatural detection.¡±

    The Battle Heaven Army was not the one of energy. There was another specialized army for those talents. Thus, the ck armor levied certain restrictions on the supernaturals, but Li Hao wasn¡¯t looking to them forbat ability. He just needed support from the sidelines.

    ¡°I¡¯m leading the team out on a mission tonight. You know about what happened before and that there will be certain dangers involved. You guys...¡±

    ¡°No objections here!¡± Li Meng shrieked. ¡°I can do anything if I can be as strong as senior brother Wang!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao stared at her. This girl was so excitable and the least dependable supernatural he knew. She liked to focus her attention randomly in prior urences and even tried to peek at Yuan Shuo teaching his disciple. She was almost beaten to death for that transgression, but she still hadn¡¯t learned her lesson.

    ¡°How far can your third eye reach now?¡± he asked instead.

    ¡°One thousand meters?¡± Li Meng wasn¡¯t certain either. ¡°I¡¯ve never tried to reach its limit.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. That would do. He could see balls of light, so the only concern he had was that the other was a martial master. Then he wouldn¡¯t be able to see who he faced. On the other hand, Li Meng would be able to.

    That set up a situation in which he could glimpse all supernaturals within one thousand meters and Li Meng could identify all martial masters. Their abilitiesplemented each other and prevented enemies from approaching them.

    However, their range was too short. One thousand meters was much too short. If it was just Li Hao, he would be able to see balls of Nova light ten thousand meters away if there was nothing obstructing his vision.

    ¡°Sis Yun, you¡¯re a water attribute and skilled at healing. You can handle regr martial master wounds, right?¡±

    ¡°I can.¡± Yun Yao nodded slightly. ¡°So long as their organs aren¡¯t severely damaged, I can heal regr wounds.¡±

    That was good.

 Chapter 511: Heading Out to Sea (II)

    <h4>Chapter 511: Heading Out to Sea (II)</h4>

    Li Hao looked at Hu Hao¡ªHu Hao¡¯s ability was more singr, he could fly. All martial masters could fly upon reaching Dominator, so flight supernaturals were slightly redundant.

    Supernaturals of unique abilities were very interesting. They hadn¡¯t opened the locks of their five organs or four limbs, but somewhere else that Li Hao couldn¡¯t pinpoint. The flight attribute was a mutation of the wind attribute, but the wind attribute was already a special category outside of the five elements.

    These people had possibly opened locks that were yet to be discovered in the body. When Li Hao absorbed wind energy, it strengthened his overall body. As for Li Meng¡¯s third eye... that was even more unique. Who the hell knew which lock she¡¯d opened?

    These people bore remarkable potential in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. To him, all supernaturals of a special category possessed deep potential because they started off with special locks. If they could then see their regr locks, they would be one level ahead of others when the rest searched for other locks to break.

    Of course, that was a matter far removed from the present. The locks of the four limbs and five organs were already known. These unique supernaturals would have to break eight or nine locks to amount to anything out of the ordinary. However, if the ones of the organs proved hard to break, then they would upy an advantage again. While others attempted the second lock of their five organs, they would only be trying their first. There would be no conflict between the two energies.

    ¡°Are we going out on a mission tonight?¡± Wang Ming asked excitedly while Li Hao pondered over possibilities. ¡°Where to?¡±

    ¡°Not telling you, you have a big mouth.¡±

    Wang Ming drooped visibly. He didn¡¯t have a big mouth! Why was this rumor still being circted?

    ¡°You three should quickly train some right now,¡± Li Hao said. ¡°I¡¯m not looking for you to be Sunre, Plenilune will do. You should at least be peak Darkmoon¡ªFullmoon is a bit too weak.¡±

    He crushed some mysterious power stones with a wave of his hand and dissipated a surge of pure elemental power. Water energy flowed toward Yun Yao, wind energy toward Hu Hao. Since Li Hao didn¡¯t know what element of energy to give to Li Meng, he sent her a bit of the five elements, wind, thunder, dark, and even unattributed energy.

    ¡°Absorb some of each and see which one is most useful for you. This isn¡¯t ordinary mysterious power, so focus on whichever is most effective,¡± he said to Li Meng. He was very curious about what attribute the third eye fell under.

    Li Hao had seen his fair share of supernatural abilities thus far, even those of the ice and dark attributes, as well as those used for support. But growing a third eye was one he hadn¡¯t seen anywhere else. Was it a real eye, or was it a physical manifestation of something else?

    Li Meng was long used to her ability and didn¡¯t dwell on its particrs. She absorbed a bit of every element and couldn¡¯t stop smiling in delight. It was harder for her to improvepared to others, so the fact that she¡¯d made it to Fullmoon meant that her absorption efficacy rate might be a bit higher than Wang Ming. She wouldn¡¯t have made it to Darkmoon otherwise. People like Wang Ming knew how to properly go through the steps¡ªLi Meng stumbled through them and took in whatever energy she could.

    The other two absorbed energy in a normal fashion while Li Meng tried some of every kind.

    ¡°This is amazing! Any one of these is stronger than the unattributed energy I absorbed before!¡± she eximed.

    Li Hao, however, frowned. Was there no specific energy that was a good match? He could note visible increases in Yun Yao¡¯s ball of light as she absorbed water energy. While Hu Hao¡¯s progress was slower with wind energy, his ball of light was strengthening as well. Although Li Meng advanced, her efficacy rate was very low!

    Perhaps this was fast enough for her, but for Li Hao and his special eyes, it was too slow. These people were supernaturals he¡¯d met early on and were even Yuan Shuo¡¯s honorary disciples. Granted, his teacher had just wanted to pave the way for him then as no one expected Li Hao to improve so quickly.

    But since they were honorary disciples, there was no room for regret. Everyone else was improving very quickly, but Li Menggged behind. It gave Li Hao much food for thought. At this rate, she might only be a Sunre when the rest were advancing to Srs, and her progress might be more difficult as time went on.

    His ears twitched as he thought¡ªa dog had appeared beside him. Panther ran over because it sensed energy wafting from this area and wanted a bite to eat. But it lost interest upon seeing that there wasn¡¯t much energy to be had. The feast from earlier was the best! It was so full!

    Panther had perfectly filled out its glossy pelt¡ªa marked contrast to its previous skin and bones. It wagged its tail and twitched its nose. The ck dog listened quietly to Li Hao after a nomittal nce at Li Meng.

    ¡°I really can¡¯t tell what attribute your third eye is,¡± Li Hao admitted with slight frustration. You absorb various types of energy at the same rate, there isn¡¯t one that¡¯s particrly suited for you. This is hard to manage.¡±

    ¡°This is fast enough.¡± Li Meng didn¡¯t mind. ¡°You¡¯re the best, leader!¡±

    Panther shook its tail and nced at Li Meng a few more times. Some images seemed to form in a mind filled with thoughts of eating, but they vanished a secondter. Puzzled, the dog looked at Li Meng up and down a few times.

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± It suddenly barked at the girl.

    Li Hao lowered his head to look at the dog and was surprised to find it addressing Li Meng. ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°Arf!¡± Panther made a circle around Li Meng, confused as well. It seemed to think of something in the next moment and barked energetically at Li Hao!

    The young man was finding it quite troublesome that such a strong dog didn¡¯t know how to speak. <i>How am I supposed to know what your barks mean? I can get your meaning sometimes, but other times... I really can¡¯t! For example, how am I supposed to know what you¡¯re talking about when you bark at Li Meng?</i>

    Panther was likewise dejected! It thought of something in the next second and widened its eyes at Li Hao. ¡°Aooouuuu!¡±

    It sounded like an extremely furious dog; a vicious golden dog appeared in Li Hao¡¯s mind. The young man blinked, rather surprised.

    ¡°So... you really have be a martial master dog?¡±

    This was mind intent, wasn¡¯t it? This dog was very strange. Its physical body was formidably strong¡ªwho¡¯d trained it inside the city? Panther was crazy strong! And this mind intent... was the dog showing off to him?

    Li Hao shifted tracks in the next moment and thought of something. He looked at Li Meng, then at Panther. ¡°Do you mean to say... that she is... a mutation of this mental strength system?¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther rapidly bobbed its head up and down, quite excited that the young man finally understood. It didn¡¯t understand what it saw either, just that the thought had suddenly urred to it. The third eye was rather familiar, like some sort of mental strength ability.

    Li Hao sorted through new thoughts¡ªa heavenly eye cultivator?

    Indeed, that was what he was thinking about. Hou Xiaochen had once given him an overview of such cultivators and Li Haoter asked He Yong a few questions to clear up confusion. ording to the young man¡¯s judgment, the ones who were able to see the scarlet shadows were all heavenly eye cultivators. It was hard for them to grow stronger, but once they broke through certain obstacles on the path of cultivation, they became exceedingly terrifying.

    Red Moon had one such Heaven''s Eye before, what a pity they¡¯d died extremely swiftly to one stroke from Director General Wang.

    As for himself... Li Hao realized his was different after asking around. He didn¡¯t inquire about further details.

    Was Li Meng a Heaven¡¯s Eye? But he never heard of someone so gifted being bestowed with a <i>physical</i> third eye. It was also said that Heaven¡¯s Eyes found it difficult to control themselves during cultivation. It was easy to self detonate, a trait that Li Meng showed no signs of.

    Li Hao set the matter aside after momentary confusion. It would be hard for her to improve if she was part of the mental attribute. Even he himself was yet to sessfully experiment what kind of power would give rise to mental improvements.

    He had the Mind Fruits, but wouldn¡¯t carelessly spend them. Part of his attention now centered on Li Meng¡¯s third eye, but he had no way to improve it. ¡°Just keep training for now. Improving at a faster rate than before is still good.¡±

    He had no other ideas in mind at the moment.

    ......

    Li Hao entered the warehouse and collected the remaining mysterious power stones. His thoughts then turned to Hao Lianchuan. They might run into pirates tonight, should he bring that guy along? Being a Sr, he was wrong enough. More importantly, he was eager and champed at the bit to follow the group.

    After some thought, the young man shook his head and dismissed the notion. They were just going out for a look, not to pick a fight. If both the young man and the Night Watcher acting director ran off, who should the Night Watchers look for guidance if anything happened?

    Therefore, Li Hao set aside the notion of bringing the fatty with him.

    <i>Next time.</i>

    ......

    Night soon descended. It was the middle of the night. Fifty-five people, excluding Li Hao, put on ck armor. There were fifty-one to begin with, they were reinforced by four supernaturals. Li Haomanded them to wear the armor so that it would mask their supernatural ripples. He¡¯d activated all of the suits of armor.

    With that, there was an immediate benefit¡ªsmoothermunication between his people. ¡°Everyone can receive my messages now and I have granted you authorization tomunicate with me. But don¡¯t chat unless there is a need to. Try to keep as quiet and silent as you can for the mission. Contact me through the armor if there¡¯s need.¡±

    Martial masters did not emanate presences to begin with. With the armor giving them internalmunications, the Demon Hunters were nearly inplete stealth mode.

    ¡°We¡¯re just familiarizing ourselves with the seas tonight, but can also practice with smaller bands of pirates if wee across them.¡± Li Hao fell silent after giving a string of instructions.

 Chapter 512: Heading Out to Sea (III)

    <h4>Chapter 512: Heading Out to Sea (III)</h4>

    On theirst mission, the Demon Hunters ran several days straight while they followed Li Hao. They were familiar with their leader¡¯s style by now and didn¡¯t say anything. The Demon Hunters resembled an army as they moved out. Although their movements weren¡¯t as crisp as the Battle Heaven Army, they were a close match for the Silver Moon Guards.

    The four supernatural additions moved with Liu Long. They counted as outside personnel. Fifty-five people soon vanished in the darkness.

    They weren¡¯t too far from the shore, so when they reached it momentster, Li Hao waved a wraith-like ship onto the sea. Its design was peculiar as there seemed to be wings on either side of it.

    It was a ship that could fly!

    The crowd regarded it curiously. What was that? When they saw Li Hao board the ship, they followed suit. It wasn¡¯t that big, but they found that the internal hold was much bigger than it appeared to be.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. He entered the cockpit and shoved a few mysterious power stones into an indentation. The young man poked around the console andnded a map onto the disy screen.

    ¡°We¡¯ll follow this route until we reach the intersection of the Moon and North Seas. Our presence will be concealed and the entire journey should be roughly fifteen hundred kilometers. You¡¯re an origin weapon, so you won¡¯t be too slow, will you?¡±

    There was no response from the ship. Li Hao didn¡¯t mind and looked out at the sea through the cockpit. The waters were pitch ck at night. Regr ships moving through the waters at night easily ran into trouble if there weren¡¯t lights around. But for origin weapons, all that mattered if there was sufficient energy.

    The Vast Sun Ship that could fly shot soundlessly over the water surface like an arrow loosed from a bow. It vanished into the distant sea.

    ......

    Li Hao¡¯s departure was startlingly quiet. Not even the supernaturals at the base realized that they were gone. d in ck armor, the martial masters had avoided the surveince cameras when they noiselessly threaded through the artificial forest. The base was as quiet as before after they left, awaiting the next sunrise.

    Everyone thought that Li Hao would stay in ce at the barracks on the first day after Hou Xiaochen¡¯s departure. Surely the young man would spend a few quiet days at the base. No one foresaw that he would run off with his team the first night.

    The little ck ship moved over the waves like a shadow. Not even those monitoring the sections it traveled through discovered anything!

    ......

    At the same time, Hou Xiaochen¡¯s convoy hadn¡¯t traveled too far. They didn¡¯t stop for the entire day, traveling at an even pace to depart Near River. It moved through the night to head for the North Sea province. It would be afternoon or even evening of the next day before they crossed the North Sea.

    As Hou Xiaochen was still close to the northern provinces, Big Beard and his pirates didn¡¯t daree too close to Silver Moon yet. They would only venture near when Hou Xiaochen hadpletely departed from the premises and disappeared from the vicinity of the North Sea.

    On this night, Big Beard and his men were as if wild horses freed from their halters. They raided a small town along the coast and didn¡¯t raise much of a fuss because they ughtered almost everyone who lived there.

    ......

    The convoy of cars continued to trundle along the roads.

    Inside the lead car, Hou Xiaochen opened his eyes and looked to the sides. They were entering the North Sea province, but this area was even more deste than Silver Moon. One could see some corpses by the side of the road.

    ¡°We¡¯re close to the North Sea province,¡± Manager Yu said softly. ¡°The three northern provinces have been aplete mess during this time, but we have the Silver Moon Guards with us, so those people won¡¯t dare run afoul of us.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen inclined his head, his gaze trained on the sides of the road. The road itself was pitted and marked with potholes. Faint sounds of crying could be heard on the wind. They were very far away, but his hearing was keen and he still heard them. It was October¡ªthe days in the North Sea province were starting to cool down.

    ¡°The pirates are running wild and the rebels are equally rampant. The armies of the three northern provinces are starting to rage out of control. The three provinces have teetered on the edge of disintegration after the General of Northern Pacification died. No one can take over hismand. An era of chaos is upon us!¡± Hou Xiaochen murmured. Manager Yu nodded, but didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°Do you think I¡¯m behind Kou Long¡¯s death?¡±

    The woman didn¡¯t say anything. Who knew?

    ¡°If I did it, do you think I did the right or wrong thing after seeing the unrest that has developed in the rioting three provinces after Kou Long died?¡±

    ¡°You naturally have your reasons for doing so, director...¡± Manager Yu began.

    ¡°No, you are human and have your own thoughts. Don¡¯t just parrot what others say!¡± Hou Xiaochen cut her off calmly. ¡°People should have their own ideals, dreams, and thoughts! You are Yu Luocha and also Yu Fuyao. My thoughts are not your thoughts. Thus, what do you think?¡±

    ¡°As tyrannical as Kou Long was when he suppressed the three provinces,¡± Manager Yu began with a frown. ¡°One has to say that the people of those provinces could still eke out a meager living because of him. Now that he¡¯s gone, the provinces arepletely out of control. This is just the beginning. If they cannot be pacified, swathes of people will soon start dying! The winter season is upon us and winters in the north are too cold. Once snow seals off the cities and ice seals off the North Sea, we¡¯ll have bodies littered everywhere we see!

    ¡°There are more than three hundred million citizens in the prosperous three northern provinces and more than one hundred cities. The unrest has now swept through one third of that area. Even if only one thousand people die in each city, that still adds up to an enormous sum.¡±

    ¡°So Kou Long should not have died, is it?¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. ¡°At least not right now.¡±

    ¡°But there was also reason for him to die...¡± Manager Yu fell in step with his line of reasoning still. ¡°He¡¯s killed at will in these years of ruling over the three provinces. Discipline is a mess among his men and they often kill good, honest people to im aplishments...¡±

    ¡°None of that¡¯s important!¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head. ¡°The important thing is, he shouldn¡¯t have died at this time. If he was supposed to die, then there should¡¯ve been someone to take overmand of the three armies. We shouldn¡¯t have this situation of people milling about uncertainly. Killing Kou Long has caused the three provinces to ragepletely out of control!¡±

    Manager Yu blinked. What did the director mean by this?

    ¡°Everyone thinks that Huang Yu and I killed him,¡± Hou Xiaochen suddenly said after momentary silence. ¡°We couldn¡¯t be bothered to argue. Truth be told, we did visit the provinces on that day, but not to kill him. We came to protect him.¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°The royal family sent a killer.¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Manager Yu¡¯s jaw dropped with iprehension.

    Hou Xiaochen sighed and shook his head with dejection. He leaned back in his seat, his face inscrutable. After a long moment, he suddenly said, ¡°And I know who it was that came! The Steppe Prince!¡±

    There were nine princes and thirty-six dukes among the royal family. While the Xus were a dukedom, they were not of the royal family. The royal dukes were all members of the royal family.

    <i>The Steppe King...</i>

    Manager Yu gave it some thought before her eyes widened with surprise. ¡°The one who established the Skystar Guards?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned. ¡°My old boss! Huang Yu and I fought him together and we... lost.¡±

    Yu Luocha¡¯s expression shifted drastically. <i>Lost?? </i>That was impossible. She¡¯d always thought that, while Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t invincible, no one was able to match him in this current state unless it was someone like Earthturner Sword who¡¯d unsealed himself. And for him to lose while working with Huang Yu... that was impossible!

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, it¡¯s to be expected.¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°He was the one who established the Skystar Guards, making him the preeminent martial master back in the day. With the royal family having bided its time all these years, he should¡¯ve seen a corresponding increase in his strength.¡±

    ¡°But... that shouldn¡¯t have happened!¡± Manager Yu said nkly. Kou Long was a royally appointed general! He was a staunch supporter of the royal family in the north, were they crazy to kill him?! The royal familycked power to begin with, and now they killed their own general. What was this, if not madness?

    Who would believe this?? Manager Yu didn¡¯t; no one else would.

    ¡°Indeed, have they gone mad? Who would believe that?¡± Hou Xiaochen said calmly. ¡°But we... do! How else is the royal family supposed to rearrange their banners and drums and descend upon the world if the world is not in need of them again? How else are they to make known their might and help the dynasty again? Kou Long¡¯s death and the disturbance of the three provinces is proof that the nine ministries are impotent!

    ¡°They assassinate an important general for the sheer purpose of seizing power and restricting the royal family. No matter how many die in the three provinces, the responsibility falls on my head and in the nine ministries¡¯ hands. If the royal family can quell the rebellions, that will earn them the people¡¯s deepest gratitude...

    ¡°The people are sometimes blind followers who only see what¡¯s in front of them. They don¡¯t think too far ahead. That cannot be helped as if everyone was a sage, the world would not be what it is.

    ¡°They only see that their previously passable lives have be a sheer hell with Kou Long¡¯s passing. Ai!¡±

    He shook his head with a sigh. Everyone thought him omnipotent, so who would¡¯ve guessed that he¡¯d suffered several major losses in a row.

    ¡°The royal family... is crazy!¡± Manager Yu breathed in shock.

    ¡°Crazy? No, just confident and with too much ambition,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°With Kou Long¡¯s death, they are the pitiful victim in many people¡¯s eyes. Sympathy throughout thend will pour in after their staunchest supporter has been killed. The royal family has already abdicated, yet they are still being backed into a corner!

    ¡°The Steppe Prince loses nothing by this. The three northern provinces weren¡¯t important to begin with, so why not use them to strive for a chance for the royal family to return to its throne?¡±

    ¡°Then that battle...¡± Manager Yu¡¯s brows were tightly furrowed.

    ¡°The prince was injured, but we couldn¡¯t kill him,¡± Hou Xiaochen mentioned with regret. ¡°It would¡¯ve been the greatest news had he died. What does Kou Long matter? Killing the Steppe King and letting the general know that the prince was there to kill him... He would absolutely turn on the royal family after that! The nine ministries would also be on high alert and allow them to fight amongst each other in Skystar City. That would bring true peace throughout thend!

    ¡°What a pity... we failed.¡±

 Chapter 513: Demon Hunters! (I)

    <h4>Chapter 513: Demon Hunters! (I)</h4>

    While people surmised that the unrest in the three provinces was Hou Xiaochen¡¯s chance to escape, that wasn¡¯t what he sought at all. What he wanted more was for the nine ministries and royal family to fight each other in Skystar City. That was his true chance to free himself.

    The current situation of near-open rebellion in the three provinces that could embroil Silver Moon at any second was far from ideal. Heading to the central region was a choice he¡¯d made out of having no choice.

    If they¡¯d killed the Steppe Prince, that would¡¯ve caused true turmoil in the world. The royal family wouldn¡¯t be able to contain themselves. However, he and Huang Yu had both underestimated their opponent. While they¡¯d wounded the prince, they were the ones who walked away with heavier injuries.

    Manager Yu looked around in a daze and said softly after a long while, ¡°No one will believe you if you speak of this without a dead prince to show for it.¡±

    <i>Even I didn¡¯t consider the royal family as a culprit, much less those not in the know! The mouths of the people can fuse gold together. The director is behind it now, even though he isn¡¯t.</i>

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°I intend to visit my old superior on this trip to the central region.¡±

    ¡°But...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m part of the nine ministries now. He won¡¯t dare do anything while I¡¯m there! My goal is twofold in traveling to Skystar City¡ªfirst, eliminate the members of the three great organizations. Second, set myself against the royal family as a member of the nine ministries!¡±

    Manager Yu didn¡¯t respond. Either one of these goals was exceedingly dangerous. That the director entered the capital with these aims would truly turn Skystar City into a pool of dragons and den of tigers!

    ¡°I tell you all this so that you¡¯ll understand the dangers within. Don¡¯t be like Green Peacock and the others. My thoughts differ from Ying Hongyue¡¯s. I had you oversee the Night Watchers these years because I wished for you to be able to act independently. You¡¯ve done... well enough.¡±

    A small smile bloomed over Yu Luocha¡¯s face like an ice lotus unfurling. Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t pause to appreciate it. He closed his eyes to rest, leaving the manager looking at him in wordless resignation. The car quieted down as she ceased talking as well.

    ......

    A ship shot over the water surface in the darkness, as if a <i>kunpeng</i> entering the sea. [1] Some illumination could be seen in the distance. Li Hao gauged them to be from Flowing Cloud, one of the three cities along the coast. Next came Abundance, and finally Southern Ford. Southern Ford was close to the North Sea.

    Li Hao approached the ship¡¯s bow and looked into the distance. Lights glittered in resplendent glory. The cities of Silver Moon¡¯s south were more boisterous at nightpared to the ones in the north. He could even vaguely make out people on the beach¡ªcouples that were enjoying the night. Did they know that a city along the coast might attract pirate raids?

    Perhaps they didn¡¯t.

    Others joined him at the ship¡¯s bow¡ªLiu Long was asposed as ever, but Wang Ming was nauseous and seemed to be seasick. He dry heaved a few times as he stared at the lights.

    ¡°I feel awful... but we¡¯re so fast! We¡¯re already at Flowing Cloud?¡±

    Several hundred kilometers separated White Moon from Flowing Cloud, yet it felt like they¡¯d reached the city in the blink of an eye. The ship beneath their feet was fast!

    ¡°We saw some merchant ships along the way,¡± Liu Long transmitted through the armor when Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°They are still around at night. I thought there was no seamerce around Silver Moon, but now it looks like that part of trade is still thriving.¡±

    There were some ships at sea; upon further observation, Li Hao found that they weren¡¯t pirates. These ships generally had a supernatural in residence to ount for idents. If they really ran into pirates, one supernatural wouldn¡¯t make a difference.

    Li Hao continued to remain quiet as the little ship swiftly sailed beyond Flowing Cloud, leaving the lights behind them. Wang Ming continued to sway in a queasy daze.

    ¡°Sailing through the night reminds me of novels where they speak of cleaving through the darkness, braving wind and wave to protect the people! Some people probably don¡¯t even know that there¡¯s people safeguarding them on the seas in the middle of the night!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t get ahead of yourself,¡± Liu Longughed through the armormunication system. ¡°Be careful of being so scared that you can¡¯t even walk if we run into pirates. You already look like you''re having trouble staying on your feet.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m seasick, this is a normal reaction. I might be fine from an adrenaline rush when we encounter enemies.¡±

    Li Hao continued to silently stare ahead as the two chatted. Wang Ming¡¯s words etched themselves in his heart. He thought of the Battle Heaven Army. Cleaving through the darkness, braving wind and wave, safeguarding Silver Moon...

    <i>Is that so?</i>

    He hadn¡¯t thought this way before they set out, but a small degree of indescribable pride rose in his heart when he thought of the prosperous Flowing Cloud behind them. <i>Do you guys know that there¡¯s an army protecting your waterways in the darkness?</i>

    It hadn¡¯t beenplete impulse that he suddenly decided to sail the seas in the middle of the night. Various thoughts shed through his mind in recent days, some influenced by the Battle Heaven Army, others by Hong Yitang and the rest. The young man couldn¡¯t help but consider some issues he hadn¡¯t before.

    Would it impact Silver Moon if pirates really came? He might as well take the initiative then. If the pirates were so brash as to trulyunch a raid, then he would fight when he should. After these thoughts came to be, resulting in concrete action, Li Hao realized that he¡¯d been impacted by the others in the end. Whether it was a juvenile ideal or being a fool, he really did entertain the notion of destroying the enemies before they set foot on his home.

    He didn¡¯t purposefully control anything and would let the chips lie where they fell. The little ship traveled at fast speed over the water surface, tacking into the wind and being buffeted by the waves.

    ......

    Another two hours passed in the blink of an eye. A second city came into view; it was very lively. The further south they went, the more bustling the cities became. The end of the Moon Sea was the North Sea. The North Sea resided in the north when it came to Skystar geography, whereas it marked the end of the south for Silver Moon. Entering the North Sea meant setting foot into the start of the northern expanses.

    ¡°The city of Abundance.¡± Wang Ming was much recovered next to them and shared his bountiful knowledge. There were quite a few people gathered at the ship¡¯s bow as Demon Hunters hade out for a breath of fresh air and to take in the sights.

    ¡°Abundance is arge city with four million residents. It¡¯s one of the richer cities in the south, but it doesn¡¯t measure up to Southern Ford! Southern Ford is the richest city of Silver Moon¡¯s south because it leads to the North Sea. The shipping business is incredibly prosperous and the city is a natural harbor. The central region sends various supplies to Southern Ford for further distribution to the rest of Silver Moon.

    ¡°There aren¡¯t that many residents at Southern Ford¡ªjust a little over three million. Their annual tax revenues, however, are second only to White Moon City. They pay more than re City, making them an important economic pir for the province.

    ¡°We can see some influences from the central region in Southern Ford. There¡¯s all sorts of new and fun gadgets that may not be known in White Moon¡ªthey can only be found in Southern Ford! I¡¯ve been a few times and encountered visitors from a lot of other northern cities, not just Silver Moon citizens. Some central region inhabitants also converge in Southern Ford. It has the feeling of an open port...¡± Being the son of a rich family, Wang Ming was very familiar with what he spoke of.

    ¡°There¡¯s a Night Watcher branch in Southern Ford that¡¯s decent. Two Sunres are in residence, a dozen Darkmoons, and several dozen Starlight. Granted, that doesn¡¯t seem like much now, but that does make it third only to White Moon and re.¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head. This degree of power wasn¡¯t much to them anymore, but one had to know that when Silver City established its branch, the presence of Dominator Liu Long made it a premier branch. The Night Watchers indeed ced great emphasis on Southern Ford.

    ¡°Not only that, but there¡¯s a branch of the provincial army there. It¡¯s just a small unit of roughly three thousand sent to maintain Southern Ford¡¯s order.

    ¡°This ship is seriously fast. I think the director¡¯s only just passed Southern Ford. This way makes for swifter time to the North Sea, but it¡¯s an inconvenient way bynd.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen and the convoy should be taking the roads bynd instead of the sea. Therefore, they wouldn¡¯t pass by Southern Ford. Geographically speaking, however, it was faster to pass by Southern Ford, sail through the North Sea entrance, and directly enter the northern provinces.

    ¡°If we still don¡¯t see signs of pirates when we reach Southern Ford...¡± Wang Ming raised with anticipation. ¡°Can we disembark for some fun? My treat! Southern Ford food and drink is better than White Moon¡¯s, and the atmosphere is also much more carefree. It feels like amercial capital instead of the overly serious White Moon of politics and culture...¡±

    ¡°Is there that much fun to be had?¡± Li Hao asked with a chuckle instead of reprimanding the young man.

    ¡°Of course! You should know, leader, that there¡¯s lights, action, alcohol, endless beauties, and money sshed everywhere there. You can do whatever you want so long as you have money...¡± Wang Ming grew more excited the more he talked. ¡°How about I show you around? The girls there are known far and wide for their beauty...¡±

    ¡°Ahem!¡± Liu Long coughed gently and interrupted the handsome supernatural. This was getting out of hand! They weren¡¯t engaging on a private channel¡ªWang Ming was almost guffawing and engaging in conversation out loud.

    Demon Hunters such as Hong Qing and Liu Yan were beginning to look at him with derision. Their eyes were just obscured by the visor of their ck armor.

    A merry Wang Ming didn¡¯t care. ¡°Truly, leader. I¡¯m only proposing to have some fun after the patrol is over, not now. What are you guys all looking at me like that for?¡±

    <i>It¡¯s not like I¡¯m affecting our mission.</i>

    ¡°Be quiet for now.¡± Li Hao nced ahead. There did seem to be more merchant ships the longer they sailed, he could even see some lights on the ships. This was a sight absent near White Moon.

    The origin weapon avoided the merchant ships and found a picture of buoyant activity that grew more lively the longer they sailed. It was the dead of the night, but the lights seemed to be growing brighter. The city in the distance seemed like a city that didn¡¯t sleep¡ªquite a novel sight for Li Hao. He¡¯d never seen night scenery like this.

    1. The <i>kunpeng</i> is a mythological Chinese creature that can be a great fish in the water and arge bird in the sky. ?

 Chapter 514: Demon Hunters! (II)

    <h4>Chapter 514: Demon Hunters! (II)</h4>

    There were almost no lights on at Silver City past 10pm. While there were at White Moon, it was a solemn city without any hustle and bustle. In the northern part of the province, the sharp-eared Li Hao could make out some music even from far away. He suddenly felt like a country bumpkin on his first visit to a big city.

    He was actually tempted to go have the fun that Wang Ming was chattering on about, but he chose to silently reject the proposal in order to maintain his image. There were Demon Hunters around, his subordinates! But if they still didn¡¯t see anything after reaching the intersection of the Moon and North Seas, they could rest in Southern Ford for a bit. The North Sea was too big and easy to get lost in.

    The ship drew closer to the city of Southern Ford as Li Hao mulled over these thoughts. The city gradually became more visible beneath the lights.

    What a bright city!

    It surprised even Li Hao that there was such a lively city in the northern borders of Silver Moon. He could see numerous lights on the distant beach, even some bonfires. There was also singing!

    Someone snorted beside him; Li Hao turned to see that it was Hong Qing.

    ¡°I hear that the northern reaches are caught in turmoil and there¡¯s a threat of Silver Moon being dragged in as well,¡± sniffed the girl. ¡°Yet these people are still singing and dancing in the middle of the night. As the ancients said, those who seek pleasure know not that bitterness of losing their home as they sing and dance their lives away.¡±

    ¡°This is themercial capital of the province and the north has not fallen yet,¡± Wang Ming quickly retorted as he disagreed. ¡°Even if there is unrest, Southern Ford is known for business. Without this revelry and the picture of peace and prosperity, the city would be ruined.

    ¡°Do you know how much tax revenue Silver Moon will lose if Southern Ford is ruined? It¡¯s an important port and functions as a waterway for resources to flow through. Without its prosperity, at least thirty million people out of the hundreds of millions in Silver Moon will be destitute. That¡¯s no exaggeration!

    ¡°Silver Moon is poor to begin with andcks unique resources. Southern Ford has to feed half of the province, so what do you know? Be happy that the singing is still there. We¡¯d be in deep trouble if it wasn¡¯t!¡±

    Both of them made sense. Li Hao found the situation odd and looked at Wang Ming. Was the singing and general revelry really a representation of Silver Moon¡¯s prosperity like he argued, or was he just glorifying something he personally enjoyed?

    No matter what, his words made sense. As the province¡¯s most external southern port, the entire province would suffer heavily if Southern Ford showed signs of decline.

    Previously sniffing derisively, Hong Qing was at a sudden loss. Was that so? She didn¡¯t actually understand it, just found that the premises too lively and at odds with some of the news that she¡¯d heard. ¡°Can a prosperous Southern Ford really feed so many mouths?¡±

    ¡°How do you doubt that?¡± Wang Ming snorted withughter. ¡°Read some more books and newspapers. Taxes are heavy here, and not just on the people¡¯s dailymerce. The annual tax revenues keep half of the provincial bureaucracy operational. Our wagese from them.

    ¡°The central region hasn''t supported us these years and doesn''t disburse any funds. We can only rely on ourselves. Southern Ford is in charge of transporting key resources from the northern provinces and rations from the central region.

    ¡°Silver Moon is not a producer of much grain because our winters are too cold. We¡¯re not as prosperous as the rest of the south and aren¡¯t as suited to raise crops. The province needs to import its food. Although we don¡¯t need to import much, we still can¡¯t cut off this passage.

    ¡°Apart from that, a lot of our daily necessities and other essentials of life require this waterway to make it to the rest of Silver Moon. It would be an astronomical cost in terms ofbor and materials if we went bynd. Only by sea can we greatly decrease the resources needed for transport...¡±

    The rich scion educated everyone on the importance of Southern Ford. The province would bepletely isted without the port; it would have to rely on the neighboring Near River for support andrgess. However, their neighbor often restricted or imposed sanctions on Silver Moon instead.

    Compared to Wang Ming, Hong Qing came up short in terms of worldly knowledge. Although her father was incredibly powerful, Hong Yitang didn¡¯t normally discuss politics or train Hong Qing in this area. Therefore, she appeared rather ignorant. The same went for Li Hao.

    She looked bashful after Wang Ming¡¯s exnation. ¡°I see... so I misunderstood. Then... it¡¯s good that the city is prosperous, the more prosperous the better! This singing is wonderful!¡±

    Wang Ming was ready for a bitter battle, but his opponent promptly conceded instead. The young man blinked and asked strangely, ¡°Why... are you different from everyone else?¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Hong Qing asked in confusion.

    ¡°My friends would debate with me for three days straight even if they know they¡¯re wrong,¡± Wang Ming muttered. ¡°They never admit defeat and never back down. They¡¯lle at me from all angles. You... you¡¯re weird.¡±

    Why was Earthturner Sword¡¯s daughter like this? Granted, he didn¡¯t know how strong that personage was. He just knew that Earthturner Sword was an initial Sr. If it wasn¡¯t for Wang Ming wanting to fortify his foundations, he might already be an initial Sr as well. He wasn¡¯t that concerned with the man.

    If the handsome supernatural knew the truth, he would probably busy himself with fawning over Hong Qing instead of his earlier spiel.

    ¡°You¡¯ve put it so inly, so why should I debate you?¡± Hong Qing asked curiously.

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>You make sense, so I won¡¯t argue with you. Why do you seem like you¡¯re looking forward to an argument? You¡¯re so weird.</i>

    Wang Ming was struck speechless.

    The little ship had drawn near the port, but Li Hao only brought it a little closer so it could take in the raucous din from the beach. What a lively night it was! He could see some people barbecuing and drinking. It was cold at night and even colder on the beach, but none of them seemed to feel the chill. There were some long-legged beauties walking around...

    Li Hao¡¯s gaze lingered on them and the ship slowed down. A bunch of bumpkins peered curiously in the relevant direction with wide eyes. Wang Ming was an old hat at this, but the others had almost never traveled far from home.

    White Moon City was prosperous, but that didn¡¯t have much to do with those from the Inspectorate. They didn¡¯t have money to enjoy themselves either. For the moment, they quite enjoyed the view.

    ¡°Leader, this ce is nice,¡± someone transmitted through themunication channel. ¡°How about we spend a day here on our return?¡±

    ¡°But we don¡¯t have money, so can we get an advance on our wages, leader?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Various people¡¯s voices quickly echoed through the public channel. inly, these bumpkins were enticed by the sights and sounds.

    ¡°I won¡¯t go, but I¡¯m in if we can get an advance on our wages. Prices must be high here, but we¡¯ll still be able to send a lot of stuff back if we spend our money sparingly...¡±

    That must be a Sword Sect member.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine if we spend some money,¡± Hong Qing¡¯s voice rang in the channel. ¡°It just goes into Silver Moon¡¯s tax coffers! The sect isn¡¯t that short on money at the moment and my dad¡¯s a Sr. He earns more than our wages with one mission. It¡¯s our first time earning money, so let¡¯s spend some!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Ole Hong, do you know that your daughter¡¯s revealing all of your secrets? </i>A Sr earning more money than his disciple¡¯s wages... He¡¯d be a generalughingstock if word of this got out! inly, Hong Qing was also tempted by the activity.

    The group didn¡¯t sense the ship slowing down. Li Hao nced in a new direction at this moment and saw another ship shooting at them at a very fast pace. It was crewed by a very faint, small ball of light that seemed to belong to a water supernatural. The neer wasn¡¯t too strong at roughly initial Darkmoon.

    Li Hao observed some abnormalities from a distance. There seemed to be traces of blood on this person. A pirate?

    Didn¡¯t seem like it.

    Puzzled, the young manthought for a moment and steered the little ship in the supernatural¡¯s direction, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. Only then did he clearly make out the person¡¯s features and the fear on their face.

    A water supernatural was propelling the ship for all his worth and fleeing for his life. He saw the Vast Kun Ship when the two were less than one hundred meters apart. The supernatural lit up with hope and yelled, ¡°Is it the Silver Moon Guard?!¡±

    He seemed to have recognized the ship.

    ¡°Didn¡¯t you leave? Thank goodness you haven¡¯t,¡± the man continued to roar. ¡°There¡¯s pirates ahead and they¡¯ve razed a small town by Near River! They¡¯reing straight for us¡ªthe merchant ship I was on waspletely destroyed. It looks like the White Shark Raiders! I¡¯m about to report this to Southern Ford, but since you¡¯re here...¡±

    He¡¯d been horrified and panicked, but was much more at ease after seeing the ship.

    Li Hao set foot into the air and grabbed the man. The man was even more reassured upon seeing that Li Hao wore armor.

    ¡°Pirates?¡± Li Hao threw the supernatural onto the ship¡¯s bow. The man rxed upon seeing numerous ck Armors around him.

    ¡°Yes, pirates, the White Shark Raiders! A small town¡¯s been razed by Near River and thousands have died. There¡¯s a lot of pirates¡ªI counted roughly six hundred from a quick nce far away. They¡¯re all supernaturals and there¡¯s powerhouses among them.

    ¡°I saw the shark g¡ªit represents their leaders among the fleet.¡± The supernatural gabbled out his information in a fric haste. ¡°The crew of my merchant ship wasn¡¯t as strong as them and couldn¡¯t outrun the pirates. They were smashed to pieces. Thankfully, I¡¯m a water supernatural and can hide in the water. I immediately came back to let the authorities know, but then I ran into the Silver Moon Guards! This is wonderful!!¡±

    As surprised and delighted the man was, the atmosphere froze over on the ship. Six hundred supernaturals? So many!

    They were up against the White Shark Raiders!

    The water supernatural was first overjoyed, then confused after he looked around for a while. ¡°The rumors say that the Silver Moon Guard has left the province and followed Director Hou to the central region. They might already be at the North Sea. You guys...¡±

    His heart skipped a beat when he looked around and didn¡¯t see that many people. This was all there was to the Guards?

 Chapter 515: Demon Hunters! (III)

    <h4>Chapter 515: Demon Hunters! (III)</h4>

    The Guard moved as one when they deployed¡ªnearly one thousand of them. The newly rescued water supernatural had been delighted because there was no need to be afraid of pirates when there were one thousand Silver Moon Guards present. But... how many were here?

    The Guard was a secret to most people, but rather familiar to merchants who sailed the seas. The Silver Moon Guard was known throughout the sea.

    ¡°General, are you... are you part of the Silver Moon Guard?¡±

    ¡°Yes, we are the Demon Hunters troop of the Guard!¡± Li Hao answered affirmatively. ¡°Are you certain that it was the White Shark Raiders?¡±

    ¡°Yes... Did... Did you not leave with Director Hou?¡±

    ¡°Correct, we are the defending force remaining behind.¡± Li Hao frowned into the distance. He¡¯d simply wanted to encounter some small groups of pirates, but here they were, grappling with one of the eight major factions¡ªthe White Shark Raiders. There were six hundred supernaturals to contend with and one of their leaders... This was troublesome.

    ¡°How many of you... are there?¡±

    ¡°As many as you see.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re doomed!¡± yelped the water supernatural. ¡°Hurry, run, flee! Notify Southern Ford and request reinforcements! The city is doomed, I suspect they¡¯re here for revenge! The Silver Moon Guard defeated one of their threemanders two years ago and made their reputation known far and wide. The pirates of the seas showed them some face after that and did not make trouble in Silver Moon. Now that the White Shark Raiders have appeared here, they must want to take revenge while the Guards have left!

    ¡°We won¡¯t have enough time if we drag our feet! Those guys have no humanity in them and there will be rivers of blood in the streets if they enter Southern Ford...¡±

    <i>This</i> was all there was to the Guards?? The supernatural¡¯s joy immediately melted away, leaving only horror and resignation. They should run! Six hundred supernaturals was ten times what was present on this ship!

    ¡°How strong are they?¡± Li Hao asked after momentary thought.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°I mean, do they have many Srs and Novas?¡±

    ¡°Well...¡±

    ¡°How long will it take them to reach Southern Ford if we run now?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯ll be here within three hours. They¡¯re not that fast and they¡¯re taking their time enjoying themselves. I threw everything I had to escape, so it¡¯s three hours at most or less.¡±

    ¡°Can Southern Ford fully evacuate within three hours?¡±

    ¡°Ah... absolutely not!¡± The man shook his head as he was well experienced with the world. ¡°But however many can get away is good. For three hours... they can evacuate half of the city if directions are given well. Although there¡¯s only several hundred pirates, they¡¯re all supernatural powerhouses. There are only three thousand city defenders, they won¡¯t hold off the pirates for long even if they all mobilize. Hot weapons will be ineffective when there are supreme powerhouses present...¡±

    ¡°Three hours... six hundred supernaturals...¡± Li Hao breathed out heavily. ¡°You¡¯re a veteran of the seas, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°General, I...¡±

    ¡°Answer me!¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Did you see more than ten Srs among them? Are there more than three Novas?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± The supernatural quickly shook his head. ¡°This is just a portion of the White Shark Raiders, there won¡¯t be that many heavyweights among them. ording to our experience, this unit might fall under one of their threemanders. It¡¯s probably the one that has a grudge with the Silver Moon Guard. He brought men to the Moon Sea two years ago and was rebuffed. If it¡¯s him, then he¡¯s the cruelest out of the three. Hemands roughly five Srs and a dozen Sunres. The rest are below Sunre...¡±

    Li Hao breathed out. That was good. ¡°So he¡¯s the only Nova?¡±

    ¡°Most likely... but I can¡¯t promise that. General, are... you...¡±

    ¡°Southern Ford is an important port that should not be disturbed if possible,¡± Li Hao proimed. ¡°An evacuation is easy, but rebuilding is hard! Head to shore and look for... Never mind.¡±

    He turned to Wang Ming. ¡°Go with him to the city and tell the Southern Ford Night Watcher branch that they need to contact White Moon City. Find Inspector General Kong of the Inspectorate and have hime to Southern Ford!¡±

    ¡°Me?¡± Wang Ming jumped with surprise.

    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re familiar with the area and your status, identity, and background are sufficient.¡± Li Hao smiled into the distance. ¡°A pillowes as I am sleepy... I¡¯ll go meet them!¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re the White Shark Raiders and they have a Nova among them...¡± Wang Ming was highly rmed.

    ¡°I know, and it¡¯s just one Nova!¡±<i> </i>Li Hao grinned. ¡°Take my medallion and give them some hell if they don¡¯t believe you. Have the coast be on high alert in case other issues crop up. Notify Inspector General Kong. If he doesn¡¯te, notify the entire city. Evacuate immediately if I send word. We¡¯ll be able to contact each other anywhere within five hundred meters.¡±

    Wang Ming was reluctant to go, but he did seem to be the only likely candidate apart from Liu Long.

    ¡°Very well, I¡¯ll go!¡± He set his jaw. ¡°Be careful and don¡¯t do anything beyond your capacity. Retreat if you need to and don¡¯t do anything brash. There¡¯s not that many of us...¡±

    Li Hao threw Wang Ming and the water supernatural back onto the other boat. The Vast Kun Ship shot over the waves like an arrow loosed from a bow. In the waters, the water supernatural asked hesitantly at seeing the ship leave, ¡°General, who... was that...¡±

    In low spirits, Wang Ming looked back at the disappearing ship and responded in a muffled voice, ¡°The Demon Hunters! You¡¯ll know sooner orter that with the Demon Hunters present, no danger is any kind of danger. Stop being so easily startled and perk up when we enter the city. It¡¯s fine, the White Shark Raiders... are nothing!¡±

    The man dared ask no further upon seeing Wang Ming grind his teeth. <i>The Demon Hunters?</i> He wasn¡¯t too familiar with the Silver Moon Guard, so what were the Demon Hunters?

    But seeing the small troop of Silver Moon Guard rush over despite knowing the danger, he was both worked up and fearful. ¡°It will be alright, won¡¯t it, General?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Wang Ming snapped back. ¡°Hurry up and head to the city. Stop dragging your feet!¡±

    He wasn¡¯t a water supernatural, so there was no room for him to exert himself in the sea. The water supernatural stopped talking and propelled them forward at top speed. They drew close to the shore.

    Wang Ming had nned on heading directly to the Night Watcher branch, but red his presence when he saw the well popted beach. Ignoring the apprehensive water supernatural next to him, he took off his ck armor and put it into his storage ring.

    ¡°What are you lot doing here in the middle of the night?¡± He snorted coldly, showing his face to everyone. ¡°Are you waiting to die on the beach? Get out! I¡¯m booking out all of the ces nearby. I entertain an important guest tonight. The nearby beaches will not be open for business!¡±

    ¡°Says who?!¡±

    ¡°Yeah!¡±

    ¡°Do you think you¡¯re something just because you¡¯re a supernatural?!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Immediate outrage boiled over.

    ¡°This is Southern Ford! Where does this little savagee from? So what if you¡¯re a supernatural?¡± someone yelled angrily.

    Several supernatural presences materialized in the distance. A troop of supernaturals swiftly appeared and looked alertly at Wang Ming.

    ¡°Good, the Night Watchers are here!¡± yelled a partygoer. ¡°This kid is so arrogant andes here to act like he¡¯s the boss. Get him!¡±

    The Night Watchers found Wang Ming vaguely familiar, but were also wary of his obvious strength. They hesitated, giving enough time for a Sunre to approach. Wang Ming couldn¡¯t be bothered to exin himself when the mannded and threw out a medallion.

    ¡°Take me to the Night Watcher branch and ce this area under heavy guard. I¡¯m going to host an important guest!¡±

    The neer was one of the Sunres in charge of the Southern Ford branch. He blinked at the medallion and looked at Wang Ming. ¡°Is... it... Director Li?¡±

    Li Hao! His promotion had just been made public during the day, but here he was that very night?

    ¡°Shut up!¡± Wang Ming transmitted. ¡°I¡¯m here on a secret mission, so cut the ther. Have people clear the nearby shores and close the port. Say that a young master of the Wangs is entertaining people tonight...¡±

    <i>Wang Ming!</i>

    The Sunre now recognized Wang Ming. Closing the port... this was no small matter. But he didn¡¯t dare say anything.

    This was a deputy director¡¯s medallion. Even though Li Hao had just assumed his post, no one dared truly overlook him. He was a powerhouse who¡¯d killed six Srs! The Sunre swiftly gave his orders and sent his men rushing through the beach.

    The sounds of music vanished. Some people were waiting for the arrogant young man to be made a fool of, but they were resigned and dejected when the Night Watchers fanned out to shoo them away. There was nothing to be done but leave swiftly.

    So unlucky! It looks like some hotshot really had run here in the middle of the night for a snack. Damn it!

    In this day and age, it wasn¡¯t intolerable for highly ced personages to exercise their privilege. The modern day Skystar Dynasty was very tolerant of important people making mistakes. This guy just wanted ate night snack, he wasn¡¯t killing people or setting fires everywhere. As disgruntled as the people might be, they had to stay quiet.

    It took a short while before the beaches around the port were silent. Wang Ming finished exining a few things to the Sunre¡ªthe man¡¯s face went white with horror. The White Shark Raiders! Director Li had brought his modest crew of Silver Moon Guard rookies to fight the pirates! The consequences were unthinkable.

    There was only fear and worry on his mind. ¡°Wang Ming... why didn¡¯t you try to make hime to his senses? We can evacuate Southern Ford if ites to it. How could you let Director Li and the others engage enemies that outnumber them by tenfold??¡± transmitted the Sunre.

    This was madness! They were just going to their deaths, there was a Nova among the pirates!

    ¡°Southern Ford... the losses will be heavy if we evacuate the city,¡± Wang Ming responded dejectedly. Li Hao¡¯s decision might have something to do with what he¡¯d said. He¡¯d exaggerated slightly and said that the city supported thousands upon thousands of people. His senior brother might have chosen to march into battle because of his words.

    It was all his big mouth¡¯s fault! He should not have said so much! If Southern Ford wasn¡¯t as important, then Li Hao may not have taken the risk. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn¡¯t have risked the rest of his people against six hundred supernaturals. There was a Nova and Srs... it was too dangerous.

    Wang Ming felt a bit frantic and regretful. He really needed to watch his tongue in the future! If anything happened as a result of this... it would all be because of his nonsense!

    ¡°Let¡¯s hurry to the branch and contact Inspector General Kong...¡± Wang Ming picked up the pace, unaware that Li Hao had already killed Novas before. Only Liu Long was aware of that.

 Chapter 516: To Slay (I)

    <h4>Chapter 516: To y (I)</h4>

    Li Hao picked up speed; the little ship skimmed the waves.

    ¡°Look sharp, everyone!¡± hemunicated through the armor. ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid of anything. I¡¯ll take care of the Nova, Deputy Liu will take care of the Srs! Assemble into the Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation, the time to be tested has arrived. Also, this isn¡¯t all of the pirates, so we need to be careful to not attract more.¡±

    Li Hao took a deep breath. ¡°I¡¯ll take everyone out on Southern Ford after we defeat and kill the enemy. My treat. We¡¯ll spend an entire day rxing!¡±

    ¡°The leader is great!¡± someone roared in themunication system, as if not knowing the meaning of fear.

    The enemy outnumbered them by tenfold, but what did that matter? Their leader wasn¡¯t afraid, so did they need to waste time with that emotion? If the Srs and Nova were stopped, their ck armor would obstruct attacks from the remaining Sunres. What was there to be afraid of?

    Li Hao petted Panther next to him and muttered, ¡°You don¡¯t need to be involved if there¡¯s only one Nova. Go around and investigate, if that¡¯s the case. Do you know how to swim? I¡¯m worried that the othermanders might be around¡ªthat would be the most troublesome of all.¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther nodded in seeming understanding.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t worried about ambushes; he¡¯d be able to see them. The only concern he had was of powerful martial masters nearby.

    Liu Long nced at the young man. There were ten times the number of enemies out there... but Li Hao chose to wade into battle. There were two or three hours until the pirates reached Southern Ford, that might be enough time for Kong Jie to reach them. A powerhouse of his level would travel quickly, or at the very least, they could facilitate the city¡¯s evacuation.

    And yet, Li Hao chose the most under-the-radar method and even warned Wang Ming against disturbing the city¡¯s denizens.

    The look in Liu Long¡¯s eyes turnedplex. Was the young man who proimed himself to be self-absorbed beginning to consider other things as well? The Battle Heaven army, Hong Yitang, and Liu Long himself were continuously influencing this vagabond used to going his own way. Was this a good thing?

    Liu Long suddenly didn¡¯t know what to say.

    ¡°We march in the darkness and protect from the shadows. We safeguard justice as the Demon Hunters!¡±

    The Demon Hunters!

    Liu Yan and the others of the former Demon Hunters blinked. Their chief hadn¡¯t said these words in a very long time. What was different about today? Despite their confusion, they immediately chorused, ¡°To safeguard justice and uphold righteousness. Demon Hunters!¡±

    Their blood suddenly ran hot. <i>Aren¡¯t we... upholding justice right now?</i>

    The new iteration of the Demon Hunters hadn¡¯t heard of these sayings before. They digested the words in a daze. <i>Justice...</i> Agitation fired them up. <i>Are we... justice?</i>

    ¡°To safeguard justice and uphold righteousness. Demon Hunters!¡± People started roaring in themunication channel, feeling quite invigorated afterwards!

    Li Hao remained quiet.<i> Justice? What is justice? I don¡¯t know. Am I upholding justice? Maybe! </i>How was there so much justice to speak of in this world? Perhaps he had an abundance of courage because he¡¯d heard there was only one Nova among the enemy. Or perhaps it was because Wang Ming said that this little city supported thirty million people in Silver Moon. Or perhaps it was Hou Xiaochen telling him prior to his departure that the monthly wages Li Hao received were the people¡¯s hardbor, that he had to live up to them!

    It was also possibly the regtions of the Battle Heaven Army, that one was not permitted to withdraw. Perhaps... perhaps... there were many reasons. Whatever bullshit that was justice, that was only good to fool kids with.

    Li Hao cursed to himself, but then quietly added after a moment, <i>for justice... Demon Hunters!</i>

    ......

    A small ship crested the waves in the darkness.

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    Lights were aze on arge ship. Screams and wails echoed through the night, cries of agony that were drowned out by brayingughter. Bloodthirsty pirates cavorted and reveled in the ship¡¯s hold. Blood stained their des as the sound of women crying traveled out of the ship.

    Out of the town they¡¯d ransacked, the men were dead, the girls were taken for pleasure, and the elderly, sick, children, and women were all ughtered. They sometimes picked a few kids to join the pirates, raising them to be bloodthirstyrades after a lifetime of viinous influence. Kids who were too old were not wanted, they only wanted children too young to remember anything.

    A massive throne was ced in the middle of the ship¡¯s hold. Sea Shark sat cross-legged on it, leaning on a table and shing a feral grin at the scene around him. His grin widened at the sight of pirates tormenting anguished women. Beside him, two women trembled as they kneaded his legs. They emitted muffled sobs from their throats.

    Sea Shark was immensely content. This trip had not been in vain. Of course, a singr small town was not his goal. Hisughter grew over all of the noise. ¡°Pace yourselves! We¡¯ll be at Southern Ford in a bit. That¡¯s the true paradise, so don¡¯t overdo it to the point where you can¡¯t stand up!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, third master! Us brothers... have golden spears that still point straight and true! Hahaha!!¡±

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    A golden arrow pierced through the man as soon as he finished talking!

    The premises immediately quieted down.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be angry, third master!¡± cated a terrified pirate. ¡°That guy has shit for brains, well killed!¡±

    The golden arrow hade from Sea Shark. The words ¡°golden spears¡± had set him off. In Sea Shark¡¯s eyes, using that phrase in aplimentary tone was worthy of death!

    ¡°Throw him into the sea!¡± Sea Shark cackled. ¡°Shut your mouth if you don¡¯t know how to talk!¡±

    No one dared say anything; sounds of enjoyment soon started up again. It was just an idiot dead¡ªthis was amon urrence to them. Dead was dead, that didn¡¯t matter.

    Sea Shark kicked away the two young women massaging his legs. They smashed into the ship¡¯s walls and coughed up blood. An empty despair filled their eyes¡ªthey seemed not long for the world.

    Sea Shark didn¡¯t care and stood up, turning a blind eye to the lewd chaos around him. He walked out onto the decks. There were more supernaturals here that were keeping an eye on the premises.

    ¡°Third master!¡± A Sr quickly walked over. ¡°We¡¯ll reach Southern Ford soon, but Hou Xiaochen¡¯s men have probably just reached the North Sea. Shall we wait until they finish crossing the sea before making our move?¡±

    ¡°We do this precisely because they haven¡¯t left yet!¡± Sea Shark sneered. ¡°If we raze Southern Ford after they fully enter the central region, they won¡¯t receive the news until muchter. Now is the best timing, what can they do even after knowing? The North Sea is huge, are they going to chase us into it? I want Golden Spear and the others to suffer, to let them know that I¡¯m killing Silver Moon savages right under their noses!

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen might not even make it through the North Sea alive, not with his little handful of people. At the very least, he¡¯ll bete reporting for duty. There are already plenty of people who don¡¯t see eye-to-eye with him, just wait for someone to start something!¡±

    Sea Shark¡¯s current state was far from a muddled mess that one might expect. On the contrary, his thoughts were methodological. Indeed, this was the best moment for revenge. It wouldn¡¯t be as fun after Hou Xiaochen¡¯s convoy entered the central region. Striking at this timing would make them struggle with the decision of whether or not to enter the North Sea for vengeance.

    That would be when things were interesting. If they really darede, the eight pirate factions would not just let the Silver Moon Guards be. A greater revenge might be at hand then!

    All of the North Sea pirates would mobilize and besiege these fellows because Hou Xiaochen was a formidable opponent. This was the oue that Sea Shark wished to see! He wanted nothing more than for Hou Xiaochen to receive word and impulsively give chase through the North Sea. Whether it was White Shark or the other pirate leaders, who would idly sit by then?

    ¡°Third master is wise!¡± faded the Sr.

    ¡°Wise my ass!¡± Sea Shark sneered. ¡°Don¡¯t try that with me! Kill more Silver Moon savagester, that''s better than any of that shit!¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± confirmed the pirates around them.

    ¡°Silver Moon is poor, but Southern Ford isn¡¯t.¡± Sea Shark grinned a toothy grin. ¡°I entered the Moon Sea two years ago for that city. It doesn¡¯t have much cultivation resources, but it has a lot of valuables. After this operation, we¡¯ll be able to recruit people again!¡±

    Pirates didn¡¯tck for cultivation resources, what they did was in items hard to find at sea¡ªarmor, weapons, rations, vegetables... These necessities were expensive on the water, but the major factions still had their ways to seize or secretly trade for them.

    The smaller pirate factions, however, didn¡¯t dare brashlye ashore. Piging merchant ships might not satisfy their need; obtaining cultivation resources from their fellow pirates was a bit easier. They were usually willing to pay a high price to purchase these items from the major factions.

    More ttery sounded from the crowd!

    A merry glint entered Sea Shark¡¯s eyes. There were ten thousand White Shark Raiders, but not all of them were supernaturals. There were some martial masters or mundanes with unique skills. Supernaturals were only half of their number.

    He was ranked number three out of their threemanders and his six hundred men were the weakest. The boss White Sharkmanded the most elite three thousand supernaturals. He was terrifying!

    So although Sea Shark eyed White Shark greedily and was very tempted, he didn¡¯t dare actually think of anything. He¡¯d wanted to raid Southern Ford two years ago so he could recruit more men, but he¡¯d fallen t on his face. Hundreds of supernaturals died and he¡¯d suffered a significant wound as well.

    Thankfully, he had his supporters. His men didn¡¯t desert over the past two years and the supernaturals he¡¯d lost were replenished. He nowmanded more than he did before. Various thoughts rose in his mind and he seemed to see a ck shadow sh through the distance. There was nothing there when he peered more intently at it.

    ¡°Did you see anything?¡± he asked a nearby Sr.

    ¡°No, the wind and water are calm. We¡¯ve eliminated the nearby merchant ships and will be at Southern Ford soon!¡±

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    The Vast Kun Ship stopped less than five thousand meters from the big ship. Li Hao could already see a ball of light on it.

 Chapter 517: To Slay (II)

    <h4>Chapter 517: To y (II)</h4>

    That the ball of light could be seen so clearly from so far away clearly indicated that it was a Nova level existence. It seemed to be the only Nova on the ship upon further examination. The other faint balls of light couldn¡¯t be made out clearly, so he couldn¡¯t identify how many Srs there were.

    The Nova seemed to be a mid Nova, putting Li Hao much at ease. Just one mid Nova decreased the difficulty of the uing skirmish by a lot.

    ¡°Do you guys see them?¡± he asked through the armor.

    ¡°We do!¡± the team captains responded.

    The massive ship in the distance was afire with resplendent illumination. Most pirate ships kept a low profile and shuttered their lights at night. Of course, it was to be expected that the White Shark Raiders were more brazen since they were stronger. They styled themselves as the tyrants of the sea and had nothing to fear. This was why their ships werepletely lit up at night.

    ¡°We¡¯ll draw closer to them and find the right opportunity to board their ship! The teams will move as one, don¡¯t split up. If you¡¯re defeated, jump into the sea and sink to the bottom. You just need to hold on for a bit until I take care of their leader. I¡¯lle find you after. The ck armor will ensure your survival in the depths for a bit!¡±

    It was fifty against five hundred. Li Hao was ready for the Demon Hunters to be defeated. However, martial masters possessed strong defensive capabilities. They could jump into the sea when they lost their fight. With the armor supporting them, Li Hao would be able to find them so long as everyone more or less stayed together. He could locate them even if they were five hundred kilometers away.

    ¡°Understood!¡± responded the captains.

    Li Hao took a deep breath and had the small ship continue to draw near their target. The Vast Kun Ship was as if a hunter in the dark, swiftly threading through the waves. The vigorous rises and falls of the water¡¯s surface concealed the faint disturbance they created.

    A group of warriors d in ck armor stood at the ship¡¯s bow, nervous and expectant. Thankfully, they¡¯d engaged enemies a few times in Silver Moon and had already taken down supernaturals of the three great organizations. If this was their first skirmish, none of them would be soposed when facing enemies ten times their numbers.

    A small sword appeared in Li Hao¡¯s hand. It was almost the length of a regr sword now; more of it was unsealed as it took in more energy. The closer they drew to the pirates, the colder the look in his eyes became. He saw some sights he didn¡¯t wish to see. Numerous corpses draped over the ship swayed in the wind. Screams and groans could be vaguely discerned through the air.

    A scent of blood and gore wafted over to the Vast Kun Ship. Li Hao twitched his nose, inwardly at peace and utterly baffled at what the pirates wanted. What did they desire with killing regr people? Was it just to satisfy their bloodlust?

    It hadn¡¯t been long since he came in contact with superhumans, and perhaps it was the ones he¡¯d seen that didn''t have a chance to purposefully kill mundanes. Or perhaps they¡¯d done so, it¡¯d simply escaped his notice. Not even the three great organizations had done so!

    Granted, apparently they¡¯dmitted the deed in the central regions and other areas. They wouldn¡¯t be hailed as the three evil organizations otherwise. But in Silver Moon, at the very least, Li Hao didn¡¯t discover any signs of them massacring cities. Therefore, although he¡¯d heard such rumors before, he didn¡¯t pay them much heed.

    But now, he personally witnessed corpses swinging in the breeze and heard the constant din of suffering. He even saw someone throw a body out of the ship¡¯s hold! Were these people all crazed animals?!

    Mundanes didn¡¯t have much to do with the world of superhumans, thetter could be as lofty and superior as they wished. What was the point of killing them? No matter how Li Hao mused over the notion, he couldn¡¯t make sense of it!

    Why would an elephant quibble with an ant? Mundanes didn¡¯t antagonize superhumans, they gave up whatever money or people that were demanded. Must one kill them all to demonstrate their own strength?

    The little ship pulled close to the pirates; Li Hao¡¯s longsword was at the ready. He could already see supernaturals walking the decks and saw the biggest ball of light. It belonged to a vicious looking Big Beard¡ªsimr to He Yong, but He Yong wasn¡¯t that cruel.

    One thousand meters, five hundred meters...

    The little ship drew closer and closer.

    Sea Shark frowned slightly on the ship, sensing that someone was watching him. He looked around and didn¡¯t see anything in the undting waves. And yet... there was the same vague feeling that he¡¯d felt two years ago.

    Golden Spear and his people were all martial masters. They were just as soundless and undetectable as what the pirate struggled with now. As Li Hao and his people wore ck armor, their presences were even more contained and concealed.

    ¡°Do you see anything?¡± Sea Shark asked someone beside him.

    A golden light shed through the person¡¯s eyes and he looked around. He seemed to catch a hint of something when he scanned Li Hao¡¯s direction. It wasn¡¯t too clear in the darkness and he wanted a closer look...

    That proved unnecessary in the next second. The little ship abruptly picked up speed when they were less than five hundred meters away and promptly arrived beneath the pirate ship with a loud crash.

    It was very fast!

    Sea Shark¡¯s expression shifted drastically. He jerked with astonishment when he saw the little ship with wings. Anger and confusion quickly crept over his face. The Silver Moon Guards? How was that possible??

    So many had watched Hou Xiaochen leave with the Guards. It was impossible for that person to be a body double or for the entire urrence to be smoke and mirrors! So why was that familiar ship appearing here?

    A figure wearing ck armor soared into the air¡ªa disguised Li Hao. He didn¡¯t want to be too conspicuous in the dark. When he shot upward, he shed at the deck with his sword!

    Sea Shark recovered his senses and summoned a massive de into his hand. Bafflement and crazed fervor in his eyes, he roared and hacked with his weapon!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    de and sword qi crashed into each other with a massive boom! Arge hole appeared on the ship¡¯s deck and qi crisscrossed everywhere. Some nearby supernaturals were torn to pieces. Several Srs hastily backed away when they were injured by the fallout.

    Sea Shark threw himself into the air, a ruthless glint dawning in his eyes.

    ¡°That¡¯s a sword... so it¡¯s not Golden Spear. You¡¯re pretty strong, so I think I¡¯m getting rich today!¡± A guess urred to him and his features twisted with solemn cruelty. ¡°A martial master from the Silver Moon Guards and uses a sword... and present in the Moon Sea at this point... Li Hao, is it? You bring yourself to me before I¡¯ve had a chance to go for you!¡±

    Indeed, he knew who his attacker was¡ªthe swordsman Li Hao! The young man had been hailed as the Demon Sword in hisst battle and was widely known to be staying in White Moon City. To think that he¡¯d dare venture out ande find Sea Shark!

    Did he have a death wish?

    As strong as Li Hao¡¯s stroke had been, it was on par with a Nova at most. He¡¯d improved quickly, but... so what?

    ¡°Hahaha, it looks like even the heavens are helping me!¡± Sea Shark soared into the air and threw himself at Li Hao. He hacked with his de, summoning an arc of golden de light in the sky. He was a metal supernatural and extremely skilled at offense.

    Multiple ck figures shot into the sky the moment Sea Shark flew away andnded on the newly empty decks.

    ¡°Kill them all! Don¡¯t leave a single one alive!¡± Liu Long growled.

    Fifty warriors swiftly assembled in formation and moved in conjunction. They tangled with the pirates that flooded onto the decks. Liu Long roared at seeing Srs pop up and hacked with his ax,yering the waves and crashing into them with a massive boom.

    A Sr that¡¯d just been injured by Li Hao¡¯s sword qi didn¡¯t have time to react or determine the enemy¡¯s strength before losing his head.

    ¡°Kill!¡± Liu Long charged the Srs, his armor sparkling with light.

    Five small formations swiftly came to be and careened into the endless surge of pirates. Pirates were bloodthirsty types and at the moment,pletely fearless since they saw their leader fly out and dominate the enemy¡¯s leader.

    There were so few Guards here! They weren¡¯t that strong either¡ªjust look at that strength, they were initial Sunre at the very most. The pirates had five Sunres. Although one was dead, the remaining four were sufficient to handle this group.

    ......

    <i>In the air.</i>

    Li Hao soundlessly shed with his sword. de light irradiated the void in response! Sea Shark was uncontainable in his berserk state and forced the young man back with a loud boom.

    ¡°You¡¯re too weak to be ying hero like the others, little brat!¡± he brayed withughter. ¡°You have only just a few dozen martial masters ande for us knowing that we¡¯re here. It looks like the savages of Silver Moon aren¡¯t all like Hou Xiaochen!¡±

    Li Hao frowned slightly. This guy was very strong! Li Hao had already melded four auras together and was onlycking the Incantation of the de of Blood. His battle strength was nothing to dismiss and he¡¯d improved himself over these days. He was very strong, but he was utterly suppressed by the pirate. Thetter¡¯s killing intent, killing qi, and tyranny far eclipsed Xu Feng!

    Mid Nova, the metal attribute that was skilled at offense, and being a pirate that killed people inrge swathes... This guy was much stronger than Xu Feng.

    Panther wasn¡¯t around¡ªthe dog had disappeared after smelling something.

    Li Hao looked into the far distance, seeming to note a ball of light. It was too far away and indistinct that it might be the lighthouse instead. It was equal parts likely to be pirates or the lighthouse.

    Forced backward by the big beard¡¯s de, the young man regarded the situation solemnly. Mid Nova... He¡¯d killed two mid Novas before, but this guy was much stronger than them. Was this the result of a supernatural who¡¯d grown up through true battle?

    Li Hao struck with his sword and erupted with the Incantation of the de of Blood! His mental strength became one with his weapon and shattered the void with a loud hum as he stabbed forward. Dark illumination erupted and dispersed the waves beneath!

    Sea Shark answered with the same stroke, <i>bam!</i>

    The results were different from before. Eyes widening, he stumbled and took a few steps back. Li Hao was also sent backward by the surge of strength.

    ¡°Eh?¡± Sea Shark blinked with iprehension, then smiled. ¡°Is this the famed Incantation of the de of Blood employed by Yuan Shuo?¡±

    inly, some of Yuan Shuo¡¯s methods were no longer a secret. At the very least, the Incantation of the de of Blood wasmon knowledge.

 Chapter 518: To Slay (III)

    <h4>Chapter 518: To y (III)</h4>

    ¡°Don¡¯t they say that you¡¯re doomed to die if you use the Incantation of the de of Blood? You and your teacher have some balls to use it like that. Or perhaps... it has something to do with the sword of the Lis? Maybe Yuan Shuo¡¯s able to use it without a care because he has the de of the Zhangs?¡± Sea Shark leered. ¡°What a nice treasure. If it¡¯s in my hands, I can use it againstte Novas or even peak Novas! What a sweet little thing wasted in your hands!¡±

    Although Li Hao had be stronger than he just was, the Incantation wouldn¡¯tst long in Sea Shark¡¯s estimation. Not to mention, they were on the sea. Since the young man had chosen to fight here, he wouldn¡¯t be getting away. Sea Shark could also wait to be reinforced by his Srs when they disposed of the guy that¡¯d attacked them.

    Of course, he didn¡¯t feel that that would be necessary. He could take care of Li Hao. His de shed through the air as it hacked a dozen times in the blink of an eye. It shattered the waves and illuminated the dark void with de light.

    Li Hao¡¯s figure in the shadows was instantly revealed. His longsword cut through the air and stabbed into the de. Incredulously, the pirate¡¯s weapon remained perfectly intact. It seemed to be an origin weapon, but didn¡¯t present a weapon soul. The de itself was made of such fine material that although Steris was indestructible, it wasn¡¯t able to pierce through the de!

    ¡°Nice sword, is it the divine one of the Lis? But my de isn¡¯t bad either, it¡¯s a treasure from a sea ruin and much stronger than regr origin weapons, hahaha!!¡± Sea Shark roared withughter and hacked again and again, keeping Li Hao on the back foot.

    The young man had erupted with the Incantation of the de of Blood, melded four auras together, and was aided by the waves. And yet, he still found it difficult to match his opponent. They were just barely on par with each other, and he was a bit weaker.

    This made Li Hao frown ferociously. Were all pirates this strong? They seemed much stronger than the heavyweights on that bullshit Divine Masters Ranking!

    A furious roar rang in the distance as Liu Long erupted with a boom. He sent a Sr flying with a strike from his ax and yelled, ¡°Kill them all! They¡¯re animals!¡±

    Li Hao flicked a nce out of the corner of his eye, finding the ship¡¯s hold to be in a shattered state and numerous bodies visible from it. Some of them seemed to have been cut into.

    Sea Shark cackled when he followed the young man¡¯s gaze. ¡°Is that Silver Spear¡¯s son? He¡¯s not bad! What¡¯s he so angry about? We just killed a few ants. Apparently, you feed whatever you eat. Supernaturals are strong, but their organs are too weak. It¡¯s said that eating some hearts will help supernaturals replenish the energy of their five organs. The effects are much better than your Breathing Method of the Five Styles...¡±

    Li Hao blinked with iprehension, speaking for the first time. ¡°You guys... kill people... to eat them?¡±

    ¡°No no no, why would we eat them?¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Sea Shark smashed his de over with another roar ofughter. ¡°We don¡¯t eat people, just some organs. Apparently ones from martial masters are even more effective for the five organs because they¡¯re stronger. We know that supernaturals easily have damaged organs when they cultivate to an extreme. Eating your organs will help us avoid some of the pitfalls. Heh, I count as your master after teaching you for free, don¡¯t I?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped! It was his first time hearing of such a theory. Eating organs to strengthen organs... This was an enormous blow to his mind and soul!

    He¡¯d thought that these people killed because they were perverts and crazy, but now Sea Shark told him that they killed for their victims¡¯ organs, so that this delicacy could be used to strengthen their own...

    The impact to his soul made it difficult to regain his calm. Rage boiled out of his heart and shot straight for the heavens. These people... no, these <i>animals!</i> How were they still human?? They ate people!

    ¡°DIE!¡± Li Hao charged with his sword. Sword qi raced to the heavens as a ferocious tiger leaping like an erupting volcano. <i>BOOM!</i>

    Sea Shark was forced back by the re of strength, but Li Hao didn¡¯t stumble backward. He suffered all of the reverberation and instantly appeared next to the other. He shed stroke after stroke in a maddened frenzy!

    ¡°Hahaha!¡± Sea Shark was delighted rather than dismayed. This was precisely the effect he wanted. How could a martial master rival him when their inner peace was disturbed? They would erupt with full power, then quickly decline from exhaustion!

    As a pirate who¡¯d killed more than he could count, Sea Shark knew how precisely to step on people¡¯s trigger points. As he anticipated, the fresh-faced Li Hao couldn¡¯t resist reacting.

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    Sea Shark focused on defense to weather Li Hao¡¯s barrage of fury. He continuously backed away as the sword came down in a wrathful bombardment, yet didn¡¯t consume too much in stamina. It was Li Hao who began breathing heavily, but continued to strike with his strong organs as a foundation!

    To press on without letting up! Stroke after stroke after stroke...

    Li Hao himself didn¡¯t know how many sword strokes he delivered, but Sea Shark¡¯s defenses were airtight. Although the pirate was sttered with blood from wounds inflicted by sword qi, he was as ferocious as ever. The more blood flowed, the crueler the glint in his eyes became!

    Was this it?? It might be enough against ordinary mid Novas, but he was a mid Nova forged through blood! Li Hao was just a baby martial master, how did he think he would break Sea Shark¡¯s defenses?!

    Killing intent gathered in Li Hao¡¯s eyes; he clenched his teeth while considering the opponent that was proving tough to kill. He looked into the distance¡ªthat ball of light seemed to be a real ball of light, not a lighthouse. Another powerhouse was drawing close.

    <i>Damn it!</i>

    There was no time to hesitate. His four auras were yet to be fortified to a significant basis because mind intent was difficult to enhance. It was only possible if he grasped a fifth aura, a requirement that was impossible at the moment.

    He had certain ns in mind after he manifested all five auras, but that was out of the question now. He needed to kill this animal as quickly as possible!

    A lotus flower petal appeared in his hand. He stuffed it in his mouth¡ªthe Goldensky Lotus. Hong Yitang had told him to eat it after hemanded give auras, that straightening one aura might lead to an imbnce with the others. If the circumstances were serious enough, he wouldn¡¯t be able toprehend any other auras.

    However, the young man didn¡¯t care at the moment. The lotus flower petal transformed into a clear current in his body and a peculiar power melded into his five organs. The four auras materialized in his organs, they all seemed to highly desire this power.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t hesitate to direct all of it to the golden dot. The metal aura red with might! It would erupt with greater power after growing stronger; the spontaneous eruption of force would propel his momentary strength to new levels when paired with the Nine Forged Force.

    The golden dot greedily absorbed the surge of power. It grew bigger and began struggling. His supernatural locks were so formidable that they¡¯d nearly immobilized the dot, but now they shook again. Li Hao could clearly sense that the metal sword aura was much stronger than before, and it continued to increase!

    One petal from the Goldensky Lotus had elicited protection from Nova monster spirits on the cusp of their metamorphosis. It was in to see from that how wondrous the effects must be.

    ¡°Die!¡± Li Hao struck with his sword!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    An incredible force erupted at the point of contact. It was far stronger than before and exploded with internal force. Sea Shark was still on the defensive, but was shaken by thisst explosion. His arm split open and some flesh and blood sttered the deck.

    The man was surprised and shocked. How had Li Hao suddenly grown stronger?? Given his wealth of experience, he immediately shifted to offense and charged the young man. His de cut through the air, but Li Hao continued his attack and didn¡¯t raise his sword to defend himself!

    <i>The Ghost Shadow Sword!</i>

    Stroke followed stroke once more as he struck viciously, suppressing the pirate¡¯s de with a loud collision! A tiger howl emitted from Li Hao¡¯s mouth!

    ¡°Roar!¡± The cry shook the heart. Sea Shark blinked as his ear drums bled and he lost focus for a split second. It was then that Li Hao spat out a mouthful of dark sword qi.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The dark sword qi shattered the pirate¡¯s facial defenses. Eyes widening, he tilted his head so that only one of his ears was obliterated.

    ¡°You mewling brat, you¡¯re more annoying than that bastard Golden Spear!¡± A crazy light danced in Sea Shark¡¯s eyes. His ear was gone!

    Li Hao ignored him and struck again, continuously erupting to keep the other suppressed. The newly enhanced metal sword aura was so strong that it caused the four auras to be off bnce, but they could still be melded in abination stronger than before!

    Li Hao suddenly reached out with his left hand and grabbed the de. The de shook violently; iparably keen de qi shot at Li Hao. The silver armor blocked most of it, but some cuts stillcerated the hand beneath the armor. Blood flowed freely from it.

    The young man didn¡¯t care. His sword abruptly shrank as he stabbed it at his opponent¡¯s chest!

    Sea Shark had been wielding his weapon with both hands. He roared with fury and maintained a tight grip with his right hand, balling his left hand into a fist and erupting with metal attribute power. Resplendent radiance red as he smashed his hand down on Li Hao¡¯s sword!

    Li Hao¡¯s right hand stuttered for a split second before the punch decimated the hand and sword. Sea Shark blinked with astonishment. Was it that fragile? It wasn¡¯t surprising that the hand was gone, but that sword of the Lis was also dust?

    As skepticism began to creep in, he suddenly went ck-jawed with dismay. A third hand seemed to grow out of Li Hao¡¯s chest and it reached downward, grabbing with fingers curved as a w!

    Sea Shark shouted and exploded with mysterious power from his crotch. Metal energy cut in all four directions, but Li Hao¡¯s hand continued unabated.

    A definite crunch sounded! Metal energy was crushed as... was... something else. The momentary burst of strength that Li Hao had brought to bear was the metal sword aura!

    ¡°AHH!!¡± Sea Shark hadn¡¯t blinked twice when he lost his ear, but now he wailed with unintelligible anguish. Not only that, but the mysterious power flowing through his body ckened. Unending pain and resentment appeared in his eyes!

    <i>Damn it... Li Hao! What kind of martial technique is that third hand...</i>

 Chapter 519: To Slay (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 519: To y (IV)</h4>

    A frosty expression hung on Li Hao¡¯s face. He closed in for the kill while his opponent was down! His arms writhed forward like a snake and entangled around his opponent¡¯s hands. The pirate¡¯s de was caught between the two of them and vibrated violently, cutting into Li Hao¡¯s armor.

    The young man didn¡¯t mind. He jerked his knee upward and mmed the pirate into an arched shape. Sea Shark was wracked with pain, feeling that his organs had been shattered by the blow. At the same time, he was unforgiving to himself and kicked at Li Hao with a roar.

    The two collided with a loud boom!

    They¡¯d transformed from fighting with weapons to bodybat. Metal mysterious power scintited and exploded, leaving marks on Li Hao¡¯s armor. The young man kept his arms around his opponent and snarled, snapping off one of Sea Shark¡¯s arms with a crunch.

    The two furiously attacked each other!

    A ferocious tiger manifested as its howl echoed through the mountain woods. Sea Shark blinked again, blood flowing from his orifices. Li Hao quickly followed up and yanked the pirate overboard, dragging him beneath the water surface!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The two sank into the sea. Sea Shark roared and kicked his legs, drumming a loud tempo on Li Hao¡¯s armor. The young man, however, continued to haul the man down. The silver armor could still fight in the sea.

    As the two sank further, Sea Shark could increasingly sense the weight of boundless seawaterpressing his metal abilities. And yet, Li Hao chose to drive his knee forward again!

    Nineyers of waves, <i>rumble!</i>

    Another massive boom sounded as the waves erupted with iparable force in the sea. This blow shattered Sea Shark¡¯s kneecaps. The waves churned madly when their knees mmed together. One of Sea Shark¡¯s legs immediately sagged listlessly and blood filtered into the water around them.

    As Li Hao continued to drag him down, Sea Shark began struggling violently! Only now did he register that the young man¡¯s battle strength hadn¡¯t started declining. It was him being confined instead, since he only had the metal attribute to make use of. He was gravely injured to begin with¡ªthe situation began to reverse now that his battle strength was restricted.

    The further down they sank, the more horrified he became!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t give him a single chance to break free. He kept his hands a death grip around his opponent. Although Sea Shark wanted to howl, he could make a single sound. Desperate and furious, he head-butted Li Hao!

    The young man threw his head back at his opponent.<i> Is your head as sturdy as mine? Not to mention, I¡¯m dressed in silver armor!</i>

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The heads colliding made Sea Shark dizzy; he almost fainted dead away. He¡¯d used this move against others before. Pirates were just as vicious as any other, but the results this time were far from ideal. His head was the one broken, and Li Hao wouldn¡¯t let go of any chance to follow up! He mmed his head forward again and again and again... until blood streamed into the seas.

    As Sea Shark looked around in a daze, Li Hao tightened his arms and yanked downward, ripping off one of the pirate¡¯s arms. He then redirected attention to the other arm and utilized the bear style to its utmost, concentrating all of his force in his arms.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The sea exploded as Li Hao used all of his strength to tear off Sea Shark¡¯s remaining arm!

    Blood seeped into the vicinity after both of the pirate¡¯s arms were ripped off.

    The searing pain jerked Sea Shark away. Incredibly weak, he looked at Li Hao with despair and incredulity. Was he about to die in this kid¡¯s hands?

    The armor around Li Hao¡¯s hand suddenly vanished as he wed at Sea Shark. It easily sank through the pirate¡¯s feeble defenses and wed something out of his chest¡ªa beating heart!

    Li Hao¡¯s visor retracted to reveal his very young and aloof face. ¡°So your heart is red too!¡± he transmitted. ¡°Since you like to eat it so much, have some more!¡±

    He then wed at Sea Shark¡¯s stomach! He grabbed whatever he could and crammed it all into the pirate¡¯s mouth. Hopelessness, impending death, and reluctance brimmed in Sea Shark¡¯s eyes...

    Li Hao appeared particrly cruel in this moment, whereas the pirate only knew of unspeakable fear and horror. The young man truly meant for him to eat himself whole until he died!

    The look of horror on the pirate¡¯s face quickly disappeared because Li Hao gouged out his eyeballs as well, shoving them into Sea Shark¡¯s mouth!

    Some semnce of reason finally returned to Li Hao eyes when he couldn¡¯t see the look in his opponent¡¯s. Hecked the frosty madness of before. The young man smashed a final punch out and obliterated the pirate¡¯s head!

    He collected Sea Shark¡¯s de and storage ring with a casual beckon and looked up, shooting toward a certain direction. He''d yet to take to the skies when he saw a massive ball of light swiftlying toward him. It was very strong, possiblyte Nova.

    He trusted that the Demon Hunters and Liu Long could take care of their end. Even if not, they wouldn¡¯t be defeated that quickly. He was headed toward the second powerhouse. This must be another member of the pirate contingent!

    A faint scent of blood and gore wafted toward Li Hao as the distance between them closed. It wasn¡¯t pirates whomitted unspeakable acts. This was just a disgusting bunch! Li Hao gnashed his teeth and resolved to kill this fellow and destroy these pirates sooner orter.

    He didn¡¯t know where Panther had gotten to, but he believed that the dog was nearby, looking for a chance. It could ambush and kill mid Novas, as well as ambushte Novas... All Li Hao hoped for at the moment was that it was smart enough.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    A man wearing a mask swiftly flew over. He¡¯d been following Sea Shark, but at a distance since he didn¡¯t want the man to discover him. A fight seemed to have broken out several dozen kilometers away; he rushed over at first light out of concern that something would happen. There were sounds of fighting and Sea Shark seemed to have disappeared overboard with someone.

    <i>Is it the Silver Moon Guards?</i> Mask Face furrowed his brows. That was ck armor he¡¯d just seen...

    The two sides seemed evenly matched¡ªhe couldn¡¯t think too much at the moment. Sea Shark was very strong and was a strong talent that always led the charge. He couldn¡¯t die there¡ªthough it looked like he wouldn¡¯t at the moment.

    A ck dog floated among the waves and looked at the neer. Its noise twitched when it picked up Li Hao¡¯s scent. The young man was starting toe closer.

    Panther could sense Mask Face¡¯s strength; that dense air of blood was the hallmark of a killing expert. It didn¡¯t know if Li Hao knew how to kill this person. Panther only knew that if it ambushed first, Li Hao might not be able to kill this guy. It had to be Li Hao attacking first to provide a distraction for Panther...

    But did Li Hao understand that?

    Panther was quite urgent and didn¡¯t know if the young man understood. Sometimes, the human was very silly. As these thoughts ran through the dog¡¯s head, a ray of sword light shot through the water!

    ¡°You court death!¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Mask Face mmed his hand down, causing the waters to erupt and reveal Li Hao in ck armor. He¡¯d shed with his sword so quickly, hoping to catch the other off guard. However, Mask Face still responded in time and thrust Li Hao into the watery depths again.

    Water attributed mysterious power erupted and the surface of the sea split open. Mask Face stared coolly at the descending young man. ¡°A swordsman? The Silver Moon Guard? Li Hao? Perfect...¡± Another thought suddenly urred to him. ¡°Did you kill Sea Shark??¡±

    Sea Shark wouldn¡¯t have vanished otherwise!

    Instead of responding, Li Hao roared and struck with his sword! Contrary to its usual silence, the sword gave rise to a great disturbance. Rumbles and roars rocked the sea, waves churned from all directions and a dog made use of the momentum to tumble in their direction.

    Although he hadn¡¯t discussed any provisions with Panther, the young man quickly made some decisions and changes. A long sword swept through the air as a sword¡¯s hum reverberated in the four directions!

    ¡°It is Li Hao who kills you!¡± Li Hao howled while the sword broke through the void.

    A vicious cast hardened the man¡¯s features behind the mask. <i>You, kill me? Let¡¯s see who actually dies here today! </i>He mmed another palm strike forward; a water dragon howled as multiple copies of it raced toward the young man from the water. <i>You¡¯re the only one doing any dying, Li Hao!</i>

    Though a sense of danger prickled at Mask Face, he couldn¡¯t locate it. Li Hao howled again at this time and swept forward with his sword, smashing through all of the water dragons and erupting with radiant sword qi, charging at his opponent!

    Mask Face grunted and erupted again, sending water energy through the premises!

    A dog suddenly appeared behind him and struck with a paw, leveraging nineyers of force and intermixing it with domineering blood qi and internal force...

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    The paw ran straight through Mask Face¡¯s back and instantaneously destroyed all of his defenses. Mask Face was focused on Li Hao and his defenses were not terribly strong to begin with. The dog¡¯s paw pierced straight through the man¡¯s back and heart!

    The sudden attack left Mask Face speechless. Where did so many powerhousese from?? His mysterious power began dispersing; Li Hao ran through his hand and traveled up Mask Face¡¯s arm, stabbing into his throat. Mask Face¡¯s hand was connected to his throat! Behind him, Panther bit deeply and sank its teeth into the other¡¯s neck, breaking it with a solid crunch!

    Mask Face¡¯s head drooped, uprehending to the moment of his death. What was that behind him? It didn¡¯t feel human!

    Li Hao drew his sword across the air and decapitated his opponent, sending a head crashing into the sea! Killing thiste Nova had been much easier because Panther had ambushed at the perfect time, piercing straight through the other¡¯s heart.

    The young man looked at the ck dog, upon which Panther quickly sucked in a mouthful of seawater to rinse it out. It looked carefully at Li Hao¡ª<i>I don¡¯t eat people, don¡¯t look at me! It¡¯s just that I¡¯m a dog, I gotta bite people to show off my strength!</i>

    Li Hao collected a storage ring; he didn¡¯t see a sign of an origin weapon. He frowned slightly and didn¡¯t say anything else before flying back to the giant ship. None of these fellows would be left alive!

    ¡°Look around the premises, Panth. Kill anyone who escapes. Once they¡¯re dead, keep an eye on where that person came from. There may be more...¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther understood and sank into the sea, disappearing. Its nose was exceptionally keen. No one would be getting past it!

 Chapter 520: Making His Name Known (I)

    <h4>Chapter 520: Making His Name Known (I)</h4>

    Li Hao quickly returned to the pirate ship. The battle on the decks had reached its climax. Pirates continuously died and Demon Hunter members went flying, their condition unknown when theynded in the sea.

    But when Li Hao appeared, the pirates panicked. Where was their leader?

    Sword light shed through the air, a Sr attacking Liu Long was ripped to pieces. The light scintited through another stroke. A second Sr yelled with rm, but could not escape death!

    ¡°Run!¡± someone yelled so that the others knew what to do. Only when enough people got away could the speaker have a chance of escaping from the swordsman.

    ¡°Kill them all, don¡¯t leave a single one alive!¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice echoed through the void. Sword qi raced through the premises and cut through the air!

    Sounds of flesh being punctured and minor explosions rang incessantly. Blood and flesh flew through the air!

    There were already many pirates dead¡ªpirates were the sort to find morale only in a winning fight. Even though theirrades were dead, they could still fight so long as it looked like they would win. But with only Li Hao¡¯s reappearance and no sight of their leader, they lost their fighting spirit.

    The battle was lost and it was time to flee for their lives! Large numbers of supernaturals peeled away from the battlefield. Li Hao stabbed them to death one after another, sometimes killing multiple supernaturals with one stroke. He killed at least one hundred supernaturals in the blink of an eye with his sword qi. Theypletelycked the will to fight!

    In contrast, morale swelled with the Demon Hunters and they all made their moves! More supernaturals were ughtered after a heartbeat.

    ¡°I surrender, I surrender!¡± screamed a Sunre on his knees. There wasn¡¯t any sign of a supernatural¡¯s dignity to be seen on his face, just fear and horror.

    Many people looked at Li Hao...

    ¡°Kill!¡± He responded with one word and ran the supernatural through.

    That doused the embers of hope for the other pirates. ¡°We¡¯re not going down without a fight!¡± someone roared. ¡°Kill!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The person who roared immediately died to sword qi.

    Li Hao was relentless as he raised his sword high. Even so, there were some supernaturals who vanished into the water. He didn¡¯t care and stabbed his sword into the depths all the same. Blood boiled up in the churning waters. Where could they hide while they still possessed their balls of light?

    Could they hide?

    Even if they were strong enough to evade Li Hao¡¯s pursuit, they couldn¡¯t avoid Panther¡¯s nose. The ughter continued!

    It went on for another six minutes, to where Li Hao¡¯s hands were growing tired from killing so many. The vicinity was quiet¡ªonly heavy breathing sounded in people¡¯s ears.

    Corpses were strewn over the ship! The waters around it were dyed red. Only a few out of six hundred supernaturals had escaped, the rest had been killed. But could those who¡¯d gotten away truly live to see another day?

    Li Hao looked into the distance, seeing another ball of light abruptly extinguish without a sound. <i>Good going, Panth!</i> Despite being a dog, it seemed to maneuver well in the water. Even water supernaturals in the sea instantly fell to its ws and had their light snuffed out. Its nose was so keen that it rivaled Li Hao¡¯s eyes.

    The young mannded on the broken deck. This ship was of fine quality to still be intact after such a violent battle. Bodies were littered throughout the hold belowdecks. Faint sobs could be heard from it. Among the pile of corpses, there were a dozen women still alive. They shivered and cowered, only daring to sob in low voices.

    Li Hao dismissed his armor to reveal his true face. ¡°I am Li Hao, deputy director of the Silver Moon Night Watchers,¡± he announced in a solemn voice. ¡°I am the ranking officer of the Silver Moon Guard. I am under orders to patrol the sea and eliminate the pirates! I am from the army!¡±

    The women might not know what the Night Watchers or Silver Moon Guard was, but they should know the army.

    However, these words made them shudder even more so. Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened and his heart sank. Why was this? He seemed to understand something in this moment.

    One of the trembling women looked at Li Hao and quickly ducked her head when she met his gaze. Her whole body shook. ¡°Lord soldier... we... we don¡¯t know anything... we didn¡¯t see anything...¡±

    The army brought them a more frightening feeling instead of security!

    Li Hao knew that they were from a small town in Near River that¡¯d been razed to the ground. Under those circumstances, not only were they not grateful or relieved at being rescued, but they were terrified and panicked instead!

    Why!

    Was it because the army wasn¡¯t the least bit dignified or trustworthy? Was Near River in a worse statepared to Silver Moon? Had this worlde to the state in which the people didn¡¯t trust the army?

    Li Hao thought of the Battle Heaven Army¡ªthis would have never been the case when that army took action, never!

    ¡°I am the leader of the Demon Hunters!¡± Li Hao looked at them. ¡°I¡¯ll take you back home. I know that your town has been razed, but perhaps there are survivors...¡±

    ¡°No... we don¡¯t want to go back...¡± A sobbing woman knelt, her voice quavered with fear. ¡°Don¡¯t... don¡¯t send us back, lord soldier. We... we want to live. I have a child... Going back... means we will die...¡±

    Dazed, Li Hao stared at the woman. He didn¡¯t know what to say.

    ¡°Near River is more... conservative,¡± Liu Long transmitted. ¡°Even if some of their family members survived, these women will be killed if they go home.¡±

    Li Hao started and looked at Liu Long.

    ¡°Not to mention, their town has been razed. If they return alive from the pirates, Near River mightbel them as traitors or pirate scouts. They can¡¯t go back. If they do, they¡¯ll be dead without a doubt. I saw some very young children below us. Some are still alive¡ªperhaps their children are among them. Leader, we can¡¯t take them back!¡±

    Li Hao struggled to collect his thoughts. <i>Why?</i> He understood, but wished even more so that he didn¡¯t. This should not be the case!

    Near River was too ipetent to fend off the pirates, resulting in the loss of one of their towns and countless casualties. These women had been captured, vited, and now hung to life by a thread. Shouldn¡¯t the province erupt with outrage and counterattack the pirates?

    But now that Liu Long exined... he understood. Li Hao had thought that Silver Moon was one of the worst provinces in the world as the Night Watchers sent only one Sunre when Silver City came under attack. At that time, he¡¯d felt that the province¡¯s supernatural system was trash!

    But now that he looked at it...

    Li Hao suddenlyughed at himself. So theirs was an era in which people raced to the bottom. Compared to their neighbors, Silver Moon was quite decent. The provincial government seemed to be doing quite well. There was someone to beat back the pirates, organization around the province¡¯s supernaturals, agencies overseeing civilian life, and everything operating normally...

    When he read the ancient books, the young man felt that Silver Moon was a pool of dead water and that day-to-day living was a humdrum affair. But now... while he¡¯d never been to Near River, he suddenly felt that Silver Moon was much better.

    How ludicrous!

    Li Hao said nothing else and walked down into the lower decks filled with corpses. The bodies belonged to mundanes, supernaturals, martial masters, and... children. Many of them were devoid of organs.

    The young man stood silently among the pile of corpses, silent and unmoving. What kind of forsaken era was this?! Humans killed each other and were brutal about it!

    ¡°Waaaaahhhh!¡± A piercing cry startled the young man.

    He walked forward and saw some children shoved into a metal cage. They were very young, some still in their swaddling clothes. At the moment, they were crammed into the cage like they were goods for sale. Some of the children were dead, but many were alive.

    Li Hao looked at them, seeing some of the older ones covering their mouths with wide-eyed looks of fear. A few of them were muffling the crying babies, as if deeply terrified of something.

    Li Hao broke the metal bars of the cage. Upstairs, the terrified woman looked down at the sound. Some of them shook so violently that they could do nothing but stare at the soldiers in ck armor. Legs too weak to stand, one of them started crawling to Li Hao!

    ¡°Lord... lord soldier... They are all children... Don¡¯t eat them... eat me...¡± Her voice shook as she crawled over the pile of bodies, ignoring her fear and swiftly crawling toward the cage.

    Li Hao bent down and picked up a bawling baby that¡¯d been squeezed out of the crowded cage. The baby was so young, possibly just a few months old. It didn¡¯t even have teeth yet and was so hungry that it suckled its own hand. The hand provided no food, so it started bawling again.

    Some other women were crawling toward the cage and gasped, ¡°Lord soldier... the children are hungry... they didn¡¯t mean to disturb you...¡±

    ¡°I saved you and I¡¯m a soldier, I¡¯m protecting you.¡± Li Hao turned back, child in his hands and looking at the women with iprehension. ¡°Why are you so afraid of me?¡±

    <i>Shouldn¡¯t you be grateful to me? I don¡¯t mind, but do I really look that evil?</i>

    The women crawling over didn¡¯t dare answer. One of them quickly took the baby from the young man¡¯s hands and, ignoring Li Hao¡¯s presence, undid her shirt to feed the ravenous child. Her milk was intermixed with blood as she¡¯d crawled over the liquid to get here.

    The tiny baby finally quieted down as it was being fed, but there seemed to be very little milk as the woman had suffered too much shock.

    The children in the cage shook and trembled as well. Li Hao wanted to say something to them, but didn¡¯t know what.

    ¡°Hong Qing, Liu Yan.¡± He looked behind him. ¡°Female soldiers, take off your armor ande talk to them!¡±

    He turned and left, emanating some sword energy around him. These people might all die without the energy as the sea winds were bitterly cold at night.

    The Demon Hunters began cleaning up the battlefield and the female soldiers swiftly walked toward the survivors. The cowering women were startled to see Liu Yan and the others, but the fear and shock in their eyes seemed to abate somewhat.

 Chapter 521: Making His Name Known (II)

    <h4>Chapter 521: Making His Name Known (II)</h4>

    Li Hao walked out of the ship¡¯s hold to find the Demon Hunters swiftly cleaning up the battlefield. Scanning the area, he dove into the sea without a word. People d in ck armor were tossed out of the sea momentster. A dozen martial masters had fallen into the sea in the earlier battle; some were already unconscious. If Li Hao didn¡¯t search them out, they would likely die in the depths.

    Yun Yao started treating some of the injured martial masters. The Demon Hunter supernaturals had been cocooned in fantastic protection when the skirmish raged, which filtered out unnecessary trouble for them.

    ¡°We killed roughly five hundred supernaturals in this engagement,¡± panted Liu Long when he returned momentster. ¡°It¡¯s tough to gauge the exact number. I gathered nine storage rings and some of the Sunres were also carrying them. I didn¡¯t look into what exactly they held.

    ¡°There¡¯s a ce like a warehouse in the ship that holds some mysterious power stones, they might be general property. We collected roughly twenty thousand cubes of mysterious power. It would¡¯ve been more, but too much dissipated and there¡¯s also the bodies that fell into the sea...¡±

    The twenty thousand cubes were personal possessions of these supernaturals. There was also an unknown amount in the storage rings to consider. Li Hao had two from the Novas; there might be a significant amount in the nine that Liu Long held.

    ¡°Chief.¡± The young man didn¡¯t mind these findings, he was just a bit confused. ¡°Although Silver City is small, the Inspectorate is still an institution worthy of trust in the people¡¯s eyes. The province also finds the army trustworthy. People are excited to see inspectors or soldiers when they run into trouble. Why... has it turned to this?¡±

    ¡°Near River, or many ces rather, are locales where soldiers do more harm than bandits,¡± Liu Long sighed. ¡°You would think the soldiers <i>are</i> the bandits! The bandits might let you live, but the soldiers might take off your head and pretend you¡¯re the enemy so they can earn merits!¡±

    ¡°Near River isn¡¯t one of the three northern provinces...¡± Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. ¡°It has the Director General Office overseeing things, it hasn¡¯t fully fallen apart...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s all the same!¡± Liu Long shook his head. ¡°Besides, it¡¯s just civilians dying, who cares about them? The nine ministries started off well enough, but they gradually spiraled out of control. It has to do with the rise of the supernatural as well. If this domain didn¡¯t develop, the situation might be better after another few decades. But reforms stopped after the supernatural came to be, tying the hands of those at the ministries...¡±

    The nine ministries had cherished audable heart for reform at first. Silver Moon was one of the beneficiaries¡ªthe nine ministries weren¡¯t all bad, at least they were better than when the royal family ruled. But before their reforms could bepleted, the supernatural appeared twenty years ago and broke everything in the process.

    Thus, the age shifted to chaos!

    Li Hao felt momentarily defeated, sensing that kind of darkness for the first time. No wonder these people cowered at the sight of soldiers... so soldiers could be worse than any alternative at times!

    Then, Silver Moon was in a good state. The army in residence operated under strict regtion with Huang Yu at its head.

    The young man breathed out,pletely unaware of what he should be thinking about. His mind was a mess and he didn¡¯t want to think of anything at the moment. The enemy may not bepletely defeated.

    ¡°Mind the situation here.¡± He looked at Liu Long. ¡°I¡¯m going to the front for a look. Perhaps there are more pirates there!¡±

    ¡°Be careful!¡±

    Li Hao set foot into the air without another word. He just wanted to get far away from here. There were many new revtions fighting to upend his worldview. So the world outside Silver Moon was even more frightening. So it turned out that Silver City was in decent straits. The scattered supernaturals that made their way over to the province were dispatched by Liu Long and the others. The three great organizations didn¡¯t dare run too rampant, the army kept unrest under control, the Silver Moon Guards exterminated pirates...

    The provincial government that he¡¯d found so impotent seemed to be quietly operating well. The people¡¯s livelihoods were stable¡ªat the very least, he hadn¡¯t heard of anyone dying from hunger in his lifetime.

    ¡°So... Silver Moon is a paradise?¡± Li Hao murmured incredulously to himself. Didn¡¯t they say that being a bordend province, Silver Moon might be the poorest out of the ny-nine? That the province was popted by savages? Didn¡¯t they say that Silver Moon¡¯s martial world was the most sinister of them all?

    Why did it suddenly seem so much better than a lot of ces?

    There was unrest in the three northern provinces and Near River was said to be much richer than Silver Moon... but many of his notions were abruptly shattered in this moment. So this was all there was to Near River!

    All sorts of thoughts floated to the forefront as Li Hao shot ahead. A dog tossed and tumbled over the sea, biting onest supernatural to death with a massive chomp.

    ¡°Can¡¯t you imitate the major monster spirits and talk with your mind?¡± Li Hao looked at Panther. It was tiring not being able tomunicate.

    The dog looked nkly at him and shook its head. It couldn¡¯t do that.

    ¡°Why not?¡±

    Panther continued shaking its head. No was no, it didn¡¯t know why. It could understand speech wanted to talk, or imitate the old turtle andmunicate through mental ripples. However, it always fell a bit short, possibly because it was too weak!

    Indeed, weak monster spirits couldn¡¯t talk. As for when they could... they needed to grow stronger. They just needed to continuously grow stronger, much stronger than it was now. Perhaps speech would be possible then.

    Li Hao was slightly disappointed. He waved a hand and picked up speed. Panther padded swiftly over the water surface, waves undting beneath its feet. It felt very much like the aura of the Nine Forged Force.

    The dog seemed to have reached an exceedingly high level ofprehension with the Nine Forged Force. It didn¡¯t know anything else, just surface level knowledge of the Five Styles. When it came to the Nine Forged Force, it seemed to have grasped the method¡¯s true meaning.

    One human and one dog proceeded smoothly. Li Hao glimpsed another ship roughly a few dozen kilometers out. There were gs fluttering from it, but no lights. However, Li Hao saw approximately one hundred balls of light in the darkness!

    One hundred pirates, and their caliber seemed very high! The ones he¡¯d dispatched before contained even Starlight, but here, their weakest was Darkmoon. Most of them were Sunre and there were three Srs. Although there were a lot fewer peoplepared to the previous ship, their overall quality was much higher.

    The White Shark Raiders!

    Li Hao read the group¡¯s name from the g snapping in the wind. So these were also White Shark Raiders. He hadn¡¯t thought there¡¯d be two groups of them here tonight, one led by a mid Nova and another by ate Nova.

    It would seem that they ced quite some value on Silver Moon!

    ¡°Kill them all!¡± Li Hao transmitted to Panther as he soundlesslynded on the ship. Like an assassin, he locked onto a Sr and struck soundlessly. <i>Pfft! </i>He sliced a throat open!

    ¡°We¡¯re under attack!¡± someone shrilled.

    Li Hao roved throughout the ship like a king of the night. Stroke after stroke followed his steps. Being a martial master in silver armor, he was undetectable by his enemies. They only knew where he was after he killed someone.

    ¡°The enemy is too strong, run!¡± came a roar before the speaker jumped into the water. He promptly vanished as Panther ripped him to pieces. He couldn¡¯t call out a warning, so pirate after pirate threw themselves into the water. Someone flew into the air, dropping as a corpse in the next second as sword light shed through the void.

    ¡°We are the White Shark Troops, which esteemed personage...¡±

    <i>Pfft.</i> The man split apart into pieces before he could finish talking. The White Shark Troops? How dare a bunch of cannibalistic piratesbel themselves part of the military?!

    Li Hao found the notion ludicrous! He attacked with abandon from the darkness. Even though he was gravely injured, he just wanted to kill these people as fast as possible! It wasn¡¯t until he kicked open the ship¡¯s hold six minutester and killed a supernatural hiding inside that a smile spread across his face.

    <i>Where do you think you¡¯re hiding?</i>

    Panther also hopped onto the ship. A human and a dog wandered around the ship, raising ghastly shrieks wherever they went. Some hoped to be lucky enough to evade their pursuit and retracted their mysterious power, but they were still as visible as ever to the duo. One used a pair of special eyes, the other sniffed out particr scents to track their targets.

    The ship was quiet after a few more minutes; more storage rings collected in Li Hao¡¯s hand.

    ¡°Deputy Liu, does anyone know how to steer the ship? Bring that ship over to me, we¡¯ve captured another one here!¡±

    ¡°We do! We¡¯ll be right there!¡± Liu Long quickly responded.

    ......

    After approximately ten minutes, a tattered ship with some holes in its side drifted to the ship that Li Hao was on. Both ships were enormous and very durable, likely reinforced by mysterious power. There might even be other treasures refined into therge ship, making it impervious to supernatural attacks.

    Liu Long and the others noted the corpses on the body. People jumped over and began cleaning up the battlefield without needing to be instructed to do so. Liu Yan joined them before long to make her report.

    ¡°Weforted the women for a while, but they¡¯re still in an unstable emotional state.¡± She looked at Li Hao. ¡°There are too many bodies on the first ship and they belong to civilians, so they shouldn¡¯t be thrown into the sea. Leader, can we transfer them here?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Li Hao inclined his head.

    Liu Yan quickly returned to the first ship to make the provisions. Hong Qing walked over with reddened eyes and took off her armor. ¡°Leader, they¡¯re... in such a wretched state and have no home to return to. Can I bring them back to Silver Moon and take them back to the Sword Sect?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°We often have cases like these at the Sword Sect,¡± Hong Qing quickly added. ¡°They¡¯ll suffersting damage if they¡¯re not properly looked after. We have the experience necessary. Otherwise, just giving them food and money will still result in them going mad after a period of time.

    ¡°At the Sword Sect, people who¡¯ve gone through simr experiences can take care of them and guide them. They¡¯ll survive their experience better this way and go on to a new life. If not... they¡¯ll likely die no matter where they go.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. He really didn¡¯t know how to handle this kind of situation. He was much more at ease after Hong Qing¡¯s words. The Sword Sect might be able to handle what he could not. He could kill, but it was very difficult for him to do anything else.

 Chapter 522: Making His Name Known (III)

    <h4>Chapter 522: Making His Name Known (III)</h4>

    ¡°I chatted with them,¡± said Hong Qing. ¡°They said that we killed one of the threemanders of the White Shark Raiders in our earlier battle. The pirates broke into their vige this afternoon and killed everyone in the vige. Women that were passable when it came to appearance were spared, especially as there were children that needed to be nursed. These situations have happened before and always end up with all of the women being killed. The children are often raised into pirates...¡±

    Li Hao frowned, not wanting to say too much or understand any of this in greater detail. Despite the victories, he still felt a knot of emotion churning in his stomach in the aftermath.

    ¡°The White Shark Raiders have lost six hundred supernaturals, two Novas, and eight Srs in this skirmish,¡± he said instead. ¡°How strong do you guys think they still are?¡±

    Li Hao took a deep breath before receiving a response. ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s not talk about this yet. We have more people now, so let¡¯s head back first. Get all the pirate corpses back onto the first ship and hang them up!¡±

    Some eyes widened!

    ¡°Hang them on the ship and sail them back!¡± A cold light glittered in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. ¡°The news will spread at daybreak and the White Shark Raiders cane as they wish if they want revenge! If they don¡¯t seek vengeance, then I¡¯ll go find them when I¡¯ve settled these people in and fully rested!¡±

    ¡°Leader...¡± Liu Long frowned. ¡°Why don¡¯t we keep a lower profile? We might stand a chance of ambushing them then...¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°There¡¯s no point in keeping a low profile. These animals get more vicious the more humble you are! The only way to stop them is through equal violence, equal ughter! That Nova pirate leader wasn¡¯t afraid even when I wanted to kill him. He was afraid only when I used a more brutal method against him. Not only do we need to kill this kind of person, but we need to strike fear into their hearts!¡±

    The young man knew that it might be better to sink the ship and pretend ignorance. It would create a more advantageous situation for their next ambush. But in that case, these fellows wouldn¡¯t be afraid.

    ¡°But if they attack us and prate Silver Moon...¡± Liu Long worried.

    ¡°Hmph!¡± The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes was cold. ¡°If that¡¯s the case, the ones in White Moon City better make their moves. There¡¯s nothing worth pining over for Silver Moon if they don¡¯t! Which out of Kong Jie, Director General Zhao, Deputy Zhou, and Commander Huang Yu isn¡¯t a premier powerhouse? And don¡¯t forget Earth...¡±

    He wanted to say Earthturner Sword, but decided not to upon seeing that Hong Qing was still present. With so many powerhouses in the province, would they all bide their time unto their deaths if they still didn¡¯t take action when pirates attacked? Li Hao didn¡¯t care what they were nning. He just knew that the White Shark Raiders might not have the courage toe for revenge.

    If they did, he¡¯d kill them!

    Liu Long nodded after some thought. He didn¡¯t try to speak other sense into the young man.

    Li Hao was suffering from an impact he¡¯d heretofore not experienced; he¡¯d begun to lose hisposure. Someone normally as low profile as him suddenly wanted nothing more than for everyone to know his strength. Hanging all of the pirate corpses on the ship was also a warning to the White Shark Raiders.

    Liu Long said nothing else and called out, ¡°Hoist all of the pirate corpses over the sails!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± shouted the Demon Hunters. Some of the Sword Sect disciples were thrilled by themand and didn¡¯t find anything inappropriate about it. The disciple who¡¯d told Li Hao about the cruelties of the pirates felt his blood run hot and luxuriated in the sweet thrill of vengeance. He leapt into motion and pierced through multiple bodies, threading them with a rope and hanging them on the sails!

    The women being transferred out of the ship emerged with children in their arms. Liu Yan wanted them to back away and wait for a while, but they insisted on burrowing out and ring hatefully at the pirates draped over the ship¡¯s sails. Great enjoyment spread over their faces, but they ultimately covered the children¡¯s eyes out of pity.

    Li Hao watched silently until the scene was cleaned up. ¡°Return to the city!¡± he ordered.

    The two ships headed south, crewed by the Demon Hunters. The sky was beginning to brighten. Li Hao ripped apart the pirate gs fluttering in the wind with a single punch!

    After some thought, he hung a piece of long ck cloth on the sails and directed his mind intent to brand it with a bloodthirsty tiger, one that seemed ready to break out of a cage. He wrote with his fingers and emzoned a bloody ¡°Li¡± character on the newly made g.

    It hung high in the air and undted in the wind. Li Hao regarded it with quiet contemtion. A ferocious tiger breaking free of its cage! He wanted to say something, but didn¡¯t know how to say it. Thus, he created the first g of his life¡ªthe Li g of the ferocious tiger!

    Darkness faded away from the sky. The g fluttered in the wind, snapping like a tiger howling through the mountain and ready to pounce on its next target!

    ......

    <i>Southern Ford.</i>

    Kong Jie had arrived. He furrowed his brows in a look of tired concentration at the coast. He¡¯d traveled through the night, finding a prolonged sprint wearying even at his level of strength. Originally nning on heading out to sea, he paused when Wang Ming stopped him to say that Li Hao and the others were returning.

    The inspector general frowned even more fiercely at that. How could Li Hao set out in the middle of the night?! What would they be able to do if he was lost at sea??

    Thankfully, there hadn¡¯t seemed to be much of an issue. The young man had returned. Perhaps he hadn¡¯t run into any powerful existences.

    Kong Jie wasn¡¯t that concerned about pirates attacking. Silver Moon wouldn¡¯t bepletely caught off guard in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s absence. If pirates really dide to Southern Ford, the city would be able to defend itself for a while. Reinforcements would quicklye along¡ªit wouldn¡¯t immediately fall to the pirates like Li Hao imagined.

    ¡°What is that?¡± someone gasped on the shore.

    Kong Jie quickly looked into the distance and saw two ships loom into sight. One of them had a g streaming in the wind. It wasn¡¯t too big, yet seemed close at hand. It seemed that a ferocious tiger was ready to erupt with a roar. A ¡°Li¡± character the color of blood was written on it with a foreboding air, like it was going to rip straight through the void!

    <i>Li Hao?</i>

    Kong Jie paused; his pupils constricted violently. There were some things swaying on the big ship¡ªhe¡¯d thought it was the ship¡¯s moorings. However, his eyesight was keen and that was when he reacted.

    <i>Corpses!</i>

    Numerous corpses, likely hundreds of them and all tattered or in pieces, were hung on the ship!

    In the distance, Li Hao seemed to recover himself and suddenly boomed, ¡°The Demon Hunters of the Silver Moon Guard have exterminated a branch of the White Shark Raiders. We executed hundreds of supernaturals and disy them as a warning. Residents of Southern Ford. There is no need to panic!¡±

    His voice was resonant and carried throughout the four directions!

    A disturbance grew in the city and a group of people quickly rushed over. All of them were astonished by the two massive ships. Hundreds of supernaturals?

    ¡°The Demon Hunters of the Silver Moon Guard?¡±

    ¡°Haven¡¯t heard of them before...¡±

    ¡°I know a thing or two, they¡¯re led by Li Hao. There¡¯s very few of them and they killed a lot of members from the three great organizations near Rift Canyon a while ago. So he¡¯s gone off to kill pirates this time...¡±

    ¡°The White Shark Raiders! That¡¯s one of the eight pirate factions! He¡¯s so... so bold! Won¡¯t this result in vengeance from the pirates?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Discourse bubbled up as those of Southern Ford knew much of the world. Part of them often sailed the seas as merchants, so their horizons were indeed broad. This was far beyond the capabilities of the people in a tiny Silver City in the north of Silver Moon.

    Southern Ford residents knew about the eight pirate factions, the three great organizations, and the existence of supernaturals. As a port, their knowledge was expansive. Regardless, some were still horrified when the two ships drew near.

    ¡°They say that Li Hao is the Demon Sword and kills without blinking. Who would¡¯ve thought that he¡¯s even crueler than the legends! My heavens, how many people has he killed? This...¡±

    ¡°Pfft, he killed only pirates. Why don¡¯t you talk about how cruel they are? But he¡¯s certainly bold. Isn¡¯t he afraid of retribution from the White Shark Raiders? Apparently they have Nova experts. Li Hao¡¯s killed Srs, but when ites to Novas...¡±

    ¡°Idiot, there was probably a Nova leading a crew of this size. Can Li Hao kill Novas now?¡± Intense discussion circted as some grappled with the implications of this operation.

    ¡°That¡¯s... a... ship belonging to one of theirmanders. It¡¯s Sea Shark¡¯s ship! He¡¯s a mid Nova. Is he... is he dead?¡± Color drained from some faces.

    ¡°If Sea Shark¡¯s ship is here, was he ready to attack Southern Ford?¡± gasped those who thought further. ¡°Why would they run into the Silver Moon Guard otherwise? My goodness, were the White Shark Raiders preparing to ambush the cityst night??¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re behind the times, I heard this morning that the town of Near Sea was razed to the ground yesterday. It¡¯s a town close to us in Near Sea province, everyone was butchered. I wanted to evacuate my family this morning, but now we see Sea Shark¡¯s ship.¡±

    ¡°......¡± People were looking at the scene from all sides and also discussing the ck-armored warriors on the ships.

    <i>The Demon Hunters!</i>

    More were looking at Li Hao, the young man standing at the bow. Some were afraid, others envious, and some worshipful. Kong Jie was also staring at Li Hao with shock and at the ships with incredulity.

    Sea Shark... was dead? And not only Sea Shark, but he recognized the second ship as well. ¡°Faceless Shark?!¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Wang Ming started next to him.

    ¡°The secondmander of the White Shark Raiders. He always appears in a mask, so people call him the Faceless Shark!¡±

    Since Kong Jie recognized the ship, as did others. A supernatural in the city sucked in a sharp breath. ¡°That¡¯s... that¡¯s Faceless Shark¡¯s Seabreaker! How is that possible for Sea Shark¡¯s ship and Seabreaker to both be here?! They¡¯re the two Novamanders of the White Shark Raiders, how is this possible??¡±

    Incredible, impossible! These two were tyrants of the sea and arge reason why the White Shark Raiders were ranked number four out of the pirate factions. But now... they were both... dead? How else would their ships be towed back here if they weren¡¯t??

 Chapter 523: Yuan Shuoâ€™s Resentment (I)

    <h4>Chapter 523: Yuan Shuo¡¯s Resentment (I)</h4>

    Li Hao pushed off the ship¡¯s deck andnded on the shore. Kong Jie couldn¡¯t contain himself and looked at the young man. ¡°You killed Faceless Shark and Sea Shark?¡±

    ¡°The one in the mask?¡± Li Hao looked at the inspector general.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know if that was him... he¡¯s dead, anyhow.¡±

    Kong Jie sucked in a sharp breath and suddenly thought of something. He looked at Panther; understanding dawned. Had the dog worked with the young man to bring down the enemy? This dog was quite strong, he¡¯d watched it ambush Elder Crimson and kill the powerhouse.

    ¡°You... how... are youing back like this?¡± Kong Jie recovered his calm after his initial surprise. It was one thing to kill the pirates, but to return in this manner... wasn¡¯t that creating trouble for himself?

    ¡°These people¡¯s cruelty is endless. They even eat their victims! I want to disy their bodies as a warning to others! If the White Shark Raiders dare show their faces around here again, the Demon Hunters will naturally meet them in battle. If you are worried, Inspector General Kong, I will bear the responsibility for all of the consequences!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that... I mean you... Operating in this manner...¡± Kong Jie started and stopped in a fit of resignation. ¡°You... forget it. You¡¯re in a lot of trouble to begin with, so this bit more doesn¡¯t matter. You better not set out to sail any longer, and don¡¯t leave Silver Moon. Southern Ford is a port city and there are a lot of agents here from other factions. News of you killing Faceless Shark and Sea Shark will soon spread. They weren¡¯t ordinary characters as they were both Novas, so you need to be careful...¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care and called out, ¡°There must be pirate scouts in this area! Tell White Shark that I, Li Hao, killed Faceless Shark and Sea Shark! Have him clean his neck and wait for me to behead him! Silver Moon is Li Hao territory and there¡¯s no ce for animals like these bandits!¡±

    Kong Jie could barely restrain his eye rolls. <i>You really don¡¯t care about creating trouble for yourself, don¡¯t you!</i>

    Li Hao, however, grinned. He¡¯d thought things through in this moment, he really had. <i>Why should I be afraid of trouble? I¡¯m not at all! The more the merrier! </i>He suddenly recalled records from ancient tomes that spoke of how the Human King had razed countless cities and killed endless enemies when he was a fourth rank cultivator.

    Despite being surrounded by ninth rank enemies, he never fell in battle and narrowly escaped from death many times. The more he fought, the stronger he became before ultimately growing into the invincible powerhouse that was known throughout the ages.

    He hadn¡¯t been afraid of death even when the gap between him and his enemies was so great.<i> I rival mid Novas now and the enemy has at most reached the metamorphosis level at the end of Nova. We¡¯re in the same cultivation level, justte and peak Nova separate us. Why am I so afraid of them?</i>

    Let the storm rage a bit fiercer!

    Sharp gasps abounded from the city as the mundanes or superhumans hiding in Southern Ford were immensely taken aback. Li Hao had killed twomanders of the White Shark Raiders? Didn¡¯t that mean that Demon Sword could killte Novas now?

    That was impossible as it was too fast! It was shocking enough when he killed six Srs two days ago, not much time had passed since then!

    Off to the side, Wang Ming was ovee with joy; he quickly thought of something else. ¡°Set up a banquet and a celebration!¡± he roared. ¡°We must celebrate the Demon Hunters and General Li!¡±

    What a pity that he hadn¡¯t been able to participate this time. He needed to make up for his absence and make sure that people knew he was still around! The vendors that he¡¯d bought out for the day looked at each other with some fear and panic. However, they put together preparations soon enough.

    Silver Moon nurtured a fierce culture. Although people were scared by the corpses in the distance, the provincial army was a decent enough institution that their reputation was passable. Added to that the circting exnations that if the Silver Moon Guard hadn¡¯t destroyed the White Shark Raiders, the pirates would¡¯ve attacked Southern Fordst night... They put one more at ease.

    Delicious fragrance soon drifted through the air; news also began to spread in all directions. The somewhat known Li Hao was famous overnight. News of Demon Sword Li Hao originated from Southern Ford and fanned out like wildfire. The leader of the Demon Hunters crossed a thousand kilometersst night to kill two Novamanders and several hundred supernaturals of the White Shark Raiders!

    ......

    <i>On the beaches of Southern Ford.</i>

    A group of people dug into a delicious spread of food. Li Hao ate ravenously; no one made a sound. There were only sounds of people chewing and swallowing.

    Wang Ming and Kong Jie tried to talk a few times, but ultimately didn¡¯t say a word. The director of the local Night Watcher branch also wanted to break the ice a few times, but ultimately chose to stay silent.

    ¡°A toast to you, Inspector General Kong!¡± Li Hao suddenly raised his cup at Kong Jie.

    The inspector general started. It was the young man who was strong! But surprisingly, Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word apart from his initial exnation after he exited the ship. And now, he suddenly offered a toast.

    No matter that Kong Jie was unparalleled and a dignified inspector general, making him two levels higher than Li Hao in the bureaucracy, he was ttered by the attention. <i>Strange kid to suddenly want to toast me...</i> Kong Jie almost suspected that he¡¯d misheard.

    ¡°You and yourpatriots keep Silver Moon safe in this rotten day and age.¡± His cup held high, Li Hao tossed the contents back with one gulp! ¡°While my parents and friend died due to Silver Moon¡¯s ipetence... Thews wereughable, the official authorities were ipetent. The supernatural creeps through ournd and no one can keep the three great organizations in check...

    ¡°I hated the useless authorities of the province!¡± The young man chuckled self deprecatingly.

    An awkward Kong Jie found himself at a loss, but Li Hao mmed his hand on the table and cried out, ¡®¡°But in this rotten day and age, I found that I was still able to attend my studies, take revenge, have food on the table and a roof over my head, and join the Inspectorate... What a damned honor!¡±

    Kong Jie couldn¡¯t make out if this was sarcasm anymore. Was this sarcasm?

    No! It would¡¯ve been sarcasm before today, but now it was not. Prior to what Li Hao had just undergone, it was easy to jeer at official powerhouses for being ipetent and allowing the province to fall into a morass of awfulness. All they knew was to pretend weakness and not to clean up the three great organizations.

    But today... the young man found that Silver Moon wasn¡¯t that badly off in this horrendous age. The three northern provinces were such extreme examples of trash, as was the Near River neighboring them. The central region was equally the height of lousiness, especiallypared to what they could be. They wouldn¡¯t care if a major city was raised to the ground.

    In contrast, Silver Moon was a paradise of happiness. At the very least, he was able to attend school and study after being orphaned. He could eat and drink his fill. Part of it was due to his inheritance, the other part was due to Silver City reducing his tuition.

    It hadn¡¯t felt that significant before¡ªit really hadn¡¯t! Li Hao only had resentment and hatred upying his mind. Why didn¡¯t these pieces of trash find out early on that it was Red Moon behind his parents¡¯ death and eliminate the organization?!

    But now that he looked at it... Mm, things were fine. Comparison was the thief of joy, or in this case, the backdrop of appreciation.

    ¡°I toast all of you!¡± Li Hao raised his cup at the director of the local Inspectorate. ¡°As a junior and a rookie, I am also your new deputy director. I only have a few words to say. It is normal to be afraid of death. I¡¯m afraid, everyone¡¯s afraid, there¡¯s no one who isn¡¯t. But I only hope for everyone to aplish one thing¡ªdo not be the first to run when the enemyes. Do not be the first to surrender, do not be the first to break down...¡±

    The middle-aged Sunre director looked at Li Hao and drained his cup without another word. He said softly after the toast, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Deputy Director Li! We are born and raised in Silver Moon. We may not be a strong people, but we are not to the point of fearing death andtching onto life at all costs. Martial masters rose from Silver Moon and we all carry sentiments of the martial world in our bones! The martial world mightck in all things, but the only thing it does notck is hot bloodedness!¡±

    This was the sacrednd of martial dao and the martial world! Everyone born of Silver Moon grew up on stories of the martial world. Perhaps it¡¯d be a thing of the past after the rise of the supernatural, but Yuan Shuo¡¯s emergence and the reappearance of the Five Styles King meant that the martial world was back!

    Twenty years of drifting along with the waves... Some of the veterans present recalled the martial world of twenty years ago. It had been a time of blood and gore, but also satisfaction of gratitude and revenge. Those of Silver Moon were not down for the count yet.

    Kong Jie vaguely grasped Li Hao¡¯s sentiment and looked at the young man again, then at the lone table of women and children not too far from them. He ended with a nce at the bodies hanging by the sails.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯re not that guy in Near River!¡± He raised his cup at Li Hao. ¡°He¡¯s strong enough, but he¡¯s just a dog with no fight in him and only knows to bark like mad!¡± Derision colored his voice. ¡°His greatest mission is to seal off Silver Moon, not to move against the pirates. He might even be secretly backing the Sea Monster Raiders among the eight factions! Don¡¯tpare us to Near River, that¡¯d be looking down on us!¡±

    He understood Li Hao¡¯s meaning and heard the subtle undercurrents within. It looked like the young man had suffered from exposure to Near River.

    ¡°Other than small scuffles among our thirty-six cities over the years, have you ever seen civilians ughtered on a mass scale in the province? We rose up in resistance when the Skystar Dynasty invaded two hundred years ago. It was only out of consideration of further invasion from Great Li that Silver Moon decided to capitte and join Skystar. Otherwise, it wouldn¡¯t have been easy for the dynasty to capture Silver Moon.

    ¡°Skystar has always been wary of us and thus banned martial dao, but for what? They were forced to bring Silver Moon people against Silver Moon in the end. Unfortunately for them, the threemanders weren¡¯t that docile. They were tasked to destroy the martial world, and while they did kill some martial masters, they only killed the ones who didn¡¯t follow the rules!

    ¡°Your master is arrogant, domineering, and kills people in droves. But he stayed within the rules, so the threemanders didn¡¯t move against him!¡± Kong Jie roared withughter. ¡°It¡¯s a good idea to set Silver Moon against Silver Moon, but the dynasty doesn¡¯t understand us or the martial world. At the end of the day, the Skystar Guards became the Silver Moon Guard. Apparently, the Steppe Prince who founded the Skystar Guards vomited three liters of blood and almost died from anger when he heard the oue. He hates the threemanders!¡±

    Li Hao shed a smile and drank another cup of wine, finding the mixture of bitterness, spiciness, and sourness hard to describe.

    ¡°Inspector General Kong, I have a question that I¡¯m not sure I should ask,¡± Li Hao continued without waiting for a response. ¡°What do they want?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°I ask what these people want!¡± Li Hao rumbled. ¡°Don¡¯t they have any other goals in mind other than dominating the world? The people suffer, bodies are strewn through the countryside and the dead float in the sea. People die of starvation everyday, is this what they want?

    ¡°Yes, there are no external enemies anymore or the Earth Dwellers that the ancient records speak of, but wasn¡¯t it just as well when the nine ministries undertook their reforms? The royal family enjoyed special privilege, the nine ministries ruled the world. Why must they dere themselves sovereign of a certain direction when they have the strength to? What¡¯s the point of that?¡±

 Chapter 524: Yuan Shuoâ€™s Resentment (II)

    <h4>Chapter 524: Yuan Shuo¡¯s Resentment (II)</h4>

    ¡°What''s the point? Go ask them!¡± Kong Jie blinked with a soft sigh. ¡°It¡¯s always either power, profit, fame, or strength. There is nock of ambition in this world, Li Hao, and nock of evil characters in an age of chaos. They release the evil in their hearts when theye into power! The nine ministries are dragon yers. When the royal family crushed the people beneath their iron boot, the ministries stepped forth to y this evil dragon. Although they didn¡¯t fully seed, the ministries were heroes eighty years ago. Sadly, it¡¯s only taken them a few years to go off from their original intent.

    ¡°The nine ministries oversee the world and various ns control the nine ministries. Perhaps the first generation of ministers had great aims eighty years ago, but their controlling families are very different eighty yearster!¡± Kong Jie sighed heavily.

    The first generation of ministers had nursed great aspirations. But when each ministry came under the sole control of one family, such as the Lius for the Ministry of Finance, they deviated from their original mission statement.

    The human heart was in a constant state of flux. The dragon yers ultimately became dragons themselves and started guarding themselves against each other. Wary of their brethren and worried that the price would be too heavy to pay after the three great organizations grew in strength, the various ministries made different choices that set them on different paths.

    ¡°When the supernatural rose twenty years ago, the three great organizations were still in their infancy. We could¡¯ve swiftly suffocated them,¡± Kong Jieughed. ¡°The Ministry of Armed Forces was very strong then, to say nothing of the others. However, they were concerned about depleting too many resources if they faced the three great organizations, so they decided to shy away from conflict! The royal family¡¯s ck Armaturas were equally strong, but they worried that they would lose too many if sent out in battle.

    ¡°The other ministries had their own forces to deploy. There were still martial masters in ces other than Silver Moon, and we¡¯d excavated some powerful weapons from the ruins. However, everyone was very cautious that if we used up our aces, what would we do against the other eight ministries or royal family?

    ¡°That was the most important reason why the supernatural rose swiftly and the three great organizations were not eradicated. Leaders like Ying Hongyue were very smart and knew that this would be the result...

    ¡°Ultimately, the Inspectorate decided to establish the Night Watchers and received support from the other ministries and royal family. Since no one wanted to take action, we would establish a new organization and recruit powerhouses from all sides to work for the dynasty.

    ¡°At that time, no one fathomed that the supernatural would grow so quickly in twenty years. They surpassed martial masters in the blink of an eye and even became stronger than some powerful hot weapons...¡±

    Li Hao listened silently to the background of the world. He drank a few cups of wine and looked at the feasting Demon Hunters around him.

    ¡°Let¡¯s set this aside!¡± The young man smiled. ¡°There¡¯s not much meaning to it anyhow. I was confused about this before because I felt it was unfair. I hated the situation and refused to ept it!

    ¡°But when the inspector general said that this age is just this rotten and that even the nine ministries are rotten, I suddenly feel that there¡¯s no need to listen to anything else anymore.¡±

    Indeed, there was no need. This era was rotten to the core. The royal family was possibly in cahoots with the three great organizations. Favors traded hands with each other and no one was willing to take a definitive stand against the three great organizations. Various hegemonies in other provinces wished for the three great organizations to curtail the central region, so they secretly supported the supernatural heavyweights.

    It wasughable, but very true. The three great organizations had a wonderful time in their operations. They didn¡¯t suffer or scurry in the shadows like mice, as was somonly thought of them.

    Not by far!

    The true situation was that minor scuffles appeared with regrity between the two sides, but never a major skirmish. As for the city annihtion missiles trained on them... how many powerhouses would that really kill?

    It was far more likely that the civilians would suffer instead.

    As for the Night Watchers, it was said that some troublemakers fooled around, killed Yama¡¯s grandson, and stole the Heavens Dictate to elevate the fights into all-out war. It dragged in Novas and caused the deaths of supernaturals of that level.

    Before that, the Night Watchers had been in retreat on all fronts and doggedly stuck defense. They didn¡¯t dare take proactive action.

    When Li Hao first heard this information, he¡¯d been speechless. With the scale of the mess that those troublemakers had created... they weren¡¯t spies, were they? Now that he looked at it, perhaps they were just acting ording to their will and not paying attention to the nine ministries and royal family. They turned everything into shambles because they didn¡¯t have any other thoughts in mind. It was the others who had their own schemes and plots in mind.

    Kong Jie said nothing further.

    ......

    Li Hao rxed after everyone finished eating and announced, ¡°Now that we¡¯ve eaten and drank our fill, let¡¯s have fun in the city! Everything¡¯s on me! However, remember to conceal your identity. Do not reveal that you are a Demon Hunter. If you are exposed, don¡¯t start any conflict and contact me for anything!¡±

    ¡°Leader, we¡¯re not going...¡±

    ¡°Go!¡± Li Hao roared. ¡°Why not?! Everyone into the city! It¡¯s just one day and we might not have the chance for vacation or rest tomorrow. There might only be never-ending battle and a standing mission to exterminate the pirates!

    ¡°I hung up the White Shark Raiders today, White Shark himself is still alive and wishes to maintain his control over the seas. He¡¯lle for us sooner orter! Otherwise, the other seven factions will eat him alive if he doesn¡¯t dare respond after we killed their number two and three. No matter what, he¡¯lle for revenge. He¡¯lle even knowing that Silver Moon is not a faction to antagonize!¡±

    Kong Jie inclined his head. Li Hao read the situation very clearly sometimes. If White Shark wished to maintain his footing in the North Sea, he would have to find a way to eliminate Li Hao, whether for intimidation, to cement his own reputation, or for revenge. Otherwise, his White Shark Raiders were done for.

    If he didn¡¯t dare even scream with outrage after losing two of hismanders and six hundred supernaturals, who would dare join his banner in the future? Perhaps he would suffer desertions as his men joined other pirate groups.

    No one protested after Li Hao¡¯s words. Perhaps... perhaps they wouldn¡¯t have a chance to rx in the future. Thus, no one refused the leader¡¯s suggestion.

    ¡°You take everyone into the city and pay for everything first!¡± Li Hao looked at Wang Ming.

    ¡°That¡¯s easily done!¡± Wang Ming quickly responded. <i>Super easy! I have so much money!</i>

    ¡°You two have another mission.¡± Li Hao looked at Hong Qing and Hong Hao. ¡°Have the local army send one hundred people to escort you and the women to the Sword Sect.¡±

    Hong Qing bobbed her head rapidly.

    ¡°Let¡¯s take care of the remaining corpses on the ships.¡± Li Hao looked at Liu Long. ¡°If any of them are the women¡¯s family... ask them if they wish to be buried at the Sword Sect. If not, bury them here with the rest.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Liu Long answered crisply, looking at Li Hao differently from before.

    The young man didn¡¯t mind and turned to Kong Jie. ¡°Inspector General Kong, please keep me notified of any intelligent reports...¡± He thought for a bit and took out a set of ck armor. ¡°Please keep this for now. You can use it to contact me if we are within five hundred kilometers of each other.¡±

    Kong Jie¡¯s eyes widened and he stared at Li Hao. ¡°I hadn¡¯t thought that you¡¯d obtain authorization... That¡¯s very rare!¡± inly, he knew a bit of the ancient armor¡¯s purpose.

    ¡°Does the inspector general mean to say that others have obtained it before?¡±

    ¡°Yes, the royal family¡¯s ck Armaturas!¡± Kong Jie intoned. ¡°They seem to have this kind of armor and it shoulde with some authorization. When the ck Armaturas conquered the ny-nine provinces, they were able to coordinate their efforts within five hundred kilometers through a superiormunication system...¡±

    <i>The ck Armaturas!</i>

    It wasn¡¯t his first time hearing this name. Li Hao thought of the Skystar Garrison and the one hundred thousand troops on duty there to protect the ind of energy. Perhaps the royal family had obtained authorization over that troop. That indicated they really had discovered the garrison¡¯s ruins.

    Would there only be one of this army back in the day? There might be others, such as the other seven families¡¯ cities. There were certain to be other mid-sized cities as well. Some people had explored other ruins before and may have obtained armor there. Granted, they wouldn¡¯t have necessarily received the same authorization.

    Li Hao continued giving his instructions. Wang Ming left with the Demon Hunters. Hong Qing and her fellow disciple escorted the survivors to the Sword Sect. Liu Long directed burial efforts for the rest of the bodies.

    Delicate sensibilities were not considered when the bodies were shifted out. The Southern Ford citizens observing from the distance paled with horror. They hadn¡¯t felt this way when they saw the pirates¡¯ bodies, but color drained from their faces when they saw the civilians¡¯ corpses.

    They¡¯d been like Li Hao before, rather indifferent to news of ces being razed to the ground. Silver Moon was a wonderful environment. But now as they saw corpses devoid of organs and the grisly way that children had died... Many looked on with ashen faces while others flushed with fury.

    ¡°Animals!¡± they cursed, hot-blooded natures at the core of their being.

    They watched gruesome corpses being carried out and thought of these bandits killing untold numbers of people. That had only been abstract numbers before as they hadn¡¯t personally seen the victims. Now that they did... the crowd bitterly hated the pirates!

    Thank goodness the Demon Hunters had been nearbyst night, or this would have been Southern Ford¡¯s fate. Attitudes shifted from their previous fear and wariness when they looked at the soldiers in ck armor again.

    ¡°Well done!¡± Someone raised their thumb. ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s army is the foremost throughout the world, already! We scattered those animals upon the wind, well done!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s Silver Moon¡¯s martial masters that are the best!¡± An old man gnashed his teeth in the crowd. ¡°Such was the case back in the day. Who dared bully Silver Moon¡¯s people? Our martial masters walked uncontested through the world. It¡¯s one thing if we beat each other to death, but there¡¯s no way that outsiders could profit at our expense! Foreign martial masters would be chased to the ends of the world if they dared seize a cup of water from us!¡±

    The old man didn¡¯t say that Silver Moon martial masters back in the day were not the benevolent sort. He still recalled some martial masters¡ªthey ate and drank without paying. Stubborn as goats, they would ask the old man if thetter wanted their lives or money. If the old man wanted their lives, the martial masters would cut off their own heads for payment!

    Right, the old man still recalled one of his old customers with a loud voice and big beard. Another person came for himter, calling him Southern Fist. This Southern Fist still owed his little restaurant three hundred coins! That was a lot back in the day. <i>I wonder if Big Beard is still alive or not?</i>

    The neer eventually sat on Big Beard and smashed his face into the ground. The old man had apuded with glee and forgotten to demand payment. The martial master to beat up Big Beard had been such a good guy that he still couldn¡¯t forget it! That one seemed to have been called... Big Monkey Demon King!

    The old man took a walk down memoryne and jerked out of it, sighing when he saw the ghastly state of the Near River corpses. As annoying and strong as Big Beard had been, he¡¯d only refused to pay his debt. If payment was demanded, he simply blustered to offer his head instead. None of those people were as cruel as these pirates as to ughter an entire town of people just because they were in a bad mood.

 Chapter 525: Yuan Shuoâ€™s Resentment (III)

    <h4>Chapter 525: Yuan Shuo¡¯s Resentment (III)</h4>

    Li Hao looked on from the sidelines as his people busied themselves. He watched as the crowd gradually livened up from their lethargic apathy. They were filled with righteous indignation, as opposed to petrified insensitivity.

    ¡°So it turns out... that people are kind after all.¡± The young man suddenly smiled. ¡°Or rather, they are empathetic. Not everyone is indifferent to the circumstances.¡±

    Kong Jie looked at Li Hao, then at the crowd around them. ¡°Silver Moon wasn¡¯t as apathetic in the past. Thanks to the nonstop feed of bad news over the past couple of years and disturbances here and there, the provincial government has its hands tied. There is no money for reforms and no people or source for improvements. There¡¯s countless factors to keep in mind when taking any action.

    ¡°The dynasty still exists¡ªwe can easily draw their scrutiny if we go about things haphazardly. After a sustained decline in the external environment, even Silver Mooncks some of its previous vitality and enthusiasm.¡±

    ¡°I understand.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Therefore, the world needs a transformation!¡± He looked into the distance and located where the Sword Sect was. ¡°Thend needs innovation and revolution! We can naturally turn over a new leaf when we kill all of the ambitious souls, local tyrants, royal family, influential ns, nine ministries, soldiers that are more bandits, evil organizations, supernaturals creating trouble, and martial masters that are butchers...¡±

    ¡°......¡± Kong Jie stared like he was looking at a madman. He waspletely bowled over. <i>Are you crazy or am I crazy? What are you talking about?</i>

    Li Hao ignored him.<i> I¡¯m not the one saying this, it¡¯s written in the ancient tomes and referenced by Hong Yitang and the others. I don¡¯t understand it! But I do understand one thing¡ªkill everyone causing trouble and there will be no more trouble.</i>

    <i>Conquer the world first, then push reforms. No one will stop me then and I can change things how I wish. Everything will naturally y out ording to my desires.</i>

    There was so much sophisticated technology in the ancient civilization, but only so many being poprized. Those in charge stood in the way of such changes because they did not wish for the people to awaken their minds.

    Comments from Hong Yitang and the others had ultimately taken root in Li Hao¡¯s heart and germinated. If the world could be not pacified, then he would pacify the people. Of course, he couldn¡¯t do so at the moment. These were just words spoken in a fit of rage, but they did reflect the sentiments of his heart.

    He thought back to who he suspected was the Human King. <i>Are you going to listen or not? I¡¯ll kill you if you don¡¯t listen, I¡¯ll kill until there¡¯s no one left!</i>

    Kong Jie fidgeted a bit ufortably next to him; Li Hao vanished from the spot and reappeared on the pirate ship in the distance. He¡¯d said enough today, that was all for now. He was used to keeping a low profile and didn¡¯t want to step into the limelight, but some things were assaulting his mind too strongly.

    He vanished from the pirate ship momentster and soundlessly threaded through the waters on the small ship, Panther by his side. They disappeared into the sparkling expanse of the sea. There was one final thought on Li Hao¡¯s mind¡ªhe wanted to see...

    See what?

    The town that¡¯d been razed.

    He still didn¡¯t believe that the world had be so dark. He wanted to visit Near River to take a look. The provincial government should be aware of what¡¯d transpired after a day and should be mobilizing a response. The young man wanted to observe what the situation was now.

    The Vast Kun Ship shot through the seas at high velocity, moving faster and faster until it reached its peak speed. He passed by their earlier battlefield after an hour, continuing forward for another hour as he passed through the Moon Sea. He stayed close to the next branch of the North Sea; it also connected to Cloud River.

    Li Hao could see fires rise up in the distance and leaping mes zing everywhere. He jumped into the air like a bird and vanished in the sea, alongside the little ship.

    ......

    <i>Momentster.</i>

    Li Hao hovered in the air and looked down below him. A group of soldiers was setting fire to a ravaged town. Some supernaturals were present as well. The corpses were already charred husks and whatever valuables the pirates didn¡¯t make off with were now in soldier hands.

    They searched each house individually, going from door to door.

    ¡°Hurry up and finish your search before night falls!¡± someone roared. ¡°Upstairs has ordered us to retreat before night arrives. Fire supernaturals, be ready to burn Seabrink Town to the ground and don¡¯t leave a single trace behind...¡±

    <i>Don¡¯t leave a single trace behind.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s ears twitched as the voice on the ground grew smaller. A supernatural outside the town was having a hushed conversation with a military officer. ¡°We must clean up all traces and draft the report that a fire broke out in Seabrink Town. That¡¯s why only ashes remain of it. Skystar City is already dissatisfied with the northern territory as things stand. If word gets out that pirates invaded and killed all ten thousand in a town, we¡¯ll have to bear responsibility for that!¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to say anything else, I know what to do. Don¡¯t worry, there were no survivors in Seabrink Town, they all died in the fire!¡± murmured the general. Whoever was alive would end up dead.

    It was a grave crime that a town had been razed by pirates. Although everyone understood each other, they could not proim it officially. They had to im that it was errant fire that led to the town¡¯s loss. As for whether or not the civilians believed them or if word of the true happenings got out... Who the hell cared!

    It was enough if upstairs believed them. What, were they going to fight the White Shark Raiders? That¡¯d be an utter joke!

    The White Shark Raiders numbered more than one thousand supernaturals, multiple Novas, and a bunch of Srs. Near River could not do anything to them unless they mobilized everyone from the province. That would just be a death wish!

    Their only hope was that the White Shark Raiders would not have their eyes set on other towns or small cities when the pirates returned. Near River would be in grave trouble then.

    But upon thinking of the connection between the Director General Office and some of the pirates... It was one thing for the White Shark Raiders to eliminate a small town. They should show some face afterward and not move onto the major cities. Hence, the personnel present rxed.

    One supernatural and one officer continued their murmured conversation. They were both Sunres. Not a single Sr was on the scene. inly, they didn¡¯t intend on chasing down the pirates. They were just going through the motions.

    Li Hao swept a nce from the air and noted that there were still survivors in the town. They were hiding in various secret caches, opting to stay hidden despite the presence of soldiers. Some were asionally dragged out howling and screaming from the secret passages.

    ¡°Mercy, sir, we don¡¯t know anything... We really don¡¯t know anything...¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s just a child, milord... Take me and let the child go...¡±

    ¡°Shut up and get out here. You¡¯re gathering up ahead. What are you hiding for? We didn¡¯t say that we¡¯re going to kill you!¡± These soldiers were vicious, pushing and kicking a group of survivors out of hiding. Nearly one hundred survivors swiftly gathered on the ins outside the town.

    The soldiers walked out with varying bundles of goods that they¡¯d collected. More fires burned throughout the town. Very soon, hundreds of soldiers and a dozen supernaturals reconvened.

    The Sunre officer and the Sunre supernatural were still conversing. Momentster, the supernatural announced in a barely audible voice, ¡°Let¡¯s clean this up since we¡¯ve got everyone. I¡¯ll have the fire supernaturals turn this ce to ashes. As for the stuff inside the town... you and I will split it?¡±

    ¡°Sounds good! Let¡¯s be quick in case the piratese back.¡±

    ¡°They won¡¯t, they¡¯ve certainly moved on to Silver Moon and won¡¯t be back for a while...¡± The two negotiated rapidly and quickly moved on to giving orders to their soldiers and supernaturals to tidy up the remaining residents. Even though they didn¡¯t care about word getting out, bacsh was inevitable if the news spread.

    But if everyone was dead, it was up to the official authorities to spin the tale.

    ......

    <i>In the air.</i>

    Li Hao heaved a sigh of relief, suddenly feeling like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Indeed, that was the feeling. He¡¯d despaired when the women cowered and begged him for mercy. Later on, he felt that perhaps they were just being silly and that those of Silver Moon were exaggerating things, making the outside world seem like hell.

    He wanted to believe them, but felt that believing them so easily may be too foolish. The young man himself couldn¡¯t articte what kind of reality he wanted to see. Was it one of the military helping the wounded and chasing down pirates, or was it the scene in front of him...

    He¡¯d seen what he wanted to see andughed. This was good! Indeed, this was the outside world. It was a living hell in which soldiers were bandits. Then there was nothing else to be said here.

    His sword shed forward in the next second! Countless rays of sword light descended!

    <i>Pfft pfft pfft!</i>

    Sword light rained down; the strongest of the soldiers and supernaturals were but Sunres, they couldn¡¯t withstand the barrage. Almost all of them died in the first wave. The two Sunres were the only ones left standing.

    ¡°Lords of the White Shark Raiders!¡± shouted the horrified supernatural leader. ¡°You can have everything, we¡¯re from the Director General Office....¡±

    His head exploded with a loud pop. Terrified out of his mind, the other Sunre whirled around to flee. He also exploded with a loud bang before he ran five meters.

    Some of the residents were still in a daze. They¡¯d only known that they were doomed, that these bandit soldiers were about to kill them all. This wasn¡¯t the first time and it wouldn¡¯t be thest time...

    But now, they were suddenly all dead!

    They came alive and looked at the sky. Was it powerhouses or... the White Shark Raiders?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t respond. He waved the ship into view and called out from it, ¡°Get on, I¡¯ll take you to safety. You¡¯ll be dead sooner orter in Near River!¡±

    ¡°A god must have saved us!¡± The overjoyed crowd knelt on the ground and burst into tears of joy.

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered to listen to their praise. There were only so many people in a town of thousands, he could just ignore them and go on his way. But if he did, these survivors were likely not long for this world since so many of their people had died.

 Chapter 526: Yuan Shuoâ€™s Resentment (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 526: Yuan Shuo¡¯s Resentment (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. He simply overshadowed the town survivors with his ship, bringing everyone on board. He even took all of the bundles of belongings that the soldiers had put together. That was perfect, it would prevent the Sword Sect from being in the hole with their new expenses.

    Indeed, he was going to dump all of the people onto the Sword Sect. It was out of sight, out of mind for Li Hao. He would explode if he had to handle it all himself. Hong Yitang could deal with everything.

    The young man grinned. <i>Sorry... Hong Yitang. This is the first and I don¡¯t know if there will be a second. Perhaps, perhaps not. But if there are, I¡¯m sending them all to you!</i>

    There was no helping it, the Sword Sect was very well versed in this. Hong Yitang had rescued almost all of its thousand members. Now that he¡¯d picked up a few himself, Li Hao was going to take them all to the sect. He wasn¡¯t in the mood to counsel them one by one, that wasn¡¯t his style and neither did he have the relevant experience.

    Li Hao turned around, the ship flying with him as he left. It was quite impressive that the Vast Kun Ship could fly. He needed to catch up to Hong Qing and the others as soon as possible to save them a second trip.

    The young man was smiling much more radiantly now, he didn¡¯t even mind the burning town behind him. The dead could not resurrect; it was enough that the living survived. He smiled brightly because it was enough to see and experience certain things. Thest sliver of hope in his heart had been erased. Li Hao felt that he ought to thank these guys for teaching him a lesson, a very important lesson.

    ......

    Aas Li Hao quickly escorted the Seabrink survivors away from the scene, news swiftly spread of his earlier exploits. Gossip that the Demon Hunters disseminated that morning was flying by noon like it had wings. Preparing to cross the sea, Hou Xiaochen blinked and stared dumbly at a row of characters disyed on a jade pendant.

    ¡°Director...¡± Manager Yu reminded. ¡°It¡¯s time to board the ship. We¡¯ll reach the central region in a few hours...¡±

    ¡°Look at this!¡± Hou Xiaochen handed the jade pendant to the woman.

    She also stared nkly at it. ¡°He... the guy...¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t this interesting?¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned.

    ¡°Um...¡± Manager Yu couldn¡¯t gather her thoughts. ¡°What¡¯s he doing patrolling the seas in the middle of the night?¡±

    ¡°Director!¡± Golden Spear caught wind of a keyword and quickly stepped forward. ¡°What¡¯s happened at sea?¡±

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± breathed the manager. ¡°The kid took the Demon Hunters on a patrol of the seast night and ran into the White Shark Raiders. He killed their Faceless Shark and Sea Sharkmanders, as well as more than five hundred supernaturals.

    ¡°He then hung the bodies on the pirate ships and parked them close to Southern Ford, sending word for White Shark to clean his neck for execution. Li Hao said that he¡¯s going to exterminate the White Shark Raiders!¡±

    Golden Spear blinked, unable to believe what he¡¯d just heard. Momentster, he spoke with difficulty, ¡°How... is... that... possible? The White Shark Raiders are strong and I know of Sea Shark. He was a peak Sr two years ago and barely escaped from my hands. He made it to mid Nova in less than two years and apparently Faceless Shark is ate Nova...¡±

    ¡°He might be able to do so if he coordinates with the dog,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°I just hadn¡¯t anticipated that he¡¯d go gunning for the pirates as soon as I left. He was an obstinate donkey before and wouldn¡¯t budge no matter what. He always ran away when he saw me, as if I spend my days plotting against him. How would I ever?

    ¡°What an interesting little guy!¡± the manughed heartily. ¡°I thought he was going to be indifferent to the times until the end of the world, until Yuan Shuo returned from the central region. Now look at this, I haven¡¯t even left yet and he¡¯s gone to provoke the pirates. How very damned interesting!¡±

    He shook his head, unsure of whether he shouldugh or cry. Many words bubbled up his throat and he suddenly didn¡¯t feel sad about leaving. Instead, Hou Xiaochen wanted tough or sigh with resignation. <i>Li Hao, ah Li Hao. You¡¯re... such a strange kid!</i>

    ¡°Let¡¯s cross the sea and be on our way!¡± Hou Xiaochen boarded the ship with another rueful shake of his head. The people behind him quickly followed suit. Golden Spear and Manager Yu were still incredulous. <i>This</i> hade from the Li Hao they knew? They could barely pick their jaws up from the ground.

    ording to their understanding of the young man, he should be hiding in the Guards barracks and furiously cultivating. He should be blind and deaf to events outside, waiting for his strength to develop further before emerging and surprising his enemies with their own deaths. He would then go back into hiding, continue cultivating, and continue tricking his enemies...

    Indeed, that was what they expected of Li Hao. But their expectations were smashed to pieces today!

    Hou Xiaochen was stillughing heartily and looked out at the churning North Sea. ¡°North Sea pirates are fierce and look to be heavily backed by many different factions. They¡¯ll be sad to lose so many supernaturals in one go.

    ¡°What a pity that we don¡¯t have enough time. I¡¯d love to go for a spin otherwise and visit White Shark, maybe send him on his way. But... eh, let¡¯s leave him to Li Hao!

    ¡°We should leave for our fun in the central region. The little guy can have the North Sea! I bet Yuan Shuo will be very surprised by the news if he receives it today. He might have a total mental breakdown, hahaha!¡± His bark ofughter was very different from his usual gentle chuckles.

    Manager Yu looked sideways at him. Was there a need to be so happy even if Li Hao had taken high profile action and killed numerous pirates?

    Hou Xiaochen continuedughing merrily. The rest didn¡¯t understand! Li Hao was of the eight families and, on the surface, the only living representative. Those like Hou Xiaochen who knew a bit of the significance of these families did not wish to see Li Hao purely motivated by only hatred.

    Sadly, their efforts hadn¡¯t been very fruitful thus far, but today¡¯s report brought them some joy and hope. A Li Hao like this was truly worthy of the glories of the eight families. Even if it was only the glories of the ancient civilization that he inherited, they didn¡¯t wish for such scintiting personages to turn into mindless, modern day killing machines.

    What a wonderful development!

    A merry Hou Xiaochen continued south to the central region.

    .......

    <i>At the same time, the North Sea.</i>

    White Shark listened to the reports from his men, his expression stiff as he looked into the distance. <i>Li Hao...</i>

    Sea Shark was trash and Faceless Shark... was a son of a bitch! They were both trash!

    White Shark¡¯s facial muscles twitched. It wasn¡¯t just a matter of losing face with the two bastards dead. The key thing was, the White Shark Raiders had suddenly suffered an immense blow to their strength. If he remained unmoved, the other seven factions might choose to quickly devour his group!

    ¡°Li Hao... how unexpected!¡± White Shark breathed out and scanned the shuddering men below. ¡°What are you sorry lot afraid of?!¡± he barked out. ¡°That Li Hao wille for your heads? Will he daree? I¡¯ll put him through his paces before he has a chance to! Li Hao courts death! When I put our affairs in order, I¡¯ll eradicate those so-called Demon Hunters and avenge Sea Shark and the others!¡±

    His most pressing concern wasn¡¯t to go for Li Hao¡ªthere might be a trap waiting. He should first consolidate the supernaturals left by his number two and three. They would probably all run off if he didn¡¯t.

    White Shark would naturally go for Li Hao once he obtained sufficient information and secured the right timing. He couldn¡¯t brashly set out on the spot, there were two dead Novas to consider, after all.

    ¡°We will avenge our brothers!¡± screamed the pirates below, as if they would vent the fears in their hearts by doing so.

    White Shark sighed to himself. This couldn¡¯t stand. He had to bring back the bodies of Sea Shark and the others, at least. It was too great of a blow to morale if they continued to hang in Southern Ford. The White Shark Raiders would lose all of their prestige.

    ......

    The news traveled south, spreading rapidly. Many factions soon received reports and the title of Demon Sword grew ever more famous. Li Hao had already won some prominence for himself when he fought six Srs alone and killed them. He was now hailed as foremost among the new generation of Silver Moon martial masters.

    After leading the Demon Hunters against the White Shark Raiders and killing hundreds of supernaturals as well as two Novas, his name was known far and wide after hanging their bodies in warning.

    On this day, everyone everywhere knew Demon Sword Liu Long of Silver Moon! He was no longer affixed with the descriptor of the heir of the eight families.

    ......

    <i>In the central region, the province of Southern Range.</i>

    Yuan Shuo panted heavily, overjoyed at having just killed an initial Nova. <i>Hot damn, I¡¯ve finally killed a Nova! Although it¡¯s not one from Red Moon, but from a trashy Yama bastard who insisted on causing trouble... at least I¡¯ve reached my goal.</i>

    <i>My disciple killed six Srs ten days ago. He¡¯s almost catching up to me! Today, I kill a Nova. There¡¯s a significant cultivation gap between Sr and Nova.</i>

    Beaming with delight, Yuan Shuo breathed out and wiped away the blood on his face. He looked at the heavily injured Jadelight Sword nearby. ¡°We won! Not bad, Jadelight. Thatst sword stroke of yours was the equivalent of mid Sr. Not bad at all...¡±

    Jadelight didn¡¯t want to talk, she was dealing with her wounds. Besides, it was only a mid Sr that they¡¯d taken. She wasn¡¯t inclined to be proud of that. She was progressing too slowly! Although she was much stronger than when she first left the mountain, she was extremely dissatisfied. Yuan Shuo could kill Novas, what about her?

    ¡°Don¡¯t be in a rush,¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°We¡¯re in no hurry. Your Jadelight Sword hasn¡¯t quite been perfected yet. You might be able to fight Novas after a while, you just need some more blood pearls...¡±

    A jade pendant in his pocket started vibrating.

    ¡°More big news?¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Has Hou Xiaochen died in an ambush? Now that would be interesting...¡±

    This jade pendant wouldn¡¯t vibrate unless it was earth-shattering news. He fished it out for a look, immediately put it away, and smashed the corpses beneath him to dust with a punch. The traces he¡¯d left behind of their fight were obliterated.

    ¡°What?¡± Jadelight looked strangely at him. ¡°Didn¡¯t you say you wanted to leave marks behind so that everyone would know that Yuan Shuo killed a Nova here today? Didn¡¯t you want the world to know of the Five Styles King?¡±

    <i>What an entric old bat! You¡¯re the one who set up the scene earlier and purposefully added the unique traces of the Five Styles to the corpses. You wanted nothing more than for people to know that you killed the Nova. Now what?</i>

 Chapter 527: Safeguarding Silver Moon (I)

    <h4>Chapter 527: Safeguarding Silver Moon (I)</h4>

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± snapped a livid Yuan Shuo. ¡°We continue down south! What¡¯s there to be proud of with killing an initial Nova?!¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±

    ¡°Nothing!¡±

    ¡°Does it have to do with your disciple?¡±

    ¡°I have no disciple!¡±

    Jadelight Sword blinked, caught off guard. <i>What... the heck? You have no disciple? You talk about your final disciple day in and day out. You¡¯re one step away from saying that your disciple is the greatest in thend. What¡¯s gotten into you today?</i>

    ¡°Has... someone killed him?¡± was Jadelight¡¯s first question. It would be terribly shocking if that was the case. Yuan Shuo cared very deeply about his final disciple. If someone killed him, the old man would probably go berserk.

    Yuan Shuo walked swiftly and gnashed his teeth without a look back. ¡°No, he¡¯s just fine and dandy!¡±

    <i>Then what are you gnashing your teeth for?</i>

    ¡°I¡¯m injured, so walk a bit slower.¡± Jadelight swiftly caught up. ¡°Tell me, what¡¯s going on?¡± She was utterly baffled.

    A sulking Yuan Shuo stomped off before he suddenly roared, ¡°I¡¯m going to killte Novas! No, peak Novas!¡±

    <i>You¡¯re crazy! You just took a long time to kill an initial Nova and was injured for it. Now you want to killte and peak Novas? You¡¯re getting too full of yourself!</i>

    ¡°Is something... bothering you?¡±

    ¡°Yes, very much so!¡± Yuan Shuo shouted. ¡°When I teach disciples, I¡¯m of the mind that they¡¯ll never be stronger than me! Stuff like the pupil exceeding the master is just words I mouth! It was one thing years ago when I was crippled¡ªit was only right that my disciples exceeded me then. But now I¡¯ve recovered and improved swiftly, I kill Srs one day and Novas three monthster... Damn it, my disciple was just a thief beating up mundanes three months ago! And now he¡¯s just killed ate Nova!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Jadelight¡¯s eyes widened and her mouth dropped. Her mind ceased to function from the shock.

    Yuan Shuo was on the verge of tears. It shouldn¡¯t have happened this way! This was fake news, that¡¯s what it was! It was a joke! How could someone progress so quickly!

    <i>I¡¯m a veteran martial master with five consolidated auras, I should be the one with an incredible rate of progress. If I can kill initial Novas, that means my strength is far beyond initial Nova. I might be a mid Nova to be able to kill initial ones.</i>

    <i>And yet, my disciple can killte Novas!</i>

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t believe it, it must be fake news. It was too aggravating otherwise! <i>I just killed a Nova and was prepared to let the world know about the might of Old Demon Yuan. Thanks to you, kiddo, I have no more of that prestige and I gotta y dumb. It¡¯ll be a joke if people hear of what I did! What are you doing strutting around after an initial Nova when your disciple¡¯s killed ate Nova?</i>

    Jadelight took a few moments to collect her wits and nced at Yuan Shuo. ¡°Didn¡¯t... you say... that it¡¯s only been a few months since your disciple started practicing martial dao?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    The woman fell silent. ¡°Your disciple... may be possessed by another. I¡¯ve seen records of this in ancient tomes. Mmhmm, that¡¯s the most likely story...¡±

    Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes hard. <i>Get the fuck outta here! </i>It was one thing for him to curse at the boy; he was very put out when Jadelight mentioned anything. ¡°And what do you know? He has the bloodline of the eight families and witnessed a stunning sword stroke from the ancient civilization. He has the true teachings of my Five Styles, so it¡¯s normal for him to improve quickly. Your hair is long, but you¡¯re short on wits, woman. What do you know!¡±

    Jadelight looked at him and cursed inwardly, <i>and </i>you<i> need to see a doctor! I was just following what you were saying! There must be something wrong with your brain, but here I am, following you around!</i>

    Yuan Shuo snorted and grumbled a bit more; it was unknown whether he was cursing Jadelight Sword or Li Hao.

    ¡°This won¡¯t do, it¡¯s too slow!¡± he exhaled long moments after finishing his round of cursing. ¡°It¡¯s too hard to meld five auras together and the five organs are being strengthened too slowly. Even if the new method is effective, the results won¡¯t be that apparent that quickly. Red Moon¡¯s people have all run off somewhere... so I¡¯ll take you grave robbing!

    ¡°I know quite a few ruins and one of them might have Water of Life. I¡¯ll take you there. It¡¯ll be dangerous, but we might see great gains. I was going to wait for my disciple and take him on the excavation. You get to benefit instead! Damn it, he¡¯s stronger than me, so what should I bring him along for!¡±

    Jadelight blinked, astonished. <i>You...</i> She could note up with a proper response. <i>Grave robbing? You should¡¯ve said so earlier!</i>

    The two swiftly departed the premises; Yuan Shuo had his jaw set. <i>I¡¯m not going to kill anyone for the time being. I¡¯m embarrassed to kill anyone belowte Nova! I¡¯m going to dig up some graves, find the Water of Life, strengthen my organs,bine all five auras, thene out and kill someone impressive!</i>

    <i>I¡¯m gonna show Li Hao who¡¯s the real daddy here!</i>

    ......

    <i>Southern Ford.</i>

    Li Hao returned with peace of mind after catching up to Hong Qing and the others to deliver Seabrink¡¯s survivors to them. The young man was certain that Hong Yitang would most adequately take care of the one hundred survivors.

    One hundred wasn¡¯t that many. If it came down to it, Li Hao would just kill some more pirates and send him the funds. Wouldn¡¯t that take care of the problem? The young man was just saving him the effort of rescuing people from the battlefield. How nice!

    Kong Jie had already left Southern Ford; he wasn¡¯t at liberty to be away from White Moon City for extended periods of time. When he left, he told Li Hao not to worry too much about the White Shark Raiders.

    In reality, the young man wasn¡¯t.

    ......

    <i>Inside Southern Ford.</i>

    The Demon Hunters were on vacation today. Li Hao didn¡¯t cloister himself in training. On the contrary, he gave himself a chance to rx.

    <i>Inside a small tavern.</i>

    Li Hao sat in the most luxurious private room in the establishment and drank by himself. He hadn¡¯t been in the habit of drinking before. In fact, he found the beverage bitter and spicy when he tried it on asion. He seemed to have acquired a taste for it after the past couple of encounters. Martial masters should not drink too much, but that was true only for novices. Yuan Shuo drank as much as he wanted.

    This wine that he¡¯d ordered wasn¡¯t good quality. It had a bitter aftertaste, just like everyone¡¯s lives were equally bitter in this day and age. Perhaps they wouldn¡¯t starve to death, but the people spent every day in fear. They were graciously allowed to keep their lives through the benevolence of the supernaturals.

    Men, women, and children suffered alike in this era.

    Li Hao took a small sip and turned over the bitter wine in his mouth. He looked out the window at the picture of ostentatious prosperity below. A great hubbub of voices rose and fell. As tough as life was, it went on and one must find joy in such difficulty.

    He knew that so long as there was hope and goals to be seen, those would spur incredible vitality from the people. The worst case scenario was if they had no hope. Thankfully, there was some hope still in Silver Moon.

    A book appeared in his hand¡ªBuilding Five Bridges. Li Hao paged through it again¡ªthe golden dot of his metal aura was much stronger than before and continuously growing stronger. Unfortunately, the other three were slightly weaker and there was no sign of his wood aura to be seen. The four auras were growing out of bnce.

    A te of tiny fruit appeared in front of him. He¡¯d traded for twenty Mind Fruits and wanted to take them after gathering his wood aura, but he could wait no longer. Let everything proceed as they will!

    There was no need to insist on only one path in martial dao. All paths led to the heavens. The threat of the White Shark Raiders was right in front of him. From what he understood, Kong Jie had made some preparations in Silver Moon, but Li Hao had his own thoughts. He didn¡¯t want to impose on outsiders if he could help it. Whatever he could resolve himself, he would resolve himself.

    He drank the bitter wine, read his book, and swallowed one Mind Fruit. A tendril of refreshing power poured into his body. The effects were much weakerpared to the Goldensky Lotus¡ªit didn¡¯t forcefully make improvements. This time, he did not choose to strengthen the metal aura.

    He wanted to strengthen the other three if possible and achieve a bnce between the four. Would seven Mind Fruits be the equivalent of one Goldensky Lotus petal? Based on the fruit¡¯s pricing at Military Supplies... It didn¡¯t seem likely.

    The Lotus required one thousand points for a flower and 125 points for a petal. Only ten points were needed for a Mind Fruit, that was more than a tenfold difference. But sometimes, price wasn¡¯t indicative of everything.

    Li Hao swallowed a Mind Fruit and quietly perceived its effects. He sensed the improvements in his aura¡ªthere was still a difference between aura and mental strength. Mental strength was just pure force of mind, the aura was a more sophisticated form and usage of force.

    Li Hao had read many ancient tomes regarding the martial master aura andpared it to the cultivation system within these books. The modern martial master aura was a brand new system. Only some people would mention the aura in the ancient civilization, bringing it to their cultivation system and eventually poprizing it.

    The young man washed down the Mind Fruits with wine¡ªthat was a delicious concoction! He absorbed some water, earth, and fire energy. Li Hao paused to sense the changes again. Just having stronger energy was not enough. Aura was not pure energy, but also a reflection ofprehension and personality.

    The more one saw and experienced, the more sufficient one¡¯s prestige was. If one sat at the bottom of a well to grasp the aura, their aura would still be that of one single type, despite absorbing endless energy.

    After some reflection, Li Hao continued to eat and embark on his journey of strengthening. He needed to reach ten thousand cubes each with his five organs and body. He¡¯d sensed it when he fought Sea Shark. Even with the armor on, his organs shook from the force of his opponent¡¯s blows.

    Supernaturals were very strong to have reached this kind of level. Li Hao was unable to fight a powerful mid Nova, despite it just being a match of internal force versus mysterious power. He was constantly relying on the Incantation of the Blood of Blood. However, that method raised one¡¯s strength. As his strength grew, its usefulness declined and it wasn¡¯t as helpful as before.

    In his current state, Li Hao should nurture his wood aura if he wished to increase his strength. He was bound to be much stronger after the five auras became one.

    Unfortunately, the Weeping Willow Sword had not given him much inspiration. He knew how to deploy it, but didn¡¯t grasp its essence so it was hard toprehend anything.

    Apart from understanding the wood aura, his second task at hand was to strengthen his physical body. The third was to saturate his supernatural locks with energy. If he could do as He Yong and the others did to unseal himself and reseal himself... he would grow stronger as well.

    However, that required reaching the peak capacity of his locks. He¡¯d taken in plenty of energy before, but failed to reach that level. His locks could still take in more.

    Thest method he had to improve with was the Demon Hunters!

 Chapter 528: Safeguarding Silver Moon (II)

    <h4>Chapter 528: Safeguarding Silver Moon (II)</h4>

    Indeed, the Demon Hunters.

    After thest battle, Li Hao could sense that some people¡¯s auras were almost formed. He had the troop rest for a day because he wanted those people to rx. Continued battle had swiftly increased everyone¡¯s strength to the point where all members werete Sunderers, but there wasn¡¯t a single peak Sunderer among the group!

    In the battle with the pirates, Li Hao discovered that the Demon Hunters were more enthused about this enemy than the three great organizations. inly, people had their own thoughts, especially those of the Sword Sect. If things developed ording to his expectation, there might be a first batch of half step Dominators in a few days.

    He hadn¡¯t let anyone try the daoprehension weapons thus far. Now, he wanted to give them a chance when the Demon Hunters returned to base. Using them without any inkling of the aura was not a wise decision. Once one had some understanding, the daoprehension weapons were more of a catalyst.

    One or two of the Demon Hunters being strong might not be that impressive, but fifty of them assembled in the Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation with Li Hao as the core... It would certainly strengthen his internal force. As for how much, that was up to how strong they were.

    Fifty Sunderers were not that impressive, but fifty Dominators? That would be incredible.

    Li Hao read his book and mulled over various thoughts in his mind. He also ate quite a few Mind Fruits. The sky began darkening outside, the day was almost over. This was the second day of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s departure¡ªOctober 5.

    On this day, Wang Ming madeplete arrangements for the Demon Hunters. Some went to eat and drink their fill, others went singing. He even took some to special ces... Li Hao could lock onto their location if he wished to, but he didn¡¯t want to keep them under such tight control. They were all adults and hot-blooded martial masters. They¡¯d just undergone a battle. So long as all parties involved were willing... the young man didn¡¯t want to interfere too much.

    When he finished reading the Building Five Bridges booklet, he started on another, the third book he¡¯d borrowed¡ª<i>Fundamentals of Sword Theory.</i>

    Li Hao raised his eyebrows when he nced at the author''s name. This was a special book that he hadn¡¯t noticed before. There were some notes on the cover.

    Editor-in-Chief: Eternal Sword Sovereign.

    Senior Editors: Nether King, Prince Hong, Headmaster Chen.

    There were only four names, but they sent the young man into a trance and even a fog. The Eternal Sword Sovereign again! The names listed beneath his also seemed to be quite the characters. There were kings and princes, and that headmaster... Their full names weren¡¯t listed¡ªwhether out of taboo or respect for noble personages.

    The first line of the first page sent Li Hao into a daze again.

    ¡°The sword is a keen weapon of killing. What is at the end of ughter?¡±

    What was there? Li Hao didn¡¯t know, but also seemed to know a little. This was just fundamental sword theory, what was the point of making it so profound? The next line sent him into another trance.

    ¡°Some say that it is responsibility, protection, and tolerance. That is incorrect. The sword is a keen weapon of killing! To cultivate the sword is to have a pure heart. To kill the enemy first and cleanse one¡¯s heart and soul. Everything can be considered after the killing isplete...¡±

    ¡°Ahem, cough cough!¡± Li Hao coughed violently. From the first line, he thought this was a book that taught one how toprehend the dao. From the second line... he felt that the editors scoffed at the notion. They seemed to be saying what was the point of thinking so much.

    Swords were used to kill. As for talk of responsibility and protection, that had nothing to do with sword methods. That had to do with humans. The sword was dead, humans were alive. These concepts came from the human mind and not the sword.

    Li Hao suddenly found this very interesting and kept reading. These editors had an exceedingly deep understanding of sword dao. They didn¡¯t simply describe the core essence of sword methods; depictions of their own unique theories were also recorded.

    The young man was somewhat familiar with the Eternal Sword Sovereign¡¯s sword dao. The sword of severing the self meant that blood must be spilled when the sword was unsheathed. The book didn¡¯t speak much of Prince Hong¡¯s sword dao, simply noting a few concepts and how his sword took a sweeping, domineering path.

    The Nether King¡¯s sword dao was that of pure ughter. His killing intent grew stronger the more he killed. It seemed to be a military sword method suited for the troops. Headmaster Chen was different in that his was a gentle and tender method. His sword was like a babbling brook, first weak, then strong. It was calm when it was a river and erupted with spontaneous fury as a waterfall.

    Thest method held a certain resemnce to the theories behind Jadelight Sword. That was another method that was first weak, then strong, and focused on spontaneous eruption. There wasn¡¯t much written about these powerhouse¡¯s theories, but they led to the same paths and the end goal was the same¡ªto kill enemies.

    ......

    Li Hao munched on Mind Fruits as he perused the book, asionally taking a sip of wine. This book of elemental sword methods was fascinating. It was very deep as the easier some concepts were, the deeper they were. It required an exceedingly high level of mastery to describe concepts to the point where everyone could understand them.

    The young man could understand a book of advanced sword theory, but to exin it? He could not. Hecked the sufficient foundation¡ªwhat would a novice need with such deep theory knowledge? However, was theory required in martial dao?

    Yes!

    There were some things in the book that were worthy of further research and study. Some unique methods resulted in varying strength from the same sword if deployed at different angles in different environments. This was Li Hao¡¯s first time hearing of such theory and knowledge. A difference in angle, stance, and eruption point would all affect the force behind the blow. Simply striking fast didn¡¯t necessarily result in peak strength.

    Li Hao nodded as he cross-referenced the material with some of his own practical experience. His metal sword aura was the peak of speed before it erupted, but sometimes, one could not attain that speed. In that case, the force it erupted with was weaker. It had to be umted first.

    The book gave another minor unique technique of nurturing the sword! Just as one nurtured an army for a moment of action, one could also nurture a weapon. The swordsman could use his mind, intent, blood qi, internal force, and killing intent to nurture the weapon. Upon encountering strong foes, he could unsheathe it for a definitive blow. He needed to keep one breath in reserve in ordinary times¡ªkilling intent!

    The book spoke of some stories rted to the Eternal Sword Sovereign. Li Hao had read about them in the <i>Battle of Southern Jiang</i>, of how his ancestor had killed an enemy above his rank with one stroke.

    ¡°Nurturing the sword...¡± The young man took out Steris and considered it thoughtfully. The book mentioned swords as weapons, but that swords also had their own thoughts of killing. They should not be constantly kept in storage rings or in the body. They could just be worn on the self.

    ¡°This theory is interesting.¡± Nurturing a sword would result in greater battle strength? Was that possible?

    It wasn¡¯t that easy to nurture a sword. Li Hao followed the instructions in the book and agitated his blood qi, sending it into the sword. There was no response. The book had mentioned that this was a long, gradual process that was not to be rushed.

    Ordinary people could not nurture swords. Swordsmen would use their swords sooner orter, unless they didn¡¯t fight. If they did not, they would not be a swordsman. The Eternal Sword Sovereign had refrained from picking up his sword for a decade only because he was injured. Real swordsmen needed to constantly battle.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t think about this and considered the notion, sending a surge of sword aura into Steris. It trembled and hummed, as if celebrating with delight. Then came the earth sword aura, fire sword aura, water sword aura...

    Various auras entered the sword andzily circted through the weapon. Li Hao read through the book again, finding that it didn¡¯t mention particr sword auras. Perhaps the ancients were different from modern people, but the book mentioned this as a tempering for swordsmen. Maintaining a constant output of blood qi and mental strength was a honing of the self as well.

    In the same vein, prolonged output of sword aura should be a tempering of his auras.

    Radiance sparkled in the small sword of his hand as various auras flowed through it. Li Hao frowned slightly at it¡ªsustaining his effort for a while was fine, sustaining it for a few hours was feasible. But continuing in this vein over a prolonged period of time... he would probably die first. The sword auras consumed too many resources that may not be recovered in a short period of time.

    ¡°It¡¯s too hard to nurture a sword this way!¡± But since he¡¯d read about the method and the book spoke highly of it, Li Hao decided he wanted to give it a try. He could always give up if it proved impossible. His sword auras could also be supplemented by sword energy.

    Additionally, he hadn¡¯t sensed his organs nurturing the spirits or auras yet, but it was a concept that his teacher spoke of. Li Hao knew that he didn¡¯t fully understand it¡ªperhaps the five organs could nurture the auras, but he didn¡¯t have much sensation from it at present.

    ¡°What a pity that teacher isn¡¯t by my side,¡± Li Hao remarked with regret. It was his teacher who¡¯d created the Summoner of Spirit cultivation realm. He¡¯d left so quickly that the young man needed to fumble for some things by himself.

    Nurturing spirits... his teacher wouldn¡¯t have mentioned that haphazardly. The five organs could certainly strengthen the aura¡ªbut how?

    ¡°Ai... teacher should have finished his thoughts... Or perhaps his own theories weren¡¯t perfected then.¡± After some thought, Li Hao felt that it might have to do with the supernatural locks.

    The supernatural locks sealed potential away out of concern that martial masters were too strong for their organs and bodies. Their extraneous power was stored forter release. Such were ether supernatural locks!

    Human bodies contained a certain strength to begin with in the locks. When his teacher spoke of nurturing the spirit, he likely borrowed the theory of supernatural locks nurturing the auras.

    ¡°Summoner of Spirit is a stage of releasing potential, a methodological process that strengthens the organs while strengthening the aura. That can avoid a lot of trouble and even prevent a condition like Hou Xiaochen¡¯s and the others¡ªstrong potential but hesitance to unseal themselves.¡±

    Li Hao thought over the implications, feeling that his teacher¡¯s path was much moreplicated than he¡¯d thought! Perhaps his teacher had certain thoughts long ago and only manifested themter on.

 Chapter 529: Safeguarding Silver Moon (III)

    <h4>Chapter 529: Safeguarding Silver Moon (III)</h4>

    ¡°Supernatural locks and aura... The supernatural locks restrain the aura, but do they do that purely to immobilize the aura?¡± Li Hao sank into deep thought. Locking the aura away may not be just to confine it, but also to nurture it!

    But how could he release some of the power sealed in the locks to nurture the aura? Partially snap them like He Yong and the others did? That seemed... so unreliable!

    Various thoughts shed through his mind after reading through the <i>Fundamentals of Sword Theory.</i> He had many more reflections regarding martial dao as well as his teacher¡¯s theories. It¡¯d looked so simple to him before, but seemed quite deep and profound upon further consideration! Summoner of Spirit was not as straightforward as Li Hao had previously thought. Of course, Yuan Shuo himself may not have perfected the realm either.

    ¡°Forget it, there¡¯s no sign of teacher to be seen at the moment and his theories may not beplete. Perhaps I can try toplete them myself.¡±

    His teacher had given him some precursors and theories. All Li Hao needed to do was to ovee certain difficulties, such as how to use the strength inside the locks to nurture the organs and aura. They couldn¡¯t just take in energy indefinitely, could they!

    If that was the case, regr martial masters wouldn¡¯t have the right to set foot into this level if they couldn¡¯t utilize blood pearls. Li Hao could do it only because he could borrow sword energy to strengthen himself. His teacher had said that only a path that everyone could walk was a true path of martial dao. That was what made a real cultivation level!

    Therefore, the peak of current martial masters ended at Dominator. The paths beyond it were not the normal order of things. Only Yuan Shuo and Li Hao utilized Summoner of Spirit. No one else was qualified to walk it.

    <i>The key lies in the supernatural locks. </i>Li Hao had eaten most of the Mind Fruits by now and his four auras were stronger, but he wasn¡¯t satisfied with that. That wasn¡¯t enough. If his body also reached the ten thousand cube level, then he might fully surpass the previous Sea Shark. However, he would still fall short if he encountered ate Nova.

    Faceless Shark had been ate Nova, which meant that White Shark was either a peak Nova or at metamorphosis like the golden eagle and other monster spirits. Thetter didn¡¯t seem likely. Those he knew of this level were Hong Yitang and others. He knew the limits of their strength before being unsealed¡ªmetamorphosis was a stage of change.

    With Li Hao¡¯s current strength, he wouldn¡¯t stand against White Shark. As for the dog, he could tell that it might not be able to killte Novas on its own. But if it ambushed those close to this level, it would be able to take out the target. Panth appeared to be slightly stronger than the young man, but not by much. It would be difficult for the two of them to aplish anything against an enemy that already knew he¡¯d killed ate Nova.

    ¡°Not to mention, there may not be just one Nova. There are also the Srs to consider. A plentitude of ants will bite an elephant to death. Causing trouble for the White Shark Raiders at this current stage is to court death.¡± Li Hao flicked the little sword around like willow leaves drifting through the wind. The motion brought a frown to his face. Grasping the wood aura through the Weeping Willow Sword might take a very long time. After strengthening the other four auras, it somehow felt a bit awkward to use the Weeping Willow Sword.

    ¡°The Five Styles...¡± His thoughts traveled to the first method he¡¯d learned. ording to Yuan Shuo, the deer style corresponded to the wood aura. How that exactly mapped to the wood aura was up to each person. Yuan Shuo¡¯s thoughts differed from Li Hao¡¯s¡ªthe young man felt that the deer style should map to the wind aura. How did it match the wood aura? One couldn¡¯t say the deer style was of the wood attribute just because deer ate grass.

    It was up to individualprehension. Just as Yuan Shuo¡¯s tiger was one of water, Li Hao¡¯s was one of fire.

    ¡°It makes sense that the ape style corresponds to the wood aura as this animal is expert at traveling through the mountains via climbing trees...¡± Li Hao smiled at this. He returned to the book instead of thinking about it further. Perhaps the ancient book could give him some hints or otherprehension.

    The sky was fully dark outside and the owner of the tavern didn¡¯t dare rush the customer that¡¯d taken over the best room. He¡¯d recognized who the person was and couldn''t wait to fawn over the young man¡ªhow would he ever dare say that they were closed for the day?

    Granted, there was no end of internal muttering that the young man was seriously miserly. A small jug of wine and some pastries were all that he ordered... The one in the room was an important heavyweight, after all, is there a need to be so stingy?

    If it wasn¡¯t out of concern that the other would dismiss him out of hand, the owner wanted to send up a te of fruit or something simr. The young man was so miserly to order so few dishes after sitting in the room for the entire day!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t walk down the stairs until the night was fully dark and neon lights flickering brightly outside.

    ¡°General, would you like a bite to eat?¡± The owner quickly stepped forward in wee.

    ¡°That¡¯s alright.¡± Li Hao shed a smile and took out one hundred Skystar coins. ¡°Is this enough for a jug of wine and a te of pastries?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The tavern keeper paused. <i>That is... definitely enough... but... ah forget it! It¡¯s not like I charged you a private room fee.</i> ¡°That¡¯s enough, more than enough!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s tough running a business, so I ought to pay this amount.¡± Li Hao left after settling his bill, sighing with appreciation at the cost of living in Southern Ford. One hundred coins for a meal? When he¡¯d been a new inspector at Silver City, his wages during his probation period had been one thousand coins a month. It¡¯d be gone after ten small sks of wine.

    The young man shook his head. No wonder the city¡¯s tax revenue could sustain thirty million throughout the province! T<i>he cost of living is so high here that I would be able to feast in Silver City for the price of that meal.</i>

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t in a hurry to head to the beach after he left the tavern. He wandered through the city, in a rare mood and frame of mind to take in the streets and lights of Southern Ford. It would be nice to utilize this free time to cleanse his thoughts and heart. What he saw at the Near River town today was also fresh on his mind...

    Li Hao smiled, a new sensation in his heart. Silver Moon was wonderful now that he looked at it!

    ......

    As Li Hao roamed through Southern Ford, the Demon Hunters partied it up in the city.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, White Moon City.</i>

    Several senior executives were hosting a video conference. Several figures were projected on a crystalline screen. Kong Jie leaned back on his office chair with weariness. ¡°Did none of you sense Li Hao running offst night?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Huang Yu raised an eyebrow on screen.

    ¡°Then that means there are problems with our system!¡± Kong Jie said brusquely. ¡°We¡¯ve been on guard against supernaturals, but martial masters are the truetent threat! If Li Hao and his people could leave with no one the wiser, that means martial masters can soundlessly invade us!¡±

    Huang Yu inclined his head and didn¡¯t argue. After a while, he said, ¡°We can indeed be stricter against martial masters. I¡¯ll take this into consideration and have the army enhance our preparations for martial masters.¡± He promptly set the concern out of mind. ¡°So Li Hao killed Faceless and Sea Shark?¡±

    ¡°The ck dog was also there, it might have participated.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s a major monster spirit...¡± Huang Yu hesitated. ¡°What are they doing in Silver Moon? It doesn¡¯t feel to be of the supernatural system either, it seems rather like the martial master system.¡±

    Director General Zhao coughed; his figure superimposed on Huang Yu on the screen. ¡°Perhaps it¡¯s a descendant of an ancient monster spirit and has had its bloodline awakened. The bloodline heritage of the monster spirits is slightly stronger than that of the human races. We might have some ancient monster spirit descendants in our midst.

    ¡°You¡¯ve seen the data, too, that Li Hao inadvertently took in the dog. Ites from Silver City. Since the heritage of the eight families is in that city, it¡¯s to be expected that there are descendants of ancient monster spirits there.¡±

    Everyone nodded slightly.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen¡¯s departure means that some issues will crop up with our system of the four institutions,¡± Kong Jie said after momentary consideration. ¡°It was Ole Zhao in charge of internal affairs, Ole Huang for external enemies, me for domestic security, and Ole Hou being a mobile unit to cleanse us of random nonsense.

    ¡°But the Night Watchersck sufficient strength after Ole Hou¡¯s departure. We alsock critical powerhouses to make decisions. Hao Lianchuan is too weak...

    ¡°I rmended Wang Henggang as a recement, but Ole Hou didn¡¯t agree and caught us off guard when he left by promoting Li Hao. Thed¡¯s not weak, but I... didn¡¯t think he would do before!

    ¡°He¡¯s like his master, a proper vagabond. They¡¯re not reliable if you want them to shoulder any responsibility. If Hong Yitang had been willing to take over... I think he would¡¯ve been the best candidate. Sadly, he wasn¡¯t willing.

    ¡°Thus, I am hopeful after seeing some new developments. I¡¯m wondering whether we should bring Li Hao into the fold and revive the four institution system of Silver Moon.¡±

    The Inspectorate, Night Watchers, provincial army, and provincial government had overseen Silver Moon for many years. Bringing Li Hao into the fold meant acknowledging his position, that he would eventually rece Hou Xiaochen and be the leading figure in the province¡¯s violentw enforcement agency.

    ¡°No, it¡¯s too soon!¡± Even Director General Zhao frowned at the suggestion. ¡°You¡¯d be pulling the sapling up by the root to help it grow. We can¡¯t think that Li Hao is ready for responsibility after one operation, that¡¯s not appropriate! As the bloodline of the eight families, we hope that he can safeguard this ancient sacrednd. But right now, hepletelycks sufficient strength, experience, thoughts, and foundation.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re being a bit frivolous, Ole Kong,¡± Huang Yu dered solemnly as well. ¡°Li Hao did well this one time, but he only did well. It¡¯s not a good idea to put his name forward after a single operation.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true!¡± Kong Jie nodded after some thought. ¡°But I think we can consider it. The White Shark Raiders won¡¯t give up so easily. They¡¯re strong and also backed by the Jiangs, correct?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re not sure, but there¡¯s a distinct possibility,¡± Huang Yu answered. ¡°What are you saying?¡±

    ¡°The pirates wille for revenge no matter what, or they won¡¯t be able to stand within the North Sea. The other seven factions will divvy them up sooner orter. Therefore, I¡¯d like to see how Li Hao handles the problem. He¡¯s created it, but says that he will resolve it. I¡¯m thinking that if we don¡¯t make a move and leave it alone, shall we bring him in if he sessfully handles the situation?¡±

 Chapter 530: Stillness (I)

    <h4>Chapter 530: Stillness (I)</h4>

    Kong Jie and Huang Yu looked at Director General Zhao. After a while, the man smiled. ¡°We can do that, but the caveat is that Hong Yitang cannot be involved. Li Hao has a good rtionship with Hong Yitang and his daughter is part of Li Hao¡¯s troop. There¡¯s not much meaning to things if Hong Yitang helps out.¡±

    ¡°We need someone who can resolve issues and swiftly eliminate trouble,¡± Huang Yu dered solemnly. ¡°Not someone who creates trouble and is unable to clean up after himself. That will only bring trouble to Silver Moon. The higher his position, the greater the trouble!¡±

    The director general was in agreement, but he wanted Li Hao to manage the White Shark Raiders himself. It would be a test of his abilities.

    ¡°Do you think... he might actually be unwilling to join?¡± Kong Jie suddenlyughed.

    ¡°That doesn¡¯t matter, we only take voluntary recruits,¡± Huang Yu responded indifferently. ¡°A forcefully plucked fruit is not sweet. We will not have him join if he really is unwilling!¡±

    Director General Zhao inclined his head.

    ¡°Additionally, Ole Hou...¡± Kong Jie changed the subject. ¡°There will probably be a lot of trouble waiting for him. While Ole Hou took Golden Spear and the others with him when he left, Yellow Dragon in the central Night Watchers probably doesn¡¯t want to see himnd on solid footing in his new post. Ole Hou hasn¡¯t said anything, but should we do something?¡±

    He nced at the two, as if waiting for their decision. Huang Yu furrowed his brows and sank into deep thought. The director general seemed to be writing something down. He raised his head when he sensed the quiet atmosphere and saw the other two looking at him.

    ¡°What are you guys looking at me for?¡± The old man smiled.

    ¡°Don¡¯t you have any ideas, Ole Zhao?¡±

    ¡°Me?¡± the director general answered with resignation. ¡°What ideas can I have? Little Hou isn¡¯t weak either, so don¡¯t be worried...¡±

    ¡°You and small mind...¡± chuckled Kong Jie. ¡°So you guys had a few arguments. He just has different opinions from you! So he doesn¡¯t like the idea of being all inclusive and the four institutions working together¡ªjust ignore him! Why must you have him share the same opinion as you?¡±

    ¡°What?¡±ughed Director General Zhao. ¡°When did I ever want him to think the same way I do?¡±

    ¡°Fine fine fine!¡± Kong Jie didn¡¯t say anything else. ¡°Do you have any ideas or not? You¡¯re so busy that one would think you have some great enterprise in mind, but there¡¯s been nothing major in the province recently...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s all you know!¡± rebuked the director general. ¡°All you know is to run your mouth and not pay attention to anything else!¡±

    Kong Jie couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond.

    ¡°He is beyond our reach in the central region,¡± Director General Zhao said after some thought. ¡°I don¡¯t have any good ideas... How about this, I¡¯ll send a personal letter to Sky Sword as Silver Moon¡¯s highest ranking officer. As a fellow Silver Moon denizen, maybe he¡¯ll be willing to help if Little Hou runs into any trouble.¡±

    ¡°That guy...¡± Certain things came to mind when Kong Jie heard this. ¡°He¡¯ll do! Apparently Tyrant de is still alive too, do you know where he is?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Director General Zhao shook his head.

    ¡°Almost everyone who¡¯s seen him has died,¡± Huang Yu offered. ¡°He¡¯s hard to locate. But he might go seek out Yuan Shuo.¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t forget, Yuan Shuo has the de of the Zhangs!¡± Huang Yu smiled meaningfully. ¡°With Tyrant de¡¯s domineering personality, he might be interested in that de and look for a sparring match.¡±

    ¡°Yuan Shuo... probably isn¡¯t a match for Tyrant de at the moment.¡±

    ¡°Who knows?¡± Huang Yu shook his head. ¡°Yuan Shuo will stand a chance if he perfects his Summoner of Spirit realm. The five styles meld as one to nurture the five organs. Tyrant de won¡¯t necessarily win without unsealing himself if he¡¯s like us!¡±

    ¡°Then forget it, he¡¯s tough to track down.¡± Kong Jie gave up that possibility. ¡°Let¡¯s write to Sky Sword first. Who else is in the central region apart from him...

    ¡°Is Northern Fist in the central region? Or has he gone somewhere else, like Great Li?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°Not sure.¡±

    ¡°Forget it, you guysck sufficient information.¡± Kong Jie couldn¡¯t be bothered to make fun of them. ¡°But these Silver Moon guys seriously get around. The only one we¡¯re sure of is Sky Sword. At least he¡¯s been conspicuous enough these years that we can find him.¡±

    The rest were all mysterious figures hard to track down.

    ¡°I don¡¯t think we need to be overly worried about Hou Xiaochen,¡± Director General Zhao offered casually. ¡°Yu Luocha and Golden Spear are with him. Yu Luocha is still in fullmand of her strength, whereas Golden Spear...¡±

    The old man hesitated. ¡°Golden Spear remains to be seen. He¡¯s in a stage of self doubt at the moment. If he can¡¯t snap out of it, he¡¯ll be half crippled and this will be all that he amounts to.¡±

    He shook his head, finding it a regretful situation.

    ¡°I¡¯m ready to have Berserk de leave for the central region,¡± Huang Yu suddenly offered. ¡°He¡¯s as good as crippled if he keeps staying with me.¡±

    The other two didn¡¯t say anything, that decision was up to theirpatriot.

    ¡°What about Light Sword?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s gone to the Xus... probably to address the issues with her cultivation method.¡± Kong Jie thought over the matter. ¡°Although we don¡¯t know the inside story behind Xu Feng¡¯s death, it might have something to do with one of their rumored treasures. Will she do something?¡±

    ¡°Again, this is beyond our reach!¡± answered the director general. ¡°Forget it, she doesn¡¯t want toe under our hand either. We can only take each day as ites. We need to set all this aside for now. Southern Fist came to me before he left to have the province prepare itself. The Sword Sect wishes to expand. Everything within five hundred kilometers of its mountain is to be sect territory. He Yong and Hong Yitang seemed to have reached an agreement. What do you all think?¡±

    The two blinked, Huang Yu frowned.

    ¡°This is hard to say and I¡¯m not certain of Hong Yitang¡¯s goal.¡± Kong Jie thought for a bit. ¡°There is certain room for discussion. As for our representative... let¡¯s send Li Hao. What do you guys say?¡±

    The other two looked at each other and nodded. An agreement had been reached on all Silver Moon matters in the near term.

    ¡°I have the army cordoning off Rift Canyon,¡± Huang Yu concluded. ¡°No one is allowed in or out for the moment. There¡¯s been some developments at Battle Heaven. I think it¡¯ll take Li Hao to take care of those problems.¡±

    The trio swiftly concluded the call after discussing these matters. Li Hao was temporarily viewed as part of the four institutions in the capacity of the Night Watcher leader. The young man remained in the dark about this and was even less aware that he was about to be promoted again.

    At the moment, he was still in Southern Ford, watching a group of long-legged beauties dancing in the night. He was impressed at how they didn¡¯t seem to be freezing in the chilly air.

    ......

    A day of merrymaking passed. The Demon Hunters gathered back at the beach on the second day. Hong Qing and Hong Hao were yet to return as the Sword Sect was further away. It wouldn¡¯t take them longer than two days by car for a return trip, however. Everyone else was present apart from them.

    Li Hao took a close assessment of them. Many in the crowd showed faint signs of an aura. That wasn¡¯t a true aura yet, just a prototype simr to when Li Haoprehended the earth aura. It meant that they weren¡¯t too far off and would soon be half step Dominators.

    Approximately five among the Sword Sect showed such indications, whereas Liu Yan, Wu Chao, and Chen Jian of the Inspectorate were also the same. Aura prototypes also flickered around them.

    Li Hao breathed out gently. The effects had been good. Battle was indeed the premier cultivation method for martial masters. There might be ten half step Dominators in his small team after a few days. As for officially setting foot into the stage, they would need to strengthen their aura.

    They¡¯d attained all of the other requirements whether it was the body, organs, blood qi, or bones. They were far stronger than ordinary martial masters. Having one-fifth of a crew of fifty bing half step Dominators was a fantastic record. In all the years of the Silver Moon Guards¡¯ formation, only one-tenth of them had reached the same stage. They¡¯d also had to rely on the daoprehension weapons to do so.

    ¡°We¡¯ve had our day of fun, it¡¯s time to go.¡± Li Hao looked at his people. ¡°We¡¯ll go back to White Moon City first to rest for three days. I¡¯ll grant general ess to the daoprehension weapons that the Guards left behind. It¡¯s up to you if you make use of it or not. Some of the auras within may not conform to your thoughts. They can only be used as reference, but still useful toprehending the aura.

    ¡°I¡¯ll take you on an excavation of a ruin after three days! And to the seas again within ten days. The White Shark Raiders are probably consumed by the confusion of consolidation at the moment. We might have some advantage in making trouble for them now, but that¡¯s not important in my view. We won¡¯t be afraid of them finishing their consolidation so long as our strength increases as well.¡±

    He had two options at the moment¡ªhead straight for the pirates and kick in their front door. The Divine Kun Ship was fast and could hunt them down easily. The second option was to explore the ruins that Golden Spear had left behind.

    Li Hao chose thetter. The White Shark Raiders were a known entity that he was in no rush to address. They wouldn¡¯t brashly undertake action over the next couple of days, it would be a while longer. They would also be worried about Silver Moonying a trap for them.

    Therefore, the young man wanted to take advantage of this gap to explore the ruins that Golden Spear left behind. He might gain something. It wasn¡¯t a convenient time to attempt Battle Heaven at the moment. The army was strong and strictly speaking, the cities of the eight families were all his. He shouldn¡¯t go about randomly digging them up.

    Of course these were just his thoughts.

    ¡°Some of you have never been to a ruin before, so this will be a good experience! You might gain something if you¡¯re lucky, or run into some danger if you¡¯re not. But martial masters should take risks in the end.¡±

    No one had an opinion, there was just general excitement! Most of them were yet to explore ruins before. They knew there was a lot of treasure inside, but were unaware of what ruins were actually like.

 Chapter 531: Stillness (II)

    <h4>Chapter 531: Stillness (II)</h4>

    ¡°Everyone should focus on improving themselves over the next three days. Comprehending the aura is a hurdle, a massive hurdle! Only after sensing the aura can you all walk further. If it continuously remains out of reach for you...¡± Li Hao looked silently at the crowd for a moment. ¡°Then it is only a matter of time before you are eliminated! Remaining at Sunderer is too weak. You can walk many more paths after you grasp the aura and break the limits of the body. There is Southern Fist, Golden Spear, and my master to use as reference. There are many ways to proceed.¡±

    They would be forever stuck at this cultivation level if they did notprehend the aura. The strongest they would be was a Sunderer, and facing off against Sunre enemies would be their limit if they did not break the confines of their body.

    Given the state of the world, unless Sunderers were equipped with ck armor, they wouldn¡¯t even be able to participate in a battle against pirates.

    A strong sense of urgency rose in the crowd¡¯s hearts. Would there be a ce in this team for them in the future if they continued to fail to reach half step Dominator? There were only fifty people in the Demon Hunters, so Li Hao could be as generous as he wished and share any attribute of energy with them, daoprehension weapons, mysterious power stones, ck armor...

    This led to a fast pace of improvement. But once they were eliminated... The consequences were impossible to imagine!

    A strong sense of pressure brought the group back to reality after yesterday¡¯s revelry.

    ¡°Leader, will it affect our future if we grasp the aura from the daoprehension weapons?¡± Although hesitant, someone spoke up with their concern in the end. ¡°Will our potential be less than other people?¡±

    ¡°Not necessarily!¡± Li Hao responded after some thought. ¡°Comprehending the aura is the stepping stone to sess. It doesn¡¯t mean that you can¡¯t grow stronger in the future or that you¡¯re locked into a certain development. The sword aura Imandes from... a kind of daoprehension weapon as well.

    ¡°But what you glean from the daoprehension weapons may not be the best match for you.¡±

    ¡°Leader, if a defensive type like me grasps an offensive aura, will that cripple me?¡± asked the honest Chen Jian.

    ¡°Says who?¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°The aura lives in one¡¯s imagination and is the manifestation of the heart and soul. Take an earth attributeprehending a mountain, for example. Would you say the mountain is offensive or defensive?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say.¡± Chen Jian shook his head.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, it¡¯s hard to say,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°Even if it¡¯s the strongest sword aura, who says it must be used to attack? Are there no defensive sword techniques? Both possibilities exist at the same time, so don¡¯t seek to pigeonhole your aura with a meaning from the beginning. I understood the earth aura first and my thoughts then were that earth is suited for defense. Butter on, I turned it into an earth sword aura for attack. It¡¯s all in how you use it.¡±

    The crowd nodded with some understanding. Though they didn¡¯t fully register the meaning behind their leader¡¯s words, they more or less understood him. No matter what, they were toprehend the aura first and smash through this barrier to knock on the door to Dominator. As for everything else, that could wait. There might not even be a future if one did not cross the threshold first.

    In that case, there would be no need to consider questions of potential.

    ¡°You¡¯ve progressed well,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°When our tente Sunderers utilize the Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation and our formidable armor, they can put up a fight against an initial Sr. I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll be less than a Dominator, but that still isn¡¯t enough!

    ¡°It¡¯s not enough to just fight a Sr and not kill them. You cannot do so yet because you are not strong enough and cannot intimidate a Sr!¡±

    Heads nodded; they were aware of this as well. Even if they were to work together and reach higher peaks when melding their force together, theycked the methods that guaranteed the death of an initial Sr. The Demon Hunters could at most dy an initial Sr at the moment, they could not kill such a supernatural.

    This rate of improvement was already very fast! But the people also knew that this had to do with their formation and armor. Without those two factors, it would be decent enough if the tente Sunderers could fight a mid orte Sunre.

    That was their true battle strength. Granted, their formation and equipment was also part of their strength as others didn¡¯t have the same.

    ¡°So long as everyone understands where I¡¯ming from. Let everything proceed naturally and don¡¯t be overly worried that utilizing the aura within the daoprehension weapon will limit your potential...¡± Li Hao paused, but ultimately chose to finish his words. ¡°When ites to affecting the potential, the biggest challenge will be surpassing the ancients who left the aura behind. If you utilize the daoprehension weapon, to be honest... your chances of surpassing the former owner are negligible!¡±

    And that was the tant truth! The young man was well aware of the drawbacks stemming from the auras remaining in the daoprehension weapons. The Demon Hunters might be like Golden Spear¡ªenshrouded by another¡¯s aura and unable to break or surpass it.

    To put it more inly, there were so many ultimate powerhouses in the ancient civilization that it went without saying how strong their auras must have been to survive to present day. Even Li Hao didn¡¯t fancy himself strong enough to reach that step, the step of his forefather.

    So what came after the young manprehended his ancestor¡¯s aura? That could wait until he truly reached that step! He was an incredible distance away from the other, what was the point of considering right now that he might not be able to break his forefather¡¯s shackles after grasping the aura? That he might be the next Golden Spear...

    What a joke!

    Golden Spear had the strength of a Nova and outstripped most in the martial world. Only those who¡¯d seen vaster reaches felt that he was restricted. For those in front of him to surpass the ancients... Li Hao felt that it was too hard for them.

    Hong Yitang had said to not think that present day was inferior to the ancient times, but those were his aspirations and not reality. Reality was that even when it came to someone like Li Hao, he leaned heavily on his bloodline. Someone like He Yong started only at the ck Armor level.

    The crowd turned silent after Li Hao¡¯s words before sighs of relief could be heard.

    ¡°So that¡¯s the case... we just won¡¯t be able to surpass the ancients? That¡¯s fine!¡±

    <i>That was terrifying! We thought we wouldn¡¯t be able to improve beyond Dominator if we made use of a daoprehension weapon. So this is the case!</i>

    ¡°Yeah, you were scaring us, leader! We thought we would be stuck at half step Dominator or have no hope of improvement beyond Dominator. The ancients were marvelous! They could destroy stars with one move!¡± chattered the crowd. Everyone was quite wordless at the picture of doom Li Hao had been painting. They¡¯d somewhat rejected this greatest Guard benefit due to his earlier words that daoprehension weapons might result in certain restrictions or influences on their development. They would rather they slowly carve out their own path than apply for thatprehension chance.

    It wasn¡¯t until now that they understood the full ramifications. <i>So that was it? You were scaring people because of this?</i>

    Li Hao was just as wordless as them. Prior to setting foot into Battle Heaven, he¡¯d felt that only the ancient legendary heroes were strong, that their ordinary cultivators were weak. Of course he would surpass their ordinary cultivators... But after joining the Battle Heaven Army, he found that even a Silver Armor could kill him after countless eons... he knew that he¡¯d overestimated himself.

    There were one thousand people to a troop in the Battle Heaven Army and one thousand troop leaders. In other words, the Silver Armors that had been dead for endless years could still beat him senseless. There was no point in mentioning surpassing the ancients.

    First came imitation, then catching up, and finally surpassing. That was the path of modern people.

    Liu Long wanted tough when he saw how awkward Li Hao was. Everyone started off with the same thoughts¡ªthat they were much stronger than the ancients. They didn¡¯t want to bother with the aura left by the ancients and wanted to directly outstrip them...

    It wasn¡¯t until they were mercilessly beaten down by society did they understand that they were just babes learning how to walk. How could they ignore that and want to imitate an adult by jumping ahead? That was sheer nonsense!

    Whispers flurried below as some decided to borrow a daoprehension weapon upon their return. Forty-nine martial masters had all made it tote Sunderer. One time each with the weapons made for forty-nine attempts. The strongest weapon that Li Hao had was a broken sword that Golden Spear left him. There were ten attempts in it. The others were even weaker ones from Golden Spear that could be utilized three to five times.

    There may not be enough for all forty-nine members.

    However, the young man felt that those who couldprehend the aura on their own might not need the weapons. That would leave enough tries for everyone.

    ¡°C¡¯mon, onto the ship and let¡¯s go! Hong Qing and the others will go directly to White Moon City, we don¡¯t need to wait for them!¡±

    The crowd swiftly filed on board. The ship rapidly expanded and shot out like a loosed arrow, quickly vanishing into the horizon.

    Someone watched them from the shore, silently observing their departure. The two Sunres from the Southern Ford Night Watcher branch were also watching. One was older, one was younger. The older one sighed, ¡°We all felt so unsettled when Director Hou left. Although Director Hao is a Sr, he doesn¡¯t offer us much security with the growing number of powerhouses in the world...

    ¡°This one has disyed immense strength prior to the director¡¯s full departure and killed enemies with resolution. I trust that the Silver Moon Night Watchers will be quiet for a while and no longer see unrest.¡±

    That was what everyone had been worried about before, but Li Hao appeared with swiftness and killed two Nova powerhouses, as well as five hundred supernaturals. It gave everyone a boost of confidence that the Silver Moon Night Watchers were still very strong.

    This was extremely important at this point in time, and was something that Hao Lianchuan could not supply. A mid Sr director... somehow did not merit much respect anymore.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that right!¡± chuckled the middle-aged man next to him. ¡°One has to say, Director Hou has a good eye for talent. He had this one promoted to deputy director before he left. I say, why don¡¯t we let him...¡±

    ¡°Ahem!¡± coughed the old man. ¡°Director Hao is not bad, he¡¯s just a bit weaker. He¡¯s a very nice guy, though.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± The middle-aged man rapidly bobbed his head up and down. That was true, it was very fine that Hao Lianchuan was the director. He was a good man and it was a fine arrangement. However, that deputy director needed to step forward as well, to give everyone reassurance.

 Chapter 532: Stillness (III)

    <h4>Chapter 532: Stillness (III)</h4>

    <i>At the same time, White Moon City. The Night Watcher encampment.</i>

    ¡°Stop it with the questions!¡± Hao Lianchuan raged. ¡°Stop the bullshit! How do I know when Li Hao will be back? What are all of you doing? I¡¯m still here, why are you asking me this shit? There¡¯s nothing going on right now, what¡¯s the deal with these constant questions??¡±

    Hepletely lost his cool in front of the visiting Sunres, they were so infuriating! These people came several times a day to ask when Deputy Director Li would be back. When he asked them what they wanted, one said that there might be a base of the three great organizations somewhere that required Li Hao¡¯s help. The other asked if the Silver Moon Guard were still recruiting, they wanted to introduce a friend. A thirdined that Director Li couldn¡¯t always stay in the Guards, that he was a deputy director of the Night Watchers, after all. He needed toe and get to know everyone.

    Hao Lianchuan was nearly beside himself with fury!<i> Do all of you take me for dead?</i>

    Next to him, the metal attribute Deputy Director Zhou was a Sr and smiled catingly at seeing Hao Lianchuan¡¯s anger. ¡°Director Hao, everyone¡¯s thinking of the Night Watchers. To be honest, we¡¯re all a bit uneasy after Director Hou¡¯s departure. This is a good development, we¡¯re much more at ease after Director Li has yed some Novas.

    ¡°With a powerhouse that can fight Novas present, it feels much the same as when Director Hou was present. We¡¯re much more confident. Otherwise, we wouldn¡¯t even really dare eliminate the remnants of the three great organizations...¡±

    That was the truth, the unfortunate, tant truth!

    ¡°Am I not a mid Sr?!¡± Hao Lianchuan grumped. ¡°Can I not handle some stragglers? Who are you looking down on?¡±

    ¡°......¡± No one said a word. <i>Don¡¯t ask us anything so we don¡¯t need to say anything. If you insist... we really do look down on you a little bit.</i>

    ¡°Get out of here, all of you!¡± Hao Lianchuan cursed. ¡°I¡¯ll let you know when hees back. Get out of my sight and don¡¯t bother me!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The group of people left sheepishly.

    Hao Lianchuan sagged against his chair when they left, his face full of resignation. <i>Bah, screw you Li Hao! You were so polite when you came and called me Uncle Hao. Now look at you, your head¡¯s gotten too big after your strength grew! You said you¡¯d take me along when you did something big, but you ran off without anyone knowing!</i>

    Demon Sword Li Hao was now known throughout thends, and poor Hao Lianchuan was almost a backdrop. No, he was a side character. Nah, he wasn¡¯t even a side character.

    Wasn¡¯t that aggravating??

    As he cursed incessantly to himself, his eyes flicked toward the door and he suddenly beamed with joy. ¡°Li Hao¡¯se back! Good,e, sit! Let¡¯s chat! Are you tired? Are you hungry? Let¡¯s get some food, my treat...¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao looked blearily at the man. What was going on for him to be so weing? He¡¯de straight here after settling in the others. He was a nominal deputy director, after all. Hao Lianchuan had offered to join in his operations, but he¡¯d left the man behind.

    Li Hao had wanted to bring him along, but felt that they wouldn¡¯t necessarily encounter pirates. The young man thought that Hao Lianchuan might be livid and looking to vent his anger, but the situation looked alright!

    ¡°Director Hao...¡±

    ¡°Call me brother!¡±

    <i>The hell?! </i>Li Hao¡¯s mind nked. ¡°Erm... I... should still call you Director Hao... Or director, or Uncle Hao at the very least?¡±

    ¡°Whatever you wish!¡± Hao Lianchuan beamed. ¡°Were you hurt?¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯m alright.¡±

    ¡°Then that¡¯s good. Did you juste back?¡±

    ¡°Yes, just came back.¡±

    ¡°Then...¡±

    ¡°Director Hao, you don¡¯t have to be enthusiastic, I¡¯m not used to this kind of treatment.¡± Resigned, Li Hao raised a hand to cut the man off. ¡°We¡¯ve known each other for a while and you¡¯re the first Sr I met...¡±

    ¡°Nonsense, Brokensky was!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao coughed and couldn¡¯t help butugh. That was... true. He didn¡¯t want to argue with Hao Lianchuan over this. ¡°I¡¯m here to exin why I didn¡¯t invite you toe along...¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± Hao Lianchuan stered on an understanding smile. ¡°I¡¯m a supernatural and easily exposed. You were out for a regr sail and didn¡¯t expect to engage with the pirates on your first excursion, right?¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>You¡¯ve said everything I want to say, so what can I say?</i>

    Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t mind and continued with a chuckle, ¡°Li Hao, the director said before he left that he was leaving the Night Watchers in your hands. That makes sense to me too. I don¡¯t sit thatfortably in my position as director, even as an acting one, because I¡¯m too weak.¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± Li Hao interrupted. ¡°This is why I¡¯vee to the director. Supernaturals find it easier to improvepared to martial masters. There are too few supernatural powerhouses in the Night Watchers, so I want to invite Director Hao to the Guards barracks. I¡¯m going to cultivate over the next couple of days, so the director may be able to make use of the opportunity to find your fifth supernatural lock.¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± Hao Lianchuan was overjoyed. Was that possible?

    Li Hao nodded. Supernatural locks would not manifest if they were too weak. That wasn¡¯t a major issue¡ªthey could simply be strengthened if they were too weak. Blood pearls and elemental power would do, but mysterious power would not!

    It had to be elemental energy. Perhaps mysterious power stones could be a stand-in if they were avable in sufficient numbers as their energy was much more pure. However, Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t seem to have that many stones.

    Li Hao was prepared to increase his organs and physical body to ten thousand cubes each. There was no need for the other martial masters to absorb energy because they¡¯d reached the limits of their current state. More energy wouldn¡¯t have much of an effect unless theyprehended the aura. This time, his focus was to fortify the supernaturals under hismand.

    It was easy for supernaturals to progress¡ªthere wouldn¡¯t be so many powerhouses in just twenty years otherwise. This factored in the time they needed to search for the next stage, or else those fellows in the central region would¡¯ve set foot into Nova in just a few short years.

    Hao Lianchuan could dance with joy. There was hope yet! He was almost despairing because he continued to fail to locate his fifth lock. He burned with passion now that there was hope.

    ¡°Li Hao, Director Hou¡¯s gone and I can¡¯t be bothered to go up to the sixth floor to his office. You can have it and conduct your affairs from there in the future.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao blinked with astonishment. ¡°No, I don¡¯t want it!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s an entire floor! Don¡¯t look down on it for an outwardly small size. There¡¯s another house inside that the director lived in. There¡¯s a massive balcony and tons of space...¡±

    ¡°Director Hao, do you think that Director Hou isn¡¯ting back?¡± Li Hao stared at him for a bit.

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan instantly quieted down. Heughed awkwardly. ¡°Of course not!¡±

    ¡°So howe you¡¯re giving his office to me?¡± Li Hao rolled his eyes. <i>Hou Xiaochen will kill us both if hees back and finds his home of a few decades with another upant in it!</i>

    ¡°Hahaha... we... we can talk about thatter!¡± Hao Lianchuan continuedughing drily. <i>Ole Hou¡¯s gone, what does he care what we do with his office! It¡¯s his fault for leaving like that!</i>

    ¡°Then we¡¯re decided. I¡¯m going back first and Director Hao cane find me when you wrap up things here. I¡¯ll be cultivating over the next three days. It¡¯ll be the best if the director can manifest your fifth lock during this time.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan hastily nodded, both expectant and impatient. His fifth lock! Not seeing it meant that he stood no chance of bing a Nova. Only when he did was there hope. He wanted to leave with Li Hao on the spot! But there were matters to take care of in advance if he was to leave for a few days.

    ¡°Alright then,¡± he said with reluctance. ¡°You go back first and I¡¯ll be right there when I¡¯m done.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan was such a warm host that he insisted on walking Li Hao out. The young man left amid the admiring gazes of many Night Watchers. Hao Lianchuan ended up directing his driver to take Li Hao back and also told his driver that when Li Hao was present, the man would service Li Hao.

    The young man didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. Howe he hadn¡¯t realized before that Hao Lianchuan was so good at currying favor? He knew no shame and was just the same as Wang Ming. Were they long lost father and son?

    ......

    Back at the barracks, Li Hao put his matters in order. He didn¡¯t actually do much, just tossed the daoprehension weapons to Liu Long and had him assign opportunities based on merit.

    They still followed Silver Moon Guard regtions at the moment, but Li Hao was prepared to shift to the Battle Heaven Army system. It was easy to keep track of merits when everyone was outfitted with ck armor. At the moment, that function seemed to be obscured¡ªpossibly due to their distance from the city.

    Li Hao consulted his armor and found that troop leaders could set up a simr merit system if they lost contact with the city. He wasn¡¯t present when most of the fighting urred, so he didn¡¯t know who put forth more effort or less. Everyone split the gains equally at the moment, but that wouldn¡¯t do once their numbers increased.

    Was there a need to expand the Demon Hunters? He didn¡¯t think so before, but after witnessing the Battle Heaven Army and the scale of the pirates, some other thoughts brewed in his mind. He just didn¡¯t want to recruit right this very moment¡ªtraining was a hassle!

    It¡¯d be nice if there were ready-made personnel, and he would¡¯ve wanted to poach some from the other troops if the Guards were still here. What a pity that they¡¯d all left.

    With that in mind, he began closed door cultivation on the evening of October 6th. This time, he sought to elevate his body and organs to the ten-thousand-cube level.

    The supernaturals sitting outside were all nervous and excited. Hao Lianchuan was the most excited as he knew some of the inside story, such as the sword of the Lis. He hadn¡¯t been at liberty to say anything before as Li Hao refused to admit he¡¯d turned in a fake. Now that the young man summoned him here, the newly promoted director knew that the real one must be on the young man.

    Li Hao constantly wore his sword in open sight on this day, possibly to show off, or just that he felt there was no need to conceal it anymore. Or perhaps it was bait for others. Who knew?

 Chapter 533: Stillness (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 533: Stillness (IV)</h4>

    The Silver Moon Guards barracks quieted down once more. Martial masters spent time with daoprehension weapons or perceived the aura by themselves. A few supernaturals encircled Li Hao, absorbing the energy that he exuded, whether it was elemental energy, unattributed energy, or sometimes sword energy.

    Panther sprawled next to the young man as usual, at times opening its mouth to eat its fill. It was veryfortable here, it didn¡¯t want to leave at all. Although the ancient city could help it grow stronger, life was too awful there. It didn¡¯t want to recall the terrible days inside the city. The only memory it recalled vividly was that the big turtle had extracted its blood for the beautiful purpose of activating its bloodline.

    The dog never wanted to undergo another such experience. It¡¯d almost died of pain. This current state was the kind of life that it pursued. Feasting at will and asionally helping its human kill people, keeping its ws sharp. This was the kind of life it wanted.

    ......

    Time passed as Li Hao stilled once more.

    <i>The central region.</i>

    Yuan Shuo had disappeared, but the central region did not quiet down. It rather felt like the calm before the storm when Hou Xiaochen entered the area with his Silver Moon Guards.

    <i>On the ins of the central region.</i>

    A train quickly navigated through the terrain. The Guards had taken over an entire train to escort Hou Xiaochen to his post. Manager Yu and the others were frowning at the moment; they looked up through the metal ceiling overhead. Someone was above them in full view!

    Hou Xiaochen remained calm as could be, eating his breakfast as he admired the view out of the window andpletely ignoring the people outside. He knew who they were. Manager Yu twitched to erupt in fury, but kept herself in check when she saw that the director didn¡¯t say a word.

    Three people hovered overhead¡ªtwo young men and one young woman. They were very young!

    One of them had a long de on his back and looked down merrily. ¡°Ole Hou keeps a low profile. We¡¯ve been flying over them for a while, but he doesn¡¯t pay any attention to us. Truth be told, I¡¯m rather curious how strong he is and if he can fight Ole Huang.¡±

    The other young man wielded a spear that emanated fire energy. His long hair blew in the wind and an aloof look filled his eyes. ¡°He can ignore us if he wants. I can feel Golden Spear¡¯s spear intent, however. I wonder how much strength this number one spear of the past stillmands. I¡¯d love to exchange a few moves!¡±

    The cute, diminutive young woman widened herrge, round eyes and giggled, ¡°Why don¡¯t... you go down for a try, Ole Spear?¡±

    Thetter flicked a nce at her and ignored her.

    ¡°What, don¡¯t you dare?¡± she tittered.

    ¡°Shut up!¡± he snapped. Who was she making fun of!

    None of the three were weak and they were just here to watch the show. They weren¡¯t interested in causing trouble if the other side didn¡¯te out.

    ¡°Big Eyes, why don¡¯t you go down and take Yu Luocha through her paces?¡± The young man with the de grinned widely. ¡°I hear she¡¯s really strong and ranks in the top of the Silver Moon martial masters. Go get her!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Big Eyes ignored him. <i>I¡¯m not falling for that!</i> She looked down with regret. ¡°Forget it, we won¡¯t fight since you two are scaredy-cats! I¡¯m just curious if Hou Xiaochen will pick a fight with Ole Huang. Ole Huang¡¯s pretty strong. Will the three of us beat him if we work together?¡±

    ¡°More or less!¡± Long de stroked his chin. ¡°There¡¯s a hope, at least! Ole Huang¡¯s in metamorphosis and we¡¯re allte Nova. Although there¡¯s a peak Nova cultivation level separating us... he might not be able to take on the three of us together!¡±

    ¡°How about we try ambushing him?¡± Big Eyes blinked. ¡°We¡¯ll say Hou Xiaochen told us to do it and that we work for him now...¡±

    ¡°......¡± The two looked speechlessly at her. <i>Are you even listening to yourself?</i>

    ¡°Forget it, forget it,¡± Big Eyes giggled. ¡°They¡¯re too strong. I¡¯ve heard of something, that the disciple of the Five Styles Demon King, Li Hao, is really flexing his muscles in Silver Moon. He killed ate Nova with one sword stroke and apparently no one is his match. Do we want to go have some fun with him?¡±

    ¡°Nah, Silver Moon¡¯s not a good ce. We can¡¯t go at the moment!¡± Long de quickly shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s boring to watch Ole Hou and them fight each other. Why don¡¯t we find something exciting for them?¡±

    ¡°Something exciting?¡± The two looked eagerly at Long de. What kind of exciting?

    ¡°Apparently, out of Ying Hongyue¡¯s harem group, only Indigo Moon is left in the central region. If we find a chance to kill her, do you guys think Ying Hongyue will lose his mind and dere war on the Night Watchers?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The two stared open-mouthed at him.

    ¡°What are you guys looking at me this way for?¡± Long de grumbled. ¡°What are you afraid of? Nothing happened when the little priest killed Yama¡¯s grandson. Celestial¡¯s too damned mysterious, while I know a thing or two about Red Moon. We should imitate Li Hao and hang Indigo Moon by the Night Watcher headquarters. Ying Hongyue won¡¯t be able to look at himself in the mirror if he doesn¡¯t lose his mind for revenge. That¡¯s when things will get interesting. When Red Moon wages war on the Night Watchers... we might be able topletely take out the organization!¡±

    The two sucked in sharp breaths. <i>You¡¯re... a little too bold there! You¡¯re crazy!</i>

    ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go round up some people!¡± Big Eyes nodded after some thought.

    ¡°......¡± Spear couldn¡¯t help himself. ¡°Let¡¯s not, we¡¯ve offended too many people already. We won¡¯t have any ce to go if the Night Watchers give up on us...¡±

    ¡°What are you afraid of!¡± Long de waspletely nonchnt. ¡°We¡¯ll join another banner if the Night Watchers abandon us. If not, we¡¯ll go to some of the local tyrants. And if that doesn¡¯t work, we¡¯ll just start our own thing and conquer the world. And if <i>that</i> still doesn¡¯t work, then... let¡¯s just run. Will we not be able to outrun them if we can¡¯t outfight them?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Spear was rather resigned by the response. These two... Bah, forget it. They were friends, after all. ¡°Fine, but that Indigo Moon might not appear.¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t there still an Orange Moon?¡±

    ¡°She seems to have gone to the north...¡±

    ¡°Then forget it. We can also wait by the North Sea, she¡¯ll be back sooner orter. We¡¯ll hack her or jab her to death with one move when she shows up and hang her by the headquarter doors...¡± The three blustered loudly before they left. They still had their dignity to consider. Since Hou Xiaochen continued to ignore them, they would ignore him too! Hmph!

    ......

    <i>Inside the trainpartment.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen raised his eyes for a look when he finished hisst piece of dessert and smiled with a shake of his head. ¡°Youngsters are so interesting!¡±

    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for the director¡¯s instructions... I would teach them a lesson!¡± Yu Luocha snorted. How dare they fly overhead for such a long time! It was tant provocation!

    ¡°They¡¯re an interesting bunch, the Heaven Favored are fascinating,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°I¡¯ve always wanted to study if those with naturally broken supernatural locks are trash or geniuses. I still haven¡¯t figured it out.

    ¡°Is it that their potential doesn¡¯t need to be restrained or is it that their potential is limited, and this is all they¡¯ll ever amount to?

    ¡°This is all worthy of further study, but Silver Moon¡¯s Heaven Favored were too arrogant at an early stage andpletely wiped out after a few years. People like Yuan Shuo... wereplete spendthrifts! They wasted the province¡¯s potential!¡±

    He shook his head with some pity. There were almost no Heaven Favored in Silver Moon now¡ªwhichever ones still existed were very weak. Some were born with only one lock broken. Did a connate Starlight even count as Heaven Favored?

    The ones overhead had had at least three or even four broken at birth. They were natural Sunres and Srs¡ªtrue Heaven Favored.

    Yu Luocha said nothing further, while Golden Spear spoke in a muffled voice. ¡°I feel that they seem to have something like an aura within them. Director, what...¡±

    ¡°They probably learned some ancient arts,¡± Hou Xiaochen responded after some thought. ¡°They don¡¯t follow the path of the Silver Moon martial masters, it¡¯s not that of ancient martial dao. It¡¯s the ancient path of energy. Supernaturals aren¡¯t really trash¡ªdon¡¯t underestimate them. They just have a different system from us. The ancient path of energy was still very strong, and the records say that they almost overturned the entire ancient civilization when the two sides fought!

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t until the rise of the ancient Human King that they were brought under control. That is evidence enough of how strong they were. It¡¯s just that modern day supernaturals...¡± Hou Xiaochen thought for a bit. ¡°They possess many deficiencies and are different from the path of energy.

    ¡°The path of energy springs from the body, but mysterious power cannot be fully integrated into the body to be used by the wielder. I¡¯ve been curious about this problem and want to see if it¡¯s been resolved after all these years...

    ¡°If it hasn¡¯t, then the supernatural will never amount to anything. But if it has, that means existences above Nova have appeared!¡±

    If mysterious power could be fully integrated into the body, that gave rise to the hope of breaking the next supernatural lock. Hou Xiaochen hade to the central region also to gain insights on how far this domain had developed. He knew where the martial masters stood, but there were too few supernaturals in Silver Moon as well as supernaturals. Perhaps there would be some results here.

    ¡°Above Nova?¡± Manager Yu thought for a bit. ¡°We need to break two locks of the organs to reach beyond Nova. There should be those who¡¯ve done so and operate under a state simr to sealed martial masters. But what the director means is thoroughly smashing them and diverting the energy inside for personal use, correct? The kind of existence above Nova that will not suffer from bacsh in battle?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. ¡°Also, the unique systems among the supernatural such as the wind, flight, and thunder attributes¡ªtheir people are Novas if they break the four locks of the limbs. What if they move on to one of the five organs? Therefore, I¡¯d like to see what true battle strength beyond Nova looks like.¡±

    Golden Spear and Hao Lianchuan frowned. If there really were such existences, they would be a thorny problem. People like Hou Xiaochen had such strength if they unsealed themselves. If they didn¡¯t, they were of the metamorphosis level.

    Supernaturals did not have to worry about their organs exploding if they fully released their battle strength. Tempering the supernatural locks was actually what they sought. If this was the case, then even Hou Xiaochen might find himself in dire straits.

    Hou Xiaochen said nothing more, instead thinking of those that¡¯d been flying overhead. They were true geniuses of the central region. Were there equivalents for martial dao? He would certainly broaden his horizons this time. They were almost at Skystar City.

 Chapter 534: Light Sword (I)

    <h4>Chapter 534: Light Sword (I)</h4>

    <i>The Silver Moon Guards barracks.</i>

    Three days passed swiftly. When Li Hao said he would be in seclusion for three days, he really meant three days. He stopped his motions when time was up and halted cultivating. As for the insatiable Hao Lianchuan and others, he didn¡¯t bother looking at them.

    The young man had consumed arge sum of energy over the past three days¡ªmore than thirty thousand cubes. He absorbed half of the sum and the dog consumed at least five thousand of the other half. The rest went to Hao Lianchuan and the supernaturals. It was only because Panther wasn¡¯t much interested in the five elementstely that the supernaturals were able to absorb so much.

    He¡¯d consumed approximately one hundred pieces of mysterious power stones. That no longer meant much to Li Hao. After killing two Novas, the stones in their rings alone were more than eight hundred pieces. Pirates were rich, alright!

    His cache of stones was increasing instead of decreasing. Added to that seizures from other sources, that meant he had almost three thousand stones in hand. That was more than when he left the ruins.

    ¡°Don¡¯t stop, Li Hao!¡± Hao Lianchuan called out urgently with desire. ¡°My supernatural lock hasn¡¯t appeared yet and my strength hasn¡¯t increased...¡±

    ¡°Is that so?¡± Li Hao flicked him a nce.

    ¡°Yeah! Almost there...¡±

    ¡°Really?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Hao Lianchuan almost thumped his chest in promise.

    ¡°Late Sr is good enough,¡± Li Hao said wearily. ¡°Would you have ascended if your lock hadn¡¯t appeared? Director Hao, try a better lie next time.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan blinked and stared wordlessly at the young man. A tragic expression crept over his face. <i>The kid¡¯s eyes are too keen! I thought no one noticed!</i>

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with him. He looked at the others, finding himself to almost envy supernaturals. Wang Ming was peak Sunre and might ascend at any time. Hu Hao and Yun Yao were both Sunres. While they were initial Sunre, this rate of improvement was astonishing!

    As for Li Meng... she was unfortunately still dawdling in Darkmoon. At least she was a Plenilune now and would be a Sunre if she took another step forward.

    Thetter three hadn¡¯t absorbed too much energy as Hao Lianchuan had consumed half of the ten thousand cubes, Wang Ming half of the remainder, leaving the other half to the trio. And yet, they still easily set foot into Sunre.

    Inparison, it was so hard for martial masters to set foot into Dominator from Sunderer. Li Hao had sent the Demon Hunters quite a sum of elemental energy, but if juxtaposed with the supernaturals, he should¡¯ve seen half of his martial masters reach Dominator. And yet, not a single one was yet!

    The aura was an obstacle in everyone¡¯s path.

    Li Hao looked at Li Meng, thinking that the girl would be depressed. It turned out he was thinking too much. She wasn¡¯t down at all and bounced around happily. It didn¡¯t seem like an act as she really was very happy.

    While everyone had improved, she¡¯d improved the least. However, Li Meng was very excited. ¡°I¡¯m almost a Sunre, I¡¯m so impressive!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The group stared strangely at her. <i>We... are all Sunre? What are you so impressive about?</i>

    Li Meng looked at the group proudly and wanted to say something, but suddenly shut her mouth and thought better of it. That piqued Li Hao¡¯s curiosity. Had the girl gained something special? Was there a change to her eye or something else?

    He didn¡¯t consider asking as Li Meng couldn¡¯t keep a secret to save her life. She had a bigger mouth than Wang Ming. It hadn¡¯t been apparent before because she didn¡¯t know much. If she did, she would run her mouth more than Wang Ming. It wouldn¡¯t be more than a few days for everyone to know what she wasn¡¯t speaking about today.

    Li Hao walked out without further word. In his current state, increases to strength focused on the physical body. There weren¡¯t any big differences to his auras. His body and five organs were much more formidable than before. The stronger his vitality was, the harder it was for enemies to kill him.

    However, his offensive ability didn¡¯t increase in proportion to the improvements of his body. He might be a little stronger than when he faced Sea Shark¡ªat the very least, he wouldn¡¯t continue to be caught on the back foot and turn the tables only at the veryst. He could be able to match the pirate now.

    ......

    Li Hao walked out of the training quarters. Some martial masters were already awake and active, demonstrating the effects of what they¡¯d absorbed over the past three days. While the young man couldn¡¯t see anything definitive as he looked over the Demon Hunters, he could sense that some auras were starting to flourish.

    This meant that some had progressed to half step Dominator over the past three days.

    Liu Long swiftly walked over upon seeing Li Hao and the supernaturals approach. He¡¯d focused his efforts on expounding on theory to the rest over the past couple of days. The man hadn¡¯t cultivated much, instead overseeing the distribution of the daoprehension weapons.

    Li Hao always absolved himself of these kinds of responsibilities. Since he wouldn¡¯t carry out his duties, Liu Long had to do it. He¡¯d done it for the Demon Hunters before. While there were more people now, he could still rise to the asion since he¡¯d been captain of thew enforcement team for many years.

    ¡°Leader!¡± Liu Long seemed to heave a sigh of relief. ¡°There are still some sitting with the daoprehension weapons. Almost everyone had a chance to, but a lot of the weapons have shattered. Only the sword is left...¡±

    Li Hao looked in a certain direction, finding that someone seemed to have grasped the aura. ¡°Who¡¯s in there now?¡±

    ¡°Hong Hao!¡±

    ¡°Him?¡± Li Hao raised a surprised eyebrow. ¡°He was on the cusp of sess himself, what¡¯s he studying a daoprehension weapon for?¡±

    Hong Hao had almost grasped the aura and was Hong Yitang¡¯s third disciple. Based on what Li Hao knew, the young man wouldn¡¯t take someone else¡¯s opportunity and would give up his instead.

    ¡°The Sword Sect disciples refused to ept their chances,¡± Liu Long exined. ¡°They said that Hong Hao and the others aplished more than them and should go first. Even though he was about toprehend it himself, they said that it was still useful to know more. Hong Hao had no other choice but to agree...¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. The Sword Sect disciples were a united group. They probably didn¡¯t want to take his chance from him before he reached half step Dominator.

    ¡°What¡¯s the situation now?¡±

    ¡°Liu Yan, Hong Qing, Li Heng, Hong Chou, and a few others haveprehended the aura on their own...¡±

    Hong Chou was the one whose family had been killed by pirates, so Li Hao wasn¡¯t surprised by his name on the list. When he gave the order to hang up the pirates, a flicker of aura had answered from the guy. It might¡¯ve been due to happiness, or it might¡¯ve been because killing the pirates cleared his mind. He¡¯de from behind and now surpassed many.

    ¡°There are sixteen people who¡¯ve grasped the aura.¡±

    ¡°That many?¡± Li Hao was taken aback. Ten would¡¯ve been decent in his estimation.

    ¡°Mmhmm, there were quite a few.¡± Liu Long grinned. ¡°The vacation day that you ordered might have straightened out their thoughts. Who knew that it¡¯d be a good thing?¡±

    There hadn¡¯t been a single half step Dominator in the troop of forty-nine, now there were suddenly sixteen. If they counted the mediating Hong Hao, that would make seventeen. It was more than one third of the Demon Hunters! This was a high ratio.

    Li Hao quickly processed his surprise. Whether it was the Sword Sect or Inspectorate, they¡¯d sent martial masters with good foundations. They all had strong potential for martial dao¡ªit would¡¯ve been difficult for them to continue down their path in this impoverished ce otherwise. After the rise of the supernatural, those unsuited for the martial path quickly crossed over.

    ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± Li Hao checked the skies¡ªthey were dark. It was the night of the 8th and it would be the 9th soon. Based on their speed, Hou Xiaochen and the others should almost be at Skystar City since they¡¯d left on the 4th.

    The young man was in no hurry since Hong Hao was still busy, he chatted with those standing around. Hong Qing and Hong Hao had returned in the afternoon two days ago and hadn¡¯t had a chance to make their report. Hong Qing walked over to them.

    ¡°Leader, my dad says to not send people to him in the future...¡±

    ¡°Why not?¡± Was Hong Yitang so small-minded? It was just a few people and they were in such a pitiable state! <i>Why can¡¯t you save them?</i>

    ¡°My dad says that this is just setting a precedent and will form the beginning of a habit. He says that you don¡¯t know how hard it is to deal with the aftermath of a situation. If you send him one hundred people today, you might send an entire city next time. So next time... if you still want to do this... he¡¯ll take them after you have custody of them for a month.¡±

    Li Hao scratched his head awkwardly. <i>I got it! Old Hong thinks I have no idea how hard it is to take care of people rescued from these situations. He wants me to have a taste, but I¡¯m not an idiot! I know! Don¡¯t think I don¡¯t know, it¡¯s because I know that I don¡¯t want to do it. Hello, I¡¯m seriously not an idiot.</i>

    ¡°Ahem!¡± Li Hao changed the topic. ¡°Let¡¯s talk about the ruins!¡±

    The crowd perked up.

    ¡°The ruins are within Silver Moon borders and not too far from White Moon City. Previous ranking officer Golden Spear explored them a few times and returned halfway...¡± Li Hao recounted in a somewhat solemn tone. ¡°There are great dangers within. The ranking officer may have been fine, but that doesn¡¯t mean we will be.

    ¡°The ruins don¡¯t look too big from the outside. The senior guesses that it might¡¯ve been the personal city of a n in the ancient civilization, or one from a small sect. There may be other possibilities as well, but that is the most of it.

    ¡°The difficulty lies in the fact that ambushes happen on the street leading to the main door. Since I¡¯ve been to Battle Heaven, my guess is that it may be a tree spirit! It¡¯s tough to say if it¡¯s one from the ancient civilization or one bornter.¡±

    ¡°From those times?¡± Hong Qing asked curiously. ¡°It should be dead after so many years.¡±

    ¡°It might, it could also be a shoot from the old tree. I haven¡¯t been, so I¡¯m not sure. But from some clues left by Senior Golden Spear, I think this might be the case!

    ¡°If that is...¡± Li Hao''s eyes darted around. ¡°Then we might have significant treasure to loot. A ce like that may not have as many valuables as Battle Heaven, but with a tree spirit present, we might be able to obtain the legendary Water of Life...¡±

    He only had one drop of that that he¡¯d kept in reserve. Hou Xiaochen had wanted to trade for it, but Li Hao rejected him. It was an item that would create an enormous debt of gratitude as it was more effective than sword energy. It could regrow severed limbs!

    Sword energy could not aplish that¡ªLi Hao vaguely knew what its core essence was now. It was a type of pure mental strength! Whether it was mysterious power, mysterious power stones, or origin weapon souls, they were devoured by the sword, purified, refined, and giving rise to sword energy.

    Therefore, sword energy was a strength for cultivation. Water of Life, on the other hand, was a truly unique energy.

 Chapter 535: Light Sword (I)

    <h4>Chapter 535: Light Sword (I)</h4>

    The crowd shifted restlessly when they heard Li Hao¡¯s words, but Liu Long frowned. ¡°Will we be a hindrance if we go?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, we can retreat if there¡¯s real danger,¡± Li Hao responded indifferently. ¡°We don¡¯t <i>have</i> to gain anything for our time. Not to mention, Panther and I will be going...¡±

    ¡°And me!¡± Ignored off to the side, Hao Lianchuan quickly piped up. He was also excited by what he heard.

    ¡°Do you have nothing else better to do, Director Hao?¡± Li Hao asked with resignation. ¡°There¡¯s no one else in charge of the Night Watchers now and you¡¯re ate Sr. Your fifth supernatural lock has appeared, so you should go back to cultivate more and ascend as Nova as soon as possible.¡±

    ¡°That can wait a few days!¡±

    Wang Ming started growing frantic. <i>Fatty Hao, you¡¯re stealing my lines! I haven¡¯t had a chance to volunteer yet! </i>Unfortunately for the handsome supernatural, the director was stronger than him. Wang Ming couldn¡¯t outbid him when it came to this expedition opportunity.

    ¡°Fine then, it¡¯s just a small ruin.¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. ¡°There may not be anything good inside as it¡¯s different from Battle Heaven. Battle Heaven is a city, this ce can only count as a vige.¡±

    He wouldn¡¯t be interested in visiting if not for the possible tree monster spirit. Just a few more mysterious power stones wasn¡¯t temptation enough.

    ......

    They waited for Hong Hao toplete his cultivation¡ªas expected, heprehended the aura as well. The three days of cultivation for the Demon Hunters were at a close. Li Hao wanted to immediately set out to try his luck.

    He was used to traveling at night and the troop had just rested for three days. Li Hao brought out the Divine Kun Ship¡ªit was an origin weapon after his own heart. Not only could it swim through the water, but it could also fly through the sky. Right now, he wanted to experience flying through the sky.

    There were more on this trip than before; Hao Lianchuan made for fifty-six. The Demon Hunters traveled overndst time. This time, he directed the ship in a swift climb into the air. He didn¡¯t want to be monitored¡ªthere were several factions in Silver Moon that were possibly keeping an eye on him. While they might not have malicious intent, he wanted his movements to remain more of a secret.

    In the ship, the young man surveyed the surroundings for supernaturals. He also gave Li Meng the mission of detecting whether there were martial masters traveling through the air or anything that was monitoring them. Li Hao could only see things that belonged to the system of energy, whereas the girl¡¯s third eye could see more.

    A third eye appeared on Li Meng¡¯s forehead, but she didn¡¯t use it to follow Li Hao¡¯s orders and observe anything. It shone with a certain luster; the young man looked strangely at her when he detected something. She seemed to beboring under some effort, but was still very excited. Rays of splendor flowed past the crowd and enveloped the ship.

    ¡°We want to prevent people from peeping in on us, right?¡± she panted. ¡°Watch me, leader! This is an illusory space! All monitoring methods are useless if I wrap us up in this! No one will see us unless they¡¯re powerhouses looking for us!¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow. In other words, they were invisible to certain people.

    ¡°Is this an invisibility art?¡±

    ¡°Pretty much... But invisibility is different. I¡¯m just twisting some things to create a visual inuracy. Invisibility... I¡¯m not sure how invisibility does it.¡±

    A visual inuracy! Li Hao inclined his head. This seemed like a useful ability. However, it consumed arge amount of energy. Li Meng started swaying on her feet after maintaining it for a short while. Li Hao had no other choice but to direct some sword energy into her body. Darkmoons... were seriously weak. It¡¯d only been how long before she couldn¡¯t hold on?

    He looked around in the sky and avoided some patrolling supernaturals. The Night Watchers sent supernaturals out on patrols, but the ones inside the city primarily came from the Inspectorate. The Inspectorate possessed both supernaturals and martial masters.

    The young man directed the flying ship away from the patrols and vanished inside White Moon City. Meanwhile, the Inspectorate that¡¯d just been elevated to the duty of patrolling didn¡¯t detect anything.

    ......

    <i>The Inspectorate provincial headquarters.</i>

    Kong Jie frowned and scanned the air. He thought about it, walked to a window, and took one step out of it for a look all around. Something was off. After further thought, he took out a set of ck armor and sent mind ripples into it.

    ¡°Li Hao, where are you?¡±

    ¡°The base. Is everything alright, Inspector General Kong?¡±

    ¡°The base? Then that¡¯s fine. Martial masters seemed to have invaded White Moon. I¡¯m going to grab Huang Yu and kill them.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao stared nkly, midway through crossing the capital. Did he really mean that? ¡°There¡¯s no need!¡±

    ¡°Er.¡± Kong Jie stopped speaking and switched from rm to annoyance. ¡°Stop running off in the middle of the night, we¡¯ll easily mistake you for an enemy. I thought something had gone wrong with our defenses! Tell us next time before you go out!¡±

    He really thought that enemies were invading, but upon further consideration, felt that it was more likely to be Li Hao. As expected, it really was the kid. He was a true Night Watcher alright, he always made his moves at night!

    Where was he off to now?

    Of course, Kong Jie wasn¡¯t at liberty to say too much. He could only curse a few rounds and pray that the kid didn¡¯t cause further trouble for them. The current state of the world wasn¡¯t too safe for Li Hao.

    ......

    A resigned Li Hao breathed out heavily. It looked like White Moon City¡¯s defenses were stronger than he anticipated. They wouldn¡¯t have been discovered so quickly otherwise. But this was also good, it meant that the city was safer. Those in the capital all had a few tricks up their sleeves and were not to be underestimated.

    Li Meng couldn¡¯t withstand her technique after they left White Moon City. Li Hao had her rest andmanded the ship to fly higher, using his internal force to support the ship¡¯s consumption of resources. It took more energy to fly through the air.

    He steered the ship in re City¡¯s direction. The ruins were there, not too far away.

    ......

    At the same time, a pitch ck night.

    <i>The east.</i>

    Lights zed through the night in the distance. A building shaped like a pce appeared in front of one¡¯s eyes, magnificent in the gloom. This was the renowned estate of the Steadfast Duke.

    An old man looked at it from a street less than three thousand meters away. He coughed gently and looked around him, sighing, ¡°I¡¯m back and have not lived up to my important duties. Sir Xu... is dead.¡±

    It¡¯d taken her eight days to rush back. Traveling from the north to the east was closer than traveling to the central region, but she hadn¡¯t spent the eight days traveling. She¡¯d rested for three days as He Yong¡¯s punch had deeply injured her.

    Dead silence answered her.

    ¡°I may be old, but my senses still exist,¡± the old man coughed again. ¡°Do not underestimate the senses of a martial master.¡±

    A person walked out from the darkness. The street was still deathly quiet. This was a powerhouse wearing armor; he looked at the old man with his true face. ¡°Steward Hu, the duke had use meet you to prevent others from following you. It looks like you still retain your strength, so your injuries weren¡¯t that severe, hmm?¡±

    Light Sword looked around the premises with another sigh. ¡°Come out, all of you!¡±

    The bulky man who¡¯d walked out looked at her without saying a word. Light Sword was Light Sword, after all. Her senses were incredibly acute. They felt that they hid themselves well, but were easily discovered nheless.

    ¡°Since the steward has spoken, everyonee out!¡±

    Three more people walked out from the other four corners of the street. That made for four powerhouses.

    ¡°The Steadfast North, Steadfast South, Steadfast East, and Steadfast West general have alle. What an honor!¡± Light Sword looked at the four.

    The Steadfast Duke oversaw the eastern territory andmanded arge army at eight hundred thousand people. This was an army that answered only to him. Eight generals oversaw it¡ªNorth, South, East, West, Heaven, Earth, ck, and Yellow. [1]

    There were two of the duke¡¯s direct descendantsmanding the generals¡ªXu Zhen, Xu Xing. Xu Zhen was Xu Feng¡¯s father. The duke was above them as themander-in-chief.

    Four of the generals were gathered here today and their presences were strong. They seemed to have been concealed by something else before, but revealed their presences now. Formidable, intimidating, and the scent of blood about them. They weren''t naive little cultivators, but ones who¡¯d killed people¡ªand many.

    First on the scene had been the Steadfast East General. ¡°Steward Hu, we were once martial masters as well,¡± he said slowly. ¡°The four of us grew up in the duke¡¯s household and closed over to the supernatural when we reached half step Dominator. We know the aura as well!¡±

    ¡°Why do you speak of this, general?¡± coughed Light Sword.

    ¡°No reason other than to tell the steward that the four of us arete Novas ascended from martial masters. We are beyond regr supernaturals andmand the army. We have seen much killing in our duties,¡± the general continued slowly. ¡°The steward is a Silver Moon martial master and incredibly valiant. You have broken the limits of Dominator and are a pioneer of martial dao. We revere you and show you due respect in our day to day. It is Sir Xu¡¯s destiny to die! The duke is magnanimous and does not seek to assign responsibility...¡±

    Light Sword did not respond.

    ¡°But the steward did not send word on the way back, making us fear that the steward had chosen to leave out of concern that the duke would condemn you,¡± the general spoke on. ¡°It is for the best that you have returned, despite it being the middle of the night. You must be tired after your travels and the duke is resting as well. Let us request an audience tomorrow¡ªwe also wish to inquire about some martial questions. Why don¡¯t you follow us to the barracks to rest for the remainder of the night?¡±

    The barracks!

    Light Sword smiled and looked at them, finally settling upon the duke¡¯s household in the distance as she took her measure of the surroundings. There seemed to be someone looking down at her.

    ¡°It looks like Silver Moon martial masters must have sent word ahead and said something?¡± she sighed.

    ¡°We do not know the steward¡¯s meaning!¡± responded Steadfast East.

    ¡°Don¡¯t you?¡± Light Sword shook her head with a smile. ¡°It must be that asshole Ying Hongyue! What a pity that I wasn¡¯t born pretty, he might take pity on me otherwise. Does he wish for me to die as soon as possible because I am ugly?

    ¡°How would the duke have sent only the four of you, given how cautious he is? Fourte Novas killing a peak Nova is so easily done. But I am a Silver Moon martial master, does the duke dare underestimate me?¡±

    A Silver Moon martial master... was truly different.

    1. Heaven, Earth, ck, and Yellow (ÌìµØÐþüS) refers to the creation story of Chinese mythology. When heaven and earth were delineated, the skies were dark and the earth was yellow. ?

 Chapter 536: Light Sword (II)

    <h4>Chapter 536: Light Sword (II)</h4>

    The four generals looked on solemnly. A person walked over from a distance. Their footsteps were loud, but they looked young. They wore a red cloak visible through the darkness.

    ¡°And if I¡¯m thrown into the mix, Light Sword?¡± The man was very young.

    ¡°They say that the Heaven, Earth, ck, and Yellow Generals are stronger than the North, South, East, and West Generals. But I thought it would be the Heaven General participating, not the mere ck General.¡±

    ¡°They have other duties to attend to. I alone am sufficient.¡± The young man abruptly red his dominating presence. If Li Hao was here, he would sense that the newest addition to the group was stronger than the snake of Ash Mountain, but less than the other three major monster spirits.

    The young general was peak Nova and just one step away from entering metamorphosis to ascend to the next stage. That made for fourte Novas and one peak Nova. Five Novas surrounded Light Sword.

    ¡°You might not die so long as youe quietly with us!¡± the newly arrived ck General said coldly. ¡°You should not have entertained other thoughts or possibilities! The Steadfast Duke treasures your martial expertise despite your failure to properly protect Sir Xu. It has been the duke who supported your cultivation these years. Light Sword, must you be someone who prepares their master?¡±

    ¡°Betrays their master?¡± Light Sword burst outughing. ¡°Where do those wordse from? I came for the Windchaser Boots when I joined the Steadfast Duke back in the day. Old man Xu Qing promised to give me the boosts so long as I served the Xus for twenty years.

    ¡°When circumstances changedter on and prevented me from using the boots, his grandson Xu Feng could. The old man wanted me to... to marry his grandson and be one family. While I know that it is simply an arrangement of mutual profit, I have exerted myself to the utmost for the duke and his household over these years.

    ¡°Today marks twenty years!¡± she sighed. ¡°Why do you think I came back only today? Time is up and the Windchaser Boots should be mine today ording to our agreement. I bear some responsibility for Xu Feng¡¯s death since I did not protect him well, but I devoted my energies to his protection that day. There was nothing I could do since I could not ovee my enemy. You can¡¯t have me die as well, can you?¡±

    She looked into the distance, her voice ringing like a bell. ¡°Are you unwilling, Xu Qing? Are you going to turn your back on a promise made twenty years ago?¡±

    Her voice was loud, but a frightful quiet answered her from a distance.

    ¡°I understand, I didn¡¯t hold much hope to begin with,¡± Light Sword sighed. ¡°I just hadn¡¯t thought that you¡¯d evacuate all of the surrounding civilians to move against me. It looks like you¡¯ve made up your mind that I shall not be leaving alive!

    ¡°I am a gentle soulpared to some of the others,¡± sheughed at herself. ¡°Or I would¡¯ve fought to the death a few years ago and not be thus, to be actually nursing some hope...¡±

    Indeed, her personality counted among the more cid of the thirty-six. Part of that was due to aparative weakness to others, another part was wishing to quietlyplete the conversion of her method. Never did she consider that she would ultimately reach this step after twenty years...

    ¡°Then... let us fight!¡± A sword appeared within the world, one that illuminated the sky!

    Light Sword shouted and partially snapped the locks of her heart, lungs, and liver. She was swift and decisive as this was the Steadfast Duke¡¯s territory. It was no ce to engage in a protracted fight. If time dragged on, she wouldn¡¯t make it out alive even if she snapped all five locks. The woman was well aware of how dangerous this ce was, the battle needed to be over quick!

    The skies shattered and earth fractured! A piercing ray of light glimmered. The five generals roared and brandished their weapons!

    ¡°KILL!¡± Light Sword screamed, erupting with strength that surpassed what He Yong had brought to bear in the ruins. She swept a sword through the void and severed heaven and earth. <i>BAM!</i>

    The formidable ck General quickly stabbed out with his spear, but it instantly splintered upon a loud collision. It took only a split second before Light Sword shouted again and partially snapped a fourth lock. Her battle strength ballooned!

    ¡°Die!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The long sword exploded in all directions, marking arge fissure in the earth. The houses around fight copsed into the opening. The ck General roared incessantly beneath the blow, incredulous that he couldn¡¯t block it!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    A line of blood appeared on his head as the sword descended. Light Sword screamed, ignoring him as strength that threatened to immte the world surged out of her. It didn¡¯t feel like fire, but more like the sun¡¯s rays searing everything it touched.

    All of the houses in the vicinity disappeared when she swept her sword in a circle, like they¡¯d been vaporized! The other four generals rushed her, but all five abruptly froze in the next second. Petrified disbelief shone out of their eyes.

    Minor detonations sounded from Light Sword¡¯s body as she bled from all orifices. Her organs were breaking into pieces, yet she smiled a ghastly smile that was slightly crazy. ¡°Do you... not know... Silver Moon martial masters?¡±

    She leapt into the air and crossed one thousand meters in a heartbeat, cing her close to the duke¡¯splex.

    A vicious look entered the gaunt Steadfast Duke¡¯s eyes as he stared down Light Sword from afar. ¡°Think carefully on your actions. You are dead without a doubt if you continue in this vein. There is no hope of you surviving beyond today even if you seize the boots!¡±

    He understood! Or rather, he saw clearly what state Light Sword was in.

    The woman didn¡¯t respond. Instead, she mmed her palm on her chest and broke another lock with an explosion! Blood streamed down her face, giving her the appearance of a demon. ¡°Hadn¡¯t it over... If I am to die, yourplex will no longer stand after today unless you unseal yourself!¡±

    ¡°So... you¡¯ve... reached this step...¡± murmured the duke. He suddenly kicked at Light Sword with an incredible ring of his presence. ¡°Then it must first be seen if you have the ability to do so!¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A tremendous detonation rocked the four corners as a hole blew through the enormousplex. Countless structures copsed as multiple servants exploded as well.

    No one thought that the wizened Steadfast Duke could demonstrate such overwhelming strength, but Light Sword seemed to have anticipated it. She rocked the world again with another stroke and brightly lit up the surroundings. <i>KABOOM!</i>

    The duke backed away, blood welling out of his mouth. The look in his eyes shifted¡ªwas one so much stronger after unsealing themselves? He was tempted to do so himself, but sighed when he saw how Light Sword¡¯s organs were copsing and the woman was on the brink ofplete insanity.

    ¡°Take it and leave. Don¡¯t force me...¡± He tossed out a storage ring.

    ¡°Only one?!¡± Light Sword shrieked when she caught the ring.

    ¡°Do you want them both?!¡± retorted the duke. ¡°I just don¡¯t want to pay too high of a price. Do you think the current you is confident of killing me?¡±

    Reluctance glinted in Light Sword¡¯s eyes, but she could sense her condition. She grit her teeth and instantly vanished when she took to the sky. In the distance, the frozen generals exploded the moment she disappeared!

    Rushing over, the duke¡¯s two sons jerked with horror at the sight. Dead?? Five generals dead in a split second?!

    ¡°Father!¡± The two rushed over, quickly followed by a few Novas and Srs. Eldest master Xu Zhen asked urgently, ¡°Why did you give her the Windchaser Boots? You just needed to engage her for a bit longer before...¡±

    ¡°She knows she¡¯s dead if the fight dragged on any longer.¡± The duke looked coldly at him. ¡°I would be crippled even if she doesn¡¯t kill me. Use your brain!¡±

    He could match Light Sword in her state only if he unsealed himself, but that would lead to more trouble. The duke hadn¡¯t anticipated that the woman had cultivated to these levels. More importantly, the old witch had actually snapped all of her supernatural locks... She wasn¡¯t long for this world even after seizing the Windchaser Boots!

    Her organs would fail!

    ¡°Have someone follow her, she¡¯s not getting away!¡± snorted the duke. He frowned when his eyesnded on where the generals had been.

    Twinges of pain and regret pricked at him. The five generals could kill targets at the level of metamorphosis if they acted together. Light Sword had sealed off their battle strength and killed them all!

    Even he was unhappy at the oue. That was five powerhouses under hismand! And, did his eldest son want him to die sooner?

    <i>Light Sword was obviously very strong, but he wanted me to keep her engaged for a bit longer...</i> Already displeased with his eldest son after Xu Feng¡¯s death, the duke¡¯s dissatisfaction mounted!

    Light Sword¡¯s condition outmatched everyone, but she would also copse soon. Where could she run to? They would not be losing the Windchaser Boots and she only had one of them that she couldn¡¯t use. There wasn¡¯t much point in seizing it.

    Momentster, swathes of powerhouses chased Light Sword in the direction she¡¯d vanished in. They didn¡¯t dare draw too close as she was too strong, but they followed closely on her tail and waited for the woman to deplete herself.

    ......

    What happened in the east quickly spread throughout thend, yet Li Hao had already left White Moon City. He didn¡¯t know that Light Sword would act so quickly or that the woman was running toward Silver Moon at an unbelievable speed.

    She was very, very far away, but there was hope.

    Unfortunately, Li Hao was already heading for the ruins. He wasn¡¯t doing this on purpose, he could promise that!

 Chapter 537: Tree Spirit (I)

    <h4>Chapter 537: Tree Spirit (I)</h4>

    The eastern expanses were in an uproar, but they were so far away from Silver Moon that thetest news wouldn¡¯t reach Li Hao for a while. Skystar Dynasty was too big even for certain specialmunication systems. The young man didn¡¯t have his own intelligencework either. Silver Moon did, but they wouldn¡¯t share what they knew since he wasn¡¯t part of their core personnel.

    ......

    The Divine Kun Ship flew for roughly two hours, covering approximately three hundred kilometers. Li Haonded on a mountain covered with greenery and rivers. It was a beautiful environment that was far from a bleak, uninhabited expanse. There was a small town at the foot of the mountain; some lights were still on despite thete hour.

    The shipnded soundlessly. A group of people swiftly disembarked. Being a deputy director for many years, Hao Lianchuan immediately recognized the ce.

    ¡°This is Mount Cat Head because it is shaped like a cat¡¯s head. It¡¯s a local spot of interest and often drew tourists before the world was engulfed in chaos.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not just because it¡¯s shaped like a cat¡¯s head, but also because there are a lot of stray cats here. We¡¯re less than fifty kilometers from re City and within its jurisdiction.¡±

    Hao Lianchuan flicked a sidelong nce at him. Not to be outdone, Wang Ming stared back. <i>I was the one who introduced ces before! You¡¯ve stolen my job, fatty!</i>

    Li Meng opened her third eye and looked directly at the mountain¡ªshe¡¯d always been a reckless soul. ¡°I don¡¯t see anything. There seems to be wild animals inside, but not the great monster spirits of legend.¡±

    The various supernaturals all wanted to showcase their abilities. Yun Yao was the only one who remained quiet, she simply looked around. She was an ordinary water supernatural and her main mission was to heal the martial masters instead of fighting.

    Li Hao took out a map without responding to the supernaturals. It depicted the mountain in front of them and had the ruinsbeled with a red dot.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Li Hao led the way; the Demon Hunters were close on his heels.

    Mount Cat Head wasn¡¯t a steep mountain. Strictly speaking, it wasn¡¯t a big mountain. The elegant surroundings didn¡¯t speak of danger at all. Was there really a ruin here? Granted, this location wouldn¡¯t be fake since Golden Spear and the others had indeed explored one.

    Li Hao found the marked spot on the other side of the mountain after looking for a while. There was a small mountain cave halfway up the mountain. A dense ovey of vines covered it. One could easily overlook the cave if they weren¡¯t paying attention.

    Li Hao sprang into the air; the rest followed him in climbing up the mountain. He brushed past the vines to reveal a pitch-ck mountain cave. This method of ess seemed to indicate... that this ruin wouldn¡¯t amount to much. It appeared quite ordinarypared to the magnificent sophistication of Battle Heaven. There was no entrance that transformed into a wall, just a dark hole that even vaguely stunk.

    Some bats also followed them in, raising a series of startled yelps.

    <i>Snap!</i>

    Fire rose with a crisp finger snap and illuminated the cave¡ªHao Lianchuan¡¯s work. A random gesture from this fire Sr created a fireball that rose up to throw light on the premises.

    ¡°It¡¯s the middle of the night.¡± Wang Ming rolled his eyes. ¡°You¡¯ll raise people¡¯s attention if there¡¯s light here.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the big deal? We¡¯re inside Silver Moon,¡± Hao Lianchuan retorted and stared intently at Wang Ming. <i>Kid, don¡¯t forget that I¡¯m the director. Even though I¡¯m only an acting director, I¡¯m still your superior officer! You¡¯re part of the Night Watchers! How dare you show such disrespect to me!</i>

    The rest of the Demon Hunters pretended to be deaf. Liu Long looked around. This... didn¡¯t seem to be a ruin. The martial masters on their first expedition looked at each other in puzzlement. They could see the mountain cave in its full, messy glory. There were bird droppings on the ground and the stench was overpowering.

    Was this supposed to be an ancient ruin?

    The group didn¡¯t know what to say. Li Hao didn¡¯t voice anything after looking around for a bit and headed further into the cave¡¯s depths. There was no stone or iron door at the end. Instead, there were clear signs of manmade marks from an ax. A small hole in an unobtrusive corner of the cave led straight down; it looked like it¡¯d been dug out of the ground.

    ¡°Based on information from Senior Golden Spear, we¡¯ll reach the ruins when we enter the hole andnd on the ground below. However, earth supernaturals may not find any signs of the ruins if they fly through the ground...¡±

    Earth types were uniquely suited to ruin exploration, but some ruins could not be located even if one turned over every inch of the earth. They were right there, but they could not be seen. Take Battle Heaven, for example. Entering the cliff face from the Rift Canyon side would... take one straight through the canyon wall, as if the entrance didn¡¯t exist. Some ruins didn¡¯t seem to exist in the same ne as the rest of the world.

    The Demon Hunters looked curiously at the hole. It was too dark to see anything, but it looked rather deep. It was roughly one meter across, which was fine for most of the team. Hao Lianchuan peered into it, then took stock of his own body shape and nodded. He... wouldn¡¯t get stuck in the hole, would he?

    His actions brought muffledughter from Hong Qing and the others.

    ¡°Director Hao¡¯s body is wide,¡± Wang Ming took advantage of the opportunity to say. ¡°It would be inconvenient if he were to get stuck. Why don¡¯t you wait for us up here? We happen to need a guard at the entrance. There will be no one to look to for rescue if we all go in and are trapped inside.¡±

    Li Hao felt that he rather made sense.

    ¡°I¡¯m a fire type,¡± Hao Lianchuan rebutted before the young man could say anything. ¡°I can provide light if I go down. I¡¯m also ate Sr. If there really is a tree monster spirit down there, fire is more effective against it!

    ¡°There¡¯s actually not much use for metal types in an underground ruin.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Haoughed and gave his orders. ¡°All of you wait up here for me, I¡¯ll go take a look... with Deputy Liu. It¡¯ll just be the two of us. The presence of supernaturals sometimes causes certain reactions.¡±

    He couldn¡¯t just lead the team down into the depths without first gaining an understanding of the area. That would be too dangerous. Li Hao didn¡¯t give them a chance to protest before waving at Liu Long and jumping down the hole.

    ¡°Kid, are you sure you want to pit yourself against me?¡± Hao Lianchuan transmitted to Wang Ming as soon as the troop leaders were gone.

    ¡°Director Hao, it¡¯s you pitting yourself against me. It¡¯s already a tough world out here, but you want to get involved too. Just be the Night Watcher director! What are you going after my job for?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hao Lianchuan was nonplussed. Who was going after Wang Ming¡¯s job? <i>I just want to get closer to Li Hao!</i>

    His fifth lock had appeared, propelling him toter Sr. It wasn¡¯t a difficult step fromte Sr to peak Sr, but going from peak Sr to Nova was a significant hurdle. He still hoped for Li Hao to help him in that regard.

    ......

    While the two bickered onnd, Li Hao fell down through the hole. It remained as dark as night as even he couldn¡¯t see clearly. He only felt that the hole seemed like a tunnel that led straight to the center of the earth.

    They fell continuously, endlessly. The sensation persisted for a minute or two before Li Hao finallynded on the ground. It felt insubstantial, like he¡¯d set foot into cotton. Ifnding took so long to achieve, did that mean they were one thousand meters below the ground? Wouldn¡¯t that ce them in the outer shell of the?

    The thought shed through his mind moments before Li Hao felt a slight tremor next to him. Liu Long had alsonded.

    It was still dark around them, but they were growing ustomed to the gloom. The young man could make out some contours after a while. There seemed to be a castle in the distance. This locale wasn¡¯t sealed off by dirt. Rather, something existed overhead that blocked off everything above, leaving a modestly sized space below.

    Ruins were divided into levels, this kind passed muster. Some without any protection had long been buried by mud and water. Ruins that still existed in aplete whole already counted as very well preserved.

    Liu Long could also peer into the distance after spending a while to limate to the surroundings.

    ¡°Is that a castle ahead?¡± he transmitted.

    Golden Spear hadn¡¯t been able to enter it. He was forced to retreat when he encountered trouble outside. Li Hao looked around, able to capture details with increasing rity. There was a haze on the outskirts of all sides, as if there was a formation or origin weapon defending the perimeter to secure this humble clearing.

    There wasn¡¯t much in front of the castle, no trees, flora, or sunlight. It was a barren ce with the outline of the structure behind it. Golden Spear had not been able to draw near to explore.

    ¡°Be careful!¡± Li Hao reminded. Silver armor materialized around him to protect his body and Steris manifested in his hand. He looked around alert. At the very least, Golden Spear was a Nova. That meant he was not weak, but he had not managed to enter the core of the ruins.

    A hole was located overhead from where theynded. That seemed to be the exit, or the man would not have been able to get away either. Were there other exits in these ruins?

    The two advanced gingerly, stepping on soft soil that didn¡¯t seem like soil. It appeared more like cotton.

    Golden Spear hadn¡¯t left more information due to his limited explorations. The Silver Moon Guards had discovered these ruins by ident. It wasn¡¯t one supplied by Hou Xiaochen.

    They drew closer to the castle after advancing for one hundred meters. Li Hao¡¯s ears twitched and he shed to his left!

    <i>ng! </i>rang out, like two weapons had collided. Steris¡¯ keen edge revealed itself and seemed to break through something with a crunch. The young man didn¡¯t have time to take a close look before he hastily waved his sword again.

    <i>ng ng ng!</i>

    A series of collisions and even fiery sparks broke out. Li Hao continued to hack and sh at the air, Liu Long joined in with his fists, but incredible pain traveled up his arms. He took a close look¡ªsomething like a tree branch had pierced through his fist. The man widened his eyes with rm. How was this unknown object that durable?

    He¡¯d thought it was mediocre because Li Hao could easily sever it. But after a while of pounding his fists, the branch ran through his hand instead!

 Chapter 538: Tree Spirit (II)

    <h4>Chapter 538: Tree Spirit (II)</h4>

    ¡°Be careful!¡± Li Hao grunted. He waved his sword around and enveloped Liu Long within his range of attack. He cut through a dozen branches in one go; that marked the end of the ambush.

    The young man remained wary and looked around him, seeing no further threats. He looked down to confirm if it was tree branches that attacked them. What he saw shook his heart!

    There was nothing there!

    He¡¯d obviously shattered a lot of branch-like objects, but there was nothing on the ground. It was empty, the cotton-like surface devoid of anything. Li Hao¡¯s expression shifted drastically. Did this ground eat people like Battle Heaven did?

    In that case... he stomped down with an eruption of earth sword aura. <i>Bam!</i>

    The ground shook, but he didn¡¯t break through it!

    Li Hao¡¯s heart quailed¡ªthe ground was incredibly durable! It was a frightening prospect if his current strength couldn¡¯t break through it. This tiny ruin had seemed much weaker than Battle Heaven, but his understanding was being turned on its head. Could there be even stronger existences here?

    These tree branches weren¡¯t weak, they were on par with Srs. He could handle a dozen, but even he would falter if there were more. No wonder Golden Spear had chosen to retreat. If more came at this level of intensity, it would be beyond Li Hao¡¯s capabilities as well.

    Liu Long looked solemnly at the young man¡¯s findings. ¡°This ground... is atypical. It¡¯s incredibly durable, so we should be careful here.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± Li Hao pressed forward.

    Another series of ngs sounded before long as more vines or branches shot at him in the darkness. Li Hao cut some apart, then punched out with a fist that turned into a w. He grabbed a vine and roared, ripping the end off.

    The severed section in his hand writhed like it was alive. As it twisted, an enormous mental ripple undted through the void. It seemed to be both a threat and intimidation!

    Li Hao maintained a death grip on what he¡¯d cut off. The attack ceased again momentster. His hand wascerated by the broken vine¡¯s struggles, but he could finally see what it was he held.

    It seemed to be a crystalline stick, one that was clear and translucent. It went without saying that it was inordinately durable. The young man rivaled a Nova, but he¡¯d barely managed to break off one. If he suffered a split secondpse in concentration, the thing would get away from him.

    It seemed to possess strong battle capabilities even after it was severed.

    ¡°Is this... a tree branch?¡± Li Hao frowned at it upon closer inspection. It... didn¡¯t really look like it, but if it wasn¡¯t, what was it? And where did these attackse from?

    They came and left without a trace, shooting out from the darkness around them. But when he approached the fringes of the gloom earlier, he couldn¡¯t see anything. The attacks came in waves, punctuated by a break in between. Even he would have to seriously consider running for his life if there wasn¡¯t an end to them. Continuing on like this was a dangerous proposition for him too.

    Li Hao nced at the castle not too far away. These things seemed unwilling to let him into the castle. What was this ce? The familial grounds of an ancient n? A sect? A school? The more he couldn¡¯t ascertain the situation, the more curious he became.

    As he pondered over the possibilities, he and Liu Long started moving forward again. A peculiar ripple traveled through the void¡ªnot the vines from earlier.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A mental explosion detonated in their minds. Li Hao roared¡ªTiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods! His mind intent erupted and a keen light glinted in his eyes. A ferocious mind intent unleashed itself as a tiger breaking out of its cage!

    <i>RUMBLE!</i>

    The collision happened only in the mind andsted for a while before a muffled grunt marked the end of that offensive. Li Hao swiftly looked in a certain direction¡ªit was dark there too, but there seemed to be the outlines of certain objects there. One... two... three tiny balls of light appeared.

    He hadn¡¯t seen them before, but he did now. Thest impact seemed to have broken some kind of seal. Li Hao could see what it was¡ªmysterious power stones. Indeed, they were fully charged stones.

    He could see the energy ripples of stones that were full; he hadn¡¯t seen them earlier. He could now see that there was arge cache in the gloom, it¡¯d just been concealed by thest mental ripple.

    <i>Grandmaster...</i>

    Was their assant one of the grandmasters recorded in the ancient records? They said that only grandmasters could utilize mental strength¡ªthe equivalent of modern day mind intent. The two were slightly different, a fact that Li Hao verified in theirst sh. His mind intent was less than the other¡¯s in terms of amount, but his was much more lively.

    At least, that was the best he could describe it. A martial master¡¯s mind intent sometimes appeared to be alive¡ªsuch as the Five Styles technique manifesting as all sorts of beasts and animals that moved like living representations.

    As Li Hao¡¯s mind intent was livelier, he found it easier to ovee his more sluggish opponent. The young man looked around alertly and transmitted to Liu Long next to him, ¡°There¡¯s something ahead... Be careful, chief.¡±

    Liu Long nodded slightly, he¡¯d been affected by the mental attack earlier as well. Since it¡¯d been primarily aimed at Li Hao, he could fend off whatever spilled over to him. The two changed direction for that corner of the darkness instead of continuing to the castle.

    ......

    Another strong burst of mental strength struck when Li Hao drew close. It swept over with a fury!

    <i>BOOM! </i>

    <i>Collision!</i>

    A stunned Li Hao almost wanted to vomit blood. This one seemed to be stronger than the previous attack! He wanted to retreat! These attacks would be the death of him since they were so strong!

    His eyes had darted to the small balls of light when the attack struck. They seemed to be breaking apart and disappearing. What was left glowed dimly. The young man¡¯s eyes widened when he realized something.

    <i>Energy!</i>

    The thing in the dark was absorbing energy to erupt in an offensive, hoping to expel him from the ruins! It wasn¡¯t that their attacker didn¡¯t want to deliver one fatal blow or sought to torment Li Hao to death, but that it seemed tock sufficient energy. It could only absorb the mysterious power stones and attack one step at a time.

    An interval of rest marked each attack. However, not only did the unknown attacker not scare off Li Hao, but the young man saw through to the truth of things. They didn¡¯t have many mysterious power stones left!

    Just as they were about to gather strength for another attempt, Li Hao sent out ripples of his own. ¡°Stop! I am a troop leader of the Reserve Defenders in the army of Battle Heaven!¡± His silver armor sparkled with light. ¡°I am one of the eight guardian ns here to prospect thend. Cease your actions immediately!¡±

    Hemunicated in the ancientnguage and referenced another location from the same period of time as he did so. If this thing really was a product of ancient heritage, it should understand his words. This was how the Gold and Silver Amors of Battle Heavenmunicated.

    The darkness remained silent, but Li Hao could see that the balls of light continued to dwindle. That represented that his attacker was still absorbing the energy; it hadn¡¯t given up resisting just because he was a Battle Heaven Army member.

    If it was Golden Spear present, he could only retreat in the face of repeated barrages since he couldn¡¯t see the truth of the situation. But Li Hao was different, he could see the balls of light.

    ¡°Stop drawing on the mysterious power stones,¡± he sent to the unknown entity again. ¡°There aren¡¯t many here and they will be fully depleted if you keep consuming them. You mightpletely die then!

    ¡°You cannot intimidate me as I am here under orders to investigate whether there are remnants from the New Martial era remaining. If you can understand me, you¡¯ll know that the Battle Heaven Army was on the side of good back in the day. Unless... you were part of the traitors¡¯ camp?¡±

    ¡°Trai... tors...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s words provoked a response out of the existence; a faint ripple slowly rose into the air. Light dazzled his eyes as illumination brightened the surroundings. There was a tree not too far away that looked to be shriveling. A big tree had copsed, leaving one of its branches to regrow from its root system.

    The old tree seemed to be dead, but its roots had given rise to a new tree! A tree spirit!

    As he thought, there was a tree spirit here. That¡¯d been Li Hao¡¯s earlier guess, one that was now proven. A dead tree had returned to life in these ruins.

    It brightened the gloom like it was a piece of crystal. As small as it was, it threw light in all directions.

    ¡°Trai... tor... Battle... Heaven... City...¡± came slow ripples from the small tree. Li Hao saw that it was entangled with the dead tree, that its root system seemed to be of one body. The roots were exposed as they were what¡¯d attacked them earlier. One of them was broken, likely the one that Li Hao had snapped off. The other broken segments seemed to have recovered after theynded on the ground. This tree could heal itself.

    ¡°Battle Heaven!¡± he repeated. ¡°The city of the Wangs, part of the eight guardian ns! It was named by His Imperial Majesty himself!¡±

    Something seemed to recover in the little tree and it shook its slightly withered branches. ¡°His... Imperial... Majesty... But not... even... His Imperial Majesty... can... barge into... the pce...¡±

    <i>The pce? </i>Li Hao¡¯s eyebrows shot up.

 Chapter 539: Tree Spirit (III)

    <h4>Chapter 539: Tree Spirit (III)</h4>

    <i>What pce?</i>

    His Imperial Majesty couldn¡¯t enter it either... That was an unparalleled existence that they spoke of! What couldn¡¯t the august personage do?

    Li Hao looked at the castle in the distance. As the surroundings were lit up, he could make out a thing or two. Why did... this castle appear to be... a cat? This was mystifying. The tree seemed to be randomly nted outside the castle walls and not part of the defenses as one might expect.

    What kind of ce is this?

    ¡°What pce?¡± Li Hao asked as he looked at the dying little tree. ¡°You seem tock energy. Are you dying after thatst eruption?¡±

    Yes, he could sense that the sapling growing out of the big tree¡¯s roots might be dying.

    ¡°Death...¡± came a mental ripple. The crystalline tree swayed, ready to copse at any time. ¡°Don¡¯t... think... of... entering... the pce... Not... even... though... it¡¯s... been... discarded...¡±

    Li Hao could see the tree draw on more mysterious power stones hidden in the ground. The young man frowned. The tree seemed to be this ce¡¯s guard. A pce? A discarded pce? Whose pce was it?

    Its defenses were still active after countless eons, a different situation from Battle Heaven. Thetter was equipped with immense defensive abilities to begin with. Meanwhile, the ones in this perimeter...

    Li Hao could tell that these defenses here had something to do with the dead tree. It seemed to have blown itself up before it died. Strictly speaking, this might be a space simr to the tree tunnel outside Battle Heaven.

    Indeed, they might be inside a dead tree at the moment.

    The sapling had sprouted from the big tree¡¯s roots and grown up in this spot. It wasn¡¯t a tree from the ancient civilization, but seemed to have inherited some memories. Had a tree been protecting this ce all along? It used thest dregs of its power to give birth to a new tree that would continue to stand guard. Unfortunately, the sapling seemed about to die as well.

    Li Hao grew ever more curious about the ancient civilization. Whether it was human or monster spirit, beings from that age nurture a peculiar faith. Take the tree in front of them, for example. It was about to die, but it continued to act ording to its beliefs and carry out its duties.

    <i>Does this tree have Water of Life?</i>

    Tree spirits apparently produced Water of Life, but it seemed to be a condensation of endless energy. Judging from its condition, did this tree have any energy to absorb? The cache of stones here might be thest of its reserves. It would consume its life force to produce Water of Life in this state!

    Therefore... there was probably no Water of Life here.

    Li Hao was momentarily dejected. Granted, he might be even more depressed if this was a tree spirit that was capable of producing the treasure. That would mean it retained tremendous battle strength.

    When it came to the beings of the ancient civilization, the young man didn¡¯t actually seek to kill them. Every human and even monster spirit of that age nursed a special mentality and faith that one could not find in the modern day.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t sense such a spirit when he killed ck Armors because they were only lingering obsessions. There was no consciousness within them. Now that he¡¯d found a tree that he couldmunicate with, he didn¡¯t intend to kill it, even though it seemed unable to continue its offensive.

    ¡°I can stay away from the pce, but can you tell me who it belonged to?¡±

    ¡°Not a word!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Those words had certainly been spoken smoothly. ¡°I want some Water of Life, do you have any?¡±

    ¡°......¡± There was no response, but Li Hao discovered that the tree pulled on the mysterious power stones at a faster rate. The remaining few had some energy to begin with, but were much dimmer now.

    This looked like it was ready to make its final stand.

    ¡°I bear you no enmity.¡± Li Hao hastily backed away. ¡°As a troop leader of the Battle Heaven Army, I have taken on some missions to save the city. General Pagoda is on the brink of death in the city and needs some Water of Life to recover. The city cannot be mobilized if he does not awaken...¡±

    These words raised some interest from the little tree. It had wanted to kill the intruder, but now seemed to realize something. ¡°Are... you really... a Battle Heaven troop leader? One... of... the eight guardian n...¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Understanding dawned on Li Hao¡ªthe tree spirit hadn¡¯t believed him before. ¡°How else would I wear the silver armor? Also, do you recognize Steris?¡±

    The young man waved the longsword around. The little tree paused for a long moment before saying haltingly, ¡°Is... this... Steris? Forgive my...ck of recognition... My heritage... memories... show Steris... as not so... weak. It is... a sword that can... rip through... the firmament...¡±

    Since it wasn¡¯t a tree of that era, it could only rely on some heritage memories and truly failed to recognize Steris. The sword in Li Hao¡¯s hand was too frail.

    The young man could say nothing to that. It was a blow to his ego!

    ¡°What are heritage memories?¡± he asked softly.

    ¡°Are you... so ignorant??¡± The little tree shook with suspicion.

    ¡°It has been countless ages since the New Martial calendar,¡± Li Hao exined with resignation. ¡°Seas have changed into mulberry fields and mulberry fields into seas. No heritages survive, just bits and pieces of information. Therefore, it¡¯s very normal that I don¡¯t know anything. The current Battle Heaven City also sleeps in an inactive state. Its systems are not able to operate properly and we have long lost the capability to peruse more information.¡±

    The little tree was so silent that it seemed to be dead. It was so silent for so long that Li Hao suspected it really had died. He wanted to approach for a look when another ripple came from the tree.

    ¡°Strong monster spirits leave behind memories of deep impression in their bloodline or life marks... These pass on through generation after generation... When both bloodline and life marks are activated... these memories are absorbed... Such as heritage memories...¡±

    ¡°What about humans?¡± Li Hao asked curiously. <i>I have a powerful bloodline too!</i>

    ¡°Humans... cannot,¡± the little tree answered. ¡°Humans concentrate their might on themselves. Their descendants... only possess powerful bloodlines... Monster spirits... are iplete from birth. Some power is lost... our bloodlines...¡±

    ¡°Do you need help? I can tell you¡¯re almost out of energy,¡± Li Hao looked on thoughtfully.

    ¡°No... need!¡± Perhaps the sapling was still wary of Li Hao, but the young man did feel that the tree was sinking into the shadows of death. It¡¯d consumed thest of the mysterious power stones. Without further replenishment, it would set foot on the path of death.

    ¡°No one will be guarding this ce if you die,¡± Li Hao said thoughtfully. ¡°The pce will be mine. You can continue protecting it only if you¡¯re still alive. You might be the first living existence of the ancient civilization that I¡¯vee across...¡±

    ¡°Ancient civilization?¡±

    ¡°The New Martial era.¡±

    ¡°I am not... of New Martial... Father was lonely as... he protected the pce for thirty thousand years... He had no progeny. I was born only after he died...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened with amazement. How many years total was that?? The big tree alone had stood guard for thirty thousand years, giving birth to the sapling after that terrifying time span. And how long had the sapling been alive for? Did these terrifying experiences measure time in thousands of years? What level of strength was the dead tree to live for so long?

    ¡°No matter what, you count as one of the ancients,¡± Li Hao quickly answered. ¡°Ancient tree, do you need help?¡±

    ¡°A reward without deserving it... Showing attention for no reason... is not... good.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not it, I just want to partner with you,¡± Li Hao exined sincerely. ¡°ording to what I know, tree monster spirits... Ahem, ancient trees can produce Water of Life at a certain level of strength, so long as they have sufficient energy. The Water of Life is incredibly useful when ites to healing injuries, cultivation, and prolonging life. I¡¯m thinking that I can supply you with energy so that you grow stronger and can protect this pce. All you need to do is give me some Water of Life in return. Don¡¯t you think that¡¯s a very fair trade?¡±

    ¡°The royal city mode?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao blinked. What city mode?

    ¡°My memories tell me... that a lot of people... did this in the past. My forebears chose... to join the camp of a powerhouse... or partner with them to build a city. We absorb energy to shelter the city and provide life essence. Human powerhouses protected my ancestors in return...¡±

    Was this how they did it in the ancient civilization? That seemed to be the case! There was General Pagoda in Battle Heaven, as well as a dozen tree spirits that were still or dead.

    Li Hao took another look at the castle in the distance. He was very interested in it, but perhaps this tree was worth more than the castle. A living creature was always more valuable than a dead object. There might be a lot of treasures in the castle, but he might not be able to digest them. A tree spirit with some memories of the ancient civilization might be of more help to him. This was an entity he couldmunicate and partner with.

    While he couldmunicate with those in Battle Heaven, they were all dead and their memories iplete. They wouldn¡¯t easily tell Li Hao anything.

    The young man had wanted to explore the ruins, but now he turned his attention to the tree.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, that kind of mode. I¡¯ll supply you energy and you coalesce Water of Life for me. This is a mutually beneficial rtionship that ensures you can continue to protect the pce. It¡¯ll be gone after you die. Even if I don¡¯t go inside, others will.¡±

    The little tree sank into deep thought. This was a feasible n, particrly as the person in front of him was part of the eight guardian families and a troop leader of Battle Heaven. Otherwise, the human was so weak that he wasn¡¯t qualified to partner with the tree. His qualifications put him over the line.

    But could such a weak person help it? Well... the one that¡¯dest time was even weaker. Perhaps this one counted as strong enough.

 Chapter 540: Tree Spirit (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 540: Tree Spirit (IV)</h4>

    ¡°You... just need life essence?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°You... will not enter the pce?¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡±

    The little tree sank into deep thought. ¡°If you are sincere... can you first supply me with some energy stones?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Now that was a bad trade! Li Hao cursed to himself. <i>You want me to pay up before I get anything and the key is, you can continue fighting me once you absorb energy. The tree¡¯s trying to trick me!</i>

    ¡°I can, but I only have regr mysterious power stones...¡± The young man took out a stonemon to this day and age.

    The tree froze, stunned beyond belief, and said with difficulty after a while. ¡°This is... a discarded energy stone... In my memories... not even dogs eat them... They can be used for cooking... but you want me... to use that... to collect life essence?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao blinked. ¡°No way, they¡¯re that bad?¡±

    The little tree remained silent. It seemed to have lost all hope. <i>You might as well let me die! You can just kill me if you want me to coalesce life essence with this trash. Who spits out milk after eating trash? I¡¯m not a cow!</i>

    Li Hao set his jaw and took out a stone from the Battle Heaven Army. ¡°What about this one?¡±

    ¡°This...¡± responded the little tree after a while. ¡°Is only the most basic cultivation stone. But it¡¯s much better than the one before, this one I can absorb from...¡±

    ¡°How many pieces of this will it take for you to condense one drop of the Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°......¡± How many? The tree paused for a long moment. ¡°One thousand pieces.¡±

    ¡°......¡± It was Li Hao¡¯s turn to freeze. One of these was equal to ten modern stones, so the tree wanted ten thousand modern mysterious power stones to coalesce one drop of the Water of Life?! <i>You¡¯re joking!!</i>

    ¡°Do you think I¡¯m ignorant?¡± he erupted. ¡°General Pagoda gave me one drop after I offered thirty stones.¡± He briefly shed a sk to the little tree. ¡°Do you see that? General Pagoda¡¯s fee is so low, but you want one thousand stones?!¡±

    ¡°That one... is stronger than me... and even... stronger than... my father. It is easier for him to condense... life energy. I am... not strong enough... and consume more energy... That expenditure decreases... when I grow stronger...¡±

    Was that so?

    ¡°Even that one... needs more energy stones... than thirty... Perhaps... that was a gift... to you.¡±

    Li Hao pondered its words. Hong Yitang had said that the spirit was fishing for more¡ªit appeared that this really was the case. However, one thousand stones for one drop of water was too much. This partnership was suddenly up in the air. Should he just seize the castle? He couldn¡¯t support the tree¡¯s needs!

    The little tree didn¡¯t seem that much of an idiot as it suddenly said, ¡°A living nt spirit can do more than collect life essence... It can also absorb and gather energy from the world to create a sacrednd of cultivation... The Human King created one in his day... Training for one day there was the equivalent of a year in the outside world...

    ¡°If you are willing to supply sufficient energy... I can do the same for you... In the New Martial era, royal cities were the product of nt spirits and powerhouses... They created sacrednds of cultivation that attracted hundreds of millions of souls... They created the way of the human emperor... Of course, it ultimately failed...¡±

    ¡°Way of the human emperor?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°What is that?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. If I did... I would be a peak powerhouse.¡±

    <i>Alright then, so what are you talking about it for?</i> So the tree spirit could assist with cultivation?

    ¡°Let me think about it,¡± Li Hao offered. ¡°The main issue is that energy stones are too rare in our era. I¡¯m afraid that I won¡¯t be able to give you enough support. The one that I took out first, the one that you said was trash, is an ultimate treasure in our world!¡±

    The little tree didn¡¯t know what to say. An ultimate treasure? This was rocking its worldview. Had the outside world deteriorated to these levels?

    Perhaps!

    After all, while this person that¡¯d barged in was weak, he was passable. however, he was using this kind of trash for cultivation and treated it as precious treasure. It was in to see that people of this age were very poor.

    ¡°I can... recover some abilities through... absorbing a little... and then gather the energy of the four directions... There is still energy in this age... What I just absorbed was collected from a few decades ago...¡±

    ¡°Energy erupted through thend twenty years ago.¡± Inspiration struck Li Hao. ¡°You absorbed some and condensed it into energy stones. Did you put them away forter use?¡±

    ¡°Pretty much... but the energy suddenly vanished and there was too little left in the void... I only absorbed that much... and have nothing left after today.¡±

    Li Hao took a deep breath. All those mysterious power stones were just its reserves? Momentary, casual absorption was sufficient for the tree to create mysterious power stones?

    <i>My word!</i>

    Were all tree spirits this amazing?

    The young man¡¯s thoughts shifted. He had to trick the tree... no, he had to cordially coax it into a partnership!

    ......

    <i>In the underground pce.</i>

    Two humans and a tree weremunicating. Liu Long couldn¡¯t fully understand them¡ªhe wouldn¡¯t be able to at all if they did so purely verbally. Thankfully, they talked with the mind, so he could sense a thing or two through mind intent.

    After a while, Li Hao looked hesitantly at the pce in the distance.

    ¡°Senior Tree,¡± he suddenly brought up. ¡°A mutually beneficial partnership is what I desire to see, but I¡¯m uncertain whether my efforts will be in proportion with my gains. The times are different from what they were. Therefore, I have a groundless request that I wonder if the senior will agree to?¡±

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°Senior says that you can collect energy to craft a sacrednd for cultivation. What does that look like? I have a few more energy stones on hand. Could you provide a small demonstration after absorbing them?

    ¡°Of course, senior might grow incredibly strong after absorbing so much. You might expel us or even kill us. So as a precaution... let me be petty before being a gentleman. I will control the number of stones I supply. If the senior can provide a proportional benefit, I naturally hope for us to work together.¡±

    It would take a lot to maintain the tree and judging from its condition, mysterious power stones might be the most basic materials it wanted. It considered modern stones trash, but those were treasures to Li Hao! They were priceless to everyone.

    If he paid a high price and didn¡¯t gain much for it, then there was no need to cooperate with the tree. It would die naturally without replenishment of energy even if he didn¡¯t kill it himself. Li Hao might think of the ancient civilization with a touch of reverence, but that didn¡¯t mean he would help others at his own expense.

    If his counterpart wouldn¡¯t bring him any benefits, then he wouldn¡¯t invest too much. As for the pce... <i>Okay, I¡¯ll stay out of it when you¡¯re alive, but all bets are off when you¡¯re dead.</i>

    The tree spirit seemed to be considering something as well. ¡°That can be done... nt spirits and humans... monster spirits... have always coexisted through mutual benefit... Supply me with some energy stones... and I will show you the benefits...¡±

    Li Hao made up his mind and decisively took out one hundred mysterious power stones. They weren¡¯t the ones that he¡¯d received from the army, but the ordinary ones that he used in cultivation. After several raids, he possessed almost three thousand pieces. The ones from the army were worth ten each¡ªhe only had roughly twenty pieces left.

    Those he was loath to part with. Steris produced greater sword energy when he fed them to it, so they couldn¡¯t be wasted.

    The little tree wouldn¡¯t normally want to bother with this kind of trash, but any energy it could obtain now was good. One hundred pieces possessed sufficient energy to make the distaste worthwhile.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything after tossing them over. He had no choice but to offer so many at once. These ancient existences were gluttons; one hundred pieces seemed nothing but a fleck of poop to them. Anything less might insult them.

    The tree¡¯s roots snaked out and stabbed into the stones on the ground, instantly draining them. It was too little for the tree spirit. Such an amount was a drop in the bucket, what a pity that it hadn¡¯t had time to absorb much when energy erupted in the past. The province¡¯s energy had more or less faded away afterwards, so it couldn¡¯t add to its stores.

    This tree spirit wasn¡¯t the only one absorbing energy within Silver Moon. Entities within Battle Heaven also partook, making the revitalized energy in the world hardly enough. There was nothing left for Silver Moon human denizens.

    The little tree mulled over something after absorbing the energy, eventually emanating a faint, unique energy. It was very weak and Li Hao subconsciously wanted to reject it when it neared the young man. He quickly realized something, however, and absorbed some.

    It gave him a peculiar feeling simr to the Water of Life. Or rather, when he first entered the bathing pool in Battle Heaven City. It was afortable feeling of being nurtured.

    Liu Long absorbed some as well and moaned. ¡°What a strange energy...¡± he transmitted to Li Hao.

    The young man inclined his head. Perhaps this was what made the tree spirit special.

    ¡°I am partially destroyed,¡± came the little tree¡¯s ripples. ¡°I can only exude some life force. This energy can enhance cultivation, extend lifespans, and heal injuries. That is all secondary...¡±

    Li Hao cocked his ear. That was secondary? Then what was primary?

    ¡°I can also emanate a trace of the core origin of ancient dao if you cultivate near me. That will help your cultivation too.¡±

    ¡°The core origin of ancient dao?¡± Li Hao was baffled. What was that?

    The little tree seemed stunned by his ignorance and took a while to gather its thoughts. ¡°The core origin... of martial dao... is the base nature of martial dao. I am also quite curious. You people are very strong, but also very weak. But your mental ripples from earlier is also a manifestation of the core origin.

    ¡°It is the fundamental force of martial dao. The ferocious tiger you disyed before is a type of dao, but there seems to be some difference. It¡¯s very strange, you are different from the New Martial cultivators of my memories.¡± It didn¡¯t know how to exin either.

 Chapter 541: Partnership (I)

    <h4>Chapter 541: Partnership (I)</h4>

    ording to New Martial standards, people like Li Hao were very special. Mind intent was as simple as mental strength as it touched on the core origin of martial dao. Strictly speaking, these people had already set foot on the path of pursuing the ultimate peak of martial dao.

    But when it came to strength... there seemed a massive gap between Li Hao and what the tree spirit knew. It didn¡¯t know how to describe it as it was just a monster spirit, one made thus by its heritage. It wasn¡¯t a major monster spirit through the efforts of its own cultivation. If it was, it could¡¯ve answered some of Li Hao¡¯s questions.

    ¡°Mind intent?¡± Something urred to Li Hao as he looked at the tree. ¡°Aura... wood aura... you are a tree...¡±

    The little tree snapped to alertness when the young man waved his sword around, then quickly rxed. He was practicing the Weeping Willow Sword. He stopped after a moment and asked, ¡°Senior, what do you think of this sword technique?¡±

    The Weeping Willow Sword was directly connected to the wood sword aura, but Li Hao hadn¡¯t gained anything after several days of practice.

    ¡°This... seems to be a human sword method of the New Martial era,¡± answered the little tree. ¡°It has some of the sensation of that age. It¡¯s different from the martial dao you demonstrated before, right?¡±

    ¡°Right!¡± Li Hao quickly responded. ¡°Will this help me inprehending the wood aura? Ah, I mean like the concept of the ferocious tiger from earlier...¡±

    He didn¡¯t know how to exin the notion.

    ¡°Do you want to perceive the dao of the wood sword?¡± asked the little tree after some thought.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded, that was basically what he meant.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know how to, but if you train by my side and perceive the energy and core origin of life, you might be able to do so. What a pity that my father has fallen. He would¡¯ve been able to help you otherwise...¡±

    Li Hao lit up¡ªcould he really now? What he was most regretful of and felt the highest sense of urgency about was not being able to deploy five auras in unison. Would he be afraid of the White Shark Raiders otherwise?

    ¡°But the strength of my core origin has dissipated slightly,¡± added the little tree. ¡°I needrge sums of energy stones. The amount you gave is far from enough!¡±

    ¡°How many more do you need?¡±

    ¡°I need more than I need to coalesce life essence. It¡¯s more difficult, so I need at least three times that amount to exude just a little.¡±

    Li Hao froze with shock.

    ¡°Thirty.... thousand stones?!¡± Who the hell was the tree kidding?! Three thousand stones from the army was the equivalent of thirty thousand modern ones! This was an absolute joke!

    ¡°Core origin is a type of higher level strength. Even I am hard pressed to emanate it. It¡¯s not impossible, however. You can kill...¡± The tree suddenly shut up. Li Hao realized what the rest of its words were and looked at it. The atmosphere grew taut.

    The little tree hadn¡¯t undergone too much tempering of life as it was just a product of inheritance. Hence, it¡¯d actually let something important slip. So it would seem that killing humans or monster spirits who wielded core origin strength could also lead to its emergence.

    The tree refused to speak further.

    ¡°Does the senior mean that if we kill existences equipped with core origin, that will lead to some dissipation as well?¡±

    ¡°That is right!¡± answered the tree despite a period of silence. So they would fight if the human wanted to kill it!

    Next, Li Hao changed the topic. ¡°Is there any other way? I just need to use a small amount of energy to trade for sufficient core origin strength that will help me grasp the aura. I have no other need for this strength...¡±

    ¡°You seemed to have grasped many different types already,¡± the little tree pointed out. ¡°You¡¯re very weird. There were a few like you in the New Martial era. If you wish to grasp more types of dao, you¡¯ll need to block out yourprehension of other dao. Some heavyweights in our time had unique ways to aplish that.

    ¡°I don¡¯t have many good ideas to help you, but I can still exude some core origin strength. I might not need the mysterious power stones that you speak of...¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Li Hao asked excitedly, but worried that this other possibility would be even more of a hassle.

    ¡°You seem to have other divine weapons on you...¡±

    ¡°Divine weapons? Origin weapons?¡± A baffled Li Hao took out an origin weapon. He carried many on him¡ªthe Revolution King¡¯s wind chime, Xu Feng¡¯s boxing gloves and Heart Protector, and the Celestial Elder Crimson¡¯s ck sword. He also had a set of earth armor from a Yama leader.

    The young man brought out the earth armor first. It had the lowest value. He also had the Divine Kun Ship as another origin weapon, but that one was different from the others.

    ¡°Not this...¡± transmitted the little tree. ¡°If there are any suited to me, such as ones of the wood attribute, they will supplyrge sums of the energy that I need. The divine weapons were made from the corpses of nt and monster spirits back in the day...¡±

    It abruptly realized that it¡¯d said the wrong thing again!

    Li Hao was looking at the copsed tree off to the side. The tree was shattered, but it hadn¡¯t beenpletely pulverized. Did the little tree mean that it could absorb energy from its own kind?

    ¡°Father¡¯s body has be the pce¡¯s defensive formation,¡± agitated the little tree. ¡°It cannot be moved. It shouldn¡¯t, even if it could. Don¡¯t consider this possibility!¡±

    ¡°I understand, I¡¯m just a bit curious.¡± Li Hao nodded rapidly. ¡°Why... why is there a hole leading to the pce?¡±

    Intruders wouldn¡¯t be able to barge into this ce if it was sealed off like Battle Heaven.

    ¡°You... don¡¯t understand,¡± the little tree said with resignation. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be able to absorb a single iota of energy if there wasn¡¯t a crack. Father¡¯s corpse sealed off the pce, making it impossible for me to absorb any power. I had to create a small crack so I could absorb a little bit of energy. Who would¡¯ve thought that it would attract you guys after I did so?¡±

    ¡°Can it not be closed again?¡±

    ¡°It can... but I¡¯ll sink into slumber once more if I do.¡± The little tree was quite resigned. ¡°I could intimidate the onest time since he wasn¡¯t that strong. I thought I could hold out for a while longer and store sufficient energy for a while of support. But here you are, and you¡¯ve seen through the illusion.¡±

    It was only because Li Hao could see the dwindling mysterious power stones that he¡¯d stayed. Otherwise, the young man would¡¯ve left ore back with more people like Golden Spear. Many thoughts popped into Li Hao¡¯s mind.

    ¡°Senior Tree, does this mean that there are other powerhouses who are asleep till today like you? Some of the New Martial heavyweights, for example...¡±

    ¡°Why would they need to sleep?¡± intoned the little tree. ¡°Father had to enter sleep because he was gravely injured and was entrusted with the safekeeping of the pce. The powerhouses of the New Martial era would not choose to slumber, you do not understand! If there are any left, they either cannot leave their location like me, or they are too heavily injured, or they are bound by duty.

    ¡°I understand your meaning. You wonder if there are New Martial heavyweights remaining that did not leave with the Human King. That is impossible! Anyone who could fight all left!¡±

    Anyone who could fight all left.

    Li Hao briefly experienced the emotions for himself. ¡°Then... didn¡¯t the Human King leave some people behind to safeguard his territory?¡±

    If a tree could live for thirty thousand years, then what of the other heavyweights of the ancient civilization?

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, probably not... In my memory, the Human King would take the field himself if he could eliminate the enemy. If not, he would go forth in full strength. He would not leave powerhouses behind to stand guard. There shouldn¡¯t be much danger in the rear either. Enemies were eliminated on the front lines. If confusion appeared in the rear, then it was internal conflict or trouble they¡¯d created themselves.

    ¡°The Human King¡¯s philosophy was that he was busy killing enemies in foreignnds. If chaos gripped his home, then it was their fault and their fated oue to die. He wouldn¡¯t care. The Human King couldn¡¯t bear for the people to be hurt when he was benevolent, but when he was in a vicious mood, everyone should be afraid.¡±

    Li Hao was quite interested in the turn of conversation. The ancient Human King!

    If he mapped to the figure of Li Hao¡¯s memories, then that would be interesting indeed. That personage was heartless beyondpare, but also a kindly ruler ording to what the little tree said.

    He either put his full force behind his blows or set off on a campaign with all of his people. Even more interesting was that he wasn¡¯t concerned about trouble from the rear. If there was, he wouldn¡¯t address it. Any trouble was internal discord.<i> Go and attack yourselves however you will. I won¡¯t care if you¡¯re all dead.</i>

    With the current situation...

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t heard of any invasions by unknown races. It was just the dynasty constantly at war with itself.

    ¡°We shouldn¡¯t talk too much about the Human King,¡± said the little tree. ¡°It¡¯s best not to mention the names of these powerhouses. They might sense their real name if you use it too often, despite being separated by countless years and distance. This might not be a good thing, it could be bad as they cannot determine whether it¡¯s friend or foe using their name. They might use certain methods to curse whoever¡¯s using his name.¡±

    ¡°No way?¡± Li Hao blinked. ¡°It¡¯s been so many years...¡±

    ¡°Everything is possible!¡± reminded the little tree. ¡°This world may be under some restrictions. We are unable to mention their real name. This is a kind of protection to separate friend from foe. We might be killed through a curse if we use their real name now!¡±

    ¡°But what if you have the same surname and given name...¡±

    ¡°You know not the profound mysteries of dao!¡± The little tree gave upmunicating. Li Hao was too stupid... No, he¡¯d seen too little of the world and didn¡¯t understand it at all.

    There was nothing the young man could say. He was used to the ancients scoffing at him, and now even an ancient tree looked down at him. Did it want his help or not?

    ¡°So you mean that if I give you sufficient wood energy or wood origin weapons, you¡¯ll be able to release some core origin power to help meprehend the aura?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Will I be able to coalesce my mind intent? The stuff you saw earlier?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t now.¡±

    <i>Very well then! Let¡¯s give it a try.</i>

 Chapter 542: Partnership (II)

    <h4>Chapter 542: Partnership (II)</h4>

    ¡°Do any of these suit you?¡± Li Hao took out a few more origin weapons.

    ¡°No... but if you¡¯re willing, I can absorb some of these as well. I¡¯ll just need more of them to satisfy my need...¡±

    Li Hao sighed. It took a lot of resources to nurture his little sword and now, this tree also required a ton. The dog could also eat a lot of energy. Compared to them, his own consumption was nothing!

    But if he could grasp the wood aura, he wouldn''t care about expending five origin weapons, much less mysterious power stones. Ack of these resources was hardly an issue if one was strong enough in this age!

    If it came down to it, he could go for a spin around Red Moon, the three great organizations, the nine ministries, the royal family, Near River¡¯s General Director Office, or even the pirates if he had no other choice.

    Other than the origin weapons he possessed, he¡¯d also taken a long de from Sea Shark when he killed the pirate. It seemed particrly unique and not a typical origin weapon. It was durable beyond belief, but it didn¡¯t shelter a weapon soul. Li Hao had sealed it and temporarily put it away.

    ¡°Do you think you can supply some core origin power for me to study if you absorb these weapons?¡± The young man took out five origin weapons. ¡°At the very least, let me know the benefits of this special power. I won¡¯t have much motivation otherwise.¡±

    ¡°I can try the earth armor, Heart Protector, and little ck sword. The earth armor should be crafted out of earth dragon skin, the ck sword from the corpse of a ck hellhound, and the Heart Protector from a mountain pangolin...¡± the little tree rapidly identified. ¡°The boxing gloves and wind chime are of a higher grade. I would easily waste them. The other three are made from lower level monster spirit corpses. I can give them a try.¡±

    Li Hao knew that the wind chime was a high grade, but so were the boxing gloves? He thought of He Yong¡ªthe man had looked at them for quite a while, but Li Hao hadn¡¯t paid it much attention then. Had He Yong been interested in them and too embarrassed to say anything?

    The young man thought for a bit. He could offer some mysterious power stones, but origin weapons...? And three of them? The tree spirit might grow so much stronger after absorbing them and be beyond his abilities to handle. If open hostilities broke out between the two, he might¡¯ve just signed his own death warrant.

    ¡°I¡¯ll have my friend wait outside and call over a few more to stand guard over me. Is that alright?¡± he asked after mulling over the situation.

    ¡°......¡± <i>You might as well just say that you don¡¯t trust me.</i>

    ¡°My friends are stronger than me and know more of the world than me. They might have better ideas to help senior recover...¡±

    ¡°No need!¡± the little tree interrupted. ¡°You¡¯re just concerned about me taking in too much energy. I would not like too many outsiders to set foot in this ce. How about this, you can leave behind this person next to you. He can meditate for a bit and you can make a decision after determining whether or not what I offer is effective.¡±

    Li Hao looked at Liu Long. The man nodded with a smile. ¡°We can try that, there might be big benefits! But I¡¯m a water type...¡±

    The tree might be a wood or life attribute. As such, its efforts wouldn¡¯t be as useful for Liu Long. The origin weapons would be expended regardless.

    ¡°How about I send Li Heng inside?¡± Li Hao suddenly proposed. ¡°We¡¯ll exin the situation to him. He¡¯s a half step Dominator now and studies the wood sword intent. If it helps him, he might be able to advance to Dominator. If that doesn''t do it for him, then this means whatever the tree offers is of limited use to me too.¡±

    ¡°Him?¡± Liu Long considered the idea. ¡°He¡¯ll do, but... are you alright with that?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s not to be alright about?¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Chief, didn¡¯t you say so yourself that we¡¯re all on the same team after joining the Demon Hunters? Besides, didn¡¯t we bring everyone here with the hope of helping some progress further on their paths?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true, I took too narrow a view of things!¡± Liu Longughed.

    ¡°I have some subordinates outside, one of them practices the Weeping Willow Sword.¡± Li Hao turned to the tree. ¡°He¡¯s weaker than us. I¡¯d like to have hime down. Senior can then devour the origin weapons and release some of the core origin power for him to sense. Is that amenable to you?¡±

    ¡°Whatever you wish.¡± The little tree could sense that there were indeed more humans outside, but their strength was mediocre.

    Li Hao quickly left with Liu Long, walking through the air. The little tree drooped as soon as the disappeared and turned to the copsed tree not too far away. It was just a tree, but it seemed to fix its gaze on the big tree in this moment.

    ¡°Father...¡± The little tree looked at the big tree, then at the castle near at hand. Protecting the castle was father¡¯s duty, not its duty. Its father was dead, but it continued to stand guard here.

    It could¡¯ve left twenty years ago, but it didn¡¯t. It was a sapling from the old tree¡¯s demise and had sprouted from its roots. It was both a descendant and a rebirth of the original body. Safeguarding the abandoned pce seemed to have also be its mission.

    If possible, it didn¡¯t want Li Hao in this ce. But now it was fragile beyond belief and humans had discovered this area. If it didn¡¯t swiftly grow stronger, more powerful beings mighte. Even though the pce had been discarded, it was once an iparable structure! No one should be able to set foot inside it!

    <i>Therefore... I can only partner with him... Since he is a troop leader of Battle Heaven, that means the city has not fully perished. There should be a verification process still running and General Pagoda was willing to gift a drop of life essence. That means there should still be a sliver of life left in him. Perhaps I can ce my hopes in this person that he will find more hope for General Pagoda...</i>

    Li Hao was thinking far too little of the little tree if he thought that the tree spirit was willing to work with anyone it encountered. If it wasn¡¯t for the drop of Water of Life, the silver armor, and Steris, he would only be faced with the little tree¡¯s defiance to the death. The bloodline of the eight families was at timespletely useless, but at times, the stepping-stone to sess.

    He wouldn¡¯t have been able to join the Battle Heaven Army without his bloodline or reach a partnership agreement with the little tree.

    ......

    <i>Within the mountain cave.</i>

    The Demon Hunters waited anxiously. Two figures returned one after another.

    Li Hao flew forward and looked at Li Heng. Thetter fidgeted to be stared at so intensely. ¡°Leader, what are you looking at me for?¡±

    <i>Seriously.</i>

    ¡°Do you want to be a Dominator?¡±

    Li Heng blinked, as did the others. A variety of expressions crossed the faces of Liu Yan and the old Demon Hunters. <i>You call for Li Heng instead of us for an opportunity like this? Is there a need to look after him so much just because of a surname?</i>

    ¡°Of course, leader!¡± Li Hang jerked to attention. ¡°But... it¡¯s very hard to improve the aura. Do you have a way?¡±

    All that a Sunderer needed to do for their breakthrough was to strengthen their aura to the point of transformation. It was a process that normally took many years. Yuan Shuo had persisted for many years, as did others. Liu Long had directly entered Dominator possibly because he had outside help.

    ¡°Yes, but it¡¯s very dangerous!¡± Li Hao cut straight to the point. ¡°There¡¯s a tree spirit below that¡¯s reached an agreement with me, it has a few ideas to strengthen our auras! Of course, the price to be paid is very high¡ªorigin weapons are to be used as fertilizer. I don¡¯t mind that, I¡¯m just worried that it has other ns in mind. Therefore, I need someone to go down there first and I¡¯ll make a decision after seeing the effects...¡±

    <i>Whoosh!</i> Li Heng flung himself at the hole. ¡°Leader, I¡¯ll test the waters for you!¡± With that, he jumped down!

    Li Hao looked wordlessly in the appropriate direction, then looked at Liu Long and the rest. They were equally speechless. <i>That guy...</i> Li Hao was yet to finish his words, but the fellow seemed deathly afraid of losing the opportunity and jumped straight down!

    ¡°I... forget it!¡± Li Hao nursed a brewing headache. <i>I wasn¡¯t done yet! The hell you throw yourself down for? </i>He¡¯d wanted to remind the young man to be careful and keep an eye on the tree, but Li Heng had already jumped down. What else could he say now?

    Li Hao tossed the earth armor into the hole. ¡°Try absorbing this first, senior. We¡¯ll see how to proceed if that¡¯s not enough.¡±

    It was just a Sunderer making the attempt. If one origin weapon wasn¡¯t enough... Li Hao would have to consider if the partnership was worth it.

    The little tree did not respond. Everything quieted below; some minute changes urred after a long while. Li Hao felt a surge of presence that swiftly disappeared.

    An hour passed, long enough that the young man started growing nervous. He considered the hole solemnly, wondering if he should rush down... A figure darted out at this time!

    Li Heng wobbled to anding. Li Hao looked at him with fresh eyes¡ªDominator! Li Heng was a Dominator!

    Li Heng himself was a bit absent-minded and vacant. He recovered his wits only after seeing Li Hao.

    ¡°Leader...¡± he mumbled. ¡°Am I... am I a Dominator?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, what do you feel?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. I didn¡¯t feel anything, it was like I entered a patch of darkness and then saw a road¡ªa very narrow road. I think I saw some people fighting, and trees, and monster spirits. And then... I woke up, and here I am, a Dominator. I don¡¯t feel anything about it myself.¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow. That was it? That easy?

    He didn¡¯t say anything else and had Liu Long remain on the ground while he jumped down again.

    ......

    The little tree was no longer crystalline. It seemed to have wilted some.

    ¡°The people of your era... are very strange. I¡¯d thought that I could guide you to the path of core origin, but I cannot... Perhaps your path is different from us...¡±

    This ¡°us¡± that it spoke of did not refer to the little tree itself, but its inherited memories. It was almost a carbon copy of the old tree.

 Chapter 543: Partnership (III)

    <h4>Chapter 543: Partnership (III)</h4>

    ¡°But the core nature of our martial dao is simr. We all reach the same goal by different means and all daos are one. It is all the same in the end... What do you think about the effects?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re very good!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°If he¡¯d had to cultivate by himself without the aid of external help, it would take him at least ten years to have a hope of bing a Dominator.¡±

    Ten years was the baseline. Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t taken that step for several decades. Of course, it also had something to do with the fact that he was merging five auras into one. This was one origin weapon for oneprehension opportunity that produced one Dominator. Li Hao felt that it was quite a worthy trade-off.

    After some thought, the young man tossed out the remaining origin weapons without hesitation. ¡°Can you absorb these two and emanate some core origin power for me toprehend?¡±

    ¡°Yes... but you cannot spend too much time in my dao. It is my dao, not yours. You can sense some, but not follow it entirely. You will not walk far otherwise...¡±

    Li Hao waited silently. Momentster, the two origin weapons disappeared as the little tree melded them into its body. A particr ripple slowly wafted out. Though Li Hao focused on it without hesitation, he didn¡¯t lower the sword in his hand. He still didn¡¯t trust the tree all that much.

    The scene turned dark before his eyes and he quickly sank into darkness. Just like Li Heng had said, a road vaguely materialized in the gloom. He stood on the muddy path while figures appeared on it.

    Being rtively clear-witted, Li Hao collected his domineering mind intent. This woke him up even more. Many things sharpened into focus when he took a closer look; he saw the gradual growth process of a towering tree. There weren¡¯t too many grand surges or momentum, just an ordinary routine.

    It was nted next to the pce. A wretched-looking old man came along one day and fished out a cat... a cat-shaped fruit to feed to the tree.

    ¡°You¡¯re lucky to grow here, but I made this trip to announce that we are abandoning this pce. The war has entered a critical moment and His Imperial Majesty will probably not be visiting any longer. You would¡¯ve had a great fortuitous opportunity growing here, what a pity...

    ¡°Here¡¯s a Cat Fruit for you to try. I hope you find your own path. I¡¯ll be off now. If anyonees along to patrol and asks you anything, tell him that I fed you five... no, ten Cat Fruits!¡± The old man patted the tree. ¡°It¡¯s not easy being a martial senior. They try to get more out of me everyday and I¡¯m almost running empty for it. I finally have an excuse to keep some for myself. Do you understand me?¡±

    The big tree seemed to somewhat understand. It shook its body to indicate that it did.

    The old man cackled, disying yellow teeth, and patted the big tree again. ¡°You¡¯ve got strong potential. Then I¡¯ll be off now. Oh, yes. Although this ce has been discarded, don¡¯t let anyone else inside. Keep an eye on it so it¡¯s not disturbed...¡± With that, the old man vanished.

    This was probably the tree¡¯s deepest memory on its path of martial dao, the event that it was most proud of and the most auspicious.

    An old man had given it a fruit; it grew furiously after that, bing the only guard after the pce¡¯s soldiers were withdrawn. It was the abandoned pce¡¯s only protector because the old man had said that even though the structure was no longer in use, no one else could be allowed inside.

    Li Hao seemed to transform into a tree at some point, keeping the treepany as it grew. Wind and rain beat down on it, the sun and rain bore down on the tree. So time passed day after day, year after year. As the young man immersed himself in the perceptions andprehension, the scene changed again. Weakened even more so now, the little tree was suddenly in front of Li Hao and looking at the young man.

    ¡°Your eyes...¡±

    ¡°My eyes?¡± Li Hao asked nkly, countless scenes filling his mind. He cleared his thoughts with a shake of his head.

    The little tree didn¡¯t know how to describe it. Li Hao¡¯s eyes weren¡¯t that different from their regr state at the moment, but it felt that there was something different.

    ¡°You... must be careful of your eyes,¡± it finally said after a long while. ¡°They might be the Eyes of Truth or the Sword Eyes. Your ancestor was iparably mighty in the legends. His path was different from ours. He broke his own core origin dao, so strictly speaking, his descendants... might have been influenced by him. You might walk your own unique martial path instead of core origin.¡±

    Li Hao cocked his ear to listen more closely.

    ¡°You should study your eyes more,¡± said the tree. ¡°Additionally, the origin weapons you supplied are only sufficient for this amount of power. My core origin will be damaged if I continue!¡±

    Li Hao nodded without a word and turned quiet. He was quietly perceiving everything he¡¯d seen before. The images weren¡¯t the key¡ªthe key was that he seemed to have be a tree himself and grown continuously. He waved Steris around and deployed the Weeping Willow Sword. Stroke after stroke, a new understanding teased at the edges of his consciousness, but it wasn¡¯t that straightforward. He felt that certain things were still obscured in a haze that was difficult to clear up!

    If he could, perhaps he might grasp the wood aura.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be in a rush, this is a very normal process,¡± the little tree pointed out when Li Hao returned to his senses. ¡°You¡¯ve sensed a lot of paths and might fullyprehend it after a few more tries with me.¡±

    Li Hao smiled ruefully. This was an incredible rate of consumption¡ªthree origin weapons in one go! Not even royal princes spent as heavily as he did! How many origin weapons had he gone through over the course of his cultivation? The little sword had eaten quite a few origin weapons as well.

    Li Hao took a deep breath and tamped down his emotions. ¡°Can you depart from here, senior?¡±

    ¡°No, I need to protect this ce.¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t deny the need. All he did was think of the scene he¡¯d seen earlier¡ªa casual word from a wretched old man that inspired the tree¡¯s father to stand guard for thirty thousand years!

    The little tree still carried out the mission of its father¡¯s time. One had to say, these monster spirits were to be admired when they doggedly stuck to one ideal.

    ¡°Then I can onlye here if I want to seek out the senior?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right. I can also close the passageway if you give me sufficient energy. Father¡¯s corpse sealed off the premises. If I close the tunnel, no one will be able to enter. You can send people to cultivate here and you yourself cane at any time, so long as you supply me sufficient energy.¡±

    This meant to say that if Li Hao was willing, he¡¯d be able to turn this ce into his personal sanctuary. The only drawback was that this ce was slightly far from White Moon City¡ªapproximately three hundred kilometers. If one was strong enough, the distance was easily passable.

    ¡°Senior, this ce has been abandoned.¡± Li Hao flicked a nce at the castle. ¡°I... also saw some things. When the old man visited, he seemed to retrieve something before leaving. This ce is likely empty. So why...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but father said I can¡¯t go, so I cannot go.¡±

    Li Hao sighed! He wanted to bring the tree with him as the tree spirit didn¡¯t feel too weak. It was very weak before, but that was due to ack of energy. Even so, Golden Spear was unable to fully match it. Li Hao wouldn¡¯t have dared set himself against the spirit if he hadn¡¯t peered through the falsehood either.

    The tree was really something!

    In Li Hao¡¯s eyes, he was just too poor. Otherwise, he would collect Water of Life and endlessly try the scenes that he¡¯d just seen. If he grew with the little sword, he mightprehend the wood aura.

    There were some more origin weapons in his storage rings, but Li Hao was yet to fully digest what he¡¯d just gained. He would waste whatever he supplied now.

    ¡°Ah, then the cat-shaped fruit...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s an ultimate treasure that¡¯s possibly been lost by now. It was the senior¡¯spanion fruit¡ªhe was also a nt spirit...¡±

    Li Hao blinked. A nt spirit? The old man?

    ¡°Do you mean, senior, that monster spirits can also take human form?¡±

    ¡°Yes. It¡¯s easier for monster spirits, harder for nt spirits. but all have hope.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts turned to the dog waiting outside. Could Panth be a human? That was a frightening prospect, for a dog to be a human!

    ¡°Senior, I have a few more mysterious power stones on me for you to use. Can I send my subordinates in to train?¡±

    ¡°Of course!!¡± the little tree didn¡¯t decline. Absorbing energy and supplying it to Li Hao¡¯s people meant that the tree could also siphon some for itself. That was the true exchange known to both sides. Otherwise, the little tree would have to be an idiot to work with Li Hao. inly, Li Hao understood this theory too.

    He wanted to see the effects of his cultivation as well. The little tree seemed to supply energy simr to that of what the sword energy neutralized. That meant that there was one less step for Li Hao to concern himself with.

    He had to stand in and be that conversion factor every time the Demon Hunters cultivated. That was not necessarily a good thing. After a while, he called everyone down to meditate. The young man fished outrge sums of mysterious power stones at the same time.

    The little tree was indifferent to the rest of the team, but it was wary when Panther entered the area. Even though it was a tree, Li Hao could tell that it was nervous. It seemed to be afraid that the dog would slip into the pce in a momentarypse of attention.

    Truth be told, Panther did want to sneak inside. The little tree kept it out multiple times. There was nothing else for it to do but crouch on the ground and stared silently at the pce. There seemed to be something in its memories about the structure, or another pce that was simr about this pce shaped like a cat.

    <i>My forebears seemed to have been able toe and go at will from these ces...</i>

    The dog looked at the pce, then at the tree. More memories were awakening from the depths of its bloodline. One of its forebears seemed to like pawing at a tree. Was that the case or not? Regardless, the brand within its bloodline reminded it of many things.

 Chapter 544: Entering the North Sea (I)

    <h4>Chapter 544: Entering the North Sea (I)</h4>

    Inside the ruins, Li Hao took out arge sum of mysterious power stones and offered them to the little tree. This would give it sufficient energy for it to exude power to help others train. Meanwhile, the young man thought back over everything he¡¯d just experienced¡ªbing a tree and growing with the little tree.

    His Weeping Willow Sword gradually took shape, but he stillcked inspiration when it came to the wood sword aura. His fifth aura was too hard to manifest. The young man was beginning to understand why his teacher sought out people to fight. Perhaps only through sparring his way through thend could he improve his own aura. Otherwise, pure cultivation alone might make it difficult toprehend the fifth aura.

    A ripple suddenly traveled from Li Hao¡¯s armor after an indeterminate period of time. Soldier Kong Jie requested tomunicate.

    <i>Kong Jie!</i>

    Li Hao had given him a set of armor before and they were less than five hundred kilometers away from White Moon City. They could indeedmunicate at this distance. Li Hao could reach Kong Jie directly, but the man needed Li Hao¡¯s permission to do the same.

    A momentary pauseter, Li Hao epted the call.

    ¡°What is it, Inspector General Kong?¡± He¡¯d only just left White Moon City. Had the White Shark Raiders alreadye? Surely not!

    ¡°There¡¯s been news from the east that Light Sword erupted at the Steadfast Duke¡¯s holdings five hours ago. She killed five of his generals and seized their heritage treasure. She seems to still be alive and is escaping to the north...¡±

    Li Hao paused from shock. ¡°Isn¡¯t she part of the duke¡¯s faction?¡±

    ¡°Would a Silver Moon martial master really be willing to call someone else their uncle? Only Silver Moon denizens can suppress another person from Silver Moon, such as someone like your master. The Steadfast Duke inly doesn¡¯t count among their number.¡±

    ¡°Okay!¡± Li Hao had nothing else to say. He was simply confused why the inspector general was telling him this. Escaping to the north? Could it be...

    The young man thought of what Light Sword had once said to him and broke out in a grin. <i>She¡¯s noting for me, is she?</i>

    That was very possible.

    The swordswoman had threatened him into helping her suppress her inner turmoil once. It looked like she¡¯d unsealed herself to kill her enemiesst night...

    But that¡¯d been five hours ago. She was dead now, right? Even if she wasn¡¯t, she would be a supernatural. That was just as good, Li Hao wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything for her then. She was beyond saving as a martial master after so long. Not to mention, the eastern expanses were very far away.

    A premier powerhouse would have to travel approximately five thousand kilometers if they flew in a straight line from east to north. Although Light Sword might be erupting with full power, it would take her at least a day and a half at a speed of one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour.

    ¡°Light Sword killed five premier powerhousesst night,¡± Kong Jie continued. ¡°Four of them werete Novas and one close to metamorphosis. She killed them all with one stroke! She¡¯s a terrifying character who looks to have snapped five locks at once.¡±

    <i>Damn!</i> Li Hao clucked his tongue. That was intense! No wonder she could kill five generals with one move. Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t instantly kill an existence in metamorphosis even if he snapped two locks. If he could, the four monster spirits of Ash Mountain would¡¯ve been in a great deal of trouble.

    No wonder she could face such overwhelming odds and make it back out alive. He Yong had mentioned that Light Sword should be stronger than him after unsealing herself.

    ¡°We¡¯re not sure what treasure Light Sword¡¯s seized, but ording to some records, the Xus were known for their speed when they helped the royal family conquer the world. Therefore, we specte that they might have the ¡®feet of the Lius¡¯ as mentioned in the eight families...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. Was that so? However, he still didn¡¯t understand what Kong Jie wanted with him. ¡°Does the inspector general mean to say that Silver Moon is interested in this treasure?¡±

    ¡°Naturally, of course, and there are many who are also interested. There¡¯s probably numerous parties who wish to stop her along the way. Light Sword may still be alive since there¡¯s no news of her death. If that is the case, she¡¯ll be gravely wounded and possibly near death. Many people will head to her once they receive the news as well.¡±

    ¡°Then you should go take a look, inspector general.¡±

    ¡°We cannot leave rashly...¡± Kong Jie finally broached his main point. ¡°Even if we do, we might not have a great effect. I recall the instance when He Yong and Hong Yitang unsealed themselves... but were fine for it. You also received a drop of the Water of Life in the ruins...¡±

    ¡°Soldier Kong Jie, your superior officer has endedmunication!¡± A voice suddenly echoed in Kong Jie¡¯s ears as he spoke on. The man blinked, freezing. He cursed, ¡°The fuck!¡±

    <i>I wasn¡¯t done yet! Li Hao hung up on me! This kid... these guts...</i> Damned if he didn¡¯t want to punch someone!

    ......

    <i>The clearing in front of the castle.</i>

    Li Hao was speechless. <i>The heck?</i> He understood Kong Jie¡¯s meaning¡ªthe man wanted him to rescue Light Sword and help suppress her five supernatural locks. If not, then use the Water of Life to save her.

    <i>You¡¯re joking!</i>

    One drop of that water was worth ten thousand mysterious power stones to Li Hao. Suppressing five locks? He Yong had snapped only fourst time and not all the way. He¡¯d received treatment on the spot, but still consumed three thousand stones. That instance had put He Yong into massive debt!

    Li Hao would be an utter fool to save the woman, not to mention there was a grudge between them. He rather liked Silver Moon martial masters, but those did not include his enemies such as Ying Hongyue or the dead Green Moon. Light Sword hadn¡¯t taken action against him only because she hadn¡¯t had the chance to. Both He Yong and Hong Yitang had been present and they had been inside Battle Heaven. Reinforced by two more Gold Armors, Li Hao wasn¡¯t afraid of her at all.

    Therefore, he wasn¡¯t the least bit interested in saving someone who¡¯d once threatened him.

    But if she came to him, he would honor his word. The precursor to that was that she paid for her own treatment. He¡¯d agreed to help keep her energy in check, but not pay the price for it.

    The key thing was, she couldn¡¯t reach him. The young manughed. Even if she ran to him with everything she had, it would take her a day and a night to reach Silver Moon. She¡¯d be long dead by then.

    <i>A weapon of the eight families? </i>This was what Li Hao was interested in. Director General Wang of Battle Heaven security had told him to collect those, that they were important tokens and keys. So the weapon of the Lius was with the Xus?

    The young man sank into deep thought and looked at Liu Long cultivating not too far away. Chief¡¯s surname was also Liu and his family was one of the more well known Lius of Silver City. They didn¡¯t seem to have much to do with the Lius of the eight families, however.

    Anothermunicator alert traveled into Li Hao¡¯s ear. Kong Jie was still looking for him. Only the armor¡¯smunication system could reach Li Hao. The others couldn¡¯t find him even if they wished to.

    The young man frowned. What was with Kong Jie? He knew that there was a feud between Light Sword and Li Hao. Despite the internal grumbling, the young man still picked up.

    ¡°Silver Moon needs Light Moon alive, and preferably in perfect condition. Bring her back to us. We¡¯re not at liberty to make a move ourselves and neither will we be of much use. We still have to ask you for help. We¡¯re willing to pay a price!¡±

    ¡°Not interested!¡± Li Hao t-out rejected. ¡°She threatened me once before. I don¡¯t have many friends, nor do I need them. I¡¯m not interested in turning enemies into friends.¡±

    ¡°One sword stele!¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll trade you a sword stele for you taking action! It¡¯s left behind from a premier swordsman and there¡¯s an inscription on it. There was sword qi remaining on it when we dug it out from the ancient ruins. It was so strong that it almost killed a Nova powerhouse. It will be a very useful treasure to you.¡±

    <i>A sword stele.</i>

    ¡°Is there a signature on it?¡± Li Hao thought over the idea. He wanted to know if it used to belong to one of the premier swordsmen that he knew. If not, he wasn¡¯t interested.

    ¡°Yes! Just one character... Li!¡± Kong Jie chuckled. ¡°It might have belonged to one of your ancestors.¡±

    <i>Really? </i>Li Hao didn¡¯t believe him. Li was a popr surname, there were too many with it.

    ¡°Light Sword will certainly repay you if you rescue her. With her strength, she¡¯ll be able to do many things for you that you can¡¯t do. She¡¯s one of the more gentle martial masters among us. She trains in the light sword discipline and is a very decisive person.¡±

    ¡°Inspector general, it¡¯s better that you guys do the deed,¡± Li Hao declined politely. ¡°If you really can bring her back and supply sufficient mysterious power stones, I¡¯ll help her get her energy under control again.¡±

    He was rather curious that if they wanted to save people, who could stand against theirbined might? <i>Just head out already! Why waste time with me? I¡¯m just a martial master barely on par with mid Nova. If you send me, I¡¯ll die if there¡¯s any kind of powerhouse there. Light Sword is finding it tough to shake off her enemies even with her eruption of power. I¡¯m sure she¡¯s very strong right now, so I¡¯d just be going to my death.</i>

    If the person being chased was Yuan Shuo, then Li Hao would go without even needing to be urged. But it wasn¡¯t, and it was Light Sword who was the target. He wasn¡¯t interested in taking the risk.

    ¡°We can¡¯t, we pose too big of a target,¡± Kong Jie sighed. ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way. A lot of people have their eyes on us and we¡¯ll be easily exposed if we disappear for too long, particrly at a sensitive time like this. Silver Moon might appear to be peaceful after Ole Hou¡¯s departure, but there are <i>a lot</i> of people watching us.

    ¡°You, though, don¡¯t have any official duties and don¡¯t need to appear at official events. You can do whatever you like... So name your terms! We want to save Light Sword as there might be drastic changes in Silver Mooning up. We need someone with her strength! You won¡¯t be in much trouble if you go. If you can save her, suppress her internal disorder and repair her organs, she¡¯ll have the strength to face some dangers too...¡±

    <i>Name my terms?</i>

    Didn¡¯t Li Hao risk his life, undertake excavations, and attack pirates because he wanted to increase his strength? Here was a perfect chance to, but he needed a tremendous amount of resources.

 Chapter 545: Entering the North Sea (II)

    <h4>Chapter 545: Entering the North Sea (II)</h4>

    ¡°One hundred origin weapons...¡±

    ¡°Cut the crap, Li Hao!¡±

    ¡°One hundred thousand mysterious power stones!¡± Li Hao amended. It seemed to take a lot of stones for one instance of core origin power. The little tree said it was three times the amount needed to coalesce Water of Life, so didn¡¯t that make it require thirty thousand stones?

    One hundred thousand stones would give him three attempts toprehend core origin. He might be able to attain his fifth aura then.

    ¡°Stop joking.¡± Kong Jie was on the verge of hysterics. What was this nonsense?!

    ¡°In that case, ten origin weapons and they all need to be of the wood attribute with no restriction in level!¡± a wordless Li Hao amended again. ¡°Thirty thousand mysterious power stones, and they all need to be of the wood attribute as well!¡±

    ¡°How do we have so many resources, Li Hao! If we did, Silver Moon would not be what it is.¡±

    ¡°Then forget it, inspector general.¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t believe the response because these people had certainly excavated quite a few ruins in the province. They must have a lot of treasure stashed behind the scenes.

    The other possibility was that Silver Moon might have a powerful martial master army in secret. That was a given!

    Li Hao spected this because if Hou Xiaochen had his Silver Moon Guards, then the others must have their preparations as well. Silver Moon was of a mind to dere independence. Would they do so with only a few powerhouses? As strong as their powerhouses were, they were not omnipotent. They couldn¡¯t be in two ces at once¡ªwould the various cities not need defenders?

    The Night Watchers only had a few Srs on the surface. Was that their basis to dere independence with?

    <i>Impossible!</i>

    These guys were one hundred percent hiding more personnel elsewhere. As for where, that was easy. Battle Heaven... the little castle... any of these were suitable for hiding people. If Li Hao was of a mind to, no one would know where he put the several dozen Demon Hunters.

    Yuan Shuo had also led the Night Watchers on numerous excavations back in the day. Had they gained nothing for their efforts? That was thest thing that Li Hao would believe. Therefore, these personages in charge of Silver Moon must be frightfully rich. They were just pretending to be poor.

    Leading the Demon Hunters with his strength had seen the entire crew stand at half step Dominator after a few simple battles. He even had his first Dominator!

    And these old guys?

    Director General Zhao and the others had been leaders of Silver Moon for several decades. This was their home ground! Who knew how many ruins they¡¯d excavated.

    ¡°Li Hao, why do you want so many resources for?¡± Kong Jie asked wearily. ¡°Your people can¡¯t possibly use them all...¡±

    ¡°Inspector general, it costs a lot to save someone. We expended almost ten thousand mysterious power stones to save Southern Fistst time. Ask the senior yourself if you don¡¯t believe me. Light Sword is in a more critical condition and we may not be able to keep her energy under control. Do you think three times that amount is a lot?

    ¡°Also, why the wood attribute? Because the wood attribute can be used to heal people. I¡¯m not using it for my own cultivation. The wood origin weapons are also for this purpose because her condition is too severe. The wood mysterious power stones may not have an effect if her injuries are too heavy. This is the only way we can save her.¡±

    A migraine throbbed at Kong Jie¡¯s temples. This was too much. It was so much that he was starting to debate whether or not it was worth it. This was such a hefty expenditure to pay for saving Light Sword!

    Could they afford it?

    Yes!

    But these were tactical resources that they were expending; they¡¯d umted those in preparation for war. It wasn¡¯t meant to be used for one person.

    ¡°You can think about it, Inspector General. Let me know when you¡¯re done thinking.¡±

    There was no time to think about it!

    ¡°Head over there first,¡± Kong Jie answered. ¡°I¡¯ll discuss this with the others and give you an answerter, but you can head out first. You cane back anytime if we can¡¯t afford it.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m busy!¡± Li Hao hung up again. <i>I¡¯m not an idiot, I¡¯m not doing that. You guys are geniuses to think of having me save Light Sword. In that case, you can pay through the nose for it!</i>

    ......

    Kong Jie looked at the others with a pained expression. ¡°He¡¯s named his terms of ten wood attribute origin weapons and thirty thousand pieces of mysterious power stones. They also need to be of the wood attribute. As for whether or not he¡¯ll use them on saving others or forprehending the wood aura... That¡¯s hard to determine. Saving Light Sword will certainly consume some of these resources. It¡¯s also a certainty that he¡¯s asking for the moon...¡±

    ¡°Can we ask Hong Yitang to convince Li Hao?¡± Huang Yu asked.

    ¡°Hong Yitang?¡± Kong Jie¡¯s headache intensified.

    ¡°Hong Yitang will only ask for more,¡± Director General Zhao saidnguidly. ¡°Li Hao just wants some resources, Hong Yitang will want independence. Do you want to let him be an independent fiefdom within Silver Moon? You can go to him if you want.¡±

    ¡°......¡± That would no longer be an issue of resources anymore!

    ¡°Then...¡±

    ¡°Stop,¡± Kong Jie interrupted. ¡°Do you think anyone other than Yuan Shuo can convince him? Light Sword really will die if we dy any longer. What we need to consider now is if she¡¯s worth the price. If she is, then we do it. If not, then we give up!¡±

    Was one Light Sword worth such arge expenditure?

    ¡°She¡¯s worth it if she stays in Silver Moon afterward,¡± the director general said softly. ¡°There aren¡¯t many martial masters like her anymore. If she¡¯s not willing, then it¡¯s not worth it. This is a test of character. If it was Southern Fist in her shoes, he wouldn¡¯t be worth it. His character isn¡¯t good enough as he reneges on his word often. But Light Sword... what do you guys think?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s another point to consider,¡± Kong Jie raised, ¡°Ifrge numbers of powerhouses are set on hunting her, will Li Hao even be able to see her if he goes? Will he have a chance to address her wounds? It will take more than a split second given the circumstances, he might need to take shelter in a quiet ce!¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s not think about that for now,¡± Director General Zhao breathed out gently. ¡°If Li Hao dares ept the mission, that means he has the confidence, or at least the spirit, to take this risk. We can give him the mysterious power stones, but origin weapons... and wood attribute ones... We don¡¯t have that many.

    ¡°Three, that is what we can spare. Ask him if he¡¯s willing to act for that number. Move out if he is, forget it if not. Light Sword is on her own then.¡±

    <i>Three origin weapons!</i>

    Kong Jie nodded and returned to the ck armor tomunicate with Li Hao.

    ......

    ¡°Three origin weapons?¡± Li Hao clucked his tongue. Those guys were rich, alright! They gave three wood origin weapons at the drop of a hat. Most importantly, they hadn¡¯t haggled in terms of mysterious power stones! That was thirty thousand stones!

    Hao Lianchuan had been beside himself with joy when he obtained a few dozen in Battle Heaven. <i>Oh director, how pitiful are you to be so overjoyed at a dozen mysterious power stones?</i>

    Just listen to that! Silver Moon was willing to pay thirty thousand stones to save Light Sword!

    Li Hao looked at Hao Lianchuan furiously absorbing energy; he suddenly pitied the man and didn¡¯t want to disturb him. However, he still said, ¡°Director Hao, Silver Moon is offering three origin weapons and thirty thousand mysterious power stones for me to save Light Sword. What do you think?¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Hao Lianchuan widened his eyes and stared at Li Hao. The young man repeated himself to the stunned man. Hao Lianchuan¡¯s jaw dropped and he stammered after a bit, ¡°You¡¯re... you¡¯re joking. How do they have so many reserves? I¡¯d believe three thousand stones, but thirty million in Silver Moon...¡±

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if you believe it or not.¡± Li Hao grinned.

    Hao Lianchuan opened his mouth to say something, but abruptly shut his eyes. This was too awful to consider, so he wouldn¡¯t think about it. This might... actually be real. The quickparison made him so pitiful in contrast. Were these old farts of Silver Moon really that wealthy??

    Thirty thousand pieces! What kind of concept was that? He¡¯d never seen so many mysterious power stones in his life!

    Meanwhile, Li Hao was debating whether or not to ept the mission. He¡¯d given these terms because he felt that Silver Moon wouldn¡¯t agree to them. Now that they had, a headache throbbed at his temples. It was very difficult to save someone, not to mention his target was being hunted by others. Her pursuers were also equally strong¡ªthis was the first part of the problem. The second was that who knew where Light Sword had run off to? Would he even be able to find the swordswoman? And yet, the wood origin weapons and mysterious power stones tempted him...

    Wasn¡¯t this all so he could grow stronger? He would also fulfill his promise to Light Sword. It would have nothing to do with him if the person died beforehand.

    ¡°Very well, I agree,¡± he sent amunication ripple through the armor system. ¡°But you pay half of it first and the remaining half after the mission isplete. If I don¡¯t get there in time and she¡¯s dead I¡¯m not returning the deposit!¡±

    ¡°Li Hao, you¡¯re part of the Night Watchers after all...¡±

    ¡°The Night Watchers are in charge of Silver Moon¡¯s protection and I didn¡¯t demand payment from anyone when I killed pirates. This is an additional mission, so why should I not require payment?¡±

    <i>Don¡¯t try to pull the ethics card on me. I don¡¯t know myself where my bottom line is.</i>

    ¡°Fine! Then how are you getting there...¡± Kong Jie nearly choked.

    ¡°Where is she, roughly? I¡¯ll go there myself. You better give me the items first. I¡¯ll head back to White Moon City right now¡ªyou guys can have someone meet me halfway. That will save some time.¡±

    ¡°Light Sword has fled north from the east. We¡¯re not certain of her exact location at the moment either. We can only be roughly sure that she¡¯ll follow the east coast and run toward the North Sea...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough!¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± It was enough for Li Hao to know the approximate location. All he needed was to scan the route with his eyes. Any ce with big balls of light could be where Light Sword was.

    But his strength was giving him pause. It was a frightening prospect to leave Silver Moon. After some thought, he turned to the little tree.

    ¡°Senior Tree, I need to leave for a bit on a more dangerous mission. The rewards are plenty, however. I¡¯ll be rewarded with thirty thousand of the mysterious power stones that you absorbed before and three wood origin weapons!¡±

    ¡°You want me to go with you?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s my thought!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°If the senior is worried, you can seal off this area first and then head out with me. The senior will be able to revive a portion of your strength from them, no? I feel that you expended too much energy before and cannot maintain your operations. This is why you can only bring Nova level strength to bear. If you can obtain more treasures and recover your energy, you¡¯ll be able to flex more strength.¡±

 Chapter 546: Entering the North Sea (III)

    <h4>Chapter 546: Entering the North Sea (III)</h4>

    Li Hao was including the little tree in his schemes, but thetter shook its body after some thought.

    ¡°No! I cannot leave at the moment! The pce needs to be guarded and the outside world... may not be friendly toward creatures like me...¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t insist upon receiving this kind of response.

    ¡°Are you willing to pay me a portion of the rewards?¡± the little tree suddenly asked.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    It grappled with internal conflict before saying with difficulty, ¡°I cannot apany you, but I can separate a portion of my core origin power for your use. You must pay me though, to make up for my loss!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. Separate a portion of its core origin power?

    ¡°With that portion, you canprehend the core origin once by yourself or use it as a consumable talisman. It will be the equivalent of a blow at my full strength¡ªwhich has enough potential to kill you...¡±

    So that meant to say he would gain a treasure that would either give him oneprehension opportunity or kill a mid Nova?

    ¡°Will any harme to you for doing that?¡±

    ¡°Naturally! Core origin power is very precious to us, but I am indeed expending more energy than I am taking in. Otherwise, no matter how much of this kind of trash there is on offer, I would not be swayed into severing my core origin.¡± As resigned as the little tree was, there was no helping it.

    ¡°Alright, then I am willing to pay ten thousand mysterious power stones and one origin weapon for the portion. If I still have not grasped the wood sword aura by the time Ie back, I¡¯ll give the remainder to Senior Tree and tryprehending core origin power again.¡±

    The little tree was surely inting the numbers¡ªnot that much was needed for one attempt. However, Li Hao was willing to pay the price since the offer had just fallen into hisp.

    The tree decisively cut off a portion of its crystalline roots. It fell into Li Hao¡¯s hand without exposing a sliver of presence.

    ¡°If you want to use it yourself, meld your dao with it to activate it. If you want to use it against enemies, simply activate it with mental strength...¡±

    Li Hao could see the little tree wilt noticeably. It looked to have consumed a great deal of resources to sever a portion of itself. ¡°My thanks, senior!¡±

    ¡°This is just for our mutual benefit.¡± The little tree didn¡¯t want his gratitude. It just hoped that the human would bring back sufficientpensation.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll leave my brothers here. I¡¯lle back as soon as possible if I¡¯m alright. If I do not return... Senior can just let them out!¡± Li Hao gave Liu Long a few more reminders before darting out of the hole.

    ......

    <i>Outside the mountain cave.</i>

    Li Hao took a deep breath. The sky was dark, but beginning to brighten. He immediately took to the sky to travel at top speed. He could go faster when not moving with the Demon Hunters. Martial masters could proceed through the air, albeit at a high cost to their internal force. Li Hao didn¡¯t care, however. Sword energy could offset his depletion so he didn¡¯t consume too many internal resources. He needed to obtain his deposit.

    ¡°Where are you?¡± sounded from the armor after a while of making fast time.

    ¡°Twenty-five kilometers from you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>How do you know that?</i>

    Kong Jie understood upon looking at the ck armor on him. <i>This thing is equipped with location services, isn¡¯t it? So the kid knew as soon as I left my office? </i>As useful as the equipment was, he couldn¡¯t use it too often. Otherwise, he¡¯d always be under Li Hao¡¯s surveince.

    Twenty-five kilometers wasn¡¯t too far; both sides were traveling at top speed. Li Hao noted a pinpoint of light representing Kong Jie¡¯s position before long¡ªthe ck armor location service. Kong Jie himself was also blinding, but the young man needed to be much closer to see his personal light.

    Quickly shing through the air, the two met momentster.

    ¡°Kid,¡± Kong Jie sighed when he saw Li Hao. ¡°If you¡¯d just outright agreed and not named any terms, I might¡¯ve been able to fight for an extremely good opportunity for you!¡±

    What a pity! If Li Hao hadn¡¯t countered with anything, the inspector general felt that he could¡¯ve raised the proposal of four institutions governing Silver Moon again. Li Hao had missed out on an exceedingly vital opportunity.

    But since the young man had named certain conditions, Huang Yu and Director General Zhao would both think that hecked the spirit of sacrifice. They wouldn¡¯t easily agree to letting Li Hao be part of them.

    ¡°What opportunity? Can it be more valuable than this?¡± Li Hao chuckled.

    ¡°You... just don¡¯t get it!¡± Kong Jie shook his head. If Li Hao could take his position among them, what he would gain was far more than what these resources were worth. Not only would his status be greatly elevated, but certain ssified secrets would be shared as well as offers of mutual help. The others would move to protect him if he was in trouble, that was a given.

    Unfortunately, Li Hao had missed out on all of that.

    The young man didn¡¯t care. Nothing was as good as opportunities held in his own hand. Three thousand mysterious power stones and three wood origin weapons were sufficient for him to tryprehending core origin power three times. Surely he would be sessful at grasping the wood sword aura then. If he could meld five auras together, he would be at leastte Nova or peak Nova, if not metamorphosis?

    Strength in his own hand was the truly valuable! Someone like Hong Yitang lived so free and unfettered because he grasped that power. Light Sword was worthy of Silver Moon paying such a hefty price to save her because of that power. One was pathetic without strength. <i>I can not use it, but I cannotck it.</i>

    ¡°Where is it, inspector general?¡±

    Kong Jie reluctantly tossed a storage ring to Li Hao. ¡°Ten thousand mysterious power stones and two wood origin weapons. The rest wille once you finish your mission. Since you¡¯e received payment, there¡¯s something you must do. You cannot say you saved Light Sword by yourself. You did so on behalf of the Silver Moon authorities, you must make that clear!¡±

    ¡°Of course, I would never do something that shady!¡± Li Hao nodded emphatically. ¡°But I also need to say that she made me promise to suppress her energy once. If I save her, that absolves me of that debt since I didn¡¯t say I was going to go out and help her!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s between the two of you!¡± Kong Jie didn¡¯t say much. They just wanted to make sure that Light Sword acknowledged she owed them a favor. ¡°I need to go back now, I can¡¯t stay outside for too long. These are sensitive times...¡± He turned to leave.

    ¡°Inspector General,¡± Li Hao called out. ¡°Do you guys not know to strike back if someone¡¯s got their eye on you?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Kong Jie sagged with resignation. ¡°The timing has not yet arrived!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Fine then. </i>Li Hao smirked silently. The timing has not yet arrived? It was always down to timing. What was the proper timing? <i>Whatever, it has nothing to do with me.</i>

    He took to the air and set course for the North Sea. He was taking someone else¡¯s money to help another person stave off disaster. A ck dog ran swiftly on the ground. Li Hao hadn¡¯t wanted to bring Panther at first and didn¡¯t even want to fight, really. He would save the woman if there was a chance to, but forgo it if not. He¡¯d already said that if there wasn¡¯t an optimal opening, he was keeping the deposit.

    Panther, however, seemed ufortable where it was. It swiftly followed the young man when he left. Li Hao had no choice but to let the dog do as it would. Panther was strong and their safety was more assured with it present.

    Li Hao sped through the skies; the two entered the vicinity of the North Sea before long. He summoned the Divine Kun Ship with a wave of his hand. When human and dog boarded the vessel, he took out the crystalline root.

    What talisman for a single, fatal blow? <i>That would be an idiotic use of the treasure!</i> He would make use of this time toprehend the core origin once more. He wouldn¡¯t need an offensive talisman with the strength of a mid orte Nova if he produced a wood sword aura!

    The young man sent his mind intent into the object. As before, a faint might enveloped Li Hao and seemed to send him into another universe. He started growing with the tree again.

    <i>As Li Haoprehended core origin power.</i>

    <i>The depths of the North Sea.</i>

    A major monster spirit slumbered in an opulent structure at the bottom of the sea. It abruptly opened its eyes, sensing a special ripple with some confusion.

    ¡°Core origin power...¡± it murmured after a long time. ¡°Are there still core origin monster spirits alive in this day and age, and traveling through the North Sea?¡±

    It wanted to investigate and take a look... but quickly dismissed the notion with a soft sigh. It could not brashly investigate or leave its abode. The world was different now! Those guys in the ruins might think it was the same, but the sea monster had felt such a long time ago that things were different.

    ......

    Li Hao was oblivious and immersed inprehension. He sprouted and put down roots like a tree, waving its branches around and swaying with the wind. One year, two years, three years...

    Countless eons passed in his memory, but only a quick moment in reality. The core origin power around him dispersed; the young man opened his eyes. Crystalline dust piled in his hand and dissipated upon the wind.

    A lost look tinged with regret appeared in his eyes. If he had just one more opportunity... he would seed! He knew that he was only a little ways off! That stirring vitality, the call to action... He was almost there. He¡¯d failed only because the experience hadn¡¯tsted until the treeprehended its core origin. Li Hao ground his teeth. What a pity! He should¡¯ve hung on!

    Or perhaps the little tree had done that on purpose because if Li Hao seeded, he wouldn¡¯te back.

    ¡°Almost...¡± Li Hao took a deep breath and quickly regained his calm. He might not need to continue visiting the small tree. Perhaps he could spar with a powerhouse. His teacher hadprehended his five auras in much worse conditions and strength, but he¡¯d seeded all the same. Yuan Shuo had fought again and again to manifest his.

    The Divine Kun Ship sped through the waves. Panther lolled listlessly at the stern. It was bored and fishing with its tail. What was Panth thinking?<i> Can you get any fish with the ship moving so fast?</i>

    Panther¡¯s tail shot upright when it sensed Li Hao¡¯s gaze. Arge fish was strung on it. The dog looked at Li Hao with confusion. <i>Do you want some?</i>

    ¡°......¡± <i>I thought you were casting your tail for fish, but you¡¯re more like spear fishing!</i>

    Panther wagged its tail and sent the fish back into the water when Li Hao showed no signs of wanting to eat it. The dog didn¡¯t want to eat the fish either. It just seemed to have a memory of someone liking to eat fish and using their tail to fish.

 Chapter 547: Entering the North Sea (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 547: Entering the North Sea (IV)</h4>

    As Li Hao sped toward the North Sea, some chaos was urring over the waters. The various pirate factions received word that Light Sword was about to cross the East Sea and enter the North Sea.

    <i>The White Shark Raiders.</i>

    There was another figure standing next to White Shark. He wore a mask and rasped, ¡°General White Shark, upstairs has given word that it¡¯s best if you can kill Light Sword and take her Windchaser Boot! Of course, it¡¯s even better if you can capture her alive.¡±

    ¡°Five of the Steadfast Duke¡¯s generals were killed in an instant, are you sure it can be done?¡± White Shark frowned.

    ¡°That was before, Light Sword is hanging onto life by a thread. More importantly is that many people will be fishing in troubled waters. However, the North Sea is our domain...¡±

    White Shark remained nomittal. <i>Our domain?</i> That was too much. The White Shark Raiders did not lead the eight great pirate factions. His number two and three had just died and internal confusion roiled his organization. This was not a good time.

    And yet, the speaker hade from upstairs. Although White Shark wasn¡¯t afraid since he was stronger than his fellowmanders, there was no need for open hostilities. He thought for a bit before saying, ¡°Light Sword may be looking to flee to Silver Moon and hoping that its martial masters will save her. We don¡¯t need to go to great effort. We maye across her if we wait here.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m afraid that she¡¯ll be dead before she reaches us,¡± cautioned Mask Face. ¡°Why don¡¯t you draw closer to the East Sea...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll think about it!¡± White Shark couldn¡¯t be bothered with the suggestion. That was someone else¡¯s territory. He¡¯d just be creating trouble for himself if he went. He rather hoped that Light Sword would make it to Silver Moon. Those chasing her might follow and create trouble for the province. That would give him a chance to move against Li Hao.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, at the intersection of the East and North Sea borders.</i>

    Blood dripped continuously from Light Sword¡¯s wounds and she asionally threw up pieces of internal organs. She was alive because light power surged through her body, suppressing her wounds.

    She wasn¡¯t entirely without hope, even though she¡¯d extracted a promise from Li Hao. Light energy was extremely suited for healing and recovery. Anyone else would have long self-detonated, but she¡¯d gone on a fugitive run and was still alive for it. Some hope shone in her eyes, but it was gradually extinguishing.

    Those behind her gave chase relentlessly. The key thing was, news of her deeds and escape had spread like wildfire. Powerhouses were already beginning to encircle her. inly, it was tempting that the Steadfast Duke hadn¡¯t been able to capture her.

    Light Sword looked at the North Sea ahead. She needed to cross it and enter the Moon Sea to count as having truly set foot into Silver Moon territory. But there were more than five hundred miles separating the two sides!

    She probably wouldn¡¯t make it that far.

    <i>I did my best...</i> she murmured inwardly. There was no way out of this, but even so, she would not go down without a fight!

    Light Sword continued to run, wanting to see who would be the first to jump out and take a stand. She would kill some of them even if her organspletely ruptured. She would have the world know that Light Sword was matchless and unrivaled!

    Any of Silver Moon¡¯s Seven Swords was not trash if they¡¯d lived to present day. Granted, she walked an ancient cultivation path that wasn¡¯tplete. That didn¡¯t concern her, Light Sword had always ignored her slow rate of improvement.

    Time passed bit by bit; the solemn look in Light Sword¡¯s eyes intensified. Too many hade! It¡¯d only been such a short period of time, but she could sense there were at least ten Novas jockeying for position behind her. They were all very powerful¡ªnot just initial Novas.

    There might be even more waiting in front for her.

    ......

    Li Hao was now fully in North Sea territory. The limitless water coaxed him onto the ship¡¯s deck. This was his first time out of Silver Moon¡¯s jurisdiction. When he fought the pirates before, he¡¯d done so within the Moon Sea.

    The waves of the North Sea were even bigger! They pped the water with deafening rumbles. Li Hao, however, felt like he was on top of the world. The North Sea was beautiful! What a pity it didn¡¯t belong to Silver Moon.

    Panther also looked around curiously. What a big sea. What a beautiful sea!

    Man and dog stooped at the ship¡¯s bow, unconcerned about danger and simply luxuriated in thefort of witnessing an even greater world. <i>Perhaps I should¡¯ve left with Hou Xiaochen,</i> Li Hao suddenly thought.

    The sea and sky were boundless. As the Divine Kun Ship skimmed the waves, the young man was in fine fettle at seeing a bigger world. This was so different from the Moon Sea as both shores were visible from the water when it came to thetter. It was a bit too narrow to be called a sea. The North Sea, however, ran boundless from side to side.

    Li Hao stood at the ship¡¯s bow and peered around him. So this was the North Sea. The core of the dynasty¡ªthe central region¡ªwas surrounded by seas on all sides. The North, South, East and West Seas bordered the central region, thetter split the dynasty into two major portions.

    The young man looked to the south¡ªthere was the central continent. However, Battle Heaven intelligence indicated that it might be an ind instead, not a core continent. Li Hao gently flicked his sword as he observed the surroundings. To sway along the wind like a willow leaf. The sword was nimble and agile.

    As the Divine Kun Ship shot ahead, some balls of light came into hazy perception. Though they were very far away, they weren¡¯t too far if Li Hao could see them. He steered the ship toward them and came across a merchant ship. There were people on the decks; Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with a closer look after quickly determining they weren¡¯t pirates.

    The little ship cut through the waves, leaving a faint mirage for those on the merchant ship to look at. It wasn¡¯t tangible enough to be identified, so another urban legend was likely to be added to the North Sea repertoire after today. There might be a new story of big fish appearing in the sea in the dead of night, ones that were as fast as the shuttle of a loom.

    ......

    The little ship quickly came across another ship, one that looked like another merchant vessel, but was filled with supernaturals. There were two Srs and nearly one hundred supernaturals.

    Ships like these were most likely pirates. There was the asional surprise that they might be part of an army sent out to eradicate pirates, but that was very rare!

    Li Hao pushed off from the deck and soared into the air. He darted through the void and hovered over the ship. Ears twitching, he momentarily eavesdropped to confirm that they were indeed a band of pirates. Sword light shed!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The ship hold exploded amid a series of outraged shouts. Srs roared with anger as sword light illuminated the void.

    ¡°Who are you and what enmity do you have with us?!¡± shouted one of the Srs. ¡°We are the Brokensea Army...¡±

    The Brokensea Army was just a cover¡ªthey were the Brokensea Raiders of the eight pirate factions.

    Li Hao sent a head flying through the air with a flick of his sword.

    ¡°Li Hao of the Five Styles discipline!¡± he chuckled, shing down with his sword and detonating the pirates beneath him!

    The Sr who¡¯d shouted was already headless on the ground. The entire ship of pirates followed theirrade¡¯s footsteps in death. Li Hao waved a few storage rings into his hand. He couldn¡¯t be bothered to scan them and only determined that there were no more people alive on the ship. He punctured the vessel with his sword and filled it with water, watching it sink.

    With that, he jumped back onto the Divine Kun Ship. That hadn¡¯t taken a lot of time. He would draw his sword if he saw anything unfair along the way. He didn¡¯t like pirates. When martial masters liked something, they liked it. When they didn¡¯t, they used their own methods to make the target disappear. Li Hao seemed to be acting more freely after leaving Silver Moon.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Li Hao called out when he saw Panther ying with the pirates that¡¯d jumped into the water.

    A smile seemed to appear on the dog¡¯s face and it smacked onest pirate to death. Floundering a few times, it swam back to the ship. The little ship continued on its way while therge ship behind it was lost beneath the waves. A one-hundred-person team of the eight pirate factions led by Srs abruptly vanished amid the deep blue.

    Li Hao made quick time, pausing to kill any pirate ships he came across. This was also a way to look for Light Sword as she might show herself if he killed enough people.

    The sky was bright now as sunrise broke over the sea. The wheel of red rising over the waters was exceedingly beautiful as it illuminated the depths. Li Hao looked into the distance with a furrowed brow. It was three hours since he entered the sea and the Divine Kun Ship was making fast time. It¡¯d covered at least five hundred kilometers, but there was still no sight of Light Sword to be found. He was worried about missing the other as well as the sea was too expansive. If she kept to one side, they might just miss each other.

    He could see balls of light in this unbroken expanse and could probably identify a Nova from ten thousand meters away. That only made for ten kilometers, which was far too short in the sea.

    ¡°It¡¯s too hard to find her!¡± Li Hao sighed and looked at the dog. ¡°Panth, do you smell anything?¡±

    Panther shook its head after a twitch of its nose. There were limits to its sense of smell and it wasn¡¯t easy trying to find someone across such a stretch of water.

    <i>Perhaps... I should grab a powerhouse and ask them questions.</i>

    The eight pirate factions seemed to have a strong intelligencework. They should know where Light Sword was. However, none of them were ideal to offend.

    <i>Or perhaps a merchant convoy or tradingpany...</i>

    There were high numbers of merchants in the sea. They ferried central resources to the four corners and brought curiosities from the four corners to the central region. Their business spanned arge scale and ran across the four seas. All of them were backed by major factions. Their sources of information were very thorough as well.

    As they sailed the four seas, they were typically cordial with the pirates. Some of them were merchants one second ago and pirates the next. This was what Golden Spear¡¯s information said; Li Hao wouldn¡¯t have known otherwise.

    It was exceedingly difficult trying to find someone in the vast seas. But once he had an idea in mind, the young man worked quickly. He crossed another fifty kilometers in the blink of an eye, bearing down on three ships that were either a merchant convoy or pirates.

    When he drew closer, he sensed that they should be merchants. One conspicuous factor of pirates was that they possessed no ordinary people on their ships. The pirates might nurture new recruits, but they would never do so on a ship. They had their bases, the inds, or even on shore on the maind.

    Merchants would have supernaturals protecting them, but not many. A g fluttered from the lead ship¡ªLi Hao recognized it. He was a deputy director of the Night Watchers now, he knew of the more famous designs. This one was a gold coin g of the Ministry of Finance.

 Chapter 548: Sword Unsheathed! (I)

    <h4>Chapter 548: Sword Unsheathed! (I)</h4>

    <i>A merchant convoy from the Ministry of Finance?</i>

    Li Hao thought back to the Liu youngster who¡¯d died in Battle Heaven¡ªhe seemed to have been from the Ministry of Finance too. But that had nothing to do with Li Hao, it was Qi Gang and Hu Qingfeng who¡¯d killed him.

    The nine ministries all had their own gs. Skystar Dynasty also had its own g as well. It just hadn¡¯t flown in many years. There were three Srs in residence on the ship. It looked like the Ministry of Finance was very strong!

    Li Hao rose into the air and flew toward the ship. A man in his thirties kept a weather eye out. The sky was bright enough that he could easily pick out the powerhouse approaching from above. They exuded no presence, which meant they were either a premier martial master or a Nova!

    ¡°Who goes there?! We are the Four Seaspany under the Ministry of Finance, a faction of the nine ministries...¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Li Haonded as the man was speaking. Thetter¡¯s expression shifted drastically and a dozen supernaturals converged on the decks. Everyone was on high alert and very worried. Who was so bold as to attack a ship of the Four Seas??

    Li Hao disyed a medallion in his hand. ¡°I am a high level chiefmissioner from the Night Watchers...¡±

    ¡°How dare you!¡± roared a supernatural when they heard the neer was a Night Watcher. ¡°How dare Night Watchers barge onto a vessel of the Four Seas! Which branch are you from?¡±

    Li Hao blinked, then smirked. ¡°You shrink and cower when you see pirates, buty down thew when you see the Night Watchers!¡± He kicked out his leg!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The speaker was sent flying and smashed onto the deck. Li Hao looked at the man in charge. Thetter wanted to speak, but a sh of sword light cut him off. Cold sweat drenched him as his hair fluttered to the ground.

    ¡°They say that the nine ministries are the same as the three great organizations. I didn¡¯t believe it before, but now... I do.¡± Li Hao said this because the man had seemed ready to attack. When the young man revealed his identity as a Night Watcher, it drew hostile action instead! These guys had been more apprehensive when he was an unknown factor.

    Was this a tradingpany under the nine ministries¡¯ jurisdiction? They were worse than the pirates!

    ¡°Chief Commissioner... I...¡± The man swallowed hard.

    ¡°Cut the bullshit. Have you received word? Light Sword has been surrounded and seems to have entered the North Sea. Do you know where she is?¡±

    The man¡¯s heart skipped a beat. Why was this person asking about Light Sword? He must be very strong. Was he a premier martial master? Or a premier Nova? But would a character like that only be a chiefmissioner?

    He didn¡¯t dare say anything other than answer the question. ¡°We received word two hours ago, telling us to avoid certain areas...¡±

    ¡°What do you use tomunicate?¡±

    The man paused, hesitated, and took out a jade pendant. ¡°This is a transmission pendant excavated from the ancient ruins. We started using them several years ago. The major organizations and factions all have them.¡±

    Puzzled, he snuck a nce at Li Hao. This one... wasn¡¯t pretending to be a Night Watcher, was he? It didn¡¯t make sense that he wouldn¡¯t know this at his level of strength.

    ¡°This transmission pendant can reach fifteen hundred kilometers. Every organization or faction can respond quickly because there¡¯s a transmission hub in certain locations. They can ry messages to specific people or dissemble them on arge scale. That requires time, however, and sometimes the transmission hub doesn¡¯t receive the news in time...¡±

    Li Hao was surprised by the jade pendant. Was this so? So they had methods like these to call upon? He really didn¡¯t know about this. No wonder news traveled very fast sometimes¡ªsuch as when battle exploded in the eastern region. Silver Moon knew of it in less than five hours. Not even the fastest messenger could travel so quickly.

    The ancient civilization was incredible alright! That much was obvious from the armor.

    Li Hao carefully looked it over and saw that there was small text on it already. The man exined nervously upon seeing in interest, ¡°This kind of pendant can only store ten messages as there isn¡¯t enough memory inscribed inside. Any message it receives is disyed on the surface. If you wish to send one back, look for the red button on the pendant. You can press it, input your message, and send it to the closest transmission hub.¡±

    It wasn¡¯t the most convenient, but far more superior to modern daymunication equipment. Li Hao did indeed find some messages stored in it upon closer inspection. Thetest was two hours ago.

    ¡°Light Sword has entered the North Sea and is being pursued by various powerhouses. Battle will soonmence. All personnel in the North Sea are advised to retreat. Light Sword is strong and many are hunting her...¡±

    She¡¯d entered the North Sea two hours ago! Li Hao swiftly reviewed a mental map of the sea¡ªit was very big. She could¡¯ve covered five hundred kilometers at most after entering from the east. That was how much he¡¯d traveled himself.

    That meant they were still far from each other as the North Sea didn¡¯t just run from Silver Moon to the East Sea. It spanned the entire province along shorelines that were not connected to Silver Moon. That indicated there was at least another fifteen hundred kilometers between them. Even if they traveled at full speed, they wouldn¡¯t meet for another two or three hours. And full speed really meant full speed, they would have to cross more than two hundred kilometers an hour.

    <i>No wonder I haven¡¯t found her yet...</i> Li Hao realized with resignation. Added to that the time she''d spent before, it was incredible that Light Sword was still alive after almost ten hours of running. She likely wasn¡¯t utilizing her full strength to escape either, and it¡¯d take him another couple of hours to rush over.

    As Li Hao read the messages, the man in front of him sweated profusely and secretly observed the Night Watcher. There were many Night Watcher organizations around them¡ªNear River, North Sea, and Sea Mountain were all possibilities. Which one was this powerhouse from? Or was he just borrowing their name?

    ¡°Can I borrow this?¡± Li Hao suddenly looked at the man.

    ¡°Of course!¡± He nodded rapidly. ¡°You can take it anytime you wish, sir.¡±

    ¡°Is this also a tracking device?¡±

    The man paused, then nodded. ¡°Yes, but we can¡¯t see the location data. Only some of the transmission hubs can.¡±

    ¡°If I wish to ask for information, will I need some sort of code, secret passkey, or special greeting?¡±

    The man groaned inwardly, conflicted. This he didn¡¯t dare answer. It was one thing for his transmission pendant to be seized, that was no big deal. There were indeed some secret passcodes to prevent information from being stolen and the secrets of the nine ministries from being lost. Revealing these secrets, however, was an enormous crime!

    ¡°What, are the Night Watchers unable to be supported with some intelligence reports?¡± A grinning Li Hao understood.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that, sir, just that the Night Watchers are a different system from us. I...¡±

    ¡°Very well!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t force the issue. Heughed as he looked at the supernaturals around him. ¡°You haven¡¯t been pirates, have you?¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°You haven¡¯t done what pirates would do, have you?¡± Li Hao repeated calmly.

    The bottom fell out of the man¡¯s stomach and he hastily shook his head. ¡°Of course not, we¡¯re a group under the nine ministries at the end of the day. We¡¯re different from the others. If discovered... Ahem, we cannot dishonor the nine ministries.¡±

    ¡°It wouldn¡¯t matter,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Whether it¡¯s the merchant ships, tradingpanies, or pirates, it¡¯s all the same! But a group directly under the nine ministries wouldn¡¯t stoop so low as to raid the ordinary citizens on the shorelines, would you?¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡± the man protested. ¡°We would never do something like that!¡±

    Li Hao said nothing further and turned to leave. The man couldn¡¯t hold himself in check, considering his pendant had been confiscated.

    ¡°If I may... ask your name... sir...?¡± he ventured carefully, regretting his words almost as soon as he said them. He shouldn¡¯t have asked! People unaware of his intentions might think he wanted revenge. But he absolutely didn¡¯t, not at all!

    It was just a jade pendant, he could find an excuse for that. And upstairs wouldn¡¯t fault him if he really couldn¡¯t ovee the enemy. Asking so bluntly like this... was asking for trouble!

    ¡°Li Hao of Silver Moon!¡± the young man answered with a smile, departing through the air as the crowd grappled with what they¡¯d heard.

    <i>Li Hao of Silver Moon!</i>

    ¡°Li Hao of Silver Moon...¡± The man¡¯s expression shifted drastically when Li Hao was gone. ¡°Disciple of the Five Styles and of Yuan Shuo, heir to the eight families...¡±

    What was this guy doing out here? Wasn¡¯t he in Silver Moon? And that wasn¡¯t the crux of the issue¡ªthere was a message regarding Li Hao in the pendant! <i>Please please please don¡¯t see it.</i>

    In reality, Li Hao had seen it already. He just didn¡¯t care.

    ¡°After the Four Seaspany enters Silver Moon and concludes their business, they are to stay in the province for a period of time and collect information regarding Li Hao of Silver Moon...¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t find it strange that the nine ministries were interested in him. He wouldn¡¯t even be surprised if they had designs on him and wanted to seize the sword. Neither would he be taken aback if they wanted to just kill him. Thus, the man¡¯s worries were misced.

    ¡°Sir, that Li Hao is too arrogant!¡± Someone next to the man couldn¡¯t help but protest as he stared in the direction Li Hao had vanished in. ¡°It looks like he¡¯s going to seek out Light Sword. He¡¯ll be dead before long if he¡¯s this cocky! There''s a lot of people who want to kill him...¡±

    The man flicked a nce at him and raised an eyebrow. ¡°Would you still be speaking if that¡¯d been the three great organizations or a heavyweight from the pirates?¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± His subordinate blinked. What did that mean? Of course he wouldn¡¯t! Those people were so cruel!

    The man sighed inwardly and said nothing else. Li Hao had been right. Everyone was afraid of the three great organizations, the eight pirate factions, but not the official authorities¡ªfor no reason other than they were subordinates of the nine ministries!

    This was a frequently seen issue as they could do nothing to those factions. But when it came to the official authorities, there was plenty they could do to those they knew.

    However, everyone would be well served to remember Li Hao¡¯s other identity.

 Chapter 549: Sword Unsheathed! (II)

    <h4>Chapter 549: Sword Unsheathed! (II)</h4>

    ¡°Li Hao is a Silver Moon martial master!¡± The man suddenly turned back to say as he prepared to leave.

    The person who¡¯d been speaking paused, as did the expressions of those around them shift. They¡¯d almost forgotten this detail! That was a Silver Moon barbarian! Li Hao wasn¡¯t a Night Watcher of the central region, but a savage of the southern hintends.

    There were some other Silver Moon martial masters in the central region who killed without blinking¡ªSky Sword, for example. Yuan Shuo had also imed the spotlight for a previous duration of time. They were both exceedingly vicious martial masters. Light Sword had killed five Novas with one move¡ªshe was a Silver Moon martial master as well.

    inly, the identity of a Silver Moon martial master was much more menacing. No one in the crowd said anything further. Night Watchers were easy to bully, but Silver Moon martial masters were not.

    ......

    The little ship continued to thread through the waves. Li Hao smiled when he thought back to what¡¯d just happened and shook his head slightly. Certain thoughts that rose in his mind were quickly extinguished.

    <i>The nine ministries...</i>

    To be honest, life was passable these days. The proliferation of certain technologies made people¡¯s lives much easier. This had much to do with the nine ministries.

    Prior to their governance, the royal family held charge of the world for one hundred and twenty years. They¡¯d deviated from their original mandate and levied onerous taxes, ruled with a heavy fist, and didn¡¯t concern themselves with the lives of the people. The royal family hadmitted all sorts of crimes. Life was truly difficult back then.

    Therefore, although people were far removed from the nine ministries and didn¡¯t understand them too well, they more or less trusted and were grateful to the ministries. But the more that Li Hao came to know them on a deeper level, the more he realized that the nine ministries had be evil dragons themselves.

    Theirck of worthwhile action was their biggest mistake. They permitted supernaturals to run rampant, allowed the three great organizations to rise and grow, permitted internal conflict to spread...

    Many thoughts rose to the forefront of Li Hao¡¯s mind and quickly faded away again. <i>This has nothing to do with me for the moment. </i>The most pressing issues were to increase his strength, a rescue mission, and an obligation to save others after receiving pay to do so. Of this, he was well aware of.

    Upon learning of Light Sword¡¯s approximate position, Li Hao picked up speed again. The Divine Kun Ship seemed to fly through the waves as it churned ever faster. This was to Li Hao¡¯s immense satisfaction as he quite liked this origin weapon.

    ......

    <i>Roughly five hundred kilometers away from Li Hao.</i>

    Light Sword shouted authoritatively and shed with her sword, detonating a powerhouse that was obstructing her. She vomited a mouthful of blood and quickly fled the scene, a vicious glint in her eyes. Momentster, her ears twitched and she swiftly darted down, vanishing beneath the waves.

    Powerhouses appeared on all sides momentster. Someone looked at the scene and proimed calmly, ¡°She¡¯s at the end of her tether! But it¡¯s best not to approach her at the moment, be careful of her striking back in her final breaths of life!¡±

    ¡°Her direction seems to indicate that she wants to go to Silver Moon for help. But who will save her after Hou Xiaochen¡¯s departed?¡±

    ¡°Our intelligence reports indicate that their main leaders are still inside the province, particrly Huang Yu of the army¡ªhe hasn¡¯t left White Moon City. There¡¯s nothing to worry about.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The various heavyweightsmunicated with each other. A middle-aged man in particr raised a cupped fist salute to the four corners.

    ¡°The Windchaser Boots are the family legacy of the Xus. Whether it is to kill Light Sword, seize the treasure, or anything else... All is fine. My father, the family patriarch has said that we are willing to pay ten thousand mysterious power stones and an origin weapon to anyone who obtains eh boots. We will not take any of the other treasures she carries!

    ¡°The Windchaser Boots are a pair, Light Sword only has one of them. You will not be able to use them if you obtain them, they will just be decor. We will remember well anyone who renders aid to our family!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re too polite, young master duke!¡± some chuckled in response while others ignored him. The Xus were offering a high, very high price! It was good for wandering cultivators and those who didn¡¯t have the ability to fight the Xus. No one was unmoved by the thought of ten thousand mysterious power stones. They might grab the boots if they were lucky enough.

    But for the bigger organizations and factions, the Windchaser Boots were the most important target of all. They did not need what the Xus were offering. Anyone who reached Nova or dared hunt a Nova was a heavyweight. All of them were!

    The young master duke they spoke of at the rear of the crowd was the eldest son of the Steadfast Duke¡ªXu Zhen, Xu Feng¡¯s father. He frowned slightly when not that many people answered him.

    <i>Damn it! </i>He cursed inwardly with resignation. Who knew that Light Sword could hold on for so long after breaking her supernatural locks? It was incredible! She was at the end of her rope and didn¡¯t dare utilize her strongest moves anymore. However, chasing her for so long had drawn a great deal of powerful attention. If this continued, he couldn¡¯t be certain of retrieving the Windchaser Boots.

    His father had sent him with people under his banner to retrieve the treasure. If Xu Zhen didn¡¯t perform properly, then his younger brother would step up without giving him space to breathe and probably take his ce as the heir.

    Xu Zhen continued cursing inwardly and led his men in continued pursuit. Five of the eight generals were dead; the other three had important missions to attend to. That didn¡¯t leave the estate without powerhouses, however. Some were with him right now, a few resident experts that were known in the east.

    The Steadfast Duke wasn¡¯t the only overlord of the east; as strong as he was, he still recruited many powerhouses. The eastern provinces were a cut above the northern provinces¡ªthetter was quite poor and the supernatural domain a barren affair. There was almost no energy in the air in even the most fertile regions, whereas plenty could be found in the east. It was subpar to the central region only by a hair.

    ¡°Deputymissioner, a lot of people havee,¡± transmitted an elder with white hair as they followed their target. ¡°It¡¯s been a while, giving enough time for the nine ministries, three great organizations, seven divine mountains, and some from the real family to arrive.¡±

    The royal family! Xu Zhen frowned, did the royal family want a share of the profits? He recognized some people as well as a few representatives from surrounding provinces. These people wouldn¡¯t necessarily dare offend the duke, but the factions that the old man had just mentioned wouldn¡¯t care about the Steadfast Duke.

    ¡°Hasn¡¯t Red Moon withdrawn on all sides? What are they doing here?¡±

    ¡°I seem to have sensed the ck Widow¡¯s presence. She was going to go to Silver Moon, but dithered in the North Sea. She probably received news as it developed and came here...¡±

    ck Widow¡ªOrange Moon. Xu Zhen understood. ¡°I hear that her daughter¡¯s been captured and they¡¯re demanding that she turn herself in. Is she really going to go to Silver Moon?¡±

    ¡°That I¡¯m not sure of. There¡¯s word from Red Moon that Ying Hongyue has said they will trade treasures for Violet Moon. If Silver Moon doesn¡¯t agree, Red Moon will take revenge on the province. I feel that if Silver Moon doesn¡¯t wish to fully erupt in open hostilities, they will agree to the swap.¡±

    Red Moon hadn¡¯t taken much actiontely, but they were building their reputation all the same. Violet Moon had been taken, Orange Moon set out to rescue her, and Red Moon put out word that they would trade treasures for person. If Silver Moon refused, then all bets were off the table.

    With Hou Xiaochen¡¯s departure, however, Silver Moon hadn¡¯t had time to handle the matter. They didn¡¯t have the ability to respond, so Violet Moon was still locked up in the Inspectorate at the moment.

    The group traveled swiftly as they chatted. Xu Zhen was no bumpkin. The Steadfast Duke only had two legitimate sons. He had a few sons with his concubines, but none of them had the right to inherit the duchy. Only Xu Zhen and his younger brother were the legitimate heirs. They¡¯d fought each other in public and under the table for many years, not daring to fall behind in martial dao or the supernatural.

    Xu Chen was not a martial master. He was a supernatural who¡¯d crossed over tote Nova a long time ago. He steadily proceeded to peak Nova. While he wasn¡¯t as strong as some of those present, he was no weakling either. His son Xu Feng had been a standout amongst the younger generation as a young mid Nova. What a pity he¡¯d died in Silver Moon!

    The more he thought about this, the more irate Xu Zhen became. His son had been one of his greatest advantages and the old duke had always treated him well. Ever since Xu Feng¡¯s death, the old duke had been much nicer to his second son.

    There was no helping it, thetter¡¯s daughter was also a genius. Although she was less than Xu Feng, she was also a Nova. Thank goodness she was a girl. Xu Zhen would find it hard to eat or sleep if she was a boy.

    <i>I will regain my standing only if I kill Light Sword, retrieve the Windchaser Boots, and wash this shame from my family. </i>

    ¡°Hurry, keep after her! Don¡¯t give her a chance to rest and recover,¡± he shouted. ¡°Her light energy can heal, but there¡¯s also a limit to it. She can¡¯t keep it up forever!¡±

    Everyone knew by now why Light Sword could endure to her present state; she had a very special power. Not only could it kill, it could also heal. She had been suppressing her injuries¡ªordinary people would¡¯ve long dead. That Light Sword was still alive meant that her life force was also incredibly stubborn.

    ......

    Light Sword sank into the sea, swiftly clearing up the unfocused look in her eyes. She propelled herself forward, unable to shake off the people following her. She was unable to use her full strength¡ªshe would explode if she did. It was already the limits of her abilities that she could still use a peak Nova¡¯s strength. Her pursuers wouldn¡¯t follow her so closely otherwise.

    She had almost fully consumed her inner strength. If she wasn¡¯t a martial master, she would long be running empty. As it were, her body could still supply some internal force.

    The woman took out a pill and swallowed it, revitalizing her fading spirits. She didn¡¯t know how much longer she could hold on. Perhaps an hour, perhaps ten minutes... But she didn¡¯t want to go down like this.

    She was beginning to regret her actions. Perhaps she could¡¯ve contacted Silver Moon before she made her move and have Li Haoe to the east first, if not receive more outright support. At least the young man could¡¯ve helped her more quickly.

    Of course, Li Hao probably wouldn¡¯t agree to it, but Light Sword felt that it wasn¡¯t impossible. It was toote to think of that now. The crux was that the Steadfast Duke had been stronger than she anticipated. He¡¯d withstood her attacks without unsealing himself and merged unscathed. That had been horrifying and forced her to snap all of her locks!

 Chapter 550: Sword Unsheathed! (III)

    <h4>Chapter 550: Sword Unsheathed! (III)</h4>

    <i>The North Sea.</i>

    More merchant ships appeared along the way as Li Hao continued on his route. There were also more pirates, but to Li Hao¡¯s amazement, there wasn¡¯t the expected atmosphere of animosity between the two! He even saw a few pirates board the merchant vessels, then merrily return to their ships while escorted by fawning managers.

    ¡°You can take down the White Shark g now,¡± a voice traveled into his ear. ¡°That trash White Shark ate a huge loss in Silver Moon and there probably won¡¯t be a ce for him in the North Sea in the future. You guys can cut down on your expenses a bit and forgo what you usually pay to him. Of course, more taxes will go to the other factions, but it won¡¯t add up to what you used to pay White Shark...¡±

    ¡°Thank you, milord soldier!¡± ttered a manager.

    The wind carried these words to Li Hao¡¯s ear. <i>Expenses... taxes... milord soldier...</i> No, these were pirates. He was certain these were pirates. But these pirates were tantly extracting taxes from merchants that operated in these waters. They no longer raided their targets!

    Raiding and looting was to catch fish by draining the pond. Collecting taxes, no matter how heavy they were, was a much more lucrative and eptable practice. Commerce was immensely profitable and certain tradingpanies were willing to pay the tolls. Even after taking this expense into ount, they were still able to reap massive profits.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t take action on this encounter, he was running short on time. Hemitted a few faces to memory and recalled some other ones. Each of the eight pirate factions had their own g. The White Shark Raiders had been ranked fourth¡ªan enormous shark featured on their g.

    The most famous and strongest pirate faction was the Starlight Pirates. They imed everything that starlight touched to be their territory. If rumors were to be believed, they boasted of ten thousand supernaturals in their ranks. Regardless of whether or not that was true, they surely had many powerhouses among them.

    The White Shark Raiders only had threemanders, whereas the leader of the Starlight Pirates imed to be the North Sea King. His nine direct subordinates were the Nine Starlight Dukes¡ªself-styled dukes, as they were. Their g bore ten stars, a nod to twinkling cosmic radiance. The North Sea King and Nine Starlight Dukes jointly ruled the Starlight Pirates.

    Information quickly shed through Li Hao¡¯s mind. He didn¡¯t know if he¡¯d run into any of them as he was now in the North Sea. They couldn¡¯t possibly ignore the happenings as they were the greatest faction of the area; they may want to get involved.

    Something twitched in his pocket and the young man took out the jade pendant from earlier. There was a new line of text on it.

    ¡°Ship 307 of the Four Seas tradingpany, you are off course. You are not to proceed on your current route. Battle urred four hundred kilometers ahead of you ten minutes ago. Light Sword killed a Nova and adjusted her bearing toward you!¡± Li Hao blinked, was the message for him?

    Actually, it might be. The ship he¡¯d boarded earlier might¡¯ve been number 307. Then this meant the transmission hub was locked onto the pendant¡¯s location and noticed that it was off course. Although he was very far away at four hundred kilometers, he might soone across Light Sword if he continued at his current speed.

    <i>That warning¡¯s a bit useless... or is it just to confuse me? </i>His speed was so fast that it was beyond the capacity of a regr ship. Had the transmission hub not noticed anything amiss? Perhaps they had, but it was possible that his location was broadcasted only at certain intervals. They may not know where he was at the moment.

    Li Hao put the question out of his mind. Four hundred kilometers? Ten minutes ago... that meant that he¡¯d almost caught up to Light Sword.

    The young man picked up speed. So she was still alive and had just killed a Nova. Damn, she was tenacious! He wasn¡¯t thinking about any grudges at this point. Firstly, he¡¯d received payment to help her. Secondly, she was still alive after snapping a supernatural lock. This kind of stubborn nature was rather reminiscent of Silver Moon martial masters.

    Well, she <i>was</i> one to begin with.

    Li Hao urged the Divine Kun Ship forward¡ªfifty kilometers, one hundred kilometers... He zoomed at top speed for nearly two hundred kilometers, consuming a great deal of resources before finally seeing some balls of light. They didn¡¯t belong to Light Sword¡ªbut some Srs and Novas. There seemed to be a blockade ahead and powerhouses in the air. Golden light emanated from someone¡¯s eyes as they scanned the premises.

    One of them sensed Li Hao and a voice boomed in his direction, ¡°The Starlight Troops have sealed off this area! No one is allowed in!¡±

    ¡°Friends from far away, Light Sword has killed one of our brothers. We must have vengeance and any who seek to stop us will be our enemy!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Powerhouses constantly broadcasted various announcements around the area. Heavyweights stood outside the blockade¡ªsome cursing to themselves, others with eyes darting around the area and waiting for the right timing.

    inly, Light Sword was corralled in the area ahead. The Starlight Pirates had moved in.

    People were standing over the water not too far from Li Hao. One of them snorted.

    ¡°So the Steadfast Duke has hired the Starlight Pirates?¡± another clucked their tongue. ¡°That¡¯s a big expenditure¡ªthere¡¯s at least ten Srs here, isn¡¯t there? And two Novas in residence... and this is only from one direction. Are there more pirates in the other cardinal directions?¡±

    The thought was mind-boggling! Pirates of the North Sea really had be a force unto themselves!

    ¡°It might not be the Steadfast Duke, it could be...¡± someone chuckled and finished their words via transmission.

    Li Hao frowned. So the pirates really had reached an ord among themselves; no one dared get on their bad side. The North Sea was a strategic passageway that connected the neen northern provinces to the central region. The two sides would be cut off from each other if it was blocked off by pirates. No one would be able to exterminate them then.

    Li Hao looked at the Starlight Novas¡ªthey were just initial Nova. He looked at Panther, the dog looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°I¡¯ll take one and you take one.¡± The young man suddenly grinned. ¡°Even pirates can show off these days. This world is seriously full of strange things!¡±

    The others may be afraid, he wasn¡¯t. He had nothing to lose in this situation, so what was he afraid of? Would these people dare take revenge on Silver Moon?

    As discourse buzzed in the surroundings, the pirates in the air looked down loftily! The North Sea was their territory! No matter how strong these people were onnd, they had to scrape and bow in the sea!

    Light Sword was dead without a doubt, leaving the Starlight Pirates the greatest winner. Someone had offered thirty thousand mysterious power stones, three drops of Water of Life, and ten origin weapons to purchase her body and the Windchaser Boot.

    The pirates didn¡¯t know who the buyer was, but it certainly wasn¡¯t an individual. It must be a major faction not at liberty to show themselves. Perhaps it was the other two founding dukes of the dynasty. The three had always been at odds with each other and wouldn¡¯t mind paying a high price for the Windchaser Boot.

    The other two dukes were in charge of the south and west. They were possibly too far away to make it in time, which was why they offered such a high price to outright purchase the body and treasure.

    The two Novas were still considering who the mysterious buyer may be and busy exerting influence on all sides when startled cries sounded from below. One of them raised their heads, uprehending of what they saw. It was... a sword!

    ¡°How dare...¡± he began to shout. Internal shock roiled him. Who was this?

    <i>ROAR!</i>

    A ferocious tiger roar erupted by the ear like a volcano. A harsh whistle pierced through one¡¯s eardrums as light from a longsword illuminated the world. A sword stroke pierced through the heavens¡ªbam!

    The sword descended amid sparkling sword light!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    After that shout, the initial Nova was ripped apart like cloth by the light. The longsword descended to finish bisecting him! Li Hao swept the body onto the ship with a careless sweep.

    Off to the side, the other horrified Nova quickly didn¡¯t have time to consider anything else. A dog had soundlessly snuck upon him¡ªhe was about to flee when the dog struck with its paw. Nineyers of force oveid on each other and raised great waves in the ocean!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The waves churned and reached for the skies. Panther reached out amid the frothy spray and ripped the Nova to pieces!

    The premises immediately quieted. Although the Sr pirates immediately fled for their lives, sword light shed and sent pirate heads rolling on the ground in the blink of an eye. That sent the other powerhouses stirring with motion and they all ran as well.

    ¡°Who was that??¡±

    ¡°A tiger roar... It reminded me of the Five Styles...¡±

    ¡°Sword light...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s Li Hao! Demon Sword Li Hao! He¡¯s here and killed experts of the Starlight Pirates!¡±

    ¡°And that dog...¡±

    ¡°......¡± Shocked powerhouses fled for their lives. Two Novas had died in an instant! Li Hao was horrifying!

    The young man had no intention of covering his tracks. It¡¯s not like people were blind. He was here already, so he killed all of the remaining pirates in another heartbeat. Li Hao threw his head back withughter, in exceedingly good spirits. He then flew ahead, supposing that Light Sword was nearby.

    Li Hao naturally had a few cards up his sleeve to be this cocky. He was the height of arrogance and killed without blinking. Whether it was pirates or anyone else, he would kill everyone he could if they dared stand in his way!

 Chapter 551: Wood Sword Aura (I)

    <h4>Chapter 551: Wood Sword Aura (I)</h4>

    After he killed all of the pirates, Li Hao left through the air. He could already see some balls of light in the distance.

    ......

    Light Sword looked around with a frosty expression on her face. She¡¯d still been surrounded after running for a day. More and more numbers of powerhouses were gathered around her¡ªshe was done for this time.

    Did she have regrets?

    There was nothing to regret. The only thing she might regret was that she hadn¡¯t killed enough people. She wasn¡¯t strong enough to deter people, and Silver Moon was too far away!

    She grasped her longsword in her right hand; it stayed within the scabbard. Light energy emanated from her being¡ªher body had long been dyed red with blood. Some of it came from her, some of it from the enemy.

    ¡°Hand over the Windchaser Boot, Light Sword!¡± someone shouted. ¡°We do not wish to kill you. Hand over the treasure and we¡¯ll leave you to settle the grudge with the Xus yourselves.¡±

    Indeed, they were just here for treasure. Killing the swordswoman was a Xu family matter. Light Sword was inly on the verge of death and Silver Moon martial masters were very difficult to deal with under such circumstances. They might easily bring down some powerhouses in a final stand.

    It was a very arduous path to be a Nova. No one wanted to be dragged down by this old witch. When Light Sword advanced, they retreated, but didn¡¯t leave. They dogged her steps like a pack of hyenas and would make their moves as soon as she revealed weaknesses. No one wanted to be the first to erupt in an offensive!

    Increasing numbers of heavyweights gathered on all sides. Some wore masks, others wore cloaks, and some were dressed in armor like Li Hao. Many concealed their identities, wary of the Xus, those around them, and Silver Moon...

    Silver Moon martial masters were a unified whole outside their home. They fought each other tooth and nail within the province, but often joined forces elsewhere. Killing Light Sword might draw revenge from other Silver Moon martial masters. No one would be concerned about this if the state of the world was as it was before, but that view changed after more Silver Moon martial masters left the province. Their disys of power demonstrated they were exceedingly domineering.

    ......

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    Li Hao had made it. He saw Light Sword surrounded by a group of powerhouses, they backed away each time she took a step forward. No one was leaving; the swordswoman was dead without a doubt if the situation continued.

    The young man could see her ball of light¡ªit was very disorderly and confused. This was the drawback of erupting after snapping the supernatural locks. Energy seeped out of the supernatural locks, causing mysterious power to erupt, which was then forcefully suppressed by the wielder...

    He didn¡¯t need to take a look to know that it must be aplete mess inside Light Sword¡¯s body. There was also a peculiar strain of energy that seemed to be protecting the swordswoman and healing her organs, but it wasn¡¯t very effective. That was likely light energy.

    Li Hao did not draw close. He looked around and sighed softly. <i>Damn! </i>There were fourteen big balls of light around them, meaning fourteen Novas. Their weakest was mid Nova and there were two that were particrly eye-catching! This level of brightness wasparable to the four major monster spirits. It was stronger than the snake, but not quite as strong as the other three. Perhaps they were in metamorphosis, but were weaker than monster spirits. They should be beyond peak Nova!

    ¡°Two in metamorphosis, four peak Novas, sixte Novas, and only two mid Novas...¡± Li Hao¡¯s heart spasmed at his findings. His earlier bravado waspletely gone.

    This was insane! Where did so many powerhousese from? He¡¯d thought that it would be impressive enough to have a few Novas pursuing Light Sword, but this was so much more than that! All of the premier powerhouses in the nearby surroundings hade. There might even be more if not for the distance.

    Was this really necessary??

    <i>The Windchaser Boots are just a heritage treasure of the eight families. Howe not that many peoplee looking for me? </i>Li Hao mulled the difference over. Perhaps... it was because they were wary of Silver Moon.

    The crafty foxes of Silver Moon didn¡¯t often make moves, but that didn¡¯t mean that people didn¡¯t know how strong they were. Hou Xiaochen was one such example. Although no one stepped up to protect Li Hao, one had to say that it was to the province¡¯s credit that the young man was still fine at the moment.

    First it was Yuan Shuo, then Hou Xiaochen, and now Li Hao was no weakling. Combined with protection from the province, it meant that no one would make trouble for him in Silver Moon. The stronger one was, the more one understood the dangers.

    ¡°Fourteen Novas...¡± Li Hao was at a loss for what to do. This was just the immediate vicinity! Who knew if there were more powerhouses hiding elsewhere?

    The young man sank quietly into the sea. He¡¯d been quite cocky earlier¡ªit was better to keep a low profile now. It was easy for martial masters to hide themselves. Light Sword would¡¯ve been able to do the same if she hadn¡¯t broken her locks. Unfortunately, her wildly fluctuating energy made her easily detectable.

    Within the sea, Li Hao thought rapidly on how he might save Light Sword. No matter how many powerhouses there were, he was not the weakling he once was. He was not afraid of such a force as he¡¯d seen too many experts at the level of metamorphosis before. Hou Xiaochen and the others were such examples. Hong Yitang and He Yong also exceeded Nova when they unsealed themselves. The Silver Armors of Battle Heaven were strong enough to be in metamorphosis when they reawakened, and Gold Armors were even more valiant.

    Having seen all this, Li Hao¡¯s experience with the world was no longer what it once was. He made swift calctions and decided that the best course of action was to facilitate Light Sword¡¯s recovery first. After she was back to her usual state, she would have no problem against those peak Novas and ones in metamorphosis.

    As for mid andte Novas... Panther could take care of one and Li Hao could take care of another mid Nova, but that was far from enough. The caveat to all this was that Light Sword must recover from her wounds, or all of this was nonsense. He didn¡¯t have as much battle strength as the others. It was only when Light Sword fought at full strength again that no one would dare match her.

    <i>Let¡¯s see if I can get closer to her from the water... </i>Li Hao stayed in the water and peered ahead, discovering that there was anotherte Nova underneath the woman. He was a water supernatural and the reason why she didn¡¯t enter the sea at this time.

    There were also enemies underneath her.

    <i>There¡¯s too many heavyweights...</i>

    There was a real issue with helping Light Sword recover her battle strength. Someone¡¯s voice rang in Li Hao¡¯s ear at this time, ¡°She seems to be at the end of her tether, let me do it.¡±

    Li Hao naturally had reasons to be so confident for this rescue mission, but he still frowned at what he heard. ¡°You¡¯re one person and there¡¯s so many Novas,¡± he transmitted. ¡°There¡¯s also ones in metamorphosis and this may not be all of them. Light Sword is half crippled now. If you take action, you need to kill them all to prevent further troubles.¡±

    ¡°I can try unsealing myself?¡±

    ¡°Is martial uncle not concerned about wasting mysterious power stones?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re all Silver Moon martial masters and fellow members of the Seven Swords. I¡¯m the only one with some spare time on my hands in all of Silver Moon these days. Those guys in the central region are a bit too far away. When ites down to things, I¡¯m the only one who can make a move...¡±

    Indeed, the speaker was Hong Yitang. With Li Hao¡¯s level of caution and knowing that there would be many powerhouses on this operation, he came armed with a few preparations. When he left the ruins, he approached within five hundred kilometers of the Sword Sect to pass on a message. He¡¯d wanted the man to follow and protect him, but Hong Yitang said that he could join the rescue mission.

    The reason was simple¡ªnone other than the fact that they were both Silver Moon martial masters. As the Earthturner Sword, he should help when Light Sword was caught in trouble away from home.

    ¡°Martial uncle, if you unseal yourself as well... it¡¯s not even a matter of mysterious power stones anymore. I may not have time to help both you and Light Sword!¡±

    An unsealed Hong Yitang and gravely injured Light Sword was much more troublesome than a He Yong in need of help in the ruins. Light Sword was in a very poor condition!

    ¡°Let¡¯s just go to that trouble,¡± came Hong Yitang¡¯s response. ¡°Li Hao, Silver Moon is not a big province and we do not have many martial masters. You may not have a deep understanding of what I say, but you will when you head to the central region. Those from the same hometown are still more reliable. It¡¯s Silver Moon martial masters who are willing to take a stand for our own when we run into trouble. It¡¯s because of this that Silver Moon martial masters are famous.

    ¡°Otherwise, going at everything alone... As strong as we are, we only have two hands. It¡¯s right and proper that you demand payment from those guys, they deserve it.

    ¡°As for Light Sword... there¡¯s no need to resolve certain grudges right this very moment. You can send your teacher to her if ites down to it, but we still need to rescue her for the time being. Only then willrge numbers of Silver Moon martial masterse help you if you need it in the future!

    ¡°I¡¯ll draw their attention first and you look for a chance to remove her from the situation. Treat her wounds if you can, you don¡¯t have to pay attention to me for now. However much you can recover is for the best.¡±

    Li Hao frowned sternly. It wouldn¡¯t matter if Hong Yitang wanted to unseal himself and make a move, but these circumstances... Li Hao couldn¡¯t promise that he¡¯d be able to swiftly help the two suppress their internal turmoil. They were also in very dangerous straits; the waters might hide big fish.

    Neither was Hong Yitang his subordinate. The man was here not just because of Li Hao; he¡¯d decided toe when he heard that Light Sword was in danger. The young man was just the bearer of some news.

    As Li Hao mulled over his thoughts, waves churned over the surface of the sea.

    ......

    Light Sword¡¯s expression shifted slightly as she began to despair. Some of the powerhouses with their identities concealed also looked in a certain direction. There was a person approaching them, walking over the water with a longsword in hand.

    Hong Yitang did not conceal his identity and approached in broad daylight.

    ¡°Earthturner Sword Hong Yitang?¡± someone asked coldly with narrowed eyes. Silver Moon martial masters hade? This caused many to scan their surroundings, but they only saw Hong Yitang.

    ¡°The Seven Swords of Silver Moon may not see eye to eye, but there¡¯s so many of you ganging up against a woman. Don¡¯t you think your bullying is too much?¡± Hong Yitang smiled.

    ¡°Too much?¡± someone snorted. So Earthturner Sword hade... how ludicrous. They might be wary if it was Sky Sword. What were they supposed to be afraid of with a long crippled fellow?

 Chapter 552: Wood Sword Aura (II)

    <h4>Chapter 552: Wood Sword Aura (II)</h4>

    ¡°It¡¯s said that Silver Moon martial masters are strange, that they beat each other ck and blue at home, but are very united when outside. Silver Moon ranks first when it''s a matter of hot-bloodedness always ready for a good fight. We¡¯re really learning something new today. Who would¡¯ve thought that Earthturner Sword woulde when no one else dared...¡±

    Many eyes were drawn to the new arrival, whereas Light Sword looked around with aplicated gaze. Her feelings grew moreplex when she didn¡¯t see Li Hao. Earthturner Sword may be here, but he wouldn¡¯t necessarily be of use. She wanted to see Li Hao more.

    Sadly, she knew that waiting for her in Silver Moon was the limit of what the young man could do. Someone like Li Hao would not take the risk ofing to save her after she threatened him. As for Earthturner Swording, she was surprised and not surprised by his presence.

    Silver Moon martial masters were sometimes a very stubborn group. They could fight to the death with no holds barred, but would just as soon present their backs to each other and fight together if someone interfered. After they killed whoever was so rude as to show their face, they would continue the first fight.

    These people put the words of ¡°Silver Moon" in front of ¡°martial master¡±, which set them apart from martial masters of other territories. It represented their pride as people and martial masters. They were Silver Moon martial masters!

    That was likely their faith, that they were number one in the world.

    ¡°Hong Yitang...¡± Light Sword coughed continuously. Blood streamed out of her body. ¡°Where¡¯s He Yong?¡±

    ¡°Back to the central region,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°It can¡¯t be helped, I¡¯m the only one here. We¡¯ve either lost contact with the others or they can¡¯t leave. You, though, you¡¯re in really poor shape!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m alright.¡± Light Sword smiled, not a smile of brilliance, but one that showed her age. It was then that a wave churned through the sea and exploded in front of Hong Yitang!

    The man didn¡¯t even look at the spray of water. He simply waved his sword to settle the water surface and looked at the one who¡¯d attacked him. ¡°You don¡¯t think I¡¯m just a Sr, am I?¡± he snorted. ¡°If you think you can kill me with a wave that can kill Srs... You¡¯d be thinking much too little of me!¡±

    ¡°Hong Yitang, no matter how much strength you¡¯ve hidden, even if you¡¯re as strong as Light Sword, you will not be walking off with her today! The price you must pay for that might be more than you can endure!¡± someone sneered.

    Various powerhouses red their presences. Even if Hong Yitang rivaled Light Sword, he would not be saving the woman on the brink of death. Not unless he wanted to leave himself here as well.

    ¡°Earthturner Sword, does Silver Moon wish to protect someone who¡¯s betrayed their master?¡± Xu Zhen frowned at the man. ¡°Silver Moon martial masters were indeed strong back in the day and their powerhouses are still active, but keep in mind that she¡¯s turned on the Steadfast Duke! Don¡¯t forget, our army trampled over Silver Moon when the Skystar Dynasty conquered the world...¡±

    Was that supposed to be a threat?

    ¡°Don¡¯t even mention the Steadfast Duke¡¯s army,¡± Hong Yitang chortled. ¡°The royal family¡¯s ck Armaturas might be worth a mention. The first generation Steadfast Duke did lead his army into the province, but he was almost wiped out on his expedition. He would have been, if not reinforcements from the ck Armaturas. That was also two hundred years ago, how is that a point of pride? Does your family history not record your humiliation and defeats?¡±

    Xu Zhen frowned. <i>Bullshit!</i> Of course the family records noted various events, but it only spoke of triumphs such as suppressing Silver Moon. The family¡¯s army had been an important portion of the dynasty¡¯s battle strength.

    Of course, history was written by the victors. Only those involved knew the truth of the matter. Even Hong Yitang knew only what the older generation spoke of.

    Those on the scene weren¡¯t that willing to take action after Earthturner Sword¡¯s arrival. He might actually be quite strong. Dying battle brought them no drawbacks. Light Sword¡¯s condition would only continue to deteriorate. As time dragged on, she would cripple herself.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, within the sea.</i>

    Li Hao proceeded soundlessly through the waters. Earthturner¡¯s appearance had drawn everyone¡¯s attention. He was approaching the waterte Nova from behind. They could keep talking up there! He didn¡¯t mindmencing another ambush.

    He could reconvene with Light Sword after disposing of thiste Nova. If he supplied her with some sword energy then, he might be able to help her recover some.

    Li Hao soundlessly drew closer to his target. Late Nova would not be easy to kill, but he had experience. If the dog coordinated with him perfectly, they might be able to eliminate their target in a split second.

    The young man steadily approached; he was closer now. He didn¡¯t see the supernatural, just a massive ball of light. Perhaps the supernatural was hiding with a special method. Whatever it was, it was useless in Li Hao¡¯s eyes.

    He stopped walking when he was thirty meters away. Light Sword was right above him. She seemed to have sensed something and, at the very least, knew that there was someone beneath her. That was why she¡¯d refused to go into the water again, but now... another person seems to havee?

    <i>Who?</i>

    It didn¡¯t feel like a supernatural, more like... a martial master!

    ......

    <i>Within the waters.</i>

    Li Hao stayed still for a while. Earthturner Sword was still talking to the others, they seemed to be casually chatting. No one was in a hurry¡ªthe only one was Light Sword. A small sword appeared in Li Hao¡¯s hand. He wasn¡¯t making much progress when it came to nurturing his sword, but he persevered. Four kinds of sword intent brewed in the small sword; they didn¡¯t need to be rbined again.

    The young man closed his eyes, reviewing that awe-inspiring stroke he¡¯d seen. The stronger he was, the more he could understand just how strong that stroke was.

    A faint sword intent emanated from the weapon. At the same time, a vast and magnificent sword intent exuded from Hong Yitang. It percted in the four directions, causing many to stir with shock and apprehension.

    The water supernatural in the sea also felt the chilling prickle of sword intent. <i>Hong Yitang is so strong! </i>His sword intent could still seep into the depths from such a distance, and it came with such a piercing cold. Was this guy another Light Sword?

    One had to say, Li Hao and Hong Yitang were coordinating their actions perfectly! Sword intent wafted through the area. Ordinary people could not discern the difference. Only Light Sword looked around alertly. There... seemed to be more than one sword intent present!

    As a fellow sword user, a premier swordswoman, she could sense something different. There was another sword intent spreading beneath her feet. Was it... Li Hao?

    <i>Demon Sword? </i>The thought had just appeared in her mind when Hong Yitang struck in the distance.

    ¡°Get out of my way!¡± he roared, overturning the skies and seas with an all-epassing blow!

    ......

    <i>Under the water.</i>

    Li Hao struck! Fast, exceedingly fast! Not only that, but he deployed the Incantation of the de of Blood without the slightest hesitation. It ripped through water currents and shot at the ball of light.

    He didn¡¯t pause to determine anything in his line of sight before attacking the ball of light. <i>I don¡¯t care how much smoke and mirrors you create!</i>

    The water Nova had been marveling over Hong Yitang¡¯s strength when his expression shifted drastically. He hastily fled through the water, running from the scene like he was a water current himself.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    An explosion detonated in the water and overhead. The water Nova almost somersaulted through the water, but thankfully evaded the attack. There was... another swordsman close at hand!

    Li Hao struck again as he grappled with surprise. Waves churned under the water! <i>KABOOM!</i>

    Detonations rang out, nine in session! The young man shot toward his target; thete Nova watched with narrowed eyes. What a strong swordsman! What a pity he hadn¡¯t discovered his attacker¡¯s presence earlier. Now that he had, he noted that the swordsman wasn¡¯t much stronger than him.

    He summoned countless waves toward Li Hao with a wave of his hand, sealing off a portion of the bottom of the sea. But when he wanted to follow up on that attack, his eyes widened and he quickly darted away.

    He wasn¡¯t fast enough to escape a dog¡¯s ws. Razor-sharp ws pierced right through his arm¡ªthey¡¯d been aimed at his heart. A water supernatural¡¯s perception was very sensitive in the water. He was able to sense enough to protect his vitals, but was shocked all the same.

    Damn it! How was there another one? And a major monster spirit!

    Panth was quite disgruntled. This was its first failed ambush, it¡¯d brought shame upon all dogs! Meanwhile, Li Hao¡¯s longsword was already descending!

    There was only one thought on the water supernatural¡¯s mind¡ªrun! He would be in great trouble if this continued.

    <i>At this moment, upon the sea.</i>

    Light Sword¡¯s eyes danced around and she suddenly stomped her foot, summoning a tidal wave with an eruption of sword intent. It barreled into the depths!

    The water supernatural about to get away jerked to a halt. A ck dog came for him from the left, Li Hao shed at him from the right, and there was a surge of sword intent above him.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    His way was cut off. It took only a second for Li Hao to stab into his target¡¯s chest. The water supernatural roared with fury, but his voice didn¡¯t have the time to travel before Panther brought down what felt like one thousand kilograms of water with its paw and nearly smashed the supernatural to a pulp!

    Li Hao stirred a circle with his sword, erupting with sword light and raising wave upon wave as he bisected the supernatural.

    Li Hao, Panther, Light Sword, Earthturner Sword... Three sword wielders and one major monster spirit coordinated their efforts perfectly, despite not discussing a n of attack beforehand. Ate Nova adept at waterbat died on the spot.

    The young man immediately stored the body in a storage ring. At this time, the supernaturals testing Hong Yitang seemed to sense something, but failed to grasp anything concrete. They looked at Light Sword.

    Next to Xu Zhen, the old man with white hair quietly took in the surroundings. His expression suddenly shifted!

    ¡°There¡¯s someone in the water!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Sword qi raced to the heavens. A supernatural encircling Light Sword hastily dodged. Sword qi exploded and the waves turned into arrows, spewing in all directions. Blood flowed freely as a dozen rays of sword marks appeared on the supernatural¡¯s legs.

    Li Hao emerged from the water, stunning those present. Where did this swordsmane from? Or was it the Silver Moon Eight Swords instead?

    Light Sword had already demonstrated her prowess, they¡¯d yet to get anything out of Earthturner Sword, and here came another swordsman! There was some red bubbling up in the water, causing some expressions to shift. There¡¯d been a supernatural down below. Were they... dead?

 Chapter 553: Wood Sword Aura (III)

    <h4>Chapter 553: Wood Sword Aura (III)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t follow up on his attack, he appeared by Light Sword¡¯s side instead. He looked at the androgynous old man¡ªwell, he didn¡¯t want to look at Light Sword too much. But he had to say that she hadn¡¯t seemed on the brink of death during her split second of reaction in stabbing her sword through the water. Her battle spirit still raged fiercely.

    Earthturner Sword broke through the blockade¡ªor rather, no one stopped him from convening with the other two sword wielders.

    ¡°Such cutting sword qi and an inevitability of seeing blood upon action,¡± someone said on the outskirts before Light Sword had a chance to speak. ¡°If you are not Sky Sword, then you must be Demon Sword Li Hao!¡±

    Everyone¡¯s gazes turned to the young man. Although their faces were obscured, some couldn¡¯t hide their delighted glee. So that was Li Hao! He held the sword of the Lis and had quickly grown to the point of being able to kill Novas. His bloodline was of the eight families...

    Some people were truly overjoyed. What did they chase Light Sword for, if not the Windchaser Boot? Even if that boot really was a weapon of the eight families, it was less than the sword of the Lis. This was a buy one get one bargain!

    No, what they were getting was even better than what they were chasing!

    Xu Zhen also started in the distance and erupted furiously in the next moment, ¡°Are you Li Hao?!¡±

    The initial exnation after the expedition emerged from the Battle Heaven ruins was that Hou Xiaochen had killed Xu Feng. But after Li Hao killed the White Shark Raiders and with additional news that the young man held a grudge against Light Sword, a new conclusion was easily reached¡ªit was Li Hao who¡¯d killed Xu Feng!

    ¡°Old witch Light Sword, you¡¯ve certainly got a venomous heart!¡± Xu Zhen raged with madness. ¡°You two must¡¯ve caused Little Feng¡¯s death together! Li Hao must also be Little Feng¡¯s murderer¡ªhe¡¯s here to save you, you bitch! She-devil!¡±

    Anyone who saw this scene would suspect Light Sword! If Li Hao was Xu Feng¡¯s murderer and had a grudge with Light Sword, it made no sense that he was taking the risk to rescue her. This could only be proof that the swordswoman had long betrayed the Xus. Perhaps she¡¯d been the one to kill Xu Feng!

    Light Sword didn¡¯t respond and simply sighed at Li Hao. Just when she was about to speak, the young man revealed his true form and looked around with a smile. ¡°It looks like I¡¯m pretty famous! What an honor! You guys recognized me even in armor¡ªyou¡¯ve got keen eyes!¡±

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t apprehensive about a gathering of the sword wielders. They were missing Sky Sword and Jadelight Sword. It would be quite the asion indeed if all of these Silver Moon sword dao powerhouses were present.

    ¡°I¡¯ve retreated from the world for too long.¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°These people took longer to recognize me than they did you. It looks like I need to show my face around more often.¡±

    Transmissions shed around the vicinity.

    ¡°It¡¯s Li Hao! He has the sword of the Lis. Everyone, all together with no hesitation...¡±

    ¡°Earthturner Sword¡¯s not weak and he might be able to unseal himself as well. Judging from Li Hao¡¯s performance from moments ago and his previous battle aplishments... he¡¯s pretty strong too. We probably won¡¯t be able to take them if we don¡¯t work together!¡±

    ¡°How do we split the sword and the boot?¡±

    ¡°Is the sword of the Lis for the likes of you guys? It¡¯s priceless to whoever gets it. They can fetch an astronomical figure for it if they sell it...¡±

    Various heavyweights rapidlymunicated with each other; they had to be on the same page before taking action. They had just temporarily gathered together, wanting to kill Light Sword through a battle of attrition. The situation was much more difficult after she was joined by two more swordsmen.

    Who would attack first if they didn¡¯te to an agreement? It was the most dangerous for whoever made the first move. And what if their quarry ran off if none of them attacked?

    Reaching a consensus andpleting an exchange of interests was their most pressing concern.

    Light Sword looked at Li Hao with a slightlyplicated expression and transmitted, ¡°I¡¯m afraid it¡¯ll be hard for you guys to leave too after you¡¯ve barged in like this!¡±

    This wasn¡¯t how one rescued people. Granted, she was the safest in this kind of development. While it would decrease the pressure on her if they harassed her pursuers from the outside, it would still be up to her to break through the blockade. That wouldnd her in the greatest danger.

    The other two swordsmening to her resulted in her maximal safety, but put them in danger. She knew that Earthturner Sword was strong, very strong, but he wasn¡¯t invincible. There were a dozen Novas present and other heavyweights in metamorphosis.

    ¡°Can you still fight?¡± was Li Hao¡¯s only question.

    ¡°I can... but I can¡¯t endure for long...¡± she transmitted back.

    Li Hao was conflicted, but he was already here, so he wouldn¡¯t waffle around. Martial masters were an impulsive bunch. The Silver Moon old farts had only paid him to heal Light Sword, not risk his own life. He should¡¯ve waited on the perimeter¡ªthis was all Hong Yitang¡¯s fault! The man just had to show himself!

    The young man tossed a small sk to Light Sword, but it flew back to him before reaching the woman. Li Hao raised an eyebrow at Hong Yitang; the man had taken out a small sk himself. It fell into Light Sword¡¯s hands.

    ¡°Drink that, it¡¯s Water of Life. Li Hao won¡¯t be able to suppress your injuries in the short term, so use that for now.¡±

    Li Hao put away his Water of Life with some surprise. So Hong Yitang had some as well? Meanwhile, the man sighed heavily. These people would be the death of him! He Yong had spent one of his exceedingly pure mysterious power stones and now Light Sword consumed his Water of Life. All that he had left from Battle Heaven were two pieces of exceedingly pure mysterious power stones. He hadn¡¯t held onto the fortunes that heaven had seen fit to grace him with.

    Light Sword quickly drained the sk without another word, prompting dismay from someone on the perimeter.

    ¡°Stop negotiating, they seem to have brought ultimate treasures for healing. Now is our chance if we want to take the treasures of the eight families. We might have to pay an even higher price if we wait any longer!¡±

    The powerhouses swiftly reached an ord. Everything could wait until after they took down the trio. Otherwise, it was all just empty talk.

    ¡°Kill!¡± Xu Zhen set his jaw and turned to the two by his side. No one was making a move, but the representatives of the Steadfast Duke could not hold back!

    Of the two by his side, the old man with white hair was peak Nova. The other middle-aged man waste Nova. While they hesitated slightly, they clenched their teeth and charged!

    The old man seemed to be a special attribute or even crossed over from being a martial master. Heaven and earth threatened to split apart when his punch sted forward! The middle-aged man also raised towering waves with a strike of his de.

    With these two as the vanguard, the remaining crowd didn¡¯t hesitate. Everyone made their moves¡ªsupernatural abilities detonated in the area and strew chaos through the sea.

    Li Hao and Earthturner Sword responded in kind. Long swords swept through the air! A sword hum rang through the world as the Earthturner Sword suppressed the four directions. Li Hao¡¯s stroke of the four auras severed the self, there was no return!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Sword auras met with mysterious power, heralding a massive explosion. Li Hao spat out a mouthful of blood while Hong Yitang stumbled backward. The supernaturals reeled with shock!

    ¡°Swordsmen of Silver Moon...¡± someone mumbled. They were so strong!

    The strongest was Earthturner Sword¡ªhe suppressed numerous supernaturals when he attacked, creating space for Li Hao. Li Hao¡¯s sword was also very strong, but not to the point of stunning the crowd. It was Hong Yitang¡¯s disy of dominance that frightened those present.

    While Li Hao was injured and Hong Yitang¡¯s organs shook after the two sides collided, the supernaturals weren¡¯t any better off. A streak of blood appeared on the old man¡¯s fist. Behind him, Xu Zhen¡¯s expression shifted and he grunted to the crowd, ¡°Rush them together, don¡¯t hold back! Hong Yitang has not unsealed himself yet. He might, so we need to act as quickly as possible!¡±

    No one listened to him.

    ¡°Are you sitting back and watching a show, Xu Zhen?¡± sneered a voice. ¡°Attack with us!¡±

    The speaker was ate Nova and didn¡¯t think much of the Xus. While this representative wasn¡¯tplete trash and had some real strength, he had no right to direct others.

    Fury rose in Xu Zhen! A rich and noble man did not sit under the eaves for fear of falling tiles. His resident experts were in the field, was that not enough?? They wanted him to personally participate! How dangerous that would be!

    And yet, Xu Zhen couldn¡¯t contain himself. ¡°Light Sword seems to be recovering... all together now!¡± He sprang upward and kicked out a gust of swirling wind with his foot. He¡¯d once practiced martial arts, but his potential had been mediocre. He¡¯d continuously failed to grasp the aura and converted to the supernatural after that domain appeared. Thankfully, he¡¯d done well for himself there.

    With Xu Zhen himself in the battlefield, the various sides had managed to reach an ord. They would attack together! Ice sealed off thousands of kilometers as thunder and lightning danced!

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    Detonations ripped through the air. Earthturner Sword brandished stroke after stroke, overturning the skies and earth to form a defensive circle a dozen meters across. It blocked the attacks while Li Hao¡¯s sword darted out, injuring the supernatural powerhouses.

    It was a team effort, but while the defensive abilities proved adequate, the offensive ones were slightly insufficient. Li Hao was a little too weak.

    ¡°What a pity that you¡¯re not Sky Sword...¡± Hong Yitang sighed. These words might grate on the ear; he truly did think that if Sky Sword was here, the two of them would make quick work of the crowd.

    That was also the truth. Li Haomanded mid Nova battle strength and was indeed weaker when it came to offense. There were only two mid Novas outside, the rest werete or peak Novas. There were even some in metamorphosis. Li Hao¡¯s sword qi could not kill them and even found it hard to injure them.

    Light Sword was still absorbing Water of Life and recovering some of her injuries. If she didn¡¯t, Li Hao would find it difficult to suppress her rampaging organs. However, this left only the other two avable for defense.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word. He only felt a bit aggrieved and the situation difficult. Where had all these peoplee from? How were there so many powerhouses to be found?

    His attacks weakened once more and his moves seem to float through the air like drifting willow leaves. It turned a bit mysterious like a ghost whenbined with the No Shadow Sword, but it was even easier for their attackers to fend off!

    The young man¡¯s moves had previously provided a bit of threat, but that threat was now much smaller.

    Hong Yitang wanted to cry. He regretted his actions! What was Li Hao doing, using him as a defensive shield? The kid was hiding behind him and using their enemies as practice targets for the Weeping Willow Sword. <i>My heavens, do you think this is a safe ce?</i>

 Chapter 554: Silver Moon Swordsmen (I)

    <h4>Chapter 554: Silver Moon Swordsmen (I)</h4>

    Although Li Hao fought while Light Sword recovered from her wounds, he coweredpletely within the defensive circle. His moves were slow and weak. How was he supposed to stand against their enemies?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care. This was a disy of trust¡ªtrust that Hong Yitang would endure. The young man wouldn¡¯t be getting away if the defenses broke. However, his attacks really were listless. In that case, he could go even weaker since he wasn¡¯t hurting anyone!

    His sword strokes were as if fluttering willow leaves. He immersed himself in the process, growing bolder as he did so. He even rushed out a few times and startled his opponents by shing his sword down, but ultimately discovered that his blow couldn¡¯t even break the defenses of a mid Nova.

    ¡°He¡¯s used the Incantation of the de of Blood!¡± Xu Zhen snorted after kicking Li Hao back. ¡°It¡¯s wearing off and he¡¯s suffering from the bacsh. He¡¯s much weaker as a result¡ªit¡¯s left him with real strength around initial Nova!¡±

    Li Hao was demonstrating the decline that urred after using the Incantation; Xu Zhen was well familiar with it. It was Hong Yitang who was truly strong and blocking their attacks. However, the man didn¡¯t have room to counterattack. He could only passively defend and await death.

    Xu Zhen¡¯s words made everyone brighten. <i>That weak?</i>

    Initial Nova... was easily taken care of in their eyes. Many focused on Li Hao instead, waiting for the young man¡¯s next charge out. When he did, all sorts of supernatural abilities exploded around the perimeter, throwing a bloody Li Hao back with a roar.

    He didn¡¯t care about his injuries, he had eyes only for the sword in his hand! He rushed out again, his durable body giving him more opportunities to fight. One stroke followed the previous. His Weeping Willow Sword technique grew more practiced, but he still wasn¡¯t able to manifest his sword aura!

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Hong Yitang grunted, his defensive circle shaking noticeably. Li Hao rushed forward again, but a cloaked powerhouse sank their hand into his arm and ripped out arge chunk of flesh!

    His attacker was focused on the longsword and had tried to grab it before, but suffered a gash to his hand for his attempt. This time, the cloaked man chose to rip into Li Hao¡¯s arm instead. The sword woulde with the limb!

    As substantial as Li Hao¡¯s body was, he could not withstand the other¡¯s attack. His skin ripped readily, but the young man¡¯s sword drifted through the air and pierced his attacker in return. It was repelled by a surge of mysterious power, so overwhelming that Li Hao spat out a mouthful of blood. He quickly backed away and just barely managed to retreat.

    His attacker wanted to follow up, but Earthturner Sword¡¯s weapon sent him flying back!

    Hong Yitang¡¯s face began to pale. He was confined to a defensive position, Light Sword was digesting the Water of Life, Li Hao was practicing his technique, and he... was a damned babysitter. He had to keep his wits about him so that the enemy wouldn¡¯t take advantage of an opening to break through. He was incredibly heart weary. If he¡¯d known this would be the situation, he would¡¯ve just ambushed all of these guys by himself. These two would be the death of him!

    Li Hao had fully immersed himself in practice and deployed ever softening moves. He swayed unpredictably like dancing tree branches. When his longsword was rebuffed with another ng and someone¡¯s foot connected with him again, he spat out blood and returned to the defensive circle.

    As he did so, he flicked a nce at Xu Zhen out of the corner of his eye and smiled. <i>Having fun, are you? I¡¯ll make you the first target practice in a moment! You¡¯ll be the first recipient of the Five Elements Sword!</i>

    The wood sword aura was beginning to form. As he thought, this kind of struggle of life and death was the most exciting and conducive to inspiring sword intent.

    As Li Hao retreated from histest foray, Hong Yitang sweated profusely from his efforts. His Earthturner Sword technique was magical! It sealed off the four corners, producing a boundary like an overturned bowl. It was only now that the young man had the mental bandwidth to look at it closely and marvel at how airtight it was!

    Thirteen Novas were attacking them. It¡¯d been fourteen, but the trio had killed one. None of the remaining thirteen were characters to run afoul of. Perhaps they were holding back due to wariness of the enemy or wanting others to risk their lives first, whatever it was, Hong Yitang was holding off thirteen by himself!

    It wasn¡¯t until Li Hao came back that he sensed the danger and pressure they were under. Hong Yitang¡¯s bronze armor was beginning to deform under the immense strain! He¡¯d actually surreptitiously unsealed himself at some point in time. He wasn¡¯t as berserk as the others when he unsealed himself, but it was a snapping of his supernatural locks all the same.

    Whether it was in Ash Mountain or Battle Heaven, he didn¡¯t snap his locks with fanfare. It was a soundless undoing, an unsealing that was even more frightening than the typical re of violence demonstrated by others. It indicated that Hong Yitang could partially control the potential released by his locks.

    Li Hao heaved for breath and didn¡¯t immediately offer to help. He had Xu Zhen in his sights. Xu Zhen was one of the fivete Novas, but his identity was special. He had anotherte and a peak Nova following him. If he was to die... then the other representatives from the Steadfast Duke would either despair and fight to the death, or they would be so terrified that they would immediately run for their lives.

    But as the duke¡¯s son, Xu Zhen would not be an easy target.

    Li Hao panted for a bit as a faint aura billowed into existence like swaying willow branches. <i>The Weeping Willow Sword. </i>The aura born from this technique was not as vibrant or majestic as other wood auras. It was a gentle, tender sensation that drifted with the wind¡ªtimid, yet endless.

    Li Hao¡¯s wood sword aura stemmed from two origins¡ªthe Weeping Willow Sword method and the little tree¡¯s core origin power. Hence, there was a bit of the little tree¡¯s characteristics interspersed among the willow.

    What were the tree¡¯s characteristics? It sank its roots into the mountain and never loosened!

    Perseverance, continuous, and unending!

    It safeguarded a pce by itself for tens and thousands of years all by its lonesome. Once it epted something as part of its values, there it stayed forever. There was no turning back.

    Li Hao had a deeper understanding of the little tree¡¯s dao at the moment. It was simr to the big tree¡¯s¡ªperhaps it was just pure inheritance or rebirth, and not walking down another path.

    Therefore, the son inherited the father¡¯s work and dao. In Li Hao¡¯sprehension, it was always the big tree¡¯s growth history. The big tree was dead now, the little tree had taken root and sprouted, continuing their mission in inexhaustible fashion.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Hong Yitang grunted once more because his defensive circle was shrinking, but the young man seemed to beprehending something. He was almost out of range and would be in trouble if he left the circle of protection!

    Li Hao gently took a few steps back like a willow leaf flitting around. Light Sword flushed white and red¡ªshe seemed to be awakening soon. Hong Yitang inwardly wailed to the heavens. These two were so unreliable! It was one thing for Light Sword to be out of the fight, but Li Hao...

    The man knew what Li Hao was doing, but it really was going to be the death of him!

    A little tree seemed to take root in Li Hao¡¯s liver and sprout leaves. It was a willow branch stuck in the dirt. As it extended in growth, locks appeared like roots¡ªnot to confine the little tree in ce, but to entwine around its roots and reach throughout the liver.

    There were strange things living in all of the five organs now. There was a ferocious tiger in the heart, a wave of water in the kidneys, a mountain in the spleen, a dot of a golden sun in the lungs, and now a growing tree in his liver.

    The little tree was the weakest, the other four were noticeably stronger as they¡¯d been fed the Goldensky Lotus or Mind Fruits. This tree was the weakest as it¡¯d just been born.

    Li Hao coughed gently, summoning a seed of the Goldensky Lotus into his hand. Hong Yitang had given it to him, along with a petal. He¡¯d already consumed the petal, but kept the seed for future use. If the petal could enhance the aura, then what of the seed?

    He didn¡¯t know, but he wanted to try. It might have good effects as well. If possible, he wanted to strengthen the willow tree. If the five auras were out of bnce, that would create problems when trying to meld them together.

    The golden lotus seed immediately vanished when he ced it in his mouth. A surge of refreshing energy far stronger than the petal refreshed Li Hao¡¯s mind. The seed had a simr effect, and it seemed much stronger!

    He conducted the strength into his liver, whereupon the tree shot upward like it¡¯d been fertilized.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Hong Yitang¡¯s heart pounded fiercely¡ªaudibly¡ªas the power of fire seeped out. Li Hao jerked awake with rm and looked at the man. Hong Yitang¡¯s face was on fire; one of his locks seemed to have snapped all the way through.

    The increased strength erged his defensive circle, but the power seemed difficult to endure. His heart seemed to be burning. This was a condition that hadn¡¯t appeared when he faced Hou Xiaochen and the others in Battle Heaven.

    Light Sword¡¯s eyes fluttered, but Hong Yitang roared, ¡°Continue recovering, don¡¯t waste the Water of Life!¡±

    She inly sensed danger and felt Hong Yitang¡¯s resignation. If the situation continued, he would follow in her steps. However, Hong Yitang was also well aware that Light Sword was still recovering. If she made a move, she would quickly undo all of her earlier work. Not only would the droplet of water be wasted, but Li Hao might not be able to save her either.

    They only needed a while longer for the Water of Life topletely permeate her body and close her wounds. Only then could she act.

    Light Sword¡¯s eyelids fluttered a moment longer before calming down. Earthturner Sword seemed to bestow an immense feeling of security upon everyone. Even Li Hao could focus solely on his cultivation because he knew the man was there. He was a jolt of confidence!

 Chapter 555: Silver Moon Swordsmen (II)

    <h4>Chapter 555: Silver Moon Swordsmen (II)</h4>

    Waves of shock roiled in the hearts of the powerhouses attacking the trio. Had the heavyweights themselves brought their full strength to bear?

    <i>No.</i>

    At the very least, the two in metamorphosis hadn¡¯t brought all of their power to bear. Under these circumstances, whoever was the strongest would be Earthturner Sword¡¯s primary target. That wasn¡¯t a good idea, considering that the attackers weren¡¯t all from the same faction and there were a lot of them.

    Even so, thirteen premier heavyweights were a force to be reckoned with, even in the central region. Such strength was sufficient to annihte some of the stronger organizations. And yet, they couldn¡¯t break the defenses of a single person. How incredible!

    Of the two metamorphosis titans, one wore a mask and the other ck armor that somewhat resembled the kind from Battle Heaven. The armored one couldn¡¯t help but sigh with appreciation, ¡°Earthturner Sword is probably number one among the Seven Swords of Silver Moon...¡±

    Just this defensive technique alone was sufficient to ce him at the head of the Seven Swords. It was airtight and present everywhere at the same time. Not to mention, Hong Yitang¡¯s reaction skills, internal force, and battle experience were already first ss!

    Upon seeing that the armored heavyweight had the presence of mind to judge the battle as he fought, someone cursed inwardly. <i>Our current situation is because you two aren¡¯t bringing your full strength to bear!</i>

    He bit his tongue and didn¡¯t say anything, but his sentiments were shared by many. Everyone present was an incredible heavyweight, there was no pulling the wool over anyone¡¯s eyes. The armored man¡¯s identity was revealed as soon as he opened his mouth. A name appeared in people¡¯s minds¡ªFan Chang!

    This was someone who was absolutely a mover and shaker in the world. He was the tyrant of Near River province, the one who held all the reins of power. Originally just the director general of the provincial government, he¡¯dter consolidated all of the provincial institutions and built the Director General Office. He was Silver Moon¡¯s old neighbor and apparently the backer behind the Sea Monster Raiders, one of the eight pirate factions.

    Fan Chang, the nine ministries, and the royal family were thorns in Silver Moon¡¯s side. No wonder he needed to conceal his identity. If he exposed himself and killed Light Sword, he might draw vengeance from Silver Moon martial masters.

    Near River and Silver Moon were too close to each other.

    But in this moment, no one minded Fan Chang¡¯s identity. By this point of the battle, most of the thirteen¡¯s identities had been more or less revealed.

    Fan Chang cursed to himself. He was one of the metamorphosis experts. The other under a cloak was not from Celestial. If his guess was right, his counterpart was themander of a certain prince''s royal guards.

    The Steppe Prince!

    Indeed, Fan Chang had met the prince a few times. To think that he would possess greater strength than previously thought! The Steppe King was Hou Xiaochen¡¯s superior and the one who¡¯d built the Skystar Guards.

    His manor was not too far away from the North Sea. inly, someone hade from his side. This person¡¯s name was Qian Feng, one of his major leaders.

    Of the four peak Novas, Fan Chang knew that one of them was from the Steadfast Duke and another behind a mask was Orange Moon. She wasn¡¯t fooling him, and neither were the other two concealing their identities.

    One was a pirate¡ªa duke under the North Sea King. Fan Chang wasn¡¯t familiar with his name, but he called himself the Duke of Sea Pacification. Fan Chang had heard of the title before and smirked at how shameless and ignorant the pirates were. It now appeared that they weren¡¯t weak as this one was a peak Nova.

    <i>I wonder what level the North Sea King is?</i> He had to be metamorphosis at the very least. Who knew where he¡¯d gone to be continuously absent from the field?

    Fan Chang recognized the other peak Nova as well, it wasn¡¯t someone from Celestial or Yama. Those two hadn¡¯t seemed to have time to send their powerhouses. Only ate Nova represented them. This peak Nova was from one of the seven divine mountains¡ªBuddha Mountain. It was hard to determine who they were, exactly, but their ce of origin was evident from the techniques they used.

    The seven divine mountains weren¡¯t as well known as the three great organizations, but anyone in the know was aware that they weren¡¯t weak.

    The lord of Sky Sword Mountain was the Sky Sword. Lord Yonder of Yonder Mountain was an absolute titan. A major monster spirit that¡¯d once swallowed a Nova with one gulp ruled over Sky Roc Mountain. It was said that the leader of Buddha Mountain had once descended like a Buddha to wrestle about a cease in fighting with his exceedingly fierce path of ughter. This was a demonstration of pure strength as well.

    ......

    Everyone had their own schemes in mind. While they appreciated Hong Yitang¡¯s strength, they were highly confident of victory. No one had expended much of their energy, but Hong Yitang was inly beginning to falter.

    Li Hao¡¯s five auras were starting to bnce out. Steris began shaking in his hand. He didn¡¯t look at Hong Yitang¡ªit was the limits of what the man could do that he was still defending. The young man didn¡¯t know how much longer Light Sword needed to stabilize her wounds. He wanted to send her sword energy as she might not be able to suppress her supernatural locks in her current state.

    Various thoughts shed through his mind as five chains encircled Li Hao¡¯s five organs. Although he didn¡¯t know much about the five organs as a whole yet, he had some of his own reflections.

    The five auras followed the five chains to connect and collide with each other. This was his first attempt to meld five auras together. Just because they¡¯d manifested didn¡¯t mean that they could bebined. They hadn¡¯t been fully turned into one before. It was just that his sword aura overview had been strong enough to suppress them.

    This time, he wanted to see if the five auras could be naturallybined and not forcefully suppressed.

    His body trembled when the five auras came in contact with each other, like he¡¯d been electrocuted. His organs were so fortified that they¡¯d long reached the standard of ten thousand cubes. But now, they were shaking and cracks beginning to form in them.

    Li Hao¡¯s heart skipped a beat!

    <i>That strong??</i>

    In that case, he could not forcefully attempt to meld his five auras. He could only have the sword overview tame them and lead them in battle.

    ¡°Hup!¡± Hong Yitang roared. mes rose in the air and evaporated countless tons of seawater. Domineering internal force erupted and shook the four corners, forcing allbatants back.

    He spat out arge mouthful of blood and panted for breath, waving his longsword around. The skies and earth seemed to swap ces and he seemed even stronger than before. However, the various powerhouses could read a thing or two from his condition. Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t hold his breath anymore. This was his final eruption before he declined¡ªhe was already declining.

    A look of suffering crept into Hong Yitang¡¯s eyes. If it wasn¡¯t for protecting these two, he wanted to erupt and kill a few people. But once he did so, his defenses would break. He stood a chance of making it out alive, but Li Hao and Light Sword wouldn¡¯t.

    The man clenched his jaw! He would wait for an opportunity. He would wait for Li Hao to finish and Light Sword to awaken. Only then could they turn defeat into victory. Otherwise... he would have to think of how to escape. He trusted that Li Hao would not attempt anything futile. He also trusted that Light Sword would not copse so easily. She just needed some time after absorbing the Water of Life. She would absolutely recover some battle strength.

    It was a simr situation in which the two trusted that he could defend them to thest.

    ¡°Yup!¡± Hong Yitang roared once more, erging his defensive circle instead of shrinking it. Their attackers willingly gave way, ruthless looks entering their eyes.

    <i>You won¡¯t hold out for long!</i>

    Li Hao had mostly put his five auras in order, he just didn¡¯t have enough time to fully consolidate them. But that didn¡¯t matter, this was good enough. Steris trembled when he infused the little sword with the five auras. When he utilized the sword nurturing technique, the little sword dimmed and stopped shaking.

    To nurture one stroke!

    The young man opened his eyes and focused on Xu Zhen among the thirteen. There... might be quite a different reaction if this one was to die. Panther should also be prowling around, looking for an opportunity. If Xu Zhen died and his people ran, the dog would certainly take advantage of that opening.

    With that, Li Hao raised his sword and charged out again!

    It was weightless as before, just like a willow leaf. And just as before, he was attacked on all sides as soon as he showed himself. The barrage was so fierce that his silver armor shuddered violently and began shrinking back into his body, revealing his true form.

    There were limits to the silver armor and the young man wasn¡¯t able to fully deploy itsplete abilities at the moment.

    The Weeping Willow Sword struck again and was sent off course by a fist. The recipient reached for Li Hao¡¯s arm, wanting to seize the sword. The young man struck back, but his riposte was impotent.

    After a few blows, Li Hao quickly retreated back into the defensive circle. As regretful as the attackers found the development, they were in no hurry. The young man¡¯s power wasn¡¯t worth mention in this situation. Apart from the two mid Novas who needed to be careful, the rest weren¡¯t worried.

    ¡°Stop being so stubborn, Hong Yitang! If you back away now, Li Hao hands over the sword of the Lis, and Light Sword hands over the Windchaser Boot, then all three of you can live! If not, none of you will be making it out alive today!¡± The speaker was one of those in metamorphosis¡ªGeneral Qian Feng from the Steppe King.

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t respond. He¡¯d sensed something from Li Hao¡¯s sword intent, an omen of something about to erupt. The young man wanted to kill, but could he do it? The man didn¡¯t know, but he didn¡¯t mind creating an opportunity for thed.

    Hong Yitang roared when Qian Feng finished speaking and seemed to abandon his defenses. He shattered heaven and earth, parting the seas with his stroke. It was as if the sea was caving in.

    The group jerked with surprise and some charging at the forefront quickly backed away. Those weaker couldn¡¯t react in time, but Hong Yitang abruptly withdrew his sword and took a defensive stance again. The group of attackers cursed loudly to themselves.

    <i>What are you scaring us for?!</i>

    The stronger of the group included their fellow pursuers in the insults. <i>All of you are so scared of death, no wonder you can¡¯t take down the targets!</i>

    Some of the mid andte Novas were standing in the front now because they¡¯d been a bit slower to retreat moments ago. Li Hao¡¯s eyes darted rapidly around, this was his chance! It was so lovely to work with martial masters! Hong Yitang was so adept at creating the right opportunity.

 Chapter 556: Silver Moon Swordsmen (III)

    <h4>Chapter 556: Silver Moon Swordsmen (III)</h4>

    Li Hao charged the moment that the other powerhouses retreated. Out in front, Xu Zhen and the others didn¡¯t mind the action. It wasn¡¯t Li Hao¡¯s first time rushing out. Everything was fine so long as it wasn¡¯t Hong Yitang.

    It was then that the young man suddenly roared, ¡°Kill!¡±

    A ferocious tiger seemed to descend from the mountain; his roar reverberated in their ear drums. A formidable mind intent exploded. The group saw a lot of things¡ªmountains, rivers, a tiger, a tree...

    The lithe Weeping Willow Sword danced through the air, but this time, it struck like a venomous snake! It was locked onto one person and nothing would deter it from its target. It was everywhere and anywhere. Lights of five colors shone in all directions. Seawater rocked violently and waves reared. Xu Zhen was propelled a step forward. Eyes widening, he attempted to kick Li Hao away as before.

    But this time, the young man remained unmoving after a loud collision!

    ¡°Be careful!¡± shouted the old man with white hair. He swiftly stepped forward and sted with a punch!

    Li Hao¡¯s sword didn¡¯t seem that fast, but it took only a split second for it to descend. It struck with a swift stroke!

    Xu Zhen felt that there were branches all around him¡ªno, that was sword light. He didn¡¯t know where the weakness was in Li Hao¡¯s sword method. Roaring, he sought to shatter the sword light. However, he felt a terrible pain in his right leg. Li Hao had punched him with his left hand and fractured the right leg that Xu Zhen had just kicked at him with.

    Sword light draped over him like a spider web. It shed across the vision, then vanished!

    Xu Zhen ran from Li Hao¡¯s vicinity, a shocked expression on his face. ¡°You little brat, not bad! You actually tried going for me!¡± heughed uproariously.

    Li Hao took a few quick steps back. Panting slightly, he began umting sword aura again.

    Xu Zhen continuedughing loudly, covering up his fear. Meanwhile, the frantic white-haired old man and the middle-aged man quickly drew close to Xu Zhen. That had been terrifying! Thankfully Li Hao¡¯s sword was all show and no force. It wasn¡¯t too destructive. The young master duke was fine.

    If anything had happened to him, the Steadfast Duke would surely explode. It hadn¡¯t been long since Xu Feng¡¯s death, Light Sword turning traitor, and five generals dying. It would be unthinkable if something happened to Xu Zhen as well!

    The others casually looked at the Xu representative. It wasn¡¯t long before someone hummed with surprise. The general director of Near River tilted his head at Xu Zhen. Thetter was celebrating his escape and also jeering at Li Hao for being surface level and no substance. He¡¯d thought that he wouldn¡¯t be able to avoid that stroke, but it suddenly melted away. He was fine!

    However, more hums of surprise sounded around him. The old man didn¡¯t notice it at first, but his expression shifted drastically in the next moment. Xu Zhen blinked when he noted the old man¡¯s expression.<i> What¡¯s this about?</i>

    ¡°Young... young master duke...¡± stammered the old man. Shock brimmed in his eyes.

    Lines of blood were beginning to appear on Xu Zhen¡¯s face, expanding like a spiderweb and fracturing his skin. He didn¡¯t feel any pain¡ªjust an itch on his face. He reached out to scratch his itch and spontaneously shattered his face! His hand began to fissure like a porcin object, countless cracks spreading across it and pieces of flesh and blood falling off.

    ¡°Im... impossible!¡± Xu Zhen panicked. How was this possible?! Everything had been fine!

    He attracted attention from everyone present.

    Li Hao appeared once more, soundlessly striking a mid Nova that¡¯d turned for a look. Hong Yitang also roared in the opening and stabbed his sword forward, abandoning his defense. Everyone was still looking at Xu Zhen, staring at the man cracking like a porcin doll with his pieces falling into the waters below. The white-haired old man and muscr, middle-aged man were terrified out of their wits. The world spun before their eyes!

    They had no thought to spare for the others, which created another opportunity for Li Hao.

    ¡°Kill!¡± The young man struck again, no longer gentle and weak, but ferocious and domineering. His blow detonated viciously; the mid Nova trying to escape froze for a split second, feeling like countless branches were entwined around him.

    That split second cost him his life. When the sword descended, he died much more quickly than Xu Zhen. Steris chopped him into two halves!

    Li Hao killed two people in the blink of an eye. In the same vein, Hong Yitangpletely gave up on defense and struck explosively, bringing his magnificent technique to bear on his targets. The other mid Nova was minced to a pulp, unable to offer the slightest resistance. He copsed to the ground and exploded!

    Hong Yitang immediately returned to defense and Li Hao raced back to the defensive perimeter. It took only the span of a breath. The others had fully retreated, but their eyes widened at their reduced numbers.

    <i>Dead!</i>

    Xu Zhen was dead, two mid Novas had been promptly killed. Only ten were left out of thirteen... Everything had happened too quickly.

    ¡°Young master duke!¡± The white-haired old man was losing his mind as he clutched at pieces of flesh. Xu Zhen was dead, and in such a gruesome manner! He¡¯d been diced by ten thousand cuts!

    If word of this got back, would the Steadfast Duke forgive them even though he¡¯d already suffered such extreme losses?!

    The old man looked at the middle-aged man; his colleague stared back at him. Both of them were very strong¡ªone was a mid Nova and one ate Nova. They were both fine, but the direct lineal descendant of the duke had been killed. How were they supposed to exin themselves?? No matter what... they could not remain here any longer.

    The two instantly made up their minds. They needed to leave. Whether it was to go back and beg for forgiveness on their knees or run for their lives, they could not remain on the scene. With that decision made, they grabbed Xu Zhen¡¯s storage ring, collected a few pieces of flesh, and whirled around to run.

    They were extremely decisive and immediately took action, but a paw surged out of the water below and mmed into the middle-aged man¡¯s crotch. The man looked down incredulously, finding that his lower body had been pierced through by an animal¡¯s paw!

    Before he could react, a dog¡¯s mouth appeared and bit him in two!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    White Hair punched a ck dog back; it hauled the bottom half of the middle-aged man away. Red swiftly bubbled up in the waves. The ck dog reappeared with a violent light in his eyes, looking at the shellshocked White Hair. Just as Li Hao had surmised, although Panther hadn¡¯t fought that many times, it was first ss when seizing the proper opportunity for battle.

    The string of developments stunned the rest of the attackers. <i>Four</i> of them had died before anyone had a chance to react and the one running was facing off against a dog! What... in the world was this situation?!

    Hong Yitang finally had a chance to breathe from being mobbed. He looked at Li Hao with some gratification¡ªthe kid didn¡¯t disappoint, alright! Although he¡¯d killed only the weakest, leaving the strongest, reducing their numbers by so many meant that the threat posed by the attackers was greatly reduced.

    Four out of thirteen were now dead and another was facing off against Panther in the distance. There were only eight left on the spot. The developments caused a disturbance among the remaining attackers. Near River¡¯s general director looked around solemnly, wanting to retreat as he looked at the trio. However, he was also concerned that he¡¯d be the target if he backed away.

    ¡°Earthturner Sword, Demon Sword... you are as if your reputations!¡± he said gravely. ¡°In that case, then let this matter end here...¡±

    Apart from him, none of the other eight said a word. They were still grappling with their dismay. How had Li Hao suddenly killed ate Nova and where had that doge from?? Their n to win through a war of attrition was suddenly null and void. In fact, they rather regretted their actions.

    A hulking powerhouse transmitted to them all, ¡°We can still win if we work together with our full force. Don¡¯t you guys want the sword of the Lis and the Windchaser Boot? A few dead means a few less to split the spoils!¡±

    This was the Buddha Mountain representative. Li Hao¡¯s attacks hadn¡¯t scared him, he still wanted to try! The caveat was that the two metamorphosis powerhouses had to be willing to put their full force into the fight.

    ......

    ¡°Li Hao, Hong Yitang can handle the two in metamorphosis, I¡¯ll take care of the three peak Novas,¡± sounded a voice in Li Hao¡¯s ear. ¡°That leaves the threete Novas to you, can you handle that?¡±

    It was Light Sword. She was awake, but her wounds were still very severe. That meant she could only go against the three peak Novas. Li Hao was required to stop or kill the threete Novas.

    ¡°Alright!¡± Li Hao transmitted back. He could try! As for whether or not he could, who knew? Being constantly on the defense and passively striking back was not the style of a swordsman.

    The three quickly reached an ord. While their attackers dithered over if they should retreat or continue... Sword light shed!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The trio didn¡¯t give them a chance to converse or retreat. Hong Yitang was extremely excited and cursed loudly, ¡°You little bastards! If it wasn¡¯t to protect them, I would¡¯ve long cut off a few heads for fun!¡±

    He was no saint! He was a butcher who¡¯d once gone to the central region himself for some blood pearls. Li Hao found him kind¡ªthat was because the young man was blind!

    A sword stroke reverberated through the air!

    The world spun before the eyes of the Near River general director and the Steppe Prince¡¯smander. They were sucked into a sealed off pocket of space as Hong Yitang spat out, ¡°You two will fight with me in here. Either you die, or I perish!¡±

    <i>Humm!</i>

    Sword qi broke through the air as the two¡¯s eyes widened. There was no need to hide anything any further. Immense strength erupted from them as the general director employed a de and Qian Feng used a spear. They were both origin weapons and further enhanced their wielders on the spot.

    The three fought so fiercely that they sted water straight out of the sea.

    Her face still wan, Light Sword swept out her sword and illuminated thend with radiance. She pronounced sternly, ¡°ck Widow, a North Sea pirate, and the guy from Buddha Mountain¡ªnone of you are leaving!¡±

    ¡°How much longer can you keep this up, Light Sword?¡± Having kept her identity concealed all this time, Orange Moon finally spoke with gravity. ¡°We¡¯ve already decided to leave, but you decide to pursue this to the bitter end...¡±

    ¡°Have you forgotten who we are, ck Widow?¡±

 Chapter 557: Silver Moon Swordsmen (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 557: Silver Moon Swordsmen (IV)</h4>

    Orange Moon hadn¡¯t forgotten! She erupted with a massive boom, sending thousands of strands of spider silk through the void. Of course she hadn¡¯t forgotten. As a fellow Silver Moon martial master, she was all too familiar with their style.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that open hostility would rage in the blink of an eye?

    As spider silk shot through the air, ck Widow roared, ¡°She¡¯s not fully recovered yet, kill her!¡±

    The pirate and Buddha Mountain representative immediately brought ruthless moves to bear. Theirbined efforts created a gap in Light Sword¡¯s barrage. Orange Moon shouted and soared into the air, sending out thousands more sword strokes that resembled spider silk. She looked like she was about to kill Light Sword, but her moves drifted away in a flurry.

    The woman was gone, vanished on the spot. As a Silver Moon martial master and one who used to be part of the thirty-six, she had her own way of survival¡ªalthough people liked to say that she¡¯d earned her ce through her looks. When Earthturner Sword and the others chose to counterattack, she knew that their optimal chance of victory had just slipped through their fingers!

    The attackers weren¡¯t all from one faction, after all. None of them were willing to truly put their best efforts on the line as they also schemed against each other at the same time. How would they stand a chance now that they were being cut down one by one?

    Hence, she chose to run!

    Orange Moon had vanished from public sight. Light Sword frowned, expecting the decision and flicked a nce at Earthturner Sword and Li Hao not too far away. She didn¡¯t give chase, continuing to focus on the two panicking peak Novas.

    Those two were losing their minds as ck Widow had fled and left them behind!

    ......

    <i>On Li Hao¡¯s side.</i>

    He faced threete Novas¡ªone from Yama, Celestial, and someone else he didn¡¯t recognize. The two from the three great organizations were easy to recognize. He ignored the happenings in the other directions and shed out with five auras melded together. The three powerhouses also brought their best to defend, explosions rang out continuously!

    The young man was inly a bit worse off as he faced three by himself, but he didn¡¯t care. He wasn¡¯t afraid of being hurt or even breaking an arm or a leg. He deployed the Weeping Willow Sword as the overview for his techniques, enveloping the three and not giving them a chance to escape.

    Gentle and unyielding, Li Hao forced the three into ferocious counterattacks and unceasing roars. Sword light swept through the North Sea! The young man was the weakest of the trio, but his sword methods were the most cutting. His moves looked mild, but every one of them was lethal.

    Hong Yitang carried himself with the same vast and magnificent style as before, suppressing the two in metamorphosis. They howled with the indignity of their circumstances.

    ¡°How dare you try to kill me, Hong Yitang?!¡± Near River¡¯s general director shouted to the heavens. ¡°You will not be able to bear the consequences if I die here!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A sword came down over his head, so oppressive that it nearly forced the man to explode. Fan Chang roared and hacked wildly with his de. The other swept his spear around and didn¡¯t say much. No amount of intimidation or threats was useful at this point. Fan Chang had upied a lofty position for so long that he¡¯d forgotten this point.

    Silver Moon martial masters didn¡¯t care about verbal bluster and didn¡¯t even converse much with people. They often talked only after killing their opponent¡ªthey struck up conversations with corpses.

    Of the three, no, four battlefields, Light Sword was the first to finish her fights. Her sword qi shot up to the heavens as it illuminated the vicinity. She cut down the Duke of Sea Pacification of the North Sea pirates with one stroke.

    ¡°I am the brother of the Buddha Mountain lord...¡± the remaining survivor was forced to protest. His elder brother was the mountain¡¯s lord! One of the premier powerhouses of the world!

    Light Sword finished her sword sweep and crushed his head.

    ¡°Lord of Buddha Mountain?¡± she sneered. ¡°I think I know him, the one who calls himself the Buddha King, doesn¡¯t he? He came to Silver Moon from the west, whereupon Yuan Shuo broke his arms, shaved his head, and hung him on the boundary marker. I thought he died a long time ago, but he''s still alive! Yuan Shuo always leaves trouble behind!¡±

    What a pity that the person in front of her was dead and could not hear her anymore.

    Li Hao used the sh of horror in his opponents to strike with his sword and erupt with the metal sword aura. He ripped through the Celestial elder with a loud explosion!

    The young man¡¯s other hand came up with a punch. A massive tiger manifested with a roar and swallowed his second opponent. Terrified beyond belief, hisst opponent sought to run. He¡¯d just dashed through the void when Light Sword¡¯s blow arrived!

    It pierced through heaven and earth and nailed the man into the void!

    In the distance, the two metamorphosis experts widened their eyes. A ruthless look crossed Fan Chang¡¯s eyes. When Hong Yitang¡¯s sword shed out, Fan Chang suddenly threw out something that exploded, creating a massive cavity in the waters below them.

    Vomiting blood, Fan Chang ran off. However, a dark look lingered in his eyes. The treasure was gone¡ªhe¡¯d uncovered it in a ruin. ording to the instructions it came with, it was an exceedingly powerful bomb from the ancient times. It was an energy bomb that could kill countless powerhouses in the ancient civilization.

    He¡¯d uncovered three bombs and used two of them already. They eliminated peak heavyweights each time. And the third... could only be used for saving his life.

    As formidable as the bomb was, a ray of sword light flew out from the heart of the explosion and cut off one of Fan Chang¡¯s arms. The man didn¡¯t even look back; he vanished on the spot like it wasn¡¯t his own arm that¡¯d been severed. As a general director, he knew the importance of losing an arm to secure his survival.

    The other metamorphosis expert from the Steppe Prince¡¯s faction was also heavily injured by the bomb. Coughing up blood, he sighed in the direction that Fan Chang had run in. That bastard... if they¡¯d kept fighting, Hong Yitang was in for a rough time even if they lost.

    But he¡¯d run away!

    The man¡¯s cloak split open to reveal his face. It was a weathered face that looked at Hong Yitang with a smile. ¡°The prince will avenge me... Earthturner Sword, you can¡¯t hide anymore after today!¡±

    ¡°The Steppe Prince is strong, but he needs to resolve the threemanders first!¡± Hong Yitang was likewise coughing up blood, but he swept his sword down!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Qian Feng exploded, his voice lingering on the wind. ¡°Hou Xiaochen and the other traitors... will not be long for this world!¡±

    The Steppe King had crafted the Skystar Guards, but the three traitors had stolen the faction! As a loyal subject to the prince, he hated the threemanders. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about them. All he knew was that the prince had personally taken the field a while back and injured Hou Xiaochen and Huang Yu. The sad pity was that he hadn¡¯t been able to kill them.

    Action abruptly stopped on the three battlefronts. The white-haired old man kicked Panther away and swiftly ran off, abject fear in his eyes. Li Hao and the others were about to make their moves when a violent glint shone in the falling dog¡¯s eyes.

    A roar that didn¡¯t sound like a dog bark rang in the air, prompting the appearance of a golden dog. Blood frothing, the ck dog had turned into a massive golden dog! It was countless times bigger than before as it bit down on the old man!

    The void seemed to shatter with that crunch and a devouring suction force emanated from its mouth. The old man screamed with anguish; half of his body was chomped off. Panther¡¯s eyes were bloodshot and it seemed ready to swallow the body.

    ¡°Panth!¡± Li Hao hastily called out upon seeing the dog¡¯s condition.

    The ck dog jerked itself awake and shook itself to normal. It was at a bit of a loss and quickly spat out the corpse in its mouth. Panther flung itself down to take arge sip of seawater and rinse out its mouth. It looked at Li Hao innocently when it came up for air. <i>What is it? I don¡¯t eat humans, so how did this person shove himself in my mouth?</i>

    Hong Yitang and the others regarded the dog in a new light. Hong Yitang quickly transmuted, ¡°This dog seems to have the bloodline of ancient monster spirits. Its bloodline was briefly activated when it was provoked. Be careful, it seems to lose some consciousness when its bloodline is active...¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head and frowned slightly, quickly revealing a smile again. <i>So what?</i>

    ¡°ck Widow and the other guy in metamorphosis got away...¡± he said with regret after a look around.

    ¡°I let her go on purpose!¡± Light Sword sighed deeply in the middle of a coughing fit.

    Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°She is a Silver Moon martial master and one of the thirty-six...¡± Light Sword borated after a few seconds of silence. ¡°That¡¯s why I didn¡¯t want to hunt her down.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s brows furrowed, but he didn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°We might not be able to kill her even if we catch up to her,¡± Hong Yitang smoothed things over. ¡°She was a martial master back in the day and is aware of our methods. She¡¯s also one of Ying Hongyue¡¯s most treasured subordinates, her strength is not to be underestimated. She might have some ultimate moves that she¡¯s yet to pull out of her sleeve.

    ¡°It¡¯s rather Fan Chang who surprised me with such an explosive treasure. I don¡¯t know where he found it¡ªit could¡¯ve easily blown up regr peak Novas!¡±

    ¡°None of that is worth much, it¡¯s more important that Martial Uncle Hong¡¯s strength can no longer be concealed!¡± Li Hao said with regret.

    ¡°I don¡¯t mind and don¡¯t want to hide it,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°There¡¯s been ack of enemies to force my full strength over the years. Those who could¡¯ve are dead, which contributes to theck of general knowledge about me. It doesn¡¯t mean that I¡¯m afraid of anything!¡±

    Panther swam in from the distance.

    ¡°Forget it, it¡¯s all the same.¡± Li Hao looked around him. ¡°There are actually some more heavyweights in the surroundings, they¡¯re just watching from afar. Some of them have probably seen the results and are running. We can¡¯t keep this under wraps! C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go find a quiet ce to heal the two of you. I need to recover as well!¡±

    ¡°Your five auras sword technique... is not bad!¡± Hong Yitangplimented.

    ¡°It¡¯s just stitched together.¡± Li Hao shook his head with a smile.

    The man understood. Stitching together meant that the young man hadn¡¯t truly sessfully melded them as one. Even so, he had the ability to killte Novas. It was apparent from that that the Five Auras Sword had great potential.

    ¡°That¡¯s good! That means there¡¯s enormous potential to be uncovered!¡±

    Li Hao had been a bit dejected¡ªhe suddenly smiled at this and nodded. Hong Yitang was the best atforting people!

    Three humans and a dog vanished on the spot. Panther didn¡¯t forget to clean up the battlefield. It was very worried at the moment¡ªit could vaguely recall a few things, like changing and almost eating someone. It was worried Li Hao would send it away, there would be nothing good to eat then!

    Therefore, it was particrly diligent in its duties.

    It wasn¡¯t until long after the group had vanished that people came by to investigate the battlefield. Sword qi crisscrossed in the air and some Novas were even injured by the lingering qi.

    ¡°The swordsmen of Silver Moon... are terrifying!¡± someone sighed after a long while.

    The world was about to change again. Silver Moon martial masters were appearing one after another and each stronger than the previous. The situation was too much and too flustering to make a proper response to.

 Chapter 558: All Revealing Themselves (I)

    <h4>Chapter 558: All Revealing Themselves (I)</h4>

    News of the North Sea battle quickly spread in all directions. Variousmunication systems received word as soon as Li Hao and the rest left.

    ......

    An ind floated in the depths of the West Sea. In its center was a mountain so ethereal that it seemed immortals might be found on it. A person with a powerful presence was practicing a boxing technique on the mountain. He stilled his movements when a powerhouse broke through the air and stood on the outskirts.

    ¡°Mountain lord!¡± The neer respectfully looked down and held out a jade pendant.

    The lord of Buddha Mountain nced at him and asked calmly, ¡°Crimson Feather is dead, isn¡¯t he?¡±

    The man¡¯s expression shifted slightly and he didn¡¯t say too much. ¡°He is dead.¡± He kept his head lowered.

    ¡°Light Sword has unsealed herself for a very long time, she isn¡¯t likely to be behind it. Which of the Silver Moon martial masters did it?¡±

    ¡°Earthturner Sword and Demon Sword.¡±

    The old mountain lord inclined his head. Earthturner Sword wasn¡¯t surprising, but Demon Sword Li Hao? Two swordsmen had gone to save Light Sword?

    ¡°Silver Moon martial masters...¡± The Buddha King shook his head, not sure of what he wanted to say. He took the jade pendant after a while and carefully perused the information on it. ¡°Three humans and a dog created such carnage in the North Sea that the very waters shook from it. The dog should possess the bloodline of the ancient monster spirits... Demon Sword Li Hao is Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple alright!¡±

    He didn¡¯t seem to care about his younger brother Crimson Feather¡¯s death.

    ¡°Mountain lord, Lord Crimson Feather...¡±

    ¡°He was too greedy. It¡¯s his own fault for dying,¡± the Buddha King said calmly. ¡°Is Light Sword¡¯s Windchaser Boot that easy to seize? I told him that the location was too close to Silver Moon and might raise some attention because of it. It might draw in the Silver Moon martial masters. He didn¡¯t listen and didn¡¯t believe me. He went with a death wish that I sawing from far away. But since I couldn¡¯t persuade him otherwise, I could only let him do as he would!¡±

    The powerhouse under hismand widened his eyes. So the mountain lord had seen thising?

    The Buddha King sank into his memories instead of saying anything else. He shook his head to erase them from his mind.

    <i>Earthturner Sword, Demon Sword...</i> His information indicated that Earthturner Sword had reached the ultimate peak of what was feasible for his path. The only unknown was how many supernatural locks he¡¯d fully saturated.

    Five? Six? Or even more?

    Not every person could unseal their battle strength, and not every martial master could aplish it. One needed to saturate their supernatural locks first¡ªit was difficult to determine how many of his were at capacity.

    <i>Light Sword, Earthturner Sword, Hou Xiaochen, Huang Yu...</i>

    Various names shed through the Buddha King¡¯s mind. Had all of them reached that step? Silver Moon fellows were truly frightening! Yuan Shuo had also dropped out of the public eye. <i>Where have you gone, Yuan Shuo?</i>

    ¡°Forget it,¡± the man sighed at the end. ¡°Tell our disciples to stay out of Silver Moon. Do not engage these people if theyck full confidence in winning.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± his subordinate barked out, then asked hesitantly, ¡°Mountain lord, with Lord Crimson Feather¡¯s death, do we...¡±

    Not say a word? Wouldn¡¯t that cause the renowned Buddha Mountain to lose face?

    ¡°Yama, Celestial, and the Steppe Prince have all lost people. The worst off is the Steadfast Duke. That old thing has now lost his son, grandson, and five of his eight generals. He¡¯ll be the first to issue any sort of challenge or seek vengeance!

    ¡°Undercurrents race beneath the surface these days, no one is willing to be the first to dere war on Silver Moon. Those of the province refused to bembs to the ughter long ago and are striking back. Hou Xiaochen has entered the central region, Sky Sword created Sky Sword Mountain, Tyrant de can be found in thend... All of them are putting their lives on the line! We¡¯d just be creating trouble for ourselves if we make a move now!¡±

    Putting their lives on the line,mbs to the ughter...

    These terms puzzled his subordinate, but the Buddha King didn¡¯t exin himself. Those who would understand would, and those who wouldn¡¯t, would not. There were too many secrets buried in that province and powerhouses stared covetously at all of them. however, Silver Moon martial masters were not willing to allow others to interfere. Thest attempt had seen thousands of supernaturals be buried in their ruins.

    This was just the beginning and also represented that Silver Moon would not share their sacrednd!

    The Buddha King had long foreseen that conclusion. Silver Moon fellows were adept at fighting among themselves and presenting a united front against outsiders. Who would be willing to give up their sacrednd on bended knee?

    Martial masters aware of the situation were furiously striking back. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s foray to the central region was the beginning of such a counterattack. He hoped to build a first line of defense outside of Silver Moon.

    It would be much more difficult than he thought!

    As more and more powerhouses were bottlenecked, Silver Moon would be forced to open up sooner orter. The supernatural domain was also improving as time went on. There were more metamorphosis experts these days and perhaps the province would have a better way for them to take the next step forward.

    ¡°You are dismissed.¡± The Buddha King waved his hand as the thoughts floated through his mind. ¡°The central region is our current training grounds. We can set Silver Moon aside for now!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The messenger swiftly departed.

    Although the Buddha King returned to his boxing routine, he was distracted. Silver Moon once more came to the forefront of his mind, as well as a lot of other people. As the best and brightest among the western martial world, he¡¯d been hailed as a walking god when he reached Dominator. He¡¯d swept all of his opponents and thought nothing of the so-called sacrednd of martial dao when he visited Silver Moon.

    Reality dealt him a mortifying blow that he would not forget for the rest of his life. None of Silver Moon¡¯s Dominators hade out to wee him¡ªonly an excited Yuan Shuo in the midst of his rise challenged him when he learned that the best of the western martial world hade.

    Naturally, the Buddha King couldn¡¯t be bothered with the upstart and didn¡¯t want to ept the challenge. However, his opponent came straight for him.

    After a fierce battle, he proved unable to match the Sunderer level Yuan Shuo. His arms were broken and the impertinent Buddha King managed to infuriate Yuan Shuo so much that thetter decided to humiliate his opponent. He shaved the Buddha King bald to make him match his moniker and hung the man on the province¡¯s boundary marker.

    The Buddha King had wanted to die that day, but he lived through the shame and carried on to present day.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo...¡± The Buddha King suddenly smiled. It was good! It was good that the old man was still alive. He rather wished for Yuan Shuo to be as strong as possible. So long as Yuan Shuo was alive, so would the Buddha King¡¯s shame live on. It propelled him onward in the face of cultivation challenges, never forgetting the mortification and disgrace he¡¯d once suffered no matter how tired he was.

    <i>Yuan Shuo, certain credit has to go to you that Buddha Mountain is now one of the seven divine mountains! To think that your disciple would be raising a ruckus after you¡¯ve disappeared. He wields the divine sword of the Lis and will probably be public enemy number one before long, just like you.</i>

    ......

    While Buddha Mountain was iparably quiet, the central region was far from such a tranquil scene. A grand manor stood at the end of a prosperous avenue¡ªthe Steppe King¡¯s manor.

    This had been a sacrednd eighty years ago; it was much less illustriouspared to before. The nine ministries had confined the royal family after the reins of power were turned over. Even one of their nine princes still kept an exceedingly low profile. He hadn¡¯t done anything major aside from creating the Skystar Guards several decades ago.

    <i>Inside the prince¡¯s manor.</i>

    A middle-aged man with a stern countenance sat on wooden chairs as he sipped tea. He put down the teacup after hearing thetest reports from the intelligenceworks. ¡°So Qian Feng¡¯s dead... I¡¯d thought that this would be another chance for him to break through after setting foot into metamorphosis. What a pity, what an absolute pity!¡±

    What a pity that the loyal Qian Feng had perished. What a shame. Those vile Silver Moon barbarians were growing stronger yet.

    ¡°Go tell Huang Yu to have Silver Moon return Qian Feng¡¯s body,¡± the Steppe Prince said after a long moment. ¡°We need to give him a proper burial!¡±

    ¡°Milord!¡± some grieved among the generals standing in the hall. ¡°General Qian has been killed, we are not willing...¡±

    ¡°You must be, even if you are not willing!¡± The Steppe King shook his head. ¡°Now is not the time. There are more than just one or two people thatprise of Silver Moon powerhouses, there are a lot of them! If we start the war first, the ultimate result might be that we are the ones destroyed. No one from Silver Moon¡¯s side might even die in that case.

    ¡°Our only recourse is to wait! Wait until there are more in metamorphosis and looking for the breakthrough. Once the fact that Silver Moon can be breached is known to the rest of the world, that will be when we destroy the Silver Moon martial world one and for all!

    ¡°I knew thirty years ago that this group of people would be trouble sooner orter. I wanted to fight fire with fire and use savages against savages, but I failed in the end. And now, their dangers are apparent.¡±

    He¡¯d known early on that the Silver Moon martial world would eventually be a problem. But the royal family had been too heavily suppressed then and the nine ministries didn¡¯t really care about exterminating the martial world. They neither approved nor condemned such actions, but didn¡¯t support them either.

    <i>I wonder if the nine ministries regret their actions now?</i>

    The Steppe Prince snorted to himself. Everyone wanted Silver Moon, but it wasn¡¯t an easy target to conquer! It was also impossible to not subdue the province first before conquering the world. If they didn¡¯t, how were they supposed to obtain benefits, rise to higher levels, and rule the world again?

    <i>Hou Xiaochen, you and yours think too simply. Those with ambition will charge into Silver Moon sooner orter. How is one to be the Human King without pacifying that province first?</i>

    ......

    Three sword wielders fought in the North Sea, sending shock in all directions.

    Hou Xiaochen received word at first light¡ªhe¡¯d just arrived at the central headquarters of the Night Watchers. He chuckled when he saw that those in the middle of a meeting nce downward and continue reading.

    There were many directors at central headquarters. One principal, nine deputies. Hou Xiaochen made for ten deputies. There were eleven ranking powerhouses total. Of them, the most eye-catching was naturally the famous Yellow Dragon. Instead of assessing him, Hou Xiaochen looked at the statuesque Director Zheng.

    He wasn¡¯t as famous as Yellow Dragon; he kept such a low profile that the deputy severely overshadowed him. The Night Watchers were a subagency of the Inspectorate. It was logical for a Night Watcher director to be an Inspectorate deputy, but for a Night Watcher deputy to be an officer in the Inspectorate as well... The clear intent of checks and bnces was at y here.

    inly, Yellow Dragon had his backers, and they were possibly at the Inspectorate headquarters. They put him here to suppress the Night Watcher director.

    ¡°Congrattions, Ole Brother Hou,¡± someone called out while Hou Xiaochen was still looking at Director Zheng. ¡°You have a good heir. Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple seems to be a deputy director of the Silver Moon Night Watchers. We¡¯ve just received word that he annihted a band of pirates in the North Sea. He seems to match the other little guys in Silver Moon...¡±

    <i>Pirates.</i>

    No one spoke of their true identity and pped them with the identification of pirates. Even if Li Hao and the rest of them died, it would still be the work of pirates.

 Chapter 559: All Revealing Themselves (II)

    <h4>Chapter 559: All Revealing Themselves (II)</h4>

    ¡°More like utter contempt for regtion!¡± Seated in the head position, the iparably dignified Yellow Dragon snorted. ¡°It is one thing to be exterminating pirates and raiders, but I have received word that Night Watcher Li Hao has killed Xu Zhen of the Steadfast Duke¡¯s household! Although the royal family has retreated behind the scenes, they are still the nobility of the dynasty. The Steadfast Duke is officially acknowledged by the nine ministries!

    ¡°Li Hao is just like his master, one who grantly defies thew. The Night Watchers were formed to stand against such people. He breaks the rules knowing full well what they are. He disregardsw and order! Light Sword joined the Steadfast Duke as a ve and has turned traitor, killing her master. How can such a violent criminal be rescued by the Night Watchers instead...¡±

    All eyes snapped to Hou Xiaochen. Here it came! Everyone knew that Yellow Dragon would not let Hou Xiaochen find his footing in the central region. As expected, the man was berating their newest addition at his weing party.

    ¡°Deputy Director Hou.¡± Yellow Dragon looked at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Li Hao has broken thew knowing fully well what it is. You are a veteran inspector and Night Watcher. What say you, how should he be punished?¡±

    ¡°I should stay out of it to avoid usations of bias,¡± Hou Xiaochen responded calmly. ¡°Let¡¯s see what the director says. If not, let¡¯s see what everyone thinks...

    ¡°We can remove Li Hao from his position if ites down to that,¡± heughed. ¡°It¡¯s not like we¡¯ll arrest him for questioning, will we? There¡¯s no one in Silver Moon who will listen to me after my departure. Why don¡¯t Deputy Director Yellow send someone to capture Li Hao? I have no opinions about that. Miscreants such as these should be punished!¡±

    ¡°And if we send Deputy Director Hou to arrest him?¡± Yellow Dragon frowned.

    ¡°Sure!¡± Hou Xiaochen grinned. ¡°I¡¯ll set out immediately with my people. We¡¯ll bring in Li Hao, Earthturner Sword, and the others. But they¡¯re very strong, so headquarters will need to give me a certain degree of support. I¡¯ll absolutely capture them within a year!¡±

    ¡°......¡± No one said a word. They¡¯d finally brought Hou Xiaochen to the central region, wouldn¡¯t it be letting the tiger return to the mountain if they sent him back?

    The old man who¡¯d yet to say anything coughed gently. ¡°Alright, let this matter end here! The Steadfast Duke... has not publicly admitted that the one who died is one of his. He hasn¡¯t filed a report, so we have no right to be involved. They can do as they wish.¡± He gave both sides a way out of the situation.

    ¡°Being newly arrived, Xiaochen is not too familiar with our situation. The Night Watcher headquarters possesses fivemanders in addition to us directors. They are in charge of the north, south, east, west, and central regions. Deputy Director Yellow Dragon has always been actingmander of the north. Xiaochen is also from Silver Moon of the north and is unfamiliar with the other regions. Director Yellow...¡± The old man turned to Yellow Dragon.

    ¡°Let¡¯s give the position of northernmander to Xiaochen. He knows the area well and this gives him something to do. Beingmander will prevent his talents from being wasted in just sitting around.¡±

    Yellow Dragon¡¯s expression froze over. When it came to the hierarchy of power, the fivemanders were certainly lower than the deputy directors. But in terms of actual power, the fivemanders were much greater than regr deputy directors. They directlymanded a portion of the Night Watchers!

    He¡¯d always been themander of the north, but the old fart wanted to make use of Hou Xiaochen¡¯s arrival to knock him down a peg! Was he supposed to just give up the position of northernmander??

    ¡°Director, that would be inappropriate, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± Yellow Dragon was naturally unwilling. ¡°Director Hou is only familiar with Silver Moon. There is unrest in the north now and the director is likely unknowing of the entire situation. The Night Watchers of the other eighteen provinces may not be satisfied if we brashly change theirmander.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t we take it slower? It¡¯s alright if I have tobor under a heavier workload. Isn¡¯t the director also amander of Skystar City? There isn¡¯t much for amander of the central region to oversee, why not let Deputy Director Hou take over that?¡±

    Amander of the central region was officially known as the Skystarmander. They oversaw the central region, but in name only. There were so many powerful institutions in the central region, alongside the nine ministries and royal families. There were alsorge sums of princes and dukes as well. Each central region province was also overseen by a domineering personage. Who would listen to the Skystarmander?

    That position was sheer nonsense. Commanders of the other four areas might be able to exert some strength in their position. There might be some who didn¡¯t listen to them, but not all of them wouldn¡¯t ignore themander.

    The old man nced at Hou Xiaochen, then at Yellow Dragon. ¡°That is just as well!¡± He nodded with a smile. ¡°Then that¡¯s settled. Xiaochen has just arrived and could do with some time to familiarize himself with new surroundings. Then the position of Skystarmander will be given over to Xiaochen. I¡¯ll send word to the Inspectorate in a moment. We shouldn¡¯t run into too much trouble particrly as Director Yellow also gives his support. There won¡¯t be any issue with this.¡±

    Yellow Dragon frowned slightly. <i>Do I support this?</i>

    Fine, it had been his suggestion. He just hadn¡¯t thought that the old thing would agree so readily. It went so smoothly that he felt something was amiss.

    The Skystarmander did indeedck actual power, but it was also nominally the head of the fivemanders. Its authority was very high as it oversaw all of the supernatural affairs in the central region. The old director had the intent of doing so, butcked the strength to exercise his authority. He¡¯d hunkered down in his office the entire time.

    If Hou Xiaochen decided to carry out the letter of his duties... there might be some trouble then. But in that case, he would offend arge sum of institutions and organizations. Yellow Dragon smiled again. If Hou Xiaochen was unafraid of death and insisted on sticking his nose into things, then that was his prerogative. Yellow Dragon wouldn¡¯t have to do anything then for someone to teach Hou Xiaochen a lesson!

    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll send word to the inspector general as well,¡± Yellow Dragon acquiesced. ¡°We shouldn¡¯t have much of an issue.¡±

    ¡°My deepest thanks.¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°I¡¯ve just arrived and don¡¯t understand anything. If there¡¯s anything untoward that I engage in, I hope for some leniency from everyone.¡±

    No one discussed the matters of the North Sea any further. It was too far away for them to do anything. And with Hou Xiaochen in the mix, people couldn¡¯t say much about Silver Moon martial masters.

    Hou Xiaochen looked at the old director and then at the other deputy directors. He smiled and didn¡¯t say anything further. The old director inly wanted to set him up against Yellow Dragon. Everyone could see that and sense how helpless the ole director was. However, Hou Xiaochen wouldn¡¯t underestimate the man for it.

    The old man had been director of the Night Watchers when it was formed. He was still their director after all these years. The old director had been a powerhouse back in those days. How else would he have been the first generation director? Though he seemed like a figurehead now due to many years of inaction, was he really just a figurehead?

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s thoughts turned to Earthturner Sword and the others. <i>Those guys are seriously crazy.</i> They either didn¡¯t make a move, or killed so many powerhouses when they did. Life... would not be easy in the days toe.

    Although all sides were wary of each other and didn¡¯t want to be the first to expose themselves, taking such a high profile stance also revealed all of their capabilities.

    Hou Xiaochen sighed inwardly. As each Silver Moon martial master was exposed to the public eye, powerhouses of various factions would be prepared and know more about the province. When they felt that they held most of the information they wanted about the province, that was when they would act.

    Silver Moon would be in grave trouble from now on!

    Should he relinquish the province?

    The thought vanished from Hou Xiaochen¡¯s mind as soon as it urred to him. That was their root, how could they abandon it? Not only was he unwilling, but so were the others.

    ......

    A hubbub of discussion rose on all sides.

    <i>Meanwhile, close to the North Sea.</i>

    A domineering middle-aged man with a wanplexion looked toward the North Sea. He held someone in his hand and coldly demanded, ¡°Has the fighting stopped in the North Sea?¡±

    ¡°It has... stopped...¡± quickly answered his quarry. ¡°Noble... sir... I was just passing by... I don¡¯t know anything...¡±

    The man rifled through his target¡¯s clothes and took out a pendant. He looked at it and inclined his head. ¡°Not bad, Earthturner Sword... has concealed his strength. and ck Widow escaped?¡± The man furrowed his brows, then quickly smoothed them out. ¡°It¡¯s fine, there¡¯s no point in killing her. That can wait until Ying Hongyuees.¡±

    The person in his hand trembled ever more violently. After he finished speaking, the man tossed his quarry into the air and blew him up!

    He would kill a scout of the three great organizations if he wished. The middle-aged man looked around. He¡¯d wanted to find Yuan Shuo, but Yuan Shuo had gone missing. After learning of a battle here, he came to find Light Sword, but the fighting was over. So now what? Where should he go?

    After a brief moment, the man had his answer. He would go have some fun with the North Sea King!

    The Starlight Pirates were the greatest among the North Sea pirates. Their leader self-styled himself as the North Sea King. He seemed to have been involved in this operation and even sent out one of his dukes. And yet, the North Sea King himself hadn¡¯t appeared.

    The man took a step out and vanished on the spot. It wasn¡¯t until he was gone for a very long time that a head popped out of the ground. ¡°Was that... Tyrant de?¡± it murmured with shock.

    Tyrant de was still alive!

    He¡¯d always been alive, but so very few people had seen him around. That did seem to have been Tyrant de. Many people were familiar with pictures of the thirty-six heroes of Silver Moon; those were core files of numerous organizations.

    Tyrant de hade to the North Sea!

    The scout in the dark was shocked by how strong Tyrant de appeared. First it was Earthturner Sword, then Tyrant de, just how many powerhouses were hidden in Silver Moon¡¯s martial world?

    He swiftly entered words into a jade pendant and prepared to pass the message back that Tyrant de had appeared in the vicinity... The scout had just utilized a thread of mysterious power when...

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A massive explosive rang out as a surge of de qi destroyed everything, including the person underground. Off in the distance, the middle-aged man who¡¯d departed looked back coolly. He couldn''t be bothered for a second look and promptly vanished. Everyone knew that Tyrant de should not be disrespected with surveince!

 Chapter 560: All Revealing Themselves (III)

    <h4>Chapter 560: All Revealing Themselves (III)</h4>

    <i>At the same time, at a ce less than fifty kilometers away from Tyrant de.</i>

    A genteel man raised his head and looked in a certain direction, seeming to sense something. He quickly shook his head with a smile and paid no further attention. Instead, he focused on the person warily backing away from him.

    ¡°Long time no see, little Spidey. How have you been?¡±

    Cold sweat beaded ck Widow¡¯s face beneath the mask. She was more terrified of this man than she was of Earthturner Sword. She forcefully tamped down the fear in her heart. ¡°I¡¯m alright. Ah, Red Moon¡¯s been looking for you and wishes to engage in great affairs...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not being too honest, Spidey,¡± chuckled the genteel man. ¡°You¡¯re trying to scare me with Ying Hongyue. I haven¡¯t done anything and I don¡¯t like killing innocents, not to mention old friends. I only came by because I heard Light Sword was surrounded. You weren¡¯t part of that, were you? We¡¯re all old friends here...¡±

    ¡°N-no...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re still not being too honest, Spidey!¡± the man chuckled again. ¡°I¡¯ve already received word. Look here, I have this too!¡± He took out a jade pendant. ¡°Apparently you ran fast, you were the first one out of there. That was how I knew you were involved. Otherwise, I would never think that little Spidey would join others in attacking Silver Moon martial masters. We can kill each other ourselves, but other people cannot. Have you forgotten? Ying Hongyue¡¯s taught you poorly these years...¡±

    ¡°I was just watching.¡± ck Widow sweated profusely. ¡°I didn¡¯t bring my full strength to bear. I was surprised that Light Sword was so strong and wanted to test a thing or two...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re full of lies!¡± sighed the genteel man with a shake of his head. ¡°Forget it, I won¡¯t press you. We¡¯re all old friends.¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll be off,¡± ck Widow said hurriedly. ¡°And please call upon us when you have time...¡±

    ¡°Off?¡±ughed the man. ¡°Alright, but you did break some rules. I tend to be a stickler for the rules, so I¡¯ll punch you once to help your memory. If Ying Hongyue wishes to kill Yuan Shuo, only his people can take the field. When was allying with outsiders a thing? That¡¯s such disrespect for the rules!¡±

    ¡°No...¡± ck Widow panicked and attempted to run!

    This peak Nova was even more terrified than when Light Sword wanted to chase after her! She leapt into the air to make her getaway. The man sighed and punched!

    His fist floated gently through the air, but was also stately and imposing without any extraneousplexities.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A fist descended from the sky, its presence so vast and magnificent that it outmatched Earthturner Sword¡¯s technique.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The fist mmed ck Widow into the ground. Her mask shattered, revealing an exquisite face. She vomited blood, dismay writ over her face. A fist was imprinted on her chest¡ªall of her bones were broken and most of her organs were ruptured. Her mysterious power was mostly dissipated as well.

    Despair crept over her face. The genteel manughed in the distance. ¡°That will do, such are the rules. You won¡¯t die, all you need is some nourishment when you go back. Commit this lesson to memory and stop running around with the wrong sorts. You liked to do that before, but at least you kept to other Silver Moon folks. Now you consort with outsiders? You¡¯re better than that!¡±

    ¡°Gurgle...¡± ck Widow wanted to say something, but there was nothing she could say. In her horrified and overawed state, she just felt that she was on the verge of death.

    Northern Fist!

    She knew that Northern Fist must be very strong, but she¡¯d never thought that she¡¯d almost die from a single punch. There was absolutely no opening for her to strike back. What heights had Northern Fist reached? Where had he been all these years? Why was he suddenly here?!

    The genteel man ignored her and looked around, contemting certain things before sighing, ¡°Forget it, I won¡¯t go back to Silver Moon. It can¡¯t handle more disturbance at the moment. I wanted to meet with Yuan Shuo since I heard he left the province, but he¡¯s gone now. Tyrant de might also be nearby, but I can¡¯t be bothered with him.

    ¡°I hear that Buddha King is still alive and got himself one of those divine mountains... Same goes for Sky Sword. I¡¯ll go catch up with them. Ah, yes. I hear my ole brother He Yong¡¯s joined the royal family as one of theirckeys. Is that true?¡±

    ¡°Cough cough...¡± ck Widow couldn¡¯t respond as blood flowed out of her mouth.

    Northern Fist frowned at her. ¡°You disregard the rules too much. My ranking was higher than yours on the thirty-six and you should be answering when I ask you questions. Or do you want another punch?¡±

    Fear intensified in ck Widow¡¯s eyes. She struggled against the immense pain from her organs and managed to form some words. ¡°At... Southern Fist... is at... the royal family...¡±

    That was more like it!

    The genteel man nodded with a smile. ¡°Then I¡¯ll go visit my little brother. Bring a message back with you that pretty boy Red Moon shoulde visit me. I¡¯d like to see if he¡¯s still so handsome after so many years. I want to smash his face every time I see him¡ªI hate people who look better than me!¡±

    ¡°......¡± ck Widow didn¡¯t dare say a word. She simply nodded.

    ¡°Then I¡¯m off.¡± Northern Fist let her off the hook and waved a hand. ¡°Spidey, go home to your pretty boy and tell him that he should renounce his supernatural side as soon as possible. What¡¯s the point of training the supernatural? It¡¯s just a waste of time. Martial dao is the true path!¡±

    He left at a moderate pace, but instantly vanished from sight.

    ck Widow took out some pills long after he left and quickly swallowed them, but she still wanted to cry. That punch had broken countless bones and severely damaged her organs. She wouldn¡¯t recover without Water of Life.

    Thankfully, it¡¯d just been one punch. If another hade... she¡¯d probably really be dead. <i>These people...</i>

    Unable to finish her thought, she ultimately sighed and left with difficulty. It looked like Red Moon would have to wait to enter Silver Moon. Otherwise, under these circumstances, Li Hao might kill her himself without needing to wait for Huang Yu and the others.

    Northern Fist had appeared, as had Tyrant de, Sky Sword, Earthturner Sword, Yuan Shuo, and Jadelight Sword. An era of chaos was soon upon them. Even if various factions didn¡¯te for these personages, they might take action themselves.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s trio swiftly vanished among the North Sea.

    <i>The North Sea province.</i>

    Although the three northern provinces were caught in unrest, the provincial capital of Seabreeze was still a picture of tranquility.

    <i>On the outskirts, in arge hotel.</i>

    Earthturner Sword had rented a small vi close to the sea. The view was unbelievably gorgeous. Pieces of mysterious power stones floated in front of them, as well as a massive stone from Hong Yitang. The man sighed, he only had one such piece left!

    Of the treasures that he¡¯d found in Battle Heaven, one had been used on He Yong, another being used now, and the Water of Life had also been used. His fortuitous opportunity was slipping through his fingers...

    Li Hao said nothing, he plunged the sword into the biggest piece. He couldn¡¯t help it since Hong Yitang wanted to offer it. The Silver Moon authorities had given him many mysterious power stones for the rescue effort.

    ¡°This operation is funded by the Silver Moon authorities. I wasn¡¯t in the mood to run to the North Sea to save people. Let me be clear, it¡¯s all from the government. But the stones they gave are so low quality and their effects too mediocre. Therefore, Martial Uncle Hong took out this piece. It¡¯s on Light Sword¡¯s head, I won¡¯t be owning up to anything.¡±

    His words were brusque and to the point. The woman simply nodded and didn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°Thus, you have no need to think you owe me a favor. I¡¯m suppressing your energy because the government is paying and you threatened me into a favor. There is nothing between you and me after this matter, but you bullying me still stands!¡±

    Light Sword remained quiet.

    ¡°It¡¯s just a small matter...¡± Hong Yitang coughed softly.

    Sword energy surged out; Light Sword swiftly started absorbing it. The three fell silent with no hint of their previous partnership to be seen. Working together to kill people was one thing, but their personal grudges would not be dissolved because of it.

    Li Hao kicked Panther as he released sword energy. The dog looked innocently at him; the young man red back! <i>That¡¯s enough! You¡¯re too much. She¡¯s dying and you keep devouring sword energy. You¡¯re so ck-hearted!</i>

    It was rather Light Sword who opened her eyes and looked at Panther. ¡°This monster spirit came to save me as well,¡± she coughed. ¡°However much it absorbs can be added to my bill. I¡¯m not as poor as you think. I served the Steadfast Duke for twenty years and saved some money over the years...¡±

    <i>She has money?</i>

    Li Hao promptly directed arge surge of sword energy to Panther. <i>You should¡¯ve said so earlier!</i>

    The corner of Light Sword¡¯s mouth twitched and she closed her eyes without a word. The dog happily began absorbing energy. How nice!

    An entire chunk of mysterious power stone was consumed, but that was far from enough. Light Sword¡¯s supernatural locks were too badly broken. Thankfully the old man¡ªwoman¡ªhad retained some lingering connections and had the benefit of a special surge of light energy protecting her. Added to that help from a drop of Water of Life. Otherwise, Li Hao truly wouldn¡¯t have been able to rescue her.

    Even so, he depleted arge sum of resources. Other than the biggest, purest chunk, he began breaking more mysterious power stones. One hundred, two hundred, five hundred...

    Stones shattered by the hundreds.

    Light Sword¡¯s absorption rate slowed only after three thousand pieces had shattered. However, Li Hao continued breaking mysterious power stones. This next batch was for Hong Yitang. The man absorbed everything he was given like he was a bottomless pit.

    The young man himself also shattered stones and continued to absorb the energy. He was both healing his injuries and directingrge quantities of sword energy into his body to saturate his supernatural locks.

    The locks of his five organs, particrly the heart, had absorbed tens of thousands without reaching capacity. He wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to see if sword energy could saturate them.

    Three humans and one dog absorbed energy without an end in sight, a pile of shattered stones gathering around them. The energy being exuded drew some attention, but when a Sr approached the vi and sensed the sword intent, he immediately ran away. The entire world quieted down as nearby residents vanished.

    North Sea senior executives suddenly knew who was in residence, but no one dared do anything. Many of them had received word of the North Sea battle, but it¡¯d take multiple heavyweights in metamorphosis to hold their own against these people. The North Sea had plumbed its depths, there was no one sailing the sea who could move against these people.

    After this battle, Earthturner Sword and Light Sword¡¯s name was known throughout the dynasty. Li Hao was a little behind them, but he grew more famous than before. There¡¯d been those who didn¡¯t believe that he killed the second-inmand of the White Shark Raiders, thinking that it was wild rumor. But after he killed Xu Zhen in front of many witnesses, no one doubted his strength again.

    The only pity was that his master didn¡¯t receive the news. The ruins isted one frommunication.

 Chapter 561: The Windchaser Boots (I)

    <h4>Chapter 561: The Windchaser Boots (I)</h4>

    The period of rest and recovery endured for a very long time¡ªa full day and night. Shards of mysterious power stones by Li Hao¡¯s body almost formed a mountain. Aside from the massive stone from Hong Yitang, Li Hao consumed eight thousand pieces from his own cache!

    Indeed, eight thousand!

    He¡¯d nearly consumed all of the ten thousand pieces that the Silver Moon authorities had given to him as a deposit. If Hong Yitang¡¯s was included, this meant that they¡¯d depleted more than ten thousand stones on this endeavor. It was a frightful figure, but one that Light Sword wasn¡¯t fully responsible for. The others had absorbed a great deal as well.

    Not only that, but a lot had been stored within the little sword. He wouldn¡¯t have to replenish it first each time before he used it. Regardless, Li Hao spent the mysterious power stones to show Light Sword what a grave undertaking this was. He wanted her to know that the deposit paid by the official authorities was insufficient for her use.

    Li Hao himself had absorbed a lot of sword energy and melded it into his heart''s supernatural lock, but he still didn¡¯t sense its saturation. This was turning into quite a wearying endeavor.

    It meant that he couldn¡¯t be like the others and explosively increase his battle strength after unsealing himself. That was so frustrating! He was strong enough at the moment, but if he could unseal himself, he might be able to match himself against those in metamorphosis, could he not?

    What a damned pity!

    Everyone could do it, but he could not. Was his potential too great or the actual truth that he just couldn¡¯t?

    One had to saturate at least one supernatural lock or more in order to unseal one¡¯s strength for battle. Those like He Yong seemed to have reached capacity in their locks of the four limbs first, so these people should¡¯ve saturated at least four, if not more.

    Only then did they unseal themselves.

    Light Sword had unsealed five locks of her internal organs. That didn¡¯t mean she¡¯d saturated all five¡ªLi Hao judged that she might¡¯ve saturated only one of them before unsealing them all. That would simply affect her strength after unsealing.

    Hong Yitang should¡¯ve filled his by a great deal this time. Otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t be so coollyposed in each fight and find it rtively easy to suppress his energy after he unsealed them. It looked to be that the more saturated one lock was, the more easy it was to control one¡¯s strength and prevent an overload.

    ......

    An entire day and night passed. The group opened their eyes when the sky brightened again.

    Light Sword heaved a long sigh and breathed out a breath of putrid air that was a bit pungent. ¡°My thanks to you two!¡± She looked at Li Hao and Hong Yitang.

    Hong Yitang said nothing and simply reminded her, ¡°Just remember that you owe me three thousand mysterious power stones...¡±

    It was the same price as what he quoted He Yong¡ªhe didn¡¯t increase it. As for what he¡¯d absorbed, he¡¯d consider it payment for hisbor. He didn¡¯t normally include that in his bills. It wasn¡¯t unreasonable to charge a fee forbor since he¡¯d been part of the fighting.

    ¡°I will remember the favor that I owe you.¡± Light Sword took out a storage ring without a word. ¡°These stones should be roughly enough.¡±

    Hong Yitang epted the ring without protest. He smiled after looking into it. ¡°There¡¯s more than three thousand here. That fulfills your debt. You¡¯re more reliable than He Yong¡ªthe guy still owes me. Bah, he¡¯s ridiculous!¡±

    Li Hao was slightly surprised at the prompt payment. She was rich and took out three thousand mysterious power stones without a word! Light Sword really had gotten fat from her service to the Steadfast Duke.

    ¡°That was from the storage rings from the Steadfast Duke¡¯s generals that I killed,¡± said Light Sword when she saw Li Hao look over. ¡°Five Novas have quite some savings.¡±

    There¡¯d been five premier Novas who were generals. Just that was enough.

    ¡°The Silver Moon authorities are their own matter. I willpensate you for what you just consumed, but I don¡¯t have that many mysterious power stones at the moment.¡±

    ¡°Forget that then,¡± Li Hao dismissed. ¡°I¡¯ll take the storage rings of the peak Novas that you killed in thest battle!¡±

    They¡¯d killed twelve premier heavyweights in thest battle. Other than Fan Cheng and ck Widow who escaped, the rest had all been executed. Li Hao also killed two Novas and multiple Srs along the way, so he currently held many storage rings.

    ¡°That belongs to you in the first ce...¡±

    Li Hao said nothing; he nced at Hong Yitang. Hong Yitang had also killed a few powerhouses. Apart from the storage ring belonging to the metamorphosis expert, Panther had taken the rest and given it all to the young man.

    ¡°What are you looking at?¡± Hong Yitang grumped. ¡°I take the goods from whoever I killed. All of my battle spoils are mine. I have a lot of mouths to feed and you want to fleece me of my riches?!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes turned sheepish.<i> I... really did have that kind of thought.</i>

    The main thing was, the guy always presented himself with a noble and virtuous demeanor. He offered up whatever people needed, so the young man felt that Earthturner Sword might as well hand over the storage ring if he didn¡¯t have a need for it.

    But it turned out that Hong Yitang did need it!

    <i>Ai! </i>Li Hao sighed and took out a storage ring. Of the twelve that¡¯d died, Li Hao had killed five, the dog killed two, Light Sword killed three, and Hong Yitang had killed two. Unfortunately, Li Hao had killed the weaklings¡ªone mid Nova and fourte Novas.

    Light Sword killed two peak Novas and e Nova. The dog had killed a peak, ate Nova, and contributed to the one in the water, but Li Hao took credit for that one. Hong Yitang had killed a metamorphosis powerhouse and a mid Nova.

    To be honest, this wasn¡¯t how merits were calcted. Hong Yitang had suffered the brunt of all the pressure by himself and continuously maintained defense. Strictly speaking, half of the credit for Li Hao killing these people went to him, but Li Hao didn¡¯t feel inclined to be that generous with the man because...

    <i>Most of what I get is going to your Sword Sect disciples at the end of the day.</i>

    The thirty martial masters from the Sword Sect consumed a great deal of resources. They all depended on Li Hao. But to be honest, most of those resources came from Hong Yitang.

    The man almost rolled his eyes at the storage ring. <i>Your math is quite good, huh kid? Other than Qian Feng¡¯s ring, you really gave me a storage ring from a mid Nova.</i>

    Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t be bothered to quibble and epted the ring. Hisck of refusal put a stop to Li Hao¡¯s craftiness. Both of them startedughing.

    ¡°If Martial Uncle Hong is short on money, you cane to me anytime. We can go rob pirates if we need money. They have tons!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hong Yitang¡¯sughter petered out. <i>Screw you!</i>

    Li Hao was in merry spirits. Though he¡¯d yet to take inventory of his gains, there must be quite a bit. These were all great personages with tremendous strength, surely they had to carry at least one thousand mysterious power stones each to be worthy of their prestige!

    Other than the two rings that Hong Yitang had taken, Li Hao had the gains from the ten remaining rings, the two Nova pirates, and multiple Srs... No matter how he looked at it, he¡¯d reaped at least ten thousand stones!

    There was also the twenty thousand that the Silver Moon authorities owed him and an additional origin weapon. Speaking of origin weapons, he should¡¯ve gained more this time as well. Li Hao hadn¡¯t paid attention previously and stowed some bodies when he killed them. There ought to be some more for him to discover.

    He¡¯d truly struck it rich in this battle!

    There were two thousand stones left from the deposit that the provincial government had given him; the young man had almost two thousand left to begin with... To think that he couldn¡¯t bear to use one stone just a few days ago, and now...

    <i>With strengthes capital. Without strength, one is just cannon fodder. </i>Li Hao sighed to himself. Look at that, killing a few pirates gave him all the money he needed!

    ¡°You need to keep yourself in check!¡± Hong Yitang cut into his emotional reflection. ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s circumstances may not be as good as we think. I¡¯m not certain of the particrs, but I know that we are a thorn in the side of many people. The more exemry you are, the more easily suppressed you can be! Don¡¯t imitate your master. He jumped around the most back in the day and was eventually confined to Silver City because of it, forbidden to go out...¡±

    ¡°I need to say a few words when ites to this.¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°Silver Moon is not weak. How did Ying Hongyue do it back then, to force my master to turtle in Silver City? Director Hou and the others...¡±

    Although Hou Xiaochen had fought Ying Hongyue once for Yuan Shuo, he¡¯d tacitly approved Yuan Shuo staying within Silver City after that.

    This did not conform with the Silver Moon style in Li Hao¡¯s eyes¡ªthat treatment was too cruel for Yuan Shuo. Everyone else could leave and walk around with freedom, but he could not. He¡¯d spent the equivalent of almost two decades in jail...

    Hong Yitang rolled his eyes and didn¡¯t feel like answering. It was Light Sword who sighed softly because she knew of certain details.

    ¡°Your master... offended too many people! Silver Moon was forced to agree to this out of consideration for the greater picture. At least it wouldn¡¯t require your master¡¯s life. Ying Hongyue was just one of them, there was also the mountain lord of Buddha Mountain, Yama of the Yama organization, the Celestial Sword Immortal of Celestial, the lord of Yonder Mountain... Silver Moon could not have stood against them all. Fighting for survival for your master was difficult enough already.¡±

    ¡°No way!¡± Li Hao started. ¡°Isn¡¯t it just Ying Hongyue?¡±

    <i>You¡¯re kidding! </i>Based on this, his master had pretty much offended all of the three great organizations and seven divine mountains.<i> All three organization leaders and two of the divine mountains shared grudges with my master?</i>

    That was nuts!

    ¡°Pretty much!¡± Hong Yitang coughed gently when he looked at Li Hao. ¡°There¡¯s much about your master that you don¡¯t know. You just know a bit of what happened in the Silver Moon martial world. Your master once visited the central region and even traveled through the rest of the dynasty. Everywhere was his home and he traveled anywhere he could when he was young to meld the five auras together. He offended too many people in the process.¡±

    ¡°Then why didn¡¯t he just kill them all...¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but grumble. He¡¯d left such a huge mess behind!

    ¡°There were either people protecting the people he challenged, or it would be difficult to exin himself if he killed them, or he could pull his punches because he was the one who issued the challenge. If the disparity in strength was that great, he could not just kill them...¡± Hong Yitang exined. It wasn¡¯t that Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t want to, but sometimes he couldn¡¯t.

    It was one thing to be unable to pull one¡¯s punches in a challenge, but if one could and still beat their opponent to death.. they would be a true demon! Old Demon Yuan was a demon, but he wasn¡¯t crazy.

    However, that created numerous enemies for him. Gratitude did not flourish just because he didn¡¯t take advantage of the opportunity to kill someone.

 Chapter 562: The Windchaser Boots (II)

    <h4>Chapter 562: The Windchaser Boots (II)</h4>

    ¡°So that means my master¡¯s enemies are found everywhere, that all of the major factions are basically his enemies?¡± Li Hao asked incredulously

    ¡°Pretty much!¡± Hong Yitangughed.

    ¡°Then how did my master dare leave the province a while back?¡± asked the curious young man. The world was such a dangerous ce for his teacher! Granted, it didn¡¯t turn out as bad as their imagination since Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t mobbed by the three great organizations or seven divine mountains as soon as he left.

    ¡°It was about time,¡± Hong Yitang exined. ¡°Many people are facing a bottleneck. Your master might be able to help everyone resolve it, so letting him out at this stage is certain people¡¯s tacit agreement.¡±

    Li Hao understood! Unsealing, the five organs... Some people were thinking about his master¡¯s Five Styles method.

    Yuan Shuo was appropriately behind the times now, so he could be let out and maybe research the next step for everyone.

    Li Hao snorted inwardly to himself, but frowned on the outside. ¡°Why is everyone so confident in my teacher?¡±

    ¡°Your teacher...¡± Hong Yitang considered his response for a while. ¡°His potential and talents are one thing, but they aren¡¯t the greatest key. The key is that your teacher grasps too many ancient methods! You must know that he was one of the first martial masters to excavate the ancient ruins. He did so to further his cultivation, but he holds so many ancient methods that he keeps for himself. Many ancient records have be lost after encountering him.

    ¡°Perhaps you think it¡¯s easy to train in the Five Styles, but the key is that it happens to be a method suitable for anyone and everyone. It¡¯s appropriate for mundanes, for those with poor potential, for those with good potential. Anyone can practice it, there are no requirements!

    ¡°Have you found that the Five Styles is easy to start? But when you train other methods, do you find them difficult?¡±

    Li Hao mulled over the question and nodded, he did to both. Whether it was the Ghost Shadow Sword, the Weeping Willow Sword, or Nine Forged Force, they were all hard to pick up. If it wasn¡¯t for his dominant strength, he wouldn¡¯t have done so easily either.

    Inparison, the Five Styles really was much easier. He¡¯d treated it as an exercise routine at first, then easily learned the Breathing Method of the Five Styles as a natural development. It was just a quick change to his breathing, one that urred incredibly smoothly.

    ¡°When the Five Styles is trained to their utmost, oneprehends the five auras. That is the equivalent of training five of the ancient daos at once, and all being under the same method. You might not understand how difficult this is, but the powerhouses do.¡±

    Li Hao looked at him with a frown. ¡°Is that different from training five different methods andprehending their auras?¡±

    ¡°Of course it¡¯s different!¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°You are the most noticeable example. Have you realized how difficult it is to meld your five auras together? Do you think you could fuse the five sword auras together if you didn¡¯t have a unique sword intent acting as their general overview?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head. Not at all!

    ¡°You can¡¯t do it as someone who is the equivalent of a Nova. Don¡¯t you find it odd that your master has done it?¡±

    Li Hao blinked, he¡¯d never thought of that.

    ¡°That is the advantage of a singr method. Five methods under one, sharing the same origin. Otherwise, ordinary people are not able to meld five auras together. Two would be impossible, to say nothing of five.

    ¡°Your masterpleted training five methods and assimting them when he was a Sunderer. That is naturally incredible.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, but said after a while, ¡°His strength...¡±

    Was still too weak!

    ¡°What are you in a rush for?¡± Hong Yitang burst outughing. ¡°As opposed to worrying about him, you should think about your own five auras! What Yuan Shuo needs to do is simple¡ªhe just needs to strengthen the five organs and find an opportunity to improve his method during the process. Sess will be his when the time is right!

    ¡°Once the five auras are fullybined, his Summoner of Spirit will beplete and he will be able to set foot into the next stage. But you?¡±

    Li Hao blinked. <i>Me?</i>

    ¡°Can you swiftlyplete the fusion of the five auras and enter the next stage beyond Summoner?¡±

    The young man shook his head, not at all. He hadn¡¯t even identified the inklings of a clue yet. He didn¡¯t understand Summoner of Spirit that well, he just had a few guesses.

    ¡°So, what are you so worried about him for?¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°He might be greater than Nova once he progresses, he¡¯ll be the same as us after he unseals himself. There¡¯s no need to worry about him. You should think about yourself instead. At this stage, you can start thinking about your next steps!

    ¡°Is it the path ofbining five auras as one? You have neither walked this path as far as your master, nor are you as proficient. You should really think about this, or you might surpass him in the short run with your current explosion of progress, but he¡¯ll catch up again and leave you in the dust!¡±

    Li Hao nodded thoughtfully.

    ¡°I can tell that your sword auras are a bit disorderly and confused, they haven¡¯t been put in order,¡± Light Sword offered from the side. ¡°Like you said, they¡¯re just stitched together. You can try organizing them now and strengthening them one by one, thenbine them. That could be a possibility.

    ¡°In addition, you seem toprehend auras very quickly. You can consider learning a few more. You might not match your master in terms of quality, but you can surpass him in terms of quantity.

    ¡°The Ghost Shadow Sword is a dark energy sword technique. If you¡¯re willing, I can teach you the Light Sword, as well as the Thunder and Lightning Sword...¡±

    Li Hao blinked, stared at her, then shook his head. <i>Not learning that! I don¡¯t want the Light Sword technique!</i>

    ¡°The Light Sword technique doesn¡¯t affect men,¡± the woman sighed, having guessed at his thoughts. ¡°I am a woman, which is why certain conditions urred after I started practicing it. My yin and yang were not in bnce. I might be able to change that around if I can train to the peak of the Ghost Shadow Sword, but that method was lost with the death of its wielder. Yuan Shuo should have taken it.¡±

    Because Li Hao knew it.

    ¡°Is this what happens at the extremity of the Light Sword technique?¡± asked the young man. Did one turn into a man? In that case, it wouldn¡¯t affect men and he was tempted by what Light Sword spoke of.

    If melding five sword auras together was a bit disorderly and still less than his master''s system, what if he kept increasing the number? How about six? Seven? Or eight sword auras? But where would he keep them?

    His limbs? His head? There were supernatural locks in all of these areas, so it wasn¡¯t out of the question, but Li Hao was suddenly fearful. He wasn¡¯t concerned about the five organs because his teacher had done it, but it was still nerve-wracking to attempt something for the first time on his own.

    The young man was forced to think of the matter more deeply as it might truly be a feasible possibility. He could keep everything under control for now as there was much he needed to improve for the time being. He could continue strengthening his body, his organs, and fully meld the five auras. Each breakthrough was an advancement for him.

    Although his locks continued to be insatiable, he could still try infusing them with energy and thinking of more ways to build the five bridges. Li Hao was not yet at the end of his path. There was still a road ahead for him.

    The three sword wielders gathered together to discuss some cultivation reflections. At the end, Hong Yitang said, ¡°Let¡¯s take out the Windchaser Boot for a look since Li Hao¡¯s here. He might be able to use it. Otherwise, you¡¯ll have seized it for nothing!¡±

    Li Hao was also curious, but he hadn¡¯t asked about it. Since Hong Yitang brought it up, Light Sword was equally straightforward.

    ¡°I served the Xus for twenty years for this... ai!¡± She sighed when she brought it out. It was a green boot that appeared very ordinary¡ªthe same as Li Hao¡¯s Steris.

    ¡°This Windchaser Boot...¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°Does your Light Sword have any connection with the Windchaser Boot? Does the dark attribute suppress your light attribute?¡±

    The boot should contain the wind attribute to his eyes¡ªit didn¡¯t look like the dark attribute.

    ¡°No, it¡¯s that this boot has the energy of darkness!¡± Light Sword shook her head. ¡°So I think it might be a dual attribute of wind and darkness. The one who used it back in the day might have wanted to craft a pair of boots that could walk through the darkness, so it should have the wind attribute as well.¡±

    Dual wind and dark attributes?

    ¡°Did you want to extract the energy within to suppress your light attribute?¡±

    ¡°Not suppress, but tobine!¡± Light Sword exined. ¡°The Light Sword is suited for men to cultivate. If women try,plications easily ur. The best way to resolve them is to bnce yin and yang. However, my sword intent is so strong that regr dark energy is useless! It¡¯s instantly smothered when it enters my body. Only dark attribute treasures like these ones from the ancient civilization can produce power that helps me bnce.¡±

    She hesitated at this point. ¡°Xu Feng cultivates the water attribute¡ªthe extremity of water is ice. It carries a hint of the dark attribute, so he¡¯s able to extract some energy from the boot. If Xu Feng lived to metamorphosis, he could¡¯ve extracted sufficient energy to bnce out my yang.¡±

    Li Hao nodded after some thought. Perhaps! He couldn¡¯t be bothered with thinking about Xu Feng. The guy was dead. He rarely thought of those he¡¯d killed. Instead, Li Hao looked curiously at the boot.

    There was only one of it and it seemed very unremarkable in hand. There was nothing special about it. That had also been the case with the de of the Zhangs. When Li Hao operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, a faint energy wafted out and surged into his body.

    ¡°You can extract the energy?!¡± Light Sword eximed with shock.

    Li Hao nced at her, chiding her for her astonishment. But he had to say, there was something odd about the breathing method. It seemed able to epass and extract any energy. Other breathing methods did not seem to have this effect.

 Chapter 563: The Windchaser Boots (III)

    <h4>Chapter 563: The Windchaser Boots (III)</h4>

    <i>In that case...</i>

    Could one use the treasures of the eight families if they knew the Breathing Method of the Five Styles? That it didn¡¯t matter if they were of the bloodlines of the eight families or not?

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t previously given much thought to his teacher using the de of the Zhangs. But now as he thought more about it, perhaps it wasn¡¯t that the de could be used by any random person, but that the breathing method really was different.

    The Breathing Method of the Five Styles gave the sense of a universal method, able to extract and absorb any energy...

    Of course, one may not be able to utilize the core of the weapon, yet Li Hao knew of one detail, that these weapons were afraid of existences stronger than them. If one was stronger than the weapon, then there was no consideration whether the weapon possessed a master or not. After he threatened the ming Phoenix Spear, it turned so incredibly docile. Li Hao even suspected that if Hou Xiaochen was here now, the young man might stand a chance of wresting the origin weapon from Hou Xiaochen.

    He absorbed some energy from the boot. Sword energy was mild, de energy was tyrannical, and boot energy gave off a dark and gentle feeling. If sword energy could nurture the body, de energy could attack, then what of the boots?

    The young man thought about it for a while and chose to meld the energy into his body. The energy darted into his feet, where supernatural locks had manifested. After the locks absorbed the energy, Li Hao attempted operating his internal force. He didn¡¯t sense any special changes.

    <i>Does it just strengthen the supernatural locks?</i>

    He abruptly picked up the boot, took off his shoe, and put it on his foot.

    Light Sword sputtered for a while before saying, ¡°The Xus just enshrine them...¡±

    No one really wears them!

    Hong Yitang, on the other hand, looked at it from another perspective. ¡°Are you not concerned that thest guy who wore them had bad hygiene or stinky feet?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao looked wordlessly at the man. <i>Are you for real?</i> This was a weapon of the eight families, there was no room for stinky feet. But after the man¡¯s words... even Li Hao was thinking twice about his actions.

    He put that out of his mind and operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, erupting with the deer style. The young man pushed off and... vanished!

    Hong Yitang¡¯s heart shook with shock! Light Sword also looked up with wide eyes. Li Haonded momentster, his face pale from too much consumption of internal force.

    ¡°Holy shit!¡± He goggled. <i>So fast!</i>

    That¡¯d been so fast that he almost felt like he¡¯d teleported! ¡°The Xus put this on a table instead of using it?? This thing consumes a lot of internal force for sure, but it¡¯s the perfect life-saving treasure! I broke through one thousand meters just from one usage. Even Martial Uncle Hong would need some time to cover that distance, wouldn¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°How can you use it?!¡± Light Sword was more shocked than the young man.

    ¡°Is the bloodline of the eight families that incredible?¡± Hong Yitang stroked his chin. ¡°Or is it that the bloodline of the Lis can use any weapon?¡±

    That wasn¡¯t the case! Li Hao knew that he hadn¡¯t used his blood to have the boot recognize him as its master. He¡¯d only used the breathing method. Or rather, it was the breathing method that was the key to operating the boot. He even utilized the breathing method when drawing energy from the little sword. It... still hadn¡¯t recognized him as its master.

    Indeed, Li Hao couldn¡¯t store the little sword in his body even now. So technically speaking, he wasn¡¯t its master. He was just borrowing it, leveraging the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to do so.

    Neither had his teacher used his blood to have the de of the Zhangs recognize him. He¡¯d been using the breathing method all along as well.

    ¡°Can you extract the dark energy from the boot??¡± demanded an agitated Light Sword. ¡°Um... if you can and dual cultivation is required after...¡±

    ¡°Ahem!¡± Li Hao jerked with shock, yanked the boot off his foot, and threw it out with fear. <i>What¡¯s a dirty old man talking to me about that for?</i>

    Neither had he forgotten that his teacher had dual cultivated with him once before. He¡¯d absorbed too much blood energy that one time, so his teacher had to digest it with him. But Light Sword didn¡¯t seem to mean dual cultivation in the same way!

    That was damned scary!

    Light Sword seemed to realize something and her face contorted, revealing a different face. ¡°That was just a disguise...¡± she sighed.

    Li Hao grimaced and didn¡¯t say anything. Right, a disguise, but... so what? She¡¯d turned from a crotchety old man to a coarse auntie. That¡¯s right, coarse! He couldn¡¯t just outright call her ugly, but her face was rather coarse; she had a small mustache and rather thick eyebrows!

    <i>You... were better looking as the old man! At least you looked kindly and benevolent. Now you look... I swear I¡¯m not judging someone by their appearance, but you really... look... like a man!</i>

    Someone with heavier tastes wouldn¡¯t mind, but he absolutely did!

    Light Sword sighed at the reaction. Those who were uglycked basic human rights. Just look at the Silver Moon martial masters. Ying Hongyue liked pretty girls, Yuan Shuo did as well. He showed Jadelight Sword mercy because she was pretty.

    They weren¡¯t the only ones, many Silver Moon martial masters were in a simr vein. They liked the good looking ones. Or rather... all men were like this!

    She was very resigned at Li Hao¡¯s expression and also sorrowful. So this meant there was no hope? The young man was her greatest hope now since he could use the Windchaser Boot, but his reaction truly made one sad!

    As Li Hao gaped, Hong Yitang coughed gently. ¡°Now what kind of attitude is that, Li Hao? She is your senior when all is said and done, what¡¯s with your overreaction? Light Sword was very pretty when she was young. It was only because of her cultivation method that... Ahem!¡±

    Light Sword had been passable when she first entered the martial world, but to say that she was pretty... Hong Yitang coughed again when he took a walk down memoryne. That was all there was to her. There were many that matched her to be found on the streets.

    However, there weren¡¯t that many female martial masters around. If she¡¯d retained her looks, she might¡¯ve been considered a flower of the martial worldter on. It was an undeniable fact that there were more men than women in Silver Moon.

    Li Hao flushed andughed dryly, ¡°I didn¡¯t mean it that way, it¡¯s just...¡±

    <i>Forget dual cultivation, alright? You just need the energy within, there¡¯s lots of ways to aplish that! The breathing method did it just fine, so why do you guys think about dual cultivation all the time?</i>

    <i>Your minds are in the gutter!</i>

    ¡°Changing my appearance isn¡¯t the issue,¡± Light Sword sighed again. ¡°It¡¯s that my light energy has reached the limit of what I can train it to. I¡¯m worried it¡¯ll explode if I continue cultivating! The Windchaser Boots thus became myst hope...¡±

    ¡°So stop training for now...¡± said Hong Yitang.

    ¡°I would rather die.¡± Light Sword shook her head. She would¡¯ve stopped training a long time ago if she didn¡¯t want to end up like this, why be so strong?

    For martial masters to stop training due to fear of danger when there was a pathway to growing stronger right in front of them... then they might as well die.

    ¡°You just want the dark energy within, right?¡± Li Hao suddenly said after some thought.

    ¡°Right!¡± The woman nodded hastily.

    ¡°You might not need this particr energy then,¡± the young man said slowly. ¡°I can try a kind of exceedingly pure dark energy to nourish your body. If that solves your problem, you need to give me the boot!¡±

    Light Sword hesitated, not for the treasure, but from past experience. ¡°Regr dark energy explodes as soon as it enters my body or is instantly smothered. I¡¯ve tried, not even Nova level energy works! I once killed ate Nova Celestial for no use.

    ¡°Of course, you can take the boot if you can resolve my problem. I wanted it precisely for my issue. Just be careful of the Xus, they won¡¯t give up on the Windchaser Boot. The deaths of Xu Zhen and his son are less important than the treasure...¡±

    If regr dark energy wouldn¡¯t do, what about energy purified by the little sword? It could extract wisps elemental energy from mysterious power, what would happen if it extracted from mysterious power stones? Perhaps it would measure up to the energy with the boots.

    Li Hao swiftly looked through his storage rings and found a few pieces of dark colored mysterious power stones. He would know after he gave it a try!

    After crushing the mysterious power stones, he used sword energy to extract dark elemental energy out of them instead of converting it to sword energy. This was a very wasteful usage of the stones, but Li Hao didn¡¯t mind at the moment.

    After extracting the energy, he directed it to Light Sword with a point of his finger. A strong recoil rose from her body, but the energy was swiftly absorbed. The woman had been very apprehensive, but her eyes brightened the next moment.

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t... seem to have been smothered!¡± She realized with shock. There was another feasible way! She¡¯d tried many over the years and even seized a few dark origin weapons, but all of them proved useless. Li Hao had easily and quickly resolved the problem!

    Hong Yitang¡¯s eyes darted around¡ªLi Hao¡¯s sword was truly incredible. It looked to be able to extract pure elemental energy. The sword was a divine sword alright! Even he wanted to take it from thed!

    The man quickly suppressed his desire, repeating to himself that everything was nothing. Humans were stronger than weapons, weapons were external objects. Plus, Li Hao using it didn¡¯t mean that he could use it.

    Light Sword didn¡¯t think so much, she was just agitated, ¡°It works... it really works! Li Hao, you can have the Windchaser Boot. Let me know what else you need, I requirerge sums of this kind of energy...¡±

    She might be able to take another step forward if she possessed dark energy, and that was secondary to her purpose. Most importantly was that she might be able to resolve the drawbacks of her light energy growing stronger and stronger.

 Chapter 564: I Want To Keep A Low Profile (I)

    <h4>Chapter 564: I Want To Keep A Low Profile (I)</h4>

    Light Sword might also be able to return to her prior looks. While she wasn¡¯t a stunning beauty, no woman wanted a little mustache over her lips or eyebrows that were coarser than a man¡¯s. There was almost an Adam¡¯s apple in her throat!

    As for martial dao, she may not be able to set foot into a higher level, but the strain on her organs and physical body could be alleviated. If they were strengthened, her supernatural locks would stabilize and not break as easily as before.

    The stronger the organs and body were, the harder it was to break the locks. For those like her and He Yong, they could easily break theirs.

    Li Hao breathed out slightly, it was good that his method worked. He really wanted the boot¡ªbut what a pity there was only one. Even so, just one of them was a lifesaving device. Earthturner Sword and the others wouldn¡¯t care. They would be able to break one thousand meters in a split second by themselves, or they wouldn¡¯t need to flee for their lives at all. But for Li Hao, having this boot meant that he was that much more confident in maneuvering through the world.

    This was just one of them, where was the other?

    ¡°Why don¡¯t we head to the Steadfast Duke for revenge,¡± Li Hao suddenly proposed upon hearing Light Sword¡¯s words. ¡°We can take the other boot from him...¡±

    Hong Yitang and Light Sword looked at him with shock. <i>The hell? Are you crazy?</i> Light Sword was especially agog with the young man¡¯s boldness.

    ¡°You can¡¯t do that!¡± she said hastily. ¡°He has a lot of powerhouses. I only seeded because Xu Qing thought I was doomed to die and therefore didn¡¯t care if I took anything from him. He¡¯s powerful beyondpare and can fend off my attacks without unsealing himself. He only suffered a small amount of injuries...

    ¡°His strength might measure up to Earthturner Sword or even be a little stronger. His manor has received plenty of benefits over the years. He also has three major generals alive and well. The Heaven and Earth Generals are likely at the metamorphosis level. The Yellow General should be at least peak Nova. There¡¯s also vast sums of powerhouses in his household and the various resident experts that he hosts!¡±

    She¡¯d seeded on a fluke, only getting away because the duke had thought she was not long for this world and did not want to pay a bigger price. But if they went back for the other boot... he would likely bring everything he had to bear!

    Li Hao found the assessment quite regretful¡ªhe really did want to take the other boot now! If just one could instantly propel one over a thousand meters, then wouldn¡¯t the full pair manage two thousand or even three thousand meters?

    Powerhouses were very capable, but there weren¡¯t many who could catch up if one flew out thousands of meters in a split second.

    ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate this family.¡± Hong Yitang was also speechless at Li Hao¡¯s proposal. ¡°They have two hundred years worth of foundation to draw from, don¡¯t think to counter with your long-vanished n. They¡¯ve stood strong for two hundred years and are still a force to be reckoned with after the rise of the supernatural. They¡¯ve hidden much more strength than you can imagine!

    ¡°The east is almost the sole domain of the Xus and the three great organizations somewhat rely on their support as well... You¡¯ve got to wait if you want to seize the remaining boot!¡±

    As for how long? Hong Yitang felt that it wouldn¡¯t be long under current circumstances. Silver Moon might sh with various sides before long.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go, we shouldn¡¯t linger here. They might lob a dozen city annihtion missiles at us. This is a very dangerous ce to be. As for dark energy, we¡¯ll find a ce to slowly process it!¡± Hong Yitang didn¡¯t want to remain on the scene any longer. It was one thing to be bold when one¡¯s skill was superb, but there was no need to court death. If their enemies decided to fire a dozen missiles that were all as powerful as the one that Fan Chang had thrown out before... he wouldn¡¯t be able to withstand the barrage either.

    One missile was manageable, if a dozen... He¡¯d die all the same. Although Hong Yitang wasn¡¯t certain of how strong city annihtion missiles were, they wouldn¡¯t be weak, empty casings.

    As much as Light Sword needed dark energy, she could only follow other people¡¯s lead at the moment. The trio swiftly departed with Panther and vanished among the North Sea.

    It wasn''t until long after they left that people carefully came by to investigate the premises. They heaved sighs of relief to see that the area was clear. The current North Sea didn¡¯t wish for these fiends to stay here indefinitely. It was a chaotic enough world outside. If their home grew disorganized, the North Sea would be inplete confusion.

    ......

    A piece of news shook the entire dynasty not only after Li Hao and the others left. It was very secret, but soon became broad knowledge among the upper echelon of power. It came from none other than Red Moon.

    Perhaps the changes in Li Hao had provoked some people, or perhaps the might of Silver Moon martial masters was too humiliating for someone, particrly after ck Widow was taught a lesson. Whatever it was, news spread that the sword of the Lis could suppress and seal. Simply put, organs that were in danger of shattering could be quieted by the sword of the Lis and even strengthened.

    Light Sword and Earthturner Sword were so brazen in utilizing their battle strength because the young man was avable to heal them. Yuan Shuo¡¯s ruptured heart was also repaired because of the sword. Not only that, but Hou Xiaochen¡¯s earlier battle and Silver Moon¡¯stest stirrings were all due to Li Hao. These people werepletely unrestrained because of the young man and the presence of the sword!

    Sealed Silver Moon heavyweights were at most the equivalent of metamorphosis, no more. Some weaker ones didn¡¯t even reach that level. All of these people were solidly stronger than Nova because of Li Hao! So long as the young man remained alive and the sword in his hands, Silver Moon would be invincible. They could not be provoked!

    ......

    The news spread quickly.

    The nine ministries, three great organizations, seven divine mountains, and various ns all received word from Red Moon. The missive spoke of the uses of the divine sword of the Lis. It was effective for martial masters and even more so for supernaturals!

    Why hadn¡¯t any supernaturals ascended above Nova yet?

    Or one should say, they possibly existed, but none dared show their face in public or take action because their organs weren¡¯t strong. For a supernatural to reach above Nova, they needed to undo their sixth supernatural lock. Apart from the four of the limbs and one of the body for their attribute, the sixth lock usually meant a second one of the organs.

    That led to conflicts between two elements and possibly even explosion of the organs!

    Other than those who zed another trail, such as heavyweights who shattered a lock of the head, the rest had to follow the known path of breaking a second lock among the organs.

    Everyone had to proceed that way!

    Thus, it wasn¡¯t groundless spection when the report said that the sword of the Lis could possibly resolve the greatest trouble facing the supernaturals at the moment. All that remained to be seen if Light Sword survived her escape, if Earthturner Sword remained injured. That was easily verified!

    Light Sword had broken five supernatural locks. If even she lived, then what wouldn¡¯t be proven with Li Hao¡¯s appearance? Everything was substantiated!

    That would also swiftly turn Silver Moon into and of extreme danger. Silver Moon martial masters could unseal themselves with abandon, raising them above Nova and killingrge sums of supernatural powerhouses!

    The news shook all of the senior executives of the dynasty.

    ......

    Li Hao and the others were yet to receive the information, but it was already raising waves throughout thend.

    <i>In the central region.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen had just epted the position of Skystarmander when he received the report. He looked nkly at the missive and stared in a certain direction. ¡°Ying Hongyue!¡± he said with a sigh after a long pause. Silver Moon martial masters knew Silver Moon martial masters the best! Fortresses fell from inside jobs.

    Outsiders didn¡¯t know the specifics of martial masters or whether or not there was anything special about Silver Moon martial masters. Ying Hongyue, however, was well aware of the particrs. Not only that, but he¡¯d always been devoted to the matter of the eight bloodlines.

    People woulde to the correct conclusion on their own if they carefully investigated what Ying Hongyue revealed, even though some of it was spection or purposefully nted to frame his target.

    Just as Hou Xiaochen once rigged the situation against Ying Hongyue, Li Hao now became the thorn in the side of all non-Silver-Moon martial masters. If they wished to take the province, they needed to kill him first, no matter the price!

    It wasn¡¯t just to kill Li Hao, but they had to do so for the sword of the Lis. This was a weapon that could shatter their obstacles and break through beyond Nova. It could repair their organs and suppress the rampaging of their internal energy!

    Hou Xiaochen took a deep breath. The situation was vastly different from before.

    ¡°Li Hao... was too tant...¡± Hou Xiaochen guessed that it was Kong Jie and the others who asked Li Hao to take action. It should not have taken shape this way, but even they likely hadn¡¯t anticipated that the young man would reveal himself in front of so many, directly save Light Sword, and bring Earthturner Sword with him. They¡¯d probably thought that he would take action in secret and have her hide for a period of time.

    That was very difficult now. It was no longer the matter of a single treasure, but an issue that was relevant to the entire supernatural domain. It had to do with future supremacy, so Li Hao abruptly became a delicious morsel in the eyes of many.

    <i>Whoever killed Li Hao would win the world!</i>

    While the slogan had not yet taken form, many people were probably already forming this thought.

    ¡°Not bad... Ying Hongyue...¡± A solemn Hou Xiaochen looked into the distance, then at the north. He trusted that it would not be a quiet day in Skystar Dynasty. Everyone would be swiftly investigating the truth of the matter!

    While most in the ruins had been killed, some had still made it out alive¡ªQi Gang, Hu Qingfeng, those of the Skystar Troops, He Yong... Although these people may not reveal what they knew, they would surely speak of something. Putting the pieces together might expose the truth of the expedition to others.

    Added to that Light Sword and Earthturner Sword¡¯s condition, everyone would soon verify what they¡¯d received. Though Red Moon¡¯s report might be popted mostly by spection, it made a lot of sense regardless. The originator was also most familiar with the eight families and wouldn¡¯t reveal fake news for no reason at all.

    Ying Hongyue¡¯s intentions were very clear. It was a tant plot simr to what Hou Xiaochen had pulled off. <i>Are you tempted? Do you want to seize the sword? Do you guys want to conquer Silver Moon?</i>

    <i>If you do, go to Li Hao! Kill him and take the sword!</i>

    As for whether or not it could be used without him, how would one know without trying? If they couldn¡¯t, it was still better to bury the sword than to let Silver Moon have it. If Silver Moon martial masters started unsealing themselves without reservation, it would spell disaster for the rest of the dynasty!

 Chapter 565: I Want To Keep A Low Profile (II)

    <h4>Chapter 565: I Want To Keep A Low Profile (II)</h4>

    <i>Red Moon headquarters.</i>

    <i>Inside the pce.</i>

    Ying Hongyue was the picture of leisure as he read a book and sipped some tea with a smile on his face. <i>All of you think nothing of me, hmm?</i>

    <i>Northern Fist came out to bully my people, Silver Moon killed my concubines without showing them mercy. You¡¯re all Silver Moon martial masters at the end of the day and were on the same ranking! Do you want to be this ruthless?</i>

    <i>In that case, let¡¯s have some fun!</i>

    Ying Hongyue hadn¡¯t wanted to say anything at first¡ªor rather, he hadn¡¯t guessed at anything. But when he theorized over Light Sword¡¯s actions, her route to Silver Moon, what Li Hao himself had revealed when he had nothing better to do, and Light Sword bullying a junior... Those pivotal clues were sufficient for Ying Hongyue to guess that Li Hao had done something simr inside the ruins.

    Perhaps he¡¯d done so for Hou Xiaochen or Earthturner Sword; Light Sword must¡¯ve seen it to so doggedly force Li Hao to agree to do the same for her. Otherwise, she wouldn¡¯t have courted death in her actions at the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor and wouldn¡¯t bully Li Hao for no good reason.

    After putting everything in order, Ying Hongyue mostly guessed at the function of the sword of the Lis. Despite not being aware of the details, he trusted that he knew most of the truth. Just as the world atrge hadn¡¯t known about the effects of the blood pearls before, everyone was willing to try after Hou Xiaochen disseminated the information. That was proof that in this era, those with sufficient strength were able to be as unscrupulous as they wished!

    Supernaturals may not understand unsealing oneself or know much about martial masters, but Ying Hongyue did. So when he released the news, it was proof that no matter how it was tested, it would prove to be true!

    As he enjoyed his tea, a masked powerhouse quickly rushed in. ¡°Leader, Celestial, Yama, and representatives of many other organizations all wish tomunicate with you. Do we ept their requests?¡±

    Ying Hongyue grinned. My my, weren¡¯t they in a hurry!

    It made sense. The sword of the Lis wouldn¡¯t just resolve martial master problems. Martial masters could keep themselves in check for a while and unseal their power. For supernaturals, this was a grave matter that had to do with their very survival!

    Some supernaturals had already reached beyond Nova, but they cowered in hiding and didn¡¯t dare twitch a finger. They might die if they did.

    Some were stuck at metamorphosis and didn¡¯t dare break their supernatural locks. And yet, their power would automatically break the locks if it was strong enough. That meant ascension, which was an incredible struggle with death. Those who survived would be in the state of those old guys¡ªhiding, shrinking away, and trying to refrain from showing themselves.

    It was one thing to erupt as a single use weapon, but chronic duration of this condition could swiftly rupture their organs!

    Hence, everyone was in a rush.

    Ying Hongyue smiled in an exceedingly dashing fashion.

    ¡°Put them through, of course put them through. Put them all through, I can¡¯t be bothered to exin myself over and over again. Tell them they can be quiet if they don¡¯t want to talk and disguise themselves if they want. They can just listen to me!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The masked subordinate swiftly put preparations in order.

    An enormous screen appeared in front of Ying Hongyue before long. Square frames appeared on it, bracketing a figure within. Some chose to reveal their true forms, others elected to hide who they were. No one spoke.

    More and more figures gathered on the screen, filling it with square frames. Ying Hongyue continued idly sipping his tea. He spoke only when all of the squares were lit up with upants and no further attendees were joining.

    ¡°Don¡¯t ask me if it¡¯s true or not.¡± He grinned. ¡°You can be the judge of that yourselves! Light Sword is a grown adult, she¡¯ll show herself sooner orter. Besides, you should¡¯ve also received news that they spent a full day and night by the North Sea. Do two men have nothing better to do than y games with an ugly shrew?

    ¡°Even if she stays in hiding now, we all know the truth of her situation... Additionally, what you lot are most concerned about is likely how to use the sword of the Lis without its bloodline, right?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, we care most about that!¡± someone said on screen. ¡°I don¡¯t care whether or not Silver Moon is strong or fearless. I just care if the sword can really suppress the rampaging of the five organs and repair them?

    ¡°There are some of us who¡¯ve gone in different directions or use the Water of Life to maintain their life force, or those like you who use blood pearls or other treasures to strengthen their organs. All of that only treats the symptoms and not the cause! These methods can¡¯t be used continuously and cannot be used for the next organ. Our road toe is long, it would be fantastic if the sword of the Lis can help us fully suppress our troubles!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s always Brother Yama who¡¯s most direct.¡± Ying Hongyue smiled at the man. ¡°You¡¯re not like Celestial Sword, always hiding himself from day to night!¡±

    No one responded to him, but he didn¡¯t care. ¡°It¡¯s not much of a problem if we don¡¯t have the bloodline of the Lis. I know of a few ways that might make the sword avable to us all the same. It won¡¯t be operatingpletely freely, but at least we won¡¯t be beholden to that restriction!¡±

    ¡°What ways?¡± asked the solemn Yama from his square frame.

    ¡°You don¡¯t know?¡± Ying Hongyue looked at him.

    Yama thought for a bit. ¡°Collect Li Hao¡¯s blood or do a blood transfusion? Or sacrifice him to fully unseal the sword, making it avable for general use? Or suppress the sword so that we can exert ownership over it when the sword master dies?¡±

    ¡°See, don¡¯t you know a lot of ways?¡± Ying Hongyue chuckled. ¡°So what are you asking me for? Do you need me to hold your hand and teach you step by step?¡± He looked at the rest of the assembly. ¡°Any more questions?¡±

    ¡°Li Hao has Earthturner Sword and Light Sword by his side,¡± came a slightly high-pitched voice from the screen. ¡°What is an unsealed battle strength like? What condition are Silver Moon martial masters in? What level do they map to when they cross over as supernatural?¡±

    ¡°This is difficult to determine.¡± Ying Hongyue considered the questions. ¡°Everyone is different, but none of the martial masters have crossed over to the next level above Nova. They are at most above Nova when they unseal themselves¡ªno one has named that level yet. But I know that some old farts and scheming fellows have all broken through, they just don¡¯t dare reveal themselves yet. No worries, I¡¯ve looked at it and find the level of strength to be simr!

    ¡°Light Sword killed five generals with one stroke, so I think those who break their sixth lock should be able to do the same. Everyone is simr¡ªmartial masters can¡¯t sustain their condition for long after unsealing themselves, you guys can¡¯t sustain yourselves for long after breaking your sixth lock. You¡¯re all shes in the pan!¡±

    Ying Hongyueughed delightedly after these words; he was almost unbridled in his amusement. ¡°They won¡¯t be able to recover so long as we capture, contain, or dy Li Hao. Light Sword¡¯s light energy can repair a thing or two, but so can you guys if you bring Water of Life with you.

    ¡°Light Sword dyed her condition for twelve hours without dying, but she almostpletely copsed. That is her limit! The others will be worse off and copse even faster!¡±

    ¡°Brother Red Moon,¡± someone said coolly from the screen. ¡°We hear that the blood pearls have a simr effect. You want us to handle Li Hao and Silver Moon, and we are all willing, but are you able to support us with a thing or two? Not everyone has Water of Life. Can you spare some blood pearls?¡±

    ¡°Celestial Sword, why are you so cheap?¡± Ying Hongyue smirked. ¡°Then I want you to spare me some women. I want your wife, your daughter...¡±

    ¡°Done!¡± dered an aloof Celestial Sword Immortal. ¡°It is of no matter if you¡¯re willing to offerrge sums of blood pearls.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re the number one assassin of the dynasty, alright!¡± Ying Hongyueughed uproariously. ¡°Frost runs through your veins, I like it! However, blood pearls are out of the question. I don¡¯t have enough for myself. If you¡¯ve got the guts to, you cane directly to me for some. I¡¯ll give you a few then, if you dare.¡±

    Celestial Sword remained quiet. He might not have been afraid before, but now that everyone knew their effects, many were attempting to guess what level Ying Hongyue¡¯s organs were at. And was he a supernatural or a martial master?

    Regardless, whether supernatural or martial master, he might¡¯ve already broken the limits of the body and be an invincible powerhouse that could fully utilize all of his strength. That kind of existence drew great wariness from everyone. No one wanted to erupt in open hostilities with him. Otherwise, they would¡¯ve long ago for the matter of the blood pearls.

    ¡°It¡¯s too difficult to nurture blood pearls.¡± Ying Hongyue¡¯sughter petered out after a while. ¡°The higher level ones are even stronger. I know you are all tempted, but the blood pearls are trashpared to the sword of the Lis. I haven¡¯t nurtured many over the years and have eaten most of them. The weak ones left aren¡¯t that effective for you, but I think that it won¡¯t need too much time or a hefty price to utilize the sword of the Lis. ording to my spections, perhaps some mysterious power stones will be sufficient.

    ¡°Everyone can see how much capital Li Hao has, it¡¯s only been a few days since his rise. How much foundation can he truly have? Yuan Shuo might¡¯ve already utilized the sword when he recovered from his wounds, so that means the price he paid wasn¡¯t that great! The effects will be marvelous in our hands!¡±

    ¡°Has Red Moon known about this for a while since it has always wanted the sword?¡± another person asked in a low voice. ¡°Or is there another reason at y?¡±

    ¡°What does it have to do with you?¡± Ying Hongyue responded brusquely. ¡°Is that the point of today? Who are you to receive answers to anything you ask? I tell you this already so I can use you guys against Li Hao and Silver Moon. Do you really think I¡¯m your father to answer whatever questions you have?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Silence descended as the speaker flew into a rage! Anyone who could directly contact Ying Hongyue was no ordinary person. They were overlords of their respective fields and domains, but had suffered public humiliation in front of their peers!

    The infuriated speaker sought to respond when Ying Hongyue continued in a coy tone, ¡°Alright, it¡¯s just a joke, don¡¯t be mad! It¡¯s not like you can bite me if you¡¯re mad, so just hurting yourself with anger is a bad idea! Will you be happy only after creating a strong enemy for yourself? Be good, don¡¯t raise a fuss. Everyone¡¯s watching, keep yourposure!¡±

 Chapter 566: I Want To Keep A Low Profile (III)

    <h4>Chapter 566: I Want To Keep A Low Profile (III)</h4>

    The speaker quieted and suppressed his blooming rage. He knew that to speak further was to lose more face, so he might as well stay quiet!

    ¡°Alright, the conversation can end here,¡± Ying Hongyue chuckled. ¡°You guys should keep a close eye on those fellows. Northern Fist and Tyrant de have all shown themselves. Sky Sword stays quiet and doesn¡¯t make a sound, but we should still be careful of him. And don¡¯t toy Hou Xiaochen to death, the consequences won¡¯t be pretty!¡±

    He raised a tea cup with a smile. ¡°Cheers to exterminating Silver Moon and a brighter future! Let us drink to that and go out to kill Li Hao. Remember, the young man is hard to kill. Don¡¯t think of holding back on anything¡ªbring out all the one-time use items you have.

    ¡°Worstes to worst, we die. If we win, that is a lifetime of glory and riches! I¡¯m sure that we all have people who¡¯ve broken their sixth lock. Ah, since we¡¯re all here, why don¡¯t we use this opportunity to name the sixth realm?

    ¡°Nova was a nod to nine suns¡ªI¡¯ve always thought it to be an ugly name,¡±ughed a merry Ying Hongyue. ¡°Let¡¯s go for a prettier name for the next level. This is a metamorphosis for us, so why don¡¯t we call it... Zenith? The ultimate culmination, the zenith of intent...¡±

    ¡°Enough, do you think we haven¡¯t read the ancient tomes ourselves?¡± Yama said aloofly. ¡°Why follow in their footsteps? There¡¯s no point in that! Call it that if you want to. There will naturally be a name for it when it is officially present and more dwell within it. You don¡¯t need to worry about this detail!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re the one who first proposed the name of Nova. It¡¯s such an ugly name!¡± Ying Hongyue teased. ¡°Then we¡¯re settled. We can discuss the restter. Remember to notify me when you catch Li Hao or take the sword of the Lis.¡±

    No one responded to him and the screens swiftly dimmed. The smile slid off Ying Hongyue¡¯s face when all of the screens were dark and he sighed. ¡°Misery will be upon the people... Ah I have sinned and created more trouble for Silver Moon. I wonder if there will be fewer of my old friends after this... What a pity!¡±

    As much as hemented, a brilliant smile spread over his face again.

    ¡°Where¡¯s Green Moon?¡± he asked. Only Green Moon was left in the vast headquarters of his, but there was no sign of her to be seen.

    ¡°Lady Green Moon has gone to Skystar City...¡± someone quickly responded from below.

    ¡°She¡¯s being silly!¡± Ying Hongyue furrowed his brows and quickly rxed them again. ¡°Forget it, she can do as she wishes. These people all have wild natures and don¡¯t listen. They will suffer for their impetuousness!

    ¡°She can do as she wishes,¡± he smiled. ¡°Notify the senior, second, and third elders of the elder council to go for a walk. All of them are permitted one drop of Water of Life and one peak Nova blood pearl! Don¡¯t be in a rush to do anything. Just observe. They can be happy fishermen if Earthturner Sword and Light Sword happen to be entangled by others!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Someone quickly ran off to notify the elders.

    There were many powerhouses among the elder council¡ªTidal Wave and Red Hair had counted among their number, though their ranking hadn¡¯t been high. Today, Ying Hongyue was sending out his three senior elders.

    ¡°Also, notify the Ancient Guard to dig three feet underground and find that gopher Yuan Shuo! The old guy¡¯s probably gone off to rob graves again!¡± Ying Hongyue frowned. ¡°The old thing spent thest couple of decades studying various ancient graves. If he finds any treasure, it won¡¯t take him long to grow stronger again. Even if he doesn¡¯t, he might find something or multiple somethings to give us a huge headache!¡±

    He shook his head with a sigh. ¡°The ignorant are fearless, or perhaps the guy doesn¡¯t care at all. If he runs into one or two living existences of the ancient times... Heh, we¡¯ll all be in for it then, won¡¯t we!¡±

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t care about any of that, but Ying Hongyue did. Even if they were to unearth ancient existences, now wasn¡¯t the time. It would create too much change in the world. It was one thing to encounter a friendly existence, but if they found one that was irritable, violent, or wanted to engage in widespread ughter... That would be no fun for anyone.

    ¡°Understood!¡± Another Ghostface left. There wererge numbers of Ghostfaces here, ready for orders at any time and to conductmunications.

    ¡°Have the three northern provinces grow even more chaotic. Silver Moon is too stable at the moment. Huang Yu and the rest have too much time on their hands, so let¡¯s give them something to do! The royal family¡¯s been quiet this entire time¡ªlet¡¯s see if they still are now. If the sword of the Lis is lost, they won¡¯t have another chance with their Skystar ruins.

    ¡°Oh, darn, I forgot to say that the sword can ess the Skystar ruins. Heh, let¡¯s spread this news too and have the royal family join in the fun!¡±

    ¡°Leader, it¡¯s not a good time to engage in open hostilities with the royal family,¡± cautioned a Ghostface. ¡°They might turn on us instead if this news is leaked!¡±

    Ying Hongyue considered the suggestion and nodded with a smile. ¡°That¡¯s true! Then forget it. What¡¯s circting now is sufficient for everyone to take action.¡±

    He turned quickly and left, as dashing as ever and hardly bothered by Silver Moon¡¯s troubles. Li Hao and the rest may be improving quickly, but... so what?

    ......

    <i>Silver Moon.</i>

    <i>The provincial government.</i>

    There was a veryrge group of people sitting in silence.

    ¡°Can we have Light Sword take shelter?¡± Kong Jie asked waspishly. ¡°I should¡¯ve thought of this, but in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s absence, Ipletely forgot when no one reminded me. Did the director general also overlook this point? Now that the uses of the sword have been exposed, our troublese one after another!¡±

    He really didn¡¯t think of this beforehand because in his eyes, not that many would consider this point. He¡¯d always thought that supernaturals didn¡¯t understand martial masters. In doing so, hepletely overlooked a few things in that some people knew martial masters all too well!

    ¡°It did ur to me, but we still had to save her.¡± The director general breathed out gently. ¡°Additionally, I thought that people like Ying Hongyue would keep it to themselves if they knew because they wanted it for themselves. The more that know, the worse. I hadn¡¯t thought that he would make it public...¡±

    ¡°Hadn¡¯t thought?¡± Kong Jie fretted. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you think of it? Don¡¯t we all know what kind of person he is? He¡¯s a typical lunatic and it¡¯s not the first time he¡¯s done something that harms others without benefiting himself...¡±

    ¡°Alright, there¡¯s no point in talking about any of this now!¡± Huang Yu interrupted. ¡°We were in a rush to save Light Sword, so we had to do what was most convenient and practical. Sending Li Hao to save her was the best option.¡±

    ¡°But now Li Hao will be in grave, grave trouble!¡± Kong Jie raged. ¡°I negotiated with him to have him mount a rescue mission. You two... I¡¯m thinking that you two targeted even me in your plot! You might have foreseen all of this! You two bastards schemed against me as soon as Hou Xiaochen left, didn¡¯t you??¡±

    ¡°......¡± The two ignored him.

    ¡°I¡¯m most likely right! Out with it, what do you want?! To force Li Hao out of Silver Moon? Or to have him draw all the attention so that creates space for you guys to do something? It looks like the agreement of the four institutions is null and void and you¡¯re shunning me, aren¡¯t you?!¡±

    He was never one to think too much because Hou Xiaochen had been on his side all these years. Hou Xiaochen was the brains of the operation, so he listened to the man most of the time. But these two looked to have reached another agreement as soon as Hou Xiaochen left, ostracizing the inspector general.

    ¡°We don¡¯t mean that at all.¡± The director general frowned. ¡°First, this was indeed contrary to our expectations. Second, time was of the essence then! Third, the unknown danger was more severe than Light Sword dying.

    ¡°Having epted our payment, Li Hao should¡¯ve considered the risks within. He shouldn¡¯t have gone out just for the sake of the mission! Fourth, we will still protect him so long as he is in Silver Moon. This matter blowing up is trouble for us too, so no one is doing this on purpose. Additionally, this fallout has much to do with Li Hao¡¯s tant actions. He could¡¯ve avoided the ensuing trouble if he¡¯d bided his time in the dark and not taken an outright stand!

    ¡°Truth be told, his actions werepletely beyond our expectations. He¡¯s always been someone who ns first before acting, and does not take action without utmost confidence. Not to mention his grudge with Light Sword. Do you think we could¡¯ve anticipated that he would just go in with guns a-zin¡¯ like that?¡±

    ¡°But Light Sword would¡¯ve died if Li Hao kept a low profile...¡± Kong Jie protested.

    ¡°I said so before that sending Li Hao was a choice that was our best. We left the rest to heaven¡¯s will,¡± Director General Zhao shook his head. ¡°But I have to say, his decision was very surprising. The trouble that he¡¯s now in has much to do with our oversight as well.¡±

    The old man thought quietly for a while. ¡°I can understand if you feel apologetic about it, but don¡¯t get too emotional over it. We¡¯re discussing how to cope with the situation, not just venting our feelings.¡±

    ¡°Then what do you say should be done?¡± Kong Jie calmed down. ¡°You have the most ideas, what do you think?¡±

    The director general rubbed his temples. ¡°We have several options. First, we make an example out of someone. Have our powerhouses take a trip outside the province and kill some people! Second, throw out the sword of the Lis and have them dog eat dog! Third, have Li Hao himself say that all of the weapons of the eight families have this function and give Ying Hongyue a taste of his own medicine. But... people might not believe him.

    ¡°Fourth, have Li Hao vanish for a while and stay out of the public eye. That will afford him greater safety. Fifth, have someone pose as Li Hao and go to the central region to raise a fuss. Draw attention to the central region!¡±

    The director general rapidly gave out a few ideas. Kong Jie mulled them over and cursed to himself before saying, ¡°I¡¯ll try to contact Li Hao. Additionally, give me a transmission pendant! I¡¯ll give it to him so he can share some of our intelligence. He can¡¯t stay ignorant forever!¡±

    Huang Yu and Director General Zhao looked at each other and nodded. The young man should indeed receive a pendant, or he was too uninformed otherwise. Who knew where the young man was at the moment? He might not even know what¡¯d happened recently.

 Chapter 567: I Want To Keep A Low Profile (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 567: I Want To Keep A Low Profile (IV)</h4>

    Kong Jie quickly departed with the jade pendant. As he did so, Director General Zhao sighed. ¡°Do you think this was an ident, or was it meant to be?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± Huang Yu responded calmly. ¡°If he stayed in hiding and showed himself only at thest possible moment... we would naturally have a lot less trouble. But in that case, you and I both would think less of him. Now we think more highly of him, but taking a stand creates a lot of trouble for both him and us!¡±

    The two truly hadn¡¯t meant tond the young man in trouble. They¡¯d anticipated a bit of fallout, but hadn¡¯t expected him to charge into the fray. So at the moment, they didn¡¯t know if they were happy or sad.

    ¡°Forget it, we¡¯ll take things one day at a time!¡± sighed the director general. ¡°Li Hao¡¯s willingness to show himself and save people means that he¡¯s changing. In that case, we can¡¯t let him down. You should make a trip and keep an eye on him from the shadows. Don¡¯t let him get overwhelmed.¡±

    ¡°If I go, then White Moon City...¡± Huang Yu frowned. ¡°And the military... The others aren¡¯t too reliable.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine, I¡¯ll keep an eye on things,¡± responded Director General Zhao. ¡°Take our remaining reserves of Water of Life. Li Hao is a free spirit and thinks a lot at times. He may not be willing to save you if he¡¯s not in the right mood, so you¡¯ll need to save yourself!¡±

    A speechless Huang Yu said nothing further. He turned and left. Being in the military, it was a more self-contained faction. His absence could be concealed to the greatest degree possible.

    Director General Zhao leaned against his chair when everyone left and sank into deep thought. After a while, he murmured softly, ¡°Ying Hongyue...¡±

    This guy loved tomit acts that neither benefited him nor others. What was the point of that?

    <i>Yuan Shuo, oh Yuan Shuo. This is your fault for creating trouble day in and day out, and not cleaning up after yourself. Look at the mess you''ve left behind, but meanwhile, you¡¯re off living your best life. You¡¯ve probably gone off to dig up graves again.</i>

    ......

    As winds of change rose in the outside world, countless people worried or were sent in a frenzy over Li Hao. As for the target of their attention¡ªthe trio did not have the best sources of information. They werepletely oblivious despite possessing some transmission pendants. That level of information was not made public; it was shared only with some powerhouses.

    Li Hao and the other two didn¡¯t receive any word. The young man had long thrown away the pendant he¡¯d taken in the North Sea to prevent others from tracing his movements.

    The trio was not thinking of the consequences of their actions, not even Hong Yitang. His thoughts were that it didn¡¯t matter, that not that many people knew about Li Hao¡¯s capabilities with the sword. He Yong wouldn¡¯t speak of it and non-martial masters didn¡¯t understand the martial master system. Those who¡¯d cultivated to this level wouldn¡¯t carelessly share this kind of information. Light Sword¡¯s thoughts were focused on dark energy; jeopardizing her salvation was thest thing on her mind.

    Li Hao sometimes considered that there might be undesired consequences from using his family treasure in this way, but as more people knew about the sword¡¯s capabilities, the less he cared. Sometimes, he wanted to go crazy for once and experience how it felt to be enemies with the entire world.

    Such were the disadvantages of reading too many books. He liked to put himself in the shoes of the heroic biographies that he read, wanting to give things a try or act without caution for once. His heart was finding it difficult toe back down to earth after reading the War of Southern Jiang. Otherwise, he never would¡¯ve shown himself to tantly save Light Sword based on his previous character. If he didn¡¯t possess supreme assurance that he could eliminate everyone, he wouldn¡¯t do so even after Earthturner Sword took action.

    Therefore, Li Hao wouldn¡¯t mind if he found out that he was suddenly the hottest topic in the world. Perhaps he might even sigh with appreciation that he would find himself in such circumstances one day!

    No one else knew of the young man¡¯s thoughts, not even Hong Yitang next to him. Li Hao had a heart that was unwilling to be calm, to remain out of the spotlight. It agitated with a desire for action.

    The trio currently hid in a small city that no one knew of. Li Hao was taking inventory of his battle spoils and also sending some dark energy to Light Sword. Of course, he didn¡¯t forget Hong Yitang. He told the man how much sword energy could be traded for whatbination of mysterious power stones. Li Hao knew that Hong Yitang had imed the storage ring of a metamorphosis expert and was attempting to empty him out the best that the young man could.

    Metamorphosis was the strongest level of supernaturals in the world at the moment. They surely had a lot of treasures on hand!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t intend to ask for too much¡ªjust half of his usual fee. Regr people wouldn¡¯t even have ess to such treatment!

    Hong Yitang was the height of speechlessness!

    But he agreed after further thought. There was no helping it, Li Hao offered an exclusive good. Sword energy could strengthen the five organs and everyone wished for that oue. Modern day martial masters and supernaturals all faced difficulties in this area.

    Hong Yitang had one massive chunk of mysterious power stone left and Light Sword paying off her debt. He had some money to spare and could enjoy himself luxuriously for once.

    When Light Sword saw his decision, she wanted nothing more than to empty her wallet as well! The two turned over almost everything they had to the vampiric young man. Apart from their personal swords, they itched to sell everything else to Li Hao in exchange for some sword energy.

    And so, time passed for Li Hao in a haze of anguish and delight. Hepletely bypassed the turmoil in the outside world. It wasn¡¯t until the two powerhouses hadpletely transferred all of their riches to him and had nothing else to offer that he stopped supplying them with sword energy.

    Hong Yitang was despondent! It was such a lovely feeling, but he¡¯d sold even thest big chunk of mysterious power stone to the young man. He really had absolutely nothing to offer in payment.

    Well, he had some treasures still, such as the Goldensky Lotus. But after repeated consideration, he decided to keep it to anchor his personal fortune. He couldn¡¯t have absolutely no treasure in his storage ring, that would be so humiliating!

    If he was killed one day and his storage ring taken, his murderer would curse andugh at Earthturner Sword! A premier martial master that could kill metamorphosis existences had an empty storage ring!

    Meanwhile, Light Sword sighed intively. She¡¯d absorbed a great deal of dark energy, her mustache had greatly receded and her Adam¡¯s apple had gone down quite a bit, but it still wasn¡¯t enough!

    She wanted more energy, but Li Hao wouldn¡¯t supply it to her. It couldn¡¯t be helped, this was all that the Windchaser Boot was worth. The main reason was also that he¡¯d consumed most of his mysterious power stones. Of course, his body, organs, and supernatural locks had grown much stronger as well. For the first time, it seemed that the lock of his heart might be saturated!

    He¡¯d absorbed nearly one hundred thousand cubes this time, a figure that made even Li Hao wince. It was too much!

    It didn¡¯t seem like much when converted to mysterious power stones¡ªjust one hundred pieces. But Li Hao had absorbed the essence of their mysterious power, which put his consumption on an entirely different level. There was also a vast amount of waste that urred in the process.

    The trio didn¡¯t leave their hiding ce until mid October and headed for White Moon City. A notification blinked in Li Hao¡¯s armor when they approached the city.<i> Soldier Kong Jie has hailed you three hundred times...</i>

    The young man blinked.<i> Are you crazy?? It¡¯s only been a few days, you called me once every hour, didn¡¯t you? I should block you. You never have anything good for me when you call me!</i>

    He¡¯d yet to have a chance to call back when another notification came through from Kong Jie. This time, the inspector general was delighted!

    ¡°Fuck!¡± He finally connected to the kid. Li Hao was within five hundred kilometers of the capital city, but had dropped off the face of the world the past couple of days. Kong Jie would think that the kid had been assassinated if he still didn¡¯t show up or that Hong Yitang and the others had killed him for his riches!

    ......

    Kong Jie quickly ryed everything that had happened. Li Hao listened quietly.

    ¡°You need toe back to White Moon City as soon as possible and don¡¯t leave for the time being,¡± Kong Jie concluded at the end. ¡°The capital is still safe for the moment. As bold as those fellows are, they won¡¯t daree to their deaths here.¡±

    ¡°Okay, understood!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t say much and had a calm expression on his face when he hung up. ¡°I¡¯m going back to White Moon City. Will you two be parting ways here or going to the city with me?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m going with you!¡± Light Sword immediately said. While she¡¯d suppressed some light energy, it was far from enough, so she had to continue traveling with Li Hao.

    ¡°Whatever you wish.¡± The young man didn¡¯t express an opinion. He wanted to make a trip to White Moon City and collect the rest of his fee first, then head to the ruins that contained the little tree. He¡¯d promised the tree arge amount of benefits and the Demon Hunters were also there. There was no need to bring the other two with him, however, just in case that attracted unnecessary trouble.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t speak of what Kong Jie had said. As isted as the other two were, they should know rtively quickly, so it didn¡¯t matter if he brought it up or not. Not to mention, it¡¯d been less than two days since word got out. Everyone knew that Earthturner Sword and the others were strong. No one would make a move unless they werepletely prepared.

    <i>Ying Hongyue. You again.</i>

    Was life too good for this guy for him to be making trouble for Li Hao over and over again? The young man was no longer who he was. He¡¯d seen far more of the world, his strength was great, and he was fully confident. Ying Hongyue¡¯s little tricks could no longer scare him!

    ......

    Three humans and one dog made quick work of the five hundred kilometers to White Moon City. Li Hao took out the Divine Kun Ship and ferried them through the sky. Theynded near the city in less than three hours. However, Hong Yitang didn¡¯t seem inclined to head inside.

    ¡°Since you¡¯re here, I¡¯ll go back first...¡±

    ¡°Are you not going to visit Hong Qing?¡± Li Hao was going to bring everyone back from the ruins in a bit. Was Hong Yitang not even going to look in on his daughter?

    ¡°You can take care of her, I might not have time to in the days toe...¡±

    ¡°Of course, I¡¯ll take care of everything, don¡¯t worry!¡± Li Hao smiled.

    Hong Yitang flicked a nce at him, his thoughts unknown.

    ¡°Martial Uncle Hong, I hear that you¡¯re going to build a city?¡±

    ¡°Not a city...¡± Hong Yitang wanted to deny, but changed his answer. ¡°I¡¯m just expanding the Sword Sect.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, that¡¯s nice.¡±

    The two chatted for a while before Kong Jie flew out of the city. He inclined his head at the other two and turned gravely to Li Hao. ¡°You¡¯re finally back. I would¡¯ve thought you were assassinated by someone if you still stayed out of sight...¡±

    Li Hao chuckled and didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°I won¡¯t die that easily. Inspector General Kong, I¡¯ve brought back Light Sword. Where¡¯s the rest of my stuff?¡±

    ¡°What stuff?¡±

    ¡°The terms for the mission. I only received a deposit. You guys still owe me an origin weapon and twenty thousand mysterious power stones.¡±

    Kong Jie was speechless. Did this kid not care about his safety at all?

    ¡°I¡¯ll give it to you tomorrow...¡±

    ¡°I want it now!¡±

    Kong Jie was truly at a loss. ¡°I don¡¯t have that much at the moment, I need the provincial government and military to render aid...¡±

    ¡°Then go to them!¡±

    ¡°.....¡± Kong Jie furrowed his brows. What was this kid in such a hurry for? They wouldn¡¯t shortchange him!

 Chapter 568: Exchange (I)

    <h4>Chapter 568: Exchange (I)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about anything other than his pay. He still needed to visit the ruins and it wouldn¡¯t do to show up without sufficient treasure.

    Kong Jie cursed to himself and left without another word. Hong Yitang burst outughing after the inspector general left. ¡°You¡¯ve got some nerve!¡±

    Kong Jie was a premier heavyweight at the end of the day, but the little guy showed him no face at all! Li Hao waspletely unfazed. When the Silver Moon authorities sent him on a rescue mission, they should¡¯ve considered the fact that he might be exposed. He¡¯d briefly considered it as well, but didn¡¯t think too much of it.

    No matter what, he epted his pay withplete peace of mind. This was payment for a life! There was nothing to be embarrassed about for money that he¡¯d risked his neck to earn. The authorities might not mention it if he didn¡¯t demand to be paid, then ultimately forget about the second portion. There was no time to waste in pretending to be polite. Director General Zhao and the others would absolutely pay him while Earthturner Sword and Light Sword were both by his side.

    Kong Jie reappeared after roughly ten minutes. He tossed a storage ring to Li Hao. ¡°This is yours. Do you know that you¡¯ve almost emptied out Silver Moon?¡±

    There was no way that was true!

    Thirty thousand mysterious power stones and three origin weapons were a lot, but for that to be the sum total of these guys¡¯ fortune? Li Hao would never believe it!

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll go fetch the Demon Hunters. You guys wait a moment for me. If you have other business, Martial Uncle Hong, then you can go.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯ll be safer for you if Earthturner Sword stays at a time like this...¡± Kong Jie hastily protested.

    Hong Yitang looked at Kong Jie, thetter quickly transmitted an exnation. Hong Yitang frowned and sharpened his look at Kong Jie, then looked at Li Hao. Ying Hongyue... seriously had too much time on his hands!

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll...¡±

    ¡°Martial uncle, you should go back to the Sword Sect!¡± Li Hao interrupted. ¡°It may not be safe there. Once powerhouses sneak into Silver Moon, no ce is adequately defended other than White Moon City. The sect is not safe if you are not present. The world knows how strong martial uncle is and may threaten you with it.¡±

    Hong Yitang hesitated. It was one thing to not know, but now that he knew... worries were beginning to creep in. And yet, tremendous trouble wasing for Li Hao.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, martial uncle. I¡¯ll stay at White Moon from now on,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°As bold as those guys may be, they won¡¯t court death at the capital. Commander Yu, Director General Zhao, Inspector General Kong, Deputy Zhou, and Light Sword will all be at White Moon in the days toe. If anyone darese, they¡¯ll be going to their deaths!¡±

    ¡°Then be careful.¡± Hong Yitang nodded after some thought. ¡°The Sword Sect may indeed be unsafe. Contact me anytime if you need me!¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡±

    Hong Yitang no longer waffled. It was truly much safer at White Moon City. If he wasn¡¯t at the Sword Sect, however, the enemy might really steal a march on him! With that said, the man left without bidding farewell to Kong Jie.

    The inspector general wanted to say something, but said nothing out of resignation. He actually wanted Hong Yitang to stay if possible. The man was very strong and the capital¡¯s defenses would spontaneously be raised to an extreme peak if he stayed. There were no faults that could be identified in Earthturner Sword¡¯s defenses.

    What a pity that the Sword Sect was his territory.

    Li Hao turned to leave as well. Light Sword wanted to follow him, but the young man deterred her. ¡°You don¡¯t need toe with me, it¡¯s very close. I¡¯ll be back soon. Senior, you should chat with Inspector General Kong. He paid a lot for your rescue!¡±

    Light Sword looked at Li Hao, then at Kong Jie. That was true, the official authorities did indeed spend a lot of resources to save her. No matter what, she needed to exchange some pleasantries with them.

    Therefore, she stayed while Li Hao vanished on the spot with Panther.

    ......

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes sparkled after a while of flying. A light that was almost visible shed out of his eyes and casually scanned the surroundings. He ultimately looked into the sky before quickly ducking his head with a slight frown.

    Someone seemed to be following him and their presence felt a bit eye-searing, but they were keeping their distance. The young man couldn¡¯t make out who his pursuer was. Li Hao realized who it might be after a while¡ªeither Director General Zhao or Huang Yu. One of the two was keeping an eye on him, possibly for protection or for surveince...

    Li Hao didn¡¯t like it much, no matter what it was. Not to mention, he was about to visit the little tree. He didn¡¯t want their presence to elicit the tree¡¯s misunderstanding.

    After some thought, he steered the Divine Kun Ship to the ground. The ship smashed a massive hole in the earth and continued its descent. Li Hao made use of themotion to vanish from the vessel. Under hismand, the origin treasure continued to make its way through the ground.

    Huang Yu furrowed his brows from his position in the sky. What was thed going beneath the ground for? A ruin? He knew that the Demon Hunters had gone to explore ruins, but wasn¡¯t aware of exactly which ruin it was. If Li Hao was descending here... was the ruin here?

    Huang Yu watched silently instead of following the young man down. After a while, the giant ship settled belowground. When it remained unmoving for a while, themander found it odd. Had something amiss urred?

    But he detected no energy ripples. Caught in contemtion, he chose to be quiet.

    ......

    Li Hao had long departed the area. The earth sword aura erupted when the Divine Kun Shipnded, creating a small tunnel beneath the ground. Skilled at subterfuge, the young man made use of the vessel¡¯s descent to depart. He would park the ship there for a while; Huang Yu could look after it.

    This was Li Hao¡¯s first drill at avoiding pursuers in the dark. He wanted to try and see if he could escape from beneath their nose. He utilized the Windchaser Boot in his exercise, instantly clearing one thousand meters¡ªthis was the limit of many powerhouse¡¯s senses.

    Using it three times in a row consumed a great deal of internal force, but it also propelled him three thousand meters beyond the Divine Kun Ship. When he took his bearings again, the young man couldn¡¯t sense that he was still being followed.

    <i>Good!</i>

    Not bad at all, the Windchaser Boot was worthy of his identity as a martial master. Combined with dark energy that concealed one¡¯s traces, it was truly impossible for ordinary people to detect anything.

    After shaking off his follower, Li Hao made quick time and arrived at Mount Cat Head before long. A few shester brought him to the mountain cave. It¡¯d been quite a few days since he left. Although the team had brought sufficient rations with them, they might be antsy after so long.

    Li Hao jumped down the hole and felt a faint mental ripple before hended.

    ¡°You seem to have obtained a nice weapon... andprehended another path?¡± The little tree¡¯s weing ripple ended on a surprised note.

    <i>So fast!</i>

    Was it this era¡¯s people that possessed more potential or was the young human that strong? It¡¯d only been a few days! The tree had thought Li Hao would require a few more opportunities with core origin before he seeded.

    Who knew that the young man would only require one trip in the outside world? It was a very short period of time for the tree, yet Li Hao had seeded.

    ¡°I was just lucky!¡± Li Hao responded casually as hended. The Demon Hunters were much more reassured to see that their leader had returned safe and sound.

    ¡°You¡¯re finally back!¡± Hao Lianchuan piped up. ¡°It¡¯s been a few days. We were going to go out and find you if there was still no sign of you.¡±

    Li Hao smiled and was surprised when he looked at the man. ¡°Peak Sr?¡±

    That was fast!

    When he looked at the others, he could see that many of the martial masters seemed to have grasped the aura, but their improvement wasn¡¯t as obvious as the supernatural. Wang Ming hadn¡¯t advanced for a very long period of time¡ªhe was an initial Sr now. Hu Hao, Li Meng, and Yun Yao all showed significant progress, particrly Li Meng. She had been a Plenilune before, now she was a Sunre.

    Li Hao had left behind some mysterious power stones when he left so that the little tree could release some energy for everyone to train in. It looked like the effects were wondrous.

    ¡°Training here is great for us supernaturals!¡± Hao Lianchuanughed heartily. ¡°We suffer too manytent injuries because mysterious power is too overbearing. Even though our injuries were greatly relieved by the energy you supplied before, mysterious power remains very tyrannical. Training here is a gentle, tender process that makes me feel that I¡¯ve recovered some of my expended life force...¡±

    ¡°These people have consumed too much of their potential!¡± came a ripple from the little tree. ¡°Especially this fatty, he¡¯s depleted too much! The people of your time are very special. There seem to be some seals inside your body that contain your potential and protect your body. But these martial masters that walk the path of energy are a bit different... Life energy can recover some of their life force, but I can only emanate some life energy. I can¡¯t help them fully recuperate.¡±

    Li Hao understood! Supernaturals depleted too much potential. Under these circumstances, depleting potential was depleting life force. They would die, sooner orter!

    Powerhouses of the ancient civilization could live for a very long time¡ªa thousand years was no problem after they crafted their golden body. But whether it was modern day martial masters or supernaturals, none could do the same.

    One could sense a thing or two from assessing their own life force. A martial master¡¯s mind intent was so strong that it wore away at the body. A supernatural¡¯s mysterious power was so tyrannical that it eroded vitality. That was why supernaturals cultivated so quickly and were so strong. At the same time, such abrupt eruption inevitably led to the loss of certain things, such as length of life.

    Li Hao took out a wood origin weapon and ten thousand mysterious power stones, shifting them to the little tree¡¯s roots. ¡°This is your payment!¡±

    The little tree swayed with good spirits. Although the stones weren¡¯t worth much, having such arge sum of them was good. The origin weapon looked to havee from a nt spirit. It would be useful for the little tree. Though it¡¯d severed off some core origin, that power wasn¡¯t very useful to it at the moment. Itcked energy more than core origin. Core origin was a matter that would be relevant onlyter. For now, it would recover if it possessed sufficient energy.

    Li Hao suddenly flung out a lot of other items including the wind chime and boxing gloves. Eleven origin weapons ttered to the ground, not counting the one he¡¯d just given the tree. Even the little tree was taken aback! Although none of them were high level, being presented with such arge sum of them was surprising nheless.

 Chapter 569: Exchange (II)

    <h4>Chapter 569: Exchange (II)</h4>

    ¡°How much Water of Life can these be exchanged for?¡± Li Hao looked at the little tree. ¡°Give me an exact figure.¡±

    The little tree seemed stuck in a daze. It took a while for its mental ripples to appear. ¡°Are you sure... you want to give me all of this? These weapons should¡¯ve been difficult to obtain and some of them are decent quality...¡±

    Combined with the one it¡¯d already been paid, it made for twelve origin weapons. Li Hao had consumed some in times past, but he¡¯d collected an abundant amount of these items in recent times. He kept very few, only those with a special purpose like the Divine Kun Ship. The rest were of no use to him as he¡¯d grasped the wood sword aura and wasn¡¯t particrly interested in the path of core origin.

    He would rather obtain more Water of Life. It possessed a significant quality that made it more useful than sword energy¡ªno matter how injured one was, even with a severed arm or leg, it could regrow the missing limb. Li Hao had one such drop on hand, but that wasn¡¯t enough. He needed more!

    ¡°If I digest all of these divine weapons... I¡¯ll be able to gather more energy if they¡¯re from nt spirits, but less if they¡¯re from monster spirits. How about ten drops of life essence?¡±

    Li Hao looked at the little sword. It¡¯d previously said that one drop required ten thousand mysterious power stones. The value of origin weapons was difficult to estimate, but they should be more than ten thousand stones.

    It depended on their rank. The Night Watchers in the central region wouldn¡¯t give up the Heavens Dictate even for one hundred thousand stones, much less ten thousand. But he could also hear a note of guilt in the nt¡¯s transmission. inly, eleven origin weapons could produce far more than ten drops. It must be keeping a lot of energy for itself!

    But that was to be expected since the tree wished to recover.

    ¡°Fifteen drops!¡± Li Hao countered after some thought. ¡°We¡¯re counting by drops, but I¡¯ve read in the ancient books that the Human King even built a Lake of Life...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not the same frame of reference at all, don¡¯t think that much.¡± The little tree swayed. <i>You said it yourself, that was the Human King.</i>

    ¡°Fifteen drops aren¡¯t too much, are they?¡±

    ¡°Very well!¡± agreed the little tree upon consideration. ¡°But, do you really want to reduce all of these to energy?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao responded decisively. ¡°These items are just external objects. I have Steris and now a Windchaser Boot. I have no use for these things, but Ick a defensive item. The ck Tortoise in Battle Heaven suits my purposes, the rest isn¡¯t much to look at!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The little tree didn¡¯t respond, neither was Battle Heaven aware of Li Hao¡¯s intent. Otherwise, the old turtle would be quite surprised. So y<i>ou¡¯ve got your eyes on me, little guy?</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts were simple. One treasure for attack, one for defense, and one for escape. Three were enough. Steris, the Windchaser Boots, the ck Tortoise Seal or the ck Tortoise Shield were the ideal lineup of his heart. He didn¡¯t care about the rest, even the Revolution King¡¯s wind chime. If he did, he would¡¯ve put it to use long ago.

    The young man took out two more items¡ªthe bronze mirror he¡¯d obtained from Qiao Feilong, one that could obscure the presence if worn on the body, and the long de that he¡¯d obtained after killing Sea Shark. The de was of a very high caliber to not break after Steris hacked into it.

    ¡°Senior Tree, do you recognize these two weapons?¡±

    The little tree gave the de only a cursory look. ¡°This is a weapon crafted in thete New Martial era. The quality is high and it is not made from nt or monster spirits. Sophisticated artistry forged it, it is a new innovation created from formidable skill! The de is of good quality and a high rank.¡±

    But that was all there was to it. Li Hao understood.

    The tree then turned to the bronze mirror and answered after a long moment, ¡°I¡¯m... not sure what this is, but it is sealed. It might... be... an imitation of an ultimate treasure?¡±

    It rifled through the old tree¡¯s memories¡ªthere was a lot to scan before some names appeared in its heart. ¡°The ultimate among mirror treasures back in the day was the Sky Gander, but itter shattered. It could peer into anything and everything! The second among mirror treasures was the Stable Sea Mirror, one that was crafted to imitate the Sky Gander. It could suppress the Forbidden Sea!

    ¡°However, there were those who said that the second was Sky Inquiry Mirror. That treasure could capture a snapshot of every being¡¯s vitality and create a ranking of life force on a stone obelisk. That also turned into a ranking of powerhouses...¡± The little tree hesitated. ¡°Your mirror... may be an imitation of these treasures. Of course, nearly all of them originate from Sky Gander, but the specifics won¡¯t be known unless it is unsealed.¡±

    ¡°How should we unseal it?¡± Li Hao thought of another weapon, the sword that¡¯d been turned over to the Night Watchers. Hou Xiaochen might¡¯ve taken it with him. He rarely saw sealed ancient weapons. Other than the bronze mirror and the weapons of the eight families, the mirror was the only instance.

    ¡°Treasures hide themselves when it¡¯s been too long since theirst usage. They will naturally seal themselves away and sometimes, you don¡¯t need to purposefully unseal them. You just need to use them for a long period of time and use energy to nourish them. They will unseal of their own ord when sufficient time has passed.¡±

    Li Hao understood. <i>Just say that you don¡¯t know and can only wear away at it bit by bit!</i> He was much more at ease after confirming that the bronze mirror was something valuable.

    The little tree didn¡¯t say anything. A wood origin weapon shattered beneath its roots. A weapon soul seemed to appear, but it instantly dissipated.

    ¡°Senior Tree, these weapon souls...¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re the spirits of nt or monster spirits. It¡¯s good that they break, it¡¯s a kind of release for them. These weapons fell out of use long ago. To think that so many would be left behind... Perhaps thetest technology was taken away to be used in the battlefield, leaving behind these old reserves.¡±

    The new creations were rarely seen¡ªsuch as the de that Li Hao had obtained. But as he thought about it, perhaps the armor was also a new kind of equipment. Origin weapons were possibly scattered about outside, used by cultivators not of the ancient system and thus easier for others to obtain them.

    Origin weapon upon origin weapon broke, emitting howls and roars of beasts or other oddities before the little tree¡¯s began glowing more vibrantly. Aura¡ªor rather, mental strength¡ªsurged and grew bigger.

    Li Hao furrowed his brows, but held himself back with effort. The Demon Hunters were around him and he¡¯d made his choice. He could only passively wait for the results now. Once the little tree recovered its strength, it would be much stronger than before. Sometimes, one just had to put everything on the line!

    There were countless people keeping an eye on him from outside. They all wanted to kill and dissect him, so Li Hao would have to make arge gamble!

    One weapon, two, three... Origin weapons crumbled away on the ground, as did mysterious power stones. The little tree grew much taller. It was only the height of a person before, a saplingpared to the tree that¡¯d copsed by the side. It was now almost six meters tall and a crystalline energy circted rapidly through its trunk.

    Li Hao could clearly sense that the ruins had grown a little bigger, that the darkness in the surroundings had receded somewhat. The little tree seemed to be expanding its territory.

    All of the mysterious power stones crumbled after a while and the origin weapons disappeared. An indistinct face formed on the tree¡¯s trunk. Only the outline could be seen, not its features. Another surge of mental strength washed over Li Hao, ¡°You¡¯re very bold.¡±

    <i>Truly!</i>

    ¡°We both benefit,¡± Li Hao said calmly. ¡°No one will help the senior like this if you kill me! You have already seen the benefits of working with me. I dare say that no one, perhaps the various major factions can, but not a single person is able to collect all of the treasures that I have in a few short days. There are even fewer people who are willing to let the senior absorb them!

    ¡°I have enemies all over the world and everyone wishes to kill me. I want to kill them too, so people like me find it easiest to obtain treasure!¡±

    Enemies all over the world!

    The little tree shook slightly upon hearing these words, finding it strange that geniuses of this age like to make enemies. All of the powerhouses of this era seemed to have enemies throughout thend.

    But it made sense upon further thought. The process naturally stepped on many toes and affected their profits. On the other hand, these people were the best resources for the growth and development of these geniuses.

    ¡°You are right... and I can coalesce life essence for you...¡± Energy surged within the little tree as a peculiar ripple of life emanated from itself. As it spread through the premises, Li Hao and the rest felt like they¡¯d been washed clean.

    The little tree hadn¡¯t gone back on its word because Li Hao was right. If it coveted today¡¯s gains and refused to give Water of Life to Li Hao, then there would not be a next time. There was no need to lose sight of the bigger picture for small gains at hand. Condensing fifteen drops wasn¡¯t much. Truth be told, it was keeping at least seventy percent of the energy from the origin weapons!

    If it could only just manage to rebuff Li Hao before, the little tree was much stronger now. Drops of Water of Life floated toward the young man after a while.

    ¡°This item cannot be stored in ordinary containers. It¡¯s best to use energy crystals to keep it...¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡±

    ¡°The shards of the mysterious power stones that you speak of. Just craft them into a sk...¡±

    Li Hao summoned a handful of shards to his hand, as well as the ferocious tiger of his heart. Fire zed and melted the fragments, forming arge jug.

    ¡°......¡± The little tree was dumbfounded. <i>I¡¯m only giving you fifteen drops, a sk will do! What did you make a jug for?</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts had traveled ahead. It was fifteen drops now¡ªthe one on him made for sixteen. There would only be more of these things toe. Take mysterious power for instance. One cube was precious to him before, but now he couldn''t be bothered with extracting anything from a Nova. The same went for mysterious power stones...

    What was special about Water of Life, in that case? He¡¯d be better off obtaining some nice things for the little tree to absorb energy and produce more Water of Life. Therefore, he should save himself future effort and just create arge container this time. He would fill it sooner orter!

    Li Hao wanted to try what it felt like to bathe with Water of Life.

 Chapter 570: Walking Out of Silver Moon (I)

    <h4>Chapter 570: Walking Out of Silver Moon (I)</h4>

    Fifteen drops of Water of Lifended in the jug. They rolled around like crystal droplets in the container, particrly beautiful when they caught the light.

    Li Hao smiled. Sixteen drops! Each droplet could save a life. Light Sword had recovered greatly with one drop, even when she was so gravely injured. All wounds might fully recover unless the supernatural locks werepletely broken!

    What did this mean?

    It meant that he had sixteen chances to save lives. This was an absolute lifesaver!

    <i>People outside want to kill me? It¡¯s more like I want to kill them! I¡¯ll kill whoever tries to kill me!</i>

    ¡°Senior, I repeat what I said before. Are you willing to leave with me?¡±

    ¡°I cannot.¡±

    Li Hao was disappointed, but said nothing else.

    ¡°Then rest well, senior, I¡¯m leaving now.¡± He would drop the matter since the little tree wasn¡¯t willing.

    It seemed to be looking at Li Hao and sent a thought ripple after a while, ¡°I¡¯ll gift you one core origin talisman¡ªit¡¯s the same as before, but it¡¯ll be stronger because I¡¯ve recovered some strength. However, I have one request...¡±

    <i>Stronger?</i> The one before could kill a mid orte Nova, so how much stronger was this one?

    ¡°What is your request, senior? How strong is the talisman?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s difficult for me to judge the strength of your powerhouses. If they are only a bit stronger than you, then you will be able to kill them! As for my request, it¡¯s very simple. I needrge sums of energy, a lot a lot of energy. If you obtain energy in the future, you can trade it with me for life essence. If you meet other people or nt spirits... Remember that I was the first to partner with you...¡±

    What did it mean by that?

    ¡°Does senior mean that... there might be other existences surviving from the ancient times?¡± Inspiration struck Li Hao.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know about the human race, but nt spirits... live long lives. They might be like me and regrow from their father¡¯s roots even if they wither.¡±

    ¡°I understand, my first choice is naturally you, senior!¡± Li Hao understood.

    ¡°That¡¯s good! The one in Battle Heaven is too strong. The energy that you¡¯ve supplied to me is not enough to resurrect even one of his roots. Therefore, there¡¯s no need to go to him.¡±

    Li Hao finally truly understood! <i>So you¡¯re afraid that I¡¯ll focus my efforts on General Pagoda? </i>The young man nodded without saying much more.

    The little tree truly invested a great deal and coalesced another crystalline root, sending it floating toward Li Hao. ¡°Try not to use this if possible because it is condensed from core origin. I am unaware if current martial dao can tolerate it, nor do I know what the consequences might be from using it.

    ¡°I also do not know if there is an overlord of this world. If there is none, you can naturally do whatever you like. But if there is, they might be an enemy unless they are a heavyweight of New Martial. The particrs are unknown, so use it with care!¡±

    A great deal of information was contained in those words. Li Hao was moved, but nodded without saying anything. He put away the crystalline root¡ªthis was likely his most fatal trump card.<i> I wonder if this is more powerful, or the bomb that the Near River director general threw out before?</i> That thing had even left Hong Yitang with a face full of dust.

    Could the root be used against experts in metamorphosis? The little tree¡¯s previous level of strength had been mid tote Nova. It was difficult to say if it could handle experts in metamorphosis. This was just a coalescence of core origin, after all, not the little tree itself.

    But no matter what, having it tucked away in his pocket was better than not having it.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go back.¡± Li Hao looked at the Demon Hunters. ¡°We¡¯ve all had some gains this time. I hope that all of you will make it to Dominator soon!¡±

    If they continued to dither at the Sunderer level, the Demon Hunters would start to be less useful to Li Hao. Only when they were Dominators could they swiftly improve again, due to having strong organs. That was when they would be most helpful to the young man.

    The groupmitted the exhortation to memory and quickly jumped out of the ruins. When they were gone, the tree was momentarily quiet before the hole vanished. It chose to seal off the area since that person wouldn¡¯te again for a while.

    It swayed as it looked at the pce in the near distance. Would this discarded pce... stand to see the return of its master? Perhaps... not!

    Did its father¡¯s persistence have meaning?

    The thoughts dispersed after a while.<i> I am a tree. Since my roots are here, then let me be rooted here.</i>

    ......

    <i>In the wilderness. </i>

    The inert Divine Kun Ship suddenly vanished and broke through the air. Up in the sky, Huang Yu blinked and quickly gave chase.

    A group of people appeared in the distance. Li Hao didn¡¯t look at anyone and directed his people into the ship as soon as itnded. They were a ways from Mount Cat Head¡ªthemander may not find the ruins even if he was given a direction to search in.

    The ship hovered in the air again and vanished on the spot. Huang Yu¡¯s eyes darted forward, tracking it in the direction it disappeared in. Had the young man discovered him, or was he purposefully setting up smoke and mirrors to prevent the enemy from ambushing him?

    No matter what, Li Hao had some skill up his sleeves to disappear beneath his nose.

    ......

    <i>Within the ship, the hold.</i>

    No one spoke, but Li Hao¡¯s voice echoed within the armor. ¡°Trouble hase for me. Many in Skystar Dynasty these days want to kill me. I won¡¯t be sitting still to wait for death. I¡¯d wanted to stay in Silver Moon for a while longer, but attracting too many powerhouses is not good for the province. I have no intention to harm anyone, but people want to kill me. Therefore, I¡¯m going to leave!¡±

    ¡°Leader, we¡¯reing with you!¡± Voices shouted in the channel, everyone vying to stay with their leader.

    ¡°Too weak!¡± Two words from Li Hao silenced the mor.

    <i>Too weak!</i>

    They knew they were too weak. Apart from Liu Long and the supernaturals among them, Li Heng was the only lucky one to barely make it to Dominator. Of the rest... There were a few half step Dominators, but this level of strength was far from enough!

    So far from enough!

    ¡°I killed some people on an earlier trip out,¡± Li Hao said. ¡°Somete Novas, even some peak Novas. I killed the son of the Steadfast Duke, a general of the Steppe Prince, the younger brother of the lord of Buddha Mountain, and a duke of the greatest pirate faction in the North Sea...

    ¡°I¡¯ve finished offending all of the three great organizations and most of the divine mountains,¡± chuckled the young man. ¡°There may be those in Silver Moon who are still willing to shelter me after all that, but why should I allow them to do that? I would owe favors left and right with the amount of trouble I¡¯m bringing to the province. I hate owing favors!

    ¡°It would be a sin if I attractedrge numbers of powerhouses to attack Silver Moon and cause general misery. I don¡¯t have much tying me to the world¡ªI¡¯ll live much the same even after leaving Silver Moon. Some of you guys... I can¡¯t even put a name to the face. This is good. I might grow attached to you as time goes on and won¡¯t want to leave you.¡±

    Let¡¯s just leave at that! He was prepared to leave the Demon Hunters behind in Silver Moon. Their future wouldn¡¯t be too bad in the province. They would be powerhouses sooner orter if they crossed the Dominator threshold. At that time, their strengthened organs would help them understand what they¡¯d gained from Li Hao.

    The entire ship¡¯s hold and themunication channel within the suits of armor were eerily silent.

    ¡°Leader...¡± Li Heng raised. ¡°I¡¯m a Dominator!¡±

    He was a Dominator! After his advancement, he could sense that he was still swiftly improving. His progress was even faster than when he was a Sunderer! With his strengthened organs, he could even begin walking the path to Summoner of Spirit.

    Even if he only had one spirit, he would still rival a Sr once he broke through.

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Li Hao nodded. Not bad. But... so what if he managed to make it to Summoner?

    ¡°The director took the Silver Moon Guards with him when he left, why don¡¯t you take us with you?¡± The group looked at Li Hao, who looked back at them. Did they want to join him purely out of loyalty?

    Not necessarily!

    They hadn¡¯t spent that much time together. Perhaps it was out of respect or worship, or perhaps they simply didn¡¯t want to pass up the opportunity. No matter what it was, they all demonstrated a willingness to follow Li Hao out of the province, even if the path ahead was difficult.

    Was this not the life that a martial master should lead?

    ¡°Leader, our Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation is very strong. If all of us work together with a Dominator as a core, we¡¯ll be able to kill Srs even if we can¡¯t measure up to Novas. I¡¯m sure that many of us will quickly be Dominators as well. By then, we¡¯ll rival Novas. Even if we can¡¯t kill enemies for you, we¡¯ll be able to hold them back for a while...¡±

    ¡°You should stay!¡± Li Hao dered after some thought. ¡°Settle in for a bit. Everyone¡¯s progressed very quickly during this period of time and hasn¡¯t had time to digest your gains. Stay in Silver Moon, exterminate some of the minor pirates, and also kill the three great organizations!

    ¡°I hope that everyone is a Dominator when I return. If you think there¡¯s no motivation to be found in Silver Moon, then you can head to the three northern provinces. There¡¯s a war there and I saw supernaturals and martial masters fighting each other on my way back...¡±

    Li Hao made up his mind when Kong Jie told him that there were peopleing for his head. He¡¯d held the same thoughts when Hou Xiaochen left, but he hadn¡¯t been resolute enough then. His decision had been decided for him when Kong Jie exined that people throughout the world wanted to kill him. The time hade to leave Silver Moon. There were many secrets buried here, but many things were not issues that he could resolve now.

    This was not something he could take over. Whether it was Battle Heaven, the Martial University constructed by the eight families, the other seven families, thend of inheritance behind the stone door, the diagram of the eight trigrams in the sky, the pce, Human King, Star Gate...

    Too many secrets were hidden here, sealed with the disappearance of the ancient civilization.

    He would be back.

    The tiny ce of Silver City was where he¡¯d grown up. His friend was buried there, and while his parents¡¯ grave had been dug up, that was still his home. However, it was time for him to leave now.

    Those in charge had their secrets and their responsibilities. He didn¡¯t know what they were thinking, but since they were hiding something, that meant there were enemies that could not be fathomed or ovee. He was not of the mindset to force them to give up their secrets, to reveal their strength or expose their trump cards for him.

    Favors were the hardest to repay.

 Chapter 571: Walking Out of Silver Moon (II)

    <h4>Chapter 571: Walking Out of Silver Moon (II)</h4>

    ¡°Ah, you guys can go to the Sword Sect for a look. Martial Uncle Hong is of a mind to build a sacrednd of sanctuary...¡±

    ¡°What sacrednd?¡± Hong Qing blinked.

    ¡°A sacrednd in the mortal world!¡±

    Hong Qing gaped at Li Hao. <i>What...? My dad? Creating a sacrednd in the mortal world? Has the leader lost his mind today?</i>

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand and neither do I. But we¡¯ll understand sooner orter.¡± Li Hao borrowed some words from the old guys of Silver Moon. ¡°The gap between you guys and me is growing bigger and bigger. I need to mull over my progress, as do you. You guys need to umte and experience certain things. Martial uncle¡¯s sanctuary won¡¯t be easy to establish.

    ¡°Many of youe from the Sword Sect and should understand that it¡¯s not difficult to create a ce for a thousand people. But when ites to ten thousand, one hundred thousand, a million...? That can be very, very hard! I¡¯m not sure what is required, but I know that creating such a ce is beneficial to everyone. It would be a journey of tempering the heart.¡±

    Everyone looked at Li Hao. No one was in the mood to consider Hong Yitang¡¯s grand endeavor. Not even his daughter was thinking of her father¡¯s ambitions. The only thing they knew was that their leader seemed to have made up his mind to leave.

    ¡°Leader... then we¡¯ll go find you when we be Dominators. Will you still ept us then?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing to question when ites to eptance,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°You are all of the Demon Hunters and... of the Battle Heaven Army!¡±

    The Battle Heaven Army!

    Being equipped with the armor made them part of the city¡¯s army. The group turned over his words in their mouths; Hong Qing didn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll go find you when we¡¯re Dominators,¡± Liu Yan said off to the side. ¡°Wait for us in the central region, don¡¯t proceed so far down your path that we cannot see you.¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, I hope!¡± Li Haoughed. Parting ways wasn¡¯t necessarily a sorrowful affair, but it could bring down the mood. ¡°Then you guys should disembark when we reach White Moon City in a bit...¡±

    ¡°What about us?¡± Hao Lianchuan suddenly asked. They were supernaturals.

    ¡°Director, you forget that you¡¯re the head of the Night Watchers,¡± Li Hao burst outughing. ¡°What will they do if you leave?¡±

    ¡°Senior brother, I¡¯m not!¡± Wang Ming volunteered eagerly. ¡°I¡¯m a Sr now!¡±

    ¡°You should stay with the director. You guys have made decent improvements and the director is almost a Nova. I¡¯m going to kill White Shark before I go, that will throw the White Shark Raiders intoplete chaos. You can use them as training targets. Of course, we can also forget about that if I don¡¯t seed.

    ¡°Violet Moon¡¯s locked up in the Inspectorate. Under these circumstances, Inspector General Kong may not be willing to let me take her. They might not want to make aplete break with Ying Hongyue at the moment...¡±

    ¡°Who cares!¡± Wang Ming eximed. ¡°Senior brother, I¡¯ll go to the Inspectorate in a bit and kill that Violet Moon! It must be Red Moon creating trouble for you!¡±

    ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s not make things difficult for them.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Just one Violet Moon won¡¯t really affect anything and there¡¯s no need to go against the leaders of Silver Moon. We all nurse our own thoughts, I won¡¯t force mine on someone else. In the same vein, their thoughts won¡¯t affect me at all.¡±

    The young man thought for a bit, looked at the group, then at Liu Long. ¡°Chief, I leave them to you. I¡¯m not a very worthy leader. If anyone wants to back out, just hand in your ck armor. There won¡¯t be anything else to the process.

    ¡°I know you have a weapon soul!¡± He suddenly knocked his sword on the ship. ¡°I now transfer yourmand to my deputy leader. The Divine Kun Ship is suited for naval battles. It would inconvenience everyone if I took it with me, so I leave it for the Demon Hunters.¡±

    The ship trembled after a round of knocking. Li Hao shot out a ray of sword qi and pierced Liu Long¡¯s bare arm. A drop of bloodnded on the ground in short order. Momentster the man frowned and looked at Li Hao without a word. He could sense that he held control over the ship now.

    They were almost at White Moon City. Li Hao looked into the distance and continued giving instructions.

    ¡°You guys can go to Martial Uncle Hong if you find yourselves in trouble, or you can also go to Light Sword. Tell her I said so and that I¡¯ll help her fully suppress her light energy when I return. But she needs to help you guys when you need it. She may even have to anchor the formation for you!

    ¡°When ites to Kong Jie and Huang Yu... Kong Jie has a more straightforward personality and can be trusted with a thing or two. The others can be ignored! Additionally, I have a senior sister in the city whose husband is Hu Dingfang. He¡¯s a high ranking officer in the military¡ªyou guys should all know them. Try not to have anything to do with them even if theye to you. Just ignore them!¡±

    Li Hao gave orders in great detail. Liu Long listened silently. The young man of prior might not have said this much. He would more likely just leave without a word and not consider so many aspects. Li Hao now, however, made arrangements for everyone. He spoke of their avenues of retreat, prospects, and future...

    ¡°If you¡¯re lucky enough to obtain sufficient mysterious power stones or origin weapons, you can return to where we just were and ask that one to help you cultivate. It should not reject you. But remember, do not reveal the existence of the ruin in case you attract unnecessary trouble!

    ¡°If you really get into trouble, chief, or Silver Moon proves impossible to stay in, then you can bring everyone to Battle Heaven for shelter. There shouldn¡¯t be an issue since you are an official member of the army. Just head directly in after the ruins are open.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I understand.¡±

    White Moon City was in front of them now. Liu Long looked at the city, then at Li Hao. ¡°Are you going in?¡±

    ¡°I am. How else will I quietly slip away otherwise?¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Oh yeah, I¡¯m not leaving any treasures for you guys. You can collect them yourselves!¡±

    The ship flew over the city andnded at the Silver Moon Guards base with a rumble. Li Hao led the Demon Hunters in disembarking and shoved a small sk to Liu Long as they walked. ¡°There¡¯s a drop of Water of Life inside,¡± he transmitted. ¡°It¡¯s to save a life, so don¡¯t use it for cultivating. I¡¯m taking the rest with me.¡±

    Liu Long inclined his head. ¡°Are you going to the central region or other regions?¡± he transmitted.

    ¡°The central region! If circumstances permit, I might go to the east first.¡± Indeed, he might. That was where the Steadfast Duke was! There was another Windchaser Boot to obtain.

    Of course, he knew the risks associated with that endeavor. That treasure was said to rest in the duke¡¯s storage ring. The duke was incredibly formidable and it would be nearly impossible to seize it from him. But what if... there was a chance to?

    ording to what Light Sword said, the Xus conducted a worship ceremony once a year and brought out the Windchaser Boot to worship their ancestors. It wasn¡¯t time for the ceremony yet, but the duke¡¯s eldest son was dead. ording to custom, he would be interred in the ancestral grave on the seventh day of his death. He would beid to rest, the Hall of Ancestors would be opened, the ancestors honored...

    It¡¯d been three days since Xu Zhen¡¯s death and it would take some time to travel to the duke¡¯s manor. There was roughly five thousand kilometers to cover from Silver Moon to the Steadfast Duke. Although Li Hao¡¯s speed was fast if he traveled at full speed, it would still take him three days to reach his destination. That might be the seventh day when he arrived, leaving him no chance to make a move because he wouldn¡¯t have enough time to gather information.

    But he might as well go take a look because no one would expect that he would have designs on the boot at this very moment. How bold would he have to be to attempt such a thing? Supreme existences such as Earthturner Sword and Light Sword hadn¡¯t dared do so when he mentioned it before. In the public¡¯s eye, the young man should be turtling in White Moon City. He wouldn¡¯t dare venture out so easily.

    However, the journey would be very tiring. The young man nced at Panther ambling around next to him. The dog was much bigger and fatter than before. It... should be pretty fast and have good stamina. Monster spirits were more vigorous than humans. It might be faster to hitch a ride on the dog.

    Thanks to the perception of a monster spirit, Panther seemed to sense something. It raised a head to look at Li Hao, confusion in its eyes. Li Hao patted it on the head with augh.

    The group quickly entered the base lobby. Li Hao looked at everyone. ¡°Stay here and cultivate for a few days and reflect on your recentprehensions. Let¡¯s go out after a few days, we¡¯re in no hurry!¡±

    Liu Long nodded and rumbled, ¡°We won¡¯t be going out for the next couple of days and won¡¯t let anyone inside either!¡±

    inly, Li Hao had some ideas in mind. The man didn¡¯t ask. Sometimes knowing too much wasn¡¯t a good thing.

    ¡°Very well!¡± Li Hao waited quietly for nightfall. He wanted those outside to leave. He was back at the base. Whether it was Huang Yu or Director General Zhao, would they continue keeping an eye on him?

    They wouldn¡¯t. It was still very safe inside the city.

    ......

    As Li Hao expected, Huang Yu waited only a short while after the young man returned with his people. He chose to leave upon seeing the ship continue to be parked in the za, conspicuous in its presence. He set other people as watchers, however. Not to keep the young man under surveince¡ªhe just didn¡¯t want Li Hao to run around with the Demon Hunters any further. It was very dangerous in the outside world right now!

    <i>At the provincial government.</i>

    This was Light Sword¡¯s first instance of openly walking into the government building. She looked around curiously. Although she was a Silver Moon martial master, this group of people had always been at odds with the provincial government. Today, she was just sauntering in.

    ¡°This way, Miss Hu...¡± Deputy Zhou met her at the door.

    An ufortable expression crossed her face as she looked at the deputy. He knew her thoughts and was equally awkward.

    ¡°It¡¯s difficult to identify the right honorific, so this is what we settled on. If... Grandmaster Hu doesn¡¯t like it... how about I change it?¡± They normally called her Light Sword, but needed to address her by her proper name here.

    ¡°Just call me Swordmaster Hu!¡± Light Sword responded. <i>Grandmaster...</i> It would be fine to call her a walking god based on prior custom. But grandmaster? That was a warrior of the ancient civilization who wouldy down their lives for justice, people, country, and race.

    She was not someone like that, so she did not ept that title.

 Chapter 572: Walking Out of Silver Moon (III)

    <h4>Chapter 572: Walking Out of Silver Moon (III)</h4>

    Deputy Zhou said nothing further and led Light Sword inside. They took the stairs to where doors were flung wide open to the hall within. Kong Jie and Director General Zhao were both present. Huang Yu walked in as soon as the deputy entered with their visitor. The director general nced at him.

    ¡°He¡¯s back and at the base,¡± Huang Yu transmitted. ¡°He shouldn¡¯t be going back out in the short term since he¡¯s juste back. Therefore, I decided toe for a look. I should say hi since Light Sword is here.¡±

    The director general inclined his head and stood up, looking at Light Sword with a smile. ¡°Light Sword of the Seven Swords of Silver Moon. I¡¯ve met all of the others, but not you. To know a person by reputation is not as good as seeing them face to face. I finally meet you in the flesh today!¡±

    Light Sword grumbled inwardly. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that she was barely passable now, she wouldn¡¯t present these guys with her real face! When her thoughts traveled here, she thought back to what Li Hao had said about the provincial government paying him to save her. Thus, she didn¡¯t stand on ceremony.

    ¡°I thank the group for your aid! I am humbly gratified, yet there is littlemon ground between us as we hold different principles. I will certainly help if the Silver Moon authorities require support in the future, but we can bypass everything else!¡±

    ¡°Light Sword, how do we have littlemon ground and differing principles?¡± Kong Jie smiled.

    ¡°Kong Jie, you have martial master blood on your hands after your years of being the inspector general,¡± Light Sword answered aloofly. ¡°We naturally have littlemon ground!¡±

    ¡°What, was I wrong to maintain order in the province?¡± Kong Jie frowned. ¡°I have a clear conscience as none of the martial masters I killed were the good sort. I would somewhat agree with you if you said the others weren¡¯t anything good, but you criticize me? This means you are nothing else apart from a martial master¡ªyou don¡¯t have the ability to determine right from wrong.¡±

    Light Sword didn¡¯t defend herself, so Kong Jie fell silent. There was no point in continuing this conversation.

    ¡°We¡¯re all of Silver Moon, we¡¯re all on the same side,¡± smiled Director General Zhao. ¡°We¡¯ve been hot-blooded since the ancient times. It¡¯s fine if we fight behind closed doors. But Master Hu is direct, so we¡¯ll be equally forthright. Your word is enough! If trouble stirs in the province in the days toe, we hope for you to lend a hand or two. We can cover each other!¡±

    ¡°I will certainly try my best!¡± was all that Light Sword replied with.

    She wasn¡¯t as enthusiastic or tearily grateful as they might¡¯ve expected. Nor was she moved at the sight of seeing old countrymen or inclined to wax nostalgic about the past. She might be able to have a conversation if it was Yuan Shuo and the others present. But these guys? Forget it.

    One of them was an official and strictly speaking, the other was a bandit. All martial masters of yesteryear were bandits. The group engaged in awkward chatter before Huang Yu asked bluntly, ¡°How strong is the Steadfast Duke?¡±

    ¡°Stronger than me!¡± Light Sword spected after a while. ¡°The supernatural locks of his four limbs are definitely saturated and at least three more of his organs are.¡±

    The others furrowed their brows. <i>That strong?</i>

    ¡°And you?¡± Kong Jie stroked his chin and looked at her.

    ¡°Two of mine are saturated.¡±

    ¡°Not bad!¡± Kong Jie smiled. ¡°I thought all of you guys wouldn¡¯t have improved much over the years. Southern Fist has probably justpleted saturation of one lock and can barely break the ones of his organs. However, he¡¯s so much cockier than you.¡±

    ¡°And you?¡± Light Sword asked equally bluntly.

    ¡°Me?¡± Kong Jieughed. ¡°Just two, I¡¯m not quite there with my third.¡± He hesitated, then still asked, ¡°Have you discovered the ones in your head, body, or bones? There are only nine altogether in the limbs and organs, but there should be many more than that in the body...¡±

    The human body should be sealed on all fronts. There was one of the head that was publicly acknowledged, even though it was impossible to find. But whether there were locks in the body or bones remained a mystery.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, I haven¡¯t sensed any.¡±

    Kong Jie inclined his head and continued asking, ¡°What aspect do you focus on?¡±

    ¡°The aura!¡±

    ¡°Those are the aspects avable to us.¡± Kong Jie nodded again. ¡°The aura, body, and blood qi. It¡¯s mostly the same. Only Yuan Shuo is studying the path of the organs, but that happens to be the hardest to walk. I wonder if that guy has made any progress at all.¡±

    He sighed and wanted to speak on when Huang Yu interrupted, ¡°How many do you think Earthturner Sword¡¯s saturated?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Light Sword shook her head.

    The others frowned, how could she not know? But they caught her drift. It wasn¡¯t that she didn¡¯t know or didn¡¯t have her spections, she just didn¡¯t want to say. He must be stronger than her, so he was at either three or four locks.

    ¡°Are we able to break through to the next level if all five locks are fully saturated to their maximum capacity?¡± Light Sword asked in return.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, we¡¯ve never tried.¡± Kong Jie shook his head. ¡°At our current stage, there may not be any who can saturate all nine locks. We¡¯ve enjoyed some of the advantages of the supernatural as we were in that domain first, then converted back to being martial masters...¡±

    ¡°So a return conversion is possible?¡± Light Sword raised her eyebrows.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Kong Jie nodded emphatically. ¡°Your light energy is so strong that it can ovee many difficulties. Wecked that kind of energy at first, so we chose to walk the edge of the de... but that left some disadvantages. Of course, with those drawbackses certain advantages.¡±

    ¡°Then can I return to martial dao if I be a supernatural now?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s hope to, but it¡¯s also too dangerous and too hard!¡± Kong Jie shook his head. ¡°Trying at this stage would be a very dangerous undertaking. Sky Sword is still a supernatural¡ªI wonder what¡¯s going through his mind. If he still doesn¡¯t convert back and crosses beyond Nova... Trying to recover from two broken locks of the organs is too hard. There are still ways when only one is broken.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps he¡¯s trying to find a better way out,¡± Huang Yu responded calmly. ¡°He has his ns, he won¡¯t be willing to be a supernatural forever.¡±

    Light Sword listened quietly to the discussion around her. After a while, the director general asked, ¡°Can Li Hao¡¯s sword really suppress the five organs?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Light Sword shook her head.

    The group didn¡¯t know what to say! They already knew that, and to hear it from someone who¡¯d personally experienced the effects of the sword... It was saddening. Their money was wasted! That was three origin weapons and thirty thousand mysterious power stones!

    ¡°What are your ns next?¡±

    ¡°I''m going to stay with Li Hao for a few days and visit the Sword Sect if I have time.¡±

    <i>Very well then! </i>A resigned atmosphere settled down over the rest. Light Sword didn¡¯t seem to want much to do with them.

    ¡°That is just as well,¡± Director General Zhao concluded after a while. ¡°Take a transmission pendant with you. We¡¯ll reach out to you if we have need of you. If not, you can do as you wish!¡±

    Light Sword said nothing as she epted a pendant and ced it within her storage ring. ¡°Then I take my leave!¡± She rose and left.

    ¡°She¡¯s the same as ever!¡± Kong Jieughed ruefully as soon as she was gone. ¡°She¡¯s always ufortable when shees in contact with us and can¡¯t wait to be gone. I¡¯d thought it might be different after we spent so much and with her being away for twenty years...¡±

    ¡°Just get used to it!¡± The director general was unperturbed. ¡°Have you given the transmission pendant to Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Good. Have him stay inside for the next couple of days. The outside world is chaotic and while those guys might be slightly wary of us, their greed might rage out of control if Li Hao shows himself again.¡± Director General Zhao sighed, finding the situation difficult.

    Silver Moon was now besieged on all sides with surveince. Li Hao would probably be unable to temper himself with cultivation trips anymore, but he improved quickly and could train for a while at home.

    The thoughts of the director general and others were simple¡ªit wouldn¡¯t be too much time if Li Hao spent a few months or even a year or two at the base. Thus, they weren¡¯t in a great hurry.

    ......

    Li Hao had already left the Silver Moon Guards¡¯plex. Thanks to his eyes, he evaded all supernaturals and all of the watchers. d in silver armor, he entered the sea before long. Panther followed him.

    The dog had a sharp nose and sniffed out anything it wished. Its presence shored up some of the weaknesses in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. He chose to leave when everyone thought that he wouldn¡¯t leave. Catching everyone off guard was his aim!

    He left Kong Jie¡¯s transmission pendant in the base. It didn¡¯t matter if hecked intelligence reports, he¡¯d just take a pendant from someone else.

    <i>I¡¯ll kill White Shark if I can... or ignore him if I can¡¯t. I need to get the Windchaser Boot first...</i> Li Hao weighed up his options. He needed to pick up speed and travel to the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor. It¡¯d been three and a half days since Xu Zhen¡¯s death; he wanted to respectfully light a stick of incense for the man!

    The Steadfast Duke was domineering, but Li Hao didn¡¯t mean to assassinate him. He just wanted to seize treasure. However, escaping the ensuing chase was the true difficulty if he was sessful. It was said that the remaining three generals were all of the metamorphosis level.

    Patting the dog¡¯s head, Li Hao sank into the sea and swiftly advanced. ¡°Work well with me. If we seed, I¡¯ll hold a feast for you with mysterious power stones!¡±

    ¡°Arfwooo arfwoo!¡± Panther barked, spitting out the seawater that it swallowed. It wasn¡¯t toofortable on the seabed. Swimming was fine, diving was awful.

    ¡°Stop barking. We¡¯ll walk onnd as soon as we leave Silver Moon and take a look at the world. I¡¯ve never been to any ce other than Silver Moon. I only looked around the waters when we were in the North Sea...¡±

    Traveling through water without the Divine Kun Ship made for slow progress. It might be much faster when Panther was his steed onnd. The dog wagged its tail happily, unaware of Li Hao¡¯s intentions. Land was the best!

    ......

    <i>At the same time, the eastern reaches, the province of Calm Borders.</i>

    This was where the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor was located. The royal family had bestowed a new name to the province when the duke calmed the eastern border for the dynasty.

    A cloud of gloom hung over the magnificent manor these days. Five generals, the eldest direct son, the eldest direct grandson, a peak Nova resident expert, and ate Nova esteemed guest had died...

    This was an inauspicious year for the Steadfast Duke¡ªhe¡¯d lost nine Nova experts in a short amount of time! This level of strength was sufficient to suppress a province or two, but they¡¯d died one after another and he¡¯d even lost one of the Windchaser Boots!

 Chapter 573: Walking Out of Silver Moon (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 573: Walking Out of Silver Moon (IV)</h4>

    The Steadfast Duke wore a calm expression on his face. There wasn¡¯t much sorrow to be seen, but killing intent overflowed in the depths of his eyes. He maintained calm on the surface and looked down at the heavyweights below.

    ¡°The manor will hold a grand worship ceremony in three days. Xing¡¯er will oversee the rites! I am the deceased¡¯s father and grandfather. Custom does not indicate that I should host the rites...¡±

    His second son stood with a tragic expression below. He hastily rose to his feet. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, father. I will make the proper arrangements for big brother and Little Feng.¡±

    Xu Qing didn¡¯t say anything as he looked at his son. Perhaps his son was the happiest of all. With Xu Zhen dead, he would be the next duke. Although Xu Qing had other children, all of them were born to concubines. They did not have the right to inherit the duchy. But was just being a duke enough for Xu Qing?

    ¡°ording to the family rules, our sacred object needs to be offered to the ancestors for three days during the grand ceremony. But we¡¯ve lost one of the Windchaser Boots... ai! Even so, we cannot break with custom. The Windchaser Boot is exceedingly important, making the one we have left vital. You have to guard it well during the ceremony...¡±

    ¡°Father, in that case, why don¡¯t we use a recement?¡± Xu Xing asked hastily.

    ¡°Do you want to deceive our ancestors?!¡± Xu Qing looked remotely at his second son. ¡°If the Xus don¡¯t even dare take out their sacred inheritance and worry about it being taken from their Ancestral Hall, then is there a need for the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor to stand?¡±

    <i>You¡¯re the one who said to be careful, I¡¯m just going with your words. And now you turn on what you said? You¡¯re impossible to talk to!</i> Xu Xing grumbled internally.

    Xu Qing ignored his second son and looked down below. ¡°All of you are the mainstays of my household. I will have to trouble you during the ceremony! I will head to the army after the rites are over to request that the five generals be entered in the Pantheon of Heroes! The descendants of our two resident experts will be provided for until the Steadfast Duke no longer exists...¡±

    The assembly broke out in grateful tears as they listened to his bracing words offort. As for whether or not it was true emotion, that was difficult to determine.

    ¡°Your Grace,¡± a middle-aged man asked in a muffled voice. ¡°What should we do about Light Sword and the child Li Hao?¡±

    Would there be a ce for the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor in the eastern expanses if they did not avenge these deaths? The invincible king of the east had suffered such grave losses at the hands of bordend savages. It was impossible to ept!

    ¡°They¡¯re all in Silver Moon...¡± Xu Qing¡¯s voice trailed off. ¡°But Silver Moon is not an impassable ce! We¡¯ll seal off the province first. If they refuse to emerge, we¡¯ll wait a while longer before sending our army to trample them into the ground!¡±

    His deration invigorated the crowd.

    ¡°We¡¯ll rip Light Sword and Li Hao to pieces when we catch them!¡± Someone gnashed their teeth.

    ¡°The duke should summon all powerhouses in the east and demand justice from Silver Moon. The royal family and nine ministries are turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the situation! Is there no reaction from them after the young master duke was killed?! The Steadfast Duke pacified the eastern reaches for the dynasty, but these are the dismal straits that befall him! It¡¯s in to see from this that the dynasty is rotten, decayed, corrupt, and ipetent!¡±

    Righteous indignation rose from the crowd as they criticized the ministries and royal family. Some expressions among the assembly shifted with apprehension, but they didn¡¯t dare say anything. They nced at Xu Qing standing above them, guessing at the truth.

    The royal family and nine ministries were idly sitting by after the Steadfast Duke¡¯s son had been killed. If word of this got out, it would further highlight their ipetence and undermine some people¡¯s confidence in the dynasty on a fundamental level. inly, the duke had his own ideas in mind.

    The crowd quickly dispersed, leaving behind the duke and his second son Xu Xing. The duke watched the people leave and then turned to his apprehensive second son.

    ¡°Your big brother is gone. Although the two of you plotted unceasingly against each other in ordinary times, no scandals shall be permitted to ur at his ceremony! You are the next duke in his absence, so you should disy the breadth of mind as appropriate for the Steadfast Duke. Look after the proceedings well. If you truly wish to be the next duke, you need to exact vengeance for the deaths of your brother and nephew!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry father, Xing¡¯er knows what to do!¡± Xu Xing raised cupped fists in assurance. Xu Qing, however, was tired and threw out a ring without another word.

    ¡°This is the Windchaser Boot. You will offer it to the ancestors during the rites. Do not be remiss in your duties!¡±

    ¡°Your child understands!¡± Xu Xing was overjoyed. He didn¡¯t have the right to be in charge of the sacred object before¡ªhis brother had been tasked for its safekeeping for a while. It looked like father didn¡¯t have any other choices in the wake of his brother¡¯s death. That was nice! His brother had died well!

    Xu Qing waved him off, dismissing the nuisance from his line of sight. He sighed after his son had proceeded far into the distance. The Xus hadn¡¯t produced anyone particrly outstanding in the next generation. His two legitimate sons were mediocre when it came to martial dao talent. His eldest son became a supernatural, but his second son was very run-of-the-mill. He¡¯d crossed the threshold of grasping the aura after being fed countless resources and daoprehension weapons. He now had three of the supernatural locks of his four limbs saturated.

    If hisst lock of the limbs was also saturated, that would catapult him into special territory. This was the road taken by most premier modern day martial masters.

    The duke looked at the north, a cold light glittering in his eyes. Revenge was necessary after the death of his son, but Light Sword had been so bold as to actually take the Windchaser Boot... They would be feuding to the death over this.

    ¡°Silver Moon...¡± Xu Qing snorted. <i>Let¡¯s see how long you can strut around for! </i>That Li Hao was probably cowering with terror at the moment and wouldn¡¯t dare leave the province in the short term. Ying Hongyue had made a good move, but the news had spread too far and wide that it gave Silver Moon time to shrink back in on themselves.

    In this regard, it would be even harder to recover the boot for the foreseeable future.

    ......

    <i>Onnd.</i>

    Li Hao was utilizing Panther as a steed. The dog wriggled around, wagged its tail, shook its head, then looked back to lick the young man...

    ¡°What do you want?¡± Li Hao smacked his hand down. ¡°Out with it if you¡¯re unhappy. You¡¯re happy if you don¡¯t say so otherwise. What¡¯s with all the licking??¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡±

    ¡°Speak human speech! Not talking means you agree to this! Hurry up, don¡¯t take the wrong path. We¡¯re in a rush here!¡±

    ¡°Arf!¡± Tears brimmed in Panther¡¯s eyes. <i>I can¡¯t manage human speech, but I don¡¯t want to be your horse. This sucks!</i>

    ¡°C¡¯mon, faster.¡± Li Hao forced its head back around. ¡°The faster you get there, the less you¡¯ll be carrying me. The longer you drag this out for, the longer I¡¯ll be riding. Doesn¡¯t that make sense to you?

    ¡°I don''t want to ride a dog either, it¡¯s embarrassing for me. But you¡¯re so fat that you need to lose some weight. Otherwise, you won¡¯t be able to run around next time we fight. I¡¯m doing this for your own good because you¡¯re too fat. What if the powerhouse that activated your bloodline wants to torture you again next time I bring you to Battle Heaven? Wouldn¡¯t that be horrible?¡±

    <i>That makes sense! But... forget it!</i>

    The dog drooped its tail out of resignation and ran swiftly in the direction that Li Hao pointed it in. One had to say, it was a monster spirit dog at the end of the day. It was very fast and crossed the beach in the blink of an eye like the wind.

    Li Hao smiled and wanted to lean against something when the wind howled against his ears. There was nothing to lean on, so he called out to Panther, ¡°Lift your tail so I can rest against it. This position isn¡¯t veryfortable.¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± protested Panther.

    ¡°I¡¯m cultivating. Sword energy will leak out when I cultivate and I won¡¯t cultivate if I¡¯m not in afortable position.¡±

    <i>Smack! </i>Panther raised a tail ramrod straight.

    Li Hao pursed his lips. Panth was definitely a greedy dog!

    They were now on the edge of the North Sea. If they followed the coastline east, they would pass through the northern and southern continents. Apart from the seas separating thend, there was also a mountain range between them. The four continents were mostly divided in a simr manner, with the central continent in the middle.

    If one looked down with a bird¡¯s eye view, the four continents and the central continent were in a massive basin. They were bordered by mountains and the four continents were separated by the four seas. In the middle was the biggest central continent.

    There were neen northern provinces, twenty-two central provinces, and twenty-one eastern provinces. The eastern continent wasrge and fertile, hardly as barren as Silver Moon. It was said that the east was so rich that they¡¯d built an East Sea Bridge upon the water where the sun rose. It crossed the sea and connected directly to the central region. It was a remarkable feat of engineering that humanity was overawed by.

    Granted, the same was feasible by supernaturals of this age if they were so willing. If those of the earth, metal, and water attributes allied together, they could also create a bridge spanning the sea. Even so, only the eastern continent had created one such an East Sea Bridge. It was proof of how rich the east was, how many powerhouses and supernaturals they had.

    The Xus weren¡¯t the only tyrant of the twenty-one provinces, but they were the overlord in name. Apart from the title of the Steadfast Duke, the duke also had another duty of Admiral of the East Sea. Hemanded the eastern navy!

    Granted, the seas now were popted by pirates. The so-called navy existed in name only. But so long as the duke retained this title and possessed enough strength to execute on it, he could recruit a massive navy and dominate the East Sea. The nine ministries wouldn¡¯t be able to obstruct him.

    ......

    Various information ran through Li Hao¡¯s mind as he watched the scenery sh past him. Silver Moon was so far in the north that it was starting to freeze over in October. Wintry gusts howled through thend. The North Sea was also cold, but slightly better than Silver Moon. It wasn¡¯t as obviously arctic. Further east was still a cool domain, but it slowly warmed up.

    The wind that scraped past them like knives slowly became a warm, gentle breeze. Not only that, but Li Hao also discovered a strange phenomenon. Even the time zones were different after traveling for so long. It was day before, and it was still day after prolonged running!

    The world was so vast that all manner of curiosities could be found! The area behind him was caught in a big storm, but he quickly set foot into another locale with the sun shining bright. On one side was pouring rain and on the other strong rays of light. Li Hao straddled the border for a second, surprise in his eyes. He might have never seen such a superb sight in his entire life if he didn¡¯t leave Silver Moon!

 Chapter 574: What One Sees and Hears (I)

    <h4>Chapter 574: What One Sees and Hears (I)</h4>

    Dusk had fallen in Silver Moon, but it was very bright where he stood. Silver Moon¡¯s roads were pitted and marked with potholes, but the roads here were broad and straight...

    On the other hand, it wasn¡¯t all good! Li Hao saw tattered structures along his way¡ªa vige by the sea had burned down. Sounds of crying traveled into his ears and Li Hao steered Panther closer for a listen. Thenguage was the same, but the ent was slightly different.

    ¡°That damned ck Mountain Brigand... has taken all of our food at this time of the year! Aren¡¯t they just forcing us to die?¡±

    ¡°Dad, let¡¯s ask the Sacred White Army for shelter!¡±

    ¡°What bullshit Sacred White Army! They¡¯re also rebels and bandits...¡±

    ¡°Dad, Skystar Dynasty is done! War is upon us! Don¡¯t you see that it¡¯s chaos everywhere in the world? Whether it¡¯s the ck Mountain Brigand, Whirlwind Bandits, Starlight Pirates... Life is impossible these days! Those supernaturals and martial masters bully everyone, there¡¯s no way to survive!

    ¡°So we rebel! The Sacred White Army will feed us at least. We can¡¯t nt again in this season and our rations have been taken. The government is the same as the bandits... What are we waiting for if we don¡¯t rebel? Death?¡±

    A noisy din echoed in Li Hao¡¯s ears as he heard someone say, ¡°The ck Mountain Brigand is cruel and vicious. Since when did they just take things, burn the vige, and leave without killing anyone? I say that it¡¯s the sted Sacred White Army pretending to be the mountain robbers to force us to join them!¡±

    ¡°Who cares, we need a way to survive! Out of all those bandits, at least the Sacred White Army treats humans like people. So we¡¯ll join them! We¡¯ve all got some skill to our name. We can work for them if they want us, at least we¡¯ll be able to eat and feed our kids!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true! C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go to them...¡±

    ¡°Ole Zhang¡¯s second son is part of the Sacred White Army...¡±

    ¡°Damn it, the little bastard probably led disguised Sacred White members to attack us... Ah, forget it!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes shifted when the voices traveled into his ears. Was there chaos in the world? This was a province in the north that was closer to the eastern continent. It was called Dual Continents as a nod to it spanning two continents.

    Judging from the conversation, the ck Mountain Brigand, Sacred White Army, and Starlight Pirates were very active here. However, the government either seemed to be unable to exterminate these pests or unwilling to! Instead, they were forcing people to take to the hills and be ouws!

    A sudden thought struck Li Hao and he swiftly steered Panther past the burning vige. There were some supernaturals dressed in white in a nearby grove. They were keeping an eye on the vige.

    ¡°It¡¯s all burned to the ground...¡±

    ¡°Good!¡±

    ¡°Ole Zhang is there, right? They¡¯ll all join us with a bit of persuasion. The men of this vige are veryfortable in the water, they¡¯ll be an elite marine force with some training. I¡¯m estimating that ny percent of them will sessfully be supernatural if we induct them and they¡¯ll be water supernaturals...¡±

    ¡°Well done!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Those in white were celebrating their sess, drawing a frown to Li Hao¡¯s face. Indignation red in his heart. Burning down a vige, seizing their rations, forcing them to be bandits... They should die!

    Just when he was about to put all of them to the sword, someone else spoke up. ¡°Hurry up and lead those people away from here! The ck Mountain Brigand will be here before long and nothing will be left alive of that vige when they get here!¡±

    ¡°Yeah, those guys are too brutal...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s sword froze mid swing. After a long moment, he sighed softly to himself and steered Panther away. Right or wrong? There was no right or wrong!

    The government was ipetent and bandits ran the show. None of the parties were anything good, not even the Sacred White Army. But when it came down to the lesser of two evils, at least Sacred White didn¡¯t kill people. Judging from their tone, all of the vigers would die once the ck Mountain Brigand showed up!

    If he took a stand for justice now and killed the supernaturals, Sacred White would probably take revenge on the vigers, to say nothing of the Brigand swooping in opportunistically. It wasn¡¯t like he could send all these people to Hong Yitang from so far away.

    ¡°Right and wrong... is hard to determine! What I see may not be the truth!¡± Li Hao understood more of the world now. Why did cultivators have to travel thend? For precisely what he¡¯d just witnessed.

    A situation was first perceived as a sin at times, but intervening might be an even bigger sin. The young man remained firmly focused on the foundational reason.

    ¡°The underlying reason is that the government is ipetent! They are unable to eradicate these bandits, didn¡¯t raise the proper defenses, and couldn¡¯t protect the people¡¯s livelihood. I can¡¯t deem this Sacred White Army as the good guys just because they don¡¯t kill people. I can only say that they¡¯re kinder among the bandits...

    Li Hao smiled and took out a jug of alcohol for a swig. The world was about to go to pieces; regr life was already falling apart. Who knew how much longer the status quo could be maintained? All of those local tyrants and hotly ambitious were probably waiting for this day to arrive.

    ¡°Panth!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡±

    ¡°They all say that being a dog in a peaceful era is better than being a human in troubled times. Tell me, do you think it¡¯d be more carefree to be a dog?¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡±

    ¡°Man!¡± Li Hao sighed. This was a dog that couldn¡¯t speak. ¡°The tree spirit, snake, and birds can speak. But you? You can¡¯t at all. You should at least be able to transmit your thoughts, but you... you can¡¯t do even that. You¡¯re so dumb!¡±

    The dog lowered its head with suffering. That wasn¡¯t being dumb, it was just a different species. Who knew what the truth was?

    ¡°How about I teach you how to read and write?¡± Li Hao suddenly grinned. ¡°If you knew how to read and write, you¡¯d be able to write out your thoughts. Those transmission pendants are two-waymunication devices since we can input and send words through them. If you and I create something simr, we¡¯ll be able tomunicate! We won¡¯t have to guess then!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther was terrified. No way! Its bloodline seemed to be terrified of reading and writing.

    ¡°You¡¯ve agreed? That¡¯s perfect. You¡¯re the best, Panth! I¡¯ll teach you when we have a moment!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther barked its head off. <i>You¡¯ve misunderstood! I didn¡¯t agree!</i>

    Li Hao threw his head back withughter and ignored the dog.<i> You agree if I say you agreed! Tell me your real thoughts if you have the ability to!</i>

    He chugged another mouthful of alcohol and stopped teasing the dog. He closed his eyes in meditation and began saturating his supernatural locks instead of honing the five auras. Would he be able to unseal himself if he saturated the lock of his heart and not of his limbs?

    He Yong and the others started with their limbs; their battle strength rose greatly when those locks were saturated. Take He Yong, for example. He was the equivalent of mid Nova under normal conditions. He¡¯d filled five locks total¡ªthe four limbs and one of his organs.

    Would one bete Nova or even peak Nova if they saturated six locks? Light Sword seemed to have mentioned that she¡¯dpleted two locks of the organs. Under normal circumstances, she was the equivalent of peak Nova without unsealing herself.

    A sealed Hong Yitang could face off with experts in metamorphosis, of that Li Hao was well aware of. He¡¯d been so in Ash Mountain, which meant Earthturner Sword had saturated at least three locks of his organs, maybe even four!

    ¡°It¡¯ll take at least another day before I reach Calm Borders province... Maybe I can fill my heart lock during this time...¡±

    That supernatural lock had already absorbed a lot of energy¡ªso much energy that it seemed a bottomless pit. The key thing was that the cultivator was hard pressed to know how much energy his locks had devoured. Li Hao could only measure it in terms of mysterious power stones depleted, which was several thousand pieces.

    He wanted to try a different path. What would happen if he focused on the locks of the organs first? He had the Water of Life and sword energy in hand, so he wasn¡¯t afraid of problems developing. The locks would just start breaking at the worst. He should be able to suppress those effects. This path might even enhance his battle strength.

    At the moment, his five auras were temporarily stitched together. Properly fusing them was too hard. Li Hao felt that he didn¡¯t have the potential toplete that in a day or two. That wasn¡¯t achievable by a human. In that case... he could saturate his supernatural locks first.

    A vast quantity of sword energy, mysterious power, and elemental energy surged into the lock. The confined tiger in his heart stirred restlessly. The lock shook without pause and seemed to be physically manifesting.

    Li Hao ignored the changes and continued absorbing energy, prompting supernatural locks to materialize throughout his body. The four limbs, five organs, his forehead, belly button, and spine. Twelve locks shimmered in and out of sight¡ªindeed, twelve.

    ording to modern general knowledge, there should only be nine locks. At the same time, everyone knew that there was one in the head. It wasmonly believed that supernaturals with special talents were a result of shattering the lock of the head. As for why there were different attributes of supernaturals... perhaps it was a function of mutations.

    Therefore, everyone knew that there were ten locks in the human body. And yet, twelve appeared over Li Hao¡¯s body.

    The spine as the bone, the <i>shenque</i> as body. [1]

    The young man didn¡¯t pay attention to this. Humans might have more than twelve locks in their bodies. When he advanced to subsequent cultivation stages, he had a hunch or insight into more. There should be more than twelve supernatural locks. It might be that his potential was too weak or he himself too weak to summon the others.

    If the supernatural domain continued to develop as it did, it would be terrifying. Shattering one lock meant one cultivation level. Twelve locks meant twelve cultivation levels. The strongest supernatural of the modern world seemed to have only broken five.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t aware of whether there were supernaturals stronger than Nova. But since Hong Yitang and the others kept such a cautious, low profile, there might be. The young man didn¡¯t mind. As he continued to absorb power, various thoughts ran through his mind. If he could break a lock after filling it to capacity, should he try unsealing himself?

    It¡¯d be nice to enhance himself by a minor cultivation level, if not a major one. He could killte Novas now. It would be great to kill peak Novas!

    1. Shenque is a special acupoint located in navel that is connected to the twelve regr meridians and internal organs. ?

 Chapter 575: What One Sees and Hears (II)

    <h4>Chapter 575: What One Sees and Hears (II)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mean topletely snap his supernatural locks, just a portion. With sword energy at the ready, he wasn¡¯t afraid of such an experiment.

    Of the thirty thousand mysterious power stones that Silver Moon had given him, he¡¯d given ten thousand to the little tree and consumed ten thousand in cultivation, which left ten thousand on him. In actuality, he had far more mysterious power stones than that.

    Li Hao had collected quite a few from killing a lot of people in recent times. The stones that he¡¯d consumed over two days of rest and recovery were from Hong Yitang and Light Sword. He hadn¡¯t had to dip into his stores for the two, just added his fee to his reserves.

    Arge mountain range came into view as he cultivated. It was like a line dividing the eastern and northern continents. This range was known as the Kui Mountains. [1] Li Hao didn¡¯t know why it was called that. It was what the books told him, he didn¡¯t pay it much heed.

    There were major monster spirits in the Ash Mountain of Silver Moon. Given the dense concentration of mysterious power in the east, there might be the same in the Kui Mountains. Li Hao kept a sharp eye out and paid more attention to his surroundings.

    ¡°Be careful,¡± he cautioned. ¡°Avoid any major monster spirits you run into. Your nose is keen, so you should be able to sniff them out!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther nodded with some anticipation. It¡¯d yet to see any major monster spirits. What were they like? Were there any dog spirits like him?

    While Li Hao had met major monster spirits before, he only knew of one dog spirit.

    ......

    The Kui Mountains sprawled like a long snake crawling through the underbrush. Twisting and turning, they wound through thousands of kilometers. It wasn¡¯t majestic when viewed on a map, but facing the mountains in person made one peer into the distant sky for their peaks. They were imposing whenpared to humans.

    Panther jumped into the air, eschewing the usual paths. Mountain paths or not, everything was a road for a monster spirit of the dog¡¯s level! It would cross right over the mountain!

    There were people at the foot of the mountain, possibly nearby residents. A voice rang in Li Hao¡¯s ear, ¡°Daddy, there¡¯s gods overhead!¡±

    ¡°What bullshit are you talking about...¡± A shrill cry rang out. ¡°Run! It¡¯s a monster spirit!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was soul weary. If he really was a monster spirit, the scream would¡¯ve drawn his attention and he would¡¯ve eaten the humans.

    He couldn¡¯t be bothered with the reaction; in his current state, he wasn¡¯t afraid of being seen by others. Of course, that was limited to only mundanes. Ordinary people would likely remain in one continent for the rest of their lives, never to travel to another.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    A massive snake in the Kui Mountains opened its eyes. There were horns on its head as it was evolving toward a scaled-dragon. A ruthless glint shown out of its emotionless eyes. Its massive body threaded through the mountain and swiftly coiled in a certain direction. It proceeded at a very fast pace!

    After it passed through a steep peak, it paused to wait. The giant snake eventually saw a dog running at top speed.

    Panther!

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t noticed the monster spirit yet, he only did when he opened his eyes againter and looked into the distance. A keen light glittered out of them as he cursed under his breath. <i>Panth you idiot! Is your nose malfunctioning??</i>

    There was a gigantic snake not too far from them, one bigger than the one in Ash Mountain. It was coiled off to the side like a small mountain itself. The young man had thought it was a small mountain peak at first and only noticed a piercing hue around it when he took a close look.

    It was the same as the major monster spirits of Ash Mountain, one in metamorphosis!

    Li Hao felt a headache setting in. How had they just barged straight into someone¡¯s territory?

    Panther seemed to see it as well and flicked a confused nce in the snake¡¯s direction. So this was a monster spirit? This was its first time seeing one, how fascinating. It was so big! Panther found itself so much smaller inparison. <i>What Li Hao said about losing weight was all bullshit!</i>

    The dog was only curious and not afraid. Not only did it not retreat, but it ran in the snake¡¯s direction.

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡±

    Li Hao was about to cuss at the dog when the giant snake suddenly shrank in on itself and looked at the two intruders. ¡°The Kui Mountains are my territory. Which descendant of ancient monster spirits have barged into my domain?¡±

    The young man jerked with shock! <i>Da hell? What the heck is this, a monster spirit that says hello? The four in Ash Mountain didn¡¯t even emit a fart, much less greet us, until Hong Yitang beat their faces in.</i>

    This major monster spirit had voluntarily addressed them!

    ¡°I¡¯m just passing by! I¡¯m headed to the eastern continent and do not mean to disturb!¡± Li Hao answered with a mental ripple that carried an ancient ir. He didn¡¯t mean to do so, cross his heart, it was just that he was used tomunicating with the little tree, Golden Armors, and Silver Armors with his mind. Hence, he¡¯d developed a habit of mentally speaking with an ancient tone.

    Shock colored the snake¡¯s giant eyes. The dog really was a descendant of an ancient monster spirit! Then was the human from an ancient n as well?

    The snake looked at Li Hao, then at Panther. ¡°What ancient n might the esteemed visitor hail from? This minor spirit resides in Kui Mountain and possesses an iplete heritage. I am now to shed my skin to be a dragon, but have no indication as to the proper method. Might the esteemed one advise a pointer or two?¡±

    Li Hao blinked withplete surprise. A snake... had blocked his way... to ask... if he could help it be a dragon...

    <i>Wat.</i>

    <i>You¡¯re turning into a dragon? I¡¯ve never seen dragons, how am I supposed to advise you? And, is it proper to ask me this as soon as you see me?</i>

    Li Hao looked strangely at the snake, which seemed to guess at some of the young man¡¯s thoughts.

    ¡°Has this minor spirit given offense to the esteemed one? I do not mean to be impolite. Another esteemed one once bequeathed instructions to me and said that he did not know the method for draconic transformation. Only those with ancient monster spirit heritage or human n inheritance would know it. He was not familiar with monster spirits and I see that you travel with the descendent of an ancient monster spirit...¡±

    ¡°How... many years ago did you meet that one?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°Many years ago!¡±

    <i>No shit, of course it¡¯s many years ago. I¡¯m just wondering how long ago that was since it¡¯s only been twenty years after the appearance of the supernatural. It turns out that there were people who knew about ancient monster spirit heritage a long time ago.</i>

    The other part of being from an ancient n was nonsense. It was true for Li Hao, but he was the only one left of the ancient Li n. He himself was no n and he had no inheritance, just a sword.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know the draconic transformation method either!¡± The young man had to respond upon realizing that the snake didn¡¯t possess more useful information. ¡°My steed received pointers from a supreme expert in Battle Heaven that also helped activate its bloodline.¡±

    ¡°Battle Heaven?¡±

    ¡°One of the eight cities of the New Martial era, do you know of it?¡±

    The snake simply found their conversation marvelous and umonly deep. It was a bit lost before responding, ¡°I think I have heard of it. The esteemed one of yesteryear mentioned that eight cities stand in Silver Moon. Can it be...¡±

    ¡°You know of the eight cities?¡± Li Hao jerked to a standstill. ¡°Who was that person?¡±

    ¡°This minor spirit does not know his name. Is Battle Heaven one of the eight cities?¡±

    ¡°That is correct!¡±

    The big snake grew ever more respectful and looked enviously at Panther. ¡°Bloodline activation for a descendant of ancient monster spirits... The strength of this bloodline is not something that those of my kind can measure up to. What a pity and how sad that my bloodline is so weak it probably cannot be activated...

    ¡°Esteemed one... can this minor spirit... visit... Battle Heaven?¡±

    Li Hao was still reeling from thetest developments. He didn¡¯t know why a snake had appeared out of nowhere, why it wanted to be taught as soon as it appeared, and how it was actually excited when he had no choice but to mention Battle Heaven.

    What in the heavens was going on, and who had instructed the snake back in the day?

    ¡°You can... but not right now, it¡¯s closed its gates!¡± Li Hao spoke rapidly. ¡°I am a troop leader of Battle Heaven and I am on a mission. I¡¯m afraid I am unable to assist Brother Monster Spirit as well. But I might be able to take you there once I havepleted my mission.

    ¡°Of course, I can¡¯t guarantee that you¡¯ll receive help. The ancient city has sealed itself away and there is such ack of energy that the powerhouses are barely managing to revive...¡±

    ¡°This minor spirit understands and is already very content with the esteemed one¡¯s kind intentions. I will not dy your mission further. Is there any ce in which this minor spirit can assist?¡±

    Li Hao felt like he was living in a delusion! Why was this happening and how was this monster spirit wanting to help him?

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, I¡¯m carrying out a critical mission for the military. Those who are not of the city cannot participate!¡± The young man thought rapidly. ¡°Of course, if Brother Monster Spirit is of a mind to, I might ask for your help after Iplete my mission. Strong enemies may chase me back here, but you seem to be of the metamorphosis level. If you encounter strong enemies...¡±

    ¡°I will help with all that I can if you have the need!¡± The giant snake quickly responded with utmost politeness. ¡°This is the Kui Mountains and I am not alone. There are several powerhouses among the viper spirits. Although we cannotpare to an ancient bloodline, we can still stop some people.¡±

    ¡°Then I must continue my mission.¡± Li Hao was starting to feel guilty, so he didn¡¯t continue the conversation. ¡°I thank you for your help and will discuss your matter further when I have finished my mission!¡±

    ¡°My deepest thanks to the esteemed one!¡± The snake even lowered its head to send off Li Hao and Panther. It looked in their direction with appreciation after the duo was out of sight. <i>What a strong ancient monster spirit bloodline! The ancient civilization has awakened again! It¡¯s just like the esteemed one before said, this world will be overturned sooner orter. But I am still a viper at the moment and have notpleted my transformation. I need help from a strong ancient monster spirit if I¡¯m to leap over the dragon gate.</i>

    <i>To think that I¡¯d gain so much after a quick nap! I ran into an ancient monster spirit and someone from an ancient n who looks like they¡¯re very young!</i>

    <i>Battle Heaven... one of the eight cities... Is he from Silver Moon of the north?</i>

    It was said that powerhouses were as plentiful as the clouds in Silver Moon and heavily ostracized outsiders. The snake knew of Silver Moon, but had never dared to visit. What a surprise it was to meet an ancient heir from the province and such a friendly one at that...

    The snake was overjoyed! Did it have hope of bing a dragon?

    1. Kui Xing (¿ýÐÇ), originally called ¿üÐÇ (also ku¨ª x¨©ng), is also known as "Great Master Kui" or "Great Kui the Star Lord". Its literal meaning is "Chief Star" and anciently referred to the ''spoon'' of the Big Dipper. Kui Xing''s original name, ¿üÐÇ, is the original name of the star in the Big Dipper located furthest from the ¡®handle¡¯. ?

 Chapter 576: What One Sees and Hears (III)

    <h4>Chapter 576: What One Sees and Hears (III)</h4>

    Li Hao was equally confused and transmitted to Panther, ¡°Are monster spirits this dumb? Or is this snake a fool and offered to help before understanding anything about the situation?¡±

    The young man was confounded himself and didn¡¯t dare let the snake follow him. The monster spirit was huge! Although it was a metamorphosis expert, that didn¡¯t make it invincible. It would be quickly discovered by others.

    There was one point that Li Hao was puzzled by¡ªwho¡¯d taught the big snake before?

    No matter what, he had the snake¡¯s promise to help. If he was exposed and hunted down for his deeds, he could direct his escape in this direction. He¡¯d already mentioned that metamorphosis level heavyweights wouldn¡¯t be enough, but the snake had promptly agreed all the same. Perhaps there were even stronger monster spirits residing at the Kui Mountains.

    Panther didn¡¯t respond¡ªit didn¡¯t have the ability to respond. It¡¯d actually grasped an inkling of the truth. Perhaps the snake¡¯s reaction was because of itself! Mmhmm, the great dog was the reason for all this!

    The old turtle had saidst time that it possessed a noble bloodline and was the descendant of something called the Monster Spirit Envoy. That entity oversaw all of the monster spirits in the world!

    If they ran into any major monster spirits, anyone with the slightest drop of an ancient bloodline would realize Panther¡¯s true existence. The more of an ancient bloodline that was present, the more respectful they would be. Perhaps they might evene to pay their respects!

    The big snake had inly sensed some, but did not understand why, so it was extremely polite and refrained from offending the trespassers.

    <i>You¡¯re mooching off of this mighty dog!</i>

    What a pity Panther couldn¡¯t voice its thoughts or write them down. Otherwise, it¡¯d scratch out the truth and tell Li Hao it had nothing to do with the human, it was all due to his great caninepanion!

    The young man and dog crossed through the mountains with their respective thoughts in mind and entered the eastern continent.

    ......

    Oowerhouses from the central region arrived on the borders of Silver Moon at this time. Large sums of them were gathered in the neighboring Near River province.

    <i>The Director General Office.</i>

    Various heavyweights raised their sses to Director General Fan Chang.

    ¡°Director General Fan, you¡¯ve fought both Earthturner Sword and Light Sword. What are your estimates of their strength?¡±

    ¡°Very strong!¡± Fan Chang responded solemnly. ¡°Qian Feng and I fought two against one with Hong Yitang, but we still retreated in defeat. Qian Feng died in battle and I paid the price of one arm to barely escape!¡±

    The group reeled back with shock. That was very strong alright!

    ¡°Then Li Hao will be difficult to handle since he¡¯s gone into hiding at White Moon City and there are multiple powerhouses in residence at Silver Moon. You are their neighbor, director general. Do you have any good ideas?¡± They were all here because Near River knew more about Silver Moon due to its geographical location. Perhaps Fan Chang had some proposals in mind. He shared theirmon hatred for Silver Moon after losing one of his arms. Allying with his neighbor would be thest possibility that he would consider.

    Fan Chang took a sip of wine and thought for a moment. ¡°It¡¯s hard to take down Silver Moon, but not that hard to lure out Li Hao.¡±

    Everyone looked at him. <i>Are you sure? The boy isn¡¯t stupid and certainly knows that the situation in the world is dangerous for him now. How are you going to lure him out?</i>

    ¡°The White Shark Raiders!¡± Fan Chang took another sip of wine. ¡°They¡¯ve been searching for a chance to take revenge after Li Hao killed two of theirmanders. The kid also made the threat of exterminating them! Why don¡¯t we let the pirates into the Moon Sea and feint an attack at Southern Ford?

    ¡°As many powerhouses as Silver Moon has, White Moon City and re City are their core cities. Heavyweights are needed to remain in residence there and Li Hao is behind this trouble. Given the nature of Silver Moon martial masters... Li Hao will certainly take action. Of course, I¡¯m not certain if Earthturner Sword and the others wille. I can only say that this will decrease the number of other martial masters around him to the greatest degree possible!

    ¡°If we can also tempt the Starlight Pirates in the West Sea to enter the other side of the Moon Sea and posture menacingly at White Moon City... then White Moon will have to shore up their defenses as well.¡±

    Fan Chang was nning to conduct his viiny from the shadows. He wasn¡¯t going to invest any of his own forces and wanted to borrow these people to intimidate the pirates. He would use this opportunity to also pull one over the Starlight Pirates and White Shark Raiders. Perhaps the Sea Monster Raiders that he supported could gain something from this.

    ¡°This will limit Huang Yu and the others to the greatest degree possible,¡± Fan Chang exined. ¡°Despite being fully aware of the dangers, Silver Moon martial masters like to self-style themselves as perpetrators of justice. They will readily admit to ownership of their deeds, so Li Hao must take to the field for creating trouble with the White Shark Raiders. Otherwise, all Silver Moon martial masters will think less of him. They will not stop him even though they know it is a grave risk. That¡¯s how pig-headed this group of people is!¡±

    The crowd mulled over his words. It wasn¡¯t an unfeasible course of action, the caveat was that the pirates would have to agree to it. But would they dare not agree? They wouldn¡¯t have to actually do anything, just hover in an ominous fashion. They wouldn¡¯t attack, but Silver Moon could not bet on that. If they did and the pirates really did invade, then their people would be mired in misery.

    Everyone looked at Fan Chang, he smiled at them. ¡°If all of you are still not reassured, I can mobilize my army and send them near Silver Moon to conduct a military drill!¡± The man gnashed his teeth with fury.

    Earthturner Sword had severed one of his arms! Although he¡¯d recovered it with a drop of Water of Life, the newly grown arm was noticeably weaker than his old one. It was infuriating!

    Faces brightened upon hearing his words. Near River would be threatening Silver Moon fromnd, whereas pirates would be posturing from sea. If this was the n, then that would indeed curtail most of the heavyweights. If Li Hao dared show himself then, he would be dead without a doubt. The only thing that remained to be seen was if the young man would dare take the risk.

    If he didn¡¯t, however, and the White Shark Raiders really took Southern Ford... then he was ruined in Silver Moon! Even the old guard of martial masters would be ashamed to call him one of their own!

    Huang Yu and the others might keep the bigger picture in mind, but the rest of the old guard were very pure-hearted. They nursed the mindset that one should rather die in battle than lose the spirit of the Silver Moon martial masters. They would find Li Hao untrustworthy.

    Even if this group failed to eliminate Li Hao, he might be abandoned by the Silver Moon martial world!

    ¡°It¡¯s Director General Fan who has vision and foresight!¡± Everyone raised their cups with a smile. As expected of someone who suppressed all of the government institutions in Near River! Fan Chang was a callous and ruthless man. It would also benefit him if Southern Ford fell as that city had taken much of Near River¡¯s luster. A great deal of profit was involved; the director general wasn¡¯t doing this purely for revenge. It was said that he owned one of the eight pirate factions.

    Smiles wreathed faces when their thoughts traveled here. It was obvious what Fan Chang wanted.

    ......

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t currently in the mood to consider any of this. Fan Chang¡¯s machinations would¡¯ve brought him to Southern Ford if he was still in Silver Moon, no matter how dangerous it might be. It was a foregone conclusion. As a martial master¡ªor rather, as a denizen of Silver Moon¡ªhe wouldn¡¯t idly sit by at a time like that.

    But since he wasn¡¯t there at the moment, it had nothing to do with him. He¡¯d even temporarily set aside the matter of the White Shark Raiders in order to seize the Windchaser Boot first.

    The young man was already inside Calm Borders. He stopped traveling via dog in order to cover his tracks. He found a leash from somewhere and bought a small car with star coins he¡¯d randomly seized a while back. With those preparations, he drove toward the provincial capital.

    East Heart City was Calm Borders¡¯ capital. That was where the Xu manor was located and, in fact, the city was named by the Xus. It meant that the city was the heart of the east.

    Li Hao drove extremely quickly as tomorrow would be the seventh day of Xu Zhen¡¯s death. He barged around on the way there,pletely ignoring whatever was in his way. All obstacles were pulverized with sword energy before imminent collision, creating a wide avenue for him no matter where he went.

    Who wouldugh at his driving skills now? He was so good at driving that there wasn¡¯t any road he couldn¡¯t maneuver around!

    He drove from morning to night and finally reached East Heart City at the end of the day. <i>Windchaser Boot, I¡¯ming for you!</i>

    The city appeared particrly prosperous¡ªthe east did indeed flourish much more than the north. It was well into the night, but it presented a sight simr to Southern Ford. It was all lights and music and action. A magnificent manor stood in the center of the city, equally as resplendent as the metropolis around it.

    Since his car bore foreign tes, Li Hao had to pay three hundred star coins to enter the city. It was highway robbery! No wonder the city was so rich!

    He found a hotel, parked, and checked into a room. He wasn¡¯t too far from the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor. No one would think that he¡¯d spent two days traveling from Silver Moon to Calm Borders, would they?

    Society was thankfully disorderly these days and information exchange difficult between various regions. The dynasty¡¯s systems were hard to unify, so there was no need to prove his identity. Li Hao smoothly took up residence in the hotel; he pretended Panther was a pet and led it into the room.

    As he walked through the lobby, Li Hao sighed with appreciation that girls in the east were more free-spirited than the north. Since it was much hotter here, many of them were showing off nice long legs.

    A pretty girl patted Panther on the head when they were in the elevator. For one horror-stricken second, Li Hao thought the dog might erupt with fury and bite her hand off. But he quickly discovered that Panth was drooling at her legs...

    Even a dog liked women these days! No wonder his teacher had run off with Jadelight Sword andpletely vanished from sight. There wasn¡¯t any news of them to be had recently. Li Hao was the poor soul who had to travel with a dog!

    ......

    Li Hao quickly put his affairs in order upon entering the room. He changed into a new set of clothing and added a schrly air to his bearing with a pair of sses. After eating dinner, he led Panther out for a walk.

    It was said that there was a street in front of the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor that used to be part of theplex. The duke opened it to the public to endear himself to the people, and also because royal authority had been curtailed after the royal family withdrew. Light Sword had killed the five generals on that street, it was very close to the manor.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t have time to collect information, so the best idea at this time was to draw closer for a look. Martial masters were difficult to determine, but any supernaturals that may be powerhouses wouldn¡¯t escape his notice!

 Chapter 577: Audacious in the Extreme (I)

    <h4>Chapter 577: Audacious in the Extreme (I)</h4>

    <i>On this night.</i>

    Li Hao walked a dog through the bustling streets around the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor. He sauntered casually, taking in the sights through his sses. He even followed a street to its end, pausing roughly two thousand meters away from theplex. Arge za was located at the end of the street, many couples were out for evening strolls or dancing. White streamers for mourning fluttered by the duke¡¯s estate.

    Li Hao saw many powerhouses entering and leaving the manor. They were different from those outside¡ªmuch more quiet and all of them deeply pained. Various sounds traveled into the young man¡¯s ears and he could soon pick out strains of conversation from around the za.

    ¡°Important people from all of the eastern provinces have apparentlye for the memorial ceremony tomorrow. The duke seems to have suffered a huge loss and the eastern provinces are growing unstable. I wonder if something big might happen tomorrow, maybe to keep the situation under control.¡±

    ¡°The hell does it have to do with us? That¡¯s for those highfalutin¡¯ people up there. What¡¯s us in the dirt care about that for?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    So there were important visitors from various eastern provinces, were there? Li Hao would need to watch out for that to ensure he didn¡¯t identally fail at an easy step. More importantly, how was he supposed to get inside the manor? If he couldn¡¯t, should he just outright take the treasure?

    The young man sank into deep contemtion of the question. Someone else soon gave him an idea.

    ¡°The duke¡¯s manor will be so exciting tomorrow, does Brother Zhang have a way to sneak us inside for a look? I hear that it¡¯s all going to be important people...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a memorial service, not a festival! You¡¯ll be slipping in with a death wish! But it¡¯s easy enough to get a glimpse of the action if you want. Pay a newspaper some money and get a reporter badge from them. The Steadfast Duke will be meeting with various provincial executives tomorrow and might be announcing his heir. He needs to build some momentum for the new guy, so a lot of agencies have received invitations...¡±

    ¡°Are the badges expensive?¡±

    ¡°Of course! They¡¯re at least eight thousand coins, if not ten thousand. Who else would dare take you in with them?¡±

    ¡°Forget it, that¡¯s too expensive!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Li Hao stoked his chin. Reporters? What was that? They didn¡¯t exist in Silver Moon. Was it really that easy to get inside?

    He nced at the stately manor not too far away and then at the morous crowd. The young manughed. The duke had opened a street by his doors because he wanted to appeal to the people.<i> I wonder what he thinks after that¡¯s created constant crowds on his doorstep?</i>

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Li Hao shook the leash. While annoyed, Panther followed the young man. It took another look at the aunties dancing in the za before it left.

    <i>Damn, you really need better eyes, Panth! You¡¯re interested in anything that¡¯s female!</i>

    ......

    <i>Reporter, news agency...</i>

    It was the first time that Li Hao had heard of these terms. But after some digging around, he mostly knew what they were¡ªproducts of a civilization¡¯s evolution.

    The Steadfast Duke poprized newspapers in the eastern region because he painted himself in a just and fair light. It was just another mouthpiece for public opinion and a tool to brainwash the people with.

    News agencies existed in the ancient times, but the ones then seemed to be different from the ones now. Li Hao saw a few newspapers when he returned to the hotel. He carefully read through the articles in its pages.

    ¡°Steadfast Duke announces open doors in all twenty-one eastern provinces. Refugees from central region unrest are wee to emigrate to the eastern continent to begin a new life.

    ¡°Unrest and public unease from war has created a disaster zone in Tai¡¯an province. Steadfast Duke decrees immediate dispersal of five hundred thousand kilograms of white rice in aid...¡±

    ¡°Steadfast Duke calls for new army recruits! Wanted: any eastern continent male older than sixteen and younger than thirty. Taxes will be exempt for families of those epted...¡±

    ¡°Steadfast Duke¡¯s Left Marshal Xu Zhen expels East Sea pirates during patrol. Special order given for three year tax exemption to ease citizen suffering along the coast...¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    There were many newspapers in the hotel; all of them were published by a news agency called the Eastern People¡¯s Voice. This made for rtively free flow of information for the people in this day and age, but they were still uninformed when it came to specific personages.

    Neither was Li Hao that much better off, and he counted among the intellectuals of this age, one of the few who¡¯d read books. He knew of the nine ministries when he was at the Veteris Institute, but he didn¡¯t know which nine they were.

    Themon folks would have even fewer sources of information, a limitation that these newspapers overcame. It was a pity that not many knew how to read; if only one person knew how to, the news would be swiftly shared.

    ¡°Nice methods!¡± A light danced in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. Every single word on these pages demonstrated the Steadfast Duke¡¯s benevolence and charitable nature toward his people.

    In the young man¡¯s eyes, however, it was all bullshit. Xu Zhen patrolling the East Sea and driving back bandits, was that true? If so, where did all of the pirates in the East Seae from? And five hundred thousand kilograms sounded like a lot, but it was just five hundred tons. Was five hundred tones a lot?

    If an entire province was suffering, that would be more than one million people in need of help. If everyone only ate until they were no longer hungry, then five hundred thousand kilograms could feed one million for a day or two. However, it wasn¡¯t like a disaster could be fully resolved in the same time frame.

    Not to mention that the Steadfast Duke was still the overlord of the east in name. This was what he should be doing in the first ce. But now it was immortalized in newspapers and disseminated throughout the eastern region, eliciting gratitude from the people.

    ¡°Newspapers... are really nice!¡±

    This was a potent weapon to influence public discourse. In this era, powerhouses had to rely on transmission pendants once they left a city. Contact with a city was otherwise impossible. The invention of newspapers and their mass production made it easy to hoodwink the people and obtain their loyalty.

    <i>The Steadfast Duke must have excavated some ruins and collected information... </i>Li Hao came to an initial conclusion. He didn¡¯t know much about newspapers. What the ancient civilization spoke most of were televisions. These items could broadcast their images in all directions throughout the world¡ªnow <i>that</i> was a potent weapon!

    And granted, his age was rather abnormal. They¡¯d created nes and missiles, but inventions such as televisions had not been replicated. Perhaps those in charge didn¡¯t care, or perhaps they purposefully didn¡¯t recreate the item. Information would flow too quickly if televisions weremon; that was a detriment to control general sentiment.

    The more one knew, the more one thought. The more one thought, the more one wanted. If one lived in a poor backwater for all their life, they would not have any soaring ambitions. But if one was inundated faced with lights and action, debauchery and sensual pleasures of the outside world, one might have the urge to try their luck outside and see if they could live this kind of life as well.

    ¡°Steadfast Duke...¡± Li Hao looked out his window into the distance. The lights zed at the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor. The duke that held sway over the east had some ability to his name. At the very least, he was skilled when it came to buying the people¡¯s heart.

    Strictly speaking, life in the east was good and much richer than in the north.

    ¡°Ambitious...¡± Li Hao concluded for the duke. There were many people with great ambitions in this age. Although the duke had lost many Novas, he still looked tomand a lot. It was in to see from that how strong he was, but he still didn¡¯t unify the east in the end.

    Otherwise, there wouldn¡¯t be a need to have the movers and shakers of other provinces be involved in his son¡¯s seventh-day memorial. He probably wanted to make use of the opportunity to intimidate and threaten, lest the local tyrants of various eastern provinces make use of this opportunity to escape from his grasp.

    <i>Shall I pretend to be a reporter and slip in among them?</i>

    It sounded easy enough, but would it really be that easy? Just spending eight thousand or ten thousand star coins would do? There weren¡¯t that many who wanted to spend so much at this stage. Those who did probably didn¡¯te with good intentions.

    This news agency is inly controlled by the Steadfast Duke.<i> Would their own business bring strangers into the manor for just a few coins?</i>

    Li Hao thought a bit further and looked at the manor in the distance again. He suddenlyughed!

    ¡°Panth, the golden dog that you transform into is very big and can eat people...¡±

    Panther shook its head! <i>This dog doesn¡¯t eat people, don¡¯t use me of stuff I didn¡¯t do.</i>

    ¡°As opposed to sneaking in, let¡¯s find a way to walk right in! The more we sneak around, the more attention we¡¯ll raise. These guys won¡¯t mind those who openly present themselves. If we slip in, however, we¡¯ll probably be noticed at the first chance.

    ¡°How about having the monster spirits attend the duke¡¯s memorial?¡±

    Panther didn¡¯t understand.

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you a major monster spirit? Eat me. You can¡¯t talk, but I can. My mental ripples won¡¯t exude presence and if I shove some mysterious power stones into your stomach, the energy they give off will disguise you as a major monster spirit that¡¯s a supernatural! No one can tell that you¡¯re a martial master dog, so why don¡¯t I give you the presence of a Sr? We¡¯ll pretend to be... part of the Kui Mountain snakes! Although we¡¯re not snakes, no one said that only snakes can be found in those mountains.

    ¡°We¡¯ll walk straight up, but being a ck dog will draw a lot of attention. You killed peoplest time, after all. They saw you. Can you still turn into a golden dog?¡±

    Panther stared at the young man. Was there a need for that? How dangerous was that!

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, I¡¯m sure that this eastern overlord knows about the Kui Mountain monster spirits. His ambitions are great and he won¡¯t easily provoke them. He might be wary, but he won¡¯t be too worried about a major monster spirit directly visiting them. The more open we are, the less attention we¡¯ll raise. I¡¯m thinking thatplex security isx on the outside and tight on the inside...¡±

 Chapter 578: Audacious in the Extreme (II)

    <h4>Chapter 578: Audacious in the Extreme (II)</h4>

    A martial master¡¯s intuition and the observations he¡¯d made told him that there were plenty of powerhouses in the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor, but that they weren¡¯t all gathered together. Certain ces in theplex may be their hiding spots, but it was the same to Li Hao¡¯s eyes. He could pluck them all out so long as they were supernaturals.

    The only thing he didn¡¯t know was the arrangement of martial masters in the manor. Impersonating a monster spirit of the Kui Mountains also brought an advantage with it¡ªthe other eastern provinces wouldn¡¯t dare offend him before fully grasping the situation.

    Panther blinked, not understanding the reason for the young man¡¯s actions. Was it safer to appear so openly? Humans were soplicated!

    ¡°Trust me!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°This is the only way that we can draw close to the Hall of Ancestors. The duke¡¯s household must grant ess to the monster spirit envoy and might even ask us to participate in the rites.¡±

    He stroked his chin. ¡°There¡¯s always the possibility that there¡¯s a feud between the Steadfast Duke and the monster spirits... but that¡¯s not likely to be the case. If there was, he would¡¯ve marched on the mountains a long time ago. Even if there is, these hotly ambitious people will set it aside if they see hope of a partnership.¡±

    There was a metamorphosis level monster spirit at the Kui Mountains and possibly many more Novas. The Steadfast Duke would not easily offend such a faction.

    Panther scratched its head¡ªanother gesture it¡¯d learned from Li Hao. It was perplexed, but didn¡¯t make a sound. Let¡¯s do whatever Li Hao proposed.

    ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go outside the city. The memorial ceremony is starting tomorrow, so we¡¯ll directly fly in...¡±

    Panther didn¡¯t understand what Li Hao had in mind; it could only do what it was told. One human and one dog quickly departed the hotel in a battered car.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor.</i>

    People jostled for space within a densely packed crowd. It was a lively affair at the Hall of Ancestors. A group of servants were swiftly setting up decorations as it wasn¡¯t just a grand ceremony tomorrow, but also an event in which many important names from various eastern provinces would participate in.

    It was both a memorial and a chance to showcase their strength to exert power over thend again. The east was growing unsettled after the deaths of so many Novas and some parties weren¡¯t willing to take orders from the Steadfast Duke anymore.

    Xu Xing conscientiously inspected all of the arrangements being made.

    ¡°Second master.¡± A messenger ran up to him. ¡°All representatives from the various provinces have arrived and been arranged for ordingly! It is unknown whether the local leaders of the three great organizations havee, but they have sent word that they will not disturb the ceremony.

    ¡°Some representatives of the nine ministries and the royal family havee, but there are also those who have note.

    ¡°There are those who have slipped into the news agencies to infiltrate the ceremony. We¡¯re not sure if they¡¯re here to watch the show or have ulterior motives in mind...¡±

    Xu Xing inclined his head and breathed out gently. ¡°Keep a close eye on them and don¡¯t let up. Thoroughly investigate them as fast as possible. We might have to borrow their heads tomorrow to strike fear into the rest!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    ¡°Also, make sure we know the backgrounds of the various provincial representatives,¡± Xu Xing added after some thought. ¡°Be careful of assassins and be sure to know their backgrounds inside and out. We will have supernatural probes in ce at the front doors tomorrow, but be on guard against martial masters slipping in.¡±

    ¡°This subordinate will arrange for it immediately.¡±

    Xu Xing took a deep breath when the man walked away. This was his first time overseeing something so major in the capacity of the next duke. He didn¡¯t wish for any mishaps to happen or give the various eastern continent powerhouses a reason tough at him.

    More than anything, he hoped for everything to proceed smoothly and wished to exceed his father¡¯s expectations. Perhaps he could broker an agreement with the leading figures of the eastern provinces or even have some of them swear fealty to him. That would be the best possible oue!

    The transmission pendant in his pocket vibrated as he ran through various ns. Xu Xing quickly fished it out. This wouldn¡¯t be used unless something major urred, what had happened now?

    He started when he picked it up for a look.

    ¡°Urgent report: a golden monster spirit is flying through provincial borders. It has not harmed anyone. Three Srs have stepped forward and received strange ancient ripples. It ims to be from the Kui Mountains as an envoy of the dragon. It is here to seek an audience with the duke to discuss important matters!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Xu Xing froze with shock. A major monster spirit from the Kui Mountains! A monster spirit hade at this time?

    ¡°Have people clear the way for the monster spirit,¡± he quickly responded. ¡°Avoid the crowds and all eyes and ears...¡±

    His expression flickered rapidly as he quickly walked to the rear garden. He could not make the decision in this. It was a major monster spirit!

    Regr people might not understand these major monster spirits at present, but those of the upper echelon understood that the monster spirits were also on the rise. They would eventually be a formidable faction.

    Sky Roc Mountain and Phoenix Mountain of the seven divine mountains were monster spirit factions. There were monster spirits within the four seas and more rising from the mountains in the four cardinal directions.

    The Kui Mountains were a range that separated the northern and eastern continents. Xu Xing knew of them and was aware that there was arge snake within them. Formidable and ponderous in size, their scouts said that it was at least a metamorphosis expert. It was apparently close to transforming into a dragon!

    Once it became a mythical beast, its awful might would know no bounds. Even his father had said that once the snake seeded, he might not be able to stand against the monster spirit even if he unsealed himself!

    <i>A dragon envoy!</i>

    Xu Xing understood that the monster spirit likely dide from the Kui Mountains when he heard the title. Regr people wouldn¡¯t be aware that the snake was about to be a dragon.

    ......

    <i>Very soon, in the rear yard.</i>

    Xu Qing was aware of what¡¯d happened when his son barged into his residence. He looked at his son, wanting to hear what would be said.

    ¡°Father, we¡¯ve just received word from the frontlines that a golden monster spirit from the Kui Mountains hase,¡± Xu Xing exined at a rapid clip. ¡°It¡¯s approximately a Sr and calls itself a dragon envoy from the mountains! It says it¡¯se to East Heart to request an audience with father and discuss important matters. Father, what do you...¡±

    ¡°How do you n to address this?¡± Xu Qing asked in an even tone with a nce at his son.

    ¡°Father,¡± Xu Xing hesitated before quickly continuing. ¡°Monster spirits are an alien race and many human factions are wary of their rise. There are no official monster spirit factions aside from Sky Roc Mountain and Phoenix Mountain. The race is seeking to break through and obtain more profits. However, neither the nine ministries nor the royal family dare say they wish to partner with the monster spirits. It will easily be a stain on their record...¡±

    Indeed, a scandalous stain.

    ¡°So I think... we should not offend or court them,¡± Xu Xing concluded hesitantly. ¡°We¡¯ll secretly lead them into the manor, go through the motions, then send them on their way...¡±

    ¡°Is that it?¡± Xu Qing inclined his head with a smile.

    Xu Xing didn¡¯t know his father¡¯s thoughts or preferences. He could only doggedly respond, ¡°Your child is foolish and therefore requires instruction...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s rather interesting that the monster spirits have sent representatives at a time like this, and from the Kui Mountains,¡± Xu Qing said slowly with a chuckle. ¡°The Kui Mountains delineate the eastern and northern continents. There are many Novas among their kind, not just the one we know of. ording to our information, they have at least five Novas!

    ¡°We¡¯ve always stayed in our respectivenes. They are in the mountains, we are in the ins. There is not much interaction between the two sides...

    ¡°But the Kui Mountains are a strategic point. We would not need to pay them any attention if we are content with being corralled in the eastern continent. But if we are of the mind to enter the north and conquer Silver Moon... Too many idents can ur on water and there are many monster spirits there. Having our army travel through the East Sea, then to the North, and finally to the Moon Sea... may not be as safe as traveling throughnd.¡±

    Xu Xing looked at his father, understanding the duke¡¯s meaning. ¡°But... if we are charged with the crime of colluding with monster spirits...¡± he said hesitantly.

    ¡°Fool!¡± Xu Qing frowned. ¡°What is this talk of collusion? Have you not read those ancient records? Monster spirits served asmanders in human armies when the ancient civilization was strong! They guarded the seas and major rivers for humanity after the ancient Human King suppressed them. Partnering with them is the mark of an emperor!

    ¡°But the monster spirits of the Kui Mountains have not had many dealings with the Xus.¡± His tone turned quizzical. ¡°Why have theye to us now?¡±

    As baffled as he was, he only considered it briefly. ¡°We have lost too many powerhouses recently, resulting in an unstable situation on all sides. It would be a wonderful piece of news if we can reach an agreement with the Kui Mountains. It will also intimidate certain people. At the very least, the provinces that share a border with the mountains will no longer dare have second thoughts!¡±

    This was a good development. If they could reach an ord, he would even be able to intimidate the eastern powerhouses! His only concern was that the monster spirits had other thoughts in mind as well.

    ¡°The Kui Mountains revere their snake spirits as the most noble of all. It is not a snake that hase. Do they not think highly of us, or is there another reason why?¡± Xu Qing was confused by the sudden appearance of the golden monster spirit. ¡°Have people lead their envoy to the manor. I wish to speak with it... Forget it, you speak with it!¡±

    The duke decided not to be the first to appear. He would listen from the sidelines, just in case talks broke down and the situation proved difficult to salvage.

    ¡°There¡¯s instances of humans raising monster spirits...¡± Xu Qing suddenly thought of this possibility as he mused over the matter. ¡°Have the Sky General pay a visit to the mountains...¡±

    He hesitated again. Was he supposed to ask the snakes if they¡¯d really sent an envoy? How embarrassing would it be if they had? The humans were being paranoid about a monster spirit envoy. That race happened to possess fiery tempers and were easily offended.

    Xu Qing suddenly found himself in a difficult position, but he also was a calcting fellow. He was indeed worried that some people might be purposefully directing the monster spirit to do harm to his household.

    ¡°Have the Sky General go to the Kui Mountains and say that he was ordered to present a return gift,¡± the duke said in the end. ¡°Their envoy has safely reached East Heart City and the Steadfast Duke wishes to live in harmony with the monster spirits...¡±

    Xu Xing rapidly bobbed his head at his father¡¯s instructions, but found that they were extraneous. His father was being too cautious! Xu Xing was only worried that partnering with monster spirits would raise enmity from certain people, but here his father was, concerned about whether there was an envoy in the first ce.

    Xu Xing decided to say nothing upon further thought. If there wasn¡¯t, this was a setup for massive humiliation. It looked like his father would meet this monster spirit ahead of time to make preparations for tomorrow.

 Chapter 579: Audacious in the Extreme (III)

    <h4>Chapter 579: Audacious in the Extreme (III)</h4>

    Li Hao really did burrow into Panther¡¯s stomach. As small as the dog looked, there was a lot of space in its stomach. The young man finally understood why the dog could eat so much.

    Panther was no longer ck at this point; it was golden in color. Li Hao had wanted to dye it, but the dog shook its head and turned its fur gold with a simple shake of its body. Not many had seen it turn into a massive golden dog and eat the white-haired old man. The metamorphosis level Qian Feng was dead, Fan Chang had run off, and those watching from the shadows had already fled for their lives.

    Panth had turned into the golden dog only at thest possible second, so Li Hao wasn¡¯t worried that anyone would recognize it.

    As for the Steadfast Duke sending his own envoy to the Kui Mountains... the thought didn¡¯t cross the young man¡¯s mind. He expected that the duke would either be delighted by his impressive visitor or send the monster spirit away. Regardless, the duke shouldn¡¯t be willing to easily give offense. Sending an envoy to verify Li Hao¡¯s presence... that seemed far too bold of a move. The duke should be more concerned with his man being eaten!

    This train of thought showcased the inadequacies of Li Hao¡¯s considerations. He was too young and too inexperienced. It was his first time undertaking such an endeavor and hisck of experience left a gaping hole in his preparations. A veteran would not take the same risk as him. Although it was difficult to inquire about monster spirit internal affairs, it wasn¡¯t impossible to. He would be amb in a lion¡¯s den when his subterfuge was unmasked!

    Meanwhile, the oblivious Li Hao was sitting smug in his brilliance and found his scheme quite the good idea.

    There were people clearing the way ahead of him. Li Hao couldn¡¯t see them, but he could sense them. He pretended to be Panther in his aloof responses and didn¡¯t say much. Major monster spirits were prideful entities, even if they were only of the Sr level.

    He returned to East Heart City, this time avoiding the need to pay an entry fee. A Nova quickly met him at the city gates.

    ¡°We present our warmest wee to the dragon envoy of the Kui Mountains. I am the second steward of the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor...¡±

    Li Hao swept a brazen gaze over the man¡¯s face, seeing it clearly. This was a middle-aged man with a slightly feminine cast to his features. He was decently strong at mid Nova¡ªNovas were all powerhouses and the duke had many of them under his banner.

    ¡°Where¡¯s the duke?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The steward frowned, but quickly smoothed his forehead. <i>Monster spirits are crude alright! Did you think the duke himself woulde out to wee a mere Sr monster spirit? Do you think you¡¯re the lord of the mountains?</i>

    ¡°The duke is indisposed...¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°The duke is sick...¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s so weak that he can get sick? Is he about to die?¡± Li Hao blustered coarsely. This was how monster spirits acted in his memories, even Nova level ones. Should he be even more unrefined since he was just a Sr?

    ¡°You¡¯re mistaken, envoy.¡± A strange expression hung on the second steward¡¯s face. ¡°It¡¯s because the young master duke has fallen to evil sorts that has caused emotional upheaval in the duke. Pleasee with me to the manor, the second master is already waiting...¡±

    ¡°Is the second master strong?¡± Panther looked around as it followed the man, Li Hao stayed onmunication duty.

    ¡°Ah, the second master is immensely astute and resourceful, as well as very strong...¡± The second steward smiled and walked forward, guiding their way down a small street instead of an avenue. This route evaded the more crowded locations. ¡°The Steadfast Duke is holding a memorial tomorrow, sacrificing to the young master that was killed by evil viins. Is the envoy possibly here today for that matter...¡±

    ¡°Oh yeah, the ceremony. I know about that. The venerated dragon god mentioned it. It¡¯s just someone dying, what¡¯s the point of sacrificing to them? Dead is dead. We monster spirits eat our dead. Are you eating your young master tomorrow?¡±

    A wave of nausea roiled in the second steward. <i>Monster spirits are so base and crude! All they know is to eat!</i>

    Too bad he hadn¡¯t gotten any useful information out of their primitive visitor, but there was no hurry. The manor loomed into view before long. They were at the back door instead of the front doors. The back doors were under heavy guard without a single extraneous person around. It was a far cry from the crowds thronging the front door.

    The back door was flung open; Xu Xing waited in the rear yard. He brightened when he saw the golden dog. The monster spirit presented a dominating sight. It was apparent from its appearance that its bloodline was umon. It was slightly weak, however. The energy it exuded was mid Sr. However, given the strength of monster spirit bloodlines and bodies, regr Srs would likely be no match for it in a fight.

    ¡°We have been poor hosts to the dragon envoy!¡± A merry Xu Xing walked up in wee. Panther swept a nce at the man; Li Hao also sent a wave of mental strength over him without asking permission to. Xu Xing seemed to sense it and furrowed his brows with difort. They quickly smoothed out.

    Were monster spirits this rude?

    Li Hao also frowned after momentary probing¡ªthis was a martial master! Not a supernatural!

    It was hard to determine what level he was at, but one thing could be certain¡ªhe was likely a premier martial master. His blood qi and physical body made it so, yet it was difficult to identify how premier he was. The young man could only tell that the aura existed.

    <i>He feels less than He Yong... Maybe he¡¯s on par with Golden Spear?</i>

    Although this was Li Hao¡¯s preliminary judgment, confirmation would be hard toe by. Such was the annoying characteristic of martial masters. Their strength was only determined through revealing their strength in a fight.

    It wasn¡¯t entirely impossible to plumb one¡¯s depths, the ancient civilization had been able to assess martial masters as well, but with the aid of certain treasures or those with particrly powerful mind intent. Li Hao was not yet at that level.

    ¡°You are a martial master?¡± he asked directly. ¡°What level are you? Can you call the shots here? You¡¯re that second master... So do you represent the duke?¡±

    Xu Xing was thrown into a daze by these incredibly direct questions, but he suppressed his annoyance.

    ¡°Of course I do.¡± He smiled. ¡°This way, please. It¡¯s not convenient to talk outside.¡±

    Li Hao punched Panther inside the dog¡¯s stomach. <i>Stop looking, walk in with them.</i>

    The dog was just curious as it¡¯d sniffed some delicious odors. It stopped looking around and followed Xu Xing inside.

    ......

    <i>At this moment.</i>

    Xu Qing and a few other powerhouses sat inside the main hall of the rear yard, watching an image projected in its center. It depicted Panther, Xu Xing, and the others in crystal clear rity!

    Not only that, but a light appeared around the dog. The others were experienced enough with the image to know that it was the symbol for Sr. There were also points of light associated withXu Xing, the second steward, and some of the other supernaturals following the group. Even the ground seemed a bit transparent, as if one could see what was below.

    This was only one part of the manor being shown. As the group progressed to the visitors¡¯ reception ahead, the image changed with them. Any supernaturals that appeared in the scene were marked by special dots of light.

    A bearded powerhouse sitting below Xu Qing¡¯s seat of honor couldn¡¯t help but exim with appreciation despite seeing the treasure numerous times, ¡°Your Grace, this treasure is magical! No one can escape your keen eye with it present!¡±

    ¡°Indeed,¡± tittered a coquettish woman. ¡°They say that the Steadfast Duke¡¯s defenses are the most ck out of the three dukes, that anyone cane and go from the za outside. Little do they know that even a mosquito inside theplex will not escape the duke¡¯s eagle eye! If those cretins think that they can do as they will inside the Steadfast Duke¡¯s domain, they simply court death!¡±

    ¡°It is simply the wisdom of the ancients,¡± Xu Qing responded calmly. ¡°What a pity that this is the only set of equipment we¡¯ve uncovered from the ruins in all these years. We are unable to replicate it. Otherwise, if this could be found throughout the eastern continent and the dynasty, there would be no ce that the of justice could not cover in this world!¡±

    It was a wonderful treasure, the only pity that there was just one of it. It didn¡¯t envelope arge range¡ªtheplex was all it could barely cover. It was also an expensive item to operate as it consumed massive quantities of mysterious power stones every second. Xu Qing didn¡¯t care about this, however. He could eat and sleep better with this treasure present.

    Any supernaturals that sought to steal into his home would be revealed in full! While martial masters did not expose themselves with energy, they were still revealed on the screen. rms sounded anytime outsiders slipped in, not just the presence of unknown energy.

    He didn¡¯t go into detail as there was no need to divulge too many of his secrets, despite those present being his confidantes. It didn¡¯t matter if they knew more about this matter, it would even increase their respect of him. However, his personal principle of not revealing too much was the main reason why no one had grasped his household¡¯s secrets over the years.

    Not even Light Sword had known about this, despite the many years she spent at the manor. He¡¯d known early on that he would not win the loyalty of a Silver Moon martial master.

    ¡°Your Grace, the Kui Mountains have sent a minor Sr to us. They¡¯re putting on quite a front!¡±

    ¡°Monster spirits do not understand custom, so there¡¯s no need to be overly concerned. This major monster spirit seems to possess an umon bloodline. I wonder what species it is? It looks like a dog... and like a wolf. The Kui Mountains revere the snakes as their rulers, so what is a misfit doing here?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The group conversed in low voices and continued their observation. Some sounds and ripples even started flowing from the screen, painting a clear picture of what was taking ce.

    The golden misfit in the image spoke at this time. ¡°This king is here on behalf of the venerated dragon god. I do not y the tricky games you humans y. The venerated dragon god is about to ascend, but hecks certain things. We hear that you have the Windchaser Boots of the eight families. The venerated one would like me to borrow it for a period of time. We will thank you with rich rewards when his transformation isplete!¡±

    Xu Xing didn¡¯t have much of a reaction to his words, but the heavyweights in the rear yard did.

    <i>The front hall.</i>

    ¡°Surely you jest...¡± Xu Xing eventually frowned.

    ¡°Who¡¯s jesting, who has time for that?¡± Li Hao immediately snapped. ¡°You may not know how to use that thing and we hear you¡¯ve lost one of them! The remaining one isn¡¯t very useful by itself. You might as well lend it to us! You are our friend if you do, and the venerated dragon god has said that you will be our enemy if you don¡¯t!¡±

 Chapter 580: Audacious in the Extreme (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 580: Audacious in the Extreme (IV)</h4>

    Xu Xing felt a headache settling in. Was this the monster spirit style? This one demanded the Windchaser Boot as soon as it saw him! Damn this monster spirit, the conversation would be difficult now!

    ¡°And don¡¯t think we¡¯re borrowing it for free!¡± Li Hao added via a strong mental ripple as the man grappled with his response. ¡°The venerated dragon god has said that the Kui Mountains will temporarily mobilize five Nova monster spirit kings to fight for you if you lend it to us. We will also pay five drops of Water of Life each year as the price for borrowing the origin weapon!¡±

    He waved a paw, surprising Panther as he did so. <i>So you¡¯re manipting this dog¡¯s body now, huh!</i>

    A small sk appeared, revealing a verdant drop of Water of Life! Xu Xing¡¯s eyes widened as a light danced in them.

    ¡°This!¡± Li Hao proimed boldly. ¡°Have humans seen this before? This is a treasure! The venerated dragon god received it when he paid his respects to the guardian spirit...¡±

    ¡°Guardian spirit?¡± Xu Xing¡¯s expression shifted slightly.

    ¡°You don¡¯t know?¡± Li Hao lied at the drop of a hat. ¡°There is an imperial pce in the depths of the Kui Mountains and the great guardian spirit within who has protected us for eons. He is undying, immortal, and his intent leads to the divine. His core origin opens the way and coalesces the Lake of Life. That has forged the glories of our mountains! If it wasn¡¯t for the great guardian spirit needing to stand guard over the pce and finding it inconvenient to leave the mountains, your manor would be destroyed with the snap of a finger!¡±

    Xu Xing listened nkly to what he was learning. In the rear yard, Xu Qing crushed the wooden armrests of his chair to pieces. He was shaken by these revtions. ¡°Imperial pce, guardian nt spirit, Lake of Life, core origin...¡±

    ¡°Were the Kui Mountains... once the personal training grounds of an ancient emperor?¡± He couldn¡¯t regain his calm!

    Xu Xing¡¯s subordinates looked curiously at him, but the man continued to be rocked by shock. ¡°It¡¯s said that there was an ultimate powerhouse in the ancient civilization called the Human King... as well as some supreme heavyweights hailed as emperors... They are existences that cannot be imagined. Domineering and valiant, they destroyed stars as a casual afterthought.

    ¡°Their pces were speciallybeled imperial pces and usually guarded by nt spirits. nt spirits were major tree spirits that could produce Water of Life. Core origin refers to the essential nature of martial dao. It¡¯s difficult to estimate how strong it was, but any who touched upon this domain were premier powerhouses. At the very least, they are existences that we cannot rival even if we break our sixth supernatural lock...

    ¡°Not to mention, this is one that¡¯s lived for thousands upon thousands of years! That¡¯s incredible!¡±

    ¡°Your Grace... Are there really heavyweights still surviving from the ancient times?¡± His subordinates were finally adequately shocked. They looked at each other with disbelief. ¡°What kind of terrifying existence can live for so long?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say...¡± Xu Qing shook his head, grave as could be. ¡°I¡¯d thought that the Kui Mountains possessed only the snakes as their strong race, but if what this monster spirit says is true, then these mountains are much more frightening than Sky Roc Mountain and Phoenix Mountain!

    ¡°It¡¯s just... they want the Windchaser Boot...¡± The duke frowned ferociously. Did the treasure have something to do with the other¡¯s transformation? He took out a transmission pendant and sent some words to his son.

    ......

    <i>In the front hall.</i>

    ¡°Envoy, if I may be so bold.¡± Xu Xing surreptitiously checked his pendant. ¡°Why does Senior Dragon God need my family¡¯s legacy treasure toplete the ascension?¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t even know this??¡± Li Hao flew into a rage. ¡°We don¡¯t want the treasure, but the wisp of core origin within! These ancient divine weapons were forged from the corpses of powerful nt and monster spirits! The stronger they are, the greater the body they were crafted from!

    ¡°This Windchaser boot is supposed to have a cold yin presence to it. It¡¯s very suited to the venerated dragon god¡¯s core origin. He doesn¡¯t want the stupid weapon itself, but the core origin! The rest of the treasure is trash once heprehends it. We wouldn¡¯t want it if you gave it to us, we¡¯ll naturally return it to you!¡±

    ¡°Then... will it have any sort of effect on the Windchaser Boot?¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡± Li Hao waxed eloquent. ¡°Core origin is different from modern martial dao and the supernatural domain. That is not your path and it is the core origin of monster spirits, making it even more unsuited for you. It will be of no loss to you if we withdraw that hint of core origin. You might not understand, so the venerated dragon god said that you can ask people who do. I can tell straight out that you guys don¡¯t know much of anything!

    ¡°Also, apparently someone¡¯s taken the other one? You guys are so trash! Lend this one to the dragon god first. He has promised that once his ascension isplete, he will kill that whatever Sword of yours. Once we obtain the core origin from the other boot, we¡¯ll give that one to you too!¡±

    Xu Xing was moved by these words.

    ......

    <i>In the rear yard.</i>

    Xu Qing and the rest looked sharply at each other.<i> If we lend the boot to the big snake, the big snake will seek out Light Sword as soon as it ascends?</i>

    <i>In that case...</i>

    Xu Qing swiftly sent a message to his son, who promptly mentioned in the front hall, ¡°But Light Sword is in Silver Moon...¡±

    ¡°Cut the bullshit, we are naturally aware of that. That is why the venerated dragon god will make the attempt only after ascension. Those Silver Moon martial masters are not frightening, the Kui Mountains are not afraid! What is terrifying are the existences buried beneath Silver Moon. The venerated dragon god will not brashly travel to thatnd before its ascension isplete.

    ¡°Silver Moon was the heart of the world in the New Martial era. The eight ancient cities revolved around Silver Moon and the nt spirits safeguarding the cities were powerful beyond imagine. Some of them might still be alive. It is said that the Forbidden Sea flows backward into Silver Moon and that ancient sea monster spirits are still alive. If the Kui Mountains are to conquer the four seas, we will need help as well...¡±

    Li Hao bluffed for all he was worth! They could believe him or not, it was their choice. He reeled off a variety of ancient terminology. Those who understood, would. Those who didn¡¯t... well, there must be some under the Steadfast Duke¡¯s banner who understood. They couldn¡¯t bepletely oblivious.

    It¡¯d be best if he could bluff his way into obtaining the boot! If not, they would at least believe that he really was an envoy and knew a lot of secret knowledge, that the Kui Mountains were not a force to be trifled with...

    If it really came down to it, he would say they wanted to borrow it for a look or something like that. Li Hao was more concerned that the Xus would use a fake boot in their ceremony. If that was the case, there¡¯d be no point to seizing it.

    ......

    Li Hao¡¯s words did indeed shock those in the rear yard. Even the cunning Xu Qing had a grave expression on his face. It looked like the big snake of Kui Mountains knew a lot; it knew so much that a minor monster spirit beneath itsmand knew everything too. So there might really be an imperial pce in the mountains!

    And judging from their intentions, they wished to conquer the four seas?

    That was quite some ambition!

    Xu Qing frowned, a headache setting in. If this was true, then they could not afford to offend the Kui Mountains. But there was only one of the Windchaser Boots left. Though the monster spirits said they wanted to borrow it, would they actually return it afterward?

    Yet if he didn¡¯t lend it out... then trouble would be upon them. He was of the mindset before that they could afford to offend the monster spirits of the Kui Mountains. But now that he understood the situation better, they absolutely could not afford to!

    The transmission pendant in his hand vibrated with a few short lines of text. ¡°Reporting to Your Grace, I have reached the Kui Mountains and met with their snake king after some setbacks. Upon mentioning the envoy, the snake king only said that the envoy is the descendant of an ancient monster spirit and possesses a lofty identity. He refused to say anything else before expelling me from the mountain...¡±

    Xu Qing blinked. What did this mean? The descendant of an ancient monster spirit? Did saying nothing else mean a denial, a confirmation, or too much contempt to respond?

    He was confused, but this also affirmed that the golden monster spirit was the descendant of an ancient monster spirit. Even the big snake said that it possessed a lofty identity. Could it be... that the golden monster spirit was descended from a monster spirit in the imperial pce? Were there more monster spirits alive in the imperial pce other than the nt spirits?

    Xu Qing¡¯s heart jolted with shock when his thoughts traveled here. Just how many secrets were buried in the Kui Mountains?

    ......

    <i>At the same time in the Kui Mountains.</i>

    The big snake watched the human powerhouse leave. It was confused, but being rather intelligent, it¡¯d guessed at something. The snake quickly put the matter out of mind. <i>This king didn¡¯t say anything and didn¡¯t admit to an envoy. If youe for this king after the fact, you will find quite the retribution on your hands!</i>

    The descendant of an ancient monster spirit and a lofty identity was true enough, that was not false. Responding with only the truth was already a great show of face. If these humans dared be dissatisfied and make trouble for the monster spirit king of the Kui Mountains, it would not show mercy!

    <i>I wonder what the young man from Battle Heaven wishes to do?</i>

    As curious as the snake was, it quickly moved on to other matters. Since the young man was conducting a military mission, there was none of its business here. He¡¯d mentioned obstructing strong foes... was it the Steadfast Duke?

    As worthy of the heritage of an ancient n, the young man had quite the courage! The Steadfast Duke was not one to easily take on. However, the Kui Mountains were the snake¡¯s territory; it wasn¡¯t afraid of a human duke. If the young man could help it transform into a dragon... It would be fine with outright attacking the duke¡¯s manor.

    ......

    Xu Qing sank into deep thought. If the golden monster spirit was a descendent of an ancient monster spirit in the imperial pce, then this was not an entity to be provoked. He could afford to offend the big snake, but an ancient monster spirit...

    Despite not knowing how strong the monster spirit was, one that was alive in present day was frightfully terrifying. He had to avoid irritating this monster spirit at all costs! The duke quickly sent another message to Xu Xing.

    ¡°Envoy, if I may be so bold again, the dragon god of the Kui Mountains says that you are from an ancient bloodline. May we be so honored as to meet your ancestor?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart quailed! <i>Holy fuck? How long has it been since I¡¯ve been here? You guys went to see the big snake?</i>

    His palms were mmy with sweat, but it sounded like the big snake hadn¡¯t said anything or exposed him. <i>An ancient bloodline...</i> so that was all that the big snake said? <i>Damn that scared me!</i>

    The young man¡¯s heart raced with adrenaline. He¡¯d been too careless! The only thing he thought of was how far away the mountains were¡ªhe hadn¡¯t thought that the duke would send someone there! He¡¯d thought that no one would suspect him when disguised as a monster spirit, and yet, they had.

    Thank goodness the snake hadn¡¯t denied his story, or the situation wouldn¡¯t be what it was now.

    But in that case... the big snake might be in trouble after he concluded his business.

 Chapter 581: Bluffing Too Much (I)

    <h4>Chapter 581: Bluffing Too Much (I)</h4>

    A thousand thoughts swirled in Li Hao¡¯s mind, but he continued bluffing. ¡°How are you worthy of meeting my ancestor? Not to mention, the ancestor is asleep and will not stir for minor matters. This world may be changing soon... Forget it, you don¡¯t understand what I speak of. You can meet the ancestor¡ªI will lead you to the imperial pce myself when you are a supreme powerhouse. Do you dare visit?¡±

    Xu Xing trailed off sheepishly, but confirmed that the monster spirit came from the imperial pce. How frightening! No wonder a mere Sr monster spirit could be an envoy of the Kui Mountains. So it had quite the background!

    He could neither ept nor refuse the monster spirit¡¯s request at this stage.

    ¡°This is a very important matter,¡± was his only possible response. ¡°Please wait for a moment, I must report this to my father...¡±

    ¡°How annoying!¡± Li Hao snapped. ¡°Humans are so much trouble. Or have you actually lost both boots, not just one? Don¡¯t try to lie to us monster spirits! Tell us if you¡¯ve lost both of them, don¡¯t try to trick us. You can¡¯t afford the consequences! You will show me the boot even if you don¡¯t lend it to us. I must confirm you have it! If you don¡¯t, your family has no right to discuss anything with this king. It¡¯s aplete waste of this king¡¯s time!

    ¡°Also, it¡¯s not certain if the Windchaser Boots are a treasure of the eight guardian ns. We¡¯ll discuss further after seeing the real thing. If you do not show it to us, you Xus will have lied to the Kui Mountains. You can just sit tight and wait for our vengeance then!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Xu Xing had absolutely no idea what to say. <i>Vengeance? Who the hell lied to you guys?? You¡¯re the ones who came to us and start spouting vengeance before we¡¯vee to any sort of agreement! Monster spirits are monster spirits alright, they have absolutely no patience or rationality.</i>

    Xu Xing¡¯s heart pounded with fear at the thought of almost irking a group of monster spirits for no reason at all. He quickly offered a few cating words before having the second steward take Li Hao to the Hall of Visitors to rest. He himself quickly sped to the rear yard. He knew that his father was keeping an eye on things and that asking for his father¡¯s opinion now was imperative.

    Li Hao was also quaking in his boots. His youth showed! Next time he did something like this, he needed to consider all of the details beforehand. He would¡¯ve been in huge trouble if the big snake had said there was no envoy.

    <i>I need to remember this lesson well... and should I ask around for a dragon transformation method since the big snake helped me?</i>

    He didn¡¯t have one, in any case. Would Battle Heaven have any? He could also ask the little tree.

    <i>I need to take a look at the Windchaser Boot at the very least. When that happens, I¡¯ll have a chance of stealing it!</i>

    There was something off about the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor. He¡¯d sensed the feeling of being ced under constant surveince ever since entering. Xu Xing also frequently referred to a transmission pendant. He probably thought the monster spirit wouldn¡¯t recognize the item, but Li Hao did.

    In that case, was Xu Qing keeping an eye on him from the shadows and monitoring him? It would be frightening if that was the case. He hadn¡¯t seen any sign of the man. Granted, there were a few big balls of light in the rear yard. Perhaps Xu Qing was there. Could he observe the rest of theplex from the rear yard and even eavesdrop on conversations?

    <i>There must be a surveince system in theplex, one that¡¯s incredibly strong. But I have no idea what it is. I can sense some surveince even here...</i>

    Li Hao inwardly rejoiced that he hadn¡¯t been so bold as to directly slip into the manor. He¡¯d wanted to tunnel his way in. <i>Thank heavens I didn¡¯t do that!</i>

    ......

    Panther was led to a small building for visitors while those in the rear yard began their discussion. In actuality, Panther didn¡¯t rest either. Would a monster spirit, especially a descendant of an ancient personage, be willing to nap docilely? That didn¡¯t fit the image of an ancient monster spirit¡ªsince when were these entities so biddable?

    Thus, the dog padded out as soon as the second steward left. It didn¡¯t make an effort to disguise itself and walked straight out. Picking a servant at random, it growled, ¡°That weakling over there,e here! Show this king around!¡±

    He carried himself like he would eat the servant if they didn¡¯tply! The young servant trembled with fear, unable to agree and not daring to disagree. He was on the verge of peeing himself when Panther showed its teeth¡ªthis was when the second steward abruptly came back!

    This further confirmed for Li Hao that he was under watch. The man had returned too quickly while Panther hadn¡¯t exuded any presence or attacked anyone. The steward had known a split second after Li Hao took action. The young man would behead himself for the enemy if there was no surveince system around.

    ¡°Will the envoy not rest for a while? The Kui Mountains are far from East Heart City and you¡¯ve been traveling hard along the way...¡±

    ¡°Do you think this king is one of you weak humans?¡± Li Hao retorted. ¡°Not to mention, what kind of rundown ce is this? It¡¯s so small, how is it fit for rest? There is also a very low concentration of energy. Cut the bullshit and show this king around. You humans know how to live well! A mere duke can enjoy such arge residence...¡±

    The second steward¡¯s face twitched. This minor monster spirit was so rude! The steward was a Nova, but the monster spirit was throwing its weight around as a Sr!

    Of course, he knew that the monster spirit came with quite a background and didn¡¯t dare provoke their visitor. ¡°What would the envoy like to see?¡±

    ¡°Your treasury!¡± Li Hao transmitted after thinking for a bit.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Your treasury!¡± Li Hao repeated brusquely. ¡°I want to see how well off your duke is! Are you worthy of working with the Kui Mountains? Are you qualified to be our partner? Your treasury is your foundation¡ªif you don¡¯t have sufficient mysterious power stones, origin weapons, and Life of Water, then what kind of major faction are you?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The second steward was dazed senseless. It was his first time meeting such an arrogant person¡ªmonster spirit! No, he¡¯d known some monster spirits before too, but were they all like this at heart? So direct, so brazen? If it wasn¡¯t for this guy¡¯s background, the steward would p the monster spirit to death with one hand! It was too cocky!

    ¡°What, are you afraid of this king robbing you?¡± Li Hao snorted. ¡°Is the duke afraid of the Sr that this king is? Not to mention, would this king want your treasures?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s mental ripples carried hints of derision and contempt. He summoned a jug with a wave of Panther¡¯s paw. It was sealed shut and opaque, but the dog casually tilted out ten drops of Water of Life.

    ¡°Serve this king well and I may give you a few drops. This king has plenty of this!¡±

    The second steward went ck-jawed with shock. He¡¯d been greatly moved when Li Hao took out one drop. <i>Damn, monster spirits are rich!</i> But now, it was shock and madness. He even had the desire to kill this monster spirit for its treasure!

    <i>Oh my heavens, what did I just see?! I saw ten drops of Water of Life being casually poured out of arge jug.</i> Being a steward of the Steadfast Duke¡¯s household, he was one of decent experience in the world. He knew how precious the Water of Life was. One drop represented one life!

    ......

    <i>At the same time, the rear yard.</i>

    The supernaturals red their presences at the same time. The Steadfast Duke crushed his second chair, startling a Xu Xing who¡¯d just arrived.

    ¡°Your Grace!¡± gasped the powerhouses. There was killing intent, greed, and madness swirling around the gathering. That was a massive jug! A very, very big jug! If tilting it produced ten drops of Water of Life, how many drops were there in this jug?

    Heavens above! How many lives did that represent?

    Xu Qing was also thinking that if he had this jug and so much Water of Life, he would be able to enhance his organs to an extreme and just unseal his battle strength without concern for anything else.

    ¡°Sit down!¡± he abruptlymanded in the next moment. The greed in his eyes morphed to solemnity. ¡°Everyone, sit down! Have you all lost your minds? Do you know what so much Water of Life represents? It represents that there¡¯s truly a monster spirit that¡¯s survived the ancient times, that the imperial pce really exists, that this little monster spirit really has an incredible legend behind it. It really is noble beyond belief to treat Water of Life as actual water...¡±

    The more he said, the more fear set in. ¡°Look at all of you going crazy at the sight of treasure. Aren¡¯t you afraid of not being alive to use it? Or do you think you can run off after seizing the treasure, leaving the manor behind to suffer monster spirit wrath? It would only be my people who dies!¡±

    Expressions on the powerhouses¡¯ faces shifted drastically when they heard this and they quickly suppressed their greed. ¡°We know our shorings, Your Grace!¡± They rose and bowed.

    ¡°Hmph!¡± snorted the duke. He¡¯d been briefly seized by an urge to kill the monster spirit as well. He wanted to cast everything aside and rush out to ughter the weak monster spirit. But reason won out in the end.

    There were no more doubts in his mind. This was indeed a blue-blooded descendant of an ancient monster spirit with a magnificent identity. There might be more than one since monster spirits couldn¡¯t coalesce Water of Life.

    How much was in that jug? There had to be a premier monster spirit alive somewhere.

    The more the duke thought about this, the more he was horrified by the implications. He frowned ferociously before rxing with a sigh. ¡°This is good! The Kui Mountains are close to us, so they came to us first. It looks like they want to work together as well. Modern society is different from the past. As this golden monster spirit says, ancient entities may not be able to easily walk about or be used to our world. This makes sense.

    ¡°But, it¡¯s all spection. If they truly wished to venture forth, then they would be existences that we cannot withstand.¡± With that, he looked at his son. ¡°Go show it around. Take it wherever it wishes to go.¡±

    ¡°Father, it wants to go to the treasury...¡± protested a shocked Xu Xing.

    ¡°Take it!¡± Xu Qing answered resolutely. ¡°Is our treasury really a treasury to it? It might just be curious or want to be entertained. I would be willing to trade the entire manor for its jug¡ªit just wouldn¡¯t be willing! Or you can try asking it if it wants to make the trade.¡±

    Seizure by force was the most idiotic decision to make. He wasn¡¯t a wandering cultivator who acted without thought of anyone else.

 Chapter 582: Bluffing Too Much (II)

    <h4>Chapter 582: Bluffing Too Much (II)</h4>

    The Steadfast Duke was the overlord of the east. He wouldn¡¯t be able to run if he robbed this little minor monster spirit¡ªhe could only do so if he gave up his family property. That was not up for debate. He would never relinquish two centuries of Xu umtion for simply Water of Life.

    Not only could he not seize anything from the monster spirit, but he had to protect it well. He scanned those on the scene when his thoughts traveled here.

    ¡°All of you are the pirs of my household, so I do not wish to witness any disappointing developments. Water of Life is precious, but there will be plenty of other opportunities to obtain it in the future. If we strike a full alliance with the Kui Mountains, I believe that we will notck for this resource.

    ¡°Do not relinquish longer term benefits for the sake of profits at hand. If we can reach an agreement, I trust that something carried by a minor monster spirit will not be too costly to trade for.¡±

    The group found the wisdom in his words after thinking it over. Someone immediately began a string of ttery.

    ¡°This is evidence of Your Grace¡¯s prosperous fortunes! Your name has moved the Kui Mountains to the point where they send the descendant of an ancient monster spirit to discuss an alliance.¡±

    Xu Qing smiled without a word, but was naturally very proud of himself. However, there was a troublesome detail in the way¡ªthe Windchaser Boots!

    Indeed, the Windchaser Boots.

    That was what the monster spirit wanted and his greatest point of contention. If it was anything else, truly anything else, he would hand it over without a second thought in order to partner with the Kui Mountains and their ancient monster spirits.

    But the treasure of the eight families...

    The Steadfast Duke was highly conflicted. One had already been seized, leaving just one behind. He wasn¡¯t sure what to do. That these ancient existences all wanted the Windchaser Boots meant that they were indeed an incredible treasure. One he was unable to use. As incredible as they might be, he was unable to transform it into battle strength or any other benefits.

    As various thoughts floated to the forefront, he decided to wait a bit longer. ¡°You go first.¡± He looked at his son. ¡°Try to satisfy whatever demands it has. If it mentions the Windchaser Boots again, tell it that the treasure will be avable when I emerge from seclusion. It cannot be shown now.¡±

    ¡°Understood, father, I will be off then.¡± Xu Xing quickly departed.

    ¡°We need to cate this ancient monster spirit first.¡± The duke looked at the rest when his son returned to the front hall. ¡°Stay on your toes, the grand ceremony begins at daybreak. We need to be on guard against the rest of the region delegates. We¡¯ll intimidate them if we can, but if not...¡±

    He looked at the golden monster spirit in the image and pondered, could he make use of this monster spirit? Although their partnership was not set in stone, it wasn¡¯t out of the question to borrow the Kui Mountains name to subdue the four corners.

    ......

    <i>In the Hall of Visitors.</i>

    The second steward was quite resigned by Li Hao raising a fuss in wanting to see the treasury. The man was enormously relieved to see Xu Xing appear.

    The second master waspletely distracted from the task of setting up for the ceremony. The jug of Water of Life was the only issue on his mind. ¡°Where would the envoy like to go?¡± He beamed brightly at Panther.

    ¡°Your treasury. Your servant dare refuses...¡±

    ¡°A misunderstanding, that was all a misunderstanding! The envoy is a lofty descendant of an ancient monster spirit, what is a mere treasury worth? Steward Ming doesn¡¯t understand any of this, which is the cause for this misunderstanding.¡± Xu Xing smiled fawningly. ¡°I will take the envoy there. It¡¯s just a collection of trinkets that are not worthy of attention. It would be our honor if the envoy is interested.¡±

    Hidden in Panther¡¯s stomach, Li Hao cackled silently to himself. As he thought! Although it¡¯d been a risk he¡¯d taken, it wasn¡¯t that much of a risk when he faced the smart and ambitious. If he was up against someone like He Yong, Li Hao would never proceed in such a brazen manner. That would absolutely spell his doom as He Yong would smack Panth to death and seize the jug of Water of Life.

    As for the trouble that would create, what did that have to do with him? If the Kui Mountains waged an expedition against the royal family, he might even stay to watch the show.

    Therefore, different strokes applied for different folks. Li Hao had made the right moves with the Steadfast Duke. When it came to people like He Yong, they needed to be served with a punch!

    Li Hao snickered to himself and continued to y the role of a brash monster spirit. ¡°That¡¯s true, how can you have anything good? Any that exists was dug up from the ground. But sometimes, you don¡¯t recognize the value of what you¡¯ve found and don¡¯t know how to use what you¡¯ve discovered.

    ¡°This king loves hunting for treasure. What you don¡¯t understand, this king might. That will be this king¡¯s fortune then! How about giving me some of what I set my eyes on?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s but a small matter.¡± Xu Xing nodded with a smile. His father had said to satisfy this descendant of an ancient monster spirit as best he could, so of course he would have no other opinion. Not to mention, only subpar items were stored in the treasury. Would the actual treasures be ced there?

    Storage rings weren¡¯t vases for show. The real treasures were all in his father¡¯s storage ring. Not even Xu Xing had the right to touch them.

    The second young master led Panther to the depths of the rear yard without further word. Panther looked around as they walked; Li Hao unleashed his mental strength without reservation and probed everywhere he could. He was so presumptuous that it was like this was his territory instead.

    Xu Xing pretended he didn¡¯t register the monster spirit¡¯s actions. It could do whatever it wished¡ªit didn¡¯t look like it was gathering information, in any case. Rather, it demonstrated the curiosity of entering the human world for the first time.

    In reality, Li Hao and Panther were truly curious. As the young man investigated, he sent out another mental ripple. ¡°Ah right, what is your name?¡±

    ¡°Xu Xing.¡± As affronted as the man was, he had to answer.

    ¡°Oh I see, Little Xing... That¡¯s a good name!¡± Li Haoplimented. ¡°Little Xing, this ce isn¡¯t good...¡±

    <i>What now?</i> Xu Xing heaved an inward sigh.

    ¡°This king has been ufortable since arriving,¡± Li Haomented casually. ¡°Like there¡¯s something staring at me. Have powerhouses decided to target your family?¡±

    Xu Xing¡¯s heart shook. The monster spirit could sense even that? It was the descendant of an ancient monster spirit, alright! Its senses were so keen that it perceived something overlooked by the many powerful Novas that visited theplex.

    Shifting awkwardly, Xu Xing didn¡¯t say anything. This was a difficult matter to exin. This little monster spirit might erupt in a rage if he said anything, thinking that the duke had purposefully offended him.

    Li Hao was only asking a test question, but swiftly gathered some conclusions when no response was forting. After probing the surroundings, he realized it might not be an ordinary system surveilling him, but a treasure.

    It wouldn¡¯t be so inconspicuous otherwise. The Steadfast Duke possessed many treasures, given that he hailed from a family with two hundred years of history. In this day and age, two hundred years of heritage made the Xus arge n, even an old and well-known n. No wonder Xu Feng had been so cocky that day and so sure that Li Hao would not dare kill him.

    A few humans and a dog appeared beneath the massive attic of a building after taking a few turns.

    ¡°This is the treasury of my family...¡± Xu Xing introduced.

    Li Hao sent his mental strength outward again, assessing decent defenses for the treasury. There were two Srs secretly holding down the fort. It was a strong level of defense for this part of the treasury, since anyone who could find their way here meant that theplex had been breached. Whether it was Srs or Novas on duty here... it didn¡¯t make a difference.

    ¡°This treasury is one whole, made from the strongest refined steel. Ordinary superhumans will not easily break it.¡± Xu Xing walked up to the door and took out a key from his storage ring. There was a golden lock on the door. ¡°The treasury is not usually open to others. Only my father and I can unlock it...¡±

    ¡°These scraps of metal can be broken with a tap of a w,¡± Li Haomented indifferently.

    ¡°It can be readily broken by force,¡± Xu Xing chuckled. ¡°But this is the manor of the Steadfast Duke. While it may notpare to the imperial pce in the Kui Mountains, this is a heavily fortified and guarded ce in the human world. You¡¯ll have to bear with us, envoy.¡±

    The lock opened with a click; Xu Xing pushed the door open.

    Panther¡¯s nose twitched as it caught a whiff of some delicious scent. Li Hao hurriedly erupted with mind intent when the dog was about to drool. <i>Don¡¯t be so embarrassing, alright!</i>

    Xu Xing didn¡¯t mind and walked forward with Panther. ¡°There are three levels to the treasury, but they may not be filled with anything particrly precious to the envoy. The first level is storage for our reserves of mysterious power stones and mysterious power cubes. There are one hundred storage rings here, all filled with stones and cubes...¡±

    There were only a few shelves on the first y with storage rings neatly arrayed on them. Li Hao¡¯s eyes nearly bugged out of his head! Storage rings could not be stored inside each other, so each ring upied a certain space. Regr people wouldn¡¯t carry so many storage rings on them.

    One hundred storage rings... and were they all full? How many stones would that be?! It boggled the mind!

    ¡°Do you Xus have an energy mine?¡± Li Hao asked offhandedly.

    Xu Xing blinked. Energy mine?

    ¡°Does the envoy speak of the energy mines recorded in the ancient books?¡± heughed ruefully after a while. ¡°That we do not. We have this as a result of our findings in the ruins.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I see! I¡¯ve seen some humans use those before, but all that is trash. Is that what you have here?¡±

    ¡°The trash that the envoy speaks of... I do not know. You are free to inspect them for yourself.¡±

    Li Hao directed the dog in grabbing a storage ring and probed it with his mind. The dog then casually threw it back on the rack, like it didn¡¯t care at all. It was as if the rings were less than trash.

    In reality, the young man sucked in a sharp breath!

    The storage ring was crammed full of mysterious power stones. There were at least ten thousand stones inside!

    <i>My word, what does this mean? Are there millions of mysterious power stones stored here? No way??</i>

    Li Hao had thought he was asking for the moon when he demanded thirty thousand from Silver Moon. The province had almost gone bankrupt, yet here the duke had more than one hundred storage rings in his treasury. If they all contained ten thousand at a minimum, didn¡¯t that make for one million stones at least?

    ¡°This is all trash!¡± Li Hao denounced, despite his shock. ¡°Is that all there is in the other rings as well?¡±

    Xu Xing smiled awkwardly. Anyone who entered the family treasury would be overawed, but now they were being held in contempt. And by a monster spirit, nheless!

 Chapter 583: Bluffing Too Much (III)

    <h4>Chapter 583: Bluffing Too Much (III)</h4>

    However, there was nothing Xu Xing could say in response. He could only reply, ¡°All of our mysterious power stones are like these ones. We do have some higher quality ones, but they¡¯re all with my father. We don¡¯t have many of the higher quality ones either, just enough to satisfy our own cultivation needs.¡±

    ¡°Hmph.¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t seem to care and looked around. The first floor was spacious enough to hold other items apart from racks of storage rings. He directed Panther in another direction and swept a nce at the contents before saying with derision, ¡°Are you guys scrap collectors to save even these things?¡±

    There were boxes upon boxes against the wall apart from the racks. Each of them held a suit of armor. There were a lot of them!

    ¡°They¡¯re not scraps,¡± Xu Xing had to protest given that his family was being looked down upon again. ¡°You may not be aware, envoy, but this is the equipment of an army called the Voidbreakers. We found the armor in a ruin, but haven¡¯t been able to find a way to reactivate it. The armor from Battle Heaven and the ck Armaturas are all equipment from powerful armies of the ancient civilization...¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow, but continued in a simr vein. ¡°This king is naturally aware! But those were scraps of metal back in the day as well. There are a ton of higher level ones in the imperial pce. Only lowly minions wear these ones. What are they, if not trash?¡±

    ¡°Is there such an army in the imperial pce, honored envoy?¡± Xu Xing asked with surprise.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Li Hao sneered. ¡°The imperial pce houses a most eminent one, so of course he has his personal guards! Each of them were selected from thousands of strong contenders. I''ve heard the ancestor talk about the Battle Heaven Army that you mentioned. That city¡¯s strong enough, but it¡¯s just an ancient city that received their name thanks to the whim of an emperor. It cannotpare to the imperial pce and its army does notpare to the imperial guards...¡±

    Xu Xing learned something new today! So this was the truth of the world! Not only him, but so did the eavesdropping Xu Qing felt that he¡¯d gained new knowledge.

    As it turned out, Battle Heaven was an ancient city personally named by an emperor in the ancient civilization! Even though it wasn¡¯t the strongest, it was terrifying enough already. Its Golden Armors were said to retain domineering strength.

    Xu Xing picked up his transmission pendant for a look when it vibrated. ¡°Does the envoy know much about Battle Heaven city?¡±

    ¡°The city itself?¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°Not much, just that there were a lot of people living in it back in the day. There were tens of millions, while its army numbered millions strong...¡±

    ¡°Then does the envoy know of warriors wearing golden armor?¡±

    ¡°Oh, you mean the officers who are the equivalent of first rankmanders?¡±

    Xu Xing beamed. This monster spirit knew everything! Such was the advantage of an ancient heritage¡ªthose of that bloodline were all-knowing. So many people had failed to grasp the city¡¯s full background, but the monster spirit easily spoke of it.

    ¡°Onemander oversees ten thousand people, right?¡± Li Hao seemed to be recalling something. ¡°I don¡¯t remember, I heard this a long time ago. Battle Heaven seems to have only one or two hundredmanders. There¡¯s more ranking officers above that, and their leaders above that too. Themanders... are just small fry!¡±

    Xu Xing sucked in a sharp breath. How was that possible?

    ¡°Envoy, it¡¯s said that the city lord is just a Golden Armor as well...¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡± Li Hao cursed loudly. ¡°How is that possible? Whoever said that was blind! Not to mention, since when does the city lord wear armor? I remember the ancestor saying that the city lord... is... rted to an emperor or something like that? His surname... was Wang? He was a raggedy old man who was very strong...¡±

    The more Xu Xing heard, the more shocked he was. It meant that all of the information they held was fake! There was so much more to Battle Heaven! He wanted to ask more, but Li Hao cut him off with irritation.

    ¡°What¡¯s the point of talking about all this? Who remembers any of that? Is there no real treasure here apart from this garbage?¡±

    Xu Xing was quite resigned, was this really all garbage? There was arge sum of mysterious power stones, countless cubes of mysterious power, and a thousand sets of ancient armor on the first floor. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that they weren¡¯t activated, the armor would be priceless anywhere in the outside world.

    Well, this reaction made sense given the monster spirit¡¯s background.

    ¡°There are some more treasures on the second floor that the envoy might be interested in. They¡¯re a bunch of origin weapons¡ªbut granted, their level isn¡¯t too high.¡±

    <i>A bunch! </i>Li Hao clucked his tongue. What did a bunch mean? He headed to the second floor without another word.

    The second floor was arrayed differently. Individual cabs filled the floor. There were many cabs, but most of them were empty. Only some of them held items¡ªroughly twenty or thirty of them. Some exuded faint energy that was a sign of their umon qualities.

    There was a long de the color of fire, a broadsword the color of dirt, and a bow rimmed with frost...

    Xu Xing looked cautiously at Panther, worried that the monster spirit wouldbel it all as trash again. ¡°These are all origin weapons...¡±

    ¡°I know!¡± Li Hao cut him off brusquely. ¡°They¡¯re all trash too, and very unfriendly to monster spirits! What you call origin weapons were forged out of the corpses of monster spirits. The practice was abolished many years ago. It was in use only in the initial New Martial era, we used new designs in thete era. These origin weapons... are the discarded ones that were made avable to wandering cultivators or rear personnel.¡±

    Xu Xing felt that he¡¯d learned something new again! So this was the background of origin weapons!

    ¡°Then the Windchaser Boots mentioned before with the core origin of a monster spirit...¡± he couldn¡¯t help but ask. <i>Based on what you¡¯re saying, the Windchaser Boots are trash too?</i>

    Li Hao blinked, then quickly cursed, ¡°What do you know?! If the boots really are from the eight ns, then that¡¯s different! If they are an origin weapon, they would be forged from an incredibly domineering monster spirit! It¡¯s nothing that this pile of trash can measure up to!¡±

    <i>Fine then.</i>

    Xu Xing deted as he looked at the treasury that was the pride of the family.<i> Our treasures are precious items that other powerhouses drool over, but now they¡¯re all trash!</i> There were possibly one million mysterious power stones and several dozen origin weapons here!

    While the most important batch of treasures was with Xu Qing, the treasury was also the core of the entire Xu family. This was the basis of the family¡¯s rise and the foundation with which they dominated the east, and how they would conquer the dynasty! It was all trash to their visitor!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about what the man was thinking. He was almost drooling in Panther¡¯s stomach. <i>These guys are so rich!</i>

    Although he obtained plenty of origin weapons and even given the little tree almost a dozen a while back, he was still highly envious when he saw so many at once. The only thing he wanted to do now was to take them all!

    But that was just an impulse that he curbed. He couldn¡¯t do that! A little impatience spoils great ns, he¡¯d yet to catch a glimpse of the Windchaser Boots!

    ¡°If the second floor is all trash like this, will the third floor be the same?¡± Li Hao groused with irritation. ¡°The Steadfast Duke is known throughout the east and hailed as the overlord of the region, but this is all the trash that you have? If this is the case, I need to reassess the duke¡¯s strength! Strength is one aspect, riches are another. All the powerhouses in the world are useless if you don¡¯t have enough riches, you¡¯llck the strength to keep going!¡±

    Xu Xing was quite embarrassed as well, but there was nothing he could say. What, was he supposed to protest that these were treasures that those outside would attack each other to im?

    There was no point in discussing this with the descendant of an ancient monster spirit. Their visitor had seen so much more than him, and sights that were much stronger. Xu Xing had been very confident about the items on the third floor before, but was now feeling uncertain.

    ¡°The items on the third floor are even better,¡± he said ambiguously. ¡°You can take a look, envoy...¡±

    He didn¡¯t dare go into specifics. What if the other didn¡¯t find that to be the case again? He wasn¡¯t used to suffering blow after blow of mortification. It was always him pping faces. But today, he was being repeatedly humiliated by something that somewhat resembled a dog, and he couldn¡¯t re his temper for it! He had to admit to all of the assessments given since their visitor had a very privileged view of the world. What else could he say?

    One man and one dog ascended the stairs to the third floor. There were even fewer items here and theyout was once more different. There were several crystal covers encasing certain items; energy wafted out of them, protecting the contents inside.

    ¡°There are six treasures on the third floor, they¡¯re all rare curiosities!¡± Xu Xing doggedly continued his introduction of the treasury contents. ¡°Three of them are earth rank origin weapons, far superior to the gold and arcane levels below. The other three are very precious items indeed. One of them¡ª¡±

    ¡°Oh, a Goldensky Lotus?¡± Li Hao identified before the man could. ¡°And an entire flower at that, where did you get it from? This is a treasure from the Forbidden Sea in the New Martial era. It¡¯s ineffective for powerhouses, but good for those weaker. You guys have a whole flower, not bad!¡±

    Xu Xing started. <i>Damn, you know even this! You really know a lot!</i>

    ¡°We also obtained this in a ruin, but... this item... has some drawbacks. We discovered more than one flower at first and realized that it¡¯s very useful when ites to strengthening martial master mind intent. But after the mind intent is fortified, the body cannot withstand it and copses more easily instead.

    ¡°Given the trove we found, numerous Xu family members ingested it and many died as a result. Their bodies fell apart, leaving only this flower left. We¡¯d nned to let my nephew use it after he ascended... but my poor nephew died in the hands of a viin.¡±

    Li Hao cursed to himself. <i>Fucking hell! My Goldensky Lotus! </i>There hadn¡¯t been just one flower, but many! These Xu bastards had wasted it all! Judging from Xu Xing¡¯s words, they¡¯d randomly used the treasure after finding it and strengthened mind intent beyond the capacity of the body. Their minds had crushed their bodies to death!

    <i>They deserved that death!</i>

    That was a foregone conclusion. This was a treasure with fabulous effects and immensely useful to the current Li Hao, not to mention other martial masters. But if too much was ingested by someone with weak organs, it would undoubtedly blow them up!

 Chapter 584: Bluffing Too Much (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 584: Bluffing Too Much (IV)</h4>

    Apart from the three origin weapons, there were also three other treasures. Li Hao only recognized the Goldensky Lotus. He didn¡¯t know what the other two were. One of them seemed to be the fragments of a weapon, but it looked quite esoteric. It might be the remnants of a powerful weapon that¡¯d broken.

    There was something else that appeared to be a medallion, but the characters on it were too blurred and hard to make out. Li Hao didn¡¯t know what kind of token it was, or if it was just an ordinary cube.

    As for the three origin weapons, they were indeed of a higher caliber than the ones on the floor below. They felt stronger than the wind chime that he¡¯d obtained before. The Xus were indeed a powerful family with vast operations. They were worthy of being the eastern overlord for the past two hundred years! And the key was that this was only part of their family wealth, it couldn¡¯t be everything. The real treasures were likely with Xu Qing.

    Even so, this ce should hold most of the Xu fortune. Li Hao wants nothing more than to loot it all!

    ¡°Forget it, there¡¯s nothing good here,¡± he dismissed scornfully, hiding his desire. ¡°The Goldensky Lotus is not bad, but it¡¯s not that useful for monster spirits. You guys keep it for yourself! What a waste of a trip!¡±

    Xu Xing was quite resigned. <i>The issue is that you¡¯ve seen too many nice things!</i> He¡¯d wanted to trade some treasures for a few drops of Water of Life, but didn¡¯t have the room to make that request now. Who would¡¯ve thought that the Xu family treasury would one day be held in contempt?

    ¡°None of this trash is worth looking at.¡± Li Hao maneuvered Panther down the stairs. ¡°When can I take a look at the Windchaser Boots?¡±

    ¡°Ah, please wait for a little while longer. The boots are with my father and we will report to you at once when my father is out of seclusion...¡±

    ¡°Hurry up! Humans really do drag their feet when they conduct business!¡±

    ¡°Of course, certainly!¡± Xu Xing was so humble that it was like the monster spirit was his ancestor, but he found nothing untoward with their arrangement. He nced at the transmission pendant as they walked and asked carefully, ¡°Envoy, if the Windchaser Boots are not what the Kui Mountains need, then our partnership...¡±

    ¡°Will be on hold!¡± Li Hao answered curtly, instilling the man with a sense of urgency. He hoped the boots were what the monster spirits needed!

    ¡°Envoy, if I may be so bold to ask, the dragon god of the mountains and the imperial pce...¡±

    ¡°The venerated dragon god is the guardian of the pce¡¯s outskirts. The existence within the pce cannot easily emerge. The venerated dragon god received a few pointers from the ancestor and could cultivate his way to this stage due to excellent potential. These days, he is quite close with the imperial pce.¡±

    Xu Xing understood. So that one was a guard dog. No wonder it only dared say that the golden monster spirit possessed a lofty identity, and nothing else.

    ¡°Envoy, if the Windchaser Boots are indeed what the dragon god requires, then will you really provide five Novas for us to use?¡±

    Li Hao smirked. They were tempted! It looked like this question came from old fart Xu Qing hiding behind his son. He started bluffing once more, cockiness filling his mental ripples. ¡°It¡¯s just five Novas! If the dragon god sessfully ascends and the safety of the pce¡¯s outer perimeter is guaranteed, what are five Novas worth? We can send you as many monster spirits as you need! There are countless races in the Kui Mountains!

    ¡°We need powerhouses, true heavyweights beyond Nova. Nova is just scrabbling in the dirt. But if the dragon still does not ascend and those in the pce are... Ahem, I won¡¯t tell you this. Anyway, we won¡¯t be needing the dragon god much longer if he still doesn¡¯t advance!¡±

    A shocked Xu Xing understood the connotations. Were the ancient monster spirits about to emerge from the pce? Urgency gripped the man, the mountains weren¡¯t too far from the eastern provinces! Trouble might be upon them!

    ¡°Are the lords in the imperial pce about to emerge in the world?¡± he asked carefully.

    ¡°It has nothing to do with you!¡± Li Hao dered presumptuously. ¡°We won¡¯t care about you if we do emerge. I know what¡¯s on your mind! If wee out, we head to Silver Moon! Our goal is not here or even this world! It lies in the depths of the firmament¡ªyou wouldn¡¯t understand it if I spoke of it.

    ¡°We follow the ancient Human King¡¯s footsteps and seek the emperor¡¯s path in leaving thisnd. Your vision is so limited that you focus only on this continent. Back in the day, the core of the Skystar Dynasty¡ªthe central continent that you revere¡ªwas just a piddling Skystar Ind! This royal family of yours simply upied the ruins of Skystar Town, that is how they have some capital to their name...¡±

    Xu Xing felt his worldview imploding! What did all this mean?!

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    ¡°Skystar Ind... Skystar Town... I see!¡± Xu Qing¡¯s face flickered through a variety of expressions. ¡°Silver Moon... So these ancient existences have never set their sights on thisnd... So the heart of the dynasty is just an ind... How incredible!¡±

    He believed the monster spirit as what he heard corroborated with some reports he¡¯d received. There was only shock and desire in his eyes!

    Li Hao¡¯s spiel solidified one belief for him¡ªthat the Kui Mountains really weren¡¯t interested in his family¡¯s territory. They wouldn¡¯t care if the Steadfast Duke became king of the east!

    But he cared.

    In that case, there was a possibility for their partnership. The monster spirits¡¯ request for cooperation might only be temporarily valid. The fact that those existences couldn¡¯t easily emerge at the moment was an opportunity for him. It might note back around if he missed it.

    ¡°The Windchaser Boots...¡± He clenched his jaw. He¡¯d already lost one of them, he¡¯ll just lose the second as well! Perhaps the monster spirits really would return it to him.

    Based on what the minor monster spirit had said, the snake king would be discarded soon if it still didn¡¯t break through. Once it was discarded... there was no need for the Windchaser Boots. Therefore, he should help the snake king break through. When it found solid footing, it would be grateful that the Xus had rendered it a favor. The snake king would be the family¡¯s connection to reaching an agreement with the Kui Mountains imperial pce.

    Xu Qing knew what to do when his thoughts trailed here. He fully believed Panther¡¯s identity by now¡ªthere was no helping it, the monster spirit knew too much. Some of what it spoke of went beyond the family¡¯s understanding, despite two hundred years of endless excavations.

    The duke firmly believed Li Hao precisely because he only knew half of the truth. If he hadn¡¯t known any of it, then Li Hao would¡¯ve been preaching to deaf ears no matter how much he said. The crucial detail here was that the duke knew a bit of what the monster spirit spoke of, but not all of it. That made these revtions particrly deadly; each word was immensely shocking.

    ......

    Xu Xing seemed to receive some sort of instruction at this time and asked, ¡°Envoy, our family¡¯s grand ceremony will bemencing at daybreak. Those from the other eastern provinces will be present. Are you interested in attending the ceremony?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao yed hard to get.

    ¡°Father might emerge from seclusion then,¡± Xu Xing hastily added. ¡°If he does, the Windchaser Boots will be there!¡±

    ¡°Very good, this king will be there!¡± Li Hao immediately changed his mind.

    Xu Xing was overjoyed, but also cursed inwardly to himself because his father had said not to offer up the Windchaser Boots at daybreak! More precisely, Xu Xing wasn¡¯t to take out the one in his possession. He was to wait for Xu Qing to personally oversee the ceremony!

    <i>Damn it!</i>

    This made it more than apparent that the one Xu Xing looked after was fake! His old man had given him a fake treasure to fool others with! But now that a monster spirit envoy was here, he couldn¡¯t be allowed to bring forth a fake. If the envoy discovered it wasn¡¯t what they needed, it would be the height of disaster if it stomped off after that.

    inly, his father was prepared to make an appearance himself and bring out the real treasure. <i>He</i> was the trash! He spoke so righteously about the Xus being unafraid of enemies, but still gave Xu Xing a fake!

    The more Xu Xing brooded over this, the more incensed he grew! A tiny conspiracy formed in his heart when he looked at the golden monster spirit. He¡¯d once thought his father to be so lofty that he was out of reach, but now it looked like this was all there was to the man. If he could form a rtionship with this monster spirit himself and receive the support of the pce, would his father still not dare step aside?

    No... perhaps... he could dream a bit bigger. Was it enough to just be a duke? The key to everything was the golden dog in front of him.

    With that running through his mind, Xu Xing abruptly became much more humble and enthusiastic. His smile turned so fawning that it made Li Hao¡¯s scalp crawl. What was he smiling like this for? Had the young man bluffed so much that he¡¯d been exposed?

    Li Hao turned apprehensive; there was nothing for it but to continue the act at this stage. He sauntered out of the treasury without a care in the world, his own ideas shifting as well. It wasn¡¯t just enough to take the Windchaser Boots anymore, he wouldn¡¯t be satisfied without taking the treasury too! But how would he swing that?

    It¡¯d be best if he could create a ton of trouble for the duke! Otherwise, the first thing that the old man would do after having the time to react would be to chase him to the ends of the world.

    ......

    The day slowly brightened after a night of activity. Today was the memorial for the young master and his eldest son of the Steadfast Duke¡¯s household. Xu Feng was also being honored at the same time.

    Thetter two had died in Li Hao¡¯s hands. One could say that the blood feud between Li Hao and the Steadfast Duke eclipsed the one between him and Red Moon for the moment. Of course, this was when viewed through the lens of the duke against Li Hao. Just as Li Hao hated Red Moon, so did the Steadfast Duke itch to feast on Li Hao¡¯s flesh.

    Such was the way of the world. <i>You kill me, I kill you.</i> There was no shortage of grudges to go around. So even though the Xus hated Li Hao with a fiery passion, the young man didn¡¯t care¡ªjust as Ying Hongyue likely didn¡¯t care whether or not the young man hated him. History was ever written by the victors. This grudge would naturally dissipate once the Xus killed Li Hao or Li Hao killed Ying Hongyue.

    A bustle of activity started in the manor as the sky brightened. Voices could be heard from the za outside the front doors. The Steadfast Duke was close to the people and had built a za for leisure in front of his estate. Although his son and grandson were dead, it was open for business all the same. Such a hypocritical person was a rare find. Of course, if he won in the end and conquered the world, then he would be a paragon of all that was good and beautiful, not a hypocrite.

    Someone like him was the most terrifying at times.

 Chapter 585: Ceremonial Rites (I)

    <h4>Chapter 585: Ceremonial Rites (I)</h4>

    Li Haoid in Panther¡¯s stomach¡ªthe dog¡¯s stomach was quite spacious and not that dirty. The dog had almost refined its organs to the point of being top-grade refined metal, so there wasn¡¯t much blood and other messiness to be found inside.

    The young man was still thinking of the Xus¡¯ treasury. Did he go in for one job and leave with the Windchaser Boot, or did he walk off with the whole bag? This was the greatest question on Li Hao¡¯s mind.

    If he swindled the duke just out of the Windchaser Boot, he¡¯d be exposed before a few days were up. On the other hand, that might be much safer and help him smoothly leave the duke¡¯s manor.

    At the same time, the duke was lending the boot with certain conditions. The snake king of the Kui Mountains wouldn¡¯t really send five Novas and it wouldn¡¯t possibly deliverrge quantities of Water of Life as interest. Li Hao¡¯s lies would be unmasked in a few days all the same.

    That would give him sufficient time to escape, though.

    <i>Do I take a risk, or do I take off after getting the Windchaser Boot? </i>Li Hao asked himself. There was no one else he could ask and Panther rolled around on the ground, possibly ufortable because there was someone in its stomach.

    <i>If the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor doesn¡¯t fall into disarray and I expose too many trump cards in the process of getting the Windchaser Boot... Xu Qing himself will probablye for me. Various eastern provinces are gathered here today, the duke wants me there probably to borrow my presence to intimidate them...</i>

    The duke wanted to utilize the Kui Mountains to intimidate certain people. The mountains were strong with one metamorphosis expert in the open and several more Novas. They also possessed a lot of Srs, making the mountains a force that regr provinces could not afford to provoke.

    <i>Intimidation... so this means that the Steadfast Duke doesn¡¯t have as strong a grip over the east as we think. Some of the attendees may even want to go against him.</i>

    <i>The greatest overlord of the east is the Xu family, but there also seems to be some families that rival them on equal terms. If the Xus could suppress everyone within the provinces, they would¡¯ve long dominated the region and proimed themselves king.</i>

    Various thoughts filtered through his mind as voices traveled in from outside.

    ¡°Announcing the director general of the Calm Borders provincial government!¡± There were personnel outside announcing the identity of each visitor. It was major powerhouses that came to the ceremonial rites. They naturally needed to be individually announced to demonstrate the duke¡¯s prestige and connections.

    Calm Borders was right beneath the duke¡¯s nose and naturally part of his camp. The director general was just decoration, but this decoration possessed a very high status. Out of the entire dynasty and millions of kilometers of territory, there were only ny-nine director generals. That this one hade so early was to show the duke face.

    Li Hao listened quietly and didn¡¯t react. Xu Xing had him resting here for a while, saying that someone would lead him to the proceedings in a while. ording to the young man¡¯s spections, the Xus might be waiting for everyone to arrive before bringing the monster spirit in, so as to catch some people off guard.

    ......

    <i>Outside the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor.</i>

    Cars continued to roll to a stop outside the front gates. Granted, there were those who didn''t walk like everyone else did. d in certain, those heavyweights came on horseback or rode in on monster spirits. Regardless, their stature was imposing.

    Some powerhouses came in directly on origin weapons. There were flying ships and carriages. Those assembled for the ceremony were strong and quite capable.

    Apart from Calm Borders, there were twenty provinces in the east. Each province held roughly one hundred million citizens and the eastern expanses were a richnd with dense mysterious power. There were more powerhouses in the eastern continent¡ªthe north could notpare. Apart from a few crafty old foxes in Silver Moon, the northern continent was indeed the weakest out of the four continents.

    Today, movers and shakers of the various eastern provinces were all gathered here. They hadn¡¯t necessarily sent their highest ranking officials or their strongest, but almost all of them were led by Novas, senior officials, or equally representative characters. It was a very strong turnout. Some provinces did send their highest ranking official.

    Changes abounded in the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor. Many powerhouses had died¡ªnine Novas were already dead. It made some provinces previously smothered underfoot stir with agitation. Some people wanted to take a look for themselves to see how much strength was left with the duke.

    Nine Novas was no small sum! Their weakest of Xu Feng was mid Nova. As solid as the Xu foundations were, losing so many heavyweights in such a short period of time made their losses greater than what Silver Moon had suffered in Silver Moon these days.

    <i>Outside the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor.</i>

    A small ck car slowly rolled to a stop. There were two upants aside from the driver¡ªone old, one middle-aged. The old man¡¯s hair was pure white and he showed his age. Beside him, the middle-aged man was healthy and moved with rippling muscles. They weren¡¯t too apparent beneath his military uniform.

    ¡°We¡¯re here, father,¡± the middle-aged man said lowly.

    The old man opened his eyes and looked outside at therge characters over the magnificent door. ¡°I wonder what Xu Qing¡¯s got up his sleeve today. Keep your ears sharp and don¡¯t speak too much when we enter in a moment.¡±

    ¡°I know, father.¡± The middle-aged man nodded.

    The two were from the province of Firebright, an exceedingly strong eastern province. Due to the prevalence of volcanoes within its borders, there was an abundance of strong fire supernaturals in Firebright. For that reason, Firebright had been a thorn in the Xu family¡¯s side for a very long time.

    The one in control of Firebright was different from the highest ranking official of any other province¡ªthe inspector general of the Inspectorate. He was the old man in the car and had fully grasped the province¡¯s military power a few decades ago.

    The old man had shed with Xu Qing many years back¡ªthe Xus also wanted to be rid of him. But the old man was strong and had long set foot in the supernatural domain. He was now a metamorphosis expert and a very strong fire supernatural. His battle strength was fearsome. He also had the extremely loyal Fire Troops beneath hismand. There were so many powerhouses that answered to his banner that the Xus didn¡¯t dare move against him.

    He was here in person for the ceremonial rites, but under heavy protest by the middle-aged man. Thetter hadn¡¯t been able to persuade the other, so he followed the old man to protect him.

    ¡°Father,¡± transmitted the middle-aged man when his father alighted. ¡°I¡¯m worried about the Xus suddenly moving against you. I should be here alone...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough, there¡¯s no need to cower all the time if we don¡¯t undertake anything major. As strong as the Xus are, it is an open ceremony today. They might wish to demonstrate their might, but they won¡¯t be starting anything in front of everyone else. They don¡¯t have the courage or the charisma to do so. Someone like Xu Qing will not be the first to step forward. Having only the eastern region be thrown in chaos and the rest of the world be fine is absolutely not what he wishes.¡±

    Not to mention, the old man wasn¡¯t Xu Qing¡¯s only rival present today. His son was thinking too much! There was no possibility at present for Xu Qing¡¯s desire to conquer the east.

    Such thoughts ran through the old man¡¯s mind, but he walked forward in silence. The servant at the front doors widened his eyes when he saw thetest visitor. ¡°Announcing the inspector general of the Firebright Inspectorate!¡±

    This was one promation that drew much attention. A few more powerhouses emerged behind the old man and looked toward the door when they heard the voice. Some were surprised by the old man¡¯s presence, others were amused. With this one here, they could adjust their actions to the situation.

    If they were to rise against the Xus, someone needed to be their leader. In the east, there were three factions who had sufficient qualification and strength to go directly against the Xus. The first was Firebright, the second was the province of East Pole.

    East Pole was another province of extensive territory and numerous people, one that powerhouses flocked to. Its governance system was different from regr provinces in that it was also ruled over by onerge family¡ªmuch like Calm Borders. Although its family wasn¡¯t as well known as the Steadfast Duke, they were also once the founding nobles of the dynasty.

    Apart from these two provinces, the third faction that could stand against the Xus was an organization known as Helios, not a province. Helios¡¯ tenure was second only to the three great organizations, but it hadn¡¯t grown as fast as the three. It was rooted in the east and was yet to expand to other areas. However, it was very strong in the east and had recruitedrge numbers of wandering cultivators. None of the three great organizations by themselves were rivals for Helios in the region.

    Helios members could be found throughout the area; some of them possessed startling backgrounds. It was rumored that some of the highest ranking border officials were part of its ranks. It received backing from many who grasped actual power. Just as the Xus secretly supported three great organizations, Helios also had more than its share of backers. Some provinces didn¡¯t dare oppose the Xus on the surface, but were in favor of Helios from the shadows in order to maintain their position.

    These years, the army of the Steadfast Duke focused on Helios members as their targets.

    The old man attracted a lot of attention as soon as he reached the door. Powerhouses from other provinces quickly trotted up to him from behind, greeting him warmly, ¡°Inspector General Yu is here as well! We would¡¯ve traveled with you had we known you wereing. We¡¯ll be safer with the inspector general around.¡±

    ¡°We can go back together.¡± The smiling old man turned with a nod.

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll have to impose ourselves on you!¡± The group of people chatted andughed at the door, hardly seeming like they were here to offer condolences.

    Xu Xing soon appeared and stered on a fake smile when he saw the old man. ¡°Inspector General Yu¡¯s here, pleasee in...¡± His smile vanished and sorrow took its ce. ¡°My brother has most unfortunately met with disaster. Thank you all for making the trip.¡±

    The speed with which he switched moods was startling. He smiled to express his friendliness and sorrow because his brother and nephew had lost their lives. It was a memorial ceremony today, so the proper tone had to be struck.

    ¡°My condolences!¡± sighed the old man as his smile disappeared as well. ¡°To think that Light Sword and the others would be so bold! Li Hao is so vicious as to force a kind soul like the Steadfast Duke to send off his own blood. We hope that the duke looks out for his health and lives long. Do not let this be his downfall!¡±

    <i>Hypocrite!</i> Xu Xing cursed inwardly. Living long wasn¡¯t sarcasm as even martial masters and supernaturals didn¡¯t necessarily live long. If one didn¡¯t resolve the issues of weak organs, sometimes one hundred years was the limit of one¡¯s lifespan. Thus, there was nothing wrong with these words, it was just displeasing when it came from this one¡¯s mouth.

    ¡°This way please, inspector general!¡± Xu Xing didn¡¯t want to say anything else.<i> You¡¯ll know in a bit! Even though the family¡¯s suffered a grave loss, we¡¯re still out of reach for you!</i>

    The Xus had been apprehensive before the arrival of the Kui Mountain monster spirits. But now if they reached an agreement with the mountains, there were plenty of major monster spirits that they could call on. Although the snake king was only a metamorphosis expert, its bloodline and body were formidable. That ced it beyond regr metamorphosis heavyweights.

    <i>Just you wait, we¡¯ll see if you can smile after you realize we¡¯ve struck a deal with the Kui Mountains!</i>

 Chapter 586: Ceremonial Rites (II)

    <h4>Chapter 586: Ceremonial Rites (II)</h4>

    The old man said nothing and strode forward with his son and powerhouses from other provinces. Servants from the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor led them to the Hall of Ancestors. At the doors, the speaker announcing the visitors hesitated and looked at Xu Xing. Did he announce the person who was in line in front of the old man¡¯s set?

    Xu Xing met the man¡¯s eyes and shook his head minutely. That visitor did not need to be proimed. His identity shouldn¡¯t be made public. Although everyone knew about him, no one would purposefully speak of him.

    A ferocious air wrapped around the person in question. Quite a few followed behind him in a haphazard fashion, but they looked to Big Beard as their leader. He was wearing a shortbat outfit and hadn¡¯t cleaned himself up for the asion. There were traces of blood on him as he said from far away, ¡°Is old man Steadfast Duke alright? That little brat Li Hao is entirely too bold! We¡¯ll find a chance to chop off his head and offer it to the young master!¡±

    His voice was so loud that it raised a lot of attention. Xu Xing barely managed to squeeze out a smile and stepped forward. ¡°Ind Master Hu is here! Pleasee in!¡±

    The big beard being identified as Ind Master Hu continued to boom in a loud voice, ¡°With the young master dead, that makes the second young master the little duke in the future! Congrattions!¡±

    Xu Xing frowned deeply. Even if everyone was thinking this, this was not the asion to say so. This guy was doing it on purpose, wasn¡¯t he?

    Granted, he didn¡¯t want to offend the guy. On the surface, Big Beard was the master of an ind in the East Sea. In reality, all eastern provincial powerhouses knew that was the leader of the strongest pirate crew in the East Sea, the equivalent of the Starlight Pirates in the North Sea. However, while the Starlight backers were mysterious, it was well-known that the Steadfast Duke backed the one in the East Sea.

    Despite that being open knowledge, the two sides hadn¡¯t been much in contact with each other before. Here the pirate was, showing up today!

    Some of the attendees were grave, some contemptuous, and others irate! The provinces along the coastline were often harassed by Big Beard and his men. That was inly under the duke¡¯s authorization as well then, meant to weaken them. Now as they saw Big Beard today, some folks itched to rush up and execute him!

    ¡°The Steadfast Duke really is... confused in his old age!¡± transmitted a few scornful powerhouses. ¡°These kinds of people can not be acknowledged in the open. He¡¯s summoned the Red Beard Pirates in order to exert his influence!¡±

    ¡°And what can you do about it? Red Beard is very strong. While he¡¯s an ind master of the East Sea on the surface, everyone knows that he¡¯s a pirate. But since the official authorities haven¡¯t identified him as such, he¡¯s still a decent citizen on the outside.¡±

    ¡°Red Beard is seriously bold toe on shore...¡±

    ¡°What, are <i>you</i> going to kill him?¡±

    The other speaker fell silent. Red Beard was incredibly strong and rumored to be at the metamorphosis level. He wasn¡¯t here alone¡ªseveral experts followed by his side. Who would dare ambush him under these circumstances? Not only would they possibly fail, but their actions might rouse the ire of the Steadfast Duke.

    ¡°Let¡¯s find a news agency to expose himter...¡±

    ¡°You first need to find one that¡¯s willing to publish the report. Besides, what will it matter if ordinary people know about his identity? What will that change?¡±

    All discussion came to a halt. Across the way, Red Beardughed heartily until one of his cultivators transmitted a few words.

    ¡°Men and gods alike shake with fury at the young master¡¯s death.¡± He reced his smile with a tragic expression. ¡°Heaven and earth weep at your loss. Please contain your sorrow, second young master. You cane to me to take your mind off things when you have time. Although the open water does not measure up to thend, everything can be found there. You can vent a thing or two...¡±

    He shed a meaningful smile that he quickly tucked away.

    A sorrowful Xu Xing pretended like he hadn¡¯t seen it and exchanged a few more pleasantries before Red Beard led his contingent inside. Various local officials followed after him, as well as some powerhouses with their identity concealed. They weren¡¯t announced either, but were carefully greeted by the second young master and shown inside.

    At the end of the line, some people dressed in ck robes with arge sun insignia on their chests walked in. Xu Xing¡¯s eyes widened¡ªHelios members! His family hadn¡¯t invited the organization, but here they were.

    That rounded out almost all of the factions in the entire eastern continent, aside from a very small handful. Even the three great organizations that the Xus were at odds with had sent representatives. It looked like they wanted to probe the depths of the Steadfast Duke¡¯s remaining strength.

    Xu Xing greeted thest of the visitors all the same and surreptitiously set watchers on them, before showing them in himself.

    ......

    Li Hao was watching from a distance, counting the visitors one by one. <i>So many powerhouses! </i>he registered with shock. Almost all twenty-one provinces, including Calm Borders, had sent Novas. Various organizations headquartered in those provinces had also sent representatives, which meant some provinces had sent more than one Nova!

    Counting all of the attendees made Li Hao¡¯s head ache. There were <i>thirty-two</i> Novas here! That was incredibly frightening! The Steadfast Duke himself already possessed many Novas¡ªhis three generals, two stewards, and some resident experts sported balls of light around them. That was almost a dozen to the young man¡¯s eyes. Added to that martial masters that did not possess balls of light... There were almost fifty Novas gathered here!

    This was mind-numbingly terrifying!

    Of course, this wasn¡¯t the result of one faction, but a gathering of all of the elites in the entire eastern expanse. There were more provinces in the east than in the north. If one Silver Moon could produce so many experts beyond Nova, this sum of Novas was only normal given the dense concentration of mysterious power in the east.

    <i>As they say, we have to travel through the world to understand how tall the skies are and how vast the earth is...</i>

    He¡¯d wanted to outright seize the Windchaser Boots before! With all these heavyweights present, it might be easier to ascend to the heavens instead. While they weren¡¯t part of the Xu banner, they would leap to defend the duke in order to curry favor. Having been local overlords for so long, the Xus wouldn¡¯t be enemies with all of the factions in their domain. At least a third of the provinces supported them, if not half. The duke wouldn¡¯t nurse the goal of conquering the east, otherwise.

    But with so many present, it made Li Hao hesitate. Perhaps deception was more suited for the asion. Ah, whatever, he¡¯d adjust his actions based on what he saw. He wasn¡¯t sure what these people had in mind. If <i>they</i> attacked the Xus instead... that was perfect, he could fish in troubled waters.

    ¡°Envoy, the ceremony is about to begin.¡± The feminine second steward knocked on the door at this time. ¡°The second young master invites the envoy to attend the proceedings in the Hall of Ancestors. What might the envoy...¡±

    ¡°Coming!¡± Panther rose when the door opened automatically.

    Led by the second steward, one man and one dog proceeded toward the Hall of Ancestors. It wasn¡¯t too far as it was also in theplex. Li Hao sensed various strong presences churning in the distance before he arrived. There really were a lot of powerhouses present.

    Outsiders could not enter the Hall of Ancestors during the family¡¯s ceremonies. They all waited outside, but were seated in chairs. The times were not as they once were and some customs had fallen out of practice. If the royal family still ruled the world, these people would have to stand as they came to offer their condolences.

    These days, instead, there were seats for the most important personages. Those deemed unimportant still stood.

    The doors to the Hall of Ancestors were open and quite a few Xus inside. There were many concubine-born descendants apart from Xu Qing and Xu Xing, and the duke had his siblings as well. They were less well-known, so no one cared about them.

    The hall teemed with Xu family members. Only on an asion like this did one discover that a family with two hundred years of history was quite enormous. Since they didn¡¯t practice monogamy, many of the Xu men took concubines and multiple wives. Some had two dozen children, so it was standing room only for the men inside the hall. There were likely many who didn¡¯t even have the right to enter the hall.

    Panther¡¯s appearance immediately became the center of attention. Expressions shifted minutely. <i>Monster spirit!</i>

    Whether it was those from the Firebright or East Pole provinces, everyone was surprised. First it was pirates, now it was monster spirits... The Steadfast Duke was brazen in his doings! Where had this monster spirite from? It was only a mediocre Sr. Of those present, no one was below Sr, apart from Xu family members.

    Panther sauntered cockily down the path, arrogance dripping from every pore. It was actually almost weak at the knees¡ªas was Li Hao. There were so many powerhouses here!

    Of course it would go weak at the knees when stared at by so many people. But as a descendant of an ancient monster spirit and one who¡¯d seen great asions like these, a domineering act was called for. As Panther trembled, Li Hao sted out with a mental ripple, ¡°What are you all looking at, imbeciles?! I¡¯ll scratch you blind if you keep looking!¡±

    Some expressions shifted drastically at that! Many people turned to the second steward, waiting for the Xus to react. On the Xu side, Xu Xing quickly walked out of the hall, inwardly berating himself for forgetting how cocky the monster spirit was. Although it was only a Sr, its arrogance knew no bounds!

    The family knew the inside story and why it was so conceited, but not everyone would. If someone not in the know grew enraged enough to kill the monster spirit, then the family would be in grave trouble.

    ¡°Please excuse us, everyone.¡± He swiftly walked forward with apologetic smiles. ¡°The monster spirit envoy has different customs from us humans. He doesn¡¯t mean to give offense... Allow me to introduce the dragon god envoy from the Kui Mountains! Not only is the envoy representing the Kui Mountain monster spirits, but it is the descendant of an invincible existence with a noble status of its own!¡±

    <i>Kui Mountain monster spirits! </i>Although some in the crowd had guessed at the truth, since there were only so many sources of monster spirits in the east, thest sentence was rather confusing. What descendant of an invincible existence? What kind of existence warranted such an introduction?

    Within the crowd, Red Beard¡¯s eyes shifted rapidly and he blustered, ¡°Second young master, who dares call himself invincible in this day and age?¡±

    ¡°Hmph!¡± Li Hao snorted. ¡°Shut up, red hair trash!¡±

    Red Beard glowered ominously!

    ¡°Please be at peace, envoy and Ind Master Hu!¡± Xu Xing hastily cautioned with great pain. ¡°This one is the descendant of an ancient monster spirit, does everyone understand? An ancient bloodline runs in its veins and its ancestor is still alive!¡±

    <i>Do you all understand now?</i>

 Chapter 587: Ceremonial Rites (III)

    <h4>Chapter 587: Ceremonial Rites (III)</h4>

    Expressions shifted after Xu Xing¡¯s exnation, including Red Beard. Was this true? Everyone present was a notable figure, they naturally grasped the meaning of the second young master¡¯s words. People rocked back on their heels with incredulity. How was it possible that a monster spirit from the ancient times was still alive?? That was an untold number of years!

    Dynasties rose and fell, seas changed into mulberry fields and mulberry fields into seas, and it¡¯d been less than twenty years since the rise of the supernatural. Whenpared to the ancient monster spirits... Everyone was well aware that those who were still alive now would be terrifying beyond belief.

    However, they still found it hard to believe! Were the Xus just scaring them? Had they scrounged up a minor monster spirit from somewhere to fool them, so that the family could subdue all sides?

    As strong as the Kui Mountains were, it wasn¡¯t that those assembled couldn¡¯t afford to offend one metamorphosis expert and a couple of Novas. Sure, that was frightening, but the presence of an ancient monster spirit made the Kui Mountains too horrifying to provoke!

    Even Red Beard fell silent, but he was skeptical. He nced at Xu Xing, not knowing if the man was just bluffing or speaking the truth. And were descendants of ancient monster spirits supposed to be this weak? This one was only mid Sr!

    He wasn¡¯t afraid of the Kui Mountains since he was also a metamorphosis level expert. He could just flee to the seas if he killed this monster spirit. The mountains were ofnd¡ªif the monster spirits dared enter the sea, he would let them know that the East Sea was an entirely different proposition tond.

    But if there was a surviving ancient monster spirit... then he would not court death either.

    Li Hao was equally apprehensive in this gathering, but heposed himself when Xu Xing started paving the way for him.

    ¡°Listen up,¡± he announced in a newly arrogant voice. ¡°Those of the Kui Mountains are about to enter the world again. You humans will listen to us or taste the wrath of the monster spirits!¡±

    Fury dawned on some faces while Xu Xing inwardly cried with agony.

    ¡°Envoy,¡± he transmitted. ¡°The customs of humans are different from monster spirits. There is no need for the Kui Mountains to provoke so many people and there¡¯s no need for you to go toe-to-toe with them for anything...

    ¡°Most of these people respect the mountains, but there are a few who regrly speaks ill of your home. The fiery old man is a powerhouse from Firebright province. His name is Yu Qiao and he¡¯s so bad that he can¡¯t be spoken of!

    ¡°The one wearing a small crown is the eldest son of the East Pole Duke in the East Pole province. That duke once said that he will exterminate the Kui Mountain monster spirits sooner orter...

    ¡°The one in ck robes with the emblem of arge sun is from the Helios organization. They¡¯ve secretly killed many monster spirits as well...¡±

    Xu Xing suddenly had the inspiration of setting the monster spirit on their enemies. This monster spirit loved to run its mouth, so it¡¯d be best if it offended all of these factions to a point beyond salvage. At that point, the monster spirits would have no choice but to partner with the Xus.

    It¡¯d be even better if they started fighting on the scene. That would give the monster spirit a taste of hardship. The Xus could then step forward to alleviate the situation and save the monster spirit. That would make the circumstances more meaningful.

    Quite a few thoughts swiftly ran through Xu Xing¡¯s mind, while Li Hao grasped an equal degree of understanding. These three must be feuding with the Steadfast Duke. This was good!

    ¡°You there!¡± Panther turned toward the old man with white hair. ¡°Little Xingxing says that you said you¡¯ll exterminate monster spirits! You¡¯ve got some balls! This king would like to see how strong you are to be so cocky!¡±

    Xu Xing blinked, then cursed to himself. <i>Fuck! I didn¡¯t tell you to say it out loud! Did it do so on purpose or is it really such a bbermouth? I wouldn¡¯t have said anything if I¡¯d known beforehand.</i>

    Although he knew the truth that not everyone was friendly with each other, that was all under the table. No one was openly hostile to another party. But thanks to the dog, everyone knew that it was the Xus stirring up trouble from the shadows¡ªwell, more like openly stirring up trouble.

    The second young master felt overwhelming regret. He wasn¡¯t afraid of the consequences, but the circumstances were too awkward and too embarrassing. There was nothing he wanted to do more than to crawl into a hole after his tant machinations were revealed.

    ¡°And that monkey!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t let up. ¡°When there is no dragon god in the mountain, the monkey proims himself king!¡± [1]

    The eldest son of the East Pole Duke nced wordlessly at Xu Xing. Yu Qiao also frowned, but didn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°And the fellow with the red dot around your chest.¡± Li Hao then turned to the Helios member. ¡°How dare you secretly kill monster spirits! This king will tell the dragon god when I return to the mountains. We¡¯ll take care of you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Xu Xing waspletely dead on the inside and he hastily said, ¡°The envoy is quick of word and mouth, he speaks what his heart thinks! Don¡¯t misunderstand, everyone, it¡¯s just a joke...¡±

    Everyone in the crowd looked at him, with some cursing to themselves. <i>Misunderstand? A joke? Any fool can tell that this is a result of you transmitting something to the monster spirit. It¡¯s not the sharpest, so it talked about everything you told it.</i>

    The three factions that were mentioned were quietly contemting the situation. Some were thinking of the implications of the Xus working with the Kui Mountains. Others were secretly plotting murder. The monster spirit came with quite a background. It¡¯d be interesting if it died in the Xu manor.

    Xu Xing didn¡¯t look like he was putting on an act. He really did seem fearful and resigned toward the golden monster spirit. That was proof of its umon background. If it died here, would that sour rtions between the duke and the Kui Mountains?

    Killing intent briefly shed through certain people, but Li Hao could sense it. He blinked, then thought of the reason why. <i>Someone wants to kill me...</i>

    The Xus certainly wouldn¡¯t want him to die here. They were certain of his identity and would sooner let Xu Xing die than himself. Otherwise, unimaginable vengeance would be upon them. They would protect him if he shed with the visitors, wouldn¡¯t they?

    Despite the thoughts, Li Hao¡¯s heart quailed. What an... exciting feeling! He would be done for if the Xus didn¡¯t care about him, but if they did and truly protected him, then things would be interesting then. Perhaps he could create a massive disturbance by himself. Those three parties probably all wanted to kill him and pin it on the Xus, but didn¡¯t dare do so openly. Therefore, those impulses could only remain mental thoughts.

    But what if he taunted them and created some confusion?

    Numerous ideas floated into his mind to be dismissed equally quickly. It wasn¡¯t a good idea to be so obvious. At the very least, he hadn¡¯t seen the Windchaser Boots yet. He had to see them first and confirm they were real before taking such action. Otherwise, it wouldn¡¯t be appropriate for him to do so.

    Xu Xing led him to a special seat¡ªnot a chair, but a golden cushion on the ground. It looked like something the family had produced overnight. Panther sprawledzily on it, finding it quitefortable.

    The rest of the gathering looked at the dog, to which Xu Xing heaved a sigh of relief. All was well so long as the monster spirit didn¡¯t say a word. He could just be a backdrop to intimidate everyone with.

    ¡°Envoy, then I shall head into the hall first to host the ceremony...¡± he transmitted to Li Hao.

    Panther waved an impatient w; the man swiftly disappeared inside the Hall of Ancestors. Li Hao brazenly extended his consciousness into the hall, prompting startled nces from many. How bold! But the Xus turned a blind eye or tacitly permitted the monster spirit to do as it would. This was further confirmation that the monster spirit was of a noble identity, that it dared and was allowed to probe the Xu Hall of Ancestors at this time.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t see the Windchaser Boots after making a circle of the hall. There was something like an offering table in the back of the hall. Judging from its shape, this was where the Windchaser Boots were normally offered. At the moment, there was nothing on it.

    Didn¡¯t they say that the Xus would offer up the boots for three days at their ceremony? Were they not doing so this time?

    Xu Xing put everything out of his mind and proimed in tragically modted tones, reciting words of mourning with fury and anguish. ¡°Oh venerated ancestors above, the Xu family has a heritage of hundreds of years and bend ourselves to the utmost for country, for nation, for people, for the world. We do not rest until we are met with death, but my eldest brother Xu Zhen died woefully in the hands of Silver Moon malefactors. We are even met with those who betrayed us and killed our generals...¡±

    Each and every single word brought tears to the eyes of those listening. Li Hao and Light Sword were naturally the viins and murderers he spoke of. Those outside listened with immense sorrow. Some lowered their heads with a sigh, others clenched their teeth with fury. Only they themselves were privy to how genuine their emotions were.

    ¡°Your descendants were unfilial and had our heritage treasure be seized by the viins. We are ashamed of this and will return with it...¡± Xu Xing continued as a disturbance sounded outside the hall.

    Li Hao blinked when he looked back. An old man was striding toward the hall¡ªlogically speaking, he should not appear at the memorial rites of his son and grandson, yet here Xu Qing was. Several formidable generals followed by his side.

    He held up a boot in his hands and walked forward with it raised high. His expression was coldly stern as he approached the Hall of Ancestors.

    ¡°Descendant Xu Qing is ipetent and has lost face for the ancestors!¡± His voice carried out. ¡°We have lost one of the Windchaser Boots and have only one left! We were too ashamed to offer it and bring further humiliation down on our ancestors, but the Xus stand erect in the east and will rise after our shame! As the ancestors be our witness, we will take back the other boot, hunt down our enemies, and clear our name!¡±

    He respectfully ced the boot on the offering table, drawing bright-eyed looks from many present. Li Hao was even more direct and sent his consciousness toward it! No one followed suit, but he wasn¡¯t afraid. Xu Qing seemed to have expected it and didn¡¯t stop the monster spirit. He knew that it wouldn¡¯t be able to help itself when the boot appeared. This was why it was here.

    Li Hao hastily inspected it¡ªhe really was afraid of carrying off a replica. How nice was this, he could take his time inspecting it in the open. Regr people wouldn¡¯t be able to determine if it was real or not, but he had the other one. All he had to do was topare their internal energy¡ªthat was a characteristic very hard to fake.

    All the same, it was difficult toe to a conclusion. He brusquely transmitted to Xu Qing, ¡°You are the Steadfast Duke? The item is too far away from me. Can this king personally inspect it to see if it is what the Kui Mountains needs?¡±

    ¡°Naturally,¡± Xu Qing responded via transmission without a flicker of change in his expression. ¡°But please wait a moment, envoy. You can inspect it when the ceremony is over.¡±

    As eager as Li Hao was, he held himself in check at this moment. Then he would wait!

    1. In Chinese, ¡°the eldest son of the duke¡± can be turned into the characters for ¡°monkey¡± when the character for ¡°eldest¡± is removed. ?

 Chapter 588: Demon Sword Erupts in All Directions (I)

    <h4>Chapter 588: Demon Sword Erupts in All Directions (I)</h4>

    Countless notions floated to the fore of Li Hao¡¯s mind. The Steadfast Duke and his people knew full well that the Kui Mountains wished to work with them, so they probably wouldn¡¯t falsify anything with the boots. Should he take it as soon as he confirmed it was real? Or should he wait?

    Endless ideas flowed through him as Li Hao kept a firm grip on his impatience. He focused on observing everyone else¡¯s supernatural ripples instead. Some people¡¯s energy was undting fiercely¡ªthey looked to be very worked up. If it wasn¡¯t for the Xus being so domineering, someone would¡¯ve portably already made a move for the treasure.

    ......

    Not only was Li Hao staring at the Windchaser Boot, but so were the powerhouses outside the Hall of Ancestors. While they didn¡¯t dare send their consciousness to scan it, a light glittered in their eyes as they stared fixedly at the item. This item was rumored to be one of the treasures of the eight families!

    Some of the effects of Li Hao¡¯s divine sword had be known to the world. Countless people were tempted by it. If the Windchaser Boots were part of that group, would they contain the same abilities?

    Yu Qiao suddenly furrowed his brows as he looked at the boot. He sensed an extremely provocative mental ripple around him. The old man tilted his head to see the enormous golden dog looking at him with a vicious look. It even addressed Yu Qiao, ¡°What do you think you¡¯re looking at?? The Xus have decided to give the boot to the Kui Mountains, so stop drooling over it!¡±

    Yu Qiao raised an eyebrow. Not only did he hear these words, but so did other people around them. They were surprised, but didn¡¯t say anything.

    So this was the case! The Xus had traded the Windchaser Boot for a partnership with the monster spirits. No wonder the family hadn¡¯t reacted earlier, this was the truth behind the scenes.

    A variety of thoughts filtered through Yu Qiao¡¯s mind. If the Kui Mountains needed the item, what if it was lost? And what if this monster spirit died? Wouldn¡¯t that destroy the basis of cooperation between the Xus and the Kui Mountains, and also cause the Xus to suffer monster spirit rage?

    Various trains of thought flooded his mind. They could never let this partnership solidify! There were too many monster spirits in the Kui Mountains as well as ancient monster spirits. If this came to pass, then the rest of them would only be able to bow their heads to their overlords. Resistance would be impossible!

    He looked at the eldest son of the East Pole Duke and the vice head from Helios. The three locked gazes, reading each other¡¯s intentions from their eyes. This cooperation could not be permitted to seed, or there would no longer be a ce for them in the east!

    ......

    In the Hall of Ancestors, the Xus continued their derations of revenge through gritted teeth. That they had brought shame to their ancestors was repeated ad nauseam before they recounted the illustrious family history and future aspirations. The Steadfast Duke had lost a son and grandson, but the memorial ceremony was being held like a rally to pledge resolution before a war.

    Such were the methods of a politician. If they didn¡¯t make use of the dead to publicize the Xu family philosophy, then that death would be an utter waste!

    Those outside listened quietly; no one raised a word of protest. After one long hour, wails and sobs finally sounded in the hall as the Xus began mourning Xu Zhen and his son. What might the father and son duo think if they were still alive?

    The crying signaled that the memorial was pretty much at an end. Li Hao had been long shifting with impatience. He transmitted to Xu Qing when he saw the man rx, ¡°Steadfast Duke, this king can take a look at it now, can¡¯t I? This king has waited for so long and must have an answer to whether it is real or not. Stop wasting my time if it¡¯s useless!¡±

    Xu Qing inwardly cursed to himself. This golden dog possessed absolutely no manners! It¡¯d been a very long time since anyone had dared be so impudent to the overlord of the east. Not even Yu Qiao and the others standing below dared talk to him in this manner.

    ¡°You can,¡± he transmitted in response after some thought. ¡°But... does the envoy have a way to determine if it is useful or not?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Li Hao dismissed arrogantly. ¡°It¡¯s a small matter, I just need to influence the core origin power inside. Of course, none of you guys understand this. This king will know if it¡¯s useful or not with one nce. Why do you think I am the envoy and none of the other monster spirits?¡±

    <i>That may be true, but the key point was that none of the other monster spirits were as arrogant as you!</i> It looked like the Kui Mountains snake king was also borrowing this monster spirit¡¯s identity to intimidate the Steadfast Duke. Otherwise, the duke would more likely than not refuse to lend out the Windchaser Boot to any other monster spirit that came.

    Xu Qing wasn¡¯t a benevolent sort, he transmitted again, ¡°If this boot is confirmed to be real and useful for the dragon god¡¯s ascension, can we trouble the envoy to say a few words?¡±

    ¡°What words?¡±

    ¡°An announcement dering the alliance between the Kui Mountains and the Steadfast Duke, that the Kui Mountains are willing to send out their monster spirits to help the duchy pacify eastern unrest.¡± Xu Qing needed a public deration of intent. Not only that, but he added, ¡°We also need a batch of Water of Life. We will lend the Windchaser Boot to the dragon god for free and trade mysterious power stones or other treasures for the Water of Life. It would be even better if the envoy is willing to trade what you have on hand. We have urgent need of vast quantities of Water of Life!¡±

    ¡°You want to trade that trash?¡± Li Hao asked with distaste.

    ¡°We have better offerings than what the envoy saw in the treasury. The mysterious power stones are of higher quality and are not the ones that you saw.¡±

    ¡°Then that will do, this is a small matter. General Oak just needs to absorb some energy to produce Water of Life. That¡¯s very simple... I thought it was somethingplicated.¡±

    <i>General Oak! </i>That was probably the ancient nt spirit¡¯s name. So it¡¯d been a general back in the day? The golden monster spirit spoke so easily of creating Water of Life. So it seemed that the ancient records were true¡ªthe stronger the nt spirit, the easier it was to produce Water of Life.

    Xu Qing envied the arrangement. What a pity there was no nt spirit at hisplex!

    All factions should possess some Water of Life, but most of it came from reserves found in ruins or dregs located within withered nt spirits. No one had an unending source from a living origin.

    The duke was quite excited by the notion as arge quantity of Water of Life was very useful to enhance the five organs. He wouldn¡¯t have to just save it for critical moments! If he could fully unseal his battle strength in a few quick days, who in the eastern provinces would still be his match?

    ¡°Today, we hold a memorial for my son...¡± After Xu Qing concluded his discussions with Li Hao, he looked outside the Hall of Ancestors. ¡°I should not be saying anything at this point, but the dragon god envoy from the Kui Mountains has arrived and has matters to announce to everyone. Pleasee forward, dragon envoy...¡±

    Panther strutted his way into the hall with a graceful swagger. The powerhouses remaining outside watched with glittering looks. Had the partnership been agreed upon? But they were in the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor, this was not a ce to start things.

    Yu Qiao and the others contemted ambushing the golden monster spirit outside the city. There was no need to take action here. It would be a chaotic melee if they did anything in theplex. All sorts of powerhouses were present¡ªsupporters of both sides, undered third parties, and other affiliated organizations. It would be a massive affair if a fight broke out and the truth hard to conceal otherwise.

    They had to exit the city if they wished to kill the golden monster spirit. The group would find a deste location and kill the Xu escorts as well!

    It was a given that the duke would send an escort with the golden monster spirit when it left. Xu Qing was no fool and wouldn¡¯t give them a chance to do anything. It was down to a matter of who was stronger and made the better preparations. This was a game of strategy between the two sides, and the golden monster spirit¡¯s survival the key condition of winning.

    ......

    Li Hao touched the Windchaser Boot through Panther, sending a tendril of mind intent into it. A faint wisp of sword energy flowed into the item through the dog, eliciting a minute tremble from the boot. It was real! It looked like the duke hadn¡¯t dared bring out a fake.

    Xu Qing¡¯s eyelid twitched when he saw the boot tremble; he was secretly shocked. Even he was unable to fully manipte the Windchaser Boot! He could somewhat direct its power, but this ancient monster spirit could arouse a reaction from it with the slightest move. A heritage that went back far was mighty indeed.

    ¡°Not bad, it does have core origin power,¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice rang in his ears. ¡°But it¡¯s not that dense... probably because it¡¯s not aplete pair. This is good enough, though! So this king will be taking it!¡±

    ¡°Envoy!¡± Xu Qing¡¯s eyes widened, startled. It was taking the boot, just like that?

    ¡°What?¡± Li Hao¡¯s tone turned unfriendly. ¡°You said you would lend it to us. Are you going back on your word?¡±

    ¡°No... It¡¯s just... Envoy... ording to custom... We need to present this in the hall for three days...¡±

    ¡°So what? This king will look after it. Who knows if you¡¯ll swap it out for a fake when this king isn¡¯t looking? They all say that humans are crafty¡ªnot I, but my ancestor!¡± Li Hao thought a bit more. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, this king will announce the alliance between you and the Kui Mountains right now. Even if I leave now with the Windchaser Boot, you will not be worse off since you have the promise of alliance as made by this king!¡±

    Xu Qing was conflicted by the exchange, but it did make sense. However... it was still ufortable to watch his family heritage treasure being taken away in front of his eyes.

    ¡°Are you willing?¡± Li Hao¡¯s tone turned even more unfriendly. ¡°Then forget it! I¡¯ll leave this here and the Kui Mountains can search for another divine weapon. We¡¯lle back for another look if we can¡¯t find one, but it might not be this king thates next time!¡±

    Panther threw down the boot. Xu Qing shifted it back to an upright position. Though he was torn, he quickly said, ¡°No, you misunderstand, envoy. That is not my meaning. I am just regretful that I cannot lend the full set to the dragon god.¡±

    ¡°This king understands, the other is in that Light Sword¡¯s hands. All of it will be the dragon god¡¯s sooner orter. So long as the dragon god sessfully ascends, that Light Sword is as good as dead!¡±

    Xu Qing could onlyfort himself with these words. Light Sword had taken one boot and not paid anything in return. Instead, she¡¯d killed a lot of his people. Now the other was being traded for immense support from a massive faction... That was good, this was no loss.

    <i>Don¡¯t me me, ancestors above. This is for the family¡¯s future. When the Xus fullye into our own and conquer the world, we¡¯ll have our share of whatever treasures we wish. I¡¯m sure you won¡¯t censure us then.</i>

 Chapter 589: Demon Sword Erupts in All Directions (II)

    <h4>Chapter 589: Demon Sword Erupts in All Directions (II)</h4>

    Li Hao directed Panther to open its mouth and swallow the Windchaser Boot. Xu Qing watched it disappear with a pang to his heart. It was gone!

    Xu Xing also watched with reluctance. Their family¡¯s heritage treasure... waspletely gone! While the monster spirits spoke of returning it, reality might be entirely different. Since the family had lent it out, they should expect to not see it again. That made this an easier pill to swallow. Constantly being concerned about it made for continual difort.

    Those outside also saw the scene¡ªYu Qiao and the others looked on with solemnity.

    ¡°Then this king will go outside to announce the news,¡± Li Hao transmitted. ¡°You want to intimidate those fellows, don¡¯t you? That¡¯s easy enough. How dare they insult monster spirits! I will be sure to tell the ancestor when I return to the Kui Mountains and let these humans know right now that monster spirits are not to be insulted!¡±

    Now that sounded much more pleasing to the ear.

    Panther sauntered outside. In its stomach, Li Hao held both boots and thought for a bit before shoving them on his feet. Not only that, but he hesitated before transmitting to Panther, ¡°Panth, I... want to do something pretty far out in a second. I want to rip through your stomach, so you¡¯ll suffer some heavy injuries. I¡¯ll give you more energy after that¡¯s done, what do you say?¡±

    Panther¡¯s eyes widened! <i>You... want to kill this dog?</i>

    ¡°Pretend like you¡¯ve been ambushed by someone, do you understand? When your stomach is opened, activate your bloodline power and spontaneously erupt with strength. Attack Yu Qiao or the young master of the East Pole Duke. After that, you can feign an inability to match them and be beaten back...¡± Li Hao rapidly sketched the instructions for putting on a show. He wanted to create a massive disturbance.

    The young man guessed that these people wouldn¡¯t necessarily do anything here, but also that he himself wouldn¡¯t be able to retreat if he didn¡¯t do anything. They might way him outside the duke¡¯s territory. Meanwhile, the duke would send him back with an escort. The situation would be tricky to maneuver around then. The Steadfast Duke wouldn¡¯t let him go back alone.

    Once they reached the mountains, despite the big snake being willing to help, Li Hao didn¡¯t want to create greater trouble for the snake. His previous thoughts had been that having the help of a major monster spirit was for the best. What did the life or death of a monster spirit have to do with him?

    But the great snake had helped maintain the integrity of his cover¡ªthere was a tie of connection between them. Therefore, Li Hao had to reveal his identity before he left. He needed to ensure that his actions would not affect the Kui Mountains, that he was just borrowing their name. Once he exposed himself, everyone would know that all of this had nothing to do with the mountain.

    That would also prevent trouble from descending upon the Kui Mountains.

    Be it humans or monster spirits, Li Hao¡¯s principles were the same.<i> I help you, you help me. </i>Since the big snake was willing to help him, then he could not bring annihtion down on its head.

    Panther wasn¡¯t very willing.

    ¡°There¡¯s enough sword energy!¡± Li Hao transmitted.

    Panther was still conflicted.

    ¡°I won¡¯t ride you next time, you can ride me instead...¡±

    The dog¡¯s eyes brightened. Now that was more like it! As scary as ripping apart the stomach sounded, monster spirits possessed durable bodies. Hence, it wasn¡¯t outside the realm of consideration.

    ¡°I¡¯ll use Water of Life to heal your wounds.¡±

    Panther had no more objections after thetest suggestion. With that, Li Hao understood that the dog had agreed.

    ¡°Walk closer to them!¡±

    Panther strutted its way to those assembled outside, toes high and nose in the air¡ªthe very picture of unbridled arrogance.

    ¡°The Kui Mountains monster spirits are willing to officially ally with the Steadfast Duke!¡± Li Hao expressed through mental ripples. ¡°When this king returns to the mountains, the dragon god will immediately send out five Novas, one hundred Srs, and a thousand monster spirits beneath Sr to assist the duke in Calm Borders!¡±

    A variety of expressions flickered across faces at his words. Some beamed from ear to ear! Those people were certainly from the duke¡¯s faction. They were all in good spirits upon hearing the golden dog¡¯s words. Five Novas, one hundred Srs, and a thousand other monster spirits... that was enough.

    ¡°Not only that,¡± Li Hao continued bluffing. ¡°But the Kui Mountains will supply the Steadfast Duke with five hundred drops of Water of Life every year...¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Everyone jerked with surprise; the duke¡¯s heart skipped a beat. He almost burst out with curses in his surprise. <i>You don¡¯t need to talk about that! We¡¯ll be targeted for our riches now that you have! This will result in unexpected trouble on our heads!</i>

    But he quickly thought of another possibility¡ªthis might actually be a good development. He wouldn¡¯t need to be wary of too much with the Kui Mountains supporting him. This might even be a good opportunity to recruit some people¡ªthose premier heavyweights! After all, five hundred drops of Water of Life was an astronomical figure!

    Yu Qiao and the others looked very unpleasantly. Was the monster spirit joking with the number of five hundred drops? Was it bluffing? If this was true, what was the point of fighting anymore?

    Yu Qiao despaired¡ªwhy had the Kui Mountains suddenly appeared on the scene? Judging from the looks of things, they really did have support from ancient monster spirits, and more than one at that. Damn it, why??

    The Xus were hotly ambitious and the rest of them just wanted to protect themselves. Was there anything wrong with that? Why must they be treated in this manner?

    Yu Qiao wasn¡¯t willing to ede to fate, but there was nothing he could do. The only decision he could make was that the monster spirit had to die here. Even if he himself died in Calm Borders during the attempt, he needed to preserve an avenue of retreat and spark of hope for Firebright province.

    As Yu Qiao made ruthless ns for the immediate future, the eldest son of the East Pole Duke was likewise immensely grave. The golden monster spirit pranced beside them and looked at them sideways with quite some arrogance.

    ¡°You humans better not think of overturning this partnership. It¡¯s impossible! This king is no fool. There may be humans who wish to kill me, but there will be powerhouses from the Kui Mountains soon to wee me back...¡±

    The Steadfast Duke was starting to find this behavior untoward. There was also a thing called too much arrogance! This kind of talk would easily infuriate Yu Qiao and the others. They might put their lives on the line and fight to the death if pushed too far. It was enough to just intimidate them¡ªeven rabbits scratched and bit when they were backed against a wall.

    The duke¡¯s expression changed midway through his thoughts. It was fast¡ªso fast that he didn¡¯t see anything before the golden monster spirit cried out with anguish and clutched its stomach. A bloody mark had appeared andrge quantities of blood gushed out!

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± An anguished cry rang through the air. An enormous monster spirit manifested, its presence ferocious like it was a giant primordial beast.

    ¡°Ancient monster spirit...¡± gasped someone in the crowd.

    ¡°Damn you all!¡± Li Hao rasped. ¡°How dare you ambush one of a noble ancient bloodline!¡±

    <i>ROAR!</i>

    The roar shook heaven and earth as Panther mmed a paw down on Yu Qiao. The man was actually in an incredulous daze himself. Who¡¯d done it? They were very bold! But there was no time to consider that much. Something had happened to the monster spirit, it was attacking him, and the Steadfast Duke would never let him go for this even if he wasn¡¯t behind it!

    ¡°Kill!¡± he shouted and punched Panther. ¡°Xu Qing wishes to capture all of us in one fell swoop. He is colluding with monster spirits and pirates. Kill him!¡±

    The crowd milled about restlessly. The eldest son of the East Pole Duke clenched his jaw and strode through the air, a spear materializing in his hands to stab toward Panther! The Helios representatives also made up their minds in a series of flickering expressions. This partnership could not be allowed to seed!

    ¡°This king will remember you guys!¡± Li Hao snarled. ¡°Firebright, East Pole, Helios... Await your destruction! The Kui Mountains will avenge this slight unto the death!¡±

    The Steadfast Duke was watching the proceedings with horror. He still couldn¡¯t determine who it was that had attacked the golden monster spirit. Were there powerhouses acting from the shadows?! And yet, now wasn¡¯t the time for an investigation.

    ¡°You bastard!¡± The duke punched at Yu Qiao¡¯s group, his presence soaring to the sky. ¡°How dare you! Everyone, help me capture these cretins!¡±

    Although he was concerned about experts hidden in the dark, he couldn¡¯t very well watch the monster spirit die in front of him. He wouldn¡¯t be able to shoulder the responsibilities if that happened! How had a simple show of strength turned into this... It was shocking that Yu Qiao and the others were so bold as to attack at this time!

    Perhaps they weren¡¯t the ones behind the initial attack, but they made their moves as soon as it was injured. It was in to see that they¡¯d already decided to kill the golden dog.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Powerful presences erupted in all directions. There were so many that the earth started shaking. Countless buildings around the hall were leveled and various powerhouses of other provinces were also buffeted by the winds. Some were frightened, others were grave.

    Who should they help? Do they help the Steadfast Duke or Yu Qiao and the others?

    ¡°Stand with us!¡± Yu Qiao shouted. ¡°Do you think Xu Qing will show you mercy if we die? The Xus are ruthlessly ambitious and have long wanted to conquer the east. All of us will die unless we be their dogs! Use this opportunity to kill this monster spirit! The Kui Mountains won¡¯t know the truth! It will be the death of the Xus when the ancient monster spiritse for them!¡±

    Some among the crowd were tempted by the words; a dark shadow shed toward Panther. It was obstructed by other powerhouses in the next second.

    ¡°You bastard Yu Qiao!¡± Xu Qing roared. ¡°You will die today!¡±

    Damn it! Everything had been going so well, but this imbecile dared mess everything up for him!

    ¡°Retreat with the envoy!¡± Xu Qing sted Yu Qiao back with a fist and sent the eldest son of the East Pole Duke flying with another punch. He was incredibly domineering, but there were a lot of people standing against him.

    He had numerous supporters on his side, but not that many premier powerhouses. The more elite one was, the less willing one was to bow their head to another¡¯s banner. Even Red Beard looked on indifferently and swiftly retreated with his men, not raising a hand to help.

    No one could guess at his thoughts given the cold expression on his face. However, he knew that so long as the Steadfast Duke Manor stood, so long as Xu Qing was present, then the Red Beard Pirates would not be his. He would have to takemands from this man for the rest of his life.

    But if he was dead...

    Then the Red Beard Pirates would be his.

    Several people swiftly appeared next to Li Hao. The second steward, Xu Xing, and another premier powerhouse. Judging from his ball of light, he looked to be of the metamorphosis level.

    One of the three generals!

    Light Sword had killed five generals, leaving the Sky, Earth, and Yellow Generals. This one seemed to be the lowest ranked Yellow General. It was uncertain whether he¡¯d reached metamorphosis, but he looked weaker than Qian Feng and Fan Chang from before.

 Chapter 590: Demon Sword Erupts in All Directions (III)

    <h4>Chapter 590: Demon Sword Erupts in All Directions (III)</h4>

    The Yellow General was young and solemnly protected the injured Panther from the madness in the vicinity. He sent a hidden Nova flying with a sh of his sword. The Steadfast Duke remained a dominant force in front of them and repelled strong foes with another punch. ¡°Yellow General, take them to the rear...¡±

    The front of theplex was in shambles. A dozen Novas were locked in battle and the rest were retreating the best they could. They dodged what attacks came their way, or returned blows for self-defense when they were dragged intobat. It was aplete mess on the scene.

    ¡°To the treasury!¡± Xu Xing hastily said.

    This was utter pandemonium and some people seemed to have slipped off to the treasury! One had to know that there were only two Srs there. If anyone wanted to fish in troubled waters while these people erupted with open hostilities, it would be an incredible loss to lose the contents of their vaults!

    Judging from the situation, the Steadfast Duke was ever more vigorous with older age. The Heaven and Earth Generals were both present, as well as various residence experts. Yu Qiao and the others weren¡¯t enough of a challenge. They would be defeated, sooner orter!

    Panther struggled fiercely as Li Hao snarled, ¡°This king will not leave! How dare they ambush this king! They deserve death! If it wasn¡¯t for this king being able to spontaneously erupt due to possessing an ancient bloodline, I would be dead! Damn it, they all deserve death!¡±

    The rest of the assembly also had their hearts in their mouths. The monster spirit had been a mid Sr previously, but its momentary re of power had aroused its bloodline, raising it to the level of a Nova in the blink of an eye. No wonder it was so arrogant!

    And yet, this further proved that there were differences of strength and nobility among monster spirit bloodlines.

    Seeing that it wasn¡¯t willing to go and wanted to leap into the fighting, Xu Xing groaned to himself. He quickly pulled Panther back. ¡°Please avoid the keen edge of attention, envoy! When my father takes care of these miscreants, we¡¯ll give them to you for sentencing. You are gravely injured, be careful of strong foes in the darkness!¡±

    Indeed, Xu Qing had sent word to his second son that there might be further enemies lying in wait. He hadn¡¯t sensed how Panther had been injured just now, but a scarlet line marked the monster spirit¡¯s stomach all the same. It was still bleeding. No wonder the monster spirit was so irate!

    Panther was in enormous pain and quietly cursed Li Hao for being too brutal. But now was the time to demonstrate the fearsome might of monster spirits! It snarled and roared, breaking free of Xu Xing¡¯s grasp. It took the second young master and the second steward¡¯s efforts to jointly suppress the dog.

    ¡°Retreat! Head to the treasury!¡± barked out the Yellow General. ¡°We¡¯ll leave this ce to the duke!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The fighting ahead was intense, but those in the know could determine that Yu Qiao and the others would not prevail. Yu Qiao himself hadn¡¯t nned on taking action here, there was just no helping it when opportunity pulled him in. He grappled with a faint sense of unease¡ªwho had harmed the monster spirit? Could it possibly be the Steadfast Duke himself putting on a show, so he would have reason to exterminate his rivals?

    But with how the circumstances had developed, there was no room for him to retreat. Yellow mud had fallen onto his pants. Even if it wasn¡¯t shit, it was shit now!

    With the monster spirit injured, Xu Qing would take advantage of this opportunity to kill him if he didn¡¯t resist. Yu Qiao had no choice but to bawl to the crowd. ¡°We will stop Xu Qing! The duke¡¯s treasury holds endless wealth and the monster spirit is on the verge of death. We¡¯ll kill the monster spirit, seize the treasury contents, and get away free and clear. Who will know who did it then?¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Xu Qing sent him flying with a punch, drawing looks from the fleeing powerhouses. That was right, the duke¡¯s treasury! And the Xus might be done for if the monster spirit died. Yu Qiao and the others might not withstand Xu Qing¡¯s offensive. Wouldn¡¯t there be a chance for the rest of them if they all died?

    At this stage, who didn¡¯t have a bit of ambition? Not to mention that some of them bore evil intentions in the first ce. There were representatives from the three great organizations and nine ministries present. In their eyes, this fight was that of dog eat dog. It¡¯d be best if they all died. Countless shadows flew toward the rear yard in the blink of an eye. A livid Xu Qing watched them go!

    ¡°Stop them!¡± Multiple figures materialized throughout the manor with his shout. They were all domineering beyond belief and rushed at the heavyweights from all sides.

    ......

    Dragged by the Yellow General and the others, Li Hao fled in the direction of the treasury.

    ¡°Everything will be fine after we enter the treasury,¡± Xu Xing said rapidly as they ran. ¡°Although its defenses look mediocre, there¡¯s actually another set of defenses avable. Once Yu Qiao and the others die, the eastern expanse will be the domain of the Xus... and the Kui Mountains!¡±

    ¡°This king is going to kill them!¡± Li Hao roared furiously, as ifpletely uninterested. One drop of Water of Life hit Panther¡¯s stomach, causing Xu Xing and the others to suck in sharp breaths. The wound looked severe, but wasn¡¯t much to monster spirits.

    The golden dog was using Water of Life just for that? Descendants of the rich and noble were different, alright! Xu Xing had fancied himself as a premier second generation in the past¡ªbut he was nothingpared to this monster spirit! He would never be willing to spend Water of Life like this!

    ¡°Please quell your anger, envoy. The Xus will not show them mercy either after this matter is concluded. They will be exterminated and put to an end!¡±

    Li Hao did not respond¡ªthat could not be allowed to happen! These forces opposing the Xus could not really die. If they did and the Xus conquered the east, then he would¡¯ve helped the family take a step forward in their ambitions.

    A million thoughts ran through his mind as they swiftly arrived at the treasury. There was no one else here yet. Xu Xing swiftly opened the doors and hid inside with the two Srs on duty. He ignored all of the treasures and quickly brought everyone up to the third floor.

    When the group reached the floor, Xu Xing took out a key from his storage ring. Under Li Hao¡¯s surprised look, he carved the air a few times over his head with the key. Something resembling a set of stairs floated out of the air¡ªthe fourth floor!

    Xu Xing immediately ran upstairs; Li Hao urged Panther into following suit. Xu Xing wanted to refuse entrance, but didn¡¯t say anything after seeing the monster spirit run up.

    The fourth floor was very small, as if it¡¯d been isted by an illusion formation. There was only one item on the fourth floor¡ªsomething that looked like the fragment of a mirror. Xu Xing sent tendrils of internal force into the mirror and shoved in vast quantities of mysterious power stones.

    Li Hao was surprised by a faint energy that wafted out. Momentster, the entire treasury seemed to vanish from the world and the sounds outsidepletely disappeared.

    ¡°This is an ultimate treasure that we excavated from the ruins,¡± Xu Xing had to exin upon seeing Panther stare at the mirror. ¡°There¡¯s no big use to it other than istion and concealment.¡±

    He left unsaid that it could also conduct surveince.

    ¡°So long as we hide in here, not even Novas will be able to enter the treasury...¡±

    The current situation of the entire manor floated onto the surface of the mirror. Everywhere could be glimpsed through the reflection. Xu Qing was dominating Yu Qiao. As strong as thetter was as a metamorphosis expert, he was far less of a match for Xu Qing even though the duke was yet to unseal himself. In Li Hao¡¯s judgment, Xu Qing might rival Hong Yitang!

    The realization startled and rmed the young man, and he was even more taken aback by the marvelous effects of this fragment. All was quiet inside the treasury. The upants were the Yellow General, second steward, Xu Xing, two Srs, Panther, and Li Hao.

    The fragment panned around different scenes. Many figures darted through theplex and gathered by the treasury. inly, they all wanted to loot the ce.

    ¡°Bastard!¡± Xu Xing suddenly cursed. The rest on the third floor charged upstairs, confused.

    ¡°Red Beard!¡± Xu Xing pointed outside. ¡°We invested so much to help that piece of shit rise! How dare he not help my father and bring people here instead! That son of a bitch!!¡±

    He was irate beyond belief at Red Beard¡¯s audacity! If there was another metamorphosis expert and several Novas by the Hall of Ancestors, there would be a lot less pressure on Xu Qing.

    ¡°Young master, I will go out and kill him!¡± the Yellow General announced coldly.

    Xu Xing waved him off. That was a metamorphosis level powerhouse. Although the general was also one, he¡¯d barely made it to that level. He wasn¡¯t much stronger than a peak Nova, so who knew who would be killing who?

    As the group stared at the mirror, Li Hao quickly turned over possible ns in his mind. Three Novas¡ªXu Xing barely cleared the threshold for one and the second steward wasn¡¯t much at mid Nova. It was the Yellow General who was the thorny issue. Even if he was weaker than usual metamorphosis experts, Li Hao wasn¡¯t confident that he could kill the man with one strike.

    But he didn¡¯t want to think so much at this point. The only thought on his mind was to kill these people and take the treasure with him.

    As for the heavyweights outside, especially Red Beard... Li Hao¡¯s thoughts turned to the tree root. Could it handle metamorphosis heavyweights? None of these pirates were anything good, so it might be for the best if he could kill that one too.

    The Yellow General was standing right next to him, an ambush might work. However, Li Hao couldn¡¯t be certain of sess. He somersaulted in Panther¡¯s stomach when he thought of something.

    The dog whined with pain, drawing looks from the Yellow General and others.

    ¡°Damn it...¡± Li Hao hastily said. ¡°There seems to be a unique force in this king¡¯s body... You... You seem the strongest. Hurry... help me expel this thing... It seems to be a martial master¡¯s aura...¡±

    His ws indicated the general; the general had no reason to refuse. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, envoy, I will help you expel that aura. So was it not Yu Qiao and the others just now, but a martial master?¡±

    ¡°It might be a martial master in the pay of those guys!¡± Xu Xing¡¯s voice rang out as he red at the general.<i> Is there a need for you to exin at this time? </i>This was a frame-up! Whether it was or not, those guys were responsible! The monster spirit envoy had to remember them and ensure that the Kui Mountains wouldn¡¯t let them off the hook even if they managed to escape.

    The Yellow General understood and said nothing further.

 Chapter 591: Demon Sword Erupts in All Directions (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 591: Demon Sword Erupts in All Directions (IV)</h4>

    A powerful surge of energy rushed into Panther¡¯s body. The Yellow General marveled at the durability of the monster spirit¡¯s body and did indeed sense a current of aura surging throughout. It seemed a bit like... a sword aura!

    <i>A swordsman?</i>

    The Yellow General thought of Light Sword, but this didn¡¯t feel like her. Setting the possibilities aside, the general quickly directed his energy to suppress the aura. The aura wasn¡¯t weak, but it shouldn¡¯t cause the monster spirit¡¯s death. The monster spirit was truly very strong.

    Panther drank in all of the general¡¯s energy like a bottomless pit. Everything sent into the dog¡¯s body vanished in the blink of an eye. As the Yellow General kept up the infusion, he cursed to himself that this monster spirit was very strange.

    Sweat gradually collected on his forehead, a surprising reaction for a metamorphosis expert. Though he was newly ascended to this level, he wasing off worse for the wear against a weak monster spirit. His energy seemed insufficient!

    ¡°Hup!¡± grunted the general as he brought more energy to bear. He focused his attention on the task at hand. This was when Li Hao knew that his chance hade. If he couldn¡¯t end the general with one blow right now, then it would be too hard to manage.

    A startled look dawned in Panther¡¯s eyes as the general focused on suppressing the aura. The man noticed it too, and was just wondering about it when the monster spirit cried out with pain!

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther barked with agony. Li Hao sliced right through Panther¡¯s stomach with his sword¡ªa stroke of five forcefully fused auras stabbed into the man¡¯s heart!

    Li Hao knew that this would also injure Panther, but there was no time to think so much. It wouldn¡¯t be a fatal injury.

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    The two parties were so close together that they were nearly face to face. Even if the Yellow General reacted in time, he didn¡¯t have the space to retreat. He could only watch as the sword pierced through his heart!

    Shock and bafflement flooded his mind. What was going on?? He was very strong! But as strong as he was, he didn¡¯t anticipate that the monster spirit envoy he was focused on saving would suddenly produce a swordsman from its stomach to kill him!

    Was it the swordsman that¡¯d just attacked the envoy? How had he hidden in the dog¡¯s stomach? Try as the Yellow General could, he couldn¡¯t make sense of it.

    Even now, he didn¡¯t consider the possibility that Panther was a fake. That shouldn¡¯t be the case. Thus, he was truly confused how someone had soundlessly burrowed into the envoy¡¯s stomach. Was it a unique supernatural ability?

    Possibly, but the attacker should be a martial master!

    As his thoughts tripped over themselves in a detached daze, Panther smashed its paw over and crushed the general¡¯s head. It was only then that the man realized... The envoy was working with the swordsman!

    It was toote. One man and one dog jointly killed the Yellow General in a split second. His death finally rang the rm bells for Xu Xing and the second steward. The second steward¡¯s first thought was to run, while Xu Xing¡¯s first thought was to rush to the mirror and undo the treasure¡¯s restriction. He¡¯d just sealed off the area, so no one knew that someone had died inside.

    Red Beard and the others coulde in if the seal was undone! Even if Red Beard wanted to rebel, he wouldn¡¯t kill the second young master. And with Xu Qing alive, Red Beard might chose to protect Xu Xing instead.

    Xu Xing¡¯s reaction was fast enough, but Li Hao darted out of Panther¡¯s stomach and rushed the man just as quickly. A domineering sword aura erupted¡ªXu Xing¡¯s hand was almost touching the mirror, and yet, he was toote!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Steris ran through his neck and twisted his head around when Li Hao yanked the weapon back. Xu Xing¡¯s eyes shook when he looked at his murderer. His lips opened and closed as he mouthed... <i>Li Hao!</i>

    Indeed, he clearly glimpsed his killer at this moment. He would recognize the young man even if thetter was a pile of ashes! This was the guy who¡¯d killed his elder brother and nephew. The entireplex knew who he was because his appearance had long been mademon knowledge.

    <i>Demon Sword!</i>

    Li Hao slew him with one thrust and turned with a punch, running through both fleeing Srs with a massive collision. He whirled around with the sword, rushing the second steward whose leg was caught in Panther¡¯s mouth.

    ¡°Demon Sword... You¡¯re Demon Sword Li Hao!¡± shrieked the second steward with absolute terror. How was this possible?! How had Demon Sword crawled out of the dog¡¯s stomach and what was he doing here?! He should be in White Moon City! Countless people want his head and the Xus would¡¯ve sent people as well if it wasn¡¯t for this ceremony!

    And yet, here Li Hao was.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A massive boom ripped out as the sword swung through the air. Panther bit down ferociously and struck with its paw, ignoring the wound on its stomach. It ripped through the man¡¯s lower body, eliciting a shrill scream as Li Hao¡¯s sword descended!

    The scream cut off with a grisly thud.

    It was quiet. There were five corpses on the ground, their owners unbelieving of their deaths. The Yellow General didn¡¯t even have his head anymore, he must have died the most reluctant deaths of them all. He¡¯d been a metamorphosis expert!

    If he¡¯d faced his attackers straight-on, not even the joint efforts of Li Hao and Panther could¡¯ve taken him down. The duo would have to flee for their lives. But instead... he¡¯d died so easily to the young man.

    A drop of Water of Life hit Panther¡¯s stomach. The dog looked intively at Li Hao. Although it¡¯d received two drops of Water of Life, it still felt highly put out. That¡¯d been too painful!

    Li Hao said nothing; he quickly stowed the corpses in his ring and walked downstairs, collecting the six treasures on the third floor. He then descended to the second floor and took all of the origin weapons. Finally, he reached the first floor and gathered all of the storage rings, threading them on a rope and turning them into a ne of rings. His silver armor materialized as Li Hao ced the ne in the armor¡¯s pocket.

    He also collected the suits of armor on the ground. Though he didn¡¯t know what to do with them yet... he wanted them all the same! Li Hao quickly filled another storage ring with everything on the first floor. Dull thuds sounded from outside¡ªsomeone was attacking the treasury.

    Li Hao took some time to collect all of the armor before returning to the fourth floor. There was only one item on it¡ªthe mirror fragment that reflected the situation outside.

    Red Beard seemed to have frightened off a lot of people after killing a Nova. He was leading people in an offensive against the treasury, viciousness glinting from his eyes. Yu Qiao was vomiting blood elsewhere as Xu Qing beat him ck and blue...

    Everything was happening very quickly.

    Li Hao nced at the mirror fragment. Red Beard might appear as soon as he imed the item. But if he didn¡¯t... was he going to wait for Xu Qing to kill the others and thene kill him? He¡¯d be yed alive then!

    The young man took out a tree root, equal ruthlessness shining from his eyes. It¡¯d be one thing if Red Beard didn¡¯t try to stop him, but if he did... he could eat tree root! The little tree was very strong, so this item might be able to kill the pirate. If not, perhaps he and Panther could deliver the final stroke.

    Li Hao abruptly made up his mind and shoved the mirror fragment into his storage ring. The protective shield around the treasury abruptly vanished, letting in sounds from the outside world. A massive boom roared from the doors before Red Beard¡¯s sinister voice traveled in. ¡°Second young master, I¡¯m here to protect you!

    Off in the distance, Xu Qing blinked. His... manor... seemed to have lost something...

    Red Beard¡¯s astonished voice came back on the wind as the duke stared for a moment. ¡°Who are you? Where¡¯s the second young master??¡±

    The pirate was indeed startled. Who was this person?

    Li Hao noted that apart from the pirate, there were three other Novas charging him. Although the other three were initial Novas, he didn¡¯t have the time to spare for them.

    <i>Metamorphosis level expert, is it?</i>

    The young man clenched his teeth and activated the tree root.

    Red Beard wanted to kill the stranger before anything else was said, but fear dawned in his eyes. A towering tree seemed to appear in front of him, one that shot countless branches at him!

    <i>Is this an illusion? </i>Red Beard roared despite his thoughts and brought his de down on the tree!

    A streak of brilliance illuminated East Heart City as a shocked Xu Qing, Yu Qiao, and others watched a towering tree run through Red Beard and his three subordinates with thousands of branches! The men were riddled with holes!

    Red Beard was too stunned to react before his head was also run through. Shocked as he was, Li Hao didn¡¯t have time to think too much before he struck with his sword, beheading the pirate! Panther erupted with motion as well and smacked the others to death. Well, the pirates were mostly dead already.

    The tree disappeared after the enormous blow, leaving only Li Hao and Panther in the air. The young man scooped up the corpses and threw his head back with wildughter!

    ¡°Do you recognize my voice, Xu Qing? You idiot! You really believed that there¡¯s a monster spirit envoy and gave me the Windchaser Boots for it! My thanks for your generosity! I humbly ept your two sons, your grandson, and your general! Oh yeah, and your treasury! Hahaha!! Thank you for all of it!¡±

    Xu Qing gaped. The massive golden dog in the air transformed into a ck dog.

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther barked, particrly proud of itself.

    ¡°Li... Li Hao...¡± Xu Qing blinked. <i>Li Hao?</i>

    ¡°That¡¯s me!¡± the young man hooted withughter. ¡°You really believed my dog is some monster spirit from some bullshit pce, you¡¯re such an idiot!¡±

    With that, he raced through the air at an extremely fast pace!

    Xu Qing looked around, everything urring to him in slow motion. <i>Have I... been had? I have... been had!</i>

    <strong>¡°LI HAO!!¡±</strong> His eyes filled with bloodlust. ¡°Get out of my way!¡± He sent Yu Qiao flying with a punch.

    ¡°After him! Get Li Hao! I swear on myst breath that I will kill Li Hao!¡± He sank into utter madness. <i>My two sons, my Windchaser Boots, my treasury, my mirror treasure...</i> All of it was gone! He didn¡¯t care about Yu Qiao and the rest, they could be killed any time, but Li Hao needed to die today!

 Chapter 592: Reinforcements (I)

    <h4>Chapter 592: Reinforcements (I)</h4>

    The Heaven and Earth Generals and numerous resident experts rushed where the young man had disappeared, their expressions fluctuating with a variety of emotions.

    <i>Li Hao!</i>

    This was the greatest scandal beneath the heavens! It was the greatest joke beneath the heavens!

    The nobly and lofty Steadfast Duke, the overlord of the east, had been swindled out of house and home! He¡¯d given away his greatest treasure with his own hands and his two legitimate sons...

    Yu Qiao was surprised to see the duke t-out ignore the rest of them. Amid his shock, he frowned in the direction that Li Hao had fled in. This Li Hao... was an interesting one. He could¡¯ve fled with none the wiser if he¡¯d raised less of a fuss. Granted, with Red Beard in his way, the disturbance would¡¯ve been great either way. But if he¡¯d concealed his identity and not said he was Li Hao, the duke might not be this crazed.

    It wasn¡¯t just because the young man had killed people and seized the Xu treasury, but also because he wielded the Li family sword!

    ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go back!¡± Yu Qiao called to his people with a light glittering in his eyes. ¡°Everyone be careful, but this is also an opportunity. Old man Xu Qing has once more lost people in this battle and the key detail is, his reputation has reached rock bottom. Who will believe after today that trash like him can lead the east to a glorious future? Let¡¯s head back and share this news with the rest of the world. Make sure we capture every single detail! Just you wait to beughed at, Xu Qing!¡±

    He was no match for Xu Qing, so he would only stay to his death if he insisted on lingering. As for the weaklings of the duke¡¯s household, he had no desire to kill them. There was no point in doing so.

    And for the possibility of saving Li Hao? Forget it. It was better not to be buried alongside the kid. Not to mention, there was no reason for him to help the young man. If it wasn¡¯t for him, the rest of them wouldn¡¯t have been nearly killed by the duke. It was generous enough of them to not take Li Hao to task for their injuries.

    Yu Qiao soared into the air and punched out, sending mes gushing out of his fist and engulfing theplex in mes!

    ¡°The Steadfast Duke Xu Qing is the height of ipetence and peak of hypocrisy,¡± announced a resonant voice in East Heart City. ¡°He attempted to kill the leaders of the twenty-one eastern provinces today, leaving an opportunity for Demon Sword Li Hao to rush into theplex and kill the Red Beard pirate that was colluding with Xu Qing...¡±

    Yu Qiao¡¯spanions decided to maximize the effect of this piece of news. ¡°Demon Sword has killed Xu Qing!¡± they roared. ¡°The manor has toppled. Rejoice, ye beneath the heavens!¡±

    With that, the powerhouses quickly scattered in the four directions. Time to go home! Only when they were in their own territory would they be safe.

    Although the Steadfast Duke wasn¡¯t dead, he likely wasn¡¯t in the mood to disprove rumors at this time. He was probably furiously chasing after Li Hao and had no mind to spare for this nonsense. The city of East Heart shook when it digested the news! Countless spies in the city froze with shock, their jaws dropping so far down that they could fit an egg in their mouths!

    <i>Did we... hear that right? Who? Demon Sword Li Hao?</i>

    <i>My heavens, what kind of oundish tale is this? How is this possible? Li Hao razed the manor of the Steadfast Duke, the overlord of the east for thest two hundred years??</i>

    Upheaval was to rock this world! This wasn¡¯t a minor character that was affected, but a massive headline of the ruler of the eastern continent being stomped into the ground! Countless transmission pendants whirred with activity and shared the news across the dynasty in the blink of an eye.

    ......

    Heaven and earth were overturning inside East Heart City. Being sovereigns of their domains, Yu Qiao and the others were naturally aware of how to most effectively strike at the duke¡¯s prestige. Half truths and half lies at a time like this were the most fatal!

    The duke¡¯s manor was being consumed by mes. No matter how diligently the duke¡¯s servants tried to put out the fire, mes created by a metamorphosis level expert were impossible to extinguish. They could only watch with resignation as the mes spread until everything was reduced to cinders.

    This further confirmed that something had happened to the duke. Otherwise, no matter how ferocious the fire raged, the duke should be able to douse it. The key thing was, regr people wouldn¡¯t dare set theplex on fire either.

    ¡°So the duke is dead?!¡±

    ¡°Oh no, is waring to us now??¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think so...? If the duke is dead, we¡¯ll still be the subjects of whoever they send next. We¡¯re not officials... So long as it isn¡¯t those pirates or bandits thate...¡±

    There wasn¡¯t truly ack of personnel at the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor. Some Srs quickly soared out to suppress the unrest. The duke¡¯s army outside the city walls also mobilized to prevent unexpected attacks at this time.

    However, a lie is halfway around the world before the truth has its boots on. Even though the duke¡¯s people announced in all directions that the duke was fine, that it was only unstable factors seeking to stir up trouble, that everything had been pacified¡ªnot many believed them. Prejudiced by their first impressions, the people were more willing to believe Yu Qiao.

    Otherwise, where was the duke? Why was his manor in mes? Was Red Beard really dead? It would be a cause for national celebration if the greatest pirate of the East Sea was dead. As for whether or not the pirate had colluded with the duke, the veracity of that was unknown. But since that rumor existed, people were readily willing to believe it.

    ......

    The news spread too far in a very short amount of time.

    <i>Near River province.</i>

    Various sides considered how best to deploy their troops to attack Southern Ford, to lure Li Hao out of White Moon City. Fan Chang looked around with a smile on his face. With these people helping him, he was certain that Silver Moon would suffer a certain degree of loss this time. It would quench some of his burning hatred!

    Earthturner Sword, Light Sword, and Li Hao all needed to die!

    As the group discussed thest item on the agenda of when to send out their troops... many of their transmission pendants vibrated. nces were quickly exchanged around the room before people took out their pendants. Something major had happened if so many had received news at the same time.

    Fan Chang had also received a message. He hadn¡¯t wanted to read it, but since everyone was, he decided to inspect his pendant. He froze as soon as he did so; he wasn¡¯t the only one. The hall turned so silent that a pin drop could be heard. There wasn¡¯t a hint of vitality, as if it¡¯d be a graveyard.

    Breathing could be heard only after a prolonged silence.

    ¡°Impossible!¡±

    ¡°Hearsay!¡±

    ¡°Bullshit, this is nonsense!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Voices were raised in anger. This wasn¡¯t real!

    There were also unpleasant expressions on other faces as it wasn¡¯t just one faction¡¯s intelligence arm reporting this. One faction might get it wrong, but not so many at the same time. Everyone present was a heavyweight of a major faction. How could all of their intelligence gathering go wrong at the same time?

    Finally, someone asked in a voice hoarse with shock, ¡°Demon Sword... is out of Silver Moon? When did this happen? He showed himself a few days ago and is said to be in White Moon City...¡±

    This was incredibly hard to believe! The group was still discussing how to force him out, but the young man was already out of the province. Granted, it was better for him not to be out if he was to present himself in this manner.

    ¡°The Steadfast Duke possesses countless powerhouses and Red Beard is a metamorphosis level expert. Not only that, but his four generals of Heaven, Earth, Yellow, and ck are also said to be the metamorphosis level. The Steadfast Duke is a premier martial master and the Xus reign over the twenty-one eastern provinces. Those like Yu Qiao can¡¯t even breathe freely¡ªhow could he be crushed by Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t know much yet, so we can¡¯t determine anything. It only says that the duke¡¯s manor has burned to the ground and that the Steadfast Duke might even be dead as well...¡±

    ¡°......¡± A heated discussion broke out amid the stunned crowd. Demon Sword Li Hao!

    When the three swords fought in the North Sea, their weakest was Demon Sword Li Hao. Although he was quite strong to beat back ate Nova, he was just an opportunistic fighter in many people¡¯s eyes. But now... a bucket of cold water rained down over them, chilling their hearts.

    He¡¯d traveled through thousands of kilometers to strike at an enemy! To them, this was the young man¡¯s counterblow and warning.<i> You guys want to kill me? Then I¡¯ll kill you first!</i>

    The Steadfast Duke was fated to have a death feud with him, so Li Hao went to the duke first to make the first move and attack during their grand ceremony.

    Fan Chang took a deep breath and forcefully quelled the trembling of his hands. ¡°Everyone, hold your horses. We don¡¯t have any specifics yet and should await detailed reports! I¡¯ve seen Li Hao¡¯s strength for myself. He had difficulty killing ate Nova a few days ago, he can¡¯t have possibly reached the stage of killing a metamorphosis expert so quickly! If that¡¯s the case, he won¡¯t be the Demon Sword, but the God Sword!¡±

    He didn¡¯t believe this! There was simply no way that Li Hao had so quickly grown to the level of exterminating a major faction by himself. The Steadfast Duke was much stronger than the Director General Office of Near River. The dukemanded numerous metamorphosis experts, even more than the Steppe Prince. How could such a titan of the east be so easily killed?

    Fan Chang didn¡¯t believe it!

    The assembly managed to find their calm. ¡°Then about attacking Southern Ford...¡± someone asked hesitantly.

    ¡°The hell are we attacking for!¡± someone cursed. ¡°Are we supposed to fight to the death with those Silver Moon martial masters after Li Hao¡¯s gone? Is there any benefit to that?¡±

    They were here for Li Hao, not to kill Silver Moon powerhouses. Killing Li Hao meant obtaining the divine sword that would help them break through. What good was killing Silver Moon martial masters for?

    They could put their lives on the line for Li Hao¡¯s sword, but Silver Moon martial masters were hot-blooded sorts who loved a good fight. That wasn¡¯t what the crowd wanted.

    Fan Chang cursed inwardly to himself. As Silver Moon¡¯s neighbor, he dearly wished that these people could charge straight into Silver Moon. But now, none of them were willing because the key target had run off. They¡¯d be fools to go against Silver Moon still!

    Fan Chang sighed inwardly and regarded his neighbor solemnly. Was Silver Moon really and of demons? Li Hao had crossed thousands of kilometers to attack the Steadfast Duke. Although no one here voiced it aloud, they were all deeply panicking. Some of them wanted to immediately depart for home if there wasn¡¯t further news soon!

    This was terrifying!

    Multiple metamorphosis experts and Novas were dead. This was unbelievably shocking! Not even the premier powerhouses of the nine ministries and royal family dared talk about attacking the Steadfast Duke.

    Hence, everyone waited for further information. A general atmosphere of anxiety developed in the hall as cups of wine and tea disappeared into stomachs. Somehow, the cold Near River province was feeling a bit too hot forfort.

 Chapter 593: Reinforcements (II)

    <h4>Chapter 593: Reinforcements (II)</h4>

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Kong Jie spat out a mouthful of tea and gaped, then promptly shot into the sky. He wasn¡¯t the only one. Huang Yu also soared upward from the military barracks in the distance. And while Director General Zhao didn¡¯t fly, he nced sharply at the Silver Moon Guard base in the distance and almost crushed his teeth when he gnashed them.

    ¡°Go ask where Li Hao is!¡±

    Deputy Zhou didn¡¯t ask for further rification before promptly vanishing.

    Where was Li Hao?

    Li Hao¡¯s ship was still parked in the za, his Demon Hunters were in closed door cultivation. No one thought much of it as it¡¯d only been three days. This was how the young man operated when returning from a mission.

    But now, where was Li Hao? Or was there someone outside causing trouble in his name?

    The more Director General Zhao thought about it, the more ludicrous he found the idea! How was this possible? He was well aware of the Steadfast Duke¡¯s strength and that the three generals mentioned in the report were of the metamorphosis level. Red Beard had apparently been in attendance today, he was also a metamorphosis expert. The duke himself might be one too, even without unsealing his battle strength.

    That made for a five metamorphosis experts and a dozen Novas. All of Silver Moon might have to unseal themselves in order to triumph over that level of strength. But now their intelligence reports said that the Steadfast Duke had been killed??

    Who would believe that?!

    Two powerhouses broke through the air andnded in the skies over the Silver Moon Guard base.

    ¡°Liu Long, Hao Lianchuan, get out here!¡± Kong Jie roared.

    Liu Long was cultivating in the main hall. He opened his eyes with a faint frown and walked out.

    ¡°Inspector General Kong!¡± He raised a cupped fist salute to those in the air. ¡°Commander Yu! What might the two lords need from us? The leader is in seclusion. This level of disturbance and noise might disrupt his training...

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Hao Lianchuan also walked out. ¡°Isn¡¯t it over the line that you two have directly barged into our base? Director Hou may be gone, but the Night Watchers...¡±

    ¡°Shut up, you little fucking shit!¡± Kong Jie let loose, startling Hao Lianchuan into silence. ¡°Do you take me for a fucking idiot? Li Hao is here? Do you honestly think so little of me?!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Huang Yu didn¡¯t say a word. <i>Honestly, probably. Stop protesting. We didn¡¯t know about this matter until it was public knowledge in the east. What are we, if not idiots?</i>

    ¡°What are you cursing at me for?¡± Hao Lianchuan coughed awkwardly. ¡°That¡¯s not nice, inspector general. What¡¯s going on?¡±

    Had Li Hao¡¯s movements been revealed? They¡¯d all stayed at the barracks for the past three days without leaving. Even Hao Lianchuan knew that it was to provide cover for Li Hao. Had the young man done something?

    ¡°What¡¯s going <i>on??¡±</i> Kong Jie was on the verge of losing his mind. ¡°Li Hao ran off a long time ago, didn¡¯t he? Did he run off as soon as he came back? He went to the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor in the east, turned everything upside down, seized the Windchaser Boot, killed metamorphosis experts, and apparently even killed the duke!

    ¡°He¡¯s definitely killed a ton of Xu family members and burned theplex down. The entire dynasty is shaking over this, particrly the twenty-one eastern provinces! Great changes will soon take ce in the east with the duke dead...¡±

    It was like Liu Long and the others were listening to a promation from the gods. Their jaws dropped and their eyes widened with iprehension. <i>Huh? Are you talking about Li Hao or someone else?</i>

    ¡°Did Li Hao leave the day he came back?¡±

    ¡°I... I don¡¯t know...¡± Hao Lianchuan didn¡¯t dare hide anything anymore. He awkwardly mumbled in a small voice, ¡°It¡¯s not like Director Li informs me of his movements...¡±

    ¡°Then shut up!¡± Kong Jie looked at Liu Long. The man was frowning, but inclined his head.

    ¡°The leader said he had some business to take care of before he left.¡±

    <i>Fuck that! This is some business?! Well well well, these guys all keep a stiff upper lip huh?!</i>

    Kong Jie couldn¡¯t decide if he wanted to just explode with rage or strangle someone. He shouted with renewed fury when he saw someone emerge from the hall, ¡°Wang Chao, you guyse from the Inspectorate and helped conceal the fact that Li Hao is gone. Did you not even think of informing the Inspectorate?!¡±

    Wang Chao and the rest were still reeling within the crowd. When he heard his old boss berate him, Wang Chao answered nkly, ¡°Inspector general... we didn¡¯t know!¡±

    Did they really not know, or were they pretending? Kong Jie wanted to vomit blood. At the same time, there was nothing he could say. He¡¯de to confirm whether or not Li Hao was truly gone. Now he was certain, thed was gone. The one in the east was probably the genuine Li Hao.

    He snorted before turning to leave. Huang Yu also vanished without a word. Outside the base, Light Sword had listened with glittering eyes. She shot into the sky and followed Huang Yu and Kong Jie. Despite the obvious look of skepticism, she didn¡¯t pose any questions.

    Kong Jie was further irritated by that!<i> I wanted you to help with some matters before and you ignored me, saying you wanted to wait for Li Hao. Isn¡¯t this fine and dandy, you can wait all you like now!</i>

    He tossed over a transmission pendant, which Light Sword quickly examined. The look in her eyes shifted as she murmured, ¡°How is this possible?!¡±

    As the Steadfast Duke¡¯s former senior steward, she was all too familiar with the household¡¯s strength. Li Hao couldn¡¯t afford to provoke any of the three major generals, to say nothing of the duke. She couldn¡¯t fight the duke either and had done so before only because she unsealed herself.

    ¡°This may not be true.¡± Light Sword furrowed her brows. ¡°The duke is not that easy to kill. He¡¯ll unseal himself if he¡¯d backed into a difficult situation. Few are those in this world who can kill him.¡±

    His death was impossible!

    The other two nodded and Kong Jie responded, ¡°Something must have happened even if that guy isn¡¯t dead. His manor wouldn¡¯t be reduced to ashes otherwise. If the duke isn¡¯t dead and Li Hao isn¡¯t dead, then that means the duke is chasing him. Otherwise, there would already be people out to suppress the unrest!¡±

    He was able to deduce a thing or two upon further thought. If this was the case, then Li Hao was in high peril. How in the world had that madman thought of making trouble for the Steadfast Duke??

    Light Sword vanished on the spot without a word.

    ¡°Where are you going?¡±

    ¡°The Sword Sect!¡±

    ¡°......¡± A speechless Kong Jie watched her go. Light Sword was inly going to seek out Hong Yitang. Was she going to Li Hao¡¯s rescue?

    He looked at Huang Yu, who rumbled, ¡°Let¡¯s go to Ole Zhao first. If Li Hao isn¡¯t dead, he¡¯s probably being chased down. but he¡¯s too far away! This is a different situation fromst time. Last time it was just the duke¡¯s son leading the group, but this time it¡¯s likely Xu Qing himself! We may not be able to catch up to them.¡±

    And may not be able to leave. There wererge numbers of powerhouses gathered on their shared border with Near River. The White Shark Raiders and Starlight Pirates were all stirring to action. The executives of Silver Moon may not be able to set foot outside their home.

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait for more details.¡± Kong Jie took a deep breath. ¡°It shouldn¡¯t be too long. There were a lot of people at the memorial rites today. Many of them might be dead, but not all of them. We¡¯ll have detailed reports soon, but we need to think of a way to help. Li Hao may be in grave danger!¡±

    Huang Yu nodded. That was a certainty.

    ¡°Old Huang,¡± Kong Jieughed ruefully. ¡°This Li Hao can cause more trouble than his master! His master didn¡¯t dare conduct his matters like this before! In the two hundred years of Skystar history, there doesn¡¯t seem to be anyone who¡¯s ever directly attacked one of the three founding dukes!¡±

    This was unprecedented in history! The young man must be the boldest beneath the heavens! If he survived this escapade, his reputation would far eclipse Yuan Shuo¡¯s throughout thend. As well known as the old man was, did he dare attack the Steadfast Duke?

    Yuan Shuo was highly regarded in the Silver Moon martial world, but there were possibly only a few veteran martial masters who remembered him in all of the world. Li Hao¡¯s singr move would emzon his name in the minds of all superhumans and even civilians in the world.

    He¡¯d kicked in the door of the overlord of the east!

    ......

    Every locale in Skystar Dynasty was discussing recent events and shaking in reaction.

    <i>Skystar City, the Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen had been fretting over Li Hao bing public enemy number one, but now he sighed. It was the rest of the world who needed to fret now. They likely wouldn¡¯t be able to sleep peacefully at night if Li Hao didn¡¯t die after these events.

    The Silver Moon powerhouses waited in a tiny office, waiting for more news to reach them. They soon looked at a vibrating transmission pendant. Hou Xiaochen picked it up and exhaled after a long while.

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t a frontal attack. The kid brought his dog, hid in the dog¡¯s stomach, posed as a Kui Mountain monster spirit that was the descendant of an ancient monster spirit. He tricked the duke into giving him the Windchaser Boot and cowed the twenty-one provinces of the east in the guise of a monster spirit.

    ¡°During his act, he incited conflict between Yu Qiao¡¯s party and Xu Qing. He then killed Xu Xing, the Yellow General, other people, raided the Xu treasury, and used a particrly unique method to kill Red Beard and three Novas under hismand...

    ¡°And now, the Steadfast Duke is leading the Heaven and Earth Generals after him!¡±

    Yu Luocha first heaved a sigh of relief, then grew solemn again. ¡°So this means he has indeed killed a metamorphosis level expert... despite using outside methods?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Does he have more of those methods?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen grinned. <i>I¡¯d be a god if I knew.</i>

    ¡°Xu Qing is not weak...¡± Manager Yu said slowly.

    ¡°He¡¯s very strong!¡± Hou Xiaochen¡¯s grin disappeared. ¡°Even I wouldn¡¯t dare say that I¡¯d win against him. He might be on the same level as the Steppe Prince. He¡¯s very, very strong! Not to mention, he has two metamorphosis level experts with him and multiple Novas. He wants revenge, the sword of the Lis, and the full set of the Windchaser Boots!

    ¡°With those two weapons in front of him, he¡¯ll want to kill Li Hao even if he has to unseal himself!¡± Hou Xiaochen breathed out explosively. ¡°Little Yu... you go! Be careful. Hurry and find Li Hao...¡±

    ¡°Director...¡±

    ¡°You can unseal yourself, Golden Spear can¡¯t!¡± Hou Xiaochen frowned when his thoughts traveled to this point. ¡°This won¡¯t do. Here, go to Sky Sword Mountain! If Sky Sword is still in closed door cultivation, tell him toe out and that I need his help. Demon Sword Li Hao... can be considered the eighth sword of Silver Moon. No one would deny that! Have Sky Sword personally rescue thed, hurry!¡±

 Chapter 594: Reinforcements (III)

    <h4>Chapter 594: Reinforcements (III)</h4>

    ¡°Understood!¡± Yu Luocha realized that the director was concerned she wouldn¡¯t be able to rescue the young man. Even she asked uncertainly, ¡°Can Li Hao... survive to that point?¡±

    As fast as she was, she wasn¡¯t that fast.

    ¡°It¡¯s up to fate now... the kid wouldn¡¯t have done all this if he didn¡¯t have a bare minimum level of confidence in getting away. He might be able to use the Windchaser Boots since he¡¯s seized them. In that case, he could be running very quickly. The duke may not quickly catch up to him!

    ¡°What I¡¯m worried about is that since he¡¯s not in Silver Moon, that will tempt powerhouses from various ces toe out of the woodwork. He was their target to begin with, and now he is even more of one! Who wouldn¡¯t want to kill thed with two divine weapons on him?¡±

    Yu Luocha quickly left without another word. They needed reinforcements in the shape of Sky Sword!

    ¡°Time to get to work!¡± Hao Lianchuan took a deep breath and looked at the silent Golden Spear.

    ¡°Hmm?¡± asked thetter.

    ¡°Li Hao is known throughout thends, can we older folk fall behind him?¡± Hou Xiaochen dered. ¡°Let¡¯s throw Skystar City into disarray too and make it so that people don¡¯t have time to cause trouble for him! Take the Silver Moon Guards with you¡ªtoday, we start exterminating the members of the three great organizations hiding in Skystar City!

    ¡°Ah yes, have the Night Watchers assist us. Send word to those youngsters that as Night Watchers, the Skystarmander wants to summon them for a mission. They need not return if they are afraid of offending people!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Golden Spear quickly nodded his head. The director was going to flex his muscles now!

    Hou Xiaochen looked to the east after the man left and frowned once more. Li Hao was crazy! Although it was a given that the Steadfast Duke wouldn¡¯t let him off the hook, charging to the east to attack the duke was beyond the pale. Who was thest person who¡¯d been so crazy?

    Though Hou Xiaochen took a walk down memoryne, he could not identify who was as crazy as the young man. Not even Yuan Shuo matched Li Hao¡¯s brazen style.

    ......

    Everyone beneath the heavens had their attention focused on this event. The true reports were soon disseminated¡ªsome jeered at the contents, others were shocked.

    ¡°Xu Qing is an idiot!¡±

    ¡°He was conned by a boy!¡±

    ¡°But we can¡¯t underestimate Demon Sword. His boldness knows no bounds. He¡¯s willing to walk out of Silver Moon under these circumstances and go on the offensive. Also, no one knows what he used to kill Red Beard. It might be the methods of the ancient civilization. This kid may have obtained some ultimate moves in Battle Heaven, so we have to be on our guard against him!¡±

    ¡°He gets into more trouble than his master and he¡¯s more vicious! Xu Qing¡¯s got to be absolutely crazy with rage after losing his two legitimate sons. Of course, the more important thing is that Li Hao¡¯s got two divine weapons and the treasury of the Xus!¡±

    That point was first and foremost on everyone¡¯s minds, causing many factions and some provincial rulers to secretly send people to the east. Li Hao was being hunted by Xu Qing! The young man held divine weapons, treasures, and even Water of Life.

    Everyonemitted the title of Demon Sword to memory. They¡¯d received a full understanding of his bold, mad, yet also highlyprehensive methods. While the people jeered at Xu Qing, their thoughts turned to the fact that Xu Qing had fallen for the im of an ancient monster spirit. That meant that the monster spirit traveling with the young man was possibly of an ancient bloodline. It was said to be from the Battle Heaven ruins.

    Then... could it be that the dog spirit was a descendant of ancient monster spirits in Battle Heaven?

    In that case, Li Hao hadn¡¯t lied about this. The dog was indeed an ancient monster spirit with an eminent background¡ªBattle Heaven.

    ......

    News quickly spread through thends.

    <i>In a remote mountain forest of the central region.</i>

    The soil abruptly loosened in an area and a head popped out. It shook itself off and looked at the skies.

    ¡°Hot damn, we¡¯re finally out!¡± Yuan Shuo beamed. ¡°That took more than ten days!¡±

    It¡¯d been a dozen days since they entered the ruins and they¡¯d almost died inside. Thank goodness it¡¯d gone smoothly. Yuan Shuo was in excellent spirits and fine fettle. He¡¯d gained quite a lot from the trip.

    ¡°Too bad that nt spirit was dead and didn¡¯t leave behind too much Water of Life. Otherwise... Well, it¡¯s good that it was dead. I may not have been able to win if it was alive.¡± The man burrowed out of the ground, followed by a radiantly smiling Jadelight Sword. She seemed to have gained quite a lot on this trip too, Yuan Shuo had been very helpful.

    They¡¯d dug a hole into the ruins and though they¡¯d encountered many mechanisms, they also walked away with many benefits. It was only a dozen days, but Jadelight felt that her strength had taken a leap forward. This was so nice!

    ¡°Finally, no one will say that the master is less than the disciple.¡± Yuan Shuo grinned from ear to ear. ¡°The kid only killed themanders of the White Shark Raiders, and he may not have been the one to deal the final blow. I have refined four auras now and am almost there with my fifth. Come, let¡¯s test ourselves against a mid Nova. If they¡¯re easy to kill, we¡¯ll go to a peak Nova!¡±

    Yuan Shuo was highly cocky at the moment. It was just a dozen days and less than twenty since the kid had killed the pirates. <i>As good as he is, as much sword energy as he has, he can¡¯t possibly improve so much in such a short amount of time.</i>

    <i>The master is less than the disciple? My five auras are almost fully refined! Once I seed, I will outmatch a regr Nova even if I¡¯m still a Summoner of Spirit.</i>

    He was in a fantastic mood! The excavation hadn¡¯t been for nothing.

    ¡°Let¡¯s check the transmission pendant and see if there¡¯s any news...¡±

    ¡°I threw it away!¡± Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes. ¡°It¡¯s not mine, am I supposed to bring it with me when robbing graves? That gives people a lock on my location! Stay sharp, Jadelight. Not to mention, what can happen in such a short period of time?¡±

    Despite his words, he did want to find someone to ask about recent events.

    ¡°C¡¯mon, I remember there¡¯s a stronghold of the three great organizations up ahead. A Celestial pavilion, if I recall correctly. Let¡¯s go investigate...¡± He waved Jadelight forward and prepared to move out when he nced overhead. A figure shed through the sky. Just when he wanted to take a closer look, another figure broke through the air.

    <i>Are they looking for me? </i>Yuan Shuo went on the alert. <i>Have I been located? But I don¡¯t have a transmission pendant on me.</i>

    Another figure shot past with extreme speed. These were all powerhouses and looked to be flying to the east. Each of them was darting throughnd and sky, heedless of resource consumption as they looked to be in a great hurry.

    <i>What¡¯s going on?</i> Yuan Shuo looked on with confusion. Had something major happened?

    Another figure seemed toe toward them as he grappled with his thoughts¡ªit was another person at extremely fast speed. The old man¡¯s eyes moved quickly and he bounded into the air, appearing in front of the other in the blink of an eye!

    A middle-aged man promptly screeched to a halt with wariness; his expression morphed to dismay when he took a clear look at who¡¯d stopped him. He turned to flee!

    ¡°An old acquaintance!¡± Yuan Shuo struck with his fist. ¡°Heh, aren¡¯t you that... that person? What are you running for? I¡¯m not going to eat you. I remember seeing you twenty years ago. What province are you from? Your dad seems to be a senior executive of that province, right?¡±

    The person¡¯s expression shifted rapidly as he perceived the threat behind him. He quickly stopped again and turned around. ¡°Big brother Yuan, I¡¯m just passing by and didn¡¯t see anything. I¡¯m a Night Watcher now, and one of the branch directors. I¡¯m not part of the three great organizations anymore...¡±

    ¡°The Night Watchers? Then forget it, I can¡¯t be bothered with you!¡± Yuan Shuo cackled. ¡°Give me your transmission pendant! Ah, I saw a lot of people fly by in the sky just now, all of them in a huge hurry. What, are they going to pick up money? You¡¯re also in a rush, so tell me, what are all of you guys doing?¡±

    ¡°Do you... not know, big brother Yuan?¡± murmured the middle-aged man as his expression shifted some more.

    ¡°No shit, would I be asking you if I did?¡±

    ¡°This matter has something to do with you too, big brother.¡± The man took a deep breath. ¡°Something¡¯s happened to Demon Sword!¡±

    <i>Demon Sword!</i>

    Yuan Shuo blinked. What Demon Sword... Li Hao? But Li Hao was just Li Hao; Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t used to people calling Li Hao Demon Sword. Using the moniker in lieu of the name meant that it was widely epted by the people. Regr martial masters didn¡¯t receive this kind of treatment, particrly in this era. It was too hard to create a reputation for oneself!

    Was this a result of Li Hao killing the White Shark Raiders?

    ¡°Have the White Shark Raiderse for revenge?¡±

    The middle-aged man stiffened and looked at the man. <i>You¡¯re... seriously behind the times! </i>The White Shark Raiders incident practically happened in the Stone Age! They might not even cause trouble for the young man now.

    ¡°No, it¡¯s the Steadfast Duke!¡±

    ¡°Ah, I see. The Xu Feng matter, right?¡± Yuan Shuo guessed at some of the truth. ¡°I knew that the truth wouldn¡¯t be concealed for long...¡±

    He casually nced at the transmission pendant and promptly lost his train of thought. After a long moment, he narrowed his eyes at the middle-aged man. ¡°This is from today?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Why did he go to the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor? This says that he ha one of the Windchaser boots to begin with...¡±

    ¡°Scroll up, big brother Yuan. There¡¯s another piece of massive news from a few days ago!¡±

    Yuan Shuo hurriedly paged through the pendant and roared withughter. ¡°So he killed the Steadfast Duke¡¯s eldest son a few days ago... Isn¡¯t he something! I would think that I¡¯ve been in seclusion for a dozen years instead of a dozen days!

    ¡°So Xu Qing¡¯s leading people to hunt him down. What are all of you guys running to the east for?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just... going to gather some more information,¡± the middle-aged man said apprehensively. ¡°If there¡¯s a chance to, I¡¯m going to help Demon Sword since he¡¯s big brother¡¯s disciple...¡±

    ¡°Am I the idiot or are you the idiot?¡±

    ¡°No... I just... you see it too, big brother... I¡¯m just an initial Nova... What kind of bad intentions can I have... I¡¯m just going for a look...¡±

    ¡°Forget it, I¡¯m not a killing fiend,¡± Yuan Shuo barked withughter. ¡°Too many people are going there, you won¡¯t make a difference. Don¡¯t tell anyone that I was here! Don¡¯t say anything about me! That¡¯s right, I remember you... What¡¯s your name again?¡±

    The wordless middle-aged man tried to prevent his eyes from rolling upward.

    ¡°Don¡¯t lie to me, I remember beating you back in the day. Although I don¡¯t remember your name now, I¡¯ll find it when I look through some records. I¡¯m kind and benevolent, but my disciple is vicious and cruel! I¡¯ll have him look for you if he doesn¡¯t die from this, how about it?¡±

 Chapter 595: Reinforcements (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 595: Reinforcements (IV)</h4>

    ¡°My name is Zhou Long!¡± rified the middle-aged man when faced with the threat of Li Haoing for him.

    ¡°Right right, that¡¯s it. Your father is a deputy in the provincial government...¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s the director general now,¡± Zhou Long offered carefully.

    ¡°Eh?¡± Yuan Shuo blinked. ¡°He hasn¡¯t died yet?¡±

    Zhou Long didn¡¯t know what to say.

    ¡°Good, so long as you have some sort of background. I¡¯d be worried if you didn¡¯t have any sort of status. I wouldn¡¯t be able to find you after this. Very well, you may go about your business!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Lend me your transmission pendant and don¡¯t you dare report it lost. Otherwise, I¡¯lle visit you at home if I don¡¯t receive any news!¡±

    The middle-aged man smiled sheepishly. A merry Yuan Shuo quickly vanished into the distance.

    ¡°Big brother Yuan, it¡¯s dangerous to the east,¡± Zhou Long couldn¡¯t help but call out. ¡°I think you shouldn¡¯t take the risk. Demon Sword¡¯s in too much trouble this time!¡±

    Yuan Shuo suddenly recalled something and looked back with a grin. ¡°I remember now, when you lost to me, you grabbed my thigh and kept wailing for big brother to spare you. That was you, wasn¡¯t it?¡±

    Zhou Long flushed beet red!

    ¡°I knew I remembered you from somewhere. I''ve defeated a lot of people and can¡¯t possibly remember them all. You¡¯re that really cowardly guy! That¡¯s good, I¡¯ll remember you this time!¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°You¡¯ve got a strong desire for survival. Very good, don¡¯t say that you¡¯ve seen me, understood?¡±

    Yuan Shuonded back on the ground and looked at Jadelight. ¡°I¡¯m making a trip to the east, you can have fun by yourself.¡±

    ¡°Has something gone wrong?¡± Wu Hongshan looked at him solemnly.

    ¡°Yes, that unfilial disciple of mine stirs up trouble everyday. I thought I was the great demon around, but I was wrong!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head with augh. ¡°You¡¯re too weak. Although you improve quickly and may be able to match blows with an ordinary initial Nova now, you''re still too weak! Go have fun with the three great organizations, just be careful...¡±

    ¡°And what about you?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m going to look for my unfilial disciple!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°Everyone will think I¡¯m dead otherwise! That damned Hong Yitang is trying to usurp my position! I finally raised a strong disciple, but he wants to take the kid from me! People will think that Li Hao doesn¡¯t have a master if I don¡¯t put in an appearance soon!

    ¡°Give me all of your mysterious power stones and Water of Life!¡±

    Wu Hongshan handed over a storage ring without a word. Yuan Shuo had given them to her before, saying that they should share the gains. But now, he took them all back. inly, he felt that he wasn¡¯t strong enough yet and needed to swiftly increase strength in a short amount of time. He needed to grow even stronger!

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t say anything after obtaining the storage ring and waved a hand. ¡°Be careful. You can wait for me at Skystar City or wander around yourself!¡±

    ¡°When will you be back?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± chuckled Yuan Shuo. He vanished on the spot like a bird taking off; he was extremely fast. After watching for a while, Wu Hongshan disappeared with a turn of her body as well.

    <i>I¡¯m too weak...</i>

    Those were disheartening words. Jadelight Sword was one of the Seven Swords of Silver Moon, but was quickly dismissed by herpanion. He hadn¡¯t even asked her before deciding to not bring her along. inly, he felt that she would only hold him back.

    Wu Hongshan swiftly traveled through the forest and vanished from sight. In that case, she would not continue to be that weak! The limits had been broken, so she would bravely forge ahead!

    ......

    Yuan Shuo flew faster and faster, suddenly swallowing all of the life essence with a clench of his jaw! His blood qi frothed and organs shook.

    ¡°You guys all think I¡¯m dead, don¡¯t you?!¡± They all wanted to kill or capture his disciple at the drop of a hat!

    <i>The hell! Can I not lift my de anymore, or have your brains hardened to stone?</i>

    <i>Xu Qing...</i>

    <i>Xu Qing!</i>

    They¡¯d crossed paths thirty years ago and Xu Qing was indeed strong. He would be even stronger now. If it hadn¡¯t been for the Xus family, Yuan Shuo would¡¯ve chopped his head off when they fought!

    A surge of anger rose in Yuan Shuo¡¯s heart. The Buddha Mountain, three great organizations, Xu family... All of these people who he hadn¡¯t fully resolved back in the day now fancied themselves to be characters of note!

    And the Steppe Prince...

    <i>Although I¡¯ve fallen behind for a few years, I¡¯m not as weak as you guys think I am!</i>

    Yuan Shuo picked up increasing speed. The eastern continent was very far away and he didn¡¯t know if he¡¯d make it in time. But that was of no matter. He¡¯d ughter the entire Xu n if Li Hao was dead. The old one woulde if they beat the young one. <i>It looks like this old one isn¡¯t strong enough tomand sufficient deterrence!</i>

    ......

    All factions throughout thends shook.

    Li Hao breathed heavily and panted for breath. He swallowed a droplet of Water of Life, immediately recovering from some of his wounds. Internal force surged and sent the Windchaser Boots into another burst of activity. He instantly shook off his pursuers again!

    There were only three people who were still keeping pace with him¡ªXu Qing, the Heaven and Earth Generals. They were hot on his heels as they could call upon extreme speed as well. Xu Qing bore a frosty expression on his face!

    They hadn¡¯t said a single word ever since leaving his manor. It¡¯d been several hundred kilometers and they were long out of East Heart City. As fast as Li Hao was, the three metamorphosis experts weren¡¯t slow.

    The other Novas had long been left behind.

    Xu Qing¡¯s legs were as if cyclones. He didn¡¯t fly like a supernatural, but glided through the sky. Each movement propelled him past the two generals, covering several hundred meters with one step.

    The gap between the two sides was maintained at approximately five thousand kilometers. But whenever Li Hao exhausted his internal force and needed a brief break, the other side would swiftly catch up. Five thousand kilometers was their average distance from each other.

    In terms of speed, Li Hao was much slower than his pursuers. It was only with the Windchaser Boots that he was able to pull ahead again and again.

    Up ahead, he panted for a bit. Not only did he have to run, but he needed to take Panther with him. As fast as the dog was, it was a bit slower than a metamorphosis expert. It was truly the dog riding the human now!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t have the effort to spare for Panth, it had to cling to his shoulders the best it could and dash for safety again and again through the young man¡¯s efforts.

    Four humans and one dogmenced a soundless chase. No one raised much of a fuss. It was a hunt to the death, why attract more people? Li Hao didn¡¯t want to draw attention for fear of putting himself in greater danger. Xu Qing didn¡¯t want more people for fear of someone making off with his treasure! He must kill Li Hao!

    He wouldn¡¯t be able to wash away his shame if he didn¡¯t kill the young man. But for an old politician like him, the crux of the issue was the two divine weapons. The sword of the Lis might allow him to unseal his battle strength without reservation.

    Therefore, the four people continued their silent exercise. Urgency dawned in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. These guys were so much faster than he expected. His reserves might not be able to keep up if this continued. Although sword energy constantly replenished him, utilizing the Windchaser Boots also consumed mind intent. Once mind intent was exhausted... that was the end of the road!

    <i>Should I go to the Kui Mountains?</i> That might bring a lot of trouble to the big snake if he did. He¡¯d just cleared their name, wouldn¡¯t it be inappropriate to go to the mountains now? But if no one stopped these guys, he might not be able to get away.

    <i>Silver Moon is too far and there¡¯s no need to go to the Kui Mountains...</i>

    Various possibilities shed through his mind, but Li Hao had already made up his mind. He adjusted his direction and ran toward the west! That was where the East Sea was!

    Xu Qing raised an eyebrow. Did the boy want to run to the sea? Enter the waters, maybe? He quickly took out a transmission pendant and gave his orders. Whether it was the East Sea ornd, all were his territory! It was a foolish daydream if Li Hao thought he could escape the eastern continent!

    The four seas surrounded the central region¡ªthe seas of North, South, East, and West were all interconnected. There were interflows between them apart from being ultimately connected together. They were a sign that enclosed the central continent.

    Li Hao was running toward the East Sea. Of the North Sea, there were the eight major pirate factions that were led by the Starlight Pirates. The East Sea was also upied by pirates. While they weren¡¯t as rampant as those of the North Sea, there were plenty of them as well. Red Beard was very well known; most of the East Sea pirates were raised by local autocrats and despots!

    Purposefully creating enemies to consolidate their own position was one reason, raiding and looting treasures was another, blockading a continent was also one such reason...

    Li Hao chose to enter the sea because the silver armor could travel through the deep blue. It was easier than running onnd and more discreet. Onnd, even mountain forests were just one specific area. It was very different in the sea¡ªthe entire expanse would have to bebed through no matter where one entered.

    As a martial master, none of these people would be able to catch up to him so long as he evaded their line of sight. Such was Li Hao¡¯s determination. He also had another reason¡ªthere were major monster spirits in the seas. Some of them were very strong, and while martial masters might survive a sojourn in, supernaturals would be quickly discovered. Li Hao and Xu Qing were fine, but the two metamorphosis supernaturals would be swiftly mobbed if they entered the sea.

    The young man had wanted to use the big snake to slow down his pursuers, but he remembered well the favor that the snake had done for him and chose to enter the sea instead.

    Sword energy surged furiously while Li Hao took out a treasure as he ran¡ªthe Goldensky Lotus he¡¯d identified earlier in the treasury. All eight petals were present and he ripped one off, swallowing it. A stream of clear energy surged toward his organs and strengthened his auras. His presence fluctuated slightly, giving a clue to Xu Qing behind him.

    The man¡¯s expression shifted and he abruptly erupted with power, crossing several thousand meters to draw close to Li Hao!

 Chapter 596: The Winds Surge on All Sides (I)

    <h4>Chapter 596: The Winds Surge on All Sides (I)</h4>

    Li Hao brought his blood qi up and erupted with the Incantation of the de of Blood. Blood qi rushed into the Windchaser Boots and he shot out again, elerating!

    Xu Qing looked coldly at the fleeing young man. ¡°Li Hao,¡± he called out sternly. ¡°Do you think you¡¯ll enjoy the same treatment as Light Sword and hang on until Silver Moon rescues you?¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t respond. There was no need for conversation. The duke pressed forward again, continuing in more gentle tones. ¡°So long as you return the Windchaser Boots to me, we can possibly erase our past grudges. We have both gone through our hardships and can exchange smiles at the end of it. Such is the martial world¡ªyou kill me, I kill you. I underestimated you and lost my son and grandson for it. I admit, my skills were less than yours. However, enmity cannot continue forever. Return the boots to me and it will all be water under the bridge. You will walk your path while I walk mine, what do you say?¡±

    Li Hao still refused to respond. <i>I¡¯m not an idiot! I won¡¯t have a chance of surviving after I give the boots to you! I won¡¯t be able to run away!</i>

    The young man abruptly changed directions and ran off in another direction. Xu Qing¡¯s eyes widened and he cursed softly to himself. The young man didn¡¯t care about his words at all!

    <i>Wanna ambush me? Then get some premier martial masters here! There¡¯s a ball of light that burns like the sun on the hill ahead. Do you think I¡¯m blind??</i>

    It would appear that Xu Qing was aware he was headed to the East Sea. The duke had arranged for people to intercept him. Even if it was only a momentary dy, that might give Xu Qing and the others enough time to catch up, surround Li Hao, and kill the young man!

    However, Xu Qing underestimated Li Hao in the end. His special eyes were his greatest guarantee of escape. He¡¯d depended on them from an early time¡ªback when he was fleeing from scarlet shadows.

    ¡°He might be a Heaven¡¯s Eye,¡± a very displeased Xu Qing transmitted to his two generals. ¡°He can sense or see something.¡±

    <i>A Heaven¡¯s Eye!</i> The duke himself possessed some of those cultivators, as did all factions. It was just a matter of how strong they were. He¡¯d set off too quickly to bring his, not to mention that if Li Hao was too weak, there¡¯d be nothing to read from him. He was also a martial master, which made it harder to see through him.

    ......

    Li Hao panted heavily and turned back for a look. He had sword energy to replenish himself, but so did the two metamorphosis experts have mysterious power and stones to do the same. They just didn¡¯t refuel at the same pace he did.

    Xu Qing, however, surprised him. The man was very strong! His internal force was so strong that he rarely stopped or even paused to recharge. This meant that his blood qi and internal force had all reached an extreme level, so his rate of consumption wasn¡¯t too great. If he was just a metamorphosis expert, then he would be hard pressed to catch up to Li Hao. The young man could call upon the Windchaser Boots and sword energy from Steris.

    But a martial master, and a very powerful martial master at that... That was creating issues for Li Hao.

    ......

    In the rear, Xu Qing was also frowning.

    <i>He¡¯s consuming internal force so rapidly and using the Windchaser Boots, which are another massive drain. How can he keep up this pace...</i>

    The duke¡¯s eyes darted around¡ªthe sword of the Lis! That had to be the case. That Li Hao could reach his level of aplishment in such a short period of time had much to do with the sword of the Lis. Xu Qing had caught up to the young man once at the very beginning and connected with a punch. He could already sense then how strong Li Hao¡¯s organs were.

    Greed dawned in Xu Qing¡¯s eyes. If he could im the sword for himself andpletely strengthen his organs, he would be able to unseal himself without reservation! He might be the greatest beneath the heavens! He was strong to begin with¡ªhow would anyone match him if they didn¡¯t unseal themselves?

    He took out his transmission pendant and began issuing orders again.

    ¡°You guys should wait at the East Sea,¡± he also transmitted to the two generals. ¡°Even though this guy¡¯s going in circles, his ultimate goal is either the East Sea or Kui Mountains! He must have some contact with the big snake of the mountains, but that doesn¡¯t matter for now. He tried so hard to remove the snake from this picture that he probably doesn¡¯t want to go to the mountains. You guys go to the East Sea first and mobilize the pirates. Seal off the waters!¡±

    ¡°Then, what about you, Your Grace...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll be fine!¡±

    The two generals swiftly left after some thought. They were aware of how strong the duke was. Although everyone seemed to be of simr footing on the surface, even a peak Light Sword would be cut down if he unsealed himself. Xu Qing simply wasn¡¯t willing to as each instance was a case of risking his life.

    To the duke, things had not progressed to that point yet. He wasn¡¯t certain that he could immediately use the sword of the Lis after he killed Li Hao. If he was reassured that it would immediately re-seal his organs, then he would promptly unseal himself and catch up to Li Hao.

    The two generals sped away, a development noted by the young man when he turned back for a look. His expression shifted rapidly¡ªXu Qing was proving to be a tough foe. The two had probably left to ambush him in the sea. Even though it would prove fruitless, it was tough for him to enter the sea once that opening was blocked.

    ¡°You¡¯ve got some nerve, Xu Qing!¡± Li Hao finally uttered his first words in this chase. Heughed loudly as gale winds howled. ¡°Today is your death day! Be careful of Light Sword and Earthturner Sword treating you to tea together if you keep chasing me!¡±

    ¡°Li Hao, if you think the Steadfast Duke¡¯s intelligencework is that inadequate...¡± Xu Qing answered remotely.

    ¡°How would I have made it inside your home if it¡¯s <i>not</i> inadequate?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Xu Qing couldn¡¯t find a good response to that. Indeed, it was very inadequate for him to be unaware that Li Hao had left Silver Moon. But under normal circumstances, why would the young man leave, much less visit the duke¡¯s manor? Apart from Panther, who in the world could consider this possibility?

    Seeing how stubborn the young man was, Xu Qing thought for a while as he kept pace.

    ¡°Li Hao, I only want to kill you because I want to resolve the problem of the five organs. You sought revenge on the Xus simply because you were afraid that I¡¯de for you. But I have dozens of sons and grandsons. Losing two sons and one grandson is nothing concerning!

    ¡°How about this, promise me something as a member of the eight families. I won¡¯t kill you or even seek revenge on you. Nor will I seize your treasures, but I¡¯ll help you! What do you think?¡±

    ¡°I think you think I¡¯m an idiot!¡±

    ¡°No, you don¡¯t understand!¡± Xu Qing said softly. ¡°You should know that the eight families weren¡¯t necessarily the strongest existence even in the ancient civilization. There was the Human King, emperors, and innumerable powerhouses in those times!

    ¡°My Xus could rise up, or rather, any family or faction that can rise during this era needs to thank the ancient ruins. But we¡¯re unable to ess the core of many ruins¡ªthe eight families might be able to!

    ¡°To most people, seizing your sword is just to enter the next cultivation stage. Why should they go to you if there¡¯s any other method avable? On the other hand, my family holds sway over a ruin that was the key to our rise!

    ¡°The Windchaser Boots are not marvelous creations, despite being part of the eight familial treasures. ording to my information, the Lius weren¡¯t that prominent in the ancient civilization. The ruins that I hold belonged to a true powerhouse...¡± Xu Qing chuckled. ¡°If you¡¯re willing to explore a ruin for me, simr to how your master operated for others, I can even imitate Hou Xiaochen and protect you!¡±

    ¡°A ruin?¡± Li Hao sped up with his question. <i>Go fuck yourself man!</i>

    ¡°That¡¯s right, a ruin! A very important ruin. It¡¯s not only Silver Moon that has ruins, the eastern continent had an iparable existence in residence during the ancient civilization. The eight guardian ns only safeguarded a door that led to a mysteriousnd, but that doesn¡¯t mean that they were the strongest!

    ¡°The ruins that the Xus grasp have been developed for hundreds of years, but we are yet to plumb its depths! The city¡¯s name is Tranquil Star! I am a man of my word¡ªso long as you excavate the ruins for me, not only will I not hold you responsible for the deaths of my sons and grandson, but I¡¯ll help you with your revenge!¡±

    Xu Qing was very serious as these were his actual thoughts. Li Hao could utilize the Windchaser Boots, Steris, was a Heaven¡¯s Eye, and even counted the descendant of an ancient monster spirit among his followers... He really had the thought of asking the young man to explore the ruins for him.

    Would a powerful ancient city be less than Steris? The eight families weren¡¯t the strongest in the ancient civilization, they just carried a heavy burden on their shoulders. Xu Qing could gather from bits and pieces of information that the Tranquil Star he oversaw had once produced ultimate powerhouses that walked out of this world!

    Not even the ancient Human King might be a match for them. Of course, these ancient records were hard to determine truth or falsehood from, but Xu Qing knew that there must be great treasure stored in a ce like that.

    ......

    <i>Up ahead.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s heart stirred. Tranquil Star! Xu Qing¡¯s two sons were Xu Zhen and Xu Xing¡ªtheir given names formed the same characters for Tranquil Star! Was there a connection there? It was obvious that the Xus held full control over the ruins. Where else would the armor and mysterious power stonese from?

    Judging from what he¡¯d seen, the Xus controlled a formidable ruin. It was incredible that they¡¯d yet to fully explore it, the family had many metamorphosis experts! Was it another area simr to Battle Heaven?

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t interested as he¡¯d yet to have the time or strength to fully explore Battle Heaven, much less a ruin of the eastern continent.

    ¡°Really?¡± The young man still disyed interest on the surface. ¡°I don¡¯t believe what you say. If you¡¯re sincere, kill Ying Hongyue for me first and I¡¯ll explore the ruins for you second. I won¡¯t think it¡¯s a loss even if you kill me in the middle of the excavation.¡±

    ¡°Why suggest something that is impossible to aplish?¡± Xu Qing shook his head and stepped through the air, once more catching up to Li Hao. ¡°My family knows much about the three great organizations and have sponsored Yama quite a bit. I¡¯m not afraid to let you know that there are Xu members inside Yama!

    ¡°However, Red Moon is the strongest out of the three. Not only is it the strongest, but it is the most mysterious. Apart from that, Ying Hongyue may be the most terrifying of the three leaders. Based on the supernatural hierarchy, he should¡¯ve fully set foot into the sixth level. He might even be peak sixth level!

    ¡°I am ny-nine percent not his match even if I unseal myself... But that might not be the case if you are willing to help me! Also, you think of your revenge too simply. That Ying Hongyue could rise is due to his genius, strength, and most importantly, his backers!

    ¡°Your master was very strong in his time, no? But why couldn¡¯t he seize the opportunity in front of him and was surpassed by others instead? That is the consequence of being a lone wolf! Whether it is the three great organizations, nine ministries, royal family, or nobility¡ªthey¡¯re all major factions. Ying Hongyue has powerful backers and is tied to some highly confidential secrets. Much of what you see now is only what we are willing to let the people see. The truth is much moreplicated!¡±

 Chapter 597: The Winds Surge on All Sides (II)

    <h4>Chapter 597: The Winds Surge on All Sides (II)</h4>

    ¡°Take my Xus, for example,¡± Xu Qing said softly. ¡°You don¡¯t honestly think that our basis in suppressing the east is just me and a few generals, do you? You came so suddenly to the manor that we didn¡¯t have a chance to react. This is also a result of us having been at peace for so long, we¡¯ve grown a bit dull around the edges.

    ¡°However, you should know that no one treats their territory aboveground as the heart of their faction. Ruins and ancient cities are where powerhouses put down their roots! I say all this to help you understand that, having seized the Windchaser Boots and overturned my home, death will being for you all the same if you are unwilling to enter a partnership. It will find you even if I don¡¯t kill you!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook. Was that true? Xu Qing was implying that his family had many more powerhouses, that most of them resided in the ruins and ancient cities. It would seem that many people and factions like him were thus, such as the Ancient Guard of Red Moon. They preupied themselves with exploring ruins and rarely showed their faces.

    <i>Ruins...</i>

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t explored many ruins yet, but he¡¯d found ancient heavyweights in the two that he had. If he could discover the powerhouses of the Battle Heaven Army and the little tree, then so could these people. He couldn¡¯t possibly be the only one to make such finds.

    ¡°Not only can you and I partner together, but so can the existences behind us! The method that you used to kill Red Beard should be a... core origin division as recorded in the ancient records, right? You really do have an agreement with an ancient nt spirit, don¡¯t you? The imperial pce of the Kui Mountains might be fake, but you must have seen an ancient nt spirit somewhere. Is it in Battle Heaven? It looks like the eight families were really something. We¡¯ve met simr existences before, but were unable to approach them or strike up a partnership...¡±

    Li Hao remained swiftly making his way through the sky and didn¡¯t respond. The duke was both trying to persuade him and attempting to numb him to Yu Qing¡¯s movements. The duke had noticeably increased his speed just now and was drawing closer. Previously five thousand meters apart, the two were now roughly three thousand.

    The young man put on a burst of speed and widened the gap by another two thousand meters. Of course, that spontaneity consumed anotherrge chunk of internal force.

    Xu Qing frowned, growing furious. He was unable to use his family¡¯s heritage treasure, but the young man was having the time of his life. The effects were truly astonishing! The distance that they could cover in a split second was incredibly long. If he could use it and instantly close the gap to those of his level, would they be able to withstand him?

    Li Hao was only using it for escape, but in Xu Qing¡¯s eyes, these boots were the greatest tools for killing others. Speed was the only martial method that could not be defended against!

    The duke picked up speed again, his organs trembling and his blood qi surging upward. His internal force stirred, wanting to unseal his body. This pace was beyond his limits. If this continued, he might truly unseal his battle strength.

    ¡°Don¡¯t force me, Li Hao. You¡¯re a Silver Moon martial master, so you should know that you¡¯re dead without a doubt once I unseal my organs!¡±

    ¡°Come on, let¡¯s see you try!¡± Li Hao barked withughter. ¡°I¡¯ve got nothing to lose and am all by myself. If I die, I die. And you? You are the Steadfast Duke, the overlord of the entire east! Can you reseal yourself once you break your locks? Do you think you can aplish that just after taking my sword? Have you been able to use the Windchaser Boots in all these years of possessing them? My sword is ranked number among the eight, are you as idiotic as those outsiders?¡±

    Xu Qing didn¡¯t say a word. This was why he was warier than most. It was precisely because he¡¯d one such weapon before that he knew how hard it was for outsiders to fully control the eight weapons. It was hardly a moment¡¯s worth of wok. Time was required to slowly observe and familiarize himself with it.

    ¡°Don¡¯t forget that there is more than one path to recovering the five organs. Sword energy isn¡¯t the only way. So long as there¡¯s sufficient Water of life and blood pearls, they will do just as well. Do you think my family hasn¡¯t the least bit of reserves over the years?¡±

    ¡°Then it¡¯s perfect that you¡¯re here!¡± Li Hao beamed brightly. ¡°You can unseal yourself. So what if you have those items? How long can you maintain your condition? Will you be able to keep yourself under control once you do? The stronger one is, the harder control is!¡±

    <i>Trying to intimidate me? I¡¯m not scared!</i>

    The Xus would certainly possess Water of Life¡ªthe duke just couldn¡¯t make up his mind to use it at the moment. Li Hao was a bit nervous that the old fart would truly throw caution to the wind and unseal himself. If he did, that would be trouble!

    Seeing that they were running further and further from the Xu manor, Li Hao found the situation tricky. He was consuming sword energy too quickly! There almost wasn¡¯t enough time to replenish it. Thankfully, he¡¯d stored a lot when helping Light Sword recover from her wounds. Otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t have time to refuel Steris during their chase.

    Li Hao covered another one hundred and fifty kilometers during their conversation, his mind deep in thought as he abruptly changed direction. Xu Qing frowned, more certain than ever that the young man possessed a heavenly eye. An opponent like this was a difficult prospect¡ªkilling intent appeared in the duke¡¯s eyes! He had heavyweights lying in wait up ahead, but that n was defunct now as well.

    <i>Only martial masters can evade his senses!</i>

    The duke knew full well that Heaven¡¯s Eyes could easily discern supernaturals, but were almost blind to martial masters. Since it was supernaturals attempting to ambush him at present, they could not find sess at all.

    After some thought, Xu Qing reached for his transmission pendant again. It would be difficult to rely solely on supernaturals if he wanted to stop Li Hao.

    <i>Not long after the duke transmitted a message.</i>

    Li Hao''s scalp suddenly tingled; he looked around, finding no one other than Xu Qing behind him. There were no supernaturals¡ªwas it martial masters this time? That would be concerning! Did the Steadfast Duke have more powerful martial masters under hismand?

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther¡¯s hairs suddenly stood upright. It growled with urgency.

    Li Hao¡¯s expression shifted as three items shot toward him from the sky. They appeared to be bombs and were locked onto the young man. Xu Qing watched closely from behind.

    <i>Li Hao, you underestimate a major faction. Not to mention, I¡¯ve been following you the whole time. You¡¯ve probably never tasted a city annihtion missile before. </i>Why did wandering martial masters rarely provoke a major faction? This was the reason why!

    The duke shifted slightly back; three city annihtion missilesnded at this time. As Li Hao¡¯s scalp crawled with numbness, he quickly called upon the Windchaser Boots. However, the missiles were too quick!

    Not only that, but they were spread out in three directions in a showcase of precision firing. The Steadfast Duke in the rear was the only direction not covered. If Li Hao wanted to survive, he would have to run behind him!

    The young man instantly understood the situation. The Steadfast Duke¡¯s troops had fired the attack at coordinates supplied by Xu Qing.

    ¡°Break!¡± he grunted, summoning blood qi and mind intent. He shot through several thousand meters again, just as the bombs detonated into rings of energy!

    No sound, just formidable force swept through the area. All trees, rocks, and mountains were reduced to ashes beneath the bombs.

    Having retreated to a safe distance, Xu Qing said softly. ¡°Do you think that the dynasty stands to this day simply because of those supernatural and martial masters? Do you think that people refrain from rebelling only because they don¡¯t want to be first?¡±

    None of that was the case! It was just that there was yet to be a person who could withstand the destruction caused by a city annihtion missile, even in this age that saw a great number of powerhouses!

    ording to Xu Qing¡¯s judgment, it would take supernaturals in their sixth cultivation level and martial masters able to unseal themselves before the missiles could be weathered. No one else could survive being sted. Of course, the missiles also came with their share of drawbacks, such as hitting everything in their zone of detonation. It was very hard for them to lock onto a specific person.

    They had done so this time because the duke had steadily supplied the coordinates for their hit. If he wanted to use the missiles on someone stronger than him... Well, a very hearty good luck with that!

    But as many as their drawbacks were, the city annihtion misses were still an effective deterrence. Light erupted from the three bombs and illuminated thend and sky with brilliance. It was soundless! But a massive wave of energy churned in the next second as heaven and earth resonated!

    Even though the Steadfast Duke was quite a distance away, he stumbled from the oscition of energy and almost went deaf. His world temporarily lost its sound and he closed his eyes; that piercing light seemed ready to stab into his eyes. Li Hao was probably the worst off!

    The duke felt that it would be difficult to st the young man to pieces. With the Windchaser Boots present, the kid should be able to flee from ground zero, but he would be injured! It was Xu Qing¡¯s judgment that even if Li Hao could evade the center of detonation, he wouldn¡¯t find it that easy to escape from the st radius entirely. These city annihtion missiles were great weapons that the ancient civilization used against alien races!

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    A tremendous explosion ripped through the air only after everything was leveled before their eyes. The ground fissured in all directions, gaping cracks in the surface. Off in the distance, observers registered the development with shocked eyes and swiftly recorded it.

    ¡°The Steadfast Duke utilized three city annihtion missiles in his pursuit of Demon Sword. Demon Sword... was situated within the st zone!¡±

    ......

    Li Hao felt himself lifted through the air. He¡¯d never seen a city annihtion missile before, nor experienced its might. Silver Moon had threatened to use them a few times, but never actually fired the weapons. It was said that the central region had employed them a few times, but Li Hao had never seen an urrence with his own eyes.

    Today, he did. And personally experienced three of them!

    Three avenues of escape were sealed off, but he barreled forward nheless. He managed to escape the center of detonation, but even so, the ripples spreading in all directions mmed into him so hard that he wished for death!

    Cracks even appeared in the silver armor. Panther instantly left Li Hao behind and flung itself forward in the shape of the golden dog. It howled as all of the golden hair on its back was burnt off. It was suddenly a bald dog!

    Li Hao¡¯s organs suffered the blows from the immense impact. If it wasn¡¯t for his organs being so strong, he might¡¯ve died from the shock to his system. Though he survived, blood flowed out of his orifices!

 Chapter 598: The Winds Surge on All Sides (III)

    <h4>Chapter 598: The Winds Surge on All Sides (III)</h4>

    The cracks on the silver armor were slowly closing, but they also indicated that the st from the city annihtion missiles were beyond the current capabilities of the equipment.

    Arge mouthful of blood spewed out of Li Hao¡¯s mouth when he opened it. He grabbed the bald dog and nced backward. Xu Qing continued to back away, putting nearly ten thousand meters between them!

    The duke opened his eyes to see the young man break out of a cloud of dust and flee for his life again.

    ¡°You won¡¯t be getting away!¡± he said coolly. ¡°That was just a warning, Li Hao! Your position is consistently known since I¡¯m tracking you. That was just three missiles. Do you want to suffer a spread of ten or full coverage of thirty next?¡±

    Keeping his eyes pointed forward, Li Hao continued to flee!

    <i>Thirty missiles?</i> Right, he wouldn¡¯t be able to escape that, but would Xu Qing dare fire so many? Thirty was definitely out of his range of tolerance, but Li Hao didn¡¯t believe that these things could be infinitely fired.

    He was caught off guard the first time, so he only sensed impending danger and not its source. Now that he had a sense for what he faced, he recalled there was an energy ripple a split second before the missiles arrived.

    They were a massive ball ofbined energy¡ªpossibly an energy bomb simr to what Fan Chang had thrown down to make his getaway. These were just bigger and more powerful, but likely harder to fire.

    Behind him, the duke frowned. Li Hao sure could run. He was obviously injured as there were cracks and charred marks on his silvery-white armor. The descendant of the ancient monster spirit was even more noticeably injured, yet Li Hao did not give up.

    ¡°Li Hao, there will be no room for survival if you keep this up. Partner with me...¡±

    ¡°Partner my ass!¡± Li Hao shouted him down and rose into the air. ¡°Keep chasing me if you dare! I¡¯m going to where there¡¯s more people, so bomb them all if you want. It¡¯s not my territory!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Li Hao swiftly vanished, dragging a whining Panther behind him. A coollyposed Xu Qing gave further orders to his army through the transmission pendant.

    Running for his life, Li Hao¡¯s eyes abruptly widened and he suddenly infused all of his internal force into the Windchaser Boots. The missiles were descending upon him again!

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    A massive energy discharge leveled a small mountain in front of him. Li Hao¡¯s stumbling figure once more disappeared.

    ......

    ¡°That was close... Pfft!¡± Li Hao spat out another mouthful of blood. There must be a camp nearby for the duke¡¯s army. The missiles wouldn¡¯t arrive so swiftly otherwise! They were too fast! It took time to fire missiles, they weren¡¯t instantly teleported to their target.

    He raised his head up at the sky and once more shot forward. A military camp came into view with less than a minute of swift travel! A loud eruption roared as soon as the young man appeared. Countless bombs fired at him. Guns emptied their magazines at the sky and numerous Srs flew out of the encampment. There was even a Nova that floated out to watch their attacker solemnly.

    Demon Sword! He was as thorny as stories made him out to be!

    Li Hao roared with fury and shed out with his sword, breaking through the firmament. His sword crashed down and pulverized countless soldiers with his sword qi. Even supernatural powerhouses died by the droves.

    He could sense the discement of air from the duke¡¯s movement and waved his sword around in response. He killed one hundred people in the blink of an eye and thrust his sword toward the center of the camp in one final stroke!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A building exploded to reveal a massiveuncher. Sword qi raced through the air and cut the structure to pieces!

    There was no time to kill more, Li Hao swiftly left again! The Steadfast Duke had arrived.

    Xu Qing surveyed the site with a brooding look in his eyes. This was the drawback of the city annihtion missiles. If one wanted to swiftly lock onto and kill enemies, then one could not be too far away. That also easily provided a trajectory for targets to trace the firing origin and kill those attacking them, as well as theuncher.

    The camp was in disarray. Injured soldiers offered salutes of respect when they saw the duke.

    ¡°Please forgive us, Your Grace!¡±

    ¡°Fix theuncher!¡± was the only thing that Xu Qing said before he shot off in Li Hao¡¯s direction.

    The young man had now suffered two detonations. Although he wasn¡¯t in the center for either of them, it was still a painful experience. Panther was even more seriously injured and kept whining. It couldn¡¯t talk, but if it could, it would be cursing the duke¡¯s ancestors!

    ......

    ¡°This can¡¯t go on...¡± Li Hao kept vomiting blood. The duke might have many army camps. He would be targeted as soon as they drew near one. Xu Qing might not kill him after a few more attempts, but he would die from the ripples!

    ¡°I need to enter the sea...¡± The young man coughed out another mouthful of blood. He hadn¡¯t wanted to go before because he¡¯d been concerned that the two generals were waiting by the shore with more people. Hence, he changed directions, but now he had to go!

    It was more dangerous onnd!

    He wouldn¡¯t survive the onught if this continued. This was the Steadfast Duke¡¯s territory. It was only now that Li Hao understood why therge factions were difficult to deal with. Not only did they possess numerous powerhouses, but a sufficientlyrge enough crowd of mundanes would cause fatal damage all the same.

    ......

    <i>Silver Moon.</i>

    Director General Zhao¡¯s face darkened when he nced at a report. ¡°Xu Qing has activated city annihtion missiles for use. Although he hasn¡¯t fired them into cities, it is forbidden to use these weapons!¡±

    Struggles for supremacy, killing each other, war... All of that was normal. But those in charge also knew that bacsh was inevitable once weapons of such lethality were entered into the mix. One such missile wouldn¡¯t destroy a city, but twenty or thirty in a spread would kill all of the mundanes in arge city like White Moon City¡ªassuming that it wasn¡¯tpletely razed to the ground!

    Thus, there was a tacit understanding on all sides starting from a very long time ago. Apart from the three great organizations, no one was to use city annihtion missiles on anyone else. Silver Moon possessed some, but they were used to threaten the three great organizations. They were only ever utilized as threats¡ªthey¡¯d never been actually deployed.

    Huang Yu mmed his hand on the table! ¡°It looks like Xu Qing hasn¡¯t caught up to Li Hao yet. The duke is ignoring the agreement and firing the missiles at will! Damn!¡±

    ¡°Take the Silver Moon Army.¡± The director general was silent for a while before looking into the distance. ¡°And threeunchers, as well as thirty missiles. Go have some fun at the North Sea! If the various sides won¡¯t impose sanctions on the Steadfast Duke¡¯s army, then we¡¯ll start lobbing missiles at other provinces instead of the water!¡±

    Huang Yu promptly vanished on the spot.

    ¡°If you ask me, we should just fire straight at Near River!¡± Kong Jie snorted.

    ¡°And kill all of their civilians?¡± Director General Zhao looked at Kong Jie. The man didn¡¯t respond.

    The North Sea was one matter since it was popted by pirates. All they needed to do was avoid merchant vessels. But if fired into Near River... then there would be too many dead.

    ¡°Xu Qing¡¯s keeping nothing in mind apart from his desire to kill Li Hao!¡± Kong Jie snapped. ¡°He won¡¯t care about some intimidation. The east is his territory, after all. What good is a threat from a distance?¡±

    Huang Yu¡¯s actions may have some effect, but it was more likely that Xu Qing was censured after the fact. Whether it was the nine ministries or the royal family, neither side would care too much about the current developments.

    Did anyone expect them to send out troops to pacify the east? That was pure daydream! Silver Moon¡¯s actions would only result in the various sides to keep a tighter grip on their missiles, but it wouldn¡¯t forestall total usage. Once they heard that it was possible for a human to survive a missile strike, then the missiles would no longer ensure bnce between the various factions of the world either.

    ¡°Have Light Sword and Earthturner Sword set out yet?¡± asked Director General Zhao.

    ¡°They should¡¯ve. I have no way of tracking their movement.¡±

    The director general nodded. Indeed, they were too far away and it would take a while to reach the eastern continent. Li Hao could only count on himself for the time being.

    Kong Jie sighed as well, finding the young man to have been too brash. Granted, Li Hao probably hadn¡¯t expected that Xu Qing would utilize city annihtion missiles. Attacks were hard to evade with a powerhouse dogging his footsteps.

    ¡°Li Hao is a deputy director of the Silver Moon Night Watchers, after all. Have the Inspectorate send word to Skystar City to condemn Xu Qing. Request that Skystar City step forward to intervene and stop this conflict...¡±

    Kong Jie rolled his eyes. Was there something wrong with Ole Zhao¡¯s brains? How was that possible?

    ¡°Go!¡± Director General Zhao frowned. ¡°At least it gives us the moral high ground, which makes it convenient for what we do next. Otherwise, everything we do is inappropriate! Don¡¯t say a word about the grudge between Li Hao and the Xus. Don¡¯t admit to anything and have peoplee to the Night Watchers if they have proof! The Xus are not aw enforcement agency and Xu Qing is neither the Night Watchers nor Inspectorate!

    ¡°Ah yes, remember to say that Silver Moon sent Li Hao to exterminate the Red Beard pirates. As for the deaths of Xu Xing and the others... did anyone see it have anything to do with Li Hao? People only saw him kill Red Beard, but Xu Qing¡¯s been chasing the young man ever since. Does the duke want to avenge the pirates?¡±

    ¡°So you want to use principles of righteousness to force Xu Qing to stop?¡± Kong Jie mused. ¡°He still cares about his reputation since he wants to conquer the world.¡±

    ¡°It won¡¯t work that way!¡± Director General Zhao shook his head. ¡°He won¡¯t give up so easily. This just makes it so that he won¡¯t dare utilize his army!

    ¡°Go on then.¡± The director general waved the inspector general off. ¡°Hurry and spread the word. Don¡¯t forget to apply for amendation for Li Hao. Shouldn¡¯t upstairs be rewarded for killing a major East Sea pirate? Li Hao loves promotions, so promote him! Weck a peacemakermissioner after Hou Xiaochen¡¯s departure, so let¡¯s get one for him!¡±

    ¡°Um... Very well!¡± Kong Jie wasn¡¯t certain what the old man wanted to do, but this was better than doing nothing. He soon left as well.

    Director General Zhao paused for a moment before picking up a redmunicator on his desk. He dialed a number and intoned, ¡°Mobilize the hidden guards in Calm Borders and the closest three provinces. Have them help Li Hao and obstruct Xu Qing. Buy the young man some time...¡±

    ¡°Milord...¡±

    ¡°Just do it!¡±

    ¡°Understood!

    Themunicator cut off.

 Chapter 599: The Winds Surge on All Sides (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 599: The Winds Surge on All Sides (IV)</h4>

    The director general looked to the east again, his forehead scrunched together. The region was too far away. What a pity that the teleportation formations of the ancient civilization had long been lost. They would be able to instantly teleport over otherwise.

    It was one thing if Li Hao was close to Silver Moon; the province couldn¡¯t do much when he was in the east. Kong Jie, Huang Yu, and the others could go to him if he was nearby. Their hands were tied when the young man was so far away.

    ¡°The east... the east... Yu Qiao, East Pole Duke, Helios...¡± After some thought, Director General Zhao picked up themunicator again and dialed another number. The redmunicator was a top secret in the dynasty. It¡¯d taken a lot ofbor, resources, and effort to create thismunication system.

    It was more advanced than a transmission pendant and only certain executive officials were qualified to be assigned one. While the likelihood of being eavesdropped upon was very high, the director general didn¡¯t care about that at the moment. The transmission pendants operated within a small circle. Such a small circle was unable to connect to other people.

    Themunicator was answered momentster with confusedughter.

    ¡°Director General Zhao? What brings you to me today? What an honor!¡±

    ¡°East Pole Duke, how would the East Pole province like to mobilize its troops to threaten Calm Borders? You should at least force its Heaven and Earth Generals back within provincial borders...¡±

    ¡°Are you joking, director general?¡± chortled the lofty duke. ¡°The dynasty still stands. Director General Zhao is such a jokester!¡±

    ¡°East Pole can establish a camp in Silver Moon when our ruins open next!¡±

    The duke stoppedughing and fell into silence. ¡°Too hard! I think it¡¯s the end of the road for Demon Sword even if the two generals return to Calm Borders. You think too little of Xu Qing and the Xus! Xu Qing is now ying cat and mouse, he won¡¯t make it out of the Xu!¡±

    ¡°Just do your part.¡±

    ¡°Very well! But... this is the dynasty¡¯smunication system...¡±

    ¡°Mhmm.¡± The director general smiled. ¡°Will the dynasty keep us under constant watch? Our conversations are top secret and if they listen in... that means they don¡¯t trust us at all. They should be worried about bacsh from the ny-nine provinces in that case. Therefore, this won¡¯t leak. If it does, then something¡¯s gone drastically wrong with the dynasty for even us to be monitored, don¡¯t you think?¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, that makes sense!¡±ughed the duke. ¡°Very well then, I¡¯ll make the arrangements. But my hands are tied if Xu Qing thinks Li Hao is more important than Calm Borders.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s enough for you to take action.¡±

    ¡°Will do. Don¡¯t forget your words now, director general.¡±

    ¡°We of Silver Moon would not do so.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, I trust you!¡±

    The call was over and neither party cared if the central government had been listening. So what if they had? This was a development that they''d wholeheartedly approve of!

    Director General Zhao breathed out a soft sigh. This was the best he could do. As for everything else... that was up to Li Hao.

    ......

    Doggedly pursuing his quarry, Xu Qing suddenly frowned and nced at his transmission pendant.

    ¡°The East Pole Duke announced three minutes ago that some rebels have seized power among the Steadfast Duke¡¯s army and fired city annihtion missiles of their own ord. This has caused such an uproar in the east that the East Pole Duke will immediately send out troops to pacify the disturbance. He hopes that the Steadfast Duke will open the door of convenience for them to work together...¡±

    ¡°Bastard!¡± a livid Xu Qing roared angrily. How dare East Pole send troops out!

    Of course, he may just be posturing and looking to scare a neighbor, but six out of Xu Qing¡¯s eight generals were dead. His two vicemanders¡ªhis sons¡ªwere dead, and he was not with the army. He could direct them remotely, but if the East Pole army really came calling... The Steadfast army would absolutely be defeated.

    Xu Qing gnashed his teeth and input orders through his pendant after a moment. No matter if it was an empty threat or not, powerhouses needed to be in residence at the army. His two generals needed to hold down the fort in person, so as to dissuade the East Pole Duke from doing anything.

    ¡°Silver Moon!¡± sniffed Xu Qing. It went without saying that it must be Silver Moon behind this. Someone had bought out the East Pole Duke¡ªthe guy wouldn¡¯t have so easily taken a stand otherwise!

    Dealing with these matters wasted a bit of time for him. Xu Qing snorted coldly and broke through the air, continuing to give chase. It didn¡¯t matter if he was two people down. These happenings would just make people more wary of Silver Moon.

    <i>Just you wait, you Silver Moon bastards!</i>

    ......

    <i>Over the North Sea.</i>

    Two figures sped past overhead. Their presences were so overwhelming that nearby powerhouses, pirate ships, and merchant vessels all backed away fearfully.

    A wry expression crossed Hong Yitang¡¯s face. Here he was again, it¡¯d only been a few days! Last time it was Light Sword, this time it was Li Hao. <i>Can¡¯t you guys take a break for a while?</i>

    ......

    <i>On the East Sea close to the central region.</i>

    Yuan Shuo grinned at the transmission pendant in his hand. ¡°Nice!¡± So the duke had utilized city annihtion missiles, and more than one at that. The Xus were brutal, as was Xu Qing. Of course, there was a death feud between Li Hao and the Xus, so it made sense that the family had utilized the missiles when Li Hao kicked down their front doors.

    Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t angry about this as city annihtion missiles weren¡¯t that deadly to powerhouses. It was regr folks that the missiles were extremely effective against. Whether it was the government or the martial world, it went against the rules to utilize city annihtion missiles. However, there was nothing one could do if someone decided to ignore the rules.

    Yuan Shuo smiled, not sure if he should stew in anger orugh in this moment. He looked at the sea in front of him. The eastern continent could be found on the other side. There was a massive bridge rising in front of him¡ªthe East Sea Bridge.

    Constructed by the eastern continent, it ran through the central region and eastern continents. It was where the sea was at its most narrow. Roughly one hundred and fifty kilometers long, this was an impossible mission to aplish if the supernatural domain had not appeared in the world.

    Since this was now an era of the supernatural, no miracle seemed out of reach, not with supernaturals on the scene. Of course, Yuan Shuo was long used to sights like these. What did this bridge count for?

    The ancient records spoke of the ancient civilization crafting walls one thousand meters tall and circling part of the world!

    ¡°Little tyke... You really know how to get into trouble. What¡¯d you have to go and visit their territory for?¡± grumbled Yuan Shuo. A short de appeared in his hand, one that was somewhat translucent and crystalline. It was the stone de of the eight families.

    Yuan Shuo was not skilled with weapons, but that didn¡¯t mean he didn¡¯t know how to use them. On the contrary, he was much better at using weapons than some martial masters. The only ones he didn¡¯t measure up to were premier powerhouses that specialized in a certain weapon. The stone de was invincible, which made it useful.

    He set foot onto the big bridge. There were troops in residence on both sides. The closest province on the central region side had set a watch and the Steadfast Duke¡¯s troops were on the other side. ess to the bridge was limited. A powerhouse flew over as Yuan Shuo made his way upward.

    ¡°This bridge is not avable for ess! Take the waterways if you wish to go to the east!¡±

    The bridge was built, but usage denied.

    ¡°It¡¯s said that Xu Qing built this bridge to connect the central region and east region because East Shore province has sworn fealty to the Xus.¡± Genteel and refined, Yuan Shuo smiled at the iing officer. ¡°Is that true?¡±

    ¡°Who are you?!¡± rebuked the officer as his expression shifted slightly. Of course it was true. If it was false, Xu Qing would be crazy to invest so many resources into building a bridge that made it easier for the central region to invade.

    Reality was the exact opposite, the duke had built the bridge to make his invasion of the central region more convenient. Naturally, it couldn¡¯t be the enemy on the other side. It had to be someone in his own camp or a friend. The ruler of the East Shore that held true authority was a descendant of a general who once fought for the Xus. He¡¯d been a follower of the first generation duke.

    Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t cared about these matters before as they had nothing to do with him. But now, he smiled radiantly. ¡°I¡¯m going to walk this bridge today, so get out of the way. Since you don¡¯t know me, your status probably isn¡¯t too high. I¡¯m going to make trouble for the Xus on the other side. I won¡¯t kill you if you move, so don¡¯t force my hand!¡±

    The officer¡¯s eyes widened. Anyone who could voice these thoughts would not be a typical character! He was wary, but the East Sea Bridge was a very strategically important connection. The key was that there was a little problem in the middle of the bridge at the moment. It wasn¡¯t broken, butrge sums of pirates were gathered. The bridge served as the boundary that they spread out from to chase Li Hao.

    No one was allowed onto the bridge at this time. The officer quickly transmitted a message in all four directions and drew some movement from a distant military camp. Large numbers of supernaturals appeared.

    ¡°You have the East Sea separating you, but you still want to work for the Xus?¡± Yuan Shuo raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°I don¡¯t understand what you¡¯re talking about!¡± rebuked the man. ¡°Leave at once! This is important East Shore territory and we are currently conducting a military mission. No one is allowed to pass!¡±

    ¡°Military mission?¡± Yuan Shuoughed and promptly vanished on the spot. A transmission pendant appeared in his hand.

    All that the officer knew was that the trespasser vanished. When he next appeared, he was flipping through something. The officer immediately understood that something was amiss and roared, ¡°Kill the bandit!¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Guns fired and supernatural abilities deployed as his order was immediately answered. Yuan Shuo ignored all of it and vanished again while he looked at the pendant.

    ¡°The kid¡¯s really in trouble this time,¡± he sighed. ¡°East Shore has dispatched a military unit to seal off the sea...¡±

    The information in the pendant was very simple. Seal off the East Sea Bridge and all shorelines within one hundred and fifty kilometers. Coordinate with the East Sea pirates. Report Demon Sword¡¯s movements when he is found. Do not engage.

    inly, this side had received word from the Xus as well. The province coordinated their movements with the East Sea pirates to seal off the waters. Calm Borders was on the other side. As fast as Li Hao may be, he was still within Calm Borders territory. If he was to cross the sea, this was where he would have to do it.

    Yuan Shuo ceased speaking after he read the news. His stone de sparkled as he disappeared again; heads thudded to the ground. As onlookers watched on with shock, Yuan Shuo darted around like an agile ape. He issued no threats or boastful words. His de simply shed in and out of sight, leaving no one alive on the bridge!

 Chapter 600: Savages from the North (I)

    <h4>Chapter 600: Savages from the North (I)</h4>

    Not a flicker of change crossed Yuan Shuo¡¯s expression after he killed everyone on the East Shore side of the bridge. He darted into the military camp on the shore and arduously dragged out a mammoth crate.

    ¡°Heh, an energy bomb. Not bad, they¡¯ve even got city annihtion missiles. It looks like they won¡¯t stop until they¡¯ve killed Li Hao...¡± Yuan Shuo also dragged out a massiveuncher. He seemed very familiar with it and fiddled with theuncher for a while before looking across the East Sea. ¡°Damn it, I have no idea where you guys are fighting. I guess I¡¯ll just raise a fuss. Run here if you¡¯re smart enough to, tyke! If not, I¡¯ll attract some attention with what I¡¯m doing anyhow.¡±

    He spat into his palms and grunted as he dragged out a massive bomb from the nearby crate. It was as translucent as a crystal and highly ssified in terms of strategic importance. The one in charge of this camp had been a Nova. Novas were fully qualified to look after these items as initial Novas were rare powerhouses for regr provinces.

    But for Yuan Shuo, that level was inly insufficient. He didn¡¯t even exude ripples when he killed the initial Nova.

    He could sense the violent energy within when he hoisted the massive bomb onto his shoulders. These bombs were almost all excavated from the ruins. Any ruins that were of regr size or greater possessed such missiles. They were part of the standard city defenses.

    As for whether or not they could be found in Battle Heaven... Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t made it inside. He¡¯d only taken a turn outside, but it was his expectation that there was a ny-nine percent chance that those missiles could be found inside the city as well, and inrge numbers.

    At the moment, he focused on nothing else but quickly loading theuncher! After one missile, he continued with more. East Shore had significantly invested in this army unit by equipping them with six city annihtion missiles. Yuan Shuo loaded them all into theuncher and smoothly picked up a small box next to it. A code was required to fire these, but the code was hard to break. Any that were in use now had been sessfully broken.

    ¡°This is all my fault,¡± Yuan Shuo sighed as he broke the code. ¡°Look at what you guys have turned things into! if I¡¯d known, I wouldn¡¯t have publicized how to crack the code thirty years ago. I¡¯d thought to bring about world peace by having the various sides check each other, which leaves space for us martial masters to fight to our heart¡¯s content. But now look at what the result is¡ªyou guys are going after my disciple!¡±

    His words would shock many if they became public knowledge. Not everyone knew that weapons such as the city annihtion missiles had appeared on the scene long ago, but that they hadn¡¯t been in use for long. It wasn''t until thirty years ago that the various factions knew how to break the code and fire them properly.

    Prior to that, any usage required activation of the self-destruct sequence. To put it simply, some martial masters or arge army unit would have to run the missile to wherever they wanted to bomb and manually detonate it. Theunchers werepletely unusable.

    Thirty years ago, Yuan Shuo felt that this was such a pitiful arrangement. Arge number of friendly troops died every time they used a missile, so he decided to share the way to break the code with a wave of his hand.

    The loudly cursing old man swiftly loaded all of the city annihtion missiles, broke the code, checked his aim, then nced across the sea again. It was too far for him to get a clear look. Further details were impossible. That was fine, he didn¡¯t care.

    He pressed the fire button, sending six missiles shooting through the sky at an extremely fast pace. Approximately five minutester... <strong><i>KABOOM!</i></strong>

    A stunning explosion ripped through the void!

    Tidal waves reared in the sea and the bridge shook violently. In a location toward the center of the bridge that Yuan Shuo could not see, countless ships were falling apart and endless pirates had already been obliterated out of existence. The incredibly durable bridge began copsing.

    First it was half a kilometer, then one kilometer, and then one and a half kilometers... The damage rapidly spread for half a dozen kilometers. One fourth of this strategically important East Sea Bridge had been destroyed in a split second. The copse was not contained and continued to spread elsewhere!

    Wails of pain sounded, some pirates lucky enough to survive keened their anguish. Most of their fellows had been bombed to death because Yuan Shuo had nced at his transmission pendant and knew that there were pirates somewhere in the center. He didn¡¯t know their exact location, his goal was just to destroy the bridge. The pirates were an added bonus.

    Various pirate leaders hovered in the air. Some were gravely wounded while others were lucky enough to survive disaster. Some were shell shocked, while one screamed, ¡°It¡¯s East Shore... East Shore utilized their city annihtion missiles! This was a trap and great war is upon us! They randomly fired off city annihtion missiles...¡±

    Chaos had their home in a grip that was closing around them! Such were the thoughts of all of the survivors.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A massive wave churned across the water surface and pped all of the fleeing pirates into meat paste. It was almost one thousand meters tall!

    The East Sea was finally no longer tranquil. A few remaining pirate faction leaders quickly spread the word. East Shore had fired city annihtion missiles!

    Perhaps it was the central region that¡¯d sent people. The sky was falling.

    ......

    Momentster, the world finally recovered its senses.

    <i>Within Silver City.</i>

    ¡°Damn it, what are all of them doing?!¡± cursed a heavyweight. ¡°Are they seeking to start a war that drags in the entire dynasty? What on earth is East Shore doing?! They fire their missiles after Xu Qing has utilized his. Are they all crazy?!¡±

    ¡°Inspector general, bad news,¡± a quavering voice rang with fear and horror. ¡°Huang Yu has taken the Silver Moon Army to the North Sea and fired... <i>thirty</i> city annihtion missiles at the territories of the Sea Monster Raiders, White Shark Raiders, and others. The North Sea is inplete pandemonium and tidal waves are so numerous that they crash into each other. Huang Yu is warning everyone in affected provinces to evacuate from the coastline. The tidal waves will be upon them soon...¡±

    The inspector general suddenly fell silent and sat down in a stilted motion. ¡°Announce this to thends!¡± he heaved a sigh. ¡°Steadfast Duke Xu Qing hasmitted a grave crime in brazenly firing the city annihtion missiles. He is to be demoted and stripped of his title as duke. He is now the Steadfast Marquis!

    ¡°Have the royal family stamp the decree and distribute it! Also, send men to search and confiscate all that you can from the duke¡¯s home in the capital...¡±

    ¡°This is bad, inspector general.¡± A nervous messenger walked in at this time. ¡°Skystar Commander Hou Xiaochen has led the Silver Moon Army into a besiegement of the duke¡¯s manor. He ims that heavyweights of the three great organizations are hiding within theplex.

    ¡°He killed the duke¡¯s younger brother, Xu Yao, on the spot and found a Red Moon ghost face mask when he searched the man. He is currently arresting all of the duke¡¯s powerhouses, if not outright killing them. The eldest girl of Xu Qing¡¯s second wife, the young girl who is a genius young girl, has been snatched out of Skystar Academy. Hou Xiaochen grabbed her directly from ss and has already locked her into the Night Watcher dungeons!¡±

    ¡°Bastard!¡± The inspector general flew into a range and mmed his hands down as fists on the table. It splintered and fell apart. ¡°Who gave him the authority to do so?!¡±

    ¡°He... he says... that he is the Skystarmander and as such, possesses this authority. Whoever dares oppose him is a rebel and an evil supernatural from the three great organizations...¡±

    ¡°The Skystarmander...¡± The inspector general blinked and fell silent. He remembered now, he¡¯d agreed to this posting a few days ago. Indeed, this was the Inspectorate, the secondaryw enforcement agency apart from the Ministry of Armed Forces. After the Night Watchers were formed, they were the firstw enforcement agency. However, the agency still answered to the Inspectorate despite showing recent signs of wanting to break free.

    ¡°Good, very good!¡± the man sneered after prolonged silence. ¡°These Silver Moon martial masters are definitely hot-blooded, alright! Forget it, let them have their fun with each other! Xu Qing wants to kill Li Hao, so Hou Xiaochen ends his line in Skystar City first. I¡¯d like to see what else these crazies can get up to!

    ¡°East Shore would not attack the Xus for no reason at all. They must not be the ones to fire the missiles.¡± The inspector general was calm now. ¡°It¡¯s ny-nine percent Silver Moon behind this. If not a contingency arranged by their provincial government, then... Yuan Shuo!¡±

    The people around him blinked.<i> Yuan Shuo?</i>

    The inspector general was so certain because the only person who could do so, who dared do so, and could attack with such precision was Yuan Shuo. There was no one else! When he yed with the city annihtion missiles, the rest of them could only hold the missiles in their hands and personally deliver it to the st zone!

    ¡°Ignore them!¡± sneered the inspector general after a while. ¡°They can fight each other, so long as it doesn¡¯t affect anyone else. I¡¯d like to see how a family with two hundred years of history will stand against those Silver Moon lunatics!¡±

    ¡°Then... do we just let Hou Xiaochen throw his weight around like this?¡± someone asked apprehensively. That guy had gone mad! This was Skystar City, but he was deploying troops within the city and taken people directly from Skystar Academy. There were powerhouses in residence at the academy. It was an institution of learning that countless high ced officials sent their descendants to.

    It was a true academy for nobility.

    ¡°There are so many heavyweights at the academy. Did none of them take a stand?¡± the inspector general asked aloofly.

    ¡°Yes, Vice Headmaster Wang stepped forward...¡±

    ¡°And?¡±

    ¡°And... lost one of his arms to a jab from Hou Xiaochen. He was arrested and taken in for sentencing. If he¡¯s found out to be part of the three great organizations, he¡¯ll be executed on ater date!¡±

    ¡°A peak Nova lost his arm to one stroke?¡± The inspector general frowned. Hou Xiaochen seemed stronger than before.

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Then forget it.¡± The inspector general grinned. ¡°It¡¯s not like this is civil discord, it¡¯s just the Skystarmander of the Night Watchers carrying out his duties! As for the East Sea, North Sea, and Calm Borders firing off missiles... Let the Ministry of Armed Forces deal with that!

    ¡°Everyone¡¯s watching the show, so let¡¯s keep watching it!¡± He spat on the ground with a sneer. ¡°I bet you before long that it might be missiles flying through Skystar City before long!

    ¡°Notify me when either Li Hao or Xu Qing is dead.¡± He left with a flourish of his sleeves. ¡°Don¡¯t disturb me for anything else!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The resigned group watched their superior office walk off. It looked like he was very put out by the hostilities on both sides. The main issue was that no one else was willing to step in, causing their superior to throw his hands up despite wanting to help at first. The group also clucked their tongues with surprise when their thoughts turned to Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Commander Hou... is a ruthless guy!¡± someone murmured with a smile of wanting to watch a great show. This has nothing to do with us,<i> the bigger the better!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen was a deputy director at the Night Watchers when it came down to things. He was part of the Inspectorate as well. To see him be so brazen and antagonize characters that they wouldn¡¯t normally be daring to provoke... beating them and crippling them outright... Honestly, it felt damn good!

 Chapter 601: Savages from the North (II)

    <h4>Chapter 601: Savages from the North (II)</h4>

    <i>Skystar Academy.</i>

    This was a new academy established twenty years ago. Countless descendants of senior officials, children of local officials, and those with extremely strong potential matricted as students. Today, however, its august halls were so silent that a pin drop could be heard.

    Hou Xiaochen coughed and held a list of names in his hand. He stood on a stage and called out, ¡°Xu Ming, Xu Yue, and Xu Rong... Are these students here?¡±

    He swept a gaze over several thousand furious students and coughed again. ¡°Additionally, those that I call next will step forward as well. I am taking a roll call of those whose parents serve in the four institutions of Calm Borders. There seems to have been an insurrection there, so I must bring you back to the Night Watchers for your safety.¡±

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen, the Silver Moon martial world refrains from dragging family members into your feuds! You go too far!¡± someone shouted.

    ¡°My apologies, I am not of the martial world!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled with a cough. ¡°I am an official, the Skystarmander, and a deputy director of the Night Watchers. Those who serve in the government do not follow the rules of bandits and thugs. Not to mention, I am doing this for your own good!

    ¡°Not to mention, I was once one of themanders of the Skystar Guards. My mission was to exterminate superhuman elements that did not follow orders. ording to prior custom, I should¡¯ve razed this academy already. You can ask the Steppe Prince if you don¡¯t believe me. Was that not the original mission statement of the Skystar Guards?

    ¡°What a pity that we are no longer who we were,¡± Hou Xiaochen coughed again. ¡°The honorable Steppe Prince wanted to eradicate pests, but he was unable to act upon his aspirations! He wanted to restore the royal family... But ai, I misspeak. Do not misunderstand me! Now we are in a situation of the Skystar Guards being abolished and I shall not speak of it as the Skystarmander.¡±

    An old man with white hair walked out in the distance. His expression was calm as he approached Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Brother Hou,¡± he said softly. ¡°You can speak of any matter in private with me. There is no need for such actions. Not to mention, are you sure you can affect the duke in arresting these people?¡±

    Would a man who didn¡¯t care about the death of a son mind the capture of these people? Whether it was his younger brother, grandson, or grand-niece and nephews... Did he care?

    The martial world spoke of not embroiling the families of those involved in its grudges, but Hou Xiaochen pointed out that he was not of the martial world. He also said that it was Xu Qing who broke the rules first, to which there was nothing that anyone else could say.

    The old man walked out at this time to cate the intruder. If this farce continued at the Skystar Academy, its reputation would hit rock bottom. Who would continue believe that this was the greatest institute of higher learning within the dynasty?

    ¡°Do not misunderstand me, I really am cleaning out members of the three great organizations.¡± Hou Xiaochen struggled with a coughing fit. ¡°I¡¯m not using my position to get even for a private grudge, nor am I that type of person. It¡¯s been so many years, Brother Zhao, but you¡¯ve truly misunderstood me...

    ¡°How about this, I won¡¯t make things difficult for you or the boys and girls. I¡¯ll withdraw from the academy if Brother Zhao helps me with something.¡±

    ¡°Please speak of it.¡± The old man looked at him with mixed emotions. They¡¯d once been familiar with each other and Hou Xiaochen had been under the Steppe Prince¡¯s banner.

    Everything was different now.

    ¡°The Night Watchersck personnel in recent times, while highly educated students with great potential are in abundance at the Skystar Academy,¡± chuckled Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Have them conduct a few missions with me as their graduation exam. I happen to be in the middle of exterminating the three great organizations. These students can do their part for the country!¡±

    He turned to the students that¡¯d brimmed with anger moments ago and smiled at them. ¡°No matter how much you learn in the ssrooms, none of it measures up to some actual fights in the battlefield. That is where your talents, knowledge, and strength will shine!

    ¡°That Li Hao didn¡¯t learn anything in the Veteris Institute of Skystar City either. It¡¯s only been a short while since he left school, but he¡¯s a premier powerhouse now. He also served beneath my hand for a while... You people need to experience a thing or two. No matter how strong your families are, they cannot protect you for a lifetime!

    ¡°The three great organizations are evil beyondpare and burn, kill, loot as they will. No viiny is off limits! I¡¯ll introduce you to blood, seize their treasure, kill evil supernaturals, and dominate the world. Your name will be known throughout thends¡ªnow <i>that¡¯s</i> a life worth living!¡±

    The looks in some eyes changed with his words. No matter how excited the students were, they held themselves in with effort and didn¡¯t make a sound.

    The man with white hair frowned slightly.

    ¡°We can forget it if you don¡¯t dare,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°You are all descendants ofrge ns and some might be in cahoots with the three great organizations. I wouldn¡¯t want people like that either. They say that Skystar Academy is filled with geniuses, but there are also people that say that you¡¯re just a bunch who got in through connections. Apparently, all of you are just for show. You may graduate as Novas, but Srs in the outside world will beat you ck and blue...

    ¡°Also, the three great organizations are powerful. It¡¯s normal to be afraid of death, blood, fighting, and their revenge...¡±

    ¡°Are you trying to spur us into action,mander?!¡± someone yelled. ¡°We¡¯ll go if the headmaster agrees! Who¡¯s afraid of killing members of the three evil organizations?!¡±

    Resignation appeared on the old man¡¯s face. <i>You idiot! you know he¡¯s trying to goad you, but you respond all the same. It¡¯s so obvious that he¡¯s prodding you into action. Hou Xiaochen ispletely ckhearted!</i>

    These were a group of children descended from highly ced officials. What should happen if they were to die in the field?

    First of all, would the three great organizations dare kill these children? If they didn¡¯t, it was their deaths on the line. But if they did, that would be an end to their peaceful agreement with the nine ministries. And the key was, was Hou Xiaochen truly undertaking this to eliminate the three great organizations? Or would he take the students on some other missions as well?

    There were many who understood the connotations and an academy powerhouse snapped, ¡°You won¡¯t be taking anyone with you no matter how much you say, Hou Xiaochen! Don¡¯t think that no one sees through your tricks...¡±

    ¡°My tricks? Should we all be exterminating the three great organizations? Or are you colluding with them?¡± Hou Xiaochen coughed. ¡°Men! Arrest this fellow and take him back for interrogation!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Golden Spear jabbed his weapon through the firmament and sent the speaker flying. His next stroke pierced through the speaker¡¯s shoulder and nailed him to the spear.

    ¡°So you¡¯re an academy powerhouse?¡±ughed Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Both of you are initial Nova... but you were captured in two blows. And it¡¯s because Golden Spear doesn¡¯t want to kill people, otherwise you would be dead with one blow! Ai, so this is the famed academy education... How ludicrous!¡±

    The old man¡¯s look turned chilly; Hou Xiaochen stared calmly back at him, but with a hint of killing intent in his eyes.<i> If you dare move, I will dare kill you!</i>

    Despite the old man being a metamorphosis expert, he gradually calmed his anger. He knew that if they really met in a fight and Hou Xiaochen unsealed himself, the old man would die. As for whether or not Hou Xiaochen would actually unseal himself... it was hard to gauge these Silver Moon maniacs. Xu Qing would not, but those of Silver Moon unsealed themselves at the drop of a hat!

    Golden Spear¡¯s moves electrified quite a few students. Was the gap between powerhouses from the battlefield and the academy this big? That had only been two moves!

    ¡°Commander Hou, do you have strength requirements for your interns?¡±

    ¡°None. I have uses for any strength level!¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°Come with me now if you¡¯re willing. I¡¯ve just received word that an insurrection is urring in East Shore. We will be going now to arrest those at the East Shore Office in Skystar City. They may be preparing to betray the dynasty, so we¡¯ll take them out!¡±

    Color drained from some faces with his words¡ªthose students were from East Shore.

    ¡°I¡¯ll go!¡± someone called out eagerly. It was rare to see pitched battle in Skystar City. A province¡¯s representative office in the dynasty¡¯s capital would certainly be staffed with powerhouses.

    ¡°Come with me!¡± Hou Xiaochen soared into the sky with augh. The Silver Moon Guards around him swiftly retreated with a wave of his hand. Golden Spear flung the powerhouse on his spear down to the ground, where colleagues swiftly converged upon the wounded Nova to take him into custody.

    ¡°Brother Hou, are you still taking him with you?¡± The old man frowned.

    ¡°Brother Zhao, Headmaster Zhao, I¡¯ll take you if I can¡¯t take him.¡± Hou Xiaochen turned around and narrowed his eyes. ¡°Take your pick!¡±

    The old man clenched his fists and chose to remain silent. Hou Xiaochen grinned, then gave a bark ofughter that traveled in all directions! It was very cocky and over-the-topughter!

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±

    Hundreds of Guards followed hismand. Some of the students looked at their mute headmaster, inwardly despising the man. <i>You¡¯re a metamorphosis expert, a premier powerhouse, one lofty above all... Bah! You don¡¯t even dare resist!</i>

    A dozen students rushed out to follow Hou Xiaochen. The man¡¯s unbridled arrogance was right up their alley. They were second generation of the rich and powerful¡ªall of them were audacious in the extreme. They felt that the academy was good enough before, but it was sheer trash to them today!

    Witnessing true ughter at close quarters was what they wanted. More students rushed out to follow Hou Xiaochen. The old man watched them leave.

    ¡°Headmaster, he¡¯s too full of himself!¡± Some furious people appeared next to the old man and transmitted their thoughts to him.

    The old man watched Hou Xiaochen¡¯s back and said slowly after a long moment, ¡°No one from the nine ministries, royal family, and aristocracy have stepped forward to stop him. Will you guys stop him?¡±

    The group quieted down, but someone was still frustrated and didn¡¯t understand. ¡°Why?? He¡¯s juste from Silver Moon, how does he dare behave so impudently? Didn¡¯t they say that they were letting hime here just to humble him?¡±

    And now? He¡¯d be the Skystarmander who wielded great authority! What of those who said they were going to take care of him before? Was everyone like Silver Moon of this ilk?

    Demon Sword Li Hao had kicked in the Steadfast Duke¡¯s doors and killed his son in front of the duke¡¯s eyes. Hou Xiaochen now did the same. Savages lived in Silver Moon territory and the deste wildnds produced barbarians!

    ¡°Why?¡± The old man was silent for a very long time before he shook his head. ¡°There¡¯s no real reason why other than they are willing to unseal themselves. Everyone else doesn¡¯t dare to!¡±

    It was just that simple!

 Chapter 602: Savages from the North (III)

    <h4>Chapter 602: Savages from the North (III)</h4>

    The problems that arose from unsealing oneself yet gued superhumans around the world. There was also the hazardous issue of breaking the sixth supernatural lock. No one wanted to incite a battle of even higher levels.

    However, Silver Moon did.

    Skystar would be able to neutralize Hou Xiaochen if he unsealed himself in the capital, but if then came along Sky Sword, Northern Fist, then Tyrant de, Kong Jie, and Huang Yu...

    Who wanted to stick their neck out to be the first to handle all of these characters? There was also Earthturner Sword and Light Sword to consider!

    Not to mention, Hou Xiaochen was operating within the confines of his duties. He hadn¡¯t vited a single regtion, so what right did anyone have to move against him?

    The nine ministries were not of one heart. Under such circumstances, Hou Xiaochen had the ability to be this overweening. Silver Moon was beginning to show its brilliance.

    ¡°Hmph! I bet that Demon Sword dies in Calm Borders this time! Let¡¯s see if this bunch can still strut around afterward! Once the Xus kill that Demon Sword and find their footing again, they¡¯ll kill as many of these Silver Moon brats as they wish!¡±

    The old man still didn¡¯t say a word. His eyes widened as he abruptly grunted and punched out with a sh of golden light. The light scattered with a loud rumble when a fiery spear sailed through the firmament and pierced through the speaker!

    ¡°Shut up if you have no strength!¡± came Hou Xiaochen¡¯s voice. ¡°Those with strength do not speak, but those without bounce up and down for all their might. Brother Zhao, this person openly says to kill a deputy director of the Night Watcher Silver Moon branch. You have no opinion about me killing him, do you?

    ¡°You should stay away from mutinous sorts like these!¡±

    The old man was at a loss for words. Blood trickled down his hand and dripped on the ground as the voice vanished. He looked into the distance with aplicated expression of shock. Hou Xiaochen must have broken through! Not in terms of cultivation level, but number of supernatural locks saturated. There must be more than when he killed Elder Red Hair!

    The old man was a metamorphosis expert, not an initial Nova, but his hand had been run through all the same! Had Hou Xiaochen concealed his strength before, or had he improved recently? When the old man looked at the dead initial Nova and the trembling academy experts around him, he sighed and left.

    There was no prestige left to the Skystar Academy after this urrence. As he thought, it was unfeasible to imitate the martial universities of old. The student body was a motley crew, the teachers were a motley crew, there were too few powerhouses, and everyone was afraid of death. It was a far cry from what could be found in the ancient times.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>The coastline of East Shore province.</i>

    Yuan Shuo smiled at the towering waves in the distance and flew toward the center of the bridge with the stone de in hand. Such a massive disturbance should be felt throughout the entire sea. <i>Do you feel it, little Li Hao? Even if you don¡¯t, Xu Qing should be aware. Will youe, Xu Qing? Or will the experts youmande?</i>

    Yuan Shuo smashed his hand forward like it was a missile! The de cut through the void and executed the few survivors of the towering waves. Their blood sprayed over the East Sea.

    ......

    ¡°Bastard!¡± Xu Qing snarled. He¡¯d received a lot of news in a split second.

    The East Sea Bridge had been bombed out of existence, the East Sea pirates had suffered heavy losses, his manor was being searched and property confiscated, Hou Xiaochen killed his younger brother at the front doors, and the Inspectorate had sent notice to the dynasty to demote him from duke to marquis!

    Right and wrong, as well as legitimacy, were still needed in this world. Due to his unteral action in haphazardly firing city annihtion missiles, it created a simr threat to all provinces in thend. People would soon follow in his footsteps if he wasn¡¯t made an example of, which would throw the world into chaos!

    Demoting him by one rank didn¡¯t affect his influence, but it was a greater loss than anything to the Steadfast Duke. He gnashed his teeth and howled at the sky. How dare they!! Was the Inspectorate crazy?! How dare they publicly reduce his rank?!

    The key thing was, the royal family had agreed and the other eight ministries tacitly approved of what they¡¯d done! inly, they all felt that he¡¯d set an undesirable precedent and couldn¡¯t be allowed to continue in this vein.

    ¡°Damn it!¡± he cursed, incensed. He hadn¡¯t given much thought to utilizing the city annihtion missiles¡ªit turned out that the consequences were much more than he wanted to bear.

    Xu Qing tamped down the violent rage in his heart and looked at a little ck dot in the distance. Li Hao was getting ever further away. While the du¡ªmarquis was being harassed by these infuriating matters, the young man was making his getaway. These Silver Moon bastards were all crazy!

    Indeed, Xu Qing felt that they were all nuts. It was Li Hao who¡¯d called upon him with nefarious intentions, it was Li Hao who acted first! But these Silver Moon crazies dered war on him for another crazy!

    The marquis set his jaw. He had to swiftly kill Li Hao to quell this matter. The young man would be worthless when he was dead. Didn¡¯t Silver Moon want to protect him at all costs? Then Xu Qing would kill him! That would make all of his losses and effort worth it.

    His blood qi rose with a muffled grunt and fortified his presence. The man reluctantly swallowed one drop of Water of Life. Even he didn¡¯t have much of it; each usage was a waste of life itself. But now, he needed to conclude the battle as soon as possible!

    Xu Qing slightly undid the locks of his five organs. Newly enhanced, he broke through the air and shot straight at Li Hao. The young man couldn¡¯t be allowed to run so brazenly any further. He would lose his quarry if this chase kept up!

    ......

    Up ahead, the look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes sharpened. He turned back for a look and saw that the Steadfast Duke that he¡¯d almost entirely thrown off had elerated again. The panting young man cursed to himself. That old codger had really partially unsealed himself, hadn¡¯t he?? He was crazy! If the strain on his body went beyond the capabilities of Water of Life, he would waste all of his previous efforts!

    Li Hao had judged Xu Qing to be someone who didn¡¯t easily unseal himself. Reality had proven to be a surprise again...

    <i>He must be backed into a corner and want to kill me as fast as possible, </i>the young man mused to himself. Perhaps someone was forcing the old fart¡¯s hand. Who? Silver Moon?

    It could only be Silver Moon. Those old geezers truly had some skill to their name to force Xu Qing to these straits from so far away. <i>However... you guys are bringing too much pressure down on him! He¡¯s gone crazy! I could¡¯ve lost him if you waited just a bit longer! He might¡¯ve felt that he had plenty of time before and thus didn¡¯t lose his mind so quickly.</i>

    <i>You guys are gonna be the death of me, this wasn¡¯t the right time!</i>

    Silver Moon must have taken action from the shadows, but their timing was off. They were too early as Li Hao had yet to draw close to the sea. If they¡¯d waited until then, he stood a veryrge chance of outright escape.

    And yet, there was no helping it. They didn¡¯t have firsthand information, so they could only make the best judgment call possible.

    Li Hao grit his teeth and swallowed Steris with a surge of blood qi. He operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to its utmost and directed endless sword energy into his body. He zipped across the sky with a new burst of speed.

    Xu Qing cursed behind him. The boy had more power to draw on?? What the hell was Li Hao made of?!

    The young man was as white as a sheet, but he leered. <i>Surprised? There¡¯s more where that came from!</i>

    The supernatural lock of his sword was saturated, so he tried partially breaking it. It proved too hard to manage, so he had to use the sword aura against the formidable lock.<i> I¡¯ll just snap half of it for now and see if I can bring even more strength to bear. If I can, I¡¯ll pick up speed again! Choke on your own spit, old fart!</i>

    Li Hao was flying in the direction of the East Bridge. He hadn¡¯t heard the massive explosion, but sensed a surge of energy erupting and churning over from that direction!

    Given the amount ofmotion, he guessed that perhaps reinforcements had arrived. As for who they were, he didn¡¯t know. He would have to take a look first. It would either be Hong Yitang or Light Sword. Light Sword would help him because she wanted him to suppress the energy within her body, and Hong Yitang would help him because he... was a good guy, right?

    Those two were the only possible candidates¡ªLi Hao didn¡¯t even consider the possibility of his own teacher. There¡¯d been news of his teacher at first when he entered the central region, but there¡¯d been none recently. Perhaps watchers had lost sight of him, perhaps he¡¯d run off with Jadelight Sword, or perhaps he was digging up graves. Who knew?

    His teacher was so weak that it was useless if he came!

    ......

    Hunter and quarry panted heavily. Li Hao fled in the direction of the East Sea Bridge for all his worth. He was chased by a brooding Xu Qing.

    Despite having somewhat unsealed himself, the marquis still couldn¡¯t immediately catch up to Li Hao. His face darkened as he looked in the direction where Li Hao was running. The East Sea Bridge had copsed from the missiles. Whether it was unexpected developments in East Shore or something else... Xu Qing did not yet know. Perhaps there was someone on the East Shore side waiting to rescue Li Hao.

    If Li Hao convened with his rescuers, that might create a lot more trouble for Xu Qing. Everything was on the table at this point of the chase. He grit his teeth and cracked his locks a bit more, then swallowed two more drops of Water of Life. A surge of vitality entered his organs and circted swiftly through them.

    However, the energy could not be directed to heal damage at this point in time. All his efforts would be for naught if that urred. And yet, that growing sense of being cut apart deepened the longer he refused to repair his locks. It was a terrifying notion.

    He ultimately stood strong against the fear and shot forward, his legs propelling him as if two rockets. Xu Qing covered one thousand meters in the blink of an eye. Sonic booms abounded as the marquis picked up speed.

    Up ahead, Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. The guy had truly gone crazy! The rich and noble did not sit under the eaves, for fear of falling tiles. <i>You¡¯re not a pure martial master, you¡¯re a duke! A hotshot! Why are you trying so hard?</i>

    Seeing that the gap was closing between them, a crystalline root suddenly appeared in Li Hao¡¯s hand. He roared and tossed it at his pursuer. ¡°Eat this and die!¡±

    Xu Qing¡¯s pupils contracted violently! He immediately ground to a halt and climbed higher in the sky, horror in his face. That thing had killed Red Beard with one move¡ªhe¡¯d seen it with his own eyes! He¡¯d been guarding against this possibility all this time, but almost forgotten about it when Li Hao continuously failed to use it.

 Chapter 603: Return of Old Demon Five Styles (I)

    <h4>Chapter 603: Return of Old Demon Five Styles (I)</h4>

    Seeing as how Li Hao had his teeth gritted in fury and looked like he wanted nothing more than to kill Xu Qing, the marquis didn¡¯t dare meet the young man head-on. He was confident that he was much stronger than Red Beard, but even so, that thing would heavily injure him or break more of his supernatural locks, even if it didn¡¯t kill him.

    Xu Qing didn¡¯t dare take the risk, so he chose to evade the oing collision. The item¡¯s effects wouldn¡¯tst too long. One second, two seconds, three seconds...

    Up ahead, Li Hao once more widened the gap between them.

    The crystalline root floated upon the air... and floated... before it fell to the ground. Xu Qing froze with surprise, then looked at the running Li Hao with a vicious glint.

    <i>You lied to me, not once, but thrice!</i>

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Xu Qing roared as he broke through the air with a loud boom and shot straight at the young man. <i>Does this little bastard take me for a fool to lie to me again and again?</i>

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. Anyone would¡¯ve been scared to death by what he threw out, what a pity that it only had any force the first time. If he had a second tree root, he might use it to great effect right now. His opponent might not care about the second root after falling for it once and keet charging him.

    What a shame that he only had one of them.

    The young man almost regretted his actions. He¡¯d used it on Red Beard when he didn¡¯t know how strong the item was. Red Beard was just a metamorphosis expert without the strength to unseal himself. Li Hao should¡¯ve just ignored the pirate. He hadn¡¯t known that the tree root of core origin was so strong that it could outright kill Red Beard! Otherwise, he would¡¯ve saved it to use on Xu Qing. He¡¯d thought that it could only handle superhumans around peak Nova. Killing Red Beard had exceeded his expectations.

    ¡°You won¡¯t be getting away, Li Hao!¡± Xu Qing flew at an ever faster speed as his presence grew stronger. The ominous look in his eyes grew more foreboding. This brat had caused more losses to him than could be imagined! These losses would be hard to make up for if he did not kill Li Hao today!

    Having just fallen for a trick, the gap between them had grown bigger. Xu Qing once more shortened it as Li Hao looked at his burden of Panther with resignation. This dog was still bald even now. Should he just leave it behind?

    The ck dog seemed to sense something and looked at the young man with innocent eyes of suffering. Li Haoughed ruefully. It was quite a show ofposure that he could stillugh at a time like this. He wasn¡¯t afraid as everything that¡¯d happened today did not measure up to the fear that the scarlet shadows had brought to him when he was a weak mundane.

    After he crushed his mental demons on that day, he was no longer afraid of any of this. He could see the sea in the distance now, and a bridge that continued to copse. At the same time, he saw lots of soldiers. There also seemed to be weapons aimed at him, but their threat wasn¡¯t as great. They might be city annihtion missiles, but the marquis didn¡¯t seem inclined to have his people fire them.

    Xu Qing saw his people as well. The army unit ahead inly possessed more missiles, but he didn¡¯t give the order to fire. He couldn¡¯t use any more of them. If he did, that might truly create great trouble. The nine ministries, royal family, and Silver Moon were all warning him and other ces were getting their kicks in when he was down. If he continued to fire missiles with abandon, the east might be divvied up by various sides before he killed Li Hao.

    As Xu Qing scanned the copsing bridge, he didn¡¯t see anything in particr. ¡°Steadfast Army, stop Li Hao!¡± he roared.

    <i>In the distance.</i>

    There weren¡¯t that many soldiers on the bridge, less than one thousand. However, many of them were sweating profusely with fear. One Nova was in residence, as were several more Srs. Mostly mundanes made up the rest of the unit and they all carried guns. At the moment... they were shuddering with dread.

    The Nova struggled with his liege¡¯smand. He¡¯d served the Steadfast Manor for many years and became a Nova with the faction¡¯s support. Therefore, he didn¡¯t dare ignore orders. All the same, he was well aware of how strong Demon Sword was. He hadn¡¯t been afraid when the Heaven and Earth Generals were present, but the two generals were now gone and he was holding down the fort by himself. It was... a truly daunting prospect.

    Yet when his thoughts turned to how Li Hao must be at the end of his tether and that he only needed to dy the young man for a bit, his fear abated slightly. It wasforting to consider that his liege would be here soon.

    ¡°KILL!¡± yelled the general, rising into the air with three equally terrified Srs. They blocked Li Hao¡¯s path while the soldiers beneath shot into the air with trepidation. They were so far away that they wouldn¡¯t hit anyone.

    City annihtion missiles were out of the question, but regr bombs fired at the young man! Li Hao could also vaguely sense that someone else hade. It was a peculiar perception that had him raise an eyebrow to the distance. It wasn¡¯t Hong Yitang since there was no indicator in the armor. The red dot seemed very far from him.

    It felt like... someone from the same source as him!

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened as he groaned to himself. Was it his teacher? <i>You¡¯ve got to be joking! Now? I¡¯m being chased by a powerhouse beyond Nova, what are you here for? You¡¯re a weakling who may not even be able to kill a Nova, what are you doing messing things up at a time like this? It¡¯s nice to have thoughts of rescue, but... you¡¯ve gotta be aware of your capabilities!</i>

    <i>I might have to go rescue you instead!</i>

    No matter how dismayed he was, he couldn¡¯t avoid his opponent any longer. The more he ran, the more his teacher would charge toward him and possibly fall right into Xu Qing¡¯s hands.

    ¡°KILL!¡± Li Hao shouted instead of saying away. He punched out with a fist of a howling tiger emerging from the cage!

    Although Panther was now a bald dog, it was infuriated to see weaklings dare stand in its way. It howled and opened its mouth, devouring heaven and earth like a ck hole. A powerful suction force held the Srs in ce, no matter how they struggled to free themselves. The appalled Nova officer found that his mysterious power was shaking, as if it wanted to break free of his body.

    Color draining from his face, he held his terror in check and brought his de down on Li Hao! <i>The young man is just a Nova... and I¡¯m also a Nova... There shouldn¡¯t be that big of a difference between us, right? I just need to stop him for a while, even if it¡¯s just two or three moves.</i>

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Heaven and earth shattered when the punch connected. The de fell apart with a loud crack.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The Nova¡¯s arm split open. Mind intent erupted and sword aura shot into the sky. The momentary collision dazed the initial Nova. His mind seemed to be tearing apart while he saw a sword sever heaven and earth. He grunted, seeing a fist as soon as he opened his eyes.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    His head split open! The horrified Srs didn¡¯t have time to run before Panther¡¯s bald tail swept past them. <i>Bam bam bam! </i>They were pierced through and fell into the water beneath like dumplings being tossed into a pot!

    One Nova and four Srs were dead in the blink of an eye. The soldiers still firing from the bridge didn¡¯t have time to react before a bomb exploded in its chamber. This was the cue for everyone to scatter, their knees knocking together as they scrambled to throw away their equipment as fast as possible.

    Faces pale, they threw down their weapons and armor, fleeing helter-skelter. Li Hao ignored them after a second nce. One couldn¡¯t expect too much from modern troops other than the elites of the Silver Moon Guard, ck Armaturas, Skystar Army...

    The other armies were mostly the same.

    Granted, Li Hao had yet to see the Silver Moon Army and didn¡¯t know its particrs. But most armies of modern times could not fight a losing battle. They quickly copsed when morale took a hit.

    Although he¡¯d taken out the army, they¡¯d still caused a bit of trouble for him. Xu Qing¡¯s presence was palpable behind him. Li Hao swiftly spun around and no longer ran. He could sense Yuan Shuo¡¯s aura. If he left, his teacher wouldn¡¯t be making it out.

    Li Hao breathed heavily. <i>My master... still thinks the times are what they were. They are different now. This era no longer belongs to you. Xu Qing is powerful beyond imagine and you are unable to measure up to him with your current strength.</i>

    He wasn¡¯tining as his master was no fool either. Yuan Shuo knew full well the gap between these powerhouses and him, but had still made the trek to save his disciple. That was all that mattered. But since his master was here, Li Hao could not leave.

    ¡°Go back!¡± he grunted as he watched Xu Qing rush over. ¡°Xu Qing has unsealed himself and is greater than Nova. You cannot match him...¡±

    He was telling Yuan Shuo to leave! Perhaps he¡¯d be able to hold off the duke for a bit, but the unsealed Xu Qing was so strong that Li Hao could sense his dominating blood qi before the man had arrived. It was truly the end of the line.

    Strictly speaking, pressure from Silver Moon and Yuan Shuo¡¯s arrival was the real reason why Li Hao lost. He might¡¯ve made it out otherwise. But could he me them?

    No, and he had to be thankful. They¡¯d paid such a hefty price and risked their lives to save him. How could he me them for it?

    Unfortunately, their kind intentions would be his downfall. Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. He was stillposed, just finding that these Silver Moon geezers weren¡¯t that reliable at times. <i>If they still put on a mysterious act in front of me next time, I¡¯ll bop them all where it hurts!</i>

    But... would there be a next time?

    He spat out Steris and waved his hand, sending Panther flying. ¡°Take my teacher with you!¡± The young man¡¯s voice echoed in the dog¡¯s ears.

    Panther whined and a violent light danced in its eyes. It ultimately turned around and headed for Yuan Shuo. It would find a chance to kill Xu Qing for revengeter on!

    Xu Qing registered the development, but didn¡¯t care. He didn¡¯t care about the dog, just Li Hao. He smiled! Li Hao had finally stopped running. He couldn¡¯t run, in any case. Xu Qing kicked forward with unfathomable speed, almost breaking the void apart.

    The thought of a tornado came to Li Hao¡¯s mind. This was his opponent¡¯s aura¡ªXu Qing was a martial master and the strongest martial master among the enemies that he¡¯d met. It was also his first time truly fighting with a premier heavyweight. It was just a split second, but it felt like his own mind intent was about to be torn to pieces.

 Chapter 604: The Return of Old Demon Five Styles (II)

    <h4>Chapter 604: The Return of Old Demon Five Styles (II)</h4>

    This was likely how Light Sword and the others killed one Nova per every move they deployed. Their mind intent was so strong that they ripped the other¡¯s mind to pieces and caused them to sink into momentary immobility. That was illustrated when Li Hao killed the Nova moments earlier.

    However, the young man was a martial master as well, a premier martial master! Even if he wasn¡¯t as strong as the person in front of him, his mind intent wasn¡¯t weak and he¡¯d just eaten an entire Goldensky Lotus. This was when his mind intent was at its strongest. He put everything out of his mind and erupted with the auras of his organs!

    His mind intent manifested as a sword and the overview of the sword aura appeared. The five auras were forcefully melded into it and a current of sword intent erupted around the young man.

    ¡°Kill!¡± Li Hao screamed as Steris shed forward. He tore into his opponent¡¯s tornado with his mind intent. The sword stroke of his ancestor reappeared in his mind¡¯s eyes. d in silver armor, he rushed forward with his sword!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    It was a collision of the mental level. Li Hao¡¯s indestructible auras of the five swords was immediately scattered upon the wind. His organs trembled and the scene went dark in front of his eyes.

    Although the tornado was hacked into two, it still contained an iparable aura. The aura churned toward the young man and broke through his sword aura!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    He spat out a mouthful of blood that was intermixed with pieces of his organs. Across from him, Xu Qing hesitated slightly mid-kick. Surprise crept into the look in his eyes. The boy had an incredible sword aura! However, it was a slightly misceneous arrangement and was weaker than his.

    The marquis had unsealed some of his battle strength and was stronger than a Nova. This level of strength wasn¡¯t anything that Li Hao could measure up to. Xu Qing wasn¡¯t like the others in shattering multiple locks at once, he¡¯d broken half of one of his. It didn¡¯t give him sufficient strength to kill Li Hao in a split second, but he could easily trounce the young man in his state.

    He brought his leg down with domineering momentum! Xu Qing shunted Steris off to the side and mmed his other foot into the center of the breastte. A loud collision rang out, leaving some cracks and a slight caving in of the silver armor.

    Li Hao flew backward, everything dark before his eyes before the scene quickly restored itself. He focused his eyes to see Xu Qing regarding him aloofly.

    ¡°Not bad! What a pity that you¡¯ve encountered me. Your aura is your biggest trump card, but it is ineffective against me! so this is all there is to a convergence of five auras!¡±

    The marquis mentioned convergence, not fusion. For a premier martial master like Xu Qing, he could see to the truth of the matter as soon as they exchanged blows. Li Hao was very strong in the eyes of regr people, but his ws were ringly obvious to powerhouses. In his current state, the young man could have his fun with supernaturals, but would be encountering close shave after close shave if he fought premier martial masters.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t have time to think about anything before Xu Qing vanished with a loud thump, reappearing to kick the young man¡¯s head. The silver armor caved in some more as the marquis lectured, ¡°Speed is the only martial method that does not have a counter! But your armor is not bad, it¡¯s high quality. It¡¯s from Battle Heaven, isn¡¯t it?

    ¡°It really is something to still be intact after a few of my blows. Can you bring its full capabilities online though? If not, I can kill you through the reverberations alone!¡± Xu Qing said all this to disintegrate Li Hao¡¯s will to fight and undermine his confidence. His attacks continued without pause.

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    Li Hao bounced back and forth like a rubber ball. Completely suppressed, he was at the mercy of Xu Qing¡¯s kicks. He coughed up mouthfuls of blood inside the armor, fully experiencing the gap between him and his opponent. His speed, reactions, mind intent, and auras were less than his opponent...

    It was aplete thrashing.

    If it wasn¡¯t for his armor and the strength of his organs, he would¡¯ve died to the kicks a long time ago. No wonder Hong Yitang and the others could easily kill peak Novas. When Light Sword and the others unsealed themselves, they positively mowed down Novas.

    Xu Qing hadn¡¯t unsealed himself as much as they had, but his battle strength was equally overwhelming. A heavyweight like Li Hao who could killte Novas was utterly defenseless when facing him.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The young man mmed heavily into the ground again. He wanted to use his momentum to fall into the ocean, but Xu Qing immediately appeared beneath him and punched him back up, the reverberations traveling through the silver armor.

    ¡°Your organs are incredible!¡± Xu Qing sighed with appreciation. ¡°They¡¯re still intact after all of this! Li Hao, you have the strongest organs out of any martial master I¡¯ve ever seen. Even Earthturner Sword and the others might not measure up to you...¡±

    It was normal for a martial master to have strong internals, but Xu Qing had adjusted ordingly and utilized the most optimal attack pattern of reverberation. If Li Hao really was a Nova-level martial master, his organs should have shattered a long time ago.

    And yet, the young man could still defend himself! This was the most frightening of all! Greed dawned in Xu Qing¡¯s eyes as he looked at the sword tightly gripped in Li Hao¡¯s hands. All of this had to do with that sword, didn¡¯t it?

    The greed vanished as soon as it appeared. The man¡¯s expression shifted slightly as he disappeared on the spot. But when he reappeared, Li Hao was still next to him. The Windchaser Boots glowed with a hue and the young man stabbed out with his weapon, as if he¡¯d been waiting for the marquis!

    Li Hao had neither given up on the counterattack nor made use of the opportunity to run, because he discovered that his idiot teacher hade again. <i>Fucking... forget it, I won¡¯t bother cussing at him.</i>

    Otherwise, his n had been to feign injury and weakness, then utilize the boots to get away. <i>My dear teacher is so afraid I won¡¯t die that he¡¯se to collect my corpse! We¡¯ll probably both go to the underworld together now!</i>

    <i>ng! </i>rang out as Steris bit into its target. It met with a metallic collision as a set of armor manifested around Xu Qing. The man was startled and slightly incredulous. Li Hao had struck back at him! The young man still had the ability to fight!

    If it wasn¡¯t for his armor, Steris was so sharp that it could¡¯ve broken his defenses. While his death was out of the question, delivering a wound was already astonishing enough. It was rare for young martial masters to have such battle consciousness and tenacity.

    As a duke¡ªsince Xu Qing refused to acknowledge the demotion¡ªdid heck for origin weapons? Of course not! There wouldn¡¯t be such an array found in his treasury if he did. Not only did he notck origin weapons, but all of his were premier quality. The armor he wore was the Divine Lock Armor. Based on current ssification, it was a sky level origin weapon, on the same grade as the ming Phoenix Spear!

    Not even Steris could break it; its weapon soul would have to manifest first.

    Li Hao was thrown backward by massive recoil and resignation appeared in his eyes. He¡¯d anticipated this oue! A founding duke like Xu Qing was not one of the penniless senior officials or the impoverished Hong Yitang. Nor did he have to work for a living like Light Sword. He was the overlord of an entire region, how would he be short on treasures!

    If it wasn¡¯t for theck of boot-shaped origin weapons, he might have another set to use. It was Li Hao¡¯s guess that the man might have more than one origin weapon on him.

    ¡°Not bad, they were calling you the pride and glory of this generation of Silver Moon martial masters.¡± Xu Qing Smiled. ¡°Word on the street was that you might be able to raise the limit for Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. I hadn¡¯t believed it before, but today I do. You¡¯d be able to rank among the previous generation of martial masters, not just this generation!¡±

    He kicked out when he finished speaking! His defenses were greatly improved after the armor manifested. Xu Qing no longer had to worry about Li Hao¡¯s counterattack. The young man waved his sword in response to the kick¡ªwithout shadow or form, the Ghost Shadow Sword!

    Willow leaves drifted through the air¡ªthe Weeping Willow Sword!

    He was demonstrating everything he knew and utilizing the Five Styles offensively. Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods, the deer style, and the Nine Forged Force!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Explosions ripped through the air as Li Hao calmly delivered stroke after stroke. Steris broke through the air, no return nned in its trajectory!

    Sword light illuminated heaven and earth! His momentum was domineering, but it was once more caught up in a tornado.

    ¡°Roar!!¡±

    Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods as the caged tiger broke out of its confinement. The ferocious tiger that usually found smooth sailing wascerated by the tornado that Xu Qing had produced from his punch and found its stomach ripped out!

    The tiger turned into one of bone, but snarled with reluctance and struck back for all its worth! <i>I have a strong tiger in my heart, one that desires to break out of its cage... but the enemy is too strong!</i>

    It was Li Hao¡¯s first time being so firmly outssed. He was utilizing all five styles, but they were shattered. His mind intent was ripped to pieces, his sword bounced off its target, the Nine Forged Force broken...

    His organs began to copse. The mountain caved in, the tiger was on the brink of death, the willow tree withered, the waves quieted, the golden dot exploded...

    No matter how stubborn Li Hao was, he couldn¡¯t withstand the difference in strength. He mmed into the ground with a tremendous thud and broke it wide open! He didn¡¯t say anything, but looked back at the bridge...

    <i>My idiot teacher! What are you doing with all the time that I bought you? Why aren¡¯t you running anding back to avenge me after you fuse all five auras? Why the hell must you run this way?? Have you lost your brains??</i>

    Xu Qing was about to crush the life out of the young man when he suddenly looked at the copsed bridge. An irate Yuan Shuo was walking out of the wreckage, one hand gripping Panther¡¯s neck. He looked at Xu Qing, then at Li Hao lying in a hole in the ground.

    ¡°My idiot disciple... you sent this dog to slow me down and waste my time! I had to take it out first, it¡¯s just as dumb as you! I¡¯ll turn it into dog stewter on!¡±

    Panther looked piteously at the old man. <i>I was saving you! </i>It was afraid of the old man before and thought that it could easily w the man to death with its newfound strength. But the situation spoke for itself. Panther had beenpletely suppressed and dragged back by its head!

    The dog cast an innocent look at Li Hao. <i>It¡¯s not that I didn¡¯t want to take him away from this ce, but that the old man is stronger than me and kept me under foot!</i>

    ¡°Yuan Shuo!¡± Xu Qing narrowed his eyes. ¡°I thought it was Hong Yitang here... but I also thought that he couldn¡¯t get here so quickly. So it¡¯s you!¡±

    ¡°Are you mocking me or what?¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°It¡¯s my disciple, so why would Hong Yitange? It¡¯s been thirty years, Xu Qing, you¡¯re just as dumb as ever. I should¡¯ve shoved you into your mom¡¯s stomach thirty years ago to help you reincarnate into a smarter version of yourself!¡±

    ¡°The times have changed!¡± Xu Qing sneered back. ¡°Yuan Shuo, this is no longer your era.¡±

    He kicked Li Hao deep into the ground.

 Chapter 605: The Return of Old Demon Five Styles (III)

    <h4>Chapter 605: The Return of Old Demon Five Styles (III)</h4>

    Xu Qing¡¯s eyebrows shot up after he kicked the young man¡ªLi Hao¡¯s arms were wide open as he clung to his opponent. Holding on for all he was worth, he forced out through grit teeth, ¡°What are you thering on about?! Kill him!¡±

    Why did his teacher have time to chat?? He needed to either run or fight! If he wanted to talk, he should wait until they killed Xu Qing or were killed by him. Otherwise, there would be all the time to catch up in the underworld!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Xu Qing rapidly kicked his right foot several times, creating several cracks in the silver armor with sickening crunches. Yuan Shuo, however, did not make a move. He simply watched the action below as various auras swirled in his body. Not only that, but he suddenly opened his mouth and bit down on Panther.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to borrow some blood, Li Hao will return it to youter. The blood of major monster spirits has the effect of strengthening the organs. You¡¯re also a martial master dog with an ancient bloodline. The power in your blood is very strong and a perfect match to my needs...¡± His voice sounded in the dog¡¯s ears before Panther howled with pain. The old man was biting its butt!

    <i>I knew it! I knew that the old man wanted to eat me since a long time ago! I thought I wouldn¡¯t need to be afraid of the old man once I got stronger, but he¡¯s totally taking advantage of the situation!</i>

    Panther could feel Yuan Shuo sucking its blood as he sank his teeth into dog flesh.

    ¡°Awoo!¡± Panther whined. This was so painful! It¡¯d lost so much blood today, what an awful day!

    The sigh stunned both Xu Qing and Li Hao. What... in the heavens? They saw Yuan Shuo bite Panther¡¯s butt, then... lick it??

    <i>What the hell?</i>

    Even Xu Qing paused in a momentary daze. He immediately realized in the next moment¡ªwas this... partaking of blood from a major monster spirit?

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s five organs were shaking violently. Four of them were very strong to begin with; hisparatively weaker spleen resulted in a slightly weaker earth aura. It corresponded to the bear aura, which caused some discrepancies between the fusion of his five auras. His wasn¡¯t a convergence, but a true fusion.

    The blood of major monster spirits was indeed beneficial for the five organs¡ªthat was a characteristic recorded in the ancient records. But modern monster spirits did not possess pure bloodlines. As strong as they were, they didn¡¯t amount to much.

    Since Panther¡¯s bloodline had been activated, it was pure enough. It was also a dog that¡¯d feasted on the best energies¡ªSteris, Water of Life, core origin... It was fed by Li Hao in the outside world and the old turtle in Battle Heaven. Modern monster spirits fed on a random assortment of energy and a faint miasma of mysterious power. Therefore, Panther¡¯s bloodline was quite good and stronger than even some ancient monster spirits.

    Yuan Shuo had sensed this quality as well. He¡¯d been hesitant that the idea was feasible, but discovered that it was a stroke of brilliance! The dog¡¯s blood wasn¡¯t pungent and in fact, was slightly sweet. <i>What a cute little dog! I¡¯ll be better to it and keep it around for its blood...</i>

    Panther seemed to sense the old man¡¯s thoughts and looked on with humiliation and fury. <i>Damned old man, I¡¯ll bite you to death sooner orter!</i>

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s organs hummed as he ignored Li Hao. Since his disciple could still strike back, that meant he wouldn¡¯t die so quickly. He could afford to wait. It was necessary to have effective tools to do good work.

    Meanwhile, Xu Qing¡¯s expression shifted slightly. He grunted and kicked Li Hao up again. Arge crack was apparent on the silver armor as the young man continuously vomited blood. Though sword energy surged furiously into his body, it was still very difficult to withstand these kinds of attacks...

    Yuan Shuo threw Panther away. The dog staggered limply to the ground in an extremely weak state. It weaved around like it was drunk¡ªa result of losing too much blood. Panther wanted to cry!

    ¡°You¡¯ve infuriated me, Xu Qing!¡± a low chuckle rang out before something like a small deer shed in front of Xu Qing, but resolved as an ape swinging through the air. It darted in close tond a punch!

    Tiger, bear, deer, ape, and bird appeared before melding into one¡ªa person! Yuan Shuo!

    Xu Qing seemed to return to the days of old. This was what had happened before¡ªYuan Shuo had used the Five Styles to beat him, the future duke, into a mental copse. If It hadn¡¯t been for the previous generation duke being alive and the Xus having too much status, he would¡¯ve died that day!

    ¡°Do you still think it¡¯s that time?!¡± Xu Qing roared and kicked with his foot!<i> Do you think I¡¯m the Xu Qing you once knew, and do you think you¡¯re still the Old Demon Yuan that once dominated thend?!</i>

    ¡°You¡¯ll always be that piece of trash!¡± Yuan Shuo yelled and punched, something jutting out of his fist¡ªthe stone de. One loud collisionter revealed a hole in the sky-rank armor that Li Hao had not been able to break!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Yuan Shuo was as if a ferocious tiger. When he turned and waved his fists, it was like a tiger whipping its tail around. He hit Xu Qing with another punch and shattered the armor on the man¡¯s right leg!

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped and Xu Qing¡¯s eyes were wide with dismay.

    ¡°Roar!!¡± A ferocious tiger roar traveled through heaven and earth!

    ¡°Aoou!¡± A golden eagle spread its wings to soar through the sky.

    Five animals manifested like five major monster spirits. One enormous bear threatened to strain the limits of heaven and earth. The earth fractured when Yuan Shuo stomped his foot. Xu Qing had justnded when the ground split open!

    Now in bear form, Yuan Shuo deployed yet another punch. The startled Xu Qing froze on the spot, then pushed off with both feet. Terror filled his eyes as he quickly flew an evasion pattern.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Heaven and earth were torn apart!

    Yuan Shuo was domineering beyond imagine and looked coolly at the fleeing Xu Qing. ¡°Trash! Aren¡¯t you going to unseal yourself? If not, I¡¯ll outright beat you to death!¡±

    ¡°Impossible!¡± Xu Qing gasped instead. ¡°How is this possible?!¡±

    Even now, he was the most premier among metamorphosis experts or even a little stronger. But when facing Yuan Shuo... he was the one suppressed!

    ¡°Your internal force... your auras...¡±

    ¡°If the only thing we look at is cultivation level, auras, and internal force, then we can forget about experience and potential! What¡¯s the point of fighting then? You¡¯re still that old piece of trash!¡±

    He dove like a bird!

    ¡°Idiot disciple, look clearly and see what is meant by a true fusion of the five auras! When the auras are melded as one, I am aura. I am the bear, the tiger, the eagle... I do as I wish!

    ¡°I can roar like a tiger, fight like a bear, dance like a deer... It¡¯s very straightforward when the auras are one, there¡¯s no need to switch between them and ultimately lose the key essence of the five auras...

    ¡°Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The five auras correspond to the five elements. When I punch, all five elements are deployed. Why would there only be fire and water?¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    An explosion rang out as heaven and earth shattered. Concurrent deployment of fire and water created a resplendent detonation. Yuan Shuo punched out while clutching the stone de, sending Xu Qing flying with blood streaming out of a wound!

    The man¡¯s armor had been punched clean through and furiously worked to repair itself. As he flew back, Xu Qing incredulously vomited blood. Fear crept into the bottom of his eyes. That Yuan Shuo was back! But it was impossible¡ªYuan Shuo¡¯s internal force seemed on par with Li Hao¡¯s, yet his aura was much too strong!

    Just a single aura by itself wouldn¡¯t be much stronger than Li Hao, but abined five auras was more than simpleyering on top of each other. Theplete whole erupted with the power of ten or twentyyered auras!

    An unpleasant expression appeared on Xu Qing¡¯s face as fear settled in his heart. This was a repeat of the suppression of yesteryear, the fear of almost being beaten to death. He thought he¡¯d forgotten, but he inly hadn¡¯t. He thought he didn¡¯t care anymore! But it all came rushing back when he faced Yuan Shuo again.

    ¡°Trash is always trash,¡± Yuan Shuo sneered like the demon he was. ¡°You became a premier martial master only because of your family, so how are you premier? You¡¯re just trash pushed up to your position through an umtion of resources. C¡¯mon, unseal yourself! Let me see how strong you are when you¡¯re not sealed! Martial masters that rely on unsealing themselves for battle strength are all trash!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. He chose to stay silent and focus on furiously absorbing sword energy to heal his injuries. This offended all martial masters beneath the heavens, especially the premier ones, including Hong Yitang and the rest!

    The young man was also stunned¡ªwas this the true fusion of five auras? Why? Thatbinationpletely overpowered the metamorphosis level Xu Qing. Of course, it also had to do with the man¡¯s innate fear of Li Hao¡¯s teacher.

    Indeed, even Li Hao could tell that Xu Qing was afraid of Yuan Shuo and wasn¡¯t confident against his new opponent. He moved timidly against Yuan Shuo, as if another person entirely.

    Even so, Yuan Shuo¡¯s offensive skill had reached a stunning level when he was able to easily break through a premier martial master¡¯s defenses with just one punch and kick. His auras, internal force, and blood qi seemed to have all melded together.

    It wasn¡¯t just thebination of the five styles, but also some characteristics of the Incantation of the de of Blood. And yet, his teacher hadn¡¯t utilized the Incantation yet.

    Li Hao was lost and found that his confidence over these days had been crushed by his teacher. This was truly cutting deep into a person. He would probably be driven up a wall if he was the enemy too!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Yuan Shuo seemed to transform into a golden eagle and curved both hands into ws. He grabbed Xu Qing¡¯s arms and summoned a tiger over his arms that bit down on the armor.

    The origin weapon was noticeably dented.

    Yuan Shuo then twisted his body into an incredible angle and kicked backward with his legs, connecting with Xu Qing¡¯s head. Thetter snarled irately and red his blood qi, churning through thend with a tornado. However, Yuan Shuo¡¯s five auras shook it to nothing!

    ¡°ROAR!¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly manifested a third hand and, as Li Hao watched raptly, struck upward from below as a mallet!

    ¡°AHHH!!¡± Xu Qing screamed and forcefully wrestled out of Yuan Shuo¡¯s grip. He shot into the air, doubled over and clutching his lower body. His face was pale as he looked at Yuan Shuo below. Madness appeared in his expression. ¡°Yuan Shuo, you forced me to do this!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Something exploded¡ªanother supernatural lock! He¡¯d blown two now and his presence soared for it. It eclipsed a He Yong at full strength, despite having only snapped two locks!

 Chapter 606: Killing Xu Qing (I)

    <h4>Chapter 606: Killing Xu Qing (I)</h4>

    Anguish and reluctance appeared in Xu Qing¡¯s eyes after he swiftly swallowed arge sum of Water of Life. He¡¯d already taken three drops before, now he gulped down seven drops at once. This was all the Water of Life that he had¡ªthat he¡¯d bought with him on this chase. He had more, but it was stored with the powerhouses in the ruins. He couldn¡¯t take it all with him, even though he was the Steadfast Duke.

    <i>Ten drops...</i>

    He¡¯d taken it all to protect his organs. His organs couldn¡¯t be allowed to copse and his locks could not fully snap. A powerful presence swept through the vicinity as he was now overwhelmingly strong. He was so strong that Li Hao¡¯s heart pounded with shock. Xu Qing was definitely much stronger than He Yong and had more saturated locks than Light Sword!

    Light Sword had filled six locks to capacity, He Yong only five. This guy must have managed at least seven, which meant three of the locks around his organs were full. This was the lowest possible number, he might have aplished more.

    Yuan Shuo narrowed his eyes as he considered Xu Qing. Though he continued to call the man trash, he was inwardly very solemn. So this was how much one¡¯s strength increased when they unsealed themselves! He himself experienced such a rise with the five areasbined, but at seeing Xu Qing unseal himself, he realized at once that he couldn¡¯t measure up to the enemy!

    But there was no harm in trying.

    ¡°I like challenging the strong!¡± Yuan Shuo licked his lips with a smile. ¡°Xu Qing, you¡¯re not trash anymore. You¡¯re... strong trash! Hahaha!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    An attack fired into the sky like a sh of lightning. Matchless eruption of force was fully demonstrated from Yuan Shuo¡¯s side. He was so well-rounded that even his speed was unrivaled. Xu Qing focused on leg methods, but he wasn¡¯t necessarily stronger than the Five Styles King.

    Yuan Shuo leapt like a deer, climbed like an ape, and swept through the sky like a bird! Although he was suppressed and on the back foot, the destructiveness of the stone de still painted a ferocious picture in Li Hao¡¯s eyes!

    In terms of momentum, Xu Qing still seemed apprehensive. The effects of yesteryear still persisted!

    Yuan Shuo backed away after a loud explosion. The look in his eyes remained sharp and a dangerous curve yed at his lips. His domineering arrogance knew no bounds despite the fact that he was bleeding. However, an irate voice sounded by Li Hao¡¯s ears.

    ¡°Are you a freaking idiot?? Run! We can¡¯t beat him and I¡¯m going to be trampled after he¡¯s unsealed himself!¡±

    Yuan Shuo thought very little of his idiot disciple at the moment. <i>The hell you staring for?? Are you going to run only after you see me pounded into the ground?</i> The unsealed Xu Qing exceeded the Nova level¡ªYuan Shuo could not defeat him.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t make a sound. <i>I want to run, but my injuries are still there. Hold on a bit longer, teacher. I¡¯ll be able to run in a bit.</i>

    ......

    Yuan Shuo remained as dominating as ever, whereas Xu Qing slowly regained hisposure. He just needed to conquer his internal fear as he knew full well that he was much stronger than Yuan Shuo at the moment. There was no question about it!

    But Yuan Shuo was still able to upy the upper hand! Why? Because Xu Qing was afraid! They seemed to have traveled back thirty years, to that time when he had absolute fear beaten into him. Today might be his chance to beat those internal demons.

    ¡°Yuan Shuo!¡± He slowlynded on the ground and looked at the old man striking a proud pose. Xu Qing ground his teeth and forced out, ¡°I¡¯m not afraid of you! You¡¯ve given me a chance today to ascend to a higher level as soon as I defeat and kill you!¡±

    ¡°And are you sure you can manage it?¡± Yuan Shuo grinned. ¡°Are you sure you¡¯re not afraid? Don¡¯t forget how badly off you were that day. If it wasn¡¯t for your father putting in an appearance, I would¡¯ve smashed your head in! Have you forgotten how close you were to death?¡±

    He advanced instead of retreating! When Yuan Shuo took a step forward, Xu Qing trembled like he wanted to back away. Thetter forced himself to a standstill and didn¡¯t move. Instead, he raised his head to look at Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°You said so yourself, that was back in the day!¡± A cold look appeared in his eyes. ¡°I¡¯ve swept through the eastern region over the past thirty years and defeated everyone. Today, I am the Steadfast Duke of the east and you are nothing!

    ¡°You can only struggle for survival beneath Hou Xiaochen and Silver Moon¡¯s protection! If it wasn¡¯t for those metamorphosis guys hoping to use you toplete the method of the five elements and five organs, you would¡¯ve died a long time ago!

    ¡°Do you really think that Ying Hongyue can¡¯t kill you? Do you think that Hou Xiaochen and them can actually protect you? It¡¯s all in your head! The truth is, you¡¯re just a tool to them! Your only use is to perfect the technique involving the five organs. Even if you don¡¯t teach anyone, killing you and analyzing your body afterward is all the same!¡±

    He seemed to be encouraging himself and cheering himself on. Xu Qing shifted his foot and... took one step forward. It was a giant leap, a personal breakthrough in the face of spiritual intimidation!

    Just as Golden Spear had been unable to shake off Yuan Shuo¡¯s intimidation, he was now stuck beneath Hou Xiaochen¡¯s hand and unable to make any progress. That Xu Qing had cultivated his way to this stage didn¡¯t necessarily mean that he¡¯d broken Yuan Shuo¡¯s shackles. It was that he¡¯d chosen to gradually forget the man over the years, to avoid the pain points of his heart. That was how he evaded the crux of the issue as he did not choose to face it head-on.

    But today, he needed to clear this obstacle or he would be caught beneath the heel of a boot each time he saw Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°Not bad!¡± Yuan Shuo raised an eyebrow. ¡°Xu Qing, being a duke for thirty years has helped you grow a spine. You¡¯re able to voluntarily take a step forward in front of me. Congrattions!¡±

    Xu Qing gritted his teeth and took another step forward.

    ¡°I am one of the most premier martial masters of thisnd! My blood qi is unrivaled, my body is invincible, my mind intent is full andplete. Someone like Light Sword is but a servant in my eyes! Yuan Shuo, I will shatter my internal demons by killing you and then ascend to the peak of this world¡¯s martial dao!¡±

    Xu Qing roared and finally went on the offensive! One could not remain in an unsealed state for long. He also ardently wished to use his own immense strength to suppress this guy, this demon of the martial world!

    <i>Yuan Shuo, you¡¯ve missed out on twenty years of brilliance. You won¡¯t be invincible forever!</i>

    ¡°Kill!!¡± A foot shook heaven and earth; it whirred through the air and opened fissures when itnded on the ground. There seemed to be only that pair of legs beneath the heavens! It was too powerful to consider!

    Only now did the Steadfast Duke demonstrate his true might. Yuan Shuo was the nightmare of his generation¡¯s martial masters. Whoever could break Yuan Shuo¡¯s curse was truly worthy of being hailed as the most premier martial master of martial dao.

    ¡°Roar!¡± Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods!

    Yuan Shuo was a ferocious tiger that breathed out a cloud. It brought with it wind and rain¡ªthe five elements and five auras!

    It was now that Li Hao seemed to understand what was mind intent and the aura. It was dao! Martial dao! This was the martial dao of the modern world. His teacher once said that those above Dominator were hailed as walking gods. They could do anything with the key of this level¡ªtheir mind intent and auras. The physical body, blood qi, and others were naturally strengthened when the aura was strong.

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t understood it at first, then found it potentially wrong. If the rest of the body was strengthened with the auras, why were the organs weak? It wasn¡¯t until now that he began to understand some of it. He stared raptly at his teacher, beginning toprehend some of what he saw.

    Yuan Shuo summoned the wind and rain. The power of the five elements drifted through the air, part of it entering his body to strengthen his organs. This was to summon the spirits and nurture the auras, which then nurtured the body!

    In other words, Yuan Shuo onlycked time, he hadn¡¯t reached a bottleneck. If time was sufficient, he could absolutely strengthen his organs himself. After all, he could absorb the five elements and incorporate them into his body. For anyone else, the five organs were almost impossible to strengthen.

    Yuan Shuo fortify out and manifested a small stone de. It transformed from part of his brass knuckle into a short de. He was obviously much weaker than his opponent, but in this moment, he manipted the five elements and struck with his sword. It was like great dao had descended from overhead to subdue the world!

    A massive bear floated out of the clouds and stepped down ponderously, looming like a descending mountain. It transformed into a storm, the waves, and into thousands of sword incantations...

    ¡°Break!¡± Xu Qing howled. Wind, rise! A gale wind swept through the scene¡ªnot the same levelpared to Yuan Shuo¡¯s of phenomenon, but one that was incredibly intense. Winds howled and churned through thend, breaking the bear into pieces and dispersing the clouds and fog.

    ¡°Nothingpares to strength!¡± Xu Qing shouted. ¡°Yuan Shuo, didn¡¯t you say that no matter the amount of tricks, trash is still trash in the end?¡±

    <i>In that case, so what if you have a lot of tricks up your sleeves? You¡¯re trash too!</i>

    Yuan Shuo backed away andbined fire and water with a wave of his hand. Heaven and earth exploded and the gale wind stopped. He took another step back without a word! <i>Tricks? </i>He wasn¡¯t employing tricks. Trash like Yu Qing wouldn¡¯t understand. He was using the least possible resources against his opponent. He might be smashed to death in their current straits. Was he supposed to be a fool and present himself for closebat to be tortured?

    All he wanted to do was stall for time. Either he tired out Yu Qing or Li Hao could regain movement. The kid looked like he was still healing his injuries. Otherwise, with his smarts, he would¡¯ve run without needing Yuan Shuo to say anything.

    Battle erupted once more. Yuan Shuo had shifted from suppressing his opponent to being entirely suppressed. Passively defending, he brought all manner of methods to bear. Nothing was left alive after they passed through it, the fissures in the ground began spreading and seawater flowed into thend.

    The coastline was copsing and towering waves in the distance rearing towards the shore. They were a result of Yuan Shuo¡¯s city annihtion missiles. The waves wereing. As they approached, Yuan Shuo¡¯s tiger seemed to grow stronger.

    A surge of water aura burst forth and Li Hao suddenly leapt into the air. He punched with a fist instead of using his sword, nineyers of force drawing the waves forward and aiming for Xu Qing.

 Chapter 607: Killing Xu Qing (II)

    <h4>Chapter 607: Killing Xu Qing (II)</h4>

    Xu Qing snorted and kicked out with his foot. The waves broke!

    Yuan Shuo cursed to himself.<i> Why aren¡¯t you leaving when your wounds are healed?? Dumb kid!</i>

    Li Hao, however, did not make a sound. Leave? Why leave? Old Hong was here!

    Indeed, Hong Yitang and Light Sword were here and had contacted him. Li Hao¡¯s armor told him that Hong Yitang would be here soon, so why should they leave? <i>I¡¯m gonna kill this old fart!!</i> He and his teacher just needed to hang on for a little while longer. Even if they were gravely wounded at the end of it, once the two Silver Moon powerhouses arrived, Xu Qing would have to die with extreme regret no matter what he did. It wouldn¡¯t matter if he threw caution to the wind and fully unsealed himself!

    Yuan Shuo seemed to guess at something as well and fell silent. Master and disciple called upon all five auras¡ªone as the ferocious tiger, the other as a massive ape. The ape retreated with a loud boom and the tiger dispersed.

    Xu Qing was indeed strong beyond belief, but he found that he couldn¡¯t kill both of them!

    Li Hao swiftly ced his back against Yuan Shuo¡¯s and flung out a drop of Water of Life, healing the injuries on both of them. The young man then transformed into a willow tree and took root in the cloud, sending a surge of sword energy into where he was rooted.

    Xu Qing struggled to follow their movements as master and disciple operated the Five Styles to the utmost. Sword energy and Water of Life continuously flowed forth. Not only that, but Li Hao reached out to grab the stone de, tossing Steris into Yuan Shuo¡¯s hand.

    Yuan Shuo shed down with the sword!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    ¡°You can use the divine sword too?!¡± Xu Qing backed away with incredulity. <i>Why?!</i> Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t of the eight families, so why could he use the weapons too?

    Despite having the Windchaser Boots for so many years, Xu Qing could only study it bit by bit. He could only somewhat manipte them and not use them. Why was Yuan Shuo an exception and able to use the heritage weapons??

    Thetter ignored him and was suddenly wearing two boots on his feet. Li Hao¡¯s feet were bare now. No one knew that the Breathing Method of the Five Styles was the reason why the young man had been able to use these weapons. They all thought it was because of Li Hao¡¯s bloodline.

    Right now, the young man focused on fortifying Yuan Shuo to the best of his capabilities. He handed over his sword and shoes, crouching on his teacher¡¯s back like a monkey. Blood qi and internal force entered Yuan Shuo¡¯s body via the breathing method¡ªthe method of the same origin erupted!

    Dual cultivation!

    Yuan Shuo roared as master and disciplemencedbat in an extremely odd position. Li Hao rode on Yuan Shuo¡¯s back, Yuan Shuo was as if a mother bearing a child. Or perhaps this was what was meant by the saying of ¡°wolf and <i>bei</i> working together¡±.[1] The <i>bei</i> was on top, the wolf on the bottom. <i>Bei</i> was in charge of conducting their movement while the wolf was in charge of attacking.

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s presence greatly expanded! He flew upward with a roar and struck with both hands and feet. Li Hao held one hand behind his back and shoved the other forward!

    The fist was as if fire, the palm as if wind. Steris circled through the air and the stone de pierced through its movement!

    The iparable Xu Qing was once more suppressed by another degree. He looked on with shocked disbelief and roared with fury, almost rupturing the void when he kicked to the side!

    <i>Bam! </i>sounded out.

    There was a fist imprinted on his foot. His boot had disintegrated and revealed a bleeding right leg. Yuan Shuo¡¯s arm seemed to be broken, but that was promptly healed when Li Hao reached forward with his hand.

    Master and disciple engaged in a whirling dance of death with de and sword! Xu Qing howled with fury again, refusing to ept the turn of matters! This wasn¡¯t possible! Their methods stemmed from the same origin, but it was their level of coordination that was too high. Li Hao had practiced the Five Styles for several years, but his strength was too far beneath Yuan Shuo¡¯s. They shouldn¡¯t have had too many opportunities to fight together. Why could they work together so well?

    <i>Bam!</i>

    A crack appeared on Xu Qing¡¯s armor and he kicked out in response. Yuan Shuo shoved Li Hao forward from his back to take the blow¡ªthe silver armor shattered with each kick it suffered. Li Hao bared his teeth ruefully. His teacher was awful!

    inly, Yuan Shuo felt that Li Hao was stronger than him in terms of physical body, organs, and armor. It was safer for the young man to suffer the kick, but man it hurt!

    Li Hao climbed upward like a monkey, as did Yuan Shuo. The two reversed directions as Yuan Shuo once more appeared in front of his opponent. He struck with his sword and connected with a leg that Xu Qing hadn¡¯t had time to retract. Another bloody mark appeared as the man¡¯s foot was nearly cut off.

    Xu Qing took a few steps back andnded on the ground. Fresh blood scattered over the broken ground. He considered the two with a foreboding look.

    ¡°The New Book of Five Styles!¡± A greedy look entered Xu Qing¡¯s eyes. ¡°It seems to be able tobine martial dao, core origin, and point straight to the grand dao. Yuan Shuo, you really are a genius!¡±

    He understood why master and disciple could act and fight as one! It was due to the Five Styles! Their breathing was one, their internal force and mental ripples seemed to undte in the same pattern. This was incredible as methods from the same origin didn¡¯t show themselves in such a manner. This was a unique characteristic of the Five Styles!

    Everyone had underestimated Yuan Shuo and the Five Styles. This method that¡¯d he¡¯d created as a Sunderer had been perfected again and again into something wholly different.

    ¡°Heh, do you want it, Xu Qing? Keep unsealing yourself if you want it! Just two locks aren¡¯t enough! C¡¯mon, break three, four, five, or all of them! Break them all if you want a chance of killing me and taking everything!

    ¡°The sword of the Lis, de of the Zhangs, and boots of the Lius will all be yours!¡±

    Three divine weapons! Even Xu Qing was moved by the notion. He was seized by an impulse to erupt with everything he had to kill the two in front of him. They were so rich, and not just in the ordinary sense! The three heritage weapons and Five Styles were the true, ultimate treasures! Any one of them would draw attention from all sides, not to mention that the duo had so many.

    Xu Qing snorted as light sparkled from his feet. Theynded as if feet of heaven and earth; the look in Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes shifted at the sight.

    He backed away with urgency before a massive footprint was left in the ground with a boom. Yuan Shuo¡¯s expression shifted with rage!

    ¡°Deficient Leg! Did you kill him and seize his secret art?!¡± Yuan Shuo snarled.

    Xu Qing stomped down again. ¡°Cut the crap!¡± he snorted. ¡°You¡¯ve killed so many martial masters that those who died of the thirty-six were almost all by your hand. Look at you being so angry just because I killed one Deficient Leg!¡±

    ¡°You <i>should</i> die!¡± Yuan Shuo raged. ¡°You utter bastard, how dare you ambush a Silver Moon martial master! There would be news shared if he died in a sparring match¡ªyou ambushed him!

    ¡°ROAR!¡± A tiger howled its fury to the heavens. Yuan Shuo was incensed, and it was a different kind of anger than would be usually present.

    He¡¯d killed more Silver Moon martial masters than he knew, but he was beyond infuriated to hear that Xu Qing had killed Deficient Leg of the thirty-six. He was more enraged than when Li Hao had almost died!

    The tiger howled as Yuan Shuo advanced. His sword broke through the air like sharp tiger ws as he brought it down on the foot!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The skies and earth copsed when the footnded!

    ¡°I¡¯ve always wondered why Silver Moon martial masters were so strong.¡± Xu Qing was wholly unconcerned. ¡°You guys always enjoy great fortune and possess secret arts that are either the essence of ancient martial dao or contain its greatest mysteries. Yuan Shuo, you do indeed have the right to be arrogant. How do you feel now that I use a Silver Moon secret art against you?¡±

    Another foot mmed into the ground! One foot after another drove Yuan Shuo back. Li Hao voluntarily took a few blows¡ªhis organs felt like they were going to rupture. It was then that he knew they really couldn¡¯t defeat their opponent!

    Deficient Leg was extremely mighty. Xu Qing might have refrained from using his techniques before out of reservation or wariness that Silver Moon might seek revenge on him if he did. But now, he let loose with abandon.

    He¡¯d clearly secretly killed Deficient Leg of the Thirty-Six Heroes and imed his secret art. Who knew if Deficient Leg had been overly confident, or if Xu Qing had used some other way to trick the method out of the martial master?

    Blood trickled out of the corner of Yuan Shuo¡¯s mouth; he was on the verge of furious madness, but there was nothing he could do! How he cursed his impotence!

    He was very strong with the five auras fused together, but his first opponent after his breakthrough was the indomitable overlord of the east. How unlucky! Why couldn¡¯t things go smoothly for him for once?

    ¡°Almost... there... hang on... a bit longer...¡± Li Hao¡¯s extremely weak voice traveled into his ear.

    Yuan Shuo tumbled out of the way of the next foot stomp, rolling both of them in mud. It was quite a pitiful sight.

    ¡°Hahaha!!¡± Xu Qing threw his back withughter. He was delighted beyond words! His nightmare was trampled underfoot today and he used a secret art of Silver Moon to kick Yuan Shuo around like a beggar in the mud.

    Xu Qing wasn¡¯t one to make his aplishments widely known like this, but joy truly bubbled from the bottom of his heart at the moment. However, he soon frowned.

    The two martial masters rushing in from the distance seemed to realize that they couldn¡¯t conceal their presences any longer. Typically coollyposed, Hong Yitang¡¯s eyes glittered with a frosty look. He strode in on the backs of huge waves with cold fury!

    ¡°Deficient Leg!¡± he enunciated carefully.

    ¡°You killed Deficient Leg?¡± Light Sword also forced out through grit teeth. ¡°No wonder that guypletely disappeared. We have news of even Tyrant de, but he¡¯s the only one that we don¡¯t hear from. We thought he was hiding somewhere to cultivate, but it was you who killed him!¡±

    Deficient Leg might not have been among the best of the thirty-six, but he¡¯d been an invaluable part of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. Everyone had their own strengths in the martial world; his was a unique method for the feet and a rare specialized martial master for Silver Moon.

    Yuan Shuo had killed quite a few of the Seven Swords, but decided not to kill Deficient Leg after defeating him because Yuan Shuo knew that this secret art was too hard to pass on. Silver Moon¡¯s martial world prided itself on never ending a heritage. As for the swordsmen he¡¯d killed... It was Yuan Shuo¡¯s opinion that the martial world absolutely did notck sword methods. It didn¡¯t matter if he killed them!

    ¡°To sever the rivers!¡± yelled Hong Yitang as he deployed a move that did not overturn the heavens and earth. It was one that severed the rivers and was an ultimate killing move, not his usual that carried defensive properties in it!

    The rivers were broken with his stroke and a sword fell from the heavens. Instead of being magnificent in presence, it zed with killing intent!

    1. <i>Bei</i> is a wolf-like animal in ancient Chinese etymology that had very short forelegs. It needed to ride on a wolf in order to walk, which eventually gave rise to the saying of two parties conspiring together for amon goal. ?

 Chapter 608: Killing Xu Qing (III)

    <h4>Chapter 608: Killing Xu Qing (III)</h4>

    ¡°Light!¡± A zing sun seemed to fall into the world with Light Sword¡¯s grunt. She unsheathed her sword and snapped her supernatural locks alongside Hong Yitang. Their battle strength was fully unleashed in domineering glory. Their moves traveled thousands of meters in the air and shed down on their target!

    Mind intent soared to the heavens and sword aura threatened to split the consciousness. Immensely startled, Xu Qing shot into the air and ran for his life. He no longer dared swagger around with self-satisfaction. The twin swords were here!

    They¡¯d snapped their supernatural locks as soon as they saw him, unlike the duke. He had to hem and haw and determine if there was enough Water of Life to repair the damage. These people weren¡¯t simrly restricted. Although Xu Qing was stronger than Light Sword and possibly even Earthturner Sword, he couldn¡¯t behave as freely as they did.

    However cocky he¡¯d been seconds ago was how thoroughly routed he was now. He took to the air to escape, but a bird cry rang through the vicinity. Yuan Shuo shot upward and immediately caught up to him. ¡°There will be no ce for Silver Moon¡¯s martial world if you do not die!¡±

    It wasn¡¯t as if Silver Moon martial masters hadn¡¯t died before or fallen to outsiders. But to kill one of the thirty-six through ambush and seize his secret art... All of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world would empty out to hunt down the offender! No one would pay attention to the code of etiquette in punishing the offender.

    ¡°Out of my way!¡± The void trembled when Xu Qing kicked out. Yuan Shuo ignored the move and stabbed with his sword. A piercing screech rang out, as if metal grinding on each other. Fiery sparks appeared beneath the duke¡¯s foot and Li Hao took advantage of the opening to sh with his de!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Master and disciple fell from the sky, but two bloody marks had been inflicted on their target¡¯s foot. Although wracked with pain, Xu Qing couldn¡¯t stop to pay attention to his wounds. He was just about to break free of his pursuers when another swordnded!

    <i>BAM</i>!

    His avenue of retreat was cut off. Light Sword bore down on him; Xu Qing shouted and scattered her light with a punch. His hand returned with blood flowing down it.

    The two sword wielders convened in the blink of an eye. Four people on three different sides surrounded Xu Qing in their middle. The duke regarded them unpleasantly. Battle had been so heated earlier that he hadn¡¯t had time to check his transmission pendant. If he had, he would¡¯ve known that the two were close. Master and disciple had kept him here for too long.

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡± Four voices shouted in unison and struck at the same time. Three swords and one de cut down on Xu Qing!

    The man gritted his teeth, madness dancing in his eyes. <i>Bunch of assholes! So you guys can kill Silver Moon martial masters and other people, but you go crazy when</i> I<i> kill Deficient Leg?</i>

    He knew he could no longer hesitate. A surge of presence erupted from his body and light from the five elements sparkled over him. All of the locks of his organs partially snapped; a livid Xu Qing zed with blood qi.

    ¡°You... bastards!¡± he shouted as he kicked!

    <i>Bam!!</i>

    Sword auras burst apart. Yuan Shuo and Li Hao were the first to be sent flying. Xu Qing hadpletely unsealed himself! Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t know how many bones were broken as he plummeted from the sky, vomiting blood and pieces of his organs. He was rather resigned when he looked at his half-dead disciple.

    <i>I¡¯m so damned strong, so how am I only a little better off than Li Hao in the blink of an eye? Unsealed battle strength is disgusting!</i>

    He sighed again when he looked at the twin swords. <i>Forget it, I won¡¯t quibble with you unsealed guys. Keep unsealing yourselves. You can have fun together, you shameless brats!</i>

    The twin swords were not afraid of Xu Qing. The duke was quite domineering in his unsealed state, but so were they quite strong. Two swords crisscrossed heaven and earth; arge foot sailed through the air, chased by rays of sword light. Radiance sparkled through the area!

    Xu Qing considered the situation gravely¡ªboth sides didn¡¯t dare dy after unsealing themselves! He had no other options in mind, but so would Hong Yitang and Light Sword be stuck if they couldn¡¯t defeat him. They wouldn¡¯t have enough time for Li Hao to reseal them. The three were in equally perilous states.

    Hong Yitang snorted coldly, a violent light dancing in his eye. The sound of a heart thumping echoed in the void, followed by a sudden snap of something breaking. His presence increased exponentially amid Xu Qing¡¯s astonished and shocked eyes. It reached Xu Qing¡¯s level before Hong Yitang rushed out with his sword!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Xu Qing¡¯s foot was sliced to the bone; blood flowed freely from it.

    ¡°Hong Yitang!¡± Xu Qing denounced. ¡°You¡¯re very strong, but none of us will be able to maintain our condition if this continues! One of our locks will breakpletely, is this what you want?!¡±

    He wouldn¡¯t be willing to ept that oue, and he trusted that neither would the two in front of him be willing to. Who would, with cultivation at their heights? Even now, none of the three were bringing their full strength to bear because their supernatural locks hadn¡¯t fully broken. They retained onest wisp of hope. As long as the slightest tendril remained of a lock, it could be repaired. If it fully snapped all the way through, then all hope was lost.

    ¡°It would be one thing if you just wanted to kill Li Hao and Yuan Shuo... It would also be one thing if you killed Deficient Leg in directbat! You assassinated him, didn¡¯t you?!¡± Hong Yitang bit off. ¡°Silver Moon martial masters can ept defeat! You would be someone notable if you killed him face-to-face. How dare you slink from the shadows!!¡±

    Xu Qing cursed hotly to himself! What was the difference?! Deficient Leg may not have been able to ovee him in frontal assault. He¡¯d struck from behind just to save some time and avoid some trouble. All of these people blew his actions out of proportion like they weren¡¯t engaged in the business of killing others themselves.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Sword qi raced through the void as the three became embroiled in battle. The fully unsealed Xu Qing was formidable, but he was still suppressed by the other two. His armor clung to his body in broken pieces. It was so damaged that its weapon soul emerged. Unseen to this point, it looked like an earth dragon.

    Li Hao brightened and abruptly yanked Steris out of his teacher¡¯s grasp. The stroke of severing the self shed through his eyes as he stabbed upward!

    ¡°Break!¡±

    The weapon soul hadn¡¯t been willing to reveal itself earlier due to fear of Steris. But as its outer shell was almostpletely broken, it had to appear. It thought that those below thebatants couldn¡¯t fight anymore; who would¡¯ve thought that Li Hao would throw himself forward like a madman??

    Xu Qing ballooned with rage and stomped down with a foot. The kid courted death!

    Li Hao was willing to take the risk because of trust¡ªor perhaps it could be more urately said, a gamble! He was gambling that the twin swords could protect him. As expected, Hong Yitang swept his sword through the void and overturned sky and earth. The big foot stomped toward the sky, but Light Sword was waiting to stab with her sword!

    Xu Qing howled with indignity and wanted to break the auras facing him. Li Hao ignored all that¡ªthere was only one goal in his mind, the weapon soul!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A stroke of five auras! To sever the self with no return!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Explosions rang through the air as the earth dragon skittered with fear. Steris seemed to see a dessert¡ªthis might be the strongest weapon soul it¡¯d eaten thus yet. It seemed to turn into a ck hole when it stabbed into the weapon soul, erupting with incredible suction force.

    The weapon soul wailed with impending doom. ¡°The Eternal Sword...¡±

    <i>Pop!</i>

    The weapon soul exploded!

    Hong Yitang struck at the same time. The previously durable armor had suffered damage only from the stone de and Steris. The twin des had barely managed to chip it. But this time, Hong Yitang cut through it like tofu. It ttered to the ground, ruined!

    This sky level armor had been the greatest reason why Xu Qing had barely suffered any damage in the battle. It broke the second the weapon soul was forced into materialization. Rage bloomed in the duke¡¯s eyes, as well as defiance.

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Hong Yitang struck again, as did Light Sword. Xu Qing was caught off guard in his concern over his origin weapon; the twin des left bloody marks on their target and even sliced off some flesh. The duke had been able to resist before, but he was clearly outssed now!

    A cold hint glinted in his eyes. ¡°Do you guys... insist on dying with me?¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A supernatural lock fully broke in this moment and a ze of mes appeared to immte him. mes covered Xu Qing as he¡¯d chosen topletely snap one of his locks. There was no return from this! He was a fire supernatural after the lock of his heart had broken; his heart was burning as well.

    This domineering dukepletely cast aside his unrealistic hopes and left no leeway for himself. He jeered after breaking one of his locks, ¡°Since you¡¯re forcing me to die, thene with me!¡±

    Hong Yitang and Light Sword had unsealed themselves, but did they dare fully break their locks? Their hope would be gone too!

    Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t stop rolling his eyes. These kinds of enemies were annoying. They erupted with renewed strength again and again through first snapping a bit of their locks, then half of it, then all of it... <i>Damn it, you¡¯re all martial masters. What kind of cultivation levels have you reached??</i>

    ¡°Four supernatural locks...¡± Hong Yitang looked at Xu Qing. ¡°No, you¡¯ve saturated eight locks, haven¡¯t you? It¡¯s not for no reason that you rule over the east!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not much!¡± Xu Qing was a foreboding giant of fire. ¡°You seem quite confident in yourself to be so calm. I¡¯d like to see on what basis you are so confident. You forced me to do this, Earthturner Sword, so none of you will be getting away today!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just one lock,¡± Hong Yitang sniffed. ¡°Break a second and see if your organs can take it! If not, you can just sit tight and wait for death!¡±

    ¡°Death?¡± Xu Qing snorted and filled the sky with mes when he stomped his foot. <i>We¡¯ll see who¡¯s going to do the dying! I won¡¯t let you off easily even if I die. What right do you have to say all this! We¡¯ll just all go down together if ites down to it!</i>

    Hong Yitang seemed ready to erupt with an ultimate move. Li Hao watched nervously from the ground and cast a tense nce at his master. So many people fighting together couldn¡¯t kill Xu Qing... so he¡¯d been able to run so far only because Xu Qing was afraid of death and didn¡¯t dare unseal himself!

 Chapter 609: Killing Xu Qing (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 609: Killing Xu Qing (IV)</h4>

    Hong Yitang took a deep breath, he appeared to be umting strength for major action. Perhaps he wanted to fully snap a lock, or just unseal himself further.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you keep watching, you shitheads! Get out here and kill him!¡± he howled at the sky instead.

    ¡°Hahaha,ing!¡± A massive fist overshadowed heaven and earth!

    ¡°Northern Fist!¡± Xu Qing gasped.

    ¡°Hahaha little Xu Qing, you should feel honored today!¡±

    ¡°This seat is also here!¡± A long de cut through the void, dimming heaven and earth.

    ¡°Tyrant de!¡± Xu Qing could no longer maintain hisposure. All of the color drained from his face, leaving him ashen with dread. Earthturner Sword, Light Sword, Northern Fist, Tyrant de, Old Demon Five Styles, Demon Sword Li Hao...

    He smiled a ghastly grin. Perhaps Northern Fist was right, it was his honor to die today. Silver Moon martial masters had moved out en masse!

    Tyrant de was coolly aloof and struck from the sea. His blow towered beneath the skies with a hint of arctic frost. ¡°We wanted to see what a fully snapped lock looked like for a martial master. Now it seems that this is all there is to it!¡±

    ¡°We have to follow custom,¡± chuckled Northern Fist. ¡°Deficient Leg and I didn¡¯t get along, but you can¡¯t assassinate him like that. I would apud you if you beat him in directbat. You need to respect the rules, Xu Qing!¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A fistnded to crush the big foot. Tyrant de chopped off one of Xu Qing¡¯s arms with a swing of his weapon. There was no room for the duke to maneuver despite having broken one of his supernatural locks. He could not counterattack as he was surrounded by four major powerhouses. Whether in the skies or on the ground, there was nothing he could do.

    Down below, Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes. What a pity that he couldn¡¯t unseal himself, he quite envied them! <i>Bah, I mean I disdain them! They¡¯re four on one, they¡¯re so shameless!</i>

    Xu Qing was caught in the depths of utter despair. However, a ripple traveled through the void at this time and coughing could be hard in the air. ¡°Qing¡¯er well deserves the loss of an arm for killing Deficient Leg through dishonorable means. Will you show him mercy after that, martial masters of Silver Moon?¡±

    A streak of me hovered between heaven and earth, one with some waves intermixed in it. Northern Fist raised a brow and Tyrant de smiled at the horizon.

    ¡°So the third generation duke is still alive,¡± chuckled Hong Yitang. ¡°It looks like you¡¯ve ascended beyond Nova andpletely unsealed your battle strength. Fire and water exist concurrently, but aren¡¯t you afraid of dying in this manner?¡±

    ¡°Father...¡± Xu Qing sighed, looking morosely at the person walking through the air.

    The third generation duke was a supernatural, one with six broken locks! However, those with six broken locks almost always died once they brought their full strength to bear. Not even Water of Life could help them recover.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t want to put in an appearance either...¡± Off in the distance, the doddering old man sighed. ¡°But if I still do not show myself after all of you havee, Xu Qing is most likelypletely dead. He has lost an arm and broken one of his supernatural locks. He can no longer be a martial master. Is this price sufficient to pay for his crime of killing Deficient Leg?¡±

    Li Hao blinked. Hot damn! There really were other powerhouses when it came to the Xus. This was one of the powerhouses hiding in the ruins that Xu Qing had spoken of, right? His old man! It was said that the previous duke had died thirty years ago. He¡¯d passed on his position to Xu Qing not long after Yuan Shuo challenged thetter.

    <i>Beyond Nova!</i>

    This was Li Hao¡¯s first supernatural truly above Nova¡ªnot one as a result of a martial master unsealing themselves, but an existence who¡¯d truly broken six supernatural locks. The young man hadn¡¯t caught sight of the enormous ball of light prior to the old man approaching. Now that he was here, Li Hao could see how piercingly bright it was!

    The old man seemed to sense Li Hao¡¯s gaze and inclined his head at the young man. Li Hao¡¯s heart skipped a beat! <i>So strong! </i>It was the first time that someone had sensed him assessing their ball of light.

    Too many Silver Moon powerhouses had arrived today; it¡¯d forced a personage like this out of hiding. Powerhouses hidden in various corners of the world registered the development with astonishment. The Xu¡¯s foundations were being forced into utilization!

    All of the various factions knew that there were certain people who¡¯d broken through the current limits of the power hierarchy, but didn¡¯t dare show themselves. The Xus were the first to disy their powerhouse beyond Nova¡ªthe third generation Steadfast Duke.

    ¡°Killing a Silver Moon martial master... and from the shadows nheless.¡± Hong Yitang grinned. ¡°Do you think just you are enough to end this matter? You¡¯re thinking too simply, old duke. If the Xus are insistent on sticking their necks out, then we will kill!¡±

    The twin swords struck, as did a fist and de shoot for the same target¡ªXu Qing!

    Despair was writrge over his face. The old duke seemed aware of the Silver Moon martial master style and erupted with fire and ice. An overwhelming aura swept through heaven and earth.

    ¡°I knew this would be the case... What a pity that I did not stop Qing¡¯er back in the day!¡±

    One could kill Silver Moon martial masters directly, no one would care about the results of that battle. But to assassinate one and seize their secret art, that was a grave taboo.

    There were no pills for regret in the world; the old duke didn¡¯t care about any of this. There was no need to hide his strength as he was more than sufficient to handle these martial masters with partially snapped locks.

    The group felt fire and ice bearing down on them, but none of the four powerhouses paused to stop the attack. All of them were focused on Xu Qing, as if they didn¡¯t see or sense any other threats. Iprehension and denial appeared in the man¡¯s eyes. Why... didn¡¯t they stop his father?

    Did they all want to die with him? Some of them <i>had</i> to split their attention for his father, why were they all focused on him?

    He understood in the next moment.

    A massive sword flew out of the void and erupted with extreme metal mysterious power when itnded straight down. Magnificent, boundless, tyrannical, ruthless, killing intent... Too much was part of it.

    The swordnded with a massive boom and knocked back the erupting old duke. He spat out a mouthful of blood and eximed, ¡°You... you¡¯ve broken six supernatural locks as well!¡±

    A person hovered in the air and looked coldly at him, mysterious power sweeping through thend.

    The old duke looked at his son and smiled ghastly. ¡°The Xus... should not have stepped forward like this!¡± He vanished with a sigh.

    The person in the air remained aloof and didn¡¯t stop the old duke.

    ¡°I am... honored!¡± Despite the finality of his doom, Xu Qing smiled. ¡°Hahaha! What a worthy death I die today!¡±

    <i>Pfft! </i>His head flew out! This powerhouse, overlord of the east, an incredibly dominant existence, was decapitated by a single stroke from Hong Yitang!

    Xu Qing exploded!

    Off in the distance, grief appeared in the eyes of the swiftly fleeing old duke. <i>My most exemry son, the one with the most hope in the family of breaking the barrier and exceeding Nova as a martial master, is dead!</i>

    Xu Qing had died after the old duke appeared, right beneath his nose. And yet, there was nothing he could do about his son being killed right in front of him. He could not afford to keep fighting. If he did, the entire family¡¯s foundations would be sacrificed.

    There were more and more Silver Moon powerhouses charging this way. His son had roused their general ire after killing Deficient Leg. The situation would not be thus otherwise, they wouldn¡¯t demand Xu Qing¡¯s death just for Li Hao¡¯s sake.

    The old duke looked back at the man in the void¡ªSky Sword! A supernatural who¡¯d broken six supernatural locks had emerged from seclusion and looked to be in a much more stable condition. Why?

    The middle-aged man looked down below him and ultimately settled his gaze on Yuan Shuo. ¡°I am waiting for you in the next cultivation level, don¡¯t let me wait too long!¡± He shed through the void and vanished on the spot.

    ¡°Supernatural brute!¡± Yuan Shuo snorted, slightly dejected despite his gruffness.<i> Damn it! I¡¯m invincible with five melded auras, but these guyse here in the blink of an eye and they¡¯re all stronger than me!</i>

    <i>But so what? Whether it¡¯s unsealing themselves or the supernatural, none of them are the proper path!</i>

    <i>Right, that¡¯s the case! I¡¯m the strongest when they don¡¯t unseal themselves or aren¡¯t supernaturals. None of them can measure up to me.</i>

    Hong Yitangughed and looked in the direction of the vanished Sky Sword. ¡°Time to run! If we don¡¯t go... there¡¯s a ton of powerhouses around us. Even those above Nova will being!¡±

    ¡°Time to skedaddle!¡±ughed the rest and scattered in different directions.

    Yuan Shuo grabbed Li Hao, dragged the dog in their wake, and swiftly ran off. Given the scale of their battle, there would be heavyweights above Nova here soon. With the caliber of strength that¡¯d appeared, even the dynasty would be shaking in the aftermath. Of course, Xu Qing¡¯s death would give rise to great waves of change and shock through Skystar.

    ......

    Experts hidden in the shadows reeled from shock.

    ¡°Sky Sword... is greater than Nova!¡±

    ¡°And the old duke, but his condition seems unstable. Sky Sword is stable, however. Why is that?¡±

    ¡°The old duke was noticeably outssed and had to run. Staying would¡¯ve resulted in his death. What a pity about Xu Qing... If he¡¯d had a little more time... What a pity...¡±

    ¡°Silver Moon is a bunch of crazies, they¡¯vepletely emptied out and are showing up with everything they have!¡±

    ¡°The Xu foundations certainly run deep, as expected of one of the three great aristocracies. The old duke is still alive and quietly ascended above Nova! I wonder if there will be open war between the Xus and Silver Moon next...¡±

    Strands of conversation petered out as the observers left. This was no ce to linger. Although the Steadfast Duke was dead, the Xus still stood. They might be the first ones to disy their hidden battle strength on the open stage. Otherwise, the eastern region would fall into chaos that would slowly engulf the rest of the continents! The death of the Steadfast Duke epassed many things. It was generally understood that an even greater storm was brewing in the world.

    ......

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Immense waves crashed upon the shore and obliterated the previous battle site. The East Sea Bridge fully copsed.

    Tremendously powerful presences appeared on the scene not long after all thebatants left. They observed the surroundings, sensed the vicinity, and left just as quickly. Those above Nova had officially emerged in this world. It looked like the rest of them needed to focus on stabilizing their condition and prepare for the next breakthrough.

 Chapter 610: Arcanus (I)

    <h4>Chapter 610: Arcanus (I)</h4>

    ¡°Hahaha!¡± Laughter reverberated around the sea. A group of people scattered in various directions, their limits as high as they wished to soar. They were as free as fish darting through the vast seas.

    Damn it felt good!

    Silver Moon martial masters had been quiet for far too long. A bunch of premier martial masters had jointly killed the eastern overlord Xu Qing today; they were all jubnt about it!

    <i>It¡¯s your fault for killing Deficient Leg!</i>

    When viewed in aplimentary light, Silver Moon martial masters were a group of heavyweights who pursued freedom. When spoken of bluntly, they were a bunch of bandits with some bottom lines¡ªbut these bottom lines weren¡¯t all that righteous. Killing one of their own from the shadows, however, was a step over that line.

    If Xu Qing had defeated Deficient Leg in openbat, the group might¡¯ve jeered at Deficient Leg for being trash and bringing shame down on Silver Moon. Losing to an outsider in a match was well deserving of death.

    This was a perfect example of howplicated Silver Moon martial masters were, and how they practiced double standards. But today, they¡¯d alle in person to save Li Hao!

    Silver Moon martial masters could be killed, but not in this manner. Also, Xu Qing could not bully those weaker or younger than him. Even though it was Li Hao who¡¯d created trouble for him, he should¡¯ve sent a disciple of the same generation against the young man!

    Mmhmm, these martial masters were shameless and proud of it! Theirughter counted to echo over the waters.

    ¡°I¡¯ll be off then,¡± Northern Fist chortled. ¡°Li Hao, as a Silver Moon martial master, you must respect custom! We¡¯rebeled as savages because of you guys who don¡¯t follow the rules. Be a goodd, I hope we meet under different circumstances next time. Couldn¡¯t you have gotten some sort of decree from Zhao before you charged at the Xus? Something like the Xus are rebelling, that they shelter bandits or collude with pirates. There were a ton of possibilities, all of which concluded with you eliminating them on behalf of the dynasty! Now it¡¯s you who¡¯s more like the bandit. Tsk tsk!¡±

    He vanished after delivering the rebuke. Northern Fist and Tyrant de hadn¡¯t unsealed themselves much and didn¡¯t fight for too long after appearing. They didn¡¯t need Li Hao¡¯s help and no one within the group looked at their peers with any sort of friendliness. Hence, none of them would stay to chat after the fighting and killing were over.

    The thought didn¡¯t cross their mind!

    Not to mention, Yuan Shuo was still here. They couldn¡¯t be bothered with a second look at the old thing. They didn¡¯t even greet him! Northern Fist didn¡¯t address Yuan Shuo and Tyrant de was even more aloof¡ªhe left without a word. They did not walk the same paths!

    Although Silver Moon martial masters appeared firmly united in the outside world, once back home, there might be news of them killing each other the next day. If strength levels were simr, it was equally likely to hear of Tyrant de fighting Northern Fist to the death, Northern Fist punching Light Sword¡¯s life force out, or Light Sword shing Southern Fist to pieces...

    This group was just that ludicrous.

    While Northern Fist and Tyrant de could leave, Hong Yitang and Light Sword could not. They¡¯d unsealed quite a bit of themselves and needed Li Hao¡¯s help to suppress their power again. Thus, four humans and one dog traveled together at this time.

    Yuan Shuo looked at the other two contemptuously! Even though he was weaker than Hong Yitang and Light Sword, he was disdainful all the same. Neither did the two want to look at him. Hong Yitang wasfortable enough, but Light Sword assiduously evaded Yuan Shuo¡¯s direction. Everytime she caught a glimpse of the old man, she also saw him sneer at her like he wanted to hit her.

    As expected, the old fart loved his grudges. He must be recalling the news that¡¯d disseminated before about Light Sword bullying Li Hao.

    The young man could also sense the strange atmosphere in the group. These guys had just worked together beautifully moments ago to kill an enemy. Now that the enemy was dead, why did it seem like they¡¯d turn on each other just as quickly? Hong Yitang was normal enough, but his master... Why did he look at Hong Yitang with enmity?

    Hong Yitang was quite coollyposed, shooting over the East Sea with rxed ease. Meanwhile, Yuan Shuo sneered coldly. Hong Yitang knew why the old man did so and treated him to a nd expression. Inwardly, however, he jeered right back. <i>That¡¯s right, be jealous. Are you afraid that your disciple is about to disappear?</i>

    <i>Heh!</i>

    <i>You¡¯re the one who ran off to the central region. If you hadn¡¯t appeared for this fight, your disciple might be my disciple after a while longer. Heh!!</i>

    Granted, Hong Yitang wasn¡¯t really interested in stealing disciples. The kid also stirred up too much trouble! Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t handle it all¡ªhe¡¯d already fought a few fights on the young man¡¯s behalf over the past couple of days. The kid was morebative than Yuan Shuo, so it was just as well that the two roamed throughout the world together!

    Apart from the continuously whimpering Panther, the group traveled in silence. Li Hao and Yuan Shuo were both quite injured and the other two wereboring to keep their organs intact after unsealing themselves. They might give voice to their pain if they were alone, but at the moment, they forcefully kept their lips shut. They were in irritatingpany! Now was not the time to disy weakness. They would die first before admitting to their suffering.

    ¡°Where are we going to rest?¡± Li Hao had to ask upon seeing that no one would be the first to speak. <i>We have to find a ce, don¡¯t we? We can¡¯t just drift over the sea forever. The three of you are in some sort of ying it cool contest¡ªsomeone needs toe up with a location. We can¡¯t just keep running with no destination in mind.</i>

    ¡°Ask him!¡± Light Sword and Hong Yitang looked at Yuan Shuo. A smirk spread over his face.

    ¡°Someone who¡¯s been digging holes and tunnels for decades will have bases in a lot of ces. Maybe you''ve raided the graves in the sea. He must have gone to the eastern continent at some point and the East Sea as well. How else would he be able to fight Xu Qing otherwise?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t put on airs just because you¡¯ve lit up a few more locks!¡± The look in Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes turned cold. ¡°Are the likes of you allowed to discuss my affairs?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true, I won¡¯t do so next time,¡± Hong Yitang responded cidly. ¡°You¡¯re older, after all, so we need to show you respect. Wouldn¡¯t you say so, big brother Yuan?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t make a peep. <i>They aren¡¯t going to start fighting right here, are they? They were fine with each other before! Hong Yitang¡¯s temper is usually pretty good, so why does he seem to be in a bad mood today? He looks... to be picking a fight.</i>

    As for his master, the old demon had always been this cocky, so this was only to be expected. Meanwhile, it was like Light Sword was invisible. There even seemed to be schadenfreude lurking in the depths of her eyes. <i>Fight fight fight! </i>her eyes twinkled.

    <i>Silver Moon martial masters are definitely a weird bunch,</i> the young man concluded.

    Apart from exchanging a word with Yuan Shuo, no one even had the chance of seeing the supercilious Sky Sword. He¡¯d suppressed the old duke with one move, then left. Then there was Northern Fist and his slightly hypocritical talk of the rules, and the flinty Tyrant de.

    None of them were normal in Li Hao¡¯s eyes, but of course their reinforcement was quite a thrilling feeling. They were all from Silver Moon at the end of the day. It was always particrly touching to see a fellow countryman. Those from the same origin were more reliable.

    Yuan Shuo snorted and couldn¡¯t be bothered to reply. He was still restrained to a certain degree in front of his own disciple. It was difficult to maintain the appearance of a noble, principled schr. His disciple had always viewed him as a magnanimous and benevolent sort¡ªhe didn¡¯t wish to destroy that mental image.

    Li Hao had thought of his teacher in such a manner before, but he didn¡¯t think that way now. His teacher was too deeply vested in his own act. If the young man still believed that his teacher was a cultured, refined, and kindly old man after hearing so many stories of his past exploits, then Li Hao would be an idiot.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go to East Shore, I have a house there that I haven¡¯t visited in a long time. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s still there or if there¡¯s people squatting in it.¡±

    A knowing expression appeared on Hong Yitang¡¯s face. He knew this was the case!

    The group quickly altered their heading and flew toward East Shore.

    ......

    Explosive news spread throughout the dynasty. All of its senior officials had enjoyed a good show today.

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    The inspector general had returned and chuckled merrily at an intelligence report. ¡°Like I said, one side must die when two tigers fight! Rest in peace! s, Xu Qing was too trash and the Xus too cowardly¡ªthey didn¡¯t kill a single Silver Moon martial master! That was only half of a show, it wasn¡¯t good enough!¡±

    More should¡¯ve died, which would then herald a war between Silver Moon and the Xus. They would then engage in an epic war and continuously bring out trump cards until the province was forced to summon their oldest, most secret powerhouses. They would be answered in kind, and their battles would drag in the rest of the east and north. Now <i>that</i> would be a show worth watching!

    No one knew the inspector general¡¯s thoughts. The people around him didn¡¯t dare make a sound. The Night Watcher director and deputy director Yellow Dragon were both here. As the highest and second-inmand of their agencies, they were here to participate in a meeting of the senior ranks and analyze the fallout from this affair.

    An important person had died¡ªa first level provincial official, the overlord of the east. Certain attention still needed to be devoted to this matter. Otherwise, the dignity of the dynasty would lie inplete tatters. The Xus were one of the three founding dukes, after all.

    ¡°We should discuss the aftermath, inspector general,¡± Yellow Dragon raised. ¡°Li Hao and the other Silver Moon bandits killed the Steadfast Duke. What do we do now?¡±

    ¡°The Steadfast Marquis!¡± corrected the inspector general with a frown. ¡°Don¡¯t ignore the earlier promation or simply treat it as a piece of paper! Xu Qing was wrong to fire the city annihtion missiles. It was a grave mistake to begin with, I don¡¯t care if he did so for self defense or to kill enemies. That should not have happened! This is the punishment that the dynasty meted out to the Xus. If you use the wrong term of address again in an official setting, punishment will fall on your head as well!¡±

    Yellow Dragon didn¡¯t say a word. He dared talk back to the Night Watcher director, but he didn¡¯t dare retort against the inspector general.

    The nine ministries had been established eighty years ago and this one was the second inspector general. The first one was his father¡ªhis tenure had run for fifty years. This one possessed thirty years under his belt. None of the ministry leaders were easy characters to handle.

    The inspector general didn¡¯t continue after rebuking Yellow Dragon. He looked at the group, not interested in asking for their opinions. ¡°How about this,¡± the inspector general smiled after some thought. ¡°Send a document to Silver Moon. Don¡¯t they want to promote Li Hao? It¡¯s approved! Li Hao went to the east to eliminate bandits and earned a great merit of distinction for killing the East Sea pirate Red Beard!¡±

    Yellow Dragon¡¯s eyes widened.

    ¡°Additionally, put Earthturner Sword, Light Sword, Northern Fist, Tyrant de, and Old Demon Five Styles on the wanted list,¡± continued the inspector general. ¡°Theymitted a grave crime in jointly killing the Steadfast Marquis. Have the Ministry of Armed Forces send out the Skystar Troops and call upon the Steppe Prince to assist. The royal family has an obligation to eliminate these bandits!

    ¡°Since the old duke is still alive, but his son is dead... Have him select another son to inherit the Steadfast Marquis title. He has many sons and the title remains his family¡¯s!

    ¡°Ah, yes. The East Shore provincial government must bear responsibility for its province haphazardly firing missiles. Start with its director general and rece everyone including themander-in-chief of the provincial armies, director of the Inspectorate, and director of the Night Watcher branch.

    ¡°Additionally, Sky Sword Mountain Vi... Forget it, Sky Sword only exchanged one move with the old duke. Sparring between supernaturals is amon urrence, we don¡¯t need to address it.¡±

    And so it was quickly decided. The Silver Moon martial masters were wanted criminals, the Steadfast Marquis would be helmed by a new face, Li Hao was to be promoted, and the East Shore leadership to be shuffled...

 Chapter 611: Arcanus (II)

    <h4>Chapter 611: Arcanus (II)</h4>

    When it looked like some wanted to protest his decisions, the inspector general that didn¡¯t look too old mmed his hand on the table.

    ¡°These matters are so settled! They are such trifling issues. It is a loss to the dynasty that the previous duke has died, but Xu Qing¡¯s always been a slight irritant. Have the royal family bestow him with posthumous honors. Yellow Dragon, go make the request in a personal audience with the king!¡±

    Emotion flickered across Yellow Dragon¡¯s face, but he nodded in eptance. ¡°Inspector general, is there any room for discussion when ites to promoting Li Hao?¡±

    <i>A peacemakermissioner!</i>

    That was a major figure in the Inspectorate hierarchy. Hou Xiaochen had been one before, as was Kong Jie now. Typically speaking, one province only had two serving in that capacity. The inspector general and director of their Night Watchers had to be strong enough to have both positions filled. If they were weaker, there might only be one peacemakermissioner.

    Strictly speaking, Yellow Dragon was also a peacemakermissioner. Titles weren¡¯t as emphasized in Skystar City; strength and actual duties were.

    ¡°What, do you have opinions otherwise?¡± The inspector general cast a quizzical look at him.

    ¡°Not exactly...¡±

    ¡°Then it¡¯s settled! Right, I forgot that you¡¯re also themander of the northern Night Watchers. I¡¯m giving you a mission¡ªarrest the five great bandits! Kill however many you can!¡±

    Yellow Dragon suddenly felt like he¡¯d swallowed a fly. However, the inspector general was correct. Eliminating bandits was indeed the responsibility of the northernmander. But these five were... <i>Damn it! </i>The weakest Yuan Shuo was an overwhelming character. A fully fused five auras at his cultivation level propelled him to metamorphosis! Not to mention, his disciple was very strong now as well.

    To be able to escape from Xu Qing¡ªeven if he hadn¡¯t unsealed himself at first¡ªindicated that Li Hao was at metamorphosis as well. The young man had the ability to defy metamorphosis experts, and one also had to keep in mind the methods he employed against Red Beard. How was Yellow Dragon supposed to defeat them?

    He knew that this was the inspector general¡¯s punishment for him, a rebuke of him interrupting. The nine ministries had be the personal faction of whoever gripped the reins of power. Whatever the inspector general said wasw and there was no room for contradiction. Yellow Dragon just didn¡¯t want to ept his circumstances!

    Creating five new fugitives for Silver Moon wasn¡¯t a loss for the province. Yellow Dragon didn¡¯t care about thete Steadfast Duke either. However, one could clearly see that the inspector general was favoring Silver Moon. Why? He couldn¡¯t make sense of it.

    The inspector general shouldn¡¯t be rted to Silver Moon. Did he just want to sit back and watch tigers fight? And there was Hou Xiaochen to consider...

    Yellow Dragon suppressed his urge to say more and raised another topic instead. ¡°I¡¯ll do my best, inspector general! Also, regarding Deputy Hou Xiaochen¡¯s major disturbance at the Skystar Academy...¡±

    ¡°Right, although he was on a mission, his methods were too crude!¡± said an amused inspector general after some consideration. ¡°He even killed a teacher while he was there! Judgment must be passed even if that teacher was guilty of a crime. The Inspectorate and Night Watchers may bew enforcement agencies, but we cannot use our power like this!¡±

    He mmed his hand down on the table with some anger. ¡°Hou Xiaochen is used to calling the shots in Silver Moon and forgot that this is Skystar City!¡± he denounced with slight anger. ¡°He is to be demoted one rank to a high rank chiefmissioner. His sry will also be garnished for three years as an example to others!¡±

    Yellow Dragon frowned, a reaction echoed by another deputy director. ¡°Inspector general, isn¡¯t this... too lenient? The Skystar Academy is an institute of higher learning jointly established by the nine ministries and royal family... Hou Xiaochen was entirely too brazen.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true!¡± The inspector general nodded. ¡°The punishment is too light for him to remember the lesson...¡± He paused, but it seemed like a nned pause to give time for the others to fall silent. ¡°How about this, isn¡¯t he the Skystarmander? Charge him to arrest or kill one thousand members of the three evil organizations within three months. He has to count at least one hundred Srs and ten Novas among that number. That will make amends for his deeds!¡±

    Expressions shifted at what the inspector general said. What did he mean? Did he want Hou Xiaochen to dere war on the three great organizations with open backing from the Inspectorate, one of the nine ministries? What did the inspector general want?? Did he actually seek official hostilities, or did he want to borrow another¡¯s hand to kill Hou Xiaochen?

    The group didn¡¯t know because anything was possible. Or had the death of the previous Steadfast Duke caused this one to be unwilling to stay out of the limelight?

    Whatever it was, it made Yellow Dragon fidget even more ufortably. Hou Xiaochen now had a legitimate reason and support from the inspector general to move against three great organizations. Given Hou Xiaochen¡¯s character, he might use this as a pretext for his own ideas and deploy the powerhouses of the Inspectorate and Night Watchers for his own purposes.

    Since it was the inspector general¡¯smand, there would be no refusing Hou Xiaochen. Yellow Dragon and the Night Watcher director were just deputy directors at the Inspectorate. Their superior organization possessed significant charisma and execution ability among the nine ministries. Its authority remained strong.

    ¡°That will be all for now, dismissed!¡±

    Seeing as the inspector general was about to leave with a flourish, a deputy director couldn¡¯t help but interject, ¡°There¡¯s one more matter, inspector general.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, what is it?¡±

    ¡°Ah,¡± the person continued doggedly. ¡°The Ministry of Administration has sent another letter mentioningbining our agencies for joint enforcement...¡±

    The logic sounded simple; the Ministry of Administration proposed reforms throughout the ny-nine provinces. They wanted to confirm the position of a provincial leader. Take Silver Moon, for instance, the provincial government should be officially instated as themander-in-chief of the province. The other institutions should answer to it in the hierarchy of power.

    The Ministry of Administration even proposed establishing a position of governor general as a permanent position overseeing all other officials in the province.

    Some provinces already had simr arrangements, such as Near River. Their provincial government had been elevated to the Director General Office, and their governor general was their director general of their provincial government.

    ¡°Does he think the world isn¡¯t chaotic enough already?¡±ughed the inspector general. ¡°Establishing a local overlord would add to the mess. Or does he think that since he¡¯s the loudest voice at the Ministry of Administration, he¡¯ll be able to dominate the other eight ministries even if there is more confusion?¡±

    No one made a peep¡ªtoo much was involved in this matter. The Ministry of Administration had been ranked first among the nine ministries when they were established, but the Ministry of Armed Forces and Inspectorate were equally strong. Although the former was first among the ministries in name, thetter two respectively held the reins of military power andw enforcement. These were highly authoritative institutions as well.

    The Ministry of Armed Forces had proposed establishing a Governor General Office multiple times over the years¡ªthe proposal had been declined each time!

    The inspector general thought for a bit and smiled. ¡°It¡¯s not undoable, but he can¡¯t just appoint the director general from the provincial government as the governor general. When the building is about to fall, how can a schr helm the ship?¡±

    Eyes widened at his words and some more cautious people said lowly, ¡°Please be careful, inspector general!¡±

    <i>The building is about to fall!</i>

    Skystar Dynasty had stood for two hundred years. The nine ministries seemed stable and secure, the royal family seemed mostly secure, and all was at peace apart from the three great organizations asionally stirring up trouble. As more technologies were excavated from the ruins, there even appeared to be a budding picture of prosperity.

    It was horrifying for an overseer of one of the nine ministries to voice such words. Even if this thought was shared by many, no one dared voice it aloud.

    ¡°Hahaha, fine. Leave that line out of it and send them back this response.¡± The inspector general left.

    The group heaved sighs of relief after he was gone and Yellow Dragon took advantage of the opening toin, ¡°Not only is the inspector general not punishing Li Hao of Silver Moon, but he¡¯s promoting the kid! Isn¡¯t that just fostering this kind ofwless atmosphere? I say that Li Hao is the source of chaos in our times. How many people has he killed in such a short while?

    ¡°He barged into the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor today, he might barge into our offices tomorrow!¡±

    Some nodded with a smile and others pretended not to hear him.

    ¡°Take it up with the inspector general if you don¡¯t agree with his decisions. There¡¯s no point inining about this to us.¡±

    Yellow Dragon cursed to himself. <i>Would I say this to you if I could get through to him? I obviously want all of us to rise up together!</i>

    The Night Watcher director that¡¯d sat like a statue all this time suddenly took his big cup of tea and strolled outside. He hadn¡¯t said a word from beginning to end and was so rxed that it was like the matter had nothing to do with him.

    The others weren¡¯t surprised by his reaction. They began discussing other matters instead, such as the boldness and madness of Silver Moon martial masters, their strength, and how strong might those of the sixth cultivation realm be.

    More news arrived amid their conversation. A high ranking officer walked in and announced, ¡°A piece of news has juste in and is quickly disseminating...¡±

    People cocked their ears to listen¡ªthey hadn¡¯t paid attention to any developments due to the meeting they were in. What news hade in?

    The officer¡¯s scalp crawled to suddenly find himself as the center of attention. ¡°Due to the appearance of a sixth level expert in the east, the City of Supernaturals has swiftly proimed the development and given the level a name. It is already being poprized...¡±

    A shocked silence stole through the crowd before someone cursed, ¡°The City of Supernaturals? What are they sticking their noses into things for? Since when did it fall to them to name a cultivation level?!¡±

    This wasn¡¯t a matter about naming a cultivation level, it was an issue of governance over the supernatural domain. It should fall to the Night Watchers to create a new name, they were the official authorities and the onlyw enforcement agency with supernatural strength.

    The City of Supernaturals was located in the central region, a city that was entirely forged and upied by supernaturals. Someone had mentioned it to Li Hao before, but the young man hadn¡¯t paid attention to that trivia.

    ¡°We didn¡¯t think about this and they stole a march on us!¡± Someone pped their head with regret. ¡°These guys are assholes! So what name did they pick?¡±

    ¡°Arcanus!¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Arcanus!¡± the speaker repeated. nk stares and faint frowns abounded in the crowd.

    ¡°Did they say why they chose this name?¡±

    ¡°Yes! It is said that the sixth realm is a result of a second broken lock of the organs and the fusion of two supernatural systems. One possesses supernormal powers after that level stabilizes and can truly destroy cities and nations...¡±

    Arcanus! [1]

    1. The Chinese name for this realm is the Buddhist term Abhij?¨¡. It is a concept of "higher knowledge" or "supernormal powers" ascribed to buddhas and their chief disciples. ?

 Chapter 612: Arcanus (III)

    <h4>Chapter 612: Arcanus (III)</h4>

    Understanding dawned and someone denounced coldly within the crowd, ¡°So it looks like there are already supernaturals of the Arcanus level in the City of Supernaturals! That¡¯s why they¡¯re so eager to dere themselves and publicize their strength. This will entice more supernaturals to take up residence there. It would seem that the effects of the eastern battle are making themselves felt!¡±

    Those of the sixth cultivation realm couldn¡¯t withstand their impatience. The old Steadfast Duke had shown himself, as had Sky Sword. If no one else came to the fore, be it the nine ministries, royal family, or three great organizations... that would put those factions on the back foot.

    Although the Steadfast Manor had suffered tremendous losses, one powerhouse of the sixth cultivation level was sufficient to make up for it all. Such a presence might even attract fealty from even more heavyweights or factions simply because they had an existence beyond Nova.

    It wasn¡¯t important that the City of Supernaturals had chosen to publicize the name of the cultivation level at this time¡ªthe key was that they¡¯d utilized a rather tant way to lure everyone to the city. <i>Come to us, we have Arcanus level supernaturals! How else would we be familiar with the level?</i> They wouldn¡¯t be able to name it without in-depth knowledge.

    The group in the Inspectorate quickly understood the city¡¯s intentions and Yellow Dragon couldn¡¯t help a snort. ¡°The City of Supernaturals? They¡¯re a tumor that¡¯s not much better than the three great organizations. Look at them taking a stand!¡±

    ¡°Ahem!¡± someone coughed. This was a city situated in the central region with countless supernaturals living within it. It was a legitimate existence, so there would certainly be more than met the eye there. It was better to not cause trouble. They all had their guesses as to who backed the city, so there wasn¡¯t much that anyone could say.

    ¡°It looks like Xu Qing¡¯s death needs some more time to cook. Let¡¯s wait and see. Those of the sixth cultivation realm will jump out one after another. Any that don¡¯t are probably afraid of drawing wrong attention,¡± someoneughed ruefully and shook their head with resignation.

    ¡°And what about the Inspectorate?¡± Another frowned.

    That was right! If other factions had this new level of heavyweight showing themselves, then what were the Inspectorate¡¯s ns? Would there be any authority left to its name if it didn¡¯t possess such an existence? How would it keep thend orderly?

    ¡°Announce to the world that my father, the previous inspector general, has entered the Arcanus level,¡± an amused voice traveled out. ¡°Since the City of Supernaturals has dered the name, we¡¯ll go along with them!¡±

    The crowd started. <i>Your father? The first inspector general!</i>

    ¡°The old inspector general... is still alive?¡± came a shocked inquiry.

    ¡°No shit. If Xu Qing¡¯s old man is still alive, how can mine be dead?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Alright, they had nothing to say to that. Various emotions flickered across faces. If the old inspector general was still alive, what about the other eight ministries? What of the previous Skystar King?

    These had all been famed personages in the historic handover eighty years ago. They¡¯d been forty to fifty years old then, making them more than one hundred years old now. That might not be old in the ancient civilization, but that was too old for this age!

    Whether it was supernaturals or martial masters, the higher the cultivation level, the greater the danger. A strong body was useless if the organs were weak; one still ran a high risk of self-detonating.

    How had these people managed to survive to present day? Did they depend on Water of Life? That would be terrifying!

    The inspector general only sent his voice to the assembly¡ªhe didn¡¯t show himself. The discussions didn¡¯t continue as the people grew curious. What cultivation realm was their inspector general? As young as he looked, he was in his seventies now. Having held his post for thirty years, he was certain to be very strong.

    ......

    The aftermath of the battle continued to ripple outward, as did the name of the sixth cultivation level. The central region was the first to learn of it. When it came to the north, the senior executives were naturally first to know. Those below them might not know for a long while yet.

    <i>Arcanus!</i>

    The City of Supernaturals in the central region had bestowed a name and exnation at first light. Supernaturals of the sixth levelmanded two elements. Thatbination gave rise to supernormal powers that could destroy cities through a single supernatural¡¯s efforts.

    ......

    <i>Silver Moon.</i>

    Director General Zhao looked at Huang Yu. Themander-in-chief of the provincial armies thought for a bit before nodding. ¡°The name isn¡¯t too bad. They obviously came prepared. Energies of the five elements abound in our environment and when two arebined, that does indeed give rise to a unique power with tremendous force...¡±

    The director general agreed with a smile. ¡°We also have word from the central Inspectorate that Li Hao is to be promoted, while the rest are going on the wanted list!¡±

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll put out notices for their arrest!¡± Huang Yu remarked with unconcern. ¡°Disseminate the proper documents and carry out the dynasty¡¯s orders! We¡¯ll post a bounty¡ªwhoever kills one of the five demons will be rewarded with one hundred pieces of mysterious power stones!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The director general was caught off guard and couldn¡¯t immediately react. He smiled after a long pause. ¡°Ole Huang, you... this is over the top!¡±

    ¡°One hundred pieces is a lot.¡± Huang Yu seemed to be always coollyposed. ¡°Silver Moon is too weak. When Li Hao wanted thirty thousand pieces, there was no way we had the reserves to satisfy his wishes. Upstairs didn¡¯t say anything about rewards, but we can¡¯t have people toiling away for free. One hundred pieces can be traded for ten thousand cubes of mysterious power or countless star coins. Killing one of the five demons means instant riches. That¡¯s sufficient!¡±

    <i>This is absolute nonsense! </i>The director general inwardly rolled his eyes, but remained unppable on the surface. <i>You¡¯re joking!</i> Granted, it was a good thought.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s settle it this way. Send out the documents and share their photos. Whoever kills one of them will be awarded one hundred pieces of mysterious power stones. Silver Moon needs to support the dynasty¡¯s rule!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The two nodded at each other when their gazes met.

    Off to the side, the overlooked Kong Jie didn¡¯t say a word from beginning to end. He¡¯d been contemting something and still didn¡¯t speak up when the discussion was over.

    ¡°Ole Kong, what are you thinking about?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m wondering... who is stronger¡ªAn Arcanus Sky Sword or us fully unsealed?¡± Kong Jie steepled his fingers. ¡°Judging from the intelligence reports, we might have to fully break our locks to measure up to this new cultivation realm!¡±

    It was a very irritating realization! Although the four great powerhouses on the scene hadn¡¯t exchanged moves with the old duke, the fact that he¡¯d chosen to act after witnessing their strength meant that the Arcanus level might be able to defeat Hong Yitang and the others. The old duke had retreated only after seeing Sky Sword.

    ¡°If you don¡¯t fully unseal yourself or break one of your locks, you probably are indeed less than Arcanus!¡± chuckled Director General Zhao. ¡°But fully breaking a lock requires some time to absorb and digest the energy. It¡¯s very much simr to Arcanus. You can give it a try if you don¡¯t believe me. Break one of your locks, you might directly ascend to the new cultivation level.¡±

    He would just need some time to limate to the change. Xu Qing had almost been there as he¡¯d thoroughly snapped one of his locks. He hadn¡¯t dared attempt two as that might cause his strength to increase too rapidly and overload his body. A martial master¡¯s internal force was too strong.

    Kong Jie looked on wordlessly. <i>What kind of bullshit is this? Why don¡¯t you try breaking one of your locks? I¡¯m not doing that!</i>

    ¡°What is Sky Sword thinking?¡± Kong Jie couldn¡¯t make sense of it. ¡°Forget it, I¡¯m not thinking about it anymore! Right now I¡¯m wondering if Li Hao will being back? I¡¯ll have a headache if he does, but I think I might have one if he doesn¡¯t.¡±

    What a troublemaker! He¡¯d caused five powerhouses to turn into wanted criminals. It might be the entire province being arrested next time!

    ¡°The various factions will soon be disying their Arcanus heavyweights, regardless of whether or not their expert is stable. Then we...¡±

    ¡°We have Sky Sword!¡±ughed the director general. ¡°He¡¯s the lord of Sky Sword Mountain Vi. Isn¡¯t he from Silver Moon? He¡¯s the one!¡±

    Kong Jie lost his train of thought. <i>Damn, we can y it this way? </i>He rolled his eyes.

    ¡°Ah, right, about Yuan Shuo... He¡¯s reached great perfection with his auras¡ªdo you guys think he¡¯ll just set foot into the next cultivation realm? Or will he advance like us and saturate his supernatural locks, find a way to strengthen the organs, and then determine a way forward...¡±

    ¡°Ask him, how would we know?¡± The director general shook his head. ¡°A lot of Silver Moon martial masters took a stand this time, but we also revealed our weaknesses. It¡¯s such a hassle for martial masters to unseal themselves! Although practitioners of martial dao will focus on the body more than supernaturals, an inability to bypass this bottleneck means that the future of martial masters is still limited.¡±

    ¡°The supernaturals are the same, they haven¡¯t solved their problem either,¡± Kong Jie murmured. ¡°Present level Arcanus most likely use treasures, Water of Life, or blood pearls to maintain their condition. There should be that many who have solidly set foot in that level.¡±

    ¡°Ai, we¡¯ll see!¡± That wrapped up their conversation. As for the wanted notices... those were a joke. They didn¡¯t care about the official papers.

    ......

    News after news shook the supernatural domain on this day. Xu Qing was dead. Martial masters could unseal themselves. There was a sixth supernatural cultivation realm!

    All of it was shocking beyond belief. Inparison, a piece of news that wasn¡¯t as eye-popping circted among the youngsters.

    The Divine Masters Ranking had been updated.

    It¡¯d been a long time since the ranking wasst updated. The most noticeable change was the removal and addition of a few names. Demon Sword Li Hao was the most conspicuous name of them all.

    He had been an insignificant figure in the north, but now he was on the Divine Masters Ranking of the central region. There were only supernaturals on it before, yet a martial master joined their ranks today.<i> Li Hao!</i>

    The Divine Masters Ranking listed the strongest and most famous powerhouses below thirty years old in the central region. It wasn¡¯t that it excluded martial masters, but that there were none under thirty who were qualified to be listed on the ranking!

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t the only unexpected addition as the ranking also epted monster spirits. Any that had awakened for less than ten years were entered, so long as they were famous and strong enough. There was a new addition this time¡ªGolden Hair Hunting Dog.

    Indeed, it was Panther. Very few people knew the dog¡¯s name, breed, or monster spirit attribute. This was the name that was eventually settled on.

    Li Hao ranked number twenty-seven on the ranking. Just twenty-seven. His strongest battle aplishment listed was not the metamorphosis Red Beard or killing the Yellow Dragon, but killing Xu Zhe. That was his only public record. Him killing a metamorphosis expert and escaping from Xu Qing¡¯s grasp also went unlisted.

 Chapter 613: Focusing on Cultivation (I)

    <h4>Chapter 613: Focusing on Cultivation (I)</h4>

    Many snorted at the ranking they received. What kind of amateur ranking was this? Demon Sword was twenty-seven? Then Red Beard, the Yellow General, and others who died to him had undergone such ignoble and useless deaths!

    However, the Divine Masters Ranking also came with an exnation that they recorded only real battle strength. Li Hao¡¯s battle in the North Sea might be the truest demonstration of his strength. He¡¯d killed Xu Zhen with one sword stroke, which ced his strength betweente and peak Nova.

    Thus, the ranking of twenty-seven was appropriate to Li Hao¡¯s strength. Granted, if viewed from the perspective of him having killed a metamorphosis expert, then he would at least be top three. He might even be able to make a y for number one.

    Panther was ranked higher at eleven. Its aplishment of suppressing peak Nova was also a result of the battle in the North Sea. No one had seen the dog swallow the peak Nova, so it wasn¡¯t recorded. Instead, its strength was listed as peak Nova.

    inly, the top ten of the ranking was probably metamorphosis level. They averaged thirty years old and if they were part of the first batch of supernaturals, they might have been Heaven Favored at ten years old. In terms of qualification, some of them might even be local overlords.

    The Divine Masters Ranking only circted in select circles. The younger generation was the only one to refer to it; no one else treated it with much importance. Otherwise, if one believed it and treated Li Hao as an ordinaryte Nova... One wouldn¡¯t even know how they died.

    The greatest purpose of this ranking was to disseminate Li Hao¡¯s title of Demon Sword throughout central region supernatural society. Almost everyone knew of a martial powerhouse whose prowess spanned the eastern and northern continents.

    This information had only been passed around the senior levels before, and no one went to the trouble of building Li Hao¡¯s reputation. This was what the Divine Masters Ranking did for the young man at this time.

    ......

    ¡°How interesting!¡± Ying Hongyueughed in a pce hall as he perused the ranking. ¡°Isn¡¯t this something? It seems to me that this Divine Masters Ranking imitates a certain ancient powerhouse¡¯s actions. Collecting these powerhouses, sounding them out, and provoking them bit by bit! It¡¯s limited to the central region and youngsters at the moment, but is already beginning to include the other four directions. It might continue to expand until finally, all of the powerhouses in the dynasty and even the world are included. It will build its reputation first and then slowly increase in scope...¡±

    The newly recovered Orange Moon lowered her voice quizzically, ¡°Leader, do you mean that there''s a backer for the Divine Masters Ranking?¡±

    ¡°Divine Masters Ranking... Ranking of Life and Death...¡± Ying Hongyueughed. ¡°Ever since the ancient times, those who create such rankings are either idiots or powerhouses themselves! They¡¯re also heavyweights with ill intentions as they just want to stir up trouble! Subordinates of the civil subjects are superior to those of martial subjects. Even if they don¡¯t wish to vie for a spot, they have no choice as a local tyrant!

    ¡°Are you not aware of how many died when the Record of Thirty-Six Heroes appeared in Silver Moon?¡± He smiled radiantly at Orange Moon. ¡°And how many have died for this particr ranking? Ten thousand bodies are piled in a heap beneath one sessful general. Who upon the ranking doesn¡¯t have a few resentful, wild ghosts behind them?¡±

    Orange Moon nodded and said nothing else. She simply remained confused¡ªwho was behind the Divine Masters Ranking that not even her leader could determine it with his informationwork?

    ¡°My money is on the royal family,¡± Ying Hongyueughed. ¡°If it¡¯s not them, that means another faction is rising and is currently hidden in the shadows. My intelligencework is quite capable.¡±

    <i>The royal family!</i>

    ¡°This does seem quite possible.¡± Orange Moon nodded upon some thought. ¡°Leader, Li Hao is growing ever stronger and so are Yuan Shuo and the others. If the situation continues...¡±

    Ying Hongyue¡¯s small withered. ¡°Have the elder council and Ancient Guard move out. Choose a good opportunity to eliminate Li Hao!¡± He looked back at Orange Moon. ¡°And you guys should work harder!¡±

    ¡°I will.¡±

    Ying Hongyue rose and walked inside. ¡°Get Violet Moon back before Li Hao returns to the province. Huang Yu and them don¡¯t wish to have open hostilities with us yet, so increase our offer to ten drops of Water of Life!¡±

    ¡°Thank you, leader!¡± Orange Moon quickly said with a shift in expression.

    ¡°As I should!¡± Ying Hongyue vanished with a smile.

    Orange Moon promptly left. The leader had said to conclude this business before Li Hao returned. inly, he knew just as well that Li Hao was currently in high spirits and operatingpletely without principles. He might very well execute Violet Moon as soon as he returned¡ªthat could ur with ny-nine percent probability. This was a highly crazed fellow that they were talking about.

    ......

    <i>The shore of the East Sea, a slightly dpidated manor with a view of the sea.</i>

    There was an additional scent of blood in it now.

    ¡°Damned unlucky!¡± Yuan Shuo cursed. His house still stood, but it¡¯d be a pirate stronghold. When he arrived, some pirates were discussing where they should run to after the East Sea pirates had suffered such a blow.

    Red Beard was dead, city annihtion missiles had taken out anotherrge sum. The group at the house felt that life was getting too hard and wanted to take their nautical ventures elsewhere.

    After Yuan Shuo and the rest quickly dispatched them, the old man muttered, ¡°This house cost me quite a bit of money. It¡¯s one thing if it was razed to the ground, but these guys turned it into their hideout?? How inauspicious!¡±

    The others couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. Money didn¡¯t matter to them. They tossed the bodies to the backyard and sat down to tend to their wounds, ignoring the blood around them. Massive sums of mysterious power stones materialized and sword energy urged forth.

    The entire living room was filled with sword energy. Everyone was injured and two had unsealed themselves. Panther was also gravely wounded. In the absence of high quality stones, low quality ones shattered in an unending stream to be converted to sword energy.

    No one gave thought to the struggles of the outside world, nor did they care to know how the Xus would proceed next. This was a detached house, so there was no risk of anyone else sensing their activities. It had been a pirate stronghold, so while some in East Shore might be aware of the location, no one dared approach a pirate hideaway.

    The group spent significant time cultivating and repairing their wounds. Time passed, second by second. Resource consumption was noticeable this time around as everyone furiously swallowed sword energy. There might not have been sufficient energy if circumstances were as before, but Steris seemed to have grown stronger after devouring the earth dragon weapon soul. Its conversion speed was faster, which meant that it consumed mysterious power stones a little too fast.

    Yuan Shuo took in energy for all he was worth, as did Panther. In contrast, Hong Yitang and Light Sword didn¡¯t consume as much, despite having unsealed themselves. Light Sword couldn¡¯t help but nce at human and dog. <i>Both of you are gluttons, you guzzle down energy like bottomless pits! Dang you¡¯re fast!</i>

    The Breathing Method of the Five Styles was very suited to sword energy. Having justpleted the fusion of five auras, Yuan Shuo was running very low. The great battle hadpletely emptied him. He absorbed sword energy at a pace almost visible to the naked eye; no amount seemed to be enough.

    Four humans and a dog expended quite a sum of mysterious power stones. Li Hao was far from miserly this time. He¡¯d hemmed and hawed at expanding resources for Light Sword, but right now, everyone was here to save him. He had to be more generous. Mysterious power stones continuously shattered like they were worthless.

    He didn¡¯t stop before anyone called for a stop, even when his own wounds were healed. Three thousand, eight thousand, ten thousand, fifteen thousand... It wasn¡¯t until they expended twenty thousand stones that Panther¡¯s fur grew out again. This was when Hong Yitang and Light Sword finally stopped.

    ¡°That¡¯s enough cultivation for now!¡± Yuan Shuo opened his eyes with slight reluctance. The mysterious power stone shards in the living room were as tall as a mountain.

    Li Hao whisked the shards away with a wave of his hand and ced them in a storage ring. He had so many of them that he couldn¡¯t count them all.

    ¡°Are youpletely recovered, teacher?¡± asked the young man. ¡°If not, I have a few drops of Water of Life.¡±

    He¡¯d brought fifteen drops on this drip, but already spent eight. There were only seven now. Water of Life was very useful as sometimes, he didn¡¯t have enough time to replenish sword energy in the middle of battle or address his wounds. Water of Life was quickly effective, though it wasn¡¯t as longsting as sword energy. Li Hao couldn¡¯t bear to use the remaining seven drops.

    ¡°No!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head.<i> You fool. Save it for just the two of us, what are you talking about now for? Those two are still here! It¡¯s one thing for them to partake in sword energy, but what are you boasting about Water of Life from an unknown source??</i>

    Hong Yitang and Light Sword knew what the old man was thinking. Hong Yitang grinned and didn''t say anything. It didn¡¯t matter if they used Water of Life or not, they didn¡¯t have external wounds. What was most useful about this resource was when one lost a limb. It facilitated flesh and blood to grow again. Sword energy could take care of other wounds.

    The group recovered some when they stabilized their wounds. Everyone was more at ease now. If another Xu Qing popped up, they were confident of being able to fight the man¡ªthat was how at ease they were.

    ¡°What about Xu Qing¡¯s storage ring? You¡¯ve got quite thick skin to im it all for yourself...¡± Yuan Shuo flicked a nce at Hong Yitang. Thetter ignored him. He was the one to chop Xu Qing¡¯s head off, so picking up the storage ring was just a casual response.

    ¡°Li Hao and I fought Xu Qing for most of the battle, it took Sky Sword¡¯s arrival for you guys to kill him,¡± Yuan Shuo snorted at Hong Yitang¡¯s silence. ¡°My disciple will owe you a favor, but are you taking the spoils with you?¡±

    ¡°Teacher, Martial Uncle Hong should keep it,¡± chuckled Li Hao, as did Hong Yitang. ¡°We¡¯re not the ones who killed Xu Qing...¡±

    <i>As I thought! This kid was so miserly before, but now he doesn¡¯t even want the Steadfast Duke¡¯s storage ring! Hong Yitang¡¯s got his talons in my disciple!</i>

    Li Hao simply felt that it would make its way back to his hands sooner orter¡ªahem, that Hong Yitang would trade it for sword energy. What was the point of taking it now? <i>You don¡¯t understand my ns, teacher. It¡¯s not nice to directly request it from someone. We want to gently, quietly, unnoticeably squeeze them dry, then take it back.</i>

 Chapter 614: Focusing on Cultivation (II)

    <h4>Chapter 614: Focusing on Cultivation (II)</h4>

    Hong Yitangughed and threw out a storage ring. He nced at Yuan Shuo. ¡°After so many years, Big Brother Yuan is still so straightforward, so direct, so...¡±

    He almost said shameless, but it was clearly implied.

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t bother with a response. He stopped grumbling only after Hong Yitang relinquished the storage ring.

    ¡°Let¡¯s not argue about this,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°I want to take an inventory of all of my gains. There is too much as I made off with the entire Xu treasury. There¡¯s a lot of good things here and I can¡¯t catalog it all myself. Please give me a hand.¡±

    He fished out a long string of storage rings from his armor, raising wide-eyed looks and tsk¡¯ing! The Xus had truly suffered greatly and Li Hao had gained so much! He¡¯d robbed the Xus clean, killed Red Beard and other pirate Novas, killed Xu Xing, the Yellow General, and second steward, and the rest had killed Xu Qing together.

    If Red Beard was counted among the Xu camp, they¡¯d lost eight Novas during the memorial and another nine before that. A double-digit figure of Novas were dead in such a short amount of time! Their losses were too heavy to estimate.

    Of course, this also obliquely confirmed that the overlord of the East had extremely deep foundations. There were so many powerhouses among the family¡ªthe Heaven and Earth Generals were still alive, as were some of their resident experts, as well as the old duke of the sixth cultivation level that¡¯d just appeared...

    If they had more powerhouses in the ruins and some Novas in the army, then the family remained a formidable faction yet. It took a family of such caliber to keep the east under control.

    The group was at a loss for words when they saw Li Hao take out the long ne. Each of them quickly grabbed a handful of rings to help with the inventory count. There were so many that the young man couldn''t handle it all himself.

    ......

    Meanwhile, Li Hao ignored treasure that was the like of mysterious power stones and others. He focused on the good stuff from the second and third floors. There¡¯d been more than twenty origin weapons on the second floor and three earth level origin weapons on the third floor, as well as the Goldensky Lotus. There was also a mysterious medallion and a fragment of another weapon, as well as a piece of mirror on the fourth floor. Such were the full contents of the treasury.

    The young man sifted through the contents of Xu Xing¡¯s storage ring. The man had two origin weapons and <i>three</i> drops of Water of Life! So the second master had some fortune to his name as well. How unfortunate for him that he¡¯d died too quickly to make use of it.

    The Yellow General had been worse off since he had just set foot into metamorphosis. He had a lot of mysterious power stones, but not that many treasures. There was only one drop of Water of Life that was carefully hoarded in his ring.

    An expert raised by a noble family wasn¡¯t as strong as those who developed in the wild. Whatever treasure they seized was first handed over to their liege. All the same, it was rare to see such a poor metamorphosis expert.

    Lastly, Li Hao examined Red Beard and Xu Qing¡¯s storage rings. Being the leader of the East Sea pirates, Red Beard would have plenty of treasure. Pirates always kept their belongings on them instead of hiding them somewhere. They were the only ones most worthy of trust.

    ......

    Li Hao kept taking deep breaths as he tallied his gains. The others were soon finished as well, each astonished by the final count.

    ¡°There are about 950,000 mysterious power stones,¡± Yuan Shuo began. ¡°Six origin weapons, one thousand sets of ancient armor, and a lot of energy rings, which makes for too many cubes to bother counting. There are also more than one hundred blood pearls, but they don¡¯t look too strong at typically less than Sr.¡±

    950,000 stones!

    Hong Yitang and Light Sword sucked in sharp breaths. They¡¯d never heard of such a number in their entire lives!

    ¡°And I have another 200,000 pieces of mysterious power stones...¡± Li Hao grinned widely from ear to ear.

    ¡°Hmm?¡± The others blinked. <i>You were only counting a few storage rings, how do you have so many?</i>

    ¡°Xu Qing didn¡¯t have that many low quality ones and has a few big ones like Martial Uncle Hong. I didn¡¯t count those. It was Red Beard who unexpectedly brought a ton with him.¡± The young man was utterly delighted. ¡°I count a total of twenty-nine origin weapons and nine drops of Water of Life! What a pity that Xu Qing seemed to have used up all of his. Red Beard had a few drops too.¡±

    These weremonly seen treasures. The lessmon ones, such as weapon fragments, medallions, or mirrors were also present. Red Beard seemed to possess a few simr weapons in his storage ring too.

    ¡°1.15 million mysterious power stones, thirty-five origin weapons, nine drops of Water of Life...¡± General shock rippled through the group.

    ¡°You were seriously ridiculously bold to raid the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor!¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t help but exim. ¡°A family like that with hundreds of years of history and being the eastern overlord... No wonder you made off with such riches. But you have to keep in mind that you wouldn¡¯t have gotten away if not for reinforcement fromrge numbers of Silver Moon martial masters!¡±

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t nning on raiding them,¡± Li Hao responded innocently. ¡°I was only going for the other Windchaser Boot. That¡¯s an heirloom of the eight families, it¡¯s not like they can use it...¡±

    The group couldn¡¯t be bothered with him.<i> You were ready to go toe-to-toe with the Xus when you decided to go for the Windchaser Boots, weren¡¯t you? Otherwise, it was theirs for hundreds of years. Why would they just give it to you? In your dreams!</i>

    Li Hao now grasped three weapons of the eight families in his hands. If there was one in Battle Heaven, that meant Red Moon would have four at most. He¡¯d originally thought that organization had all of the rest apart from his own sword and the de in teacher¡¯s hand. But now, the most they could possibly have was four.

    The sword of the Lis, de of the Zhangs, fists of the Zhaos, footwork of the Lius, big turtle kept by the Wangs, mallet of the Hongs, spear of the Zhou, and the trouble that is the Zheng young master...

    He understood that there should be a spear, potentially boxing gloves, and a mallet left, but he had no idea what the Zhengs possessed. They were the most unique family in the folk song and the only one that there was ack of clues for.

    Red Moon might have the spear, boxing gloves, and mallet. Li Hao suddenly recalled that Director General Wang of Battle Heaven had said to go find him when the young man collected all eight weapons. The head of city security wanted to borrow them for a bit. Li Hao had three now, but he probably wouldn¡¯t be obtaining the rest without killing Ying Hongyue first.

    He put this matter out of his mind and chortled nonstop. ¡°I¡¯m really rich now! But items like mysterious power stones are only useful when they¡¯re turned into personal strength. Stacking them in storage rings turns them into trash!¡±

    However, the group couldn¡¯t possibly absorb more than one million pieces. There was a limit to how much one could take in, no matter the method. It was why the Xus had dumped the stones in their vaults as reserves.

    Such low quality stones weren¡¯t very effective for premier powerhouses. It would have much of a result for them unless the stones could be converted to sword energy for absorption.

    ¡°You¡¯re going to be in a lot of trouble after this, kid.¡± Yuan Shuo inclined his head. ¡°We¡¯ve also been thoroughly assessed by others. If more opponents of simr caliber move against us next, we might be met with our doom. Even Tyrant de and Sky Sword might be included in the schemes.¡±

    Bringing their full force to bear each time was a gesture that revealed one¡¯s trump cards. Once the aces up their sleeves were more or less known, that would permit their enemies to make ample preparations. This knowledge had to be protected, therefore, major factions rarely shed with each other. Even if there was a fight, the premier powerhouses rarely made a move.

    They mostly threatened or intimidated others!

    For example, part of Sky Sword¡¯s strength had been assessed with this fight. Some trouble might descend upon Sky Sword Mountain next. He didn¡¯t possess any baseline security just through being one of the seven divine mountains.

    Li Hao nodded in agreement with his teacher¡¯s words and smiled. ¡°Thus, our most pressing need is to strengthen ourselves. We can¡¯t let the enemy know us inside and out. When they think they can handle us, we¡¯ll be able to catch them by surprise and strike back. We¡¯ll wear them down through attribution!¡±

    It was an easy sentiment to voice, but execution-wise...

    Li Hao put this worry out of his mind and quickly asked, ¡°Have you made new breakthroughs with the Five Styles, teacher?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Yuan Shuo freely shared his knowledge. He¡¯d always possessed a mboyant bearing, it¡¯d just been crushed during those many years of suppression. Now that he¡¯d broken through, he naturally won¡¯t continue to keep such a low profile. ¡°I¡¯ve pretty much walked Summoner of Spirit to the very end. Whates next is Refiner of Spirit!¡±

    Both Hong Yitang and Light Sword couldn¡¯t help but look at him.

    ¡°Curious, are you?¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. They didn¡¯t respond. ¡°Hahaha, it¡¯s normal to be curious. Despite how strong you are, your road forward is broken, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s notpletely broken,¡± Hong Yitang exhaled. ¡°We have some thoughts, but they¡¯re hard to manifest at this current stage.¡±

    ¡°I know them!¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°You guys still can¡¯t resolve the matter of the organs, can you? And you¡¯re struggling with whether or not to break your locks?¡±

    The two nodded. Correct, and it wasn¡¯t just their worries, but that of all premier martial masters.

    Yuan Shuo threw his head back withughter. ¡°I¡¯ve thought through certain things and studied the many ancient books that I possess. I¡¯ve discovered that some of the daos in the ancient civilization are different from how modern day humans walk their paths. The three cavities, indestructible golden body, and core origin that the ancient records speak of are all different now!

    ¡°Ancient powerhouses ultimately trod down the path of core origin. It could look different now and be no longer applicable. Perhaps our supernatural locks have reced these.

    ¡°In your current state, your organs suffer the most when you unseal yourself. But ording to the ancient records, our organs should be able to support such an eruption. They cannot do so now because our locks are too strong. When they break, the eruption that results is far stronger than what was present in the ancient civilization...¡±

 Chapter 615: Focusing on Cultivation (III)

    <h4>Chapter 615: Focusing on Cultivation (III)</h4>

    ¡°Do you know why the next martial master cultivation realm is called Refiner of Spirit?¡± asked Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°You¡¯re the one calling it that.¡± Hong Yitang raised a brow. ¡°Who says it has to be Refiner of Spirit?¡±

    ¡°All daos lead to the same goal, what do you know?¡± Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes. ¡°There is no unified path for martial masters at the moment, so I¡¯ve unified them. Proceeding down my way makes for the true, legitimate path. Following your reflections might bring you to a unique path, but your way will not integrate all of the paths suited for martial masters!¡±

    Hong Yitang said nothing further, while Li Hao looked curiously at his teacher. Had his teacher made further progress recently? He quite needed his teacher¡¯s help at the moment as well.

    ¡°Teacher, Refiner of Spirit should have something to do with the supernatural locks, doesn¡¯t it?¡± He had to pick up the line of conversation since his teacher insisted on being mysterious. ¡°Is it a function of melding the aura into the locks, using the locks to nurture the aura, and further using them to rece the core origin dao of the ancient civilization?¡±

    Yuan Shuo blinked and looked at his disciple.

    ¡°Only the two of us walk teacher¡¯s Summoner of Spirit cultivation realm at the moment. It requires a fusion of five auras, but not everyone can manage toprehend five auras. Not even I have fully fused mine together. In that case, can one proceed with only one aura?

    ¡°Have you read an ancient book called Building Five Bridges, teacher? It¡¯s a method from the ancient civilization that applies to the five organs and creates bridges of heaven and earth between them...¡± The more Li Hao spoke about this, the more confused he was. ¡°I¡¯m thinking if the five organs can form a circtory loop, then just one aura is enough! We wouldn¡¯t need five since the five organs have be one.

    ¡°Does this mean that the Building Five Bridges method is something that all martial masters should study? That it¡¯s an option that all martial masters should try? But how does one build bridges between the five organs?¡±

    Yuan Shuo raised a brow and looked at Li Hao. It¡¯d only been a few months since they parted ways, but his disciple was starting to deliberate over his future path. And one had to know, Li Hao improved at a very rapid clip and was a great troublemaker. It also meant that he¡¯d seen more of the world to be able to voice these thoughts.

    ¡°The supernatural locks have reced the bridges of the old and the looks can be a loop,¡± Hong Yitang added. ¡°But the locks themselves are independent and actually repel each other. Can we use the aura to mitigate the conflict between them?¡±

    Yuan Shuo slouched with dejection and flicked a nce at the two of them. ¡°It seems you two know more than I do.¡± Regardless, he nodded. ¡°So it looks like people have a general idea of the road toe. It doesn¡¯t matter how many auras we have, whether it is one or five, one can be five and five can be one. There is only a difference in level of strength.

    ¡°So whether it is one aura or five, there isn¡¯t a big disparity. The only variance is in strength, not cultivation level. Supernatural locks are indeed the key, but breaking them is not the proper path!

    ¡°Hong Yitang, you and others are technically in the Refiner of Spirit level. It¡¯s just not that obvious.¡± Yuan Shuo looked at Hong Yitang, then at Light Sword. ¡°Summoner of Spirit is a stage in which we strengthen our auras and utilize them to nurture the supernatural locks. The locks fortify the organs, which in turn enhance the body...

    ¡°ording to my hierarchy, the two of you are in a period of change between Summoner of Spirit to Refiner of Spirit¡ªthe lock saturation process that you speak of. That you¡¯re close to sess means that you have some skill to your name.¡±

    Hong Yitang grinned. This guy just had to toot his own horn for a bit and pretend to be much more knowing than them.

    ¡°At this stage, all martial masters possess an aura!¡± Yuan Shuo continued. ¡°Just as Li Hao said, whether it is one or five, it is all the same. If you are able to break through the bottleneck and connect the five organs together, then one aura can nurture five organs! The key lies in connecting the supernatural locks. It¡¯s a bit of a thorny issue that I was musing over before, but made some discoveriester on.

    ¡°All paths lead to one.¡± Yuan Shuo looked at Hong Yitang. ¡°You¡¯re a step ahead at your current level. The bridge of the five organs requires saturated supernatural locks!¡±

    The group¡¯s eyes widened and Li Hao brightened.

    ¡°Only when the five locks are saturated can they be connected and build this so-called bridge...¡±

    ¡°But then, how are Dominators with only one aura supposed to cross this threshold?¡± Li Hao asked with a frown. ¡°Do they bypass Summoner of Spirit and begin directly with Refiner of Spirit?¡±

    His teacher¡¯s thoughts were suitable only for the premier martial masters of their day. Those who weren¡¯t as talented would be stuck on the other side of this chasm. There weren¡¯t many who could make it to the level of Hong Yitang and the rest.

    ¡°Don¡¯t rush!¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°Just as the strong have their cultivation methods, so do the weak have theirs. There are two ways to build bridges between the organs. One of them is with the supernatural locks¡ªthat is the kind ofpletion in a single step that is suitable for the strong. As for the weak, they can make their way slowly through the cultivation level.

    ¡°A martial master¡¯s foundational strength is internal force. The weak need to make use of internal force, not supernatural locks, to build these bridges. When they seed at Summoner of Spirit, they can consider recing the bridges with their supernatural locks as they move onward.¡±

    ¡°Internal force can be used as bridges?¡± Li Hao was confused. ¡°But internal force is easily absorbed by the supernatural when it enters the five organs. They are unable to solidify into bridges.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s easy.¡± Yuan Shuo was unconcerned. ¡°Just solidify it with your mind intent. Supernatural looks do not absorb aura and mind intent. They can be used to solidify internal force!¡±

    Li Hao mused over his words and Hong Yitang also sank into deep contemtion. Finally, thetter said, ¡°Then... ording to your theories... there are multiple steps to take after Dominator. The first is to build the bridge between the five organs, then to summon the spirits, then rece the bridges with supernatural locks, then to refine the spirits...¡±

    ¡°That is the required path for a regr martial master.¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. ¡°It¡¯s not impossible to leap straight to Summoner of Spirit, but that¡¯s too great of a burden for them. Their organs can¡¯t endure the strain! We can, but that doesn¡¯t mean everyone else can.¡±

    Li Hao and the others could summon the spirits all the same without the bridges because their organs were very strong. Regr Dominators possessed much weaker organs.

    ¡°Teacher, then why do the others have to saturate the locks of their four limbs first before working on the ones of the organs? And only then can they unseal themselves...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know either.¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°I¡¯ve never tried it before myself, but my guess is that it has something to do with the connections between the locks themselves.¡±

    ¡°Saturating the locks of the four limbs is to strengthen the body and use that as feedback for the organs,¡± Hong Yitang exined. ¡°Otherwise, if the organs are strengthened first, both they and the body won¡¯t be able to endure the strain.¡±

    ¡°But I...¡± Li Hao wanted to say that he¡¯d strengthened the locks of his organs first, but then recalled that he¡¯d also fortified his body and bones at the same time. Perhaps he might have failed if he¡¯d focused only on his organs.

    The group continued to discuss their theories. At their stage of cultivation, everyone needed to rify what the next steps were. That was the key. Martial masters who could unseal themselves were premier martial masters. Unsealing resulted in battle strength greater than Nova, but a little less than the sixth cultivation level¡ªunless one fully snapped a lock.

    If they waited to the sixth level to solidify their cultivation, then these martial masters might fall behind. Yuan Shuo and the rest had reached this point. While Li Haogged behind, he was almost there. Progress would be difficult without a further path ahead.

    ......

    The group conversed for several hours before Yuan Shuo summarized, ¡°Summoner of Spirit can be divided into two stages. The first is to establish the bridges of the organs. The second is to nurture the aura.

    ¡°Refiner of Spirit can also be divided into two stages. The first is to saturate the supernatural locks, the second is tobine the auras with the locks.

    ¡°From the perspective of a martial master with a single aura, you guys are in the first stage of Refiner of Spirit. However, you¡¯re already stronger than Novas. Therefore, Refiners can rival Novas and those two levels above Nova. If you can enter the second stage... perhaps you can match those who are even stronger.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t shove me into your system!¡± Hong Yitangughed.

    ¡°Letting you into my system is your honor!¡± Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes. ¡°Only I can create aplete path of martial dao in this era. Your deviated shortcuts and other nonsense will have to return to the proper path sooner orter!¡±

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with their squabbling and asked solemnly, ¡°Then if I¡¯ve skipped the step of building the five bridges and don¡¯t use my internal force for them, can I only use my saturated supernatural locks for the bridges?¡±

    ¡°Why are you skipping that step?¡± Yuan Shuo countered impatiently. ¡°Is it that hard for you to use your internal force for them now? Why must you create additional trouble for yourself? Or do you think you have so much potential that you can reach the skies with one step? Connect your organs as one first, the rest can wait. Do you think cultivation is so easy that you must create some difficulties by skipping steps in order to showcase how great your abilities are?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was speechless. <i>I just thought I was already past that level... but after your words... Fine, they make sense.</i> ¡°So I should build the five bridges with my internal force next, connect the organs, then saturate my locks...¡±

    ¡°Wrong!¡± Yuan Shuo snapped. ¡°Are you a Summoner of Spirit?¡±

    Li Hao blinked. <i>I am! How am I not??</i>

    ¡°Your auras were forcefully raised to their level, what kind of bullshit Summoner are you??¡± Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes once more. ¡°You¡¯vepletely relied on external resources, this is apletely incorrect way of doing things! Summoner of Spirit is the process of strengthening an aura. The stronger an aura is, the stronger the organ! You relied on outside forces to raise them to their level. When ites down to it, you¡¯re not even a Summoner! Your battle strength depends on everything but yourself! I¡¯ve only been gone a few months, but you¡¯vepletely gone down the wrong path!¡±

 Chapter 616: Focusing on Cultivation (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 616: Focusing on Cultivation (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Nurturing the spirits to lock the auras, locking the auras to nurture the spirits... You¡¯re randomly scrabbling around the realm,¡± Yuan Shuo began his lecture. ¡°Summoner of Spirit doesn¡¯t look like what you¡¯re doing. You¡¯re making it too hard to improve your auras. Something will go wrong sooner orter! You haven¡¯tprehended the true meaning of Summoner of Spirit at all. Why have you incorporated your auras into the organs? For fun?

    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s exactly what you¡¯re doing! It doesn¡¯t matter if you¡¯ve incorporated them or not. If your auras are separated, you¡¯ll still be at the same level of strength you are now. Therefore, you¡¯re just taking off your pants to fart. You¡¯re Summoner of Spirit in name, but this is all just amusement.¡±

    Li Hao was tongue-tied! Surely not? He¡¯d thought about this problem before, but he¡¯d always thought that perhaps he could improve his auras when he reached Refiner of Spirit.

    ¡°Then teacher means...¡±

    ¡°Have them take root in the five organs!¡± Yuan Shuo furrowed his brows. ¡°There¡¯s no required connection between your auras and organs. The key to Summoner of Spirit lies with locking the auras into the organs, and not just for fun, but to strengthen the organs. When they are strong, so are the auras! When the auras are strong, so are the organs!

    ¡°The aura cannot be without root or origin. You must trace them to their beginnings and locate their foundations. Rooting them in the supernatural locks is also in preparation for Refiner of Spirit. You can¡¯t just fuse them willy-nilly! You must connect aura to lock before enhancing them together. At that point, the increased strength of your lock means an increased strength of your aura...¡±

    Yuan Shuo flicked a slightly dissatisfied nce at Hong Yitang. ¡°You can¡¯t bepletely oblivious about this at your cultivation level. My disciple spent his days with you in my absence, why didn¡¯t anyone warn him?¡±

    ¡°How am I supposed to know what your Summoner of Spirit level is like?¡± Hong Yitang protested innocently. ¡°How was I supposed to know if it¡¯s the same as our path? The only thing that Li Hao said publicly is to meld our auras into the five organs. I thought your Five Styles discipline has a special way to enhance the aura!¡±

    ¡°I know about what the kid announced. I thought he was just pulling the wool over everyone¡¯s eyes. So... this is what he really thinks?¡± Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes.

    Li Hao looked around sheepishly. <i>Yeah, other than not talking about locking the aura, everything else was truly what I was thinking. So all of you thought I was ying a long con? Why do you think such things about me? I¡¯d just entered White Moon City then and was very weak, very timid. How would I dare run my mouth in everything?</i>

    ¡°Didn¡¯t I tell you about locking the auras and nurturing them before I left?¡± Yuan Shuo¡¯s head ached. ¡°Even the name of the cultivation realm is Summoner of Spirit, how did you go off on a tangent? And here I thought you understood, so you don¡¯t understand anything?¡±

    ¡°Teacher, I was just a Sunderer when you left,¡± Li Hao chuckled ruefully. ¡°I didn¡¯t know much about auras and happened toprehend one through luck. How would I know anything of what you spoke of?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yuan Shuo sighed. <i>Fine, I overestimated you. </i>¡°You need to clean up your path! You¡¯ll still grow stronger if you continue down this road, but it¡¯s all forcefully piled upward. You will meet with a limit as you won¡¯t always secure treasures to help you advance. The might of an aura is the foundation of a martial master¡¯s strength!

    ¡°Aura isn¡¯t just mental strength, do you understand? Strictly speaking, the aura may have reced the core origin dao of the ancient martial dao. Without ways to improve it, it¡¯s only a matter of time before you fall behind...

    ¡°The dao of core origin vanished in theter years of ancient martial dao. There were very few who walked it in the first ce. If it wasn¡¯t for the existence of the ancient civilization and the descendants of those who trained in core origin... However, walking this path meant that one could not exceed one¡¯s ancestors. There is apleteck of possibility at the end.

    ¡°Some changes must have happened in the world during the ancient civilization to change the rules of heaven and earth.¡± Yuan Shuo looked at Li Hao. ¡°If you continue this way, you might be able to find your way to the dao of core origin. However, that locks you into ancient martial dao for the rest of your life. You might reach your ancestor¡¯s level at the end, but there¡¯s not much hope to that. There is almost no possibility of you replicating your ancestor¡¯s dao and exceeding it.¡±

    ¡°I, uh, haven¡¯t thought that far yet.¡± Li Hao scratched his head.

    ¡°You fool!¡± Yuan Shuo frowned. ¡°Your aspirations must be high even if you can¡¯t make it to that step. If youck even those, then what is the point of cultivation?! You might as well split up the origin weapons between the three of us and we¡¯ll think of a way to kill Ying Hongyue for you. You can just find a woman to retire with!¡±

    The old man seemed to be building up his rage; Li Hao smiled ruefully in response.

    ¡°I... didn¡¯t mean it that way, teacher. Alright, alright, I¡¯ll change!¡± He seemed to turn back into the clueless, naive boy that he¡¯d once been when he was in front of Yuan Shuo. All of his previous arrogance and confidence was struck down.

    But this was just as well. Li Hao did not possess a deep understanding of martial dao andcked quite a few things. Yuan Shuo was helping him correct his deficiencies. Born of the so-called savage wilderness, the young man might be able to proceed with double the results at half the effort after this.

    ¡°So long as you correct your mistakes!¡± Yuan Shuo inclined his head. ¡°Li Hao, you must understand that it¡¯s only been twenty years since the development of the supernatural domain, but they already have powerhouses of the sixth level. Development of the supernatural path is quite clear cut. All they need to do is resolve the issue of conflict between the five organs and they¡¯ll quickly enter the seventh, eight, and ninth levels!

    ¡°There are at least three locks to break in the five organs, which means their way to the ninth level is very apparent! There is smooth sailing ahead for them so long as they resolve the sh between their five organs. We may deride them as trash, but we can¡¯t really think so. This is called tactical contempt, but strategic importance!

    ¡°Someone as strong as Xu Qing may not have measured up to the sixth level existences. People like you and I have even less right to disdain supernaturals! If the supernaturals can then resolve the problem of their outside energy and bring it into the body... Then our paths might be the same despite our systems being different!

    ¡°And if they can make external energy part of themselves, then you must understand that the path of martial masters... is actually not as clear and definite as the supernatural way!¡±

    Li Hao nodded continuously. He¡¯d killed countless supernaturals during this period of time. That,bined with theirck of an ability to unseal themselves meant that he really had developed some scorn for these types of superhumans. But after his teacher¡¯s lecture, he felt that he¡¯d been too careless.

    There had been premier powerhouses even among the path of energy in the ancient civilization. Some were even mentioned by name in books. In the early years of the ancient civilization, energy practitioners had been the biggest enemy. They were still grave threats in thete years and never fully declined out of existence.

    In the modern world, martial masters grappled with a murky path while their supernatural counterparts could see clearly how to proceed.

    ¡°Alright, that was an overall organization of theory.¡± Yuan Shuo smiled radiantly after a round of weighty admonishment. ¡°You can do as you see fit with the details. And now... pick up the pace and continue cultivating. Produce some more sword energy, it¡¯s been so long since I¡¯ve absorbed it! I¡¯ll take whatever shortcuts there are to save a lot of time.¡±

    Li Hao had nothing to say in response. Off to the side, Hong Yitang and Light Sword also wordlessly remained in ce. <i>You¡¯re so rich now, so hurry up and don¡¯t drag things out. We want a cut of the good stuff too!</i>

    Although Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t spoken of specific cultivation methods, they didn¡¯t need those at their level. Organizing things from a general perspective was enough. They had their own goals after that. Perhaps they would all end up at the same destination, but they didn¡¯t need topletely follow Yuan Shuo¡¯s ideas for the moment.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. But since he had a lot of mysterious power stones at the moment, he didn¡¯t care about this expenditure. Shards of broken stones soon piled up at his feet.

    His most pressing need was to build the five bridges and then have the auras take root in his organs ording to his teacher¡¯s words. After that, he would saturate his supernatural looks and meld his auras into the locks. There was a long way ahead of him.

    This time, Li Hao didn¡¯t absorb sword energy. He left it for the other three while he began attempting to craft temporary bridges.

    Panther was trying as well. The dog felt that its rate of progress wasn¡¯t fast enough through simply relying on its bloodline. It might be able to grow stronger through learning with humans.

    Vast sums of mysterious power stones continued to break. The quartet vanished from the outside world. Whatever theatrics rose outside had nothing to do with them.

    Yuan Shuo improved the fastest. He¡¯d previously enhanced his organs at a slower rate. Now that there was a shortcut, he didn¡¯t mind taking it since his path ahead was clear. He swiftly took in sword energy to strengthen his locks. He wanted to enter Refiner of Spirit as soon as possible.

    Meanwhile, Hong Yitang was also attempting to break through to Refiner of Spirit. He wanted to fuse his sword aura into his locks and build true bridges between his organs. For that to ur, nine of his supernatural locks needed to be saturated.

    Yuan Shuo sensed something in the middle of his cultivation and opened his eyes for a nce. Hong Yitang happened to look back at him, which made the old man¡¯s eyes sharpen with battle intent. This guy had hidden himself well over the years! Based on his categorization, the guy was almost at the second step of Refiner of Spirit!

    Yuan Shuo was outssed by Hong Yitang in his current stage, but that might not continue to hold true.

    Hong Yitang grinned and closed his eyes again, ignoring the other. Yuan Shuo was the fount of inspiration that goaded everyone to greater heights. The old man had felt no pressure before, but he did a little bit now. If he quickly entered Refiner of Spirit, he might soon overtake Hong Yitang again since he had five auras.

    Light Sword¡¯s goals were much simpler¡ªabsorb sword energy and saturate her supernatural locks. She¡¯d only filled two to capacity, there was a very long way to go.

    ......

    <i>While they cultivated. Near East Shore.</i>

    He Yong looked with a tragic expression.<i> </i>Where was everyone?<i> I got here as soon as I could, but I didn¡¯t get here in time! No!! Li Hao grabbed so many treasures and he¡¯s got to be holed up somewhere to cultivate. I¡¯ve lost out on so much!!</i>

    He Yong¡¯s grief was indescribable. He knew that these bastards must be cultivating; he¡¯d made his way to the east as soon as he received word. But he was still a step toote and failed to find Li Hao and the others. He knew that he¡¯d missed out on a massive opportunity!

    ¡°They must be within five hundred kilometers of me, but they¡¯re not responding!¡± His bronze armor could contact hispatriots, but they were ignoring him. How pitiful was this!

 Chapter 617: Going Their Own Ways (I)

    <h4>Chapter 617: Going Their Own Ways (I)</h4>

    The group had received He Yong¡¯smunications, but Li Hao was too busy to respond. Hong Yitang outright ignored the man. <i>Stop harassing me, you didn¡¯t make it to the fight. Too bad you¡¯re Southern Fist instead of Southern Leg. You ran so slowly that you missed everything, so you can just wait for next time.</i>

    Skystar City was too far away, but it was He Yong who¡¯d wanted to return to the capital. Hong Yitang had no sympathy for him. Not to mention, the guy had run so quickly back to the royal family probably because there were benefits waiting for him. Would he have gone off so quickly if he¡¯d known there were simr ones to be found with Li Hao?

    The young man was focused on building the five bridges¡ªconnecting them with internal force and solidifying them with mind intent. The Building Five Bridges manual was a good reference, giving him some clues as to how to proceed.

    Li Hao ignored the fact that the others weren¡¯t building their bridges. Just as his teacher had said, they¡¯d alreadyid their foundations. Li Hao¡¯s foundations were poor, so he had to methodically proceed step by step. His sudden eruptions of power were too insubstantial, despite bestowing him strength. He was yet to grasp many rudimentary concepts.

    It¡¯d also only been three months since he¡¯d entered yer of Tens. His rapid progress during this time had led to numerous errors. It was three short years since he first started practicing the Five Styles.

    As Li Hao built his bridges, he mused over these notions and the books that he¡¯d borrowed from Battle Heaven. He¡¯dmitted them to memory, but didn¡¯t understand all of the concepts. Since there were two premier sword users and a grand master of martial dao in front of him, the young man made sure to ask questions as he cultivated.

    ......

    Time passed in the blink of an eye. Three days went by in a quick blur. Many mysterious power stones were consumed and Hong Yitang opened his eyes to say, ¡°I¡¯m going back first. There are more people at the Sword Sect these days and I need to look in on them.¡±

    Light Sword was astonished. <i>You¡¯re leaving? You¡¯re not staying to take further advantage of this wonderful opportunity? </i>The past couple of days had been an utter delight for her. She¡¯d filled a third lock of her five organs. This was an incredible speed that demonstrated more effectiveness than a year or two of individual cultivation in the past. She wanted to stay here until she died, why was he leaving?

    Li Hao had spent thest three days putting his cultivation system in order. He¡¯d almost seeded crafting his five bridges. The young man frowned to hear that Hong Yitang wanted to leave. ¡°Will you be alright if you go back now? Most of Silver Moon¡¯s strength is concentrated in White Moon City. The Sword Sect is decently far from the capital...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s of no matter!¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°They won¡¯t do anything to me as it would be more of a loss than a gain. Killing me doesn¡¯t result in any benefits. It means one less sixth realm expert for the province and my death would not be the guaranteed oue. None of the sixth realm experts are in an entirely stable state at the moment.

    ¡°The Breathing Method of the Five Styles may be very useful to the sixth realm. I can sense some, the supernaturals might be able to sense some. You and your master are possibly in a great deal of trouble.¡± Hong Yitang paused and added hesitantly, ¡°And not just you, but Yuan Xingwu and Chen Yuhua as well!

    ¡°Even if they didn¡¯t learn the final version of the breathing method, other people will be tempted to move against them when the world learns more about the breathing method¡¯s uses. You guys should consider the implications yourselves. I will not involve myself in the Five Styles discipline.¡±

    Thus far, most hadn¡¯t considered the breathing method; they weren¡¯t aware of its true mysteries. Xu Qing, however, had seen many things in hisst fight. Unfortunately, he was dead. Otherwise, he would surely grasp the crux of the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, whereas those who trained in it might not understand the significance of their knowledge.

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t known before either, thinking that this was what was meant to be a breathing method. He understood a little more now¡ªthe connection between mind and blood qi when he fought by his teacher¡¯s side had been truly profound, to speak of nothing else. That it enabled them to utilize the ancient weapons was even more marvelous!

    ¡°You¡¯ve revised some of the breathing method, but its origin is prodigious, isn¡¯t it?¡± Hong Yitang looked at Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°What does it have to do with you?¡± Yuan Shuo flicked a nce at him.

    ¡°......¡±

    Hong Yitang cursed to himself. The old man was just asking to be beaten up! He would be on the receiving end of a harsh lesson if he kept mouthing off. Granted, it¡¯d been a few decades, so Hong Yitang was used to this.

    ¡°Its origins are definitely umon.¡± Yuan Shuo stroked his chin. ¡°The Five Styles is not a secret art, it¡¯s thebination of knowledge that I summarized from many outstanding ancient texts. The breathing method is further modified from a secret method left by an ancient emperor...

    ¡°The breathing method didn¡¯t originally contain such marvelous properties. It¡¯s be special after the rise of the supernatural. Perhaps it has to do with sword energy¡ªit wouldn¡¯t be that effective without thebination of sword energy.¡±

    He looked at Li Hao. ¡°The intery between sword energy and the breathing method is extraordinary. Perhaps the secret arts that I studied contained ones from your ancestors. The effects are excellent if the breathing method is used alone, but it would never reach this level.¡±

    The young man contemted his teacher¡¯s words.

    ¡°Therefore, even if the breathing method really is seized by others, the effects won¡¯t be as magical unless they are also equipped with sword energy.¡± Yuan Shuo continued proudly, ¡°What good does the breathing method do for run-of-the-mill martial masters? They just gain an additional secret art. It takes proper usage to turn it into a premier secret art. The effects are mediocre if they do not use it properly. Do you think just anyone canprehend the Five Styles?¡±

    ¡°So long as you¡¯re aware of the dangers out there!¡± Hong Yitang didn¡¯t bother with further warnings. ¡°Then I¡¯ll be going back now.¡±

    ¡°As you wish.¡± Being in no hurry to go, Yuan Shuo ignored him.

    Hong Yitang looked at Light Sword; she pretended not to see him.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go,¡± heughed. ¡°There will be more opportunitiester on. Absorbing too much in one go isn¡¯t necessarily a good thing. It¡¯s better to follow the proper order and proceed gradually when ites to strength.¡±

    Light Sword was quite resigned! <i>Leave if you want, don¡¯t bother me!</i> But as a veteran martial master, she knew the truth behind his words. ¡°Then I¡¯ll...¡±

    She wanted to curse again when she gave her words more thought. <i>Why should I go back to Silver Moon for? I have no sect there. This guy¡¯s crazy to take me with him!</i>

    However, she wasn¡¯t that thick-skinned, so she had to say, ¡°Let¡¯s go together, we¡¯ll be safer on the road this way, just in case we run into heavyweights of the sixth realm.¡±

    ¡°I have some more Water of Life.¡± Li Hao rose when he saw that the two were about to leave. ¡°It¡¯s typically a bit of a hassle to unseal yourself and I may not be around, so take a few drops with you.¡±

    He originally had seven drops left and gained nine more from the battle, making for sixteen drops total. The young man took out two sks containing three drops each. That should be enough for the two to heal themselves after a simple unsealing, so long as their wounds weren¡¯t too severe.

    Hong Yitang flicked a nce at him, then looked at Yuan Shuo. He epted the sk with augh. ¡°Come find me if anything crops up for you again!¡±

    Light Sword promptly epted the gift as well. Silver Moon martial masters usually didn¡¯t stand on ceremony. Owning these resources was better than not owning it. If it came down to it, she¡¯d just fight for Li Hao again next time he was caught in something.

    After putting their sks away, the two left under the cover of darkness and didn¡¯t bid Yuan Shuo farewell.

    ¡°At least they can read the room,¡± Yuan Shuo snorted when the two were gone. ¡°They looked like they were going to stay until the new year! It¡¯s good that they¡¯ve left. Some stuff can¡¯t be talked about when they were still here.¡±

    Li Hao started.<i> Huh? </i>Martial masters were generous sorts, unless it had to do with their secret arts.

    ¡°I¡¯ve made some changes to the Breathing Method of the Five Styles,¡± Yuan Shuo began. ¡°Previously, it focused on enhancing internal force and blood qi. I modified it when I set foot into Dominator and wanted to incorporate the aura into it, but haven¡¯t had time to think about it. I did have that time when I was in the central region...

    ¡°I made a final adjustment when I was in some ruins a few days ago, then updated it again when I fused my five auras together over these past three days...¡± Yuan Shuo first gave an overview of his situation before turning to the topic at hand. ¡°The breathing method is the foundation to growing stronger. I talked about a path to Hong Yitang and Light Sword, a general direction. It is up to them as to how they can walk it.

    ¡°What I¡¯m going to tell you now is the core essence of the breathing method, the core essence of martial masters. It is why strength can be incorporated into the body and why it blooms from the body. All of this has to do with the breathing method.

    ¡°Remember, the breathing method is the foundation. Everything else is the technique! Supernatural abilities, martial arts, fighting styles, battle strategies... Those are all techniques and the method is the root!

    ¡°If an analogy is struck between martial masters and trees, then the breathing method is the sun, water, and dirt. The tree will still be a tree without them, but it will eventually wither. Only when the method is present can the tree continue to grow!¡±

    ¡°I understand, teacher.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Then the Breathing Method of the Five Styles can strengthen the aura?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°So when Hong Yitang said that people might be after your useless senior brother and sister... It doesn¡¯t matter! The version they know is much older from a few years ago. It doesn¡¯t even possess as many profound mysteries as the version you know.

    ¡°The times advance with progress. The old versions should be discarded. What good are they for? Having read ancient texts, you and I should both know that hoarding every scrap of knowledge for ourselves is not to the benefit of martial dao. But in these times...¡± Yuan Shuo sneered. ¡°Not hoarding everything is to court death!

    ¡°Even if I am to teach others, now is not the time. I will certainly not teach others before those guys start to stabilize their cultivation realm. That¡¯d just be creating trouble for myself. Even now, I rather regret that I didn¡¯t think too much of some things that I was researching and let them be disseminated throughout the world...¡±

    Li Hao nodded.

 Chapter 618: Going Their Own Ways (II)

    <h4>Chapter 618: Going Their Own Ways (II)</h4>

    ¡°Will my five auras strengthen exponentially once I learn teacher¡¯s new version of the Breathing Method of Five Styles?¡± Li Hao asked with some excitement.

    ¡°What are you talking about?!¡± Yuan Shuo thundered. ¡°It will only help you fuse the five auras more easily. The method is the root, alright, but it¡¯s not a treasure to help you suddenly leap forward. This is the foundation for your methodical rise! Heavenly and earthly treasures are eventually exhausted as well. The method is the only foundational system that persists!¡±

    Li Hao nodded¡ªa new thought had struck him.

    Yuan Shuo made use of transmission to impart the new breathing method. Not only that, but he also applied the secret encryption of the Five Styles discipline. He clearly ced a great importance on this knowledge and didn¡¯t want thetest version of the breathing method to leak to anyone else.

    Panther¡¯s ears were sticking straight up, but it couldn¡¯t hear a thing. The dog grew frantic!

    Yuan Shuo saw its reaction, but didn¡¯t bother interacting with it. The dog could have the sword energy, but the breathing method could not be taught to outsiders. Besides, the dog was a monster spirit. Trouble would easily develop if it ran off one day. All treasures were external belongings. Only a martial method was the source of one¡¯s strength.

    Li Hao listened silently, quietly perceiving andprehending. The new breathing method seemed much moreplicated and involved many more concepts than before. The previous method only touched upon internal force, breathing frequency, flow of blood qi, and some other simple factors.

    This iteration included the operation of the aura, which greatly increased its difficulty. One had to say, his teacher was truly a brilliant academic who advanced with the times. He didn¡¯t rest on hisurels after creating one method, but continued to improve on it and enhance his skills as his strength increased.

    Being more than seventy years old, Yuan Shuo counted among the more senior of the Silver Moon martial masters. Many martial masters were in their early fifties. His age was higher and his potential quite good, but his circumstances were the worst among his peers. This was also partially due to him expending arge amount of time on various interests¡ªhis knowledge was too scattered.

    Just fusing five auras together had taken him many years toplete. Prior to him dominating the martial world, some of those in his generation had already set foot into Dominator of Thousands. When it came down to it, he could only count as invincible among his peers in that age.

    But it was due to his stubborn persistence from those years that he improved so rapidly after setting foot into Dominator and breaking through his bottlenecks. Someone like Li Hao who consumed sword energy like drinking water could not catch up to him. Such were the benefits of melding five auras as one.

    Master and disciple discussed the new breathing method before Li Hao sat down to practice it. The different sensations were apparent after a short while as sword energy surged in faster than before. This was just the rudimentary effect. The crux was that his organs seemed to be enclosed by a peculiar energy as he operated the breathing method. It directed the auras in his organs and seemed to connect his entire body, consolidating all of the strength inside him.

    ¡°Teacher,¡± Li Hao asked with surprise. ¡°Why does it feel like there¡¯s the Incantation of the de of Blood in this?¡±

    ¡°Have you sensed it?¡± Yuan Shuo threw his head back withughter. ¡°That¡¯s right, the new version does indeed draw inspiration from the Incantation! The Incantation of the de of Bloodbines blood qi and mental strength, but extracts all of it in a momentary eruption that harms the self!

    ¡°I modified it to include it in the breathing method. The effects are diminished, but they don¡¯t harm the self anymore. In fact, they further nurture the body.¡±

    Li Hao was highly impressed. His teacher was incredible to incorporate these ancient arts however he would! The Incantation of the de of Blood was definitely too much of a strain on the body. He wouldn¡¯t dare use it if not for sword energy at the ready. No wonder the Breathing Method of the Five Styles could now call upon all of the force within a body¡ªthe Incantation had been incorporated! It was a very impressive characteristic that even the aura could be directed.

    The young manmitted these details to memory and continued trying out the new breathing method.

    ¡°I¡¯ve offended too many people and so am not at liberty to say too much sometimes,¡± Yuan Shuo said after some thought. ¡°You¡¯re on good terms with those old guys, you can observe their secret arts if you have the opportunity to. The secret arts of Silver Moon are all amazing. If you have sufficient patience, you can also try incorporating them into the breathing method.

    ¡°You know the Nine Forged Force, at the very least. You can try including that into the Breathing Method of Five Styles. You know, any idents are possible in life,¡± Yuan Shuo suddenly sighed. ¡°I¡¯ve spent all this time modifying the breathing method and might not render another version within a short period of time. While you... you might walk further down your path.

    ¡°However, ancient martial dao is not a good fit for us, so you have to walk this path yourself. Learn some more, umte some more. After that, try revising cultivation methods by yourself.

    ¡°Supernatural locks, auras, blood qi, and the physical body are the general directions that you should look at. The explosive force and strength of the Nine Forged Force does note out of thin air. It is contained within as that method is a way to stimte the potential. It is a way to draw on strength. I¡¯ve always felt that it¡¯s very suitable to be incorporated into the Five Styles.¡±

    Li Hao started to say something, then stopped. He nodded momentster, suddenly feeling the pressure. <i>I¡¯m just an amateur martial master. How am I supposed tobine a new method into what I know?</i>

    It felt so very difficult. This required arge umtion of knowledge and experience. Hecked all of that. However, he understood what his teacher meant. He was improving at a good pace, at a rapid clip even faster than his teacher.

    If this rate continued, then Yuan Shuo would not be able to perceive the same understandings as his disciple since he would not be at the same level. Creating a method out of nothing would not result in one suitable for Li Hao. At that point in time, the young man would have to rely on himself.

    ¡°Don¡¯t stress over this.¡± Yuan Shuo pped his student¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Some things look to be hard, but sometimes they¡¯re as easy as going with the flow. The more you know, the easier it is to understand,prehend, and blend harmoniously. You might not have to enter seclusion andmit reams of information to memory. Reading ten thousand books and walking ten thousand kilometers is also dao.¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± Li Hao nodded with a smile. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, teacher. I know what to do. I¡¯ll imitate first, then catch up, and finally surpass my studies. Therefore, I¡¯ll copy teacher first, catch up to your level of aplishment, and then set forth on my own!¡±

    ¡°Well said!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded, despite his frozen smile.<i> Impossible! I¡¯m never giving you that opportunity! I¡¯ll always be one step ahead of you! </i>As thrilling as Li Hao¡¯s conclusion was, he would never permit it to actuallye to pass since he was the teacher!¡±

    ¡°Additionally, I¡¯m leaving after I absorb some more sword energy...¡± Yuan Shuo changed the topic.

    ¡°Eh?¡± Li Hao blinked. ¡°You¡¯re leaving, teacher?¡±

    <i>Why?</i>

    ¡°Of course!¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°All good thingse to an end and powerhouses work alone as lone wolves. Do you see Sky Sword and the rest spending time together? Huang Yu and his crowd do gather together, but they won¡¯t always do so. Those who wish to break through or walk further should have their own worlds!

    ¡°This world is a fascinating one!¡± the old man chuckled. ¡°You can vie against the heavens, earth, people, or ancients. These are all fascinating propositions! Would you have made it to your current heights if you¡¯d followed me all this time? In the same vein, I might have lost my soul if I stayed with you.

    ¡°As good as sword energy is, it is not the be all and end all!¡± He looked at Li Hao. ¡°Remember that well! Sword energy is wonderful, but you can¡¯t keep relying on it. Will your cultivation stop one day if you have no more sword energy?¡±

    ¡°I will remember everything that teacher says!¡± Li Hao breathed out, then hesitated. ¡°Teacher, Martial Uncle Hong says that this age is deformed. He says he wants to change it, but he doesn¡¯t have enough strength to. Although he wants to do something, he¡¯s hemmed in on all sides. Does teacher think... he makes sense?¡±

    Yuan Shuo furrowed his brows for a while. ¡°He does, but remember that everyone¡¯s path is different! Whether it is that of a tyrant or king, that of ughter or demonic, you don¡¯t have to copy everything entirely.

    ¡°Hong Yitang walks the flow of the earth, a path that is eminently suited to him. It would be inappropriate for me as I am matched to my own. And you? What is your dao? You are young, so you should walk around more and see more. Don¡¯t be affected by them. They want to instill theirprehensions into you, which is inappropriate!

    ¡°After you travel the world and observe life in its various forms, after you experience rises and falls, glories and slumps, then you might be able to determine what you are most suited for.¡± Yuan Shuo pped him on the shoulder again. ¡°You must stick to your own thoughts and at present, they are that of revenge!

    ¡°They think you¡¯ll be blinded by revenge, but I think not! Revenge is the faith of your current state. You do not need to shatter this faith. When you left Silver Moon and traveled to the east, I already knew then that you were considering certain things. You did not wish to cause trouble for others by staying in Silver Moon. That is the proper way of thinking.

    ¡°We need to resolve our own matters! Just as I could¡¯ve escaped from Silver City, but that would¡¯ve caused overwhelming trouble and disturbance for certain people had I done so¡ªHou Xiaochen, for example. I could not leave, but you had to leave!¡±

    Yuan Shuoughed when he spoke of his past and shook his head. ¡°I could¡¯ve run away all those years ago, but do you know why I chose to stay?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head.

    ¡°The price for me running away would¡¯ve been enormous¡ªand not for me, but for Silver Moon. Having been around for so many years, do you think I really didn¡¯t have some contingencies?¡± he sighed. ¡°I could¡¯ve unearthed some old fossils and incited a battle to overturn the heavens! But that would create unbelievable trouble. We shouldn¡¯t think too much sometimes, but at others we must consider certain things and consequences.¡±

    ¡°Teacher, do you mean...¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened.

 Chapter 619: Going Their Own Ways (III)

    <h4>Chapter 619: Going Their Own Ways (III)</h4>

    ¡°Haven¡¯t you encountered one already?¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°You¡¯ve unearthed an ancient nt spirit¡ªcan it be the only one that still exists in this vast world? However, you need to keep in mind that the world has changed in the river of time. It is a different age. Be careful of releasing the tiger from the cage. There are good and bad people in any era!¡±

    The old man didn¡¯t go into details; he just continued to issue reminders. ¡°Whether it is Battle Heaven or the nt spirit that you found, you can converse with them and partner with them, but you cannot lose your sense of self! You are Li Hao! As for the identity of the eight families... discard that!

    ¡°The responsibilities, glories, and everything about the eight families has nothing to do with you!¡±

    Li Hao continuously took in deep breaths before nodding. ¡°Understood!¡±

    Yuan Shuo grinned. It was good that he did! He needed to live his own life! He didn¡¯t wish for his disciple to constantly live under someone else¡¯s shadow. Would he still be Li Hao in the end?

    Whether weak or strong, it was always better to be oneself.

    ...... f§Ôeew§×bno?el.c¦Òm

    Master and disciple didn¡¯t talk much after Yuan Shuo imparted the newly revised Breathing Method of the Five Styles. They returned to absorbing sword energy.

    Yuan Shuo wasn¡¯t of a mind to overly interfere with his disciple or correct his notions. This was his teaching style. He would go over the concepts a few times and if the student understood, that was good. If not, then forget it. He would not expect his student to be the same as him.

    It took Li Hao five whole days to craft five simple bridges. He felt something different the moment he seeded. The five bridges formed a circtory loop. He should be able to strengthen the five organs in an easier fashion from now on.

    There was one more task for him to do after this¡ªroot the auras in his organs. In this way, he would havepleted the rudimentary training of Summoner of Spirit. Only then could he refine his five auras.

    These five days might have been the longest span of cultivation he¡¯d ever undergone. He¡¯dpletely forgotten everything about the outside world. Yuan Shuo also tirelessly absorbed sword energy. He needed to take advantage of his disciple being nearby to fortify himself. It would be such a shame if he didn¡¯t enjoy this feast!

    Master, disciple, and a dog consumed a lot of resources. And with Hong Yitang and Light Sword present a few days ago, the group depleted nearly fifty thousand pieces of mysterious power stones in a very short period of time. This level of consumption would bankrupt a moderate-sized faction and force them to close down.

    But as high the level of depletion was, so was the amount of gains. On the sixth day, Li Hao sought to incorporate the wood sword aura into the five organs. It corresponded to the liver. ording to his teacher¡¯s tutge. Summoner of Spirit was to nurture the auras and not just lock them away.

    As instructed, the young man carefully inserted the aura into the liver¡¯s supernatural lock. The lock that¡¯d wrapped around the willow tree unleashed a strong recoil when the tree roots slowly sank in. It felt like it didn¡¯t permit the aura to take root in it.

    Multiple attempts ended in failure. Li Hao opened his eyes, frowning deeply. He¡¯d thought it would be easy, but it turned out to be... very hard. After some thought, he came to a ruthless decision. Why not shatter some of the supernatural locks first, such as the one of his heart? The other four organs couldn¡¯t undergo the same, but that was fine.

    Visit f§Ôee??eb?ove?.c?m for the best novel reading experi??nce.

    Supernatural locks couldn¡¯t be touched under ordinary circumstances, but Li Hao could disturb his, and in a very simple fashion. He wouldbine the five auras under the overview of the sword aura, dig a hole out of the lock, then shove the tree¡¯s roots in. That would do it!

    Having made up his mind, Li Hao immediately funneled his five auras into the sword aura and erupted with force, stabbing at the lock that was wrapped around the little tree!

    <i>ng!</i>

    A metallic collision sounded on the mental level. Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes snapped open and he stared askance at his disciple. What was the kid doing? Destroying his supernatural locks? He opened his mouth to speak, then decided to shut it.

    <i>Whatever, it¡¯s not like he¡¯ll die from this. Sword energy is his greatest protection.</i>

    The kid was using brute force again, wasn¡¯t he? Yuan Shuo kept up a litany of internal exhortations. He wasn¡¯t thinking of forcefully destroying the supernatural locks to incorporate the auras, was he? Yuan Shuo had told the kid to nurture the auras, but this wasn¡¯t how it was done.

    The locks needed to be coaxed into epting the aura, much like one would coax a wife. If one day wasn¡¯t sufficient, then two, if not two, then three...

    So long as sufficient time and effort was spent, asionally feeding the lock some sword energy or blood qi intermixed with the aura, sess would be at hand sooner orter. Li Hao had absolutely no patience at all!

    Yuan Shuo was quite irked. The kid was sometimes like a bull in a china shop! Granted, he had his confidence in doing so, so there was nothing that could be criticized about his course of action. It hadn¡¯t been hard for Yuan Shuo to incorporate his auras into his locks, but he¡¯d taken a little more than a month to do so. He¡¯d rooted one aura at a time, each one needing around a month.

    As for Li Hao...

    The young man opened his eyes after roughly half an hour and spat out a mouthful of dark blood. ¡°Teacher, I¡¯vepleted one aura!¡± he chuckled. ¡°My wood sword aura has been imnted into the supernatural lock. I¡¯ve officially set foot into Summoner of Spirit now, haven¡¯t I?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t stop rolling his eyes!

    ¡°Teacher, the supernatural lock doesn¡¯t seem to be feeding strength to my aura.¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Is it supposed to be nurturing your aura after you forcefully shoved it in?¡± Yuan Shuo asked with a headache. ¡°It¡¯s good enough that it doesn¡¯t shatter your aura in protest! You¡¯ll have to wait for your aura and lock to slowly be one. Once lock and aura are aplete whole, there will be feedback then.¡±

    His disciple was beginning to irritate him. As much as he lectured or berated the kid, Li Hao hadpleted rooting one of his auras in half an hour. How was that not annoying??

    Yuan Shuo decided to put this vexing matter out of sight and blocked off his ears to continue absorbing sword energy. Meanwhile, Li Hao continued his violent cultivation.

    This manner of cultivation could save him at least a month¡¯s worth of time. However he could expedite his advancement was all for the best. As for other people... they would have to proceed methodically as theycked sword energy.

    The young man attacked his supernatural locks one after another. <i>If you don¡¯t let an aura take root in you, I¡¯ll beat it into you! </i>After multiple attempts, each of his locks was beaten into quiet submission and permitted his auras to take up residence in them. However, the five locks were still independent of each other. If there came a day in which they were one, then he would be a Refiner of Spirit.

    However, Li Hao wanted more. When he was finished with his supernatural locks of the organs, he asked, ¡°Teacher, I have another question. If Iprehend more sword auras, do you think I can root them in the locks of my limbs, spine, and <i>zifu?¡± </i>[1]

    ¡°Your spine and <i>zifu?¡±</i> Yuan Shuo raised a brow.

    ¡°Yes, one is a supernatural lock of the body and the other a supernatural lock of the bones. Have you not discovered them, teacher?¡±

    ¡°You absorb sword energy from day to night and take in too much energy to digest!¡± Yuan Shuo couldn¡¯t restrain himself and cursed loudly. ¡°It¡¯s all gone to your supernatural locks, so of course they¡¯ve manifested! For the rest of us, we don¡¯t have enough for the organs and limbs, so how do we have additional energy to explore other locks...

    ¡°There shouldn¡¯t be much of a problem with what you¡¯re proposing,¡± he ultimately returned to the question. ¡°The five organs are a minor circtory loop while the human body is a major circtory loop! They¡¯re all the same, just on a different scale. Are you nning to go with quality over quantity?¡±

    ¡°The five auras won¡¯t fully meld together that quickly even with instruction from you, teacher.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Who knows how much time it will take? If I canprehend more auras through certain cultivation methods, it¡¯ll be easier to strengthen them and have the overview of the sword aura lead them together. This is another possibility.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a good idea!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded.

    ¡°Martial Uncle Hong told me about it.

    ¡°Shut up!¡± Yuan Shuo snapped back weakly. He¡¯d justplimented thed, but it turned out that the idea came from Hong Yitang. ¡°It¡¯s a good idea, but... is your sword overview strong enough? Can it lead everything? Your ancestor¡¯s stroke is mighty, but you were too weak when youprehended it. Perhaps you should return to Silver City and observe that stroke one more time!¡±

    Li Hao nodded with surprise, then quickly frowned. ¡°I may not be able to see it again, teacher. Seeing it requires activated bloodline power¡ªonly blood pearls were able to manage it before, and ones stronger than me. At my current level of strength, even peak Nova blood pearls may be ineffective. I¡¯ll require metamorphosis level at least...¡±

    ¡°Then go to Red Moon!¡± Yuan Shuo said matter-of-factly. ¡°Red Moon will have them.¡±

    <i>Alright then. </i>Li Haoughed. Perhaps it was time to settle old debts with Red Moon powerhouses. His teacher was right, perhaps he needed to go back and observe that stroke one more time. He¡¯d been very weak when he saw it the first time. What he saw then might not have been the full picture.

    Now with five auras rooted in his locks, Li Hao began pulling from mysterious power stones to strengthen his organs, body, and bones. His next task was to continue saturating his locks. He was going to paint a picture with two brushes at the same time!

    There was no rule that said he couldn¡¯t fill his locks while he nurtured his auras. Those with sufficient wealth could afford to ssh it around. He had so many mysterious power stones that he could do whatever he want.

    Yuan Shuo rose on the eighth day, interrupting Li Hao¡¯s cultivation. The young man opened his eyes and nced at the old man. His teacher seemed ready to leave. Sometimes, he didn¡¯t quite understand his teacher. Staying with him at present and cultivating with sword energy might result in greater benefits for the old man.

    <i>When you head out to dig up old graves or kill people, aren¡¯t you doing so for the sake of what the sword energy does for you?</i>

    Yuan Shuo heaved a long sigh, his mental state greatly restored.

    ¡°The effects have been good!¡± He nced at Li Hao with a smile. ¡°But I¡¯ve been here long enough, I¡¯m going to have fun with some old friends. Take it easy if you head to the central region. Other people are improving while you¡¯re improving. There will be plenty with their eyes on you since you¡¯ve got your family¡¯s sword and the Windchaser Boots. They won¡¯t give up so long as you don¡¯t set foot into the sixth realm.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, slightly saddened.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll be off now,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled, not the least bit perturbed. ¡°Travel the world a bit more kid, see more of it. And don¡¯t always keep the dog by your side. It¡¯s azy glutton and is too big of a target!¡±

    Panther whined aint. The old man was awful!

    1. The <i>zifu</i> is a Taoist term that refers to a portion of the mind. ?

 Chapter 620: I Am About To Arrive (I)

    <h4>Chapter 620: I Am About To Arrive (I)</h4>

    ¡°Dumb dog!¡± Yuan Shuo patted Panther¡¯s head with augh. ¡°As a major monster spirit, you can¡¯t continue this way! Monster spirits should have their own aspirations. I know of a ce¡ªSky Roc Mountain. There¡¯s a major monster spirit there, the Sky Roc. If you kill it, you¡¯ll have a bright future ahead of you!

    ¡°Don¡¯t think of yourself as invincible just because you¡¯ve learned some things from humans. Monster spirits hail from ancient origins. Some things are avable to you, but not to humans. There are no weaklings among the descendants of ancient monster spirits. The current stage of martial master secret arts may not be as strong as your kind¡¯s ancient heritage.¡±

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t care whether the dog would ept what he said or not. He was just offering a few tips. He turned and left, quite dashing in his decisiveness and without any sentimental concern.

    Li Hao rose to send off his teacher and sighed softly when the man was out of sight. ¡°He should just say that he¡¯s gone off to find Jadelight Sword. Was there a need to say all that other stuff?¡±

    Being of a mind to look for women at his age... It looked like a disciple wasn¡¯t as interesting as a woman to his teacher!

    Off in the distance, Yuan Shuo turned around with a hint of killing intent just before he was about to vanish. <i>This traitor!</i> Damned if he didn¡¯t want to clean house! The brat created rumors from day to night! Who was going to go look for a woman?

    <i>I¡¯m just going to see if Jadelight Sword¡¯s been beaten to death. What is this traitor thinking about?!</i>

    The old man was slightly saddened about leaving Li Hao because it meant he would have to stand on his own two feet. That was just as well! Those of his generation were not suited to sit idle and enjoy the fruits of other people¡¯sbor. They didn¡¯t like doing so either, other than the shameless He Yong who loved to scrounge off others. Yuan Shuo and the others weren¡¯t interested in doing the same.

    ......

    Li Hao spent a few more days absorbing sword energy after his teacher left. When his seclusion reached ten days, he departed as well. It was his longest stint of closed door cultivation ever¡ªa full ten days.

    It was the end of October and almost the beginning of November by the time he emerged. If he continued cultivating in this vein, he might be able to saturate his locks, but it wouldn¡¯t result in the great improvement that he wanted. The auras were the key. He needed his to grow stronger and he also wanted to go back to observe his ancestor¡¯s move again.

    All of that depended on one thing¡ªthe blood pearls that would activate his bloodline. He needed ones of high level for his purpose.

    If his auras were too strong, his sword overview wouldn¡¯t be able to lead them. And if the auras weren¡¯t fully fused at that time, they would be a pile of loose sand. Li Hao would actually be weaker as his auras grew stronger.

    It was because of these considerations that he decided to continue on his journey with Panther by his side. The dogpletely ignored what Yuan Shuo said. There was no way that it was going to leave! What afortable life it was to follow Li Hao around. It might be beaten to death at any second if it left, that would be horrible!

    .......

    Li Hao left the vi on thest day of October and headed south. One would reach the central region if traveling south through East Shore. Heading north would take one back to the northern provinces. The young man didn¡¯t choose to go back yet, he wanted to visit the central region and witness their powerhouses for himself. He wanted to see more of the world.

    ......

    The central region was a vast territory that epassed twenty-two provinces. There were more than a thousand cities of varying sizes within it¡ªits poption was much more dense than the bleak and poor north. There were two billion people residing in the central region, but statistics weren¡¯t urate in this day and age.

    Some remote locations and overlooked corners of thend were forgotten in the census and many officials were unreliable in their course of work. There should be much more than two billion in the region as the territory was stunninglyrge.

    He Yong had once told Li Hao that there were cities of supernaturals in the central region. Mysterious power was dense in the area and there were more supernaturals born than could be imagined. There was at least one supernatural per one thousand people, and that was He Yong¡¯s estimation. Li Hao felt that this wasn¡¯t necessarily urate as math wasn¡¯t the guy¡¯s strong suit.

    Based on this ratio, there should be two million supernaturals in the central region! <i>Two million! </i>What kind of notion was that??

    At the very least, Li Hao had never seen so many supernaturals before. The most he¡¯d seen was when the central and northern supernaturals gathered to explore Battle Heaven. That had been nearly two thousand supernaturals from all neen northern provinces. While that wasn¡¯t every supernatural from the north, many wandering supernaturals had been among their number. They¡¯d only amounted to two thousand.

    For there to be two million supernaturals in the central region and increasing every year... Their numbers would increase explosively if war didn¡¯t break out! Wouldn¡¯t there be more than one hundred thousand supernaturals in a province?!

    And that was just supernaturals, that didn¡¯t include martial masters. How many supernaturals were in all of Silver Moon? As impoverished as the province was, surely the gap shouldn¡¯t be that great.

    Therefore, Li Hao brought a hint of disbelief¡ªor rather, curiosity¡ªas he entered the central region from East Shore.

    ......

    East Shore province itself was part of the central region. However, the region itself was further divided into different sections. There was a central belt among the twenty-two central provinces. With Skystar City as the center, the four provinces around the edge of the belt were known as the Four Peaks: North Peak, South Peak, East Peak, and West Peak.

    Only upon entering these four cardinal provinces did that ce one among the central belt. The four cardinal provinces were the core of the central region. East Shore was too close to the sea. Li Hao¡¯s current target was one of the provinces around Skystar City¡ªEast Peak.

    In the eyes of locals, only the area within the Four Peaks was their central region. This ran counter to the rest of the dynasty; they viewed the entire area as the central region. There was still a chain of superiority within the dynasty.

    Those of Skystar City looked down on everyone outside the city. Those within the Four Peaks held themselves loftier than those outside. The rest of the central region disdained the four continents. And of the four continents, the other three jointly held the northern continent in contempt. The northern continent most despised the northernmost Silver Moon, and within Silver Moon, Silver City was held in poorest regard. It was located the furthest to the north and was old, tiny, and poor.

    There was no further target once one reached Silver City. Great Li seemed to have fallen many years ago, or Silver City inhabitants might¡¯ve been able to look down their noses at the even more northern savages.

    Li Hao was quite resigned by this chain of disdain. He was immediately met with sidelong nces when he entered a central city because he wore an outfit made in the northern style. Passersby seemed to be saying¡ªwhere did this northern savagee from?

    Li Hao ignored their reactions. This was his first time visiting a central city and seeing the lives of central mundanes for the first time. It was a moderately sized city that seemed on par with Silver City, but appeared much more prosperous. There were many skyscrapers, some with color. The buildings in Silver City were gray and white.

    Li Hao had always felt that his home was good enough since no resident ever froze or starved to death, but this tiny city of the central region resembled Southern Ford in its prosperity! Southern Ford was Silver Moon¡¯s biggest port city.

    <i>Ole Hong lied to me.</i> The thought rose in Li Hao¡¯s mind. Ole Hong had said that war was present in the central region and that chaos had engulfed the territory. He painted a picture of the people struggling in misery, which made Li Hao think that life was terrible in the region. However, a small city like this bustled with such prosperity that it made the young man pause with confusion.

    He¡¯d seen for himself the deste conditions of Near River¡¯s coastline. Officials colluded with bandits and innocent people were killed to obtain military merits. The central region was a far cry from that!

    The sympathy he¡¯d felt for the people of the central region immediately evaporated. Not to mention, people viewed him with contempt and pity! Li Hao felt that he¡¯d been massively misdirected and lied to by Hong Yitang.

    Who said that the central region was in a sorry state? Silver Moon wouldn¡¯t catch up to this singr city with another thirty years of development! All of their people looked plump with smooth skin, how are they suffering??

    Li Hao was as if a country bumpkin entering town for the first time. In reality, he <i>was</i> a country bumpkin. Even White Moon City residents would bebeled bumpkins if they came here.

    He peered to and fro as he walked down the streets, giving one the impression of a new face in town, here to eke out a living from the north. There was even a dog by his side¡ªa stray from an unknown origin. A savage and his stray were the perfect match!

    ¡°Hi!¡± someone called out to Li Hao from behind. A chubby middle-aged man grinned radiantly and gave Li Hao a good first impression. He came across a bit like Hao Lianchuan as this was how Fatty Hao liked to smile as well.

    ¡°Are you from the north, little brother?¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know the man, but he didn¡¯t know anything about thisnd or its people either. Walking ten thousand kilometers was part of cultivation, so Li Hao nodded with a smile. ¡°You¡¯ve got a keen eye, big brother!¡±

    ¡°Hahaha! I can tell with one nce that you¡¯re a man from the north. You¡¯re brawny and sharp on your toes, it¡¯s obvious that you¡¯re a skilled hand!¡± the fatty chuckled with enthusiasm. ¡°Is this your first time in the central continent? Are you here to look for a job? Do you know anyone here?¡±

    ¡°No... I¡¯m just here for a look...¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t know anyone here?¡± Fatty¡¯s grin deepened. ¡°Then life will be a bit difficult for you. The central region isn¡¯t that friendly to outsiders and it¡¯s hard for northerners to find jobs. It would be easier if you had someone from home to help you out.

    ¡°But you seem to me like a forthright, outstanding kind of guy. Do you have the strength toe work for me? You¡¯ll get a monthly sry of four thousand coins, as well as room and board!¡±

    Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath. That high??

    As a civil servant for Silver City, his monthly sry was one thousand coins as an intern and two thousand when he was an official employee. It took a promotion to first rank inspector for him to earn that much a month. So any random job here paid four thousand coins a month??

    ¡°My thanks, but I¡¯m good!¡± Li Hao¡¯s view of the fatty rose. Thetter was being so warm-hearted in wanting to find a job for him! Although the job would be under someone else¡¯s hand and the pay may not be the highest, the central region suddenly seemed like a good ce.

    Of course, it would be a joke for him to look for a job. Who was Li Hao? A provincial deputy director of the Night Watchers and a high rank chiefmissioner! The highest ranked official in this city would most likely be lower than him.

    Get a job?

    He wouldn¡¯t work a day in his life. Granted, he was working for the dynasty at the moment.

 Chapter 621: I Am About To Arrive (II)

    <h4>Chapter 621: I Am About To Arrive (II)</h4>

    If Silver Moon ever rebelled, Li Hao would work for Silver Moon instead. It was sofortable working for the authorities. Even if he skipped every day of work, he knew that he would still get paid.

    ¡°So the little brother is here for pleasure?¡± The fatty didn¡¯t mind being turned down. ¡°Don¡¯t run around then. It¡¯s fine enough inside the city, but things are a mess outside. Supernaturals have suddenly risen and are causing a ton of trouble. They¡¯re killing people everywhere! Since you¡¯vee from the north, you¡¯ve probably encountered your fair share of trouble during your travels. You¡¯re lucky to still be alive! I hear that there¡¯s a massive battle going on in the North Sea. City annihtion missiles were fired a few days ago and everything was turned upside down! Ai, it¡¯s always the ordinary people that suffer.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. The central region was something else alright. Even residents of a small city knew of the happenings in the North Sea. To be honest, he hadn¡¯t known anything about the world when he was in Silver City. He had no idea what was happening in the central region.

    ¡°I¡¯m familiar with fun and pleasure. Where are you going, little brother? I can give you a ride.¡± He pointed at a car not too far away. ¡°That¡¯s my car and I like anyone from the north. My wife is also from the north! Let¡¯s continue our chitchat in the car, little brother. I¡¯ll take you wherever you¡¯re going!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s really alright!¡± Li Hao smiled. It was his first time meeting someone so friendly.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be so polite, you¡¯re on my way and I have nothing else to do. I¡¯m here to recruit more people for the factory anyway. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be finding anyone at this part of the day, so I should be getting back. Where are you going, little brother?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s really alright...¡± Li Hao declined again.

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you being too standoffish?¡± The fatty pretended to be unhappy. ¡°We rely on our friends when we¡¯re out and about. I¡¯m trying to be friends with you, or do you think too little of your big brother?¡±

    Li Hao was speechless. <i>I really don¡¯t know you that well! </i>But seeing at how friendly the other was...

    ¡°I¡¯m headed south to the Four Peaks. I want to see the central belt...¡±

    ¡°To the south?¡± The fatty was surprised. ¡°That¡¯s so far away... Are you a supernatural, little brother?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Just a backpacker. My teacher says that I should walk ten thousand kilometers as opposed to reading ten thousand books...¡±

    ¡°A student?¡± The fatty was even more surprised. ¡°You¡¯re a student? In college?¡±

    ¡°You could say that.¡± Li Hao nodded after some thought. ¡°I¡¯m a student of a small academy.¡±

    The Veteris Institute of Silver City. If he hadn¡¯t withdrawn, he would be just about ready to graduate.

    ¡°My apologies for the disrespect!¡± the fattyughed. ¡°So you¡¯re a schr. Your big brother isn¡¯t very cultured. I know of the north, but... to put it bluntly... It is a cold and poor area. It¡¯s difficult to study to your level! Reaching that level in our region is rare enough already.

    ¡°Then you must be careful! I¡¯ve heard of people speak of schrs traveling the world. The world is not safe these days. How about this, I¡¯ll take you to the south of the city. If you wish to leave, you can just walk out of the southern gates. If you don¡¯t want to go just yet, you can enjoy your time in the southern quadrant...¡±

    ¡°My thanks, then!¡± Li Haoughed. The fatty really was very friendly. He followed the fatty to the car and saw another person sitting in the backseat when the door was opened. The fatty introduced the other man in his thirties.

    ¡°This is the factory¡¯s ountant and hase out to recruit people with me. What a pity that you want to leave, little brother. If you stayed... and being a college student... You can be our treasurer and earn eight thousand a month! It¡¯s hard to recruit schrs these days.¡±

    The man in the car inclined his head at Li Hao and shifted half a butt over. Li Hao didn¡¯t mind the situation at first, but frowned slightly momentster. His expression promptly smoothed out and he climbed into the car without saying anything. Panther was close on his heels.

    The ountant frowned to see the dog, prompting an exnation from a smiling Li Hao.

    ¡°This is a stray dog that I picked up from the street. It¡¯s too lonely traveling alone, so I kept the dog with me. Please don¡¯t mind it. I can get off if it¡¯s inconvenient...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s alright!¡± chuckled the fatty up front. ¡°It¡¯s wonderful that the little brother is kindhearted. The little dog is rather cute. ountant Zhang, shift over to make some space...¡±

    The man in the backseat didn¡¯t say anything, just moved a bit more to the side. The little car wasn¡¯t big to begin with and there was less space in the backseat; Panther took up further room. Li Hao didn¡¯t count as tall in the north, but he was very tall here, so the entire backseat was rather crowded.

    The merry fatty started the engine. He was a chatty sort, whereas ountant Zhang didn¡¯t say much.

    ¡°Where in the north are you from, little brother?¡±

    ¡°Silver Moon.¡±

    ¡°Ah, Silver Moon. That¡¯s so far away. I know that there were martial masters there back in the day and hear that it¡¯s a pretty savage ce. Of course, it¡¯s all wild rumor. Are you familiar with martial masters, little brother?¡±

    ¡°Not really,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°We schrs don¡¯t have much to do with those kinds of people. We just spend our time with our books, wait to graduate, and find a post with the government. Those things are too far away for us.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true.¡± The fatty nodded and continued with an unending spiel of chatter. ¡°These days, those who can afford to study at schoole from good families. Judging from the little brother¡¯s condition, you should be a rich scion in Silver Moon?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not really the case... My grades are fine enough, so the government gave me a schrship. My family has some savings, so we manage to make do,¡± Li Hao answered offhandedly as the smile on his face began to grow odd. He seemed to be grasping something¡ªmartial masters, supernaturals, family background, friends, the same hometown...

    The fatty could chat about everything under the sun. Anyone else he chatted with would reveal everything about themselves and be impressed by the fatty¡¯s conversation skills. He could talk about anything as he knew a little of everything.

    But... why was the car driving further and further away? Li Hao watched the splendid sights fade out the window and the raucous dim gradually quiet. The prosperous central region was really quite something! The fatty was also a nice person and quite friendly. Li Hao had formed a good first impression of the central region, but it was slowly being tinged with some regret.

    ¡°Howe we aren¡¯t taking the city roads, big brother?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re too congested and will take us an hour to get to the southern city. We¡¯ll take the outer roads. They may be further away, but they¡¯re also faster...¡±

    Eventually, there was even ack of buildings on the sides of the road. They were in the suburbs, weren¡¯t they?

    Li Hao breathed out softly and looked at the quiet ountant. ¡°Big brother Zhang.¡± He smiled at the man. ¡°You¡¯re the ountant. If you have eighty-one workers and pay them thirty-two hundred coins a month, what¡¯s your total payroll expense every month?¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± The ountant blinked and took a moment to gather his thoughts. He paused in a daze before replying, ¡°Does your family own a factory?¡±

    ¡°No, but my friend¡¯s family does. He alwaysins about high payroll expenses, so I¡¯m curious how much other factories have to pay each month.¡±

    ountant Zhang¡¯s eyes darted around as he mumbled inaudibly, ¡°Well, this, ah... It¡¯s not much money. It¡¯s just eighty-some people and a small factory. The bunch of us...¡±

    The car trembled as the fatty stomped on the breaks with a cough. ¡°ountant Zhang, I have a bottle of water in the trunk, can you get it for me...¡±

    ¡°Oh, okay!¡± The ountant turned around and started rifling through the back, as if looking for water. Li Hao sighed and didn¡¯t move.

    A pair of hands appeared around his neck the next second and tightened with all of the ountant¡¯s strength. He forced out through grit teeth, ¡°Fatty, do we kill him or bring him back? And why did we make our move halfway there?¡±

    ¡°Idiot, his questions were a sign that he suspected you,¡± the fatty snapped back without looking back. ¡°And you stammered for an actual response! Choke him unconscious and take him back! The mines need people! Damn it, educated people are absolutely nothing good and you¡¯re an idiot to not even manage this...¡±

    ¡°Can you?¡± ountant Zhang asked as he squeezed with incredible strength. It looked like their victim knew a thing or two, he might¡¯ve practiced some martial arts, but not made it to yer of Tens. He cursed as he choked Li Hao, ¡°So you want me to calcte numbers? You little fucking brat! You¡¯ve got a lot of ideas in that head of yours, huh!¡±

    He began to gradually feel that something was amiss. Why wasn¡¯t the kid fighting back? They were old hands at this operation and even killed people part way sometimes, but their victims usually struggled. Why wasn¡¯t this one moving?

    He bent over to look down at Li Hao and was nearly scared out of his wits! The coollyposed young man stared right back at him and smiled to see the man bend over.

    ¡°This is so annoying!¡± he sighed.

    The fatty¡¯s expression shifted drastically and he brought the car to a screeching halt! Li Hao grabbed the bent over head and leaned forward, grabbing the fatty who was ready to run. He kicked the front seat to smithereens.

    ¡°Forgive us, noble sir! We¡¯re just trying to get by the days...¡± the fatty begged for mercy.

    ¡°Here I was thinking that the central region is quite nice and very prosperous!¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°Even its people are so friendly. So this is the true business you¡¯re in, huh!¡±

    ¡°We were wrong, noble sir! This is our first time doing so...¡± imed the fatty.

    ¡°Don¡¯t even go there, you guys have a lot of experience!¡± Li Haoughed. He squeezed when the fatty wanted to protest further and shattered one of the fatty¡¯s arms. Li Haoughed heartily when the fatty screamed with anguish. ¡°I¡¯ll pop your head next if you keep screaming!¡±

    The agonized screams immediately cut off. Although drenched in sweat and baring his teeth with pain, the fatty didn¡¯t dare scream anymore. They were in trouble! He knew that they¡¯d run into a tough target.

    <i>Is he a supernatural?? No. Is he a martial master?? No... The kid lied to us! Superhumans don¡¯t have this much time on their hands! </i>He¡¯d been careful enough already!

    ountant Zhang¡¯s head was almost popping. Li Hao casually flung the man by his feet and piled the two together. They were drenched with sweat from pain.

    ¡°Out with it. Do you take people and kill them at the mines?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow.

 Chapter 622: I Am About To Arrive (III)

    <h4>Chapter 622: I Am About To Arrive (III)</h4>

    ¡°Y... yes... noble... sir...¡± Drenched with sweat, the fatty stammered a painful reply. ¡°These... are... not... our operations... but the Inspectorate¡¯s... operations. The Inspectorate... has a mine... and we¡¯re... just errand boys...

    ¡°We are paid... only two thousand coins... for every person... we get... We only target... foreigners... and don¡¯t dare touch... locals...

    ¡°Don¡¯t kill us... noble sir... We just work for others... You are a noble one and know... what the Inspectorate does... There is no need to cause an investigation... for two worms such as us...¡±

    ¡°The Inspectorate has a mine?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°So they have a mine. They can just hire people, why are they taking people off the streets?¡±

    The fatty refused to respond, whereas ountant Zhang quickly replied, ¡°What we do cuts down on costs and increases profit margins... How much of a fee do they need to pay for one hundred people? Just two hundred thousand coins! But if these people are all hired employees, they would require monthly sries of three to five thousand coins. That would be nearly five hundred thousand coins a month... and one hundred people are hardly enough for the mines.

    ¡°The mines require at least one thousand staff, which means a few million or tens of millions a month. That¡¯s at least one hundred million a year!

    ¡°Not to mention, there are a lot of refugees nowadays. Some of the cities in the central region have been razed to the ground and refugees are running everywhere. There¡¯s beggars throughout all of the cities, or thieves, or robbers. The Inspectorate is kept too busy by them and decided to haul them all off to the mines. Not only does that save money, but it saves a lot of trouble...¡±

    Li Hao blinked. ¡°Refugees?¡± he whispered.

    ¡°That¡¯s right! A city¡¯s been blown up near us, which means at least five hundred thousand people don¡¯t have ces to stay. They need to run anywhere and everywhere¡ªseveral tens of thousands havee to us. We don¡¯t have the time for them, we barely have enough time for our own people. All of theme with a lot of issues as well, so it¡¯s best for everyone that they¡¯re hauled off to the mines. They won¡¯t die of starvation out in the open and it saves us a lot of trouble...¡± Being more dim-witted than the fatty, ountant Zhang spilled everything he knew of in one go.

    Li Hao mused over his words, so this was the true situation. The Inspectorate earned a lot of money and eliminated a lot of trouble with this course of action. There was no need to think about settling in the influx of people when there were no beggars and no refugees. Neither did they need to worry over a city¡¯s worth of minor crime and infractions.

    It was multiple birds with one stone!

    No wonder Li Hao had thought the city was a nice ce earlier. It was so prosperous that there wasn¡¯t a sign of a single beggar¡ªthose could still be found in Silver Moon. He¡¯d felt that general security was quite good!

    How could it not be? All of the beggars and refugees had been sent to the mines.

    ¡°Your inspector general... is quite a talent!¡± Li Haoughed.

    Who knew if he truly meant thepliment, or was jeering with sarcasm. This city¡¯s inspector general was indeed a brilliant person!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t grow mad as there was no need to. He¡¯d seen the military collude with pirates and the Steadfast Duke raise pirates as a personal force. He¡¯d bore witness to the director general of a province supporting pirates. What hadn¡¯t he seen yet?

    This was just the Inspectorate of a small city hauling people off to the mines so that they could maintain a picture of peace and tranquility in their city! They were simply one city out of one thousand in the central region. Perhaps they were an exception.

    ¡°Where are the mines?¡±

    ¡°Just... up... ahead... Another twenty... kilometers... by car...¡±

    It was far away. Li Hao heaved a sigh and stepped on the two. He kept stepping on them until they could no longer speak. The young man leaned back against his seat and said, ¡°Panth, drive the car. Let¡¯s go take a look!¡±

    Panther wagged its tail merrily and saw that Li Hao meant his words when it took another look. It climbed excitedly into the driver¡¯s seat, ignited the engine, shifted into drive gear, and stepped on the elerator.

    The little car flew over the terrain with a dog in the front seat! Its two forepaws clutched the steering wheel, looking very much like an experienced driver!

    The dog¡¯s driving was steady enough; Li Hao grinned. Thank goodness no one was around to see this, or they¡¯d say that his driving was less than a dog¡¯s! Even a dog drove better than him!

    To be honest, Panther really did drive well. As it grew morefortable with driving, it could even pull some tricks. Its tail hooked around the steering wheel and drifted the car across the road...

    Inside the car, the two men almost being crushed to death looked at each other with horror. This was a monster spirit! A major monster spirit! Those of the central region had seen many more monster spirits that could understand human speechpared to the north. Abject with terror, the two realized that this monster spirit was at least a Sunre or Sr.

    Li Hao ignored them and satfortably in the backseat, contemting something. He saw a mountain after half an hour of the dog¡¯s rapid driving and had Panth stop a long distance away.

    The car disappeared with a wave of his hand when everyone alighted, sending more fear into the fatty and ountant. A storage ring!

    That was the equipment of a powerhouse!

    Li Hao still didn¡¯t speak. He grabbed both men by the arm with one hand and squeezed hard. They stuck to his hand like balls of dough. He shot into the air, the two dangling from his hand like fluttering rags. They¡¯d long passed out from terror and pain.

    ......

    <i>In the air.</i>

    Li Hao looked down over the mountain and noted that there were several supernatural guards on the mines. There were possibly a few martial masters as well. None of them were strong. The supernaturals were either Starlight or Darkmoon, there wasn¡¯t a single Sunre.

    There was a gathering ce in the mountains that rang with activity. Li Hao flew over for a look; food was being distributed from the meeting point. A middle-aged woman was receiving her portion of a ck steamed bun and a bowl of congee. It should fill her stomach and wouldn¡¯t result in starvation, but the woman wailed with distress.

    ¡°Sir, please give me another bun, just one more!¡± she cried to the heavens. ¡°Just one more... I have three children who are dying of starvation! The eldest one can¡¯t move anymore and the four of us really can¡¯t survive on so little everyday! I can¡¯t sleep at night and have to enter the mines after I finish washing clothes in the morning. Sir, please give me one more bun...¡±

    ¡°Get out of here!¡± An inspector in official uniform kicked the woman away. ¡°Ingrate! We give you a chance for survival, otherwise all of you would¡¯ve long died! How dare you ask for so much! Do rations not cost money?! Do you know how much they cost now?? What kind of times are we in for you to think of having children?? And three of them?! So what if they die? You¡¯ll have a few meals of meat if one of them dies! Is your brain confused or what??¡±

    Li Hao started and looked down below. <i>So this is the central region, the iparably prosperous and rich central region. For a second... I thought I was hearing a pirate.</i> He¡¯d seemed to meet the White Shark Raiders under simr conditions.

    ¡°Pirates... local army... inspectors...¡± He looked back at the city. It was bustling and flourishing! And here? There were a lot of people, but they seemed to belong to a different era.

    Here, he saw history. He saw the end times of those dynasties in which lives were not worth anything. But there was a thriving city roughly thirty kilometers away from here. Lights, food, and drink abounded there.

    Li Hao shook his head. He seemed to have traveled through time and space for a quick moment.

    ¡°The central region is the picture of prosperity...¡± The oft-quoted saying floated into his mind. He promptly thought of what Hong Yitang once said. ¡°The dynasty is about to sink into chaos and chaos churn through the world. The people will suffer in misery. There is no hope for this era!¡±

    His first foray into a central region had taught Li Hao a lesson. What he saw may not be true; there were unspeakable matters hidden beneath the glitz and mor. There was no word of these destroyed cities and refugees in the central region. How many mines like these were out there? How much of this darkness?

    Li Hao smiled, but didn¡¯t know why he should smile. His bare minimum was lowered again and again, sparks of hope repeatedly extinguished when they red to life!

    He wanted to think that the central region was quite nice, but these people told him in the next breath that it was much darker than one thought. Evil lurked behind the prosperity!

    An inspector of the Inspectorate told everyone not to have children in this day and age. It was nothing if one¡¯s child died, that just meant a few meals of meat... Everyone seemed numb to this, apart from that woman! It was as if the world itself was shades of gray here.

    ¡°The Inspectorate...¡± Li Hao murmured with some pain. His first job had been at the Inspectorate and so he was very kindly disposed toward inspectors because the ones he knew set good examples in their roles. He thought of Liu Long, Liu Yan, Wu Chao, Kong Jie, Wang Henggang, and many other inspectors...

    He was proud to wear the official uniform. As a public servant, he was paid by the government and didn¡¯t have to do much. Those at the desks did their jobs and those in the field caught thieves and solved some cases. The benefits were good and they saw to the security of the city.

    Some danger mighte to the Night Watchers since they had to fight supernaturals, but the Inspectorate was a decent ce. There might be some risk in their line of duty, but there wasn¡¯t that much violent crime.

    Various thoughts floated into Li Hao¡¯s mind. He felt that Near River was an exception since Fan Chang was not a good person. He also felt that the Steadfast Duke in Calm Borders colluding with pirates was an exception since the Xus were not good people.

    But here... who wasn¡¯t a good person? Was everyone in the Inspectorate in the wrong here? What about elsewhere?

    Li Hao took a deep breath and flew away. Indeed, he flew away. What could he do? Nothing at all. Kill these inspectors? What would that do? Absolutely nothing! Not to mention, there were tens of thousands of people on the mines. This was the central region. Was he supposed to send them all to Silver Moon?

    That would be the greatest joke of all!

    Therefore, he might as well kill their inspector general or all of their senior executives. Maybe the next batch would be better.

    In spite of his strength, the young man didn¡¯t know what to do. He was helpless when it came to a mine of ten thousand people. There was absolutely nothing he could change and killing those inspectors might cause greater trouble to arise. He knew what the consequences might be in order to cover up events here. Perhaps the entire mountain would copse and all of the people disappear to cover up these happenings.

    He wouldn¡¯t have thought this was possible before, but now he knew that everything was possible.

 Chapter 623: I Am About To Arrive (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 623: I Am About To Arrive (IV)</h4>

    Only if Li Hao killed the city¡¯s senior executives would it not lead back to the mines. It might be better if the city¡¯s entire senior leadership was shuffled. If things weren¡¯t improved, at least they wouldn¡¯t be any worse. This was the first ce of its kind that Li Hao was encountering, but it definitely wouldn¡¯t be thest.

    He really couldn¡¯t directly intervene for the lives of these countless people. There was nothing he could do.

    ......

    A batch of people died soundlessly in a small city of the central region on this night. The fatty and ountant pointed them out one by one for Li Hao. He killed every single person involved in the evil. The strongest among them was at the Sr level, which meant that no one escaped from the young man.

    When he leftter that night, Li Hao also burned the fatty and fake ountant¡¯s corpses. He continued down south. He would not know about the future fate of this city or the thousands of refugees on the mountain. For a moment, he experienced Hong Yitang¡¯s struggles and difficulties. It was not hard to save a person, the difficulty came in helping them settle in and bring hope back to their lives again.

    The difficulties further came in the form of thousands, tens of thousand, and hundreds of thousands of people that needed help. Ten thousand people were in trouble from a small city¡ªhow many would need help from one thousand cities?

    The potential figure gave Li Hao heart palpitations. This dynasty seemed more like a cage, yet Hong Yitang had decided to be the savior of the times. It was a mind-boggling thought that made Li Hao shudder. It was too horrifying.

    He admired Hong Yitang¡¯s purpose, resolution, and boldness of vision, but felt that there was no hope of the man aplishing his goal.

    ¡°There¡¯s absolutely no chance! Therger problems can be extrapted from the minor areas. Even though I¡¯m seeing only a small portion of the picture, this is still part of the bustling central region. This is only a small city of one million strong! Ole Hong... should just stick to being a martial master,¡± Li Hao mumbled as he traveled elsewhere.

    His master had the right idea! He traveled the world with a beauty by his side. <i>Master¡¯s right, my most pressing task is to seek out Red Moon for revenge. Hong Yitang can worry about his heroic mission. I¡¯m just a minor martial master!</i>

    When he killed pirates a few days ago, he¡¯d felt that he had the potential to be a savior. It was a job well done when he killed officials, ughtered pirates, and threw those he rescued at the Sword Sect. But now... that budding thought was snuffed out.

    Instead, fury rose in his heart. How could the central Inspectorate conduct itself this way?? <i>I am of the Inspectorate as well, how can the senior levels of the Inspectorate permit this to happen?!</i>

    ¡°Does the inspector general eat shit for food?! Why doesn¡¯t he intervene in this? Our oath is to protect society¡¯s security and safeguard the people¡¯s peace. It¡¯s beplete bullshit!¡± Li Hao grumbled a nonstop litany ofints. He thought back to the oath he¡¯d taken when he first joined the Inspectorate. He, and a group of others, had loudly proimed their oath with extremely high fervor.

    ¡°I think I¡¯ll take a look at Skystar City!¡± He adjusted his bearing to the center-south. <i>I¡¯d like to see what kind of people are in charge of this dynasty. All of this is happening right beneath your noses, are you blind?! You instantly know of a battle in the east and immediately know of a supernatural death in Silver Moon. You¡¯re </i>not<i> blind!</i>

    <i>You sniff out new ruins faster than dogs and the entire world knows of a treasure one hour after it¡¯s found. You¡¯re so eager to build a useless bridge spanning one hundred and fifty kilometers of the sea. How can you turn a blind eye to a mining mountain that wants people to eat their own children?!</i>

    ¡°Skystar City... wait for me!¡± Li Hao suddenly didn¡¯t want to seek out Red Moon members anymore. He wanted to visit the ce that was the richest, strongest, most vibrant in the world. The one with the highest poption and greatest sum of powerhouses. Would it be dangerous?

    It would be very dangerous!

    But... so what?

    His teacher had said to travel the world and take a look around, that it was a fascinating ce. Indeed it was, it was so fascinating that he¡¯d witnessed such a show as soon as he entered the central region.

    Li Hao grinned. <i>Then I¡¯ll visit the most prosperous and fascinating ce in this world!</i>

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>Skystar City.</i>

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    ¡°A small city in the Far Sea province¡ªthe city of Utmost Joy¡ªsaw the deaths of its inspector general, deputy general, captain of thew enforcement team, and vice captain of thew enforcement team in one night! Their report says that it might be the doing of a powerhouse that is at least a Sr.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I see. Have Far Sea put out an order for the culprit¡¯s arrest!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    The matter was over with a few simple words. No one mentioned it again. This matter was too small for the vast Inspectorate. It oversaw ny-nine provinces and thousands of cities. The Inspectorate of a small city had lost its senior leadership. That could be taken care of locally, no one cared.

    In an era like this, lives were utterly worthless. Someone like Mu Sen of Silver City might draw some attention from Silver Moon if he died in the city, but who in the distant Skystar City would care?

    ......

    <i>At the same time, in another locale.</i>

    ¡°Do we have news of Li Hao¡¯s whereabouts?¡± Hou Xiaochen paged through information and looked at Manager Yu.

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Thatd...¡± Hou Xiaochen frowned. ¡°He¡¯s just vanished without a trace, huh? Hong Yitang and the rest aren¡¯t going back and apparently Yuan Shuo¡¯s been traceding for Jadelight Sword. But Li Hao¡¯s gone missing!¡±

    How ludicrous! The entire world had its eyes on Li Hao, but the young man had gone missing and no faction was able to track him down.

    ¡°He might¡¯ve gone back to Silver Moon. He¡¯s no fool and knows that it¡¯s dangerous outside,¡± said Manager Yu.

    ¡°The kid disappeared near East Shore, has he possiblye to the central region?¡± Hou Xiaochen asked uncertainly.

    Manager Yu broke out in a rare smile. ¡°How could he! The central region is so dangerous and so many people want to kill him! He would be walking on thin ice even with the director here. I say this guy¡¯s crafty as heck and won¡¯te here.¡±

    ¡°But he ran off to the east before, who would¡¯ve believed that?¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°Forget it, so he¡¯s disappeared. He won¡¯te to Skystar City even if he¡¯se to the central region. It¡¯d be nice for him to take a spin around outside, witness the splendors of the region, and then go home. After being promoted to peacemakermissioner, Ole Zhao and the others will probably have him take my spot. That¡¯s just as well.¡±

    Manager Yu didn¡¯t say anything, but found the idea of Li Hao seeding Hou Xiaochen to be... slightly ufortable. Of course, that had to do with Director General Zhao and the others. It was none of her business.

    Not even Hou Xiaochen thought it possible that Li Hao woulde to Skystar City. This was the heart of the dynasty! The nine ministries, royal family, aristocracies, divine mountains, and various factions were entangled in aplex web. A group of devilish Heaven Favored youngsters ran rampant and even he had to exercise prudence. Arrogance could only be red under the auspices of the rules.

    Countless people wanted to eat Li Hao. The young man would have an impossible time of things in the city. He had room to maneuver before, but now that the uses for his family¡¯s sword were revealed and he¡¯d killed Xu Qing, Hou Xiaochen felt that it was actually good thed hadn¡¯te to the central region with him. Otherwise, the man would end up paying the price of his life while cleaning up after Li Hao.

    Various thoughts rose in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s mind as he rubbed his temples. Life was difficult here. He had to gingerly ce down each foot¡ªthe waters of Skystar City were too deep. Hecked an opportunity to change the situation. Should he have those devils step way over the line?

    But... was that doable? Would they dare?

    ......

    The calendar ticked over to November as Li Hao traveled straight to Skystar City. He didn¡¯t stop along the way; he didn¡¯t do anything that a mundane wouldn¡¯t do. He calmly walked past even when he saw more evils visited upon others or supernaturalsmitting crimes.

    He didn¡¯t kill anymore people. There were too many viins to exterminate in the world, the root cause was not here.

    Where was it?

    He didn¡¯t know either. In Skystar City? Perhaps. His supernatural locks were slowly being saturated and his bridges of the five organs taking shape. The five auras were slowly receiving feedback from some of the locks and thus growing stronger as well. He continuously operated the breathing method, which worked in the background to strengthen the young man.

    The roads in the central region were wide. Although they were a bit disorderly, the central region was mostly passable. He arrived at East Peak province after a few days. He would cross it to reach the Jade Sea province, then arrive at Skystar City.

    The central belt of provinces around the capital city was an interesting notion. The four peaks were the outer perimeter and there were more provinces on the inside. Those provinces surrounded Skystar City. Thergest ind sea surrounded Skystar City. Only after crossing the Skystar Sea did one reach the heart of the dynasty.

    The Skystar Sea was a safe ce. Being surrounded on all sides by powerhouses and situated in the central region, whoever dared sail its waters as a pirate was a true pirate. Though it was called a sea, it was more simr to Silver Moon¡¯s Moon Sea.

    It wasn¡¯t too wide¡ªquite dissimr to the East Sea¡ªand was one hundred and fifty kilometers at its widest. Although it was called a sea, it could be quite narrow. It was only two kilometers across at its narrowest.

 Chapter 624: Arriving at Skystar City (I)

    <h4>Chapter 624: Arriving at Skystar City (I)</h4>

    As he continued forward, Li Hao mentally referred to a map that he¡¯d once seen. The conditions here changed once more. There were more cars on the roads, which meant more people. The roads were wide and voices rose and fell. The sides of the roads thronged with pedestrians and supernaturals were no longer a rare sight. They could be seen everywhere.

    Li Hao drove a shabby car and listened to the voices that filtered into his ears. Their words carried a hint of central pride and official terminology. Here, even mundanes spoke with more confidence. It was unlike other regions in which conversation was conducted with someck of assurance.

    ¡°There are more cars headed to Skystar Citytely!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s an increase in supernaturals! This is normal since the Academy of the Nine Ministries and the Royal Academy will be recruiting new students at the end of the year. The new students will be phoenixes and dragons as soon as they matricte!¡±

    ¡°I hear that the Night Watchers have a new deputy director too¡ªa savage from the north. He¡¯s vicious as hell and says that he¡¯s going to lead the academy students against the three great organizations. Is that true? Will I have to join that force if I sign up for the academy now?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say, but no matter how ruthless he is, he¡¯s just a deputy director of the Night Watchers. Apparently, he¡¯s even been demoted to high rank chiefmissioner. He¡¯s not a peacemakermissioner anymore. I bet you he ends up in the dungeons sooner orter!¡±

    Groups of people chatted idly along the road. Living in the heart of the central region, these mundanes had swift sources of information and dared speak their mind more. They even dared give their opinion of high ranking officials.

    It looked like Hou Xiaochen had made a small name for himself a month after arriving in Skystar City. Since Li Hao didn¡¯t possess a transmission pendant, it was only now that he learned Hou Xiaochen had been demoted. Those pendants belonged to the various factions and had tracking devices on them. He didn¡¯t want anyone to know his location, so he naturally didn¡¯t travel with one.

    So Hou Xiaochen was the same grade as him now! Li Hao smiled faintly. He hadn¡¯t been in a good mood the past couple of days, but couldn¡¯t help a smile now. The young man was suddenly in a better mood.

    Ole Hou had done so well for himself that he was the same rank as Li Hao! The young man¡¯s thoughts turned to the academies. When He Yong invited him to Skystar City, he¡¯d mentioned that there were a few famous supernatural academies in the capital. One of them was the Royal Academy, another was an academy founded by the nine ministries.

    Only supernaturals were epted andrge sums of Heaven Favored gathered in them. They were imitations of the martial universities to be found in the ancient civilization. There were also high numbers of supernaturals and Heaven Favored to be found in those. So the Skystar academies were open for matriction at the end of the year?

    Li Hao suddenly felt very far removed from that scene. <i>Students...</i> he was a student himself a year ago. The ancient civilization had possessed many academies¡ªthey were called martial universities then.

    He stopped at an intersection and waited for his side¡¯s turn to drive when suddenly, the cars on both sides started shifting to the shoulder of the road. Li Hao turned back for a look and saw a convoy of carsing down the street. A driver next to him called out when he saw the young man remain unmoved.

    ¡°Oi! Are you not from here? Get out of the way! That¡¯s the convoy of a Nova family! No one will be responsible for your death if you don¡¯t move soon!¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow and swiftly drove his car off to the side. Momentster, the convoy of a dozen cars threaded through the center of the road. The other side had a green light, but no one moved. They were all waiting for the convoy to pass.

    There was a luxury car that Li Hao didn¡¯t recognize in their midst. It looked very opulent, at least. The window was down, revealing a driver and a young man and woman. The young man wore an aloof expression on his face, while the girl peered around with curiosity. She didn¡¯t seem to know much of the world as she rapidly looked around to take in the sights. They were too far away for the crowd to make out what they were saying, but Li Hao could catch a few words.

    ¡°Brother, brother, look, someone¡¯s driving such a battered car...¡±

    Li Hao ignored thement at first, then suddenly realized that the other seemed to be looking at him. He blinked and subconsciously looked at his car. Alright... the car that he¡¯d taken from the fatty and ountant was in pretty poor shape. He¡¯d kept it in his storage ring before and only taken it out because there were more people around. it¡¯d been changed beyond recognition.

    In order to avoid detection that it was the same car, Li Hao had snapped the license te in half and caused some other damage to the vehicle. No one could match it to its former appearance.

    The young man in the luxury car took an indifferent nce and saw that the car¡¯s driver happened to be looking their way as well. He didn¡¯t mind and said calmly, ¡°Such is the life of the poor! Remember, if you and I don¡¯t work hard to maintain the family¡¯s honor, the two of us may be someone like this in the future.¡±

    ¡°No way!¡± The girl trembled. ¡°That¡¯s too scary! Brother, how are there poor people like that in the central region? We¡¯re very rich here. It¡¯d be moremon to see someone like this in the north.¡±

    ¡°There are poor people everywhere, you just don¡¯t see them. Now you do, right?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± The girl nodded. ¡°So we have to make sure we join the Skystar Academy this time!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao listened quietly. <i>A poor person¡¯s car... </i>Of this brother and sister duo, the younger sister waspletely ignorant and the older brother just as ignorant, despite pretending otherwise.

    How could someone poor afford to drive a car?! Anyone who could was not poor. On the other hand, the more inward that one delved in the central region, the more prosperous the environment became!

    When everything that one came in contact with and saw was ostentatiously sumptuous, and everyone belonged to the same social circles, that created a certain blind spot in one¡¯s worldview.

    Was the brother and sister duo wrong?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t think so. He just found them... ignorant. It wasn¡¯t an ignorance limited to one or two people, but that of the entire upper echelon of society. Some were truly ignorant, some pretended ignorance, and others viewed everything with indifference. They¡¯d never been educated otherwise. Whether it was a long standing family or an aristocracy, perhaps none of them would instill this kind of knowledge in their children.

    The convoy of cars slowly drove off and bystanders started speaking again. ¡°Which Nova family was that? Are they going to Skystar City?¡±

    In the twenty years since the appearance of the supernatural domain, Novas were the patriarchs of their families. They were indeed powerhouses no matter where one went. With a Nova in residence, great wealth and fortune were not a problem. It gave one solid footing and enabled the family to dominate wherever it was.

    The crowd gave way to these heavyweights in such a matter-of-fact way that it inly wasn¡¯t the first time they¡¯d done so.

    ¡°They look to be from the East Peak Developers, I think.¡±

    ¡°Oh, that family. Then that makes sense. No wonder it was all luxury cars. These are regr cars for that family.¡±

    ¡°Apparently their patriarch¡¯s grandson and granddaughter have reached the age to matricte at the academies. They¡¯re probably going to sign-up at Skystar City.¡±

    ¡°Those two Heaven Favored?¡±

    ¡°Yeah! One of them is a connate Darkmoon and the other a connate Sunre. I envy them so much!¡±

    ¡°Who doesn¡¯t? How do the rich do it? They¡¯ve even got a higher proportion of Heaven Favoredpared to us...¡± The crowd quickly dispersed. Li Hao continued forward in his small car.

    <i>Heaven Favored.</i>

    The two had both been Sunres. One was a peak Sunre, the other an initial Sunre. He could tell that much, but hadn¡¯t thought that they were Heaven Favored. Both of them weren¡¯t old as the academies only epted those beneath twenty-two years old. The Sunre cultivation realm that Wang Ming had been so proud of... Well, he was an initial Sr now. But the Sunre that he had been was a cabbage by the side of the road here.

    Incredibly young Sunres could be met everywhere! To think that Wang Ming had once been so proud to be the youngest Sunre in the province! A random two Sunres that Li Hao had bumped into were stronger than him, and they even looked younger than him.

    The convoy proceeded at a slow pace; Li Hao saw it again after a while since he was also heading to Skystar City. He wasn¡¯t the only one, almost everyone on this road was headed that way. This wasn¡¯t the only convoy, however. Another one came along before long, the second or third generations of yet another family.

    It quickly convened with the convoy ahead as thetter proceeded at a snail¡¯s pace. Everyone behind them could only follow suit. Some cursed beneath their breaths, but everyone had to watch and wait. No one dared overtake them!

    Those ahead didn¡¯t put on cocky airs, but no one dared go past them. This seemed to be a grave taboo in the central region as the hierarchy of power was more clearly defined. If there was a car blocking the way ahead in Silver Moon... No one would care whose car it was. They would just pass the offender.

    ¡°That¡¯s a convoy from the Four Cardinals Bloc... and now they¡¯re chatting! If they keep this up, we won¡¯t reach Skystar City even by nightfall!¡± Comints abounded.

    They were out of East Peak, but had to cross Jade Sea before reaching Skystar City. It was morning at the moment, but night would descend before they reached Skystar City if their speed didn¡¯t pick up.

    ¡°What are you in a hurry for? How long can they chit chat? They¡¯ll be gone in the blink of an eye once we reach the highways because their cars can travel fast. You won¡¯t be able to catch up to them even if you wanted to,¡± someoneughed in a car.

    ¡°Just wait it out, there will be a lot of convoys like this along the way. The various academies are open for recruitment on November 15 and the selection will continue into December. They¡¯ll take a break, then prepare for the new year, and then the new students will begin their studies afterward. Skystar City will be full of people during this time with supernaturals and aspiring students everywhere...¡±

    ¡°What are they going to Skystar City for? Go to the City of Supernaturals! There are more academies there and I hear that some schools are even secretly supported by the three great organizations.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t spout nonsense!¡±

    ¡°What nonsense? The city has Arcanus in residence, what are you afraid of? Not to mention, this is no secret. The nine ministries probably know all about it, much less us, but they don¡¯t say a thing.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true.¡±

    ¡°And don¡¯t be fooled by the fact that the three great organizations are wanted criminals now. In a few years... heh, they¡¯ll be legitimate overlords of their territory. Maybe they¡¯ll be made princes or something.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s the business of big characters. It¡¯s none of ours.¡±

 Chapter 625: Arriving at Skystar City (II)

    <h4>Chapter 625: Arriving at Skystar City (II)</h4>

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow. So the three great organizations had almost legitimized themselves in the central region? Celestial was an organization of assassins, Yama killed just about anyone, and Red Moon was brutal and insidious. How could these organizations have a good name for themselves?

    But judging from the reactions of these mundanes, this was a very normal urrence.

    ¡°Ignore all that, it¡¯s not for the likes of us. Anyone with any sort of background or statuses to Skystar City. Only those without an impressive identity go to the City of Supernaturals. The Arcanus realm is pretty impressive, but it¡¯s not like Skystar City doesn¡¯t have any on that level. Have you not heard? The first generation inspector general is still alive and supposed to be an Arcanus! Hot damn, how old does that make him? He was the inspector general eighty years ago, so he¡¯s got to be more than one hundred!¡±

    ¡°Heh, I¡¯ve got news for you then. Apparently they¡¯re all immortal. There were people who could live thousands of years in the ancient civilization...¡±

    ¡°Bullshit! Thousands of years? That would mean they¡¯re still alive!¡±

    ¡°I heard it from other people myself. Who knows how many years it¡¯s been since the ancient civilization? There¡¯s no definitive exnation, so no one knows what the situation is. Perhaps there¡¯s some exaggeration involved when they talk about the ancients, but it¡¯s true that they could live for thousands of years!¡±

    ¡°......¡± What these people discussed would be ssified secrets in the north. But here, every street and back alley held conversations about this information.

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t help butugh. He knew too little of the world, alright! Those of the central region knew much more than he thought they would.

    The convoy up ahead spent some time exchanging pleasantries. Once they were done, they continued forward and the flow of traffic picked up. Li Hao was in no hurry and slowly followed behind everyone.

    The roads were big here, but they were too congested. There were cars everywhere. He¡¯d never seen so many cars before, not even in White Moon City. Li Hao suddenly looked up above him¡ªthere was a massive hole in the roof. He happened to catch sight of a group of people steering an origin weapon that looked like a flying ship. They sped off into the distance.

    "Those are Srs and Novas!¡± People eximed around him. ¡°Are theying in person?¡±

    Li Hao almost burst outughing. Were Srs and Novas not allowed to leave their homes? But judging from the sound of this, it seemed that only Srs and Novas were permitted to fly.

    In the next moment, a massive bird soared through the sky. It was ponderous and seemed to be bearing people on its back.

    ¡°That¡¯s... people from the Sky Roc Bloc!¡± identified even more agitated voices. ¡°Isn¡¯t that bird one of their most famous Galewind Birds? Apparently they¡¯re all Sunre or stronger!¡±

    ¡°Sky Roc Bloc... The group that does business for the Sky Roc Mountain?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, who else other than them can manipte these bird spirits?¡±

    ¡°The seven divine mountains... Are they going to Skystar City as well? They¡¯ve always been an independent faction, so why aren¡¯t they going to the City of Supernaturals? The seven divine mountains don¡¯t need to learn from the academies, they¡¯ve got business at the City of Supernaturals. They¡¯re even the financial backers for some of those academies...¡±

    All of these people were well informed. Li Hao happily eavesdropped on everyone. He was unfamiliar with the central region since hecked a transmission pendant, but the mundanes on all sides were giving him a thorough education!

    <i>Sky Roc Mountain!</i>

    He recognized this name. Apparently, the mountain lord was a major monster spirit that was a sky roc. It was rumored to be a formidable presence that once swallowed a Nova. That was such a long time ago, yet Li Hao had heard this gossip a few times.

    Yuan Shuo had wanted Panther to kill it before he left¡ªthe old man was afraid that the dog wouldn¡¯t die and would just eternally mooch off his disciple. Pantherzily lifted its head and regarded the bird sleepily. So weak! It couldn¡¯t be bothered with a second look.

    The bird in the air suddenly sensed something and wobbled, pping its wings mightily to stay aloft. Someone¡¯s presence red on its back to stabilize the plummeting monster spirit.

    ......

    <i>In the sky.</i>

    There was more than one person on the bird¡¯s back. A middle-aged Sr frowned slightly. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±

    Why had the Galewind Bird almost fallen out of the sky? He scanned the premises with a frown and didn¡¯t sense anything. Had a powerhouse ambushed them? But that shouldn¡¯t be the case. They represented Sky Roc Mountain and this was the core of the central region. Who would dare ambush them here?

    The big bird¡¯s mind was in a haze, but it continued forward. Once it exited the previous area, it returned to normal. Unfortunately, a bird of the Sunre level couldn¡¯t transmit thoughts and exin the situation to the group on its back. The bird, however, knew that there had been a premier major spirit beneath it just now!

    Though it only sensed a little, what it experienced was enough to terrify it. The bird swiftly vanished without daring to linger.

    ......

    <i>Inside the car.</i>

    Li Hao looked sternly at Panther and frowned. ¡°Tamp down that ancient monster spirit bloodline of yours! Stop showing off! You¡¯ll expose yourself at Skystar City before I do! What, is a random monster spirit passing by supposed to stop and kowtow to you first?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Panther looked on innocently. <i>I didn¡¯t mean to do that! I¡¯m not interested in these minor spirits! But ah, forget it, I can¡¯t exin myself.</i>

    The dog wagged its tail; Li Hao took that to mean it¡¯d retracted its presence. ¡°Turn yourself smaller, like the size of a puppy.¡±

    Panther didn¡¯t move.

    ¡°Don¡¯t think I don¡¯t know that you can change your size!¡± Li Hao snorted. ¡°I¡¯ve spent time in your stomach and know that your organs have been refined to an utmost! You turn smaller when youpress them and grow bigger when you rx them! Hurry up!¡±

    Panther whined and howled. <i>Not doing it!</i>

    ¡°Hurry up, you¡¯re well known now.¡±

    Panther was beyond dejected, but had to swallow its tears when it thought of the good days toe. It¡¯dpressed itself to a small puppy momentster. Li Hao cackled. As for himself, he didn¡¯t make too many changes. He changed clothes to appear more like a central region denizen. It was enough that he wasn¡¯t immediately recognized as a northerner.

    His short hair had grown outtely and he¡¯d started keeping a mustache. Those who weren¡¯t familiar with him wouldn¡¯t recognize him at first nce. Even those who did would treat him as an artist. Equipped with a pair of sses, long hair and a small mustache, as well as a puppy on a leash... He could be an art teacher at any school.

    Not only that, he had the silver armor block He Yong. This was to prevent He Yong from messaging him and so that the man wouldn¡¯t know that Li Hao was within five hundred kilometers of him. He Yong could not lock onto Li Hao¡¯s position, but Li Hao could lock onto his. The fellow seemed to have returned to Skystar City. A bronze armor troop leader had a very low clearance level.

    And so Li Hao slowly drove his way to Skystar City, listening to gossip on all sides as traffic started and stopped. He didn¡¯t obtain much actual information, but there was definitely a lot of gossip.

    That the people were in the mood to gossip meant that life was good. In actuality, those who could take cars to Skystar City all lived decent lives.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    A great hustle and bustle filled Skystar City. The capital of the dynasty always thronged with activity. There were people in all of the streets and alleyways, as well as cars. Compared to Silver Moon, Skystar City was full of skyscrapers. There were so many people that the city had to rely on tall buildings to divert their flow.

    However, there weren¡¯t skyscrapers everywhere. There were no such buildings in the center of Skystar City. A massive pce sat in the center of the city, guarded by soldiers in ck armor on all sides. They were the famed ck Armaturas of yesteryear. They no longer roamed the battlefield, but safeguarded the royal family that had retreated behind the scenes.

    Avenues bisected the area outside the pce. There were multiple low-rise buildings on either side of the avenues. No one remembered what they were called back in the day. These days, everyone knew them as the Avenues of the Nine Ministries.

    The nine ministries surrounded the pce like nine dragons feting a pearl. This configuration upied arge amount of territory within the vast Skystar City. There weren¡¯t tall buildings here¡ªthe tallest was no more than six stories high. They¡¯d all been built in recent years and most of them were in a vintage style¡ªor rather, they were ancient architecture.

    The sky began to dim, but there was no sign of Skystar City following suit. Lights red to life and lit up the metropolis like it was day. People rushed to and fro on the nine avenues; everyone was in a great hurry. They were almost all supernaturals, if not, they were martial masters.

    Powerhouses were as abundant as the clouds here. An inconspicuous person might be a Sr or Dominator. Power had been concentrated in the royal city for two hundred years. They¡¯d gathered endless fortune and countless elites.

    <i>At this moment, in the Night Watcher seat of administration, Hou Xiaochen¡¯s office.</i>

    Three youngsters casually strolled in. One with a de, one with a spear, and a young woman with a small face and big eyes.

    ¡°You sent for us, director?¡± Big Eyes blinked rapidly and yed cute as soon as she walked in. ¡°It¡¯s evening, are you going to treat us to a meal? The director hasn¡¯t taken us out since he¡¯s arrived at his post. I know of a ce that¡¯s delicious...¡±

    Big Eyes chattered on, an innocent expression on her face. Hou Xiaochen smiled and didn¡¯t say a word. Manager Yu poured a cup of tea for her superior and looked at Big Eyes. Killing intent suddenly shed through them. Big Eyes¡¯ heart shook, but her expression didn¡¯t change. She simply cursed to herself, <i>this old woman... is really mean! I¡¯m so cute, what are you ring at me for?</i>

    But Yu Luocha had killed countless people in her time, so it was normal for her to have more of an edge.

    ¡°What¡¯s wrong, big sister Yu? Do your eyes hurt? Do you want to go to a doctor?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no need for you to worry on my behalf,¡± the manager chuckled. ¡°You are all treasures of the Night Watchers and the director wanted to catch up with you. He also wanted to see if you are as... exemry as the rumors say.

    ¡°You are the Four Talents of the Night Watchers, but I¡¯ve only ever seen three of you.¡± Her tone sharpened. ¡°Where¡¯s the other one?¡±

 Chapter 626: Arriving at Skystar City (III)

    <h4>Chapter 626: Arriving at Skystar City (III)</h4>

    ¡°Do you mean the little priest?¡± Big Eyes fluttered hershes. ¡°Don¡¯t you know, big sister Yu? He¡¯s gone into closed door cultivation. The little priest waste Nova before and almost at peak Nova. He¡¯ll probably be peak Nova when he emerges, or even metamorphosis. He¡¯s really something...

    ¡°Do you want to get him out of seclusion, big sister Yu? The little priest is really something.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen smiled before Manager Yu had a chance to respond. ¡°Alright then, let him stay in seclusion. That¡¯s just as well.¡± He smiled benignly at the three. ¡°What are you guys up totely? I hear that you¡¯re tracking down Indigo Moon?¡±

    Spear and de didn¡¯t respond.

    ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± giggled Big Eyes. ¡°Everyone should kill those of the three great organizations! We received word that Indigo Moon hase to Skystar City. Perhaps there¡¯s a plot brewing, so we¡¯re hunting her. What a pity that she hides herself well and we¡¯ve been unable to catch a glimpse of her.

    ¡°Indigo Moon is apparently from Silver Moon too,¡± she tittered. ¡°As fellow martial masters from back in the day, big sister Yu and Deputy Hou both know her exact identity and appearance, don¡¯t you? Why don¡¯t big sis join us...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no rush, Indigo Moon by herself won¡¯t raise a fuss.¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled widely. ¡°Upstairs has given me additional missionstely that I¡¯m sure you three know about.¡±

    ¡°We do. Is the deputy director sending us to kill members of the three great organizations?¡± Big Eyes beamed merrily. ¡°We can do that, we¡¯d like that. But the three great organizations are gathered at the City of Supernaturals and there are Arcanus supernaturals holding down the fort there. How about the deputy director run interference for us while we have some fun at the city...¡±

    Manager Yu¡¯s eyes sharpened with a cold look. She didn¡¯t like these kids, especially Big Eyes. They were so unruly! The girl had interrupted before Hou Xiaochen could finish, that was very bad. Even the renowned Demon Sword of Silver Moon wouldn¡¯t talk to Hou Xiaochen this way.

    Of course, she knew this was the central region. But so what?

    She looked sharply at Big Eyes; all three Heaven Favored shook when they suddenly felt a hint of killing intent.

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± Hou Xiaochen coughed a few times and looked at Yu Luocha. She retracted her killing intent and refrained from looking at the trio. She sat down to continue her business.

    The three continued to be inwardly surprised. Intelligence reports indicated that Yu Luocha was only mid Nova. The three of them werete Novas and steadily progressing to peak Nova. They were also Heaven Favored who¡¯d already killed peak Novas. Once they entered peak Nova, they might be able to fight those above their level of strength, such as metamorphosis experts. But just now, they¡¯d been frightened by someone¡¯s killing intent.

    As they thought, these veteran martial masters weren¡¯t easy characters to consort with! They¡¯d killed so many that their killing intent was truly abundant. Yu Luocha was also different from Yellow Dragon and the others. Yellow Dragon adopted a half fawning attitude against these youngsters; Hou Xiaochen seemed ready to do the same. Yu Luocha, however, showed them a bad attitude.

    Hou Xiaochen coughed for a while to interrupt the awkwardness and started anew with a smile on his face. ¡°The City of Supernaturals is a bit far and we¡¯ve yet to find our footing in Skystar. We can leave the city be for now...¡± He paused and smiled when Big Eyes didn¡¯t interject again. ¡°We¡¯ll be concentrating our attentions in Skystar City instead...¡±

    ¡°What does the deputy director want us to do?¡± asked the young man with the de. He was utterly fearless. ¡°We will not shirk our duty in what can be done, but ask that you look elsewhere if it is something that we cannot do!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s nothing much, I just wanted to secure the duties of Skystarmander. The Night Watchers are the only official supernatural agency recognized by the nine ministries and royal family, the only one approved forw enforcement over supernaturals.

    ¡°The Skystarmander oversees all of the supernatural agencies in the central region. However, now... You may be unaware that we arrested some people a few days ago, but they weren¡¯t that useful as we didn¡¯t take anyone with sufficient standing. Those who we killed didn¡¯t grasp enough authority.¡±

    The trio¡¯s hearts quailed! <i>Not enough?! You killed the Steadfast Duke¡¯s younger brother and put many Xu n members in jail! You took down the vice headmaster of the Skystar Academy, how is that not enough?</i>

    Who else was higher than them? The first and second-inmand of the nine ministries? Or the other dukes, princes, or descendants of the royal family? Or headmasters of the oher academies??

    They didn¡¯t understand what Hou Xiaochen wanted to do. Did he just want to consolidate his authority? What good would that do?

    They weren¡¯t even aware of what goals Hou Xiaochen had in the central region. What did he want to aplish? He¡¯d kicked up such a disturbance that it really seemed like he thought of himself as invincible!

    The three of them were brash, but not stupid. There was too much involved here and the situation was exceedingly perilous. After the Arcanus cultivation realm was revealed, the trio was well aware that further disturbance might provoke action from the sixth cultivation realm!

    And Hou Xiaochen?

    He didn¡¯t rival an Arcanus after he unsealed himself, did he?

    ¡°Director Hou, who... do you have your eyes set on?¡± Big Eyes stop tittering.

    ¡°Not I, but thews, the rules, our duties!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°These aren¡¯t my own thoughts, but that of the entire Night Watchers! This is how things should be done. We should cement our right to administer thew instead of milling about with confusion. Do we even look like the only supernaturalw enforcement agency at the moment?¡±

    The trio fell silent.

    ¡°Forget it, it looks like you do not have this kind of courage,¡± Hou Xiaochen sighed. ¡°This kind of daring and resolution lies with your fourth member, the one who dared kill the grandson of the Yama leader. You can discuss this after he emerges from seclusion.¡±

    It was a very tant attempt to egg them on, but the youngsters chose silence. Hou Xiaochen narrowed his eyes with some regret. It looks like the fearless act they put on was truly just an act. That made sense as they wouldn¡¯t have lived to present day were they truly this foolish.

    ¡°Go about your business then.¡±

    ¡°Director, we...¡± The one with the de was conflicted and wanted to say something.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, go on!¡±

    Big Eyes was no longer beaming. She also struggled with her thoughts before nodding. ¡°Then we take our leave!¡±

    When the three left, Manager Yu said faintly, ¡°Theyck a bit of resolution...¡±

    ¡°We can¡¯t say that!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°We¡¯re not familiar with them. Those youngsters don¡¯tck for potential, strength, and courage. It¡¯s just that we¡¯re strangers to each other. They¡¯re not fools¡ªthey won¡¯t so easily be a weapon in our hands.¡±

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say a few more words, director? Perhaps you could¡¯ve persuaded them.¡±

    ¡°The three of them are not the heart of their little group. The one in seclusion is. He¡¯s the one who killed Yama¡¯s grandson and stole the Heaven¡¯s Dictate. If he doesn¡¯t emerge, these three... will see small matters through, but won¡¯t put a toe over the line in more serious matters.¡±

    Manager Yu found the oue regretful, then smiled when she thought of something. ¡°Too bad Li Hao¡¯s not here, otherwise...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°I¡¯d have such a headache if he was here! He looked so apprehensive and shy before, but I knew he was a second Yuan Shuo when he visited the eastern continent. No, he¡¯s even crazier than Yuan Shuo. If he came with me, he might cause trouble for me before I say a word!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true.¡±

    ......

    <i>At the same time, outside Skystar City.</i>

    Li Hao crossed the Skystar Sea and smiled at the splendid, sprawling metropolis in the distance. ¡°I¡¯vee to see you, Director Hou!¡± He didn¡¯t know that many people in the vast dynastic capital. The young man didn¡¯t want to seek out He Yong, so that left only Hou Xiaochen¡¯s group.

    Indeed, Li Hao didn¡¯t n on skulking around in the shadows. What could one see of the world if their status was too low? He had to find someone ced in a high position!

    Therefore, he¡¯d thought of a n before he came. He would have a tearful reunion with Hou Xiaochen. H<i>e¡¯ll be so happy to see me! And Golden Spear, Mu Lin, Manager Yu... They¡¯ll be delighted to see a familiar face in a strange ce.</i>

    ¡°I¡¯m a monthte, but thank goodness I¡¯m not toote!¡± He could already sense the excitement, agitation, happiness, and worship that the others would greet him with when they saw him. <i>They must be so jealous that I wrecked the Steadfast Duke¡¯splex!</i>

    When he set foot into Skystar City, it was like he¡¯d traveled to another world. It was so flourishing and crowded with a raucous din! Some flew, others walked, and cars drove along the streets. Skyscrapers forested the city and roads traveled everywhere. People bustled to and fro, a veritable hotbed of activity.

    He would¡¯ve never known that a city could be so prosperous if he hadn¡¯t visited Skystar City. Lights zed in the darkness and supernaturals put on magic shows not too far away. There were even some prodding minor monster spirits elsewhere to entertain the crowd. Was this the lives of lofty supernaturals and monster spirits in the capital? Did they have to demean themselves to this level for a bite to eat?

    A troop of people in Inspectorate uniforms walked over from the end of the street. A dozen of them were led by a first rank inspector. He was a Sunre! So a Sunre... could only be a first rank inspector?

    Li Hao was bewildered by the sight and suddenly felt that his knowledge of the world was too shallow! He didn¡¯t find the Night Watcher headquarters after a look around. Where was he supposed to go in such a vast city?

    There should be someone who knows where the headquarters are... The young man led the tiny Panther into the city proper. Just the outskirts alone stunned him.

    <i>Skystar City, here Ie!</i>

    ......

    Skystar City was incredibly enormous. The newly arrived Li Hao was as if an idiot. There was no helping it, he waspletely lost and had to ask for directions. Passersby were perfectly willing to tell him which road and which bus to take, or where to transfer and then which road to take...

    He understood their instructions, but there were too many damned cars and people. He was turned around and around by them all. Just as he floundered around, a short girl of roughly sixteen years old winked at him.

    ¡°Hey there, want a guide?¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Another fatty?</i>

 Chapter 627: Finally Seeing Brother Hou (I)

    <h4>Chapter 627: Finally Seeing Brother Hou (I)</h4>

    Li Hao frowned when he thought of the fatty that he¡¯d met before. <i>Do I look that easy to con? Does everyone want to drag me off somewhere to kill me? Damn it, is everyone in the central region like this? This is the heart of Skystar Dynasty! Do people like that live and operate in the open like this??</i>

    Killing intent shed out of his eyes. This kind of evil from such a small kid... Although Li Hao himself was only twenty years old, he still felt that for someone of the girl¡¯s age to be so malicious meant that the entire city abruptly invited his hatred!

    The girl wore slightly tattered clothing, but they were clean and the holes properly patched up. There were even flowers embroidered on them, albeit slightly ugly flowers... She was startled by Li Hao¡¯s look and mumbled, ¡°You can just say no if you don¡¯t want a guide. Why scare someone like that for?¡±

    Li Hao heaved a long breath. Once bitten, twice shy. He¡¯d trusted the fatty very much so at first and felt that the world was filled with love. He¡¯d almost been hauled off for the mines for it, so he was much more wary now. But upon thinking that he was in the royal capital... he could not think that the girl was all she appeared to be.

    However, the young man was indeed rather befuddled at the moment. He didn¡¯t care if she was a fraud. ¡°Do you know where the Avenues of the Nine Ministries are?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± The girl¡¯s eyes lit up. ¡°I¡¯m a walking map of Skystar City! I¡¯m very familiar with them. Are you going to one ce or many ces?¡±

    ¡°Just there. I¡¯ll decide what to do next if I don¡¯t find who I¡¯m looking for.¡±

    ¡°One hundred star coins! You have to pay for any additional expenses you incur along the way.¡±

    One hundred star coins... Li Hao would¡¯ve thought that to be a princely sum before. It wasn¡¯t until he reached the central region that he learned it wasn¡¯t much. As for hailing a taxi... a country bumpkin such as him didn¡¯t know about taxis.

    There were actually taxi stands nearby, but whether it was White Moon City or Silver City, cars were reserved for the rich. The rich did not drive others around, so the possibility didn¡¯t ur to Li Hao.

    ¡°Alright!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    The girl looked at him. <i>He¡¯s not an idiot, is he? Is he a foreigner? </i>

    Probably!

    She¡¯d thought that there was no hope of doing business when the young man said he was going to the Avenues of the Nine Ministries, so she randomly quoted one hundred star coins. Taking a taxi there would cost only seventy or eighty, but the fool agreed to her price!

    Well, on the other hand, perhaps foreigners didn¡¯t know how much the taxis cost.

    ¡°Thene with me.¡± The girl¡¯s radiant smile broadened. ¡°The Avenues are pretty far away, so I¡¯ll find you a cheap way to get there. I promise I¡¯ll save you money!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care; he took a deep breath.<i> I really don¡¯t want toe to this lousy ce. It¡¯s so big that I, the vaunted Demon Sword, got lost in here! </i>No one would believe it if word got out!

    He followed the girl off the bus tform and walked to the side. Li Hao waspletely fearless at the moment! He was in Ole Hou¡¯s territory. Whoever tried to swindle him next would be served with a sh from his sword. He¡¯d leave them all to Ole Hou to handle! There were a lot of people who wanted to kill him!

    The young man knew even more so that theserge factions gave certain consideration to face. As part of the nine ministries and a high rank chiefmissioner, these people had to give consideration to his rank. They wouldn¡¯t touch him out of that concern!

    It was why he¡¯d darede to Skystar City. As for ambushes from the shadows... that was a possibility he¡¯d considered as well. There was He Yong and Hou Xiaochen here. If a struggle truly broke out, he would be in charge of suppressing their seals after the fact. Those two unsealed could match Arcanus supernaturals.

    With that in mind and a sneer on his face, he followed the little girl into an alley. The smirk quickly faded away, reced with wordlessness. The girl wheeled out a battered bicycle from the alleyway!

    ¡°There¡¯s traffic!¡± she quickly exined at seeing Li Hao¡¯s reaction. ¡°Don¡¯t you know that it gets crazy congested on the way to the Avenues of the Nine Ministries? It¡¯s at least two hours by car and much faster to bike¡ªhalf an hour at most! You can just give me ten star coins for the ride!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re taking me there?¡±

    ¡°Yeah!¡± the girl responded matter-of-factly. ¡°Of course I am! Ten coins is the same fare as the buses, but the buses will get caught in traffic too! You don¡¯t look like you¡¯re from around here, so you¡¯re not familiar with the city. I¡¯ll take you on my bike and also introduce Skystar City to you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. <i>I rode a bike all the time when Imuted to work. Oh, that poor bike of mine stuck in the big house in Silver City. I wonder if anyone¡¯s squatting in it. </i>¡°That¡¯s fine, take me there!¡±

    He couldn¡¯t be bothered with saying anything else. Traveling via bike was just as well, he could take a look around on their way to their destination. He definitely needed to study the streets, otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t know which way to run in this sted ce if someone wanted to chase him down.

    Possibilities for retreat were constantly on Li Hao¡¯s mind. As for why someone would be hunting him in Skystar City... Who knew?

    The girl was overjoyed and flung a leg over her bike, then patted the back seat. ¡°Get on! Oh yeah, you need to hold your dog... What about your luggage?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t have any.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t have luggage?¡± The girl quickly recovered from her surprise. ¡°You¡¯ve got a ce to stay here, don¡¯t you? You¡¯ll have toe back after your business is concluded... You can look for me then too!¡±

    Li Hao smiled and climbed onto the backseat without a word. He didn¡¯t offer to pedal as he¡¯d spent money for this service. Additionally, he didn¡¯t recognize the roads. The little girl was spindly enough that she probably couldn¡¯t move him. He and Panther together had to weigh at least four hundred kilograms. Therefore, the young man hovered slightly in the air when the girl started pedaling.

    ¡°You¡¯re so light...¡± She turned back for a look.

    ¡°Eyes on the road!¡± Li Hao barked. Arge car zoomed past them. <i>Do you not look at the roads when you ride?!</i>

    Utterly fearless, the girl whipped her head back to the front. As bold as she was, she didn¡¯t forget that she¡¯d been hired as a guide. She lifted her chin at a nearby structure. ¡°Look, that¡¯s the most famous establishment in the eastern quadrant of the city¡ªthe Elysian Fields. Hehe, you men like to go there. It fills an entire block and is apparently not that expensive...¡±

    Li Hao was unmoved. The girl stopped and started along the way. Although he was nearlypletely hovering in the air, she steadily grew more fatigued. It looked like her physique wasn¡¯t much to look at. She took her duties as a guide seriously and introduced everything they passed by.

    Li Hao listened quietly andmitted everything to memory. Soon enough, there were a few less buildings around them.

    ¡°There are nine avenues that we¡¯re headed to, which one do you want? Which location along the avenue are you looking for? They¡¯re all very, very long and run in different directions.¡±

    ¡°The Inspectorate, the Night Watchers.¡±

    ¡°Oh? You want to go there?¡± The girl was surprised. ¡°That¡¯s where supernatural powerhouses gather. Are you looking for someone?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Are you a supernatural too?¡± she answered herself before Li Hao had a chance to. ¡°No way. Most supernaturals don¡¯t dare go there. Are you looking for a friend or a rtive?¡±

    ¡°Friend, I¡¯d say.¡±

    ¡°Then be careful,¡± she lowered her voice. ¡°I¡¯ve heard people say that the Night Watchers weed a new director a few days ago. He¡¯s mean as heck! He killed a lot of people a few days ago and even caused a mess at Skystar Academy! That¡¯s the royal academy! I hear people say that he¡¯s not long for this world. Your ent sounds like you¡¯re from the north... You¡¯re not looking for someone he brought, are you?¡±

    The girl turned fearful. ¡°Let me give you a warning, you probably shouldn¡¯t. People say that no one he brought with him will make it back to the north alive!¡±

    ¡°This is the royal city, are people that bold?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°So what about the royal city?¡± dismissed the girl. ¡°There¡¯s plenty of darkness below the ground. Some major hotshot died outside the pcest year. Apparently, he drowned to death in the sewers. Pfft, we all know that he was a supernatural, so who believes that? No one dares look into it, he¡¯s just dead. They say that he had something to do with the royal family...¡±

    The girl suddenly snapped her mouth shut. ¡°That was just some gossip, you shouldn¡¯t don¡¯t believe me. If you¡¯re really from the north, leave after you see your friend. Your friend¡¯s not some major hotshot, is he? He should be fine if he¡¯s just a minor cog.¡±

    Li Hao smiled. The girl liked to run her mouth. She spoke of anything and everything. He¡¯d thought that he¡¯d leave her behind after reaching his destination, but couldn¡¯t help but ask, ¡°How did you know I needed a guide just now?¡±

    ¡°You look like an outsider!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Was it that obvious? ¡°Am I wearing the wrong clothes or something like that? I feel like I was the same as the rest waiting at the bus stop.¡±

    ¡°You were so different!¡± the girl snorted. ¡°The others were either nose deep in newspapers or waiting patiently. You were the only one looking around like... ahem, like you didn¡¯t know how to get where you were going.¡±

    She¡¯d almost said like a country bumpkin entering town.

    ¡°Also, we take the crosswalks when crossing the street, but you change straight into the roads. Judging from your actions, you¡¯ve never seen such arge road before, haven¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Haoughed. He was being thought less of! But he didn¡¯t mind. ¡°You¡¯re out earning a living at such a young age?¡±

    ¡°Who¡¯s young??¡± The girl scowled, but recalled that Li Hao was paying her. She immediately giggled, ¡°Isn¡¯t it nice to earn money as soon as possible to support your family?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true, but don¡¯t you want to study?¡± asked Li Hao. ¡°The royal city has a good education system and you¡¯re of the age to study.¡±

    ¡°Study... pfft!¡± the girl dismissed. ¡°That would¡¯ve been useful twenty years ago, what good is studying now? It¡¯s only worth something if you go to one of the supernatural academies. If not, there¡¯s absolutely no point even after graduating! They don¡¯t care how many books you¡¯ve read or if you can read and write, they only care about how strong you are when ites to being an official!

    ¡°Everyone will want you if you¡¯re strong. No one cares about your abilities if you¡¯re not. One of the teachers at my old school knew everything from geography to astronomy. But the school closed down and I saw my teacher selling vegetables in the market a few days ago.

    ¡°It looks like you¡¯ve done some studying too, haven¡¯t you? Are you here to look for a job?¡±

 Chapter 628: Finally Seeing Brother Hou (II)

    <h4>Chapter 628: Finally Seeing Brother Hou (II)</h4>

    ¡°Don¡¯t hold out for too much hope,¡± the girl murmured. ¡°With the rise of the supernatural, there¡¯s no hope for ordinary people like us. If you want a job, one of them supernaturals can be one hundred of you! People are even using supernaturals for hardbor. Workers were needed to build houses before, but now supernaturals can do it in a few seconds.

    ¡°What¡¯s the point of studying? Do you want to study to be a teacher, then have your school shut down so you can sell vegetables in the market? If you¡¯re an ountant because you¡¯re good at math, a supernatural is still stronger than you. They finish their calctions in the blink of an eye while you¡¯ve spent half a day messing with numbers. People can hire supernaturals toe once a month¡ªthey¡¯ll finish the same amount of work that you do in an entire month <i>and</i> they¡¯re cheap.

    ¡°So... don¡¯t look at all these tall buildings and the general picture of riches. Life has gotten so much harder for us ordinary people after the rise of the supernaturals. We could fill our bellies before, but now it¡¯s so hard to make money!¡±

    Li Hao started, then nodded. That was true! Hong Yitang once said that supernaturals should do things for the ordinary citizens. But after Li Hao arrived in Skystar City, the girl¡¯s conversation helped him suddenly realize that the abundance of supernaturals resulted inpressing the room for survival for mundanes instead.

    There were no jobs involving hardbor or mental tasks avable. Thus, there was no purpose in an education and it was harder than before to put food on the table. Li Hao sank into deep thought.

    ¡°Do you think supernaturals are good or bad?¡± he asked after a moment.

    ¡°It¡¯s good if I have those powers and bad if I don¡¯t!¡± the girl responded without hesitation. ¡°If I don¡¯t, then my life is awful. If I do, then it¡¯sfortable. Those officials should prevent the supernaturals from taking our jobs!

    ¡°Or they should find new jobs for us. Not everyone can be supernatural. We¡¯re almost starving on the streets now.¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head; that was true. The bike rolled into an area with ancient ir.

    ¡°We need to get off here,¡± said the girl. ¡°Only officials can drive or ride a bike around the nine ministries. We can only walk on the ground and make sure you don¡¯t look around. We might be arrested, that would be really bad.

    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t look at anyone who¡¯s dressed in luxurious clothing. Those are all important people, so you might be taken away or even killed. Nothing will happen to them as all they need to do is p onto you the crime of being one of the three great organizations. No one will plead your case for you.¡±

    ¡°They can do this right in front of the nine ministries?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°Of course! They just need the proper background!¡±

    The young man¡¯s tightly furrowed brows rxed. That was true, it just took getting used to. It seemed that everyone was familiar with the state of affairs. Special privileges were an ustomed part of life.

    Li Hao alighted from the bicycle with no further questions. The girl pushed her bike to a parking spot while he looked ahead of them. There was an avenue that led to the depths, so deep that it resembled an abyss that would eat him. As long as the avenue was, it was not one of the Avenues of the Nine Ministries. It wasn¡¯t the Avenue of the Inspectorate either, that was just what the people called it.

    The official name as written on the road sign was the Nine Dragons Street. The nine dragons feted a pearl and enveloped the royal family with a cocoon of protection. These days, the protectors of yesteryear had turned their safeguard into a besiegement.

    The little girl parked her battered bike and swiftly trotted back. ¡°I told you it wasn¡¯t far away.¡± She beamed merrily. ¡°It would¡¯ve taken an hour if you took a taxi. You would¡¯ve just about died in traffic!

    ¡°Oh, keep your dog close. Don¡¯t let it pee or poop anywhere. You¡¯ll be in big trouble then!¡± she offered a few more reminders before pointing ahead. ¡°That¡¯s the Avenue of the Inspectorate, a lot of agencies under the Inspectorate are on this street. The Night Watchers are up ahead, they¡¯re not too far from the Night Watcher headquarters.¡±

    She set foot on the street and kept to the side instead of walking down the middle. ¡°Remember to stay on the side.¡± She turned back to tell Li Hao. ¡°The middle is reserved for those big hotshots. Do you see that? Those who can walk in the center are very different. If we can walk in the center one day, we won¡¯t have to be like how we are now.¡±

    The sides of the street were dimmer. There were also residences and storefronts in addition to the official agencies. However, the most central of this prosperous locale didn¡¯t seem to be a good location for business. The stores were devoid of customers, yet there were people on both sides of the street.

    It seemed that most of the passersby were like Li Hao, just here for a visit to see the stately Avenue of the Inspectorate. Meanwhile, Li Hao was almost going blind! There were so many balls of light around him, such dense clusters that he could no longer discern the weak from strong. He only felt that it was brighter than day in front of him¡ªthe balls of light disappeared when he blinked.

    He would likely truly go blind if he kept watching.

    This was a new trick that he¡¯d recently mastered. Previously, he could only passively take in information around him. That could be somewhat controlled now as he could block out the balls of light if he didn¡¯t want to see them.

    There were too many powerhouses around! As expected as the heart of the dynasty¡¯s core. This was also where the central headquarters of the Inspectorate and Night Watchers were located. Who knew how many Novas there were, and possibly even Arcanus?

    But as Li Hao walked the streets, he sensed something different. Someone¡ªor rather, something¡ªwas scanning him. Was there a surveince system simr to what had been in ce at the Steadfast Duke¡¯s?

    It would make sense since this was an important area, but people could freely walk through it. inly, the nine ministries were confident that they could handle all instances of trouble.

    Whatever it was, it had no effect on Li Hao since he was a martial master¡ªand a very powerful martial master at that. He was also equipped with the bronze mirror and had absorbed a lot of dark energy. Scanning him wouldn¡¯t turn up anything.

    His head swiveled from side to side as he tantly ignored what the girl had said about not looking around. Being curious was the normal reaction when one was here, what did a child know?

    The girl didn¡¯t seem to be that familiar with the premises. She seemed to know the agencies¡¯ generalyout, but rarely came to this part of the city. She cautiously led Li Hao forward. ¡°It¡¯s all noble and respectable people around us. You¡¯ll be at the streets that lead to the pce if you take this avenue to the end. Don¡¯t go there, you aren¡¯t allowed there! The royal family... Just stay away from them, or you won¡¯t even know how you died!¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head and fished out two paper notes from his robes. ¡°We¡¯re here and I know how to proceed. Here¡¯s two hundred star coins, you don¡¯t need to give me change!¡±

    The girl was overjoyed and hastily epted the bills. She patted her pockets and found that she didn¡¯t have any change to offer either.

    ¡°Then... I ept!¡± she said awkwardly. ¡°You¡¯re such a generous person, big brother! Look for me if you ever need anything. My name is Yu Qi! I primarily guide people at the eastern quadrant. It¡¯s a bit... scary here... Ask any child showing customers around if you¡¯re in the eastern quadrant, they all know where I am!¡±

    She ran off without a look back, inly having wanted to go for a while now. She wouldn¡¯t havee here if it wasn¡¯t for the job bringing her here. Li Hao smiled; he¡¯d had a chance to be generous for once¡ªa full two hundred star coins. It was rare to bump into someone who wasn¡¯t rotten throughout, so he was in a good mood. At least the girl really had brought him to his destination.

    The young man set Panther down. Despite the dog shrinking itself to the size of a puppy, it was still pretty heavy. Li Hao fished out a top hat and ced it on his head, then summoned a sword that immediately turned into a walking cane. No, a staff!

    This was how the aristocracy dressed itself, wasn¡¯t it? Who knew?

    Li Hao smiled and set off toward the mass of light that¡¯d been present in the distance before. There were some people on the streets and a few inspectors patrolling in uniform. When they saw Li Hao¡¯s outfit and an unleashed Panther... They didn¡¯t arrest him like the girl said would happen. On the contrary, they ignored him.

    People walking dogs on the streets weren¡¯t usually an ordinary person, so no one really dared run afoul of him. The young man grew bolder when he saw this and strode to the center of the street. Panther docilely followed behind him.

    One young man and one dog openly walked down the Avenue of the Inspectorate without reservation. They proceeded until argeplex appeared in front of them. It upied arge expanse ofnd and people were on duty outside. They wore Night Watcher uniforms. These uniforms were slightly different from Inspectorate uniforms, but the difference wasn¡¯t great. Only a professional like Li Hao could identify the differences with a single nce.

    The young man approached the front gates. There were six supernaturals on duty who were moderately strong at Sunre. This array of force demonstrated the strength of the royal city. In Silver City, Sunres could be deputy directors.

    The supernaturals on duty frowned to see Li Hao walk over with a dog. But seeing at how coollyposed he was, they didn¡¯t immediately erupt with outrage.

    ¡°This is a zone restricted to Night Watchers, trespassers are not allowed!¡± one of them rumbled. ¡°If you have business or a case to discuss, report to the Inspectorate...¡±

    Li Hao disyed a medallion with a flip of his hand¡ªa token of a high rank chiefmissioner. The group paused when they saw the medallion; high rank chiefmissioner wasn¡¯t a low level official, but the one in front of them was an unfamiliar face!

    Was he not from central headquarters? From nearby provinces, maybe?

    ¡°Sir, are you...¡± One of them stepped forward.

    ¡°I¡¯m here to report for duty.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°The director had mee. Am I a little toote?¡±

    ¡°The director... Might I ask... which director?¡± He was here to report for duty?

    ¡°Director Hou Xiaochen!¡±

    The speaker blinked with surprise, but didn¡¯t dare say anything. ¡°Director Hou is in his office at the directors¡¯ building! Do you need a guide?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright!¡± Li Hao turned him down and took a few steps inside before turning back. ¡°Do you need to verify my identity?¡±

    The group blinked and someoneughed drily, ¡°No need!¡±

    Was he joking? Would anyone dare pose as a high rank chiefmissioner of the Night Watchers at their headquarters? If so, they could go straight to their deaths!

    Li Hao smiled as well. They were confident, but also damned idiotic!<i> If I¡¯m really an enemy, I would still be a threat even if I died in the end. I can take a lot of people with me! They didn¡¯t even bother checking my identity.</i>

    <i>Well, that¡¯s just as well. I can surprise the director!</i>

 Chapter 629: Finally Seeing Brother Hou (III)

    <h4>Chapter 629: Finally Seeing Brother Hou (III)</h4>

    Just as Li Hao entered the central quad of the Night Watcherplex.

    <i>In the rear, a particr director¡¯s building.</i>

    The principal director of the agency, whose special talent seemed to be that of resembling a buddha statue, was steeping tea. Night Watchers worked at night, so their work day started at night. The director, however, spent his nights drinking tea and either attending meetings in the day or going home to sleep.

    He suddenly looked outside as his tea brewed. The man gently knocked on the table. ¡°Little Ye!¡±

    A young woman walked in momentster and responded respectfully, ¡°Director!¡±

    The old man focused on his tea leaves and said slowly, ¡°Go check outside to see if Old Qin hase. He said he woulde by for a cup of tea, but there¡¯s still no sign of him. Go and see if something¡¯s happened to dy him...¡±

    ¡°Understood, I¡¯ll go immediately!¡± The woman walked out with confusion swirling in her mind. Was that so? When did Director Qin say that he wasing over? <i>The director¡¯s getting turned around in his old age and his memory¡¯s going.</i>

    Little Ye walked out of the office and down the stairs, taking a look around outside. Although she felt that it was the director with a faulty memory, it would still be best to take a look around the perimeter. There was no sign of Director Qin to be found. She was just about to visit another building when she noted the visitor headed straight for her.

    <i>This guy... is crazy to dress like this in the middle of the night! A trench coat, top hat, and a staff? What is he thinking?</i>

    Little Ye inwardlyughed at the stranger as the director¡¯s voice came from upstairs. ¡°Come back up, Little Ye, I seem to have misremembered!¡±

    The old man stuck his head out a window, prompting a sigh of relief from the woman. It was good that he was back to the present. Since he was already looking out the window, the old man scanned the premises and caught sight of Li Hao.

    The very oddly dressed Li Hao.

    Both surprised and confused, the old man looked at the puppy behind the young man. His brows gently knit together despite himself. Where had this young mane from, and with a major monster spirit in tow...?

    Li Hao also seemed to sense someone assessing him and raise his head for a look. There was a head of white hair leaning out of a window of a small building not too far away. He frowned after his quick nce. The Night Watchers were more than met the eye! He didn¡¯t see anything, not even with his special eyes, but he sensed the distinct presence of a powerhouse.

    The young man inclined his head, further surprising the old man. This young man had sensed his strength! Who was he? Openly sauntering into Night Watcher headquarters and looking to be headed to Hou Xiaochen¡¯s building from his direction... A martial master, major monster spirit, young man, sword intent...

    The old man was visibly astonished now. <i>Him?! </i>Surely not! That was impossible!

    The coollyposed old man retracted his head with amazement. He settled back down on his chair and broke outughing while sipping tea.<i> Demon Sword? Surely not! </i>Even he hadn¡¯t thought that Demon Sword would openly appear in Skystar City and the Night Watcher headquarters. But thed was a peacemakermissioner, so it was logical that he reported for work here. There was nothing wrong with his actions!

    <i>But... you just created so much trouble in the east...</i>

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen is quite bold!¡± murmured the director before he continuedughing quietly. Incredibly bold! Hou Xiaochen had summoned thed, hadn¡¯t he? The man was crazy! Not only was Hou Xiaochen crazy, but so was this Li Hao. Everyone from Silver Moon was crazy! Li Hao had been summoned to Skystar City in preparation for something big, hadn¡¯t he?

    <i>Killing just a Steadfast Duke isn¡¯t enough for you, is it? Are you going to dere war on all sides?</i>

    ¡°He seems strong enough, as does that major monster spirit... It¡¯s apparently the descendant of an ancient monster spirit! But even so, this is not Silver Moon or the east!¡± The director drank another cup of tea. His secretary Little Ye walked in again.

    ¡°Director, shall I contact Director Qin?¡±

    ¡°No need.¡± The old man smiled. ¡°Is Director Yellow around?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s out.¡±

    ¡°Has Dao Sworde out of seclusion?¡±

    ¡°Not yet.¡± The secretary grew confused. The old man didn¡¯t care about any of this normally, it was Director Yellow Dragon who oversaw affairs. Directors Yellow and Hou had been vying with each othertely, was that why the old man was paying attention to affairs now?

    An even more surprising development happened next.

    ¡°Tell Director Hou that we should share a meal when he¡¯s free,¡± chuckled the old man. ¡°The agency didn¡¯t even prepare a wee banquet for him when he arrived. I¡¯ve grown too old to keep tabs on everything these years and Little Yellow has beenx in his duties. We should host one for him...¡±

    Secretary Ye was dumbfounded, but she quickly recovered. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll go find Director Houter...¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± The old man nodded. ¡°Let¡¯s wait a while. Also, send me thetest personnel transfer files.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re... all with Director Yellow.¡±

    ¡°Go request them so I can look at them.¡±

    The secretary was astonished beyond belief. What... did the director intend by this? Despite her iprehension, she nodded again. ¡°Alright, I understand! If Director Yellow doesn¡¯t agree...¡±

    ¡°How would he not? Or should it be said... that it¡¯s time I retired?¡±ughed the old man.

    The secretary didn¡¯t dare say anything else. The tiger may be old, but his majesty was still present. The director had held sway over the Night Watchers for twenty years; he¡¯d only grown quiet in thest couple of years and drank tea or read papers if there was nothing else to do. Hepletely appeared as if he was ready to be put out to pasture, whereas Yellow Dragon charged forward at full speed.

    These days, many Night Watchers didn¡¯t even know the name of their director. What was going on tonight?

    The secretary left with boundless confusion swirling in her mind. Meanwhile, the old man looked outside again. How nice it was to be young! Youngsters were terrifying! Their strength may not be the pinnacle of their potential, but their boldness and spirit were certainly the best! This one even came with hints of killing intent.

    <i>Who are you going to kill? Who do you want to kill?</i> Are generations of Silver Moon martial masters each crazier than thest?

    The director took a sip of tea; a faint presence of vitality wafted from it. Anyone who saw it would be bowled over by shock. That was Water of Life!

    The old man breathed outfortably. How nice! One¡¯s organs came under enormous strain in their old age. His were mostly under control after several years of nurturing. He felt much morefortable!

    ¡°Don¡¯t torment an old guy like this, it¡¯s almost time for me to retire. Promoting that one to peacemakermissioner... All of you have too much time on your hands!¡± The director shook his head, a headache brewing in his temples. How would they arrange matters if that peacemakermissioner came to him as well?

    Forget it, Hou Xiaochen could do as he saw fit.

    <i>Yellow Dragon, ah Yellow Dragon. It looks like you may not be able to do much anymore. </i>The old man closed his eyes with a chuckle and put everything out of his mind. The Night Watchers still answered to Yao! Whether it was Yellow or Hou, they were all ranked beneath Yao. <i>You guys can have your own fun, little fellows!</i>

    ......

    <i>Knock knock knock!</i>

    A knocking sounded at the door. Manager Yu looked at it curiously. Who was visiting sote at night? Hou Xiaochen frowned and looked uncertainly at the door, not daring to confirm his thoughts.

    <i>Knock knock knock!</i>

    The knocking rang out again. The manager stood up; there was nothing to worry about since they were at Night Watcher headquarters. It was just... who woulde for the director sote at night?

    She walked up, opened the door, and immediately had her field of vision filled with a top hat. Manager Yu blinked before her expression shifted slightly. She tensed and her internal force almost rushed out when a familiar voice echoed in her ears.

    ¡°Long time no see, Manager Yu!¡± Their visitor spread open their arms and grabbed Manager Yu with a heartyugh. ¡°I¡¯ve missed you so much! Not seeing you for a day feels like nine months have passed! I bet the manager misses me too!¡±

    Yu Luocha stiffened with shock! <i>Am... I.... hearing things? Is that Li Hao?? This is Li Hao¡¯s voice! </i>She was just talking about the young man and was suddenly hearing his voice. This was a delusion!

    Li Hao let her go and strode forward, taking off his top hat and executing a graceful bow. ¡°Minor officer Li Hao greets the director!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen raised his tea cup for a sip to suppress his spontaneous anger. Or rather, it was an incredulity, a confusion and bewilderment that almost raged out of control. For a split second, he thought he was back in Silver Moon. Li Hao was here!

    A person hunted by the entire world was here! Completely out in the open and not a care in the world, thed knocked on his office door to say that he was here!

    Yu Luocha rubbed her stiff cheeks and closed the door to focus on the room again. It was shoved open before she could close it. A dog looked innocently at her.

    <i>Are you blind? I¡¯m not inside yet!</i>

    Manager Yu seemed able to read the meaning in the dog¡¯s eyes and stiffened. This dog... Panther... Was it the descendant of the ancient monster spirit? But why... was it a puppy now?

    Contrary to her usual aloofposure, Yu Luocha teetered on the edge of a mental breakdown. She quietly returned to her seat and looked at Li Hao, then at Panther, and finally at the director. <i>Director... stop drinking tea, will you? Are you surprised?</i>

    Li Hao rose when he didn¡¯t receive a response. ¡°Is my etiquette not up to par?¡± he asked with confusion. ¡°Is the director not happy to see me?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m happy...¡± Hou Xiaochen put down his cup with slightly stilted motions. ¡°I¡¯m quite happy. How did you get here?¡±

    ¡°By car, and then by bike.¡±

    ¡°Then... have you eaten?¡±

    ¡°Not yet.¡±

    ¡°Do you want some dinner?¡±

    ¡°Alright then.¡± Li Hao nodded after some thought. ¡°You haven¡¯t eaten either, have you? My treat then, director! It¡¯s just that Skystar City is a bit expensive. I had to pay two hundred coins to have someone bring me here via bike!¡±

    It was Hou Xiaochen¡¯s first time meeting someone like the young man and he was at a momentary loss for words. ¡°That¡¯s fine, put it down for reimbursement!¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, you¡¯re so generous, director!¡±

    This was being generous?

    Quite resigned, Hou Xiaochen breathed out after a long moment. ¡°It... is... so... good... to... see... you...¡±

 Chapter 630: Nine Dragons Pagoda (I)

    <h4>Chapter 630: Nine Dragons Pagoda (I)</h4>

    ¡°Mmhmm, I think so too. I knew that the director would be happy to see me!¡± Li Hao smiled radiantly. ¡°Even though I¡¯m a monthte, I¡¯m still here. I feel so at ease at seeing the director again!¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. Manager Yu did so as well, with a hint of resignation in her mirth. What kind of conversation was this? The director was probably all turned around!

    Three humans and one dog stared at each other in an office. No one said a word. Li Hao was waiting for Hou Xiaochen to get up to go to dinner. There were too many people here, they should find a quieter ce for dinner. It would be reimbursed, anyways. But... why was the director just sitting there?

    Hou Xiaochen was digesting thetest developments, gearing up for motion, and thinking. He smiled after a long moment. <i>He¡¯s already here... it¡¯s not like I can throw him out. It¡¯s just as well that he¡¯s here!</i>

    The director heaved a long sigh and looked at Li Hao with a smile that was much more natural this time. ¡°Let¡¯s go to dinner! I am soforted that Little Li Hao is here. Little Yu, make a reservation for a grand meal at... the Nine Dragons Pagoda!¡±

    Manager Yu sucked in a sharp breath. The director was crazy! What kind of ce was the Nine Dragons Pagoda?? That was where the major personages of the nine ministries went to make merry and seek entertainment.

    <i>You want to take Li Hao there? Don¡¯t you think we have enough trouble on our hands? </i>Her head ached fiercely and she suddenly wanted to go back to Silver Moon...

    Meanwhile, Hou Xiaochen had decided to throw caution to the wind. Thed was here already, was he supposed to send the boy away? Since the young man was here, they might as well have a grander time of things.

    Of course, the duties that they should carry out still needed to bepleted. As the Skystarmander and a deputy director of the Night Watchers, he had some responsibilities to uphold.

    ¡°Li Hao.¡± Hou Xiaochenughed before they set out and swiftly scribbled something on a piece of paper. ¡°You achieved certain merits before this, so the Inspectorate promoted you to peacemakermissioner. You are to patrol your territory and ensure that peace and tranquility reside within it. This means you have important duties at hand now as well.

    ¡°Since you¡¯ve juste to the central region, it will be troublesome for you to apply for some other positions. You¡¯ll need to pass many checks...¡± Hou Xiaochen finished writing on the paper. ¡°Therefore, in my position as the Skystarmander, I rmend you as the Skystar vicemander. The vicemander doesn¡¯t need to be audited by the Inspectorate, it can be an internal decision through the Night Watchers. You will be the vicemander so long as our director agrees!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. The Skystar vicemander? What did that do? That wasn¡¯t important¡ªmore importantly was that he¡¯d been promoted and didn¡¯t know about it! Peacemakermissioner! Didn¡¯t that ce him on the same level as Hou Xiaochen?

    <i>No wait...</i>

    The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes grew odd as he recalled a certain detail. ¡°Director... I heard people say on the road... that you¡¯ve... been demoted to high rank chiefmissioner?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen halted and looked at Li Hao. <i>What do you mean by that?</i>

    ¡°And I¡¯ve been promoted to peacemakermissioner?¡± the young manughed dryly.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, you¡¯re higher rank than me. What are you trying to say?¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled at him.

    Li Hao looked around sheepishly. <i>I didn¡¯t want to say anything, I just wanted to say... that your rank isn¡¯t as high as mine after several decades of service. Damn, doesn¡¯t that suck!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen couldn¡¯t be bothered to continue the conversation. A knock sounded on the office door momentster. Everyone knew that someone hade¡ªLi Hao didn¡¯t know who the visitor was. Hou Xiaochen did and smiled in the direction of the door.<i> You¡¯ve got such sharp ears and eyes. Your people arrive as soon as Li Hao does.</i>

    ¡°Enter!¡± Little Ye pushed the door open and looked at Li Hao¡ªthe weird person she¡¯d noted earlier. She didn¡¯t recognize the young man, so she didn¡¯t greet him, but she did seem a bit wary of Hou Xiaochen.

    ¡°Director Hou, the director says that we didn¡¯t host a wee banquet for you and wishes to take you out to dinner sometime during these two days...¡± She bent at the waist.

    ¡°Sounds good!¡± Hou Xiaochen agreed readily¡ªso readily that, despite this being a natural course of action, it made Little Ye ufortable that he didn¡¯t ask anything.

    ¡°Take this back with you.¡± Hou Xiaochen directed a sheet of paper to drift over. ¡°Have the director look it over and sign it.¡±

    Little Ye regarded it doubtfully.

    ¡°Just take it back for the director to look at.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Little Ye didn¡¯t dare ask further. This person was a serial killer, a heartless man! He¡¯d confiscated anything he wanted from the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor at the drop of a hat. She didn¡¯t dare object to whatever he did, particrly as the old director primarily ocused on keeping himself in good health these days. He didn¡¯t have much authority in the Night Watchers anymore.

    As for what Hou Xiaochen wanted signed, she had no idea. Little Ye tried looking at the paper, but her eyes watered at the sight. It delivered even more shock to her. So even Hou Xiaochen¡¯s written words delivered such an impact? That was terrifying!

    Little Ye didn¡¯t linger; she took another nce at Li Hao and the puppy before she left. Confusion still swirled in her heart¡ªwho was visiting Director Hou in the middle of the night?

    She left with unanswered questions. Li Hao waited for her to be gone before asking with confusion, ¡°That¡¯s... our director¡¯s secretary?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°How nice!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen blinked. What was nice about that?

    ¡°So I can have a female secretary when I¡¯m a deputy director, and it¡¯ll be the dynasty that pays her sry. I¡¯m a peacemakermissioner now. If I hire a secretary, the agency will pay her wages, right?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>Li Hao... why are you always so... different!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen had absolutely no words. <i>What in the world are you cooking at a time like this??</i>

    Manager Yupletely ignored them and lowered her head, busy with unidentifiable work.<i> Li Hao is as rich as a nation after raiding the Xu family treasury. Why is he always so cheap?</i>

    As much as they were joking, Li Hao was still considering some more serious topics. ¡°The director is the old man with white hair, right?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve met him?¡±

    ¡°I saw him when I came in just now.¡± the young man shed a grin. ¡°He¡¯s very strong!¡±

    ¡°Of course.¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. ¡°He was the director when the Night Watchers were formed twenty years ago. The nine ministries and royal family didn¡¯t want to devote additional resources to fighting the three great organizations. They wanted a de, and the director was that de! Keep in mind that in that age, even a de needed to be worthy and capable of its position. I was a de once, but I could only be used in Silver Moon. He, however, was the entire dynasty¡¯s de!¡±

    ¡°Then he¡¯s definitely strong.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°He seems to be a pure martial master! I wonder how many supernatural locks he¡¯s saturated.¡± He looked at Hou Xiaochen again. ¡°Director Hou seems to have perfected something. Have you improved in your cultivation again?¡±

    ¡°What makes you say that?¡± The man smiled, to which Li Hao responded smilingly as well.

    <i>Because you hurt my eyes before, and now you no longer do. </i>This meant that the drawbacks ortent injuries left from converting from supernatural back to martial master had been ovee. They were suppressed orpletely buried. It meant that Hou Xiaochen had undoubtedly improved and returned to being a martial master in both name and meaning.

    Therefore, he must have improved. Otherwise, he would be like Manager Yu to the side, slightly searing to the eye. That was a sign of an iplete conversion. Part of her energy couldn¡¯t be fully withdrawn into her body. That residual energy stuck out like a sore thumb to Li Hao.

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t mind this much and rose to say, ¡°Come on, let¡¯s head to the Nine Dragons Pagoda for dinner. The director should sign the paper soon. You¡¯ll be a Skystar vicemander by the time wee back.¡±

    ¡°What good is that for?¡± asked Li Hao.

    ¡°Plenty of good!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed as they walked. ¡°It¡¯s useful so long as there is a day in which the dynasty stands. Of course, the caveat is that you need to have enough strength for your position. Otherwise, you¡¯ll be killed like Xu Qing. That won¡¯t be much good then.

    ¡°It¡¯s very useful in Skystar City. This isn¡¯t the eastern continent, this is the territory of the nine ministries and royal family. If anyone dares kill a Skystar vicemander... the various factions will have to save you even if they want nothing more than your death. Of course, their response times may vary, so they¡¯ll exact revenge for you if you¡¯re killed.¡±

    Li Hao smiled with resignation. Was that it? He¡¯d thought it would be much more useful.

    ¡°There¡¯s another benefit in that you¡¯ll be assigned a house in Skystar City,¡± Manager Yu added in a chilly tone. ¡°Although it¡¯ll be very small, real estate is hard toe by in Skystar City. It¡¯ll have a prime location of being on the Avenue of the Nine Ministries.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen wanted to roll his eyes. <i>You talk of that at a time like this?</i>

    ¡°That¡¯s great!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°That¡¯s a fantastic benefit! Do I get the deed to the house?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen couldn¡¯t be bothered with these two. Was Little Yu being affected by Li Hao¡¯s weirdness as well? ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±

    Li Hao followed by the manager¡¯s side as they talked. ¡°If I¡¯m a peacemakermissioner, do I get a car?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°When?¡±

    ¡°Tomorrow.¡±

    ¡°Do I have to find my own driver, or do I drive myself?¡±

    ¡°Up to you.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve never remembered to ask, but what rank are you, Manager Yu?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The woman ignored that question. <i>You just want to know who¡¯s ranked higher. You¡¯re higher, happy now?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen continued to be speechless up ahead.

    ¡°Ah, yes. Where are Senior Golden Spear and the others?¡±

    ¡°Out on patrol of Skystar City,¡± Manager Yu exined. ¡°Keep a low profile here and be careful. You need a legitimate pretext for any actions you undertake. You¡¯ll be in grave trouble if you don¡¯t! It¡¯s a good thing that the Night Watchers are thus far the only officially recognized supernaturalw enforcement agency. We have the right to administer thew, remember this well.¡±

    Nothing else mattered.

    ¡°So, no one will be able to bring me in if Imit a crime, is that so?¡± Li Hao asked, deep in thought.

    ¡°Yes,¡± the manager answered. ¡°But Director Hou calls the shots only inside the Night Watcher. We have no recourse if someone else puts out a warrant for your arrest.¡±

 Chapter 631: Nine Dragons Pagoda (II)

    <h4>Chapter 631: Nine Dragons Pagoda (II)</h4>

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I know of a deputy director named Yellow Dragon who seems to be at odds with Director Hou. How strong is he?¡±

    ¡°He made it to metamorphosis a long time ago. I¡¯m not sure if he¡¯s ascended to Arcanus yet.¡± Hou Xiaochen was already downstairs. ¡°Don¡¯t think too highly of our sole right to administer thew. It¡¯s easy to join the Night Watchers¡ªanyone that the deputy directors wish to recruit may join! There is no need for any process or procedure, they can be directly appointed! That means that if someone moves against you, they¡¯ll be a fellow colleague with a single word!

    ¡°Of course, their rank will be different, so it¡¯ll be insubordination if they attack you. However, that means this bes an internal affair and judgment can wait untilter. In other words, keep as low a profile as you can within the city and don¡¯t go overboard, considering you¡¯ve just arrived. All the trouble that you make should have its purpose or goal. Don¡¯t raise a fuss for no reason at all, that would be ying a fool!¡±

    Li Hao nodded consecutively, then asked, ¡°What about the Nine Dragons Pagoda...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m taking you there to familiarize yourself with certain people, so you¡¯ll know who you can provoke and who you cannot. It¡¯s also an introduction of you to everyone else. This way, you¡¯ll be less likely to get up to no good.¡±

    Li Hao was growing dejected. ¡°I¡¯d never do that!¡±

    ¡°How do you exin yourself at the Xus?¡±

    ¡°That was just making the first move! I killed Xu Zhen and Xu Feng, Light Sword killed so many of their generals. The duke wouldn¡¯t have shown us any mercy and he¡¯s very strong, so I had to strike the first blow!¡±

    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for someoneing to your rescue, you would¡¯ve died with how brash you were!¡± Manager Yu couldn¡¯t help herself.

    ¡°Not necessarily!¡± Li Hao shook his head.

    The manager couldn¡¯t be bothered with him, the kid was just refusing to admit to his weakness! However, Li Hao truly thought that way. Xu Qing was not the sort to harm himself¡ªunless he was backed into an absolute corner. If it hadn¡¯t been for his teacher and the rest, Li Hao felt that he could¡¯ve made it out.

    Those events were in the past, there was no point in speaking of them now. His teacher and the others had put their lives on the line to rescue him, so Li Hao didn¡¯t mention anything further. He just quietlymitted everything to memory.

    ¡°I won¡¯t get myself into trouble here,¡± the young man continued. ¡°Not to mention, aren¡¯t the two of you here? I feel so safe and secure, so have some more faith in me. Unseal yourself whenever you wish to, have no fear!

    ¡°If they really make me desperate, I¡¯ll justpletely break one of my supernatural locks and be a full supernatural. When my potential is released, I¡¯ll be stronger than I am now!¡±

    <i>Fully break his supernatural locks...</i>

    Li Hao pretended not to see Manager Yu¡¯s look at him. What, could he not do that? <i>I¡¯m not afraid of the five organs bursting! I can break </i>all<i> of them, not just one! My body and organs are world ss and I wouldn¡¯t die even if I break them in the absence of sword energy. I wouldn¡¯t say that I¡¯d immediately cross over to the Arcanus level, but I wouldn¡¯t immediately die to supernaturals of that level either.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t say anything further. Three humans and a dog headed to a parking lot. It looked like they would take a car to their destination.

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s car drove out to meet them as soon as the group reached the parking lot. The driver was the director¡¯s old driver¡ªhe never seemed to rest or sleep. Li Hao was rather curious what level of strength the driver was. He looked to be a pure martial master who was quite strong.

    Little Ye hurriedly ran out to meet them before they had a chance to climb into the car. She panted heavily, ¡°Director Hou... this is an order signed by the director himself. Are you guys headed out?¡±

    ¡°Out for dinner!¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Little Ye was curious, but didn¡¯t inquire in further detail. She handed the note from earlier to Hou Xiaochen.

    The manughed and tossed the note to Li Hao. As the three climbed into the car, Li Hao took a closer look at the piece of paper. There were Hou Xiaochen and the director¡¯s signatures on it.

    <i>Yao Si!</i>

    Li Hao blinked. What... kind of name was this? ¡°Our superior officer... is called Yao Si?¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°These names were verymon back in those times.¡±

    Alright then. But Yao Si... sounded exactly the same as the characters for ¡°to die¡±! What an inauspicious name. Having imed the passenger seat at the first opportunity, Li Hao beamed merrily at the order. Hehehe, he¡¯d been promoted to Skystar vicemander!

    Granted, he didn¡¯t think much of the position given his expanded worldview these days. Whether it was the Inspectorate or Ministry of Armed Forces, they were all quite rotten. But if someone was giving him money, who was he to refuse?

    Li Hao thought of the nine ministries as imaginary enemies. Wasn¡¯t it lovely to ept wealth and riches that his enemies gave him?

    The little car started driving out of the Night Watcher headquarters.

    ......

    <i>The director¡¯s building.</i>

    The old man once more approached the window and looked out of it with an indescribable expression on his face. Skystar vicemander! Hou Xiaochen was an interesting one. Had he been convinced that Yao Si would agree to the arrangement?

    Li Hao¡¯s rank was high enough¡ªhe could even step into the position of Skystarmander if he so wished. Of course, that would require a signature from the inspector general. A vicemander was something they could decide on internally.

    Where were they going now? Hou Xiaochen had remained at headquarters nearly the entire time since arriving at Skystar City. He took Li Hao out as soon as the boy came. To dinner? Where to?

    Surely not the Nine Dragons Pagoda!

    ¡°Things are getting ever more interesting!¡± The old manughed and put the matter out of his mind.

    ......

    The little car drove out of the Night Watcher headquarters and headed to the end of the Avenue of the Nine Ministries. The nine ministries were spread out like the eight trigrams¡ªexcept there were nine of them¡ªand the Nine Dragons Pagoda sat at the convergence of those nine dragons where the pce was. Indeed, the restaurant was close to the pce!

    Hou Xiaochen looked ahead and said casually, ¡°The Nine Dragons Pagoda is where a lot of major figures eat and make merry. That¡¯s what is said on the surface, but it is actually where the nine ministries keep an eye on the royal family. Only important personages go there.

    ¡°It¡¯s close to the royal pce and has a view to match the height. We can even see into the pce. There are nine floors to the Pagoda and only director level personnel can enter the ninth floor.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, then thought of another question. ¡°Who built the Nine Dragons Pagoda?¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, good question,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°The royal family built the Nine Dragons Pagoda!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. They were crazy, weren¡¯t they! <i>Why create a ce for people to monitor you with? </i>But that was an interesting thought. They inly knew that the nine ministries weren¡¯t at ease when it came to the royal family, so they decided to establish the Nine Dragons Pagoda of their own ord.

    <i>There, you guys will feel relieved now, right? Monitor us then! Monitor us all you want!</i>

    ¡°Is the royal family very strong?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    ¡°Then why... eighty years ago...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    Li Hao was rather surprised. So there were matters that Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t know of?

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t born yet eighty years ago,¡± Hou Xiaochen responded calmly. ¡°How would I know about any of that? Who knows why the royal family declined and why the nine ministries arose? Perhaps only the nine ministers and royal family know.¡±

    ¡°The major characters of the nine ministries don¡¯t go to the Nine Dragons Pagoda everyday, do they?¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°They go at least five days out of every ten!¡±

    ¡°What a carefree life.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. How is that a carefree life? <i>Well, if you think so.</i>

    The little car continued forward¡ªthe Avenues of the Nine Ministries were pretty long. A massive structure loomed into view at the end of it. Colossal and immense, it was the Skystar royal pce!

    It was slightly dim and its lights seemed more like ghost fire. Buildings elsewhere in the capital were aze with illumination, but the pce seemed exceedingly dark.

    The Nine Dragons Pagoda was situated outside of the pce, close to the eastern gate. It was a tiered structure with an ancient ir that stuck out where it stood. Only the pce once stood between the nine ministries. Now that there was a Nine Dragons Pagoda; it threw the pictureposition off bnce.

    The pagoda was entirely lit up. Li Hao opened his unique eyes and scanned it, immediately narrowing them protectively. There were many powerful supernaturals ahead! Additionally, would the noble and lofty beings of the nine ministries be unaware of the domain¡¯s drawbacks? Perhaps many of them were still martial masters, or were simr to Hou Xiaochen and the rest¡ªfirst supernatural, then martial master. If Hou Xiaochen could do it, so could others.

    He would have to approach closer to have a more urate determination.

    Li Hao abruptly frowned and manifested a small mirror in his hand. He had two¡ªthe bronze one from Qiao Feilong in Silver City. That one seemed sealed. The other one hade from the Steadfast Duke, it seemed to be a fragment. It was thetter that was trembling.

    The young man¡¯s frown deepened and he looked around him. Someone was watching them! Or rather, they were watching the car. That didn¡¯t matter, what mattered was that the tool used to surveil them might be another fragment of this mirror.

    Li Hao quickly put his fragment away, understanding that something simr must exist nearby. If that was the case... He looked toward the pce. That meant someone was keeping an eye on them from the pce.

    How interesting!

    Had the pce actually constructed the Nine Dragons Pavilion to monitor guests of the establishment instead? It provided more discreet cover for their purposes. It also seemed that the royal family¡¯s fragment wasrger and even possibly stronger. That was why Li Hao didn¡¯t sense anything to begin with. He¡¯d felt something in the duke¡¯s manor.

    <i>Do the nine ministries know about this?</i> Li Hao had seen the images generated by the mirror when he stayed with the Xus. They were so clear and sound was audible through them. Didn¡¯t that mean that anything that happened on the premises was within the royal family¡¯s purview?

    The nine ministries may not know about this. Otherwise, certain news would have leaked out at some point, given all the foot traffic that this establishment saw. It was also a possibility that they were of the mind to release fake news instead.

    Li Hao could already sense the undercurrent of schemes and counterplotting before he even set foot into the Nine Dragons Pavilion. Behind him, Hou Xiaochen nced quizzically at the young man.

 Chapter 632: Nine Dragons Pagoda (III)

    <h4>Chapter 632: Nine Dragons Pagoda (III)</h4>

    ¡°Someone¡¯s watching us,¡± Li Hao transmitted.

    ¡°That¡¯s to be expected,¡± a calm Hou Xiaochen replied out loud. ¡°Whether it is the nine ministries or the royal family, they can¡¯t possibly turn aplete blind eye to the movements of powerhouses. My car driving out of Night Watcher headquarters will also attract attention.¡±

    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be so confident as to reply out loud, director. Someone might be eavesdropping on us.¡±

    ¡°The situation isn¡¯t that exaggerated,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°I would sense it if that was the case.¡±

    ¡°What if it was a fragment of the ancient mirror treasure, the Sky Gander?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen blinked and took a long moment to reply, ¡°That... shouldn¡¯t be the case... It¡¯d be more likely for there to be an imitation fragment. The real Sky Gander was omnipotent ording to what the ancient records say. It was so incredibly powerful that it could easily epass the entire world in its purview. No modern person could hope tomand even one of its fragments.¡±

    Li Hao was surprised that the director actually knew about the ancient treasure.

    ¡°What you took out just now was one such fragment, wasn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡±

    ¡°Use it well,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled. ¡°You can try refining it. Others may not be able to, but you might. If you can refine it... it will be useful in terms of eavesdropping and surveince.¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t continue the conversation. He¡¯d already tried refining it, but this thing seemed to just be a fragment. There was no spirituality to it, so refining it was out of the question.

    ......

    The little car stopped in front of the Nine Dragons Pavilion as they chatted. Several female supernaturals enthusiastically rushed forward to open the car doors. Li Hao was astonished to see that the establishment¡¯s greeters were all supernaturals. This was a massive payroll expenditure, but it also made sense. This was the core of the entire world!

    The royal family had built this ce to entertain the most important personages of the nine ministries. As such, there were plenty of lowly Darkmoons and Sunres to be seen.

    ¡°Greetings to Commander Hou, your visit brings us great honor...¡± A woman of roughly thirty years old walked out of the structure. As opposed to the seductive charms that one might expect, she appeared innocent, yet capable. Most people who projected an innocent air were also naive and inexperienced. This woman, however, gave one an exceedinglypetent impression.

    It was a very unique temperament!

    The woman smiled faintly as the car door opened. She paused when she saw Li Hao. This outfit... where did this weirdoe from?

    Hou Xiaochen and his twopanions alighted without saying anything; the driver steered the car out of sight. Li Hao looked around with admiration¡ªthey were so rich here! Massive mysterious power stones adorned the entrance as lights. They exuded a hint of mysterious power and appeared particrly pure. Visitors were immediately graced with afortable sensation as soon as they arrived.

    Some flowers and nts grew in front of the doors. Li Hao identified energy emanating from them when he took a closer look. These were probably heavenly and earthly treasures.

    Hou Xiaochen was unperturbed by what he saw, despite it being his first time here. ¡°We¡¯re looking for a ce to eat.¡±

    ¡°I understand. This way please, Director Hou!¡± The woman continued to smile. She led them past the front doors, whereupon the security and pageboys were all supernaturals. All of them bowed to the visitors and more staff swiftly opened the crystal front doors.

    A massive great hall came into view. Some were waiting to be seen. Others were drivers, secretaries, or lower ranked officials of the nine ministries waiting in line for food. They jerked with surprise when the front doors opened and were further startled to see Hou Xiaochen. Numerous ministry officials slouching in their chairs hastily sat upright. Those of the Inspectorate or Night Watcher stood up to snap salutes. ¡°Greetings to Director Hou!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen inclined his head and looked straight ahead as he continued walking forward. Li Hao grasped his little staff; his top hat swiveled in various directions as he looked around with a smile.

    His strange attire caught many eyes.

    ¡°Why are you dressed like this?¡± Manager Yu couldn¡¯t help but transmit to the young man. It was so humiliating!

    ¡°Don¡¯t you find it quite elegant?¡±

    ¡°I...¡± The manager was at a loss for words. Elegant? Dumb, more like! She couldn¡¯t be bothered with anything else. Meanwhile, Li Hao was immersed in his own world. Didn¡¯t he look utterly handsome?

    It was fine if he didn¡¯t; this was just more convenient to draw his sword from. He couldn¡¯t just run around with a sword strapped to his back, could he? This mode of transport also made it easy for him to nurture the weapon.

    He¡¯d already thought things through¡ªthis was how he would go out in public from now on. Steris would be disguised as a staff to facilitate a quick draw and always having it nearby to attend to. Li Hao was yet to meet with much sess in nurturing his sword. Perhaps it hadn¡¯t been long enough since he tried this method. He couldn¡¯t run out with it in his hand forever, so this was a nice idea!

    The woman leading the way remained energetically introducing the premises. ¡°Director Hou, there are two restaurants in the pagoda. The second floor is more crowded and there are fewer people on the seventh floor. There are also private rooms on the seventh floor, which is where Director Yellow and the others usually go...¡±

    ¡°What about the ninth floor?¡±

    ¡°Food is served on the ninth floor as well. ¡°The woman¡¯s smile remained animated. ¡°But there¡¯s not that many seats. There are only nine rooms and they are often booked year round.¡±

    Nine rooms! It went without saying that the nine ministers had reserved them.

    ¡°Are the nine ministers all present today?¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled.

    ¡°No, there are still five empty rooms. Does the director wish to use one of them?¡± The smiling woman didn¡¯t seek to stop them. ¡°But we might have to ask the director to change rooms if those august guests arrive... That could make for a less than pleasant dining experience. The view is pretty much the same on the seventh floor.¡±

    ¡°We go to the ninth floor!¡± Hou Xiaochen responded with a faint smile. ¡°The ninth floor is better and the view is the best. We¡¯ll take the room usually upied by the Ministry of Finance.¡±

    The woman¡¯s expression changed slightly.

    ¡°What, is that room upied?¡±

    ¡°No...¡±

    ¡°Then it¡¯s settled!¡±

    The woman considered briefly before recovering her smile. ¡°Very well. Thene with me please, Director Hou.¡±

    <i>The Ministry of Finance!</i> Li Hao thought of a certain person¡ªthe Nova teenager that Qi Gang and the others had jointly killed. He¡¯d said that he was from the Lius of the Ministry of Finance.

    The group filed into the elevator, leaving the crowd in the hall looking at each other. None of them were deaf, and being able to visit this establishment meant that all of them possessed certain strength. What did Hou Xiaochen want to do? How dare he trespass on a private room belonging to the nine ministers?

    ¡°He¡¯s so cocky!¡± Those working for the Ministry of Finance swiftly walked out of the great hall. This matter had to be reported upward. It wasn¡¯t a matter of using the private room, but that Hou Xiaochen might be purposefully antagonizing them.

    He was crazy!

    The nine ministries were invible after being created eighty years ago. But that arrogant upstart Hou Xiaochen had walked right into the Nine Dragons Pavilion and demanded the private room reserved by the Ministry of Finance! It was so shocking!

    ......

    <i>Inside the elevator.</i>

    The contraption proceeded smoothly upward. Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t seem to find anything untoward with his actions. It was just dinner in a private room. Could he not do that?

    Off to the side, Li Hao didn¡¯t mind either. ¡°Ah... beautifuldy, how much does one of our meals cost?¡± he asked curiously.

    ¡°......¡± The woman¡¯s smile stiffened. It was the first time in her line of work that someone had ever asked her how much a meal cost. As speechless as she was, she still replied, ¡°It depends on what you order. The cheapest can be one mysterious power stone and the most expensive can be hundreds or even one thousand...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re joking!¡± Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath. ¡°One mysterious power stone is one thousand cubes of power, and I remember that the ck market offers one million star coins for one cube. Thus, one mysterious power stone can be traded for one billion star coins!

    ¡°Alright, no one will conduct such a transaction, but one piece really is priceless. So a meal at your ce costs this much?!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The elevator fell silent for a moment. The woman just wanted to say, <i>your math skills are really good... </i>She was having trouble keeping the smile on her face.

    ¡°Honored guest, the Nine Dragons Pavilion isn¡¯t an ordinary ce. You can see mysterious power filling the air. There¡¯s even life force emanating on the ninth floor...¡±

    ¡°Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°Yes. although it is just the barest of Water of Life that satisfies our guests...¡±

    ¡°Hiss!¡± Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath. ¡°So it¡¯s even more expensive to eat on the ninth floor, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Of course... Under regr circumstances, each meal starts at one hundred pieces of mysterious power stones.¡±

    Li Hao clucked his tongue with amazement. That was just the starting price! That meant the nine private rooms contributed at least one thousand stones a day. Added to that the other eight floors... didn¡¯t that mean the pavilion earned around three to five thousand stones a day? And that was their minimum intake! Wouldn¡¯t it be up to ten thousand stones a day under normal circumstances?

    <i>My heavens!!</i>

    ¡°How long has the Nine Dragons Pavilion been open?¡± Li Hao ran some quick calctions.

    ¡°Eighty years.¡±

    ¡°When did you start charging mysterious power stones as your fee?¡±

    <i>Are you taking a census count or what?</i> The female manager¡¯s face was almost splitting from the force of her very stilted smile. ¡°Roughly... roughly ten years.¡±

    ¡°So you make around three million mysterious power stones in annual revenue?¡±

 Chapter 633: A Meal (I)

    <h4>Chapter 633: A Meal (I)</h4>

    The woman looked beseechingly at Hou Xiaochen. <i>Who is this? Your subordinate? What is he trying to get at?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen looked away in another direction, as if he wasn¡¯t privy to the conversation.

    ¡°Can you not talk about it?¡± Li Hao asked in surprise.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that...¡±

    ¡°So do you clear three million stones a year in revenue?¡±

    ¡°N-no...¡± The manager was on the verge of a mental breakdown. She was very skilled at hosting guests¡ªno one had ever given her a bad review and she had answers to all of their questions. But this one... was truly something! It was her first time meeting someone like this!

    ¡°Our revenues aren¡¯t that high, just one million pieces of stone or so,¡± she had to say. ¡°But... we don¡¯t actually make money. We need to purchase some treasures and also consume a great deal of mysterious power stones ourselves. There¡¯s also the various precious ingredients that we acquire...¡±

    ¡°So you¡¯ve got around a ten percent profit margin, don¡¯t you?¡± Li Hao contemted. ¡°That means you retain at least one hundred thousand pieces a year. That¡¯s one million pieces after ten years. Do you guys turn that in to the royal family, or keep it in your own reserves?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The manager¡¯s expression changed. What did the young man mean by this? Did he want to rob them?? This was the heart of the nine ministries, the outskirts of the royal family! How was there someone asking her about their reserves...

    Herposure copsed and it took her a long moment to barely respond, ¡°I cannot answer the honored guest¡¯s question... I am not in charge of this matter.¡±

    The elevator door opened and she darted out, on the verge of losing control. What a suffocating atmosphere it was inside!

    Li Hao stroked the goatee on his chin. They definitely had at least one million pieces sitting in profits! The only question remained whether they¡¯d sent it to the royal family or not. Even if they had...

    Forget it, he was just thinking wildly about this. ¡°We can open a tab, can¡¯t we?¡±

    ¡°...you can!¡± The manager seemed to be forcing out through grit teeth. ¡°Director Hou can charge his expenditures to the Inspectorate tab. He¡¯ll just have some limitations when ites to his limit.¡±

    ¡°How much is our limit?¡±

    ¡°One thousand pieces a year!¡±

    Li Hao was startled by the high amount. ¡°And regr peacemakermissioners?¡±

    ¡°Five hundred pieces.¡±

    ¡°High rank chiefmissioners?¡±

    ¡°One hundred pieces.¡± The woman added, ¡°This is limited to those of Skystar City¡¯s Inspectorate.¡±

    <i>I see! </i>Li Hao ran some more numbers in his mind and smiled at Hou Xiaochen. <i>The three of us can run up sixteen hundred pieces on our tab...</i>

    Hou Xiaochen was feeling extremely soul weary. Let it all burn!

    ¡°Let¡¯s eat first, we¡¯ll talk about thister!¡± Hou Xiaochen hurriedly walked toward a certain room, Manager Yu was hot on his heels.

    Other than arge weing hall on the ninth floor, there was nothing else apart from nine private rooms that were as if nine individual halls. Four of them seemed upied, meaning that four ministers were here taking dinner.

    Struck by a sudden thought, Li Hao tilted his head in the direction of the upied rooms. A stabbing pain shot through his eyes and he swiftly closed them again. <i>Hot damn!</i> There were a lot of powerhouses here, and this might not be all of them. He wouldn¡¯t be able to see those who were pure martial masters.

    ......

    <i>At this time, in the other rooms.</i>

    Someone looked outside with a frown and another looked at the royal pce below. Thetter intoned without looking back in the room, ¡°Go and see who¡¯se upstairs. Have they brought a Heaven¡¯s Eye with them? What do they want?¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± A runner swiftly left to carry out orders.

    The constantly victorious Li Hao would never fathom that his single nce would be so quickly detected. That had never happened before. Up ahead, Hou Xiaochen¡¯s voice traveled into his ears.

    ¡°Don¡¯t cast your eyes around randomly. I¡¯m just bringing you here for a look and to familiarize yourself with new surroundings. We¡¯re not here to cause trouble. If you want to cause trouble, just focus on one ministry. Do you think I¡¯m undying to target several at once?¡±

    Li Hao understood, it looked like they were going to move against the Ministry of Finance! <i>Except... you can tell that I¡¯m looking at someone? </i>Ole Hou seemed to have gotten stronger! The man hadn¡¯t seemed to sense anything when he looked at the director before.

    The group entered a great hall next¡ªone of the private rooms. Li Hao took in a deep breath, then another deep breath. This was a private room?

    It was more like a pce!

    Faint vitality surged through the premises¡ªLi Hao felt sofortable that he wanted to moan. What a lovely ce! This was money well spent! How was this a ¡°private room¡±? It was at least thirty-five hundred square feet, and there were nine of these rooms in the center of the royal city!

    Everything that one could want could be found here. There was even a massive screen in the room with images flickering across it. Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened when he caught sight of it.

    Was that a television? It seemed so! This item was recorded in the ancient records, but the dynasty hadn¡¯t been able to produce it. The young man had thought that no one had excavated it yet, but it turned out that it¡¯d been dug up, just not poprized!

    Not only that, but there was something simr to a fighting ring set up in the middle of the room. Eight fine-looking attendants waited in the room. They were all either Darkmoons or Sunres.

    ¡°Wee, honored guests!¡± The attendants rushed forward after the group entered the room. Some wanted to help Li Hao take off his outer garments...

    The young man quickly shook his arms. ¡°Don¡¯t touch me!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen flicked a nce at him and didn¡¯t say a word. He permitted the attendants to take off his jacket. Li Hao looked at the man¡¯s actions¡ª<i>is this how it¡¯s done? Sorry, I¡¯ve never experienced this before.</i>

    The manager next to him was likewise speechless, but naturally wouldn¡¯t disy it. ¡°It¡¯s inconvenient for the honored guests to be wearing too much when they dine,¡± she exined softly.

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing inconvenient about it.¡± Li Hao would never allow someone else to undress him in this establishment, if for no other reason than him wearing silver armor beneath his trench coat. He was deathly afraid of being caught off guard in an ambush; he constantly wore the armor beneath his outer garments.

    The manager was resigned by his response, as were the two female attendants who¡¯d walked up to the young man. However, they didn¡¯t say anything. Anyone who could enter the Nine Dragons Pavilion was a personage that they couldn¡¯t afford to run afoul of. No matter how uncouth they were, they were still important characters. Even a driver was the driver of a very important existence.

    Manager Yu didn¡¯t let the attendants handle her clothing either. She waved off the people who walked up to her.

    The manager led Li Hao toward the dining table, making introductions as she walked. She¡¯d determined that Li Hao was a massive country bumpkin despite his peculiar outfit. He wasn¡¯t any sort of fashion icon.

    ¡°This way please, honored guests!¡± She pointed at the big screen. ¡°This is a real-time broadcast of the Colosseum.¡±

    ¡°What is the Colosseum?¡±

    ¡°There are too many supernaturals and their associated grudges in Skystar City. But being the royal city, Skystar cannot infinitely suppress these supernaturals. That would only give rise to greater conflict. Thus, the city prepared a massive Colosseum for all supernaturals to settle their differences in. So long as both sides are willing, duels can be fought in the Colosseum! They can be fights to the death or simple sparring. Victors receive prize money from the hosts.¡±

    ¡°What is this nonsense!¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°Grudges between supernaturals are naturally settled by the Night Watchers! Dueling in private is against thew! Does no one know of the rules or regtions? Did the Night Watchers build this ce?¡±

    The woman hesitated before shaking her head with resignation. ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Who runs the show behind the scenes?¡±

    ¡°......¡± She looked at Hou Xiaochen, but the man had already sat down. ¡°The Ministry of Finance.¡±

    ¡°No wonder!¡± Li Hao snorted. ¡°This infringes on Night Watcher rights! No wonder the Ministry of Finance is so well off. With this Colosseum, there is certain to be gambling on the results. With gamblinges profits, with profitses fighting... Tickets for a ce that treats supernaturals like animals will go for high numbers and prices. The profits involved are easy to imagine. When is it ever the Ministry of Finance¡¯s turn to be involved in this?¡±

    The manager didn¡¯t say a word and was beginning to wonder who this person was.

    One had to say, Li Hao had touched upon the crux of the issue with a single response. The profits here were enormous, too enormous. Fights between supernaturals often took ce, but usually in the wilderness. The nobles of the royal city were unwilling to traipse to the countryside to witness those fights.

    Here, however, one could sit in ease and luxury to watch a fight. The money at hand likely involved astronomical figures. The Ministry of Finance held a monopoly over it.

    Li Hao suddenly understood why Hou Xiaochen had this particr ministry in his sights. ¡°Is the Inspectorate involved?¡± the young man suddenlyughed. ¡°This inly infringes upon our rights.¡±

    ¡°I think so, but I don¡¯t think it was able to im ownership over this domain,¡± Hou Xiaochen responded calmly.

    ¡°They¡¯re useless!¡± Li Haoughed.

    The two brazenly spoke of such matters without any restraint. This wasmon knowledge, so what did it matter if they discussed it?

    Hou Xiaochen lifted his tea cup and took a sip. Manager Yu had poured it for him¡ªshe¡¯d dismissed the attendants who wanted to undertake the duty. Li Hao sat down as well. The manager who wanted to flee the room was growing curious and remained.

    These two... how many could talk to Hou Xiaochen like this? She was very curious about the unknown young man now. It was definitely this person¡¯s first visit to Skystar City. Was he from Silver Moon? But... who?

    <i>He¡¯s young...</i>

    There were people like him in Silver Moon, but the most famous was Demon Sword Li Hao. Did Li Hao daree to Skystar City?

 Chapter 634: A Meal (II)

    <h4>Chapter 634: A Meal (II)</h4>

    The manager carefully took a few more nces at Li Hao; the more she looked at him, the more the young man resembled Demon Sword. The Nine Dragons Pavilion had naturally circted portraits of the young man. The one in front of her both appeared simr to the portraits and didn¡¯t at the same time.

    She personally poured a cup of tea when she saw Li Hao sit, waving the attendants off. ¡°Honored guest, these are tea leaves that have been steeped with Water of Life...¡±

    Li Hao took a sip from the cup and regarded it with some disdain. ¡°How miserly! This has been diluted one thousand times, hasn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°......¡± There was no response. The manager knew that, despite appearances, the one in front of her had likely drank Water of Life before. Just as he said, this drop was diluted more than one thousand times.

    She was quiet for a while before saying softly, ¡°It¡¯s not that we don¡¯t haveplete droplets, it¡¯s just that they¡¯re... rather expensive.¡±

    ¡°You sell Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± The manager inclined her head. ¡°But if an honored guest needs it, we can temporarily supply some.¡±

    ¡°How much do you sell them for?¡±

    ¡°One hundred thousand pieces of stone.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re joking,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Then this cup of tea is one hundred pieces per cup!¡±

    ¡°Thises with the private room, it¡¯s free.¡±

    ¡°Does the room cost money?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°How much?¡±

    ¡°The minimum charge for a private room on the ninth floor is five hundred pieces.¡±

    Li Hao broke out in full-outughter. Was that expensive? Very expensive! But if it came down to it, if one had one hundred thousand pieces of mysterious power stones and didn¡¯t have a way to exchange for Water of Life, would they be willing to conduct this exchange?

    They would!

    The little tree had charged him ten thousand pieces per droplet¡ªthat included a massive processing fee. But here, the price was ten times that!

    The young man said nothing more and looked at the screen. Two supernaturals were conducting a fight to the death in an arena elsewhere. Both of them were Sunre, making for an exciting contest between two evenly matched opponents.

    Li Hao swept a nce at the screen, then looked at the fighting ring in the center of the room. ¡°What¡¯s this ring for?¡±

    ¡°If the honored guest so wishes, you can host fights here. Or if the honored guest has scores to settle with other guests, you can also utilize the premises,¡± exined the manager. ¡°This is a very private location and it was built by premier supernatural powerhouses. Specialized supernaturals have reinforced the area around the ring so that mysterious power won¡¯t leak out.¡±

    ¡°No wonder it¡¯s so expensive!¡± Li Hao nodded and looked at the crystalline cutlery on the dining table. ¡°All of that is forged out of the best mysterious power stones. Aren¡¯t you worried about people taking it with them?¡±

    ¡°They won¡¯t. Those who patronize the establishment are all honored guests!¡±ughed the manager. In other words, they wouldn¡¯t do something so demeaning.

    ¡°This seems to be made out of energy stones.¡± Li Hao randomly picked up a bowl. ¡°If I throw this at someone, I¡¯ll break their heads even if they¡¯re a Sr! And this is only tableware for eating. The royal family and nine ministries are rich, alright!¡±

    ¡°Why else do you think that people fight over power?¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°Such are the privileges enjoyed by the upper echelon of society. See, aren¡¯t you sitting here now too and enjoying all this? You watch supernaturals put on a show for you and eat a meal that costs hundreds or one thousand mysterious power stones...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just broadening my knowledge of the world!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I can¡¯t afford this myself.¡±

    ¡°Can you really not?¡±

    ¡°I can, actually,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I reaped a lot from raiding the Xu treasury¡ªaround one million mysterious power stones. But here, we spend several thousand pieces for a meal. Eating three meals a day means ten thousand stones per day. I¡¯ll be bankrupt after three months!¡±

    Next to them, the manager shook. She was now certain who this young man was.

    ¡°I thought I was rich and as wealthy as a nation after that gig!¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°If I didn¡¯t visit Skystar City, I wouldn¡¯t know that there are such expensive ces in the world. Wouldn¡¯t that make Xu Qing a bumpkin as well if he was here?¡±

    ¡°Not quite!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed heartily. ¡°The Xu family vaults were only part of the family fortune. Who would ce all of their wealth in that tiny treasury? Do you think that his old man appeared out of thin air?¡±

    ¡°I know, he was hiding in the ruins. That¡¯s right, it¡¯s safer there!¡± Li Hao was suddenly mystified. ¡°Did they seize an armory in the ruins?¡±

    ¡°That would be normal and expected,¡± Hou Xiaochen exined. ¡°Take Battle Heaven, for instance. Does it have an armory?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°But it¡¯s not easy to im it! There are one million soldiers and a dozen Golden Armors in the ancient city. There¡¯s even more important personnel on top of that. Well... I suppose that makes it really rich too!¡±

    The manager and attendants¡¯ scalps crawled at their conversation. It wasn¡¯t that their honored guests wouldn¡¯t discuss important matters in front of them, but that they wouldn¡¯t do so so clearly and tantly. They did so without a care in the world and were incredibly direct, without the reticence disyed by others.

    The more the attendants listened, the more shocked they were. It wasn¡¯t that they¡¯d never bore witness to major asions. In fact, the manager thought that she might be the most experienced out of everyone present when it came to important events. Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t count for much in the grand scheme of things. Each of the ministers and their deputies were more highly ranked than him. She also often saw princes and dukes. All of them were ranked more highly.

    But as she listened to Li Hao and Hou Xiaochen converse, she suddenly had the urge to turn and run away. She didn¡¯t really want to keep listening.

    ¡°So long as you understand!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°Therefore, you¡¯re richer than me, but you¡¯d be dreaming if you think that you¡¯re richer than the nine ministries or ministers after looting the Xus!

    ¡°The Xus are indeed one of the three great dukes, but you didn¡¯t loot their core treasury. Secondly, the Xus are the lords of the east, but they aren¡¯t the overlords of thend. Even the east must pay taxes to the nine ministries. The Xus can fully control only ten provinces at most, whereas the nine ministries hold sway over all of them.

    ¡°The ten that the Xusmand must also answer to the nine ministries!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, further understanding the position that the nine ministries were in. ¡°Of the nine ministries, I understand if the Ministry of Armed Forces, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Administration, Ministry of Examinations, and Ministry of Commerce have money. But where do the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Rtions earn their ie from?¡± Li Hao asked quizzically. ¡°I don¡¯t even know what the Ministry of Internal Affairs actually does.¡±

    ¡°How are you a peacemakermissioner?¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°You¡¯re an embarrassment to us all! Isn¡¯t the Nine Pavilions Pagoda part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs? This ministry pertains to the business that the royal family conducts with the outside world. In the nine ministries, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is a spokesperson for the royal family.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Li Hao realized.

    The manager wished nothing more than to stopper her ears. She wanted to offer up the menu and leave, but she didn¡¯t dare interrupt the two in their conversion.

    ¡°What about the Ministry of Foreign Rtions?¡± Li Hao continued to ask.

    ¡°That ministry used to face the nations that bordered the dynasty, such as Great Li that neighbors us. But these days, those nations have either vanished or are separated by perilous terrain,¡± Hou Xiaochen once more educated Li Hao. ¡°Therefore, the Ministry of Foreign Rtions primarily focuses not on the outside of the dynasty these days, but the monster spirits, three great organizations, and seven divine mountains. If they have envoys thate, it¡¯s that ministry that receives them.

    ¡°Then how do they earn money?¡± Li Hao was still curious.

    ¡°That¡¯s easy,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°The monster spirits produce special items and treasures ording to their territory, but they also need certain items from the human race. What should they do? Dere war for resources? The monster spirits are no idiots at their current stage of development. Therefore, they take up these matters with the human race through the Ministry of Foreign Rtions. The ministry can also buy low and sell high! Don¡¯t underestimate this point. The profits involved are far more than you can imagine!¡±

    ¡°If the three great organizations wish to transact with the dynasty, does that also fall to the Ministry of Foreign Rtions?¡± Li Hao interjected.

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°But isn¡¯t that supplying the enemy?¡±

    ¡°The three great organizations of your perspective are viins who stoop to every possible low!¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at him. ¡°However, to the nine ministries, the three great organizations have many powerful spokespeople. Are you willing to cut offmunications with them before you decide to fully exterminate them? Li Hao, you must understand that the enemy of your eyes may not be the enemy of the senior executives¡¯ eyes.

    ¡°To some, such as the nine ministries, their struggles with each other may not be any less than their hostilities with the three great organizations. An institution such as the Inspectorate hates the three great organizations, but that doesn¡¯t mean all of them are such, do you understand?

    ¡°The Night Watchers and three great organizations fight each other, they have conflicts and they have feuds. But do you think institutions such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Rtions have any grudge with the three great organizations that cannot be resolved?¡±

    Li Hao continued to nod. He was learning a great deal today. He¡¯de to Skystar City to witness this. Hou Xiaochen might know of his thoughts, so he was exining and analyzing all of this in great detail.

    ¡°Therefore...¡± Li Hao paused in thought. ¡°When you kill those of the three great organizations, that¡¯s sometimes obstructing another¡¯s path of wealth, is it?¡±

    ¡°You can say that, but that¡¯s not the only thing obstructed. Don¡¯t just look at money from day to night, there¡¯s a lot of other things out there,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°Take the Nine Dragons Pavilion, for example. Do you think this is just a restaurant?¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t make a sound.

    ¡°This is an important venue ofmunication between the nine ministries and the royal family,¡± Hou Xiaochen said. ¡°If the officials cannot resolve it themselves, then the issues are resolved here and profit and loss normalized.¡± He pointed at the manager next to them. ¡°Do you view her as an attendant?¡±

    ¡°No... she¡¯s so beautiful.¡± Li Hao smiled radiantly.

    ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way,¡± Hou Xiaochen said with a smile. ¡°This one is not only one of the leaders of the royal family¡¯s intelligence agency, but an important bridge between the nine ministries and the royal family.¡±

    ¡°You jest, Director Hou.¡± The manager¡¯s expression changed slightly.

    ¡°I¡¯m not talking to you, don¡¯t interrupt!¡± Hou Xiaochen responded calmly, but the manager¡¯s heart spasmed and she didn¡¯t make a further sound.

 Chapter 635: A Meal (III)

    <h4>Chapter 635: A Meal (III)</h4>

    ¡°Intelligence reports are one thing and of less importance,¡± said Hou Xiaochen. ¡°This manager also holds a few more titles, such as being a broker. Do you understand?¡±

    ¡°An intermediary?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°Pretty much,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°No matter what you want to do, find, or ask, you can do so through the Nine Dragons Pavilion! For example, if you want to buy a position¡ªperhaps being inspector general of the Silver Moon Inspectorate¡ªyou can ask her how much it will cost or what kind of price you¡¯ll have to pay.¡±

    ¡°That would be a costly transaction!¡± Li Haoughed.

    ¡°Not at all!¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head. ¡°Your concern should be that you won¡¯t be able to report to work, or that you¡¯d die shortly after starting in your position. The position of Silver Moon Night Watcher director was once on sale here¡ªit was avable for one thousand pieces. During that time, I kept refusing the central Night Watchermand for me to redeploy to Skystar City, so the person who bought it couldn¡¯t fill the position.

    ¡°Later on, there was someone fearless who wanted the position. They died before even reaching Silver Moon. The North Sea pirates killed them!¡±

    ¡°It must have been the Starlight Pirates and White Shark Raiders who did it,¡± Li Hao broke outughing.

    ¡°Pretty much.¡±

    Sweat beaded the manager¡¯s forehead. She looked at Hou Xiaochen with a vague look of horror. This one knew everything in full detail! How did he obtain his information? Did he have a lot of secret agents in Skystar City?

    Li Hao was also finding that he was learning a lot today. All the talking had made him hungry, so he smiled at the manager. ¡°Where¡¯s the menu?¡±

    The manager forcefully calmed herself and set a menu in front of Li Hao. Other attendants supplied menus to Hou Xiaochen and Manager Yu as well. The young man flipped it open for a look...

    <i>Damn! So expensive!</i>

    ¡°You sell monster spirit soup?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid of the monster spiritsing for you?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re the ones who deliver some of our ingredients.¡±

    ¡°I see.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Nova-level monster spirit meat is so expensive! One te costs five hundred stones?¡±

    ¡°There aren¡¯t many monster spirits of that level and they¡¯re difficult opponents...¡±

    Li Hao looked at Panther below his feet and chuckled. The dog shook. ¡°I have a dog here that¡¯s the descendant of an ancient monster spirit and possesses peak Nova battle strength. Its bloodline is pure¡ªwill a te of its meat fetch more than one thousand stones?¡±

    The manager didn¡¯t answer, while Panther red at Li Hao. How dare the young man wish to sell dog meat!

    Li Hao continued to scan the menu and stroked his chin. ¡°Seadragon Fish... a delicacy of the North Sea... Regr people can¡¯t hope to a creature like this. North Sea pirates caught this one, didn¡¯t they?¡±

    The manager continued to remain silent.

    ¡°It looks like your business spans arge territory,¡± Li Hao murmured. ¡°You even transact with pirates. I recall that there¡¯s four tradingpanies that operate at sea... but it looks like pirates are your major transaction targets, are they? Do you know that they eat people?¡±

    ¡°I am unaware of that,¡± whispered the manager as she lowered her head. ¡°You might be mistaken, honored guest. These didn¡¯te from pirates, but from merchant vessels that caught these animals themselves.¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head and continued scanning the menu. ¡°Forget it, this is all trash! Get me a pot of tea with more Water of Life in it. Put sixteen hundred pieces worth in it! As for food, just get me regr, free snacks.¡± He suddenly thought of something and looked at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Director Hou, Senior Golden Spear is a high rank chiefmissioner, right?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°Brother Second Mu?¡±

    ¡°The same.¡±

    ¡°Then add two hundred stones more!¡± Li Hao looked at the manager. ¡°Put it on the tabs of Golden Spear of the Silver Moon Guards and Deputy Mu Lin.¡±

    The manager was in incredibly awkward straits, but she didn¡¯t refuse the instructions. ¡°Understood, I''ll make the arrangements.¡±

    Li Hao chuckled and watched her leave, as did Hou Xiaochen. Thetter was seated in a chair and looking down below. Massive windows faced the pce and he sighed with emotion. ¡°It used to be brighter here, now it¡¯s almostpletely pitch ck.¡±

    ¡°There are a lot of powerhouses here.¡± Li Hao rubbed his eyes after looking outside for a while.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed and continued to drink tea. Li Hao followed his motions.

    ¡°What does the director wish for me to do here?¡±

    ¡°You can decide that yourself.¡±

    ¡°Is there anything in it for me?¡± questioned the young man. ¡°Not the benefits we normally speak of, but what is the long term gain after I do what I do? For me, for Silver Moon, for the director...¡±

    ¡°Intimidating one ministry and finding your footing in the Inspectorate is important enough. That will show the Inspectorate that while I am a thorn in their side, I focus my attention on seizing other people¡¯s profits and authority. I strengthen the Inspectorate! You and I are both of the Inspectorate, so remember this well, Li Hao¡ªyou need to find a patron in a ce like this, or someone to take the fall for you!

    ¡°Take that one in the Inspectorate, for example. He won¡¯t pay attention to you if you only bring him trouble. But if you bring him massive benefits at the same time, he¡¯ll help you then!

    ¡°He doesn¡¯t care about trouble, only what he will gain after the trouble is over. If you use reasonable methods and stay within sensible bounds to fight for the Inspectorate, he¡¯ll be willing to help you within that range.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, then asked, ¡°Will his help be significant?¡±

    ¡°Of course! He¡¯s an Arcanus, at the very least,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°This means that other Arcanus won¡¯t be able to stick their nose into our affairs, right?¡±

    ¡°Right! But won¡¯t he be afraid of his subordinates being stronger than him? We¡¯re of Silver Moon, after all.¡± Li Hao looked quizzically at the director.

    ¡°Keep in mind that in the eyes of the nine ministries and royal family, they are the best! Second best are the three great organizations, seven divine mountains, three dukes, and Silver Moon. Thenes the lower ranked provinces, monster spirit territory, pirates of the four seas...¡±

    ¡°The seven divine mountains?¡± Li Hao raised a brow. ¡°Sky Sword Mountain only has Senior Sky Sword, doesn¡¯t it? How is he number two?¡±

    And to be on par with Silver Moon and the dukes? Granted, Sky Sword was very strong.

    ¡°Who says that there¡¯s only Sky Sword at Sky Sword Mountain?¡± Hou Xiaochen was startled into a wide grin. ¡°How would it be one of the seven divine mountains if there¡¯s only Sky Sword? What difference would there be between him and Tyrant de or Northern Fist? Ny percent of the world¡¯s sword cultivators are at Sky Sword Mountain! Not just Silver Moon martial masters, but also ones from the central region and four continents...

    ¡°They¡¯re all gathered at Sky Sword Mountain! You didn¡¯t think that Sky Sword was the only resident, did you?¡±

    Li Haoughed dryly, he really had thought so. So the truth was otherwise! The man had almost unified all of the sword cultivators in the world. This ran counter to the young man¡¯s imagination. He¡¯d thought that Sky Sword was a lone wolf and didn¡¯t bother himself with matters like these.

    Footsteps sounded outside the door as they chatted¡ªthey didn¡¯t belong to the female manager. Instead, the doors were pushed open as she watched with resignation and a slightly chubby man walked in with a few officials.

    The chubby middle-aged man smiled at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Little Hou¡¯s here, let¡¯s eat together! I happen to have something to discuss with you, so we don¡¯t need to move. Let¡¯s enjoy dinner together.¡±

    Li Hao looked at Chubby, then did a double take. He breathed out after a long moment¡ªthere were so many powerhouses present! Other than the manager, there were six neers. Apart from Chubby, there were old and young members of his group and all of them were at least of the Nova level. Two of them even seemed to be metamorphosis and the remaining three weren¡¯t just initial Novas.

    He couldn¡¯t read anything from Chubby, but the man ought to be a martial master. As such, he wouldn¡¯t be too weak.

    ¡°Minister Lu!¡± Hou Xiaochen rose with a smile. ¡°I didn¡¯t know that the minister wasing tonight. If I¡¯d known, I wouldn¡¯t have taken the room.¡± He looked at the manager. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say that Minister Liu was here? If you had, I wouldn¡¯t have requested this room. Now I¡¯m giving the impression that I¡¯m upying the minister¡¯s space...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s fine!¡± chuckled Chubby. ¡°This is just a ce to eat! Let¡¯s eat together, it will be more fun that way!¡± He looked at Li Hao with a smile. ¡°You are the famous Demon Sword, aren¡¯t you? You are quite the talent!¡±

    Li Hao rose in an exceedingly ¡°graceful¡± manner to ept thepliment. He inclined his body and took off his top hat. ¡°Night Watcher Li Hao greets Minister Liu!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t stand on ceremony, don¡¯t stand on ceremony. Sit. We¡¯re all part of the same family here, there¡¯s no need to be so polite!¡± Chubby chuckled and walked over with his people. Some of them looked in an unfriendly manner at Li Hao and Hou Xiaochen.

    Hou Xiaochen was sitting in the head seat, Li Hao and Manager Yu sat in the seats right below him. Why were they not getting up?

    Minister Liu didn¡¯t mind and randomly sat down in a seat. He indicated for the others to sit as well and then looked at the female manager. ¡°Bring on an order of everything good. You have to put on an impressive show for Director Hou and the others!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The manager swiftly left without further word; sweat had drenched the back of her shirt.

    ¡°Then we shall enjoy ourselves thanks to the minister!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed softly.

    ¡°Just listen to yourself!¡± Minister Liuughed. ¡°If Little Hou is willing toe to the Ministry of Finance, you cane to this ce and eat as much as you want. Take it all to go, you can put it on my bill!¡±

    ¡°How can I ever do that!¡± Hou Xiaochenughed.

    ¡°It¡¯s but a small matter!¡± The minister looked at Li Hao next. ¡°Demon Sword Li Hao... Not bad, very good! Xu Qing was always full of himself, so it¡¯s good that he died! Are you interested ining to the Ministry of Finance? I can¡¯t make you a vice minister, but we have plenty of positions. If youe, I promise that you¡¯ll be second to only the ministers. You¡¯ll be on par with Little Hou here!¡±

 Chapter 636: A Meal (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 636: A Meal (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Really?¡± Li Hao beamed widely. ¡°I hear that the Four Seas Company is under the Ministry of Finance. Can I lead that tradingpany?¡±

    ¡°The Four Seas Company...¡± Minister Liuughed and looked at a tanned middle-aged man next to him. ¡°Little Wu, are you interested in giving up your position?¡±

    ¡°The head of the Four Seas Company is here?¡± Li Hao remarked with astonishment. ¡°My apologies for the disrespect!¡±

    The tanned man looked frostily at Li Hao, but soon recovered to a normal expression. ¡°This humble one is Wu Yong. It is my honor to see the true countenance of the Demon Sword! If Demon Sword is interested in this position, I will naturally withdraw and be one of your subordinates,¡± heughed. ¡°You don¡¯t need to consider my preferences, minister. If we can recruit such a talent like Demon Sword to the ministry, then it would be my greatest delight!¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± Li Hao beamed.

    ¡°......¡± The premises quieted down!

    ¡°Then I really can join the Ministry of Finance!¡± Li Hao crowed. ¡°I hear that the Four Seas Company is as rich as nations. Not only that, but pirates don¡¯t even dare run afoul of the golden coin g. I¡¯ve offended many pirates in the North Sea and the East Sea pirates also want to kill me. If Imand the Four Seas Company, none of that will be an issue!¡±

    The young man grew more worked up the more he spoke. ¡°If Minister Liu doesn¡¯t mind, you can send out the order tonight and I¡¯ll report to my station tomorrow morning!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Minister Liu was still smiling, just that his smile had turned a bit odd. This was simply a pleasantry, one that they¡¯d voiced thousands of times. It was his first time seeing someone treating a polite remark as gospel and strain at the bit so much, to be so... exuberant!

    Li Hao really did want the position! If Minister Liu sent out the appointment letter, then the boy would ny-nine percent show up at the Four Seas Company tomorrow to be their new ranking officer.

    The minister suddenly felt that he was a shrewd schemer who¡¯de across an impulsive brute. There was no way for him tomunicate with the other. Instead, he quickly smiled, ¡°I would like to, but I¡¯m concerned that the Inspectorate won¡¯t let you go! Your inspector general has quite the temper...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine!¡± Li Hao chirped. ¡°So long as Minister Liu gives themand, I can lose the post of peacemakermissioner if that means I can immediately start at the Ministry of Finance! As for whether or not the Inspectorate will agree to it... Blocking someone¡¯s path of promotion is more vicious than killing one¡¯s parents!¡±

    ¡°Now that¡¯s much too serious,¡± Minister Liuughed heartily. ¡°I would love to have you, but it would not be right to sh with that stubborn mule over this matter. How about this, I¡¯ll chat with your inspector general when the right opportunity presents itself. You cane to me anytime if he agrees!¡±

    This provided a way out for both of them.

    ¡°Then forget it.¡± Li Hao drooped. ¡°I¡¯ve never even seen our inspector general, nor am I familiar with him. He probably won¡¯t agree to it. I really am interested in the Four Seas Company! I could even be in a deputy position, but it looks like it¡¯s not in the cards for me!¡±

    Those from the Ministry of Finance suddenly felt quite some difort with the young man¡¯s disy. Enough was enough! Li Hao was as the rumors stated, a bit thick-skulled and quite bold.

    Hou Xiaochenughed before the minister had a chance to respond. ¡°What Four Seas Company? That¡¯s too far. You just got here, so you should settle down here. And you¡¯ve just be the Skystar vicemander, so it won¡¯t be that easy for you to leave.¡±

    ¡°Congrattions!¡± Minister Liu offered after the briefest of startled pauses. ¡°So Ole Yao¡¯s promoted you as soon as you arrived! The responsibilities of the Skystar vicemander are great...¡±

    ¡°Indeed they are!¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded with a smile. ¡°I¡¯m prepared to let Li Hao oversee and create an official agency for the Skystarmander. Weck an ideal site and some more personnel...¡±

    He pointed at the screen. ¡°This ce is good! Minister Liu, I¡¯d like to send Li Hao to this locale and modify it to be my office. I¡¯ll also gather up all of the shadowy enterprises for the dynasty and make sure they pay their taxes and fees on time. That will also increase revenues for the Ministry of Finance. What do you say, minister?¡±

    ¡°That would be a good thing!¡± Minister Liuughed heartily. ¡°It would just be a tricky problem to tackle. Of course, this would be an Inspectorate and Night Watcher affair, so I¡¯m not at liberty to say much. Do as you see fit, Little Hou! I understand your intentions. How about this, let¡¯s just enjoy dinner tonight and not talk about any of this. You can see how your Inspectorate decides tomorrow morning, I won¡¯t involve myself in this matter!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. ¡°The Inspectorate shouldn¡¯t have any opinions otherwise. Not to mention, this falls within the scope of responsibilities for the Skystarmander. The inspector general won¡¯t say anything and Director Yao will certainly not be opposed either.¡±

    ¡°Commander Hou!¡± A slightly beguiling woman spoke up next to Minister Liu. She was also a metamorphosis expert, as was Wu Yong. She smiled winsomely at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Commander Hou, the Night Watchers are a formidable agency with quite the power. This ce is just a location of entertainment for the noble and lofty. Skystar City might fall into disarray if it¡¯s modified to be the Skystarmander¡¯s office! Supernaturals are full of vigor and will have no ce to vent their energies... This may not be a good development.¡±

    ¡°I understand, so I¡¯m ready!¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. ¡°I will suppress anyone who dares cause a disturbance! I¡¯d like to see if I suppress them faster, or if the disarrayes faster!

    ¡°The boss of Skystar¡¯s Colosseum is said to be a female powerhouse. She might even be a metamorphosis expert. Who knows if she¡¯ll put in a showing?¡±

    The woman¡¯s smile deepened; she didn¡¯t continue the conversation. Minister Liu seemed to recall something and abruptly said, ¡°I suddenly remember that I have some matters to take care of back in the ministry... Little Hou, enjoy yourselves tonight!¡±

    He turned to the female manager who¡¯d just walked in. ¡°Put all of tonight¡¯s expenditures on my tab!¡± He then rebuked, ¡°This is the Nine Dragons Pavilion! Be careful next time to not ce such items in the private rooms. They are an affront to refined taste!¡±

    Minister Liu turned once more to Hou Xiaochen with a merry chuckle. ¡°Then I¡¯ll be off, Little Hou. You can do as you see fit with the Skystar Colosseum, but the royal capital is an important locale. Don¡¯t incite a widespread disruption. It¡¯ll also be troublesome if too many rise up and you lose your position for it!¡±

    ¡°Understood, thank you for your reminder, Minister Liu!¡±

    The minister smiled radiantly and left. The rest of his people quickly followed him out. Unpleasant expressions crossed the faces of the two metamorphosis experts. This was a deration of war! Indeed, it was an intent of open hostilities!

    What did that madman Hou Xiaochen want to do?

    Everyone had known that something was inappropriate with his presence here tonight, but no one fathomed that he would be so unmoved after Minister Liu came in person to offer friendly words. Surely he didn¡¯t think he was invincible with a Li Hao in the city?

    Minister Liu didn¡¯t intend to be embroiled in the situation. Since Hou Xiaochen had made up his mind, they could see how the situation developed!

    Hou Xiaochenughed and looked at Li Hao, the young man also grinned.

    ¡°Get me an order of everything on the menu as well as a drop of Water of Life! I would ask for more, but I don¡¯t think you guys have it!¡± the young man boomed.

    Minister Liu was yet to depart from the room. He looked back at Li Hao with a nod. ¡°Silver Moon martial masters... are indeed what they are reputed to be!¡±

    He left after those words. These people from Silver Moon were much bolder than the average person!

    Li Hao chuckled happily and looked at Hou Xiaochen. He couldn¡¯t help but transmit, ¡°Director, you don¡¯t really mean for me to do this, do you? I can be your minion... but I don¡¯t really have the guts to do this. We face two metamorphosis experts, to say nothing of that fatty... I¡¯m afraid of death!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen sipped his tea and didn¡¯t respond. <i>Of course it¡¯s you! What, can it be me?</i>

    ¡°I can go back to Silver Moon tonight...¡± Li Hao¡¯s scalp crawled with numbness.

    ¡°Toote!¡±

    <i>Fuck!</i> Li Hao wanted to cry. <i>I just wanted to see how big the world was and if it was pretty here. I don¡¯t want to fight those metamorphosis experts! I¡¯ll die if anything goes wrong! Ole Hou thinks too highly of me!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen seemed to be in a lovely mood and ate heartily when the dishes were served. ¡°What are you afraid of?¡± he asked without lifting his head. ¡°I can give you a guarantee that there won¡¯t be anyone stronger than metamorphosis making an appearance. If there is, I¡¯ll make a move myself and see if I can kill one to boost your confidence!¡±

    The attendants serving them shook as sweat drenched their bodies.

    ......

    The trio ate and drank as various dishes were served in the room. It wasn¡¯t in the spur of the moment that Hou Xiaochen decided to make trouble for the Ministry of Finance. He justcked an opportunity¡ªone that seemed to be at hand now. As for whether or not there was an even deeper level of n in the works, Li Hao was currently unaware of any details.

    He focused on calcting his gains and losses as he feasted. Hou Xiaochen wanted to use him as a de. But why him? Golden Spear and Yu Luocha were both good candidates¡ªwere they weak?

    Golden Spear was undoubtedly strong, and so would Yu Luocha be if she unsealed herself. In that case, why should he be this de? Just because he happened to be on the scene?

    That wasn¡¯t necessarily the case.

    Li Hao¡¯s mouth was covered in grease as he ate and he also fed some to Panther. After a while of feasting and thinking, he came to some thoughts on whether or not being this de was a worthwhile proposition.

    Perhaps... it was time to be personally involved if he wished to see more of the world. In his current state, he might not be seeing everything clearly. However, he knew that Hou Xiaochen wouldn¡¯t rashly cause his death. People such as Yuan Shuo, Hong Yitang, and Light Sword were all of the young man¡¯s backers.

    What kind of sess or benefits would Hou Xiaochen gather if he caused the young man¡¯s death? It would only cause theplete copse of Silver Moon as the fractures between the martial world and provincial government would widen.

 Chapter 637: Be a Good Person (I)

    <h4>Chapter 637: Be a Good Person (I)</h4>

    With certain ideas in mind, Li Hao slurped down a bowl of soup and burped with satisfaction. ¡°Is that it, director?¡± He lifted his head merrily. ¡°I¡¯ll be done after I clean up the Colosseum for the Night Watchers?¡±

    ¡°Of course not.¡± Having long finished his meal, Hou Xiaochen casually sipped at tea. ¡°I have two purposes with tonight¡¯s visit. First, it¡¯s best if they y nice and relinquish their im over that enterprise.

    ¡°If not, then it¡¯s the second purpose¡ªwe resist and strike back on all fronts! This will take ce on all levels, whether on an official, ndestine, civilian, or noble aspect... You might even suffer assassination from the three great organizations! We¡¯ll seize various chances throughout this period of resistance to strike with swift fury!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen suddenlyughed in a rather eerie fashion. ¡°So long as we properly seize the opportunity and don''t be a source of gossip, we¡¯ll be able to kick them down however we wish! There are plenty of people who¡¯d love to dismantle a ministry!

    ¡°It¡¯s up to you what your concrete actions are¡ªwhether it¡¯s timely control of events, permitting them to develop as they would, embroiling others into your ns, or carelessly wrapping things up... All of these are options!

    ¡°Different measures will result in varying consequences. If you simply wish to create a foothold in Skystar City, then justmence with the simplest course of action¡ªeliminate their biggest stronghold! That¡¯s much easier than the rest.¡±

    Li Hao understood. Hou Xiaochen was trying to determine what the young man could or was willing to do. Whatever actions Li Hao undertook would naturally meet with varying degrees of bacsh. The man himself would only be in charge of those above metamorphosis. inly, he was trying to gauge the limits of Li Hao¡¯s abilities.

    The young man ate a bit more before switching to drinking tea. ¡°What about helpers?¡±

    ¡°You can do as you see fit. If you can utilize the Night Watchers, then do so. If you can¡¯t or you don¡¯t have the ability to keep them in line, then you know just as well that only Golden Spear is able to help you on the Silver Moon Guards side. We don¡¯t have enough powerhouses!¡±

    There weren¡¯t many heavyweights among the Silver Moon Guards. Golden Spear was the equivalent of a Nova; the others, such as Mu Lin, were slightly weaker. As for Manager Yu, she naturally served only Hou Xiaochen since she was the man¡¯s secretary.

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao nodded with a grin. This meant that the rest of them would be of no help whatsoever. It was up to him alone!

    <i>Ole Hou really... thinks highly of me.</i>

    ......

    At the same time, the news spread explosively. Demon Sword was in the royal city! Li Hao hade to Skystar City and most stunning of all was that Hou Xiaochen had dered war on the Ministry of Finance when he visited the Nine Dragons Pavilion!

    Indeed, he¡¯d dered war!

    It was only a struggle over the Colosseum, but it became war in the eyes and ears of others. It was a tant statement that the minister should recognize the times they were in and withdraw from the Colosseum of their own ord.

    <i>If not, I¡¯ll use violence against you!</i>

    As the only legitimately authorized supernaturalw enforcement agency, that gave the Night Watchers the advantage. Yet sometimes, nominal power was required to be reinforced by actual strength. As part of the nine ministries, their indomitable strength did not need to be questioned!

    ......

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    A senior official with a slightly pale countenance swiftly walked into the main conference hall. The inspector general who appeared rather young had already arrived. He smiled at the neer. ¡°So you¡¯ve received word?¡±

    ¡°Y-yes...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, what are you in a panic for?¡± chuckled the inspector general. ¡°This has nothing to do with us, it¡¯s a deration from Hou Xiaochen. Not to mention, he may not seed. Why are you the one frantic? Hou Xiaochen¡¯s reaction is interesting after Demon Sword Li Hao hase. He seems to think that Li Hao can suppress everything, or that he can keep the situation under control!

    ¡°They can have their own fun!¡± the man snorted. ¡°The guy didn¡¯t seem fit to notify me before he summoned Li Hao here. Does he want to use the fight with the Steadfast Duke to bring all sides under his heel? If that¡¯s the case, he¡¯s thinking too simply!

    ¡°The Skystar Colosseum touches upon many other issues.¡± The inspector general frowned. ¡°It covers a very wide span of matters! Where do its supernaturals and monster spiritse from? Not to mention all of its priceless treasures and ingredients¡ªthe profits that are at stake are stunning beyond belief! It will be so much more profitable than raiding Xu Qing¡¯s old hideout. Apart from the Four Seas Company, the Skystar Colosseum is Liu¡¯s greatest source of profits. He even gave up some other benefits back in the day for it...¡±

    The man sat back with a chuckle. ¡°Forget it, we¡¯ll sit back and watch tigers fight it out!¡±

    ¡°But... what if we¡¯re dragged into this, inspector general?¡± asked a strong subordinate.

    ¡°How would we?¡±ughed the man. ¡°If they fail, they¡¯re on the hook for it! It¡¯s just as good if they seed. If they fully infuriate Liu, he¡¯ll take to the field himself. We can act then¡ªwe may not be able to fully eliminate the Lius, but we¡¯ll be able to weaken them significantly and take down half of the Ministry of Finance!

    ¡°So it¡¯s a good thing! If considered from this perspective, we¡¯re not responsible for any mishaps and we can share in the sess. What is this, if not a good thing? I don¡¯t mind it if Silver Moon martial masters are willing to volunteer to be the de in my hand!¡±

    The inspector general had seen through the heart of many things. Just as Hou Xiaochen had said, if the profits were big enough, even Silver Moon martial masters coulde under his protection. The precursor was that they didn¡¯t just bring trouble without profit. No partnership would survive for long if that was the case.

    ¡°The Night Watchers have made Li Hao the Skystar vicemander,¡± someone raised in a low voice. ¡°Does that Director Yao of ours have ulterior motives in mind?¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, it¡¯s hard to say!¡±

    ¡°What about Yellow Dragon?¡±ughed another. ¡°Will Yellow Dragon involve himself? Even if he doesn¡¯t, he won¡¯t sit by to watch Hou Xiaochen seed, will he? If Hou Xiaochen wins out, then it¡¯s Yellow Dragon¡¯s turn to be on uneven footing!¡±

    All of these people had clearly analyzed the situation and saw to the heart of all issues.

    ¡°They can fight among themselves!¡± the inspector general said faintly. ¡°If the Silver Moon martial masters can¡¯t ovee even a single Yellow Dragon or take down the Colosseum, then they¡¯re just a bunch of troublemakers who can do nothing but make life difficult for themselves. We won¡¯t have to pay attention to them then.¡±

    ¡°Inspector General, what does Hou Xiaochen want for his ultimate goal?¡± Someone looked quizzically at their superior officer. Apart from solidifying his standing and making his name known throughout the city, did he have other aims in mind?

    It was too great a risk to take just for the sake of cementing his position in the city. All out war with one of the ministries wasn¡¯t worth the payoff.

    ¡°His ultimate goal?¡± the inspector general mused meaningfully. ¡°What ultimate goal does he need? He just needs the nine ministries to start fighting each other¡ªthat will let everyone know that the Silver Moon savages are not people to provoke. Isn¡¯t it enough to let a certain portion of people witness the might and fighting spirit of that province? Why must there always be a final result?¡±

    The man rose with augh. ¡°Alright, don¡¯t bother me with these trifling details anymore. As for Li Hao, since he¡¯se to Skystar City given that he¡¯s part of the Night Watchers... He can do as he wishes as he apparently isn¡¯t scared of being assassinated!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± came a chorus of acknowledgement. No one said anything else as they quickly left on their own business.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Many simr meetings were being held elsewhere.

    <i>The Ministry of Finance.</i>

    ¡°People pick on the easiest targets.¡± The chubby Minister Liu still wore a smile on his face as he sipped tea. ¡°It looks like Hou Xiaochen thinks that our ministry is the fattestmb for the ughter! Li Hao also thinks we can be a stepping stone to his sess. He wants to use us to intimidate the four corners and stabilize his footing. He also wants to lure all sides to the feast...¡±

    ¡°Then... how should we respond, Minister Liu?¡±

    ¡°We will certainly not back down,¡± the merry ministerid out. ¡°We cannot at a time like this! I already gave way to Hou Xiaochen today, but if I do so tomorrow, then my Four Seas Company will be gone. It will be the tax revenues from the various provinces the day after that, and myself entirely after that!¡±

    He only had two options at a time like this¡ªto advance or retreat. But he could not take another step back! Once he did, the rest would be like sharks that smelled blood and instantly rip him to pieces!

    ¡°Judging from Hou Xiaochen¡¯s words, he intends to use this bloodthirsty Li Hao as his de!¡± The beguiling woman gnashed her teeth. ¡°Then we kill Li Hao! His reputation is sky high since he just killed the Xus. Once he dies, not only will two divine weapons fall into our hands, but alsorge sums of wealth and a tremendous reputation...¡±

    It was easy to dismantle the straits they were caught in¡ªjust kill Li Hao or even Hou Xiaochen. That would put an end to everything. Or, they just needed to defeat those two to the point where their weaknesses were apparent to others. Countless people would turn to devour them instead. The results would be the same no matter which side it was. Whoever disyed fragility in this conflict would soon be torn to pieces by numerous ferocious tigers.

    As for why Hou Xiaochen had the Ministry of Finance in his sights and wanted to use Minister Liu as his whetstone... the minister felt that it was probably because he was too easygoing.

    ¡°Are you confident in taking down Li Hao?¡± The minister smiled at the woman.

    ¡°Yes!¡± the woman said calmly. ¡°I am a metamorphosis expert. As for him... he must be strong to be able to escape from a sealed Xu Qing. He should be at leastte or peak Nova. Added to that the use of the Windchaser Boots means that he can reach metamorphosis.

    ¡°However, even in that case, I am still confident of bringing him down!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not enough...¡± Minister Liu proimed after momentary thought.

    ¡°Not enough!¡±

    It was a simple deration, but it raised ripples of emotions in people¡¯s hearts. The minister felt that one metamorphosis expert wasn¡¯t enough against the young man! Granted, Li Hao was indeed very aggressive. He¡¯d once escaped being hunted down by numerous metamorphosis experts in the east.

 Chapter 638: Be a Good Person (II)

    <h4>Chapter 638: Be a Good Person (II)</h4>

    ¡°I understand the minister¡¯s meaning.¡± The beguiling woman nodded. ¡°But if Li Hao wishes to run... Countless ruthless wolves prowl the wilderness outside the royal city! He¡¯s worse off than us in one aspect¡ªhe cannot easily set foot outside the city. He¡¯s dead if he does!¡±

    Everyone had to put on a show of adhering to the rules when inside Skystar City confines. It was one thing to act from the shadows, but on the surface, no official personnel would attack Li Hao. If the young man left the royal city, however, then all bets were off! All sides would want a bite of such rich meat.

    ¡°Therefore, if he wants to just run like he did before, he¡¯d be dead wrong! That¡¯s one point. The second is that as the vicemander of the Night Watchers, if he damages buildings or kills innocent civilians during his shes, I think we¡¯d have the responsibility and obligation to demand an exnation from the Night Watchers. They would need to exin themselves to the dynasty!¡±

    ¡°Well said!¡± Minister Liu apuded loudly. ¡°You hit straight at the pain points! That¡¯s right,pared to the Colosseum, Li Hao¡¯s greatest difficulty is not us, but that he leaves the city or harms civilians. That will limit him in what he can do!

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen wants to use Li Hao to intimidate us, but he¡¯s made the wrong move. There¡¯s more restraining factors on the boy than us!¡±

    Li Hao was strong, but there was also too much trouble facing him. Being hobbled as he was, it was hard for him to bring the same level of battle strength to bear as he demonstrated in the east.

    ¡°But we still must remain alert!¡± Heughed and transmitted to the woman, ¡°Send a kill order to Celestial¡ªnot just Celestial, but Red Moon or Yama will do as well. Additionally...¡±

    ¡°...alright, that¡¯s enough for now. Dismissed!¡± He waved off everyone after giving a few mental orders. Minister Liu thought further after everyone was gone and headed to the rear of the ministry headquarters.

    A few secret passagester, he came up to a secret room.

    ¡°Father.¡± He waited outside instead of entering the room.

    ¡°Do you think all of this is still not a guarantee of sess in killing Li Hao?¡± A voice traveled out momentster.

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± The minister wasn¡¯t shy about his reservations. ¡°Someone like Li Hao isn¡¯t easy to kill! He wields two divine weapons and Hou Xiaochen will also make moves at critical moments. Thetter is not weak as even I am not assured of triumphing over him.

    ¡°It won¡¯t actually matter if we truly lose the Colosseum. If we must, we¡¯ll just keep a lower profile and umte fewer riches. But in current circumstances, disying such a stance will cause more than the loss of a single Colosseum. Father, you understand that as well.¡±

    ¡°Ai!¡± sighed an aged voice from the secret chamber. ¡°We are imprisoned by fame and wealth in the end!¡±

    Minister Liu didn¡¯t respond. Indeed, they were all imprisoned by fame and wealth because they were mortal! The first generation of ministers all had grand aspirations and vision, but what of them now?

    They¡¯d be evil dragons in other people¡¯s eyes. The passage of time and changes in their position, as well as other factors, had caused the nine ministries to lose their original purpose and no longer seek reforms. Reality was quite sobering at times.

    ¡°You¡¯ve sought me out for a reason,¡± sounded the aged voice again. ¡°What do you wish for me to do?¡±

    ¡°When ites to Li Hao, we have to kill him in a split second!¡± Minister Liu thought for a moment. ¡°I¡¯d like to borrow... an Arcanus talisman!¡±

    An Arcanus talisman!

    A faint pressure emitted from the secure chamber. ¡°You know that my cultivation level is not fully stabilized. Stripping out some of my power to create this talisman is an enormous depletion with consequences that may be greater than you imagine!¡±

    ¡°If we kill Li Hao, father, we¡¯ll be able to seize two treasures of the eight families. Two of them! That will make up for father¡¯s losses! The high cost of the talisman is also why they won¡¯t believe that I would search out father at this point in time and ask you for such a sacrifice just for the sake of killing Li Hao!

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen, Yao Si, and even those guys at the Inspectorate will be watching me from the shadows. They might seize the opening as soon as I make a move. Therefore, I won¡¯t do anything to give them that opportunity. They¡¯ll never believe that it¡¯s father¡¯s abilities that will appear on the scene instead!¡±

    ¡°You make some sense,¡±ughed the old man in the secret chamber. ¡°So a lion needs to bring full force to bear when hunting a rabbit! Indeed, someone like Li Hao cannot be underestimated. Even an Arcanus talisman may not kill him. ording to what I know, he might¡¯ve used a core origin talisman before. Who knows if he has more? If he does, that is sufficient to negate the st from an Arcanus talisman.¡±

    Minister Liu furrowed his brows. Were there more of those talismans? Surely not! The boy would¡¯ve used them at the end of Xu Qing¡¯s pursuit. But if he really did have more... they were in for a difficult time.

    ¡°Then father¡¯s meaning is...?¡±

    ¡°Since you¡¯ve made up your mind, then evil must bepletely eradicated. You need to cut the weeds and dig up the roots. As opposed to a slow trickle of incremental cost, it¡¯s better to pay a bigger price upfront to get something done once and for all!¡± rasped the old man as he taught his son. ¡°The Xus slowly added fuel to the mes, but ended up with devastating losses. How can the Lius make the same mistake with that example staring at us in the face?

    ¡°One Arcanus talisman may not kill Li Hao. Talismans are dead, people are alive!¡± lectured the old man as Minister Liu listened silently outside the door. ¡°The die has been cast, so let us up the ante. We have twelve handheld energy bombs in our warehouses. Use them all.¡±

    The minister was privately taken aback. Energy bombs were what Fan Chang had used in the fight over the sea. The detonation had forced a partially unsealed Hong Yitang to back away, and that had only been one such bomb!

    The Lius were so magnificently wealthy that they had twelve bombs in storage. Each of them was a grave threat to metamorphosis experts, with death even possible if one was not careful. These items did not cover the same range as a city annihtion missile, but the force they erupted with outstripped that of those missiles.

    City annihtion missiles covered arger range and could more easily carpet bomb an area. Twelve energy bombs however... even those greater than metamorphosis might die! Not even Arcanus supernaturals dare say that they would live under such a barrage.

    ¡°One Arcanus talisman and twelve energy bombs... As well as metamorphosis experts Wu Yong and Liu Sha taking the field, and the three great organizations as well...¡± Minister Liu reeled off. ¡°Father, this kind of encirclement will ensure that Li Hao dies, right?¡±

    This was quite the arsenal they were bringing to bear! If they were lucky, they would even kill an Arcanus. But his father was right, since they¡¯d decided on their course of action, then they should make an even greater gamble. If they won, they would naturally make up for their losses.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± the old man answered wearily. ¡°Everything is possible. But since we¡¯ve taken action, then there is no room for regret. Regret will only make you hesitate and waffle with indecision. Whether right or wrong, sess or failure, you¡¯ve made your greatest effort. If you still fail... then it is Li Hao¡¯s destiny to survive this time!¡±

    They were posturing to kill an Arcanus with what they were leveling at Li Hao. What else could they do if even this failed?

    ¡°Understood, thank you for the lesson, father!¡±

    ¡°Think nothing of it. Come for the Arcanus talisman tomorrow!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Minister Liu left.

    Within the secret chamber, a slightly drooping old man shook his head with a sigh. Li Hao... may not be so easy to kill. An heir to the eight families was still hopping around after encountering so many dangers. He was far from an easy target.

    But at this stage, this was all they could do.

    ......

    All sides were readying their preparations. Those within the Nine Dragons Pavilion were about to leave after eating and drinking their fill. The group bumped into guests from the other private rooms as they departed their room. Whether or not it was coincidence, that was difficult to say.

    Hou Xiaochen nodded at the othersing their way and bent at the waist. ¡°Greetings to the various ministers!¡±

    Quite an assembly had left the other rooms. Some nodded smilingly back at him, others ignored him. Thetter assessed the Night Watcher trio and quickly left.

    ¡°Good luck!¡± Yet others shed radiant smiles brimming with meaning. ¡°The security of Skystar depends on you. Do well!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The various ministers left as well. Li Hao quickly scanned their faces andmitted them to memory. He then looked at Hou Xiaochen for rification.

    ¡°Those were the ministers of Internal Affairs, Examinations, Judiciary, and Foreign Rtions.¡±

    ¡°Are they the weakest four ministries?¡± Li Hao asked lightly. The other three of Armed Forces, Inspectorate, and Administration had always struggled with each other over who was number one.

    Finance and Commerce were renowned to be rich. Finance was wealthy due to provincial tax revenue and a tradingpany under their banner. Commerce¡¯s ie didn¡¯te from taxes, but from the various business conglomerates and small-to-medium enterprises. It was difficult to say which was wealthier. These days, money represented strength.

    ¡°Stop being so full of yourself,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°As weak as they may be, they¡¯ll beat you like you¡¯re a child!¡±

    ¡°I <i>am</i> a child,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°How old am I and how old are they?¡±

    ¡°Oh, you!¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head. ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s go. It¡¯s enough for now that people know your face.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. It was time to go back. As for where he would live... who knew? He would follow Hou Xiaochen for now. He turned to the manager. ¡°Is my droplet of Water of Life packed up and ready to go?¡±

    The manager fidgeted ufortably. <i>You¡¯ve really got a thick face!</i>

    ¡°That... ah... requires one hundred thousand stones in payment,¡± she had no choice but to say.

    ¡°Didn¡¯t Minister Liu say he was treating?¡±

    ¡°Ah... when he left... he said... he said...¡±

    ¡°Chubby went back on his word??¡± Li Hao blinked and couldn¡¯t help but curse. ¡°He¡¯s one of the nine ministers and reneges on his word to treat us to dinner??¡±

    Heavens above! What kind of person was this? <i>He said to put it on his tab, but regretted his generosity. The hell man!</i>

 Chapter 639: Be a Good Person (III)

    <h4>Chapter 639: Be a Good Person (III)</h4>

    ¡°The meal can go on Minister Liu¡¯s tab,¡± the manager said softly. ¡°But... Water of Life... does not fall under the category of a meal.¡±

    This was her only feasible exnation. In all her years of service, it was her first time seeing someone like Li Hao who dared be treated to Water of Life, <i>and</i> it was her first time seeing someone like Minister Liu who really did go back on his word!

    ¡°This minister... is an interesting fellow!¡± A glum Li Hao looked at Hou Xiaochen. <i>He¡¯s a minister! A big hotshot! Who would¡¯ve thought that someone like him would renege on his word?!</i>

    Hou Xiaochenughed, as did Manager Yu. She hadn¡¯t said much all night, but now sheughed at Li Hao. ¡°Is he that much of a fool to give you a drop of Water of Life to help you attack him with?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    It was right that the minister was that shameless. He¡¯d be an idiot otherwise.

    ¡°Fine!¡± Li Hao capitted with great regret. ¡°This ispletely unexpected. I was so excited and thought I¡¯d save him some money by only taking one droplet! It turns out he¡¯s not even giving me one drop!¡± He turned to the manager. ¡°How much did we spend tonight?¡±

    ¡°Eight thousand stones!¡±

    ¡°Does that make us a big spender?¡±

    ¡°...naturally!¡± The manager hesitated as she didn¡¯t know what the young man wanted to do. <i>What are you cooking up now?</i>

    ¡°Then give me some souvenirs!¡±

    ¡°What?¡± the woman asked nkly. <i>What souvenirs? We don¡¯t have anything like that!</i>

    ¡°Your forks and spoons and stuff are very pretty. I¡¯ve just arrived in Skystar City and might need to move soon. Give me a set. Now, you need to know that I don¡¯t just take anyone¡¯s things. Prepare a set for me to take home!¡±

    The manager paused, stunned. After some struggle, she nodded. ¡°Very well, please wait a moment, Commander Li. I¡¯ll... I¡¯ll have people prepare that right now!¡±

    She wanted to copse! How did someone like this exist?!

    Hou Xiaochen burst outughing when she left and Manager Yu raised a hand to her temples. ¡°Can you be less of an embarrassment?¡±

    ¡°An embarrassment?¡± Li Hao asked with surprise. ¡°It¡¯s a gift, I¡¯m not stealing or looting it from them. I¡¯m a big spender, so it¡¯s normal to receive some presents. I¡¯m not a fan of those words, Manager Yu. Consider how many rations those things can be traded for if they¡¯re sold. How many people can they keep alive? You guys are used to a life of luxury and ease and have forgotten the pain of the people!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen started, as did Manager Yu. The... cutlery... could be exchanged for food and drink? Was he being serious?

    They gaped at the young man, who suddenly shed a devious smile at them. ¡°I¡¯m just joking. It¡¯s fun attacking you guys from the vantage of higher morals!¡±

    Manager Yu burst outughing. Hou Xiaochen looked meaningfully at Li Hao without making a sound. The young man alsoughed. Heughed andughed until he suddenly stoppedughing and fell silent.

    A confused Manager Yu was surprised and couldn¡¯t truly make sense of Li Hao¡¯s thoughts. <i>What... do you have in mind?</i>

    Li Hao quietly regained his calm. Indeed, the manager wouldn¡¯t understand his thoughts. Although she¡¯d entered the world for the purpose of revenge and killed many in that pursuit, she¡¯d never been poor or been an ordinary person. She was a martial master as soon as she set foot into the martial world. She¡¯d been a powerhouse and continued in that position of strength until she ultimately joined the Night Watchers.

    These people... were different from him. They might not even know that a shirt cost money! They wouldn¡¯t know how much money one breakfast would cost or how much the ingredients for a meal cost. They didn¡¯te in contact with these concepts.

    Li Hao knew that one thousand star coins provided a decent life. Two thousand coins would enable a family of three to livefortably in Silver City¡ªthat still wasn¡¯t enough for Skystar City. Was face worth anything?

    He didn¡¯t know any of this before he was eighteen, but did afterward, and knew it all very clearly. <i>Heh, so you guys aren¡¯t omnipotent. I know more than you about some stuff.</i>

    The manager brought over a set of cutlery¡ªLi Hao even made a show of inspecting it to ensure it was crafted the same way and fashioned from energy stones. Only then did he put it away in his storage ring with satisfaction.

    The manager wanted nothing more than for these people to leave immediately! Li Hao, in particr, put her in such a painful position.

    However, the young man was in no hurry to leave. ¡°I have a question. Since you¡¯re a broker, how much does it cost to assassinate one of the ministers?¡±

    ¡°......¡± There was no response. Sweating profusely, the manager said after a long moment, ¡°Commander Li loves to joke.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not joking!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°How about one million mysterious power stones? Help me kill someone...¡±

    ¡°Ah... we¡¯re a restaurant, not Celestial!¡± The manager quickly shook her head. ¡°You¡¯ve really misunderstood us, Commander Li!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m being serious.¡±

    ¡°This is a misunderstanding!¡± insisted the manager, wanting nothing more than to kick Li Hao out of the Nine Dragons Pavilion!

    ¡°Ai, forget it!¡± Li Hao shook his head. It looked like this one didn¡¯t dare ept this task, or felt that they couldn¡¯t since they didn¡¯t have enough trust in Li Hao and the others.

    Three humans and one dog swiftly descended the steps. There was almost no one left in the main hall. They climbed into a car and slowly drove off; the manager sent them off with a fake smile stered onto her face.

    It wasn¡¯t until they were out of sight that she heaved a sigh of relief. A middle-aged man walked over and transmitted, ¡°What do you think?¡±

    ¡°What do I think?¡± the managerined. ¡°He¡¯s very difficult to get rid of! This Demon Sword is not someone to provoke and he¡¯s no kind soul. He¡¯s capricious and mercurial. He¡¯s very, very difficult to handle!¡±

    ¡°Even you find him difficult?¡± The middle-aged man was surprised.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°Is he very strong?¡±

    ¡°Not in terms of strength. Forget it, you wouldn¡¯t understand it if I exined it to you. I¡¯ll write all of it downter and update his file.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± The man left.

    The manager sagged with relief. She¡¯d finally lived through this experience! She turned to head inside and immediately froze stiff. Li Hao... had been standing behind her at some point in time. Her face was incredibly rigid. When had the young man gotten off the car and taken up a position behind her?

    ¡°Commander Li, you...¡±

    ¡°Come in!¡± Li Hao stood at the entrance to a room on the first floor and waved at her with a smile.

    The manager was highly alert, but still walked over despite there being no one else around. Li Hao wouldn¡¯t dare do anything here, would he?

    ......

    <i>Inside the room.</i>

    Li Hao sat down and smiled when the other walked in. ¡°I want information on everyone in the Ministry of Finance¡ªall of its powerhouses! And those of the Four Seas Company and Skystar Colosseum... Give me a lower price than you normally would. The royal family is at odds with the nine ministries, I¡¯m helping you guys!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve misunderstood, Commander Li. We¡¯re just a restaurant...¡±

    Li Hao looked silently at her and said after a long moment, ¡°So you won¡¯t sell it to me, is it?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t mean that, Commander Li, just that the Night Watchers have their own intelligencework...¡±

    ¡°Does that have anything to do with me?¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I want yours! And not just yours, I¡¯ll be purchasing information through some other channels as well. Give me the real stuff! It doesn¡¯t matter if it¡¯s notplete, but I¡¯ll dismantle you brick by brick if you give me anything fake!

    ¡°Is peak Nova supposed to be impressive? Or do you think that the metamorphosis expert on the sub-second floor is strong? Or is the one at the door right now supposed to be good enough? Do you not want to do business anymore?¡±

    ¡°Give it to him!¡± came a soft chuckle from outside the door. ¡°One hundred thousand mysterious power stones!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s one drop of Water of Life, isn¡¯t it?¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°But your information has to be worth this price! If not, I may not be able to do anything to you, but I happen to know a few lunatics¡ªones who can unseal themselves. They¡¯re the equivalent of roughly three or four Arcanus, which probably still won¡¯t have an effect on you, but it¡¯ll be fun!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Commander Li,¡± the man outside the door continued tough. ¡°It will be worth the price!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± Li Haoughed and looked at the manager. ¡°Your boss has spoken, so get on with it! You drag your heels in everything you do. I¡¯d wanted to hire you as my manager because you¡¯re pretty¡ªbeing paid by the government is nice and stable. But now... forget it!¡±

    The manager smiled awkwardly. What kind of joke was this? This fellow was crazy! She didn¡¯t dare say anything else and quickly left.

    Momentster, she returned and handed a jade slip to Li Hao. ¡°This is an ancient civilization¡ª¡±

    ¡°I know!¡± Li Hao said faintly. ¡°I¡¯m not an ignorant bumpkin. I know more about these things than you do. I¡¯ve even seen nt spirits, monsters and beasts, and nearly dead generals of the ancient civilization. Have you? I¡¯ve seen powerhouses that can kill Arcanus with a single breath, have you? And you want to brag to me... Get in line!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The manager didn¡¯t dare speak anymore; her heart pounded fiercely from what she¡¯d heard. Was that true? It might be! After all, Li Hao had once used a core origin talisman.

    The young man remained where he was and examined the contents of the slip that he¡¯d been given. He hadn¡¯t paid yet, and would not pay if he felt that the contents weren¡¯t worth the price. If these people wanted to force payment from his hands... Heh, they could try.

    The staff didn¡¯t stop him from looking over the wares. Perhaps they were astonished by Li Hao¡¯s brazen response, or perhaps they were very confident in their wares.

 Chapter 640: Running Away In the Night (I)

    <h4>Chapter 640: Running Away In the Night (I)</h4>

    ¡°You guys are trying to pull the wool over my eyes.¡± Li Hao frowned after flipping through the material. ¡°The Ministry of Finance is powerful beyondpare, but they only have two metamorphosis experts that they can call on? Bullshit! The Xus had scores of metamorphosis experts under theirmand¡ªthe Heaven, Earth, ck, and Yellow Generals, as well as Xu Qing himself and Red Beard. His old man¡¯s also an Arcanus. You¡¯re telling me that the Lius only have two metamorphosis experts?¡±

    ¡°The vice ministers of the Ministry of Finance are members of the state and cannot be called upon to fight,¡± exined the manager. ¡°The Lius will certainly have bodyguards in the dark, but just like the Xus, they are all in the ruins and won¡¯te out now.

    ¡°The only ones they can mobilize are the two that are respectively in the Four Seas Company and Skystar Colosseum. They might also hire help from Celestial or utilize highly destructive weapons such as energy bombs.¡±

    ¡°Do you guys sell energy bombs?¡± Li Hao nodded after some thought. ¡°How much are you selling them for?¡±

    ¡°Three hundred thousand stones...¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± Li Hao snorted. <i>Go rob a bank, why don¡¯t you? What a joke! I wouldn¡¯t be able to loot that much treasure even if I blew up a metamorphosis expert. Do you think everyone is Xu Qing?</i>

    He flicked out a drop of Water of Life. ¡°This information is barely worth this price, it¡¯s too expensive! I may not make this back even if I kill a metamorphosis expert!¡±

    The manager smiled apologetically and didn¡¯t say anything. She put away the droplet with some surprise. The young man really was willing to pay up! She recalled how Li Hao had previously behaved like a glutton and ravenously took in everything in front of him. He was a difficult fellow to define.

    ¡°Are you guys in the business of being bodyguards?¡± Li Hao stretchedzily.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Do you offer the services of metamorphosis experts as bodyguards?¡±

    ¡°Ah... we really don¡¯t... but some of our initial Novas might be willing to do so. They will be expensive, however...¡±

    ¡°Forget it, that¡¯s too weak!¡±

    The manager was speechless. Were Novas weak? Wasn¡¯t Li Hao a Nova himself? Her headache intensified upon seeing the young man linger after the conclusion of their transaction. ¡°Commander Li, do you... have other business at hand?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m a big spender, don¡¯t you understand?¡¯

    ¡°......¡± <i>Fuck you!</i>

    The manager who¡¯d hosted countless guests and almost never lost her temper fully vented her fury to herself. <i>Show some self respect, will you?! </i>

    Each set of cutlery was very expensive! They were forged out of high grade mysterious power stones; each set was worth at least two thousand stones! How dare the kid demand set after set?!

    As much as she cursed to herself, she fetched another set upon further thought. <i>Forget it!</i> A drop of Water of Life did indeed make him a VIP. As priceless as the cutlery was, a gift was a gift. It was more like an offering to get this gue off their grounds.

    Another set of cutlery soon arrived, Li Hao received it with a wide beam. He could ask the little tree for more Water of Life at ten thousand stones a drop. He had obtained two sets of cutlery worth four thousand stones each and considering the massive meal he¡¯d just enjoyed... It wasn¡¯t much of a loss.

    Before he left, he pulled greatly on the mysterious power stones at the front door. He absorbed so much energy that they dimmed.

    The manager nearly copsed when the young man left. She was also a little paranoid, deathly afraid that Li Hao would appear behind her again. Thank goodness there was no one there this time!

    It wasn¡¯t long before an attendant from upstairs told her that the private room Li Hao had just been in was fine, but everything made out of mysterious power stones in that room was now empty decoration!

    They¡¯d been drained of all of their energy!

    ¡°What an asshole!¡± she couldn¡¯t help but curse out loud.

    ......

    Li Hao had no idea why he was being cursed¡ªhe would be quite aggrieved if he knew. It wasn¡¯t him, it was all Panther! The dog was quite adept at absorbing energy and it¡¯d entertained itself as the humans ate. Throughout the course of its y, it devoured all of the energy within the private room. Li Hao was certainly not going to take the fall for this.

    The young man did not return to Night Watcher headquarters. He smiled in the dim light of the moon, still wearing his top hat and holding the staff.

    ¡°Troop Leader Southern First,e in when you hear this!¡±

    ......

    <i>Within the pce.</i>

    ¡°Fucking hell!¡± He Yong bounced up with loud cruises. ¡°He¡¯s here and in trouble, which is why he¡¯s calling for me! He ran away from me faster than anyone when he was cultivating, that little bastard...¡±

    He¡¯d already received word of what¡¯d happened. Was Li Hao calling on him to fight? <i>I¡¯m afraid of dying!</i>

    He didn¡¯t really dare fight the Ministry of Finance, but neither could he withstand the temptation of sword energy. After brief struggle, he responded, ¡°Where are you?¡±

    ¡°At the entrance of the Nine Dragons Pavilion. I¡¯ll wait here for you. I miss you, martial uncle!¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong was silent for a few brief moments before he let loose with every swear word in his vocabry. Having gotten that out of his system, he walked outside. <i>You should strive to be a better person, Li Hao!</i>

    ......

    Li Hao quite missed He Yong as it¡¯d been quite a while. He grinned from ear to ear when he saw Southern Fist again.

    ¡°Good evening, martial uncle!¡±

    <i>I¡¯m your martial uncle when you need my help and ¡°Soldier Southern Fist¡± when you don¡¯t,</i> He Yong grumbled. His beard was scrunched up from the force of his expression.

    ¡°You¡¯ve got some nerve!¡± he sneered. Of all times to visit the royal city, the kid chose this time. He was getting much cockier!

    ¡°It has nothing to do with nerve.¡± Li Hao smiled radiantly. ¡°It¡¯s just that as a Silver Moon martial master, I should travel thend and wield my sword in the most remote corners of the world. I seek out the days of the veteran martial masters and will sweep through the supernaturals of our time, glorifying the name of Silver Moon martial masters again!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s a big talk you¡¯re talking!¡± He Yong looked around. ¡°The Nine Dragons Pavilion sits at the end of the Avenues of the Nine Ministries. Those who dare talk like this outside the pce usually don¡¯t meet with good ends.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what the royal family thought eighty years ago.¡± Li Hao waspletely unconcerned. ¡°But today, the nine ministries encircle them. Martial uncle, nothing is impossible for a determined mind.¡±

    He Yong burst outughing. He himself was arrogant, but there was shrewdness hidden within his arrogance. The first time he met Li Hao, he¡¯d found the young man to be cautious and prudent. The circumstances were a very different sight now, possibly due to the young man¡¯s increase in strength. Whether it was that or other reasons, He Yong didn¡¯t care. This kind of tone quite suited the Silver Moon martial master style.

    ¡°Shall we grab a drink?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s do that!¡± Li Hao nodded. He¡¯d drank tea with Hou Xiaochen; He Yong naturally meant alcohol. That was just as well.

    ¡°You should change your clothes,¡± He Yong said as they walked. ¡°They¡¯re so ugly and present too big of a target. Everyone will know that you dress weirdly. Do you want to be kept under watch everywhere you go?¡±

    Li Hao smiled and waved away his conspicuous top hat. The staff in his hand turned into a bracelet that looped around his forearm.

    ¡°Have you fully mastered it?¡± He Yong was surprised. Had thed refined his heritage weapon?

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao shook his head. The little sword had just turned easier to manipte with thest weapon soul it absorbed.

    ¡°Where¡¯s Panther?¡±

    ¡°Arf!¡± a puppy barked from a corner. He Yong furrowed his brows at it.

    ¡°No one... will believe that this is the Golden Hair Hunting Dog of the Divine Masters Ranking.¡±

    ¡°Divine Masters Ranking?¡±

    ¡°Have you not looked at it?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°You can take a look. Although it may not be urate, it will familiarize you with the powerhouses of the central region that are below thirty years old.¡±

    ¡°Not interested.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve long surpassed that.¡± Li Hao pointed to the horizon with an aloof look. ¡°My goal now is those people¡ªthe ministers of the nine ministries and their old ministers, antique old farts, and existences from the ancient civilization. Even if my strength is not up to par at the moment, my ambitions soar to the heavens! As for whether or not my destiny is sufficient for the task... that depends on my luck! I will not walk far if my ambitions are not great enough. I wish to walk further!¡±

    He Yong looked at Li Hao again in an astonished light. It¡¯d only been a month since they parted ways in Silver Moon, but the young man had undergone great changes since then. Perhaps it was because he¡¯d led people against Xu Qing, or perhaps it was because he¡¯d seen more of the world.

    He Yong knew that Li Hao had achieved many mighty deeds after his departure. When he left, the young man could only fight mid Novas. And now, he¡¯d even killed a metamorphosis expert. Even though there were various reasons and luck at y for this aplishment, that was a metamorphosis expert nheless.

    In one short month, Li Hao had experienced the battle of White Shark, North Sea, and Calm Borders... Those were threerge-scale conflicts in which he¡¯d killed multiple Novas. As a Silver Moon martial master, those three battles had resulted in heaven-shattering changes for Li Hao. Thus, He Yong no longer had many advantages when it came to the young man.

    He wasn¡¯t even a match for Li Hao if he didn¡¯t unseal himself. In fact, he only barely triumphed over the metamorphosis level if he didn¡¯t unseal himself. As for Arcanus... he was far from being able to fight that level.

    In Ash Mountain, he¡¯d only been able to suppress one major monster spirit when he unsealed himself. He hadn¡¯t been able to take on multiple like Hong Yitang had been able to.

 Chapter 641: Running Away In the Night (II)

    <h4>Chapter 641: Running Away In the Night (II)</h4>

    ¡°It¡¯s good to be confident in your abilities!¡± He Yong nodded; some of his resentment receded and he managed a smile. ¡°You won¡¯t get far without confidence, but you can¡¯t be overly confident. Skystar City is not a typical metropolis.¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡±

    The two walked together at a moderate pace. It wasn¡¯t until they left the avenues behind that a din built in their ears again. This was a city that didn¡¯t sleep, it just grew quiet at the nine ministries at an early hour. It was dim in those avenues, just like the dynasty. Resplendent on the outside, dim and dark on the inside.

    ¡°There¡¯s an old pub up ahead with good alcohol. I go there often,¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°What a pity that you weren¡¯t willing toe with mest time. You missed out on a precious opportunity. If not...¡±

    ¡°A precious opportunity?¡± Li Hao looked at He Yong. ¡°Is martial uncle stronger than before?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s tough!¡± He Yong sighed with a shake of his head. ¡°It¡¯s tough to replenish blood qi, but I¡¯ve improved ever so slightly.

    ¡°What was the opportunity, you ask?¡± He Yong thought for a moment before transmitting, ¡°One involving the royal family. I suspect that they¡¯vee into full control of the ruins of Skystar Town, but that they haven¡¯t had time to fully explore it. The royal family sends expedition teams into it every year. As a martial master, I am sometimes permitted entry since I can protect the royal children...¡±

    ¡°They allow martial masters to participate in such highly ssified matters?¡± Li Hao was baffled. The royal family seemed to value He Yong a great deal. Why was that?

    Silver Moon martial masters typically weren¡¯t wee elsewhere. That He Yong could cultivate to such heights with the royal family was a rare sight. Under normal circumstances, they wouldn¡¯t let an outsider like him participate in the ruins.

    ¡°Why else, if not for profit? Such is the way of the world!¡± He Yong answered dismissively. ¡°I offered my services to the weakest prince who had the least authority twenty years ago. I supported him immensely when he was in difficult straits and even saved him from a few assassinations. Now that he¡¯s grown stronger and his faction¡¯s authority increased, he responds in kind towards me¡ªwhether out of real gratitude for an early investor or just spending significant resources on true talent.¡±

    <i>Fascinating!</i>

    ¡°Martial uncle has a great eye for the future,¡± Li Hao sighed with appreciation.

    ¡°What eye? I simply bet on the cheapest investment. I would make it big if I won and run for the hills if I lost. The impact of timely assistance is far greater than congrattions at the height of sess. It is a testament to his own abilities that he was able to rise up.¡±

    ¡°How is the royal family able to fight among themselves when they are already in less than ideal circumstances?¡± Li Hao asked curiously. inly, the assassination did note from the nine ministries. Why target the weakest prince? That was obviously a result of internal discord.

    ¡°How would the nine ministries find any sort of footing if the royal family wasn¡¯t rocked with conflict?¡± He Yongughed. ¡°But it¡¯s not like they have their opportunities only because the royal family is preupied. Otherwise, how would there be the nine ministries at all given how strong the ck Armaturas were in those times?

    ¡°The royal family is filled with ruthless characters and fight each other more viciously than outsiders do with them for the position of king! Even the positions of nine ministers and thirty-six dukes are hotly contested by blood, to say nothing of the royal throne.

    ¡°It¡¯s been a bit better these years because the royal family themselves know they are in trouble. The conflict has dwindled somewhat. If this was twenty years ago, just the royal family would turn the world upside down, to say nothing of the nine ministries.¡±

    Disputes were ever present. Li Hao nodded, finding that his worldview had expanded yet again. He¡¯d thought the royal family would be of one heart at this point in time, wanting to break free of the nine ministries. To think that the truth would not be thus, that they would still be fiercely fighting against each other!

    ¡°Is the prince that you support still very strong?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s alright, about the same as you,¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°The royal family has a lot of resources and opportunities. Don¡¯t think that they¡¯re stuck to their pce. They can move about freely since only their political authority is restricted, not their personal freedom. Not to mention, the nine ministries aren¡¯t able to stop them if they really want to leave. Not unless they wish to dere open war. The key thing is, the royal family can enter the ruins without leaving the pce.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The two chatted as they walked, stopping in a small alleyway before long. It really was a small pub. Despite the hustle and bustle around it, there weren¡¯t that many people inside.

    He Yong sauntered in, waking up the dozing owner. When he cracked his eyes open to see He Yong, the man shot to his feet. ¡°Boss He is here...¡± He nced at Li Hao. ¡°The usual?¡±

    ¡°Yep, make that double!¡±

    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll get on it.¡± The boss disappeared into the kitchen. There wasn¡¯t even a server around. It looked like this was a one man show.

    The two sat down; He Yong grabbed a jug of liquor with a casual probe of his hand and two bowls with another snatch. ¡°Don¡¯t be put off by theck of people here, this is where the good stuff is. ces are bigger in the city, but their food and drink doesn¡¯t taste much. C¡¯mon, have a sip!¡± He poured a cup out for Li Hao.

    Li Hao clucked his tongue after a mouthful. What kind of good taste was this? The alcohol was just strong. It burned on its way down and seemed to set his stomach on fire. Perhaps the only good alcohol was strong alcohol to He Yong. It was quite a novel sensation to have strong alcohol explode in the young man¡¯s stomach.

    He Yong was quite at home as he quaffed cup after cup. ¡°Out with it, what do you want me for? Do you want to take down the Ministry of Finance? Or the Colosseum? But that¡¯s Hou Xiaochen¡¯s goals, not yours. What goals do you have?¡±

    <i>What goals do I have?</i>

    Li Hao thought for a while before saying, ¡°Not many and my goals aren¡¯t that ambitious. Before I came here, I just wanted to make some trouble for Red Moon. I changed my mind on the way and now I want to see whether the heart of the dynasty is ck or white. Is there light to be found in this world?¡±

    ¡°Why are you taking after Hong Yitang for?!¡± He Yong was speechless. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you, this world is as ck as night! Skystar City is the ckest of ck! Countless people die in ces you can¡¯t see, all sorts of vermin are gathered here.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not imitating Martial Uncle Hong,¡± Li Hao chuckled and took another sip. ¡°I just feel that as martial masters, superhumans, and officials... There are things that we should and should not do! Take this Skystar Colosseum, for example. I don¡¯t actually care about sparring matches or fights to the death...¡±

    He Yong listened quietly.

    ¡°I just want to take a look.¡±

    ¡°A look at what?¡± He Yong stared at the young man. ¡°What can you see? What can you do? I¡¯m not trying to take the wind out of your sails, but just telling you that you¡¯re creating trouble for yourself in getting involved with this.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t care.¡± Li Hao continued to drink, a happy smile on his face. ¡°Do you still remember the Battle Heaven Army, martial uncle?¡±

    He Yong blinked.

    ¡°Do you think that that army would be willing to protect those in Skystar City?¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Silence.

    He Yong started drinking as well, frowning with thought. He said after a long moment, ¡°Those principles and logic are too far removed for me. I¡¯m not interested! Of course, taking a stand when we encounter injustice and journeying through the world is the dream of all martial masters. Just tell me what you want to do, how you want to do it, and where you want to go with it. That¡¯s enough for me!¡±

    Li Hao burst outughing. ¡°How much help can you give me, martial uncle?¡±

    ¡°How much help do you need?¡± He Yong looked at Li Hao with a brewing headache.

    ¡°Send me a few Arcanus!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Go to hell! </i>All this kid knew was how to bullshit. ¡°I¡¯ve spent twenty years in Skystar City, but I only have a smallwork. I can get you two Novas and me for a third. We¡¯re reliable people and can do anything for the right amount of money. Anything is possible!¡±

    ¡°What level of Nova?¡±

    ¡°Ate Nova and a peak Nova.¡±

    Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°What, do you think that¡¯s too weak?¡± He Yong rolled his eyes. The kid had seriously let everything get to his head!

    ¡°They really are too weak!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Do you think metamorphosis experts grow on trees?¡± He Yong couldn¡¯t help but jeer. ¡°You¡¯ve met a lot because you keep antagonizing the wrong people. You offend either the nine ministries or the royal family, a duke or a director general. Go see for yourself how many metamorphosis experts exist in the world!¡±

    It was Li Hao¡¯s fault for the background of all his enemies. The three great organizations, Steppe Prince, Near River Director General Office, Steadfast Duke, Ministry of Finance...

    Each of these organizations were renowned throughout thends. In actuality, Nova was a premier powerhouse in the world, but it was a minor detail of the past in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. Even so, a martial master like He Yong remained at this level.

    ¡°It¡¯s better than nothing,¡± Li Hao sighed.

    He Yong scowled darkly. <i>Nothing your ass! That¡¯s a peak and ate Nova we¡¯re talking about¡ªthis is your assessment of them??</i>

    ¡°Are they on good terms with you, martial uncle?¡±

    ¡°Quite good.¡± He Yong put the matter out of his mind. ¡°I don¡¯t have the easiest personality, so I either make no friends at all or I make really good friends. My friends are simr to me¡ªnot the shyest, but unwilling to live in the status quo. We¡¯re willing to give things a try if there¡¯s anything to be gained...¡±

    ¡°Will you guys move against me instead? There¡¯s greater benefits to be had if you take me out and it¡¯ll be less dangerous than the Ministry of Finance.¡±

    He Yong blinked, then stroked his chin. ¡°This... might actually be a possibility! How about this, I¡¯ll go ask them and if they¡¯re willing to. Forget them if they¡¯re not, but they wouldn¡¯t turn on you if they decide to work with you.¡±

 Chapter 642: Running Away In the Night (III)

    <h4>Chapter 642: Running Away In the Night (III)</h4>

    Li Hao was at aplete loss for words. ¡°How strong is martial uncle now when you unseal yourself?¡±

    ¡°Less than Arcanus," He Yong had to say. ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way. People like me are primarily judged by how many supernatural locks we unseal. It depends what degree we unseal them to and how saturated they were. It¡¯s difficult to define martial masters at this stage, everyone¡¯s situation is different.

    ¡°The metamorphosis of a Nova is a very protracted process. Do you know what that stage entails?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head.

    ¡°The metamorphosis stage refers to those who have broken one lock of their organs and all four of their limbs. As we know, breaking five locks makes one a Nova. Arcanus is when another of the five organs have been shattered, so why is there a separate mention of metamorphosis?

    ¡°This stage is one of adjustment, in which the second elemental attribute is slowly released into the body. The sixth lock cannot be abruptly shattered all at once, that will cause an internal explosion! It¡¯s a simr situation to our unsealing¡ªsupernaturals gradually wear away at the second lock of the organs and release the energy within. They are Arcanus when it fully breaks. Before that, they are in the metamorphosis of change.¡±

    Li Hao finally understood! So this was the meaning behind that stage.

    ¡°Those undergoing this deliberate fracturing are naturally also divided into strong and weak. One supernatural might have cracked one tenth of their lock, another might have worked on one fifth. It really is rather simr to our unsealing.

    ¡°Whether it is Xu Qing, Hong Yitang, or me, we are all in this stage. It¡¯s just that I... can¡¯t reach Arcanus even after I unseal myself. Hong Yitang, though, will rival an Arcanus when he fully unseals himself.¡±

    ¡°What if martial uncle saturates a few more locks?¡± Li Hao thought rapidly.

    The look in He Yong¡¯s eyes changed and he stroked his chin. He suddenly shed a brilliant smile at Li Hao. ¡°Then that¡¯s another story entirely. If that¡¯s the case, I¡¯ll beat whoever you want me to beat up and kill whoever you want me to kill. But... is there enough time for that?¡±

    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t there be?¡±

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to take some action tomorrow...¡±

    Li Haoughed before he had the chance to finish. ¡°Why tomorrow? Everything thinks I¡¯m going to listen to Director Hou and start kicking down doors tomorrow, but why must I go tomorrow? I¡¯m going to go into closed door cultivation for a few days, can I not?¡±

    He Yong blinked. Could he do that?

    Actually, he could!

    ¡°If your two friends are willing to help, I¡¯ll pay them in advance. What does a peak Nova on the cusp of metamorphosis want? Energy? Sword energy? Elemental energy? Or others? I¡¯ll pay for them to be my bodyguards!¡±

    He Yong stared at the young man for a very long time before grinning widely. ¡°You¡¯ll do!¡±

    Everyone thought that Li Hao would put in an appearance tomorrow since Hou Xiaochen had dered war tonight. Damn, the kid was going into seclusion instead! That was... unexpected! The Ministry of Finance must be ready, but Li Hao would run off instead!

    ¡°Alright... where are you going for seclusion?¡±

    ¡°Skystar Sea. Three days should be enough.¡± Li Hao beamed radiantly. ¡°As opposed to benefiting outsiders, I should let the good stuff go to martial uncle instead, shouldn¡¯t I? We¡¯ll make full preparations and soar to fame with one move. We¡¯ll be rich beyond belief as the Colosseum is definitely swimming in wealth...

    ¡°Also, there¡¯s no need to just stick to the Colosseum,¡± the young man said upon further thought. ¡°Can martial uncle find evidence of the Four Seas Company colluding with pirates? If there is, we¡¯ll take them down first!¡±

    He Yong took a deep breath, then another deep breath. He looked at Li Hao. ¡°You¡¯re a vicious one!¡±

    ¡°Just listen to yourself, martial uncle!¡± Li Hao chuckled merrily. ¡°The Four Seas Company may not be poorer than Colosseum¡ªit might even be richer! The key thing is, they probably definitely work with the pirates!

    ¡°How can they navigate the troubled waters so smoothly if they don¡¯t?¡± the young man ended with a sneer. Any fool would know that there must be an agreement or even partnership between the two. It was also possible that the Four Seas Company secretly conducted pirate business, that they were one faction. Otherwise, regr merchants didn¡¯tmand profit margins as high as the pirates did. Deals without any costs involved were the most lucrative.

    He Yong looked at Li Hao for a while without saying anything.

    ¡°The Four Seas Company is headquartered near the Skystar Sea because they sail the four seas. Skystar Sea connects directly to the four bodies of water as well. It¡¯s just sealed so that no passage is possible,¡± Li Hao continued.

    ¡°Their boss is Wu Yong¡ªI¡¯ve met him once, a metamorphosis expert. He¡¯s most likely staying in Skystar City now though. However, I can¡¯t do anything to someone of the Ministry of Finance without any evidence. If there is and it involves supernaturals, then I have the authority to attack them directly!

    ¡°The Four Seas Company have operated for so many years that, even if most of their gains are handed in to the ministry, part of them must have stayed with Wu Yong. They don''t belong to him alone, however, so we¡¯ll be rich if we raid thepany!¡±

    He Yong smiled and nodded. Their food was served at this time and the pub owner returned to his nap when he was finished with his duties.

    Li Hao and He Yong ate and drank their fill.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll contact those two fellows,¡± He Yong said after a while. ¡°If possible, let¡¯s go together. If not, then just us two.¡±

    ¡°That works!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything else.

    He Yong asked the young man to wait for a bit and ran outside. The young man didn¡¯t know if he was utilizing amunicator or some special method. The man returned with a smile after almost half an hour.

    ¡°Done!¡± He nodded. ¡°Those two were very worked up, but they also have a request. They want to join the Inspectorate or Night Watchers after the job.¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡±

    ¡°For safety,¡± He Yong said bluntly. ¡°You¡¯re not razing the Ministry of Finance to the ground, so you¡¯re not afraid. But they are and retaliation is easy after the fact. I¡¯m different since I¡¯m associated with the royal family. They¡¯re on their own, so they must be allowed to join one of the institutions at the end of this. They can be the sort without any duties, kind of like guest elders. Is that doable?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine, we can do that now. A Skystarmander office is being established and I¡¯m the vicemander. It¡¯s just a title and I can make the call for any rank below first rank inspector. They can even bemissioner inspectors¡ªit¡¯s just the matter of another two medallions.¡±

    ¡°Your confidence ispletely different in your new role!¡± He Yongughed, then switched to transmission. ¡°I had them go to the Skystar Sea first. When we part ways in a bit, you should go before I do. Just contact me through the armor.¡±

    ¡°Alright.¡± Li Hao quickly departed after a few more words with He Yong.

    ......

    The young man didn¡¯t take the car. Instead, he melted into the darkness and headed straight outside the city. He Yong disappeared before long as well.

    The sky gradually began to brighten. All of Skystar¡¯s senior executives hadn¡¯t been able to sleep on this night. They were waiting, waiting for the arrival of the next day.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen hadn¡¯t slept either. Golden Spear, Mu Lin, and Manager Yu were waiting in his office. He gave a long exhale and couldn¡¯t help butugh, ¡°Li Hao... you¡¯re really something!¡±

    <i>Damn it!</i>

    Manager Yu was likewise at a loss and had a headache. ¡°The director has just erupted in open hostilities against the Ministry of Finance and is ready to go on the offensive... Has the kid gotten lost?¡±

    Li Hao had said that he had some business to take care of and would be back soon. But... where was he?

    Gone!

    Was this the vanguard that he¡¯d promised Hou Xiaochen?

    <i>Fucking... hell! Has he run off?</i>

    ¡°Has Li Hao... possibly... run away?¡± Mu Lin asked carefully. ¡°Maybe he fled in the middle of the night with the dog...?¡±

    It wasn¡¯t that they wanted to think this way, but that everything had been agreed upon yesterday. Li Hao was missing before the scheduled action today! It... was a logical conclusion.

    ¡°I can lead people to the Colosseum if he¡¯s gone...¡± Golden Spear sighed. ¡°Otherwise...¡±

    Otherwise, there was no way out for Hou Xiaochen. He¡¯dpletely offended the Ministry of Finance, to say nothing of reaping any rewards.

    ¡°Forget it,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled with some resignation. ¡°If he¡¯s really run off, it¡¯ll take my personal attention to aplish anything. Not even little Yu will do. Ai! Forget it!¡±

    <i>Didn¡¯t you agreest night? I wouldn¡¯t have been in such a hurry to dere war if you hadn¡¯te.</i>

    So he¡¯d thrown down the gauntlet, but his general had run off. Once news spread of his disappearance, Hou Xiaochen would be theughingstock of the city. There was no helping it!

    ¡°Is he repeating an old tactic and already slipped into the Colosseum under a disguise?¡± Manager Yu mused.

    ¡°That¡¯s not outside the realm of possibility.¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded with a smile. ¡°Let¡¯s leave it at this! Everyone, go rest.¡±

    There was nothing else to say.

    ......

    <i>At this moment, in the Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    ¡°Li Hao¡¯s gone missing?¡± Yellow Dragon sneered. ¡°He didn¡¯te back?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Has he concealed himself in the Colosseum?¡± Yellow Dragon thought for a bit before sniffing, ¡°Does he think this to be the east? He wants to use the same trick twice!¡±

    ¡°Can he have run away?¡± one of his subordinates asked softly. Li Hao would be very familiar with this voice. ¡°I know a bit about Li Hao,¡± Hu Qingfeng said carefully. ¡°I¡¯ve also seen him before. I¡¯m very surprised by the enormous disturbance he caused in the east. Based on what I know about him, he shouldn¡¯t be this bold. Perhaps he¡¯s already gone as he¡¯s up against a ministry this time.¡±

    ¡°Run off? Isn¡¯t he afraid of Hou Xiaochen...¡± Yellow Dragon asked with surprise.

    ¡°His master Yuan Shuo and others such as Earthturner Sword and Light Sword are his backers. He won¡¯t be afraid of Hou Xiaochen.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯d be for the best if he <i>has</i> run off!¡± Yellow Dragon grinned brilliantly. ¡°Things will be really interesting then. Hou Xiaochen issued his challenge with such ir, but his general ran off in the middle of the night. He¡¯ll certainly be the butt of every joke and lose every shred of dignity, and he¡¯ll also havepletely offended Minister Liu. There will be vengeance sooner orter, so I¡¯d like to see how Hou Xiaochen will take care of himself next.¡±

    Hu Qingfengughed dryly and didn¡¯t offer his opinions.

 Chapter 643: In the Dark of the Night (I)

    <h4>Chapter 643: In the Dark of the Night (I)</h4>

    Li Hao continued to be absent as the sky brightened. The entire royal city was surprised.

    <i>The Skystar Colosseum.</i>

    The beguiling woman Liu Sha and deeply tanned Wu Yong were both waiting. Waiting... waiting... for someone who didn¡¯te.

    The Colosseum operated as normal today, but there were many more noble or highly ced guestspared to usual. Of course, they weren¡¯t here to watch Sunres fight in the ring, they wanted to see Skystar vicemander Li Hao take down the Colosseum.

    And yet... it didn¡¯t happen.

    All was well.

    Sighs of disappointment echoed from the private booths over the arena.

    ¡°He¡¯s run off!¡±

    ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought? It was Hou Xiaochen whoid down the gauntlet right after Demon Sword entered the capital. We all thought he was going to do something major to find his footing, but look at this. He¡¯s gone!¡±

    ¡°Has he been assassinated by someone?¡±

    ¡°Then you think too little of Hou Xiaochen and the speed in which news spreads in Skystar City. There would be word out if he¡¯d been assassinated. He¡¯s inly run off in the middle of the night!¡±

    ¡°Is that all there is to Demon Sword?¡±

    ¡°What a joke!¡±

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen probably won¡¯t dare set foot outside anymore. He¡¯ll beughed to death if he does! We all thought that Demon Sword was going to soar in a ze of glory today. Who would¡¯ve thought that we wouldn¡¯t even see him?¡±

    ¡°This is boring!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Various customers discussed the happenings. Some jeered, some were deeply amused, and yet others understood Li Hao. This was one of the nine ministries that he¡¯d offended, not an ordinary person. Slipping away in the dead of the night was a wise move.

    ......

    <i>Ministry of Finance.</i>

    Minister Liu tilted his head back at the sky and sank into deep thought with a frown. <i>Have I been had? Did Li Hao really run off, scared? But when I met himst night, even though it was our first meeting, he didn¡¯t give me a cowardly feeling.</i>

    A headache brewed at the minister¡¯s temples. Everything was ready and the Colosseum would be turned into hellish killing fields today¡ªLi Hao¡¯s final resting ce. But the boy was gone! They would be boring no one!

    Hismunicator rang; Minister Liu picked it up to listen to the report. ¡°Be careful and stay on guard,¡± he said slowly. ¡°He posed as a monster spirit when he visited Calm Borders and openly entered the Xu Manor. He might do the same with the Colosseum and make his move when all of you have rxed your guard...¡±

    That course of action wouldck some assertiveness and domination. In the minister¡¯s eyes, Hou Xiaochen shouldn¡¯t proceed in this fashion if he wished to establish his authority, as well as take down the Colosseum.

    Various thoughts floated into his mind as the pensive man took out another jade pendant and entered a few words, asking about Li Hao¡¯s whereabouts. There was no news of the young man. He¡¯d disappearedst night after leaving the Nine Dragons Pavilion.

    Where had Li Hao gone?

    As for He Yong¡ªhe kept a very low profile in Skystar City. Not many knew of the asions in which he made a move and no one shared news of him. Thus, he didn¡¯t appear to have a rtionship with Li Hao on the surface. Not to mention, He Yong was a weaker consideration and part of the royal family.

    Anyone who wished to investigate him would have to delve deep into the pce to do so. That would easily give rise to unexpected developments, so no one wanted to proceed to the pce and ask if Southern Fist was present.

    As the situation stood, Li Hao had just arrived in Skystar andcked familiar faces by his side before disappearing. It made one wonder if he¡¯d run off because he was scared.

    ......

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    The inspector general stroked his chin with an odd expression on his face. ¡°Does the Inspectorate know of Li Hao¡¯s whereabouts?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± answered a subordinate. ¡°But the north gate reports that a powerhouse left through the airst night. Whoever it was didn¡¯t speak to the city defenders, so they don¡¯t know if it was Li Hao or not.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The inspector general was also at a loss. ¡°This has grown out of hand! Hou Xiaochen was so overbearingst night, look at how he will be now! Forget it, he''s the one who¡¯s lost face. This has nothing to do with me.¡±

    Li Hao had run off in the middle of the night, leaving no time for outsiders to react. They didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. It¡¯d certainly been a grand show of thunderous lightning, but minor raindrops hit the ground in the end.

    No, there hadn¡¯t been a single drop of rain.

    ......

    On this day, Li Hao and Hou Xiaochen once more became names on everyone¡¯s lips in the important circles of Skystar society. This time, they were mentioned with a touch of derision and jeering. People all over continued to search for Li Hao¡¯s whereabouts¡ªthe young man still held two heritage weapons in his hand!

    However, no one could find him. At present, he was busy sitting on the ocean bed and consuming resources at an eye-popping rate to help He Yong saturate his supernatural locks. As for what others said or thought... Li Hao never worried about the opinions of others. His life was his own. Ole Hou was taking a risk, whereas Li Hao was unwilling to do the same and pin all of his hopes on someone else.

    ......

    <i>In the depths of the Skystar Sea.</i>

    Three men, one woman, and a dog sat down cross-legged. Indeed, there was a woman present. The helpers that He Yong had summoned were a married couple in their forties. The group¡¯s internal force swirled as a massive protective barrier. The man was bearded like He Yong, the woman was a petite individual.

    ¡°Oooh.... oooh!!¡± the man moaned withfort. ¡°Oh heavens, is this cultivation? It feels so good! Ahh! Sooooo good!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t contain his eye rolls and the man¡¯s wife was also mortified. He Yong itched to punch his friend in the face. <i>You¡¯re such an embarrassment!</i>

    ¡°Damn this feels good!¡± The man was called Yang Shan and had been a martial master back in the day. He chose to cross over when the supernatural rose and was now a peak Nova. Those with the strength of a peak Nova were no ordinary wandering cultivators¡ªand indeed, he wasn¡¯t one.

    He¡¯d worked for the Tranquil Duke in the west a few years back and umted quite a bit of personal wealth. However, he hadn¡¯t been satisfied and set his eye on the pirates of the West Sea.

    Unfortunately, he attacked the wrong bunch and destroyed the duke¡¯s personal pirate faction. The Tranquil Duke didn¡¯t rebuke him for it¡ªhe just wanted Yang Shan to hand over the pirate treasure. Yang Shan was a ferocious fighter and as such, a valuable asset in battle. The duke also very much needed the treasure that the pirates had excavated from the sea, so these conditions were lenient.

    For some reason, Yang Shan decided to abscond with his gains. Perhaps other motives crept into his mind when he saw the treasure, or maybe he found it inappropriate that the duke had colluded with pirates. Whatever it was, his wife left with him. In actuality, his wife had been a manager of the duke¡¯s harem.

    Yang Shan had somehow wooed her away¡ªwhich proved critical for his escape out of the west.

    The man moaned and groaned,ughing wildly as he absorbed energy. He seemed more crude than He Yong and more like a pirate. Anyone¡¯s first impression of him would not be that of a good person.

    As expected, birds of a feather flock together. He Yong¡¯s friends were just like him.

    ¡°Oh my heavens, how can cultivation feel so damn good? It¡¯s even better than my wife at night...¡±

    ¡°Yang Shan!¡± shrilled the petite woman. She red hotly at him¡ªwhat are you talking about?!

    ¡°Oh, eh, I don¡¯t mean it that way,¡± Yang Shan said sheepishly, then continued with excitement. ¡°Com...mander Li! We¡¯ll follow you in the future! We don¡¯t ask for much, just to enjoy this every once in a while. We¡¯ll attack wherever you point us to!¡±

    ¡°Heh, I don¡¯t need that level of dedication,¡± Li Haoughed softly. ¡°So long as you and your wife don¡¯t get other ideas in mind and want to seize my sword. Our partnership should be fine otherwise.¡±

    ¡°How would we ever!¡± Yang Shan blustered. That was never happening! <i>Are we that kind of people??</i>

    Li Hao smiled without a word. He¡¯d seen the greedy looks in their eyes at their first meeting. But one was a peak Nova and the other ate Nova... it was a pipe dream if they wanted to take his goods.

    If it hadn¡¯t been for the fact that they were introduced by He Yong and ultimately suppressed their desires, he wouldn¡¯t mind adding two more to his list of victims. He¡¯d long lost his difort over bloodshed after killing so many people.

    Superhumans were not undying!

    Indeed, that was the case. Li Hao himself was not immortal either. There was nothing else to be said since they¡¯d all set foot on this path. You kill me, I kill you. Who knows who would kill who in the end, but everyone on this path had their hands stained with blood.

    ¡°Is there a chance for you to set foot into metamorphosis?¡± Li Hao nced at Yang Shan.

    ¡°That requires disturbing the sixth lock and releasing a second element.¡± The man considered the possibility. ¡°My element is fire and I¡¯ve touched upon the lock of my kidneys. I can release water energy to form abilities of water and fire through the intersection of these elements.

    ¡°But the intery of water and fire means my lock will break more easily, which makes it more dangerous...¡±

    ¡°What if I use my sword to help you maintain your organs?¡± Li Hao looked at him.

    ¡°Then... there... shouldn¡¯t be much of an issue?¡± A light danced in Yang Shan¡¯s eyes. ¡°But I¡¯ll need a lot of sword energy and we don¡¯t have that much money. What you pay us can¡¯t be traded for that much. I can see that you¡¯re consuming a lot of mysterious power stones.¡±

 Chapter 644: In the Dark of the Night (II)

    <h4>Chapter 644: In the Dark of the Night (II)</h4>

    ¡°There¡¯s room for discussion if Brother Yang is willing to exert yourself to some action!¡± Li Hao said after a pause. ¡°A metamorphosis expert can do much more than a peak Nova. If one focuses their line of sight at a higher point, one might understand that a variety of requirements is needed to ascend to Arcanus. The most critical factor is the stability of the five organs.¡±

    Yang Shan¡¯s expression shifted slightly. That¡¯s right, the Arcanus cultivation realm!

    Other than those who were supernatural veterans of many years and masters of their own major factions, which meant that they partook of vast quantities of life essence to stabilize their organs, it was very difficult for anyone else to set foot into Arcanus.

    The path of metamorphosis to Arcanus was hazardous and fraught with peril.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Commander Li.¡± The petite woman beamed as her husband turned over Li Hao¡¯s words. ¡°Brother He called us here naturally because he trusts us. Whether it''s the divine sword of the Lis or the Windchaser Boots, are those treasures for the likes of us?

    ¡°To be hunted by the world... To be honest, we two are without support or patrons. We don¡¯t have themander¡¯s confidence to be enemies with the entire dynasty! Powerhouses abound in Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. One battle was sufficient to draw out Sky Sword, Tyrant Sword, Southern Fist, and the Five Styles King. How would we dare provoke such an existence?¡±

    She was much more diplomatic than her husband and beamed merrily. ¡°These people make their moves because they wish to seize the sword of the Lis. If they don¡¯t dare, would we dare? Commander Li thinks too highly of my husband and I.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± Yang Shan added sheepishly. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Commander Li.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m very much at ease.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°I just don¡¯t wish for idents or mistakes to happen. I also prefer making things clear, in case unexpected developments happen along the way. You two are Martial Uncle Southern Fist¡¯s friends, so I don¡¯t wish for us to end on a bad note.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll be the first to beat them to death if they dare turn on you,¡± He Yong snorted. ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yang Shan furiously rolled his eyes and couldn¡¯t be bothered with anything. ¡°I can try entering metamorphosis, but my wife likely can¡¯t. The ascension of supernaturalses with certain physical requirements and contact with the locks. My wife is a bit removed from that.

    ¡°But if she continues to absorb sword energy and elemental power, she has a hope of rising to peak Nova. If metamorphosis... She would need to limate to her increase in power first. Otherwise, it will be too difficult for her to control and she¡¯ll explode instead.¡±

    It was easier for supernaturals to advance, but the dangers within were greater than for martial masters. Their strength came from the absorption of outside forces rather than their own body. In that case, they would easily lose control if they progressed too quickly.

    ¡°That¡¯s fine.¡± Li Hao nodded with understanding. ¡°One metamorphosis and one peak Nova is better than what we¡¯ve got now! So we¡¯ll fuel our fights with our battles. After we take down the Four Seas Company, we¡¯ll head to the Skystar Colosseum and drag out everything Minister Liu has. You won¡¯t be far off from Arcanus then!¡±

    With that, he shut his mouth and focused on supplying sword energy and elemental power. He also absorbed the energy in the process. The temporary bridges of the five organs operated at a high speed as power surged into his organs. He didn¡¯t need to focus on each individual organ as they were all strengthened at the same time.

    Next to him, Panther continuously absorbed power as well. Li Hao sighed. The dog... ate a lot! It ate more than anyone, but its strength didn¡¯t seem to change. It¡¯d been like this when it left Battle Heaven and was still this way now. He¡¯d asked it a few times if it¡¯d improved, but Panth always shook its head. Li Hao couldn¡¯t tell if it had or not.

    The young man mentally set the dog aside and concentrated on strengthening himself while sword energy gushed out. He was going to armor himself to the teeth! It was best if he could find his footing in Skystar City as the royal city was a critical piece to understanding the dynasty as a whole. It was most ideal if he could intimidate the entire capital with the uing operations and buy himself some breathing space.

    As he absorbed energy, Li Hao turned over other thoughts in his mind. The fragment of a mirror appeared¡ªthe mirror from the Steadfast Duke. It fulfilled surveince purposes, but couldn¡¯t be refined. It seemed to be able to monitor only a small area.

    The young man furrowed his brows and took out another fragment momentster. It was the shard of a weapon that looked like a de or a sword. It was one of the six weapons that¡¯d been stored on the third floor and was valued as equally as the three earth rank origin weapons. While its presence seemed formidable, there wasn¡¯t much purpose in keeping it around.

    Li Hao took out Steris. Could his sword devour it? It¡¯d only devoured weapon souls up to this point, could it swallow physical pieces? If it did, would that unseal it a bit more?

    These days, Steris was much more useful than before. Li Hao could control it as he would, but he still couldn¡¯t refine it into his body. That meant it hadn¡¯t been fully unsealed yet.

    He operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles while the fragment hovered in front of him. It seemed to spark some hunger in the little sword. He brought the fragment closer; a faint suction wafted out of the sword. The fragment trembled and then seemed to soften. It then transformed into something like golden water as it flowed into the little sword.

    Hints of something else shimmered over Steris as the scene changed before Li Hao¡¯s eyes.

    ¡°KILL!¡± Thunderous sounds of fighting traveled into his ears. There was a person shing through the firmament. Though his long de broke, he cut the enemy into thousands of pieces before fragments of his weapon rained down.

    Li Hao was then propelled back to reality. That must have taken ce when the long de broke. A powerhouse who used the de had killed his enemy, but also shattered his weapon. What the young man had held was one of the fragments that scattered over the ground.

    More sword energy surged from the little sword. Other than that, no other changes were immediately apparent. After some thought, Li Hao took out three earth rank origin weapons. He owned numerous origin weapons¡ªa full thirty-five of them. They were all loot from thest raid. Apart from that, he¡¯d taken six drops out of a stash of sixteen to give three drops each to Light Sword and Earthturner Sword. His teacher hadn¡¯t wanted any Water of Life as he had some himself. After using one drop in the Nine Dragons Pavilion, Li Hao had nine left.

    Upon some consideration, he ced four drops in a sk and tossed it at He Yong. The man received it with a look of shock!

    ¡°I may not be able to suppress martial uncle¡¯s locks in time during battle. But with Water of Life, martial uncle can unseal yourself as you wish. It will help martial uncle suppress your power in time so long as the locks aren¡¯t fully broken!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re outright buying my life!¡± He Yong sucked in a sharp breath. Some things weren¡¯t that easily epted. In all his years of experience, He Yong had never obtained so many benefits in one go as four drops of Water of Life.

    ¡°You¡¯re joking, martial uncle.¡± Li Hao looked at the five he had left and took out two sks, cing one drop in each. Yang Shan and his wife jerked with astonishment, realizing the significance of his actions.

    As they expected, Li Hao respectively tossed them a sk. ¡°This is a life-saving measure!¡±

    ¡°So generous!¡± An excited Yang Shan nearly wed his sk out of the air. ¡°Commander Li is so magnificently generous! This is my first time witnessing the magnanimity of Silver Moon martial masters. Ole He is a huge miser and I¡¯ve never seen him be generous...¡±

    He Yong sneered. <i>No shit, I¡¯ve got to have wealth first before I can ssh around. I¡¯m poor as fuck! There aren¡¯t many Silver Moon martial masters with money. Most of us spend as much as we have. Where am I supposed to get treasures to share with people?</i>

    ¡°Our thanks to Commander Li!¡± hastily thanked Qin Lian, Yang Shan¡¯s wife.

    ¡°As I should!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°A life-saving measurees with the caveat that you need to put your life on the line. Please consider the situation well.¡± He looked at the three earth rank origin weapons in front of him. ¡°I have many origin weapons, but not that many earth rank ones. Lower ranked ones aren¡¯t useful to us.

    ¡°The three here are a set of armor, a de, and a mallet. The three of you can allocate them as you see fit. They are avable to you as a loan, not a gift. The Water of Life is a gift.¡±

    ¡°Naturally, naturally.¡± Yang Shan grinned widely. ¡°Can I use the de?¡± He quickly added, ¡°And my wife can use the armor. Ole He¡¯s defenses are powerful, he can take the mallet!¡±

    He Yong rolled his eyes again. <i>Just listen to yourself!</i> But... the mallet was nice all the same. He gleefully picked up the weapon. ¡°Now we¡¯re armed to the teeth!¡±

    He had his bronze armor and now the mallet. If only he had a pair of boxing gloves... With four drops of Water of Life protecting his life, he waspletely outfitted.

    Yang Shan and Qin Lian picked up their origin weapons and drops. Li Hao ran quick calctions¡ªhe¡¯d just spent six drops and another thirty thousand mysterious power stones worth of sword energy. Based on the little tree¡¯s prices, that was ny thousand stones. But ording to the Nine Dragons Pavilion, the figure would be ten times higher! One million stones!

    Indeed, the thirty thousand stones that he¡¯d expended could be traded for three drops from the little tree. Didn¡¯t that make for a total expenditure of nine drops? Rounding that up to one million wasn¡¯t too much either. Steris should charge some handling fees.

    ¡°I¡¯ve paid such a high price of one million stones, if I don¡¯t reap that much...¡± Li Hao said slowly as he looked at the group. ¡°It would be a loss! I very rarely conduct transactions at a loss! Of course, your increases in strength will be real, but that is not key to me. Do you understand what I mean?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± Yang Shan said excitedly. ¡°Commander Li, we¡¯ll throw down everything we have to make this a big one!¡±

    The young man had already paid such an incredibly high fee. With such a generous boss, even the Tranquil Duke paled far inparison. This was true generosity! They had to serve such a good boss well!

    Another key was that if they wished to be Arcanus, Li Hao was indeed a key figure. Without Li Hao, it would be as hard as ascending to the heavens for them to enter that cultivation level. It wouldn¡¯t happen unless they joined another major faction¡ªbut who would want them? Was it worth offending the Tranquil Duke to ept the married couple? Would regr factions dare let them immediately make the breakthrough?

    It might have to take three to five years of service before they won sufficient trust. That was too onerous. Judging from Li Hao¡¯s attitude, that might not matter with him.

    ......

    The cultivation session was not yet over. Li Hao continued to absorb sword energy to saturate his supernatural locks. He¡¯d filled the one of the heart before in a cultivation session of a full ten days. During that session, he improved his aura,pleted the bridges of the five organs, and continuously absorbed energy. He¡¯d saturated four locks by the time he left East Shore. This time, he started on the fifth lock.

    He¡¯d yet to touch the ones of his limbs, a course of action that was the opposite of the direction that most usually took. His teacher had said that it wasn¡¯t necessarily a good thing for his auras to be so strong. His sword overview wasn¡¯t strong enough, so he needed to proceed slowly. It was better toplete his sword overview first and then improve his abilities. Otherwise, his five auras would easily rage out of control.

 Chapter 645: In the Dark of the Night (III)

    <h4>Chapter 645: In the Dark of the Night (III)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind the state of his auras for the moment, they should hold up for the time being. When all five locks of the organs were saturated, he would be able to use them toplete the true construction of the five bridges¡ªas ording to regr cultivation procedure. That would make it easier to nurture his auras.

    Once he fullypleted the five bridges and melded his auras into them, as well as was able to unseal himself like others could, that would ce him in the Refiner of Spirit cultivation realm that Yuan Shuo spoke of.

    However, he did not choose to fashion the five bridges as one. The auras would be immensely nourished, but to the point in which he probably wouldn¡¯t be able to suppress them with the sword overview. That was not what he sought.

    Li Hao focused on only one supernatural lock over the next three days. Meanwhile, He Yong furiously absorbed energy without reservation. He¡¯d taken in quite a lot before and secretly absorbed some more when Li Hao suppressed his looks on prior asions. Not to mention, he¡¯d received some benefits from the royal ruins.

    He Yong saturated another one and a half locks this time, making for three locks of the organs in the blink of an eye. His blood qi was much stronger than before. Previously, he was the equivalent of a mid Nova when he didn¡¯t unseal himself. Now, He Yong estimated himself to be a peak Nova if he didn¡¯t unseal himself!

    Three saturated locks put him on equal footing with Light Sword. Although, he was still less than a sealed Light Sword if they were making an equalparison. Thus marked the differences between martial masters when they reached this stage. Everyone headed in a different direction and strengthened their locks to different degrees.

    ¡°Why do I feel like... my blood qi still isn¡¯t strong enough?¡± hemented with some confusion and regret when his third lock was saturated.

    ¡°The problem lies with your body.¡± Li Hao flicked a nce at him. ¡°You¡¯ve saturated the locks of your four limbs and three of the five organs, but the ones of your <i>zifu </i>and spine are iplete. If you wish to strengthen your blood qi, I think the key point lies in the lock of the <i>zifu.¡±</i>

    He Yong¡¯s eyes danced around as he looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°Have you not found them yet, martial uncle?¡± The young man looked at him.

    ¡°I have a vague sensation of where they are, but I don¡¯t think I can fully locate them yet...¡± He Yong rumbled. ¡°Can you?¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t either. This can only mean that martial uncle¡¯s physical body and skeletal structure have not caught up to the rest of you.¡±

    ¡°I see...¡± He Yong nodded with an exhale. ¡°I was wondering about that. I¡¯ve already saturated my third lock of the organs, but I¡¯m somehow still less than Earthturner Sword and the others. Is it because their bodies and bones are stronger than mine?¡±

    ¡°Martial Uncle Hong should be stronger than you, as for Light Sword...¡± Li Hao thought for a bit andughed. ¡°Probably stronger than you too. Her power of light can also nurture the body to great effect!¡±

    He Yong was rather despondent with the response!

    ¡°What about Tyrant de and the rest? His body definitely isn¡¯t as strong as mine, he focuses on de intent...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know about him.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°But Tyrant de is so strong likely because he¡¯s strengthened other supernatural locks, such as the one of his head!¡±

    He Yong sucked in a sharp breath. ¡°So this means... I¡¯m at the back of the pack??¡±

    ¡°Not necessarily,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°But if martial uncle can manage to saturate a lock of your <i>zifu </i>or spine, I¡¯m sure that you¡¯ll be at the metamorphosis level without even having to unseal yourself.¡±

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll have to wait for that,¡± He Yong said with regret. ¡°I need to digest all of this first. And I wondered why I was still less than them after all these years of improvement! These bastards have secretly obtained plenty of benefits!¡±

    Energy abruptly surged next to them as fire and water collided. The fire energy was noticeably stronger than water. The impact was so fierce that it made Yang Shan spit out a mouthful of blood.

    A current sword energy rushed into his body. Fully recovered, Yang Shan opened his eyes with some fear.

    ¡°Fuck!¡± he cursed, then capered with joy. ¡°The metamorphosis level is really dangerous! If it wasn¡¯t for sword energy protecting and strengthening the five organs, my lock would¡¯ve been blown wide open after I loosened it slightly. These guys really have some ability to their name. It takes some guts to set foot into metamorphosis!¡±

    The slightest collision between fire and water had nearly shattered his organs. It was easy enough to imagine how strong those who truly broke their locks and set foot into Arcanus were.

    ¡°Does this count as you sessfully ascending?¡± He Yong asked curiously.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Yang Shan roared withughter. ¡°Both fire and water have been released, what do you think? It¡¯s just... my water energy is too weak, so I don¡¯t dare erupt with too much. I can only meld a little bit together, but I¡¯m much stronger than before, that¡¯s for sure...¡±

    He was a full metamorphosis expert, just at a low degree of his lock breaking. He was most likely the equivalent of the Yellow General that Li Hao had killed through ambush. But when considered with the aspect of an earth rank origin weapon and the assurance of Water of Life, he wasn¡¯t too weak.

    His wife had already be a peak Nova yesterday¡ªthat was a much easier process than Yang Shan. This was their third day of cultivation.

    ¡°Try and limate yourself to your strength, big brother Yang.¡± Li Hao made some calctions. We¡¯ll make our move when it¡¯s dark!¡± He took out two sets of ck armor. ¡°You should each use one. Its defensive capabilities are passable, but also levies certain restrictions on supernaturals. However, it prevents leakage of mysterious power to the greatest degree possible at the same time!

    ¡°Wear it for now. You can take it off when we encounter serious fighting.¡±

    He Yong cackled. <i>ck armor? I¡¯m a bronze armor troop leader!</i>

    The two didn¡¯t ask questions and swiftly put on the armor under He Yong¡¯s instructions. To their surprise, they found that they couldmunicate with each other within it. Communication was possible even when five hundred kilometers apart¡ªthat was incredible!

    ......

    The night was fully dark when four humans and one dog left the bottom of the sea, making for the headquarters of the Four Seas Company.

    ......

    Having disappeared for three days, Li Hao was a total andpleteughingstock by now, as was Hou Xiaochen.

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen had suffered his fair share of sarcasm and jeering over the past two days. Not only that, but there were official censures underway. Representatives from the other ministries continuously sent missives to the Inspectorate, asking if there was a need to make adjustments to Hou Xiaochen¡¯s position.

    Who¡¯d given him the audacity to antagonize the Ministry of Finance?

    ¡°Deputy Director Hou,¡± Yellow Dragon started anew in a conference room. ¡°The Ministry of Finance is refusing to pay out this month¡¯s sries! Our brothers need to eat! Although the Inspectorate fronts part of our monthly bills, the ministry is ourrgest source of funds. We¡¯re alright if the ministry doesn¡¯t pay out the sries, but our brothers will be out on the streets!¡±

    The Ministry of Finance didn¡¯t im sole ownership of their wealth. They needed to disburse funds to various institutions¡ªthis was part of the checks and bnces between the nine ministries.

    The Inspectorate had people and force, but did not have money. Of course, the inspector general had his personal wealth, but there was no reason for him to utilize his personal funds to support the entire ministry. He wouldn¡¯t be able to afford it either.

    ¡°What¡¯s the rush?¡± Hou Xiaochen responded calmly. ¡°It¡¯s only the fifth. If my memory serves, sries are paid on the tenth.¡±

    ¡°The Ministry of Finance has already sent word that there will be a dy in this month¡¯s payment,¡± Yellow Dragon said coldly. ¡°They¡¯ve encountered some difficulties with collecting taxes from the east and need some time. But the deputy director should know full well the real reason for the dy. You should head to the Ministry of Finance and have a conversation with Minister Liu. Apologize or offer to make amends. I think the minister won¡¯t make things difficult for you then.

    ¡°Director.¡± Yellow Dragon looked at Yao Si. ¡°I think giving Li Hao the position of Skystar vicemander is inappropriate! Not to mention, the guy¡¯s run off! I think it¡¯s better that we cancel it and also investigate Li Hao for misconduct.¡±

    Yao Si sipped tea out of a giant mug and lifted his head with a smile. ¡°Well then, you should discuss this with Deputy Director Hou. Draw up the documents and send them to the Inspectorate. I wash my hands of this.¡±

    Yellow Dragon cursed inwardly and snorted softly. <i>Wash your hands? If you do, why did you sign the order giving Li Hao the position? Hou Xiaochen does not have the authority to install a vicemander. </i>The old thing had signed the order without discussing anything with him. It looked like he wasn¡¯t satisfied with the state of things either.

    Yellow Dragon didn¡¯t wish to converse further with the old man and looked at Hou Xiaochen again. ¡°What do you think, deputy director?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no rush.¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled. ¡°We won¡¯tck money once we take the Colosseum. If the Ministry of Finance won¡¯t disburse our sries, I will.¡±

    ¡°What, is the deputy director still going to continue?¡± Yellow Dragon frowned. ¡°There are many nobles and wealthy characters at the Colosseum, aren¡¯t you afraid of causing some disturbance if you mp down on them? These people are full of vigor. It¡¯d just be creating trouble for the Night Watchers if you don¡¯t give them a ce to vent their energies. Has the deputy director ever given thought that a lot of Night Watchers might die if there is too much unrest? I think the status quo is very good...¡±

    Did he make sense?

    Some.

    But if one did not keep crime in check for the sake of preserving the most life possible, that would ultimately still lead to great bloodshed.

    Hou Xiaochenughed and looked at the man. ¡°Deputy Director Yellow¡¯s lofty words are certainly eye-opening! ording to what you say, we should leave the three great organizations alone and indeed, leave everyone alone! They can do as they see fit when ites to killing and fighting others. That will ensure that a lot fewer Night Watchers die, won¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not what I mean,¡± Yellow Dragon responded faintly. ¡°But aparison between the Colosseum and the three great organizations is not apples to apples. You don¡¯t need to try to confuse the matter!¡±

    ¡°Enough, let¡¯s end here for today.¡± Hou Xiaochen rose to his feet. ¡°What¡¯s the rush for? I¡¯ll find a way to fill the gap on sry day if the Ministry of Finance does not give us our funds.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m only afraid that you won¡¯t be able to afford it!¡± Yellow Dragon sneered.

 Chapter 646: In the Dark of the Night (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 646: In the Dark of the Night (IV)</h4>

    Just the Night Watchers of Skystar City alone numbered in the thousands. Combined with those of other parts of the central region meant that there were thirty thousand Night Watchers in the territory. This was a massive number of personnel that wasn¡¯t just paid in gold coins¡ªmysterious power and mysterious power stones were necessary.

    The other four continents could be ignored, but the central region had always fallen under Skystar City¡¯s jurisdiction. The Ministry of Finance digging their heels in didn¡¯t just affect the royal city. When all of the Night Watchers didn¡¯t receive their sry, they would me Hou Xiaochen and Li Hao, not the Ministry of Finance. It would be the duo¡¯s fault for courting death!

    ......

    Hou Xiaochen walked off without further addressing his colleagues. Manager Yu swiftly caught up to him with an unpleasant expression on her face.

    ¡°Director, this Yellow Dragon is exceedingly annoying,¡± she transmitted. ¡°Why don¡¯t we...¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s a deputy director of the Night Watchers and a deputy inspector general.¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head with a smile. That would cross some boundaries. If he could kill Yellow Dragon, then the others could throw away all of the rules ande kill him as well.

    This was something that the nine ministers and royal family would not permit. They would at least ensure that the rules of the central region were not broken. It was the foundation of the dynasty¡¯s rule.

    Killing intent faded from Manager Yu¡¯s eyes. She really wanted to kill that guy... but sadly, she couldn¡¯t. ¡°Then I¡¯ll visit the Colosseum tonight...¡± she transmitted.

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait!¡± Hou Xiaochen breathed out and frowned at the city outskirts. Had Li Hao really run off? <i>I don¡¯t believe it! </i>The guy wouldn¡¯t run away so easily since he¡¯d darede to the royal city. Perhaps something hade up, or perhaps he¡¯d gone for reinforcements. Maybe he was in closed door cultivation or there was some other reason.

    Whatever it was, Hou Xiaochen trusted that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t disappear without giving a reason.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s group traveled incredibly quickly. With Li Hao present, they easily avoided the patrols and even Night Watchers safeguarding the seas. Skystar Sea was an ind sea. There was a high number of patrols here, but they were as obvious as blinding lights to the young man.

    The headquarters of the Four Seas Company was ced on an ind in the Skystar Sea. The entire ind belonged to the tradingpany. They¡¯d modified it to a near paradise.

    The group drew near the ind before long. Resplendent with zing lights, a loud din of voices rose fromnd. Being familiar with the Four Seas Company, Yang Shan introduced it in the armor¡¯s internal channel.

    ¡°Not only does the Four Seas Company have a colossal fleet of ships that sails the four seas, but their headquarters is also a renowned den of entertainment and pleasure. Here, you can find gambling houses, whore houses, underground fighting rings, and anything else you can wish for!

    ¡°This is a good ce for consumption as it has local wares from the four continents for sale. There¡¯s even sea monster spirits present. The tradingpany can achieve anything you can think of. Your imagination is the only limit.

    ¡°Many people know that this is also where pirates transact...¡±

    ¡°Pirates dare draw near Skystar City to conduct their business?¡± Li Hao transmitted through the armor.

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing daring about it!¡± Yang Shan responded unppably. ¡°They stay outside the city. Even if they enter the city, no one will care about them so long as they keep their noses clean! There¡¯s a certain degree of security in transacting at the Four Seas Company, but that means they have to pay a highmission to thepany. The pirates don¡¯t care though, since they didn¡¯t have to pay anything for their wares.

    ¡°The most famous out of everything on the ind is the auction house! It goes without saying that various treasures are for sale, but there¡¯s also women avable. Heh, all kinds of women are there. You can have any type you want and those with a good appetite... can even buy monster spirits!¡±

    Current monster spirits could not take human form. So if monster spirits were being auctioned off...

    Li Hao shuddered and sneered, ¡°So this is just a bigger nest of pirates! That¡¯s good, that means there¡¯s a lot of money and treasure here!¡±

    He fished out a mirror fragment; a peculiar energy stretched toward the ind in the distance. The young man drew closer¡ªthere was a limit to the range that this item covered, but he could see everything on the ind through it.

    Li Hao himself could see supernaturals, but he could not see martial masters. He wanted to investigate and see if there were many martial masters present, if there were powerfully domineering existences. He had to cover all his bases and prevent plots against him.

    If the Ministry of Finance had foreseen that he was going to attack the Four Seas Company, they might be ying into his hands and arranged for an ambush here. That would be an incredible loss for him.

    It wasn¡¯t until he was almost at the ind that the mirror showed the situation inside. Being a decently sizedndmass, only part of it was shown. The young man saw many things from the reflection¡ªthe images were much clearer than what his eyes could show him.

    Patrols dominated the perimeter of the ind, some were even wearing Inspectorate and Night Watcher uniforms! There were also military uniforms and soldiers wearing the uniforms of the ministry¡¯s private guard...

    Its defenses were extremely strong!

    Numerous ships were parked at the port and there seemed to be a faint defensive shield shimmering around the entire ind. It was very faint, but one might be discovered as soon as they barged in. Li Hao jerked his head up at this moment¡ªarge bird soared through overhead.

    ¡°Sink to the bottom of the sea!¡± he swiftly transmitted. The group immediately dove. ¡°Their defenses are very tight. It goes without saying that the guard onnd is heavy, but there¡¯s even minor monster spirits patrolling the sky...¡±

    He suddenly looked around as another thought struck him. As he expected, there were pinpoints of light in the sea.

    ¡°There might be sea monsters patrolling in the depths¡ªwhere do so many minor spiritse from!¡± Li Hao frowned. The Four Seas Company were on high alert to have patrols innd, sea, and air. They would be quickly discovered in a moment of carelessness and attract powerhouses.

    ¡°Based on the information I obtained from the Nine Dragons Pavilion, Wu Yong is the boss of thepany and a metamorphosis expert. He has four vice presidents beneath him that oversee operations in the four seas. They¡¯re all of the Nova realm and span fromte to peak Nova. Additionally, he also has captains of the guard. They sometimes go out on missions, sometimes stay at the ind. Counting Wu Yong among the mix means that there are nine Novas!¡±

    This was the sum of thepany¡¯s strongest battle force. Was that weak?

    Not at all!

    Five Novas and one metamorphosis expert backed by the Ministry of Finance was a formidable force.

    ¡°They may not all be here, but a couple should be standing guard. It¡¯d be best if they were all present!¡± Li Hao watched the mirror as he introduced the enemy to his team. He¡¯d identified a building structure with numerous supernaturals inside. Some were resting, some were ying cards. That should be the guard¡ªthey were of no threat.

    He lifted his head to look at the ind and located some balls of light that belonged to Novas. Fixing their location in his mind, he continued, ¡°We¡¯re going to capture them in one go!¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong and the others blinked. Capture them in one go? He had to be joking! How could they do that with the size of this ind?

    All the enemy had to do was scatter in various directions to make it impossible for them to aplish that. Even with the four of them guarding one cardinal direction each, they might not be able to capture all of their targets and would have to remain on guard against being mobbed by the enemy.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. My treasure can create something like a cage and envelop the entire ind with it. It can withstand Novas if the range is small enough, but even Srs will be able to break it if it¡¯s stretched too much. Therefore, we only need to kill all of the Novas and Srs to prevent anyone from getting away!¡±

    The metamorphosis Red Beard and his Nova subordinates hadn¡¯t been able to break the shield formed by the mirror. It was just a costly treasure that took mysterious power stones to power.

    ¡°You¡¯re going to kill them all??¡± He Yong transmitted with disbelief. ¡°There¡¯s at least ten thousand people on the ind...¡¯

    ¡°How would I!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°There must be Skystar nobles on the ind. We¡¯re aw enforcement agency, not robbers! We can¡¯t kill everyone just because they¡¯re here for some fun, some happy endings, or gambling. That¡¯d be a grave offense to too many factions!¡±

    <i>So you know that too, huh!</i>

    ¡°We¡¯ll capture them all and have their families ransom them back! We¡¯ll also get them to use the Four Seas Company and write confessionals. With these witnesses and capturing some pirates, that will solidify thepany¡¯s crimes! We must execute this wlessly as we are not bandits. Remember, we are aw enforcement agency!¡±

    He reminded once again that they could not randomly kill people. They needed to be backed up by evidence.

    ¡°Additionally, we need to prevent them from using transmission pendants. I don¡¯t know if those will be out ofmission after we seal off the ind, but we should be prepared for powerhouses to rush here from Skystar City. If they¡¯re quick about it, it will only take them about ten minutes. We have to kill all of the cretin that dares resist during this time!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± He Yong smiled. ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought that you¡¯d be more vignt than before...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no harm done in being careful!¡± Li Hao gave his orders. ¡°Senior Qin Lian, you are adept with dark energy. You and Panther are in charge of killing all fleeing powerhouses. Southern Fist and Senior Yang Shan are in charge of killing the powerhouses in the ind. I¡¯ll shout out their locations to everyone!¡±

    As for himself, he would hold himself in reserve and see if any martial masters suddenly appeared within the ind. Powerful martial masters would be the greatest trouble. After a quick round of assignment, Li Hao looked at the dog. Panth looked back at him with a look of innocence.

    ¡°I want you to fully release the power of your bloodline in a moment when I say so¡ªsuppress all of the monster spirits! Make all of the monster spirits inside and out of the ind spontaneously rage out of control!¡±

    He had to make use of Panther¡¯s ability, it was a convenient skill. The dog nodded. It¡¯d eaten so much that it was time to go to work, it understood that logic. Not to mention, raiding such a fat target meant that there would be more to eatter!

    Li Hao began waiting for the night to grow deeper and the sky to be darker.

    ......

    <i>On Four Seas Ind.</i>

    A faint unease prickled at numerous powerhouses. It was very faint, but some of them made a brief patrol and returned without discovering anything. Not even the bird and sea monster spirits demonstrated any response. There was no disturbance in the special formation covering the ind.

    They were much reassured by these confirmations. The Four Seas Company dominated thends, who dared run afoul of them? The Hou Xiaochen who wanted to take down Skystar Colosseum had fallen t on his face. He was theughingstock of the royal city!

 Chapter 647: Ambush (I)

    <h4>Chapter 647: Ambush (I)</h4>

    Darkness nketed the sky. Sea winds howled over the water surface. The ind was alive with song and dance. Lights zed, women giggled, men shouted, gamblers catcalled, and rapt audiences cheered on the fighting rings.

    The ind guests disyed a certain degree of reservation while inside the city. Skystar City was the royal capital, after all. Although certain soundproofing measures were in ce, people didn¡¯t dare raise too much of a fuss even at Skystar Colosseum.

    Here, however, yells and hoots rose to the heavens.

    What did their noise matter? They were roughly thirty kilometers from shore and the sound of the waves drowned out anything they emitted. No one would keep them in check, which made the ind the best ce for these prissy, sanctimonious noble young masters and misses to fully vent all of their desires and energies with abandon.

    One was a god here if they had enough money! Even the domineering pirates were thrown out if they didn¡¯t have enough money. With sufficiently deep pockets, one could do whatever they wanted.

    Strength?

    Strength was useless here. As strong as one was, would one be stronger than the Four Seas Company? Than the Ministry of Finance?

    With regards to Li Hao and Hou Xiaochen, many guests here didn¡¯t even know about those happenings. They hadn¡¯t emerged from theirfortable zones in several days. Who had time for that nonsense?

    Who dared provoke the nine ministries? No one! Such were the thoughts of many.

    Unbeknownst to all, a faintyer of fog slowly crept in and enveloped the entire ind.

    ......

    Li Hao was burning through money. One hundred mysterious power stones, five hundred, one thousand...

    The bronze mirror fragment continuously emitted a faint fog and released a special defensive barrier, just like it had at the Xu treasury. This time, it was directed at confining the upants instead of protecting them. It¡¯d held off a metamorphosis expertst time. On this asion, Li Hao simply wished for it to fend off everyone below Sr.

    He continuously expanded his effective area, swallowing the ind that wasn¡¯t the biggest. Up in the sky, the bird monster spirits sensed something, as did the monster spirits in the sea. The sixth sense of monster spirits was more sensitive than humans. They vaguely detected the arrival of danger.

    Just as one of the bird spirits blinked and wanted to call out a warning, it mantled with rm! A deep-rooted fear from its bloodline emanated from its bones and spread throughout its body. A king!

    This was an innate fear etched in the depths of its being, present from birth. The difference in hierarchy and bloodline caused the little bird spirit to even forget to cry out or move.

    <i>St!</i>

    It fell down from the sky¡ªand it wasn¡¯t the only one. Hundreds of minor bird spirits plummeted out of the sky.

    <i>On the ind.</i>

    A massive bird abruptly mantled and flung its wings out straight... The human serving it was confused by the monster spirit¡¯s sudden change and asked carefully, ¡°Bird King... are you alright?¡±

    The bird froze after prostrating itself on the ground. Fear wafted from its bones. A major monster spirit was here! One that was exceedingly high level and of supremely noble bloodline! An ancient monster spirit!

    It wasn¡¯t just an ancient monster spirit¡ªthe bird king wouldn¡¯t react thus if it was a descendant of a typical monster spirit. The bird king¡¯s bloodline was umon as well, but the more umon the monster spirit was, the more fearful it would be.

    A phrase echoed in his mind¡ªthe Monster Spirit Envoy! One who held sway over all monster spirits beneath the heavens! It was a mark left in the bloodline that notified descendants that ancient monster spirits had their king as well.

    The big bird shivered and trembled. The ancient past was no more!

    It wasn¡¯t the only one cowering on the ground¡ªmany monster spirits crawled within the ind and quite a few outright lost control.

    <i>Within the beast fighting rings.</i>

    Two monster spirits suddenly went berserk and charged at the crowds. The powerhouses in charge of security immediately beat them back, shouting. ¡°Damn it, have you gone crazy?! They¡¯re guests, what are you doing??¡±

    The monster spirits had agreements with the Four Seas Company. They and thepany both worked together to earn money. The agreement in ce was that audience members could not be harmed. But at the moment, a Sr monster spirit was raging out of control!

    ¡°Roar!¡± Eyes bloodshot, a massive lion spirit snarled and bristled like it¡¯d been triggered by something. There was an innate dread and fear, but it didn¡¯t know where these feelings came from. It could only go berserk and attack in all directions. It bit the powerhouseing to quell it, not responding to the frantic questions. It ripped and tore at everything around it. This ce was so dangerous, it wanted to flee!

    ......

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought that Panther activating its bloodline so brazenly would cause such consequences. There happened to be a lot of monster spirits on the ind; it was engulfed in disturbances in a split second.

    ¡°We need to head to the beast fighting rings! The monster spirits are rioting!¡±

    ¡°Damn it, I said long ago that they¡¯re too hard to keep under control and that we shouldn¡¯t let them in...¡±

    ¡°Oh shut up!¡±

    ¡°Someonee here! The monster spirits on Monster Spirit Street are also out of control!¡±

    ¡°Damn it, why is there rioting there too? What¡¯s going on?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The entire ind was thrown into chaos. Large sums of powerhouses swiftly flew out and enforcers in uniform rushed to their assigned spots. With the disarray caused by the monster spirits, the scent of blood began filling the air as well.

    No one paid attention to the imperceptible white fog in the air. Fog sometimes rose in the sea as well. They would consider it more carefully in ordinary times, but themotion caused by the monster spiritspletely distracted everyone.

    ......

    In the center of the ind stood a building six stories tall. This was a tall building on the ind. Some Novas swiftly materialized.

    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±

    ¡°Milord, the monster spirits are rioting!¡±

    ¡°Bastards!¡± A muscr blond man walked over with gravity. ¡°Why are they rioting? We have an agreement with them and supply them what they need. It¡¯s a win-win situation, what in the zes is this? What does the Bird King say?¡±

    ¡°Milord.¡± Someone hastily ran over. ¡°The Bird King has suffered a sudden shock and is not in the right frame of mind. It ignores us no matter how we address it...¡±

    The blond man frowned and wanted to go take a look himself when a faint fog wreathed the air. He directed his frown up at the sky, finding it untoward. Why was there fog?

    ¡°Is there fog at sea today?¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t know, it wasn¡¯t forecasted.¡±

    ¡°The monster spirits are rioting and there¡¯s suddenly fog...¡± Blondie mused gravely. ¡°The president told us to be careful when he left. Is someone behind this?¡±

    After thinking about it, he took out a transmission pendant to send a message. Something was wrong! As for what exactly was wrong, he couldn¡¯t say. However, the ind was in a messy disarray and the monster spirits were rampaging. Perhaps he could request for the president toe back... Although the president was at the Colosseum defending against strong enemies, hadn¡¯t that Li Hao run off?

    ¡°Be at ease, everyone! Some mishaps have developed on the ind, but they will be under control soon!¡± he called out as he sent a message. ¡°Please enjoy yourselves as you normally would, it will not affect you!¡±

    His voice carried to the four corners of the ind; some people weren¡¯t taking the disturbances seriously in the first ce. A man leaned on a window in an opulent hotel and hooted withughter at the mess below.

    ¡°So fun! This is how it should be and what we¡¯ll do next time. We¡¯ll send some berserk monster spirits against mundanes... No, supernaturals! We can bet on who survives to the end and who dies first. Hahaha, that¡¯s fun and makes it the game of real men!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right! The fighting rings show us fake fights everyday, they think we¡¯re fools! I don¡¯t even go there anymore. They fight all day but can¡¯t kill each other. It¡¯s so damn boring!¡±

    ¡°Precisely!¡± Many agreed with the man¡¯s words and roared withughter as they looked down over the chaos. This was so much fun!

    The ind guards were swiftly responding to the unrest as disruption flooded the ind. Many were running away from the berserk monster spirits, but many also believed that the Four Seas Company could suppress the confusion. Not only did they not run away, but they drew closer to watch the show andugh and point fingers.

    This was so much better than watching monster spirits put on a show and supernaturals attack each other! It was a better thrill than toying with women!

    A group of people roared withughter regardless of gender. They watched with rapt attention as monster spirits ripped through the guards.

    ¡°Well done!¡± they shrieked with approval. ¡°I knew that the lion king is greatest at ripping and tearing! Damn it, they were just putting on an act everyday before. They couldn¡¯t tear apart Sunres, but now they rip through Sunres in the blink of an eye!¡±

    ¡°Attaboy, that¡¯s it, kill them all! Hahaha, go lion king! Kill them all!¡± A bunch of nobles hollered and catcalled with abandon.

    ¡°Get out of the way!¡± a guard roared.

    The monster spirits were rioting and all these idiots knew was to yell their heads off. The more they did so, the more that excited the monster spirits!

    ¡°Who do you think you¡¯re talking to?¡± one of the nobles raged. ¡°Get Wu Yong out here! He wouldn¡¯t dare talk to this young master in that tone! Do you know who I am?!¡±

    The guard had to shut his mouth; this was someone he couldn¡¯t afford to offend. However, the fires of anger zed in his heart. What a bunch of assholes!

 Chapter 648: Ambush (II)

    <h4>Chapter 648: Ambush (II)</h4>

    The guards grew furious to see their colleagues ripped to pieces, but neither could they truly attack the monster spirits in retaliation. They could only forcefully suppress the scene. It was barely brought under control after more powerhouses joined the efforts.

    Off in the distance, Blondie suddenly frowned. He took out his transmission pendant and saw that his message... hadn¡¯t made it out. He turned to those behind him.

    ¡°Try transmitting something to the outside world. I can¡¯t seem to send anything out, what¡¯s going on?¡±

    The rest of his colleagues tried as well¡ªsomeone quickly called out, ¡°I can¡¯t either!¡±

    <i>He can¡¯t either?</i> Blondie¡¯s frown deepened. That wasn¡¯t good!

    ¡°The Night Watchers are here to enforce thew!¡± an iparably cold voice echoed across the scene at this time. ¡°Everyone is toply and stoop down. Those who resist will be killed without mercy!¡±

    A guest blinked, then roared withughter. ¡°Hot damn, what kind of show is this? Even the Night Watchers are here. Hahaha! This is too funny, do the Night Watchers have jurisdiction over the ind??¡±

    ¡°Hahaha!¡± Many peopleughed with him. This was the Four Seas Company!

    ¡°You guys are lousy actors!¡± someone hooted withughter. ¡°You should say that guards from the Ministry of Finance are here to ensure order! This ind doesn¡¯t fall under the Night Watchers! Idiots...¡±

    <i>BAM!!</i>

    A massive fist descended from the sky!

    Blondie and the others weren¡¯t smiling¡ªthey were only shocked. They responded as Blondie roared, ¡°We¡¯re under attack!¡±

    ¡°Those who resist thew will die!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A pair of iron fists fell. Dressed in bronze armor, He Yong outright unsealed himself. Indeed, he¡¯d already cracked three supernatural locks. Li Hao was close at hand, the young man would fix him right up afterward and he¡¯d be able to fish some additional gains out of it.

    He Yong wasn¡¯t in the habit of losing money when doing business.

    An erupting Southern Fist was incredibly strong. His punch resulted in a massive collision. Some recognized Blondie¡ªhe was from Celestial and the president of the East Sea Company under the Four Seas Company. A peak Nova, he exploded in a mass of flesh and blood amid the joking amusement of onlookers!

    Shock!

    Disbelief!

    There was no fear yet because there hadn¡¯t been enough time to be afraid. Countless people gaped over the ind, watching the warrior with bronze armor covering his body. He¡¯d detonated a peak Nova powerhouse with one punch!

    ¡°President!¡± someone wailed. Several more Novas took to the sky the next moment¡ªnot to kill He Yong, but to flee. They knew more fully than any of the guests what had happened. They needed to run!

    ¡°The Night Watchers... Demon Sword!¡±

    ¡°Silver Moon martial masters!¡± Panic seized the crowds as some became aware of who they faced.

    A long de cut through the dark void as Yang Shan executed a Nova on the spot. Off in the distance, Qin Lian materialized in the darkness and ran her sword through a Nova like she was an assassin.

    Three Novas were abruptly dead in the blink of an eye.

    ¡°Run!!¡± someone shrieked with abject terror.

    ¡°Demon Sword hase!¡± Many were still staring nkly, but they started to recognize that something was amiss. This... didn¡¯t seem to be an act.

    Two Novas charged out of the fog and rushed off the ind. They wanted to dart into the sea! They didn¡¯t dare fly because they didn¡¯t know how many enemies hade or how many powerhouses waited on the periphery. All they knew was that flying might be the most dangerous and foolish course of action.

    However, a w stabbed through one of their hearts as soon as they entered the sea. Li Hao charged out with the bronze mirror from the other side andid around with sword qi. He immediately killed the initial Nova that he encountered.

    Dressed in silver armor, the young man chuckled. He slowly walked into the ind with a smile on his face. Things were... proceeding much easier than he thought. These guys had thought it was an act, a joke! Most importantly was that Panther had been able to set all of the monster spirits into a frenzy. That had been the key to sess.

    Five Novas were dead in the blink of an eye. There were only nine total Novas possible on the ind. Wu Yong wasn¡¯t here and the other three were absent as well! The peak Nova that He Yong had killed was likely the strongest. He was the president of the East Seas Company, the other three presidents weren¡¯t on site.

    That meant to say, battle was over before it began. The five powerhouses holding down the fort were respectively taken out in the blink of an eye by the five attackers. Granted, Li Hao knew that there were more Novas than this on the ind. He saw more balls of light¡ªfive more!

    There were ten Novas total, but the other five might not work for the Four Seas Company.

    He Yong floated in the air and boomed, ¡°Freeze, everyone! Those who move will be killed on the spot!¡±

    A fist descended!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    An old man shot into the air, fiery sparks spitting off him. A powerful force churned in all directions and he demanded with fear and anger, ¡°Who are you? The Night Watchers? I am of the Ministry of Administration...¡±

    ¡°Comply or be killed!¡± He Yong shouted. A He Yong in battle was a far cry from the demeanor that he usually presented to the public. He split heaven and earth with a loud boom as he punched downward. The old man was very strong at peak Nova, but all of his bones broke under He Yong¡¯s fist and he mmed to the ground!

    Someone wanted to slip off the shore, but arge de shed through the air. Fire and water energy intermixed over the weapon and the target eximed, ¡°A metamorphosis expert? I am...¡±

    <i>Thud!</i>

    His head hit the ground!

    The peak Nova old man crashed to the ground while vomiting blood. He stared with fear and dread, ¡°Southern... Southern Fist...¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t kill you?¡± He Yong showed his face with a sigh. ¡°You¡¯re a tough one!¡±

    ¡°I am... of the Ministry of Administration...¡±

    ¡°We are enforcing thew. All those who resist with violence will be killed!¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The old man was ttened by another punch. A hush stole through the surroundings. A noble young master was at first terrified, then delighted.

    ¡°Coach He, it¡¯s me!¡± he roared. ¡°It¡¯s me! Is the royal family here? I am...¡±

    A loud impact echoed as He Yong beat him apart through the air!

    ¡°Are you all deaf?¡± he asked coolly. ¡°Don¡¯t move! If you move, you die! The Night Watchers are enforcing thew here! No one move or you¡¯ll end up like them!¡±

    ¡°My father...¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Another explosion rang out. Someone wanted to speak of their family background, but He Yong viciouslyid waste to the speaker. They outright exploded.

    ¡°I don¡¯t care about your families, factions, or backgrounds. Right here, right now, you¡¯re all prisoners!¡± He Yong¡¯s voice echoed through the ind. ¡°Don¡¯t try to escape or think of sending messages, that¡¯s all useless!

    ¡°There are three more Novas hidden in the crowd. Do you want me to ferret you out or will youe out yourself? If you step forward now and kneel, you will be spared!¡±

    The crowd rustled for a bit before a muscr man walked out. He looked at He Yong, at the metamorphosis expert wielding a de and dancing in and out of sight in the sky, then at the peak dark Nova. There was also unfathomable danger outside the ind, so he chose to step forward.

    He didn¡¯t say anything before walking up to He Yong and kneeling.

    Dignity? What was that? It was nothing in this moment. In the face of an existence beyond metamorphosis, one metamorphosis expert, and a peak Nova, not to mention countless pairs of eyes in the darkness, dignity was worth absolutely nothing.

    Once precedent was set, it would be followed by another instance. A second powerhouse walked out momentster¡ªa woman with exquisite features. She squeezed out a smile as she seemed to recognize He Yong. He ignored her attempts at a greeting and stared coldly at her.

    A cold grip sizing her heart, the woman also knelt down fearfully. Was it the royal family, or Demon Sword? Was He Yong in contact with Demon Sword? She knew a bit of the particrs and how Demon Sword had vanished. Where did Li Hao find so many helpers? He¡¯d also ambushed the Four Seas Ind!

    Many trembled and shuddered, but the third Nova did not present themselves. Li Hao abruptly descended from the sky with the bronze mirror in hand. He scanned the crowd, his eyes as bright as torches. A figure appeared in the mirror¡ªan old man hunched over in a corner. He jerked his head up, but¡ª

    <i>WHOOSH!</i>

    Sword light raced to the heavens!

    ¡°You did note out when we told you to,¡± Li Hao said calmly. ¡°Do you think you¡¯re powerful as a peak dark Nova? Or did you think you could escape my search?¡±

    Sword light raced across the scene; sword intent unified the five auras and enveloped the old man. Li Hao appeared in front of the old man with exceedingly fast speed and shed out stroke after stroke. Blood qi exploded with his next stroke!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The massive collision rang loudly as the incredulous old man was hacked into two. Those stooping on the ground were absolutely horrified by the sight.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t even look twice at his victim. He frowned and disappeared on the spot, then reappeared in front of a big bird. It¡¯d seemed to greatly recover.

    The bird looked at Li Hao with a hint of awe. ¡°I am the envoy of Phoenix Mountain. You... you have killed them, so we can work with you too. Phoenix Mountain is one of the seven divine mountains and the mountain lord is the revered phoenix...¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t respond; he simply scanned the bloody carcasses around them with an expressionless face. ¡°Do you eat people?¡± He looked at the bird.

    ¡°No no, I do not eat people. This is food offered by the Four Seas Company...¡± The bird seemed to sense danger; its thought ripples agitated. ¡°These are all servants, not supernaturals...¡±

    Servants... were not people. Perhaps that was the monster spirit understanding. They hadn¡¯t eaten any supernaturals, just the food that the humans themselves had offered. These were just snacks.

    There was no problem with that, right?

    ¡°Servants?¡± Li Hao looked around and suddenly stamped his foot. The ground split open to reveal arge cage with some people still inside. They were petrified with dread¡ªmostly women and some young kids.

 Chapter 649: Ambush (III)

    <h4>Chapter 649: Ambush (III)</h4>

    ¡°This is what you eat?¡±

    ¡°Yes, this is my food,¡± the bird didn¡¯t deny it. ¡°They are without supernatural powers and weak, the trash of your race. Unbelievably fragile, we cleanse trash for you when we eat them.¡±

    It didn¡¯t find anything wrong with its actions¡ªall monster spirits wouldn¡¯t find anything wrong with these actions. In their races, the weak were cast away and even eaten. The bird hadn¡¯t intended on eating the offerings at first, it simply wanted the Four Seas Company to provide some food. Thepany had offered this of their own ord. Upon finding their taste to be satisfactory after one tasting, it continued to partake.

    ¡°How long have you been here?¡±

    ¡°How long?¡± The bird thought for a bit. ¡°Three years, ording to your sayings...¡±

    ¡°How many people like these have you eaten?¡±

    ¡°Not people...¡± The bird still wanted to exin. ¡°This envoy partakes of the offerings only once a month and chooses the ten most tender specimens each time...¡±

    ¡°Which means 120 people a year and 360 in three years...¡± Li Hao understood, then smiled. ¡°You are the envoy of Phoenix Mountain?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°What is the nature of partnership between the mountain and the Four Seas Company?¡±

    ¡°We help them survey the surroundings and provide long distance flights to facilitatemunication between the mountain and tradingpany. We exchange some monster spirit specialities for necessities that Phoenix Mountain requires...¡± The bird knew that the human in front of it was not someone to offend, so it didn¡¯t dare hide anything. Its thought ripples undted violently when it was done. ¡°What are you doing?!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Li Hao brought down his sword with unfathomably dense killing intent. His sword pierced through the cardinal directions and chopped the bird¡¯s head off. This was ate Nova monster spirit, but incredibly fragile all the same when facing Li Hao.

    It was gravely wounded and on the verge of death after one blow. The young man didn¡¯t say a word and continued to swing stroke after stroke. In the end, there was only a bird skeleton present in front of him. All of the flesh and feathers had been hacked off.

    ¡°You¡¯re very tender too!¡± Li Hao smiled and turned to He Yong. ¡°Kill all of the guards on the ind, don¡¯t leave a single one alive!¡±

    <i>What!</i>

    The guards prone on the ground paled with horror. The strongest among them was just Sr, how could they withstand a powerhouse like He Yong? He Yong knew that Li Hao was enraged and didn¡¯t say anything else. He punched a massive crater into the ground and pulped several dozen guards!

    ¡°Senior Yang, kill all of the monster spirits on the ind!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± A grunt came back on the wind before de light shed.

    ¡°Everyone on the ind is to convene here. Those who are not present within five minutes will be executed!¡± Li Hao hovered in the air, light glistening from his silver armor. He looked silently at the bronze mirror in his hand. ¡°You can try escaping if you think you can make it out! I am Skystar Vice Commander Li Hao, the Demon Sword that you know of! The Four Seas Company colluded with pirates and monster spirits to brutalize humans and eat our fellows! You have seen it with your own eyes! You can try running away if you think you¡¯ll make it!¡±

    Low sobs and wails rose in the surroundings. No one dared move. The jeering nobles were crouched on the ground in bedraggled form. Some of them had peed themselves from fright¡ªvarious pungent scents wafted through the air.

    ¡°Commander, I am a Night Watcher...¡± A terrified person volunteered carefully when he heard Li Hao identify himself.

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    A sword ran through his head. Li Hao looked at the body, then at the group. ¡°I told you to convene on this spot, not talk! Anyone who opens their mouth will die!¡±

    The crowd was even more horrified to see this demon kill his own colleagues. More people wet themselves.

    ¡°Night Watchers?¡± Li Hao asked coolly. ¡°There might be some among you, but... don¡¯t identify yourselves right now. If you do, I¡¯ll only find it disgusting that we¡¯re on the same side. How embarrassing that I am also a Night Watcher! I might be able to spare you when I calm down, understood?¡±

    No one else dared make a sound; more streamed to where Li Hao was. Elsewhere, He Yong was furiously hunting down the fleeing guards. Some had run to the beaches, but were blocked from escape. The barrier could not fend off Novas, but these guards were at most Darkmoon. No one was getting away!

    Wails and howls rose and fell.

    ¡°Demon Sword, we of the Ministry of Finance...¡±

    ¡°Ah!!¡±

    ¡°The Ministry of Finance will get you guys for this!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao simply counted down the time. When it was up, he shot into the air and erupted with hundreds of rays of sword light. They exploded in all directions, razing multiple buildings! Agonized screams wailed out.

    ¡°Whether martial master or supernatural, do any of you think you¡¯re getting away from me?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t see balls of light around martial masters, but he had the bronze mirror to identify any signs of life within its effective range. They wouldn¡¯t be escaping his reach!

    A martial master rose into the air and immediately shot for the distance. He punched Li Hao¡¯s answering ray of sword light to pieces!

    A powerhouse among martial masters!

    ¡°I am a disciple of Buddha Mountain...¡± he roared.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A thick column of sword light raced down. Li Hao shot upward like he was a bird, kicking and punching. The Buddha Mountain disciple plummeted with grave injuries after a second. Li Hao reached out and snapped his throat.

    ¡°Your mountain lord¡¯s younger brother seems to have been killed a few days ago. We did that too. Your mountain lord is on bad terms with my master, so is Buddha Mountain supposed to be scary?¡±

    This was a decently strong martial master, at least on par with Golden Spear. But when he encountered Li Hao, he could only suffer the fate of being killed.

    The premises grew even more hushed. The young man looked at where he¡¯d stood before. Thousands of people crouched on the ground made for a magnificent sight. What a pity that the overpowering stench did not live up to it.

    ¡°Everyone is to write down their identity, cultivation level, and hand over their storage ring!¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice once more rang out. ¡°Make sure to clearly write out your name. Those who conceal their identities will be shown no mercy!

    ¡°Don¡¯t think that you¡¯ll be able to evade disaster if you give a fake name! You can try it out if you¡¯re that confident in yourself!¡±

    Thousands of pieces of paper and writing brushesnded in front of everyone. Some of them trembled so much that their hand shook too much to write. They were beside themselves with fear. However much they were cocky before, they were truly terrified now. This was a real demon!

    ¡°Sp this is what the dynasty¡¯s nobles are like?¡± Hended in front of everyone with a sigh. ¡°How can the dynasty not decline with scum like you guys? How can it not copse? Wake up, you¡¯ve got five minutes. Those who can¡¯t write should find someone else to write it for you. If not, you can be buried here!¡±

    It was like school was in session as the sound of brushes scratching over paper was the only thing that could be heard. Many were exining their identity, while a few shook so hard that they were unable to grip a brush. They begged for those next to them to help.

    He Yong came back before long and nodded with a smile. ¡°It¡¯s done!¡± He¡¯d killed six Novas and one Nova monster spirit in a short while. There were also numerous guards on the ind¡ªat least one thousand. But right now, they werepletely obliterated by a few butchers!

    In Li Hao¡¯s view, these guys were worse than pirates. All of them were guilty! It wasn¡¯t much to keep monster spirits around, but they fed humans to the monster spirits! Women... children... Though monster spirits gave these actions the pretty veneer of helping humanity eliminate waste, would these guards be unaware of the truth? Would those enjoying themselves on the ind be oblivious?

    Li Hao wanted to kill them all, but he held himself in check in the end. He forced down the burning mes of his heart because he knew he couldn¡¯t do so. There were too many here and they were connected to too many others.

    It was fine for him to kill a few or a handful, but he couldn¡¯t kill them all unless he wanted to go against the entire dynasty. He didn¡¯t have the strength to do so, despite these people all deserving death.

    Li Hao felt that it wouldn¡¯t be an injustice to kill them all, but he suppressed his rage in the end.

    ¡°After you finish identifying yourself, detail the crimes of the Four Seas Company!¡± He smiled. ¡°As for what crimes there are, you guys can decide yourselves! When you are done, sign and stamp the confession!¡±

    He scattered a rainfall of papers over the terrified crowd. ¡°You can live if you write, you can also try not writing anything!¡±

    Yang Shan appeared at this time, holding many storage rings in his hand. ¡°I¡¯ve emptied out several warehouses and taken the storage rings from the Novas and Srs. There¡¯s probably still a lot of unimed treasure in the buildings of this ind.¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t look at the rings after he received them from Yang Shan. He continued to stare at the bronze mirror and reached out before long, summoning the papers and store rings from the crowd. He grinned after perusing them.

    ¡°A lot of you guys are highly ced! If I summon your fathers or grandfathers to collect you, half of the nine ministries and royal family would be represented. No wonder the Four Seas Company is so arrogant and so wealthy. With all of you present, of course they¡¯re wealthy!¡±

    He pointed at a young man who seemed rtivelyposed still. He lowered his head when he saw Li Hao point at him.

    ¡°You are the grandson of the North Sea King?¡± Li Hao smiled.

    The North Sea King was the greatest pirate of the North Sea! The identity on this sheet of paper was his grandson... Li Hao had reeled in a big fish!

 Chapter 650: Ambush (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 650: Ambush (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Yes, but my grandfather has many grandsons,¡± the young man said in a low voice. ¡°I¡¯m just one of them and I¡¯m not terribly important...¡±

    ¡°You have to know that being not important means there¡¯s no point for your existence. Are you sure about that?¡±

    The young man struggled for a bit before saying, ¡°I¡¯m one of the more favored grandsons. This one... is my guard!¡±

    He pointed at the muscr Nova kneeling on the ground, thete Nova. His guard sighed with resignation. The grandson of the North Sea King... There was a grudge between Li Hao and the North Sea pirates. One of the dukes of the pirates had even attacked Li Hao before, but he was the one dead after the attempt.

    The guard himself wasn¡¯t one of the dukes, just a powerhouse deeply trusted by the North Sea King. Hence, he was given the task of protecting this young man.

    Li Hao nodded with a smile and looked at the kneeling woman. She was a mid Nova. ¡°And what¡¯s your identity?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s quite a character,¡± He Yong responded before the woman had a chance to. ¡°You¡¯d see her name on the Divine Masters Ranking if you looked at it. She¡¯s Mu Xiaorong, the youngest daughter of the minister of Internal Affairs. She¡¯s connected to the royal family.¡±

    ¡°The minister¡¯s daughter?¡± Li Hao was surprised.

    ¡°Yes!¡± He Yong affirmed. ¡°And her potential is wonderful to be someone listed on the ranking.¡±

    ¡°The Ministry of Internal Affairs represents the royal family,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°The Four Seas Company is of the Ministry of Finance. What are you doing here? Is a woman also here to gamble and while her days away in the whorehouses?¡±

    He seemed to have caught an even bigger fish!

    The kneeling woman with delicate features didn¡¯t appear to be greater than thirty years old. She transmitted to Li Hao, ¡°Commander Li, it¡¯s not a good course of action to publicize my identity here. This has to do with matters between the nine ministries and royal family...¡±

    <i>Wham!</i>

    Li Hao punched outward, eliciting a drastic change in expression from Mu Xiaorong. She wanted to defend herself, but sank into the ground from the force of the blow. Blood sprayed from her wounds and she coughed up more blood with shock.

    ¡°Don¡¯t threaten me and I don¡¯t care what you guys have agreed upon!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°There will be people along to investigate! I only know that you¡¯re a prisoner right now, a criminal, do you understand?¡±

    ¡°I am your prisoner...¡± Mu Xiaorong still spat out blood. ¡°But I am not a criminal!¡±

    ¡°No no no!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Remember that everything having to do with superhumans falls under the purview of the Night Watchers. You are a superhuman and just transmitted a threat to the Skystar vicemander of the Night Watchers! That is a crime! Do you understand now?¡±

    Mu Xiaorong fell silent.

    ¡°Hand over your storage ring!¡± Li Hao suddenly looked at her with a cold look. ¡°What are you trying to take out?¡±

    ¡°Nothing...¡± She ducked her head with a spasm of fear.

    ¡°Are you thinking of bringing out something that will kill premier martial masters like me and Southern Fist?¡± Li Hao demanded frostily. ¡°Why don¡¯t you give it a try?¡±

    Ashen-faced, Mu Xiaorong threw out a storage ring without a word. Li Hao¡¯s expression shifted when he caught it¡ªhe took out a translucent, crystalline item that brimmed with energy. It seemed very unstable, as if it would explode at any time.

    ¡°An energy bomb!¡± He Yong sucked in a sharp breath, then released it. ¡°It probably won¡¯t kill me!¡±

    Just one wasn¡¯t sufficient for the task.

    Li Hao stared sternly at it. He was familiar with this since Fan Cheng had used itst time and forced even Hong Yitang to back away with light wounds. She came from a spendthrift background, alright, for a mid Nova to have this kind of treasure!

    ¡°And you?¡± He looked merrily at the grandson of the North Sea King.

    ¡°I don¡¯t have that...¡± the young man hastily said.

    ¡°Are you going to offer up your storage ring by yourself, or do you want me to cut into you to fetch it?¡±

    The young man¡¯s eyes widened.

    ¡°This applies to all of you!¡± Li Hao mentioned faintly. ¡°Storage rings can be detected even if they¡¯re embedded in the flesh. I¡¯m well familiar with the habit of using one in the open and keeping another one in reserve! You can try me if you want to bet that I won¡¯t cut into you one by one...¡±

    People were already trembling in the crowd. Muffled grunts soon rang out as someone dug out a storage ring hidden in their body. This was a contingency in case of robbery or danger. The rings held treasures to kill enemies or to facilitate escape...

    The young man sighed and spat out a storage ring. He didn¡¯t need to dig into himself. Li Hao was quite a difficult character to handle! His storage ring hidden within his organs had been discovered!

    Li Hao grinned at the development. Had he located the hidden storage ring? That he hadn¡¯t. It wasn¡¯t that easy to do so. He¡¯d just recalled that when he concealed mysterious power stones with Liu Long and the others, they¡¯d swallowed the stones into their stomachs. Surely this was an act feasible by others!

    As he expected, there was more than one person with a hidden storage ring. Li Hao was collecting a tremendous amount of rings today! He¡¯d captured another two Novas alive, one of which was a guard of the North Sea King and the other the daughter of the minister of Internal Affairs. Both of their identities were umon.

    Meanwhile, many were those in the crowd were also rted to the nine ministries and royal family. There were plenty of grandchildren of deputy ministers. When it came to the direct lineage of the nine ministers, this woman seemed to be the only one. There were also numerous descendants of royal dukes and princes. It was a pity that there were no children of the emperor. What a pity!

    Li Hao swept a nce across the crowd¡ªthere were at least three thousand present. That was a lot!

    Many of them were attendants working for the Four Seas Company. Li Hao had only sent his people against the ind¡¯s guards, not these people. These people were usually here for business or supplied a special service. The young man wasn¡¯t interested in killing them either.

    Adding the number of people dead to the total figure meant that the tiny ind had held four thousand people. It was a decent amount of people and the key thing was that many of their identities were surprising.

    Everyone looked carefully at Li Hao; a foul smell filled the air. The young man checked the time¡ªit¡¯d been twenty minutes since the start of his attack. Perhaps someone on the other end had already discovered something. Maybe somemunications were proving impossible¡ªthat would raise suspicion.

    The young man seemed to consider something as he looked at the crowd.

    ¡°What do we do?¡± He Yong transmitted. ¡°Do we kill them all or what?¡±

    Li Hao looked at him and transmitted back, ¡°Martial uncle can kill them all!¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong was speechless. <i>I¡¯m not doing that! Will there be a ce for me in this world after I do that?</i> It was one thing to offend the Ministry of Finance¡ªHou Xiaochen stood in front of him for that. But if he killed everyone here, he may as well flee to Great Li.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything; he collected all of the confessionals. ¡°You write one too.¡± He looked at Mu Xiaorong. ¡°Write... that the Ministry of Internal Affairs...¡±

    ¡°Then you might as well kill me,¡± she responded lowly. ¡°I can¡¯t write anything like that. I¡¯m different from them. Whatever I write represents the attitude of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.¡±

    <i>Wham!</i>

    Li Hao mmed his fist down, prompting horror out of the woman. Killing intent!

    ¡°I¡¯ll write it!¡± she shrieked, no sign of her previousposure to be found.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    She was still sent flying, coughing and spewing up blood. ¡°You asked for it!¡± Li Hao chuckled.

    The surroundings were eerily quiet as everyone was beyond horrified. Was this Demon Sword? That was the daughter of the minister of Internal Affairs! He wanted to kill her at the drop of a hat all the same. Any thoughts of rising up were spontaneously snuffed out in their minds. All they hoped for now was for Li Hao to show mercy. As for resistance... that did not exist.

    ¡°And you, write all about the collusion between the North Sea pirates and Four Seas Company!¡± Li Hao turned to the North Sea King¡¯s grandson. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me that you don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°I... just want to ask,¡± sighed the young man. ¡°Is there a chance for my survival?¡±

    It was a difficult call for the others, but he was the grandson of the North Sea King. Li Hao may not show him mercy. This was a demon he faced!

    ¡°There is, I won¡¯t kill you.¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°It¡¯s good that you¡¯re alive. However, you might be held in the Inspectorate or Night Watcher headquarters. Of course, if your grandfather has the ability to bribe the senior executives, you¡¯ll make it back alive! But so long as I¡¯m here, all you need to do is point out witnesses for me!¡±

    Point out witnesses!

    The young man understood. His heart chilled. In that case... there was nothing ahead for him but death even if he escaped. Li Hao¡¯s intentions were clear¡ªDemon Sword wanted to kill a group of people and he was the best evidence for their deaths.

    ¡°Be happy, everyone!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°I¡¯m a good person who upholds justice! I¡¯ll take everyone back to Skystar City in a bit and have even prepared your transportation! You will be fine so long as you are innocent. Liven up! The world might think that I eat people otherwise!¡±

    The crowd sagged with relief at his words, but also cursed loudly to themselves. <i>You don¡¯t eat people? You¡¯re scarier than demonic cannibals!</i>

    Li Hao threw out an origin weapon that swiftly erged into a flying ship. It was quite spacious as it used to belong to the Steadfast Duke. He breathed out and looked at He Yong. ¡°We might encounter trouble on the way back, so please be careful, martial uncle.¡±

    He Yong nodded.

    Li Hao took out a transmission pendant and dismantled the bronze mirror¡¯s shroud after some thought. He entered a message, ¡°A sudden fog came over Four Seas Ind and hamperedmunication. We suspect that major monster spirits are behind it...¡±

    He set everything aside after keying in the message, then transmitted some more instructions to He Yong. The man was surprised, but nodded without a word.

 Chapter 651: Paper Tiger (I)

    <h4>Chapter 651: Paper Tiger (I)</h4>

    <i>At this moment, in the Colosseum.</i>

    ¡°Something seems to have happened at Four Seas Ind.¡± Wu Yong frowned and looked at Liu Sha. ¡°The lines ofmunication are not clear. Many have told me that they can¡¯t get in touch with their family. We received a message from the ind moments ago, but no one responds to further contact...¡±

    ¡°Can something have happened?¡± Liu Sha furrowed her brows as well.

    Wu Yong started, then looked at Liu Sha with some... disbelief. ¡°Do you think... Demon Sword...¡± he transmitted.

    ¡°Would... would he dare?¡± Her eyes widened.

    He absolutely would! Whether it was attacking the Colosseum or the Four Seas Company, it was all the same. So why wouldn¡¯t he?

    Wu Yong swallowed hard. If things were progressing ording to his guesses... then... they were in great trouble! Although there were a lot of Novas at the Four Seas Company, Demon Sword wasn¡¯t weak...

    He frowned anew after further thought. There were so many people on the ind, couldn¡¯t any of them get away and fire off a message? Perhaps he was just thinking too much.

    ¡°Tell the minister that I¡¯m going to take a look at the ind. Stay on guard at the Colosseum, be careful of this being a diversion...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re going alone?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Wu Yong nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll go alone and take... that... with me. You keep the energy bombs. That gives us both a certain degree of self-defense.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± The two discussed for a while before Wu Yong left with two Novas. Although he was concerned that this was a tactic to lure him out, he was also deeply afraid that something had gone wrong at Four Seas Ind. They would be in grave trouble then as there were many treasures on the ind and the descendants of many noble figures.

    His head would roll if they all died! Not even the minister would be able to save him then!

    Liu Sha quickly reported thetest developments after Wu Yong left. Minister Liu¡¯s response returned shortly. ¡°Go with Wu Yong, don¡¯t set out on your own!¡±

    Minister Liu was quite irked. Of course they had to move as a team at a time like this! Were they insistent on giving the enemy the chance to take them out separately? These two wereplete idiots!

    ......

    The minister frowned in his office at the Ministry of Finance, contemting whether or not Li Hao was behind the irregrity. Did the young man have the boldness and the ability to deliver such a blow to the Four Seas Ind, to the point in which no word could get out?

    <i>That¡¯s only possible if he has help, and exceedingly powerful help. It¡¯s not feasible otherwise...</i>

    He swiftly gave orders for people to keep an eye on Hou Xiaochen. He wasn¡¯t the one making a move, was he?

    The minister¡¯s men quickly reported back that Hou Xiaochen was still at Night Watcher headquarters. That put Minister Liu more at ease.

    ¡°It should be fine...¡± He heaved a long sigh, whether out of selffort or true belief. Faint unease still pricked at him.

    ......

    <i>In the darkness.</i>

    A massive flying ship traveled through the air. Thousands of people were imprisoned in the hold. Two ashen-faced Novas watched as Li Hao¡¯s internal force sank into their bodies and slowly reached their hearts. Despair and fury filled their eyes.

    The young man didn¡¯t care about that. He was very calm and painstakingly wrapped their organs with his internal force. Hard at work, he was very gentle and tender.

    People said that men hard at work were the most handsome, but that was the furthest thought from the Novas¡¯ minds. They felt only terror. Their hearts were clenched tight, as if explosion was possible at any moment.

    ¡°Don¡¯t move!¡± Li Hao frowned slightly with a soft rebuke. ¡°Mysterious power is unstable. Although internal force is stable, shifting about randomly might cause mysterious power to leak out and collide with internal force. Your organs will explode from the sh!¡±

    ¡°You know just as well that mysterious power is unstable...¡± Mu Xiaorong was pale. ¡°We¡¯re already your prisoners! This will easily cause our hearts to be identally blown up!¡±

    ¡°It won¡¯t.¡± Li Hao grinned brilliantly. ¡°I keep my actions within the proper limits of behavior. You don¡¯t have to worry about your heart exploding so long as you don¡¯t bring more than the force of a Sr to bear. I¡¯m not fully in control of you either, I just don¡¯t want some unpleasantries to happen. Do you understand?¡±

    Mu Xiaorong set her jaw and didn¡¯t say anything else. Li Hao was openly flying them back to Skystar City. This would easily arouse bacsh from the Ministry of Finance. When battle was joined... the circumstances would be very dangerous for them.

    ¡°What do you want to do, Commander Li?¡± Mu Xiaorong tamped down the fear in her heart. ¡°There¡¯s no need for this since you won¡¯t be killing us. We¡¯ll cooperate and might even be able to help if you encounter danger.¡±

    ¡°Oh no, that¡¯s fine!¡± Li Hao declined the offer with a smiling shake of his head. ¡°You¡¯re far too noble for that, I couldn¡¯t bear to let you be so tired.¡±

    Mu Xiaorong was rendered speechless. Li Hao looked outside the ship. They would finish crossing the Skystar Sea soon. The royal city would be at hand after another uninhabited expanse past the sea. Would the Ministry of Finance send anyone?

    ¡°You have a lofty status.¡± He smiled at Mu Xiaorong. ¡°You will stand at the ship¡¯s bow. If there¡¯s anyone from the Ministry of Finance or government present, they won¡¯t dare attack you on sight. The nine ministers are too noble for anyone to harm their children. What do you think?¡±

    Mu Xiaorong paled again.

    Li Hao looked into the distance and saw balls of light swiftly approaching. He picked up Mu Xiaorong with a pinch and threw her to the front of the ship. ¡°I¡¯m giving you an order, not making a request! Think on it yourself how you can best prevent thoseing from attacking you or the ship.¡±

    He then looked back at the trembling nobles in the ship¡¯s hold. ¡°All descendants of deputy directors and above, as well as members of the royal family, shall approach the front. Carry on enjoying yourselves as you did before!¡±

    No one in the group dared move. They knew that it would be very dangerous at the ship¡¯s bow, that people might die.

    ¡°That was the first time.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I don¡¯t like repeating myself, so you have one more chance...¡±

    A rustle stirred the crowd as one, two people walked out... They shook violently, but they didn¡¯t dare dy their actions. They knew how dangerous and ruthless the person in front of them was. The thousands of corpses on the ind bore testament to that.

    Novas that were normally eminent beings were paper tigers to their attackers. They were killed instantly; the captives still didn¡¯t know how many powerhouses they faced. Only Southern Fist was familiar to them, they didn¡¯t recognize the rest.

    Approximately twenty people walked to the front of the ship. They were as quiet as mice. Li Hao was quite displeased at that and manifested a massive mysterious power stone to illuminate the ship.

    ¡°Come, carry on like you did on the ind!¡± hemanded coolly. ¡°Don¡¯t men and women like to have fun with each other? Show me that fun! Whether you kiss or engage in other actions, move yourselves! Let people know that you¡¯re having fun here!¡±

    The group continued to tremble. Mu Xiaorong red lividly at Li Hao, he looked back just as viciously at her.

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to kill those of the nine ministries, but don¡¯t force my hand! I won¡¯t be able to guarantee how many survive in the times toe otherwise! Don¡¯t think that I¡¯ll be in any trouble after I kill you. There are too many who want to kill me¡ªbecause of that, I don¡¯t care if I offend a few more!¡±

    The prisoners moved to stiff action. Some conversed in low voices with those next to them, others yed games with those they knew. Some shakily wrapped their arms around their partners to kiss...

    Although they were enjoying themselves, all of them shook uncontrobly. They feared Li Hao. As arrogant as they were, that was under the auspices of their background. Now that they faced someone who didn¡¯t care about their identity, there was nothing they could do but submit.

    Li Hao looked into the distance once more. There were too many lights from Skystar City in the darkness, so he couldn¡¯t make out the balls of light too clearly. He decreased his speed as he wasn¡¯t prepared to enter the city. That would give the enemy more time to exit the city, which would make their balls of light more apparent.

    A massive ball of light approached from a distance; there were two smaller balls of light next to it. Three Novas! Someone wasing.

    Not only that, but Li Hao abruptly jerked his head back to see a fourth, prominent ball of light following the first three. It slowed as it approached.

    The young man raised an eyebrow. A metamorphosis expert was following behind the trio of one metamorphosis expert and two peaks Novas. The first three were likely Wu Yong and his men, so who was the fourth?

    Friend or foe?

    Most likely foe.

    It looked like they¡¯d discovered something and were following him. Neither He Yong, Yang Shan, or the hidden Qin Lian had raised the rm. The others were less than five kilometers away, which indicated superior powers of concealment.

    <i>Dark supernaturals? Assassins? Celestial!</i>

    Li Hao swiftly came to the conclusion that the onlookers were likely from Celestial. Only someone like that could evade He Yong and the others. His people followed from the shadows, but hadn¡¯t discovered this group. To powerhouses, five thousand meters was a short distance.

    Would just one metamorphosis expert daree by themselves? The enemy should know that he wasn¡¯t an easy target. Three metamorphoses chasing him in the eastst time failed to seed. These guys wouldn¡¯t be that dumb.

    ¡°Therefore... that they¡¯re here... and guess that I¡¯m here... means that they can¡¯t possibly think one metamorphosis is all that it¡¯ll take.¡±

    There must be an ace up their sleeves. What was it? An energy bomb or something else?

    There had to be something. These metamorphoses wouldn¡¯t be so bold otherwise. Various thoughts rose in Li Hao¡¯s mind and he walked up the ship¡¯s bow before gradually vanishing from sight like he¡¯d gone invisible. Mu Xiarong and the others gaped¡ªLi Hao had run away!

    Or rather, he was using them as bait and hiding in the darkness. What should they do?

    ¡°He¡¯s gone, should we run for it?¡± Mu Xiaorong transmitted to the North Sea Nova.

    Thetter ignored her and looked at the young man next to him. The young man shook his head ruefully. These royal city nobles didn¡¯t know anything. Theycked understanding of how savage these northern barbarians could be!

    As a North Sea pirate, he knew what Li Hao and these Silver Moon martial masters represented in the north. They would rather be a shattered vessel of jade than an unbroken piece of pottery. If they didn¡¯t listen to Li Hao and help kill enemies, none of them would survive. Someone like Li Hao would certainly kill them at crucial moments and run off.

    <i>Flee?</i>

    That was the dumbest decision possible. It was better to wait for a glimmer of hope to arrive.

 Chapter 652: Paper Tiger (II)

    <h4>Chapter 652: Paper Tiger (II)</h4>

    ¡°There¡¯s three iing and another metamorphosis following them. Circle carefully toward them, He Yong. You go too, Panther!¡± Li Hao melted into the darkness and transmitted his instructions through the armor. He could direct He Yong, but he couldn¡¯t direct the dog. That was fine¡ªPanther followed Qin Lian at the moment. She was the weakest link, which meant that He Yong, Qin Lian, and Panther would head over together.

    ¡°Be careful of any trump cards up their sleeves. They might be able to instantly kill a metamorphosis expert. He Yong can take the lead. If they¡¯ve guessed that I¡¯m here, they¡¯ll definitely be prepared. They won¡¯t send just one metamorphosis against me...¡±

    ¡°What about you?¡± He Yong¡¯s voice carried through the armor. ¡°Someone seems to being from up ahead...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine! Whether it¡¯s the three great organizations or someone else, they¡¯ll all be wary of the nine ministries. They won¡¯t easily attack once they see all the descendants of the nine ministries on the ship.¡±

    He Yong sped through the darkness, headed for the direction that Li Hao had pointed out.

    ¡°What about me, Commander Li?¡± asked Yang Shan.

    ¡°You¡¯ll be in charge of martial masters that maye our way.¡±

    ¡°But...¡±

    ¡°Execute your orders!¡±

    Yang Shan didn¡¯t dare ask further; he¡¯d truly gotten to know Li Hao this time. The young man was a vicious sort and stronger than rumored to be. He hadn¡¯t expended much energy to kill a peak Nova. Perhaps it really would take an Arcanus to contend with him...

    ......

    Wu Yong was in a hurry, but slowed down throughout the course of his flight. His transmission pendant buzzed with numerous messages. He scanned them quickly and identified some important ones. One came from the minister, telling him to slow down. Liu Sha had been sent to join him.

    Another message came from an assassin, saying that he¡¯d discovered a ship flying out from Four Seas Ind. It seemed to be filled with nobles. The killer was following it. Additionally, people were on their way to the ind. There would be news soon from their investigation.

    Wu Yong heaved a sigh of relief. This was good. He looked at the two Novas next to him. ¡°We can slow down, there¡¯s no rush.¡±

    The two blinked. <i>You were the one in a hurry earlier, but now you¡¯re the one not in a hurry...</i> Granted, they were in no position to contradict Wu Yong. So they would slow down.

    The three adjusted their speed; they could discern some of the situation outside the city by now. There seemed to be a flying ship in the distance filled with young men and women enjoying themselves. They saw people ying drinking games and kissing out in the open...

    ¡°And we thought something had happened!¡± One of the Novas breathed out with a low curse. ¡°That they¡¯d all died or something. They seem perfectly fine!¡±

    Wu Yong also frowned. Were they all fine? He caught sight of someone important¡ªthe one from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They were only a few thousand meters apart. He sent a message to her transmission pendant, but she didn¡¯t react. Had she not seen it, or was there another reason...?

    After thinking it over, Wu Yong messaged some others he recognized on the ship. All of the attempts went unanswered. This was bing uncanny.

    ¡°Be careful, there¡¯s something wrong about these people...¡± he transmitted to those beside him.

    The two Novas snapped to attention. Something wrong? The trio fell silent and proceeded cautiously, covering their tracks to gradually approach the ship.

    ......

    The three big balls of light were simply too noticeable to Li Hao. However, he didn¡¯t spring into action just yet. The only thing he did was infuse vast quantities of internal force into the Windchaser Boots beneath his feet. The boots were critical for escape, but also immensely useful for killing. The saying that all martial methods were confounded by speed wasn¡¯t necessarily urate, but it was quite appropriate at times.

    If the young man exploded with everything he had, he could instantly cover three thousand meters. Granted, he couldn¡¯t maintain that kind of state for long. He¡¯d utilized the boots three times in a row when being chased by Xu Qing before having to rest, recover, then go on the run again.

    ¡°Four thousand meters...¡± Li Hao waited silently in the darkness, unmoving.

    <i>Thirty-five hundred... </i>He was still unmoving. In the next moment, he messaged He Yong, ¡°Action!¡±

    A massive boom sounded in the distance! He Yong struck with his fist and raised a collision that rang through heaven and earth.

    ¡°How dare a Celestial killer attack personages of the nine ministries!¡± He Yong roared in all directions.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    His fists dominated the world! It was the only thing that existed beneath the heavens! In the darkness, a dog morphed into a golden color and moved soundlessly, viciously shing its paw at the ck-robed powerhouse!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Loud explosions continued to echo. Wu Yong and his men swiftly looked in the relevant direction.

    ¡°Hurry and go help...¡± Wu Yong transmitted to his men.

    ¡°Sir, is... that... He Yong?¡±

    <i>Help? </i>He Yong was a royal powerhouse and hollering that he was handling a Celestial killer. How could they help?

    Wu Yong cursed to himself! They would have to help by ident. As he thought, something unwished for had developed. He Yong¡¯s presence here likely meant he was working in conjunction with Li Hao.

    Where was Li Hao?

    A ripple undted through the void and silver armor appeared in front of him.

    So fast!

    No, it wasn¡¯t speed. It was like he¡¯d teleported right in front of the three. The young man threw something down and vanished without a look back.

    Wu Yong didn¡¯t have time to react before subconsciously realizing something. He didn¡¯t even have time to retrieve the Arcanus talisman before his eyes widened with dismay. There was no time to warn his men, he had to run for it!

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    An ear-splitting detonation ripped through the air, shaking even Skystar City in its wake. It came from an energy bomb designed for metamorphosis experts. Just one alone could very possibly blow up a metamorphosis supernatural, depending on their strength. The stronger ones could still get away, but injury was inevitable.

    The two peak Novas were sted out of their positions in the sky. One of them was unlucky enough that their head was blown straight to bits. The other shouted with rm and fled, paying the price of both legs being obliterated to get away.

    Wu Yong likewise snarled with fury and raced through the air.

    <i>Kaboom!</i>

    A massive energy pulse exploded behind him and churned through the sky. A formidable presence erupted from Wu Yong¡¯s body in response. The tremendous impact sent him flying backward through the air as he vomited blood, but gratification shone at the corner of his eye. He was only injured and his organs shaken up...

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    A sword stabbed through the sky! It came with perfect timing¡ªWu Yong punched out with a howl. ¡°I am the president of the Four Seas Company, the nine ministries will show you no mercy if you dare harm me...¡±

    He wanted to scare Li Hao into retreat; he knew it was the young man. So long as Li Hao hesitated, so long as he felt that he couldn¡¯t kill Wu Yong out in the open, thetter would have the chance to take out the Arcanus talisman and kill Li Hao.

    However, this was precisely the opening that the young man wanted to make use of. His longsword jabbed forward without a sound!

    An arm flew through the air. Wu Yong¡¯s expression shifted drastically as there was a storage ring attached to the arm. His other arm hastily iled after the severed one.

    That bastard Li Hao! He¡¯d suddenly broken through the air with the Windchaser Boots! Wu Yong greatly regretted forgetting that the young man had that treasure and could bring it to bear to great effect. The key question was, where did the guy¡¯s energy bombe from?

    He didn¡¯t have time to think; Liu Sha was almost upon them from the rear. He couldn¡¯t allow Li Hao to dictate the pace of the engagement. Wu Yong resolutely gave up on his storage ring when his thoughts traveled here and instantly backed away, turning to flee.

    Li Hao connected with empty air as his target retracted an arm the moment he would¡¯ve struck. The young man was rather surprised and grabbed the falling arm. He looked at the fleeing Wu Yong, smiling at the metamorphosis expert. <i>He¡¯s capable enough to make this decision at this time!</i> Li Hao¡¯s five supernatural locks partially snapped into half in the next moment and a powerful presence barreled out of his body.

    The young man clutched the severed arm and activated the Windchaser Boots again, instantly breaking through and striking with his sword. He settled back on his feet, activated the boots again, and struck again! He didn¡¯t care how Wu Yong was, simply striking again and again.

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    The longsword sank into the other¡¯s body, but Li Hao immediately backed away. The Windchaser Boots repeatedly red to life. Wu Yong cried out with agony and wanted to erupt with fury, but his blows couldn¡¯t fight their target!

    The boots red so Li Hao could deliver another stroke! His blows wereing with increasing speed. Wu Yong seemed to see a ferocious tiger leaping at him, wanting to rip his heart out with a w. He wasn¡¯t dead and vomited blood with disbelief.

    ¡°You¡¯re... not... peak Nova...¡± The young man was absolutely not just a peak Nova! Their intelligence was wrong, dead wrong! Li Hao was stronger than him! Wu Yong didn¡¯t know if it was a delusion or not, but he felt that he wouldn¡¯t be able to match Li Hao even if he was in prime condition. Not only was the young man strong when it came to battle strength, but he was equipped with the heritage weapons.

    <i>Nova?</i>

    Li Hao had never thought he was a Nova, he was a martial master. Martial masters were different from supernaturals. He pierced through Wu Yong¡¯s head without another word; the man stared wide-eyed back at him. This was the first metamorphosis expert that Li Hao had killed by himself.

    The heavily injured peak Nova missing his legs looked on with horror. ¡°Liu Sha...¡± Hope red in his heart. Liu Sha was here! She was right there in the distance with a few more Novas. Liu Sha was here, he didn¡¯t need to die!

 Chapter 653: Paper Tiger (III)

    <h4>Chapter 653: Paper Tiger (III)</h4>

    Wu Yong was dead!

    Everyone had underestimated Li Hao and his true battle strength. They all thought that it was the young man¡¯s heritage weapon that was the key factor, as well as Silver Moon¡¯s support. In many people¡¯s eyes, Li Hao himself couldn¡¯tpare to a metamorphosis expert.

    But... was that really the case?

    Li Hao rifled through Wu Yong¡¯s storage ring. He smiled when he found something that looked like a crystal floating up to him. He could sense that it was simr to the core origin talisman that the little tree had given to him. It differed in the sense that a supernatural presence emanated from it instead of core origin.

    <i>How brutal is the destructive force of an Arcanus talisman?</i>

    Who knew how powerful it was? He¡¯d know if he tried it. Li Hao shot through the void without hesitation. This battle utilizing the Windchaser Boots was bing a very meaningful one. He immediately crossed three thousand meters, then another set of three thousand meters...

    Liu Sha and the others were six thousand meters out. The woman¡¯s jaw dropped when Li Hao suddenly appeared in front of them. She¡¯d caught vague glimpses of the battle ahead, but the young man was here before she had a chance to rush over!

    She immediately took out an energy bomb without another word, then three more after a split second of hesitation. Though they were ready for use, she dithered over whether to throw them out. These items were too powerful and they were still close to the city gates.

    It hadn¡¯t been long since Wu Yong departed the city, so she was still within its sphere of influence. Creating such a massive explosion nearby might bring down great trouble on her head. She also wouldn¡¯t be able to exin herself if she killedrge numbers of city defenders and civilians.

    Li Hao tossed out the crystalline item as she hesitated, then vanished. While Liu Sha and the others felt that the young man would hesitate, he did not at all. There were no civilians nearby, just plenty of city defenders. He didn¡¯t care about their deaths! Li Hao would only feel the pity of letting survivors get away even if he killed nine out of ten officials and soldiers in Skystar City.

    A surge of metal and fire energy entangled in the air, ripping through the void! Eyes wide with horror, Liu Sha quickly threw out her energy bombs!

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    A tidal wave of power ttened all nearby structures. Nearly one hundred city defenders near the city gates were spontaneously annihted. The ground split open as the terrible force spread in all directions.

    ¡°Ah!!¡± Ghastly shrieks filled the air as two surges of power barreled into the Novas next to Liu Sha. It was like they were standing in the sun!

    ¡°Skystar Vice Commander Li Hao of the Night Watchers is enforcing thew on the premises and killing evil supernaturals! Liu Sha of the Skystar Colosseum wantonly kills innocents and ughters the city defenders. She wields energy bombs and Arcanus talismans. The Night Watchers will certainly trace them to their origins!¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice sounded like he was the devil himself.

    His ringing rebuke echoed through the city, but the massive metropolis was quiet. Deathly quiet!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Sword light radiated the earth¡ªLi Hao was too fast and appeared before Liu Sha had the chance to retreat. Thankfully, the power behind the Arcanus talisman had been greatly negated by the energy bombs. Although she was gravely injured, she still had the ability to fight and swiftly retrieved the remaining nine energy bombs.

    She might go down with Li Hao if she threw them out when the young man was so close by, but what was she hesitating for at this stage?! They could just die together!

    A gigantic fist arrived before Li Hao did and punched through the sky behind Liu Sha. Another enormous de fell down from the side while Li Hao¡¯s sword pierced through the void. Had the woman forgotten about He Yong and the others?

    He Yong even appeared in front of Li Hao, zing with a formidable presence in a desire to block the st from the energy bombs for the young man. He might not die, and Li Hao had paid for his life!

    He Yong was extremely fast, but Li Hao was even faster. He shot through the void and immediately appeared in front of Liu Sha. There was a massive hole in her chest, but she grit her teeth and sneered coldly. She¡¯d thrown out the energy bombs!

    <i>Let¡¯s all die together!</i>

    Li Hao was so incredibly strong, as were He Yong and the rest! But she¡¯d activated the nine energy bombs and thrown them out! She could already foresee how they would explode. Not only did Li Hao fail to run away, but he suddenly approached her instead. <i>Too bad that you¡¯re toote!</i>

    The young man didn¡¯t care about that. He could sense the surge in unstable energy, but he wanted to give a certain idea a try. A massive suction force erupted from Steris as he called out, ¡°Panther!¡±

    The dog looked on wordlessly in the darkness and opened its mouth, devouring everything in its path. Sword and dog swallowed all of the energy in the void. Liu Sha watched with an open mouth¡ªthe bombs... didn¡¯t explode!

    Yang Shan flicked a nce to the side, prompting a sharp sword to jab through the void. It pierced through Liu Sha¡¯s head with a soft squelch. Qin Lian materialized in the gloom. She hadn¡¯t appeared that many times tonight, but showed herself in this moment to im a head. She¡¯d killed a metamorphosis expert!

    Although her target had been gravely wounded and on the verge of death, they still needed to aplish a deed or two. They needed to let Li Hao know that they could pull their weight!

    Yang Shan vanished with a shout, ¡°Vice Commander Li Hao of the Skystar Office is enforcing thew! All irrelevant personnel are to withdraw from the premises! Wu Yong of the Four Seas Company and Liu Sha of the Skystar Colosseum colluded with pirates and monster spirits, feeding humans to the monster spirits! Their crimes are too wicked to be pardoned and their evils stink to the heavens! They have been executed! Liu Sha attempted to destroy Skystar City with energy bombs, but the vicemander stopped her in time! Everyone is to take shelter to avoid idental injury!¡±

    His voice rang through thend! It was easy to imagine just how loud a metamorphosis expert could be at full volume.

    Steris furiously exploded with suction force as it digested a domineering surge of energy. Panther huped and bubbled with energy. Unstable force rioted within its body, but was instantly absorbed.

    The Monster Spirit Envoy was known for its ability to devour back in the day. It could swallow any type of energy, so long as the food didn¡¯t exceed its limits by too much. Hence, all of this was a delicacy for a descendant of its bloodline.

    Skystar City was eerily quiet.

    ¡°Disy the information!¡± He Yong¡¯s voice rang out; many heard him. A myriad of footsteps sounded on the street as a vast quantity of fliers were disseminated. They rained down on the capital city before He Yong roared again, ¡°Turn it on!¡±

    In the old pub that he frequented, the boss hauled out a massive machine when he heard the instruction and aimed it at the sky. An enormous projection screen appeared in the air. A grinning He Yong looked at Li Hao and raised one eyebrow. <i>Not bad, right?</i>

    The young man wanted him to publicize what they¡¯d collected so that the entire city would know of the crimes of the Four Seas Company. He¡¯d done so much more than Li Hao thought. An image appeared on the massive projection screen¡ªa big bird!

    ¡°No no no, I don¡¯t eat people. It¡¯s just food that the Four Seas Company supplies...¡±

    Li Hao broke through the ground with a stomp and revealedrge quantities of human bones, as well as numerous living women and children. ¡°This is what you eat?¡±

    ¡°Yes, this trash...¡±

    A powerful force swept through the air as the conversation continued, splitting the screen with a loud crack. However, the scenes it depicted were alreadymitted to heart by many. The monster spirits ate people, and many of them came from the Four Seas Company!

    ¡°Well done, Li Hao,¡± a voice traveled in from the distance. ¡°But some things shouldn¡¯t be revealed, it wouldn¡¯t be good to scare the people...¡±

    ¡°The Four Seas Companyes under the Ministry of Finance, I can understand it if the minister is heartbroken by his subordinates¡¯ evil deeds. But it should be up to the people to pass judgment, so that they will know that there is still justice and righteousness in this world!

    ¡°Night Watchers, clean up the Colosseum!¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice boomed in the four corners of the city. ¡°Kill all those who dare resist!¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡± Hismand was answered by a loud yell in the distance. Golden Spear charged out with arge contingent of Silver Moon Guards!

    Another person suddenly appeared next to Li Hao. Minister Liu strode through the air like a breeze of fresh air. The young man looked expressionlessly at him. Minister Liu looked around the surroundings and then at He Yong. He nodded with a smile. ¡°Well done, Li Hao, well done indeed!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just alright!¡±

    ¡°But you know?¡± chuckled the minister. ¡°Winning the people¡¯s heart means nothing at all!¡± he transmitted this part as he simply looked at Li Hao with a smile on his face. <i>Are you trying to instigate action from the people? You have to keep in mind that they¡¯re nothing. They can achieve nothing. So what if they knew about the gossip?</i>

    ¡°I am Liu Yunqing,¡± the minister¡¯s voice suddenly rang out. ¡°The Four Seas Company colluded with pirates and ughtered innocents. This devastates our heart! The Ministry of Finance cannot deny our responsibility, so we will listen to the Skystar Commander of the Night Watchers from the Ministry of the Inspectorate in all things.

    ¡°Vice Commander Li Hao¡¯s battle strength reigns supreme¡ªhe killed a metamorphosis expert in the blink of an eye. Southern Fist He Yong¡¯s bravery is unmatched. I am ashamed of this development and hopes for the nine ministries to bestow merits and des upon these heroes. They have eliminated a great pestilence for the dynasty today!¡±

    He vanished after these words.

    ¡°The Skystar Commander of the Night Watchers from the Ministry of the Inspectorate opens its office today!¡± Li Hao announced once the man was gone. ¡°Those who have suffered injustices can head to the Nine Dragons Street to file a report at the Night Watcher headquarters. Those who have conspired with Wu Yong and Liu Sha are hereby encouraged to turn yourselves in! I have killed a dozen Novas today and three metamorphosis experts. I can demand an exnation for the side of justice for all those in Skystar unless it is an Arcanus who stands in my way!

    ¡°Justice lives in the people¡¯s hearts. If a crime involves major officials of the Ministry of Finance, I am sadly unable to address it. I would then invite the inspector general of the Inspectorate, Director Yao Si of the Night Watchers, and Deputy Director Hou Xiaochen of the Night Watchers to take action and cleanse thend of unwanted elements! Please return clear skies to our home!

    ¡°Additionally, this vicemander has captured thousands of people from Four Seas Ind. Among them is the grandson of the greatest pirate of the North Sea, descendants of various ministers, and others. I will not be partial to anyone and will fully investigate every crime to its source. We will see if the Four Seas Company hasmitted more crimes, if they have brutalized citizens, and if they have supplied humans as food for monster spirits. The Four Seas Company could also colluded with the three evil organizations! Southern Fist He Yong killed a Celestial metamorphosis expert. I look to the royal family to shelter him so that he will not be assassinated by the three evil organizations!¡±

 Chapter 654: To Make Known First (I)

    <h4>Chapter 654: To Make Known First (I)</h4>

    Though Li Hao¡¯s voice rang through the city, an unearthly silence answered him. He¡¯d flung back the covers today to expose the depravity of the dynasty¡¯s upper echelon, shaking the heavens! The young man¡¯s gesture was immensely unwise, but he continued to wear a smile on his face.

    His smile was cool, indifferent. He wasn¡¯t afraid of others knowing what he¡¯d done.<i> What are you afraid of, since you don¡¯t care about the people?</i>

    An iparably majestic voice rang out from the pce that¡¯din still for a very long time. ¡°Li Hao of the Skystar Commander Office should be richly rewarded for excising this tumor! The royal family has no treasures to reward since we have long retreated behind the curtains. We hereby bestow Li Hao with the position of Skystar Duke, a nominal honor to indicate our sentiments!

    ¡°We also reward the young man with his ownplex and look to Vice Commander Li to redouble his efforts on behalf of the people. Please return clear skies to the dynasty!¡±

    Those in the city rustled with astonishment. The royal family! For someone¡¯s voice to be heard throughout the entire city meant that he was an ultimate powerhouse¡ªwho? The Skystar King?

    It was then that the shocked popce recalled that they still had an emperor! [1]

    Those of the nine ministries listened to the announcement with grave expressions. <i>Li Hao, you should know that your judgment of the ministries today gives the royal family an enormous opportunity. They couldn¡¯t help but take it! You¡¯re seriously a troublemaker!</i>

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen also sighed.<i> I knew that you didn¡¯t leave, but I didn¡¯t think that you¡¯d be this ruthless! You¡¯ve ripped off the coverings of the nine ministries in one go! The royal family rose out of the water because they saw a chance to. How are you going to proceed next, Li Hao... The tempests toe are going to be even bigger! I may not be able to keep them contained!</i>

    ......

    The subject of all these thoughts, Li Hao, didn¡¯t make a sound from where he stood in the distant sky. He neither expressed gratitude for the royal favor nor declined it. The Skystar Duke? Who wanted that position? Skystar was the name of the dynasty. Naming him the Skystar Duke... The royal family wanted nothing more than his death, didn¡¯t they??

    The nine ministries would be at odds with him so long as this position existed!

    The young man suddenly smiled when his thoughts traveled here. <i>That wouldn¡¯t be bad either. Let¡¯s all have some fun together.</i> He looked at He Yong with a smile. ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go check out the Skystar Colosseum. Take those guys with us. Kill whoever tries to rescue any of them!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± He Yong grinned radiantly. Li Hao was... really vicious. He was going straight against the nine ministries!

    On one hand, it wasn¡¯t all of the nine ministries, just the Ministry of Finance that he¡¯d irreparably broken rtions with. There might be many dangers toe, but wasn¡¯t opportunity found in danger?

    He Yong was in quite a good mood as he turned over those thoughts. As for exposing himself... he¡¯d done so for some very decent benefits. What was the harm in that, then? He didn¡¯t hide himself so he could be weaker. If it would help him grow stronger, then he could expose himself.

    ......

    Li Hao¡¯s name was known throughout Skystar City by now. Demon Sword Li Hao!

    This was a terrifying guy who¡¯d killed multiple metamorphoses and taken down the Four Seas Company and Skystar Colosseum in his first couple of days at the royal city! The Lius truly had many reasons to cry this time.

    ......

    The young man was well and truly known throughout the capital city. The tens of millions of denizens of Skystar City all knew of Night Watcher Li Hao of the Skystar Commander Office. Although they weren¡¯t familiar with the agency, everyonemitted the name to memory. The long-vanished royal family had also spoken and decreed him to be the Skystar Duke.

    Such titles were worthless now. Even the royal family was worthless, not to mention a duke. But in these eighty years, the royal family had bestowed exceedingly few titles. Thus, bequeathing Li Hao with a title and a manor raised an incredible uproar.

    ......

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    The inspector general, also the minister of the ministry, strolled in with his customary leisurely gait. He waste. He ignored the looks of fear and consternation below and looked outside, sinking into deep thought.

    <i>Li Hao!</i>

    Thed had first taken down the Four Seas Company, instantly killed Liu Sha, and was now up against the Skystar Colosseum. He¡¯d spontaneously killed three metamorphosis experts and a dozen Novas. And if that wasn¡¯t enough, he¡¯d also seized the Arcanus talisman created by thest Minister of Finance. It looked like that ministry was going to eat a heavy loss this time. Their minister had paid an enormous price to detonate his family¡¯s own energy bombs. What a waste!

    ¡°The energy bombs were negated... What a scary kid!¡±

    That sword was very umon, as was the dog. Multiple energy bombs likely represented the foundations of Liu family wealth. They¡¯d all been devoured and Li Hao took on Liu Sha in frontalbat! Although he wasn¡¯t the one to kill her, it was sufficient to prove that he had metamorphosis battle strength.

    That was even more frightening!

    The inspector general turned to the pce, then beyond the Avenues of the Nine Ministries. A raucous din spontaneously exploded there. The heavens were shaking!

    No one thought that such an enormous show would ur at Skystar City today, that the new Skystarmander would be so bold. Everyone meant Li Hao with that title, not Hou Xiaochen. Hou Xiaochen was overlooked by many at this point now. They cared only about Li Hao, even though he was just a vicemander.

    ¡°Inspector General...¡± Someone looked at the man; he looked back at them and suddenly grinned.

    ¡°Let¡¯s pay the Ministry of Finance a visit!¡±

    ¡°For what?¡±

    ¡°For a bite to eat!¡± sneered the inspector general. ¡°One of his factions colluded with pirates and brutalized his own race to feed humans to monster spirits. Does Liu Yunqing think he¡¯ll smooth things over so easily?¡±

    He headed straight for the Ministry of Finance¡ªhe wasn¡¯t the only one. Members of the other eight ministries were all charging there. Since something they could all make use of had been publicly revealed, then they could only tender their apologies. The Ministry of Finance was so rich that it was overflowing. As much of a nuisance Li Hao was, the Lius had to pay in blood first to pacify the events that¡¯d just taken ce!

    ......

    <i>Within the Ministry of Finance.</i>

    The smile dropped off of Minister Liu¡¯s face. A cough sounded in his ears momentster.

    ¡°Ai! To think that... very well, it seems that this is to be our fate. Although I didn¡¯t expect that this would be the result, we should¡¯ve been ready for failure. This is just as well, we cany low and bide our time for a while toe. Other than the business of collecting taxes, they can take anything they want from the ministry.¡±

    ¡°Father!¡± Minister Liu set his jaw. ¡°Are we losing them all, just like that?¡±

    ¡°Where there are losses, there are gains. This may not be bad,¡± the old man¡¯s voice sounded again. ¡°With the situation as it is, Li Hao and that Silver Moon gang are in their peak. It is good that we have suffered such a heavy loss. Since the royal family has surfaced, let them fight! Other than the business of collecting tax revenue, we can lose the rest. All of the merchantpanies with the Four Seas Company, the Colosseum, and the industries in Skystar City. Give them all up!

    ¡°If they continue to go after us, then relinquish the second rank ruins that we have.¡±

    Minister Liu¡¯s expression shifted drastically and he tamped down the shock in his heart. ¡°Father, we¡¯ve just temporarily lost the advantage,¡± he murmured. ¡°It is indeed difficult to ept the death of two metamorphosis experts, but...¡±

    He abruptly deted as he thought more, then nodded. ¡°Alright then, I understand! Li Hao is a guy who doesn¡¯t y by the rules. The Ministry of Finance does need toy low for a period of time to offset the effects of these events. Li Hao... doesn¡¯t seem to have any scandals to his name yet. The nine ministries and the royal family certainly wouldn¡¯t turn on each other...¡±

    The minister smiled ruefully. No one typically publicized such deeds because there wasn¡¯t a fully clean institution out there. Hence, no one would dare rip off the covers like this! Everyone was the same, but Li Hao dared take such action. If they exposed the Inspectorate¡¯s scandals in order to strike back at him, that would be creating aughingstock out of themselves.

    Would Li Hao care about that?

    Not at all!

    The more that they threw out, the more excited he would be. One who watches the show loves it when it grows grander. There was nothing that one could pick at him since he¡¯d just emerged on the scene. Just try finding a blemish on his record!

    ¡°Heh heh...¡± the minister suddenly sneered. ¡°All of them just want to watch the show, but they fail to consider where Li Hao is from. He¡¯s a barbarian from Silver Moon! They might be just spinning a cocoon around themselves since all of us have some shit beneath our asses!

    ¡°Father¡¯s right, we¡¯ll batten down the hatches for a bit since we¡¯ve suffered such a great loss. I¡¯d like to see what kind of waves Li Hao can raise!¡±

    Alright then, they wanted a show, did they? And even the royal family wanted a piece of the action? Then, very well, let¡¯s wait and see. Li Hao wasn¡¯t a kind soul; everyone simply kept their eyes on Hou Xiaochen. Who knew if Li Hao would soundlessly advance to the metamorphosis level at some point?

    Just wait! No one would be in for a good time if this continued.

    The minister sneered again when he sensed that he had visitors. Were they all just so eager? <i>This works, I need some time to stabilize my cultivation level, anyhow.</i>

    1. SG is interesting in that they refer to the ruler of the dynasty as an emperor, but the ruler¡¯s title is that of a king. I¡¯ve tranted it faithfully without treating it as a mistake. ?

 Chapter 655: To Make Known First (II)

    <h4>Chapter 655: To Make Known First (II)</h4>

    ¡°There is ample evidence for the crimesmitted by Wu Yong of the Four Seas Company,¡± Minister Liu announced from the lobby without bothering to emerge from the building. ¡°His sins cannot be pardoned and his death well deserved. I bear undeniable responsibility for his actions. Therefore, the Four Seas Company will revert to the government from this day forth! The Skystar Colosseum will no longer be affiliated with the Ministry of Finance¡ªit can be settled as appropriate!

    ¡°The Ministry of Finance is the important hub of finance for the dynasty, but I an ipetent and remiss in my discipline. Henceforth, the Ministry of Finance will continue to operate only the business of collecting tax revenue from the provinces. All other associated businesses will cease operations immediately.

    ¡°In addition, Li Hao of the Night Watchers from the Inspectorate has aplished great deeds. The royal family has just made him the Skystar Duke. Thus, I would like to rmend Li Hao be put forth as a deputy director of the Night Watchers. His merits and rank are sufficient, just that his experience is slightlycking. But in this day and age, we should give some opportunities to the young.

    ¡°Therefore, I find the circumstances appropriate to promote him!¡± Liu Yunqingughed. ¡°Think it over, Minister Chen! I won¡¯t participate in the particrs.¡± He paused at this point in his speech. ¡°If everyone is still unsatisfied with these arrangements, then my family is in possession of a set of ruins that might have belonged to a martial university. Those will be made public inpensation. I am not in the best of health these days, so I will not address everyone further.¡±

    Various looks flickered through the eyes of the ministers on the scene. Liu Yunqing was letting everyone step all over him in this matter! He didn¡¯t struggle or strike back, but simply waved the g of surrender. They also vaguely felt another presence on the scene and understood that perhaps the old minister had spoken.

    The older generation of ministers were existences that defined the initialyout of the nine ministries. No matter what the situation was in present day, these were true characters of note back in the day. Having seen more than their share of wiles and double-crosses, they were ready for any sort of development.

    ¡°Then we shall not further disturb Minister Liu.¡± The inspector general smiled. ¡°Rest and recuperate well. We have been colleagues for many years, don¡¯t fall into ill health on ount of a few rotten apples.¡±

    ¡°Thank you for your concern,¡± the minister responded and said no more.

    The other ministersughed and left. That was enough! As for how the spoils would be divvied up, that was up to each ministry¡¯s capabilities. The Ministry of Finance grasped an exceedingly high number of industries. It wasn¡¯t just businesses, but ruins, connections,works...

    The Lius had simply just given up on all of this, other than their control over tax revenues. This was the foundation of their power and authority. As such, that could not be relinquished. If they did, the Ministry of Finance would no longer exist and it would beplete warfare with the Lius. As the situation stood, they¡¯d only relinquished their peripheral industries.

    The process had been easier than they anticipated, but those of the other ministries weren¡¯t at ease. With their easy capittion, the Lius inly intended to develop Li Hao into a keen de. He hacked at the Lius today, but what about tomorrow?

    ......

    As the nine ministries busily transacted with each other, the rest of Skystar City stirred restlessly.

    In one of the slums of the royal city, the little girl who¡¯d shown Li Hao around was currently standing very close to the young man. She could clearly make out his form. Slums ringed the outskirts of the dynasty capital. The poor did not have the right to live in the city center.

    The little girl had her head tilted to the sky; she watched fearlessly. She was already reduced to such low circumstances, what else was she afraid of? The fights of the strong were the concerns of the strong. She didn¡¯t understand the conflicts of the high and mighty and didn¡¯t care. That was their business.

    For the moment, she stared at the sky. Some of the children next to her were scared and someone whispered, ¡°Stop watching, Sis Yu Qi. What if that strong guy senses it?¡±

    ¡°I think I know that person!¡± the girl responded after a long moment.

    ¡°Who?¡±

    ¡°The one in silver armor, that vicemander of the Skystar whatever...¡±

    ¡°Have you seen him before, Sis Yu Qi?¡±

    ¡°Not before, but a few days ago...¡± the girl replied. ¡°He just said that whoever has grievances can go to him, right?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what they all say. Do you actually believe him, big sis?¡± mumbled a kid next to her. ¡°These big guys are too scary. I think a lot of people died in that huge explosion. There¡¯s also something about Novas and metamorphosis... We¡¯ve heard about these big guys before. He killed the boss of the Four Seas Company and the boss of Skystar Colosseum!¡±

    Those two bosses were very well known. These children running errands and guiding visitors around the city had heard of them. It was proper important personages they spoke of, not some hooligan that they regrly encountered in their neighborhood.

    The little girl nodded without saying anything; she continued to look at the sky. Li Hao of the Skystar Commander Office! Demon Sword Li Hao!

    She¡¯d heard people mention the name a few days ago¡ªapparently he was a barbarian from the north who massacred people like mowing down grass. But... he was likely the one she¡¯d served before. He¡¯d wanted to go to the Night Watchers to look for someone. She hadn¡¯t known who it was before, but now she did. He¡¯d been most likely looking for the Hou Xiaochen who¡¯d arrived earlier.

    All the same, the girl couldn¡¯t really believe it. This callous fiend who killed without blinking had ridden her bike to the Night Watcher headquarters!

    Yu Qi sank into deep contemtion as she stared at the sky and lowered her head. Li Hao was gone, off to kill more people.

    ......

    <i>The Skystar Colosseum.</i>

    It was eerily quiet. Those who didn¡¯t stay quiet were all dead. Golden Spear had arrived with the Silver Moon Guards. They surrounded the Colosseum. Many were on their knees inside the structure and didn¡¯t dare get up. Another group of guests were cautiously preparing to leave. Some were conversing with the Silver Moon Guards, resulting in some voices rising in the quiet structure. ¡°What are you doing, I¡¯m of the Skystar administration...¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re just here to watch a fight, is that against thew?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Many wanted to leave as soon as possible. There was also a crowd watching from outside the Colosseum, but they didn¡¯t draw near.

    There weren¡¯t many powerhouses among the Silver Moon Guards, Golden Spear was the only Nova. There were some Srs, but not that many. This level of force was insufficient to maintain order at the Colosseum. However, no one resisted all the same. The boisterous guests knew that a killing fiend was on its way. There were some who wanted to make a run for it, but the heavyweights among the crowd could sense that He Yong was already here.

    He Yongnded on the ground and threw a mocking nce at Golden Spear, enraging the man.

    ¡°You can all wait for Vice Commander Li to arrive.¡± A merry He Yong addressed the noisy crowd with indifference. ¡°Stop making a fuss. This is Skystar City, so even themanders adhere tow and order. If you run off, that would be resisting enforcement! Don¡¯t me me if you die then.¡±

    Someone presented themselves and took a deep breath before addressing He Yong. ¡°Brother He, I¡¯m just here for the fun and won¡¯t trouble the vicemander. The ninth prince is still waiting for me, so do you think I can go back first?¡±

    ¡°Oi, you¡¯re here too!¡± He Yong nodded with a smile. ¡°Sure, go ahead!¡±

    The man sagged with relief, but then heard He Yong continue, ¡°I¡¯m just external personal and don¡¯t represent the Night Watchers...¡±

    The man¡¯s footsteps halted and his expression turned stiff. <i>Then what did you say all that for? What do you mean by this??</i> He wanted to leave, but didn¡¯t dare move anymore.

    A massive shipnded heavily at this time. Li Hao looked down at the assembly, resplendent in his suit of silver armor. The premises immediately quieted. He was only looking at them, but exerting great pressure all the same.

    The powerhouse conversing with He Yong turned solemn and took half a step back. <i>Screw you, He Yong! When did you start running with that demon of a Li Hao?</i>

    The young man simply looked at the gathering of Colosseum employees and guests. Much of thetter looked at the ship, finding familiar faces on it. Some even located family members¡ªbrothers, sisters, father and son... Here they were, reunited under such circumstances.

    The atmosphere took on an awkward bent.

    ¡°Bring them all in!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°The Silver Moon Guards are in charge of booking those who work for the Colosseum, whereas the regr guests can board the ship! I am not heartless. There is no crime for just watching, but we¡¯ll have to trouble you for a bit!¡±

    ¡°As things should be!¡± An old man walked out of the crowd. ¡°It is right and proper that we adhere tow enforcement efforts. We have no opinions otherwise, Vice Commander Li. I¡¯d just like to ask how long it might take.¡±

    Li Hao smiled very warmly in return. ¡°Just a day if we¡¯re quick about it, or a few days if it takes longer!¡±

    <i>How many days is a few days?</i> Despite the question, the old man didn¡¯t ask it.

    Someone approached from the outskirts and transmitted from a distance, ¡°Vice Commander Li, I am Deputy Zhou Qin of the Night Watchers. I saw my son on the ship just now, I wonder if...¡±

    A deputy director outranked Li Hao. The young man tilted his head at the smiling middle-aged man.

    ¡°My son just likes to have some fun,¡± the man transmitted. ¡°He¡¯s not the sort to cause trouble. I¡¯ll give him a stern talking to when we get back.¡±

    Li Hao raised a brow and smiled, replying in turn, ¡°That is just as well. You can take him home as soon as I bring him back to headquarters and make a note on his record.¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t need to go to so much trouble, vicemander.¡± Deputy Zhou Qin frowned slightly. ¡°I can take him with me now...¡±

    ¡°There are thousands of people here!¡± Li Hao answered aloud after a long pause. ¡°All sorts of people, Deputy Zhou. I¡¯m already giving you a lot of face since we¡¯re on the same team. You can have your son back so long as proper procedure is observed and a fine is paid. Why must you insist on leaving with your son right at this very moment? Are you not showing me face, or do you want to take advantage of this opportunity to step on me and demonstrate your authority?¡±

 Chapter 656: To Make Known First (III)

    <h4>Chapter 656: To Make Known First (III)</h4>

    Li Hao stalked toward the deputy director, swiftly reinforced by He Yong, Yang Shan, and the others.

    ¡°Who are you taking orders from?¡± Li Hao asked expressionlessly. ¡°Or do you think that because we¡¯re both Night Watchers and that you outrank me, I should give way to you?

    ¡°I already told you that I¡¯ll let him go after we get back. Do you insist otherwise because you think I won¡¯t dare do anything to a superior, or do you think you¡¯re stronger than me?¡±

    Killing intent red!

    Deputy Zhou Qin looked on gravely and took a deep breath. ¡°This is a misunderstanding, I am just concerned about my son. You¡¯ve misunderstood me, vicemander. Since you¡¯ve made it clear, we can discuss this when we get back.¡±

    ¡°Do not be a de in someone else¡¯s hand so easily.¡± Li Hao looked meaningfully at him. ¡°A peak Nova is strong, but it also depends on timing and luck! If someone wants me to let someone go, have theme themselves! Don¡¯t hide behind others like a cowardly rat!

    ¡°As for you, the Skystar Commander Office should not fall under your purview. I¡¯ll thoroughly look into your son and release him if there are no problems. If there are... you can try and see if you can take someone from Silver Moon martial masters!¡±

    The deputy director turned silent, nodded, and left without a word. He was just here to sound out Li Hao, but the young man proved very resolute. It was his arena tonight. The deputy might easily cause a conflict if he said anything else, and that was not the result that he or the one behind him wanted. They just wanted to probe the young man, but Li Hao¡¯s extreme reaction further demonstrated just how barbarous and unconfined these Silver Moon savages were.

    Seeing that even Li Hao¡¯s superior had fallen t on his face, those watching on the outskirts chose to sit on their hands. If Li Hao had agreed to let the deputy¡¯s son go, he would be mobbed by people right now. Since he had agreed to let those of the Night Watchers go, why not the others?

    But since he¡¯d refused, no one further tested him.

    Inside the Colosseum, the noble young masters and misses drooped like they¡¯d suffered a loss in the family. Although nothing may befall them yet, who knew what this killing fiend would do once they were in Night Watcher territory? They smelled the pungent scent drifting from the ship, that didn¡¯t mean anything good. It represented that those before them had been terrified out of their wits.

    But under Li Hao¡¯s watchful gaze, these unbridled nobles docilely walked toward the ship while the Silver Moon Guard corralled those in the Colosseum. No one resisted, the stage was set. The Colosseum lost its ability to resist when Liu Sha was killed and the Novas with her blown to bits.

    ¡°Seal off the premises!¡± Li Haomanded. ¡°Take everyone back to Night Watcher headquarters. We will not falsely charge anyone or erroneously let any criminals go. All those who have vited Skystarws will be punished ordingly!¡±

    As he scanned the surroundings, some shuffled a half step back and others remained in ce without a change in expression. The young man didn¡¯t care about their reaction.

    ¡°All those whose friends and family have been taken shall await Night Watcher notification! Our apologies for the inconveniences rendered by tonight¡¯s operation. In addition, I was unable to prevent the death of city defenders when the Colosseum boss detonated energy bombs at the city gates. That is my fault! Those city defenders died because of me! Their families can apply forpensation at the Inspectorate or Ministry of Finance. They will bepensated ording to the rules of war!¡±

    The ship rose after he concluded his remarks and left the area.

    ¡°Vice Commander Li,¡± a voice sounded in Li Hao¡¯s ears. ¡°Minister Mu would like to chat with the vicemander tomorrow. Pleasee to the Mu Manor or Minister of Internal Affairs when you have a moment.¡±

    ¡°I will!¡±

    The Internal Affairs representative had transmitted from the dark and didn¡¯t show himself. inly, the minister wanted to stay in the shadows and avoid shing with Li Hao, even though his daughter had been taken.

    The ship flew through the air and swiftly reached Night Watcher headquarters. There were plenty of people aboard¡ªthree thousand at the beginning, now there were four thousand.

    The Night Watcher headquarters had erupted to life long ago. It was lit as brightly as day and people busted to and fro. Big Eyes and the other two youngsters were incredibly curious, craning their necks forward as the shipnded with a thud. Li Hao was the first to disembark.

    Manager Yu stood at the front of the doors, Hou Xiaochen wasn¡¯t present. She smiled at the young man, a smile that quickly turned resigned. You¡¯re really something, aren¡¯t you! We all thought that you¡¯d run off, but you strike with the fury of thunder and lightning as soon as you appear. A dozen Novas have died tonight¡ªthat can only be described as a horrendous loss.

    Not only was Manager Yu present, but so was Yao Si¡¯s manager. She piped up timidly when she saw Li Hao, ¡°Vice Commander Liu, the director requests your presence when you have a moment...¡±

    ¡°I understand.¡± Li Hao nodded. He was unfamiliar with the Night Watchers, but whether it was people on duty, carrying out missions, or here to watch the show, they all hastily averted their eyes when they saw Li Hao look over. Only the three youngsters kept curious looks trained on him.

    He looked back at them, but didn¡¯t address them. Li Hao knew that they were thorns in the sides of the Night Watchers. But so what?

    The three were displeased to see Li Hao ignore them.

    ¡°Vice Commander Li!¡± Big Eyes grinned. ¡°We are...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m busy, we can talkter!¡± Li Hao answered indifferently with another nce.

    Big Eyes flushed with anger, but the young man suddenly sneered, ¡°You live off the fat and oil of the people! You do nothing despite receiving a sry. Perverse geniuses? Thorns in the side of the agency? You¡¯re just a bunch of trash!¡±

    ¡°......¡± A hushed silence draped over the scene. The trio¡¯s expressions shifted slightly, but Li Hao continued to look coldly at them.

    ¡°What are you looking at me for? I may demand a lot in payment, but I render services that are worthy of my fee! I can absolutely justify my sry and the vows I made when I joined the Inspectorate! You guys... get away from me and don¡¯t let me dig up anything about you. Otherwise, I¡¯ll make sure you get yours!¡±

    The trio¡¯s eyes widened and the rest of the Night Watchers were also shocked. What... was going on? What did Li Hao mean?

    The young man ignored them and walked inside the office building.

    Big Eyes and herpanions stared for a very long time. The girl finally stammered, ¡°Did he... just... yell at us?¡±

    Yes, they¡¯d been yelled at!

    ¡°Yep, he did,¡± Long de confirmed with embarrassment.

    Spear also sighed. ¡°He doesn¡¯t think much of us.¡±

    Indeed, that was the meaning behind their interaction. The three of them had wanted to greet Li Hao, but he couldn¡¯t be bothered with them. What perverse geniuses, what thorns, what geniuses, and what names on the Divine Masters Ranking? He thought nothing of it all, it was all meaningless. He simply felt that these people didn¡¯t count as much of true heroes. Hypocritical and false, there was no need to strike up a conversation with them.

    ¡°After seeing him dominate all sides tonight, I thought we could be friends. But now... hmph!¡± Big Eyesined. They¡¯d been ignored and scoffed at! She was furious!

    Her anger soon turned to amusement when she saw someone on the ship. ¡°Hey, Mu Xiaorong, so you¡¯ve been captured too?¡±

    Mu Xiaorong ignored her.

    ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought I¡¯d see you here?¡± Big Eyes giggled. ¡°But he¡¯s certainly got some nerve to capture even you. Beg me. I¡¯ll think of a way to get you out of here if you do...¡±

    A surge of sword intent barreled straight at her; the three jerked with rm. A longsword brimming with killing intent mmed to the ground in front of them. Color drained from Big Eyes¡¯ face.

    ¡°Whether it¡¯s a joke or sincerity, I will kill whoever dares release a single person that I brought back!¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice rang out.

    ¡°I¡¯m joking... really...¡± Blood welled up in Big Eyes¡¯ mouth and she took a few steps back with dejection and shock. ¡°We¡¯re at odds with each other, so I saw an opportunity for a joke. I didn¡¯t really mean to let her go...¡±

    Spear and Long de were likewise astonished. So strong! Not only was Li Hao strong, but he was overbearing. Big Eyes had indeed been joking since she and Mu Xiaorong had feuded with each other for several years. But Li Hao fired a warning shot at the drop of a hat!

    Li Hao ignored them; the longsword disappeared. Big Eyes grit her teeth morosely.

    Mu Xiaorong sneered jeeringly at her.<i> You asked for it.</i> That guy was cold-blooded to the extreme. The same side? What same side? She could tell that Li Hao didn¡¯t see himself as on the same team as the rest of the Night Watchers. His people were likely just the Silver Moon martial masters. Everyone else who wasn¡¯t seemed to be a rival to him.

    The thousands of people in the ship didn¡¯t make a sound. There were still guards on them, even though Li Hao wasn¡¯t present. Yang Shan and his wife, as well as He Yong.

    He Yong grinned merrily and looked at the three youngsters. ¡°Have Dao Sworde out to fight him. Otherwise... the three of you can give it up. Don¡¯t worry, Ole Hou and I won¡¯t interfere if Dao Sword fights him, hahaha!¡±

    It¡¯d be fun to just watch a good show.

    The trio didn¡¯t respond and didn¡¯t linger. They scurried away with a pained air. Not only was Li Hao arrogant, but he was also strong to reinforce his words. Fine, they would just take the loss. That lunatic might kill them if they stayed longer.

    ......

    <i>In the building of director offices.</i>

    ¡°What was the point in that,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled and shook his head. ¡°They¡¯re just three nuisances and haven¡¯t done anything bad. They show no mercy when ites to the three great organizations. There¡¯s something off about you.¡±

    ¡°I haven¡¯t calmed my killing intent yet.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I want to kill those people in the ship, but I don¡¯t dare to. So it turns out there are indeed circumstances in which I can¡¯t kill someone... Therefore, I¡¯ll just bully those three kids. It¡¯s no big deal, they¡¯re the ones who ran their mouths.¡±

    ¡°Three kids?¡± Hou Xiaochen was startled with augh. <i>Aren¡¯t you younger than them? </i>¡°Ai... this is a headache...¡±

 Chapter 657: Martial Masters Cultivate the Heart (I)

    <h4>Chapter 657: Martial Masters Cultivate the Heart (I)</h4>

    ¡°I know.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°There¡¯s troubleing for us, but it¡¯s not that bad. I can tell that whether it¡¯s the nine ministries or royal family, they¡¯re all a bunch of paper tigers. They pose and posture threateningly, but no one dares pay the hefty price needed to kill me when their interests are truly threatened. They can¡¯t bear to spend the resources. It¡¯s simr to when the Night Watchers were established.

    ¡°The strength I demonstrated today shows that it will at least take an Arcanus to kill me! But if onees, there¡¯s still you, Director Hou! They¡¯ll have to reach an agreement first, but that will take time. Do you think I¡¯ll be able to kill that Arcanus during this period of time?¡±

    ¡°You...¡± Hou Xiaochen roared withughter. ¡°You are quite interesting. You¡¯re so different from before that I almost think you¡¯re an entirely different person!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to be so different!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°But this world tests my bottom line again and again and pushes it further back. I¡¯ve thought things through¡ªif I don¡¯t change, then I won¡¯t be able to solidify my footing. If I do not, then what talk of change is there?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen thought for a bit, then nodded. He looked at the young man in a new light.

    ¡°How do you n on handling those outside?¡± he asked after a long moment.

    ¡°Investigate them. Those without many issues can be released after their family pays their ransom. Those who do have significant problems in their file... can be handed over to the Inspectorate,¡± Li Hao responded calmly. ¡°They can be let go if the Inspectorate refuses to manage the matter. It¡¯s not like we can actually kill them.¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, very well, this is a good idea!¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. ¡°It¡¯s great because if the Inspectorate does let them go, it¡¯s on them...¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯ll capture them again if the Inspectorate lets them go!¡± Li Hao shook his head.

    Hou Xiaochen blinked, then looked at Li Hao. What did the young man mean?

    ¡°I am the vicemander of the Skystar Commander Office!¡± Li Hao dered calmly. ¡°I have the right to do so! I want Skystar citizens to know that I, Li Hao, am not afraid of strength or authority. I am perfectly daring enough to flip the table!

    ¡°Indeed, the people¡¯s heart is useless and worthless, just like Minister Liu said. But I¡¯m thinking that if I can give them a spark of hope... can it burn into a me? Can it ze among the ins? How many supernaturals are there in our world and how many mundanes?

    ¡°So long as supernaturals have not transcended this way of life, they will still need the crowds whether in terms of rule or intimidation. I wish to light some hope in their hearts...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen was lost in thought and chuckled after a brief pause. He nodded. ¡°That makes sense and it¡¯s quite an... idea that you¡¯ve got there. It¡¯s just that it will be hard for me to hold up my side of things.¡±

    He sighed wearily. <i>What are you up to? I¡¯m suddenly beginning to get scared...</i> Li Hao seemed to have partially lost his mind these days. Who¡¯d filled his thoughts with these concepts?? Was it Hong Yitang or Battle Heaven? Hou Xiaochen would be crushed by the weight of having to clean up after the young man if this continued!

    Manager Yu walked in from outside the door, having heard the conversation earlier. She was both stunned and surprised by what she¡¯d heard. ¡°Li Hao... the director will support you wholeheartedly. He holds justice in his heart as well!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen wanted to roll his eyes.<i> What do you know? All you know is to say stuff like this!</i> It was his first time thinking that Yu Luocha trusted him entirely too much. Who knew if this was good or bad? She felt that he was almighty and omnipotent... What a helpless predicament!

    ¡°Of course, the director is the basis of confidence in all that I do!¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help butugh as well and nodded. ¡°He said before that he would kill an Arcanus to intimidate everyone. Since one hasn¡¯t appeared this time, I need to find a way to lure them out so we can establish our authority!¡±

    ¡°......cough cough cough!¡± Hou Xiaochen¡¯s old ailments struck again as he went into an uncontroble coughing fit. It was a very long whileter before he panted, ¡°No need, things are fine now. You must be tired, Li Hao. You should go back and sleep!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t have a ce to stay yet, so I¡¯ll bunk in the office for a night. I¡¯ll see where my new manor is tomorrow!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen was incredibly soul weary. <i>Don¡¯t do that, leave now, damn it!</i> Well, he had to leave since the young man wasn¡¯t going to. He rose with a cough.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll leave you to it, some rest will do you some good. I¡¯m going to take a look around and also visit the Inspectorate to report on the Colosseum matter. After all, it has to do with the Skystar Commander Office.¡± He left without further discussion, at the end of his tether with Li Hao.

    The young man didn¡¯t say anything; he sent off Hou Xiaochen with an attentive look. He suddenlyughed and called out, ¡°Someone,e!¡±

    ¡°Do you have any instructions... Commander Li?¡± Someone gingerly entered the office.

    ¡°Go find a ce... Nah, the Night Watchers should have a dungeon. Lock all those people in that.¡±

    ¡°Commander... we... do have dungeons...¡± Color drained from the person¡¯s face. But their capacity is only a few hundred people. There¡¯s...¡±

    <i>Too many people outside!</i>

    ¡°Then hold them in offices that no one¡¯s using. They won¡¯t dare run off¡ªit¡¯ll be a death sentence if they do! Also, arrange for the various Skystar news agencies to report on events that happened tonight...¡±

    ¡°Ah... the agencies... don¡¯t know about the particrs... and it¡¯s usually the Ministry of Administration that exercises control over this task...¡±

    ¡°Do the Night Watchers not have any news agencies in their pockets?¡± Li Hao looked at him.

    ¡°We do... but very few...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough!¡±

    ¡°Director Yellow...¡±

    Li Hao interrupted him with a cold look. ¡°Do as I say! If this ruffles Yellow Dragon¡¯s feathers, have him take it up with me!¡±

    The subordinate who¡¯d answered the summons quickly trotted off to carry out his orders. Li Hao¡¯s voice chased him down the hallway.

    ¡°Grab any random flier off the streets for what should be reported, make sure their crimes are clearly listed. Also add a word that the supernaturals are in disarray. Superhumans arepletely out of control and must be brought to heel. The Skystar Commander Office will take care of these pests!¡±

    The runner stumbled, but didn¡¯t dare look back. He hastily nodded before swiftly departing. Li Hao... was too crazy! He couldn¡¯t afford to offend this personage. As for Director Yellow... It might even be for the best if the man didn¡¯t cause a fuss at the moment. Otherwise, Li Hao could be even more ruthless than Hou Xiaochen. They could reason with Hou Xiaochen for a thing or two, but that waspletely impossible with Li Hao.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>The director¡¯s building.</i>

    The old man took a sip of tea and breathed out, murmuring to himself with a smile. ¡°They¡¯ve ushered a wolf into the house!¡± He shook his head with amusement. Skystar City would be quite exciting in the days toe.

    ......

    <i>In Hou Xiaochen¡¯s office.</i>

    Being a pigeon who upied the sparrow¡¯s nest, Li Hao leaned back in a chair, his thoughts keeping himpany. He¡¯de to Skystar City to see through the heart of certain matters and truths. Perhaps he¡¯d glimpsed some tonight, but they weren¡¯t that clear. He was still a bit lost.

    However, what he¡¯d seen was enough. Human lives were as worthless as stalks of mustard in this day and age.

    Whether it was the nine ministries or three great organizations, they were all the same. There really was no difference between pirates, the nine ministries, or three great organizations. The only difference was that one held the right to rule and the others didn¡¯t.

    The tradingpany beneath the Ministry of Finance¡¯s banner fed humans to monster spirits! And the key thing was, the monster spirits didn¡¯t eat humans to begin with. It was humans themselves who delivered their own kind on a tter and begged the monster spirits to consume them. How base and crude were they?

    This was not the time of the ancient civilization in which monster spirits were strong and humans weak. The humans of this era were very strong!

    There weren¡¯t many notable monster spirits in this time period. Only a few ces such as Phoenix Mountain and Sky Roc Mountain were famed for monster spirits. Humanity was stronger than other races as a whole, so there was no need to bow and scrape to monster spirits.

    On the contrary, it should be monster spirits cowering before humans. That was what made sense. Unfortunately, humanity was too scattered. Everyone hoped to receive backing from monster spirits, so some bent their heads to curry favor and even offered up their fellow humans on a tter.

    ¡°They¡¯re all the same.¡± Li Hao wrote down a few things on a sheet of paper. They were truly all the same and wouldn¡¯t call each other out for it. That was why no one thought much of the crimes that he¡¯d exposed today¡ªwhether mundanes or superhumans.

    This was what everyone did, it was all very normal.

    Mundanes would likely be furious or grieve for a few moments, and then... be able to do nothing about it. There was nothing that could be done, so what could they do?

    Overthrow the nine ministries? Would there be a difference if it was the royal family in charge? How about three great organizations? Life would still continue as is.

    The harm wasn¡¯t done to the ordinary people, they weren¡¯t suffering, so this was all there was to life. It was a helplessness to change their circumstances that led to the sorrow of only being able to wait for powerhouses to conclude their struggles. They could only passively ept a new ruler.

    ¡°Apart from being Heaven Favored, mundanes have almost no avenues of improving their lot in life. The academies are monopolized by the powerful, martial masters need money and resources to cultivate, there¡¯s no sect epting them. Just as the girl said, it¡¯spletely useless to learn anything. This is an era that focuses on strength...¡±

    There was no path avable to them. The most tragic of an era was being unable to break through the divisions caused by ss. Someone like Li Hao was aplete ident. The reality of the situation was one either had to be a Heaven Favored, or there was absolutely nothing one could do to change their fate.

    All of these powerhouses had a great background. There were almost none from purely ordinary origins. Of all the Novas that Li Hao had met before, who came from humble beginnings?

    Various thoughts formed in his mind as Li Hao sank deeper into his thoughts. He was considering some matters that he never would¡¯ve before. He felt possessed. Battle Heaven, Hong Yitang, the existences in the realms of illusions¡ªso many things had continuously affected him that he¡¯d unknowingly chosen to set foot into the swamp that was Skystar City.

 Chapter 658: Martial Masters Cultivate the Heart (II)

    <h4>Chapter 658: Martial Masters Cultivate the Heart (II)</h4>

    <i>The next whoes against me will certainly be an Arcanus!</i>

    Li Hao was well aware that nearly all of his trump cards had been exposed after he killed a dozen Novas, broken an Arcanus talisman, and swallowed energy bombs. It would be an Arcanus sent after him next.

    While their cultivation levels may be unstable, the masters of those major factions would just stabilize it with Water of Life! Throwing enough Water of Life at a supernatural would eventually produce a stable Arcanus. If one drop wasn¡¯t enough, then ten. These guys might¡¯ve also discovered the existence of nt spirits and even reached agreements with them. Otherwise, would those ruins really hold so much in reserve?

    Li Hao had realized that nearly every powerhouse in the world had a few drops. Almost all major factions had stores to draw from.

    Various thoughts floated through his mind before a knock rang on the door.

    ¡°Enter.¡±

    Yang Shan and Qin Lian walked through the door. Although Yang Shan was a metamorphosis now, he was still very polite to Li Hao.

    ¡°Commander Li, everyone¡¯s been arranged for,¡± he reported with a wide grin. ¡°Ole He says that the royal family has summoned him, so he¡¯s gone back for now and wille find you when he¡¯s free.¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head.

    ¡°Commander Li, ah... do you have further instructions for us two?¡± Yang Shan asked sheepishly, even more polite than before. After all, he addressed a powerhouse in their own right!

    Li Hao was not the weakling of their imagination after he killed Wu Yong and suppressed Liu Sha. Rather, he was much stronger than rumor made him out to be. An existence like him, and being young to boot, able to help people improve, and possessing of a major backer...

    Li Hao was an excellent thigh for Yang Shan. As a metamorphosis, the man could go out in the world to form his own faction. But then what?

    Wait for someone to recruit him or establish something incredible himself?

    Whoever thought that would be joking! How was he to fight the three great organizations, nine ministries, and royal family without any trump cards or foundations? Yang Shan was no idiot. Not to mention, his opportunity to be an Arcanus might be found with Li Hao.

    The young man nced at him and smiled. ¡°Don¡¯t be so polite, Senior Yang...¡± he said slowly.

    ¡°No no no, there¡¯s nothing senior about me!¡± Yang Shan smiled radiantly. ¡°Aren¡¯t we part of the Skystar Commander Office? Just call me Ole Yang or Inspector Yang. It would be too alienating to call me senior.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t bend at the waist for something close at hand,¡± Li Hao said softly after a long look. ¡°It¡¯s hard to straighten up again. Not to mention, the situation may be moreplicated than you think and much more dangerous. Today was just a beginning.¡±

    As crude and brash as Yang Shan looked, he was actually a very shrewd character. ¡°Oh no, not at all!¡± He offered a quick smile. ¡°Who doesn¡¯t bend at the waist these days unless they¡¯re truly invincible? Someone as strong as Director Hou also has to bow his head too! Danger is danger, but opportunities also truly exist. People like us have no way to back out after proceeding down this path! Not to mention, only you would be willing to be hostile toward a preeminent duke on our behalf.¡±

    ¡°Can I really?¡± Li Hao grinned.

    ¡°The situation cannot be changed at this step of the process, so there¡¯s no need to worry!¡± Yang Shan was wreathed with smiles. ¡°You¡¯re not afraid of the nine ministries, three great organizations, or the seven divine mountains... So how can our Commander Li be afraid of a Tranquil Duke?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re an interesting one, Senior Yang,¡± Li Hao burst outughing. ¡°I see why you¡¯re good friends with Senior Southern Fist!¡±

    Yang Shan beamed radiantly in response.

    ¡°Then I will trouble Inspector Yang to aplish a matter for me.¡± Li Hao nodded smilingly.

    ¡°Please go ahead,mander!¡± Yang Shan was overjoyed¡ªthis meant that Li Hao had agreed to his offer of service! This was wonderful! <i>I can strut around in borrowed glory in the future¡ªahem, I mean I can openly appear in public and throw hands with the Tranquil Duke! Come beat me, why don¡¯t you! I¡¯ve found a patron!</i>

    <i>I had to run and hide everywhere before, now I ain¡¯t afraid of shit! I¡¯ve got a new guy in my corner, someone who dares wage war with the nine ministries! Are you better than the Steadfast Duke, huh?</i>

    ¡°I¡¯d like for Inspector Yang to visit the North Sea while there¡¯s still time...¡±

    Yang Shan¡¯s expression shifted slightly.

    ¡°Go to the North Sea and find the North Sea King of the Starlight Pirates,¡± Li Hao exined softly. ¡°Tell him that I have his grandson. Of course, perhaps he knows that already and thinks that a grandson is no one terribly important. Maybe he thinks none of this is important. But we can still try to have him do something for me.¡±

    ¡°Please go ahead,mander,¡± Yang Shan said nervously.

    ¡°I want White Shark¡¯s head!¡± Li Hao concluded calmly. ¡°I will release his grandson if he delivers White Shark¡¯s head. I¡¯ll also throw in a Nova for free.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s easy,¡± Yang Shan heaved a sigh of relief. ¡°It¡¯s no loss to him. White Shark is one of the eight pirate factions of the North Sea and the Starlight Pirates have wanted to absorb them for a while. Killing White Shark is probably already part of their ns!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s proposed condition wasn¡¯t out of line. As for why he wanted White Shark¡¯s head... There seemed to be bad blood between the two. Yang Shan didn¡¯t care about that. He was deathly afraid that Li Hao would send him to im the North Sea King¡¯s head instead.

    That one was at least a metamorphosis expert, as was Red Beard of the East Sea. Not to mention, North Sea pirates were formidable! They had to be, if they wanted to establish their footing in the north. The north was a more savage region, whereas only the duke¡¯s say-so was needed in the East Sea. One had to slowly carve out their territory in the north.

    ¡°Mmhmm, that¡¯s all. Additionally, go to Liu Long of Silver Moon after you finish with the North Sea King.¡± Li Hao tossed a storage ring to Yang Shan. ¡°Give this to Troop Leader Liu Long and have him get some things for me. He knows what I need, just mention the words ¡®imperial pce¡¯ to him.¡±

    Yang Shan was rather curious what the storage ring contained.

    ¡°One million mysterious power stones and twenty origin weapons,¡± Li Hao remarked offhandedly. ¡°Senior Yang can also take Senior Qin Lian with you.¡±

    Yang Shan swallowed hard. What?! One million mysterious power stones?? Twenty origin weapons?! His scalp ran numb and his heart quailed. He stammered his words out with difficulty. ¡°This...mander... do you... want to switch... this mission... to someone else?¡±

    This was an astronomical figure for anyone! He couldn¡¯t imagine how Li Hao had just given this to him after one day of acquaintance. It was terrifying!

    It was so shocking that he felt the young man might be testing him. Grave problems might arise if he epted this mission.

    ¡°If a mere million mysterious power stones are enough to tempt you into running away with the goods, then why should I think you would risk your life for me?¡± Li Hao looked calmly at him. ¡°If you think nothing of this, how much will someone have to pay you in days toe if they wish for you to take my life? Who would be willing to pay so much to bribe you? Is killing me more dangerous or is absconding with my goods more dangerous?

    ¡°You can be the judge of that, senior. So in the meantime, just take the ring. I¡¯m not threatening you¡ªyou can leave with Senior Qin Lian.¡±

    ¡°Surely you just,mander!¡± Qin Lian answered abruptly. ¡°Youck personnel at the moment and I am a dark supernatural. I canplete a task for two for themander. There¡¯s not much use in Yang Shan staying as we aren¡¯t at war. He won¡¯t be able to aplish anything if he remains here!¡± She looked at her husband. ¡°Goplete the important mission that themander has given you!¡±

    Yang Shan looked at his wife, set his jaw, and nodded. ¡°Don¡¯t worry,mander,¡± he said in a muffled voice. ¡°Yang Shan willplete the mission. Nothing will be missing from the storage ring unless I die!¡±

    He was still apprehensive as he held one million mysterious power stones and twenty origin weapons in his hands... Li Hao was such a frightening fellow.

    Indeed, Yang Shan was fearful of the youngster. They¡¯d only known each other for a day, but Li Hao either truly didn¡¯t care or was testing him with this mission. Yang Shan struggled with himself, but set aside all delusions after a moment. He could not be tempted.

    His wife had already betrayed the Tranquil Duke for him. If he offended Li Hao now, it was a great unknown whether or not they¡¯d be able to elude the resulting chase. It also wasn¡¯t a simple matter of mysterious power stones and origin weapons if he wished to be an Arcanus. What good were all the mysterious power stones in the world?

    Yang Shan breathed out when his thoughts traveled here, exhaling his greed. <i>That¡¯s right, it¡¯s not like I''ll make it to Arcanus just because I¡¯ve absorbed sufficient energy. It is inferior to the sword energy that Li Hao gives us.</i>

    ¡°Then go on ande back soon. I might need people at any time.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± Yang Shan quickly left without a word. He didn¡¯t even have time to say goodbye to his wife.

    ¡°Does themander have other instructions?¡± Qin Lian asked gently.

    ¡°Ask around for me where there are Red Moon powerhouses¡ªthe premier kind. It¡¯s best if they¡¯re metamorphosis. Those should exist in the elder¡¯s council or Ancient Guard. If you can¡¯t find anything, then see where Green Moon and Orange Moon are.¡±

    Those two might not have scarlet shadows, but that was fine. They could be traded for ransom!

    Would Ying Hongyue buy them back?

    He would!

    He was a very arrogant, pompous individual who considered himself devoutly loyal. He would save his women if they were captured. The man would likely hand over a metamorphosis scarlet shadow if Li Hao wanted one.

    ¡°Understood!¡± Qin Lian sped out.

    As for whether or not she was actually running away with Yang Shan... Li Hao really didn¡¯t care. Yes, it was a very valuable storage ring. But if they took it, then they took it. His gains were enormous after recent operations and the two would be done in the world if they stole it. It would also save him the trouble of constantly having to stay on his guard against them. He was a hyper vignt person to begin with¡ªhe didn¡¯t easily believe that someone wouldy down their lives for him.

    But if they didn¡¯t take it... then just as he said, others would have to pay an even higher price if they wanted to buy the couple. It would have to be far in excess of this since the two wouldn¡¯t be easily tempted.

    Who would offer such high payment for the services of Yang Shan?

 Chapter 659: Martial Masters Cultivate the Heart (III)

    <h4>Chapter 659: Martial Masters Cultivate the Heart (III)</h4>

    After he sent the married couple away, Li Hao took out a few items. The desk was covered in storage rings before long, but he continued to fish out more. He had more than two thousand of these incredibly precious items in front of him at the end. Nearly half of those he¡¯d captured tonight owned one.

    The rest didn¡¯t because they were either servants or staff. True nobles nearly each had their own. There were so many!

    There were also rings that belonged to the Four Seas Company¡ªtheir heavyweights, metamorphosis, and Novas. Some came from Four Seas Ind, others from Skystar Colosseum...

    There were too many. Li Hao¡¯s head ached as he looked at them. He used to like opening storage rings as each one was a surprise. He¡¯d inspected the ones from the Lu treasury with Yuan Shuo and the rest, but now he faced more than several dozen times what he¡¯d examined before. if he spent three minutes taking inventory of one ring, two thousand rings would equal six thousand minutes...

    It would take him four or five days of not eating, drinking, or sleeping to finish it all. Taking inventory also wasn¡¯t as simple as just looking at everything, so three minutes might not be enough for one ring.

    Li Haoughed ruefully. Since when did he start fretting over having too many storage rings? He did today!

    He picked up themunicator on the desk and didn¡¯t care who picked up. ¡°Have Golden Spear and Mu Line see me!¡±

    ¡°Yes, right away...¡±

    Li Hao hung up, slightly envious of Ole Hou. How nice it was to have a secretary! A quick word ensured that everything he wanted was arranged for. How tragic his circumstances were, he had to do everything himself! He even had to make his own call for the people he wanted.

    ......

    Golden Spear and Mu Lin walked in after a few minutes, not surprised to see Li Hao present. They knew where Hou Xiaochen had run off to. The young man looked quite daring in taking over someone else¡¯s ce!

    ¡°Senior Golden Spear, Brother Second Mu...¡±

    Mu Lin smiled awkwardly and Golden Spear inclined his head. Thetter seemed to be slightly brooding and appeared thinner than before. He felt older now as repeated shocks had thrown him deeper into low spirits.

    The fight of the North Sea, the eastern continent, and now Southern Fist in battle today... All of these Silver Moon martial masters were unequivocally telling him that they were strong, but he was weak.

    Seven Swords, Three Spears, Four des, Twin Fists... The Three Spears had fallen behind! Therefore, he had almost nothing to say.

    ¡°Director Li!¡± Mu Lin was as cheery as always. ¡°Everyone from the Colosseum has been locked away. Is there anything else?¡±

    ¡°Mm.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Have the Silver Moon Guards assemble... This ce has a campground for troops, does it not?¡±

    ¡°Yes, oh yes. It¡¯s right next to us¡ªa hugeplex. The lords of Skystar City really know how to have a great time! There¡¯s manors like these all over the Avenue of the Nine Ministries and are easily several dozen acres each. It¡¯s not a problem to station one thousand people there.¡±

    ¡°Take me to them.¡±

    Mu Lin was startled. What for? To usurp power?

    <i>Ahem... I¡¯m really thinking too much. Surely not. Then... what for?</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t exin himself, neither did Golden Spear ask further. The two walked outside with Li Hao. When other Night Watchers saw the young man along the way, they snapped crisp salutes.

    ¡°Commander!¡±

    ¡°Greetings to Commander Li!¡±

    ¡°......¡± They were all very respectful and dropped the ¡°vice¡± portion of the young man¡¯s honorific. As for Hou Xiaochen, most hailed him Director Hou. Themanders of the five directions were dead in all but name. It was Hou Xiaochen¡¯s recent actions and then Li Hao¡¯s boldness that made the position known throughout the dynasty again.

    Everyone knew that there was a Skystar Commander Office beneath the Night Watchers of the dynasty. And who was its leader? The public believed it to be Li Hao.

    The young man held himself aloof and ignored everyone. It ran counter to his usual actions of greeting everyone with a friendly face. There was no need to win over people now. In his current state, he didn¡¯t think much of all official personnel in the dynasty capital. They had to know what had been urring on Four Seas Ind, so everyone of this era chose to be blind and deaf.

    He didn¡¯t like it. Perhaps it was a helpless situation and he shouldn¡¯t vent his anger on them. They were very weak and could not withstand the nine ministries. Everyone had their difficulties. Should he expect some Sunres and Srs to overthrow the nine ministries?

    Li Hao understood all this, but the pride of a young man refused to let him forgive these people for the moment.

    ......

    The young man arrived next door amid a crowd of respectful well-wishers. The yard in theplex was massive as this used to be the residence of a duke. It¡¯d been taken over by the nine ministries and be the campgrounds of the Silver Moon Guards.

    The Dominators who refused to ept Li Hao before werepletely subdued when they saw the young man again. Even Chen Jin, the heir of Mountain Ax who¡¯d opposed Li Hao before, had nothing toin about now. There was less hostility from him, just a mixture of inexplicable emotions, sighs, and regrets.

    There were numerous second and third generations of the thirty-six heroes among the Guard. Chen Jin counted as a second generation, as did Li Hao. Thetter was just so young that he was younger than some third generations. But it was Li Hao who was acknowledged by the entire world as the Demon Sword. He was so strong! So incredibly strong that he could kill metamorphosis experts. There was nothing Chen Jin could do but ept the circumstances.

    ¡°Commander Li!¡± Everyone hailed him by his official title.

    ¡°Please don¡¯t stand on ceremony.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Just call me by my name or Troop Leader Li. We¡¯re all from Silver Moon and colleagues to boot...¡±

    He hadn¡¯t thought much of the Silver Moon Guards before, but this was a group of bonafide martial masterspared to whatever else was avable in the surroundings. They were the true soldiers of this era. They fought pirates and took forthright action for any slights, then chose to silently guard the province after beating the pirates.

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought much of it before. Wasn¡¯t this what should be done? Why should they beplimented for carrying out their duties?

    But today, he smiled. They were worthy of praise. In an age like this, rare were those willing to truly face the pirates and safeguard their homnd. Much of his original anger had dissipated throughout the course of his travels.

    These people had openly challenged him before and readily spoke of their enmity toward him. Compared to them, it was the smiling tigers that were the nine ministries that disgusted him. They tried to cheat or outwit each other, showing him smiles and friendliness, but wanting nothing more than to take his life whenever possible.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dare,¡± Chen Jin sighed with a blend of emotions. ¡°Let us call youmander. Us Silver Moon martial masters stick to our hierarchies. We elevate those who are strong or ruthless, not to mention that your position is high to begin with as the direct disciple of the Five Styles King. You are the final disciple of the greatest among the thirty-six¡ªwe do not measure up to you to begin with.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re exaggerating,¡± Li Hao broke out inughter.

    ¡°I mean it, that¡¯s how things should be in the first ce.¡± Chen Jin didn¡¯t mind the nature of what he was saying and mentioned with regret, ¡°What a pity that my master died to your master. Otherwise, my master... ai!¡±

    He sighed with some regret. Mountain Ax had been one of the thirty-six, but he was dead. Those that Yuan Shuo killed were strong; their deaths usually came about as a result of being unable to pull his blows. This indirectly proved that Mountain Ax was very strong. What a pity that he¡¯d died too early!

    Li Hao found himself in awkward straits. Now that he knew more Silver Moon martial masters, things were sometimes difficult to navigate for him. He wouldn¡¯t mind in times past as it was just another name that he didn¡¯t recognize, but as more martial masters came out of the woodwork, he realized that as ornery as this group of people sometimes were, they were mostly honest and frank. At the very least, they were much better than the rest.

    ¡°Alright now, these are all trifling matters,¡± Golden Spear announced faintly. ¡°A bunch of Silver Moon martial masters died from various fights back in the day. Even I killed my fair share. Challenge him for revenge if you have the ability to. If not, shut up and don¡¯t mention it.¡±

    The Guard were silent. Li Hao coughed dryly after a moment. There were a lot of people gathered at almost one thousand strong.

    ¡°I have a few storage rings here that need to be examined. I¡¯d like everyone to help. Put the mysterious power stones, Water of Life, origin weapons, and the like in separate piles. Categorize the rest of the knick knacks for me in another system...¡±

    The Guards stared wordlessly at him, as did Golden Spear!

    <i>Are you kidding me? This is what you disturbed everyone for?</i>

    He snapped his mouth shut in the next moment as Li Hao unreeled strings that held thousands of storage rings. Jaws dropped, eyes bugged out of their heads¡ªmartial masters could barely make sense of what they were seeing.

    Golden Spear gaped as well. <i>Thank... heavens I didn¡¯t say anything or I¡¯d be mortified right now. </i>The young man did indeed need help from others. How long would it take for him to organize all of this on his own? A thousand helpers meant that one person needed to be in charge of just a few each. But since when were storage rings confiscated from criminals measured in units of thousands?

    ¡°Are you... not going to return these rings?¡± he couldn¡¯t help but say. Golden Spear knew where these items hade from. He just hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would im them all.

    ¡°Return them?¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°There are no good people on Four Seas Ind, why return them? There aren¡¯t that many with the Colosseum either. How does anyone think of getting their ring back after it¡¯se into my possession? It¡¯s already a show of mercy that they¡¯vee back alive!

    ¡°That... would... offend too many people,¡± Golden Spear questioned haltingly.

    ¡°Offend too many?¡± Li Hao sneered; he¡¯d suddenly understood something. ¡°I have my sword in hand, why would I be afraid of them? Silver Moon martial masters are forged through fights! Of the thirty-six heroes, ck Widow is held in contempt because she didn¡¯t fight her way through her ranking. She got there by sleeping around! Thinking of this and that, what¡¯s the point of so much thinking??¡±

 Chapter 660:Martial Masters Cultivate the Heart (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 660:Martial Masters Cultivate the Heart (IV)</h4>

    ¡°I¡¯ve finally seen through the heart of the matter that in this day and age, strength is the only true fundamental in everything! I am fearless and have smashed the terror in my mind. No one can dictate my life. I would not havee to Skystar City if I was afraid!

    ¡°Senior Golden Spear, you¡¯re old!¡± Li Hao looked straight at the man. ¡°None of the thirty-six that I met are afraid! Southern Fist isn¡¯t, Earthturner Sword isn¡¯t, Light Sword isn¡¯t, not even Yu Luocha shows fear! The only ones afraid are ck Widow and... Golden Spear!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Spear intent ignited as Golden Spear erupted with rage, suffering, and agitation. He was also slightly on the brink of losing his reason as he could not ept this kind of humiliation! He gnashed his teeth and tightened his fists as he looked at Li Hao. The umtion of his aggrieved suffering could be fully felt by others in this moment.

    ¡°Li Hao...¡± Golden Spear ground his teeth so hard that his gums nearly bled. ¡°You¡¯re right... Silver Moon martial masters are not afraid! They are not and so am I not. ck Widow... Are you making the analogy that I made it to my position today through Director Hou, just as she did with Ying Hongyue?¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t respond. Bing irrational in his rage, Golden Spear ultimately snorted and stalked off. He knew that the young man was purposefully antagonizing him, but provoked he was all the same. He really was furious!

    He didn¡¯t care about the stings and taunts from He Yong and the others¡ªalright, fine, he cared about those too. But for a junior such as Li Hao topare him to someone who¡¯d slept her way to the top and even put them on equal footing, it was cause to make him lose his sanity.

    The young man was out of line! He wanted to stab Li Hao to death with one jab!

    Golden Spear didn¡¯t think much of women like Green Peacock and ck Widow. He didn¡¯t find them worthy of being martial masters and considered those women an affront to the rest of his peers. Their positions were the result of their association with Ying Hongyue. He further looked down his nose at women such as the Heartjab Daughter since she came into her fame through maneuvering between men as well.

    But for Li Hao to categorize him the same meant that He Yong and the rest possibly did so as well! He was the same as those women to them! In those people¡¯s eyes, Golden Spear had no right to hold the women in contempt!

    Golden Spear was on the verge of a mental breakdown. He feared that he would lose control if he didn¡¯t walk away.

    ......

    Mu Lin sighed as he looked at Li Hao. ¡°Don¡¯t poke him too hard, Boss Golden Spear hasn¡¯t been in a right frame of mindtely. He¡¯s on the verge of an emotional copse. I¡¯m worried that he won¡¯t be able to cope with what you just said to him!¡±

    ¡°For Golden Spear, if he continues to grapple with his internal demons and fails to surpass himself... he might as well die than be stuck in his condition forever!¡± Li Hao said with a soft sigh. ¡°Even now, he¡¯s not the weakest among the thirty-six, but his mentality is the poorest. From what I know, Berserk de and Jadelight Sword are both in better positions than him.

    ¡°If this continues, he¡¯d be better off dead. It is a constant torment for a martial master if he is forever unable to break another¡¯s will...¡±

    None of the one thousand martial masters standing in front of him denied his words. It was true, perhaps Li Hao was right. For Golden Spear, he¡¯d been the strongest among the Three Spears back in the day. Yuan Shuo had stood at the head of the overall rankings, of that there was no doubt. The second was Sky Sword, but there was some controversy about the third. Some dered it to be Tyrant de, others said Northern Fist, and sometimes Golden Spear was put forward as a candidate...

    No matter what, the lowest ranking that Golden Spear had stood in those times was number five, and potentially number three. But in this age, Golden Spear was just Golden Spear. He wasn¡¯t an invible Silver Moon martial master. The difference between him and the rest was too great, a gap that was highlighted as more powerful martial masters appeared out of the woodwork. If this continued, he wouldpletely copse even if he wasn¡¯t killed by another.

    Thus, the martial masters present couldpletely understand his predicament.

    ¡°Our ranking officer... ai!¡± Chen Jin sighed.

    ¡°C¡¯mon everyone,¡± Mu Lin called out merrily to break the leaden silence. ¡°Grab a few storage rings each. Don¡¯t you dare keep any loot for yourself, do you hear me? Don¡¯t embarrass us Silver Moon martial masters or the Silver Moon Guard...¡±

    ¡°Would we ever!¡± someone snorted withughter. ¡°The Silver Moon Guards definitely wouldn¡¯t, and it depends on who we¡¯re talking about for Silver Moon martial masters. Southern Fist apparentlymitted his fair share of shady deeds like this back in the day.¡±

    ¡°......ahem!!¡± coughed another as they dug their elbow into the first speaker¡¯s side. ¡°You idiot, Southern Fist just beat a metamorphosis to death with one punch!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The first speaker instantly awoke to his senses andughed dryly. ¡°I¡¯m joking! Senior Southern Fist is amazing and super impressive. I was speaking all nonsense!¡±

    Li Hao wanted tough, but contained himself. He Yong didn¡¯t seem to have a good reputation anywhere. He sounded more like a gangster... Well, that was also close to the truth.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s get to work taking an inventory of everything. Help me summarize it, Brother Second Mu. I¡¯m going to meet our director first.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t you worry!¡± Mu Lin promised. ¡°Nothing will go missing while I¡¯m here. Ah, the storage rings...¡±

    ¡°One each!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°I have no use for them once they¡¯re emptied. Everyone can take one each when we¡¯re done!¡±

    The crowd was overjoyed. To them, even a storage ring was a precious treasure. Aside from their centurions and a few half step Dominators, almost no one else possessed one. The ones who did have storage rings received them aftering to Skystar City. Even some of the centurionscked such equipment in Silver Moon.

    Everyone would have one all of a sudden! Greatly invigorated, they roared, ¡°Our thanks to themander¡¯srgesse!¡±

    ......

    <i>Next door.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen had juste back and blinked when he heard the shouts. Heughed and cursed lowly, ¡°Those ingrates!¡±

    Manager Yu looked at him.

    ¡°I¡¯m the principalmander, he¡¯s just a vicemander!¡± Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. ¡°I¡¯m almost an invisible person these days!¡±

    There was no sight of his office to be seen yet, but the name of Skystar <i>Commander</i> Li Hao was known throughout the world. And now the guy hade to bribe the Silver Moon Guards? What, did he have his eyes set on them as well?

    ......

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t in the mood to think about those considerations. After leaving behind the storage rings, he trotted straight to Yao Si¡¯s office building. It was only right and proper that he greeted the one in charge since he¡¯d just arrived. They hadn¡¯t officially met before, but he¡¯d known from a nce across a conference room that the man was strong.

    <i>The director¡¯s office building.</i>

    Secretary Little Ye respectfully led Li Hao in and knocked before entering. She didn¡¯t dare say anything and left very quickly.

    ¡°Greetings to the director.¡± Li Hao was very polite, despite not knowing what he was being polite for. In any case, he was in the director¡¯s territory.

    Yao Si smiled from his cup of tea and pointed at a chair. ¡°Have a seat.¡±

    ¡°Thanks!¡± Li Hao sat down without further ado.

    ¡°A young champion.¡± Yao Si smiled at him. ¡°From the young springs heroes¡ªthis has held true since the ancient times. We¡¯re all oldpared to you.¡±

    ¡°You praise us too highly, director.¡±

    ¡°Not at all.¡± Yao Si looked at Li Hao again and didn¡¯t say anything of note. ¡°When the nine ministries wanted to establish the Night Watchers and have the agency oversee all superhumans in the world, as well as handle the ambitious three great organizations, I immediately rose to meet the asion. I was a Dominator when I epted this lousy mess.

    ¡°But the longer I stayed in this position, the more resigned and anxious I became. There are too many restrictions and too many considerations at hand. There¡¯s too many limitations levied on me to do anything!¡±

    The old man sighed again. ¡°I am old now, and less than the youngsters. I once had the same drive you guys did, but it faded away.¡± He smiled at Li Hao. ¡°I just wanted to say that when I saw you. How do you view me?¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡±

    ¡°I said, what is your first impression of me?¡±

    ¡°Benevolent, amiable, friendly...¡± Li Hao answered merrily with a professional smile. It was one he¡¯d perfected after a year at the Inspectorate.

    ¡°Too fake, can you say something real?¡± Yao Si burst outughing. ¡°At my age, I like to hear youngsters speak from the heart. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not one of the nine ministers. I wouldn¡¯t get mad at you.¡±

    Li Hao thought quietly for a while beforeughing as well. ¡°Does the director really want me to?¡± he whispered.

    ¡°Please, go ahead.¡±

    ¡°What you mean by too many restrictions, considerations, and limitations can be summarized as being afraid of death. You choose to quietly quit instead, forgoing your initial aspirations and permitting yourself to be assimted. You are ipetent and abandon your duties, yet seek to find an excuse for yourself. Sometimes, dereliction of duty is more terrifying than a wrong strategy. At least you¡¯re doing something if you engage with the wrong strategy. Dereliction is doing nothing at all.¡±

    Li Hao was absolutely forthright with his response, possibly because the director¡¯s hypocritical words rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe he was also more confident now since he was stronger. Since the director wanted him to speak his mind, then he would do so to the utmost!

    ¡°Look at the sorry state of the Night Watchers! I¡¯d thought that the Silver Moon Night Watchers were pathetic, butpared to the ones here, they¡¯re very diligent in their duties! The real tragedy is that they aren¡¯t paid much for it!

    ¡°The Night Watchers arepletely without system, guidance, and responsibility. They spend their high sries gambling and whoring on Four Seas Ind, turning a blind eye and deaf ear to monster spirits eating humans. They even hail the pirates walking among them as brothers! Hah!¡± Li Hao jeered, full of disdain and contempt.

    He¡¯d wanted to be more polite at first, but this one seemed to be exining just how difficult his situation was, how reluctant he was to ept it and how sorrowed he was by it...

    Yao Si seemed to be saying that his blood had once flowed just as hotly as Li Hao and he¡¯d stretched himself greatly by epting a difficult post in the face of danger!

 Chapter 661: Martial Masters Cultivate the Heart (V)

    <h4>Chapter 661: Martial Masters Cultivate the Heart (V)</h4>

    ¡°I¡¯ve been wondering,¡± Li Hao sneered, ¡°if the world would be worse off with the three great organizations as the rulers instead? Not necessarily, I think! The three great organizations have killed many, which was why I thought they were too wicked to be pardoned before, but now it seems that more innocents may have died in ministry hands. What right do the nine ministries have to criticize the three great organizations?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve got some nerve!¡± Yao Si straightened in his seat, rather surprised by the response. He wasn¡¯t angry, just astonished that Li Hao would prove so bold. ¡°Keep in mind that I call the shots here!¡± He looked at the young man. ¡°Not even Yellow Dragon would dare speak to me in this manner.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, someone who doesn¡¯t dare speak to you like this has fouled up the entire agency.¡± Li Hao grinned widely. ¡°I know, you¡¯ll say that you¡¯re letting him do this on purpose. But you have to know that biding your time to umte your strength like this has only let the Night Watchers turnpletely rotten!

    ¡°What does it mean when aw enforcement agency is corrupt and a shell of what it should be? It means that regr people no longer have a venue to raise their grievances! That means there is no longer any fairness or justice to speak of in this world! You guys bear great responsibility for the declined state of the dynasty!¡±

    ¡°Li Hao.¡± Puzzled, Yao Si looked at the young man. ¡°Is all this that important to you? I¡¯d thought you¡¯d take advantage of this meeting to ask me for help. Why... do you choose to approach in this way?¡±

    ¡°Because I¡¯ve sensed a hint that subordinates are following the bad example set by leadership!¡± Li Hao looked at him. ¡°Lacking ability is one person¡¯s problem, but if a generalcks boldness or ability, that bes the entire army¡¯s problem!

    ¡°You are a general, the leader of the strongest agency outside the nine ministries! I would fawn over you a bit if you were a secluded powerhouse, one of the Silver Moon martial masters, a lord of the seven divine mountains, or even a leader of the three great organizations. But you are not!

    ¡°You are the leader of the Night Watchers, yet you ignore your duties and allow Yellow Dragon to swagger around. You permit the Night Watchers to sink into depravity. In my eyes, your sins eclipse that of many others!¡±

    ¡°Sins?¡± Yao Si blinked.<i> Sins...</i> He stared at Li Hao. ¡°Are you saying that I have sinned?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    Yao Si started. He... really hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would criticize him like this. He was a sinner? Never had he imagined that one day, a youngster would dere him a sinner to his face. The source of sins!

    ¡°Li Hao, you don¡¯t understand,¡± the director replied softly. ¡°Staying quiet and umting my strength is in pursuit of a greater eruption...¡±

    ¡°No,ying low just permits bad guys to grow more arrogant,¡± Li Hao refused calmly. ¡°It causes the extinction of good people and dissipates morale. It will plunge the world into darkness! Your fire is gone after so many years of quiet, so what is this talk of a greater eruption?

    ¡°When you reach Arcanus, you¡¯ll say that there are too many Arcanus supernaturals around. The nine ministries are too strong, as are the three great organizations too strong. You won¡¯t be able to withstand them, so you need to bide your time a while longer. Once you exceed Arcanus, so will others have done so as well. You¡¯ll say then I need to wait a little longer.

    ¡°Then a few yearster, when you¡¯ve got one foot in your grave, you¡¯ll tell your descendants that you were waiting for an opportunity your whole life. What a pity that it never arrived...¡±

    Li Haoughed jeeringly. ¡°Indeed, it never arrived! It would be one thing if this was the only matter, but because of you lying low, the entire Night Watcher agency has bepletely rotten inside and out! What is that, if not a sin?¡±

    Yao Si¡¯s thoughts churned swiftly. Indeed, he hadn¡¯t thought that this would be the kind of conversation they would have. He was growing tired, so he said softly, ¡°You can leave for now, I¡¯ll think on this. I... never thought that someone would say this of me. I thought... I thought you needed my help...¡±

    He chuckled sardonically at himself. <i>And here I thought Li Hao woulde to me for help. I thought people like Hou Xiaochen and Li Hao would sense how strong I am. I had no idea this would be the conclusion instead!</i>

    Li Hao rose and looked at the old man, saying softly, ¡°I did think I would need your help, but once I thought of the vows I took at the Night Watcher induction ceremony to safeguard the peace and safety of a certain area, to safeguard our homnd and nation... and then I look at you sitting here, drinking Water of Life with an air of being prepared to sit back and watch the world change around you... I... find myself disgusted!¡±

    He turned and left, leaving the old man in a daze. He... was disgusted? The young man was disgusted!

    Yao Si¡¯s expression flickered rapidly. He mmed his hand down on the table after Li Hao was far away, shattering it and bringing Little Ye to the door.

    ¡°Get out!¡± raged the old man like he was a rampaging lion!

    Little Ye jumped with surprise and quickly turned to leave. The old man suddenly called out to her, ¡°Let me ask you something, Little Ye. In your eyes, is it right or wrong that I do not actively oversee the Night Watchers?¡±

    The secretary started and looked back at her superior officer, not sure of what to say. Yao Si maintained a fixed stare at her and grit his teeth. ¡°I ask you, are the Night Watchers rotten or not?¡±

    ¡°No... of course not...¡± Little Ye said nervously. ¡°How could they be...¡±

    ¡°Is the world more chaotic after these five years or better?¡±

    ¡°Um...¡±

    ¡°Speak!¡±

    ¡°More... more chaotic,¡± the petite woman answered apprehensively. ¡°But it¡¯s all Director Yellow¡¯s fault. When you were in charge, sir, you could somewhat corral the unstable elements of society. The same could not be said after Director Yellow took charge. The battles against the three great organizations have been waged in the haphazard manner. Not that many of their members have died, but a dozen of our cities have been destroyed and several million people dead. Tens of millions have been disced from their homes...¡±

    The old man sagged and waved her off listlessly. ¡°I understand, you may go!¡±

    ¡°Y-yes!¡± Her heart in her throat, Little Ye quickly took off. She slightly regretted her words, maybe she shouldn¡¯t have said all that.

    The old man, on the other hand, was weary down to his bones.<i> I am disgusting?</i> heughed at himself. <i>I am the source of all evil?</i>

    But... but... it was just as Li Hao had said. Indeed, the young man had spoken correctly. Yao Si had indeed wanted to wait a bit longer because he felt there was no hope. He wanted to bide his time until he became Arcanus, stabilize his cultivation, then emerge to bring the world back into order again.

    Yet, just as Li Hao pointed out, that sentiment was a joke. He would think that Arcanus was not enough when he finally reached that level. He would want to wait a bit more! Wasn¡¯t that enough? He would be an Arcanus at that point! But would he think that was enough?

    <i>No!</i>

    The covers were abruptly yanked back from his thoughts, shining an ufortable light of shame on them. He was irate and also felt aggrieved. Indignation churned through him and he ground his teeth in fury!

    ¡°Responsibility?! How are you fit to speak to me of these matters! I founded the Night Watchers with an attitude of sure death when circumstances were their most difficult! I fought hundreds of battles to suppress the three great organizations and lost count of how many I killed. I forged the Night Watcher name through fire and blood, managing to ultimately upy a seat at the supernatural table.

    ¡°How... you... call me disgusting??

    ¡°I kept the world in check for fifteen years and only gave Yellow Dragon this chance in thest five years because I need to stabilize my cultivation level. Someone else stands behind him, so I don¡¯t wish to erupt in open hostilities with him. How dare you talk about me in that vein?!¡±

    He was both furious and felt unfairly wronged, as well as not wanting to ept the situation. However, Li Hao¡¯s words stabbed into him again and again.

    <i>You are not a secluded powerhouse, you are the only agency with actual power outside the nine ministries. You are the only agency with the power to step forward and protect the people. But if you batten down the hatches and bide your time... You represent not only yourself, but all hotblooded supernaturals!</i>

    ¡°Have I made a mistake?¡± Yao Si sprawled on his chair and curled up on it. No one had ever said these words to him before because they all thought that his actions were normal.

    Indeed, normal.

    They knew that he was consolidating his Arcanus realm, so weren¡¯t his actions normal? Yao Si wasn¡¯t even a supernatural, he was a martial master. Granted, he was on a simr footing because his cultivation level was very high. It eclipsed even He Yong and the others, making it understandable that he was viewed as an Arcanus.

    His organs were so strong that they could deploy the battle strength of what others could bring to bear after breaking their supernatural locks.

    But, had he made a mistake?

    His nomittal mindset abruptly copsed. It was one thing if Li Hao was spewing bullshit, but the key was that the young man spoke the truth. Even Little Ye said that in the five years that Yao Si had taken a backseat, the world had gone to the wolves. Millions were dead and tens of millions disced.

    And this was just the central region.

    The old man curled up in a corner, unmoving, like he was dead. Martial masters cultivate the heart while supernaturals cultivate strength. His heart was in disarray, and it was thanks to the question from an exceedingly young martial master.

    <i>Do you have a clear conscience? You are a sinner, Yao Si! You... are very disgusting!</i>

    ......

    Li Hao was in the highest spirits when he walked out of the director¡¯s office. Damn it felt good to cuss out the director! The young man was highly dissatisfied with the senior executives who enjoyed the privileges of their position, yet did not exert themselves tomensurate action. He boiled with rage!

    He was unfamiliar with Yao Si, so there wasn¡¯t much that could be said about the man. But the Night Watchers were indeed rotten, yet also somehow stronger than the other nine ministries.

    That was it!

    As the head of the agency, Yao Si¡¯s inaction also caused great displeasure in Li Hao. He could identify some of the undertones from the man¡¯s words.

    <i>I thought you guys would need my help.</i>

    The man was saying that he was willing to help Li Hao and the rest, but the young man told him that they didn¡¯t need his help! Even if he did, it was to be expected. And it wasn¡¯t help, but Li Hao was enforcing thew!

    <i>I represent the Night Watchers in enforcing thew andying down order. This is what you should be doing, so why do you think you¡¯re helping me? That¡¯spletely wrong!</i>

 Chapter 662: That Person Is Too Crazy! (I)

    <h4>Chapter 662: That Person Is Too Crazy! (I)</h4>

    Li Hao gave full vent to his bottled-up fury when he saw that the leader of aw enforcement institution thought of it as helping or giving charity to a subordinate agency when trouble was at hand. That was wrong, gravely wrong!

    ¡°Hmph!¡± The young man snorted when he heard the sound of something breaking and left in a merry high. He didn¡¯t care what the results of this meeting would be. Those who didn¡¯t care wouldn¡¯t pay heed to his words. If he said the same thing to Inspector General Liu or someone simr, they¡¯d probably justugh merrily and forget about it in the next breath.

    That Yao Si flew into a rage meant that he still cared. Li Hao¡¯s words from the heart that jabbed at the listener¡¯s core would be ineffective on politicians. Only those who still gave consideration to these matters would question their conscience.

    <i>Do you still have that heart, Yao Si?</i>

    Li Hao put the meeting out of his mind as he walked off to the side. Perhaps the man no longer did. <i>Who will eternally honor their original ambitions? Do I even know what my intentions were in the beginning? People change, we all do. Yao Si did, I do.</i>

    <i>Perhaps I cannot bear the sight of this darkness and murkiness today. Maybe I can¡¯t stand the sight of this man eat man era. But perhaps after a year or three, I might be part of them.</i>

    Such thoughts shed through his mind. It was enough to take care of oneself in this age. That already made one a good person. It would take a saint to extend that mindset to the rest of the world.

    ......

    Leaving all that behind, Li Hao returned next door to the campground of the Silver Moon Guards. He¡¯d been gone for less than twenty minutes, but there were nearly one thousand Guards present. They made quick work of two thousand storage rings. Two to three each was the perfect division of work.

    When Li Hao arrived, all of the Guards were immersed in the joy of counting money. A small mountain of mysterious power stones stood in the center of the yard. Another group of people walked up, hauling arge bag in their wake.

    ¡°Ten thousand pieces!¡± they reported with hard swallows.

    Mu Lin took note of the number and called out, ¡°We¡¯re at one million and seven hundred sixty thousand. Any more?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s a bit more over here, give me a sec...¡± Another group of people walked over with arge bundle. ¡°There¡¯s 9271 pieces here...¡±

    They were about to pour it onto the small mountain when Li Hao held up his hand. ¡°Wait!¡±

    The assembly looked at him, puzzled. Most were envious, jealous, worshipful, and lusted after his riches... It was aplicated mix of emotions that left them slightly numb. Just mysterious power stones alone had been so numerous that it tired the Guards from counting them all.

    One million and seven hundred sixty thousand! This didn¡¯t include some of the more unique ones. Those bigger or filled with more energy were tossed off to the side as another type of resource.

    ¡°That¡¯s all the mysterious power stones?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Mu Lin nodded. ¡°One million and seven hundred sixty thousand standard size pieces. No, wait, there¡¯s another 9271 pieces. They¡¯re all here with not a single one missing. Don¡¯t worry, Commander Li. I promise that no one would dare take one for themselves!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, then frowned after some thought. ¡°These guys are so damned poor!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Mu Lin blinked. What did the young man mean?

    ¡°A dozen Novas, three metamorphoses, the Four Seas Company, Skystar Colosseum, and thousands of nobles amount to one million and seven hundred sixty thousand pieces?¡±

    What were they if not damned poor? This was impossible! Li Hao was confused why there were so few stones. These were two exceedingly rich factions that he¡¯d raided. Even if most of their riches were usually turned in to the Ministry of Finance, they couldn¡¯t have not left some for themselves. Setting the Colosseum aside, this truly was too little from the Four Seas Company.

    It shouldn¡¯t be that differentpared to the Xus! And the nobles! There were so many nobles out for ark at Four Seas Ind. What kind of nobles were they to not have several hundred pieces of stone on them? A major noble such as Mu Xiaorong would have even more.

    If each person averaged ten pieces, Li Hao¡¯s hostages of several thousand would amount to several tens of thousands. One hundred pieces each would be hundreds of thousands...

    Hisck of a bountiful harvest was apparent when the numbers were averaged out. Of course, the fault wouldn¡¯ty with the Silver Moon Guards. Could the Ministry of Finance have taken it all ahead of time?

    The mysterious power stones that he¡¯d collected before were all in a storage ring that Yang Shan was taking back to Silver Moon. This pile here would be the entirety of his resources in the days toe. He also wouldn¡¯t be able to im it all as those such as Hou Xiaochen would have to be given part of the loot. It wasn¡¯t good etiquette to pronounce all of it for himself. Hou Xiaochen had a thousand Silver Moon Guards to support, which put him under a lot of pressure as well.

    Not only that, but Li Hao might have to turn in a bit more to the Night Watchers... even if it was just a token of his sentiments. Hence, he felt that the count was low.

    ¡°There¡¯s more over here,¡± Mu Lin hastily said. ¡°It¡¯s the kind used by the armies in the ruins. One piece of those is the equivalent of ten of ours. There¡¯s a decent amount at roughly twenty thousand pieces.¡±

    ¡°So that makes for approximately two million mysterious power stones?¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°If I trade them for Water of Life at the Nine Dragons Pavilion, that would only be twenty drops,¡± the young man chuckled.

    <i>Wow, it¡¯s that expensive? </i>Mu Lin clucked his tongue. ¡°We''ve also counted some Water of Life. I¡¯ve put it away since it¡¯s more precious¡ªthere¡¯s twelve drops that were mostly concentrated in a few storage rings.¡±

    Li Hao nodded again. He understood the situation. Mu Xiaorong and the other metamorphoses were the only ones with the right to possess such a treasure. Regr Novas did not.

    Twelve drops were neither a lot nor too little. Of what he¡¯d had before, he¡¯d given four drops to He Yong and one drop each to Yang Shan and Qin Lian. He only had three drops left, but was now greatly replenished to fifteen.

    To him, Water of Life was worth only ten thousand mysterious power stones each. But if he sold them or someone took them from him, he would value them at one hundred thousand stones each.

    ¡°There¡¯s also quite a few origin weapons¡ªtwenty-two of them. But... they¡¯re almost all gold rank... That makes them lower rank... There¡¯s only two arcane rank and not a single earth rank...¡± Mu Lin looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°Some of them were broken in battle.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°And some are still in people¡¯s bodies. It¡¯s one thing to seize their storage rings, I can¡¯t actually dissect someone to take their origin weapon. That would be beyond the pale.¡±

    Mu Lin was speechless. <i>That wasn¡¯t what I meant. I mean that you have so many origin weapons here, are you sure you¡¯re not going to return some of them? Li Hao thinks I¡¯m saying that there¡¯s too few! Mu Xiaorong and the others must have origin weapons in their bodies, but just like the kid says, there¡¯s no way to take it from these guys. We¡¯d have to split them open.</i>

    ¡°Twenty-two origin weapons... that¡¯ll do!¡± Li Hao shook his head with a sigh. ¡°That¡¯s still too few. So it seems that one¡¯s gains aren¡¯t up to par if I don¡¯t uproot a major faction. So many people, but so few riches. Theirbined total is only a little better than the Xus. No, strictly speaking, there may not be a difference.¡±

    The Xus had had three earth rank origin weapons and the Goldensky Lotus in their treasury, as well as the mirror fragment... These items could not be assessed in terms of money. There was also the sky rank weapon that the little sword had swallowed. When those were added to the sum, what he¡¯dted from the Xus was just as much as his gains from this operation.

    This was the drawback of not pulling someone up by the roots. Whether it was the Four Seas Company or Skystar Colosseum, their main wealth was with the Ministry of Finance, not them. It could be readily seen from this how wealthy the ministry must be. It would be decent if these establishments could retain a year¡¯s worth of gains. Most of it was handed in at the end of the year.

    ¡°There are many other treasures, most of which we couldn¡¯t recognize,¡± Mu Lin continued. ¡°I put them all into a storage ring. There are also a few daoprehension weapons with mediocre effect. I¡¯ve put them away separately as well...¡±

    He handed a few storage rings to Li Hao and then turned his gaze to the small mountain of mysterious power stones. ¡°You should store all of this too. I discovered that some of the rings are pretty big and spacious enough to hold all of this.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, then looked at the martial masters holding onto thest remnants of mysterious power stones. ¡°Split the remaining nine thousand among yourselves! It¡¯s a token of my appreciation and your bonus for hard work. When one of us eats meat, the rest get some soup!¡±

    Mu Lin wanted to say something, but the martial masters roared with excitement, ¡°Themander is just and generous!¡±

    Nine thousand pieces meant that each person would receive approximately ten pieces each. Although there was a small mountain of that resource behind Li Hao, they knew it wasn¡¯t theirs. Instead, they were very excited by the fact that Li Hao would offer so many rewards. Stones and a storage ring each? How wonderful! These were tremendous gains!

    Mu Lin didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry, there was nothing else to say. Nine thousand pieces might have been an astronomical figure before, butpared to the small mountain beside him... Mu Lin suddenly thought nothing of it.

    <i>I¡¯m getting too full of myself!</i> Mu Lin knew that it was because he¡¯d seen too many truly precious objects that mysterious power stones were nothing anymore. <i>I counted two million of those today!</i>

    Li Hao was truly astonishing. He¡¯d taken just one month to seize more than abined total of three million mysterious power stones and fifty-some origin weapons.

    Roughly two dozen Novas had died to his hands in this month alone, as well as a couple of metamorphoses. Seen in that light, this level of harvest seemed reasonable. If he included the earlier drops of Water of Life, his total ie was more than ten million mysterious power stones. This was more astonishing than raiding a medium-sized ruin!

    From this, he could tell that this era was a very prosperous one. However, only the upper echelon of society flowed with milk and honey. The dregs of society were struck with poverty. Just take a look at Yao Si¡ªhe¡¯d washed his hands of matters for many years, but could still drink tea brewed with Water of Life. One such cup would be worth one hundred stones in the Nine Dragons Pavilion. Yao Si was very rich!

 Chapter 663: That Person Is Too Crazy! (II)

    <h4>Chapter 663: That Person Is Too Crazy! (II)</h4>

    Li Hao swept all of the mysterious power stones into a storage ring without further word. This greatly alleviated his burdens, but Mu Lin swiftly offered up a thousand more storage rings. These were the ones that remained after the Guards chose their own.

    The young man himself already had nearly one hundred rings. They were all from prior operations. He smiled ruefully at the long string of storage rings. Since when did he be someone who received a headache for too many storage rings?

    He epted them after some thought. He could keep them for now. There was a pocket inside the armor. Although it was a bit full at the moment, that was fine. Li Hao swept a nce over the Silver Moon Guards.

    They¡¯d possessed almost one hundred half step Dominators before, but didn¡¯t have many actual Dominators. Those were only the nine centurions, Golden Spear, Mu Lin, the captain of Golden Spear¡¯s personal guard and the disciple of Berserk de, as well as Kong Jie¡¯s daughter.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t see thetter on his visit.<i> I wonder where they¡¯ve gone off to? </i>It was rumored that Berserk de had alsoe to the central region, but Li Hao hadn¡¯t caught a glimpse of that man yet.

    The Guards¡¯ overall strength seemed to have increased after a month in the dynasty capital. There were nearly two hundred half step Dominators and many more Dominators had appeared amongst the teams.

    Li Hao studied them for a while, thought about his words, then began with, ¡°Life is difficult in Skystar City, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    <i>That¡¯s true. </i>Mu Lin looked back sheepishly. Things had been fine back in Silver Moon. The Guards were very strong; a team of one hundred could certainly handle a Sr. When working in tandem to manifest the formation of one thousand people, the regrposite of the Guards could face a Nova.

    But what was that worth in Skystar City?

    Absolutely nothing!

    Strictly speaking, half step Dominators were barely the equivalent of Plenilune. They were less than Sunres. Granted, they were outfitted with ck armor¡ªthe Guard had nearly five hundred sets.

    Hou Xiaochen had taken the most when one thousand Battle Heaven troops fell in the battlefield. Li Hao had imed one hundred, leaving the rest for the three great organizations to squabble over. Unfortunately for those factions, they didn¡¯t have the authorization to fully activate the ck armor.

    In this regard, the only aspect that the Silver Moon Guards held an advantage in was that their defenses were slightly stronger. Li Hao also had one thousand sets of Voidbreaker armor, but he hadn¡¯t found the right way to essing them. Perhaps his authorization was insufficient, or some other reason was at y.

    ¡°That¡¯s exactly it!¡± The heir to Mountain Ax picked up the conversation. A note of suffering crept into his voice. ¡°Let¡¯s leave it at that since this is the central region. There are too many supernaturals here¡ªSunres and Srs are avable by the handful and Novas are frequently seen as well. We are naturally invinciblepared to regr troops, but when ites to the elites that major factions have raised... Well, they have people, money, and a stunning amount of resources. We do not measure up to that!¡±

    A mere Silver Moon could not support so many, but the central region was where the wealth of the world collected. It was far beyond the capabilities of those such as Hou Xiaochen topare to.

    Li Hao had originally found the benefits of the Silver Moon Guard to be stunningly incredible. But now he realized... they weren¡¯t much. No one would know how prosperous the central region was without making a trip for themselves.

    ¡°That¡¯s just as well,¡± Mu Lin said with a mixture of emotions. ¡°Mysterious power is much more dense here and while we cannot rely on this energy like the supernaturals do, it being present inrge quantities results in a faster rate of progress in our daily cultivation.

    ¡°You see it as well that we have many new half step Dominators and a few who¡¯s made the breakthrough...¡± Mu Lin chuckled. ¡°At least we¡¯ll be impressive enough against the Skystar Colosseum!¡±

    Li Haoughed and looked at the others. ¡°Think on it, everyone. I am about to establish a Skystar Commander Office. Why don¡¯t youe help me there?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The crowd blinked with iprehension, as did Mu Lin.

    ¡°Um... what about the director?¡± he ventured after a pause.

    ¡°The director?¡± Li Hao merrily stroked his chin. ¡°He is the principalmander, I am his vicemander. Of course the director is still the boss.¡±

    ¡°Then... is there any difference in treatment?¡± Mu Lin looked carefully. <i>What do you mean by all this??</i>

    ¡°There¡¯s a bit of a difference.¡± Li Hao bared his teeth in a smile. ¡°The elites of the Silver Moon Guard can choose to join my Demon Hunters troop. You will receive some additional benefits and treatment. I won¡¯t be taking too many, just five hundred at most!

    ¡°The overall structure won¡¯t change, but my Demon Hunters might expand and move up in ranks. Our fullplement would be one thousand people per formation...¡±

    Mu Lin listened with aching teeth. He sized up Li Hao again and again without saying a word.

    ¡°Think about it!¡± Li Hao dered happily. ¡°We¡¯re all on the same team so there¡¯s no rush. Ah, yes, there are so many benefits to joining the Demon Hunters.

    ¡°For example, the defensive capabilities of your ck armor will be greatly enhanced due to it being fully activated. That¡¯s just one such benefit! Second, your chances of bing a Dominator are immensely increased! Third, everyone stands a very strong chance of bing a Summoner of Spirit after that stage. That¡¯s right, my teacher has fully understood Summoner of Spirit and everyone can cultivate it.

    ¡°Fourth, I have a unique army formation that requires only five people to operate. Yourbined strength will improve immensely! Currently, a team of one hundred can only take on Srs. After you join the Demon Hunters, I am confident that a team can handle initial Novas with no problem!

    ¡°This is all based on our current foundations. Once everyone breaks through, I dare promise that a one hundred person team can fight enemies at least two cultivation levels higher! For instance, if everyone¡¯s a Dominator, they are the equivalent of Sunre at most. But if they coordinate well, they¡¯ll be able to fight metamorphoses, if not Arcanus!¡±

    One hundred Dominators fighting in unison, their blood qi intermixed and their armor activated... Was there hope in taking down a metamorphosis then?

    <i>Yes!</i>

    Li Hao was well aware of the possibility and if he helped a martial master set foot into Dominator, then they wouldn¡¯t be far off from Summoner of Spirit. The aplishments then would be even more incredible.

    Too few Demon Hunters had stayed in Silver Moon! Li Hao hadn¡¯t wanted to recruit more before, but now he realized the benefits of strength in numbers. What use was there in individual Sunderers? But what about one hundred, one thousand, or ten thousand Sunderers?

    Didn¡¯t Liu Yunqing say that the people¡¯s heart wasn¡¯t good for anything. Bullshit!

    One hundred thousand ordinary people in armor could intermix their blood qi if they knew the most basic of operating methods. All humans possessed blood qi. At that time, one hundred thousand people could kill a Nova! And he was talking about mundanes!

    One about one million, ten million people? One hundred million? Mundanes abounded in this world!

    Granted, sufficient armor and equipment would be a very big problem. Li Hao didn¡¯t have many avable sets left on him¡ªa dozen ck armors at best. The Silver Moon Guards, though, had five hundred more.

    He painted a grandiose picture with mundanes, but he couldn¡¯t really send mundanes against Novas. However, any with a bit of martial foundation that didn¡¯t need to start from zero could easily set foot into yer of Tens. In this era, it was easy to reach Sunderer of Hundreds. There were no bottlenecks below half step Dominator.

    In that case, ten thousand Sunderers were sufficient to easily suppress a metamorphosis. There wouldn¡¯t be any difficulty to it¡ªthey could even battle Arcanus!

    Liu Yunqing¡¯s words rankled Li Hao, the young man didn¡¯t ept it! Who said that the people¡¯s heart was worthless?? Bullshit! It was useful! If they dared and were willing, ordinary people could still go against the current and rise up!

    He even had some thoughts about the thousand in front of him. They were decently strong with numerous half step Dominators. If they all learned the Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation and incorporated their blood qi into his body, he would dare fight an Arcanus if he was the heart of the formation!

    He¡¯d thought that these guys weren¡¯t reliable before. Now that he looked at them, mm, they were alright. At the very least, they were more dependable than those not of Silver Moon.

    Li Hao was thinking of staging a coup¡ªbah, he meant to say that he wanted to tend to Hou Xiaochen¡¯s army for him. Ole Hou seemed to be poor. As for why he hadn¡¯t told Hou Xiaochen of his intentions earlier... The young man couldn¡¯t be bothered since Hou Xiaochen seemed to be standing outside of theplex walls, listening in on them.

    It looked like the man wanted to rush inside to beat Li Hao up.

    ......

    The crowd''s breathing grew more rapid as they listened to Li Hao. Setting foot into Dominator, then Summoner, a unique formation, activated armor...

    <i>Oh my heavens!</i>

    Even Mu Lin was slightly moved. He quickly came back to his senses and smiled with difficulty, turning down the young man¡¯s proposal. ¡°Ah... we can¡¯t make the call in this... Commander Li, you... you should go ask the director and Boss Golden Spear... We can¡¯t do this on our own...¡±

    Multiple faces dimmed with his refusal, but they didn¡¯t make a sound. That was right! They wanted to grow stronger, but they were raised by Hou Xiaochen. Could they bite the hand that fed them and turn on their own master?

    It was also due to Li Hao speaking these words that they considered it. The young man was part of their system and a fellow Silver Moon martial master. He was the acting ranking officer in Golden Spear¡¯s absence, a deputy director of the Night Watchers... And he was on good terms with Hou Xiaochen.

    They wouldn''t be tempted otherwise.

    ¡°Are you sure you won¡¯t think about it?¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°As for the director, he won¡¯t say anything since we¡¯re all here. I don¡¯t need everyone at present, just half. Only those with armor need toe. If you want to stay, you can give your armor to those who want to leave. Don¡¯t we all eat out of the same pot?¡±

    ¡°Um... it¡¯s better to ask the director first!¡± Mu Lin said hesitantly.

    Li Hao grinned.

 Chapter 664: That Person Is Too Crazy! (III)

    <h4>Chapter 664: That Person Is Too Crazy! (III)</h4>

    ¡°What nonsense are you cooking up now, Li Hao?¡± someone chuckled outside the door. Apanied by Manager Yu, Hou Xiaochen walked in with his hands behind his back. He was smiling, but looked like he wanted to kill the young man when he looked at Li Hao. <i>What do you think you¡¯re doing, kid?!</i>

    ¡°Director!¡± The assembly snapped to attention. Their superior officer was here.

    ¡°I¡¯m seeking a future for our brothers, director!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°You know how much I¡¯ve collectedtely. I have no ce to spend all of this extra wealth. Money is money only when it¡¯s spent. It¡¯s just worthless rocks if not! Here I am, wanting to fight for some extra benefits for everyone because we¡¯re colleagues.¡±

    ¡°Then you can just outright give it away!¡± Hou Xiaochen curved his lips in a half smile.

    ¡°I¡¯d like to, but Silver Moon martial masters are not the sort to ept handouts. I know everyone and understand everyone. People won¡¯t be able to ept something that I hand out for free. It will leave an internal demon in their hearts!¡±

    <i>No it won¡¯t! </i>The group roared internally. <i>It won¡¯t create internal demons, you can just give it to us!</i>

    But how could they voice those sentiments after Li Hao spoke those words? Were they supposed to be so thick-skinned as to say that they loved handouts? It wasn¡¯t like they were all He Yong...

    Ahem, He Yong wouldn¡¯t take handouts either. He would fight for another so long as he was paid.

    Hou Xiaochen had nothing to say. What was he supposed to say to that?

    ¡°Right, Commander Li is right.¡± Mu Lin smiled awkwardly. ¡°Our brothers aren¡¯t like that. Wee by our gains only after putting forth the required effort. We should adhere to this spirit of ancient martial dao!¡±

    ¡°You hear it too, director.¡± Li Hao spread his hands with resignation. ¡°So... can I not give thought to everyone¡¯s heart of martial dao?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at him for a very long time. ¡°You can just give it to me...¡±

    ¡°It would be a waste on the director!¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°Mysterious power stones aren¡¯t of much use to you and they wouldn¡¯t be converted to battle strength in the short term. We need time, but we happen to be short on time!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen wanted nothing more than to roll his eyes!<i> This little bastard¡¯s trying to steal my Guards!</i>

    His thoughts flew rapidly and he said slowly aftering to some conclusions, ¡°Are you really going to establish a Skystar Commander Office?¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Li Hao blinked. ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that yourself, director?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen was truly speechless. <i>That¡¯s what I said, but I didn¡¯t mean to actually establish a ce. I just wanted to hang my hat somewhere. So it sounds like you¡¯re really going to conduct an epic undertaking and not leave after that?</i>

    ¡°I am currently focused on being alert against certain powerhouses,¡± he said after a while. ¡°I do not have sufficient time to oversee this. The nine ministries and royal family will show certain upheaval in the days toe...¡±

    He looked at Mu Lin and the rest, searching his thoughts again. ¡°If they are willing... it is fine that they join your Demon Hunters. But you must promise one thing...¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°You cannot needlessly send them to their deaths.¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at Li Hao. ¡°You are too much in the public eye, which is both a good and a bad thing. At the moment, however, your strength isn¡¯t enough to support your arrogance. You can run away if you encounter danger, but they aren¡¯t able to!¡±

    It was actually a great idea for these people to follow Li Hao. The young man had money, methods, and could teach them the true path to Summoner of Spirit. The road that Hou Xiaochen and the rest walked was not suited for universal adoption. It was a way meant for elites! Only the greatest among martial masters could learn it, whereas Li Hao had mentioned that it was possible to poprize Summoner of Spirit.

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t mind the young man trying to steal his people, just that the boy made enemies too quickly. He could get away, but the Silver Moon Guards could not.

    ¡°You have operated by yourself thus far and have no ties concerning you apart from your master. You are brazen and unscrupulous. A true general, Li Hao, does not abandon hisrades! You led troops in Silver Moon, if only a few dozen of them. But you had them stay in Silver Moon, likely because you know full well how dangerous your enemies are...

    ¡°When you really lead one thousand, you must remember that they are people, martial masters,rades, and colleagues. They¡¯re not just your subordinates or tools. Therefore, you must consider their safety and future. This might be a limitation ced on you!¡±

    Would it be good or bad?

    ¡°You worry about too much, director!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I understand things quite well that in this day and age, we have to put everything on the line in order to break free of our ce in society. If we wish to do something or be outstanding, then full effort is required! They cane if they wish to take this risk and put in hard work, or they can decide not to.

    ¡°I will consider them when possible, but I am not a nanny. Risks are inevitable in our line of work. If I lose, I will do my best to arrange a way out for everyone. But if the situation is impossible, I might run away...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen frowned slightly at him.

    ¡°This is putting our lives on the line to fight for our future!¡± Li Hao remarked calmly. ¡°I don¡¯t know what the future holds or if the path ahead is this dark, and I also don¡¯t know what will happen to me in the future. It might be good, it might be bad. A general achieves his sess on a mountain of ten thousand bleached skeletons! People will eventually die, director. It¡¯s up to everyone to see if it was worth it!¡±

    The young man turned to the martial masters. ¡°Martial masters are carefree in Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. They are unrestrained in both manner and style of living. They also pursue strength, but martial masters also have motivation. We can give it a try if there¡¯s motivation, but leave it behind if you are afraid of death!¡±

    It was deathly quiet on the premises. Hou Xiaochen looked at Li Hao for a while before saying, ¡°Everyone is free to make their own decisions, I will not interfere! You cannot be a deserter since Silver Moon invested a great deal for everyone¡¯s current aplishments. But if you wish to be a Demon Hunter and join the Skystar Commander Office, there is no problem with that.¡±

    ¡°Everyone can do as they see fit!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°I won¡¯t force anyone to join me. The heart is the most important and nothing forcefully done is agreeable. For instance, I wouldn¡¯t agree to it if Manager Yu wanted to join me right now...¡±

    Manager Yu blinked, looked at Li Hao, then at Hou Xiaochen. She kept her eyes fixed on thetter. <i>Never!</i>

    The assembly held in theirughter. Hou Xiaochen was extremely speechless. They were talking about proper business, but that little bastard just had to touch on Little Yu. What did he mean by that?

    ¡°You handle those nobles first!¡± Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t want to continue the conversation.

    ¡°No problem!¡± Li Haoughed heartily. He could now freely stand in front of Hou Xiaochen and talk with ease. This was a kind of confidence and a sign that he knew his true heart.

    When he decided to leave Silver Moon and visit Skystar City, he¡¯d felt that he didn¡¯t need to fear anything. Whether it was danger or death, his heart saw the path ahead.

    <i>I know that I should probably do something, so there is no need for me to be afraid. If I can face myself and my original intentions, then I have no need to fear anyone. When even death does not give rise to fear, what else can I be afraid of?</i>

    <i>Nothing at all!</i>

    <i>Perhaps it is as you said, teacher. There is no need to consider what other people may be thinking. It is enough if I want to take action.</i>

    Everyone had their own path to walk. Living a carefree life of freedom and taking revenge in a dashing manner was one such way. <i>But perhaps I, Li Hao, want to leave something behind in this process. Maybe there will be those who remember the great Li Hao of Silver Moon!</i>

    Perhaps the leader of the ninth troop of Battle Heaven would no longer assess him with such poor marks the next time they saw each other. Perhaps he could stand up straight the next time he saw Hong Yitang and casually tell him that, ¡°Little Hong, you won¡¯t do. You shrink in on yourself and cower within Silver Moon. I have seen the world and still retain a clear sense of self after my travels. This isn¡¯t a revenge plot or a rescue mission. My heart is turned to the light¡ªkilling others or hatred didn¡¯t send me to hell.¡±

    How proud he was of that!

    ......

    Li Hao walked forward with pride, moving as if a dragon or tiger. He was no longer the timid and cautious innocent hidden in the shadows. There seemed to be a ferocious tiger superimposed on his body. A tiger bounded through the mountain forests, loftily overlooking the mountain ranges around it.

    Hou Xiaochen was watching him. He¡¯d been watching for a while and uncertain of how to describe the feelings in his heart. Li Hao had changed so incredibly much in one short month. He¡¯d tried to persuade the young man toe with him to the central region. Li Hao had spent a long time thinking about it, grappling with the idea before ultimately deciding to stay.

    Hou Xiaochen had been slightly disappointed, but also resigned. Yet, here Li Hao was a monthter, and he seemed to be someone entirely different. The man suddenly felt rather lost.

    Manager Yu was watching Li Hao as well and said softly, ¡°He seems like someone...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen blinked. <i>Who?</i>

    ¡°Yuan Shuo! Yuan Shuo of twenty years ago...¡± Manager Yu said softly. ¡°This was how he was then, iparably domineering and running rampant through the world. Perhaps his strength wasn¡¯t the greatest beneath the heavens, but he dared challenge heroes from the four corners! He felt that a man should be without fear in both life and death. Master and disciple are bing ever simr to each other!¡±

    <i>Yuan Shuo?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen blinked, thinking back on things. Was that so? He¡¯d almost forgotten the old man. Had Yuan Shuo been like this back in the day?

    ¡°Ah, he has something else that Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t have...¡± Manager Yu continued.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°He... looks a bit better than Yuan Shuo...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen blinked, staring at her. ¡°Who do you think looks better, me or Ying Hongyue?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Manager Yu looked at him with confusion and surprise. The director... was crazy, was he not?

    <i>You¡¯re obviously not as good looking as him...</i>

    ¡°The director is masculine and he is feminine, so of course he¡¯s less than the director!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen thought silently for a bit. Was that so? <i>But... if I remember correctly, I was called Sickly. Everyone said that Sickly was unmatched when it came to feminine qualities, so when did I be masculine?</i>

    <i>This response is so fake!</i>

 Chapter 665: That Person Is Too Crazy! (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 665: That Person Is Too Crazy! (IV)</h4>

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao once more returned to Night Watcher headquarters. One of the moderately sized buildings in the back, equipped with arge yard, was stuffed full of people. It was over capacity and guarded by only a few Night Watchers. They looked at Li Hao respectfully when they saw the young man.

    There were a lot of people in the yard¡ªthey were very fearful of Li Hao when he came into view.

    ¡°May we go, Commander Li?¡± someone asked urgently. It was daybreak and they¡¯d been kept here for a day. It was one thing to go without food or water, but many of them stunk. There was no ce to take a shower or change clothing. They couldn¡¯t even relieve themselves because there were too many people present.

    It was a hodgepodge of disgusting smells and a lifestyle that some noble misses had never experienced before. They were on the verge of a mental copse¡ªthey covered their faces or wrapped their heads with clothing. If anyone smelled them and then recognized them, they wouldn¡¯t want to live.

    It was an exceedingly difficult task to examine the particrs of several thousand people. Not to mention, Li Haocked aplete intelligence system. Some of them had volunteered information, but who would paint themselves in a wicked light?

    They couldn¡¯t continue holding several thousand people here, however.

    ¡°I need to make an example out of some of you,¡± Li Hao cut straight to the chase. ¡°I¡¯ve just arrived and it¡¯s difficult to find one¡¯s footing in Skystar City. Whether it¡¯s Four Seas Company or the Skystar Colosseum, those concepts are too far removed from ordinary people. They¡¯re not enough to make my name known throughout the world and establish my authority!

    ¡°I¡¯m someone who speaks whatever¡¯s on my mind. If I kill all of you, I¡¯m certain to execute some innocents. But if I kill nine out of every ten, some evil will still walk free!¡±

    Eyes widened at his words.

    ¡°I can¡¯t be bothered to examine all of your backgrounds, so you do it yourselves!¡± he dered coldly. ¡°There are four thousand of you here, choose one hundred for me to publicly behead as an example! All of you are from great families and have the requisite channels,bor, and resources to choose.

    ¡°Select one hundred¡ªand not just people from the Colosseum or regr people from the Four Seas Company. I want one hundred nobles! I want certain evidence why they should be killed! The kind where evidence and witnesses are present, in which the information is soplete that a single nce brings understanding why this person should die!

    ¡°I will then drag them to the marketce to chop off their heads. The rest of you can go home after that!¡±

    ¡°......¡± There was a split second of silence before the screams started.

    ¡°You¡¯re going to kill us?!¡±

    ¡°Remember, I¡¯m killing just one hundred! The evidence needs to be clear and real, don¡¯t think of forging it. I can¡¯t be bothered to verify all of what you guys say, but I have my ways of looking into one hundred people. You guys choose the candidates yourself. I will not be involved. If you can¡¯t select one hundred, then you¡¯ll all stay here. Let¡¯s see if your backgrounds are good enough to get you out alive!¡±

    Some people¡¯s mouths dropped with dismay and some gasped with horror. Li Hao was so vicious as to make them choose themselves!

    Mu Xiaorong couldn¡¯t help herself anymore and gabbled, ¡°You... this makes us offend one hundred families...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Li Hao nodded with a smile. ¡°Have you only just discovered that?¡±

    ¡°Do you know that this will...¡±

    ¡°Mean that I offend one hundred families as well?¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I¡¯m not afraid! They cane for my head if they have the guts to! You¡¯re the ones who chose the victims, I wasn¡¯t set on killing them. Also, killing them is a consequence of them breaking thew. There is reason for their deaths. If you don¡¯t choose and wait for my investigations toplete, then there may be more than one hundred dead in the end. Some of you still won¡¯t make it out at the end of the day!¡±

    Terror, fury, and killing intent rose from the prisoners!

    Li Hao was an absolute madman! It was one thing for him to offend people, but he wanted to drag them down with him! If they made their selections, the families associated with the one hundred would certainly hate Li Hao, but they might even hate the survivors more!

    <i>Why is it my son, my daughter that is dead, and not you guys?! Why was my child pushed out to be a scapegoat?!</i>

    Any with sharper wits about them knew what kind of storm was toe. Color drained from their faces and some people almost couldn¡¯t stand straight.

    ¡°Commander Li... in this case... the smaller families... won¡¯t dare... defy the greater families...¡± someone warbled with panic.

    ¡°The evidence must be there,¡± Li Hao responded firmly. ¡°If you are a good person and the bigger families unjustly wrong you, then I¡¯ll seek justice for you! But if you are a bad person, then it doesn¡¯t matter what kind of family youe from. Viins should be executed, there is no issue with that.

    ¡°All I can say is that some might slip through the cracks in this process toe, that those even more evil than you guys might survive. That¡¯s fine, with one incidentes a second. Those of you who walk out of the Night Watcher headquarters should watch yourselves. Pray that you don¡¯t bump into me while I¡¯m alive or it¡¯ll still be your day of reckoning!¡±

    ¡°Are you that unafraid of death, Commander Li?¡± Fear of death shed through someone¡¯s eyes while they spoke in stern terms. ¡°In all these years, no one¡¯s dared to kill one hundred nobles at once in Skystar City or even the entire dynasty!¡±

    ¡°Now there is!¡± Li Hao pointed at himself with a radiant smile. ¡°I dare! So you can stop threatening me. I¡¯ll return all of your transmission pendants in a bit so you can contact your family, parents, and others. Find evidence for me to chop off one hundred heads¡ªunless I die before that. You can also have your families send Arcanus toe kill me. It¡¯s fine if they don¡¯t, but I¡¯m really looking forward to Arcanus assassins!¡±

    The assembly froze. <i>Send Arcanus to kill him!</i> Li Hao¡¯s cockiness was on full disy andpletely unmatched. Mu Xiaorong gave up on all hope and said nothing further. She only sighed; there was likely nothing that could be done to stop the young man.

    <i>Arcanus?</i>

    At this current point in time, where were there Arcanus willing to take such a risk? And how many coulde? Li Hao was so conceited that he probably had certain reason and confidence to be so! Who was willing to stick their neck out first?

    The Ministry of Finance had given up and the three great organizations didn¡¯t dare brashly enter the royal capital. They were also wary of underhanded retaliation from the nine ministries. The nine ministries and royal family countered each other, so how was one supposed to produce enough Arcanus to kill Li Hao?

    Thus, Mu Xiaorong clearly understood that there was nothing stopping Li Hao from chopping off these heads! And the key was, he was borrowing their hands to kill these people. Once their transmission pendants were returned and their messages transmitted, Skystar City would fall into massive chaos. If the various families could not eliminate Li Hao, then their thoughts would turn to who should die. <i>Anyone can do, just not my children!</i>

    Good friends could turn on each other!

    Many in the crowd were already swaying on their feet, their faces pale with horror. They knew what scandalous blemishes marked their record and that their families may not be able to protect them. There were many families here stronger than theirs.

    In these circumstances, everyone would offer up those from smaller families first. That wouldn¡¯t affect the rest as much. It wasn¡¯t the patriarch of a family being beheaded, just a son or a daughter. In the presence of concrete evidence, people wouldn¡¯t care if the person in question died. This was the choice that minimized losses the most.

    Some knew they were about to die, so they grunted through furiously clenched teeth, ¡°Will Commander Li dare kill Mu Xiaorong if she¡¯s one of the names put forward?¡±

    ¡°Vote!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°If she¡¯s among the one hundred and there¡¯s indisputable evidence for her crimes, I will behead her first for the rest of you to see! I¡¯ll hack at her father and grandfather if theye too. Do you believe me when I say I¡¯d like to see how many Arcanus there are in the Ministry of Internal Affairs?¡±

    ¡°......¡± No one responded to him.

    Mu Xiaorong was as pale as a sheet before suddenly smiling. ¡°I¡¯m not afraid of this, Commander Li! True nobles may not be the evildoers and vitors of thew as you think. You¡¯re right, the innocent have nothing to fear!¡±

    Li Hao snorted and didn¡¯t think much of what she said. He tossed out some transmission pendants and turned to leave.

    ¡°Three days,¡± his voice came back upon the wind. ¡°You have three days at most. I want results after that! If there are none after three days, it may be more than one hundred who die. Think on it carefully!¡±

    Li Hao left. Shouts, curses, and roars of fury exploded from the yard behind him. Some even tried to make a break for it! But they couldn¡¯t as they discovered that the number of Night Watchers had suddenly increased exponentially around them.

    These Night Watchers who¡¯d feared them before seemed to be different today. Some visibly exulted in schadenfreude, others ground their teeth in anger, and some more... fearfully looked at Li Hao in the distance. They didn¡¯t dare let anyone go. Li Hao had said that one of them would be buried for each person they let go, so who would dare do anything for their prisoners?

    ......

    Skystar City exploded with reaction when news traveled through the noble families.

    ¡°Crazy!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s seriously crazy!¡±

    ¡°Does this animal want to be enemies with the entire dynasty??¡±

    ¡°No, my daughter can¡¯t die. She hasn¡¯t done anything wrong and this has nothing to do with our family. It¡¯s other people at fault, so why do they hold my daughter??¡±

    ¡°We need to plead our cases at the nine ministries and royal family. Li Hao can¡¯t be allowed to do this!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    It took only a moment, but the entire city truly shook in the wake of the news. Further information circted as too many knew the particrs, they couldn¡¯t be concealed. It was almost on the same day that the tens of million residents of Skystar City learned of the news as well. They were all stunned beyond belief!

    The Skystar Commander Office would publicly execute one hundred guilty nobles after three days¡ªone hundred!

    Heavens above!

    Could nobles be... executed?

    News that Demon Sword Li Hao, Skystar Commander Li Hao, would be executing one hundred nobles was more shocking than the demise of the Four Seas Company and Skystar Colosseum. Li Hao was the only topic in the marketce on this day.

    ¡°This Skystar Duke is too brash. There won¡¯t be a good ending in store for him if he kills nobles!¡±

    ¡°There haven¡¯t been many nobles arrested in the past decades, to say nothing of being beheaded!¡±

    ¡°This isn¡¯t real, is it? Maybe they¡¯re just saying this. The nobles have so much power, would he really dare do that?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s best if he dares! Killing them is for the good! Those bastards havemitted so many crimes, they all deserve death!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s easy to speak of, are you going to kill them yourself? If you do, I say this Skystar Duke will probably die himself!¡±

    ¡°Ai, it¡¯s hard being a good person. The nobles grasp the reins of power in the dynasty. This northern savage is really... really... too brash! Killing two or three would do, but killing so many... What a pity!¡±

    ¡°Northern savage" wasn¡¯t used in a derogatory way in this moment. It was simply punctuated with some regret and pity. The people did not think well of one person going against the entire ruling ss. They felt that Li Hao would not be long for this world.

    The news spread in all directions. It might be Li Hao¡¯s moment of death in three days, not these nobles.

 Chapter 666: Not Looking For Anything (I)

    <h4>Chapter 666: Not Looking For Anything (I)</h4>

    The world shook when the news spread. Li Hao¡¯stest actions were more reprehensible than his elimination of the Four Seas Company. This wasn¡¯t just a matter of killing one hundred people. If he wanted to kill people, the various institutions wouldn¡¯t mind it if he destroyed an entire city!

    The strong had such privilege¡ªhe possessed that privilege now.

    However, killing nobles¡ªno matter how minor or major, no matter how many, and a public beheading at that, was an upheaval of ss. That was exceedingly deplorable! This meant that the authority of the ruling echelon might be overturned! Everyone would know afterward that there was no difference between the emperor or a peasantmitting a crime!

    Before that, even though the royal family had retreated behind the curtains and the nine ministries formed, there was no such thing as sentencing nobles for their crimes. The Steadfast Duke¡¯s brazen initiative to lob city annihtion missiles had only resulted in a demotion.

    Hou Xiaochen had killed the Steadfast Duke¡¯s younger brother in private, giving rise to rumors that circted among the nobles. Where Li Hao was most terrifying was that he wanted to behead his victims in public!

    ......

    <i>The Avenues of the Nine Ministries.</i>

    Every ministry was packed with people. A crowd of aged nobles knelt on the ground, howling and wailing with outrage.

    ¡°We cannot let this northern savage publicly execute the descendants of various families! He can kill them all if he wants, but in private! He can use them to establish his authority if he wishes, but he cannot pass judgment on them and execute them in front of crowds!

    ¡°Minister, this is a subversion of authority and a sign of the dynasty toppling!¡± A grief-stricken old man presented a petition requesting that nobles could not be judged and sentenced in public. The world would be thrown into disarray!

    Li Hao could kill people if he wanted to, but he couldn¡¯t do so openly. It would be enough that everyone knew he killed a few of them in private. Whether it was out of intention to intimidate his enemies or to cut down some people against him, it didn¡¯t matter.

    But this time, the young man thoroughly encroached on their bottom line. When this happened, the nobles would no longer be able to maintain their dignity, authority, and privilege.

    So it turned out that nobles could also be sentenced and die! Their heads weren¡¯t prettier than the rest when they hit the ground. Li Hao was breaking through the blockades of the heart! The nobles themselves also knew that once this happened, everyone would realize that the ruling ss could be overthrown!

    It would pull down a wall in the hearts of the people, a barrier that they should not cross!

    ......

    <i>The Ministry of Finance.</i>

    Liu Yunqing had wanted to go into closed door cultivation, but opened his eyes when he heard the wailing outside. It came from more than one ministry¡ªit originated from all nine. There were even people kneeling in front of the pce with petitions upheld.

    Li Hao could not be permitted to seed. The dynasty would be over otherwise!

    A cold sneer appeared in the depths of Liu Yunqing¡¯s eyes¡ªa sarcastic bent. <i>I¡¯d thought that I¡¯d need to wait for a very long time, but it seems that the other nine ministries will be regretting their actions today. They¡¯ll see that they shouldn¡¯t have permitted Li Hao to have his way yesterday!</i>

    Liu Yunqing leered and gave no reaction. He didn¡¯t say a word or appear in front of the crowds. What did it have to do with him? No one said anything when the Ministry of Finance lost so many powerhouses, but now they were in a rush?

    ¡°I knew it, the kid wouldn¡¯t rest easy after that. If he dares ignore royal power and act against us, then he¡¯ll also dare turn this world upside down. Just wait and see!¡± Liu Yunqing snorted and chose to turn a blind eye.

    Let the world wail itself to exhaustion, let those old men cry their eyes out!

    ......

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    The inspector general didn¡¯t seem as excited or happy today as he was yesterday. Sobs and shrieks echoed outside while Yellow Dragon raged inside.

    ¡°Inspector General, Li Hao ispletely insane with this move! He wants to drag the Inspectorate and Night Watchers down with him! It¡¯s one thing to destroy the Four Seas Company and Skystar Colosseum like he did yesterday, but now he wants to publicly execute one hundred nobles! He¡¯s even arrested thousands of them! He¡¯s... an absolute lunatic!

    ¡°I want to depose him from his position of Skystar vicemander. Didn¡¯t he say that this was his right?!¡± Yellow Dragon shouted with veins bulging in his forehead. ¡°Then I¡¯ll remove that right from him! He will implicate the entire Inspectorate and Night Watchers when he ughters innocents. He¡¯s too selfish!¡±

    Everyone was as quiet as could be; no one said a word. Even the inspector general was reserved¡ªhe would¡¯ve censured Yellow Dragon in times before when the man raged like this. At this moment, he hesitated.

    He knew that Li Hao¡¯s group was unbridled and arrogant, but he truly hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would choose to execute hundreds of nobles in public. This matter could be big, and it could be small. If it was big, this matter was a subversion of two hundred years of dynasticw and rule.

    <i>Revolution!</i>

    That was the term that came to the mind of the well-educated inspector general. Li Hao was conducting a revolution. He was bringing about the downfall of the bourgeois and privileged.

    All of them, including the young man himself, were part of this social ss. As a peacemakermissioner and proposed-to-be deputy director of the Night Watchers, Li Hao himself was a noble. The royal family had also just made him the Skystar Duke.

    <i>Does the royal family regret their actions? </i>The inspector generalughed. Perhaps they did. They wanted to use him to suppress the nine ministries, but the first thing he did was something that would make the royal family draw back in horror as well.

    ¡°Sir!¡± Yellow Dragon couldn¡¯t help but chide when he saw his superior officer suddenlyugh.<i> I¡¯m talking here¡ªare we removing him or not? Tell me outright.</i> ¡°You see it too, sir. Nobles are gathered at the doors of the nine ministries and royal pce. These people are the key to maintaining the dynasty¡¯s operations. The nation will fall if anything happens to them!

    ¡°Li Hao isn¡¯t using his brain at all!¡± Yellow Dragon frowned. ¡°That¡¯s exactly how brutes are. He doesn¡¯t understand it¡¯s not that the Night Watchers refuse to take action, but we cannot be so impetuous! We need to take things one step at a time. Once hearts shake from terror after the nobles are dead, it won¡¯t be long before the entire dynasty copses!¡±

    Some agreed with his words, while others sighed, ¡°That¡¯s right. The Inspectorate wishes to go all out in improving ourselves and also wants to strictly enforce thew, but has Li Hao given thought to what he should do when he rocks the world with his actions?¡±

    Despite benefitting from the young man¡¯s actions before, the Inspectorate also found Li Hao¡¯s radical methods to be inappropriate now.

    ¡°Inspector general, people will easily think that we¡¯re secretly supporting Li Hao. Where else would he get the courage to do something like this?¡±

    ¡°His position of Skystar vicemander needs to be reconsidered. He won¡¯t have the authority to conduct himself like this once he is removed!¡± There were those who approved of the young man¡¯s actions, and those who disapproved. It was too difficult to truly ept responsibility for this.

    ¡°Ole Yao, what do you say?¡± the inspector general said slowly when he looked at the distracted Yao Si.

    It was only then that Yao Si seemed to awake from his reverie with the big teacup. ¡°What did you say?¡± he asked blearily.

    The inspector general nearly rolled his eyes. ¡°You¡¯re the one who gave him the position of Skystar vicemander. The entire office of the Skystarmander is an internal Night Watcher contraption. It does note under the Inspectorate umbre. We approve of the principal appointment whereas you determine the secondary ones. So I ask you, how do you view Li Hao¡¯s matter!¡±

    He exined himself a bit more because he had a lot of thoughts in mind, but didn¡¯t find any of them particrly appropriate. Otherwise, with his personality, he wouldn¡¯t have asked Yao Si. Clearly, he had his doubts.

    Do they continue?

    Li Hao¡¯s actions might bring a lot of authority to the Inspectorate and even help the institution fully find its footing to set its cap as the greatest ministry, but it also brought a lot of trouble down on the Inspectorate¡¯s head!

    He¡¯d approved of and supported the young man before this. Though he didn¡¯t say so openly, he promoted Li Hao while demoting the Steadfast Duke. Regardless of whether or not it was in pursuit of strengthening the Inspectorate, it bestowed support to Li Hao¡¯s faction.

    But now, he hesitated. This was a revolution, one that would cost him in his life!

    Yao Si didn¡¯t seem to be fully focused on the meeting at hand. ¡°It¡¯s just the execution of one hundred wrongdoers...¡± he responded in a rather... senile manner after a long moment. ¡°So they die, what¡¯s the matter when there are so many nobles?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s <i>not</i> just a matter of killing one hundred people,¡± Yellow Dragon immediately rebutted with dissatisfaction. ¡°He can do so privately or for different reasons. Nothing will be a problem so long as he doesn¡¯t openly execute them. It¡¯s not like the dynastycks for nobles.

    ¡°Does the director not see things clearly in your old age or think that the matter doesn¡¯t have to do with you? You shouldn¡¯t have given him the position of Skystar vicemander! You also signed the order without saying anything! Why didn¡¯t we have a meeting about it? I only learned after the fact that Li Hao had be vicemander!

    ¡°It¡¯s clear to see that I didn¡¯t think much about it.¡± Yao Si smiled and coughed gently. ¡°Hou Xiaochen isn¡¯t weak and he had someone send over a document. I¡¯m old, is there a need to start a feud with him?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s just an outsider, you could¡¯ve pushed it all to me, director,¡± Yellow Dragon snapped irritably. ¡°What are you afraid of him for?¡±

    Yao Si breathed out gently and looked around the gathering, ignoring Yellow Dragon¡¯s impertinence. He whispered to the inspector general, ¡°Do you want to remove Li Hao from his position? That can be done as well. However, the arrow is notched and we have finally increased our authority after so long. If we switch out Li Hao now, I¡¯m afraid we¡¯ll have even less dignity than before when the dust settles.

    ¡°Ole Huang makes sense,¡± the old man continued slowly. ¡°But he also forgets that our current positiones from the Inspectorate and Night Watchers. If we remove Li Hao now, that also means we hand over the authority to enforce thew to someone else. We would be offering it up with both hands.¡±

    Yao Si spoke softly without the intent to censor anyone. He simply rambled slowly.

 Chapter 667: Not Looking For Anything (II)

    <h4>Chapter 667: Not Looking For Anything (II)</h4>

    ¡°Even if we don¡¯t fully agree with Li Hao¡¯s actions, we¡¯re not in a good position to oppose them. Opposing Li Hao is opposing ourselves. If even the Night Watchers and Inspectorate don¡¯t support our own, what will outsiders think of us?¡± Yao Si coughed for a while before continuing with a slight smile. ¡°It¡¯s just an execution of one hundred juniors who¡¯ve broken thew. It¡¯s not that serious. You¡¯ve elevated it to a level too high! So long as we are justified and have evidence, nothing is a problem when thew is on our side. What do you think, inspector general?¡±

    The inspector general looked at him with a glint in his eye.

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand, director!¡± Yellow Dragon agitated. ¡°Not to mention, there¡¯s no need to exin this much when ites to removing Li Hao. There are so many people in this world who want his head. People will only apud us, who will question us?¡±

    ¡°At the very least...¡± Yao Si hesitated, ¡°at the very least, some civilians in Skystar City will question us...¡±

    ¡°Director...¡± Yellow Dragon started before snorting withughter. ¡°You think too much! It¡¯s just a bunch of peasants! What do their words count for??¡±

    Was Yao Si losing his mind in his old age? On one side was the inconsequential questioning of ordinary people, on the other were the protestations of the other eight ministries and possibly even the royal family. What was he even talking about??

    Was he using his brain?? The old thing was getting more befuddled in his old age!

    Yao Si took a deep look at this deputy director and inclined his head. He smiled, but said nothing further. Instead, he lifted his tea cup with an inscrutable expression.

    Yellow Dragon thought that the old man had been won over by his logic from the reaction. He looked at the inspector general again. ¡°I think we should take care of Li Hao first before the matter blows up in our faces. It¡¯s best to take out even Hou Xiaochen, or the problems will be severe!¡±

    The inspector general remained silent for a bit before saying, ¡°Let us just observe the developments!¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°I said we will observe!¡± The man frowned. ¡°Are you deaf? You make sense and so does Ole Yao. We are caught between a rock and a hard ce, with neither course of action being appropriate. In that case, we shall observe and leave it to Li Hao and the rest to handle their own problems. They can respond of their own ord. Is something wrong with your ears?¡±

    Yellow Dragon¡¯s heart jolted with shock and surprise. He wanted to break out in curses! <i>You¡¯re the one who summoned everyone for a discussion, so aren¡¯t I discussing? Why are you picking at me instead??</i>

    The man said nothing further. It was likely that the inspector general would fly into an all-out rage if he continued talking.

    The inspector general rose and heaved a slightly disdainful sigh. ¡°Forget it, I stand by what I said. Either tell me when Li Hao executes one hundred nobles or tell me when he¡¯s dead...¡±

    He said those words to Xu Qing at theirst meeting, and now he repeated them. His deration drew internal grumbles from the assembly. What did their superior officer mean? It wasn¡¯t a good decision to wash their hands of the matter at a time like this.

    Sometimes, staying neutral was the most frightful decision. There were no benefits to be had whether the situation turned out to be a win or a loss. Was the inspector general growing confusedtely?

    The others didn¡¯t have a chance to say anything before Yao Si rose with tea mug in hand and turned to leave. A frowning Yellow Dragon feltpelled to catch up to his superior. ¡°Sir, although the inspector general¡¯s given his take on the situation, we still need to bring Li Hao under control!¡±

    Yao Si nodded with a smile.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s hold a meeting when we get back and coordinate our actions,¡± Yellow Dragon continued upon seeing the old man¡¯s reaction. ¡°What do you say, director?¡±

    ¡°Whatever you wish.¡± Yao Si continued walking forward. He lifted his head to see someone majestically striding toward them. Yellow Dragon looked in the relevant direction as well. Uniformed inspectors on both sides immediately fell silent when they saw the neer. The entire Inspectorate seemed to turn quiet, deathly quiet.

    The inspector general on his way out also stopped and looked back. Someone was making his way to the lobby, a dog by his side. No longer dressed in theical trench coat and top hat, or holding the staff, he wore only silver armor with a sword equipped at his waist.

    At the door, Li Hao announced himself without looking at Yellow Dragon. ¡°Li Hao of the Skystar Commander Office from the Night Watchers greets the inspector general!¡± he boomed. ¡°We eliminated the two poisonous nests of the Four Seas Company and Skystar Colosseum yesterday. As a result, we seized a great deal of illicit money and I havee to deliver it. There are five hundred thousand mysterious power stones, five drops of Water of Life, and ten origin weapons!¡±

    His voice echoed through the premises, drawing looks from everyone in the Inspectorate.

    Yellow Dragon frowned and looked at the young man. The distance between the two was very close, so he muttered frostily, ¡°Li Hao, this matter needs to undergo Night Watcher approval first...¡±

    Li Hao tilted his head at the man and shouted angrily, ¡°Get out of my way!¡±

    Yellow Dragon blinked with astonishment!

    ¡°Is there room for you to speak here?!¡± Li Hao rebuked. ¡°The Skystar Commander Office is under the jurisdiction of only Director Yao and the Inspectorate! Who do you think you are to point fingers at us??¡±

    ¡°......¡± A livid Yellow Dragon red hotly at the young man.

    Li Hao looked coolly back at him and also muttered, ¡°Don¡¯t stick your nose where it doesn¡¯t belong. The more you jump around in front of me, the more I¡¯ll make sure I kill you before I die! You¡¯re just a metamorphosis, I¡¯m not afraid of whoever stands behind you. Be careful of dying without aplete corpse if you continue to poke at what you shouldn¡¯t offend!¡±

    Yellow Dragon¡¯s face shifted rapidly through a variety of expressions. He sneered after a moment and didn¡¯t make another sound. <i>And let¡¯s see how much longer </i>you<i> can jump around! When the heavens wish to end a person, they will drive them to the heights of ignorance first! </i>Li Hao waspletelywless and godless!

    ¡°Trash!¡± A disdainful snort echoed upon the air¡ªit came from Li Hao!

    An exceedingly unpleasant expression hung on Yellow Dragon¡¯s face as he stalked off. There was no need to say anything else. Li Hao was out of control with how cocky he was. As for the war spoils... it was up to the Inspectorate to see if they epted it or not.

    Li Hao possibly had a few ideas in mind with his delivery of the loot. If the Inspectorate epted it, that meant they tacitly agreed to certain things. If they didn¡¯t, then the ministry didn¡¯t agree.

    Yellow Dragon waited for the Inspectorate¡¯s response as he walked. There were many people kneeling within the main za outside the building. They were all waiting for something and quite a few looked at Li Hao with eyes full of hate.

    However, no one dared kick up a fuss. Li Hao was too brazen! Even Yellow Dragon had been hectored in such a manner. If they roused the young man¡¯s temper with their words, it would be such a loss if he killed them on a whim.

    Next to Li Hao, Yao Si briefly nced at the young man before walking off without a word. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something.

    <i>Inside the Inspectorate lobby.</i>

    The inspector general halted his footsteps and contemted something. The entire Inspectorate was eerily silent while they waited for response. Several long momentster, he dered faintly, ¡°Take the items to the storerooms!¡±

    Faces tightened with consternation!

    ¡°Li Hao has rendered exemry meritorious service and aplished great deeds upon his initial arrival at the Inspectorate,¡± the inspector general continued. ¡°He is hereby awarded one million mysterious power stones and one sky rank origin weapon. I am not feeling well today and am not at liberty to receive guests. We can discuss any matters on the morrow!¡±

    The assembly collectively blinked when they heard these words and vaguely grasped the inspector general¡¯s meaning. This was an exchange of roughly equal value!

    Five hundred thousand mysterious power stones and five drops of Water of Life were worth roughly one million stones. One sky rank origin weapon would only exceed the value of the ten that Li Hao had delivered.

    <i>I ept the items, but I return them to you again. I ept them because I approve of you eliminating two major organizations. But I bestow them to you again because I do not quite approve of you killing nobles.</i>

    <i>I neither support nor set myself against you. Come find me again if you survive. I will not speak to you today.</i>

    These simple words held a great deal of meaning.

    Li Hao smiled, not minding the oue. ¡°My thanks to the inspector general¡¯s bequeathment!¡±

    He turned and left instead of heading to the storerooms or truly handing in what he¡¯d collected. Since he¡¯d received rewards of equal value, then he just needed to register his gains, that was all. There was no need to make a trip on ount of this matter.

    He understood the Inspectorate¡¯s intentions¡ªthey intended to remain neutral!

    Some of the nobles kneeling on the ground outside the building rxed with relief. It was enough that the Inspectorate didn¡¯t condone Li Hao¡¯s actions. Granted, there were also those indignant because they felt that the institution should suppress the young man instead!

    ......

    <i>The lobby of the Inspectorate.</i>

    The inspector general sank into deep thought when he saw Li Hao walk off. The young man was... too forthright. He didn¡¯t insist on anything or voice any other words. He¡¯d simplye to show himself before leaving. Was this good or bad for the inspector general?

    ¡°Li Hao ignores the rules a bit too much!¡± someone grumbled.

    ¡°Then you go capture Li Hao,¡± mentioned the inspector general upon flicking a nce at the speaker. ¡°Teach him what the rules are. Go now, or I¡¯ll kill you!¡±

    The speaker nched with dismay. ¡°I... didn¡¯t mean it that way, inspector general...¡±

    ¡°Then what did you mean? That you have a big mouth? Don¡¯t you know how to shut it?¡± snapped the irritated man. ¡°Get out of here! I don¡¯t want to see any of those things outside either! I¡¯ll kill anyone who continues to annoy me! Out of sight, do you hear me?!¡±

    The speaker in front of him swiftly ran off. rmed expressions crossed the faces of the nobles outside as they quickly rose to leave. That one didn¡¯t have a good temper. He hadn¡¯t spoken before, but if they stayed now that he had, they might not be alive for much longer.

    The inspector general snorted after everyone was gone, then headed to the rear yard. The backyard of the Inspectorate was his home. No one darede, apart from his family.

    He walked through the various hallways and minor streets of the residentialplex until he came to a small house deep in the depths. Rather than a secret chamber, it was a small house open to ess. An old man was reading inside it.

    ¡°Tell me, old man, did I decide correctly or incorrectly?¡± agitated the inspector general.

    The old man turned to him with a smile. ¡°What?¡±

 Chapter 668: Not Looking For Anything (III)

    <h4>Chapter 668: Not Looking For Anything (III)</h4>

    ¡°Are you hard of hearing?!¡± The inspector general¡¯s anger was almost palpable. ¡°What¡¯s with the act, your ears are keener than mine! You¡¯re around one hundred years old, but slipped out to have a good time with prostitutes a few days ago. Do you really think I didn¡¯t see you?¡±

    ¡°You think too much, how would I ever do that?¡± the old man burst outughing.

    ¡°I thought that being neutral was a good idea since I¡¯m not afraid of anything.¡± The inspector general ignored the old man; he focused on his confusion around his decision. ¡°I fear neither Silver Moon nor other people. They¡¯re all inconsequential! But... Yao Si is a bit off today. This Li Hao... also seems highly assured of himself! Old man, where do you think his confidencees from? Will those of Silver Moon really pit themselves against the world for his sake?¡±

    The old man paged through some books and smiled. ¡°I don¡¯t know, I¡¯ve stayed out of these matters for many years. How would I know? But I¡¯vee to a few new revtions over the past years of perusing ancient tomes.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°To embrace Buddha¡¯s feet in one¡¯s hour of need¡ªto seek help in thest possible moment!¡±

    The inspector general had thought that the old man was about to impart some words of wisdom. He blinked. Was that it?

    ¡°As for where the Buddha¡¯s feet is, I don¡¯t know. But... we¡¯ll see in three days. I don¡¯t demand deeds of merit, but I do ask for no faults. See to things yourself after three days.¡±

    The inspector general thought for a bit before he nodded. ¡°Fair enough, so the old man has the benefit of some experience after all. I more or less understand what you mean. Very well then!¡±

    He said no more and turned to leave, but mentioned after further thought, ¡°Do you think Hou Xiaochen¡¯s made it to that step or not? Can he fully stabilize his cultivation?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, you can try him yourself or ask him.¡±

    ¡°Ridiculous!¡± cursed the inspector general. The old man liked to be mysterious in his old age! This was how he spoke all the time now, quite an irritating experience for anyone on the receiving end.

    Another thought urred to the inspector general in the midst of his annoyance and he suddenly smiled. ¡°It¡¯s fine, I know what to do now! Ah, right, don¡¯t go anywhere for the next couple of days. Something might happen in Skystar City and I¡¯ll need you to show your face and calm the situation in critical moments!¡±

    ¡°You make it sound like your father is only good as a tool...¡± the old man startedughing.

    ¡°I would be more polite if you didn¡¯t keep making younger siblings for me,¡± sneered the inspector general. ¡°You should take it easy at your age. My youngest brother is younger than my grandson! This is highly embarrassing!¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand,¡± sighed the old man. ¡°This is called listening to the heart. What is the true heart of martial dao? I have grasped some of it these years as well. It is to be carefree and unfettered. When I am free and unrestrained, I find heaven on earth. That is martial dao!¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± The inspector general quit the conversation and left. <i>Whatever you say. I won¡¯t deny anything you say.</i>

    The old man looked into the distance when he left and chuckled. ¡°A carp leaping over the dragon¡¯s gate has appeared in what was a quiet, noiseless ce. We were in a pool of stagnant water. There will be fun times ahead!¡±

    He looked outside with a slight furrow. <i>Yao Si... something was off about you today!</i>

    The Yao Si of twenty years ago was clearly emzoned on the minds of the older generation. That wasn¡¯t a man who spent his days hugging a tea mug. Yao Si back then had been an extremely domineering, cruel individual.

    Had he stabilized his cultivation level? He¡¯d be inscrutable to some after these five years.

    ......

    <i>Skystar City, the slums.</i>

    A group of children was engaged in heated discussion.

    ¡°That demon¡¯s going to chop off noble heads after three days! Are you guys going to watch?¡± eximed a kid with excitement.

    ¡°What should we watch for? Aren¡¯t you afraid of dying too? I¡¯ve also heard that the demon will be done for after three days because he dares chop off noble heads! They have a lot of strong guys and the demon is a northern savage. There¡¯s no one helping him here...¡±

    ¡°Didn¡¯t he just wipe out the Four Seas Company and Colosseum?¡±

    ¡°What good does that do?!¡± A child that was noticeably more fragile than the rest shook his head. ¡°You guys don¡¯t get it. The books say that this is an encroachment on fundamental interests. He¡¯ll be taking the first step in ss warfare! In the ancient times, this was the first step to political reform! Since the ancient times, those who initiate political reform die without being able to be buried. It¡¯s a horrible death!¡±

    ¡°Political reform? What¡¯s that?¡± asked a group of curious children. The fragile youngster smiled.

    ¡°I told you guys to read books, but you don¡¯t want to. Political reform is... it¡¯s... um... well, it¡¯s making it so that nobles aren¡¯t always nobles and gives hope to the rest of us. There is hope, there is light. It means that our generation and the one after ours have a chance to climb to the top or be solidly middle ss. They won¡¯t live like us¡ªpicking up trash, skulking through tiny alleyways, running small cons, trying to get a bite to eat...¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, you¡¯ve lost your brains after all that reading!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, your brains are gone! They have money, power, so many powerhouses, and generations of umtion. They¡¯re more noble than us from birth, how can we possibly catch up to them!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    ¡°Big sis Yu Qi, your brother¡¯s lost his brains from all that reading. Hit him!¡±

    ¡°......¡± A group of kidsughed raucously and called out to Yu Qi not too far in the distance. She was staring off into space.

    ¡°You¡¯re the ones who lost your brains from too much reading...¡± huffed the little girl with an upward jerk of her head. ¡°No, none of you guys know that many words, so what do you know! I don¡¯t understand some of what Yu Ming says either, but I know that if that strong guy really kills the nobles... then there¡¯s hope for us!¡±

    ¡°Is that so?¡±

    ¡°Should we go watch then?¡±

    ¡°But it might be really dangerous!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    The children chattered loudly among themselves before quickly changing the topic. They didn¡¯t have the same patience as adults might to continuously discuss the same subject. Their thoughts quickly turned to daydreams of flying through earth and sky as supernaturals and martial masters.

    The thin and weak Yu Ming walked over to his sister and sat down. ¡°Sis...¡± he whispered. ¡°This Demon Sword from the north is so ferocious!

    ¡°What a pity...¡± he then sighed. ¡°I took a spin around today and found that most people don¡¯t think too highly of his chances. He¡¯s so impulsive! The books say that matters must be pursued in an unhurried manner, that they can¡¯t be aplished in one go!

    ¡°This Demon Sword must not like to read. He doesn¡¯t know what the books say or that reading confers wisdom!¡±

    Yu Qi smacked his head. ¡°Don¡¯t talk in such an unlucky way! Not to mention, I heard people say that he was a student before, that he attended a university. He was apparently the student of an ancient academy...¡±

    ¡°Then it must be an ancient academy of the north, one without much cultural foundation to it.¡±

    Yu Qi red at him, but felt that her younger brother made sense upon further thought. The young man had been like a fool before and didn¡¯t even know how to take a taxi. Perhaps he didn¡¯t recognize that many characters, maybe the ancient halls of knowledge in the north really weren¡¯t worth much.

    ¡°That¡¯s right... I¡¯ve heard people say that his background is ordinary. What kind of decent education could he have received since he¡¯s not a noble? A lot of ancient academies have closed up shop around the dynasty. We used to have some chances before, but now even that has been snuffed out...¡± Yu Qi grumbled and finished in an inaudible voice, ¡°I hope he seeds. It¡¯s been so many years and no one like him.¡±

    ¡°Me too, but... sis... we shouldn¡¯t hold out hope,¡± Yu Qi answered just as quietly.

    ¡°I can¡¯t be bothered talking about it with you!¡± Yu Qi decided to ignore her brother and left the house.

    ¡°Sis, where are you going?¡±

    ¡°To earn money! What are we going to eat tomorrow if I don¡¯t earn more money? You spent 180 coins out of 200 to buy a bunch of paper scraps. I¡¯m so pissed! I¡¯m not giving you the money next time!¡±

    ¡°Sis, that¡¯s knowledge!¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡± Yu Qi cursed, already out the door. Yu Ming remained in a merry mood since he knew that his sister would still give him money next time she earned some.

    However, he sighed as he looked at the books behind him. He couldn¡¯t be so wasteful next time. He¡¯d been gripped by impulse yesterday and was familiar with the teacher who sold the books. The teacher was almost out on the streets and his family had nothing to eat. That was why Yu Ming had spent 180 coins to buy these books that¡¯d almost be waste paper.

    ¡°Demon Sword... does Demon Sword know what political reform is?¡± murmured the little boy. Perhaps he didn¡¯t and just wanted to kill people. <i>Oh big sis, don¡¯t hold out too much hope.</i>

    ......

    Skystar City agitated with a fury; so did the rest of the central region as news spread. Word even reached the four cardinal continents.

    Beheading nobles, one hundred of them! The story shocked every corner it reached. Everyone¡¯s eyes were gathered on the central region, on Skystar City.

    ......

    <i>Silver Moon, White Moon City.</i>

    Director General Zhao¡¯s expression shifted rapidly; Huang Yu sank into deep thought.

    Kong Jie¡¯s forehead was furrowed tightly and he said after a long moment, ¡°I was thinking he¡¯d be quiet for a few days, but now... Ole Zhao, do you think Ole Hou can protect him? Why doesn¡¯t he advise thed? He¡¯ll easily get himself into trouble with how he¡¯s proceeding...¡±

    The director general remained silent, focusing on the pen in his hand. He wrote and drew certain things¡ªno one knew what. Kong Jie began to fidget impatiently. It was so much effort talking to educated people sometimes!

    ¡°Do you have any ideas, Ole Huang?¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Huang Yu lifted his head with bafflement.

    ¡°I said that Li Hao must be in a lot of danger! He was already a public enemy to begin with, but people gave him chances because they were wary of certain things or rules. Not to mention, they were also on guard against each other. He can still find his footing if he withdraws now. Why must he create such an uproar?¡±

 Chapter 669: Not Looking For Anything (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 669: Not Looking For Anything (IV)</h4>

    ¡°I just feel that he really might be the death of himself,¡± Kong Jie sighed. ¡°With how he¡¯s proceeding and us being far away... Even if we were close at hand, we¡¯d have to fully unseal ourselves to be able to handle an Arcanus. We won¡¯t be able to do anything otherwise!¡±

    Kong Jie punctuated his words with another sigh and continued in a intive tone, ¡°My daughter¡¯s in Skystar City, I almost forgot about that! I hope she isn¡¯t dragged into Li Hao¡¯s matters. It¡¯d be horrible if she died... ai!¡±

    It was only now that he remembered his daughter was at the royal city? Director General Zhao looked speechlessly at him and said faintly, ¡°I thought you recalled her presence a long time ago.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve been brainwashed by Li Hao over the past few days and all I can think about is his name. I don¡¯t have the capacity to think about anything else,¡± Kong Jie grumbled. ¡°Forget it, all is fine if she doesn¡¯t die. If she does... I¡¯ll go kill whoever kills her! I¡¯ll take down as many as I can!¡±

    The director general couldn¡¯t be bothered to dignify that with a response.

    ¡°We can¡¯t advise him otherwise or stop him,¡± he said instead after some thought. ¡°I don¡¯t know what exactly Li Hao has in mind, but I know that it will be a new beginning whether he seeds or not. The only thing we can do now is spared the news far and wide! Whether it¡¯s to create a bigger audience or give rise to more rumors, at the very least, we need to let people know that Demon Sword Li Hao ismencing some things in Skystar City that no one else dares attempt or has the ability to attempt!

    ¡°And hees from Silver Moon!¡± The director general raised his head to look at the other two. ¡°We need to let everyone know that those from Silver Moon have the most spirit and backbone! Others of the dynasty need to know that in this vast world, if we are left out of it, then no one will dare dere themselves first beneath the heavens!¡±

    Director General Zhao stood up with a smile. ¡°As for everything else, let¡¯s leave that for him!¡±

    ¡°You... aren¡¯t going to do anything?¡± Kong Jie asked with a wordless look. What use was just advertising? He¡¯d thought that Old Zhao would have some good ideas.

    ¡°Go about your business!¡±

    Kong Jie had no option avable other than to just leave. Ole Zhao was so useless!

    Huang Yu shook his head when the inspector general left. ¡°Ole Kong¡¯s been a bit restlesstely. It looks like he wants to head to Skystar City, probably because he¡¯s being affected by Li Hao and Hou Xiaochen. He probably finds it ufortable standing guard here.¡±

    ¡°Standing guard sometimes is an even more difficult choice,¡± the director generalmented faintly. ¡°Forget it if he doesn¡¯t understand. Where were we? Skystar is just the beginning¡ªthe true problem lies in Silver Moon! Can you make it to Skystar City in three days if you travel at full speed?¡±

    The dynastic capital was too far away from them. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s convoy had taken seven days by car, and they¡¯d traveled at a decent pace. Martial masters might make it there in three days if they traveled at full strength, but they wouldn¡¯t have enough time to recover once they arrived.

    ¡°I¡¯ll be faster if you give me a partial ride with the helicopter...¡± Huang Yu looked at the director general. ¡°Do you want me to go?¡±

    ¡°You can go take a look around.¡±

    ¡°I thought you¡¯d send Ole Kong.¡± Huang Yu smiled.

    ¡°He won¡¯t be of much use if he goes.¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll get there as soon as possible.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± The two exchanged a few brief words before Huang Yu hastily took his leave. Time was of the essence. Since Ole Zhao had made a decision, then he should make due haste.

    ......

    As various sides were embroiled in discussion, the subject of their conversations¡ªLi Hao¡ªdidn¡¯t mind at all. He currently sat in a private room on the ninth floor at the Nine Dragons Pavilion.

    Just him.

    And a dog.

    He was eating food and drinking tea. The female manager from hisst visit was serving him, cing choice morsels on his te and pouring more refreshment. Contrary to his previous visit, she didn¡¯t have anyints this time or find anything untoward about the situation. The only thought in her mind as she watched Li Hao gobble down food was that... the umon conducted themselves in an umon manner!

    She had a lot of questions and doubts, as well as confusion that she wanted to clear with the stunning young man in front of her. However, she didn¡¯t dare voice any of them.

    ¡°Delicious! The only con is that it¡¯s too expensive here.¡± Li Hao heaved afortable exhale after he cleared the table.

    ¡°Please have as much as you¡¯d like, Commander Li. Someone else is taking care of the bill,¡± chuckled the manager. ¡°Our pavilion master is buying. Apart from precious items such as Water of Life, everything else is free.¡±

    ¡°Your pavilion master?¡±

    ¡°Yes, the master of the Nine Dragons Pavilion.¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that someone from the royal family?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, our pavilion master is from the royal family.¡±

    ¡°Then my thanks!¡± Li Hao roared withughter. ¡°How nice of him. Very well, get me ten more servings of everything I just had. I¡¯m honestly not full yet!¡±

    The manager didn¡¯t mind the enormous order; she quickly left the room to give some instructions before returning to her honored guest.

    Li Hao burped and lifted his tea cup for a sip. ¡°It¡¯s said that the Nine Dragons Pavilion can do anything. How about a transaction?¡±

    ¡°Please go ahead,mander.¡±

    ¡°The... massive projection that He Yong put togetherst time, that reallyrge thing. Do you guys have something like that? The kind that can project to thousands and thousands of people and can¡¯t be broken. I want the entire city to see me chop heads off!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Weariness washed over the female manager again. Why did this one always voice such... horrifying words! ¡°Yes, butpletely avoiding interference is nearly impossible. No one wishes for this matter to be public knowledge.¡±

    ¡°So not even the Nine Dragons Pavilion can aplish it?¡±

    ¡°We can, but we cannot!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll pay.¡±

    ¡°Not even if you pay.¡± The manager looked at Li Hao with aplicated expression. ¡°This isn¡¯t a matter of money, but whether or not this course of action is permitted. It may not be protestations from others, it could be that we ourselves don¡¯t wish for this toe to pass either.¡±

    ¡°In that case, let¡¯s change to a different reason,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Say it¡¯s to broadcast my failure and death! You guys need to learn how to bend the rules, it¡¯s not like I¡¯m guaranteed to win! Is a neer like me assured to seed against those guys? Just announce that you want the world to see how Li Hao dies!¡±

    ¡°This... could work!¡± The manager thought rapidly. ¡°But we¡¯ll need to put in an application for it. After all, themander is incredibly strong. Not even the nine ministries may be able to easily take you down.¡±

    ¡°Are they that cowardly?¡± Li Hao burst outughing. ¡°If they¡¯re such wusses, then it¡¯s all the same whether I project the beheadings or not. How are they to rule over the world if they don¡¯t have even this level of confidence? You¡¯re joking!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll do my best,¡± the manager emphasized. ¡°As for costs... we can waive that. If the request goes through, I think a lot of people will want to see how themander dies.¡±

    ¡°Yo, the beauty¡¯s gotten more straightforward!¡± Li Hao tilted his head at her with a smile.

    ¡°Someone like themander might like a more straightforward nature better,¡± chuckled the manager.

    ¡°Good ass kissing!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I like what I hear! As expected, it¡¯s easy to lose sight of what¡¯s real and important after onees into power and authority.¡±

    Hisughter was echoed by the manager. ¡°Then I¡¯ll put in the application for themander. In addition, if I may be so bold as to ask a question...¡±

    ¡°Ask away!¡±

    ¡°What does themander wish to achieve?¡± She didn¡¯t receive an answer to her question, but didn¡¯t mind. The manager left after a few beats of silence.

    <i>What do you wish to achieve? Your actions will plunge you into the depths of despair and danger more perilous than before.</i>

    Li Hao barked withughter right before she exited the private room. ¡°I wish to achieve clear thoughts! Such is martial dao, such are Silver Moon martial masters! You are neither a martial master nor a Silver Moon martial master, so you don¡¯t understand the willingness to endure a thousand cuts just to pull the emperor off his horse. Didn¡¯t the nine ministries aplish that back in the day?¡±

    The manager nearly tripped over her feet; she quickly rushed out of the room. These weren¡¯t words that she could listen to!

    Li Hao grinned widely and caressed Panther¡¯s head. ¡°I¡¯m not a dog. If I were, I¡¯d eat and sleep and sleep and eat. I wouldn¡¯t care about anything. Isn¡¯t that right, Panth?¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther shook its head. Dogs had their worries too! Right now, for instance, Li Hao¡¯s hand on its head wasn¡¯t toofortable. The noble descendent of a mighty ancient monster spirit shouldn¡¯t be treated in such an irritating fashion!

    ¡°As I thought, you agree too!¡± Li Haoughed and pressed the dog¡¯s head downward, giving Panther no choice but to nod.

    Forget it, a dog could only bow its head when under someone else¡¯s roof. It was enough that it had food to eat, there was no need to consider too much else. All of the mighty ancient monster spirits were no longer, so what did their descendants count for?

    At least, this was how Panther tried tofort itself.

    ......

    <i>Within the Nine Dragons Pavilion.</i>

    Dishes were constantly brought to the table; Li Hao ate some and gave the rest to Panther. The fare of the Nine Dragons Pavilion was quite up to par. It went without saying that it was a feast for the senses, but also contained a great deal of energy.

    <i>The chefs here are really good.</i>

    The manager returned after a while; merriment could be heard in her voice. ¡°Commander, upstairs has agreed to try. We might have to discuss with the nine ministries for a bit¡ªupstairs is very interested in what themander said. The nine ministries are not interested in executing nobles, but beheading themander might be something that a lot of people wish to see.¡±

    Li Hao grinned and nodded without a word. The manager hesitated upon seeing his attitude.

    ¡°If someone does attack themander, it might be powerhouses from the three great organizations apart from the nine ministries and royal family,¡± she ultimately said. ¡°In addition, the City of Supernaturals might send people. Apart from Sky Sword Mountain of the seven divine mountains, the rest are hard to gauge. There¡¯s also other princes and dukes to consider...¡±

    ¡°You might as well say that everyone in the world, apart from those of Silver Moon, wants to kill me,¡± Li Haoughed. There was no need to name so many people.

    The young man rose and called out to the ck dog. ¡°Panther, we¡¯re going!¡±

    There was no need to linger since his goal had been aplished. Li Hao patted its head when he saw the dog take a long gulp of all the energy in the room.

    ¡°We¡¯re being treated by the pavilion this time, it¡¯s not appropriate for you to do this!¡± he said with resignation.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine!¡± the manager hastily said. ¡°So long as Master Panther likes what he finds.¡±

    Li Hao smiled. Fear and respect developed when one grew famous or became ruthless. Look at the difference in the pavilion¡¯s treatment of himpared tost time!

 Chapter 670: Arcanus! (I)

    <h4>Chapter 670: Arcanus! (I)</h4>

    ¡°Very well, my thanks! I¡¯m off then!¡± Li Hao tightened his trench coat and strode off. The female manager followed him, not saying a word as she apanied the young man downstairs. She watched the young man and dog disappear into the darkness.

    After a long moment, someone behind her asked faintly, ¡°What are you thinking of?¡±

    She whirled around and ducked her head. ¡°Pavilion master!¡±

    There was an elegant, poised woman behind the manager who held herself with an extraordinary bearing. ¡°Have you learned anything new after conversing with him for a while?¡± she asked faintly.

    The manager thought for a moment before responding, ¡°Brazen, unscrupulous, and unprincipled. He¡¯s aplete lunatic who will sooner orter die without even a burial ce. If not this time, then next time. People like him don¡¯t meet with good ends.¡±

    ¡°Is that it?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± The manager nodded. ¡°He¡¯s also extremely cheap and can give Southern Fist a run for his money in that regard.¡±

    ¡°Then we don¡¯t seem to need to worry about too much given what you say,¡± chuckled the elegant woman. ¡°Do you think he¡¯s being overly confident when ites to the projection screen in three days, or is this how he wishes to save himself? Some people might have reservations about killing the boy if the entire world is watching him. But of course, it is only due and proper that he is executed to restore order throughout thends.¡±

    ¡°This subordinate does not know!¡± The manager shook her head. ¡°Mdy, I only think that he is young and hot-blooded. He will stop at nothing, but doesn¡¯t seem to be as thorny of a problem as we once thought. Does he really know the consequences of killing nobles? Perhaps he hasn¡¯t thought about this yet, why not send someone to discuss it with him?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re the one thinking about things too simply!¡± the womanmented casually. She was unwilling to say more and vanished on the spot with a sh of her body.

    The manager waited for the pavilion master to be gone before lifting her head and looking in the direction where Li Hao had disappeared. He... should understand the consequences!

    <i>But will you seed?</i>

    She was suddenly rather expectant and yearned for his sess. No one wished to be born a servant or lesser than others. No one wished to be assigned the role of a toy for nobles at birth, their puppet to pull the strings of.

    Nobility controlled everything about them¡ªtheir life, death, sickness, and old age. One could not escape this fate even when they reached Nova. Whether it was the royal family or the nine ministries, who was stronger?

    The nine ministries had been the dragon yers of old, but now they were the evil dragons themselves. With individual families holding the reins of the ministries, everyone had be their servants.

    <i>Can you seed, Li Hao?</i>

    Despite how benevolent the pavilion master appeared, the manager didn¡¯t say anything else to her. That woman was part of the nobility at the end of the day, she didn¡¯t know what the people thought.

    <i>I¡¯m not as brave as you, no one else. There were once true resistors in Skystar City, but they¡¯re all dead. Those who survive are those who¡¯ve resigned themselves to a life of hardship. Li Hao, can you light the fire of hope for everyone? Even a spark will do! We can¡¯t, but we hope that someone can overturn the oppression from this ss hierarchy that is as weighty as Mount Tai. But... is it possible?</i>

    The manager quickly turned back to the Nine Dragons Pavilion, dimpling in a charming manner as she weed the next guest. The establishment was as lively as ever tonight, full of hustle and bustle. Although they were short a few of the usual faces, such as the nine ministers, they did notck for business.

    A ball of fire was stuck in the manager¡¯s throat. It sputtered, threatening to go out any time. Could that young man fully set it alight? Perhaps... there were countless people like her, craving and hopeful that he would seed. But this hope might go out at any time and drown in an even deeper darkness.

    <i>There are too many mountains over your head, Li Hao. Can you level them all?</i>

    <i>......</i>

    The vast Skystar City seemed like a volcano ready to erupt. On this day, fires arose in countless hearts, whether those of insight or others who refused to ept their lot in life. All of them yearned for something and they shared the same identity¡ªthemon people. Although life was difficult in this age, some ordinary people were still required for theirbor. The nobles weren¡¯t all-powerful.

    The threat of sophisticated might had turned the capital into a swamp of stagnant water. It wasn¡¯t until today that someone was willing to step forward and break the stalemate. While the rest of the people were not brave enough to join him, he was reinforced by prayers and hopes that this me of hope would not go out.

    If it did, an even darker era awaited them.

    ......

    <i>Within the gloom.</i>

    Li Hao walked down a street and looked around, saying calmly, ¡°Why don¡¯t youe out and kill me now, or I¡¯ll kill all of you if you continue following me! Do you have a death wish in tailing a peacemakermissioner like this?¡±

    Nothing answered him from the dark. Li Hao sneered and reverberated the ground with a stomp of his foot, shaking someone into meat paste. Sword qi raced into the air and immediately ripped another person to shreds. Panther disappeared like a hunter in the darkness; several low screams quickly sounded from the dog¡¯s direction.

    After that, Li Hao left with the dog.

    ¡°He¡¯spletely out of control.¡± Someone appeared in the darkness after a while. There¡¯s no need to follow him, he¡¯ll show himself again in three days, no matter what he¡¯s going to do. Perhaps he¡¯s gone to look for help, perhaps he¡¯s in closed door cultivation. No matter what, we¡¯ll make a clean sweep of everyone whoes. Let him go!¡±

    A figure swiftly retreated in the darkness. Just as the speaker had said, it didn¡¯t matter who Li Hao went to visit. Even if it was Sky Sword, he would be captured if he dared buy into this operation!

    All they needed was some time to reach an ord. The only answer to their ns was if Li Hao ran off. But if he did, he would be theughingstock of the world, so he could just try doing that.

    ......

    Li Hao broke through the void in the darkness, exiting the city before long. The atmosphere within the capital was too stifling. He continued forward and crossed the Skystar Sea. No one followed him now.

    Perhaps his absence was better for Skystar City. If that came to pass, it would result in less effort required to thoroughly erase the influence that Li Hao exerted before. Otherwise, moving against the young man now wasn¡¯t a good idea for some people. The Arcanus cultivation level was not yet stable.

    Li Hao put everything out of his mind and flew a very, very far distance away. His eyes sparkled meaningfully when he saw arge mountain start to loom closer in his field of view. A ball of light within the mountain indicated the presence of a Nova level major monster spirit.

    This mountain had an owner.

    ¡°Panth!¡± Li Hao looked at the ck dog. ¡°Go have a friendly chat with it. Kill it if it¡¯s ever eaten humans. If not, have some fun ying with it!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther vanished on the spot with a twinkle; it also moved very quickly.

    Shortly afterward, the ball of light within the mountain flickered in and out of sight. When Li Haonded, he saw a major monster spirit that resembled a rhinoceros; it was several dozens of times the size of Panther. Shaking violently, it meekly permitted the dog to sprawl on its head. It didn¡¯t dare move.

    ¡°I¡¯m just borrowing your wonderful home for a few days. I¡¯ll leave after that.¡± Li Hao grinned.

    ¡°Please do as you wish, milord!¡± The rhinoceros¡¯ thought ripples quavered. ¡°Commander... Li... could you ask... this ancient monster spirit lord to... slightly retract the power of its bloodline... This minor spirit cannot endure the stress.¡±

    ¡°You know me?¡±

    ¡°Milord¡¯s name has traveled throughout the central region. Minor spirits will recognize you as soon as they see you...¡± the rhinoceros answered carefully.

    Of course they did! A dog spirit, sword cultivator, formidable, and cruel. Who else would it be if not Li Hao and Panther? These days, who in the central region did not know of this name, be it powerhouse, monster spirit, or human?

    The only detail they didn¡¯t know was why Li Hao had left Skystar City toe here. It¡¯d almost scared the rhinoceros spirit out of its skin.

    ¡°How interesting. Indeed, it would be difficult to make my name widely known if I did not visit Skystar City!¡± Li Haoughed and walked into the cave in the rear, leaving Panther to gently smack the rhino¡¯s head.

    <i>Be quiet and less bullshit!</i>

    The rhino spirit didn¡¯t dare defy the ancient monster spirit. It was just an initial Nova and swaggered around in ordinary times. But... there was nothing to do but submit when these two. How many Novas had they already killed?

    ......

    <i>Inside the cave.</i>

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t thinking much. He freshened up the air with a casual wave of his hand. The young man hadn¡¯t gone to anyone, not even the nearby Sky Sword. The rest of his acquaintances weren¡¯t on his list of potential recruitment. Li Hao set the fateful date for three days, not seven or ten, because he didn¡¯t want anyone to make it in time.

    For the group in Silver Moon, ten thousand kilometers was almost impossible to cover in three days. Li Hao knew full well that dangery ahead¡ªit wasn¡¯t his desire that they were repeatedly dragged into the muck.

    Three days was a deadline for himself and for the nine ministries and royal family. As for Hou Xiaochen... he was already caught in the jar, and that wasn¡¯t from Li Hao actions. The young man couldn¡¯t decide how Hou Xiaochen would think about everything.

    ¡°All of you think that I can only rely on others and wait for death. Is being brash or ensuring that my victories don¡¯t result in any deeds of merit the best you can do?¡± Li Hao chuckled. He could afford to wait and keep waiting... and waiting...

    But he didn¡¯t like that course of action. It was maddening and frustrating! At the same time, it was a rare opportunity. Who knew when another chance woulde around, if at all? If he acted, he needed to be swift and sure to clean house. On the other hand, small and consistent umtion would not lead to such results.

    At this stage, they should call upon their fortitude to break everything! <i>Otherwise, I can easily seek out Ying Hongyue, then return to Silver City to finish perceiving sword intent and perfecting the melding of the five auras. I can think about what¡¯s toe only after I enter Refiner of Spirit, but that will make me the next Yao Si!</i>

 Chapter 671: Arcanus! (II)

    <h4>Chapter 671: Arcanus! (II)</h4>

    How much longer did he need? Would he want to wait for his next breakthrough after achieving Summoner of Spirit?

    <i>The lock of my heart is saturated...</i>

    Li Hao thought back to a short conversation he¡¯d held with Manager Yu. Martial masters released their potential when they broke their locks, a potential that devoured their internal force. However, supernaturals had a hope of converting back to martial dao, so long as they did not break their locks of the five organs. If the source of their internal origin, the source of a martial master, remained, then there was a chance of converting back.

    Or perhaps, one still had a chance of converting back if only one lock of the five organs was broken. But for someone like Sky Sword who¡¯d broken two and fully set foot into Arcanus, a return conversion was exceedingly difficult. It would be very, very hard for him to return to martial dao!

    Various thoughts floated through Li Hao¡¯s mind. There¡¯d always been someone to help him¡ªSilver Moon martial masters unsealed themselves again and again for him. He would¡¯ve died many times over if not for sword energy. Each time, someone else paid the price of keeping him alive.

    <i>Why?</i>

    Had they ever given thought to what might happen if their lockspletely shattered and weren¡¯t suppressed in time? Wouldn¡¯t that mean all of their previous cultivation efforts were down the drain? There was a grave risk every time Hong Yitang and the others took action. Had they truly never given thought to the consequences of Li Hao not being able to help them in time?

    Outsiders only knew that they¡¯d benefited from each instance of disaster. How many considered the dangers contained?

    Li Hao chuckled softly after some moments of furious thinking. People were willing to ride into danger for him, but he was overcautious about taking any action. How was he supposed to follow his heart in this manner?

    <i>Crack!</i>

    A chain snapped, the one of his left arm! Energy surged out as a vast quantity of energy gathered upon his left arm. Li Hao had encircled himself with a variety of high rank mysterious power stones. He devoured the vast energy emanating from them.

    The young man hade to a decision! Today, he was going to break his locks and be a supernatural! He would break the ones of his limbs, spine, and <i>zifu.</i> Six locks were needed to set foot into Arcanus¡ªhe would leave the ones of his five organs to retain some chances of converting back.

    Regr people couldn¡¯t locate the locks of their <i>zifu</i> and spine, but Li Hao could. Therefore, most people had to break two locks of their organs to set foot into Arcanus, but the young man did not need to do so.

    Indeed, Li Hao was about tomence the unthinkable. Though he was a premier existence on the path of martial dao, he chose to break six locks and ascend to Arcanus! He would keep only the lock of his organs to contain the source of his internal force!

    He instantly snapped the second lock¡ªthe ones he was breaking weren¡¯t saturated. Supernaturals didn¡¯t need to consider that step and Li Hao¡¯s locks were also exceedingly strong. His were much stronger than a regr person¡¯s.

    With two locks broken, Li Hao was a bonafide supernatural as mysterious power once more rushed into his body.

    <i>Darkmoon!</i>

    As for energy attribute... It was unattributed. The energy wasn¡¯t part of the five elements because Li Hao hadn¡¯t broken one of the locks of the organs.

    Panther abruptly appeared at the door. Shock was written across its doggy face. It didn¡¯t choose to absorb the mysterious power for once. Instead, it gaped at the human. <i>What... are you doing?</i>

    ¡°Go keep watch. Devour whatever energy leaks out and don¡¯t let it spread. I can¡¯t have any attention drawn here!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther called out, as if reminding Li Hao not to do this.

    ¡°Get out!¡±

    The dog slunk off with its tail between its legs. Despite its unwillingness to move, it was forced to back down by Li Hao¡¯s re. It reluctantly shuffled out of the mountain cave, pping the rhinoceros down with an angry paw.

    The chains could not be broken! Even if a return conversion was possible, Li Hao would find it more difficult to progress in martial dao in the future. Take Hou Xiaochen and the others, for example. Although they had broken through their bottlenecks, they¡¯d spent a very long period of time before connecting the supernatural locks again, due to having undergone a conversion process back in the day.

    Li Hao did not need to take this step. His road ahead was very long since he¡¯d yet to encounter any bottlenecks.

    ......

    Panther couldn¡¯t dissuade the young man from his chosen course. In fact, Li Hao believed that his teacher would support him if the old man was here. It wasn¡¯t like he was fully severing his path.

    <i>Three locks, four locks...</i>

    The first four of the limbs were easily broken. Strong unique power rushed out of the limbs to devour his internal force. Four locks meant he was a Sr, a cultivation realm out of reach for most. However, it was as easy as drinking water for Li Hao. The special power surging out was very violent, but the young man¡¯s highly fortified body permitted it to rampage where it would.

    Tremendous mysterious power roiled within his body. His four limbs were furiously devouring internal force to convert it to formidable mysterious power. Li Hao¡¯s Sr cultivation level was different from regr supernaturals. It was stronger!

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    Blood circted at a faster speed as the sound of waves crashing upon the shore traveled through the air. The first four locks were simple, the fifth and the sixth would be much harder. One of them was of his spine, the other of his <i>zifu</i>. Thetter released energy of the body and might have something to do with the wind attribute.

    Li Hao had enhanced his body after absorbing wind energy. The lock of the spine could possibly be traced to the thunder attribute. He¡¯d fortified his bones after devouring that attribute¡¯s energy. Both of these locks were tied to elemental attributes. If both were broken, it might give rise to a wind and thunder Arcanus.

    However, the collision of the two elements would be the greatest problem faced by numerous supernaturals. On the other hand, this thorny issue was of no significance to Li Hao¡¯s organs, body, and bones.

    He swiftly converted internal force to mysterious power. The power released by the breaking of a lock was very special¡ªit wasn¡¯t just mysterious power. There was no time for Li Hao to study it in detail as he had his eyes set on the fifth lock of the spine!

    Breaking a lock of the bones would make him a thunder supernatural. He would be a Nova after this lock. The young man locked onto his target with his mind. It¡¯d been bullshit when he told He Yong that he couldn¡¯t do so¡ªhe just didn¡¯t want to deal a blow to Southern Fist¡¯s confidence.

    Li Hao hesitated in this moment. It would be so much harder to return to the path of martial masters after he became a Nova.

    However, he proceeded with resolution and smashed through the lock. When it came to power, all power was power, whether it came from the self or outside sources. There were people who took the ancient path of energy to its peak all the same.

    <i>Crack!</i>

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Thunder and lightning danced through the sky.

    <i>Outside the mountain cave.</i>

    Thunder ripped through the firmament, along with the sound of chains breaking. Panther smacked the rhino into howling with pain. The monster spirit¡¯s roars intimidated the rest of the mountain so much that everything fell silent.

    There were powerhouses keeping an eye on the proceedings from the foot of the mountain. When it came to these major monster spirits, those on the ground still kept a careful eye on them. It wasn¡¯t out of a desire to kill, but to ensure that they knew as soon as possible when a monster spirit left the mountain.

    <i>At the foot of the mountain.</i>

    Numerous people were hiding in a small dip in the terrain. ¡°This Jade Moon Rhinocerous sounds a little different its usual. What¡¯s going on?¡±

    ¡°It sounds like thunder on the mountain peak!¡±

    ¡°Is the major monster spirit about to ascend?¡±

    ¡°Who knows, perhaps it¡¯s having a good moment with a female monster spirit, heh!¡± The group of people chortled, but didn¡¯t dare go up for a look. That was a Nova level monster spirit! As for thunder and lightning at the mountain peak... That was a very normal urrence. It was also the monster spirit¡¯s territory, so they would leave him to it. They just needed to know where the monster spirit was going when it left the mountain.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Thatst discharge was very loud, but the crowd chose to ignore it, knowing that a major monster spirit lived on the mountain.

    ......

    <i>Inside the mountain cave.</i>

    Lightning crackled around Li Hao. As he thought, thunder supernaturals were part of the unique attribute system. They might have shattered the locks of their spine at birth, which gave the young man some other thoughts.

    Wind, thunder, and other unique supernaturals might be able to set foot into Arcanus if they broke just one lock of their five organs. The strain on their five organs wouldn¡¯t be too great. Only Arcanus of the five elements would endure unimaginable pressure. Perhaps the unique supernaturals would be much more stable as Arcanus.

    Of course, the wind and thunder attributes also required mighty bone structure and physical bodies. That was a difficult prerequisite for supernaturals and overloading their capabilities was a normal urrence.

    Li Hao understood full well that,pared to the rest, it was easier for these unique supernaturals to ascend to Arcanus. Therefore, there might be Arcanus like them in existence at the moment who were moderately strong, but endured much less strain on their bodies. Not everyone would be like the old Steadfast Duke. His cultivation level was truly unstable.

    It was now that Li Hao truly sensed the might of supernaturals. Thunder and lightning exploded within his body, racing through internal force to transform it into thunder mysterious power. The unattributed mysterious power in his body began its transformation as well, shaking the young man with the tremendous impact!

    If it wasn¡¯t for his formidable body, he might¡¯ve been burned to a crisp by lightning the second he set foot into Nova. Mysterious power stones crumbled around him and transformed into current son power that surged into his body. Thunder mysterious power raged through Li Hao; Steris emanated rays of sword energy to pacify, calm, and suppress it.

    The young man¡¯s bones vibrated as he momentarily turned purple, lightning shooting out from his hair.

 Chapter 672: Arcanus! (III)

    <h4>Chapter 672: Arcanus! (III)</h4>

    ¡°I¡¯m a Nova!¡± Li Haoughed. He¡¯d required only an hour to cross the threshold that most found impossible to attempt. His thoughts turned to Hao Lianchuan, someone who was possibly still stymied by an act as simple as breaking five supernatural locks.<i> I... took only an hour to go from nothing as a martial master to bing a Nova.</i>

    The fifth lock hadn¡¯t been too hard, the true test woulde at six.

    The subsequent sh and conflict between thunder and wind would be the most troublesome. Of course, Li Hao had a trump card to y in the form of sword energy. As violent as the sh might be, he could neutralize it with sword energy.

    However, he wouldn¡¯t utilize it unless he had no other choice. While sword energy could neutralize mysterious power, the calmed powercked its inherent domineering qualities. It was transformed to a gentle current. However, the strongest aspect of supernaturals was in their dominating power!

    He could rest and recover from his injuries with sword energy, but it was best not to use it in battle. That would turn the overbearing mysterious power into a fluffy sheep.

    Li Hao was in no hurry to break the sixth supernatural lock. He focused on swiftly devouring energy instead, pulling fromrge sums of mysterious power stones to strengthen the energy inside his body.

    Not only that, but his five organs were in operation as well. He was building the true five bridges between them¡ªfive chains slowly melded into each other. Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t wanted him to rush this process because it might strengthen the five organs beyond control. Li Hao didn¡¯t care about that anymore. The circumstances would also be different after he transformed into a supernatural. Perhaps he wouldn¡¯t need them anymore.

    Even if he did, he most likely wouldn¡¯t need to be concerned about them raging out of control.

    He focused on building the five real bridges because he needed to seal off the organs to prevent mysterious power from invading them. Otherwise, the previous bridges of internal force would soon be swallowed. When mysterious power invaded the five organs, they would easily turn even the organs into an amalgamation of mysterious power.

    Chains shot through the air; five crystalline chains stood side by side. There was a ferocious tiger crouching on one of them, a willow tree swaying on another, a stalwart mountain peak firmly nted on one chain, and one with waves rearing over it...

    Li Hao wanted topletely fuse these five into one chain. That would shut off all ess to his organs, saving them for the day in which he converted back to martial dao.

    Two chains crashed into each other. <i>Fuse!</i>

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Mind intent erupted as their auras shed with each other. It gave Li Hao a preview of how auras with different attributes conflicted with each other. Their collision created an effect that was very close to Arcanus suffering.

    Water and fire intermixed, giving rise to rumbles of explosive energy within the mountain cave. Sword intent enclosed the area with a protective dome. The Eternal Sword emanated sword intent to suppress the twin auras. For the moment, these auras could not rip through another aura that the young man hadprehended.

    Panther opened its mouth outside the cave, devouring everything in the four directions. No energy remained; all of it found its way into the dog¡¯s stomach. The more it took in, the more agitated it became. This meant that the mysterious power in Li Hao¡¯s body was growing stronger. That was not good!

    At the very least, the dog¡¯s limited heritage memories from its bloodline painted a picture of the Human King as a martial master. The ancient path of energy had ultimately been defeated! Perhaps that was too far off for Li Hao, but Panther felt that they could walk to that step!

    Of course they could! Would Li Hao be able to surpass the ancients if he could not convert back?

    Back in the mountain cave, Li Hao focused on perfecting the bridges of the five organs while absorbing mysterious power at the same time. He needed to be unequivocally strong before he broke through the barrier of the <i>zifu</i> and truly became an Arcanus.

    ......

    Li Hao disappeared.

    <i>The second day.</i>

    No one had seen Li Hao all day and no one knew where he¡¯d gone. Perhaps he¡¯d run off!

    This possible development quickly made the rounds, perpetuated by those who wanted everyone to know that Li Hao had disappeared after a trip to the Nine Dragons Pavilion.

    <i>Within Skystar City.</i>

    ¡°Apparently, Demon Sword ran away in the middle of the night!¡± someone roared withughter. ¡°Isn¡¯t that interesting? He said he was going to behead nobles, but he¡¯s run off!¡±

    People rushed to and fro on the streets. Some wore wooden expressions, others tightened their fists.

    ¡°They said that he ran off a few days ago as well,¡± someone snorted. ¡°And then the Four Seas Company was no more!¡±

    They didn¡¯t believe it! Those bearing hope didn¡¯t believe that Li Hao had deserted them. They weren¡¯t willing to believe it. He¡¯d just lit a spark of hope for them. Everyone wanted to see nobles being brought to justice. But... what if Li Hao really had run off?

    Then this world would utterly be without hope. It would be such a dark and dim ce. The hope that¡¯d just red to life in their hearts would resolve into an even bleaker abyss.

    ¡°Just wait and see if you don¡¯t believe me! He might actually be dead instead of running away. He¡¯s offended the three great organizations and might¡¯ve been assassinated!¡±

    ¡°Hmph!¡± No one was in the mood to debate. They were all a little worried and somewhat expectant. Three days... no, it was two days now. Would Demon Sworde back? He wasn¡¯t really dead, was he?

    No one was willing to believe that he¡¯d truly left them behind.

    ......

    <i>Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen leaned back against a chair, wordlessly contemting something. Li Hao hadn¡¯t discussed his n of beheading nobles ahead of time. Hou Xiaochen had cursed thed for a few words at first, then quickly understood the young man¡¯s intentions.

    And yet, this was when Li Hao disappeared.

    Hou Xiaochen thought for a while longer before taking out a transmission pendant. ¡°Sky Sword, has Li Hao gone to Sky Sword Mountain?

    Last time, Manager Yu went in person to pull Sky Sword out of seclusion. After that, the two sides exchanged transmission pendants to facilitatemunication. Thus, Hou Xiaochen decided to still ask the man first.

    ¡°No!¡± The response was simple and to the point.

    Hou Xiaochen furrowed his brows. No? Then where had Li Hao gone?

    ¡°Will youe?¡± He sent after some quiet moments.

    ¡°We¡¯ll see.¡± With that, Sky Sword turned his pendant off. Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry; the guy was so haughty!

    ¡°Little Yu, where do you think Li Hao¡¯s gone off to?¡±

    Manager Yu shook her head, but her thoughts traveled to Li Hao¡¯s visit yesterday. He¡¯de to ask about supernaturals converting back to martial masters. That gave her some ideas, but she didn¡¯t know if she should voice them or not.

    She didn¡¯t dare say anything because they were too horrifying. The young man they spoke about was a Silver Moon martial master, the hope of this generation and of countless people. He stood a chance of continuing to smash through more obstacles and continuing forward. There was more hope resting on his shoulders for him to even surpass the older generation.

    Martial masters were the key and core to Silver Moon. Not to mention, Li Hao would need to break six locks to stand a chance against his enemies. That would be those of the four limbs and two of the organs. But once he broke two locks of the organs, that would mean he had almost no hope of converting back. Such were the straits that Sky Sword found himself in.

    Of course, that might not apply since he could possibly be a unique supernatural. No one was certain of what attribute he was.

    Manager Yu truly wanted to ry the conversation to Hou Xiaochen, but she recalled how Li Hao had grinned so radiantly at herst night. ¡°Don¡¯t tell Ole Hou, I¡¯m here to speak to Yu Luocha, not Secretary Yu. Yu Luocha is an entric, high-handed person who doesn¡¯t run her mouth.¡±

    Manager Yu attempted to say a few words, but ultimately stayed quiet instead. She was beginning to regret her actions fromst night. She shouldn¡¯t have said anything to the young man! If things had progressed ording to her expectations, then... many people would be disappointed.

    ¡°Little Yu, are you alright?¡± Hou Xiaochen¡¯s question brought her back to the present. She lifted her head and responded somewhat guiltily.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine, just a bit worried that Li Hao seems to be getting himself into increasingly greater trouble. We don¡¯t have time to breathe between the incidents. The guy¡¯s too tyrannical, he¡¯s different from before!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen nced at her and didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°It might not be that dangerous. Most in the world are unstable Arcanus.¡±

    ¡°The nine ministries may be willing to pay a hefty price if they wish to kill Li Hao,¡± the manager whispered. ¡°They¡¯ll whisper in Arcanus ears that so long as they take action, the ministries will payrge quantities of Water of Life. Red Moon might offer uprge sums of blood pearls. They won¡¯t be sitting on their hands! Ying Hongyue can absolutely offer high quality blood pearls to some Arcanus if they could kill Li Hao for the organizations.

    ¡°Some Arcanus might take the risk because theyck these resources to begin with. Some metamorphoses might be tempted to do the same or force themselves to ascend for the sake of a promise or tangible benefit!

    ¡°Certain metamorphoses can absolutely be Arcanus. Those who haven¡¯t chosen to make that leap refrain because it is too dangerous. The various institutions only need sufficient resources to quickly create a batch of Arcanus!¡±

    ¡°Have you not thought about this, director?¡± Manager Yu looked at Hou Xiaochen. She didn¡¯t believe that he hadn¡¯t.

    The man sighed without a response. He had! There weren''t many Arcanus in the world yet, but there were plenty of metamorphoses. Would they be willing to take the risk of ascension if the various institutions were willing to pay a hefty price, such as fifty drops of Water of Life?

    The opportunity was right in front of them. Ascending to Arcanus might not lead to death, but future attempts to advance after missing out on this opportunity would most likely lead to self-detonation. Fifty drops of Water of Life more or less guaranteed nearlyplete stabilization of the five organs.

    One could not underestimate the ability and riches of these major organizations. Fifty drops were quite a lot, but Hou Xiaochen believed that everyone could stand to offer it. They wouldn¡¯t need to risk their own Arcanus at that point in time, they could just use outsiders.

 Chapter 673: Li Hao Returns (I)

    <h4>Chapter 673: Li Hao Returns (I)</h4>

    Were there many metamorphosis experts in the world?

    <i>Yes!</i>

    Some provinces possessed them, some pirates had them, and some of the deputies of various institutions were at the metamorphosis level. These people were one step away from breaking through, but that one step obstructed a lot of people.

    Few were those who could decline an opportunity to soar to the heavens with one step.

    Hou Xiaochen breathed out heavily. He didn¡¯t voice these thoughts simply because he didn¡¯t want to. It would be quite a blow to morale if he did. Li Hao might find many more Arcanus facing him if he returned in two days, rather than the few that he expected now.

    Hou Xiaochen once said to Li Hao that he would handle everyone over metamorphosis and indeed, the man was ready for such a fight. But there was so much pressure on his shoulders that he had to call up Sky Sword and ask if the man wasing! He wouldn¡¯t have done so before.

    ¡°Director,¡± Manager Yu offered upon seeing Hou Xiaochen remain quiet. ¡°Can I stand against an Arcanus if I fully unseal myself? Just... how strong are they?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re very, very strong,¡± Hou Xiaochen responded with a close look at her. ¡°You won¡¯t be able to match them unless you fully snap multiple supernatural locks. In our current state, it will take... nine saturated looks for a martial master to stand against one if they don¡¯tpletely break their locks. Nine saturated locks is apletion of a basic circtory loop. Martial masters under that condition will be able to battle Arcanus!¡±

    <i>Nine locks!</i>

    Manager Yu blinked and sank into deep thought. She¡¯d just saturated her fifth lock and could just barely unseal herself. She was closer to the He Yong of before. In this state, it would be a grand enough feat for her to fight metamorphosis experts if she didn¡¯t fully snap her locks. She had no hope against Arcanus.

    The only possibility was if she fully snapped her five locks. That and the innate ferocity of martial masters meant that she might be able to battle Arcanus straight off the bat when she ascended as a supernatural. But she was also likely to die from the violent impact of her sudden mysterious power. After all, her foundations did not run that deep.

    ¡°Don¡¯t think so much, be at peace, it will be fine!¡± Hou Xiaochen exhaled softly. ¡°I¡¯m here, as is He Yong. He¡¯s an opportunistic guy, but he¡¯s a Silver Moon martial master at the end of the day, so he should step forward...¡±

    ¡°Li Hao set the deadline as three dayster¡ªthere¡¯s only two days left now,¡± Manager Yu said softly. ¡°That¡¯s so little time. Otherwise, Northern Fist, Tyrant de, and Earthturner Sword and Light Sword in Silver Moon might have rushed over to help. He... didn¡¯t leave much leeway for us.¡±

    Indeed, there was too little time! A distance of more than twenty thousand kilometers in three short days meant that one would have to travel seven to eight thousand kilometers a day. That was a tall order even for Earthturner Sword and the others.

    <i>What are you thinking about, Li Hao? Are you unwilling to let everyonee? Or do you think that it doesn¡¯t matter if they¡¯re present since they won¡¯t make much of a difference?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen closed his eyes, finding his emotions rising in this moment. <i>Kid, I just hope that you can handle more of what you bit off. I don¡¯t want you to constantly have a death wish as even I find the situation difficult this time.</i>

    <i>If I had known this would happen, I wouldn¡¯t have made you a vicemander. I underestimated you! You said you wanted to see the world ining to Skystar City. Perhaps you can truly see clearly this time, but I worry that you¡¯ll gain only unlimited disappointment after you see your fill! The nine ministries and royal family might be your enemies as well now. Do you still carry hope in your heart?</i>

    ......

    It was another day in the blink of an eye. This was the second day, Li Hao¡¯s time would be up the day after tomorrow.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Wind energy swirled in a mountain cave; the young man vomited blood as wind and thunder crashed against each other. Despite how strong his body was, he was finding it difficult to endure the strain. His organs shook, but a massively thick chain had them all locked together.

    Li Hao slowly snapped his sixth supernatural lock, gradually releasing wind energy! Wind and thunder collided with each other as they melded together. Cracks fractured Li Hao¡¯s body, bright-red blood instantly evaporating when it came in contact with the air.

    ¡°Show me what is true Arcanus!¡± Li Hao grinned radiantly. <i>I, Li Hao, am about to set foot into Arcanus!</i>

    <i>Let¡¯s go!</i>

    <i>Let this storm rage even fiercer! I¡¯d like to see how many Arcanus in the world can rival me when I¡¯m at their level and wield two heritage weapons! I won¡¯t need anyone to rescue me in the future. I will rescue myself!</i>

    <i>Crack!</i>

    The chain of his <i>zifu</i> fully snapped.

    ¡°Oof!¡± he grunted as bones and muscles tore and were reborn, broke and were reborn... Drops of Water of Life surged into his body. A tremendous amount of sword energy repaired his body. As good as the Arcanus level was, it posed too much of a strain on the body.

    <i>But I¡¯m an Arcanus now!</i>

    Wind and thunder rose, rain descended. <i>Rumble! </i>Thunder and lightning ripped through the sky around the mountain cave. Gale winds howled and rain smashed to the ground. A furious storm arrived near the mountain.

    The sky shifted with the rain. Li Hao made it to Arcanus on this day. He was no longer the weakling that needed his master to bitterly fight off a Sr pursuer on that rainy day.

    ......

    <i>The third day, Skystar City.</i>

    Tomorrow would be the first day after Li Hao¡¯s imposed deadline, the day in which he beheaded nobles. The atmosphere within the city today was too stifling.

    Li Hao had run off!

    Disseminated by countless nobles, the news spread far and wide. Some nobles jeered, ¡°Li Hao¡¯s just all talk! He¡¯s doomed to die himself if he really does execute nobles in public!¡±

    The families of those who¡¯d been taken ran straight for the Night Watchers, demanding that the agency release their people. Li Hao the butcher was already gone, were they going to persist in this course of action?

    The Silver Moon Guards had sealed off the yard holding the prisoners and taken the Night Watchers¡¯ ces, but that transferred all of the pressure to their shoulders instead. Even some deputy directors within the Night Watchers called for them to release their prisoners.

    The situation couldn¡¯t continue like this! It was one thing when Li Hao was present¡ªhe was a perfect scapegoat. But since he was gone, they had to release the nobles!

    Yellow Dragon was one such person agitating for release. His sarcastic mockery dwindled somewhat only when Hou Xiaochen appeared.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watchers.</i>

    The headquarters was nearly overrun by people. Not only did those outside raise a fuss, but so did the nobles being held inside the yard for multiple days. Some received news of the happenings on the outside.

    ¡°Let¡¯s see how long he holds us for!¡± one sneered.

    ¡°He¡¯s crazy. Nothing goodes from showing off one¡¯s edge that keenly!¡±

    ¡°Weren¡¯t you guys scared to death two days ago? Are you not afraid anymore?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Nobles grinned happily, ignoring the stench of their bodies. Li Hao had run away! Granted, simr circumstances had urredst time and he¡¯d shown up in a full force again, but he faced only one ministry then. This time, he faced the entire world.

    The circumstances were very different.

    Some people looked merrily at Mu Xiaorong. ¡°Miss Mu, is it about time that we leave now? Minister Mu is probably anxious as well. Why note out with us? I bet those northern savages won¡¯t dare do anything to us!¡±

    ¡°Brother Yu.¡± Someone else addressed the grandson of the North Sea King in a friendly manner. ¡°Senior North Sea King is probably waiting for Brother Yu to reunite with the family.¡±

    The youngster smiled and didn¡¯t say anything. Calling pirates their brothers... Li Hao had mentioned this before and it was on full disy now. This was because the youngster¡¯s grandfather was the North Sea King!

    The North Sea Kingmanded tens of thousands of supernaturals beneath his banner, as well as numerous powerhouses. There were instances when nobles submitted, even in this age. When the other was very strong, for example. The nobles would¡¯ve been willing to bend the knee had Li Hao not insisted on killing them.

    Since he had, then no one would y by his rules.

    The two being addressed possessed the loftiest identities among those present. But when they didn¡¯t concur with the proposal to leave, that caused hesitation among the various nobles.

    ¡°Are you two not leaving yet? There¡¯s nothing to be had here, just a bunch of people looking at us. Thousands of people being crammed into a space like this makes everything stink to the high heavens...¡± A voice rose inint, but fear yet marked the depths of their hearts.

    A young man walked out the next moment with cold haughtiness on his face. ¡°I¡¯ll leave if none of you do! I¡¯ll see who dares stop me!¡±

    He strode forward. There were Silver Moon Guards standing at the yard entrance, ones who looked coldly at the young man approaching them.

    ¡°Open your idiotic eyes wide!¡± sneered the young man as he took out a medallion. ¡°I am Zhou Chao, a high rank chiefmissioner of the Night Watchers! My father is a deputy director of the Night Watchers! Does Li Hao have any evidence that I havemitted crimes after so many days of locking me up? Obviously not! Hurry up and step aside, or no one will be able to protect you guys!¡±

    None of the Silver Moon Guards gave a response, and neither did they give way. They unsheathed the des in their hands.

    Step aside? Never!

    Silver Moon martial masters were not stronger than others or in possession of a third hand or extra courage, but they were indeed more arbitrary and domineering than the rest! They were less afraid of death!

 Chapter 674: Li Hao Returns (II)

    <h4>Chapter 674: Li Hao Returns (II)</h4>

    Chen Jin walked over from his post nearby and bared his teeth at the youngster. ¡°I¡¯ll hack you into two if youe out! Commander Li isn¡¯t here and Director Hou hasn¡¯t said anything, so you can just try putting a foot over the line!¡±

    ¡°Chen Jin!¡± The youngster inly knew Chen Jin and snapped back, ¡°Remember that you are in Skystar City! This is not the savage wildnds of Silver Moon! I gave Li Hao face and allowed him three days to make his investigations. It¡¯s been three days. You don¡¯t have the right to hold me anymore!¡±

    The hubbub raised quite some attention and everyone in the yard looked their way. Some Night Watchers watched from a distance. Big Eyes and the others looked observed from even further away. A strange look filled their eyes¡ªDeputy Director Zhou¡¯s son wanted to leave.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t here. He¡¯d disappeared after Hou Xiaochen showed himself. Deputy Director Zhou, however, was among the group of Night Watchers watching from the outside. He was in the same clique as Yellow Dragon. With Director Yao abstaining from operations, these two deputy directors represented the Night Watchers. Deputy Director Zhou¡¯s son, however, was detained to present day.

    Zhou Chao¡¯s anger was not an impulsive reaction. The trio immediately ran through the possibilities. This might be a probing of Li Hao¡¯s capabilities or forcing him to acquiesce to their will. Regardless, both deputy directors were nearby. One was a metamorphosis, the other a peak Nova. They were both confident that they could prevent Li Hao from taking action when he returned.

    ¡°Zhou Chao is a peak Sr, Chen Jin is just a Dominator,¡± Big Eyes transmitted to herrades after a quick look around. ¡°The difference between them is obvious to see. On the Silver Moon Guard side, Golden Spear seems to be in seclusion and Mu Lin is strong enough, but he focuses on defense. There¡¯s probably no one else among the Guards who can stop Zhou Chao.¡±

    She looked around the premises and saw that many Night Watchers were present. There were Novas, Srs, and those beneath Sr. Powerhouses abounded at the Night Watcher headquarters. The deputy and principal directors were peak Nova at the very least, or metamorphosis. Apart from Hou Xiaochen and Yellow Dragon each being themander of a cardinal direction, the other three were also staffed by peak Novas.

    There were also a lot of other Nova heavyweights, such as Hu Qingfeng and Big Eyes themselves.

    Everyone was watching with bated breath. There were eleven directors total at the Night Watchers¡ªone principal and ten deputies. They were almost all sitting at their posts in headquarters. Those who weren¡¯t had made it back in thest two days.

    Deputy directors walked out of their office buildings and frowned in the yard¡¯s direction. Could Yellow Dragon and the rest not contain themselves after Li Hao left? Hou Xiaochen actually exerted less authority over the scene than Li Hao.

    Everyone knew that Hou Xiaochen was a veteran official and would be wary of certain things at times. But Li Hao was a pure martial master, his titles spontaneously given and the young man didn¡¯t have the experience to back them up. Therefore, people were cautious of Hou Xiaochen, but being cautious didn¡¯t mean being afraid of him.

    Instead, they were afraid of Li Hao! That was definitely a person who killed without blinking!

    Yellow Dragon and Deputy Director Zhou convened not too far away. They watched silently without a word¡ªbut their presence also levied a certain amount of pressure. The others standing by their side weren¡¯t Night Watchers, but senior officials from other ministries. A deputy minister from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, for example, and another from the Ministry of Armed Forces, a peacemakermissioner from the Ministry of Foreign Rtions...

    When they walked out together, they seemed to bolster Zhou Chao¡¯s confidence. ¡°Don¡¯t you dare runpletelywless, Chen Jin! This is Skystar City and I am a high rank chiefmissioner! And you are? What right do you have to stop me or hold me? Stand down!!

    ¡°Does the Silver Moon Guard wish to mutiny?!¡± roared the youngster.

    A light danced in the eyes of the nobles on the scene. So it began. The internals of the Night Watchers were beginning to force Li Hao¡¯s hand and demand Hou Xiaochen to release the people. Even if the young man came back after the fact, was he going to go to everyone¡¯s homes to capture his prisoners again or kill them?

    Powerhouses stood in the distance, a sight that did not go unnoticed by the crowd in the yard.

    ¡°My grandfather¡¯s here!¡± someone muttered with excitement.

    ¡°My dad¡¯s here too...¡±

    ¡°Hahaha!¡±

    ¡°We can finally leave... It¡¯s been awful the past couple of days and I never want toe to this forsaken ce again.¡±

    ¡°Same!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    The nobles were highly excited when they saw their family. These days had been such an arduous hardship! Their family had wanted them to wait since they would try to brainstorm a solution. The prisoners grew frantic when no news was forting. Tomorrow was thest day of Li Hao¡¯s imposed deadline, so they should be deciding on the list of names tonight.

    No one hade to a decision, if for no reason other than they could not do so because it would give too much offense. They needed to wait for news from outside.

    Some minor nobles were also excited, despite not seeing their family. They were most likely to be part of the one hundred. Now that the nobles were striking back at Li Hao, they could benefit from the sides and wouldn¡¯t have to die.

    Who wanted to die?

    Their lives were sofortable in theps of luxury and they could seek out some fun at the Four Seas Ind when they were bored. Who wanted to die?

    ......

    <i>The director¡¯s office building.</i>

    Yao Si silently watched the proceedings as Little Ye introduced softly, ¡°That¡¯s Zhou Chao, Deputy Zhou¡¯s son.¡±

    Yao Si lifted his tea cup for a sip. There was no longer Water of Life in his tea. He simply watched events unfold and asked gently after a moment, ¡°What is his crime?¡±

    ¡°Um... ah... no crime...¡± Little Ye was very nervous. She¡¯de to the Night Watchers five years ago and rather understood this old director. What she understood was that he liked to drink tea and read newspapers everyday, he didn¡¯t care about anything else.

    She¡¯d thought this one was a hero among heroes five years ago. She didn¡¯t think so five yearster. This one... was old!

    ¡°It¡¯s just us two here, what are you afraid of?¡± Yao Si said softly. ¡°Forget whatever his crime is. I just want to get to know him. What do you think of him as a person?¡±

    Little Ye was a bit nervous. The old director normally didn¡¯t berate people; he¡¯d only suddenly lost his temper once a few days ago. She lowered her voice when her thoughts traveled here and whispered, ¡°Zhou Chao... is nothing good. I don¡¯t know much about anything else, but he¡¯s forced many... sisters... in the Night Watchers... to his will. No one dares make a fuss about it and his father, the deputy director, knows about it too.

    ¡°We don¡¯t have many with power or influence among our ranks. Many of our members are powerhouses recruited from the general poption. There are some minor martial masters, some Starlight and Darkmoon. Everyone knows that the Night Watchers are a legitimate organization, which prompts their submission. They just close their eyes and bear the happenings when it urs.¡±

    This was the Night Watchers, not the nine ministries. There weren¡¯t many nobles among the Night Watchers as the agency had been formed to be a scapegoat. The nine ministries were powerful, but they weren¡¯t willing to battle the three great organizations.

    The Night Watchers were the original cannon fodder. It was due to Yao Si¡¯s strength that they found their footing after fifteen years. They absorbedrge sums of martial masters and supernaturals from the general popce to reach their current heights. The agency possessed sufficient strength to go toe-to-toe with the nine ministries now.

    ¡°We¡¯re all on the same team with the supernaturals among us being the vanguard,¡± Yao Si remained calmly. ¡°There are whorehouses if he wants women. What is he thinking in acting against his own?¡±

    It wasn¡¯t like the young man couldn¡¯t locate women for consensual rtions. He had money and authority to spare, as well as women offering up themselves to him. He was the son of a deputy director and a peak Sr in his own right. How would heck for women?

    Little Ye was disappointed when the director didn¡¯t say anything, but she quickly concealed it. She squeezed out a smile. ¡°They¡¯re all nobles, perhaps... this is what they like.¡±

    She smiled and didn¡¯t say anything else, but couldn¡¯t process the disappointment in her heart. She¡¯d said it! She¡¯d taken such a great risk and even epted the possibility of Deputy Director Zhou learning what she¡¯d done. Zhou Chao was a viin, a sinner that didn¡¯t even refrain from acting against his own.

    And yet, the director asked only one question. Why?

    <i>Why?!</i>

    <i>How do I know why?! I just know that you are definitely all the same. Thank goodness I didn¡¯t say anything else or speak of what else he¡¯s done. I didn¡¯t mention the even worser matters and just talked about the one that everyone knows.</i>

    Little Yeughed at herself. She¡¯d known this would be the oue. Since she¡¯d known, she shouldn¡¯t have said anything at all. What were a few Darkmoons and Sunres worth in the director¡¯s eye?

    They were all from the general poption, a few minor Heaven Favored or weaklings lucky enough to direct energy into their bodies. Deputy Director Zhou was Deputy Director Yellow¡¯s cherished general and a peak Nova...

    Her thoughts wandered to the person who she¡¯d foundughable andical at first nce. Dressed in a trench coat, top hat, and twirling a staff... she¡¯d only found him hrious and interesting when she saw him as she walked down the stairs.

    Now that she thought of him some more... What a domineering man! Would the world be in this state if there were a few more like him?

    <i>But...</i>

    The fire in her heart extinguished. He was not long for this world. Everyone wanted to kill him and no one was helping him. None of the nine ministries were taking a stand for him, not even the Inspectorate. Apart from Hou Xiaochen who¡¯de with him, not a single person inside the Night Watcher senior executives were stepping forward to give him a hand.

    His bedraggled running away might be a very bleak sight, but could he be med for his actions?

    <i>No!</i>

    He was only twenty years old; perhaps he¡¯d gone to the Inspectorate in hopes of help. He received none as no one was willing to take a stand for him.

    Little Ye¡¯s heart turned to ashes in this moment. The Night Watchers was just a ce to draw a sry and live out their days.<i> I¡¯m better off being the old man¡¯s secretary. At least he¡¯s not like the others who treat female supernaturals as hookers they can y with!</i>

    Perhaps those guys liked it even more when the female supernaturals resist, but who dared resist?

    There had been a spark of light in Little Ye¡¯s eyes; it immediately dimmed. A smile returned to her face, much like the attitude that the female manager had adopted. Such was the way of the world. Since she could not resist it, then she would remain alive.

    <i>Alive!</i>

 Chapter 675: Li Hao Returns (III)

    <h4>Chapter 675: Li Hao Returns (III)</h4>

    ¡°Little Ye, do you know of someone?¡± Yao Si asked softly after considering his secretary for a while.

    ¡°Whom do you speak of, director?¡±

    ¡°Yun Haoran.¡±

    Little Ye blinked and paused. Her cheeks flushed, but her expression quickly turned sorrowful. It was an incredibly fast change that transformed to a deathly quiet momentster. She managed to squeeze out a smile in the end. ¡°Of course, Yun Haoran was the headmaster of the Skystar Ancient Academy. He was a leading schr of civil subjects who championed general education for the people.

    ¡°His fondest wish was that everyone would have a chance to attend school. He threw his weight behind widespread propagation of ancient technologies. He voluntarily shared some, such as the method of making concrete, how to reim wastnd as fertile fields, and mechanical reforms that revolutionized the world¡¯s technological capabilities...

    ¡°In the year 1725 of the Star Era, Yun Haoran wanted to contact the ancient academies of the variousnds to establish ten thousand middle and elementary schools. They would enroll ten million students total. However, he died as soon as he submitted the proposal to the nine ministries. Powerhouses from the three great organizations snuck into Skystar City to go on a killing spree. He died at home, and his entire family with him.

    ¡°All technology rollouts halted with his death!¡± Little Ye was very calm at the end. ¡°The Skystar Ancient Academy shuttered its doors, and all teachers and students were expelled. It became what is now known as the Skystar Supernatural Academy. It¡¯s said that there aren¡¯t many left of the original batch of teachers. They¡¯ve all either died or fled for their lives. Most of the students have also left Skystar City...

    ¡°Actually, I... wanted to join the Ancient Academy five years ago.¡± She smiled. ¡°I wanted to learn some skills. The academy was no moreter on and I happened to be able to induct mysterious power into myself. This is how I came to the Night Watchers and was lucky enough to find favor in the director¡¯s eyes. I then became your secretary because I can recognize a few words, so I am quite fortunate.¡±

    ¡°Do you know? I knew him and was very close to him.¡± Yao Si inclined his head.

    Little Ye blinked.

    ¡°Would you say he was a supernatural or not?¡± asked Yao Si.

    ¡°I¡¯ve never heard he was, so he was probably a mundane?¡± Little Ye furrowed her brows.

    ¡°No no no, he was a supernatural, and one ascended from martial dao. He set foot straight into the Nova level five years ago.¡±

    Little Ye started. A Nova from five years ago! Novas then were probably on par with Arcanus now? Even if there were some differences, they would at least be metamorphosis, no?

    But... she was still in a daze. ¡°No, wait, they say that they caught some members of the three great organizations that day and killed a few. They were all Sunres, but... there... was also a Sr. Srs then were incredibly strong and everyone felt that the headmaster was so unlucky as to encounter one...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± Yao Si chuckled. ¡°They caught and killed his murderers, giving an ount of the situation to the rest of the world. Therefore, people quickly forgot about him. The authorities wouldn¡¯t have been able to exin themselves had they continuously failed to capture the killers.

    ¡°Yun Haoran was a grandmaster of knowledge known throughout thends. Skystar¡¯s Ancient Academy led the educational field and was the vanguard for technological reforms. It was devoted to pursuing advancements for the people. Every one of its moves affected all ancient academies elsewhere. In those days, intellectuals focused on absorbing the knowledge from the academy¡¯s cultural technology research...

    ¡°Therefore, change took ce rapidly up to a few years ago. We built cars, houses, machines, nes, rockets, televisions,munication systems... Everything one could need when it came to food, clothing, shelter, and transportation.

    ¡°It was all being set into motion when it suddenly came to a halt!¡± Yao Si sighed and looked ahead, saying with emotion, ¡°I relinquished my grasp on the reins of power after he died. I felt that this era had be too dangerous and my strength was too weak. An arm will not stand against a thigh.¡±

    Little Ye had been listening with bated breath. What did this mean? Had the director and Headmaster Yun been good friends?

    Yun Haoran had died five years ago. The director officially relinquished power five years ago and no longer concerned himself with Night Watcher affairs. He let Yellow Dragon do as he wished.

    Yao Si said nothing further and simply looked into the distance. He seemed to see the famous grandmaster of knowledge die a grisly death. His death had been inevitable and his name now forgotten. Back then, information wasn¡¯t readily exchanged throughout the dynasty. It was a far cry from the open lines ofmunication in modern times.

    Yu Haoran had created and poprized many things; he had a certain number of protectors. One of them was an old man called Yao Si, but the old manter gave up and sank into quiet, biding his time. That sh of light was gone with Yun Haoran¡¯s death.

    Yao Si could not withstand the enemy. Today, someone else stepped forward, someone even more vicious and ruthless than Yun Haoran!

    Yun Haoran had simply wished to progress incrementally through technological development. The neer wanted to establish his authority through killing people and use martial might to force upstairs to give way.

    Which was a wiser course of action?

    Yao Si didn¡¯t know. He just knew that Yun Haoran was dead and Li Hao was more dangerous!

    Off in the distance, the conflict was growing more heated. Zhou Chao¡¯s presence red as he shouted, ¡°Get out of my way or I¡¯ll execute all of you for insubordination!¡±

    Killing intent shed through Chen Jin¡¯s eyes as he tightened his grip on his great ax. However, he was a bit rooted to the spot. He was a Dominator, not a Summoner. He felt that he could kill peak Sunre, but Srs were difficult. That would take the Guard formation to do so. He also stood no chance in dealing with a peak Sr.

    Several Dominators rushed over. Chen Jin took a deep breath when he saw them; his weapon shook his hands.

    ¡°What, are you going to attack me?¡± Zhou Chao asked coldly. ¡°Think carefully about your next actions. Insubordination is a death sentence!¡±

    <i>He¡¯s doing this on purpose! </i>Anger rose in Chen Jin¡¯s heart. <i>A death sentence?? You¡¯re the prisoner!</i>

    His great ax trembled fiercely as he wanted to kill people. He wanted to hack through all of these bastards! Zhou Chao was a regr when it came to all manner of base acts. The Guards had arrived at the central Night Watchers for only a month, but they¡¯d already heard all sorts of rumors!

    A variety of information flowed freely within the Night Watchers, some even warned the female martial masters of the Guards to be careful of Zhou Chao. It was only after Hou Xiaochen demonstrated his might that others came to be wary of them instead.

    ¡°Get out of the way, do you hear?!¡± Zhou Chao stepped forward with an arctic demeanor. He wasn¡¯t afraid of being attacked¡ªtheir captors had to have the courage to make a move for that.

    Yellow Dragon and the rest stood nearby, exerting wordless pressure as they towered like mountains. Their gazes were fixed on another structure¡ªHou Xiaochen¡¯s office building.

    ......

    <i>A deputy director¡¯s building.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen watched silently as Manager Yu burned with fury. She wanted to charge downstairs to kill people!

    ¡°Wait, there¡¯s no rush!¡± Hou Xiaochen said softly.

    ¡°Director!¡± Manager Yu red with killing intent. ¡°I want to kill people!¡±

    Who dared provoke Silver Moon martial masters in this manner? Who dared push them to the brink like this? How dare a piece of trash, a worm do so!

    ¡°Wait a bit longer,¡± Hou Xiaochen calmed her down. ¡°I want to let them know that this is what happens when one is too weak. They will suffer beatings, they will be humiliated, they will be entirely without dignity!¡±

    Who did he mean?

    Chen Jin and the others. Martial masters were too weak¡ªthis was amonly held viewpoint. They were too weak, so they couldn¡¯t achieve what they wanted.

    A spear slowly materialized in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s hands as he said softly, ¡°Wait a bit... I want to wait for Chen Jin to act before killing those guys!¡±

    Since Li Hao was gone, then Hou Xiaochen would provide an example for the young man.

    <i>Yellow Dragon, do you think I don¡¯t dare kill you? Or do you think you can do as you wish just because you have a few more metamorphoses by your side?</i>

    ......

    Chen Jin waved his great ax around. He had a fiery temper to begin with and it raged even more out of control now. He suddenly roared in the next moment and hacked with his ax. ¡°You piece of shit, I¡¯ll kill you!¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Zhou Chao jerked back, astonished. <i>So you really do dare take action?? </i>His father and some other deputy directors were in the back of the crowd. Yellow Dragon was also present as well. These were all premier powerhouses, so Zhou Chao had thought that the Silver Moon Guards wouldn¡¯t dare do anything.

    Of course, it was best if they did. Hence, Zhou Chao suddenly smiled. This was good! As expected, the northern barbarian that was Chen Jin couldn¡¯t keep his cool in the face of simple provocation. That he¡¯d chosen to make a move now meant that even Hou Xiaochen would find it difficult to save his people.

    Metal mysterious power erupted! <i>BOOM!</i>

    A punch illuminated the air with metal energy as Zhou Chao sneered, ¡°You¡¯ve got some nerve! The Silver Moon Guards havemitted the offense of subordination and have dared attack me! As the saying goes, the tone is set at the top! Today, I will execute you first to cleanse the Night Watchers of traitors!¡±

    Yellow Dragon and the rest looked into the distance, at a Hou Xiaochen who¡¯d already revealed himself. A light danced in the eyes of the deputy ministers.

    ¡°Be careful,¡± transmitted the deputy director of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. ¡°This guy isn¡¯t weak and may even have the power to kill metamorphosis experts. Our minister spectes that he is near Arcanus. We don¡¯t need to kill him, just hold him back...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I know what to do!¡± A vicious look appeared in Yellow Dragon¡¯s eye as he looked at Hou Xiaochen. <i>If you dare make a move... I¡¯ll borrow the strength of the nine ministries to end you!</i>

 Chapter 676: Li Hao Returns (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 676: Li Hao Returns (IV)</h4>

    Yellow Dragon looked forebodingly at Hou Xiaochen. <i>It will be perfect if you dare make a move, I can use the strength of the nine ministries to eliminate you then!</i>

    A loud collision sounded in the distance! Chen Jin stumbled back, his palm covered in blood. He remained as berserk as before and howled with anger, raising his ax to the sky.

    <i>Mountain Ax!</i>

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    It was as if the mountains were shattering and the earth fracturing. The blow was domineering beyondpare, and yet, a peak Sr was much stronger than the internal force of a Dominator. Zhou Chao exploded with might and punched outward, throwing off rays of light in all directions.

    Several Dominators in the surroundings looked on with unpleasant expressions. Zhang Yang of the Five Tigers Broken de Sect, Xie Lan of the Jade Sword Sect, Wu Yue of the Heartdestroyer Palm...

    A violent light shone out of their faces. When they saw that Chen Jin was about to be defeated, they looked at each other and nodded in unison. Several Dominators acted at the same time with overwhelming momentum and unbounded ferocity!

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡± echoed several hundred Guards. They waved around their des and spears with unusual bloodthirstiness. They were such a violent sight that it actually intimidated the nobles watching. This was a bunch of trash on par with Darkmoons, but they dared raise their weapons!

    ¡°Come at me then, trash!¡± Zhou Chao shouted coldly. <i>You¡¯re just a couple of Dominators, do you think the strength of peak Sr is a joke?!</i>

    ¡°Break!¡± He unleashed a punch, but his eyes widened when Chen Jin refused to back down.

    Thetter¡¯s ax swung down with repeated roars. There was only incredible aggressioning from Chen Jin, he wouldn''t retreat! He needed to endure the punch so the rest could kill Zhou Chao!

    Sword, spear, and de appeared as the Dominators moved with enormous coordination. Their auras red in unison¡ª<i>boom!</i>

    The look in Zhou Chao¡¯s froze for a moment, as if he was petrified from fear. Even Hou Xiaochen paused when he saw this; he slowly withdrew the spear that he¡¯d been ready to deploy. Yellow Dragon¡¯s side also blinked in collective unison.

    It was only five Dominators in the field at the moment¡ªin other words, it was five Sunres against one peak Sr. The two sides werepletely mismatched, but it was Zhou Chao who seemed to be frozen in ce. The formidable auras of martial masters and their utterly dauntless charges actually intimidated the supernatural dandy.

    Deputy Director Zhou furrowed his brows, finding his son¡¯s reaction to be embarrassing. His son was a peak Sr! It¡¯d taken endless resources to lift him to that step, but now he was stunned in ce by a few oafs. This was mortifying!

    Seeing that Zhou Chao was floundering to the point of vomiting blood after having taken a palm strike to the chest, the deputy director grew angry and anxious. His son might really be beaten to death if this continued...

    Deputy Director Zhou looked at a Nova not too far away. This was one of his men¡ªan initial Nova. That cultivation level was sufficient! These people wouldn¡¯t be able to hold on if another Sr came along. But just in case, he looked meaningfully at the man.

    <i>Take care of these fellows! They¡¯re nuisances!</i>

    ......

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Five Dominators managed to im the upper hand when they fought together. The Heartdestroyer Palm smashed right into Zhou Chao. As he vomited blood, his golden fist suffered a blow from Chen Jin¡¯s ax and sprayed blood from its wounds as well.

    The supernatural shrieked with dismay and backed away. Behind him, Mu Xiaorong and the others looked on with some contempt.<i> You¡¯re a peak Sr, but you can¡¯t ovee five Dominators? You talked such a big talk earlier!</i>

    All of the noble descendants were likewise speechless. Some were afraid of the martial masters and some were disdainful of Zhou Chao. The guy was so trash! Did he spend all of his vitality on women?

    Eyebrows raised through the crowd¡ªsomeone wasing!

    A solemn Nova dressed in the Night Watcher uniform marched over. ¡°What are all of you doing?! Stop immediately, Chen Jin! You are all Night Watchers! Are you going to kill your own so that others can have a goodugh?!¡±

    Chen Jin and the Guards burned with fury!

    <i>Asshole! It was Zhou Chao who wanted to make a break for it. He¡¯s a transgressor, but you guys are sheltering him so tantly!</i>

    ¡°Back away...¡± Xie Lan urgently transmitted to the others. ¡°There¡¯s killing intenting from this guy, he wants to kill us!¡±

    <i>A Nova!</i>

    They had trouble fighting a peak Sr and wouldn¡¯t have pulled it off if it wasn¡¯t for their opponent being too weak. But with a Nova on the scene, this wasn¡¯t someone they could contend against no matter how weak their opponent may be.

    ¡°Retreat my ass!¡± Chen Jin roared through transmission. ¡°I¡¯m not backing down! He can just kill me!¡±

    This was entirely too aggravating! They were at the Night Watcher headquarters and they were thew enforcers. These guys were ones who¡¯d broken thew and resisted arrest! But the Guards were the ones who were supposed to back away?!

    <i>Not happening!</i>

    Xie Lan and the others said nothing else. They continued deploying moves and put more force behind their blows. Loud impacts rang out¡ªthey wanted to kill Zhou Chao before the other side reacted! That would be a worthwhile trade then!

    ¡°Bastards! I told you to stop, didn¡¯t you hear me?!¡± The Nova narrowed his eyes and shot through the air. These martial masters were so crazy! They¡¯d been given an order to stand down, but these Dominators ignored even a Nova!

    Arge hand mmed down on the offenders. Chen Jin and hisrades could feel death nipping at their heels and sense the iing energy explosion, but they didn¡¯t care. They wanted to kill!

    Around them, the other Silver Moon Guards roared with fury. Blood qi erupted as several hundred Guards assembled into formation and flung themselves at the Nova!

    The scene stunned onlookers. Were they all <i>crazy?</i>

    A bunch of Darkmoon-equivalents pitting themselves against... a Nova? There was the Sunre and Sr cultivation level in between them! That was a difference of two major cultivation levels and seven to eight minor ones. Did they really think superior numbers were enough to ovee that?

    ¡°Ants that court death!¡± The Nova mmed his palm down on the Silver Moon Guards. They could all die since they didn¡¯t wish to live anymore! As for Hou Xiaochen, there would be someone who came along to handle him!

    Spear light sparkled in the distance. Hou Xiaochen had chosen to act. He was answered in kind by Yellow Dragon¡¯s group. Presences shot for the horizon from the Night Watcher headquarters, as if theplex was about to be blown apart.

    A figure broke through the air, traveling at the extremity of speed. Light shimmered around his boots as the neernded in front of the Nova. Thetter blinked and identified with fear, ¡°Li...¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    One punch!

    One simple punchnded with an explosion of five auras, blowing the head to pieces with a loud impact! The young man whirled around and punched once more. <i>Bam!</i> Zhou Chao split into several pieces before he also detonated.

    Off in the distance, Deputy Director Zhou blinked and roared with anger, ¡°Li Hao!¡±

    ¡°How dare you kill a high rank chiefmissioner in Night Watcher territory!¡± roared a shocked Yellow Dragon.

    Li Hao regarded them coolly and ignored them. He turned to Mu Xiaorong and the others, dering frostily, ¡°Come. Take one step forward, set one foot out of the yard. Show me your courage!¡±

    There was no sound. People backed away in fear! Mu Xiaorong and the others quailed, their hands growing mmy with sweat. Li Hao hade back! He hadn¡¯t run away!

    Li Hao turned around to see a maddened Deputy Director Zhou charge at him. Cruel amusement glinted in the young man¡¯s eyes before he looked at Yellow Dragon. A deepening sardonic look shone out of his eyes.

    Yellow Dragon immediately returned to his senses!

    ¡°Retreat, fast! This guy is destined to die, so don¡¯t go head to head with him! Since he¡¯se back, he¡¯ll die tomorrow, soe back!¡±

    As full of fury as Deputy Director Zhou was, it was as if a tub of cold water was dumped over his head in the next moment. An icy fist clenched around his heart.

    That was right.

    Li Hao hade back, which meant he hadn¡¯t given up. That, in turn, indicated he was dead without a doubt. <i>If he¡¯s provoking me to kill him right now... I¡¯ll absolutely die if I go for it.</i> The deputy director abruptly came to his senses and halted, bitter resentment shining out of his eyes.

    Li Hao smiled, looking at him and then at Yellow Dragon¡¯s group. ¡°What a bunch of trash! I¡¯m disgusted by the fact that the Night Watchers keep you useless lot around! You wouldn¡¯t dare take a step forward even if I gave you the courage to! Zhou, Yellow, you guys grew a lot bolder after I left to take a walk.

    ¡°Do you fancy yourselves as somebody just because there are some more metamorphoses around you?¡± jeered the young man. ¡°All of youe at me then! I¡¯ll make sure that none of you leave this ce alive!¡±

    ¡°Hmph!¡± A cold, scornful snort was the only response. The other deputy ministers were very quiet. They dared attack Hou Xiaochen, but not Li Hao. It was a very strange andughable circumstance, but it was reality.

    They knew that Hou Xiaochen was very strong, but they weren¡¯t afraid. They also knew that Li Hao wasn¡¯t necessarily on par with Hou Xiaochen, but... they were afraid of the young lunatic! Not to mention, Li Hao was designated to die tomorrow. It was a waste of effort to erupt in open hostilities against him now.

    ¡°Today is thest day!¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice rang through the premises. ¡°If there is no list of one hundred names by night, I¡¯ll behead one thousand tomorrow! That¡¯s one out of every four of you! Don¡¯t think of counting on that trash outside. Whether it¡¯s Yellow Dragon or Yellow Bug, I¡¯ll send him to the underworld first if he dares take one step closer to this ce!¡±

    The young man was wholly unconcealed in his ruthless cruelty!

 Chapter 677: The Hour Arrives (I)

    <h4>Chapter 677: The Hour Arrives (I)</h4>

    ¡°Write up a document for me,¡± Li Hao transmitted to the peeping Yao Si. ¡°Dere that Yellow Dragon is guilty of collusion with the three great organizations. I¡¯m going to behead him tomorrow to establish my authority!¡±

    Yao Si started. He looked at the young man and didn¡¯t make a sound.

    ¡°Write that document for me if you¡¯re still Yao Si. If not, I¡¯ll chop off your head tomorrow as well!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yao Si was in aplete daze. He was incredulous at what he¡¯d heard. What was that from Li Hao?

    No one was aware of the transmitted conversation between Li Hao and Yao Si. All they knew was the young man¡¯s thick contempt for Yellow Dragon. Little Ye clenched her fists, a light dancing in her eyes.

    He was back! He hadn¡¯t run away!

    But her excitement quickly morphed into worry and reluctance. <i>You should¡¯ve run away! You¡¯re too silly, too much of a fool! </i>Even if he wasughed at for deserting the battlefield, that was still better than going to his death tomorrow!

    Li Hao ignored everyone as his voice rang in the surroundings, ¡°I will be beheading some people at the northern city gates tomorrow at 10am. You don¡¯t need toe watch the show, I¡¯ll have someone project it to all of Skystar City. Nearby residents should evacuate, in case noble blood dirties your floors!¡±

    A hushed silence stole through the city before it erupted with an uproar.

    ¡°He¡¯s back!¡±

    ¡°Northern savages are really brave. Damn, I thought he ran off, but he¡¯s back...¡±

    ¡°Holy fuck, this northern savage has balls of steel!¡±

    ¡°Hahaha yeahhhh this is nice. Look at that face pping! What are those wusses who said he ran off saying now?¡±

    ¡°What youughing for? He¡¯se back to his death!¡±

    ¡°Death your ass! I¡¯ll chop your head off!¡±

    ¡°How dare you cuss at me!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m also going to chop your head off! The northern savage is executing nobles tomorrow, I¡¯ll execute you since you¡¯re their dog!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re... you¡¯re crazy!¡±

    ¡°Better than being a dog like you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The city boiled over with the intensity of various reactions, whereas the nobles wentpletely dark. Those jeering at Li Hao for running away were all silent now. No one said a word because they knew this might be hisst bout of insanity. It would be a waste of one¡¯s death to provoke him, since he was destined to die tomorrow.

    Everyone was waiting for tomorrow.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Mu Xiaorong and the rest warily backed away. No one raised any sort of hue or cry. In the distance, Yellow Dragon glowered and a livid Deputy Director Zhou brooded.

    Li Hao wiped off his hands and looked at the Night Watchers in the distance. The looks in their eyes shifted rapidly.

    ¡°What are you looking at?¡± he barked withughter. ¡°Dismissed! I¡¯ll treat you as Yellow Dragon¡¯s dogs if you keep sticking around. I¡¯ll help you on your way to hell, how about it?¡±

    Everyone swiftly vanished from the premises, including the deputy ministers.

    ¡°Commander!¡± Chen Jin and the others were overjoyed. Commander Li was the best! He started killing as soon as he showed up! He killed the Nova, the son of a deputy director, and most important of all, no one dared make a peep of protest about it.

    He¡¯d killed Zhou Chao right in front of his old man! Themander¡¯s might was unparalleled! In this moment, they even felt that Director Hou was a little... just a bit... well he¡¯d hesitated a tad. Of course, they could understand the difficult straits he was in, but it was still such a thrill to have Commander Li act like this!

    ¡°What are you in a hurry for?¡± Li Hao smiled and transmitted to the Guards, ¡°Watch how I beat Yellow Dragon to death tomorrow. You can admire what it means to be a martial master and what valor from head to toe looks like!¡±

    He would¡¯ve had to reveal certain trump cards if he killed Yellow Dragon today. The man was a metamorphosis, a level that the prior Li Hao should not have been able to handle!

    ¡°Themander is mighty!¡± roared the Guards after a beat of utter surprise.

    Hou Xiaochenughed ruefully in the distance. Manager Yu was also waving her arms around with great excitement. Hou Xiaochen sighed. <i>Yu Luocha... you¡¯re almost fifty! What are you so worked up for?</i>

    Shouts from the Silver Moon Guards rang throughout the Night Watcher headquarters. They all knew that themander... was Li Hao. Even some of the Night Watchers waved their arms around, privately delighting in the kills. The demon Zhou Chao was dead! What a pity that Commander Li hadn¡¯t executed his father as well. That was a damned shame! And Yellow Dragon too!

    But of course, they understood that that would be a tall order. A mixture of excitement, disappointment, and worry washed over them. Commander Li should not havee back. He wouldn¡¯t be able to get away now that he had.

    ......

    <i>Outside.</i>

    Li Hao grinned radiantly at the group of people leaving quietly, then looked at Yao Si even further away. ¡°I¡¯m waiting for the director¡¯s document... I¡¯m a Night Watcher, aw enforcer. I don¡¯t kill innocents! Ah, yes, it¡¯s best if you send me the official Night Watcher seal as well. I can just stamp whoever I want to kill!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yao Si mmed his window shut without a word. <i>Are you crazy?! Do you want to experience a bout ofplete insanity?</i>

    But he suddenly smiled to himself and looked at Little Ye. ¡°Li Hao wants me to give him the official seal. He¡¯ll be able to approve whoever he wants to kill. What do you think, should I send it over?¡±

    ¡°I... don¡¯t know...¡± Little Ye stammered.

    ¡°Then send it over!¡±

    A thousand thoughts rose in Little Ye¡¯s heart as an official seal appeared in her hand. This was the symbol of Night Watcher legitimacy. She stared at it, lost in a daze, then suddenly hugged the seal to herself and ran off. She was going to deliver it to Commander Li!

    She didn¡¯t care what the director thought. All she knew was that this might make life easier for Commander Li.

    ......

    Li Hao was back!

    The news swept through the entire city. No response was forting from the nine ministries and royal family. Everyone soon learned that the young man had gonepletely mad after he returned. He¡¯d killed Zhou Chao and a Nova!

    It was one¡¯sst struggles and his final madness before death. It was an unbelievable madness! If he dared kill even Night Watchers, then what of the others?

    All sides quickly came to a decision to hand over a list of names first, just in case Li Hao made good on his threat. They would give him a list and see if he really killed them! It was just a list, so what if they handed it over?

    ......

    Li Hao was back. The young man who¡¯d just arrived at Skystar City and had apparently run off, then suddenlye back, seemed to ignite something with his return. The numb masses appeared more... alive.

    They didn¡¯t know what they were being lively for or what they wanted. To kill nobles?

    They didn¡¯t know.

    They were furious, resentful and numb, and directed hatred toward the nobles. Nobles were as lofty as the skies, as were powerhouses. The people weren¡¯t interested in fights between powerhouses and treated them as casual gossip at most.

    But for some reason, some happiness floated through them today. They¡¯d neither read many books nor recognized many characters, but they were happy, joyful, and delighted in this moment. Some were even so excited that they couldn¡¯t sleep.

    Although they were in the dynastic capital, the royal city, many were those who weren¡¯t literate. The literacy rate was eptable when schools were first established. But arge sum of them shut down when the supernatural rose twenty years ago, and another significant batch were closed five years ago. Not many of the younger generation received education these days.

    So why were they happy?

    ......

    <i>In the slums.</i>

    The north wind howled. Some empty yards of various houses were devoid of all furnishings; the bitterly cold wind stole in through cracks in windows.

    A bonfire burned in one of the yards. A dozen children crowded around it. The short and thin Yu Ming bobbed his head around like he was an aged schr. ¡°You guys don¡¯t know why you¡¯re so happy, right? The granny who sells sweet potatoes gave me an extra potato today. She probably doesn¡¯t know why she¡¯s in a good mood either, but she gave me an extra when I bought sweet potatoes!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, Auntie Liu next door gave me a piece of candy this morning. She never did that before!¡±

    ¡°Yeah! A customer that rode my cart today gave me an entire coin in tips. I usually get only five extra cents at most!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The children were also very excited. They didn¡¯t know why all of this was happening, but a lot of people seemed to be very happy today. It even felt like the new year.

    Why was this? It¡¯d be so nice if life was like this everyday.

    ¡°This is called an awakening! An awakening of the consciousness!¡± Yu Ming waggled his head while voicing extremely mature words. ¡°We know that our lives aren¡¯t good, but why is that? We live in the royal city and there¡¯s a lot of rich people here. There¡¯s opportunity and money everywhere, but why aren¡¯t our lives good? We live in a numb haze, like we¡¯re the living dead.¡±

    ¡°I know!¡± a child rushed to answer. ¡°It¡¯s because we¡¯re not nobles!¡±

    ¡°I know, we need to be Heaven Favored!¡±

    ¡°Heaven Favored isn¡¯t as good as nobles!¡± another kid refuted. ¡°I saw itst time, Ah Shan from the street over became a Heaven Favored, but he¡¯s coachman for nobles! If I¡¯m a noble and you¡¯re a Heaven Favored, you¡¯ll have to pull my carriages for me!¡±

    ¡°No way! I¡¯m going to be like Demon Sword and kill you!¡±

    ¡°Nuh uh!¡±

    ¡°Uh huh!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Squabbling interrupted Yu Ming¡¯s words.

    Yu Ming sighed, but he wasn¡¯t angry. He smiled faintly and epted a sweet potato that Yu Qing had finished roasting.

    ¡°You¡¯re not allowed to buy any next time!¡± she snapped. ¡°Cooked sweet potatoes are very expensive, we can do it ourselves. Why did you waste money!¡±

 Chapter 678: The Hour Arrives (II)

    <h4>Chapter 678: The Hour Arrives (II)</h4>

    Yu Ming bobbed his head up and down to indicate that he heard his sister, but also said softly, ¡°I just pity the granny who sells sweet potatoes. It¡¯s almost winter and the winds are piercingly cold. She doesn¡¯t sell that many and has two grandchildren to feed. Her son was caught in the supernatural war when traveling for business a few years ago and died. Her daughter-inw¡¯s run off, so she supports the entire family through selling sweet potatoes.¡±

    Yu Qi bore a mulish curve to her lips, but thought about matters after hearing her brother¡¯s response. ¡°Then... you¡¯re not allowed to buy sweet potatoes everyday. You can buy one every three days!¡± She suddenly added, ¡°If... if Commander Li kills those people tomorrow, you can buy one as well!¡±

    Yu Ming nodded with a smile. ¡°Big sis,¡± he whispered, ¡°You¡¯ve gone to school before. Do you know why everyone is so happy?¡±

    ¡°How would I know?¡± Yu Qi rolled her eyes, but lowered her voice with some glee. ¡°Because someone dares to sentence and kill nobles! The nobles suppress us and cut off our path forward, wanting to put out our light. Someone is here to break through thatyer and pierce through their monopoly...¡±

    She sighed as she looked at her brother. ¡°Honestly... I know that there¡¯s no hope, that this is just a start. But this is worth being happy for. Look, he didn¡¯t run away!¡±

    Yu Ming nodded and said softly, ¡°But since he didn¡¯t run, he¡¯s going to die.¡±

    Yu Qi¡¯s body stiffened and tears welled up in her eyes. <i>Not running means he¡¯s going to die.</i> The words stuck in her throat like fish bones, filling her with unspeakable sorrow. She seemed to see fresh blood sttered over the ground, Li Hao¡¯s corpse being hoisted into the air, his eyes full of grief...

    Yu Qi violently shook the images out of her head and smacked the back of Yu Ming¡¯s head.

    ¡°Don¡¯t you speak nonsense!¡± Her voice was so shrill that it scared the surrounding kids into looking their way.

    Yu Ming clutched his head and didn¡¯t dare make a sound.

    ¡°What are you lot looking at?!¡± Yu Qi blustered when she saw the others look at them. ¡°I¡¯ll beat you guys up too if you keep looking at us!¡±

    No one dared say anything and muttered to each other in voices that they thought were too quiet for Yu Qi to hear, ¡°Sis Yu Qi is being so mean it¡¯s like she¡¯s a noble!¡±

    ¡°Pfft, why would a noble live here with us...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Yu Qi said nothing further and rubbed her brother¡¯s headfortingly. ¡°Don¡¯t say such unlucky things next time!¡± sheined.

    Yu Ming quickly nodded, cowed after his sister hit him. He wouldn¡¯t dare say anything like that anymore.

    Yu Qi rubbed her brother¡¯s head while looking in a certain direction. He... wouldn¡¯t die tomorrow, would he? She could only keep the thought to herself as she didn¡¯t know who to ask.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care what outsiders thought. He wasn¡¯t that grandiose of thinking or that heroic. Everything he did today was purely because he wished to, for martial dao, and because he couldn¡¯t bear to continue standing aside.

    Bringing deliverance to the people?

    This wasn¡¯t part of his considerations at the moment. He knew that was too far away from him and too hard. He was just a martial blockhead, he was no creator of a new era. There were too many things that he couldn¡¯t do. The only thing that he <i>could</i> do was to raise this sword and cut down all matters that were unfair. He could do only that, despite the possibility that even more vile things might arise the next time the spring winds blew.

    No one knew what he really wanted to do because Li Hao himself couldn¡¯t say. He only knew that his blood still ran hot!

    <i>I am a martial master of the martial world and will pound down any bumps in the road! If no one else can do it or no other shovel can hack it, then I¡¯ll do it!</i>

    At the moment, Hou Xiaochen sat across the table from him. Manager Yu was present off to the side, listening quietly. She was very solemn and quietly reverential, as if bearing witness to something. Perhaps... it was a transfer of power between two martial world leaders.

    Li Hao and Hou Xiaochen, however, were not in that frame of mind. The young man took out the official seal that Little Ye had just brought over. She¡¯d been very excited, but Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. He ced it in front of Hou Xiaochen.

    The man looked at him, wanting to know what the young man wanted to say.

    ¡°Don¡¯t do anything tomorrow, Director Hou!¡±

    The man¡¯s eyes widened.

    ¡°Of course, you can take action if there is room to maneuver,¡± Li Hao amended calmly. ¡°If not, if I cannot kill them all or am powerless to achieve my goal, then what is the point of a few more dying with me?

    ¡°The Silver Moon Guards are still inside the city, so if all hope is lost and there are too many enemies, then the director should hunker down and bide your time. Our opportunity wille again once you return to Silver Moon!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen quietly lifted his tea cup for a sip.

    ¡°I owe the director a favor that I do not wish to continue to stand.¡± Li Hao looked straight at him. ¡°I would not be able to repay these debts¡ªfavors are the hardest to return. Everything I do is because I am of the martial world, but the director is not! Officials should be good officials, those of the martial world have our rules and customs. My master says that in the martial world, we kill whoever doesn¡¯t listen to us. The same should not go for officials!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen was still silent.

    ¡°This is an order from the Night Watchers!¡± Li Hao raised the official seal.

    ¡°You¡¯re an interesting one, Li Hao,¡± Hou Xiaochen chuckled.

    ¡°There¡¯s not much to it,¡± Li Haoughed as well. ¡°It¡¯s just that there are still one thousand people in the Silver Moon Guards who are all Silver Moon martial masters. They are too weak. If there are no openings for them to take advantage of tomorrow, why have them go to their deaths? They can fight again another day if they are of the mind to. Martial masters will not die so long as the martial world stands!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen grinned and took a long look at Li Hao. ¡°When do you think such a space to maneuver around in will form?¡±

    ¡°When I behead them, hang their heads on the city gates, when Arcanus fear me and the nine ministries give way... that is when the director cane fight!¡±

    ¡°Pfft, then there will be nothing for me to do then.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say.¡±

    Hou Xiaochenughed and furrowed his brows at the young man. He searched his thoughts for something before asking, ¡°Something... seems... different about you... There have been some changes. Why? Has your strength improved?¡±

    He was baffled as Li Hao gave him a peculiar feeling. The young man seemed to be a raging thunderstorm, but also gale winds whipping up the waves. It was hard to articte.

    Li Hao remained fully d in armor, he didn¡¯t dismiss it. He smiled at the question. ¡°You have good eyes, director. How would I be so cocky without some improvement? For martial masters, strength is our foundation!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen mused over his response and looked at the young man again. ¡°Don¡¯t pull too much from the mysterious power stones. Being unable to digest an excess of energy isn¡¯t a good thing either.¡±

    He could vaguely sense a kind of mysterious power leaking from Li Hao, but didn¡¯t think further on it¡ªfor no reason other than it was impossible. Someone who¡¯d reached the young man¡¯s level would not break his supernatural locks. His future potential was unparalleled. He might be the first martial master in their era to fully match an Arcanus through martial strength alone.

    He didn¡¯t need a transition or recovery period; he was an Arcanus martial master in the true meaning of the term. Would such a martial master destroy his own future?

    Ack of energy from the five elements prevented Hou Xiaochen from going down a deeper mental path. He simply thought that Li Hao had absorbed too much from mysterious power stones in his haste for results, resulting in the umtion of energy in his body.

    ¡°I won¡¯t, don¡¯t worry,¡± Li Hao chuckled and nodded. ¡°Then we¡¯ve agreed, director. You should give up the fight if it looks lost. I¡¯m not an idiot, I¡¯ll run if failure is staring at me in the face. They won¡¯t catch me that easily, I have the Windchaser Boots.¡±

    ¡°Very well.¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded. As for how he truly thought, he was the only one who knew.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll return to the yard and see if that list of names is out yet.¡± Li Hao rose and left with the official seal. Manager Yu continued to look at him after he left.

    Hou Xiaochenughed softly. ¡°Are you still looking at him?¡±

    ¡°Ah, director.¡± An awkward Manager Yu quickly recovered. ¡°Li Hao said that tomorrow...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll make my own judgment call,¡± Hou Xiaochen said softly. ¡°He said his part, I¡¯ll do mine. There are naturally arrangements in ce for the Silver Moon Guards. Don¡¯t worry.¡±

    ¡°Understood.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m worried that he¡¯s too focused on quick results,¡± Hou Xiaochen raised again after some thought. ¡°Yuan Shuo¡¯s Summoner of Spirit path is not necessarilyplete¡ªLi Hao is leaking mysterious power. That¡¯s not a good sign. It means he¡¯s umted so much power that he can¡¯t digest it all.¡±

    Manager Yu¡¯s eyes widened and she asked carefully, ¡°Can he have... broken his supernatural locks?¡±

    Hou Xiaochen thought for a bit and shook his head. ¡°He shouldn¡¯t have, there¡¯s no need for that unless he breaks six of them. The increase to his power won¡¯t be significant enough otherwise and mysterious power will devour his internal force instead. That will make his internal force rage out of control! I didn¡¯t sense any power of the five elements, just some faint power of thunder and lightning.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± Manager Yu heaved a sigh of relief. That was good. Just as Li Hao had said, he could still run away. There was no need to put everything on the line in Skystar City. If he really had run off to ascend as a supernatural, the manager would also find it an incredible pity.

    ¡°Li Hao has the Windchaser Boots and the sword of the Lis. He should stand a chance of escaping if the situation turns sour, right?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s correct.¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded again. He would nod even if the assumption was incorrect. As the nine ministries wanted to move against him, they would¡¯ve taken this into consideration as well.

    The Windchaser Boots could outrun metamorphoses, but not Arcanus.

    Granted, he didn¡¯t need to say that explicitly.

 Chapter 679: The Hour Arrives (III)

    <h4>Chapter 679: The Hour Arrives (III)</h4>

    ¡°Then I shall retire for the rest of the night,¡± Hou Xiaochen ended the conversation. ¡°Don¡¯t be too distracted with being happy. You used to prepare a good meal the night before a big operation. Why isn¡¯t there one tonight?¡±

    Manager Yu blinked.<i> That was right! I forgot! </i>Li Hao had flexed his muscles and swept through their enemies as soon as he came back. Although it wasn¡¯t much to kill a Nova¡ªit was a feat that the director could easily aplish, <i>I¡¯m still happy that he¡¯se back...</i>

    <i>Very well then.</i>

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll make the meal. Just wait for a little while, director!¡± The woman rose to her feet.

    ¡°Go on!¡± Hou Xiaochen nodded, waiting for the feast toe.

    Manager Yu almost asked if she should set a ce for Li Hao, but ultimately decided not to voice the question. The director seemed a bit offtely, so she should refrain from saying so.

    ......

    <i>The backyard.</i>

    Large sums of nobles drooped in the stench around them. Yellow Dragon and the rest had gone into hiding, the deputy ministers had run off, Zhou Chao was dead...

    It was a big impact to morale, particrly as it was time to vote. They needed to choose one hundred people! Although no one felt that they would truly die since there was plenty of resistance outside, what if... they really did die?

    Who wasn¡¯t afraid of death?

    ¡°I do not approve of this kind of voting!¡± someone shrieked. ¡°This kind of voting isn¡¯t fair! I think it needs to be made anonymously to prevent retribution! Please say something, Miss Mu. Is an open vote fair?¡±

    The nobles were due to cast their votes from a list of names that greatly decreased the range of consideration. Their families outside had produced a list of three hundred for those inside to choose from. People like Mu Xiaorong were certainly not on the list since it was the result of discussions between the noble families. A variety ofpromises had gone into creating the list. Who would dare put a legitimate daughter of a minister on it?

    With the preliminary work done, the actual one hundred would be chosen by those inside. Words of bracingfort were spoken, emphasizing that it was just a formality, that it was all the same. They wouldn¡¯t let Li Hao actually seed.

    But... those on the list were afraid all the same, particrly as someone had proposed an open vote. A name would be read off the vote. Those who agreed that they be part of the final one hundred would raise their hand. Wasn¡¯t this a proposal that would tantly give offense?

    Who would actually follow the spirit of the vote? It would shelter those fromrger families and bring down misfortune on those from smaller families!

    Mu Xiaorong frowned, also finding an open vote to be inappropriate as it would cause certain friction.

    ¡°Anonymous is good.¡± She nodded. ¡°We¡¯re just going through the motions, so there¡¯s no need to be too worried.¡±

    The noble who¡¯d made the suggestion heaved a sigh of relief. A minor character like him would easily make the final cut. Anonymous voting was good. People might not even know his name because he was so insignificant. Perhaps they¡¯d want the ones from therger families to die and clear the way!

    Reality was this practical at times!

    People wouldn¡¯t dare cast their votes if their voting record would be made known, but they wanted nothing more than the deaths of their powerful rivals. Only those at the top like Mu Xiaorong were kept off the list. If someone like her was on it, she would be guaranteed the highest number of votes.

    Someone stiffened as the conversation continued and an increasing number of looks turned outward. Li Hao was here!

    The young man calmly walked in and looked at the crowd. ¡°Is the list ready?¡±

    Mu Xiaorong¡¯s expression shifted and she rose. ¡°It¡¯s almost ready.¡±

    ¡°Hurry up.¡± Li Hao randomly grabbed a person. ¡°Give me the list of three hundred names you received! I¡¯ll make a roll call and put down the one hundred with the highest votes.¡±

    ¡°Commander Li, we¡¯ve juste to an internal decision...¡± Mu Xiaorong hastily said.

    ¡°What I say goes.¡± Li Hao stared her down. ¡°I¡¯ll put you on the list if you say another word!¡±

    She frowned, but said nothing else. <i>It¡¯s just a formality, just a formality. There¡¯s nothing to be afraid of.</i> And yet, she was still uneasy.

    The man that Li Hao had stopped quickly took out a list of names. Li Hao scanned it, finding it quite interesting. Each name also came with information about their family, faction, title, and government appointments. It was all clearlyid out!

    Even the families were divided into Nova and Sr factions. There were also those connected to bigger families, such as vassals of the Lius or Chens from the nine ministries...

    It was aplicated web of rtionships that stretched between the three hundred. There were strong nobles and there were weak nobles. How did the son of a centurion at the Ministry of Armed Forces have the money to cavort on Four Seas Ind?

    Li Hao paused at that particr name, finding it odd. A centurion... was a very lowly ranked position. It didn¡¯t even count as a noble in this day and age. Centurions were neither bestowed with titles or wielded actual power. Did they count as nobles?

    How could a minor centurion¡¯s son go to a ce that sshed around money? Perhaps he¡¯d been present in the capacity of a servant?

    Li Hao was unsatisfied after he scanned the list. It was all a bunch of fringe characters, but he didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°Where¡¯s the evidence?¡±

    Everyone looked at Mu Xiaorong. The girl woman nervous when Li Hao looked her way. ¡°I... have it... but we need to decide on the final list first...¡±

    ¡°Give it here!¡± Li Hao sharpened his gaze at her.

    Fearful, Mu Xiaorong doggedly repeated, ¡°We need to confirm the final list first. I¡¯ll give the evidence to you when we have our one hundred...¡±

    ¡°One!¡±

    ¡°I...¡±

    ¡°Two!¡±

    A thick sheaf of papers materialized in Mu Xiaorong¡¯s hands. Li Hao immediately yanked it from her and started dragging through it, ignoring her furious re.

    ¡°Wu Yu, son of Wu Hao, deputymissioner of the ninth section of the eastern division under the Ministry of Administration...¡± The young man quickly scanned Wu Yu¡¯s identity. The subject¡¯s crimes were listed next.

    ¡°Wu Yu raped and killed a young girl in the year 1721 of the Star Era. He was discovered when he disposed of the body and killed an eyewitness. Heter used the crime of stealing ssified information and colluding with Celestial to arrest the girl¡¯s parents when they filed a report. They were held at the Ministry of the Judiciary and died in the dungeons three monthster...¡±

    Li Hao read on a bit more. This Wu Yu seemed to have a distinct taste. His cases were all like this, rted to young girls. Some died, some survived. Those who didn¡¯t raise a fuss usually lived, but any who filed a police report or sought him out died. It wasn¡¯t just his victims who died, but the entire family that was dragged in.

    Hence, his victims filed reports at the beginning, but as time went on, no one sought out the authorities anymore. If one wanted to file a case, one either went to the Ministry of the Judiciary or the Inspectorate. However, both institutions resulted in the same oue. There was no trouble if a report was not filed, but once it went on Wu Yu¡¯s record, then the victim¡¯s entire family would soon disappear.

    The deputymissioner was one of the divisions under the Ministry of Administration, which made him only the equivalent of a low rank chiefmissioner at the Inspectorate. Li Hao reached that position a long time ago, as had Chen Jin and the rest. Wu Yu¡¯s identity wasn¡¯t the loftiest and he¡¯de about his position only through his family.

    In reality, he was an idle loafer if he didn¡¯t rely on his father¡¯s background. But here, Wu Yu seemed to be able to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

    How interesting!

    Li Hao smiled as he read the information, a smile without any hint of warmth to it. He turned to the assembly. ¡°Who¡¯s Wu Yu?¡±

    He didn¡¯t expect to see a weak and scrawny young man with a pale countenance. Wu Yu was less than thirty years old and nervously raised his arm, appearing quite pitiful. ¡°Commander Li, that¡¯s me...¡±

    ¡°Not bad!¡± Li Hao inclined his head with a smile. Having a record in 1721 meant that he started his deeds nine years ago. He was only twenty years old then.

    Wu Yu didn¡¯t know if this was apliment or meant something else. It couldn¡¯t really be apliment... could it?

    Li Hao ignored them and continued reading. He perused the names one by one. Wu Yu wasn¡¯t the most wicked among them. He was small frypared to some of the others. These people didn¡¯t have the loftiest positions or authority, but each new name outdid the rest that came before it when it came to viiny.

    A ranking officer of the Ministry of Armed Forces once led his army of one thousand soldiers to exterminate a tradingpany that secretly supported the three great organizations. He killed everyone in the tradingpany, roughly one thousand in total.

    And yet, the material in Li Hao¡¯s hands indicated that there was no collusion. The tradingpany had been destroyed because its leader had unexpectedly found a gold level origin weapon. News about the weapon had leaked somehow, spelling doom for the tradingpany.

    After that, the officer auctioned off the origin weapon instead of keeping it for himself. He handed in seventy percent of the profits, keeping only thirty for himself. Hence, that reprieved him from punishment.

    All of that was clearly detailed too, making Li Hao curious about the people who¡¯d coted this evidence and material. Were they crazy, or did they think that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t have a chance to read it? Or perhaps they thought he wouldn¡¯t page through all of it, or that there was no chance of it leaking.

    ¡°Where is Zheng Liang of the Ministry of Armed Forces?¡±

    A middle-aged man with some authority around him sheepishly raised his hand.

    <i>A ranking officer! </i>Li Hao took a quick scan and found him to be the equivalent of an initial Sr. This meant that he didn¡¯tmand a regr army, but troops of elites. It was too rare for a ranking officer to have the strength of a Sr. He was one of the higher ranked ones on this list.

    ¡°You¡¯re not bad either!¡± Li Hao smiled.

    Zheng Liang narrowed his eyes instead of responding. He was quite curious what was recorded in those files. They¡¯d been given to only one person¡ªMu Xiaorong. The rest of them didn¡¯t even have the right to read them.

    Li Hao quickly scanned through the material. There wasn¡¯t that much for three hundred people, most of it was just simple introductions. There weren¡¯t many details as it was approximately one page dedicated to one person. His mind intent was so strong that he finished in roughly half an hour.

 Chapter 680: The Hour Arrives (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 680: The Hour Arrives (IV)</h4>

    ¡°We don¡¯t have to go with one hundred, let¡¯s go with three hundred,¡± Li Hao breathed out. ¡°I¡¯ll save you the trouble of having to choose and fighting or disagreeing about it. It¡¯s all just a formality and there may not be a Li Hao tomorrow, wouldn¡¯t you say so?¡± Heughed and looked at Mu Xiaorong. ¡°Why aren¡¯t these documents stamped by the nine ministries?¡±

    ¡°Ah... that¡¯s not needed, is it?¡± Her eyes widened. What did Li Hao mean by that?

    ¡°Forget it, it¡¯s fine,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I¡¯ll visit Yellow Dragon and have him stamp the documents. That makes it so that the Night Watchers have agreed to execute them. That will be all, you guys can rest well tonight. When we walk to the za tomorrow, those who are to be executed will walk in front and those who are not can walk in the back.¡±

    ¡°Commander Li, didn¡¯t you say you¡¯ll spare the rest?¡± someone asked with rm. There might be a massive battle tomorrow, who wanted to be in the thick of things? As for those on the list... they were the unlucky ones!

    It was hard to say if everyone¡¯s safety could be guaranteed. Misfortune would arrive for some, at least; a certain number would be dragged into the mess. The others didn¡¯t want to be present for it.

    ¡°It¡¯ll be fine, I¡¯ll have the Silver Moon Guards escort you,¡± Li Hao continuedughing. ¡°Your people will be there, my people will be there. Even if someone wants to attack me, I¡¯ll make sure you guys aren¡¯t dragged in. You can trust me, I¡¯m a man of my word!¡±

    The assembly rxed upon hearing that the Silver Moon Guards would be escorting them. That... seemed eptable and it appeared that Li Hao truly didn¡¯t intend to drag them into his conflict, if for no reason other than he wouldn¡¯t be able to face their families if they were killed by the aftershocks!

    ......

    Li Hao ignored his captives and went straight for Yellow Dragon¡¯s office building. It waspletely illuminated with lights and the Night Watchers on duty at the entrance greeted him with wide-eyed shock.

    ¡°Greetings to Commander Li!¡± someone called out in a voice much shriller than normal. A window opened upstairs.

    Yellow Dragon looked down with an unpleasant expression and assessed Li Hao. The young man chuckled and took out a sheaf of papers. ¡°Stamp these to indicate that the Night Watchers have agreed to execute these people due to clear and concrete evidence!¡±

    ¡°You go too far!¡± Yellow Dragon bit off. The brat wanted his stamp on those documents?

    ¡°Are you going to stamp them or not?¡± Li Hao bared his teeth. ¡°Yellow, it¡¯s my business alone tomorrow if you stamp these. If not, it¡¯s our business right now!¡±

    Yellow Dragon¡¯s gaze sharpened¡ªthis was a threat! A tant threat! Li Hao was so out of line that one¡¯s soul might depart the body out of sheer horror! He gave repeated offense to Yellow Dragon again and again in Night Watcher headquarters, humiliating the man! People would stillugh at him in private even if the brat died tomorrow!

    And yet, Yellow Dragon still agreed. ¡°Give them here!¡± he snapped out.

    The documents flew out! Yellow Dragon took out his seal and stamped the papers; a faint ripple of mysterious power emanated from the mark. This was a special seal that could not be forged. It represented authority.

    When the documents returned to Li Hao¡¯s hands, they brimmed with a slight ripple that the young man easily crushed out of existence. He raised his head to look at Yellow Dragon and smirked, ¡°How childish!¡±

    Yellow Dragon¡¯s face flitted through a variety of expressions.

    ¡°The Night Watcher senior executives will stand by my side as they participate in tomorrow¡¯s affairs.¡± Li Hao walked off without looking back. ¡°This is a major urrence for our agency and our chance to establish our authority. You need toe as well, so you can see how I behead them!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t need you to tell me that!¡± sneered Yellow Dragon. ¡°I¡¯ll naturally be there!¡±

    <i>Of course I will! How am I supposed to watch how you die if I¡¯m not?</i>

    Would Yellow Dragon be able tomand any respect in the Night Watchers if a cocky brat like Li Hao didn¡¯t die?

    The young man continued walking off; he paused when three people barred his way.

    ¡°Commander Li.¡± Long de looked at him with a slightlyplicated expression. ¡°Killing those people won¡¯t change anything...¡±

    ¡°Not killing them will change even less!¡± Li Hao looked coldly at him. ¡°You think so, he thinks so, which is why this world is always so dark and cold! The three of you will never know what it means to be a martial master because you are not one!

    ¡°Martial masters train the heart, supernaturals train strength! Whether it is martial masters or supernaturals, it is not necessarily the distinction of strength that separates the two, but of the heart! Supernaturals will never reach lofty peaks because theyck a heart!

    ¡°Get out of my way!¡± the young man barked out.

    The three quietly stepped off to the side, remaining silent even after Li Hao was gone. <i>Martial masters train the heart, supernaturals train strength.</i> Themander had said that the difference between supernaturals and martial masters wasn¡¯t necessarily in kind of strength, but the heart.

    The trio had wanted to give him a few words of advice¡ªnot out of malicious intent. On the contrary, they really wanted to help. They rather admired what he had done, but also knew that it was a path of no return.

    The trio knew that they couldn¡¯t dissuade him otherwise, this was just a try. And yet, Li Hao declined their kind intentions and lectured them. They were all older than him, but felt only extreme shame at the moment.

    Spear looked in the direction where Li Hao had disappeared in and said softly, ¡°The spear walks a straight path and always deals with matters in a straightforward and forthright manner, as opposed to skulking in the shadows and using illegitimate means...¡±

    ¡°Ole Spear, you...¡±

    Spear spoke no further, sinking into deep thought as he kept his gaze trained in Li Hao¡¯s direction. Spear wielders were mostlyprised of direct and candid individuals. It was hard to find any aplishment with the spear if one¡¯s bearing did not resemble the weapon.

    Spear left, his rumination providing much food for thought. Big Eyes and Long de quickly caught up to him, a foreboding feeling developing in their hearts. Big Eyes set her jaw and muttered, ¡°You can¡¯t do it, Ole Spear! That¡¯s a death wish! Arcanus are invincible and an existence that no one can match at this current stage. He¡¯s crazy, but you don¡¯t have to be!

    ¡°There might be hope if one Arcanuses, but his death is guaranteed if twoe. There won¡¯t be enough of him left to bury if there¡¯s three!¡±

    It wouldn¡¯t matter if even Hou Xiaochen made a move in the event of three Arcanus; Li Hao would be dead all the same. Although he had Southern Fist, Hou Xiaochen, Yang Shan, Yu Luocha, Golden Spear, Qin Lian, and Panther on his side, his enemies had taken all that into ount. Southern Fist and Hou Xiaochen were the strongest, but they could not fight Arcanus.

    Just one Arcanus alone could dispatch those two. It¡¯d only taken one when Li Hao, Panther, and Yang Shan fought in unison. As many of his other helpers might be left, they did not measure up to one Arcanus.

    Thus, Li Hao¡¯s group would be wholly exterminated if there were just three Arcanus present tomorrow. The various institutions and ministries would not leave things up to chance. Anyone who was careless at this stage of the game was an utter fool, so there might be more Arcanus sent to the battlefield!

    A wide-eyed Big Eyes was a bit skittish and transmitted, ¡°Everyone wants to kill him. Other than the Inspectorate being ambiguous, the other eight ministries and even royal family want his head! The three great organizations, seven divine mountains apart from Sky Sword Mountain, and the City of Supernaturals will certainly be involved!

    ¡°They¡¯re also taking into ount that Silver Moon martial masters mighte to reinforce him, such as Northern Fist, Tyrant de, Yuan Shuo. Those in Silver Moon proper are too far, but these ones that are closer might be able to make it. There¡¯s also Sky Sword as well...¡± Big Eyes swiftly analyzed for the Spear. ¡°In consideration of all these factors, there might be five, six, or even more Arcanus sent against Li Hao tomorrow!

    ¡°So don¡¯t go to your death, Ole Spear,¡± she said nervously. ¡°Don¡¯t lose your mind with him, alright?¡±

    The fire in Spear¡¯s burning heart slowly extinguished. He heaved a long sigh after a while and didn¡¯t say anything. Big Ears sagged with relief. She didn¡¯t even dare imagine how tomorrow might turn out, what all sides would bring to bear against the Silver Moon crew. There might be old ministers who reappeared to kill the young man.

    If there were, these people would ny-nine percent be Arcanus with their cultivation level stabilized. The wealth of the nine ministries was not a false front. When it came to foundations, the three great organizations might notpare to the ministries. After all, the nine ministries had been established for eighty years and the ruins existed for tens of thousands.

    There just hadn¡¯t been supernaturals before, that didn¡¯t mean there weren¡¯t ruins. Too many conted the two, thinking that the awakening of the supernatural came with the awakening of the ruins.

    ......

    Sleep was elusive for everyone on this night. It felt like insomnia had struck all of Skystar City. Across the Skystar Sea, Huang Yu heaved for breath. He¡¯d made it. He¡¯d finally arrived! Even he couldn¡¯t digest such a quick journey of thousands upon thousands of kilometers. He¡¯d lost weight over the past couple of days.

    ¡°I¡¯m here!¡± Huang Yu chuckled at the Skystar Sea. How could Silver Moon be absent from such a major event?

    <i>I¡¯m here!</i>

    ......

    <i>Less than fifty kilometers from where Huang Yu was.</i>

    Jadelight Sword by his side, Yuan Shuo looked at the Skystar Sea, at the city that didn¡¯t sleep on the other shore. There was no smile on his face, just killing intent.

    ¡°My disciple... is the biggest troublemaker in the world! But... I like that!¡± Yuan Shuo threw his head back withughter. ¡°If he doesn¡¯t run tomorrow, I¡¯ll kill all of his enemies for him!¡±

    Heroic sentiment swelled! Yet Jadelight frowned solemnly. ¡°Don¡¯t run your mouth. How is a half-baked Refiner of Spirit like you supposed to match an Arcanus?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, I¡¯m ready!¡± Yuan Shuo set his jaw. ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate me, I grow stronger when I meet strong foes! Hahaha, what do you think of my disciple, Jadelight?¡±

    The woman was quiet for a while before slowly saying, ¡°He is a true hero!¡±

    Those of the martial world respected persons of unusual courage and ability. In her eyes, Li Hao was no Night Watcher. He was a gant champion of the world, one worthy of being hailed a hero! If the Record of Thirty-Six Heroes was reorganized right now, he would absolutely be in the top three!

    ¡°Hahaha!¡± Yuan Shuo roared withughter. This was the greatestpliment possible to him! <i>My disciple is famous throughout the thirty-six and is admired by the Seven Swords! Who among Silver Moon martial masters will dare say that he does not have a ce in the record?</i>

    ¡°Two conquerers in one discipline, the Five Styles reigns supreme!¡± Yuan Shuo crossed the sea in high spirits. <i>I¡¯ming!</i>

    Jadelight didn¡¯t say anything.<i> I¡¯m still so weak, but... here I am as well. </i>Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t wanted her toe, but Wu Hongshan felt that this might be her first and only chance to ever see Li Hao. <i>I want to see Demon Sword, this eighth sword of Silver Moon. I would highly regret it if I never got to catch a glimpse of him.</i>

    Thus, here she was as well.

    Swordsmen, particrly Silver Moon swordsmen, should have more pomp and circumstance around them even if they were just going to die! Gant champions of the martial worlds converged over the water or flew through the air. They were all headed to Skystar City!

    All martial masters stem from Silver Moon. <i>One of us is going to change the world! We send them on their way and fight on their behalf!</i>

 Chapter 681: A Dense Multitude of Powerhouses (I)

    <h4>Chapter 681: A Dense Multitude of Powerhouses (I)</h4>

    Restlessness rustled through Skystar City. Not a sound was heard outside the city gates. The sky began to brighten, many hadn¡¯t slept tonight as they waited for events of the day to unfold.

    The sun was out. Those up early did not raise a mor as they usually would. They walked soundlessly through the streets and busied themselves at work, asionally looking toward the north.

    Massive projection screens suddenly rose within various parts of the city. People nced at them to see the northern gate being shown on them.

    ......

    <i>Inside the Nine Dragons Pavilion.</i>

    The female manager looked to the north and at the massive projection screen inside the establishment. Numerous members of the nine ministries and royal family were present to watch the proceedings. Unease stirred the great hall.

    ¡°We have to kill him and kill him in a fast, gruesome way!¡± someone forced out through gnashed teeth. <i>You deserve to die, Li Hao!</i>

    inly, someone from his family was on the list of three hundred. The female manager looked at the crowd. <i>Is killing Li Hao worthy of so much happiness? Aren''t those on the list deserving of death? Which of them would dare say that they¡¯re innocent?</i>

    Sheughed in a self-deprecating manner and put those thoughts aside. Her heart soared with emotion and she internally shouted, <i>kill them! Kill them all, Li Hao! Let Skystar City know that anyone whomits a crime is treated in the same way!</i>

    ......

    Everyone¡¯s gazes were focused on Night Watcher headquarters and the northern city. d in armor and wielding a longsword, Li Hao moved out as well.

    One thousand Silver Moon Guards shepherded more than two thousand nobles. The remaining one thousand were left behind as they were attendants or other servants of the Four Seas Ind or the Colosseum. There was no point in bringing them.

    The crowd of three thousand walked straight out of headquarters instead of taking cars, marching down the Avenues of the Nine Ministries.

    ¡°The Skystar Commander Office is enforcing thew! Make way, give way!¡± Mu Lin roared while wielding arge shield. He led the army forward, his shouts and yells reverberating in the surroundings!

    Thousands of people set foot on the avenue and headed for the northern city quadrant. Nobles in shabby condition covered their faces, wanting nothing more than to eat Li Hao alive. How dare he parade them around in public! He needed to die!

    ......

    ¡°Damn him!¡±

    ¡°Kill him already!¡±

    ¡°Little bastard!¡± Furious cries rose from all over the city. Li Hao was crazy! He was turning two thousand nobles into an exhibition disy, that asshole! If it wasn¡¯t for ns already in ce, they¡¯d rise up and kill the son of a bitch now!

    ......

    The long procession swiftly headed toward the northern city. Li Hao was in a very rxed mood as heughed from his perch on Panther. Today would be when all of Skystar City feasted their eyes on Demon Sword Li Hao, Commander Li on the back of arge dog, the savage from the north!

    ......

    <i>The northern city gates.</i>

    There was almost no one here. A long line of people snaked its way toward the gates.

    <i>Along the streets.</i>

    None of the residents on either side of the street dared show their faces. They quietly hid behind the windows, off the streets to sneak peeks at the happenings. They couldn¡¯t afford to watch this kind of show, so as such they didn¡¯t dare watch it.

    However, everyone was concerned about it.

    ......

    Some nobles were dead on their feet after nearly an hour of walking. The northern city gate finally came into view, prompting some sighs of relief. They would be unconscious on the ground soon if they kept walking; they were finally here!

    Everyone looked at the man in front of them. <i>Do you know? You must know! It will be your death sentence soon! Why are you so pigheaded??</i>

    Li Hao was as coollyposed as before as he surveyed the surroundings. There were so many supernaturals here today as well as powerhouses! And yet, the enemy seemed to know that he could see something. There weren¡¯t many balls of light near the city gates.

    Granted, after multiple battles, it was only to be expected that the outside world would determine that he was a Heaven¡¯s Eye.

    A convoy of cars slowly followed behind him¡ªthe Night Watchers. They weren¡¯t interested in walking, but they wouldn¡¯t pass Li Hao either, instead meandering behind him.

    <i>Inside the car.</i>

    Yellow Dragon glowered at the sight in front of him and didn¡¯t say a word. In another car behind him, Deputy Director Zhou red viciously at the young man. All directors of the Night Watchers were present, apart from Yao Si. Hou Xiaochen was in the very back, his eyes closed in repose. He was also a target that everyone was on guard against.

    ......

    <i>In the royal pce.</i>

    Dressed in armor, He Yong tightened his hand around a mallet and headed outside. A man on the younger side wearing yellow robes pleaded earnestly, ¡°Please stay, Master He!¡±

    He Yong looked at the man, unusually calm on this day. ¡°I am a Silver Moon martial master!¡±

    This was his only reason. There was no need for plots and gambles today. All that needed to be said was that he was a Silver Moon martial master. Therefore, he would go.

    ¡°Master He...¡± the man sighed. ¡°I know it will be hard to persuade you otherwise, but insisting on a course of action despite understanding full well that it will be a failure is unwise! If Master He is willing to stay, I will avenge Commander Li for you once I consolidate the world.¡±

    ¡°I am of the martial world!¡± He Yongughed loudly and soared into the sky. He looked down at the nine ministries with a sneer. ¡°I¡¯ll wait for you guys toe kill me!¡±

    He broke through the air as various people looked up at his figure. Some did so with respect, others with a disdainful snort. He Yong really had emerged from the pce. These northern savages were still the same after all these years! It would be hard to kill him if he continued to hide in the pce under the ninth prince¡¯s protection.

    His decision toe out now wasn¡¯t that much of a surprise. They simply felt that Silver Moon martial masters were as impervious to reason as before.

    ......

    The Silver Moon Guards slowed down when they reached the northern city gates. There was no one around them and a big za on the outside. It was a boundless in that reached straight to the Skystar coastline.

    Li Hao jumped down from Panther¡¯s back and ordered, ¡°Bring the prisoners to the execution grounds!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Mu Lin waved his hand, prompting the Guards to yank three hundred nobles out of the crowd. Some of the nobles were Srs and registered their treatment with unpleasant expressions. Some sneered, others cowered. There were also those who shook themselves, unwilling to let the Guard close.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Some of the more hot-headed Guards decided to answer with a punch and make their subject vomit blood before dragging them off.

    The various nobles were quickly hauled to the massive za. Li Hao walked through the air and quickly put himself on the city walls of middling height. He turned to look behind him with a soft chuckle. ¡°The Night Watchers are carrying out an execution. If anyone wishes to observe, you are wee toe!¡±

    The sound of someone breaking through the air and a bark ofughter reached everyone¡¯s ears. ¡°I¡¯d like to watch! What can people do about several hundred dog heads being cut off?¡±

    He Yongnded, dressed in bronze armor, wielding a mallet, his beard frosted over, and a violent light in his eyes.

    Li Hao smiled without a word. Was he surprised that He Yong hade? Not really. However, the man was normally an opportunistic fellow. Making his stance known at this time was likely not a fair weather indication. The human heart was veryplicated at times.

    The young man didn¡¯t say anything. Behind him, the convoy of cars slowly rolled to a stop. Yellow Dragon and the others flew to the city walls with coolposure. Since Li Hao had invited them to watch the execution, then they would y along in ordance with his wishes.

    They picked a spot that was slightly removed from the young man¡ªapproximately one hundred meters apart. Ten deputy directors were present, as well as the other threemanders. There were also a dozen Novas, including Big Eyes and her two friends. There were many heavyweights among the Night Watchers. Nearly thirty Novas alone were gathered on this spot. Different thoughts flitted through their minds. Some kept silent, others looked expectant, and some gazed wordlessly at Li Hao.

    The Night Watchers were a grassroots organization, most of them came from ordinary civilians. But after twenty years, some had forgotten their roots while others were like Yao Si. They remembered, but had sumbed to reality.

    Li Hao scanned the crowd, not minding that he didn¡¯t see Yao Si. He ignored everyone present and peered imperiously down at the za. The nobles on the list craned their necks upward, some with bitter hatred, others with burning fury.

    ¡°The criminals will kneel!¡± Li Hao dered.

    No one listened to him.

    A momentter, the Silver Moon Guards next to them forced them into kneeling. Some struck extremely harshly, breaking legs with a loud crunch. Nobles sprawled on the ground as wails of agony rose.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± someone shouted. ¡°We are honorable aristocrats and should be treated with dignity even if we are to die!¡±

    ¡°There is no talk of blue blood or red blood among criminals,¡± Li Hao answered coolly. ¡°All of you are sentenced to die as you are unredeemable criminals! Ever since the ancient times, princes have been treated the same asmoners when they break thew! The dynasty is still ruled byw and order. Unless itpletely topples, you are sentenced to die today!¡±

    He checked the hour and took out a sheaf of documents. Certain members of the crowd stirred when they saw the papers and one in particr shot through the air. He was very strong andnded with a smile.

 Chapter 682: A Dense Multitude of Powerhouses (II)

    <h4>Chapter 682: A Dense Multitude of Powerhouses (II)</h4>

    ¡°Commander Li, I am Chief Justice Qi Zhao of the Supreme Court from the Ministry of the Judiciary. ording to thew, the Ministry of Justice needs to appraise and pass judgment on the crimes that these people havemitted. Is that their decision letters in themander¡¯s hand?

    ¡°If so, please permit me to peruse them!¡± A man looked at Li Hao with a smile. <i>Aren¡¯t you talking aboutw and order? Then give me that! If not, everything you¡¯re doing today is illegal and you, Li Hao, are just abusing your power.</i>

    Qi Zhao was undermining the legitimacy of Li Hao¡¯s judgments and sentencing from the roots. His veto was to say <i>you¡¯re wrong. </i>When nobles set their ns in motion, they did so in an airtight manner. Whether it was out in the open or in the shadows, they wouldn¡¯t open with an outright attack on Li Hao. They wouldn¡¯t be able to salvage their dignity and losses even if they publicly executed the young man.

    Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Senior President of the Tribunal were the two positions with the most power under the minister and deputy ministers of the Ministry of the Judiciary. Qi Zhao was a metamorphosis and even stronger than some deputy ministers. He was one who possessed real strength.

    Li Hao looked at him, then at the documents in his hands. He smiled at the man. ¡°Chief Justice Qi wishes to audit these files?¡±

    ¡°Correct!¡± Qi Zhao nodded. ¡°This is the proper procedure and thew. We can neither acquit a criminal nor convict an innocent if there are discrepancies. Commander Li is prejudiced against the nobility andmitted to their sentencing before a thorough investigation. That does not conform with thew...¡±

    Li Hao continued smiling and looking at the man. ¡°You are wrong, Chief Justice Qi!¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± Qi Zhao stared at the young man. <i>I¡¯m wrong? How am I wrong?</i>

    ¡°The nine ministries enacted a neww twenty years ago!¡± Li Hao exined calmly. ¡°The neww stated that superhumans and mundanes are to be governed separately. The Night Watchers represent the superhuman, so any that fall under this purview will be part of their jurisdiction. The Ministry of the Judiciary oversees only the mundanes. The Night Watchers are the agency that governs superhumans!

    ¡°Are there any mundanes present here?¡± Li Hao grinned with a shake of his head. ¡°Not only do the superhumans fall to me, but so do you, Chief Justice Qi!¡± The young man¡¯s tone turned severe. ¡°Do you understand? Also, how do you notprehend basicw as the highest senior of the Ministry of the Judiciary?¡±

    ¡°There was such a rule twenty years ago.¡± Qi Zhao frowned. ¡°But the supernatural had just appeared then andws were notplete. The Night Watchers were just temporarily in charge of the superhumans. Now that twenty years have passed and the times change, so have thews been reformed. The Ministry of the Judiciary submitted a new proposal several days ago that does not leave the Night Watchers solely in charge of the superhuman...¡±

    ¡°Have the nine ministries and royal family ratified it?¡± Li Hao looked at him. ¡°If they have, where is the document stamped by the nine ministries and royal family?¡±

    ¡°They naturally have!¡± Qi Zhao took out papers that Li Hao grabbed for a look. He narrowed his eyes at them.

    ¡°The Inspectorate, Ministry of Finance, and royal family have not stamped these.¡±

    ¡°It is enough if the majority agrees!¡± Qi Zhao refuted calmly. He was prepared as expected since he¡¯d stepped forward.

    The Ministry of Finance had shut its doors and washed its hands clean of everything. The inspector general had disappeared¡ªapparently for closed door cultivation. The royal family had always been of the attitude of not signing anything that the nine ministries gave them. Dying tactics were its usual response.

    However, stamps from seven of the ministries was enough. That was over half of the nine ministries.

    ¡°Very well, I see.¡± Li Hao inclined his head with a smile. ¡°But this does not apply to me.¡±

    ¡°Does Commander Li flout thew now as well?¡± Qi Zhao smiled.

    ¡°No.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s just that these documents do not adhere to regtion! As the party involved, the Night Watchers werepletely oblivious about it...¡±

    ¡°I knew about it!¡± Yellow Dragon strode forward. ¡°I knew of it and agreed to it!¡±

    ¡°Who the hell do you think you are?¡± Li Hao snorted at him. ¡°Do you really think of yourself as something by being a deputy director? Has Director Yao agreed?¡±

    ¡°Director Yao is in poor health, leaving me in charge of the agency. What is so inappropriate about this?¡± Yellow Dragon looked coldly at the young man.

    ¡°Do you have the director¡¯s official seal?¡±

    Yellow Dragon frowned. ¡°Li Hao, there is no use in presenting unreasonable demands!¡±

    ¡°I speak of thew with you, but you tell me it¡¯s unreasonable demands,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°When I speak of fighting with you, you wish to discuss rules and regtions. Do you think people don¡¯t know the one who¡¯s actually being unreasonable? You are neither the director nor have his seal. How is a deputy director qualified to make decisions for the Night Watchers?¡±

    Li Hao ignored him and looked into the sky. There seemed to be a supernatural object there recording everything and beaming to all of the projection screens in the city. He smiled at it.

    ¡°An ad-hoc revision of thew is not valid! That does not fulfill procedure or agree with custom. Or do the seven ministries think that the dynasty no longer needsw and order? If that is so, then please dismantle the Ministry of the Judiciary!¡±

    No one answered him. Qi Zhao pursed his lips and looked at Yellow Dragon. This guy hadn¡¯t been able to secure a document stamped by Yao Si. He couldn¡¯t even handle such a minor matter!

    Meanwhile, Yellow Dragon cursed to himself. Yao Si hadpletely shut himself uptely. He neither participated in anything nor received visitors. All he said was that he wasn¡¯t involved in these matters, so how was Yellow Dragon supposed to produce a document bearing his seal?!

    ¡°Therefore, thew is still thew of before!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Please stop interfering with me, I am about to proim these people¡¯s crimes to give everyone an exnation and a reason for them to ept their deaths. I ask the world if these nobles should die!¡±

    The two wanted to speak further, but the look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes abruptly chilled and aura surged out of him, pressing down so firmly on them that they could barely breathe. The two men were startled¡ªthey were metamorphosis experts!

    ¡°Wu Yu...¡± Li Hao began.

    ......

    Everyone in the city listened intently to the wordsing out of the screen.

    <i>At this moment.</i>

    Powerhouses stood in a high building. Some scanned the surroundings, others quietly watched the screen, while some wore faint frowns.

    ¡°He can¡¯t be allowed to read aloud like this. The blow to us will be too strong if he continues!¡±

    ¡°No, give him time, let him read!¡± coughed an old man. ¡°Some people aren¡¯t here yet. ording to my knowledge, some of the Silver Moon savages are still on the way. These people will all run away as soon as Li Hao dies, which will put you in a difficult spot. As for what he¡¯s reading, it will all be fabrication as soon as he dies. There¡¯s nothing important about it!¡±

    This was a rare joint operation; everyone hatched their own ns and ideas about the uing sh. However, they needed to wait! They needed to wait for some more Silver Moon martial masters to arrive so they could capture all of those barbarians in one go.

    If they took action now before the right timing, they would have issues killing Northern Fist and Tyrant de. Neither of these men had been spotted. They knew about Yuan Shuo arriving, as well as Huang Yu.

    That was far from enough. Were Earthturner Sword or Light Sword present? How about Sky Sword? He mighte even if the others didn¡¯t, since he wasn¡¯t as far away as them.

    ¡°This will create quite a disturbance...¡± someone murmured. Li Hao was proiming all of their crimes in exceedingly loud voices. Projection screens were set up everywhere in the city and the entire city listened to the roll call.

    ¡°So what?¡±ughed one of his peers. ¡°Even if the crimes are real, the children will all be found innocent in the end. The people won¡¯t dare resist in the future!¡±

    Their most important goal was to kill Li Hao. So long as they killed the brat and all of his people, none of these rebels would dare show their faces in the future.

    ¡°Have these juniors reallymitted so many crimes over these past years?¡± Some turned their attention to what was being read. ¡°This old man recognizes some of them and they¡¯re biddable enough in normal times. How could they havemitted such wrongs?¡±

    There were certain martial masters-turned-supernatural among the older generation. They¡¯d been in closed door cultivation all this time and felt ufortable at what they were hearing.

    ¡°Some of them have indeed crossed the line... We should punish them after this and privately execute a few of them to intimidate the others.¡± Some nobles nodded, but were still in disagreement at Li Hao¡¯s public executions.

    They wouldn¡¯t dere war on Silver Moon right now if Li Hao had done all this in private. Private and public were two entirely different concepts. Some people might not agree with the crimes that¡¯d been done, or felt that the nobles had done absolutely nothing wrong. However, the masses and nobility should not be treated the same when theymitted wrongdoing. Levying the same punishment on them and openly executing the guilty was a challenge to the nine ministries and royal authority.

    Powerhouses who were dissatisfied with their proposed course of action said nothing further.

    ......

    Li Hao sped through the list of crimes. A slow unrest gradually built within the city. Deep, pained sobs emitted from victims¡ªthe victims that were alive. Some were filled with righteous indignation, but there was nothing they could do. Some prayed quietly that these people must be killed. They¡¯d only thought that it was a killing of nobles before, that it would be such a satisfying act. But why was it satisfying?

    They didn¡¯t know.

    But in this moment, they gnashed their teeth with fury! What a bunch of animals! They all deserved to die! They all needed to die! Why did people want to protect animals such as these!

    ......

    <i>On the city walls.</i>

    Li Hao read for a long period of time, answered by ringing silence around him. Yellow Dragon, Qi Zhao, and a few others frowned wordlessly. That the powerhouses in the shadows hadn¡¯t made their moves meant that they didn¡¯t feel it was the right time to yet. However, the transgressions were hard to hear. It felt like millions of gazes were converged upon them, wanting to y them alive through the sheer force of their eyes.

    It took roughly an hour for Li Hao to finish the list of three hundred.

    ¡°This is only the tip of the iceberg!¡± he called out. ¡°But we are short on time and cannot fully investigate all of the usations, so we casually chose three hundred out of 2642 nobles! It is likely that at least ny percent of the rest bear crimes on their heads!

    ¡°This is only the first batch today. There will be a second batch, third batch in times toe... These people ride roughshod over the people, turn a blind eye to thew, kill without regard for life, and arepletely unredeemable. ording to thew, they should all be executed!

    ¡°This is the judgment of the Skystar Commander Office, that they all be beheaded and disyed to the public! Prepare their execution!¡±

    Three hundred Silver Moon Guards walked out with their weapons.

 Chapter 683: A Dense Multitude of Powerhouses (III)

    <h4>Chapter 683: A Dense Multitude of Powerhouses (III)</h4>

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Yellow Dragon grunted. ¡°You said that the execution would take ce at 10am. It¡¯s only 9am!¡±

    Not everyone was here yet! He and Qi Zhao were in charge of protecting the nobles in the za!

    Li Hao looked at him and smiled, suddenly recalling something. ¡°I almost forgot about another letter of judgment!¡±

    Yellow Dragon blinked, there was another?

    The young man took out another document.

    ¡°Yellow Dragon, first deputy director of the Night Watchers, deputy of the Inspectorate, andmander of the north, is guilty of ughtering innocents and firing city annihtion missiles at will. He has caused the discement of tens of millions of civilians and the deaths of millions. He shelters all manner of wrongdoing and breaks thew knowing full well its definition. That is an additionalyer of crime!¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°I don¡¯t wish to read out all of your crimes, there¡¯s too many!

    ¡°You collude with the three evil organizations and pirates, harm innocents, and stand as an umbre of protection for crime. The key is that you started a war with the three great organizations, but didn¡¯t eliminate them. You haphazardly fired off city annihtion missiles instead! You are guilty of too many crimes to record!¡±

    ¡°What right do you have to pass judgment on me?!¡± demanded an apoplectic Yellow Dragon. ¡°I am your superior officer, not to mention that the crimes are fake! Even if you think I am guilty, the matter should be handed over to the nine ministries...¡±

    ¡°No no no, you forget that you are a superhuman, so the Night Watchers can pass judgment on you.¡±

    ¡°It is never your turn to judge me!¡± Yellow Dragon roared. Li Hao was crazy! He wanted to sentence a deputy director!

    Yellow Dragon was truly part of the senior executives of the dynasty, not one of the minor nobles kneeling the za. Those amounted to the ranking officer of a military troop at most, but Yellow Dragon was very, very lofty. He was incredibly strong as a metamorphosis expert. He fell short only whenpared to someone at the level of the nine ministers. Otherwise, he was a preeminent heavyweight with an untouchable status!

    And Li Hao wanted to pass judgment on him! How ludicrous!

    The young manughed and took out a seal. ¡°Of course I have the right. Director Yao does not feel up to the tasktely, so he temporarily gave me the official seal for safekeeping. I oversee all of the Night Watchers at the moment, you are no exception!

    ¡°I hereby sentence Yellow Dragon to death!¡± He mmed the seal down, prompting a look of wide-eyed horror from the man.

    <i>Yao Si! </i>Damn it, what did Yao Si want to do?! How could he have given the seal to Li Hao?? Had the brat forced the old man¡¯s hand, or was it the old man himself who could no longer sit still and wanted to bring about Yellow Dragon¡¯s death?

    He wanted to break into a berserk rage, but Li Hao¡¯s voice sounded in his ears. The voice sounded in many people¡¯s hearts, in all of Skystar City.

    ¡°That aw enforcer breaks thew means that Yellow Dragon shall be executed on the spot! Let his death serve as a warning to others!¡± Li Hao seemed to transform into a ferocious tiger and pounce before some could react!

    Off to the side, He Yong soundlessly erupted with blood qi as well and sted out with a punch! Yellow Dragon snarled, also thrusting his fist out as he howled like a dragon. The skies darkened!

    Li Hao wanted to execute him?? He was <i>crazy!!</i>

    Qi Zhao wanted to help Yellow Dragon when Li Hao¡¯s voice echoed again. ¡°Those who attackw enforcers will be shown no mercy!¡±

    Qi Zhao paused, then grit his teeth and made his move all the same. <i>Shown no mercy? I¡¯d like to see you try!</i>

    ¡°Kill! Kill the brat!¡± Yellow Dragon howled. Some Novas stirred with action on the Night Watcher side.

    Off in the distance, frowning figures quickly materialized. They hadn¡¯t anticipated Li Hao acting ahead of time, and the key thing was, he wanted to kill Yellow Dragon. This was very surprising and forced their hand. They would turn intoughingstock if Yellow Dragon died in front of them. As for some of the Silver Moon martial masters that¡¯d yet to arrive... they couldn¡¯t wait any longer!

    A dozen figures appeared; their presences crisscrossed thend.

    ¡°Li Hao, you ughter innocents and collude with the three great organizations to kill loyal subjects. You will not be permitted to further draw breath!¡± one of them announced simply. There was no need for evidence, this was their greeting.

    The dozen flew toward the northern gate. Li Hao turned to scan them¡ªthere weren¡¯t many Arcanus, just five members. The rest were easily identified as metamorphosis. The presences of Arcanus were extremely violent as their cultivation levels were not stable. Power swept through thend and turned Skystar City into and of death!

    Yellow Dragon was overjoyed by the development. <i>Heh, you would¡¯ve lived a bit longer if you hadn¡¯t attacked me. Since you have a death wish, these guys aren¡¯t willing to wait either. Prepare to die!</i>

    Li Hao sighed and looked into the distance. ¡°You surely think highly of me. Five Arcanus and seven metamorphosis... this is quite the effort to kill me!¡±

    Multiple powerhouses walked through the sky, in no hurry to conclude their business.

    ¡°You¡¯ve arrived at Skystar City for just a few days before initiating mass ughter and colluding with the three evil organizations,¡± a wizened old man said slowly. ¡°You frame loyal subjects and condemn them to death. When ites to you, we naturally have to ensure your demise so that the evil elements in the capital know the meaning of fear!¡±

    ¡°Who are you?¡± Wholly unafraid, Li Hao smiled at the old man. ¡°Since you are here to kill me, you must have a name. You have mine, so who are you? What right do you have to pass judgment on me?

    ¡°I am the Skystar vicemander, so it can¡¯t be any random passerby who is sent to kill me. If so, things will be difficult in the future. Being an official will not be a good career as one might die at any time!¡±

    There were twelve people¡ªeight men, four women. They were all of older age. The old man stood at the very front and answered calmly, ¡°Hu Xiao of the Ministry of the Judiciary. I was the previous minister and am still the honorary minister. Am I qualified to sentence you?¡±

    Li Hao smiled and nodded. He really had lured an old fart out of hiding! He looked at the other four Arcanus.

    ¡°First deputy minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs!¡± a woman said indifferently.

    ¡°Director of the Monster Spirit Division from the Ministry of Foreign Rtions.¡± That was an old man in opulent robes.

    ¡°Commander of the Skystar Army from the Ministry of Armed Forces!¡±

    ¡°First deputy minister of the Ministry of Commerce!¡±

    The five Arcanus introduced themselves, revealing their identities as people of note. It was one previous generation minister leading four deputy ministers. The deputy ministers looked to have just broken through to Arcanus. None of them were from the three great organizations, seven divine mountains, or pirates of the four seas. They were all from the authorities!

    inly, they were still taking their dignity into ount. Li Hao looked into the distance without saying a word. There... presences rose into the sky. He could even sense the old duke fromst time.

    There were more Arcanus there, but not for him. They were waiting for the Silver Moon martial masters that wereing to support him. The old duke wasn¡¯t the only Arcanus. Since they were to fight a cohort of Silver Moon powerhouses, multiple Arcanus presences rose into the sky.

    The seven metamorphoses in front of Li Hao were either from the ministries or royal family.

    ¡°Have the Ministry of Administration or Ministry of Examinations sent anyone?¡± Li Hao asked them instead of attacking Yellow Dragon.

    ¡°Liu Qi of the Ministry of Examinations!¡± smiled a middle-aged man with a nod. ¡°My pleasure, Li Hao!¡±

    ¡°Xie Yong of the Ministry of Administration!¡± said another man with some regret. ¡°The Ministry of Administration thinks that certain matters can be discussed and negotiated, that might is not necessarily the answer. But Commander Li looks to be... obsessed!¡±

    ¡°How about the royal family?¡±

    No one responded. They didn¡¯t seem to have sent anyone.

    Li Haoughed. Was no royal representative here, or were they hiding, waiting for the best opportunity?

    Five Arcanus and seven metamorphoses had walked out of the seven ministries. This was a significant investment. Just those four newly ascended Arcanus must have taken a lot of resources. One could determine that from a quick look at their presences¡ªthey still fluctuated uncertainly.

    Off to the side, He Yong took in a deep breath and looked at Li Hao, then at Hou Xiaochen. They were in trouble now!

    Those outside likely wouldn¡¯t be able to join them. The old duke from the Xus was out there and he could also sense the presence of the lord of Buddha Mountain. This was an old acquaintance who¡¯d likely been summoned to hold off Yuan Shuo or Sky Sword. He was a veteran heavyweight.

    He Yong¡¯s informationwork was moreprehensive than Li Hao¡¯s. He could also sense the presence of the three elders of Red Moon. They... they... also seemed to be Arcanus!

    <i>Incredible!</i>

    There were five Arcanus among those people alone, and there would be more than that...

    He Yong smiled ruefully. <i>Aw fuck, does the whole world want to kill Li Hao? More than ten Arcanus, a bunch of metamorphoses... </i>The kid was dead without a doubt!

    He Yong wouldn¡¯t necessarily kill one Arcanus even if he erupted with everything he had. Hou Xiaochen was better off than him, but not by much. They were done for!

    Granted, he wasn¡¯t afraid of anything at this step. The Night Watcher powerhouses in the distances registered the changing circumstances with ashen faces. There were so many powerhouses! Too many!

    Big Eyes and the other two also watched with dropped jaws, scanning the area around them and then at the sea. They knew that all sides would send people to kill Li Hao, but they hadn¡¯t anticipated that the scene would look like this!

    ¡°There''s... two digits worth of Arcanus... here¡± Big Eyes transmitted wryly to the other two. She hadn¡¯t expected this, she truly hadn¡¯t! She¡¯d thought that there might be three... five... But five alone hade from the nine ministries!

 Chapter 684: Slaughter (I)

    <h4>Chapter 684: ughter (I)</h4>

    ¡°You¡¯re very talented, Li Hao,¡± said the old minister from the Ministry of the Judiciary. ¡°You are very strong, but you must understand that sometimes, being young is a mistake. You are usually ignored when you go about your business, yet it doesn¡¯t mean that you truly are invincible!¡±

    All sides had invested a great deal of resources to kill Li Hao today. People might think that just two or three Arcanus would be enough to kill Li Hao, but who were those on the scene?

    Existences who¡¯d overthrown the royal family! Crafty, wily old foxes, they knew how difficult someone like Li Hao was to take down. Since they¡¯d decided to eliminate him, they did so with full force! Therefore, Hu Xiao personally led the team and brought four Arcanus with him. Setting that aside, just the metamorphoses was enough to stymie Li Hao.

    ¡°You think so highly of me!¡± Li Hao sighed with emotion. They really did! Even he himself hadn¡¯t thought that so many premier powerhouses would be present today. He¡¯d thought there would be five or six, maybe seven or eight at most.

    But... that was just the number facing him. There were a lot more outside, and everyone was in positions of power in their factions. Deputy ministers, ministers, dukes, mountain lords...

    ¡°I¡¯m the only one involved in this, it has nothing to do with Southern Fist and the rest.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°You won¡¯t kill innocents now, will you?¡±

    ¡°Li Hao, do you think that everything is within your control?¡± Hu Xiao said faintly. ¡°Do you think that those such as He Yong and Hou Xiaochen will be able to escape?¡±

    Close at hand, those with Hou Xiaochen had spread out. The man himself was revealed in the process.

    ¡°What are you daydreaming about?¡± Hou Xiaochen looked ruefully at Li Hao. ¡°Do you think all these people are here just for you?

    ¡°Whether it¡¯s me or Sky Sword, they¡¯re including us in their schemes. We¡¯re their targets as well. It¡¯s not just you, but Silver Moon that has always been thus. The world strikes at us together!¡±

    It was deathly quiet in Skystar City as everyone was pale with horror.

    ......

    There were projection screens in the slums as well. Quite a lot of people were gathered in front of them, but everyone was open-mouthed with dismay.

    <i>Arcanus!</i>

    The cultivation level that¡¯d just been named was general knowledge. Everyone knew that Arcanus was a symbol of invincibility. But five hade today! Those quicker on the uptake could surmise that there were even more. More Arcanus must be stopping Silver Moon powerhouses outside the city.

    <i>Crack!</i>

    Someone kicked at the ground and lowered their head sullenly. The spark of hope in their hearts was extinguished. It was very satisfying to have Li Hao read these people¡¯s crimes aloud, but when these powerhouses walked out, everyone knew that themander would fail!

    Not only that, but Li Hao would die.

    ......

    <i>In the Nine Dragons Pavilion.</i>

    The female manager stood in mute silence as peopleughed heartily around her. ¡°Hahaha, what are these Silver Moon barbarians judging? Who can he sentence? He¡¯s the one being sentenced today! It¡¯s Silver Moon¡¯s judgment day!¡±

    ¡°Bring out wine, General Manager Jiao! Bring out your best wine! It¡¯s all on me!¡±

    ¡°Yeah, wine!¡± roared the audience.

    The female manager kept her head down and walked to the back without looking at the guests. The sky was still that familiar sky, but it seemed particrly dark today.

    <i>You guys are... truly vicious in your desire to kill him!</i>

    ......

    Little Ye drifted about despondently, looking back to peer at Yao Si. Her superior was gone.

    She didn¡¯t mind; the secretary stared dumbly at the small screen in the office. She was a little lost and didn¡¯t know what to do. Commander Li was going to die!

    <i>Why?</i>

    These people were all guilty of heinous crimes! <i>Are you deaf or blind??</i>

    She¡¯d heard of Hu Xiao of the Ministry of the Judiciary. He was even listed in history books. He was the pioneer of the new system ofws eighty years ago! He¡¯d overthrown the royal family and established new regtions. Crime immensely decreased within the dynasty and four seas during that period of time, so why was he in the lead to kill Commander Li eighty yearster?

    She didn¡¯t understand!

    Such a figure was an existence that everyone revered. The nine old ministers were targets that countless people adored even today, a time in which the nine ministries were corrupt. But Hu Xiao¡¯s presence today smashed all of their fantasies!

    <i>Why?!</i>

    Little Ye stared dumbly, feeling her faith crumble. So it turned out that the nine ministries werepletely rotten! Not a single shred of happy thoughts remained for her.

    ......

    Skystar City was shrouded by darkness. Storm clouds bore down on it and not one mote of light could be seen.

    ......

    Li Hao also sighed softly. Hu Xiao of the Ministry of the Judiciary! This one was highly unexpected. He was the chief justice who¡¯d drawn up the newws. <i>He¡¯s here today to kill me... </i>The young man shook his head, possibly out of dejection, possibly out of self deprecation.

    The nobles in the za beneath were highly excited and apprehensive. They were deeply afraid of being dragged into the ensuing fight.

    Twelve powerhouses walked through the air. Yellow Dragon swiftly reconvened with Qi Zhao and Deputy Director Zhou. He looked at the contingent of Night Watchers behind them. Some hesitated while others swiftly stirred to action. Another three deputy directors stood beside him in the blink of an eye.

    The rest of the Night Watchers didn¡¯t join him; they backed away instead. Yellow Dragon sneered at them. What a bunch of idiots, pretending to be above it all at a time like this. If he counted himself, Yellow Dragon had five deputy directors on his side. That was precisely one half the number of directors in the agency. Hou Xiaochen and another four were the other half.

    Once Hou Xiaochen died, he needed to take out those guys as well. That was just as well! There would be no voices of dissent in the Night Watchers after today.

    As for Yao Si... he¡¯d dared hand his seal over to Li Hao! Someone woulde along for him, even if Yellow Dragon left him alone. <i>Just you wait and see! </i>Yellow Dragon was quite satisfied with the oue of the situation!

    ......

    Strong foes abounded within and without the city. Rumbles sounded in the distance; battle was not yet joined in the city. A powerhouse roared with fury by the sea.

    ¡°Come and fight, Huang Yu of Silver Moon!¡±

    A spear broke through the void in response, Huang Yu was on the other end!

    ¡°You dare stand in my way, Buddha Mountain?!¡± A shout filled the air; Huang Yu¡¯s eyes were bloodshot. ¡°If Silver Moon is not razed today, we will topple your mountain tomorrow and exterminate your sect!¡±

    His blood qi ran through heaven and earth. The lord of Buddha Mountain did not respond.

    <i>Cannibal, Huang Yu!</i>

    One of the threemanders of the Skystar Troops, themander-in-chief of Silver Moon¡¯s armies and a premier powerhouse. He once swept the four directions with his spear, so domineering that those on all sides shook and cowered. He killed so many that some of the martial masters of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world cried out for mercy.

    Two of the threemanders were here.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Another loud explosion rocked the world. One fist, one de. Northern Fist, Tyrant de!

    The two hade together and forced a figure out from the shadows. It was wearing a veiled hat¡ªa Celestial representative.

    ¡°Northern Fist of Silver Moon is honored to make your acquaintance!¡± Northern Fist smiled radiantly. ¡°Are you the senior elder Dark Godless of Celestial?¡±

    ¡°That is me,¡± responded the figure before it vanished. A long de thrust through the air as a streak of de light filled the skies.

    ¡°Get back out here!¡± Tyrant de was as his moniker¡ªtyrannically domineering. He didn¡¯t give the other a chance to sink into the shadows. His de cut through the void and connected with a loud collision, forcing Dark Godless out again.

    ¡°Is there a need for this, gentlemen?¡± Dark Godless asked softly. ¡°We do not intend to fight with Silver Moon. We are just tasked by others to impede you for the time being. It will be hard for you two to defeat me without fully unsealing yourselves.

    ¡°Get out of the way!¡± Northern Fistughed.

    ¡°We must resolve troubles for people when we take their money!¡±

    Then there was nothing to talk about. The skies copsed and earth shattered when a fist descended. The Skystar Sea frothed as de and fist were deployed in conjunction with each other. Two powerhouses that were yet to fully unseal themselves manage to force an Arcanus into steadily backing away.

    <i>In the further distance.</i>

    The three senior elders of Red Moon looked around warily. There was no sign of their opponent to be seen, just a longsword rushing through the air.

    ¡°Have Ying Hongyuee!¡± an aloof voice rang through the area.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The sword swung through the air as thunder and lightning rose with an onught of sword intent. Sky Sword was here! All of the renowned martial masters of Silver Moon were present.

    ......

    All was still quiet within the city. Hu Xiao did not make a move. The rest also seemed to be waiting for something as they looked outside the city.

    ¡°Sky Sword, Northern Fist, Tyrant de, Cannibal...¡± Hu Xiao murmured. ¡°The Five Styles King and Jadelight Sword are also present. We have in front of us Southern Fist, Golden Spear, Yu Luocha, Sickly...¡± The old man smiled. ¡°Li Hao, do you think the martial world of Silver Moon will still stand if all of them die this time?¡±

    Sky Sword was very powerful! He faced three Arcanus. Although their cultivation levels weren¡¯t stable, he was able to force them to a standstill with his sword alone. One had to say, this kind of strength exceeded expectations. His cultivation level was inly fully consolidated.

    Northern Fist and Tyrant de could only jointly fight one person together. It was in to see that Sky Sword had exceeded them.

    That Cannibal could match the lord of Buddha Mountain was within expectations. The threemanders had been slightly stronger than these people back in the day. Their cultivation levels were also higher. They¡¯d been Dominators. Yuan Shuo and the rest were Sunderers.

    Another came in over the sea, riding the fog and cloud, raising waves to herald his arrival.

    ¡°Heh, so many old friends from Silver Moon havee. I¡¯m here to join the fun!¡± The neer was exceedingly fast and seemed to almost punch through the void when he whipped his leg out. A massive boom sounded as the neer fell back with a mouthful of blood. His lecherous cackling was silenced, reced by resignation. ¡°I am Thunderleg of Silver Moon and have lost face for my brothers!¡±

    Thunderleg ranked among the thirty-six; there hadn¡¯t been much news of him for a very long time. He managed to make it today, but he wasn¡¯t that strong. Just one move from the enemy had been enough to drive him back.

 Chapter 685: Slaughter (II)

    <h4>Chapter 685: ughter (II)</h4>

    ¡°It¡¯s said that Thunderleg and Deficient Leg¡¯s methods were part of the same whole to begin with,¡± coughed the old Xu duke from his position over the sea as he looked at Thunderleg. ¡°Your grudge with Deficient Leg spanned many years and we killed him for you. Why don¡¯t you thank us with the Thunderleg secret art?¡±

    ¡°Your son died such a pathetic death!¡±

    It was Li Hao¡¯s first time seeing Thunderleg. This was a wretched, disheveled old man who jumped up and down like a flea. Hisughter grated on the ear.

    ¡°Old duke, no, old marquis! Come and lick your granddaddy¡¯s feet! I¡¯ll give you the secret art if you lick it well!¡± Thunderleg spewed an endless stream of obscenities.

    The old duke didn¡¯t lose his temper, he simply let loose with both fire and water abilities. Great waves reared out of the sea and churned in the four directions like dragons. mes exploded within the fire, lighting up Skystar Sea in a particrly resplendent fashion.

    Thunderleg quickly backed away, his haste proving unable to conceal the fact that he was on the backfoot. His injuries immediately deepened and he spat out a mouthful of blood. There were too many powerhouses present! There was no sign to be seen of the Yama heavyweight yet, but even so, there were already six Arcanus visible on the scene.

    Yama¡¯s representative soon showed himself. Someone stood in front of Yuan Shuo the moment he appeared. This person was different from typical Yama members as he held himself with an urbane manner. He looked like a schr and chuckled softly, ¡°The Five Styles King is here! The Chu River King greets you!¡±

    The Chu River King of the ten court masters!

    ¡°I thought it would be Yama himselfing for me.¡± Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes. ¡°But a kid¡¯se instead. Does he not think enough of me?¡±

    ¡°I should be enough,¡±ughed the Chu River King. ¡°The Five Styles King is strong, but that was twenty years ago. No one would dare say they would be able to take you down then. I wouldn¡¯t, the head of Yama wouldn¡¯t. But it is twenty yearster, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    Seven Arcanus had shown themselves, there seemed to be no moreing from Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. Fighting had already broken out in some ces, whereas conversation flowed in others. Yuan Shuo, for instance, chatted casually with the Chu River King. He didn¡¯t seem to be in a hurry.

    ......

    <i>Inside the city.</i>

    Hu Xiao looked for a bit and then at Li Hao. ¡°Anyone else?¡± He smiled, then looked at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°There are seven Arcanus out there. Is that a big enough present? The inclusion of us five makes for twelve total. Does that show sufficient respect to Silver Moon¡¯s martial world?

    ¡°No one refutes that all martial masters hail from Silver Moon. There is nothing we can say about that. Therefore, we made thorough preparations in order to send you on your way to the underworld. We knew that you woulde!¡±

    Hou Xiaochenughed, his presence deepening. ¡°Minister Hu, I have to say, you really do think highly of us!¡± he replied with gratification. ¡°That¡¯s just as well¡ªI am lucky enough to see Thunderleg today. I¡¯ve chased after him for twenty years, but he hides so quickly that I¡¯ve never been able to catch sight of him. Today is the day!¡±

    That Thunderleg hadn¡¯t shown himself before this had much to do with Hou Xiaochen. Or rather, with the Silver Moon Guards.

    Hou Xiaochen really had tried to arrest Thunderleg for twenty years. The man had identally killed a lot of spectators when he fought an opponent. Hou Xiaochen had chased him down ever since that day, but his quarry vanished without a trace. To think that they would meet today!

    Not all Silver Moon martial masters were kind souls. There were also those who did evil. Most of them had died, but a few were alive. Someone such as Thunderleg was a viin in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s eyes.

    Off in the distance, Thunderleg¡¯ssciviousughter echoed beneath the heavens as he fought the old duke. He seemed to know that Hou Xiaochen would be discussing him, so he roared withughter despite not hearing what Hou Xiaochen was saying.

    ¡°Come get me, Hou Xiaochen, Huang Yu! Hahaha, can¡¯t get me, can you? Do you know where I¡¯ve been for thest twenty years? You have no idea!

    ¡°Don¡¯t lose your marbles when I tell you! I¡¯ve gotten nine wives and sired twenty-eight children these years! I¡¯m andlord in Near River and am rolling in money. Life is so damn good!

    ¡°I ran off to Near River when you guys wanted to get me. Hahaha, you can¡¯t~ get~ me! Fan Chang of Near River knew my identity and protected me all this time. Hehehe, so~ damn good. If I don¡¯t die this time, I¡¯ll go to Great Li. Keep trying to get me!¡±

    Thunderleg brayed withughter, but he was also receiving quite a beating. The old duke only needed to deploy a few simple techniques to throw the martial master back while vomiting blood. The gap between their strength was noticeable; Thunderleg was likely just a bit stronger than a metamorphosis.

    Sky Sword and the three Arcanus were locked in a standstill. In the other battlefields, only Huang Yu held a slight upper hand against the lord of Buddha Mountain. But was this really everyone?

    Li Hao looked back and suddenly said, ¡°It¡¯s a surprise to me that the three great organizations have sent five Arcanus. I thought you would call upon the pirates instead, such as the North Sea pirates. I have his grandson, but the North Sea King isn¡¯t here? And where¡¯s Director Hou¡¯s old boss, the Steppe Prince?¡±

    Those were the strong foes of his imagination. But it was Red Moon who unexpectedly sent three Arcanus! Li Hao had thought that Ying Hongyue would either not send anyone, or just send one to watch the show. Three at once was rather surprising.

    ¡°Aren¡¯t the Silver Moon martial masters not fully present yet either?¡± Hu Xiao said meaningfully. There was still Earthturner Sword, Light Sword, and Laughter to consider. These people weren¡¯t here yet.

    ¡°Fair enough!¡± Li Hao nodded with understanding.

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid?¡± Hu Xiaoughed at Li Hao. ¡°Because of your brashness, Li Hao, such are the consequences. Don¡¯t you regret what you¡¯ve done?¡±

    As opposed to outright killing someone, it was more devastating to condemn their thoughts and motivation. He seemed to want to see Li Hao mentally copse. Look at the horrific results of your actions! <i>Many Silver Moon martial masters may not be able to leave Skystar City alive this time!</i>

    He Yong snorted by Li Hao¡¯s side and sent his blood qi racing to the heavens. ¡°You think so little of Silver Moon martial masters huh, old fart? Let¡¯s see how many we can kill today!¡± He promptly shouted at the battlefields out of the city, ¡°You¡¯re so trash, Northern First! You and Tyrant de can together can only fight one of them? How are you worthy of being called Northern Fist?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not like we have a choice!¡± Northern Fist shouted back, blood at the corner of his mouth. ¡°How are we to match Arcanus if we don¡¯t break our supernatural locks? Kiddo there stirs up trouble left and right, but we¡¯re the ones who have to put our lives on the line for it. I just told himst time to keep a lower profile and follow the rules more!¡±

    ......

    As they chatted and insulted each other through the air, Li Hao looked down at the ground. He seemed to be contemting something or regretting something.

    Hu Xiao ignored him and raised an eyebrow at the shoreline. ¡°Are Earthturner Sword and Light Sword really noting?¡± inly, he was still waiting for them.

    He wasn¡¯t the only one, the Arcanus by the sea didn¡¯t seem to have used their full strength yet. They were waiting for those martial masters to arrive. They seemed to be concerned that if they killed those already on the scene, that would scare off the remaining two.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A streak of sword light filled the surroundings as two swords struck in unison. The skies overturned and the sea seemed to be upside down. Two people walked through the sky and Earthturner Sword broke through the void with a sword. A person rose from the bottom of the sea after a loud impact. He was dressed in yellow robes and appeared quite stately.

    ¡°Sharp senses, Hong Yitang!¡± he couldn¡¯t help butugh. ¡°I wanted to go to you after you killed General Qian Feng. I can save a trip now!¡±

    He looked at Earthturner Sword, then at Light Sword. The two looked rather bedraggled and were panting heavily, as if they¡¯d made it only through rushing long distance.

    ¡°It¡¯s always you, Steppe Prince!¡± Hong Yitang breathed out gently. ¡°You were present in the unrest of the three northern provinces, you were there at the battle of the North Sea, and you were at the founding of the Skystar Guards.

    ¡°You¡¯re a very annoying guy and the nosiest out of the nine princes!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m nosy.¡± A smile appeared on the Steppe Prince¡¯s majestic face. ¡°It¡¯s that you Silver Moon martial masters have always gued the world since the ancient times. All disturbances beneath the heavense from the north!¡±

    ......

    Hu Xiao heaved a long exhale. They were here! He¡¯d waited so long because he¡¯d been concerned about scaring these two away. Now that they were here, he could be at ease. Earthturner Sword and Light Sword rounded out the Silver Moon martial master contingent.

    Once this operation concluded, the vast Silver Moon martial world would be empty. There would still be a few renowned martial masters left, but not that many. Laughter may very well be Director General Zhao Shuguang. Kong Jie would be another one of their stronger powerhouses.

    Neither of the two needed to be guarded against!

    As for how the two Swords had rushed here so quickly, that was to the ministries¡¯ credit. They¡¯d even arranged for helicopters to escort the two to the royal city! Indeed, they¡¯d done so tantly because they were worried that the two wouldn¡¯t make it in time!

    It was best that they did.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao sighed to himself.<i> I made the deadline a mere three dayster so that you guys wouldn¡¯te. Why did you still rush here?</i>

    Silver Moon martial masters were such fools at times. This wasn¡¯t Silver Moon, it was Skystar City. But what could he do since they were already here?

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s spear was out in the open and a pair of gossamer gloves had manifested on Yu Luocha¡¯s hands. They brimmed with a stern killing intent. There was no need for further words now. Someone made their move in the next second!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Metal and wood energy intersected as an overwhelming presence red from themander of the Skystar Army. He sprinted for Hou Xiaochen, also wielding a spear. He brought it down with an explosion of arcane abilities!

    Two currents of domineering mysterious power met. Hou Xiaochen roared and stabbed his spear forward. The ming Phoenix Spear lit up the skies and cracked the earth.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Part of the city walls copsed. Nobles scattered in all directions. Li Hao¡¯s n to behead them was over.

    Both He Yong and Yu Luocha made their moves. In the void, peak Nova Qin Lian hesitated, then set her jaw and charged forward with her sword at a nearby metamorphosis!

    However, the gap between the two sides was too great. If anyone was hoping for Silver Moon martial masters on the outside to help, they would be dismayed by the results. The explosions on the outskirts grew in volume as Sky Sword was also in the field!

    There seemed to be only one sword in the world. His frosty voice trailed upon the wind, ¡°How are you three pieces of shit qualified to stand in my way?¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    His longsword shook, forcing three shocked Arcanus back. How was Sky Sword this strong? He was too strong!

 Chapter 686: Slaughter (III)

    <h4>Chapter 686: ughter (III)</h4>

    Even Hu Xiao couldn¡¯t help but take a sidelong nce. Sky Sword was unequivocally strong given that his Arcanus cultivation level was fully stabilized. No wonder he conducted himself so conspicuously! Three Arcanus had been sent to stop him, a level of treatment that no one else received.

    Martial masters summoned their blood qi elsewhere on the battlefield. Earthturner Sword¡¯s strength swelled by a massive proportion, one matched by the Steppe Prince.

    ¡°You¡¯re very strong, Hong Yitang.¡± The prince remained smiling. ¡°You¡¯ve saturated all nine of your supernatural locks, haven¡¯t you? But... it seems that I have too!¡±

    He was a martial master as well!

    Indeed, a martial master. His blood qi surged so ferociously that it almost crashed through the void. The Steppe Prince continued to smile. ¡°Step aside, Light Sword. That bandit from the North Sea will entertain you. I¡¯m going to have fun with Hong Yitang!¡±

    Light Sword¡¯s expression shifted slightly; she parted the seas with her sword. An old man walked out from the bottom¡ªone in a shirt cut off at the arms and wielding dual axes. He seemed particrly menacing!

    The North Sea King!

    He flicked a nce at the Steppe Prince, then at Light Sword, and ultimately addressed the distance in a loud voice. ¡°Nothing better happen to my grandson, Hu! If so, don¡¯t me me for what I do!¡±

    ¡°Nothing will!¡± Hu Xiao¡¯s voice came back on the wind.

    ¡°Good!¡± The North Sea King flung an ax at Light Sword. ¡°You should¡¯ve anticipated today when you killed one of my dukes!¡±

    Light Sword frowned slightly and dodged swiftly. She turned and fled after taking another look at Hong Yitang. She would only drag him down with her if she stayed. Her opponent was also an Arcanus!

    By now, all of the martial masters understood that all sides had invested in a great deal for this operation. All factions had in the world made up their minds to exterminate the Silver Moon martial masters!

    There were five Arcanus from the three great organizations, the old duke, lord of Buddha Mountain, the Steppe Prince, and the North Sea King. That made for nine Arcanus on the outskirts of Skystar City to hunt down martial masters who came to reinforce Li Hao.

    Meanwhile, there were five Arcanus and seven metamorphoses inside the city. No, there were nine metamorphoses if one counted Yellow Dragon and Qi Zhao. The nine ministries had mobilized fourteen Arcanus for this battle¡ªa highly unexpected decision!

    ......

    Even the inspector general resting inside the Inspectorate was shocked and surprised.

    ¡°They¡¯re all crazy,¡± he murmured. ¡°They¡¯re all here with unstable cultivation levels...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s to be expected.¡± His father stroked his beard. ¡°Silver Moon martial masters pose too great of a threat. Since the ministries have made the first move, they need to see it through topletion. Who would¡¯ve thought that all of these Silver Moon guys would rush here one after another, despite knowing that this is a trap!

    ¡°Forget it, we¡¯ll just hunker down like this.¡± He shook his head and looked at his son. ¡°We won¡¯t offend anyone and it¡¯s fine if we lose some authority! Here I was thinking of maybe adding some additional splendor to the scene if there were only three to five Arcanus, but Ole Hu and the others aren¡¯t giving me the chance to...¡±

    ¡°Which side would you be adding splendor to?¡± asked the inspector general. The seven ministries, or Li Hao?

    ¡°Guess!¡± chuckled the old man.

    ¡°Not interested!¡± The inspector general shook his head at the screen. ¡°Forget it, we¡¯ll do as you say and stay out of the limelight. We can¡¯t afford to offend any of them. They¡¯re all mad.¡±

    There were more Arcanus than cabbages by the side of the road. An Arcanus like him with an unstable cultivation should stay at home.

    His father nodded. It was better if they kept their heads down, in case they became a target for others. They were the only ones out of the nine ministries who¡¯d yet to express a stance. The Ministry of Finance had already eaten a loss and Li Hao was one of theirs. It would be very dangerous to stick their noses out now.

    ......

    <i>The northern gates.</i>

    Li Hao still did not make a move, even though battle raged around him. He Yong, Hou Xiaochen, Yu Luocha, and Qin Lian shed with their opponents. Even Panther had rushed out after a loud bark. The young man remained where he was.

    He wasn¡¯t ying it cool, he was just waiting. Waiting for someone toe!

    Steris stirred in his hand. It¡¯d been nurtured for a very long time without much effect. The five auras were merged as one and this might be hisst stroke as a martial master! All of his internal force had been absorbed, only a little remained in the sword¡ªthe vestiges of thest remains.

    He would no longer be a martial master after he deployed this stroke. He might be one at heart, but not in terms of strength. Li Hao looked at the Arcanus in front of him.

    ¡°Is no oneing for me?¡± he asked softly. The waiting Steris seemed to cheer. Were none of them going toe for him?

    ¡°Are we needed to kill you?¡± Hu Xiaoughed and looked at Yellow Dragon. ¡°Take him!¡±

    Yellow Dragon blinked. <i>Why? You guys are all present, why aren¡¯t you making a move?</i>

    Hu Xiao didn¡¯t say a word. The time hade to test Yellow Dragon and have him fully break with the Inspectorate. He also wanted to test Li Hao and see if the young man had more trump cards up his sleeves. Were there more core origin talismans, or others?

    It didn¡¯t matter if Yellow Dragon survived or not.

    Yellow Dragon cursed to himself and looked at those next to him. He set his jaw and transmitted to them, ¡°We go together! He¡¯s killed metamorphosis experts before, so he¡¯s not weak!¡±

    That old fart wanted him to prove himself and openly dere his loyalty! That fucker!

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much,¡± Hu Xiao¡¯s voice sounded in his ear. ¡°If you seed, we¡¯ll be in charge of everything you need to ascend to Arcanus!¡±

    Yellow Dragon¡¯s eyes lit up! He roared and punched at Li Hao. What could the young man do with multiple Arcanus staring at him? The others seemed to have received certain promises as well and made their moves too!

    Big Eyes and the other two wavered with indecision not too far away. They wanted to help, but ultimately decided against it. That would be courting death.

    Li Hao, on the other hand, frowned. Yellow Dragon and the others were just small fry that could be eliminated at any time. It was nice to kill Yellow Dragon, but that wasn¡¯t what he wanted to do at the moment. He wanted to reserve his final strike as a martial master for an Arcanus.

    What a pity!

    The young man sighed with some regret. This might be the greatest regret of his martial master career, that he didn¡¯t kill an Arcanus with his martial dao.

    ¡°To sever the self.¡± It was a soft cry that reverberated through hearts, the four corners, and the world.

    One stroke!

    All of his remaining internal force melded into the little sword. He would no longer be a martial master after this blow. Whether it was his mind intent or sword intent, those would all be supplemental to his power and just existences to protect his organs. His five auras wouldpletely extinguish and withdraw into his organs. Even if they erupted again, there would be no power behind them because there was no internal force bolstering them.

    The tiger howled and the mountain peak shook! They seemed to have realized that they might be forever trapped within the five organs after this eruption. Or if Li Hao was unable to convert back to being a martial master, the locks of the five organs would one day break to theirplete demise.

    ¡°ROAR!!¡± The tiger snarled, fissuring the earth!

    The stroke descended so quickly that it cut through the void. The Arcanus standing nearby collectively took a step back!

    <i>Crack!</i>

    The void seemed to break apart. When Li Hao retracted his sword, it was dim. Yellow Dragon, Qi Zhao, Deputy Director Zhou, and three other deputy directors stopped in front of him¡ªtwo metamorphoses and four peak Novas. All of them halted at this moment.

    Yellow Dragon led the pack and forcefully turned his head to look at Hu Xiao. <i>Why... didn¡¯t... you... save me?</i>

    Hu Xiao looked on gravely. ¡°Is this your final ace?¡± he asked softly. ¡°You want to take down an Arcanus as your burial goods? You certainly defy expectations, Li Hao!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    All six heavyweights exploded!

    The scene induced brief silence on all sides. Even the powerhouses fighting each other paused, looking in Li Hao¡¯s direction. Six experts that included two metamorphoses had died to a singr stroke!

    ¡°Nice! Yeah!¡± came overwhelming cheers from somewhere in the city. They promptly vanished in the next second. Citizens in the city couldn¡¯t help but cry out at the stunning scene. However, they promptly shut their mouths when they realized how inappropriate their reaction was.

    Li Hao heaved a heavy sigh and slightly shook his head. He smiled at the six that¡¯d been detonated. ¡°What a damned waste!¡±

    Although he¡¯d killed six powerhouses with one move, there wasn¡¯t anything to be happy about. He really didn¡¯t think much of Yellow Dragon. What a pity that those Arcanus hadn¡¯te.

    The people around him were heavily dismayed at what they¡¯d witnessed. What a powerful stroke! But they also quickly detected the inappropriate nature of the blow. That should have been Li Hao¡¯s full force¡ªhis internal force and auras seemed to have extinguished after it!

    Had the young manpletely depleted himself?

    Hou Xiaochen put everything out of his mind and erupted with maximum strength. He thrust his spear forward and sent themander from the Ministry of Armed Forces flying!

    ¡°Count me in!¡± Another Arcanus took to the field¡ªthe deputy minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Both of them targeted Hou Xiaochen, whereas He Yong and Yu Luocha were upied by the metamorphoses.

    Hu Xiao said nothing further. There was no need for words at this stage of the game. They¡¯d probed everything they wished to probe, it was time for Li Hao to die and this farce to end. A ruler manifested in the air and crashed down on Li Hao. It seemed to confine heaven, earth, and the four directions as it swung at the young man.

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow and looked in a particr direction. Someone was walking on air out of the city.

    A punch sted forth! It shook the four cardinal directions and stunned even He Yong. Off in the distance, Northern Fist also snapped his head their way.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The ruler shattered to pieces; a powerful origin weapon was instantly demolished. Yao Si continued walking toward them, looking at Hu Xiao and then Li Hao.

    ¡°You say that I¡¯m disgusting?¡± He smiled at the young man.

 Chapter 687: Slaughter (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 687: ughter (IV)</h4>

    ¡°You weren¡¯t even born yet when I fought my way through the world!¡± Yao Si bared his teeth at the young man. ¡°And you have the temerity to call me disgusting??¡±

    He pointed at Hu Xiao, who bore an unpleasant expression on his face. ¡°I have no opinion if you call this old thing disgusting, but you call <i>me</i> disgusting??¡±

    He seemed to take great offense to the descriptor. Blood qi shook heaven and earth as he sneered, ¡°When has it ever been the nine ministries¡¯ turn to interfere in Night Watcher business? When has it ever been your ce to stick your nose in things, Hu Xiao? Where is your respect for me?!

    ¡°I can¡¯t be bothered with that trash, that dog Yellow Dragon. He jumps up and down with a lot of energy, but died too quickly. Otherwise, I would¡¯ve let him know that not everyone can stick their hands into the Night Watchers!¡±

    He punched out with the howl of a dragon!

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Blood qi shook the world as Yao Si¡¯s face flushed red. Hu Xiao¡¯s eyes widened as he flung out a palm strike. Chains appeared in the void and snaked toward the Night Watcher director.

    ¡°Give it up, Yao Si!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re the one who should quit life!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Reverberations shook all of the nearby houses to pieces. Thankfully, no one was inside them given Li Hao¡¯s announcement yesterday. Yao Si had chosen to act! Not only that, but he roared angrily, ¡°Any Night Watchers that still listen to me¡ªkill all of the traitors!¡±

    Some of the deputy directors, as well as Big Eyes and her cohorts, brightened when the director took to the field. Yao Si was here!

    This old director of theirs had been frightfully quiet these five years. Everyone thought that he¡¯d settled into hibernation, so to think that he would take action today! Although this gave an additional Arcanus to their side, the odds still didn¡¯t seem that good. They were just a bit better than before.

    That Yao Si had stopped the strongest of the other side¡ªHu Xiao¡ªas soon as he stirred into action sent waves of shock through the assembly. The old guard was certainly strong!

    Li Hao was also surprised from his position on the ground, but abruptly smiled. He looked at the four corners and suddenly felt that... this was just as good. It was fine that they¡¯d alle! It didn¡¯t feel as terrifying as it might have been.

    Hou Xiaochen roared with fury as he fought two Arcanus by himself, forcing them back in an unprecedented disy of battle strength. The remaining two Arcanus charged Li Hao without hesitation. One of them was the director of the Myriad Spirit Division from the Ministry of Foreign Rtions, the other was the deputy minister from the Ministry of Commerce.

    Both of them were Arcanus and ignored the others on the battlefield. Their target was Li Hao!

    Within the trio of perverse Night Watcher geniuses, Spear shouted at the sight, ¡°Kill!¡±

    He rushed forward with his weapon, a mantis seeking to stop a chariot! However, he couldn¡¯t resist the urge to strike. Even Yao Si had shown himself. This battle held the potential to draw out even more powerhouses as reinforcements so long as Li Hao didn¡¯t die.

    There would always be someone to take a stand for justice!

    ¡°Ole Spear!¡± called out Big Eyes. She cursed as her eyes turned bloodshot. A faint current of mysterious power rippled from them. The area around Li Hao seemed to turn into nothing and disappear.

    Longsword was close behind hisrade and smashed his weapon down on the two Arcanus, cursing Spear as he did so. The guy had gone crazy!

    ......

    Li Hao ignored all of the happenings. The silver armor on his body suddenly vanished. Since everyone who was supposed to be here was present and those who were supposed to make a move had done so, he didn¡¯t want to think too much. He dismissed the armor and looked at the sky.

    Storm clouds abruptly gathered overhead; lightning shed and thunder roared. Gale winds rose, thunder and lightning exploded with a rumble!

    A downpour seemed ready for action as winds churned through the scene, whipping sand everywhere. Even the projection screens were obscured as everyone in the city sensed the day darken before their eyes. The two Arcanus, irritated by the actions of these insignificant ants, abruptly jerked their heads upward!

    A bolt of purple lightning had materialized in the sky. What was this, another Arcanus? From where? How were there more?

    As confusion and doubt brewed in various minds, Li Hao disappeared. No one saw how the young man vanished. The premises sank into a dark gloom as wind and thunder fought for supremacy. Only lightning was visible as it shed through the sky.

    The two Arcanus with unstable cultivation levels were on high alert. In the next moment, the fiercely battling Hu Xiao widened his eyes and opened his mouth to call out a warning. His heart palpitated with fear!

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    Thunder and lightning exploded, deafening the ear. The entire city seemed to have exploded!

    ¡°Hu Xiao, the old minister of the Ministry of the Judiciary, established ourws, but vites them himself. He should be put to death!¡± A cold voice echoed beneath the heavens. ¡°Wind and thunder havee, he will be baptized by thunder and lightning!¡±

    <i>RUMBLE!</i>

    Thousands upon thousands of bolts of lightning descended. Iparable presences appeared within the city as various current ministers and old ministers rose into the air! They were all highly dismayed!

    Yuan Shuo was jumping around and cursing hotly in the distance when he suddenly paused. The Chu River King sent him flying with a p, but it was like he felt no pain despite the blood streaming from his mouth. His eyes opened wide as he looked behind him!

    ¡°Supernatural...¡± he murmured.<i> Supernatural... My disciple... is a supernatural? How is my disciple a supernatural??</i>

    Fighting on all sides suddenly stopped; everyone peered through the lightning to see a giant that resembled a god of lightning standing inside.

    Li Hao was not using his sword. He stepped through the void with the Windchaser Boots and appeared in front of Hu Xiao so quickly that it seemed like he¡¯d teleported. He ignored the other two Arcanus and set his sights on Hu Xiao.

    It took only a split second for the young man to reappear. A massive fist of thunder and lightning rose without a word and mmed down on Hu Xiao. Thetter was exchanging blows with Yao Si¡ªhe roared with fury and sent out a dragon of fire, but it was instantly dissipated by the punch!

    Thunder and lightning split open!

    Li Hao¡¯s arm seemed to be an iron band as it looped around Hu Xiao¡¯s neck. mes erupted with a roar and a mountain exploded¡ªearth and fire energy from a stable cultivation detonated over Li Hao¡¯s body. The young man suffered numerous flesh wounds, but he remained unmoved.

    Was it terrifying to be injured?

    Not at all!

    <i>Creak!</i> He smashed a fist down, his arm still around the other¡¯s neck. <i>Bam!</i>

    The earth armor shattered! Another fist, and another! He rained down thousands of punches in a single moment. Hu Xiao spewed out blood as he screamed with outrage, ¡°Li Hao!¡±

    A middle-aged man broke through the air from the city. ¡°Don¡¯t you dare, Li Hao!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Thunder and lightning exploded again as Li Hao lifted Hu Xiao up with the arm around his neck.

    ¡°Today, I execute one of the founders of the nine ministries, Hu Xiao of the Ministry of the Judiciary!¡± A cold shout resonated in the four directions as a fist mmed into the other¡¯s face!

    Endless mysterious power erupted as Hu Xiao howled. His organs were rupturing, but he could not block that fist. All of the supernatural defenses in his face broke.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    His head exploded!

    Li Hao tossed away the headless corpse and moved so quickly it was like he¡¯d teleported again. He vanished on the spot, disappearing as a bolt of lighting racing across the void. The people didn¡¯t have a chance to react before the old duke suppressing Thunderleg jerked with surprise.

    How was this possible?!

    The thought had just formed in his mind when a person appeared in front of him. Li Hao seemed to have broken straight through the void to appear in front of him. The young man didn¡¯t say much because Thunderleg was weaker and almost being beaten to death. Li Hao came here first to punch again and again!

    His fists of wind and thunder were too fast! Not only that, but he seemed to st straight through all of the mysterious power in his surroundings. He was too fast as he was of the wind and thunder attribute. The wind attribute mapped to speed to begin with, not to mention he was wearing the Windchaser Boots.

    The old duke attempted to withstand the assault with a mixture of fire and water. But since Hu Xiao couldn¡¯t defy the onught, how could the old duke prove up to the task?

    Li Hao delivered one hundred punches at once!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A massive hole gaped in his chest as the old duke couldn¡¯t believe his eyes. He stared at Li Hao, his organspletely beaten to a pulp.

    ¡°You¡¯re... you¡¯re an Arcanus...¡±

    <i>Aren¡¯t you a martial master?</i>

    ¡°I must thank you all for helping me see through a lot of things!¡± Li Hao smiled and crushed his head with a loud crack. The young man casually tossed the corpse into a nearby river and disappeared again.

    ¡°Hurry and kill him!¡± someone roared in the distance.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Several Arcanus within the city immediately shot at Li Hao. Li Hao was an Arcanus!

    ......

    The young man vanished amid gale winds. When he next reappeared, he was in front of two fleeing Arcanus¡ªthe ones from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Commerce. They wanted to run, but Yao Si beat one of them down. When he sought to bring down the other one, he cursed to himself!

    A foot asrge as a mountain descended and stepped on the other fleeing Arcanus, smashing him to bits!

    Everyone in the battlefield gaped with astonishment! It was one thing for Li Hao to be an Arcanus, but his cultivation level was clearly highly stable and his body formidable. With the Windchaser Boots at hand, his speed was also incredible!

    The sight stunned all participants, but they were able to be more at ease in the next moment. Several figures appeared next to the young man¡ªall old men with white hair. Each of them were umonly grave as they looked incredulously at Li Hao.

 Chapter 688: Supernaturals Are Trash (I)

    <h4>Chapter 688: Supernaturals Are Trash (I)</h4>

    ¡°You broke a supernatural lock?¡± Someone gaped at Li Hao. The young man didn¡¯t respond¡ªhe simply vanished. Both parties took a step back when his fist collided with another, whereupon Li Hao promptly vanished again.

    <i>Boom boom boom! </i>Explosions repeatedly sounded!

    ¡°All Silver Moon martial masters can unseal yourself to the fullest!¡± Li Hao dered frostily. ¡°Kill them all, I have time to suppress your locks!¡±

    The first person to erupt with full strength as soon as those words were spoken was Yao Si. The man immediately snapped all of his locks, leaving only the tiniest sliver. He punched outward with a roar and pierced straight through the minister from the Ministry of Commerce that he fought!

    ¡°You should¡¯ve said so earlier!¡± he groused. <i>Damn this felt good!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen was at aplete loss¡ªstunned and astonished beyond belief. There was also anger and regret rising from his heart. He suddenly howled as his presence expanded balefully with crazed fury!

    ¡°Damn it, you guys have ruined him! Cough cough cough!¡± A violent coughing fit drowned out everything else he would¡¯ve said. His spear shot through the void with rage and extreme regret. He wanted to kill people!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The spear ran straight through the head of themander from the Ministry of Military Affairs. The man stared at the berserk Hou Xiaochen with disbelief and a refusal to ept the circumstances of his death. Ignoring him, Hou Xiaochen raised his weapon and charged his second target.

    ¡°You will suffer the vengeance of Silver Moon, our unending retribution! You will face the wrath of all Silver Moon martial masters, everyst possible avengement from all of our foundations! You¡¯ve ruined the genius of our generation!!¡±

    His spear once more split the air as even mes burst into being around his body. Hou Xiaochen paid no attention to this¡ª<i>all of you have destroyed the heir of the eight families!</i>

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    His spear seemed to move with the momentum of the ancient times as it tore through another Arcanus!

    ¡°Yao Si, your choice is correct! They... will all die!¡± Hou Xiaochen looked coldly at those surrounding Li Hao. He suddenly turned and charged into the sea. He Yong and the others quickly followed him. Yao Si hesitated briefly with indecision before Li Hao¡¯s voice sounded in his ear.

    ¡°Kill everyone out there, Director Yao,¡± transmitted the young man. ¡°It won¡¯t be that easy for these old shits to kill me!¡±

    Yao Si immediately broke through the air without protest.

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    Pitched battle broke out over the sea. The old ministers surrounding Li Hao widened their eyes, the kid was too fast! They hadn¡¯t anticipated how strong he¡¯d be and the key was, they couldn¡¯t catch up to him.

    <i>RUMBLE!</i>

    A bolt of lightning danced between them, ripping through heaven and earth again and again. Two figures materialized in the distance. The inspector general looked down at the scene with a flickering expression.

    ¡°How dare the three evil organizations trespass in Skystar City!¡± he roared with outrage.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    He punched through the air, aiming his fist outside the city.

    ¡°The Inspectorate executes traitors and evil supernaturals today!¡± his father called out. ¡°None of you will get away!¡±

    He was even faster as he disappeared and reappeared over the sea in the blink of an eye, blocking the Chu River King who wanted to get away. Thetter jerked back in terror!

    ¡°It¡¯s you guys...¡± he began shouting.

    ¡°Kill!¡± The old minister¡¯s roar overwhelmed all other sounds as his de crashed through the void. All Arcanus, supernatural abilities, and battle techniques were shattered by this blow!

    The Chu River King could only watch with the greatest indignation as he was chopped into two by this blow.

    The old minister coughed out of a mouthful of blood and looked back at the bedraggled Yuan Shuo vomiting blood all over the ground. ¡°Your disciple is very strong!¡± He smiled.

    Yuan Shuo stared coldly at him without responding. The old minister¡¯s smile slowly disappeared; he vanished as well, shock still roiling through his heart. How was Li Hao an Arcanus? Was this good or bad?

    It was difficult toe to a conclusion, but a furious ughter was being conducted on all sides. Some wanted to run, some gave chase.

    ......

    Li Hao zed with power as soon as he entered Arcanus. Thebination of wind and thunder made him too fast to be believed. The bursts of thunder and lightningbined were too fierce to be contended with. His condition was stable and his organs bnced. Under such circumstances, the young man was too strong to fathom.

    Five old men circled Li Hao. They were premier Arcanus with stable cultivation levels. Apart from Hu Xiao who¡¯d just died and the old inspector general who¡¯d killed the Chu River King, there were two more old ministers yet to appear. Li Hao neither knew which ministries they were from, nor did he care.

    There was only Hou Xiaochen and a few others by his side at the moment¡ªthey were swiftly killing the metamorphosis experts. Hou Xiaochen glowered, stabbing through one enemy with each thrust of his spear! The horrified metamorphoses ran for their lives. Terrified down to thest man, not many of them survived.

    Li Hao shed through the scene like lightning, striking again and again, but unable to find results. The five powerhouses paled in terms of only speed; their offensive power rivaled Li Hao and they were five against one. The young man wasn¡¯t the slightest bit afraid, but he didn¡¯t have the ability to fight them all.

    The five old men brooded at their target. He was changing too quickly!

    ¡°Hup!¡±

    <i>Wham!</i>

    A massive item shaped like a whetstone descended from the sky, noticeably decreasing the young man¡¯s speed. An old man had called upon his supernatural abilities. Li Hao didn¡¯t know what it was, just that the air was suddenly much more viscous.

    ¡°Suppress!¡± An old man waved his hand and brought the whetstone down. It ground into motion, seemingly wanting to squash out Li Hao!

    Hou Xiaochen killed all of the fleeing powerhouses and looked as if he was going to charge over to help.

    ¡°Go kill the Arcanus outside!¡± Li Hao roared. ¡°I¡¯ll handle these old things!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s expression shifted slightly, but he left as a breeze without protestation. There were still numerous Arcanus outside.

    The Steppe Prince, Dark Godless, three senior elders of Red Moon, North Sea King, and lord of Buddha Mountain were all trying to escape. Other than the old duke that Li Hao killed and the Chu River King that the old inspector general had killed, the other powerhouses were in a frenzied fit.

    They scattered to the four directions without hesitation. Circumstances inside the city had taken a turn for the worse. Although Li Hao was confined, their hearts still pounded from the sight of the young man killing Hu Xiao. Adding Yao Si and Hou Xiaochen to the mix, as well as two Arcanus from the Inspectorate, the heavyweights knew that it was time to quit the rapidly devolving situation.

    While Li Hao was preupied with several premier Arcanus, Light Sword howled with effort and erupted with light energy. She swung her sword down, making the North Sea King stumble after a loud impact.

    Even though Light Sword was bringing her full force to bear, she still didn¡¯t measure up to an Arcanus. However, the Arcanus in question only wanted to run away at the moment. Therefore, he was in no condition to fight. But an unsealed martial master was also a premier heavyweight who wouldn¡¯t let him get away so easily.

    Just as the North Sea King readied to flee one more time, his expression changed. The inspector general was here!

    <i>Wham!</i>

    A longsword manifested in the inspector general¡¯s hand and he shed it down with an eruption of power. Heaven and earth stood still for a solemn second as Arcanus power rushed out. That this individual could sit firmly in the position of inspector general naturally meant that his strength was a force to be reckoned with.

    The newly ascended Arcanus that was the North Sea King could hardly stand against such a foe. He lost an arm as the longsword came down. He wanted to howl and curse¡ª<i>it was the nine ministries who had mee! </i>But there was nothing he could say because...

    The inspector general waved his longsword around again¡ªan incredibly ferocious beast appeared on his de and broke through the void in the blink of an eye. The longsword cut through heaven and earth!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    It beheaded the North Sea King while the inspector general briefly stumbled. Mysterious power emanated from his body. It was apparent that his condition wasn¡¯t the most stable. He swiftly swallowed multiple drops of Water of Life to bring himself back under control.

    ¡°The great bandit of the North Sea has been eliminated!¡± he roared withughter.

    An incredible explosion rang in the distance as Sky Sword pierced through the firmament. One of the three great elders of Red Moon exploded in a mixture of his own water and wood energy, and was then churned to bits by the broadsword!

    The remaining two elders gasped in horror. They were three on one, but one of their own had died. Sky Sword rivaled Li Hao in his strength! He was just a bit slower as he couldn¡¯t zip through the void like Li Hao could.

    The other two elders felt their hearts shrivel up in death as Yao Si bore down on them. This was another premier powerhouse and they would have no ce to run to once he was here! The skies darkened as their thoughts ran wildly, heaven and earth overturned as Sky Sword roared, ¡°How dare you!¡±

    A broadsword illuminated the world and struck with a loud bang! A fan had manifested in the void and stopped the sword with a portentous collision. Arge hand grabbed the two elders and a person slowly walked over from the surface of the sea.

    A smile hung on the neer¡¯s face as he waved the fan that¡¯d appeared in his hand. He looked at the scowling Sky Sword, then at Yao Si. ¡°So Li Hao has set foot into the supernatural and broken his locks! What a pity, what an utter pity!¡±

    Yuan Shuo¡¯s eyes widened even further away and he looked across the void at the neer. ¡°Ying. Hong. Yue!¡± he bit off!

    ¡°Long time no see, big brother Yuan!¡± Ying Hongyue looked over with a smile and a nod.

 Chapter 689: Supernaturals Are Trash (II)

    <h4>Chapter 689: Supernaturals Are Trash (II)</h4>

    Handsome, dashing. Ying Hongyue was still the same as he was all those years ago. Yuan Shuo broke through the air to take a close look at him. Ying Hongyue wore a smile on his face, Green and Orange Moon standing by his side. The man seemed particrly jaunty as he waved his fan, like those around him were nothing.

    Yao Si and Sky Sword were premier heavyweights, but he didn¡¯t fear them. Ying Hongyue simply looked at the city and sighed, ¡°Blood runs hot in the veins of the young, alright. They snap their locks without further thought. I have to say, that makes them much stronger than we were back in the day.

    ¡°Stop watching, everyone,¡± heughed. ¡°It¡¯s not good to have everyone die as you watch, is it?¡±

    ¡°Are you always this mboyant, Ying Hongyue?¡± An incredibly muscr man appeared uponughter in the wind. He forced the old inspector general back with a punch. ¡°Old Chen, do you want to match fists with me?¡±

    ¡°Yama!¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re all the same, Old Chen, stop pretending and step aside!¡± the muscr man roared withughter. ¡°I won¡¯t take you to task for killing Chu River. His condition was poor and unstable, but only an old thing like you had it within you to attack him!¡±

    The old inspector general raised an eyebrow; his son swiftly rushed to the scene. Father and son stood together to block Yama¡¯s path.

    Yama didn¡¯t mind. He looked around with some regret. ¡°Chu River is dead, your second elder is dead as well... Dark Godless is alive, so haven¡¯t they lost one less than us?¡±

    ¡°Precisely!¡± Ying Hongyueughed. The two of them suddenly acted together!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The void was shattered after a loud boom. A longsword flew out of the air, jointly forced out by the two. It was aimed straight at Hou Xiaochen, but the two men had knocked it out of the sky. Hou Xiaochen stabbed forward with his spear and ran Dark Godless through!

    He turned back to regard the two with an arctic look. ¡°Celestial Sword Immortal seeks to stop me with a stray stroke? You two are entirely superfluous.¡±

    ¡°We just wanted to make sure!¡± Yama roared withughter. ¡°It¡¯s only fair if all three of us lose one, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    The void broke as a woman with preeminent grace stepped forth. Celestial Sword Immortal was a woman!

    The flying sword returned to her hand with a casual grab. She swept a nce over Yama and Ying Hongyue, then at Hou Xiaochen. Finally, her nce returned to the city. She wholly ignored the dead Dark Godless. All three parties had lost an Arcanus. She¡¯d wanted to save her own, but these two had thrown a wrench into the works.

    Celestial Sword Immortal assessed the situation instead of engaging in conversation. Her gaze settled on the raging Yuan Shuo. Her voice was calm and coolly collected. ¡°Hand over the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, Yuan Shuo. We are not here for Li Hao. That matter is settled since he¡¯s be supernatural. Yours will be as soon as you hand over the breathing method. Otherwise... all of you probably won¡¯t have time to seek him out and recover your locks!

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen and the others have all unsealed their strength and won¡¯t endure for long. Think it over yourself, we won¡¯t force you. We will leave after you hand over the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. If not... all of us can continue to dawdle and waste time!¡±

    ¡°Hahaha!¡± Yama roared withughter. ¡°That¡¯s right, losing an Arcanus doesn¡¯t mean anything! We¡¯ll leave once you hand it over, Yuan Shuo! How long do you think Li Hao can hold out? How long do you think any of the others can hold out?¡±

    So the three of them were here not for Li Hao, but for Yuan Shuo¡¯s breathing method!

    Many expressions shifted when people heard these words. Indeed, their battle strength was unsealed, but they couldn¡¯t maintain their condition for long. If the leaders of the three great organizations weren¡¯t on the scene, then everyone could swiftly defeat their foes, converge upon Li Hao¡¯s location, break the blockade posed by the five old ministers, and leisurely retreat at ease.

    But with the three leaders on the scene, the situation turned inscrutable. Not only that, butughter ran in the air as a gentle breeze brushed past the premises.

    ¡°This seat is very much interested as well, Yuan Shuo! Count me in for a copy of the Breathing Method of the Five Styles! There are some martial masters in the City of Supernaturals too!¡±

    A person walked out after the void shook, their eyes as bright as torches. A Heaven¡¯s Eye! This was a Heaven¡¯s Eye who¡¯d trained to the utmost of their craft! Someone from the City of Supernaturals!

    And all of these people hade for Yuan Shuo! As fine as Li Hao¡¯s sword was, that was just an external object. For these premier powerhouses, the Breathing Method of the Five Styles might be the key to breaking through to the next cultivation level.

    Yuan Shuo looked around gravely, not saying a word.

    The Arcanus still alive swiftly gathered where the premier heavyweights were. The Steppe Prince, two elders, and lord of Buddha Mountain quickly departed the battlefield. Of the nine Arcanus in the outer battlefield, the three great organizations had each lost one. The North Sea King and old duke had also fallen. Five Arcanus were dead over the sea and five dead inside.

    Ten of these eminent beings had died in the blink of an eye. But with the arrival of the leaders of the three great organizations and a Heaven¡¯s Eye from the City of Supernaturals, their side was reinforced rather than weakened.

    Soon enough, Sky Sword and the others also congregated together. Huang Yu, Sky Sword, Hou Xiaochen, Yao Si, and two generations of inspector generals were all equipped with the battle strength of Arcanus. The others, including Earthturner Sword, were slightly weaker. He hadn¡¯t upied the upper hand when fighting the Steppe Prince.

    The group came together with unpleasant expressions and stepped in front of Yuan Shuo. Ying Hongyue and the others were in no hurry¡ªthey were the ones with all the time in the world.

    ¡°Big brother Yuan,¡± chuckled Ying Hongyue as he waved his fan. ¡°Martial dao is for people to cultivate and pass down. You are not the progenitor of the Breathing Method of the Five Styles¡ªit is the cultivation of knowledge from the ancient civilization. Big brother destroyed countless ancient tomes to create it. It would be propelling martial dao to new peaks if you shared it with us!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, Ole Yuan, we¡¯re all old friends here!¡± Yama roared withughter. ¡°And it¡¯s not just us¡ªthe situation will be even moreplicated if you drag things out. Yonder seems to being.¡±

    The void split open again, disying a man with extraordinary bearing and long locks flowing in the wind. He wore a faint smile on his face. ¡°Brother Yama is of one heart with me. You knew it as soon as I arrived.¡±

    <i>The lord of Yonder Mountain!</i>

    Three lords of the seven divine mountains were present today. Buddha, Yonder, and Sky Sword Mountains were all represented. Apart from the two monster spirit mountains, the other remaining two mountains didn¡¯t care about such matters. They busied themselves with their own cultivation and there was no sight to be seen of them.

    The number of powerhouses opposing Li Hao grew with the appearance of the Yonder lord. Just their presence alone was making it difficult for He Yong and the others to breathe. They were too strong, and all of them were stable Arcanus!

    Not only that, but Ying Hongyue was likely to be stronger than he showcased. He¡¯d easily brushed aside Sky Sword¡¯s stroke.

    Muffled explosions sounded within the city as Li Hao still battled in a circle of five heavyweights. He could sense all of the developments outside, but there was nothing he could do. There were too many powerhouses opposing him!

    So many beyond expectation, and more key figures than anticipated. The leaders of the three great organizations were mysterious individuals that stayed out of the public eye, as was the lord of Yonder Mountain. The City of Supernaturals may have named the Arcanus realm, but they¡¯d never showed evidence of possessing one.

    Yet, here they all were today.

    Their only goal seemed to be the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. This was the best opportunity for them to procure it. If Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t give it up, his disciple would be in danger, as would all Silver Moon martial masters present. They would be the only ones on the losing side if battle dragged on.

    Valiantly storming the battlefield just moments ago, Yao Si and his colleagues were livid. Sky Sword showed his true features at this moment¡ªhe bore an exceedingly solemn expression and a piercing look shot out of his eyes. He looked at their opponents and swung his broadsword through the air.

    ¡°Silver Moon martial masters only fall in battle!¡± he dered frostily.

    ¡°Don¡¯t say that, we¡¯re Silver Moon martial masters too!¡± Ying Hongyueughed. ¡°I am one, and while Yama, Celestial Sword, and Yonder aren¡¯t fully, they count. They grew up in Silver Moon too and would¡¯ve been part of the Record if it didn¡¯t reject non-local candidates.

    ¡°See how well they¡¯re doing for themselves! It¡¯s all thanks to Silver Moon for that. We¡¯re full of yearning and enthusiasm for martial dao. In that case, why must big brother Yuan keep everyst scrap of knowledge to himself?¡±

    Yuan Shuo regarded them with an icy look.

    Ying Hongyue fanned himself and smiled to see Yuan Shuo look at him thus. ¡°Don¡¯t yell at me, there¡¯s also no use calling me mboyant. I¡¯m used to it and as such, it¡¯s be a part of me. Does big brother Yuan still not know me after all these years?

    ¡°Look at my little martial nephew being forced to be supernatural! Would we have permitted this to happen if big brother had given us the breathing method earlier? The nine ministries may be strong, but we¡¯re no pushovers either. It¡¯s one big family when ites to Silver Moon and we naturally would¡¯ve helped with a thing or two...¡±

    The old inspector general looked around, not saying anything. Yao Si¡¯s expression was deeply unpleasant, he¡¯d ended up on the wrong side today. Sky Sword seemed ready to erupt in all out ughter.

    Yuan Shuo took a deep breath and looked at them calmly. ¡°Will you retreat if I give it to you?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Ying Hongyue smiled. ¡°We¡¯ll all leave, don¡¯t worry! You know how martial masters are, we are people of our word! Granted, I¡¯m none too familiar with the one from the City of Supernaturals. It¡¯s a difficult feat for a Heaven¡¯s Eye to cultivate to this step, but she¡¯ll be dead all the same if she¡¯s the only one who stays after we leave. You can¡¯t possibly be afraid of her.¡±

    The Heaven¡¯s Eye was a female cultivator; there weren¡¯t many female cultivators on the scene. Celestial Sword Immortal was one, while Light Sword shone dimlypared to the two.

    ¡°I will also leave after obtaining the secret art, there is no need to worry!¡± the Heaven¡¯s Eye said softly.

    Since she, a supernatural, also wanted the breathing method, that meant these people more or less knew the particrs of the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. This was because Yuan Shuo had utilized it when he fought Xu Qing in conjunction with Li Hao. This would be a hard method to obtain normally even if one killed Li Hao. Today was a perfect opportunity!

 Chapter 690: Supernaturals Are Trash (III)

    <h4>Chapter 690: Supernaturals Are Trash (III)</h4>

    <i>Inside the city.</i>

    Li Hao threw himself against his confinement again and again, but he was having difficulty breaking through the defenses of five ultimate powerhouses. They had almostpletely surrounded him.

    ¡°Let me out to kill them!¡± the young man suddenly transmitted. ¡°If you don¡¯t, do you think six locks is my limit? Can¡¯t you see that I am of the wind and thunder attributes? My locks of the organs arepletely fine. As weak as my body is, it can endure the strain of another broken lock. Do you really want to battle to the death with me?¡±

    The five old men looked solemnly at each other.

    ¡°Let me out!!¡± Li Hao transmitted again. ¡°I need to kill these guys for threatening my master! I can leave you old dogs alone, but I have tond a few blows on them!¡±

    The five heavyweights exchanged grave looks. Do they let Li Hao go?

    Li Hao had killed so many Arcanus and even Hu Xiao¡ªso long as they kept him trapped, that would keep him from the martial masters outside. Their supernatural locks would fully break sooner orter and some of their organs might explode.

    That was the chance that Ying Hongyue and the others had seized upon. If both sides coordinated well, then all of the Silver Moon martial masters might be eliminated today.

    ¡°Do you think they¡¯ll share the Breathing Method of the Five Styles with you once they obtain it?¡± Urgency crept into Li Hao¡¯s cold tones. ¡°I¡¯ll give you three seconds to think. If you don¡¯t let me go, I¡¯ll break the seventh lock and we¡¯ll see who kills who then!¡±

    The five looked at each other again. Momentster, the enormous whetstone in the air rxed somewhat. Li Hao promptly disappeared from the center of the encirclement. The five old men furrowed their brows, not knowing if this had been a good idea or not. But their decision didn¡¯t seem like it would worsen the situation¡ªthey rather hoped that Li Hao and those people would beat each other to the point of being broken and bleeding!

    The Silver Moon savages were very hard to bring to heel. Currently, hesitation marked their movements since they were concerned about Li Hao¡¯s safety and needed to endure the risks of their locks fully snapping. Even Yuan Shuo moved with some indecision.

    But if Li Hao was free... a different development might appear.

    The five still looked around uncertainly and with aplicated mix of emotions. They¡¯d let Li Hao go¡ªwho knew if this would give rise to even worse circumstances?

    ......

    Ying Hongyue and the rest smiled as Yuan Shuo responded to them. As they thought! They wouldn¡¯t find much effect if they moved against Yuan Shuo by himself. But now, the old man¡¯s wavering was a very good oue.

    The death of an Arcanus that¡¯d barely managed to ascend didn¡¯t matter to them. Arcanus were hard toe by, but if the Breathing Method of the Five Styles could effectively raise them to another level and consolidate their organs, then the Arcanus level might not mean much in the days toe.

    As such thoughts ran through their mind, Ying Hongyue¡¯s face twitched and he looked to their rear.

    Li Hao already glimpsed them, but didn¡¯t say anything. He summoned Steris and stabbed it into his heart. Heart blood rushed into the sword, an action he hadn¡¯t taken against Hu Xiao. He was incensed beyond words, the peak of wrath!

    Steris furiously sucked in blood, turning scarlet. Li Hao knew that his uing opponents were thornier and stronger than the five old ministers. But... so what?

    He was as pale as a ghost with how much blood essence the sword absorbed; his organs felt like they were copsing. But did he care?

    He didn¡¯t!

    He was waging war on the nine ministries, but the three great organizations interfered again and again. <i>Do you really think that you¡¯re one family?!</i>

    Sky Sword stirred restlessly as his broadsword began shaking. Li Hao shot through the void with a blood-red longsword. Unbounded sword intent emanated from it while blood circted through the surface.

    ¡°Sever!¡± A harsh shout sounded from the sky. The sword stroke that descended was as if the one that Li Hao had seen that day. He was in a towering rage and stabbed his sword at a target without thought of anything else!

    He didn¡¯t aim at the leaders of the three great organizations because he knew they were very strong, he couldn¡¯t necessarily kill them! He aimed at the powerhouses behind them¡ªthe Red Moon elders, Steppe Prince, and lord of Buddha Mountain!

    These people had just weathered a huge battle. A sword descended with killing intent that pierced through heaven and earth!

    Ying Hongyue¡¯s eyes widened as he hesitated, then grabbed Orange and Green Moon before vanishing. Yama cursed under his breath and immediately vanished into the void. Celestial Sword Immortal was faster than them and had already disappeared. Their people were already dead. Since Ying Hongyue would rather save two weaklings instead of his elders, they wouldn¡¯t expend the effort to take Li Hao¡¯s world-shaking sword stroke head-on!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The void exploded as the two elders and Steppe Prince gaped with dismay. Golden light sparkled around the lord of Buddha Mountain¡ªa protective golden body! The Steppe Prince roared as something exploded with a rumble. Fire flickered into existence around him. Though he was a martial master, he decisively broke one of his supernatural locks¡ªfully broke one of them¡ªto instantly grow stronger and vanish on the spot.

    It was toote for the two elders, however. They were much weakerpared to these people and did not have any foundations to speak of. Despair appeared in their eyes.

    Off in the distance, the fleeing Ying Hongyue seemed to be pricked by a guilty conscience. He flung out his fan; it immediately appeared beneath the longsword, but promptly broke with a crunch. The fan that¡¯d held off Sky Sword waspletely obliterated!

    Ying Hongyue grunted, frowning solemnly. Steris had been unsealed by quite a bit...

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    The void cracked as the longsword swung down. The two elders were reduced to powder and arge fissure opened in the sea. All of the water in its path evaporated, an opening that was swiftly filled by other seawater that raised towering waves!

    Li Hao was apparent to the rest by now, his face stark white! He looked coldly at those fleeing. The golden light around the lord of Buddha Mountain had cracked. While he was covered in blood, he was still alive. The livid Steppe King had retreated far away; fire energy wafted from him.

    He was a martial master and had suppressed Huang Yu and Hou Xiaochen before this. He was a vaunted powerhouse with nine saturated locks! The full breakage of one of them utterly infuriated him!

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± The Steppe Prince red at the young man. Since fire energy drifted around him, he no longer had any reservations. ¡°You¡¯ve done well!¡±

    Fully breaking a supernatural lock was an immeasurable loss to a martial master. How could he not be enraged!

    ¡°You can speak to me after you break two more!¡± Li Hao shed him an arctic look.

    The prince remained silent. There was still hope to convert back to being a martial master when only one lock was broken. But a few more... he would be unable to attempt the conversion no matter what enormous price he paid.

    The five old men swiftly arrived, followed by some current ministers. The sky over the sea thronged with powerhouses in the blink of an eye. There were those from the three great organizations, several divine mountains, and the representative from the City of Supernaturals in front. They had not retreated.

    The old men had brought more Arcanus with them, but they didn¡¯t draw nearer. They were waiting for something, weighing up something. If they joined hands with the other group, they would still be able to eliminate Li Hao¡¯s people. While they¡¯d suffered heavy losses at twelve Arcanus today, Li Hao¡¯s side was still the more dangerous. He didn¡¯t have enough time to repair everyone¡¯s supernatural locks; their only option was to emte the Steppe Prince¡¯s actions. But if that happened, then the young man would find it highly regretful.

    He may have be a supernatural, but he could not extinguish hope for all martial masters.

    Li Hao plunged the blood-red sword into his heart without another word. More blood gushed forth and he turned even paler.

    ¡°You have not reached the step of forcefully unsealing Steris.¡± Ying Hongyue frowned. ¡°You¡¯ll only consign yourself to death through a depletion of blood qi! Li Hao, we just want the breathing method. It¡¯s not yet for martial masters to meet each other in fights to the death...¡±

    Li Hao said nothing. When he pulled out Steris, the hint of an ancient sword intent blossomed from the little sword. The young man swayed, unsteady on his feet. He stared at Ying Hongyue before abruptly smiling, ¡°So you¡¯re Ying Hongyue!¡±

    The man did not respond.

    ¡°You¡¯re very strong, you¡¯re ridiculously strong! But... I know why you don¡¯t make a move against me!¡±

    Ying Hongyue still did not respond!

    ¡°I know why you leave as soon as you see me!¡± Li Hao roared withughter. ¡°Ying Hongyue, how does it feel to be caught in a cocoon of your own making?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t force my hand, Li Hao,¡± Ying Hongyue remarked faintly with a frown. ¡°I may not be able to kill you, but your master and friends will all die!¡±

    ¡°No no no, it¡¯s that you don¡¯t <i>dare</i> to!¡± Li Hao threw his head back,ughing uproariously. ¡°Ying Hongyue, my Li family is the head of the eight families! You¡¯re so ambitious to swallow seven bloodlines andbine them as one! But your bloodline seems to be afraid of my bloodline! Ying Hongyue, you¡¯re ying with fire!¡±

    ¡°You can try it too.¡± The man¡¯s brows drew tightly together.

    Li Hao continued roaring withughter! He could see seven threads over Ying Hongyue¡¯s head, which meant that the man might be able to see the same! The threads seemed to have something to do with the diagram of the eight trigrams in Silver City, but they showed some resistance. Some of them even wanted to draw closer to Li Hao!

    The young man suddenly understood why Ying Hongyue didn¡¯t go to Silver City or kill him in person! He knew why the man kept sending underlings to kill thest heir of the eight families!

    Ying Hongyue was afraid of him!

    Or rather, his bloodline resisted him because he¡¯d devoured seven families¡¯ worth!

 Chapter 691: Supernaturals Are Trash (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 691: Supernaturals Are Trash (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao roared withughter and walked toward Ying Hongyue. Thetter regarded him warily, then vanished with Orange and Green Moon. He next appeared behind Yama and Celestial Sword Immortal. The man looked at the two with a frown. ¡°I leave him to you guys.¡±

    The two raised an eyebrow. <i>Interesting! </i>Ying Hongyue really did seem fearful of Li Hao.

    ¡°Your seven bloodlines are not one.¡± Li Hao shed a smile. ¡°You should be one of the eight families, so only one of the seven is a match for you. The other six are resisting you! You haven¡¯t fully assimted them. If you had, you wouldn¡¯t be afraid of me. But at the moment... the other six seem to be closer to me!¡±

    ¡°So what if they are?¡± Ying Hongyue responded calmly. ¡°You can¡¯t kill me. You can¡¯t even get close to me, not even with those boots on.

    ¡°I may not be able to kill you either, but I can kill your master, your friends, and everyone around you. Li Hao, it¡¯s just a simple matter of having Yuan Shuo hand over the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Why do you have to make things soplicated?¡±

    Ying Hongyue¡¯s bloodlines were not one whole. They refused to be fused together and felt a closer affinity to the bloodline of the Lis. Thus, he could not fight Li Hao. That would easily cause the copse of the six that he¡¯d forced together.

    But just as he said, he was very strong and could kill anyone apart from Li Hao. He could also negotiate with people like Yama and have them kill Li Hao. It was just a matter of determining willingness.

    Li Hao opened his mouth to respond, but someone suddenly sighed withplicated resignation next to him.

    ¡°Ying Hongyue, you¡¯re still as arrogant and cocky as ever after all these years!¡± he said softly.

    It was Earthturner Sword; he had a hand on Yuan Shuo¡¯s shoulder. Thetter seemed to want to do something, but Hong Yitang was holding him back.

    ¡°Brother Sky Sword.¡± Hong Yitang looked at Li Hao, then at the others. ¡°It¡¯s nice being a supernatural, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°You can give it a try!¡± Sky Sword said faintly after throwing a look at him.

    ¡°As you wish,¡± Hong Yitang chuckled and focused on Hou Xiaochen. ¡°You can forget that thought though, your nine locks aren¡¯t that stable. Or they might be ten, even eleven locks. Regardless, you have your calling, so I don¡¯t mind.¡±

    Eyes widened at the information within his words. Li Hao¡¯s expression shifted, but Hong Yitang cut him off again.

    ¡°The power of strength is found in its usage. Your master has more of a future in martial dao, whereas it doesn¡¯t matter for me,¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°Don¡¯t let your master flounder around randomly, and neither should you do the same as well...¡±

    Massive force erupted for his body as everyone heard crisp snaps of locks breaking. <i>Crack crack crack</i> sounded without pause! The smile remained on Hong Yitang¡¯s face as he waspletely unconcerned about his actions.

    ¡°I¡¯ve wanted to try this a long time ago, but only dared try the ones of my limbs. I¡¯ve never dared take another step forward, but I¡¯m rather tempted after seeing Li Hao grow so much stronger after his ascension.¡±

    A sword drifted gently through the air, but it seemed to flip heaven and earth all the same.

    ¡°Thank you for supporting me with sword energy all this time, Li Hao. It¡¯s been of great benefit to me. I wouldn¡¯t be able to stabilize my locks so easily otherwise!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    An enormous rumble rang out as the Steppe Prince stared dumbly at the sword in the middle of his chest. When had it run through him? <i>And, it¡¯s the three great organizations after you guys. What are you killing me for?</i>

    ¡°I kill you because you are a martial master with a broken lock. I fear that you may throw all caution to the wind now and continue to break more. That would turn you into a strong rival hard to contend against. The rest of them haven¡¯t broken their locks because they still have some reservations in mind!¡± Hong Yitang exined very seriously. ¡°Steppe Prince, I kill you because I view you with great importance, not because of a personal grudge. I hope you understand!¡±

    The prince opened his mouth, suddenly wanting tough.<i> I... see! You kill me because I¡¯m a person of note after breaking one lock. You¡¯re afraid I¡¯ll break more and turn into a threat. Should I feel honored?</i>

    <i>Perhaps!</i>

    <i>After all, Earthturner Sword fully broke his lock just to be able to kill me. What an honor! I trade my death for him to be supernatural. Isn¡¯t that good?</i>

    Hong Yitang pulled back his sword with a sigh. ¡°The Steppe Prince really is talented. Nine of his locks were fully saturated¡ªthere wouldn¡¯t be many who could fully match him once hepletely unsealed himself. Therefore, I¡¯ll send him on his way first. I trust that Director Hou and Commander Yu have no other opinions? He was your old supervisor.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen narrowed his eyes without a word. Commander Yu¡¯s expression was cold as he didn¡¯t respond either.

    <i>What kind of stupid opinions would we have??</i>

    It was rather Earthturner Sword who was a new consideration for them. He¡¯d fully unsealed himself and was still breaking more locks. Who knew how many he¡¯d broken, yet he was still standing? His body was on par with Li Hao¡¯s!

    The Steppe Prince had died a very wronged death, but there was no room for thought of alternative oues.

    Li Hao brooded, silently wielding a blood-red longsword. Hong Yitang was a full supernatural now!

    ¡°This is nice.¡± Hong Yitang walked over to him with a smile. ¡°It¡¯s nice to feel so invincible!¡± He turned to face everyone else on the other side. ¡°Do you still want the Breathing Method of the Five Styles? I think Yao Si, Hou Xiaochen, and Huang Yu can still unseal themselves to release their battle strength. Are you really going to sink to those depths?¡±

    He addressed only the martial masters and ignored the Heaven¡¯s Eye from the City of Supernaturals.

    ¡°Are you going to back away now, or are you going to exchange a few blows with me?¡± he repeated.

    ¡°Brother Hong, now this makes the situation awkward,¡± Yamaughed. ¡°This wasn¡¯t our intent, look at things now! Why don¡¯t you try sealing yourself again?¡±

    ¡°You sure love to joke, Yama,¡± Hong Yitangughed and swung his sword! ¡°I remember Yuan Shuo beat you a few times for your joking back in the day. How has that not helped your memory at all?¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A loud collision rang out as Yama stumbled a few steps back. His face was flushed red while Hong Yitang coughed a few times.

    ¡°Darn, that¡¯s hard! You¡¯ve cultivated your Iron Shirt method to a maximum peak, but you ran away when Yuan Shuo beat Iron Shirt to death. I wonder if your junior brother hates you.¡±

    The void seemed to split between the two of them. Yama looked down at his chest, a bloody cut there quickly healed. He frowned slightly and looked at Hong Yitang. ¡°How many locks have you broken?¡±

    ¡°Guess!¡± Hong Yitang smiled radiantly. ¡°Well, are you going to retreat?¡±

    Yama frowned without a word, but abruptly jerked in shock and vanished on the spot. A blood-red longsword quivered where he¡¯d been. Li Hao said nothing and simply frowned at the man¡¯s extreme speed.

    Hong Yitang looked wordlessly at the young man. <i>What are you being so impulsive for?</i>

    Li Hao vanished and reappeared in front of the lord of Buddha Mountain. The man¡¯s eyes widened with dismay and golden light immediately materialized in front of him. It broke with a crack, but created enough space for him to swiftly back away.

    ¡°Don¡¯t force my hand!¡± Hints of mysterious power wafted from him. ¡°I¡¯ll leave now. I¡¯m no Steppe Prince. No one will get off easy if you force me topletely unseal myself!¡±

    Li Hao simply rained down stroke after stroke in response. The mountain lord took a blow with his body, coughing up blood so that he could break through the void!

    He didn¡¯t want to die, nor did he want to fully unseal himself like the others. Instead, he chose to flee. However, a massive sword descended!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Golden sparks sprayed from the lord of Buddha Mountain, but this time, they were followed by the red light of mysterious power. Blood gushing from his mouth, he punched the broadsword back and shot to the rear. He snapped one of the locks of his arms with a crisp crack.

    The mountain lord¡¯s face was pale as he roared and snapped more locks in quick session. He punched at Li Hao, making the young man stumble. That bought him enough breathing space to leave, but he took a look at Sky Sword who stood close by.

    ¡°What are you looking at?¡± Sky Sword looked remotely at him. ¡°Unseal yourself. You¡¯re already here, how do you think you¡¯ll be able to leave just like this?¡±

    He was a supernatural and it seemed that those present had forgotten he was an Arcanus. None of them paid attention to him after Hong Yitang unsealed himself! In that case, they could try him!

    He¡¯d flung his sword out to force the lord of Buddha Mountain to break a supernatural lock. A smile floated onto his aloof face.

    ¡°Fully unseal yourselves, everyone. There are inherent problems with the path of martial masters sealing themselves. It¡¯s so boring to hide and cower in the shadows! Turn into supernaturals, everyone! There will be no retreat before one side is fully exterminated today!¡±

    This seemed to be what Sky Sword wanted to see the most. Perhaps he wished for nothing more than to have everyone be supernatural like him.

    The scene raised dread in some people. Those from Yama frowned and looked at the lord of Buddha Mountain. While the man brooded, he chose to leave.

    ¡°Sky Sword, Li Hao... we¡¯ll wait and see! But it¡¯d be for the best if you can turn all of these people into supernaturals! I await that kind of result!¡±

    He¡¯d unsealed himself and thus his battle strength had ballooned, yet the lord of Buddha Mountain still chose to withdraw. He could no longer pursue his original intentions. In that case, he chose to leave more room for these Silver Moon lunatics to showcase themselves. It was best if they could force Yama and the rest into bing supernatural. If he was to be crippled, then everyone should be crippled!

    The unsealed lord of Buddha Mountain was extremely fast, so fast that he vanished in the blink of an eye. It all happened so quickly that people didn¡¯t have time to react.

    Ying Hongyue sighed and shook his head. He wanted to fan himself, but remembered that his fan had shattered. He smiled and grabbed a person with one hand each, then vanished on the spot.

    ¡°Live well, Li Hao! We¡¯ll meet again in Silver Moon! When my seven bloodlines are fully melded, I think that will be the time for the eighth!¡± He was already gone.

    Yama and Celestial Sword Immortal alsoughed to see him go. ¡°What a pity... but he¡¯s right, we¡¯ll meet again in Silver Moon. We¡¯ll be able to take that step even without the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. We¡¯re almost there!¡±

    One powerhouse after another disappeared, choosing to retreat.

 Chapter 692: Not Leaving (I)

    <h4>Chapter 692: Not Leaving (I)</h4>

    The Heaven¡¯s Eye from the City of Supernaturals darted into the void and wanted to flee from the scene. But a loud shout rose as Li Hao, Earthturner Sword, Light Sword, Hou Xiaochen, Huang Yu, Tyrant de, Northern Fist, Southern Fist, Yao Si...

    Almost all powerhouses that could still bring strength to bear acted at the same time! Their target was one person, and one person only. The Heaven¡¯s Eye!

    Off in the distance, Ying Hongyue turned back with confusion. ¡°Where did that idiot supernaturale from? We¡¯re all gone, but she¡¯s still making up her mind. She¡¯s too ugly or I might¡¯ve given her a reminder...¡±

    He felt the situation rather odd. The rest of the group was gone, but she lingered.<i> Do you really think that the City of Supernaturals is invincible? They don¡¯t force us to stay because they¡¯re concerned that we¡¯ll fully unseal ourselves, leading to a pyrrhic victory. What right do you have to be so cocky as a singr supernatural?</i>

    Yama also looked back with a strange expression andughed. ¡°She¡¯s braindead!¡±

    Were all supernaturals braindead? There were so many heavyweights left on the scene that boiled with rage. Silver Moon martial masters were beside themselves with fury that Earthturner Sword and Li Hao had be supernatural. Didn¡¯t she see that the rest of them had run?

    What was she staying for? What was she thinking? Or was she not thinking at all?

    <i>Ugly people are so weird!</i>

    Celestial Sword Immortal had long vanished in the distance and sneered when she sensed the disturbance. Supernaturals not from the martial master system were all trash in their eyes. They were all idiots and braindead. It didn¡¯t matter if one of them died.

    ......

    <i>Kaboom!</i>

    Fireworks exploded over the sea! The immensely powerful Heaven¡¯s Eye only had time for one ghastly scream before being obliterated. There was no surprise about her death. Everyone here burned with rage; although she was a very stable Arcanus, what did that matter when faced with so many people??

    Li Hao and the rest hadn¡¯t thought that this woman would choose to be thest to leave. Didn¡¯t she see the lord of Yonder Mountain not say a word from beginning to end before quickly running away?

    ¡°What an idiot!¡± cursed another handful of people. Where did such a half witted cultivatore from? Even the old ministers couldn¡¯t help eye rolls. What was she thinking?? Were pure supernaturals all so useless?

    Not even Sky Sword might prevail over such a strong woman in singlebat, but she died in this manner to a joint collective of Silver Moon martial masters!

    A Heaven¡¯s Eye Arcanus was all too rare, but what use was one? Gone in the blink of an eye!

    This was the fourteenth Arcanus to perish today. Apart from the lord of Buddha Mountain, the rest of the fourteen who¡¯d stood outside Skystar City were all dead. The group filled in Buddha Mountain¡¯s ce with a Heaven¡¯s Eye instead, perfectly rounding out the numbers!

    It was frightfully quiet over Skystar Sea. There were a dozen supernaturals gathered behind the group¡ªall Arcanus as well. There were five old ministers and multiple current ministers gravely considering the scene.

    Representatives from the three great organizations and divine mountains had all run off. The City of Supernaturals was just here for the show, but they¡¯d lost a premier Arcanus as well. Even the raging waves of the sea quieted down as they were enveloped by a grave air of solemnity.

    ......

    <i>Over the Skystar Sea.</i>

    There were more powerhouses than could be counted. This might be the most that Silver Moon had ever sent, and they looked silently at the five old men standing in front of them. No one backed away, even with Hong Yitang having unsealed himself and the three great organizations retreated.

    A red light shone in Li Hao¡¯s eyes before he stepped on a bolt of thunder and dashed over. Since Ying Hongyue and the others had left, there was no need to be polite to these people.

    The massive whetstone once more descended in the sky to suppress the four corners. The five old men were inly prepared and deployed their abilities to the utmost. When Hong Yitang and the rest charged, an old man mumbled a string of words to manifest arge character in the sky.

    ¡°Battle!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The character seemed to summon a god wielding arge de. It illuminated the heavens and caused the skies to fall in when it swung its weapon.

    ¡°The battle techniques of core origin!¡± Yuan Shuo identified with shock. ¡°This is a secret art of Tranquil Star!¡± He looked solemnly at the five men and rapidly transmitted to Li Hao, ¡°This is a battle technique from the ancient sacrednd of martial dao¡ªTranquil Star! Mental strength is condensed into a character, it¡¯s a technique of core origin. I can¡¯t believe that core origin can still be coalesced in this day and age, be careful!¡±

    The character was unbounded in its power. Li Hao shed with the divine being in the sky, his wind and thunder energy showing hints of dispersion after a loud impact.

    Another old man spat out a mouthful of blood to form an enormous <i>attack</i> character.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Another god appeared in a sh of aureate light. It wielded a mallet that it swung at Hong Yitang.

    The current ministers watched behind the five old men. Having lost his father, the minister of the Judiciary watched with a mottled face of anger. His eyes narrowed purposefully as he suddenly spat out blood into the air and howled, ¡°I request the ancient gods to possess me!¡±

    A ck shadow appeared over his body while a battle de manifested in front of him. It swiftly melded into his body, skyrocketing his internal presence and raising it to an extreme. It was like he was the incarnation of a divine spirit in this world!

    ¡°A weapon soul¡¯s be part of him,¡± Yuan Shuo grunted. ¡°And one from a premier weapon at that. An ancient intent will mark his movements after this, be careful!¡±

    He was very knowledgeable, but sometimes pure knowledge was useless. Yuan Shuo had heard of such matters and read about them, but someone else was using it in front of his eyes. He¡¯d thought it long lost!

    Monster spirits killed back in the day were so strong that even though it¡¯d been countless years since their deaths, those that had been made into weapon souls were still incredibly powerful. Melding a weapon soul into one¡¯s body would instantly raise one¡¯s battle strength to unfathomable heights.

    A domineering presence swept through the scene. The old inspector general frowned slightly and looked at those standing in front of them. His frown deepened as he watched Li Hao and the others charge unceasingly, as if they didn¡¯t care about thetest development.

    ¡°A weapon soul possession will lead to grave losses on both sides,¡± he feltpelled to remind. ¡°This is not a technique that we should easily use. Everyone, we can sit down to discuss things or deliberate about anything untoward. Is there a need for this...¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡± Li Hao burned with rage and ignored the old inspector general. He thrust his sword through the air. Although he no longermanded sword auras, the longsword itself was ferocious and pierced through a god with one stroke.

    The old men were rmed by this and one of them rasped, ¡°Li Hao, do you guys think that this is all there is to the nine ministries? Ole Hu was careless and allowed you to take the upper hand. Do you think that you¡¯ll win??¡±

    The old man snorted and roared, ¡°I request the divine weapon to descend!¡±

    He vomited blood as peculiar ripples undted in all directions. A longsword broke through the air from the city¡ªthere seemed to be a peerless shadow floating over it! Sword intent shook the world!

    This was a figure akin to a sword immortal, but a shadow instead of a real person. It had been the personal sword of an ultimate powerhouse in the ancient civilization. Its sword intent was unabated after all these years and it shot unerringly toward its target in the north!

    Sky Sword¡¯s eyes widened and he flung his broadsword at the weapon!

    <i>ng!</i>

    The broadsword fell out of the sky and the sound of flowing streams sounded in everyone¡¯s ears. Rivers babbled as creeks flowed. Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened as well.

    ¡°The Streamflow Sword Method!¡± He¡¯d vaguely guessed at who the sword belonged to¡ªone of the writers of the <i>Fundamentals of Sword Theory </i>that he had a copy of. He¡¯d once read about their description of sword dao¡ªthe sword as the river, starting off weak, then building strong. It was the sword method by that Headmaster Chen!

    Granted, Li Hao wasn¡¯t certain if the writer was Headmaster Chen himself, a disciple, or someone else, but the sword method should be the same. This was one of the stronger sword methods in the ancient civilization, so whoever had used this sword back in the day was very strong!

    Steris suddenly trembled in Li Hao¡¯s hand. It had only been partially unsealed due to stimulus from his bloodline, but now it broke free of Li Hao¡¯s grasp and shot forward! An indomitable sword intent red from it¡ªto sever the self!

    Li Hao sensed that stroke¡¯s sword intent once more, an unimaginably strong presence heralding a flood of sword energy.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    It shot unerringly toward its target in the south!

    The Streamflow Sword traveling northward met the Sever Self Stroke shooting southward. Both swords crashed against each other in the air, with the old man¡¯s Streamflow Sword immediately showing signs of defeat.

    ¡°Sword intent from the Eternal Sword Sovereign?¡± murmured an old man who seemed to know a lot. The little sword that Li Hao¡¯s blood had activated seemed to be different from before. His expression shifted drastically as he spat out a mouthful of blood. ¡°I request the weapon of suppression to manifest!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A spear hurtled through the air from Skystar City, racing out of the Ministry of Armed Forces!

    Hou Xiaochen frowned at the sight and raised the ming Phoenix Spear. A phoenix split through the air and dove the spear. A faint spear intent blossomed from the spear, like a peerless king of the spear was forming. The fiery phoenix keened.

    Meanwhile, Yao Si shook the world with his punch!

    ¡°We request the manifestation of the divine weapon!¡± yelled the three remaining old men.

    The old inspector general gasped with horror and grit his teeth. ¡°Are you all crazy?! You know what the consequences are if all five weapons are summoned!¡±

    ¡°Which side are you on, Old Chen??¡± roared one of the old men. ¡°It¡¯s them who give no quarter! In that case, they can try this on for size! This is Skystar, not Silver Moon!¡±

    Three weapons materialized within the city, all incredibly dominating and shaking the world with their presences. One de, one ax, and one that seemed like a whip could be seen. At the same time, a massive dragon head seemed to probe out of the void. Someone shouted within the city and a godlike figure from the Ministry of Administration manifested in the air. He held a book and brought it down on the dragon head!

    A powerhouse of the Ministry of Administration! That ministry had only produced one metamorphosis expert thus far. It now showed a greater trump card, one that aimed a blow at the ce.

 Chapter 693: Not Leaving (II)

    <h4>Chapter 693: Not Leaving (II)</h4>

    ¡°Withdraw!¡± shouted the powerhouse holding a book. The five old men promptly retreated and convened with the two weapons in the air. The other ministers gathered with them as well.

    The two inspector generals rushed into the city.

    ¡°Stop fighting,¡± transmitted the old inspector general. ¡°None of you will have good endings if you keep fighting. The nine ministries have been suppressing the strongest of the royal family all this time. There¡¯s an entire batch of powerhouses that haven¡¯t taken the field yet. If we keep fighting to the bitter end with each other, it¡¯s only the royal family that benefits!¡±

    A light shed through Li Hao¡¯s eyes as he looked at the city. That enormous dragon had simply looked around before receiving a resounding blow from the Ministry of Administration. That powerhouse was formidably overpowering and far stronger than regr Arcanus.

    The ministers that¡¯d returned to the citynded ponderously, the divine weapons returning to where they¡¯d stood before. They quelled the four corners while thunderous rumbles came from the pce, like an earth dragon was thrashing through thend!

    As everyone stared at the disturbance, some figures manifested out of the pce. Enormously forceful existences regarded the scene with some regret, but a booming voice swept the city before long!

    ¡°Skystar Marquis, the nine ministries have long forgotten their original aspirations. The world is in chaos and the people suffer in misery. We hereby decree the Skystar Marquis as the Skystar Governor General with the power to supervise and preside over the nine ministries! Any who vite thew may be executed first and a report submittedter!

    ¡°Powerhouses of Silver Moon, anyone who kills a minister will be instated as the Silver Moon King and will rule over Silver Moon as their kingdom!¡±

    Certain people could no longer sit still given the happenings; the royal family had made their will known. Crush the nine ministries!

    inly, the ministries were still sessfully keeping something under control. Whether it was premier powerhouses or apex weapons, their blockade caused a great deal of distress to the royal family.

    Today was a royal opportunity. As for the Steppe Prince, dead was dead. The royal family wouldn¡¯t have stuck their necks out when Silver Moon was inly on the losing side. But now that the three great organizations had withdrawn and many ministry heavyweights were dead or injured, a good chance had presented itself.

    Although the Silver Moon martial masters were also injured, there was a chance of breaking the nine ministries¡¯ blockade if they worked with the royal forces inside the city. The group outside looked at Li Hao, light glinting from their eyes.

    Everyone could tell that the nine ministries and royal family had likely always struggled with each other beneath the surface. The ministries¡¯ domineering weapons had remained out of sight all this time, likely because they were exerting pressure over the royal family.

    Prior to this, the old ministers were forced to use their divine weapons as Li Hao was relentless. That gave the royal family some breathing space.

    Should they continue?

    Li Hao looked at the group leaking mysterious power and then at the city. He suddenlyughed in a low voice, breaking his silence. ¡°Dog eat dog!¡±

    The royal family was nothing good! Skystar Dynasty hadn¡¯t been a better ce eighty years ago¡ªit might have been even worse. This was the pot calling the kettle ck, they were all scourges upon thend. It was just that the royal family was the side being suppressed.

    Li Hao frowned when his thoughts traveled here and he looked at his teacher behind him. ¡°Teacher, those divine weapons...¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re weapons used by ancient powerhouses,¡± Yuan Shuo answered gravely. ¡°They might have been used early on and were never sealed. The nine ministries then refined them, but their weapon souls are fully awake and possess formidable battle strength!¡±

    He looked at Steris in Li Hao¡¯s hand and hefted the stone de in his. ¡°They shouldn¡¯t rival the weapons of the eight families, but those of the eight families are so powerful that they aren¡¯t unsealed even after devouring your heart¡¯s blood. Steris erupted with some sword intent only because it was triggered by those weapons...

    ¡°The nine ministries control many ruins and have demonstrated only a hint of the core origin battle methods that they know. The path of core origin has been abandoned in our day and age, so its capabilities are far from before. It¡¯s said that in the ancient civilization, core origin methods from Tranquil Star City were unparalleled, unmatched, and could suppress invincible heavyweights!¡±

    The battle methods of core origin were tied to core origin martial dao. Li Hao had once meditated on core origin, but the little treeter said that since it was a different age, perhaps it was time to fully abandon the path. It was not a match to this era.

    But even so, the little tree¡¯s core origin talisman had easily killed a metamorphosis expert and two Novas.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything; the little sword flew back to his hand. The energy within it was much depleted. Thankfully, he¡¯d stored a lot before. He didn¡¯t say a word as he directed a flood of sword energy over the gathering. Countless mysterious power stones shattered; the little sword even devoured numerous origin weapons.

    A dense wave of sword energy washed over everyone. Some, like He Yong, furiously absorbed it with tremendous glee. Others weren¡¯t that overjoyed¡ªHou Xiaochen for one. He took in only a bit before stopping. After stabilizing his condition, he continued to brood.

    Sky Sword only absorbed a little as well before stopping. He looked at Skystar City in the distance and asked faintly, ¡°Do we continue to attack? The royal family is preupying the nine ministries. We might be able to break this bnce if we make our moves!¡±

    Li Hao mused over next steps instead of immediately answering. He looked at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Director Hou, Silver Moon has always been wary of the nine ministries and royal family. Is it because of these powerhouses?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head after a brief silence.

    Li Hao blinked with surprise.

    ¡°Silver Moon is not afraid of anyone, we are just wary of luring out some old monsters at our present stage!¡± Hou Xiaochen exined calmly. ¡°Whether it is the nine ministries or royal family, they all control vast quantities of ruins. There are many in the central region. It goes without saying that there are ones belonging to the ancient human race, but there also might be nt spirits and beasts in deep slumber.

    ¡°They might have control over some nt spirits¡ªyou¡¯ve seen some before. No one wants these existences to emerge in the world at present, but there are those who might try anything if they¡¯re backed into a corner!¡± The man paused. ¡°There is a difference between present day and the ancient times. Whether it is nt spirits or beasts, they bowed to humans in the ancient times. That doesn¡¯t mean they¡¯ll do so now. We wouldn¡¯t have Sky Roc Mountain or Phoenix Mountain otherwise.¡±

    Li Hao furrowed his brows.

    ¡°There are also a few special existences apart from those,¡± Hou Xiaochen continued. ¡°They¡¯re very difficult to deal with. We once wanted to explore outward, but we suffered heavy damage! In our generation, some of the old guard martial masters obtained great power at the rise of the supernatural domain. They retreated back to Silver Moon after enduring heavy losses.¡±

    The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes flickered; he didn¡¯t ask further.

    ¡°We say that we have the four guardians, not the four champions,¡± Hou Xiaochen continued. ¡°Therefore, Silver Moon has always focused on defense, protection, and safeguarding.¡±

    Huang Yu flicked a nce at him, then sighed when he looked at Li Hao. ¡°We¡¯vee toote!¡±

    He said this because Li Hao had be a supernatural. Huang Yu was a more solemn individual, this was a rare asion in which he disyed more emotion. ¡°You were in too much of a rush to transform into a supernatural... You don¡¯t understand what you will face and what you will miss out on...

    ¡°Do you know why so many powerhouses insist on being a martial master, despite knowing that it is a difficult path to walk?¡± He murmured as he looked into the distance, ¡°Martial masters almost have no future at our cultivation stage, whereas the supernatural path is clearlyid out. Why doesn¡¯t everyone pursue the supernatural then? The Arcanus level can be stabilized, whereas there isn¡¯t even a hint of how martial masters should proceed.

    ¡°And yet, everyone insists on this path because there might be a change soon. Silver Moon might offer a solution to our problems and some ancient heritages might soon see the light of day! The cities guarded by the eight families will be open. Li Hao, you¡¯re the heir to the Lis, but some matters are passed on only to martial masters. Take Battle Heaven, for example, the Battle Heaven Army are all martial masters and not supernatural...¡±

    Li Hao would miss out on all of this as a supernatural! He might even be rejected by the city of the Lis when it appeared. It wouldn¡¯t matter if he was of their bloodline because all ancient powerhouses were martial masters. There were almost no supernaturals¡ªtheir legacies might not exist in thisnd either.

    Hou Xiaochen was silent without a word. It was a blow to him as well that Li Hao had be supernatural because the young man had done so in Skystar City, right by his side!

    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± Li Haoughed without a care in the world. ¡°I thought the consequences would be severe!¡±

    ¡°You still don¡¯t understand.¡± Huang Yu frowned. ¡°Whether it¡¯s martial masters or supernaturals, in our day and age, no one can dream of surpassing the ancients. There¡¯s no hope of doing so. If we do not obtain the legacies left behind by the various powerhouses, we will only cease to advance and bepletely unable to exceed our present! As strong as your master¡¯s Breathing Method of the Five Styles is, dare he say that he is greater than the ancients?¡±

    ¡°I dare!¡± Yuan Shuo said grumpily. ¡°Why don¡¯t I?¡± He snorted and took a long look at Li Hao. ¡°It¡¯s fine, so you¡¯re a supernatural. I¡¯ll think of a solution for you...¡±

    The old man glowered at the city and gnashed his teeth. ¡°Let¡¯s forget it this time, Li Hao. We¡¯ll just throw them around a bit. Nothing good will result from a pitched battle, but since the nine ministries dare send out so many powerhouses to kill you... then I¡¯ll...¡±

    He ground his teeth and bared them at the city, suddenly falling silent.

    ¡°Don¡¯t do anything brash!¡± Hong Yitang transmitted after a sidelong nce.

    Yuan Shuo ignored him with a huff. <i>Just you guys wait! </i>He¡¯d been in a foul mood ever since Li Hao demonstrated his supernatural capabilities. Of course, heforted thed on the surface and even praised him, but his heart had long been consumed by endless me.

    He¡¯d already sorted out the cultivation realms of Summoner and Refiner of Spirit. All Li Hao needed to do was follow his instructions. It wouldn¡¯t be hard to reach Refiner of Spirit. His five auras would be one and ultimately break out of their locks. Li Hao would even be able to easily exceed Refiner of Spirit and set foot into a new level. He could do whatever he wanted then!

    Rumbles still echoed inside the city as the royal family continued to fight back. Light streaked out of the nine ministries to converge upon the royal family.

    Li Hao said nothing else after releasing a vast sum of sword energy. He broke through the air and returned to his previous position at the northern gate. Silver Moon Guards were still on duty overseeing the nobles, but a portion of the nobles had already fled.

    ¡°The executions continue!¡± Li Hao ignored the ones who¡¯d fled. Since the nine ministries and royal family were still fighting each other, he would execute them first!

 Chapter 694: Not Leaving (III)

    <h4>Chapter 694: Not Leaving (III)</h4>

    The fighting earlier had purposefully avoided the captured nobles, so they thought all was fine. Now, all of them were as white as a sheet and someone roared angrily, ¡°Li Hao, you¡¯re just bullying the weak if you kill us! It¡¯s the weak being food for the strong!¡±

    ¡°Mu Xiaorong¡¯s run off and so have those major nobles. Why don¡¯t you go after them?¡±

    ¡°All your talk of fairness is just a joke! You¡¯re just someone who picks on the easy targets!¡±

    These nobles could sense the threat of impending death. The nine ministries had withdrawn, but Li Hao hade back. They shouted with anger and outrage. It was obvious that they¡¯d been abandoned!

    Most of the premier nobles, the likes of Mu Xiaorong and the others, had run off. It was the ones remaining who were discarded pawns. There were too many of them and the ministry experts hadn¡¯t nned on saving them in the first ce.

    Li Hao watched them silently. Momentster, his shout echoed in all directions. ¡°Commence the execution!¡±

    Flushed with excitement, Silver Moon Guards swung down their des with a grunt!

    <i>Pfft!</i>

    Arrows of blood shot out! The bleary-eyed citizenry within the city paused with astonishment when bloody scenes appeared on the projection screens.

    ......

    <i>The Nine Dragons Pavilion.</i>

    An opulently dressed woman vanished and reappeared underground. She let her displeasure be known with a frown. ¡°Why is the broadcast still continuing? It should have ended when the nine ministries lost!¡±

    Indeed, as the extension of the royal family in the outside world, this farce should have ended when the nine ministries retreated. Scenes of the nobles being executed did not need to be streamed. It enhanced Li Hao¡¯s reputation, but was a blow to the nine ministries and the royal family. That was not a good oue.

    They had an arrangement to cease the broadcast when the nine ministries were defeated or Li Hao killed. No matter what, there should be no scenes of execution. And yet, the Nine Dragons Pavilion producer did not shut the stream off!

    The woman had been focusing on the unrest at the pce and didn¡¯t realize that the projection screens were still active. It was only when gasps rose and fell outside that she realized what was at hand.

    Massive machines whirred with activity below ground. A dozen people were in charge of operations. The female manager was here as well and about to speak when an old man with white hair smiled, blood suddenly oozing out of his mouth.

    ¡°Your Highness the Seventh Princess,¡± he addressed the opulent woman. ¡°Allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Zhao Mingduan, head of the Skystar Ancient Academy research division. I gave the order... for continued broadcast. Doesn¡¯t Your Highness... think it¡¯s so beautiful... when the heads are chopped off?¡±

    Heughed, oozing more and more blood until he gradually lost his vital signs. The seventh princess looked severely at the others in the room. Everyone was quiet. Operating the projection machines was a technical job, not one strictly rted to martial ability.

    The Nine Dragons Pavilion had recruited some people when the Skystar Ancient Academy closed. To think that they would spring this on her today! Most of these people were former students, as well as several teachers.

    Of course, it wasn¡¯t like she¡¯d given them free rein of the ce. Some of her people were standing guard here. She looked around and saw some corpses in the corner. Her expression shifted rapidly and she nced at the female manager. ¡°How did they die, Hu Jiao? When did you get here?¡±

    Color drained from the manager¡¯s face and she lowered her voice, ¡°Pavilion master, I...¡±

    ¡°Cough cough cough!¡± Another old man covered his voice as he coughed. ¡°Your Highness, Zhao Mingduan is dead. He killed them before he died. Are you going to keep pursuing the matter?¡± He smiled at this point. ¡°If you do, then the Nine Dragons Pavilion might lose contact with various locales at any point. All intelligenceworks require our support for the moment, including the hubs of the transmission pendants. Once problems arise... is the princess confident in not needing our aid toplete repairs?¡±

    ¡°Are you threatening me?¡± The seventh princess looked coldly at him. The old man coughed without end, but he didn¡¯t seem to be afraid.

    ¡°It¡¯s not a threat,¡± heughed softly. ¡°Just borating on the truth. Perhaps... everyone thinks we¡¯re useless, but the seventh princess should understand that without us, all of the royal intelligence systems will copse. Will that satisfy you?¡±

    ¡°Do you all think this way?¡± The woman coldly regarded everyone around her. ¡°This seat doesn¡¯t need that many people. So long as someone possesses the knowledge, the legacy will not end. Zhao Mingduan is dead and I need a new person at the helm. Glory and splendor is yours if you say so!¡±

    She snorted inwardly. What were a few more dead? There were a dozen present and none of this was a problem so long as a few of them still understood the technology. There would naturally be new recruits to continue learning the trade and fill in the gaps.

    Wasn¡¯t it just status and wealth? She would give it to them!

    Dead silence reigned in the basement. Everyone lowered their heads without a word.

    ¡°We are in grief at the esteemed Zhao Mingduan¡¯s passing,¡± the old man said softly. ¡°It¡¯s not an appropriate time to talk about money or glory and splendor. This was just a small mishap, but he paid with his life for it. Does the seventh princess still find it not enough? Then this old man will go with him...¡±

    The expression on the seventh princess¡¯ face turned colder and she sneered. ¡°Well well, as expected of those from the Ancient Academy. Yun Haoran did not submit even upon pain of death, and he raised another crop of tough nuts in his wake!¡±

    She whirled around and left. The female manager quickly followed her without saying a word. She ducked her head for a look when she passed by Zhao Mingduan¡¯s corpse and looked into the man¡¯s eyes. Her eyes grew wet at the sight of the other¡¯s smile. The dampness immediately evaporated as she left with the seventh princess.

    Muffled sobs sounded in the basement after the two women left.

    ¡°What are you guys crying for?¡± calmly asked the surviving old man. ¡°Old Zhao died a worthy death! This is good¡ªseveral hundred of those bastards lost their heads this time. The entire city and entire dynasty watched the execution! Whether it is the nine ministries or royal family, none of them can control everything!

    ¡°A basis of rule grounded in obliterating the people¡¯s minds will not seed! One set ofws for the nobles and another set for the regr citizens will also not win the hearts of the people! It is inevitable that nobles enjoy more of life, obtain more from life, and start at a higher position. But they cannot sacrifice the futures of the many for that privilege. That will only make the nobles more decrepit generation after generation. Soon enough, the dynasty will copse!

    ¡°The nine ministries did not learn this lesson from the royal family and permitted all of this to happen. Their chickens wille home to roost sooner orter!¡± The crying dwindled as the old man calmlyid out the situation.

    Everyone looked at him; he stood up with a cane as he was missing a leg. He pointed at a person in the massive projection screen. ¡°He may not be anyone good either, and perhaps it¡¯s only a matter of time before he bes noble himself. He might proim himself king over a certain territory or be a lone wolf on his dao. But for now, he has pulled back a corner of the darkness!

    ¡°Everyone, remember this¡ªthere will always be someone who steps forward! Another would¡¯vee along if he hadn¡¯t, so do not lose hope! We... will not be the only ones awake in this age!¡±

    Everyone¡¯s heart had died when the Ancient Academy fell. It was too hard to want to do anything in this era. They chose to join the Nine Dragons Pavilion in order to guarantee their survival. They swiftly built themunications system and helped the Pavilionplete their monitoring of all information within the ny-nine provinces.

    That was how they found their footing and why the seventh princess gradually rxed her guard against them. But today, they defied orders andpleted streaming thest scene of the execution...

    ......

    Skystar City was in an uproar as the final projection image had frozen on the executions. While the images were gone, a fire burned in people¡¯s hearts. Three hundred nobles had lost their heads¡ªthest moments of their fear, fury, and incredulity were emzoned in looks that the entire city had seen.

    They didn¡¯t know which side had won, but Li Hao was alive. The nine ministries had ignored the nobles and permitted their heads to be chopped off, so it seemed like Li Hao had won!

    That was enough!

    Within the city, some noble vassals trembled with unease. Minor nobles who spent their days bullying others also cowered and shook, hiding at home to avoid going outside.

    They were dead!

    Several hundred had died! The people didn¡¯t understand, nor did they want to understand. All they knew was that such matters were too far removed from them. They only knew that the viins that walked in their midst seemed to be afraid. That was enough!

    ¡°The Night Watchers willmence patrols of the four directions!¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice red through the city. ¡°Those whomit evil will be executed! Those who cause disturbance will be executed! The Skystar Commander Office is still in operation, now at the northern gate za! Those who wish to file a report can do so. So long as the evidence is clear, concrete, and having to do with supernaturals, then they will be executed!¡±

    ......

    <i>The nine ministries.</i>

    The various ministers gaped at each other.

    ¡°He¡¯s staying?!¡± one of them roared. Indeed, what a shocking turn of events! They¡¯d thought that Li Hao would leave after this operation and return to Silver Moon. But no!

    Li Hao was staying and seemed to want to continue cleaning house!

    The current minister of the Judiciary ground his teeth and looked to the north. ¡°You court death, Li Hao!¡±

    It was incredible that the young man was staying. Did he really think of himself as invincible? Who knew how many from Silver Moon would die today if it wasn¡¯t for the nine ministries being impeded by the royal family. Where did Li Hao get the courage to stay from??

 Chapter 695: Chicken Soup for the Soul (I)

    <h4>Chapter 695: Chicken Soup for the Soul (I)</h4>

    <i>The northern city gate.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen and the rest were confused. They¡¯re already spoken to propose that Li Hao withdraw with them and return to Silver Moon. It was safer there as the province still possessed strong battle strength.

    Yet, the young man didn¡¯t make a sound.

    He¡¯d just eliminated a portion of nobles¡ªeverything would return to what it was before if he left now. Therefore, he wouldn¡¯t leave right this very moment. That would nullify today¡¯s battle in which nobles and powerhouses died.

    So long as he remained in Skystar City, he would be the barometer of the city¡ªthe greatest barometer of the world. This was also one way to intimidate the four corners of thend!

    ¡°Li Hao...¡±

    The young man raised hand to interrupt Hou Xiaochen. ¡°What are we afraid of?¡± He smiled and looked into the distance, at where the nine ministries were. ¡°I want to be a thorn in their side! I¡¯ll stab right into their heart! They¡¯re very strong and might have only disyed part of their strength, but... so what?

    ¡°There is no need to be concerned about me, but if there are any of you who should leave, please do! I have the Windchaser Boots in hand and at my current stage in power, they won¡¯t be able to keep me here if I don¡¯t go toe-to-toe with them!

    ¡°We must be diligent in our efforts to exterminate evil! What is the point of just starting the job?¡± Li Hao assessed the unrest within the city and then at the restless Night Watchers around him. ¡°Do you see that? Some of the Night Watchers seem to be following orders well too!¡±

    ¡°Those Night Watchers are my old subordinates,¡± Yao Si said faintly. ¡°None of them were that bad to begin with. They¡¯ve just been oppressed by Yellow Dragon these years...¡±

    ¡°Then why did Director Yao turn a blind eye and deaf ear all these years and allow them to be suppressed?¡± Li Hao looked at Yao Si.

    The man started to say something, then fell silent after a harrumph. <i>Why? Are you blind? Did you not see all the powerhouses today? As strong as I am, do you think I would still be here today if I didn¡¯t keep my head down then and bide my time?</i>

    Once Yun Haoran died, the leader of the Night Watchers became a thorn in the side of the various institutions. If he¡¯d maintained his strong demeanor of old, he would¡¯ve died a long time ago.

    Li Hao knew all this, but he was still annoyed for no reason other than Yao Si¡¯s habit of drinking Water of Life. That attitude of watching a good show irked him even now.

    Yao Si couldn¡¯t be bothered with adjusting the young man¡¯s attitude. He left. It was just as irritating for him to spend time with Li Hao. The key point was that Li Hao now directly issuedmands to the Night Watchers without going through him. What was the point of his presence?

    Li Hao was the Skystar vicemander¡ªhe was outranked by themander, deputy director, and director. He himself knew full well how many ranks separated the two of them, but he issued orders like he was the director himself!

    ¡°It¡¯s good that he¡¯s left. We can continue training. I wouldn¡¯t have wanted to keep releasing sword energy if he stayed!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t bother keeping his voice down, leading to internal curses from Yao Si in the distance.

    <i>Did you say that on purpose for me to hear? I care about matters of dignity like that! My organs are stable. I onlyck the cultivation path for the next stage. I don¡¯t care about the energy you have.</i>

    His battle strength increased significantly when he unsealed himself, but he didn¡¯t suffer the corresponding significant damage like the others did. He could nurse himself back to health. After cursing at Li Hao in his mind, he ignored the young man.

    Yao Si was in a better mood when he returned to headquarters and saw Little Ye look at him with a worshipful expression. However, his mood immediately plunged to extreme irritation.

    ¡°The director... was so heroic this time! You¡¯re still the great hero of my heart!¡±

    Yao Si was delighted at that.

    ¡°The director recovered your past glory under Commander Li¡¯s guidance! I think the Night Watchers will recover before long!¡±

    Yao Si was most unamused by that. I¡¯m<i> the director! He¡¯s a vicemander and many levels below me! So many levels! It¡¯s not him leading me, it¡¯s me leading him! The Night Watchers is my territory, do you understand??</i>

    ......

    <i>The northern city.</i>

    Li Hao continued to look at the central quadrant of the city. The struggle between the nine ministries and royal family seemed to have died down. It appeared that upon seeing that the Silver Moon contingent wasn¡¯t participating, the royal family decided to continue biding their time.

    This bnce was the result that Li Hao wished to see. This was good! It would make him uneasy if one side won. He¡¯d killed so many Arcanus that the royal family clearly felt that it was time to act. They hadn¡¯t risen before, but chose to violently revolt today, likely because Hu Xiao was dead.

    The ripples of powering from the Ministry of the Judiciary were inly weaker than the rest of the ministries. Their old minister was dead and his son was weaker than his father. He produced weaker energy ripples when manipting their divine weapon.

    Various powerhouses stood by Li Hao¡¯s side and looked in the relevant direction. Golden light shimmered in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. His eyes had always been able to see energy ripples¡ªpossibly due to his bloodline. The little sword had unsealed only by a little more today after absorbing a great deal of his blood¡ªpossibly due to the purity of his bloodline.

    But at this moment, his eyes demonstrated slight changes. He could see the energy ripples around him¡ªnot just pure energy, but some of internal force as well. He looked sideways at Hou Xiaochen; the man likewise tilted his head back at Li Hao.

    Light sparkled in the young man¡¯s eyes. He could vaguely make out the thick chains of supernatural locks. This confirmed the changes in his eyes.

    <i>Why? </i>Li Hao tightened his grasp around the little sword, finding a possible reason there. Perhaps the little sword absorbing blood had led to some purification of his bloodline. Was that possible?

    He wasn¡¯t sure and had always had questions as to why his eyes could see certain things. He seemed to be different from cultivators with the heavenly eye.

    Heaven¡¯s Eyes made use of powerful mental strength to peer into certain things. That wasn¡¯t his modus operandi. Li Hao utilized his bloodline, not mind intent. Heaven¡¯s Eyes just seemed to have a stronger mind.

    The young man didn¡¯t speak of his spections; he surveyed the surroundings to find many martial masters still lingering on the scene. Meanwhile, some had run off right after absorbing some sword energy. They¡¯d run so quickly that they were long out of sight.

    ¡°Senior Thunderleg is gone.¡± Li Hao looked at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Director, what crime did hemit?¡±

    This was the only martial master toe in reinforcement that he was less familiar with. Li Hao only recalled the man¡¯s wretched appearance.

    ¡°There were some bystanders present when he sparred with Deficient Leg twenty years ago,¡± Hou Xiaochen responded faintly. ¡°He vented his spleen on the crowd when he lost and killed two dozen people.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s brows drew together in a frown.

    ¡°Those people wanted to watch despite knowing that powerhouses were fighting,¡± Yuan Shuo dismissed what he viewed as foolish actions. ¡°They acted like they were watching monkeys turn tricks at the circus. It doesn¡¯t matter that they¡¯re dead! You overcorrect in certain matters! Martial masters normally do not fight near mundanes. The ones watching were also martial masters. There has been a rule in Silver Moon since the ancient times that if you watch powerhouses fight, then you are responsible for your own injuries!¡±

    ¡°He killed people on purpose!¡± Hou Xiaochen looked coldly at the old man. ¡°Yuan Shuo, your disciple is dispensing justice! And what of you?¡±

    ¡°Such are the rules of the martial world!¡± Yuan Shuo refused to back down. ¡°Thew is thew, but so are the rules the rules. All martial masters tacitly ept it, which makes it a superhuman rule. It¡¯s not appropriate to apply the same rules to both superhumans and mundanes! He didn¡¯t drag mundanes into the violence, so don¡¯t mix up Thunderleg with these nobles!

    ¡°And, if you want to talk about breakingws in a way that affects mundanes, very few of us havemitted such crimes. If there are any, there is only one. You should arrest Southern Fist!¡±

    He Yong looked around nkly.

    ¡°Thunderleg is much better than Southern Fist in my opinion!¡± sneered Yuan Shuo. ¡°Thunderleg killed some bystanders in a martial world matter, Southern Fist often leaves without paying when he eats out! He¡¯s like a hooligan who terrorizes the market! If you want to apply thew, I say kill him first! No one will object to that!¡±

    Thew-abiding Northern Fist nodded at Yuan Shuo¡¯s words. ¡°Little He does indeed show a fair disregard for the rules,¡± he said softly after some thought. ¡°He likes tomit embarrassing acts. His reputation was the worst among the people when we were all active in the martial world. Not even Ying Hongyue and the others were as infamous as him.¡±

    The main reason for that was that thetter group was active in the martial world, unlike He Yong who had a habit of not paying for his meals in the civilian world.

    ¡°I pay my debts when I have money!¡± He Yong squawked with outrage. ¡°I put a few meals on my tab because I didn¡¯t have any money! I discussed it with the boss that I¡¯ll pay when I have money! I just owe them money, it¡¯s not like I won¡¯t pay them back!¡±

    What was this, a ¡®ruin Southern Fist¡¯s reputation party¡¯?

    ¡°Go ask around in Silver Moon if I paid them back as soon as I had money!¡±

    ¡°When have you ever had money?¡± someone snorted.

    He Yong blinked and cursed under his breath. Of course he had! How were they looking down their noses at him?!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t add to the conversation as he was contemting if thew should differ ording to the poption. It would be a fundamental difference in thew, not the same system with two different applications as was present now. If the line of separation was superhuman vs mundane, with each side following their respectivews, then which system should apply if superhumans interfered with mundanes?

    This was a great matter for deliberation that he¡¯d never considered before. He certainly thought about it a lot today. Thunderleg, for instance, took out his anger on some bystanders after he lost a match. Since this was in ordance with martial world custom, Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t see a problem with his actions.

    However, Hou Xiaochen found these actions untoward and that the perpetrator be taken into custody. Hence, Thunderleg foregone all of the potential benefits and ran off after absorbing a tiny bit of sword energy. He was inly afraid of Hou Xiaochen.

 Chapter 696: Chicken Soup for the Soul (II)

    <h4>Chapter 696: Chicken Soup for the Soul (II)</h4>

    Li Hao contemted for a while before looking at the Silver Moon Guards below him. He then regarded the nobles who¡¯d neither been sentenced to death nor ran away.

    ¡°Those who were not sentenced to death may go. But those who ran... I will bring all of them in for justice! Releasing you is also within the authority of the Night Watchers. Running away is against thew!¡±

    The nobles beneath him blinked. They¡¯d thought they were dead without a doubt! But they were released instead? Really? Those who¡¯d run away were the descendants of major noble families. Li Hao was going to arrest them instead?

    No one believed their ears!

    Some were too fearful to move while others gingerly observed the situation. Upon seeing that Li Hao really was ignoring them, they cautiously moved their feet, then quickly fled the scene with glee!

    One person getting away was the start of an avnche. The rest of the nobles swiftly vacated the premises.

    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you killing them?¡± Hou Xiaochen nced at Li Hao.

    ¡°There¡¯s no real meaning to that.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°That first batch is enough! I¡¯ll find time to take care of the rest. That¡¯s enough for today. Letting them go back will also intimidate the others and create some trouble for them...¡±

    Heughed and looked down the Avenue of the Nine Ministries before turning back to Hou Xiaochen. ¡°You should leave Skystar City as well, director! Go back to Silver Moon! It¡¯s enough that I¡¯m here.¡±

    ¡°You alone won¡¯t do!¡± Hou Xiaochen frowned.

    The young man turned to the rest instead of arguing. ¡°Li Hao is grateful beyond words for the support shown by various seniors today! The seniors had to leave in a rushst time, please stay another day or two this time. I will release more sword energy when I have finished with my tasks at hand and help the seniors consolidate your organs!¡±

    He looked at Yuan Shuo when he was done. The old man glowered, knowing what his disciple wanted.

    ¡°You want me to teach the path of Refiner of Spirit? It¡¯s all theory apart from the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. You can choose to do whatever so long as it doesn¡¯t involve the specific legacy!¡± Yuan Shuo truly didn¡¯t care so long as the Breathing Method of the Five Styles wasn¡¯t passed on. The rest was just theoretical concept.

    For the rest of the crowd, however, the breathing method wasn¡¯t necessarily the most useful for them. It was Yuan Shuo¡¯s hypotheses that they were most interested in. Even Sky Sword halted his steps when he heard this and chose to stay.

    This was when Panther abruptly reappeared. The ck dog had been absent all this time and soundlessly slipped over to Li Hao¡¯s side. It bubbled with delight, but didn¡¯t make a sound. Li Hao looked down at it and raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Panth, hand over everything from the people that the director and others killed!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther protested. <i>You want me to hand it over?? </i>It¡¯d just returned from scavenging the battlefield.

    Li Hao knew it¡¯d gone. He himself hadn¡¯t collected any of the spoils, but he knew nothing would go missing, if for no reason other than there was a dog keeping an eye on everything. This was how they¡¯d operated for each battle. Panther wouldn¡¯t let a single scrap of treasure slip through its ws.

    Who was in the frame of mind to stop and collect loot in the middle of battle? Only this dog. No wonder it¡¯d disappeared after taking down one metamorphosis expert. It¡¯d probably been cleaning up the battlefield ever since.

    The group looked at Panther. There were so many powerhouses dead after the sh¡ªArcanus alone numbered fourteen. There were nine metamorphoses, a number that included Yellow Dragon and his colleagues, as well as numerous Novas.

    With local sovereigns as the Steppe Prince, the Heaven¡¯s Eye, and Hu Xiao, there was certain to be an abundance of treasure. There was also the North Sea pirate and his many years of plundering, as well as the old Steadfast Duke...

    Any one of these figures were as rich as a nation!

    The sheer potential of the wealth tempted some in the crowd. He Yong looked at Li Hao a few times¡ª<i>how about we divide up the spoils?</i>

    Sky Sword and a few others didn¡¯t care about this topic. The nine ministries seemed to have fully quieted down. Sky Sword assessed their condition for a bit before saying, ¡°It might be safe enough to stay, but you might also face attack from both sides!¡±

    There were two possibilities in that the nine ministries would not move against Li Hao and the rest from now on. That would free up the royal family for other endeavors. The alternative was that the two sides reach an agreement with each other.

    That response interrupted Li Hao¡¯s further speech and Panther took advantage of the opening to slip away. inly, the dog was independent enough that it didn¡¯t desire to share the spoils. Li Hao wanted to yell at the dog, but Hou Xiaochen stopped him.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine if the dog takes it all. Whether it¡¯s mysterious power stones or Water of Life, none of that has much of an effect on us. We don¡¯t need them, we need the way forward!¡±

    It was a small matter. The true mattery elsewhere. Hou Xiaochen looked at Hong Yitang, the man had kept hisposure all along. ¡°Brother Hong, how many supernatural locks have you broken?¡±

    ¡°Why do you ask?¡± Hong Yitang smiled.

    ¡°I¡¯d just like to see if you stand a chance of converting back.¡±

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter.¡± Hong Yitang really didn¡¯t care. ¡°I¡¯ll just continue down the path of energy if I can¡¯t. At least there¡¯s a straight way forward. I can try the system of three or four elements after I strengthen my organs. There shouldn¡¯t be much of an issue with that.¡±

    He didn¡¯t want to exin himself further; Hou Xiaochen fell silent after a sigh. With how things stood, Li Hao, Hong Yitang, and Sky Sword were in simr straits¡ªfull Arcanus. All three had been martial powerhouses and supreme geniuses, so it filled him withplex emotions to see them thus.

    Li Hao neither spoke nor asked anything. He¡¯d been ready to face the situation by himself, so the arrival of so many heavyweights was an immense surprise.

    Of course, he¡¯d known that people woulde, but the arrival of Yao Si and Thunderleg was still quite a surprise. The two fairweather participants from the Inspectorate didn¡¯t ruffle Li Hao¡¯s feathers. He didn¡¯t take them into ount for his ns since their minds were often changing.

    This time, the young man was prepared to spend a period of time in Skystar City. It was aplicated situation at the dynasty capital and it wasn¡¯t normal for so many Arcanus to have appeared. It meant that they possessed a lot of Water of Life, and what he saw was only the tip of the iceberg.

    There must be ruins here, and many. Perhaps Skystar City was the old Skystar Fortress. It was said that this ce used to have massive mines and was safeguarded by an army. Battle Heaven records spoke of ten Skystar armies keeping the peace. All contact was eventually lost with them.

    Li Hao was quite certain that this was where the Skystar ruins were. Did the nine ministries and royal family jointly excavate the ruins, or did they explore separate ones? Various thoughts ran through his mind.

    ¡°Let¡¯s find a ce to talk about our experiences as a supernatural,¡± Hong Yitang raised. ¡°We can leave the floor to them. Things will be fine in the immediate future.¡±

    Li Hao was surprised and quickly surmised that Hong Yitang had something to say. He rather owed Earthturner Sword after this venture. The others didn¡¯t say anything, so the two took a step in the air and vanished on the spot.

    Yuan Shuo snorted after they were gone, immensely put out. There that fellow went again! Granted, he was quite resigned that Hong Yitang had fully unsealed himself. He wanted to do the same, but Hong Yitang had stopped him from doing so.

    Jadelight stood next to him. She hadn¡¯t been of much help in the fight, but she didn¡¯t mind. It was paramount that Li Hao remained alive, and he was. ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that you grow stronger when you meet strong foes?¡± she transmitted.

    Yuan Shuo cursed to himself!

    ¡°What do you know! This would¡¯ve been the greatest battle of our era if they¡¯d forced my hand! The hell do you know!¡± he transmitted back.

    ¡°You have more trump cards?¡±

    ¡°No shit! Who doesn¡¯t have a few aces up their sleeves?¡± Yuan Shuo blustered, but he was actually considering if he should make some more preparations. His disciple was growing ever more unreliable and he couldn¡¯t always hope to rely on outside force.

    ......

    <i>By the sea.</i>

    Instead of discussing supernatural affairs, Hong Yitang asked, ¡°What is your goal in staying here?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Li Hao shook his head.

    ¡°You don¡¯t know?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    ¡°How are you engaging in all this nonsense when you don¡¯t know?¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°You¡¯ve actually broken a lot of unsaid rules with everything you¡¯ve done. Silver Moon, for example, has been preparing an invasion by these powerhouses. And yet, the nine ministries and royal family aren¡¯t ready... You left so little time that no one¡¯s ready.¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that good?¡± Li Haoughed as well.

    ¡°Oh, you!¡± Hong Yitang sighed with emotion. ¡°Your master isn¡¯t ready either. He¡¯s always been confident, likely because he¡¯s reached an agreement with a nt spirit or monster beast. Or he might know where they are located and hasn¡¯t dug them up yet. But judging from his recent performance, he seems to have uncovered one...¡±

    Li Hao nodded in agreement after some thought. ¡°He might have discovered a nt spirit and reached an agreement with it, resulting in my teacher¡¯s organs being rapidly strengthened.¡±

    He¡¯d seen some signs as well. Yuan Shuo¡¯sbination of his five organs was the result of absorbing significant Water of Life. That hadn¡¯te from Li Hao, Yuan Shuo had dug it up himself. Perhaps he¡¯d found a nt spirit in the central region and remained in contact with it.

    However, partnership with nt spirits wasn¡¯t necessarily a good prospect. Revitalizing them might lead to unpredictable results.

    ¡°Skystar City is not a kind ce,¡± Hong Yitang nodded. ¡°Staying here means being surrounded by tigers and wolves. The foundations of the nine ministries have not yet been fully called upon.¡±

    ¡°Are the old ministers not it?¡±

    ¡°Not necessarily.¡± Hong Yitang looked at the city again. ¡°The one from the Ministry of Administration never took the field. Only seven old ministers appeared. The one from the Ministry of Armed Forces was also missing. They¡¯re the two strongest. The third strongest... is probably the fairweather guy.¡±

    ¡°Him?¡± The old man from the Inspectorate?

    Li Hao nodded upon further thought. That old man was indeed powerful. He¡¯d killed the Chu River King as soon as he showed up. The young man hadn¡¯t been able to read anything about him afterward because the old minister hadn¡¯t done anything after. He didn¡¯t cough either and rather seemed like a martial master. Li Hao didn¡¯t read a ball of light from him.

    There were martial masters and supernaturals among the nine ministries. Hu Xiao had been a supernatural, but the old fart from the Inspectorate seemed rather like a martial master. It was hard for Li Hao to read anything from them at their level of strength, but he could still determine who was a pure supernatural since their ball of light burned too brightly.

 Chapter 697: Chicken Soup for the Soul (III)

    <h4>Chapter 697: Chicken Soup for the Soul (III)</h4>

    ¡°So you want to reform the dynasty?¡± Hong Yitang asked after briefly analyzing the situation fro Li Hao. ¡°Apologies for being frank, but there¡¯s no hope of doing so, not unless youpletely overthrow it and build a new one!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t intend to lead a revolution.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°To be honest, I don¡¯t know what I want to do either. I just find the world to be a bit unfair, a bit too dark, and refuse to ept the situation as it is. I know the limits of my ability and don¡¯t have the capability to do as you say, to be a savior. That is not realistic and not what I¡¯m searching for either!

    ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way. Perhaps after seeing Battle Heaven and reading a few ancient books... I find that whether it¡¯s this age¡¯s supernaturals or martial masters, we are all simply searching for a path to be stronger. It has nothing to do with the mundanes. In that case, why do we interfere with their lives? Why must we fight wars? Why do we prey on them? Did the ancient civilization grow stronger through predatory practices on helpless civilians?¡±

    He didn¡¯t understand and felt that there wasn¡¯t a need to be thus.

    Hong Yitang smiled and shook his head. ¡°They aren¡¯t just simply exploiting the people, they even want to obliterate the people¡¯s minds and raise a crop of idiots. None of the factions are dumb, they know that the people¡¯s hearts can be useful. But why don¡¯t they make use of it?

    ¡°Because it¡¯s too hard! Who can easily obtain the approval of ten billion people? It¡¯s too difficult!

    ¡°Therefore, there¡¯s a simpler way of just making them dumber and brainwashing them. When the people lose their own thoughts and someone conquers the dynasty, that will create a direction for the people¡¯s heart¡ªa false people¡¯s heart...¡±

    Hong Yitang had to switch to a more direct tactic when he saw that Li Hao still didn¡¯t understand. ¡°Do you know why the number of schools has decreased and the people consistently suppressed?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°The human heart!¡± Hong Yitang exined. ¡°The Human King... the human heart! The ancient tomes mention that whether one wants to be a Human Emperor or Human King, that person needs all of the people to ept them. That will bestow upon them insurmountable power and ce them on a special path of great dao, one that will create a matchless powerhouse out of them!

    ¡°But whether it is the nine ministries or royal family, none of them are capable of creating this condition. Therefore, they wish for the people to be dumber and easier to control, ultimately creating a Human King for them!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao blinked, looking at Hong Yitang.

    ¡°That is a much easier option,¡± chuckled the man. ¡°There¡¯s no helping it, the world is in chaos and no one can guarantee that they can benevolently rule over billions of people. It is beyond our reach to have everyone ept a sovereign from the bottom of their hearts. In that case, a shortcut must be taken!¡±

    Li Hao understood this time and his expression shed through a variety of changes. ¡°So you mean... that this is all on purpose? That the nine ministries and royal family know full well the state of our world, but they¡¯re still doing all this?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Hong Yitang burst intoughter. ¡°Their sages are much wiser than you! Of course they know everything and that the people suffer in misery. But once the people are stupid, they are easy to control. That has ever been the case since the ancient times.

    ¡°Yun Haoran of the Skystar Ancient Academy wanted to change the situation a few years ago, but he died a grisly death in his home shortly after he submitted his proposal. Do you think that the upper echelon doesn¡¯t know the advantages of poprizing what he proposed? The ancient technologies and skills were very advanced! Once made standard, the world¡¯s basic necessities of life would be vastly improved.

    ¡°But once the people¡¯s intelligence level rises and they be more civilized, then more thoughts will flourish in their minds.

    ¡°Don¡¯t limit yourself to thinking that the nobles are all idiots and oblivious to everything happening. They know. Why else would they themselves go to school, learn how to read, and cultivate?¡± Hong Yitang looked at Li Hao with a smile. ¡°Thus, the status quo of the world is a state of affairs that all sides wish to see. Do you understand?¡±

    Li Hao nodded and was silent for a while. ¡°Isn¡¯t there any faction who wants to be a Human King who truly has the people¡¯s heart and not a king through ploys that rely on dumbing down the poption?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s too hard!¡± Hong Yitang sighed. ¡°That¡¯s harder than ascending the heavens! Few are those since the ancient times who can truly aplish that requirement. It¡¯s not a matter of just being strong, but having to advance society¡¯s progress and development from all aspects. Whether it is the basic necessities of life such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation, or that of the mind and material world, such a person would be required to satisfy all of these needs.

    ¡°Li Hao, as stunning as your martial skills are, you will be the same as them sooner orter if you rule through force. Do you see what I mean?¡±

    The nine ministries had wanted to win the people¡¯s hearts through certain methods back in the day, but ultimately gave up. It wasn¡¯t that they weren¡¯t aware that they¡¯d turned into the evil dragon themselves¡ªthey were fully aware!

    But sometimes, they had no choice but to take that course of action because another road was too far away and untouchable. If there was a shortcut... then they would take the shortcut.

    ¡°It really is too hard!¡± Li Hao shook his head after some thought. ¡°I can tell that I¡¯m not cut out for this after your exnation, but martial uncle can give it a try...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re joking!¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°You must be. My hair is almost white from overseeing just one thousand people. If there are ten thousand, one hundred thousand, one million people in the future... I¡¯d be out of my mind with nerves! Not to mention, we¡¯re not just talking about one million people in this world, but billions or ten billion. It may seem like just a number to you, but it represents unbounded fear to me!¡±

    He shook without being cold; he could understand the dread from the nine ministries and royal family. It was horrifying!

    ¡°Then why be the Human King?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°Just do whatever you want! You might not satisfy everyone, but you can do as you wish and not do as you wish. Why suppress the people and seek to be the Human King?¡±

    ¡°The human heart is greedy. Once you know that you have a chance of bing the undying Human King, wouldn¡¯t you want to do so? In our times, how long can even the mighty Arcanus live for? Wouldn¡¯t you want to live for three, four, five thousand years if you could? The previous generation has grown old. Those like the old ministers are around one hundred years old. In this age, an Arcanus at one hundred years old will still die if their physical body is too weak and decrepit!¡±

    So this was for an extension of life? To be undying and indestructible?

    ¡°I¡¯ve never thought about this,¡± Li Haoughed upon some consideration.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, so you don¡¯t understand. This is why those old ministers desire this, because they are old. Someone advanced in age is prone to making mistakes. Even if one goes through life without being afraid of death, that fear still rears its head when they are old enough. The knowledge of knowing that one will die from old age is particrly hard to bear. Thus, even sages eventually find this temptation hard to deny.¡±

    ¡°I understand what Martial Uncle Hong is saying.¡± Li Hao finally nodded. ¡°And understand your meaning. You¡¯re saying that there¡¯s no point in letting them remain, that I might as well eliminate them all?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll eliminate them!¡± Li Hao bared his teeth in a grin. ¡°I think martial uncle is more qualified than them to be the Skystar King!¡±

    Hong Yitang rolled his eyes. <i>Get outta here with that!</i>

    He didn¡¯t want to be the Skystar King. He told Li Hao all this only because he wanted the young man to recognize on a fundamental level that there were some things that could not be changed by one person. No matter how strong one was, one could not change everything unless one was so strong that no one could resist.

    ¡°Martial uncle, we won¡¯t be fat from one bite alone!¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°I know what you mean, but we can start slow. If one year doesn¡¯t work, then ten years. If not ten years, then one hundred years. I think the ancient civilization was great. Someone¡¯s always going to do the work!

    ¡°If you don¡¯t do it and I don¡¯t do it, and we spend our days talking about how hard it is... then of course it¡¯s hard!¡±

    He looked merrily at Hong Yitang. ¡°I think that since I am a martial blockhead, I can clear out some obstacles for martial uncle. You can slowly expand the Sword Sect, starting from the most basic level, then the slightly less basic level, and gradually include all aspects of society.

    ¡°You don¡¯t have to always think of ten billion people in one go. Why don¡¯t we start with ten thousand people, then one hundred thousand, then one million? One million isn¡¯t that many either, it¡¯s the size of Silver City¡¯s poption. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s that hard for everyone in Silver City to be highly motivated after the city bes rich.¡±

    Hong Yitang had wanted to give Li Hao a lesson, but he suddenly blinked, lost in thought.<i> If you don¡¯t do it and I won''t do it, of course it¡¯s hard. But if you do it, there will be more people that follow.</i>

    Li Hao had stepped up to resist this time, which led to Yao Si appearing as well. Some more stepped forward from the Night Watchers, but would any of them tossed their hats in the ring if Li Hao hadn¡¯t made the first move?

    He¡¯d wanted to persuade Li Hao to certain action, but now it was himself who was persuaded by the young man.

    ¡°You¡¯re much more mature than before.¡± Hong Yitang nodded after a moment of silence. ¡°And have some more thoughts of your own. You¡¯re right, there will naturally be others who follow after you take the first step. Even if they don¡¯t, they will admire you and not stand in your way...

    ¡°Unrest will rock Silver Moon sooner orter and it will be the center of the world. It won¡¯t happen that quickly, however. It¡¯s Skystar City that still has more of a foundation at the moment and is the core of the dynasty. Anything you do here is magnified!

    ¡°The changes perpetuated from Skystar City might swiftly spread throughout the entire dynasty,¡± he suddenly chuckled. ¡°I¡¯d rather like to stay, Li Hao, and umte some experience here. What do you think?¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Li Hao started. ¡°Is martial uncle not returning to Silver Moon?¡±

    That was sudden!

    ¡°I¡¯ve been reflecting during this period of time and find that my thinking is still too simple.¡± Hong Yitang nodded. ¡°Some things are still too hard and I¡¯m being a bit too idealistic. I need to ground my ideas in reality more!

    ¡°And sometimes, my proposals are quite a headache...¡± he admitted wryly. ¡°The items that I brought back from Battle Heaven, for example, I find quite practical and advanced. But those of the Sword Sect find them hard toprehend and thus do not appreciate them. They carry on as before, so my thoughts are that they know too little of the world and have too little education. I¡¯d like to rebuild the Skystar Ancient Academy and teach people how to prepare first, then print books and disseminate knowledge...

    ¡°But the first point is that everyone needs to have full bellies! Greater opportunities wille after their bellies are full. Once their material needs are satisfied, the people will seek satisfaction of mental and spiritual needs...¡±

    Li Hao listened carefully, not sure he understood everything he heard.

 Chapter 698: Changes (I)

    <h4>Chapter 698: Changes (I)</h4>

    Hong Yitang seemed to be persuading himself as he spoke. He smiled at the end. ¡°Now is the perfect timing. The people¡¯s heart is in flux, the royal family and nine ministries are curbing each other, the three great organizations and seven divine mountains are biding their time. If we choose to take the stage at this time and intimidate a bunch of people,bined with the effects of the earlier battle, we¡¯ll be able to do certain things.¡±

    ¡°Will it impact martial uncle¡¯s cultivation?¡± asked Li Hao.

    ¡°This is also cultivation,¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°It¡¯s a cultivation of the heart. I thought you understood.¡±

    ¡°I have certain reflections about this topic!¡± Li Hao alsoughed. ¡°Everything is cultivation. Martial masters are not of the physical strength, but of the heart. Am I right, martial uncle?¡±

    ¡°You do have a bright future ahead of you! Therefore, when those martial blockheads focus on the path of martial dao versus the path of energy... It doesn¡¯t actually matter, there¡¯s no difference!¡± Hong Yitang chuckled. ¡°To be honest, I¡¯m rather surprised and delighted that you¡¯ve improved so much in such a short period of time andprehended so much. Only those with their sights limited solely to martial dao obsess over martial masters and supernaturals. You don¡¯t need to pay them too much heed.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t mind.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Not to mention, the locks of my five organs are still there. It¡¯s not like I don¡¯t stand a chance of converting back.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to think about converting back,¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°That¡¯d be too forced! Just go with whateveres your way. Of course, seal yourself if you can. You look to have undone the locks of your limbs, <i>zifu</i>, and spine. The ones of your organs can be ignored for now. You must know, Li Hao, that there are so many more supernatural locks in the human body than these. Therefore, as you strengthen yourself on this new path, you can also consider if martial dao is the only possible path.¡±

    Li Hao nodded again. He always learned something new when he conversed with Hong Yitang; the young man was feeling much more at ease. While Hong Yitang offered mostly chicken soup for the soul instead of tangible cultivation methods, it always brought some new reflections to Li Hao.

    That he could make it to his current heights was inrge part thanks to his teacher and Hong Yitang. One was his light on the path of cultivation, the other his pir of faith when it came to the heart.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t offer a second opinion on Hong Yitang¡¯s desire to stay. They¡¯d justunch another massive battle if it came down to it! He wasn¡¯t afraid of anything! He was no weakling anymore and while the other side understood his capabilities now, so did he know a bit about them. It wouldn¡¯t be that easy or even feasible for them to kill him anymore.

    He might as well take advantage of this opportunity to set his authority. If he left now, it would give one the feeling of a deserter. Of course, he had to be on guard against counterattack, so he needed to continue to strengthen himself.

    The two started back after a bit more conversation; a question struck Li Hao after they walked for a while. ¡°Martial uncle, Ying Hongyue and the others haven¡¯t unsealed themselves, so why are they so much stronger?¡±

    ¡°Differences can be apparent when ites to the saturation and total number of locks. They are also stronger in terms of physical body, blood qi, and mental strength. They¡¯re more holisticallyplete than we are.¡±

    Li Hao understood.

    ......

    The two didn¡¯t say anything further. What happened in Skystar City swiftly spread on this day. Large numbers of Arcanus were dead, the nine ministries had suffered a defeat, the North Sea King had fallen in battle, the Steppe Prince had perished, and three hundred noble heads had been chopped off...

    Certain interested parties made sure the news kept spreading. Silver Moon widely disseminated everything they knew as soon as they learned of it.

    <i>......</i>

    <i>In White Moon City.</i>

    ¡°Nice!¡± Kong Jie heaved a long sigh. ¡°Even I want to be there just from reading the reports. To think that they¡¯d all show up! You should¡¯ve let Ole Huang take me!¡±

    Director General Zhao ignored him. <i>What could you have done if you¡¯d gone? You wouldn¡¯t have contributed to anything.</i>

    ¡°A pity about Li Hao...¡± Kong Jie continued.

    ¡°Not necessarily,¡± the director general said faintly. ¡°You guys are always pitying this and pitying that. What¡¯s wrong with supernaturals? Nothing! It¡¯s just that Silver Moon martial masters have stronger internal force than them, but they also have a different heart. Would you say that Qimei Staff and Sky Sword aren¡¯t martial masters?¡±

    Kong Jie blinked.

    ¡°It¡¯s rather Earthturner Sword who has an open mind!¡± Director General Zhao smiled. ¡°He sees further than the rest of you. I think that while he doesn¡¯t rank first when ites to potential¡ªthat¡¯s Yuan Shuo¡ªbut he¡¯s likely first when ites to the future!

    ¡°Li Hao was in close contact with him shortly after he came in contact with martial dao. Thed¡¯s been greatly affected by Hong Yitang. We wouldn¡¯t see the current Li Hao otherwise. He would¡¯ve be the next Yuan Shuo if he followed his teacher, but being the overlord of the martial world is operating on too small of a scale!¡± The director general viewed the situation more expansively than most, so he didn¡¯t think there was anything untoward about this development.

    ¡°But the eight cities...¡± Kong Jie frowned.

    ¡°Do you think that the ancient civilization was as short-sighted as you guys?¡± Director General Zhao couldn¡¯t be bothered to further converse with Kong Jie. They didn¡¯t understand that this was good! He rather had some more expectations for Li Hao now.

    ......

    Skystar City was the same flourishing scene of prosperity as usual. Yesterday¡¯s great battle was already ancient history and everything had been returned to its previous condition. Apart from the northern city gate being slightly tattered, there was nothing else different in the city.

    Well, there were several hundred corpses at the northern gate and several hundred heads hanging from it...

    But the weather seemed to be nicer.

    Skystar City was full in the onset of winter by the time November rolled around. Thunder and lightning had ravaged the skies yesterday, storm clouds pressed down on the city as gale winds howled. Today, the sun was out and a ray of sunlight barreled through the gloom to envelope the capital.

    The thriving royal city basked in long-awaited sunlight this morning. Children ran through the streets as adults bustled about their business. Vendors and storefronts were open bright and early. A steady stream of customers browsed their wares. All was as usual. All was as normal.

    A troop of supernaturals wearing Night Watcher uniforms walked on the streets. Merchants and passersby that usually avoided them like the gue¡ªwhile still nervous¡ªdidn¡¯t shrink back from them as usual. Instead, they regarded the Night Watchers with either curiosity, confusion, or odd looks.

    They seemed to be asking, <i>are you from the Skystar Commander Office?</i>

    Countless pairs of eyes stared at the patrolling Night Watchers. It was a rather ufortable sensation, like they itched all over. They might have rebuked the crowds if this was in times before, swaggering around with their strength and finding joy in watching people run frantically away from them.

    But today, they didn¡¯t dare do so.

    They simply quietly walked along the streets, looking around the surroundings.

    ¡°The Skystar Commander Office is being built in the northern quadrant of the city!¡± someone rasped out, like they were reciting from a book. ¡°If you have concerns, you can wait for a few days before taking action. All those who desire justice may proceed there!¡±

    The two sides of the street were as quiet as could be. The Night Watchers felt equally awkward, but didn¡¯t dare say any. They simply reeled off their words, walked forward silently, then repeated themselves after a few moments.

    A meat vendor suddenly called out from a distance. ¡°Sirs! This guy owes me thirty thousand star coins and won¡¯t pay up! He threatens me and wants to kill me instead when I ask him to settle his debt! Can you do something about this?¡±

    The roar startled the Night Watchers and the other vendors lining the streets. Everyone looked at the meat seller.

    A fierce, brawny man wielded a butcher¡¯s knife as he faced a person outside his stall. Thetter gripped a de and wore luxurious clothing, but looked more like a monkey with a hat on. He was skinny, scrawny, and his eyes darted around shiftily.

    His face twitched to see everyone put him as the center of attention and he quickly cursed when he saw the Night Watchers, ¡°Bullshit! When did I ever say I wasn¡¯t paying you? I only said it¡¯d be a few dayste, can I possibly stiff you? It¡¯s just thirty thousand coins, I¡¯ll have it to you in two days! I¡¯m buying meat for the marquis, would I possibly rip you off??¡±

    His quick retort mentioned his status and willingness to pay as he knew many nobles had died just yesterday.

    ¡°Stop yelling,¡± he said with a guilty conscience. ¡°Why are you bothering those gentlemen with such a small matter? I¡¯ll give you three thousand right now and the rest tomorrow!¡±

    He pulled out coins from his pockets and threw them onto the table. ¡°Here, three thousand, do you see that?¡±

    ¡°Not enough!¡± The brawny meat seller set his jaw. ¡°Give me all thirty thousand! It¡¯s not like you¡¯ve owed me for just a day or two. You always leave as soon as you get your meat and never pay anything. I¡¯m a small shop that¡¯s about to close because of debts like your thirty thousand. You¡¯re not the only one to owe me money! I¡¯m actually prepared to close and take my family out of the city to find a way to live. I¡¯ll go toe-to-toe with you today if I can¡¯t get my money!¡±

    He tightened his hand on his knife, but his knees were wobbling with fear. He¡¯d said what he¡¯d said though, the rest was up to fate. He wouldn¡¯t dare demand payment in normal times, even though he¡¯d been driven to desperation. Many were those who had outstanding ounts with him, but he didn¡¯t dare request satisfaction.

    Business was good as he earned eighty to one hundred thousand star coins a year. That would make him rich anywhere, but it was all paper profits! The ledger of those with open tabs was almost a meter thick!

    It was the errand boy of a marquis who owed several thousand today, the cleaning staff of a director¡¯s household tomorrow. It might be the provisioner of a duke owing you tens of thousands today, and the provisioner of a minister owing you another tens of thousands tomorrow...

    A year of this treatment meant that he was deep in the red and didn¡¯t even need to think about turning a profit. He was putting it all on the line today!

 Chapter 699: Changes (II)

    <h4>Chapter 699: Changes (II)</h4>

    Since the Night Watchers were around, the meat vendor could take a gamble. If this was yesterday, he would have to bow and scrape, begging for the other to spit out a few coins. But today, he was bolder and more impulsive.

    His hand gripping the butcher knife shook. <i>A few thousand won¡¯t do, I must have it all. There won¡¯t be another chance to if I don¡¯t get it today! If I get all thirty thousand, I¡¯ll just run off in the night with my wife and kid...</i>

    The Night Watchers looked over, one of them muttered, ¡°Let¡¯s not stick our noses where it doesn¡¯t belong. They¡¯re not superhumans, so they have nothing to do with us. This is a stupid, trifling matter. If anyone¡¯s to look into it, it should be the Inspectorate.¡±

    This handful of five people were a team.

    ¡°Don¡¯t stick our noses in this?¡± someone grunted back. ¡°If we leave under these circumstances, that pig butcher... will probably die at home tonight.¡±

    ¡°It still has nothing to do with us. If he dies, they can make a report at the Inspectorate...¡±

    ¡°Are you seriously this dumb? There¡¯s so many people watching us. Have you forgotten who¡¯s in charge now? Do you think he¡¯ll talk logic with you if someone rats you out?¡±

    The first speaker who wanted to stay out of things gaped, he¡¯d almost forgotten. It wasn¡¯t that he¡¯d forgotten the great one who sat above them, just that he didn¡¯t react at first light. It was only now that he recalled how violent and domineering that one was.

    He was no Yellow Dragon!

    If this was still Yellow Dragon¡¯s time, it would already be the meat vendor¡¯s good fortune that he wasn¡¯t beaten up for disturbing the Night Watchers. What kind of shitty business was this?

    The five Night Watchers promptly lost all other thought; one of them darted forward and kicked the scrawny marquis representative to the ground.

    ¡°Do you want to die>?¡± the Night Watcher demanded. ¡°You refuse to settle your debt? You¡¯re with a marquis? Which marquis? Out with it!¡± He widened his eyes in a vicious look. ¡°We Night Watchers happen tock a few heads to fulfill our missions. So tell us, which marquis is it? Some mewling pathetic little thing like a marquis thinks he¡¯s the king or something, huh? I¡¯d like to see which marquis it is who can¡¯t afford thirty thousand coins!¡±

    He kicked Scrawny into a rolling tumble over the ground.

    Scrawny didn¡¯t think that the Night Watchers really would get involved. He immediately shrank in on himself and clutched his head, howling with tears. ¡°Sirs, I¡¯ll pay, I¡¯ll pay up! It¡¯s not that I didn¡¯t want to pay off my debts, but that I didn¡¯t have enough money on me a few days ago...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not like you owed me this for just a day!¡± snarled the meat vendor. ¡°You¡¯ve had an outstanding ount for two years! My stall¡¯s only been open for a few years...¡±

    Scrawny inwardly cursed out the man, but he didn¡¯t dare say anything else. He rifled through his pockets and came up with a collection of bank-sealed star coins. That wasn¡¯t enough, so he quickly produced a few small gold coins. ¡°Here, I have it, I¡¯ll pay right now! Don¡¯t hit me anymore please...¡±

    The Night Watcher grabbed it out of his hands and casually counted the sum. There were more than thirty thousand here. He couldn¡¯t be bothered with the particrs and tossed it all at the meat vendor.

    ¡°If you daree back for your money.¡± The Night Watcher spun around with a ruthless look. ¡°Or do anything about this, you can kiss your head goodbye!¡±

    Scrawny bobbed his head up and down, but cautiously added, ¡°Sir, I¡¯m not a superhuman, I¡¯m...¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    A kick sent him rolling over the ground.

    ¡°So what if you¡¯re not superhuman??¡± cursed the Night Watcher. ¡°You still can¡¯t break thew! Remember who¡¯s in charge of the Inspectorate now and that the Night Watchers are one family with the Inspectorate! I¡¯m also an inspector!¡±

    The people had indeed forgotten this detail. <i>That¡¯s right! The Night Watchers usually have a position at the Inspectorate! Their system is the same! So doesn¡¯t that mean they¡¯re in charge of both superhumans and mundanes?</i>

    The crowd in the surroundings had been very uneasy before this. Someone suddenly apuded and cheered, ¡°Nice! Good job beating him, sir!¡±

    ¡°He owes me money too, sir!¡± another vendor hastily raised.

    <i>p p p!</i>

    Many praised the Night Watchers, each of them excited beyond belief. Scrawny flushed with dismay as more vendors quickly stepped forward in protest.

    The Night Watchers were quite nonplussed by the sight of an entire crowd apuding them. They hadn¡¯t witnessed this scene for at least five years. It wasn¡¯t like they urred with regrity before either, because they didn¡¯t involve themselves in mundane matters. Hence today... they felt an inexplicable awkwardness.

    Was it difort? Or distaste?

    That wasn¡¯t it. It was just an impulsive desire that they didn¡¯t know how to express. The Night Watcher who¡¯d beaten Scrawny leered and suddenly grabbed the man by the neck.

    ¡°Pay up, right now!¡± he snarled, possibly affected by the apuse. ¡°I¡¯ll chop off your head right here if you don¡¯t, and then behead the marquis you serve!¡±

    He wouldn¡¯t possibly have said these words before, but he suddenly did today. It was a surprise to even himself and he subconsciously looked around the streets, afraid that this unknown marquis really would hear him.

    In this day and age, a marquis still counted for something as the royal family still existed.

    The cheers grew louder and someone echoed, ¡°Well done, Night Watchers! Cut off his head!¡±

    ¡°Yeah, cut off his head!¡±

    ¡°Behead him and hang it on the northern gate! It¡¯s not the first day that this guy¡¯s terrorized the market! We don¡¯t know if the marquis hasn¡¯t given him money, but he owes this street at least three hundred thousand coins and has a ton of wives...¡±

    Scrawny¡¯s expression rapidly flitted through rm and horror. He might actually die here today! It wouldn¡¯t have been possible before, but after several hundred nobles died yesterday, what wasn¡¯t possible anymore?

    What did nobles count for anymore? Even the old minister of the Judiciary had been executed yesterday. His head and corpse still swung in the air by the city gate!

    Scrawny deeply regretted having so much time on his hands today. He should¡¯ve stayed at home for a few days!

    ¡°Sir, I¡¯ll pay, I¡¯ll pay everyone! I¡¯mpletely in the wrong, I¡¯ll make good on all of my debts, alright?¡±

    The Night Watcher waspletely roused by the shouts and mmed the man into the ground, forcing a mouthful of blood out of him. ¡°You damned bastard, this is a street of mom and pop shops! How dare you owe them so much money?? You¡¯re a piece of shit strutting around in your master¡¯s glory. I want to see which marquis it is that¡¯s so poor! Have they not given you money or has it all gone into your pockets?!¡±

    He dragged the man up again. Spit flew into Scrawny¡¯s face as he roared, ¡°Take me to your marquis! I want to see what kind of second-rate noble is this guy! He doesn¡¯t have to eat if he has no money!¡±

    The other Night Watchers looked strangely at theirrade.

    ¡°Oh great, third brother¡¯s gotten too caught up in things,¡± one of them muttered.

    ¡°No shit, you¡¯d be caught up in it too if everyone looked at you like that and keptplimenting you!¡±

    ¡°We should tone it down a bit before we actually offend that marquis...¡±

    ¡°What are you afraid of? Do you think everything is still like before?¡±

    ¡°No, but... it¡¯s not like that one will be here forever, right? The nobles are here forever, but the officials change like flowing water. The one above us might go on the run tomorrow. When that happens... won¡¯t third brother be in trouble?¡±

    ¡°You seriously think too much. If he runs, then we run too! We¡¯ll go to the north, to Silver Moon. Those northern savages... ahem, didn¡¯t you see those northern martial masters yesterday? Damn, that¡¯s a good way to live! You fight if you don¡¯t ept things and kill someone if you want to. Apparently, the northern Night Watchers all live like lords themselves. They investigate whoever they want and kill any of the three great organizations that they want.

    ¡°Those organizations don¡¯t even dare fart in the Night Watchers¡¯ direction when Silver Moon Night Watchers are done. My friend lives there and says that there aren¡¯t many strong guys in their branch. Even Sunres are executives. There will definitely be a ce for us if we follow him!¡±

    His words shed a light for his concerned brethren. That was right! Night Watchers should be the least worried group these days! They could just go to Silver Moon if all else failed! Those northern barbarians were something fierce!

    ¡°Third brother, let¡¯s haul him back to his marquis!¡± one of them roared. ¡°I want to see which marquis it is to be so juvenile. The northern city gatecks a marquis head!¡±

    Even his third brother blinked in astonishment. <i>Holy shit, what¡¯s gotten into this kid? He¡¯s usually afraid of even a scratch! Do you know that I regretted my words as soon as I yelled them?</i>

    The apuse strengthened around them as the crowd grew more excited.

    ¡°You are mighty, sir! This guy¡¯s from Marquis Changxing! He¡¯s one of the kitchen boys who runs some errands, but he throws his weight around like he''s someone! Kill him!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Scrawny was almost peeing himself with terror. This had been a small matter of not paying, it wasn¡¯t his first time doing so over the years. This had never happened before! He was part of a marquis¡¯ household!

    A profusely sweating fatty squeezed into the crowd before the Night Watchers had a chance to take action. His clothes were luxurious and he fished out a mysterious power stone exuding power.

    ¡°I am the steward of Marquis Changxing¡¯s household, the marquis doesn¡¯t know about this! Please don¡¯t misunderstand, everyone, this guy¡¯s behind it all! I don¡¯t have money on me, but this mysterious power stone is worth money, a lot of money! You recognize it, don¡¯t you? I¡¯ll leave it with the Night Watchers as coteral and promise to pay off all of his debts, with interest, in an hour! There won¡¯t be a single coin missing!¡±

    He grit his teeth and kicked out, breaking Scrawny¡¯s leg as the man yelped. ¡°I¡¯ll break both of his legs for what he¡¯s done!¡±

    Those in the surroundings quieted down. There was a promise to pay on the table and they did know that mysterious power stones were valuable. This steward was also ferocious to break a person¡¯s leg with one kick.

    The Night Watchers was prepared for this to be the end of the matter when their timid colleague suddenly grabbed the steward''s neck. ¡°You¡¯ve got some nerve, damn you! This guy falls under our jurisdiction because he¡¯s broken thew. Since when is it your turn to break his leg? Take him back with us, take both of them back! They really think they¡¯re something!¡±

    ¡°......¡± His third brother looked nkly at him. Um... were they arresting the steward too?

    <i>Heavens above! This little brother is usually as scared as a mouse! How is he so bold today?</i>

    But it made sense since they¡¯d already offended the marquis beyond redemption. There was nothing to fear anymore! How dare members of the marquis¡¯ household conduct private punishment??

    ¡°Take them all back with us! Don¡¯t worry, the money will arrive soon. We¡¯ll interrogate them well!¡± The Night Watchers were newly invigorated by their arrest of a steward. This was nice! How about chopping off a marquis¡¯ head to add to the festivities as well? Whatever, they were going back to headquarters first!

 Chapter 700: Changes (III)

    <h4>Chapter 700: Changes (III)</h4>

    The steward¡¯s expression shifted and a vicious look shed through his eyes, but it promptly disappeared when something else urred to him.

    ¡°I was too hasty just now,¡± he hastily admitted with fear. ¡°I know my fault and admit to it...¡±

    It was just a matter of a broken leg and paying off the aggrieved parties. If Scrawny didn¡¯t raise a fuss, he¡¯d be in jail for a year and a half at most. They couldn¡¯t take a hard tone with these Night Watchers anymore, that would result in the loss of their heads. The times now were different from before!

    As to be expected, the steward quickly thought things through. Only people of umon talent would be a steward of a noble¡¯s household. Even though these Night Watchers were much weaker than him since they were either Darkmoons or Sunres, he permitted them to grab him by the neck. He was a Sr, but he didn¡¯t resist and docilely left with the Night Watchers.

    Cheers ripped through the air as they left! Those newlye to the area quickly asked the rest of the crowd what was going on. They were highly excited when up-to-date on the happenings. So this was possible? The Night Watchers would arrest even the steward of a marquis just because some money was owed?

    That was a marquis! A major personage! Since when were the Night Watchers so tough? Of course, it must have much to do with Commander Li. He even dared kill a minister, so what was a marquis worth?

    The news quickly spread, starting as arresting the steward to killing the steward. The final version was that the Night Watchers chopped off Marquis Changxing¡¯s head because he owed thirty thousand star coins. His head now hung on the northern city gate!

    The news traveled so far and fast that a steady stream of visitors soon visited the marquis, only to find that the subject of the rumors was alive and well. So how was the gossip mill saying that his head was swinging from the northern city gate?

    The marquis was equally aghast and quickly sought help from the nine ministries. What if the rumors turned real after a while? He went to the pce when the nine ministries ignored him and decided he wouldn¡¯t emerge for the short term, even on pain of death. It was too dangerous!

    Everyone said that Li Hao had stayed to arrest and kill people. There was no marquis, duke, prince, or minister safe from him! And yet, the royal family had gone utterly insane to give him the title of Skystar Governor General. Even the nine ministries fell under his purview now. While they wouldn¡¯t respect his authority, he could execute them with a legitimate reason.

    ......

    <i>The slums.</i>

    A group of children eagerly discussed the events of the day.

    ¡°Sis, sis, the Night Watchers are incredible! Marquis Changxing had his head chopped off because he owed street vendors thirty thousand star coins! Everyone¡¯s talking about it right now!¡±

    Yu Qi was slightly befuddled by what she heard. Was that person... that ruthless? He would kill even a marquis for a mere thirty thousand coins?

    One had to say, the news had spread so quickly and broadly that the entire city was in an uproar. The people were more invigorated than yesterday. Everything had seemed so far removed at first. All that talk of filing reports or making their grievances known were actions that the people did not dare undertake.

    But now that they heard of a pork seller calling out to the Night Watchers to demand settlement of debts, and the Night Watchers actually responding to the point of beheading the recalcitrant marquis... Everyone truly believed that the Night Watchers were different now!

    They could make the decisions!

    Countless people stirred to action. If a marquis was dead for such a small matter, then what else wouldn¡¯t the Night Watchers dare do? Even if the news turned out to be false, it was still electrifying!

    No one wanted to pursue whether or not this was real. It wasn¡¯t like Marquis Changxing was stepping forward to rify. Perhaps he really was dead.

    Excited, Yu Qi looked at her younger brother not too far away. She jogged over, wiped off her hands, threw off her apron, and whispered, ¡°Have you heard the news, lil bro? I want... to visit the northern quadrant of the city tonight!¡±

    ¡°Sis, this talk of the marquis being dead must be fake...¡± Yu Ming replied softly.

    ¡°I know!¡± Yu Qi rolled her eyes. ¡°I¡¯m not an idiot. But... haven¡¯t you realized that things are different now?¡±

    Yu Ming thought it over, then nodded. ¡°If sis wants to go... then I¡¯ll go with you.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, I can go alone. You stay at home. No... you head out first and find a ce to hide. I¡¯ll go find you when Ie back!¡±

    Yu Ming nodded after thinking about it. He didn¡¯t say anything else. Meanwhile, Yu Qi was energized and slightly anxious. She checked the sky¡ªwhy wasn¡¯t it dark yet? It was a bit scary to attempt this during the day, someone might see her. If she wanted to raise an issue, it was better to do so at night.

    ......

    Stories about the Night Watchers flurried through Skystar City.

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Yao Si was confused by the talk on the streets and looked at the exuberant Little Ye. ¡°Did Li Hao really kill Marquis Changxing?¡±

    ¡°No, Commander Li is in closed door cultivation and helping the Silver Moon martial masters heal. He hasn¡¯te out yet...¡±

    ¡°Then this news is ridiculous!¡± Yao Si didn¡¯t know what to say. ¡°I¡¯ve received eightmunications this morning, all wanting to know more. Who do they think I am? This is just a piece of fake news!¡±

    ¡°Director, whether it¡¯s fake or real news, haven¡¯t you noticed something?¡± Little Ye bubbled with excitement.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Everyone¡¯s really happy!¡±

    ¡°Who?¡±

    ¡°Everyone! The people outside are happy, the Night Watchers are happy. Have you seen it, director? Headquarters used to be a stifling ce, but everyone¡¯s talking about the gossip today!¡±

    They were all wondering who was that ferocious as to kill Marquis Changxing. Upon further inquiry, they learned that it was some of their most timid members, the ones out on patrol. No one believed it, so another uproar ensued when the team returned with a Sr level steward!

    Some other Night Watchers dered that since some Darkmoons and Sunres dared arrest a Sr, then they had to bring back a Nova to maintain their standing among colleagues!

    ¡°Little Ye, do you really think this is a good development?¡± Yao Si wearily rubbed his temples.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Little Ye nodded. ¡°Why isn¡¯t it, director? Everyone¡¯s saying that the Night Watchers are doing a great job and have done well on the streets. The noble and powerful are afraid of us. Isn¡¯t that how things should be for aw enforcement agency?

    ¡°People know to seek out the Night Watchers if they¡¯ve suffered a wrong. They know that we¡¯ll take action if theye to us! We¡¯ll arrest or kill whoever¡¯s responsible, no matter who they are. Isn¡¯t that how things are supposed to be?¡±

    Was that so?

    Yao Si sank into deep thought. He walked over to a window and looked outside. Some Night Watchers passing through the yard seemed to be walking with a lighter step. They asionally exchanged a few words with each other, truly in different spirits than usual.

    It was just rumors and those present knew that they were all fake. Marquis Changxing hadn¡¯t been arrested, it was his steward. Thousands of nobles had been arrested before, which made a steward a nonentity!

    However, it was a very different feeling to the Night Watchers. The ones arrested before had been at Li Hao¡¯s hand. This time, it was by their hand. So they had the right to do so as well! And they weren¡¯t faced with curses when they took someone, but apuse, cheers, andudatory yells! So they could be this kind of Night Watcher as well?

    Yao Si looked down with a frown, then smoothed out his forehead and shook his head with a sigh. ¡°We¡¯ll be in trouble if Li Hao runs off...¡±

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll just run to Silver Moon with him!¡± Little Ye answered matter-of-factly.

    ¡°Eh?¡± Yao Si blinked, as did Little Ye.

    ¡°I... I didn¡¯t say anything!¡± she stammered as the color drained from her face.

    ¡°So this is what everyone thinks now?¡± Yao Si raised an eyebrow. ¡°You¡¯ll follow him if he runs away to Silver Moon? He¡¯s only been here a few days, but you¡¯re all ready to abandon your homes to go with him?¡±

    He hadn¡¯t thought that this would be their mindset! It was so surprising!

    Little Ye was afraid, but also determined to speak her mind. ¡°What would be the big deal in that, director? It¡¯s work no matter where we go, it¡¯s just another way of living. I hear that Night Watchers in Silver Moon live with dignity, that they are part of the four institutions. Those who want to kill someone from the three great organizations can go on a patrol anytime.

    ¡°Apparently, their cultivation resourcese from killing the three great organizations or pirates. While their days are a bit harder, they live more freely! It¡¯s a more dignified death if they die in battle because they can say they perished while fighting the enemy...¡±

    ¡°The Night Watchers have been battling the three great organizations for the past twenty years!¡± Yao Si retorted irritably. ¡°Don¡¯t we do the same?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not the same...¡± Little Ye responded cautiously. ¡°Our days were... full of suffering before! Dao Sword was the only one who dared randomly kill people. We didn¡¯t dare, no one did. Important people couldn¡¯t be targeted in case that created a bigger conflict.¡±

    ¡°How much better do you think Silver Moon is?¡± Yao Si asked wordlessly. That province was the same! The two sides kept each other in check! How did these guys think that Silver Moon was better than Skystar City?

    ¡°We might have our reservations if it was Director Hou in charge,¡± Little Ye mumbled. ¡°But isn¡¯t it Commander Li in charge now?¡±

    <i>Oho! </i>Yao Si suddenly understood. <i>So it¡¯s not just me being insulted, but Hou Xiaochen as well! Nicely done! </i>He suddenly wanted tough.<i> Hou Xiaochen, did you ever think this would happen to you? Do you hear that?</i>

    <i>People don¡¯t think much of a Silver Moon that you oversee, but they see a future with the barbarian Li Hao, the brute and serial killer that they call Demon Sword. Aren¡¯t you pissed about it?</i>

    The ball of anger in his chest was much doused. Yao Siughed and took a sip out of his tea mug, finding the situation hrious. He took another look at the ground and did note more of a spring in the Night Watchers¡¯ footsteps. The stagnant pool that was Skystar City had indeed be much more lively after the arrival of the Silver Moon savages. He nced at the Inspectorate nearby¡ªwhat kind of scene might be found there today?

    It might be a hotbed of activity, but that didn¡¯t matter. Since the Night Watchers had lost a few deputy directors, he¡¯d put Li Hao¡¯s name forward to have the Inspectorate arrange a deputy director title for the young man.

    That would piss the nine ministries off so much that they wouldn¡¯t know what to say! Hahahaha!!

 Chapter 701: Changes (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 701: Changes (IV)</h4>

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    They were indeed holding a meeting at the moment and were short on two deputies. One was Yellow Dragon, the other was Yao Si. Yao Si had pled health too poor to attend.

    The inspector general scrutinized a document from beginning to end. It was full of words, but they all boiled down to the same thing¡ªLi Hao would start killing if he wasn¡¯t promoted! It wasn¡¯t the young man who¡¯d written it, Yao Si had sent it over.

    The inspector general mulled over it before saying, ¡°Yao Si rmends promoting Li Hao to deputy director at the Night Watchers and vice minister here. He would be recing Yellow Dragon¡¯s position. What do you guys think?¡±

    No one responded. Their superior looked at them for a long moment before repeating, ¡°I said, what do you guys think?¡±

    ¡°We leave it up to the inspector general!¡± the group hastily responded. Some wanted to refuse the request, but gave up when they thought of Li Hao. Forget it, they were all afraid of death. If they refused and Li Hao learned of it, what was the point of offending him when even the nine ministries couldn¡¯t take him down?

    A bunch of ministers and vice ministers had died yesterday! This was just the position of vice minister on the table. If he wanted even the position of principal minister... So long as the inspector general was willing to step down, the rest of them wouldn¡¯t have any opinions otherwise.

    The inspector general could discern what his subordinates were thinking. A wave of weariness washed over him. <i>The fuck you guys mean by all this!</i>

    The nine ministries had lost the battle with Li Hao yesterday and ultimately chose to back down. Sometimes, backing down once meant that future salvaging of the circumstances would be difficult.

    ¡°He¡¯s too young...¡± murmured the inspector general.

    ¡°He is indeed young, sir, but he¡¯s the Skystar Marquis and Skystar Governor General. Most importantly, he¡¯s very strong as an Arcanus. It¡¯s not good to refuse him, is it?¡±

    The inspector general blinked.<i> I haven¡¯t said anything about turning him down, but you bastards are in such a hurry to curry favor! Have you forgotten that the Inspectorate belongs to my Chen family?!</i>

    ¡°So, you all think that he should be promoted?¡± The inspector general swept a wordless nce over the assembly.

    No one responded¡ªa sign of tacit eptance. This was one of the very few asions in which no one protested. One reason was that they didn¡¯t dare, the second was that they couldn¡¯t.

    ¡°He¡¯s well known now, but he also represents the Inspectorate,¡± exined one of the deputies. ¡°Being vice minister means that he¡¯ll raise our profile with anything he does.¡±

    Raise their infamy, more like! The inspector general cursed to himself before nodding. ¡°Very well, then let¡¯s do it like this!¡± He suddenlyughed, ¡°Isn¡¯t he Hou Xiaochen¡¯s old subordinate? Hou Xiaochen isn¡¯t a vice minister, isn¡¯t he?¡±

    No one made a sound as they didn¡¯t understand what the inspector general meant.

    ¡°Then this is good!¡± The man stroked his chin. ¡°This is perfect! Send the document to the Ministry of Administration. Don¡¯t they like to make the decisions? Have them approve it!¡±

    The appointment of vice ministers needed to follow procedure; both the Ministry of Administration and Examinations were required to verify the gesture. The inspector general wanted to see what those two thought at the moment.

    Would they refuse? It¡¯d be so interesting if they refused! Those who watched a show wanted nothing more than for the show to grow bigger. Since the inspector general hadn¡¯t been able to render timely instance in Li Hao¡¯s hour of need, then he would add flowers to the young man¡¯s glory. As for how he would offer additional splendor, that remained to be seen.

    ¡°Right, notify Li Hao that the Ministry of Finance relinquished a second rank ruin. It¡¯s the site of a martial university. Ask him if he¡¯s interested in exploring it. But it¡¯s very dangerous,¡±ughed the inspector general. ¡°Just go tell him!¡±

    As he left, someone¡¯s whisper followed him out. ¡°Inspector General, do we uhh... notify him of future meetings?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The inspector general paused. ¡°No!¡±

    He left in a hurry. Notify Li Hao of their meetings? How about no! What if the kid continued to take the opposite stance of him? Was he supposed to fight the kid? Or behead him? What if the kid beheaded him instead? Who knew what would be the oue of everything?

    ......

    Skystar City was very animated on this day. Li Hao spent the entire day inside. A bunch of Silver Moon martial masters conversed with each other as they recovered from wounds and cultivated. This was a rare opportunity, so regardless of whether or not they shared grudges or other feuds, all of the martial masters took advantage of a temporary lull in fighting to exchange martial reflections.

    Tyrant de had the floor in the middle of arge house. The domineering desman was denouncing with a cold expression, ¡°Yuan Shuo, don¡¯t go thinking that your Five Styles is the only way! Your path of refining the spirit and strengthening the five organs may not be the right path!¡±

    ¡°So you¡¯re saying that mine is a deviant, illegitimate way?¡± Yuan Shuo harrumphed with irritation. ¡°Martial masters should focus on mind intent! When the mind is strong, everything is strong. I am a firm believer that when mind intent is strong enough, the effects are fed back to the body. The five organs being weak won¡¯t be a problem!

    ¡°A strong mind intent means a strong body, we¡¯re just in a period of weakness at the moment. When our mind intent transforms, it will naturally strengthen the body! We would even be able to discard the physical body then if we wanted to.¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡± He Yong grumped. ¡°Blood qi is the key... All is strong when the physical body is strong. Have you never heard of the saying that through the body is corroborated dao?¡±

    ¡°No no no, I think the key lies with the aura...¡±

    No one among the group of martial masters was willing to concede their points. Yuan Shuo satfortably, his leg crossed like he was out for a day of fishing. ¡°Right right, all of you are right. Therefore, don¡¯t strengthen the five organs. Whoever dares to secretly strengthen them is a pig!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The premises were quiet for a second before even louder curses broke out!

    ¡°Everyone, isn¡¯t it good to have a bnced development?¡± someone asked carefully. ¡°I can tell that there¡¯s only so many paths ahead of us, and they all have to do with the supernatural locks. My master ces a high importance on the cirction of the five organs, but that¡¯s not a major cirction either. If webine all of our knowledge, wouldn¡¯t that create a major cirction of the entire body?¡±

    Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes and couldn¡¯t be bothered to say anything.

    ¡°It¡¯s easy to say so,¡± Hou Xiaochen said softly. ¡°Judging from our current knowledge, there are at least twelve locks in the human body. Yuan Shuo haspleted a cirction of the five organs¡ªthat is already a peak aplishment. It¡¯s not hard for us four toplete the cirction of our limbs, that¡¯s a foundation. If your master can organize it all, then he¡¯llplete the circtory system of nine supernatural locks. In that case, that will be some clues for the road ahead...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s the theory and we all know that it will strengthen us as aprehensive whole,¡± Sky Sword added faintly. ¡°The key thing is, it isn¡¯t easy to cultivate and hard to organize into one system. Keep in mind how difficult it is to blend two breathing methods together, not to mention breaking twelve supernatural locks.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. He was a junior here, whether in terms of strength or martial dao understanding. After he raised the question, the general consensus was that just speaking of the theory was no use, he needed to actually put it to use and put everything together.

    Who didn¡¯t know that it was better to develop as oneprehensive whole? As strong as Yuan Shuo¡¯s potential was, he¡¯d onlypleted making a circtory loop of the five organs to this day.

    ¡°Can the supernatural locks directly enter the cirction system of the five organs?¡± Li Hao asked after some thought.

    ¡°Cut the nonsense!¡± Yuan Shuopped him down verbally. ¡°That¡¯s just ying house! Haphazardly connecting parts of the body will lead to death! Detonation of the body would be the easy oue then! What are you thinking, or are you not thinking at all? Do you really think my Five Styles is the forced amalgamation of any random five styles? Don¡¯t go around telling people you¡¯re my disciple!¡±

    Yuan Shuo found Hong Yitang nodding in ordance with his words and cursed to himself. ¡°Forget it, even if you say that you¡¯re my disciple, you¡¯re not allowed to say anything else!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hong Yitang looked innocently back at the old man. <i>What are you ring at me for? I was just agreeing with your words and not nodding randomly. You¡¯re the one who wanted to draw feet for a snake and add to what you said.</i>

    ¡°We have a general picture of what everything thinks.¡± Sky Sword stood up. ¡°I have things to take care of back at Sky Sword Mountain and am in no mood to argue with you. I take my leave!¡±

    ¡°Senior Sky Sword, you...¡± Li Hao hastily rose to his feet as well.

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to say anything!¡± Sky Sword¡¯s voice came back elegantly on the wind. ¡°Whether it is martial masters or supernaturals, all should resolutely follow their own paths. There is no road ahead since this is a new era, so we can just make our own explorations! Study the supernatural when you have time to. Since the wind and thunder attributes have their locks, then what of the dark, light, life, space, and other special attributes? Don¡¯t be like your master and shut yourself in with your own thoughts, thinking that the supernatural is a shallow field. The supernatural has its unique characteristics!¡±

    The man was long gone. Northern Fist was the next to rise. ¡°I should be going too! Send me out, Little He. Big brother hasn¡¯t chatted with you in a long time...¡±

    He Yong snorted.<i> Who¡¯s the big brother here? There might be a question of who¡¯s stronger now!</i>

    ¡°Where are your manners?¡± Northern Fist smiled at He Yong. Thetter cursed to himself and rose as well. <i>That old fart bullied me quite a bit back in the day. I¡¯m going to find a ce to fight him!</i>

    The Northern and Southern Fists left without saying a word to anyone. Tyrant de continued his aloof manner and vanished when he stood up.

    ¡°Mind intent lies with the brain,¡± he transmitted to Li Hao. ¡°The aura and mind intent are not the same concept. If mind intent is a type of strength, then the aura is a kind of faith. You can call upon them again when you are familiar with their fundamental differences!¡±

    ¡°I should be getting back to Silver Moon.¡± Huang Yu got to his feet. ¡°Xiaochen should be careful in staying behind. If Li Hao doesn¡¯t wish to leave yet, stay. Let us know if you need help. Skystar City is a ce of much trouble and you shouldn¡¯t linger here for long!¡±

    He left on foot. Each of these martial masters hade with decisive resolution and left with dashing grace. All good things muste to an end and everyone had their own thoughts. It was well enough for old friends to be gathered for two or three days. Any longer might lead to in-fighting.

    Li Hao sent them off one by one. Martial masters were hot-blooded, emotional entrics. It wasn¡¯t good to force them together in tight quarters. None of them were weak since they¡¯d all made it to their current heights by themselves.

    As for the dangers of traveling alone, these martial world old hats were more aware of the potential concerns than Li Hao. Since they dared leave, they were also confident that they wouldn¡¯t be surrounded or hunted down.

 Chapter 702: Gains and Reports (I)

    <h4>Chapter 702: Gains and Reports (I)</h4>

    It was only one day of conversation with these martial masters, yet Li Hao felt that he¡¯d gained quite a bit. Although he was no longer a martial master, it didn¡¯t matter. There were simrities when it came to great dao.

    The young man thought that his master might not leave this time, but Yuan Shuo stood up as well.

    ¡°I¡¯m going back to Silver Moon! You be careful here. I¡¯m going to converse with those old antiques and possibly change the overall situation for you. I was too weak back in the day and didn¡¯t dare go back. I am no longer weak, so I ought to look in on those existences!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened, but Yuan Shuo waved him off. ¡°There¡¯s no need to say too much. Just remember that you are my disciple, not someone else¡¯s disciple. Remember what is primary and what is secondary, that is all!¡±

    He left with a jaunty air and didn¡¯t look back.

    ¡°Your master says that he knows where the rest of the Jadelight sword method is,¡± Jadelight chuckled and looked at the young man. ¡°I feel quite regretful that I didn¡¯t have time to exchange sword dao reflections with you over these past two days. But the days ahead are long. There will be chances to after my Jadelight sword technique improves!¡±

    ¡°Are youing or not?¡± Yuan Shuo called out impatiently.

    Jadelight smiled, vanishing as a streak of sword light. That left only a few people in therge room¡ªLi Hao, Hong Yitang, Hou Xiaochen, Yu Luocha, and Light Sword.

    ¡°Golden Spear¡¯s gone,¡± Yu Luocha suddenly said.

    ¡°What?¡±

    Manager Yu raised the transmission pendant in her hand. ¡°Golden Spear sent me a message saying that he¡¯s leaving. He didn¡¯t make his farewells to the Silver Moon Guards. He¡¯s regretful that he didn¡¯t participate in the battle, but also felt that he wouldn¡¯t have been able to help much. He said he wants to take a look outside. He won¡¯te back if he cannot break his internal demons!

    ¡°The message concludes with his gratitude toward the director for helping him all those years ago. He also asks that Li Hao takes care of the Silver Moon Guards... and that is all he said.¡±

    The group blinked. Golden Spear... was gone. They were surprised, but it also made sense.

    Hou Xiaochen sank into deep thought and sighed softly after a while. ¡°Leaving... is just as well! He should take a look at the rest of the world! It will indeed be hard for him to break the intent that I left behind in him. I didn¡¯t mean to do so, but he is unable to set things aside. He thinks too much and is too upright. If it was He Yong... he wouldn¡¯t think so much... Golden Spear always felt that he owed me something...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen shook his head with some regret. If Golden Spear didn¡¯t return after this parting, that meant he would never return. Or he might find a ce to live out the rest of his days. The Three Spears of Silver Moon might be a footnote in history.

    But if he could return, then he would be very different from before. That Golden Spear would be once more renowned throughout Silver Moon¡¯s martial world and the head of the Three Spears. He would still be the fifth ranked among the Record, but looking at third ce.

    ¡°I¡¯ve decided to stay, how about you?¡± Hong Yitang looked at Light Sword. The woman had been with him all this time. ¡°How about you go to Silver Moon? My wife¡¯s asked a few times why you keep following me...¡±

    Light Sword started, as did the others! They all looked at Hong Yitang.

    ¡°She really did ask me!¡±

    ¡°You think too highly of yourself, Hong Yitang!¡± Light Sword raged! <i>What do you mean by this?!</i>

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t exin further. What he said was the truth, so stop following him! It was one thing when she was a man, and it would have been fine if she was as ugly as before. But now... at the very least, she looked like a middle-aged auntie!

    Those not in the know might think that Hong Yitang had peculiar tastes!

    ¡°I¡¯m not leaving,¡± Light Sword snorted. ¡°I¡¯m staying to help Li Hao and also to take care of my excess of light energy. When I reach a bnce between my yin and yang, you won¡¯t be good enough for my notice!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao ducked his head, deathly afraid that he would burst outughing. But her words made him scratch his head. <i>You want to follow me? Yu Luocha, Jadelight, Little Ye... are all very pretty. Even the women by Ying Hongyue¡¯s side are good looking. Why does Auntie Light want to follow me?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen took Manager Yu with him, leaving with a grand flourish. He wouldn¡¯t be involved in this matter any further, it had nothing to do with him. Besides, would Light Sword really be prettier after her yin and yang were bnced?

    He didn¡¯t think so!

    Of course, he wouldn¡¯t voice those thoughts out loud. That would be too antagonizing.

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t mind after this. ¡°I¡¯m going to take a turn around the city, I leave Light Sword with you. If my daughter asks about it, you have to bear witness for me that there¡¯s nothing between the two of us!¡±

    He vanished as well.

    Light Sword sneered and looked at Li Hao. ¡°Li Hao, you have to believe me that once my yin and yang are bnced, neither Yu Luocha nor ck Spider will match up to me!¡±

    Li Hao rapidly bobbed his head! Who would¡¯ve thought that a group of aunties would jealously fight with each other? This was terrifying!

    He startedughing after Light Sword stormed off and squeezed Panther¡¯s cheeks. ¡°Aren¡¯t Silver Moon martial masters interesting, Panth?¡±

    The dog nodded with resignation. It didn¡¯t know whether or not they were interesting, but they could certainly absorb energy. The dog hadn¡¯t siphoned off much sword energy over the past two days. It was best that they were gone!

    The young man fell silent afterughing for a bit, wanting to consider his future.

    ......

    The supernatural coexisting with martial dao was Li Hao¡¯s current status. The discourse between the martial masters had given him some inspiration. All of this stemmed from problems with martial dao. He chose to stay in Skystar City not just for martial dao, but for other reasons as well, such as to cultivate the heart.

    Martial masters train the heart was his most recent reflection. His aura would grow stronger if he followed his heart.

    After running through some ns, Li Hao breathed out gently and outlined what he wanted to do next. He looked at Panther; the dog looked back at him.

    ¡°What are you still looking at me for?¡± Li Hao rolled his eyes. ¡°The seniors are all gone. How are you so stubborn?¡±

    The dog didn¡¯t hand over the storage rings when everyone was here. It didn¡¯t want the loot to be taken by another!

    In actuality, only He Yong had the desire to split up the spoils. No one else was interested.

    Panther barked incessantly, seeming to say that it was doing this for Li Hao¡¯s own good. The young man had consumed no end of wealth over the past two days. He¡¯d burned mysterious power stones like they were worthless. A short conversation of dao between martial masters had costed Li Hao hundreds of thousands of stones.

    There were too many martial masters and all of them were powerhouses. The rate at which they absorbed energy was frightening.

    However, the young man did notck for money these days. He¡¯d obtained quite a bit from the executions, but this asion was different. All of the dead were heavyweights and quite a few of them were Arcanus. Li Hao was curious if these people had good treasures on them.

    The dog spat up some storage rings¡ªnot that many, just approximately two dozen. However, they seemed much more high quality from a single nce.

    Li Hao picked one up at random, not knowing whose it was. He sucked in a sharp breath when he sent his consciousness into it. <i>Who¡¯s was this?</i>

    It only contained a dozen mysterious power stones, but each of them felt bigger and stronger than the one Hong Yitang had taken out. If Hong Yitang¡¯s was worth three thousand regr pieces, then one of these was worth ten thousand. Iparably dense energy swayed within, moving like water currents.

    Although they were the equivalent of several hundred thousand stones, mysterious power stones of the caliber weren''t easily traded for. They were impossible to find on the market and could onlye from ruins. It was only the most premier ruins that would contain them.

    <i>Powerhouses are certainly different!</i>

    There weren¡¯t many mysterious power stones or other items apart from a small sk. Water of Life was almost standard issue for heavyweights of this level. There were ten drops inside. Li Hao truly wondered which poor soul had owned this storage ring that they¡¯d died without using a single drop.

    Further investigation revealed one more item that was very conspicuous among the general cultivation resources. He took it out for a closer look. It was a piece of amber that seemed to have a drop of something blood-red flowing inside it. It looked to be a phoenix or a roc bird...

    ¡°What is this?¡± Li Hao looked at it with confusion. Panther¡¯s nose twitched and it merrily lifted its head upward at the young man. Li Hao looked down at it.

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther barked urgently. It even drew a small gash on its body to make blood flow...

    ¡°Essence blood from a major monster spirit?¡± A thought struck Li Hao.

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther hastily nodded. That¡¯s right, this was blood from a major monster spirit! It didn¡¯t know how it¡¯de about, or maybe it¡¯d been traded for...

    ¡°Sky Roc Mountain or Phoenix Mountain...¡± Li Hao mused. Those two divine mountains were ruled by flight type monster spirits. There didn¡¯t seem to be particrly strong monster spirits among those of the ground or water. It was the flying types that¡¯d produced two major monster spirits. Was it thend and sea monster spirits keeping a low profile, or was there another reason behind this?

    This drop of blood might belong to one of them.

    Li Hao was well aware that the blood of monster spirits could strengthen the body. Yuan Shuo had bitten into Panther¡¯s bloodst time to extract some blood to fortify his organs.

    ¡°Do you want it?¡±

    ¡°Arf!¡± Panther nodded. Monster spirits hunting others of their kind was their nature since the ancient times. Monster spirit blood contained power that was much more nourishing to the dog than sword energy.

    ¡°Here you go!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t spend further time wondering who it belonged to. He tossed it to the dog, who swallowed it with one gulp. There were no names written on the storage rings, but judging from the items inside, it might¡¯ve belonged to the North Sea King. Yet if that was the case, the pirate was too poor! He had some treasures, but it paled inparison to the identity of the greatest pirate of the North Sea!

    ¡°Maybe... he traded his treasures for the opportunity to break through to Arcanus?¡± Li Hao guessed. This was most likely the story. In that case, then the new crop of Aracanus were likely to all be very poor. They would¡¯ve had to pay a price for their newfound strength.

    The possibility pained Li Hao. What a shame! Why else would the greatest pirate of the North Sea be so poor?

 Chapter 703: Gains and Reports (II)

    <h4>Chapter 703: Gains and Reports (II)</h4>

    The more Li Hao looked at the storage rings, the more shocked he grew. <i>Hot damn!</i> These guys were so rich!

    There weren¡¯t many treasures in the North Sea King¡¯s ring; the one he was looking at next likely belonged to the Steppe Prince. As one of the nine princes of the royal family, there were so many treasures inside this ring that it blinded Li Hao!

    It went without saying that there was an abundance of mysterious power stones in the rings. There were so many that he couldn¡¯t be bothered to count them all. It might have something to do with the royal family excavating the ruins of Skystar City. There had beenrge mines there to maintain the operations of the eight cities.

    The key difference was that there were a lot of books in the Steppe Prince¡¯s ring. Li Hao casually flipped open one of them¡ªthey were all of martial dao secret arts! The personage who¡¯d established the Skystar Troops had apparently deeply researched martial dao. It looked like he was a schr.

    Li Hao estimated there to be at least one hundred books of martial secret arts in the ring, and they had to be of umon knowledge to be collected by the prince. The young man even saw some that were famous in the Silver Moon martial world.

    ¡°Iron Shirt... Flies Over Grass...¡± His eyes widened. Flies Over Grass was Wu Xinghong, Wu Chao¡¯s grandfather. It was said that Celestial had killed him back in the day and seized his secret art. So it was in the Steppe Prince¡¯s storage ring!

    <i>So... did the Steppe Prince hire Celestial, or is he one of their backers?</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts then turned to Willow Sword. Did Willow Sword¡¯s death have to do with the Steppe Prince? The guy seemed to have been collecting Silver Moon secret arts.

    Li Hao swept his gaze over the books. He also saw the secret Footjab art. Their representative character was Madame Bai, the woman who married into the Bai family. The Bais had been the city lords of the Silver Moon capital in the past. Did this mean that Madame Bai had volunteered her family¡¯s secret art?

    The Bais certainly looked to have ties to the royal family if they¡¯d offered up even their secret art. His senior sister and her husband Hu Dingfang were involved with the Bais...

    Li Hao furrowed his brows and put everything out of his mind. There were also sets of ck armor in the prince¡¯s ring. They looked very simr to his back armor, but weren¡¯t the same. Li Hao immediately thought of the ck Armaturas of the royal family!

    This armor should belong to them. There weren¡¯t many, just three hundred sets. He also had a thousand sets of Voidbreaker armor on hand.

    ......

    Li Hao went through each individual ring and took a deep breath. He didn¡¯t look at any of the other treasures¡ªa golden booklet manifested in his hand. This caught his eye the most out of all the treasures in the pile.

    It came from Hu Xiao¡¯s ring and a nearly identical booklet appeared in his other hand. This one came from the old Duke Xu. Two golden booklets that were nearly the same! But there were minute differences. Both of them carried hints of an ancient air, while on the first one was written¡ª<i>Battle Methods of Core Origin: Offense.</i>

    A smaller line of text could be found beneath the title. <i>Written by the Chens of the New Martial era.</i>

    The Chens, New Martial. A thought urred to Li Hao as he knew of a Chen powerhouse who¡¯d written down the basics of sword methods in flowing calligraphy. Headmaster Chen was skilled in the Streamflow Sword Method. Which Chens did this core origin battle method belong to? Were they actually the same family? Was this the method that the old ministers had utilized before?

    He looked at the second golden booklet¡ª<i>Battle Methods of Core Origin: Break. </i>Another small line of text could be found beneath it. <i>Written by the Jiangs of the New Martial era.</i> inly, these core origin battle methods weren¡¯t the work of one family, but of multiple. Since one was with the old duke and another with Hu Xiao, then the other ministers might possess some as well.

    Li Hao was slightly confused. Were they still exploring the same ruin? Otherwise, why would the Steadfast Duke of the east have one too?

    Such questions swirling in his mind, he flipped open one of them and seemed to be transported to a scene within. An incredibly ferocious existence stood in front of him, so strong that it was unbelievable!

    ¡°The Jiang family¡¯s <i>break</i> incantation can break anything and everything! This king is titled the Battle King and is the king of battle for the human race!¡± An ancient voice projected into Li Hao¡¯s mind.

    <i>The Battle King! </i>An ancient powerhouse!

    A rumble echoed in Li Hao¡¯s mind as the skies and earth fractured¡ªa <i>break</i> character appeared in blood. It broke through all obstacles with dao and reduced everything to dust.

    The scene then brightened in front of Li Hao¡¯s eyes and he returned to reality. The Battle King, the Jiangs, the <i>break</i> incantation! The golden booklets were ancient marital heritages!

    Li Hao was quite taken aback. Compared to what this one had just demonstrated, the old ministers had brought forth... trash! They insulted the battle method!

    ¡°Teacher says that this is the battle method of the ancient city called Tranquil Star. Xu Qing told mest time that the Xus excavated the city, so what¡¯s with the nine ministries? Are they seizing the property of the Xus? Or are the nine ministries and Xus exploring the ruins together?¡± Li Hao was confused. He understood to a certain extent that these methods originated from Tranquil Star, but why did the nine ministries have them?

    <i>The martial universities!</i>

    That¡¯s right, Battle Heaven had mentioned that the universities of old sought to embrace all knowledge and powerhouses back in the day. When any secret arts were created, they quickly disseminated the update as opposed to keeping it for themselves. In that case, it was normal for a secret art to be found anywhere it was found. Perhaps there had been a renowned martial university on Skystar Ind.

    <i>Two premier secret arts...</i> Li Hao flushed, but then quickly frowned with doubt as to whether or not he could practice them. They seemed to be part of the martial dao path¡ªno, the core origin path. They may not be a good match with him. The old ministers had brought powerful attacks to bear, but theirscked the feeling of invincibility that should¡¯ve been present.

    ¡°I¡¯ll know if I give it a try.¡± Li Hao looked excitedly at the golden booklets. There may be more of them, possibly many more.

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Panther barked, seeming to ask if the gains were great.

    ¡°The gains are very, very great!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°There¡¯s more than five million mysterious power stones alone. There¡¯s only a dozen origin weapons, but the lowest is arcane level and there are a few earth levels. There¡¯s not that much Water of Life either¡ªfifty drops at most. There¡¯s also a random assortment of other stuff. Are you happy with that?¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther was confused and seemed to be saying, why is there so little?

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me, almost all of the newly ascended Arcanus were poor as hell. Only Hu Xiao and the old duke were slightly richer.¡± Li Hao looked back with resignation.

    But even so, they were still Arcanus and as such, very rich! Strictly speaking, however, that bastard Yellow Dragon had more mysterious power stones in his storage ring than any of them. He alone contributed eight hundred thousand pieces. That bastard was too good at seizing wealth!

    Li Hao took a quick count¡ªwith nearly two million stones that he already had, his stones reached a total of more than seven million. He¡¯d given away nearly twenty origin weapons before, but now he had more at forty high ranked ones.

    When it came to Water of Life, he didn¡¯t have much left after gifting some to the old seniors. With a sudden gain of fifty drops, he was rich again.

    None of this even took into ount the two golden booklets and hundreds of books of secret arts. There was also plenty of ancient armor. Apart from the Steppe Prince, the old duke held one thousand sets from the Voidbreakers, making it two thousand sets from the Voidbreakers for Li Hao.

    He was a member of the Battle Heaven Army, but he actually had the most Voidbreaker armor.

    ¡°I have too many mysterious power stones now...¡± He scratched his head. He didn¡¯t have use for so many! He wouldn¡¯t be able to use them all even if he burned them daily for sword energy.

    The little sword had also gotten a bit picky and wasn¡¯t willing to absorb energy from these stones. The higher level ones were fine, but the lower level ones were on the outs.

    <i>The little tree... General Pagoda!</i>

    The young man suddenly thought of the old tree in Battle Heaven and the little tree in the abandoned pce. Director General Wang of the ancient city had told him that the citycked life energy. That situation wouldn¡¯t be rectified until General Pagoda awoke, but it would take too much energy for that to be aplished.

    The little tree shouldn¡¯t be as strong as General Pagoda, but even it required vast sums of energy. It went without saying how much the old general would. At that time, Li Hao had wanted to cry when he fed a dozen pieces to the tree, but now he had seven million!

    ¡°If I go back to Battle Heaven now... will I be able to awaken the city?¡±

    He was rich as hell with seven million pieces, wasn¡¯t he? Granted, if he went to the little tree now, he might actually be able to fully revitalize the tree since it probably needed less than General Pagoda.

    Various ideas ran through his mind and he lost himself in thought as three red balls materialized in his hand. Blood pearls!

    The three elders had been astounding as they all possessed peak metamorphosis power. He hadn¡¯t been the one to extract these; Sky Sword had thrown them to Li Hao.

    Sky Sword had killed one of the three elders, Li Hao the other two. The young man hadn¡¯t paid attention to the possibility of scarlet shadows when he killed them. The three seemed to have been in Sky Sword¡¯s body all along. He was so ferocious that he moved around like he wasn¡¯t being invaded by three shadows.

    Now they were blood pearls.

    Li Hao had wanted toy hands on one before, but dropped the thought after bing an Arcanus. Now that he had one... should he make a trip back to Silver Moon? Whether it was the little tree, Battle Heaven, or the diagram of the eight trigrams in Skystar City... They were all in Silver Moon!

    He grasped vast riches in his hand right now. Perhaps... it was time to make a trip back.

    ¡°Yang Shan hasn¡¯te back yet... but it should be soon.¡±

    Yang Shan was only a metamorphosis and left on the day of the executions. It¡¯d been four days¡ªhe might not be able to make it to the North Sea in four days. Who knew if he¡¯d received the news yet? Since the North Sea King was no more, the previous agreement was naturally null and void.

    <i>Perhaps I should visit Battle Heaven again...</i>

    He could sit down with the director general, but he could forget about thatmander in the army. He didn¡¯t seem to like the young man that much, the director general was much easier to talk to. Now that Li Hao had money, perhaps he could go back for some tutge.

    Granted, who knew if the city would let him in now that he was a supernatural?

    He was also in rather dangerous straits in Skystar City. It was better if he could improve some more or at the very least, obtain some more treasure to help others improve.

 Chapter 704: Gains and Reports (III)

    <h4>Chapter 704: Gains and Reports (III)</h4>

    As various thoughts rose to the forefront of Li Hao¡¯s mind, someone knocked on the door.

    ¡°Commander!¡± Mu Lin¡¯s voice rang on the other side, surprising the young man. He¡¯d given orders not to be bothered.

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°Someone wants to see you.¡±

    ¡°Who?¡±

    ¡°A little girl. She says that themander gave her two hundred star coins the day you arrived in Skystar City, that you¡¯re old acquaintances...¡±

    Li Hao blinked, recalling the person in question. He grew distracted, what was going on? Did he identally pay her off with fake coins? That shouldn¡¯t have happened. Or had the little girl recognized him and felt like the thigh of a hotshot was worth holding on to?

    <i>But... I only got a ride from you. There¡¯s not much of a rtionship between us, is there?</i>

    Mu Lin was still waiting outside and normally wouldn¡¯t have called upon the young man for this matter. But the visitor had said she was a known acquaintance and that Li Hao had given her two hundred coins...

    His mind was swiftly grasping at wild straws!

    Under what circumstances would Li Hao give someone so much money? And a girl who looked like she was sixteen... So Li Hao was this kind of person?!

    Heavens above!

    The girl hade looking for him, could it be...

    Some matters did not bear deeper contemtion. After all, why would someone hand over two hundred star coins for no reason whatsoever?

    Li Hao was well known for being a miser. He wasn¡¯t a skinflint when it came to cultivation resources, but very much a tightwad with regards to regr wealth. It was said that he¡¯d always been short on money, so it was definitely a case of the sun rising from the west for him to give someone two hundred star coins.

    ¡°Commander!¡± Mu Lin reminded.

    Li Hao waved a hand to open the door. ¡°Did she say what she wanted to see me for?¡± he asked curiously.

    ¡°No, just that she has important matters to discuss with themander...¡± Mu Lin answered offhandedly. ¡°So she¡¯s not lying about themander giving her two hundred coins?¡±

    ¡°That did indeed happen.¡± Li Hao nodded.

    Mu Lin understood the situation. <i>He¡¯s worse than an animal! She¡¯s only sixteen!</i>

    Meanwhile, Li Hao didn¡¯t think much of the possibilities. So what of two hundred star coins? It was a rare chance for him to be generous. He was just surprised that she¡¯de calling. After some thought, he rose to his feet instead of having Mu Lin send her away. ¡°Let¡¯s go take a look. Did I pay her with counterfeit coins or somethingst time?¡±

    Mu Lin followed him without a word, his mind racing through endless possibilities. Could it be... No it couldn¡¯t be! Was themander about to be a father?

    But, that also seemed like a nice development. They just had to be sure it was themander¡¯s. Mmhmm! Li Hao was so young that such matters needed to be taken seriously.

    ¡°What are you thinking about, Brother Second Mu?¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m asking you a question!¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°I asked if there are any disturbances in the city today. How are the nine ministries?¡± Li Hao looked wordlessly at him. What¡¯d gotten into Mu Lin today?

    ¡°Ah, nothing... The Night Watchers have demonstrated their might and the nine ministries are keeping quiet. There¡¯s been no movement from them ever since.¡±

    ¡°I see.¡± Li Hao nodded. Was Mu Lin distracted because Golden Spear had left?

    The young man walked outside. The city defenders used to be camped at the northern city quadrant, but this area had been temporarily imed as the Skystar Commander Office.

    To be honest, Li Hao should be focused on building the Skystar Governor General Office, but strictly speaking, that position was under the control of the royal family. He didn¡¯t think much of the appointment either¡ªbeing the Skystar vicemander was better. He was only under Night Watcher jurisdiction then and that agency was his home turf. The title was more humble, but he could avoid the royal family.

    A girl waited anxiously outside theplex. A Silver Moon Guard invited her inside, but she insisted on waiting outside. Some of the martial masters within the Silver Moon Guard were agog with the spirit of gossip.

    A very young girl was here for Li Hao! She said that he¡¯d given her two hundred star coins!

    These details were all over the Silver Moon Guards and even Manager Yu¡¯s figure could be glimpsed in the distance. Perhaps Hou Xiaochen had sent her here to listen to the gossip.

    None of this urred to Li Hao. If it did, he¡¯d probably kill a few people to shut up the rest! This was an affront to his reputation!

    ......

    Yu Qi was both excited and agitated when she saw Li Hao. She happily ran over from the distance and said apprehensively when she drew near, ¡°Um... ah... Master... Master Li... Do you remember me? I¡¯m the one who showed you around the Avenue of the Nine Ministries... I also said that you cane find me at the eastern city quadrant if you have need... I¡¯m called Yu Qi...¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Of course he did, his memory wasn¡¯t that bad.

    The look in Mu Lin¡¯s eyes grew moreplicated. <i>Come find me if you have need? How... incredible!</i>

    ¡°Yu Qi, is it? I remember!¡± Li Haoughed loudly. ¡°Those weren¡¯t fake coins that I paid you with, were they? I got those coins from killing others and I¡¯ll pay you again if they¡¯re fake!¡±

    ¡°No no!¡± Yu Qi hastily shook her head. How was this the conclusion that he¡¯d jumped to? ¡°I¡¯vee to you because I have some business, Master Li...¡±

    ¡°Just call me big brother!¡± Li Hao said casually, drawing attention from numerous people around him. He was confused by their attention. What, couldn¡¯t he have an acquaintance in the city?

    Another thought urred to him when he noted the gossipy nature of their looks and he turned to Mu Lin. When he read incredulity in the man¡¯s eyes and the suggestion that Li Hao was a downright animal...

    The young man understood!

    ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s chat inside,¡± he said smoothly. ¡°I haven¡¯t had the time to thank you for showing me to the Night Watcher headquartersst time! It¡¯s not an easy thing to be working and supporting your family at such a young age!¡±

    The crowd blinked when they heard these words. Showing him to headquarters? Was that it? Seriously?

    Mu Lin also started. <i>So things aren¡¯t as I thought?</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t just stand around, Brother Second Mu.¡± Li Hao pped Mu Lin¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Go about your business!¡±

    ¡°Oh, I see, okay!¡± Mu Lin quickly nodded.

    Li Hao walked inside with Yu Qi, but Mu Lin abruptly felt a piercing pain in his body not long after the young man crossed the threshold. He shrieked with agony in the next second, startling the Silver Moon Guards so much that they thought an enemy attack was upon them.

    Mu Lin waved them off, his hair standing up straight as bolts of lightning exploded over his head. Electricity coursing through his body numbed him as heughed ruefully. Was there any doubt as to who¡¯d done this?

    Incredible! Li Hao had likely sent mysterious power into his body when thed touched him. It didn¡¯t explode until he left, nearly turning Mu Lin into charcoal.

    ¡°It¡¯s the girl¡¯s words that were ambiguous and open to interpretation. What are you smiting me for?¡± It was clear as day that Li Hao had realized what was going on and taken revenge. Thed was so petty!

    ......

    <i>Within the hall.</i>

    Li Haoughed and looked at Yu Qi. ¡°Go on, take a seat. What kind of business do you have with me?¡±

    ¡°Master Li...¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything upon seeing that she hadn¡¯t changed his honorific for him.

    ¡°I... I have a crime to report!¡±

    <i>A crime?</i> Li Hao was rather surprised. ¡°Does someone owe you for your taxi services?¡±

    What else could there be, other than this?

    Yu Qi looked glumly at him¡ªhow was that possible? Not to mention, who would use a bicycle for a taxi? Only Li Hao would be this foolish, erm, generous!

    The little girl looked carefully around her; Li Hao couldn¡¯t help butugh at seeing her surreptitious demeanor. What was she doing?

    ¡°This is my territory, there¡¯s no one else here. Not even the nine ministries reach this far! Tell me who you want to file aint against, I happen to need to kill people to establish my authority. Of course, we¡¯ll have other people in the office take care of minor characters...¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re all major characters!¡± Yu Qi hastily piped up.

    ¡°Major characters?¡±

    The little girl decided toe out with what was on her mind. She was already here and thus naturally hoped for Li Hao¡¯s help.

    ¡°Master Li, I want to file a report against many people. Some of them are princes, some are high up in the nine ministries, and there¡¯s also the headmaster of the Skystar Supernatural Academy. Oh, and there¡¯s major characters in the Inspectorate!¡± She set her jaw. ¡°I want to expose that they killed innocents and seized another¡¯s property!¡±

    Li Hao furrowed his brows and took a closer look at Yu Qi. She was a mundane and a child. Her clothing was shabby and she searched for customers off the streets. Such an ordinary person wanted to use princes, headmasters, and those of the nine ministries?

    As he continued frowning at her, Yu Qi once more grit her teeth. ¡°I... I can offer a good benefit! So long as Master Li helps me, I can tell you the location of a ruin!¡±

    ¡°A ruin? You know about ruins?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Yu Qi threw all caution to the wind and lowered her head, not daring to look at Li Hao. ¡°I know the location of a ruin, one that¡¯s different from the rest. Most ruins are of martial dao, army sites, or sect headquarters. This ruin seems to be... where the ancient civilization conducted research. It¡¯s not a martial university, but possibly a research station or a research institution.

    ¡°So long as Master Li is able to help me, I¡¯ll tell you where it is and how to enter it...¡±

    She really was putting everything on the line. ¡°I don¡¯t dare tell anyone else, but I trust that you are a good person. You might be the only person in the entire dynasty who can help me and the Yun family!¡±

    <i>The Yun family?</i>

    One person came to mind¡ªYun Yao, the quiet healer of the original Demon Hunters. The thought vanished as soon as it came to mind.

    ¡°Tell me more details.¡± He looked at Yu Qi.

 Chapter 705: Gains and Reports (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 705: Gains and Reports (IV)</h4>

    ¡°I... am Yun Yuqi, the third generation of the Yun family. My grandfather was Headmaster Yun Haoran of the Skystar Ancient Academy. Someone killed him at home five years ago, along with my grandmother, senior uncle, senior aunt, third uncle, third aunt, my parents, and youngest aunt...¡± Yu Qi lowered her head, grinding her teeth. ¡°They were going to kill everyone, but my grandfather used a special method to hide me!

    ¡°They killed my entire family, not only killing my grandfather, but wanting to force out the location of the ruins from him. He refused to tell them and died a horrible death as he fought them! Not satisfied with just killing my grandfather, they killed a lot more people. They killed some teachers and many students of the academy, but told the outside world that the three great organizations did it.

    ¡°I know who was involved. When my grandfather fought them, he called out a few names...¡±

    ¡°The Yun family... Yun Haoran, the Skystar Ancient Academy...¡± Li Hao repeated with an ominous expression. He seemed to have heard of these names before. ¡°I didn¡¯t pay much attention when Martial Uncle Hong mentioned it before, now I remember. A few years ago... Yun Haoran... the Haoran Research Center...

    ¡°Was there a Haoran Research Center in the past? Some academies recruited students for a while, but theyter closed. I remember hearing at Silver City¡¯s Veteris Institute a few years ago that there was a Haoran Research Center at the dynasty capital. It was the sacrednd of research, the ce of many people¡¯s dreams, but closed not long after its establishment...¡±

    He remembered!

    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡± Yuqi quickly nodded. ¡°My grandfather created it and wanted to recruit all people of knowledge in the world to poprize certain things. But after that... it was abandoned when my grandfather died. It¡¯s been five years since then.¡±

    Li Hao suddenly felt that fate was wondrous. The research center had already closed by the time he joined the Veteris Institute, but many in the institute still talked about it. Their source of news was inly dyed. It wasn¡¯t long after that that it turned out the headmaster¡¯s entire family had been killed.

    No, his granddaughter was still alive.

    Li Hao found himself confused¡ªwhy did these great personages bestir themselves to kill the headmaster of a school? Hong Yitang had mentioned that this person had sought to make certain things universal. Those movements came to a halt with the death of the headmaster.

    Seeing that Master Li looked lost, Yu Qi knew that he didn¡¯t quite understand the ramifications. She set her jaw and said, ¡°You might not know what my grandfather¡¯s achieved, but you definitely use his inventions everyday.

    ¡°The electric lights and system of electricity that you usee from my grandfather¡¯s inventions fifteen years ago. The cars and trains that everyone uses now are also products that he developed. The system of transmission pendants and almost the entire system ofmunication is by his hand!

    ¡°My grandfather once said that the dynasty¡¯s system of transportation andmunication needs to be perfected first. That will swiftly unify the dynasty and ensure that information is shared as swiftly as possible. It will help the public more easily ept new information and help the poption move from one ce to another.

    ¡°Commerce will flourish, those from small ces can enter the big cities andplete an overall migration of the poption...¡± Yuqi didn¡¯t know thesetter concepts as well, so she only mentioned them in passing. ¡°Five years ago, my grandfather wanted to join all of the ancient academies together andplete the reform of the education system.

    ¡°He was killed not long after that. These people didn¡¯t want him to continue! They stole a lot of technologies and sealed the knowledge away. They didn¡¯t want the technology to be universal!¡±

    Li Hao was shocked by what he¡¯d learned. ¡°So you¡¯re saying... that the entire electric and transportation system that we rely on now is the work of your grandfather?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    The young man sucked in a sharp breath. He really hadn¡¯t known about Yun Haoran¡¯s feats, and it wasn¡¯t that he was ignorant or ill-informed. Barely anyone mentioned the name these days. It was already an aplishment that he knew of it.

    But after Yuqi¡¯s words, the situation felt a bit surreal to him.<i> So... I¡¯ve had contact with this person all along. Having electricity was one major step forward for the dynasty.</i>

    A lot of changes urred after electricity was established as a mainstay of life. The appearance of cars also made travel much easier. Li Hao recalled that for a period of time, all cities were furiously building and maintaining roads. They seemed to want to cover the dynasty with roads¡ªso it turned out that this had to do with Yun Haoran as well!

    He suddenly understood why the royal family and nine ministries wanted to kill the man! Li Hao had just discussed this with Hong Yitang. Thetter had mentioned that everyone hoped for the people to remain dumb and not gain intelligence.

    But with the development of transportation andmunication systems, the flow of information and people would increase. At that point, even citizens in remote locales would rapidly grow in intelligence.

    If Yun Haoran¡¯s proposed educational reforms took ce, then what talk of destroying the people¡¯s mind would there be? Who should die, if not Yun Haoran?

    Li Hao frowned, this would not be an easy task to straighten out. He¡¯d just concluded a massive battle with the nine ministries and they were barely maintaining peace on the surface. Even the royal family was involved now. If he started pursuing this matter, that would force the other two to ally against him!

    <i>Damn!</i>

    It was the conflict between the royal family and nine ministries that created such an opening for Li Hao. If he was of the mind to investigate Yun Haoran¡¯s death and take revenge for thete headmaster... he would be courting death!

    Hong Yitang once mentioned that he wanted to join the Skystar Ancient Academy¡ªthe ancient academy, not the supernatural variant. He looked to be seeking inspiration from the Ancient Academy, so he should know of Yun Haoran.

    ¡°Do you have proof?¡± Li Hao asked after some silence.

    ¡°I do!¡± Yuqi looked back at him. ¡°I have... very clear recordings! You might not know what it is¡ªit¡¯s something that records your every move and gesture. This technology was actually pushed out to the public as well, but it waster erased...¡±

    ¡°Something like surveince?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Yuqi was surprised by the identification. ¡°How do you know?¡±

    ¡°Silver Moon has such equipment, so of course I know.¡±

    ¡°Silver Moon has this kind of equipment?¡± Yuqi continued to be surprised. ¡°But these technologies were forbidden after my grandfather died five years ago. Even if any were in use, they would¡¯ve been destroyed. That was the order of the dynasty!¡±

    ¡°The dynasty¡¯s hand does not stretch to Silver Moon!¡± Li Hao smiled. So it turned out that forbidden technologies were in use at the province? Granted, there were very few instances of them. He¡¯d only ever seen such capabilities from the Inspectorate and almost none anywhere else. They¡¯d probably all been destroyed.

    ¡°Where are the recordings?¡±

    ¡°So Master Li has promised to help me with this?¡±

    ¡°This is... a difficult matter,¡± Li Hao admitted with a headache. ¡°I would love to just kill everyone involved, but you know just as well that that won¡¯t work. I don¡¯t have the strength to, but I ept your report of wrongdoing!¡±

    ¡°So... even you can¡¯t do it?¡± Yuqi was disappointed.

    ¡°The nine ministries and royal family are acting together in this!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t treat her as an ignorant victim in this matter. ¡°I alone, or even with Silver Moon, won¡¯t be able to take them on. Of course, everything is possible. How about this, keep the recordings to yourself since you¡¯re not fully reassured about me yet. I¡¯ll make my own investigation to understand more about the situation.¡±

    This was no small matter. Li Hao suspected that if he intervened, that would immediately draw bacsh from the nine ministries and royal family. Hong Yitang wanting to join the Skystar Ancient Academy might also turn into a severe issue.

    At the same time, they might not ce too much importance on the matter since many things werecking in the world now. Hong Yitang was not Yun Haoran as well. As hecked the development of key technologies and talents, he wouldn¡¯t reach the same heights even if he established another academy.

    The ruin that Yuqi spoke of may be the key.

    The girl was despondent, but she also knew that this was a tall order. ¡°It¡¯s alright... Master Li... I just... I just don¡¯t want to leave things like this. I know it¡¯s very, very hard, but there¡¯s only a strand of hope with you. No one else can exact vengeance for my family.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, if what you say is true, then I will certainly ponder the matter,¡± Li Haoforted. ¡°But I need time! Also, is there anyone who knows about your identity?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Then you... should stay here for now. Many people might have noticed your presence here today and further investigation could expose you.¡±

    ¡°I...¡± Yuqi wanted to go back, but felt that Li Hao was right upon further thought. Going back might drag her little brother and the others into this. With the situation as it was, she really couldn¡¯t locate anyone other than Li Hao to help her.

    ¡°Master Li, I can tell you the location of the ruins if you want to know,¡± Yuqi offered upon second thought. ¡°But... you may not be able to ess it now. There should be a key to it, but the key¡¯s been lost. I don¡¯t know if the nine ministries or royal family took it. They don¡¯t know where the ruins are, but I know.¡±

    She decided to be a bit clearer, just in case Li Hao thought she was lying to him. That would be unnecessary trouble then.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, we¡¯re not in a hurry for any of this!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t mind. He really didn¡¯t, he cared more about improvements in martial dao.

    Granted, it would be more effective toy hands on research results from the ancient civilization. It would be of great help to Hong Yitang¡¯s ensuing ns.

    Li Hao summoned Xie Lan of the Jade Sword Sect and bade her take care of the girl. He didn¡¯t give many instructions, just that she should help the girl clean herself up...

    That made the Silver Moon Guards look weirdly at him again, like they were looking at an animal. Li Hao suddenly wanted to beat them all into the ground! Had they¡¯d forgotten how he¡¯d defeated them when he first arrived at the Silver Moon Guards?

 Chapter 706: Turning Into a Fatty With One Bite (I)

    <h4>Chapter 706: Turning Into a Fatty With One Bite (I)</h4>

    After helping Yun Yuqi settle down, Li Hao utilized Night Watcher resources to investigate Yun Haoran. He didn¡¯t go to anyone else because he was worried that the intelligencework might be infiltrated by others. He went straight to Yao Si.

    The Night Watcher director readily cooperated this time. He had Little Ye send over arge sheaf of papers. The affair of the Yun family hadn¡¯t been a minor matter; it simply looked like the death of just one family on the surface. Even entire cities were razed to the ground these days. Nothing hade of the death of one of the founding ministers two days ago.

    However, Li Hao still exercised caution. This was a target that the royal family and nine ministries had worked to jointly take down. He might give rise to no end of trouble if he didn¡¯t handle this well.

    These people inly didn¡¯t want the Yun affair to be mentioned again and didn¡¯t wish for those technologies to be once more disseminated across thend. Some things were hard to keep contained after they began.

    ......

    Li Hao carefully read everything as he sat in a rundown room. He gained an overall understanding of Yun Haoran¡¯s identity and status when he was done. The headmaster of the Skystar Ancient Academy had devoted himself to poprizing ancient technology a few decades ago. He¡¯d received support from the nine ministries and royal family at first as Yun Haoran supplied them with many advancements.

    He was the progenitor of their military arms such as guns, bombs, missiles, and the like. These types of technology were of use to the nine ministries and royal family controlling the dynasty.

    After that, Yun Haoran began to diffuse the electrical system and the industrial revolution. Producing military armaments was difficult without aplete industrial system. Therefore, the innovation of the electric grid was the logical next step.

    One had to say, Yun Haoran was no bookwormcking knowledge in the workings of the world. He had certain strategies in mind. Those in charge would taste a hint of the sweet rewards before he sought to advance his agenda.

    However, he gradually ran into severe restrictions.

    Many facets were neutered when he sought to implement themunication system. Communication could only take ce within the same city. Objects recorded in ancient records such as televisions werepletely eliminated. Smoothmunication was permitted within a narrow range, but not permitted over a wide range.

    Yun Haoran had grown dissatisfied with the status quo five years ago and proposed the idea of educational reform. He¡¯d posited the Skystar Ancient Academy as the foundation and received support from a wide range of other academies. He was prepared to establish more schools and eptrge sums of age-eligible students. Ten million students was his starting point.

    This idea scared the wits out of all sides and his entire family died not long thereafter.

    ¡°He took too big a step...¡± Li Hao murmured, finding that Yun Haoran seemed to have been in a hurry at the end of his file. His path had been in sailing when he had support from the royal family and nine ministries. Why had he suddenly elerated his ns five years ago?

    The Skystar Academy hadn¡¯t been in a hurry after several decades of operation. It was strange that it¡¯d suddenly agitated for action at the end. They¡¯d suddenly wanted to expand to ten thousand more schools and matricte ten million students. It was no wonder that the nine ministries and royal family would kill those responsible for the idea.

    Did Yun Haoran still not know what these people wanted after so many years of partnership? Teaching so many new students in one year alone and wanting to establish that as regr operating conditions... The nine ministries and royal family would be pushed out of their positions of power after a decade!

    <i>Not to mention that he¡¯dcked sufficient capital,bor, and resources. He also didn¡¯t have enough teachers. If ten teachers were assigned to each school, that would still require at least one hundred thousand teachers. Where would so many teacherse from...</i>

    Not to mention, there might be resistance from other locales to this proposed n of action. What had been going through Yun Haoran¡¯s mind in these final moments?

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts turned to Hong Yitang. Hong Yitang had constantly mentioned the problem of education. Was education really that important?

    Li Hao could read and had been educated at the Veteris Institute, so he didn¡¯t have many thoughts regarding this matter. What he did know was that graduating from the Veteris Institute would change one¡¯s life. Alumni would start at a high rank in the Inspectorate.

    Therefore, Li Hao didn¡¯t have a clear understanding of how crucial education was. Silver Moon didn¡¯t forbid its people from attending school either. On the contrary, the province even showed support. Li Hao had received government funding when he attended school. There was a provincial government fund for those from impoverished backgrounds. It wasn¡¯t much, but it was there.

    <i>That both Yun Haoran and Hong Yitang raise the issue of education, that means it is indeed the first step to awakening the minds of the people. The royal family and nine ministries are also very clear on this, so they do not permit it to happen. They monopolize technology, wealth, martial might, and educational resources...</i>

    Exercisingplete control over these areas meant that those beneath the upper echelon had no capability to do anything else.

    <i>Inducting energy into the body to be supernatural is also under their control. Only therge factions or Night Watchers have the right to do so...</i>

    Li Hao sealed away the information in his hands. He had his own thoughts in mind¡ªnow was not a good time to erupt in open hostilities with both sides at the same time. On the contrary, he could not disy any enmity toward the royal family, even if he doesn¡¯t ept their olive branch.

    He had to pretend to be amiable and agreeable with them in order to jointly restrain the nine ministries. If not, he would be beset on two battlefronts.

    <i>I can break the monopoly that the nobles have on status, but I cannot shatter their foundations to be the Human King. They have their bottom line too¡ªsomeone must unite the world and be the Human King in a critical moment. With such a foundation...</i>

    Li Hao fully understood what both sides needed in this moment. If that was the case... he could not push sweeping educational reforms. He would be attacked by both sides if he did.

    <i>To the royal family, abandoning a few nobles in crucial moments means they can actually win over the people¡¯s hearts. Me killing a few nobles is actually a good thing. It doesn¡¯t affect their fundamental interests and I¡¯m actually killing more of the nine ministries at the moment...</i>

    The young man quickly saw through the royal family¡¯s reasoning. He suddenly smiled. Yun Haoran¡¯s matter had helped him see certain things clearly. Combined with Hong Yitang¡¯s words, Li Hao was more certain of how he should maintain the current bnce.

    He suddenly rose to his feet and walked outside. Panther was hot on his heels. The dog¡¯s fur was even more lustrous after devouring a drop of a major monster spirit¡¯s blood. Li Hao didn¡¯t know what its strength was now as Panth was harder to read than martial masters.

    ......

    <i>The Avenue of the Nine Ministries.</i>

    Powerful presences overshadowed him as soon as Li Hao walked down the street. He furrowed his brows and looked in the four directions. ¡°What? Can I note here? Do you have a problem with me taking lunch at the Nine Dragons Pagoda?¡±

    No one answered him, but the presences remained. Li Hao ignored them and continued toward his destination. He didn¡¯t care that the presences followed him to the doors of the Nine Dragons Pagoda. The female manager was quite surprised to see him cross the threshold. She quickly came up in wee, beaming from ear to ear. ¡°Themander¡¯s here!¡±

    This smile was much more radiant than all the ones she¡¯d disyed before.

    Li Hao smiled back at her. See, this was the benefit of killing people. Killing people in sufficient numbers meant that these haughty royal agents grew more polite each time they saw him.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go to the usual... Forget it, let¡¯s go to the Ministry of the Judiciary¡¯s room. I killed Ole Hu, so I¡¯ll use his room in the future!¡±

    Strange expressions crossed faces in the great hall when people heard him. Some immediately left. Those who had been conversing softly all fell quiet. There were even those who ran off as soon as they saw Li Hao. These days, the young man ran rampant in cocky glory. Who dared antagonize him?

    Of course, there were also those who admired his arrogance! One had to know that the nine ministries surrounded this ce. Was he not afraid of being mobbed? He was so bold! Most of the Silver Moon martial masters had left and very few were in the city. Was he not afraid?

    And yet, the nine ministries seemed to be giving way. They didn¡¯t make a move. The more confident Li Hao was, the more prudent they were. Having taken a few defeats and lost many Arcanus, who dared start another battle? What if Li Hao had more trump cards up his sleeve, wouldn¡¯t they lose a ton more people in another fight?

    Thus, no one dared make a move before absolute victory was guaranteed.

    The female manager didn¡¯t say anything before rushing Li Hao upstairs. ¡°Themander lives in the northern quadrant of the city, which is quite far away from here. If you would like to dine at the Nine Dragons Pavilion next time, you can send a message to us. We will deliver to you and save a trip for themander.¡±

    It was indeed not that safe for Li Hao to be here, but the young man thought the manager was looking down her nose at him. ¡°What, do I not have any money? Can I not afford to patronize this establishment? Do I eat and drink for free? Can I possibly not have any money after I killed so many powerhouses?¡±

    Fine, he had indeed eaten for free the first two times. It might be the case this time as well. It was normal that others looked down on him.

    The manager smiled in lieu of a response. She didn¡¯t need to say anything since Li Hao was so confident. They reached the ninth floor¡ªit was as quiet as could be. Several ministers were usually in attendance for a meal, but not a single one could be found today. They either kept a much lower profile or were preupied with the royal family.

    Li Hao entered the private room and cut straight to the chase. ¡°Have your pavilion mastere out for a chat.¡±

    ¡°You may be unaware,mander,¡± the female manager responded with some difficulty. ¡°The pavilion master is a royal...¡±

    ¡°Is he more royal than the Steppe Prince?¡±

    ¡°Um...¡± The manager was confused. What did Li Hao want with the pavilion master? He seemed to be here for this. The manager wracked her mind¡ªwas he here to partner with the royal family?

    But the royal family was no benevolent entity. As their secret agent out in the open, she knew a great deal about them. The royal family might be thornier than the nine ministries and Li Hao might be ushering the wolf into the house if he struck up a partnership with them.

    However, she couldn¡¯t turn him down.

    ¡°Then... I shall make my report!¡±

    ¡°Go on!¡± Li Hao sat down with a flourish. Dishes were quickly served in plentitude.

 Chapter 707: Turning Into a Fatty With One Bite (II)

    <h4>Chapter 707: Turning Into a Fatty With One Bite (II)</h4>

    Footsteps sounded at the door after Li Hao drank a few cups of tea and ate a few bites.

    ¡°Enter!¡±

    The female manager led someone inside. Li Hao tilted his head to see a woman of moderate age¡ªshe seemed thirty years old at most. She wore a luxurious cloak with her hair done up in a simple bun. Once inside, the manager helped the woman take off her outerwear. The absence of a shawl and cloak revealed the woman¡¯s impressive figure and form-fitting brocade outfit underneath.

    ¡°I have long heard of your name, Skystar Marquis!¡± The woman smiled a perfect smile and appeared particrly enthusiastic, but Li Hao found the sight ufortable. This smile... was the same as the one he¡¯d trained into himself at the Inspectorate.

    It was a standard hypocritical smile.

    ¡°Commander Li, this is the pavilion master, the seventh princess of the royal family,¡± the manager quickly introduced.

    Li Hao looked at the other and smiled, gesturing for Panther to move. The dog jumped down from the stool.

    ¡°Please have a seat, Your Highness!¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°......¡± The female manager¡¯s expression shifted, but not a flicker crossed the seventh princess¡¯ face. She walked up and sat down, not caring in the slightest that a dog had just vacated the stool.

    ¡°What an honor. It is said that Panther is the direct descendant of an ancient monster spirit and its bloodline is strong. Although the ancient civilization is no more, its bloodlines are passed on. This seat would like nothing more than to converse with the great Panther.¡±

    The dog raised its head proudly, but otherwise ignored the princess. Li Hao inwardly marveled at the princess¡¯ silver tongue. <i>This is how you react when I have you sit in a spot where a dog was sitting? Why don¡¯t you just marry Panther then?</i>

    ¡°There will definitely be chances to!¡± Li Haoughed and looked at this seventh princess with new wariness. None of the other royal family members were active outside the pce. The Steppe Prince had handled all outside matters, but this seventh princess was in charge of the Nine Dragons Pavilion. She was no ordinary character.

    As for her strength... Li Hao couldn¡¯t tell at all! She couldn¡¯t be characterized as an ordinary martial master¡ªshe must be wearing something that concealed her presence. It even obscured all of her energy. The item must be a powerful origin weapon that concealed everything about the holder. It could even be a fragment of a bronze mirror!

    Li Hao had one such piece and knew its immense capabilities well. He¡¯d had the feeling of being kept under watch when he entered the Nine Dragons Pavilion. Therefore, there might be such an item in residence, or even on the seventh princess.

    ¡°A few days ago, the Skystar Marquis executed some bugs that undermine the foundations of our nation. Thankfully, royal father¡¯s efforts have borne fruit. So it turns out that the Steppe Prince colluded with the nine ministries! He is truly the shame of the royal family. Thank goodness the marquis executed him. Otherwise, the outside would think my family is the same as the nine ministries¡ªtermites to be found everywhere!¡±

    Damn if she didn¡¯t know how to talk! She turned the Steppe Prince into a traitor as soon as she arrived.

    The poor Steppe Prince had worked prudently and conscientiously for the royal family for many years, but such was his treatment in the end. Not only was hebeled a traitor, but he¡¯d colluded with the nine ministries.

    Li Hao immediately understood that there was no point in beating around the bush with this one. Her experience in such areas was so much more than his. Thus, he decided to cut straight to the chase. ¡°I won¡¯t waste time dancing around, there¡¯s no point in that. Can you represent the royal family, Your Highness?¡±

    ¡°It depends on what the matter is,¡± chuckled the seventh princess. ¡°Of course, I can contact my royal father if there is something I cannot make the decision in. Will the Skystar Marquis be satisfied in direct contact with my royal father?¡±

    ¡°I will!¡± Li Hao affirmed with appreciation. ¡°Who says a woman is less than a man? I thought the royal family was filled with characters like Southern Fist. Ahem, well, that¡¯s wrong. He¡¯s a Silver Moon martial master, I almost criticized myself.¡±

    ¡°Master He is an authentic person who does not put on affected airs.¡± The seventh princess continued to smile radiantly. ¡°He has been in his position in the pce for many years and raised an outstanding talent such as ninth royal brother. My younger brother has quite the valor of Silver Moon martial masters. All of the royal family quite likes Master He.¡±

    <i>Ninth royal brother?</i>

    He Yong had mentioned being close with one of the princes. Was it the ninth royal brother being mentioned now?

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t too familiar with the royal family, he only knew that there were nine princes and thirty-six dukes. Not including ones who came into their dukedom like the Xus, those dukes were all of the royal family proper.

    Li Hao had been led astray from the topic at hand, but he asked curiously, ¡°Does the Skystar King have many children? You¡¯re number seven, so how old are you? You don¡¯t look older than thirty.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The manager was seized by an urge to tiptoe out of the room or burrow into the ground. How could he just ask questions like that? That would easily raise royal enmity!

    The seventh princess didn¡¯t mind andughed softly. ¡°The Skystar Marquis is as straightforward as ever. My royal father has twenty-two children¡ª¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s less than Thunderleg!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The seventh princess kept herself contained with effort. ¡°I¡¯m ranked number seven and will forgo revealing my age. My ninth brother is twenty years old this year, the same age as the marquis.¡±

    ¡°Twenty years old! He¡¯s so young!¡± Li Hao sighed with emotion. ¡°So he was just born when Martial Uncle Southern Fist joined the pce?¡±

    All of this was beside the point, so he brought conversation back on track after conversing a bit more. ¡°The seventh princess also knows that apart from the Inspectorate, the rest of the nine ministries want nothing more than to eat me alive. That¡¯s what I get for killing five of their Arcanus and Hu Xiao in one go.

    ¡°It¡¯s very dangerous for me to continue to stay here, but I¡¯m a more explicit person at times. The more you want me to leave, the more I¡¯ll dig in my heels and fight against you to the end!¡± Li Hao sneered. ¡°Not to mention, I know they won¡¯t dare easily take action or do anything to me while they face the royal family.¡±

    The seventh princess dropped the pretense upon seeing Li Hao be so direct. ¡°Then what would the Skystar Marquis like to aplish on this trip?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not going to help the royal family!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The princess furrowed her brows.

    ¡°But I¡¯ll continue to take down the nine ministries. So although I say I won¡¯t help you, our goals are the same!¡±

    The princess nodded.

    ¡°I will not tolerate living under the same roof as them, particrly the current minister of the Judiciary. He likely wants to eat my flesh and drink my blood. After repeated consideration, I find that I am still in danger at staying in Skystar City at this time...¡±

    The seventh princess didn¡¯t immediately understand his intent. ¡°Does the marquis wish for the royal family to provide you with some shelter?¡±

    ¡°That isn¡¯t it!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°There¡¯s no need for that, not to mention I wouldn¡¯t be at ease with you giving me shelter. Who knows if you¡¯re looking to kill me and take my family¡¯s weapon or not!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The sharp seventh princess had nothing to say. She really couldn¡¯t guess at Li Hao¡¯s thoughts sometimes.<i> What do you want then?</i>

    ¡°I¡¯m here for the royal family because I have a few matters I¡¯d like your participation in. Or you can say your help. Of course, it¡¯s to both our benefit!¡±

    ¡°Please speak frankly, Skystar Marquis!¡±

    ¡°Give me aplete dossier on the nine ministries, including the number of their powerhouses, level of their Arcanus, strength of their peripheral factions... I want the mostplete version, not the neutered version that circtes outside. I¡¯m sure you have it! Knowing my enemies as well as I know myself will ensure that I do not lose my battles. I¡¯m sure you know these things.¡±

    Li Hao raised one finger, then continued, ¡°Second, I want to face off against the nine ministries and set up a Skystar martial dao university in the city. Earthturner Sword will be the headmaster. I also hope to make the Skystar Commander Office a separate faction. Or rather, an independent entity.

    ¡°Combined with the Skystar Martial University and the Night Watchers, the three factions would form a new agency. Perhaps it¡¯d be more urate to call it the tenth ministry! All I need from the royal family is a name. I don¡¯t need you to invest anything.¡±

    The seventh princess¡¯ expression shifted slightly. A tenth ministry! Li Hao was... so very bold.

    Not only was the young man bold, but he wanted to carve out the Night Watchers from the Inspectorate. It further shocked the princess and she asked in a low voice, ¡°Has Director Yao Si agreed to this? And the Inspectorate...¡±

    ¡°Director Yao Si naturally has no opinions otherwise,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°As for the Inspectorate... What of them? They wouldn¡¯t find it too many if they gained an enemy, they wouldn¡¯t find it too few if there was one less enemy. Isn¡¯t the royal family concerned about me falling in with the Inspectorate thanks to our good rtions?

    ¡°In this regard, not only can you drive a wedge between us, but the Inspectorate is sure to be dissatisfied with me. Isn¡¯t that a swell idea? It would be the Inspectorate that¡¯s displeased, the royal family should be happy.¡±

    The seventh princess inclined her head with confusion. ¡°That the Skystar Martial University... is deemed one of the three parties... Is the university going to focus on martial students?¡±

    She could easily see his ns with the Skystar Commander Office and Night Watchers, but what did Li Hao want with a university?

    ¡°Of course it will,¡± Li Hao bared his teeth. ¡°Liu Yunqing said that the people¡¯s heart is worthless. I want to show him that it¡¯s terrifying! I¡¯m going to create an image of being friendly to the regr people, so I¡¯m going to recruit some mundanes for training. I¡¯m going to go back to Silver Moon and seek out the ancient existences in Battle Heaven. They will supply me withrge sums of armor so I can forge an army of martial masters to fight the nine ministries! I will use solely martial masters trained from mundanes. The nine ministries will know whether I, Li Hao, can give them a face pping or not!¡±

    ¡°You... you can take the armor out of Battle Heaven?¡± gasped the seventh princess.

    ¡°I could before, I don¡¯t know if I still can now.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°But since I am a supernatural now, there will be no rest for them until my vengeance is had! I don¡¯t know if this is possible as Battle Heaven didn¡¯t permit supernaturals from entering it before. I can only give it a try...

    ¡°It¡¯d be best if I seed!¡± he sighed.

    The seventh princess thought rapidly. There wasn¡¯t much to opening a school for ordinary people. It wasn¡¯t important either if he wanted to train martial masters and create an army. it mattered even less that Hong Yitang was to be headmaster.

    These events would indeed raise a fuss among the people. This might be the first martial school to be officially open toward mundanes. But it wasn¡¯t like a bunch of martial blockheads could do anything. Whether it was the royal family or nine ministries, they weren¡¯t afraid of this.

 Chapter 708: Turning Into a Fatty With One Bite (III)

    <h4>Chapter 708: Turning Into a Fatty With One Bite (III)</h4>

    One more group of martial brutes in this day and age wouldn¡¯t change anything. The royal family would pay more attention if Li Hao proposed cultivating a bunch of schrs as these were the types that fanned mes in people¡¯s hearts.

    The seventh princess quickly weighed up the pros and cons. The young man¡¯s proposed course of action did indeed seem to be irrelevant to the royal family. It would actually further set Silver Moon and the nine ministries against each other!

    ¡°Additionally, I¡¯m concerned that the nine ministries have yet to send out their greatest powerhouses,¡± said Li Hao. ¡°There might be some ancient heavyweights in store. Therefore, I¡¯d like to make a trip back to Silver Moon and Battle Heaven. Perhaps I can request some of those ancient characters to emerge as well. If they really back me into a corner, I¡¯ll go toe-to-toe with them to the bitter end!¡±

    ¡°The Skystar Marquis... has reached an agreement with those existences?¡± The seventh princess was startled.

    ¡°What agreement?¡± Li Hao was baffled. ¡°I am the heir to the Lis of the eight families, it¡¯s natural that they listen to me! Granted, I can¡¯tmand them at the moment, I can only try negotiating with them.¡±

    ¡°Can the existences in Battle Heaven... set foot into the world?¡±

    ¡°Can they not?¡± Li Hao asked with confusion.

    The princess paused, on the verge of a slight mental breakdown. ¡°Um... it¡¯s better if the marquis makes a full inquiry. These existences... cannot easily emerge in our world. The supernatural has just awoken for the first time, which means that there is not enough energy in the world to support them. Second, the rules of dao have slightly changed, so these existences may not be able to adapt to the differences. All of this needs to be resolved by the second awakening...¡±

    ¡°The second awakening?¡± Li Hao was truly lost this time.

    ¡°It¡¯s not just these ancient existences, but also us who need denser energy in the world to support us.¡± The princess nodded, she didn¡¯t keep anything to herself. ¡°Since we are inhabitants of this era, the effect on us is not as great. The reason why the Arcanus realm is not as stable at the moment also has to do with theck of energy in the world. All of this requires the second awakening of the supernatural.

    ¡°The marquis is a core figure of Silver Moon, but you may not know yet that when the supernatural awakens for the second time, that is when all sides will invade Silver Moon.¡±

    This was potentially a secret to Li Hao, but it was known to certain personnel of the province. The princess didn¡¯t care whether the young man knew or not.

    ¡°We are not the only ones. Certain ancient existences also wish to set foot into the province upon the second awakening. Everyone wishes to intrude upon Silver Moon. I shall not speak further on why.

    ¡°The Skystar Marquis should not brashly invite those existences out into the open. It might give rise to unpredictable danger. This was why these entities didn¡¯t appear in the battle between Silver Moon and the nine ministries. Otherwise, even the marquis¡¯ master could have brought some to the battlefield...¡±

    Li Hao nced at her. She sure knew a lot!

    ¡°When is the second awakening?¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t know.¡± The seventh princess shook her head. ¡°Everyone is waiting. It¡¯s been twenty years since thest awakening. It might be soon, it might stillck certain turning points. However, I trust that it will be soon!¡±

    She didn¡¯t go into the specifics. As much as Li Hao wanted to roll his eyes, he didn¡¯t ask further.

    ¡°Then I don¡¯t care, I¡¯m just going to go ask around,¡± the young man continued. ¡°Apart from specific information on the nine ministries, the separation of the Night Watchers and others, I have another matter to request your help with.¡±

    ¡°Please go ahead, Skystar Marquis.¡±

    ¡°I hear people say that the currentmunication system and the transmission pendants were all created by something... called the Skystar... Research Center. I need some technological support. Additionally, I hear that the Nine Dragons Pavilion took in a batch of those people back in the day. I¡¯d like to have them...¡±

    ¡°What??¡±

    ¡°What are you raising your voice for?¡± Li Hao looked wordlessly at the princess. ¡°It¡¯s just some mundanes, but I need to build my ownmunication system. I can¡¯t keep using someone else¡¯s. Whether it¡¯s the Night Watchers, nine ministries, or even the royal family, how would I dare let you guys have control over mymunications? I need to build my own intelligencework, what¡¯s so strange about that?

    ¡°This is just a small matter.¡± The young man looked on innocently. ¡°I hear that the Nine Dragons Pavilion can instantlymunicate with the entire world...¡±

    ¡°The marquis can use ours. I promise that we absolutely will not eavesdrop...¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± Li Hao snorted withughter. ¡°Do you believe your words? Just say it if you¡¯re not willing to lend the people to me. It¡¯s a good thing for you guys if I find my footing in Skystar City. You had no opinions about my earlier requests, but you have issues with me borrowing people and building up an intelligence system?¡±

    ¡°Skystar Duke, it¡¯s not that I¡¯m refusing you...¡± The princess frowned. ¡°But that these people have either died, scattered to the four corners, or been recruited by others. I don¡¯t have many on hand either and need them to maintain the operations of our transmission hub...¡±

    This really was a difficult task to fulfill! Some of these people grasped advanced technology, some others possessed top secrets. Their research head had died earlier, which created a problem for the Nine Dragons Pavilion. That Li Hao had chosen to borrow these people now...

    To be honest, these people didn¡¯t amount to much in terms of strength, but they were irreceable when it came to importance!

    ¡°So the princess means not to fulfill my request, is it? Just say so if you mean so!¡± Li Hao frowned and rose to leave.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be in such a hurry, Skystar Marquis.¡± The seventh princess rose with a dismayed cast to her expression. ¡°I... need to discuss this with royal father.¡±

    She hadn¡¯t needed approval for her earlier matters, but she did in this one.

    ¡°Borrowing a few mundanes needs approval from the Skystar King? Are you kidding me?¡± Li Hao asked with tant iprehension.

    ¡°No...¡± The princess wasn¡¯t at liberty to go into detail.

    ¡°This is so much hassle!¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°Honestly, it¡¯s not a difficult task for me. Battle Heaven armor can transmit messages every thousand kilometers, I can just put personnel for every one thousand kilometers! It¡¯s just that I won¡¯t have that much armor to spare when my troops increase in number and I¡¯ll have to be careful of being ambushed by others if I arrange for people everywhere.

    ¡°This is just adding to surefire sess, not giving a hand for needed aid. That you decline even this... Do you think that I won¡¯t be of any help to the royal family upon staying?¡±

    The seventh princess blinked and noticed a key detail in Li Hao¡¯s words. ¡°The marquis can activate the armor?¡±

    ¡°No shit!¡±

    The princess didn¡¯t mind his rudeness. She quickly recovered her smile after a momentary frown. ¡°I wonder... how many sets of armor can the marquis activate?¡±

    ¡°Only one thousand for now.¡±

    The princess heaved a slight sigh of relief and deepened her smile. ¡°Then the marquis means to say that you can activate more in the future?¡±

    ¡°I naturally can if Battle Heaven doesn¡¯t reject me as a supernatural. The concern there is...¡± The young man gnashed his teeth. ¡°I will take the nine ministries to task sooner orter for their responsibility in forcing me to be an Arcanus. They¡¯ve wrecked so many of my opportunities!¡±

    That was very true; the princess nodded in agreement.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, it¡¯s such a pity. If the marquis had always remained a Silver Moon martial master and leveraged your identity as the heir of the Lis, you would be guaranteed the greatest of fortuitous opportunities in Silver Moon. You might even be able to dominate the world! But now... it is indeed a pity!

    ¡°Forget it, the key is that you won¡¯t lend me the people. Then forget about everything!¡±

    ¡°We will!¡± The princess had thought things through. ¡°You are in too much of a hurry sometimes, Skystar Marquis. I merely said to discuss the matter for a bit, not that I was refusing you. It¡¯s just that I won¡¯t have that many people to lend you. After all, I don¡¯t have that many people. How about... ten?¡±

    ¡°Will that ensure smoothmunication function?¡±

    ¡°It absolutely will!¡±

    ¡°Then that works!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°With so few people you should just raise a few more. It¡¯s just a few mundanes, but look at you hemming and hawing like this.¡±

    The seventh princess smiled without saying a word.

    ¡°Then it¡¯s settled!¡± Li Hao said nothing further. ¡°These are the three main matters. Once I find my footing in Skystar City, just watch the hell that I rain down on the nine ministries!

    ¡°Oh, right, I might need to kill some people in my quest against the nine ministries toe. There might need to be some from the royal family among them, so give me a list of pawns you can discard or people who don¡¯t listen to you. I¡¯ll take care of them for you!¡±

    ¡°Um...¡± The seventh princess paused.

    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me that you guys arepletely working together!¡± Li Hao snapped. ¡°Do you think I don¡¯t understand anything? Don¡¯t you know to eliminate those who are of no help to you? I need heads to establish my authority and weaken the influence of the nine ministries. Of course, I can¡¯t let people think that I am afraid of the royal family, so I¡¯ll kill your people along with the rest! The nine ministries will think I¡¯m crazy then and wait for us two to start fighting. Do you really think that all I know is to be rash?¡±

    A light danced in the seventh princess¡¯ eyes. This guy really wasn¡¯t brainlessly rash! If he killed people on both sides, that might induce the nine ministries to discuss the possibility of allying against Li Hao. If the royal family took advantage of the opening to raise some demands, but continued to secretly partner with Li Hao in the dark... That might lead to unexpected benefits.

    But in that case, that would strengthen Li Hao¡¯s prestige.

    Yet upon further thought, prestige was of no use in this day and age. Strength was king!

    ¡°Very well... but this matter needs to remain a secret!¡± The princess nodded after some thought.

    ¡°Of course! Am I supposed to announce to the world that I¡¯m working with the royal family to help them eliminate dissidents? What a joke! Oh right, you must have proper evidence for these people. I don¡¯t kill random people, so don¡¯t give me a list of innocents. I have no interest in being your de!¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t happen!¡±

    ¡°Then here¡¯s to our partnership!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I shan¡¯t be staying then. Ah, yes, send a meal¡¯s worth of dishes to the northern city everyday. I¡¯ll settle the bill at the end of the year!¡±

    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s perfectly alright...¡± chuckled the seventh princess.

    ¡°Then I thank Your Highness for your generosity!¡±

    ¡°......¡± That stopped the princess in her tracks. <i>Do you reallyck this money, Li Hao? I was just being polite, but you took me at my word! </i>Granted, this was just pocket change to her, so she didn¡¯t voice a protest. ¡°As we should!¡±

    Li Hao left without another word. The princess didn¡¯t see him out.

 Chapter 709: Turning Into a Fatty With One Bite (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 709: Turning Into a Fatty With One Bite (IV)</h4>

    The princess¡¯ thoughts turned inward after Li Hao left. What an interesting young man. The requests he¡¯d raised weren¡¯t hard. It would be a good thing for the royal family if he could truly find his footing in Skystar City. After some musing, she took out a mirror that had a face reflecting out of it.

    ¡°You heard him too, royal father. What do you think?¡±

    ¡°Li Hao is quite interesting.¡± An august voice slowly trailed out of the mirror; some amusement could be heard within it. ¡°He wants to establish his authority and even manifest greater prestige among the people. He intends to create a scene of the four cardinal directions bowing to his every word.

    ¡°However, he overestimates the people. I don¡¯t know if he wishes to be the Human King, but Silver Moon has never been a ce to bow to discipline. The world¡¯s chaos starts from the north! But chaos is good. Haven¡¯t we done everything we¡¯ve done so far for this?

    ¡°Agree to everything he wishes! He has be an inalienable part of Silver Moon! Earthturner Sword, the Five Styles King, and the others have close rtionships with him. We may need Li Hao¡¯s impulsive nature and ambitions if we want Silver Moon to further war with the nine ministries!¡±

    Whether it was brashness or ambitions, all was fine. Li Hao¡¯s personality destined him for more shes with the nine ministries.

    ¡°We should impose more restrictions on the nine ministries so that Li Hao has more room to develop and grow...¡±

    ¡°But royal father, what if... someone from Silver Moon fully finds their footing in Skystar City...¡± the seventh princess said softly.

    ¡°Do you think that is a possibility?¡± came the stately voice. ¡°If we hadn¡¯t kept the nine ministries preupied in the prior battle, those of Silver Moon wouldn¡¯t have had good endings. This is Skystar, not Silver Moon! Do you understand?¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The princess nodded as the person in the mirror vanished.

    ......

    Li Hao walked out of the Nine Dragons Pavilion, apanied by the female manager. He didn¡¯t mind that she was as enthusiastic as ever. The young man was lost in thought.

    Whatever the royal family was thinking, they would sit idly by while he built a reputation of irreconcble differences with the nine ministries. There was even Battle Heaven and Silver Moon standing behind him.

    That the royal family had been forced behind the curtains meant that they either were of the same strength as the nine ministries, or they were slightly weaker and needed his help. Although, were the nine ministries that strong? After setting foot into Arcanus, Li Hao didn¡¯t think much of this level.

    The nine ministries had eighteen ministers total, if counting the previous generation. Well, there were seventeen now. Even if they were all Arcanus who wielded ancient weapons, could they suppress the royal family with that?

    The royal family possessed nine princes and thirty-six dukes, as well as twenty-two children in the youngest generation. There was also the Skystar King¡ªwas this level of force insufficient to battle the nine ministries?

    Li Hao decided that he might need to wait until he obtained information from the royal family before he couldplete his understanding. The most pressing task at hand was to return to Silver Moon for a visit. He needed to look in on Battle Heaven, the little tree, Silver City...

    He¡¯d told the royal family about everything¡ªwould they ambush him when he left?

    Attacking from the shadows... they might as well ally with the nine ministries to kill him! Li Haoughed. That might lead to greater overall losses for the royal family, so it was more worthwhile to let powerhouses of the nine ministries end him.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    ¡°You¡¯re going back to Silver Moon right now?¡± Hou Xiaochen frowned slightly.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    The man continued frowning as he considered the notion. ¡°Will you being back?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen thought it over again and again, his head aching. ¡°I¡¯m worried about you creating even greater trouble after you return to Silver Moon. Don¡¯t do anything rash... Whether it¡¯s Battle Heaven or others, it¡¯s not time for those existences to emerge into the world yet! You raise disturbances everywhere you go. As opposed to generating more trouble in Silver Moon, you might as well stay in Skystar City. At the very least, this is someone else¡¯s territory if you muck it all up. Silver Moon is our home.¡±

    ¡°Am I that kind of person? Am I such a troublemaker in the director¡¯s eyes?¡± Li Hao eximed with indignation.

    <i>Are you not?</i> Hou Xiaochen wanted to roll his eyes. <i>How are you not? Think about what you¡¯re saying! When do you not create massive trouble? First you attack the Steadfast Duke, then you attack the nine ministries. Are these the actions of a normal person??</i>

    As much as his head ached, he knew that the young man was going back because he had matters to take care of. ¡°It¡¯s fine if you want to make a trip back, just be careful on the road! Also, I want to remind you that the ancients are the ancients, and we modern people are modern people! The two are different, particrly monster spirits. They cannot be easily trusted!

    ¡°By the way, the Inspectorate says that the Ministry of Finance has relinquished a ruin. It might have belonged to a martial university. Do you want to participate in the excavation? But it¡¯s not like they have good intentions...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll consider it when I get back!¡± Li Hao swiftly made some calctions. ¡°I¡¯m fast since I have the Windchaser Boots and am of the wind and thunder attributes. It¡¯ll only take me two or three days to go back to Silver Moon, and roughly a week total for the trip. We can discuss this when I return. You can talk to Director Yao about this, Director Hou. Have him join us with the Night Watchers and be part of the Skystar Commander Office or one of its subordinate agencies...¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen felt a migraine setting in. ¡°Go speak to him of this yourself!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not going!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m a youngster with a hot temper. I might end up fighting with him. Director, you¡¯re mature and prudent. You¡¯re the perfect candidate to talk to him.¡±

    <i>Damn it! </i>Hou Xiaochen wanted to smash the kid¡¯s face in. Was Li Hao even listening to himself? Yao Si had been his supervisor to start, now the kid wanted to recruit him as an underling?? He was the one who¡¯d set up the Night Watchers, but Li Hao wanted to take it for himself. His appetite was more than unusually big!

    <i>Won¡¯t that old thing send me flying with a punch if I go talk to him?</i>

    ¡°Maintaining the status quo is quite nice...¡±

    ¡°That gives rise to illegitimacy!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°The proper trappings of power are very important at times! Why else would the nine ministries establish themselves otherwise? The director should know more about this than me.¡±

    <i>No shit I do, but do you even realize what you¡¯re doing? Why don¡¯t you go yourself? You also know that if you go, you might end up fighting with Yao Si, don¡¯t you? Not to mention that the entire Inspectorate might want to fight you!</i>

    ¡°To the capable falls more responsibility!¡± Li Hao said sincerely. ¡°The director is omnipotent in my eyes! Ask Manager Yu if you don¡¯t believe me! Manager Yu, can our director convince Director Yao?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Yu Luocha immediately nodded.

    ¡°......¡± <i>Fucking hell!</i> Hou Xiaochen wanted to curse at someone, but didn¡¯t know who to curse. Little Yu¡¯s mind... Well, it wasn¡¯t her fault. After so many years, Yu Luocha firmly believed that he could do anything and everything. But... but...

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t know what to say! Li Hao certainly knew to pick his hapless targets well.

    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about thister, I¡¯ll try my best,¡± Hou Xiaochen caved with reluctance. ¡°Additionally, don¡¯t get too close with the royal family. They¡¯re far more than they appear to be. They alreadymanded the ck Armaturas two hundred years ago, which means they obtained the legacy of some ruins during that time. You know how it is from your dealings with the Battle Heaven Army. The supernatural hadn¡¯t arisen then, but martial masters were always present. Do you know what I mean?¡±

    Li Hao nodded, he did. The royal family also had more than one thousand ck Armaturas. That meant that the royal family might¡¯ve had amander level officer in their own army two hundred years ago, or that they hadn¡¯t activated their armor. Otherwise, they should have a full division of ten thousand troops!

    The city of Tranquil Star City had had one hundred thousand city defenders. They were a bonafide corps when it came to military designations. Who knew what level the royal family had progressed to? If they sent in someone with a high level of authorization and was recognized as a troop leader, that meant their ck Armaturas might be one hundred thousand strong!

    But that wasn¡¯t likely, was it?

    Li Hao knew that the possibility was very difficult, unless the royal family had someone descended from the city defenders of old and snuck into the ancient city like he had. They would¡¯ve nearly be amander, and if he¡¯d been strong enough, he would¡¯ve been a first rank general to lead ten thousand people.

    ¡°Right, give these things to the provincial government.¡± Hou Xiaochen took out a storage ring. ¡°Don¡¯t look at it, there¡¯s no treasure inside. It¡¯s just some supplies that Silver Moon needs. Give it to the right people when you return!¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡±

    ¡°Be careful along the way. As fast as you are, keep an eye out for the three great organizations.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao quickly set out on his way. As for whether or not Hou Xiaochen and the rest would be safe in Skystar City, there weren¡¯t many issues with that at present. The royal family was still there curbing the nine ministries. The young man wouldn¡¯t leave so easily otherwise.

    ......

    Not long after Li Hao left the Night Watcher headquarters, a massive collision rang through the air. Yao Si sent a person flying as he roared with anger!

    Hou Xiaochen sighed and permitted himself to soar back to his office building.

    <i>I knew this would happen!</i>

    It was one thing for Li Hao to be drunk on power and wanting to seize control, but to move the Night Watchers under his banner... This was truly adding insult to injury. It was mercy enough that Yao Si didn¡¯t want his head for it!

    ......

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t in a hurry to leave after departing from the Night Watcher headquarters. He set out only after taking his leave from Hong Yitang and Light Sword.

 Chapter 710: Return (I)

    <h4>Chapter 710: Return (I)</h4>

    Li Hao liked to travel at night. There was a certain air of unrestrained freedom to this time of the day that wasn¡¯t as apparent in the morning. A small car trundled along the wide streets; Panther was in charge of driving while Li Hao focused on studying the golden booklets. Those who saw them might suspect themselves of seeing things.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about the reactions of the passersby. He looked carefully at the books¡ªalthough the golden booklets spoke of different secret arts, they were simr in terms of core nature. One was for offense, the other for breaking through.

    Using blood qi to trace words and forming them out of mind intent embodied the core origin path. It was an offensive skill that manifested the illusory into tangible attacks.

    <i>Most ancient secret arts are like these... </i>Li Hao¡¯s thoughts turned to the Incantation of the de of Blood. The New Book of Five Styles actually borrowed from the incantation. Both blood qi and the physical body were very strong in the ancient martial dao.

    <i>The ancient civilization truly developed the human body to an extreme. </i>The notion gave Li Hao a great deal more inspiration. <i>As strong as blood qi is, there should be some restrictions to it as well. The ancient martial dao focused on the three truncal cavities</i>¡ª<i>the thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic. We now focus on supernatural locks. Is the zifu the only supernatural lock of the physical body, and the spine the only one of the bones?</i>

    Sky Sword had told him that there were many unique supernatural attributes, that each one might correspond to a unique supernatural lock. He¡¯d also said that the number of supernatural locks far exceeded what had been discovered thus far, they just hadn¡¯t been identified yet.

    <i>Teacher¡¯s Five Styles and Refiner of Spirit ultimately melds the aura into the supernatural locks. The aura and supernatural locks are one in the end, which is simr to thebination of mental strength and the aura in the ancient martial dao...</i>

    Whether it was mental strength or mind intent, there weren¡¯t many otherbinations of what could be cultivated. These options were it. If one exceeded those possibilities, what else could one cultivate?

    Li Hao mulled over his thoughts and returned to contemting the secret arts of martial dao. If each secret art differed in its strengthening focus, did that mean that the peak of each secret art would develop a supernatural lock?

    The Five Styles, for example, developed the locks of the five organs. Southern and Northern Fist¡¯s boxing methods developed the <i>zifu,</i> spine, and four limbs. Tyrant de¡¯s words... likely meant that he¡¯d developed the locks of the brain that dealt with the mind.

    <i>Supernatural locks are ultimately meant to be eliminated. The shackles of the human body are to be broken. Whether it is supernaturals or martial masters, we have supernatural locks only because we must restrain the power that our bodies cannot control...</i>

    As his knowledge grew through seeing more of the world and fighting powerhouses, Li Hao was no longer the bumbling fool when it came to martial dao.

    <i>Then what is the aura? Another kind of peak representation? The Arcanus realm... is thebination of two elemental attributes. So are three attributes also Arcanus? What about four?</i>

    Would breaking all five locks in the organs still keep one at Arcanus?

    <i>Arcanus spans more than one cultivation realm. Or rather, supernaturals will dwell in the Arcanus realm in times toe. Those with strong organs will swiftly break their third, fourth, and fifth locks.</i>

    Li Hao thought of Ying Hongyue again. Was that guy a martial master? If so, what was his purpose in absorbing the bloodlines of seven families?

    Innumerable questions rose from his heart. The young man hadn¡¯t noticed Ying Hongyue utilizing any powerful weapon. One had to know that Li Hao had two of the eight familial weapons now, his teacher had one of them, and Battle Heaven a fourth. There were four missing weapons; Ying Hongyue can¡¯t possibly not have a single one.

    But the other hadn¡¯t employed a weapon from beginning to end.

    Li Hao suppressed the various thoughts, vaguely understanding that the second awakening of the supernatural mighte after everyone broke the five locks of the organs! It was just a hunch. Perhaps many were waiting for this timing to break the five locks¡ªit was representative of entering the next level. Not only would that level be avable to Arcanus, but it would also be the next level after martial masters refined their spirits.

    <i>This would also mean that most people will have fully released their potential...</i>

    And that was thest that Li Hao thought of the matter. He closed his eyes to begin cultivating, absorbing currents of dark and light elemental energy. With the number of people he¡¯d killed, he didn¡¯tck mysterious power. He had too much.

    He also possessed a frightening number of mysterious power stones that spanned all of the elements. Li Hao had unlocked the wind and thunder attributes, so what would light and dark energy bring him? He hadn¡¯t absorbed much of these elements before because they weren¡¯t that useful to him. The dark attribute only helped him somewhat conceal his presence. While it was better than nothing, it didn¡¯t enhance his strength like the five elements or wind and thunder.

    His thoughts changed after he was supernatural himself. He wanted to manifest all of the supernatural looks on his body. Just how many locks did the human body have? Could they all be undone? Was it possible to break all of the locks?

    Elemental power surged into his body. Both light and dark swiftly vanished without a trace into his body. The little bit of energy that wafted out was devoured by the dog. Not a trace was left and not a hint leaked.

    In terms of strength, Li Hao did not register any increase. Those two elements were just like that. He didn¡¯t know which supernatural lock absorbed them. Currently, his five locks of the organs were arrayed in a circle, coiled in his five organs. The five auras were still and silent, as if awaiting for the chance of rebirth.

    ......

    The little car sped along the roads. They were finely paved in the central region and the car nearly flew over them with the dog at the wheel. No obstacles existed. If they encountered mountains orkes, the battered car literally took to the air like a flying vehicle. It crossednd and water without any difficulties.

    The dog drove through several provinces over two days until they reached the North Sea. This pace of travel nearly matched a powerhouse¡¯s pace at full speed. Panther was exhausted, parking when it reached the coastline and looked around at Li Hao. The young man hadn¡¯t moved for two days. He¡¯d absorbed mysterious power all this time, but there wasn¡¯t the slightest change in his presence.

    What a waste!

    ¡°Arf!¡± Panther barked. They were here. As for crossing the sea... it wouldn¡¯t do so. The North Sea was vast and it¡¯d probably faint from exhaustion if it took a regr car over it.

    Li Hao opened his eyes¡ªlight and darkness swirled within them. He was a bit lost in his thoughts and nced at Panther. The dog shifted ufortably at the attention and barked again. The young man didn¡¯t respond. He quietly tasted and perceived the changes in his body.

    Two small locks appeared within, one of light and one of darkness. He couldn¡¯t be certain of their position as they seemed to be swimming through his body.

    <i>Are those the light and dark locks?</i> So they¡¯d manifested, but they didn¡¯t seem to be stable yet. <i>I¡¯ve only just barely managed to materialize them after absorbing so much energy... Regr people might not manifest them their entire lives.</i>

    ¡°Arf arf!¡±

    ¡°I heard you!¡± Li Hao snapped back to reality and looked wordlessly at Panther. ¡°So you drove for two days straight, what are you making a fuss for?¡±

    No one had bothered him during these days. It wasn¡¯t necessarily a secret that he¡¯d left Skystar City, but still no one came for him. That was surprising, but also a rational oue. He was now a renowned powerhouse after killing Hu Xiao.

    Young man and dog alighted from the car, shivering in the biting wind and listening to the North Sea howl. Winter was officially in the north. Thin kes of snow flurried¡ªit was already mid November. The north hadpletely cooled down.

    There were ships tacking their way through the waters and another fishing boat docked not too far away. A group of bedraggled people streamed off of it; the faint sounds of children sobbing could be heard from them.

    ¡°Don¡¯t stop, it¡¯s too cold here. Start walking south once you get ashore. We¡¯re in the central region now and there¡¯s more opportunities here. We¡¯ll find a way to live yet...¡± someone called out¡ªa supernatural. He was very weak at only a Starlight; he also seemed rather young.

    He caught a glimpse of Li Hao in the distance, but didn¡¯te over to make his greetings. He didn¡¯t know the two and it was obvious that a young man and a dog enjoying the view on such a cold day was no one ordinary. They were either nobles out for a stroll or powerhouses here to take in the sights.

    The young Starlight barely managed to raise a shield of energy and block the wind from blowing over some children in the ground. ¡°Keep walking, don¡¯t stop! The three northern provinces arepletely rotten and there¡¯s no hope of survival if you stay there! As chaotic as the central region is, it¡¯s at least warmer here and you won¡¯t die by the side of the road!¡±

    ¡°Thank you so much, Divine Lu. We wouldn¡¯t have made it through the North Sea without you...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t call me Divine!¡±

    ¡°Are youing with us, Divine Lu?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll escort you part of the way before going back. I¡¯m sure everyone knows that there are many people looking to cross the sea in search of survival. If I don¡¯t apany them, they probably won¡¯t make it.¡±

    ¡°The divine is right, it¡¯s all thanks to the divine...¡±

    The crowd¡¯s conversation traveled into Li Hao¡¯s ears, bringingprehension with it. The people suffered in abject misery in the unrest of the three northern provinces. The north was too cold andcked food at the moment. Hence, the people started south in search of survival.

    However, crossing the sea was no easy task with how vast the North Sea was. This young Starlight took on the role of a boatman, escorting ships of refugees to the north.

    Li Hao listened silently. The unrest of the north had happened before he left. It looked like they¡¯d reached a peak over thest couple of months.

    ¡°Are you doing this again, Lu Chuan?!¡± a voice roared. ¡°I told you before and warned you to stop sending people over here! This is no ce of mercy or kindness! If people don¡¯t find a job here, they¡¯ll still die sooner orter. It¡¯s better to remain in the three northern provinces, don¡¯t you understand?!¡±

    Li Hao looked over to find an inspector wearing an Inspectorate uniform hectoring the young man.

 Chapter 711: Return (II)

    <h4>Chapter 711: Return (II)</h4>

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to be like this either, Brother Wang,¡± Lu Chuan said in a loud voice. ¡°But the three northern provinces are too cold and there¡¯s truly no hope of survival there if they stay. In the central region... even if they¡¯re nabbed for a ghastly life in the mines, they still stand a chance for survival.¡±

    Li Hao blinked at his response. He knew this perspective well. inly, Lu Chuan was no ignorant bumpkin. He knew that there wasn¡¯t necessarily a good end in store after he ferried people to the central region, but he knew even more that they were doomed without a hope if they stayed in the three northern provinces.

    The inspector in the distance fell silent before quickly shouting, ¡°Fool! I told you before that you should take these people to the north, to Silver Moon even further north! You might be able to survive there...¡±

    ¡°I want to, Brother Wang, but I¡¯m just one Starlight and I¡¯m several provinces away. Near River has even sealed off the roads to Silver Moon, so there¡¯s no way of passing. They kill anyone who tries to press the issue. At least there¡¯s Brother Wang here giving a hand, helping me stow away the people. Near River... is even more vicious than the rebels in the three northern provinces! There¡¯s nothing I can do about it either...¡±

    Their conversation traveled into Li Hao¡¯s ears. This inspector didn¡¯t seem like a bad person, he just wanted Lu Chuan to take the people to Silver Moon in the north. Yet, Silver Moon was separated from the three northern provinces by quite a few other provinces, and Lu Chuan had to cross Near River to be in Silver Moon proper.

    Near River had sealed off the roads leading to Silver Moon and didn¡¯t permit anyone in or out. When it came to a water path, there were plenty of pirates in the North Sea. Even though the North Sea King was dead, pirates yet abounded in the waters. The Starlight Pirates were also still present, as were the other seven pirate factions. How could a small fishing vessel enter the Moon Sea?

    Li Hao had wanted to directly cross the North Sea and head to Silver Moon, but a thought urred to him and he vanished on the spot.

    The inspector had been conversing with Lu Chuan when his expression froze¡ªa young man had suddenly appeared in front of him. Lu Chuan also stiffened and turned around for a look. He breathed out more readily when he saw that it was the fellow admiring the view from earlier.

    ¡°Greetings, sir!¡± He raised a cupped fist salute.

    ¡°Do you know me?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Lu Chuan kept his head down. ¡°But your speed is so fast that you must be a powerhouse. We will leave immediately and not disrupt milord from enjoying the view.¡±

    Dressed in threadbare clothing, the dozen civilians nearby looked over with fear. While Li Hao wasn¡¯t dressed opulently, he wasn¡¯t wearing clothing that ordinary people could afford either.

    The inspector off to the side looked at Li Hao a few more times, finding the young man a bit familiar, but unable to recognize him. He just felt that the neer was very strong and carried himself with an umon demeanor.

    Li Hao took a quick nce, seeing that the inspector was not a supernatural. He was a martial master, a yer of Tens. Li Hao could still detect the exact cultivation strength of weaklings.

    ¡°Have the three northern provinces fully fallen into disarray?¡±

    Lu Chuan nodded. ¡°Complete disarray! They¡¯ve been rocked with unrest ever since the death of General Kou. Things were fine enough before, but after the north was caught in a cruel grip of winter, there is barely any harvest this year! Large sums of civilians have been forced into joining the rebel army or be bandits... The three northern provinces arepletely rotten and decayed!

    ¡°It¡¯s also just turned into winter,¡± Lu Chuan breathed out. ¡°It will be colderter on. There¡¯s nothing I can do other than send a few people past the sea into the central region. Our only hope is that they have a chance of survival here. Even if it¡¯s the dead of winter, they can still find some food to eat from the waters.

    ¡°That is not a possibility this year, however. The North Sea pirates are in pitched battle and fighting over territory. We don¡¯t dare go into the seas to fish.¡±

    ¡°You are a supernatural. Although you are just a Starlight, you shouldn¡¯t get hungry, shouldn¡¯t you?¡± asked Li Hao.

    The young Lu Chuanughed at Li Hao¡¯s question. ¡°Sir, supernaturals are people too, not to mention that I¡¯m only a Starlight. We¡¯re born from other people¡ªI have family, friends, and neighborhoods... Supernaturals are not gods, I can¡¯t just watch my friends and family starve or freeze to death at home, can I?¡±

    ¡°True that.¡± Li Hao inclined his head. ¡°Right, I heard you say just now that the road to Silver Moon has been sealed off?¡±

    ¡°Ai!¡± sighed Lu Chuan. ¡°Silver Moon is not in a good position among the neen suffering provinces of the north and it¡¯s even colder in the winter. But at least there¡¯sw and order there. Silver Moon martial masters are famous and they have many powerhouses, not to mention that the province has been stable enough all this time. At least there¡¯s a chance of survival there! But Near River¡¯s sealed off Silver Moon and refuses to let anyone out or in...

    ¡°Such has been the case these years.¡± Lu Chuan shook his head. ¡°Otherwise, we¡¯d go to the north since Silver Moon is there. As such, we can onlye to the central region in hopes of survival.¡±

    He looked up at Li Hao and said softly, ¡°You are from Silver Moon... are you not, milord?¡±

    ¡°How did you know?¡± Li Haoughed. Citizens of the north all appeared the same.

    ¡°You seem to be in a much better mood whenever Silver Moon is mentioned...¡±

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but grin. Was that so? To be honest, he hadn¡¯t thought much of Silver Moon before. But upon hearing that all neen provinces in the north were engulfed by unrest and only Silver Moon retained order... that people thought there was a chance for survival if they trekked through the bitter cold to reach the province...

    That was a tremendous seal of approval!

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but be happy at hearing outsiders speak of his home in such a way when he was in a foreignnd. He looked at the civilians nearby and at the inspector who hadn¡¯t spoken all this time. ¡°The central region is a ce that eats people,¡± he said slowly. ¡°You might not have a good ending if youe here...¡±

    ¡°I know, but it¡¯s all the same in this day and age!¡± Lu Chuanughed ruefully. ¡°It¡¯s truly all the same! At least the central region is more prosperous and begging is less of a freezing affair.¡±

    The inspector raised an eyebrow. ¡°The central region is indeed decent. Some matters have developed in Skystar City recently and arge group of nobles and powerhouses have died. That scared a lot of people, and the central region Night Watchers areing alive. The three great organizations have stopped a lot of what they were doing, so things are better than before. However... the influx of refugees is probably hard to handle.¡± He looked at Li Hao. ¡°Is milord here from the central belt?¡±

    ¡°Why do you ask?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just curious.¡± Inspector Wang lowered his head. ¡°Will there be greater changes in Skystar City?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say.¡± Li Hao shook his head, that was indeed difficult to say.

    The inspector sighed and didn¡¯t continue the conversation. Each instance of unrest affected the civilians the most, not the nobles. Supernaturals weren¡¯t impacted either as they did notck sustenance.

    Lu Chuan remained looking at Li Hao without a word, then turned his eyes to the civilians waiting around him. ¡°Then... I will not disturb milord from viewing the sea. I... will send them on their way and return after we pass the coastline...¡±

    He didn¡¯t feel a need to converse too much with Li Hao, but of course kept his tone polite as he couldn¡¯t afford to offend these people. He had other matters to attend to. After sending these people off, he needed to return to his duties as a ferryman.

    ¡°Are there many supernaturals like you?¡± Li Hao couldn''t help but ask.

    ¡°What?¡± Lu Chuan hesitated, then realized something. ¡°A few. There¡¯s more than me in this area, there¡¯s also a few friends doing the same. We \e from humble backgrounds and no one¡¯s particrly strong, so we can¡¯t offer more help. Guiding ships is about all we can do.¡±

    ¡°Have you ever considered the future?¡±

    ¡°The future?¡± Lu Chuan smiled without a word. <i>What future</i>? What future was there to speak of? He was taking it one day at a time! ¡°Then... I¡¯ll be off, milord?¡±

    ¡°Go on!¡± Li Hao nodded. Lu Chuan raised his weak energy shield again to escort the dozen up the coastline. Li Hao didn¡¯t offer help as it was useless to help only one person. His thoughts were preupied with the Near River province. It¡¯d sealed off the road leading north, cutting off Silver Moon from the rest of the world. Although Director General Zhao and the others were in residence, they still permitted Near River to do as it would.

    More numbers of refugees grew from the unrest in the three northern provinces. Though they wished to travel north, there was no path for them to reach their destination. Not to mention, Silver Moon was so poor that it couldn¡¯t save too many people. Too many refugees pouring through their borders would be the downfall of the province. They would need food, drink, clothes, and shelter...

    They would need everything!

    Seeing that Inspector Wang still stood by his side, Li Hao asked after some thought, ¡°What do you think is the most pressing need that everyone is desperate to be fulfilled?¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± The inspector didn¡¯t know what this great one was asking or wanted to know, so he didn¡¯t know how to respond.

    ¡°I¡¯m asking what you guys want most right now,¡± Li Haoughed.

    ¡°Full bellies, warm clothes, and no more war. Whether it¡¯s supernaturals or martial masters, it¡¯s best if theye under some restrictions. War shouldn¡¯t be dered at a drop of a hat anymore!¡± Inspector Wang answered frankly. ¡°It always frightens a ton of citizens into abandoning the outskirts when battle breaks out. They no longer reim opennd and even refuse to leave the cities. They simply wait for death.

    ¡°Neither supernaturals nor martial masters find anything wrong with their actions. They think that not randomly killing people is good enough. But what they don''t know is that once they start fighting, the fields are ruined and people refuse to set foot outside. That leads to even greater disaster sooner orter!¡±

    Inspector Wang was more talkative than usual because he knew that the person in front of him must be noble. It might not have an effect, but it would at least let those of the upper echelon hear their cries for help.

    ¡°I see!¡± Li Hao nodded and looked at the North Sea. ¡°So everyone still craves peace...¡±

    <i>No shit! Who doesn¡¯t? </i>The inspector inwardly rolled his eyes. <i>We have no desire to conquer the world. It¡¯s all the same no matter who¡¯s at the top, just leave us a way to survive.</i>

 Chapter 712: Return (III)

    <h4>Chapter 712: Return (III)</h4>

    Li Hao looked into the distance instead of speaking further. He set foot through the air with Panther, deciding to immediately return to Silver Moon. What he¡¯d seen this time left some regrets in his heart.

    Although people knew that the central region was and that ate people, they still poured in ceaselessly. Survival was the only thing on their mind, and at least it could be found here. Remaining in the three northern provinces might lead to utter annihtion.

    Silver Moon had been sealed off on all sides, but it had not fallen yet. Like Hong Yitang once said, the people would suffer in misery and there would be a shortage in food if the situation in the world continued as it was. All of that hade to pass. Although this was a localized area, it was a sign, a harbinger of things toe.

    When he traveled to the east, he¡¯d passed throughrge swathes of territory upied by rebels or bandits. An era of chaos was upon them!

    All of this was in certain people¡¯s hands. It wasn¡¯t a natural disaster, but a man-made one.

    ......

    Li Hao left through the air, leaving Inspector Wang marveling at his prowess. He frowned as he realized something next¡ªwas it <i>that</i> one? Surely not. Didn¡¯t they say that he was still in Skystar City?

    But... a young man, a dog, being from Silver Moon... Demon Sword? The Skystarmander?

    The inspector was confused and uncertain, but shook his head upon further thought and didn¡¯t seek to dig deeper. Although Li Hao had quieted the central region by killing a few people, that only addressed the symptoms and not the cause. The situation would worsen once Demon Sword was suppressed by others and result in a greater bacsh.

    ......

    ¡°Panth, not every supernatural is a bad guy. Did you see that?¡± Li Hao murmured to himself over the sea. ¡°That Lu Chuan is only a Starlight, the lowest of the supernatural, but even so, he doesn¡¯tck for food or drink. He can find a decent job wherever he goes. However, he risks the danger of being killed by pirates or chased down by central region powerhouses to escort people from one fire to another. This might be the reason why supernaturals exist. He is a supernatural, so he can ensure everyone¡¯s safety in the crossing.¡±

    The dog didn¡¯t understand his meaning. <i>What are you trying to say?</i>

    ¡°I¡¯m saying Panth, that this is an exnation of power just being a type of attribute. It¡¯s not the foundation that decides everything. Be it martial masters or supernaturals, it alles down to the heart!¡±

    The dog remained silent, still not understanding. <i>So... what?</i>

    ¡°Silver Moon might be able to save some people if they break the blockade. It¡¯s early winter and the season is long in the north. Countless people might die if this situation continues. Resources and whatnot will be hard to transport into Silver Moon. Director General Zhao and the others may have their own thoughts in mind, but I do not think that we need to allow the blockade to continue!

    ¡°Of course, we need money,bor, resources, rations, clothing...¡± Li Hao murmured to himself as Panther continued to be quiet.

    ¡°I¡¯ve always valued cultivation resources and killed nobles, powerhouses to collect them. I¡¯ve never cared about their mundane businesses, rations, clothing, and other resources. But can people go to sleep with full bellies without those? Will they be able to live?

    ¡°I seem to have lost touch with the real world at some point,¡± Li Hao sighed with emotion. ¡°You too. Remember when you were a stray and yed cute for me or passersby for a meal? When did you start only caring about cultivation resources?¡±

    Panther lowered its head.

    ¡°When I visit Battle Heaven, I want to ask them how they fed a city of five hundred million back in the day. Do you think they¡¯ll tell me?¡±

    The dog was surprised.<i> Ask them that? Won¡¯t the strong guys thereugh at you?</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care. He started contemting the matter of five hundred million citizens. Even powerhouses needed to eat and drink at some point. How did they do it to support a city of five hundred million? Where did all the foode from? Battle Heaven must have its ways, he¡¯d just never thought or cared about the issue before.

    He ought to ask this time. And also, were nt spirits only meant to kill others or be used in wars? nt spirits, life force, elerating growth, and elerating the growth of nts...

    Various thoughts brewed in his mind. He¡¯d gained new reflections after traveling from north to south and south to north again. To not forget his original intentions was much easier said than done! He had to defeat the nine ministries and three great organizations in his current state before he could do anything.

    Hong Yitang wished to gain some experience from Skystar City, whereas Li Hao felt they might be better off asking the ancients.

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t sh with anyone after this. He erupted with both wind and thunder attributes, sweeping past cities like he was a hurricane. The north was deep in the onset of winter and there was no sign of green to be seen. There were even frozen carcasses by the side of the road.

    The young man continued northward, reaching the outskirts of Silver Moon after a day. The province was as quiet as ever, as poor as ever.

    But the air suddenly seemed warmer the second he set foot into Silver Moon. Hended in one of the border cities of Silver Moon¡¯s thirty-two. There weren¡¯t many people on the streets, but they were solidly bundled up against the elements. Faint sounds of mor could be heard.

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought there was much difference between those of Silver Moon and other ces before, but now he found them to be a bit more alive than the rest. There was a bit more to look forward to in their lives.

    ¡°Our Silver Moon martial masters are really something. Have you heard? Demon Sword has cowed the four directions from his position in Skystar City...¡±

    Whispers and gossip about Li Hao rose from the streets. It¡¯d only been a few days since his matters in the royal city, but those of Silver Moon were still discussing them. The young man grinned, then looked at the quiet city. His thoughts turned to a city in Near River that he¡¯d just passed by on his way here. It had been a ghost town.

    More reflections filtered into his mind.

    ......

    Li Hao once more left through the air. Ever since Silver Moon started cleansing the province of the three great organizations,munication was restored between the cities. There were people walking on the roads now, as well as merchantpanies. They were no longer afraid to venture out as they¡¯d been before.

    Previously, the people had been terrified to set foot outside. They no longer seemed to carry those apprehensions. Li Hao also heard the name of the Demon Hunters along the way. They seemed to be active in cleansing the province of troublemaking supernatural and martial masters. Their efforts had built a burgeoning reputation for them in Silver Moon.

    A smile finally appeared on Li Hao¡¯s face. Instead of heading for White Moon City, he turned to travel straight to Battle Heaven. He wanted to go to Rift Canyon first. Perhaps there was something to be had there.

    As for the rest, he could meet themter.

    ......

    <i>Battle Heaven.</i>

    It was as quiet and deathly still as always. The Silver and ck Armors by the city gates were very quiet. The patrols continued; only the footsteps of the ck Armors could be heard throughout the city.

    Everything was as if before.

    It wasn¡¯t until a ripple of energy traveled in that Director General Wang looked out from the city lord¡¯s manor. An image manifested in front of him. A young man and a dog were entering the cliff face.

    ¡°He¡¯s back...¡± murmured the director general. ¡°He seems to be... hmm? He¡¯s be an energy cultivator?¡±

    ¡°Yes...¡± sighed the big turtle. ¡°What a pity... Ask him what happened. Why is he in this state?¡±

    ¡°I will,¡± assented Director General Wang. He didn¡¯t say anything as this wasn¡¯t a significant development. Some looked down on the path of energy, some felt that there was no future in it. That was all normal. Director General Wang and the others didn¡¯t care about that.

    It was just a different dao. Not to mention, Li Hao may not make it to that step. There was no point in caring about it too much. One walked the path of martial dao by themselves. The director general¡¯s reaction was mild as he simply didn¡¯t care about it much.

    ......

    <i>Inside the army barracks.</i>

    A Gold Armor suddenly opened his eyes, faint light exuding from them. He looked outside the city and waved a hand, summoning an image in front of him. A young man and a dog were approaching the city gates.

    ¡°The path of energy... So you¡¯ve grown stronger from it, but what¡¯s the point in that? But it¡¯s not the pure path of energy either, it¡¯s neither here nor there. Is he here to seek a solution?¡± The Gold Armor fell silent after some murmuring. He couldn¡¯t be bothered! Whatever path the young man took, all that mattered was that he was aware of the pros and cons.

    As for a solution, there was no easy solution. There would only be some hope if he fully converted to the ancient martial dao.

    ......

    Battle Heaven was an old haunt; Li Hao experienced a rare moment of peace as he walked through the outer city. The three troop leadersnded from the city walls.

    ¡°Leader of the Twelfth Troop!¡± The ripples from this voice were immediately recognizable¡ªJiang Shixun, leader of the Seventh Troop. The three troop leaders seemed to be more human than before. They recognized Li Hao and the Seventh Troop leader spoke with some enthusiasm, ¡°You¡¯re back!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, Seventh Troop!¡± Li Hao smiled and summoned his silver armor. ¡°Has everyone been well?¡±

    ¡°Same old. No onees from outside anymore.¡± The Seventh Troop leader was the most talkative out of the three leaders. Those of the Eighth and Ninth Troop spoke very little, but the Ninth Troop leader had given him some reminders before he leftst time that he could trade for some Water of Life with General Pagoda.

    Li Hao had then paid a very low price to obtain one drop.

    ¡°Why have you entered the path of energy?¡± asked the Seventh Troop leader. ¡°It¡¯s a bit at odds with the Battle Heaven Army. This isn¡¯t necessarily a bad thing, but that a lot of our battle methods are built on a foundation of blood qi. Energy cultivators are unable to make use of them and you¡¯ll even face some restrictions when ites to your armor.¡±

    ¡°It was an ident and couldn¡¯t be helped.¡± Li Hao looked up at the sky. ¡°Will I be attacked if I fly?¡±

    ¡°That you won¡¯t be. You¡¯re a troop leader, so you won¡¯t be attacked.¡±

    That was good!

 Chapter 713: Entering Battle Heaven Once More (I)

    <h4>Chapter 713: Entering Battle Heaven Once More (I)</h4>

    The Seventh Troop leader quickly changed the subject. ¡°Are you going to visit themander? He¡¯s at the barracks...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no rush, I¡¯ll pay a visit to Director General Wang first,¡± Li Hao said sheepishly. <i>Forget him, I still remember that one hitting me.</i> ¡°Then I¡¯ll head into the city. Will youe with me, troop leaders?¡±

    ¡°No, we have a mission at hand and cannot easily leave our posts.¡±

    Alright then, Li Hao ended the conversation. These were all soldiers, so it was already quite a feat that they spent some time in idle chit chat with him. He walked into the city with Panther. He didn¡¯t jump in¡ªthe city gates opened of their own ord to let him in.

    The massive characters of ¡°Battle Heaven¡± were still clear to read over his head. He didn¡¯t rashly look at them as there wasn¡¯t much he could understand from them. It would be a waste of an opportunity.

    The Seventh Troop leader turned back for a look when the young man was gone. ¡°There seems to have been a great change in the Twelfth Troop leader. Do you two feel it?¡±

    The other two didn¡¯t respond audibly, but inclined their heads. There was indeed a very big change in Li Hao. It hadn¡¯t been long, but the young man of prior had shown a bit of glum reticence. There¡¯d also been impulses of naive killing intent. There was something different about him this time, but they couldn¡¯t immediately identify where or how. They just felt that he¡¯d suddenly matured by quite a bit.

    ¡°Perhaps he¡¯s improved after going out to see the world,¡± came the Ninth Troop leader¡¯s ripples. ¡°He¡¯s inly undergone some trials since he¡¯s be part of the path of energy. That is just as well!¡±

    The troop leaders fell silent after discussing their colleague. Quiet once more returned to the city walls.

    ......

    Li Hao was in the mood to take in the sights as he walked around. Battle Heaven wasn¡¯t big at the moment, but it wasid out in a very ideal way. The sectors were clearly delineated and there was no doubt in one¡¯s mind between themercial, industrial, and military areas. He hadn¡¯t noticed the number of schools before. It was only after Hong Yitang mentioned it that he paid attention.

    This time, he made sure to take a closer look. There were indeed a lot of schools, and with that enormous library... perhaps everyone in the city could read.

    Li Hao paused at various points along the way, taking a good look around. It was slow going to the middle of the city. The massive turtle pagoda was as usual, standing upright in the city center. Panther shook in this ce, recalling unhappy memories. It stuck close to Li Hao¡¯s legs and refused to strike out on its own.

    ¡°Li Hao, leader of the Twelfth Troop of the Ninth Division in the Reserve Defenders requests to meet with Director General Wang!¡±

    The doors to the city lord¡¯s manor creaked open.

    ¡°You may enter!¡±

    Li Hao strode in; the doors led straight to the manor¡¯s great hall. There were almost no obstacles in between. He could even see the golden splendor emanating from the director general as he walked in. Perhaps the young man would see him busy at his desk if he stood outside the door.

    <i>Inside the great hall.</i>

    Director General Wang sat on a chair and sized up the young man. ¡°You seem not bad.¡± He inclined his head.

    ¡°You praise me too highly, director general!¡± Li Haoughed.

    The director general wore gold armor and his features were impossible to discern. However, Li Hao could easily identify the differences between him and themander. Themander was coldly aloof, whereas this one was much more warm-hearted. If he was to strike up a simile, the director general was as if Hao Lianchuan and themander was simr to Golden Spear.

    It made sense as this one was the chief of city security and the other a majormander in the army. It seemed that all military officers were distant and proud.

    ¡°You got the Windchaser Boots?¡± The director general was surprised when he nced at the boots.

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    ¡°It looks like your travels have been fruitful,¡± the director general waxed eloquent. ¡°These boots... the Windchaser Boots are somewhat famous in themselves. They were once utilized by the Battle King¡¯s family, then came to the Human King, who then gave them to your ancestors. They eventually found themselves to the Lius, and now you grasp them...¡±

    ¡°These boots have something to do with my ancestors?¡± Li Hao was rather startled. The Battle King¡¯s family... He recalled the ¡°break¡± incantation of one of the golden booklets. It broke anything and everything.

    ¡°Yes.¡± Director General Wang nodded. ¡°None of this is important. Do you have business to take care of with this trip?¡±

    ¡°I do have some small matters that I¡¯m hoping the director general can help me with.¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°Speak of them.¡±

    ¡°I am curious about the ancient civilization, particrly its societal structure. There are certain things that I find hard to understand.¡± The young man furrowed his brows. ¡°There were powerhouses in the ancient civilization, as well as supreme powerhouses! Was the hierarchy of power strictly adhered to? Did those in higher positions oppress the people and exploit them? How did they manage conflicts between superhumans and mundanes? How weremunications handled and status and ranks determined?¡±

    Director General Wang blinked. He¡¯d thought that the young man would ask about the path of energy, but these were his questions instead? He was silent for a while before asking, ¡°Why do you wish to know about this?¡±

    ¡°I would just like to understand them more.¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°I¡¯m very confused! For example, if a mundane offends a powerhouse and then I kill the mundane, does the mundane deserve it? How were thews of the ancient civilization established?¡±

    ¡°There was division ofbor in society, powerhouses were not the one and only!¡± the director general answered faintly. ¡°Powerhouses were invincible only in terms of martial might, they weren¡¯t omnipotent! Keep in mind that dao rules the world, no matter how major or minor it was.

    ¡°If only pure strength is left, then this world will fall! If everyone is a powerhouse, there would be no one working the fields, no one raising children, no one building cities... Civilization would be very quickly destroyed!

    ¡°You started in the wrong direction to begin with. It is not a division of weak versus strong, but a difference in delegation of tasks and how to bnce them. Societybels ording to division ofbor and function, not weak and strong.¡±

    Li Hao seemed to understand¡ªso the profession was the key!

    ¡°As for how to manage the strong, that is even simpler. The same treatment is extended to all, thew is thew! Of course, powerhouses paid quite a price to reach the heights they are at, so they receive more special privileges. However, with thates more duties and obligations!

    ¡°For example, when ites to war, the strong must join the army and obey orders. Neither can ordinary people use thew to bully powerhouses. The necessary respect must be there. They cannot make use of the fact that there are no exceptions to insult and humiliate the strong. That is not permitted either...¡¯

    Director General Wang spoke of a lot, but he was only the head of security, so he could only give a general overview. He wasn¡¯t able to go into the details because he wasn¡¯t familiar with them either. This was due to a delegation ofbor. He was not the city lord. The director general was also rather surprised by Li Hao¡¯s questions.

    ¡°Director General, why do you think the ancient civilization was so strong?¡±

    ¡°Why?¡± The Gold Armor thought for a while. ¡°It¡¯s hard for me to say, but there were many reasons. The most fundamental can be found in the four major areas of culture and education, economy and infrastructure, military, and technology.

    ¡°The strong belonged to the area of the military. Whether or not they served in the army, they were part of the military¡¯s foundations. You would be wrong to think that having a lot of heavyweights is the key to sess. It¡¯s just one part of the four areas.¡±

    ¡°One part?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow with surprise.

    ¡°Correct, but it is also the core!¡± the director general continued. ¡°One does not grow stronger without a strong army, but control must be maintained over it. An army that is out of control may be strong, but it is also useless. It will only result in greater harm!¡±

    ¡°Education, economy, technology...¡± Li Haomitted these terms to memory. ¡°Was the literacy rate in the ancient civilization high?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°I see that there¡¯s a lot of schools inside the city...¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that a fundamental basic of life?¡± asked the confused director general. ¡°How is one supposed to cultivate without knowing how to read? How does one do work? How does one invent, think, receive more technology and knowledge? A universal literacy rate was present at the start of the New Martial era and it was developed to a further extreme in theter stage. Can there be anyone who doesn¡¯t know how to read? You must know that New Martial was strong because of education!

    ¡°The education department was most important in New Martial. Whether it was martial dao, technology, or others, the amount of resources and capital poured into this area exceeded what we invested in the military!

    ¡°There were a lot of martial universities back in the day and there were even more to be found after a period of expansion. This was to create a batch of well-rounded talent that was both promising in military aspects while possessing immense knowledge capabilities...¡±

    Li Hao understood! This was amon core curriculum.

    ¡°Then what of food?¡± the young man continued. ¡°If so many people ran off to learn martial dao, that means significant consumption of resources. They¡¯ll eat more than regr people, so how do you satisfy their needs?¡±

    ¡°The agriculture department was in charge of this. Theyter modified crops and raised animals that could be eaten. The more meat that people ate, the less they needed of grain. Added to that raising vast quantities of nt spirits that collected the essence of heaven and earth as their primary function...¡±

    A light danced in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. ¡°The director general is referring to... modified seeds?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s just one aspect!¡± exined Director General Wang. ¡°All sorts of modern technology are employed in tending the fields and superhuman methods are used to nurture the seedlings. With nt spirits as the base... How is food an issue when all of this is employed in conjunction?¡±

    He found the line of conversation odd, why were they spending so much time talking about this?

    ¡°Isn¡¯t this how it is in the outside world? I see that you have superhuman cultivators too. You can control the wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. Under such circumstances, how are these matters an issue? Just arrange for some energy martial masters to summon the wind and rain. That easily takes care of life¡¯s necessities. You are no primitive society!¡±

 Chapter 714: Entering Battle Heaven Once More (II)

    <h4>Chapter 714: Entering Battle Heaven Once More (II)</h4>

    ¡°Supernaturals are lofty, eminent beings.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Are they supposed to till the fields?¡±

    ¡°Haha!¡± Director General Wang gave a bark ofughter, more or less understanding the situation. ¡°It seems that the outside is worse than I thought, but that is only to be expected. Grasping strength, yetcking the mentality for it leads to power eventually ranging out of control!

    ¡°What is wrong with tilling the fields? Tilling the fields is also a type of dao. One can be divine or holy through tilling the fields, or even be a saint of the ages. You guys don¡¯t understand because you are too weak. The weaker you are, the more you care about issues of dignity, face, noble, and being poor...

    ¡°The great dao is limitless, so what is the true dao? Even in New Martial, we didn¡¯t dare say that the path the powerhouses walked was the correct dao. There is no right or wrong in dao, just a matter of suitability. There is only exploration and future. The dao is not important, what is important is one¡¯s actions!

    ¡°The action of movement and application!¡±

    The director general looked more closely at Li Hao when he sensed that the young man seemed to catch his drift. ¡°I thought this was basic knowledge, but it appears that this is not. Does this mean that you came up with all of these thoughts by yourself?¡±

    ¡°No, someone gave me pointers.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I am learning and reflecting as well.¡±

    ¡°That is good!¡± Director General Wang quite approved. ¡°From practical applicationes true knowledge! Whatever it is you¡¯d like to know or understand, be a part of it yourself. It doesn¡¯t matter whether or not you understand it. Observe more, listen more, learn more! Of course, human vigor is limited, so learn to use others and use them well! You cannot be all-knowing or all-capable.¡±

    Li Hao nodded continuously. As he thought, the director general was easy to speak to and delivered his messages clearly.

    ¡°Director General, I know that the rise of the ancient civilization has much to do with outside enemies. We can be united in the face of strong external enemies, but what if inside enemies exist?¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t it best that there are no external foes?¡± The director general looked wordlessly at him. ¡°Cleanse the inside if there is no one hovering on the outside. Take advantage of the respite to swiftly develop your economy,merce, culture, and conduct all manner of technological reform. And who says you have no outside enemies?¡±

    Li Hao started.

    ¡°Do you think it¡¯s a simple matter that New Martial is no more?¡± asked Director General Wang. ¡°I don¡¯t know the full story, but I do know that the truth is anything but simple. This is a hard fought period of peace and development for you, what a pity that you don¡¯t seem to cherish it!¡±

    Li Hao frowned slightly and didn¡¯t respond to that.

    ¡°Director General, the central region... which is to say, the Skystar Ind of old, seems to have a portion of sleeping ancient nt spirits or monsters. They appear to wish to enter Silver Moon. Why is that?¡±

    ¡°The hell does that have to do with you?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao blinked. What did the director general mean by that? He¡¯d always been easy to talk to, so why was he suddenly cursing?

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand?¡±ughed Director General Wang. ¡°I mean that it has nothing to do with you. Where have you gotten in the world, is it your turn to stick your nose in this? As opposed to worrying about this, you might as well worry about how to grow stronger, how to reach your goals. Those entities won¡¯t being out in the short term. They can¡¯t. If they did, there would be someone along to take care of them, so is there any meaning to worrying about this?¡±

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t help butugh.

    ¡°Of course, it¡¯s another story entirely if you quickly grow stronger,¡± smiled the director general. ¡°If youe to me then, I will tell you more. You do not need to strategize for something which you do not hold the post for. In your current state, you do not need to think about this.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao nodded, having gained something from their conversation. However, he still had some goals he¡¯d yet toplete. ¡°Director General, General Pagoda is still alive, right?¡±

    ¡°Yes, the general is asleep.¡±

    ¡°Can the general be revived?¡±

    ¡°Of course.¡±

    ¡°Will that requirerge sums of energy or life essence?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°How many cultivation energy stones?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Wang looked at him. ¡°You sound like you¡¯ve had some gains and want toplete the general¡¯s revitalization?¡±

    ¡°I do have the thought, yes.¡±

    ¡°That will be very difficult! It¡¯s impossible to fully awaken the general, you can only arouse its sentience and help it partially recover. It can take over from there. Based on the standards of your trash mysterious power stones, it will take at least ten million stones. Don¡¯t mention it if you don¡¯t, it¡¯s meaningless otherwise.¡±

    Ten million stones!

    Li Hao actually did have that sum. He had seven million stones and many more origin weapons. If the little tree could use them, then so could General Pagoda. Should he give them to the little tree or the general? That was a very important question. He also needed to consider the potential payoff, he wasn¡¯t giving them away for free! These resources were useful to him as well, he couldn¡¯t afford to simply give them to another.

    ¡°Do you know about the imperial pce, Director General Wang? The one shaped like a cat...¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± The Gold Armor jumped. ¡°The imperial pce? You¡¯ve seen one? That¡¯s impossible... there are none in Silver Moon. No, wait... there seems to be one. It¡¯s just... it¡¯s just an abandoned imperial pce! You¡¯ve... seen an imperial pce?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°There¡¯s a nt spirit there, but the old nt spirit is dead. A sapling sprouted from its roots after that. Is this kind of nt spirit good or bad?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say.¡± The director general was both surprised and not too surprised. ¡°nt spirits that can grow near an imperial pce won¡¯t be evil, but even human hearts change with the passage of time, much less that of nt spirits.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s guarded the imperial pce all this time and never left or let anyone else in. I think that it¡¯s stayed true to its duties all this time...¡±

    ¡°I suppose so.¡± The director general thought it over. ¡°Since the imperial pce has been abandoned, that nt spirit shouldn¡¯t be too strong. The stronger it is, the harder it is for one to reawaken! That it¡¯s done so now means that... its strength is mediocre.¡±

    Li Hao was surprised by the deration. What did he mean?

    ¡°Can you exin more, sir...?¡±

    ¡°The current concentration of energy in the world is very low. Under such conditions, those who awaken now will not be too strong, such as those like myself...¡±

    Li Hao coughed. What did he mean by that? Was he looking down on himself?

    Director General Wang didn¡¯t mind andughed. ¡°What? It¡¯s very normal! Remember that I¡¯m just the head of security, there are plenty stronger than me. Why am I here and the others not? Take your reserve defenders¡ªonly your divisionalmander has awakened. What of themander of the city defenders?

    ¡°General Pagoda is immensely powerful, so it has yet to awaken or even shows signs of awakening. It is stronger than me.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Very well then.

    ¡°What if... I supply ten million mysterious power stones to the general? What will happen then?¡±

    ¡°Ten million stones... will help the general awaken a little and recover some basic intelligence. It might be able toplete autonomous operations of its cultivation methods and draw energy from its surroundings. The city should also be able to reawaken some more.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±

    ¡°What else do you want?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao looked glum. Was that really it? That... would be such a waste! He hesitated before asking further, ¡°If I supply ten million stones to that little tree, will it fully awaken?¡±

    ¡°It depends on its strength. If its strength is mediocre, then it will mostly reach that condition. But if it¡¯s strong... ten million will not be enough. But as you said, it¡¯s simply sprouted from the roots of the old tree and inherited some of its dao. At most, it will be a new Apex...¡± The director general paused. ¡°That¡¯s not too strong. But if it fully awakens, it will be an invincible existence to this world in your current state of development.¡±

    ¡°Apex?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°A cultivation name from the core origin dao path. This is what humans call it, whereas monster spirits call it the True Divine realm.¡± Director General Wang looked at Li Hao. ¡°It won¡¯t have much of an issue for beating someone like you.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m an Arcanus now.¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°I¡¯m much stronger than before.¡±

    ¡°I know!¡± Director General Wang burst outughing. ¡°You¡¯re much stronger, but you¡¯re still not strong enough! Let¡¯s put it this way. When therees a day that you can tear through the void from five hundred kilometers away and instantly bridge the distance, you will have reached that level! Whether it is through aura, mind intent, or supernatural abilities, whatever it is, you will be at that level when you can aplish that.¡±

    Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath. ¡°Cross five hundred kilometers to... tear through the void?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    ¡°Was... the director general at this level back in the day?¡± The young man swallowed hard.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao¡¯s teeth ached from the implications. That strong?

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing to it,¡± Director General Wang continued chuckling. ¡°Looking at your current condition, you just need to break a few more of what you guys call your supernatural locks. Another three to five locks will help you reach that level!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s head ached as well now!

    ¡°Three to five more? I¡¯ve already broken six locks!¡±

    ¡°I know. The supernatural cultivates strength, which youck. Your body also isn¡¯t strong enough, so break a few more locks! Your cultivation method might be different when you reach that stage, but the path will be the same. The results will be the same! I¡¯ve sensed the strength of the current void and it is as before.

    ¡°After you tear through the void and sense a distance very far away, there is a certain perception. You will be able to cross through the void and instantly arrive at your destination. You will be a powerhouse then! You will count as such even in New Martial, a true entrant to the ranks of the strong!¡±

    Li Hao was at aplete loss for words. So that would mean his path had only just started at that stage?? Upon considering that the one in front of him was also part of those august personages, the young man had to marvel, ¡°So... how did the troop leaders...pare to me when they were in their peak?¡±

    ¡°They were just a hair stronger than you, not by much. They died a long time ago and do not have a physical body or blood qi anymore. In our age, the Battle Heaven Army primarily relied on blood qi and the physical body. They were just run-of-the mill then and worse off now. But there¡¯s no need to be discouraged, you¡¯ve only just started cultivating for a few days. Not to mention, most of Silver Moon¡¯s energy has been absorbed by those ancient existences...¡±

    Thoughts flitted rapidly through Li Hao¡¯s mind.

 Chapter 715: Entering Battle Heaven Once More (III)

    <h4>Chapter 715: Entering Battle Heaven Once More (III)</h4>

    ¡°Do you want to revitalize that tree?¡± Director General Wang thought of something. ¡°You can do that... take a medallion of the army with you. That tree may not know much, so make sure to warn it not to run around during this period of time! The world has not fully reawakened and the path of core origin has fallen silent. Brashly venturing out may easily result in full copse as it will not have a great dao to cleave to. Otherwise, revitalized powerhouses would¡¯ve long ventured into the world.

    ¡°And another thing, have youprehended its path of core origin?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± the director general rumbled with some dissatisfaction. ¡°You can know about it ande in contact with it, but do not study it in detail. That would not be a good development and you will easily lose yourself to be the next nt spirit...¡±

    He issued a few more warnings before concluding, ¡°Additionally, you need to learn to protect yourself in case that little tree has ulterior motives. The times have changed and both the Monster Spirit and Sea Pacification Envoys are no more. Who knows what the situation is with the monster spirits now?¡±

    Li Hao nodded and didn¡¯t ask further. Instead, he hastily asked when another thought urred to him. ¡°Ah, yes, do you happen to know the dragon transformation method, sir?¡±

    ¡°The dragon transformation method?¡±

    ¡°I know of a snake that¡¯s about to be a scaled-dragon, but it doesn''t know how to be a full dragon. It would like to evolve and take another step further.¡±

    ¡°A snake?¡± The director general rummaged through his memories. ¡°I don¡¯t know the method, but... what level is its strength at?¡±

    ¡°A little weaker than me.¡±

    ¡°Then the hell it wants to be a dragon for?!¡± Director General Wang stared. ¡°It¡¯s delusional, isn¡¯t it? What¡¯s the point of bing a dragon at that level of strength? To look prettier? Dragons and snakes are not of the same race, why must it add feet to itself? It¡¯s easy enough to ascend, just purify its bloodline.

    ¡°Eliminate the impurities, cleanse the blood. When ites to a more sophisticated level of being, the dragons are indeed stronger. It can consider the ascension then, but it won¡¯t be an easy process. There is absolutely no need at its present stage, it would just be aughingstock!¡±

    Li Hao was sheepish, was that so?

    ¡°Then, how should it purify its bloodline...¡±

    ¡°Is your Steris a pretty vase?¡± Director General Wang really didn¡¯t know what to say. ¡°Haven¡¯t you been using it all along? The sword energy inside it can purify the bloodline, it¡¯s very simple. If that wasn¡¯t the case, howe this dog¡¯s bloodline is bing ever more pure?¡±

    He pointed at Panther. ¡°Where would such fortunee from if it didn¡¯t follow you? Even if its ancestors were umon and upied a lofty status, this mixed blood descendant of untold generations... is absolutely nothing at all!¡±

    Panther wagged its tail. Indeed, sword energy could purify the bloodline. It could sense so, but it¡¯d forgotten to say so. Granted, it couldn¡¯t talk.

    Li Hao blinked. So this was the case?

    ¡°Don¡¯t ask me such idiotic questions in the future!¡± sniffed the director general. ¡°It¡¯s a waste of our time! As for the snake... do as you see fit. I can¡¯t be bothered.¡±

    Alright then! That was enough.

    Li Hao felt that he¡¯d gained quite a lot, but still hesitated before he left. ¡°If I supply ten million stones to General Pagoda, will it give me some benefits so I don¡¯t leave empty-handed?¡±

    ¡°Where are they toe from?¡±ughed the other. ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it, unless you supply one hundred million stones so it fully reawakens! The city wille back to life then and you¡¯ll be able to bathe in Water of Life. For the moment, you can only awaken a portion of its surface sentience. The effect will not be great. Do as you wish if you want to save that little tree.¡±

    <i>Very well then! </i>Li Hao was truly disappointed. He¡¯d wanted to offer some help to Battle Heaven and receive something for his efforts, but it now looked impossible. Since Director General Wang had said so, he would not continue to insist.

    Li Hao paused again before departing. ¡°Director General, I found two golden booklets that speak of the ultimate techniques of core origin. One is of offense, the other of break. Can I learn them?¡±

    ¡°If you want!¡± answered the director general. ¡°I didn¡¯t rmend you study themst time because you knew too little. It looks like you¡¯ve gained a lot more knowledge this time around, so it¡¯s up to you if you want to learn them or not.

    ¡°You can ask the Seventh Troop leader about the break incantation. He has some involvement with the Jiangs and counts as an auxiliary branch. His branch has produced five generations of descendants, so they¡¯re tangentially rted. He knows a bit.¡±

    Li Hao was startled by the connection.

    ¡°But these are all techniques of core origin, do not lose yourself in them. Comprehending their nature is the key, nothing else! These were simply techniques that some powerhouses used to hoodwink their descendants back in the day. When ites to true ultimate knowledge, it is the Battle Heaven Army¡¯s Voidbreak Incantation that is the real treasure! You are a sword cultivator, so you should trade some merits for a chance toprehend it.¡±

    ¡°But I am no longer a martial master...¡±

    ¡°Fool!¡± snapped the director general. Or perhaps he valued Li Hao more than before and was willing to exin more. ¡°What you mean by no longer being a martial master is that your aura has been sealed away and your energy is intermixed, correct? This has nothing to do with you being a martial master or using a sword.

    ¡°Remember, your ancestor melded everything together back in the day. Whatever energy, blood qi, mental spirit it was, all of it came together in his sword! Other than one¡¯s life¡ªno, life is included as well¡ª<i>everything</i> is a type of energy. Energy does not care about all this, just use it!¡±

    Li Hao looked around in a daze. ¡°But... the supernatural uses energy outside of the body. Only internal force is born of the body.

    ¡°Then figure out a way to incorporate it into your body!¡± Director General Wang answered with decreasing patience. ¡°Energy is afraid of the strong and bullies the weak. Beat it into submission if it doesn¡¯t listen to yourmands! Isn¡¯t it yours in the end once it assimtes into your flesh and blood?

    ¡°There is no good or bad to energy, it alles down to how you use it. You can decide for yourself how you wish to proceed. I am not of your time period and our physical structure may even be slightly different. Read more, learn more,prehend more. You¡¯ll figure it out sooner orter!¡±

    Li Hao abruptly felt that an entirely new world had been opened up to him! There were suddenly a lot more thoughts flooding his mind.

    ¡°Don''t just ask whatever you think of.¡± The director general was inly short on patience now. ¡°Try to learn and experiment first, <i>then</i> ask. If you ask from the beginning, what you hear is wasted on you! Only after you personally experience the subject can you ask the critical question and not one of basic knowledge.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, I understand. Thank you, sir!¡±

    ¡°Go on then!¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡±

    ¡°To the barracks!¡± sighed Director General Wang. ¡°Are you not going to let yourmander know that you¡¯ve returned? Someone without discipline or organization will be punished in the army!¡±

    <i>Yourmander hase calling many times, why do you think I kept trying to have you go?</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s head ached.<i> I¡¯m scared of that one! He¡¯ll hit me! Will I be able to match him at my current level of strength?</i>

    It was hard to say.

    Battle Heaven had awoken more than before. Perhaps the other was stronger now. In the past, he was likely on par with an unsealed martial master and less than an Arcanus. That was not necessarily the case now.

    Li Hao had gained a lot from his conversation with the director general and didn¡¯t find there much to be afraid of. But thatmander... was truly cold and aloof!

    Although his thoughts were thus, Li Hao had no choice but to proceed toward the barracks. Director General Wang suddenly smiled as he walked off.

    ¡°He really has changed quite a bit upon his return to ask me these questions. What do you think, Guardian?¡±

    ¡°We will keep observing.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm,¡± nodded the Gold Armor. The city lord manor once more sank into quiet in the absence of anything else to say.

    ......

    <i>The military barracks.</i>

    ¡°Reporting in!¡± Li Hao called out stiffly.

    ¡°Enter!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao sharply marched into the office. Themander was busy as always¡ªthere didn¡¯t seem to be an end to his duties. He was browsing documents again. Who knew what documents there were to handle after the city had fallen countless years ago?

    ¡°As a soldier, your first task of order when you return is to report to the military barracks. It is not to run around randomly, do you understand?¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao did not argue.

    ¡°Has your strength improved?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°You seem to have activated some armor?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°You must know that you cannot ept random recruits. The army is not a trash can, understood?¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The Gold Armormander looked at the young man. So he¡¯d learned his lesson, huh. Therefore, his tone softened. ¡°Is there anything you need help with?¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    ¡°Do you require your superior officer to repeat himself?¡±

    ¡°No sir!¡± Li Hao barked out. ¡°Sir, I need some more Battle Heaven armor. I can trade for it as I have two thousand sets of Voidbreakers and three hundred ck Armaturas. I would like to trade for some Battle Heaven armor!¡±

    The young man quickly took out what he¡¯d mentioned so his superior officer could take a look.

    ¡°The Voidbreakers... is the defending army of Tranquil Star. The military sent them these supplies. So it looks like you¡¯ve gone to Tranquil Star.¡± The Gold Armor paused. ¡°You can trade them in. It¡¯s only the settings that are slightly different. They just need to be modified before they be Battle Heaven armor! However, you can only activate one thousand sets of armor as a troop leader...¡±

    Li Hao deted.

    ¡°But I can give you a temporary special privilege and treat your troop as reinforcements!¡± The Gold Armor didn¡¯t say much as this was just a small matter. ¡°Is there anything else?¡±

 Chapter 716: VIP Customer (I)

    <h4>Chapter 716: VIP Customer (I)</h4>

    ¡°Yes, sir!¡± Li Hao quickly responded. ¡°Sir, my silver armor ces restrictions on me because I am a supernatural now. I am no longer a martial master!¡±

    That made sense.

    The Gold Armor thought for a bit before responding, ¡°Battle Heaven armor does not differentiate between energy or blood qi at the gold armor level. It is personal armor, but your rank is not high enough for a set.¡±

    Li Hao drooped.

    ¡°But since you are one of the eight families... How about this, we can temporarily lend you a set of gold armor. However, it wille with a condition.¡±

    ¡°Please go ahead, sir!¡±

    ¡°Since the armor of the Skystar Army can be activated, that means that their military system still exists. Investigate why they cut off the energy supply to the eight main cities back in the day,¡± themander said coldly. ¡°If they hadn¡¯t done so, the eight cities would not have stilled so quickly. One hundred thousand defending troops vanished without a trace or word. These matters may have fully disappeared, or there might still be hints to discover!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao assented loudly.

    ¡°That is all, go to Military Supplies for what you need!¡±

    Li Hao rushed off without hesitation. It was always a nerve-wracking experience to talk with this guy.

    Themander was equally resigned to see the young man speed away so quickly. He¡¯d wanted to say a few more words, but Li Hao had run away so swiftly. <i>It¡¯s not like I¡¯ll hit you!</i>

    At the very least, the young man was much more pleasing to the eyes this time. He pulled out Li Hao¡¯s file after some thought. It was covered with assessments, to which themander added, ¡°Average growth capacity. To be ced under further observation for evaluation of future effect.¡±

    ......

    Li Hao heaved a sigh of relief when he escaped themander¡¯s office. That had been such a high pressure situation! Even though he was an Arcanus, the stress had been unbearable. Thus, he¡¯d immediately acted on impulse when he was dismissed.

    Director General Wang was so much better! He answered whatever he was asked, albeit sometimes reluctantly.

    ......

    <i>Military Supplies.</i>

    The Silver Armor was once more ying dead. He showed signs of life only after Li Hao came through the door. This was an old acquaintance¡ªDeputy Commissioner Zhang Liang of Military Supplies. Apparently the oldmissioner had perished, but the deputymissioner hadn¡¯t had time to be promoted before the entire city fell silent.

    ¡°Troop Leader Li!¡±

    ¡°Commissioner Zhang!¡±

    ¡°Deputy Commissioner!¡±

    ¡°Deputy Commissioner Zhang!¡± Li Hao swiftly amended with a brilliant smile. Zhang Jiang wanted a promotion, but insisted on being addressed by his proper title. What a shame for him that the city was inert. There was no hope for him to be promoted.

    ¡°Themanders just sent word that you obtained some treasure outside?¡±

    Li Hao nodded and took out his armor.

    ¡°Voidbreaker and Skystar standard issue.¡± Zhang Liang nced casually at it. ¡°They¡¯re just basic armor. And here I thought it was something good!¡±

    These were mass produced equipment, they were indeed no treasures.

    ¡°Can they be traded for Battle Heaven armor?¡± Li Hao remained in merry spirits.

    ¡°Of course.¡± Zhang Liang put everything away with a wave of his hand. ¡°They were uniformly designed, so their structure is simr. They differ only with different branches of troops, color, and system loaded. If there really is a need, they can be reset and programmed with the same configuration to facilitate coordinated action between various armies! So you want to trade them for Battle Heaven armor?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll receive armor of the same level.¡±

    Seeing that Zhang Liang was about to head inside, Li Hao quickly added, ¡°Commissioner Zhang...¡±

    ¡°Deputy Commissioner!¡±

    ¡°Alright, alright, Deputy Commissioner Zhang, I¡¯d like to ask something. I¡¯m a Battle Heaven troop leader, so can I activate this equipment?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Zhang Liang shook his head. ¡°You¡¯re a different branch of troop and do not belong to the same army. You cannot exert your authority over other troops! Of course, this also depends on your rank. As a troop leader, you cannotmand other soldiers. But if you are amander, such as the Battle Heavenmander, you will be able to do so.

    ¡°You would be able to make adjustments and order deployments. Whether it is the Skystar Army or Voidbreak Army, those are minor armies. Battle Heaven is a major army. Theirmanders must listen to ourmanders.¡±

    <i>Hot damn! </i>Li Hao ran some quick calctions. His next title was division leader, thenmander of the reserve defenders, thenmander of the army proper. That didn¡¯t sound like a big gap! It was just three levels!

    But... what about the deputy positions? If he counted the deputy positions as well, that would be six levels. Would it be that easy?

    Of course not.

    He needed ten thousand merits for promotion to division leader and at least one hundred thousand for reservemander. Armymander would require at least one million... and merits wouldn¡¯t be the only requirement at that rank.

    He¡¯d obtained ten merits for killing one Nova¡ªwould one Arcanus bring in one hundred points? Li Hao estimated that he might be able to secure a promotion by killing ten thousand Arcanus!

    Once he was an armymander, he might be able to insert himself into the Skystar Army system and sessfully seizemand of the royal family¡¯s ck Armaturas!

    ¡°Deputy Commissioner Zhang,tely there¡¯s a bunch of guys wearing Skystar armor who want to attack me.¡± Li Hao had to be more direct since his previous line of questioning wasn¡¯t working. ¡°Can I do anything about them? They¡¯re just soldiers even if they have activated armor. Isn¡¯t there anything that can be done about them attacking a major army troop leader?¡±

    ¡°Out with it, what do you want to do to them?¡± Zhang Liang saw right through him. ¡°I already said that you¡¯re of different armies. There¡¯s naturally countermeasures built into ce for those of the same army, but different armies will have different management styles. Are you looking to restrain someone else instead?¡±

    ¡°So... there¡¯s nothing that can be done?¡±

    ¡°There is!¡± Zhang Liang¡¯s mental ripples rang clearly. ¡°I already said that you can utilize the armor system to confine them if you¡¯re an armymander. Apart from that...¡±

    ¡°Yeah?¡± Li Hao perked up. He wanted to lock down the ck Armaturas through his identity as a troop leader, but the royal family may have one too. However, surely they didn¡¯t have the same advantages as he did with the living antiques that he could converse with.

    At the same time, it wasn¡¯t impossible either.

    ¡°Our army is ranked higher than theirs, so your words will have an effect if you can get an order from the armymander or a deployment order!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Pretend I didn¡¯t say anything.</i>

    ¡°What, do you think that¡¯s hard?¡± Zhang Liang snorted. ¡°It¡¯s not hard at all! All you need to do is to produce evidence that there are rebels in the Skystar Army, that they¡¯ve attacked humans, or vited military discipline. You¡¯ll absolutely be able to obtain a military order from the division leader after that!

    ¡°Our armymander may be gone, but that doesn¡¯t mean the army¡¯s orders grind to a halt. Anything that triggers emergency actions can still lead to military orders being issued.¡±

    Li Hao blinked. So this was a possibility as well?

    ¡°The evidence that you speak of...¡±

    ¡°You can turn on the recording function of your armor when you see someone randomly killing people or viting military discipline. Record it and hand it in next time you return to Battle Heaven. So long as it is confirmed, it will be turned over to the Supervisory Office and ultimately trigger the application of an emergency pact once they are deemed rebels. You will be able to sanction them in a fair and legitimate way then!¡±

    ¡°Wait, I can do that?¡±

    ¡°Why can¡¯t you do that?¡± Zhang Liang almost rolled his eyes. Wasn¡¯t this very reasonable? Were they supposed to be nice and polite to rebels? Granted, no one had ever dared mutiny before. That was why it was an emergency, temporary pact and not part of the regr military discipline. No one thought it would ever be put into use.

    ¡°What if the other side has existences such as troop leaders or even division leaders?¡± Li Hao asked. ¡°Can he sanction me as well?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Zhang Liang replied faintly. ¡°Skystar is a minor army and their highest ranking officer is amander on par with our reservemander. They have no right or authority to sanction us. they can only make reports to a major army to take any action against you...¡±

    <i>Alright!</i> Li Hao beamed. He¡¯d had no idea of this possibility before!

    ¡°Don¡¯t think of passing judgment on anyone, there¡¯s not much meaning to it. Tell me more about the kind of general¡¯s armor you want. They were individually forged before¡ªmade to order given the specifications that you would furnish. We no longer have the ability to do so, so I can only give you a standard issue reserve set. It¡¯s our daily use general¡¯s armor.¡±

    ¡°Is there a difference?¡± Li Hao was very curious. ¡°Aren¡¯t they all just golden in color?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Zhang Liang responded after a while, ¡°Of course there is a difference. As one¡¯s personal armor, only powerhouses are equipped with the general¡¯s armor. Everyone¡¯s fighting style is different. Granted, there is no ability for such customization now, so I¡¯m just talking about the differences in the armor that we already have in stock.

    ¡°We have three kinds of regr issue in storage. The first is suited for regr martial cultivators. It is equipped with both mental and physical defensive systems, but they¡¯re all middle-of-the-road. It¡¯s suited for regr martial dao practitioners.

    ¡°The second is suited for powerhouses of the mental discipline. Their mental strength is strong and they don''t need mental defenses, so their armor focuses on physical defense. There are almost no mental defense systems in their equipment.

    ¡°The third is suited for physical body cultivators. This type of armor has almost no physical defenses. Most of its defensive systems are centered in the head to prevent most mental attacks.

    ¡°These are the three that we keep in regr stock and represent the three mainstream cultivation philosophies of my time. Their focus is in different areas, so unless one has special requests, most choose from one of the three.¡±

 Chapter 717: VIP Customer (II)

    <h4>Chapter 717: VIP Customer (II)</h4>

    Li Hao understood!

    Come to think of it, there weren¡¯t many who focused on mental strength at this stage. It was known as mind intent and the aura in the modern era, but there weren¡¯t many who concentrated on training them. Any who did so were martial masters.

    Well, that... wasn¡¯t necessarily the case either. There were also people like Ying Hongyue.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go for the regr type,¡± Li Hao said after some thought. ¡°Are their defensive capabilities strong?¡±

    ¡°Of course! It will be very strong for you, but it also depends on personal strength. The stronger you are, the more of its defensive capabilities will be activated. It¡¯s not realistic to expect yourself to be invincible simply because you¡¯re wearing armor.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    ......

    Zhang Liang said nothing further and walked back out after a few moments. He tossed a storage ring to Li Hao. ¡°There are twenty-three hundred sets of Battle Heaven Armor inside. This is a set of general¡¯s armor...¡± He brought out golden armor and looked at it admiringly. ¡°Only those ranked at generals and above are qualified to wear this. In the past... themissioner of Military Supplies was assigned one...¡±

    <i>I could have a set if I was promoted...</i>

    ¡°Since Military Supplies has extra sets and we¡¯re in special circumstances...¡± Li Hao whispered, immediately understanding the deputymissioner¡¯s meaning.

    ¡°Do you want me to lose my head?!¡± Zhang Liang jerked his head up. The boy was no good soul. Li Hao was trying to tempt him into viiny!

    Li Hao looked sheepish and continued to whisper, ¡°Ah, yes, Deputy Commissioner. Can my twenty-three hundred sets of armor be further outfitted with two sets of silver armor and twenty-three bronze armor?¡±

    ¡°No... Silver armor requiresmander-level approval and bronze armor requires clearance from the Supervisory Office. You can put forth nominations, but we lose contact with you after you depart the city and cannot assess your people. You¡¯ll have to bring them in.¡±

    Well, that was a bit of a pity. Li Hao put the notion out of his mind. He looked at the gold armor and dripped a droplet of blood onto it without being prompted. The armor vanished, reappearing over his body!

    A great deal of new knowledge shed through his mind¡ªthe basic functions of the armor. Other than the functions that the silver armor contained, there were a lot more that could be found within the gold armor.

    Its range ofmunication was erged to fifteen hundred kilometers. That was incredible as five hundred kilometers usually epassed one province. Fifteen hundred kilometers spanned an enormous amount of territory. It would not be exaggeration to say that Li Hao would be able to contact any Battle Heaven soldier within Silver Moon bounds. No matter where one stood, Silver Moonnd did not seem to stretch beyond fifteen hundred kilometers.

    The northernmost city was only one thousand kilometers away from White Moon City.

    An enhancedmunication range was only one of the benefits. There was another major difference between gold and silver armor in that gold armor could be transformed into anything. Silver armor could only remain as silver armor, but gold armor could be turned into a weapon.

    Li Hao had fun testing the functionality of his new equipment, turning it into a spat, a small knife, and then regr clothes. They all appeared remarkably lifelike and perfectly normal. He wouldn¡¯t need to wear a trench coat over his armor next time, he¡¯d just turn it into the trench coat.

    ¡°This is incredible!¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Zhang Liang seemed quite envious. ¡°They were all forged by premier craftsmen, not regr people! This isn¡¯t much either. Powerhouses above armymanders don¡¯t even use armor. They have unique weapons personally forged by emperor-level existences. If they have the background for it, they might even have the Divine Forge Emperor make one himself.¡±

    ¡°The Divine Forge Emperor?¡±

    ¡°Yes, an ultimate powerhouse who was renowned for his prowess in craftsmanship. Other than those from Tranquil Star, all were wee to go to him. The caveat was that they had a deep enough rtionship to do so.¡±

    ¡°Why was Tranquil Star the exception?¡±

    ¡°Because they shared a feud with each other.¡±

    ¡°A feud?¡±

    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t understand it if I spoke of it!¡± Zhang Liang wasn¡¯t willing to go into the specifics. That was the conflict between the big guys. There was nothing to be said about that. Besides, it¡¯d been so long that no one knew the situation now. Perhaps there was no feud anymore because... the big guys were all gone.

    He didn¡¯t pursue that line of thinking as that would only induce despair. Everyone firmly did not believe that this would be so. Such a massively powerful group of beings could not all perish like that! Perhaps they¡¯d gotten lost, or perhaps it was so fun outside that they¡¯d bepletely distracted. Perhaps time flowed differently in the depths of space...

    No matter what, no one in the Battle Heaven Army would believe that that group of people had lost the battle. They were invincible emperors! The Human and Martial King led them. No one could stop that assembly, absolutely no one!

    Li Hao regarded the other with resignation. <i>If you weren¡¯t going to tell me anything, then don¡¯t mention it at all.</i> He was in a good mood after obtaining the gold armor, so he didn¡¯t haggle with the deputymissioner.

    ¡°Ah, I¡¯ve also collected some treasures outside. Can I trade them in here?¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t ept trash!¡± Deputy Commissioner Zhang refused brusquely. ¡°This is the army, not outside! You can trade them in only if you¡¯re settling some missions. That¡¯s why you were able to trade in the armor, because they were relevant to the missions at hand...

    ¡°But if you have no use for those items, you can search for a martial university that possesses its basic functionality. You might be able to trade them in there. Martial universities recycled trash back in the day! Some students weren¡¯t strong enough, so they could only pick through garbage and trade it in for some resources...¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao nearly choked on his own spit.<i> I killed so many people, but what I¡¯ve collected is trash? You¡¯re joking!</i> But the deputymissioner had pointed out a path to him, he could trade them in at the martial universities.

    ¡°Martial universities...¡± The young man thought of the information that the Inspectorate had conveyed to him before. ¡°Were there universities on Skystar Ind?¡±

    ¡°Probably, I can¡¯t remember. It would be very normal for it to have one, they were everywhere. The university¡¯s scale and scope also remained to be seen. While there were martial universities everywhere, there weren¡¯t truly premier ones. Skystar Ind didn¡¯t seem to have one. I would definitely remember if it did.¡±

    Alright then, Li Hao was slightly disappointed. As expected, a ruin that the Lius willingly gave up was no good. He chatted a while longer with Zhang Liang, but he was the type to ignore visitors once theypleted their trade. Since Li Hao had no further merits to his name, the deputymissioner wanted to talk even less with him. Toward the end, he slumped over the table and refused to respond.

    Li Hao inwardly cursed to himself¡ª<i>just you wait until I¡¯m a real general! It¡¯ll be too hard to make it to division leader since the one of the Ninth Division is still alive. I¡¯ll just be themissioner of Military Supplies and be yourmanding officer! Just like Light Sword said, you can¡¯t be bothered with me today, and I can¡¯t be bothered with you tomorrow!</i>

    Inwardly keeping up a litany ofints, Li Hao walked out of Military Supplies. His gold armor manifested as soon as he did so, appearing particrly domineering. Some Red Armors of the Supervisory Office and other soldiers immediately halted to salute when they saw him.

    <i>Damn that feels good!</i>

    It was nice to be wearing a body of gold armor. He didn¡¯t return to themander¡¯s office to be scoffed at. Instead, he headed out of the barracks and straight for the city gates.

    .....

    ¡°Congrattions!¡± chorused the three troop leaders at the gates.

    ¡°Although it is just a reinforcement troop, it¡¯s still very rare!¡± offered the Seventh Troop leader. ¡°But... you have too few people under yourmand! You need to recruit more people, Troop Leader Li!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s Twelfth Troop only had three people in it. He hadn¡¯t officially recorded the others, so only three were on the rolls. That was indeed a dismal number.

    ¡°I¡¯ll bring my people back next time there¡¯s a chance to,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I have three thousand sets of armor now, which means I can recruit three thousand in reinforcements!¡±

    ¡°Make sure they¡¯re of high quality!¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Li Hao turned to the Seventh Troop. ¡°Troop Leader Jiang, I identally obtained a ¡®break¡¯ incantation booklet in the outside world. Director General Wang said I should ask you...¡±

    ¡°The ¡®break¡¯ incantation...¡± Jiang Shixun thought something over before saying, ¡°That requires the coordination of core origin dao. It borrows strength from apatible great dao! It was strong before because it leveraged the mighty daos of those premier powerhouses. It probably can¡¯t be used now to great effect.

    ¡°It¡¯s not hard if you want to learn it, the hard part is making it powerful. This era likely doesn¡¯t support core origin anymore, but some amodations can be made...

    ¡°You know the aura, don¡¯t you?¡± He nced at Li Hao. ¡°I see that you¡¯ve grasped some sword auras. You can use the sword aura to nurture the break incantation. Whether it is the break or sword incantation, they focus on killing and offense. It¡¯s a very good match with sword aura!

    ¡°You can also modify it appropriately. The old battle methods of our age are not a match for this era anymore. You do not need to learn in the prescribed order. In our era, even methods created by the Human King were sometimes swiftly outdated. Modifications were very normal.¡±

    He felt that Li Hao¡¯s powers of creation weren¡¯t enough. There wasn¡¯t a rule that said one must learn from the ancient books; ancient knowledge wasn¡¯t automatically powerful. No one of the New Martial era continuously propagated old technology. Instead, they constantly innovated on a base of the known.

    ¡°I can nurture it with aura?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Indeed!¡± Troop Leader Jiang replied matter-of-factly. ¡°Just give it a try. ¡°If not, nurture it with the supernatural locks. If not, use your blood qi, use flesh and blood, use mental strength... Try them all and see which leads to the best oue. If worstes to worst, you¡¯ll just die from your body exploding.

    ¡°Powerhouses exploding in the pursuit of creating new martial achievements was amon sight back in the day. There¡¯s not much of a problem if you prepare more life essence. Don¡¯t be afraid. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake. Just give it a try. If you seed and a new discipline of martial dao is taught, you¡¯ll reap in both material and spiritual rewards! Isn¡¯t that wonderful!

    ¡°Back in the day, the governor general of Southern Jiang created all sorts of martial disciplines. He named his system God yer, Immortal yer, Emperor yer, King yer... Just listen to how ludicrous those names sound! Yet, they became mainstreamter on. It¡¯s fine to be weak, just be daring enough to do what you think!¡±

    These words provoked a reaction out of the other two silent troop leaders.

    ¡°That eminent senior suffered his fair share of jeering,¡± the Ninth Troop leader said coldly. ¡°Therefore, I do not rmend choosing such... mortifying names!¡±

    ¡°That was because he wasn¡¯t strong enough at the start,¡± snorted the Seventh Troop leader. ¡°Look at the martial discipline taught by the Human King. Do you dare jeer at it?¡±

    ¡°......¡± No one responded to him.

 Chapter 718: VIP Customer (III)

    <h4>Chapter 718: VIP Customer (III)</h4>

    ¡°So the Human King also has his own martial legacy?¡± Li Hao asked with curiosity.

    ¡°Of course, who among the powerhouses doesn¡¯t?¡± responded Troop Leader Jiang. ¡°But I rmend that you... just ignore the specific terminology used. Pay attention only to the core knowledge. What you have right now is normal enough, but some disciplines... have... really embarrassing names!¡±

    ¡°What is the Human King¡¯s legacy?¡±

    ¡°Not telling you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Again??</i>

    The Seventh Troop leader rummaged through his memories to satisfy some of Li Hao¡¯s curiosity. ¡°We¡¯re not at liberty to discuss the teachings of the Human King and others, but we can talk a bit about the monster spirits. It might also have something to do with your dog...¡± He looked mischievously at Panther. ¡°What do you think about the method name ¡®Eating In All Directions¡¯?¡±

    ¡°The hell?¡±

    ¡°Hahaha, you think it sounds silly too, don¡¯t you?¡± Troop Leader Jiang roared withughter. ¡°But I tell you, this method counts in the top three of monster spirit history, even if we start counting from the beginning of time!¡±

    Off to the side, Panther blinked with faint recognition. It... seemed to have some memory of this name, it had something to do with devouring. However, all it had was faint remembrance and nothing about the actual cultivation method.

    <i>Eating In All Directions?</i>

    <i>What a good name!</i>

    ¡°Top three in monster spirit history?¡± Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath.

    ¡°Yes!¡± chuckled Troop Leader Jiang. ¡°What do you think? Some battle methods are so much stronger than you can imagine, but their names are mediocre. They sound like something you¡¯d find by the side of the road, but they¡¯re actually powerful beyond belief!¡±

    Li Hao was at a loss for words. This was gossip, wasn¡¯t it? So it seemed that even soldiers like to gossip. He understood Jiang Shixun¡¯s meaning.

    ¡°The Seventh Troop leader is correct. Experimentation and innovation is what those of us in this age allck. It¡¯s only my master who likes to study and do research.¡±

    He could somewhat sympathize with other people now. Creating new martial methods was a monotonous, ufortable, and incredibly difficult affair. Whether it was martial masters or supernaturals, they liked to follow a prescribed routine. It was best if there were ready-made methods to study.

    This agecked innovation because no one liked to engage in it!

    Or rather, no one was aware of the need to do so. It might have something to do with the environment, or it might have something to do with theck of education. There were few with such ideas around Li Hao¡ªhis teacher was one of the very few.

    Take Ying Hongyue and the rest, for example. They only knew to seize the Five Styles if possible. They didn¡¯t create anything for themselves.

    While Jiang Shixun hadn¡¯t given him any cultivation pointers, he gave Li Hao a direction. The more the young man came in contact with these people, the more he felt that New Martial was truly a great time period. Even a troop leader would tell one to modify and create their own material, not to just outright ask about everything, that one was not a child.

    They would tell you that the times were different, the human body was different, and the focus of martial learning was different. There was no need to proceed ording to the old rules, even if a battle method was created by an invincible powerhouse, the so-called Battle King.

    In Jiang Shixun¡¯s words, those methods were easily overturned. Rules and the mundane world were made to be broken.

    This was what Li Hao sensed here. To break the restraints! There was no need to think that a cultivation method was very strong. There was no strongest method, just the most appropriate method. Even if a technique was created by a grandmaster, that didn¡¯t matter either. One believed that they would create an even stronger method!

    <i>I need to shatter the god in my heart because I am the god!</i>

    Such a thought rose in Li Hao¡¯s heart as he suddenly felt that he¡¯d gained quite a lot on this trip. It wasn¡¯t the usual material gains that one might think of, but a deeper boration of martial dao understanding.

    ......

    Li Hao left with Panther after he bid farewell to the three troop leaders. He was going to depart the ancient city. When he reached the tree tunnel, he looked at the altar and walked over after some thought.

    ¡°Director General Wang says that the senior needs too much energy, that the little bit I offer now isn¡¯t very useful. But I am grateful for the senior¡¯s supportst time with the drop of Water of Life...¡±

    He brought out numerous mysterious power stones and shoved them all in. Vast quantities of stones were devoured by the tree. Ten thousand, twenty thousand... the altar showed no reaction even after five hundred thousand. Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry!

    ¡°So that Water of Life after the little I put inst time really was just fishing for more...¡± If he¡¯d been greedy on hisst trip and continued to offer more mysterious power stones, he likely wouldn¡¯t have drawn any reaction even if he exhausted everything on him. The tree really had been scamming him!

    Laughing helplessly, he put a bit more in until he only had six million stones left.

    ¡°I don¡¯t have the ability to support the senior¡¯s full revitalization, so just have a taste for now! Your awakening will not be a problem after I take down the royal family and the mines of Skystar Town. I also look forward to the day in which Battle Heaven is fully active again...¡±

    He turned and left. Some branches rustled in the dark, quite at ease.

    ......

    <i>Inside the city lord¡¯s manor.</i>

    Director General Wang watched from a high vantage point and smiled at a point outside the city. ¡°It looks like he did indeed stumble across some wealth. General Pagoda just enjoyed a full meal. Although it won¡¯t do much, it¡¯s still a gesture of the young man¡¯s good intentions.¡±

    He didn¡¯t have Li Hao leave everything behind because there was no need. Li Hao was still weak, so perhaps revitalizing the little tree now would be more helpful to him. General Pagoda was a bottomless hole. There would never be enough for the tree.

    ¡°Master Guardian, can we trust the nt spirits at the discarded imperial pce?¡±

    ¡°No matter if we can or not, they will not do anything to Li Hao at the moment,¡± the old turtle answered ponderously. ¡°Li Hao gives them enough benefits, so why not continue to rely on the young man for awakening and strengthening? Killing the young man won¡¯t result in any benefits. Compared to animal spirits, nt spirits are still a bit more reliable.¡±

    ¡°Master, you forget that you yourself...¡±

    ¡°I am a weapon!¡±

    <i>Very well then! </i>The director generalughed and looked in the direction of the barracks. There was a Gold Armor hovering over that locale.

    ¡°It looks like the Ninth Division leader also holds more expectations for thed as well.¡±

    No one was disappointed by Li Hao bing supernatural. On the contrary, they held more expectations. This was a noticeable sign of growth that they found nothing wrong with. Li Hao also seemed to have more of his own thoughts on this trip. Only someone like this was worthy of inheriting the legacies of the New Martial era.

    People died, but ideas did not. The strongest of powerhouses would only be a weapon of war and not a heavyweight if they did not have their own thoughts.

    The old turtle didn¡¯t respond; it turned the massive pagoda in another direction instead to take a look. ¡°You need to work harder,¡± it said after a while. ¡°If the unexpected didn¡¯t happen to that one back in the day, he would¡¯ve long risen to reservemander. Although his body has decayed, his mind grows ever stronger! As expected from someone who graduated from Demonic Martial!¡±

    ¡°So what about Demonic Martial?¡± sniffed Director General Wang. ¡°It was my Capital Martial that was ranked number one among all the universities back in the day!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The old turtle couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. How was this still a point of contention?

    ¡°Does the guardian not agree?¡± asked the director general when he didn¡¯t receive a response.

    ¡°It has nothing to do with me.¡± The old turtle refused to be involved. Demonic Martial had produced the Human King, Capital Martial produced His Imperial Majesty, and Southern Martial mored that they were the first beneath the world instead. What would a weapon be doing in that squabble?

    Not to mention, this was Battle Heaven. Whether it was Demonic Martial or Capital Martial, they did note first. The armymander graduated from Southern Martial! Thankfully, none of the highest characters were present at the moment, or legs would be broken upon hearing this talk of school superiority.

    The mice will y when the cat is away. It was only under these circumstances that the director general dared to voice these words.

    ......

    Li Hao walked out of Battle Heaven. Although the cliff face shimmered, the Night Watchers on duty did not sense anything. Li Hao was a troop leader and raised very little fuss when he entered. Neither did he want anyone to know that he¡¯d been present, so he swiftly vanished after leaving the ruins.

    ......

    Less than one hourter, Li Hao appeared in the mountain cave that the little tree was in.

    ¡°You¡¯re here!¡± rustled the little tree. ¡°I turned all of the mysterious power stones and origin weapons that you sent into Water of Life. There were 120 drops total, did you get them?¡±

    It was rather apprehensive as it wondered why Li Hao was here. Was the human visiting because it¡¯d given too little? But... it had to embezzle some, ahem, collect some processing fees to nurture itself, didn¡¯t it?

    It was a reasonable fee! The boy wasn¡¯t here because he felt that he¡¯d gotten the short end of the stick, was he?

    The little tree swayed with newfound nervousness because it knew now that Li Hao was a very important customer. After the human supplied so much energyst time, the little tree had thought that would be it for a few years.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that tenfold that woulde a few dayster! Should it give more to such an important customer like this one?

    ¡°I haven¡¯t yet, but that¡¯s alright.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°I¡¯m here because I want to ask how many mysterious power stones will the senior need to fully recover?¡±

    ¡°Fully recover?¡±

    ¡°Yes, tomand the strength of an Apex again, that of a true divine...¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± rusted the little tree. ¡°A lot!¡±

    ¡°One million stones?¡±

    ¡°Not enough.¡±

    ¡°Ten million?¡±

    ¡°...perhaps... just about... But there¡¯s no hurry. You can take your time collecting that sum and I¡¯ll repay you once I¡¯m recovered...¡±

    ¡°No worries!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I¡¯m also here to ask that if there is no more core origin dao in the outside world, will it still be possible for the senior to emerge?¡±

    ¡°No more?¡± hesitated the little tree.

    ¡°Most likely!¡±

    ¡°Then... unless I restrict my strength, I¡¯ll probably copse if I emerge in my prime!¡±

    As he thought!

 Chapter 719: VIP Customer (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 719: VIP Customer (IV)</h4>

    ¡°If energy awakens in the world again to a degree sufficient for a powerhouse like the senior to emerge, does that mean you will be able to walk around at will?¡±

    ¡°I can if there is sufficient energy. Even if the core origin path is no more, my strength is my own. If heaven and earth can support my existence and I will not easily break the void... then I will be able to survive!¡±

    <i>That sounds right! </i>Li Hao understood why everyone was waiting for the second awakening of the supernatural. They wanted to bring a few of the awakened powerhouses with them on their campaigns. That was impossible at the moment.

    ¡°Senior, I have a small request that I wonder if you¡¯ll be able to fulfill?¡±

    ¡°Speak of it.¡±

    ¡°I would like the senior to grow a batch of rations for me, the kind that staves off hunger for three days with one grain. The plentiful kind that fills the body with vigor...¡± Li Hao ran some quick calctions. ¡°It has to be enough for one hundred million people for one year. If they eat one grain a day, that¡¯s three hundred sixty-five grains per person. Thirty billion grains will be enough, that¡¯s not much...¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t do that!¡± refused the little tree. ¡°That requires arge amount of energy and life force. I cannot sustain this kind of expenditure in my current state.¡±

    ¡°What if I give you one hundred thousand mysterious power stones?¡±

    ¡°Not enough!¡±

    ¡°Two hundred thousand?¡±

    ¡°Far from enough!¡±

    ¡°Five hundred thousand?¡±

    ¡°Um... ah... that will barely be enough,¡± the little tree said reluctantly. Five hundred thousand stones... would do!

    ¡°So that means it¡¯s five million stones for a year¡¯s worth of grain for one billion people?¡± Li Hao smiled.

    <i>Just listen to yourself! Is that little? That¡¯s a lot! How many do you have? The one million you sent over before apparently came from you killing a lot of people outside. Do you think that¡¯s a small number??</i>

    ¡°No wonder no one went hungry in New Martial!¡± Li Hao sighed with gratification. One nt spirit could easily consume just five hundred thousand stones to grow food for one hundred million people. It would feed them for one year! And it was very possible that the little tree had given a low estimate!

    To many, trading five hundred thousand mysterious power stones in return for a year¡¯s worth of rations for one hundred million people was not a good deal. It would be an incredible loss instead. They would rather have this hundred million starve to death since the dynasty did notck for people.

    ¡°Senior, I¡¯ll give you five million mysterious power stones. Grow a batch of those rations for me, enough for one hundred million to eat for one year. Turn the rest into Water of Life for me.¡±

    ¡°That much??¡± The little tree bent with shock. This was incredulous! Who had the human robbed now?

    ¡°And here are fifty origin weapons, some earth rank. They¡¯re all very good. Please convert them all into Water of Life for me too.¡±

    The little tree had no words, finally managing to scrape together after a while, ¡°Whose... pce did you loot?¡±

    ¡°None, I got this through killing people.¡±

    ¡°......¡± What could the tree say about that? ¡°You want a lot of Water of Life... it will take me some time to produce it all. It¡¯s no trouble to me, but do you need so much?¡± This bounty could fetch at least five hundred drops.

    The little tree twitched with agitation. So much! Even if it kept seventy percent for itself... ahem, charged a fee, it would recover almost sixty percent of its strength! This transaction had to be done!

    Not only that, but it had to ensure that this very important customer would remain so indefinitely!

    ¡°I don¡¯t rmend you to trade for so much Water of Life,¡± it quickly sent out ripples. ¡°It may not be that useful for you...¡±

    ¡°No, that¡¯s precisely what I want!¡± Li Hao said solemnly. ¡°I only want Water of Life!¡±

    He was going to sell some in secret! He could charge fifty thousand stonespared to someone else¡¯s one hundred thousand. He could then trade the stones to the little tree, sell more, trade more...

    <i>Maybe eventually I¡¯ll collect the one hundred million that General Pagoda needs...</i>

    Of course, the caveat was that these factions were able to scrounge up so many stones. This transaction had to be done! It was what Li Hao was here for, what did the little tree know! He was going to charge ten thousand while others charged ten times his price!

    ¡°That works too!¡± The excited little tree didn¡¯t mind and dropped the subject since Li Hao insisted. ¡°But I need some time to absorb and convert the energy. Three days... will three days do?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Li Hao smiled and threw out various storage rings to an ovee little tree.

    ¡°When youe back in three days, I¡¯ll give you another... no, two more core origins talismans...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright, my enemies are very strong now. Core origin talismans aren¡¯t that useful.¡± Li Hao briefly revealed his presence, but the little tree already knew of his increase in strength.

    ¡°I know, but you also need to know that my strength will be different in three days!¡±

    <i>Do you understand?</i>

    <i>Oh, that¡¯s true! </i>The thought urred to Li Hao. He grinned. ¡°Then my thanks to the senior!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright, no need for thanks!¡± The little tree quickly responded with an excited shake. What a very important customer!

    <i>Please don¡¯t thank me, I should be giving you some presents. Remember toe find me next time too! I¡¯ll be fully recovered with another two visits and will no longer be constantly starving like I am now.</i>

    Li Hao was in a good mood as well. Five hundred drops of Water of Life, food for one hundred million people...

    ¡°It depends on the quality of the seeds that you give me. I only need one month if they¡¯re of high quality, but will need to modify them if they¡¯re of low quality. That will take at least three months...¡±

    <i>Oh, seeds? </i>Li Hao had almost forgotten about this detail and thought that the little tree could produce its own seeds. It looked like he¡¯d assumed too much.

    ¡°Then I¡¯lle back in three days and bring seeds to the senior.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡±

    Li Hao was ready to leave in a good mood, but doubled back to ask, ¡°Senior, General Pagoda will need one hundred million stones to barely manage to awaken. Is the general much stronger than the senior?¡±

    The little tree knew that Li Hao had visited Battle Heaven, so it didn¡¯t hide anything. ¡°Naturally!¡± came its affirmative ripples. ¡°The guardian nt spirits of the eight great cities were premier existences! Compared to them, I am an incredibly weak weed that cannot measure up to them.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook from the implications. Was the difference that great? The more hepared his new Arcanus strength to others, the less he thought of himself! He had to work harder!

    There was no time to waste. He left everything behind and quickly exited the cave. The moment he did so, the little tree shook with anticipation and furiously absorbed the mysterious power stones. It was so excited that it had no words to describe its emotions.

    ¡°This is so incredible that a random human I met would collect so many mysterious power stones in such a short period of time. He¡¯s terrifying!¡± As excited as it was, it also felt a very strong sense of danger!

    Battle Heaven seemed to want to steal its very important customer! What should it do? Give the human some more benefits? But... the little tree only had itself, it had no other treasures to offer! The sapling was momentarily lost in thought, fretting over how to ensure that its rtionship with the young man remained top priority.

    <i>Do I... have to sell my body?</i>

    ......

    Li Hao grinned happily upon leaving the imperial pce. The little tree seemed a bit naive. Though it¡¯d inherited the old tree¡¯s memories, it was a pure, nk tepared to the ckened hearts of antiques from the past. He could tell from its tone that it¡¯d kept a lot of the stones for itself, but that didn¡¯t matter.

    The royal family might inting prices somewhat to price one drop of Water of life at one hundred thousand stones, but if others were able to directly transact with nt spirits for the resource, the price was bound to be at least thirty thousand stones.

    Maybe the nt spirit that the royal family dealt with was more powerful and wanted to fully awaken. If Li Hao wanted to trade with General Pagoda, perhaps that nt spirit might feel that it was operating at a loss even if each drop was priced at one million stones. It¡¯d yet to reawaken, so each drop it released was from its stores.

    That was how all powerful nt spirits were, but the little tree wasn¡¯t an ancient nt spirit in the true definition of the category. Thus, it needed less energy to revive and therefore posed a lower price to Li Hao.

    The little tree felt that it earned a lot at seventy percent, whereas other nt spirits would find that too little as it wasn¡¯t enough to support its full restoration.

    Li Hao quickly calcted his gains from the trip. Was it worthwhile to trade mysterious power stones for Water of Life?

    It was!

    He didn¡¯t have much use for stones and kept one million for Steris to convert to sword energy. That was sufficient for the sword to consume for a long time. It would require higher level treasure for it to unseal next¡ªmore high level mysterious power stones with denser energy, more powerful weapons, and others. Turning the motley array of items in his possession into treasure he could use was the wisest decision.

    ......

    Li Haonded outside White Moon City after roughly an hour. It seemed only yesterday when he first came to the city. It was his first time away from home then and he¡¯d been slightly timid. But now, he found it so close to home and it was now also his home. Silver City was his only home in name, but in the central region, all of Silver Moon was home.

    The gold armor turned into a trench coat when hended. The bitter winter gale howled through thend. Liu Long had also worn a trench coat when Li Hao first met him, but that had been in the peak of summer.

    Half a year had passed in the blink of an eye¡ªor less than half a year, rather. The ces and items were the same, but the people werepletely different. One trip to the east and central region had brought too many reflections to Li Hao.

 Chapter 720: Fool (I)

    <h4>Chapter 720: Fool (I)</h4>

    White Moon City was as bustling as ever. Although it was cold and bitter, living didn¡¯t seem so hard in Silver Moon. True, there wereints and grumbles to be heard on the streets. When the Li Hao of old heard those voices, his first thought was that the officials of Silver Moon were full of shit! How could they operate the province to such dismal straits!

    But now that he took another look, while the people weren¡¯t dressed in pretty clothes, everyone had thick garments to wear. Their faces were flushed with decent health, which indicated that food was eptable and they could at least eat their fill.

    Inparison, the central region may shine with a morous veneer, but there was much that one could learn about their true situation. Their appeal was built on the back of shadows. It was abnormal that no beggars could be seen in their cities. While some could be seen in Silver Moon, that was the normal urrence.

    Silver Moon denizens didn¡¯t particrly react to the Inspectorate conducting patrols on the streets. Wasn¡¯t it normal for inspectors to be carrying out their duties? Whether it was Silver City or Silver Moon, the Inspectorate conducted their normal routine. Li Hao had once participated in run-of-the-mill cases such as apprehending thieves. He¡¯d never thought much of them before, but now he felt that Kong Jie performed well enough in his position.

    He wasn¡¯t in a hurry to head to the Night Watchers or the Silver Moon Guard barracks. After some thought, he headed to the military base. Huang Yu hade to help himst time¡ªhe¡¯d never had much to do with themander before that.

    That was one reason for his agenda. The other was that his senior sister and her husband were in the army. Li Hao contemted the rtionship between Hu Dingfang and the Bais. That family had an unclear connection with the royal family. Was this senior brother-inw of his a secret royal agent?

    Chen Yuhua knew the Breathing Method of the Five Styles¡ªmany wanted it. There were many who wanted to seize even the first version of the method. Did Hu Dingfang¡¯s promotion have anything to do with the breathing method?

    His teacher had never mentioned it and Li Hao wouldn¡¯t have cared before. Now that he¡¯d witnessed the greed from the three great organizations, seven divine mountains, and even the City of Supernaturals, he was of the mind to look around, ask, and investigate.

    ......

    <i>The army headquarters in the western quadrant of the city.</i>

    The western outskirts were where the army was encamped. Silver Moon only had three hundred thousand in its army. It wasn¡¯t muchpared to the province¡¯s one hundred million in poption. This level of troops was very low.

    These numbers had been maintained for many years. Ever since Great Li vanished from the north, Silver Moon spent many years whittling down its army and not adding to it. This amount of troops didn¡¯t pose too much of a burden on Silver Moon finances.

    There were one hundred thousand people each in the Silver Moon, White Dragon, and Tiger Wings divisions. Huang Yu was the centralmander and in charge of the Silver Moon division. Hu Dingfangmanded the Tiger Wings and Ren Tianchuan was in charge of the White Dragons. Wang Ming¡¯s grandfather was the vicemander of that division.

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t familiar with the White Dragonmander, but he¡¯d been in contact with the man when excavating Battle Heaven. This was a man of few words. The young man was curious what the armies of this age looked like. He¡¯d seen some¡ªthey were all trash, corrupted, and didn¡¯t have any morale to speak of.

    He approached the western outskirts, catching shouts that drifted toward him upon the air. The troops were still training in the bleak of winter.

    In this age of the supernatural rise, ordinary people didn¡¯t have much guarantee of safety. Not even soldiers could do anything, so most armies had ckened their training requirements. The three divisions of Silver Moon, however, stuck to their schedules.

    Li Hao was like an invisible person as he passed throughyers of defenses and entered the practice grounds. The three divisions were in the middle of training!

    There were supernaturals among them, but very few. A martial master led the soldiers through the training routine. Hot air wafted from the tops of their heads as they panted for breath. One man held sway in the center of the practice grounds. Although he was elderly, he moved with the vigor of a tiger in its prime.

    <i>Huang Yu!</i>

    Li Hao was surprised. Huang Yu was running through a boxing routine!

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    His shout was echoed by the practicing soldiers, as were his movements. He flourished a spear and struck! This was once more aped by the soldiers around him. In a period of time that abounded with hot weapons in military hands, Huang Yu was leading his people through basic hand and fist coordination!

    Off in the distance, the man seemed to sense something and tilted his head in Li Hao¡¯s direction. He ignored his senses and continued practicing. ¡°Hup!¡±

    ¡°Kill!¡± A dense killing intent rose. It was like this troop had the experience of war. It was an awe-inspiring disy of might as there were one thousand people to a team. A martial master led each team and ran through practice routines.

    Shortly thereafter, Huang Yu tossed his spear to an officer. ¡°The practices continue!¡± He vanished on the spot, leaving his men to it. Some officers looked in his direction. Commander Yu was steadfast and unwavering, he trained with the troops almost everyday unless other duties called. Why had he left halfway today?

    Some suddenly realized that a person had appeared in the distance, one that didn¡¯t exist before. Shocked, they couldn¡¯t determine who it was that¡¯d snuck into their camp. However, they were much more at ease upon seeing themander head over.

    ......

    ¡°What are you doing here?¡± Huang Yu frowned. ¡°It¡¯s not a good thing to infiltrate the military barracks. ording to thew, execution is listed as the punishment for prying into military secrets! Of course, it won¡¯t be that easy to execute you since you¡¯re so strong, so I will make an exception this time. This is not to be repeated!¡±

    ¡°I just wanted to take a look at the provincial army.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Now that I have, I see that they are well deserving of their reputation. Discipline remains strict and has not fallen to the wayside.¡±

    ¡°Of course.¡± Huang Yu proceeded to the rear of the camp with aposed expression. ¡°Let¡¯s not talk here.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Li Hao responded subconsciously and followed the man forward. Huang Yu looked at him without saying a word.

    As the two walked to the rear, themander exined softly, ¡°Silver Moon¡¯s army has always been filled with ferocious troops! There aren¡¯t many of us, but the entire world knows of the northern barbarians. It¡¯s just that the uses of an army have greatly declined after the rise of the supernatural, but that is of no matter.

    ¡°Powerhouses can be left to powerhouses. A well-disciplined, strong army is useful any time. Whether it is calming people¡¯s hearts or pacifying minor turmoil, there is no problem with any of that.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Heavyweights were very useful at times, but that didn¡¯t mean that armies were useless. Not to mention, this army seemed different from the rest.

    ¡°Commander Yu, are the soldiers all martial masters?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Huang Yu shook his head. ¡°While the supernatural has risen in prominence and the number of martial masters increased, it¡¯s not possible for every soldier to be one. They¡¯ve just learned some elementary secret arts and enhanced their blood qi. They¡¯ve also absorbed small amounts of mysterious power and mysterious power stones, making them much stronger than mundanes but far less than supernaturals or yers of Tens...

    ¡°Of course, a dozen or so of them can still fight a Starlight or yer. A yer is only capable of killing ten ordinary soldiers. Those of Silver Moon are fearless, so a yer likely won¡¯t be able to kill ten of us.¡± He spoke with some pride.

    ¡°Then why doesn¡¯t Commander Yu train more martial masters? Why focus on ensuring equitable strength across the soldiers? Concentrating your resources might produce more powerhouses...¡± His cultivation resources were too spread out!

    ¡°No no no, you¡¯re wrong. An army is one whole, there is not much use in concentrating resources to produce a few powerhouses. In fact, it will disrupt troop deployment instead and throw coordination into chaos.

    ¡°There are powerhouses in the army, but they are individually managed. For example, if you are a yer of Tens, then you would be in a team of yers. They cannot be intermixed. That would be too chaotic, which will also affect coordination.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, that made sense. The two entered a small building as they talked. The soldiers inside swiftly saluted when they saw Huang Yu. ¡°Commander Yu!¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Huang Yu inclined his head. These people were surprised to see Li Hao. Some didn¡¯t recognize him, whereas some of the higher ranking officers did. They were further confused and astonished.

    <i>Li Hao!</i>

    The young man was known throughout the world; the higher levels knew of him and had seen his picture before. What was he doing back from Skystar City?

    The two entered Huang Yu¡¯s office, themander indicated for Li Hao to take a seat. It was a spacious room without much in it. It was empty apart from a small bookcase and desk.

    ¡°When did you get back?¡±

    ¡°Last night.¡±

    ¡°I see.¡± Huang Yu didn¡¯t say or ask anything else. The atmosphere turned awkward as the silence dragged on. Li Hao had to start the conversation himself.

    ¡°Commander Yu, this is the camp of the Silver Moon division. Are the White Dragons and Tiger Wings not here?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re nearby.¡±

    ¡°I have a question that I wanted to ask themander. Were you the one who approved of Hu Dingfang bing themander of the Tiger Wings?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Then he and the Bais and royal family...¡±

    ¡°Are you asking if he traded the Breathing Method of the Five Styles for his position?¡± Huang Yu looked at the young man.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao was forthright. ¡°Teacher didn¡¯t say anything when my senior sister taught him the breathing method. He never mentions it. But now that the three great organizations are all looking for it, I¡¯d like to understand the situation.¡±

    ¡°If this is indeed so, are you going to clean house?¡± Huang Yu asked faintly. ¡°He is themander of the Tiger Wings. Attacking him means attacking me, to say nothing of anything else. Will you persist in your course of action?¡±

    Li Hao frowned and looked at themander.

 Chapter 721: Fool (II)

    <h4>Chapter 721: Fool (II)</h4>

    ¡°What, are you hesitating?¡± Huang Yu suddenly smiled.

    ¡°There are no words to describe the depths of my gratitude for themander¡¯s previous help in Skystar City.¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°But if Hu Dingfang¡¯s position really came as the result of trading the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, then that means themander also knows the breathing method. But if themander is putting in a showing... I will let the matter go.

    ¡°However, this also means that the favor rendered by your earlier assistance is no more. On the other hand, both my master and I will also no longer pursue the issue of the breathing method.¡±

    ¡°Can you represent Yuan Shuo?¡±

    ¡°I think... I can!¡± Li Hao looked at the man. Huang Yu smiled slightly stiffly in return.

    ¡°It¡¯s not because of the breathing method,¡± he said after a moment. ¡°Hu Dingfang wouldn¡¯t dare teach it to others either. Your master still walks this world, after all! Yuan Shuo did factor into Hu Dingfang¡¯s promotion as your senior sister leveraged his reputation when she came to me. However, Hu Dingfang is also worthy enough of his appointment.

    ¡°As for the Bais, they are no major matter for you at the moment. They¡¯re just the eyes and ears that the royal family have installed in various locales. These kinds of people are everywhere, but the Bais have been slowly distancing themselves from the royal family.¡± Huang Yu looked at Li Hao. ¡°With me present in the military, there will be no major problems. What you worry of will note to pass!¡±

    Silver Moon was stronger than the young man imagined; Li Hao needed to have more confidence in his home.

    ¡°There is no need to view Hu Dingfang with enmity.¡± Huang Yu didn¡¯t care about all of this. ¡°So many years have passed and the breathing method has been modified many times over. Let the matter go.¡±

    ¡°So long as he doesn¡¯t teach anyone else.¡± Li Hao nodded after some thought. ¡°I naturally will not do anything so long as my master doesn¡¯t say anything. But the rules of the martial world still exist. I will intervene if he passes on the knowledge!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re such a stubborn kid!¡± Huang Yuughed, but didn¡¯t say anything further. Such was Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. The core of a secret art was not permitted to be freely disseminated. Themander changed the topic. ¡°What do you think of Silver Moon¡¯s army?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s very strong... but not enough!¡± dered Li Hao. ¡°You have three thousand strong, but there¡¯s several million supernaturals in the central region. As strong as the Silver Moon army might be, it will take ten people per supernatural. All the central region needs to do is to send thirty thousand supernaturals to ovee Silver Moon. Of course, this is just in terms of cold weapons. Adding in hot weapons might lead to a bit more of an effect.¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Huang Yu nodded and considered the matter. ¡°So we need to strengthen the provincial army as a whole. Do you have any ideas?¡±

    What did he mean by that?

    ¡°What do you mean, Commander Yu?¡± Li Hao asked without a flicker of change in expression.

    ¡°It¡¯s good to strengthen via mysterious power, but you also know how violent that energy is. The user easily ends up exploding!¡±

    The young man understood! <i>Sword energy! </i>Li Hao looked at the other with a brewing headache. Huang Yu wanted him to supply the entire provincial army with sword energy?!

    <i>Oh... my... </i>how much would that deplete of his resources?<i> These are all martial masters, can you afford to cultivate them all?</i> Martial masters had a much greater appetite than others, to say nothing of anything else.

    ¡°Also, I hear that the Demon Hunters are proficient in a small-scale military formation...¡±

    ¡°Commander Yu... is seriously asking for a lot!¡± Li Hao ground out through grit teeth. He was just here for a look, but the man flung out these kinds of requests. Sword energy wasn¡¯t the only thing he wanted, he even wanted the military formation!

    ¡°I¡¯m just saying,¡±ughed Huang Yu. ¡°It doesn¡¯t have to be that way. But what if we really do do it that way? Think about it. I can give you the position of vicemander! Those of Silver Moon must help those of Silver Moon!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll think about it!¡±

    ¡°You have the support of the Battle Heaven Army and one of their positions, but you don¡¯t have enough people. There won¡¯t be enough people for your use even if you recruit all of the Silver Moon Guards!

    ¡°As opposed to recruiting people you don¡¯t know, why don¡¯t you choose from my people here? They may not be strong, but they¡¯re soldiers as well. Our discipline is strict and orders are followed. If you can be themander-in-chief of Battle Heaven¡¯s armies, you¡¯ll have countless powerhouses under your banner! Onemand will mobilize an army of millions and trample over Novas and Arcanus!

    ¡°Three hundred thousand from Silver Moon¡¯s provincial army is a very good seed!¡± Huang Yu looked at the young man. ¡°What do you think?¡±

    Li Hao looked silently at him. The other seemed to understand a lot.

    ¡°You¡¯re not the only one who¡¯s a troop leader,¡± Huang Yu continued softly. ¡°There are more in Silver Moon! But it¡¯s very hard to be a division leader. Only division leaders canmand ten thousand ancient soldiers! It¡¯s even harder to be a reservemander. But if someone can do so, they¡¯ll be able to mobilize one hundred thousand soldiers!

    ¡°Why do you think that there are only three hundred soldiers in Silver Moon, and not one million or three million?¡±

    Li Hao seemed to understand and raised an eyebrow. ¡°Commander Yu means to say... that these soldiers can don ancient armor at any time?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s too few of them!¡± Huang Yu did not deny the conjecture. ¡°We only have three thousand sets of armor at the moment!¡±

    That was three full troops!

    ¡°The Battle Heaven Army?¡± A light shed through Li Hao¡¯s eyes.

    ¡°No!¡± Huang Yu shook his head. ¡°The city of Battle Heaven has awoken to a higher degree and it¡¯s different from the other cities. It has powerhouses in residence, so it¡¯s very hard to obtain its approval. You were a product of fortune. Hou Xiaochen¡¯s gone inside so many times, but still has nothing to show for his efforts.

    ¡°There are other cities apart from the eight major cities. Some of the smaller ones give out positions more readily... But sadly, a portion of the smaller cities has been destroyed. In all our years of exploration, we¡¯ve only managed to have three of us be made troop leaders.¡±

    Li Hao was surprised, then quickly realized, ¡°Commander Yu is one of them?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Huang Yun nodded. ¡°And now you are as well, so Silver Moon has four thousand armored soldiers that can be mobilized. But that is far from enough. It¡¯s too difficult to be a division leader.¡±

    ¡°What about the royal family?¡± asked Li Hao. ¡°The royal family has many ck Armaturas...¡±

    ¡°They only have troop leaders as well, just more of them. They proceed to nibble their way to the top bit by bit instead of having one of them directly be a division leader. In the ancient civilization, their assessment of division leaders was exceedingly rigorous. Strength and military merits were both required!¡±

    Li Hao understood. Division leader was a truly premier powerhouse. ording to Director General Wang, they could tear through the void and travel five hundred kilometers in the span of one breath. Even if the position requirement was lowered, there was likely no one who could meet it at the moment.

    So it looked like the royal family had indeed obtained the Skystar Army¡¯s approval, but just in terms of multiple troop leaders, not division leader.

    ¡°If that difficulty level is so hard, you might as well focus on training a batch of powerhouses yourself,¡± Li Hao remarked. ¡°That might be easier.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not the same.¡± Huang Yu shook his head. ¡°You can¡¯t see anything now because there are too few of us. Once we reach a critical mass and the ancient armor can be interconnected, you¡¯ll see then how strong the ancient armies were!

    ¡°Silver Moon yearns for someone to reach the rank of division leader, even reservemander. If we can outfit the entire provincial army, we won¡¯t have to fear anyone then!¡± Huang Yu was justmenting casually, he was well aware of the difficulties. What he had in his sights was Li Hao¡¯s troop leader authorization. Since thed was¡¯t making use of it, he might as well lend it to the Silver Moon army.

    ¡°I¡¯ll think about it!¡± Li Haoughed without refusing or agreeing. His troop was a reinforcement troop now and thus, different. He could y around with twenty-three hundred sets of armor and another five hundred at the Silver Moon Guards. That made for almost three thousand.

    But the provincial army did indeed have good foundations, and they were all soldiers. Their battle sense, coordination, and discipline were much stronger than those wandering martial masters. The Silver Moon Guards might not even measure up to the local army in terms of discipline.

    <i>This isn¡¯t a wasted trip. Silver Moon¡¯s army seems not bad!</i>

    ¡°If Commander Yu is interested, you can choose a troop of one thousand from Silver Moon,¡± said the young man. ¡°They need to be elites as they¡¯ll be sent to Skystar City. I want to establish a martial academy there, in name only, of course. But I¡¯ll still need some support from the province, it¡¯s not like I can just have an empty school. That would be meaningless and an embarrassment.¡±

    A thousand people would create some momentum for him.

    ¡°A martial academy?¡± Huang Yu raised his eyebrows. ¡°Are you looking to imitate the martial universities of old?¡±

    ¡°Pretty much.¡±

    Not really. He was just going to sell dog meat under a banner ofmb meat. It would dispel some people¡¯s worries if Silver Moon sent over one thousand people. They would think that the school was a Silver Moon yground.

    ¡°One thousand...¡± Huang Yu asked, ¡°Do you want them as bodyguards or something else?¡±

    ¡°Not bodyguards!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°If possible, I want to incorporate them into the Battle Heaven system.¡±

    ¡°You...¡± Themander furrowed his brows. ¡°You only have authorization for one thousand, and it already sounds like you want to bring Silver Moon Guards under yourmand...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right. I¡¯m going tomandeer the Silver Moon Guards and then another one thousand!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Huang Yu looked at him, astonished. ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°My troop is a reinforcement troop! I have a slightlyrger quota...¡±

    Huang Yu¡¯s mouth dropped and he stared for a moment before cursing, ¡°So there¡¯s nepotism in the ancient civilization as well?¡±

    <i>The hell? Reinforcement troop?? I¡¯ve never heard of that before!</i>

    ¡°Then armor...¡±

    ¡°I have them!¡± Li Hao smiled at him. ¡°Does Commander Yu have armor from other armies?¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Such as ck Armaturas or the Voidbreakers. I can trade them in at Battle Heaven and recruit more for my troop.¡±

    Huang Yu waspletely befuddled. ¡°How... many soldiers can you have?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t ask and they didn¡¯t say!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°The leading officer at Battle Heaven only said that I can recruit some people. He didn¡¯t say how many.¡±

 Chapter 722: Fool (III)

    <h4>Chapter 722: Fool (III)</h4>

    How was this even possible? Huang Yu was well and truly bamboozled. He was seized by an urge to curse loudly! So the soldiers of the ancient civilization were this ck-hearted? This was clear nepotism!

    If the rest of them wanted to be a troop leader, they had to undertake all sorts of missions and wish for plenty of luck. It was very hard to be a troop leader.

    But Li Hao?

    He¡¯d gotten the title as soon as he entered Battle Heaven. And now hemanded a reinforcement troop. What was this nonsense? Huang Yu was very jealous! So what of the eight families?!

    As irritated as he was, he didn¡¯t voice it. Instead, his thoughts ran rapidly¡ªso this meant that Silver Moon¡¯s army could be further outfitted!

    ¡°Will do.¡± He nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll send over my best and brightest. One thousand, was it? What specific requirements do you have?¡±

    ¡°They need to know how to read and be healthy. It doesn¡¯t matter if they¡¯re martial masters or not. Also, don¡¯t send me troublemakers, they need to take orders! And they need to be smart, I don¡¯t want dumb people...¡±

    Huang Yuughed and immediately nodded again. ¡°I can do that!¡± This was a good development. ¡°Why don¡¯t you take a nominal position in the provincial army...¡±

    ¡°Forget it!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°It won¡¯te with a sry. I¡¯m already the acting head of the Silver Moon Guards, a deputy director at the central Night Watchers, a vice minister at the Ministry of the Inspectorate, a deputy director at the Silver Moon Night Watchers, the Skystar Governor General, Skystar Marquis, and Skystar vicemander. But none of that¡¯s paying me a sry!¡±

    The greater the title, the lower the sry. Everyone thought that another department was paying him, so no one paid him. It was also a highly confusing mess! He was involved in so many institutions, but no one seemed ready to send him any pay. It¡¯d gotten to the point where he was famous, but didn¡¯t have anything to show for his fame. The hell were any of these titles good for?!

    Huang Yu burst outughing. The kid was concerned about sry at a time like this? He was... certainly unique!

    ¡°That works too... when do you go back to Skystar City?¡±

    ¡°As soon as I¡¯m done here.¡±

    ¡°Then very well, I¡¯ll make the arrangements now and have them be on their way. They should arrive in about a week.¡± Themander paused. ¡°You can trade for more armor?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°I had no idea this was possible,¡± Huang Yu hesitated. ¡°How about... ck Armaturas?¡±

    ¡°The ancient Skystar army? That works too!¡±

    ¡°When Silver Moon warred with the Skystar Dynasty, we killed many ck Armaturas,¡± Huang Yu lowered his voice. ¡°That was a very long time ago and we sealed away some of the armor that we collected. We¡¯ve been unable to use it, so it¡¯s not with me. I¡¯ll look around for you.

    ¡°The royal family sent in more than one hundred thousand ck Armaturas and the old guard of martial masters killed several thousand. There has to be at least one thousand sets of armor...¡±

    ¡°When was this?¡± Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath.

    ¡°Two hundred years ago!¡± Huang Yuughed. ¡°Some Silver Moon martial masters might have the armor in their private collections. If your teacher and the others have an unbroken legacy, then they might have some! The dynasty was built two hundred years ago and Silver Moon was thest one to surrender. We fought the ck Armaturas for many months and suffered countless casualties, but also collected many sets of armor.

    ¡°When the dynastyter wanted to recollect the armor, we reported that martial masters had taken it all. Hence, Silver Moon martial masters and the dynasty have been at odds with each other for a very long time. They¡¯ve continuously wished to reim their property, but they never seeded.¡±

    Li Hao grinned. So martial masters had killed many ck Armaturas two hundred years ago!

    Huang Yu ended his recounting and started thinking elsewhere. ¡°Will armor from any troop designation do?¡±

    ¡°Yep, any!¡±

    ¡°Then give me a few days!¡± Huang Yu grew excited. ¡°I need to collect them. Right, did Battle Heaven say anything about you bing a supernatural?¡±

    ¡°They did.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Work hard!¡±

    ¡°......¡± That was it? Huang Yu was baffled. That was it? Nothing else?

    It was extremely odd as Silver Moon focused on martial masters. Martial masters held down in the fort in each of the cities and supernaturals were just supplemental force. Hadn¡¯t any of those martial masters said anything?

    One had to know that it wasn¡¯t empty spection. The ancient cities of Silver Moon all despised the supernatural. Take Battle Heaven, for example. Supernaturals instantly came under attack when they entered!

    It wasn¡¯t just one ce like this, but almost all ces. That was why everyone thought that the ancient civilization hated the supernatural! Was Li Hao an exception because of the eight families?

    Though questions swirled in Huang Yu¡¯s heart, he didn¡¯t ask them. Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything else either. He was ready to visit the province¡¯s administration after this. Ole Hou had something to give to the director general.

    ......

    After bidding farewell to Huang Yu, Li Hao swiftly traveled to the administrative government building. He saw Director General Zhao and Deputy Zhou half an hourter. The director general looked at Li Hao. There were only the three of them in the small office. What an oddity it was that Deputy Zhou shared an office with his superior!

    ¡°Director General Zhao, Director Hou wanted me to give this to you!¡± Li Hao took out a storage ring; he hadn¡¯t looked into its contents.

    The director general assessed it briefly and inclined his head, smiling at the young man. ¡°You¡¯re much more mature than before. Hou Xiaochen left some ck ink in here that would¡¯ve been spat at your face if anyone else other than me took a peek. It looks like you really didn¡¯t look into the ring.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was at quite a loss for words! <i>How much time does Ole Hou have on his hands?? ck ink? Do I look like someone like that? I have money and resources. I wouldn¡¯t be interested in a mountain of gold or silver even if you put it in my hands!</i>

    The director generalughed and changed the topic. ¡°You did well in Skystar City. It¡¯s good to take them down a few notches. We¡¯re old and we¡¯recking some impulse and hot bloodedness. But in this era, or any era really, impulsiveness can be found in any of the youth!

    ¡°Youngsters are marked by cockiness!¡± He rather approved of Li Hao¡¯s actions since when should one act with wild abandon, if not when they were young?

    "Thank you for your understanding, director general!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s nothing, and this was just a minor affair.¡± Director General Zhao was nomittal. ¡°So I know about your goals for this trip. Hou Xiaochen mentioned that you wish to find your footing in Skystar City. That is up to you. Silver Moon cannot offer you much support, but one thing we can promise, and it is that an Arcanus wille to support you the next time there is a major battle! It won¡¯t just be Huang Yu, but the caveat is that you need to give us enough time beforehand!¡±

    ¡°How many Arcanus do Silver Moon have?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°Not that many,¡± the director general snorted withughter. ¡°Do you think they¡¯re found by the side of the road? Not to mention, Silver Moon doesn¡¯t have many supernaturals. The Arcanus I speak of are Arcanus-esque. They may not be actual Arcanus!

    ¡°I can also give you a list of friends in Skystar City. You can go to them if you have need. They may not be able to help you that much, but they¡¯ll more or less be of some effect. I also hope you don¡¯t need up killing them in a random killing spree...¡±

    <i>Secret agents?</i>

    Li Hao understood. ¡°I don¡¯t randomly kill people, I only kill bad people!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s all the same,¡± chuckled Director General Zhao. ¡°There is no difference between good or bad in this age. It¡¯s just as well if the entire team is full of viins. Also, remember that if there is a second awakening of the supernatural... you must hurry back to Silver Moon as soon as possible. You are dead without a doubt otherwise! Skystar City is safe enough now, but tremendous changes will ur as soon as the supernatural revitalizes again!¡±

    ¡°I understand, thank you director general!¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°You¡¯re wee!¡± Director General Zhao concluded his brief mention of a few points.

    ¡°I do need a few things,¡± Li Hao quickly added. ¡°Arge amount of seeds and preparations for epting refugees. I n on opening the waterway over the sea or breaking through the Near River blockade. It¡¯s almost officially winter and there are too many refugees from the unrest in the north...¡±

    Director General Zhao¡¯s expression shifted and he frowned slightly. Deputy Zhou also jerked his head up at Li Hao. The two old men looked at each other with the beginning of a splitting headache. This was no small matter! It would plunge Silver Moon into disaster!

    ¡°There is no need to force the passageway open,¡± responded the director general. ¡°If you tell Near River that we are willing to ept refugees... They will immediately deliver the people to us, whether you offer to house one million or three million people! There are so many refugees that they will instantly drag us down, do you understand?¡±

    ¡°I can supply food.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°But I need time. I can feed thirty to fifty million, much less three to five. One good thing about more refugees is that they can work in our infrastructure, like building a transportation system that crosses Silver Moon. This has been the case since the ancient times. If they have enough food and clothes, their needs won¡¯t be too much in the short run!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll find that there is no food to be purchased now, no matter how much money you have!¡± Director General Zhao exhaled heavily.

    ¡°That¡¯s fine, I¡¯m having a nt spirit cultivate it...¡±

    ¡°Where does such an idiotic nt spirit exist?¡± blinked the director general. ¡°How is that possible? They¡¯re having trouble recovering their strength. Creating food like that will expend too much energy. None of them will offer that service unless they¡¯re an idiot!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao paused, stunned. Was cultivating those seeds... the mark of an idiot? So the little tree was an idiot?

    Director General Zhao was heavily surprised, as was Deputy Zhou¡¯s eyes wide open. <i>Did you meet an idiot nt spirit somewhere? Which one of them would do something like that these days?? Why do you think none of the major factions do so? The key thing is, no nt spirit is willing to offer a service like that!</i>

    <i>It¡¯s more of a loss than a gain and a waste of energy. With this amount of time and energy, they¡¯d rather improve themselves!</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped and heughed drily after a while. So the little tree was an idiot! It hadn¡¯t had any opinions otherwise!

    Meanwhile, the two old men were rapidly wondering about the existence of this foolish nt spirit. <i>Hot damn, we should¡¯ve gone digging around for one like that! Where did the boy find his? </i>The two were suddenly gripped by an impulsive fit. <i>How about we dig around too? Maybe we can find some more silly nt spirits!</i>

 Chapter 723: Stealing Away Talent (I)

    <h4>Chapter 723: Stealing Away Talent (I)</h4>

    The two old men were rather surprised by the kind of nt spirit that Li Hao knew. It was general knowledge that nt spirits were greedy existences. Well, they couldn¡¯t bebeled as greedy as this was just their nature. No matter how many mysterious power stones one gave them, the nt spirits would suck them all dry.

    Many nt spirits were hanging on to life by a thread after so many years. That they survived at all was due to the longevity of their being. They would scramble to absorb even a hint of energy that appeared around them. Spitting out one droplet of Water of Life in return was to the seeker¡¯s good luck. Otherwise, if one met a spirit like General Pagoda, what could be done if the spirit absorbed one million stones and didn¡¯t offer anything aspensation?

    The two old men were hesitant about Li Hao¡¯s proposal to ept refugees. This would be a difficult matter. It wasn¡¯t just an issue of rations, but that a sudden influx of refugees would pose too many problems. Silver Mooncked in all areas of infrastructure. Everything about these people¡¯s day-to-day would have to be taken into ount. It wasn¡¯t as simple as Li Hao worded it, that they could simply just put everyone to work.

    A matter like this wasplicated beyond imagine.

    ¡°It¡¯s a good deed for you to want to ept a portion of refugees...¡± Director General Zhao was silent for a long moment. ¡°But you must keep in mind that the human heart is at times greedy. Once they have eaten and drank their fill, they may want more or enjoy better treatment. If you don¡¯t satisfy them then...¡±

    ¡°I know, but this is an age of the strong!¡± Li Hao dered coldly. ¡°I do want to do something, but if they prove too greedy to be satisfied with their station in life, then I will bring my fist to bear! They know full well the situation in the three northern provinces and Near River. If they wish to not know the meaning of contentment, then they can know how it feels to not be content!¡±

    ¡°So you understand as well,¡± sighed Director General Zhao. ¡°In that case, what was a good deed might cause us to be cursed at by others instead!¡±

    He shook his head with a sigh. It was hard being a good guy in this day and age.

    ¡°It¡¯s not like Silver Moon has a good reputation to begin with.¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t care.

    ¡°......¡± The two old men nearly choked on their spit. <i>What...</i>

    ¡°I mean it!¡± chuckled Li Hao. ¡°We¡¯re northern savages in the eyes of other people. This is an uncivilizednd of barbarians! To be honest, peoplee to Silver Moon only when they have nowhere else to go. I know that sheltering refugeeses with a high cost and I¡¯m just pping my lips around, that this might cause both of you to lose all of your hair, but sometimes, I feel that doing something is better than doing nothing. I will do my best to fulfill all of your requests...¡±

    The young man knew that it would be a very tall order. It was easy enough for him to say that the food he¡¯d deliver would feed one hundred million people. Was food the only thing they needed?

    Of course not!

    Director General Zhao sank into deep thought and responded after a long while. ¡°We¡¯ll think about this, we can¡¯t give you an immediate answer.¡±

    Li Hao said nothing further. It was already a great show of face that they said they¡¯d think about it. He¡¯d be overbearing if he insisted further.

    ¡°Li Hao, perseverance is required in all matters.¡± The quiet Deputy Zhou stroked his mustache. ¡°We are more worried that you¡¯re just barging around with temporary enthusiasm, that you¡¯re throwing out whatever ideas you think of. Do you have clear goals? Sometimes, meandering around is the greatest enemy!

    ¡°You might think of resisting today, saving others tomorrow, but chose to give up because there is no hope the day after that,¡± he said slowly. ¡°You must consider the consequences of such actions. Silver Moon can give you some support, but we will not rampage with you if weck the assurance to do so. Strictly speaking, you do not give us any confidence at all!¡±

    The deputy wasn¡¯t afraid of drawing the young man¡¯s ire, he simply reminded in a soft voice, ¡°Silver Mooncks a person with drive to take center stage, but we do not want someone who will give up halfway. What is your goal? What are you willing to sacrifice in pursuit of it? You want us to follow yourmands as soon as you open your mouth. Are your good intentions worth anything?

    ¡°Silver Moon has been quiet for two hundred years and might be dragged into the abyss if we follow your ideas.¡± He shook his head at the young man. ¡°That will not do! What road are you seeking to walk? You must be certain of it yourself! If you want to charge forward without looking back, we can support you somewhat. But you cannot adopt the style of killing people today because I feel like it, then leaving to roam the martial world tomorrow because you don¡¯t feel like it...¡±

    Li Hao blinked, lost in a daze.

    ¡°Ever since the ancient times, those who aplish great deeds have possessed great perseverance!¡± Deputy Zhou looked calmly at him. ¡°If you cannot impart sufficient confidence to even those around you, then are you to let outsiders support you? On what basis? Are they to risk their lives for you?

    ¡°Are you lost in your identity as part of the eight families? Or do you really think that you¡¯re omnipotent? You did well in the battle at Skystar City, but what have you done after it?¡±

    ¡°I am finding my footing and taking it one step at a time...¡± Li Hao answered solemnly.

    ¡°No!¡± Deputy Zhou shook his head. ¡°You¡¯re just proceeding aimlessly and deciding on tasks without a n. It¡¯s Silver Moon today and Skystar City tomorrow. This won¡¯t do! You must keep in mind that if you are to do something great, then you are no longer a martial master of the martial world. You will be a true leader. Is this what a leader does?¡±

    He did not approve of some of Li Hao¡¯s methods and thoughts. If the young man proceeded in this vein, he would not amount to anything significant. Commencing his affairs in a haphazard manner might result in wrongdoinging from good intentions.

    Li Hao furrowed his brows.

    ¡°You don¡¯t agree?¡± Deputy Zhou smiled faintly.

    ¡°A bit.¡±

    ¡°Then I ask you, have you considered whether or not Silver Moon citizens agree to taking in refugees?¡±ughed Deputy Zhou. ¡°You have good intentions, but what will we gain in return for paying such a hefty price? As a leader, you need to consider more than just taking action. You also need to give thought to gains. Indeed, gains!

    ¡°These are very materialistic concerns, but we are not your subordinates. For us, we would like to know what we can reap from this. Making empty promises is even better than not saying anything at all. Perhaps you think that rewards will naturallye in the future, but why are we to believe you?

    ¡°If you think empty promises are useless, the truth of the situation is, people will think that you will not give them anything in return for theirbor. You won¡¯t even draw a pretty picture for us!¡±

    ¡°So you mean...?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°Even if it¡¯s a bunch of empty promises, you should say something like this and that will happen if this seeds. Whether it¡¯s promotions or reputation, or something in the future... Doing something for us in the future is a marked sight better than what you offer now!

    ¡°Martial masters love getting carried away,¡± sighed Deputy Zhou. ¡°They rely on loyalty and the bond of brotherhood in everything. That¡¯s the mark of a martial world brute! When have you ever seen a martial world brute rule over the world?

    ¡°The ancient Human King may have focused on killing others, but he also knew how to properly use people, how to give them hope and expectations. He said that he would lead humanity to prosperity. It didn¡¯t matter if you believed it or not, someone would. That was enough! And you?

    ¡°What can you bring us?¡± Deputy Zhou looked at the young man. ¡°And torn apart by war and devastation? Or will you die and your dao disperse, leaving nothing behind? Be realistic, Li Hao. No one will pay the price for your dreams unless it is our dreams as well!¡±

    Li Hao sank into deep thought.

    ¡°Ole Zhou, he is young...¡± coughed the director general.

    ¡°No no, I¡¯m just reminding him. He needs encouragement,¡± Deputy Zhou smiled. ¡°He also needs some realistic suggestions, not just unfettered praise. He will easily lose himself with thetter!

    ¡°There must be plenty in Skystar City now who admire him. He¡¯ll get used topliments and find good advice that¡¯s jarring to the ear hard to ept. However, this is Silver Moon¡¯s future, so we cannot let him bet our home ording to his whims.¡±

    ¡°So what does Deputy Zhou think I need to do to instill hope in the people...¡± Li Hao asked after being silent for a while.

    ¡°That¡¯s easy, you can¡¯t only think of shying away from conflict, lying low, or keeping a low profile,¡±ughed Deputy Zhou. ¡°Staying out of the spotlight is no longer an option for you! The best course of action is setting your next goal so that everyone can work toward it, so that we can fight for it!

    ¡°You beat the nine ministries today, the three great organizations tomorrow, the royal family after that. You also want to take on Near River and the pirates... Li Hao, do you think of yourself as a god?¡± The deputy sighed with resignation. ¡°You can¡¯t be like this! That will only make people afraid and disappointed.

    ¡°They¡¯ll feel that the entire world is their enemy, that won¡¯t do! Aren¡¯t you doing this for revenge? Then just focus on your revenge! If you say that you want to exterminate Red Moon, people will choose to stick to the sidelines. But now, you¡¯ve be an unstable factor and everyone wants to eliminate you!

    ¡°You can raise another banner in the name of revenge. For example, Red Moon might be seeking to destroy the world, so you eradicate them for world peace. Even if it¡¯s a false deration, it¡¯s still better than what you¡¯re doing now!¡± Deputy Zhou was truly resigned and heaved a sigh. ¡°Just say it if you want to move against the nine ministries. Announce that you will only attack the nine ministries, for what, for why, and for how. What will we receive after you seed? There will naturally be people willing to risk their lives for you then!¡±

    Li Hao listened in a daze, was that so?<i> I should set a goal, a clear goal, and tell everyone that I¡¯m working toward this goal? Is that it?</i>

    <i>...that makes sense!</i>

    Otherwise, he thought about attacking different targets on different days, but he might not end up beating anyone in the end. When that was the case, he would be surrounded and mobbed to death!

    ¡°The Inspectorate may be an opportunistic institution, but so what? When ites to conquest or revenge, these are the characters that you want! Why refuse them? Why engage in open hostilities with them? Does it make you feel better to step on them? Why can¡¯t you lower your head to go to them for another discussion, a deep conversation? When there are enough opportunistic fellows, they¡¯ll be your supporters!

    ¡°Will it satisfy you only when you turn fair-weather friends into enemies?¡±

    ¡°Ahem!¡± coughed Director General Zhao, but that didn¡¯t deter his deputy.

 Chapter 724: Stealing Away Talent (II)

    <h4>Chapter 724: Stealing Away Talent (II)</h4>

    ¡°Sir, I don¡¯t intend to erase everything he¡¯s aplished or deny who he is,¡± Deputy Zhou exined, ¡°I¡¯m just stricken with the fact that this guy doesn¡¯t know to cherish the results from the Skystar battle and the exceedingly good name that he built for himself. He wasted a huge opportunity!

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen isn¡¯t cut out for this either, he didn¡¯t consider these issues much or to this degree. After the defeat that the nine ministries and three great organizations suffered, the nine ministries inly don¡¯t want to fight anymore. At this time, the Ministry of Finance is probablyughing at the rest since they¡¯ve suffered the least. The Inspectorate is being opportunistic because they haven¡¯t lost anything. Li Hao can absolutely rope them in to form a new line of defense!

    ¡°As for the Ministry of Armed Forces, your senior brother is there. Drop the lines about him leaving a long time ago, did your master actually remove him from the rolls? If not, then he is still your senior brother. You can go to him and see if you can reach an ord with the Ministry of Armed Forces. Of course you¡¯ll have people there that you want to eliminate or settle grudges with, but that can be saved forter.

    ¡°And the Ministry of Administration¡ªthey don¡¯t see you as a major enemy for the moment. Their enemy is the royal family. Why can¡¯t you negotiate some of your problems away?

    ¡°People also helped you before in the east, like the East Pole Duke or Yu Qiao of the Firebright province. You¡¯ve now killed three generations of the Steadfast Duke¡¯s lineage and the Xus are threatening to topple over. Are you going to just leave it at that? You can absolutely send representatives to the east and meet with those two. Even if you don¡¯t partner with them, you musty im to the oue of battle. You¡¯re the one who killed the Steadfast Duke, why aren¡¯t you doing anything about it?

    ¡°And the City of Supernaturals, are you not going to say anything after you killed one of their Heaven¡¯s Eye? Only martial blockheads do that. You guys... even if it¡¯s just a gesture, you should send someone to the city to threaten them or offerpensation. You can¡¯t just decide to do nothing!

    ¡°The same goes for all of the supernaturals that were killed that day, particrly the Starlight Pirates and their dozen dukes. If you don¡¯t wish to partner with them, you should at least contact the other pirate factions and have them divvy up the Starlight Pirates. You can just offer them moral support for that action. That will spell the end of the Starlight Pirates and not create an enemy that mighte after you in the future!¡±

    The more Deputy Zhou said, the more disappointed he became. ¡°Li Hao, you are a very good candidate for being the leader of the martial world, but you are truly unsuited to be this kind of leader. I¡¯ve been observing you all along and find that you are the same as your master! This was how your master conducted his affairs back in the day. He felt that since the people I defeated could no longer rise again or have a change in fortune, what did he care about them?

    ¡°And then what happened? Ying Hongyue, the Celestial Sword Immortal, Yama, Buddha Mountain, Yonder Mountain... All of them rose again! Your master is in the most dismal straits these days and you resemble him more by the day!

    ¡°Will you be stronger than your master? No, you will be the same! Do you think that the Starlight Pirates aren¡¯t worth much with the death of the North Sea King? Do you think that the Xus are worthless with both generations of Steadfast Dukes being dead? Do you think there is no threat from a heavily injured lord of Buddha Mountain who¡¯s be a supernatural? Do you think nothing of the City of Supernaturals with one million supernaturals? They¡¯ll stop after killing you, one Arcanus!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was shell shocked. He thought back to his recent actions, his thoughts and conclusions, and nodded after a long moment. He had nothing to say.

    Deputy Zhou¡¯s words were not easy to listen to, but they did touch upon some key points. Li Hao hadn¡¯t had the mental bandwidth or capacity to consider certain things before. Some subjects had never even been on his radar.

    <i>Leader of the martial world... </i>Just like his teacher? His teacher had left many enemies behind in the world and the young man sometimes snorted at Yuan Shuo for not bothering to see his job through to the end.

    He suddenly understood his teacher¡¯s actions today! It wasn¡¯t that Yuan Shuo had left the job undone, but that he simply hadn¡¯t cared enough. Take Li Hao, for instance, he felt that there was no further threat from the Xus and North Sea pirates. Eradicating them was a waste of time and money.

    But... what would the situation look like many yearster if he didn¡¯t improve at all? He would be the greatest public enemy, just like his teacher! At that time, people would say that the Demon Sword of yesteryear dominated the world, but now he was in such pathetic circumstances. He was less than a dog!

    ¡°Deputy Zhou, how about youe to Skystar City with me?¡± Li Hao lit up.

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>Dead silence.</i>

    ¡°Li Hao...¡± coughed Director General Zhao.

    ¡°Sir!¡± Li Hao interrupted solemnly. ¡°Silver Moon needs only you! It is a waste of talent for Deputy Zhou to be here! Perhaps Skystar City is the best stage for him! I don¡¯t know any of this, but that is alright!¡±

    The young man spoke excitedly, like he hadn¡¯t suffered a blow from the lecture. ¡°Someone told me that it¡¯s fine if you don¡¯t know everything. So long as you know how to use people and dare use others, then it¡¯s fine!

    ¡°No one is omnipotent, I¡¯m not! I¡¯m young, I haven¡¯t seen much of the world, I don¡¯t know anything... but none of that matters! I can learn, and while the process may be long and arduous, it¡¯s not an issue if I surround myself with the right people!

    ¡°Didn¡¯t the royal family make me the Skystar governor general?¡± He looked raptly at Deputy Zhou. ¡°If youe, I¡¯ll make you the Skystar deputy governor general. The royal family won¡¯t say anything, I¡¯m entrusted with all the power! You¡¯ll be the deputy, Martial Uncle Hong Yitang will be the headmaster, Director Hou will look after the Night Watchers, and me... I¡¯ll be in charge of killing enemies!¡±

    Li Hao waved his hand and spoke seriously, ¡°As for what I base my confidence in and what you guys can ce your hopes in...¡± He thought it over. ¡°First, Steris and the identity of the heir of the eight families! Second, I¡¯ve been promoted and I¡¯m a division leader of the Battle Heaven Army now...¡±

    Gold armor shed!

    The two old men started. <i>Gold armor? Division leader?</i>

    Li Hao was putting to practice what he¡¯d just learned. <i>It¡¯s just a trick! My reinforcement troop is no different from being a division leader, right?</i>

    ¡°Third, I can unite the Silver Moon martial world. At the very least, a lot of people find me trustworthy and that I am worthy of striking up a rtionship with. At the same time, they find that the official authorities are not worthy!

    ¡°Fourth, I have some clues to my next cultivation level. My strength will continue to rise!

    ¡°Fifth, I know a very easygoing nt spirit. It will even fight for me!

    ¡°Sixth, Battle Heaven may be able to fully awaken soon. I¡¯ve already be part of their inner workings and have very good rtions with them. They¡¯re willing to put their full force behind me. Some of their premier powerhouses will awaken very soon...

    ¡°Seventh, the strongest heavyweight of our time¡ªYing Hongyue¡ªis afraid to face me at the moment. He has not sessfully assimted his seven bloodlines together...¡± Li Hao listed all of his strengths to enhance his standing, ultimately looking at Deputy Zhou. ¡°Therefore, you may think I¡¯m wet behind the ears, sir, and that I don¡¯t know much. But I¡¯m not a saint and it¡¯s not like I was born knowing all this. I¡¯m just an ordinary person who made it to this position step by step. It hasn¡¯t been long since I left Silver City. Is this enough?

    ¡°If not, I¡¯ll continue to add to my list of strengths. I¡¯m sure I can do it!¡±

    Director General Zhao stared at the young man. Deputy Zhou also looked at him before suddenly grinning. ¡°You¡¯re... an interesting one!¡±

    ¡°Come with me, Deputy Zhou!¡± Li Hao smiled widely.

    ¡°I was just pointing out some problems to you...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll give you one hundred drops of Water of Life!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Deputy Zhou blinked.

    ¡°Li Hao...¡± coughed the director general.

    ¡°Two hundred drops!¡± Li Hao waved his fists around and set his jaw. ¡°And that¡¯s not it. I¡¯ll give you more benefits when I get richer! Your job will be easy. Go to Skystar City and settle all this for me! Take care of all this! Whether it¡¯s negotiations, recruitment of others, you can say whatever needs to be said to whoever you meet.¡±

    The deputy looked at Director General Zhao; thetter wanted to roll his eyes. ¡°Ole Zhou, we¡¯ve worked together for forty years...¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s offering two hundred drops of Water of Life!¡± Deputy Zhou continued looking at his superior officer. That was so much!

    The director general wanted to vomit blood. The hell was this?? Li Hao was trying to steal his subordinate right in front of him. How was this appropriate?!

    ¡°Li Hao, how do you have so much...¡±

    ¡°I do!¡± the young man answered emphatically. ¡°Of course I do! My nt spirit charges me twenty thousand stones per drop. I collected more than seven million stones before this and traded them in for three hundred drops. I¡¯m giving most of it to Deputy Zhou!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Twenty thousand stones? For one drop?

    ¡°Where... is this nt spirit?¡± the director general asked ponderously.

    ¡°Eh?¡±

    ¡°Ah...¡± the old man coughed. ¡°I¡¯m asking if it will affect Silver Moon. Is it near Mount Cat Head?¡±

    Li Hao instantly went on the alert. What did the old man want? <i>You want to lure my people away from me?</i> ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it, sir. That¡¯s a guardian nt spirit that only I can contact. Anyone else who goes will be killed! It¡¯s already recovered to the level of an Apex and can tear through the void. It¡¯s powerful beyond belief!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Zhao sighed. What a pity!

    ¡°Sir.¡± Li Hao turned to Deputy Zhou again. ¡°You can see where the problems are, which means you can take care of them! As the saying goes, the prudent bird chooses a fine tree to nest in. I¡¯m sure that the director general won¡¯t mind and won¡¯t obstruct your future. Nothing will happen in Silver Moon before the second awakening. There¡¯s not much point in staying here to waste the deputy director general¡¯s talents!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Deputy Zhou stroked his mustache, then looked at his superior officer again.

    ¡°Are you mocking me, Li Hao?¡± Director General Zhaoughed with anger.

 Chapter 725: Stealing Away Talent (III)

    <h4>Chapter 725: Stealing Away Talent (III)</h4>

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao responded seriously. ¡°I think that I need a strategist, someone who will advise me tactically. Martial Uncle Hong is a teacher and a friend. Light Sword is pure martial strength. Director Hou may be skilled at strategy, but he is pulled in many different directions these days. Additionally... the director should be more skilled in martial strength, so I don¡¯t think I want to tax him further.¡±

    ¡°You want me to go to Skystar City?¡± Deputy Zhou interrupted the director general as thetter opened his mouth to speak. ¡°Then what if I tell you to bow your head to Ying Hongyue? He is an ultimate powerhouse and your enemy. What if I have you apologize for your actions and ask for punishment? Are you willing to listen to me then?¡±

    ¡°I can!¡± Li Hao was very calm. ¡°There¡¯s no problem with that so long as he epts! I can even get down on both knees and ask him not to retaliate against me. The caveat is that he is willing to ept so. What¡¯s the problem with that?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Deputy Zhou blinked, then looked at Li Hao. ¡°What if he wants Steris?¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t do, that¡¯s my bottom line. I can bow my head, but I cannot cross my bottom line. That would be another sort of trouble.¡±

    ¡°What if he wants you to hand over the Silver Moon martial masters?¡±ughed Deputy Zhou.

    ¡°Then he does not mean to truly ept my olive branch. You yourself are a Silver Moon martial master and he knows what martial masters are like. I will not do so. If I did, then he would not believe my olive branch is real.¡±

    Deputy Zhou fell silent with consideration. ¡°Last question! Do you wish to be the Skystar King?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t care. I can and I don¡¯t have to either,¡± Li Hao replied as calmly as ever. ¡°If no one wishes to be king, then what does it matter if I¡¯m the one who¡¯s king? As ipetent as I am, I think I¡¯ll do a better job than the current Skystar King!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Such arrogance!

    Deputy Zhou beganughing and stared at the young man. ¡°I can go... I have nothing else better to do. Traveling to Skystar to see old friends isn¡¯t out of the question. Do you mean it when you say two hundred drops of Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°My word is my bond!¡±

    ¡°Then we¡¯re agreed!¡±

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± Director General Zhao seemed ready to cough his lungs out. ¡°Ole Zhou, you shouldn¡¯t subject yourself to the rigors of travel at your age...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll be fine, Water of Life will keep me in good shape!¡±

    ¡°There will be lots to do in Silver Moon now, Li Hao wants to take in refugees...¡±

    ¡°Those are all trifling matters!¡±

    ¡°Ole Zhou, you and I have worked together for forty years. Are you leaving after just a few words?¡± the director general couldn¡¯t hold himself in anymore. ¡°What are you thinking? Skystar City isn¡¯t a kind ce...¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s offering a lot of money!¡± Deputy Zhou pointed at Li Hao. ¡°Two hundred drops! I¡¯ll stay if you give me two hundred drops too!¡±

    <i>Screw you! Where would I get so much Water of Life from?</i>

    Director General Zhao was extremely soul weary. He looked at the young man, then at the deputy.

    ¡°Go on then, all of you can leave!¡± he sneered. ¡°Li Hao, don¡¯t think you¡¯re making off with some riches today. Anyone can paint a pretty picture, but execution ability is the most important! I know Ole Zhou much too well, he¡¯s skilled at strategizing, but not at putting words into action! He can talk anyone to death, but nine out of ten attempts fall t when he tries to do anything.¡±

    ¡°Is this how you view me after all these years, Ole Zhao??¡±

    ¡°Is there a problem with that?!¡±

    ¡°No problem, then there¡¯s nothing else that needs to be said between us!¡± Deputy Zhou quickly dumped some documents on the director general¡¯s desk. ¡°Here¡¯s my handover. You know all of my duties, so you can take over all of them right now! I¡¯ve gotten bored of working with you after forty years. It¡¯ll be nice to have a change of environment.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t mean it that way, Ole Zhou...¡±

    ¡°Ole Zhao, Li Hao is right. There¡¯s not much going on Li Hao these days. I¡¯ll be back after the second awakening of the supernatural.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Zhao wanted to erupt in loud curses. They hadn¡¯t discussed this! How had this meeting turned into a two-manedy? Ole Zhou had never said anything like this before!

    <i>Fucking hell! What is this? You run off just because you want to! Have you considered me at all?</i>

    The old man looked at Li Hao again, finding the young man¡¯s actions utterly reprehensible. Despite that, he still feltpelled to remind, ¡°It¡¯s not a good investment to pour too much energy into Skystar City. Silver Moon is your foundation...¡±

    ¡°I know, but has the director general ever heard of the saying that the enemy should be destroyed outside the gates?¡± Li Hao grinned.

    ¡°I...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯lle back in two days for you, Deputy Zhou! I¡¯m off now!¡± The young man immediately vanished.

    Director General Zhao was speechless and looked at his old colleague when Li Hao was gone. ¡°What¡¯s gotten into you?¡±

    ¡°Nothing much, I¡¯m just bored.¡± Deputy Zhou stroked his beard. ¡°Don¡¯t you think taking a look outside is very interesting?¡±

    ¡°You know what our situation is!¡± The director general sighed. ¡°How do we have any time to spare? Massive changes might arise after the second awakening!¡±

    ¡°Everything will be fine so long as you are here.¡±

    ¡°Okay, tell me honestly, what are you thinking?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m really not thinking much,¡±ughed Deputy Zhou. ¡°I just wanted him to angrily walk away with some introspection after my lecture. He might give up then, or he might rise again. Never did I think that he would ask me to go with him. It seems like a nice idea after thinking it over, so I agreed. Not to mention, two hundred drops of Water of Life is nice! It can fortify my body some.¡±

    Director General Zhao was too weary for speech. Their ties of friendship had been snapped just like that!

    ¡°Whatever you want!¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing you can do otherwise.¡±

    ¡°I... Get outta here!¡± The director general was irate. The old thing really was going to leave. They¡¯d been together for forty years, and this was how he was abandoned? <i>I hate you right now!</i>

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll go back and pack my things... Let¡¯s grab a drinkter for a send-off!¡±

    ¡°Send off your ass, get out of here!¡±

    A merry Deputy Zhou walked right out. The director general sighed when he was gone and shook his head with resignation. ¡°He¡¯s old, he¡¯s truly gotten old... He just has to catch up with the times, huh! Is the bloodline of the eight families so much better?¡±

    ......

    Li Hao walked out of the administrative government building. He was first happy, then a bit pained by his unexpected expenditure. Were two hundred drops worth it? Could Deputy Zhou really bring so much benefit to him?

    Based on what the director general said, the deputy was only skilled at strategizing and raising questions. However, what the young man needed was resolving of these problems! If the deputy couldn¡¯t settle them, then raising the issues was a futile endeavor.

    <i>I was a bit impulsive just now!</i>

    Forget it, he was spending money to purchase peace of mind. Deputy Zhou should be a powerful martial master. Even if he didn¡¯t prove much use when it came to strategy, it was nice to have a strong bodyguard. The young man couldn¡¯t see through him even now, so he should be pretty strong.

    <i>Two hundred drops... two million stones... That¡¯s nothing!</i>

    Li Haoforted himself. This was good. It was hard to buy happiness, but he was very happy at the moment! Even if the deputy only talked a good talk, being able to identify issues was better than not. Forty years worth of being an official was different, alright! Look at that, no one else around him mentioned these problems.

    Li Hao felt much more peace of mind after thinking this through. That was settled, then!

    ......

    Li Hao did not return to the Night Watchers. He went straight out of White Moon City as he wanted to go back to Silver City first to take the blood pearls. He wanted to see if he could witness that stroke again. It was fine that his own sword intent had fallen silent. As he grew stronger, there was a possibility that even metamorphosis blood pearls would be ineffective for him. Where was he supposed to get even stronger ones?

    ......

    <i>Silver City.</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t greet anyone. He dashed straight to the mines and hid in the underground ruins. The young man tossed back all three blood pearls at once as he worried taking too few of them would lead to no effect. Perhaps he¡¯d only see the diagram of the eight trigrams again when all three were in his stomach.

    His blood churned and frothed as energy from the blood pearls entered his bloodstream. Some changes appeared in his eyes. Li Hao lifted his head and saw a massive eight trigram in front of his eyes. Compared tost time, he saw much more on this asion.

    <i>The cosmos!</i>

    Indeed, he seemed to see a cosmos. Last time, he saw someone standing in the middle of the diagram. Instead of seeing that this time, he saw only the unbounded cosmos. There was a door standing in the depths and something seemed to be near it.

    Li Hao looked around in a daze, but still recalled that he had a goal. He raised his eyes upward to follow the thread of red emanating from his head. Light shed before his eyes as an illusory figure appeared.

    There were again minute differences fromst time. It seemed to be an old man as he could see more clearly this time. His hair was disheveled and he wielded a longsword. A ray of sword light illuminated heaven and earth!

    ¡°The Lifeless Sword!¡± Sword intent bearing the meaning of annihtion and the wherewithal to destroy everything struck. A sword thrust forward to render everything into nothing!

    It was a stroke stronger than the one he¡¯d experiencedst time. The one of severing the self destroyed strong foes when deployed, but it also ended the wielder. This one wasn¡¯t the mutual downfall of enemy and wilder, but reducing the entire world into the void. Nothing existed after it.

    ¡°Everything has fallen silent...¡± Li Hao murmured as the thought popped into his head. What a terrifying stroke!

    Everything was gone after the old man¡¯s move. There was only chaos and darkness. Was this what was meant by a premier swordsman?

 Chapter 726: Making Out Like Bandits (I)

    <h4>Chapter 726: Making Out Like Bandits (I)</h4>

    Li Hao swiftly backed away as a tendril of sword intent came his way. His arm exploded, but the young man held Steris aloft. As he expected, a tendril of sword intent darted into the weapon. Steris trembled while Li Hao swiftly swallowed a few drops of Water of Life. His arm grew out, shattered, then grew again...

    He continuously imbibed Water of Life. He¡¯d known before that this sword intent was formidable, but only today did he know that it was more terrifying than he thought! He was an Arcanus, but his level of strength was having absolutely no effect. And this was just observing the stroke from a moment removed from its time! It was just a brand left behind from countless years ago!

    He had to swallow eight drops of Water of Life before Steris fully absorbed all of the sword qi. Li Hao¡¯s arm finally stopped being obliterated. When he next opened his eyes, a destructive presence agitated from them. The five auras also stirred within his organs and some changes seemed to take ce in the sword overview. The bridges between the five organs began to twist as they took on a sword shape.

    Li Hao raised his head to the sky again, seeing nothing there anymore.

    ¡°The cosmos, door, eight trigrams, seal...¡± murmured the young man. What was Silver City? This was what he¡¯d seen this time. Who knew when he would be able to catch a glimpse next time? Thankfully, he¡¯d aplished almost all of the goals he¡¯de back with.

    Li Hao crawled out from a pile of pebbles and looked at the stone door not too far away. It was as quiet as before. He dropped his gaze. This ce was and of inheritance. As he only had the Windchaser Boots and Steris at the moment, he was unworthy. This was very possibly the legacy site of the mallet of the Hongs.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, Red Moon headquarters.</i>

    Ying Hongyue looked toward the north, his blood qi shaking. He furrowed his brows when he seemed to see something.

    ¡°Li Hao...¡± he murmured. Had the kid returned to Silver City? As he thought, the legacy of the Sword Sovereign was different. The kid did not fall in any battle and a joint deployment of Arcanus was insufficient to kill him. What a pity, what a pity that he himself...

    Ying Hongyue closed his eyes. He had to meld the seven bloodlines together for anything to be feasible. Li Hao was growing too quickly, so quickly that it outstripped the imagination. That the eight families had the Lis at their head did not seem to be empty rumor.

    ......

    ¡°The sword bloodline...¡± Li Hao walked out of the ruins with a few more thoughts in mind. He¡¯d been debatingtely on what path he should take next. Battle Heaven and Silver Moon martial masters had given him a lot of inspiration, and now there was the matter of the sword bloodline...

    Indeed, the supernatural locks were showing signs of turning into a sword bloodline. Now that was interesting.

    ¡°There¡¯s also the sever and break incarnation, and using mental strength to nurture the sword...¡±

    So it turned out that many things were interconnected in the end! This further piqued Li Hao¡¯s interest in martial dao. Although he was no longer a pure martial master, a supernatural martial master was still a martial master.

    ¡°Supernatural locks, nurturing the sword, the Incantation of the de of Blood, core origin dao...¡± Li Hao muttered a litany of keywords. There were so many thoughts rattling around his braintely that they were proving difficult to digest. Director General Wang was right, seeing too much made it easy to wander off onto the wrong path. Many things had to be tried one by one and a full understanding gained before dwelling on them.

    <i>There¡¯s too much and it¡¯s too varied. That¡¯s not good!</i>

    The more systems he learned of, the more thoughts he had. They had to be consolidated. Otherwise, he might teau at an impasse if this continued.

    <i>There¡¯s also my auras that have quieted down...</i>

    He needed to have a clear grasp on the topic of the auras as well. The auras, supernatural locks, core origin dao...

    More and more subjects flooded his mind, filling Li Hao¡¯s brain to the brim. He shook them all away; he would try them out one by one in the days toe. However, another thought appeared in his mind¡ªconsolidation. What if he could unite them all and have one concept be theirmon vehicle? He could somehow incorporate dao, aura, supernatural locks, and mysterious power with each other.

    Mysterious power was outside force and could not be integrated into his body. What if he wrapped it in something that could be assimted into his body? Would that work?

    <i>What if I could open the supernatural locks at will, release their power whenever I needed, and close them again? Doesn¡¯t the Five Styles incorporate the aura into them? And if I create an opening in the supernatural locks... the kind that can be essed at will...</i>

    Although he¡¯d just decided to put all those thoughts out of his mind, he was suddenly gripped by new inspiration. <i>Create a small opening in the supernatural locks? What a good idea! I¡¯m a genius! But... how? And how should I close it after opening?</i>

    His teacher¡¯s Five Styles temporarily ended after Refiner of Spirit. Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t say what should happen next. Indeed, should they be opening their locks after Refiner?

    <i>Or should I use my previous method? Creating an opening isn¡¯t hard, just force a hole into it like I¡¯m nting a tree. Closing it at will is the hard part. I have to use something as a door... And it has to be something from my own body or it won¡¯t be a match for myself. Blood qi? Mental strength? Or something else?</i>

    Or could they all bebined to be the doorstopper? Combining them together... wasn¡¯t that the act of writing with his mental strength?

    Li Haoughed. How interesting. All of martial dao came together in the end!

    Of course, these were just his preliminary thoughts. He needed more time to experiment. The Seventh Troop leader had it right. One should research so long as one was alive. What was there to be afraid of? He should just give it a try!

    ......

    <i>Silver City.</i>

    Li Hao returned to his old house. It¡¯d been cordoned off as it¡¯d be a condemned building¡ªno one lived in it anymore. It¡¯d been scheduled for demolition a long time ago, so moving away didn¡¯t affect anyone.

    Panther came back with him. The old den at the bottom of the stairs was still there. It was a bit messy and humid. Panther swept a disdainful look over it. Whoever wanted this old thing could have it!

    ¡°You don¡¯t know the meaning of nostalgia at all!¡± Li Hao flicked a nce at Panther. ¡°This was your home before!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther refuted. <i>This wasn¡¯t! It was just a temporary den. Would you live in it if I gave it to you?</i>

    ¡°Time passes without return!¡± Li Hao sighed with emotion. The strongest of powerhouses could not return to the past. Time was the greatest enemy. He¡¯d been a pathetic little bug here a few months ago, but now he fully dominated wherever he was. Would he still have taken this path if he was returned to the past?

    If a few months ago, he would have. But what if he could go back to when his parents were alive, when Little Yuan was alive?

    Li Haoughed and put the thought out of his mind. What was past was in the past. Time would not return, so why create troubles for himself.

    ......

    The young man did not spend long in Silver City. As many secrets as the city held, they were not ones that he could trigger at the moment. He arrived back in White Moon City the next day, choosing to visit the Silver Moon Guards base this time. It¡¯d been a month since hest set foot there.

    ......

    The Silver Moon Guards base was very quiet. There weren¡¯t many people to begin with and they were out and about on missionstely. The Demon Hunters had fought a few battles with the pirates and some with supernaturals. They were growing their reputation, but they paled far inparison with Li Hao. When the young man appeared, the regrouping Demon Hunters agitated with excitement.

    ¡°Leader!¡± Everyone was highly ovee when Li Hao set off the rms. Liu Long was shoved to the back as the entire group flooded forward. The first to arrive was none other than Hong Qing. She was so full of questions that she seemed fit to burst. She looked around in all directions when she saw Li Hao.

    ¡°Leader, where¡¯s my dad?¡± she asked impatiently.

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°Earthturner Sword!¡± She gave her father¡¯s title in a fit of impatience. ¡°Don¡¯t they say that he was present at the battle of Skystar City? I also hear that he killed the Steppe Prince, is that true? Is my dad an Arcanus? No way! He shrinks in on himself so much¡ªahem, I mean he¡¯s such a practical person. How could he have hidden his strength?

    ¡°I¡¯m the daughter of an Arcanus? Then why am I doing so poorly for myself? The sons and daughters of Novas are either Srs or Novas themselves. My dad is an Arcanus, but look at me!¡± Hong Qing hadn¡¯t been in such a hurry before, but she¡¯d received some newstely as it made its way to Silver Moon.

    The people were agog with praise for Silver Moon martial masters and their feats over the Skystar Sea. Demon Sword shone in all directions, Sky Sword appeared out of the void to dominate all directions. Earthturner Sword executed a titled prince in a fit of anger... Silver Moon martial masters were so arrogant that they reigned sovereign over the four seas and eightnds...

    Rhymes and jingles were being made out of their aplishments!

    In Hong Qing¡¯s eyes, the key person was Earthturner Sword Hong Yitang! He was listed on the Record of Thirty-Six Heroes, but he shone particrly brightly as he¡¯d cut down a titled prince! This prince was an important key member of the royal family and not a person with a nominal title. How could the girl not be exhrated?

    What a pity that her father hadn¡¯te back these days. She didn¡¯t have anyone to ask! Otherwise, she¡¯d shake her father for an interrogation.<i> If you¡¯re so strong, why is your daughter so weak? I¡¯m the worst off child of an Arcanus! I had to wash my own clothes and make my own food growing up!</i> Damn if she wasn¡¯t pitiful! Would she have to do all of this if she¡¯d known her father was so strong??

    Li Hao was ced in awkward straits by Hong Qing¡¯s questioning. ¡°Um... you should ask your dad this...¡± he said after a while. ¡°I don¡¯t know why he¡¯s so wrong either. As for you being weak... perhaps your father thinks you need more tempering...¡±

    Hong Qing looked woefully at him. That was it? That was all he had to say to her?

    ¡°What a pity I didn¡¯t see my dad kill the Steppe Prince with one stroke... It must¡¯ve been glorious!¡± she said with regret.

 Chapter 727: Making Out Like Bandits (II)

    <h4>Chapter 727: Making Out Like Bandits (II)</h4>

    ¡°It was indeed pretty glorious,¡± Li Hao agreed with augh. ¡°Earthturner Sword killed his enemy with one move. The Steppe Prince didn¡¯t believe it even as he died.¡±

    ¡°Leader is strong too!¡± Hong Qing suppressed her impatience topliment the leader. Li Hao was still stronger when her old man wasn¡¯t around. ¡°You killed even Hu Xiao, one of the founders of the nine ministries. Apparently you almost killed the Skystar King too...¡±

    ¡°.......¡±

    <i>Wut. I went after powerhouses of the nine ministries, how did this turn into almost killing the king? </i>Li Hao broke out inughter.

    Someone else finally pushed himself out of the crowd as Hong Qing exchanged words with Li Hao. Wang Ming¡¯s face was distorted from the force he was using to shove himself past people.

    ¡°Senior brother¡¯s illustrious name is known throughout the world! Now that you are the Skystar Marquis and Skystar Governor General, we hear that you n to hail yourself king in the royal capital! Do you need people? Is that why you¡¯vee back, senior brother? I can go! I¡¯m not busy, I can be your footman!¡± Wang Ming babbled animatedly.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. He looked at Wang Ming¡ªthe fellow was now a Sr. Although he was an initial Sr, the strength was passable for his age. However, it wasn¡¯t much in the grand scheme of things.

    Most of the Demon Hunters had improved. Many were Dominators now. After cultivating at the little tree¡¯s cave, Weeping Willow Sword heir Li Heng had been the first to break through. Hong Qing and some others had followed suit shortly thereafter, making for several Dominators in the small group that was the Demon Hunters.

    Liu Long seemed to have set foot onto the path of Summoner of Spirit. But after Li Hao opened his eyes in Skystar City, he found everyone to be too weak. Granted, their level of aplishment was worthy of praise. They¡¯d smashed the first obstacle after reaching Dominator. Their rate of progress afterward wouldn¡¯t be too slow.

    ¡°Wang Ming, I¡¯ve offended a slew of powerhouses over there. You might get smacked to death if you go with me!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s no big deal! We won¡¯t die that easily, not with senior brother there!¡± Wang Ming grinned merrily. ¡°Even if we die, our names will go down in history!¡±

    Everyoneughed, some with expectation, others with desire. They all wanted to go! <i>Let¡¯s go to the central region to make our name renowned throughout the world, strengthen ourselves, and fight allers!</i>

    Sadly, they knew that they were too weak. They¡¯d nned on going to Li Hao after they grew stronger, but eventually decided to remain in Silver Moon.

    ¡°Is Swordmaster Hong not with you?¡± Liu Long walked over with confusion. Li Hao had sent him on a trip to the Sword Sect before the young man left, but Hong Yitang waspletely absent from his sect! First he ran off to the east, then immediately traveled to Skystar City upon his return. Now he was gone entirely, rendering Li Hao¡¯s arrangements futile. There was no Hong Yitang at the Sword Sect, so what should they do there?

    Run errands?

    It was better to go out and kill some pirates!

    ¡°No, he won¡¯t being back!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Martial Uncle Hong¡¯s decided to stay at Skystar City to apply his knowledge.¡±

    Liu Long¡¯s eyes widened and he looked at the young man. He¡¯d been quite willing when Li Hao wanted him to stay in Silver Moon before, but now...

    ¡°They say that there won¡¯t be any upheavals in Silver Moon in the short term, is that so?¡± Liu Long asked after some thought.

    ¡°Pretty much.¡±

    ¡°Will you encounter further danger in Skystar City?¡±

    ¡°Does chief mean to say...¡±

    ¡°Why not... take all of us with you to the central region!¡± It was Liu Long¡¯s first request to leave Silver Moon. Li Hao looked at him with surprise, but the man continued solemnly, ¡±I was thinking that I will have a ce in Silver Moon after entering Summoner of Spirit because I¡¯ll be able to kill Srs! I can safeguard the small city that is Skystar City then! Now I know that Arcanus aren¡¯t that impressive, that a batch has already died, I feel that growing stronger is the only way I can aplish my goals!¡±

    He wanted to leave Silver Moon!

    ¡°Leader, take us with you!¡± Everyone chorused, unable to keep their eagerness and urges in check. Having weathered challenges in life and witnessed the greater world, they were no longer the ignorant martial masters of old. They¡¯d seen much and wanted to see even more.

    ¡°I had simr thoughts with my return, but I was thinking that Skystar City is too dangerous and you guys...¡± Li Hao breathed out.

    ¡°Martial masters are not afraid of danger!¡± Liu Yan cut off the young man and dimpled at him. ¡°Why are we martial masters if we¡¯re afraid of death? We want to see the greater world that is in the central region!¡±

    ¡°So Sis Liu can¡¯t sit still either?¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°You have much more confidence after bing a Dominator.¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t just sit by and watch the others of the Silver Moon Guards grow famous.¡± Liu Yan smiled winsomely. ¡°We want a taste of that for ourselves. The Silver Moon Guards are apparently well known through the central region now too. The people know of them, but they do not know the Demon Hunters!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not out of the question,¡± Li Hao said after some thought. ¡°It won¡¯t be just you guys, the Silver Moon Guards will also be arranging for one thousand soldiers to head to Skystar City. Deputy Zhou from the provincial government will being too...¡±

    There would be no issue with adding the Demon Hunters, just that...

    ¡°You will have opportunities in Silver Moon as well. You guys know about the little tree, it will continue to grow stronger in recent days. It will possess sufficient life force to help you train and provide an ideal sacrednd of cultivation...¡±

    ¡°Martial masters in cultivation are not real martial masters!¡± someone roared. What was the point of always being in seclusion? No powerhouses ever walked out of a training room in istion!

    ¡°As you guys wish!¡± Li Hao grinned and didn¡¯t protest further. ¡°But keep in mind that there will be real danger.¡±

    ¡°We know, leader, we¡¯re not afraid!¡±

    ¡°Alright then. Prepare yourselves and pack your things. I may be returning to Skystar City the day after tomorrow.¡± Li Hao had wanted to take down Near River and open the passageway so that Silver Moon wasn¡¯t blockaded anymore. After Deputy Zhou¡¯s lecture, he gave up the idea. That would be an unnecessary tangent at this stage.

    Just like Director General Zhao said, all he needed to do was announce that they would ept refugees for Near River to deposit five million, ten million on their doorstep. So long as Silver Moon was unafraid of death, Near River would send them everyone! They¡¯d closed off the borders only because they didn¡¯t want the refugees to stay in Near River.

    Li Hao had aplished everything he¡¯de back to do. All that was left was to wait for the little tree to coalesce enough Water of Life and deliver the seeds to it. Huang Yu might also return with a batch of armor. The young man could make another trip to Battle Heaven to conduct a second trade.

    ......

    Li Hao had just set foot in the Silver Moon Guards base when Hao Lianchuan received word from the Night Watchers. He immediately charged over, saying a lot of words that all meant the same thing¡ª<i>take me with you! I want to go to Skystar City too!</i>

    There was nothing for the Silver Moon Night Watchers to dotely. The troublemakers had left, the three great organizations weren¡¯t interested in the province. They¡¯d either run off or died. The North Sea pirates were engaging in heavy in-fighting to determine their next spokesperson, and the East Sea pirates were going against each other to determine their boss...

    There were no issues left for Silver Moon.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, Skystar City.</i>

    The royal city quieted down after Li Hao¡¯s departure and return to Silver Moon. The fuss that¡¯d been raised previously was slowly calming down.

    The nine ministries were the nine ministries and Li Hao no longer killed people. Reports to the Skystar Commander Office dwindled because no one saw further action from the young man. The people chose to wait and observe, not daring to file aint.

    The Night Watchers and Silver Moon Guards continued to go about their separate business. There was no integration or unification between the two.

    A strong ray of sword intent rose from the Night Watcher headquarters on the third day of Li Hao¡¯s departure. Yao Si immediately appeared in front of a small residence, as did some other youngsters¡ªBig Eyes and the others. They were highly excited as Dao Sword was finally emerging from closed door cultivation!

    Li Hao had upied all of the headlinestely. Dao Sword, the one who¡¯d killed Yama¡¯s grandson and caused open war between the three great organizations and Night Watcher, had been in seclusion all this time. His cement on the Divine Masters Ranking was almost declining beneath the top ten.

    ¡°He¡¯s finally out!¡±

    ¡°Yeah!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s been almost three months, hasn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Pretty much!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s missed out on a lot during these three months!¡± Conversation flurried; Yao Si listened quietly.

    A person walked out of a small building momentster, his bearing genteel and urbane. He smiled faintly at Yao Si and inclined his body. ¡°Director!¡±

    ¡°Mm.¡± Yao Si nodded back. ¡°Metamorphosis? But you seem rather stable. So you stand a chance of making it to Arcanus?¡±

    ¡°Arcanus?¡±

    ¡°The name of the new cultivation level.¡±

    ¡°I see,¡± chuckled Dao Sword. He turned to Big Eyes and the others. ¡°You guys look well too, you¡¯ve improved and are not far off from metamorphosis.¡±

    ¡°What good is that?¡± Long de said glumly. ¡°This is no longer an era of Novas. Arcanus can be found everywhere and a bunch of them died while you were in closed door cultivation. So many of them were killed a few days ago, don¡¯t you know?¡±

    ¡°I could sense a thing or two.¡± Dao Sword wasn¡¯t surprised. He was only in seclusion, not dead. He hadn¡¯t been able to emerge because he¡¯d been opening his supernatural locks. ¡°It¡¯s fine, we can continue to go forward! We can walk far only when there are many powerhouses. As opposed to one flower outshining the others, it¡¯s better for a hundred to bloom together. We¡¯ll have motivation with the Arcanus level in front of us, wouldn¡¯t you say so?¡±

    ¡°You sure have an open mind!¡± mumbled Big Eyes. ¡°The whole world¡¯s changed while you¡¯e been away! Director Yao is no longer the first officer at our Night Watchers anymore!¡±

    ¡°Ahem!¡± Yao Si coughed gently. Nonsense! How was he not?

 Chapter 728: Making Out Like Bandits (III)

    <h4>Chapter 728: Making Out Like Bandits (III)</h4>

    Yao Si had a good impression of these four, particrly Dao Sword. Although thed was a supernatural, he had exceedingly good potential. He was bold, yet conscientious. If it wasn¡¯t for Li Hao¡¯s appearance, Dao Sword would absolutely be one of the premier existences among the younger generation. The current crop of Arcanus were all veteran powerhouses.

    Of the younger generation, there didn¡¯t seem to be anyone other than Li Hao stronger than Dao Sword at the moment. Thetter¡¯s metamorphosis state was stable and he might be able to smoothly set foot into Arcanus if his organs were a little stronger. He would be the first... alright, the second among the younger generation to be an Arcanus.

    Li Hao was younger than Dao Sword, but he was already an Arcanus.

    Dao Sword didn¡¯t care about this and smiled. ¡°Don¡¯t think so much. C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go to the Nine Dragons Pavilion for a meal and chat about the circumstances over the past couple of days. I feel like the atmosphere in the Night Watchers has changed, and that there are a lot of stories to be shared.¡±

    ¡°So <i>many</i> stories!¡± giggled Big Eyes. ¡°Let¡¯s go eat. We¡¯ve almost lost our appetites with how long you stayed in there!¡±

    The four merrily went on their ways after taking their leave of Yao Si. The manughed as well when they were out of sight. The Night Watchers would be a more interesting ce with Dao Sword out of closed door cultivation. The young man appeared cultured and refined, but he was also someone who feared nothing beneath the heavens. He didn¡¯t even fear the heavens themselves. How else would he have dared kill Yama¡¯s grandson and taken the Heavens Dictate?

    When his thoughts touched upon the Heavens Dictate, Yao Si looked in the direction that Dao Sword had disappeared in. The treasure had stayed with the young man this entire time because he¡¯d been in closed door cultivation. Had Dao Sword gleaned any newprehension from it? It was an umon treasure.

    While it wasn¡¯t one of the legendary weapons of the eight families, it was still an immensely powerful treasure from the ancient civilization. The three great organizations had been constantly fighting the Night Watchers for it.

    ¡°Things will be interesting when Li Haoes back!¡± Yao Siughed. Dao Sword was likely no match for Li Hao at the moment, but it would be hard to say once he crossed into the Arcanus realm. Dao Sword was another beloved child of the heavens. He was a supernatural, but had a deep study of martial dao. He¡¯d once visited Sky Sword Mountain and received personal pointers from Sky Sword for a period of time. One had to know, Sky Sword didn¡¯t think much of most people.

    And considering the three other young geniuses in the mix, their powers of fanning the mes were unrivaled. They also liked to watch a good show.

    This was when Yao Si¡¯s thoughts turned to how Li Hao had called him disgusting. A wave of disgruntlement rose in the old man¡¯s heart. <i>So I love watching a good show, what about it?! I¡¯m going to watch </i>your<i> show, you little bastard! How dare you want to make me your subordinate!</i>

    ......

    News of Dao Sword emerging from closed door cultivation quickly spread throughout the world. All parties paid attention to this stunning genius in the Night Watchers. Since the quartet had gone to the Nine Dragons Pavilion, there would be visitors knocking at their door shortly.

    ......

    Off in Silver Moon, Li Hao also received word. He¡¯d taken a transmission pendant with him on this trip, one that was tied to the Silver Moonmunication system. However, he didn¡¯t normally look at it and didn¡¯t really care about the news that he did receive from it.

    He hadn¡¯t said anything when Big Eyes and the rest joined the battle in Skystar City, and didn¡¯t care that Dao Sword didn¡¯t appear because he was in closed door cultivation. So what of geniuses? All they needed to do was stay out of his way. If they disrupted his ns, he¡¯d turn a genius of this world into a genius of the underworld.

    ......

    On the third day of his return to Silver Moon, Li Hao visited Mount Cat Head again.

    <i>Outside the imperial pce.</i>

    The little tree¡¯s presence undted through the surroundings and its core origin wafted gently. It seemed rather tired, but was much stronger than before. Compared to its previous appearance, it was noticeablyrger now.

    ¡°I am pleased to report that I have fulfilled my mission!¡± Drops of Water of Life converged out of the air. Li Hao brought out therge jug that he createdst time. Every drop of this resource had been precious before, but now he had five hundred drops!

    It wasn¡¯t enough to fill his container, but at the very least, it was visible in the jug now.

    ¡°Congrattions!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°The senior looks to have noticeably improved.¡±

    ¡°Not improvement, just recovery. I was very much in a state ofck before,¡± answered the little tree¡¯s ripples. ¡°Are you leaving?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Not much will be happening in Silver Moon in a short period of time, so I¡¯m going out for a bit.¡±

    ¡°To the central region that you mentioned?¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s said that the Skystar mines are there.¡±

    ¡°The senior knows of them too?¡±

    ¡°I see mentions of them in my memory.¡± The little tree swayed, as if assessing Li Hao. ¡°I mentioned coalescing core origin talismans for you before, but with how much you¡¯ve improved, you may not need them...¡±

    Li Hao wanted to answer that he did! But the little tree continued before he had a chance to speak up, ¡°I have thought about it this extensively. You have helped me recover my strength and we of the imperial pce guards cannot be ungrateful. Therefore, I have a thought...¡± It struggled before continuing. ¡°I can halve my core origin and create a replica. It won¡¯t be too strong, just a little stronger than you, but it will contain some sentience. You can take me with you!

    ¡°However, do not leave me in the outside world if there is no need. Whether you wish to trade mysterious power stones or origin weapons, you can do so through my replica. My replica can also produce Water of Life.

    ¡°I will use my father¡¯s corpse as my carrier and you can ce my replica inside your body or a storage ring. But if I¡¯m in a storage ring, I will not be able to sense the outside world and may not be able to appear at first light. If I am in your body, I will be able to instantly sense everything!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped with surprise. The little tree wanted to leave the pce? Alright, not all of it wanted to leave, just half of it. But... hadn¡¯t it said before that it wouldn¡¯t venture out as long as the imperial pce stood? Of course, its main body was still here, it was just dividing its core origin in half.

    ¡°If the senior¡¯s replica goes out with me, will you be in danger if you take action in the outside world?¡± The young man swiftly weighed up the pros and cons.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure... but I shouldn¡¯t if my strength does not exceed the limit of this world. The danger lies in the weakness of the world and the ease with which the void breaks. Without sufficient energy consolidating space... Once I bring my full strength to bear and break the void, void turbulence will cut through everything. I might be cut down before the enemy dies!

    ¡°This is why you rarely see powerful existences in the world. The void now is much stronger than it was a few decades ago. When I first awoke, it was very, very weak.¡±

    That was before the first awakening of the supernatural!

    Li Hao understood and swiftly considered the proposition of taking the little tree with him. There would certainly be many benefits. He would gain a personal bodyguard, a nt spirit that could create Water of Life at any time, and an existence that could craft a sacrednd of cultivation. But there would also be drawbacks!

    Would other motives arise in the little tree since it was stronger than the human? Would it think of seizing Li Hao¡¯s wealth when it saw how rich the young man was? Putting it in the storage ring might be a better option.

    ¡°This is a good idea!¡± Li Hao said slowly after a few moments of furious thinking. ¡°It will be convenient too. But senior... I¡¯m going to visit Battle Heaven after this. Will it affect your replica to go with me?¡±

    ¡°Battle Heaven...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I¡¯m going to pick up a few things on a very quick visit!¡±

    The little tree dearly wanted to say that <i>you can go first ande back for me after.</i>

    ¡°Once I go, I¡¯ll head directly to Skystar City from there,¡± Li Hao quickly continued. ¡°If the senior would like to leave the pce, you¡¯ll have to divide yourself now.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The little tree understood. It was only inexperienced in the world, not a fool. The human likely wanted to use Battle Heaven to intimidate it. It hesitated, but still answered, ¡°That¡¯s fine, but... but... as a fellow nt spirit... Will General Pagoda of Battle Heaven... want to... eat me?¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡± Li Hao answered with a guilty conscience. ¡°Absolutely not! That¡¯s my territory, would I let the general eat the senior?¡±

    A great internal struggle beset the little tree! But for the future, for continual recovery... it had to go with Li Hao. Therefore, it came to a decision. It would go with the young man!

    The little tree shook violently. The fallen, crystalline tree on the ground began shrinking down until it turned into a tiny crystal tree. The little tree¡¯s presence was much weaker than before. Dividing its core origin was an action that led to devastating loss. There wouldn¡¯t be much of a problem if its replica returned, but if it died, then half of its core origin would be gone. It would lose its life if the consequences were that severe, or at the very least see its cultivation level decline if the ramifications were light.

    This was an action that required a great deal of resolve!

    The mini tree floated in front of Li Hao; the little tree¡¯s presence was much weaker¡ªeven its voice was weaker. ¡°Do not abandon me... unless you have no other choice... I might die if you do!¡±

    Li Hao was surprised by the aftereffects. The little tree really had made a hefty investment!

    ¡°Does the senior wish to consider this a bit further?¡±

    <i>Oh shut up! </i>The little tree wanted to erupt in a rage.<i> I¡¯ve already cut myself into two. Do you think that doesn¡¯t hurt? You try cutting yourself into two!</i>

    But in the pursuit of a beautiful future, it restrained its temper. ¡°No need. Will you let me into your body or...¡±

    ¡°Ah... I think a storage ring is better. My apologies to the senior!¡± Li Hao responded with resignation. ¡°I would like to ce you in my body as well, but Steris has just managed to take up residence inside metely. It has quite a temper and is always shooting off sword qi. I¡¯m afraid of it identally hurting the senior!¡±

    Very well, that was a perfect excuse!

    The little tree didn¡¯t mind. <i>Whatever. So long as you give me the first cut of all mysterious power stones and origin weapons, everything else is a side thought.</i>

 Chapter 729: Making Out Like Bandits (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 729: Making Out Like Bandits (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao put the mini tree away in a storage ring and took out a pile of seeds. ¡°Senior, how long will it take to cultivate the rations I need with these kinds of seeds?¡±

    ¡°Their quality... is poor! They require a lot of modification as they are very poor strains. I would say... three months.¡±

    Li Hao sighed upon receiving the assessment. So what they had was indeed low quality, and this was the best that Director General Zhao could gather! It looked like even the crops of this age were a marked degree worse than those of the ancient civilization.

    Since the little tree¡¯s main body was still present, it would have no trouble working on these seeds. Li Hao had no reason to linger in the imperial pce. He¡¯d gained quite a lot on this trip back to Silver Moon! There was the little tree¡¯s replica, five hundred drops of Water of Life, and two thousand sets of armor that Huang Yu had collected for him.

    He also had all sorts of random armor, with the ck Armaturas the most at one thousand sets. There was also armor from various troops that Li Hao didn¡¯t recognize. Who knew where Silver Moon had gotten those from and if they belonged to proper, official armies?

    Li Hao rushed to Rift Canyon without pause. This time, Panther was his steed. He¡¯d gotten tired from all the flying.

    ......

    Director General Wang was surprised to see Li Hao return to Battle Heaven. The entire city trembled as it looked down loftily. An enormous tree that nearly enveloped that entire city seemed to rustle for a moment.

    Li Hao had purposefully let the little tree out to intimidate it. It trembled and shook, not making a sound like it was dead. Shock gripped its heart! As expected, General Pagoda will still live! Not only the general, but the other nt spirits of Battle Heaven didn¡¯t seem to be fully dead either. They were wrapped in the general¡¯s enclosure and retained some vitality. Perhaps they could alsoe back to life as well.

    The little tree shook with trepidation. Director General Wang decided to fly straight through the city until he reached the front gates. He saw the young man off in the distance and also the mini tree. Contemting something, the director general vanished once more.

    Li Hao brought the little tree forward and quickly approached the city gates. The little tree suddenlynded on the ground and transformed into a tree the height of a person. It bent slightly at the two characters like it was bowing.

    The young man was surprised, but quickly understood. The little tree likely knew the origin of these words. Perhaps those of the imperial pce had mentioned it. The little tree reverted back to its miniature form after the bow and hovered unmovingly over Li Hao¡¯s shoulder.

    ¡°Troop Leader Li!¡± The three other troop leadersnded at the same time, looking at Li Hao, then at the little tree with surprise. ¡°A nt spirit? they asked with confusion. ¡°Where does this nt spirite from?¡±

    ¡°The imperial pce.¡±

    ¡°Imperial pce?¡± The Seventh Troop leader seemed to think of something and said after a moment, ¡°Oh... the... abandoned pce? I remember... I vaguely remember... that there was a tree at the gates... But... it wasn¡¯t this one...¡±

    ¡°That was my father!¡± The little tree¡¯s energy ripples undted.

    ¡°You canmunicate with them?¡± Li Hao looked at the little tree with surprise. The three troop leadersmunicated with him through the armor, not through pure mental ripples.

    ¡°We are of the same core origin dao. Their core origin has not dissipated, so we canmunicate with each other.¡±

    Li Hao understood, so this was the case!

    ¡°I see!¡± eximed the Seventh Troop leader. ¡°What a pity, but it¡¯s to be expected. So many of the Battle Heaven Army have fallen after all these years and we have decayed as well. Time urges us on the path of old age. Just surviving is good luck enough!

    ¡°What a pity that General Pagoda has not awakened. He would be able to talk with you then.¡± The troop leader turned to Li Hao. ¡°Is Troop Leader Li going to the barracks?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I¡¯m going to trade in some armor.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve gotten more armor?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡±

    ¡°It looks like your reinforcement troop is about to expand again!¡±

    Li Haoughed again and didn¡¯t chat further. He walked toward the barracks with the little tree. One inside the city, the little tree fell even more silent.

    ¡°Is your father dead?¡± The words suddenly formed in the tree¡¯s heart. ¡°What a pity. He was a loyal soldier. I remember that he was the only one who refused to leave when the imperial pce was abandoned. The one from the Cat Pce gave him a Cat Fruit. Was even that insufficient to save him?¡±

    The little tree¡¯s heart trembled! Who was this?!

    ¡°It¡¯s me.¡± A turtle floated out of the bottom of the tree¡¯s heart.

    ¡°Senior!¡± answered the tree with some shock. ¡°The senior is still... still... present...¡±

    ¡°I am a divine weapon and will not decay. Why would I not be present?¡±

    ¡°But Steris... the Windchaser Boots...¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re different from me. I am an ancient soul weapon¡ªSteris and the Windchaser Boots wereter modified. The Sword Sovereign does not like a weapon with its own consciousness, so he asked the Divine Forge Emperor to craft them anew. Not to mention, any soul weapon wouldn¡¯tst to the next fight in the Sword Sovereign¡¯s hands...¡±

    That was true! The Sword Sovereign¡¯s sword intent resulted in the death of either his enemy or himself whenever he fought. It would be the height of misfortune to be Steris¡¯ soul weapon. There would have to be a new one every three days as all would be gone once the Sword Sovereign struck.

    ¡°Senior, I...¡±

    ¡°We are just having a casual chat. There is no need to be afraid. You are the descendant of an imperial pce guard and have inherited your father¡¯s profession. Although it¡¯s just a pce and has been abandoned... You received the recognition of the noble Cat Tree, which makes you the same side as us. Not to mention... who dares offend someone from the Cat Pce? No one will do anything to you!¡±

    The little tree remained shyly quiet. Of course the Cat Pce came with an exceedingly high status! But that was in times past. Who knew what the situation was in Battle Heaven now? Not to mention, the Cat Pce was an abandoned pce, not one truly in use.

    The old turtle¡¯s figure began to dissipate. ¡°There¡¯s no need to mention this meeting to Li Hao and you do not need to speak too much of the past with him. The past is in the past, do not let New Martial interfere with the existence of this age! Let all proceed as it should!¡±

    ¡°This junior understands!¡±

    ¡°Mm.¡± The old turtle dispersed, the little tree quieted down, and Li Hao remained unknowing of everything.

    ......

    <i>Military Supplies.</i>

    Zhang Liang was struck speechless by the thousands of sets of armor that Li Hao took out. ¡°It¡¯s one thing if the armor is from the Skystar Army, at least they¡¯re an official army! What is all this junk?? This is... armor from the security guards of a martial university! You want to trade it in like regr army issue??¡±

    ¡°This is from the protective detail of merchant convoys! You¡¯re turning this in?!

    ¡°And... and this... oh my heavens, this is children¡¯s armor! This is for children! It¡¯s a toy! You want to trade <i>this</i> in?¡± The deputymissioner was highly disdainful of the array set in front of him. ¡°You¡¯ve brought back all manner of bric-a-brac! I simply don¡¯t know what to say!¡±

    Li Hao nced at his offerings sheepishly. Was that so? Weren¡¯t they all armor?

    As scornful as Zhang Liang was, he took careful inventory. ¡°There¡¯s twenty-two hundred sets here,¡± he concluded wordlessly. ¡°Only sixteen hundred of theme from an official army. The rest is trash!¡±

    ¡°Commissioner Zhang...¡±

    ¡°Deputymissioner!¡±

    ¡°I know, I know. Here¡¯s the situation¡ªdidn¡¯t I trade in twenty-three hundred sets before? I had one hundred to begin with, the Silver Moon Guards have five hundred, which makes for twenty-nine hundred total sets. How about I trade this lot for twenty-one hundred sets? That makes for an even five thousand!

    ¡°I can¡¯t have an uneven number, can I? That would look so weird and lose face for the Battle Heaven Army. People will look at me and count a little over four thousand. They¡¯ll wonder what happened to the rest, did I lose several hundred in previous battles?¡±

    Did his words make sense?

    A little! But Zhang Liang wasn¡¯t convinced. ¡°That... while you make sense, I¡¯m the one who has to suffer through military punishment if I give you several hundred extra sets!¡±

    ¡°Give it to him!¡± A voice manifested in Zhang Jiang¡¯s mind.

    ¡°Commander...¡± Zhang Liang jerked with surprise, then red at Li Hao. <i>Asshole who got in through connections! Pah! You¡¯re so shameless!</i> But what could he say now that themander had spoken? ¡°Fine, you make sense. You can have twenty-one hundred sets!¡±

    ¡°Thank you, Commissioner Zhang!¡±

    ¡°Deputymissioner!¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about the proper title. He exulted in his sess. Themissioner really had agreed to his request! Damn if that didn¡¯t feel nice!

    Meanwhile, the little tree was astonished. How was the matter settled like this? Didn¡¯t they say that the Battle Heaven Army practiced strict military discipline?

    But very quickly, it realized that this was because of Li Hao. The young man had an easy time no matter where he went. He could insist on his way here¡ªproof that he really did have support from Battle Heaven.

    The little tree was once more stunned by the human¡¯s capabilities! The heir of the eight families was a fish in water no matter where he went! The Lis were indeed at their head! It looked like even Battle Heaven was wary of the Sword Sovereign¡¯s renown.

    Zhang Liang quickly brought out the armor and tossed them at Li Hao. He ignored the young man after that, not wanting to talk to someone who made it to his position through connections!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind. He gleefully walked out of the door. Themander¡¯s office wasn¡¯t his next stop. He simply lingered outside the building for a bit and saluted before running off. This was just to ensure that themander wouldn¡¯t be able to say that Li Hao hadn¡¯t properly greeted hismanding officer after his return.

    <i>Inside the office.</i>

    Themander looked on wordlessly. That was truly such a perfunctory way of going through the motions!

 Chapter 730: Return to Skystar (I)

    <h4>Chapter 730: Return to Skystar (I)</h4>

    <i>Silver Moon, White Moon City.</i>

    A long convoy of cars snaked through the streets early in the morning. A ck g with a ferocious tiger and a Li character emzoned on it hung high over the cars, rippling in the wind like a snarling tiger loftily looking down from a mountain.

    People were gathered in the surroundings, looking at the convoy with bafflement. Was it the provincial army? But they¡¯d never seen this g before. How curious.

    There were roughly twentyrge cars and multiple smaller cars in the convoy. Such an array had urred before in early October, when Director Hou Xiaochen of the Night Watchers had traveled to the central region. Which heavyweight was it this time?

    ¡°Is a major general heading out on a campaign?¡± A person in the crowd couldn¡¯t hold in their curiosity anymore.

    Someone¡¯s ears twitched in one of the big cars and they called out, ¡°Skystar Governor General, Skystar Vice Commander, and Silver Moon Night Watcher Director Li Hao leads the army to Skystar City today. He will suppress the unrest in the dynastic capital and the Demon Hunters follow in his wake!¡±

    The announcement drew some attention. Wasn¡¯t Commander Li in Skystar City? When had hee back?

    Granted, this wasn¡¯t the important part as the crowd exploded with the ramifications of what they¡¯d heard.

    ¡°Are they going to war? Director Hou just took thousands of martial masters not long ago and now Director Li is taking so many with him... Are they bringing all of the Silver Moon martial masters to Skystar to turn over the world there?¡±

    ¡°Silver Moon men are the toughest! Didn¡¯t you hear? They¡¯re leading the army to suppress disturbances in Skystar! Heh, we¡¯ll let those southern fellows see how strong us northern men are!¡±

    ¡°......¡± A flurry of discussion sprang up in all directions.

    Contrary to the low profile of hisst journey, Li Hao had no choice but to raise this degree of fuss because he was traveling with too many people. He¡¯d wanted to quietly sneak back to Skystar City, but Silver Moon rmended that he travel openly like Hou Xiaochen had. He could adopt the same car convoy that the director had employed to return to Skystar.

    The Silver Moon provincial army was sending one thousand people and there were several dozen Demon Hunters as well. That made for more people than when the Silver Moon Guard left the province. However, there weren¡¯t as many powerhouses as that delegation.

    The strongest among the Demon Hunters was Liu Long¡ªhe¡¯d just set foot in Summoner of Spirit. The other was the Sr level Wang Ming and peak Sr Hao Lianchuan¡ªthetter wouldn¡¯t leave no matter what Li Hao said.

    ording to Hao Lianchuan¡¯s words, there was no use for a peak Sr within Silver Moon these days. No major matters were forting on the horizon, so Srs were wasted in provincial territory.

    Discourse buzzed in the surroundings as soldiers stood with their heads held high and chests thrust out. It was quite a thrilling feeling to be standing on one of the trucks. The Demon Hunters were in two cars, followed by the one thousand soldiers from the provincial army. A young officer stood in one of the cars leading the soldiers. He wore a military uniform and looked around in all directions. His deputy murmured in a low voice, ¡°Sir, there is no sign of Demon Sword to be found.¡±

    The young man nodded without a word. Commander Yu had told him to lead his men and follow Li Hao to Skystar City. He didn¡¯t know what he felt about that. Battles were hard toe by in Silver Moon these days, but Skystar City was a lion¡¯s nest. Arcanus were amon sight and one battle rendered a dozen of them dead. Novas werepletely worthless.

    The thousand troops that he led counted as strong troops in Silver Moon¡ªthey were almost all martial masters and one step away from yer of Tens. Meanwhile, the young man himself was a true martial master, a half step Sunderer. But... what good did that count for?

    In an era of the supernatural, it didn¡¯t matter if a martial master broke through to Dominator. This troop wouldn¡¯t be able to defeat a Sr even if they were equipped with weapons. Perhaps they¡¯d be able to force the Sr into retreat, but any Nova that came along could annihte them all.

    The young man didn¡¯t understand, why did Commander Yu want to send such an army to Skystar City? He also didn¡¯t understand why someone like Demon Sword needed them. To do errands? Or to enhance his reputation?

    Wang Ming¡¯s deration of suppressing Skystar unrest was aplete joke in his eyes. That was just making themselves to be more important than they actually were! They were so much less than the Silver Moon Guards that¡¯d left with Director Hou. One had to know, of the nearly one thousand Silver Moon Guards, almost all of them were Sunderers. They also possessed multiple Dominators and a group of powerhouses like Golden Spear.

    What were these soldiers worth?

    The young man turned back to look at the cars holding provincial army soldiers. Some people were excited, others apprehensive. Some felt self-conscious, and others felt uneasy. inly, they also felt that they themselves were too weak.

    While endless thoughts rose in his mind, the young man still grunted, ¡°Be on guard and conduct reconnaissance in the surroundings! The vanguard will take point when we leave the city...¡±

    ¡°We won¡¯t have to do any of this, sir,¡± sighed his deputy. ¡°Didn¡¯t you see the Demon Hunters alight earlier to scout ahead?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s them, we are we.¡± The young man frowned. ¡°Just because they¡¯re doing it doesn¡¯t mean that we won¡¯t do it!¡±

    What his deputy wanted to say was that it was a futile effort. If someone wanted to attack Li Hao, then small fry such as them wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything no matter how they scouted. But it didn¡¯t seem like a good time to say anything.

    The convoy of cars quickly drove into the city outskirts.

    ......

    At the same time, scouts quickly spread word.

    ......

    <i>Skystar City, the Inspectorate.</i>

    The inspector general looked at his transmission pendant and smirked. He shook his head, not bothering with words. The boy just wanted to give himself some more confidence and build up his reputation!

    One thousand provincial soldiers and approximately fifty of his old troops¡ªa group that Li Hao called the Demon Hunters. Their strongest was a Dominator and Sr... And of the one thousand soldiers, most of them were mundanes! There weren¡¯t that many martial masters...

    What use was an army like this if they were one hundred thousand, much less one thousand? Hell, even one million waspletely useless!

    ¡°Returning in style to his hometown... Does he actually think that he¡¯s in Skystar City to spend the rest of his days in honor and glory?¡± The inspector general didn¡¯t know what to make of the young man. Since when had he developed a taste for ostentation and extravagance? That was not promising.

    As inspector general, he¡¯d seen too many geniuses and knew too much. Those who settled into a life of enjoyment after they aplished something major usually did notst long. Li Hao had inly let his previous victory go to his head and was treating Skystar City as his home. He wasing back with one thousand people to pave his road of wealth and riches in the central region.

    He¡¯d lost sight of who he was! Thank goodness the Inspectorate hadn¡¯t invested too much in him. He was too young and couldn¡¯t withstand temptation.

    ......

    The inspector general wasn¡¯t the only one to think so. At least the Silver Moon Guards had had some strength to them. What good was one thousand mundanes for, if not putting on a show? Even the Silver Moon soldiers themselves thought so.

    <i>We¡¯re just here to run some errands and make him look good. Why else does Demon Sword want us? To kill enemies for him? Srs? Novas? Or Arcanus?</i>

    <i>Outside the city.</i>

    Dressed in silver armor, Li Hao waited at the city gate for the convoy to arrive. He¡¯d turned his gold armor into silver, keeping his usual low profile. He¡¯d wanted to leave first, but then worried that something might happen to these people because they were too weak. Thus, he chose to travel together in case they were all killed by third parties. He wouldn¡¯t even know who their murderers were!

    The convoy gradually slowed down.

    ¡°Halt!¡±

    The cars stopped and people jumped out.

    ¡°There are fifty-four in the Demon Hunters, fifty-five have reported to duty. All are ounted for!¡± Liu Long roared.

    There was one extra because of Hao Lianchuan. With Liu Long in the mix, there were fifty martial masters. Yun Yao, Li Meng, Hu Hao, and Wang Ming made for four supernatural members.

    Li Hao looked at Hao Lianchuan with a slight furrow of his forehead. ¡°Are you sure you want to go with me, Vice Director Hao?¡± he muttered. ¡°The Silver Moon Night Watchersck a director already, and if their acting director leaves...¡±

    Hao Lianchuan wasn¡¯t his typical irreverent self. He looked at Li Hao for a while before saying, ¡°I don¡¯t want to stay. If I stay, I¡¯ll continue to get weaker!¡± He didn¡¯t want to stay!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything. The young man jogged over from the rear to salute. The military ceremonies of the Silver Moon provincial army differed from the Battle Heaven Army. Lacking a certain gravitas, it was just a simple raising of the hand.

    ¡°Commander Li, the White Moon Guards of Silver Moon number 1,020. 1,020 have reported for duty. All are ounted for and we await themander¡¯s orders!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. ¡°What is your name?¡±

    ¡°This subordinate is Huang Taiming!¡±

    ¡°What is Commander Yu¡¯s rtionship with you?¡±

    ¡°Commander Yu is the Silver Moonmander-in-chief!¡±

    ¡°I mean personal rtionship.¡±

    Huang Taiming frowned, but answered, ¡°Commander Yu is my grandfather twice removed. My great-grandfather and Commander Yu¡¯s father were cousins...¡±

    This was a close familial tie, but could also be a far tie. This meant to say that Huang Yu¡¯s great-grandfather and the young man¡¯s great great-grandfather were one and the same, but that was an uncountable number of generations ago.

    So his post wasn¡¯t a result of nepotism.

 Chapter 731: Return to Skystar (II)

    <h4>Chapter 731: Return to Skystar (II)</h4>

    Momentster, Li Haoughed at himself. So he was starting to care about how people rose to their posts, huh? He was probably being affected by Zhang Liang¡ªthe deputymissioner constantly looked down his nose at Li Hao now and scoffed at him for getting in through connections.

    ¡°Very good!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Then you should know that starting from today, you are no longer of the Silver Moon provincial army. You are part of the Demon Hunters! Are you ready for this?¡±

    ¡°We are!¡± Huang Taiming shouted loudly.

    ¡°Do you feel any resentment in leaving your homes?¡±

    ¡°No, this is a soldier¡¯s lot in life. But... as a soldier, we hope to set foot on the battlefield and not...¡± Huang Taiming hesitated before yelling, ¡°And not be decoration! Although we are weak, although we cannot stand up to a single hit, we still do not wish to be Skystar City embellishment that carries around heavy loads. We¡¯ve been in the army for many years to kill enemies!¡±

    His words were filled with reluctance. He didn¡¯t want to stand around like trophies after arriving in Skystar City.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that nonsense?¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Am I bringing you along for fun? Do I look like I have that much time on my hands, or that much money to feed one thousand of you for free? I can barely feed myself! Your Commander Yu might not pay your sries anymore, so I¡¯ll have to pay them!

    ¡°Therefore, he might¡¯ve said before you guys departed that joining up with me means dying nine times out of ten. Such are your odds of survival. You aren¡¯t qualified enough to be decoration!¡±

    Huang Taiming was rather surprised. <i>Is he really letting us kill the enemy? But... who... can we kill?</i>

    That was a big question and a sad question. They would either kill enemies or be decoration. The key thing was, any enemy that Li Hao provoked would be invincible to the soldiers. They¡¯d be going to their deaths all the same on the battlefield.

    ¡°That¡¯s enough, cut the ther and change into your uniforms!¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Change!¡± Li Hao barked. ¡°Don¡¯t make me repeat myself twice!¡± Set upon set of armor materialized. ¡°Leader Liu, help them into their new equipment. This is standard issue and you will keep it on at all times. The age of hot weapons is about to be over and the era of supernaturals and superhumans is about to fully descend! Even a city annihtion missile will find it difficult to inflict damage on a powerhouse. Novas will be able to avoid the missiles entirely...¡±

    Huang Tailing¡¯s expression shifted when he looked at the rows of armor. ¡°Leader, this is...¡±

    ¡°Call me general or sir!¡± Li Hao responded faintly. ¡°You guys should know a bit about this as well. This is armor from the ancient civilization with exceedingly strong defenses...¡±

    Huang Taiming had indeed seen it before and even knew that this was from Battle Heaven. All the same, he was hard pressed to conceal his shock.

    ¡°This is too wasteful, general!¡± he couldn¡¯t help but say. ¡°ording to what I know, this armor is utilized to the best effect when equipped by a Sunderer or even Dominator. We, we are too weak for all this armor!¡±

    He felt too inferior!

    ¡°You¡¯ll grow stronger sooner orter. Do you think you¡¯ll continue to be this weak when you follow me?¡± Li Hao said quietly. ¡°Enough, change into your new equipment. You guys don¡¯t match when you¡¯re wearing different clothing. Step out of the cars and into the armor!¡±

    He waved the Vast Kun Ship from the Demon Hunters into existence and rapidly expanded it. He nned on flying the ship instead of taking the cars back. When magnified, the ship could fit five thousand, much less one thousand. It just required some mysterious power stones.

    One thousand people quietly changed into their new gear. The Demon Hunters stepped forward to help them limate to their equipment. No sounds were produced during the process. Although this troop of soldiers was weaker than the Demon Hunters, their discipline was much stronger and they showed no signs of disarray.

    This was good. They were veteran soldiers, some having previously participated in campaigns and killed people. Troops like these were easy to consolidate and wouldn¡¯t give rise to troublemakers or those who refused to fall in line. Huang Yu¡¯s men adhered to regtion more, not to mention that Li Hao was a premier powerhouse. Everyone knew that, so no one dared raise a fuss.

    One thousand armored troops quickly appeared on the scene. They immediately looked like a forbidding army and looked particrly magnificent.

    ¡°Do you all know how to use cold weapons?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Huang Taiming marveled at his new armor. ¡°Commander Yu started training us in cold weapons five years ago. Us White Moon Guards are skilled with the spear and de. We are not familiar with swords, but can also fill in as cavalry. It¡¯s just that we¡¯re traveling a long way this time, so we did not bring our battlesteeds!¡±

    Huang Yu had certainly gone to a great deal of effort if he started training the provincial army with cold weapons five years ago. inly, he was ready to conduct wars with cold weapons. As strong as hot weapons were, almost everyone could avoid them once they reached Sunderer. Firearms were useless at the Dominator level and missiles even more so. They were too slow to hit the target.

    This made Li Hao¡¯s job easier!

    ¡°You guys can take some time getting used to the ck armor. The armores with its own weapon that¡¯s one with the armor. There are a lot of modes¡ªyou can choose between de, spear, sword, and halberd. Regr Darkmoons will have difficulty breaking through your defenses when you¡¯re equipped with the ck armor. Only the recoil from their attacks might kill you...¡±

    When mundanes wore the armor, they reached a Sunderer or Darkmoon level of defense. It instantly increased their strength. Of course, that was far from enough!

    ¡°Board the ship and leave the cars behind for Silver Moon to collect!¡±

    The shipnded on the ground, equipped with much more functionality than before since it¡¯d expanded. No one said anything as they quietly boarded the ship in an orderly fashion. Liu Long looked at Li Hao, stunned. Where had the young man obtained so much armor from? He didn¡¯t ask anything and boarded the ship with the rest.

    Li Hao continued to wait on the ground. Momentster, a small car stopped by the city gates. Deputy Zhou walked out and jogged over, panting, ¡°Sorry I¡¯mte! I set off a long time ago, but Ole Zhao insisted on keeping me and talking to me. Sorry sorry...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s normal that Director General Zhao can¡¯t bear to see Deputy Zhou go,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°You¡¯ve worked together for forty years, after all. How many forty years do we have in one life?¡±

    ¡°Ai, isn¡¯t that so!¡± Deputy Zhouughed as well and looked at the flying ship in front of him. ¡°Are we taking this to Skystar City?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm, it¡¯s more convenient.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good! It just costs a bit more.¡± Deputy Zhou took another nce and raised an eyebrow at all the ck armor he saw. He wasn¡¯t surprised, though, as Li Hao had said that he was a division leader. It was normal that he could bring forth a few thousand sets of armor to spare.

    ¡°Then, let¡¯s board the ship?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s!¡± Deputy Zhou smiled. ¡°After you,mander!¡±

    Li Haoughed and boarded the ship. Behind him, the deputy looked around and asked, ¡°Where¡¯s Panther?¡±

    ¡°Off on some business, it¡¯ll be back soon!¡±

    Deputy Zhou didn¡¯t ask further. He was greeted with the view of one thousand people standing still at attention when he entered the hold. They did not make a sound and were surprised to see Deputy Zhou. Everyone was familiar with the deputy director general of the administrative government. He lived in White Moon City, what was he doing here?

    ¡°I have extended an invitation to Deputy Zhou to join the Demon Hunters,¡± Li Hao announced. ¡°Starting from today, he will be our strategist!¡±

    The deration surprised the crowd! Changing positions from the deputy director general of a province to the strategist of a thousand people strong troop... Even if the troop was the Demon Hunters led by Demon Sword, wasn¡¯t this difference too great?

    Hao Lianchuan stuck out his chest, wanting to tell Li Hao that <i>I¡¯m still the acting director of the Night Watchers! If old fart Zhou is a strategist, then what about me?</i>

    ¡°I am grateful for themander¡¯s favor,¡± chuckled the deputy. ¡°We will be colleagues from now on, please look after me well.¡±

    ¡°We wouldn¡¯t dare!¡± several powerhouses chorused. This was a major official standing in front of them, after all! How had Li Hao managed to steal even him? Wasn¡¯t Director General Zhao on the verge of tears then?

    No one had much of an opinion when it came to their strategist. He¡¯d once overseen one hundred million people, to say nothing of anything else. He was quite adept at support and finance; the troop also needed someone like that.

    As for his actual strategizing abilities, no one knew much about them.

    ¡°Please choose your cabins ording to your designated numbers,¡± said Li Hao. ¡°There¡¯s no need to stay here. There¡¯s ces to rest on the ship. Huang Taiming, you and a few others can stay!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t just say understood, remember to add sir to the end!¡±

    ¡°Understood, sir!¡± the group immediately amended. This was what was the benefit of soldiers, they obeyed whatever their superior officer said.

    Off to the side, Deputy Zhou stroked his mustache and smiled at Li Hao. Did thed want to revitalize the traditions of the Battle Heaven Army? That would be quite the ambition. That army had been among the elites in the ancient civilization.

    ......

    There weren¡¯t many left in the hold after most left to choose their cabins. Li Hao didn¡¯t say much; he walked up to the ship¡¯s bow andmanded the vessel to rise. The massive ship took the air and flew into the distance.

    ¡°The newly joined White Moon Guards are too weak, they need to be strengthened! All of them need to be yers first. They won¡¯t have much of an issue to keep breaking through tote Sunderer,¡± the young man began. ¡°Half step Dominator is a threshold, so if they cannot break through, I rmend breaking their supernatural locks and bing supernatural!

    ¡°Supernaturals don¡¯t have a high requirement of daoprehension, all they need to do is to break their supernatural locks. Ascending as a Sunderer will bring them to Sunre. This course of action will ensure swift improvement. It¡¯s true that the aura of a martial master isn¡¯t easy to grasp.¡±

    Wang Taiming simply nodded. Whether it was supernatural or martial master, just growing stronger was enough for them. The details didn¡¯t matter. They were different from Hong Qing in that Hong Qing had been a martial master since young. She¡¯d always been a martial master and knew a great deal of the path. She¡¯d had a chance toprehend the aura.

    These soldiers knew very little of what it meant to be a martial master. It was too hard for them to aspire to sensing the aura! Therefore, it was much easier to ascend as a supernatural.

    Deputy Zhou wanted to give a good showing of himself and beamed, ¡°Leave these small matters to me! I can oversee everything frompensation, benefits, and calction of military merits.¡± His smile widened when Li Hao looked at him. ¡°It¡¯s just one thousand people, I won¡¯t have much of a problem with that. But I might need some helpers once the number of people growster on.¡±

    <i>Just one person alone for all that! </i>Li Hao nodded, the old man sure didn¡¯t just sit around. Of course, he¡¯d spent two hundred drops of Water of Life to recruit the deputy. The central region would pay twenty million mysterious power stones for that amount. That could buy Li Hao arge army! Here, it only brought him one old man. Hence, these trifling matters really didn¡¯t matter much.

 Chapter 732: Return to Skystar (III)

    <h4>Chapter 732: Return to Skystar (III)</h4>

    ¡°Commander Li, I rmend creating greater fanfare since our journey is already known.¡± Deputy Zhouughed at seeing Li Hao agree. ¡°We should unfurl the tiger g and let everyone know that Demon Sword is here! Our route will take us past Near River and the three northern provinces. We don¡¯t need to do anything, just simply intimidate the northern provinces!

    ¡°Making such amotion as we travel is also a type of deterrence and builds our reputation. We will let the world know that wherever the tiger g is, so is Commander Li! Sometimes, the g can stand-in for an Arcanus when you¡¯re not around!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened from the new thoughts he was receiving and he nodded, approving of the proposed course of action.

    ¡°We can exterminate some bandits along the way to improve the troop¡¯s coordination. For now, the Demon Hunters can be in charge of offense and the White Moon Guards of catching stragglers. The two groups need to learn how to operate in ordance with each other. Pitched battle is different from small skirmishes.¡± Deputy Zhou offered a few more suggestions that Li Hao did not refuse. He nodded to each one.

    The flying ship moved swiftly through the air, passing by various cities. Whenever they reached a city, someone would call out that the Skystar governor general was passing through and just borrowing their airspace. The tiger g, Li Hao, and flying ship was quickly known throughout Silver Moon.

    ......

    <i>Near River, the Director General Office.</i>

    Fan Chang frowned and someone grit their teeth below him. ¡°That Li Hao is too cocky by far! He¡¯s driving a flying ship across everything in his path¡ªno one is to stop him! Although he approaches Near River, he doesn¡¯t show a single sign of reining himself in!

    ¡°Judging from his flight path, he may even pass through our territory. Director General, do we show him a taste of what he deserves?¡±

    ¡°Are you going to fight him?¡± Fan Chang nced at the speaker. That was someone who¡¯d killed multiple Arcanus! The kid¡¯s strength waspletely different from when they fought over the North Sea.

    ¡°City annihtion missiles...¡±

    ¡°Are you bold enough to fire them?¡± Fan Chang stared the speaker down. The missiles were strong. If they fired a hundred of them at that conceited kid and his ship, he probably wouldn¡¯t be able to dodge and would be done for.

    However, half of Near River would be destroyed as well! And what if the kid got away? What good was killing a bunch of mundanes for?!

    His subordinate below spoke no further, simply finding their circumstances a bit humiliating. They were a vaunted province! But some brat from Silver Moon flew right through them without the intention of stopping. This was beyond ludicrous! Li Hao was too, too vainglorious!

    Fan Chang didn¡¯t say anything. If the heavens wanted to put someone down, they would let that person grow too big for their boots first! Li Hao was indeed being too egotistic¡ªhe really thought of himself as an invincible powerhouse just because he led one thousand weaklings!

    Outright crossing thend like this was creating more than one disgruntled provincial leader against him, but everyone had to keep it to themselves for now. They could only tolerate the brat and give way. This was someone who dared kill even ministers!

    The nine ministries had yet to take Li Hao to task for his offenses, was Near River supposed to pit themselves against him? What a joke!

    Fan Chang¡¯s frown deepened the next second as he walked outside. Someone within the Director General Office raised their head to the sky, seeing that the sky was dark and clouds covering the sun!

    ¡°The Skystar governor general is passing by. Where is the Near River director general? You are to present yourself!¡± A cold shout echoed in the four directions and in the hearts of the Near River government personnel!

    Demon Sword? How brazen!

    They¡¯d already heard that Demon Sword was leading troops to the central region and would pass Near River soon, but here he really was and demanding to see their director general as soon as he arrived!

    Strictly speaking, the two were of the same rank. What was this if not clear provocation? The citizens of Near River were terrified out of their minds.

    Meanwhile, inside the Director General Office, some people around Fan Chang glowered. He pressed down his hands to cate them and took to the air, heartyughter ringing through the sky. ¡°Fan Chang greets the Skystar Marquis!¡±

    He was about to say a few words more when someone responded faintly, ¡°You are dismissed. We are just passing through. Director General Fan¡¯s administration has resulted in a chaotic province overrun by bandits. It is time that you put your affairs into order. Your soldiers are no better than robbers and kill the innocent for false merits. I will most certainly censure you when I return to Silver City. Reflect well on your misdeeds!¡±

    Fan Chang was livid! He was showing the kid face, but the brat spat on him in return! Li Hao was simply too overbearing! <i>Who, no </i>what,<i> do you think you are?! </i>He wanted to erupt in a rage, but the ship had already sailed by.

    ¡°You should be d that I¡¯m not in the mood to eliminate you,¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice sounded in his ear. ¡°Don¡¯t think I¡¯ve forgotten the battle of the North Sea! I would''ve executed you on the spot for the offense of ambushing me, if not for the restriction from the nine ministries!¡±

    Fan Chang¡¯s heart shook and he spoke no further. He quietly sank down to the ground, bitterness gleaming out of his eyes. It was his strength that was not up to par!

    Although this was his territory, if a battle broke out... Though he might be able to stand up to an Arcanus, if Li Hao¡¯s ire was roused, Fan Chang¡¯s umtion over all these years might be gone in an instant.

    Li Hao inly had his concerns about the nine ministries and didn¡¯t dare openly kill a major figure. But if Fan Chang caused trouble for him... then the young man wouldn¡¯t be so restrained. He suddenly understood why Li Hao had chosen to fly through his province¡ªthe brat wanted to provoke Fan Chang into taking action!

    <i>Hmm, this director general will not fall for your trick!</i> Fan Chang permitted the ship to fly away as it would. Meanwhile, those of the Director General Office were rmed, but also slightly expectant. Would Demon Sword really write a petition to censure the director general? Could the man be taken in?

    That the people suffered in misery and the army being the same as bandits as an urate representation of their situation! While expectation brewed, the people also knew that it would be a difficult task. It was hard for the central region¡¯s hand to stretch to the north. Although Li Hao was a northerner, Silver Moon did not hold jurisdiction over Near River either.

    On this day, all Near River citizens learned of Li Hao. They knew of the tiger g and how its bearer was so pompous that he lectured their director general to his face.

    ......

    Arge ship continued to sail through the sky. Whether it was bandits or the army, everyone retreated from its flight path. The reverberations from Demon Sword cutting down an Arcanus were yet to dissipate.

    ......

    <i>The North Sea, by the coastline.</i>

    A dog was sprawled on the shore, awaiting further development. Waves ebbed and flowed in the sea. Momentster, arge snake head poked out of the water. The head was as big as a whetstone.

    ¡°Honored One.¡± Its mental ripples reached the dog. ¡°Can Master Li really help me transform into a dragon?¡±

    Panther ignored it; the snake wasn¡¯t in a hurry. It was apprehensive. Panther had rushed through the night to visit Kui Mountain because Li Hao had one matter left to attend to. The big snake had helped him before and he¡¯d promised to help it find the method to ascend as a dragon.

    Although there wasn¡¯t a transformation method, Li Hao knew how the snake should ascend. He naturally wouldn¡¯t forget the favor owed, so he had Panther notify the snake to wait for him in the North Sea.

    ¡°Honored One, the North Sea has monster spirits too. My unexpected presence here will easily give rise to conflict...¡±

    ¡°ROAR!¡± Panther promptly transformed into the golden dog and red its presence outward. The big snake cowered on the water surface, silent as could be. That was right, with the noble one here, what was there to be afraid of? Even if there were monster spirits in the North Sea, they would have to bow down to this one!

    Panther retracted his presence only after a long moment. This big snake was so annoying!

    A massive flying ship swung through the air as they talked. The snake lit up¡ªwas he here?

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The shipnded in the sea, flinging sea spray across the scene. A gigantic snake head rose from the water surface in the astonished eyes of Liu Long and the others.

    ¡°This humble snake of Kui Mountain greets the Revered One!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re much too polite, Snake King!¡± Li Hao roared withughter. ¡°I am deeply grateful that the Snake King did not expose me to the Steadfast Duke that day. I visited the ancient city a few days ago and asked about the dragon transformation method. I have some reflections to share, but am unable to travel to Kui Mountain due to my missions at hand. Therefore, I had Panther contact you to wait here. My apologies for keeping you waiting!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re far too polite, Revered One!¡± The snake king grew even more humble. This was a major personage who¡¯d made a special trip to the ancient city to inquire about its matters. That was such a demonstration of effort!

    The snake¡¯s big eyes swept over the ship, passing the others nomittally, but nearly widening with fear when it saw the merry Deputy Zhou. The big snake quickly understood. This was to be expected, the revered one was the heir of the ancient civilization.

    Deputy Zhou and the others looked back at the monster spirit, so this was the snake king of Kui Mountain? It was very strong and looked to be peak metamorphosis!

    Li Hao walked through the air and reached a hand toward the snake¡¯s head. ¡°The seniors in the ancient city say that you are of the snake race, that snakes and dragons are different races. There is no need to doggedly pursue bing a dragon! Not to mention, you are too weak and so it is much worse to reach beyond your grasp. All you need is to purify your blood. I¡¯ll use the sword of the Lis to purify some for you, it won¡¯t be hard for you to break through to Arcanus then!¡±

 Chapter 733: Return to Skystar (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 733: Return to Skystar (IV)</h4>

    The big snake¡¯s heart quailed with what it heard. <i>Don¡¯t transform into a dragon? I am too weak? Dragons and snakes aren¡¯t of the same race...</i>

    These words emzoned themselves into the snake¡¯s mind, throwing it into a daze. And yet, these were pointers from a supreme powerhouse. It had tomit them to memory! A peculiar strength surged into its body the next second¡ªthe snake immediately sensed how it was different!

    Its blood frothed as the monster spirit agitated. Li Hao continuously directed sword energy into the snake while he transmitted, ¡°After crossing into the Arcanus level, you will be a premier monster spirit in the modern age. Of the seven divine mountains, the Sky Roc and Phoenix Mountains are all established by flight monster spirits. Why doesn¡¯t the snake king establish a Kui Mountain sacrednd to ept the monster spirits of thend and even sea?¡±

    ¡°Revered One...¡± the big snake responded with astonishment.

    ¡°Your mountain range bisects the eastern and northern continents. Silver Moon lies in the north and will conquer the world sooner orter, then revitalize the glories of New Martial! We may need to subjugate the east in our quest of world domination, which will require the snake king¡¯s aid!

    ¡°In addition, as a whole, the monster spirits are a scattered race in these times. Some of them randomly kill innocents and eat humans. You were enlightened early, so you know of the glories of the human race. Once the monster spirits rampage wildly, that will only lead to your own kind¡¯s immense losses. The heaven and earth shake in these times¡ªyou should rise with the wind. There were supreme powerhouses among the monster spirits in the ancient civilization. Why can there not be a new king among you in modern times?¡±

    The snake king¡¯s heart shook; it didn¡¯t dare make a sound. Its blood frothed more furiously as it absorbed more sword energy, considering what Li Hao had said. Did this one wish to dominate the world? Should the Kui Mountain establish a sacrednd for monster spirits and take in monster spirits from all corners? Should they go to war for this human and conquer the eastern continent?

    Various thoughts rose in the snake king¡¯s mind as it transmitted cautiously, ¡°Revered One, the monster spirits of Kui Mountainck sufficient strength. Even if I break through to Arcanus, there are only a few Novas among us...¡±

    They were strong enough, but stillcked some foundationpared to the seven divine mountains. They had very few metamorphoses...

    ¡°That is fine! So long as you are strong enough to give me a hand, I can use the energy of the divine sword to purify your branch¡¯s bloodline. It is only a matter of time before you ascend to a stronger level!

    ¡°The second awakening is about to begin. There will be no chances avable to you if you do not work hard to seize the advantage! Once the ancient monster spirits awaken and ancient nt spirits take their ce in the world, you modern spirits will be their vassals!¡±

    The big snake shook from the implications.

    ¡°It is almost time for the second awakening, so do not miss thisst chance!¡±

    ¡°The Revered One speaks truly!¡± quickly responded the snake king as certain thoughts began to form in its mind.

    ¡°Additionally, the snake race can also enter the sea. I may need your help with the North Sea. I killed the North Sea King a while ago and he had many dukes under his banner. The North Sea is a chaotic mess these days, which is an opportunity for you!¡±

    ¡°This humble snake understands!¡± The big snake didn¡¯t say much else. The strength of its bloodline had onlycked a slight push before setting foot into Arcanus. Thanks to Li Hao¡¯s help, it quickly purified its bloodline. Rays of golden light emanated from its body before long!

    Water mist rose in the surroundings; the sound of arge river flowing coursed through the area. This was the power of the bloodline! The big snake reared its head and mmed its tail down on the sea surface. Vast waves reared toward the sky!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Loud impacts reverberated in the four directions and a humongous snake appeared a secondter, blotting out the sky and exuding hints of aureate light.

    Deputy Zhou was also shocked by what he saw. The bloodline purification effects from sword energy were fantastic! This big snake really had easily set foot over the hurdle and entered the Arcanus level!

    Panther was also envious and stared at the snake. This easy ascension was the result of many years of umtion, it hadn¡¯t broken through simply due to Li Hao¡¯s favor. It¡¯d onlycked a catalyst; the sword energy was that catalyst.

    Excitement and gratitude filled the big snake¡¯s giant eyes.

    ¡°Many thanks to the Revered One¡¯s favor!¡± It was ovee with the fact that it¡¯d ascended without needing to transform into a dragon. Indeed, the ancient experts were right. That course of action seemed to be a reach beyond its grasp. Purifying its own bloodline instead of seeking to be a dragon... perhaps that was the correct path.

    The snake¡¯s body was so exceedingly strong that Li Hao marveled at it. No wonder the monster spirits could establish two divine mountains. This guy didn¡¯t show the slightest burden on its body after setting foot into Arcanus! That meant its cultivation level was very stable, unlike other Arcanus who needed to stabilize their five organs. After sessfully making the breakthrough, this ced the big snake on par with Hu Xiao!

    ¡°You¡¯re being too polite, I said I¡¯d do this for you!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I would request that the snake king remember that whether it is humans or monster spirits, each has their own dao. Eating humans... is not the proper way!¡±

    ¡°This humble snake willmit that to memory!¡± The snake prostrated itself on the ground and didn¡¯t dare say anything else.

    ¡°Then do as you will, I am heading to the central region...¡±

    ¡°Permit this humble snake to lead the way for the Revered One...¡± The snake king shot forward without another word, opening a vast waterway through the sea that the great ship took. There were no monster spirits or pirate ships that dared approach the waterway. Just one look at the snake¡¯s body was indication enough of how strong it was!

    Some people saw the scene from far away and were stunned speechless! Demon Sword truly did have a few tricks up his sleeve.

    ......

    Deputy Zhou stroked his mustache with a smile and transmitted to Li Hao, ¡°Not bad, it¡¯s good to foster our own men in the monster spirits from early on. I see that big snake is rather fearful of you.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fearful because it knows much. Someone¡¯s taught this snake before!¡±

    Deputy Zhou nodded and responded without a change in expression, ¡°That¡¯s normal. There are a lot of entrics in the world, so don¡¯t underestimate anyone!¡±

    There seemed to be a double meaning in his words. Li Hao also nodded, but didn¡¯t ask further. He sat down cross-legged to continue cultivation. Endless mysterious power surged into his body and hummed within, stimting his supernatural locks. He had a lot to aplish on this return to Skystar City. All of that would be a joke if hecked sufficient strength.

    Deputy Zhou nced at the young man, then at those cultivating inside the ship¡¯s hold. Was it to these people¡¯s good fortune or misfortune that they¡¯d run into Li Hao? Their rate of improvement would be quick if there was sufficient sword energy, but the stronger they were, the more dangerous their circumstances would be.

    <i>Also, has that kid forgotten about the two hundred drops of Water of Life? Why hasn¡¯t he given it to me yet?</i>

    ......

    <i>Skystar City. </i>

    Everyone was aware of Li Hao traveling back from Silver Moon as he did so with great fanfare. As for the one thousand soldiers he came with, no one cared about them. Only the royal family viewed the development with more expectation. Since Li Hao had brought even regr soldiers with him, that meant he was truly nning on putting down roots in Skystar City. That was good! Each day he was present in this world meant another day of pain and anguish for the nine ministries.

    <i>Therefore, currently inside the pce.</i>

    ¡°The Skystar Marquis is about to return. Little Nine, you will head to the northern city quadrant to wee him and demonstrate royal favor!¡±

    ¡°Yes, royal father!¡± A young man bowed within a massive hall as he epted his orders. When he exited the hall, he passed several gardens before finding someone in a small sparring ground. He smiled at the person he was looking for. ¡°Master He, the Skystar Marquis is about to return. Royal father sent me over to wee him. I need Master He¡¯s help in making some introductions.¡±

    He Yong turned around to look at the prince addressing him. Thinking it over, he nodded merrily. ¡°Alright!

    Southern Fist¡¯s good treatment in the royal family these years had much to do with this ninth prince who was gradually assuming power. This prince¡¯s potential was less than obvious in the early years and his strength weak. His branch of the royal family wasn¡¯t prominent either, so no one paid attention to him in the pce.

    He Yong had been bored and wanted to watch a good show, so he secretly taught this prince martial dao. To think that his martial dao potential was good enough that he gradually grew stronger over the years! As more supernaturals advanced in this world, the more that absolute strength was valued.

    These days, the ninth prince was a prime candidate for crown prince. One hadn¡¯t been determined yet because the nine ministries held sway over too much.

    ¡°You guys continue training.¡± He Yong turned to address the practicing royal scions and rted. ¡°I¡¯ll be back soon. If there¡¯s a chance to, I¡¯ll bring Demon Sword to the pce to meet everyone...¡±

    That excited quite a few in the sparring grounds. Granted, He Yong was just mouthing a pleasantry.

    ......

    Momentster, He Yong started walking with the ninth prince. The ninth prince appeared mild-mannered, cultured, and even a bit feeble. In reality, his cultivation level was very high.

    ¡°Master He.¡± He was as cid and humble as ever. I¡¯ve only ever heard of the marquis¡¯ affairs, but nevere in contact with him. Is there anything I should be careful of?¡±

    ¡°Nothing in particr,¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°If you are of the mind to, you can give him some treasures. That will delight him more than anything.¡±

    The ninth princeughed with surprise.

    ¡°I¡¯m not joking,¡± He Yong continued seriously. ¡°We Silver Moon martial masters are poor and have a slightly unfortunate habit of fixating on any treasure we see!¡±

    The ninth prince started and fell into a contemtive silence, breaking it only to ask, ¡°Does Master He think that the Skystar Marquis will continue his previous line of work upon his return, or will he be satisfied with the status quo and consolidate his footing in the city with peace of mind...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say!¡± He Yong shook his head. ¡°Although I¡¯ve partnered with him multiple times, Li Hao is young and takes action on whatever he thinks of. Sometimes he does so out of pure interest, sometimes he does so out of momentary anger. It¡¯s very hard to specte his next course of action.¡±

    The ninth prince didn¡¯t know if He Yong didn¡¯t want to say so or if the situation truly was thus. Regardless, he asked nothing further. All would be revealed once he met Li Hao. The entire world knew of the royal family¡¯s desire to build close rtions with Li Hao, so there was no need to hide anything.

 Chapter 734: You Have Bad People Working For You (I)

    <h4>Chapter 734: You Have Bad People Working For You (I)</h4>

    <i>Outside Skystar City, over the Skystar Sea.</i>

    The Vast Kun Ship stirred up ripples over the water¡¯s surface. Li Hao and a few others stood at the ship¡¯s bow, resting their eyes on the prosperous Skystar City in the distance. The north was still caught in the grip of winter, whereas the royal city bathed in a temperate climate. Compared to the chaos of the north, this ce seemed particrly peaceful¡ªespecially when Li Hao wasn¡¯t causing trouble.

    Deputy Zhou stood with the young man and looked into the distance for a while. ¡°The second awakening of the supernatural may not ur in Silver Moon. Skystar may be the key.¡±

    ¡°What causes an awakening of the supernatural?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t keep his curiosity down. ¡°A release of energy between heaven and earth? Then where does this energye from? It can¡¯t just appear out of thin air, can it?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± The deputy nodded. ¡°There are many reasons. The first awakening resulted from unsealing a set of ruins. They likely led to a massive mine that was sealed off. Once that seal was broken, all of the energy inside the mine rushed outward and stimted the revitalization of energy in our world.

    ¡°Another reason is that the nt spirit sealing off the mine had died entirely, causing energy to leak out and the first revitalization.¡±

    <i>The nt spirit sealing off the mine?</i>

    ¡°nt spirits situated on top of arge mine mean that they don¡¯tck for energy,¡± Li Hao noted with curiosity. ¡°Why would it die?¡±

    Such a nt spirit should be stronger than its brethren.

    ¡°It emerged ahead of time and the heavens did not tolerate its presence,¡± Deputy Zhouughed. ¡°The void is broken and void turbulence ripped it to pieces. Chaotic energy assaulted it... All of these were reasons why it died. It might be because of this that other nt spirits and monster spirits understood that the world is different now, that they cannote forth at will!¡±

    Li Hao understood. The first awakening was said to have something to do with Ying Hongyue and the others. Who knew if they¡¯d done it on purpose or ident? Only they knew of the particrs of what¡¯d happened.

    Deputy Zhou said that the key to the second awakening might lie with Skystar City. Did he mean the mines in the ruins of Skystar Town? One had to know that those mines had been able to satisfy the needs of the eight great cities. They were massive beyond belief and were the energy reserves for all of Silver Moon.

    Li Hao was also curious why energy had steadily declined since the ancient civilization, revitalizing somewhat only twenty years ago. Before that, no energy seemed to exist in Silver Moon at all. It wasn¡¯t the time to ponder these questions as he could already see the Skystar city gates.

    A disturbance built from the ship¡¯s hold as it was the first time that many soldiers had set forth on such a long journey. Traveling to the fabled capital city filled them all with some curiosity and expectation.

    It¡¯d taken them four days to make the trip from Silver Moon. It wasn¡¯t a rushed journey, but neither were they idling about over the four days. Li Hao supplied a great sum of sword energy and extracted a great deal more mysterious power. This kind of energy was of limited use to the young man these days, but it was extremely effective for mundanes.

    Almost all of the one thousand soldiers had set foot into yer of Tens, resulting in a marked increase in strength. However, that was still negligible to Li Hao. It wasn¡¯t hard for martial masters to reach yer. In fact, everything was easy before half step Dominator, particrly when he had sword energy to draw on. He could easily suppress the agitation of mysterious power.

    If it wasn¡¯t out of concern that advancing too quickly might cause their power to rage out of control, he could¡¯ve used these couple of days to forcefully raise them all to Sunderer. Combined with the Battle Heaven armor, the already elite troops would swiftly improve even more.

    Liu Long and the rest didn¡¯t cultivate over the four days. Instead, they spent their time teaching the Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation to the rest. Ten people could form a minor formation, one hundred arger one... When all one thousand knew it, the centered effects on one person would surely lead to different results. The caveat was that the focal point of their energy needed to be able to endure the onught.

    ......

    <i>The city gates.</i>

    Li Hao saw the royal g fluttering in the air. Skystar Dynasty¡¯s royal g was as resplendent as the night sky. It sparkled and glittered like the stars, a nod to the origins of the dynasty.

    The enormous shipnded on the ground; Li Hao raised an eyebrow. The royal family had sent someone to greet him? He¡¯d already received word from He Yong that the ninth prince awaited him. This prince was said to be a very strong candidate to be the king. Of course, the current king was alive and who knew if the one before that still lived or not?

    If even the old ministers were alive, it didn¡¯t seem a far stretch that the previous Skystar King yet walked the world. Although it was said he¡¯d died a long time ago, who knew the truth?

    A young man dressed in yellow robes stood in the distance. Waiting quietly, he smiled warmly with his hands behind his back. A few ck Armaturas nked him¡ªnot that many, just one hundred.

    ¡°Disembark!¡± Li Haomanded. Teams of the newly consolidated Demon Hunters led the way.

    ......

    <i>Not too far away.</i>

    The ninth prince¡¯s faint frown quickly dissipated and he transmitted to He Yong, ¡°Is this the Battle Heaven Army? No wonder the Skystar Marquis has returned with one thousand soldiers. They¡¯re all equipped with armor! So this means that the marquis has obtained troop leader authorization in Battle Heaven and can expand his troop at will?¡±

    Even mundanes could withstand Sunderers and Darkmoons when equipped with Battle Heaven Army. Since the royal family possessed the ck Armaturas, they naturally knew some of the secrets within.

    ¡°Wasn¡¯t it known a long time ago that he¡¯s a troop leader?¡±

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t kept his silver armor a secret. Those in the know naturally knew what it indicated. As for whether or not the ck Armaturas had silver armor of their own... He Yong wasn¡¯t sure, but they most likely did and just hadn¡¯t revealed it yet.

    ¡°It¡¯s not the same!¡± transmitted the prince with a shake of his head. ¡°Master He has probably realized it yourself that while the ck Armaturas is a troop that benefits from ancient army legacies... they cannot expand at will even if there is a troop leader among them. The process is filled with hassle, yet the marquis recruits an additional one thousand like it¡¯s very easy to do so.¡±

    He looked at the army of one thousand, the look in his eyes shifting slightly. The royal family had many ck Armaturas, but they¡¯d paid a very high price for the authorization. They¡¯d paid an even greater price to fight the nine ministriester on. The nine ministries had upied the upper hand in a moment of royal family oversight, which paved the way for the wily old foxes that were the ministers to deal a heavy blow to their royal enemy.

    ¡°Master He, you¡¯re a Bronze Armor. Are there many ancient powerhouses who can still fight within the Battle Heaven Army?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure, I¡¯ve only seen one Gold Armor and three Silver Armors... but apparently there¡¯s another Gold Armor in the military barracks.¡± He Yong didn¡¯t conceal anything, but neither was there a need to. The waters were deep at the ancient cities. All outsiders saw was the surface.

    The ninth prince fell silent. Two Gold Armors, was it? Existences on par with division leader? That was strong enough, but also nothing to be wary of if that was all the ancient eight cities had preserved.

    It was said that Battle Heaven had housed tens of millions back in the day, but their army consisted of only one million and their division leadermanded only tens of thousands. If only two division leaders were left out of one hundred... that wasn¡¯t many at all. And who knew if they were fully dead or in another condition? It was a difficult conclusion to draw at the moment. Just because they could move didn¡¯t necessarily mean they were still alive.

    The living beings that they¡¯d discovered in the ruins thus far were almost all nt spirits. nt spirits were long-lived and could produce Water of Life to nurture themselves. That bestowed greater longevity for them than regr beast spirits or humans. It was why most modern people meant nt spirits when they referred to ancient powerhouses.

    <i>Thump thump thump!</i>

    Uniform footsteps echoed in the distance. The tiger g waved in the wind; Li Hao walked over.

    The ninth prince shed a weing smile and didn¡¯t say anything to He Yong. He took a step forward and called out, ¡°My royal father is delighted at the Skystar Marquis¡¯ return! He has ordered this humble prince to wee the marquis¡¯ triumph!¡±

    ¡°Triumph?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help butugh. He took a step forward to look at the thin youngster. ¡°I simply went on a trip home and came back, how is that a triumph? But my thanks to the ninth prince!¡± He suddenly thought of something. ¡°Do I need to bow down to thank royal favor?¡±

    ¡°That is fine, the royal family has long done away with such rules after withdrawing for eighty years,¡± chuckled the prince. ¡°It¡¯s just aplicated set of etiquette. The times are different, this is an era of the supernatural¡¯s rise. There is even less need for the marquis to do so as you are one of the powerhouses of the age!¡±

    He was very polite and didn¡¯t mind Li Hao¡¯sck of manners. The strong reigned supreme in this age¡ªthanking royal favor on bended knee? That wouldn¡¯t happen again unless the royal family reconquered the world. It would just be a request for humiliation if they insist on such formalities.

    ¡°This is my first time meeting the Skystar Marquis,¡± the ninth prince remarked with gratification. ¡°As they say, to know a man by reputation is not as good as meeting him face to face. You are more forthright than the rumors and even younger...¡±

    ¡°The ninth prince is young too!¡±ughed Li Hao. ¡°I hear that you¡¯re only twenty years old, the same as me.¡±

    The seventh princess had told him that.

    ¡°We¡¯re not the same,¡± chuckled the prince. ¡°I was born and raised in the royal family, after all. I received resources since young that most cannot ess. I have nevercked for anything, so I particrly admire heroes like the Skystar Marquis who built everything from scratch!¡±

    He was very humble, to which Li Hao smiled without a word.

    ¡°The marquis must be tired after your travels,¡± the prince quickly added. ¡°You must be eager to get back and rest. This prince will not unduly tire the marquis and trouble you no further...¡±

    He took out a storage ring with a smile. ¡°This is a token of the royal family¡¯s sentiments. The marquis has just returned to Skystar City and must have plenty to attend to. I take my leave! If the marquis wishes to have a drink and chat with someone, you can send word with Master He. I am at your disposal, but I cannot leave Skystar City.¡±

    ¡°My thanks!¡± Li Hao merrily epted the ring. ¡°We must get together sometime!¡±

    ¡°Master He, you should stay and keep the marquispany. I will be going back first.¡±

    He Yong nodded. The beaming ninth prince strode away, followed by the ck Armaturas.

 Chapter 735: You Have Bad People Working For You (II)

    <h4>Chapter 735: You Have Bad People Working For You (II)</h4>

    Li Hao raised a brow as he took a look at the prince¡¯s entourage. <i>ck Armaturas! </i>There were only one hundred of them, but judging from their footsteps and aura, Li Hao could sense that they were very strong. Although armor concealed them, none of them was weaker than Sunderer and a haze of aura surrounded them. <i>I wonder how many Dominators or greater they have?</i>

    The Demon Hunters behind Li Hao paled far inparison.

    A merry He Yong looked in the prince¡¯s direction. ¡°What are you still looking at him for, do you want a fight?¡±

    ¡°Is he strong?¡±

    ¡°Can you not tell?¡±

    ¡°I can read a little bit of his strength,¡± Li Hao replied thoughtfully. ¡°He¡¯s a strong martial master, but I can¡¯t tell how many supernatural locks he¡¯s saturated. How does hepare to Martial Uncle He?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± He Yong shook his head. ¡°I knew a little before, but then he foraged in a couple of ruins. His strength should¡¯ve risen greatly, so I can¡¯t determine what his exact condition is. He hasn¡¯t fought in a long time.¡± He turned to Li Hao and transmitted the next part, ¡°What are you doing with the old guy from the administrative government?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s here to take care of some odds and ends for me.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re... really something!¡± He Yong concluded wordlessly.<i> Damn, you stole even the deputy director general from Silver Moon! It¡¯s a frequent topic of gossip in the province whether or not Zhou is a powerhouse.</i>

    There was a type of strength that came from cultivating among the raucous streets of the city. Everyone knew the old man was a powerhouse, but didn¡¯t know how strong he was exactly... It was this unknown that prompted respect and wariness.

    Director General Zhao and Deputy Zhou had administered Silver Moon for many years. No one believed that the two weren¡¯t heavyweights. But how strong were they, exactly? No one had ever seen them on the battlefield.

    Deputy Zhou looked at He Yong and nodded with a smile. ¡°It¡¯s been a long time, Sir He!¡±

    He Yong couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond to him.

    ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go into the city.¡± Li Hao cut the conversation short. ¡°My ce is small and a bit crude. The royal family gave me a marquis¡¯plex somewhere on the Avenue of the Nine Ministries. It¡¯s huge, but... I don¡¯t dare go. The nine ministries will probably beat me to death if I show up there!¡±

    ¡°Why not? They¡¯ve given it to you!¡± Deputy Zhou roared withughter. ¡°The nine ministries are the core of the world. Holing up in the northern quadrant of the city is not an ideal long term strategy. It gives off the feeling of a temporary group hastily thrown together. Don¡¯t dismiss the importance of location and appearances sometimes. Only when you¡¯re located on the Avenue of the Nine Ministries do you enter the heart of the dynasty.¡±

    Staying at the north end of the city was no proper long-term n. People would only think that Li Hao was ready to run off at any time. The young man nodded thoughtfully and didn¡¯t respond. He Yong looked at the young man and grinned widely.

    <i>This old guy is seriously annoying sometimes, he acts like he knows everything. I really want to punch him in the face!</i>

    ¡°Martial Uncle He, has everything been alright in Skystar City in the days that I¡¯ve been away?¡±

    ¡°What can happen here? Skystar City would be quiet for eighty years without you in the mix!¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°Oh, right, there is a small matter. Didn¡¯t the Ministry of Finance relinquish a ruin recently? It¡¯s the ruins of a martial university. The nine ministries, royal family, and some other aristocracies have designs on it.

    ¡°Although the Ministry of Finance explored it for a certain period of time, they haven¡¯t fully excavated it. There should still be some treasures inside. Are you interested in taking a look?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve heard about this one before.¡± Li Hao thought it over. ¡°Someone said that it¡¯s a grade two ruin. Are ruins divided into grades?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± He Yong nodded. ¡°It¡¯s just a simple categorization ording to the level of danger inside¡ªand it¡¯s not a fixed level of danger. It¡¯s based off of how many are lost on each expedition. Battle Heaven, for instance, is a special grade since not many make it back out alive.

    ¡°A grade one has over a fifty percent fatality rate. A grade two has between a thirty to fifty percent fatality rate. The one we¡¯re talking about is a slightly more dangerous type. Under normal circumstances, the Ministry of Finance would¡¯ve sent in at least Novas to a ruin that they¡¯re exploring.¡±

    Li Hao understood. So the categorization system didn¡¯t represent anything. Not that many would¡¯ve died in Battle Heaven if it wasn¡¯t for him and the rest. So it was just a simple categorization via danger! He¡¯d thought it was based off of gains or treasure.

    ¡°Ruins are currently categorized by three types,¡± Deputy Zhou said softly off to the side. ¡°The first of an ancient city, the second of a martial university, and the third as the grounds of an ancient n or sect. These three are the easiest to preserve. None of the rest really have a chance of standing the test of time.

    ¡°Every ruin that has survived to present day...¡± Here, the deputy paused. ¡°Is due to only several possibilities. One, there is a treasure that exists, stabilizing the ruin. Two, there is a surviving powerhouse that can seal off the ruin. Three, there is neither treasure nor powerhouse, just the lingering echoes of some powerhouses who once lived there. For some ruins, these dao echoes are their greatest treasure!¡±

    He inly knew quite a bit about ruins. His knowledge drew a look from He Yong. ¡°Old fellow, you government types must have dug up quite a few ruins to know them so well.¡±

    ¡°You should read more.¡± Deputy Zhou looked back at him. ¡°This isn¡¯t governmental knowledge, but knowledge contained in a book that Yuan Shuo published many years ago¡ª<i>Memoirs of Ancient Civilization Explorations.</i> Granted, it was banned before it reached one thousand copies. The government doesn¡¯t encourage people to go exploring ruins, it¡¯s too dangerous.¡±

    He Yong blinked, then cursed to himself. Who was the old man insulting on the sly, huh? He might as well announce through a speakerphone that He Yong doesn¡¯t read books!

    ¡°Is that so? I haven¡¯t read that book yet.¡± Li Hao was also surprised.

    ¡°Indeed, we banned it very quickly.¡±

    Li Haoughed. His teacher likely had forgotten the book or couldn¡¯t be bothered to mention it due to annoyance. Yuan Shuo had never mentioned it.

    The young man nodded at what Deputy Zhou said. There were innate reasons for why ruins could be preserved. He debated if he should explore the martial university. He would certainly go if this was Silver Moon, but here... he might fall victim to a trap.

    The Ministry of Finance didn¡¯t necessarily have good intentions in giving up this ruin, and Li Hao had never visited such a ruin before. He actually hadn¡¯t explored that many, just Battle Heaven and the imperial pce. He¡¯d discovered numerous treasures at each locale.

    A martial university was a frequently heard term. The key point, ording to Deputy Commissioner Zhang Liang of Military Supplies in Battle Heaven, was if the university still possessed full functionality. One could trade in trash for treasures, assuming that the university still had treasure in stock.

    It seemed that all regr martial universities possessed this functionality.

    There was no hurry to explore this ruin, this wouldn¡¯t be the first expedition into its depths. Any treasures that remained would¡¯ve been imed a long time ago. If not, that represents danger so great that normal people could not obtain them.

    ......

    The procession of people walking from the city outskirts to the temporary headquarters of the Skystar Commander Office in the northern city quadrant raised some attention. The current headquarters was just some old houses connected together. It did indeedck a certain stateliness.

    This area had been the slums before and was a far cry to the skyscrapers of the city center. It alsocked the august majesty of the Avenue of the Nine Ministries. It was such a disy of shabbiness that no wonder Deputy Zhou said that it was not a good decision to remain here in the long term.

    Their continued presence in the northern city quadrant also made business difficult for the locals. Many residents had to walk further to beg for a bite to eat.

    Li Hao came to certain decisions as he walked along the street. Perhaps it was time to move to the avenues! At the very least, the flow of information would be moreprehensive there and operations more convenient. He had to pass through half the city now when he wished to visit the Night Watcher headquarters.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watchers.</i>

    ¡°Li Hao¡¯s back!¡± Big Eyes ran through the door, chattering nonstop. ¡°Apparently the royal family sent the ninth prince to wee him¡ªthis prince is the hottest topic right now! They didn¡¯t exchange many words before before the prince left, however. Dao Sword, are you going to the northern quadrant?¡±

    ¡°What would I be doing there?¡± Dao Sword chuckled.

    ¡°To spar with him!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s an Arcanus and I¡¯m just a metamorphosis. Wouldn¡¯t I be asking for humiliation?¡± Dao Sword broke out inughter. ¡°You goad me to spar with him, but it¡¯ll be more like being smacked around by him.¡±

    ¡°Hey, didn¡¯t you challenge people beyond your cultivation level before? And you have the Heavens Dictate...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no need for that.¡± Dao Sword shook his head with disinterest. ¡°I also hear that his temper isn¡¯t the best. If it¡¯s roused during our spar, that will make aughingstock out of us for others to jeer at. You guys should also keep it quiet. There¡¯s no need to sh with him.¡±

    ¡°Not us!¡± Big Eyes denied. ¡°It¡¯s not us, but that a lot of the Night Watchers are waiting to fight him! It¡¯s said that Li Hao wants to bring us under hismand! He is strong, but would you be willing if he wants to turn us all into his minions? I¡¯m not the only one, a lot of beings are unhappy and unwilling!

    If they were to categorize Li Hao with malicious intent¡ªthat would be inurate. But he was too brazen! News had leaked the past couple of days that Li Hao wanted to recruit the Night Watchers and create his own agency. He didn¡¯t want to take over Yao Si¡¯s endeavors, but seize his efforts entirely and devour them!

    One had to know that the Night Watchers possessed tens of thousands of supernaturals in the central region. Although some in select areas didn¡¯t readily obeymands, there were more than three thousand in Skystar City alone. They were a force to be recognized with. There were several dozen Novas at headquarters alone. Li Hao was certainly showing themck of face to do so when Yao Si was still alive!

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait and see!¡± Dao Sword simply pressed his hands down. It was all rumors and hearsay at the moment, nothing to be overly concerned about. Even if the Night Watchers agreed, so would the Inspectorate have to render approval. If Li Hao wanted to im the Night Watchers for himself, it didn¡¯t juste down to a matter of pure strength.

    The young man seemed to be thinking too simplistically. Just because Yao Si had helped himst time didn¡¯t mean that the old man was willing to offer up his own troops with both hands. Yellow Dragon had toiled in the agency for five years, but in the end, most still supported Yao Si.

 Chapter 736: You Have Bad People Working For You (III)

    <h4>Chapter 736: You Have Bad People Working For You (III)</h4>

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    The inspector general was reading a book when sounds of discourse traveled into his ear. He swept a look at those standing a little below him. ¡°So he¡¯s back,¡± the inspector general said indifferently. ¡°Are we to throw him a wee party?¡±

    ¡°Sir, we heard that Li Hao wishes to take over the Night Watchers, and there¡¯s even rumors from the pce that he wishes to establish a tenth ministry...¡±

    ¡°Will it be that easy?¡±ughed the inspector general. ¡°He won¡¯t reach that goal even if he starts another battle. The nine ministries aren¡¯t just formed on the basis of military strength. You guys wouldn¡¯t understand it if I spoke of it.¡±

    The man shook his head. ¡°He doesn¡¯t stand much of a chance in annexing the Night Watchers. It also depends on the Night Watchers themselves. They are kindly disposed toward him at the moment because Yao Si helped him before. But once Yao Si recoils from the demand, the rest will swiftly sever their ties with Li Hao. The young man will know then how erroneous this impulse was!¡±

    Yao Si had finally revitalized the Night Watchers that he¡¯d painstakingly built up. Would he agree to just handing over the fruits of hisbor?

    The inspector general felt that Li Hao was ying with fire. The young man had finally pulled some people to his side, why was he in such a rush? <i>Ah, the young. They can¡¯t keep their impatience in check!</i>

    The nine ministries were waiting to watch a show! The royal family didn¡¯t care about these either way. If Li Hao seeded, that was a p at the nine ministries'' face. If not, failure wouldn¡¯t lose them anything either. So therefore, they were happy to build up Li Hao¡¯s reputation for him.

    ......

    Everyone on all sides discussed Li Hao¡¯s return.

    In the tattered yard of the Skystarmander¡¯s temporary office. Li Hao had just brought Deputy Zhou and the others inside when Yun Yao¡¯s eyes widened among the Demon Hunters. She seemed to have seen someone special.

    There was a tiny figure standing at a corner, sneaking looks around like it was a thief. Yun Yao was dressed in armor and didn¡¯t reveal her true face. Her expression shifted when she looked in the corner and she whispered to Liu Long next to her, ¡°Troop leader, I need to take care of some business. I¡¯ll be right back.¡±

    ¡°Now?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t run off and be careful!¡± Liu Long frowned slightly.

    ¡°I know.¡± Yun Yao didn¡¯t say anything else before walking off. Liu Long looked solemnly after her, but didn¡¯t say anything. The martial masters of Silver Moon all had their own stories. He was powerless to do anything at times. Although Li Hao was strong now, he didn¡¯t wish to create too much trouble for the young man. Some matters were not so easily resolved.

    ......

    Yuqi was sizing up the situation. Li Hao had left right after taking her in and departed for a week. She was feeling very anxioustely as her younger brother was outside. She couldn¡¯t stay here forever. What if he starved to death while she was in here?

    Although she¡¯d given her savings to Yuming when she left, he liked to waste money and help whoever he ran into. He never considered that he was in dire straits as well. She had to leave! Now that Li Hao was back and she wasn¡¯t sure when he would help the Yun family air their grievances, she should go back first instead of continuing to wait here.

    She watched Li Hao lead people into the hall, thinking that she would go to him as soon as he emerged again. As she thought through what she wanted to do next, she suddenly sensed another presence beside her. Yuqi tilted her head to find a soldier in ck armor next to her. A wary look immediately entered her eyes as she was still cautious of these soldiers. The ck Armaturas of the royal family also wore simr equipment.

    Granted, these soldiers didn¡¯t seem to have anything to do with the royal family. They wore Battle Heaven armor.

    The soldier in ck armor stood still, simply watching her. As minutes dragged on to the point in which Yuqi wanted to run, a voice suddenly rasped by her ear. ¡°What is your name?¡±

    Yuqi looked at the soldier doubtfully.

    ¡°You are sixteen this year and you have a younger brother who is one year younger than you. Am I right?¡±

    Yuqi¡¯s expression shifted drastically and she whirled around to run. Only a few kids in the slums knew about her younger brother. Had something happened to him??

    ¡°Do you not know me anymore, Little Qi?¡± The visor vanished to reveal Yun Yao¡¯s face.

    Yuqi turned for a look, confusion on her face as well as uncertainty. She didn¡¯t make a sound as she stared cautiously at the soldier.

    ¡°It¡¯s me!¡±

    Yuqi was still mute. She recognized the face¡ªalthough there¡¯d been some changes, it was mostly the same as before. However, the owner of the face was dead! She¡¯d seen it with her own eyes! <i>Liar... this must be an imposter...</i>

    It was said that some supernaturals could change their appearance, so this must be a fraud! Yuqi remained on high alert and looked at the hall in the distance. ¡°What do you want? This is the Skystar Commander Office, Commander Li is just inside!¡±

    ¡°Ai!¡± sounded an emotional sigh of anguish. ¡°Aren¡¯t you and Yuming... dead?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s Yuming?¡± Yuqing¡¯s expression shifted again.

    ¡°I¡¯m your youngest aunt, have you forgotten?¡± Yun Yao hesitated, but spoke her mind in the end, ¡°There¡¯s a small scar on your waist from when I babysat you when you were young. You were identally burned...¡±

    Yuqi looked skeptically at the woman, uncertain and incredulous. She shook her head after a long moment. ¡°No, you¡¯re not... Auntie is dead...¡± She quickly ran toward the great hall.

    Yun Yao blinked, paused, and chose not to pursue the girl. Incredulity also filled her heart, as well as confusion. So her niece and nephew were alive??

    ......

    <i>Inside the great hall.</i>

    Li Hao was conversing with Deputy Zhou and the others when someone stormed in. The young man furrowed his brows at the interruption, then quickly smoothed them out. Could she not wait any longer? But the matter of the Yuns was not easy to take care of. The little girl was impatient.

    Of course, anyone would be in a hurry to avenge a debt of blood. He wanted to rush to the Red Moon headquarters at times and take out Ying Hongyue. But since his strength did not permit such a course of action, he had to wait.

    ¡°Milord, you have bad people working for you!¡± Yuqi¡¯s words caused Li Hao to blink. Bad people?

    Yun Yao appeared at the door in the next moment; she didn¡¯t say anything. Li Hao stared at her, then looked at Yuqi, then back at Yun Yao.

    <i>Yun Yao...</i>

    Surely not?

    Yun Haoran... Yun Yao... was there a connection between them?

    Li Hao¡¯s frown deepened. Liu Long walked in momentster. He looked at Yun Yao, but thetter was silent. She simply looked at Yuqi, as if contemting something. On the other hand, the girl was noticeably nervous. She looked at Yun Yao, then at Li Hao, not knowing what to say. She was worried that this person was a supernatural in disguise. If she started talking, she would reveal more secrets.

    Yun Yao spoke as she hesitated, ¡°She should be my niece, the daughter of my second brother.¡± The look in Yun Yao¡¯s eyes wasplicated. ¡°I¡¯m not sure if she is... If she is, then this matter is veryplicated.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s frown remained. Yun Yao seemed both agitated but perfectly calm. Why was that?

    ¡°You are Yun Haoran¡¯s youngest daughter?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Yun Yao was as calm as usual and looked at Deputy Zhou. ¡°I am. I escaped from this ce five years ago and went to Silver City because I heard that there are secrets in Silver City that can overturn this world.¡±

    She hadn¡¯t traveled to Silver Moon on a whim. She¡¯d purposefully gone to Silver City to search for such a secret. It was a sad pity that she didn¡¯t discover anything.

    ¡°Deputy Zhou, Martial Uncle He, please leave for a moment. I¡¯d like to speak to them!¡± Li Hao suddenly asked the people he¡¯d been conversing with to leave.

    He Yong was curious and wanted to know more gossip, but had to leave without a word upon seeing that Li Hao was looking at him.<i> What secrets are there that I cannot know of? Isn¡¯t it just Yun Haoran¡¯s daughter and granddaughter? Pfft!</i>

    He truly didn¡¯t care. So what if he¡¯d known Yun Haoran? The guy was dead! There weren¡¯t that many who cared about the Yuns now. Even if people knew these two were alive, what else about them was worthy of attention other than the ruins that the family had controlled?

    Deputy Zhou also slowly plodded away, not saying anything after ncing at Yun Yao.

    ......

    There was only Li Hao, Liu Long, Yun Yao, and Yuqi left after everyone else cleared out.

    ¡°Commander Li, is she... not transformed from a supernatural?¡± Yuqi asked with trepidation.

    ¡°No.¡±

    Yuqi immediately grew agitated and wanted to say something, but became nervous again when she saw Yun Yao¡¯s calm expression. Her auntie did not seem moved at all¡ªshe¡¯d seemed emotional at first.

    Yun Yao looked at her, then said after a while, ¡°Little Qi, you should leave for now!¡±

    ¡°You...¡±

    ¡°I have matters to discuss with the leader.¡±

    Although questions swirled in Yuqi¡¯s heart¡ªfor example, she didn¡¯t know why her auntie had risen from the dead or wanted her to leave at the moment¡ªshe still did as she was told. She kept looking at Yun Yao, trying to determine if she was the Yun rtive that Yuqi knew.

    ......

    Yun Yao sighed after Yuqi left, first regarding Li Hao, then Liu Long. ¡°I told the chief this when I went to Silver City five years ago. Ie from Skystar City and many people wanted to kill me. I owe deep gratitude to the chief for taking me in and not abandoning me just because people were after me.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve heard of Headmaster Yun¡¯s name,¡± Liu Long rumbled. ¡°And didn¡¯t say much before. So it looks like his matter is not yet over?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡± Yun Yao inclined her head. ¡°Of course not. I took the key to the ruins that my father controlled. That¡¯s part of it as many parties are highly concerned about those ruins.¡± She turned to Li Hao and said slowly, ¡°The ruins that my father grasped were far from ordinary. There were many powerhouses in the ancient civilization and endless heavyweights. The ruins that the Yun family controlled did not belong to a supreme powerhouse and perhaps did not leave much of a mark in ancient history. However, my family knew that this person must be extraordinary...¡±

 Chapter 737: There is No Fear of Lack of Bites When There Are Enough Lice (I)

    <h4>Chapter 737: There is No Fear of Lack of Bites When There Are Enough Lice (I)</h4>

    ¡°There is an owner of the ruins?¡± Li Hao asked with confusion.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Yun Yao nodded. ¡°I¡¯m not saying that the owner is inside, but that the name of the ruin is the Lu Zhen Research Center.¡±

    <i>Lu Zhen?</i>

    Li Hao blinked, then shook his head. He¡¯d nevere across this name in any of the ancient records and did not know of this person. A Wu surname? That did appear in the ancient books. When the Human King enrolled in his martial university, one of his teachers had been surnamed Wu. However, she was a woman as her husband was mentioned since he was also a notable personage.

    Lu Zhen... did not sound like it belonged to a woman.

    ¡°Perhaps the leader does not know of this person, but the city annihtion missiles in use today were invented by him.¡± Yun Yao looked at Li Hao. ¡°He was one of the few research scientists of the ancient civilization.¡±

    The investor of the city annihtion missiles?

    ¡°Not only that, but he studied many topics in the ancient civilization,¡± Yun Yao continued. ¡°He was a subject matter expert in the mental strength area during the early days of New Martial, and the first grandmaster to champion studies of mental strength during that age...¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow, was that so? Then such a character should¡¯ve been very famous and known by someone, anyone. <i>Lu Zhen... </i>This was a rare instance of being able to directly refer to an ancient character by their name. The little tree had mentioned before that it was dangerous to outright use their name. If Lu Zhen didn¡¯t have such a stiption, did that mean that he wasn¡¯t very strong?

    ¡°I tell the leader this to say that while this ruin¡¯s grade may not be high,¡± Yun Yao continued. ¡°The technologies it contains are exceedingly important and relevant to too many other matters. This is also why a lot of people wish to seize it!¡±

    Li Hao looked at her, still uncertain of the key point within.<i> There are so many ruins out there, why do people want yours! Even if it¡¯s a research center, to be honest, there are so many technologies located in ancient cities. Why focus only on the Yuns¡¯?</i>

    Yun Yao inly meant to tell him that her family¡¯s ruins were exceedingly important, so important that not a hint of them could be breathed to others.

    ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way.¡± Seeing that Li Hao didn¡¯t understand, Yun Yao sighed and spoke more inly. ¡°The Lu Zhen Research Center was also renowned for one of its studies. Perhaps that one¡¯s recorded in the history books¡ªthe preservation of mental strength!

    ¡°My family purposefully collected information about this person. He was a grandmaster in the early days of New Martial and his daughter seemed to have been the Human King¡¯s teacher! His son-inw was the dean of the most premier martial university of that time¡ªDemonic Martial. He was the dean for the Human King.

    ¡°Lu Zhen himself seemed to have secretly kept an emperorpany for many years. He was skilled in the martial dao that was present before the New Martial age, but also skilled in the dao that was prevalent in New Martial.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw sagged. So there was this level of rtionship present?

    ¡°The preservation of mental strength is as the words mean¡ªthe conventional meaning of immortality! Yuqi might have mentioned to you why my family was destroyed, but she might not have given aprehensive overview. My father¡¯s reforms were one reason, but a key reason was that some rumors were leaked about the studies at the research center.¡±

    ¡°The Yuns have always studied it in secret, how could it have been leaked?¡± Li Hao frowned. The ruins were a Yun family exclusive, how would outsiders learn of anything?

    Yun Yao was silent for a moment before continuing, ¡°It wasn¡¯t much at first, but after my father delved deeper into the topic and even used a family member as an experimental product... Trouble came!¡±

    ¡°Your father experimented on his family?!¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyebrows shot up. ¡°Did he want to be immortal?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Yun Yao shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s not what you think. Father studied immortality because he... he... wanted to resurrect Lu Zhen!¡± She took a deep breath. ¡°Or rather, we didn¡¯t know if that was Lu Zhen. It might¡¯ve been another ancient schr in the ruin! My father sensed some mental strength lingering in the ruins. There were also many technical terms, jargon, and technology in the research center that we either did not know or were only partiallyplete. My father spent that period of time trying to resurrect the ancient that still lingered.

    ¡°Therefore, the Haoran Research Center focused on that topic, but my father thought too simply in the end. He just wanted to restore some technologies, but he forgot that there might be more than one ancient with lingering mental strength.

    ¡°In the eyes of others, father wanting to resurrect an ancient was an act of conquest, a sign that he wasn¡¯t satisfied with his ordinary lot in life. And the key was, what if they could seize the technology and resurrect an ancient for their own use?¡±

    Li Hao shook his head. He¡¯d been rather baffled at first, but was now fully awake and stunned. ¡°So you mean to say that your father¡¯s cause of death was that news leaked of him wishing to resurrect a powerhouse. The nine ministries and royal family both knew of this, and they wanted to resurrect the powerhouses as well. That¡¯s why they destroyed your family¡ªbecause they wished to seize the technology?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°But it was just research.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°There were no results yet, weren¡¯t the nine ministries in too much of a hurry?¡±

    ¡°There were results.¡± Yun Yao looked calmly at Li Hao. ¡°Would the nine ministries and royal family be in such a hurry if there weren¡¯t? They were because they saw the results.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean? Did your family bring an ancient back to life??¡±

    Yun Yao hesitated and didn¡¯t respond. Li Hao didn¡¯t press either. After a long pause, Yun Yao nodded. ¡°You could say that, or say that we barely managed to!¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°My father... directed some mental strength out of the ruins and into a family member. There seemed to be some changes as that person once spoke some words that no one understood. Perhaps... someone in the household identally let it slip, not to mention that the research center wasn¡¯t airtight. Therefore, the nine ministries and royal family knew that we¡¯d had some results! And therefore... the Yuns were destroyed!¡±

    Li Hao frowned and looked at Yun Yao. ¡°Are you referring to Yuqi?¡±

    ¡°Not her!¡± Yun Yao shook her head.

    ¡°Your father experimenting on family members... This does not dovetail with my image of him. This shows signs of a dangerous obsession.¡±

    Yun Yao thought it over, then sighed. ¡°This was a course of action that everyone in the family agreed to. My nephew... didn¡¯t have full mental capacity. He wasn¡¯tpletely here. Father said that rather than spending his life as an idiot, he might as well... might as well... give it a try. It could work, and a fool wouldn¡¯t live long in this era.¡±

    Li Hao frowned. This was someone else¡¯s family affairs, so he wasn¡¯t at liberty to say much. He now truly knew why the Yuns had been eliminated. Yun Haoran had wanted to resurrect an ancient powerhouse! Those that lived from the ancient times right now were nt spirits. Li Hao had never seen a living ancient person before. None of the Battle Heaven soldiers were alive. He could even tell that the three Silver Armors had be soul weapons.

    It was a very cruel process! But they had lingering mental strength and obsessions remaining. So did Yun Yao mean that just that was sufficient basis to bring them back to life?

    Li Hao rapidly processed the ramifications of what he¡¯d just learned and didn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°I thought that it was a good thing that this technology would be ended after the ruins were sealed off upon my father¡¯s death and family¡¯s extermination. Yuqi and the others were dead too. But now... if Yuqi is alive... then...¡± Yun Yao sighed. ¡°I don¡¯t know if this is good or bad. I¡¯m happy that they¡¯re alive, but I think that it might¡¯ve been better for the whole family to have died that year. Otherwise, this will result in immense trouble. It¡¯s fine for me. I died once already, I can just die again.

    ¡°But once ancient powerhouses are truly revived, that is a matter that spells the destruction of the world. There were family members who were against father¡¯s studies back in the day, but he eventually convinced them. If this starts up again...¡±

    Dazed, Yun Yao stopped speaking. Li Hao was also dazed as well. Resurrection, mental strength, longevity, immortality... So the Yuns were researching this! Then no wonder they¡¯d been exterminated! Yun Haoran really had been a madman! Was this something that could be studied?? He was already in the limelight to begin with, <i>and</i> he wanted to undertake reforms? Who would die then, if not him?

    Li Hao suddenly understood why Yun Yao felt such aplicated mix of emotions. She¡¯d thought that her family waspletely gone and that she would spend the rest of her life alone. That might have been a good thing, but then she saw her niece...

    ¡°Do you mean that your mentally handicapped nephew might be... might be alive?¡± Li Hao suddenly asked.

    Yun Yao did not respond. Indeed, if Yuqi was alive, then Yuming was likely alive as well. She hadn¡¯t needed to have said anything at all, but she had. When she looked at Liu Long for reassurance, the man rumbled, ¡°Li Hao¡¯s not that type of person. If you trust us, then tell us everything. We¡¯ll think of a solution!¡±

    ¡°I do trust leader, which is why I said what I said.¡± Yun Yao took a deep breath. ¡°Otherwise, I would take these matters with me to the grave! My father¡¯s primary research target was my nephew Yuming. I died the day my family was eradicated, but then I came back to life!¡±

    Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing magical about that, just a drop of Water of Life,¡± Yun Yao exined calmly. ¡°My father also extracted a peculiar substance from the ruins that put me in a state of fake death. That was how I came back to life.¡±

    ¡°Then your father and the others...¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re dead,¡± Yun Yao said softly. ¡°I was just on the fringes, my father was the most important. In order to ensure his death, they cut off his head and crushed his organs! I didn¡¯t see Yuqi and Yuming that day, so I thought they were dead or captured. But Yuqi¡¯s sudden appearance, and in Skystar City...

    ¡°I¡¯m worried...¡± She paused with confusion.

    ¡°Worried about what?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m worried... that they¡¯re bait!¡± Yun Yao said in the end. ¡°Yuqi and Yuming can¡¯t ess the ruins. I¡¯m probably the only one who can in the entire family!¡± She continued wearily, ¡°I¡¯m worried that they¡¯re just here to lure me out. My corpse vanished, so the enemies might know that I¡¯m still alive and want to use them to have mee forward and open the ruins again!¡±

    ¡°Then... why... did you show yourself just now?¡± Liu Long also started worrying.

 Chapter 738: There is No Fear of Lack of Bites When There Are Enough Lice (II)

    <h4>Chapter 738: There is No Fear of Lack of Bites When There Are Enough Lice (II)</h4>

    ¡°There is no point in continuously hiding myself or my identity,¡± Yun Yao sighed. ¡°I might¡¯ve been found out a long time ago, particrly with this trip to Skystar City. Perhaps my death will be a good thing. At least this will mean that no one will be able to ess the Yun ruins when I am no longer of this world...¡±

    Sheughed as she spoke nonsense and took out something from her pockets. It was a round, crystalline ball that appeared to be arger version of a marble. She tossed it at Li Hao. ¡°This is the key to opening the ruins. It¡¯s an object filled with mental strength that acts as a hook. Only through this can the research center be essed. I haven¡¯t known who to give it to. Perhaps giving it to the leader will help it have an effect...¡±

    Yun Yao chuckled softly. ¡°I rather feel free after handing it over! I only hope that leader doesn¡¯t lose himself in resurrecting someone like my father did. There¡¯s no meaning to that!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re giving it to me, Sis Yun?¡± Li Hao looked solemnly at her.

    ¡°If someone has their eyes on Yuqi and Yuming, they probably have already discovered me. It¡¯s not safe in my hands. You¡¯re stronger, leader, so you keep it!¡± Yun Yao demonstrated quite an open mind. Though regretful, a smile appeared on her face shortly thereafter. ¡°I can¡¯t just turn a blind eye to Yuqi being alive. I do need to reestablish our rtionship. As opposed to skulking around in the shadows, I might as well be out in the open! There¡¯s also less of a burden on my shoulders after giving everything to leader.¡±

    Liu Long wanted to say something, but ultimately kept quiet. Perhaps giving the key to Li Hao was indeed a good decision.

    ¡°This is a hot potato!¡± Li Haoughed ruefully. This wasn¡¯t a treasure, it was a bomb! So this Lu Zhen Research Center was looking into immortality! He¡¯d thought it was simple technological research, but the truth was far from what he thought. This Lu Zhen really experimented with everything!

    How would the nine ministries and royal family not raise the greatest fuss when they found out? Who could withstand such temptation? There was no possible fate for the Yuns other thanpete extermination!

    ¡°That¡¯s right, it¡¯s a hot potato.¡± Yun Yao smiled. ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m giving it to the powerful leader. Otherwise, with members of the family still alive, we can just study it ourselves.¡±

    She smiled sweetly; Li Haoughed at himself. That was right. Well, wasn¡¯t this nice. Another major development had been dropped on his head as soon as he came back! As he thought things over, he felt that this Lu Zhen Research Center wouldn¡¯t help him much. Neither was he interested in resurrecting anyone. Ah, no. How about those in Battle Heaven? Could they still be revived?

    Li Hao sank into deep thought. Was it good or bad that this technology had appeared? It was difficult to say.

    <i>Lu Zhen...</i>

    Perhaps he really should browse old information or ask around. Would the little tree in the storage ring know this person? Could a person really be resurrected, or were they referring to another sort of concept?

    ¡°Chief, why don¡¯t you take Sis Yun for a walk and chat with Yuqi? I¡¯d like to think about some things!¡±

    Liu Long didn¡¯t say anything; he looked at Yun Yao. The young woman seemed to have put down a certain burden as a smile appeared on her normally withdrawn expression.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to see Yuqi. Thatss still doesn¡¯t believe I¡¯m her aunt!¡± She left with Liu Long.

    Li Hao¡¯s mind filtered through the storage ring, reaching a mini tree that was dozing off in the ring. It instantly awoke when it sensed Li Hao¡¯s mind. ¡°Do you want to trade for Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao watched it wordlessly. Was that the only thought in its mind? ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Oh.¡± The little tree immediately sagged with disinterest.

    ¡°Senior Tree.¡± A smiling Li Haomunicated through mental ripples. ¡°Is there anyone called Lu Zhen in your memories?¡±

    ¡°Who?¡±

    ¡°Lu Zhen!¡±

    ¡°Lu Zhen...¡± The little tree thought it over. ¡°Yes! He... was not well known, but was very important in the New Martial era. He advanced the development of the age and built the cultivation system used in the early years. He entered a secret zer on and spent time with an emperor for three years. He has a close rtionship with that emperor...¡±

    ¡°Emperor?¡±

    ¡°The master of the pce that I protect!¡±

    Li Hao raised a mental eyebrow. So the rtionship ran that deep?

    ¡°Could he resurrect people?¡±

    ¡°Resurrect?¡±

    ¡°Could he resurrect ancients that died?¡±

    ¡°What do you mean by die? If it¡¯s pure andplete death, then no one apart from the Human King or an emperor can revive them. But if it is just the death of the physical body while mental strength remains, then that can be brought back.¡±

    So it really was possible!

    ¡°Was Lu Zhen an expert in this field?¡±

    ¡°Yes, he could be considered thus. He was a renowned subject matter expert when it came to pharmacology, mineralogy, energy, and the mind. He learned from a premier emperor skilled in forging items when he reached ater point in life and was eventually in charge of research and development for military armaments. It was said that he was the director of weaponry in his peak and oversaw development of all military arms in New Martial...¡±

    Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath. This was a very important character!

    ¡°So the armor employed by Battle Heaven and the others might have something to do with him?¡±

    ¡°Yes, and this was only foundational research. It must have deep ties to the weaponry department. I don¡¯t know about the particrs because my father was only a tree outside the pce gates. He simply heard it mentioned in passing.¡±

    So the Yun family had managed to grasp this personage¡¯s research center. Whether it was Lu Zhen¡¯s headquarters, a personal research station, or a branch, all of it represented sophisticated technology. In some ways, it was also martial dao rted technology.

    <i>Just look at the titles this guy had! He was an expert in pharmacology, energy, mental strength, and was even connected to the Human King and ancient emperors.</i> Li Hao scratched his head. The Yun family background was growing ever moreplicated. Whoever took over this matter did so to their misfortune!

    ¡°Do you want to resurrect some ancient powerhouses?¡± The little tree hesitated before its mental ripples continued, ¡°You better not! A great extinction once urred before New Martial and numerous powerhouses survived in mental form. Many of them were resurrectedter on, but most of their personalities had shifted from who they¡¯d been.

    ¡°The Human King eventually ended up killing most of them. When someone dies while their mind lives on, it is the equivalent of being locked in a dark room for endless years if their mental strength isn¡¯t strong enough. They went mad long before they were resurrected! Only those that retained their own consciousness within the confines of an operational city, like the inhabitants of Battle Heaven, had a chance of retaining their original selves. Otherwise, it¡¯s just creating trouble for oneself!

    ¡°The Human King once said that it was better to rely on oneself than others. No matter how ancient martial dao was, whether it was myth or legend, all of it needed to be shattered! New Martial epts only New Martial powerhouses. Those who do not forsake all else and join New Martial will be treated as heretics!¡±

    Li Hao clucked his tongue, this was incredible charisma! Did the Human King realize that he included himself in that kind of saying? He hadn¡¯t been a New Martial native either!

    ¡°Mm, I understand now. Thank you for your time, senior!¡± Li Hao withdrew from the storage ring; the little tree also fell silent.

    <i>Lu Zhen... resurrection...</i> Was the human nursing the same kind of aspirations? Any people or items persisting in thisnd from the ancient civilization should not contain premier powerhouses. If they did, they were traitors. When the Human King set out on his campaign, all premier powerhouses followed his banner. Unless one truly had a particrly important mission, the only ones to not follow their king were deserters.

    Soldiers such as Director General Wang weren¡¯t part of the premier echelon. Those such as General Pagoda were required to stay and maintain operations for a city of tens of millions. That was an important protective mission that was reason enough to stay.

    These thoughts ran through the little tree¡¯s mind as it sank into silence once more.

    ......

    ¡°This is tooplicated and too much of a hassle!¡± Li Hao¡¯s head ached, but he quickly smiled again. None of this mattered for now, everything came down to his personal strength. He had a lot of troubles guing him these days, one more did not matter. The most pressing issue was not this one either. ¡°Deputy Zhou,e in for a bit!¡±

    The deputy padded in like a ghost, not making a sound with his footsteps.

    ¡°What instructions do you have?¡±

    ¡°Just a couple that I need you to help me with,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°First, establish the Skystar Martial Academy. Second, build amunication system that belongs to me alone, not part of Silver Moon. Third, handle everything that Deputy Zhou mentioned to me before. I also need Deputy Zhou to gain a full picture of the rtionship between the east, north, City of Supernaturals, and nine ministries.¡±

    Deputy Zhou simply stared at Li Hao. <i>Who do you think I am?</i>

    The young man continuedughing and tossed out a storage ring. ¡°Here are two hundred drops of Water of Life. With great abilityes great responsibility. I really don¡¯t have the energy to spare for these matters, so I¡¯ll have to trouble you!¡±

    Deputy Zhou swept a nce through the ring and nodded momentster. ¡°I¡¯ll take care of it!¡±

    He didn¡¯t refuse the assignments as he¡¯d finally gotten his pay! The kid had hung onto the promised Water of Life for so long that he thought Li Hao was going to go back on his word. Now that he¡¯d delivered, it was right and proper that Deputy Zhou put in some work. Two hundred drops was a hefty investment!

    Li Hao grinned widely.

    ¡°I can take care of these things for you, but there¡¯s one thing that you must handle yourself,¡± Deputy Zhou said after a while.

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°The Night Watchers!¡± he intoned. ¡°If you want to im the Night Watchers for yourself, you must secure Yao Si¡¯s agreement. You can¡¯t just force him through sheer strength either. Yao Si was able to pull up the Night Watchers at a time when there were others stronger or more forceful than him. Why is it that, despite five years of Yellow Dragon¡¯s machinations, the agency remains in his hands? I am also not at liberty to participate in this lest he misunderstands.¡±

    <i>Yao Si?</i>

    ¡°So Deputy Zhou thinks... there is a need to bring the Night Watchers under my control?¡±

    ¡°Absolutely!¡± the deputy quickly responded. ¡°There are ny-nine major branches of the Night Watchers, plus headquarters. That makes for at least one hundred thousand supernaturals! Although they don¡¯t all answer to Yao Si, at least one third are willing to take orders from him. this is a formidable force, and the strongest among the ordinary people aside from the government and nobles.

    ¡°As for the three great organizations, there are too many evil sorts among them. Most of the Night Watchers abide by thew and are on the side of good. That¡¯s why they joined the agency.

    ¡°Have you forgotten the origins of the Night Watchers? Most of them are middle to lower sses. Their families paid an enormous price to send someone into the agency. Only someone from the middle ss would do so. Would a noble in the true sense of the word send their people there?"

 Chapter 739: There is No Fear of Lack of Bites When There Are Enough Lice (III)

    <h4>Chapter 739: There is No Fear of Lack of Bites When There Are Enough Lice (III)</h4>

    Quite a great deal was implicated in whoever held sway over the Night Watchers. Many of them came from middle to lower ss families in various small cities.

    ¡°Many of the Night Watchers alsoe from the Inspectorate. You know how the Inspectorate is staffed by veteran inspectors who have undergone training. They have unique methods when ites to upholding order and investigating cases. They also possess a basic heart of guardianship. Protecting the local peace has also been something the Inspectorate has constantly advocated for...¡±

    In simple terms, the Night Watchers were important because they represented the lower to middle ss supernaturals of society. Most of them respected thew as well. Commanding them meantmanding the lower echelon of modern society.

    ¡°That makes sense, then I¡¯ll discuss this with Director Yao.¡± Li Hao nodded after some thought. ¡°Granted, not now! I don¡¯t want to think about any of thistely. Just help me handle everything I mentioned earlier.¡±

    The young man was nning on entering closed door cultivation for a while to help more of his supernatural locks manifest. He hadn¡¯t had time to cultivate previously, and it was a good time to keep a low profile for a few days. Otherwise, people would think that all he knew was to stir up trouble. That wasn¡¯t him!

    ¡°Very well!¡± Deputy Zhou concluded.

    Li Hao smiled when he looked outside. ¡°Inspector Yang is here,e on in!¡±

    Yang Shan quickly entered the room and inclined his body at Li Hao. ¡°I have inadequately fulfilled themander¡¯s orders!¡±

    The great battle broke out not long after his departure; Li Hao was already gone when he returned. Given how recent events had developed, not only did he not ensure the elimination of the North Sea king, but he hadn¡¯t even had time to give to Li Hao the items he¡¯d brought back from Silver Moon.

    He¡¯d struck out on participating in the great battle, failed as a courier, and didn¡¯t bring back White Shark¡¯s head either... Yang Shan was very nervous! This was his first official mission, but he¡¯dpleted it in a rather shabby manner.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, I hadn¡¯t expected Inspector Yang to return so quickly either,¡± Li Haoughed.

    Yang Shan quickly offered a storage ring. ¡°Commander, everything that I brought back from Silver Moon is inside!¡±

    Li Hao reached out and inspected the ring¡ªone hundred and twenty drops of Water of Life. He¡¯d just given two hundred out of five hundred to Deputy Zhou, now he was at four hundred and twenty drops again. With what he¡¯d seized from recent battle spoils, he was almost at five hundred total.

    ¡°Well done!¡±

    ¡°You praise me too highly!¡± Yang Shan rxed slightly, but was still apprehensive. A cultivation level of metamorphosis had made him a powerhouse before, but Li Hao killed multiple Arcanus in that battle. That caused Yang Shan to worry again as he hadn¡¯t been able to join the flow of that battle. Who knew when he¡¯d be able to ascend to Arcanus?

    Thankfully, his wife had been able to keep pace. Qin Lian was preparing to enter metamorphosis, but didn¡¯t attempt the breakthrough yet because she was still short on a few things.

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to think too much!¡±ughed the young man. ¡°I¡¯ll need Inspector Yang to make a few preparations as well. I hope to be stronger after I emerge from seclusion and might look to strengthen some supernaturals. You know that I have very few supernaturals by my side¡ªmy people are all martial masters. As good as they are, sometimes they arecking in certain areas.¡±

    Supernaturals had their advantages, as did martial masters. Li Hao had many premier martial masters by his side, but when it came to premier supernaturals... It was Yang Shan and Qin Lian who were the strongest, if he didn¡¯t count Hong Yitang and himself. There weren¡¯t that many supernaturals who¡¯d answered his call. Hao Lianchuan, Wang Ming, Li Meng, Hu Hao, and Yun Yao were familiar faces.

    Now that Li Hao thought about it, he could help but smile ruefully. He was a heavyweight now, but there really weren¡¯t many supernaturals who came to join him! Perhaps everyone still thought of him as a Silver Moon martial master and knew that this group of people heavily despised supernaturals. Hence, supernaturals politely declined working with Li Hao as well. They would rather seek out other local dictators thane to the young man.

    Of course, some of it had to do with his current circumstances. As the saying went, he¡¯d spent a thousand pieces of gold to buy the Yang couple!

    Not all supernaturals were bad people. Li Hao thought of one, a very weak supernatural. On his way back to Silver Moon, he¡¯d met Lu Chuan escorting people through the sea. Who said that only martial masters would perform random acts of heroism? That one was a hero too.

    Although Li Hao hadn¡¯t said or done anything at the time, much less help, the presence of the weak Lu Chuan had greatly changed his image of supernaturals. Maybe it also had something to do with him bing supernaturals. Right now, Li Hao wanted to recruit a batch of supernatural powerhouses.

    It would be best if they had unique abilities. Those skilled in offense weren¡¯t worth much. Ones like Li Meng might be able to smoothly cross into a stable Arcanus level.

    Joy shed through Yang Shan¡¯s eyes and he quickly stammered, ¡°My thanks to themander!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a small matter, you can go about your business!¡±

    Yang Shan smiled bashfully and quickly dismissed himself. His business? What business? No one knew what they should be doing since Li Hao had not yetpleted his system of operations. Therefore Yang Shan had no idea what to do next.

    Although Li Hao sensed the man¡¯s confusion, he didn¡¯t say anything. He waited for Yang Shan to leave before continuing to address Deputy Zhou. ¡°I have too many titles right now, but they¡¯re not very useful. Just as the deputy said, not only do I not have any goals, but none of my people do. We take things one day at a time without concrete duties or missions. Once I emerge from seclusion... Will it be better if I give people official responsibilities and missions after I take the Night Watchers for myself?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±ughed the deputy. ¡°Coming to such realizations is a sign of growth! Then I await your return. I¡¯ll outline the foundations for now. You have to fill in the rest!

    ¡°You also need to consider under which title you will be taking action in. Skystar Governor General is not bad, but it has too much to do with the royal family. I rmend focusing on the Skystar Commander Office. As minor as that position is, its range of authority is great and doesn¡¯t have much to do with either the royal family or nine ministries.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll consider it thoroughly!¡± Li Hao nodded smilingly.

    Deputy Zhou quietly took his leave, some more expectation brimming in his eyes than before. There may be quite a few areas for growth when it came to Li Hao, but he improved quickly and was willing to listen to suggestions. That was a greatest ingredient for sess.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao was wondering if he should kill a few people to celebrate the official establishment of the Skystar Commander Office? Who should he kill? Who would make the biggest ssh, but not actually cause too much trouble?

    He stroked his chin, thenughed. He should materialize his light and dark locks first. If he could break them, then would he be an Arcanus of four elements? Would he have to be afraid of anyone other than those ancient powerhouses then?

    ¡°Let¡¯s go, Panther!¡± Li Hao called out, taking the dog with him. With Panth present, he wasn¡¯t concerned about energy leaking and giving clues to his enemies. The dog could eat anything and everything, leaving not a ripple behind. It was his greatest barrier now; Panther happily ambled behind him. There was nothing wrong with this picture¡ªthere would be more to eat soon. Life was good!

    ......

    The young man didn¡¯t go far¡ªjust a spot behind the tatteredplex. When he said closed door cultivation, he really meant that he would be turning a blind eye to everything outside. At the moment, he was devoting full strength to absorbing dark and light energies. He¡¯d been devouring these energies the past couple of days. Two locks swam through his body like miniature dragons.

    ¡°Breaking these two locks may not make me as strong as breaking four total of the organs, but it should make me stronger than breaking three of the organs...¡±

    Would his body be able to endure the energy released by these two locks? How much would his strength increase by? Could his body and bones contain the next eruption of power? But if he broke only one, would that cause an imbnce?

    Various thoughts floated into his mind as he reviewed previous thoughts and spections. Should he give it a try?

    ¡°Let¡¯s not fully snap them in one go, let¡¯s just break them a little and release some energy, like unsealing myself. I can then try plugging them again!¡±

    Li Hao was a bold sort¡ªor rather, he was no longer afraid of breaking his supernatural locks. Thus confident, he grew bolder in his experiments.

    ¡°Pfft!¡± He spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, melding mental strength and mind intent into the lock. It was simr to concentrating the Incantation of the de of Blood within the body. Based on the instructions within the golden booklets, he coalesced tworge characters in the air.

    <i>Break, attack!</i>

    With blood qi and mental strength as the base, he traced two shimmering characters in the void.

    ¡°Simply condensing blood qi and mental strength means ack of core origin for support...¡±

    Ancient martial cultivators likely gathered core origin strength to make these characters great. Lacking them rendered the greatest ancient arts simply mediocre in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. This kind of offensive power might even pale in consideration to de intent from the Incantation of the de of Blood.

    <i>This is too weak...</i>

    Inspiration struck; two currents of force suddenly rampaged through his body¡ªone of wind, the other of thunder. Wind and thunder converged!

    They separated in the next second and flowed into the characters. The <i>break</i> character sparkled with lightning and the <i>attack</i> character howled with the wind.

    <i>Separating the elements within the body and incorporating them into the characters. It¡¯s best if they can be solidified...</i>

    Continued experimentation gave Li Hao an ufortable feeling. The break and attack characters didn¡¯t seem to be a match with the wind and thunder attributes.

    The young man sank into deep contemtion. The greatest arts of Tranquil Star might seem simr, but each of them represented a martial dao path. They weren¡¯t just randomly selected characters.

    The one of attack represented the Chens¡¯ undying battle methods of utter ferocity. The one of break represented the Jiangs¡¯ intent of a myriad destruction. It broke through everything. The core of these methods came from the dao force of each n¡¯s ancestors. That was the strength that these methods borrowed, and not just a few characters.

 Chapter 740: Rising From the Ashes (I)

    <h4>Chapter 740: Rising From the Ashes (I)</h4>

    ¡°Dao, characters, melding dao into the characters!¡± Li Hao seemed to understand something as he sensed the sh between the characters and his two elements. It wasn¡¯t the method that was wrong, but the power that he was infusing into the characters that was a mismatch!

    ¡°Therefore, only power that is suited to this dao can be incorporated into these characters... Whether it is wind or thunder, whether it is break or attack, they¡¯re only mediums. They represent different paths!¡± New thoughts urred to Li Hao at this time.<i> In that case, why don¡¯t I write the characters for wind and thunder, then fill them with the relevant energy?</i>

    ¡°What will happen when I use the strength of an Arcanus to trace them?¡± Wasn¡¯t this the ultimate art of Tranquil Star?

    Li Hao looked at the golden booklets in his hands. He wasn¡¯t unfamiliar with this kind of technique; the two families¡¯ ultimate knowledge centered on one intent¡ªto follow one¡¯s own heart. They used will to trace the characters and melded their dao within.

    This was the highest level of learning that Li Hao had encountered thus far when it came to the ancient martial dao. Once these ideas formed in his heart and he had the beginnings of a n, he discarded his previous attempt without hesitation and started anew.

    The characters of ¡°break¡± and ¡°attack¡± spontaneously shattered. Blood qi flowed back to him and Li Hao absorbed some sword energy, as well as one droplet of Water of Life to recover from his injuries. Just as the Seventh Troop leader had said, there was no harm in trying a few more times if he didn¡¯t run the risk of dying.

    Blood qi welled up inside his body again and the power of wind and thunder gathered toward him. Supernatural ripples undted and energy wafted outward, the supernatural cultivation realm of Arcanus as the base.

    Arge character started forming¡ªwind!

    Gale winds screeched, as if concentrating the auras of heaven and earth on this spot.

    <i>Crack! </i>

    The character in the air shattered in the next second. Li Hao spat out a mouthful of blood with a nk look on his face. Why... had the character broken? He¡¯d followed exactly the steps of Tranquil Star¡¯s ultimate methods, he was just building the words from a different basis of power. Why hadn¡¯t it worked?

    ......

    <i>Inside the front hall.</i>

    Deputy Zhou busily worked at his duties and a newly returned Hong Yitang was exining something to his daughter. Both of them suddenly looked toward the rear. A faint breeze brushed by, intermixed with the scent of fresh blood. The two were confused and Hong Yitang¡¯s gaze sharpened with bizarre intent. What was Li Hao doing?

    Was that a wind supernatural ability?

    When it came to supernatural abilities, that was the technique that supernaturals called upon. They summoned the strength from the surroundings and not themselves, utilizing the outside world to enhance their power. Such were supernatural abilities!

    When Yuan Shuo¡¯s five auras reached perfection, they¡¯d connected to forces in the outside world. Strictly speaking, he was actually employing supernatural abilities in his fight against Xu Qing.

    Of course, he¡¯d never look at it that way, but that was how Hong Yitang viewed the situation. Propelling the greater with the lesser¡ªsupernaturals used their own force topel the forces of nature. Morphing into ten from the position of one, it made them instantly stronger. Such were supernatural abilities! They stretched from the inside to the outside, so what was Li Hao doing now?

    Was the young man practicing his new abilities? Familiarizing himself with them? Was there a need for that?

    As Hong Yitang steadily stared behind them, Hong Qing grumbled, ¡°Dad, you still haven¡¯t told me yet how you¡¯re so strong!¡±

    ¡°I just randomly cultivated around!¡± Hong Yitang fobbed her off and grabbed a strand of passing wind. There seemed to be some power left within it. He sensed it, but didn¡¯t find anything too unique about it. He actually didn¡¯t understand what Li Hao had in mind. Wasn¡¯t thed in seclusion because he wanted to break more supernatural locks? He¡¯d broken the wind and thunder attributed ones a long time ago.

    ......

    Deputy Zhou also sensed the air for a moment and turned over certain things in his thoughts. He shook his head and decided not to think about any of them. Li Hao seemed to have failed to deploy his supernatural abilities, but would he be an Arcanus if he couldn¡¯t manage that? What was going on?

    The deputy didn¡¯t quite understand.

    ......

    Li Hao was equally perplexed. Why had the character shattered?

    ¡°Is the wind energy too strong? The solidification foundation not enough? Or is there another reason?¡±

    Strange!

    Li Hao sank into deep thought. Was his strength too scattered or what?

    ¡°Is the mix of blood qi, mental strength, and energy too much? Are they too disorderly to be blended into one?¡± The secret arts of the Incantation of the de of Blood and the Breathing Method of the Five Styles came to the forefront of his mind. Both of these had merging properties, but how was he supposed to use them in his supernatural abilities?

    He¡¯d just wanted to create something to prevent strength from seeping out of the supernatural locks. The young man wanted to be able to control the supernatural locks without having to break them. His interest was now piqued in another direction, however.

    If he¡¯d sessfully written out the characters moments ago, then he wouldn¡¯t care too much about the ancient art. But the moment the characters shattered, he realized that there was something unique at y here.

    ¡°How interesting! So the wind character broke because too much force surged in from outside. Then can I control whates in? Can I input that force bit by bit and gradually trace the characters into stronger versions of themselves?¡± Various thoughts brewed in his mind¡ª<i>let¡¯s just give it a try! It¡¯s not like I¡¯ll die if I fail.</i>

    Li Haoughed and recovered some more blood qi and mental strength. He swallowed another drop of Water of Life and spat out a mouthful of blood mist, using blood to trace the characters.

    <i>Wind!</i>

    It was just one stroke, but Li Hao infused it with tremendous energy. More energy churned in from the outside world and a cool breeze blew through the northern city quadrant. A faint ripple of power roiled with it, darting into the young man. He was about to store it elsewhere when he felt a suction force. The outside strength instantly disappeared.

    Li Hao raised his head and saw Panther looking at him with an expectant expression. <i>See, I ate it all. Aren¡¯t I good?</i>

    The young man didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry! The dog hadn¡¯t cared about the first surge of outside power, so the character shattered. inly, Panth felt that that was a huge dereliction of duty. This time, it swallowed all of the powering from the outside world in one gulp.

    Li Hao wanted to say something, but blinked. Without the surge of outside energy, a shimmering golden light hovered in front of him. The stroke that he¡¯d traced earlier gradually solidified and didn¡¯t shatter!

    The young man¡¯s mouth dropped.

    <i>It stabilized... </i>He looked at Panther, the look shifting in his eyes. ¡°Continue to absorb all of the powering from the outside world. Don¡¯t let any in unless I tell you to!¡±

    ¡°Arf!¡± Panther nodded, rather proud of itself. <i>Do you see that! I¡¯m the most useful one in the end!</i>

    Li Hao smiled without a word. He continued to input wind energy, melded with blood qi and mental strength, to finish tracing the character. <i>The ultimate method of Tranquil Star? What an interesting method! I wonder if I¡¯ll be able to erupt with great strength like a supernatural ability once I finish writing it out?</i>

    Various possibilities rose in his mind as he infused more energy into the character, finishing his writing.

    ¡°Wind!¡±

    It was like a hurricane was howling in the room; he suddenly channeled half of his wind energy into it and finished the character. However, Li Hao frowned at it. It seemed tock a certain liveliness that made it different from the ultimate methods demonstrated by the powerhouses in the golden booklets.

    ¡°Panther, let the energy in!¡±

    The dog immediately stopped devouring power. Wind rushed around the ¡°wind¡± character and a gale wind whipped up. The character instantly grew bigger while a peculiar ripple spontaneously erupted. It exploded like a supernatural ability detonating!

    Therge sum of energy rushing into the character blew it wide open! The resulting re of energy instantaneously traveled down Panther¡¯s mouth. Li Hao spat out another mouthful of fresh blood! The young man frowned, what had gone wrong?

    ¡°I can¡¯t control the flow of outside energy... It¡¯s furiously absorbed until it forms something like a bomb, then immediately detonates. It¡¯s a good measure to harm enemies with, but that makes it a one-time use talisman. It¡¯s more of a loss than a gain. Not only is the consumption of resources great, but the level of destruction is limited.¡± Li Hao scratched his head with awkwardness. It was just a small experiment, but he¡¯d failed multiple times. He was imitating the work of prior seniors and following instructions from Tranquil Star. How could he fail when he was following a manual?

    <i>How am I supposed to create new martial knowledge like this?</i>

    His ego was starting to feel bruised. He wasn¡¯t creating out of nothing, simply following the prescribed order and modifying the ultimate art of Tranquil Star. And yet, he failed. If it wasn¡¯t for sword energy and Water of Life, he would be on the verge of death from these two tries alone.

    Li Hao suddenly rather admired his teacher. Yuan Shuo was amazing! How had such a fragile old man thought to modify ancient martial methods? Why didn¡¯t he just cultivate, instead of focusing his attention on improvement of the existing? It was such a dangerous process! The slightest misstep could lead to death!

    The young man didn¡¯t try further. He thought over his attempts and took out the two golden booklets, paging through them carefully and sensing the differences and crux of the material within.

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with my steps, but this method benefits from the aid of great dao. Core origin power maintains the characters and prevents them from copsing. I don¡¯t have that power!¡±

    His attempts were particrly haphazard as he didn¡¯t have core origin to draw from; his characters were also rather weak and couldn¡¯t withstand the surge of external force. But without the support of external force, none of the characters would have any might behind them.

    <i>To be equipped with both form and intent is very hard... There is no longer core origin dao in the world...</i>

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 741: Rising From the Ashes (II)

    <h4>Chapter 741: Rising From the Ashes (II)</h4>

    Li Hao blinked as he suddenly recalled that the little tree had mentioned something rted to core origin dao. He immediately sank his mind into the storage ring. ¡°Senior Tree!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m here.¡±

    ¡°Senior, when you helped meprehend core origin, you said that modern humans do not have core origin dao, but have something simr...¡±

    ¡°Yes, when you erupted with the aura and demonstrated domineering momentum, it gave me a simr feeling to the dao of the Initial Martial era. That time period didn¡¯t have core origin dao either, but focused on weapons as their dao...¡±

    ¡°The aura?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    Li Hao blinked. The aura! He grasped new understanding and didn¡¯t bother bidding the little tree farewell before vanishing. He looked at where the character had broken.

    ¡°The word I drew seemed tock a soul and appeared particrly weak and lifeless... But what if I incorporate the aura into it?¡± The young man promptly entered his organs with his mind, sensing their condition and the auras within. While their auras were silent, he could still sense a thing or two. The five supernatural locks were still alive¡ªindeed alive!

    They were unique to the point where one thought they were alive with a single nce. The aura was a living entity as well.

    ¡°Wind, wind aura... Vitality, spirit!¡± Li Hao instantlyprehended the concept. ¡°We¡¯ll always fall one step short in utilizing ancient martial knowledge because weck core origin. But what if we can utilize the aura in its ce? What if I rece core origin with the aura?

    ¡°The aura is martial dao understanding from the heart, a manifestation of martial dao. The aura is different from mind intent as thetter is just pure strength. Aura is not just strength, but a representation of great dao!¡±

    He suddenly understood why Tyrant de had said those words to him before he left. <i>When you understand the difference between aura and mind intent, then you might be able to set foot on a different path.</i> The man seemed to have understood it long ago. Li Hao might have too, but not as clearly. His understanding greatly deepened today.

    Battle Heaven, the little tree, Yuan Shuo, and the ultimate arts of Tranquil Star all brought many reflections to him, and yet he failed repeatedly when he followed ancient footsteps. It was a definitive sign that ancient martial dao was different from modern martial dao. The two were no longer one system, they were different!

    If he walked the ancient path, he would soon reach some bottlenecks and thresholds.

    ¡°The aura is the greatest distinguishing feature of modern cultivators¡ªor rather, martial masters! Supernaturals do not possess it, they¡¯re just the simplistic umtion of strength. Martial masters do, so their malleability is very high...¡±

    Everyone said that supernaturals were less than martial masters, but no one could give a specific reason why. Today, Li Hao felt that he¡¯d happened upon an important detail. The greatest difference and key to it ally with the aura!

    Countless martial masters were stuck at the threshold ofprehending the aura. One could not set foot into Dominator of Thousands without it. This destined the number of martial masters to be far less than supernaturals from the very beginning.

    ¡°So this means to say that if Iprehend the wind aura and incorporate wind energy in it, then use it to draw a character... That will make it different from the Tranquil Star methods. Will the aura contain the external force? The aura has its own spirit and isn¡¯t just pure force...¡± It was like Li Hao had discovered a new continent!

    He thought of something else in the next moment, his teacher, the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, and his teacher¡¯s Refiner of Spirit cultivation level.

    Yes, Refiner of Spirit!

    Incorporating the aura into the supernatural locks and releasing the power bit by bit. Why did it seem so familiar? The ultimate oue would be a supernatural lock under the martial master¡¯s control. Wasn¡¯t that the same result as what he wanted?

    ¡°That¡¯s right! Teacher¡¯s melding the five auras into the five organs to control the supernatural locks! I¡¯m so dumb, why am I realizing this only now?¡± Li Hao smacked his head with self-deprecatingughter. He¡¯d been brainstorming how to control his locks, didn¡¯t his teacher have the answer?

    He just hadn¡¯t understood it when his teacher exined it before. Now that he deduced it from another direction, he came to the same conclusion. He suddenly felt that his teacher was amazing!

    Not only that, but Li Hao¡¯s overallprehension had instantly deepened. So it turned out that all roads led to the same end!

    ¡°Then if I break the supernatural locks and fuse its power into one character, does that make it the same as a supernatural lock? The supernatural locks cannot be used inbat, but the art of Tranquil Star can...¡±

    It was the same goal again, just through different means! That would make the final methods of supernaturals and martial masters alike all the same!

    Li Hao grew agitated and excited. He suddenly wanted to talk to Yuan Shuo. Did a martial master fully control their supernatural lock after reaching Refiner of Spirit? Should he break the supernatural locks, or should he use the aura to control them and incorporate their energy to strengthen the aura?

    Summoner of Spirit, Refiner of Spirit... Was the next step to break free of the locks?

    ¡°If the Breathing Method of the Five Styles ispatible with both aura and supernatural lock, then aura and mysterious power should have no problem with each other...¡± Li Hao suddenly felt the dawn of a new age upon him! His teacher already had the answer!

    Of course, it was different from his. He had gone through another process to deduce to the very end and return to the same point. Two vastly different methods had given the same answer. It gave Li Hao many new revtions.

    He took out a transmission pendant and furiously input messages into it. Yuan Shuo was so carefree that he didn¡¯t give Li Hao a chance to contact him. But the young man was no fool. If he couldn¡¯t reach his teacher, he would look for Jadelight Sword!

    Li Hao had shoved a transmission pendant at himst time when Jadelight left. It was part of the Silver Moon system, not Li Hao¡¯s ownmunication system. This was why he rarely used transmission pendants.

    ¡°Paging Martial Aunt Wu, paging Martial Aunt Wu!¡± Li Hao finally received a response after several messages.

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°I need tomunicate with my teacher.¡±

    After a while, in which a new person took hold of the pendant¡ªwell, Li Hao didn¡¯t know if someone else was on the other end. Two words floated onto the surface pendant after a while. ¡°Get on with it!¡±

    It was done! That was his teacher, alright!

    ¡°When the five auras are melded with the five organs, are they meant to break free or ultimately be one?¡±

    ......

    <i>Within Silver Moon territory.</i>

    Yuan Shuo had been irritated that Li Hao somehow had a connection with Jadelight Sword. He blinked at the question. He¡¯d clearly exined Refiner of Spirit to Li Hao. The five locks needed to bepletely assimted into the five auras. The auras would nature the locks, and the locks would nurture the auras. That was Refiner of Spirit.

    But Li Hao now asked about the step after that. Yuan Shuo himself hadn¡¯t set foot on that path, so how would he know what to do? He could only specte. Both possibilities that his student spoke of were possible.

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say which it should be. Whether it should break out or continue as one depends on the situation. I can¡¯t give you an exact answer either.¡± Yuan Shuo was loath to hold a conversation when it pertained to martial dao. Theirmunication might be monitored by others. But since Li Hao asked, he still responded.

    ¡°Auras have their own spirit, right?¡±

    Yuan Shuo burst outughing. <i>Do you know that only now?</i>

    ¡°Of course! Take the auras of the Five Styles, for example. The aura springs from the heart and martial dao. The essence of martial dao naturally contains the spirit.¡±

    Li Hao was silent for a moment before sending, ¡°Can the aura control the amount of energying in and out, as well as the level of eruption of internal force?¡±

    ¡°No shit!¡± Yuan Shuo frowned. Did his disciple still not know that at this stage of his cultivation? The old man drooped when he thought of how Li Hao¡¯s auras were silent now. Perhaps... the kid wanted to return to being a martial master. But it wouldn¡¯t be that simple! Was he trying to find a way now?

    Yuan Shuo was a bit depressed and regretful. He wanted to curse at Li Hao¡¯s silly questions, but softened his tone. ¡°The aura is a type of overall control. The strength of the aura determines your upper limit, so it naturally contains a modtion function.¡±

    ¡°Can the aura and mysterious power coexist together?¡±

    Yuan Shuo sank into deep thought, taking a long moment to consider before answering, ¡°They should. Mysterious power is a type of energy and the aura is not. Mysterious power shes with internal force, not the aura! Mysterious power and the aura are the same. The aura is an independent existence, but it needs stimtion from internal force. Internal force can count as a type of fuel for the aura.¡±

    ¡°Then can mysterious power be the energy to stimte the aura?¡±

    Yuan Shuo sank into deep thought and scrunched his forehead together. ¡°Internal force can stimte the aura because it is born inside the body. It¡¯s the same origin as the aura. Mysterious power is an external resource that is not from the same origin, so it will prove hard to stimte the aura.¡±

    ¡°Then can I bring mysterious power inside the body and assimte it into my flesh and blood to be one with it?¡±

    Yuan Shuo raised an eyebrow. His disciple was asking ever deeper questions. He tugged on his mustache and pondered the question. Could mysterious power be incorporated into the body and used in ce of internal force?

    The strength within mysterious power partially came from the outside, and partially came from the supernatural locks. Why did mysterious powere to be in the locks?

    What would happen to the martial master once their lock fully shattered? Would the energy inside the lock rece internal force? Or could it be made into one?

    Off to the side, Jadelight nced at Yuan Shuo. The old man seemed to be caught in a quandary as he scratched his head. It was rare to see Yuan Shuo in this state. He usually carried himself with an omnipotent ease. Had he encountered a thorny issue today?

 Chapter 742: Rising From the Ashes (III)

    <h4>Chapter 742: Rising From the Ashes (III)</h4>

    No reply was forting from Yuan Shuo, but Li Hao knew that it wasn¡¯t a refusal to answer. His teacher was contemting what to say.

    ¡°There are two sources of mysterious power in existence.¡± Li Hao continued to input into the transmission pendant. ¡°One from the outside world, the other from our supernatural locks! The energy from the outside world cannot fully be part of the body, but supernatural locks are part of the body to begin with. It¡¯s what the supernaturals call origin power!

    ¡°It happens to meld with outside mysterious power at ater stage. So are we able to strip out the external energy and reincorporate the origin power back into the body...?¡±

    The transmission pendant blinked with a response after a while. ¡°I¡¯m not sure, I¡¯ve never tried it before and can¡¯t give you a definitive answer. In your current state, you can give it a try...¡± Another message came in after a while. ¡°But don¡¯t try haphazardly. You¡¯ve opened your locks of wind and thunder, so the only ones you can try are those of the five organs. Do not try the wind and thunder locks unless you are able toprehend their auras!¡±

    Yuan Shuo quickly grasped what his disciple was asking. Li Hao¡¯s auras were quiet and still now, and he was likely unable toprehend new auras. Without the auras of wind and thunder, he could only experiment with the auras of his five organs. Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t rmend thed to do so because it was too dangerous. Once he shattered the locks of his five organs, then the hope he had of converting back to a martial master might be fully shattered as well!

    ¡°I see, thank you teacher, bye!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t respond. He cursed to himself instead. <i>Don¡¯t go randomly experimenting, for fuck¡¯s sake!</i>

    He frowned as he thought back to what Li Hao had asked. His disciple seemed to having many reflectionstely. Was he unable to ept bing a supernatural? He seemed to be delving deep into his studies.

    ¡°What is it?¡± asked Jadelight Sword.

    ¡°Nothing!¡± Yuan Shuo crushed the transmission pendant in a fit of temper. ¡°You won¡¯t be carrying this around anymore. This is part of the Silver Moon system and those old farts can definitely track it. They¡¯ll know where I¡¯ve been!¡±

    In fact, they might already know about his conversation with Li Hao. But that didn¡¯t matter. <i>Just try it if you have the balls to! Experiment as much as you wish if you don¡¯t fear death!</i>

    ¡°Li Hao seems to urgently wish to be a martial master again,¡± Yuan Shuo remarked with a deep frown. ¡°I¡¯m worried about him if this continues. Damn those nine ministries! I¡¯ll show them what they deserve sooner orter!¡±

    Would his disciple have be a supernatural if it wasn¡¯t for them? And now he was proceeding further along the path of the supernatural, heading down a road of no return!

    Wu Hongshan didn¡¯t say anything. She¡¯d carried it around only because Li Hao had given it to her. inly, he felt that those of Silver Moon were trustworthy. She didn¡¯t say that to Yuan Shuo as he would then go on a tirade for three days straight.

    ......

    Li Hao stared at his five organs, new thoughts running through his mind. His teacher had just admitted to the feasibility of his ideas, so what if he broke one of the locks of his five organs and directed aura into it to absorb the mysterious power inside? If he used <i>that </i>to write his characters and form a vehicle for the aura, did that mean he could ce mysterious power inside his body and use it for his own purposes?

    But in that regard, it could be as his teacher said¡ªhe might forsake the chance to be a martial master again. He still had a chance at the moment.

    ¡°But if I continue to seal myself away like this... I¡¯ll turn into a weakling even if I convert back to martial dao... There is a point of simrity between mysterious power and internal force. Manager Yu said that she became a supernatural first and reforged her supernatural locks after purifying her mysterious power. That was how she returned to being a martial master. Therefore, mysterious power can be fashioned into the supernatural locks again so long as the aura still exists!¡±

    Some people could convert to being a martial master from being supernatural, which indicated there weremonalities between the two. They weren¡¯t two entirely different systems. Should he give it a try?

    Li Hao stared at the five organs. The ferocious tiger in his heart was the aura nearest and dearest to him. How about experimenting with the tiger taking in mysterious power and transforming into a character? Should it be ¡°fire¡± or ¡°tiger¡±?

    Granted, it didn¡¯t really matter since it was just a vehicle. Li Hao hesitated, thenughed. What did it matter, at this stage? If he couldn¡¯t be a martial master again... then he would be a powerful supernatural! Director General Wang and the others had said it didn¡¯t matter, so what did it matter? It was simply a difference in the nature of strength, but strength was still strength. There was no major difference to it. There were premier powerhouses of energy in the ancient civilization as well.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s give it a try. I¡¯ll break a lock of the five organs and use the ferocious tiger to devour mysterious power... I won¡¯t fully break it, I¡¯ll just crack it open and coalesce blood qi for the tiger to absorb. I might gain something then.¡± A burden had suddenly been lifted from Li Hao¡¯s shoulders. If this attempt resulted in him being a permanent supernatural, well, then he would always be a supernatural!

    He didn¡¯t want his auras to be silent forevermore. Would the ferocious tiger that¡¯d been on the cusp of breaking out of its cage be willing to ept bing a prisoner again? Of course not!

    ¡°Since the ferocious tiger has broken out of the cage, how can it be continuously imprisoned in the heart... I have the inkling of a n now, so let¡¯s just give it a try!¡± Li Hao grinned easily and looked at his heart. ¡°Tiger, are you willing to shatter your constraints ande out again?¡±

    A tiger roar reverberated in his mind! The confined tiger struggled with excitement and frustration!

    <i>I have an undaunted tiger in my heart that¡¯s already broken free of its cage. How would it be willing to fall silent once more and eventually be a dead thing one day?</i>

    ¡°I knew it!¡± Li Hao smiled. <i>I knew that you wouldn¡¯t be willing to just die like this. In that case, let us try. </i>Perhaps unexpected gains would result from his closed door cultivation.

    However, an attempt involving the heart was very dangerous. Li Hao swiftly swallowed ten drops of Water of Life after some thought and enveloped the heart with it. He was going to break the Five Bridges, crack the lock of the heart, and release the tiger aura!

    If this didn¡¯t work, then he would be an Arcanus of three elements. As for the light and dark locks, he would set them aside for now. He should be able to endure the shattering of a lock of his five organs no?

    Li Hao was a ruthless person. Given how the situation had developed he threw caution to the wind. If worst came to worst, he¡¯d just walk the pure path of the supernatural in the future.

    <i>Crack!</i>

    He severed the bridge of the five organs, leading to a rush of wind and thunder energy. A gout of mes rose in the next second, expelling the wind and thunder. The five organs resonated, as if they were being consumed by the fire.

    ......

    <i>The front hall.</i>

    Hong Yitang shot into the sky and looked at where fiery sparks dimly lit up the void. Deputy Zhou also followed suit, ncing at the former.

    ¡°What is he doing?¡± frowned Hong Yitang.

    The fiery sparks instantly vanished¡ªPanther¡¯s work. All phenomenapletely vanished when the dog opened its mouth. However, Hong Yitang and Deputy Zhou were standing extremely close, so they still sensed some details.

    ¡°It looks like he¡¯s fully abandoning the thought of converting back...¡± sighed the deputy. Li Hao seemed on the verge of gaining the fire element! He was going to break a lock of the five organs!

    Hong Yitang furrowed his brows, then regained his inner peace. ¡°That¡¯s just as well!¡± He was an Arcanus too, and didn¡¯t think much about his condition. ¡°That¡¯s good! So long as he can think things through. There¡¯s nothing bad about being supernatural, it¡¯s all strength. Martial masters train the heart, but I fear that his physical body won¡¯t be able to endure the shock of a seventh lock breaking.¡±

    ¡°He shouldn¡¯t have much issue with it,¡± Deputy Zhou mused. ¡°His body and organs should be able to endure a seventh lock, but an eighth would be pushing it. It would not be worth the expenditure.¡±

    Hong Yitang said nothing further and simply looked on with slight confusion. He seemed to have heard the roar of a ferocious tiger moments ago. That was Li Hao¡¯s aura, and it didn¡¯t contain much reluctance. On the contrary, it was excited and delighted, giving one the feeling of an attempt to fight to the death!

    One had to know that the breaking of the fire lock would extinguish the fire aura. Auras had their own spirits. Li Hao was extinguishing his fire aura, but his aura did not despair. Why was that?

    Hong Yitang had no idea.

    ......

    The power of fire illuminated thend. Panther continuously swallowed it, erupting with fire itself. Li Hao seemed bathed in mes as a tiger howled a challenge at the heavens. <i>Tiger Roar Through Mountain and Woods!</i> It seemed ready to break out of the cage.

    But if it really did so, it would drift aimlessly through the world without a root. Dissipation would be its only fate before long.

    The bridge of the five organs broke, permitting the energy of wind, thunder, and fire to consume the organs. Li Hao seemed about to go up in mes! There was an opening in his heart lock and arge quantity of fire energy surged out. His physical body did not seem fully up to the task of supporting three elements. It wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t want to break more supernatural locks, but that he could not endure the strain.

    His heart was burning!

    Such were the dangers of crossing into Arcanus for supernaturals who¡¯d broken their locks of the five organs. The conflict between various elements could easily destroy the five organs.

    Li Hao spat out mouthful after mouthful of blood, pain appearing in his eyes, but his expression remained asposed as could be. Blood congealed in the air as he operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. He followed the flow of momentum and directed fire energy into the blood so that he could trace the character...

    He was particrly fond of writing because he wanted to imitate the ultimate art of Tranquil Star, but also because he had certain thoughts when it came to the modern education system. Its deficiencies had caused a chasm in culture, making it so that the people ignored the legacy of culture. They only cared about martial dao, only about bing superhuman.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 743: Supernatural Ability Character (I)

    <h4>Chapter 743: Supernatural Ability Character (I)</h4>

    Martial cultivators train the heart. They read thousands of books and walked thousands of kilometers, cultivating a heart of great depth. In the modern age, there were few who focused on the heart among martial masters or supernaturals. The conclusion to be drawn was that they read too few books.

    Perhaps when all martial techniques and supernatural abilities were words would people understand that ack of literacy would mean that one would never reach the peak, regardless of supernatural or martial dao.

    Mind intent, blood qi, and fire energy surged into the character. Panther had transformed to a golden color¡ªa sign of activating its bloodline. It furiously swallowed energy that flowed in from all sides, not letting a single drop of Li Hao¡¯s energy to seep out or a single drop of outside energy to disturb his cultivation. With the dog present, it prevented a lot of trouble for Li Hao.

    A character gradually took form; Li Hao watched it silently. It didn¡¯t seem to be a tiger character¡ªit was a fire character. Indeed, a fire character slowly solidified. The power of the mes! However, it was dim and inert, appearing to be dead.

    Bathed in mes, the ferocious tiger howled and padded out of Li Hao¡¯s heart.

    ¡°ROAR!¡± The tiger howl could no longer be silenced! It roared with a resolute determination and knew that it would not return after setting foot out of the heart. Either it became part of the character and was its soul, or it dissipated upon the four winds and was no longer the aura of the ferocious tiger.

    This was Li Hao¡¯s intent as well. It was best if he seeded. If not, the tiger aura of his five auras wouldpletely melt away to nothing. The young man closed his eyes, suddenly pausing with indecision and hesitation.

    That was only natural, given the enormity of what he faced.

    He opened his eyes with newfound determination. Why was there a need to be sad when he¡¯d reached this step?<i> I have an daunted tiger in my heart, but right now it dwells inside a cage. A caged tiger aura is not what I seek. If my wish does not lie here, then what good is there in keeping the tiger where it is?</i>

    ¡°Go on, then!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t know if he was speaking to the tiger or to himself. <i>Go on! Although it might be a bottomless abyss in front of us, let¡¯s go down together since we¡¯ve reached this step!</i>

    The tiger padded forward without a look back. He headed toward the hovering character in the void. The character trembled, like it was about to break. Li Hao didn¡¯t say much and directed the shattering lock from his heart to the character. A vast sum of fire energy started flowing into the character.

    The word had reced the supernatural lock and the aura was melded within!

    This gesture didn¡¯t seem that useful apart from turning the supernatural lock into a written character, but in actuality, it contained blood qi, mental strength, and life force. It fullybined the mysterious power of the supernatural lock with the rest of the body.

    If this seeded, he would be able to utilize the power within the lock anytime he wished! The two could not be mentioned in the same breath. The ancients did not have supernatural locks, just those of the three cavities. It also looked that modern humans may not need their supernatural locks. They just needed a medium of some sort to hold the excess energy.

    Whether it was characters or supernatural locks, it was enough to have such an effect.

    ......

    <i>Skystar City.</i>

    Countless people looked to the north when they heard a tiger roar. Various powerhouses frowned. What manner of foolhardiness was Li Hao getting up to now?

    ¡°Does he want a third element?¡± someone muttered and promptly curled their lip. It was very possible. Li Hao had only broken the wind and thunder locks. His locks of the five organs were still intact. He could very possibly want a third element today and bring the silent tiger aura back to life. Did Li Hao wish to grasp a third element and dominate the four corners of thend?

    Figured hovered over the nine ministries and broke through the air, heading north. One person stood in their way over the Night Watcher headquarters, spear in hand and presence soaring.

    ¡°I would request that the various ministers return to the nine ministries!¡± the figure said indifferently.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen, do you think you¡¯ll be able to conquer the world just because Li Haomands a third element?¡± someone sneered.

    ¡°I don¡¯t,¡± Hou Xiaochen responded evenly. ¡°So what of a third element? Astounding existences abound in this world, can even four or five element wielders dare say they¡¯ll reign supreme? If that is the case, why do all of you look to the north of the world?¡±

    ¡°Li Hao has just entered the Arcanus level, brashly setting foot into a third element will result in his body falling apart and his organs burning to ashes. This is a dao of death and we are just cautioning him!¡±

    ¡°Your attention is not needed!¡± Yao Si broke through the air from the Night Watcher side. The old man brooded. ¡°Do you want another fight? Finding glory in obstructing others from ascending is the shame of the superhuman domain. If you lot are unwilling to ept the circumstances, then you can break through to three elements as well!¡±

    Dao Sword also leisurely took to the air from the Night Watcher side. He didn¡¯t say a word and simply smiled faintly at the various powerhouses.

    The inspector general broke through the air from not too far away and frowned at the scene. ¡°Whether it is three elements or two, it doesn¡¯t change much,¡± he said faintly. ¡°Arcanus spans a wide range¡ªtwo elements is an Arcanus, five elements is still an Arcanus. It¡¯s just taking another step within the cultivation realm and doesn¡¯t change anything. Please be at peace, everyone.¡±

    There was arge difference between metamorphosis and Arcanus, but not as much of one between an Arcanus of three elements and two. It was just another step forward in the Arcanus realm, not a leap to another level.

    The powerhouses hovering in the air sank into contemtion. Momentster, a young man dressed in yellow robes strode through the air from the pce.

    ¡°Seniors and ministers,¡± he said with a smile. ¡°How does everyone have the spare time to hover in the sky and admire the scenery today?¡±

    ¡°Eldest Prince!¡± Someone nodded smilingly. The neer wasn¡¯t the ninth prince, but the eldest prince of nearly fifty years old. He appeared quite young and smiled radiantly, a few more hints of maturity and magnanimity to his bearingpared to the ninth prince.

    The prince¡¯s smile deepened and he looked at the crowd, then at the northern part of the city. A ferocious tiger¡¯s roars shook the skies, as if on the verge of death and despair. A keen light glinted in the prince¡¯s eyes before he returned to a picture of serenity. ¡°The Skystar Marquis seems to be cultivating. Interruptions are most frowned upon at a time like this. Let¡¯s go to the Nine Dragons Pavilion for some tea and conversation. I will be treating today, so please show me some face, seniors!¡±

    Was Li Hao going to set foot into his third element? That was incredibly fast!

    It was both a surprise and not a surprise. After all, the young man¡¯s cultivation level had been stable when he ascended as an Arcanus. That he could kill Hu Xiao meant that his body, bones, and organs were tremendously powerful. In that case, further advancing to three elements seemed a reasonable foregone conclusion. Not to mention, the locks of his organs remained intact.

    ¡°The Skystar Marquis breaking a lock of the five organs means that he has no hope of converting back to a martial master,¡± the prince added meaningfully. ¡°It would be... very unwise to disrupt the marquis now!¡±

    His words gave the crowd new food for thought. When Li Hao still possessed his locks of the five organs, he stood a chance of returning to martial dao. But now that he¡¯d chosen to break one of them, it represented that the crazed young man hadpletely given up the martial path. He chose to sacrifice his future in the pursuit of greater strength and to dominate all sides.

    Was this a gain or a loss?

    It was difficult for the powerhouses to determine as well, but they knew that if they didn¡¯t stop him now, there might not be Demon Sword Li Hao in the future!

    ¡°Then we shall acquiesce to the eldest prince¡¯s wishes and adjourn to the Nine Dragons Pavilion!¡± someoneughed. The potential brawl was defused by the prince¡¯s words.

    Very well then! Li Hao was permitted to ascend. There was no hope of him returning as a martial master once he did so. As good as supernaturals were, there were ultimately limits to this path. Li Hao had taken the most critical step of breaking the most important factor of martial masters¡ªthe aura. Silencing his aura would mean that the advantages he operated with from the beginning would soon dwindle to nothing.

    The groupughed and chatted merrily. While they still paid attention to the disturbanceing from the north, they slowly settled down into ease. It was just an Arcanusmanding three elements! Not to mention, the kid might not seed. And what did it matter even if he did?

    The powerhouses calmed down and flew toward the Nine Dragons Pavilion. Hou Xiaochen was extraordinarily calm and stood in the air, looking at the north. He didn¡¯t exhibit the same despair and dejection that he had that day, just some regret.

    There was no return from this! <i>Are you certain of your path, Li Hao? You will be very strong in the short run, but after that? What other locks can you break after breaking the ones of your organs and head? You relinquished your most important aura and chose stronger power...</i>

    Hou Xiaochen closed his eyes, now knowing if he was happy or sad. He represented the limits of martial masters, so there was no other option avable to Li Hao. If he wanted to grow stronger and dominate thends, this seemed... to be the only possible avenue at the moment.

    <i>Isn¡¯t it all because that we are too weak? We are ultimately unable to break the limits of martial dao. If we are able to easily kill Arcanus as well, why would there be a need to do so?</i>

    Complicated emotions shed across Yao Si¡¯s face as well. He looked to the north, then at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Being supernatural is equally good,¡± he said slowly. ¡°Dao Sword is a supernatural too...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen opened his eyes and looked calmly at the Night Watcher director. ¡°There is no wrong power, just a wrong heart! I am not morose because of his decision, I just don¡¯t find it worth the sacrifice!¡±

    ¡°Not worth the sacrifice?¡±

    ¡°Is it worth the sacrifice?¡± Hou Xiaochen was very calm. ¡°Is it? What do we gain for it? So what if we suppress the nine ministries or royal family? He was a carefree individual who only needed to focus on revenge and hunting down Ying Hongyue. Why did he need to offend so many powerhouses to the point where he had to cross over as an Arcanus and proceed in the direct opposite direction of martial dao?

    ¡°Is this his duty?¡± Hou Xiaochen demanded coldly. ¡°I regret my actions!¡±

    He regretted pulling the young man into the Night Watchers and wanting him to shoulder some of the responsibilities. Why did the younger generation need to shoulder what the older generation could not achieve? It wasn¡¯t like there was no one left in the Silver Moon martial world! There were plenty who could break their locks, but why had only Li Hao, Hong Yitang, and a few others chosen to do so?

    Hou Xiaochen stared at those from the nine ministries in the distance and suddenly sneered. ¡°I¡¯ll chop a few heads off if they dare show their faces around here today. I¡¯ll let them know the meaning of pain!¡±

    He didn¡¯t keep his voice down¡ªit traveled to the front. Someone turned back for a look, to which Hou Xiaochen snapped, ¡°Just try taking another look!¡±

    The listener shook. What did Hou Xiaochen mean by that?

 Chapter 744: Supernatural Ability Character (II)

    <h4>Chapter 744: Supernatural Ability Character (II)</h4>

    Hou Xiaochen seemed like a keg of fire powder ready to explode. Fire energy sparked over his body. He could barely keep his impulses in check¡ªhe wanted to break a few supernatural locks and execute a premier Arcanus!

    The ministers¡¯ eyes widened with rm. Hou Xiaochen was showing signs of breaking his locks! Were all Silver Moon martial masters crazy??

    A motionless Hou Xiaochen closed his eyes, his hand gripping his spear. He stood in the void, a myriad of thoughts running through his mind. More than a decade of biding his time, more than a decade of rising and falling with the age...

    None of it ever brought any respect or peace. Those of Silver Moon had been quiet for too long. The most promising member of their younger generation, Li Hao, had been forced to ascend to the supernatural domain while he cowered and pulled his punches...

    Too many thoughts assaulted Hou Xiaochen. Bureaucracy, bnce, politics... Repeated withdrawals would likely only bring him the same result as the Steppe Prince. The prince hadn¡¯t even had a chance to unseal himself before he was executed on the spot. Such was the fate of a premier martial master!

    Yao Si¡¯s face flickered rapidly through different expressions and those of the nine ministries trembled from the implications of Hou Xiaochen unsealing himself. They suddenly lost their earlier bravado.

    ......

    The old inspector general¡¯s voice traveled into his son¡¯s ears. ¡°Stay away from him, Hou Xiaochen was known as Sickly back in the day. It¡¯s not the fact that he appeared weak and feeble that was the key, but that he was as vicious and sinister as a ghost! He doesn¡¯t look like he can ept Li Hao obtaining another element, so be careful of being killed by mistake!¡±

    The inspector general quicklynded on the ground. He could tell that Hou Xiaochen was struggling to maintain his reason. He would immediately be a premier Arcanus once he broke his supernatural locks. Powerful and domineering, he wouldmand at least two elements. Three was entirely feasible, and he might even wield four if he truly lost his mind.

    As for whether or not his physical body could endure it¡ªhe¡¯d been called Sickly for many years, but was still alive. So who was to say that he wouldn¡¯t be able to survive the ascension?

    The heavyweights of the nine ministries were rmed by what they saw. All casual banter vanished and they quieted down. Were they really going to force this one to be a supernatural? There were Li Hao, Earthturner Sword, and Yao Si inside the city... If it came down to that, it would be another bloody battle on their hands.

    There was no sound of conversation in the surroundings anymore. Hou Xiaochen looked at the rest, not saying a word. He didn¡¯t know what his thoughts were, he just knew that he wanted to kill someone, but had his reservations. He knew that his state did not align with the heart of a martial master, that he should not be in this state.

    He... still had some duties that he¡¯d yet to abandon.

    Hou Xiaochen suppressed the fury in his heart and recovered his calm. Yao Si, Dao Sword, and a few others took more nces at him. Hou Xiaochen was still a keg of fire powder that they needed to be wary of. All of themnded without a word. The nine ministries likely wouldn''t be doing anything today since they didn¡¯t want another pitched battle on their hands.

    ......

    <i>Northern quadrant of the city, the rear yard.</i>

    Gouts of rampaging fire aura filled the fire character; Li Hao was finding the zing sensation too much to endure. Even with his immense organs, only now did he understand how strong his body needed to be if he wanted to break a seventh lock. He could barely withstand it, and thank goodness he hadn¡¯t broken the locks of dark and light either!

    His body would probably copse if he tried to break an eighth lock. Granted, he might be fine if he had sufficient Water of Life on hand, but the consumption of that resource would not be a small number then.

    The fire character swiftly took shape, the ferocious tiger padded toward it, assimting with it. It wasn¡¯t filled with the despair that people might expect. Rather, there was some expectation intermixed with its emotions. It awaited a new life, to be reborn from the ashes!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The character trembled as it seemed unable to maintain itself. Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. Could it not be stabilized? What was it missing?? It was missing something! Could not even auras control the characters?

    The supernatural lock was only partially melded into it, but the character was already showing signs of copse. Wouldn¡¯t it fully shatter if it waspletely assimted? That would be the end of the tiger aura¡¯s hopes!

    Li Hao sank into deep thought and exhaled after a while. Perhaps... he wasn¡¯t being ruthless enough and hadn¡¯t incorporated enough of himself in it.

    ¡°Hup!¡± He grunted and spat out an enormous amount of blood. He visibly deted as his blood qi and mind intent surged toward the character. As expected, the character stabilized once more.

    So he hadn¡¯t paid a high enough price before this!

    Droplets of Water of Life vanished to repair the five organs; sword energy also swiftly entered the body to provide blood qi and mental strength. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles continuously operated to envelop the character and fuse it all together.

    Wind and thunder exploded within Li Hao¡¯s body, attacking him. Everyone in the world seemed to be against him. The heavens themselves wouldn¡¯t tolerate him. Finally, the power of the mes could no longer withstand the onught.

    Wind and thunder exploded!

    Panther could not keep up with the inflow of energy either. It panted with dejection. There was too much! Endless energy surged from all directions, there was so, so much that wanted to darted into Li Hao¡¯s character.

    Thunder and lightning struck from the clear blue skies!

    <i>RUMBLE!!</i>

    Gale winds howled!

    The ¡®fire¡¯ character in front of Li Hao seemed ready to take on the cardinal directions. It immted heaven and earth! A snarling tiger appeared over it with a slight tremble. It howled a challenge at the skies, as if wanting to challenge the heavens themselves.

    ¡°It¡¯s still not stable enough...¡± Li Hao frowned. Why was this? He¡¯d been incorporated a great sum of life energy into the character, so why wasn¡¯t it fully solidified? He looked at the mes, thunder and lightning, and hurricanes in the air...

    Rebirth from the ashes? Or was this more the tribtion that myths and legends spoke of? Was he encountering a cultivation tribtion?

    Li Hao frowned. Was there really a need for this level of theatrics? He looked at the character in front of him and suddenly asked, ¡°We are born to fight! Do you want to rush forward to crush the energy blocking your way?¡±

    The mes rose in response and a tiger roar could be heard! Li Hao smiled, the character had gained some sentience.

    ¡°Well done! Then... kill!¡± The character disappeared with his grunt and vanished on the spot. <i>BOOM!</i>

    A massive collision rang through thend. mes enveloped everything and a fearsome tiger manifested with a snarl. It swallowed the onught of outside energy¡ªit devoured the mes, pped down lightning, and stomped on the winds!

    The sun was blotted out over Skystar City and a fearsome hurricane raged.

    <i>Outside the yard.</i>

    Hong Yitang looked at the sky and murmured, ¡°What have you done?¡±

    What was that? The tiger aura? It didn¡¯t look like it, but it did seem to be the tiger aura. He didn¡¯t understand what was going on. Was Li Hao a full supernatural, or was he a martial master again? What was that tiger in the sky?

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>Skystar City, the pce, underground.</i>

    A swaying little tree suddenly drew itself upright and sent out faint mental ripples. ¡°Skystar King, has something developed in the outside world?¡±

    ¡°Developed?¡± Seated in the central pce, a middle-aged man with a crown on his head looked toward the north. He inclined his head. ¡°The Skystar Marquis Li Hao is located to the north. He is breaking through to his third element. mes are scorching the sky, and wind and thunder are gathering. He must be exuding too much energy for his physical body to endure...¡±

    ¡°Is that so?¡± The faint mental ripples seemed to wish to extend further, but immediately sensed the rupture of the void devouring everything. Those ripples were no more. After a while, another faint surge of mental strength traveled out. ¡°It feels a bit different... What a pity that I cannot investigate...¡±

    There was no helping it. It was too strong, which resulted in the void tearing its mental strength apart whenever it extended outward. The void tore apart everything that was the tree. This was the problem that faced many ancient experts of old. Otherwise, it would be able to probe the situation since they were so close.

    As of now, it could only silently perceive the world, sensing what was different, but unable to discern the changes within. Why did... it feel like a thunder tribtion?

    There were no thunder tribtions in the New Martial era. When the Human King conquered the world in thete stage of that period, he felt that the unbridled consumption of energy by all martial cultivators in the world would destroy the heavens sooner orter. Hemanded the Divine Forge Emperor to devise a thunder tribtion to test the masses.

    This was a special treatment that applied to only premier powerhouses. It was far beyond the ability of modern day humans to trigger. New Martial did not restrict the weak, but rather built in more tests for the strong. They closely guarded against ack of respect and veneration fromter generation powerhouses. Devouring too much energy of the world would cause its copse.

    But even Apexes were not honored with a thunder tribtion!

    The little tree¡¯s mental ripples agitated. Perhaps... it¡¯d sensed incorrectly. Not to mention, if it really was a thunder tribtion aimed at a powerhouse, all of Skystar City would be reduced to dust. There wouldn¡¯t be the constant undtions that it sensed. It was thinking too much.

    ¡°Give me a copy of this person¡¯s information!¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± the Skystar King promptly agreed. This was a minor matter. Who would¡¯ve thought that Li Hao grasping a third element would raise the attention of an ancient powerhouse?

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>Battle Heaven.</i>

    The old turtle was absorbing power from the world when the Tortoise Pagoda rippled. The turtle looked upward, through the cliff face and into the outside world. It seemed to see something.

    ¡°Guardian?¡±

    ¡°Everything is fine, it¡¯s just that certain changes seem to have urred in this world. For some reason, I find it rted to Battle Heaven...¡± The old turtle didn¡¯t know what was happening, just that this world seemed to have gained a bit more of some spirit.

    The massive General Pagoda shifted off in the far distance, then returned to silence. Perhaps it¡¯d also sensed something and wanted to struggle for it.

    Direct General Wang was confused, he didn¡¯t sense anything. Was the guardian mistaken? He didn¡¯t know! The ancient city was sealed off from the rest of the world and his authority didn¡¯t extend to all of it.

    ......

    Many premier existences in ancient ruins sensed something, but they were either too far away to investigate or unable to look further despite close proximity. They could only sit with their thoughts.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 745: Supernatural Ability Character (III)

    <h4>Chapter 745: Supernatural Ability Character (III)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about any of that at the moment. The ¡®fire¡¯ character reformed back into a tiger, howling a challenge at the four directions and battling the elements. It grew more valiant and zed with killing intent. Breaking free from its cage gave it the ability to rampage freely and tear through the world!

    However, an increasing amount of energy gathered from the outside. In the end, they formed thunderbolts of wind, lightning, and fire that drilled down at the tiger!

    The very world was overturning!

    ¡°Do you need help?¡± came Hong Yitang¡¯s transmission.

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao¡¯s face was pale, but he only looked at the sky. There was no need. There was will in the tiger and heart in the character. The ¡®fire¡¯ character condensed the strength of an entire supernatural lock and was interspersed with the strength of the ferocious tiger. It represented a lot of things and he would be gravely injured if it shattered.

    But once it fully stabilized, it would be one of his greatest weapons.

    <i>RUMBLE!!</i>

    The tiger¡¯s struggle with the three thunderbolts continued. The character zed resplendently as sword aura collected and the tiger waved its ws around. It pierced through the sky like a sharp sword!

    The five auras themselves were sword auras to begin with! This one was currently the sword of the fire tiger; it swung through the void.

    Powerhouses swiftly gathered outside the yard. Deputy Zhou frowned at the sky, but couldn¡¯t see the happenings clearly. Li Hao had sealed off the premises with a mirror fragment! All he could make out between shifting shadows was a proud tiger loftily regarding the world.

    ¡°Has he converted back to being a martial master?¡± Deputy Zhou looked curiously at Hong Yitang. That was an aura!

    The man didn¡¯t know what to say and stared back at the deputy. ¡°You¡¯re asking me?¡± <i>How the heck would I know? </i>This was both energy and aura. He waspletely confused! Who in the world knew what was going on and what Li Hao was ying at now?

    All Hong Yitang knew was that the disturbance was enormous; he only learned now that the energy produced in the world could possess offensive capabilities as well! This wasn¡¯t just an ordinary attack, but an umonly fierce offensive force. Those bolts of energy were attacking that tiger!

    A rush of overwhelming me abruptly zed through heaven and earth, burning straight through the barrier created by the mirror. Fire spread through the opening and Panther followed in hot pursuit, devouring most of the mes in its golden form.

    Hong Yitang¡¯s eyes widened and he waved a thunderbolt into existence, swallowing the remains of the tongue of fire. A wisp of it escaped extermination and grazed his hand. He shook it out of existence, but it left a burn mark on his arm. The man frowned at it. This was strange, how was it this strong? This wasn''t just mysterious power, but a melting pot of a lot of different things.

    <i>I¡¯m so confused!</i>

    Deputy Zhou took a few steps back. The mes in front of him were doused, but immediately came back to life. They red with violence and leapt for the old man!

    ¡°How odd!¡± Deputy Zhou raised his hand and brought down a wave of aura around him, suppressing the mes. He approached them with a frown, wanting to take a closer look, when they abruptly morphed into a tiger. The tiger then promptly exploded with a rumble and left no traces behind.

    ¡°Eh?¡± Deputy Zhou blinked.

    ¡°What kind of strength was that?¡± Hong Yitang frowned.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure... has he incorporated mysterious power into the body?¡±

    ......

    As the two discussed outside, Li Hao¡¯s tiger aura grew stronger as the young man infused more blood qi into it.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Like a sword unsheathed, it struck with a paw and ripped the lightning to pieces. The tiger swallowed the fragments and challenged the four directions anew. Although Li Hao¡¯s face grew paler, his eyes grew brighter. The character had solidified! An entire supernatural lock was integrated in the ¡®fire¡¯ character, as well as his life force, blood qi, mental strength...

    It felt like his entire being was part of the character.

    Li Hao closed his eyes, finding himself part of the ferocious tiger when he shifted his mind. No, he <i>was</i> the tiger. This character was written from his heart¡¯s blood and the manifestation of dao. It was himself!

    The young man sensed the surroundings¡ªsword intent erupted. The Lifeless Sword!

    The tiger waved its paws around much like Li Hao swung his sword. The weapon swept forward!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Thunder and lightning broke in the air, reduced to nothing. Li Hao seemed to be a martial master once more in this moment, but he did find his capabilities slightlycking. He didn¡¯t pay heed to this. Endless fire energy surged into the tiger when it opened its mouth!

    Energy congregating from the outside world instantly vanished into the tiger¡¯s maw, which meant it was also absorbed by the young man. There was abruptly no energy in the surroundings around them, just a singr character hovering in the air.

    The tiger returned to the character and turned into a brand that darted into it. Li Hao summoned the character to him with a thought; itnded in his heart. The heart was still and at peace. It contained no supernatural lock, aura, or anything at all. There was only a character that quietly hovered within it.

    Li Hao blinked. Had he... seeded? He didn¡¯t know. The character was exceedingly quiet and showed no signs of activity. Had he obtained a third element or not?

    A faint wisp of blood qi rose from the heart and slowly melded with the character. Li Hao had expended so much just now that his face was still pale. Confusion swirled in his eyes as he couldn¡¯t determine if he was an Arcanus of three elements or not.

    ¡°Come out!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A sky full of fire threatened to immte the world!

    The character moved in ordance with his thoughts and suppressed the void. A ghastly whine echoed after a loud impact and mes erupted over Panther¡¯s body. Li Hao blinked and quickly withdrew the character.

    It vanished!

    Panther was burnt to a crisp after that encounter. It howled and whined with anguish, settling down to re at Li Hao only after the young man infused it withrge sums of sword energy.

    ¡°I was just giving it a try and seeing if I can use it,¡± Li Hao exined himself awkwardly. ¡°Sorry, sorry!¡±

    But he was overjoyed at the same time! He could! And he could use it very smoothly! The fire character itself was a supernatural ability and it imposed no strain on the five organs. What... was this?

    He¡¯d simply followed his thoughts and the ultimate art of Tranquil Star to conduct an experiment. The results were startlingly good!

    ¡°If this really is the case, then I can create supernatural abilities out of my other four organs. I alreadymand the abilities of wind and thunder, and if I can somehowprehend the auras of light and dark... Wouldn¡¯t that make me... invincible?¡±

    But Li Hao then promptly became depressed.<i> I only know the auras of the five elements, I don¡¯t know the auras of wind, thunder, light, and dark! In that case... it will be very difficult for me to collect their characters.</i>

    ¡°But... I can do it... for the five elements...¡± His eyes lit up as he became agitated. The strength in these characters did not seem toe from outside, but from his own body. He could manipte it at will, like he did internal force. Or rather, it¡¯d be more urate to say that it was a closer fit for himself than internal force.

    Wouldn¡¯t that mean that he¡¯d turned mysterious power into his own use?

    ¡°Fire!¡± mes appeared in his palm and brewed into a sea of mes when he pushed his palm out. This was so much better than the unstable wind and thunder abilities.

    <i>What a pity...</i>

    Twinges of pain assailed Li Hao when he took stock of his resources. He¡¯d consumed a great deal of sword energy and at least twenty drops of Water of Life for his experiment. What a costly attempt!

    Of course, that wasn¡¯t muchpared to gaining a stabilized ¡®fire¡¯ character.

    He stretched his senses toward his newfound acquisition, finding himself to be the same as before. He only perceived the wind and thunder abilities; his newfound ability of fire seemed to have entirely disappeared.

    Had itpletely retracted inside himself? That would be... incredible!

    Li Hao grinned. He knew what path to walk in the future. Although he himself didn¡¯t know if he counted as a martial master, he could at least utilize sword intent again. <i>Then can I continue the path I was on before and continue toprehend the aura,bining it into my supernatural abilities, and then turning it into a character...</i>

    <i>One word per supernatural ability?</i>

    <i>One word per aura?</i>

    Can all these characters bebined into one in the end?

    A multitude of inspiration flooded his mind as the young man inwardly jumped for joy, exulting in the sensation of spontaneousprehension! <i>My dao... lies ahead of me!</i>

    ......

    The way forward was clear to Li Hao now, so he was very excited! Not only was this an improvement of strength, but he seemed to have shone a light into the darkness after this experiment. He knew how to proceed forward. The road ahead was long!

    One character, one aura. One character, one legacy. One character, one supernatural ability! The unending path stretched out in front of him!

    ¡°The disturbance from my refinement attempt was too great!¡± He wanted to experiment with the other four abilities as well, but that would cause a further uproar. After the fire character returned to his body, everything was contained within and he no longer had the previous sensation of being unable to endure his abilities. He could absolutelyplete the same actions for the other four elements. They might not be able to erupt altogether at the same time, but it would resolve an enormous issue for him.

    <i>Aura!</i>

    If all five could be turned into supernatural abilities and their locks integrated within, his auras would no longer battle interference from the locks. The locks wouldn¡¯t need to be sealed away again, like the martial masters did, and he wouldn¡¯t have to fear their breakage like other Arcanus did.

    The increase in strength was less important. What was more critical was that he could perfect himself and incorporate all of his knowledge into his next step.

 Chapter 746: Li Haoâ€™s Childishness (I)

    <h4>Chapter 746: Li Hao¡¯s Childishness (I)</h4>

    ¡°Whether it¡¯s a secret art or breathing method...¡±

    <i>Breathing method!</i>

    The young man¡¯s heart quailed. Breathing method... One character for one legacy. Could a breathing method be incorporated into each character?

    He didn¡¯t know that many secret arts, but what he knew ran the gamut in terms of knowledge. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles, Weeping Willow Sword, Ghost Shadow Sword, Nine Forged Force, and the variety of secret arts that he¡¯d obtained from the Steppe Prince... Would the characters be able to breathe themselves if he incorporated that as well?

    ¡°The water aura, for example, is an aura with the Nine Forged Force as the foundation. The auras have their own spirit and I needed to switch between different breathing methods before. Then... can I dedicate a breathing method to each character then?¡±

    Breathing methods were a unique hallmark of this era. They hadn¡¯t existed in the ancient civilization as all martial dao was universal. Breathing methods were actually a limitation. But now they resulted in their own special effects and had targeted uses. Perhaps modern martial dao wasn¡¯t aspatible with everything as ancient martial dao, but it contained more of its own unique capabilities.

    At the same time, there were too many breathing methods of varied uses in the world. As strong as Yuan Shuo was, he¡¯d only consolidated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. But what if... one character corresponded to one method and each method enhanced one aura? Auras possessed their own spirit. Now that they were sealed in a character, could a character breathe?

    Li Hao was abruptly thinking out of the box. He¡¯d broken through a shackle, like his mind had been opened to new frontiers. Or rather, everything he¡¯d encountered, emted, and learned from in recent times had umted in his mind until they erupted today. He¡¯d seen too much and experienced too much. The sh between ancient and modern martial dao gave him much food for thought.

    <i>The fire tiger... operating the breathing method of the fire aura...</i>

    The character manifested again in ordance with his thoughts. Since the Breathing Method of the Five Styles was an amalgamation of five styles, then what had been the original standalone fire aura breathing method?

    His teacher definitely knew, but hadn¡¯t taught it to him. He¡¯d only taught the Breathing Method of the Five Styles.

    Li Hao rifled through the secret arts in his storage ring. The Steppe Prince knew a lot, so the young man wanted to see if there were any books on the fire aura alone. If there were, he could teach the tiger how to breathe. Wouldn¡¯t that bestow each character the ability to cultivate?

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes danced around as he could barely contain himself after that thought. He quickly paged through all of the secret arts, looking for one that might give rise to a fire aura. He furrowed his brows after a while and thought of something else.

    ¡°Martial Uncle He!¡± The young man activated themunication system of the gold armor.

    ¡°What have you been mucking around with now? Did you seed with your third element? You really won¡¯t have a chance to set foot back into the martial master domain after this then. Don¡¯t do anything brash, Li Hao!¡± He Yong seemed to have been waiting tomunicate with Li Hao all this time, but he didn¡¯t have the authorization to do so. He could only speak when Li Hao contacted him.

    ¡°Two elements is enough for use,¡± he said with some regret and reproach. ¡°Why pursue a third? No one¡¯s done so in our society, but you insist on being a trailzer...¡±

    ¡°Martial uncle!¡± Li Hao interrupted him. ¡°I remember your secret art is very tyrannical and bloodthirsty, and that it erupts with an explosive aura...¡±

    ¡°Eh? What about it? What¡¯s wrong with that?¡±

    ¡°Nothing, I¡¯m just asking what the martial uncle¡¯s boxing method is called?¡±

    ¡°The Skyshaker Fist,¡± He Yong replied despite his confusion. ¡°It¡¯s an ancient inheritance that was gradually modified with each generation, making it different from before. I¡¯ve been wanting to trade for a copy of the <i>Fists of the Bloody Lion King</i> from Battle Heaven. I think that¡¯ll help me some...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll find a way to get it for you, Martial Uncle He. Teach me the Skyshaker Fist first, including the breathing method. If I remember correctly, your boxing method is domineering withoutpare and has a fiery aura...¡±

    <i>The fuck?? </i>He Yong cursed loudly. In the martial world, wanting someone¡¯s secret art was the equivalent of killing someone¡¯s parents. Killing someone for their legacy would make one an enemy of the world!

    <i>The little bastard wants my secret art! Pah! How could I ever possibly pass it onto you! What are you even thinking of?</i>

    ¡°Ten drops of Water of Life, martial uncle!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve gone too far in insulting me, Li Hao! Don¡¯t be thinking that I¡¯ll teach you my secret art just because I¡¯m helping you now. This is the ultimate ace up my sleeve...¡±

    ¡°Twenty drops, and forget it if you don¡¯t want to. If I remember correctly, there are a lot of fire aura secret arts out there. I¡¯ll just look for someone else...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± He Yong quickly responded. ¡°Deal! Twenty drops and not one less! I¡¯ll send it to you straight away!¡±

    Li Hao was unmoved. <i>I knew it. There¡¯s no deal that you won¡¯t make. It¡¯s just a secret art. </i>He Yong¡¯s secret art wasn¡¯t a particrly powerful one. He was strong because the man was strong, not because of his secret art.

    He Yong sent over a string of words momentster, including the breathing method.

    ¡°You have to be a man of your word, Li Hao. I¡¯ve turned my back on my ancestors to share the family¡¯s secret art with you. You can¡¯t...¡±

    ¡°Come to me and collect the Water of life when you have a moment!¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡±

    ......

    inside the pce, He Yong pumped his fists in the air. Twenty drops! He¡¯d already stashed away a great dealst time as Li Hao had handed out quite a few drops, now the young man paid out another twenty drops! As for He Yong¡¯s secret art, there was nothing to it! It wasn¡¯t worth mentioningpared to the Five Styles. He was strong because of his individual strength. Since Li Hao wanted it, he could have it.

    Amid his excitement, He Yong was also puzzled. What did Li Hao want with his secret art? The kid¡¯s own Five Styles was much better than his secret art and moreprehensive. It contained five auras and was aplete amalgamation of five secret arts. Yuan Shuo was a celestial sage with how he¡¯d aplished that task.

    Why was the kid setting his own Five Styles aside in favor of He Yong¡¯s boxing method? It would be worth it if his method was of any other attribute, such as light, dark, or life. Those weren¡¯t part of the Five Styles. But the fire aura...? What was there to covet about that?

    Although He Yong didn¡¯t understand it, he couldn¡¯t be bothered with it. He¡¯d made out like a bandit today!

    ...or was Li Hao having issues controlling his new fire ability and wanted to borrow the secret art to help him bring it under control?

    He Yong set his musing aside after thinking it over for a while.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Li Hao studied the breathing method of the Skyshaker Fist that he¡¯d just received. As for whether or not the method actually produced the fire aura, it was enough if it proceeded in the appropriate general direction. The aura was a matter that followed the heart

    Take the Nine Forged Force, for example. Liu Long¡¯s father hadprehended it as a fire aura, whereas Liu Long thought of it as a water aura. That was a very unique example.

    The tiger appeared over the character again. Li Hao operated the breathing method that he¡¯d just learned and radiated the tiger with his mental ripples. The tiger crouched in the air, as if taking in the new knowledge. In actuality, the tiger was the manifestation of Li Hao¡¯s mind.

    Momentster, the tiger started operating the secret art and summoned leaping mes in the sky! It formed a fist and punched out¡ªfire seared the air!

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. This course of action was feasible! He was truly shaken by what he saw. That meant that all of his spections and thoughts could be put into practice! Each character would be a replica for him!

    ¡°This is incredible!¡± he gasped. It truly was¡ªcould the aura be used like his? Once more, it¡¯d been proven that his peculiar inspiration could be materialized. In that case, could he transform the water aura into the water character and have it operate the breathing method of the Nine Forged Force?

    If he could, then each character would be a replica, an independently walking martial master. And then if he had the sword overview lead them all, would that result in greater strength? One had to know that his thinking was impossible before his experimentation, that a martial master could only operate one breathing method at a time.

    ¡°The five styles can independently operate five different breathing methods, while the sword overview can operate the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. Or... no, I¡¯ll operate the breathing method and direct the sword overview. So that means one of my blows can deliver the effects of six breathing methods?¡± A crazed light glinted in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. Was it possible? Perhaps... it could be done!

    He wanted to try, but the disturbance was too great in the city. His previous experimentation had attracted a lot of attention. After just disying the fire aura, he would draw a lot of wariness if he presented another aura now. Those on the outside might think that he¡¯d broken many locks.

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t anticipated such an enormous disturbance before he started. He¡¯d wanted to quietly cultivate while Panther swallowed everything. It now looked like that Panth was too weak. It was useless and couldn¡¯t fully erase all of the fuss he¡¯d raised.

    <i>Panth, you¡¯re trash!</i>

    ¡°I need to find an uninhabited area to continue trying. Once I incorporate the other four supernatural locks into characters, the only part of me that will continue to remain weak is my physical body. Even if I can¡¯t utilize my full strength, the only part of me that will be weak will be my physical body. I¡¯ll be able to utilize seven supernatural abilities once I strengthen my organs and body!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook from the implication. Who in the world would rival him then unless ancient powerhouses appeared? Would even Ying Hongyue triumph over him?

    The young man was both in a hurry and uneasy when his thoughts traveled here. He no longer wanted to just think about it, he wanted to put his thoughts into action. Although his experimentation didn¡¯t appear that stable for the moment... So what?

    It¡¯s not like anyone would die from what he was thinking! How much worse could it get? Supernaturals also haphazardly opened their locks; it wasn¡¯t like they were all dead either!

    ¡°Where can I go to conceal such a massive disturbance?¡±

    Battle Heaven was a good selection, but it was too far away. Any ce close by would be hard pressed to contain the level of disturbances that he raised. Everyone also knew that he was attempting to open another supernatural lock. They, too, would be worried the more locks he opened.

 Chapter 747: Li Haoâ€™s Childishness (II)

    <h4>Chapter 747: Li Hao¡¯s Childishness (II)</h4>

    <i>It¡¯s quieter in the Four Seas...</i> Li Hao pondered, that would be particrly true when the water aura was established. It might have a better effect in the sea.

    The young man couldn¡¯t wait to put his ideas into motion and studied the fire character again. The tiger seemed to be breathing in and out. Strength moved in circles inside the young man¡¯s heart, forming a cirction.

    The character really was breathing!

    The thunder and lightning attributes within his body no longer rampaged. But if he only had these two attributes alone, he probably wouldn¡¯t be able toplete the set of characters anytime soon. He hadn¡¯tprehended their auras yet.

    ¡°I¡¯m going out real quick, Martial Uncle Hong. I¡¯ll be back soon!¡± Li Hao transmitted¡ªhe was already gone.

    Hong Yitang furrowed his brows. <i>Out? Where are you going at a time like this? And, did youplete your third element or not? </i>To be honest, he couldn¡¯t tell. But since Li Hao had already said so, there was nothing else he could say.

    ¡°Be careful, everyone has their eye on you right now. Hou Xiaochen scared them all a bit so the nine ministries won¡¯t easily probe you. But you should stille back soon if you head out!¡±

    ¡°I understand!¡± Li Hao swiftly retracted his fire aura, suppressed his wind and thunder energies, manifested his gold armor, shrouded himself with the mirror fragment, and withdrew all of his energy into himself. He vanished in the blink of an eye.

    ......

    The young man didn¡¯t tarry over the Skystar Sea. He plunged straight in and swam for its end, heading for the boundary of the Four Seas. The Skystar Sea wasn¡¯t big, but it was very, very long. It stretched outward, running from east to west. In fact, one could directly enter either the East or West Sea from it.

    After some thought, Li Hao set course for the east. He was going to head for the East Sea! He¡¯d killed its tyrant Big Beard and there weren¡¯t many powerhouses there. If he underwent his attempt in the West Sea, he might arouse the attention of the western provinces. These days, no one among the Xus of the east dared run around, so they wouldn¡¯t investigate the East Sea even if anything unusual developed.

    Li Hao traveled extremely swiftly and shot through the Skystar Sea. He was going toplete the water character in the East Sea!

    ......

    The young man sped through the waters, reaching the East Sea when night fell. He continued onward to the center of the sea. He ought to be able toplete the character before he exhausted his resources. At the very least, he would have sufficient Water of Life to support his efforts.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, Skystar City.</i>

    The royal city was once more at peace. The disturbance from the northern city quadrant was gone. No one knew if Li Hao had sessfully grasped a third element or not.

    <i>Inside the Nine Dragons Pavilion.</i>

    Several ministers sat inside a private room, quaffing wine by the cupful and not saying a word. None of the old ministers were present, it was all the present ministers.

    The minister of the Judiciary looked around sternly as he drank and said after a while, ¡°Are we going to just let him continue to improve like this? If he¡¯s grasped the third element today, will he be far off from his fourth and fifth? Must we permit a snake to rest easily by our side?¡±

    No one answered him. What could they do about it? Fight with Li Hao to the death? The young man wasn¡¯t alone¡ªhe had the backing of the Silver Moon martial masters, as well as Hou Xiaochen and Hong Yitang being physically located in Skystar City. Not to mention that the royal family had been sitting back and watching their struggle all along. Who would it really benefit in the end if they truly fought each other?

    Although they¡¯d lost a batch of Arcanus to date, they hadn¡¯t really suffered any losses. Well, the Ministry of the Judiciary had truly suffered a loss. Its minister was consumed with thoughts of revenge after Hu Xiao had been killed.

    The minister of Internal Affairs was a slightly chubby fellow with beady eyes. He cated softly, ¡°Don¡¯t be hasty, Ole Hu. What¡¯s in it for us if we duel Li Hao to the death right now? Let¡¯s wait a bit longer. Once the second awakening begins, we¡¯ll be able to use some of what we control to great effect! What can Li Hao bring against us then?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t forget that he has Battle Heaven behind him!¡± the minister of the Judiciary denounced coldly.

    ¡°I know, I know!¡± The minister of Internal Affairs bobbed his head. ¡°But will Battle Heaven really have a chance to revive and emerge in the world then? How many people are just waiting to march on Silver Moon? That province will be the first to fall then. It¡¯s not just us, but the royal family, three great organizations, seven divine mountains, and some fellows who¡¯ve remained in hiding all this time...

    ¡°The ancient civilization has fallen and their armies have be thorns in the sides of many factions, as well as a great resource...¡±

    Essentially, he meant that they could not touch Li Hao. At least, not right now. It wouldn¡¯t be a worthwhile trade.

    ¡°The most pressing task at hand is not this, but that we need to strengthen ourselves as well.¡± The minister of Examinations joined in. ¡°We were hesitant and cautious before, but that state cannot continue! I¡¯m sure that everyone senses the pressure as well. We cannot continue to be miserly or tentative! We need to expend mysterious power stones and trade them for Water of Life so we can strengthen the five organs. Yuan Shuo is not willing to teach anyone his breathing method...¡±

    No one had conducted mass trades of Water of Life before, for no reason other than a lurking worry! They were worried that the nt spirits would grow too strong and awaken by too much. They would break free of human control and in fact, turn the tables instead.

    Li Hao was bold and had the benefit of Battle Heaven backing. Not to mention, the little tree was young and naive. For the nine ministries, trading for too much Water of Life meant that the nt spirits would awaken to a greater degree. This meant that risk and opportunity went hand in hand.

    But with Li Hao having grasped a third element, they could no longer sit back and watch.

    The group exchanged nces, everyone uncertain.

    ¡°But... if the nt spirits regain too much strength...¡±

    ¡°At the very least, they¡¯re unable to emerge into the present world!¡± rumbled the minister of Examinations. ¡°We should not quit eating for fear of choking. Otherwise, it¡¯s just a matter of either dying to the nt spirits or to Li Hao! Also, the royal family are starting to act brazenly as well. They¡¯ve probably traded a great deal of mysterious power stones to their nt spirits! If they¡¯re acting like that, what should we be wary of?¡±

    In that case, everyone should trade for Water of Life en masse!

    ¡°Let¡¯s not keep secrets from each other anymore,¡± the minister of Internal Affairs said softly. ¡°Shall we be frank? How much is our nt spirits demanding for payment? The royal family is selling theirs for one hundred thousand stones per drop. The nt spirit that they have must be pricing their drops at a minimum of fifty thousand stones per drop. And you guys?¡±

    inly, each of the nine ministries had their own individual ruins and nt spirits. No one knew whether each ministry had one ruin or multiple.

    No one replied as they all dwelled within their own thoughts. What price? Knowledge like this shouldn¡¯t be easily revealed at times. It was a ssified secret.

    No one purchased from the royal family as they knew it was too pricey. But for those powerhouses without ess to a nt spirit, they might make an asional purchase.

    ¡°I think we¡¯re all in the same boat...¡± someone murmured after a while. ¡°Mine is pricing each drop at sixty thousand, so slightly more expensive than the royal family...¡±

    ¡°Is that so?¡± the groupughed, able to roughly estimate that their prices were all approximately the same¡ªfifty thousand stones per drop.

    ¡°We¡¯ll need at least one hundred drops to stabilize the five organs and body enough for a third element. That alone will cost five million or so mysterious power stones. Does everyone think that is worth it?¡±

    This was no small sum! It was an astronomical figure! As for whether or not it was worth it, that depended on the person. It took less than fifty drops to stabilize two elements and far more to stabilize three. Five million mysterious power stones was arge sum for any faction.

    The group exchanged nces again, this time collectively staying silent. It was difficult to say if they would execute this n after they returned to their institutions. They most likely would, but who could say for certain?

    ¡°nt spirits don¡¯t need that much to coalesce one drop of Water of Life,¡± someone muttered. ¡°I suspect that they¡¯ve exaggerated their needs at least five times over. Perhaps just ten thousand is enough for one drop...¡±

    No one picked up that tone of conversation. What could they do about it? Water of Life was in those nt spirits¡¯ bodies. If they didn¡¯t pay up, the nt spirits wouldn¡¯t produce the resource. What could they do about it?

    ¡°They¡¯ve embezzled too much in preparation for recovering their strength and emerging back in the world. The more they recover today, the more they can immediately walk around after space stabilizes upon the second awakening. Perhaps we¡¯re all just working for them?¡±

    The nt spirits had to be kept in check, but no one spoke of it. They just continued to nourish their own thoughts.

    ¡°Right, do you guys think that Li Hao has stabilized his three elements through Water of Life or the sword of the Lis? No matter what, he should¡¯ve exhausted all of his previous battle gains. I just don¡¯t know what he may have obtained in Battle Heaven. But ording to what I know, the nt spirit in Battle Heaven is particrly strong and hard to revitalize. What has he given to it to help it recover?¡±

    This was what the ministers didn¡¯t understand. What was the young man making use of?

    ¡°Can it be another nt spirit?¡±

    ¡°Li Hao is so young and hasn¡¯t explored that many ruins. Where can he go to find a second nt spirit...¡±

    That was true! The more they thought about this, the more of a headache they had. All they could do now was just watch Li Hao grow stronger. Although, he would end up depleting all of his previous gains if he continued to improve.

    ¡°The martial university that the Ministry of Finance relinquished...¡± someone raised in a low voice. ¡°Whether it¡¯s their nt spirits or ancient monster spirits, none are able to leave the ruins. But there is a secret inside the ruins and it is stable. If Li Hao consumes everything he has, he may wish to enter the ruins and search for treasure. It¡¯s hard to kill him outside, but what about inside? What do you guys think?¡±

    The group shifted, but no reply was immediately forting.

    ¡°Will he undertake an expedition?¡± Someone asked softly. ¡°This isn¡¯t a dangerous ruin and there aren¡¯t many treasures. Will he risk an excavation?¡±

    ¡°What if there¡¯s treasure? He¡¯s a Silver Moon martial master without many mysterious power stones. Silver Moon only has one massive mine that was depleted by its various ruins in the first awakening. Only the central region has an enormous mine in the entire dynasty. Would a martial master of Silver Moon take the risk if there are enough treasures inside?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true... we can give it a try!¡± The conversation halted as everyone briefly grappled with their own thoughts. The price would be too high to pay for one ministry to undertake on their own. But if they joined hands and buried Li Hao in the ruins... that would be for the best. If not, depleting the nt spirits would also be nice.

    ¡°The nt spirits are strong and are even willing to part with their core origin if you pay them enough, or even a replica! It¡¯d be best if we can end Li Hao there, but if not... it will be interesting if Li Hao kills the nt spirits instead!¡± The minister of the Judiciary left after these words. The rest of the group didn¡¯t say anything and switched to tea, each minister contemting certain matters.

 Chapter 748: Li Haoâ€™s Childishness (III)

    <h4>Chapter 748: Li Hao¡¯s Childishness (III)</h4>

    At the moment, Li Hao was hardly concerned about potential schemes from anyone. All he was focused on was tracing the second character.

    Waves reared in his kidneys as a supernatural lock shattered. Answering waves roiled on the surface of the East Sea with loud rumbles, inciting tidal waves and shaking distant pirate ships to the point where they steered their vessels elsewhere. Turbulence was frequent in the East Sea waters these days after Yuan Shuo bombed the East Sea bridge out of existence. The repercussions were felt even now, so no one thought much of huge waves rearing in the sea again on this day.

    ¡°Gather!¡± Blood qi rushed out and mind intent erupted. A character gradually formed, yet Li Hao felt that his life force was about to be sucked dry. He found it difficult to continue for a second.

    A steady stream of Water of Life entered his organs, nourishing his body and internals. Sword energy also rushed into his body to help him repair his body. Breaking another supernatural lock ced great strain on his body and the young man could sense that his mind intent wasn¡¯t strong enough!

    He might be able to continue breaking other supernatural locks and refining characters in this vein, but it could be difficult to control them.

    ¡°The second character... is pretty much my limit. I¡¯ll need to fortify my body, mind intent, and blood qi after that before I¡¯m confident enough to shatter more locks...¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A furious storm ragged in the air as thunder and lightning rended the scene. There were even leaping tongues of me. It was like an underwater volcano had erupted! The vibrations traveled to the depths of the sea into various secret locales. They even extended to other bodies of water. A major monster spirit in the North Sea opened its eyes with bafflement.

    It¡¯d opened its eyesst time it sensed core origin power. Perceiving that ahead of time was an abnormal urrence. It represented brashness and courting death. But this time, the world seemed to have shifted. What was happening?

    Some secret locales in the East Sea also shook, prompting some haggard beasts to open their eyes and look to the outside world while struggling for breath. Was the second awakening upon them?

    ......

    <i>The seven divine mountains, Sky Roc Mountain.</i>

    An enormous roc bird opened its eyes on the mountain and immediately vanished. It entered a secret locale that was littered with countless skeletons. In the distance, a mammoth bird-like creature that was skin and bones transmitted feebly, ¡°Is the second awakening... beginning? I can sense the ripples of the world... space seems to be solidifying!¡±

    ¡°In response to the Revered One... There is no sign of a second awakening for now. It might stem from the ancient Skystar mine. The second awakening might require the breakage of those mines. The royal family and nine ministries are in control of the mines and are most likely suppressing the arrival of the second awakening...¡±

    ¡°Is that so?¡± There were no further ripples from the skeletal bird. Then why had faint ripples of change appeared in the world?

    ¡°Revered One, there seems to be Arcanus of three elements in the world now,¡± said the leader of Sky Roc Mountain. ¡°Then there will be four and five. I...¡±

    ¡°Do you think that you are no longer strong enough?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± answered the roc bird. ¡°All sides are swiftly growing stronger these days and it¡¯s said that there have been changes at Phoenix Mountain as well. Their revered phoenix might have started revitalizing...¡±

    The skeletal bird was silent for a while. ¡°I am not a nt spirit and of course, nt spirits don¡¯t necessarily need Water of Life to strengthen themselves. Our life force is strong enough and our bodies strong enough. The key lies in the strength of our bloodlines. If you can supply me with ten million mysterious power stones, then I will bestow upon you one drop of blood essence.¡±

    The roc bird pped its wings, remaining silent. Blood essence from an ancient monster spirit! That was indeed what it dreamed of, but the revered one¡¯s price was too high. Ten million stones was an even higher price than some of those nt spirits!

    Water of Life was of limited use when it came to advancing monster spirit cultivation. It was blood essence from the same bloodline that resulted in a noticeable effect.

    ¡°Revered one, that is such a high figure that I am afraid I will have difficulties gathering it,¡± the roc bird said after momentary silence. ¡°The weaker I am, the lesspetitive I am, and the harder it will be for me to obtain more mysterious power stones and Water of Life...¡±

    <i>You and I share simr interests. How am I supposed to get more benefits for you if I don¡¯t grow stronger first? </i>The bird was quite dissatisfied with this being that could very well be its ancestor. It was too greedy! That was not a good trait. Cooperation was based on the oue of mutual benefit.<i> How am I supposed to obtain more resources for you if you don¡¯t supply me with sufficient benefits first?</i>

    The skeletal bird was also pondering and transmitted after a long while, ¡°It is not that I am miserly, but that I am different from nt spirits. I am too gravely injured and need more energy to recover. You know as well that nt spirits enjoy prolonged longevity to begin with, but that monster spirits fall short in this regard. If you find the figure inappropriate... I will also supply you with a drop of essence blood if you can collect one hundred drops of Water of Life.¡±

    The roc bird pped its wings again.

    <i>Water of Life... </i>Only the royal family sold it these days and it would almost cost ten million stones for that sum. However, the royal family¡¯s price was because it wanted to make money. If the roc bird could find a nt spirit to partner with, then it might not require such a high payment. It could indeed save some stones in this regard.

    It looked like the recovery of monster spirits was more difficult than nt spirits. Otherwise, this one wouldn¡¯t have it look for Water of Life as a second option. It could just outright reduce the amount of stones it wanted.

    ¡°I will try my best... Revered One, once the second awakening urs and space stabilizes, won¡¯t the nt spirits revitalize ahead of time and recover their strength ahead of monster spirits? Won¡¯t that be a great advantage that they will hold over us?¡± This was what it worried about the most.

    ¡°No no no,¡± the skeletal bird said slowly. ¡°Their disadvantages will be greater than ours when they reemerge in the world. It is harder for them to take other forms and movement is difficult for them. Even if they can move around, they won¡¯t be as mobile as beasts. Perhaps they will be stronger after awakening, but monster spirits have always suppressed them since the ancient times. There is no need to worry!¡±

    In that case, the roc bird could rx more. Then it could very well procure a batch of Water of Life. However, the royal family¡¯s price was too high. One hundred thousand stones per drop... it might as well directly trade for blood essence then.

    Where could it find a nt spirit to partner with? Were there any ruins opentely that might contain nt spirits?

    ¡°The martial university of Skystar City? But that¡¯s only a grade two ruin, will there be a nt spirit inside?¡± The roc bird only came up with this ruin after some thought. While Battle Heaven was open year round, did it dare go?

    Anyone who went did so with a dead wish. Silver Moon was no kind and benevolent ce.

    ......

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The sky split open as a written character swept through the world like a wave. It ttened everything in its path. Sparkling with radiance, the character descended into Li Hao¡¯s body and entered the kidneys. With that, he hadpleted forming his second character.

    However, the young man also felt certain pressure. It wasn¡¯t from forming the two characters, but from an imbnce between his organs.

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait a while for the third, fourth, and fifth characters... I should strengthen the organs and body first.¡± Li Hao smiled at the two characters inside his body. Would he be able to suppress those Arcanus now if he exerted himself to full strength? Would he easily suppress them?

    He wasn¡¯t sure as he¡¯d never tried before.

    ¡°I¡¯m almost there, nextes the patient work of gradually strengthening my own organs, blood qi, and body.¡±

    The ¡®water¡¯ character started breathing in and out, following the manner of the Nine Forged Force. The water aura started nurturing the kidneys and the fire aura was already nourishing the heart. Li Hao felt that his two sesses proved the same point, that this path was feasible!

    ¡°It just expends a lot of resources!¡± He¡¯d depleted nearly two hundred thousand stones in terms of sword energy to condense the two characters. He¡¯d only had one million left before, and also expended nearly forty drops of Water of Life. Considering the twenty that he¡¯d promised to He Yong... He only had four hundred drops on hand.

    ¡°This is just my own expenditure. If I tell the others about this path, such as Ole Hong, won¡¯t the cost be even greater?¡± Li Hao scratched his head. Hong Yitang was a supernatural now too, and he¡¯d done so for Li Hao¡¯s behalf. Therefore, the young man couldn¡¯t just ignore Earthturner Sword¡¯s plight and have fun by his lonesome.

    But if he directed Hong Yitang on the way forward... he¡¯d have to lose anotherrge part of his wealth. Why was it that the stronger he was, the poorer he felt? General Pagoda wanted to revive in Battle Heaven, but his needs were calcted in terms of hundreds of millions. Li Hao had thought that he was iparably rich, but now that didn¡¯t seem to be the case.

    ¡°I wonder how many stones the nine ministries and royal family have... If they don¡¯t have that many, where am I supposed to get all of them from?¡± He knew that there was arge mine in Skystar City, though.

    Various thoughts ran through his mind as he shot through the water. With the ¡®water¡¯ character enveloping him, he raced through the sea so quickly that his speed couldn¡¯t be imagined. He was even faster than some sea monster spirits!

    The young man was highly excited. The ¡®water¡¯ character was domineering enough by itself and so much stronger than the simple ability to travel through water. He raced through the water like an arrow, traveling much faster than when he arrived.

    ......

    Li Hao was back at Skystar City the next day before dawn broke. When he appeared before Hong Yitang and Deputy Zhou, both men were confused.

    Had the young man failed to grasp the third element? There was no sign of fire to be found within Li Hao. And yet, how was that possible? They could clearly sense wind and thunder, but where was fire? That had been such a ferocious explosion of fire energy, how could he have failed?

    ¡°Did your fire supernatural lock break or not?¡± Hong Yitang frowned. ¡°Or did you fix it again with sword energy after you broke it?¡±

    Li Hao could fix a lock so long as it wasn¡¯t fully broken. Of that, everyone was well aware of. Did he repair it again because he felt the course of action unwise?

    ¡°Guess!¡± Li Hao beamed merrily.

    <i>A pox on your ancestors!</i> Hong Yitang cursed loudly. Deputy Zhou looked closely at Li Hao, but couldn¡¯t determine anything. Had thed really fixed his lock afterward? So was he toying with everyone yesterday?

    The deputy didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry! <i>Do you have too much time on your hands? Hou Xiaochen was so enraged yesterday he nearly exploded, but you were just having fun and feeling that you have too much sword energy! You just had to pay a heavy price to have fun with everyone and scare the nine ministries!</i>

    <i>How... how do you have this much spare time on your hands??</i>

 Chapter 749: Persuading With Fist and Reason (I)

    <h4>Chapter 749: Persuading With Fist and Reason (I)</h4>

    Li Hao was incredibly excited. That both Hong Yitang and Deputy Zhou didn¡¯t see anything meant that his fire and water energy were trulypletely obscured. This was fantastic!! inly, outsiders could only tell that he possessed the wind and thunder elements¡ªhe was still the Arcanus of two elements from yesterday.

    <i>How about... I go for a spin outside and let the nine ministries take a look at me?</i> He smiled at the idea and also thought about visiting the Night Watchers to chat with Yao Si.

    The young man didn¡¯t know how strong he¡¯d be with the dual deployment of wind and fire, as well as the wind and thunder abilities, but he was certain that he was much stronger than before. The only unknown was that he wasn¡¯t sure if he could withstand the eruption of all four elements at the same time. But no matter what, this was his trump card!

    He didn¡¯t need to depend on others, and with the little tree¡¯s replica... Li Hao was thinking that he might be able to kill Ying Hongyue!

    <i>I¡¯ve got to surprise a few before revealing the full extent of my capabilities, or it¡¯d be such a massive loss!</i>

    ¡°Then I¡¯m going to the Night Watchers to look in on Director Hou so that he doesn¡¯t worry about me!¡± Li Hao grinned and left, leaving Hong Yitang staring at Deputy Zhou.

    ¡°Do you think he¡¯d waste effort just to have fun by himself?¡± asked Hong Yitang.

    <i>How would I know! </i>The deputy protested. But he could tell that Li Hao hadn¡¯t grasped any other elements. The emanation of energy from three elements would be a different sight¡ªunless he¡¯d perfectly retracted the fire element inside of him.

    But how was that possible?

    Li Hao was sauntering down the road toward the Avenue of the Nine Ministries. He didn¡¯t conceal his presence and even put away the gold armor. When he set foot on the avenue, people observed him in private and were baffled by what they found.

    The news spread before long and powerhouses of the nine ministries broke out in filthy curses. Due to the wariness of Li Hao bing a three element Arcanus yesterday, they¡¯d agreed on paying high prices for Water of Life so that they could grasp three elements as well. But now they saw that the little bastard was still a wielder of two elements!

    <i>So you were screwing around with us and forcing us to waste our resources!</i>

    Several million pieces of stones was still an astronomical figure for them! Now they were advancing, but Li Hao was not. Were they supposed to bully the brat after advancing?

    This was.... <i>a shitfest! </i>Various heavyweights cursed with everything they had in the privacy of their territory. Could that little bastard take a second to consider what he¡¯d done?!

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Yao Si burst outughing helplessly when he received word. ¡°He really has too much time on his hands, doesn¡¯t he, and just wanted to create some excitement in Skystar City? The nine ministries really expended arge sum to advance supernaturals who can grasp three elements. Isn¡¯t he just creating more difficult circumstances for himself?¡±

    <i>I¡¯m really learning something new today, that there are people like him in the world! Although the nine ministries have paid a very high price, they truly have improved their strength. What are you after here?</i>

    Perhaps everyone would be able to naturally make the leap after a period of time, or at the very least, pay a smaller price. Those who were in a rush would certainly pay a greater price. At the same time, Li Hao hadn¡¯t gained anything at all!

    ¡°Commander Li must be hiding his strength!¡± Little Ye dered with firm belief. Yao Si wanted to roll his eyes at that.

    <i>What are you thinking of? Any of us is much stronger than you, are we all blind? Do you think we can¡¯t tell the difference between two elements and three? Not to mention, Li Hao¡¯s not bothering to hide his tracks. He¡¯s so tant that it seems like he¡¯s telling everyone, I fooled you! How damned childish!</i>

    Yao Si shook his head. The kid was too young and too naive. He would be the death of himself sooner orter!

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s arrival raised a few ripples. The Night Watcher on duty at the door snapped to solemn attention when he saw Li Hao and barked out, ¡°Greetings to themander!¡±

    The other guards on duty drew themselves ramrod straight and the Night Watchers loitering around inside the doors backed away to the two sides. More greetings echoed when Li Hao walked in.

    ¡°Greetings to themander!¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head and didn¡¯t say anything. He simply felt that the Night Watchers walked with more pep in their footsteps now. No one had cared about an unfamiliar face on his first visit and they hadn¡¯t even verified his identity.

    Well, they didn¡¯t do so either this time, but they knew him.

    Greetings rose and fell through the courtyard, the atmosphere bubbling like the greatest of senior leadership hade to inspect the rank and file. After the death of Yellow Dragon and a few more deputy directors, there weren¡¯t many among the Night Watcher executive officers. It was Yao Si, Hou Xiaochen, Li Hao, and a few deputy directors who didn¡¯t care about much.

    Of themanders of the five directions, Hou Xiaochen was outright ignored by everyone. Apart from Li Hao, only the southernmander was still alive.

    ......

    <i>The rear yard.</i>

    Dao Sword was conversing with a few people and exchanging cultivation insights when he suddenly looked into the distance. The people he was with did the same.

    ¡°Do you see that? So awesome!¡± Big Eyes winked. Now this was an awe-inspiring sight! Li Hao didn¡¯t need to say anything to announce his presence at headquarters. No matter if the Night Watchers epted him or not, they were afraid of him!

    Yellow Dragon had been arrogant, had he not? He was now a pile of dust!

    Dao Sword smiled and rose to his feet.

    ¡°Are you going to cause trouble for him?¡± Big Eyes asked excitedly.

    ¡°Why would I?¡± Dao Sword burst outughing. ¡°I¡¯m just going to take a look. I¡¯ve yet to meet him. Since he¡¯se, I should of course make his acquaintance.¡±

    The three excitedly followed theirrade, wanting to know how Li Hao would react when he saw Dao Sword. Would it be disregard? Contempt? Or something else?

    Dao Sword might not be an Arcanus, but he was a premier existence within the metamorphosis level. He was very young. The Divine Masters Ranking was said to be reorganizedtely; he stood a chance of entering the top three.

    Of course, that bastard might be number one. There was no helping it since he was an Arcanus and had killed many of that level. His battle aplishments were too formidable.

    ......

    Li Hao continuously nodded as he walked in, not responding to anyone. He saw a familiar face when he almost reached Hou Xiaochen¡¯s building. The acquaintance¡¯s expression shifted rapidly and he hastily beamed, ¡°Commander!¡±

    Li Hao looked at him with a smile. ¡°Hu Qingfeng?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s me, it¡¯s me!¡± Hu Qingfeng no longer disyed the cocky impudence he had in Silver Moon. ¡°How does Commander Li have the time today to inspect headquarters? Do you need this humble one to do something?¡±

    He was a Nova at the end of the day, and a mid Nova at that now, but he was all the more shameless for it.

    ¡°I thought you died with Yellow Dragon in that battle!¡±

    ¡°How would I ever!¡± Hu Qingfeng grinned from ear to ear. ¡°It¡¯s all thanks to Director Hou¡¯s care and Commander Li¡¯s mercy in not taking this minor one to ount for my deeds. Yellow Dragon well deserved his death, how could I ever mutiny by his side?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao grinned as well. Just listen to the man! One was certainly different when their skin was thick enough! Here was a two-faced character who spoke of himself like he was an envoy of justice!

    <i>Whatever.</i> Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with him. He didn¡¯t really have a grudge with Hu Qingfeng. As overbearing as the man had been, he hadn¡¯t been heavy-handed with Li Hao. Hu Qingfeng had only wanted to kill Hou Xiaochen, but his target didn¡¯t mind that at all. In that case, Li Hao wouldn¡¯t overstep and exceed his duties.

    The young man couldn¡¯t be bothered with too much conversation and headed off. Hu Qingfeng hastily caught up to Li Hao. ¡°Sir, this humble one has something to report.¡±

    ¡°Speak of it.¡±

    ¡°Yellow Dragon may be dead, but the remnants of his forces have not been fully exterminated! His people are still scattered through local agencies and headquarters! I¡¯ve been following his side to collect evidence of his crimes. He and his people even trafficked supernaturals, they¡¯replete animals! I have proof of it all!¡±

    A righteous Hu Qingfeng carried on in ringing tones, ¡°Their leader may have received his just punishment under thew, but we cannot only condemn the leader and not pursue his followers! There are many in the central region who coborate with him...

    ¡°The situation now is that Director Hou is in charge of vital Skystar matters and Director Yao has just stepped forth again. Director Yao might not have a full understanding of everything and some of those involved are his old subordinates. He might not be willing to do what is necessary against them. That leaves only Commander Li capable of handling this matter!

    ¡°There are twenty-two provinces in the central region and thousands of cities. There are twenty-two managing directors of Night Watchers in those provinces and thousands of deputy directors. I see that some among the Silver Moon Guards are certainly qualified for this task. We can take into ount some of the Demon Hunters as well. There will be plenty of positions avable once the remnants of Yellow Dragon¡¯s faction are cleansed!¡±

    Li Hao halted, looking at Hu Qingfeng with some surprise. ¡°What are you trying to do here?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hu Qingfeng jerked with solemnity. ¡°Nothing at all! This humble one simply feels that milord should exterminate all evil and eradicate them once and for all! Otherwise, they might bite back at you one day...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re worried about yourself, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    Hu Qingfengughed drily. Of course, that was one of the reasons. He¡¯d been Yellow Dragon¡¯s confidante and betrayed him in a split second. Wouldn¡¯t revenge be headed his way if he didn¡¯t stamp out all of those people?

    Seeing that Li Hao was unmoved by his speech, he had to offer up another reason. ¡°Also, you might not know, sir, that Yellow Dragon had his backers. It wasn¡¯t the nine ministries. If it was, he would¡¯ve been an Arcanus that day. He is actually supported by the royal family...¡±

    Li Hao blinked and tilted his head at the man.

    ¡°That¡¯s right, Yellow Dragon worked for the royal family!¡± Hu Qingfeng was overjoyed at having drawn a reaction. ¡°A lot of people know it, so when he denounced you that day, it was with the royal family¡¯s endorsement. Also, he¡¯s ruined the Night Watcher reputation these years with all the trouble caused by his men to create the misconception that the nine ministries and Night Watchers are the source of problems. That is also at the royal family¡¯s behest!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s with the royal family?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Hu Qingfeng hastily said. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dare lie to you, sir. I... happen to have a bit of strength myself and Yellow Dragon trusted me a lot at first. I even ran some errands for him at the pce...¡±

 Chapter 750: Persuading With Fist and Reason (II)

    <h4>Chapter 750: Persuading With Fist and Reason (II)</h4>

    After thinking it over, Li Hao was first surprised, then not so surprised. The royal family was not a benevolent party either. He¡¯d thought that it was Hou Xiaochen and the others behind the death of the governor general overseeing the three northern provinces, butter found out that that wasn¡¯t the case. The Steppe Prince himself had gone to kill the man.

    His goal was simple¡ªthrow the world into chaos to pave the way for the royal family¡¯s return. The nine ministries were still suffering as the scapegoat for that act.

    Yellow Dragon¡¯s goal had been simr when he was at the head of the Night Watchers. The world was to be thrown into chaos and the people suffer in abject misery. He¡¯d seeded as well¡ªthat was evident from the state of the dynasty. That the nine ministries hadn¡¯t taken a stand and permitted him to do so... likely because they were of the same mind as the royal family.

    Let it all burn!

    Yellow Dragon was doing the deed and the Night Watchers were taking the fall. So long as Yao Si could be kept under control, then the nine ministries and royal family didn¡¯t care about anything. It was all the Night Watchers¡¯ fault if the world went to hell in a hand basket.

    <i>Then what of Dao Sword and the others?</i> wondered Li Hao. Those youngsters were the fuse to the chaos in the central region. Dao Sword killing Yama¡¯s grandson had resulted in all-out warfare between the Night Watchers and Yama. Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought much of it before and even found the central region Night Watchers to be real men!

    But once he reached the central region, he realized that that wasn¡¯t the case at all. Not that many had died among the three great organizations; it was the regr people who died inrge droves. This was no war with the three great organizations to be seen anywhere! It was the final straw that broke the back of peace¡ªa tant attempt to create an era of chaos!

    Was Dao Sword¡¯ murder of Yama¡¯s grandson part of the n?

    And it was said that Heavens Dictate had the function of determining potential, that it could help mundanes instantly recognize what elemental attribute they were most suited for. That would make ascending them as supernaturals an exceedingly easy task and would be tremendously helpful in poprizing the supernatural domain.

    But to this day, Heavens Dictate was apparently in Dao Sword¡¯s hand. It wasn¡¯t really put to general use!

    Then what good was that stupid ruler? It only brought disaster to the Night Watchers and people of the central region.

    Li Hao wouldn¡¯t have realized all this if Hu Qingfeng hadn¡¯t said anything. So Yellow Dragon was part of the royal family¡¯s faction! Li Hao had truly thought that the fellow was the greatest idiot and a candidate that the nine ministries had put forth to suppress Yao Si. It rather looked like he was the one who hadn¡¯t thought enough instead. Yellow Dragon had died too quickly for Li Hao to pay attention to those details.

    ¡°So Dao Sword and the others are also part of the royal family?¡± Li Hao asked as they walked.

    Hu Qingfeng¡¯s expression shifted slightly and he wanted to say something, but he snuck a look at Li Hao¡¯s face. ¡°Um... I don¡¯t really know,¡± he offered awkwardly after a while.

    He wanted to say yes, but he didn¡¯t have any evidence. The one he was speaking to wasn¡¯t Yellow Dragon. If he offered a casual yes, but it turned out that those youngsters weren¡¯t, Li Hao would beat the literal shit out of him. And that would be getting off lightly. It would be normal and expected if Li Hao killed him.

    Hu Qingfeng had always known that Li Hao was a vicious individual. The young man had acted as bait back in Silver Moon to kill two of Hu Qingfeng¡¯s subordinates. It was apparent then that Li Hao was clearly not a n innocent soul, and he¡¯d only just arrived in White Moon City. A country bumpkin in the big city for the very first time had dared cast a to kill Srs!

    Therefore, Hu Qingfeng didn¡¯t dare speak of anything he wasn¡¯tpletely sure of.

    ¡°You don¡¯t know?¡± Li Hao tilted his head at the man.

    ¡°I really don¡¯t!¡± Hu Qingfeng answered carefully. ¡°I don¡¯t have any evidence, but it¡¯s true that Dao Sword and the others are a bit undisciplined and don¡¯t really listen to instruction. They don¡¯t think much of Night Watcher rules.¡±

    Li Haoughed and ignored him. Some people approached him at this time. The young man swept a look at them and inclined his head without saying a word. He set course for Hou Xiaochen¡¯s office building.

    ¡°Did you see that?¡± Big Eyes transmitted to herrades. ¡°He was so arrogant! Dao Sword, go kick his ass!¡±

    Dao Sword ignored the goading and looked at Li Hao for a bit. He slowly frowned and transmitted back, ¡°He¡¯s really strong!¡±

    ¡°We know that!¡± Big Eyes was at a loss.

    Dao Sword looked at Big Eyes and thought over his next words. ¡°Don¡¯t provoke him. I can tell from how he appears like the wind that he is certain to be ruthless and cruel!¡±

    Li Hao had ignored them, but not entirely. At the very least, he¡¯d inclined his head. Regardless, he was truly cocky from the very depths of his bones and inly thought nothing of the youngsters. Dao Sword didn¡¯t mind, but he could sense how Li Hao dismissed them.

    If they truly offended him... this one was no elder who treasured young talent. Li Hao was younger than them and wouldn¡¯t give them any face.

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to provoke him,¡± Big Eyes drooped. ¡°He¡¯s just too haughty! I¡¯ve never seen such a guy with his nose in the air. We¡¯ve met some big fellows before, and princes too! None of them are as conceited as him.¡±

    She simply felt a bit dejected. Everyone called them geniuses of the age, but when it came to Li Hao, he would incline his head if he was in a good mood or outright ignore them if he wasn¡¯t. He would curse at them to get out of his way if he was in a bad mood. Who could suffer this kind of treatment?

    They¡¯d helped him in that grand battle of Skystar City, but he still treated them in this way... It further irked Big Eyes! <i>We helped you before!</i>

    Of course, Li Hao didn¡¯t think of it that way. Of the four, he only thought of the spear wielder with a touch more friendliness. The others might as well not exist to him. He¡¯d observed their actions that day and saw that the spear wielder had been the first to charge out. The other two had hesitated, so Li Hao thought of them as saving themselves. After all, Hou Xiaochen and the rest had fully erupted by then and Yao Si was in the field.

    His new sidekick Hu Qingfeng carefully looked backward and kept his voice down. ¡°Sir, these guys have always refused to ept your authority...¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir!¡± Hu Qingfeng didn¡¯t dare say anything else. <i>Seriously, what¡¯s going through your mind? </i>Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t dare say too much.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care what he thought and wanted to head upstairs, but his sidekick was still there. ¡°Enough, go about your business,¡± he said impatiently. ¡°If you don¡¯t know what to do, find out some things for me.¡±

    ¡°Please give me your orders, sir!¡±

    ¡°Get me a list of the nobles who ran offst time and figure out where they are now. Don¡¯t create too much of a fuss and don¡¯t rm anyone!¡±

    ¡°Understood, sir!¡± Hu Qingfeng was delighted. This was an important mission! Hadn¡¯t he been fawning over Li Hao because he wanted to join the young man¡¯s camp?

    As for Hou Xiaochen... the man was too clear-cut in his style. It made it hard to feel close to him. Any dealings with him were transactions of equal value. He would give you benefits if you did a good job, and nothing at all if you didn¡¯t.

    That was good and all, but felt too distant and removed for Hu Qingfeng. It was hard to digest! Someone like Li Hao might be a bit different. Their styles were different, at the very least. They were on the same side, anyhow. Hou Xiaochen shouldn¡¯t mind that Hu Qingfeng was jumping to Li Hao¡¯s team. How nice!

    ......

    <i>Upstairs.</i>

    Li Hao entered after knocking on the door.

    ¡°I haven¡¯t had time to wee Commander Li¡¯s return, my apologies for the oversight!¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled faintly.

    ¡°Director Hou is mocking me with these words!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Director Hou is the principalmander of the Skystar Commander Office, I¡¯m just a deputy!¡± The young manughed as Hou Xiaochen continued staring at him. ¡°Director Hou, you¡¯re not annoyed because people call memander, are you?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen continued smiling without a word. Manager Yu was equally silent, but she pulled up a chair for Li Hao and indicated for him to sit down.

    Hou Xiaochen flicked a nce at his manager. <i>Are Little Yu¡¯s brains not too usefultely? Can¡¯t she see that I¡¯m having a face-off with Li Hao? What do you mean in giving him a seat?</i>

    Manager Yu truly hadn¡¯t thought that much. She¡¯d simply felt that it wasn¡¯t good for Li Hao to be standing when both of them were sitting.

    Li Hao plopped down without another word and began merrily, ¡°Director Hou, I¡¯m here on some business...¡±

    ¡°Of course you are, why else would you be here?¡±

    Li Hao was promptly jeered into silence. <i>Did you get up on the wrong side of bed this morning? I haven¡¯t done anything to you. Are you mad about the wholemander issue? If you are... you¡¯ve got a small mind! I never used to think that about you and, in fact, used to think that you were a magnanimous sort of guy. What¡¯s gotten into youtely?</i>

    ¡°Ah, I have two matters,¡± Li Hao coughed. ¡°First, I¡¯d like to take the Silver Moon Guards!¡±

    ¡°As you wish, so long as they are willing,¡± Hou Xiaochen replied indifferently.

    ¡°Mmhmm, that¡¯s good.¡± Li Hao rxed. ¡°The second is for you to give me the position ofmander for a while. I¡¯m going to establish the Skystar Commander Office on the Avenue of the Nine Ministries, but I need to be the head...¡±

    <i>So the shoe drops, huh! You just said that I¡¯m the principal and you¡¯re the deputy, but you want me to abdicate in the blink of an eye! You¡¯re full of shit, kid!</i>

    Manager Yu could also tell that the conversation had taken a wrong turn. She wanted tough, but held herself in with effort.

    ¡°Li Hao, is this how you speak and conduct your affairs?¡± Hou Xiaochen asked dejectedly.

    ¡°I¡¯m frank and direct when ites to my own,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Not to mention, it¡¯s just a position ofmander. I can trade the position of Inspectorate vice minister for it if Director Hou wants it!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>Okay, fuck you kid! Do you think you own the Inspectorate? Have you asked them for their opinion?</i>

    Indeed, Li Hao was a vice minister at the Inspectorate and Hou Xiaochen was not. He was just a deputy director of the Night Watchers, which put him half a rank lower than Inspectorate vice minister. As for Skystarmander, that was even lower.

    Someone wanted to trade a vice minister position for Skystarmander... and he better show appreciation for the favor! That was how the situation appeared to Hou Xiaochen and it was apletely humiliating sensation!

    ¡°So long as Director Yao agrees.¡± He flicked a nce at Li Hao. <i>Go to Yao Si!</i> ¡°Did you grasp a third element yesterday or not?¡±

    ¡°Heh,¡± Li Hao cackled. ¡°Yes and no... No and yes...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen really wanted to beat the kid¡¯s face in! Instead, he stared quietly at Li Hao without saying a word.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 751: Persuading With Fist and Reason (III)

    <h4>Chapter 751: Persuading With Fist and Reason (III)</h4>

    ¡°So have you grasped a third element or not?¡± Manager Yu couldn¡¯t help ask.

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say.¡±

    Her expression darkened as well.

    ¡°You guys will know in the future!¡± Li Haoughed heartily. ¡°There¡¯s no rush. I¡¯m just here today to discuss these two matters with Director Hou. Then I¡¯m going to visit Director Yao next. Ah, how many locks have you saturated, Director Hou?¡±

    ¡°Guess!¡±

    This was payback in the kid¡¯s own manner!

    ¡°How many auras have the directorprehended?¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°There is no need for multiple auras¡ªthat leads to a mishmash of mediocrity!¡±

    Ah, the young man understood. The director knew only one aura¡ªthat of the spear. Li Hao had once sensed the aura of the Broken Will Spear and it was indeed very strong. Just some lingering hints had threatened to rip apart the firmament, and that may not have been Hou Xiaochen¡¯s peak condition.

    However, did he know only one aura? In that case, would he be able to incorporate all of his supernatural locks through writing just one character? That wasn¡¯t out of the question either. Just as his teacher has said, those with multiple auras had their methods, those with few auras had their different methods.

    Hou Xiaochen just wouldn¡¯t be able to utilize each individual character as a different supernatural ability like Li Hao could. That wasn¡¯t necessarily a bad thing as the young man would have tobine all of his words as one at the end. All paths lead to the same end. If not, it wasn¡¯t a good oue to have his strength scattered piecemeal instead of gathered in one whole.

    He was just letting his mind run as he was far from that stage. As for Hou Xiaochen and the rest, Li Hao wasn¡¯t nning on letting them be supernatural and walk his path. He himself didn¡¯t know where the path led, so how would he dare let others follow his footsteps?

    Only Hong Yitang had set foot into the supernatural domain, the rest walked their own martial path and was yet to reach the stage of unsealing themselves.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll be off...¡± Li Hao left as swiftly as he came. Hou Xiaochen wanted to say something, but stopped himself. <i>Off your ass! </i>The young man suddenly turned to Manager Yu when he thought of something. ¡°Manager! You haven¡¯t saturated that many locks, have you?¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡±

    ¡°You cane with me when I strengthen the Silver Moon Guards.¡±

    ¡°Ah...¡± Manager Yu nodded and nced at Hou Xiaochen. The man¡¯s face was full of resignation.

    ¡°Go with him!¡± he said after a while. Why not? There were free benefits to be had there.

    Manager Yu smiled, looked at Hou Xiaochen, and nodded. She gave off the air of ¡°I¡¯m only going if you go¡±, which mollified Hou Xiaochen somewhat.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao had already left. <i>How childish!</i> He was speechless that Hou Xiaochen was actually jealous. These Silver Moon martial masters all liked to have fun with thedies in their old age. What were they doing in their youth?

    Hou Xiaochen was younger than the rest, but he was almost fifty, correct? What a pity that there didn¡¯t seem to be any renowned female martial masters among the younger generation.

    <i>Wait, why does it have to be female</i> martial masters?<i> </i>Li Hao thought. <i>Can¡¯t it be female supernaturals?</i> <i>Honestly, these people... and Ick a secretary still! </i>His thoughts turned to Light Sword.<i> Forget it, that auntie seems to be looking for me everywheretely. She can¡¯t find me because I keep running around. This is so scary. Everyone else¡¯s secretary is a pretty, cute little thing, but mine is an auntie with a beard. What a... stark difference!</i>

    Li Hao grew more depressed the longer he looked at Little Ye¡¯s sweet smile. Yao Si was fashionably part of the times with a secretary in her twenties!

    ¡°Commander, is your body able to endure the strain of breaking through to three elements?¡±

    Little Ye seemed to be prying for information! Li Hao went on the alert and responded without a flicker of change in expression, ¡°I¡¯m alright, even four elements would be fine!¡±

    ¡°I knew it!¡± Little Ye was delighted. As she thought, Commander Li was almighty. Even four elements would be fine, the director had guessed incorrectly!

    A sneering Yao Si lifted his teacup inside his office. <i>My secretary is a bit silly and Li Hao is a bit foolish. He probably thinks that Little Ye is probing for intelligence, but she¡¯s simply admiring him.</i>

    <i>Heh! Women, heh! Men, young men, heh heh!</i>

    His smile disappeared the moment Li Hao set foot inside the door.

    Little Ye was very hospitable and quickly ran off to make tea. ¡°Commander, what kind of tea do you drink?¡± she whispered.

    ¡°Any is fine!¡±

    Little Yepletely understood and hastily took out a can of tea leaves from the bottom drawer. Yao Si sucked in a sharp breath¡ªhis secretary waspletely out of line! That contained his most precious tea that even he himself rarely partook in!

    He couldn¡¯t contain himself when he saw Little Ye take out arge pinch and coughed gently, ¡°You are dismissedt, Little Ye. I have matters to discuss with themander!¡±

    ¡°Oh, alright!¡± Little Ye didn¡¯t dare say anything else and rushed out the door, casting a lingering look at the dry tea leaves. She was slightly regretful that Commander Li wasn¡¯t going to have a chance to drink her tea.

    ......

    Yao Si raised his massive tea cup after his secretary left and took arge mouthful, smacking his lips as if an old man in the countryside. He adopted the pose of waiting to listen to Li Hao¡¯s words.

    The young man furrowed his brows, but decided to persuade through reason.

    ¡°Director Yao, I am extremely grateful for your aid earlier. I find that the director has not forgotten his original intentions and returned to his initial self! I would like to unite the strength of the people and consolidate those with ambition and drive. The tyrannical rule of the nine ministries and royal family needs to be overthrown as they wish to be the Human King through erasing the people¡¯s mind!

    ¡°That cannot be tolerated!¡± Li Hao waved his arms around and grit his teeth. ¡°Therefore, even though I know I am less than the enemy, I resolve to be the mantis trying to stop the chariot. They must know that this will not work!¡±

    ¡°Pfft! Pah!¡± Yao Si spat out a tea leaf that he¡¯d identally ingested. He nodded at Li Hao when the young man looked at and indicated for him to continue.

    ¡°I was then thinking, that whoever takes the lead in this will be visited with misfortune! Otherwise, Director Yao would be the best choice. How about this, I¡¯ll lead the Silver Moon Guards and Demon Hunters in joining the Night Watchers. Director Yao can raise the g and I¡¯ll wave it for you!

    ¡°I have no other goal other than to defeat the nine ministries, royal family, three great organizations, overthrow the feudal traditions, and rebuild order...¡±

    ¡°Pah!¡± Yao Si spat out another mouthful of tea leaves again. This time, Li Hao red at him.

    <i>I¡¯m here to persuade you with reason, but if you don¡¯t recognize the respect that I¡¯m treating you with, don¡¯t me me for bringing out the fist instead!</i>

    Yao Siughed to see the fiery look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes and bared his yellow teeth. ¡°You talk a pretty talk. I ask you, what right and basis do you have to say all this? Shall we follow you to our deaths?

    ¡°Don¡¯t p lofty morals on me,¡± he sneered coldly. ¡°And don¡¯t paint yourself with such an invincible right. You¡¯re not weak, Li Hao. In fact, you¡¯re strong with a stable dual-element system. However, the nine ministries and royal family have deep foundations. Setting aside whether or not they will produce Arcanus of three elements this time... You may not be able to stand against them even if they don¡¯t!

    ¡°Who are you to speak of overthrowing them, even without taking into ount who stands behind them? Is it a good idea to die with you? And it¡¯s one thing if you die, but you want to drag the Night Watchers into the swamp with you?¡± The old man looked coldly at Li Hao. ¡°I, Yao Si, may be fearful of death as you say. But at least I know one thing, and it is that if I do not have the Night Watchers with me, if I stand against them just by myself, then the nine ministries will not kill everyone because they still need people in the field!

    ¡°What will they do once you dust yourself off and run back to Silver Moon?¡± Yao Si looked at him. ¡°You¡¯ve set your goals so high and noble that you speak of yourself like a saint! You are not, and neither am I, but at least I won¡¯t drag other people down with me!

    ¡°How many people have you implicated along your journey? Hong Yitang has transformed from a premier martial master to an Arcanus, to say nothing of anything else. That is a nightmare for a martial master...¡±

    ¡°Bing supernatural is a nightmare?¡± Li Hao snorted. ¡°Then Director Yao really can¡¯t endure much pressure. If you¡¯re this kind of martial master, then it doesn¡¯t matter if you no longer are one!¡±

    ¡°Hah!¡± Yao Si sniffed. ¡°Just listen to yourself! Do you think you¡¯re stronger than me because you¡¯ve killed Hu Xiao? It was part ident and part my doing that you were able to kill him. You don¡¯t think you would¡¯ve easily killed him by yourself, do you?¡±

    Li Hao looked at him and said slowly after a while, ¡°So Director Yao continuously refuses me because you think I am too weak, that I am unable to stand against the nine ministries and royal family, and because you think I have exhausted my potential after seeing foot into the supernatural?¡±

    Yao Si did not reply. These were indeed factors influencing him; he could not permit the Night Watchers to follow Li Hao down the abyss. The young man was destined to lose!

    Yao Si wasn¡¯t saying all this in a fit of temper or out of ack of desire to support Li Hao¡¯s grandiose ambitions. None of that mattered. What was key was that Li Hao did not have the skills to bring people hope. Without hope, there was despair.

    Yao Si was responsible for the Night Watchers. People like Little Ye blindly worshiped Li Hao. That could not be permitted and would cause problems sooner orter. It wasn¡¯t just him, Hou Xiaochen and the rest didn¡¯t pay the young man much attention because they knew that these actions would result in self-destruction. That was why Silver Moon neither encouraged nor discouraged the young man. They simply went along with the flow.

    Li Hao smiled, he knew. That was why he¡¯de prepared. It wasn¡¯t just the people in the central region. He knew that Silver Moon didn¡¯t think highly of him either. What Deputy Zhou had said before was a clear indication.

    ¡°If I can beat you, Director Yao, will that represent something?¡±

    ¡°So what if you can?¡± Yao Si smiled. ¡°Do you think there¡¯s no one stronger than me? I¡¯m not weak, I know it. I am likely stronger than unstable Arcanus if I don¡¯t unseal myself, and can rival a stable Arcanus if I do. If I further unseal myself... premier Arcanus of two elements may not be a match for me. I would not fear those of three elements if I break my locks!

    ¡°But... so what?¡± heughed self-deprecatingly. ¡°Do you know the type of existence that will emerge after the second awakening?¡±

    ¡°I do!¡± Li Hao responded calmly. ¡°Those known as Apex¡ªexistences that can rip through the void and instantly travel thousands of kilometers in a split second! There might be those above Apex as well, but are they relevant?¡±

 Chapter 752: Persuading With Fist and Reason (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 752: Persuading With Fist and Reason (IV)</h4>

    ¡°So what?¡± Yao Siughed. ¡°Is it because of Battle Heaven that you remain so confident despite knowing? Li Hao, you don¡¯t think that the ancient city really will support you, do you? It can barely protect itself!¡±

    ¡°No, I never think to rely on anyone else. From the very beginning till now, I¡¯ve only relied once on my master. I¡¯ve been saving, protecting, and strengthening myself since then! Evenst time,¡± the young man looked at Yao Si. ¡°I would not have been afraid even if all of you had note. So what if the nine ministries are strong? I could¡¯ve killed Hu Xiao when I erupted that day and would¡¯ve run off if not for the rest, thene back and kill again. I¡¯d be a killer striking from the shadows. It would remain to be seen then who would be wary of who!

    ¡°At most, everyone¡¯s support that day gave me a chance for direct frontalbat.¡± Li Hao looked at Yao Si. ¡°It¡¯s not that I would¡¯ve been at their mercy without you!¡±

    ¡°So it was wrong of us to help you?¡±

    ¡°That is not the case!¡± Li Hao looked at him. ¡°It only exins that Director Yao¡¯s blood has not yet chilled. You made your move not for me, but for the world!¡±

    ¡°This is nonsense!¡± Yao Si snorted with an unfriendly look in his eyes. ¡°Get out!¡±

    He wasn¡¯t willing to converse more with Li Hao, the kid was too obnoxious. He did not like the Li Hao of this day. The brat was outrageously pretentious and conceited! He¡¯d grown too full of himself after hisst victory. He¡¯d even forgotten that it wasn¡¯t aplete victory. If it wasn¡¯t for restrictions imposed by the royal family, many of the Silver Moon contingent would¡¯ve died in that battle.

    ¡°I know what Director Yao is thinking, that I am cocky and ignorant...¡± Li Hao looked at the man.

    ¡°So long as you know!¡± Yao Si frowned. ¡°The young can be confident, but they cannot be arrogant. How much of the world have you seen, that you dare be so unbridled?¡±

    ¡°I think I¡¯ve seen more of the world than the director has!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yao Si truly flushed with anger now. He set down his tea cup and looked at Li Hao, a stern consideration in his eyes. He really was ufortable when the young man acted thus.

    ¡°I have seen my ancestor pierce through the firmament with one word!¡± Li Hao was unusually calm. ¡°I have seen the Human King kill a celestial emperor! I have seen emperors march on the heavens! I have seen much, and all that I have seen should be much more and greater than what the director has!

    ¡°I have seen the cosmos shatter, universes shatter, and too much apart from that! The enemies were too strong and the Human King was caught in the fervor of battle. He killed everyone who did not bow their heads! Director Yao, you tell me if I¡¯ve seen enough of the world!¡±

    Yao Si¡¯s expression changed slightly and he looked at the young man. A long whileter, he slowly said, ¡°I hadn¡¯t thought that you¡¯d seen all that... but how are you still so arrogant after having seen all that? What are you thinking of, Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°I think that all things have a beginning and since no one is willing to be that beginning, I will be! If you are unwilling, Yao Si, then I will step forward. Why can I not?¡±

    ¡°Do you think you can ignore all threats, danger, and all else just because you have seen much of the world?¡± Yao Si said coldly.

    ¡°No, I have seen much and my strength measures up to my knowledge. Apart from those who cannot emerge, who in this world can rival me?¡±

    ¡°Such arrogance!¡± Yao Si shouted. ¡°Do you know how strong the old minister of Administration is? Do you know how strong the Skystar King is? Do you know how strong Ying Hongyue is?! You know nothing, yet you purport yourself to be invincible!¡±

    Who in the world dared say they were invincible?? <i>Not even Ying Hongyue! You¡¯ve had too much to drink, Li Hao, to im yourself as invincible!</i>

    Li Haoughed and waved a mirror fragment into existence. It shrouded the surroundings and enveloped the director.

    Yao Si¡¯s heart skipped a beat in rm, but he didn¡¯t make a move. He simply stared down Li Hao. ¡°What do you want? Are you going to use might to force me to abdicate? You think too much! Li Hao, I¡¯ll show you what it means to be a true, premier martial master even if I have to break my supernatural locks!¡±

    ¡°Since the director is unwilling to ept what I¡¯m saying, then I will use my fist to persuade you. Nothing is more convincing than the fist. Your group of martial masters always thinks so little of the heroes in the world!¡± Li Hao sneered. Wind and thunder gathered in his left hand, while the water and fire characters manifested in his right. Under Yao Si¡¯s astonished eyes, four supernatural abilities instantly became one.

    Sword intent manifested! The Lifeless Sword! Steris swung forth and shed through the air. All four attributes exploded at the same time,<i> BAM!</i>

    Yao Si waved a fist in response, shock on his face!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A massive collision rang out, sending Yao Si flying backwards and vomiting blood. He felt his throat¡ªthere was a blood mark there that seeped blood. Fire, water, wind, and thunder exploded in his body, badly damaging his organs.

    ¡°Pfft!¡± He coughed out another mouthful of blood and stared at Li Hao. He¡¯d crashed through the wall of his office, violently wobbling the mirror fragment that could withstand the impact from a metamorphosis.

    Yao Si didn¡¯t mind; he simply stared incredulously at Li Hao. After a while, in which he wouldn¡¯t stop vomiting blood, he said with difficulty, ¡°Four... elements! Why... didn¡¯t... I sense... any ripples... from water and fire...¡±

    He coughed again and spat out blood mixed with pieces of his organs.

    ¡°Why must there be any ripples?¡± Li Hao casually directed some sword energy into Yao Si¡¯s body.

    ¡°And... you... can still use sword intent...¡± Yao Si stared at the young man, a mad look filling his eyes. ¡°Why??¡±

    ¡°Why?¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Mysterious power is born from the supernatural locks and the locks themselves are of our personal strength. Why can I not use my own strength and deploy sword intent? Who says that supernaturals must be weaker? Who says that mysterious power must be an outside force? Who says that I, Li Hao, cannot take in mysterious power and convert it to my own use? The New Martial era could create a new path of martial dao. Why cannot I do the same?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yao Si fell silent and struggled up with difficulty. He coughed a few times and looked at Li Hao. He didn¡¯t know what to say in this moment. He hadn¡¯t unsealed himself just now, but he possessed the strength of an Arcanus. And yet, he¡¯d almost died to a single stroke from the young man. No, he <i>would</i> be dead if Li Hao hadn¡¯t shown mercy!

    Thus, Yao Si knew that even if he fully unsealed himself or broke the supernatural locks, he still might not withstand Li Hao. The young man was an Arcanus of four elements!

    Yao Siughed ruefully. When Li Hao asked who could rival him in this world, he¡¯d said that many people could. That even he could when he unsealed himself. Li Hao had hit him upside the head and shown that martial strength wasn¡¯t the one and only. What stunned Yao Si even more so was that Li Hao had set foot on another path. He¡¯d inducted mysterious power into his body!

    He might be the only person to do so in this world who could do so. Yao Si couldn¡¯t believe it and didn¡¯t believe it.

    ¡°Did... your teacher guide you to this?¡±

    ¡°No, teacher doesn¡¯t know about it. Of course, teacher provided a lot of principles for me to consider, as did Battle Heaven, and a lot of other people. I just followed my thoughts in experimenting and the results prove that my tries were very sessful!¡± Li Hao looked at the old man. ¡°Director Yao, have I been crippled? It¡¯s only been three years since I started training in martial dao. If I¡¯m strictly counting the time that I¡¯ve been a martial master, it¡¯s only been four months! Do I, Li Hao, have the right to stand with the likes of Ying Hongyue?¡±

    Yao Si remained silent. Did he? Of course he did! Being able to bring mysterious power into his body and retract his elements without giving off a single ripple made Li Hao an incredible figure, to say nothing of anything else. What a terrifying fellow, an invincible genius!

    None of the old antiques were willing to venture into the world, so who in thends these daysmanded four elements? The one of the Ministry of Administration? Or of Armed Forces? Or the Skystar King? How about Ying Hongyue?

    No matter who, while Li Hao could not be definitively hailed as invincible beneath the heavens, there weren¡¯t many modern superhumans who could rival him. He had the right to be this arrogant! Someone with strength and potential was called confident, not arrogant.

    Yao Si took a deep breath and said slowly after a long moment, ¡°You¡¯re the only one who can do so. Or rather, I should ask, is this a viable path?¡±

    ¡°It looks to be, but I¡¯ve only just seen the signs and don¡¯t rmend that you immediately imitate me. Even I don¡¯t know what the future looks like, but at the very least, I¡¯ve taken a step!¡±

    <i>Indeed, you¡¯ve taken a step.</i> Yao Si smiled wryly. As a premier martial master, he could see too many things and suffered quite a few mental blows as a result. Pure martial strength alone wouldn¡¯t have convinced him, but a Li Hao who¡¯d created a new path? Was this a new path?

    He didn¡¯t know¡ªonly a path essible to all was a new dao. Otherwise, it was just an exception. His heart was in disarray from what he¡¯d just seen.

    ¡°Director Yao, it wille true so long as you have the courage to!¡± Li Hao repeated. ¡°I wish to lead the Night Watchers and ask for Director Yao¡¯s support!¡±

    ¡°Promise me...¡± Yao Si sighed after a long moment. ¡°That you will not lead them to their deaths if you do not possess full confidence.¡±

    ¡°I cannot! Full confidence is the stuff of legends. It alles down to the fight and struggle to increase the odds of sess. They do not exist at the moment of nning. Wanting to ensure a one hundred percent chance of sess... is just to be an armchair theorist!¡±

    Yao Si blinked.

    ¡°Director Yao should not speak of such unrealistic ideas,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°Not to mention, everyone knows that it¡¯ll be a dangerous affair with me. I¡¯m not forcing anyone to join me, they can do as they wish! They will be fighting for themselves, for their descendants, for their family, for their friends... is it just for me? If that is the case, then there¡¯s nothing noteworthy about the Night Watchers!

    ¡°Or does Director Yao think that the title of Skystar King is worth something? It¡¯s nothing in my eyes! It¡¯s just that if no one wants to or can be it, then I am willing to put myself forward! Who else should do it, if not me?¡±

    <i>Who else should do it, if not me?</i>

    Yao Si shook, just listen to him! But his thoughts were vastly different now from what they were before. After some silence, he said slowly, ¡°What... would you have me do?¡±

    ¡°The Night Watchers will join the Skystar Commander Office!¡± Li Hao intoned. ¡°I¡¯m going to establish another ministry, one known simply as the Skystar Commander Office. It¡¯s going to be the tenth ministry! Director Yao will still be the director of the Night Watchers, it¡¯s just that the Night Watchers will be a subordinate agency under the Skystar Commander Office!¡±

    Yao Si looked wryly at the young man. ¡°Are you not... afraid that I¡¯ll leak your ns to others?¡±

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 753: Disturbance (I)

    <h4>Chapter 753: Disturbance (I)</h4>

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao said proudly. ¡°Is the Li Hao you see today going to be the Li Hao you see tomorrow? Is the Li Hao of a few days ago the Li Hao of today? How about the Li Hao of four months ago and the Li Hao now? People like to view me through an old lens. They¡¯re already dead when they take a clear look at me!

    ¡°Is my goal these people? No! I¡¯m going to clear out everything that doesn¡¯t listen to me! Whether it¡¯s ancient nt spirits, monster spirits, or powerhouses, it¡¯s all the same! Someone once told me that the ancient powerhouses still left in this world are either deserters or those with important missions at hand.

    ¡°They should not oppose me, if they still remember their original intentions. If they do, then I¡¯ll sweep them all into the trash!¡± He raised his head to the sky. ¡°We modern people are not necessarily lesserpared to the ancients. If they can do it, so can we! What do we stand to gain in cing our hopes in the revitalization of the ancient civilization?

    ¡°Why don¡¯t we think of surpassing them, even though it will be hard? Do we shy away just because it is hard? If everything is a brand new start, why do the nine ministries and royal family only wish to walk the path of the ancients and be the Human King in name only?¡±

    Yao Si remained silent, giving a long exhale after a while. ¡°You have a great heart and ambition, but...¡±

    ¡°There is no but!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°When you say ¡®but, if only, maybe...¡¯ that represents hesitation and apprehension! Martial masters should not be thus! Martial masters train the heart! Where our heart lies is where our dao lies!¡±

    Yao Si smiled even more ruefully. This little bastard was teaching him another lesson!<i> I¡¯m the premier martial master here!</i>

    ¡°Very well!¡± He nodded after a long exhale. ¡°I can agree to your proposal then. But the Inspectorate...¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll talk to them. I¡¯ll ignore them if we can¡¯t reach an agreement. I¡¯ll kill their people if they dare make trouble, that will make the nine ministries think twice!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yao Si had truly nothing to say now andughed ruefully, ¡°Give me some more sword energy. My internal injuries haven¡¯t healed yet, you hit me too hard.¡±

    ¡°If I can¡¯t convince people through reason, then I will convince through the fist! Courtesy first and warter is better than just empty negotiation.¡± Li Hao directed some more sword energy into the old man and tossed out a few drops of Water of Life. Yao Si took them all.

    He didn¡¯t want to contribute to the conversation anymore. Having bided his time for so many years, but letting a youngster p his face twice in a row... He wasn¡¯t going to say anything next time, lest he get hit again.

    ......

    Yao Si had chosen to bow his head. There was no helping it, Li Hao was too strong. Of course, that wasn¡¯t the key. The key was that Li Hao had gravely wounded him with one stroke. The man¡¯s inner tranquility was ruffled.

    There were many in the world who were stronger than him. If this was the issue, he would¡¯ve been a hotbed of agitation long ago. He¡¯d never bowed his head to them because it required more than simple might to make him acquiesce. What was also of grave importance was that Li Hao¡¯s goals were his goals.

    Yao Si thought quite a great deal in this moment, a great deal. Li Hao had set off on a different path andpleted the amalgamation of four elements. The elements of fire and water were particrly different, yet they were fully withdrawn into his body for his own use. It was mind-boggling that the external forces of wind and thunder could coexist peacefully with the internal forces of water and fire.

    Apletely different situation had developed with Li Hao. He could use the sword intent of a martial master as well. Did this mean that he¡¯d melded a martial master with a supernatural?? That was incredible! Was it that simple?? A problem that¡¯d gued the world for twenty years had been solved by a young man with a few months exposure to marital dao?

    Yao Si was still at a loss.

    Of course, it was due to Li Hao¡¯srge breadth of experience and inspiration from Tranquil Star¡¯s ultimate art that he¡¯d seeded. The man with the greatest potential in the world¡ªYuan Shuo¡ªwas his teacher, and taught the young man everything he knew. Li Hao hade in contact with many things that people would never dream of encountering in their entire lives.

    His view of the world was grand! But sometimes, it also depended on boldness and fortune. Not everyone was daring enough to pursue this road or make this kind of try.

    Whether it was the martial masters of the modern world or supernaturals, all of themcked a certain courage. Those who had it were the strict minority.

    Yao Si recovered from his wounds with the aid of sword energy, savoring the sensation when he suddenly said, ¡°Your abilities don¡¯t seem to just be attacks of mysterious power. They contain some other aspects within them.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Of course! There was the aura, mind intent, and blood qi incorporated into them, not to mention his own life force. That strength could be more urately described as thebination of all aspects of strength. It definitely wasn¡¯t a simplistic mysterious power attack.

    ¡°Is it a burden on your body?¡± asked Yao Si.

    Li Hao thought for a moment, then shook his head. ¡°The burden isn¡¯t great so long as I don¡¯t utilize it. The energy can almost be entirely retracted within. If I want to use it, my limits are simr to that of sealed martial masters. However, I can use it at any time!¡±

    That meant to say that he could endure even seven elements if he wished, but he could only utilize four elements at a time. He could deploy more if he wanted to, so long as he wasn¡¯t afraid of death and that his body could endure the explosive power.

    ¡°Then... aren¡¯t you the same as a sealed martial master?¡± Yao Si frowned.

    ¡°Not at all!¡± Li Haoughed. The difference was enormous! ¡°A sealed martial master¡¯s strength muste from breaking their supernatural locks. Once they do, they experience a brief loss of control over their power and receive arge amount of external power. But my abilities are my abilities. They¡¯re still mine even if I don¡¯t use them!

    ¡°Which means to say that one, my strength ispletely under my control.

    ¡°Two, I can utilize at will at any time, to whatever degree I wish. Once a martial master breaks their supernatural locks, they are in a passive position that they cannot control.

    ¡°Three, my eruption is gentle apart from the actual moment of eruption. My abilities even nurture my body as opposed to the spontaneous destruction of a martial master unsealing themselves.

    ¡°Four, my ceiling is higher. Martial masters can only unseal themselves to the number of their saturated supernatural locks. My supernatural abilities are limited by the number of supernatural locks that I¡¯ve found.¡±

    Yao Si mused over his words. That truly was quite the feat from what the young man was saying. He didn¡¯t further inquire about details such as why Li Hao¡¯s wind and thunder hadn¡¯t be that kind of strength. Was there some issue, or another reason entirely? What about the supernatural locks of the four limbs that were without attributes?

    The supernatural locks of the limbs were an unattributed energy. Thus far, Li Hao¡¯s unattributed energy existed in a scattered state. His water and fire attributes seemed to contain the aura. So was the aura the key?

    Yao Si quickly gleaned a few clues from the disy and mostly guessed at the truth. He then thought of Li Hao¡¯s five auras and how most martial masters only possessed one. Therefore, it was very hard to say whether Li Hao¡¯s path was suitable for all.

    No matter what, he was already quite satisfied.

    ¡°You can unseal the premises now,¡± he took a deep breath. ¡°Your mirror fragment...¡±

    ¡°Is from the Steadfast Duke.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± Yao Si nodded. ¡°But this mirror should be aplete whole. I think I¡¯ve seen these fragments before¡ªthe pce and nine ministries probably all have them! Not only them, but the three great organizations and seven divine mountains as well, and some other organizations.¡±

    Li Hao blinked. He¡¯d guessed that the pce would have a shard, but everyone had a shard? Was this matter somon?

    ¡°This mirror must have been a premier treasure thatter broke. Everyone should have a few pieces,¡± Yao Si pointed out. ¡°Undo the seal. You¡¯ll draw attention as time goes on.¡±

    Li Hao smiled and undid the mirror seal. Yao Si could actually break it himself as the treasure could hold off Novas, but not Arcanus. Being curious, the young man asked, ¡°How many locks have the director saturated?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way,¡± Yao Si smiled. ¡°You can fight Arcanus when you have nine saturated locks. You¡¯re somewhat stronger than regr two element Arcanus when you have ten saturated locks. it will make you the equivalent of Hu Xiao. At eleven, you¡¯re the equivalent of me.¡±

    <i>Eleven locks? </i>Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°So this means to say that you have the battle strength of a three element Arcanus under normal conditions?¡±

    ¡°Not entirely as Hu Xiao wasn¡¯t a premier two element Arcanus. Under normal conditions, I should be at the peak of two elements...¡±

    Eleven saturated locks! Li Hao was still rather stunned by the number. The locks of the four limbs and five organs were the basic set. So Yao Si had saturated two more elsewhere?

    What about Hou Xiaochen? He¡¯d easily defeated Arcanus of two elementsst time, which ced him at more than ten locks. The same likely went for Hong Yitang as well. Of course, Hong Yitang might have only had nine or ten at first, but he would¡¯ve grown stronger after his five organspleted a revolution. In terms of strength, he might not measure up to Yao Si or Hou Xiaochen.

    Li Hao made some swift judgments and discovered that there was a great gap between premier martial masters as well. One could be as numerous as Yao Si and be at eleven locks, or one could be as few as He Yong at only five locks. Well, he was probably between seven and eight now.

    The young man made some more calctions. Those who started saturating their locks usually possessed the strength of a Nova. The increase from saturating the locks of the limbs wasn''t that great. Martial masters could unseal themselves when they saturated their fifth lock. At that point, they could even battle peak metamorphosis. But under normal conditions, they could only fight Novas. Only at nine locks could they pit themselves against an Arcanus.

    However, the more locks that one saturated, the more difficult the task became. There was a limit to the number of supernatural locks that could be discovered.

    An anxious Little Ye pushed the door as the two conversed. She sighed with relief when she saw that the two were sitting down and said awkwardly, ¡°Um... I couldn''t enter earlier. My apologies, director, please continue!¡±

    She¡¯d thought that something had happened inside when there was a suddenpleteck of sound. She wanted to enter for a look, but proved unable to open the door. When she left, however, she saw that the director¡¯s table had broken.

    So they¡¯d been in a fight? She hadn''t heard anything. How strange! Of course, she didn''t dare ask questions and swiftly closed the door.

 Chapter 754: Disturbance (II)

    <h4>Chapter 754: Disturbance (II)</h4>

    ¡°Stop assessing her so cautiously.¡± Yao Si smiled, a grin that widened when he saw that Li Hao was on high alert. ¡°She just simply admires you. You beheading those nobles that day won you the adoration and worship of many.¡±

    Li Hao blinked,<i> worship?</i>

    ¡°That¡¯s a nice feeling!¡± He smiled after a beat. No wonder Little Ye was always so abnormally enthusiastic. He¡¯d even suspected that she might be a spy. Abrupt enlightenment descended with Yao Si¡¯s exnation and he burst outughing.

    Yao Si couldn''t be bothered exining too much. He nced at Li Hao. ¡°Are you really going to start a tenth ministry?¡±

    ¡°Does the director think I''m joking?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that... just that I think we should make some more preparations.¡± He turned to the young man. ¡°Although you have the strength of four elements, establishing another ministry... Even if the royal family does not care, the one in the Ministry of Administration will not sit idly by. He and the one in the Armed Forces are premier heavyweights. They might possess three or even four elements.

    ¡°Of the nine ministries, there are three real powerhouses. The Ministry of Administration, Ministry of Armed Forces, and Ministry of the Inspectorate.¡±

    The other six were on a slightly lesser footing, so it was these three that fought for supremacy to begin with.

    ¡°The fourth may be the old minister of the Ministry of Finance,¡± Yao Si continued. ¡°The old guy is very strong, he¡¯s just much more diplomatic and possesses a lot of wealth, so he¡¯s more like a trader.¡±

    Having lived in Skystar City for many years and been familiar with those ministers early on, Yao Si knew them decently well.

    ¡°The old minister of Administration is very strong, his son isn¡¯t weak either. A strong father raises strong children!¡±

    Li Hao sank into deep thought. He¡¯d yet to cross paths with the Ministry of Administration. ¡°I don¡¯t care, I¡¯m still going to establish my ministry, even if it takes another fight!¡±

    ¡°Then you need to be careful of them,¡± Yao Si changed tactics to simply reminding Li Hao upon seeing how resolved the young man was. ¡°As for me, I can at most fight the other ministers even if I unseal myself now.

    ¡°You also have to be careful of the three great organizations, as well as the City of Supernaturals. They might seek revenge after that woman died.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the deal with the City of Supernaturals?¡± asked a mystified Li Hao. ¡°Apparently the nine ministries, royal family, seven divine mountains, and three great organizations all have bases there. They¡¯re based in the central region and had more than a million supernaturals at their peak. Are the nine ministries truly letting such a formidable force just develop as it will in the central region?¡±

    He truly was curious about this City of Supernaturals. At first, he thought it was established by the nine ministries. But upon further perusal of information, he didn¡¯t find that to be the case. That the city could even name the Arcanus realm meant that they were a faction to be reckoned with. It represented that they weren¡¯t afraid of drawing ire from the nine ministries.

    ¡°The City of Supernaturals...¡± Yao Si took a moment to marshal his thoughts. ¡°It¡¯s a bitplicated. It was all fun and games first, but they gradually developed as powerhouses moved in. The people who founded the city didn¡¯t matter, the key was those whoter took up residence. They¡¯re the one who altered itsyout and elevated its status.

    ¡°Do you know the ancient aristocracies?¡±

    Li Hao blinked, thinking of something. The big snake had said that he possessed the heritage of an ancient aristocracy. It was more likely than not that the Lis were an ancient aristocracy. But with Yao Si¡¯s question, he seemed to understand something. ¡°Do you mean...¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Yao Si nodded. ¡°It¡¯s just like the eight families of Silver City, but the ones of Silver City weren¡¯t well known at first. It was only after certain things were uncovered in the ancient ruins that people knew of the eight families¡¯ existences.

    ¡°These ancient aristocracies might have inheritances from the ancient civilization, or their forebears might have cultivated ancient secret arts when they excavated ruins several hundred or thousands of years ago. Their knowledge has been passed on since, generation through generation until some families of illustrious history were formed.

    ¡°They were the ones who built the City of Supernaturals. The nine ministries and royal familyter sent their representatives to the city, as did the three great organizations and seven divine mountains. That was how the city gradually grew stronger!

    ¡°Strictly speaking, this is the situation of Silver Moon as well.¡± He looked at Li Hao. ¡°The martial masters of Silver Moon are also the kind with generational legacy. It¡¯s just Silver Moon martial masters love to fight, so any families with this kind of inheritance were fought out of existence before long.

    ¡°Silver Moon actually has quite a few ancient aristocracies.¡± Here, Yao Si didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. ¡°But Silver Moon martial masters are too foolhardy and each new generation rises on the corpses of the older generation. Tell me, what kind of family can endure such conflict?¡±

    Silver Moon was the location equipped with the foundation for ancient family development, but the province had no such aristocratic level! Was that not strange? But for someone who knew Silver Moon, it was a very natural oue.

    Those of Silver Moon love to fight too much! Yuan Shuo was just one such representative, and all Silver Moon inhabitants were thus. From weak to strong, from ancient to modern times, they fought nonstop!

    After sweeping through the world, they returned home to continue fighting. They did not stop until they were crowned first throughout thends.

    Under such circumstances, how could the province produce a strong family through the ages? It wasn¡¯t possible for every generation to be strong, but as soon as one generation weakened, challengers would be at the door. There was no way for people to deny such challengers unless they moved.

    Liu Long¡¯s family once was a renowned martial family, but his father umted too many injuries from too many challenges and eventually sumbed to them. The Nine Forged Force had many heirs, but at Liu Long¡¯s generation, he could do nothing other than cower in Silver City.

    Li Hao blinked at the exnation, then couldn¡¯t help butugh.

    ¡°Don¡¯tugh!¡± Yao Si protested wordlessly. ¡°There¡¯s a reason why your eight families declined. From the information that we uncovered, your families had martial masters among them five generations ago. It was more than likely that someer beat them to death, which caused the decline of your families.¡±

    Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°Don¡¯t doubt me, it¡¯s the truth!¡± Yao Siughed ruefully. ¡°The weakening of the eight families had much to do with the culture of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world! Or do you think the eight families really were so down on their luck? But there was one good aspect about the martial world in that they did not fully eradicate families. Whether it was out of womanly mercy or the rules, once a family¡¯s martial masters died in battle, people normally did not take the matter further. Otherwise, it would be an enormous question of whether or not the eight families would exist at all a few generations ago!¡±

    Li Hao understood! So this was the case! There had been powerhouses among the eight families before, but they were unable to persevere after years of challenge. Hence, they faded into obscurity in the end.

    By now, Li Hao didn¡¯t know what to say about Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. Perhaps... this was what a true martial world was like!

    ¡°Therefore, the ancient aristocracies of the City of Supernaturals are just some martial master families with ancient heritages?¡±

    ¡°Mostly!¡± Yao Si nodded. ¡°With the rise of the supernatural, these families had more people and therefore, martial masters to ascend as supernaturals at first light. They quickly won a ce for themselves, but they aren¡¯t without their drawbacks. They focus on their own family members, so there are very few of them, but many powerhouses.

    ¡°After the supernaturals grew stronger, their heavyweights decided to form a city of their own. They gathered many members of the ancient aristocracies to build the City of Supernaturals together, wanting to carve out a ce of their own in the Skystar Dynasty.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Li Hao fully understood now. ¡°Then... which family did the Heaven¡¯s Eye we killed belong to?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± Yao Si smiled. ¡°I stopped paying attention to things five years ago, so I don¡¯t really know much about the City of Supernaturals now. Their powerhouses don¡¯te out often, so I¡¯m not sure if it¡¯s a heavyweight of their families. Perhaps they¡¯re a younger addition... but it doesn¡¯t matter.¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Yao Si was quite willing to talk to him today. If this was in times before, he probably couldn¡¯t be bothered with the young man.

    ¡°I see!¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t press for more.

    ¡°When are you going tomence your ns?¡± Yao Si further asked.

    ¡°In the near future...¡± Li Hao thought it over. ¡°But I¡¯d like to do certain things before that. There might be troublemakers in attendance at our opening ceremony, so I¡¯d like to poke around first.¡±

    ¡°What do you intend to do?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m going to release word that I¡¯m going to officially establish my office, whereas Director Yao can also release word that the Night Watchers will be joining me. The exact date... is to be determined!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Whether it is the nine ministries or three great organizations, all of them want to kill me! Right, didn¡¯t the Ministry of Finance relinquish a grade two ruin? These guys probably think that killing me outside allows for too many unknown variables. Perhaps they want to lure me inside and kill me there.¡±

    That was very possible.

    ¡°I¡¯d rather like to make use of the opportunity to eliminate some of them!¡± Li Hao stroked his chin. ¡°I can get rid of some before my full strength is exposed...¡±

    Here he was, waiting to lure the nine ministries into the ruins to kill them before they had a chance to do the same to them!

    ¡°The ruins aren¡¯t an appropriate ce,¡± Yao Si cautioned with rm. ¡°You¡¯ll easily give rise to grave trouble as the nine ministries have partnerships with some ancient monster spirits...¡±

    ¡°I know!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°But it¡¯s not yet time for the awakening, so at most they¡¯re using some core origin strength in the event of a partnership. They might form a replica and possibly reach the strength of a three, four, or even five element Arcanus, right?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s possible!¡±

    Li Hao smiled and sent his mind into the storage ring. ¡°Senior Tree, is your replica able to fight against the replicas of some other nt spirits in the ruins? They might be the equivalent of four or five element Arcanus...¡±

    The little tree was surprised by the question, but responded, ¡°Whether it is four or five elements, it¡¯s all part of your Arcanus realm. In the ancient civilization, that was weaker than Apex. I may have severed half of my core origin and thus made myself weaker than a regr Apex, but I¡¯m definitely stronger than anything below Apex.¡±

    Li Hao understood. In that case, what was he afraid of?

 Chapter 755: Disturbance (III)

    <h4>Chapter 755: Disturbance (III)</h4>

    As for whether or not the ancient nt spirits were willing to separate arge portion of their core origin, Li Hao didn¡¯t find it likely.

    In fact, it was highly unlikely!

    The nt spirits were all in a recovery stage and weren¡¯t putting all of their eggs in one basket like the naive little tree was. Perhaps... Li Hao might really get lucky and eliminate some enemies at the same time!

    Of course, he had some ideas in mind as well. Any disturbance created in the outside world was too great when he drew his characters. Perhaps he could form his third and fourth characters inside the ruins. It was also inside the ruins that the little tree could deploy its strength without concern. There was great danger to it in the outside world.

    After a while of deliberation, Li Hao proposed, ¡°Let¡¯s do this. We should spread word that we¡¯re partnering and that the Night Watchers will join the Skystar Commander Office in ten days. The Skystar Martial Academy will also begin operations on that day. They will be joining the Skystar Commander Office as well. That gives the nine ministries more time to kill me!¡±

    Yao Si¡¯s head ached. This guy... was fearless! He actually felt it better to keep a low profile during all of these changes. There was no need for official action, wasn¡¯t it good to keep everything under the radar?

    However, Li Hao felt that that would impart a veneer of illegitimacy to everything! He wasn¡¯t fighting for the sake of conquest. He wanted more people to know that he was resisting the unjust actions of the nine ministries and royal family, the chaotic times that they were in.

    His thoughts were different from Yao Si and the rest. They felt that the proper course of action was to keep a low profile, to slowly proim himself king and gradually umte resources. That did not fit Li Hao¡¯s preference.

    ¡°...whatever you wish...¡± Yao Si took a deep breath. ¡°But I must reiterate, you must let people go if they do not wish to join the Skystar Commander Office.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°I also must emphasize that they can leave, but once they cause trouble, there is no other fate for them than death! Also, I will investigate those who have crimes on their record. I will not look the other way or let bygones be bygones!¡±

    <i>You¡¯re seriously ruthless!</i>

    Yao Si still nodded, however, ensuring that the two reached an ord. ¡°Then... what if the nine ministries really do want to lure you to the ruins to kill you? Do you want me to go in with you?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Director Yao can just hold down the fort on the outside! Not to mention, the nine ministries may not do so. It¡¯s just my spection.¡±

    On the other hand, he himself was ready to do so.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know that such were the ns of the nine ministries as well. They were currently fretting over how to lure Li Hao into the ruins and with what method they should use to kill him. What kind of treasure could they use to draw the young man¡¯s attention?

    If Li Hao knew, he would happily tell them what was the best bait for him. <i>Let¡¯s forget all the scheming and just start hitting each other!</i>

    But he didn¡¯t know, and neither did they.

    ¡°Then... when do we announce this?

    ¡°In a moment!¡± Li Hao said calmly. ¡°Let¡¯s consolidate what is already set in stone and advertise that the Skystar Commander Office has only one duty¡ªto eliminate all superhuman troublemakers andwbreakers! Every superhuman falls within the Skystar Commander Office purview, even the nine ministries and royal family!

    ¡°We¡¯ll show them if I, Li Hao, dare take these people on!¡± Heughed and looked at Yao Si. ¡°A lot of people will probably curse at you for losing your mind once this is publicized!¡±

    <i>Run mad with me!</i>

    Yao Si was quite speechless. Indeed, most normal people would think that he¡¯d gone crazy. <i>But... I can¡¯t help it after the little bastard beat me up. </i>He didn¡¯t say anything and simply nodded after a while.

    ......

    As all sides cursed at Li Hao for lying and fooling them, as the residents of Skystar City learned that Li Hao had gone to the Avenue of the Nine Ministries, as Hou Xiaochen pondered when Yao Si would send Li Hao flying...

    A sonorous voice rang magnificently through the city. It belonged to Yao Si and reverberated augustly in the ear.

    ¡°I am Yao Si, director of the Night Watchers! The Night Watchers were formed to cleanse the world of superhuman unrest. I find that my strength falters in my advancing age and I have suffered from the power struggle conducted by Yellow Dragon. We are beset by chaos and the Night Watchers no longer have the ability to return peace to thend!

    ¡°I am deeply unsettled by this and am grateful that today, Commander Li Hao of the Skystar Commander Office is willing to ept the heavy mantle of cleansing our world of superhuman unrest...

    ¡°In light of this, when the Skystar Commander Office officially opens in ten days time, I will lead the Night Watcher to join the new institution! We are willing to answer to Commander Li¡¯smand and aid the Skystar Commander Office inpleting the Night Watchers¡¯ cherished goals!

    ¡°In ten days time, I will ept the position of vicemander in the Skystar Commander Office and continue to lead the Night Watchers. I hope to offer thest vestiges of strength I can to secure peace throughout thends!¡±

    ......

    The announcement shook Skystar City.

    <i>Hou Xiaochen¡¯s office.</i>

    Hou Xiaochen crushed his cup with shock and astonishment. How was this possible?! Yao Si was a very difficult person to reason with. He was a premier martial master and had his own thoughts and determination, as well as his own ns.

    Hou Xiaochen had thought that even if the two didn¡¯te to blows, Li Hao wouldn¡¯t be able to easily persuade the other. And yet...

    ¡°Has Yao Si drank too much?¡± Hou Xiaochen rose to his feet, his eyes wide with surprise.

    ¡°Maybe he¡¯s been convinced by Li Hao...¡± An astonished Manager Yu quickly replied. ¡°Li Hao¡¯s doing this for the public good, after all...¡±

    The situation could not be that simple! How could a powerhouse like Yao Si bend the knee so easily for the public good and even bow his head to Li Hao!

    Hou Xiaochen was too incredulous for words. Just what had happened?

    ......

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    The inspector general appeared in the building¡¯s lobby as soon as Yao Si started speaking. He mmed his palm down at thest word and shattered the table. A baleful look appeared on his face.

    He¡¯d supported Li Hao once before, but the Night Watchers were a subordinate agency to the Inspectorate and one of their prized jewels at the moment. And yet, neither Yao Si nor Li Hao asked for their approval before making this decision!

    Li Hao was establishing the Skystar Commander Office and Yao Si was leading the Night Watchers straight to his banner. Yao Si would be a vicemander, which meant that the Skystar Commander Office was putting itself on the same footing as the Inspectorate! There¡¯d been no forewarning or advance notice. They hadn¡¯t even sent a messenger to the Inspectorate!

    ¡°Bastards!¡± The inspector general grit his teeth with a snarl. This went beyond the pale! This was over the line!

    <i>You should¡¯ve told me beforehand if you were going to do this, and not just outright announce it like this! What, are you going to force something into reality?</i>

    The Inspectorate headquarters briefly stilled before heavyweights ran out of the lobby. Something big had developed, and this was much more severe than when Li Hao killed all those Arcanus! The dynasty¡¯s only official supernatural agency had seceded from the Inspectorate and nine ministries, joining the institution that tantly set itself against the nine ministries!

    ......

    <i>The royal pce.</i>

    General shock also reigned, along with disbelief. Yao Si had... bent the knee? How was that possible?!

    ¡°Go investigate why Yao Si has suddenly made this decision! Li Hao has just gone to talk to him, so why has this happened?¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± Someone swiftly ran out. It wasn¡¯t just the pce, but nobles and civilians on all sides that were agog with shock. Li Hao¡¯s voice rang through the city at this time.

    ¡°The Skystar Commander Office will be officially established in ten days¡¯ time. I am honored by the addition of the Night Watchers! It is my delight to partner with Director Yao for this grand undertaking of safeguarding the dynasty, protecting the nation, and defending ournds!

    ¡°In addition, the Skystar Commander Office will be establishing the Skystar Martial Academy. It is open only to ordinary people and will enroll a temporary cap of three thousand students. Earthturner Sword Hong Yitang will be the headmaster!

    ¡°I wee all powerhouses and Silver Moon martial masters to join the Skystar Martial Academy as teachers. We will assemble an army of martial dao to pacify the unrest throughout thends.

    ¡°From this day forth, all superhumans in the twenty-two central region provinces and Skystar Citye under the jurisdiction of the Skystar Commander Office! Anyone who creates a disturbance or breaks thew will be executed without mercy!

    ¡°I thank the esteemed peerage in advance for their joint efforts!¡± The young voice rolling through thends caused jaws to drop. Was this... an official deration of war? Or was this only to seize power?

    They didn¡¯t know what the truth was, but they could sense the sudden eruption of mysterious power. Was the Skystar Commander Office... really going to wage war against the nine ministries, royal family, and even three great organizations?

    ......

    Innumerable transmission pendants in Skystar lit up with activity. Various families of great factions shifted to action.

    <i>In a magnificent city of the central region, where countless supernaturals were gathered.</i>

    The shocking bolt of news out of the blue made some squeak with iprehension. ¡°Demon Sword is going to establish the Skystar Commander Office in Skystar City!¡±

    No one paid attention to him. That was old news. But everyone reacted in the next second as well.

    ¡°The Night Watchers... Director Yao Si will be leading the Night Watchers to join the Skystar Commander Office. Li Hao says that all superhumans in the central regione under hismand from today forth. Any who break thew will be... be... executed!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The city boiled over with activity.

    ¡°Who¡¯s he trying to scare?¡± someone snorted.

    ¡°His hand won¡¯t stretch here, will it?¡± another person fretted. ¡°This is the City of Supernaturals with countless supernaturals here. It¡¯s not under his rule!¡±

    ¡°He should figure out the three great organizations first!¡±

    ¡°We should keep a lower profile... That Li Hao killed so many Arcanus before that even the old minister Hu Xiao died in his hands...¡±

 Chapter 756: Disturbance (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 756: Disturbance (IV)</h4>

    The entire City of Supernaturals was a hubbub of reaction. This was the supernatural main camp and they were here from all parts of the world. But now, Li Hao, a powerhouse who¡¯d never visited before, was the center of attention. Everyone was discussing him. No matter what happened next, no matter if he did anything or not, his words would cause a certainmotion.

    ......

    The news fully spread on this day.

    <i>Silver Moon, White Moon City.</i>

    Director General Zhao had been aware of Li Hao¡¯s ns, but he was still surprised in this moment.<i> This fast? </i>He... knew Yao Si... That the old man had so quickly decided to join was so unexpected!

    Was this to Ole Zhou¡¯s credit?

    But... Ole Zhou hadn¡¯t said anything or sent anything back. It shouldn¡¯t be.

    ......

    <i>Red Moon headquarters.</i>

    Ying Hongyue furrowed his brows and muttered after a long moment, ¡°How is this possible??¡±

    Yao Si wasn¡¯t the type to easily give up power, how had this urred?!

    Ying Hongyue knew what kind of person Li Hao was. The young man wasn¡¯t doing this on ark or just mouthing some slogans. He might really cleanse thend of supernatural unrest in the days toe and whip the central region superhumans into shape!

    Did Li Hao not know of the difficulties within? Or the dangers?

    He did! And yet he insisted on this course of action!

    Ying Hongyue frowned ferociously, truly unable to understand the development. Was Li Hao letting everything go to his head, or was he actually confident in himself? Where did that confidencee from?

    ¡°Withdraw all of our superhuman strength and adopt a defensive position for now. Don¡¯t take any brash action!¡± Ying Hongyuemanded with some confusion and solemnity. Everything had gonepletely out of control ever since Li Hao left Silver Moon. The changes were happening too quickly.

    ......

    The four corners of thend shook with the news. Some regarded it contemptuously, finding Li Hao to just be a daydreamer. He wanted to put the superhuman house in order? What a joke! He wanted to clean house? Did he have the strength to? Which of the three great organizations, seven divine mountains, City of Supernaturals, and nine ministries was an easy target?

    Maybe he thought himself invincible after killing some Arcanusst time. Maybe he really wasn¡¯t afraid of death.

    <i>Can you actually sessfully establish your office in ten days?</i>

    Meanwhile, the wandering Silver Moon martial masters were also troubled by the news. Did... they go to Skystar City again? It felt like another battle brewed on the horizon!

    ......

    <i>Near River.</i>

    Deficient Leg nearly choked on his own spit as he yed with one of his children.

    ¡°The hell... Is this how arrogant this generation¡¯s martial world leader is? He¡¯s crazy!¡±

    Thest time Deficient Leg joined a fight, he¡¯d gone to be a punching bag. Here another one came a few dayster? <i>I can¡¯t do it, not this time!</i>

    Yuan Shuo was practically a benevolent old manpared to the kid! The most he¡¯d done was spar with martial masters. He wasn¡¯t like Li Hao, wanting to wage all-out war at the drop of a hat!

    ¡°Daddy... are you going to fight again?¡± an adorable little girl asked curiously.

    Deficient Leg was caught in an awkward situation. <i>Fight my ass! Your daddy¡¯s not going this time. If I go, you might turn into an orphan that no one wants. It¡¯s too dangerous! Are we supposed to lose our minds along with Li Hao now that he¡¯s gonepletely crazy?</i>

    They¡¯d all seen the disparity in strength in thest battle. Silver Moon martial masters might be strong and could stand against metamorphosis, but they could not against Arcanus!

    Deficient Leg hesitated; he didn¡¯t respond.

    ......

    He wasn¡¯t the only one. Whether it was Tyrant de, Northern Fist, or even Sky Sword... all of them hesitated. <i>What are you trying to do, Li Hao? You¡¯ll be the death of us all if this continues!</i>

    ......

    <i>The Sky Sword Mountain Manor.</i>

    A dozen martial masters were gathered together and someone protested loudly, ¡°Mountain lord, you really can¡¯t go to Skystar City again. The various factions will certainly be ready to take down Demon Sword. You might not return if you go this time!¡±

    ¡°Demon Sword is crazy! He always thinks too much of himself!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The crowd grumbled angrily. This was making Silver Moon martial masters court death!

    One after another, battle to battle, from the east to the central region. Sky Sword had gone to Li Hao¡¯s aid multiple times and had felt his ability falling short of his wishes on thest asion. Was he to continue to foot the bill for Li Hao¡¯s insanity?

    Sky Sword remained quiet. No one knew what he was thinking, only that Sky Sword seemed to be hesitating on this day as well.

    ......

    <i>In the pce.</i>

    He Yong shuddered with goosebumps as he sat in a daze. <i>Li Hao... you¡¯re nuts! Can¡¯t you give us some time to rest? Can we swap ces for a bit?</i>

    He could sense killing intent all throughout Skystar City. Li Hao had gone utterly insane. <i>Hong Yitang, can¡¯t you guys keep him in check?</i>

    ......

    ¡°How interesting!¡± Hong Yitangughed and looked at Deputy Zhou not too far away. ¡°Isn¡¯t this exciting?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The deputy didn¡¯t say a word. It was a good development, he just hadn¡¯t thought that it woulde so quickly. What¡¯d happened to Li Hao yesterday? Yao Si shouldn¡¯t have been recruited so easily, not unless some incredible changes had urred in Li Hao.

    It was indeed exciting, but ten days was a very long time. Wasn¡¯t thed concerned about too many dreams urring in a long night?

    Or had he done this on purpose?

    Many thoughts flooded Deputy Zhou¡¯s mind as he breathed out. Perhaps... this was why he¡¯d left Silver Moon.

    ......

    If the heavens are to end someone, that person will grow too big for their boots first!

    Perhaps this saying was perfectly applicable to Li Hao at the moment. With Yao Si adding fuel to the mes and leading the Night Watchers to join him, everyone knew that the young man hadpletely lost his mind. This wasn¡¯t appropriate even if he was an Arcanus of three or four elements!

    This would cause the Inspectorate to turn on him. The best case scenario for this fairweather ally was neutrality, the worst case would be the Inspectorate¡¯s first instance of outright hostility.

    ......

    The Silver Moon Guards took action on this day,mencing a series of searches and arrests throughout Skystar City.

    <i>The front doors of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.</i>

    Liu Long led the team and announced, ¡°The Skystar Commander Office is about to be formally established! On orders of themander, we are here to arrest the fugitive Mu Xiaorong! Her crimes are not severe, but she fled from custody. If you hand over Mu Xiaorong today, we will take circumstances into consideration when passing judgment. After the Skystar Commander Office formally opens, all fugitives will be treated as traitorous supernaturals and shown no quarter!¡±

    A group of Internal Affairs powerhouses walked out, some with aloof looks on their faces, others with livid expressions. ¡°Do you have a death wish?!¡±

    ¡°You are the ones who court death!¡± Liu Long waspletely unperturbed. ¡°How dare the Ministry of Internal Affairs obstruct the investigation of a case! We will sentence you ording to the crime of sheltering criminals! Themander has given orders that if we cannot arrest Mu Xiaorong today, we will trample your ministry to the ground!¡±

    ¡°You bastard!¡± someone raged. They were crazy, weren¡¯t they?! The nine ministries were yet to go for Li Hao¡¯s head, but his people came knocking on their door first instead!

    Hundreds of Silver Moon Guards stood outside the door, erupting with blood qi and zing with killing intent in their ck armor.

    ¡°Can you represent the minister?¡± Liu Long looked calmly at the speaker. ¡°Or the royal family? Mu Xiaorong¡¯s crimes do not deserve death. She stands a chance of getting off easy if you have her turn herself in. The headmaster of the Skystar Martial Academy is here. Does the Ministry of Internal Affairs think that the Skystar Commander Office is unable to take you on?¡±

    Someone walked out of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as the two sides faced each other in a stand-off. It was Mu Xiaorong. She appeared slightly run-down and sighed. ¡°I¡¯ll go with you. It¡¯s just... Commander Li¡¯s actions...¡±

    <i>Ai!</i>

    She sighed. He¡¯d gonepletely crazy. If she didn¡¯t leave today, the ministry might immediately sh with Li Hao for her sake. Yao Si, Li Hao, Hong Yitang, Hou Xiaochen, and Light Sword were certainly nearby. Countless people were observing from the shadows.

    The Skystar Commander Office was yet to fully open for business, taking her in was inly in preparation for the opening ceremony.

    The nine ministries also hadn¡¯t fully decided on their course of action. The Ministry of Internal Affairs actually represented the royal family, but also possessed their independence. That the royal family didn¡¯t send word might be because they wanted to use the Internal Affairs¡¯s hand to incite the war between Li Hao and the nine ministries.

    However, Mu Xiaorong knew that Internal Affairs might not be able to withstand the Skystar Commander Office. Therefore, she stepped forward.

    A fatty stood behind her, silent without a word. He didn¡¯t step up and simply watched from afar. His daughter was being arrested again. Li Hao was going to make an example out of her!

    The royal family was not stepping forward and neither were the nine ministries because the Ministry of Internal Affairs was the royal representative among them. And yet, Internal Affairs also was part of the nine ministries. It was aplicated web of rtionships.

    ¡°Take her!¡± Liu Long barked. Silver Moon Guards darted out to p Mu Xiaorong in chains. The action elicited a shuffle in presences among the crowd. The fat minister clenched his fist without a word!

    His daughter was being arrested right in front of him and pped in chains. Her departure during the ruckusst time had also been an Internal Affair decision. There was open hostility between the two sides, after all, but who would¡¯ve thought that Li Hao would be permitted to find his footing in Skystar City in the end?

    Those who hadn¡¯t run off were fine, but those who did were prosecuted. He¡¯d thought that the matter had been swept under the rug and Li Hao would no longer pursue it, that the young man wouldn¡¯t possibly raise a fuss over it. Reality proved him wrong!

 Chapter 757: Knowing Full Well (I)

    <h4>Chapter 757: Knowing Full Well (I)</h4>

    ¡°Father!¡± A young man clenched his teeth next to the fatty¡ªit was one of Mu Xiaorong¡¯s brothers. She was the youngest daughter of the minister of Internal Affairs and much beloved. However, she was being arrested in front of everyone, in front of the ministry, in broad daylight!

    ¡°Let¡¯s just go at them!¡± Someone spat out.

    The minister didn¡¯t say anything, he didn¡¯t make a single sound. Perhaps that oue was what some wanted to see. Or even what Li Hao wished to see. The minister could vaguely sense strong presences sweeping through the area. What did Li Hao want to do?

    <i>Are you trying to force us into a duel to the death with you?</i>

    The minister continued to be silent. Perhaps the royal family was waiting for his resistance. It would be the perfect pretext for war between the nine ministries and Li Hao. But... he¡¯d worked for the royal family for so many years and the Ministry of Internal Affairs was the royal representative among the nine... The royal family was growing ever more mysterious in their actions.

    That was not a good sign!

    Skystar royalty should be taking a stand now, whether in support of Li Hao or the nine ministries. Whatever it was, this should not be their reaction. It was good to watch a fight from the sidelines, but they should not be forgetting that Internal Affairs was their external representative and the only one among the nine who supported them!

    <i>Are you not going to say a word even when my daughter is being taken?</i>

    The chubby minister watched silently. <i>Then take her! </i>His daughter hadn¡¯tmitted any serious crimes, she¡¯d simply fled from earlier custody. Could Li Hao sentence her to death for that? Didn¡¯t he present himself as a champion of justice, that he strictly administered thew?

    Then his daughter would be held in custody at most. Those who wanted to watch a show or see him stick his neck out... could keep waiting!

    <i>You guys are cherishing a snake in your embrace, just you wait!</i>

    ¡°Take her!¡± Liu Long waited a while outside the front doors and didn¡¯t see anything else developing. He swiftly gave the order for the group to retreat and vanished with Mu Xiaorong, leaving astonished onlookers in his wake. The Ministry of Internal Affairs had stayed out of this business!

    ......

    People on all sides were mobilizing, whether Night Watchers, Silver Moon Guards, or others. Various nobles were being arrested again!

    <i>In front of a prince¡¯s manor.</i>

    The Stable Mountain Prince was dressed in royal robes and wearing a cold expression on his face. There was arge crowd gathered in front of his manor.

    Although Hu Qingfeng looked visibly timid, he set his jaw and roared, ¡°Stable Mountain Prince, are you going to shelter criminals in your manor? That one is just the son of a steward, are you going to defy thew?!¡±

    The prince remained silent. He didn¡¯t want to submit to this course of action as it came down to a matter of dignity, but the royal family had sent word for him to cooperate. He wanted to snarl back at them, that this was a royal humiliation!

    However, the one in the pce seemed to wish to see this kind of scene develop. The minister looked in the direction of the pce and sighed. <i>What do you have in mind, royal brother? The Steppe Prince is dead and you don¡¯t make a move to shelter Internal Affairs. There¡¯s even people kicking in the doors of your brother¡¯s manor now.</i>

    <i>Li Hao is pping the faces of the nine ministries and the royal family. Must ite to absolute chaos beneath the heavens?</i>

    He didn¡¯t wish for this to happen as the dynasty was the result of their family¡¯s efforts. It was their nation, but his royal brother seemed to seek to overthrow it all and break fresh ground again. It is not enough to be the liege of a prosperous dynasty, he wanted to be the founding sovereign of a new nation!

    All of this could not be exined otherwise. This royal brother of his was not only weakening the nine ministries, he was also whittling away at royal forces. Those who wished to strengthen the royal family were being diminished because his royal brother appeared to want to start all over again!

    What... grandiose ambitions!

    The Stable Mountain Prince himself didn¡¯t know if he was jeering at or disappointed in his brother. He looked at his incredibly nervous steward and slowly said, ¡°Bring him out!¡±

    ¡°Your Highness!¡± The loyal, elderly steward was aghast and began to despair.

    The prince looked at him and transmitted after a long moment, ¡°This is an order from the royal family!¡±

    Color drained from the steward¡¯s face. Had they been abandoned?

    It made sense! The Steppe Prince had died on a whim! Not to mention, the one being given up was just his son, the son of a servant.

    A young man was hauled out of the manor momentster. He looked at his father, but the steward lowered his head and grit his teeth, not saying anything. Such was their fault when they depended on another. When he ran, it was the prince¡¯s orders who told him to run. He hadn¡¯t wanted to and didn¡¯t have the courage to.

    However, the prince¡¯s men had said it was fine! That Li Hao wouldn¡¯t dare offend the royal family! Who was speaking now that he was being taken right in front of the prince?

    The young man quietly walked with the Night Watchers and was pped in irons. He looked back at his elderly father and smiled ghastly. He... probably wasn¡¯ting back after this. He was different from others¡ªhe had indeedmitted crimes. Li Hao wouldn¡¯t necessarily let him off the hook.

    Could they take care of Li Hao in ten days? Was he to wait again? He¡¯d waited again and again in these matters. They¡¯d said that everything would be finest time, but three hundred heads were still hanging from the northern city gates!

    The young man smiled with despair, but didn¡¯t say anything. He actually wanted to yell at Li Hao that there were barely any innocent nobles in the royal city, but... he didn¡¯t dare do so. Even though knowing that he was going to die, he still didn¡¯t dare give voice to his feelings.

    <i>Li Hao... </i>He murmured to himself. <i>You¡¯re a vicious one, Li Hao! No one will be forgetting you even if you die in ten days. </i>It looked like he was the only interesting person in the Skystar City these days.

    ......

    Large numbers of Silver Moon Guards and Night Watchers mobilized in all directions. Noble after noble was arrested! The operation extended through all streets and alleys, startling all of Skystar City. The Skystar Commander Office hadn¡¯t even officially opened for operations yet! Everyone had thought thatst time¡¯s uproar had concluded, but... it looked like that wasn''t the case.

    ¡°They¡¯ve hit up the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a prince¡¯s manor, duke manors, and marquis manors... The people who ran offst time have been arrested again. Are they going to be executed this time?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°This guy¡¯s really something though. It¡¯s only been a few days since he killed so many people. I thought it was all over, but... he¡¯s really going for it. He¡¯s going hard to the very end!¡±

    ¡°Will there... will there be another big battle this time?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The crowd conversed in low voices, a few hints more expectant thanst time, but even more apprehensive. Was this really a good course of action?

    They actually wanted Li Hao to proceed slowly, even if it did lead to some disappointment. Some had escapedst time, but quite a few nobles had died as well. In fact, the nobles on a whole were a lot more subduedtely. The people had seen some changes and felt that... it was good enough.

    Indeed, that was how easily satisfied people were. They felt that it was good enough that Li Hao was present as a deterrent. But now, the young man was starting anew. He felt that he hadn¡¯t seededst time, so he wanted to fully find his footing and finish what he hadn¡¯t been able tost time.

    ¡°The Skystar Martial Academy... Did you guys hear about that?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Are you going to let your kids attend?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s... that¡¯s too dangerous, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The crowd also quietly conversed if they wanted to attend the Skystar Martial Academy. The possibility was too frightening! A reckoning would be swiftly forting once Li Hao died, so they didn¡¯t dare.

    Indeed, the people didn¡¯t dare. As excited as they might be, they didn¡¯t dare take the risk.

    ......

    But at this moment, someone did dare.

    ¡°I want to sign up for the Skystar Martial Academy!¡± someone shouted in arge yard.

    ¡°Sign your ass! Sign up for death? The Skystar Commander Office may be in the spotlight now, but do you think it¡¯ll be able to suppress the nobles that have stood for two hundred years? I¡¯ll break your legs if you dare go!¡±

    ¡°Dad, am I supposed to not take risks and be like you for the rest of my life? I¡¯ll just be a minor merchant and give offerings to powerful personages here and there. I kneel when I see nobles and bow when I see the powerful...¡±

    ¡°You bastard, I do it all for you! At least we have food to eat and clothes to wear, you...¡±

    ¡°This isn¡¯t what I want! I just want to be able to lift my head. Even if I die, I want to die with dignity!¡±

    ¡°Can you eat dignity? It¡¯s fine if you go, but once the Skystar Martial Academy is no more... our home may be no more as well!¡±

    The young man fell silent. He would insist on his course of action if he had only himself to worry about, but his father was right. Once Li Hao was cut down, then his family might be soon to follow.

    Hesitation like this was urring in all parts of the city.

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about any of this. He waited in therge courtyard of the northern city manor. Deputy Zhou looked at him.

    ¡°What kind of oue do you want to see?¡± the deputy asked after a long moment.

    ¡°I want them toe kill me!¡± Li Hao smiled.

    Deputy Zhou nodded. He could see that. The young man wanted nothing more than for everyone to kill him, to force everyone to kill him. Why else would he undertake all of these actions otherwise?

    ¡°They waited until thest dayst time,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°They might do that again if I didn¡¯t do anything. There¡¯s no need for that! Passively waiting is not my style.¡±

    There was no fear of the nine ministries actually killing him. He had the Windchaser Boots at the ready. The existences in the ruins couldn¡¯t emerge in the world, so what could people do if they wanted to kill him?

    <i>The ruins!</i>

    They had to lure Li Hao into the ruins if they wanted to kill him through paying the smallest price possible. Utilizing a set of ancient ruins was the only possibility that seemed feasible to the young man, and there happened to be a set that was about to be avable!

    He was almost worried for the nine ministries, how could they lure him in? How were they to make him lower his guard? He¡¯d thought of everything for them. The only question remaining stymied him as well¡ªhow were they to naturally lure him inside?

 Chapter 758: Knowing Full Well (II)

    <h4>Chapter 758: Knowing Full Well (II)</h4>

    ¡°I just wanted you to broaden your horizons, not go crazy.¡± Hong Yitang blew at his tea. ¡°You¡¯re really not afraid of death, are you?¡±

    ¡°Why would I be?¡± Li Hao burst outughing.

    ¡°How are you still not?¡± Hong Yitang sighed. ¡°Even I want to run off in the middle of the night! And what did you bring my daughter here for? That¡¯s an additional burden on my shoulders... My poor heart can¡¯t take it!¡±

    He sighed again, quite resigned to his circumstances. <i>Little Li, I only told you to imitate the ancients, not surpass them! Not even the ancient Human King was as ferocious as you. He did all that he did when he had the strength to back himself up, when he had backers to support his deeds. And you? Who¡¯s backing you right now? Who can cover you?</i>

    <i>No one can!</i>

    ¡°There¡¯s no rush, the nine ministries won¡¯t immediately make a move against me. It¡¯s still the same old, I know what they¡¯re thinking! They don¡¯t even want to do anything to me out in the open right now. Therefore, they¡¯re tacitly permitting me to run wild. I¡¯m going crazy, but they¡¯ve probably already thought of how to kill me.¡±

    ¡°And you?¡± Hong Yitang looked at him. ¡°Are you ready?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    <i>Alright then. </i>Hong Yitang said nothing further.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to stay in seclusion over the next few days!¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°I¡¯m going to bring my full force to bear to help everyone advance¡ªthe Silver Moon Guard and Demon Hunters alike! I¡¯m going to strengthen them with a legitimate excuse!¡±

    Was there a purpose to that?

    Not much, to be honest. In the eyes of others, what did it matter if he raised ten thousand people to Sunderer of Hundreds? Even Dominator of Thousands wouldn¡¯t move the needle. The most important detail was found in the greatest powerhouse that each side could field!

    The nine ministries would love for Li Hao to expend a great deal of resources to fortify those weaklings. That would leave less for Li Hao and the other experts under his banner. There was a limited amount of resources out there, could the kid materialize more out of thin air?

    Hong Yitang frowned, but didn¡¯t say anything. This wasn¡¯t a good idea. In the current state of the world, all factions focused on enhancing their powerhouses. But Li Hao chose to train his weaker members instead? That was to proceed in a diametrically opposite direction; only the young man knew what exactly he had in mind.

    ¡°What about the people you¡¯ve arrested?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll look into their records and investigate, keeping them under observation if nothinges up. If they have prior records... they¡¯ll be executed at themencement ceremony!¡±

    His response drew another round of silence from Hong Yitang. <i>Would you really dare to??</i>

    ¡°I¡¯ve given them ten days'' time,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°They¡¯ve got at least five days to prepare. I hope moree, and that they even bring those of the three great organizations with them...¡±

    Deputy Zhou didn¡¯t say anything. Li Hao was setting a lure for big fish! As for how confident the young man was in reeling them in... it was hard to say.

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    "He¡¯s forcing everyone to go kill him.¡± The inspector general walked to the rear yard and looked at his father reading a book. ¡°Tell me, where does he get his confidence from? Even if Battle Heaven supports him, they cannot emerge in this state of the world. Or does he feel fearless with the Windchaser Boots in hand? Does he think that no one can stop him?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know either.¡± The old man shook his head after some thought. ¡°He brought Zhou back with him, so I thought he was going to proceed methodologically. However... these developments take me quite by surprise.¡±

    Indeed, he couldn¡¯t make heads nor tails of it.

    ¡°Does he think that he¡¯s invincible after grasping three, even four elements?¡± asked the inspector general.

    ¡°That¡¯s possible!¡± The old man fell into silent pondering. It was very possible from Li Hao¡¯s current actions. He¡¯d tried to obtain three elements yesterday, but didn¡¯t seem to seed. At the same time, he wasn¡¯t injured from his attempt.

    ¡°He failed his breakthrough yesterday¡ªbut perhaps he healed his locks instead of failing his attempt,¡± the old man continued. ¡°He should be able to grasp three elements. Maybe he thinks that he only needs two elements since that was how many he needed to kill Ole Hu. If he can stabilize himself after grasping three... Who else can stand against him then?¡±

    ¡°I can see why he¡¯d think that, but does Hong Yitang and Yao Si think the same way?¡± The inspector general continued frowning. ¡°Yao Si should be very aware that the nine ministries are more than this!¡±

    It would be one thing if only Li Hao thought this way, but why was Yao Si losing his mind along with the kid?

    The old man didn¡¯t have an answer for that. These circumstances were indeed highly counter to their expectations. If Li Hao hadn¡¯t arrested the nobles, if he hadn¡¯t openly put the Night Watchers under his banner, then everyone would¡¯ve turned a blind eye to his actions. They¡¯d pretend not to see anything and permit him to be as arrogant as he wished.

    But reality was not the case! The kid was being so cocky that it was like he was telling everyone beneath the heavens to <ie kill me! I have reasons to not be afraid! I have a trump card up my sleeves!</i>

    Indeed, all he needed to do was wear a sign around his neck saying <i>Just try touching me, I¡¯ve got more aces.</i> The more he was thus, the more it made people pause.

    ¡°Is he maybe just setting up smoke and mirrors?¡± the inspector general suddenly mused. ¡°Maybe he¡¯s using this unyielding attitude to tell everyone that I have more ns in mind, so don¡¯t try to touch me, but in reality, he¡¯s very worried about the nine ministries making a move on him?¡±

    That was a possibility as well. The old man inclined his head, but wasn¡¯t too sure. He looked at his son, but the inspector general was looking at him.

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me,¡± the inspector general said with a headache. ¡°Those guys at the Ministry of the Judiciary keep messaging me and want me to join a discussion. He asks if the nine ministries can still stand together. If not, they will be excluding the Inspectorate. I¡¯m very conflicted right now!¡±

    He and his father had taken actionst time to kill a Celestial powerhouse. That put them on Li Hao¡¯s side. His thinking then had been that the young man was under the Inspectorate¡¯s banner, so it was no loss to them. But now, Li Hao was about to dere his independence! The intent behind his actions was too obvious.

    Not only did he wish to be independent, but he was going to ride roughshod right over them.

    ¡°How do you think I should choose this time, old man? If we still stay out of it again and just remain neutral, we¡¯llnd ourselves in difficult straits. You said to embrace a thick thigh for help in our moment of need¡ªwhose thigh is it?¡±

    ¡°Are they ready?¡± the old man asked slowly after some thought. ¡°If Li Hao is an Arcanus of three elements and he has the Windchaser Boots in hand, no one¡¯s stopping him unless they field a four element Arcanus!

    ¡°And what if he can call upon four elements when pushes to shove? It¡¯ll take a premier Arcanus to kill him, a truly elite one!¡±

    ¡°So you mean that... you don¡¯t think well of their chances if they don¡¯t send out a five element heavyweight?¡± the inspector general raised a brow.

    ¡°Correct!¡± The old man nodded. ¡°It won¡¯t be that easy to kill him unless they send a personage of that caliber into the field. All attempts otherwise will only serve to strengthen Li Hao further. If people haven¡¯t lost their minds yet, if there¡¯s no five element Arcanus willing to take action, then we should not be involved!

    ¡°¡®And even if there are five element Arcanus willing to fight, we need to be on guard against him running away! My thoughts are that luring Li Hao into the ruins is crucial!¡±

    <i>The ruins! </i>This was the opinion of the joint collective. The ruins were the key; unexpected developments would appear too easily otherwise and reinforcements show up to the battlefield. They would also have to worry about Li Hao running off since the Windchaser Boots weren¡¯t for show. Only in the ruins was such an exit strategy not a worry.

    However, would the brat go inside? Would he not have thought of the same concerns? What a joke! Even if he didn¡¯t, the powerhouses by his side would caution against such a course of action.

    The inspector general¡¯s transmission pendant vibrated as they conversed. His expression shifted slightly when he took a look at it. He nced at his father, the old man sighed in response. ¡°Out with it, what is it now?¡±

    ¡°They intend to make use of a mine!¡± The inspector general took a deep breath.

    ¡°What do you mean?¡± The old man didn¡¯t quite understand.

    ¡°They mean to create an artificial vein of a tremendous supply of mysterious power stones in the grade two ruins! The sum will truly be astounding. Li Hao relies on Battle Heaven and naturally knows that the ancient city¡¯s powerhouses will require energy if they wish to revitalize themselves. They¡¯ll need an astronomical amount of energy!¡±

    Regr sums wouldn¡¯t do, an astronomical amount was required.

    ¡°What are they nning to do?¡± asked the old man after a long silence.

    ¡°Each of the nine ministries will supply five million stones. The three great organizations, Buddha Mountain, Yonder Mountain, and City of Supernaturals will be participating as well. We¡¯ll collect enough for one hundred hundred million!¡±

    Nearly twenty organizations were gathering one hundred million mysterious power stones! The heavyweights of the nine ministries knew full well what this figure entailed. It represented that Li Hao would be able to revive the tree in Battle Heaven if he obtained it¡ªassuming that the tree was alive.

    Li Hao wouldn¡¯t need it if it was dead. He would absolutely need it if it was alive. Only such a figure would entice him to take such a risk. Once he seeded, he would have a tremendous backer in the form of a premier nt spirit.

    ¡°They¡¯re crazy!¡± frowned the old man. ¡°If Li Hao really makes off with that and revitalizes the nt spirit of Battle Heaven... They do know what they¡¯ll face after the second awakening, don¡¯t they?¡±

    ¡°They do, so they won¡¯t let Li Hao seed!¡± breathed the inspector general. ¡°Li Hao won¡¯t be lured within if the bait isn¡¯t enticing enough. Only with this will it force him to throw caution to the wind and take the risk. He knows just as well what the one hundred million represents, so he¡¯ll do it even if he also knows that this might be a trap...¡±

    People were starting to understand Li Hao¡¯s character.

    ¡°How will you guys make him believe?¡± asked the old man.

    ¡°They¡¯ll open the ruins first and let his people, or someone he knows, see it for themselves. He¡¯ll believe it then!¡±

    The old man still felt that it was too risky! One, it might not goad Li Hao to action. Two, if he sessfully imed it, he¡¯d run back to Silver Moon and revive that powerful nt spirit. That would create another peerless heavyweight after the second awakening.

    ¡°Who will be in charge of killing him?¡±

    ¡°The various faction¡¯s... nt spirits!¡±

 Chapter 759: Knowing Full Well (III)

    <h4>Chapter 759: Knowing Full Well (III)</h4>

    ¡°We¡¯re being kept under surveince, they¡¯re all on guard against us. The Ministry of Administration has also sent a warning. Either we wait quietly, or we stay out of things, or we act with them. How are we deciding?¡± The inspector general looked at his father.

    ¡°One hundred million... is such arge expenditure!¡± sneered the old man. ¡°And they¡¯re not afraid of falling head over ass because of it!¡±

    It wasn¡¯t much to one faction¡ªjust five million mysterious power stones. That was a matter of elevating a two element Arcanus to three elements. But was Li Hao worth the trade-off of one less three element Arcanus and such a collectively high price?

    He was worth it!

    These people would feel so ill at ease if Li Hao didn¡¯t die. But their method was also a clear sign to the young man that there was danger here. There would be extreme danger as a massive vein of mysterious power stones had appeared in a grade two ruin. Would he believe the report, especially at a time like this?

    If Li Hao really did undertake an excavation, that would mean he possessed sufficient confidence to do so. It was a headache-inducing decision facing the Inspectorate.

    ¡°We can contribute our share of mysterious power stones!¡± the old man determined after some thought. ¡°We¡¯d be in trouble if we didn¡¯t. If we refrain from putting up money and people, that¡¯d be forcing the rest to act against us! We can give our portion of the money, but... not necessarily our part of the people.¡±

    The old man frowned slightly. ¡°It¡¯s too risky, it¡¯s better to go slow and steady.¡±

    ¡°But...¡± The inspector general was doubtful. ¡°No matter who wins, it will mean trouble for us.¡±

    ¡°I know!¡± The old man nodded. ¡°But trouble is better than being dead. If ites down to it, we can just add splendor to something that is already beautiful and bow our heads to whoever wins!¡±

    ¡°But...¡± The inspector general looked at his father with bafflement. ¡°The Inspectorate is not weak, why must we persist in this manner?¡±

    Continuously biding their time would only lead them to deviate from their original path.

    ¡°Because you are not the sort to be a feudal lord, and neither am I,¡± his father said softly. ¡°I would not conduct our matters this way if you were a bit more up to snuff! Look at what you have to show for yourself after all these years!

    ¡°The Night Watchers have always been under the Inspectorate, but look at your rtionship with Yao Si! If you can¡¯t do it, what can I do about it? Why do you always think that it¡¯s me not helping you? It¡¯s because you haven¡¯t demonstrated any of the requisite qualities! I think that by the time we Chens reach your children¡¯s generation, you¡¯ll be lost if I die!¡±

    He¡¯d thought of contending for supremacy before. He wouldn¡¯t be staying out of everything and just looking to stick to the middle of the road if his son could take anything on his shoulders. His son somewhat liked to help people, but was also a bit irresolute and hesitant. He couldn¡¯t y the part of a ruthless viin, but neither was he saintly enough to be a deliverer. In that case, the family might as well sit back and watch life pass them by, since they could be neither.

    ¡°I think I¡¯ve done better in the Inspectorate over thest thirty years than you did when you were in charge!¡± The inspector general flushed with anger.

    ¡°...heh!¡± the old man jeered. ¡°And what you have to show after thirty years is the Night Watcher secession! You never think of how to resolve problems when they ur¡ªyou wait for the results to be apparent before making your decisions!

    ¡°When Li Hao fought in the east, you insisted on waiting for the oue to take shape before calling it! Being slow with one step means being slow in all! It would¡¯ve been fine if you¡¯d decided to support either the Xus or Silver Moon. Waffling either way the entire time... And you ask me why I conduct our affairs in this manner! I¡¯m just following your lead!

    ¡°Since you can¡¯t make a decision in a critical moment, then we shall continue in this vein! We will not seek riches or glory. If ites down to it, we will fully serve whoever is the victor. We won¡¯t truly die out that way!¡± The old man grew tired as he spoke and waved a hand. ¡°This is how we¡¯ll settle it! We¡¯ll offer money, but not people!

    ¡°As for Li Hao¡¯s side, if he can win... if he can make it out of the ruins, then you¡¯ll immediately join his Skystar Commander Office with the Inspectorate! Joining at first light means that he won¡¯t really do anything to you even if he isn¡¯t fully satisfied. Since we can¡¯t be an overlord, we¡¯ll strive for wealth!¡±

    The inspector general waspletely silent. He knew that his father didn¡¯t think he could build an empire by himself. <i>But...</i>

    ¡°If I can¡¯t, what about you?¡± He looked at his father. ¡°The supernatural has risen and immortality is no longer a joke. You¡¯re stronger than me and see things more clearly. Have you never thought of it for yourself?¡±

    ¡°Me?¡± The old man burst outughing. ¡°I know my limits well. I am less than the one in Administration when ites to the civil subjects. I am less than the one in Armed Forces when ites to the martial subjects. I fall short in terms of viciousnesspared to Ying Hongyue, and fall short in strategypared to that old fart in Silver Moon. Of those in my generation, there are plenty stronger than me. I do not stand out, and neither does my son. Am I supposed to bet my life against people?¡±

    ¡°Why do youck so much confidence?¡± The inspector general frowned.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that Ick confidence!¡± smiled the old man. ¡°But that I know how hard it is! I am afraid of precisely that difficulty and hardship. If not, I would¡¯ve personally led the charge many years ago. I¡¯d thought that I could go to the depths of humiliating myself in order to wrangle a chance for you, if you showed promise. But... you¡¯re a lost cause, so what can I do?

    ¡°Of the second generation ministers, only the ones of Administration and Armed Forces are decent. The rest are all lost causes! Each generation is worse than the previous. What am I supposed to do about it?¡±

    The inspector general was silent, burning with some fury and indignation. <i>I¡¯m a lost cause? Am I that bad? </i>He thought that he¡¯d done well enough for himself. The Inspectorate had expanded appropriately under his administration. As for Yao Si... the man was impregnable to threats and bribery alike. What was he supposed to do about it?

    However, the inspector general grew despondent when he thought of how Yao Si had bowed his head to Li Hao. <i>I¡¯m not a young¡¯un, but I keep getting mocked for being ipetent!</i>

    ¡°What if Li Hao dies?¡±

    ¡°Then we just continue on as before! Choose one between Armed Forces and Administration!¡± the old man replied nomittally. ¡°Don¡¯t think of siding with the royal family. That one has quite the ambition and isn¡¯t satisfied with just restoring the dynasty to its former glory. He wants to overthrow everything and start afresh ording to his own designs. That¡¯s a very dangerous path!

    ¡°That will be all, you decide the rest for yourself!¡± he concluded in an impatient harrumph.

    <i>What is left for me to decide??</i> cursed the inspector general before walking away. He looked at the seat of his ministry¡¯s operations when he walked out of the yard. It was in a slight uproar and Li Hao¡¯s name was voiced with regr frequency. inly, the Inspectorate was also in a panic.

    The Chens didn¡¯t bring them any sense of security or stability. <i>I can¡¯t either! Why?? </i>The Inspectorate had directed the inspectors of the world for eighty years. The Chens had nevermitted any major mistakes and the years passed in peaceful stability. Was that not enough? Was stability wrong?

    ......

    The various organizations, divine mountains, and City of Supernaturals had all received certain intelligence reports. Ying Hongyue looked at a group of people in front of him and said slowly, ¡°The nine ministries are taking an enormous risk. It¡¯s fine if they seed, but if they fail... Once Li Hao takes those stones and revitalizes the nt spirits in Battle Heaven... the trouble will be yet toe.¡±

    Of course, if he really did seed, it wasn¡¯t just trouble that was yet toe. It indicated that Li Hao was beyond the imagination. The possibility had not gone unconsidered by the nine ministries. What could they do if Li Hao really did end up snatching victory out of the situation?

    ¡°Is the leader going to take the field yourself?¡± Orange Moon asked next to him.

    ¡°Me?¡± Ying Hongyue closed his eyes and sighed momentster. ¡°It would just be more trouble if I went to kill Li Hao! If I fail, he would gain all eight bloodlines. I would be delivering everything to him on a silver tter. What a pity that I¡¯ve yet to fully meld the seven bloodlines!¡±

    ¡°Then... does leader think that Li Hao will win? Or that he won¡¯t even go into the ruins?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say,¡± Ying Hongyueughed. ¡°It¡¯s difficult to anticipate his moves. He¡¯s a carp leaping over the dragon¡¯s gate ever since leaving Silver Moon. The skies are high, the birds can soar as they wish. It¡¯s a very perplexing issue to determine his mindset. If the nine ministries fail... then the world will be thrown into chaos! Our troubles will have fully arrived as well.¡±

    ¡°Then let¡¯s have the elder council and Ancient Guard fully mobilize!¡± Orange Moon set her jaw. ¡°Everyone knows of the threat that Li Hao poses. We must bring our full strength to bear. We¡¯ll take origin talismans and energy bombs with us, we¡¯ll be ready for death. Let¡¯s even bring a pile of city annihtion missiles! Li Hao will surely die if we pay the requisite price!¡±

    Ying Hongyue was silent. Who knew? Li Hao had escaped from death time and time again, growing stronger as he did so. Were the eight families not meant to be exterminated? His own smooth sailing had been shattered after Li Hao appeared. Was this because the young man was the bane of his existence? Perhaps... it was time he thought of a n. This situation should not be allowed to persist.

    ......

    Li Hao did not care about the happenings of the outside world, he simply waited patiently. On the second day, he summoned all of his people to gather in theplex in the northern city quadrant.

    There were more than fifty Demon Hunters, almost one thousand Silver Moon Guards, more than one thousand from the Silver Moon provincial army. It made for approximately two thousand personnel. There were almost all martial masters; few were the supernaturals.

    Hou Xiaochen was present, as was Manager Yu and a few others. Deputy Zhou, Hong Yitang, Light Sword were in attendance, and even Yao Si alighted from a car momentster.

    Two thousand people were assembled together. All of the troops were dressed in ck armor; a nervous atmosphere wafted through the air. The strongest of them had reached Summoner of Spirit or Sr, and their weakest was only yer. They were hardly worth mentioning in Skystar City.

    Two thousand people wouldn¡¯t give rise to much in the city, but they were the ones who¡¯d arrested all the nobles yesterday. Of course, they were borrowing Li Hao¡¯s name. It wasn¡¯t that they themselves were so strong that the nine ministries would be wary of them.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word; he continued to wait. Yang Shan and Qin Lian arrived shortly thereafter, whispering a few words to the young man. Dressed in bronze armor, He Yong appeared a few minutester.

    He sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of all the people standing at attention in the yard. Was Li Hao going for something major? But... he wanted to say that this was an unwise course of action, that he shouldn¡¯t waste his resources this way even if he had plenty to spare.

 Chapter 760: Mass Cultivation (I)

    <h4>Chapter 760: Mass Cultivation (I)</h4>

    To be honest, overwhelming the strong with a domineering amount of weaker opponents was no longer a viable strategy in this day. It could work against various Srs, difficult when it came to Novas, and almost impossible to seed against Arcanus!

    Two thousand Sunderers against one Arcanus... Thetter could just m down a palm strike and erupt with supernatural abilities to decimate hundreds of people. Two thousand would be dead in the blink of an eye!

    The key was that two thousand people might consume many more resources than one Arcanus. What did Li Hao have in mind here? No one understood.

    It was very hard for martial masters to take another step forward after reachingte Sunderer. Setting foot into the supernatural as a Sunre then would take a lot of resources, not to mention that it was possible that not all of them could cross over.

    It wasn¡¯t just Hong Yitang and the rest who were confused, not many present understood the young man¡¯s course of action. This wasn¡¯t how one should waste wealth. It was easier for supernaturals to ascend¡ªwhich of the other factions ripped through their fortune like this to producerge sums of martial troops?

    These resources could be invested into creating one or two Arcanus. It was such a more worthwhile proposition than spending it on these people! Even fostering another Nova was much more worth it than one thousand lousy Sunderers.

    Thus, not many understood Li Hao¡¯s choice.

    ......

    Meanwhile, Li Hao himself didn¡¯t think much of the people¡¯s criticism. In his eyes, the stronger one was, the less one needed this sort of aid. It was precisely the weak who needed it more with their condition. When the Demon Hunters Army was fully formed, it didn¡¯t matter if they were supernaturals or martial masters. They were his next candidates for turning the locks into characters.

    This required the aura; he wasn¡¯t sure if it was possible without the aura. No matter what, these people would be useful in the future. And who said that a horde of ants couldn¡¯t bite an elephant to death? Of course they could!

    If not, were the ancients so bored that they raised so many armies just because they could? Did the million strong Battle Heaven Army exhaust countless resources just for fun? With that level of resources, they would easily nurture a few powerhouses. What need was there for an army?

    The truth was precisely the opposite, that the strength generated by the connected blood qi of assembled martial masters was beyond the imagination. Anyone would be ovee by this, apart from the truly premier characters standing at the peak of the world.

    In this era, those who said armies were useless were those with no vision. The era had just begun and the supernatural just started to awaken. Finding strength in numbers to be already useless... did these people fancy themselves as the ancient Human King?

    Using the resources for an Arcanus to train two thousand people... It would be an incredible payout if one of them demonstrated astounding potential. Even if no one did, Li Hao would ultimately prove that two thousand Sunderers wasn¡¯t necessarily worse than an Arcanus.

    They would also be more malleable. And if he was lucky enough to find a few gems, then what was an Arcanus worth? Only from filtering through arge sum of candidates could they hope to grow stronger. Talent was also an umtion of poption.

    Such were the thoughts in Li Hao¡¯s mind, but he didn¡¯t voice any of them. He looked at the expectant and apprehensive people below. He knew that they knew what he was about to do, and also knew that they were very nervous about wasting resources. His voice was calm, but it rang in everyone¡¯s hearts.

    ¡°My master once said that one person being strong makes for a hermit expert! One group being strong makes for the martial world! Everyone being strong is the evolution of life!

    ¡°This era is neither fair nor orderly! The strong are always strong and the weak are always weak. That isn¡¯t necessarily wrong either, but when life leaps ahead too much and the strong take their position for granted, they will disconnect from the time period. There, they will drift around like rootless weeds and gradually lose their direction and dao!

    ¡°If there is no one catching up to them and no one they can set their sights to ahead of them, so what of immortality if they walk alone in the dark? Perhaps we are yet to reach that time, but that will develop if our current situation continues. Once the gap between cultivation levels is too great, those ahead will eventually lose themselves. There is only darkness when no one follows you and no one guides you!¡±

    The assembly listened quietly. Li Hao was speaking from the heart, some of it his words, others from various books.

    ¡°From today henceforth, there is no longer a division between the Silver Moon Guards, Silver Moon provincial army, and the Demon Hunters! There is only one name for all of you¡ªthe Demon Hunter Army!¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice reverberated throughout the courtyard. ¡°An army should have conviction and faith! Without conviction, faith, or goals, such an army would just be a gathering of puppets!

    ¡°Perhaps you still feel lost and find our age and world an unknown... I hope you will no longer be lost starting from today. Why do you strengthen yourself? It is not in pursuit of rising above this world, but so that you can be better, that your loved ones can live better lives, that your home and world will be better!

    ¡°Perhaps you will think that these are beliefs that I¡¯ve forced upon you, that they are not yours! But I tell you, before you identify your own life goals, these are your beliefs!

    ¡°Whether you believe them or not, remember all of this once you are part of the Demon Hunter Army!

    ¡°Someone once said that the Demon Hunters safeguard justice and hunt demons in the name of justice. I treated it as a joke at first, that it was just words tofort themselves. But I no longer think that way. Someone has to nurture a heart for good in this time and scrupulously abide by the faith of a soldier. Is itughable to uphold what is right?

    ¡°Is itughable??¡± Li Hao cried out in charged tones. ¡°Perhaps you guys think that I am just a wandering hero through the martial world, that I do not know what justice is. Then I tell you, it¡¯s true, I don¡¯t. I just know that humans should possess a conscience, that we should intervene in anything that is not fair, unjust, or against thew! Those who kill for fun or for another¡¯s riches should answer to thew! Those who make light or tread on life should die!

    ¡°That is the justice of my heart! While it may not be yours, it is for now!¡±

    Everyone listened quietly. Perhaps they were unable to ept Li Hao¡¯s ideals, or perhaps they didn¡¯t care. It didn¡¯t matter to the young man. The moment one joined the Demon Hunter Army, such would be one¡¯s beliefs and value system.

    ¡°What is an army? In my view, it is more than just a war machine! It should adhere to the people¡¯s heart and sparkle with light in the darkness. It should bring hope and step forward in danger. Such are soldiers!

    ¡°I have never been a member of the armies of this age, so I do not know what you have learned or values you have been instilled with. I am simply speaking from the heart. I have seen armies that died tens of thousands years ago, yet they still stand guard over their cities by themselves and protect the people¡¯s belongings. They remain faithful to their duties and remember their family who stand behind them.

    ¡°Indeed, the armor that you wear belongs to the Battle Heaven Army! I hope that you do not tarnish their spirit!¡±

    The crowd was gravely solemn. <i>The Battle Heaven Army!</i>

    ¡°When you put on this armor, you assume the mantle of duty and responsibility! I will be expending a lot of resources to raise your cultivation level and strengthen you. It was not easy toe by them!

    ¡°Wearing the armor, absorbing energy, collecting benefits... You must keep one thing in mind¡ªam I the one giving you all of this? No, it is this era that bestows them to you! I hope you can rise to the asion and be true soldiers to protect thend!¡± Li Hao looked at them and concluded his speech with, ¡°We hunt demons... for justice!¡±

    ¡°Demon Hunters!¡± The answering shouts rang through theplex as two thousand people bellowed in unison, venting the emotion that¡¯d umted in their hearts.

    Justice?

    Perhaps!

    They might be like Li Hao the first time he encountered the slogan and find it aplete joke. What talk of justice was there in an age like this? But perhaps... hunting demons was a certain kind of faith!

    <i>I am of justice, all else are demons!</i>

    Some yells were charged with fervor and the veteran Demon Hunters screamed their lungs out. It was very simple to them¡ªanyone who opposed Li Hao was a demon! As for his moniker of Demon Sword Li Hao... they felt that it was those demons who feared him. He should be Divine Sword Li Hao! Those people were the demons!

    ¡°Demon Hunters!¡± The roars reverberated through the vicinity, heralding the first official formation of the Demon Hunter Army. A barrier of light materialized as a mirror fragment enshrouded the surroundings. Those keeping an eye on theplex promptly lost their feed of information.

    Powerhouses drew near before long, investigating with a slight frown. The Demon Hunter Army? Li Hao had recruited roughly two thousand martial masters to form that army of his and wanted to hunt demons with it? Who was the real demon here, and who did he think he could hunt with two thousand weaklings?

    He had too much time on his hands!

    With those resources and that time, he should be thinking of how to fortify himself, not wasting them to enhance these weaklings. None of them had any potential in them!

    ......

    <i>Inside the barrier of light.</i>

    Nearly one million mysterious power stones manifested and crumbled away. Currents of extremely dense mysterious power morphed into sword energy and a bountiful harvest of elemental power, dark and light power appeared. The area had turned into a sacrednd of cultivation.

    Drops of Water of Life appeared in front of everyone and disintegrated into fog and mist, raining down on the assembly!

    He Yong and the others watched with shaking hearts. What an incredible investment, this was beyond anything they could imagine! Expending a million mysterious power stones, fortifying it with sword energy, and even a dozen drops of Water of Life... what was this if not madness??

    ¡°In the outside world, one drop of Water of Life costs one hundred thousand stones,¡± Li Hao said calmly. ¡°I tell you this not for you to remember how much in resources have been spent on you, but that every single coin you spend will be extracted back from you in the future.

    ¡°Only through pain is there gain. I am just giving you an advance on what you will one day earn, so there is no need to be thankful. What you need to do in the time remaining is to pay back your debt¡ªnot to me, but to the justice in your heart!¡±

    No one said a word as a vast quantity of energy flowed into their bodies. Sword and life energy protected their bodies as each soldier quickly grew stronger. The ones from the Silver Moon provincial army, in particr, improved at a furious pace. They were weak to begin with¡ªthis was a heavenly pill for them.

    While martial masters atte Sunderer also grew stronger, their rate of improvement was limited. it was difficult for them to take another step forward unless theyprehended the aura!

 Chapter 761: Mass Cultivation (II)

    <h4>Chapter 761: Mass Cultivation (II)</h4>

    His tasksplete, Li Hao ignored the troops. He wouldn¡¯t have anyone ascend as a supernatural at this stage¡ªhe didn¡¯t have any armor suitable for supernaturals. Ascending now would render the Battle Heaven armor useless.

    The powerhouses in the crowd sat down cross-legged to absorb the energy. Panther prepared to do the same, but Li Hao sent it flying with a kick. <i>None for you! </i>The dog devoured energy at every opportunity to do so and ate from morning to night. If it joined in, at least thirty percent of the energy present would end up in its stomach.

    Li Hao ignored everyone else and simply looked at Hong Yitang. The man raised an eyebrow when he saw the young man look his way. He followed Li Hao to the rear.

    ......

    <i>The rear yard.</i>

    It was very quiet, no one disturbed them. Hong Yitang looked at Li Hao, the young man looked back at him. ¡°How many supernatural locks did Martial Uncle Hong break that day?¡±

    ¡°Six.¡± Hong Yitang smiled. ¡°You broke six, as did I. You are of the wind and thunder attributes, I am of thunder and fire.¡±

    That meant to say that he¡¯d broken one of the five organs. Li Hao nodded. That Hong Yitang had broken the one of the spine meant that he¡¯d saturated it a long time ago and possessed a strong skeleton.

    ¡°So Martial Uncle Hong only saturated ten locks before that?¡±

    ¡°Only?¡± Hong Yitang burst outughing. ¡°Do you find that weak? I only had nine locks before, one out of the five organs was not fully saturated. I only finished that one when Ipleted the cirction of the five organs in East Shore province.¡±

    His battle strength had been tremendous prior to that because he possessed ten saturated locks. Nine put one on par with an Arcanus, ten made one stronger than a regr Arcanus. It was the level of a stabilized Arcanus.

    But in thatst battle, just a stabilized Arcanus was not enough. Therefore, he chose to break six supernatural locks. Combined with his formidable strength to begin with, that was how he killed the Steppe Prince with one blow.

    ¡°Has your blood qi of the <i>zifu</i> not been saturated?¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯m almost there.¡± Hong Yitang didn¡¯t mind his less than perfect scorecard. ¡°I don¡¯t focus on blood qi to begin with.¡±

    Li Hao nodded and thought for a bit. ¡°Martial Uncle Hong, Ipleted the deployment of my fire and water abilities a few days ago. You saw some hints of it that day...¡±

    Hong Yitang raised an eyebrow. He had indeed seen a fire ability, but it vanished at the end. It¡¯d also been a very unique me. Li Hao didn¡¯t exin himself further and simply manifested the two characters.

    ¡°The ultimate art of Tranquil Star?¡± Hong Yitang¡¯s eyes widened.

    ¡°Something simr!¡±

    The fire character flew toward Hong Yitang and exploded with a roar. The man shook and responded with thunder and lightning, but was swiftly ovee...

    An odd look appeared in his eyes; Li Hao put the characters away. Hong Yitang was silent for a moment before taking a deep breath. ¡°I know why Yao Si agreed.¡± He understood!

    ¡°I¡¯m not at liberty to tell others for the moment.¡± Li Hao looked at him. ¡°But since Martial Uncle Hong has chosen to ascend to the supernatural... Although our paths are slightly different, martial uncle once told me that all the auras beneath the heavens are in the heart. The aura is determined by the heart. Therefore, it does not matter if a martial mastercks five auras. Just one sword is enough!

    ¡°Martial uncle... are you willing to try? You can meld your supernatural locks and abilities into one character, forming a unique word. I¡¯d also like to see if this method is more universal...¡±

    ¡°Are you using me as ab rat?¡± Hong Yitangughed.

    ¡°A bit,¡± Li Haoughed as well. ¡°I¡¯m wondering if this result can be aplished through making a sword aura the core. That might be the Refiner of Spirit that I wish for!¡±

    His teacher¡¯s theories were to ultimatelybine the auras as one. In that case, was melding them into the characters aplishing the same deed? Hence, he did wish to continue the experiment in seeking out Hong Yitang, as the man only had one aura. If he seeded and couldbine more abilities into his word, then Li Hao¡¯s worry about those with fewer auras would not need to be entertained.

    ¡°You still haven¡¯t understood what I mean by auras springing from the heart!¡± Hong Yitang smiled. Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°Who says the sword aura is the only aura?¡± chuckled the man. ¡°If I say it is fire, then it is fire. If I say it is earth, then it is earth. Forget it, you haven¡¯t fully understood this yet. Just give me a brief overview. I¡¯ll demonstrate the concept for you if I find it doable.¡±

    Surprised, Li Hao nodded and quickly described everything he¡¯d attempted.

    ¡°I see... so it¡¯s the same concept,¡± Hong Yitang murmured. ¡°The ancients¡¯ concept of the three cavities and core origin dao to the modern day notions of supernatural locks, aura, and now melding supernatural abilities with characters...

    ¡°The ancient records speak of core origin dao ultimately being discarded as the people could reach grand perfection through cultivating through themselves. The ultimate conclusion to draw from all this is that all paths lead to the same oue in the end¡ªthey are all daos of grand perfection!¡±

    The methods may be different, but he vaguely felt that the final result would be the same.

    ¡°Right.¡± Li Hao also nodded. ¡°All daose together as one at the ultimate end. Whether it is supernatural or martial master, everything is reshaped for our own use!¡±

    ¡°This is what it means for all daos to return to one!¡± Hong Yitang understood the theory behind Li Hao¡¯s knowledge. His blood qi frothed and expanded as rivulets of blood, instantly being refined into essence. Sword intent wafted out of the man as thunder and lightning manifested inside his body.

    After some thought, a character slowly materialized in front of Hong Yitang.

    <i>Sword!</i>

    Li Hao was indifferent¡ªit was only to be expected that Hong Yitang coalesce a sword character. But the unexpected urred next. The word abruptly sizzled with electricity and roared with thunder! The elemental power within Hong Yitang¡¯s body surged into the character, much to the young man¡¯s surprise!

    <i>Sword... thunder and lightning...</i>

    Hong Yitang continued to quietly infuse his character with energy, tracing it to fullpletion. Li Hao swiftly took out drops of Water of Life and crushed them to release life energy. Hong Yitang ignored everything and continued to direct energy into the word. There was no answering peal of thunder this time, a development that he also ignored as he steadily refined the word.

    After a while, the ¡®sword¡¯ character sparkled in the void like a living bolt of lightning. The man heaved a long breath, noticeably tired. ¡°The thunder attribute has been incorporated into the character...¡± He grinned happily. ¡°Look, Li Hao. This is what it means for the aura to spring from the heart!¡±

    His character suddenly morphed into a gout of me!

    Li Hao jerked with shock.

    ¡°I told you the first time we entered Battle Heaven that auras are without attributes. Attributese from the thoughts of you and I. If I think it is fire, then it is fire! Your thinking is a bit too simplistic!¡± Hong Yitang pointed out. The energy of fire within his body spontaneously melded into the character. Bolts of lightning danced around as mes erupted with a roar!

    The sword character was changing colors!

    ¡°Your master¡¯s Breathing Method of the Five Styles incorporates five kinds of aura. Oveying the auras on top of each other makes them stronger, but it¡¯s also justprehending the same aura five times over. That is why your master is a genius and why ordinary people like us can only grow stronger through one aura.

    ¡°However, that doesn¡¯t mean that one aura is limited to one attribute! Li Hao, your wind and thunder attributes are unable to be incorporated within because you have too many predefined notions about them! Of course, our paths are different, so naturally our thoughts are different!¡±

    Li Hao was quite very surprised. Hong Yitang had indeed instructed him during their first visit to Battle Heaven and told him that there were no inherent attributes within auras. It was all determined by the mind. The young man remembered that teaching well. But today, he saw that they could be freely switched between! How was this possible?

    Li Hao stared dumbly at Hong Yitang. Since he understood the theory, he¡¯dprehended them ording to whatever concept he had in mind. But he didn¡¯t know that auras could still be converted between different attributes once they took shape!

    Earthturner Sword was known for his earth aura! But what the heck was this?

    ¡°Stop staring, it¡¯s not like you¡¯ll understand more the longer you stare. Since you have already formed a certain line of thinking and understanding of the world, then you should proceed ording to your understanding. You don¡¯t have to imitate me, it may not be effective to do so.

    ¡°My aura isn¡¯t as strong as the type that isyered on itself multiple times! That is the truth as well. Mine just has a bit more variations¡ªor as your master puts it, more bells and whistles. He¡¯d say it¡¯spletely impractical!¡±

    Hong Yitangughed, finding Yuan Shuo¡¯s words to be true in a certain way. His aura did indeed possess many permutations and looked quite impressive, but one type of aura was one type of aura in the end. Yuan Shuo hadprehended it five times over and oveid it five times over. Those were two different notions.

    Li Hao had aplished the same, but to the young man¡¯s eyes, it was Hong Yitang who blew his mind! That one aura could be a myriad of possibilities, didn¡¯t that mean that one character could epass everything then? So wouldn¡¯t that indicate that Hong Yitang wasn¡¯t subject to any restrictions and could meld anything he wished to?

    The young man¡¯s mouth dropped. This wasn¡¯t fair!<i> I haven¡¯t even finished refining my wind and thunder attributes, I¡¯m wondering how toprehend their auras! He can just use one character to contain them all. What the hell am I doing then??</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much, I¡¯m just employing a kind of shortcut. I should still be weaker than you in the end!¡± Hong Yitang tried to speak some words offort as he could read certain thoughts from the young man¡¯s face.

    ¡°You¡¯re... different from other people,¡± Li Hao said in a daze. ¡°They also have one singr aura, but they don¡¯t possess the all-inclusive properties that you do!¡±

    Other people couldn¡¯t change their auras at will, could they?

    Hong Yitang seemed to have some stamina left and continued to incorporate his fire attributes into the character. ¡°Why must we be concerned about the attributes of a singr aura?¡± he asked in an unhurried pace.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°The unattributed can amodate everything!¡± he exined. ¡°The difficulty level is just a bit higher, that¡¯s all. Don¡¯t you have an independent sword aura of your own? Consider it as a catch-all for everything and throw at it everything you have that can¡¯t be formed into a character for now. Make it a huge melting pot!

    ¡°That may turn it into a motley array of attributes, but it won¡¯t be weaker than regr supernatural abilities either. That¡¯s all it needs to be! You must realize, Li Hao, that not everyone has to be special. When only a select few are geniuses, that makes them special. It¡¯s enough for everyone else to be mainstream!¡±

    He felt that the young man¡¯s thinking was starting to deviate onto a tangent. Li Hao seemed to think that everyone was a genius and all should walk this path. But who said that only geniuses could cultivate?

    Hong Yitang wanted to say that he, too, was a genius. He wasn¡¯t ordinary either. Somehow, the young man felt that if Hong Yitang could manage this feat and others couldn¡¯t, then that meant his method couldn¡¯t be universally applied to all.

    <i>Bullshit! I¡¯m a genius, so of course I can do some things that other people can¡¯t! </i>Hong Yitang inwardly groused. <i>I can utilize your method because I¡¯m a genius. You little bastard think that everyone has to be able to use it for that method to be a viable way forward. Do you think you¡¯re the only genius in the world? Who isn¡¯t a genius at our step of cultivation? Do you expect everyone to be the same as you?</i>

 Chapter 762: Mass Cultivation (III)

    <h4>Chapter 762: Mass Cultivation (III)</h4>

    ¡°Then... how do you stabilize the character and prevent it from copsing if you don¡¯t use an aura?¡± asked Li Hao, mystified. The character broke apart in the absence of an aura because itcked spirit! Some premier supernaturals did not possess an aura.

    ¡°If they have notprehended the aura, then they can use immense mental strength to fortify it!¡± Hong Yitang smiled.

    ¡°What if theyck that as well?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hong Yitang was truly feeling weary. ¡°Then they have yet to qualify for this level of strength. Why are you in such a hurry? Do you expect Sunres and Srs to aplish what you have? Are they to soar to the heavens with one step? Don¡¯t we see the way ahead? It¡¯s just that the issue that eventually crops up with the five organs is thwarting many people for the moment.

    ¡°Breaking new ground doesn¡¯t mean abandoning everything that brought you to this step. Only when people sessfully make it to metamorphosis are they qualified to continue further...¡± The man looked at Li Hao. ¡°Just what are you worrying about?¡±

    Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°There is a path for martial masters as well, all the way to Refiner of Spirit. Does it fall upon only you to dwell on whates after? The same goes for supernaturals. Only at Arcanus do hups ur, but everything is fine up to metamorphosis. Why must you discard all prior knowledge and theory?¡±

    Hong Yitang felt that the young man was starting to sidetracked into strange territory.

    ¡°But in this case... the issue of weak organs hasn¡¯t been resolved!¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°My thinking is that if we utilize this method from the very beginning and incorporate all of the supernatural locks into the character and strengthen it, we¡¯ll avoid the issues having to do with the organs...¡±

    ¡°The organs aren¡¯t weak from the very beginning!¡± Hong Yitang rolled his eyes. ¡°Did you think that your organs were weak when you were a Dominator? Do you think Novas find their organs weak?¡±

    That... was true!

    ¡°Right...¡± Li Hao nodded after some thought. ¡°But... when one reaches the state that you and I are in and need to switch to the supernatural system, they¡¯ll require Water of Life to fortify their organs. Isn¡¯t that... not very good?¡±

    They would have to rely on external forces in the end! Although the resources consumed would be less than what was needed to directly reinforce the organs, Li Hao still felt that something was missing from the picture.

    Hong Yitang nodded in agreement this time. The young man had finally touched upon the crux of the issue. He mulled over the problem.

    ¡°Correct, you¡¯vee to the main point. I do have some thoughts after our conversation... These characters can nurture the body in return, can they not?¡±

    ¡°Yep!¡±

    ¡°Then you can try creating a character when the cultivator is weak so that they can fortify their organs from the very beginning...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not possible!¡± Li Hao burst outughing.

    ¡°Why not?¡± Hong Yitang asked seriously. ¡°There are countless great daos beneath the heavens¡ªnone of them is the one and only. If you wish toplete this system, you¡¯ll naturally need to work extremely hard and make certain sacrifices. You don¡¯t know enough about the human body and don¡¯t truly understand everything there is to know about martial dao yet.

    ¡°Since you''ve discovered that supernatural locks can be melded and assimted into other things, as well as nurture the body, then you tell me if there¡¯s a lock or anything else inside us that can fortify the entire body. Strengthening one area at a time doesn¡¯t need to be the focus!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened with the new thought.

    ¡°If there are the paths of fire, wood, and all sorts of attributes out there, can there not be one of the body?¡± Hong Yitang smiled. ¡°Of course, this is just a theory. I¡¯m just following your line of thinking. I don¡¯t have the ability to actually test my hypothesis.

    ¡°Since you¡¯ve taken the first step, you can try to experiment and uncover the possibilities! Perhaps, in the end, you will find that such a character does exist to strengthen the entire body. It would plug in the hole in your current system.¡±

    Li Hao was quite moved by the proposition¡ªdid such a dao exist? The dao of purely the body... and then incorporating it into the character system. All the cultivator would need to do after that was just train in one system and ignore everything else...

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t say anything when he saw that Li Hao was contemting what he¡¯d said. He rapidly consolidated his fire attribute instead, marveling at what he was creating. It wasn¡¯t hard, but if no one had tried it first and appraised the possibility, then no one might have tried it, ever. Li Hao was certainly someone brave enough to act on his thoughts.

    At the moment, the young man was caught in a daze.

    ¡°There is a dao of the five elements, of wind and thunder, of light and dark. The body and five organs are rted to these, but can also be viewed separately... Then is there an independent dao of the body and just the body? The rest would be supernatural abilities! I would train the body on the inside and the supernatural on the outside, training both at the same time...¡± Li Hao¡¯s thoughts flitted from one to another in a disconnected haze. He didn¡¯t have a proper outline tying them together, but he was taking in Hong Yitang¡¯s words.

    Perhaps he could treat the wind and thunder attributes as part of the random assortment to be shoved into the sword aura. In this regard, he could utilize the sword aura as a character to epass all of the supernatural locks that didn¡¯t host auras. He could organize them at ater stage, categorize them, then assimte them...

    A massive boom startled him out of his thoughts; he gaped at Hong Yitang. Earth energy surged out as the man had broken the lock of the spleen. He grabbed Panther with a smile. ¡°Devour the earth energy leaking out... I¡¯m going to try and assimte three elements as one!¡±

    The dog wasn¡¯t angry about being handled roughly; it opened its mouth and swallowed arge surge of energy. It then directed its attention to Hong Yitang and also sucked out the strength that he¡¯d yet to make use of!

    Hong Yitang stared ominously at the dog. Li Hao was likewise resigned. ¡°Panth!¡±

    <i>You¡¯re just supposed to take care of the extra energy, not drain Hong Yitang dry!</i> <i>He hasn¡¯t even tried using his power yet, but you drained it out of him. Is this appropriate in your eyes??</i>

    Panther looked innocently at Li Hao. <i>He said it, he wanted me to do that! I didn¡¯t do it on purpose! He said to devour any energy leaking out, so I thought the parting from his body was part of that too!</i>

    A wordless Hong Yitang didn¡¯t want to bother saying anything. He decisively snapped his supernatural lock and turned his ¡®sword¡¯ character yellowish-brown. It was an exceedingly smooth process!

    He was known for his earth sword aura to begin with, so the yellow-brown character seemed to easily suppress the rampaging thunder and fire attributes within. Li Hao watched the change quite enviously. So this was possible as well?? Using one character for everything seemed to be a much simpler prospect. If he could change the colors of his character like Hong Yitang... how nice would that be!

    Sighing, the man sensed Li Hao¡¯s jealousy and envy. ¡°There¡¯s no need to stare, you¡¯re certain to be stronger than me in the end. However much effort we put in is how much we gain. I¡¯m taking a shortcut...¡±

    ¡°I want to take it too!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hong Yitang didn¡¯t know what to say anymore. <i>Why is this your reaction when I¡¯ve said all that I¡¯ve said? </i>There was nothing he could respond with other than, ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way. You can take my path, just discard your five auras first and focus on the sword aura. You might reach my heights then and be able to manipte one aura as many!¡±

    Fine then, Li Hao gave up the idea. That wouldn¡¯t do!

    Hong Yitang was finally spared from having to speak sense into the young man. <i>See, you won¡¯t do what it takes, but you want to take a shortcut. How will that do?</i>

    ¡°Does martial uncle intend to fully integrate three elements together? Will your body hold up?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not a problem since I have ten saturated locks. Do you think my body is weaker than yours? You can endure four elements, so it¡¯s not much of an issue for me to withstand three. If the lock of my <i>zifu</i> was saturated, I should be able to persevere against four or even five...¡±

    The strongest martial master of their age had likely saturated eleven locks. No one dared try the one of the head. As far as Li Hao was aware of, only Yao Si hadpleted that risky undertaking. He wasn¡¯t clear on Hou Xiaochen and the rest. Perhaps they were at eleven, perhaps they weren¡¯t. It was hard for him to determine if they didn¡¯t say anything.

    Li Hao spoke no further since Hong Yitang said he could tolerate more. He simply crushed some more Water of Life and directed the energy into the man¡¯s body. The assimtion of three elements would require more resources, and Hong Yitang consumed a lot to begin with. He seemed to need more than Li Hao!

    Arcanus might require one hundred drops of Water of Life to progress from two elements to three. Hong Yitang needed less, but Li Hao consistently pulled out more Water of Life. He reached twenty drops in the blink of an eye¡ªthis might not be enough.

    Hong Yitang¡¯s presence fully faded after a moment. The ¡®sword¡¯ character was more resplendent than before. Li Hao had expanded thirty drops. Whenbined with the amount that he¡¯d utilized at the very beginning, it amounted to almost fifty drops for Hong Yitang to advance to a three element ¡®sword¡¯ character.

    That was a rather significant amount!

    He¡¯d also spent some outside, leaving him approximately only three hundred drops left. Damn he was really ripping through his stores! Granted, he could trade ten thousand mysterious power stones for one drop, so he hadn¡¯t really consumed that much.

    Hong Yitang swallowed the character without saying anything, recovering some of his mental strength. His presence grew more containedpared to before. However, he frowned despite his sess.

    ¡°It... really is a bit hard to bear if there¡¯s no character written specifically for strengthening the body. This thing consumes too much blood qi and mental strength¡ªit even absorbs a lot of life force. I¡¯d probably die of old age in the process if there wasn¡¯t Water of Life reinforcing me.¡±

    At the same time, there was a sparkle in his eyes. ¡°But it really does nurture the body when stored inside. I have to say, Li Hao, this really was a great idea!¡±

    ¡°I have an even better idea.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°The characters can operate breathing methods by themselves!¡±

    Hong Yitang blinked. Li Hao hadn¡¯t mentioned this before. He quickly put it to the test!

    ¡°This... is a stroke of brilliance, kid!¡± He breathed with astonishment. ¡°This idea didn¡¯t ur to me at all! This is the equivalent of dual cultivation, the characters can cultivate by themselves! This will elerate cultivation and save a lot of time!¡±

    ¡°Martial uncle¡¯s single character is quite impressive.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°But I was thinking that if I imbue each character with one breathing method, that is the equivalent of a single person cultivating. If I coalesce endless characters, that is thebined effect of innumerable people cultivating.

    ¡°No matter what martial unclees up with, you can only train one breathing method. That¡¯s only two people cultivating. So... hmm... I think my condition is pretty good too!¡±

    Hong Yitang blinked, then didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. Yes indeed, thed possessed a great advantage!

 Chapter 763: Mass Cultivation (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 763: Mass Cultivation (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Are you... not going to tell your master about this?¡± asked Hong Yitang.

    ¡°I¡¯ll tell him next time we meet,¡± Li Hao replied. ¡°The main thing is, my master isn¡¯t ready yet. Neither are Director Yao and the rest. The director actually saw my change with his own eyes, but he still didn¡¯t choose to snap his supernatural locks. This means he still has certain reservations and hesitations. In that case, I will not force him. I¡¯m unsure myself how far this path can be taken.¡±

    After some thought, Li Hao asked with a frown, ¡°How should we grow stronger after we integrate all of the locks in our bodies?¡± There would no longer be the distinction of three, four, or five element Arcanus. What would the road ahead look like?

    Hong Yitang nodded; it was a valid question.

    ¡°We¡¯ll have to move forward from the characters themselves then. But that is a question for the future. See well the present. Who knows what wille in the future?¡±

    Li Hao nodded, that was true. The future was very far away!

    ¡°The integration of three elements doesn¡¯t necessarily guarantee our victory...¡± Hong Yitang offered upon further musing. ¡°I¡¯ll try saturating my eleventh lock over the next two days. If I seed, I¡¯ll incorporate a fourth element!¡±

    ¡°Alright! I¡¯ll try fusing the wind and thunder attributes into the sword aura as well!¡± Li Hao nodded. It may indeed be more safe to have four elements at the ready. If they wanted to bepletely sure of themselves, they might even go for five or six elements. Director General Wang had said that Apex might be the equivalent of supernaturals with eight or nine broken locks. Li Hao might give it a try, but in a slow and steady manner.

    A three element Arcanus was the equivalent of seven broken locks. These seven might be very differentpared to what the director general spoke of. What if he didn¡¯t include the four of the limbs?

    If that was the case, then the Apex cultivation level was formidable indeed. It meant that the strongest martial master of the modern age would have to snap all eleven supernatural locks to barely reach that equivalence.

    Who in their world could aplish that feat?

    ......

    While Li Hao, Hong Yitang, and the rest cultivated, a storm brewed in the outside world. There was no sign of action from the nine ministries as they were plotting and strategizing. At the same time, they wondered if there would be any Silver Moon martial masters joining Li Hao in his madness this time?

    One time wasn¡¯t enough, they came a second and a third time...

    Did these Silver Moon martial masters really not fear death?

    ......

    The massive Skystar City fully quieted down. Whether it was nobles or superhumans, everyone was astoundingly quiet over these few days. They no longer pranced around with their nose in the air. All were deeply afraid of offending thepletely maniac Li Hao and being hauled off to be beheaded.

    Time passed day by day. One day, two days, three days...

    Li Hao deactivated the mirror fragment after three days.

    <i>In the outside world.</i>

    Various powerhouses covertly or openly assessed the changes in Li Hao¡¯s people. They didn¡¯t dare scan the heavyweights, but the thousands of soldiers were weak martial masters. Even though they wore armor, it was still hard for them to conceal their status. Unstable blood qi and weak strength meant that they couldn¡¯t keep their secrets.

    ¡°What an investment!¡± someone gasped lowly. It was indeed an enormous investment. Almost everyone out of two thousand had set foot into the Sunderer level.

    The soldiers from the Silver Moon provincial army had been mundanes and wouldn¡¯t consume too many resources. More than one thousand at the same time, however, was a tremendous expenditure.

    The Silver Moon Guards had almost all been Sunderers to begin with. They didn¡¯t have many Dominators, but that was changed after some of their half step Dominators absorbed vast sums of energy and Water of Life. There were now almost sixty Dominators among the old Silver Moon Guards.

    Multiple Dominators had appeared in Li Hao¡¯s Demon Hunters. When summed up, it meant that Li Hao had nearly one hundred Dominators under hismand. This feat didn¡¯t appear as much to supernaturals since Dominators could not defeat Srs. It was such a hefty price to pay for an unimportant improvement.

    But for martial masters, it was an entirely different concept to set foot past the Sunderer threshold and enter the Dominator level.

    ¡°There¡¯s even a Nova...¡± Some recognized the new Nova on the scene¡ªHao Lianchuan. The new metamorphosis Qin Lian was an unfamiliar face to the crowd. They only knew that she¡¯d acted before and was a dark supernatural. Her husband, Yang Shan, was another metamorphosis.

    Two metamorphosis made for a force that was neither strong nor weak. The newly ascended Srs were ignored. Hu Hao, Yun Yao, and a few others were Srs now, Wang Ming had be ate Sr. But for the crowd, even Dominators were more worthy of note.

    ¡°Mass cultivation for thousands of people is quite the ouy!¡±

    Such investment was very rare in this day and age. Modern supernaturals either improved by themselves or made use of fortuitous opportunities. Swearing allegiance to a faction didn¡¯t mean that one¡¯s new liege lord would automatically provide resources for no reason at all, not even if there was a surplus.

    Thus surprised, the observers turned their attention to the heavyweights that they hadn¡¯t considered before. They couldn¡¯t read anything from Yao Si or Hou Xiaochen. The Heaven¡¯s Eye hidden within the crowd only found these people to be painfully bright. Looking at them for too long even resulted in the feeling that these Heaven¡¯s Eye might go blind! Many of them suddenly vomited blood, a sign that bacsh from what they were observing was recoiling onto them.

    Inside theplex, Hou Xiaochen suddenly looked outside. Those gazing upon him felt their minds threaten to rip apart. As more people vomited blood, they fled the scene.

    Too strong!

    Hou Xiaochen was so strong that no one could see through him. He¡¯d easily killed an Arcanus in the previous battle, making it impossible for one to estimate what level his cultivation was at.

    ......

    <i>The Nine Dragons Pavilion.</i>

    <i>The ninth floor.</i>

    A stately powerhouse gazed upon an image hovering in front of him¡ªthe scene of theplex in the northern city quadrant.

    ¡°Hou Xiaochen is at least between a two or three element Arcanus,¡± he said coldly after a while. ¡°He¡¯s very strong!¡±

    Someone nodded beside him, while yet others remained silent. The man turned to address a fatty next to him. ¡°Mu Hai, is Liu Yunqing still going to y dead?¡±

    Liu Yunqing of the Ministry of Finance had stayed out of the subsequent operations after his first injury. It was like he¡¯d died!

    Apart from collecting taxes, the behemoth that was the Ministry of Finance ignored all other matters. It was as if Li Hao¡¯s disturbance had nothing to do with them. Mu Hai was the minister of Internal Affairs. The stately man speaking was Hu Mingfa of the Ministry of the Judiciary. After his father, old minister Hu Xiao¡¯s death, it was Hu Mingfa who agitated to kill Li Hao. They needed to prevent further trouble from urring.

    Mu Hai had been quietly sipping from his tea; he responded slowly when addressed, ¡°I don¡¯t know, I haven¡¯t heard from him.¡±

    ¡°Is Chen Yao noting?¡± The look in Hu Mingfa¡¯s eyes turned chilly. ¡°How long will he continue to hide and cower?¡±

    Chen Yao was the minister of the Inspectorate.

    ¡°He said that he¡¯ll contribute funds, but that his cultivation level isn¡¯t stable enough,¡± Mu Hai said ponderously. ¡°The nt spirit in the ruins that the Inspectorate holds requires too much energy to supply him with sufficient Water of Life. As such, his cultivation level is still unstable...¡±

    ¡°Bullshit!¡± snorted Hu Mingfa. Excuses, just excuses!

    It was one thing for someone else to say that their cultivation wasn¡¯t stable, but people at the minister level sat on a mountain of resources. Swiftly ascending to three, four element Arcanus was more than feasible, not to mention two elements. The only question it came down to was a matter of price. Granted, the price to be paid was a tough pill to swallow.

    Even if the nine ministries were as wealthy as nations, they couldn¡¯t really concentrate all of their resources on one person. Who would work for them if there was nothing in it for them? A ministry of one person would not make them the modern day nine ministries.

    All powerhouses required the effects of Water of Life if they were to be an Arcanus. There wasn''t that much Water of Life to go around. This also meant that the current path of Arcanus was restricted by nt spirits. This was a very big disadvantage that current supernaturals struggled with. Those who saw more clearly understood the inherent problems, but it wasn¡¯t something that could be quickly resolved.

    Hu Mingfa shouted with fury a few times before settling back down. ¡°So this means that the Ministry of the Inspectorate and Finance are unwilling to participate?¡±

    People drank either wine or tea around him, no one said a word. Whether they participated or not didn¡¯t matter. It was just one more or one less participant.

    ¡°It¡¯s not a key factor and not important,¡± someone finally said slowly after a while. ¡°The crucial question now is whether Li Hao is willing to enter the ruins?¡±

    That was what the focus should be.

    ¡°If Li Hao isn¡¯t willing to set foot inside, we¡¯ll have to kill him out here,¡± the speaker chuckled. ¡°In the current state of things, is there anyone fully confident of not letting him get away? We¡¯d have to ignore the cost and propel someone to be a five element Arcanus to achieve that.

    ¡°He is on high alert and has those like Yao Si, Hou Xiaochen, and Hong Yitang around him. It¡¯s too hard to outright kill him! He¡¯s expended a lot of his resources the past three days and may be scraping the bottom of the barrel¡ªapparently he¡¯s even used Water of Life on those martial masters. Although we can create a massive mine in the ruins, to be honest, it¡¯s not normal for a mine to appear in a ruin.¡±

    It woulde across as a tant plot. <i>Here I am, throwing one hundred million stones into the ruins. Dare you take a gamble, Li Hao? </i>Anyone would be able to tell that something was wrong with the picture.

    ¡°He¡¯s always been bold.¡± Hu Mingfa frowned. ¡°He even went to the Xus for the Windchaser Boots. He was only a Nova then, while the Xus already had an Arcanus. He went all the same, taking a gamble. In that case, why wouldn¡¯t he be willing if the potential payoff is great enough?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not the same!¡± The speaker thought for a bit, then suddenly smiled. ¡°It¡¯s not a difficult problem to resolve either. We only have mysterious power stones for now, but what if another one of the weapons of the eight families appears? Do you think he¡¯d be tempted then?¡±

    Several people nced sharply at him when he offered that suggestion.

 Chapter 764: Simple and Crude (I)

    <h4>Chapter 764: Simple and Crude (I)</h4>

    Three out of the eight family weapons were already present in the world. They were all with Li Hao¡ªthe Windchaser Boots, Steris, and stone de. The Wangs¡¯ ck Tortoise Seal was in Battle Heaven, leaving four weapons at most in the outside world.

    The ministers looked at the speaker, none of them possessed any of the eight heritage weapons. Ying Hongyue was the first to gather intelligence regarding the eight families. Was he willing to provide one weapon for bait?

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me,¡± the middle-aged man said slowly. ¡°I fully believe that Ying Hongyue wishes to kill Li Hao as well. He¡¯s the one under the greatest threat if Li Hao continues to grow and develop like this. Paying the price of one heritage weapon in order to lure Li Hao to his demise... Would he refuse that?¡±

    The others furrowed their brows, it was hard to say. No one could specte what Ying Hongyue was thinking.

    ¡°It¡¯s been three days. If we continue to fail to lure out Li Hao, are we to wait for him to trample our dignity again on the seventh day? Is there really no hope of taking the fight to him and killing him outright?¡± asked another person.

    ¡°Killing him outright? There may be some hope of doing so. We stand a chance if we all bring our trump cards to bear. We wouldn¡¯t have to rely on the nt spirits either. But... how much of a price would we have to pay? How many present would have to die for it? Are all of you willing to pay that price?¡±

    No one had any answers. The danger was much less in the ruins with the nt spirits marshaling the offensive. But outside, they would truly have to risk their own necks against the young man.

    ¡°For the Ministry of Administration... is the old minister willing to lend a hand?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not a matter of willingness, but that we must curtail the royal family as well. Otherwise, it¡¯d be expelling the wolf to make room for the tiger. Li Hao is the wolf and the royal family the tiger. If the old minister takes action, that would be letting this ferocious tiger out of the cage!¡±

    The discussion continued for a while before Hu Mingfa from the Judiciary announced, ¡°I¡¯ve reached an agreement with the nt spirits, they¡¯ve agreed on one condition¡ªthat all of the mysterious power stones being used for bait will be left behind for them!¡±

    The group had been prepared for the possibility; they wouldn¡¯t have prepared so many stones otherwise. There was a price involved in asking the nt spirits for help. The cost for this operation was the riches being used for the lure.

    ¡°That¡¯s one hundred million... they are certainly greedy!¡± someone sneered. These nt spirits wanted nothing more than to devour all of the stones that the nine ministries owned. If it wasn¡¯t to encourage the ministries to keep collecting for them, they likely wouldn¡¯t part with a single drop of Water of Life.

    ¡°They can have it. We can¡¯t expect them to work for us with no payoff.¡± The discussion continued.

    ¡°Li Hao is now a superhuman cultivator and can no longer conceal his presence as thoroughly as before. Hong Yitang is the same as well. I¡¯ve gathered everyone here today to propose that we bring forth our fragments of Sky Gander and temporarily join them together to peer into the void. We can use the treasure to investigate Li Hao¡¯s strength, to ensure that there are no surprises waiting for us!¡±

    The mirror fragments were key. The group considered the proposal and didn¡¯t immediately turn him down.

    ¡°We can do that, but the mirror fragments probably can¡¯t be one since the treasure has been shattered, can they?¡±

    ¡°A temporary joint use is possible...¡±

    ¡°Very well then!¡± The group came to a decision. To know the enemy as well as one knew themselves was to ensure victory in every battle. Although Li Hao seemed to have failed grasping three elements, no one was certain if he was hiding more of his presence with immense concealment abilities.

    The young man might also have a fragment of the mirror¡ªno, he certainly did have one. Hadn¡¯t he employed it in the northern city quadrant when he obscured theplex during his people¡¯s training?

    ......

    <i>The northern city quadrant.</i>

    Two thousand soldiers began running drills, practicing the Ten Rings Mountain Seal Formation. Li Hao and the others walked back to the great hall, chatting with high spirits.

    ¡°There¡¯s a bit of time left, but not much for the nine ministries!¡± Li Hao sighed with emotion.

    Hong Yitang flicked a nce at him. <i>Are you this cocky after grasping four elements? Be careful of upsets! </i>He couldn¡¯t be bothered to voice the words out loud, instead saying, ¡°Are you sure about establishing the Skystar Martial Academy?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Those who dare enroll at this time are either out of options, bolder than the heavens themselves, or have deep grudges with the nine ministries. Why shouldn¡¯t I open a school for them?

    ¡°Although it¡¯s called the Skystar <i>Martial</i> Academy, it¡¯s not one strictly of martial dao. We¡¯re selling horse meat as beef steak! Martial dao isn¡¯t a matter to be plumbed in a day or two, I hope martial uncle can pursue your own inspiration and raise a crop of unique talents!¡±

    ¡°I know what you have in mind,¡± Hong Yitang frowned. ¡°But Ick the proper teachers for it. There would be more than ample personnel if you wanted to focus on martial dao. If ites to other subjects, however, ample personnel will be a big problem.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°So I¡¯ve sent people to look for the teachers and students from the Skystar Ancient Academy, including those being held at the Nine Dragons Pavilion. They¡¯ve refused to relinquish their grasp on those people, so I went to them directly today! The royal family will show me face at a time like this. They want nothing more than a fight between me and the nine ministries.¡±

    The royal family had dragged their feet, likely because they were waiting for the final results. But from Li Hao¡¯s perspective, he hardly had the generosity to let them sit back and watch.

    Hong Yitang inclined his head; the young man looked at Deputy Zhou, wondering how the man hadpleted his arrangements. <i>You talked a good talkst time and I paid the price of two hundred drops of Water of Life. Have you done anything the past couple of days?</i>

    Deputy Zhou smiled to see Li Hao¡¯s attention on him. ¡°I will most certainly see great gains on my side if you can win the uing sh! If you head to the ruins and I visit the east, I will absolutely quell all problems in the east. The caveat is that you emerge the victor!¡±

    Everything was off the table if the young man lost, and all sides were his for the taking if he won.

    Li Hao nodded, this was just as well.

    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Yao Si frowned. ¡°Li Hao¡¯s going to the ruins, but you¡¯re not going?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the point of so many people going?¡± smiled the deputy.

    Yao Si furrowed his brows and sharpened his look at Deputy Zhou.<i> Is he that confident?</i> Li Hao was quite strong as a four element Arcanus, but to put him down as invincible... particrly in the ruins... The young man wasn¡¯t to that level. There was great danger within and the nine ministries wouldn¡¯t be careless in their desire to kill him. Was the deputy really at ease not apanying Li Hao? Or did he not care?

    The young man¡¯s eyes darted around as they conversed and he took out a mirror fragment¡ªit was vibrating. Li Hao frowned. What did this mean?

    Yao Si¡¯s eyes widened and he quickly transmitted, ¡°Be careful, it might be that the nine ministries are utilizing the other fragments to probe your capabilities...¡±

    Li Hao furrowed his brows and thought about what course of action to take. He exuded his wind and thunder attributes, enveloping his body with them. Off to the side, Hong Yitang did so as well with his energy.

    ¡°Can this item peer into people at will?¡± Hong Yitang asked via transmission.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Mine can, but it has a short range and a very small field of vision. How can the nine ministries spy upon us when they¡¯re so far away from the northern city quadrant?¡±

    It was very perplexing.

    ¡°Perhaps they¡¯rebining their fragments,¡± Yao Si rified. ¡°It¡¯s said that there were a lot of fragments when this mirror was first discovered. Those who found it didn¡¯t think much of it, treating it as the ordinary fragments of a weapon. The pieces were thus divided up, and their secrets revealed only after the supernatural awoke.¡±

    Li Hao could already vaguely sense a prying sensation as they talked. It truly was the same familiar sensation as being probed by the mirror. Highly difiting, this was the nine ministries investigating him. They were even being tant about it, as if saying, ¡°I¡¯m going to spy on you, what are you going to do about it?¡±

    The young man frowned deeply without a word, looking to the east. He needed to be careful of the nine ministries. Despite already demonstrating two elements, they still want to make sure of the situation. Would they be able to detect the characters?

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t sure.

    His own mirror fragment wouldn¡¯t be able to, but since they could peer at him from so far away, they had either put their fragments together or theirs was too big to be imagined. Li Hao wasn¡¯t certain if it would reveal the characters in his body or not.

    He sent the characters into his organs when his thoughts traveled here. The ¡®exterminate¡¯ character formed by the sword aura was also concealed. It was a melting pot of all the elements that he did not have auras for. It wasn¡¯t too useful¡ªserving to prevent elements from conflicting with each other at most.

    ......

    <i>Inside the Nine Dragons Pavilion.</i>

    Several powerhouses had gone back to their seats of power and returned with a mirror fragment. The pieces were connected to each other and quickly formed a massive screen in the center of the hall. Li Hao and hispanions were pictured on it.

    Motes of light shimmered over them. That of wind and thunder sparkled over Li Hao, while thunder and fire shifted over Hong Yitang. Nothing could be read from Yao Si¡ªjust a few hints of supernatural locks. Their exact number couldn¡¯t be identified, which was one of the reasons why martial masters were so hard to gauge.

    However, that was enough to confirm that he was a martial master. As strong as they might be, martial masters were limited in this day and age.

    The group turned their attention to Hou Xiaochen, he was mostly the same as Yao Si. And finally, they assessed Light Sword and the rest. Some hints of supernatural looks could be seen on all of them.

    ¡°This is what¡¯s troublesome about martial masters.¡± Hu Mingfa frowned. ¡°But it also has to do with the fact that we¡¯re using fragments. Otherwise, we¡¯d be able to fully reflect the truth about them and thoroughly investigate their capabilities!¡±

    No one responded to him. What they had were pieces of the mirror, and their pieces may not beplete fragments. What was the point of saying all that?

 Chapter 765: Simple and Crude (II)

    <h4>Chapter 765: Simple and Crude (II)</h4>

    ¡°So this guy is also a martial master?¡± Mu Hai looked sternly at Deputy Zhou. ¡°He¡¯s worked with Zhao in Silver Moon for decades and always been as immovable as a mountain. He kept such a low profile that I thought he ascended as a supernatural long ago and set foot into the Arcanus realm. To think that he¡¯s still a martial master!¡±

    The rest assessed Deputy Zhou as well, seeing supernatural locks that briefly materialized and then faded away. That was indeed a sign of a martial master. As for how strong he was, exactly, that was hard to determine. At the very least, he¡¯d started saturating his supernatural looks. Otherwise, weak martial masters would be directly exposed by the mirror fragments. There wouldn¡¯t be anything they could do about it.

    ¡°This is good!¡± Hu Mingfa heaved a sigh of relief. ¡°Li Hao and Hong Yitang are both still two element Arcanus. Li Hao really hasn¡¯t broken any other locks! Even if he does so in the middle of a fight, three elements will be the most he can grasp. Trying to directly wield four elements will burden him beyond the limits of what he can endure.¡±

    This was still within their scope of expectations.

    ¡°Release the word and contact Ying Hongyue. We¡¯ll use mysterious power stones as bait first. If that doesn¡¯t work, ask Ying Hongyue to supply one of the weapons and ce it in the most obvious part of the ruins. Make it so that the kid can see and sense it as soon as he enters the ce!¡±

    ......

    Li Hao¡¯s expression was ugly as he stood in theplex. It was a very ufortable feeling to bepletely exposed to another. He looked toward the city center, drawing his brows together in a deep frown.

    ¡°The nine ministries won¡¯t always keep their fragmentsbined together,¡± Yao Siforted upon seeing the young man¡¯s reaction. ¡°They also know that nothing can remain secret in that condition. Hence, there¡¯s a tacit agreement between all parties that have kept the fragments away from each other.

    ¡°You¡¯re the primary reason why they¡¯ve done so this time, and they probably won¡¯t do so again unless they encounter another mutual enemy. Otherwise, there will be no secrets left between them if someone manages to turn thebined effect on one of them.¡±

    ¡°Is this a fragment of the legendary Sky Gander?¡± Li Hao had heard the little tree mention it before¡ªit was the most famous mirror treasure from the ancient civilization. It was said to have been broken at one point.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure... I know it¡¯s mentioned in the ancient records, but it¡¯s hard to say if this is it or not. They describe it in such magical terms, that Sky Gander is omnipotent and can pry into everything beneath the heavens. The fragments we have now do not possess that ability.¡±

    Li Hao said nothing further; they turned to He Yong when he walked in momentster.

    ¡°The royal family just sent word that the ruins relinquished by the Ministry of Finance will officially open tomorrow! They¡¯ve invited me to explore it together...¡± He looked at Li Hao. ¡°The deal with this set of ruins is that they automatically close once the number of people inside exceeds one hundred. The expedition team won¡¯t be able to leave until five dayster. On the other hand, people can freelye and go if there are less than one hundred inside.¡±

    ¡°So there are rules like that for certain ruins?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°Yes!¡± He Yong nodded. ¡°Many ruins have rules like that, particrly martial universities. They¡¯ve been closed off, so those who enter must stay for five days before receiving a vacation day.¡±

    ¡°They can only hold one hundred?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that they can only hold one hundred, but that the ruins will close when upancy exceeds one hundred! That means to say it doesn¡¯t matter if there¡¯s one thousand or ten thousand inside. The ruins close as soon as there are more than one hundred within its grounds. Once this urs, exit is unobtainable under normal circumstances.¡±

    Li Hao frowned. A ruin that could close itself was the most troublesome kind of ruin there was. This one sealed itself for five days when the conditions were met! Anything could happen in five days.

    ¡°When you say close off, do you mean only entry is permitted, and not egress?¡± asked Li Hao. ¡°For example, can more people head in if there¡¯s already one hundred people inside? It¡¯s just that people can¡¯t leave, right?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, you can still go inside!¡± He Yong nodded. ¡°So it¡¯s not fully sealed away, just partially. However, no one is allowed to leave during this time period.

    ¡°The first expedition will certainly be less than one hundred to ensure that the ruins stay open. But if you enter, upancy will probably instantly balloon over one hundred!¡±

    The ruins would probably be sealed away the second that Li Hao set foot inside. One had to say, the royal family had picked well to invite He Yong to join the expedition.

    ¡°What¡¯s your n?¡± He Yong looked at the young man. ¡°I¡¯ll take a look inside if you¡¯re determined to give it a try. They¡¯ll probably have to set out a lot of treasures as bait, I might be able to pick something up...¡±

    How else would they lure Li Hao inside otherwise?

    The young man looked at Southern Fist. He Yong was an opportunistic fellow, but this time...

    ¡°You might not have a chance to leave after you go inside. Well, you might be able to retreat ahead of time before I go in...¡±

    ¡°Have you made up your mind to go inside?¡± He Yong frowned.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure, but I want to see what kind of treasure they have put up to tempt me so that I¡¯ll ignore the dangers. What have they bought out that will make me willingly set foot in a trap? The nine ministries must bepletely guaranteed of the sess of their plot!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°In that case, I¡¯d like to satisfy my curiosity!¡±

    ¡°So I¡¯ll agree to them?¡± He Yong looked at him with solemnity. ¡°Also, don¡¯t think of relying on your bloodline as part of the eight families. That¡¯s useful only in Silver Moon. It might bepletely useless here!¡±

    ¡°I understand.¡±

    ¡°Alright then!¡± He Yong was just as curious as the young man. What could the nine ministries have possibly put on the table? This was an exploration in which both sides knew what to expect. It wasn¡¯t a quest to uncover the treasures within the martial university, but one to see what the nine ministries could supply. It was a ludicrous situation in some ways, but such was what was taking ce.

    ......

    Yao Si breathed out heavily after He Yong left. ¡°I¡¯ll go in with you!¡±

    Since Li Hao¡¯s mind was made up and they were on the same boat now, it was better that he follow Li Hao inside.

    ¡°We need people on the outside too.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°If we all head in, what should we do if someone seeks to eradicate us here?¡±

    The Night Watchers were a force to be reckoned with. It wasn¡¯t ideal for Yao Si to be absent as well.

    ¡°Let¡¯s wait and see!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°However much they¡¯re willing to offer demonstrates the strength of their desire to kill me. I¡¯m quite looking forward to it and hope that the nine ministries have brought out treasures that will make me lose my mind!¡±

    No one said a word as they didn¡¯t know if this development was good or bad.

    ......

    He Yong entered the ruins on the second day¡ªthe fourth day ording to Li Hao¡¯s ultimatum toward the nine ministries. There were six days until the Skystar Commander Office was officially established.

    If Li Hao was to enter the ruins, he had only one day left to consider his decision. Otherwise, with the five days that the ruins would be sealed off for, that wouldn¡¯t leave him enough time to participate in themencement ceremony.

    ......

    <i>In a small mountain on the western outskirts of Skystar City.</i>

    He Yong traveled with approximately eighty people. Some were from the nine ministries, some from the royal family. There were also a few mysterious people. Their numbers were controlled to less than one hundred.

    A grave expression on his face, He Yong remained silent. There was a tunnel ahead and a door shrouded with energy standing at the end.

    ¡°Master He, this ruin is called Evenround Martial University,¡± whispered a royal prince. ¡°It¡¯s not that big, just a small university. Not that many treasures were found on previous expeditions. It¡¯s been quite fully preserved, however, and the structures inside are quite intact. This must not have been an important school back in the day, just mid to lower ranking.¡±

    He Yong inclined his head.

    ¡°The ninth prince has said that Master He should just take a look around inside,¡± the young man continued softly. ¡°It¡¯s better to not be involved in certain matters. Once you¡¯ve assessed the situation, Master He can decide whether or not you¡¯d like to stay.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± He Yong walked straight inside when the door was opened via an item that looked like a stone. There was no danger here!

    A simple Nova had led previous expeditions and the casualty rate had been very low. There were no nt spirits inside, just some guards. The guards were puppets, not the bodies of soldiers like those found in Battle Heaven. They were a bit of a threat to Srs and Novas, but entirely negligible to powerhouses like He Yong.

    Massive school gates stood in front of him when he entered the ruins. They were gigantic! At least one hundred meters wide.

    It seemed that all ancient buildings were thus magnificent¡ªthis wasn¡¯t the important detail. There were barely any records of this university in the ancient books. inly, it was just a humble school. It would rock the modern world if they discovered the ruins of Demonic Martial or Capital Martial.

    He Yong found several buildings that looked like puppets when he looked toward the gates. He couldn¡¯t help an urge tough. Why did this ce look like a toy for children? As they said, this university was truly the bottom of the barrel. No wonder the Ministry of Finance had given it up.

    The gates were open, so they walked straight on in. The others followed him, all looking at him like he was the leader. He Yong knew what they had in mind, so he didn¡¯t say anything. He simply continued walking...

    The university was very small! It might be the smallest he¡¯d ever visited out of all of his explorations. There was a rather imbnced contrast to the massive school gates that he¡¯de through. One could scan the entire school with a single nce.

    There were four small buildings total¡ªthe ssrooms, training rooms, residences, and offices. The entire school amounted to less than one hundred acres. How was this a university?

    He Yong inwardly looked down on it. A martial elementary, more like! However, he sensed energy ripples in the distance. After a moment of hesitation, he swiftly walked over. A glittering expanse came into view once he passed the buildings¡ªhis jaw dropped and he stared, dumbfounded!

    ¡°Um... does this need more investigation?¡± He Yong turned back to look at the people behind him. ¡°We can just say that we found an energy mine...¡±

    These people were being too tant! So very incredibly tant! Perhaps due to the small size of the school making for limited space, the nine ministries had dumped all of the mysterious power stones into the small pond in the back. Even the rest of the expedition was open-mouthed with astonishment, to say nothing of He Yong.

    He snorted and wanted to draw closer for a look, but two powerhouses materialized in the air and stared quietly at him.

    ¡°I want to verify if this is real or not!¡± He red at them.

    No one responded, but the two powerhouses gave way after some thought. He Yong picked up a random stone and sucked in a sharp breath after further scrutiny. It was real! How many were there here? There was no end to this mountain of mysterious power stones!

    So many stones in such a tiny ruin... <i>The hell man, the nine ministries might as well juste straight out and ask me if this amount is sufficient to tempt Li Hao!</i>

 Chapter 766: A Grade Two Ruin (I)

    <h4>Chapter 766: A Grade Two Ruin (I)</h4>

    ¡°How many... are there here?¡± He Yong swallowed hard.

    ¡°More than you can imagine,¡± someone responded faintly. ¡°One hundred million mysterious power stones!¡±

    He Yong¡¯s heart spasmed with shock!

    ¡°You guys... really have a death wish!¡± He looked at the speaker.

    ¡°You can tell Commander Li that!¡± the other replied calmly. ¡°He doesn¡¯t need toe if he doesn¡¯t have the guts to!¡±

    He Yong¡¯s face flickered through a variety of expressions¡ªcrazy, they were all crazy!

    The nine ministries had thrown down one hundred million stones in this locale to lure Li Hao into the ruins. This martial university was as small as a kindergarten... Alright, he was exaggerating, but it truly was not up to the standards of a typical martial university.

    There was nothing worth investigating here apart from these mysterious power stones. Puppets could be supposedly found within the buildings; there was no treasure. He Yong couldn¡¯t be bothered with them. All that filled his mind right now were the one hundred million stones.

    ¡°Brother He, aren¡¯t you going to deliver this message to the outside world?¡± Another person looked at him with a meaningful smile. ¡°There¡¯s an energy mine here, are you going to take it for yourself?¡±

    He Yong stared back at him.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± the personughed. ¡°So long as Commander Lies fast enough, Brother He can keep a watch at the gates. Everyone is onlying in, no one is leaving and certainly no one will be stealing the treasure. All of it will remain right here!¡±

    He Yong sighed dismissively. These guys really were something!

    ¡°You guys... might not even have bone dust left of you after everything is said and done!¡± He Yong crammed a few stones in his pockets and left. Those watching him felt their eyelids twitch, but no one stopped him. The man had only taken a dozen pieces, and it was only to be expected since he was such a shameless sort.

    He Yong swiftly walked out of the school gates and stepped out of a ring of light. After returning to the outside world, he swiftly sent a message to Li Hao, then took up a spot at the entrance to wait for the young man. It was up to him now whether he came or not.

    ......

    <i>¡°One hundred million!¡±</i>

    The northern city quadrant.

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes lit up with shock and glee.<i> Holy fuck! They really were willing to pay a hefty price for this operation! One hundred million... Even though a lot of parties are participating in this, each faction has to front at least several hundred! Are none of them thinking of life after this?</i>

    Granted, these factions had stood for decades and started excavating ruins before the rise of the supernatural. However, there weren¡¯t many mines in the world. One hundred million was the equivalent of ten million stones used by the Battle Heaven Army. If converted to the equivalent of the ones that Hong Yitang had found on the ground, three of his massive pieces was equal to ten thousand regr stones. The biggest ones were thirty thousand pieces at most.

    Sources of energy had all withered away in this day and age, so where did all this energye from?

    Li Hao¡¯s face rapidly shifted through numerous emotions. He Yong had said that the stones were all piled away there without many precautions taken. The nine ministries¡¯ meaning was clear. Here they were¡ª<i>dare you take them, Li Hao?</i>

    Of course he dared!

    ¡°Martial Uncle Hong, you should go with me.¡± Li Hao looked over those gathered.

    ¡°Just you two?¡± Hou Xiaochen frowned. <i>Are you looking to die? Or do you just want to flirt with death? </i>He rose with a dispassionate look. ¡°I¡¯m going in this time as well! I don¡¯t care about core origin talismans, four or five element Arcanus, replicas of nt spirits or anything else, I just want to expand my horizons!¡±

    Yao Si opened his mouth, but didn¡¯t say anything. Li Hao wanted him to stay here and oversee the Night Watchers. They did indeed require someone to hold down the fort as well.

    ¡°Count me in!¡± Light Sword stood up.

    ¡°Then me as well!¡± A small smile appeared on Manager Yu¡¯s aloof face.

    ¡°You guys are too weak!¡± barked the young man.

    ¡°......¡± Manager Yu¡¯s expression shifted slightly, as did Light Sword furrow her brows. Hou Xiaochen remained unmoved. The young man was obviously talking to thedies, not him.

    ¡°Director Hou should also stay.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen stared at Li Hao, not saying a word or expressing anything through his eyes. <i>So... you were including me when you said that we¡¯re too weak?</i>

    He looked steadily at the young man. Since when did he, Hou Xiaochen, count as a weakling? <i>Did you see it when I killed those Arcanus a few days ago? Who has ever dared call me a weakling in my entire life? The Steppe Prince didn¡¯t dare do so when he was alive, neither did Ying Hongyue dare underestimate me when he rushed to Silver Moon!</i>

    But in the end, he was dismissed by a kid wet behind the ears! What an utter humiliation! The look in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s eyes shifted as he looked at Li Hao, then at Hong Yitang. Had Hong Yitang taught him this?

    ¡°One hundred million mysterious power stones... that¡¯s quite a hefty investment,¡± Deputy Zhou mulled over slowly. ¡°It looks like the nine ministries have truly made up their minds this time. If you make it out alive, Li Hao... then you have truly found your footing in the world. No matter what you want to do until the second awakening, there will be no one who dares run afoul of you.¡±

    If he won this time, the nine ministries would have to shrink in on themselves and quietly lick their wounds.

    ¡°Of course!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I¡¯m going to aplish the entire goal in one campaign. Why else would I be so brazen for? I¡¯m going to use my sess to break their bones and make them cower at home! I¡¯d like to see if the nine ministries will be sending out their old geezers this time!¡±

    ¡°They might not,¡± Deputy Zhou joined in theughter. ¡°These people won¡¯t rashly enter the ruins, they still need to keep the royal family under control. They should be actively restraining a royal powerhouse¡ªit might be the old Skystar King. There would be no need for this otherwise.

    ¡°The old Skystar King fought the nine ministries back in the day and ultimately lost, giving the nine ministries a chance to rise up. But a few decades ago, the old ministers quickly withdrew behind the curtain as well. It likely had something to do with a counterattack from that one...¡±

    Li Hao was hardly surprised by the new information. Was it strange that these people were still alive?

    Not at all!

    But he was rather curious now, how many of the old guard martial masters were still alive in Silver Moon? They couldn¡¯t have all died out. The nine ministries and royal family still had people alive who were older than one hundred years old! As much as Silver Moon martial masters like to fight, the oldest martial master out in the public right now was Yuan Shuo. At seventy years old, he counted as an extreme veteran.

    Were those older than him all dead?

    It wasn¡¯t a good time to ask this question. Li Hao looked at Hou Xiaochen. ¡°Director Hou, it might be inconvenient if you... go inside. Ifrge amounts of powerhouses appear, well, Martial Uncle Hong and I have broken our locks. But you...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen simply continued looking coolly at him.<i> Are you thinking too little of me?</i>

    ¡°Very well then, we¡¯ll add the director to the mix!¡± Li Hao smiled.

    Someone broke through the air, blotting out the sun with his muscr body and lofty bearing. d in long robes, Sky Sword descended like an immortal gracing the world with his presence. A broadsword on his back broke the otherworldly image that he projected.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± he said faintly with a look at Li Hao.

    ¡°......¡±

    He said nothing else or asked any questions. He simply said, ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±. It was as if he¡¯d seen through to the true essence of everything and was simply here to kill people.

    Li Hao looked back at Sky Sword. This was his third time seeing this august personage. The first time had been at the East Sea¡ªSky Sword had beat back the old duke with a single sword sword.

    The second time had been at the Skystar Sea¡ªhe¡¯d killed an Arcanus with one stroke. Three Red Moon elders had surrounded him after that, but he still killed one. It was in to see just how iparably strong he was.

    And today, he was here again without extraneous words. Let¡¯s go!

    Li Hao broke outughing. <i>Sky Sword!</i> The powerhouse who dominated the central region was here again.

    ¡°Senior Sky Sword...¡±

    ¡°Are you not going?¡± Sky Sword looked at him with confusion. ¡°You stand a chance for survival in the ruins. Outside of them... While the situation may look more simple, it will actually be filled with more danger! Once you grow too strong, you might draw attention from both the royal family and the old farts at the nine ministries. It¡¯s rather the ruins that appear to be risky, but offer a fighting chance since the enemy hasn¡¯t plumbed its depths!¡±

    Sky Sword was normally a man of few words, but he immediately touched upon the crux of the issue when he spoke. The outside world only appeared to be softer than the ruins, but the slightest misstep would result in being attacked on all sides likest time.

    While there may be great hassle inside the ruins, they could kill everyone with no one the wiser. It would be very difficult for reinforcements to show after they killed the initial expedition team.

    ¡°Then Senior Sky Sword will be part of the expedition as well!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°It¡¯s us four!¡±

    Light Sword wanted to volunteer, but Li Hao interrupted her. ¡°Let¡¯s just settle on us four. Senior Light Sword and Manager Yu should stay, I¡¯ll also have Senior Southern Fist stay. You guys should coordinate with the Demon Hunters in the outside world to prevent the unexpected from developing. Added to that Director Yao and Deputy Zhou... that should be enough!¡±

    He took out a small sk. ¡°Here are one hundred drops of Water of Life. Use these if you need to unseal yourself at some point. I probably won¡¯t be back for another five days after making this trip.¡±

    The young man then brought out another sk and gave it to Deputy Zhou. ¡°Here¡¯s another one hundred drops of Water of Life. When it reallyes down to it, and Yang Shan and Qin Lian are willing to put their lives on the line, then help them break through to Arcanus. This will be enough for them to stabilize their cultivation level!¡±

    <i>Two hundred drops!</i>

    Everyone took a sharp breath. Li Hao was being seriously generous!

    Even Deputy Zhou was surprised and looked sharply at thed. <i>How many stones does one drop of your Water of Life cost? You gave me two hundred drops before, and here¡¯s another two hundred. You must¡¯ve spent at least one hundred drops on the Demon Hunter Army earlier. That makes for a total of five hundred drops in short order.</i>

    <i>Just how rich are you?</i>

    Li Hao wanted to protest that he truly didn¡¯t have much Water of Life left, that he only had one hundred drops or so in his storage rings. He really was almost out! Although one hundred drops sounded like a lot, he needed to save some for Director Hou and Sky Sword on this expedition, to say nothing of Hong Yitang and himself. If he didn¡¯t im that one hundred million stones, this expedition would be an enormous loss!

 Chapter 767: A Grade Two Ruin (II)

    <h4>Chapter 767: A Grade Two Ruin (II)</h4>

    <i>You guys need to know that my Water of Life can be sold for one hundred thousand stones a drop! Well, I probably won¡¯t have any buyers at that price, but there will definitely be some at forty or fifty thousand stones per drop.</i>

    It appeared that Li Hao would have to wait a while longer before he could bathe in Water of Life.

    Light Sword frowned slightly, as was Manager Yu disgruntled. <i>What, do you think of us as too weak?</i> Light Sword, in particr, was discontent. She¡¯d absorbed a great deal of energy by Li Hao¡¯s side and a lot of dark energy. She¡¯d saturated eight out of the nine typical locks, and the ninth was almostplete.

    Strength such as this was hard tobat Arcanus without being unsealed, but the difference wasn¡¯t great. If she unsealed herself, she would be another Arcanus. <i>Do you think nothing of even Arcanus? </i>Light Sword looked away after some internal grumbling.

    ¡°Then... let¡¯s go, everyone!¡± Li Hao smiled at the other three.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± The four vanished like gusts of wind. A big dog behind them also vanished without a sound. Panther was getting everzier these days, but always found incredible courage at times like this. No matter how dangerous the situation was, it always followed. That was also how it always came in for a share of the spoils.

    Ever since departing Battle Heaven, the dog was present for every instance of Li Hao¡¯s closed door cultivation sessions. However, its strength seemed frozen at the level it¡¯d reached when it left the ancient city. It showed not a single hint of improvement since then.

    Four humans and one dog promptly vanished.

    ......

    <i>The western outskirts, the small mountain.</i>

    The void shattered as four humans and one dog appeared. There were people in the mountain valley¡ªHe Yong as well. They were startled by the sudden appearance, so strong! The key was, was it just these couple of people?

    The neers could sense a presence enveloping the vicinity¡ªthe presence of a mirror fragment. Someone was keeping this area under surveince!

    ......

    <i>Inside the pce.</i>

    The Skystar King leaned back in a chair, watching a projection in front of him. It depicted the city¡¯s western outskirts. He smiled as he watched the proceedings. ¡°Sky Sword, Earthturner Sword, Demon Sword, and Sickly...¡±

    Just these four? Who would¡¯ve thought that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t even bring Yao Si and the others? Was he that confident or felt that it wouldn¡¯t make a difference if they were part of the expedition?

    Some royal children were standing beneath him, including the seventh princess of the Nine Dragons Pavilion. She watched for a while before saying softly, ¡°Royal father, will the nine ministries send out their old ministers?¡±

    ¡°They will... but not that many. It could be just one or two people. Perhaps only one¡ªto oversee everything,¡± the outwardly youthful Skystar Kingughed softly. ¡°Those from Armed Forces and Administration probably won¡¯t go. They won¡¯t easily leave their posts.¡±

    ¡°Then... should we intervene?¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t need to send any powerhouses, just in case they get surrounded,¡± responded the Skystar King after some thought. ¡°Send some of the ck Armaturas to observe and take notes. It¡¯d be best if they can safely exit the ruins.¡±

    It wouldn¡¯t matter if they couldn¡¯t.

    The group nodded while the king continued chuckling. ¡°Keep watching. See who sends who after they go in. I¡¯m thinking that there will be more representatives than from the nine ministries this time!¡±

    No one made a sound as they silently watched the screen. Li Hao smiled dashingly in the image. ¡°Martial Uncle He, you shouldn¡¯t stay here for long. Head back to Skystar City, to the Demon Hunter Army. Help the others hold down the fort and await my triumphant return!¡±

    ¡°Are you sure?¡± He Yong raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    He Yong thought for a bit and nodded before breaking through the void.

    <i>Inside the pce.</i>

    ¡°Ole Nine.¡± Someone looked at the ninth prince. ¡°He Yong is an ingrate who will never give us his loyalty. He¡¯s received so much from the royal family, but still doesn¡¯t recognize us as his masters!¡±

    This ingrate had been working on Li Hao¡¯s behalftely, drawing ire from many in the royal family. He Yong had been given a lot of royal benefits during his tenure. The ninth prince even brought him on expeditions into ruins because he possessed great strength. Those were ces reserved strictly for the royal family.

    In the crowd, the ninth prince was genteel and polite. He gently bowed from the waist. ¡°Third brother is right, but Master He started teaching me martial dao when I was very young and is from Silver Moon. Now that his homnd is in danger, the enormously loyal Master He must take action. That¡¯s not to say that he¡¯s an ingrate... at the very least, he hasn¡¯t attacked anyone of the royal family.¡±

    ¡°He hasn¡¯t created any value for us either!¡±

    ¡°Enough!¡± cut off the Skystar King. ¡°Stop fighting about this, there¡¯s no point to it! All of you are brothers and sisters and should be of one mind. The world is in such chaos that it is a question of whether or not we Jiangs are still the royal family of the dynasty.¡±

    The group fell silent and continued to watch the screen. They saw He Yong leave and Li Hao¡¯s groupnd elegantly on the ground. The group sprinted for the ball of light at the end of the tunnel. Four humans and one dog immediately vanished without a trace. That instantly sent off a chain reaction of dozens of people outside surging in!

    The ball of light immediately shifted to something like a ck hole, permitting only entrance and no exit. Another person appeared at this time, snorting as he looked at a particr point in the sky.

    The Skystar King ignored his reaction, but didn¡¯t withdraw the mirror fragment either. He waited, as did those outside the cave. Various figures rushed over from all sides... Some wore masks, others were shrouded in ck robes. Some had an indistinct haze around them, and there were even monster spirits as well.

    The royal children inside the pce sucked in sharp breaths.

    ¡°The ministers of Examination, the Judiciary, and Foreign Affairs...¡± One of them identified the neers. These ministers were all here in their true appearances, and what was surprising was that the one from Internal Affairs wasn¡¯t here.

    Neither had the Ministry of Finance sent their minister. The other eight ministries had sent representatives of varying strength, with their weakest being metamorphosis. They watched the premises gravely, waiting for something.

    A prince gasped in the pce hall, ¡°Is that the lord of Buddha Mountain? Is that him?¡±

    A figure materialized in the air, his features impossible to make out as he was wreathed with golden light. The crowd quickly identified him as the lord of Buddha Mountain. He¡¯d been forced to be a supernatural in the previous great battle. Yet when such a premier martial master became a supernatural and was the lord of a divine mountain, it made it very possible that he was a three element Arcanus now.

    Another premier powerhouse appeared among the seven divine mountains. A blindingly fast existence arrived with a gust of wind¡ªthe Sky Roc mountain lord!

    ¡°The lord of Sky Roc Mountain is here too!¡±

    ¡°And... that¡¯s... people from the City of Supernaturals!¡±

    Three figures swiftlynded¡ªone woman and two men. Their true features were unconcealed and they looked very young.

    ¡°There are approximately twelve ancient aristocracies of varying sizes in the City of Supernaturals. They sent three Arcanus in one go! It looks like Li Hao killing one of themst time raised their general ire.¡±

    ¡°Have the three great organizations sent anyone?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s the Fortune King!¡± someone called out. [1]

    A figure strode through the air like he was a demon god. Expressionless and dignified, he looked at a certain spot in the air. ¡°Have you never seen me before?¡±

    In the ten court masters, the Fortune King was second to only Yama. There were even rumors that he was stronger than Yama. Who would¡¯ve thought that one of these great personages would arrive this time!

    The various royal descendants were shocked. This was... quite a stunning array of people! And they were still waiting for more! Who were they waiting for? Those from Red Moon and Celestial?

    A few more figures appeared as spection buzzed among the crowd. Like the rest, the new arrivals didn¡¯t conceal their features. Surprised, frowns crossed faces when they recognized who¡¯de from Red Moon.

    Why was it this one? She was captivating and beguiling, but they knew her to be part of Ying Hongyue¡¯s harem¡ªOrange Moon, the ck Widow. She was only a metamorphosis, what was she here for? to die?

    ¡°Ying Hongyue has made an interesting move!¡± the Skystar King suddenly spoke up.

    ¡°Royal father... Red Moon has only sent Orange Moon... They¡¯re... being careless, aren¡¯t they?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± The king looked at ck Widow in the projection and raised an eyebrow. ¡°Ying Hongyue is cing great importance on this operation!¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± No one understood, and the Skystar King wasn¡¯t forting with more.

    ¡°It¡¯s rather Celestial who doesn¡¯t think much of this venture!¡± The king shook his head after another look. ¡°They are indeed an organization of assassins¡ªthey won¡¯t exert themselves to much effort if the payment is not great enough. They¡¯ve sent only a vice pavilion master, one that¡¯s barely made it into Arcanus. It looks like he¡¯s just here to watch the proceedings.¡±

    Out of the three great organizations, Celestial was the most materialistic. They¡¯d only sent a vice pavilion master as their leader didn¡¯t seem to think much of the expedition. Perhaps she¡¯d only sent someone to see if there was any cut of the profits to be had. If not, her representative could just leave.

    The group still did not move out after the three great organizations arrived. There were a lot of powerhouses on the scene¡ªthree ministers, the Fortune King, and the lords of Buddha and Sky Roc Mountain. Such strength was iparable, but the assembly did not seem to find it enough.

    The Skystar King suddenly sat bolt upright as a person drifted down from the sky. The princes didn¡¯t recognize him at first, until one person¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°Is he the one overseeing this operation?¡±

    Seeing that the ninth prince didn¡¯t recognize the neer, the seventh princess transmitted quietly, ¡°Ole Nine, this is the old minister of the Ministry of Commerce. He rarely shows himself in public these years and wasn¡¯t present at the previous battle...¡±

    The ninth prince suddenly understood. No wonder he didn¡¯t recognize the man. All trade beneath the heavens fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Commerce, and its first minister had been a renowned merchant before helping the ministry! The Four Seas Company of the Ministry of Finance was nothingpared to him.

    These days, the Ministry of Commerce controlled nearly fifty percent of the major consortiums in the world. They held a monopoly on food, drink, housing, and transportation. The cars on the streets and houses that people lived in were overseen by this ministry. They were so much richer than the Four Seas Company and less mboyant, so they attracted less hate.

    1. King Qinguang, first of the ten Yama Lords, in charge of life and death and the fortunes of humans. ?

 Chapter 768: A Grade Two Ruin (III)

    <h4>Chapter 768: A Grade Two Ruin (III)</h4>

    ¡°Does the Ministry of Commerce have such a feud with Li Hao that it brings forth that one...?¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s probably that the others aren¡¯t willing to take the field. The Ministries of Finance and the Inspectorate don¡¯t care. Administration and Armed Forces are the main parties confining us,¡± replied the Skystar King. ¡°The ministers of Examination, Foreign Rtions, and the Judiciary are here. The only one missing is Internal Affairs¡ªI don¡¯t know what¡¯s happened with Mu Hai...¡±

    The king furrowed his brow with thought after the old minister of Commerce arrived.

    ¡°So Qian Wanhao hase. I thought it¡¯d be the old fart from Finance this time.¡±

    The Liu father and son of the Ministry of Finance had been invisibletely. It was surprising that they were nowhere to be found at this moment either. This was even harder to understand than the Inspectorate.

    As for Internal Affairs, the Skystar King absolutely understood the situation there. Fatty Mu Hai was extremely frustrated after his daughter was taken. He felt that the nine ministries and royal family had abandoned him, so he refused to be involved now. There was nothing he wanted more than for the nine ministries to suffer an enormous loss!

    ¡°All parties should be present and ounted for now!!¡± However, the king suddenly shot to his feet with a frosty look in his eyes.

    A presence red through the surroundings! All of the royal descendants blinked, looking at astonishment with someone who¡¯d appeared in the image. They weren¡¯t the only ones¡ªthose assembled were equally surprised!

    ......

    <i>The western outskirts.</i>

    Someone came striding through the air with an aloof expression. He wore yellow robes, a crown on his head, and inclined his head at Qian Wanhao. ¡°You don¡¯t mind, do you, Old Minister Qian?¡±

    ¡°Ah, the Stable Mountain Prince, this...¡± the slightly rotund old minister flicked a startled nce at the neer.

    After the death of the Steppe Prince, there were only eight princes left in the royal family. And today, the Stable Mountain Prince was present.

    His features were clear-cut and marked with a grave expression. ¡°I am here today because Hong Yitang killed my younger brother. Out of the nine princes, only the Steppe Prince and I shared the same mother. Our other royal brothers likely don¡¯t wish to make a showing, so I am the one whoes!¡±

    While the assembly was surprised, no one said a word. The nine princes of the royal family were from the same generation as the Skystar King. They were blood brothers, the sons of the previous king. As for their royal uncles... they were all gone. No one knew who¡¯d killed them.

    The previous Skystar King had given his sons their respective titles. Only the Steppe Prince and this one shared the same mother. At the same time, there were many talented members of the reigning royal generation. The current king was a brave talent and a brilliant strategist. The nine princes were premier powerhouses who¡¯d led the ck Armaturas in battles across thend back in the day.

    The Steppe Prince had established the Skystar Guards, while the Stable Mountain Prince had once led troops in victorious skirmishes throughout the world.

    ¡°Very well then, this makes all of us with the Stable Mountain Prince in attendance too,¡±ughed Qian Wanhao. With him included, there were four ministers of previous and present. There was one prince, representatives from three great organizations, three Arcanus from the City of Supernaturals, and a few other powerhouses from the other ministries...

    There were almost more Arcanus alone in this expeditionpared to thest battle. They weren¡¯t even the key¡ªthaty in the nt spirit replicas that they carried with them. Would there be an issue in killing Li Hao¡¯s quartet with the show of this force?

    Qian Wanhao, in particr, looked to the Stable Mountain Prince and Orange Moon. Although many felt that Ying Hongyue wasn¡¯t cing the proper importance on this expedition, Qian Wanhao inclined his head after taking a few more nces. He was rather stunned at how heavily Ying Hongyue had invested in this operation. So it seemed that he could no longer contain himself!

    ¡°Since we¡¯re all here, let¡¯s go inside!¡± Qian Wanhao smiled at the vortex in front of him. ¡°Demon Sword might be so excited by the sight of all of those mysterious power stones that he¡¯ll dive right into the pile. It might be hard to find him in it.¡±

    The group of thirty roared withughter and walked inside together. Quiet immediately descended upon the western outskirts. More powerhouses appeared before long, but they waited inside instead of entering the ruins. If all went well, Li Hao would be dead after this. It wouldn¡¯t take long, but no one would be emerging for five days. They had to be wary of the royal family during this time. However, a prince had gone inside. What did the Skystar King have in mind?

    ......

    <i>The royal pce.</i>

    The Skystar King remained ominously quiet until someone cursed lowly, ¡°Royal Uncle Stable Mountain... is truly... unruly!¡±

    The royal family had said that they wouldn¡¯t participate, but that prince had gone anyway. It was clear to see that he didn¡¯t think much of the Skystar King¡¯s authority.

    The king simply swept a look over the speaker, cowing the royal descendant into silence. It was a long moment before the king spoke.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, he could not understand the death of our younger brother. That is only to be expected! But some sacrifice is inevitable if the royal family is to rise again! He will understand sooner orter!¡±

    The Skystar King wasn¡¯t willing to speak further on this topic and changed the subject. ¡°Make the preparations and be ready in five days. If Li Hao does not emerge, the nine ministries are sure to act against Yao Si and the others. Let¡¯s see if Silver Moon will send more people this time...¡±

    No matter what the result was, it was to his benefit either way. When dog ate dog, there was no difference as to who died. It was best if they all ended up on the brink of death!

    ¡°Royal father, Li Hao has taken a few people of the Ancient Academy from the Nine Dragons Pavilion...¡± said the seventh princess.

    ¡°Kill them in secret if Li Hao doesn¡¯te out!¡±

    These people could not be left for the nine ministries! The Skystar King left without another word. They couldn¡¯t see anything anymore, nor was there a need to see anything.

    The assembly slowly dispersed after he left. A small tree extended mental ripples toward the king when he entered a rear garden. ¡°Have they all gone inside?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± The Skystar King nodded. ¡°I wonder how many nt spirits are present on the expedition.¡±

    ¡°Since that Li Hao dares make a move, he must have his confidence in doing so...¡± the little tree seemed to beughing. ¡°No matter what, let¡¯s wait and see first. This martial university... may not be as simple as it seems. I hope nothing else develops.¡±

    ¡°Not as simple?¡± The Skystar King furrowed his brows. ¡°It¡¯s just a very small university that¡¯s a university in name only. The Ministry of Finance didn¡¯t obtain any treasures from it in all their years of excavation...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s called the Evenround Martial University, is it not?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not certain either... There wasn¡¯t anything special about this university when it was established, but the Skystar Armymander-in-chief went in person to congratte them during theirmence ceremony. Ordinarily speaking, having a division leader in attendance was honor enough. But they had amander-in-chief!

    ¡°Not only that, but if I recall correctly, powerhouses from the eight main cities visited the university on that day as well. There were many martial universities across thend, with some branches of premier universities in Silver Moon. The most famous on Skystar Ind should¡¯ve been Skystar Martial University. The rest were small-scale institutions of learning.

    ¡°Representatives from the eight main cities came when Skystar Martial was founded, but they sent only some weaklings...¡± The little tree swayed. ¡°You must know that Skystar Ind was just a mine back in the day. All of Silver Moon Territory was just one of the human domains. I¡¯m not certain of certain things either. Perhaps... they came from the main world?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve mentioned the main world a few times.¡± The Skystar King raised an eyebrow. ¡°What do you mean by that? Isn¡¯t the entire dynasty, four seas, and eight wildernesses the entirety of the ancient civilization territory?¡±

    The little tree seemed to both beughing, jeering, and recollecting. ¡°You must know that this... was only Silver Moon Territory!¡±

    The Skystar King frowned.

    ¡°You still don¡¯t understand. Here, even the greatest of the eight families, the Lis, were but one of the emperor¡¯s families. Battle Heaven was just an auxiliary branch. Back in the day, the Human King was unparalleled in the battlefield and had countless powerhouses following his banner. Once he conquered the world, he spent one thousand years in quiet and marched on deeper expanses when he emerged...¡±

    Here, the little tree seemed apprehensive and didn¡¯t speak further. ¡°Just remember that everything is just a beginning. Only after opening the Star Gate will you witness the true ancient civilization! The eight families safeguarded the Star Gate and the Ying Hongyue you speak of likely wishes to collect the eight bloodlines for this goal...¡±

    The king listened quietly before suddenly dering, ¡°One day, We will sweep through the four corners and revitalize the glories of the ancient civilization!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The little tree didn¡¯t respond, but viewed the words contemptuously.

    <i>The glories of the ancient civilization? You? You will never know how wondrous the ancient civilization was at its peak! Silver Moon Territory alone was staffed with an army of tens of millions. Just their general alone numbered one thousand Apex! What splendor it was, what an age of magnificence! Are people like you supposed to restore it?</i>

    <i>What a joke!</i>

    It didn¡¯t say anything as, being the royal family¡¯s nt spirit, it was in a favorable position for special advantages. It¡¯d absorbed many mysterious power stones from the royal family over the years and thus had awakened a bit morepared to other nt spirits. That was how it barely managed to cross beyond the ruin and extend its mental strength here.

    It didn¡¯t care about the others, it was just slightly curious about Evenround Martial University. Its memories showed that this university was a very mysterious institution. Very few students graduated from it and most didn¡¯t stay in Silver Moon. The tiny school was said to have fewer than one thousand students in its heyday.

    <i>Are there... secrets there?</i> It wondered, but didn¡¯t didn¡¯t further converse with the king. It retracted its mental strength and returned to its ruins. There was a preeminent pce underground with a beguiling rose blooming in it.

    An old man sat in the center, cross-legged and wearing yellow robes. There seemed to be nine locks crisscrossing over him, locking him in ce. He opened his eyes when the little tree¡¯s mental strength returned.

    ¡°Can you break it?¡±

    ¡°Not for now, those two have not left!¡±

    The old man frowned and closed his eyes again.

 Chapter 769: Incredible (I)

    <h4>Chapter 769: Incredible (I)</h4>

    <i>At the same time, inside the ruins.</i>

    Li Hao strode in and scanned the tiny martial university with surprise. ¡°He Yong said that it was very small... but it really is very, very small!¡±

    There were just a few buildings scattered around the ce, as well as a wall surrounding the entire institution. The skies were dark and there were a few puppet-like sculptures standing at the school gates. Li Hao didn¡¯t find them the slightest bit imposing or stately. It was like he¡¯de to a kindergarten.

    There were people inside, but they were in hiding and unable to be seen. The young man didn¡¯t mind. He walked inside; the little tree¡¯s voice sounded inside his ear. Its mental strength extended outward and it sounded slightly frightened. ¡°Li Hao... this is not a ce to linger!¡±

    The young man raised an eyebrow, <i>why?</i>

    ¡°There is... a great terror here!¡± The little tree seemed to be shaking. ¡°I can already sense a horrifying presence. This ce... doesn¡¯t necessarilyck a master! You must be careful to not touch a single de of grass or tree here. You might be able to protect yourself since you have the bloodline of the Sword Sovereign... so you might survive if you don¡¯t touch anything here!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart quailed. <i>A great terror?</i>

    This tiny university had be a ce of great terror in the little tree¡¯s words. It hadn¡¯t been this afraid when it was in Battle Heaven!

    ¡°Is this... not a martial university?¡±

    ¡°It is...¡± The little tree gently probed the vicinity and continued in quavering tones, ¡°I don¡¯t know where the dangeres from, my father might... He might have had certain experiences here... I just have a deep seated fear from the depths of my memories... You must be careful... The danger this time may note from the outside world this time...¡±

    Li Hao instantly grew solemn. This was a nt spirit at the Apex cultivation level, but it was full of terror at its surroundings. The little tree¡¯s father had been a nt spirit guard of the imperial pce, one who¡¯d seen premier existences in its time!

    The young man looked into the school grounds again¡ªthey were quiet and peaceful. The four buildings stood firmly in the ground. Upon closer look, their arrangement rather resembled a person¡¯s eyes, nose, and lips...

    He said nothing as he swiftly walked inside. ¡°Be careful and don¡¯t touch anything here,¡± he transmitted to others. There might be great trouble here! It may not be a good thing that the Ministry of Finance has relinquished this ruin...¡±

    Sky Sword and the others jerked with surprise. No one said a word as they swiftly followed Li Hao inside.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, the Ministry of Finance.</i>

    Liu Yunqing leaned back against a chair and looked toward the western outskirts.

    ¡°Did powerhouses die in those ruins before?¡± came his father¡¯s voice.

    ¡°Why do you ask that?¡±

    ¡°I remember that you entered with Liu Yangst time, but he didn¡¯te out. Did he die in there?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°As I thought!¡± the old minister said after prolonged silence. ¡°It looks like you still weren¡¯t willing to let it go... Forget it, let¡¯s just pretend we didn¡¯t know about it. It¡¯s just a grade two ruin, so kill whoever knows about Liu Yang!¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± Liu Yunqing smiled. Li Hao, the nine ministries, royal family, three great organizations... Li Hao was the culprit for the demise of the Four Seas Company, but none of the rest were anything good! They could all go to hell this time! It would be best if they all died!

    A grade two ruin? It was a junkyard from theyout, but they would know soon enough how horrifying it was!

    He stood up with a chuckle and looked at the Inspectorate, then in the direction of Military Affairs and Administration. What a pity that these three hadn¡¯t sent representatives, especially the Inspectorate. Not a single person from that ministry had gone. What a damned pity!

    ......

    <i>Evenround University.</i>

    Li Hao gingerly picked his way through the campus grounds. The ignorant were fearless and the more one knew, the more cautious one became. It was a sensible reaction.

    In the past, he would¡¯ve thought that there was nothing to be afraid of for the ancient civilization since it was long dead. But with living ancient nt spirits in the world and Director General Wang saying that Apex could tear through the void to travel thousands of kilometers, Li Hao knew that he was nothingpared to the ancient civilization. He was just a minion strong enough to be a Silver Armor troop leader. In the ancient civilization, he was just fit to oversee one thousand people.

    Of course, he wouldn¡¯t unduly belittle himself. His path had just started and there was no rush. At the same time, he well knew the concept of reverence. It was better to be more prudent when it came to the ancient civilization.

    Li Hao quickly threaded past the four buildings and arrived at the rear garden. Or was it better to call it a yground? Whatever it was, it was filled with mysterious power stones. No one had touched them and there was no need to. To the victor went all the spoils. It wasn¡¯t as if these stones would grow legs and run away. If he took them and lost, his corpse would ultimately belong to someone else too.

    A dense current of energy wafted out of the packed pile of stones. Li Hao¡¯s heart shook. <i>So many! </i>The little tree sensed it as well and trembled.

    ¡°So many...¡± Its mental ripples eximed. It almost wanted to emerge and fall into the pile! But it was hesitant as it was a very weak descendant of the nt spirits. Although it¡¯d paid a great price to sever half of its core origin, an action that most nt spirits wouldn¡¯t dare do, this ce gave it a great sense of fear.

    As the group considered whether or not to leave with the riches, various presences rose from behind them. The powerhouses in the outside world had entered the ruins. Others concealed in the surroundings ran out of their hiding ces and quickly convened with the new arrivals. At the same time, various mental ripples extended through the surroundings.

    ¡°You¡¯re still alive, big one?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re alive as well, Redwood, why would I be dead?¡± The nt spirits that could barely see each other in regr times greeted each other. They weren¡¯t located in the same ruins as there were many such ces on Skystar Ind. But since they were all part of the ind, they were familiar with each other. Although it wasn¡¯t their primary bodies meeting each other again after countless eons, and there wasn¡¯t much core origin powering their replica, it was still an emotional reunion.

    New Martial... had passed!

    Who would¡¯ve thought that an era as powerful as New Martial woulde to pass as well? Who would¡¯ve thought that the domineering Human King, conqueror of all he saw and eventually one who marched on the universe, would disappear? It was unfathomable!

    It was so hard to believe that it felt more like one¡¯s faith copsing. When Silver Moon Territory was fully sealed away and those who stayed behind either died or scattered, the nt spirits suffered untold blows to their psyche to watch everything around them enter the end times.

    New Martial was no more!

    The eight guardian families were no more in this vast territory and the magnificent armies that once filled it were dispersed as well. Countless powerhouses had disappeared, and New Martial became Ancient Martial. Just like in the days of the celestial emperor, the ancient times that the Human King spoke of had be part of the past. The heavyweights that crafted the world were lost in the river of time.

    History repeated itself now, and New Martial was no more.

    The nt spirits were emotional over the changes, but also felt some estrangement between them. They were all in the same camp during New Martial, yet that no longer held true after the end of New Martial. They had been quiet for countless years; today was different.

    Time was the greatest enemy.

    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s not speak of the past. The past is in the past. The one they want to kill this time is the heir of the Sword Sovereign...¡±

    The nt spirits fell silent when they heard this. The heir of the Sword Sovereign! Who would dare do anything to him if this was in times past? But the river of time had flowed onward and New Martial didn¡¯t even exist anymore, they weren¡¯t afraid of this course of action!

    Who knew how many generations of heirs the Sword Sovereign had cycled through? How many of them had died? There was no sign of the Sword Sovereign to be seen. Perhaps his name evoked fear in the beginning, but that reverence was no longer there.

    ¡°I can smell energy stones...¡±

    ¡°Do not fight me for this abundance, everyone. Once I recover my strength and the outside world is stabilized, I will help you all recover. We must know that our enemy is not each other, but those guys in the central region!¡±

    The central region in their eyes was not the current territory of the dynasty, but Silver Moon. The province was the central region of the Silver Moon Territory.

    As the nt spirits perceived the dense energy, one of them suddenly transmitted, ¡°Is there... something wrong... with this ce?¡±

    The other nt spirit replicas were puzzled by its question and quickly probed the surroundings. They didn¡¯t find anything majorly wrong.

    ¡°Have we... heard of this ce before?¡± another nt spirit asked with puzzlement.

    ¡°I think so... Apparently a powerhouse visited Skystar Ind back in the day and established Evenround University. They didn¡¯t interact much with the residents or defending troops of the ind. That was in the past, however. How many years has it been since?¡±

    They were antiques, every single one of them. Everyone knew who everyone else was. There were no living nt spirits or monster spirits in this ce. The humans that once staffed it were all dead. Even if there were some formations or others left, what was there to fear? Not to mention, it was the nt spirits¡¯ replicas that were present. They wouldn¡¯t truly die here.

    ¡°I can forgo the energy stones, but I want that heir¡¯s sword...¡± a nt spirit transmitted.

    ¡°You¡¯ve got quite the appetite!¡±

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid you¡¯ll choke on it!¡±

    ¡°The heir¡¯s sword may not be the Sword Sovereign¡¯s personal sword. It may just be an imitation. Do you think this person could use the real sword? Can any of us use it, to say nothing of anyone else?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say as the Sword Sovereign goes through swords very rapidly. He might have used this one before or discarded it. No matter what, it is not a mundane item.¡±

    Everyone knew that the Sword Sovereign used swords. It was mentioned in some legends that each stroke led to the death of an enemy and the shattering of a sword. This urrence happened more than once!

    The young man¡¯s sword might be from the Sword Sovereign, it might be an imitation. No matter what, the eight heritage weapons were all highly sought after. To the nt spirits, the eight families were invincible existences.

    Mental strength filled the air as the nt spirits conversed among themselves. The other powerhouses could sense an undercurrent of conversation, but didn¡¯t say anything.

 Chapter 770: Incredible (II)

    <h4>Chapter 770: Incredible (II)</h4>

    Qian Wanhao could vaguely see Li Hao and the others when he looked inside the campus grounds. ¡°Be careful,¡± he transmitted. ¡°Although we are highly assured of sess, we also need to be on guard against their counterattacks. Li Hao must have some aces up his sleeves if he darede inside!¡±

    He took out a mirror fragment and flung it into the air. A barrier manifested around the group. The ministers of Examinations, Foreign Rtions, and the Judiciary also flung out mirror fragments. The fragments hovered in the four directions, raising four barriers. Just one alone at the Steadfast Duke¡¯s manor had held off a metamorphosis attack. There were four this time!

    Even an Arcanus would have to pay a steep price to break the barriers, not to mention there were so many powerhouses present to prevent that possibility.

    The old minister of the Ministry of Commerce was a highly cautious individual.

    ¡°When we see them in a moment, don¡¯t say anything,¡± he transmitted. ¡°Throw out all of the core origin talismans, supernatural talismans, and energy bombs we have. Kill one or two of them first before anything else!¡±

    There was no need to converse with Li Hao and the rest. There was only one goal¡ªkill them!

    ¡°If they don¡¯t die, the three great organizations will take care of Hong Yitang, the lords of Buddha and Sky Roc Mountain will face Hou Xiaochen. The Stable Mountain Prince and other ministers, as well as the City of Supernaturals will handle Sky Sword and Panther. Us four ministries will take care of Li Hao!¡±

    No one had a differing opinion. Of the four, Li Hao may be the most difficult target. The others were fine. Everyone present on the expedition was a powerhouse. Apart from the Inspectorate not sending a single person, even the Ministry of Finance had sent a vice minister. His main purpose was to witness the death of Li Hao and hisrades.

    ¡°Don¡¯t split up, they might ambush us one by one. Don¡¯t give them any opening to do so...¡± Despite their clear guarantee of sess, the old minister continued to issue words of caution, hoping that everyone would ce more importance on their uing operation. He did all he could to prevent them from unexpectedly suffering a loss.

    ......

    <i>Up ahead.</i>

    Sky Sword furrowed his brows and looked around sternly. He could see the group of people approaching them. ¡°Three element Arcanus... there¡¯s at least four of them. Qian Wanhao... might even be a four element Arcanus!¡±

    And they hadn¡¯t even seen the nt spirits yet.

    Sky Sword looked at Li Hao with a brewing headache. He¡¯d been... a little careless in following the young man in. Li Hao didn¡¯t look like he¡¯d prepared anything!

    <i>I thought you¡¯d arranged for a massive group of people inside the ruins. But... there¡¯s really nothing here!</i>

    Li Hao said nothing. He looked into the distance with eyes zing like torches. The world spun in them. He could see something even through the four mirror shards. There were balls of piercing light within them, but nothing he could see about core origin power. He turned his attention to the first ball of light.

    The first one¡ªQian Wanhao. Li Hao saw straight through the person, through his zing hot light. ¡°Incredible, he¡¯s a heavyweight of the metal, wood, water, and earth elements!¡±

    It was also clear to see that this wasn¡¯t the minister¡¯s natural state; he¡¯d probably forcefully ascended through paying a great price recently. His water and earth elements were noticeably unstable. Qian Wanhao had likely been a two element Arcanus prior. Who knew how much he¡¯d expended to pull himself up to four elements?

    Continued ascension was possible if these people had fortified organs. They would just need a lot of Water of Life. The nt spirits were undoubtedly making a killing off them.

    Li Hao looked at the lord of Buddha Mountain next. ¡°Three elements¡ªmetal, earth, and fire!¡± He then looked at the massive bird from Sky Roc Mountain before turning his nce to Panther. ¡°That one seems a lot stronger than you...¡±

    Panther ignored him and stared at the bird. Li Hao scanned all of the powerhouses, but did a double take and looked back at Orange Moon. He hadn¡¯t paid much attention to her because he knew she was weak. But now... he frowned faintly.

    Orange Moon¡¯s strength was mediocre. Her ball of light ced her as a new Arcanus. Who knew how much good stuff she¡¯d eaten as it still didn¡¯t seem very stable. At the same time, there was something that pierced the eye on her. What was it?

    Li Hao could also sense some threat from it. One had to know that he wasn¡¯t threatened even when he looked at Qian Wanhao. It represented that those four Arcanus were no match for him.

    <i>Is it something from Ying Hongyue? </i>The young man viewed Orange Moon with more wariness. <i>What an investment!</i>

    Li Hao then looked at Hong Yitang, finding the man to be as calm as ever. He happened to be looking across the way, confused by who he saw. Li Hao followed his gaze to find that he was looking at people from the City of Supernaturals. The young man didn¡¯t know any of them, but Sky Sword seemed to be familiar with their style.

    Befuddled, Hong Yitang transmitted to Sky Sword, ¡°Are those from the City of Supernaturals?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    ¡°Do you find them somewhat familiar?¡±

    It was Sky Sword¡¯s turn to be puzzled. <i>Familiar? </i>He looked at them closely for a while and didn¡¯t find them so, but he stretched his senses toward them before ncing sharply at Hong Yitang. <i>What a sharp perception!</i>

    ¡°They¡¯re a bit familiar... that feeling... Is it the group that appeared in the Silver Moon martial world back in the day? They¡¯re the same people?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    ¡°Who?¡± Li Hao was curious.

    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t know them if I told you,¡± Sky Sword responded.

    ¡°It¡¯s just some gossip,¡± Hou Xiaochen transmitted with a smile. ¡°And not major gossip. Some outsiders appeared in the Silver Moon martial world one day, calling themselves ancient martial families. They wanted to take back some of Silver Moon¡¯s martial secrets, saying that it was their heritage. After that, many of them were beaten to death and quite a few crippled as well. It was a very long time ago.¡±

    <i>I see!</i>

    Li Hao promptly lost interest. He thought there was something important involved.

    ¡°Silver Spear of Silver Moon¡¯s Three Spears¡ªLiu Long¡¯s father¡ªdied to them. The Nine Forged Force was one of the secret arts they wanted to take back. Silver Spear suffered seven challenges in one day and used the Nine Forged Force each time. He harmed his foundations then and eventually sumbed to his injuries.

    ¡°But it was above board sparring, despite the suspicion that they were wearing him down through sheer attrition. It was Silver Spear himself who wished to take the battles, and no one said anything after he won them.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s supplemental exnation pointed out that these people had something to do with Silver Gun¡¯s death. But they didn¡¯t break the rules, so Silver Moon¡¯s martial world didn¡¯t see vengeance on the outsiders after Silver Spear died. They¡¯d yed by the rules, which was all that was important.

    ¡°Then this time... it¡¯s against the rules to mob us. I¡¯ll beat a few of them to death straight off the bat in a bit!¡±

    Hou Xiaochenughed, the boy was truly too arrogant. Indeed, arrogant. To posture like this even now confused Hou Xiaochen. Where did Li Hao get his confidence from?

    The young man looked around them and backed away to a clearing behind them to put more space between him and the buildings. What if they identally summoned a great terror because of the ruckus they kicked up in breaking things throughout the school?

    ¡°Let¡¯s not wait for them... Director Hou should open with the Broken Will Spear when they arrive and break the defenses of the mirror fragments! Senior Sky Sword can suppress them with your broadsword. You guys can attack them together! Martial Uncle Hong, you and I should choose one person each. Who are you choosing?¡±

    Hong Yitangughed and transmitted, ¡°I choose the Stable Mountain Prince! He seems to have just be an Arcanus and should be at least three elements. I¡¯m more confident when ites to martial masters.¡±

    The Stable Mountain Prince was likely a martial master too, one who¡¯d thrown everything out the window by his decision to be an Arcanus.

    Hong Yitang did not choose the lord of Buddha Mountain. Thetter¡¯s offensive strength was average, but his defensive abilities were domineering enough.

    Li Hao swept a gaze over the iing opponents. ¡°I¡¯ll choose the guy from the Ministry of the Judiciary. He really hates me, so I¡¯ll send him on his way first!¡±

    They had to ensure that they would kill with one strike! Otherwise, their first blow wouldn¡¯t be that impressive.

    Hou Xiaochen frowned at the two choosing targets like they were dividing looted treasure. On what basis did these two have to be so... cocky! Hu Mingfa of the Judiciary was also a three element Arcanus. The Stable Mountain Prince was also a three element Arcanus.

    To be honest, Hou Xiaochen felt that he wouldn¡¯t be able to fight them if he didn¡¯t unseal himself. <i>The kid¡¯s just outright discussing killing them with one blow! It¡¯s one thing for Li Hao to be this cocky, but Earthturner Sword is as well?</i>

    Sky Sword simply looked at them without a word. Since Li Hao had proposed such a n... then let them proceed ording to his words. No one would be getting away if anything went wrong.

    ......

    Qian Wanhao and the rest were on high alert and finding the situation odd. Across the way, Li Hao¡¯s group was neither evading or hiding from them. They were simply just standing there. Was this... direct frontalbat?

    The more their targets were thus, the more wary he was. He was old and no longer possessed the brave ferocity of his youth. In contrast, he was much more reliable and dependable now.

    ¡°Be careful!¡± he reminded. Everyone nodded solemnly. These guys... were crazy, were they not?

    The two sides continuously drew near each other. Five hundred meters, four hundred meters... This kind of distance could be closed in the blink of an eye to powerhouses, yet Qian Wanhao and the others moved even slower. Meanwhile, the Sky Roc King from the monster spirits grew impatient.

    It wasn¡¯t just here to kill Li Hao¡ªit was here more to secure certain resources. It didn¡¯t have much contact with nt spirits and was hoping to reach an agreement with a nt spirit or a ministry. The hemming and hawing from these humans were getting on its nerves. Their side was so powerful! Was there a need to be thus?

    This Qian Wanhao was losing all his nerve in his old age!

    ¡°Minister Qian, this king possesses a strong body. If you are worried about something unexpected happening, then this king will strike first. All of you can attack after me. This king will easily take down a mere Li Hao, even if he¡¯s set foot into three element Arcanus!¡±

    Qian Wanhao was taken aback. <i>You... um... so monster spirits are really not afraid of death, huh? Are you really not concerned that Li Hao may have something up his sleeves with how he¡¯s reacting? But... where else will I find such a good proposal?</i>

    He¡¯d wanted to just outright lob spirit origin talismans, but it was best if there was a distraction preupying the group. There was one now¡ªa major monster spirit was willing to take the lead. Why should he refuse?

 Chapter 771: Incredible (III)

    <h4>Chapter 771: Incredible (III)</h4>

    ¡°Very good, then we¡¯ll have to trouble the Sky Roc King. Once this seeds, we¡¯ll all sell some Water of Life at a low price to the king!¡±

    Amusement appeared in the bird¡¯s eyes. Did they think it was that careless?

    That wasn¡¯t the truth; it was simply confident that its defenses wouldn¡¯t be easily pierced through. It was also a bird with extreme speed¡ªnothing would happen to it!

    What it wanted was a promise like Qian Wanhao had just given. It barreled out of the defensive circle and vanished in the blink of an eye. It was enormous, but it was so fast that the group couldn¡¯t see its shadow.

    Too fast!

    Li Hao was ready to take action when he blinked with astonishment. <i>Fucking hell! </i>Where did this foole from to wreck his ns? It was just as his teacher said, ns were useless when the strong fought. Everything was a function of adjusting to the circumstances. Change easily rendered all arrangements null and void.

    <i>I had it all perfectly nned out...</i>

    His ideas were suddenly in shambles! Li Hao set his jaw with some fury. A red light shed through his eyes, looking onto the Sky Roc King hurtling through the sky. It was so fast that its sharp ws were very close to the young man. Li Hao red at it with irritation.

    ¡°Are all monster spirits this idiotic??¡±

    A sword manifested in the air and three written characters hovered in the void in an unexpected fashion. Across the way, Qian Wanhao blinked. The ultimate art of Tranquil Star? It was... very strong, but only rtively speaking. It was useless against true powerhouses as modern times were different from when the method was conceived.

    ¡°Lifeless!¡± The characters vanished into the sword. Li Hao struck!

    Fire, water, wind, and thunder erupted soundlessly. Four elements exploded in the blink of an eye, alongside a domineering aura!

    The sword traveled so quickly that the Sky Roc King didn¡¯t sense any energy ripples, but it did register the threat of death. The look in its eyes shifted and a white bone appeared in front of it. Indeed, a bone!

    It was from the skeleton of the ancient monster spirit and durable beyondpare. This was one of the reasons why the bird king was so confident. Its speed was incredible, as were the bone¡¯s defensive capabilities. It whisked out the bone even faster than it was traveling, but Li Hao vanished in the next instant. A prodigious threat emanated over his head.

    <i>ng!</i>

    The sky roc screeched a metallic cry. Before the powerhouses of the four directions could react, Li Hao shed by like a shadow and pierced through the massive golden head with his sword!

    He vanished; when he reappeared, he was already mming his sword down on the people in front of him.

    ¡°Kill!!¡± roared the young man. Hong Yitang and the others immediately appeared and made their moves as well. Light faded away from the Sky Roc King¡¯s eyes as its ponderous body mmed to the ground. A dog opened its mouth and swallowed the enormous monster spirit king whole; because thetter was dead!

    Panther had been preparing to go against its own kind. Who would¡¯ve thought that something would be wrong with this bird¡¯s brain and it¡¯d be the first to run out! Li Hao ran it through the head with one stroke. It was no use being strong if one¡¯s intelligence was zero!

    The Sky Roc King was very strong¡ªa three element Arcanus and the indomitable monster spirit body, plus the bone of a major monster spirit as a shield... Regr people truly wouldn¡¯t have been able to kill it. There weren¡¯t many in the world who could manage the deed.

    However, their ranks did not include Li Hao with Steris.

    A four element Arcanus was much stronger than a three element, not to mention that Steris was indestructible. It was only that Li Hao hadn¡¯t brought his weapon down on the ancient bone, or that would¡¯ve split as well!

    Panther morphed into a golden dog and swallowed the bird king with a single gulp. It ran to the rear instead of killing people. A massive gobbleter saw countless mysterious power stones stream into its gut.

    These items had to be stowed as well. If not, something unexpected might happen. Panther¡¯s intuition told it that the stones could not remain here. Its senses showed that something seemed to have sucked out some of the energy out of the stones.

    There were so many stones here that the others didn¡¯t sense anything, but Panther was exceedingly sensitive to energy. It had a hunch that something may truly awaken in this ce if the situation continued¡ªnow that would be terrifying!

    Therefore, Panther did not choose to kill people in this moment. Its strength was decent, but those in the battlefield were enough. It wanted to take all of the mysterious power stones with it. However much it was, every little bit counted. Being toote to arrive might mean that nothing was left.

    ......

    <i>Across the way.</i>

    Qian Wanhao and the rest simply saw the scene sh before their eyes before the Sky Roc King disappeared, Li Hao struck, disappeared, and then reappeared again. The Sky Roc King, one of the overlords of the seven divine mountains, was dead when the dust settled!

    Qian Wanhao was highly experienced and ready in his age. ¡°Throw your items!¡± he shouted.

    Those who reacted fast enough threw out their supernatural and core origin talismans, evenrge sums of supernatural bombs. At least two dozen potent sources of strength exploded in the blink of an eye.

    Li Hao, however, disappeared as thunder and lightning! Fire, water, wind, and thunder circted over his sword. He struck and shattered the defensive dome created by the four mirror fragments. As Qian Wanhao and the rest gaped with shock, a man appeared in front of them¡ªHong Yitang, not Li Hao!

    ¡°Sky turns!¡±

    A ¡®sword¡¯ character appeared with the light of thunder, fire, earth, and metal sparkling around it. Heaven and earth overturned as the world shifted beneath everyone¡¯s feet. Their footing grew unstable as Hong Yitang disappeared from view.

    Within the crowd, the Stable Mountain Prince stared dumbly at the hole in his chest and raised his head to look at Earthturner Sword. This was just like what his younger brother had experienced! Hong Yitang had done the same that day, running through the Steppe Prince¡¯s chest with a single stroke. That marked the end of the glorious prince who¡¯d dominated the age, and he repeated his actions today!

    Qian Wanhao had said that everyone would be safer together¡ªthe prince very much agreed with the notion. He wasn¡¯t even standing at the very front, but once that stroke overturned heaven and earth, he¡¯d been flipped upside down and suddenly appeared in the very front of the group. It¡¯s like he¡¯d run to his death!

    The Stable Mountain Prince didn¡¯t have time to deploy his mighty strength before being run straight though. He stared dumbly ahead, life fading away from his eyes. Was this what his younger brother had felt before his death? <i>Perhaps I really shouldn¡¯t havee today...</i>

    ¡°Impossible...¡± Qian Wanhao couldn¡¯t believe his eyes. Roaring, he let loose with four elements. A weapon that looked like a gold coin appeared in his hand and blocked Li Hao¡¯s swing with a loud crash.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Qian Wanhao took a step back, Li Hao stumbled a small step back. Rumble echoed behind them as explosions detonated continuously! Hou Xiaochen and Sky Sword shouted, erupting with force and rushing out. When the dust cleared, they saw that Li Hao had forced back Qian Wanhao with one blow and Earthturner Sword killed the Stable Mountain Prince with one stroke!

    The two pulled up short, what was going on here? Had two premier powerhouses died, just like that? They were yet to finish collecting their senses when Qian Wanhao roared, ¡°Please aid us, nt spirits!¡±

    He flung out a storage ring that exploded¡ªan action followed by many others. Everything was happening too quickly! Two on their side were dead before they even knew what happened!

    As storage ring after storage ring exploded, mental strength flooded the premises. Shadowy forms filled the air. There was a rose, a massive willow tree, a sunflower, a bush of thistles or brambles, and something that looked like a coconut tree.

    Five nt spirits were on the scene. Their transparent roots extended into the world, seeming to both be deploying abilities and simply absorbing energy from the surroundings.

    The nt spirits weren¡¯t in a hurry to take action. ¡°It¡¯s nice to get a breath of fresh air since we¡¯re here.¡± Mental ripples traveled through the air. ¡°Why hide away and be reluctant to expend this bit of core origin power...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true!¡± Laughter rang through the air as a redwood tree and another massive tree emerged. That made for seven nt spirits present, hailing from the nine ministries apart from the Inspectorate and Finance. Although Mu Hai wasn¡¯t present from Internal Affairs, he still sent someone with a replica of his ministry¡¯s nt spirit.

    Seven terrifying beings filled the air with domineering presences, instantly surpassing thete Sky Roc King and even the four element Qian Wanhao. The man heaved a sigh of relief!

    They¡¯d truly invested a great deal to kill Li Hao¡ªseven nt spirits! These nt spirits were just core origin replicas, with some not even worthy of being called replicas since they were so weak. Each one of them, however, possessed the strength of five elements. Any one of them was an invincible existence in this day and age. Seven had appeared all at once!

    Even Qian Wanhao felt that they were using a butcher¡¯s knife for cows to kill chickens. But thankfully they¡¯d overestimated Li Hao, resulting in such a thorough mobilization of their resources. They might truly have suffered some losses otherwise. The kid was terrifying! Both he and Hong Yitang were four element Arcanus and they could still use the auras of a martial master. That was unbelievable!

    Qian Wanhao rxed with the assurance of victory.

    Within the crowd, Hu Mingfa from the Ministry of the Judiciary shouted, ¡°Li Hao, do you think you¡¯re still in the outside world? You¡¯ve hidden yourself well, but so what of it?¡±

    A four element Arcanus!

    No one had imagined that possibility; they thought he was a three element at most. But here he was, much stronger than he anticipated. This rate of improvement was horrifying!

    Various expressions flickered rapidly through the faces of the powerhouses here to kill Li Hao. The lord of Buddha Mountain, in particr, looked on gravely. He was here for revenge, but who knew that this would be what awaits them? Thank goodness they were fully prepared, or they would¡¯ve truly lost everything.

    The expedition was so strong, but Li Hao¡¯s group had killed two of theirs right beneath their noses!

 Chapter 772: Incredible (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 772: Incredible (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao and Hong Yitang swiftly retreated. In the air, seven nt spirits covered the earth and sky. The mental strength churned through the vicinity¡ªjust their presences alone were sufficient to force those beneath Arcanus to their knees.

    The young man watched with a grave look. These were seven premier Arcanus, truly elite powerhouses. Each of them felt stronger than him, but he was no ordinary four element Arcanus. Were ancient nt spirits with only a little bit of core origin really this strong? Could the little tree truly take them all by itself?

    Even Li Hao found his confidence faltering in this moment. He was just hesitant, not afraid. He wondered if he should try coalescing his fifth element. The young man wasn¡¯t ready to pin his hopes on the little tree.

    ¡°The heir of the Sword Sovereign?¡±

    ¡°He is... so weak. How is he worthy of being the heir?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t say that, it¡¯s been endless millennia since the Sword Sovereign disappeared. One hundred thousand years have psed since New Martial, haven¡¯t there?¡±

    ¡°Just about, almost...¡±

    ¡°Who knows how many generations it¡¯s been? There is no bloodline to speak of. It¡¯s amazing that any heritage has been passed on.¡± The nt spirits chattered leisurely to each other, as if there was nothing to worry about.

    Indeed, there was nothing to worry about since they were invincible in this era. Even if their replicas onlymanded one tenth of their strength¡ªand perhaps not even that¡ªit was sufficient to eliminate the human and his group.

    The young man watched, unfazed. He was just about to test their strength when the little tree¡¯s voice sounded in his ear. ¡°Let me, but I have a favor to ask... Their core origin is very suited for my nourishment after they are dead. I don¡¯t want the mysterious power stones, can you give me all of their core origin instead?¡±

    That was seven nt replicas! The little tree was trembling from excitement. Its decision had proven to be correct! Sending half of its core origin with Li Hao had been the right choice to make. The human was such a troublemaker, but he created the perfect trouble. The little tree wouldn¡¯t be a match for a single one of them if they were on nt spirit territory, to say nothing of all seven.

    But here, there were only the core origin replicas of the seven nt spirits. There was very little core origin in these replicas, whereas the little tree had sunk half of its core origin in its replica. As they said, only when one went through the pain of investment was there a harvest.

    ¡°Alright!¡± Li Hao agreed without even thinking about it.

    A little tree abruptly appeared in the air as soon as he agreed. It grew with the wind, resembling a willow tree, but also a por tree. It erged with the breeze, causing the seven conversing nt spirits to jerk with astonishment.

    Thousands of branches stabbed into the void as a domineering presence rose!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    ¡°Who are you?!¡± shrieks rang out. The little tree didn¡¯t answer and continued to send its branches through the air.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Enormous explosions shook the world. Blood streamed out of the seven orifices of the weaklings that were present to round out the expedition numbers. They emitted ghastly screams before their heads exploded!

    Li Hao¡¯s quartet also stepped back with shock! Qian Wanhao couldn¡¯t believe his eyes!

    ¡°How... is this possible...¡±

    The nt spirits of Silver Moon couldn¡¯t possibly awaken! Silver Moon¡¯s nt spirits were very strong and weren¡¯t the only ones that needed energy in the province. The ruins required significant quantities as well, which resulted in the nt spirits not absorbing enough in the first awakening. Therefore, the nine ministries had guessed that there was a ny-nine percent chance that Li Hao didn¡¯t possess a nt spirit replica.

    It wouldn¡¯t be too powerful even if he did. The nt spirits wouldn¡¯t sever too much of their core origin since they¡¯d just awoken. But... somehow... this moment showed a different reality. It was clear to see that the seven nt spirits in the air were somewhat intangible and illusory, but the little tree was more solid.

    Another loud explosion sounded as Qian Wanhao grappled with his shock. The little tree¡¯s branches had entwined around the rose. Thetter shook with fury and unwillingness to ept its fate!

    ¡°You are not a nt of New Martial, how dare you kill my replica! When I fully reawaken...¡± Its mental ripples shifted violently. It could tell that the opponent wasn¡¯t from New Martial, it was too inexperienced!

    This was a nt spirit from ater age, one exceedingly bold as it might have severed a significant portion of its core origin for its replica! It would be either crippled or dead if it lost this replica. How did Li Hao have such an equally crazed nt spirit by its side? Could nt spirits be such lunatics as well?!

    The little tree did respond, it crushed the rose shadow out of existence with a dull roar!

    There was suddenly one less nt spirit.

    The bush of bristles and thorns shook with shock. ¡°What a boldtter day descendant. You just set foot into Apex, but you dare sever half of your core origin...¡±

    ¡°Your death is guaranteed once our main bodies sense that you¡¯ve destroyed our replicas!¡± The other nt spirits erupted with formidable strength. Several great daos intertwined in the void with daunting momentum!

    ¡°What a bunch of weeds,¡± came the little tree¡¯s mental ripples. ¡°How dare the likes of you dismiss me?¡±

    An image of a pce shaped like a cat manifested in the air! It was just a shadow, but it drew immediate, stark fear from the nt spirits.

    ¡°The imperial pce?!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The image descended with finality, crushing the bush out of existence.

    ¡°An envoy of the imperial pce... No... that¡¯s impossible! The imperial pce has vanished and there is none in Silver Moon...¡± A nt spirit gibbered with fear! How was there an imperial pce here?!

    The master of the imperial pce wasn¡¯t a regr emperor¡ªit was one simply referred to as the Imperial Majesty, not so-and-so emperor or so-and-so highness. There was only one Imperial Majesty!

    That one was one who could not be described because it was said that its powers of perception exceeded that of the ancient Human King¡¯s. Anyone who mentioned its name would be sensed. It was so terrifying that it could snuff out your soul from countless spacetimes away!

    No one dared mention its name, it was an existence more horrifying than the Eternal Sword Sovereign...

    ¡°The imperial pce always exists! My kind safeguards the pce!¡± the little tree dered brusquely. Who did these weeds think they were patronizing?! So what if their main bodies awoke? It couldn¡¯t stand up to them, but they would first need to have a chance to tell their main bodies what had happened!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The imperial pce suppressed the area! Its presence was so immense that it was suffocating. The barest corner of the imperial pce that was on disy was just a projection, a manifestation of core origin. All the same, it was unfathomably strong.

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    Another nt spirit exploded. The survivors howled with indignity and countless branches shot through the void, aimed at the little tree. They would all die if this continued!

    The little tree had portioned out so much core origin that its replica was second to only Apexes. It was further more horrifying since it was armed with a projection of the imperial pce! At the same time, the little tree wasn¡¯t strong, so it was a bit of a stretch for it to be manipting this corner of the pce.

    In that case, the attackers stood a chance!

    ¡°What are you standing around for, Qian Wanhao?? Attack! Kill them! Help us!!¡± roared a big tree shadow.

    This finally jerked the rest out of their reverie. They stared at Li Hao¡¯s quartet¡ªin fact, both sides had been stunned by the nt spirits and forgotten to attack each other. Now that they met each other¡¯s eyes, Qian Wanhao shouted, ¡°Kill them! Use everything we¡¯ve got or don¡¯t think of making it out alive!¡±

    Orange Moon was likewise stunned in the crowd. So this was the case! This was why Li Hao was so confident! He had a replica of a nt spirit who¡¯d severed a great portion of its core origin. It wielded the strength of a six, seven element Arcanus!

    Five elements were the peak of Arcanus. When one reached six elements, that made one a core origin cultivator in the ancient civilization, one who set foot on the path of core origin dao. Seven elements absolutely rivaled an Apex.

    <i>I see! </i>Orange Moon understood. She knew Li Hao¡¯s trump card now. A scarlet shadow slowly floated upward in her body and a certain presence strengthened inexorably. Orange Moon¡¯s face drained of color and she furiously swallowed Water of Life. A disquieting shadow appeared on her face¡ªsomewhat maniacal, somewhat calm.

    <i>Li Hao, it¡¯s your doom today!</i>

    Li Hao was about to attack anew when he suddenly stopped and looked at Orange Moon. His expression stilled, then slowly transformed to fury and rage!

    Was that... Zhang Yuan?

    Was it?

    No... there was more than one face there! A ck shadow was changing over Orange Moon¡¯s face as numerous faces shed through the darkness. He even... saw his parents¡¯ faces!

    Li Hao closed his eyes. There was only madness in them when he opened his eyes again!

    <i>Ying Hongyue! I¡¯m going to kill you!</i>

    ¡°DIE!!¡± A sword pierced through the firmament, vaporizing the Celestial powerhouse that was in front of him. ¡°Martial Uncle Hong, help me hold off the others! I¡¯m going to kill her!¡±

    His presence raged out of control! A character spontaneously formed¡ª¡®metal¡¯¡ªand erupted with power!

    <strong>RUMBLE!!</strong>

    Li Hao swallowed a dozen drops of Water of Life. He took more when it proved not enough!

    Arge quantity of Water of Life surged into his body. It continued to break, but he could maintain it for now. The four characters of ¡®water¡¯, ¡®fire¡¯, ¡®metal¡¯, and ¡®exterminate¡¯ floated to the fore. The power of five elements red as Li Hao stalked toward Orange Moon with sword in hand.

    Her face gradually solidified into a person, a familiar face.

    ¡°Ah Hao, my best friend!¡±

 Chapter 773: Great Terror (I)

    <h4>Chapter 773: Great Terror (I)</h4>

    The familiar voice and face momentarily jerked Li Hao out of his murderous rage. A tremendous explosion sounded like a p of thunder, prompting a mouthful of blood from the young man! It was like his mind intent had detonated!

    Arge mallet had appeared in Orange Moon¡¯s hands¡ªthe mallet of the Hongs!

    A surge of mental killing intent red from the weapon. It only needed to swing through the air to destroy Li Hao¡¯s mental strength!

    ¡°Ah Hao,¡± ¡¯Zhang Yuan¡¯ smiled. ¡°The eight families should be one. Only when we are one are we the true eight families. Come join me!¡±

    Li Hao opened his eyes and looked straight ahead of him.

    ¡°You... are not Little Yuan!¡± He smiled and shook his head with some regret and pity. ¡°But thank you for letting me see you again.¡±

    It was a contradictory statement. A longsword smashed through the void and stabbed forward. Supernatural abilities zed as characters vanished, then reappeared.

    <strong><i>KABOOM!</i></strong>

    An explosion rang through heaven and earth as Steris and the mallet of the Hongs collided. Strong aftershocks rippled in all directions and shook even the nt spirits battling in the air! Li Hao vanished like a gust of wind¡ªthe Windchaser Boots!

    When he reappeared, he struck with his sword!

    ¡°Ying Hongyue, you used the lingering mental strength of my friend to create a scarlet shadow puppet! I¡¯ll kill you, I will! Just you wait!¡± Li Hao howled at the skies. He could tell what this was¡ªa scarlet shadow!

    It was a scarlet shadow so strong that it possessed its own consciousness. Who knew how many people it¡¯d devoured? Ying Hongyue must have retrieved all of the scarlet shadows that he¡¯d deployed. He¡¯d killed all of his people who carried a scarlet shadow on them!

    The scarlet shadow that Li Hao faced was exceedingly strong and knew the secret arts of martial dao since it possessed Orange Moon. When Li Hao approached it with his sword, it brought down the mallet like it was separating the earth from the sky!

    This was Ying Hongyue¡¯s trump card for this expedition and why everyone thought that Orange Moon was dangerous. All of his scarlet shadows were concentrated on her and she wielded one of the weapons of the eight families. Her battle strength was almost a six element Arcanus!

    Not even the little tree would be able to easily defeat a foe of this level. After all, it was just a replica and core origin was an exhaustible resource. So long as the scarlet shadow could sustain itself longer than the little tree, that would make it difficult for the little tree to triumph. Not to mention, that would create an opening for the remaining four nt spirits to strike back.

    Hong Yitang and the rest chose this moment to strike!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Hong Yitang¡¯s sword swept through the void, spinning the world in the eyes of Qian Wanhao and his people. When they shook their heads clear, they were surrounded by Li Hao¡¯s threepanions!

    Hou Xiaochen red his presence and even showed signs of briefly eclipsing Sky Sword. Supernatural energy undted around him as he threatened to rip through the void with a spear jab!

    It was like they¡¯d returned to the battle of the North Sea. Earthturner Sword drew a circle with his sword and focused on defense.

    ¡°Earth aura!¡± Another stroke turned the ground into a wall that surrounded everyone. The Broken Will Spear and Sky Sword erupted against their foes!

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    Heaven and earth split apart!

    <strong>¡°Kill!!¡± </strong>Qian Wanhao howled with disbelief. A four element Arcanus such as he would be nearly invincible on the ground, but here, even nt spirits were stronger than him.

    Li Hao was stronger than him, Orange Moon was stronger, and even Earthturner Sword was stronger. Hou Xiaochen seemed to have also thrown all caution to the wind as his Broken Will Spear contained massive traces of mysterious power. He seemed to be taking a page from the books of Li Hao and the rest and unsealing himself with careless abandon.

    Qian Wanhao was a four element Arcanus! But he waspletely hemmed in! Next to him, golden light sparkled over the lord of Buddha Mountain as he shouted angrily and blocked Sky Sword with a punch.

    The Fortune King was as if an envoy from hell. He seemed to summon countless ghosts into the world with a wave of his hand. All of them charged the three, but Hong Yitang swept them aside with a single sword stroke and evaporated them all!

    They were only three, but they fought as if an army of thousands!

    Sky Sword¡¯s broadsword swung ponderously through the air, zing with resplendent radiance and following each stroke with another stroke. But just as he found Li Haocking back in the day, it was Hong Yitang who dismissed him today.

    ¡°Brother Sky Sword, you...ck battle strength!¡±

    Sky Sword¡¯s expression was remote as he remained expressionless. Hong Yitang leveraged his immense battle strength to imprison and be on guard against their opponents. Sky Sword and Hou Xiaochen were in charge of offense. Hou Xiaochen was engaged with Qian Wanhao, Sky Sword focused on the rest. But at the moment, just the lord of Buddha Mountain was sufficient to block his sword!

    This was uneptable to the proud Sky Sword. While Li Hao had said to stop the rest, hisrades intended to kill them! Not only were they going to eliminate the attackers, but they were going to help the little tree and Li Hao. That was why they fought, not merely to just impede strong foes. That did not fit who they were!

    Sky Sword glowered darkly and flicked a nce at Hong Yitang. ¡°Screw your defense!¡± He was so incensed that he departed from his usualposed, genteel demeanor. Since when did Silver Moon martial masters focus on defense??

    Hong Yitang caught his drift and smiled, swinging his sword through the air. ¡°Earth shakes!¡±

    ¡°Sky turns!¡± Sky Sword howled with rage.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The heavens and skies truly overturned in this moment. The Broken Will Spear ripped through the firmament, apanied by coughs. This seemed to be Sickly¡¯s usual condition. He reaped a life every time he took action, but his moves always came with coughing. Hence, he was called Sickly.

    The three had almost never fought together before, but the world shook itself upside down and mental strength ruptured on this rare asion of coordination.

    ¡°AHHH!!¡± Ghastly shrieks resounded as the weaker ones among the attackers felt their minds ripped apart. They didn¡¯t have time to react before two rays of sword intent pierced through everything!

    The vice ministers on the expedition stared incredulously at the floor before falling apart as chunks of bloody flesh.

    <i>Dead!</i> In the face of a strongbined offensive, all of the vice ministers were obliterated by the sky and earth turning swords!

    Bloody marks streaked down Qian Wanhao¡¯s face as he gaped with shock and iprehension. He spat out a mouthful of blood, summoning arge character.

    ¡°Suppress!¡± A domineering aura manifested with his shout, as if it would suppress everything beneath the heavens. His actions were copied by the other three ministers, but they sent their blood into the massive character already on the scene instead of coalescing their own.

    <i>Suppress!</i>

    This was an ancient heritage, the strongest of Tranquil Star¡¯s ultimate arts. It could suppress all enemies!

    However, they were no longer the powerhouses of yesteryear, and this was no longer an age of core origin. Hong Yitang grunted dismissively when the character appeared and materialized his own ¡®sword¡¯ character. It erupted with scintiting radiance, bringing forth the thunder, fire, earth, and metal attributes.

    Not only that, but countless drops of Water of Life exploded within Hong Yitang¡¯s body. A new wood intent wafted out.

    ¡°Five elements...¡± Qian Wanhao¡¯s eyes widened with dismay.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The sword character ripped through the void, shredding the ¡®suppress¡¯ character! Its annihtion inflicted grave wounds on the four ministers. The Broken Will Spear tore through the void as a ming phoenix emerged. It was so fast that it seemed to spontaneously pulverize something!

    The Fortune King was in the middle of summoning and plotting his next moves when the look in his eyes dimmed. He raised his head with effort and looked at the quiet fellow who hadn¡¯t said a single word. His lips parted.

    <i>Why me? It¡¯s the four ministers stopping you guys right now and I¡¯m hiding in the back. Why choose me?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen coughed, the sound like a peal of death. He smiled faintly and gripped his spear more tightly, the will of the Broken Will Spear burning fiercely on it. Fire and metal energy exploded from his body with an air of coolposure.

    ¡°You¡¯ve killed too much and have an atmosphere of death around you. The Broken Will Spear naturally seeks out those who have blood on their hands!¡± he exined. <i>It¡¯s not that I wanted to kill you, but my spear wanted to kill you!</i>

    ¡°Hup!¡± Qian Wanhao grunted and punched back the ¡®sword¡¯ character. Though he was covered in blood, he led the three ministers, those from the City of Supernaturals, and the lord of Buddha Mountain in swift retreat. ¡°Withdraw! We¡¯ll take shelter in the buildings first!¡±

    He whirled around and ran!

    Although their side held the overwhelming advantage in numbers, they couldn¡¯t even contend against the three in front of them, much less Li Hao and the little tree! He was a four element Arcanus reinforced by many three elements, but many of them were dead in the blink of an eye!

    Too strong!

    Sky Sword, Earthturner Sword, and Sickly alone were sufficient to rebuff them. This was unfathomable, yet also so real.

    ......

    <i>At this moment.</i>

    A tremendous boom sounded from behind as sword intent billowed down from the skies, apanied by a surge of killing intent. A muffled grunt sounded¡ªOrange Moon steadily retreated, blood flowing from multiple injuries.

    The mallet of the Hongs in her hand glowed faintly, but it seemed to have been damaged. Cracks covered its surface; the scarlet shadow emanated a faint red hue to swiftly repair it. This was the bloodline of the Hongs wielding the mallet of the Hongs!

    Li Hao advanced with Steris in hand.

    ¡°The sword of the Lis... restricts us?¡± ¡®Zhang Yuan¡¯ murmured incredulously. Indeed, the daunting scarlet shadow was repressed again and again when faced with the sword of the Lis. Even the mallet of the Hongs seemed afraid of Steris. Its offensive was shattered repeatedly when brought up to attack.

 Chapter 774: Great Terror (II)

    <h4>Chapter 774: Great Terror (II)</h4>

    Ying Hongyue had once employed the mighty mallet of the Hongs and inflicted untold damage to ancient nt spirits. He was personally familiar with its immense capabilities, so he was confident in sending it with the scarlet shadow. Thisbination might not lose even when facing the little tree as the mallet served a simr function to the Broken Will Spear. Both could tear apart mental strength and core origin.

    If the little tree¡¯s replica met the weapon in battle, it mighte away very worse for the wear. Instead, the scarlet shadow had run into Li Hao. The young man red coldly at his best friend. Did Ying Hongyue think this would make him hesitate?

    No!

    When the scarlet shadow took Zhang Yuan¡¯s form, all Li Hao could think about was how Little Yuan had wanted his best friend to flee when he was devoured by the scarlet shadow. He spent hisst moments of life to warn Li Hao...

    As his friend, Zhang Yuan would not kill him. He would only have Li Hao run so that thetter would be safe. Only Ying Hongyue would want to kill him!

    ¡°Kill!¡±

    Lifeless sword intent destroyed everything. Supernatural abilities erupted with Li Hao¡¯s blow, fire and water exploded. Word characters circled the surroundings as if formations, raising explosive rumbles!

    A series of sword techniques erupted as Li Hao moved swiftly like a ghost, bringing down blow after blow. Multiple Li Haos appeared amid a bewildering dazzle that disoriented onlookers. Fire sparked over one of the Li Haos, another overflowed with water, one appeared like thunder and lightning, a fourth rushed around like a storm, and a fifth emanated aureate light...

    Numerous copies of the young man attacked as Steris swung again and again, never seeming to grow fatigued.

    <i>ng ng ng!</i>

    Zhuang Huang continuously backed away, shock on his red face. Despite his incredible strength, he was being suppressed to the point where he could not return blow! The bloodline of the Hongs in his body was fading away; the powerful family mallet could not bring about any safety for him.

    ¡°Don¡¯te near!¡± Li Hao shouted when he sensed that Sky Sword and the others wanted to help him. ¡°Kill the nt spirits!¡±

    The three vanished without further word. <i>Boom! </i>Fierce battle erupted in the sky again, more intense than before. Hong Yitang, Hou Xiaochen, and Sky Swordbined took on one nt spirit. That freed up the little tree to focus on the remaining three, which instantly helped it gain the advantage.

    The corner of the imperial pce reappeared.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A nt spirit was instantly crushed to smithereens; the little tree dimmed slightly as well. The corner of the pce disappeared, but the battle was easier than before. The remaining three nt spirits despaired. Although they wouldn¡¯t truly die in the ruins, the loss from this expedition was too great. They couldn¡¯t even pass information back to their main bodies.

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    A clear snap came not from the sky, but on the ground. Something seemed to break when Li Hao stabbed his sword into the scarlet shadow! The little sword furiously absorbed the shadow¡¯s power; thetter struggled violently.

    ¡°Ah Hao, it¡¯s me... It¡¯s me, Little Yuan!¡± The scarlet shadow trembled like a leaf as a powerful devouring force erupted from Steris. Li Hao looked silently at the scarlet shadow, at Little Yuan who swiftly transformed into his father¡¯s face.

    ¡°Little Hao!¡± His father¡¯s kind face was contorted with a grimace. ¡°Are you attempting patricide?! You unfilial son!¡±

    He morphed into Li Hao¡¯s mother next. ¡°Ah Hao, why have you changed? You¡¯re so cruel... we¡¯re still alive, we¡¯re not dead! We¡¯re just trapped inside this monster... Ah Hao, are you going to kill us?¡±

    A red light shed through Li Hao¡¯s eyes! His eyes were bloodshot as they pierced through everything. All illusion, every bit of mental interference immediately broke apart! It was in this moment that he realized the functionality of his eyes. It prated all falsehood! It was a pair of eyes from the heavens, the true heavenly eye!

    It wasn¡¯t until today that Li Hao fully understood what his eyes could be used for. Being able to determine a target¡¯s strength and assorted minutiae was just an added bonus. Its true purpose was to present the truth of all matters to him.

    That might seem like a useless feature, but Li Hao knew that it might be what he needed the most. This moment was ample proof! Everything he saw was fake. The true situation was that Orange Moon was ring resentfully at him. Li Hao suddenly understood why Ying Hongyue had sent her.

    She was the ck Widow, the ck Spider! She was most able to see through a person¡¯s heart. The scarlet shadow was just a puppet used to confuse the mind. It was Orange Moon manipting everything!

    This character on the Record of Thirty-Six in Silver Moon may not be among the strongest, but the reason why she was part of the ranking was apparent to Li Hao today.

    ¡°Ah Hao...¡± Orange Moon was still wailing mournfully.

    A pair of hands wrapped around her throat like a steel vice and squeezed with a deadly crunch!

    ¡°Are you done yet, ck Widow?¡± Li Hao had almost snapped her neck into two. He plunged his sword into her heart. The scarlet shadow iled about wildly, but to no avail. The young man smiled. ¡°Thank Ying Hongyue for me. The power of a scarlet shadow is sweet indeed. This is very good!¡±

    Incredulity appeared on Orange Moon¡¯s face, as well as shock and despair. How was this possible?!

    ¡°You know what? I think you¡¯re the only one among the thirty-six who isn¡¯t worthy to be present on the ranking. You¡¯re such a bitch!¡± Li Hao rarely cursed at people in this manner, but he gave full vent to his emotions now. ¡°So cheap!¡±

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    Sword intent red as he flexed his hands with all of his strength. He outright snapped her neck, stabbed a hole through her heart, and pulverized her organs!

    The scarlet shadow shrieked, vaporized as the little sword swallowed it whole. The mallet fell to the ground with a ng.

    Li Hao picked it up and seized Orange Moon¡¯s storage ring before looking at the woman again. Without the previous illusions enshrouding her, she showed only a beguiling face to the world. Except, it was particrly contorted in its final moments.

    There was bitterness and a refusal to ept this oue. She¡¯de armed with a scarlet shadow and the mallet of the Hongs. In other words, she¡¯d been invincible! She could pound the other to death even if she met a five element Arcanus.

    Unfortunately for her, she encountered Li Hao.

    Her methods to manipte the human heart were immediately dismantled by his eyes. All of her capabilities were thoroughly suppressed by the young man. There was no room for her to bring her immense strength to bear.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The world shook from another massive explosion.

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    The little tree had brought the imperial pce forward again in another usage of its greatest technique. Another nt spirit replica was obliterated, leaving two. Li Hao¡¯s longsword sailed through the air as five elements erupted with a screech!

    <i>WHAM!</i>

    Lightning danced out of clear skies as thunder boomed. The fading rose battling the three powerhouses abruptly shrieked as Steris stabbed into the void!

    ¡°AH!!¡± was the only sound before the void exploded with a dull roar!

    The little tree ignored its low stamina when it saw the development. It seemed to wish to end its battle before Li Hao and the others arrived, so as to demonstrate its value. The imperial pce manifested again, causing a corresponding fading of the little tree. It ignored such consequences, bringing the pce down!

    Li Hao watched with wide eyes. The little tree was indeed stronger than them in terms of absolute strength, but not to this degree. It was the image of the imperial pce that elevated it to unfathomable heights.

    <i>RUMBLE!</i>

    The final nt spirit replica flew part in pieces!

    All seven nt spirit replicas were dead; a dense collection of core origin power wafted through the air. The little tree sent thousands of branches crisscrossing through the void. ¡°Li Hao, I have great use for this power...¡±

    ¡°Please absorb all that you want, senior!¡± Li Hao nodded without a word. This was something they¡¯d agreed on beforehand. One had to say, the little tree had been of such a great help in this battle. It¡¯d suppressed seven nt spirits by itself! Li Hao wouldn¡¯t have had such an easy time even if he¡¯d been a six or seven element Arcanus, much less a five element one.

    Hong Yitang and the others bore certain wounds on their bodies, particrly Hou Xiaochen. He didn¡¯t mind the mysterious power emanating from his body. He swept a nce over Li Hao, then at Hong Yitang, coughing a few times to get the young man¡¯s attention.

    ¡°Director Hou, I¡¯ll exin when we get back!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen nodded with satisfaction and dropped the subject. It was so nice dealing with smart people! He only needed to cough once before Li Hao understood.

    Now was not the time to rx. Qian Wanhao had escaped with the rest. The campus was small with just four buildings to it, but Li Hao was on guard. This... was not an idyllic ce. Panther suddenly ran in from the distance and closed its mouth on Li Hao¡¯s arm, wanting to drag the young man away!

    Li Hao blinked, then spun on his heel without another word. ¡°Run!¡±

    The others didn¡¯t sense anything untoward, but subconsciously followed the young man¡¯s instructions. Even the little tree halted halfway through its frenzied collection and attached itself to Li Hao.

    Four humans, one dog, and one tree fled for the gates. Even if they couldn¡¯t depart the ruins, they had to put some distance between themselves and this ce. Something seemed to be awakening beneath the littleke that held the mysterious power stones in the back of school grounds.

    Panther didn¡¯t know how to talk, or it would surely tell Li Hao that it¡¯d only had time to collect half of the one hundred million stones. The remaining half had be empty shells in a short period of time!

    Not only that, but ghastly shrieks traveled from the four buildings. A mental ripple swept the campus.

    ¡°All students are to assemble at the athletic field in one minute. Any who arete will be executed!¡±

    Dismay crossed Li Hao¡¯s face and he turned to see that a terrifying existence had appeared on the field. He was about to make his getaway when the adorable puppet at the school gates, one that looked like a cat, pped him back with a paw!

    The powerful Li Hao bounced back and copsed like a sack of potatoes. His injuries weren¡¯t severe, but the cat puppet said robotically, ¡°The school has been sealed. Assemble at the field. No students are permitted to leave!¡±

 Chapter 775: Great Terror (III)

    <h4>Chapter 775: Great Terror (III)</h4>

    ¡°Cough cough cough...¡± Stunned, Li Hao spat out a mouthful of blood. Panther¡¯s jaw was still mped around his arm. The dog shook, as if having seen something terrifying.

    ¡°Obey the order and go to the field!¡± the little tree transmitted to Li Hao. ¡°None of us may be making it out otherwise!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s expression shifted drastically! He didn¡¯t dare say anything and swiftly looked at hispanions. When he saw that Sky Sword seemed ready to strike back, he quickly called out, ¡°Go to the field!¡±

    Sky Sword¡¯s eyes widened. Passively waiting for death was not their style, but since Li Hao had said so... He looked back at the school grounds. Although he felt that going back was to wait for death, he nodded.

    A heavy expression hung on Hong Yitang¡¯s face; Hou Xiaochen¡¯s eyes darted around. As reluctant as the four humans and one dog were, a puppet sending Li Hao flying had shocked them all. There was more than one puppet at the gates¡ªthere were many!

    If all of them could move and were this ferocious, then the quartet was dead without a doubt. There was no question about it since they¡¯d just fought a massive battle and the little tree was even yet to recover from that.

    ¡°Thirty more seconds!¡± came the voice.

    Dismayed, Li Hao and the others sprinted for the field. They arrived in the blink of an eye, stopping to see a ck Armor hovering over the grass. There was a tiny cat head imprinted on its armor, lending it a slightlyical air. The cat head was filled in with color, making the sight even more ludicrous.

    The little tree however, shook from shock. ¡°Be careful... this ce... might have something to do with the Imperial Majesty!¡±

    It recognized the symbol! But this was impossible! What was the Imperial Majesty¡¯s icon doing here? It hated being mentioned as that caused a loss of sleep and appetite. Thus, it lost its temper whenever anyone mentioned it. This was its head emzoned on the armor; to see it was to think of the Imperial Majesty. Thinking of this august personage was itself a form of harassment and most irritating to that preeminent existence.

    One had to know, not even the guards of the imperial pce wore such aughable icon on their equipment. For some reason, there was a ck Armor here of unknown strength that wore the Imperial Majesty¡¯s form on its armor! The little tree was stunned beyond belief. This ce must have something to do with the great one! It was very agitated, but also quite apprehensive.

    ¡°Ten!¡± boomed the ck Armor in a resonating voice.

    ¡°Nine!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Figures darted out of the surroundings and reached the field at a terrifying pace. Unountably shocked, Qian Wanhao immediately reached the designated spot. He evaded Li Hao¡¯s quartet and looked around fearfully. What was this ce?

    They¡¯d wanted to ignore the ck Armor, but overpowering puppets had appeared in the buildings to expel them. They¡¯d been thrown out just like Li Hao and the rest had been. This ce seemed to be in the habit of giving people a chance. Once Qian Wanhao was sent flying by a puppet, he had no choice but to do as the ck Armormanded!

    He knew that certain rules were in effect at some ruins. Explorers might truly die if they didn¡¯t respect them!

    Once Qian Wanhao arrived, so did the lord of Buddha Mountain. The three ministers threw themselves to safety in a bedraggled fashion, as did the panicked trio from the City of Supernaturals.

    ¡°One! Time is up!¡± announced the ck Armor. The dark holes of its eyes seemed to be trained on Li Hao¡¯s group. Hearts skipped a beat to be the focus of its attention. ¡°There is no waiting beyond the allotted time!

    ¡°Tardiness is to be punished by execution!¡± The ck Armor was emotionless and merciless. ¡°Evenround Martial University does not need deserters!¡±

    <i>Deserters!</i>

    As Li Hao and the rest mulled over its words, wails and shrieks suddenly echoed around the school grounds. Whether it was the school gates or inside the buildings, numerous puppets in armor appeared out of nowhere.

    Dozens of people scurried out of their hiding ces. Amid shocked nces from Li Hao and the rest, des appeared in the puppets¡¯ hands!

    ¡°NO!!¡±

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    A series of sounds echoed as dozens of heads hit the ground! Qian Wanhao¡¯s side was terrified out of their wits! Some of these people had gone into hiding before the battle, some had run off with them moments ago and hadn¡¯t had time to reach the athletic field. And yet, all of them were plucked out of concealment and executed in the blink of an eye!

    The ck Armor on the field was quiteposed, as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. Dark pits regarded those assembled on the grass. ¡°You have engaged in unwarranted fighting and destruction of school property. Every centimeter of school grounds was not easy toe by and should be reflected upon gratefully. There is a dueling ring on school grounds, yet you still decided to ruin school property. The fines to be paid will be increased tenfold!

    ¡°Construction of the university campus was a difficult endeavor. Your actions more than warrant punishment!¡±

    A voice appeared in Li Hao¡¯s ears. ¡°Your fine is one million cultivation energy stones!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart spasmed. A fine? The hell??

    ¡°Wartime regtions are currently in effect,¡± the ck Armor¡¯s voice sounded in his ears again. ¡°Debts can be offset by defeating puppets. A sum of one hundred thousand will be waived for each puppet defeated. If a puppet remains undefeated, then the attempt is judged to be a failure and the fine doubled! If the fine is unable to be cleared, then the offender will be sent to the vanguard on the battlefield!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s quartet jerked with surprise. Hong Yitang and the others shared what numbers they¡¯d received. ¡°I¡¯m supposed to pay one million!¡±

    ¡°Me too!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m a bit less at five hundred thousand.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m... two million!¡± came the little tree¡¯s fearful voice.

    Hou Xiaochen¡¯s number was a bit smaller, the others were all one million at the very least. That was five and a half million energy stones!

    <i>Cultivation energy stones? </i>Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. He knew what they were¡ªthe kind used by the army. That meant to say... five and a half million mysterious power stones of the kind used in the ancient civilization!

    <i>Puppets? What puppets?</i>

    He knew in the next moment. The puppets that¡¯d killed people materialized behind the ck Armor, thirty in total.

    Color drained from the faces of Qian Wanhao¡¯s side and the man forced down his shock. ¡°If I may ask... the honored one...¡±

    ¡°Those who do not preface their speech with a call of ¡®report¡¯ are without decorum! Your fine is increased by one hundred thousand!¡±

    Qian Wanhao¡¯s eyes widened and he didn¡¯t dare speak again. Li Hao and his three looked at the other side¡ªtheir faces flickered rapidly through a variety of different expressions.

    What was going on here? Why was there suddenly a ck Armor? Was there an army of ck Armors around? The defenders of a martial university? But since when were ck Armors so strong?

    Although no one could sense the soldier¡¯s strength, it was in to see that it was terrifying. A fine... what if they didn¡¯t have the money to pay it off? The vanguard on the battlefield? How was there such a thing after so many years?

    Wait, didn¡¯t that mean the school could send people out?

    ¡°Do you choose to pay the fine or challenge the puppets?¡± asked the ck Armor as the crowd grappled with their thoughts. ¡°ording to the fine amounts, one million is the equivalent of ten puppets. A sessful challenge will wipe the ledgers and win you rewards!¡±

    <i>Rewards!</i>

    What kind of rewards? However, they¡¯d also heard that the fines would double if they failed! Of course, defeating one puppet counted as a sess, which would lower their fine by one hundred thousand. Li Hao thought swiftly, what should they do?

    Pay up?

    No way!

    His side needed to pay fifty-five million modern mysterious power stones! Although he didn¡¯t know how much Panther had taken from the little pond in the back, it¡¯d bankrupt him to pay the fine!

    But was he supposed to challenge the puppets if he didn¡¯t want to pay? The little tree had said before that there was a great terror here. Li Hao looked ahead at his enemies. He was in a conundrum, as were the others. Did they have the funds to spare for the fine?

    Qian Wanhao¡¯s side looked at each other with sour expressions. Each faction had already taken out millions of stones to collect one hundred million for the bait. They¡¯d also consumed a great deal of resources to dramatically increase their strength in a short period of time. Who would carry such arge sum of stones on them?

    ¡°Report!¡± Being a veteran minister, Qian Wanhao managed to keep hisposure in this uncertain situation.

    ¡°Speak!¡± The ck Armor looked at him.

    ¡°Sir, what if... we don¡¯t have the funds to pay the fine...¡±

    ¡°Are you deaf? Then you¡¯ll be sent to the battlefield!¡±

    ¡°Report!¡± Qian Wanhao hurriedly followed up. ¡°Sir, the vanguard no longer exists. Then... will we be allowed to depart and collect enough funds to pay the fine?¡±

    If they could, then screw the fine! Perhaps they¡¯d actually be safer with this guy escorting them from the ruins. The nt spirits were all dead, as was Orange Moon. His group was frantic about what might happen next, so perhaps this development was all for the good.

    ¡°The vanguard is no more?¡± The ck Armor sank into thought and said softly after a while, ¡°Then we¡¯ll execute all offenders!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Since the chance to redeem themselves no longer existed, what else should befall the offenders other than execution?

    The response appalled the crowd. So that was it? Their heads would be chopped off? Why did everything suddenly seem so surreal and ludicrous?

    ¡°Hurry and make your choice! Do you choose to pay the fine or challenge the puppets?¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s quartet looked at the young man. What should they do? Even the lightest fined Hou Xiaochen had a figure of five hundred thousand energy stones, which was five million modern stones! That was no small figure. Not to mention, would it strengthen the ck Armor if they paid it?

 Chapter 776: Examination (I)

    <h4>Chapter 776: Examination (I)</h4>

    ¡°Report!¡± someone suddenly said from the City of Supernaturals contingent. ¡°I have a fine of one hundred thousand. Does that mean I only need to face one puppet and defeat it to have my fine cleared? And I¡¯ll receive a reward instead?¡±

    ¡°Correct!¡±

    <i>One hundred thousand! </i>Everyone looked at the speaker. That was a very low number. Of course, this likely had something to do with the level of destruction wreaked. Li Hao and hispanions had damaged a lot of areas. On the other hand, Panther wasn¡¯t hit with a fine because it hadn¡¯t been part of the fighting at all. The little tree had destroyed the most and was levied with two million pieces of energy stones!

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll challenge the puppet!¡± the speaker was overjoyed. ¡°Sir, can I choose to leave if my challenge is sessful?¡±

    ¡°You may!¡± The ck Armor was suddenly amenable to everything. ¡°The school is sealed, but if your challenge is sessful, that means you have the strength to venture out from the grounds. You can naturally choose to leave them!¡±

    The answer brought smiles to everyone¡¯s faces! They¡¯d conversed among themselves and knew that Li Hao¡¯s quartet needed to face at least ten puppets. The speaker from the City of Supernaturals only needed to defeat one. If he seeded, he could leave and spread the word!

    Whether it was bringing more people in or taking up a position outside, the entire world woulde to kill Li Hao once these happenings became public knowledge!

    They would be safe then! Even if no one came, they could leave ahead of time.

    ¡°Then I choose the challenge!¡±

    ¡°Very well!¡±

    The one from the City of Supernaturals put his guard up when a puppet manifested. He suddenly erupted with force and punched outward, as domineering as a god!

    <i>RUMBLE!</i>

    A massive collision sounded; the puppet¡¯s movements moved slowly and it remained entirely unyielding after taking the blow head-on. It swung its fists in return!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The man flew back, vomiting blood in his wake. Disbelief brimmed in his eyes¡ªhe was an Arcanus! The puppet waspletely undamaged after that punch, and he was the one gravely injured after the puppet responded in kind!

    ¡°Your fine is doubled to two hundred thousand pieces!¡±

    ¡°Sir, I...¡± The man looked on in dismay. He was afraid too now and quickly looked at Qian Wanhao. Who traveled with several million pieces of mysterious power stones on them? The ck Armor really would kill them! What kind of hellish ce was this? Wasn¡¯t it a grade two ruin that Novas could survive in? Why was it so terrifying??

    There were at least thirty puppets that they could see and an unknown amount more hidden in the shadows. Combined with the ck Armor... this ruin was absolutely horrifying! Could even legendary Apexes make it out, much less Novas?

    Li Hao had been observing the situation, trying to draw whatever conclusions he could from it. These puppets didn¡¯t seem to kill without reason or that punch would¡¯ve killed the challenger. The puppets were unbelievable constructs!

    <i>Evenround Martial...</i>

    Perhaps the greatest threat wasn¡¯t Qian Wanhao or their nt spirits, but the ruins themselves! No wonder the little tree had said that there was great terror here. Li Hao was quite resigned by their circumstances. Could he defeat the puppets or the ck Armor?

    Fifty-five million stones... Regardless of whether or not he could afford it, wouldn¡¯t itpletely negate the purpose of this expedition if he did pay it off? And was their exit guaranteed if he paid?

    Various thoughts floated through his mind.

    ¡°Does anyone else wish to attempt the challenge?¡± asked the ck Armor. The assembly paled at its sonorous voice.

    Challenge? Who was it kidding?

    One puppet had easily defeated an Arcanus and was wholly unscathed after it. That made it at least a five element Arcanus! That was one thing, the other was that the rest of them had fines of much more than one hundred thousand. Theirs exceeded one million!

    Anyone who¡¯d participated in the battle had such a fine on their heads. Only Hou Xiaochen¡¯s fine was lower because his attacks primarily centered on mental strength. As such, his level of destruction had been much smaller.

    Arcanus was a cultivation level that easily wreaked havoc. Qian Wanhao¡¯s fine was one and a half million stones because he was a four element Arcanus! Since Li Hao and Hong Yitang utilized their abilities in the form of word characters, the destructive power they brought to bear wasn¡¯t as great. It was all concentrated on their enemies, whereas Qian Wanhao¡¯s abilities were scattered.

    The little tree had fought in the air. Although its aftershocks were strong, the level of destruction was mediocre. Hence, its fine was two million. It was clear to see that the ck Armor was impartial. His penalties were based on personal responsibility.

    Qian Wanhao despaired to think that his fine would double if he failed to defeat any one of fifteen puppets. That would be three million energy stones!

    ¡°Report...¡± he said with one final ray of hope.

    ¡°Speak!¡±

    ¡°If... if I do not have energy stones, can I trade in other items?¡±

    ¡°You can!¡± the ck Armor responded calmly. ¡°Everything can be converted to energy stones at a martial university!¡±

    Qian Wanhao fell silent, whereas Li Hao¡¯s thoughts spun rapidly. ¡°Report, we are not students...¡±

    ¡°Non-student trespassers in Evenround Martial will be executed with no exception!¡±

    ¡°We are students!¡± Li Hao immediately changed tack before the ck Armor finished speaking. <i>Who is that walking suit of metal kidding? Execution with no exception? Here I was thinking if our treatment would be better if we weren¡¯t students. I obviously was thinking too much.</i>

    ¡°The puppets... are fashioned out of iparable treasures. Why don¡¯t I try challenging them and seeing if the Broken Will Spear can defeat them...¡± Hou Xiaochen transmitted. His fine was five hundred thousand stones. Doubling that was one million, which didn¡¯t seem to be much of a difference.

    Li Hao looked nkly at him. <i>Are you serious? You¡¯d be one against five!</i> From defense alone, these puppets look to be part of the Apex cultivation level in the ancient civilization. <i>They¡¯re incredibly strong. I don¡¯t think I¡¯d be able to defeat them if I tried.</i>

    Could the little tree do so, armed with the imperial pce? It might! But it would have to fight twenty at once!

    <i>Don¡¯t even think about it!</i>

    Its fine would double if even one puppet remained. It nearly broke Li Hao¡¯s brain to think of a singr fine being four million.

    There weren¡¯t many survivors standing in the field¡ªLi Hao¡¯s quartet on one side, Qian Wanhao and three other ministers on the other. They were joined by the three from the City of Supernaturals and the lord of Buddha Mountain to make eight.

    Twelve humans, one dog, one tree. The rest of the one hundred that¡¯d entered were no more. The ruins would be sealed off for another five days¡ªit¡¯d only been half an hour thus far.

    Indeed, half an hour.

    The great battle had been over in the blink of an eye. How were they supposed to escape in the remaining time if nothing changed? They couldn¡¯t even y for time!

    The twelve were very quiet. Should they pay the fine? How? Even the weakest among the City of Supernaturals needed to scrounge up two hundred thousand stones, which was two million modern stones. They were all Arcanus present and, as such, had consumed a great quantity of resources to reach their level.

    ¡°Report,¡± Li Hao asked carefully when new inspiration struck. ¡°How much can one drop of Water of Life be counted for?¡±

    ¡°Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°This!¡± Li Hao disyed one drop.

    ¡°Ah, that.¡± The ck Armor took a look. ¡°Five hundred pieces... It¡¯s difficult for nt spirits to cultivate, so we¡¯ll put a higher price on it.¡±

    The crowd paused. <i>How much? Did we mishear? Five hundred pieces? That¡¯s five thousand mysterious power stones... and that¡¯s a generous price? </i>Their fines reached the millions, but one drop of Water of Life was only good for five hundred drops?? This was a colossal joke!

    Qian Wanhao¡¯s face was turning a putrid color. When he asked if other items could be traded in for the fine, he¡¯d been thinking about the cache of Water of Life he had on him. Prior to the expedition, he sold everything he owned for fifty drops so that his chances of survival and stabilization of cultivation would be greater. This was to be his final ace, and it was worth three million stones!

    Since he¡¯d traded for more drops, his nt spirit had lowered its price to a more reasonable sixty thousand stones per drop. It was still high, but the value definitely hovered around three million. However, the ck Armor would buy it back for two hundred and fifty thousand modern stones? That was less than one tenth of the price!

    Qian Wanhao slowly turned beet-red with indignation. Just... how much had the nt spirits saved for themselves??

    The little tree yed deaf and dumb, not daring to say a word. Five hundred pieces was a decent buyback price as it only needed three hundred stones for one drop. But now, its scheme had been uncovered by the ck Armor. The tree charged Li Hao ten thousand stones per drop!

    The young man didn¡¯t mind the profit margin disparity¡ªhe was swiftly considering something and transmitted, ¡°How many stones does Senior Tree need to coalesce one drop?¡±

    ¡°Um...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m just thinking maybe we can save a bit for the fine!¡±

    Oh, that was true.

    ¡°Um... er... I would need four hundred pieces of energy stones!¡± The little tree didn¡¯t dare quote three hundred since there was a bit of energy it needed itself in the process. Inting the price by a little might make Li Hao feel better, that he wasn¡¯t losing out on too much.

    Li Hao pursed his lips in thought. Meanwhile, the ck Armor grew impatient.

    ¡°Hurry and make your choice! Dying time is wasting life. Wasting life... There will be no options avable after fifteen minutes! All fines will be doubled!¡±

    Dismay stole over the crowd, whereas Li Hao quickly asked, ¡°Report! If uh... I... have a special identity... can that reduce my fine?¡±

    ¡°No identity will reduce your fine!¡± The ck Armor looked faintly at him. ¡°Even ultimate powerhouses must follow the school rules, unless you are the descendant of the Human King!¡±

    <i>Alright then, pretend I didn¡¯t say anything.</i>

    Li Hao had been hoping that the heir of the Lis, descendant of the Sword Sovereign, and division leader of Battle Heaven might lead to certain advantages. At the very least, it might lead to a certain reduction. But reality was merciless and such favoritism was avable only for the descendants of the Human King.

    What a pity!

 Chapter 777: Examination (II)

    <h4>Chapter 777: Examination (II)</h4>

    Fifty-five million mysterious power stones were the equivalent of eleven hundred drops of Water of Life. If the little tree was to produce it all, then it would be forty-four million stones. An easy reduction of ten million stones... made this a feasible alternative in Li Hao¡¯s eyes.

    As for the option of challenging the puppets, that was a nonstarter in his eyes. Could he fight ten puppets by himself? Of course not. However, the little tree needed some time to convert the appropriate amount of Water of Life. Would he be granted that time?

    ¡°Make your decision!¡± The ck Armor grew irritated. ¡°All of you will be executed if you still do not choose!¡±

    Being the honest person he was, Li Hao didn¡¯t choose to remain stubbornly against the natural course of action. ¡°I choose to pay the fine...¡±

    ¡°Very good! A very wise decision!¡± The ck Armor nodded with satisfaction.

    ¡°Then... can I dy the payment somewhat?¡± asked the young man. ¡°I¡¯m going to convert Water of Life through a nt spirit, which will save me a little. Will that do?¡±

    ¡°That is eptable. Payment within three days is fine!¡±

    Li Hao breathed out with relief.

    ¡°Report, sir, then I...¡± Qian Wanhao¡¯s eyes darted around.

    ¡°You will not be granted a postponement. Do you have a nt spirit?¡± The ck Armor was as remote as could be. ¡°Or will you be able to create one out of thin air in three days?¡±

    It wasn¡¯t a fool. It supported Li Hao¡¯s idea because it was a wonderful detail that the young man had a nt spirit by his side. Did this other fellow take the ck Armor for a fool? Could he convert energy stones to Water of Life by himself?

    Qian Wanhao flushed and fell silent. He looked at the puppets and ultimately said, ¡°I... choose to pay the fine!¡±

    He grit his teeth and took out a storage ring, emptying it of vast quantities of origin weapons, Water of Life, mysterious power stones, and a motley array of other treasures.

    ¡°Sir... how much... can this be traded for...?¡±

    A red light appeared in the ck Armor¡¯s visor and it scanned the pile. ¡°This is a bunch of trash, but it is present in sufficient quantity. ording to the rules set by the Exchange Center, this is worth four hundred thousand pieces of energy stones!¡±

    That was a lot! But Qian Wanhao wanted to copse on the spot. Only four hundred thousand? His fine was one and a half million! This was everything he had on him apart from his most precious treasures! As the minister of Commerce, he was one of the richest men of the age. But now...

    Qian Wanhao set his jaw. What could he do now? There were no other options avable! After some thought, he asked slowly, ¡°Then... can... I... owe some of my fine?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± The ck Armor seemed to be purposefully backing them into a corner. ¡°Make haste, do not waste time!¡±

    Qian Wanhao sighed and summoned a small sword without another word. It wasn¡¯t arge item, but the ck Armor inclined its head upon seeing it. ¡°Not bad! This is the Hover Sword from the hands of Director Lu Zhen himself. To think that it¡¯d be in your hands, not bad!¡±

    Li Hao started. <i>Lu Zhen?</i>

    ¡°This is actual treasure. It was second to only items crafted by the Divine Forge Emperor in the New Martial age. I will value this at one million energy stones!¡±

    Qian Wanhao knew the item was valuable, but hadn¡¯t thought it would be so valuable. Simr to the Streamflow Sword Method that Li Hao encounteredst time, it was an ultimate ace for the nine ministries. Not even Qian Wanhao was able to deploy it to its full capabilities.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that he would be able to trade it for so much? The minister quickly understood that he might have been fleeced, but what could he do about it now?

    He was only one hundred thousand short in the blink of an eye. Another weapon manifested in short order¡ªit looked like a golden coin and emanated a soft radiance. This was a personal weapon he¡¯d used for many years and was his personal trump card.

    ¡°This is good too.¡± The ck Armor inclined its head. ¡°I¡¯ll count that as one hundred thousand to make it your full fine amount!¡±

    Qian Wanhao spat out a mouthful of blood before he could say anything. All of the treasures and weapons vanished without a trace. Even his personal brand on his weapon was spontaneously erased. He suddenly looked more haggard than moments ago, but didn¡¯t make a sound.

    The rest of the group sighed and capitted. ¡°We¡¯ll pay the fine!¡±

    Everyone took out whatever treasures and lifesaving measures they had on them. The lord of Buddha Mountain brought out something that appeared to be the blood essence of a major monster spirit. He offered up his personal weapon and everything of value on him, but it still wasn¡¯t enough!

    A light glinting in his eyes, he focused on the three from the City of Supernaturals. ¡°Report, can... I borrow from others?¡±

    He abruptly realized the inappropriateness of his question right after asking it. Li Hao¡¯s quartet suddenly regarded him with glittering eyes. His heart quailed!

    He¡¯d only thought of attacking the three from the City of Supernaturals in order to save his life, but he¡¯d forgotten that if this was a feasible course of action, then Li Hao¡¯s group was much stronger than him!

    The three from the City of Supernaturals looked around with stark fear. Thankfully, the ck Armor¡¯s response saved them.

    ¡°Students are not permitted to kill one another. You may spar, of course, but consider your actions carefully. If you know well what the offense of causing destruction is, yet still inflict it, your fine will double again!¡±

    That extinguished the brewing agitation in everyone¡¯s eyes. It would be an unmitigated disaster if they caused more destruction. The lord of Buddha Mountain frowned. He¡¯d put up everything he had, but it still wasn¡¯t enough. What should he do now? His fine was about the same as Sky Sword and the rest¡ªone million stones. All he had on him only amounted to five hundred thousand stones.

    He sighed and looked at the ck Armor. ¡°I choose the challenge!¡±

    It was the final struggle of the desperate! There was nothing else he could do otherwise.

    ¡°You may do so!¡±

    Ten puppets appeared. The lord of Buddha Mountain armed himself with another word and went on the offensive.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The ten puppets sent him flying with a loud impact. His chest was caved in, but he was only heavily injured as opposed to dead.

    One move!

    The puppets had only needed one move to defeat him. The mountain lord sat down dispiritedly on the ground, coughing up blood. A bleak expression hung on his face.

    The others scrounged up sufficient treasures in the meantime. While the three ministers gathered sufficient funds, they had to offer up even theirst golden booklet. It was in to see that their pockets were empty after this.

    Of the three from the City of Supernaturals, two were unable to locate enough for payment. The one with a fine of two hundred thousand eventually managed to pay it off. The other two looked at the mountain lord, then at Li Hao¡¯s quartet...

    They knew that Li Hao had a lot of mysterious power stones. Ultimately, the young female from the City of Supernaturals looked pleadingly at Li Hao. ¡°Commander Li, will you lend us some stones? We promise we won¡¯t say anything once we leave and will be at themander¡¯s beck and call...¡±

    There was no hope of mounting a sessful challenge against the puppets. Borrowing money was the only way. Li Hao, however, remained coolly aloof. Wordless, he didn¡¯t even look at them.

    ¡°Commander... there is no great feud or hatred between us. If you are willing to help us, that would be helping the City of Supernaturals. We have a certain ce and status in the city. There are many ancient aristocracies within it and more than one million supernaturals. If they are willing to help themander, they will deliver the world to you!¡±

    Li Hao continued to ignore them.

    A vicious look shed through their eyes before they suddenly charged the young man!

    ¡°We¡¯ll fight to the death if you don¡¯t help us! We¡¯ll destroy everything here! Let¡¯s see how you pay for the damages then!¡±

    Their backs were against the wall. Perhaps this was the only way that they could force Li Hao to help them!

    Qian Wanhao¡¯s group quickly backed away. They didn¡¯t want to be dragged into this.

    Li Hao frowned at the two charging him and nced at the ck Armor. ¡°Can I retaliate if someone attacks me?¡±

    ¡°You can, but the caveat is that you cannot destroy school property...¡±

    The characters of ¡®water¡¯, ¡®fire¡¯, ¡®metal¡¯, and ¡®exterminate¡¯ materialized as soon as the ck Armor said that Li Hao could. Sword intent pierced through heaven and earth. The two Arcanus lost focus in their eyes as soon as they drew near the young man. Their spirit was instantly snuffed out.

    Li Hao reached a hand into the air and summoned the characters back to him. Steris vanished.

    ¡°Intent of the Lifeless Sword?¡± The ck Armor was rather surprised by what it¡¯d just seen. ¡°The heritage of the Sword Sovereign?¡±

    But it seemed somewhat different. It partially resembled the ultimate art of Tranquil Star, yet was also altered.

    Despite the ck Armor¡¯s surprise, it didn¡¯t say anything as it watched the two humans die. It didn¡¯t intervene as these weren¡¯t real students. It knew the situation very well, so it didn¡¯t care that much about their life or death. Killing was strictly forbidden under these circumstances in a real martial university!

    Li Hao pointed haughtily at their bodies. ¡°Can I im their belongings?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± the ck Armor responded calmly. ¡°To the victor goes the spoils. Your sword is quite nice!¡± Some interest perked up its tones. ¡°If you¡¯re willing to hand over the sword, it will pay off all of your debts in full!¡±

    Absolutely not! How would Li Hao ever agree to that?

    ¡°No way, this was passed down from my ancestors. It stays with me so long as I draw breath!¡± Li Hao shook his head.

    ¡°Nonsense!¡± rebuked the ck Armor. ¡°The Sword Sovereign broke countless des in his day, was he to die each time his weapon shattered? Swords are but external objects. It doesn¡¯t matter if you have enough belongings to pay off the fine, I will reward you if you hand it over.¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao refused without thinking. Steris was his greatest resource in his development, how could he hand it over?

    The ck Armor didn¡¯t insist. It didn¡¯t matter. Fair transactions were the norm. The matter was dropped if any party involved was unwilling. Such were the rules of Evenround Martial. It would not take by force.

    ¡°Can you pay the fine?¡± It looked at the lord of Buddha Mountain.

    ¡°I¡¯m afraid... I cannot...¡± The mountain lord¡¯s face was ashen.

    ¡°Then I regret to say that since the vanguard is no more and you are not an official student... I gave you a chance for redemption, but you were unable to grasp it...¡± The ck Armor waved its hand when the mountain lord wanted to run. He lowered his head to look at his chest... his organs had been pulverized!

    He turned to look at Li Hao¡¯s quartet and then at the ck Armor. His eyes dimmed as a downcast expression stole over his face. He hadn¡¯t thought that he¡¯d die here or that he¡¯d die in such a manner! An existence in the ruins had killed him!

    The corpse thudded heavily to the ground and his belongings disappeared. They belonged to the ck Armor now.

 Chapter 778: Examination (III)

    <h4>Chapter 778: Examination (III)</h4>

    Li Hao and the others didn¡¯t say a single word. It didn¡¯t matter that the lord of Buddha Mountain was dead. The key was that he¡¯d died in a manner that made them grieve for their own kind. Even though the two sides were opposed to each other, Li Hao was also shaken by the cold ruthlessness of the existences in the ruins.

    Whatever upied the ruins was not of the same era as modern day humans. He found Battle Heaven to be nice because they took care of him. Today, he saw how cruel those in the ruins could be.

    Failure to pay off their fine meant death with no exception.

    ¡°Are the four of you going to use life essence to pay off your fine?¡± The ck Armor looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Very well, I expect to see payment in full after three days!¡± It looked at Li Hao again, hesitating. ¡°Are you from the army?¡±

    Li Hao summoned his gold armor with a nod. ¡°I am from the Battle Heaven Army!¡±

    ¡°The Battle Heaven Army...¡± the ck Armor sighed with emotion. ¡°The heritage of the Sword Sovereign and Battle Heaven count as auxiliary branches of an exalted emperor... You also have a descendant of another emperor with you and a guard of the imperial pce...¡±

    Its eyes settled on Hou Xiaochen after scanning the group. ¡°And you bear the heritage of the emperor from the foremost military school...¡±

    This quartet came with quite the background¡ªnot that any of it made a difference. This ce was not like the others. However, the four in front of him were connected to many people. There were ties to the Green Emperor [1] and the Heavenly Emperor. They were connected to the Eternal Sword Sovereign, the Exalted Broken Will Emperor, and the Exalted Blood Emperor...

    One had to say, even the ck Armor hesitated in its course of action. However, it decided to proceed forth after momentary thought. Those people had just collected arge sum of energy stones. They were able to pay the fine.

    Li Hao and the others didn¡¯t say anything as another three who could not pay their fine died in the blink of an eye. There was no safety to be found in a ce like this. Death was possible at any second¡ªa situation that filled them with utmost resignation. It was difficult to say if any of them would be able to make it out alive.

    ¡°Alright, that concludes the matter of the fines for now!¡± announced the ck Armor. ¡°It is both your fortune and disaster that you¡¯ve set foot on Evenround grounds! It falls upon you to make it a stroke of fortune or doom...¡±

    The group listened intently.

    ¡°There were many reasons why Evenround Martial was established here back in the day. The key was that energy is sufficient here. When the world changed, the Star Gate sealed shut, and Silver Moon Territory spontaneously declined in energy sources...

    ¡°Thend entered a period of Late Martial in the blink of an eye!¡± The ck Armor looked at everyone. ¡°And yet, Evenround was bestowed with an important duty of nurturing powerhouses for the frontlines. With the world being sealed away, you do not count as true students. If you wish to be real students, you must undergo an examination!¡±

    ¡°Report.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°What if we fail the examination or choose not to participate in it?¡±

    ¡°Then that makes you a trespasser!¡± came the indifferent reply. ¡°The fines earlier were but a small punishment meant to deliver arger warning. You can leave only after bing an official student. Otherwise, the school will continue to be closed. I will not punish you, but you will not be able to leave either!¡±

    Eyes widened at its words. They wouldn¡¯t be able to leave!

    ¡°This is the requisite path that each new student must take after joining a martial university, I am not singling you out!¡± the ck Armor said calmly. ¡°Evenround Martial has a higher threshold than most. Only half step Apexes were epted. Although you lot are somewhat removed from that level, the gap is not great, so I will not make things difficult for you!

    ¡°You may join the school if you pass three tests!¡±

    <i>Three tests!</i>

    ¡°Then...¡± Li Hao¡¯s head ached.

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to haggle. Although you bear the heritage of the Sword Sovereign, keep in mind that many applicants were the descendants of emperors and exalted emperors back in the day. There were numerous applicants who were of a direct lineage, much less atter-day descendant like you...¡±

    It¡¯d been countless years and the young man¡¯s bloodline was greatly diluted. Did he still expect preferential treatment for it? If this was still in times past, even the Imperial Majesty¡¯s son would have to take the test if they were here!

    ¡°Refusing the examinations will result in being treated as a trespasser. Trespassers will be exterminated!¡±

    Fine! There was no way around it! Li Hao and the rest were highly apprehensive. What would be tested? Were they going to fight? Or work through obstacles?

    As they pondered, they were suddenly moved away from the field and reappeared in a ssroom. Everyone was assigned to a desk, as were Panther and the little tree. A scroll of paper appeared in front of them.

    ¡°This is the entrance exam of a martial university. The first subject: culture and civilization!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Jaws dropped. Li Hao also gaped. Culture and civilization?

    He took a closer look at the paper and nearly cursed out loud. This really did test culture and civilization! Li Hao could scarcely believe his eyes.

    ¡°Students of martial universities are expected to be versed in both civil and martial subjects. There is no future for pure martial blockheads! Even the Human King had to pass such an exam to enroll at the Demonic Martial University! The one at the Department of Education ces an even higher importance on these subjects, so there will be a full gamut of civil subject tests toe!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s head ached and Hong Yitang frowned at his test. ¡°Report, the times are different now and we have no recourse for learning about some of the material being tested. Exams should not seek to lean on particr prejudices. As the heritage of education, they should be as universal as possible. They should not be narrowly targeted as a means to stump candidates. Purposefully making things difficult would mean that the examination is just going through the motions of testing applicants.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s head spun when he picked his paper up for a look. The hell was all this? Firstly, all of the text was in the ancientnguage. He knew it, but the others would be disqualified on that alone. Secondly, he had no idea what most of the questions were asking.

    Granted, with the number of ancient books he¡¯d read, he more or less knew of the material they covered. However, how was one supposed to calcte exact sums of blood qi or answer anatomical questions about the three cavities? He could perhaps write a response to the question asking about core origin dao, but why was this being tested?

    He hadn¡¯t thought that he¡¯d one day sit down for an examination again after leaving school.

    The ck Armor looked at Hong Yitang and seemed to agree after some thought. ¡°Your words are reasonable. Education should advance with the times. Since the times are different... then... let¡¯s make things simpler. All of you shall describe your martial dao for me to score! What is martial dao? What is its core? What is its goal? You can give a brief description of these.

    ¡°As for civilian life... I am not familiar with this age and thus cannot judge those subjects. Therefore, they can indeed be set aside for these examinations.¡±

    The group sagged with relief. Thank goodness! They¡¯d be in such great trouble otherwise. Who the hell could fill out that exam? As for a description of martial dao, everyone¡¯s thoughts on that would be different. There was no standard answer for it, so it was up to the ck Armor whether it would detract points on purpose.

    ¡°Report, what is a passing score?¡±

    ¡°There is only pass or fail!¡±

    The group understood. Nine powerhouses, one tree, and one dog sat docilely in ce, quite resigned that they could do nothing other than take a test. Brush and paper appeared in their hands...

    Panther looked down nkly at its paws, then raised an innocent look at the ck Armor.

    ¡°Monster spirits have their martial dao as well,¡± it said coolly when Panther looked over. ¡°If you don¡¯t know how to write... You can converse through mental strength. But a descendant of the exalted monster spirit emperor not knowing how to write... Thank goodness this is no longer the New Martial era or there wouldn¡¯t be a good end in store for you!¡±

    <i>Why not? Because the ancestor of this guy¡¯s ancestor once tried being shut in a dark room for countless years. It was a bleak period of pure studying that it wanted to experience.</i>

    As for the little tree, the ck Armor also considered it. ¡°As a nt spirit and the only core origin cultivator present, you likely only inherited the dao of your predecessor. You can also use mental strength to convey your thoughts!¡±

    It sat down on the lectern like it was the teacher, watching the students below like it truly wanted to listen to their understanding of dao. It was an ufortable situation, but the group had no choice but toply.

    Panther barked, a regr dog bark thatmunicated it didn¡¯t know how to use mental strength either.

    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me you don¡¯t know how to use mental strength either...¡± The ck Armor seemed disdainful now. ¡°Forget it, use the monster spiritnguage. I can understand dog barks!¡±

    This ck Armor was quite unusual. Li Hao and the rest didn¡¯t know how to approach the question. Ultimately, they lowered their heads and began writing, boldly forging ahead in the absence of other options. They were inly in an unspeakably dangerous ce, but were wracking their brains and putting brush to paper like they were students. It was... an incredibly surreal scene to many.

    The little tree¡¯s mental strength rippled while Panther barked continuously. The ck Armor sometimes nodded and at times shook its head. Who knew if it was really listening?

    ¡°It¡¯s good that He Yong isn¡¯t here...¡± Hou Xiaochen suddenlyughed partway through his response.

    ¡°No whispering allowed!¡± snapped the ck Armor. ¡°Silence!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen awkwardly shut his mouth. It¡¯d just been one emotional expression, but he¡¯d been rebuked for it. On second thought, this was rather funny. How many years had it been since something like this had happened to him?

    No one said a word in the time remaining. Heads were lowered and brushes moved rapidly over paper, until they rested roughly half an hourter.

    The papers flew into the air andnded in the ck Armor¡¯s hands. It read them carefully before raising its head to look at the group. His gaze ultimatelynded on Li Hao.

    1. The Green Deity or Green Emperor is the manifestation of the supreme god associated with the essence of wood and spring. He is worshiped as the god of fertility. ?

 Chapter 779: Examination (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 779: Examination (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Why is your martial dao... different from the others?¡± asked the ck Armor.

    ¡°All daos lead to the same destination, it is only the journey that is different,¡± Li Hao intoned. ¡°There is nothing wrong with what I do. You¡¯ve seen it too, senior. I am not weak. Since the times are different, there is no need to limit ourselves to the path of ancient martial dao...¡±

    ¡°That is true,¡± agreed the ck Armor after some thought. ¡°Then you pass!¡±

    It turned to Hong Yitang. ¡°You remind me of someone. Although the difference between you two is great, having the heart that you do is good. You pass as well!¡±

    It then turned to Sky Sword. ¡°You are very pure and more like an unapologetic martial blockhead in my view. You might be more suited for the military academy, but... you¡¯ll do. You pass as well!¡±

    Sky Sword heaved a sigh of relief as the ck Armor turned to Hou Xiaochen. Here, it hesitated. ¡°You have too many thoughts in mind. Your ideas are rather scattered and conservative. The Broken Will Spear is a very pure spear intent! There might be good results if you trade with the sword user, but it¡¯s fine. You count as passing!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen felt a bit awkward after the assessment, but didn¡¯t say anything. Finally, the ck Armor turned to Qian Wanhao¡¯s group. A disapproving tone entered its voice as it pointed at Qian Wanhao. ¡°Perhaps you purposefully wrote to my preferences as your scroll is different from what I sense on you... but a test is just a test. It matters not whether you resorted to trickery, so long as you didn¡¯t cheat. You count as having passed!¡±

    Qian Wanhao breathed an immense sigh of relief. Yes, he had indeed employed trickery. He was aware of the personalities of some ancient powerhouses, so the martial dao he¡¯d written of were the thoughts that he¡¯d held eighty years ago. While those were indeed his thoughts, they stemmed from when he wished to overthrow the monarchy.

    Clearly, the ck Armor found his ideas feasible. Just as he¡¯d thought back in the day, they were good ideas!

    ¡°You...¡± The ck Armor irritably waggled its finger at Hu Mingfa from the Ministry of the Judiciary. ¡°You say that you are part ofw enforcement. With thews being the foundation and precursor to dao, your words speak only of a hierarchy of power. There is an innate conflict betweenw and ss. This makes no sense whatsoever, you do not pass!¡±

    Hu Mingfa¡¯s expression shifted drastically! The ck Armor ignored him and dismissed the one from the City of Supernaturals.

    ¡°You have entirely inherited the dao of New Martial and have absolutely no innovation to speak of. There is no change in your methods, but core origin dissipated long ago. There is no future path ahead for you. You do not pass!¡±

    The Arcanus from the City of Supernaturals widened his eyes and couldn¡¯t help but say, ¡°But... this nt spirit... also focuses on the core origin...¡±

    ¡°You fool, it can continue down its path because it possesses core origin dao!¡± snorted the ck Armor. ¡°You do not pass!¡±

    Color drained from the supernatural¡¯s face. Failing to pass meant that he could not be a student. Didn¡¯t that mean he was stuck here forever? At least... he wasn¡¯t immediately sentenced to death just because he didn¡¯t pass.

    The ministers of Examination and Foreign Affairs waited eagerly for the ck Armor to judge their entries.

    ¡°You two are middle-of-the-road without any particr outstanding points, but neither do you demonstrate any major ws,¡± it pronounced after a while. ¡°You are on the cusp of passing and I could let you pass, but... there are many who have passed already. Therefore, you do not pass!¡±

    The ministers¡¯ expectant expressions fell off their faces. What the heck was this??

    ¡°Sir, since we were on the cusp of passing... isn¡¯t this decision... unjust?¡±

    ¡°On the contrary, it is very just!¡± the ck Armor responded calmly. ¡°This is a premier institution of learning, not the ordinary establishments of trash out there. You two do not qualify to attend in the first ce!¡±

    It then turned to the little tree. ¡°You are a core origin cultivator... and pass for your description of core origin!¡± Finally, it looked at Panther. ¡°You arezy and only keen to eat. Compared to your ancestor... Forget it, your ancestor was an exalted emperor as well and thus cannot be easily referenced. You do not pass!¡±

    Panther grew frantic! <i>I do not pass? Then I can¡¯t leave either?</i>

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡±

    The dog immediately fell silent, but still despaired. It looked at Li Hao.<i> I failed, what do we do now? The little tree made it!</i>

    Five people and a tree had passed. The world spun around them again, shocking the group. How was the ck Armor doing this??

    ¡°Students of martial universities must have real skill to their name!¡± Six puppets appeared on the field. ¡°I have adjusted their strength to be on par with yours. They possess the capabilities of regr cultivators in the New Martial era. Defeating a peer of the same level is a passing mark, defeating two is a good result. Defeating three is excellence!

    ¡°Those who qualify will enter the next round. Good marks will receive rewards, and excellent marks will receive special rewards!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s quartet looked at each other.<i> A peer? </i>Who among those present weren¡¯t standouts of their period? A peer from the ancient civilization should be fine, right?

    ¡°Then... can we face one puppet at first and increase the number if we find it feasible?¡± asked Li Hao.

    ¡°You can. The puppets do not tire and this kind of fighting does not consume too much of their energy. It can also be replenished at any time without affecting their battle strength!¡±

    Li Hao breathed out in relief. Then they could each challenge one at first and add more if they found it possible.

    ¡°I¡¯ll go!¡± Sky Sword stepped forward. He was always one to volunteer for something that he felt should be done. A puppet manifested and brought a sword down on Sky Sword. He grunted and waved his broadsword in response, colliding with his opponent via a loud impact!

    Undaunted, he continued to strike again and again. His sword intent was stately and grand!

    He beat back the puppet with ease.

    ¡°Another!¡±

    A second puppet quickly appeared and the two coordinated their moves in a thunderous offensive. The ck Armor watched silently, not making any audible judgments.

    Sky Sword sent one of them flying after a few moments,pletely defeating it. He did the same with the second a whileter. As easy as it¡¯d seemed for him, he did not call for a third puppet. Only after he stopped could the group see his condition clearly. He was covered in sword marks and blood seeped out of all of his wounds. He breathed heavily with a frown, clearly finding it embarrassing that he¡¯d only defeated two puppets.

    These were just two puppets with ordinary battle strength in the ancient civilization, but he¡¯d almost fallen in defeat!

    ¡°Be careful, they¡¯re very strong. It¡¯s best if you take them on one at a time!¡± he transmitted to the group when he stepped to the side. These were very strong puppets and he¡¯d had issues taking on two at once.

    Li Hao and the rest simply walked out instead of responding. ¡°Just send one at first!¡±

    Several puppets manifested¡ªone each. Li Hao promptly deployed his abilities and rushed forward with his sword. However, his puppet disappeared. <i>So fast!</i> He was a five element Arcanus and had just barely managed to grasp thest element. Apparently, the ck Armor wouldn¡¯t let him just face a four element Arcanus. The puppet was also at the five element strength.

    Li Hao exchanged a dozen blows with the puppet in the blink of an eye. He stumbled backward after thetest boom, disbelief brimming in his eyes.<i> I can¡¯t even defeat a single sted one?? How is that possible?! And I wanted to fight three at once!</i>

    Various thoughts flitted through his mind before inspiration struck. His sword aura red¡ªthe aura was the center of his attacks this time, not sword intent!

    <i>You don¡¯t know sword aura, do you?</i>

    Characters materialized in a spray of wind, fire, lightning, and water. It was the puppet that was subject to immense constraints this time. Thunder and lightning crackled with fury and a ferocious tiger emerged to send the puppet flying!

    ¡°More!¡±

    Another two puppets appeared¡ªnot just one. Three attacked at the same time!

    Booms and roars echoed from all sides as the ck Armor quietly watched them, observing their performance. When it looked at the little tree and saw that the tree was summoning the imperial pce again... it quickly shouted, ¡°You pass with excellent marks! This...¡±

    <i>This is almost cheating! Who in the modern world can stand against a corner of the imperial pce?</i>

    But it hadn¡¯t said before that the pce couldn¡¯t be utilized, not to mention this was part of the little tree¡¯s heritage. There was nothing that could be said about it.

    <i>Damn that cheating nt!</i>

    The little tree quietly backed off of the battlefield. It had no choice as it didn¡¯t really stand a chance against the puppets and could only use its trump card.

    There were two unlucky souls having a difficult time¡ªHou Xiaochen and Qian Wanhao. Qian Wanhao had just set foot into four element Arcanus and Hou Xiaochen had just be a supernatural. They were both stronger than they¡¯d been before, which would be a good thing, but that meant they met stronger opponents now than they would¡¯ve!

    Qian Wanhao was utterly routed in a few seconds! Just as Hou Xiaochen seemed destined for defeat, he shouted and broke another supernatural lock to send his puppet flying.

    ¡°Breaking through in the field...¡± grumbled the ck Armor. ¡°Fine, that counts too!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen spontaneously breaking a lock was cheating as well, but again, the ck Armor hadn¡¯t said ahead of time that that wasn¡¯t permitted.

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t say anything, choosing to stop after defeating one puppet. He brooded silently, despite being able to challenge two or three puppets if he so wished. Instead, he was caught up in the shame of having almost been defeated.

    Qian Wanhao wilted in the distance like he¡¯d just lost his wife. He might be the only one to fail this stage. It was an awfully depressing possibility. He looked with resignation at Li Hao and the rest. Those guys were very strong¡ªmuch stronger than him despite being of the same cultivation level. Despite that fact, why was he so dejected at being less than them?

    Qian Wanhao sighed to himself. Was he really going to be trapped here forever?

    In the meantime, Li Hao was starting to have too much fun. These puppets were susceptible to the characters and couldn¡¯t really follow the trajectory of the abilitiesing from the characters. It was a delightful discovery and he luxuriated in the exchange, despite being surrounded by three puppets.

    The ck Armor quietly observed the young man. This was Tranquil Star¡¯s ultimate art, but also not quite! It contained energy, blood qi, mental strength, and a unique dao rted to the mind. It was rather surprising!

    It then considered Hong Yitang. Here was another interesting person. He also employed written characters, but they differed from Li Hao¡¯s in that his was one word going through multiple permutations. How strange, the two were of the same dao, but also different. It was interesting, in any case!

    Li Hao defeated the three puppets after a while, as did a heavily panting Hong Yitang. He shook his head, however. He¡¯d employed some trickery again because, like Li Hao, he¡¯d won through attrition by taking advantage of the fact that the puppets didn¡¯t understand their characters. That was how he emerged victorious.

 Chapter 780: Official Students (I)

    <h4>Chapter 780: Official Students (I)</h4>

    ¡°Not bad!¡± said the ck Armor. ¡°You have done better than I expected and put a new twist on the ultimate art of Tranquil Star. That passes muster!

    ¡°Three excellent marks, one good mark, one eptable, and one fail!¡±

    Sky Sword counted as a good mark since he¡¯d defeated two puppets. Hou Xiaochen was eptable since he¡¯d only defeated one. Those who had passed grew expectant. What would the third test be? And what was the special reward for passing with good marks?

    ¡°The third test... is easy.¡± The ck Armor seemed to be smiling. ¡°You will be official students of Evenround Martial if you pass! If not, then all of you will be eliminated!¡±

    When it next spoke of the third test¡¯s contents, Li Hao and the rest blinked, dazed.

    ......

    The first test had been of civil subjects, the second of martial. What the ck Armor described of the third test, the group looking around nkly.

    ¡°Enter!¡± The ck Armor waved a door into existence. ¡°If you four and the nt spirit can emerge, you will be official students and may leave at any time. If not, all of you can stay forever!¡±

    Li Hao frowned at the transparent door. ¡°Where does the door lead to?¡±

    ¡°The battlefield!¡± the ck Armor responded calmly. ¡°You will be official students when youe back from it. Go on in!¡±

    The battlefield? So the third test was a battlefield? Where did this battlefielde from?

    Li Hao was confused. It was very strange that this ce could still connect to a battlefield. ¡°Is it... dangerous inside¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    The young man looked at hispanions. They were frowning as well.

    ¡°Who is the enemy?¡± Hou Xiaochen asked solemnly.

    ¡°The enemy is the enemy, you just need to know that they are the enemy! Additionally, with wartime regtions in effect... you just need to obey orders, do you understand?¡± The ck Armor seemed to beughing. ¡°Go in, or stay here forever!¡±

    There was no helping it. The quartet exchanged resigned nces. They had to go in!

    As the four people and tree prepared to enter the door, Panther suddenly barked.

    ¡°What are you afraid of? Will those people dare kill you without reason?¡± remarked the ck Armor. ¡°Your counterattack will be without fault if they attack you. If they kill you... then they are at fault!¡±

    It was clear to see that Panther was terrified. What should it do once Li Hao and the rest were gone? Qian Wanhao and the others were still here!

    ¡°Give me all of the mysterious power stones you collected...¡± Li Hao suddenly thought of something. ¡°Without them, you don¡¯t have any treasures on you and there¡¯s nothing in it for them if they kill you. They might actually set their eyes on you if you keep them!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Panther wanted to curse out the human! But it also felt that Li Hao made a lot of sense. It¡¯d swallowed all of the mysterious power stones¡ªwhat if that vast quantity tempted their opponents to make a desperate gamble? Their troubles might be over after they paid the fine.

    Although reluctant, the dog spat out some storage rings. It couldn¡¯t possibly outright put all of the stones in its stomach. Panther had ced them in storage rings for convenience. Li Haoughed when he received the storage rings. Panth was growing ever more greedy these days. Did it think it could keep the spoils for itself? What was with the obvious disgruntlement?

    <i>I never forget you in a cultivation session!</i>

    Next to them, Qian Wanhao and the rest didn¡¯t make a sound. Although they¡¯d been disqualified, so had the dog. It wasn¡¯t a given that Li Hao and the rest would pass the third test. At the very least, staying here meant that they wouldn¡¯t die.

    Perhaps there would be other chances to leave this ce. The ruins wouldn¡¯t be closed forever¡ªthey may very well open during the second awakening. Would everyone present still elect to stay when that happened?

    ......

    Li Hao¡¯s group didn¡¯t consider much else before setting foot over the threshold at the same time. The door immediately vanished.

    The ck Armor fell silent and the rest began waiting with expectation. Qian Wanhao and the others were also very curious. Where had Li Hao¡¯s quartet gone?

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    <i>A gray and murky world.</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s four and the little tree abruptly manifested. It was a very gloomy scene¡ªthey seemed to be in a city. A hubbub of sound rang around them; they seemed to be residing inside a bubble barrier.

    The vicinity brightened around them a few momentster and vision was restored to them. They seemed to be in a messy military barracks.

    ¡°Headmaster!¡± A muscr man in armor walked over as the group stared around in bafflement. He addressed Hong Yitang. ¡°Headmaster, strong enemies surround us on all sides. We cannot hold onto Hope City. Let¡¯s retreat!¡±

    ¡°General, you guys should go first! We¡¯ll bring up the rear!¡± Another armored warrior walked over, looking at Sky Sword. ¡°You should go too, general. We¡¯ll safeguard this ce and destroy the transportation passage. They will not set foot on human territory!¡±

    Sky Sword and Hong Yitang were both rather bewildered. <i>Huh?</i>

    Li Hao was quickly processing the situation when someone turned to him as well. ¡°You go too... As the peerless genius of the age, there is hope so long as you remain alive!¡±

    Another burly man walked in from outside. He was grinning, despite being bathed in blood. ¡°Seniors, you are old and your blood qi is declining. It would just be your death if you stayed. Leave with the students! Although humanity is losing this battle, we¡¯ll go down fighting to thest! Retreat!¡± He bowed. ¡°Seniors, please leave with the students!¡±

    Hong Yitang was frowning, wanting to say something, but not knowing what to say. Was this... a battlefield? An illusory realm? Or what?

    He couldn¡¯t immediately tell as it felt very real. Determining the situation at hand was their first priority. Therefore, Li Hao asked brusquely, ¡°What¡¯s going on here?¡±

    ¡°it¡¯s only to be expected that you don¡¯t know since you were unconscious for a few days!¡± responded Burly. ¡°Skygate City has marched on us in a pincer movement with Eastflower City. They¡¯ve sent dozens of high-ranked powerhouses. Hope City doesn¡¯t stand a chance. You new students are in the battlefield for the first time, so you don¡¯t know how strong the enemy can be. You¡¯d just be remaining to your deaths! Go back!

    ¡°You too, seniors!¡± the manughed. ¡°Surviving is the greatest pain! We will eradicate the enemy outside of human territory! Please go home with the genius students, seniors, and keep the spark of hope alive for humanity!¡±

    Li Hao blinked, mostly understanding the situation. The enemy was upon them and too strong to be contended with. Hou Xiaochen and the rest represented the older generation of powerhouses¡ªso old that their blood qi had started to decline. He was a genius of high potential and the hope for the future. These cultivators in the prime of their lives were trying to convince them to leave.

    <i>But... we¡¯re here to pass a test! We have to kill the enemy!</i>

    Whether it was an illusory realm or a real battlefield, they had to take to the field. Otherwise... how would theyplete their mission? Another unknown was the number of enemies they had to kill to count as being finished.

    ¡°How can we do that, we must participate in this battle!¡± Li Hao immediately said when his thoughts traveled here.

    ¡°The enemy attacks! Prepare for battle!¡± someone roared outside.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Heaven and earth shook outside, mountains threatened to topple over. The middle-aged generals rushed outside without a word. In the lead, Burly turned back to yell, ¡°Withdraw! There is no surviving this battle. I only hope that humanity can reim thisnd in the future and rebuild Hope City!¡±

    He was gone, as were the others that¡¯d been standing around. Li Hao¡¯s quartet looked at each other before Hong Yitang quickly said, ¡°Let¡¯s go and take a look. Our mission is probably to defeat the enemy. We¡¯ll probably pass if we seed in beating them back!¡±

    The others nodded, this was in line with their thoughts as well. They swiftly walked outside. It was only now that Li Hao noticed the little tree also resembled a human. It even wore armor, which was further proof that they were in a realm of illusion and not a real battlefield.

    <i>I was thinking where they would get a real battlefield after the ancient civilization copsed! It¡¯s so much easier knowing that this is an illusion.</i>

    Four humans and one tree swiftly walked outside. There were almost no people inside the city at the moment, they were all at the frontlines. Light sparkled in the distance. Powerhouses were traveling through the air¡ªdomineering and inexorable.

    Li Hao¡¯s group quickly broke through the air and set foot on the city walls. They could see a dense army churning across thend,ing their way. Hope City defenders were standing outside the city gates, arrayed in battle formation.

    ¡°Kill!!¡± howled a general before leading the charge!

    The two armiesmenced pitched battle in a blood-red patch ofnd outside the city. War cries shook the heavens. Although the quartet knew that this was an illusion, they were still deeply moved by the sight of tens of millions of martial masters erupting blood qi.

    They faced enemies that were ten times their numbers¡ªthey all seemed to be energy cultivators.

    ¡°Is this a battle between martial masters and supernaturals?¡± Li Hao asked in a low voice.

    ¡°Possibly... and the other side isn¡¯t human?¡±

    ¡°Very likely!¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s so many...¡±

    Li Hao looked at the sky. Rays of splendor shot through the darkness as powerhouses on the city walls leapt up with a roar. They evaded the army and engaged their enemy high in the sky, the collisions ringing through thend!

    ¡°Fight fight fight!!¡± Howls and shouts echoed through the vicinity.

    ¡°Hurry and engage the enemy!¡± Hong Yitang quickly said. ¡°Our mission might be affected if too many on our side die!¡±

    The rest nodded and shot out into the air¡ª<i>BAM!</i> Powerful enemies immediately engaged them and Li Hao was instantly waid by an expert. The iparably strong energy cultivator punched with metal sparks shimmering around their fist!

    Li Hao reflexively unsheathed his sword in response, but cursed lowly. <i>Where¡¯s Steris?! Damn it, where¡¯s my sword gone?? </i>How had he not noticed earlier that his sword was gone? Was it unable to enter this illusion?

    There was nothing to do but to use his hand as a sword. He struck with his palm!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Formidable force exploded in his hand and enormous pain traveled up his arm. His eyes widened with shock and the ck Armor¡¯s voice sounded in his ear at this time. ¡°While this is an illusion, you really will die if the enemy kills you!¡±

    Li Hao really broke out in curses this time. <i>Then where¡¯s my sword?!</i> Damn it, the ck Armor hadn¡¯t just seized it, had it?? The overwhelming pain in his hand let him know that if he died here, he would be truly dead.

 Chapter 781: Official Students (II)

    <h4>Chapter 781: Official Students (II)</h4>

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The barbarous enemy that Li Hao faced was unbelievably strong. Punch after punch forced Li Hao back; their staunch body as if an invincible construct!

    Li Hao¡¯s hand connected with their body, but only inflicted a small cut as opposed to obliterating the enemy. After the young man withdrew his hand, he saw the cut rapidly return to pristine condition.

    ¡°Damn it!¡± Li Hao cursed. What kind of healing ability was this?? It was like how he was when he wielded Steris! Any injuries he inflicted instantly healed, whereas his blood flowed freely now because hecked sword energy. There was nothing he could do to heal himself!

    He wanted to see how the others were doing and tilted his head in their direction. Li Hao gasped with horror when he gained a clear look. It wasn¡¯t just him¡ªeveryone was suppressed and unable to move from their spot.

    <i>Is the ck Armor trying to fail us on purpose?</i>

    ¡°You have a hope of joining Evenround Martial if you win,¡± sounded the ck Armor¡¯s voice. ¡°This is a real battle truly recorded in history. Humanity won that battle! You can also withdraw, of course. Withdrawing will mean that you fail the test!¡±

    A real battle recorded in history? Li Hao¡¯s eyebrows raised upward.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    His moment of distraction permitted the barbarian tond a punch, almost shattering his bones. Spewing blood, Li Hao flew backward. Sky Sword was also sent flying not far away from the young man. He, too, vomited blood from the force of the palm strike!

    Hou Xiaochen, Hong Yitang, and the little tree...

    Even an entity as strong as the little tree could mount no resistance whatsoever. It couldn¡¯t seem to use its imperial pce projection, so it waspletely under the thumb of a powerhouse and gave way with every blow!

    Heated battle raged on all sides, but humanity was firmly on the losing side. The middle-aged men who¡¯d spoken to the group earlier were doing battle as best they could, but they were firmly suppressed. Some even had to hold off three or four opponents at the same time and endure purely through sheer willpower!

    <i>How are we supposed to win?! This is a farce! </i>Li Hao cursed to himself. They were hemmed in on all sides, how was this supposed to lead to a human victory? The enemy outnumbered them many times over and was so strong that no one could fight back. How was turning the tables at all possible like this??

    <i>It¡¯s just trying to get us killed!</i>

    Hou Xiaochen flew backward after a loud impact, a bloody hole in his chest. He coughed painfully, disbelief in his eyes that his immense strength was once more being dismantled. His opponent had ovee him in every aspect possible! There was no chance for him to strike back!

    The voice that Li Hao heard had also sounded in their ears. All of them wanted to curse out the ck Armor! They were somehow supposed to pull a win out of this situation? Who was it kidding??

    ¡°I forgot to say that all of you fail if more than half of the human army is lost,¡± came the ck Armor¡¯s voice again. ¡°You will forever stay here and believe me, it¡¯s impossible for you to break this illusion! So make haste if you wish to withdraw from the test!¡±

    Li Hao and the rest sagged with the implications. They faced an army ten times their size and wouldn¡¯t be able to withdraw from the scene once their side¡¯s losses exceeded half of their total number. Should they give up now?

    Giving up now meant admitting to failure and then... being forever trapped in these ruins. No one could determine how strong the ck Armor was, but they all knew that a powerhouse that could imprison them within an illusory realm was someone that they could not measure up to.

    The little tree constantly fell back from the force of the blows it suffered; its voice echoed by the group¡¯s ears. ¡°What the ck Armor says is true, he¡¯s too strong. I don¡¯t know if he¡¯s dead or alive, and he was very likely a Saint when he was alive!¡±

    ¡°A... Saint?¡±

    ¡°The Saint cultivation level exceeds the Apex level. Whates after Apex is the Emperor level, which waster changed to simply Immortal to indicate the unending eternity one reaches at that level. Only after that is the Saint level!¡±

    Li Hao and the others shook. <i>Da fuck?? That strong?!</i> The little tree wasn¡¯t even an Apex, but their enemies were several major cultivation levels stronger? Didn¡¯t they say that very few powerhouses had stayed behind when the Human King left? How was there such a premier existence in a minor martial university? Did they even stand a chance of getting away from the ck Armor?

    No wonder the little tree had been so meek and humble after encountering it!

    The group was caught between a rock and a hard ce. The little tree suffered a relentless barrage from the enemy because it¡¯d split its attention to talk to them. Its armor was dented and it shrieked with agony. inly, it was no match for the enemy either.

    Li Hao¡¯s quartet were having the living daylights beaten out of them and heavyweights were dying one after another beneath them.

    <i>Fucking hell!</i>

    This was an impossible mission! The ck Armor wanted to keep them all in the ruins forever! The only course of action they could take was to withdraw and keep the ck Armorpany as they all grew old together.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    A loud impact sounded as Li Hao saw a person erupting with bloody sparks out of the corner of his eye. The person instantly coalesced a de of blood and decapitated an enemy with a loud whir, but they burst apart as well!

    <i>The Incantation of the de of Blood!</i>

    Li Hao recognized it! These people were employing that method! Intense pain burst from his ear¡ªhis opponent had grazed him with a punch. Blood dripped down Li Hao¡¯s face as he roared and mmed his palm out.

    <i>Damn it!</i>

    He didn¡¯t have Steris, the Windchaser Boots, or even a storage ring. All he could do was truly rely on his personal strength. There were no external objects that he could make use of. Even the characters found it difficult to stop the enemy!

    What should they do?

    People were dying very quickly beneath them. If this continued... they would have to stay here forever.

    ¡°Withdraw!¡± Li Hao transmitted to the others. ¡°Withdraw so that we can retain a sliver of hope. At the very least, we¡¯ll be able to grow stronger in the ruins and eventually make it out one day!¡±

    They couldn¡¯t fight the ck Armor. They could only keep itpany as everyone grew older in the ruins.

    Hong Yitang¡¯s resigned voice echoed in his ears. ¡°Do you know... what the consequences will be... if we do not... return?¡±

    Li Hao blinked. He¡¯d almost forgotten! His expression shifted with dismay when he thought over the consequences. If they did not emerge from the ruins, then the outside world would think that both sides had gone down together in mutual destruction or were trapped inside, that exit was impossible.

    At that point, those holding down the fort outside... would be exterminated. Without Li Hao, Hou Xiaochen, Hong Yitang, Sky Sword, Sky Mountain Manor, the Silver Moon Guards, and the newly joined Night Watchers would soon fall apart.

    The nine ministries looked to have suffered great losses, but other than Qian Wanhao, the other seven ministers from the old guard were four or fever element Arcanus. Deputy Zhou and Yao Si could not stop them.

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes darted around. He¡¯d been tunneled in on the events at hand just now and failed to consider the ramifications of his actions. The young man hade with quite a great deal of confidence and he did have the reason to be so. Reality had proven that if nothing untoward developed, none of Qian Wanhao¡¯s side would be getting away!

    It had been a massive victory for Li Hao¡¯s side!

    So... what now?

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The powerhouse across from Li Hao seemed to be wary of something. They backed a few steps away to give the young man some breathing room. This gesture was repeated with the rest as the enemy looked cautiously around them¡ªat the martial masters that¡¯d exploded.

    The Incantation of the de of Blood! Going down with the enemy!

    The method came across as a threat, genuine intimidation, and fear inducing! Where one thousand enemies went down, so did eight hundred troops on one¡¯s own side!

    Hong Yitang looked around him, suddenly realizing what the ancient civilization had done to win this battle. He smiled ruefully, finally understanding that this test subject was. They had to triumph to be a student; only students were allowed to leave school grounds.

    There were too many powerhouses here, a faithful replication of the scene in ancient history. There was no way to win as there were too many heavyweights present. The only course of action was to killrge sums of powerhouses to demonstrate their determination. They had to scare the enemy and let them know that they would only lose more as the battle dragged on!

    Yet the enemy was stronger than them. How should they eliminate their foes in an instant that would also horrify these powerful beings?

    In this moment, Hong Yitang understood. He wasn¡¯t the only one¡ªSky Sword, Hou Xiaochen, and Li Hao grasped the idea at nearly the same time.

    The young man¡¯s expression shifted drastically and he broke out in loud curses. ¡°You bastard! This isn¡¯t a test, tests should not be like this! You¡¯re just forcing us to our deaths!¡±

    The ck Armor was forcing them to utilize the Incantation of the de of Blood so they could erupt with sufficient strength against their enemies. Li Hao wouldn¡¯t care about this course of action if he had easy and unfettered ess to sword energy. But without it, melding mental strength and life force into the incantation was guaranteed death!

    The ck Armor remained silent.

    Li Hao¡¯s quartet would create bigger trouble in the outside world if they withdrew from the test, but if they didn¡¯t... they wouldn¡¯t have a chance to once casualties exceeded half of the human army.

    Someone had to use the Incantation of the de of Blood if they were to win! Only through shocking ughter and hearty intimation could they hope to save one or two out of the quartet. The survivors could be students and smoothly exit the ruins.

    What kind of test was this?! Li Hao raged. This was just a death sentence! Damn it, didn¡¯t the ck Armorck life essence for its revitalization? It¡¯d taken a lot of deaths at Battle Heaven before some of the soldiers were revived. This was just a repeat of that urrence!

    The ck Armor must be limited by rules that said it couldn¡¯t outright kill trespassers. But once the trespassers broke the rules in the university, that opened the ying field. The ck Armor could do whatever it needed to cause their deaths and absorb their life essence. It could even im their storage rings¡ªthere were a lot of treasures in Li Hao¡¯s storage ring, such as a mountain of mysterious power stones!

    He was onto the ck Armor¡¯s scheme!

 Chapter 782: Official Students (III)

    <h4>Chapter 782: Official Students (III)</h4>

    ¡°Withdraw...¡± Li Hao angrily transmitted to the others. ¡°We¡¯ll go out and show that guy what we¡¯ve got! This is all a scheme from that fucker!¡±

    The young man was enraged beyond words, but Hong Yitang and the rest looked at each other with an inward sigh. Show that ck Armor what they got? Go toe-to-toe with a Saint? Wasn¡¯t that the biggest joke of all?

    They were no match for that august personage even if the ck Armormanded only one tenth or one hundredth of his strength. Their spections coincided with Li Hao¡¯s thoughts¡ªthere must be some overall rules restricting the ck Armor¡¯s actions. If they won this battle and became official students, they likely really would be able to leave this ce.

    Hong Yitang looked at Hou Xiaochen and transmitted, ¡°You should understand the situation as well. I don¡¯t mind. Look after the Sword Sect a bit for me and leave the rest to fate!¡±

    A dark expression stole over Hou Xiaochen¡¯s face, but he wasn¡¯t able to respond. His opponent firmly had the upper hand.

    Hong Yitangughed wryly. What in the zes was this situation that they were caught in? Did all martial universities test their students like this back in the day? Or was this an exception because their proctor actually wanted them to die?

    There was no need to say anything else. Blood qi rose to the fore and overwhelming sword intent manifested between heaven and earth. A ¡®sword¡¯ character hovered in the air.

    ¡°KILL!¡± A sharp yell echoed as domineering blood qi became one with mental strength. It was just the Incantation of the de of Blood. Plenty of people knew it. Yuan Shuo knew it and those on good terms with him knew it as well. It was just... who actually used it back in the day? Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t, not before sword energy appeared. To do so was to cherish a death wish.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± Hong Yitang shouted as his presence built. ¡°You need to make it out alive! Everything is lost if you don¡¯t! Take care of my daughter... the rest doesn¡¯t matter! You can win! Whether it is the nine ministries or royal family... All of them arepletely worthless!

    ¡°Be careful of the ancient civilization!¡± A sword pierced through the world and ran through the head of the enemy facing him. Hong Yitang immediately turned on another powerhouse, his longsword of blood qi rampaging through the battlefield. He was indomitable!

    Li Hao watched lividly and suddenly set his jaw, summoning his blood qi as well. He ran his hand through his opponent¡¯s heart and sneered at the sky. ¡°I am a rogue, not a king! It¡¯s enough that Director Hou makes it back. Silver Moon has stood for many years and it makes no difference if I am there or not.

    ¡°If worstes to worst, just retreat to Silver Moon! Senior Sky Sword still has Sky Sword Mountain to take care of. I have absolutely no ties to others in this world, so what do I care about this? I am Li Hao! Do you think so little of me??¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s blood qi erupted after he wed out an enemy¡¯s heart, melding with his mental strength. His characters flew out with a rumble and exploded in the air, ripping through the powerhouse that Sky Sword faced!

    ¡°I brought Senior Little Tree here. If the two of you have the mind to, escort it back to Mount Cat Head when you leave. You can continue to transact with the senior for Water of Life. As for my teacher... Tell him... to go home... and stay home... Don¡¯t go running around anymore!¡±

    Li Hao raised his blood qi to the maximum amount possible and charged in front of Hou Xiaochen. The director glowered to see the young man run off. His blood qi had gathered as well, but Li Hao was one step ahead of him and so fast that hepleted the Incantation of the de of Blood in the blink of an eye!

    ¡°Stop fighting, you two. There¡¯s no need to coalesce the incantation. Having one more person die is just the actions of an idiot!¡± Li Hao¡¯s expression was chilly. He zed with hatred! He hated that ck Armor! He knew that he was caught squarely in a plot, but there was nothing he could do about it as he wasn¡¯t strong enough.

    ¡°Kill Ying Hongyue for me if you have the chance to!¡± Other than that, Li Hao didn¡¯t hold too many regrets in life. The world was just this unfair at times, what was he supposed to do?

    <i>I wanted to do something because I was motivated to from the bottom of my heart. Since I cannot achieve my goals, there is nothing that I regret.</i>

    Hou Xiaochennded on the ground, grinding his teeth. He suddenly howled with outrage and jabbed with his spear, stabbing all around him and pulverizing all of the powerhouses that came for him!

    <strong>¡°KILL!¡± </strong>He didn¡¯t know who to hate, just that he¡¯d failed sopletely and utterly on this excursion! He¡¯d even briefly hesitated when he coalesced the Incantation of the de of Blood. He was as sickly as theybeled him, alright!

    Heavily injured, Sky Sword thudded heavily to the ground. He lost himself in thought as he stared at the sky. Under normal circumstances, they should ensure Li Hao¡¯s safety. But when Hong Yitang erupted with the incantation, he¡¯d hesitated briefly, wondering if Hong Yitang alone was sufficient to defeat the enemies.

    Reality demonstrated that... he could not. Even with Li Hao momentarily raising his strength to new heights, the enhanced duo could not ovee their numerous opponents. Even more enemies charged them while their presences grew weaker.

    A period of decline inevitably followed the enormous eruption of strength for the Incantation of the de of Blood. The opponent facing the little tree, in particr, was highly formidable. The tree didn¡¯t know the incantation, so its situation was dire indeed. Hong Yitang rushed over, but found himself unable to turn the situation around!

    It wasn¡¯t until Li Hao joined him that they managed to suppress the opponent three on one.

    Sky Sword watched dumbly, noting that more and more enemies were rushing them. He suddenly found himself bereft of his senses...

    <i>Silver Moon martial masters...</i>

    He looked at Hou Xiaochen and suddenly said, ¡°Sky Sword Manor is just a ce that discusses dao. I have never sought to be an overlord! I am a swordsman... and swordsmen... should not conduct themselves in this manner. I rather regret being one step behind him. Hou Xiaochen... help me disband my mountain after you leave. Tell everyone... that they¡¯re on their own!¡±

    Heughed.<i> I am Sky Sword! The greatest swordsman beneath the heavens! Since when do I need other people to save me?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen brooded, not saying a word.

    Sky Sword shouted, throwing himself forward like a sword¡ªa blood sword that drilled through countless powerhouses surrounding them. Bodies rained down from the sky!

    ¡°I was just thinking that it¡¯s still a bit tough!¡± Li Haoughed heartily. ¡°Well met, senior! This should be enough now. There¡¯s no need to be conflicted about anything, Director Hou. Didn¡¯t you hear what those people said earlier? Those who stay have the hardest choice of all! Don¡¯t be brash. All of our efforts will be wasted if you give in to impulse!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen stood on the ground and mechanically swung his spear around, decimating everything in his path.

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    Hong Yitang¡¯s ¡®sword¡¯ character exploded and eviscerated the little tree¡¯s opponent. The man himself smiled ghastly, looking at Li Hao. ¡°You really dragged me down into the thick of things this time... You were so confident that I thought we could win!¡±

    ¡°I did win...¡± Li Hao answered with resignation. ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought that a bullshit ck Armor would appear out of nowhere? What can I do about that?¡±

    <strong><i>BOOM!!</i></strong>

    Hong Yitang exploded!

    Grief shed through Li Hao¡¯s eyes, a sorrow that quickly turned into a smile. <i>I didn¡¯t anticipate this either, sorry, Martial Uncle Hong.</i> He grabbed some handfuls of flesh and blood, thinking back to when they first met. Earthturner Sword had told him that this was not how one employed the sword...

    <strong>¡°KILL!!¡± </strong>All of the young man¡¯s characters detonated, annihting endless heavyweights. Li Hao¡¯s presence climbed to its peak as a sword aura surged around him. It transformed into a sword that swept in all directions!

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

    Powerhouses died in droves around him! Li Hao charged into the enemy army and detonated himself, causing maximum damage to their opponents.

    Sky Sword took a page out of his book and mmed his broadsword down, turning tens of millions of enemies into ash. His body started falling apart as he turned back to smile at Hou Xiaochen. Some irritation and pride marked the bend of his neck. ¡°This is... what we call the martial world!¡±

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    The one known as Sky Sword exploded and vanished from the world.

    <i>Hummmmm.</i>

    Bugles sounded as the enemy retreated like the tides. All of their countless numbers werepletely frightened out of their wits. Although their powerhouses still stood in the sky, they were horrified and didn¡¯t dare set foot forward.

    On the ground, Hou Xiaochen said nothing as he hunted down their stragglers. He didn¡¯t know how many he killed and knew that it was all an illusion, so it didn¡¯t matter how many he killed. But still, he wanted to kill someone.

    All of hispanions were dead! Even he couldn¡¯tprehend why he¡¯d been a step slower than Li Hao. Li Hao was the hope of this age, wasn¡¯t he?

    <i>Why did you guys leave me behind? Is it because I¡¯m weaker? Or is it because I¡¯m a bureaucrat and not the martial hero of their definition? They think less of me, do they?</i>

    The Broken Will Spear swept in a wide arc around him as he tore everything to pieces. There was only ughter in his eyes!

    Behind him, the little tree looked on dumbly, thrusting its roots into the ground as it dragged its branches forward...

    Li Hao was dead? What should it do now? Go back to Silver Moon with this Hou Xiaochen? Continue to guard the imperial pce?

    The ck Armor¡¯s voice sounded in the duo¡¯s ears after an indeterminate period of time. ¡°The enemy has retreated and our side has not suffered more than half its numbers as casualties. We have won this battle! Congrattions, you two are official students at Evenround Martial University!¡±

    The scene flickered around them as the human and tree abruptly appeared in a ssroom. The ck Armor was there as well and greets them happily. ¡°Congrattions!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen stared silently at him before asking slowly, ¡°Where is Li Hao¡¯s sword, the Windchaser Boots, and his storage ring?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s dead...¡± The ck Armor was surprised.

    ¡°I know. Where are his belongings?¡±

    The ck Armor thought for a moment before producing a storage ring, sword, and a pair of boots. Hou Xiaochen took them and looked at Panther. ¡°Can I take the dog with me?¡±

    ¡°Well, no...¡±

    ¡°Very well, then the little tree and I will be departing...¡± He looked at the little tree. ¡°Senior, please enter the storage ring. Let¡¯s go!¡±

    ¡°Are we... leaving... just like this?¡± The little tree shook with shock. Li Hao and the rest had all died here!

    ¡°What else should we do?¡± Hou Xiaochen was particrlyposed. The little tree remained silent before transforming into a sapling and vanishing into the storage ring. It remained motionless inside.

    ¡°Then I request the senior to send me out!¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at the ck Armor.

 Chapter 783: Official Students (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 783: Official Students (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Are you not going to stay for a while?¡± the ck Armor asked slowly. ¡°You should know that many benefits await you after bing an official student. I didn¡¯t lie to you about that. You won¡¯t need too long in here, just a month before you set foot into Apex¡ªthe seven element Arcanus realm by your system!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine.¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled faintly. ¡°I think I know how to grow stronger from here. Thank you for your good intentions, senior. Send me out! Or is the senior going to go back on your word?¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡± The ck Armor looked at him. ¡°Are you... going to seek revenge on me?¡±

    ¡°No, you¡¯ve misunderstood, senior. I have absolutely no intentions of doing that! Life and death aremonce in the martial world, not to mention that I am not of the same kind as them. I am an official, they are bandits!¡±

    ¡°I see...¡± mused the ck Armor. ¡°I also hope you understand that even if you be the seven element Arcanus that your age is familiar with, there are many, many Apexes who died to my hands back in the day!¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Hou Xiaochen remained calm, not saying anything else. He frowned as the moments dragged on with no sign of action from the ck Armor. ¡°What does... the senior mean by this?¡±

    ¡°Nothing much.¡± The ck Armor suddenly shook its head after a period of silence. ¡°I¡¯m just assessing a few things. Forget it, it¡¯s a bitplicated. Someone once said that the human heart should not be tested. I took the bit in my own teeth this time¡ªthe human heart is very difficult to be tested!¡±

    The scene blurred in front of Hou Xiaochen¡ªit was only now that he seemed to set foot in the real world. He blinked, dazed by what he found.

    Li Hao was rubbing his head, a dark expression on his face. Hong Yitang had his head tilted toward the sky. Sky Sword avoided Hou Xiaochen¡¯s eyes out of extreme awkwardness. However dashing he¡¯d been with the dashing line of ¡°this is what we call the martial world¡± was however mortified he was now.

    Qian Wanhao and the others were still present in the surroundings, as was Panther. They looked curiously at the newly returned quartet. What was going on? Had they seeded?

    The ck Armor was in deep thought and said slowly after a while, ¡°That... was a real battle in the annals of history... and this was how we secured victory that day! I ced you in the illusion because I wanted to see if you could walk out of it... If it would be one person walking out or all of you...¡±

    One person meant that someone had sacrificed themselves. Everyone walking out meant that the mission had been failed as the group chose to withdraw. As for an option of everyone being alive after passing, that was impossible. That oue did not exist.

    ¡°This battle happened in the early days of New Martial. Many people participated in or witnessed it. The identities you assumed were that of real people back in the day. A great number of people died in that skirmish, most of them the older guard of martial masters.

    ¡°Even the Human King participated in that battle, but as an insignificant soldier. Hong Yitang¡¯s identity of headmaster was the old headmaster of Demonic Martial University. His fall in battle was a staggering loss to humanity. He taught untold powerhouses and geniuses, choosing to erupt with the Incantation of the de of Blood when his blood qi declined.

    ¡°Going down with the enemy was the choice of many veteran martial masters back in the day,¡± sighed an emotional ck Armor. ¡°I had you participate in this battle simply because I wanted to see how you¡¯d choose in such circumstances. Would you save your lives and withdraw, or would you consider the impact of your actions on the outside world and choose to save one or two of your number?

    ¡°You would not have defeated the enemies if there wasn¡¯t a certain degree of coordination between you, as well as the resolve to die! Trusting one another and a sacrificial spirit was key! Only in trusting one another and having most of you detonate yourselves to save one or two did you have a hope of beating back the enemy.

    ¡°That is a true martial master in my eyes!¡±

    ¡°It waspletely unnecessary!¡± snorted Li Hao. He was still rubbing his head. ¡°In my opinion, some things do not need to be tested. You said so yourself, the human heart should not be tested! Was there a need for this? What is Director Hou supposed to do with himself after surviving that test?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen yed deaf and dumb. He wasn¡¯t just feeling awkward at this moment, he even wanted to die.

    ¡°And us too, how are we supposed to face each other afterying down all those heroic words?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Sky Sword flushed with embarrassment. <i>Pretend I didn¡¯t say anything just now.</i>

    ¡°That¡¯s true...¡± sighed the ck Armor. ¡°It¡¯s just... I found this iteration of humanity to be ugly and repulsive for your fixation on scheming, plotting, and killing each other for energy stones. I felt that you would be the same even when faced with death, that although some of you look united, the base side of your natures woulde out if survival was at stake. It was my spection that your group, too, would fight among yourselves. Reality proved to me that I thought too much!¡±

    This test had been a sess, and a failure. The candidates had seeded, but would a rift grow between the surviving Hou Xiaochen and the rest? Or would those who sacrificed themselves ostracize Hou Xiaochen?

    The ck Armor didn¡¯t know. All it knew was that these people had exceeded its expectations. It hadn¡¯t wanted to actually kill them, there was no meaning in that. It just wanted to test them¡ªthis wasn¡¯t the true third test.

    Having been quiet all this time, Hong Yitang rubbed his head with a smile. ¡°So do we pass? Do all of us pass? If so, then we will pursue the matter no further. As for Hou Xiaochen, don¡¯t worry. We think that he¡¯ll do better than all of us. At least this guy can hold his temper. See, didn¡¯t he do a good job just now? Don¡¯t worry, we won¡¯t think less of him!

    ¡°Or do you think we should¡¯ve saved Li Hao?¡± Hong Yitangughed. ¡°Honestly speaking, Li Hao might die very quickly without our help if he walked out of here. He causes trouble from morning to night, so his decision to sacrifice was right. We don¡¯t have to default to protecting him just because he¡¯s young. It should be those who can bide their time that stay. He obviously can¡¯t!¡±

    ¡°What!¡± Li Haoughed sheepishly. ¡°That¡¯s not true, I rarely stir up trouble!¡±

    Even Sky Swordughed at that! The normally taciturn and stone-faced swordsmanughed heartily. <i>Rarely stir up trouble? Just look at how much trouble you¡¯ve gotten into in less than a month! Can you really say that with a straight face?</i>

    Hou Xiaochen sighed as he looked at hispanions. ¡°If I were to say that I really don¡¯t have intentions of seeking revenge for you after I leave... would you regret saying those words?¡±

    ¡°Even if Director Hou doesn¡¯t want vengeance, Manager Yu would encourage you to grow stronger and avenge us after she learns of what happened.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I believe in Manager Yu!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry! He shook his head instead. ¡°Don¡¯t do that next time. I... I¡¯ve always firmly believed that I¡¯m very strong. Never in my life have I felt so weak. It¡¯s a blow to my ego!¡±

    The fourughed loudly. Meanwhile, Qian Wanhao and the rest frowned. Although they didn¡¯t know what¡¯d just urred, they could more or less piece together the puzzle from what they heard. So these guys had passed?

    ¡°All of you pass!¡± announced the ck Armor. ¡°Well done. To be frank, I didn¡¯t think that you would seed. I would give you another chance even if all of you withdrew and put you in the real third test. To think that you¡¯d exceed my expectations!¡±

    The four smiled without a response; Li Hao kept up a running litany of curses inside of him. <i>Just you wait for your daddy to grow stronger! I¡¯ll beat the shit out of you! You better pray that your physical body is long gone, or I¡¯ll blow it to high heavens again and again!</i>

    ¡°Do not let your thoughts run wild in front of powerhouses,¡± the ck Armor said calmly. ¡°You are so weak that you are not even an Apex. None of your thoughts can be concealed from me. My physical body is long gone, so I¡¯m afraid you won¡¯t be able to make good on your wish!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Stunned bedazzlement! Not only did Li Hao freeze, but so did everyone else¡¯s expression still for a moment.

    ¡°Did you not know?¡±ughed the ck Armor. ¡°The difference in our cultivation is so great that your thoughts are as ifmps in front of me. I know what you think the moment it takes shape in your mind. You guys are right, this Director Hou of yours is indeed nning on going back and locking himself away in closed door cultivation to grow strong enough to kill me. However, dreams are easy, but reality is difficult.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen held his breath and emptied his mind, not daring to think of anything. His actions were imitated by the others as well. They couldn¡¯t believe it¡ªit was terrifying that the ck Armor could read their minds!

    ¡°I just wanted to have some fun with you, but I shall take the situation seriously now. You are official students of Evenround Martial University now! Congrattions, new students!¡±

    Five medallions hovered in front of the four humans. The little tree was still brooding in the storage ring.

    Not a word was said as the four epted their medallions.

    ¡°ording to the senior¡¯s words,¡± Hong Yitang suddenly raised. ¡°Would you have gone back on your word and not let us leave if we passed the real third test instead of this one?¡±

    ¡°Of course not,¡± the ck Armor responded calmly. ¡°If that had been the case, the only difference was that you would not be able to ess certain things and your level of authorization wouldn¡¯t be too high. You would just be a visitor!¡±

    The quartet looked at each other. <i>So... does this mean our authorization level is now high?</i>

    ¡°Then can we do with these people as we see fit?¡± Li Hao pointed at Qian Wanhao¡¯s group.

    ¡°You would not have the right to do so if you were visitors. But as official students, you may!¡±

    Qian Wanhao¡¯s eyes widened with dismay and he furiously roared, ¡°You can¡¯t do that! Senior, I am exceedingly high ced in the outside world and can facilitate your revival! I can supply one hundred million mysterious power stones for you...¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Li Hao struck with his sword! His opponent didn¡¯t have any treasures or weapons on him, and was weak after the earlier battle.

    The ck Armor simply watched the resulting action. He really wouldn¡¯t have handed over the trespassers to these people if they¡¯d only passed the regr third test. But in this moment, he decided to bestow them with the identity of true students. What did it matter if students killed a few outsiders, a few invaders?

    Nothing at all!

    All that rot about identity and revival... it was the living dead a long time ago, what did it care about this?

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t the only one to make a move¡ªHou Xiaochen and the others did so as well. All of them were crazed fiends as they struck with vicious ruthlessness. They seemed to be regarding their opponents as the ck Armor!

    <i>Kaboom!</i>

    A furious barrage of explosions ensued. The quartet would¡¯ve beaten a five element Arcanus to death, to say nothing of a four element! Qian Wanhao had the chance to scream once before Li Hao¡¯s sword ran through his throat! Hong Yitang turned him into a sieve the next moment!

    The other three ministers, including the resentful Hu Mingfa, were churned to pieces in a mad frenzy. The one from the City of Supernaturals wanted to run away, but Panther tore it to pieces with a bite!

    The dog spat out the body and regarded the ck Armor with an odd look.

    ¡°It is of no consequence that students keep a steed around,¡± the ck Armor was unmoved. ¡°You do not need the identity of a student, but do not harm other students or you will be executed for it!¡±

    Panther rxed with relief. It¡¯d been testing the ck Armor just now. Thank goodness the effects seemed good. But that suit of armor was definitely scary to read what it was thinking.

    All was truly quiet now. Li Hao and the rest were feeling much more content after venting their frustrations. Even the ck Armor didn¡¯t seem as irritating as before, although it¡¯d been very maddening when it was testing them!

    None of them like this kind of examination!

    ¡°All of you should rein in your thoughts.¡± The ck Armor was as calm as before. ¡°Your first thought after surviving a cmity is how to reap benefits from me and loot the university. That is not a good thought!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Four humans and one dog immediately nked their minds. <i>Are we that obvious?</i>

    The ck Armor seemed to be smiling.

 Chapter 784: A Book (I)

    <h4>Chapter 784: A Book (I)</h4>

    Everyone was very much on guard against this ancient personage who¡¯d been dead for countless years. Based on what the ck Armor said, his body was long gone. That meant he was simr to those of Battle Heaven and existing only in mental form. That made Li Hao curious¡ªif the ck Armor was on the Saint level, did Saint level bodies also decay?

    How many years had it been since the ancient civilization?

    Fifty thousand? One hundred thousand? Hadn¡¯t the ck Armor already ascended past the Immortal level, which meant he¡¯d reached a state of undying eternity? And yet, his body dposed a scant tens of thousands of yearster. How was that immortal? Or was there another reason at y? And, just what benefits could be had here?

    The ck Armor had said at the second test that defeating two puppets would result in rewards and three would result in special rewards...

    The quartet¡¯s thoughts were simple since they couldn¡¯t defeat this person¡ªget as much as they could from him before leaving and avoid further contact with him. If there was nothing to be had, they could at least swing a waiving of their penalties, right?

    Panther had taken half of the one hundred million energy stones; this one should have the other half. Li Hao¡¯s group wasn¡¯t able to do anything about that. The idiots that ruled the various factions had just outright dumped the stones on the ground. It might¡¯ve been safer to hold it all within storage rings. That they¡¯d insisted on cramming it into the small pond meant that this one could¡¯ve absorbed it all.

    It might be because of this energy that the ck Armor awoke. He would¡¯ve stayed sleeping otherwise. If not, earlier expeditions from the Ministry of Finance should¡¯ve perished down to thest man.

    The group suppressed their various irritations as numerous thoughts flitted through their minds. The ck Armor didn¡¯t say anything either. He rose and looked at the quartet with his usual calm.

    ¡°Come with me!¡± He introduced the school as they walked. ¡°Evenround Martial is not big¡ªthere are only four buildings of the ssrooms, offices, cultivation, and dormitory. Teachers and students share the same dormitory. This one is the ssroom building.

    ¡°Each building has one hundred Evenround puppets in residence, overseeing daily operations...¡±

    ¡°What level of strength are these puppets?¡± Li Hao looked at the puppets following them. So there were four hundred of these puppets before?

    ¡°Apex,¡± the ck Armor responded faintly. ¡°Of course, they¡¯re not truly Apex in terms of strength. They reach that level in terms of defensive and offensive capabilities, but puppets are puppets in the end. Their powers of adaptation are much weaker and will not prevail against a true Apex.¡±

    As much as the group understood, their hearts quailed. Apex! That was very strong! No one in the modern world could reach that level. Even Li Hao was very far from it. It would require at least a seven element Arcanus to reach it.

    For supernaturals, they would have to open all five locks of the organs as well as wind and thunder to barely reach it. It was almost the same for martial masters. These were all the locks discovered in the human body for now. As for the one of the head... no one dared touch it. Therefore, the current limit of strength for martial masters and supernaturals was seven element Arcanus.

    Just a puppet here was that strong! It was incredible. Li Hao said nothing further as he¡¯d known long ago how strong the ancients were. He would just keep putting in the hard work.

    The ck Armor continued walking at the head of the group. ¡°Unfortunately, Evenround Martial does not have anything precious to offer new students due to our state of inertness. Aspensation for the third test, I¡¯ll take you to a ce. It¡¯s up to you what you gain there. If you reap a harvest, it may be a precious one indeed.¡±

    He suddenly looked at Li Hao. ¡°For you... it may be a very bountiful harvest!¡±

    Li Hao was surprised by the attention.<i> For me? What bountiful harvest?</i>

    The ck Armor didn¡¯t say anything, leaving the young man to his thoughts as they walked. <i>Treasure? Weapons? Or something else?</i>

    The road ahead was long until they reached a small attic that had been built underground. Li Hao was struck dumb by the incongruity, but perhaps there was much more to be seen here.

    There were puppets outside the attic as well, ones that bowed to the ck Armor like they were alive. inly, the ck Armor possessed a high status. The attic doors opened automatically when the group approached, revealing countless books to the group¡¯s eyes. Was this... a library?

    ¡°The Voidbreak Incantation, Indomitable Golden Body, All Methods As One, Sacred Record of Origin, Dao of Wind and Cloud, Eating in All Directions...¡± Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath after taking a casual nce around. There were quite a few familiar titles¡ªnot familiar in the sense that he¡¯d read them before, but that he¡¯d heard of their name.

    Eating in All Directions was said to be a top three monster spirit secret art. The Voidbreak Incantation was the ultimate secret art of the Battle Heaven Army. Sadly, he hadn¡¯t had the merits to trade for it. All of this was here?!

    Li Hao became agitated. Did the ck Armor mean to give them these secret manuals?

    Although Panther couldn¡¯t read, it stared fixedly at a book of jade. The dog seemed to sense some presence wafting off of it and was growing agitated. Even highly learned individuals like Hong Yitang and the rest gasped with astonishment. What kind of ce was Evenround Martial?

    They¡¯d heard of these ancient manuals before, some mentioned in other ancient books. These were cultivation methods of the greatest people in the ancient civilization. Although the martial universities contained all of the learning from that time period and powerhouses didn¡¯t hoard their knowledge, it wasn¡¯t just anyone who could learn or practice their martial skills. Therefore, most methods were stored safely in a sacrednd somewhere. Only heavyweights who reached a certain level were permitted to practice them.

    But today, they could be found everywhere!

    Each manual still exuded the light of great dao, despite it being years since they¡¯d been written. The group could sense that if they cultivated here, they wouldn¡¯t even need to read the books to quickly reap great rewards.

    The ck Armor was used to the sight and looked at his new charges. ¡°These battle methods are left behind by the powerhouses of old. Evenround Martial¡¯s background is far from ordinary, so it stores almost all of the martial knowledge avable from experts back in the day!¡±

    The group took sharp breaths.

    ¡°What kind of background does Evenround Martial have...¡± asked a shocked Li Hao. ¡°How can it... have copies of all of the greatest martial knowledge?¡±

    ¡°Not just that, that¡¯s only part of it. Even the Sword Sovereign from your Li family left behind a copy of his sword method here,¡± the ck Armor said faintly. ¡°It¡¯s not specific instructions, just some reflections. They might be helpful for you, but not all of your desires will be satisfied in one go since you¡¯re a new student.

    ¡°You can choose one manual this time. Other than Hou Xiaochen, that tree and Hong Yitang can also choose one themselves. Sky Sword can choose one of lower caliber.¡±

    Hou Xiaochen was rendered speechless. He had to go without? Fine, he¡¯d only just passed the second test.

    A new thought had just urred in Li Hao¡¯s mind when the ck Armor promptly responded, ¡°Don¡¯t think of sharing what you learn in the outside world. This isn¡¯t regr martial knowledge. There are restrictions within as this knowledge touches upon the great dao. You won¡¯t be able to speak of it no matter what you try!¡±

    <i>That¡¯s... crazy.</i> Li Hao didn¡¯t quite believe it, but he didn¡¯t say anything to the contrary. The rewards were good enough. Reflections from his ancestor¡¯s sword methods? That was the martial knowledge of an exalted emperor, an absolute titan! That was a supreme treasure to him.

    However, the ck Armor took a look at him. ¡°I don¡¯t actually rmend that you choose the sword method. Everyone¡¯s sword is different and your ancestor was not skilled at teaching others. It is not very suitable for you.¡±

    Li Hao blinked. What did that mean? Was the ck Armor not giving it to him anymore?

    ¡°Aspensation for the third test, I rmend that you peruse another battle method...¡±

    Li Hao frowned, but quickly smiled. ¡°Might I ask what kind of battle method it is?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll see when you see it.¡± The ck Armor led Li Hao forward, then looked back at Hong Yitang. ¡°You cane as well if you¡¯d like. The battle method might be useful for you too.¡±

    Although confused, Hong Yitang followed after momentary consideration.

    ¡°Sky Sword, you can read the books that can be moved,¡± the ck Armor¡¯s voice sounded as they walked off. ¡°You won¡¯t be able to read the books that you cannot move. Hou Xiaochen, you can read the free books. You will have certain gains from them regardless. These are the benefits as provided to the students.

    ¡°Stop staring at the monster spirit method, Panther. You¡¯ll naturally learn it if you¡¯re strong enough. If not, reading it would just be a waste of time. Let the tree out. There are monster spirit cultivation methods here that will be helpful to it.¡±

    Standing in the back, Hou Xiaochen listened to the instructions with resignation. How sad he was! The ck Armor even seemed to be pulling Li Hao and Hong Yitang aside for special tutge! How envious and jealous he was!

    ......

    The ck Armor walked ahead with the two; they walked for an indeterminate period of time as the attic seemed to run to the heavens. Finally, they reached a tiny enclosed area. There was a book here.

    Just one book.

    ¡°The ounts of Evenround.¡± Li Hao paused after reading the title. What... was this? A storybook?

    The ck Armor seemed to be caught in memories as he looked at it. It was a long moment before he introduced, ¡°This book was written by the headmaster himself back in the day. After it was written, he invited the Human King to edit it.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook. The Human King himself edited this book!? Just what kind of status did Evenround Martial possess??

    ¡°Of course, this book was just the headmaster¡¯s imitation of a powerhouse¡¯s methods. Now that the headmaster is no longer among us, we can speak of this freely.¡±

    Li Hao looked curiously at him. ¡°Does the senior mean that... this book is a copy of another work?¡±

    ¡°Ahem... you can¡¯t put it that way!¡± The ck Armor smiled. It¡¯s not a copy, just... some of the methods... are simr to a certain ancient powerhouse. That powerhouse was very strong! What a pity that they ultimately perished in battle.¡±

    ¡°Perished?¡± Would the strong perish? Li Hao didn¡¯t think much of such a heavyweight.

    ¡°Don¡¯t go thinking that only the weak fall!¡± The ck Armor said emotionally. ¡°On the contrary, although that one died countless years ago, he was still a benefactor to the New Martial that developedter. The Human King was so strong in part thanks to the methods left behind by that one. Battle Heaven is an auxiliary branch of the Exalted Blood Emperor, and the Exalted Blood Emperor had a veryplex rtionship with that one.

    ¡°Strictly speaking, Battle Heaven¡¯s name represents the powerhouse who fell. He has left indelible traces in the world since the beginning of time!¡±

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but remark when he saw that the ck Armor was outright using some titles. ¡°You... Senior Little Tree said that the titles of those truly strong can not be mentioned...¡±

 Chapter 785: A Book (II)

    <h4>Chapter 785: A Book (II)</h4>

    ¡°This is Evenround Martial,¡±ughed the ck Armor. ¡°There¡¯s not much of a problem with mentioning titles of the powerful. However, you should not do so in the outside world or other ces. Evenround Martial is a bit unique. While there aren¡¯t many treasures left here or the lingering traces of any supreme existence, there is a special dao circting that cannot be sensed in the outside world.¡±

    These words epassed so much meaning! Li Hao and Hong Yitang looked at the book. It seemed very ordinary with nothing unusual about it. Yet the ck Armor said that it would help them, and that it borrowed from the methods left behind by a supreme powerhouse.

    Li Hao gathered that he¡¯d once seen the exalted emperor of Battle Heaven in the scenes created by the two characters of the city¡¯s name. Was the one who wore a longbow on his back and wielding a bloody de the Exalted Blood Emperor?

    But the ck Armor said that the Battle Heaven characters represented the one who¡¯d perished, so Li Hao was confused. Of course, that was neither here nor there. The key was that this book might truly be very impressive.

    ¡°The two of you should decide for yourselves if you choose this book or another. I¡¯ve made a unique opportunity avable to you, it won¡¯t be this way next time.¡±

    ¡°This one then!¡± Li Hao decided after some thought.

    ¡°Me too!¡± Hong Yitang nodded as well. There didn¡¯t seem to be a reason for the ck Armor to lie to them. They could all freely choose from the iparably precious secret arts out there. Was there a need to go to this trouble to deceive them?

    Not to mention, this book was here by itself on this floor. It was clear to see from that alone that it was extraordinary.

    ¡°Then, enjoy your reading!¡± The ck Armor seemed to be smiling again.

    ¡°What did he mean by that?¡± Li Hao suddenly asked when the other disappeared. ¡°There seemed to be another meaning behind his words.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Hong Yitang shook his head ruefully. ¡°We¡¯re ants in here, so let¡¯s not think too much and just go with the flow. We wouldn¡¯t be able to offer much resistance if he really wanted to kill us.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s leave the rest for the future!¡± Li Hao smiled, not the least bit dejected. ¡°We have time toter. It¡¯s only been how long since we started cultivating?¡±

    Hong Yitang chuckled and didn¡¯t say anything. The two of them sat down in front of the desk. Li Hao looked at the book resting on it; it seemed that others had once sat here to read it before.

    <i>The ounts of Evenround </i>sounded more like a diary or records of certain events. What was so special about it?

    Li Hao blinked when he opened the cover.

    ¡°We were very poor when I was growing up and I really wanted to eat something delicious. But we didn¡¯t have any money then, not until big brother practiced martial dao and earned money. That was when I received an allowance and could buy what I wanted. Life was so good then...¡±

    Li Hao looked around nkly after he flipped through the entire book. This was a storybook! No, it was a memoir. It recorded the day-to-day mundanity of a woman growing up. It mentioned that she had an older brother that doted on her and often bought her food. She had an adorable cat that loved to sleep and ate a lot. It always ate so much that she didn¡¯t have enough food for herself.

    She had many elders who spoiled her, but she knew that it was because her brother was a genius. They liked her because of him, but she didn¡¯t mind.

    She spent a period of time away from her brother with a teacher surnamed Li. She cried a lot then and really missed home. Sheter killed a lot of people in that ce, but she didn¡¯t tell her brother about her actions.

    And then... that was it. There was nothing else. These mundanities were all that the book covered. Li Hao looked at it carefully up and down, left to right, front to back... and waspletely perplexed! Utterly baffled!

    He looked at Hong Yitang; the man was stroking his chin.

    ¡°Have we... been toyed with... once again?¡± the man asked.

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao was so baffled that his reactions were slow. ¡°Is there a point in doing so?¡±

    Did the ck Armor have too much time on his hands??<i> I wanna beat the shit out of him right now! You made everything so mysterious that we thought you knew the error of your ways and wanted to give us something good. But it turns out... that you just wanted to give us a memoir??</i>

    <i>The heck is this?!</i>

    <i>There¡¯s no discussion of great dao or any information about martial dao. The only killing it mentions is described by a single line. There¡¯s not even a mention of methods! The book is pretty much a stream of consciousness and it¡¯s really boring to read.</i>

    <i>It can talk about a meal for half a page and mention a great battle by simply the fact that they won!</i>

    ¡°......¡±

    The hell was this?! The author could at the very least describe the battle in more detail or the martial methods used. That might be useful for the reader. But this is all there was to the book?

    Li Hao almost wanted to vomit blood in his anger!

    ¡°That one... has no need to provoke us over and over again, does he? What would be the point in that?¡± Hong Yitang asked thoughtfully. He picked up a book to consider it. ¡°Perhaps there¡¯s a hidden page orpartment in it!¡±

    Li Hao nodded and quickly inspected the book, but still found nothing.

    ¡°Will a secret manual appear if we burn it?¡± Li Hao looked at Hong Yitang.

    ¡°Can we burn it?¡± The man frowned.

    ¡°I... think so? He didn¡¯t say that we can¡¯t.¡± me appeared in Li Hao¡¯s hands, but it was a futile effort. It went out as soon as it touched the book.

    ¡°I understand!¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes darted around. ¡°The book itself is a treasure!¡±

    He finally understood¡ªthe book was a precious object! The ck Armor wanted to give them a treasure!

    ¡°Damn it, we still fell for it!¡± Li Hao was still regretful. ¡°One book is only one treasure, he had us choose between it. Perhaps he wanted to see us fight for it. The book may be a very high level treasure, high enough to the point that we¡¯ll fight for it!¡±

    A sigh traveled through the air; resignation colored it. ¡°The book... is indeed a treasure, but it cannot be removed from the premises. Look at it carefully! Concentrate. I¡¯m sure that it will be helpful for you!¡±

    It was the ck Armor. Li Hao looked anew at the book¡ªso the issue wasn¡¯t with how high level the book was? Then what was it?

    He looked at it carefully, going from back to front, picking the first character of each line, skipping lines, reading backwards, trying to locate anagrams, reading thest character of each line, skipping every other character...

    No matter what he read, he still didn¡¯te away with anything. Li Hao¡¯s head was aching. <i>Is he really not messing with us?</i>

    Hong Yitang had also been considering the item closely when he said, ¡°Calm yourself and have a look. Don¡¯t think of anything else.¡±

    <i>Calm myself?</i> His heart was indeed not calm. But there might be something to what Hong Yitang was saying, so Li Hao calmed himself down and stoppedining. This was all extraneous gains in any case, so it didn¡¯t matter if he walked away with anything or not.

    As he perused the book, Li Hao seemed to return to the days of the Veteris Institute, of when he studied ancient tomes with his teacher. Regardless of how valuable this storybook was or how unique the font may be, it was ancient writing at the very least. Written in a in and straightforward manner, it was ideal to use as instructional material. There was nothing arcane or abstract about the words, which made it suitable for beginners to study when they learned the ancientnguage.

    Li Hao became much quieter after he stilled his heart. He wasn¡¯t as impatient as before, and actually thought he was seeing things as he continued to read the words. The young man rubbed his eyes, was he seeing afterimages from staring so hard? Surely not.

    But as he looked carefully at each individual character, they seemed toe alive and move with a will of their own.

    <i>Whaaaat?</i>

    Li Hao concentrated on a particr word¡ªit didn¡¯t move. Surprised, the young man continued to fixate on one word and assessed it for a very long moment until the scene suddenly shifted in his eyes. The character had be a person!

    The person was practicing martial arts and had a bit of their blood qi seep out. Theponents gradually drifted apart and were stripped out. Li Hao seemed to see blood qi separated into countless portions and be a dragon in the next moment!

    The dragon howled, startling Li Hao so much that he took a quick step backward and immediately fell out of this mental state.

    He was shocked! What... was that? He looked at the book¡¯s pages again and lost himself in the characters. This time, he discovered some profundities¡ªeach character represented a type of martial knowledge. No, it might all be the same. He could tell that this was a...bination?

    Indeed, the characters that¡¯d taken human shape seemed to be endlessly rearranging themselves. Blood qi was being broken up to countless portions and rearranged in a different manner, ultimately giving rise to a distinct final form.

    Li Hao blinked with astonishment and was beside himself! Was this... the true nature of martial dao? The core essence of ancient battle methods? They took the same portion of blood qi, or internal force and mysterious power, to fragment, rearrange, and then bring back together in a different battle method.

    What was this? A reconstruction of the microscopic world?

    Li Hao lost himself in the sight, suddenly understanding why the ck Armor had let him read this. Was it because of his supernatural abilities involving the characters? Could his characters be reassembled? Could they be fragmented again? Could his ¡®water¡¯ character be divided into endless water characters, then reformed as ¡®ice¡¯, ¡®snow¡¯, or ¡®frost¡¯? Could he give rise to anything having to do with water?

    It was like an entirely new world had been opened up to him. His mind was in a foggy haze as he marveled at the wonders of this book. It¡¯d opened a new door to him, one that led to the microscopic world and spoke of the base nature of battle methods!

    It wasn¡¯t martial dao, but directly expounding on ancient battle methods. It helped everyone understand how battle methods came to be and why they differed...

    <i>Heavens above!</i>

    Li Hao could barely believe the single nce he took. One character could undergo endless permutations to form different characters. Therefore, one method could be endless methods...

    A myriad of changes! Didn¡¯t this reflect Martial Uncle Hong¡¯s thoughts? Their characters were formed from various individual strokes¡ªdidn¡¯t that hold true for all words? Therefore, wouldn¡¯t that mean that their characters could undergo a myriad of changes in the microscopic world?

    Li Hao immersed himself in these new findings and could scarcely extract himself from them. He¡¯d really run into a fortuitous urrence this time! A massive stroke of fortune! There were no mysterious power stones, weapons, treasure, or whatever that measured up to this book...

 Chapter 786: A Book (III)

    <h4>Chapter 786: A Book (III)</h4>

    <i>In the darkness.</i>

    The ck Armor stood silently, head tilted toward the sky as he contemted something.

    <i>The ounts of Evenround Martial </i>was the university¡¯s greatest offering. It was an ultimate art in the truest sense of the word. It imitated some of the Battle Emperor¡¯s methods¡ªthe headmaster had used his own techniques to retell the story.

    The Human King had personally reviewed the work. Though he found itckluster, he gave it a glowing review.

    The outsiders that had barged into Evenround should not have a right to read from it, but the ck Armor could tell that Li Hao and Hong Yitang had some skill to their name. They¡¯d greatly modified the ultimate art of Tranquil Star, but they seemed to be stuck after that and could not identify the path forward. Perhaps the book... and theposite nature of its blood qi battle method would give them some inspiration.

    They would inherit the wisdom of the past to pave the way for future descendants. If it hadn¡¯t been for them utilizing the Incantation of the de of Blood in the third test, he wouldn¡¯t have brought them here. One could only say that they¡¯d stumbled onto their stroke of fortune through sheer luck.

    ¡°Whether it is Initial Martial, Mid Martial, or New Martial... all battle methods of martial dao are of this nature at their core. There are a myriad of battle methods and their only importance is to see which is most suited for the wielder. There are more great daos that can be counted, but they all be one in the end...¡± murmured the ck Armor as he stared at the sky. <i>Can I... still go back?</i>

    When the heavens changed and the Star Gate closed, the teachers such as Mister Li had left first. The ck Armor had brought up the rear and wanted to settle everything at the university first before quickly joining them. Who knew that the heaven and earth would suddenly turn upside down, that energy would be spontaneously emptied from the surroundings, that the core origin dao would abruptly be severed from connection with the outside world?

    He was forced to go into deep slumber and missed the timing to leave. And now, could he leave still? There must have been undesirable developments outside the Star Gate. Had powerful enemiese upon them? Who else could kill one of their greatest teachers, the Eternal Sword Sovereign?

    The city lords of the eight great cities,manders of the eight great armies, and tens of millions of troops had departed with the headmaster that day. How could they have all fallen in an ambush?

    ¡°Damn myck of potential! I could only walk the path of core origin and couldn¡¯t bring core origin into my internal world. Losing support from core origin dao meant that I was reduced to hibernation...¡± The ck Armor found his plight both helpless and tragic. If it hadn¡¯t been for the infusion of energy this time, maybe he would¡¯ve died in his slumber.

    A red light shone in his eyes when he thought of something. ¡°The spontaneous vacuum of energy and the breaking of great dao... means that there must be a traitor in the Silver Moon Territory! They worked with the enemies on the outside to kill the headmaster and teachers. Who dared be so bold?! They deserve death!¡±

    The territory¡¯s sudden loss of energy was certainly indicative of foul y, of inside agents who¡¯d worked with the enemy to stab their people in the back.

    Arge current of thoughts ran through the ck Armor¡¯s mind. When he looked at Li Hao and Hong Yitang again, he did so with sorrow. The end of New Martial hade upon them, the worldpletely changed, and a new age had arrived. Their time was over, and in this new era... were these people the strongest of humanity?

    What an utter tragedy!

    It was because he could read their thoughts that he found the situation to be even more wretched and helpless. Could the Star Gate be opened once more? Perhaps he could only stay in this ce for the rest of his life and quietly wait for death. The one in front of him was the heir of the Li n, he wielded Steris. Could he open the Star Gate?

    <i>Can you do it... Li Hao? I don¡¯t know.</i>

    The ck Armor wanted to cry, but his body had long died up and withered to dust. He had no tears to shed.

    <i>The age that belongs to us has died in thisnd. But I don¡¯t want to be like those from the primordial past... When the nine emperors sank into slumber and chaos gripped the world, people either died or surrendered. What should I do?</i>

    As a steady stream of thoughts rushed through his mind, he suddenly felt that it might be better not to awaken.

    ......

    <i>Inside the secret chamber.</i>

    Li Hao hadpletely lost himself in the book. Hong Yitang was the same. His ¡®sword¡¯ character shifted through a variety of permutations. He summoned various abilities and dismissed them with a casual wave of his hand.

    Both of them knew that they¡¯d truly encountered a fortuitous opportunity. As they perceived the changes of the character, they felt that an entire era had been printed in that book. It was so much more precious than the books they¡¯d received from Battle Heaven. There was no specific secret art inside, just the description of the core nature of martial methods.

    Yet this was incredible!

    After an indeterminate period of time, Li Hao waved his ¡®water¡¯ character into existence. It instantly transformed into an ¡®ice¡¯ character and a world of ice froze around them. It then transformed into a ¡®snow¡¯ character, leading to snowkes fluttering around them. However, they quickly dissipated.

    ¡°My mastery is iplete and myprehension insufficient,¡± Li Hao murmured after a grunt of surprise. ¡°So it turns out that I¡¯m far from where I want to be!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s been four days,¡± came the ck Armor¡¯s voice when he turned over his reflections in his mind. ¡°You guys seemed to want to leave in five days. You should not dy your schedule, it is time to emerge now!¡±

    Li Hao immediately jerked awake and promptly found his head so full that it ached. ¡°How many days?¡± he asked incredulously.

    ¡°Four days!¡±

    Hong Yitang¡¯s eyes were bloodshot as he looked nkly at Li Hao. ¡°Four days?¡±

    <i>How was that possible? It¡¯d only been a moment!</i>

    ¡°Your mental strength is weak and you were lost inside. Four days passed by in a heartbeat for you!¡± The ck Armor appeared in front of them and waved the book closed. The two looked at it longingly.

    ¡°I don¡¯t have treasures to give you, this is your ultimate reward!¡± he said calmly. ¡°You may go now, this ce will continue to be sealed off. I need a period of quiet. If you wish toe next time...e after I have recovered!¡±

    ¡°Are you... going to revitalize as well?¡± Li Hao was still in a trance.

    ¡°Revitalize?¡± murmured the ck Armor before heughed. ¡°That is not on my mind. So what if I do? I¡¯ll think about it. You should convene with the rest!¡±

    The surroundings spun around them as they vanished from the room. Instead of leaving, the ck Armor sat down cross-legged and read the book closely with some nostalgia.

    ......

    Four humans and one dog were present in the field. Hou Xiaochen was rather envious when he saw Li Hao and Hong Yitang appear. ¡°Did you get anything good?¡±

    He was so envious! Of course, he¡¯d also learned quite a great deal over the past couple of days from the free material that¡¯d been avable to him.

    Li Hao breathed out and wanted to say something, but found that he couldn¡¯t. He was shocked by the inability, then looked at Hong Yitang. Hong Yitang was likewise stunned and nodded, ¡°I can¡¯t speak of it either!¡±

    ¡°We tried earlier and found the same,¡± Sky Sword said faintly. ¡°That¡¯s a normal development. The secret arts avable in this ce are too high level and it seems that some powerhouses have set up unique methods to prevent their sharing unless unauthorized! We don¡¯t need to discuss what you¡¯ve gained. Is it time to leave now? It¡¯s been four days.¡±

    Li Hao suddenly thought of their fines. They hadn¡¯t paid the penalty yet! Had the ck Armor forgotten about it? Regardless, thanks to the enormous gains they¡¯d reaped from the book, the young man didn¡¯t mind if they still had to pay the fine. Of course, it was best if they didn¡¯t have to. That would mean they¡¯d gained some material goods from this expedition.

    Paying the fine meant that their gains would be erased. Everyone needed Water of Life at their current stage of cultivation. This trip had almostpletely depleted his resources.

    ¡°Senior ck Armor, can we leave at any time?¡±

    ¡°You may with the medallion!¡± came the ck Armor¡¯s indifferent voice. ¡°But you still have to pay the fine, that is a rule set by the headmaster. I can grant you a postponement of a period of time¡ªdon¡¯t think I¡¯ve forgotten about it. The Skystar Mine is nearby, you can go for a look. There seems to have been some nt spirits there and they might still be alive. If they don¡¯t give an Evenround student and Battle Heaven Army division leader what you wish, that makes them traitors. As such, you can kill them!¡±

    Li Hao, however, was focused on the fact that the ck Armor still remembered the fine. As for killing supposed traitors? Please, he knew full well how weak he was. Anyone he encountered in the ruins would be at least an Apex. <i>Am I supposed to head butt them to death or something?</i>

    So Skystar Town was nearby. Evenround Martial might have been constructed there for that mine.

    ¡°Is that mine... big?¡±

    ¡°If the trash stones that you had before came from small mines, then the difference between those mines and the Sksytar Mine is the difference between a creek and the sea. A true mine can supply an entire world with energy. There were countless powerhouses back in the day, the trash you use can hardly measure up to it!¡±

    Li Hao sucked in a sharp breath, he understood! <i>I was wondering how so many powerhouses could rely on just one mine. So it was a huge mine! I wonder how much of its reserves are left?</i>

    ¡°Then... can we go at any time?¡±

    There was no reply forting. inly, the ck Armor couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. He gave them no further instructions or bid them farewell. It was different from its brethren, and Li Hao wondered if he was stronger or Director General Wang. Perhaps... he was?

    However, this ck Armor was more entric and seemed quieter than the director general.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Sky Sword intoned. No one knew what the ck Armor was thinking and this was no ce to linger for long. Although he¡¯d given them some benefits and treasure, his casual killing of the lord of Buddha Mountain was still fresh in their minds.

    These ancient powerhouses didn¡¯t seem to think much of modern experts. Perhaps... they found their modern counterparts to be too weak. Why would an elephant care about ants?

    Just as the group prepared to leave, the ck Armor¡¯s voice sounded by Li Hao¡¯s ears again. ¡°They seemed to ce high hopes in you... and even Battle Heaven may find some hope in you. But I must remind you to not seek to open the Star Gate even if you collect all eight heritage weapons. That is all. You can go now!¡±

    The world spun around Li Hao¡¯s group again as they were sent out. Once they were gone, puppets manifested behind the ck Armor. He turned around to regard them solemnly.

    ¡°You do not need to be thus, teacher,¡± one of them suddenly said. ¡°We feel no regret¡ªwe are... at least alive! Although we are now puppets, we are still alive, are we not?¡±

    The ck Armor was silent for a long while before he responded, ¡°I¡¯m sorry... that I could notplete my protection duties like the rest...¡±

    There was no sound forting. The puppets thumped their chests in lieu of any response.

    ¡°Eternal glory to humanity!¡±

    The ck Armor remained quiet. Did New Martial exist anymore? When could they go home? He missed home!

 Chapter 787: All Sides Tremble (I)

    <h4>Chapter 787: All Sides Tremble (I)</h4>

    The world spun and the group found themselves back at Skystar City when their vision cleared.

    <i>The city¡¯s western outskirts.</i>

    Quiet descended upon the world when the quartet reappeared. It was like everything froze for a second. Li Hao was out!

    Indeed, it hadn¡¯t been five days yet¡ªjust four. Therefore, not that many noticed their reappearance. There were watchers on duty nearby, but the world itself was still. Jaws dropped when the watchers registered the quartet. Li Hao and hispanions were out! Then... what about all of the powerhouses that¡¯d gone inside?

    The four ministers? The lord of Sky Roc Mountain? The lord of Buddha Mountain? The Stable Mountain Prince? Where were all of the overlords of the various locales?

    Those in the surroundings watched silently, so motionless that it seemed even their thoughts were petrified.

    The world was very, very quiet. Just as Li Hao¡¯s quartet shifted ufortably, the void split open. A middle-aged man with stately features walked out. The manner of his appearance jolted Li Hao¡¯s heart. Had the man ripped the void open?

    ...no... he¡¯d simply moved so quickly that it looked like he had. But it also meant that he was astoundingly strong. Who was this?

    The middle-aged man was wearing a military uniform. Ah, Li Hao could hazard a guess then.

    The imposing middle-aged man looked at them for a long time before saying slowly, ¡°Are they dead?¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow. Hou Xiaochen nced at him and answered calmly, ¡°They should be dead.¡±

    ¡°Did your group kill them, or did the existences inside the ruins do the deed?¡±

    ¡°What do you think?¡±

    The middle-aged man didn¡¯t respond. He looked at the ruin entrance, then at Li Hao. Still coollyposed, he proimed, ¡°You may establish your Skystar Commander Office, but cease killing. Wait for the second awakening before you seek to resolve further problems!¡±

    ¡°Is your word definitive?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°It is!¡± The middle-aged man inclined his head. ¡°Me and the other fellow have only stayed out of this because we are restricting the movements of the one in the royal family. Once your level of threat surpasses that one, however, I will be involved!¡±

    ¡°But I think... you may not be able to interfere!¡± Li Hao¡¯s presence rose with a sneer. ¡°The founder of the Ministry of Armed Forces is also spoken about in history books. Are you the Military God Qi Pingjiang?¡±

    Indeed, this middle-aged man was the founder of the Ministry of Armed Forces. ording to Yao Si, the old minister of Armed Forces, Administration, and the Inspectorate were the most terrifying existences among first generation ministers. They were of one civil and one military background, and the one at the Inspectorate was a bit of a wily old fox. He was skilled in both civil and military areas, but was suppressed all around. It was these three who led the other six old ministers in oveing the royal family eighty years ago!

    It was clear to see just how strong they were. One had to know that Li Hao had met quite a few old ministers by now and even killed two of them. Most of them... weren¡¯t anything to write home about. The royal family was so strong that it took the three strongest old ministers to keep them under control.

    Military God Qi Pingjiang was known throughout thends for his military might. He¡¯d even led his troops to triumph over the ck Armaturas back in the day¡ªample demonstration of his strength. Li Hao suspected that he was at least a six element Arcanus. He might have touched the threshold of Apex¡ªalso known as seven element Arcanus in the modern system. But it was difficult to determine what the specifics were.

    Li Hao opened his eyes on the man; there was some energy leakage in his ball of light, but it seemed slightly piercing like that of someone converted back to martial dao. Qi Pingjiang might have been a supernatural before, then reverted back to being a martial master. It was difficult to determine his exact condition without exchanging blows with him.

    Qi Pingjiang hade very quickly¡ªas soon as Li Hao left the ruins. Clearly, he¡¯d realized trouble was at hand. Qian Wanda and his group had all died! Not only that, but the nt spirit replicas with them had all perished as well. Their main bodies hadn¡¯t sensed their replicas¡¯ death yet due to the istion effect of the ruins. Now that the doors were open again, their dead presence would quickly spread and be noticed by the nt spirits.

    Too many powerhouses had been lost on this expedition. There were two lords of the seven divine mountains and a prince. The losses were more severe thanst time as they were down another old minister and three current ministers.

    The void shook as more people appeared. Some looked toward the ruins, others gazed sorrowfully upon the scene. Of them, there were the old ministers of Examinations and Foreign Rtions. There were only seven left of the old ministers.

    The old man from the Inspectorate also shed into the scene. He looked at the ruins to the rear and then at Li Hao¡¯s group. He said not a word and made no sound. His son was equally quiet and, in fact, quite wooden with shock. Li Hao... had made it back out alive!

    His father had said that he should take the Inspectorate and join the Skystar Commander Office if the young man survived. The inspector general remembered that, but he¡¯d thought that Li Hao would never be setting foot back out again. Even if he did, it would surely be a pyrrhic victory.

    But at the moment, Li Hao¡¯s quartet was out safe and sound. Apart from Hou Xiaochen¡¯s presence being a bit disarrayed¡ªthe man seemed to have be a supernatural¡ªthe rest were fine. Even the dog was out, but everyone else who¡¯d gone inside was absent. Their absence was indication enough that they were dead. How else would Li Hao¡¯s group make it back out?

    Another person broke through the air at this time¡ªthe long vanished Minister of Finance, Liu Yunqing. The fat man looked at the ruins, then at Li Hao. Confusion and wariness lurked in the bottom of his eyes.

    He¡¯d mounted an expedition to the ruins before and visited the ssroom buildings. There were incredibly strong puppets inside. He hadn¡¯t known about them at first until a younger cousin of his identally barged into a restricted area. Numerous puppets instantly appeared to kill his Arcanus cousin. It only took them one move, which immediately informed him that these ruins were a deathtrap!

    The puppet was likely an Apex, and there were at least one hundred of them!

    He couldn¡¯t begin to fathom just how terrifying this martial university was. That was only puppets they encountered, they hadn¡¯t provoked anything hidden deeper. Therefore, his thought was that all explorers would die once they started fighting each other!

    Liu Yunqing knew that outright dumping mysterious power stones in the ruins was the easiest way to provoke ancient powerhouses into reviving. However, reality proved him wrong. Someone had died, yet it was Qian Wanhao¡¯s side instead of Li Hao¡¯s group.

    Had they died to the existences inside the ruins? Li Hao had emerged a day earlier, which was very possibly a sign that something had changed inside the ruins. Why else would the replicas of the nt spirits die otherwise? They were all five or six element Arcanus, and there were so many of them!

    He did not believe that Li Hao would be able to kill them. The situation stared him in the face. Li Hao was out, and he¡¯d inspired the old monster from Armed Forces to arrive. The one who¡¯d suppressed countless powerhouses eighty years ago was in the habit of keeping a low profile and bnced out the one from the Ministry of Finance. They raised up the nine ministries to defeat the royal family.

    One had to know that this one hadn¡¯t put in a showing when the three great organizations rose. Neither did he appear when the seven divine mountains dered supremacy. He still didn¡¯t disy himself in the public eye when the City of Supernaturals was built. Yet today, here he was to warn Li Hao!

    At the same time, it was just a warning. inly, he was starting to feel threatened as well.

    All was quiet on the four sides, the group simply looked at Li Hao and Qi Pingjiang. No one could believe the results that their eyes registered.

    ¡°Do you want to give it a try?¡± Qi Pingjiang asked solemnly.

    ¡°Why not?¡± Li Hao smiled.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Overwhelming aura exploded as a domineering sword aura manifested, striking with unparalleled speed!

    <i>BAM!</i>

    Qi Pingjiang struck at the same time, seeming to break the very void. He was also as fast as lightning!

    A loud impact rang out as the resulting shockwave erased a small mountain that¡¯d stood in the western outskirts for many years. A haze of light appeared¡ªthe door to the ruins.

    Li Hao took a few steps back, blood seeping out of the corner of his mouth. ¡°So that¡¯s all there is to you! You¡¯re just around a six element Arcanus and you might be able to call upon more, but the void won¡¯t support more power. It¡¯s impossible for the Apex level of the ancient cultivation system to appear before the second awakening. In that case, what are you throwing your weight around for?¡±

    All sides trembled when they heard Li Hao¡¯s words! A six element Arcanus! Qi Pingjiang¡¯s might was dreadfully shocking. However, it was Li Hao who was more appalling. Although he reeled from the blow, there wasn¡¯t a significant gap between the two of them. How could that be??

    Surprisingly, Qi Pingjiang wasn¡¯t taken aback. If Li Hao could suppress Qian Wanhao and the others, he had to grasp at least five elements.

    ¡°You have the right to be so arrogant and impudent.¡± Qi Pingjiang looked calmly at Li Hao. ¡°That is why I said that you can establish your Skystar Commander Office. The old and current ministers of Judiciary have all perished, so you can take over their duties if you so wish. However, that does not mean you can continue to ughter people!¡±

    ¡°You make it sound like I¡¯m the devil and you¡¯re the saint!¡± Li Hao sneered. ¡°Look around, does the Ministry of Armed Forces have a better reputation, or does my Skystar Commander Office? Qi Pingjiang, are you worthy of being the military god?¡±

    ¡°So what if I am, and so what if I¡¯m not?¡± The man was as coollyposed as before. ¡°Do you think you would be able to make it to today without the nine ministries suppressing the royal family for the past eighty years?¡±

    ¡°Those of Silver Moon carved out our own world,¡± Li Hao snorted withughter. ¡°Whether it is the royal family or the nine ministries, their reach does not extend to Silver Moon!¡±

    Qi Pingjiang didn¡¯t bother arguing that point. Silver Moon denizens were so ferocious that the royal family had also found them hard to contend with. Instead, he repeated, ¡°Whether you make use of the existences inside the ruins or the replica of a premier level nt spirit, none of them can emerge into the world at present to help you! Do you know what you will face once we release that old fart from the royal family?¡±

    ¡°Is he very strong?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Qi Pingjiang looked nomittally at the young man. ¡°Would he be able to confine me and the fellow from Administration if he wasn¡¯t? Li Hao, you are indeed strong with your weapon in hand, but have you forgotten about the weapons that stood against you that day? We just aren¡¯t willing to use them yet. You already have what you want, don¡¯t you?¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow. If possible, he wanted to outright kill this old guy. But this one had the power of six elements and didn¡¯t seem to be utilizing his full strength. He seemed to be on high alert against the royal family. As strong as the royal heavyweight was, he couldn¡¯t be stronger than seven elements, right? So why were they so cautious?

 Chapter 788: All Sides Tremble (II)

    <h4>Chapter 788: All Sides Tremble (II)</h4>

    Li Hao looked around as he pondered the situation. Almost everyone was here, apart from the old minister of Administration. There were eighteen old and current ministers from the nine ministries; Li Hao had killed five of them¡ªtwo old, three current. There were more than ten ministers present, making for only two or three that hadn¡¯te.

    More powerhouses materialized after a moment. Some wore armor and werepletely enshrouded by ck armor¡ªthe ck Armaturas. So the royal family had also sent their people. Momentster, a figure floated gracefully to the ground¡ªthe seventh princess from the Nine Dragons Pavilion.

    ¡°Congrattions, Commander Li.¡± She smiled radiantly and looked at Li Hao. ¡°Royal Uncle Stable Mountain... showed signs of an obsession. Royal Uncle Steppe turned traitor and colluded with external enemies, yet Royal Uncle Stable Mountain could not discern right from wrong and followed in his footsteps. However, can we... bring back my royal uncle¡¯s body to inter it in the royal mausoleum...?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll give you the body if you guys take action right now and kill the rest of these guys for me. How about it?¡± Li Hao smiled back at her.

    ¡°......¡± The princess nearly choked on her spit and squeezed a smile out. ¡°Surely you jest,mander...¡±

    ¡°Why would I be joking?¡± Li Hao looked at her. ¡°With the situation as it is, you and I can work together. Other than Qi Pingjiang, I¡¯m sure I can end all the rest = for you. Can the royal family not even handle two six element Arcanus? Then what good is your talk of conquering the world? And you wish to rise again after your defeat? You¡¯re an absolute joke!¡±

    The seventh princess hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would be so unforgiving. She suddenly found herself at a loss for a proper response and ovee by his overbearing presence!

    Li Hao watched the scene for a while before sneering, ¡°What a nest of rats and snakes. All of you are ipetent to the extreme and simply watch as the perfect timing slips out of your hands. None of you will amount to much!¡±

    He left through the air without another nce at these people. Qi Pingjiang didn¡¯t stop the young man. Of the others, some were furious, others were saddened, but no one stopped him either. Hong Yitang and the rest followed him without a word.

    ¡°I wee everyone to the inauguration ceremony taking ce the day after tomorrow!¡± Li Haoughed heartily as he sailed through the air. ¡°Come take part! I won¡¯t bother sending invitations!¡±

    He was the very definition of being cocky as he traveled through the air and his voice echoed in the four corners. Skystar City shook as they knew that Commander Li had returned. Had this powerful being aplished something major again?

    Li Hao announced peremptorily, ¡°Qian Wanhao of the Ministry of Commerce, Hu Mingfa of the Minister of the Judiciary, Zhang Zhen of the Ministry of Examinations, Yu Qing of the Ministry of Foreign Rtions, and the Stable Mountain Prince Jiang Chao colluded with the City of Supernaturals, three evil organizations, monster spirits of Sky Roc Mountain, and bandits of Buddha Mountain to attack enforcers of the Skystar Commander Office!

    ¡°They have all been brought to justice and executed! I hope that all sides take warning from this, that the Ministries of Examination, Foreign Rtions, and Commerce learn a lesson from it! We must punish even our own rtions when ites to right and wrong, as opposed to blindly following what our elders say. The Skystar Commander Office wees these three ministries to deliver their traitors at any time! Do not employ unauthorized punishment of your own initiative. Only the Skystar Commander Office has the right to enforce thew!¡±

    The city was eerily quiet after his announcement. No one was able to immediately digest the news. Who¡¯d died now?

    Some hotshots it seemed...

    Had they heard wrong, maybe? Four ministers had just been named and one of them was the old minister of Commerce that was mentioned in history books. Hu Xiao had just died a few days ago, and now another renowned existence was dead too?

    As for the lords of Sky Roc and Buddha Mountain... they were set aside. No one was familiar with them anyhow. The Stable Mountain Prince... was one of the nine princes. A Steppe Prince had diedst time, and here was another one dead?

    The entire city was busy digesting the news.

    ......

    <i>The Night Watcher headquarters.</i>

    Yao Si¡¯s face shifted rapidly through various expressions. He was rather stunned¡ªhad the young man truly seeded? Were they all dead? Li Hao was... certainly vicious!

    Little Ye kept takingrge mouthfuls of air next to him and murmured, ¡°I knew it, Commander Li can do anything! He¡¯s terrifying... How dare the nine ministries and royal family provoke him? Do they have a death wish?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yao Si didn¡¯t say a word. <i>C¡¯mon, I knew he was a four element Arcanus before he went in, but still I thought he was gambling with his life. What did a little girl like you know to be saying things like this?</i>

    Yao Si walked out of his office and looked out. The entire headquarters was eerily silent. Dao Sword and his group were also quiet. That one... really had be invincible. He was so brazen right now that he publicized the deaths and even fabricated charges against them. Well, it wasn¡¯t fabricated charges¡ªto the victor went the spoils. Anything that Li Hao said now was right.

    ¡°How horrifying!¡± Having held a begrudging view of Li Hao all this time, Big Eyes was also scared at the moment and rather shocked. Had so many died in one go??

    Dao Sword looked toward the west and observed rays of splendor cross the sky¡ªLi Hao¡¯s group. He followed their trajectory with aplicated gaze. Was killing Arcanus as easy as stepping on ants? Had that one... reached that level? Apparently thetest edition of the Divine Masters Ranking was about to be published, but was there any meaning to it anymore?

    If Li Hao wasn¡¯t number one, who dared say that they were stronger than him? Not only was he incredibly strong, but more critical was that he wielded power and influence. There was a host of powerhouses under his banner; Silver Moon martial masters flocked to support him and some local overlords had already openly dered their support.

    In the past couple of days, unrest had shaken the eastern continent. Some of their local rulers hunted down the Xus in the name of the Skystar Commander Office. Perhaps they were just borrowing his name... but now that the young man had subdued the four corners, one might have to sell themselves in order to borrow his name. Was Li Hao¡¯s influence that easy to borrow?

    ......

    News swept through thend.

    <i>The City of Supernaturals.</i>

    Various terrifying existences stood in the middle of an opulent hall. A breathtakingly beautiful woman sat primly over the assembly.

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± she breathed out after a while before taking a look around. ¡°The City of Supernaturals was formed without restrictions as we meant to construct a paradise for supernaturals. We wanted to be a sacrednd for superhumans, just like the Tranquil Star City of the ancient civilization was! But now, that one doesn¡¯t seem willing to let matters proceed in such a fashion. The nine ministries and royal family have chosen to give way before us, but this Li Hao chooses to kill four Arcanus from our city...¡±

    ¡°The Jiangs of the royal family and the nine ministries are all trash!¡± someone bit off below her. ¡°The three great organizations are hardly good for anything either. They sent so many powerhouses, but still failed...¡±

    ¡°Enough of that!¡± softly rebuked the woman. ¡°Did you think we would fail before this? We even sent nt spirit replicas with our people, so did you really think that Li Hao¡¯s side would win? There¡¯s no point in touting the wisdom of hindsight! Li Hao and the one at Armed Forces have reached some sort of agreement. Ack of condemnation of the young man is proof enough. Then his greatest remaining trouble lies with the City of Supernaturals and three great organizations...¡±

    The three great organizations were difficult to pin down, but the City of Supernaturals was situated in the central region and towered like an immobile structure.

    The female city lord sensed threat creeping in around her and sighed, ¡°Li Hao likely won¡¯t suppress the nine ministries further if he wishes to establish his authority. The movements of the three great organizations and seven divine mountains are difficult to forecast. Only we have a million supernaturals gathered under our banner! More than half of the supernaturals in the central region have joined the City of Supernaturals. Who does everyone think is a suitable target if the Skystar Commander Office wishes to denote some rules for supernaturals?¡±

    The answer was extremely obvious. It was the City of Supernaturals, of course!

    ¡°Li Hao is no fool,¡± an old man intoned beneath. ¡°If he offends the three great organizations after offending the nine ministries...¡±

    ¡°Do you want to say that he won¡¯t dare offend us?¡± the womanughed. ¡°Do you think that¡¯s a realistic notion?¡±

    He wouldn¡¯t dare? What a joke! Was there anything that Li Hao didn¡¯t dare undertake?

    ¡°Even if he does, he¡¯ll understand why the City of Supernaturals stands where it does if hees to us,¡± the old man continued. ¡°There is a reason why we stand firm, the nine ministries give way before us, and the royal family treats us with respect!

    ¡°Ancient aristocracies are not a matter that he canprehend...¡± he sniffed.

    ¡°Don¡¯t bother mentioning this in front of him, that would just be making aughingstock of yourself,¡±ughed the woman. ¡°When ites to ancient aristocracies, is there any more ancient than the Lis of Silver Moon?¡±

    That shut the old man up. The Lis were indeed most ancient... but did they even count as a family anymore? On the other hand, Li Hao¡¯s domineering appearance awakened the people to a factrge numbers were not needed at times, one was enough. Whenever the Lis of Silver Moon were mentioned now, discourse only said that their feats were as expected of an ancient n!

    ¡°Then... what might the city lord have in mind?¡± The old man looked up at the woman. She wasn¡¯t elderly, yet was the lord of the City of Supernaturals. She had the support and tacit eptance of the various families. It was certain that she must have some aces up her sleeves.

    The woman looked into the distance and said slowly after a while, ¡°Just wait and see. Doesn¡¯t Li Hao wish toy down thew for supernaturals? Let¡¯s see what his rules are first and if they will affect us. If the effect is not great, then he can do as he wishes!¡±

    ¡°Do you mean to say that Li Hao¡¯s rules can be applied to City of Supernaturals?¡± someone immediately protested. ¡°That cannot be allowed, that would make us his vassal...¡±

    ¡°Are we to pit ourselves to the death against him for such a small matter?¡± chuckled the woman. ¡°Why is he so brazen and unprincipled? It¡¯s because he faced the nine ministries, royal family, and three great organizations! Those were not one singr faction and brewed many of their own plots! Most of them wish to sit on the side while tigers fight.

    ¡°Our losses aren¡¯t great for the moment and Li Hao is caught in the throes of his cockiness. If we beat him back when hees, how much will we have to lose for it? They will be the ones watching our show then.¡±

    The crowd fell silent. Despite knowing beforehand that this would be the oue, they still couldn¡¯t help but participate. All sides had participated in the expedition, but they¡¯d lost everything they put in!

    Do they try again? Would they have a chance to? Perhaps everyone was waiting for a good opportunity¡ªbut what would be that good opportunity after this failure?

    The second awakening, perhaps!

    Would these people dare take continued risks in the absence of that? Perhaps even Ying Hongyue wouldn¡¯t dare!

 Chapter 789: All Sides Tremble (III)

    <h4>Chapter 789: All Sides Tremble (III)</h4>

    <i>At the same time, the Red Moon headquarters.</i>

    Ying Hongyue leaned against a chair and stared up at the sky. He said softly after an indeterminate period of time, ¡°Orange Moon is dead, the scarlet shadow puppet is also no more. We¡¯ve lost the mallet of the Hongs too... What an oue!¡±

    He¡¯d even stood a chance of eliminating the ones at Armed Forces and Administration, but everything he¡¯d sent was lost despite the sheer number of powerhouses they coordinated with. How ludicrous!

    Ying Hongyueughed and shook his head with a sigh. There were only Indigo Moon and Violet Moon by his side now.

    There were fewer and fewer among the Seven Moons; Violet Moon¡¯s eyes were red. Although ck Widow¡¯s reputation was very poor and the Silver Moon martial world always mentioned her name with contempt, that was her mother...

    She¡¯d shielded Violet Moon for many years and thetter¡¯s position was so high within Red Moon because of her mother. But now, her mother was dead.

    The father in front of her was a cold-blooded man. He seemed gentle and caring, but Violet Moon knew very well that he was only her father in name. His blood ran ice-cold through his veins. There were a lot of people missing in Red Moon these days. Where had they gone?

    Violet Moon knew where. They were all dead! They¡¯d transformed into the power of the scarlet shadow and entered the ruins with her mother. None of them hade back out. There had been so many powerhouses and even multiple members of the elder council among them, but they were all dead.

    Red Moon had experienced smooth sailing through its rise and counted innumerable powerhouses among its ranks. But now, almost all of its supernatural heavyweights were dead. There were only the Ancient Guard and some premier martial dao powerhouses left.

    ¡°Leader!¡± Indigo Moon didn¡¯t vie for favor in this moment; she simply felt an inexplicable sadness.

    Nothing major seemed to have happened, yet Orange Moon, Yellow Moon, Green Moon, and Blue Moon were all dead. Most of the elder council were dead as well. Truth be told, there weren¡¯t many left of the elder council after the three senior elders died. How had the domineering Red Moon suddenly declined by so much? She didn¡¯t understand. It¡¯d only been less than half a year since Li Hao¡¯s rise. How had such circumstances befallen a Red Moon that¡¯d reigned for more than twenty years? Of the original Seven Moons, only she and the leader were left.

    ¡°Are you worried?¡± Ying Hongyue smiled at her.

    ¡°Not, it¡¯s just...¡±

    ¡°It will be fine, don¡¯t worry!¡± Ying Hongyue gently lifted his hand and regarded the sky again. ¡°It¡¯s just some setbacks. Now is not the time for despair. When Yuan Shuo defeated me that day, I was forced to my knees from his strength. I had to eke out survival amid humiliation and suffering. But ultimately, I seeded! This is just a repeat of an old story, not to mention that Li Hao cannot defeat me yet.¡±

    Violet Moon had been standing quietly nearby. ¡°Why does father not take the field?¡± she suddenly asked. ¡°Is melding the bloodlines of seven families together really that important? With father¡¯s many years of umtion, you are a supreme heavyweight of the age. Thebined seven bloodlines aren¡¯t important! Why must you be so fixated on them?¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t understand.¡± Ying Hongyue smiled.

    Violet Moon was at a loss. <i>That¡¯s all you know to say. I just don¡¯t understand it. What I do know is that if you weren¡¯t obsessed withbining the seven bloodlines and just focused on cultivation, this ready-made father of mine would absolutely be an invincible existence in this modern age. You wouldn¡¯t be restricted by the bloodline of the Lis like you are now and unable to fight Li Hao.</i>

    Ying Hongyue had immense potential and only lost to Yuan Shuo because he was much younger. After the rise of the supernatural, Ying Hongyue upied a first mover advantage and rose at every turn. The scarlet shadows had helped him resolve a lot of issues guing other people. In the modern age, Ying Hongyue was absolutely one of the strongest out there. Even if he had his opponents, it would not be the likes of Li Hao.

    But now?

    Perhaps none of the dead was important to her father.

    Ying Hongyue said nothing further and simply remained looking at the sky. It was highly unexpected that Orange Moon had died, but... everything was possible. It wasn¡¯tpletely uneptable if she was truly dead. He was simply contemting a few things.

    Ying Hongyue waved a hand, indicating that the two were dismissed. Violet Moon left without a word, still reeling from her sadness. <i>Do you see this, mother? Your death results in simply a sigh from him. He may not even be sighing for you. Out of all the Silver Moon martial masters who left home to follow him, how many are still alive?</i>

    It seemed that Indigo Moon was the only single one. No wonder Silver Moon martial masters said that any woman who left with Ying Hongyuecked a brain, that they would regret their actions sooner orter. <i>I wonder if mother ever regretted her choice?</i>

    ¡°All these years, you¡¯ve never once revealed how to fullybine the eight bloodlines,¡± Ying Hongyue suddenly said when everyone was gone. ¡°Li Hao has risen now, you see it and hear it too. Weren''t you concerned that I¡¯d grow overly strong and break free of your control? And now? Do you still think the same?¡±

    A scarlet shadow had soundlessly appeared in the great hall. It wore a red cloak and seemed to reside in another world in a slightly intangible fashion. The feeling of a smile exuded from the figure.

    ¡°You misunderstand, I have no intentions of restricting you. It¡¯s just that the void is unstable and if you trulybined them, you might spontaneously break through to another level. With how unstable the void is, you might be churned to pieces?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s old existences like you who will be churned to pieces,¡± Ying Hongyue refuted calmly. ¡°You attached yourself to core origin, we do not. Will those of our age also be ripped apart?¡±

    ¡°You will!¡± Red Cloak said softly. ¡°Don¡¯t dismiss my words¡ªthe instability of the void does not target one person, it applies to all! You must know that the void is horrifically shattered. It has broken again and again. No matter how strong you are, you will bepletely torn apart!

    ¡°Only with the second awakening is there a chance of stabilizing it. That will be when you canbine the seven bloodlines.¡±

    ¡°Oh? Is that so?¡± Ying Hongyue chuckled. ¡°Will I have a chance to do so? Don''t you think that Li Hao wille for me?¡±

    ¡°He will not escape this rule even if hees. No matter how strong, they will fall under this restriction! Not to mention... are you afraid of him?¡±

    ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t I be? His rate of improvement exceeds the imagination. This kind of person reminds me of the ancient Human King as recorded in the ancient tomes! How long is it until the second awakening? That will be time enough for him toe for me!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,e to me if that happens. If worstes to worst, just go into hiding for a while.¡±

    Ying Hongyue sneered and didn¡¯t say anything.

    ¡°You must make precautions ahead of time for Silver Moon,¡± Red Cloak continued at seeing Ying Hongyue stay silent. ¡°There are many powerhouses in residence still at the eight cities...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t care about that. I just want to know if a premier heavyweight still exists at Evenround Martial University. Otherwise, how could so many have died so easily?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know...¡± Red Cloak answered after a pause. ¡°They should¡¯ve all evacuated during that year. Even if there are people left behind, there won¡¯t be that many. Evenround Martial... has a great reputation, but not that many true powerhouses. There weren¡¯t that many premier personages within the university and all decamped for the battlefield. Powerhouses would not easily stay behind to protect a university...¡±

    ¡°So you don¡¯t know either?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°What kind of background does this particr university have?¡±

    ¡°It is backed by a terrifying existence... rted to the ancient Human King that you speak of. It¡¯s just... I¡¯m certain that even with the departure of its headmaster, disturbances would not have appeared in Silver Moon had she not left as well.¡±

    There was arge quantity of information in this response. Ying Hongyue mulled it over and suddenly cursed, ¡°Unable to achieve anything, but good at spoiling everything!¡±

    He was both cursing at the Ministry of Finance and Red Cloak. Since he¡¯d known that Evenround Martial had a prestigious background, why hadn¡¯t he said so earlier? He only touched on it after the entire operation failed. This might not have been the result if they¡¯d switched to another location.

    Red Cloak said nothing, despite knowing that Ying Hongyue was possibly obliquely insulting him. This result truly was a surprise. Who knew that there would still be powerhouses in residence at the university? Not to mention, the situation wasn¡¯t clear at the moment. Perhaps it was just an Apex holding down the fort? All was unknown since they were unable to make a closer investigation.

    Red Cloak vanished amid Ying Hongyue¡¯s silent gaze. Hah, this is just as well! You¡¯ve been restricting me at every turn and can only watch Li Hao¡¯s rise. Let¡¯s see what you do about it now!

    ......

    On this day, every locale across thends received the news. The world shook!

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    Director General Zhaoughed! He looked at Huang Yu, then at Kong Jie.

    ¡°This wasn¡¯t what I expected,¡± he finally said. ¡°It looks like we¡¯re not far off from upheaval in Silver Moon! Make your preparations and invite the various old seniors to set foot in the world again. Silver Moon will wee visitors soon!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t talk to me about that.¡± Kong Jie flicked a nce at him. ¡°Those old farts are really difficult to deal with. Some of them already ran off after they heard about what Li Hao was doing! You know how the old guard has long itched for action, are they going to listen to me? You sent Hou Xiaochen away and I¡¯m not too familiar with them...¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Zhao stared silently at him before enunciating carefully, ¡°Then... you tell me... what good are you for?¡±

    ¡°I ain¡¯t good for shit!¡± Kong Jie griped. ¡°I should¡¯ve hauled ass and gone to Skystar City a long ass time ago if I¡¯d known there would be so many opportunities there! Look at the state of the world now! Arcanus are rotting cabbages by the side of the street and I¡¯m still debating if I should ascend as a supernatural or not. Look at Hong Yitang, he¡¯s almost one of the strongest in the world after following Li Hao around. It¡¯s you who¡¯s been keeping me here all this time. I ain¡¯t doing this anymore!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Zhao remained staring. ¡°You want to go there too?¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Kong Jie snapped. ¡°Hou Xiaochen¡¯s gone, Ole Zhou¡¯s gone, am I not allowed to leave too?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not allowed!¡± The director general held his head with his hands. ¡°I... Don¡¯t go. I¡¯ll use treasures to saturate your supernatural locks¡ªall of them! I¡¯ll saturate as many as you find. You¡¯re not weak either, I¡¯ll give you all of their resources!¡±

    <i>Don¡¯t you go too! If you go as well, am I supposed to handle </i>everything?<i> Fights are better left to martial brutes!</i>

 Chapter 790: The Demon Hunter Army (I)

    <h4>Chapter 790: The Demon Hunter Army (I)</h4>

    Kong Jie stroked his chin and came back with, ¡°But Li Hao has sword energy...¡±

    ¡°Are you close to him? Will he going to give any to you?¡±

    ¡°Why not?¡± Kong Jie snapped. ¡°I¡¯ll just join the Skystar Commander Office as well then. What¡¯s the big deal in that?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Zhao coughed and tried cating his old colleague. ¡°Don¡¯t be like this, we don¡¯t have many old friends around anymore. You¡¯re at least familiar with the ins and outs of the province. How about this, I¡¯ll give you some Water of Life.¡±

    ¡°How much?¡±

    ¡°Ten drops.¡±

    ¡°Screw you! Do you think I don¡¯t know that Li Hao spent two hundred drops to get Ole Zhou?¡±

    ¡°Are you worth that?! Go ask Li Hao. He wouldn¡¯t even want to spend ten drops on you! Why else hasn¡¯t he talked to you yet?¡±

    ¡°......¡± That hurt the ego too much! Kong Jie rose with gritted teeth. ¡°Don¡¯t you regret saying this!¡±

    ¡°Ah, don¡¯t, Little Kong, I was joking. How about twenty drops? I really don¡¯t have that many... I¡¯d give it all to you if I did!¡±

    Kong Jie snorted and turned back for a nce. ¡°Send it all to me this afternoon. That¡¯s all. It¡¯s not like I don¡¯t have anywhere else to be!¡±

    Director General Zhao irritably pped his hand on the table after the man was gone. ¡°One after another... do they think Skystar City is some idyllic ce? That it¡¯s a haven of rxation?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Huang Yu was deep in thought before he said quietly, ¡°Ole Zhao, my portion... should be doubled as well. I need to undergo some tough closed door cultivation in the days toe.¡±

    ¡°Wait, Ole Huang...¡±

    ¡°Send my portion this afternoon as well. It¡¯s not like I don¡¯t have anywhere else to go!¡± Huang Yu rose without a look back.

    ¡°......¡± Director General Zhao broke out in loud curses when Huang Yu was gone. He couldn¡¯t hold it in anymore! What was all this?! So what if Silver Moon was a bit poorpared to the rest? <i>What does Li Hao having a grand time in Skystar City have to do with the rest of us? How are you guys leveraging him to exert pressure on me?!</i>

    <i>Pah!</i>

    <i>I won¡¯t give you shit, let¡¯s see if you go! You¡¯ll help me save money if you go! It¡¯s not like you guys don¡¯t know the province¡¯s situation! There¡¯s a bunch of gluttons here that devour any treasures that pop up. When is it ever our turn?</i>

    ¡°What a bunch of bastards!¡± the director general cursed for a while before he got it out of his system. ¡°Double, is it? Very well, I¡¯ll have you guys pay it back tenfoldter on!¡±

    As good as venting his emotions felt, Director General Zhao was still depressed at the end of the day. Why did everyone want to leave? Li Hao was truly such a troublemaker!

    ......

    Winds of change surged in Skystar City as waves of reaction reared through its streets. This savage from the north... was vicious, ruthless, and ferocious! People who¡¯d been worrying over whether it was safe to attend the Skystar Martial Academy or not were now utterly tempted. What was there to be afraid of?

    Those brave enough to take a risk would gain plenty of benefits for doing so, but those too prudent and cautious to set a toe out of line would obtain nothing for their cowardice. It was rare for an academy to not levy many restrictions and be open to all. Nobles probably wouldn¡¯t dare attend, but this was an enormous opportunity for civilians. While the academy wouldn¡¯t ept that many this time, it was still a chance for all.

    Were they willing to be so mundane for the rest of their lives? Did they wish to live under another¡¯s suppression forever?

    Although Li Hao had already killed a lot of people, many could tell that an era of chaos was still inevitable. There were some nobles inside the capital yet to be aware of the situation, but themon popr was already cognizant of it. The price of grain had increasedtely!

    Any with general practical wisdom would understand that it was an indicator of things being severely wrong. Skystar Dynasty had enjoyed favorable weather for many years and ample food was no issue. But after several years of war in the central region, the northern region, and scuffles elsewhere...

    The price of regr grain in the marketce was rising!

    Winter was upon them, making sea transport difficult. Skystar City was just the capital of the dynasty and had few farmers among their numbers. There were already signs of a food shortage in various locales around the central region.

    Those with sharper wits could tell that disaster was nigh. It¡¯d been many years since the dynasty had suffered from a shortage of food. Not only that, but this winter was shaping up to be extraordinarily cold. The climate seemed to be changing, making life more difficult for ordinary people.

    Skirmishes often erupted and supernaturals required more nutrients than mundanes. A portion of fertilend could be reduced to barren wastnd after their attentions. Supernaturals absorbed mysterious power¡ªthis was an energy that naturally emanated from nature. The more fertile a location was, the more mysterious power there was. It could be found in the air, ground, and all locations.

    After some supernaturals furiously absorbed every drop of energy they found, certain tracts ofnd were exhausted to the point of sterility.

    Under such circumstances, Skystar Martial Academy thronged with applicants. It¡¯d been wholly ignored before, but after Li Hao¡¯s recent demonstrations and the state of the world, no one cared about serving up revengeter!

    They could barely survive these days. It was a difficult question whether they¡¯d still be alive next year if they didn¡¯t find a way to survive the harsh winter. If such were the scenes in the rich royal capital, it was easy to imagine how miserable other locales must be.

    ......

    People jostled for space at the sign-up spot. As Li Hao returned through the air, he called out, ¡°Men, follow me to the Avenue of the Nine Ministries to upy the governmental seat of the Ministry of the Judiciary! Screw setting up aplex for the Skystar Commander Office! That¡¯s just bullshit! Set out for the Ministry of the Judiciary!¡±

    The crowd was stunned by the words. They weren¡¯t aware of Qi Pingjiang¡¯s conversation with Li Hao, so they didn¡¯t know that Li Hao had permission to rece the Ministry of the Judiciary. All they knew was that this was a ministry that had stood in Skystar Dynasty for eighty years. It was one of the nine and iparably powerful. But now... it was to be the Skystar Commander Office??

    Incredulity slowly turned to excitement and agitation.

    ¡°Themander is mighty!¡± Roars erupted. What a domineering show of force! What good was aplex for? He was going to outright upy a seat of government! Li Hao had killed both generations of Judiciary ministers¡ªeven if the Hus had anyone left, who would dare fight Li Hao for territory?

    ¡°Forward march!¡± Amand mobilized thousands of soldiers dressed in ck armor. They presented an awe-inspiring sight with their spears and longswords.

    <i>Thud thud thud!</i>

    Drums pounded and the Li tiger g unfurled in the air.

    ¡°Give way, the Demon Hunter Army ising through!¡± yelled a soldier.

    <i>Thump thump thump!</i>

    The drums were thunderous as high emotion gripped the Demon Hunter Army. They were excited, agitated, and inexplicably proud of themselves. Thisst feeling had been absent from their hearts before, but now it arrived in spades.

    ......

    <i>The Avenue of the Nine Ministries.</i>

    Powerhouses hovered in the air as silent spectators. They watched as an army of thousands mobilized through the city, watched by countless other eyes. The Skystar Commander Office was officially installing itself in Skystar City. But when these heavyweights saw the troops make a beeline for the Ministry of the Judiciary, theirposure still cracked.

    ¡°How arrogant!¡± Cold looks shed out of some eyes. It wasn¡¯t like everyone at that ministry was dead.

    Countless agencies were still operating at the Avenue of the Judiciary. This ministry oversaw enforcement of all thews in thend. Law and order were still present in Skystar Dynasty, to say nothing of anything else. It was just that the superhuman, local overlords, evil supernaturals, and nobles didn¡¯t fall under its purview...

    Was Li Hao really going to upy one of the nine ministries today?

    ......

    <i>The Avenue of the Judiciary.</i>

    Of the various agencies, some had their doors tightly shut, others had their doors wide open. Expressionless officials and managers walked out of thetter. No one knew what they were thinking as they quietly watched the street ahead.

    There wasn¡¯t a soul to be seen on the avenue. Gates were flung open at a massive seat of government located at the end and a hotbed of activity had engulfed out. Various experts were in a panic as the old and current minister were dead. The Hus were done for!

    With only the minister being dead, it would be fine as there were still heavyweights at the judiciary, as well as vice ministers. They were Nova at the very least, with quite a few metamorphosis.

    But now, what good were they?

    Judiciary also had an independent army of supernaturals named the Judgment Guard. They meted out punishment on behalf of the heavens!

    This supernatural army possessed three thousand troops, almost all of which were stronger than Darkmoon. This was an army trained by the Ministry of the Judiciary for use against the Night Watchers.

    Theirmander-in-chief was Hu Mingfa. He was dead, which put the second-inmand in charge. Dressed in green armor, an old man with white hair gripped a spear. Five thousand troops had surrounded the ministry and didn¡¯t let anyone in or out.

    The old general stood in front of the doors and his army prevented anyone from moving. They¡¯d sealed off the entire ministry.

    ¡°What do you mean by this, General He?!¡± someone shouted angrily. Why was he doing this now??

    ¡°Are you betraying the ministry as well?! Is this a demonstration of loyalty to Li Hao?¡±

    The old general seemed to be sealing off theplex and preventing anyone or any treasures from leaving. He was keeping everything intact for Li Hao.

    The old general raised his spear at the door and turned his back on the people. ¡°No one is allowed in or out! Those who vite this order will be executed!¡± he said unusually calmly.

    ¡°How dare you!¡± shouted the vice minister. ¡°Are you rebelling?!¡±

    The old general simply red his presence instead of responding. The crowd immediately fell silent with hushed shock. When did this one set foot into the Arcanus realm? Metamorphosis had been the mainstream peak of strength before¡ªArcanus was just a recent development. The old general had been a metamorphosis as well, but he¡¯d set foot into Arcanus after just a few days!

    This agitated the crowd, but they knew that they couldn¡¯t afford to irritate this one. He was an Arcanus! The Hus had also heavily invested in the five thousand supernaturals of the Judgement Guard. There were more than ten Novas, a dozen Srs, and half of their number were Sunre. The rest were Darkmoon. This was not a faction to get on the wrong side of. If it wasn¡¯t for the two ministers dying, the Judgment Guard would¡¯ve dared go toe-to-toe against the Night Watchers.

 Chapter 791: The Demon Hunter Army (II)

    <h4>Chapter 791: The Demon Hunter Army (II)</h4>

    An army dressed in ck tramped down the avenue. Their march raised a loud hubbub, and they were greeted by bowing personnel at some doors. That represented surrender and eptance. Those behind closed doors indicated a desire to keep observing the situation.

    On this day, some were willing to surrender and submit to Li Hao! They yielded to this tyrant from the north.

    ¡°Halt!¡±

    The army stopped as Liu Long frowned, surprised by the supernatural army in front of him. There were so many supernaturals! Was this... the Judgment Guard? He knew a little about the nine ministries as he¡¯d asked around. ¡°Does Vice Commander He Liang of the Judgment Guard stand in front of me?¡±

    ¡°That is this general!¡± The old general walked out with his spear. ¡°Are you Liu Long of the Demon Hunter Army? The son of Silver Spear from Silver Moon?¡±

    ¡°That is I!¡± Liu Long looked at the old man¡ªthe general was known for using the spear. He¡¯d set foot into the supernatural now and even be an Arcanus!

    One could not avoid mention of the Three Spears of Silver Moon if one was a spear wielder. Although Silver Spear had died long ago, his name yet remained and was known throughout thend as part of the Record of Thirty-Six.

    ¡°Commander He should be stationed with the army. What are you doing here without the requisite orders?¡± Liu Long frowned.

    ¡°Orders? Whose orders? The nine ministries or royal family? Or is it the Skystar Commander Office?¡±

    Liu Long looked at the old man, uncertain of what he wanted to do. ¡°Is Commander He waiting for themander?¡±

    ¡°You can say that.¡± He Liang smiled, then scanned the Demon Hunter Army standing behind Liu Long. He sighed, ¡°You can stop guessing. I am only here to say that so long as I stand here, none of you will set a single foot into the Ministry of the Judiciary!¡±

    <i>What?!</i>

    All sides rustled with this deration. The old man was crazy, wasn¡¯t he??

    Although surprised, Liu Long also understood his decision. ¡°Why do you persist in this course of action? The Hus were not good masters! The chaos rocking the world has much to do with them and the general was part of the martial world back in the day...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±ughed the old man. ¡°Just like you say, I was part of the martial world¡ªand the martial world isn¡¯t just limited to Silver Moon. There is no talk of right or wrong, just of gratitude. The Hus helped me reach the Arcanus level, so I ought to repay them with some loyalty in these troubled times, shouldn¡¯t I?¡±

    Indeed, the Hus were not good or wise masters, but he was also of the martial world! <i>There is no talk of right or wrong in the martial world, we¡¯re just a bunch of crazed fiends with weapons out for blood. It is enough that I owe a debt of gratitude to the Hus, I am no hero! I am a rogue of the martial world!</i>

    ¡°Whoes to take my head?¡± He Liang soared into the air. ¡°It would be a worthy death if Commander Li shows me face!¡±

    Various powerhouses took to the air in response. Light Sword and Southern Fist were present, as did Yang Shan and Qin Lian quickly arrive. All four champed at the bit. Killing He Liang would be a deed of great merit for the inauguration of the Skystar Commander Office!

    ¡°You go, Vice Commander Liu!¡± came Li Hao¡¯s voice on the wind.

    Everyone blinked. <i>Who?</i>

    Liu Long walked out of the crowd, stunning those around him. What the heck? Was Liu Long supposed to go to his death? This must be a joke! It hadn¡¯t been long since Liu Long became a Summoner of Spirit. He could kill Srs and barely manage Novas. It was a very big stretch for him to handle Arcanus. It would be better for Hao Lianchuan to go as he was at least a Nova! Although Li Hao was the vicemander of the Demon Hunters now, he was very weak.

    ¡°Does themander think so little of me to insult me in this way?¡± He Liangughed, knowing full well what Liu Long¡¯s cultivation level was.

    ¡°No, I think very highly of you!¡± Li Hao arrived in the air. ¡°You are right¡ªyou are of the martial world and only consider personal rtionships, rather than principles of righteousness. The Hus may be no more, yet I understand your desire to send off your benefactor and protect his family property. Therefore, I will send you on your way with Silver Spear¡¯s son and the vicemander of the Demon Hunter Army. That is showing you high respect indeed!¡±

    ¡°In that case, I am honored!¡± He Liang grinned widely.

    ¡°You could say that!¡± Li Hao looked at Liu Long. ¡°Kill him. If the Judgment Guard does move, eradicate the Judgment Guard!¡±

    ¡°Understood, sir!¡± Liu Long rose into the air and shouted, ¡°Assemble the formation!¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Thousands of soldiers snapped into formation. Their blood qi surged and the world shifted; ck armor glowed with a faint hue.

    Liu Long roared and struck with his short ax!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Taken aback, He Liang erupted with his supernatural abilities and sent a spray of metallic sparks through the sky!

    Additional heavyweights had appeared in the surroundings and one of them identified with shock, ¡°An army formation! The one in the air is just an initial Summoner, which puts him on par with peak Sr at best...¡±

    Peak Sr Liu Long broke through the skies with his weapon!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Waves reared as nine waves oveid on top of each other. <i>The Nine Forged Force!</i>

    A spear and ax collided in the air. Liu Long somehow did not automatically end up on the back foot. Jaws sagged as onlookers gasped. Two thousand ordinary soldiers in formation had facilitated a peak Sr to triumph over an Arcanus!

    That was... incredible!

    ¡°So what of ordinary people?¡± Li Hao¡¯s voice boomed throughout the city. ¡°Two thousand mundanes can kill an Arcanus all the same! The people¡¯s heart cannot be ignored and the people¡¯s will cannot be vited. Our overwhelming momentum is not to be defied by you, a mantis trying to stop a chariot!¡±

    Two thousand soldiers roared at the same time when he finished speaking. ¡°KILL!¡± Their killing intent soared to the heavens. Liu Long broke through the sky and earth with a massive roar!

    Concentrating fiercely, the presence on his ax increased explosively as he delivered hundreds of strokes in one blow.

    The spear snapped with a loud collision and a trace of blood appeared on the old general¡¯s head. He looked at all and suddenly smiled, ¡°It is... a pity... that Silver Spear¡¯s son... doesn¡¯t use the spear...¡±

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    His mysterious power detonated as he fell to the ground. The bloody mark traveled down his head.

    Liu Long¡¯s face and body also dripped with blood, but no one could see it since he was wearing armor. This had been too much of a stretch for him. While his body was strong and could endure the blood qi from two thousand soldiers, he nearly burst in the end.

    Even so, his morale soared! <i>I just killed an Arcanus!</i>

    ¡°General!¡± Thousands of soldiers wailed behind the old man. Their general was dead! They¡¯d expected this development, but no one expected that the general would die to Liu Long. The Judgment Guard thought that one of Li Hao¡¯s heavyweights would take the field, but it was Liu Long!

    Liu Long didn¡¯t look again at He Liang. To the victor went the spoils. If Li Hao was the one defeated today, then it might be Liu Long paying the price with his life. There was nothing that needed to be said here!

    He regarded the supernatural army in front of him and called out, ¡°Are you going to fight or surrender?¡±

    ¡°To fight or surrender??¡± roared the two thousand in the Battle Heaven. Their blood qi still agitated and their emotions ran high. There was nothing thatpared. <i>Heavens above! Our formation killed an Arcanus!</i>

    ¡°An Arcanus!¡± This was the most preeminent existence of modern society! Even the weakest Arcanus was a heavyweight, but the soldiers¡¯bined strength had taken one down!

    Around them, the crowd were stunned beyond belief. Two thousand soldiers could kill an Arcanus?? What was this worlding to? Did they fight or surrender?

    The army wavered before a Nova stepped forward with an angry shout. ¡°Those afraid of death can stay back and those unafraid can charge with me. We¡¯ll see for ourselves how strong the Demon Hunter Army is! The Hus have been kind to us and keep us around for the one critical asion in which they need us. Today is the day! FIGHT!!¡±

    ¡°Fight!!¡± Liu Long waved his ax around. ¡°Kill!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    One thousand soldiers charged with the Nova and shed with the Demon Hunters. The Demon Hunter Army were methodically organized¡ªten people a team, one hundred a troop, and one thousand a formation.

    Rivers of blood flowed in the spacious Avenue of the Nine Ministries! Screams, wails, shouts, and the collisions of weapons were the only sound that could be heard. The one thousand supernaturals were dead to thest after ten minutes, while the ck-armored soldiers stood proudly in ce. The disparity in strength was inly obvious.

    ¡°Impossible...¡± someone murmured. This simply wasn¡¯t possible! That had been one thousand supernaturals and a few Novas among them. Although they faced two thousand Demon Hunters, the result couldn¡¯t possibly be 0 to 1000! The Demon Hunters had suffered no casualties! It was incredible and so astounding that no one could believe it.

    The Military God from the Ministry of Armed Forces strode through the air, surveying the Avenue of the Judiciary with a solemn expression. ¡°The Demon Hunter Army is quite something. They wear armor from Battle Heaven and assemble into formations with blood qi. Ten people to a minor formation with interconnected blood qi...¡±

    Their defensive ability was on par with Sunres; ten people to a formation made their offensive power greater than Sunres. Thus, it was to be expected that the Demon Hunters would stamp out Darkmoon and Sunre opponents, but this was still incredible! It was too hard to believe!

    ¡°Do you fight or surrender?¡± Liu Long demanded again.

    ¡°Fight or surrender?!¡± chorused the soldiers, the battle intent ring and killing intent soaring to the sky! Abined aura rose from them and swept through the area. Some Srs shook in their boots, finding the aura to be as imposing as heavenly might and unable to look at it straight in the eye.

    It was just a bunch of weaklings they faced, why... were they so strong?

 Chapter 792: The Demon Hunter Army (III)

    <h4>Chapter 792: The Demon Hunter Army (III)</h4>

    Li Hao watched impassively. This was precisely the effect that he wanted. There weren¡¯t many opportunities for two armies to sh against each other in organizedbat. It proved to be highly effective for the Demon Hunters to flex their muscles.

    Of the two thousand soldiers, there were several hundred Dominators within their ranks. It made for a formidable force. With ten people to a formation, they could almost ensure one Dominator per formation. One formation could suppress a Sr¡ªtwo thousand people could suppress two hundred!

    Outsiders simply looked at him as wasting resources on weaklings. Today, they knew if he had wasted the resources or not!

    There were thousands of supernaturals standing across from them and numerous Novas, but all of them were shaking like leaves. Some Novas stepped forward and a middle-aged officer sighed, ¡°The Judgment Guard is willing to surrender!¡±

    Not everyone was He Liang, and not everyone was the muscr officer who stepped forward in his wake. The Hus had been kind to them, yes, but the Hus had lost! He Liang was dead and one thousand supernaturals were instantly eliminated. The enemy waspletely unscathed, so the Judgment Guard copsed. They could not ovee the Demon Hunter Army. Thetter hadn¡¯t even sent out a powerhouse yet.

    Their strongest before was Liu Long, but now?

    ¡°We surrender!¡± shouted the Judgment Guard.

    ¡°You will be shown mercy if you kneel!¡± Liu Long roared.

    ¡°Mercy if you kneel!¡±

    Expressions flickered across some of the Novas¡¯ faces, but they sank to their knees a secondter. Thousands of Judgment Guard kneeled behind them, their faces stark white with dread.

    They had lost! Lost utterly!

    Within the Judiciary¡¯s seat of government, someone trembled and plopped to their knees. That started a domino effect of others capitting as well.

    ¡°What a bunch of wusses,¡± He Yong snorted. ¡°Let¡¯s just kill them all and be done with it!¡±

    Hou Xiaochen red at him. Their conflict with the nine ministries was just beginning. If they killed surrendered enemies, were they to kill everyone beneath the heavens after that? These supernaturals were highly useful¡ªat the very least, they could work in the mines much more effectively than mundanes.

    He Yong was a crude martial blockhead already, he knew jack shit! Four thousand supernaturals could build a city in a single day. The hell did he know??

    <i>Idiot!</i> Hou Xiaochen sneered inwardly. Li Hao was a bloodthirsty sort, but his intentions were clear in being willing to ept a surrender for once. <i>Do you think Li Hao is more merciful than you? </i>As he expected, he saw a widely beaming Li Hao when he looked at the young man.

    Four thousand supernaturals! It didn¡¯t matter that they were short on resolve. Such was amon sight in major battles. Once the mainmander, vicemander, and resisters were killed, the only ones left were those who drifted with the currents of life.

    These types of people were found in abundance in any era. Strictly speaking, the armies of this age were just another type of job posting. What could one expect from their soldiers? Truth be told, having one-fifth of them step forward earlier already exceeded expectations.

    Li Hao had thought that the Judgment Guard would outright surrender or disband. That they could maintain their order up to this point was testament to He Liang¡¯s leadership skills. His methods were orderly and he was popr with the troops. It was not an easy task to rush here with five thousand supernaturals given circumstances at the Ministry of the Judiciary!

    That there were one thousand soldiers still willing to fight after theirmander was dead and morale nonexistent... Li Hao had to say, their discipline was strict!

    ¡°Enter theplex!¡± hemanded softly. Liu Long and the others pushed aside the supernaturals in the way. Apart from a few still on their feet, everyone in the Ministry of the Judiciary kowtowed on the ground.

    ¡°Please enter, Commander Li!¡± Everyone chorused.

    All was quiet on the Avenue of the Nine Ministries. Li Hao¡¯s golden armor drew sidelong nces. Some powerhouses were stunned by the sight¡ªgolden armor from the ancient civilization! No wonder hemanded more than a thousand soldiers! So the young man was a division leader in the ancient civilization. That was incredible!

    Even Qi Pingjiang was surprised; he quickly vanished after taking a look. There was no need to watch further. There was a new master at the helm of the Ministry of the Judiciary. Everyone who stood in his way was dead. Who could contend against Li Hao now?

    From now on, the nine ministries would still be the nine ministries. However, the Judiciary was now the Skystar Commander Office.

    Li Hao strode in and scanned the scene of people cowering on the ground, punctuated by a few still on their feet.

    One of the ones standing was an extremely elderly man. He looked quietly at Li Hao for a while before asking slowly, ¡°Commander Li, we are just regr officials of advanced age. The battle of the superhumans has nothing to do with us. May we... leave?¡±

    <i>Regr officials?</i>

    Li Hao smiled. They looked old, but they weren¡¯t weak. He chuckled and inclined his head. ¡°You may, but only if there are no crimes on your record! You will be taken in for questioning first. You may go freely so long as you are innocent. Those who are guilty of crimes... will be executed!¡±

    Some remainedposed and some became apprehensive after his response.

    ¡°Take them away and investigate them thoroughly!¡± Li Haomanded. ¡°The rest of you can get up and resume your duties. You are to scrupulously abide by your responsibilities!¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir!¡± his people yelled. Someone swiftly walked up to escort the unyielding elderly away. No one dared resist, and no one could resist.

    A shaking Nova lifted his head to look at Li Hao. ¡°Commander Li... we... are familiar with everything that the Judiciary oversees... We are willing to work for themander... Please... take us under your banner!¡±

    It was difficult toy down the reins of power. Since Li Hao didn¡¯t randomly ughter them all, various thoughts were starting to percte through their minds. Could they stay at their posts? Li Hao needed people to work for him, didn¡¯t he? As for the nine ministries and royal family, who was afraid of them anymore? Could they take down Li Hao?

    ¡°Alright!¡± Li Haoughed uproariously. ¡°Get up and do your work well. Of course, the caveat is that you have notmitted any major crimes. If you¡¯vemitted regr ones, turn yourself in for some punishment at most. Your lives will be safe enough to return to work and redeem yourself through new achievements.

    ¡°But if you¡¯vemitted grave crimes... then you cannot me me for showing no mercy! I am thew enforcer, after all!¡±

    Someone heaved a sigh of relief. This was good. It looked like this one wasn¡¯t as belligerent as rumors said he was.

    They weren¡¯t the only ones to rx¡ªsome observing outside sagged with relief as well. These people not from the Ministry of the Judiciary were wondering, could they do the same and surrender when Li Hao came for them next?

    Some, however, were less than pleased by this development.

    ......

    <i>Inside the pce.</i>

    ¡°This Li Hao... is not the picture that he is painted to be,¡± frowned a prince. ¡°He didn¡¯t wildly rampage through the defeated. It would be good if he killed indiscriminately as uncontrolled cruelty will only lead to fear and no one daring to surrender or join him...¡±

    It was easy to tell from the reactions on the scene that some people were rxing. This was not good for the royal family!

    The Skystar King simply watched; he didn¡¯t offer anymentary. It was surprising that Li Hao had eliminated all of his powerful opponents, and it was equally surprising that he chose to seize the headquarters of one of the nine ministries. The Demon Hunter Army was a further surprise, and Li Hao¡¯s decision to show mercy was the surprise of surprises.

    This was not the mark of a rogue of the martial world! Those from the martial world took pleasure in exacting revenge. Wasn¡¯t it thrilling to put all of them to the sword?

    And yet... Li Hao had not done so.

    The Skystar King closed his eyes, trying to wrap his mind around these moves. <i>Li Hao, do you seek to be a king? Only a king would do what you¡¯ve done. A real wandering hero would not engage in such actions. We would be more than willing to see you rise to lead the martial world, but to rise as a king? That will not be permitted!</i>

    The king vanished from his spot.

    <i>The rear yard.</i>

    The Skystar King looked at a little tree. ¡°Why is Li Hao improving so quickly?¡± he intoned. ¡°He can even exchange blows with Qi Pingjiang now. Although he is the heir of the Lis and can utilize a heritage weapon, he should still not be improving so quickly!¡±

    And he was so strong! That didn¡¯t make sense! The king was equal parts jealous, furious, and begrudging.

    The Skystar King understood that perhaps the royal family had raised a tiger that had turned on them, but who would¡¯ve anticipated that Li Hao would improve so quickly?

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure, perhaps a heavyweight has modified his body.¡± The little tree swayed. ¡°Or perhaps a powerful nt spirit has bequeathed him arge quantity of Water of Life. Maybe he has extraordinary potential...¡±

    How was it to exin Li Hao¡¯s rise? It was impossible to.

    ¡°Does he not have any bottlenecks?¡± demanded the king.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, no one can exceed six elements in this age without the second awakening taking ce. Any who reach seven elements will be ripped apart by the void in their moment of breakthrough!¡±

    ¡°What if they advance in a ruin? They can stabilize their cultivation level and retract their strength before emerging...¡±

    ¡°Are you thinking of your royal father?¡±ughed the little tree. ¡°That is the path he has chosen. Nothing can be seen from it thus far, not until he breaks the seal imposed by the nine ministries. However, I still think that it won¡¯t be possible! Although you are natives to this time period and may be able to set foot back in the world if you retract your strength, your powerhouses have a very weak control over their power. Martial masters are slightly stronger in this regard, but there¡¯s almost no hope for supernaturals to do so.¡±

    ¡°So you mean that martial masters that exceed seven elements stand a chance of not being churned to pieces by the void?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    The Skystar King frowned. Could martial masters reach the seven element level? Was that even possible? They were on par with only two or three element Arcanus after saturating eleven locks. Breaking them would mean that they were no longer martial masters.

    Therefore... it was impossible!

    ¡°I understand!¡± The king nodded after a heavy sigh. In that case, there would be no appearance of a heavyweight on par with an ancient Apex before the second awakening took ce. That was good! It meant that no matter how fast Li Hao improved, six element Arcanus was the limit of his reach. That set the Skystar King at ease.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 793: Probing for Partnership (I)

    <h4>Chapter 793: Probing for Partnership (I)</h4>

    ¡°Then... will royal father be able to emerge in the world if he breaks free of nine ministry control?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± the little tree responded indifferently. ¡°He might be able to, he might not be able to.¡±

    ¡°Is father a supernatural or a martial master still?¡±

    ¡°You ask too much!¡±

    The Skystar King frowned. The nine ministries had shown great wariness all this time and refused to ease up their guard. Whenever his royal father showed signs of movement, they reached through the ruin to suppress him anew. Was it possible... that he was still a martial master?

    That had to be impossible! How could a martial master be on par with an Apex? It was only feasible if his father walked the path of ancient martial dao. But with core origin having gone inert, how was he to reach the Apex level?

    The king couldn¡¯t make sense of it! Was there... some special method in y? The old farts at the nine ministries might know something since they¡¯d remained so iparably fearful all this time. It was the Skystar King himself who didn¡¯t know much. <i>Looks like my old man hasn¡¯t given up the desire toe out! Very well, continue keeping the nine ministries in check then!</i>

    Cheering from thousands of people outside sounded at this time.

    ¡°The Skystar Commander Office will be established on the old address of the Ministry of the Judiciary. The Ministry of the Judiciary is dismantled from this day forth. All superhuman and mundanews will fall under the purview of the Skystar Commander Office. The Skystar Commander Office overseesw and order beneath the heavens!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The Skystar King looked frostily in the relevant direction. Just listen to those words and that ambition! The kid had only wanted to meddle in the affairs of superhumans before, now it was the mundane part of the world as well. Li Hao was so greedy and full of wild ambitions!

    ......

    Varied reactions abounded on the Avenue of the Nine Ministries. Some sighed, some were sad. Others were resigned. Fear and anger were found in equal parts.

    <i>In the rear yard of the Inspectorate.</i>

    Inspector General Chen Yao was mulling over his next course of action as his father read a book next to him. After a long while, Chen Yao sighed. ¡°Did you mean it when you said that I should fall to my knees in front of him after hees out of the ruins?¡±

    ¡°You decide for yourself!¡± His father turned to him with a smile.

    Chen Yao didn¡¯t say a word. <i>What the hell can I decide?? The Ministry of the Judiciary is no more!</i>

    With one less ministry among the nine, Chen Yao grappled with aplex mix of emotions. Li Hao had risen so quickly that he couldn¡¯t really ept it. Thed had been a Night Watcher under hismand just a while back, but now Chen Yao was the one who had to call upon him and ask to be taken in?

    The nine ministries had wielded power over the dynasty for eighty years, making the Chens a local tyrant! Chen Yao himself was like an emperor! And now he was supposed to surrender to Li Hao? He wasn¡¯t willing, was quite reluctant, and immensely irritated!

    Today, Li Hao demonstrated his power and prestige to all sides and killed formidable enemies. He¡¯d seized the Ministry of the Judiciary and defied Qi Pingjiang. He employed great force and threat to deter those who stood in front of him. Two thousand soldiers under hismand had jointly in an Arcanus and eliminated the Judgment Guard!

    Li Hao had fully found his footing this time.

    ¡°What are Qi Pingjiang and the rest thinking?¡± Chen Yao looked at his father. ¡°The situation has progressed to this point, yet they still let Li Hao continue like this? What do they mean by their inaction?¡±

    ¡°Nothing,¡± smiled the old minister. ¡°Just that no matter how strong one¡¯s potential is, one cannot break the shackle of six elements. Only when the second awakening arrives will the victor be decided. We will see then whose foundations are deeper and whose backer is stronger. It will be apparent who is more prepared. Although Battle Heaven of Silver Moon stands behind Li Hao, the second awakening likely won¡¯t reach that province. Silver Moon is themon target of many factions instead. Tell me, why do they feel the need to go against Li Hao right this very moment?¡±

    Chen Yao frowned. ¡°Is he not afraid of Li Hao breaking through the shackles through pure potential alone? He might be seven elements or everyone stronger prior to the second awakening...¡±

    ¡°Why do you think that way?¡± The old minister blinked and looked at his son.

    ¡°Why not?¡± Yao Chen answered with confusion.

    ¡°I mean to say that the second awakening has be a spell that no one can break. This is a foregone conclusion, a problem with space itself and a contradiction that cannot be resolved. Do you think Li Hao can break it?¡±

    ¡°Why not?¡± Chen Yao blinked. <i>I just feel that Li Hao¡¯s rate of improvement is astounding. </i>Everyone thought of it as an impossible task, but what was impossible to Li Hao? The only thing the old man thought of was that his own son had many problems to deal with! Was Chen Yao not supposed to think in this direction?

    ¡°Everything is possible, particrly when ites to Li Hao!¡± Chen Yao dered.

    ¡°Do you therefore think that he can create a miracle? In that case, what are you waiting for?¡±ughed the old minister. <i>If you think that a miracle will spring forth from the young man, that means you¡¯ve already lost and think of Li Hao as a terrifying person. If you think he¡¯s terrifying, why the hesitation?</i>

    ¡°But... if he doesn¡¯t seed... he does indeedck a powerful patron for the second awakening,¡± Chen Yao said haltingly. ¡°It¡¯s unknown whether he seized the mysterious power stones on this expedition and if he can revive the nt spirit in Battle Heaven or not. In that case, he will spontaneously be one of the weakest...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± chuckled the old minister. ¡°So there¡¯s no helping it, we have to take the risk. Go tell him these matters in detail¡ªwe¡¯ll help him out in his time of need. Joining him at this time means we¡¯re gambling for a future chance! We¡¯re betting that Li Hao can create a miracle. If not, you can continue to rest and cavort with the Ministry of Armed Forces.¡±

    Chen Yao sank into deep thought. Gamble for a miracle? The key question was, could Li Hao break his restraints before the second awakening? If he could and upied first mover advantage to eliminate his enemies, then he would be able to safely retreat to Silver Moon even if ancient existences revitalized.

    But if he couldn¡¯t, then he was abruptly insignificant when the second awakening began. nt spirits would dominate the world and batches of powerhouses such as Qi Pingjiang would instantly set foot into seven element Arcanus. It would no longer be Li Hao¡¯s world then, so Chen Yao would only be creating trouble for himself if he threw himself under the young man¡¯s banner.

    ¡°I¡¯ve been curious about one thing¡ªsince Li Hao can stand against Qi Pingjiang, that means he wields more than the temporary strength of five elements,¡± Chen Yao said after a long silence. ¡°The outside world thinks he¡¯s only at three or four elements. Do you think... that he can conceal his presence? If he does that, will that prevent the void from churning him to pieces?¡±

    ¡°......¡± the old minister burst outughing. ¡°Can you stop asking me questions? I¡¯m not a god, how would I know? As opposed to asking me, you might as well ask Li Hao! Just ask him. It¡¯d be a happy surprise if he tells you, and you can just make the call yourself if he doesn¡¯t. He must have something up his sleeves if Yao Si bowed his head. Just do as you see fit and stop asking me. I¡¯ve been retired for many years now.¡±

    Chen Yao sneered and didn¡¯t say anything. <i>Forget it, who knows what this old fart thinks of from day to night. Fine! Then I¡¯ll go ask Li Hao! I¡¯ve never had an official negotiation with him, so I¡¯ll visit him tonight!</i>

    The inspector general rose and walked outside. If he made a choice in these circumstances... then the future of the Chens would be unknown indeed.

    ......

    <i>The Avenue of the Nine Ministries, the Avenue of the Judiciary.</i>

    The Demon Hunter Army had officially taken up residence. All was quiet outside, deathly quiet. It was like the entire city had gone silent. Only in the old Ministry of the Judiciary was there some noise.

    <i>In the rear yard.</i>

    Many powerhouses were gathered. The seats of government for the nine ministries were utilized as offices in the front and residences in the back. There were plenty more than just Hu Xiao and Hu Mingfa to the Hu family running the Judiciary¡ªit was arge n.

    Hu Mingfa had died so abruptly and Li Hao took over equally suddenly that the family hadn¡¯t had time to evacuate. Therefore, the rear yard was full of Hu family members.

    A wizened elder tottered his way forward, one hundred dispirited people at his back. He looked at Li Hao¡¯s side and hadn¡¯t said much when the young man entered the back. He knelt on the ground and raised a wavering voice, ¡°The Hu sinners greet themander! Hu Xiao and Hu Mingfamitted irredeemable crimes and it is only right that themander killed them. However, the best of the family is innocent...¡±

    Li Hao scanned the crowd¡ªthere were approximately one hundred elders, youngsters, and children. All of them shook like a leaf.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± He looked at the old man.

    ¡°I am Hu Xiao¡¯s younger brother and the current family patriarch!¡± sighed the old man. ¡°My older brother sought to y the dragon in years back, which led to the family¡¯s rise. Sadly, his ability fell short of his wishes and he sumbed to tempting whispers from ancient nt spirits. He desired immortality and set foot into their schemes. He permitted the world to get out of hand and so it is only deserved that he has perished.¡±

    The old man raised his head. ¡°Both my brother and Mingfa are dead. Themander is a merciful soul¡ªplease spare the innocent young. Many were those sheltered by my brother among the family, so they would have no regrets about their death. But we have seventeen children under the age of ten, please show them mercy!¡±

    <i>Thud!</i>

    The old man cowered on the ground and banged his head as he kowtowed for mercy. To the victor went the spoils. The two strongest heavyweights of the family were dead, the Hus had officially declined. The nine ministries had also given up on them as the one at Armed Forces simply told Li Hao to not randomly kill people anymore.

    When the Hus heard of their exchange, they understood that the Hus of the Judiciary had been ejected from the table. Although half of their remaining family were supernaturals with even some Novas present, how did one fight Li Hao with this kind of strength? What good were Novas for?

    The old general who¡¯d died outside was thest Arcanus who supported the Hus. He knew that he would die, but hadn¡¯t even summoned a martial master from the Silver Moon old guard in his final struggles.

    The old man on the ground wasn¡¯t a weakling as he was an initial Nova. He simply looked old, yet was still a tyrant on the outside. But here, he was also an ant.

    Li Hao watched him impassively. As pitiful as he looked now, he was certain to be domineering and overbearing in regr times.

    ¡°Deputy Zhou!¡± the young man said softly. The deputy walked out from the rear of his group and looked at those kneeling on the ground.

    ¡°The Skystar Commander Office is established on the basis of thew and simply needs to follow thew. Whether the Hus are guilty or not can be determined by thew! Asw and order are iplete in the dynasty these days, they need to be reassessed and rewritten.

    ¡°However, they will certainly follow the basic principles of morality. Commander, we can put the women and children in one residence and offer them food. We only need to restrict their movement. The men will be taken in for questioning and punished ording to their crimes or released if innocent. The Skystar Commander Office never wrongly uses someone or acquits a criminal. All of the Hu property will be confiscated by the government as it is the umtion of the Hu father and son¡¯s embezzlement...¡±

    ¡°So it shall be done!¡± Li Hao inclined his head.

 Chapter 794: Probing for Partnership (II)

    <h4>Chapter 794: Probing for Partnership (II)</h4>

    ¡°Our thanks for themander¡¯s mercy!¡± The old man kowtowed with gratitude.

    It was amon oue for an entire n to be exterminated when their struggle for power ended in failure. With only Hu Xiao and his son dead, as well as a few others that¡¯d made mistakes to be exploited dying as well, this was much better than the anticipated downfall of the entire family.

    ¡°Men, take them away!¡±

    Demon Hunters quickly swarmed the rear residence and escorted the Hu men away. The Hu patriarch was thest to leave; he hesitated when he passed by Li Hao before saying, ¡°Commander, there is a passage in the rear garden that leads to the family ruins. All of the families overseeing the nine ministries have such a ruin. My brother and his son maintained exclusive ess to the ruins, the others were not permitted entry. I don¡¯t know if there is a key or anything like that. My brother is dead and no one else in the family may enter...¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head without further word.

    The various families of the nine ministries all owned crucial ruins. Some controlled more than one, but the others they grasped might not be nearby. There was an entrance to a ruin inside each of the nine ministries¡ªthis was also why the nine ministries had been built at their respective locations.

    In actuality, the royal family had built thisyout when they ruled the dynasty. The nine princes protectively encircled the royal family!

    As for why the nine princes had built such ayout... perhaps it had something to do with the ruins. It was Li Hao¡¯s guess that the ruins around Skystar City were part of arger whole during the ancient civilization!

    This area might have been a sprawling metropolis back in the day. Although Battle Heaven said thisnd was known as Skystar Town, just their defenders alone numbered one hundred thousand. It was clear to see that this had been no ordinary town.

    Ruins might be found everywhere beneath Skystar City. Evenround Martial University was one further away since it was on the outskirts. As for why they were located so close to each other... Li Hao had his spections. They shouldn¡¯t have been that close back in their day, but the terrain shifted with the times and the ruins themselves could expand or shrink in size. At the very least, Battle Heaven could do so. These ruins had gradually shifted near each other after these long years.

    The rear yard quieted down when everyone from the Hus was escorted out. The ce was free for the Demon Hunters to conduct their search. Li Hao looked at the depths of the rear garden. If there was a ruin here, then there would be a nt spirit.

    <i>The Hus...</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s thoughts turned to the nt spirit replica that Hu Mingfa had brought to Evenround. His had been a... coconut tree, right? At least, the young man thought so. It looked like a massive coconut tree.

    Deputy Zhou soundlessly drew near and said softly, ¡°The ruins of the nine ministries are not ordinary ones. Out of the major ruins, their nt spirits awoke earlier than their brethren, despite their higher strength. It might have something to do with the royal family¡¯s ruins.¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t that mean they¡¯re weaker if they awoke faster?¡± Li Hao raised a brow. Only the weak revived faster since they needed less energy.

    Deputy Zhouughed softly, ¡°That¡¯s Silver Moon... This is Skystar City. It¡¯s a bit different.¡±

    ¡°Why is that?¡±

    ¡°Silver Moon...¡± The deputy thought for a while before responding, ¡°There are too many heavyweights in the province that require energy. There¡¯s not enough to go around, which leaves sufficient energy only for those weaker because they require less. Hence, the stronger recover slower. At Skystar City, there is enough energy to go around. The stronger one is, the more easily one absorbs energy. Hence, they recover faster.¡±

    It had to do with the energy mines!

    Li Hao understood now. Then this meant to say that the nt spirits of the nine ministries might have awoken eighty years ago? That early? So... how strong were they? Nothing could be determined about their strength from replicas. Based on the cultivation system of the ancient civilization, Immortal came after Apex, and Saint after Immortal.

    Could the nt spirits measure up to the ck Armors? Director General Wang and the rest seemed to only be Apexes. So... did that mean that the nt spirits were stronger than Battle Heaven¡¯s officials?

    Li Hao rather doubted that. It was too difficult to say without actually seeing a nt spirit, neither was this a good time to venture into a ruin. If there were Hu powerhouses hiding within, alongside the primary body of a nt spirit, the young man would be in for a world of trouble.

    This couldn¡¯t be all the experts that the Hu family possessed. How could it just be the Hu patriarch and his son keeping the world in order for eighty years? Did they rely on the Judgment Guard alone?

    Under normal circumstances, most of these factions possessed a troop of elites specializing in ruin exploration. Most of these members were martial masters. The Xus that held the Steadfast Duke title possessed such a troop as well. It was said that their ruin was that of Tranquil Star City¡ªthe sacrednd of ancient civilization. It was unknown if that rumor was true or false. Xu Qing had invited Li Hao to explore it with him before he died.

    ¡°Each of the nine ministries has a divine weapon holding down the fort.¡± Li Hao looked around the area. ¡°However, none of the ministers that we killed carried one on them. The one from the Ministry of Commerce pawned his Hover Sword for his debts. The others only took out regr weapons and didn¡¯t even bring out the kind that could fight on their own...¡±

    The Hus hadn¡¯t either! Hu Mingfa hadn¡¯t brought the divine weapon of the Judiciary. Only the old minister Qian Wanhao had brought the Hover Sword with him. It was said to have been forged by Lu Zhen, but Li Hao didn¡¯t know if that was the ministry¡¯s divine weapon either.

    The nine ministries had utilized multiple divine weapons on the day he killed Hu Xiao. They were so formidable that Steris had been provoked into responding. But he hadn¡¯t caught a glimpse of a simr weapon when he killed Hu Mingfa.

    Li Hao actuallycked key knowledge regarding the nine ministries. The royal family had given him some material regarding the institutions, but left out everything having to do with their divine weapons. There was only basic information furnished for subjects like these. And now, it was even less likely that they would supply any confidential information.

    Deputy Zhou was about to respond when Li Hao suddenly whipped his head around and looked at where the offices were located in the front. There was a furtive figure there, skulking through the shadows.

    Several other figures surrounded it in the blink of an eye. Hong Yitang smiled faintly, Hou Xiaochen crossed his arms. Sky Sword was a bit slow, and Southern Fist and Light Sword even slower.

    The unknown figure moved like a wraith; a hint of wariness marked its gestures. These guys... had such strong perception!

    ¡°You¡¯re one of the overlords of the age, why scurry around in the shadows, Minister Chen?¡± Li Hao said calmly.

    ¡°Impressive!¡± Chen Yao smiled. ¡°This ce is indeed a dragon¡¯s pool and a tiger¡¯s den. I just wanted to probe the environment and see how the defenses of the Skystar Commander Office are. It seems that they are very capable!¡±

    Inwardly, he took a sharp breath. He was strong, he really was. After Li Hao fought them in the capital, all sides had furiously enhanced themselves. He¡¯d fortified himself to three element Arcanus, but was still instantly discovered when he snuck into theplex.

    And he wasn¡¯t detected by Li Hao! That was terrifying. Had Sky Sword and the rest all be three element Arcanus? Chen Yao wanted to snort at them¡ªwere they that rich? Even when it came to advancing himself to three elements, it¡¯d been a slightly painful affair for his finances. He¡¯d required drops of Water of Life to the tune of several hundred million mysterious power stones to stabilize his cultivation level.

    Breaking through was possible for Arcanus, but each breakthrough first relied on mysterious power stones, second on nt spirits. The third came down to whether one¡¯s mysterious power, internal force, blood qi, and body itself was of sufficient caliber for the advancement. Otherwise, simply relying on Water of Life wouldn¡¯t prove to be effective.

    Each progression consumed a significant amount of resources. How could the poor beggars of Silver Moon improve so quickly? That was rather unexpected. Even if Li Hao had so many treasures on him, he couldn¡¯t turn it all to strength so quickly, could he?

    ¡°Li Hao, I¡¯m thinking that there might be some things that you don¡¯t understand with the institution that you¡¯re about to establish,¡± Chen Yao replied without a flicker of change in his expression.

    Li Hao smiled. The Chen father and son... were an interesting duo. They were ssic fairweather allies. If he was to say that they were corrupt, well, they weren¡¯t fully corrupt. But neither was the Inspectorate all that good. In terms of good, the father and son had helped himst time. When it came to mundane cases, it was only the Inspectorate that did a passable job.

    Father and son were the typical sort of not expending one iota more effort than needed, but also notmitting one bit less than was required. Their deaths seemed imminent if anyone ever asked anything from them.¡±

    When it came to the Inspectorate, it could only be described as mediocre! That ministry was as mediocre as Chen Yao and his father. It was neither here nor there, neither good nor bad. There were two old ministers ranked ahead of them; there were plenty of other ministers ranked behind them. Their authority wasn¡¯t the greatest, but neither was it the smallest. Their strength wasn¡¯t the greatest, but neither were they the weakest.

    One had to say, sometimes it was people like this who seemed the most disagreeable and irritating. Exemry in nothing, yet refusing to fall to the rear. They were a sight that offended the eyes.

    ¡°You¡¯re too polite, Minister Chen!¡± Li Hao also found it wordless that the inspector general had snuck in like he was up to no good. The young man didn¡¯t mind conversing with their visitor, however. He¡¯d never had a proper conversation with this one. He was curious what the other was here for.

    ¡°Let¡¯s just find a random ce to sit. It¡¯s my first time here as well, so I¡¯m none too familiar with it.¡± Li Hao walked to a pavilion in the middle of ake. This was quite arge backyard as it held an artificialke and had space for a pavilion in its center. With the wintry gusts howling around them, it would be quite an outing if there was a grill in the pavilion. They could cook skewers and enjoy some wine.

    ¡°Folks... give us some space?¡± Chen Yao looked at the others still surrounding him. <i>What are you still in my face for?</i>

    Theyughed and vanished without a trace, just as they¡¯de. They were so strong that it put pressure on Chen Yao. These Silver Moon people improved too quickly.

    ......

    <i>Within theke pavilion.</i>

    There were no cozy fireside chats, steaming mugs of tea, or grilling meat. There were only wintry gusts howling around the two. As the wind wrapped around Li Hao, it gradually began to calm. It was like the wind itself avoided the young man.

    Li Hao took a seat; Chen Yao took a seat across from him. It was only now that Li Hao truly saw the inspector general clearly. He wasn¡¯t old¡ªforty years old at most. At the same time, looks didn¡¯t mean much. The man was on the skinny side, not too tall, and a bit flippant. He seemed more like a hooligan on the streets.

    Chen Yao suppressed the urge to shift ufortably, he wasn¡¯t at ease here. Since the two weren¡¯t drinking tea or wine, they were stuck staring awkwardly at each other.

 Chapter 795: Probing for Partnership (III)

    <h4>Chapter 795: Probing for Partnership (III)</h4>

    ¡°Wine,mander?¡±

    ¡°Just a little!¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± Chen Yao smiled and waved a jug of wine into existence. An enticing fragrance drifted through the air when he opened it. Two cups of white jade appeared in the air; one of themnded in Li Hao¡¯s hand.

    Seeing that Chen Yao was about to pour him a drink, Li Hao smiled and manifested water mist. He swirled it over the cup to clean it, causing Chen Yao¡¯s expression to stiffen. What was this if not the height of impudence?? Did Li Hao hold him in such contempt?

    However, the man didn¡¯t say anything. He directed the wine into the form a water dragon and into Li Hao¡¯s cup. Chen Yao lifted his own cup for a sip, finally feeling able to rx slightly. ¡°Does Commander Li know how the nine ministries were established?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure. The books have some records that the people groveled in abject misery eighty years ago, leading to the rise of nine saints. There were those from the dynasty, from the martial world, and the military among them. They were dissatisfied with the uwfulness of the Skystar royal family and overthrew the previous king. After forcing the royal family to withdraw behind the curtains, they formed the nine ministries andmenced their age of the nine ministries...¡±

    Chen Yao nodded, not minding the slightly sarcastic tone that Li Hao used when mentioning the ¡°nine saints¡±. ¡°Honestly speaking, if you ask any elder over one hundred years ago if life is better now or eighty years ago, the answer will speak for itself.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve never denied that the nine ministries have aplished a great deal. I heard about them back when I was in Silver City. After I reached White Moon City, I said that the nine ministries have done well in the world. Butter, I discovered that I thought too much, that they¡¯re all the same! They look good, but they¡¯re even darker in reality.¡±

    ¡°The nine ministries really did want to break the feudal system at first and build a stronger dynasty,¡± Chen Yao responded after prolonged silence. ¡°We wanted the people to be at peace and happy, for the nation to be prosperous. Butter, we discovered that it wasn¡¯t possible!¡±

    ¡°Not possible?¡±

    ¡°It really isn¡¯t.¡± Chen Yao nodded. ¡°Particrly after the rise of the supernatural. The ancient existences also stir up trouble, aided by local overlords. The three great organizations, seven divine mountains, various monster spirits, various local tyrants, pirates of the Four Seas... all prove impossible to deal with!¡±

    He sighed helplessly. ¡°The world¡¯s situation wouldn¡¯t be thus if these were the only obstacles. The nine ministries still have our own level of strength. However, the key is that the royal family was only barely suppressed back in the day. They, too, have always agitated at their restraints. What would you have the nine ministries do then?

    ¡°In the end, we decided to just follow the same path and take it one day at a time. If it came down to it, we¡¯d break the status quo and start all over again. Rebuilding is easier than repairing sometimes.

    ¡°This dynasty has issues starting from its foundation. The nine ministries cannot keep aplete lid on it and can only patch things up here or there. In the end, we came to a tacit agreement to let the house of cards copse as it would. It might be easier to rebuild after everything breaks.¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word as he sipped at his wine. Perhaps Chen Yao made logical sense, but if this was truly how the nine ministries thought, why maintain the status quo to present day? It¡¯d be better topletely let go sooner!

    Holding a bureaucratic position, yet not enacting any policy was worse than Yao Si¡¯s withdrawal from his duties. These guys were neither shitting nor getting off the pot!

    ¡°But that¡¯s neither here nor there, I can tell that you don¡¯t really want to listen to this!¡± Chen Yaoughed. ¡°Let¡¯s speak of what you do want to hear. The greatest enemy of the nine ministries is the royal family!

    ¡°The old Skystar King is still alive, and the ruins that we explore in the world were not just discovered in recent years. We knew about them a long time ago, but most of the nt and animal spirits had not awakened then. You should know a bit about the Skystar Army¡ªthey¡¯re the suits of armor in these ruins. The royal familyter created the ck Armaturas out of them.

    ¡°Eighty years ago, the nine old ministers suppressed the Skystar King and the nine royal princes at that time. We killed and destroyed whoever we could, including some of themanders of the ck Armaturas. However, the old Skystar King fled into the ruins with the remnants of his supporters.

    ¡°The two sides settled down into a stalemate after that. We wanted to wipe them out entirely, but were unable to do so. The ruins being difficult to enter is one point, the royal family being strong is another. The ancient monster spirits are also involved...

    ¡°While they hadn¡¯t fully awakened eighty years ago, their mental strength still lingered on the sites. It wasn¡¯t as strong as they are now, but it still wasn¡¯t something we could measure up to.¡± Chen Yao looked at Li Hao. ¡°Therefore, both sides could onlypromise that the old Skystar King abdicate in favor of the current Skystar King. And yet, the royal family wasn¡¯t willing to fade away into obscurity. Certain developments urred along the way...

    ¡°The most major of them was the revitalization of the supernatural twenty years ago. The old Skystar King obtained many benefits from his position in the ruins. He sought to return after his defeat and the nine ministers paid an exceedingly high price to defeat him. They suppressed him and utilized the nine divine weapons, as well as the ultimate art of Tranquil Star, topletely seal him away...

    ¡°Ultimately, however, they weren¡¯t able to kill him. The nt spirit in his camp had awoken by a great deal twenty years ago. It employed core origin power to pull him back to safety at a crucial moment. The nt spirit likely wants to gain greater benefits through the royal family so that it can quickly recover. The royal family has be its representative, so it won¡¯t permit the royal family to perish.¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Li Hao listened attentively to Chen Yao¡¯s lengthy exnation. ¡°What¡¯s the situation now?¡±

    ¡°The old Skystar King is still hiding in the ruins. He¡¯s been sealed away and has to walk out of the ruins if he wishes to break the seal. He won¡¯t be able to shatter it if he doesn¡¯t emerge...

    ¡°We utilized the special sealing method of Tranquil Star,bining the blood essence of the old ministers with the nine characters and divine weapons to seal him away. That was why the old king saw an opportunity when some of the old ministers attacked youst time. He wanted to break free of the ruins and undo the seal, but was ultimately suppressed again...

    ¡°But after you kill Hu Xiao and Qian Wanhao, that seal might have loosened again.¡±

    Li Hao nodded, then asked, ¡°Why are you so wary of the old king breaking out?¡±

    Was there a need for that? So what if he broke out? Why let the situation develop to the point in which the two premier heavyweights from the Ministry of Armed Forces and Administration couldn¡¯t move around freely? They could only keep their eyes on the royal family and quickly respond whenever that one made an attempt to break out.

    ¡°He¡¯s too strong.¡± Chen Yao smiled.

    ¡°Too strong?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°Stronger than the nt spirits?¡±

    ¡°Not to that point,¡± Chen Yao exined. ¡°Being strong is one thing, the second is to prevent the old king from obtaining even more benefits after he breaks the seal. The previous king was quite an extraordinary character¡ªhe is highly authorized in the ruins. You know just as well what kind of benefits a high authorization in the ruins brings. He was a Golden Armor twenty years ago!¡±

    <i>Golden Armor, twenty years ago! </i>Li Hao¡¯s face twitched slightly. That meant he¡¯d been a division leader twenty years ago!

    ¡°Do you understand now?¡± sighed Chen Yao. ¡°The royal family¡¯s ruins haven¡¯t been excavated to arge extent, but the family is so strong even so. How dare we let that old guy wander around freely? He¡¯s kept under firm suppression now, with no use for his identity, status, or strength. We¡¯ll sense him as soon as he departs from the zone of the nt spirit¡¯s protection and obliterate him!

    ¡°Therefore, the stalemate stretched on. We don¡¯t dare let him obtain more authorization¡ªit would be an unmitigated disaster if he assumed control over the Skystar Troops. All of the ruins would belong to the royal family and they would im all benefits. The nine ministries would only barely hang on then.¡±

    ¡°The supernatural had only just reawakened twenty years ago,¡± Li Hao was surprised. ¡°The strongest of martial masters then was only Dominator of Thousands. How could he have been a division leader then?¡±

    That was incredible!

    ¡°You forget one thing,¡±ughed Chen Yao. ¡°It¡¯s true that the supernatural awoke twenty years ago, and it¡¯s true that there were few powerhouses then. But remember, whether it was the armored warriors in the ruins or others... they were all in a state of hibernation. It was easier to obtain authorization then, assuming that one possessed sufficient strength and luck.¡±

    There were fewer powerhouses in the world, but also more inactivity throughout the ancient existences. If an Arcanus could be a division leader now, then one could be a division leader twenty years ago as a Dominator.

    ¡°Is that so?¡± Li Hao raised a brow. ¡°Then my master didn¡¯t obtain that many benefits for his efforts in the ruins early on.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not the same. Silver Moon had only just awakened twenty years ago and it was sealed away before that. There were signs of awakening in Skystar City two hundred years ago. It likely has to do with how the ancient records mention that this area held the energy mine for the Silver Moon Territory.¡±

    Li Hao blinked with understanding.

    ¡°This is why the nine ministries and royal family are in a stalemate.¡± Chen Yao took a sip of wine. ¡°I tell you this to point out that it makes it easier for the old Skystar King to break free if you kill a few more of the old ministers. There will be a world of trouble then, which is why Qi Pingjiang doesn¡¯t wish for you to keep killing anymore.

    ¡°Not to mention, you¡¯re so strong that he knows all of the nine ministries must mobilize if they want to kill you. That will also free the old Skystar King then. Will he not retaliate after being confined by the nine ministries for so many years? It¡¯s a tough situation on both ends, so he might as well put one down for now.¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head without saying anything else.

    ¡°Everyone¡¯s waiting for the second awakening,¡± Chen Yao had to continue uponck of response from the young man. ¡°Once the void is stable after the second awakening, everyone will be able to break through. No matter how strong the old Skystar King is, seven element Arcanus is avable to all after the second awakening. They will be on par with the Apex of the ancient civilization, which means that everyone stands at the same starting line then. By then, it wille down to the strength of everyone¡¯s backer. How many backers and level of strength will be the key.¡±

 Chapter 796: Probing for Partnership (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 796: Probing for Partnership (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Then why go to Silver Moon?¡± Li Hao asked. All sides could just quietly wait for the second awakening, why fixate on Silver Moon? He¡¯d never understood what was in the province for the rest of the world and ancient monster spirits.

    ¡°We want to go to Silver Moon because of the ancient existences there. If they haven¡¯t died yet, then almost none of them are fully awakened!¡± Chen Yao answered honestly. ¡°You must understand that to the ancient spirits elsewhere, they weren¡¯t the strongest back in the day. The truly great were all in Silver Moon! If those outside devour the protective nt spirits of Battle Heaven, they would take arge step forward and smash through their previous cultivation restrictions.

    ¡°For us, once Silver Moon¡¯s ancient monster spirits and modern cities shatter, it represents another awakening of the entire Skystar Dynasty! Whether it is these ancient cities or ancient powerhouses, they keep a lot of things sealed away and cause the world to grow ever poorer!

    ¡°Silver Moon was the center of the world during the ancient civilization. As such, treasures abound within it. Heritage from powerhouses, ultimate arts of martial dao, corpses of ancient monster spirits, andnds of enlightenment from heavyweights... Only there can we break our shackles and take another step forward! Victory is possible only when the Silver Moon heavyweights are still in slumber. That is the only possible chance to rise to higher heights!¡±

    Chen Yao looked at Li Hao. ¡°The legends also say that it is through Silver Moon can we walk out of this world and enter a bigger world! It is the passage to the ancient civilization, and that the eight families protected this passage. Do you... know about this?¡±

    <i>The Star Gate?</i>

    It wasn¡¯t Li Hao¡¯s first time hearing of this. The eight families encircled the Star Gate and protected the passageway. Perhaps one could utilize the Star Gate to locate the ancient Human King and others. Of course, the Human King was long dead in the eyes of most and the ancient civilizationpletely destroyed.

    But no matter what, it was a path to a higher level of being. Therefore, Silver Moon became a ce that these people always fought over.

    ¡°And then?¡± Li Hao inclined his head.

    ¡°And then?¡± Chen Yao was speechless, so he had to put it more inly. ¡°Therefore, it won¡¯t be the ancient powerhouses of Silver Moon that first appear after the second awakening, but the nt and monster spirits that back the royal family and nine ministries. They will attack Silver Moon at first light, seize the bodies of the strong, devour their core origin, break through the Star Gate...

    ¡°That¡¯s why I say your true troubles will begin then, that Silver Moon¡¯s troubles will officially arrive then! You¡¯ve demonstrated your strength at present, so everyone is biding their time. They simply think that there¡¯s no need to go toe-to-toe, that they can just wait.

    ¡°This is why you can withstand theirbined offensive. It won¡¯tst long as the second awakening should be arriving soon. Skystar City is the key. Both the nine ministries and royal family know that the second awakening might have something to do with the enormous mine at Skystar City...¡±

    ¡°So the minister means to say that that will be the day of my death?¡± Li Hao finally understood.

    ¡°Not exactly... but the best course of action for you then is to run back to Silver Moon! I know that Silver Moon is very strong, that there are many martial masters, and many of the old guard still alive. They once attacked Skystar City and sought to seize some ruins. Most of them died, but a portion survived.

    ¡°And yet, can they stand against these existences that have survived for countless years?¡±

    ¡°I understand your meaning!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°The minister would like to ask if I have a patron, do I? To be honest, no. You said so yourself, the powerhouses of Silver Moon are hard to awaken. When it reallyes to that time, how are we to stand against the nt and monster spirits backing you guys?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Chen Yao was growing weary of this conversation. <i>Do you, or do you not, understand what I mean?</i> ¡°You can... quickly set foot into five elements, but my senses tell me that that will be hard for me. I¡¯m thinking that if you can cross into seven elements before the second awakening, then you¡¯ll have the ability to eliminate a batch of enemies before the awakening arrives. Perhaps you can partner with some nt spirits, such as the one of the Hus. The nt spirits need our help too, it¡¯s just a matter of mutual benefit...¡±

    ¡°No, wait!¡± Li Hao interrupted him. ¡°The nt spirits are iparably powerful after awakening, so aren¡¯t you afraid that they¡¯ll eliminate you instead? Why do you think they¡¯ll help you?¡±

    Where did he get the confidence from?

    ¡°We naturally have our guarantees if we dare to work with the nt spirits,¡±ughed Chen Yao. ¡°Silver Moon Territory is no longer suited for core origin dao, so the ancient nt spirits will have to attach themselves to a modern powerhouse if they wish to leave thisnd. That holds true even after they fully awaken and devour heavyweights of core origin dao. Under normal circumstances, we sign mutual beneficiary agreements...¡±

    ¡°What do you mean by that?¡±

    ¡°It means that we mutually benefit from each other!¡± Chen Yao exined. ¡°Just as these agreements existed in the ancient civilization, we share our lives, energy, and great dao with each other. Neither side is able to hurt one another in this way.¡±

    <i>A mutual beneficiary agreement? </i>Li Hao sent his consciousness into the storage ring. ¡°Senior Little Tree, do you know about the mutual beneficiary agreement?¡±

    The little tree trembled before sending back mental ripples momentster. ¡°Do you... want to sign one with me?¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯m just asking.¡± Li Hao wanted to roll his eyes. What was it so afraid for?<i> I don¡¯t want to sign with you! But seeing at how afraid the tree is, this looks like it does exist.</i>

    ¡°Mutual beneficiary agreements existed between humanity and nt spirits back in the day. They were a special method meant to prevent betrayal from either side. The two sides signed agreements to share their lives and depend on each other. Humanity could receive longevity and nt spirits would receive some benefits from humans.

    ¡°It was an arrangement of mutual benefit, but it was gradually abolished.¡±

    ¡°Why?¡± Li Hao asked curiously.

    ¡°There are certain drawbacks to mutual beneficiary agreements. For instance, if one side wanted to die, it would easily drag in the other. If one side is too weak, that easily implicates the other. Killing the weakling would easily cause the death of the strong.¡±

    That made sense!

    ¡°And another thing, interference appears between the daos of humans and nt spirits. Hence, mutual beneficiary agreements are quite limited in the peaks that they can reach.¡±

    <i>Is that so? </i>Li Hao asked further, ¡°So they really do exist and are effective, is that so?¡±

    ¡°Right!¡± answered the little tree. ¡°But you should be careful if you wish to sign a mutual beneficiary agreement. A lower level agreement was craftedter on to avoid some troubles¡ªsharing a part of core origin, sharing a part of life. My replica can sign an agreement with you, but if anything happens, only my replica dies. My primary body is fine.¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook. That was confidential, wasn¡¯t it? The little tree had just outright told him about it!

    ¡°I tell you this just to remind you to not easily trust mutual beneficiary agreements.¡± The little tree seemed to know what was going on in his mind. ¡°If you ce your trust in them, the other can condemn you to death with just the willingness to lose a portion of their core origin. However, most nt spirits will not do so unless they have absolutely no choice. Losing core origin is especially troublesome in this era!¡±

    Li Hao understood, that made sense.

    ¡°Besides... you are the heir of the Sword Sovereign. Signing an agreement with you doesn¡¯t necessarily mean it¡¯s a poor bargain for me.¡±

    Essentially, the little tree was saying that it would agree if Li Hao truly wanted to sign one. After all, his status was eptable and his potential was good. They could sign one!

    Li Hao was speechless. He didn¡¯t want to engage in that course of action!

    Across the table, Chen Yao frowned to see the young man deep in thought.

    ¡°Minister Chen,¡± Li Hao suddenly said. ¡°You guys haven¡¯t signed these agreements yet, have you?¡±

    ¡°No, we haven¡¯t,¡± Chen Yao confirmed. ¡°For one, we are too weak and so the nt spirits are unwilling. For two, they haven¡¯t fully awakened yet. Signing an agreement now is a burden to them. If their person on the outside dies, it would implicate them in numerous ways. But once the second awakening begins, we¡¯ll sign the agreements to prevent them from swiftly turning on us when they leave the ruins.¡±

    <i>I understand!</i>

    No wonder these guys weren¡¯t worried about the nt spirits outright killing them. But if these nt spirits did as the little tree revealed and only used part of their core origin to sign... then that was all they would lose in the event of a betrayal. Those of the nine ministries and royal family would still die.

    Did they know about the lower level agreements?

    Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn¡¯t. The nt spirits weren¡¯t likely to kill their human and sacrifice that portion of their core origin before the crucial moment arrived.

    Li Hao mostly understood Chen Yao¡¯s meaning and smiled mysteriously at the man. ¡°Did Minister Chene to me today just to tell me this? You want me to be careful, and that I¡¯m done for after the second awakening?¡±

    ¡°Does Commander Li really not understand?¡± Chen Yao¡¯s frown deepened.

    ¡°What do you want me to say?¡± Li Hao burst outughing. ¡°Say that I¡¯m sure I can find a big backer before the second awakening, or that I¡¯ll be a supreme powerhouse myself and can defend against nt spirits? or what else?¡±

    <i>Exactly that!</i> Chen Yao cursed. ¡°You set foot into five elements so quickly... Do you... have a way... to avoid some trouble... and enter seven elements?¡±

    He cut straight to the chase!

    ¡°How would I know!¡± Li Hao¡¯sughter continued. ¡°I¡¯ll tell the minister if I seed. Wouldn¡¯t I just be painting a pretty picture without substance otherwise?¡±

    <i>That¡¯s right, aren¡¯t you even willing to paint a pretty picture for me?</i>

    The young man chuckled. Deputy Zhou had once mentioned that painting a pretty picture would sometimes bring hope. <i>But... why should I paint one for you? I want kindred spirits, not just to grow my faction. This Minister Chen wavers between various decisions and can¡¯t make up his mind. I see right through you!</i>

    Chen Yao was here to inquire whether Li Hao could take care of some troubles before the second awakening and if he could locate a major backer. If he could, then the minister would throw his lot in with the young man.

    And yet, Li Hao refused to give him that assurance! <i>Come if you want, don¡¯t if you don¡¯t want to! </i>He¡¯d spoken of so many secrets, exined the origins of the nine ministries, and described the trump cards of the royal family in order to tell Li Hao that these two sides would instantly grow stronger after the second awakening. <i>The enemy is very strong, do you have more aces up your sleeves?</i>

    But to the young man, his thoughts were that<i> I don¡¯t even know if you¡¯re a good guy or bad. Why should I tell you this?</i>

    Chen Yao was growing agitated. Li Hao knew of his meaning and he disyed an intent to work with Li Hao, but the young man wasn¡¯t continuing the conversation. <i>Does he think so little of me??</i>

 Chapter 797: Probing for Partnership (V)

    <h4>Chapter 797: Probing for Partnership (V)</h4>

    ¡°Let us speak of the present, if not the future, Commander Li,¡± Chen Yao snapped. ¡°The City of Supernaturals and three great organizations are a grave threat to you too. I¡¯m sure that you need some helpers. The martial masters of Silver Moon cannot always fight for you because the province needs heavyweights in residence as well.¡±

    ¡°So what?¡± Li Hao sipped his wine with a smile. ¡°The Inspectorate is ranked among the top three of the nine ministries and the Chens are extremely strong. Why tie yourself to my sinking ship? You¡¯ll drown at any time.¡±

    ¡°I...¡± Chen Yao was well and truly angered now. ¡°Does Commander Li not have any desire to be courteous to the wise?? Ie with sincerity, why must you show me such a dismissive attitude?¡±

    ¡°It is indeed a rare sight that the third ministry of the nine wants to join my side.¡± Li Hao sat up straight. ¡°I hadn¡¯t anticipated this possibility... but even if I wish to find helpers, I want those with clear goals and resolute attitudes. I do not want those who waver in determination and hesitate over what course to adopt. Moreover, I do not want those who turn hostile as soon as differences in opinion or weaknesses appear. These types of people are even more dangerous than enemies!¡±

    ¡°Do you mean to say that this is what the Chens are?¡±

    ¡°Correct!¡± Li Hao answered brusquely. ¡°In my eyes, this is precisely what the Chens are! If you truly wanted to ally, you would¡¯vee out in the open, not skulk around in the shadows and look around furtively. That¡¯s ack of sincerity!¡±

    ¡°I am responsible for the Chens and the Inspectorate!¡± Chen Yao boomed. ¡°I do not operate by myself, do you think I¡¯m like Southern Fist and the others who feed their entire family if they themselves are full? You must know that there are 176 members in the Chen family and I have thirty-seven siblings alone...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped. <i>The hell?! How do you have so many siblings? You¡¯re joking! This is more proliferate than Thunderleg... How does your dad sire so many kids?</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, they¡¯re not my children! They¡¯re my siblings!¡± Chen Yao thundered. ¡°I tell you this to show that partnership between factions is different from that of individual people. Southern Fist and the rest only need to look out for themselves. And me? I need to think of the future. Otherwise, we¡¯ll be like the Hus of today and easily destroyed.

    ¡°You need to at least give me some hope if you truly wish to obtain my family¡¯s support. Take Yao Si, for example. You must have given him some hope for him to be willing to swear fealty to you. Otherwise, with his personality, would he easily give the Night Watchers to you?¡±

    Li Hao blinked and turned over the man¡¯s words. That... made sense. Since Silver Moon martial masters didn¡¯t usually haggle, that meant he automatically disliked the inspector general. At the same time, Chen Yao made sense. The man led arge family and it would be all of their deaths if he picked the wrong team.

    ¡°I cannot give you any promises.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°Because I myself don¡¯t know what is toe. What do you want me to say? Lie to you? Is there any meaning in that? The only thing I can say is...e if you¡¯re willing to fight for the same goals! As for the rest... Minister Chen should consider it for yourself.¡±

    Chen Yao sighed. If one said Li Hao was an honest fellow... well, that he was. He was unwilling to breathe a hint of anything even at a time like this. <i>But this puts me in a very difficult spot!</i>

    After hesitating over his course of action, the man said, ¡°Then I have one request. If you agree, the Inspectorate will put its full force behind you!¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s hear it.¡±

    ¡°As long as you can seize their ruin.¡± Chen Yao looked at the Hus¡¯ former rear residence. ¡°No matter the method, so long as you can take it, then the Inspectorate will assist you with everything we have! The Chens do not go back on our word!¡±

    Li Hao thought it over and nodded with a smile. That worked too! It was a demonstration of strength. Being able to seize the ruins meant that he could do the same to the others. He would also expose all of his trump cards and foundation in the process of doing so since the nt spirits in the ruins were currently at the Apex level.

    Chen Yao¡¯s worries would be dismissed if Li Hao could handle everything, and taking the ruins was already part of the young man¡¯s ns. In that case, he would push his boat along the current. As for whether or not the Inspectorate really would put their full force behind him... Li Hao didn¡¯t care. ¡°Alright!

    ¡°Very well!¡± Chen Yao¡¯s expression flickered with the young man¡¯s swift agreement. ¡°In that case, my Chens do not practice a miserly style. I can arrange two Arcanus to help you in the meantime. They keep a low profile and are a token of our sincerity!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re being so generous?¡± Li Haoughed.

    ¡°It¡¯s also so that you do not think too little of us!¡±

    ¡°Very well, then my thanks,¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°But I¡¯ll say this beforehand, I will not pay them a sry. And mymands arew. I¡¯ll kill them if they give me any trouble. Is that eptable to you?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Chen Yao rose without further discussion. ¡°I await your good news!¡±

    Li Hao sent him off for a few steps before falling back. He smiled at the interesting encounter. It likely wouldn¡¯t matter to the Chens even if those two Arcanus died. They just wanted to see if his side could really im the Hu ruins.

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you give him more hope?¡± Deputy Zhou walked out softly.

    ¡°The nine ministries annoy me!¡±

    <i>Alright then.</i> The deputy had nothing to say to that. The young man¡¯s martial world blood was very apparent at times. But it was good enough that he¡¯d aplished what he had in such a short period of time. There was no need for criticism. If they really took the Hu ruins, then the Chens would also make the right decision of whether to partner with Li Hao or await extermination.

    ¡°Then the Hu ruins...¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll have a meeting about it first!¡± Li Hao had put the ruins on his to-do list as well.

    First, he wanted to rule out the possibility of the Hus from having any powerhouses hidden within. Second, why not? There might be treasure inside. Third, he wanted to see if he had the capacity to kill a nt spirit. Yes, kill. He¡¯d never considered the possibility of cooperation. What for? He just wanted to try killing one!

    Fourth, was the Hu ruin part of the Skystar ruin? That would be interesting if it were. That the nine ministries could suppress the old Skystar King through the ruins, it was food for thought that these ruins were all interconnected. Their potential interface was the key. He wanted to undermine the royal family¡¯s foundation!

    What royal family, the Skystar Mine was Li Hao¡¯s! <i>Are you going to awaken a second time if I dig it up ahead of time? You¡¯ll awaken when I say you can! </i>The Hu ruins were an opening. Li Hao wouldn¡¯t have let them be even without Chen Yao.

    ......

    The others arrived after Chen Yao left.

    ¡°What did that little thug want with you?¡± He Yong was the most curious.

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao blinked. Who was he talking about?

    ¡°Chen Yao!¡± He Yongughed at seeing Li Hao look nkly at him. ¡°You don¡¯t know? Don¡¯t be fooled by his age¡ªprior to taking over from his old man, he was the biggest thug in Skystar City. He lived it up and did anything he wanted. After he seeded his father, he still continued in the same style. His old man¡¯s the same as him, but I¡¯m not too familiar with the older guy. Apparently, he was also a thug back in the day...

    ¡°His reputation was worse than mine in the martial world eighty years ago!¡± He Yong ended with a chuckle. That deration drew various nces from the group.

    ¡°What you looking at??¡± he groused. ¡°You¡¯re the ones who built my bad reputation! I can¡¯t be bothered to argue with you anymore!¡±

    No one said a word. <i>So you also know that your reputation is poor! We thought you didn¡¯t know!</i>

    ¡°Then the one at the Inspectorate... is still a thug?¡± Li Hao burst outughing.

    ¡°Of course. Don¡¯t be fooled by his appearance like a gentleman now, apparently he passed himself off as a schr inter years. He looks refined and genteel, but can¡¯t read all that well. The books he reads areic books with pictures in them!¡±

    The group looked at him with meaningful looks, roughly grasping He Yong¡¯s meaning. He Yong rolled his eyes again.<i> I don¡¯t mean it that way! I mean actualics! Do you understand me or not? What are you all looking at me like that for?</i>

    ¡°So Martial Uncle He means to say...¡±

    ¡°That this familyes from the streets and is good at analyzing the times, but they¡¯re not reliable in true times of need!¡± He Yong assessed brusquely. ¡°He came skulking through the shadows, probably because he sensed an opportunity...¡±

    The group stared at him again. <i>So... you¡¯ve met your own kind, huh? It takes one to know one, you should be on good terms with the Inspectorate then!</i>

    He Yong wanted to weep from weariness! <i>This is all because my reputation was sabotaged! My reputation is great! I¡¯m a very loyal guy! I stick out my neck for my brothers and can sacrifice myself for them. I bare my heart to my friends! What are you guys looking at me for?!</i>

    ¡°Just be careful. The Chens are reliable when you¡¯ve got momentum on your side, but they¡¯ll run faster than anyone if the tides seem to be turning!¡±

    The group stared at him again; He Yong really was ready to fly into a rage.

    ¡°What <i>are</i> you guys looking at me for?!¡± he scowled. ¡°I¡¯m going to start hitting if you lot keep staring at me!¡±

    <i>Stop looking at me! Why are you always looking at me??</i>

    The group returned to quiet and stopped regarding Southern Fist. <i>So start hitting. You¡¯re the weakest among us, do your hits mean anything? We just can¡¯t be bothered to fight you since it¡¯s embarrassing to fight a thug.</i>

    Li Hao smiled and waved everyone to a seat. The tiny pavilion was immediately crowded with people. He Yong, Hou Xiaochen, Deputy Zhou, Light Sword, Hong Yitang, and Sky Sword were all present. Sky Sword hadn¡¯t left yet¡ªhe seemed different from his previous aloofness.

    In actuality... Li Hao surmised that Sky Sword¡¯s presence had something to do with the young man¡¯s own changes. More likely than not, Sky Sword was waiting to see if Li Hao would say certain things.

    Yao Si was at the Night Watchers and hadn¡¯t had time toe over yet. Manager Yu was assisting Liu Long and the rest of the Demon Hunters to reorganize the Judgment Guard. Apart from Yang Shan and his wife, Qin Lian, almost all heavyweights were present in the pavilion.

    Silver Moon hadn¡¯t sent that many martial masters for this asion¡ªmostly because Li Hao made his move before the Silver Moon martial masters arrived. By the time he emerged, the other side waspletely dead. Hence, the martial masters from the province might¡¯ve turned back halfway. They could also have slowed down their pace to reach Skystar City or decided not to show up at all. Li Hao didn¡¯t mind.

    They didn¡¯t need to support him at first light upon each asion. He didn¡¯t voluntarily request support either. Coming once was already an enormous favor. He wouldn¡¯t be put out just because they didn¡¯t arrive within three days on the second time.

    ¡°Let¡¯s sit and chat!¡± Li Hao began and turned to Hong Yitang. ¡°Martial Uncle Hong, people need to be killed and business needs to be conducted. Killing is secondary and conducting business is key. The dead of winter will be upon us soon. It''s cold now, but it¡¯s not the coldest...¡±

    ¡°So you mean...?¡± Hong Yitang asked softly.

    ¡°It¡¯s almost December and the new year. The academy needs to open its doors before the turn of the year.¡±

 Chapter 798: A Massive Leap Forward in Strength (I)

    <h4>Chapter 798: A Massive Leap Forward in Strength (I)</h4>

    ¡°In actuality, the first batch of students we recruit will be those who aren¡¯t afraid of death,¡± Li Hao said after some thought. ¡°But that isn¡¯t the key point either. I¡¯m just thinking of raising the school¡¯s banner and attracting some talent! I hear that the teachers of Skystar¡¯s former Ancient Academy are having a tough time in the world. We can also target our recruitment efforts and undertake some reforms...¡±

    Hong Yitang inclined his head.

    ¡°No matter how many students are at a school, there is still a limit to what it can do,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°The key is that it bes universal. Of course, that¡¯s obviously out of reach now, but it has to continue down this direction... We¡¯ll go at it from both sides and not dy anything!¡±

    ¡°I know what to do now.¡± Hong Yitang nodded slightly.

    ¡°I hear that the East Pole Duke and Yu Qiao are exterminating the Xus under my name over on the eastern continent.¡± Li Hao turned to Deputy Zhou. ¡°This is the deputy¡¯s handiwork, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°I simply had a chat with them.¡± The deputy smiled. ¡°They feel that since the world is vast and the central government is far away, it¡¯s enough to have a legitimate reason behind their actions. They don¡¯t actually think much of the Skystar Commander Office.¡±

    ¡°Mm, that¡¯s alright. They use my name and say that their actions are to take revenge for me... then I¡¯ll satisfy them and pay a visit when I go to the east next time.¡± That was just as well, it meant he wouldn¡¯t need to pay attention to the Xus in the east for a bit. Those two sides alone were enough to keep them preupied.

    Li Hao continued to discuss some trivial matters¡ªall affairs that¡¯d happened recently. He asked about them all, whether big or small, so that no one would say that he neglected his management duties.

    He didn¡¯t actually want to manage anything¡ªhis goal was simple. Set up the overarching goal, kill everyone who annoys him, and after that... whether it was him continuing at the helm or someone else, that was for the future to decide.

    He hoped that the supernaturals would keep to themselves this winter. It was shaping up to be a harsh winter, harsh enough to freeze to death. If a supernatural war erupted at this time and affected the entire dynasty, then hundreds of millions of civilians would be disced. Half of them could either freeze or starve to death in this season.

    Li Hao coughed gently after discussing the matters at hand. Everyone perked up their ears and inwardly snapped to attention. It was time to discuss serious business!

    ¡°Chen Yao came to tell me that the nine ministries and royal family, as well as the other organizations, are waiting for the second awakening to move against us. He was here to offer opportunistic help, but he also wanted to see a demonstration of strength and performance first.¡± Li Haoughed, ¡°I actually don¡¯t care how they choose, but he did say something correctly. The second awakening is when a lot of our troubles begin!¡±

    Everyone nodded.

    ¡°Silver Moon has ever been on guard against the second awakening,¡± Hou Xiaochen agreed. ¡°We suffered an enormous setback in the first awakening. Our ruins... ai, they have enormous appetites. They spontaneously devoured all of the energy that blossomed and sucked us dry in a split second!¡±

    He was very resigned about the situation and gave a rare sigh. ¡°Otherwise, with the hot blood that runs in our veins, we would¡¯ve produced quite a few premier powerhouses. Silver Moon didn¡¯t give us the chance to do so...¡±

    ¡°Troubles are certain toe,¡± Li Hao said. ¡°But we can¡¯t idly sit by either, that¡¯s not a good choice. We need tounch an attack when all sides don¡¯t dare provoke us!¡±

    Deputy Zhou and Hou Xiaochen kept quiet; everyone else looked at them.<i> C¡¯mon, Li Hao means you two. Aren¡¯t the Silver Moon powerhouses waiting for the second awakening so they can counterattack when others invade?</i>

    It was the best n that Silver Moon coulde up with, as the province was weaker than the enemies it faced. Many veteran martial masters had died during their first rising, so few were the province¡¯s counterattacks in recent years.

    ¡°None of this is key today. The key is that Southern Fist, Light Sword, and Deputy Zhou might be martial masters.¡±

    <i>Might be?</i>

    The group focused on Deputy Zhou.

    ¡°It... is hard to hear such words,¡± Deputy Zhou protested weakly.

    ¡°What level of strength are you, Deputy Zhou?¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°It¡¯s not asplicated as you think,¡± the deputy said with resignation after a while. ¡°Let¡¯s put it this way. I¡¯m a special martial master, is it clearer like that? I walk the path of the ancient martial dao and walk itpletely. I can do so because I identally obtained some benefits when I was young and my constitution was modified to be simr to an ancient martial practitioner¡¯s. Therefore, it¡¯s really not that I¡¯m concealing anything like you guys think.¡±

    An ancient martial practitioner!

    ¡°The orthodox ancient martial dao?¡± Li Hao looked at him with surprise.

    ¡°Yes!¡± Deputy Zhou admitted frankly. ¡°I identally obtained some benefits in a ruin. A premier heavyweight about to petrify passed on some heritage to me. He converted my constitution with great arts during his dying breath.

    ¡°Therefore, I¡¯m a pure practitioner of ancient martial dao. I have some small aplishments to my name ording to the ancient system. It¡¯s just that with the demise of core origin dao, it is hard for me to walk another path. Hence, my achievements are less than everyone¡¯s.¡±

    ¡°In that case... I understand a bit more,¡± Hou Xiaochenughed. ¡°So this means that the deputy has a very strong body! The ancient martial dao speaks of a golden body¡ªthat¡¯s what you have, correct?¡±

    ¡°I do have that...¡± Deputy Zhou smiled. ¡°But with how sparse energy is, a weak golden body is hard to maintain. Thankfully, Commander Li gave me some Water of Life and helped me nurture it. Otherwise... I wouldn¡¯t be able to easily employ it.¡±

    His admission drew everyone¡¯s interest. A pure ancient martial practitioner was different from a modern cultivator who practiced ancient methods. Someone who walked the ancient path was one who made the same journey and attained the same levels and great dao as the ancient civilization. Practicing ancient methods, however, usually required some sort of modification to the method. Modern humans had weaker physical bodies, so the two cultivation philosophies were different. Martial masters focused on the aura, whereas ancient cultivation focused on core origin.

    Li Hao rxed with understanding¡ªno wonder he hadn¡¯t been able to see anything before. No wonder he didn¡¯t find the deputy to possess a frail body. The others coughed incessantly or had wan faces, but that never appeared with this one. There was no talk of weak organs in the ancient martial civilization, so those symptoms would naturally not appear.

    Deputy Zhou being frank now was likely out of a desire to not start an image of someone crafty and insidious. He was quite resigned to have the entire group staring at him like this.

    ¡°Let¡¯s move on from Deputy Zhou.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Seniors Southern Fist and Light Sword are both martial masters. The rest, including Director Hou, count as supernaturals now since they¡¯ve broken their locks.

    ¡°The path of the supernaturals is not an easy path at the moment. The way ahead is unknown, but I have no need to worry about things for everyone.¡±

    The group focused on him. <i>You obviously have something up your sleeves, so out with it! </i>Hong Yitang was in the loop, so he was quite rxed and awaited Li Hao¡¯s next words.

    ¡°All of you can see it too, I am improving very quickly and don¡¯t reveal anything in regr times.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I¡¯m not purposefully hiding anything either. The biggest trouble that supernaturals run into is that mysterious power is an external force and the aura is off limits to them. They can only use supernatural abilities against enemies...¡±

    ¡°Out with it!¡± He Yong grumped.

    ¡°My point is, I¡¯ve wandered off the path and may have found something new. But I don¡¯t know what the future looks like or what the consequences may be, nor do I know what this means for my potential. For the moment, however, I can take mysterious power into my body!¡±

    ¡°Teach us!¡± He Yong immediately understood. ¡°We love the unknown!¡±

    ¡°......¡± You¡¯re so frank and decisive that it¡¯s frightening.

    He Yong was no fool. <i>What do I care about the future?</i> Large numbers of Arcanus were appearing at present. If he still failed to improve, he would be suppressed by them. No matter what the road was, it was enough that it could be taken. Who cared what the consequences were! A path that could strengthen the self was a good path. When more people tread it, it would be an avenue.

    ¡°I have one question,¡± Light Sword frowned slightly. ¡°If we take this path, does that mean we need to break our supernatural locks? Is there any sort of restriction in this detail? For example, can I only break the locks that I¡¯ve saturated? Or can I break as many as I¡¯ve found, even if they¡¯re not saturated?¡±

    ¡°You can also break ones that you haven¡¯t saturated,¡± Li Hao answered from experience. ¡°But you¡¯ll be much weaker if you break those. Not only that, it means that your physical constitution, blood qi, and others will also be weaker since you haven¡¯t saturated them.¡±

    ¡°So this means that even if we walk the same path as you, whoever saturated more locks before is still stronger?¡± He Yong asked in muffled tones.

    Li Hao nodded. Of course! What else? <i>Are you going to outright eclipse someone for no effort whatsoever? How is that possible!</i>

    A saturated supernatural lock is an indication of strength in one¡¯s body, blood qi, mind intent, and five organs. It was possible to break an unsaturated lock, but the body might not be able to endure the strain.

    The supernatural ability characters also needed abination of mental strength and blood qi. Those that could not muster the requisite level of strength would fail. It wasn¡¯t like setting foot into Arcanus just for breaking a supernatural lock.

    ¡°Have a taste!¡± Li Hao summoned his ¡®fire¡¯ character. A ferocious tiger hovered in the air. It was dim at first, then abruptly red with mes!

    It suddenly disappeared and reappeared over He Yong¡¯s head. The man¡¯s heart skipped a beat and punched outward!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The tiger disappeared; He Yong retracted his fist and frowned at it. ¡°That¡¯s really hot fire energy!¡±

    There were scorch marks on his fist¡ªwhat incredible fire energy!

    Hou Xiaochen manifested a fiery phoenix and waved it at the ferocious tiger. Since he¡¯d broken a supernatural lock, the phoenix was also a fire supernatural ability. It crashed into the tiger and immediately drifted apart since the tiger had ripped it to pieces!

    ¡°So it¡¯s not just good for looks,¡± Hou Xiaochen mused thoughtfully. ¡°The key lies in a denser concentration of power and easier maniption. It¡¯s stronger than Arcanus of the same level andbines mysterious power, aura, internal force, blood qi, and mind intent. In terms of quality, it¡¯s stronger than even mysterious power!¡±

    He¡¯d sensed a lot of details from one exchange. Sky Sword was next to follow and sent out a ray of sword qi. He did not have the aura anymore, but his sword intent remained. He carefully probed the situation when his sword qi shed with the tiger.

    ¡°Interesting, your teacher mentionedbining the five aurasst time, whereas you¡¯ve melded mental strength with internal force with mysterious power...¡± Sky Sword nodded. ¡°It¡¯s a good idea. It has something to do with those people using the ultimate art of Tranquil Star, doesn¡¯t it?¡±

 Chapter 799: A Massive Leap Forward in Strength (II)

    <h4>Chapter 799: A Massive Leap Forward in Strength (II)</h4>

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°It does have something to do with those guys using the ultimate art of Tranquil Star. It¡¯s also rted to my master¡¯s Breathing Method of the Five Styles, and the Incantation of the de of Blood. This character is basically a massive melting pot. I¡¯m still theorizing more details.¡±

    He wouldn¡¯t have dared say this before, but the young man had gained many more reflections after reading <i>The ounts of Evenround</i>. He disyed his ¡®water¡¯ character without further ado. It wasn¡¯t just the water aura, but water and fire at the same time. They melded together, demonstrating resistance at first that Li Hao forced down.

    A peculiar surge of fire and water energy assimted together. <i>BOOM!</i> The young man tossed it to He Yong and singed his eyebrows.

    Wide-eyed, He Yong stared out of his ckened face, his fist still extended. A nk expression hung on his face. ¡°Hot damn!¡± He offered after a while. What the heck was that?? It was at least twice as strong as the singr character from before!

    ¡°I came across some new knowledge in the ruins,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°That was my first try, so apologies, Martial Uncle He!¡±

    He Yong was at a loss for words!

    Hong Yitang smiled. ¡°Interesting. Do you guys want to see mine?¡±

    A ¡®sword¡¯ character manifested and sword intent oscited, transforming into thunder and lightning. It morphed into mes before the group could react, which then changed into a massive mountain...

    It all changed very quickly!

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t meld his two elements together like Li Hao did. Rather, he summoned each element with a casual wave. His character transfigured into a variety of elements in the blink of an eye¡ªtoo fast to keep up. The most astounding of all was that there was no conflict between them!

    The sight made the group suck in sharp breaths. Li Hao and Hong Yitang¡¯s characters seemed to be different, but no matter what, they could see what made this ability unique.

    ¡°Do you... guys count as martial masters? Or supernaturals?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know either.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°A type of fusion, I guess? Or a melting pot like I said. It¡¯s different from being a martial master and different from being a supernatural... If you want to call it a new path... but this is all there is to it for now, so I don¡¯t think it counts as one. What it does do, however, is resolve the problem of mysterious power being a resource in the outside world...¡±

    This was the only way he could think of to solve the issue!

    ¡°There¡¯s another key problem that hasn¡¯t been fixed!¡± Li Hao added after some thought. ¡°The one of the body!¡±

    Indeed, the young man felt that if his path was to be smoothly taken to the end, then strengthening the body must be tackled for it to be a sess. Otherwise, it would not be a new dao at all!

    This path was more suited for people, but if one¡¯s body was weak, Water of Life was still required to protect the organs during each breakthrough. If there was no solution for this, were they all to give up cultivating if he ran out of sword energy one day, or if they could not rely on nt spirits?

    There was an over reliance on nt spirits at the moment! This problem didn¡¯t exist in the ancient civilization, so ancient martial dao had been a wide avenue that led straight to great dao. Unfortunately, modern humans were not suited for it, not unless they underwent the same treatment as Deputy Zhou.

    However, if everyone¡¯s body was forcefully modified by a premier heavyweight, that would change them from being modern humans! And was it possible to modify the bodies of tens of billions of people? Would there need to be a new dao then?

    This was the great problem facing Li Hao at present; he didn¡¯t know how to resolve it. Hong Yitang said that he could coalesce more characters to resolve it, but what characters?

    The characters had to do with supernatural locks; Li Hao¡¯s energy of wind and thunder were tied to strengthening the body and blood qi. And. yet, they didn¡¯t aplish the effect that he wanted. Did other supernatural locks exist in the body to strengthen one¡¯s entire being?

    ¡°That¡¯s hardly an issue.¡± He Yong was indifferent. ¡°We all face that problem. Being able to solve part of the problem is a win at our current stage. Having an answer for mysterious powering from the outside is incredible enough!¡±

    That was the truth! He hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t be satisfied and want to resolve even the problem of their weak bodies.

    ¡°That¡¯s true...¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°I¡¯m just thinking... that there may be an answer to the issue of our bodies. My teacher¡¯s breathing method may be the key, it¡¯s just notplete yet.¡±

    He somehow felt that the Breathing Method of the Five Styles might be the solution. Its effects were just too slow at present and not as noticeable.

    The human body was a massive treasure hunt, not enough of it had been explored yet. The Breathing Method of the Five Styles ventured only into the five organs¡ªthat was insufficient. Li Hao felt that his teacher confined himself to a tiny area. If his teacher incorporated a dozen more secret arts with the breathing method... he might be able to strengthen everything...

    Mmhmm, it was time to seek out his teacher and have Yuan Shuo stay in one ce for once. The old man should spend more effort on considering how to assimte eighty more secret arts¡ªones for strengthening the limbs, the brain, the bones, and blood qi...

    If all of them were incorporated, wouldn¡¯t the breathing method outright enhance the entire body then? That was the direction that his teacher should proceed in!

    The group thought it over and nodded as well.

    ¡°Your teacher¡¯s ideast time was to meld the auras into the five locks and have them strengthen the body in turn. That is a good idea,¡± raised Sky Sword. ¡°But now you¡¯re individually separating them into characters. ording to your teacher¡¯s theory, would it be the equivalent of melding all of the locks together if youbined the characters together? Would that resolve the problem of the body¡¯s weakness?¡±

    Li Hao raised his eyebrows. Sky Sword¡¯s proposal was sound.

    ¡°I can give it a try, but right now... even I haven¡¯t melded my aura into that many looks. I need some time! But even if I seed.... I think there will still be problems as you¡¯d have to endure this process in the beginning.¡±

    ¡°Stop worrying over it!¡± He Yong agitated. ¡°Just tell us how to do it! Just teach us! As for how to fix the body... we¡¯ll all have ideas when more of us walk this path. I feel that we¡¯lle across the answer more quickly when there¡¯s more of us cultivating in this way!¡±

    His words made sense!

    ¡°Martial Uncle He is right...¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°But are you really not going to consider just outright breaking your locks?¡±

    He Yong snorted. What would he consider that for? Just look around at the state of the world! He felt that he would turn into the next Golden Spear soon if he didn¡¯t catch up to the others. Tragic, depressed, and running off elsewhere to possibly die in an isted locale. There would be nothing left of his body to recover.

    ¡°Silver Moon martial masters cultivate the heart, not internal force alone. Let¡¯s just be more decisive and do whatever should be done!¡±

    Li Hao agreed with his words and quickly described his process. The group found it to be easy enough, which was to be expected. A cultivation path would not be suited for all if it was too difficult. Those who needed to could learn it¡ªthat was a new dao.

    ¡°This will require a lot of Water of Life!¡± Sky Sword frowned. ¡°I have a bit left, but it might not be enough! Based on what you¡¯re saying, it¡¯s still a significant sum even if it¡¯s less than what ascending as an Arcanus needs.¡±

    Indeed, the resource consumption required was still significant! Granted, Sky Sword was already a two element Arcanus, or rather, three element now. His physical body had already been strengthened, but the process that the young man exined was one of devouring life force. Hence, Water of Life was necessary to fortify oneself with.

    Now he understood Li Hao¡¯s worries from earlier, why the body and life force were all problems.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I have Water of Life!¡± Li Hao smiled. The little tree had been converting this resource for him the past couple of days. It¡¯d been doing so to pay the fine before. Now that there was sufficient quantity to pay it off, they were swimming in Water of Life.

    He¡¯d killed so many people this time that mysterious power stones were his greatest gain, after the mallet of the Hongs. Panther had collected roughly fifty-five million from the littleke. Most of the rest were poor, but the Sky Roc King had been very rich indeed.

    The various factions hadn¡¯t seemed to want it to pay, so it¡¯d carried five million stones on it. It¡¯d all gone to Li Hao in the end. Combined with the other bits and pieces he collected, that made for sixty-five million stones in total from the Evenround expedition. It was less than what he expected, but thinking of it as spending fifty million stones to visit Evenround Martial¡ªLi Hao found it quite a good trade!

    He also knew now that the little tree might need only three thousand stones to coalesce one drop of Water of Life. It¡¯d voluntarily lowered the price to four thousand pieces after the expedition. It, too, needed to recover and cultivate.

    Li Hao actually wasn¡¯t going to hold back on payment. Even if they¡¯d stuck to the previous ten thousand stones per drop, his gains from this exploration were sufficient for sixty-five hundred drops. That was an astronomical sum!! Granted, the little tree couldn¡¯t just endlessly convert Water of Life from morning to night.

    ¡°The senior helped a great deal in the ruins,¡± Li Haoughed before Sky Sword could say anything. ¡°Those who didn¡¯t are...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me!¡± He Yong raged with tragic sorrow. ¡°What are you looking at me for?! I¡¯ll take out twenty drops, alright? That¡¯s all I have!¡±

    And it was from Li Hao!

    ¡°I remember that martial uncle has at least twenty-five drops...¡± Li Hao smiled meaningfully.

    He Yong nearly vomited blood. <i>How do you even remember that? </i>Yes, the young man had given him more before, but he¡¯d forgotten it himself! <i>Must you really empty me out? </i>He Yong moped. <i>I stood guard in Skystar City, I did my part too, alright?</i>

    ¡°Then... Light Sword...¡± Light Sword scowled at He Yong. <i>That guy has some savings, but I really don¡¯t. If I did, I would¡¯ve used it long ago, would I wait until now? st you, He Yong, why must you drag me into things?</i>

    ¡°That¡¯s enough, I¡¯m just joking,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I¡¯ll need everyone¡¯s help in the operations toe. Obtaining benefits means needing to put forth equal effort. A transaction of equal value is what Director Hou often says and what the ancient civilization often refers to as necessarypetition in martial dao. You must fight for your own benefits. Only with effort expended is there reward obtained. There will be plenty of skirmishes ahead of us!¡±

    It was a given! No matter what, he needed to seize the ruins, take care of the City of Supernaturals, nine ministries, three great organizations, and seven divine mountains... How could he do that without sufficient powerhouses? Supernaturals could easily ascend as Arcanus now without thought of anything else. His side could not fall behind.

    ¡°Let¡¯s set this aside first and focus on the cultivation of supernatural ability characters,¡± Li Hao changed the subject. ¡°After that, I need to see how many elements each of you can endure. Don¡¯t be afraid of using resources, it¡¯s best if you can train to the utmost. I¡¯m of the mind to attack a nt spirit inside the ruin next and test our strength! It goes without saying how great the gains there will be, and I¡¯ll also be confident of handling the various factions after that!¡±

 Chapter 800: A Massive Leap Forward in Strength (III)

    <h4>Chapter 800: A Massive Leap Forward in Strength (III)</h4>

    ¡°We¡¯re going against the nt spirits first?¡± Deputy Zhou couldn¡¯t help but ask. <i>Why are you choosing such a strong target?</i>

    ¡°For no reason other than the nt spirits have yet to recover to their peak strength.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°The longer we wait, the more they recover! They¡¯re easier to take down right now!¡±

    People were alive and highly on guard against Li Hao. But nt spirits did not enjoy the same flow of information as humans did. They only knew that humans in the outside world were very weak. Their first thought would likely be that Li Hao was here to ask for a partnership, since the nine ministries had already set such a precedent.

    ¡°Then... are you sure you want to go against these ancient nt spirits? I¡¯d thought you¡¯d choose to cooperate with them...¡±

    ¡°That depends on the situation!¡± Li Hao sneered. ¡°These seven chose to kill me, to say nothing of anything else. There¡¯s no possibility of working together with them! If you¡¯ll kill me for a few mysterious power stones, then I¡¯ll naturally hit back at you!¡±

    He bore no enmity toward the ancient civilization, even with his teacher¡¯s multiple reminders that the ancient civilization was different from modern society. Yuan Shuo wanted him to be careful against the ancients.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao was kindly disposed toward Battle Heaven, but he really hated those seven nt spirits. <i>If you want to kill me, then I want to kill you!</i>

    ¡°Deputy Zhou, you...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about me.¡± The deputy shook his head with a smile. ¡°I don¡¯t have supernatural locks, so I can¡¯t cultivate the same way you guys do for now. I¡¯m doing quite well at the moment, but you can let me absorb some core origin power after you kill the nt spirit. That¡¯s a good resource for me!¡±

    That was true! Those who walked the path of ancient martial dao would benefit from absorbing some core origin power. Although that wouldn¡¯t put them on the path of core origin dao, it would still help.

    It was more surprising that he didn¡¯t have any supernatural locks. But upon further thought, that was right. He was an ancient martial cultivator, so how would he have any supernatural locks in his body?

    ¡°I¡¯ll take care of some matters while you cultivate,¡± Deputy Zhou announced. ¡°I can be of help if you¡¯re going to fight a nt spirit. We¡¯ll also have to draft some official documents, and don¡¯t forget that the inauguration ceremony is the day after tomorrow! Don¡¯t miss it! It doesn¡¯t really matter anymore, but we need to let everyone see that we¡¯re the state and government officials, not a private martial dojo!¡±

    Heads bobbed up and down in the group. They really had forgotten about that asion.

    ¡°Do you want to bring Yao Si into this?¡± asked Hou Xiaochen. ¡°He¡¯s strong enough and quite ferocious. If he can coalesce characters too, he¡¯ll be at least a four element Arcanus!¡±

    Yao Si¡¯s martial master strength exceeded that of even Hou Xiaochen and Hong Yitang¡¯s. If he was willing to unseal himself, he would absolutely be premier battle strength.

    ¡°He probably won¡¯t be willing to,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I demonstrated the characters to him before, but he didn¡¯t say anything about walking this path...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen burst outughing, as did the rest.

    ¡°Ai, you¡¯re too young.¡± Deputy Zhou didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. ¡°Someone like Yao Si isn¡¯t as thick-skinned as He Yong. Since he¡¯s chosen to cast his lot in your camp, that means he thinks well of this path. As he does, would he not be willing? It¡¯s just that he isn¡¯t familiar with you yet. He won¡¯t raise the matter like He Yong would if you don¡¯t speak of it. All he can do is just sit there. If you don¡¯t bring it up, he won¡¯t either until the day he dies or when he feels close enough to you.¡±

    ¡°Is that so?¡± Li Hao was surprised, but found that this made sense. He really had thought that Yao Si wasn¡¯t willing to. ¡°Then I¡¯ll go ask him and be right back. Additionally, since there¡¯s so many of us cultivating... we should find a quiet ce to coalesce our characters. The disturbance will be too great otherwise.¡±

    He needed to find an appropriate ce. This area was not one, and traveling too far for one was not good either.

    ¡°I¡¯ll go to the western outskirts for a look,¡± said the young man after some thought. ¡°And see if we can go inside again. If we can... it might be a good idea to cultivate inside the ruins...¡±

    Hou Xiaochen and the rest stared at him, stunned. <i>Are you crazy? You know how strong that ck Armor is, and you still want to go back? You want to present your head on a silver tter to him?</i>

    ¡°We¡¯re official students now,¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°He said so himself that we cane and go anytime. This will just be bringing a few friends in with us, we aren¡¯t breaking things. Will he kill us for it? It¡¯s safe there and no one can interfere. There¡¯s only a bunch of puppets and that ck Armor. I think that ce is impregnable at this point in time!¡±

    The group could only shake their heads at Li Hao¡¯s audacity. As He Yong had entered the ruins before but hadn¡¯t experienced the ensuing chaotic melee, he was confused and curious. ¡°Are there powerhouses inside?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Four hundred puppets and a ck Armor general or teacher?¡±

    ¡°Are they strong?¡±

    ¡°Yep, any puppet can easily swat you to death!¡±

    He Yong¡¯s jaw dropped. <i>Hot damn! That dangerous? Why do you still want to go? What a crazy kid!</i>

    ......

    <i>The Night Watchers.</i>

    Yao Si was face down in official business when Li Hao came striding through the air. He had so much to take care oftely since the Night Watchers were to join the Skystar Commander Office. All of the various departments beneath him were giving him trouble. Some had outright decided to defect and join local overlords¡ªit was a thorny affair.

    Yao Si swept an annoyed nce at the young man when he arrived. <i>Look who¡¯s all nice and rxed! All you know is to fight and kill people¡ªyou don¡¯t give a shit about anything else!</i>

    ¡°Do you want something?¡±

    ¡°Cultivating a new dao, are you interested?¡±

    ¡°The kind having to do with characters?¡± Yao Si asked faintly.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°What level of strength will I be if I cultivate it?¡± Yao Si stroked his mustache.

    ¡°At least four elements!¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao regarded him wordlessly. The man frowned at him.

    ¡°What? Let¡¯s go and find a ce to cultivate and keep the disturbance to a minimum. We need to be more decisive as martial masters. You also need to be more decisive as the tyrant of a locality!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao shook his head with helplessughter. It was just as the others said, the director was waiting for him to raise the subject. <i>So if I hadn¡¯t, you wouldn¡¯t have said anything?</i>

    ¡°It will consume a lot of resources to convert your strength like this...¡±

    ¡°Have you given me anything after I sold my life to you?¡± Yao Si snapped impatiently. ¡°Did you give me a signing bonus, a moving fee? Do you think none of that exists just because I haven¡¯t mentioned it? Have you demonstrated anything of your sentiments after a premier martial master has joined your side with a massive faction?¡±

    He¡¯d demonstrated nothing at all! <i>And you dare talk to me about expending a lot of resources for my breakthrough? Did you not get anything from the expedition? You have to make it worth my while to put my life on the line for you!</i>

    Li Hao blinked and found that Yao Si made a lot of sense. Even those sentenced to death received onest meal before they were beheaded. He abruptly pped himself on the forehead. ¡°When I executed those nobles... I forgot to give them their final meal, didn¡¯t I?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yao Si had no idea what to say. <i>What do you mean by that?? Are you treating me as if I¡¯m on death row?! I don¡¯t like the sound of that!</i>

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°Is themander leaving?¡± Little Ye hastily asked when the two exited the office.

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    ¡°I brewed tea...¡± she said regretfully. ¡°I¡¯ll brew it again when youe next time,mander.¡±

    Li Hao nodded with a smile. Yao Si followed the young man out; Little Ye escorted both of them downstairs. She was slightly saddened to see Li Hao leave, but grew frantic when she saw that her superior was going to follow the young man. ¡°Where are you going, director?¡±

    ¡°Out on business!¡± Yao Si snapped expressionlessly. So you only just noticed that I¡¯m leaving? Are you my secretary or Li Hao¡¯s secretary? I can¡¯t keep someone like you around anymore!

    ¡°Oh I see. Watch your step then, director!¡± Little Ye responded offhandedly. The director would be safe enough at Commander Li¡¯s side.

    Yao Si nearly vomited blood. He looked at Li Hao, who looked back innocently at him. <i>What are you looking at me for? Are you going to be jealous over something like this at your age? You¡¯re so weird!</i>

    ......

    There was another addition to the group when Li Hao rejoined the group¡ªManager Yu. Ole Hou had not forgotten his secretary. However, she was indeed qualified to make the conversion. Li Hao chose only the martial masters who¡¯d reached the stage of saturating their supernatural locks. They would be Arcanus after grasping his method.

    There was no rush for those like Liu Long. They wouldn¡¯t be Arcanus even if they seeded in converting their power. They would be on par with a Sr or Nova at most, so this was an inconsequential step for them.

    The group headed straight for the western outskirts, raising attention from vast sums of powerhouses. They frowned upon seeing Li Hao¡¯s heading. Was he going to enter Evenround Martial again? Was it for treasures or something else? They¡¯d tried sending in their own teams made of people who weren¡¯t afraid to die, but entrance had been impossible. Had Li Hao imed the ruins for himself?

    ......

    <i>Within the Ministry of Finance.</i>

    ¡°He¡¯s going again...¡± Liu Yunqing frowned. ¡°It¡¯s a very dangerous ce. Has he reached an agreement with the powerhouses inside the university? Have other heavyweights or intelligent nt spirits awoken apart from those puppets?¡±

    If that was the case, Li Hao would be ever more difficult to handle.

    He said nothing after further thought. His ministry was among the ones that¡¯d lost the least these days. All of their Arcanus were alive. With Li Hao openly running off like this, no one dared plot against the people he left behind.

    ......

    <i>Evenround Martial.</i>

    A ck Armor was sleeping in a massive hole beneath the center of the field. It suddenly opened its eyes and looked into the distance.

    ¡°Student Li Hao has returned to cultivate and brought along a few friends to join me. Are we granted permission toprehend dao together?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The ck Armor didn¡¯t know what to say. The kid was entirely too bold! He¡¯d thought that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t dare set foot in the ruins for the rest of his life, but here he was again, less than a dayter! He really had incredible courage!

 Chapter 801: Beat The Shit Outta It! (I)

    <h4>Chapter 801: Beat The Shit Outta It! (I)</h4>

    ¡°Whatever you wish,¡± the ck Armor responded indifferently after a while. ¡°But remember, non-students are not allowed to enter the campus. They can only stand by the gates! Also, don¡¯t forget that fines will be levied for destruction of school property. You better hand over the previous fines as well. Interest will be collected on it if you don¡¯t!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. Interest? There was even interest on that?

    ¡°Is the interest rate... high?¡±

    ¡°Not that high. Thirty-six percent a year..¡±

    Li Hao started. <i>Holy hell, how is that not high? You¡¯re a loan shark!</i> They¡¯d been fined fifty-five millionst time. A year¡¯s worth of interest was... Li Hao¡¯s scalp crawled. Almost twenty million stones! <i>He¡¯s so ck-hearted!</i>

    But a year... dragging things out for a year might also be nice. Perhaps twenty million wouldn¡¯t be much to him after a year.<i> That¡¯s also good!</i>

    ¡°Thank you, senior!¡± Li Hao smiled. He vanished as he left the ruins, then returned with a group of people. They stayed outside the gates instead of entering the campus proper. The ck Armor floated in the air and silently watched the group, soon sensing various auras erupting on the scene. He only needed to observe for a while to know what they wished to do.

    Puppets leaned on the windows of the various ssroom buildings, all of them curious. Li Hao was oblivious to their presence. Gradually, some puppets wandered around the school gates like they were on patrol, and the ones shaped like toys at the gates also opened their eyes.

    The young man could sense it now¡ªit felt like a lot of people were looking at him. He turned around for a look, but didn¡¯t see anything out of the ordinary. He couldn¡¯t help but mutter to himself that the ck Armor¡¯s gaze was quite intense! It felt like hundreds of people were staring at him!

    Indeed, a group of puppets, toys, and the ck Armor were quietly watching the visitors¡¯ actions. The ck Armor could sense more than the rest and detected some changes in the environment¡ªnot inside the ruins, but the world outside. It seemed to have loosened some of the restrictions on them. The void outside seemed more stable.

    <i>Does it have to do with these characters? They are very simr to Tranquil Star¡¯s ultimate art, but they incorporate mental strength and life force. It rather suits these modern humans. Does this count as having created a new dao, which is why this world is revitalizing on its own?</i>

    The ck Armor was stunned by his trial of thought. If this was the case, then this world might soon return to the conditions that he was familiar with in his time.

    <i>Once more people walk this path, it might be a unique cultivation method that is simr to core origin. Or it might be a new dao of the inner world...</i>

    In the ancient civilization, core origin dao had been the mainstream dao of the initial years in New Martial. Theter mainstream dao had been the one of the inner world as created by the Human King. It was much more difficult, however, so a lot of the old guard still cultivated core origin.

    These visitors at the gates looked to be walking another path. How interesting! However, the ck Armor could also tell that this path was notplete. It needed the aid of external resources, which was not a good sign.

    <i>If only it could bebined with the golden body!</i>

    The ck Armor was of the opinion that cultivation methods for the body should be individually created. Otherwise, this path was not suited for widespread propagation.

    Li Hao and the others didn¡¯t pay attention to this hole in the method as they furiously summoned mysterious power and exhausted vast quantities of Water of Life. Their presences red and word characters hovered in the air!

    Everyone¡¯s strength was truly leaping forward at the same time in a massive geyser. Even Li Hao was attempting to trace the next character. With metal, water, and fire already mastered, he wished to grasp the remaining earth and wood as soon as possible. If he seeded, he would manage to count as a seven element Arcanus. It was just that his wind and thunder elements weren¡¯t all that strong.

    Li Hao kept experimenting, hoping to seed. If he did with just one character, he stood a chance of facing Qi Pingjiang. He was still a bit lesser than the Military God, and he didn¡¯t like being threatened all the time.

    ......

    <i>Evenround Martial.</i>

    Scores of puppets craned their necks around, staring at the outsiders with tant curiosity.

    <i>The school gates.</i>

    The group gradually ceased cultivating, some with a frown, others with stern concentration, and some with great irritation. He Yong fell in thest category.

    He frowned with annoyance and dissatisfaction. Li Hao¡¯s dao of supernatural characters seemed iplete. At least, he was facing a big problem. One aura could fortify only one character, which meant that they almost all had singr characters. However, their characters couldn¡¯t transmute like Hong Yitang¡¯s. Theirs were too focused on a single oue. He Yong had coalesced a ¡®fist¡¯ character and incorporated the three elements of fire, metal, and earth into it.

    The character was powerful and He Yong felt that it wasn¡¯t any weaker than the supernatural abilities of those elements, but he wasn¡¯t able to aplish what Hong Yitang had. His punches were a messybination of all three elements. In contrast, Hong Yitang could separate his elements into distinct abilities.

    In this way, He Yong was... very simr to a martial master. It was just that his internal force had bebined with supernatural abilities. That was good enough as well, but seeing that Li Hao could form his characters individually and Hong Yitang could put his through a variety of changes... He Yong was naturally irritated that he could only use his in a mixture.

    It was also aggravating that he could only incorporate three elements. He felt that he¡¯d improved greatly in recent days and wasn¡¯t necessarily weaker than anyone. He wasn¡¯t worse than Hong Yitang or Yao Si!

    But reality pped him in the face as he¡¯d only incorporated three elements into his character.

    Off to the side, Light Sword was... doing well enough. She was also three elements, but He Yong couldn¡¯t be botheredparing to her. She was unique in that she¡¯d coalesced the elements of light, dark, and wood. That was only one element out of the five organs, which indicated that she had much more room to improve than He Yong. At the very least, he hadn¡¯t located the light or dark locks. So while she was a three element Arcanus for now, she might be a four or five element very soon.

    Hou Xiaochen didn¡¯t make a sound, but He Yong could tell that there were at least four elements in his character. And... he¡¯d actually drawn a spear, not written a word. He¡¯d created a drawing instead of tracing a character!

    <i>What the hell??</i>

    Everyone was looking at Hou Xiaochen and the spear in front of him that resembled their characters. The man smiled when he realized that everyone was staring at him. ¡°I simply had a sudden stroke of inspiration. Words are not universal¡ªthe ones used in the ancient civilization are different from modern day. Therefore, writing isn¡¯t fixed in stone. I was thinking... humanity did not know how to write in an even more far-off age. They only used simple symbols to rece words. So isn¡¯t my drawing of a spear a kind of word too?¡±

    The characters themselves weren¡¯t the key¡ªthe intent held within was! Wasn¡¯t a symbol shaped as a spear also a word after it had the relevant intent infused?

    Li Hao bobbed his head up and down, new reflections striking him. These favored geniuses of heaven all had their own thoughts, alright. Hou Xiaochen was correct, the actual characters themselves were just an outward appearance. What was key was whether there was a change in its strength.

    Hou Xiaochen sent the spear forward without a word! Despite theck of the ming Phoenix Spear, the group struggled to hold onto their minds. An inexplicable pressure bore down on their weaker members and expressions shifted drastically.

    Hou Xiaochen retracted the spear and his character vanished.

    ¡°The... Broken Will intent seems stronger than before,¡± Li Hao breathed. ¡°Did the director incorporate the supernatural lock of the head that represents mind intent?¡±

    It was said that the lock of the head indicated the strength of one¡¯s mind intent, which was the mental intent in the ancients¡¯ eyes.

    ¡°That¡¯s too dangerous.¡± Hou Xiaochen shook his head with a smile. ¡°I haven¡¯t decided to integrate that for now. It¡¯s just that my spear intent has solidified with mysterious power and is wholly contained by the character. That doesn¡¯t inflict much strain on the body, so it¡¯s easier to disy the spear intent.

    ¡°There¡¯s actually a massive benefit to forming these supernatural characters...¡± he mused. ¡°If you wish to walk the path of multiple auras, interference from your other auras will be of grave concern. If you meld all of your auras into the characters andpletely contain them within, it will be easy for you toprehend other auras once you aplish that with the auras of your five organs.¡±

    Grasping one aura wasn¡¯t hard for a genius like Li Hao, it truly wasn¡¯t. The young man hadn¡¯t encountered martial dao for long beforeprehending the earth aura. He¡¯d been an absolute rookie at martial dao then. The disruption caused by multiple auras after grasping them was what made cultivation difficult. But what if that disruption was not a factor?

    ¡°The same goes for all of us!¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at the rest. ¡°If wepletely ce the aura inside a character, we¡¯ll be able to easilyprehend another aura if we wish. We can meld that into another character and continue the process. It¡¯s easy for us to grasp more without the interference of our pre-existing aura.¡±

    His words raised eyebrows, particrly He Yong¡¯s.

    ¡°Not everyone is suited for multiple auras!¡± Sky Sword said faintly. ¡°One aura will do! My aura is the sword and my sword aura is the one and only! Pure and simple or multifarious, they all lead to the same destination in the end!¡±

    ¡°This depends on individual choice.¡± Hong Yitang nodded as well. ¡°Director Hou is right, now is a great time toprehend other auras. The characters iste our current auras, making it easier to grasp new ones. Li Hao, for example, will easily understand more if he cultivates some secret arts.

    ¡°I don¡¯t actually rmend the others toprehend more... But Light Sword... You canprehend one more, the dark aura!¡± Hong Yitang advised. ¡°Your light aura is your primary aura¡ªlight and shadow ur sessively. Those of us present won¡¯t see much benefit from it because we focus on other elements, but I think two auras will find great effect with you.¡±

    Light Sword turned over his words thoughtfully, then regarded the man square in the face. ¡°Do you have other motivations in mind because you¡¯re beginning to find me prettytely?¡±

    ¡°......¡± A hush stole over the group as everyone looked to the sky, not saying a word. Light Sword... was certainly growing confident!

    Yao Si smiled at seeing them engaged in earnest conversation. He was familiar with this group of Silver Moon martial masters. They either appeared fiery and explosive on the surface or were coolly aloof, but they were rather brainless in private!

    ¡°None of this is key,¡± he interjected. ¡°Don¡¯t you guys think that the supernatural locks are the most important at our current stage?¡±

    Everyone looked at him.

 Chapter 802: Beat The Shit Outta It! (II)

    <h4>Chapter 802: Beat The Shit Outta It! (II)</h4>

    ¡°In our current cultivation system, the number of locks determines the number of elements we can wield. Whether it is martial masters or supernaturals, the four limbs are unattributed to the elements, the five organs have their own elements, the spine is of thunder and lightning, the <i>zifu</i> of wind, light and dark are in an unknown location, and the head is of mental strength. That makes for fourteen locks.

    ¡°Of them, the four in the limbs are foundational locks. If they¡¯re counted in terms of strength, whether it is us, pure supernaturals, or pure martial masters, we only have the equivalent of ten element Arcanus to aspire to, is that correct?¡± Yao Si looked at everyone. ¡°The destination looks far away, but it may not be that far. Therefore, I think the more critical task at hand is to locate more supernatural locks and discuss our findings with each other. The light and dark attribute locks, for example, have flown under my radar.¡±

    He felt that since everyone focused on different aspects of cultivation, perhaps they could exchange information and see if they could discover more locks.

    ¡°You¡¯re in such a hurry,¡± He Yong couldn¡¯t help but point out. ¡°Have you already saturated all of the known locks?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯d be an exaggeration,¡± Yao Siughed. ¡°I¡¯ve saturated eleven locks prior to today, of which four are the limbs. I¡¯ve only justpleted the cirction of my five organs and don¡¯t n to tackle wind or thunder at the moment. The transformation of my organ elements into five supernatural abilities is more reliable.¡±

    The group looked at him with surprise. <i>He¡¯s alreadypleted the cirction of the five organs? This old guy is... really strong. </i>The five organs were weaker than the physical body or skeleton. Some people prioritized other attributes first because it was difficult for the five organs to endure five eruptions in session. There was too much force brought to bear.

    Although the supernatural characters contained the aura, the aura had to erupt dominatingly when used in battle. Could one guarantee that the bacsh wouldn¡¯t recoil onto the five organs? This one didn¡¯t seem afraid.

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that,¡± Yao Si smiled. ¡°I started fortifying my organs many years before you guys and I¡¯m the oldest out of all of you. I¡¯m at least ten years older than Yuan Shuo, which makes me a previous generation martial master.¡±

    He was much older than the rest¡ªLi Hao pegged him at roughly 80 years old. That was indeed old.

    ¡°The five elements gathering in the five organs... Has Director Yao sensed any peculiar changes in your body after that?¡±

    ¡°There still are!¡± Yao Si nodded after some consideration. ¡°But... I still feel short on something. If you have your teacher publicize the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, we might be able to fully meld the elements of the five organs together. If that is aplished, then I think an even greater change will ur in the body. How about you? Have you not finished theirplete integration?¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have broken the wind and thunder locks first if I¡¯d known.¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°They¡¯re weaker than the rest of my elements, for one, and they have no corresponding aura. Instead, they increase my burden as I onlypleted drawing the earth supernatural lock this time...¡±

    He was slightly regretful as he wanted to give the other locks of the five organs a try. But the already present wind and thunder ced a great burden on his shoulders. He sensed an immediate surge of formidable pressure the second he tried to break the wood lock. It almost crushed him!

    ¡°We... cannot brashly enter seven element Arcanus!¡± he said after some thought. ¡°ording to the hierarchy of the ancient martial dao, seven elements is basically Apex and can tear through the void. But space is unstable at present and... I don¡¯t think that our physical bodies and organs can support that breakthrough!¡±

    ¡°Even you can¡¯t do it?¡± Sky Sword was surprised. Li Hao had an endless supply of sword energy and Water of Life at his fingertips, could he not do it either?

    ¡°The key lies with the dao of the body!¡± Li Hao answered after some thought. ¡°The only way forward is to solve this problem. Nothing else will be an issue then. Everyone should think it over after they go back¡ªtwo heads are better than one.¡±

    He wasn¡¯t a god, he¡¯d just read more ancient tomespared to them and knew more secret arts. But was his brain really better than the rest of them...? Not necessarily. He wanted to try coalescing the seventh element, but could sense that there would be a lot of trouble involved. It was such a helpless situation!

    It also wasn¡¯t like there was no way to strengthen himself anymore¡ªhe couldprehend the wind and thunder auras! While he¡¯d yet to fully contain the wood aura inside himself, it¡¯d be part of its supernatural lock and presented an utterly still facade. Most of the mysterious power in his body waspletely contained within their locks, so this was a good opportunity to grasp more auras.

    Once he mastered wind and thunder, he would trace two more characters. Ultimately, the ¡®exterminate¡¯ character formed by his sword aura would lead all of the characters into unified assembly. There was hope yet that he would burst forth with domineering strength and be able to kill six or even seven element Arcanus!

    When it came to the wind and thunder auras, Li Hao thought of something. ¡°There was the Wind Thunder Sword among the Seven Swords back in the day! My teacher killed Ambiguous Sword and Ghost Shadow Sword, so does Wind Thunder Sword¡¯s secret art... still exist in the world?¡±

    The easiest way toprehend an aura at present was to practice the secret art that would lead to it. Anyone with slightly better potential would be able to easily grasp it. The Wind Thunder Sword was said to be most skilled with the wind and thunder auras! How fortuitous!

    He was a swordsman and adept in the wind and thunder elements. However, Yuan Shuo hadn¡¯t taught Li Hao the relevant secret art. That probably meant his teacher didn¡¯t possess it.

    ¡°Wind Thunder Sword... does have an heir. He¡¯s at my Sky Sword Manor!¡± Sky Sword said after a beat. ¡°But... your master killed his master, so he may not be willing to teach you the secret art.¡±

    The group fell silent. Old man Yuan Shuo had killed too many people back in the day. Karma wasing for his disciple.

    ¡°I¡¯ll try persuading him when I return,¡± Sky Sword continued. ¡°You¡¯re right, if you can learn it and grasp the wind and thunder auras, then you¡¯ll be able tobine six auras as one. Even if you can¡¯t break the wood lock in the short term, a regr seven element Arcanus still won¡¯t be a match for you!¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll have to trouble Senior Sky Sword!¡±ughed Li Hao. ¡°There¡¯s no need to force him to acquiesce. There are a lot of secret arts having to do with wind and thunder. It¡¯s just that the Wind Thunder Sword might also be a secret art and it¡¯s more convenient because it deals with two elements at once.¡±

    It wasn¡¯t make or break for him. Even though Li Hao¡¯s potential was astounding, he needed at least a month to practice a secret art to the point ofprehending its aura. Two auras in the same art might require two or three months...

    He couldn¡¯t speak of this to others, it would make them pop with anger.

    Practicing the Wind Thunder Sword could save him a month or two; that was the key. With the current state of the world, much could happen in one or two months.

    ¡°Since you know the Ghost Shadow Sword, I¡¯ll teach you the Light Sword method,¡± Light Sword said. ¡°This is preparation for you breaking the light and dark locks. Just one aura is enough for us...¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s trade,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Senior Light Sword knows the Light Sword method and I happen to know the Ghost Shadow Sword method. You need an appropriate dark attribute art anyway!¡±

    Light Sword didn¡¯t say anything, she did indeed need it. A trade was nice as well.

    The transaction was easily conducted since both of them were in the same location. Li Hao soon received a book describing the secret art. The breathing method came via transmission. This was the limitation of the old guard¡ªthe older martial masters weren¡¯t willing to let their breathing methods be public knowledge.

    It was only to be expected! Rules that had stood for hundreds of years wouldn¡¯t be so easily changed.

    Now that he possessed the Light Sword method, Li Hao¡¯s problems of the light and dark auras were resolved. Although he wouldn¡¯t break those locks just yet, he would be able to use the method in the future. He could also practice them first to grasp their auras. He didn¡¯t have to wait until after breaking the lock toprehend the aura.

    The group had made massive gains during this cultivation session. Light Sword and He Yong were both three element Arcanus. Sky Sword and Hou Xiaochen should be four elements. Hong Yitang... to be honest, Li Hao couldn¡¯t read the man. Those permutations of his one sword aura were very baffling. It was difficult to determine anything from his supernatural character, but he was at least a four element Arcanus.

    Nothing needed to be said about Yao Si. As expected of a veteran martial master with deep foundations¡ªhe vaulted straight to five element Arcanus!

    Manager Yu had remained quiet all this time; Li Hao scanned her with some regret. Was she a... two element Arcanus? How could that be?

    The young man furrowed his brows. Manager Yu wasn¡¯t weak¡ªshe rivaled He Yong before. Why had He Yong set foot into three elements, but the manager was just at two? That was the most basic level of Arcanus as one element was on par with a Nova.

    Manager Yu was quite calm when she registered Li Hao¡¯s look and smiled faintly. ¡°I¡¯ve been a supernatural for many years and only recently converted back to martial master. My aura isn¡¯t strong and I¡¯ve quickly ascended to Arcanus. The rest of my capabilities are fine, but a weak aura has prevented me from entering three elements. My aura is one of ughter!¡±

    Li Hao blinked with understanding. The manager had killed far fewer people after all these years by Hou Xiaochen¡¯s side. Although she asionally made a move, she spent most of her time helping Hou Xiaochen with trivial matters. It greatly weakened both her aura and killing intent. And now, her weakened aura could not fortify a powerful supernatural character. She could only reach two element Arcanus.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± Hou Xiaochen smiled indifferently. ¡°You walk the path of ughter and just need to kill more. The more you kill, the faster you improve. There will be plenty of chances toe. Will we be short on targets with a certain someone around?¡±

    Manager Yu didn¡¯t say a word¡ªthis certain someone naturally meant Li Hao. Hou Xiaochen was right, so long as there wererge skirmishes and killing toe, she would improve at a rapid clip. It was just as she had done so when she left home to avenge her family. She had improved very quickly when she mowed down her enemies.

    He Yong finally foundfort in someone being weaker than him. He smiled with great spirits. ¡°Two element Arcanus is good too. You¡¯ll be able to smack around the martial masters who haven¡¯t snapped their supernatural locks!¡±

    The entire group had improved; they were a very different sight from when they entered the ruins. In fact, they could not be mentioned in the same breath. However, they¡¯d also consumed a lot of resources.

    The little tree had coalesced three hundred drops of Water of Life in the past couple of days¡ªthat was all gone. There were too many who needed it. Li Hao had also supplied a lot of sword energy and generously paid the little tree three million stones for the Water of Life. The sword had consumed another one million, which left sixty million stones in his stores.

    Even if this sum didn¡¯t outright revive General Pagoda at Battle Heaven, Li Hao felt that the deed wouldn¡¯t be far off. But at the moment, he wasn¡¯t going to send the resources there. Whether it was him or the others, they all needed it to improve their strength. What would they utilize if he gave it all away?

    Using money to earn more money was the proper path!

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 803: Beat The Shit Outta It! (III)

    <h4>Chapter 803: Beat The Shit Outta It! (III)</h4>

    ¡°Everyone¡¯spletely containing their characters within their bodies, which is fine for those who were originally martial masters. They don¡¯t need to purposefully emanate anything. But Senior Sky Sword, Martial Uncle Hong, and Director Hou should still let some mysterious power seep out for everyone to see that you¡¯ve ascended to Arcanus,¡± Li Hao advised. It would be bizarrely rming otherwise if the entire group of people didn¡¯t exude any energy.

    The group knew what to do without need for further instruction from Li Hao.

    ¡°Then let us depart!¡±

    They¡¯d been inside for roughly a day, it was almost night outside. The inauguration ceremony for the Skystar Commander Office was tomorrow. Although all of the obstacles had been cleared, they needed to be on guard against unwee developments.

    Li Hao rose and looked behind him. There was an unusual phenomenon here¡ªa lot of puppets were patrolling around the school gates. <i>What... are they all doing here? Do they suspect that we¡¯ve damaged school property and are here to demand fines?</i>

    The young man looked surreptitiously around him¡ªthere was no damage! Therefore, he put the matter out of his mind and called out clearly, ¡°We¡¯ll be leaving now, senior. I will visit you when I have time toter!¡±

    Of course, who knew when this time woulde around?

    ¡°As you wish!¡± the ck Armor said faintly. ¡°The world has changed and the void can be stabilized if more people of this age practice these supernatural characters. The second awakening that you speak of will also stabilize the void. With space itself secure, Apex or seven element Arcanus might rise ahead of time!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook and Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t contain himself. ¡°Does the senior mean...¡±

    ¡°nt spirits, monster spirits, and everything else can all detect these changes. Your limits also determine the limits of others. Take Li Hao, for example. After he¡¯s set foot into six element Arcanus, that means that the core origin replica of nt spirits will also be able to exert the strength of six elements in the outside world!¡±

    Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°So this has to do with my supernatural characters?¡±

    ¡°Possibly!¡±

    Li Hao frowned with understanding, but quickly set it aside. ¡°That¡¯s alright,¡± he smiled. So the ck Armor meant that his personal limits also determined the limits of others. <i>If everything is under my control, what am I afraid of?</i>

    The ck Armor said nothing further. The world spun around the group as they vanished from Evenround Martial. When they were gone, puppets swiftly ran to the ck Armor.

    ¡°Teacher, is that person the pioneer of dao in this age?¡± one of them asked curiously.

    ¡°Not really,¡± the ck Armor responded faintly. ¡°His dao is but a beginning. Only when he reaches Apex does he stand at the true start of dao! If he can continue to walk this path and perfect it, then it stands a chance of bing a true great dao that reaches the heavens. Otherwise... it¡¯s just the tricks and amusements of a child.¡±

    Perhaps these aplishments were the establishment of dao to Li Hao and the rest. But to the ck Armor, only when they reached seven elements Arcanus did they truly begin. The ancient civilization trulyprehended great dao only at that stage. There was no talk of pioneering dao if one did not reach even that level.

    The puppets didn¡¯t mind his response. Their teacher had high standards; they rather thought Li Hao¡¯s actions were interesting.

    ......

    <i>Night fell.</i>

    The emergence of Li Hao¡¯s group once more raised the attention of all observing powerhouses. What had these people done in the past day? There didn¡¯t seem to be much of a difference to them. Had they gone inside... to amuse themselves?

    No one understood what was going on, but they guessed that something must have happened. Why else would they enter the ruins again?

    Li Hao ignored the scouts; everyone returned to their homes. Hou Xiaochen took Manager Yu with him. They went back to the Night Watchers with Yao Si. Having obtained what he wanted, he darted into the Skystar Sea to return to Sky Sword Mountain.

    As for the inauguration ceremony tomorrow... he wasn¡¯t concerned at all. Anyone who dared make trouble for Li Hao now wouldn¡¯t even know how they died. But he also left word that the young man could notify him if Li Hao wished to venture into the ruins. In the meantime, he was going back to the mountain to see if he could bring back the Wind Thunder Sword.

    In a surprising move, He Yong decided to return to the pce. <i>Is he not afraid of death? </i>wondered the young man. <i>The royal family is highly on guard against me, but you¡¯re going back?</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s fine!¡± He Yong didn''t mind and transmitted, ¡°I¡¯m going back to look up some information. The royal pce has a lot of data banks andplete intelligence reports. I¡¯m going to see if I can get my hands on anything to do with Skystar Town. Don¡¯t forget about the missions that we took on in Battle Heaven. We might be able toplete them!¡±

    One of their missions was to investigate why Skystar Town had cut off the supply channels to the rest of the territory. Li Hao still remembered it, but since he¡¯d yet to visit the Skystar Ruins, he had to set it aside. Upon hearing that He Yong wanted to look into it, he nodded after some thought and didn¡¯t say anything.

    The mission said that one only needed to identify the reason and restoremunications for a reward of ten thousand merits. This number of merits wouldn¡¯t be traded for that many energy stones¡ªjust one hundred thousand. This was the worst possible trade for the merits¡ªLi Hao could see that now.

    <i>Wouldn¡¯t it be grand for me to trade the merits for a real division leader position? Wouldn¡¯t it be nice to trade them for some powerful ancient arts to study? Why should I trade them for energy stones? That¡¯s obviously for ordinary soldiers who can¡¯t umte a high amount of merits. I made a bad trade before.</i>

    If he could restoremunications between the eight cities, the one hundred thousand merits involved could likely be traded for a reservemander position that could lead one hundred thousand men. Maybe he¡¯d be able to lead the entire Reserve Defenders! That snotty Golden Armor of the Ninth Troop would have to salute and call him ¡°sir¡± next time it saw him!

    ¡°Be careful!¡± Li Hao nodded as he daydreamed happily.

    He Yong said nothing else as he ran for the royal pce. His actions raised quite the attention, and royal scouts cursed to themselves. <i>You¡¯re from Silver Moon when they need help and recall that you¡¯re a royal instructor when the coast is clear. Do you think of the royal pce as a hotel??</i>

    There was suddenly only Light Sword and Earthturner Sword left by Li Hao¡¯s side. The three returned to the Ministry of the Judiciary.

    ......

    Earthturner Sword and Light Sword went about their business when they returned to the Judiciary. Li Hao walked straight into the depths of the rear residence. There was a house there, built in the style of a minor pce hall. inly, this was where the entrance to the Hu ruins was located.

    Li Hao proceeded ording to his exploration until he reached the end of the hall. There was a door there that was clearly builtter; it looked to be the passageway to the ruins.

    The young man stood outside instead of entering. A long momentter, a faint tendril of mental power reached out from behind the door.

    ¡°You are... Li Hao? The heir of the Sword Sovereign?¡±

    ¡°I thought you would ignore me.¡± Li Hao smiled.

    Although the nt spirits couldn¡¯t emerge in the world, they could still release some mental strength to probe the surroundings. Even the little tree could do so¡ªit¡¯d known ahead of time when Li Hao led a group into Mount Cat Head.

    ¡°Hu Xiao and Hu Mingfa are dead?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°My replica is also broken... Did you kill it?¡±

    ¡°It had nothing to do with me,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°How would I have the ability to do that? The powerhouses inside Evenround Martial did it. You guys were certainly bold to cause trouble inside the university! Did you not know the danger, or not understand it?¡±

    The nt spirit thought deeply for a moment. ¡°That martial university... is very mysterious! But we thought that everyone had departed... It appears that there were powerhouses that stayed behind.¡±

    ¡°Of course, and they¡¯re terrifying!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°When your replicas were churned to pieces, one of them yelled... A Saint!¡±

    Arge tree behind the door trembled slightly. <i>A Saint?? There was a Saint in residence at Evenround Martial! Incredible!</i>

    ¡°It looks like... something went gravely wrong with Hu Mingfa¡¯s n... Those energy stones became the opportunity for their revival... They were caught in their own trap!¡± sighed the tree. Their side had courted death. The nt spirits had anticipated this oue as they truly thought there was no one around.

    There were no resident nt spirits at Evenround Martial. Logically speaking, even if there was someone there, they should¡¯ve declined to the state of lingering obsession or mental strength. There would be nothing to be afraid of as existences like Director General Wang were indicative of the problems guing those still alive in the ruins.

    Humanity... did not live as long as monster spirits did in the passage of time. However, the remnants of strength from a Saint was sufficient to shatter their replicas. The gap between the two was too great!

    Not to mention, their replicas were very weak at only five or six elements. How were they to stand against a revived Saint? Whether in the ages of New Martial, Empyrean Emperor, or Initial Martial... the Saint cultivation level was a premier existence.

    Li Hao was also rapidly assessing the situation. The nt spirit behind the door should not be of the Saint level.

    ¡°The Hus are no more. Would you like to work with me, Senior nt Spirit?¡± Li Hao chuckled.

    ¡°You?¡±

    ¡°Can we not work together? The descendant of the Sword Sovereign should bear some qualifications no matter where I am! Even though that Saint didn¡¯t give me any treasures, it didn¡¯t dare touch me either. You¡¯re just an Immortal at most, but can you even utilize the strength of an Apex since you aren¡¯t fully awakened? In the ancient civilization, you wouldn¡¯t be fit to partner with the Li n!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The nt spirit hadn¡¯t thought that this person would be so arrogant, but he was right. His words were true. It was just a nt spirit standing guard back in the day, it didn¡¯t have the right to talk to the Lis of cooperation. ¡°You said so yourself that this was back in the ancient civilization. That was when the Sword Sovereign still existed. And now?¡±

    ¡°And now, I eliminated the Hus!¡± Li Haoughed loudly. ¡°You can partner with even the Hus. What, am I less worthy?¡±

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 804: Beat The Shit Outta It! (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 804: Beat The Shit Outta It! (IV)</h4>

    ¡°It¡¯s not out of the question,¡± the nt spirit offered after some silence. ¡°So long as you canplete the mission that I set for the Hus, then partnership between us is also feasible.¡±

    ¡°Tell me inly, what can I gain and what price do I need to pay?¡±

    ¡°I needrge sums of mysterious power stones,¡± the nt spirit said bluntly. ¡°As for what you stand to gain¡ªWater of Life is what you crave the most. Apart from that, I can offer you the same deal as I did the Hus. So long as you pay the appropriate price, I can also sever off some core origin to create a replica and eliminate your enemies!¡±

    ¡°What is your price for Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°I charged the Hus sixty thousand stones per drop. You are the Sword Sovereign¡¯s descendant, an esteemed personage that everyone knows. Fifty thousand stones will do!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Haoughed, but inwardly cursed up a storm. <i>You guys really know how to rip someone off! You put it like you¡¯re giving me a deal!</i>

    Naturally, his talk of partnership was entirely bullshit. The young man just wanted to test the waters.

    ¡°If I may be so bold, are you stronger or General Pagoda of Battle Heaven?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The big tree was speechless. One was the defending general of a main city, while one was the guard of a corner of Skystar Town.<i> Which do you think is stronger?</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t me me for my questions, I also need to determine how strong you are and if you¡¯re worth my effort. After all, I have a lot of options as well as a lot of Silver Moon powerhouses worth my exertion...¡±

    The big tree cursed to itself. Others might not be able to voice these words, but the one in front of him absolutely could. It rummaged through its thoughts before responding, ¡°Perhaps I am less than some of the Silver Moon existences, but they have all stilled in silence. It¡¯s too hard for you to revive them and the price you¡¯ll have to pay will be far more than you can imagine. What you gain in return will be scant and sparse!

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    ¡°I¡¯m different. Since the nine ministries and royal family have chosen us out of all possible options, that means we are the strongest. We have also awoken by quite a bit, we are not just starting on our journey. Do you know what I mean?¡±

    ¡°I do!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°So it means that you guys can step into battle at any time, but General Pagoda in Battle Heaven will only be stirring to wakefulness even if I supply one hundred million stones. The general will also be very weak and far less than you, is that right?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°Then... how strong are youpared to your brethren among the nine ministries and royal family?¡±

    ¡°The one with the royal family was the main protector of Skystar Town back in the day. We are... slightly weaker than it. The others are roughly the same as me.¡±

    ¡°Are you Apex or Immortal?¡± Li Hao asked. ¡°You¡¯re not at the Saint level, right?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡± The big tree didn¡¯t deny it since this might be easily determined after paging through some ancient tomes. ¡°You know a lot, but the more you know, the more you should understand how strong we are...¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Ah, is the one with the royal family of the Saint level?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just a hair away!¡±

    The young man understood¡ªpeak Immortal, was it? That was indeed strong! ¡°So you¡¯re an Immortal too?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Then... does that mean you can kill an Apex if I lure him here?¡± Li Hao grinned.

    ¡°Apex? No Apexes exist now, it is impossible for them to appear...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s hard to say,¡±ughed Li Hao. ¡°Qi Pingjiang of Armed Forces is at peak six elements. He¡¯s only one step away.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s still a difference of heaven and earth!¡± It was the first time that the big tree disyed such confidence. ¡°I¡¯ll kill him easily if he darese!¡±

    <i>I see! This guy is at least an Apex. Damn that¡¯s scary. Can the little tree¡¯s replica measure up to it with the imperial pce projection?</i>

    <i>It¡¯ll... probably be just a little bit weaker. These nt spirits have all awakened to a great degree; the little tree previously only fought their replicas of unknown strength.</i>

    ¡°I understand!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll converse with you in a few days! I have matters to attend to tomorrow and need to exterminate the remnants of my enemies. I hope that you can also understand there are only benefits to be had in partnering with me. There are no drawbacks to worry about.¡±

    ¡°I naturally understand, or I would not have appeared to see you.¡± It didn¡¯t matter who the big tree cooperated with, so long as the person could supply sufficient mysterious power stones for its recovery. Whether it was the Hus or Li Hao, did it matter?

    Not at all!

    It wanted Li Hao to understand that reviving it was a much better bargain than focusing on the one in Battle Heaven. What could that one bring even if one offered one hundred million stones?

    <i>I¡¯m different!</i>

    Li Hao turned on his heel and left. <i>This big tree is at least an Apex and cannot be mentioned in the same as six element Arcanus. It¡¯s very, very strong! Can mybined force and the little tree¡¯s replica really take care of it?</i>

    <i>I¡¯m six elements, Yao Si is five. The little tree... is more than six and less than seven. The gains will be unimaginable if I can kill it...</i>

    <i>And, has the little tree improvedtely? It can¡¯t have gained nothing after devouring all that core origin power. Once we take down this tree... the little tree and Deputy Zhou can have both some core origin power. I¡¯ll have another ruin in hand... There¡¯s so much to gain here!</i>

    Li Hao had finally made up his mind. <i>I¡¯m gonna beat the shit outta it! I might not have if you¡¯d said five thousand stones for one drop, but fifty thousand? What am I keeping you around for if I don¡¯t kill you for that?</i>

    <i>......</i>

    <i>On thest day of November, the 30th.</i>

    A hubbub formed in front of the Skystar Commander Office on the Avenue of the Nine Ministries. It was to officially open for business today!

    People bustled to and fro on this avenue early in the morning. There were very few bystanders in regr times, but it positively thronged with people all day. Whether they were here to offer congrattions or collect information, paying a visit was no loss for most people. If one didn¡¯te, however, that might leave an undesirable impression.

    Representatives from Skystar City, some provincial overlords, local leaders, seven divine mountains, and even the City of Supernaturals were present. The three great organizations sent their people either in the shadows or out in the open.

    All of the various agencies had their doors flung open on this day. Some doors had been closed when Li Hao arrived to im his new territory, but all of them opened for business over the past two days. Those who insisted on keeping their doors closed would be dering that they wished to end up like the Judgment Guard! Any who wished for that to be their end could try doing so.

    A heavy traffic of people and vehicles filled the streets; the mor was unceasing. At the end of the avenue, the once magnificent Judiciary had a new signboard over its doors. The characters of ¡®Skystar Commander Office¡¯ glittered with radiance.

    Demon Hunters and Night Watchers conducted intersecting patrols at the two ends of the long street. To the Night Watchers, they would no longer be of the Inspectorate after today. They would be the Night Watchers of the Skystar Commander Office. Some were happy, some were worried, and others decried the change.

    But... what could they do about it? Absolutely nothing at all.

    ......

    <i>On the avenue.</i>

    Someone looked at the structure towering at the end of the street and remarked emotionally, ¡°To think that he¡¯d defeat one of the nine ministries about a month after arriving at Skystar City and make it so that the other eight ministries don¡¯t dare retaliate. He really is a bit like a wandering hero!¡±

    ¡°Wandering hero? His teacher Yuan Shuo wouldn¡¯t be as useful as thed if he was here!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true!¡± Some old men chuckled merrily on the avenue,ughing harder when they mentioned Yuan Shuo.

    Yuan Shuo had led the pack back in the day. The title of Old Demon Five Styles had shaken the entire martial world and now... the curtains had closed on it. Rather, it was his disciple who was truly renowned throughout all of the known world.

    The old men looked around, then at the martial masters of the Demon Hunters. They nodded with approval. ¡°High spirits and strong morale. What a group of fine youngsters! As expected of Silver Moon martial masters!¡±

    ¡°They don¡¯t really count as Silver Moon martial masters anymore though!¡± One of them shook his head. ¡°They¡¯ve be officials and draw a public stipend. That Demon Sword didn¡¯t open a martial dojo either. Instead, he establishes the Skystar Commander Office to administer thews of thend. These people... would all be regarded as government flunkies back in the day...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re so old fashioned!¡±

    ¡°Old stick-in-the-mud!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just saying... what are you guys yelling at me for?¡± The old men chattered loudly, having quite a good time. One of them snapped to attention when he saw something, drawing the nces of the other elders.

    ¡°Chen Zhongtian, that old thing is so long-lived!¡± someone sneered.

    The old inspector general and his son were walking in their direction. The old minister quickly identified the old men and smiled nonchntly at them.

    ¡°Martial masters?¡± Chen Yao followed his father¡¯s gaze. There were a bunch of martial masters in that direction, and they all seemed pretty strong.

    ¡°They¡¯re martial masters¡ªthe old guard from Silver Moon,¡± his father answered casually. ¡°They¡¯ve lived quite long as they¡¯re only a few years younger than me. To think that they¡¯d still be alive! These guys wanted to charge into Skystar City twenty years ago when the supernatural rose. The joint forces of the nine ministries and royal family defeated and killed a bunch of them.¡±

    Chen Yao nodded, he remembered this. He hadn¡¯t been involved as he¡¯d been too weak then. Some of the older heavyweights had participated in a battle over the Skystar Sea. These old martial masters of Silver Moon had wanted to seize something; he hadn¡¯t bothered himself with the matter.

    Here they were again after so many years!

    ¡°What are they doing here?¡± Chen Yao asked with confusion. ¡°There¡¯s not much for them to do at present. Do they hope to get something from Li Hao?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The old ministerughed. Just listen to his son! ¡°Can¡¯t they just be here to congratte him? Not to mention, if it wasn¡¯t for Li Hao already defeating his enemies, you might be seeing them fight the nine ministries on this day!¡±

    If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the battle had been won before these old martial masters arrived, they would certainly be fighting at the moment. They were all very strong.

    Chen Yao said nothing further. Everything looked to be fine and peaceful today. The nine ministries wouldn¡¯t cause trouble and neither would the royal family. Who would dare kick up a fuss at this time in Skystar City?

    Only idiots would do so.

 Chapter 805: Mishaps at Inauguration (I)

    <h4>Chapter 805: Mishaps at Inauguration (I)</h4>

    The doors to the Skystar Commander Office were wide open. Arge open area behind the doors had been arranged as the site of the festivities. An extraordinary flurry of activity filled it; Demon Hunters standing around the perimeter added to the celebration.

    There wasn¡¯t much food to be seen, mostly chairs individually set around the area. Some of them were assigned to a row of tables at the front. There was tea and finger foodid out on the tables. That was seating provided only for the biggest factions.

    ce cards were set out on the tables for the eight ministries, royal family, seven divine mountains, City of Supernaturals, and three great organizations. There were twenty seats total!

    Quite a few people sucked in sharp breaths when they registered the sight. It was the height of brazen arrogance to assign spots for even the three great organizations. Was this tant face pping or were they truly invited?

    After the twenty most prominent guests came seats for certain provinces and more well known local supernatural organizations. Although simply putting their name cards on chairs made for a shabby sight, just the sight of those cements alone caused one¡¯s hearts to skip a beat.

    What was Li Hao trying to aplish with this presentation? Was he going to make a note of everyone who didn¡¯t show up? Also, the lords of Buddha and Sky Roc Mountains were dead. Would their representatives attend? They still had powerhouses in residence, but closed door cultivation should be their first priority at the moment. Would they have the time to spare for offering congrattions?

    The first row was upied by a row of benches. They faced what should be the speaker¡¯s podium. There were name cards on the benches as well.

    Chen Yao and his father were the first out of the eight ministries to arrive. They were followed closely by those of Finance and Internal Affairs. All of the ministers hade, and not the old ministers. Ministers Liu Yunqing and Mu Hai were present in person.

    Their presence surprised the other guests who were here early. Three current ministers had already arrived. What an extravagant exhibit! The nine ministries were truly showing Li Hao face. How many nine ministry powerhouses had the young man killed? It would be enough for them to send a representative, but their ministers were here in person. There wouldn¡¯t be another pitched battle today, would there?

    Some people began looking around with rm. Yao Si arrived at this time. He walked straight to the podium and located his seat in a chair that faced the audience. He smiled when he met the ministers¡¯ eyes and looked at the Inspectorate¡¯s bench. The man hadn¡¯t thought that Chen Zhongtian would be here in person as well!

    Now this was getting interesting!

    Those from Administration and Armed Forces arrived together momentster. It was another two current ministers¡ªQi Pingjiang¡¯s son Qi Dinghai. The characters of ¡®pingjiang¡¯ stood for pacifying the rivers, whereas the ones of ¡®dinghai¡¯ meant calming the seas. Their shared bloodline was evident through their names.

    The current minister of Armed Forces was also a solemn, awe-inspiring individual like Qi Pingjiang. He looked a bit younger than Qi Pingjiang, but that was all the difference. A few people followed behind him, one of which Yao Si recognized. He raised his eyebrow at seeing Yuan Xingwu. This former senior disciple of Yuan Shuo¡¯s was ate Nova now. What did Armed Forces intend with assigning him to Qi Dinghai?

    The minister of Administration was a cultured and refined man. A schrly air wrapped around him; he looked to be in his mid forties. Zhao Huaimin smiled at Yao Si when the two looked at each other. His father had chosen these two characters for his name because he wished for his son to be as they entailed, to hold the people of the world in his heart. The old minister of Administration had done so all those years ago, but now... he might have forgotten those intentions in times long past.

    Yao Si looked at the two newest arrivals. These two had strong fathers and were strong enough themselves. They didn¡¯t look all that impressive, but they should be at least three element Arcanus.

    Premier heavyweights like them usually ascended from the path of martial dao. The nine ministries used to count many martial masters among their ranks. Recently, whether it was due to pressure from recent events or finding that supernaturals could convert back to martial dao, all of those martial masters had seemed to cross over to the Arcanus level.

    These kinds of powerhouses were much stronger than regr Arcanus. With the arrival of the final two ministers, nearly all of the eight ministries were represented. Five current ministers and one old minister hade for a total of six.

    The Ministries of Examination, Foreign Affairs and Commerce didn¡¯t send their ministers, just their vice ministers. The ones of Examination and Foreign Affairs were dead. None of their heavyweights of the same level would daree now. After Qian Wanhao from Commerce was dead, his son inly wouldn¡¯t choose to show his face at this time. Sending his vice minister was a decision made after prolonged consideration and a direct request from Armed Forces and Administration.

    The royal family had also sent a delegation. Out of its nine princes, two were dead. The Prince of Southern Conciliation was present, along with a few royal children. The seventh princess and ninth prince were among them.

    Even the nine ministries were surprised by this prince¡¯s presence. He was the only one among the royal family who still actively led troops. He was a general in the true sense of the word andmanded six hundred thousand men. He held down the fort on the shores of the South Sea and faced off against the Valiant Duke in the south.

    The dynasty had three founding dukes of external surnames among its officials¡ªthe Tranquil Duke in the west, the Steadfast Duke in the east, and the Valiant Duke in the south. [1] Of them, the Valiant Duke possessed the greatest battle aplishments. Combined with the abundance of the south, that meant he was an existence that the royal family was highly on guard against.

    Compared to the Steadfast Duke, the Valiant Duke was more domineering and had wanted to cross the sea a few times to expand his territory northward. But with the Prince of Southern Conciliation present on the other side, the two were locked in a standoff for many years. The nine ministries paid no attention to the matter and didn¡¯t strip the prince of his militarymand either.

    But today, the prince had returned to the capital. Different thoughts grappled with this development. Had the duke reached an ord with the prince, or was something else at y?

    Otherwise, wasn¡¯t the prince concerned that the Valiant Duke would set off as soon as he left?

    All of their questions were answered a momentter. A group of people sauntered vigorously toward theplex¡¯s front doors. Led by a well-muscled man, they set foot through the doors. The man swept a nce around the premises and said faintly. ¡°Are the three founding dukes not worthy of seats?¡±

    ¡°The Valiant Duke!¡± Some could not believe their eyes! It¡¯d been a very long time since the three founding dukes hade to the capital. They dominated their respective locales. So the Valiant Duke was here in person today! No wonder the Prince of Southern Conciliation hade back. Since his old opponent was here, it didn¡¯t matter if he stayed at his post.

    Another group of people walked in at this time. Their leader was slightly chubby, but looked to be quite refined and wore opulent robes. ¡°Big brother Valiant is here too?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re not that familiar with each other, Tranquil Duke!¡± The Valiant Duke didn¡¯t even bother turning around.

    ¡°......¡± The slightly chubby man didn¡¯t mind. He smiled and looked at Yang Shan close by; thetter seemed a bit frightened, then quickly pulled himself upright. He cast a fierce look at the duke.

    The Tranquil Duke smiled and inclined his head, not minding the exchange. Yang Shan... used to be an expert-in-residence at his home, but turned traitor and fled one day. The man had changed his name and gone into hiding with Qin Lian, so there were no traces of their whereabouts.

    Yang Shan then abruptly reappeared a few days ago and participated in the battle against the Four Seas Company. His wife had been part of the Skystar Sea battle. Did the married couple think they were untouchable aftertching onto Li Hao¡¯s thigh?

    Despite the Tranquil Duke¡¯s thoughts, he remained smiling.

    Another ripple of shock percted through the crowd. Other than the Steadfast Duke¡¯s household that was in a sorry plight, the other two founding duke families had sent representatives¡ªand it was the dukes themselves!

    Another person showed himself at this time¡ªDeputy Zhou.

    ¡°Surely you jest, Valiant Duke.¡± He smiled warmly. ¡°We simply thought that the two dukes wouldn¡¯t make the trip as the distance is long. This is why we¡¯ve been short on hospitality. Men! Hurry and set up seats for the two dukes!¡±

    Someone quickly walked up with two chairs and ced them behind the royal family, not the first row.

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    ¡°The three major dukes are the founding dukes of the nation,¡± remarked the Valiant Duke as he stared at Deputy Zhou. ¡°Do we count even less than the three evil organizations these days?¡±

    Deputy Zhou didn¡¯t mind, he chuckled, ¡°Ah, you are indeed joking, Your Grace. The three evil organizations are filled with thewless and reckless type. They do not ept education or enlightenment, so they should sit in the front row! ording to custom and propriety, the two dukes cannot be ced on the same footing as the royal family. But if the Valiant Duke wishes to sit in the front row, we can arrange for that as well. Men, move their seats to the front row!¡±

    ¡°Forget it,¡± the dukeughed after a meaningful look. ¡°You¡¯re familiar with proper code and conduct!¡±

    As for the eight ministries, three great organizations, and City of Supernaturals... His words essentially meant that these people all rebel against the royal family and they were leaders of their respective factions.<i> You, too, can be a rebel leader if you announce those intentions now.</i>

    The Valiant Duke looked at the deputy a few more times, knowing that thetter used to be the deputy director general of Silver Moon. He smiled and led his people to their seats without further word.

    The Tranquil Duke beamed brightly and nodded slightly, then walked to his seat to sit next to the Valiant Duke.

    The Prince of Southern Conciliation sat unmoving in front of them, whereas the seventh princess turned around for a look and felt ufortable. These three dukes showed signs of mutiny a few years ago and the Valiant Duke had faced this prince for many years. Today, however, the dukes were sitting behind them. The possibility of them striking at the royal delegation was so ufortable that it almost couldn¡¯t be borne.

    With the royal prince being wholly unmoving, however, the two royal children didn¡¯t say a word, despite how ufortable they were. It was the inauguration day of the Skystar Commander Office and while the dukes¡¯ intentions were unknown, they wouldn¡¯t choose this particr timing to create trouble. Not unless they wished to wage war against Li Hao.

    The crowd at the back also found their seats. Of the ny-nine provinces, those that were closer had sent their major personages. Those further away sent their office representatives in Skystar City. Almost everyone was present, with some attending of their own ord even if they weren¡¯t ordered to do so. While adding to the festivities may not be on their mind, there was no need to offend Li Hao either.

    The provincial tyrants were no fools¡ªLi Hao was in the middle of fighting someone else, what was one going to be involved for? To deliver their own heads on a tter to him? Even Near River province, one that Li Hao was decidedly on the outs with, had sent someone. Although their representative was just a Sr, it was quite a show of respect and face.

    1. External surnames meaning that these dukes aren¡¯t part of the royal family. They were awarded their titles and status for their deeds rendered. ?

 Chapter 806: Mishaps at Inauguration (II)

    <h4>Chapter 806: Mishaps at Inauguration (II)</h4>

    More attendees arrived while a low hum of conversation buzzed through the vicinity. The neers broke through the air in the blink of an eye and revealed themselves to be very young when theynded. Representatives from the City of Supernaturals!

    They didn¡¯t speak after their arrival and simply walked straight to the front, locating their seats after quickly scanning the area. Satisfied that they were seated in the same row as the most distinguished, they took their ces.

    There were still people standing outside the doors¡ªthose were just here for the show. Those who dared linger for the proceedings were personages of umon note themselves. There were some old men present who were veteran martial masters of Silver Moon¡¯s martial world. Some other martial seniors also dawdled¡ªwandering rogues as opposed to government officials. They craned their necks from outside the door. Perhaps there would be some fightingter on! Although it would be dangerous to be nearby, there was never a shortage of people unafraid of death.

    Some in the crowd outside looked like scouts, possibly from the three great organizations or seven divine mountains. No one minded their presence and permitted them to observe as they would.

    A different group walked out of the rear yard of the Skystar Commanderplex at this time.

    ......

    Li Hao was d in armor; he¡¯d changed its color today as the golden color was very conspicuous. He opted for red, finding it to be more festive. To outsiders, however, it looked to be the color of blood!

    Hong Yitang and the others followed by his side. They headed to the front with Li Hao and dropped into their seats.

    ¡°Thank you everyone for the honor of your presence today.¡± Li Hao smiled at the crowd beneath him. ¡°It has exceeded my expectations that so many people havee!¡± He frowned slightly. ¡°Why is there no food or drink when our esteemed guests have already arrived?¡±

    Seated on the wing of the stage, Deputy Zhou nced at Li Hao. ¡°Bring out the food and drink!¡±

    The deration caused a ripple of surprise that grew more pronounced when the food was brought out. A dozen soldiers lifted a tform with a massive roc bird on it.

    ¡°This is an Arcanus level major monster spirit,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Its flesh and blood are highly nutritious! Men, cut off pieces for our guests! It tastes the best and is chewier when raw. Enjoy this umon delicacy, everyone!¡±

    Certain eyes widened among the crowd. This was the lord of Sky Roc Mountain! Li Hao had outright delivered the mountain lord¡¯s carcass on a tter! This fellow was... truly vicious! At the same time, some in the crowd werepletely unmoved.

    Soldiers cut up pieces of monster spirit flesh and served bloody portions to the tables. The audience behind them could only put their tes on their legs. No one dared say anything. They stared at the cold smoke rising from the bloody flesh. Some closed their eyes while others snorted withughter and dug in with fork and knife.

    ¡°Does it not suit some of your appetites?¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°I hear that phoenix meat is even more tasty. Why don¡¯t I serve a different selection for everyone next time?¡±

    ¡°Is Commander Li going to kill the lord of Phoenix Mountain?¡± The Valiant Duke smiled before anyone else could answer. ¡°I¡¯m actually rather looking forward to that. Save me a piece when you take out that monster spirit!¡±

    ¡°Those are heroic words!¡±ughed Li Hao. ¡°That is most certainly part of my ns and I will save you some! I showed them face today, but they rejected me. There is a spot arranged for them, but they are not here. I¡¯ll raze that mountain to the ground when I have time!¡±

    Cold pricked at the spines of some in the crowd! This guy truly spoke like a crazed martial blockhead. Representatives from Phoenix Mountain might have ended up with the same grisly fate had they attended today. Maybe... maybe Li Hao was just blowing hot air!

    The young manughed for a bit; a portion of meat appeared in front of him¡ªit was cooked!

    His guests inwardly cursed him out when they saw the sight. <i>You serve us raw meat while you eat a cooked portion yourself!</i>

    ¡°It¡¯s my first time doing something like this, so I¡¯m not sure what the proper procedure is,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Establishing the Skystar Commander Office... is frankly just going through the formalities. But since everyone is here, I¡¯ll say a few words for the inauguration!

    ¡°First, from today henceforth, the Night Watchers are officially joining the Skystar Commander Office. Director Yao Si will continue to be the director, as well as a vicemander in the Skystar Commander Office!

    ¡°Second, themanders of the four directions fall under the jurisdiction of this Office. Hou Xiaochen will be assigned themander of the north, Southern Fist He Yong will be assigned themander of the south! Light Sword Hu Jiao is assigned to the east and Yang Shan is assigned to the west!¡±

    A ringing silence answered his words.

    ¡°Third, the Skystar Martial Academy will be built with Earthturner Sword Hong Yitang as the headmaster!

    ¡°Fourth, there will be an administrative wing of the Skystar Commander Office with Zhou Chuan as the administrative director general!

    ¡°Fifth, the Demon Hunter Army is to be reorganized with Liu Long as itsmander!¡± Li Hao concluded faintly. ¡°This will be the operating system of the Skystar Commander Office toe. Themanders of the four cardinal directions will administer the affairs of supernaturals in their territory. The administrative wing is in charge of establishing thews of thend. It will handle all civil duties!

    ¡°The Night Watchers are to be divided into five divisions¡ªheadquarters and the four cardinal directions to be directed by their respectivemanders.

    ¡°The Skystar Martial Academy will propagate martial dao and ept civilians as students. Ordinary students will have a chance to practice martial dao as well!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°What does everyone think of my arrangements? I am quite young and do not understand this, so I have casually delineated responsibilities. Does anyone have any advice to offer?¡±

    The audience was still digesting the announcements. The Tranquil Duke smiled at this time. ¡°We naturally have no opinion about themander¡¯s internal arrangements. However... I do have a small question to ask...¡±

    ¡°Ask away!¡±

    ¡°This Yang Shan... used to be an expert in residence in my household. He stole a precious treasure from myplex and has been on the run since. He even killed some people when he ran. Themander says that you will strictly administer thew as your guiding principle.

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    ¡°This Yang Shan hasmitted murder in pursuit of another¡¯s property, but now he swaggers forward with the righteousness of the southernmander under the Skystar Commander Office. I don¡¯t know how Commander Li has been hoodwinked¡ªhow can a criminal qualify to enforce thew on themander¡¯s behalf?¡±

    Li Hao looked at Yang Shan.

    ¡°In response to themander.¡± Yang Shan bowed. ¡°I fled because I was unwilling toply with the collusion between the duke and pirates. I killed the pirate leader and the coborators from the duke¡¯s side. I was then pursued by his powerhouses and had to go into hiding...¡±

    ¡°Collusion with pirates?¡±ughed the Tranquil Duke. ¡°Is this the story youe up with since you have no evidence at all? Do you know what awaits you for falsely using a duke? I do not mind, but this will be a stain on the Skystar Commander Office¡¯s reputation.

    "Commander Li reveres thew, but you hold it in contempt and easily nder others. You¡¯ll bring about the downfall of the Skystar Commander Office if this continues! You have indeed murdered people and stolen treasure. You admit to it yourself!¡± The duke looked at Li Hao. ¡°Commander Li, you should not appoint him as the westernmander even if you don¡¯t thoroughly investigate him. Otherwise, your inauguration ceremony will be an asion of criticism!¡±

    Li Hao looked steadily at him. The Tranquil Duke was the first and only person to raise a fuss today. He madeplete sense and presented a well reasoned argument. Li Hao could not force him to be quiet. If he did, the strict adherence to thew that he preached would be a joke. It was the foundation of his legitimacy! If that was shaken, he would lose the trust of the outside world.

    Even if the Tranquil Duke really had colluded with pirates, was there any evidence to prove his actions?

    ¡°Do you have proof, Yang Shan?¡± Li Hao turned to the man with a smile. ¡°If not, falsely using the duke is no small matter! If you do have proof, I¡¯ll arrest the duke on the spot and behead him as an example to others. This will be my announcement to the world that collusion with pirates will result in no mercy!¡±

    The duke¡¯s eyes widened, but he quickly regained his calm. Li Hao was so out of control! <i>But where is your evidence going toe from? What a joke! </i>He naturally had his own ns in mind with sticking his neck out at a time like this. It wasn¡¯t worth telling others about it. Although Li Hao was a difficult person to deal with, there was nothing the duke was afraid of.

    ¡°I do! I have recorded images of the duke¡¯s people conversing with the leader of the pirates...¡± Yang Shan replied.

    ¡°That proves nothing.¡± The duke frowned. <i>A recording? That technology was banned many years ago. To think that the bastard would have that in his pocket!</i>

    ¡°My wife once worked in the duke¡¯s household and was in charge of matters in the rear residence.¡± Yang Shan ignored the duke¡¯s interjection. ¡°She once saw the leader of the pirates enter the duke¡¯splex for a secret meeting and recorded the entire process...¡±

    The Tranquil Duke¡¯s frown deepened. How was that possible?? Qin Lian¡¯s betrayal was a spontaneous decision, how could she have recorded that such a long time ago? <i>Is Yang Shan... bluffing?</i>

    Many were growing nervous at this point and didn¡¯t understand what the duke wanted to aplish. This was just an inauguration ceremony, just be quiet and listen! Why did he have to rush over from the west and involve himself? Did he really think that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t dare kill him?

    ¡°Is that so? Then let us broadcast the recording,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°If your words prove true, then no matter how the duke argues, I can arrest him since he is a superhuman. Although we do not have direct evidence, we¡¯ll be able to seal off hisplex first and investigate himter!¡±

    The young man looked at the duke with increasing bafflement. <i>The eight ministries and royal family aren¡¯t making a peep, but you¡¯vee all the way from the west to pick a bone with me. What are you cooking? Or do you have shit for brains? Or are you sticking your neck out for someone else to get a big payday?</i>

    <i>I don¡¯t get it, but I don¡¯t mind that someone¡¯s offering their head up for me to use. Who knows if Yang Shan really has a recording? I¡¯m just gonna bluff first!</i>

    Indeed, Li Hao wasn¡¯t aware of the truth of the situation either. No one had anticipated that the Tranquil Duke would fire the first shot. The young man hadn¡¯t expected anyone toe from the three dukes, and even if a representative was present, it wouldn''t be the dukes themselves.

    Hence, Li Hao wasn¡¯t sure what the Tranquil and Valiant Dukes wished to aplish here. Therefore, he wasn¡¯t certain either if Yang Shan spoke the truth or just wanted to intimidate his old employer. Recordings were a technology that the government had banned long ago. What a coincidence that he happened to have it on him. Even Li Hao felt that this was a bluff!

 Chapter 807: Mishaps at Inauguration (III)

    <h4>Chapter 807: Mishaps at Inauguration (III)</h4>

    Yang Shan said nothing further and murmured a few instructions. Servants quickly brought over and set up arge screen. The man took out an item from his storage ring¡ªsome people recognized it as a videotape.

    The Tranquil Duke was frowning ferociously by now. He¡¯d thought the rebuttal was fake, but now he realized the truth of Yang Shan¡¯s ims. No one should¡¯ve known that he would cause trouble on this asion, so Yang Shan was equally in the dark about his ns. That this was ready ahead of time could only mean one thing¡ªit was real and truly existed!

    The duke¡¯s expression flickered and he said faintly, ¡°These things can be faked as well! What we see with our own eyes may not be real, to say nothing of ancient technology that can be easily modified.¡±

    ¡°So the duke means that this is not evidence either?¡± demanded Yang Shan. ¡°That everything hinges on one word from you? That I am guilty simply because you say I am? You must be mistaken about something, this is not your territory!¡±

    He lifted his head and frostily regarded the duke. ¡°In that case, then the duke needs to produce evidence that I have stolen from you and killed people. I killed pirates, seized their loot, and have already turned it into the Skystar Commander Office. Does the duke have a new story to spin about that?¡±

    He maintained his hold on the videotape and didn¡¯t put it down to be yed. <i>You¡¯re picking at me, huh? Thank goodness I bought the tape with me!</i> But... he didn¡¯t actually have the courage to y it. On the tape were recordings of his intimate affairs with his wife. It... ah... demonstrated some of his... particr kinks. He¡¯d be the first one scared to death if he really yed it!

    Yang Shan was betting that the duke wouldn¡¯t let him y the tape!

    Hidden in the shadows, a petrified Qin Lian was dripping with sweat. <i>I¡¯m going to hack you into pieces after we¡¯re done today! </i>she cursed her husband. Her heart had leapt into her throat when he brought out the tape. <i>How could you actually bring it out!</i>

    ¡°Forget it, we can discuss thister since you aren¡¯t willing to admit to it.¡± The Tranquil Duke smiled faintly. ¡°Today is the inauguration day of the Skystar Commander Office. This duke will not put a damper on things!¡±

    It was best if he could humiliate Li Hao, but if he couldn¡¯t, then the matter would be dropped. There was no need to force open hostilities between him and the young man.

    Li Hao looked at the duke, then at Yang Shan. He really wanted to say, <i>y the tape already damn it! I¡¯ll kill this guy as soon as you y it! He¡¯s got some nerve to spoil the day! He feels like he¡¯s lived too long and wants to die, doesn¡¯t he? I¡¯m going to wring his neck today even if he¡¯s brought a true Apex nt spirit with him...</i>

    But Yang Shan wasn¡¯t ying the tape. Seeing as beads of sweat were dotting the man¡¯s forehead, Li Hao realized that something else was afoot.

    ¡°Very well then, let¡¯s leave it, Yang Shan,¡± hemented casually. ¡°The Tranquil Duke just wanted to vent his ill will. We can investigateter whether evidence truly exists. The wrong will not be acquitted and the innocent will not be convicted!¡±

    ¡°This subordinate understands!¡± Yang Shan lowered his head and waved for soldiers to dismantle the screen.

    Some among the audience found the turn of events strange, but since the Tranquil Duke was no longer protesting, they were even less inclined to offend Li Hao.

    Yang Shan put away the tape with an inward sigh of relief. <i>That scared the shit out of me! Thank goodness for my kinks. Betchu they didn¡¯t think that I¡¯d carry some tapes around with me. Mm, this is a good kink. I¡¯ve got to keep it.</i>

    The man was highly satisfied by his quick wits. Otherwise, the Tranquil Duke really would have turned him into a criminal in front of the crowd and doused Li Hao¡¯s might.

    The young man set the matter aside, as if he didn¡¯t care at all. ¡°Such are the matters that I mentioned! In addition, I want to say that the Skystar Commander Office will be consolidating the superhuman domain in days toe. We will be setting down some superhuman rules to be followed throughout thends. I hope that you leaders of the dynasty will set an example in applying the rules!¡±

    ¡°What will these superhuman rules entail?¡± Chen Yao asked from the Inspectorate¡¯s side.

    ¡°They¡¯re simple and won¡¯t levy any major restrictions. Being superhuman myself, I know how our minds work,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°They center around the points of not harassing ordinary citizens, forbidding the wanton destruction of citizen property, banning flying through cities, and a requirement for all superhumans to register themselves.

    ¡°They can do so at their local Night Watcher branch. All superhumans will be entered in the records and those who are not listed will be regarded as evil supernaturals!¡±

    Eyes widened at the exnation.

    ¡°ording to what I know, some superhumans cultivate inside the ancient ruins. Are they to emerge to register themselves?¡± someone asked coolly. ¡°Then what about the existences from the ancient civilization? Are they to register as well? Since we are all equal, will the Skystar Commander Office kill everyone who does not register?¡±

    ¡°And is there anything wrong with that?¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°It¡¯s just registration, there will be no restrictions levied on people. They can register at first light when they leave the ruins. Is that hard to do? If they do not register after leaving the ruins and break thew, then execution is naturally in store! You don¡¯t need to worry about that!¡±

    Some were sneering inwardly at how importantly Li Hao thought of himself. Those from the City of Supernaturals alsoughed. Superhuman registration could be a serious or trivial matter. When it came down to it, which faction would be willing to follow this rule?

    If Li Hao insisted on this course of action, it was only a matter of time before he faced enormous bacsh! Did he want to register the secluded powerhouses and those who¡¯d withdrawn from the world? Just look at those ambitions! Silver Moon might be the first to refuse, to say nothing of anyone else.

    <i>You might be deserted by all of your followers after this!</i>

    ¡°And what of the monster spirit factions?¡± someone elseughed. ¡°There are major monster spirits in our various territories. Is your hand going to stretch to them as well?¡±

    ¡°Why not?¡± Li Hao answered faintly. ¡°Skystar Dynasty is human territory and the monster spirits have long bowed their heads to us. A registration log means they will be granted protection from humanity, enjoy harmonious rtions, and delight in brotherly affection. That is the proper way forward! Those who stubbornly cling to the old ways will be killed!

    ¡°What, does the noble human race need to bow down to the monster spirits and wait on them hand and foot? Some humans go weak at the knees when they see monster spirits these days and do everything those monsters want. In return, they are scathingly harsh toward us while we live without dignity and principles!¡±

    Ny-nine percent of expressions shifted at his words. nt spirits were also monster spirits. Some looked at Li Hao with an inscrutable look.

    ¡°Has Commander Li... note in contact with any nt spirits?¡± Quiet all this time, the Prince of Southern Conciliation suddenly spoke up.

    ¡°I have, but I do not bow my head or bend the knee to them. My Water of Life from them requires only three thousand stones a drop. That is an equitable trade that leads to mutual benefit and profit...¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The audience shifted restlessly. <i>Seriously?? Three thousand pieces?</i>

    ¡°I did not say that we cannot work with monster spirits or show them respect,¡± Li Hao said faintly. ¡°Both sides can coexist in peace. Everything is possible when thews are adhered to! It is fine for monster spirits to enter our world as well. Everything is possible so long as they do not vite ourws!¡±

    The people did not care about hisst set of words. Chen Yao couldn¡¯t contain himself. ¡°How many mysterious power stones did you say you needed for one drop of Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°Three thousand!¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°You don¡¯t mean cultivation energy stones, do you?¡±

    ¡°Of course not!¡± the young man dismissed out of hand. ¡°I expended nearly one thousand drops of Water of Life recently. If it was thirty thousand energy stones, wouldn¡¯t that mean tens of millions mysterious power stones? I don¡¯t have that kind of money to spare as I didn¡¯t get a single stone from the pile that you guys dumped at Evenround Martial!¡±

    The group looked at each other, whereas Li Hao looked at Liu Yunqing. ¡°Minister Liu knows of the particrs, don¡¯t you? A bunch of idiots randomly threw stones onto the ground and ended up reviving an ancient powerhouse... They deserved their deaths!¡±

    Eyes widened as people looked to Liu Yunqing for confirmation. The man was expressionless and didn¡¯t say a word. Judging from that reaction, the group knew that he possibly did know what had truly happened in the ruins. Damn it!

    n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Liu Yunqing was caught between a rock and a hard ce. Staying silent was the best course of action. Anything he said would be a mistake.

    But now, everyone knew why the entire expedition and the nt spirit replicas were gone. Perhaps no one had been awake at the ruins before, but with all those mysterious power stones thrown onto the ground... and absorbed wholesale... how would nothing revive then?

    It¡¯d been one hundred million stones! Even a Saint could be brought back with that amount!

    The more they thought about it, the more dejected they grew. So this was how their previous failure hade about?? Damned if they didn¡¯t want to vomit blood from it!!

    And three thousand pieces per drop... was a heart-spasming figure. The least any of them paid was fifty thousand, with some of them paying sixty thousand. Wasn¡¯t that ten to twenty times what Li Hao¡¯s price was?

    They knew that the nt spirits were certainly keeping some for themselves, but they hadn¡¯t expected that the nt spirits would be so greedy!

    It also rang certain rm bells as this meant these nt spirits might be much stronger than the group thought. They were umting strength in secret. More care needed to be taken!

    Chen Yao was wholly fixated on this and nothing else. ¡°Then... Commander Li, are you interested in trading for some Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°Sure.¡± Li Hao nodded with a smile. ¡°The caveat is that you join the Skystar Commander Office and earn some merits! By then, each drop will cost only three thousand pieces or less. The exact price will differ ording to rank, which is only fair, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    Chen Yao fell silent. <i>Forget it, pretend I didn¡¯t say anything.</i>

    The rest of the group was rapidly considering that they couldn¡¯t continue trading with the nt spirits like this. Li Hao could trade for ten drops to their one, or not even. No wonder he improved so quickly and didn¡¯tck resources.

    <i>Fucking hell! </i>This wasn¡¯t fair! They had to renegotiate with the nt spirits no matter what. The nt spirits were fish caught in a pond. Having their arrangement break down would be good for no one.

    ¡°Then, is Commander Li willing to sell your Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°Of course! I¡¯ll charge only thirty thousand a drop. That¡¯s cheaper than what you can trade for.¡±

    No one jumped on his offer. Although that was cheap, Li Hao would benefit massively from the transaction and he was their enemy... That wasn¡¯t eptable. They could not give such a good deal to Li Hao, even if the nt spirits charged them more. However, the possibility lingered in the back of some minds.

    Thirty thousand stones a drop wasn¡¯t bad! The royal family sold theirs for one hundred thousand stones a drop and they still had buyers! It didn¡¯t matter to them if Li Hao earned the profits or someone else did.

    Around the crowd, others watched certain expressions with dawning trepidation. This couldn¡¯t be allowed to stand! If someone really did trade with Li Hao and the young man kept ny percent of the profits, would he continue to go stronger? But... were they supposed to sell below cost if they didn¡¯t want this situation to develop?

    Headaches flourished throughout the group. The little bastard had certainly done this on purpose! He was forcing everyone to sell below cost at thirty thousand stones a drop! Not only would he still earn money from the endeavor, but he would earn the gratitude and strength of a batch of heavyweights! This guy was too ck-hearted!

 Chapter 808: Deliberate Misrepresentation (I)

    <h4>Chapter 808: Deliberate Misrepresentation (I)</h4>

    The nine ministries and royal family had been preventing powerhouses rising from the ordinary popce by limiting their ess to Water of Life. Without that critical resource, metamorphosis could not make it to Arcanus. But Li Hao represented an opening in that blockade. Large sums of metamorphosis and premier martial masters might flock to his banner.

    It was the inevitable oue after the guy essentially said that he would infinitely supply Water of Life!

    The group sank into deep thought, contemting how to respond strategically. They hadn¡¯t paid much attention to everything the young man said before, finding it to be delusions of grandeur. Only this represented real trouble!

    Ultimately, Mu Hai of Internal Affairs spoke up, ¡°I don¡¯t care about any of this. I just want to know when there will be movement for those that themander has arrested¡ªincluding my daughter.¡±

    ¡°I was going to behead them today,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°But now... forget it. That would be cing too much importance on them. We can execute those who are guilty in a few more days. As for Minister Mu¡¯s daughter, there¡¯s not much issue with her. She¡¯s only guilty of some small transgressions, so spending two or three years locked away is enough!¡±

    Mu Hai stared at the young man for a while before lowering his head without a word. Li Hao really was going to incarcerate his daughter! That bastard! And yet, he also had to be relieved that his daughter wasn¡¯t going to be beheaded.

    Li Hao smiled radiantly at the audience. Not bad, other than the Tranquil Duke with a death wish, no one else made trouble for him. The proceedings were going well! He¡¯d take care of that duketer.

    ¡°The Skystar Commander Office is officially established today and will enact rules for superhumans. This is a cause worthy of celebration!¡± A long peal ofughter suddenly rang through the air. ¡°Powerhouses have existed since the ancient times, yet are unknown to all. Their names linger only in the wind and cloud! The Wind and Cloud Pavilion will publish the Arcanus Ranking and update the Divine Masters Ranking in three days. It will immortalize the names of the greatest in Silver Moon for all to see! Such is our gift to the Skystar Commander Office for its inauguration, hahaha!¡±

    Laughter echoed loudly through the void as figures shed through it. A light glinted in Li Hao¡¯s eyes as he looked around.

    ¡°That¡¯s quite a show of little tricks!¡± he snorted. ¡°What Wind and Cloud Pavilion? How dare it be of simr name to the Ranking of Wind and Cloud in the New Martial era?¡±

    Li Hao wasn¡¯tpletely brainless! The originators of the Divine Masters Ranking appearing at this time meant that they wanted to stir up trouble! In the ancient civilization, the Ranking of Wind and Cloud exposed countless secluded heavyweights with its list andrge-scale ughter soon urred after publication!

    There was no sign of the speaker even now¡ªthey were gone!

    Li Hao looked on with an unpleasant expression. The Wind and Cloud Pavilion had chosen this day, a day in which he gathered titans from all corners and wasying down thew, to steal his thunder. They obviously had malicious intent!

    The Divine Masters Ranking was just a gimmick that not many powerhouses paid attention to. But now, they were going to release the Arcanus Ranking to immortalize Silver Moon heavyweights! That was gravely ambitious!

    Various powerhouses glowered at the development. The Wind and Cloud Pavilion! They¡¯d never heard of the organization before, while they knew of the Divine Masters Ranking. Some people had looked into the origins of the ranking, but found nothing for their efforts. They¡¯d known early on that there was a backer behind the ranking. Who would¡¯ve thought that this backer would be quite strong!

    Could this ranking really list all of the heavyweights in the world? No one believed that! There was no one in the world who grasped knowledge of all the powerhouses there were.

    Li Hao¡¯s inauguration ceremony and establishment of rules for superhumans had abruptly be of secondary importance. All manner of flotsam and jetsam were bing active prior to the second awakening. It looked like someone didn¡¯t want the world to proceed peacefully. There were certain to be stunning changes and names present on this ranking.

    ¡°Damn them!¡± Quite a few people cursed, some with more apprehension than others. A series of troublesome issues might develop if the heavyweights of all factions were exposed. No one was certain if this mysterious organization had the capabilities it boasted of. The ancient records spoke of such a ranking that really did list all of the heroes beneath the heavens. It was a terrifying construct!

    ......

    Unhappy expressions filtered through those of the Skystar Commander Office. This was a nod to the Ranking of Wind and Cloud! A powerhouse had established that ranking; it waster called a walking obituary for those listed on it. It was heavily prominent in the ancient age and its creator iparably domineering. Even the ancient Human King couldn¡¯t do anything to them.

    The skies and earth shifted when the ranking was updated. All excluded experts and local geniuses were entered on it. Their strength was described in full, which made it easier for enemies to get a grasp on their target. An entrant on the ranking might havemanded fear and respect before, yet who would be cautious after all was known?

    Of course, the caveat was that the ranking was trusted and epted by the public. If not, it was just hot air. But if the Arcanus Ranking released in three days could truly incorporate all of the powerhouses in Silver Moon... that would be horrifying! It meant someone else knew all of their secrets and personal affairs.

    The various factions were hiding their true strength these days. As soon as someone listed verified that their information was correct, then that meant everyone else¡¯s was also more or less correct.

    ¡°Do you know about the Ranking of Wind and Cloud?¡± Li Hao sent his mental strength into the storage ring.

    ¡°Hmm?¡± The little tree answered quickly despite its confusion. ¡°I do, it was created by someone known as Daoist Wind and Cloud.¡±

    This was not the true title of the premier heavyweight, so it didn¡¯t matter if they mentioned it.

    ¡°This powerhouse was a heaven-defying existence in my father¡¯s memories,¡± the little tree continued. ¡°He created the Sky Gander and the Mirror of Wind and Cloud. That treasure connected directly to the final destination of core origin dao and could capture the true nature of all things. Any core origin practitioner would enter the ranking without exception!¡±

    Li Hao took a sharp breath! He knew about the ranking, but had absolutely no inspiration as to connect a treasure to the final stage of a cultivation dao. That was... formidable and incredible!

    ¡°Additionally, it¡¯s not just one person as the Daoist of Wind and Cloud, it was an entire family!¡± the little tree continued. ¡°They were a legendary family that produced an incredible number of four emperors!

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    ¡°You might not know what it means to be an emperor¡ªthose were truly invincible existences! Even theter Human King was hard pressed to stand against the Daoist of Wind and Cloud. The daoist and his three sons schemed against the various emperors and disrupted the world. They realized the error of their wayster on and, as redemption, rendered grave services in helping the Human King kill the Celestial Emperor!

    ¡°Everyone knew of the Ranking of Wind and Cloud when it was published,¡± the little tree was still quite emotional when thinking of the creator behind it. ¡°The skies and earth shook, even the Forbidden Sea was suppressed!¡±

    Li Haoughed at the little tree¡¯s recounting. Now this was a real Ranking of Wind and Cloud! Four emperors from just one family? That was incredible? What the hell was that in return just now? The young man chortled gleefully. Who were they trying to scare? The speaker hadn¡¯t been present at all and simply conveyed his words through transmission. There was a ny-nine percent chance that he¡¯d been more than ten thousand meters away and didn¡¯t dare draw close.

    Look at how Daoist Wind and Cloud carried himself¡ªhe dominated the world as soon as his ranking was published! It looked like the Wind and Cloud Pavilion might have some knowledge of this ranking, or had possibly obtained an imitation of its treasure?

    It was impossible for them to have the genuine article; they wouldn¡¯t be able to use it even if they did. Modern martial masters did not possess core origin and neither did supernaturals. How the hell was one supposed to create a Ranking of Wind and Cloud?

    Li Haoughed and transmitted to the little tree, ¡°Someone wants to set up the Ranking of Wind and Cloud in this age. Do you think they can do it? Will they be able to detect the powerhouses hidden in the ruins or those who are concealing their strength like me?¡±

    ¡°They... do have a hope of doing so if they have fragments of Sky Gander,¡± the little tree said after some thought. ¡°And I mean real fragments! Or an imitation of that treasure. A powerful imitation can scan all of Silver Moon Territory and search for life signs. It can then deduce the strength of the bearer from the strength of the life sign.

    ¡°Sky Gander was omnipotent back in the day. The Imperial Majesty wielded it and could even peer into the core origin of invincible heavyweights! It was terrifying. Although people repaired it after it was broken, it was hard to revert back to its original form. If someone obtains a true fragment of the treasure, they might have a chance of looking into Silver Moon Territory. Thisnd is too small and its powerhouses too few!¡±

    ¡°Silver Moon Territory?¡± asked Li Hao. What did the little tree mean by that? ¡°Was the ancient civilization more than just Silver Moon?¡±

    He¡¯d had certain thoughts in this direction when he learned about the Star Gate, but it was still difficult to digest the notion that his entire world was too small. So the little tree meant that they didn¡¯t possess theplete set of ancient civilization ruins?

    ¡°This territory is just the great majesty¡¯s abandoned pce. You knew that early on!¡±

    This entire world was just part of an abandoned pce? Then where was the real pce? How about the Human King¡¯s? His Imperial Majesty¡¯s? There were only the eight main cities to be found in Silver Moon province these days, did that mean those cities were the center of the world in those times?

    The little tree felt that Li Hao should¡¯vee to these conclusions long ago and not be asking now whether the ruins he knew of constituted all of the ruins from the ancient civilization. Of course not!

    ¡°Therefore, you mean that Silver Moon is just one tiny aspect of the ancient civilization?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    Li Hao took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and didn¡¯t say a word. His guests thought that he was enraged by the earlier visitor, but in reality, the young man didn¡¯t care at all.

    ¡°So this means to say that if they obtain a fragment of Sky Gander... they have a chance of finding all the powerhouses in the world?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s possible, or if they have an imitation. It can¡¯t be trash, it has to be a strong imitation. The mirror fragments in your hand might be ones from a powerful imitation...¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re not fragments of Sky Gander?¡±

    The little tree fell silent with speechlessness. ¡°How is that possible?? If they were fragments of Sky Gander, you¡¯d be invincible throughout thends since you already have five. Just one fragment alone was enough to cause Saints to fight over it back in the day...¡±

    Would you have five so easily? What¡¯s running through that mind of yours?

    ¡°Then if they...¡±

    ¡°Seize it!¡± The little tree had learned how to interrupt. ¡°If it¡¯s not Sky Gander they have, then it¡¯s a very good imitation! You have the right to hold the pieces of Sky Gander, whereas I¡®m not sure if they do.¡±

 Chapter 809: Deliberate Misrepresentation (II)

    <h4>Chapter 809: Deliberate Misrepresentation (II)</h4>

    ¡°I have the right?¡± Li Hao blinked. ¡°From my ancestor?¡±

    ¡°Of course not, from the great majesty, didn¡¯t I say so already?¡± The little tree felt quite helpless. ¡°The Imperial Majesty¡¯s pce has been abandoned. I am the only remaining direct spokesperson. The majesty¡¯s belongings still belong to the majesty even if they are unwanted. I cannot take it back at present, but you can. I entrust you to bring them back!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao nearly choked on his spit. Just listen to these words! Darned if they weren¡¯t high-handed. This great majesty was an overbearing person, wasn¡¯t he? <i>My things are still mine when I don¡¯t want them. I¡¯ll kill whoever dares take them!</i>

    The little tree had mentioned before that this Imperial Majesty immensely disliked being mentioned and would reach through the void to kill whoever mentioned his name. What kind of person was this majesty and what was his rtionship to the ancient Human King?

    The ancient web of rtionships was soplicated!

    ¡°Can these guys have gotten the Mirror of Wind and Cloud?¡±

    ¡°Impossible!¡± denied the little tree again. ¡°That¡¯s impossible because the mirrorst resided with the Human King. Who is able to take anything from the Human King?¡±

    That would be the greatest joke of all! Even the fragments of Sky Gander could not be the Mirror of Wind and Cloud. Fragments were fragments and simply lost if they went missing. How would the Human King leave theplete Mirror of Wind and Cloud randomly lying around? That was an ultimate treasure that the Daoist of Wind and Cloud had painstakingly crafted!

    Although the mirror wasn¡¯t as capable as Sky Gander, it was a treasure of a simr level. It was only lesser because it ultimately imitated Sky Gander.

    ¡°If what they wield is a fragment of Sky Gander... do you mean to say that... they will be very strong?¡± Li Hao understood.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, the most that this world can support at present is peak six elements.¡±

    The young man immediately understood the little tree¡¯s response. No matter how strong a treasure was, using too much strength would result in the void churning one to pieces. Therefore, there would be no appearance of strength greater than peak six element Arcanus.

    Li Hao sneered when his thoughts traveled here. He looked to the group instead of asking the little tree further.

    ¡°What bullshit Wind and Cloud Pavilion!¡± he snorted. ¡°Everyone present here has seen and knows much of the world. It¡¯s just a bunch of rats that can¡¯t step into the light at the bullshit pavilion, some vermin that¡¯s more disgusting than the nine ministries and three great organizations...¡±

    ¡°......¡± Hushed silence stole over the scene as powerhouses of the eight ministries looked at him. Some were quietly furious, others flushed with rage. <i>That... was over the line! You are too cocky!</i>

    ¡°Don¡¯t be mad,¡± Li Hao said faintly. ¡°What I mean to say is that it¡¯s one thing if they can¡¯t produce some crappy ranking of their own. If they can... heh, that means they possess an ultimate treasure. The strongest beneath our heavens is peak six elements. No matter how many treasures they have, that is all they amount to!

    ¡°But if they have an ultimate treasure... Well, then I need to ask for everyone¡¯s cooperation. None of us want our secrets to be revealed. If a ranking is truly posted, then pursue this matter to the end for me. Unless they hole up in a ruin somewhere and refuse toe out, I, Li Hao, will take action on everyone¡¯s behalf and destroy them for no additional charge!¡±

    His words prompted startled looks. It looked like the Wind and Cloud Pavilion had thoroughly infuriated the young man. He was the sort who wouldn¡¯t rise early in the morning if there was nothing in it for him, but volunteering to destroy a target today...

    An ultimate treasure?

    If this ranking really could peer into everything, then none of them had any semnce of privacy left. Who should they kill if not these upstarts wanting to y around with a ranking? Powerhouses cared most about their privacy. One should not undertake a task that one was not capable ofpleting. In an era that was limited to peak six elements, did this Wind and Cloud Pavilion think themselves as gods just because they likely had a few? So did the nine ministries and royal family have a couple!

    ¡°I¡¯m just curious who¡¯s backing them,¡± said Chen Yao. ¡°What¡¯s their goal? Kicking up this fuss at this time... We¡¯ve already fought the battles that should be fought and killed those we want to kill. The fights that are meant to be will break out sooner orter¡ªthe second awakening is the turning point. Picking right now of all potential timing... what do they want?¡±

    Their provocation wouldn¡¯t be needed by the time the second awakening rolled around. This ranking waspletely superfluous! Why were they doing this now?

    ¡°If my guess is right...¡± Zhao Huaimin of Administrationughed softly. ¡°Commander Li is probably going to be on the ranking. He¡¯s going to be in the top three, if not number one.¡±

    The group started; Li Hao raised a silent eyebrow.

    ¡°Other than Commander Li, Ying Hongyue will likely be on the ranking as well,¡± Zhao Huaimin continued softly. ¡°Some royal members will probably be listed too...¡±

    The group turned over the connotations of his word, soon grasping what he meant. It went without saying that Li Hao had many aces up his sleeves, but so were the royal family and Red Moon hiding themselves well. Even now, the world atrge wasn¡¯t certain what the depths of their strength truly were.

    Li Hao upied the limelight these days and improved at a rapid clip. If some more unexpected developments urred... all sides might decide to just kill him before the second awakening!

    The young man looked quietly at Zhao Huaimin; the man didn¡¯t mind the attention. ¡°It looks like Commander Li might be exerting some pressure on those of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion! Otherwise, with their previous style, they would slowly release the ranking bit by bit and do something else before the second awakening.

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    ¡°But now that they¡¯ve moved up their timeline...¡± Zhao Huaimin regarded Li Hao in a meaningful fashion. ¡°Can it be... that Commander Li already possesses the strength to threaten all of the factions in the world?¡±

    This was a probing question and also spection. The pavilion¡¯s appearance today was most likely targeting Li Hao. Otherwise, who would offend him at this time? And yet, that was precisely what they¡¯d done!

    This indicated that Li Hao would be first on the ranking if nothing unexpected further developed, or he¡¯d be top three at worst. Not only that, but his people would likely be listed as well, and toward the top.

    Zhao Huaimin was slightly baffled and hesitant himself. Had Li Hao really grown so strong to threaten this shadowy organization? Why else would they undertake such actions if that wasn¡¯t the case?

    ¡°Minister Zhao thinks so highly of me!¡±ughed Li Hao. ¡°Since you¡¯ve already spoken thus, then this random ranking that they¡¯reing up with ispletely inconsequential.¡±

    Zhao Huaimin didn¡¯t respond. If the Wind and Cloud Pavilion really could rank all powerhouses in the world... Then putting Li Hao in the top three... might have some truth to it. It may be that he really was exerting a lot of pressure on the organization, so they were forced to do so and pray that the various factions of the world killed the young man before the second awakening.

    <i>Is this Ying Hongyue¡¯s doing?</i> That was a possibility! But... would it be Ying Hongyue?

    At the same time, Li Hao was contemting if Zhao Huaimin¡¯s words made sense. Perhaps a little. Perhaps... this organization had discovered his supernatural characters or sensed something that gave them pressure. Maybe they thought that he was improving too quickly and was forced to take this kind of action, to stir up trouble when so many heavyweights were gathered.

    Of course, none of this mattered. So what if they put him as number one?

    ¡°Does it matter if they really trump up a ranking and put me as number two, then Martial Uncle Hong and the rest as number two or three?¡±ughed Li Hao. ¡°Will all of you believe it? Granted, it doesn¡¯t matter if you do. Just try me!

    ¡°Alright, I¡¯m not in the mood for this anymore. This concludes the inauguration ceremony. How inauspicious!¡± The smile vanished from Li Hao¡¯s face. ¡°The Wind and Cloud Pavilion humiliated me to my face withpleteck of reservation. A nonofficial organization is ying around at enacting a ranking to stir up trouble beneath the heavens. They will join the three great organizations as evil supernatural organizations! I hope none of you have anything to do with it, particrly the Tranquil Duke!¡±

    The young man looked at the duke, his eyes narrowing with a cold re. ¡°It was you who threw the first stone today, and this happened shortly thereafter. You better pray that I don¡¯t find anything on you or that you¡¯re not connected to this pavilion, or I¡¯ll raze yourplex to the ground!¡±

    ¡°Commander Li¡¯s words are a bit over the line.¡± The duke frowned. ¡°I¡¯m just discussing something ording to its own merits. How does that turn into casting the first stone? Not to mention, Commander Li said that you would bring thew to bear against superhumans, that everything must be ording to thew...¡±

    The young man closed his eyes, surprising the duke. Was this the end of it? That easy?

    Six old men abruptly appeared, each of them in masks and charging the Tranquil Duke with a variety of weapons!

    The Valiant Duke¡¯s heart skipped a beat when he wanted to shout angrily. Yao Si had locked onto him. The various powerhouses in the crowd also spasmed with rm. They were all being targeted individually!

    ¡°Who are these brazen scum to incite trouble on the day of my inauguration ceremony?!¡± Li Hao bit off coldly. ¡°It must be the remnants of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. You court death!¡±

    He mmed out with a palm strike of the wind, thunder, water, fire, and metal elements! A massive rumble shook the area. When people¡¯s eyes could focus again, they saw the Tranquil Duke vomiting blood and a bloody hole in his chest!

    Everyone jerked with shock!

    The six masked men who killed him were lifeless on the ground.

    ¡°Brazen scum!¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°The Wind and Cloud Pavilion are indeed ruthless and brutal! Take them away and feed them to the dogs in the back! As for the Tranquil Duke... what a pity. He was killed by the Wind and Cloud scum. It looks like I misunderstood him just now!

    ¡°What a shame that I was one step too slow. That vermin was so bold as to kill someone right in front of me! Damn them! Men, give the duke a proper burial!¡±

    A deathly silence rang loudly over the gathering. The Tranquil Duke was still vomiting blood on the ground, not yet fully dead. Bitter and incredulous, he stared wide-eyed at Li Hao. He didn¡¯t believe that Li Hao would kill him in front of the representatives one hundred factions!

    How could this have happened??

    He was a three element Arcanus! Not even a six element Arcanus could¡¯ve killed him in an instant if Li Hao hadn¡¯t be involved! He twitched, wanting to take out some Water of Life to save himself. The duke also looked at the Valiant Duke, attempting to plead for help. But someone coughed the moment he moved.

    Hou Xiaochen coughed violently as spear intent that threatened to rip through the skies mmed into the duke¡¯s mind. The Tranquil Duke¡¯s presence immediately dissipated.

    Manager Yu hastily passed over a white handkerchief as Hou Xiaochen continued coughing violently. Crimson blood dyed it red and he looked around with some embarrassment. ¡°My... apologies... My body¡¯s always been in poor shape.¡±

    No one made a sound!

 Chapter 810: Deliberate Misrepresentation (III)

    <h4>Chapter 810: Deliberate Misrepresentation (III)</h4>

    The Tranquil Duke had been alive just now, but he waspletely dead in the blink of an eye. Everyone had eyes and could see for themselves. Even if they hadn¡¯t felt or caught sight of anything, they could more or less guess at what had happened. Hou Xiaochen had acted from the shadows!

    Damned if the man wasn¡¯t brazen to the extreme!

    The hulking Valiant Duke stood to the side. He didn¡¯t say a word and simply looked at Li Hao and Hou Xiaochen. These Silver Moon madmen werepletely crazy! They killed a three element Arcanus at the drop of a hat¡ªand that had been a duke! Were they not going to stop until theypletely offended everyone in the world?!

    The Steadfast Duke and Tranquil Duke each represented a continent, as did he for the southern continent! Did Li Hao care about that?

    Not at all!

    The Valiant Duke felt a grave threat staring at him in the face. These madmen would set aside all considerations if he ever enraged them!

    <i>After a long moment.</i>

    Zhao Huaimin looked at Li Hao and asked faintly, ¡°Commander Li... what... happened just now?¡±

    Six masked viins had abruptly taken a stand. They were all close to one or two element Arcanus. However, the Tranquil Duke had demonstrated the strength of at least three element Arcanus, he wouldn¡¯t have fallen to just one strike!

    Li Hao had brought the strength of five elements to bear. Those six were supposedly dead¡ªwere they really? The audience watched the Demon Hunters swiftly drag the men away, their expressions gradually turning livid.

    <i>Do you think we¡¯re blind?! Some of those masked men are cracking open their eyes right now. The fuck! Li Hao, this goes beyond the pale! Aren¡¯t these six the six geezers who were watching the show outside earlier? They¡¯re the freaking old guard from Silver Moon! Do you really think we don¡¯t recognize them?? We¡¯ll chop off our own heads for you if you aren¡¯t behind this with transmitted instructions!</i>

    So the Tranquil Duke was dead... just like that? It was too hard to believe!

    Hong Yitang and the rest locked onto the powerhouses in theplex. Anyone who dared move would be met with thunderous retribution.

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    Li Hao had deliberately misrepresented the situation in front of more than one hundred people and put on a show to misdirect everyone! <i>Damn it, this is Li Hao?? The one who speaks endlessly aboutw and order?! It¡¯s just tant double standards!</i>

    The Tranquil Duke might have had his own reason to be confident and felt that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t do anything to him without evidence. Perhaps he¡¯d reached an agreement with the Valiant Duke or perhaps other situations would crop up...

    Whatever it was, the duke likely never anticipated that Li Hao would outright kill him in front of everyone with such tant lies! Six masked men, people from the Wind and Cloud Pavilion... Li Hao even had the perfect scapegoat!

    These people had just announced their presence to the entire city, made a mockery of the proceedings, and then left. Once word of this got out, who would believe that it was Li Hao behind the Tranquil Duke¡¯s assassination?

    Yang Shan was struggling to keep hisposure. Dead? The mighty Tranquil Duke was dead so easily??

    Li Hao¡¯s palm strike had seemed to be aimed at the six ¡®viins¡¯, but the audience was well aware of whether or not it truly had been. An explosion had thrown the area into disarray. That palm strike must have directly hit the duke. A three element Arcanus wouldn¡¯t have died so easily under any other circumstances!

    Three elements were absolutely a premier heavyweight of the day! How could six martial masters that hadn¡¯t crossed over, their strongest the equivalent of two elements, kill a three element so quickly??

    Utter bullshit!

    ¡°Commander Li...¡± the Valiant Duke raised with an unpleasant expression. ¡°It¡¯s one thing for you to dispose of the criminals¡¯ bodies, but the Tranquil Duke was a duke, after all. Let his people take him back for burial!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s people were dragging the Tranquil Duke¡¯s corpse away too! What did he mean by that?

    ¡°I need to investigate how he died,¡± Li Hao answered calmly. ¡°Depending on what method, supernatural ability, or internal force... I may be able to find some clues and uproot the Wind and Cloud Pavilion¡¯s headquarters in one go! It¡¯s fine that the Valiant Duke does not understand how an investigation should be conducted. The Skystar Commander Office is most familiar with this job and I was once an inspector at the Inspectorate. I handled many cases and even received banners ofmendation. Go ask around Silver City if you don¡¯t believe me!

    ¡°I will naturally bury the body properly once the investigation isplete. If the duke¡¯s household finds that inappropriate, we will return his body to their residence in Skystar City after three days. Don¡¯t worry and trust the professionals!

    ¡°s, I was inept!¡± the young man sighed. ¡°I did not detect the Wind and Cloud Pavilion hiding so many powerhouses nearby. As the Skystarmander, I failed to adequately protect my guests and a duke was killed under my watch...

    ¡°The Wind and Cloud Pavilion is hereby recognized as the fourth evil supernatural organization!¡± His voice rang throughout the city after a heat sigh. ¡°They deserve death and destruction! They sent six Arcanus to way my guests and killed the Tranquil Duke! Although I have exterminated the viins, my ipetence permitted the duke to perish.

    ¡°A pir of the nation has fallen today and we grieve deeply over thete duke! These are my sins, so today, Li Hao requests to be demoted three ranks and have my wages confiscated for ten years. I will be actingmander instead and will utilize all of my strength to hunt down this Wind and Cloud Pavilion. I request the Skystar King¡¯s approval and will not rest before eradicating them!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The people blinked at the information conveyed through his resonant tones. They were just wondering what a Wind and Cloud Pavilion was when Li Hao¡¯s voice enlightened them. What a surprising turn of events!

    ¡°So Commander Li was... ambushed by this evil organization?¡±

    ¡°Probably? He must have been too careless!¡±

    ¡°Where¡¯s this Wind and Cloud Pavilion from? I know about the Divine Masters Ranking, but who would¡¯ve thought that they would have so many heavyweights? Six Arcanus and lying in wait for guests... They¡¯re really bold and deserve their deaths! It¡¯s just that the Tranquil Duke... Er, who¡¯s the Tranquil Duke?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s from the western continent, don¡¯t you know? One of the three founding dukes!¡±

    ¡°Oh I see, what a pity. I don¡¯t really know him, but he was killed aftering to the capital to offer congrattions to Li Hao. Do you think... you know what I mean. Do you think those groups wanting to p themander¡¯s face made up this Wind and Cloud Pavilion?¡±

    ¡°Ooh, that¡¯s possible. Six Arcanus is no small sum. I¡¯ve never heard of this pavilion thing before, so where would they get so many experts from? I bet those ministries and others are still unwilling to ept themander¡¯s authority and want to humiliate him!¡±

    ¡°Will he really be demoted and have his wages confiscated?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. The Tranquil Duke was probably on themander¡¯s side. What a pity that he¡¯s dead just like this. Apparently there¡¯s a lot of heavyweights present today, but no one tried to help him. That¡¯s not normal. I bet you that he especially traveled here to offer his congrattions and join themander¡¯s banner. What a damn shame!¡±

    ¡°Seriously. The Tranquil Duke... ai! Commander Li¡¯s also in a tough spot. He¡¯s killed so many of their strongest, but it still doesn¡¯t put them in their ces...¡±

    ¡°I know, right?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Discussion and gossip flurried as the entire city discussed the events with sadness. In their eyes, the Tranquil Duke must have personally made the trip from the far off west specifically to offer his services to Li Hao. There was no other possible exnation.

    So many people survived that attack; he was the only one dead. The nine ministries must be behind this to set an example to everyone present! They wanted to send a message that whoever dared join Li Hao¡¯s camp would die!

    What Wind and Cloud Pavilion? That must be a front for the nine ministries! The Tranquil Duke must have been one of Li Hao¡¯s. What a pity that even a local overlord would be killed for his intentions. These people were too much and too bold in their attempts to suppress Commander Li!

    ......

    <i>The Skystar Commander Office.</i>

    All was quiet. The audience was familiar with shameless tendencies, but they¡¯d never met someone who insisted on bald-faced lies in front of several hundred and the various leaders of their factions. The young man twisted falsehood into the truth. Was... he even human??

    This wasn¡¯t just being shameless, this was treating everyone like an idiot! Many people turned toward the Prince of Southern Conciliation, awaiting the royal family¡¯s response.

    A sigh traveled from the pce after a while. ¡°To think that the Tranquil Duke would fall... this is indeed a grave loss to the nation! However, this has nothing to do with the Skystar Marquis. No one wished for this ident to take ce!

    ¡°The Tranquil Duke is to be buried ording to the appropriate pomp and circumstance of a duke. The Skystar Marquis should be rewarded for exterminating members of an evil supernatural organization, but that shall be waived in light of the nation¡¯s tragic loss today. The Skystar Marquis must eliminate all of these evil organizations!¡±

    ¡°Li Hao will most certainly eradicate these animals down to the veryst!¡± Li Hao dered portentously with a solemn expression. ¡°The Wind and Cloud Pavilion will be the first target on the Skystar Commander Office¡¯s list. That they dare ughter whoever they will on this day and kill an important subject of the dynasty... I, Li Hao, will turn them into dust!¡±

    Everyone could sense his anger in his fading tones. An outpouring of sympathy rose from the people. It looked like this Tranquil Duke truly hade to join Li Hao. Look at how angry themander was! They could sense it from his voice that he was infuriated!

    ......

    <i>Back at the Skystar Commander Office.</i>

    Of the quiet crowd, some were inwardly sneering to themselves while others cursed madly. What a grand show!

    ¡°Let us end things here,¡± Li Hao said tiredly. ¡°My apologies and thank goodness everyone else is alright. The Wind and Cloud Pavilion will not be getting away with their deeds. I will most assuredly kill them all as a proper ounting to you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± No one responded to him and figures soon turned to leave.

 Chapter 811: Deliberate Misrepresentation (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 811: Deliberate Misrepresentation (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Royal uncle, is... no one taking a stand?¡± the ninth prince transmitted to the Prince of Southern Conciliation. ¡°The Tranquil Duke should be cohorts with the Martial Duke. I thought the Tranquil Duke was fully confident in his abilities, judging by how he was antagonizing Li Hao today. But he was beaten to death with one p...¡±

    The ninth prince had thought that the duke had quite the trump cards up his sleeve. How had he died so suddenly? It was... so perplexing!

    The Prince of Southern Conciliation walked off without a flicker of change in expression. ¡°He didn¡¯t anticipate either that there would be such a difference between three and five elements,¡± he transmitted back. ¡°Neither did I expect that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t be an ordinary five element Arcanus. He¡¯s on par with six elements! That palm strike didn¡¯t even give the three element Tranquil Duke time to react!

    ¡°It¡¯s not only him, but Hou Xiaochen, Hong Yitang, and Yao Si who are also iparable. They locked onto a few powerhouses in the audience, including me. Their presences were finely honed in on me and I would¡¯ve suffered an overwhelming reaction if I¡¯d done anything...¡±

    There hadn¡¯t been any time to react or room to maneuver in! The duke was dead in the blink of an eye! Even if the Valiant Duke was of the mind to do something, would he have dared move?

    No!

    ¡°Then... what do they mean by this?¡± The ninth prince didn¡¯t understand. These two dukes hadn¡¯te to the capital just to provoke Li Hao, had they? They must have another goal in mind.

    The Prince of Southern Conciliation nced at him. <i>Do you really not know, or are you pretending not to know?</i>

    ¡°Royal uncle, the Tranquil Duke isn¡¯t that dumb. What did he want?¡± transmitted the seventh princess as well.

    The Prince of Southern Conciliation did not respond. It wasn¡¯t until they were very far away that he transmitted, ¡°Could the Valiant Duke havee to Skystar City without my permission? Would they have dared antagonize Li Hao if there wasn¡¯t anyone who guaranteed their safety?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The two royal children blinked and fell silent with incredulity. Their royal father was behind this? But... why?

    The Prince of Southern Conciliation couldn¡¯t be bothered to exin further. Why? Because even if there was some friction between the royal family and three founding dukes, they were of one whole in the end. It was a different conceptpared to the nine ministries or Li Hao. The royal family and three dukes possessed the same goals and origins from two hundred years ago.

    The nine ministries had tacitly given way to Li Hao¡¯s desire to establish some authority on this asion, but the royal family wasn¡¯t willing to let the young man proceed so smoothly. However, they were simply going to be a small pest and somewhat keep the young man in check. The royal family would then discuss important matters with the two dukes.

    But now look at the situation! One of the dukes was dead! Would the Valiant Duke be willing to converse with the royal family now?

    Absolutely not!

    That royal brother of his always thought so highly of himself and felt that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t dare do anything. Reality proved otherwise! He beat the Tranquil Duke to death on the spot and asked if the royal family wanted to demote him. Look at what his royal brother had been forced into responding with!

    This was simply just creating trouble for himself!

    The Prince of Southern Conciliation heartily vented his feelings to himself. The Valiant Duke would now probably run off in the middle of the night and unease would rock the southern continent. That guy wouldn¡¯t stay in the royal capital, no matter what!

    This had been a prime opportunity to discuss peace between them, but his royal brother had made a royal mess of it all! The old Tranquil Duke would certainly be dissatisfied with this turn of events and point his ire at Li Hao and the Skystar King. The western and southern continents would fully rage out of their control!

    ......

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    Chen Yao was rather surprised and transmitted to his father, ¡°Were those two dukes... from the royal family?¡±

    ¡°Most likely.¡±

    ¡°The Skystar King... really is... There¡¯s really no other way to put it... has great ambition but scant ability. He¡¯s far worse than his father!¡±

    The old inspector general nodded with a sigh and transmitted back, ¡°That¡¯s what people also say about you!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Chen Yao almost vomited blood from anger!

    His father didn¡¯t feel like he¡¯d said anything wrong. <i>This is how you evaluate the Skystar King and it is how others evaluate you as well. Great ambition, scant ability, and far worse than his father! But none of you think that of yourselves.</i>

    <i>As expected, the second generation that grows up in a greenhouse is not up to scratch. Our generation was stronger and surged forward with great momentum. We beat the shit out of the Skystar King. Although we didn¡¯t fully attain all of our goals, it was already incredible in that age to overthrow the royal family.</i>

    Chen Zhongtian thought fondly of these past events¡ªthey were quite the aplishment. But when it came to their sons, everything took a turn for the worse. The second generations took their ces, but each was worse than the rest. They showed no signs of improvement after fighting for a couple of decades.

    They used to not criticize each other since they were in simr conditions, but now there was a pack of wolves roaming the world. If these second generations were supposed to take a stand, they might not emerge victorious. Those wolves weren¡¯t old, but they were all from that sted Silver Moon. People from that province all had a certain feral quality to them.

    It looked like he and his old friends needed to take the stage soon to keep things under control, or the situation would soon grow out of hand.

    Chen Yao cursed to himself before saying, ¡°Hou Xiaochen... Did Hou Xiaochen use his mind intent to suppress the Tranquil Duke? Isn¡¯t he a supernatural now? Why is his mind intent still so strong, and how can he still use spear intent?¡±

    Chen Zhongtian sank into deep thought. As the strongest present, his senses had captured a few hints. He transmitted after momentary thought, ¡°I¡¯m not sure, but what I can be certain of is that these guys... might have all hidden their strength. Be careful and don¡¯t needlessly aggravate them! Li Hao must be at least on par with a six element if he could kill the Tranquil Duke with one palm strike!

    ¡°He¡¯s improving so quickly that it¡¯s unbelievable. I also think that his Arcanus level is different from other people¡¯s Arcanus level!¡± The old inspector general frowned faintly. ¡°You must be careful. Also, those old fellows took action without hesitation and went straight for the jugr. Li Hao might have promised them something. We might have to deal with a few more thorny opponents in the days toe...¡±

    ¡°Maybe he promised to help them ascend to the supernatural domain?¡±

    ¡°Possibly!¡±

    ¡°Silver Moon martial masters have always refused to ascend,¡± Chen Yao clucked his tongue. ¡°Why have they lost those reservations now?¡±

    ¡°The Breathing Method of the Five Styles?¡± The old inspector general was just as baffled as he didn¡¯t have more information. ¡°It¡¯s hard to say. Let¡¯s wait and see. The Arcanus Ranking will be out in three days. I¡¯d like to see if that pavilion has the ability to imitate the Daoist Wind and Cloud of old. It will be interesting if they do.¡±

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you worried about being exposed?¡±

    ¡°Heh!¡± The old inspector general didn¡¯t care. ¡°What am I afraid of? I¡¯m not interested in seizing power and my son is useless. You tell me, what am I afraid of being exposed for?¡±

    <i>Fuck you!</i> Chen Yao cursed his useless git of a father. The old man loved insulting him, had he gained another daughtertely?<i> I have no idea! I haven¡¯t bothered to care if he¡¯s sired a few more bastardstely. He already has so many that I can¡¯t be bothered.</i>

    ......

    <i>The rear yard of the Skystar Commander Office.</i>

    Six old men scrambled up from the ground and took off their masks. They cast strange looks intermixed with curiosity at Li Hao. Momentster, someone stuck up their thumb.

    ¡°As expected of Yuan Shuo¡¯s disciple... No, you should be Yuan Shuo¡¯s master. That guy¡¯s not as crazy as you!¡±

    They hadn¡¯t believed it when they received Li Hao¡¯s transmission. The young man sent them only one sentence, ¡°Have some fun killing the Tranquil Duke!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Jubtion seized them secondster as the old men flung themselves forward without another word. They¡¯d thought it would be difficult to kill the duke, but Li Hao took the field himself and mmed through the man with one palm strike!

    <i>So violent, so brutal, we like that! This trip was worth it, alright!</i>

    The old men were highly excited. The years had been too boring and they¡¯d all been despondent after the great loss they suffered in Skystar City. This trip was helping them shake off the gloom!

    ¡°It¡¯s the seniors who are strong,¡± Li Haoughed, the very picture of humility. ¡°Deputy Zhou told me that all of you were well known throughout thend back in the day, that each of you could bring part of the world to heel by yourselves. I just couldn¡¯t take it anymore and let my anger get the better of me. I hadn¡¯t thought that the seniors would show me so much face. Li Hao has created trouble for everyone!¡±

    ¡°Thed is too humble.¡± An ethereal-looking old man stroked his beard with a smile. ¡°But it¡¯s good to be humble. Silver Moon martial masters have ever been humble. This is good! It speaks well for your future!¡±

    ¡°Youvish me with praise.¡± Li Hao smiled radiantly. ¡°It has been a long day for you and I¡¯ll have my people arrange residences for you. They¡¯ll deliver Water of Life for you to brew some tea or take a bath with. It¡¯s been a long journey, so please go rest first...¡±

    The old men hadn¡¯t wanted to live in government headquarters and reflexively wanted to decline when they heard Li Hao¡¯s words. Water of Life, tea, bath...

    <i>Holy hell!</i> Could they leave after that?

    ¡°What a goodd, what a promising talent!¡± Smiles wreathed the faces of the old men. ¡°Yuan Shuo has done well to raise such a disciple with high potential. This is to the fortune of Silver Moon martial masters, so we shall avail ourselves of your hospitality!¡±

    ¡°As it should be!¡± Li Hao beamed merrily. ¡°Please stay for a while. This ce is big and I have so much Water of Life. I was worrying over how to use it all!¡±

    ¡°Then... we¡¯ll have to stay for a while.¡± The group roared withughter and grew even more enthusiastic. ¡°Don¡¯t stand on ceremony with us now, Little Li. Us old fiends are still a bag of tough bones. Call upon us anytime you need to kill someone!¡±

    They walked toward the rear under Liu Long¡¯s hearty guidance, exchanging transmitted conversation all the while with immense excitement. What a good ce! This trip was so worth it!

    Hou Xiaochen and the others didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. What were these old farts doing here? They were the old guard and a bunch of killing enthusiasts. And Li Hao was inviting them to stay? Did he feel that he didn¡¯t have enough on his te already?

 Chapter 812: Li Haoâ€™s Speed (I)

    <h4>Chapter 812: Li Hao¡¯s Speed (I)</h4>

    ¡°Send advance notification to Seniors Northern Fist and Tyrant de!¡± Li Hao stroked his chin with a grin. ¡°The Wind and Cloud Pavilion can determine our strength, is it? They¡¯re publishing a ranking in three days, are they? Can they publish a ranking everyday?¡±

    He smiled deviously.<i> I can create powerhouses everyday! You wanna y? Publish a ranking today and I¡¯ll convert a new batch of premier martial masters to Arcanus tomorrow! I wanted to keep a low profile, but since you guys want to y, let¡¯s y!</i>

    <i>I¡¯d wanted to make a move on the ruins first and then take on the City of Supernaturals or three great organizations, but this is just as good. I¡¯ll start with you!</i>

    ......

    The inauguration ceremony of the Skystar Commander Office was also the start of a variety of unexpected developments. All sides had thought that the day would proceed smoothly. After all, Li Hao¡¯s people had just killed arge sum of powerhouses a few days before to deter the factions of the world.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that quiet Wind and Cloud Pavilion would emerge on inauguration day and kill the Tranquil Duke of the west? It gave rise to quite an uproar.

    The Valiant Duke who¡¯de with him wasn¡¯t actually that courageous despite his rough-and-tumble appearance. He ran off with his men that very night. He exercised extreme caution the entire way, deathly afraid of his movements being known and someoneing from his head.

    ......

    Once they learned that Li Hao had killedrge sums of powerhouses ahead of time, the silver Moon martial masters traveling to support the young man turned around on the spot to return home. They didn¡¯t participate in the inauguration ceremony.

    Walking along the central coastline, Northern Fist took out his transmission pendant for a look when he sensed its vibration. He raised his eyebrows at the message.

    Li Hao had almost never asked for help before, even when faced with pressure from the nine ministries. He¡¯d handled it himself each time. It was always Silver Moon martial masters going to help him of their own ord.

    It was the same this time, but the young man had eliminated his opponents beforehand. Silver Moon martial masters were familiar with Li Hao¡¯s character¡ªhe was eager to prove himself. But this time, he was the originator of this message for help!

    Northern Fist was very surprised and read the message more closely. Some sort of Wind and Cloud Pavilion was prompting the young fellow to ask for help? This was his first time reaching out to the Silver Moon martial masters.

    ¡°Is the Wind and Cloud Pavilion... that strong?¡± Northern Fist was confused and taken aback. It was very rare that a situation would prompt him to send out requests for assistance.

    ¡°How interesting!¡±ughed Northern Fist. He¡¯d thought that Li Hao wouldn¡¯t encounter further trouble before the second awakening as he¡¯d stabilized his footing in the world. To think that the unexpected would ur! He was already prepared to return to Silver Moon, cross Ash Mountain, and have some fun in Great Li. It looked like... there was more work to be done.

    Northern Fist promptly turned around and flew toward the central region. This was the little guy¡¯s first time bowing his head and asking for help. It would be not showing him face if Northern Fist didn¡¯t answer the call.

    ......

    The coolly aloof Tyrant de also quickly turned around and rushed toward Skystar City.

    ......

    People were suddenly rushing toward the royal capital from all sides. Thunderleg had almost reached home when he received word. He grimaced with anguish. What... was going on with Li Hao to voluntarily ask for help? Did he think that he couldn¡¯t take on the Wind and Cloud Pavilion, or did he think that he would be in a lot of trouble after the ranking was released?

    ¡°So much trouble!¡± A conflicted Thunderleg leered with yellow teeth. Why did little fellows always like to stir up trouble? What was so bad about finding a ce, taking a few wives, and having a bunch of children?

    Indecision warred within him for a while before he sighed and looked at therge house in front of him. He left without entering to see his children.

    ......

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    Director General Zhao was handling official matters as his days were busy after Ole Zhou left. epting a group of refugeestely was giving him the greatest headache. There was no end of duties to handle everyday.

    The transmission pendant next to him buzzed as he busied himself. He frowned when he picked it up for a nce¡ªthe Wind and Cloud Pavilion, the organization behind the Divine Masters Ranking.

    Strength unknown.

    Since their strength was unknown... was Li Hao cing too much importance on them? The transmission pendant said that it hoped Silver Moon would send Huang Yu and Kong Jie to reinforce them at Skystar City.

    ¡°Ole Zhou¡¯s gone, Little Hou¡¯s gone, and even those old farts are gone.¡± The director general frowned. ¡°And you want more people??¡±

    He really was conflicted by the request. Was there a need for that? The province was going to be emptied at this rate!

    As he grappled with the difficult request, the door to his office was kicked open.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to Skystar City!¡± Kong Jie hollered excitedly.

    ¡°......¡± Director General Zhao sighed.<i> Li Hao throws a wrench into things after I finally calm this guy down. Why do things never stop around here? The second awakening is around the corner and Silver Moon is in dire straits. What is all this!</i>

    His head pounding, the director general looked at Kong Jie and was about to respond when Huang Yu strode in.

    ¡°Li Hao almost never asks for help. It looks like he¡¯s discovered something and finds it hard to resolve by himself. I¡¯ll go, Kong Jie should stay.¡±

    An unpleasant look crept across Kong Jie¡¯s face!

    ¡°Are you looking down on me?¡±

    Huang Yu nodded. Soldiers were more frank individuals. It¡¯s enough that you know it, why must you speak about it? You¡¯re not even an Arcanus, what will you do there?

    ¡°......¡± Kong Jie snorted. ¡°My daughter is still there!¡±

    ¡°Your daughter and Berserk de¡¯s disciple has been there the entire time. Don¡¯t use this as an excuse.¡±

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t seen the two when he was in Skystar City either, but he didn¡¯t pay it much heed. Hou Xiaochen had probably sent them on a mission or something. They weren¡¯t dead, in any case.

    Kong Jie boiled over with fury while Director General Zhao clutched his head. <i>Damn it! All of you guys want to leave?? All of your ambitions are ring up and there¡¯s nothing that can be done to pull you back!</i>

    But since it was Li Hao requesting help... Forget it.

    ¡°Go!¡± sighed the director general. These two had certainly made up their minds since they were in his office. What else could be said in that case? He rubbed his temples wearily. ¡°Be careful and don¡¯t die in Skystar City. You guys know that it¡¯s hard for me to protect Silver Moon without the three of you. The four protectors were established to guard Silver Moon, but all of you keep running off to other locations. It¡¯s quite worrying.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯ll eliminate the enemy outside our doorsteps!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Where did you learn that from? </i>Director General Zhao nced wordlessly at Kong Jie. ¡°Go and cut the nonsense!¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± Kong Jie was immediately gone.

    ¡°Don¡¯t tire yourself out, Ole Zhao,¡± Huang Yu spoke some words offort. ¡°Delegate whatever you can. The young need to be tempered more.¡±

    ¡°Then you can stay. Li Hao¡¯s need shouldn¡¯t be that pressing...¡±

    Huang Yu was gone before Director General Zhao could finish his sentence.

    <i>Okay, fuck you all. If it wasn¡¯t for consideration of my dignity, I¡¯d curse you all to death. You guys are utterly ridiculous!</i>

    ......

    Various powerhouses rushed to Skystar City. This was Demon Sword¡¯s first call for help. They were all very surprised and showed him a lot of face. Sky Sword chatted briefly with the heir of the Wind Thunder Sword before setting off from Sky Sword Mountain again and returning to Skystar City.

    ......

    Unrest rocked the outside world.

    <i>The City of Supernaturals.</i>

    The female city lord furrowed her brows in a long pause. ¡°Has the Wind and Cloud Pavilion... obtained Daoist Wind and Cloud¡¯s heritage?¡±

    Some didn¡¯t know the daoist and wanted to ask further when the city lord waved them off.

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to ask, just know that the daoist was very strong. Where does this Wind and Cloud Pavilione from? I almost never heard of them and did investigate the one behind the Divine Masters Ranking before. They are very mysterious and there was no sign of a connection to Daoist Wind and Cloud.¡±

    An organization that dared publish a ranking would not go unnoticed by the various factions. People had looked into their background long ago, but didn¡¯t find anything. Each iteration of the Divine Masters Ranking was very unexpected.

    ¡°Then we...¡±

    ¡°Wait!¡±ughed the city lord. ¡°I¡¯d like to see on what basis they are so arrogant about their ranking to be published in three days!¡±

    All sides were avoiding Li Hao these days, fearful that he would create trouble for them before the second awakening. This was fun, a new yer appeared to provoke the young man.

    ......

    <i>Skystar City.</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything else after making a series of arrangements. He swiftly walked to the main hall.

    ¡°Get me a copy of the Divine Masters Ranking... No, I want a copy of each publication!¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir!¡± A vice minister trotted off to carry out his orders and quickly returned with a stack of rankings. He was wreathed in smiles. ¡°Commander, the ranking first appeared two years ago and was refreshed every three months at first, then once a month. It has been updated ten times thus far, and here are all ten.¡±

    ¡°Are these the originals?¡± asked Li Hao.

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    ¡°I said, are these the originals?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m... not sure!¡± the vice minister replied awkwardly.

    ¡°Then go ask! I want the originals, the first prints and not reproductions!¡±

    Although the vice minister wanted to retort with an attitude, he quickly gave orders for someone to look into it. As one of the nine ministries, the Ministry of the Judiciary remained adept in executing its duties despite theck of the Hu father and son.

 Chapter 813: Li Haoâ€™s Speed (II)

    <h4>Chapter 813: Li Hao¡¯s Speed (II)</h4>

    Li Hao waited less than an hour for the profusely sweating vice minister to return with ten booklets.

    ¡°Commander, these are first edition Divine Master Rankings that we¡¯ve collected from various sources. We can¡¯t promise that these are the originals, but we can guarantee that these were the first versions to appear in the market!¡±

    Li Hao took the ten booklets without further word and held them up for close inspection. The golden covers gave them a valuable air. A red light sparkled in his eyes as the young man scanned them.

    He quickly threw out one of them¡ªit was different from the other nine. Either that one was a fake, or the other nine were fake. He continued his observations before saying, ¡°Get me some veteran craftsmen rted to paper-making. I want those with a lot of experience!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The vice minister could guess at Li Hao¡¯s intentions and quickly found the right people for his superior.

    ......

    Li Hao questioned a lot of people throughout the day. Having served one year as an inspector, his powers of observation, deduction, and intelligence gathering were unmatched, despite hisck of big cases under his belt. He wouldn¡¯t have identified the connection between the eight families otherwise.

    He just didn¡¯t personally conduct any investigations after his strength grew. But today, he was thoroughly enraged. Not only did he personally conduct the investigation, he summoned some veteran inspectors from Silver City to jointly scrutinize the origins of the Divine Masters Ranking.

    ......

    <i>Night.</i>

    A group of powerhouses broke through the void and headed straight for South Peak province. The Divine Masters Ranking first appeared in the central region, but ording to Li Hao¡¯s information, the originals were printed on paper unique to South Peak. Therefore, their base was very likely in that particr province.

    South Peak was the southern bulwark of Skystar City¡¯s southern belt of territories.

    <i>The South Peak Governor General¡¯s office.</i>

    The South Peak governor general was a hard working individual as he was still holding meetingste at night. His expression shifted drastically and he wanted to raise a warning when the conference room doors were thrown back. A group of people rushed in.

    Eyes widened with rm, the look in his eyes changed to surprise and slight fear when he recognized the visitors. He rose with bafflement. ¡°I did not expect Commander Li to grace us with your presence... I have failed to properly wee you!¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head and ignored the greeting. A red light sparkled in his eyes as he looked at everyone in the conference room. His hand shed out!

    A middle-aged man¡¯s face ckened with dismay and he wanted to run, but spat out blood after a loud collision. In the next instant, he dangled from Li Hao¡¯s hand.

    The governor general¡¯s eyes widened with horror!

    ¡°This has nothing to do with you!¡± Li Hao said coolly. ¡°I am pursuing scum of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. Who is this person?¡±

    <i>Why did you attack him if you don¡¯t know him??</i> cursed the governor general. He grit his teeth, but kept his temper in check considering the crowd of heavyweights at Li Hao¡¯s back.

    ¡°He is the first deputy director general of the provincial government... Commander Li, this is South Peak province and Deputy Wu is an important official...¡±

    ¡°He is a spy for evil supernaturals, are you sure you want to plead on his behalf?¡±

    The governor general blinked. <i>Is he a spy just because you say he is??</i>

    The middle-aged man continued coughing blood. ¡°Save me, governor general... I... I don¡¯t know anything... about a Wind and Cloud Pavilion...¡±

    Li Hao mmed his palm down and nearly burst the man¡¯s head open.

    ¡°None of you are leaving, you will assist in the investigation!¡± the young man announced to the room. ¡°This person is hiding his strength. A mere deputy director general is an Arcanus and carries a treasure concealing his presence. No matter whether or not he is with the Wind and Cloud Pavilion, there is something very wrong with him!¡±

    The South Peak governor general blinked, looked at Li Hao, and then at the man. That was truly an astonishing revtion. Arcanus?

    South Peak was overseen by a Governor General¡¯s Office and he had just broken through to Arcanus. There were no other Arcanus in the province before him. He¡¯d aplished the ascension only through the twenty drops of Water of Life that the Ministry of Administration had sent him. Otherwise, no one in this age could individually make the advancement without a nt spirit backing them.

    His expression started shifting again. <i>An Arcanus!</i>

    The man was stunned after Li Hao¡¯s blow and finally collected his senses with another mouthful of blood. ¡°Governor general... I am... innocent... The Ministry... of Armed Forces... sent me... to keep the governor general under surveince... I am not... from the Wind and Cloud Pavilion...¡±

    The governor general straightened and said no more. Perhaps Deputy Wu really was from the Ministry of Armed Forces, but arranging for an Arcanus to keep watch by his side was quite an investment.

    Since Li Hao had fished out the man, he didn¡¯t want to say anything more. Although it was embarrassing, so did the young man also humiliate the nine ministries. A governor general of South Peak province was nothing.

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered to exin more and walked out with the man. His people sealed off the conference room when he reached the door, and a ghastly scream echoed outside the door.

    ......

    Li Hao looked at the man in front of him and took out a book. ¡°Do you recognize this?¡± he asked calmly.

    Panic shed through the man¡¯s eyes, but he quickly responded, ¡°I do, the Divine Masters Ranking.¡±

    ¡°Did you create it?¡±

    ¡°No... I¡¯ve only seen it before... Commander Li, I...¡±

    ¡°The Divine Masters Ranking is swiftly disseminated to all parts of the dynasty whenever it is published,¡± Li Haoughed softly. ¡°There must be other factions involved. A group withdrawn from the world cannot conduct their affairs so efficiently. There must be someone else coordinating with them, and they certainly have a high status!

    ¡°Since the source of the paper is from South Peak, then there must be a South Peak powerhouse or executive coordinating with the Wind and Cloud Pavilion! This kind of paper can only be found in South Peak and all paper-making factories were taken over by the state five years ago.

    ¡°Civilians are not permitted to make paper in order to curtail the spread of culture. Thousands upon thousands of copies of the Divine Masters Ranking are disseminated when it is printed. My investigation would be difficult if education flourished throughout thend.

    ¡°Skystar Dynasty, however, controls the development of education and does not print more than ten thousand books a month in the entire central region! But there are thousands of copies of the Divine Masters Ranking each time it is updated! Are you going to force me to get down in the weeds and see which paper-making factories are printing it?¡±

    In an age of proliferate education, a small workshop could easily print ten thousand books a day. But in this age, strict control was exercised over paper-making factories and print shops in order to control the spread of education. Printing more than one thousand books a year would attract official attention unless that shop was sheltered by an official, to say nothing of thousands upon thousands of products.

    Li Hao had chosen toe tonight because he knew that the South Peak heavyweights were holding a meeting. He wanted to catch them off guard. And as he anticipated! He caught a hidden Arcanus!

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    He wasn¡¯t sure if this one was behind the ranking; it was sufficient that there was something wrong with the man. The man¡¯s powers of concealment were very strong, but nothing could stop Li Hao¡¯s eye that saw through falsehood.

    Despair crept into the man¡¯s face.

    Too fast!

    Truly!

    The Wind and Cloud Pavilion had just appeared in the day, and here he was, captured that night in South Peak. Everything had happened all too quickly and the concealment abilities that he was so proud of didn¡¯t prove useful in the slightest.

    ¡°Commander, it has nothing to do with me...¡± he admitted hopelessly. ¡°I¡¯m just... doing a job... in return for payment... They give me some cultivation resources and I give them protection... I haven¡¯t participated in anything...¡±

    ¡°So this means you admit you¡¯re a Wind and Cloud Pavilion member?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Color drained from the man¡¯s face. ¡°I¡¯m just... one of their many partners...¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re an idiot and so are they!¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°Only South Peak has this kind of paper, yet they directly print the Divine Masters Ranking here! And you! You really dare print it! Skystar Dynasty prints more than one hundred thousand books a year. Do you know what that entails??¡±

    The man smiled morbidly, who cared about that? As a powerhouse, they didn¡¯t really care about the details. Who would look into where the paper came from? It was just a few thousand booklets¡ªthat was very little in the grand scheme of things. The Divine Masters Ranking was quickly replicated whenever it was disseminated. Many more copies appeared in the blink of an eye, so a few thousand booklets were insignificant.

    He¡¯d underestimated the abilities of the nine ministries and Li Hao.

    ¡°Commander, I really... am just doing a job for pay. My crime should not deserve death... Please give me a chance to redeem myself...¡±

    ¡°An Arcanus epting payment for a simple job?¡± Li Hao sneered. ¡°Do you take me for a fool? I will consider not killing you if you give me important information!¡±

    He was in a good mood at reeling in a big fish on his first stop. As for alerting his enemies ahead of time, what did he care about? They would¡¯ve moved against him a long time ago if they had the ability to. Had they dared show themselves earlier today?

    He would get to the bottom of their identity first; there would be plenty of ways to eliminate them then. They were just rats hidden in the shadows. It was best if they panicked¡ªpanicking meant mistakes.

    <i>I¡¯ll see how they publish a Divine Masters Ranking in three days! Are they going to write it by hand?</i> Even if they¡¯re hidden in a ruin with printing machines, almost all of the ruins have fallen into silence these days, so the Wind and Cloud Pavilion couldn¡¯t use them. They wouldn¡¯t be looking for help in the outside world if that wasn¡¯t the case.

    Li Hao was going to make them <i>write</i> their sted ranking! If they wanted to disseminate their ranking in three days, they could write thousands of copies!

    The man looked bleakly around him. Everything had happened too quickly; there were no words to describe the depths of his despondency. Those idiots at the Wind and Cloud Pavilion just had to antagonize this one! He¡¯d arrived on their doorstep in less than a day!

 Chapter 814: Li Haoâ€™s Speed (III)

    <h4>Chapter 814: Li Hao¡¯s Speed (III)</h4>

    ¡°Commander, I will speak of everything I know,¡± Deputy Wu nodded with a sigh. ¡°Please spare me!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s more like it!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Talk!¡±

    ¡°The Wind and Cloud Pavilion appeared two years ago. I was a Sr then and in charge of South Peak¡¯s unimportant industries such as education, technology, and research and development.

    ¡°A wealthy merchant sought me out two years ago and expressed a desire to print some advertising pamphlets. You know too, milord, that the dynasty strictly limits these types of actions. I didn¡¯t think much of it and they sent me ten energy stones...¡±

    Ten energy stones were a lot back in those days. They were a very precious resource.

    ¡°Ten energy stones for advertising pamphlets, and you were bold enough to ept them?¡± Li Hao sneered.

    The man didn¡¯t say a word. Any normal person would know that something was afoot, but he wouldn¡¯t have minded even if they wanted him to print banned books. There were too many banned books in the dynasty these days¡ªanything rted to technology, civilian affairs, education, and others were all banned. Simply turning a blind eye would result in arge sum hitting one¡¯s pockets. That was ten energy stones!

    And so, the first edition of the Divine Masters Ranking was published. It was toote when he learned of what material he¡¯d printed, the ranking was already widely avable. As an important member of the province, he knew that producing something like a ranking required strength and confidence in one¡¯s abilities. That wasn¡¯t a task that just anyone could undertake.

    ¡°It was toote then... They paid me handsomely and threatened me with force. They already had Nova level heavyweights back in those times,¡± the man admitted with resignation. ¡°Later on, they gave me a drop of Water of Life and persuaded me a while longer. It all got to my head and I... agreed.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s normal,¡± Li Haoughed. There were plenty of people who colluded with the three great organizations these days, and they were deemed evil supernatural organizations by the authorities. Working with an unknown organization that paid him so much... even the governor general of South Peak might not withstand the temptation, to say nothing of a vice director general.

    ¡°Is the guy who transacted with you still around?¡±

    ¡°He only appeared three times before vanishing.¡± The man shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m in charge of everything now! It was just weaklings who contacted me toward the end. They gave me an original and told me to make copies, then distribute the products. I was in charge of very simple matters, but the payoff is great...¡±

    Li Hao inclined his head with a smile. ¡°Then has their Divine Masters Ranking arrived yet? The one that¡¯s being distributed in three days. It takes time to print them, after all.¡±

    Although the job could bepleted in one day, wasn¡¯t there preparatory work to be done before dissemination?

    ¡°Not yet... but... if it¡¯s truly like before...¡± The man hesitated. ¡°Then I should be getting an original tonight. But now...¡±

    <i>They must be on the alert now that I¡¯ve been made. Will they stille?</i> Although Li Hao¡¯s group had arrived quickly and sealed off the area, that didn¡¯t mean that everything had been perfectly contained.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, that doesn¡¯t matter! I¡¯ll give you an original if they don¡¯t!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I¡¯ll give you a ranking, print a couple tens of thousands for me, and distribute them all!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The man blinked. What was going on?

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    ¡°Of course, it¡¯s best if you can get your hands on an original,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°If not, I¡¯ll supply one to you!¡±

    ¡°Um...¡±

    ¡°What um?¡±

    The man didn¡¯t dareplete his sentence.

    ¡°Is this all you know as an Arus?¡± Li Hao asked faintly.

    The man hesitated, but flew into a panic when he saw Li Hao¡¯s palming for him. ¡°No, no, I know a little more. They should have more than me¡ªthey should also be working with others elsewhere!¡±

    ¡°Do you know the specifics?¡±

    ¡°I might... know one or two of them. I had people follow them once¡ªbeggars on the streets and the like. They didn¡¯t notice their tails. I don¡¯t know about anything else, but I know that someone higher up should be connected to these guys.¡±

    ¡°Out with it!¡±

    The man quickly said a name, resulting in a p that nearly took his head off.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know them, speak of their identity!¡±

    ¡°The Night Watcher director of the Sagittarius province... I¡¯m not sure!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. The Sagittarius province. That reminded him of someone¡ªSun Moxian, disciple of the Qimei Staff King. Li Hao had killed him in Rift Canyon and collected the staff made of lingering will left by the Qimei Staff King. With his newfound knowledge, Li Hao now knew that the staff was abination of aura and supernatural lock. It was likely the supernatural lock of the mind!

    He¡¯d taken it that day and wanted to return it to one of the Qimei Staff King¡¯s disciples. He¡¯d be too busy after that and didn¡¯t have time to seek out the relevant people.

    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s... all I know.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t they have any other requests after paying you so much?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± blurted the man after momentary silence. ¡°He said that they will emerge in the world after the second awakening and bring forth countless powerhouses and ancient heavyweights. All I have to do is follow their orders. They mentioned it only once and never again, just that the Wind and Cloud Pavilion would stay hidden from the world!¡±

    But now, they had emerged ahead of time!

    ¡°And another point¡ªI concealed my presence when I broke through to Arcanus, but they seemed to know regardless and sent someone to congratte me not long after.¡±

    <i>Can they detect the strength of life force?</i> Li Hao wondered.<i> If they keep a constant eye on their agents, then they might¡¯ve known the second I showed up with my people...</i>

    <i>It¡¯s fine!</i>

    Li Haoughed and called out, ¡°Deputy Zhou!¡± The man walked out from the group.

    ¡°Quick, draft a copy of the Divine Masters Ranking,¡± smiled the young man. ¡°The old Skystar King will be ranked first, Ying Hongyue number two, put me down as number five. The two from Armed Forces and Administration will be slightly lower than that...¡±

    Deputy Zhou nced at him with surprise.

    ¡°On Silver Moon¡¯s side, put Director General Zhao as number six, you as number seven. Put people from other factions after that, then Martial Uncle Hong and the rest around number twenty!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Deputy Zhou stared dumbly at him.

    ¡°What?¡± Li Hao grinned.

    ¡°Ah...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, and we¡¯ll distribute them ording to the previous channels. As for whether or not the Wind and Cloud Paviliones up with their own... who cares about them! If they still want to, they¡¯ll have to use other methods, such as exposing their powerful treasure and directly reflecting the world,¡± Li Hao cackled. ¡°I won¡¯t have to seek them out at that point!¡±

    Deputy Zhou took a sharp breath. The kid really knew how to y!

    ¡°Then this person...¡±

    Li Hao sent a supernatural character into his mind without further word. ¡°It¡¯s fine, release him and say it¡¯s a misunderstanding!¡± He looked at the man. ¡°A misunderstanding means nothing happened. It¡¯s one thing if someone on their side saw us, but if you tell them about us... You¡¯ll blow up!¡±

    The fire character agitated, prompting a muffled grunt and a mouthful of blood from the man. Horrified, he felt like his brain was going to explode!

    Li Hao patted his head with a smile. ¡°It¡¯s best if theye to you with an original. But it¡¯s alright if they don¡¯t. I¡¯ll reward you if you get an original, but if you can¡¯t... Be careful of your head blowing up at any time!

    ¡°We retreat now!¡±

    Li Hao entered the conference room and addressed the stricken group, ¡°The guy¡¯s alright, he¡¯s from Armed Forces. But the matters of the night cannot be mentioned to anyone! If a hint of them are breathed, no one present will survive! You will all be executed in the name of fraternizing with the enemy! You can do whatever you wish after three days, but you better keep a lid on it during this time!¡±

    ¡°Commander Li, this...¡± protested the South Peak governor general.

    ¡°You will look after them,¡±ughed Li Hao. ¡°Ah, that guy can move around freely, there¡¯s no need to keep him under watch. You guys can just try and see if I can kill everyone here if word of tonight¡¯s events leaks.¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    There was no response forting. Some were terrified, others could barely keep a lid on their panic, and some others were furious.

    Yet, there was nothing they could do in response. Li Hao¡¯s group was too arrogant and too strong. They might really kill everyone in the conference room if tonight¡¯s actions were leaked.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Li Hao¡¯s group vanished just as quickly as they came. The man who¡¯d almost died was still in a daze.

    <i>I¡¯ve... been let go? But what¡¯s that in my head?</i>

    He could sense that it might explode at any time¡ªa horrifying technique! Everyone present looked at him; the governor general wore an arctic expression. They had all been dragged into this because of him.

    There were roughly two dozen people present¡ªwho knew if Li Hao had spies among them? All of them would die if any word got out, who could endure such a price?

    ¡°All of you heard it for yourselves, I don¡¯t need to say anything about keeping to themander¡¯s word,¡± the governor general said frostily. ¡°You guys decide for yourselves if you want to live or not, or if you think there¡¯s someone who can protect you. Stay quiet over the next three days!¡±

    He nced at the man who¡¯d been identified as an Arcanus. ¡°I don¡¯t care who¡¯s man you are or who you are, and I may not be able to kill you if you bring disaster down on South Peak. But we are part of the Ministry of Administration¡¯s territory, so it¡¯ll be easy for you to die in any case!¡±

    The man didn¡¯t respond.

    ¡°Let¡¯s set that aside and pretend that nothing happened,¡± someone chuckled. ¡°I have to say... he¡¯s really efficient. The events took ce this morning and here he is at night. Do you guys think that the Wind and Cloud Pavilion can defeat him?¡±

    ¡°I care more about the fact that an Arcanus is like a chicken in his hand!¡± muttered another. Li Hao identified the man as an Arcanus, but easily smacked him around all the same. What level was the young man¡¯s cultivation? Why did he feel ridiculously strong?

    The room quieted down.

 Chapter 815: Why So Foolish (I)

    <h4>Chapter 815: Why So Foolish (I)</h4>

    ¡°I was so caught off guard by his sudden appearance that I forgot to greet my highest supervisor...¡± someone abruptlyughed. ¡°We fall under the southernmander of the Skystar Commander Office. Who¡¯s in charge of the south?

    ¡°Aha, Senior Southern Fist...¡± he chuckled.

    The speaker was the province¡¯s Night Watcher director. Everyone looked at him, he smiled back at them. ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°You...¡±

    ¡°I am a Night Watcher and the Night Watchers answer to the Skystar Commander Office. I forgot to greet Commander Li when he arrived, I really shouldn¡¯t have!¡± He turned to everyone and said quietly, ¡°Everyone will keep your noses to yourselves over the next couple of days! Commander Li might not remember you all, but I do! I also know your families, subordinates, friends, bastard children...¡±

    The group furiously cursed him out! <i>Fuck you, you shameless bastard!</i> He¡¯de back to his senses, hadn¡¯t he? He¡¯d been insulting Li Hao with the rest of them moments ago, but nearly wagged his tail as soon as he sensed how strong the young man was!

    Li Hao might only remember their faces, but this one knew them all too well. Family, friends, subordinates, mistresses... He knew everyone rted to them!

    <i>Pathetic henchman!</i>

    Some inwardly cursed up a storm while others regarded the development with resignation. The Night Watchers were under themand of the Skystar Commander Office to begin with; the office was previously just an authority established quite far away. Once Li Hao came in person and demonstrated such strength, would their Night Watcher director not immediately fawn over the young man?

    ......

    Li Hao frowned slightly as he quickly left with everyone. ¡°Can the Wind and Cloud Pavilion monitor us at every second?¡±

    ¡°They shouldn¡¯t be able to.¡± Deputy Zhou shook his head. ¡°Even if they do have such a strong treasure, they''ll consume vast sums of resources every time they use it. The Divine Masters Ranking came out once a month before at most, which meant they utilized it once a month. They can¡¯t possibly have it active at every second!¡±

    All ancient weapons and treasures resided under a sealed status. The stronger they were, the greater the seal. Each instance of utilization required a price to be paid.

    ¡°That¡¯s true!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°We¡¯ll publish the Divine Masters Ranking ourselves if they do not! What¡¯s that bunch of rats got rattling around in their brains by setting themselves against the Skystar Commander Office?

    ¡°I¡¯m going to head back and provide some cultivation assistance to the seniors. Everyone, please remain nearby and spread out. Call me if there¡¯s any trouble. All of you have a set of ck armor, so you can reach me at anytime within fifteen hundred kilometers!

    ¡°We¡¯ll take down the Wind and Cloud Pavilion first.¡± Li Hao smiled beatifically. ¡°Preferably in secret and seize their treasure. It¡¯lle in handy. I was just worrying that I didn¡¯t know their exact strength. If they have a treasure like that... It¡¯s mine!¡±

    His people didn¡¯t say anything upon seeing how confident he was. The young man had the right to be so confident as he did have some skill to his name. That year he¡¯d spent as an inspector hadn¡¯t been in vain¡ªhe¡¯d identified the enemy in the blink of an eye. Deputy Zhou even felt that the kid could lead a squad of secret agents across the dynasty.

    ......

    <i>At this moment, in a ruin.</i>

    A group of people bustled around and someone called out, ¡°Pavilion master, the new ranking isplete. Shall I distribute it?¡±

    ¡°Mm... but whether Li Hao is number one or not, put him in that spot. Leave the rest ording to the ranking. Ah, if there are any Silver Moon martial masters, move them closer to the front as well.

    ¡°Understood!¡± The speaker quickly walked outside with the new ranking. A person walked out of the shadows in the hall and looked at the mirror in the hall. He hesitated¡ªshould he activate it once more?

    There was probably no need to.

    He¡¯d just used it the day before; it was because of this that he¡¯d grown into a panic. Li Hao was improving too quickly. Not only that, but the young man had some special qualities to him.

    Each instance of using the mirror consumed several million mysterious power stones. It was an incredible depletion of resources.

    ¡°Forget it, as fast as Li Hao improves, he can¡¯t possibly change by the day,¡±ughed the man. He was mistaking the shadow of a bow in a ss for a living snake. It was just one day, and yet he couldn¡¯t contain the urge to activate it again.

    ¡°What a pity that you can¡¯t be fully unsealed. You¡¯d pull your own energy from the environment then and outright reflect every ce. I wouldn¡¯t need to supply you with mysterious power stones...¡± The master of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion disappeared after some murmurings.

    <i>Li Hao, ah Li Hao! Your rate of improvement scares me. I¡¯m truly worried that you might create a miracle and set foot into Apex before the second awakening. If that is the case, you¡¯d eliminate some fellows ahead of time given your personality.</i>

    <i>Then it would remain to be seen if there¡¯s any room to carve out space for the rest of us!</i>

    <i>I hope... that all goes well! </i>The pavilion master was slightly regretful that the restrictions levied by the world were too extreme at the moment. What had Li Hao discovered to induce some changes in the situation?

    It must be the young man as he showed signs of improvement with every change.

    ......

    Li Hao did not stay long in South Peak. He¡¯d only nabbed a fringe character, an inconsequential figure. The key to him was locating the source of the other¡¯s printing operations. If he suppressed the source, then there would be no way for them to print their little ranking.

    Did they really fancy themselves as Daoist Wind and Cloud? That august personage had erected an obelisk in the Forbidden Sea that constantly changed. Premier heavyweights were unable to break it and could only let it change at will. Countless people waited beside it, ready to copy any changes and distribute them to the world.

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    <i>Can you do that?</i>

    <i>Try erecting a treasure somewhere beneath the heavens tonight. It¡¯ll be gone by the morning!</i>

    No, would it take till morning? It would be gone within an hour.

    The restriction of the world was Li Hao¡¯s greatest asset. No matter how strong one was, they could not emerge unless they possessed the ability to stabilize the void. As for that kind of heavyweight... then resistance was futile. They could do what they wanted as they could kill people with a single exhale.

    ......

    <i>The Skystar Commander Office.</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t make it back until sunrise.

    <i>The rear yard.</i>

    Several old men were running through practice routines. A constant adherence to their skill was the surest way to maintain their battle capabilities. It didn¡¯t matter to Li Hao since he was always either killing people or on the way to killing people. Hence, he didn¡¯t have a need for daily practice.

    There was an additional face today¡ªSky Sword.

    Sky Sword had arrived very quickly and traveled a great distance, so he was rather weary. He tossed a booklet at Li Hao as soon as he saw the young man.

    Li Hao identified it as the <i>Wind and Thunder Sword Art.</i>

    ¡°Did you... seize it by force, senior?¡±

    Sky Sword looked wordlessly at him and couldn¡¯t be bothered to say anything. That wasn¡¯t his style. Of course, he¡¯d paid a certain price to obtain it, such as his own Sky Sword Art. He didn¡¯t speak of that, however, and couldn¡¯t be bothered to mention it.

    Contrary to Southern Fist¡¯s incessant chatter, he rarely spoke. This was simr to Tyrant de¡¯s personality. Northern Fist liked to talk¡ªhe was a diminutive man, but he spoke of the rules and seniority all the time. He Yong often came in for his share of beatings and there was nothing he could do about it since Northern Fist styled himself as He Yong¡¯s big brother.

    Havinge off worse for the wear on many asions, He Yong always found it awkward when he saw Northern Fist.

    ¡°Is Little South here?¡± someone asked before another old mannded. He wore a smile that quickly froze when he saw the other old men present. Sky Sword looked remotely at him, but there seemed to be sarcastic hints in his expression.

    Out of the six old men, one of them regarded the petite Northern Fist. The former¡¯s hair was white; Li Hao wasn¡¯t familiar with him. He only had time to identify himself as the old guard of Silver Moon before busying himself with other matters yesterday. Li Hao hadn¡¯t had time to learn more.

    White Hair stared at Northern Fist. Thetter had announced himself in a loud voice moments ago, but now shrank in on himself like a quail and wanted to cover his face and run.

    ¡°How have you gotten so old?¡± White Hair asked curiously after a while.

    ¡°......¡± A sheepish expression spread over Northern Fist¡¯s face and he lowered his head. ¡°Martial uncle!¡±

    Martial uncle!

    ¡°Why do you look older than me?¡± White Hair continued to stare at him.

    ¡°......¡± Northern Fist felt even more awkward. ¡°That is... ah...¡±

    ¡°If I remember correctly, you¡¯re only in your fifties and not even sixties?¡±

    ¡°I just wanted... to appear more mature, martial uncle,¡± Northern Fist offered dryly.

    ¡°And why are you always bullying He Yong?¡± frowned White Hair. ¡°The Northern and Southern Fists are from the same line. His father was your martial uncle as well, so why do you always hit him? I¡¯ve heard about your doings many times, but haven¡¯t been of the mind to intervene. Have you gotten addicted to bullying him?¡±

    Northern Fist was a highly tyrannical and arrogant individual in ordinary times, but now he barely knew what to do with himself. He was almost sixty, so it was quite embarrassing to receive a dressing down in public like this. What was this one doing here?

    Li Hao was also surprised. Northern Fist¡¯s martial uncle? And the two Fists were from the same line? Southern Fist was domineering and fiery, whereas Northern Fist was regal and magnanimous. They didn¡¯t seem to hail from the same discipline. It was only today that he learned there was a deeper connection between them.

    ¡°Martial uncle, I¡¯m just... looking after junior brother He,¡± Northern Fist coughed. ¡°His nature is more indolent and slippery. He would¡¯ve been killed by the Silver Moon Guard a long time ago if I hadn¡¯t knocked him down a peg or two.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t go too far,¡± White Hair simply cautioned. ¡°He Yong is an old enough person now as well. It¡¯s inappropriate for you to always beat him like you¡¯re hitting a grandson!¡±

    Northern Fist was quite resigned. <i>Who¡¯s beating who? That brat had improved a lot thest time we fought. I can¡¯t hit him like my grandson anymore, just my son, and not even that! How unlucky am I that you¡¯re here!</i>

 Chapter 816: Why So Foolish (II)

    <h4>Chapter 816: Why So Foolish (II)</h4>

    Northern Fist looked at Li Hao; the young man hadn¡¯t said anything about this one being here! Although there¡¯d been news yesterday that the Wind and Cloud Pavilion had appeared and six Arcanus had been killed, he didn¡¯t think much of it. Now he knew that the so-called six Arcanus were Silver Moon¡¯s older generation martial masters.

    ¡°Seniors and Martial Uncles Northern Fist and Sky Sword,¡± Li Hao addressed the group. ¡°Please rest for a while. I¡¯ve also invited Tyrant de, Thunderleg, Commander Huang Yu, and Inspector General Kong Jie to join us. I¡¯ll exin everything when they arrive.¡±

    The crowd grew solemn; Sky Sword rumbled, ¡°Is there a need for that? It¡¯s just a Wind and Cloud Pavilion!¡±

    ¡°I have another goal in mind,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°And I¡¯ll need quite some help from everyone.¡±

    ¡°Tyrant de is probably not too far away,¡± Sky Sword said after some thought. ¡°It¡¯ll take the rest three days at the quickest. The Wind and Cloud Pavilion will be publishing their ranking in three days, so they may not get here in time.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s of no matter, I¡¯ve already sent word for the various provinces to speed their travel along.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Air transport and others will be utilized to bring all of the seniors here. If they¡¯re fast enough, they¡¯ll get here within a day.¡±

    The group blinked, then muttered darkly to themselves. This guy was now one of the tyrants of Skystar! Who among the provinces weren¡¯t afraid of him? Of course they would help with a minor matter like this. Who wouldn¡¯t show him face in such a small matter? If they didn¡¯t, Li Hao might find an excuse to take them out!

    One day was sufficient to bring everyone here.

    ¡°Of the old heroes of thirty-six, I cannot get in touch with my master and Jadelight Sword is with him,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°Senior Berserk de seems to have been on a mission all this time and Senior Golden Spear is likewise unreachable. Is there anyone else alive out of them?¡±

    Apart from those four and the rest that were dead, was there anyone else alive?

    ¡°The rest are probably dead,¡± Sky Sword said after some thought. ¡°Some died a long time ago. Well, there might be some still alive, but they¡¯re probably not in Skystar.¡±

    <i>Not in Skystar?</i>

    ¡°Then... Great Li?¡±

    ¡°Do you only know Great Li?¡± Sky Swordughed.

    Li Hao blinked. That was... true?

    ¡°Great Li is just a savage dynasty closest to Silver Moon and located in the northern reaches,¡± Northern Fist also smiled. ¡°Skystar is the center of the world and is a valley. It is surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides. There are other dynasties in the other three cardinal directions that used to harass us, but after Skystar Dynasty unified the center, the dynasties on the other four sides haven¡¯t dared to enter since. That ended the era of struggle over the central dominion.

    ¡°We¡¯ve fought the four sides since the dawn of our time. Silver Moon¡¯s main opponents are the savages from Great Li. They¡¯re fierce, skilled in warfare, and known for their sheer strength.

    ¡°At the end of the southern continent is the Watercloud Dynasty. Their territory is covered by bodies of water and they possess a fearsome navy that battled with the south for many years.

    ¡°Arge expanse of desert can be found at the end of the eastern continent. The Barren Dynastymands a great cavalry that is unmatched throughout the world.

    ¡°At the end of the western continent is the Divine Nation...¡±

    <i>Divine Nation?</i> Li Hao started. Was that all they called themselves? It was his first time hearing of all these names.

    ¡°The Divine Nation is incredibly terrifying,¡± exined the highly experienced Northern Fist. ¡°All of its citizens worship the Moon God. Their faith is the core of their culture and they¡¯re more united than the other dynasties.¡±

    ¡°The Moon God?¡± Li Hao was growing ever more confused. Where did such a gode from?

    ¡°I know a thing or two about them,¡± Sky Sword said faintly. ¡°There were apparently divine spirits that existed in Silver Moon in the primordial past. The Moon God was one of their most well known and many worshipped it. An ancient powerhouse eventually killed it, but that is a rumor as well.

    ¡°The Divine Nation started worshipping the Moon God after the demise of the ancient civilization. Gods were not revered in that civilization. Even the ancient Human King didn¡¯t consider himself a god.¡±

    A nation that centered on worshiping a god!

    Li Hao quickly transmitted to the little tree when his thoughts traveled here, ¡°Senior Tree, do you know the Moon God?¡±

    ¡°The Moon God?¡±

    ¡°It was apparently a god in the primordial past.¡±

    ¡°A god?¡± The little tree seemed to be rifling through its memories. ¡°I know a detail or two. Silver Moon Territory was just one part of the ancient civilization. There were some local heavyweights that existed, but they wereter killed. Have the divine spiritse back to life?¡±

    That was a real possibility!

    ¡°But it doesn¡¯t matter,¡± the little tree added. ¡°These so-called divine spirits weren¡¯t strong. Not to mention, the world has changed. Even if they have awakened, they will be the same as us and unable to bring their full strength to bear in this world. The Moon God... Moon God... Can it be the Moon Demon? Silver Moon Territory is indeed rted to this demon.¡±

    ¡°So this means...¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°That the ancient civilization... didn¡¯t call this ce home... but was an invader?¡±

    ¡°Not really!¡± the little tree tried exining. ¡°The main world of the ancient civilization once fell quiet for a while¡ªthat was also when the imperial majesty fell asleep too. Some of the world¡¯s power seeped out and gave birth to a new world next to the main world.

    ¡°When the Human King awoke and saw the situation, he wanted to reim the world since it was formed of power that belonged to the main world. But for some reason, he decided to let it remain as a vassal territory. That was when the divine spirits were born. In reality, Silver Moon territory is almostpletely projected from the main world...¡±

    Li Hao frowned, but didn¡¯t say anything. He left the storage ring and addressed the seniors again. ¡°Does this mean to say that if there are more of the thirty-six alive, they may not be in Skystar?¡±

    ¡°Correct!¡± Northern Fist nodded. ¡°I only recently returned to Skystar Dynasty myself, I¡¯ve been in Great Li all this time. I have to say... we must be careful of them. There are many mountains and monster spirits there, so many more than Skystar. Great Li has been fighting the monster spirits all these years in endless battles, but it¡¯s also forged their ferociousness in fire and brimstone. I think that once they settle the matter of the monster spirits... they¡¯ll absolutely invade Skystar!¡±

    The thirty-six of Silver Moon were avid travelers. Li Hao said nothing more and turned to the old men. ¡°Seniors, are there many left of the previous generation of Silver Moon martial masters?¡±

    ¡°There were quite a few twenty years ago.¡± One of them shook his head. ¡°When the supernatural domain first awoke, Silver Mooncked energy because our supernaturals were essentially extinct. We thought to seize a few treasures from Skystar City¡ªmainly mysterious power stones. But we suffered grave losses and nearly all withdrew from the martial world after that.

    ¡°We also heard that Skystar is where a massive mine is located. Only when we seize sufficient mysterious power stones could we ensure that Silver Moon¡¯s martial world did not decline. We also wanted to prevent the nine ministries and royal family from growing strong enough to invade Silver Moon again...¡± The old man shook his head again and didn¡¯t continue.

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    Large numbers of the old guard had died in that battle; they had been surrounded by the nine ministries and royal family at the Skystar Sea. So many had died that they¡¯d turned the sea red!

    Of course, there was nothing that the older generation would be regretful about, nor was there much about the oue that they hated. Everyone simply served their own masters. They hade to suppress the nine ministries and royal family, and to seize the mines to facilitate Silver Moon¡¯s development. Being met with the other¡¯s counterattack and being killed in return was only normal. Their skill was less than their opponents¡¯, so there was nothing that could be said about falling in battle here.

    They¡¯d thought that they were strong enough to wreak havoc through Skystar, but it wasn¡¯t until they reached the royal capital that they realized they underestimated the heroes of the world. After that, the surviving older guard chose to withdraw to Silver Moon.

    That was how Yuan Shuo¡¯s generation became mainstream in the martial world. But it wasn¡¯t long before they fell behind the times as well. The supernatural quickly became mainstream, which indirectly demonstrated how correct the old guard had been to go on the offensive. The supernaturals presented too great of a threat!

    Silver Moon wouldn¡¯t have declined so rapidly if the old martial masters had seeded. But since they had, there was nothing to be done about it. Their choice was right, they¡¯d simply lost in executing their ns.

    ¡°Apart from us six, there aren¡¯t more than twenty left in Silver Moon these days,¡± said the old man.

    Less than twenty... that... wasn¡¯t many, but it would do!

    Seeing that Li Hao found that to be a good number, the old manughed. ¡°Don¡¯t think of us all as being that powerful. Don¡¯t overestimate us! Us six are probably the best of the bunch. The rest were crippled a long time ago and there¡¯s not more than three who are stronger than us.¡±

    Li Hao furrowed his brows. That wasn¡¯t much at all then. He¡¯d thought all of them were very strong!

    ¡°Then why...¡±

    ¡°Do you want to ask why there are so few of us, and why we are so weak?¡± The old manughed ruefully. ¡°There aren¡¯t enough resources in Silver Moon and us martial masters easily decline at our stage if we don¡¯t have sufficient mysterious power stones or Water of Life. Our blood qi fades and martial masters have many hidden injuries to begin with. There were quite a few alive early on, but they died one by one. Their wounds were either too heavy to fully recover from, or their blood qi had declined to the point in which their life force withered away.¡±

    Li Hao sighed, what a pity that the counterattack twenty years ago had failed! The ancient ruins in Silver Moon had swallowed so much energy that it turned the province into a deste ce. It greatly elerated Silver Moon¡¯s fall. After the dust settled, these were the only people who were left.

    ¡°Then where do you normally live, seniors?¡±

    ¡°In a ruin,¡± answered another old man. ¡°There is still some energy left in the ruins...¡±

    ¡°Then... why don¡¯t you leave Silver Moon?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but ask. There were plenty of ces with more energy, or they could interact with others if it came down to it. Cultivating in secret would be better than cultivating in Silver Moon.

    ¡°It¡¯s difficult to leave home, and do you think the province has always been at peace?¡±

    ¡°Over the years, many people have wanted to invade Silver Moon ahead of time. We beat them off on a couple of asions. What will the province do if we leave too? With the younger generation gone, Silver Moon¡¯s martial world will truly be beyond redemption if we leave too.¡±

    Alright then!

    Li Hao did not agree with their line of reasoning, but he understood it. To him, it was all the same if one left first and came back after growing stronger. But upon further thought, what if the province couldn¡¯t be adequately defended after they all left?

    Not to mention, they might have much to do with the fact that his teacher was fine and survived to the present day. Ying Hongyue might have killed Yuan Shuo a long time ago if they all left, then there would be no talk of Li Hao now.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 817: Why So Foolish (III)

    <h4>Chapter 817: Why So Foolish (III)</h4>

    Li Hao quietly worked out some information from the old men after the conversation. At the very least, he knew their individual names. The six were male. While there were female cultivators among the old guard, they¡¯d either died or been crippled. There were fewer female martial masters to begin with. Those that survived to present day all remained in Silver Moon.

    The six had some background to them. Northern Fist¡¯s martial uncle was a wandering hero once hailed as Thunderbolt Fist. Berserk de¡¯s master was once hailed as Crazed Demon de. Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought that he¡¯d run into masters of the thirty-six here. That was quite beyond his expectations.

    The other four didn¡¯t have much to do with the thirty-six, but one of them quite surprised Li Hao. He was the previous generation Iron Shirt. That wasn¡¯t the important detail; the key was that he was the master of the dead Iron Shirt and the lord of Buddha Mountain... had been his disciple.

    Li Hao stared at the hulking elder for a while before saying, ¡°The lord of Buddha Mountain... was... senior¡¯s disciple?¡±

    ¡°Disciple in name!¡± the old manughed heartily. ¡°He came from the west and was hung up for all to see after Yuan Shuo defeated him... I felt an urge to protect a promising talent since his potential was decent, his Golden Body art good enough, and his age young enough.¡±

    He then shook his head and fell silent. Li Hao found the situation very dicey indeed. There was a grudge at y here!

    Indeed, a grudge festered as he knew that Yuan Shuo had broken through thest Iron Shirt¡¯s defenses and killed the man. That had been someone else¡¯s disciple! A headache brewed at the young man¡¯s temples. <i>My teacher... seriously...</i>

    The old manughed at seeing Li Hao remain silent. ¡°What are you thinking of? That your teacher killed my disciple?¡±

    ¡°Well...¡±

    ¡°It was a sparring match in the martial world, life and death are quitemon when we go about our business!¡± The old man didn¡¯t mind at all. ¡°My disciple has killed those from the Five Styles discipline as well. Granted, it wasn¡¯t called the Five Styles back then. The person involved should¡¯ve been your martial uncle, he was Yuan Shuo¡¯s senior brother. Yuan Shuo¡¯s master then died in the battle of Skystar Sea. Those of us who survived have all benefited from him at some point in time.¡±

    ¡°Benefited from... my martial ancestor?¡±

    ¡°Correct!¡±ughed the old man. ¡°Do you think he¡¯s been dead for many years? Not at all, just twenty years. He was part of the main forces at the Battle of Skystar Sea twenty years ago. Peak Dominator then was very strong, but it¡¯s naturally nothing worth speaking of now. But back then, he was a preeminent heavyweight!

    ¡°Your teacher stirs up so much trouble, do you think it¡¯s by his merits alone that he¡¯s lived such a carefree life all these years?¡± The old man smiled. ¡°Your martial ancestor was always protecting him from the shadows. Of course, your teacher was well aware of that too. It was a pity that Yuan Shuo was never able to advance to Dominator before he passed away twenty years ago. That was one thing that your martial ancestor found quite regretful when he died in that battle.¡±

    Li Hao remained silent. That was indeed very regretful. The most important disciple with the greatest potential was still stuck at half step Dominator when he passed away. Although Yuan Shuo was on par with a Dominator with the melding of his five auras, being unable to take that final step was still immensely saddening.

    These old men were rather willing to discuss past events with Li Hao. They did so from the perspective of simple conversation, one without too much bitterness. All such feuds and grudges had long dissipated twenty years ago. In the past, Silver Moon martial masters were highly adept at fighting among themselves. All internal conflict mostly ceased after the rise of the supernatural. It rarely happened after the battle of Skystar Sea broke many heritages. So many died that those who survived were less inclined for internal strife.

    ......

    After leaving Sky Sword and Northern Fist to keep the elderspany, Li Hao returned to the depths of the Judiciaryplex. He reached the entrance to the ruins located in the rear garden. The nt spirit extended a wisp of mental strength. ¡°You seem to have encountered some trouble... I heard the names of Wind and Cloud Pavilion and the Ranking of Wind and Cloud...¡±

    The nt spirit could hear a little of its surroundings when it extended its mental strength, so Li Hao didn¡¯t normally discuss business inside theplex. It was all casual chit chat, with secrets being transmitted.

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°Therefore... I need the senior¡¯s help.¡±

    ¡°My help?¡±

    ¡°I need a core origin replica!¡± Li Hao dered. ¡°The Wind and Cloud Pavilion wants to move against me and they might have premier powerhouses. I need the help of a core origin replica, one that cannot be too weak. It has to be at least seven elements or on par with an Apex...¡±

    The big coconut tree inside the ruins nearly toppled over from shock.

    ¡°Ah...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing good in it for you if I die!¡± Li Hao said solemnly, to which the treepletely ignored.

    <i>What does your death have to do with me? The next person will choose to partner with me as well. </i>nt spirits held a monopoly on human cultivation. The entire species needed Water of Life.

    ¡°Do you think none of the major factions have their own partnerships with nt spirits?¡± Li Hao exined. ¡°They all do! Those with true wealth have long cemented a regr partnership. Do you think they¡¯ll abandon the nt spirits that they¡¯ve sunk endless resources into to ally with an unfamiliar one?¡±

    The coconut tree swayed with surprise at the presentation of a new perspective.

    ¡°Your only choice is someone like me who¡¯s risen too fast to already have an agreement with a nt spirit! Silver Moon¡¯s nt spirits are strong, but they require too many resources. I can¡¯t satisfy them, which makes us a perfect match for each other! Do you think the royal family or other factions will choose to partner with you if they take this ce? Or is it more likely that their nt spirit will decide to eat you whole?¡±

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    The coconut tree swayed again.

    ¡°Which among the three great organizations doesn¡¯t have a powerhouse standing behind them? Your only choice is me and the Silver Moon martial masters! As for local overlords... Hah, what a joke! They have issues producing even an Arcanus. Do you think they can supply you with millions of mysterious power stones?¡±

    The coconut tree sank into deep thought. Did the young man¡¯s words make sense? They did! It hadn¡¯t considered this much up to this point. Just as Li Hao said, those with the ability to form an agreement with a nt spirit would¡¯ve done so twenty years ago. The coconut tree couldn¡¯t be bothered with weaklings¡ªhow much in benefits could they bring?

    As for Li Hao... he¡¯d risen so quickly. There were strong nt spirits in Silver Moon, but perhaps they wanted so much that they weren¡¯t a viable option.

    ¡°Therefore, once I¡¯m dead, the most likely oue for you is to be forgotten here and no longer continue to recover. You can only wait for the second awakening to take ce and then... be carved up by others!

    ¡°Trust me when I say that the other nt spirits in Skystar Town¡¯s ruins will pounce on you at the first chance to do so! All of the various factions, nine ministries, and royal family are enhancing their strength as quickly as they can. They¡¯re consumingrge quantities of stones everyday to produce Water of Life. All of the other nt spirits are improving, but only you will continue to decline!¡±

    The coconut tree jerked with rm! That was the truth! If Li Hao refused to supply it with mysterious power stones and it wasn¡¯t able toe in contact with other powerhouses, then it would continue to decline while other nt spirits grew stronger. Even if it didn¡¯t weaken, it wouldn¡¯t grow stronger either.

    ¡°Your demands are too high,¡± the coconut tree said solemnly. ¡°You must know that to me, cutting off an Apex level replica represents nearly one third of my core origin. I¡¯ve already lost a lot before and wasn¡¯t replenished for it. Cutting off so much more again... I won¡¯t be able to recover without at least thirty million mysterious power stones...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to ask for that much either,¡± Li Hao took a deep breath. ¡°But I¡¯ve encountered a lot of trouble. You should know Daoist Wind and Cloud. If the Wind and Cloud Pavilion has that sort of heritage, then they¡¯ll have more than one peak six element Arcanus. Of course, I¡¯ll try to fight them in an empty ruin. Your replica will still exist if I win. If not... then we don¡¯t need to talk of anything else.¡±

    The big tree was quiet for a very long time before saying, ¡°Then give me thirty million stones first. I won¡¯t be able to do it otherwise. Severing that much core origin will shake my main body.¡±

    And if it was destroyed, greater trouble would arise. It might even impact the foundation of its primary body.

    ¡°Thirty million...¡± Li Hao¡¯s head ached. ¡°That¡¯s too much. I won¡¯t be able toe up with that much for a while!¡±

    The big tree remained quiet. Then there was nothing to discuss. It wasn¡¯t a fool. Without sufficient treasures to pay me and consume my replenishment yourself... I¡¯m not a fool. Won¡¯t I be in greater trouble if you die?

    ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll definitely give you the mysterious power stones, I just don¡¯t have that many on me at the moment.¡± Li Hao set his jaw. ¡°I¡¯ll substitute with some treasures and trade back for them when I have sufficient mysterious power stones!¡±

    ¡°What... kind of treasures?¡± The big tree was slightly curious.

    Li Hao grit his teeth and very reluctantly brought out arge mallet. ¡°The mallet of the Hongs! One of the eight guardian treasures! This item is worth more than thirty million mysterious power stones!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s just three million energy stones. Do you think this... is worth that much?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, what¡¯s a mere thirty million stones worth if we can take them done?¡± Li Hao said with tragic determination. ¡°You¡¯ll lose nothing once your replica returns and you¡¯ll earn thirty million stones for free. I won¡¯t relinquish the mallet of the Hongs, I¡¯m going to reim all eight heritage weapons!¡±

    ¡°.......¡± The big tree was tempted. The divine mallet of the Hongs! Li Hao was correct, it was worth more than thirty million stones. It could even be worth three hundred! But... it couldn¡¯t use it. Only the Hongs could.

    Perhaps Li Hao might be able to, and the young man wasn¡¯t going to give up on the treasure either. It was indeed precious beyondpare, but the tree would be stuck with a worthless hunk of metal if Li Hao died.

    The young man grew irritated when the nt spirit didn¡¯t respond. ¡°Is that not enough? You¡¯re too greedy!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m greedy... and the divine mallet is indeed more valuable than my core origin replica,¡± the tree answered. ¡°It¡¯s just that I¡¯m unable to use it...¡±

    ¡°None of that is an issue if I win.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°If I die and someone else takes over this ce, a weapon of the eight families is something that everyone wants. Have them trade for it with thirty million stones, they¡¯ll do it!¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t put it that way...¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll add more!¡± Li Hao glowed ominously. ¡°I¡¯ll throw in another ten powerful origin weapons. You can devour them if I lose, but you can¡¯t touch them before that!¡±

    ¡°Origin weapons? What weapons?¡± This piqued the tree¡¯s interest.

    Li Hao immediately took out a bunch of high-level origin weapons. The tree sensed them, surprised to find that they were all earth level. That was indeed not bad. If these weapons were devoured, they were worth several million stones due to their level. It couldn¡¯t digest the mallet of the Hongs, but it could these ones.

    ¡°They... will do... but that¡¯s still not enough...¡± The coconut tree was tempted.

 Chapter 818: Why So Foolish (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 818: Why So Foolish (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Then forget a partnership!¡± Li Hao said coldly. ¡°I¡¯ve already demonstrated my sincerity with a weapon of the eight families and ten earth level origin weapons! I only said that it¡¯s possible that I might lose, not that I will lose for certain! There¡¯s no point in working together if you¡¯re so greedy!

    ¡°If I already have thirty million stones, why wouldn¡¯t I go back to Silver Moon with that and the origin weapons? I can go to those powerful nt spirits instead of you!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m greedy, just that...¡± came the tree¡¯s ripples after a while. ¡°Forget it, I rather hope that you can win. If you defeat them and bring back thirty million stones for these...¡±

    ¡°You won¡¯t y dumb then, will you?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°I¡¯ll be back with the mysterious power stones, but you won¡¯t turn greedy then and keep my mallet of the Hongs for yourself, will you?¡±

    ¡°How would I?¡± The big tree rustled. ¡°It¡¯s not useful for me, the stones are much more useful. Why would I keep it?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good then!¡± Li Hao brought out the origin weapons without another word. ¡°Sever your replica now and put it into the storage ring. You can take the weapons!¡±

    The big tree was conflicted. This transaction was very worthwhile. Its price of thirty million was absolute nonsense. It only required ten million if it wanted to fully recover. Li Hao was a nice one as he hadn¡¯t haggled over it.

    But... the tree would be much weaker after it severed its core origin.

    Upon further thought, that was eptable. The second awakening was yet to begin and there was no hope for any powerhouse to take it down since it was in the ruins. Any that dared visit it would just be a replica. Its primary body would still possess certain battle strength.

    If Li Hao could supply more mysterious power stones for it prior to the second awakening... then a bit of loss was worth it! The keyy in the origin weapons and mallet of the Hongs that Li Hao had brought out. They sent the big tree down the road that, so long as the young man didn¡¯t die, it was impossible for him to welsh on his debt. These items were worth far more than thirty million stones!

    It actually wanted the sword of the Lis as well, but considered it nearly impossible after some thought and had to give up the idea.

    The tree¡¯s mental strength quickly vanished, reced by undting ripples. Momentster, the tree seemed weakened as it sent out a storage ring. ¡°Don¡¯t summon it if you can help it... only do so when you have no other choice... Or do so in the ruins...¡±

    Its replica would be absolutely churned to pieces by the void otherwise.

    ¡°Does it have Apex level strength?¡±

    ¡°Pretty much...¡±

    ¡°How much is it off by?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, it can put up a fight even if it encounters an Apex. It might not be able to kill the other, but it¡¯ll hold them back!¡±

    Li Hao understood¡ªthe replica was barely on par with an Apex. It might be a little stronger than the little tree, but it had its limits. The little tree might not be any weaker than this replica if it used the projection of the imperial pce.

    The young man extended his consciousness into the ring and found a mini tree. He probed it slightly, finding it stronger than the little tree.

    ¡°My thanks!¡± Li Hao threw in the weapons without further word. ¡°Do not absorb my weapons before I fail. Mysterious power stones are easy to obtain, but origin weapons are not. Ick sufficient origin weapons at present.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± The excited big tree took stock of the mallet¡¯s hidden power. This was a weapon of the eight families! It wouldn¡¯t have any right to touch it back in the day, and it¡¯d be for the best if the big tree couldprehend some things from it.

    Li Hao turned on his heel; snappy and decisive were his style. The big tree waved its branches around, rather happy.

    There were people inside the ruins and one of them stepped forward when he sensed something. ¡°Revered One, you...¡±

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing to it, I¡¯m just having Li Hao supply a few stones for me,¡± the big tree answered calmly. ¡°I¡¯ll be able to leave when the second awakening begins and I¡¯ll kill him at first light! I¡¯ll avenge the Hus!¡±

    There were still some Hu powerhouses in the ruins¡ªthe family¡¯s foundation of power. Only those with lower ability and less potential were sent to the outside world. But at the moment, those inside the ruins didn¡¯t dare set foot outside. They could only hope for the second awakening to begin and for the big tree to lead them out and revitalize the Hus.

    Meanwhile, the big tree was thinking, if its partnership went well with Li Hao, should it discard the Hus?

    At the same time, Li Hao was wrong in thinking that there would be no one to partner with the tree if he died. These remaining Hu members were strong and they might rebuild the Ministry of the Judiciary by themselves. The big tree had only agreed with the young man to keep him calm.

    The coconut tree waspletely at ease and toyed with the mallet of the Hongs again. What a treasure! Too bad it couldn¡¯t use it or it would never return the mallet to Li Hao!

    ......

    Li Hao walked out solemnly from the rear yard, an uncontroble smile on his face. <i>Hahaha! How sweet!</i> Not only had he weakened the big tree, but if he found a ce and let the little tree swallow the replica, then the little tree would certainly grow stronger. Weakening the enemy to strengthen his own people was the best!

    And with the big tree weakened, it would be even easier to take it out.

    Li Hao knew how strong seven element Arcanus was; he¡¯d watched closely when the little tree utilized the projection of the imperial pce. The coconut tree was even an Immortal! Despite it not fully recovering, that was still a frightening prospect. But now, it would be much weaker after severing a replica that was of the Apex level.

    ¡°But since it can sever an Apex replica... then that means its primary body is exceedingly strong and won¡¯t be any weaker than its replica!¡± Li Hao stroked his chin. Could he trick the coconut tree into severing another replica?

    Probably... not. The tree was no fool! It was one thing to sever a replica once, doing so again would be treating it as aplete idiot. He¡¯d only seeded this time because he put up the mallet of the Hongs as coteral.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t mind that since the tree couldn¡¯t devour or use it. It was still his so long as he killed the tree. If he didn¡¯t... it really wouldn¡¯t be his anymore.

    ¡°Senior Little Tree...¡±

    The little tree perked up curiously inside the ring. More questions?

    ¡°How much battle strength can an Immortal retain after severing an Apex replica?¡±

    ¡°If they haven¡¯t fully awakened, then that makes the peak Apex at most. After a replica... they¡¯re likely around mid orte Apex...¡±

    ¡°Can Senior Little Tree take care of an opponent like that?¡±

    ¡°Probably... not! Not unless my primary body is here...¡±

    ¡°Then what if the senior absorbs a replica that they cut off?¡±

    ¡°Do you mean...¡± The little tree shook.

    ¡°Can the senior tackle this kind of opponent after absorbing their replica?

    ¡°I can... try! Because I¡¯ll be able toprehend their dao after I take in their core origin. I can even locate their weaknesses. Of course, I won¡¯t be able to match up to them in a direct fight, but I should be able to fend them off for a bit.¡±

    Li Hao understood. ¡°Then if we attack together alongside multiple martial masters close to Apex, can we kill them?¡±

    ¡°Ah...¡± The little tree pondered. ¡°Apex is actually a kind of metamorphosis in our cultivation system, but the times now are not what they were before. The Apexes back in the day were unparalleled in the battlefield due to the fortification of core origin dao and its feedback. Strength was unceasing and could be withdrawn or replenished at any time. That is not the case anymore!¡±

    What they were discussing would be a dream in the ancient times, their opponent would be an undying existence as they could recover in a split second so long as death wasn¡¯t dealt in a single blow. But now, they would be in danger after expending too many resources.

    ¡°So there¡¯s still hope, it¡¯s just... very dangerous!¡±

    Li Hao smiled. There was hope! He¡¯d discussed this with the little tree before¡ªthe little tree¡¯s meaning had been that it waspletely hopeless, that their target could smack them to death with a single blow. But now, there was hope! That was how big the change was after some time!

    ¡°Will it... sever itself for a replica?¡± the little tree asked hopefully. ¡°But it¡¯ll recover if you give it sufficient mysterious power stones.¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t give it any stones, but it still cut off a replica!¡±

    ¡°Is it that dumb?¡± swayed the little tree.

    Li Hao wanted to ask, <i>are you talking about yourself? I didn¡¯t give you any stones, but you still cut part of yourself off and came into the outside world with me. Whether it was humans or monster spirits, how did all have trouble seeing themselves clearly?</i>

    ¡°Then... then... I... can...¡± The little tree grew agitated.

    ¡°Just as the senior thinks, but it will take time! There¡¯s no rush!¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°Alright!¡± The little tree was beyond excited. <i>As I thought, my choice was right! Will my replica grow stronger than my primary body? If so... things will be interesting the next time I see my primary body.</i>

    Of course, there would be no problemsing back together since they were of the same origin.

    ......

    Li Hao was in a fantastic mood after pulling the wool over the coconut tree¡¯s eyes. The despondency that he¡¯d fallen into with the Wind and Cloud Pavilion¡¯s interference had greatly faded away. He spent the rest of the day sending his people out on various tasks. How it manifested to Skystar City was a steady stream ofmands being issued from the Skystar Commander Office.

    Various central region provinces soon received their orders. They were to thoroughly investigate the Wind and Cloud Pavilion! Anyone who seemed to be a member was to be arrested and taken to Skystar City. Once their identity was confirmed, the captor would be rewarded with ten drops of Water of Life!

    Anyone of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion who turned themselves in would find their past crimes forgiven. Those who offered important information would be rewarded with anywhere between ten to one hundred drops.

    Anyone who captured the leader of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion would be rewarded with five hundred drops!

    The various factions of the world took sharp breaths when they read all of the information. This was crazy! Of all people the Pavilion had to irritate, it was Li Hao. To be honest, even they were tempted by the five hundred drops! That would take tens of millions of mysterious power stones if they traded with the nt spirits for that amount!

    Granted, people weren¡¯t fools. This reward wouldn¡¯t be that easy to im. Even so, some of the wandering cultivators, Heaven Favored, and local overlords of the central region began their investigations. Just grabbing a scout would result in ten drops, that was still arge sum.

    Of course, the Skystar Commander Office said very clearly that there must be clear evidence. If innocents were dragged in to fill the numbers, then not only would the perpetrator be in great trouble, but so would a lot of other people.

    In these years, ten drops of Water of Life was enough to make many put their lives on the line. Offering ten thousand mysterious power stones was enough to buy one¡¯s life sometimes. They might pretend to be from the Wind and Cloud Pavilion to leave riches for their family or other purposes. There would be takers even though death was the sure oue. Price was the only motivator.

 Chapter 819: All in Readiness (I)

    <h4>Chapter 819: All in Readiness (I)</h4>

    <i>The Inspectorate.</i>

    Chen Yao was also perusing the Skystar Commander Office¡¯s orders. They were no secret since they were being publicly issued.

    ¡°Damn, he¡¯s willing to spend!¡± Chen Yao breathed out after he took in everything. To be honest, regr people weren¡¯t able to pay this price. On the other hand, he was equally pained by Li Hao setting three thousand pieces for one drop. The nt spirit that backed his family didn¡¯t charge too high at fifty thousand pieces a drop. Some more expensive prices were sixty thousand pieces a drop¡ªmore than ten times Li Hao¡¯s price!

    Li Hao could trade one hundred thousand pieces for more than thirty drops, whereas everyone else could only manage two. Could this even be apetition?

    Chen Yao walked to the rear yard when his thoughts traveled here. His father wasn¡¯t reading this time, but holding a one year old child in his arms.

    Chen Yao rolled his eyes. <i>I really can¡¯t take this humiliation anymore! This is my umpteenth younger sister. At my age, my granddaughter would be older than this younger sister. This is ridiculous!</i>

    His old man seemed to know his thoughts and remarked faintly, ¡°What are you looking at? In the ancient civilization, powerhouses were so long-lived and had children even at ten thousand years old. Wouldn¡¯t you die of apoplexy if you lived in that age?¡±

    That was the ancient logic, but it was also because they had such long lives. <i>Are you going to live to ten thousand years old?</i>

    Chen Yao couldn¡¯t be bothered to say anything else and looked to the depths of the yard. ¡°Have you spoken to that one?¡±

    The price for Water of Life had weighed on him like a lump in his throat ever since Li Hao spoke of it. What they had to pay was too expensive!

    ¡°I did,¡± the old man said faintly. ¡°It said... not one less stone!¡±

    A violent light shed through Chen Yao¡¯s eyes, one that quickly dimmed. He cursed to himself.<i> I hadn¡¯t known that you bastards were skimming so much off the top before. All of us are faced with the same price.</i> In the beginning, one hundred thousand pieces a drop was normal and everyone was happy when it was slightly lowered.

    Now that they knew about Li Hao¡¯s price, however, they were in a mood to kill!

    ¡°It¡¯s a fish trapped in a swamp!¡± Chen Yao grit his teeth and transmitted, ¡°Taking a bit less means we¡¯ll be able to raise more powerhouses and expand our influence. That will result in more opportunities and chances to give it more benefits. Does it not understand that?¡±

    ¡°It makes forty-seven thousand stones per drop,¡± the old inspector general said leisurely. ¡°If it charged ten thousand, it would make seven thousand stones per drop. It would take seven drops to make what it does with one current drop. Will your need for Water of Life be seven times what it is now?¡±

    If it could, why wouldn¡¯t it charge more? Seven times more... of course Chen Yao could. There was always a need for Water of Life. But upon closer thought, all of the ruins that could be excavated had already been excavated. The ones that couldn¡¯t were unable to be explored for the moment. All factions were wary of the Skystar Mine and didn¡¯t dare easily venture into it.

    Therefore, the sum of mysterious power stones in the world was fixed and most of it would go to the nt spirits in the end. Why should they offer more Water of Life then? It was far better for them to absorb it themselves.

    As irritated as Chen Yao was, he also knew that everyone¡¯s hopes for ascensiony with the nt spirits. He was quite resigned and had to change the subject. ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s not talk about this.¡± He then switched to transmission, ¡°How about we talk to Li Hao and have him supply us with some cheap Water of Life? I already sent two Arcanus over to help him¡ªhe probably needs people. This will be the basis for our partnership, so he should be able to supply some for his allies, right?¡±

    ¡°You can go try!¡±

    Chen Yao cursed to himself. <i>If I try, I¡¯ll be thrown out! I¡¯ming to you naturally because I want you to try. Youmand more respect!</i>

    ¡°My thoughts are that Li Hao looks like he wants to move against the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. He seems to have truly made up his mind as he¡¯s summoned all of the Silver Moon martial masters. I¡¯m thinking... why don¡¯t you keep a low profile, change your name, and join the group? You can bring back some resources and won¡¯t raise attention with your disappearance since you normally aren¡¯t in the public eye. You should do it for my thirty-seven or eight or nine younger siblings, even if you don¡¯t do it for me.¡±

    Chen Zhongtian started and raised his head, as if looking at his son for the first time. Was he even listening to what he was saying?

    ¡°You¡¯re very strong,¡± Chen Yao ignored his father¡¯s look and continued transmitting, ¡°He¡¯ll certainly be happy to have your help. I can¡¯t, I¡¯m just a three element Arcanus. He doesn¡¯tck those. You¡¯re four or five elements, right? Qi Pingjiang is peak six elements, so I¡¯d believe it if you¡¯re six elements too. He¡¯ll definitely pay a high price if you go!

    ¡°Not to mention, I can¡¯t just vanish from the public eye. You can, though. You can be a mercenary for him. Honestly, you should earn more money while you can still fight. We can¡¯t always depend on this unreliable nt spirit, can we?

    ¡°I also have so many younger siblings that need to advance to Arcanus in the future. Have you calcted how much Water of Life they¡¯ll need? You might have more children right now than Ying Hongyue!

    ¡°Ying Hongyue is cruel and ruthless, so he doesn¡¯t care if his children die. Can you say the same?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Chen Zhongtian stared at his son. As flighty as his son was, there were indeed some points in his words that the man had never considered before.

    Indeed, having too many children was also a problem. His children had been too young to prompt these worries before, but now he had a dozen who were adults. Outsiders were unreliable, his own children were best. Therefore, instead of outsiders, the Chens invested quite a great deal of resources into his children. They were quite strong as adults and some were close to Arcanus.

    Roughly fifty drops of Water of Life were required to enter Arcanus and stabilize the two element level. Based on current prices, that would require 2.5 million stones to produce a two element Arcanus. Ten meant twenty-five million...

    Meanwhile, Chen Zhongtian needed to cultivate, as did his son and other members of the family. The powerhouses of the Inspectorate that followed by their side also needed to cultivate. The benefits that the Inspectorate had skimmed over the years had almost all gone back into their people.

    Chen Zhongtian sank into deep thought.

    ¡°You say to build a strong rtionship with him, isn¡¯t this the best timing to do so?¡± Chen Yao continued. ¡°He won¡¯t think much of me if I go, but he¡¯ll definitely treat you like a treasure. Our demands won¡¯t be high. Well pay ten thousand stones for a drop. If we can purchase one hundred drops with that price, it will only cost us one million stones.

    ¡°That¡¯s an immediate savings of four million stones, just think about how much we can do with that! Where can you get a gig that makes you four million stones in one go?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Chen Zhongtian stared at his son and breathed out after a long moment, ¡°You¡¯ve grown!¡±

    <i>You¡¯ve grown to the point where you plot against your own father! This is a very dangerous endeavor!</i>

    Granted, with the restrictions in the world these days, the strongest anyone could be was peak six element. The danger wouldn¡¯t be that extreme. Unfortunately, his son made sense.

    ¡°Then, fine... ai, I¡¯m old, but still need to go out and earn my own money. I built the family enterprises for you when I was young, but they¡¯re still not enough for you!¡±

    Chen Yao couldn¡¯t be bothered to say anything. It was all fine so long as his old man was willing to go. They were truly in a financial crisis! Li Hao inspired so muchpetition that the nine ministries, royal family, and other factions were furiously adding to their military capabilities. Otherwise, there wouldn¡¯t be such a rush to reach the Arcanus level. No one had been in a hurry before and could proceed at their own pace.

    Cultivating day by day and absorbing mysterious power stones could strengthen the five organs all the same. The consumption of resources involved in that route wasn¡¯t as great.

    But now?

    That was not feasible anymore!

    One had to progress, and immediately! Two elements was insufficient, it had to be three, then it had to be four! The barometer moved by the day and their physical bodies couldn¡¯t handle the strain, so then even more resources had to be consumed!

    The fact that these nt spirits weren¡¯t willing to lower their prices also had much to do with Li Hao. They knew that these people had a very pressing and high need for Water of Life. In that case, it was nice enough of them to not raise prices. Lower them?? Impossible!

    Since the Inspectorate faced a financial crisis, Chen Yao felt that the other factions would be in simr straits. Water of Life had suddenly be the most important strategic resource.

    ......

    <i>Before the sun rose on the second day.</i>

    Li Hao waited for people throughout the night. Tyrant de had already arrived, Thunderleg and the others were on the way and almost here. They would arrive before the sun rose.

    The young man was considering whether to handle the big tree first after his breakthrough or the Wind and Cloud Pavilion? He had a copy of the Arcanus and Divine Masters Rankings in hand¡ªnot his fakes, but the real ones!

    So those of the Pavilion hadn¡¯t detected his presence and the word of his visit really hadn¡¯t leaked. Well, he couldn¡¯t be entirely sure of its veracity, but the vice director general of South Peak really had gotten his hands on an original. The messenger had instructed him to print ten thousand copies of each for distribution the day after tomorrow.

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    Li Hao was scanning it, the look in his eyes changing rapidly. Footsteps sounded outside the door.

    ¡°Commander!¡±

    ¡°Come in!¡±

    Liu Long swiftly pushed the door open and whispered, ¡°The Inspectorate has sent someone who wants to see themander. He says his name is Chen Zhongtian!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyebrows raised and he looked at the Arcanus Ranking in his hand. Chen Zhongtian, first generation minister of the Ministry of the Inspectorate. Peak six elements Arcanus, ranked number nine.

    Indeed, number nine.

    Chen Zhongtian... six elements!

    The look danced in Li Hao¡¯s eyes for a bit before he said, ¡°Show him in!¡±

 Chapter 820: All in Readiness (II)

    <h4>Chapter 820: All in Readiness (II)</h4>

    Chen Zhongtian pushed through the door. An old man with an ethereal appearance, he carried himself with a refined demeanor.

    ¡°Commander Li, we just saw each other yesterday, but here I am disturbing you again.¡± He smiled affably.

    ¡°Old Minister Chen is too polite, have a seat!¡± Li Hao pointed at a chair. Chen Zhongtian smiled and sat right down. The young man nced at him, hesitated, then spoke frankly, ¡°Old Minister Chen, I have a question that I hope you can answer for me. I happen to be uncertain...¡±

    ¡°A question? Please speak frankly, Commander Li!¡±

    ¡°Are you guys...¡± Li Hao thought for a bit. ¡°Are you and Qi Pingjiang martial masters or supernaturals?¡±

    Indeed, this was his question! Could martial masters attain the equivalent of six element Arcanus? The young man would be able to see it if they were supernaturals¡ªthey would be glittering with golden light. These people did not impart that sensation. They were too piercing to look at, but it wasn¡¯t the supernatural sensation of hurting the eye.

    Chen Zhongtianughed at the question and looked deeply at Li Hao. ¡°We were martial masters at first, then became supernaturals, but we¡¯re not pure supernaturals.¡±

    Li Hao blinked. Not pure supernaturals? What did that mean?

    Seeing that Li Hao¡¯s interest was piqued, Chen Zhongtian contemted for a while and decided to tell the young man. There was someone in Silver Moon who knew the particrs anyhow, so there was no need to specifically hide it.

    ¡°The difference between supernaturals and martial masters lies in that one has broken their supernatural locks, the other hasn¡¯t. One has released their potential and the other hasn¡¯t. Then is there a way for a martial master to release their potential without having to snap their locks? They would be more powerful, yet still retain their identity as a martial master.¡±

    Maintaining the identity of a martial master was important for holding onto Silver Moon¡¯s legacies and treasures. However, one could not sustain that indefinitely as that would lead to eventual obsolescence in terms of battle strength. It was amon problem for many martial masters until Li Hao developed the supernatural characters.

    Did this mean that Chen Zhongtian and the others had found another way? Then why didn¡¯t they make it widely avable?

    ¡°How?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°Regr people can¡¯t use this method.¡± Chen Zhongtian smiled. ¡°On Silver Moon¡¯s side... your Director General Zhao might know it.¡±

    ¡°Please speak frankly, Director Chen!¡± What was the point in beating around the bush and leaving him hanging?

    ¡°It¡¯s really hard¡ªit¡¯s the nurturing of weapons to act as a medium!¡±

    ¡°What do you mean by that?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°Regr weapons won¡¯t do, you need a powerful one. Typically, a sky level one is required!¡± the old inspector general answered frankly. ¡°That means to say, we nurture our supernatural locks through the origin weapons, confining the supernatural locks within. The origin weapons are used to release strength from the locks while keeping them intact.

    ¡°However, the demands are high as each lock requires its own weapon!¡± sighed the man. ¡°That¡¯s why this technique isn¡¯t avable to everyone. It necessitates at least six sky level weapons to reach Arcanus, seven for three elements, nine for five elements...

    ¡°It¡¯s very difficult, so this technique hasn¡¯t been able to be poprized. Only the leaders of the most premier factions that explored ruins early on can utilize this method. It¡¯s no secret¡ªa lot of people know of it. This is likely how Ying Hongyue increased his strength as well...

    ¡°But you tell me, what use is there for this method to be poprized? Creating one Arcanus requires six sky level origin weapons. How is that possible? Only people like us collected some back in the day. There are many origin weapons that are earth level and below, but how many sky level ones are there?¡±

    Li Hao raised a brow. The nurturing of weapons to protect one¡¯s meridians! So such a technique existed in the world! Granted, it was an endless pit that consumed too many resources.

    ¡°What are the benefits and drawbacks to this technique?¡± Li Hao furrowed his brows.

    ¡°The benefit is that it permits you to retain your martial master identity. Martial masters have bright prospects ahead of them. Supernaturals... are fine too, but their biggest problem is that their strength resides outside of them.

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    ¡°The drawbacks are that firstly, the technique requires so many resources that no one can withstand this level of depletion. Each additional element requires another sky level organ weapon. Secondly, we still cannot bring our full strength to bear. Snapping the supernatural locks, for instance, fully releases the strength of that lock. We cannot reach the same level¡ªbut the gap is that big.

    ¡°Thirdly, origin weapons are hard toe by, particrly when you take into ount that affinity also needs to be considered. It¡¯s best if the origin weapon is a match for the element. For example, the lock of the heart should utilize a fire element weapon. The appropriate affinity between weapon and lock will lead to greater power!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. Laying hands on several sky-level origin weapons was already hard enough. Needing ones of different elements was even harder, and for those to be a good fit for one¡¯s needs? The difficulty level was astronomical!

    To be honest, this technique... was pretty awful. One might as well directly ascend as a supernatural. But this was what they¡¯d chosen to do in order to retain their identity as a martial master. It was because they were so wealthy that they could do so. The poor didn¡¯t have the right to attempt such a technique!

    Not even Li Hao could do so as hecked sky-level origin weapons.

    ¡°Then why didn¡¯t I get any when I killed Hu Xiao and Qian Wanhao...¡± he frowned.

    ¡°That¡¯s why I say it has to be the leaders of the most premier factions,¡± Chen Zhongtian chuckled. ¡°Those two... are slightly off the mark. They would do in the early years, but you need six origin weapons to make it to Arcanus and seven for three elements. Eight for four elements... do you think they can afford that?

    ¡°Over on the nine ministries side, less than half of them can do so.¡±

    That meant only three or four of them could. It went without saying that Li Hao¡¯s visitor was one of them, so that left only one more at most. The other two spots surely had to go to Minister Zhao from Administration and Qi Pingjiang.

    <i>A Zhao surname... </i>Li Hao suddenly realized. <i>Is he possibly rted to Director General Zhao in Silver Moon?</i>

    ¡°Nurturing weapons to protect the meridians... If the supernatural locks fully erupt while they¡¯re in the origin weapons, does that mean they will not breakpletely?¡±

    ¡°Correct!¡± Chen Zhongtian nodded. ¡°But the level of resource consumption is too great. Origin weapons need a vast sum of energy every time they are deployed. Requiring a pile of mysterious power stones each time they are used is also a drawback.¡±

    ¡°Origin weapons can hold the supernatural locks...¡± Li Hao thought of his supernatural characters. Wasn¡¯t this also a form of them? His way was just slightly less finicky and didn¡¯t require origin weapons.

    The young man turned over various ideas in his mind, apologizing after a long while. ¡°My apologies, I have shown inadequate hospitality to the old minister due to my preupation with certain matters. You came to me for a certain reason. I wonder...?¡±

    ¡°What I have on my mind is the Wind and Cloud Pavilion throwing the world into chaos. I see that Commander Li is determined to eliminate them. Although I am advanced in age, I am willing to put forth my efforts for themander. The Inspectorate is meant to uphold peace, so we can never coexist with evil supernatural organizations!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Keep bullshitting, why don¡¯t you!</i>

    ¡°Such was our mission statement when we were established eighty years ago,¡± Chen Zhongtianughed as if he knew what Li Hao was thinking. ¡°I personally wrote the oaths we had to take upon joining the Inspectorate.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± Li Haoughed nomittally. ¡°We don¡¯t need the old minister to worry about that...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to stand on ceremony with me,¡± coughed Chen Zhongtian. ¡°Ie with utmost sincerity. And... to be honest, there are some matters developing at home that I cannot resolve. I am too embarrassed to speak of them, but I cannot set them aside! My thoughts are that if Commander Li is willing to sell me five hundred drops of Water of Life at a low price...¡±

    ¡°Have a nice day, sir!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Chen Zhongtian coughed. ¡°Four hundred drops will do as well. I have too many children and as a father... although I am old... I must think of my children. Four hundred drops means that each child is getting less than ten drops. It¡¯s not even enough for them to ascend to Arcanus...¡±

    <i>Less than ten drops each? Doesn¡¯t that make for more than forty children? But I remember Chen Yao saying he only had thirty-something siblings. Why are there more now? How many children do you have?</i>

    Li Hao finally understood the connotations beneath Chen Zhongtian¡¯s words. So the man was here to... take on a temporary gig?

    That was incredible! A right and proper inspector general of the Inspectorate, the one who¡¯d establish the ministry at that, was here to say that he wanted work to feed his kids? It was very strange!

    Li Hao shook his head. Even if the inspector general was outright offering to buy four hundred drops at a low price, it was still too much. It took fifty drops for a two element Arcanus, one hundred for a three element, one hundred and fifty for a four element... Four hundred drops might create a five element Arcanus!

    Why create trouble for himself? He could handle the Wind and Cloud Pavilion.

    ¡°I... still have some strength to my name and am skilled when ites to defense and speed...¡±

    <i>Defense... speed...</i>

    A new thought struck Li Hao and he suddenly said, ¡°That¡¯s too much! And I don¡¯t think I need help in that regard... But if the old minister is willing to bring your full force to bear for a single asion and disregard the possibility of death, then... we might have something to talk about.¡±

    ¡°Full force? Of course!¡± Chen Zhongtian dered solemnly. ¡°Does Commander Li think I¡¯ll purposefully hold back on strength?¡±

    ¡°Peak six elements?¡±

    ¡°Commander Li overestimates me,¡± the man said without skipping a beat. ¡°I only have the strength of five elements, which is quite impressive already.¡±

    ¡°Peak six elements!¡± repeated Li Hao. ¡°I can sell at ten thousand pieces a drop for strength of that level and supply you with five hundred drops. If you are five elements... then twenty thousand pieces a drop and two hundred drops. That is my first and final offer.¡±

    The first proposal was five million stones for five hundred drops, which made for profits of twenty million stones. The second was four million stones for two hundred drops, which made for profits of six million stones. The difference was fourteen million stones!

    Chen Zhongtian clucked his tongue when he calcted the difference. Damn, the difference was huge!

    ¡°Also, you must obey all of mymands,¡± Li Hao continued as the man pondered his decision. ¡°You attack in whatever direction I point at. You may not run off or do as you see fit! I¡¯ll arrange an opponent stronger than you even if you say you¡¯re a five element Arcanus. In the end, you¡¯ll be bringing the strength of six elements to bear but getting paid as five elements...¡±

    Chen Zhongtian cursed to himself. It was hard earning money these days! However, Li Hao¡¯s price was also tempting enough, so he said probingly, ¡°Then... five thousand pieces a drop...¡±

 Chapter 821: All in Readiness (III)

    <h4>Chapter 821: All in Readiness (III)</h4>

    ¡°That is fine too!¡± Li Hao smiled.

    That was fine... too? Chen Zhongtian blinked.

    ¡°I need you to keep someone preupied for me,¡± the young man chuckled. ¡°Obstructing them for three minutes will change your price to ten thousand stones a drop. Four minutes will update it to eight thousand stones. Five minutes to five thousand. The battle should be over at five minutes, and I¡¯ll put you down for ten thousand stones a drop if you hold past one minute, but not to three...¡±

    Chen Zhongtian blinked, then couldn¡¯t help butugh. <i>You know that I¡¯m a six element Arcanus. Who in our modern society can exceed my strength by so much? I¡¯m just distracting the target, do you think so little of me?</i>

    To put it inly, those stronger than him in this age could be counted with one hand. And any who were greater were limited in how much stronger they were. They could at most somewhat suppress him a little; he would still have the ability to fight back. Li Hao¡¯s words were certainly interesting.

    ¡°Then if the enemy is killed within a minute...¡± Chen Zhongtianughed.

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll proceed ording to the best price!¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Five thousand stones a drop for five hundred drops!¡±

    ¡°Who... are you going against?¡± Chen Zhongtian stopped midway between throwing his head back withughter. Li Hao wasn¡¯t weak and knew that he wasn¡¯t weak either, yet he still made this kind of request. Truth be told, it was... unsettling.

    ¡°I¡¯m not at liberty to say.¡± Li Hao grinned.

    Chen Zhongtian frowned and looked at the young man. ¡°The Wind and Cloud Pavilion?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not at liberty to say!¡±

    ¡°......¡± <i>Your ass you aren¡¯t! </i>Chen Zhongtian¡¯s frown deepened. <i>I¡¯m just here to feed my family, not to die. You aren¡¯t going to throw me against premier powerhouses, are you? Like the existences in the ruins?</i>

    But... the young man should know how great the difference between their strengths would be. It would be an impossible undertaking and just the entertainment of a death wish.

    ¡°Will you be fighting with me?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not... going to run off, are you? Or lead me to my death?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°I, Li Hao, would never do that to a fellowrade. Who would ever trust me if I did so? Of this, you can rest assured!¡± The young man gave it some more thought before saying, ¡°Let¡¯s forget it. I¡¯m afraid of exposing too much...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± Chen Zhongtianughed. ¡°I can... agree to this, but I want an advance of one hundred drops.¡±

    Li Hao stared at him.

    ¡°Although I don¡¯t know who you¡¯re up against, for you to approach it so earnestly means that they aren¡¯t an ordinary opponent. Can it be Ying Hongyue? That would make sense. He¡¯s your enemy and very strong, so he¡¯s worthy of such attention!¡±

    Indeed, he was thinking of Ying Hongyue. That was a terrifying fellow and truly dangerous. However, Chen Zhongtian felt that he could handle Ying Hongyue for a few minutes. The guy couldn¡¯t erupt with seven elements. All he would need for five hundred drops at five thousand stones a drop was 2.5 million. If he went to a nt spirit for the same sum, he would need twenty-five million!

    The difference was enormous and would save him approximately two million stonespared to the previous prices. Was that not money??

    ¡°An advance?¡± Li Hao furrowed his brows, then agreed, ¡°That¡¯s not out of the question! But I¡¯ll give them to you only just before we set off!¡±

    The more powerhouses he had against the big tree, the better. The only drawback was that he might expose a lot of his secrets, but... so what? It was better than more people die during this attempt.

    He wouldn¡¯t care about Chen Zhongtian if the man was only a five element Arcanus, but he was listed as peak six element on the Divine Masters Ranking. That was terrifying; Li Hao wasn¡¯t sure if he¡¯de out on top in a fight. Having such a powerhouse on his side would decrease a lot of his losses and maybe even save some lives.

    As for the risk of the guy deserting the battlefield... Once they were there and ready to kill their target, would the nt spirit show him mercy? There was no way back after he entered!

    Chen Zhongtian suddenly felt uneasy that Li Hao had agreed so swiftly. It wasn¡¯t a good proposal from his son that he shoulde here to work. In fact, he wants to refuse! This was growing decidedly unsettling.

    At the same time, the massive temptation truly called out to him. He wanted to turn down Li Hao as he was ustomed to ying it safe. However, he was torn by the seduction of the very cheap prices. The Inspectorate was truly too poor these days and his son didn¡¯t even have enough resources to ascend to four element Arcanus.

    After repeatedly turning the matter over in his mind and weighing up the pros and cons, he ultimately nodded. ¡°I agree! When do we move out?¡±

    Li Hao was also debating whether to move against the Wind and Cloud Pavilion first¡ªbut they might not appear immediately¡ªor if he should go against the coconut tree first. If Chen Zhongtian was joining the team... that made for ample hands. So he would take down the nt spirit first! The little tree wanted to devour its replica as well. The stronger the little tree was, the better, and the faster they achieved that, the better.

    Li Hao quickly took stock of everyone else¡¯s whereabouts when his thoughts traveled here. Kong Jie and the rest had almost arrived; one day was sufficient for everyone to form their supernatural characters. The Wind and Cloud Pavilion¡¯s timeline wouldn¡¯t arrive until the day after tomorrow.

    ¡°Tomorrow night!¡±

    ¡°Huh?¡± Chen Zhongtian blinked again. ¡°Are we going against Red Moon or the Wind and Cloud Pavilion? That¡¯s really fast!¡±

    They were going to take action tomorrow night?

    ¡°Yep, tomorrow night.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°I won¡¯t speak of our target, just in case word gets out! Don¡¯t worry, Inspector Chen, it won¡¯t be just you and I on this operation. The people I¡¯ve summoned will all be with us. Everything is foolproof, so there is no need to worry!

    ¡°Additionally, it¡¯s best if you can bring your ultimate trump card with you... that divine weapon that¡¯s suppressing the old Skystar King. Just in case!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Chen Zhongtian¡¯s scalp crawled with numbness! ¡°Don¡¯t... do anything crazy. I don¡¯t want to die just because I¡¯m trying to earn some money. and who... is your target?¡±

    He was starting to shake from the possibilities! The kid didn¡¯t want to enter the ruins to take down an ancient powerhouse, did he? The knees of a hundred-year-old man were starting to knock in terror. ¡°Are we heading into the ruins?¡±

    ¡°Maybe...¡± Li Haoughed.

    Horror skittered up Chen Zhongtian¡¯s spine and even his voice shook! ¡°We are unable to go against the ancient powerhouses. They¡¯re at least the Apex level once they awaken! It¡¯s better in our age because of various restrictions, but in the past, one hundred six element Arcanus might not be able to defeat one Apex...¡±

    ¡°That was then, like you say,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Now they are simply obsolete characters. Are modern humans to be ruled by ancient humans if we do not shatter the fear upying our hearts? You will find that once you kill an ancient heavyweight, a transformation wille upon your mind, will, heart, and soul! Otherwise, we are doomed to eternally live beneath the shadows of the ancient civilization!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re crazy!¡± Chen Zhongtian shrilled. ¡°You really are going to...¡±

    The icy clench of fear closed around his heart. For modern powerhouses, the stronger one was, the more one understood how mighty and powerful the ancient civilization and its heavyweights were. Weaklings did not sense it as much. A premier expert such as him felt it most keenly. He hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would set his sights on such a goal.

    ¡°Then forget it, we do not need Minister Chen¡¯s help!¡± Li Hao looked at him. ¡°You were not part of my ns to begin with.¡±

    ¡°You... have gathered the Silver Moon martial masters together not for the Wind and Cloud Pavilion, have you?¡± Color drained from Chen Zhongtian¡¯s face. ¡°You made up your mind early on that you wanted to eliminate ancient powerhouses. You¡¯re pushing Silver Moon into a fire pit!¡±

    He finally understood now. Li Hao didn¡¯t just have his eyes locked on the Wind and Cloud Pavilion¡ªall of that was just a cover. He¡¯d summoned so many people to fight ancient powerhouses; the Wind and Cloud Pavilion was simply the best pretext. Otherwise, everyone would specte about his intentions if he gathered so many people in an ordinary time. But now, people would say that Li Hao was a lunatic and that the Wind and Cloud Pavilion was so very unlucky. The young man was inly going to pursue them to the ends of the world!

    No one would give thought to the possibility or even dare let their thoughts wander in the direction of Li Hao turning to aim at an awakened existence in the ruins.

    ¡°Does this not suit your preferences?¡± Li Hao stated calmly. ¡°If we trip over ourselves and die, the rest of you will be at peace! But if we seed in killing ancient powerhouses, we¡¯ll be infallible and our strength and hearts will improve in a tangible manner. Once I emerge then, I¡¯ll make sure that everyone who¡¯s against me won¡¯t live to see the second awakening!

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    ¡°You can think it over, Minister Chen, but you may not tell anyone else!¡± The young man stared steadily at him. ¡°You¡¯re the only one I¡¯m talking to about this. If I dare go after an ancient powerhouse, that means I¡¯m fifty percent confident in my chances. Does Minister Chen think the Inspectorate is stronger, or the ancient civilization?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t breathe a word!¡± Chen Zhongtian promised solemnly, suddenly wanting to run away. What a bunch ofplete lunatics!

    ¡°The opportunity is right in front of you and may note around again if you pass it by. Have a good day, minister. I won¡¯t be seeing you out!¡±

    A variety of changes flickered across Chen Zhongtian¡¯s face before he swiftly departed. He was going to go back to... beat his son to death! <i>Damn you to hell! You wanted me to pick up a job, but does this look like a simple job to you?!</i> It was more cruel than extracting his own blood to sell it!

    Li Hao chuckled to see the old minister run away. It didn¡¯t matter if the man didn¡¯t show up tomorrow, whereas it would be quite interesting if he did. The young man continued studying the ranking and sneered after a long moment, ¡°Ying Hongyue!¡±

    Li Hao was ranked number one, whereas Ying Hongyue was number two! There must be a certain degree of intion in his ranking, but there should be none for Ying Hongyue¡¯s. What a terrifying fellow!

    ¡°He¡¯s the real number one... so Ying Hongyue is the strongest in all of Silver Moon Territory!¡± Li Hao could barely believe his eyes. The guy who didn¡¯t daree close to him was number one! He knew that Ying Hongyue was strong, but never thought that he would be <i>this</i> strong.

    Ying Hongyue was peak six element, not yet seven. There was an additional line next to him name¡ªincredibly strong life force that can break through at any time.

    What did that mean? That Ying Hongyue could set foot into seven element Arcanus whenever possible?

 Chapter 822: All in Readiness (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 822: All in Readiness (IV)</h4>

    The look in Li Hao¡¯s eyes grew colder the longer he stared at the name. His previous thoughts were that Ying Hongyue was probably weaker than those such as Qi Pingjiang and the old Skystar King, because he was younger than them. As such, Li Hao might not be afraid of him even if Ying Hongyue was a peak six element Arcanus.

    But now? The old Skystar King was ranked number three! Number four was Minister Zhao of the Ministry of Administration and Qi Pingjiang was neither fifth nor sixth...

    Number five was Lin Hongyu¡ªa name unfamiliar to the young man. He was soon enlightened as there was an addendum after the name that identified her as the city lord of the City of Supernaturals.

    Number six surprised him enormously¡ªZhao Shuguang, director general of Silver Moon! Number seven was also an unexpected mention of the current Skystar King! Qi Pingjiang only came in as number eight and Chen Zhongtian as number nine. Was this ranking targeted at him or the royal family? The two kings were ced in the top ten!

    The young man soon came to know which party the ranking targeted. Number ten was Zhou Chuan, deputy director general of Silver Moon. Number eleven was Yama. Number twelve the Flying Sword Immortal. Number thirteen was the lord of Yonder Mountain. Number fourteen was Hong Yitang, number fifteen Yao Si, number sixteen Hou Xiaochen. Number seventeen was Sky Sword, and number eighteen Liu Hao. That was another unfamiliar name, and Li Hao looked at the addendum to see that he was the minister of Finance. How unexpected! His battle strength was listed aste six element Arcanus.

    Therefore, there was a lot of falsehood in this ranking. All Silver Moon entrants were promoted upward and listed around peak six elements. That was bullshit and entirely too fake!

    And yet... upon knowing that the rest of the ranking was true, then people would still pay additional attention to the beginning of the ranking, despite knowing that it bore certain parts of falsehood.

    There were three Silver Moon heavyweights among the top ten and nine in the top twenty! Number neen was the lord of Phoenix Mountain and number twenty was... Yuan Shuo!

    Indeed, Yuan Shuo. Would anyone believe that? Li Hao absolutely didn¡¯t, especially as his master was listed as peak five elements! Peak bullshit, more like!

    The young man didn¡¯t know what to say. The ranking¡¯s estimation of battle strength deviated severely whenever it mentioned those of Silver Moon; it wasn¡¯t possible for these descriptions to be correct. That was nine Silver Moon names among the top twenty! What kind of nonsense was that?!

    Everyone else on the ranking was the leader of their faction. Other than the lords of Phoenix and Yonder Mountains, the lords of Buddha and Sky Roc were dead, Sky Sword was counted among the Silver Moon crew. The remaining two mountain lords weren¡¯t even part of the top twenty! There didn¡¯t seem to be anything amiss with the exnations rted to the battle strength of the others, which meant there was much amiss with the descriptions affixed to Silver Moon.

    ¡°Hmph!¡± Li Hao snorted coldly. <i>Why don¡¯t you include yourself, huh?</i> The ranking listed only the top twenty before stopping. There was no reason given as to whether this was by design or if this was the most that the Wind and Cloud Pavilion could probe into at any given time. There were probably more that they could look into, but they purposefully didn¡¯t list any more.

    Just these twenty were enough. This ranking would cause a great uproar as nine Silver Moon personages entering the ranking was the stuff of legends! There were countless heavyweights on the nine ministries'' side, yet their strongest¡ªthe minister of Administration¡ªwas ranked only number four. The one at Armed Forces was only at number eight. Not a single current minister was listed.

    Apart from the Arcanus Ranking of these twenty, there was also a separate Divine Masters Ranking. There were ten more spots on that list and the first among them was Dao Sword. Since he was from the Night Watchers, that made him part of Li Hao¡¯s camp.

    This made the top of both the Arcanus and Divine Masters Ranking hail from Li Hao¡¯s side. Although the Divine Masters Ranking was essentially worthless, it represented future potential. As such, this ranking was very important.

    ¡°Trash trying to scheme against me! Do they think that everyone¡¯s stupid?¡± Li Hao cursed, then sighed. Indeed, everyone was stupid. They all thought that they¡¯d hidden themselves very well, but their full strength had beenpletely plumbed by another. No matter if it was true or not, Silver Moon would be the target of great suspicion.

    There would be many feints and probing moves toe; could Li Hao simply take them all lying down? If he killed any powerhouses that came calling... that would immediately prove that the ranking was true. That was when true trouble would descend on Silver Moon.

    ¡°What a pity that your ranking won¡¯t be distributed!¡± Li Hao decided that the ranking had to be modified from the few that were mentioned. Some people didn¡¯t need to be listed, while others must make an appearance.

    ¡°Everyone¡¯s here!¡± Sky Sword called from outside the door. A smile crossed the young man¡¯s face. Good! Everything was in ordance and it was time to visit the ruins.

    He quietly left with a group of people half an hourter. Six elderly martial masters, Northern Fist, Tyrant de, Thunderleg, Kong Jie, and Huang Yu made for eleven premier martial masters. Combined with the earlier Sky Sword, Hong Yitang, Hou Xiaochen, Yao Si, Southern Fist, Light Sword, Yu Luocha, and Li Hao himself, as well as a Panther of unknown strength¡ªthis group represented the sum total of battle strength that he was going to bring to bear against the coconut tree.

    If Chen Zhongtian joined them, that would make for twenty premier heavyweights. Even their weakest of Yu Luocha was an Arcanus. Li Hao had also given Yang Shan and Qin Lian a generous amount of Water of Life. It would be more than twenty Arcanus if they seeded in ascending as well.

    If the little tree was also thrown into the mix... then his side would be terrifying!

    ......

    As Li Hao left with his people, Chen Zhongtian returned to the Inspectorate. He grabbed his son without a word and beat him so thoroughly that Chen Yao wanted to strike back at his old man.

    ¡°You unfilial son!¡± Chen Zhongtian intoned after a long while. Chen Yao glowered back at his father. The old man took a deep breath. ¡°If you trade the family fortune for cultivation resources, they should be sufficient to support your entering four element Arcanus. I¡¯m going to leave for a trip tomorrow. If I don¡¯t return... go to the Ministry of Administration that night or just flee secretly. Abandon the Inspectorate and find a ce to hide...¡±

    Chen Yao blinked and looked more closely at his father, not knowing if he was putting on a front or truly speaking his heart. Chen Zhongtian didn¡¯t bother exining further¡ªhe hade to a decision to put it all on the line for once!

    He had high hopes for Li Hao. Although the young man was crazy, it was as he said. The gamble would pay off enormous dividends if it seeded¡ªnot in terms of wealth, but of mind and spirit.

    Chen Zhongtian looked at the rear yard, a keen light glinting out of his eyes. Everyone in the world feared the ancient powerhouses, finding them impossible to ovee. He was among their number, but if they managed to shatter their internal demons, that would be a massive step forward for martial masters cultivating their heart!

    <i>Even Qi Pingjiang and the others don¡¯t dare say that they dare to move against a nt spirit, but I... do! There¡¯s a ny-nine percent chance that Li Hao¡¯s going to attack the nt spirit left behind by the Hus. Since he dares gamble with his life and the lives of many Silver Moon martial masters, he must have his confidence in doing so. Then I... I shall be involved as well.</i>

    Chen Zhongtian had made up his mind. <i>Tomorrow night...</i> was prior to the revealing of the ranking. Li Hao¡¯s thoughts were not difficult to guess. He would eliminate the nt spirit before turning his attention to the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. If he seeded, then thetter wasn¡¯t worth worrying about. If he failed... then the ranking didn¡¯t matter anymore. It wouldn¡¯t be important anymore!

    ¡°Old man... you¡¯re just joking with me, aren¡¯t you?¡± Chen Yao raised an eyebrow. ¡°I sent you to Li Hao to pick up an easy job, not to send you to your death. What are you putting up such an attitude for?¡±

    Chen Zhongtian couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond and brought a little girl close for some kisses. He turned to his eldest son. ¡°Take everyone to the Ministry of Administration if I have not returned by morning of the day after tomorrow. You can do with yourself as you see fit, but your siblings are too young to get away.¡±

    Chen Yao frowned and continued staring at his father. Chen Zhongtian ignored him, walking further in and setting course for a secret room. Chen Yao¡¯s heart shook to see his father walk inside! That room held the divine weapon enshrined by the Chens. It was their strongest weapon, the one that suppressed the old Skystar King. It was rted to the methods they¡¯d employed back in the day. What did his old man want with it?

    Taking that weapon with him really was putting his life on the line!

    n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Chen Yao looked around in a daze. What... was going on here? He didn¡¯t get it.<i> I just wanted you to earn some money, not go die! </i>What had Li Hao said to his father?

    ......

    <i>Evenround Martial University.</i>

    Martial masters were astounded by the supernatural characters that flowed from Li Hao and the rest. Meanwhile, the ck Armor that remained on the athletic field waspletely lost for words.

    <i>Do you really treat this ce as your secret cultivation haven? Youe here for no reason at all and you return day after day, it¡¯s truly... aggravating!</i>

    At the same time, it was surprised by this set of visitors. These people were interesting. They possessed strong auras¡ªa manifestation that bore some semnce to the core origin dao of old. However, they were inly not very strong. Ancient cultivators who did not reach peakprehension found it hard to grasp dao.

    These cultivators, on the other hand, seemed to have already touched the threshold of dao. Their physical bodies were mediocre and their mental strength run-of-the-mill. And yet, the perception of fledgling dao was inly noticeable from them.

    The ck Armor chuckled to himself. Each era bore their own cultivation style. What these visitors demonstrated was a good development, but also a drawback. Coming into contact with dao too quickly made it difficult for them to truly strengthen their own body and endure the force of great dao. Was it better to sip and nibble at the fount of great dao instead?

    Li Hao finished teaching his newest pupils as the ck Armor pondered over his thoughts. Almost no one had reservations about the method. Being able to retain their auras whilemanding supernatural power was their greatest yearning.

    Everyone eagerly practiced this new skill. This process naturally required Water of Life. Li Hao calcted their needs at two or three hundred drops, and that was an optimistic estimate. It was a significant consumption of resources. Of course, the young man felt that he could make it back if they eliminated the coconut tree.

    He walked into the school campus after he finished his instruction. The puppets at the school gates were still conducting regr patrols for unknown reasons. Li Hao set a course for the athletic field. The ck Armor watched silently, not knowing what the young man wanted.

 Chapter 823: Killing the Replica, Coalescing Arcanus (I)

    <h4>Chapter 823: Killing the Replica, Coalescing Arcanus (I)</h4>

    ¡°Senior!¡± Li Hao walked over with a radiant smile. The ck Armor did not respond. Unbothered, the young man continued, ¡°Senior, this student has a question to ask.¡±

    ¡°Speak,¡± the ck Armor responded evenly.

    ¡°Senior, how should I ensure the elimination of a nt spirit that was of the Immortal level in the ancient civilization?¡± Li Hao cut straight to the chase. ¡°It¡¯s awakened to a certain degree at this stage, but it shouldn¡¯t have returned to the Immortal level yet. Under these circumstances, how should I guarantee killing them?¡±

    The ck Armor looked at the sky. It was very dark and there was a lunatic standing in front of him! A fellow who¡¯d just reached six elements wanted to kill an Immortal. Did he want to challenge someone stronger than him? That was fine, but one needed to consider how great the difference in strength was. Not to mention, there was a metamorphosis stage in the modern system. The difference between the two wasn¡¯t bridged by just one or two minor cultivation levels.

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    ¡°Do you know what the Immortal level represents?¡± slowly asked the ck Armor as he looked at Li Hao. The young man shook his head.

    ¡°In the ancient civilization, grades one through nine were still of the mundane level! Entering Apex from grade nine was a metamorphosis that made one too strong to imagine! The ¡®Emperor¡¯ rank after it waster modified to Immortal so we wouldn¡¯t identally infringe upon the titles of some true heavyweights. The new name also indicated that bearers were undying and indestructible...

    Li Hao looked at the ck Armor. <i>Undying and indestructible? They still died all the same, aren¡¯t you dead?</i>

    The ck Armor seemed to know what he was thinking¡ªor rather, Li Hao had forgotten his capabilities and was letting his mind run wild in front of the entity.

    ¡°That is what is said about the ranks.¡± The ck Armor didn¡¯t mind the impertinence. ¡°But after one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand years... Or rather, endless time, the indestructible crumbles away all the same! The greatest existence or golden body also declines if there is no energy supporting them. But those nt spirits have survived to present day. Strictly speaking, they are all truly immortal!¡±

    How many years had it been? Time was the greatest enemy in all eras. Even if one¡¯s potential was so tremendous that it defined the age, it would continue to wear away at one for ten thousand, one hundred thousand years.

    The ck Armor didn¡¯t continue further and said faintly, ¡°The key to killing an Immortal cultivator lies in two points¡ªfirst, severing its core origin! This is very important as there is no more core origin dao in this world, but the opponent¡¯s dao still exists. It simply cannot depend on the true dao of the world. It is no longer stable and cannot draw upon an unlimited supply of energy from the core origin dao.¡±

    ¡°Then... how do I sever their core origin dao?¡± Li Hao raised a brow.

    ¡°Your supernatural charactersbined mental strength and aura,¡± responded the ck Armor after a long moment. ¡°It is a unique dao in itself. Only great dao can be brought to bear against great dao! Pure blood qi attacks, internal force blows, or mysterious power moves cannot harm great dao. The aura, however, can!

    ¡°You have Steris in hand. So long as your aura is strong enough and your supernatural characters powerful enough, you¡¯ll be able to cut their dao down with one swing!¡±

    Li Hao turned over the meaning behind those words. Only great dao could harm great dao!

    ¡°Secondly, once nt spirits awaken, there is certain to be a vast reserve of Water of Life in their bodies. Any nt spirit would ensure so. Therefore, the greatest taboo in battle is to drag the fighting out. Once the sh drags on, they might utilize all of their Water of Life in a critical moment and return to peak condition!¡±

    ¡°Will they have Water of Life in their bodies right after awakening?¡± Li Hao¡¯s expression shifted slightly.

    ¡°Of course,¡± the ck Armor responded faintly. ¡°Any nt spirit of any era would do so. Ask the little tree next to you if you don¡¯t believe me. It may be extremely weak, but it will also store a vast quantity of Water of Life, even if its strength is yet to recover to its peak!¡±

    Li Hao immediately released the little tree; it felt very awkward at having heard the conversation! One might as well outright say that the little tree had grifted a lot of mysterious power stones during its transaction with Li Hao.

    But since the ck Armor had already spoken, the little tree had to respond, ¡°I did... keep some for myself. I¡¯m not certain of the other guy though.¡±

    ¡°You all do!¡± the ck Armor affirmed calmly. ¡°If you don¡¯t want to have to go through killing it twice, then you must kill it before it fully erupts! Otherwise, it¡¯s not just a matter of finding them difficult to kill, but that you¡¯ll gain a lot less for your victory.¡±

    Li Hao nodded rapidly. So this was the case! Thank goodness he was shameless enough to approach the ck Armor with his questions. The little tree might not know as much as this one.

    ¡°Thirdly, as a partially awoken Immortal and a nt spirit, its defenses will be difficult to break. So long as a nt spirit lives, its body remains very durable!¡±

    Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°Therefore, you need to concentrate your strength if you wish to kill it,¡± continued the ck Armor. ¡°Break through the heart of its life force¡ªthe core of a nt spirit, the equivalent of its heart. Wherever the densest concentration of its energy is during battle is where the heart of its life force is.¡±

    The ck Armor reached out, sending the little tree into a panic as itnded in the former¡¯s hands! The ck Armor pointed at a certain spot on the little tree¡¯s trunk. ¡°This is where the heart of a nt spirit¡¯s life force is. Only in breaking it will your attacks have marvelous effect. Otherwise, it will only be a scratch even if you hack them into two!¡±

    Li Hao quickly bobbed his head up and down with the new knowledge. He looked at the little tree¡ªthank goodness it didn¡¯t have a face, or it¡¯d be stricken with panic, fear, and terror at the moment. This Saint level existence was too horrifying!

    ¡°Are you relying on this little tree in your bid to kill the nt spirit?¡± The ck Armor looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°Yes and no!¡± the young manughed dryly.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that you don¡¯t stand a chance.¡± The ck Armor pondered. ¡°But that the core origin dao of the world has disappeared and what is left can no longer increase. Everything is possible after a long duration of sleep! But be careful and don¡¯t give the other a chance to self-detonate. All of you will die then!¡±

    <i>Self-detonate?</i>

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow at the new thought. It didn¡¯t need to be further said that an Immortal level existence would be terrified of death now, having painstakingly hung on to present day. If it was taken down by a group of ants... it might very well self-detonate in a grand way at thest possible second. If it did, how Li Hao and the rest would survive would be the question.

    ¡°Thank you for your pointers, senior!¡±

    The ck Armor ignored Li Hao and remained standing in ce. Truth be told, the young man was curious, why did this fellow just keep standing there?

    Once again, he forgot that his thoughts were an open book to the entity.

    ¡°I am the dean of education at Evenround Martial,¡± the ck Armor said faintly. ¡°I am in charge of assembly at the field and emergencybat readiness. When I stand here, that represents that we are to bebat ready!¡±

    <i>Is that so?</i> Li Hao thought sheepishly. <i>Alright then! But... you¡¯re just one person, what¡¯s the point of beingbat ready by yourself?</i>

    He didn¡¯t ask further as this dean was a bit aloof. He wasn¡¯t as friendly as Director General Wang. Li Hao was starting to discover that most ancient existences were incredibly removed beings. Those willing to chat like the little tree and Director General Wang were very few.

    Perhaps they didn¡¯t think much of present day humans, or perhaps they¡¯d lost all hope a long time ago.

    Li Hao turned back to the school gates and rubbed his eyes for another look at the toy puppets. One of them seemed to have opened their eyes just now! He knew that the toys were puppets, but did puppets have a need to open their eyes?

    The young man cast a strange look at them, then at the puppets patrolling the premises. These puppets seemed... off somehow.

    There was only an empty clearing in front of the school gates. Was there a need for several hundred puppets to be patrolling this area? Could it be that they were... alive?

    Well, no, not even the ck Armor counted as alive. Various thoughts rose in his mind, but he didn¡¯t dare voice them aloud. Whether it was the ck Armor or Director General Wang, none of them had asked Li Hao to do anything for them. They didn¡¯t want the young man¡¯s help in reawakening, nor did they want mysterious power stones from him.

    Who knew if they felt there was no need to trouble Li Hao because he was too weak, or if revitalization was already out of reach for them. They were all humans, not nt spirits.

    ......

    Li Hao looked down at a storage ring and hesitated, should he eliminate the big tree¡¯s replica here? It would be a perfect chance to probe the other¡¯s strength...

    Upon further thought, he decided to wait a bit longer. He could wait for everyone to finish their transformation and summon everyone joining the operation. They would jointly move against the big tree!

    ......

    The conversion process took a very long time. Night had already fallen by the time Li Hao¡¯s group emerged. He quickly returned to Skystar City with his people.

    <i>Skystar City, Skystar Commander Office¡¯s.</i>

    A group of well-known names had gathered. All of them were powerhouses and rather excited.

    ¡°Then I would ask Deputy Zhou to stay behind and stand guard...¡± Li Hao looked at Deputy Zhou, following his initial n.

    The deputy looked at him and smiled, ¡°I should go in too. There¡¯s not much use for me alone if something happens to all of you.¡±

    Li Hao raised an eyebrow and took a closer look at Deputy Zhou. He wasn¡¯t certain of this one¡¯s precise strength as the deputy was an ancient martial cultivator, but the Arcanus Ranking ced him high.

    ¡°Then... let us go in together!¡± Li Hao nodded. This was just as good. ¡°We should split up first. Wait for me at the western ruins, I¡¯ll be there shortly!¡±

    The group shifted with confusion, weren¡¯t they all going in together?

    ¡°I have some other arrangements in mind,¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°I¡¯m going to determine our opponent¡¯s strength and methods first!¡±

    Although his team didn¡¯t quite understand, it was fine by them and they left one by one.

    ......

    <i>The rear yard.</i>

    Li Hao visited once more, this time with hints of solemnity. ¡°I have discovered the hiding spot of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion,¡± he said lowly. ¡°And I¡¯m leading people against them right now! Thirty million stones is a small matter if Ie back alive, the Wind and Cloud Pavilion definitely have their own reserves!¡±

    The big tree hadn¡¯t thought that the human would take action so quickly. After all, it¡¯d only been two days since the Wind and Cloud Pavilion showed itself. Seeing that itcked a source of news and didn¡¯t know the true state of things, however, its mental ripples undted back, ¡°Then I wish you good fortune. Don¡¯t worry, there will be no issues, not with my replica present.¡±

    Li Hao hesitated, then asked, ¡°But if we meet with strong foes... I hope that senior¡¯s replica... will fend off our opponents for a moment or two...¡±

    The coconut tree wanted to curse loudly. <i>What do you mean by this? Are you going to run first if it turns out you can¡¯t ovee them and let my replica die? You¡¯re absolutely awful!</i>

 Chapter 824: Killing the Replica, Coalescing Arcanus (II)

    <h4>Chapter 824: Killing the Replica, Coalescing Arcanus (II)</h4>

    ¡°Of course my replica will help you when you encounter difficult opponents,¡± the coconut tree said after some thought. ¡°But if you fail and my replica shatters, then I will absorb these origin weapons first to stabilize my core origin.¡±

    In other words, Li Hao still needed to pay the thirty million stones. The origin weapons were just interest.

    ¡°Very well!¡± Li Hao nodded after a period of silence. He turned to leave and paused when he reached the door. His voice was muted. ¡°Senior nt Spirit, if I... fail... and can return... I would... like to borrow some Water of Life to heal my injuries!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The coconut tree wanted to curse out the young man! The human had gotten used to reaping great rewards without barely any investment, hadn¡¯t he? He was addicted to that, wasn¡¯t he? What a joke!

    ¡°My injuries are too severe after severing my core origin, so I¡¯m afraid that I won¡¯t be able to further offer Water of Life to you...¡± The big tree kept up an inward litany of insults.<i> Get out of here! I haven¡¯t seen a single mysterious power stone yet, but I¡¯ve already cut off a replica. Now you want Water of Life? This Li Hao is too damned greedy, the little bastard!</i>

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    ¡°If it reallyes to that, then I¡¯ll put down the Windchaser Boots and Steris as coteral!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The coconut tree froze with shock.<i> Steris! The Windchaser Boots!</i> It didn¡¯t immediately have a response.

    ¡°This is just a contingency n!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°None of this will happen if I win. You need to trust the strength of your own replica, senior!¡±

    The big tree continued turning things over in its mind and didn¡¯t say a word.

    ¡°Please consider it, senior. We can discuss further if I really do find myself in need.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s said that Steris can purify energy,¡± the big tree couldn¡¯t help but ask when it saw that the young man was leaving. ¡°Is that true?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°How else would I have my aplishments today? It¡¯s only been a few months since I set foot into martial dao!¡±

    The big tree spoke no further. It was true! So the legends were true! They said that the Sword Sovereign¡¯s body was very weak and that he had to bring his full strength to bear with each blow. Steris was apparently forged by an unparalleled heavyweight¡ªpossibly a joint effort between the legendary Human King and Divine Forge Emperor. It was made so that the Sword Sovereign could quickly recover after deploying a move.

    As for whether or not that was the truth, a guardian nt spirit of Tranquil Star didn¡¯t know much. But since the sword really could purify energy... then that was incredible!

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t dare linger any longer and swiftly departed. He saw someone with a constipated expression standing at the main doors of the Skystar Commander Office as soon as he reached the front. The young man was rather surprised.

    <i>He¡¯s really here?</i>

    Chen Zhongtian looked at Li Hao with a pained expression; the young man looked back at him and sized up the man. ¡°Minister Chen... is really joining us?¡± he smiled.

    ¡°Mmhmm,¡± Chen Zhongtian mumbled back in a muffled voice. ¡°I¡¯ve lived too long, after all, and can set aside certain things!¡±

    One hundred years was a long life.

    Li Haoughed and thought of the ancient heavyweights. Their ages were easily measured in terms of thousands of years. Could one hundred years be considered too long? ¡°Then let us go together!¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Chen Zhongtian was surprised and looked toward the rear yard. Was this not the location?

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Li Hao instantly vanished. The man raised his eyebrow¡ªso fast! He immediately disappeared as well.

    Chen Zhongtian had not been exaggerating when he said he was skilled in speed and defense. He was indeed very quick¡ªLi Hao was even utilizing the Windchaser Boots, but the man caught up in a split second.

    They reached the western outskirts in a few moments. Li Hao hade here so often these days that none of the other factions darede or even post scouts. Chen Zhongtian¡¯s expression shifted slightly when he met the rest of the group. There were so many people here! Were they all here for the powerhouses in Evenround Martial? Had he guessed incorrectly?

    He was a bit confused, but perhaps... the existences inside were stronger than he thought?

    Just as he saw the others, so did they see him. Some of the old men pursed their lips¡ªwhat was this fellow doing here?

    ¡°Li Hao, why did you bring this old thug with you?¡± asked He Yong.

    ¡°......¡± Chen Zhongtian didn¡¯t know what to say. It was one thing if others called him that, but Southern Fist? Did the guy have the right to look down on him like this? Why didn¡¯t he take a look in the mirror?

    It was hardest for people to read themselves at times¡ª<i>if I¡¯m a hooligan, what does that make you?</i>

    ¡°So Old Minister Chen hase as well...¡± Yao Si smiled when he looked over. ¡°This is unexpected!¡±

    The two had had previous dealings with each other since the Night Watchers used to be under the Inspectorate. However, Yao Si didn¡¯t much care for the old minister, so the two didn¡¯t have much to do with each other.

    ¡°Go in!¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Senior Old Chen came to us with enthusiasm and has agreed to be our defense. Wee to the team!¡±

    The group abruptly understood and nodded, some of their smiles turning crafty. Chen Zhongtian began to regret his decision! Did these people... really want to send him out against ancient heavyweights? He¡¯d said his defenses were strong, but that was just rtively speaking. That didn¡¯t mean he could actually hold off against ancient powerhouses.

    Li Hao didn¡¯t care about this. He entered the ruins without second thought. Upon seeing that the young man held a medallion, Chen Zhongtian understood why no one else could enter. The medallion meant that the ruins had started awakening.

    ...

    ¡°Here again?¡± The ck Armor was truly speechless! He was in the middle of some thoughts when here the young man was, disturbing his peace and quiet again! <i>Is there no end to this?!</i>

    It was Chen Zhongtian¡¯s first time visiting Evenround Martial¡ªhe was stunned at what was presented to him. The countless puppets terrified him. Were these their targets? These walking hunks of metal looked really strong, and there were a lot of them!

    The rest of the group also looked at Li Hao; the young man cut straight to the chase. ¡°We¡¯re going to start first with the replica of the nt spirit! Everyone can use this opportunity to sense its strength¡ªit¡¯s a given that it will be very strong! The replica possesses only one-third the strength of the primary body, but strictly speaking, it can be ssified at the Apex level of the ancient civilization.

    ¡°Senior Little Tree will be part of the main offense! Your only goal will be one¡ªentangle them!¡±

    The little tree manifested and waved its branches. Chen Zhongtian was further astonished by the sight¡ªanother nt spirit? Entangling an Apex... so this meant that this tree also possessed that level of strength? So this was one of Li Hao¡¯s trump cards!

    ¡°Additionally, Martial Uncle Hong, Minister Chen, and the senior of Iron Shirt discipline will be the outermostyer of defense!¡±

    All three were known for their stalwart defenses. Old Minister Chen was an unknown, but since Senior Iron Shirt¡¯s master also practiced the same method, his strength and defenses must be great. Nothing needed to be said about Hong Yitang. His Earthturner Sword was the strongest sword defensive technique there was out there.

    The three met each other¡¯s eyes and nodded.

    ¡°Tyrant de, Sky Sword, and Director Hou will stand at the rear. They will be the main offense utilizing mind intent. Northern Fist, Southern Fist, Director Kong, Seniors Crazed Demon de and Thunderbolt Fist will be the secondary offense...¡± Li Hao reeled off their assignments. ¡°Manager Yu, Light Sword, Thunderleg, and the rest of the seniors will be the outer ring of attackers tond blows when the opportunity presents itself.¡±

    The group exchanged nces, some with annoyance in their eyes. Light Sword, for example, had been sent to the outermost ring. This could only represent one point¡ªshe was too weak. Even He Yong was secondary offense!

    As for Hou Xiaochen and his group, their mental strength was ferocious and mind intent domineering. It was reasonable that they were assigned to the rear. But Light Sword and Yu Luocha were arranged thus because of their weak cultivation. This was done to protect them.

    Therefore, He Yong puffed up his chest. He wasn¡¯t afraid of the uing battle. For martial masters about to take concerted action against an enemy, it was the most tragic if they weren¡¯t even assigned to a main offensive position.

    It indicated that Li Hao didn¡¯t think much of your strength, which made He Yong very happy! He was now worthy of the main offensive line and ced on the same level as that viin Northern Fist and his martial uncle Thunderbolt Fist.

    Once Li Hao finished his arrangements for the group, he looked at Deputy Zhou with a furrow to his brows.

    ¡°If you¡¯re willing to, I can be part of the main offense with you,¡± smiled the deputy. ¡°I¡¯ll assist you!¡±

    Li Hao nodded. While he wasn¡¯t certain of the deputy¡¯s strength, so it shall be since the deputy had spoken. This was just an initial attempt at taking down the enemy, not to mention that their safety was assured in a ce like this.

    ¡°Make sure you¡¯ve thought things through,¡± the ck Armor said coldly off in the distance. ¡°Fines must be paid if you inflict any damage!¡±

    Chen Zhongtian jumped with surprise; none of the others reacted. That suit of armor was alive?

    ¡°I understand,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°A deadline of one year at most and interest to be paid on top of principal!¡±

    The ck Armor couldn¡¯t be bothered to say anything else after the young man¡¯s response.

    Li Hao took out a storage ring and took a deep breath. It was his first time facing a true Immortal opponent with Apex level battle strength. The previous replicas that he¡¯d faced were but the equivalent of five or six element Arcanus.

    ¡°Senior... be careful!¡± He looked at the little tree.

    It promptly transformed into a big tree and waved its branches. ¡°Don¡¯t worry!¡± Would they go after the primary body if they couldn¡¯t even handle a replica? That would be courting death!

    ¡°Everyone, this is just a replica, but it¡¯s an incredibly powerful replica!¡± Li Hao cautioned. ¡°If we find it difficult to eliminate even a replica, then we must cancel the rest of our ns! Then... we begin!¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The storage ring exploded. A towering tree immediately materialized in the air¡ªthe coconut tree looked around blearily, then looked at the puppets and ck Armor in the distance. Startled fright crept in, weren¡¯t they going against the Wind and Cloud Pavilion? Why were they here?? Wasn¡¯t this Evenround Martial University?

    It immediately sensed the inappropriate circumstances. Li Hao¡¯s group was crazy! If someone had awoken in Evenround Martial, it wasn¡¯t an entity that any of them could run afoul of. The tree had thought they were going against the Wind and Cloud Pavilion!

    ¡°We are no match for these opponents... idiot! Take me and run!¡± cursed the big tree.

 Chapter 825: Killing the Replica, Coalescing Arcanus (III)

    <h4>Chapter 825: Killing the Replica, Coalescing Arcanus (III)</h4>

    The coconut tree then saw the little tree; thetter erupted with violent mental ripples the second they encountered each other and rushed its opponent.

    ¡°Kill!¡± Li Hao growled as well.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Everyone acted in the same instant, bringing de, spear, sword, and halberd to bear!

    The coconut tree froze with iprehension for a split second, finding the scene incredulous. It snapped back to its senses¡ª<i>they... want to kill me!</i>

    ¡°Bastard!¡± It flew into a towering rage. What did this represent if Li Hao wanted to kill it? That meant that the human had been lying about everything before!

    The coconut tree ignored the ck Armor and immediately transformed into a towering tree. It even showed hints of bing humanoid with its branches forming the limbs. It was much stronger than the group of replicas that Li Hao had facedst time.

    ¡°You court death!¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    A massive explosion sounded with an eruption of mental strength. The ensuing ripples churned through the area. Although the little tree shook, it didn¡¯t summon the imperial pce. This was just a test of their skills against the coconut tree. If they needed to utilize the imperial pce projection for even this, how were they to face the primary body?

    The powerhouses present jerked backward with dismay as they felt their heads spin and awareness turn groggy. All of them immediately summoned their supernatural characters to withstand the mental invasion.

    Chen Zhongtian looked curiously at them out of the corner of his eyes, baffled by the sight. What was that?

    There was no time to ponder further as he shouted ferociously and manifested a set of armor glittering with golden light. Countless tree branches churned toward them.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The void seemed to shatter as another ¡®sword¡¯ character manifested, transforming into a sword mountain and reflecting the Earthturner Sword out of it! But even so, the potent technique and defensive mountain formed out of the supernatural character was instantly pierced through by numerous branches!

    Hong Yitang grunted, blood leaking out of the corner of his lips. He was taken aback by the sight. Was this what was meant by the Apex level?

    A desperate wail sounded as Master Iron Shirt transformed into something akin to a golden Buddha and solidly nted himself in front of the group. A massive character hovered in front of him¡ªdefend!

    <i>KABOOM!</i>

    Countless branches whipped through the air and shredded it to pieces.

    Chen Zhongtian¡¯s reaction had been a second too slow¡ªnot because he was weak, but because he was thrown off bnce by the group¡¯s methods. What were those things?

    But soon enough, he was shaken out of his reverie. Having reserved a bit of his strength, he punched with a shout. A weapon erupted from his fist and pierced through twoyers of branches, snapping some of them.

    Hou Xiaochen and the rest attacked at the same time! Yao Si punched forward with the might of five element Arcanus. The cirction of his five organs was in full force and the five elements werepletely melded as one. The world shook from his punch and he punctured all of the branches in front of him, obliterating them by himself!

    The spear, de, and sword materialized in the void. Sky Sword, Tyrant de, and Hou Xiaochen engaged in their attacks of mind intent and ripped through the air with domineering force!

    ¡°What is this??¡± The coconut tree was aghast with dismay. What were these humans using? It¡¯d never witnessed it before!! Dismay was rapidly setting in. Although it was strong enough to pierce through the defenses of three powerhouses in a split second, its defenses were also erased in a split second. These guys were all very strong!

    There were multiple at six element Arcanus and even the weakest of Manager Yu was between two and three elements. Meanwhile, Li Hao and Deputy Zhou were yet to make their moves. They were silently observing all this while. The collision between the little tree¡¯s branches and the coconut tree¡¯s branches ripped through the void!

    This indicated that their sh exceeded the Apex level and was sufficient to tear through the void. That made this kind of conflict very dangerous for both nt spirits.

    Despite the overwhelming show of force, Li Hao frowned. He had so many powerhouses on his side, yet their target instantly broke through the firstyer of defense. One had to keep in mind that the little tree was acting as the main offensive force and keeping the coconut tree preupied! And yet, their target still had the capability to attack the rest.

    As expected, the gap between the two sides was substantial.

    Deputy Zhou looked at Li Hao. The young man rumbled, ¡°Try taking the field. I want to gauge your level of strength so as to make better preparations toe!¡±

    Deputy Zhouughed and broke through the air. He didn¡¯t attack the big tree from a distance like the others, but shot straight at it. His actions enraged the coconut tree¡ªwhere did this ant with a death wishe from?!

    An incredibly thick branch shot through the void, aimed at Deputy Zhou¡¯s heart. The quiet old man suddenly howled with ferocity, sending his blood qi soaring to the heavens!

    The ck Armor had been enjoying the show when its head snapped to Deputy Zhou with surprise. The martial dao of New Martial!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Blood qi flooded out and became a long dragon of blood qi. Deputy Zhou¡¯s body shimmered with golden light as countless branches whipped across him. He stumbled back, but was wholly unscathed. Incredible!

    ¡°A golden body?¡± The big tree paused. ¡°You are a cultivator of New Martial...¡±

    But that was impossible!

    Momentary surprise found all of the participants. Deputy Zhou usually presented himself with a genteel demeanor, but was now a fric martial cultivator as if a demon god. He howled with resolution and punched forward, snapping a branch with his moment!

    A powerful presence emanated from the glittering old man as he howled again, bringing another punch down with a loud rumble! He stood on the frontlines and encircled the big tree, pummeling their target alongside the little tree.

    Aureate light glimmered in Li Hao¡¯s eyes¡ªwhat an incredibly strong body! Was this the martial dao of New Martial, their golden body? It did not exist in the modern age, no one could cultivate such a forceful physical body.

    Nine revolutions of the golden body!

    Even the ck Armor was surprised at this point. There were levels of differences to golden bodies and this guy who walked the dao of New Martial possessed one of the highest level!

    ¡°Who¡¯s heritage do you have?¡± asked the surprised ck Armor. This wasn¡¯t one avable to any regr person; nine revolutions of the golden body wasn¡¯tmon back in his day either. He saw a personage of the new age in front of him, but this one possessed such a strong golden body!

    ¡°Is it... the heritage of the exalted emperor from Capital Martial?¡± The ck Armor could barely fathom that possibility. When did Silver Moon Territory evere about that one¡¯s heritage? He stared at Deputy Zhou, then at Li Hao. Had the Sword Sovereign left it behind?

    That wasn¡¯t out of the question as Martial Uncle Eternal was very close to these exalted emperors. It was very possible.

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    A ray of golden light shed through the air¡ªDeputy Zhou charging the enemy! Li Hao watched raptly, the old man had such strong defensive capabilities and his offensive power was quite up to speed as well! He absolutely possessed the strength of six elements, maybe even peak six elements! There was nothing wrong with the ranking that the Wind and Cloud Pavilion had given this one. He had the right to be part of the top ten and looked to be even stronger than number nine, Chen Zhongtian!

    Chen Zhongtian was likewise surprised and stunned at this moment. How was this guy so strong?

    ¡°Show me your strength, Minister Chen!¡± Li Hao shouted. ¡°This is just a replica. If this is all the strength that you have to your name, then you¡¯re not worth such a high price!¡±

    Chen Zhongtian cursed to himself and also streaked into a ray of golden light. He vanished on the spot and reappeared next to Deputy Zhou. As he thrust a palm strike forward, the coconut tree whipped several branches through the air and swept the premises with enormous mental strength.

    Chen Zhongtian shouted and grabbed one of the branches with his bare hands, erupting with formidable internal force. The branch split apart!

    This was the second person to independently break one of the branches after Deputy Zhou demonstrated his abilities. The rest needed to work together to break any of the branches. Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened, the old minister was very strong!

    Mental ripples surged from the coconut tree and its furious voice echoed in everyone¡¯s minds, ¡°How dare a bunch of ants attack this seat! You desire death!¡±

    BOOM!

    The sky darkened as a towering tree manifested from another locale. It split into countless replicas in the blink of an eye and appeared in everyone¡¯s mind!

    The little tree also erupted with energy and its mental ripples undted violently, ¡°This is a core origin method. Be careful, everyone! Protect your mind and use the aura to defend against it!¡±

    Everyone¡¯s mind intent red and they retracted their supernatural character into their bodies. The auras of martial masters burst forth! The towering tree in their minds exploded. It should¡¯ve obliterated their minds, but it failed catastrophically in this moment. The impact caused many to vomit blood and their characters to fracture, but they¡¯d held on!

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    Li Hao was also attacked by the tree¡¯s mental strength. He instantly summoned his ¡®sword¡¯ character and shed through the shadow!

    ¡°Impossible!¡± The big tree shook, dimming from its failure. ¡°How can this be... What are these characters of yours...¡±

    They contained mental strength and aura! It¡¯d wanted to obliterate their minds¡ªwithout their minds, these people would be the walking dead. They were all so much lower level than it that they couldn¡¯t possibly have withstood the attack.

    And yet, the humans still stood! All of them, not just one or two! What kind of freaks were they?

    The ck Armor was likewise surprised; he was truly intrigued by the supernatural characters now. They could hide the marks of life and contain everything within them. The cultivators were undying so long as the characters were not destroyed.

    They were a clear counter to core origin dao. Or rather, their negation of those who practiced mental strength dao were very clear to see. Attacks of mental strength were terrifying in New Martial, but in this age... the mental strength of an Apex was held back by a group of weaklings!

    They should¡¯ve died inrge swathes in the past!

    The ck Armor was taken aback, to say nothing of how dumbfounded the coconut tree was. How could this be? It¡¯d expended a great deal of effort to kill these people, but none of them had died!

 Chapter 826: Killing the Replica, Coalescing Arcanus (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 826: Killing the Replica, Coalescing Arcanus (IV)</h4>

    ¡°Is this the greatest killing move of core origin dao?¡± Li Haoughed, finding it to be... not that bad!

    He¡¯d been observing the big tree all along to form aplete picture of the ancient cultivation system¡¯s capabilities. But now, it was time for him to join the fight. He appeared in front of the big tree and infused his sword with various supernatural characters.

    He soundlessly shed out with an explosion of the wind, thunder, fire, water, metal, and earth elements!

    <i>Kaboom!</i>

    The blow pierced through the big tree¡¯s image as if it was tangible! However, it immediately recovered. Dimmer than before, the coconut tree abruptly shrank into the size of a person. It came straight at Li Hao in a maddened charge. <i>Damn it, this is all because of you, you little bastard! I¡¯m going to kill you even if that means the end of my replica!</i>

    Li Hao vanished out of sight, but the tree was equally fast. One of its branches iled like an arm and shot straight at the young man¡¯s head when he reappeared. Li Hao was about to back away when two more figures shed into view. They nked the young man¡ªChen Zhongtian and Deputy Zhou.

    The big tree wanted to pierce through their defenses, but a ¡®sword¡¯ character hovered in front of them and enveloped itself with the aura of ten thousand swords! The little tree likewise sent thousands of branches over. Seeing his side¡¯s reinforcement, Li Hao stood his ground and umted his strength, bounding forward with a howl and a mighty pierce!

    It threatened to rip the very void apart; supernatural characters manifested in front of the others at the same time. They brought their full strength to bear and unleashed their strongest blow!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    A massive collision sounded! Every leaf on the big tree trembled as it shattered the sword aura, beat back the little tree¡¯s branches, and even ran through Deputy Zhou¡¯s golden body...

    However, that left an opening for a sword to stab straight at its core!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Steris pierced through the tree trunk. Its core essence vibrated and five auras burst forth at the same time. A surge of intent from the Lifeless Sword technique exploded with a rumble¡ªexplosions constantly sounded in the void. A big tattered tree swiftly retreated one hundred meters. A massive face appeared over its trunk and it looked vengefully at the crowd.

    ¡°Do you seek to kill this seat to seize my core origin? Those are the delusions of wishful thinking!¡±

    A surge of core origin surged violently¡ªLi Hao knew that the coconut tree was about to self detonate!

    The little tree¡¯s core origin rippled violently as well and a projection of the imperial pce appeared. It crashed down with a rumble!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The agitating core origin was immediately suppressed, drawing another incredulous look from the coconut tree. ¡°The imperial pce...¡±

    <i>Boom!</i>

    All of its branches exploded and were devoured by the imperial pce projection! However, it seemed too much for the little tree to digest by itself. The projection shook and sent a strong surge of core origin to Deputy Zhou. The deputy absorbed it without second thought. Since he walked the path of ancient martial dao, it was quite appropriate for him to absorb such energy.

    Li Hao and the othersnded on the ground. While the rest were overjoyed, the young man frowned. It didn¡¯t matter that everyone was more or less uninjured; more importantly was that it¡¯d been so difficult to take down a replica. He wouldn¡¯t have been able to prevent the coconut tree from self-detonating if it hadn¡¯t been for the little tree utilizing the imperial pce.

    This couldn¡¯t be allowed to stand! They would be seeking death if they sought out the coconut tree¡¯s primary body in their current condition. The biggest problem was that no one could take down the target with one blow!

    Li Hao frowned, then smoothed out his brows after a moment. He took a deep breath and suddenly said, ¡°I want to coalesce myst supernatural character of wood. Please wait for a moment and rest and recover on your own!¡±

    Everyone¡¯s expressions shifted. Seven... elements?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t exin himself further. He could sense that it would be difficult to kill the other without coalescing his seventh element. Seven elements could rip through the void in the outside world, but his elements weren¡¯t that pure¡ªat the very least, his wind and thunder were a bit weak.

    As for whether or not his physical body could endure the strain... All he needed to do was to grit his teeth through the coalescence process. The element would be fully contained after that. It would simply consume additional life force and sword energy when it was utilizedter on.

    Li Hao found himself too weak without reaching great perfection in his elements of the five organs. He wouldn''t be able to take on the replica by himself, to say nothing of the primary coconut tree.

    A wood aura red through the surroundings and the group looked at him. Their previous joy had disappeared¡ªthey were too weak! All of them in conjunction delivered limited damage to the coconut tree replica.

    The group quietly sat down cross-legged and mysterious power rippled over their body as they traced more characters. Their bodies started fracturing as well. Meanwhile, the little tree drizzled Water of Life on them without needing Li Hao to say anything.

    Chen Zhongtian¡¯s eyelids twitched at the sight. Hot... diggity... damn... what was with these people? They were terrifying! He felt that if they really killed the nt spirit¡¯s primary body, that would produce many powerhouses that were much stronger than him.

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    This operation against the coconut tree¡¯s replica fully demonstrated to Li Hao that the gap between the two sides was still very significant. Although his group wasn¡¯t severely injured¡ªin fact, no one was that injured at all as Deputy Zhou and Chen Zhongtian had blocked all of the attacks, it¡¯d just been a replica they faced!

    The coconut tree had said that it severed one-third of its core origin. Was Li Hao supposed to believe that just because the nt spirit had said so? Perhaps it was only one-fourth that it cut off.

    Therefore, Li Hao understood that he could take the gamble, but he couldn¡¯t do so withoutcking any confidence whatsoever. He would lead the others to their deaths if he made wild gambles!

    His wood element erupted and nearly split his body apart. His blood shot in all directions and his organs trembled. His body couldn¡¯t endure the strain of seven elements. Although he was keeping the other supernatural characters in check, the strain of seven elements was still too much for him to bear!

    Water of Life rushed into his body in a steady stream, as did sword energy. However, they had a difficult time grappling with his injuries.

    Chen Zhongtian¡¯s scalp crawled with numbness as he watched the sight! Thed was crazy, he was throwing his life away! Even if Li Hao set foot into seven element Arcanus, he would be ripped apart by the void when he left the ruins. Their space was exceedingly unstable at the moment. Emanating a tiny bit of energy would lead to the void ripping the cultivator apart!

    What was the point of that?

    Chen Zhongtian wondered at Li Hao¡¯s actions, then sighed to himself. The point was... that this guy wasn¡¯t an ordinary person!

    The little tree didn¡¯t have time to spare for absorbing core origin. It rained down Water of Life; Li Hao wasn¡¯t the only one who couldn¡¯t endure his breakthrough. The rest of the group also suffered from splitting skin and shaking organs.

    The ck Armor had drawn close to them at some point in time¡ªbut Chen Zhongtian had beenpletely unaware! That was terrifying.

    The ck Armor looked at Li Hao, observing the young man. Thetter was still unable to stabilize his power after a while. The ¡®wood¡¯ character could not fully take shape. It quickly broke apart whenever it teetered on the edge of sess.

    ¡°You are not qualified to endure seven element Arcanus at the moment,¡± the ck Armor said slowly. ¡°Your physical body is too weak!¡±

    Li Hao ignored the ck Armor and continued his efforts, leading to some dissatisfaction from the dean. He¡¯d issued a warning out of the goodness of his heart! Troubles would develop with Li Hao if this continued. It was one thing to exult in the glories of youth, but to ignore the words of a New Martial Saint... Li Hao was too arrogant!

    The young man roared at this time.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    His wind and thunder elements abruptly red with life. Steris soared into the air; the ¡®exterminate¡¯ character took in the wind and thunder elements, then darted into the sword!

    ¡°Oh?¡± blinked the ck Armor. The young man roared again, finding it not enough!

    Under the ck Armor¡¯s astonished eyes, Li Hao howled angrily and mmed his hand on his chest. His golden armor receded, revealing bare skin. The young man tore through his heart without hesitation.

    As blood sprayed everywhere, an expressionless Li Hao looked down at his organs!

    Chen Zhongtian was well and truly horrified by the scene. What was this? Committing suicide?

    Li Hao ignored the rest and observed his beating heart. His organs were trembling violently and crumbling away. It wasn¡¯t enough for him to have suppressed his wind and thunder elements.

    ¡°The five elements...¡± Li Hao murmured. His ¡®fire¡¯ character manifested in front of him and a ferocious tiger howled over it.

    The young man took a deep breath, grabbed the tiger, and shoved it into his heart. His heart shook with rumbles and began fracturing. As the rest looked at him wide-eyed, he exined calmly, ¡°Our characters are thebination of mental strength and aura. They are of the same origin as our organs and body! The supernatural locks are strong and hide within our organs, yet do not crush our organs. This holds true even for mundanes!¡±

    A mundane also possessed supernatural locks, so why didn¡¯t their organs crumblepletely? Why didn¡¯t their four limbs fall apart?

    ¡°Whether it is the five organs or four limbs, there must be a special space inside them,¡± he dered firmly. ¡°There is a treasure inside the human body that is nurtured within. Our strength returns to our self and our body does not break!¡±

    Most of the group felt that he was speaking anothernguage, only a few brightened with understanding. A keen light shone out of the ck Armor¡¯s eyes!

    Li Hao slowly forced the ¡®fire¡¯ character into his heart. A million thoughts ran through his mind as he continued, ¡°There must be another space within the human heart. It can contain the supernatural locks and is the source of our treasure. It nurtures our blood qi, and while I do not know where it is, it might have something to do with the supernatural locks. Our blood qi is most cleverly hidden somewhere!¡±

    The more he spoke of this theory, the more certain he grew. He continuedpressing the ¡®fire¡¯ character. ¡°I¡¯m going to shove the characters into this special space like they¡¯re supernatural locks. They won¡¯t harm the body that way and will be utilized only when they¡¯re needed!

    ¡°Even if we suffer damage in the process, it will only be that of a split second. Our mind intent and blood qi are both stored in this marvelous ce...¡± Li Hao spoke with absolute conviction. ¡°There must be such a ce in the human body. The supernatural locks would not be harmless toward us otherwise...¡±

    The ck Armor looked at Li Hao with astonishment! He watched as the young man slowly ced the ¡®fire¡¯ character deep in his heart. Li Hao quietly perceived his organ and even picked up his beating heart with one hand! It was quite a stunning act.

    The young man suddenly frowned as the character disappeared into his heart and spat out a mouthful of blood. The heart drummed thunderously, threatening to explode!

 Chapter 827: Faux Seven Elements (I)

    <h4>Chapter 827: Faux Seven Elements (I)</h4>

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± The ck Armor shifted forward, wanting to help the young man. Or the young madman, rather!

    Li Hao raised his hand and shook his head at everyone, murmuring, ¡°You are formed of my aura and contained within a cage. You wish to break out of the cage and do not desire to be a confined tiger. I do not wish so, either!

    ¡°Of the auras of the five organs and the auras of the five elements... you are formed of my most zing emotion! This world is a dark one and not fair. Everyone is as if a prisoner and I, Li Hao, refuse to be such a prisoner!

    ¡°But the fist must retract before it can erupt with greater power! You possess the ability of the supernatural lock since you¡¯ve devoured it. Enter the heart for me and help me locate that peculiar space within. Hide within it to emerge with even more stunning force!¡±

    ¡°ROAR!¡± howled the ferocious tiger. A stunning sight developed before everyone next¡ªa snarling tiger appeared over the heart, one wreathed in mes! It was immensely begrudging and furious, wanting to smash through the cage.

    Perhaps this was Li Hao. The tiger snarled, seeming to understand the young man. In reality, the tiger was Li Hao and the young man was the tiger! The fire aura seemed to be alive in this instant.

    Under the ck Armor¡¯s stunned gaze, the ferocious tiger howled before slowly withdrawing into the heart. It prowled inside the organ as it became more indistinct. Gradually, even the fire mysterious power disappeared. Something seemed to open with a rumble before the tiger disappeared!

    ¡°......¡± Jaws dropped throughout the group, particrly Chen Zhongtian¡¯s. The man waspletely dumbfounded.

    <i>Oh my granddaddy, can someone tell me what¡¯s going on?</i>

    Li Hao¡¯s heart now resembled that of a mundane¡¯s. There was no supernatural lock, no mes, and no mysterious power. It was an ordinary heart in everyone¡¯s eyes. Perhaps it was a very strong heart, but it was an ordinary heart nheless.

    ¡°Have you... really discovered the treasure within the human body?¡± rasped the ck Armor.

    ¡°No!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°The aura has!¡± He tilted his head back at the other. ¡°I haven¡¯t discovered it, but the aura has. The aura is alive since it has melded with the supernatural lock. The aura is alive! This is my dao, and my dao has discovered that ce. Perhaps I can do so myself in the future! This must be a very special characteristic of the human body and might be linked to why modern humans are so physically weak!

    ¡°I¡¯ve long wondered where the supernatural locks reside and why we can¡¯t dig them out when someone dies. Why can supernatural locks also exist in ordinary people¡¯s bodies? It must mean that there¡¯s another dimension within us!

    ¡°I thought of this when someone told me that Apexes can tear through the void. Since there is another space beyond our space, why can there not be another cavity within the cavity of the human body?

    ¡°Therefore, the supernatural locks must reside in that secondary space in regr times. Where there is the supernatural lock is the secondary dimension. Therefore, we can manipte the supernatural lock through the aura and follow its trajectory to return to the secondary space!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The ck Armor didn¡¯t know whether tobel Li Hao as a lunatic or a genius!

    Indeed, since the supernatural locks were so strong, why didn¡¯t they detonate the five organs on a regr basis? Did they really exist within the organs and limbs, or in another dimension associated with them?

    The ck Armor looked dazedly at Li Hao. He did not understand modern humans either. Countless years had passed; changes might have urred in the human body after all this time. Their structure was different from that of ancient humans, but everyone knew that there was great treasure to be found within the human body.

    The ck Armor thought of the internal world within his own body and said slowly, ¡°You make a great deal of sense. I do not know whether a secondary dimension exists within the human body, but I do know that one can be created!¡±

    Li Hao looked sharply at the ck Armor, regarding the response with curiosity and expectation. The ck Armor wouldn¡¯t speak of this under normal situations; it would not teach such knowledge to the humans of this era.

    But now, it continued seriously, ¡°It is unknown whether a secondary dimension naturally exists within the human body, and humanity of different ages differs from each other. The times are different, the world is different. It is impractical to utilize sweeping generalizations when speaking of us!

    ¡°In the New Martial era, there were people who ultimately turned core origin dao into a core origin universe¡ªcalling it the inner world! It was an inner universe! They could even create an entire world within themselves. It was unimaginable how they could fashion a new world! Perhaps his body was a world, a major world, heaven and earth, a universe, an era, a civilization...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s mind spun with what he heard. ¡°How is that possible?¡± he murmured.

    ¡°And why not?¡± intoned the ck Armor. ¡°Do you think it is a joke when we say that New Martial was strong? Granted, it was a powerhouse whose might prated heaven and earth that did so. He might be the only person since the ancient times who¡¯s ever aplished that feat!¡±

    ¡°Who?¡± Li Hao asked subconsciously, but he seemed to already understand something. As he expected, the ck Armorughed. He spoke in veryplicated tones¡ªsome pride, some worship, and some dejection colored his voice.

    ¡°Who? Who has been truly invincible and unfailing since the ancient times? Only one¡ªthe Human King!¡±

    There truly was someone who¡¯d never fallen! He was invincible in his time and exercisedplete dominion through thend. He was so strong that one could not fathom his strength. Everyone could only eternally look up to him.

    In this moment, the group felt a certain kind of emotion. Invincible in his time and exercisingplete dominion through thend, never falling in battle¡ªthe Human King!

    The puppets heard the deration as well and a peculiar emotion rose all over Evenround Martial University. It differed from the atmosphere previously felt at Battle Heaven.

    ¡°The Human King is invincible!¡±

    ¡°We are the vanguard of the Human King, we fight!! Fight!! FIGHT!!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The university seemed toe alive as the puppets heard or sensed something. They didn¡¯t speak, but conveyed their thoughts through raging mental strength! They seemed ready to rip through the firmament and draw swords to fight. They would go to battle for the Human King!

    The little tree shook from the mental strength flooding the scene. It was now certain that this university had been established by <i>that</i> one. It¡¯d only spected as such before, but its guess hardened into reality when it saw the imperial majesty¡¯s image emzoned on the ck Armor.

    These puppets were hard pressed to contain themselves after the ck Armor mentioned the Human King. The little tree could tell from that reaction that this ce... truly was extraordinary. It possessed a direct connection to the Human King! It must!

    Powerhouses had followers who were close to or further removed from them. The students here must have beenpletely loyal to the Human King back in the day. They might be descendants of his line or loyal guards.

    Li Hao and the rest only felt that the world was going to explode around them, or that perhaps they would be ripped apart first before that happened. Supernatural characters twinkled around them, threatening to fall apart as well.

    Eventually, the ck Armor shouted, ¡°Silence!¡±

    A quiet hush immediately descended. The puppets that¡¯d gotten caught up in the moment were quiet.

    ¡°Learn to control your emotions!¡± hectored the ck Armor. The puppets remained quiet! Meanwhile, Li Hao and the rest were as white as sheets. They were stunned and baffled by what had taken ce. Every single puppet in this ce... felt extraordinarily strong! What in the world?

    Chen Zhongtian wanted to pee his pants if he could. He raised a shaking hand, the color having drained from his face. <i>Fucking... I¡¯ve... never been in such a terrifying ruin in my life. This is such a tiny ce with hundreds of puppets, but each puppet gives me the same feeling as the nt spirits.</i>

    <i>How is that possible? My heavens! There¡¯s hundreds of puppets here!</i>

    On the other hand, Li Hao¡¯s thoughts were preupied with how incredible the ancient Human King was. It was countless yearster and these people were long dead, but their lingering mental strength still worshipped the Human King with such fervor. It only took a mention of the Human King to send these people into a near riot.

    Indeed, people.

    Li Hao knew in this moment that these puppets were all humans. There was only mental strength left of them, but that still made them better off than the Battle Heaven Army. Thetter was essentially just possessed armor.

    Evenround Martial seemed to be more prosperous as puppets were employed here¡ªeach puppet was an ultimate treasure, so these people had retained more of their mental strength. As such, they were stronger.

    <i>Can these puppets be the students of yesteryear? </i>Li Hao suddenly wondered with great shock. They were likely all of the Apex level. Hundreds of students were all Apex? There was even the Immortal level! How did this level still make one a student?

    An Apex would be a division leader at the Battle Heaven Army, an Immortal would be a reservemander, so a Saint would be... an armymander??

    The young man looked at the ck Armor with disbelief. He hadn¡¯t given much thought to this before, but it turns out that this one... was on the same level as themander of the Battle Heaven Army?!

    Was this still just a martial university with it being so strong??

    He was utterly shocked by his line of thought and the ck Armor¡¯s words. Reading the young man¡¯s wild mental ripples, the ck Armor suddenly smiled. ¡°You¡¯re very interesting. Good... luck!¡±

    He vanished, as did the puppets. Li Hao blinked, what did the ck Armor mean by that? That one couldn¡¯t be bothered with him before, but now seemed a bit... warmer? Was it because he¡¯d voiced his spections about the secondary dimension?

    They weren¡¯t baseless thoughts, that other space really did exist. He just wasn¡¯t able to locate it and had to rely on the aura to do it for him.

    An internal world? The dao of the Human King?

    Li Hao¡¯s heart rose and fell with a variety of thoughts. Whether it was Chen Zhongtian or the others, they also grappled with their emotions. The ck Armor was very strong¡ªthey knew that and could sense it.

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    This heavyweight hadn¡¯t intervened or said anything before. He just sat back and watched until Li Hao brought the supernatural characters into his body. That was when he mentioned the internal world of the Human King¡¯s dao...

    What did this mean? Was heparing Li Hao to the ancient Human King?

    The group couldn¡¯t quite believe what¡¯d just taken ce. As arrogant as one might be, when anyone reached their level, they knew that they were nothingpared to the ancient civilization. Modern cultivators would die in droves if ancient powerhouses so much as farted on them. And this was <i>the</i> ancient, invincible king that was being spoken of!

    Did this mean that the ck Armor thought very highly of Li Hao?

 Chapter 828: Faux Seven Elements (II)

    <h4>Chapter 828: Faux Seven Elements (II)</h4>

    <i>At this moment, in the basement of the ssroom building.</i>

    <i>In front of the library.</i>

    Puppets crowded in front of the doors, hanging their heads like they were children who¡¯dmitted wrongdoing. They didn¡¯t dare look at the ck Armor.

    ¡°Do not brashly agitate your lingering wills.¡± The ck Armor solemnly turned to them. ¡°You are all already dead, you are just the living dead! Do you really want to fly apart into dust?¡±

    ¡°Teacher!¡± A puppet stepped forward with heightened emotions. ¡°We... wish to return to the main world and join the Human King¡¯s Demon Guards! We want to follow the Demon King and march through the worlds. We wish to illuminate the firmament with the glories of humanity!¡±

    They¡¯d enrolled at Evenround Martial back in the day for this goal, to join the Human King¡¯s personal guard. Ny-nine percent of those who graduated from the university could join that guard because this ce was different. This was an institution of learning created by one closest to the Human King. The descendants of countless powerhouses vied for a spot in its ssrooms.

    Those who sessfully matricted were selected from tens of thousands. Who¡¯d ever fathomed that they wouldn¡¯t even have a chance to graduate and would sink into oblivion instead?

    Frustration, excitement, and fervor rose in their hearts when the ck Armor mentioned the Human King. <i>We can probably never go back, but our blood still runs hot! The Human King cannot possibly have fallen, he was a truly invincible powerhouse. Therefore, maybe he¡¯s only lost!</i>

    <i>That¡¯s right, that has to be the case. It must be that he¡¯s marched so far on his campaign that he¡¯s forgotten the way home and this ce. No one else gets lost, but he does. That¡¯s definitely what has happened.</i>

    ¡°The Human King has gotten lost again, hasn¡¯t he?¡± someone murmured. ¡°He got lost after he killed the Heavenly Emperor and made everyone wait for a lot of years. This must¡¯ve happened again!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The ck Armor was silent, then smiled after a long moment. ¡°That¡¯s right, he must be lost! He was my senior at school and has always been thus. We¡¯ll... wait for him to return and take us with him when he next sets foot into Silver Moon Territory...¡±

    ¡°We leave and return home!¡±

    ¡°Return home!¡± Their shouts shook the building! <i>We want to go home!</i>

    The ck Armor looked on andughed silently, but was inwardly filled with resignation and self-recrimination. <i>Sorry, I really am sorry. I¡¯ve just lied to you guys again. It''s been too long! He wouldn¡¯t be lost for so long. You bunch of sillies, we¡¯re very close to the main world. They can get here in a split second or travel through the waters of the Forbidden Sea. They can even project from the main world if they wanted to. They would long be arrived if they coulde here.</i>

    <i>Something might¡¯ve happened to the main world!</i>

    The ck Armor looked outside, seeming to have Li Hao in his line of sight. Heughed silently at the interesting fellow. Perhaps the young man would be the standout of this era. Maybe he could even open the Star Gate. But... so what?

    The second he opened it might be the second of his destruction. The Star Gate might¡¯ve be the final barrier.

    ¡°Teacher! We of New Martial do not despair!¡± a puppet suddenly hollered. ¡°You¡¯ve gotten old and are frequently distracted these days! You¡¯re not fit to be a teacher anymore! We¡¯re still enthusiastic about things, so we should be the teacher!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The ck Armor didn¡¯t know what to say. <i>Have I gotten old?</i>

    Perhaps. He was indeed more sentimentaltely. As for the student¡¯s deration of wanting to be the teacher, that was amonly heard im. That was how the Human King had conducted himself back in the day, and he was their idol. All of these brats wanted to surpass their teacher and be the teacher themselves. They wanted to lord it over their teachers and turn thetter into students!

    <i>What a bunch of unruly brats! </i>The ck Armor smacked the offending puppet down to the ground and heavily patted its head. He didn¡¯t stop until the puppet waspletely dazed.

    ¡°You can be my teacher when you can defeat me. Otherwise... go back to sweeping! Those guys broke some more things, so go fix them. Also, tell Li Hao that he¡¯s being fined 4.5 million energy stones for the damages. Adding on to his previous damages makes for ten million!¡±

    ¡°Alright then!¡± Resigned puppets disappeared from the scene; they¡¯d been thrashed again.

    ......

    Li Hao finally wore a smile on his face. His ferocious tiger aura slowly disappeared with the ¡®fire¡¯ character. There was one less element weighing down on him; the wind and thunder elements were likewise locked into Steris. His wood character gradually took shape.

    The others watched raptly, particrly Chen Zhongtian! His mouth hung wide open as he felt like he¡¯d spent the entire day in a dream. He¡¯d seen with his own eyes the disappearance of fire mysterious power. Li Hao hadpletely caused it to disappear! He¡¯d watched as Li Hao summoned various written characters and melded the supernatural lock within them. He¡¯d also observed the young man incorporate the wood aura into one of the characters, then the supernatural lock, and ultimately an eruption of wood mysterious power and the manifestation of supernatural abilities!

    Chen Zhongtian was utterly dazed by everything he¡¯d seen today. Everyone present seemed to possess the same capabilities. What was this? A new dao?

    By now, Li Hao had fully repaired his body with Water of Life. His organs were back to prime condition, with his heart holding the tiger aura. It was the easiest aura for him to control and influence, whereas the others might not understand him. His auras were slightly weak, but they were sufficient for his purposes.

    Just like before, he was a six element Arcanus again. So long as the tiger aura remained hidden, the strain exerted on his body was nominal as in the past. Only Li Hao himself knew that he would be a seven element Arcanus as soon as the tiger aura appeared!

    However, his wind and thunder elements were too weak. Li Hao sighed to himself, he wasn¡¯t a true seven element Arcanus in his own eyes. The keyy with his wind and thunder elementscking their own aura. As such, their strength was mediocre. Ordinary people might think of themselves as a seven element Arcanus, but to Li Hao, he was just a poor little worm of five elements.

    Water of Life disappeared rapidly like water emptying through a drain. The little tree expended much of its personal reserves. Li Hao had given it a total of ten million stones in their dealings with each other; it had supplied approximately one thousand drops to the young man. The little tree had expended only three million stones for Water of Life and used almost five million on its own recovery.

    It¡¯d spent the remaining two million on its own Water of Life reserves, making roughly five hundred drops. Such was the instinct of nt spirits, much like how squirrels hoarded food for the winter. They banked Water of Life for future use even if they were yet to fully recover. However, the little tree¡¯s stores werepletely empty at the moment. The group of humans in front of it absorbed every drop with gusto as they would split apart the second they ran out.

    The little tree winced at the consumption! Its pain was somewhat assuaged when it thought of all of the core origin power it¡¯d absorbed. One would not trap a wolf if they weren¡¯t willing to risk the child. Other than itself, only Deputy Zhou could absorb core origin power.

    <i>How am I supposed to reap benefits if I do not make an investment? These people are working for me when they fight and kill targets!</i>

    That¡¯s right, such was the little tree¡¯s line of thinking. These were worker bees who put in a lot of effort to help it recover, so it had to fortify their bodies well. Its reserves slowly dwindled away until there was almost no Water of Life left in it anymore. The little tree wanted to cry, butforted itself that it could just make more.

    The only person sitting on pins and needles in the group was Chen Zhongtian. Seeing that Li Hao was about to conclude his cultivation, he couldn¡¯t contain himself anymore.

    ¡°Commander Li...¡± He approached cautiously. ¡°What is... what is your condition?¡±

    He¡¯d thought that he¡¯d be the strongest of them all, but he found that he was not by far. Setting aside the little tree, Deputy Zhou was also exceedingly strong as a pure ancient cultivator. Li Hao was so strong that it made him shake. The rest seemed to be peak five elements at most, but there were so many of them!

    Yao Si and Hong Yitang seemed to have reached that level, Hong Yitang looked to be close. There were some weaklings that pulled down the average level of strength, such as Manager Yu at almost three element Arcanus or the rather weak three element Light Sword...

    Ah, Kong Jie could count as only three elements as well, but his fist was quite hard. This gathering of strength would stun the world, but this group of lunatics were cultivating again. Who knew if they¡¯d erupt one after another and advance to higher levels?

    It was terrifying!

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing much to my condition,¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°We¡¯re just cultivating. Don¡¯t leak this to other people, Minister Chen!¡±

    ¡°Of course I won¡¯t...¡± Chen Zhongtian smiled awkwardly. ¡°It¡¯s just that... those characters are simr to Tranquil Star¡¯s ultimate art. I know them too. Is there... something special about them,mander?¡±

    ¡°Guess! Or do you want to give them a try?¡±

    Chen Zhongtian didn¡¯t know what to say. <i>I have to be bold enough to try them first. </i>Cultivation sometimes looked simple, but setting one foot wrong might lead to one¡¯s doom. This was no joking matter. He¡¯d been observing the group closely and made some conclusions, but he wouldn¡¯t dare try them of his own ord without pointers from someone. It really would be his death!

    If he broke all of his supernatural locks and failed to finish the characters, wouldn¡¯t that lead to him exploding on the spot?

    ¡°Then... Commander Li, what is the secondary dimension in the human body?¡±

    ¡°How would I know?¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°I¡¯m not the one who discovered it.¡±

    Chen Zhongtian waspletely at a loss. <i>Fine then! Don¡¯t speak of it if you don¡¯t want to!</i>

    Li Hao truly didn¡¯t know, so he was unable to talk of anything. He knew that it existed, but he couldn¡¯t locate it. He might be able to when his auras were even stronger, but he couldn¡¯t for now. Only the tiger aura could barely manage to understand him and trace the supernatural lock¡¯s trajectory to the depths of the heart. The rest... were still a little ways off from that.

    Li Hao looked at the rest¡ªeveryone was cultivating, the little tree and Deputy Zhou were devouring core origin strength, as well as one other being... The young man frowned at Panther. The dog was barely doing anythingtely and just put in a showing when things developed, but it ate quite a lot. And now, it was absorbing core origin power!

    <i>This kind of energy is very precious! What are you eating it for?</i>

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    ¡°Panth!¡±

    Panther immediately opened its eyes. A sheepish look entered them when it saw that Li Hao was ring in its direction.<i> I can eat it too! I¡¯m the descendant of an ancient monster spirit and I¡¯m really good at eating things. Eating stuff is good for me. As for why I¡¯m not doing anything... am I needed to? It was just a replica and we could obviously win, so I couldn¡¯t be bothered to stick my nose where it¡¯s not needed.</i>

    The dog was confused when Li Hao remained ring at it, then suddenly opened its mouth and swallowed the nearby He Yong. It looked fawningly at Li Hao. <i>See, I¡¯m useful! What can I do? Eat people!</i>

    <i>I can put people in my stomach and make them undetectable! You¡¯ll need to bring in a bunch of people to kill the big tree¡ªthey¡¯re not an idiot, why would they let you in like that? You just need to bring me in! I can eat people and everything under the sun!</i>

 Chapter 829: Faux Seven Elements (III)

    <h4>Chapter 829: Faux Seven Elements (III)</h4>

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Panther¡¯s stomach shook continuously as someone pummeled it from the inside.

    ¡°You son of a... dog of a... Panther, let me out!¡± He Yong¡¯s furious howls could be faintly heard from outside. <i>The hell, man! </i>He was doing just fine and dandy with his cultivation and enjoying being bathed by Water of Life when something abruptly swallowed him! He knew that Panther was behind the deed when everything went dark in front of him.

    Li Hao, on the other hand, looked at the dog with interest. He Yong was a three element Arcanus, but he couldn¡¯t escape Panther¡¯s stomach?

    The dog shook its extended belly in obvious difort. It dry-retched before spitting out He Yong. The man rolled on the ground and sprang up angrily when he saw that everyone was staring dumbly at him. He red viciously at the dog, ¡°You trying to start a fight??¡±

    He was proceeding just fine with his cultivation when this damned dog swallowed him. This was the height of bullying, it was!

    <i>There¡¯s so many people around, why are you only swallowing me? Am I easier to bully? I¡¯m stronger than Yu Luocha! Swallow her!</i>

    Panther seemed to understand the look in He Yong¡¯s eyes, but it couldn¡¯t be bothered to exin. <i>Yu Luocha has Hou Xiaochen supporting her and he¡¯s practically a five element Arcanus now, he¡¯s really scary! No one likes you, so there¡¯s no problem swallowing you.</i>

    ¡°That¡¯s enough!¡± Li Hao coughed. He looked a bit pale as he¡¯d expended a lot of stamina. The young man looked sternly at Panther. ¡°Don¡¯t go around randomly eating people. Senior Southern Fist hasn¡¯t done anything to you. I know what you¡¯re trying to say.¡±

    Heughed after thinking it over. Not bad, the dog was still useful for something. While he couldn¡¯te to any conclusions regarding battle strength, Panth could devour energy and hide people. Li Hao had been debating how to enter the Hu ruins with his entire group. It was impossible to not draw suspicion as there were almost two dozen of them. Even though the supernatural characters concealed their true strength, the big tree wouldn¡¯t brashly let all of them in like this.

    Panther¡¯s actions reminded him of another option. He¡¯d taken up residence in the dog¡¯s stomach when they visited the Steadfast Duke on the eastern continent. The ck dog¡¯s stomach was spacious and slightly resembled the internal world that the ck Armor had just mentioned. Holding two dozen people shouldn¡¯t pose much of a problem. Living people could not enter a storage ring¡ªthat was the unique capability of the nt spirits.

    ¡°Then you can eat a little more, but not too much. Senior Tree is the key in our fight against the enemy. Satisfy the senior first!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther rapidly bobbed its head and happily ran back to its feasting ce.

    Li Hao had just finished his next arrangements when a puppet materialized in front of him. ¡°Teacher says that you damaged more things this time and are fined 4.5 million energy stones. If added to your previous fine, that makes for ten million. Don¡¯t forget to pay off your fine!¡± The puppet dropped the act and outright spoke to Li Hao.

    ¡°I understand!¡± The young man nodded.

    The puppet remained looking curiously at him. ¡°You¡¯re very strong...¡±

    ¡°You praise me too highly. I am not worth mentionpared to you guys.¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s not the same.¡± The puppet shook its head. ¡°Here, we have the strongest methods, the strongest leaders, the best environment, the best conditions, the most excellent order, and the strongest sovereigns. Although we are indeed exemry, we would not reach the same heights as you if given your environment. You are incredible!¡±

    Li Hao smiled and was about to respond when the puppet continued, ¡°Since you¡¯re so strong, you can open the Star Gate, right?¡±

    n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    ¡°......¡± The young man didn¡¯t know how to respond.

    ¡°Can you tell us once you open it?¡± asked the puppet. ¡°We... would like to leave too. We want to go back. We want to be buried at home if that¡¯s the only way we can return. Please do so for us!¡±

    ¡°Um...¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re already dead,¡± the puppet said earnestly. ¡°Although we wish to follow the Human King¡¯s august majesty once more and march on the heavens with him, we know that we may not have the chance to. But we really miss home, and we won¡¯t have you do all this for free. All of us know supreme arts, truly supreme arts from our family.

    ¡°We are the so-called second and third generation disciples that people speak of. Our parents and ancestors are good friends with the Human King. There are true exalted emperors among our ancestors. If you wish it, we can teach you the arts of exalted emperors!¡±

    Li Hao blinked. The true descendants of exalted emperors? That was different from him since he was an untold generation removed from his truly great ancestors. If fifty years denoted a generation, how many generations had his heritage been diluted? It must have been at least fifty thousand years since the ancient civilization ording to his count!

    But these puppets were second and third generations¡ªthey were the true descendants of the noble and mighty! No wonder they were so terrifying and strong even in death.

    ¡°I¡¯ll... do my best!¡± He didn¡¯t give a firm answer as he¡¯d yet toy eyes on this Star Gate that they spoke of.

    <i>Wait...</i>

    Was the door in space that seemed to exist in the center of Silver City¡¯s eight trigrams the Star Gate that they mentioned? Li Hao frowned, this would be a difficult task then! That was a very dangerous locale as he seemed to have seen it before. The door might be sealing something away.

    ¡°Mm... trying your best is enough. Thank you!¡± The puppet quickly left. They woulde make the request themselves since the ck Armor refused to say anything. Their teacher had considerations of face, they did not. They wanted to go home, even if the only way they could do so was in a coffin.

    Li Hao spoke no further and immersed himself in cultivation. The rest came out of their trances in another few hours, each having progressed a bit more. However, they all knew that this was just the beginning. That had only been a replica they faced, the tree¡¯s primary body was the truly thorny opponent.

    ¡°Everyone was active on the battlefield just now and experienced for yourselves how powerful a replica is,¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°The primary body... will be harder to manage. Someone might die and I¡¯m not fully confident either...¡±

    He Yong snorted before he finished. ¡°That¡¯s enough, us Silver Moon martial masters have seen all manner of asions. Ask the old thug if he¡¯s afraid of death. If he¡¯s not, then that¡¯s it. You don¡¯t need to ask anyone else!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Chen Zhongtian flicked a nce at him; he wouldn¡¯t dignify thatment with a response. ¡°Commander Li, it¡¯s a certainty that the nt spirit¡¯s primary body is powerful. There¡¯s another problem at the moment that urgently needs to be taken care of. As for killing the nt spirit, I naturally have no opinion otherwise.¡±

    ¡°What problem?¡±

    ¡°Ah... the nt spirit is so strong that we might die anytime,¡± Chen Zhongtian coughed dryly. ¡°But we¡¯ll just manage to preserve our lives if there¡¯s Water of Life present. I think that each of us should be allotted one hundred drops as a life-preserving measure. Weck a healer, so we can only supplement through this regard. However, our need is great. We¡¯ll need at least two thousand drops if everyone is given this in advance.

    ¡°So my thoughts are that the first line of offense and defense should be allotted this resource, such as Deputy Zhou Chuan, thest generation Iron Shirt, Earthturner Sword, and...¡± He didn¡¯t finish his sentence¡ª<i>and me! We¡¯re the primary defense and will easily die if we don¡¯t have Water of Life at the ready.</i>

    Li Hao smacked himself on the forehead, not knowing whether tough or cry. ¡°You guys probably thought about it, why didn¡¯t you say anything? It somehow slipped my mind. I was only focused on killing the enemy!¡±

    No one had reminded him of such an important detail¡ªit took an outsider to shed some light. Meanwhile, the rest of the group hadn¡¯t said anything not because it didn¡¯t ur to them either, but because they knew that Water of Life had been used up. Nothing would result from their reminder.

    ¡°Don¡¯t think of conserving resources for me,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°This has to do with our survival.¡± He turned to the little tree. ¡°How long will it take to create one thousand drops if you manufacture them now with no thought for the cost?¡±

    ¡°No thought for the cost?¡± came the little tree¡¯s mental ripples. ¡°The consumption rate will be at least three times greater than usual. It will be fast, but... isn¡¯t that... too wasteful...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Then let¡¯s spend some time on this. The sky is yet to brighten and there¡¯s no fear of wasting resources. I have a ton of mysterious power stones¡ªmore than fifty million left!¡±

    There was no need to drag the process out to save resources. The big tree would sense it as soon as they emerged that its replica was no more. In fact, the group had to make good use of time so that the tree wouldn¡¯t have a chance to recover.

    ¡°Alright, then I¡¯ll... coalesce them right now!¡± The little tree was much stronger than before, so the conversion process was much faster. Since Li Hao had said to ignore the cost, there was no need for it to sparingly dole out mysterious power stones. It would have everything once they defeated the coconut tree¡¯s primary body. It¡¯d awakened for many years and received endless benefits from the Ministry of the Judiciary.

    The little tree produced a vast quantity of Water of Life in less than two hours, consuming ten million stones to do so. Li Hao handed out the resource ordingly. Chen Zhongtian was beside himself as it was damned nice to be among the first to receive a share of the spoils.

    After a while, Li Hao looked at everyone. ¡°And now... I¡¯m afraid I¡¯ll have to ask everyone to enter Panther¡¯s stomach!¡±

    The dog was already waiting with an extended jaw. <i>You know how useful I am now, right?</i> As resigned as the group was by the proposed course of action, they knew that it was necessary. Each of them were swiftly swallowed and the little tree reentered the storage ring, leaving only Panther and Li Hao present in the field.

    The young manughed and mmed his palm at his head! Blood flowed out of his orifices and his presence wavered...

    Panther jerked back and whined in surprise. Damn, the human was so vicious even to himself!

    The torn injury on his chest remained; a smiling Li Hao turned to the ck dog. ¡°Does it make sense for you to be fine when I¡¯m this injured?¡±

    ¡°Arf arf arf!¡± Panther barked in protest, but couldn¡¯t escape Li Hao grabbing its tail and mming down a palm strike.

    ¡°Only with effort made are there gains received. Otherwise, you won¡¯t be getting even a mouthful of spit once we kill the coconut tree!¡±

    ¡°Arf arf!¡± Tears welled up in Panther¡¯s eyes, but had to ept its fate. Its skin split and blood flowed freely. The dog strongly suspected that Li Hao was doing this on purpose as revenge. The human thought that it ate too much!

 Chapter 830: Killing an Immortal (I)

    <h4>Chapter 830: Killing an Immortal (I)</h4>

    Li Hao¡¯s body rose in the gloom of Evenround Martial and promptly vanished. He reappeared in the Skystar Commander Office and vomited a mouthful of blood. A violent surge of mental strength agitated from the rear yard. Within the Hu ruins, a coconut tree stirred with maddened fury. It could sense that its replica was no more!

    <i>Damn it, that asshole! Didn¡¯t the little bastard say that he was highly confident? Where¡¯s my replica?!</i>

    It sensed Li Hao¡¯s presence before long. The young man was covered in blood; sadness and anguish swam in his eyes. A dog of blood arduously trailed behind him. He coughed out an apology before the big tree could rage when he approached the sumptuous hall in the rear yard.

    ¡°My... apologies... I hadn¡¯t thought... this would be the case... You should sense it too...¡± Li Hao stretched his lips in a ghastly smile. ¡°All of my people are dead!¡±

    The tree shook. <i>All</i> of them... dead?

    ¡°Thankfully... I used the Windchaser Boots... to escape... at thest second...¡± Li Hao took out the boots and Steris and hefted them in his hands. ¡°My injuries are too severe... I require... Water of Life... There is hope... so long as I¡¯m alive... I will enter the ruins... to recover first... You can take these two weapons first. I need to borrow one hundred drops of Water of Life... it will... be a worthwhile trade!¡±

    The big tree stilled. It¡¯d wanted to rage against the young man¡¯s impotence, but found its fury slightly dissipating when it looked at Steris and the Windchaser Boots. The young man just... wanted toe in?

    ¡°Give me these items and I will give you Water of Life...¡±

    ¡°Cough cough!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°I need to enter the ruins. Water of Life has such a dense presence when actively used. That will alert everyone in the city to the gravity of my injuries and I will die without further question. The nine ministries and royal family will not relinquish the chance to kill me... cough cough...¡±

    ¡°Protect me for a while inside the ruins,¡± Li Hao panted for breath as blood flowed freely. ¡°It¡¯ll be a day at most for me to recover from my wounds. The Skystar Commander Office still stands so long as I am alive!¡±

    ¡°You...¡± The big tree wanted to inquire more about what had happened and who killed its replica, but Li Hao¡¯s injuries seemed to be worsening and his presence fading away. After some thought, the big tree sent the mental ripples of, ¡°Thene in!¡±

    It wasn¡¯t particrly wary simply because it was very confident. The ruins were home turf for the nt spirits, it should be Li Hao who was worried about setting foot inside. It knew that the young man was iling around randomly for any sort of help in his current state. Li Hao was dead without a doubt if the coconut tree harbored any sort of ill intent.

    But speaking of, why couldn¡¯t it have any personal motives?

    The big tree was highly tempted. Li Hao had a lot of origin weapons on him and possibly mysterious power stones as well, despite what the young human had said. All of it would belong to the tree if it killed Li Hao. It would continue to send the Hus out and have them retake the Ministry of the Judiciary. That would mean its core origin resulted in three of eight heritage weapons and possibly other treasures as well

    Wasn¡¯t this reaping such a fat profit?

    It thought rapidly, worried that the same thought would ur to Li Hao as well. ¡°Hurry ande inside,¡± conveyed its mental ripples. ¡°Be careful of people detecting your condition...¡±

    A door of light manifested in the air. Li Hao quickly darted through it, grabbing Panther with him. He spat out a mouthful of blood with a cough,pletely oblivious to the implications behind his actions.

    The door of light immediately vanished and the big tree swayed excitedly in the ruins. This Li Hao was such a fool! He gave his trust sopletely that the tree was wondering if it should save the young man instead. Maybe killing the human for his treasures wasn¡¯t the best course of action?

    But upon thinking of how uncontroble and domineering he was, that made him less useful than the Hus. The tree didn¡¯tck for talented subordinates, it just needed biddable ones. In that case, weren¡¯t the Hus most suitable?

    Well then, the big tree could only offer an apology to the young man. It was his fault for carrying so many treasures on him! None of the nt spirits in Silver Moon could give a thought to reviving once Li Hao was dead. The coconut tree had its decision once its thoughts traveled here¡ªLi Hao would die! It could take revenge for the death of its replicater, after the second awakening.

    Li Hao tumbled to the ground with Panther. The first thing he saw was a towering tree that seemed to have coconuts ringing its top. There was a small town in the distance, one with tiny figures in it that were rapidly converging in this direction.

    <i>The Hus?</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t have time to think before looking back at the big tree. A keen light glinted in his eyes! This was a true Immortal level existence!

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    ......

    The tree in the ruins was bigger than one could imagine. Its trunk and leaves shimmered with a golden color. The coconut fruit around its top appeared somewhat shriveled. As Li Hao assessed the nt spirit, the people in the distance made their way over.

    There were men and women. They were young, but strong. Li Hao was surprised to identify multiple Arcanus amongst them when he swept a nce over them. <i>The Hus?</i> So they had multiple Arcanus left!

    They could naturally see Li Hao if he could see them. The young man in the lead scowled when he saw Li Hao¡¯s face clearly. ¡°It¡¯s you!¡± he dered bitterly.

    Li Hao looked at him, not recognizing the speaker. However, he looked a bit simr to Hu Mingfa, so he might be Hu Mingfa¡¯s son. Li Hao couldn¡¯t care less and ignored the young man. He looked at the big tree instead and coughed ¡°Senior, lend me one hundred drops of Water of Life. Once I am recovered, I would request that you give me the Hus to dispose of!¡±

    He went into another coughing fit that ended with blood streaming out of his mouth. Not too far off in the distance, the Hus had been very wary of their visitor. But now, they assessed his condition with raised eyebrows. Li Hao was... injured?

    The coconut tree was also debating whether or not to exterminate Li Hao. The young man would bring it a lot of advantages from his position in the outside world. But... he was hard to keep under control and didn¡¯t take orders as readily as the Hus.

    After hearing the young man¡¯stest words, the tree felt that it definitely could not keep Li Hao around. There wasn¡¯t a speck of respect in the human¡¯s bones. He was here as a supplicant, but he was still giving orders. The tree was an ancient powerhouse! Li Hao was entirely too bold andpletely without reverence. Keeping him around might be creating trouble for oneself.

    The coconut tree came to a decision in this moment.

    A faint red light emanated from Li Hao¡¯s eyes. He wanted to see through the big tree and locate its heart of life. However, the big tree seemed to sense something. A slightly wizened face appeared on its tree trunk. Its lips opened and closed as mental ripples traveled forth. ¡°Very well, but you need to give me the Windchaser Boots and Steris first.¡±

    These powerful weapons might be utilized to greater effect in Li Hao¡¯s hands, but it was better to avoid some trouble. Although the coconut tree wasn¡¯t afraid of Li Hao, it was best if the young man waspletely disarmed. Li Hao would be at the tree¡¯s mercy then; it would be able to take care of a six or seven element Arcanus, to say nothing of a mere five elements.

    ¡°Milord!¡± The Hus understood the situation at hand, but epted it with reluctance and some fury. Li Hao was gravely injured! But the nt spirit wanted to help him recover!

    The Hus fell silent as soon as the face on the tree trunk looked at them. They knew only dread and pain. Not only was the nt spirit unwilling to kill Li Hao for the Hus, but they had to watch quietly as it helped their enemy.

    The coconut tree was very pleased with the reaction. These were the kinds of servants it wanted. They could only listen to hismands. See, these ones here didn¡¯t dare twitch a muscle without itsmand, even though the nemesis who¡¯d killed their father and grandfather was right in front of them.

    Such were ideal servants. Li Hao was absolutely too arrogant and cocky. Otherwise, his bloodline was noble and his identity so precious that the coconut tree didn¡¯t really want to kill the young man if it could help it.

    Li Hao frowned slightly before nodding. ¡°Alright!¡± He sighed and walked toward the big tree while holding Steris.

    ¡°You can just toss it over!¡± The tree dered with displeasure. What was this fellow doing ining closer? The tree didn¡¯t want more to do with Li Hao.

    ¡°This is the heritage of my forefathers,¡± the young man responded calmly. ¡°It represents my ancestors and the Li n has always revered our ancestors. The senior is joking, how can I just toss it over?

    ¡°Li Hao is a disgrace to the family and has no choice but to temporarily use Steris as coteral. As the Sword Sovereign¡¯s personal weapon, I hope that the senior can also show Steris and the Li n the respect that we deserve!¡±

    Li Hao looked rather unhappy as he reluctantly offered up the sword with both hands. ¡°Senior, please... ept this sword and keep it well. I will soon return with the mysterious power stones!¡±

    The coconut tree grew even more displeased, but... forget it. It didn¡¯t want to give rise to anything unexpected. It was enough that the young man handed it over. All this talk of respect and dignity was an utter joke. The Sword Sovereign might¡¯ve died countless eons ago. Therefore, the tree viewed Steris with aplete absence of respect.

    But it didn¡¯t refute Li Hao¡¯s words. Two massive leaves extended from the tree like arms and reached toward the young man. He continued coughing and raised his hands high. Just as the tree¡¯s leaves reached over, a ray of sword light soundlessly sparkled from the de.

    It was like heaven and earth had been cut apart. Although the endlessly keen Steris encountered unparalleled resistance, a crack sounded amidst the piercing sound of scraping metal.

    <i>Crunch.</i>

    Two arms broke. The two arm-like leaves fluttered to the ground as two lifeless, golden leaves. The spontaneous development didn¡¯t register to the coconut tree at first. It was thinking¡ªwhere did Li Hao get this courage from? Also, Steris was really very sharp to enable Li Hao to reach beyond several cultivation levels and sever two of its leaves with one move. Were the leaves of an Immortal level existence so easily severed?

    The Hus nearby were first stunned, then overjoyed. <i>He¡¯s gone mad! </i>That was the first thought in their minds, that Li Hao had gonepletely crazy. The coconut tree had reiterated that it would avenge the Hus, but the family members had despaired after seeing the two transact. Li Hao chose this moment to go on the offensive, what was this if not courting death?

    Ancient existences were invincible and not to be provoked in the eyes of modern superhumans, particrly the nt spirits! They were undying and had survived since the ancient times. They weren¡¯t armored warriors with lingering mental strength or will, but truly indomitable heavyweights!

    And yet, Li Hao chose to attack such a being!

 Chapter 831: Killing an Immortal (II)

    <h4>Chapter 831: Killing an Immortal (II)</h4>

    A trickle of golden blood dripped out of the big tree¡¯s severed leaves. The coconut tree froze with iprehension for a split second. It¡¯d been too long! So long that it¡¯d almost forgotten how to fight. It¡¯d been so long that it couldn¡¯t believe anyone below Apex would dare raise a hand against it. Even back in New Martial, no cultivator weaker than Apex would dare attack an Immortal.

    It snapped back to its senses as the massive face on its trunk contorted with fury. ¡°Li Hao!¡±

    This was a madman! He courted death!

    Countless leaves hovered into view and formed a massive hand that sought to swat this gnat to death.<i> Does he think that I¡¯m weakened with the destruction of my replica, that it¡¯s an opportunity to kill me?! That was just a replica, not the primary body!</i>

    Power enclosed the vicinity and the Hus on the outskirts grew excited. The nt spirit was about to make a move! Li Hao was dead meat!

    The skies darkened one more, presenting a sight gloomier than before! A gigantic mouth yawned over the premises, devouring heaven and earth like a ck hole.

    ¡°ROAR!¡± Panther was in the form of the big golden dog. Mammoth in shape, it swallowed the enormous hand. On the ground, Li Hao erupted with formidable sword intent.

    He struck with the force of peak six elements! The supernatural characters were part of Steris¡ªthere was only one sword beneath the heavens and it stabbed at its target!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The skies shattered and earth fractured. Panther swallowed the branches that Li Hao cut off, but they seemed to be alive and turned into individual trees that darted into its stomach!

    ¡°The descendant of the Monster Spirit Envoy?¡± A cold look entered the tree¡¯s eyes. <i>So that animal has a special background to it, but so what?</i> The broken branches were still deadly to the dog. A mere five or four element Arcanus dog with some bloodline power of the Monster Spirit Envoy could devour the world, yet could it digest what it ate?

    <i>Do you think you¡¯re the Monster Spirit Envoy? You¡¯re going to be dead before long!</i>

    Countless little trees darted into Panther¡¯s stomach, drumming a loud disturbance in the ck dog¡¯s cavernous stomach!

    The big tree ignored it¡ªthe little bastard Li Hao was on its mind. Its branches trembled as Panther roared and wretched, regurgitating almost two dozen figures.

    A beam of golden light shot at the big tree.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Deputy Zhou punched outward, creating a fissure in the ground as his blood qi soared to the skies. He was more ferocious than before!

    ¡°You deserve death!¡± The big tree fully flew into a rage. No wonder Li Hao had dared go on the attack! He¡¯d collected a bunch of Arcanus! <i>You¡¯re trying to kill me with Arcanus??</i>

    Countless branches manifested and shot through the void. An avenue of light appeared as well, like an eternal road. Countless minor trees shot out from it.

    The group didn¡¯t panic as they knew what it was. The coconut tree¡¯s replica had deployed it before¡ªan attack of core origin. As they expected, a small tree appeared in each of their minds. They were ready and immediately let loose with their supernatural characters.

    <i>Rumble!!</i>

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    Blood flowed from their orifices as Deputy Zhou and Chen Zhongtian vomited blood. They suffered from a stronger attack than the rest and various origin weapons materialized over Chen Zhongtian to block the offensive. The man was shocked by the ferocity they faced.

    The big tree was really strong, so much stronger than its replica! If it wasn¡¯t for a plethora of origin weapons protecting his meridians, he wouldn¡¯t be able to withstand this blow. Was this the capabilities of an Immortal? If he¡¯d run into it himself as a peak six element and bore the targeted focus of the tree¡¯s attacks, it would take only one blow before he died.

    Chen Zhongtian could scarcely believe it! Was the gap between them that great?

    It was then that a little tree materialized. A shadow flickered into view and hurtled at the core origin dao.

    ¡°How dare you!¡± The big tree was grappling with surprise that the humans had only been injured and not died. rm seized it and it shouted with indignation.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    An incredible uproar echoed as core origin strength swept through the area. The projection of the imperial pce solidified and the little tree directed it in a ramming charge at the avenue of core origin!

    The projection immediately suppressed the surroundings!

    The coconut tree abruptly lifted its roots from where it¡¯d been firmly nted and turned into a humanoid tree. Its four limbs were clearly distinct and its face solidified. The path of light in the void vanished!

    A haggard old man looked coldly at the little tree. ¡°A projection of the imperial pce? So you are a guard of the abandoned pce of Silver Moon Territory?

    ¡°I see!¡± the big tree suddenlyughed. ¡°I wondered how Li Hao was bold enough to attack me, so it¡¯s because of you! You¡¯re just an Apex and this isn¡¯t even your primary body. Do you think this shadow of the imperial pce can suppress my core origin dao?¡±

    Although it was very weak, its opponent was neither here with its primary body and was very inexperienced. Its core origin power wasn¡¯t that dense either. Did this little replica want to kill it with these pathetic abilities?

    Silver Moon martial masters stood in all directions, everyone on high alert. The coconut tree was too strong! The little tree had stepped forward and utilized its projection, but wasn¡¯t able to ovee their opponent. In fact, the big tree seemed rather enjoying it!

    ¡°Interesting, how interesting,¡±ughed the coconut tree. ¡°This is wonderful, you have a nt spirit replica with you! Devouring you will be more nutritious than devouring one hundred million mysterious power stones!¡±

    Indeed, Li Hao¡¯s trump cards were a joke to the big tree. This little replica would be its to eat!

    A series of ghastly wails sounded nearby. The big tree tilted its head just in time to see Li Hao retract his sword. The young man hadn¡¯t joined his people in attacking the coconut tree earlier because he¡¯d been busy killing all of the Hu powerhouses nearby. They were now all dead!

    These people had been watching the show, and some tried to get away in the confusion. Well, they weren¡¯t going anywhere!

    ¡°Li Hao!¡± snapped the coconut tree. That animal had exterminated all of the Hus! The tree had use for those humans! They could collect treasures for it after it killed Li Hao¡¯s group! But itughed when a new thought entered its mind. Would it still need the Hus after devouring the little replica and then the people in front of him?

    It was no longer furious and summoned a grand avenue in the void between them again. It seemed to lead to the boundless void, but the little tree said coolly via mental ripples, ¡°Core origin dao has long vanished. This is but your lingering core origin strength. Who are you trying to scare with this show?¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The imperial pce projection appeared once more and came down on all sides. They were no longer in the ancient age. In those days, an Immortal spontaneously increased their battle strength multiple times over when they deployed their core origin dao. That was truly frightening. But now, the big tree was only making use of its lingering strength.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    The imperial pce projection crashed into core origin dao once more. The coconut tree watched coldly as the little tree rapidly backed away and the projection started crumbling. <i>I am not something you can have designs on, no matter how weak I am! I am an Immortal!</i>

    ¡°Kill!¡± Li Hao grunted and charged with an upraised sword. The others brought out their trump cards as well.

    Chen Zhongtian shouted angrily and manifested a long de over his body. It broke through the void, stunning even Deputy Zhou and the others with the blow. It showed signs of smashing the void to pieces!

    Light erupted from the long de, dominating heaven and earth.

    ¡°The weapon of a Saint?¡± The coconut tree regarded it with hostility. It could tell that this had once been the personal weapon of a Saint. Although the wielder¡¯s identity eluded it for the moment, it knew that its modern wielder was too weak. The blow had been made through the weapon¡¯s instincts and might threaten an Apex, but delivered a negligible effect to the coconut tree.

    Multiple branches transformed into fists and hovered threateningly at the group. One punch formed in front of everyone!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Deputy Zhou¡¯s domineering golden body shattered from the punch. Water of Life streamed out from a variety of openings to nourish his body, but blood continued to flow freely from his injuries.

    Hong Yitang howled with concentration and brought down Earthturner Sword over the entire scene. His ¡®sword¡¯ character fractured with a loud bang and his defenses were pierced through! Hong Yitang spat out a mouthful of blood and color drained from his face. The rest of the group¡¯s attacks quickly arrived, but they could not seize back the momentum!

    He Yong and everyone else swiftly flew backward with blood spraying from their wounds.

    ¡°Broken Will!¡± roared Hou Xiaochen, as did Sky Sword and a few others with their own methods. The earth and skies fissured, but the massive punch broke through a spear, the Sky Sword technique, and even the five element Yao Si¡¯s attacks.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    It took only a split second, but every single powerhouse on the scene was firmly defeated. The coconut tree was too strong! Deputy Zhou had been sent flying and Chen Zhongtian¡¯s long de only inflicted an imperceptible crack on the tree trunk.

    The group was bbergasted. This was so much stronger than the replica, could they really kill it?

    The little tree had been erupting with the imperial pce projection to suppress their target¡¯s core origin. Therefore, the coconut tree wasn¡¯t utilizing its core origin dao at all. It was simply relying on its physical body to crush everyone.

    The coconut tree turned to Li Hao again. The young man was strong enough to shatter the image of its fist with one stroke. But... what did that count for?

    ¡°Is this the source of your confidence?¡±ughed the coconut tree. ¡°You will never know how strong the Immortal level is!¡±

    <i>So what if you¡¯ve constrained my core origin?</i> The little tree didn¡¯t have strength left for anything after that. None of these people could measure up to it even if it didn¡¯t utilize core origin.

    Scanning the Arcanus powerhouses prone on the ground, the coconut tree walked toward Li Hao. ¡°So naive!¡± It shook its head.

    Li Hao watched with a frosty expression. The big tree really was too strong! He admitted to that. It was stronger than its replica even without utilizing core origin dao. That was greatly beyond their expectations.

    <i>But... are you sure that victory is in the bag?</i>

 Chapter 832: Killing an Immortal (III)

    <h4>Chapter 832: Killing an Immortal (III)</h4>

    Just as Li Hao was about to erupt with power, the quiet Panther abruptly howled. The dog hadn¡¯t done anything so far, apart from the initial devouring of the coconut tree¡¯s leaves.

    ¡°I am the king of all monster spirits!¡± Mental ripples surged through the area. They didn¡¯t seem to originate from Panther since the dog didn¡¯t know how to talk, but it seemed to be the source at the same time.

    Everyone saw it¡ªthe evaporation of Panther¡¯s golden blood! Another dog seemed to manifest in the air over its head. It was something like a dog, yet not a dog. Golden in color, there were horns on top of its head. It rather looked to be a, well, panther.

    The big tree jerked with surprise and fear shed through its eyes. The projection of the Monster Spirit Envoy! So this dog¡¯s bloodline had already been purified to this level! The strength contained within its bloodline had pulled the projection of the Monster Spirit Envoy out of the bloodline memories!

    The golden shadow erupted with an unquestionable supremacy that dominated the four corners. Fear rose from deep within the coconut tree¡¯s heart. This was the king of monster spirits! The king anointed by the Human King himself!

    Its subconscious told it that it could not attack, that it needed to bow its head and submit. But soon enough, the tree¡¯s mental ripples agitate furiously again.

    ¡°You are dead, but I am alive! You are... no longer the king!¡±

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Its presence red and shed with the golden shadow. Thetter remained supreme and crashed down on the big tree! Panther was incredibly weakened by the collision, but ignored the constant evaporation of its blood. The projection of the Monster Spirit Envoy grew ever more domineering and its supremacy reigned supreme.

    The king of monster spirits naturally held sway over all of its kind! The coconut tree was one such being¡ªmonster spirits came under the golden shadow¡¯s jurisdiction. It was the official and legitimate king as decreed by the Human King.

    The coconut tree roared with indignation, but weakened as it was continuously suppressed. The little tree continued directing the projection of the imperial pce to mp down on the tree¡¯s core origin dao.

    The rest of the group shot into the air again with battle cries, sending de, spear, sword, and halberd forward. Supernatural characters exploded to bring overwhelming might down on the big tree!

    Panther howled again when the coconut tree wanted to retaliate¡ªits blood had almostpletely run dry. The golden shadow in the air sharpened into focus, seeming to walk straight out of the ck dog¡¯s memories. Thunder and lightning erupted, as if a heavenly tribtion from its golden horns.

    Fear dawned in the big tree¡¯s eyes!

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    Thunder and lightning raged, forcing the big tree back while countless branches exploded. Various supernatural character attacks arrived, but the golden thunder and lightning soon dispersed.

    Not only that, but the golden shadow faded away as well. Panther fell heavily to the ground,pletely drained of strength. It was a ck dog again and unconscious. Almost all of the blood in its body had been extracted, but the projection of the Monster Spirit Envoy had been limited in its capabilities. It hadn¡¯t been able to kill the Immortal level nt spirit.

    As the shockwaves faded away, the air cleared to reveal charred marks on the coconut tree¡¯s golden trunk. The fear in its eyes quickly changed to mirth.

    Was that it?

    The king of monster spirits was very strong, but that had just been a mark left in the bloodline. The king was long dead, but the nt spirit was still alive.

    A ray of sword light shed down on it as the treeughed. Li Hao¡¯s body was falling apart; flesh and blood flew off of him, even his heart was shattering! But this was precisely the chance he¡¯d been waiting for, an opportunity to catch their opponent off guard.

    He knew that facing the coconut tree head-on would be very hard, so he¡¯d maintained the strength of six elements all this time. But now, his fire aura zed and his body started falling apart as it was too difficult for it to endure seven elements. Li Hao ignored the strain on his body. A ferocious tiger manifested over Steris, the look in its eyes startlingly cold!

    Li Hao had said that the skies and earth would shake when its tiger emerged. There was no such disturbance as his tiger stepped forward, just a merciless predator quietly manifesting over his weapon. Supernatural characters collided over Steris and formed a newbination¡ªa dragon of sword intent seemed ready to condemn the world!

    Li Hao had been observing all this time, trying to determine where the coconut tree¡¯s heart of life was. And now, he finally saw it.

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A massive collision rang through the air as Steris pierced the big tree¡¯s stomach. That was where its heart of life was! Li Hao had seen it with his unique eyes, the eyes that saw through falsehood. This was where the core of the tree¡¯s strengthy.

    <i>Kaboom!</i>

    The formidable body flew apart, Steris continued forward until it hit a rock, one that was clear and crystalline.

    ¡°Scree!¡± A piercing shriek grated on the ear¡ªthe coconut tree. Its face contorted with anguish as it gaped at Li Hao with shock that quickly turned to fury and hate!

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    Li Hao¡¯s move did not pierce through its heart of life, but it left numerous cracks that horrified the tree. The little bastard had concealed his strength! How was that possible?! How could an existence on par with Apex appear in this age? Although the boy¡¯s body was weak and a far cry from a true Apex, his sword intent could be regarded on the same level as an Apex!

    First it was the little tree, then the projection of the Monster Spirit Envoy, then the de of a Saint, and now the force of an Apex from Li Hao. The coconut tree was increasingly terrified by the fight. If it wasn¡¯t for its body being that of an Immortal, it might truly perish here.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Powerful strength emitted from the heart of life. Li Hao¡¯s physical body was so weak that when the force traveled up the little sword, it nearly blew the young man apart. The immense recoil shattered his organs; the golden armor proved to be of no use as the force directly seeped into the body.

    The coconut tree watched with a vicious expression!<i> What a pity that your body is too weak. Your aura is strong enough¡ªthe aura of the modern age is an interesting thing. It is on par with the core origin dao of my time, but what use is it?</i>

    <i>Its cultivators have physical bodies weaker than those who follow the path of mental spirit.</i>

    A figure rose in the aura as Li Hao suffered in agony. Deputy Zhou howled; his golden body erupted with aureate splendor. A peculiar strength surged into Li Hao¡¯s body!

    Indestructible matter!

    This was a strength unique to golden body powerhouses¡ªit made the golden body undying. Li Hao¡¯s breaking body spontaneously healed when it assimted into him. It was an effect faster than the healing properties of Water of Life or sword energy.

    The young man roared with determination and stabbed forward again, blood streaming from every opening in his face!

    <i>ng!</i>

    A rapidly spreading fissure appeared on the heart of life. The coconut tree¡¯s expression shifted drastically. <i>Nine turns of the golden body?</i> Where else would so much indestructible mattere from? How could modern humans fashion such a golden body in their training?

    Aureate light emanated from Li Hao¡¯s body; his weak body was thus fortified and his wounds immediately closed. Deputy Zhou¡¯s golden body dimmed. He fell to the ground, the golden hue fading away to reveal a pale face.

    Deputy Zhou smiled wryly, damn if this wasn¡¯t a tough opponent! Half of his indestructible matter had been expended. He would have to consume enough sufficient core origin power and Water of Life for recovery if they were able to survive this.

    ¡°Hmph!¡± The big tree brought forth fearsome strength once more, punching at Li Hao¡¯s head. It remained a force to be reckoned with even in this condition.

    ¡°Skies capsize and earth turns!¡± someone shouted. The earth truly turned with this move. The big tree¡¯s punch was sent off course and punctured the void near Li Hao. The young man stabbed out once more. He vomited sessive mouthfuls of blood as he did so!

    Rays of splendor exuded from the little sword.

    ¡°Seal off the void!¡± Yao Si yelled. Supernatural characters manifested from each martial master and gathered together in a gigantic. It sealed off the void, but shockwaves crashed into it!

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    Supernatural characters crumbled away as the group toppled to the ground. However, the big tree was also halted for a split second.

    Li Hao¡¯s Windchaser Boots sparkled as he vanished from sight. The scene momentarily flickered in front of the big tree. The little tree was beginning to buckle under the strain of suppressing the coconut tree¡¯s core origin dao all this time. However, the avenue of light that represented the other¡¯s dao was firmly locked into space by the projection of the imperial pce!

    The iparable strength of an Arcanus exploded out of Steris and the aura of the Lifeless Sword ripped out of the void! One sword stroke descended, cleaving the firmaments into two!

    A crunch sounded from the great avenue that seemed to lead straight to the heavens as the stroke... cut off a portion of it!

    ¡°Li Hao!!¡± screamed the big tree. The young man was no longer attacking its heart of life, but had utilized the Windchaser Boots to disappear and shift his attention to the tree¡¯s great dao instead.

    The coconut tree had been preupied with the little tree all along since thetter was equipped with the projection of the imperial pce. Although the tree¡¯s core origin dao had not been able to suppress the little tree, the coconut tree found it eptable since it prevented the little tree from joining the fight.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that Li Hao would suddenly vanish, taking advantage of the rest of the group''s actions?!

    Just as the coconut tree sought to break through the air to kill Li Hao, a long de abruptly arrived. It was as if a Saint wielded it and brought it down on its target!

    <i>Bam!</i>

    The big tree took a step backward; Chen Zhongtian suffered from incredible bacsh as well. The one de dimmed as multiple sky-level origin weapons exploded within the man¡¯s body. His supernatural locks snapped as well. He looked at Li Hao with resignation.

    <i>Woe is me! It¡¯s up to you now. If you still can¡¯t kill it after this... then we¡¯re out of ideas. I¡¯ll be able to be one of them supernatural character cultivators after this, if you live through it, right?</i>

    His origin weapons protecting his supernatural locks had exploded in fiery glory, resulting in his locks snapping. He was a martial master no longer. Water of Life appeared inside his body to protect his organs.

    Chen Zhongtian crashed to the ground, blood streaming out of his wounds. However, he was smiling.<i> There¡¯s no way you won¡¯t teach me after this. If we both survive, you¡¯ll have to teach me that method!</i>

 Chapter 833: Killing an Immortal (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 833: Killing an Immortal (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao bellowed with determination and swept forward with his sword again!

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    Another segment of the great dao in the void snapped. The young man whipped his head back and snatched a long de out of the air. ¡°Lend me your weapon, Minister Chen!¡±

    ¡°Alright...¡± Chen Zhongtian wheezed back and relinquished his control over the de. Truth be told, it was hard for him to maintain control over his weapon in his current state. Not to mention, the long de had expended all of its energy and wasn¡¯t of much use at the moment. It needed some time to recover.

    What did Li Hao want with it?

    Chen Zhongtian spat out a mouthful of blood just when the question crossed his mind. His connection with the de disappeared. Li Hao had switched from hacking the great dao running the de through with his sword. Steris was furiously devouring the weapon!

    The long de struggled ferociously and a figure appeared over it. It seemed to sense something and dissipated slowly. A voice could be faintly heard, ¡°How unlucky, all you know is to eat someone else¡¯s weapon...¡±

    inly, the shadow over the long de recognized Steris as the Sword Sovereign¡¯s weapon! The weapons of Saints possessed their own spirit, but there was no helping it. Steris could only be permitted to devour this weapon.

    The little sword¡¯s light intensified into resplendent splendor! This was the strongest weapon that Li Hao had ever fed it. Steris seemed exceedingly satisfied and burst forth with a killing sword intent that raced to the heavens. The young man swung the weapon once more!

    <i>Crunch!</i>

    The firmament ripped, the void shattered. Even the little tree jumped with shock and quickly moved away, taking the imperial pce projection with it. The coconut tree¡¯s great daopletely fractured with the loud collision!

    ¡°AHH!¡± A ghastly scream echoed behind Li Hao. The big tree¡¯s body was falling to pieces, its branches breaking apart. For a core origin cultivator, the bacsh from their great dao being cut down was sufficient to kill them.

    Thankfully, given theck of core origin in the modern world, the bacsh wasn¡¯t as great as it would¡¯ve been. Hence, the big tree didn¡¯t immediately perish. Regardless, it suffered from heavy injuries and its mental strength was destroyed.

    Its mind nk, the big tree seemed to see a figure sh in front of it. Water of Life surged within its body, churning toward its heart of life. It wanted to use the resource to forcefully heal the damaged core, but Li Hao plunged Steris into the exposed stone.

    <i>CRUNCH.</i>

    The heart of lifepletely split open, sending the big tree through a myriad of changes. It turned back into a tree, then humanoid shape, and continued flickering through the two. The coconut tree stared incredulously at Li Hao and unique ripples came to the fore of its body! <i>These ants have killed me??</i> the tree wondered with despair and incredulity.

    Its core origin dao had been shattered and its heart of life smashed! This was the end of the road, one that had never urred to it.

    ¡°Li Hao...¡± The coconut tree regained its calm and looked coolly at the young man. Energy fluctuated wildly throughout its body and leaked into the surroundings¡ªa sign of self-detonation. It was an unparalleled powerhouse! These ants would never kill it! Even if it was to die, these bastards would be its burial goods!

    Although it¡¯d betrayed humanity, it had once lived in the New Martial era. In that age, death was greeted by self-detonation. Going out in a ze of fiery glory to ensure mutual destruction with the enemy was themon consensus of all humans and monster spirits!

    Therefore, Li Hao would apany it in death!

    The ck Armor had cautioned Li Hao about this possibility, so when the big tree gathered its energy and built up to the detonation point, the young man roared and deployed a powerful devouring force from Steris.

    ¡°Panth!¡±

    The ck dog stirred from its depths of unconsciousness, recalling Li Hao¡¯s earlier instructions. But it viewed its memories with a tragic air. Again?? This would be the death of it! But... there was no helping it.

    A giant maw yawned in the void and devoured everything that was the big tree like a ck hole. The energy that it¡¯d umted was instantly shaved off and the rampaging ripples quieted somewhat.

    And yet, the big tree sneered. That was far from enough! It¡¯d returned to tree form; its trunk was splitting open. Theplete explosion of an Immortal would annihte all of these people with it!

    Li Hao chose to close his eyes at this moment. The big tree thought that the young man had given up the struggle andughed, ¡°Li Hao, it is your honor to die with me...¡±

    <i>BAM!</i>

    A massive blow sounded as something darted out of the tree¡¯s body. It erupted onto the scene with domineering force, splintering the world and the tree¡¯s trunk. An enormous mallet hammered heaven and earth!

    <i>Rumble!</i>

    The tree¡¯s remaining mental strength was obliterated by the mallet. A shadow of a great tree manifested in the air. ¡°How is this possible...¡± it begrudgingly murmured with disbelief.

    Li Hao regarded it coldly. <i>How is it not possible?</i>

    ¡°The eight families are one and the Lis is revered as the head. I can naturally control the mallet if I dared give it to you. If I can direct the Windchaser Boots, why can I not do the same for the mallet of the Hongs?¡±

    Was there a need to ask such a stupid question? <i>You stored it inside yourself? You seriously had a death wish! You can¡¯t use it, so what¡¯s the point of hiding it in your body?</i>

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t called upon the mallet all this time, no matter how dangerous the situation got. He¡¯d been waiting for this moment to deliver a truly fatal blow. The mallet of the Hongs attacked mental strength. What could the coconut tree use to detonate its energy with once itcked that? Panther¡¯s and Steris¡¯ actions were feints!

    The young man knew that neither of the two could erase the might of an Immortal¡¯s final self-detonation. Only the mallet of the Hongs could prevent the explosion by eradicating the Immortal¡¯s mental strength!

    Thank goodness the ck Armor had reminded him of this possibility; Li Hao wouldn¡¯t have considered it otherwise. He wouldn¡¯t have thought either that New Martial existences always kept self-detonation in their back pocket.

    The coconut tree¡¯s shadow filled the vicinity. Although reluctant, it suddenly smiled with eptance. ¡°What a pity...¡±

    A pity about what?

    That the world had changed.

    Otherwise, it was a right and proper Immortal. It would cause more of a disturbance with its death. Back in its day, the skies would rain blood to honor the fall of an Immortal. What a pity that they could not return to the past. What a pity that the times really had changed. What a pity that it¡¯d died to a bunch of weaklings.

    ¡°Do humans... really enjoy such favoritism from the heavens?¡± Its shadow smiled at Li Hao. ¡°Your kind can still muster such feats even in this era...

    ¡°New Martial... is no more... As I am... no more... This is my end despite years of struggle...¡±

    Some relief filled its sigh as the shadowpletely broke apart. And so marked the end of an Immortal nt spirit!

    Li Hao himself crashed to the ground, joining the pile of prone figures already on it. The little tree quickly coalesced Water of Life and scattered it on the group. It enveloped the fracturing tree at the same time, preventing the remaining ripples from exploding.

    Everyone looked unblinkingly at the sky, resting with their own thoughts. They¡¯d won!

    ¡°So this is all there is to them!¡± someone murmured among the toppled group.

    So that was all there was to them. As it turned out, the ancient powerhouses weren¡¯t invincible. They died all the same. So what of the Immortal level?

    Although this nt spirit hadn¡¯t fully recovered and had previously severed part of its core origin, dead was dead. No one of the modern age had dared resist these existences before because they were widely held as invincible, but some modern humans killed one today!

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word. While his body continued to fracture, the ferocious tiger aura slowly disappeared with the fire supernatural character. His body swiftly recovered as sword energy surged through it, but the young man remained staring at the sky.

    He suddenly smiled as he noted that his various auras were growing vigorously. His auras had fallen behind his improvement in other areas, but they seemed to break free from the shackles of cultivation in this moment and develop rapidly.

    Whether it was the ferocious tiger or mountain peak, all were growing swiftly. The loot from killing the nt spirit was of secondary importance. The boost to everyone¡¯s confidence was the main focus.

    The aura was their dao, and their dao came from themselves. Such had been the aura of invincibility from the ancients. They thought themselves as the strongest, that there was nothing they could not do. This was the sensation that everyone present today felt as well.

    <i>We are very strong! We can kill even heavyweights from the ancient civilization!</i>

    Huang Yu had spent the entire battle doggedly grappling with their target. He suddenly said softly, ¡°All of us in Silver Moon, including even Ole Zhao, think that only those of the ancient civilization can withstand the ancient civilization when the second awakening takes ce.

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    ¡°Our thoughts were to borrow the ancient civilization to strengthen ourselves and defy modern powerhouses. We¡¯d never thought of killing ancient powerhouses!

    ¡°Although Ole Zhao is dedicated to safeguarding Silver Moon, he also knows that it¡¯ll be very hard to!¡± Huang Yu smiled as heid on the ground. ¡°He probably didn¡¯t consider the possibility that we¡¯d move against ancient heavyweights before the second awakening.¡±

    No one in the modern world had ever spoken of such an idea. Whether it was the nine ministries or royal family, their first thought was to borrow nt spirit strength in their rise and break the restrictions of heaven and earth after the second awakening. Perhaps they could all ascend then and scrabble for some safety.

    No one thought of killing the ancient powerhouses because everyone relied on their strength. And today, someone had aplished the impossible.

    No one spoke of dividing the spoils and they ignored the coconut tree¡¯s corpse. Theyid on the ground and stared up at the sky, beaming brightly despite their injuries. They were as innocent and carefree as children. Even the overcast gloom seemed particrly radiant. The world was clear and bright to them in this moment.

    <i>So we really can create miracles, so the ancient civilization isn¡¯t that frightening. They have their ultimate heavyweights, but it took only a few decades for us to be able to kill an Immortal. A crippled or withered Immortal is still an Immortal. Is there a need for us to be so wary or fearful of the ancient civilization anymore?</i>

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 834: Harvest, Ranking (I)

    <h4>Chapter 834: Harvest, Ranking (I)</h4>

    Li Hao had said that this battle would smash their internal demons and the gods that they looked up to in their minds. They had done so. Every member of the groupy quietly on the ground, permitting blood to dye their clothes as their thoughts ran wild. Various auras billowed with might and the fractured supernatural characters reformed.

    Auras bloomed over the de, spear, sword, and halberd as the aura reflected the heart. It grew stronger when the wielder grew stronger.

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    Li Hao quietly perceived the changes in his body¡ªthe five auras were rapidly developing within. The immensely strengthened auras had the same effect on the supernatural characters. He also attained some new insights throughout the process.

    The tiny dot hovering over the golden character in the lungs turned into a golden sun. The willow tree formed out of the wood aura grew vibrantly and the mountain peak of earth turned into a mountain range. The sound of wavespped against the kidneys.

    All of the auras seemed to be celebrating; Li Hao glimpsed a new world in sight. He smiled as the power of the five elements overburdening his organs began receding.

    Following their auras, the other four supernatural characters slowly sank into the depths of their organs andpletely vanished from existence. Indeed, they disappeared just like the fire aura had. They¡¯d entered the secondary dimension, as Li Hao called it, and would not appear unless they were called upon like the supernatural locks.

    Li Hao¡¯s presence swiftly declined, leaving only the elements of wind and thunder,pared to the motley array it was before. The strengthening of his auras was a greater gain than anything else, in the young man¡¯s opinion. His mind seemed to be elsewhere at the moment; he made out a patch of the cosmos. The stars glittered radiantly amid the backdrop of the night sky. Chains criss-crossed his view like they were giant dragons. Some of them were oddly shaped¡ªa ferocious tiger, a mountain peak, a wave, a willow tree...

    Li Hao looked around in a bleary haze, regarding the cosmos with stunned shock. Was this... the secondary dimension? What were those countless dragons? ...the supernatural locks?

    He found it hard to believe and couldn¡¯t believe it. The explorations of the five auras had brought his mental strength into another area. He was actually observing the mysterious secondary dimension!

    The Silver Moon martial masters in the surroundings looked sharply at the young man the moment he entered the mysterious dimension. There was ayer of light enveloping him. Upon taking a closer look, Li Hao seemed to be part of the boundless universe, the cosmos.

    The group thought they were seeing things and sat up for another look, ignoring the state of their injuries. Li Hao was indeed shrouded by starlight. Not only that, he was also faintly emanating the power of the stars. It was simr to sword energy but not quite.

    Everyone held their breaths and watched incredulously. What was going on here? Had the young man broken through? But it didn¡¯t look like it!

    After an indeterminate period of time, Li Hao abruptly opened his eyes. Stars swam in them and he stared dumbly upward. After a very, very long period of time, he murmured to himself, ¡°Do you guys know how many supernatural locks are in the human body?¡±

    People shook their heads. How would they know?

    ¡°I know, fourteen of them,¡± He Yong chuckled. ¡°The four limbs, five organs, wind, thunder, light, and dark, as well as the head!¡±

    That was such an easy question!

    ¡°Fourteen?¡±ughed Li Hao. ¡°If it was only fourteen, wouldn¡¯t that mean that both supernaturals and martial masters, or us, can only make it to ten element Arcanus?¡±

    Since the locks of the four limbs were unattributed, they had to be subtracted from the count. Seven elements were on par with Apex; ten elements might be the same if a second metamorphosis stage didn¡¯t appear. Wouldn¡¯t that limit modern humans to Apex at their very strongest?

    That wouldn¡¯t hold true!

    ¡°It might... be far more than people think!¡± Li Haoughed.

    Everyone looked at him, but he didn¡¯t exin himself further. <i>I¡¯ve simply seen a few things, but that doesn¡¯t mean they¡¯re real. </i>All the same, he was filled with motivation again! It would be quite interesting if each of the dragons represented a supernatural lock. Could he locate them all?

    ¡°Um... I really am about to explode, and I¡¯m not joking,¡± someone said at this time.

    The group cast their gazes at a certain corner, where a pathetic figure crouched on the ground. Although Water of Life rained down on it, blood continuously flowed from its wounds and its body showed signs of detonating.

    How could it not? Chen Zhongtian had broken all of his origin weapons and supernatural locks at the same time. The only reason why he was still intact was because the little tree was keeping his condition under control. One had to say, sometimes the little tree was much more reliable than the rest of them.

    No one cared about him. It was only through the little tree¡¯s ministrations that he was still alive.

    ¡°The old thug has quite the pretty scheme in mind!¡± He Yong snorted withughter. Everyone knew what Chen Zhongtian was nning. Had there been a need to snap <i>all</i> of his supernatural looks right at the very end?

    Well, there had been, but the action hadn¡¯t been that imperative. The old man had put his life on the line with the trick he was ying. As expected of someone who¡¯d gone from a martial world thug to one of the nine founding ministers eighty years ago¡ªChen Zhongtian possessed a certain degree of resolution and boldness.

    ¡°Minister Chen... is an interesting one!¡± Li Haoughed as he looked at the old man.

    Although Chen Zhongtian¡¯s face was cracking, he smiled as well. ¡°This is what we gotta do if we¡¯re to survive in this world. I¡¯m just doing this to put food on the table.¡±

    Li Hao had said he was interesting, he responded that he was just putting food on the table.

    ¡°Martial Uncle Hong... teach Minister Chen how to trace the characters!¡±

    Hong Yitangughed and didn¡¯t say anything to the contrary. He regarded the old minister, finding the man to be quite interesting. Chen Zhongtian was a gambler, but he¡¯d made the right bet this time.

    He exined the procedure without hesitation. Chen Zhongtian listened raptly and soaked in the new information. Having witnessed the method before, he quickly grasped how to operate it. He only needed to understand the key points of characters.

    Li Hao remained unmoving, taking a while longer to recover. He rose only when his injuries were mostly healed. He looked at where the little tree had enveloped the petrified coconut tree. The immense body was in tattered condition and its heart of life fractured. Water of Life slowly flowed from it, also enveloped by the little tree. Part of it had been used to save the group.

    The young man walked up for a close look; the tree waspletely dead, yet it remained durable withoutparison. Water of Life trickled within its trunk¡ªnot in drops, but as a small river. It¡¯d wanted to use Water of Life to heal its heart of life in itsst moments, but Li Hao had stopped it.

    ¡°I think I can fulfill my dream of taking a bath with Water of Life!¡±ughed the young man before he looked at the little tree. ¡°Senior Tree, it¡¯s hard for me to tell how many drops are here.¡±

    ¡°About five thousand!¡± answered the little tree.

    Was that a lot?

    Not that much. Based on the little tree¡¯s rates, it was fifteen million mysterious power stones since each drop cost three thousand stones. The group had consumed much more than that for this asion since arge quantity of Water of Life had been depleted during and after the battle. All of it had been hastily produced, so the resource consumption had been greater than usual.

    Five thousand drops was just earning back their capital. Granted, their ounts couldn¡¯t be calcted thus since Water of Life strengthened the physical body and recovered life force. Everyone present had received tangible benefits; their strength had not stagnated.

    ¡°That¡¯s a bit too little...¡± Li Hao shook his head. Was this all the mysterious power stones that the Ministry of the Judiciary had supplied to the coconut tree these years?

    If at fifty thousand stones per drop, and apparently this one had a price of sixty thousand stones, there were plenty of Arcanus in the Ministry of the Judiciary that¡¯d had to trade for Water of Life. Hu Mingfa was nearly four elements, which meant he needed more than two hundred drops himself, much less other people.

    Trading for more than five hundred drops was a normal figure¡ªthat was thirty million stones. There was also more energy in the central region, resulting in the nt spirits recovering on their own, albeit at a slower pace. Five thousand drops after twenty years was a bit too little.

    Of course, it was also eptable.

    Li Hao breathed in the core origin force wafting around the scene. ¡°Senior Tree, Deputy Zhou, and... Panther, you guys should absorb this power!¡±

    The lifeless Panther immediately sprang to life. It hurtled into the little tree¡¯s defensive shield and gulped down energy. There was always a seat at the dinner table for the dog, and it¡¯d truly aplished a deed of great merit this time. Almost all of the blood in its body had evaporated and the Monster Spirit Envoy projection that it¡¯d coalesced had dealt a grave blow to the coconut tree.

    Deputy Zhou smiled and followed suit. He¡¯d expended a great deal of energy in battle. Given the absence of core origin dao in the modern world, there was no energy source with which he could replenish from. It was very hard for his golden body to improve any further, and he¡¯d depleted a great deal of his golden body¡¯s indestructible matter to fortify Li Hao¡¯s physical body. That could only be replenished through Water of Life and core origin strength. Devouring energy could also save the same purpose, but the rate of recovery then would be so slow that it would cause one to despair.

    The others present could also absorb and deriveprehension of core origin dao from the energy, just as Li Hao had once done so from the little tree. However, the improvement wasn¡¯t noticeable from this course of action and it easily led one to a cultivation tangent.

    Reserving the energy for these three was the best way to maximize the effects.

    ¡°Its body will be of great use to you!¡± came the little tree¡¯s mental ripples. ¡°It¡¯s an Immortal level existence and contains a great deal of indestructible matter within its body. This was a key ingredient of golden bodies in the ancient civilization!

    ¡°Although it is dead, it might revive again countless yearster if given enough time. It can resurrect if there is enough energy for it to pull from. But a new consciousness will be born then, so it will no longer be its same self.¡±

    ¡°Are you saying that... the physical body will live on so long as the golden body is not destroyed?¡± Li Hao was surprised.

    ¡°Yes!¡± The little tree quickly educated him. ¡°Almost all ancient powerhouses were undying and immortal, but the precursor was that there was sufficient energy to support them. Otherwise, they would slowly fade away. That is why almost all ancient human powerhousesck a physical body these days¡ªtheir energy slowly dispersed until they ultimately fell apart!

    ¡°nt spirits survive partially because we have a habit of storing Water of Life, partially because we are rooted in the void and can absorb some free-floating energy. Even so, our consumption is great. My father fell apart because he was unable to remain to thest. He passed thest vestiges of his power to me. I am weak, so I consume less energy...¡±

 Chapter 835: Harvest, Ranking (II)

    <h4>Chapter 835: Harvest, Ranking (II)</h4>

    Li Hao nodded and looked at the colossal golden tree. So everyone¡¯s body would be strengthened if they devoured the indestructible matter! Although there were many resources at present that could enhance the body, such as sword energy or Water of Life, or even additional possibilities from Li Hao¡¯s own inspiration, anything that could swiftly fortify the body in the here and now was a good development for everyone.

    ¡°How do we absorb this matter?¡±

    ¡°You have not cultivated the golden body, so you will find it difficult to. Let Deputy Zhou do so. You can cultivate with what he exudes after devouring the matter!¡±

    ¡°I can indeed do that.¡± Deputy Zhou nodded. This truly was out of reach for most people.

    ¡°Thank goodness for the deputy.¡± Li Hao grinned. ¡°Those two hundred drops of Water of Life weren¡¯t a waste!¡±

    n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    ¡°......¡± Deputy Zhou didn¡¯t dignify thatment with a response.

    ¡°Stop lying down, everyone. It¡¯s time for a feast!¡± Li Haoughed loudly.

    The group promptly surged in their direction; Chen Zhongtian churned with panic when he heard the announcement. He was still coalescing his supernatural characters and was so strong that he needed to do multiple characters at once. Hence, he needed time. But wouldn¡¯t he be missing out on the indestructible matter if everyone went to absorb it right now?

    Therefore, he forcefully broke off the process of tracing characters and permitted rampaging energy to explode in his body. He dragged his tattered body in the group¡¯s direction and nearly crawled to cover the distance! He wanted a share of the bounty no matter how painful it was!

    The rest of the group ignored him. It was a testament to his own ability if he could drag his battered body to them. Li Hao was in no hurry to take in the energy. He looked at the partially shriveled coconuts at the top of the tree and asked curiously, ¡°What are those coconuts used for?¡±

    ¡°Those aren¡¯t coconuts,¡± the little tree responded after some thought. ¡°This nt spirit is known as the Golden Palm among monster spirit pedigree...¡±

    ¡°So... coconuts then.¡±

    ¡°......¡± The little tree didn¡¯t want to argue. ¡°These coconuts have the effect of strengthening one¡¯s core essence. I¡¯m not certain what their actual function is either. They might not be ripe yet as they look like they¡¯re still growing to me. Regardless, they¡¯ll have some effect. Strengthening the body is a given and they might be able to fortify mental strength...¡±

    Li Hao nced at the fruit¡ªthere were forty-two coconuts total. He reached out for one, but found that he couldn¡¯t pluck a fruit off the tree. He summoned Steris to cut them off and slice into one.

    The same power that could be found in Water of Life surged out amid a milky-white liquid. Li Hao dipped his finger into it and licked it for a taste. A faint sense of life energy surged into his body. The young man raised the coconut for a drink; energy burgeoned within his body as his depleted mind intent began revitalizing.

    ¡°This is great stuff!¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. It was much more useful than Water of Life as it could both strengthen mind intent and the physical body.

    Since it wasn¡¯t fully ripened, the taste was a bit bitter and dry. That was no problem as the fruit likely wouldn¡¯t have gone to Li Hao if it¡¯d ripened. Perhaps the coconut tree itself would¡¯ve eaten it. It wasn¡¯t impossible for a nt spirit to consume its own fruit.

    Li Hao looked at the big tree again¡ªthere were naturally more benefits to be had after killing the coconut tree. There was also its main body to consider. Since its defensive capabilities were so strong, perhaps its body could bepressed into a shield or a club. That would make for a very powerful weapon.

    Or perhaps he could let the little tree devour it?

    On second thought, the little tree was limited in its capabilities. It should also be much stronger after everything it¡¯d absorbed on the battlefield.

    ¡°Senior Tree... Have you mostly... recovered to peak strength by now?¡±

    ¡°I should be there after I finish absorbing the core origin,¡± the little tree answered after some silence.

    ¡°True peak Apex?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm.¡±

    ¡°Do you stand a chance of entering the Immortal level?¡± Li Hao nodded.

    ¡°That... would be hard!¡± sighed the little tree. ¡°With ack of core origin dao, it would take arge infusion of core origin energy for an advancement to be possible. This is why the nt spirits at Tranquil Star want to invade Silver Moon¡ªthere¡¯s a lot of powerful nt spirits asleep in the province.¡±

    ¡°Then... can General Pagoda awaken if I feed the coconut tree¡¯s body to the general?¡±

    The little tree regarded the question with resignation. It wanted to devour the coconut tree, but knew there wasn¡¯t much hope of that after Li Hao¡¯s question. It wouldn¡¯t make it to the Immortal level even after eating the tree, but if that one devoured the tree... It could probably awaken.

    ¡°Ah... pretty much!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t rush, Senior Tree, this was just the first asion,¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°There might be a second, and a third toe. Senior Tree can just store enough core origin power for now, you won¡¯tck this resource when you have a hope of rising to Immortal!¡±

    That made sense to the little tree upon further thought, so it didn¡¯t say anything else. Li Hao, on the other hand, thought rapidly. If this tree could revitalize General Pagoda... that would be quite the unexpected surprise. Director General Wang had mentioned that they would need at least one hundred million mysterious power stones to help the general recover. Li Hao had collected a great dealtely, but also expended a lot of their gains. He only had roughly forty million stones left.

    That wasn¡¯t enough for General Pagoda. But if the big tree¡¯s body could be used in ce of one hundred million stones, that would be an ideal recycling of useless material. At least, the body was useless to Li Hao¡¯s group because theycked the means to forge it into a weapon. There was no craftsman skilled enough or powerhouse strong enough to utilize an Immortal¡¯s body.

    Li Hao said nothing further and refrained from further observation. He sat down cross-legged and operated the Five Styles Breathing Method. Large quantities of indestructible matter entered his body to nourish his organs and physical body.

    He quickly switched to the secret art of wind and thunder as he most ardently wished to grasp their auras. He had some thoughts in mind when it came to the aura of thunder, thanks to Panther¡¯s usage of the Monster Spirit Envoy projection. The young man had truly sensed a wisp of the power behind a heavenly tribtion when the golden horns erupted with lightning¡ªit was the strength of utter destruction, like it would annihte the world!

    What a pity that it¡¯dsted for only a split second before vanishing. Otherwise, the coconut tree might¡¯ve been struck down on the spot.

    All sorts of thoughts floated into his mind and Li Hao thought of the cosmos he¡¯d seen before. He abruptly summoned a vast quantity of energy, concentrating it on a nk spot in his body instead of the usual areas. Gradually, a tiny supernatural lock floated into view.

    A strange look entered Li Hao¡¯s eyes when he opened them. The dark and light supernatural locks manifested in his body¡ªstronger than before. He casually tossed Steris into the pool of Water of Life. The little sword furiously absorbed the resource and sent a peculiar wave of sword energy into the young man¡¯s body.

    Li Hao directed the sword energy to certain areas ording to his memories. Large sums of sword energy wafted out of his body; the powerhouses around him absorbed the leaking sword energy in return. The young man didn¡¯t mind and continued his motions.

    He slowly shifted more supernatural locks into visibility. They were very small and very weak. Despite therge quantity of energy he¡¯d expended on them, they weren¡¯t of any help to him. They were so weak that there would be no effect whatsoever if he snapped them. This was just a process ofying foundations to the young man.

    He lit up with joy. As he thought, there were more than fourteen supernatural locks in the human body. He couldn¡¯t discern what attribute these new locks were or what their purpose was, but they were the basis of his future strength.

    Even the little tree winced at how much Water of Life Li Hao was consuming. The rest of the group looked at the young man with confusion.<i> Can you digest so much? This is a bit of a waste, isn¡¯t it?</i>

    But no one voiced their concerns. Their bountiful harvest today was already a rare asion in their lives. Not to mention, Li Hao, the little tree, and Panther were the main reasons for their sess.

    Everyone furiously drank in energy¡ªsword energy, Water of Life, indestructible material... Any one of these types of strength was a highly sophisticated force that they¡¯d never encountered before.

    .......

    <i>As Li Hao¡¯s group cultivated.</i>

    An endless expanse of darkness separated the end of this set of ruins. At its other end was a city. A nt spirit that looked like a rose swayed in the middle of a great pce hall. It transformed into a feminine humanoid shape and looked toward the end of the darkness!

    There was a peculiar rtionship between the nine ministries and royal family. Or rather, the ruins that they upied had a special rtionship with each other. Just as General Pagoda and its subordinates protected Battle Heaven, there was often more than one nt spirit protecting one city.

    Thirty-six nt spirits safeguarded Battle Heaven¡ªGeneral Pagoda was just their core. The same went for Tranquil Star. The nine ministries upied the nine most critical spots, but the royal family controlled the central area. The rose¡¯s status was simr to General Pagoda¡¯s.

    An old man sitting in the middle of the pce opened his eyes with confusion. One of the chains on his body had suddenly snapped. It was for that reason that he¡¯d shaken off some of his constraints. ¡°Honored One,¡± he looked at the rose. ¡°Have there been more disturbances outside? Has someone killed the old thing?¡±

    Chen Zhongtian seemed to be dead!

    The nine ministers once ced nine seals on him, but now three were broken. The other two were negligible, but the destruction of Chen Zhongtian¡¯s seal represented an enormous opportunity for the old king!

    He could sense that the nine ministries could barely keep him under control! The woman that the rose had transformed into stared intently into the distance. She asked with bafflement after a while, ¡°Perhaps! Chen Zhongtian... the old minister of the Inspectorate you speak of? If he¡¯s dead...

    ¡°Maybe he died over at Security,¡± it concluded after some musing.

    ¡°Security?¡± A thought urred to the old king. ¡°The ruins that the Hus upied?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°What would he go there for?¡± The Old Skystar King was surprised.

    <i>Who am I supposed to ask?</i> The baffled rose didn¡¯t answer. Although they were separated by some barriers and were separated by darkness, there had indeede the ripples of one''s great dao being snapped just now. Of course, identification was difficult these days due to theck of core origin dao. If this was back in the day, the snapping of someone¡¯s dao would arouse natural phenomena.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 836: Harvest, Ranking (III)

    <h4>Chapter 836: Harvest, Ranking (III)</h4>

    <i>This shouldn¡¯t be the case! </i>thought the rose. They might¡¯ve judged the situation incorrectly. As opposed to Chen Zhongtian dying, perhaps he was killing someone and his great dao wavering too wildly to maintain his portion of the seal. It would seem that the weapon of a Saint was still useful in the current world. Judging from the old Skystar King¡¯s condition, Chen Zhongtian might have broken his weapon that¡¯d belonged to a Saint.

    ¡°If Chen Zhongtian is dead, then his weapon must be broken too!¡± The Skystar King was quite happy. ¡°I don¡¯t think those two fellows behind the two strongest seals will hold me for long!¡±

    The rose didn¡¯t say anything; it simply continued looking into the darkness. There were nine strategic points within the city that had been some of the most important locations back in the day. nt spirits stood guard over all of them, and they¡¯d betrayed the rose after awakening. It constantly wished to open the Skystar mine, but they prevented its attempts each time...

    Of course, those nine fellows weren¡¯t the key. The key was that there was another one at the entrance of the mines. Too bad those nine bastards weren¡¯t willing to join forces with the rose. Would there be a need for all this otherwise?

    Were the other nine worried that it would devour them all?

    New Martial was over and the divisive nature of the monster spirits wasing to the fore. The humans weren¡¯t much better off either. This was what happened in the absence of a strong character keeping the world in check.

    The nt spirits at Skystar were unable toe together as one. They might¡¯ve upied first mover advantage otherwise and broken through to the mine. A full recovery would already be in their grasp.

    <i>What a bunch of idiots! </i>cursed the rose. It sighed imperceptibly when it looked at the old Skystar King. <i>What a pity! </i>It¡¯d chosen the Jiangs back in the day because it thought they were very strong and possessed the requisite decisiveness to execute their decisions. With its support, they would be able to swiftly dominate and subdue their opponents. In return, the rose would receive arge amount of resources despite being cut off from the outside world. It would recover at first light and eliminate those of its kind that stood in its way.

    Who would¡¯ve thought that the Jiang trash wouldn¡¯t be able to ovee their nine opponents!

    ¡°Break your seal as soon as possible! The second awakening is upon us and therge mine cannot be kept under wraps even without action from us. Too much energy has umted and it is about to explode!

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    ¡°You are useful before then andpletely useless after the second awakening!¡± the rose said brusquely without care for the listener¡¯s feelings.

    The old Skystar King¡¯s expression flickered as he quickly responded, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m almost there. Li Hao is a shit stirrer alright. I would¡¯ve found it difficult to break free without him, but with him.... If anything further happens to the old farts of Armed Forces of Administration, I¡¯ll be able to break right out!¡±

    It was also fine if nothing happened to them. He would be able to force his way out all the same if the divine weapons stabilizing the seal were removed. The old Skystar King didn¡¯t dare openly show his thoughts, but in the depths of his heart, he felt that if it wasn¡¯t for the rose being unwilling to help, he would¡¯ve been freed a long time ago.

    The rose was worried that the nine weapons might turn on it or somehow harm it. The divine weapons would have a difficult time recovering their usual strength in the outside world, but they could be very strong inside the ruins if they awakened. Nine of them attacking at once was a nigh impossible proposition for the rose as well.

    The rose ignored the old king¡¯s mood. It had absolutely no desire to endure an offensive from nine weapons for the sake of a piece of trash. Those weapons had once been divine weapons of the human race. As a monster spirit that¡¯d turned traitor, its course of action would provoke the weapons¡¯ will. They would gravely harm it, if not kill it altogether.

    Perhaps those nine nt bastards nearby would join forces to devour it then.

    But... now that one of them was broken... was the Golden Coconut injured?

    After some thought, the rose felt that the Golden Coconut might be fine since it was just one singr divine weapon. If it chose to attack now, that might cause the others to rise up in joint defense.

    The rose vanished, not wanting to think about this any further. A rose vine once more swayed in the void, but it looked in a certain direction.

    <i>The second awakening is inevitable and you cannot possibly hold us back then. You are already dead, so why be so stubborn?</i>

    ......

    At the same time, day broke in the outside world. It was the third day. The Wind and Cloud Pavilion had announced that they would publish their Arcanus ranking today, so many people were watching and waiting.

    A pale Chen Yao sat in the Inspectorate. He¡¯d been watching the Ministry of the Judiciary all night long, but did not see his old maning back. Was he dead? Was he really dead? He¡¯d said that Chen Yao should make a run for it if he hadn¡¯t returned by dawn, to send the others to Administration and ask the Zhaos for protection.

    But... his old man was so strong, could he possibly die?

    Chen Yao was on pins and needles; the world was hazy around him. As for the ranking that everyone waited for with bated breath, he didn¡¯t care about it at all.

    ¡°Attend to me!¡± he growled. A subordinate quickly came through the door. ¡°I had you call the Skystar Commander Office so we could discuss how to respond to the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. Did you not notify them?¡±

    ¡°We did, sir, but they said that Commander Li led a group out of Skystar City yesterday because they discovered traces of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. All of the Skystar Commander Office¡¯s powerhouses are away for the moment...¡±

    Chen Yao didn¡¯t say a word. The Wind and Cloud Pavilion? No, that wasn¡¯t the case. His old man wouldn¡¯t have told him to run away if that was the target. It must be something even more frightening!

    On this day, everyone learned that there were no heavyweights in residence at the Skystar Commander Office. Even Yao Si of the Night Watchers was gone. There seemed to have been traces of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion discovered.

    ......

    An Arcanus ranking was swiftly disseminated throughout thend before Li Hao¡¯s group reappeared. It was quickly made general knowledge. Everyone who saw it paused, unable to believe their eyes. This was a ranking that Li Hao had modified with careful thought and based off of the real ranking.

    Number one, Ying Hongyue. Seven element Arcanus.

    Number two, the old Skystar King Jiang Chen. Seven element Arcanus.

    Number three, the old minister of Administration. Seven element Arcanus!

    Number four, the old minister of Armed Forces. Peak six element Arcanus.

    Number five, Li Hao. Peak six element Arcanus.

    Number six, the current Skystar King. Peak six element Arcanus.

    ......

    Li Hao had made a great number of changes, but he¡¯d also put himself in as peak six elements. Many who obtained a copy blinked with consternation. Apart from a few whose strength had been changed, everyone else¡¯s was urate. The three seven element Arcanus was the most stunning of all.

    Wasn¡¯t that impossible before the second awakening? Whether it was the City of Supernaturals or Celestial and Yama, all factions were taken aback. <i>Three</i> seven elements?

    ......

    <i>Red Moon headquarters.</i>

    Ying Hongyue had also obtained a copy of the ranking at first light and frowned silently at it. What was... the Wind and Cloud Pavilion after? Everyone had thought that Li Hao would be number one. Even if that wasn¡¯t an urate cement, it would be Li Hao all the same. Otherwise, there would be no need to create that disturbance during the Skystar Commander Office¡¯s inauguration ceremony.

    But now?

    Although there were multiple Silver Moon martial masters on the ranking, including Yao Si and others, why was he number one? And seven elements!

    A vicious look entered Ying Hongyue¡¯s eyes. His concealed strength had been revealed! How was that possible?? Did they really have the powerful Mirror of Wind and Cloud?

    <i>Damn it!</i>

    ¡°Congrattions to Leader Ying!¡± A scarlet cloak fluttered in the void. ¡°Seven element Arcanus ces you first among Silver Moon! It looks like Leader Ying has some special methods that I am in the dark about.¡±

    ¡°This ranking isplete nonsense.¡± Ying Hongyue frowned. ¡°The Wind and Cloud Pavilion is targeting me!¡±

    <i>But why?</i>

    ¡°Can it... have something to do with you guys?¡± His eyes narrowed. ¡°They¡¯re not targeting me, but doing this because they¡¯ve learned of your existence? Why else would they list me as number one for no reason?¡±

    The scarlet cloak sank into deep thought. That was true. The two sides hadn¡¯t had any dealings before this and Red Moon didn¡¯t bear any enmity toward the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. It was Li Hao who¡¯d made up his mind to eliminate the other. It was a colossal joke to list Ying Hongyue as number one during this time.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know either...¡± the scarlet cloak offered after a long moment. ¡°We don¡¯t know much about the Wind and Cloud Pavilion, they¡¯re rather mysterious. I thought it might be that group of people, but now it looks like it might not. Do they really have the heritage of Daoist Wind and Cloud?

    ¡°I¡¯ll have people look into it. Be on the alert these days!¡± The scarlet cloak vanished.

    Ying Hongyue frowned and scanned the ranking again. This ranking... listed a lot of Silver Moon cultivators, so it did seem aimed at Silver Moon. But... what the hell was all this! Li Hao wasn¡¯t in the top three!

    Ying Hongyue, the royal family, and the nine ministries were widely acknowledged as the three strongest factions beneath the heavens. Wasn¡¯t it a joke to list the three of them? They were already the strongest in everyone¡¯s hearts!

    Of course, this was just confirmation to the rest of the world. It further verified the truth of the ranking.

    ¡°Bastards!¡± The unppable Ying Hongyue was frowning ferociously. This ranking was ridiculous! What was the Wind and Cloud Pavilion thinking of¡ªdid they want to offend the rest of the strongest factions in the world so that everyone joined hands against them?

    ......

    <i>At the same time, within a ruin.</i>

    A loud crash traveled out of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion as a frosty voice demanded, ¡°Why did this happen?!¡±

    They¡¯d known that something was wrong the moment the ranking appeared. A lot of people weren¡¯t on it and the order had been changed. Deputy Zhou was nowhere to be found, Director General Zhao¡¯s cement had decreased significantly. Yao Si and Hong Yitang were still present, but they were lower than twenty. There were fifty people on Li Hao¡¯s modified ranking and his changes made it seem that the organization was targeting Ying Hongyue.

    Although Ying Hongyue was indeed number one in their real ranking, this wasn¡¯t the result that they wanted to see.

    ¡°Pavilion master, we... we don¡¯t know either. We gave the ranking to Wu...¡±

    ¡°Idiots!¡± A ck shadow came into view and jerked with angry movements. ¡°Look into it! Exercise some care! Damn it, it was such a small matter, but you still managed to mess it up!¡±

    Could theye out and say that this ranking was a fake? That there was another version they wanted to publish? They really would be aughingstock then!

    The ck shadow was infuriated, truly incensed beyond words. Utilizing distribution channels was just a small matter, nothing had ever gone wrong before. But this mess developed in a most critical moment! This threw all of his ns into disarray!

    ¡°Understood!¡± Someone swiftly sped off outside while the pavilion master brooded over the development.

    Ying Hongyue might think that the Wind and Cloud Pavilion was targeting him. He wasn¡¯t afraid of Ying Hongyue¡ªit was the forces behind Ying Hongyue that were a headache.

 Chapter 837: Invincible! (I)

    <h4>Chapter 837: Invincible! (I)</h4>

    The ranking quickly disseminated in all directions and raised a hubbub of discussion. Seven elements... and three seven element Arcanus at that! All sides were stunned and nervous. How had they done it? Had they all broken through inside the ruins?

    But there was no point in doing so unless they wished to stay within the ruins for the rest of their lives or emerge only after the second awakening. That would make for one less heavyweight in residence at their faction.

    Were there other methods that they could call on?

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The world was also stunned at Li Hao being peak six elements, but he wasn¡¯t worth mentioningpared to the three seven elements.

    As for the veracity of the ranking... some people felt that it was real because the ranking¡¯s estimation of their strength was urate.

    ¡°Which side does the Wind and Cloud Pavilion stand on? So they¡¯re not targeting Li Hao, but Red Moon, the nine ministries, and the royal family?¡± No one could make any sense of it.

    ......

    The Arcanus Ranking was hotly discussed on all sides, but it had nothing to do with Li Hao and the rest. Having tossed out the ranking, the young man didn¡¯t care whether Wu was captured or killed as a result. The supernatural character that he¡¯d nted in the man¡¯s head had long dispersed.

    They were so far removed from each other that he didn¡¯t have the ability to continue manipting the character. It had faded away a long time ago, but the young man wasn¡¯t sure if the other was aware of that fact.

    His goal with the ranking was very simple. Would anyone believe any further rankings that the Wind and Cloud Pavilion published? They would have to wait until next month to publish their next edition, but it was already an unknown if they would survive until then.

    ......

    <i>Within the ruins.</i>

    The group stopped cultivating after an indeterminate period of time. The enormous tree trunk was slightly withered as the pool of five thousand drops of Water of Life was... dry!

    Indeed, the tree trunk was empty.

    The group stared dumbly at the dry internals. Some looked at Li Hao, some looked at the little tree. Others exchanged nces among themselves. ...someone had stolen the Water of Life and hidden it, hadn¡¯t they?? That was five thousand drops, not five hundred! None of them had the ability to absorb so much Water of Life at once.

    Li Hao was lying on the ground, like his soul had departed his body. If anyone could see supernatural locks, they would see that a mass of locks had floated upward on his body. They were tiny, like ants, and those with trypophobia would find their scalps crawling.

    The young man¡¯s scalp crawled with numbness as well! He¡¯d absorbed almost five thousand drops by himself¡ªand that wasn¡¯t even the problem. Although the consumption rate was terrifying, the key was that his strength had barely improved. The ants had absorbed almost all of the resource to give rise to so many supernatural locks.

    What horrified Li Hao was that... there were <i>so many</i> locks in the human body. How was this possible?? Although he¡¯d seen some locks through the five auras before, the actual appearance of more than one hundred locks was still a jaw-dropping sight.

    He¡¯d broken eleven locks as of present, making him a seven element Arcanus. But how many more were there to get through? Could anyone break them all? How much in resources would be needed? How much time? How many types of aura?

    Li Hao was shaking all over, suddenly feeling that Hong Yitang had proceeded down the better path of using one character to epass a myriad of methods. Would there ever be an end to his hard work thanks to his insistence on one word per aura? He¡¯d yet to seed with the wind and thunder auras, not to mention this dense concentration of terrifying locks. He hadn¡¯t had time to practice the light and dark auras either.

    ¡°One hundred and twenty locks!¡± murmured the young man. That was the number that¡¯d appeared on him¡ªone hundred and twenty locks. It was a frightening prospect!

    The human body was a treasure, that he knew, but he hadn¡¯t thought that the human body would contain such terrifying potential. He might not be able to fully excavate it for the rest of his life. The ancient humans didn¡¯t have supernatural locks, they only had the three cavities and the like. Their anatomy wasn¡¯t asplicated.

    Was the modern cultivation system this terrifying? Did modern humans possess too much potential, or were they that pathetic in this age of martial dao decline? They were shown so many supernatural locks to explore, but could only look upon these locks for the rest of their lives and never reach the end goal? How agonizing that would be! Not to mention, the humans of this age possessed weak bodies, which made it even harder for them to develop their locks.

    Modern humans had to consume thousands of drops of Water of Life to barely manifest some of their locks. This had been the reserves of an Immortal! Li Hao felt that it could¡¯ve given rise to arge batch of Arcanus. It¡¯d been wasted on him.

    Was it a waste?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t know. His first thoughts were to summon a few locks andy a firm foundation for himself, but he¡¯d ended up unwittingly absorbing all of the Water of Life. This was no longer a question of setting foundations, but a question of how horrifying everything was.

    The rest of the group had begun to notice Li Hao¡¯s abnormal mood. The young man was sprawled on his back, an empty look in his eyes. What¡¯d gotten into him? Shouldn¡¯t he be excited and happy that he¡¯d killed an Immortal level nt spirit? Why did it seem like he¡¯d died?

    ¡°Li Hao, I¡¯m a four element Arcanus now,¡± He Yong coughed. ¡°My body seems a lot stronger than before and it can endure the strain of another element. I justck a bit of Water of Life. Have you put it all away?¡±

    Everyone¡¯s bodies had been strengthened after absorbing significant quantities of indestructible matter. He Yong had directly set foot into four element Arcanus and was on the cusp of five elements. It felt like he would seed at any time, but that he alsocked the necessary replenishment of Water of Life. He didn¡¯t need it for fortifying his physical body, but that coalescing the supernatural characters devoured life force.

    He had just finished tempering his body and wanted to trace the fifth character. But now, they were out of Water of Life! There¡¯d been so much! Thousands of drops, where had it all gone? Had Li Hao taken it all?

    Everyone present had shown marked improvement, particrly Hou Xiaochen. His body was extremely weak to begin with and he¡¯d been sickly from youth. Thanks to the fortifying effects of indestructible matter, he showed greater improvement than Sky Sword and the rest. He¡¯d already mastered the elements of his organs as well as the wind element, cing him in six element Arcanus.

    He also wanted to point out the insufficient quantity of Water of Life. While he didn¡¯t need it anymore, there were others who did. Yu Luocha!

    Yu Luocha had gained a great deal from this operation. She¡¯d been weaker before and with a more flimsy aura, but killing an Immortal had caused a change in her aura. She¡¯d just managed to set foot into four element Arcanus, making her slightly weaker than He Yong.

    Hou Xiaochen felt that she stood a chance of rising to peak four elements or even five elements if she had a bit more Water of Life. If the weakest Yu Luocha disyed such improvement, then it was easy to imagine how much the others had transformed by.

    Yao Si and the others had been premier five element heavyweights to begin with. They¡¯d forcefully set foot into six elements before, and if it wasn¡¯t for worrying that they¡¯d explode in the outside world if they were seven elements, Yao Si might¡¯ve made that step already.

    However, they were yet to discover the secondary dimension like Li Hao had. They couldn¡¯t fully conceal one of their elements. Thus, not only did they have to worry about being churned to pieces by the void, but they also had to consider if their own bodies could endure such an eruption of power.

    There were many six elements on the scene. Yao Si flicked a side nce at Earthturner Sword and his brethren. Those guys were likely all six elements, perhaps even peak six elements. Just like him, they didn¡¯t dare set foot into seven elements.

    Even less needed to be said about old fart Chen Zhongtian. That fellow could utilize six elements under normal conditions. He had easily set foot into peak six elements.

    There was one person who Yao Si could not see through¡ªZhou Chuan. This was a powerhouse who walked the path of the ancient martial dao. Though he¡¯dcked core origin strength before, he was on par with peak six elements. Had he improved again after absorbing significant indestructible material?

    One wasn¡¯t necessarily weak just because they only walked the path of the golden body. What if he was able to break his limits?

    Finally, Yao Si¡¯s gaze rested on Panther. No one talked about the dog, but they were all immensely stunned by it. The projection of the Monster Spirit Envoy that¡¯d gathered out of its blood was truly terrifying. It had erupted with the strength of an Apex inside the ruins!

    The coconut tree had almost been struck down with one bolt of lightning. It was in to see that the dog had supped at the table of countless treasures, and that its diet had been put to good use. Yao Si was highly envious¡ªspending one¡¯s life eating and drinking. The dog lived a good life, alright!

    Yao Si then looked at Northern Fist and hispanions; they showed marked improvement as well. Under normal circumstances, they would be five or six elements. There were very few four elements left in the group¡ªHe Yong and Yu Luocha counted among their weaker members. Light Sword was stronger than both of them, so she should be a fifth element Arcanus as well.

    Yao Si inwardly sighed with emotion. It¡¯d only been half a year since he decided to follow Li Hao. The Arcanus level had just appeared then, but an entire group of cultivators had set foot in it in the blink of an eye.

    This kind of change was very unexpected, but also fostered incrediblepetition! The heavyweights of the nine ministries and other factions were forced into swift improvement as well. Perhaps they¡¯d all emptied their family vaults, which rather benefited the nt spirits.

    The nt spirits of the various organizations must have benefited greatly in recent days. Everyone had advanced at a prudent rate before¡ªthere was no need to drain the pond to catch all the fish in the waters. There was a limit to their improvement before the second awakening arrived. It was sufficient to set foot into six element Arcanus before then.

    But now, everyone bristled withpetition!

    ¡°This can¡¯t be allowed to continue!¡± Li Hao suddenly interrupted Yao Si¡¯s line of thought. The group blinked at him. <i>What?</i>

    ¡°We must study how to strengthen the body, and not just through Water of Life or indestructible matter.¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°There must be a cultivation method, a unique method that isprehensive and swiftly develops the physical body!¡±

    They were faced with these straits as a seven element Arcanus. What about when they reached eight or nine? Were they to continue killing nt spirits? But there were limited numbers of nt spirits as well, humans couldn¡¯t just hunt them to extinction! That wouldn¡¯t be enough for their use in any case!

    Those of the group looked at each other before He Yong said in a muffled voice, ¡°Then we need to get your master back here!¡±

    ¡°Who the hell knows where he¡¯s gone!¡± Li Hao''s head ached at the task. ¡°He doesn¡¯t respond to any of my messages, so he¡¯s probably thrown the transmission pendant away. He didn¡¯te back for the Skystar Commander Office inauguration ceremony, so he¡¯s probably entered a ruin!¡±

 Chapter 838: Invincible! (II)

    <h4>Chapter 838: Invincible! (II)</h4>

    A series of dry coughs rose and fell throughout the group. Yuan Shuo had missed out on quite a great deal with his absence. A ruin? Wasn¡¯t it nt spirits or ancient powerhouses that were the strongest existence in a ruin? What could they offer?

    Water of Life? One hundred drops, maybe. What else?

    Nothing else. But with Li Hao, all of them had already received a varying quantity of Water of Life. They¡¯d also absorbed core origin strength from an ancient powerhouse and the indestructible matter used to forge golden bodies. Their auras had also undergone quantitative changes after killing an Immortal nt spirit.

    With this in mind, the group rather pitied Yuan Shuo. How tragic! The old man had insisted on striking out on his own andpletely missed out on these incredible gains. Although he was Li Hao¡¯s master, he might only be peak metamorphosis at the moment or barely an Arcanus. He might even feel very proud of himself for reaching that level!

    <i>Little does he know, we¡¯re all five and six elements now!</i>

    But they still had to go to him when it came to researching cultivation methods. Some of the ancient powerhouses might have a wide span of knowledge or be very strong, but they were not as aplished as Yuan Shuo when it came to studying the human body and aura. The old man himself was the greatest target for research.

    Even now, Li Hao was yet to meld the five auras as one. No one was able to do it other than Yuan Shuo. He hadpletely fused his together as opposed to utilizing them separately like Li Hao.

    ¡°Is there more indestructible matter?¡± Li Hao suddenly asked upon hearing the group mention his master.

    Silence.

    No one said a word. It was all gone, along with Water of Life! They¡¯d truly had a grand feast. Everyone had been afraid of seeing lesser gains if they took in less than the others. They wouldn¡¯t be able to continue advancing if their physical bodies weren¡¯t strong enough, so who would hold back out of politeness?

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    All of them absorbed the avable resources for all their worth! Evente-joiner Chen Zhongtian took everything he could. He was so full that he almost wanted to burp. He¡¯d wanted to stash some away for his son, but hadn¡¯t had the chance to do so before everyone else emptied the reserves.

    The coconut tree had expended its own resources for many years, so there wasn¡¯t as much indestructible matter within it as one might think. Although it was an Immortal, it was closer to being an Apex.

    With so many near-Apex Arcanus powerhouses furiously drawing on it, as well as the little tree, Panther, and Deputy Zhou... there wasn¡¯t anything left. Only the trunk remained on the ground. Li Hao had put the coconuts away.

    ¡°I forgot to save some for my master.¡± Li Hao smacked his head. ¡°Forget it, I¡¯ll save some for him next time we kill a nt spirit if he¡¯s still not around.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Just listen to the young man! But everyone¡¯s eyes brightened all the same and Chen Zhongtian swallowed hard.

    ¡°I¡¯ve got one at home!¡± Indeed, his family¡¯s ruins had a nt spirit in residence, one that was particrly arrogant and cocky. What if... they killed it?

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. He was only voicing his thoughts, he didn¡¯t n on killing more nt spirits at present. The group needed some time to digest their gains. He also needed to make further ns if they were to go after the Chen nt spirit. That one would be apletely whole opponent without previously splitting itself for a replica, unlike the partial target of the foolish coconut tree that they¡¯d fought.

    Of course, the Chen father and son could also try and see if they could trick a replica out of their nt spirit. These nt spirits existed by themselves at the moment. None of them could exchange information with each other.

    Li Hao set the matter aside and turned his attention to the ruin in front of them. He hadn¡¯t had time to observe it before their battle. These seemed to be the gardens of a certain building structure. It waspletely pitch-ck ahead without a speck of light.

    ¡°Everyone should take some time to settle down with their new gains,¡± Li Hao breathed out. ¡°Improving too fast isn¡¯t a good thing either. It¡¯s best to temper ourselves for a bit, and this is something the seniors all know better than me. Let¡¯s wait a while longer before we kill another nt spirit.¡±

    No one had an opposing opinion, whereas He Yong still couldn¡¯t help himself in the end. ¡°Ah... is there no more Water of Life?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The group cursed to themselves. What a shameless guy!

    ¡°No, it¡¯s all gone!¡± Li Hao burst outughing. ¡°We¡¯re not in urgent need of it now, so we can have Senior Tree take its time with conversion. The cost will be a lot lower!¡±

    The cost was too high when they were in a hurry for Water of Life. When it came to mysterious power stones, he had quite a lot left at thirty million. He¡¯d been burning through mysterious power stonestely. What he¡¯d obtained from killing the nt spirit had been used on the spot, but it also resulted in a rapid increase in strength among the group.

    A slow utilization of thirty million stones would result in ten thousand drops. An urgent order would result in three thousand drops. There was no need to waste the stones on He Yong¡¯s behalf!

    Indeed, such were Li Hao¡¯s thoughts. <i>What are you in a hurry for, it doesn¡¯t matter whether you¡¯re a four or five element Arcanus!</i>

    The young man had reaped a great harvesttely¡ªhis reserve of mysterious power stones and Water of Life was truly incredible. But having to support so many people meant that he only had a few mysterious power stones left. They would soon be expended since everyone had use for them.

    What terrified Li Hao was that he had too many supernatural locks! Who knew how many more stones he¡¯d have to consume if he wanted to keep improving?

    ¡°Let¡¯s investigate these ruins first...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s probably one of the critical parts of the city,¡± Chen Zhongtian didn¡¯t really mind. ¡°It¡¯s not arge ce and you won¡¯t be able to probe too deep into it. There¡¯s a barrier ahead that will block your path.

    ¡°The ruins at my home are where the ancient Hall of Education was back in those times. It¡¯s a more important ce, but also just a building. There¡¯s nothing special about it. The Department of Education was the core of the ancient civilization, but there¡¯s not much use to it as there aren¡¯t many treasures left in it.

    ¡°It¡¯s basically the same as the nine ministries. We obtained their inheritance by ident a long time ago. How should I put it... it was the nt spirits that chose us. They wanted people in the outside world to help them, so they set the revolution of the nine ministries in motion!

    ¡°The bramble rose of the royal family was the true guardian nt spirit of Skystar ruins. It¡¯s very strong and has always wanted to devour the other nine. That was why there was the uprising eighty years ago and why the royal family was overturned. The bramble rose can individually suppress any of the nt spirits, but it cannot when all nine are allied against it.¡±

    Chen Zhongtian was much more talkative than usual. ¡°We hold the vital points of Skystar, but the true heart of the ruin is the entrance to the mine. However...¡± The man thought about his next sentence. ¡°There is a guard at the entrance!¡±

    ¡°Even now?¡±

    ¡°Even now!¡± Chen Zhongtian nodded. ¡°We¡¯ve been waiting for the second awakening for a while, but it hasn¡¯t begun mostly because of the guard at the mine. Skystar Fortress used to be filled with a Skystar Army of one hundred thousand strong. The guards at the mines were their elites and part of that army. There weren¡¯t many of them, just three thousand or so, but they were the best of the best. It¡¯s said that their leader was a vicemander in the Skystar Army!¡±

    A leader of ten thousand made one a first rank division leader. That meant he was at least an Apex. Themander-in-chief of the Skystar Army was at least an Immortal, which meant that a vicemander was ny-nine percent an Immortal.

    So this vicemander was an Immortal, but he was sent to watch the mines?

    ¡°Were the guards humans? If so... shouldn¡¯t they be long dead?¡± Li Hao was confused.

    ¡°I have no idea.¡± Chen Zhongtian shook his head. ¡°It would also be normal if they aren¡¯t dead. They are undying and indestructible, simply guarding the energy stone mines. So... wouldn¡¯t it be expected that they¡¯re still alive?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true!¡± Li Haoughed. He¡¯d almost forgotten. Standing guard over a massive mine didn¡¯t make them the same as others of the ancient civilization. The guards would have a bountiful supply of energy and their golden body was indestructible. Perhaps they were alive in the true sense of the word.

    ¡°So, they¡¯re still watching the mines?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Chen Zhongtian nodded. ¡°I also heard it from the nt spirit, but the nt spirit said that the mines will blow sooner orter even if they¡¯re inessible. Energy will sweep through the world at that time! This is because energy has recovered in the world after the first awakening, which means that the big mines in Skystar will also slowly recover and umte energy.

    ¡°nt spirits were permitted to absorb this energy in the ancient civilization to prevent explosions. That was also the purpose of guardian nt spirits. But now that the ten nt spirits of Skystar Fortress are unable to siphon off that energy, a great amount is umting. Although that vicemander can absorb some energy, one person alone can¡¯t alleviate the pressure on the mines. It¡¯s only a matter of time before they explode!¡±

    Once they did, the energy would sweep through thend and the second awakening would begin.

    ¡°Will... Skystar City still remain if the mine explodes?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°That won¡¯t have an effect. It will explode only inside the ancient city and won¡¯t affect the outside world. Arge mine once exploded in Silver Moon and prompted an awakening, but that didn¡¯t have too great an effect.¡±

    That particr mine didn¡¯t measure up to the one at Skystar Fortress.

    Li Hao said nothing more. He reached out and stowed the towering tree¡¯s trunk in his storage ring. He had an abundance of storage ringstely; the young man chose a big one to ensure it could hold the trunk.

    The group stepped over the corpses of the Hus¡ªwell, the pieces of their remains since they¡¯d been blown to pieces¡ªand walked forward. When they reached the edge of the yard, the group realized where they were. <i>Security!</i>

    Li Hao knew it to be an institution simr to the Inspectorate. It was just empty now with nothing remaining. Ayer of ck fog writhed ahead of them. The young man took a closer look, but didn¡¯t recognize what it was. The little tree did; it rummaged through its memories.

    ¡°This is disordered core origin!¡±

    ¡°What is disordered origin of chaos?¡±

    ¡°Whenrge sums of core origin heavyweights die and no one collects their core origin, it jumbles together into disordered core origin and forms a particr barrier...¡± The little tree fell silent for a moment.

    ¡°There were... riots and unrest in Skystar Town back in the day.¡±

    Li Hao blinked. Now that was an abrupt change in topic.

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 Chapter 839: Invincible! (III)

    <h4>Chapter 839: Invincible! (III)</h4>

    ¡°ording to my father¡¯s memories, energy suddenly disappeared from the world one day,¡± the little tree slowly began. ¡°And then core origin dao disappeared. We spontaneously entered a period of no energy or great dao. No one could go anywhere as the void turned extremely fragile. Powerhouses that left their main cities easily perished.

    ¡°Therefore, they could only stand against the siege and wait for rescue, safeguarding the cities.

    ¡°The powerhouses didn¡¯t all immediately die in a split second. They slowly fell silent as they ran out of options. They fell asleep amidst despair, but firmly recalled their mission and typically wouldn¡¯t abandon their duties.

    ¡°Skystar City¡¯s mission was to protect the mine. There should¡¯ve been energy left at the mine after it disappeared from the world. Logically speaking, the guards should¡¯ve continued to defend their positions ore to the aid of the other positions. They wouldn¡¯t have experienced a sudden death of their powerhouses andck the means to collect their core origin...

    ¡°Therefore, there¡¯s only one possibility. There must have been a rebellion in Skystar City and a traitor within. That caused a scene of heavyweights fighting each other and the death of many, creating the kind of energy barrier that we see here.

    ¡°The ruins under nine ministry control are that of the city¡¯s vital locations. That means that these ces suffered attacks, resulting in the deaths of the experts standing guard. That¡¯s why there¡¯s a barrier of disordered core origin where they died!¡±

    Since the little tree knew where the disordered energy muste from, it quickly deduced the matters of yesteryear. Riots and uprisings must have urred at the ruins that the nine ministries upied. That resulted in a high number of heavyweight deaths. They were all core origin powerhouses, making for no survivors in these locations.

    ¡°So... how are... the nt spirits alive?¡± Li Hao frowned. Were they the traitors? The ancient civilization was still prosperous then, how did the nt spirits dare rebel?

    The little tree didn¡¯t know and was unable to deduce a possible theory. The coconut tree was dead, it would have to ask the other nt spirits to learn of what¡¯d happened back in the day.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao remembered that he had a mission at hand. He was to investigate why Skystar City had cut off energy supplies that year, plunging the eight main cities into silence. The eight cities had been able to battle through flight, but when their energy was depleted and no longer replenished, they could not be activated any longer.

    ¡°Can we.. go there?¡± asked Li Hao.

    ¡°We can, but it¡¯s very dangerous,¡± answered the little tree after some thought. ¡°It¡¯s even more dangerous for core origin cultivators. The mine will cause fluctuations in core origin energy. It... should be fine for you guys, but I¡¯m not sure. We can have Southern Fist give it a try.¡±

    ¡°......¡± He Yong looked around nkly. What did that mean? <i>Why are you sending me?</i>

    The little tree had simply picked a person at random. Everyone disliked He Yong, so the tree felt that it wouldn¡¯t matter to pick the man. That wouldn¡¯t result in hostility from the rest of the group, so it was a marvelous choice!

    Li Haoughed and looked at the ck fog. Disordered core origin... <i>Now that¡¯s interesting.</i> The young man didn¡¯t explore further and thought for a bit. ¡°Senior Tree, please stay here and stand guard...¡±

    The little tree blinked.

    ¡°I¡¯m worried about the other nt spirits from Skystar Fortress sensing something,¡± exined Li Hao. ¡°Although we might not be able to pass through the ck fog, Minister Chen says that the bramble rose wants to move against these nt spirits. In that case, there might be a way through. With senior on guard here, you can intimidate them at an appropriate time!¡±

    Their partnership and the little tree¡¯s existence could not be exposed at this time. The tree understood and sent back, ¡°Will do! But if I¡¯m not with you...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll be fine so long as I don¡¯t encounter an Apex. I¡¯ll make sure toe back for the senior if I enter another ruin.¡±

    That satisfied the little tree. That worked just as well.

    ¡°Then let us leave this ruin, everyone!¡± There was nothing else for Li Hao to address. He was certain to visit the core zone of Skystar Town one day, but not right now. He needed to dismantle the nt spirits one by one. It¡¯d be best if he could kill all of the nt spirits in the nine ministries before moving on to the one at the center.

    He contemted certain matters as he walked and suddenly said, ¡°Is the Qian weapon the Hover Sword?¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s the zing Ax.¡± Chen Zhongtian shook his head.

    ¡°Then what about the Hus?¡± Li Hao frowned. ¡°I didn¡¯t see their weapon when I killed Hu Mingfa. Your weapon is exceedingly strong. If Hu Mingfa had used it against me, I would¡¯ve been in for a terrible time.¡±

    The weapon of a Saint! One that could awaken and appear nondescript in the outside world, but be truly formidable inside the ruins. The Qians might not have brought theirs along because they wished to suppress the Skystar King.

    How had Hu Mingfa not brought his along after his father was dead? It was hisst gamble that he¡¯d staked everything on. Li Hao hadn¡¯t discovered an ultimate weapon in Hu Mingfa¡¯s belongings. If there¡¯d been a weapon of a Saint present, the ck Armor would¡¯ve given him a high price for it.

    ¡°The Hu weapon is a curved de. I¡¯m not certain what it¡¯s called either.¡± Chen Zhongtian gave it some thought. ¡°Someone might¡¯ve taken it after you killed Hu Xiao¡ªit¡¯d be Armed Forces or Administration.¡±

    ¡°Taken it?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Chen Zhongtian nodded. ¡°The Hus weren¡¯t strong enough. There was one less person keeping the old Skystar King contained with Hu Xiao¡¯s death. They might¡¯ve taken it to reinforce the seal!¡±

    ¡°Would Hu Mingfa have handed it over?¡±

    Chen Zhongtian smiled without a word, leading to instantprehension. Yes, Hu Mingfa would¡¯ve handed over his family¡¯s greatest treasure. He wasn¡¯t strong enough to keep it. If he insisted, he would offend the premier heavyweights of two ministries and might even lose his ce among the nine.

    It was also a dog eat dog world with the nine ministries.

    ¡°Then this means that the nine ministries took a Saint weapon from me!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Chen Zhongtian had nothing to say to that. The rest of the group also tilted their heads back at the sky. The young man... made some sense, but wasn¡¯t it inappropriate to tantly give voice to it?

    ......

    A group of people walked out of the ruins. Everyone looked worriedly at Li Hao when they set foot back in the outside world, but nothing developed. The young man smiled, this was the expected reaction.

    There were also unexpected reactions. Deputy Zhou frowned as a bloody mark appeared on his body, vanished, then appeared again.

    The group paused and stared at him.

    ¡°Ah... I might¡¯ve absorbed too much energy,¡± he coughed gently.

    Those gathered were stunned! It was apparent from a nce who among them was strong and who among them was weak. Being injured by the void represented that Zhou Chuan was infinitely close to the level of breaking the void.

    Deputy Zhou sighed with resignation, feeling very ufortable as another bloody mark appeared on his body. ¡°To think that space really would be this fragile... Thank goodness I suppressed myself somewhat. Otherwise, I¡¯d have to remain in the ruins and wait for the second awakening...

    The void as they knew it was simply too fragile. His strength had not yet reached the level of breaking the void, so it rather felt like he was being confined ahead of time.

    Inspiration struck Li Hao and he summoned four out of five auras. He could sense some pressure, but when his fifth aura appeared, the void suddenly agitated. The young man frowned, then let his fire aura appeared.

    And then... there was nothing else.

    ¡°Is Deputy Zhou stronger than me?¡± Li Hao found the discrepancy odd.

    The deputy looked back at him with a slight frown, then shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s not that, but have you discovered that no bloody marks have appeared on my body after you disyed the fifth element.¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. What did that mean?

    ¡°The times are different now,¡± sighed Deputy Zhou. ¡°The cultivation path of the ancient civilization is slightly repulsed by this world. It does not fit mainstream knowledge, so it is subject to greater restriction. You seem... less affected.¡±

    <i>Is that so? Then doesn¡¯t that mean I can utilize my full strength?</i>

    N?v(el)B\\jnn

    He punched outward, yet space seemed to rip apart. He immediately retracted all of his auras in the next second¡ªonly then did people notice that his golden armor had almost been shredded.

    ¡°Um... it¡¯s not a problem for me to be exposed,¡± Li Hao said with resignation. ¡°But that I am restricted when I take action as well. The void really will tear me to pieces and my physical body will likely fall apart in a few seconds!¡±

    His body wasn¡¯t as strong as Deputy Zhou¡¯s! There was nothing that could be helped about this situation.

    ¡°How interesting.¡± The deputy couldn¡¯t help butugh as well. ¡°This means that the void doesn¡¯t reject you, but that your physical body is too weak and cannot endure its strength. It¡¯s probably too hard for you to tear through the void and travel five hundred kilometers at once!¡±

    Li Hao could quietly survive in the world, but his physical body wasn¡¯t durable enough to support further action. Otherwise, he might be able to cover five hundred kilometers at once like the Apexes of old could.

    ¡°That may not be the case either,¡± Li Hao suddenlyughed. ¡°There is such a thing as spatial supernaturals.¡±

    The group paused.

    ¡°I remember that we once spoke of the spatial attribute among supernaturals, right?¡± continued the young man.

    People exchanged nces with each other for a while until Chen Zhongtian intoned, ¡°I¡¯ve heard about this before. There was even someone who once sold a storage ring that was said to belong to a spatial supernatural, but we never found the owner. It¡¯s hard to say whether such a supernatural exists or not. There¡¯s been no sign of them among the major factions, at least.

    ¡°If they really do exist... I suspect one of them is a spatial attribute cultivator.¡±

    The group focused on him. Who?

    ¡°The one at Administration!¡± chuckled Chen Zhongtian.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t he a martial master?¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°He is!¡± Chen Zhongtian nodded. ¡°But a martial master who¡¯s saturated his spatial lock will also possess those powers. Of course, I¡¯m not certain. It¡¯s just that he ran off really quickly in some prior engagements. He was faster than anyone, so I kind of suspect him.¡±

    Everyone understood Li Hao now¡ªthe spatial supernatural lock! But... where was it? Li Hao didn¡¯t know either.

 Chapter 840: Invincible! (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 840: Invincible! (IV)</h4>

    Of one thing Li Hao was certain of, and that was if he couldn¡¯t strengthen his physical body, he could try enhancing his spatial lock. He might have different results traveling through the void with that. Hence, Deputy Zhou¡¯s concerns that the young man wouldn¡¯t be able to tear through the void were misced. Li Hao had just caused more than one hundred locks to surface. Was the spatial one not part of it?

    <i>No way! Not only is the spatial lock in there, but I¡¯ll find even the invisibility one. I¡¯ll turn invisible so you guys can¡¯t find me.</i>

    The group chatted for a while before Chen Zhongtian left with reluctance. No one spoke up to keep him, which quite disappointed the old minister. What a pity that these people were still on guard against him.

    The rest followed Li Hao through the doors of the Skystar Commander Office. When Liu Long sensed their return, he quickly shot out of his office. ¡°The ranking¡¯s out!¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the situation in the outside world?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re all discussing it!¡± Liu Long responded quickly. ¡°The ranking says that there¡¯s three seven elements. The full reaction hasn¡¯t taken ce yet. We¡¯ll have to wait and see how people react.¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°You should ascend to Refiner of Spirit as soon as possible, chief. Only then will you improve rapidly.¡±

    Liu Long smiled and didn¡¯t say much else. He quickly left after greeting the rest.

    ¡°What a pity about Golden Spear!¡± Hou Xiaochen suddenly said. A hush stole over the group.

    ¡°That may not be the case,¡± Manager Yu interjected. ¡°Golden Spear will progress faster if he can shatter his internal demons andplete the saturation of his locks. His aura will increase as well. He wouldn¡¯t have been of much help even if he¡¯d stayed.¡±

    Surprised, Hou Xiaochen nced at Yu Luocha. <i>What, have you also found the courage to talk back to me now?</i>

    Li Hao couldn¡¯t be bothered with the exchange. He took out a transmission pendant and frowned at it, sighing after a long moment. ¡°This teacher of mine... is seriously... Forget it, I can¡¯t find him again. Please keep an eye out for me, everyone. I don¡¯t know what ruin he¡¯s gotten into now.

    ¡°Seniors, please go out and walk around if you¡¯d like to leave. I don¡¯t need that many people even if I¡¯m to take action against the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. I¡¯ll be sure to invite everyone next time I enter a ruin to eliminate another powerhouse.¡±

    They didn¡¯t need to stay together in regr times; everyone present had their own business to attend to on a regr basis. Someone immediately disappeared right after Li Hao finished speaking.

    The young man blinked and looked at the empty spot. He couldn¡¯t help but say, ¡°Senior Thunderleg... really moves very quickly!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s just feeling guilty!¡± Hou Xiaochen said faintly.

    ¡°Don¡¯t bully him, do you think Silver Moon''s martial world is full of pushovers?¡± Tyrant de retorted coldly. This was an open threat at Hou Xiaochen!

    A dangerous light glinted in Hou Xiaochen¡¯s eyes before he abruptly shut his mouth. Southern Fist, Northern Fist, Sky Sword, and Tyrant de were all ring in their direction. Hou Xiaochen, Huang Yu, Deputy Zhou, and Kong Jie worked for the government, but the others were part of the martial world.

    There was no further task at hand now that they¡¯d eliminated the powerhouse in the ruins. It wasn¡¯t as if they enjoyed everyone¡¯spany on a regr basis. Since Hou Xiaochen had dared re at them, the martial masters naturally wouldn¡¯t respond kindly.

    Hou Xiaochen was rather dejected by the response. These martial world guys were seriously petty!

    ¡°Then I''m heading back to Silver Moon.¡± Huang Yu rose to his feet. ¡°It¡¯s time to go, Ole Kong.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Kong Jie blinked. ¡°You can go if you want, what are you bringing me with you for?¡±

    ¡°Eh?¡± Huang Yu paused.

    ¡°Eh what?¡± snapped Kong Jie. ¡°You go back, I haven¡¯t seen my daughter yet. I¡¯m here to see her! What do you know? You don¡¯t have a daughter! I¡¯ll leave in a few days!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Huang Yu was speechless. <i>Fine, I get it, you want to stay. You¡¯re so damned... shameless.</i>

    ¡°Is Commander Yu leaving?¡± Li Hao was confused.

    ¡°There are military matters to take care of, so I should not stay for long,¡± Huang Yu dered solemnly. ¡°I would stay if my strength wascking, but now... I do not need to do so. Call upon me whenever you have need!¡±

    ¡°Then go well, Commander Yu.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°But let¡¯s not tell Director General Zhao about the matters here for now.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± Huang Yu was puzzled, but nodded after some thought. ¡°Alright!¡±

    He was off.

    ¡°Are you wary of the director general?¡± Hou Xiaochen looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°Not entirely!¡± the young man responded after some silence. ¡°It¡¯s just that he has a deep rtionship with the ruins. I¡¯m wondering if some of the Silver Moon powerhouses in the ruins will be leery of me now that I¡¯ve killed a nt spirit. After all, strictly speaking, they are the ones on the same side and we... we are of the new age!¡±

    He was even debating if he should deliver the coconut tree¡¯s trunk to Battle Heaven. Granted, he was very familiar with them, so it should be fine, right?

    ¡°There are many ruins in Silver Moon!¡± Hou Xiaochen answered after turning over the thought. ¡°We do need to take certain precautions, but there aren¡¯t any problems at present. Ole Zhao should know a thing or two, but we can keep this under wraps if you wish.¡±

    Li Hao smiled. It was good that Hou Xiaochen understood.

    ¡°Then our next step is to locate the Wind and Cloud Pavilion!¡± said the young man. ¡°I need their treasure.¡±

    He had great use for it as he wanted to probe everyone¡¯s strength. Those in the outside world weren¡¯t important¡ªit was those inside the ruins. He would easily be identally defeated if he didn¡¯t have full information about them.

    What the Wind and Cloud Pavilion possessed could detect the strength of someone¡¯s life force. That was perfect for these ancient powerhouses. Li Hao truly wasn¡¯t moving against the faction because they were at odds with him. He simply had great use toe for their treasure.

    ¡°Seniors, please spread out and make a close investigation for me. South Peak is key. Don¡¯t rm them if you bump into them. It¡¯ll be time for us to flex our muscles once we take them down!¡±

    He was just making small, probing feints at the moment. Li Hao¡¯s words invigorated the group!

    ¡°Sounds good!¡± They smiled. They would find the Wind and Cloud Pavilion and seize their treasure that measured strength. Once Li Hao found a weak nt spirit after that, he was sure to exterminate it. That would be an opportunity for all of them.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, Silver Moon.</i>

    A head popped out near Ash Mountain. It dusted itself off andined loudly, ¡°The exits are always in shitty ces. Why can¡¯t they be in nice spots?¡±

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The rest of the body burrowed out after a round of cursing. It took a deep breath and threw its head back withughter. ¡°It¡¯s only been half a month and I triumphantly emerge from seclusion today! Who else is there but me in this vast world? I can stand even against Arcanus now!¡±

    <i>I, Yuan Shuo, have taken another step forward in half a month. I can battle and kill Arcanus! This time, those bastards won¡¯t be able to measure up to me no matter how fast they improve! There¡¯s one w to my character¡ªI love pping faces!</i>

    <i>You guys snap your supernatural locks, but I don¡¯t! I¡¯ll tell you what it means to be the Five Styles Demon King!</i>

    Yuan Shuo further cackled as he thought of the core origin replica in his ring. <i>That guy said that it¡¯s absolutely on par with six element Arcanus. It might even be able to battle a seven element if it¡¯s inside a ruin!</i>

    <i>I, Yuan Shuo, am now invincible in the world! Did you guys really think that I wouldn¡¯t dig up one of those antiques? I know plenty of them¡ªthis one¡¯s easier to negotiate with. But it¡¯s also because I have extraordinary potential that they think this is a good investment. Very good!</i>

    ¡°Jadelight, the dynasty is our oyster from now on!¡± Yuan Shuo was in fine fettle. The world was vast, but there was no one who could stand against him. He might not be the strongest, but he held a powerful core origin replica. He was invincible before the second awakening!

    <i>Foolish disciple, I¡¯ll let you know this time who¡¯s the granddaddy and who¡¯s the grandson!</i>

    Jadelight also crawled out of the exit and nodded without objection. Yuan Shuo now possessed the battle strength of an Arcanus and could call upon the strength of a six or seven element Arcanus. What was that, if not invincible? It¡¯d only been a short while since the Arcanus level appeared!

    ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s go to Skystar City!¡± Yuan Shuo brayed withughter. Old Demon Five Styles was arrogant to begin with. He¡¯d suffered quite a blowst time and was here to stage an ultimateeback!

    <i>It¡¯s only been half a month! Your jaws will drop from shock! They¡¯ll fall right off your face!</i>

    Jadelight smiled as well. Those guys would truly be surprised this time. Yuan Shuo was indeed incredible to catch up to them so quickly, and the key thing was, he hadn¡¯t even snapped his supernatural locks. This fellow truly knew a lot.

    ......

    <i>The central region.</i>

    There wasn¡¯t much news about the Arcanus Ranking in Silver Moon, but it was the hottest topic in the central region. Yuan Shuo rushed to the central region in the highest of spirits, but he wilted when he obtained a copy of the ranking.

    Three seven elements!

    Fine then, he could let that slide, but what was his disciple doing at peak six elements? And what about all these Silver Moon martial masters??

    Even though Li Hao had added more names to the ranking to make it a list of fifty, the weakest started at three elements. The battle strength that Yuan Shuo was so proud of wouldn¡¯t even earn him a ce on the ranking.

    The old man was incredibly dejected!

    Jadelight also perused her copy of the ranking and couldn¡¯t find any words to express herself with. Even He Yong was on the ranking! Although he was rankedst, it stated clearly that he was three elements Arcanus. So even He Yong was three elements?

    She snuck a sidelong nce at Yuan Shuo. He was probably suffering from a devastating blow.

    After a long while, Yuan Shuo snorted and ripped the ranking to pieces. ¡°These guys must¡¯ve opened their supernatural locks and ascended to the supernatural domain. That is not the proper way! If I wanted to, I could open them at any time and stomp on three and four elements!¡±

    Jadelight didn¡¯t say anything. A hot flush crept onto Yuan Shuo¡¯s face.

    ¡°Come, let¡¯s go to Skystar City and determine the situation...¡± He made quick time amid deep confusion. Had they all broken their supernatural locks? That was not a good development for a martial master. Had Li Hao broken even the ones of his organs?

    His disciple had a chance of returning to martial dao before and Yuan Shuo had instructed him not to be hasty before the old man departed. Had Li Hao encountered a critical condition?

    Yuan Shuo collected information as he traveled and finally learned that Li Hao had only started his counterattack after the nine ministries exerted pressure and the Wind and Cloud Pavilion appeared. He killed numerous powerhouses, including even Qian Wanhao and Hu Mingfa. Those such as the lords of Buddha and Sky Roc Mountain were also dead.

    It¡¯d only been a few days, but it seemed like a drastic upheaval had seized the world. Yuan Shuo suddenly felt that he¡¯d been cut off from the outside world for ages. Each of his closed door sessions resulted in such a sensation. He¡¯d been in seclusion for longer this time, but it was still only half a month. It was as if the entire world had changed and society¡¯s rate of development was faster than a few years ago.

    He was equal parts uprehending and resigned. Yuan Shuo made quick time for Skystar City.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 841: Intelligence Reports (I)

    <h4>Chapter 841: Intelligence Reports (I)</h4>

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    The emergence of the ranking caused some changes all the same. The City of Supernaturals abruptly announced that it was willing to work with the Jade Flute and Sunset Mountains of the seven divine mountains.

    Of the divine mountains, the lords of Buddha and Sky Roc Mountain were dead. The rest of the mountains still stood, but they kept a much lower profile than before and no longer appeared in the public eye.

    The lord of Yonder Mountain was very strong and on good terms with the three great organizations. Sky Sword Mountain was Sky Sword¡¯s faction and he¡¯d been working on Li Hao¡¯s behalf before the young man rose to prominence. Phoenix Mountain belonged to monster spirits. The remaining two mountains stayed under the radar inparison¡ªthe key reason was that they didn¡¯t pit themselves against Li Hao, so he wasn¡¯t very familiar with them.

    It wasn¡¯t until the City of Supernaturals announced a partnership that Li Hao learned a bit more about them. inly, the appearance of three seven element Arcanus exerted some pressure on these premier powerhouses. They chose to band together at this time.

    The members of thistest alliance all had their own powerhouses; their leaders were listed on the Arcanus Ranking. The one from the City of Supernaturals was quite strong, and while the other two mountain lords hadn¡¯t been included in the ranking before, Li Hao did so in his version. His guess was that even though they were weaker, they would improve at a rapid clip now that they knew theyout of the world.

    Perhaps they¡¯d reach five or six elements soon.

    ......

    The factions of Skystar Dynasty changed as unpredictably as the wind and clouds. Someone rose and another fell in the blink of an eye, while others chose to ally with each other. Li Hao¡¯s appearance had set everything in motion. If it wasn¡¯t for this, they would all choose to stretch their muscles after the second awakening¡ªnot now.

    ......

    <i>Inside Skystar City.</i>

    Li Hao kept himself busy as he waited for news of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. He ignored all of the minutiae around him¡ªDeputy Zhou and the rest could take care of those tasks for him. He bent his mind to studying the supernatural locks. Resolving the issue of the physical body was a vital undertaking at hand.

    His second priority was toprehend the auras of the wind, thunder, light, and dark. He postted that such methods like the Wind Thunder Sword, Light Sword, and Ghost Shadow Sword would lead him straight to their associated secret arts. To him,prehending an aura was just a matter of time. The key was how long it might take him.

    When would the second awakening take ce? If it spontaneously erupted throughout thend and gave rise to a myriad of heavyweights, then everyone¡¯s strength in the modern world would just make them the equivalent of antspared to the truly powerful.

    <i>There¡¯s also Battle Heaven to consider...</i>

    Should he seek out General Pagoda and revive the tree? He hesitated as a variety of thoughts ran through his mind.

    Someone came back before long¡ªthe constantly squabbling Southern Fist and Northern Fist. They came back with the director of the Sagittarius province Night Watchers.

    <i>Inside the great hall.</i>

    The two threw the middle-aged man to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

    ¡°Cough cough cough.¡± He spat blood and despaired when he saw Li Hao standing over him. ¡°Commander, I...¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word; Yao Si arrived before long and sighed when he saw the man on the ground.

    ¡°Out with it, what have you done with the Wind and Cloud Pavilion? Tell us everything you know. You will die, but your family will be taken care of.¡± Yao Si turned to Li Hao. ¡°This man joined the Night Watchers ten years ago and once served by my side.¡±

    Despair deepened in the Night Watcher director on the ground. Could not even Yao Si save himself?

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word. This one had been given up by Deputy Wu of South Peak. The deputy had gone on the run to somewhere¡ªthe Wind and Cloud Pavilion would naturally take revenge on him. There was no need for the young man to do anything and truth be told, he¡¯d left the deputy alive on purpose.

    Deputy Wu was an Arcanus and wouldn¡¯t die so easily if he ran off ahead of time. The pavilion might have to utilize their treasure to lock on to the man¡¯s position. Perhaps Li Hao could use him as bait to further his own investigation.

    It didn¡¯t matter that Li Hao didn¡¯t know where he¡¯d run off to. When the fighting broke out, the young man would quickly receive word since he now spearheaded the Night Watchers of the central region. The difficulty level would be further lowered with the Inspectorate¡¯s coordination.

    Ashen-faced, the Night Watcher director on the ground said with resignation, ¡°I only coborated with the Wind and Cloud Pavilion, I haven¡¯t defected to them...¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to exin,¡± Yao Si said calmly. ¡°I know your personality and how you are a prudent person. You wouldn¡¯t brashly coordinate with another faction, not unless you thought they were stronger than me and the Night Watchers! They must¡¯ve sent one of their powerhouses to you or even brought you to their headquarters. Otherwise, with your level of knowledge in all these years of experience, you wouldn¡¯t seek help from them that easily.¡±

    ¡°...the director knows me well,¡± the man agreed helplessly. Yao Si knew him so well that the man would be able to tell if he was lying. ¡°Is there really no hope of making it out of this alive, Commander Li, Director Yao?¡±

    ¡°You are of the Night Watchers. There would be hope if it was anyone else,¡± Yao Si said coolly. ¡°Did you forget about the vow you took when you joined the Night Watchers?¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t, but... director... In this age of ancient powerhouses dominating the world, what is the point in us fighting and putting our best efforts forward?

    ¡°Commander Li is strong <i>now</i> and the Skystar Commander Office is supported on all sides, with Silver Moon and the Night Watchers leaning toward him as well, but what do we do once the ancient powerhouses can set foot in our world?¡± The man looked at them, greatly depressed. ¡°How are we to fight in an age where we do not see hope?¡±

    There was no hope!

    Hope might be sparked in ordinary people when they saw how strong the Skystar Commander Office was, but it would not flourish in heavyweights. They knew that this time period was overshadowed by the ancient civilization.

    ¡°I would think so too in an earlier time, that our age is a hopeless one,¡± Yao Si answered calmly. ¡°But now, I understand that man is the maker of his own fate! So what of the ancient civilization? Additionally, they¡¯re just a bunch of existences lingering from the ancient civilization, they¡¯re not from the peak of that time either!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s easy for the director to say so...¡± The man snorted withughter, fully letting loose with some contempt. ¡°Man is the maker of his own fate?¡±

    What kind of joke was that?

    ¡°If it¡¯s that simple, why has the director cloistered himself during these five years? It¡¯s because you were afraid! How can the rest of us not be afraid when you are?¡± The man looked at Yao Si. ¡°The director stayed on the sidelines when Yellow Dragon ran the Night Watchers like his personal gang. What were we supposed to do? We could only throw ourselves under the banner of a major faction. The three great organizations didn¡¯t dare take me in because I might be a spy due to being a Night Watcher. It was the Wind and Cloud Pavilion that extended an olive branch to me. I could only choose to ept it.¡±

    ¡°...perhaps you are right,¡± Yao Si replied after momentary silence. ¡°I have indeed disappointed many people over these five years. Li Hao once lectured me on that. Although I was the faith of the Night Watchers, even I chose to concede. What would that do to others? I extinguished thest trace of passion in the agency...¡±

    It drove the point home even further when one of his vaunted subordinates said that his seclusion disappointed them. <i>Perhaps mypromises throughout these five years have been a mistake.</i>

    At least he was awake now.

    ¡°If you¡¯ve only given information to the Wind and Cloud Pavilion these years and have not done anything else, I can ask for mercy on your behalf after I look into it. The pavilion has not wreaked great havoc yet, so you...¡±

    ¡°Forget it, I don¡¯t need the director to worry on my behalf!¡± snorted the man. ¡°Done anything? What counts as a crime? Colluding with the three great organizations? Killing civilians? Stealing and looting? If they count, then there is no mercy to be had for me.

    ¡°Commander Li hates evil and wrongdoers, but do you know how many like me are out there? Too many! Can you kill them all? If I should die, then half of the supernaturals in the world should die as well!

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you go and pacify the City of Supernaturals?! They chose a prime location with good feng shui and threw out the local residents so their people could move in. Those who didn¡¯t leave were ughtered and those who did so had to wander around the wilderness in the dead of winter. The corpses of the original inhabitants could be found all throughout thend that year.

    ¡°The nine ministries watched from the sidelines, as did the royal family. Should they all be killed? Themander has killed a lot of people, but can you kill them all?¡± jeered the man. ¡°Such are the times, what would you have us do in them? All of these factions have nt spirits and animals supporting them. You should kill them if you want to end them all, but can you?¡±

    Li Hao didn¡¯t say a word, whereas Yao Si sighed. ¡°There is nothing you cannot do so long as you are willing to!¡±

    ¡°What a joke!¡±

    Li Hao coughed, interrupting their conversation. ¡°That¡¯s enough, this squabbling isn¡¯t useful. Do you know enough about the Wind and Cloud Pavilion? If you do, I can consider showing you a few things. If not, I¡¯ll send you on your way. Those you speak of won¡¯t meet with good ends either!¡±

    The man fell silent and looked at Li Hao for a long moment. He smiled. ¡°I know enough, at least I know more than Wu from South Peak. I know that he sent people to follow the pavilion¡¯s representatives, but his people¡¯s methods were too crude. Don¡¯t forget, the Night Watchers are experts in this field!¡±

    Li Hao smiled and nodded. ¡°Very well, take him to the ruins then, Director Yao!¡±

    Yao Si was surprised, but quickly led the man to the rear yard with a nod. The death of a nt spirit would be incredibly stunning for modern supernaturals.

    ¡°Does that guy know anything?¡± He Yong asked with bafflement after they left. The man wasn¡¯t strong and had just barely made it to Arcanus, which made him simr to that Deputy Wu. The deputy hadn¡¯t known much. While the pavilion had selected their people, they didn¡¯t seem ready to make use of their investments yet. Therefore, these people knew very little about the Wind and Cloud Pavilion.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know and it doesn¡¯t matter. We¡¯ll just keep investigating if he doesn¡¯t. It¡¯s also good that we¡¯ve eliminated two of their Arcanus.¡±

    The group chatted idly; Yao Si returned with the man after almost half an hour. The branch director was stunned speechless and had trouble collecting his thoughts. So nt spirits could die! The one that supported the Ministry of the Judiciary was dead! He stared at Li Hao upon his return and said slowly after a while, ¡°Commander... I see another nt spirit there... I would like to ask you a question.¡±

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    ¡°Speak.¡±

    ¡°Are you... going to build a new dynasty... or one of the ancient civilization?¡±

 Chapter 842: Intelligence Reports (II)

    <h4>Chapter 842: Intelligence Reports (II)</h4>

    Li Hao furrowed his brows.

    ¡°Themander has killed an incredible existence.¡± The director of the Sagittarius Night Watchers set his jaw. ¡°But the ancient civilization is still a participating factor in your affairs. Themander is the heir of the eight families and as such, bears the heritage of ancient civilization! This wouldn¡¯t mean much as all of humanity stems from the ancient civilization in this age. But I would like to know what themander¡¯s final pursuit is. Do you seek to build a new dynasty of this era or continue to depend on the power of ancient existences in Silver Moon?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s an interesting question!¡± Li Haoughed and didn¡¯t need to think it over. ¡°I will build a new nation wholly of this era, of course! My dealings with the ancient civilization are just that of partnership and mutual benefit. I admire their mentality, but they will not be permitted to exercise further control over this age!

    ¡°Much of the chaos rocking our world has to do with them. I will distill the essence and discard the dross. We happily wee those who are willing to help us and eliminate all those who are here to cause trouble!

    ¡°The ancient civilization cannot be lumped together either,¡± Li Hao said solemnly. ¡°But one thing I am certain of, and it is that this era belongs to us! I can help them if they need help¡ªwe can work together in reciprocal rtionships. But I will handle matters myself as soon as anything else is involved!¡±

    The man sank into deep thought. ¡°Is themander building the Skystar Martial Academy to facilitate supernatural ess for civilians? Are you creating a venue through which we can cross social sses?¡±

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    ¡°Yes.¡± Li Hao inclined his head. ¡°But that is only the start. There will be changes made to the basic necessities of lifeter on and the propagation of new technologies. Education will also be reformed. I may not announce anything for the moment, but I¡¯llmence all of this after I eliminate a certain portion of people!¡±

    ¡°Then factions such as the City of Supernaturals...¡± raised the man after some more thought.

    ¡°I¡¯ll take care of them one by one in a few days!¡±

    ¡°I believe you!¡± smiled the man. There was no way to not believe Li Hao. While people of this age worked toward finding a backer, Li Hao and hispanions had already killed someone¡¯s backer. This was an immense disy of determination!

    The Sagittarius Night Watcher director breathed out, feeling much more at ease. ¡°I¡¯m not afraid of death, I¡¯m afraid of an undeserved death! A begrudging death! You can ask Director Yao how many of the three great organizations I killed as a Night Watcher! I say this not to demand praise, but to say that I will not go willingly to my death if those more evil than me do not die!

    ¡°Since all of them are on themander¡¯s hit list, then I rest reassured.¡±

    Death was not frightening, what was most terrifying to the director was if the evildoers did not die. He would not rest in peace if that urred.

    ¡°Does themander have pen and paper?¡±

    Li Hao produced both with a quick grab in the air. The man quickly wrote name after name and notes behind them. ¡°The Wind and Cloud Pavilion came to me because of my identity as a Night Watcher. I could supplyrge quantities of intelligence to them. Theirworks are not well developed in the outside world¡ªthey¡¯ve relied solely on me these years.¡±

    As a Night Watcher director of a province situated in the central region, the man was very capable.

    ¡°I even developed some agents for them, while some came through their own efforts. I had my people follow them all along, however. This is what I know. I don¡¯t know if there are others, but these ones have been working for the pavilion all this time.

    ¡°Additionally, I once visited their headquarters. I don¡¯t know where it is exactly, but it should be between South Peak and Sagittarius. I entered their ruin in a sealed state.¡± He quickly drew the outline of a city on another piece of paper. ¡°This is what their ruin looks like¡ªit¡¯s a city. There are a lot of people inside. I met at least five hundred, and they were all alive!¡±

    He delineated a manor at the center of the city. ¡°This is where their city lord lives and... it¡¯s possible that the city lord is an ancient human!¡±

    ¡°An ancient human??¡± Li Hao jerked with shock. How was that possible?! Even the Saints of ancient humanity had dposed. Was the master of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion stronger than the Saint level?

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure, I¡¯ve only met them once, and from a distance at that. I came to that conclusion through some of his mannerisms, behavior, and a few words. Even if he isn¡¯t, there must be an ancient human alive. Themander must be careful of this. I say this because I suspect the pavilion master has been instructed by an ancient human.

    ¡°He did not know much about current events. His knowledge of our age seems toe from others. His grasp of ancient urrences, however, was thorough. That was apparent even without extended conversation...¡±

    Although the man wasn¡¯t certain, Li Hao inclined his head. ¡°Were there nt spirits?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± The man nodded. ¡°There was a massive tree in the rear yard of the manor. I happened to witness an interaction between the two and saw that the tree was very polite toward the pavilion master. It wasn¡¯t the same imperative attitude that we typically see from nt spirits.

    ¡°Hence, that¡¯s another reason why I assumed their leader is an ancient human. I spent three days in the city, watching them demonstrate their might. They have many heavyweights and it¡¯s been a few years since I visited. They should be stronger now...

    ¡°If themander wishes to exterminate them, entering their ruins might not be a good choice.¡± That was the man¡¯s opinion despite Li Hao¡¯s track record of already killing an ancient nt spirit. The Wind and Cloud Pavilion had their own and possibly an ancient human powerhouse.

    ¡°Right, there¡¯s another point. They wanted me to keep an eye on Red Moon and for me to investigate the organization. They seemed to be wary of it, so the nt spirit or ancient force behind Red Moon ought to be very strong as well!¡±

    Li Hao nodded again. The man had drawn the entire city and written down a list of names.

    ¡°This is all I know,¡± he concluded. ¡°I¡¯ve drawn the rough location of their ruin. Another key detail is that they send people out of the ruins to purchase necessities once every month, but they do not buy from us...

    ¡°My own investigations show that they should be purchasing from somewhere in South Peak or Sagittarius, but my authorization is insufficient to tell me where and I don¡¯t dare raise a fuss looking into it. Themander can start from this angle as they need to supply approximately five hundred people for an entire month. That¡¯s arge transaction that ought to be easily filtered for.

    ¡°It¡¯s not just them, but all factions that have a department like this. But whether it¡¯s the three great organizations or City of Supernaturals, their transactions are recorded in open books. Hence, there¡¯s no need to look into them. The Wind and Cloud Pavilion keeps theirs under wraps, but there should still be clues.

    ¡°They don¡¯t settle their ounts with star coins, but mysterious power stones. Therefore, there must be arge merchantpany servicing them. Ordinary people don¡¯t dare ept transactions conducted in mysterious power stones, so you should be able to narrow down the search field!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes darted around rapidly in quick thought. As expected of someone who was a Night Watcher director! Anyone who reached his position didn¡¯t do so on the basis of strength alone, but through true ability. If the man had wanted to pursue the Wind and Cloud Pavilion, he might¡¯ve plumbed their depths long ago.

    ¡°And another thing is that they have a unique quirk of loving vegetables. They don¡¯t really care about meat, but they have high standards when ites to vegetables. That will make it easier to identify their partner!

    ¡°This organization has existed for more than ten years, so their traces ought to be very apparent.¡±

    Li Hao agreed. It would be easy to locate the other with this information, particrly as it was the dead of winter. There were few vegetable merchants around, it was easy to target which merchantpanies had a ready supply. He was beginning to treasure this talent in front of him.

    ¡°Director Yao, I¡¯ve followed you for many years.¡± The man looked at Yao Si. ¡°There is nothing more to say now, but I have a few words for you...¡±

    ¡°Go ahead.¡±

    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be a leader, Director Yao.¡± The man smiled. ¡°You aren¡¯t qualified as you¡¯re too indecisive. It¡¯s better for you to be a martial blockhead. You broke a lot of hearts over these years!¡±

    Yao Si¡¯s expression shifted; blood welled up in the man¡¯s mouth. Heughed as his organs crumbled away. ¡°I will end myself, there is no need for the rest of you to take action! I ced myself under the Wind and Cloud Pavilion¡¯s banner only because... I could see no hope! There was no light! If this had been a peaceful era... I think... I could¡¯ve been an upright official.

    ¡°What a pity that there is no chance for that... Today... perhaps... there is a wisp of hope. Commander Li, this era... is too dark. The darkness does note from the nine ministries or the royal family... but the remnants of the ancient civilization that wish to start anew... Setting Silver Moon aside, themander... should kill all of the nt spirits and beasts in Skystar City!¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Li Hao reached out as the man¡¯s body exploded and quickly stitched it back together. The young man was silent, immensely touched by thete director¡¯s words. He¡¯d been thinking of killing the nine ministries and royal family, but someone told him now that his thinking was incorrect. The source was not here. Ity with the ancient nt spirits and beasts, even the ancient humans.

    Those were the chief offenders manipting the nine ministries and royal family. They deserved death.

    Li Hao closed his eyes. Yao Si was feeling equally conflicted and remained quiet. His old subordinate hadmitted suicide, saying that he wasn¡¯t afraid of death, but of a wrongful death. He would only rest in peace if Li Hao killed an even more wicked existence.

    Was the man a good person?

    No.

    ording to his testimony, he¡¯d killed civilians, raided and looted others, killed those of the three great organizations, but also colluded with him. And yet, he also said that it wasn¡¯t that he wanted to do so, but that the times had required him to be so.

    Li Hao took a deep breath. ¡°What was his name?¡±

    ¡°Chen Hai.¡±

    ¡°Bury him and announce that he died during a mission!¡±

    Yao Si nodded.

    ¡°And then arrest everyone on the list!¡± Li Hao ordered coolly. ¡°Locate the Wind and Cloud Pavilion ording to the information he provided. We¡¯ll seal off their ruin if we can¡¯t get at them and pen them inside!¡±

    It would¡¯ve been a difficult task to track down the Wind and Cloud Pavilion, but the scope of the task was much smaller with Chen Hai¡¯s information. It would be quite easy to find the organization now. However, they remained thorny opponents.

    Li Hao furrowed his brows. He might actually have to make a trip to Battle Heaven. He might need more than the little tree. If General Pagoda was willing to offer a replica, that would add an Immortal or even Saint reinforcement to his side.

    But... would the general agree to it?

    A myriad of thoughts ran through the young man¡¯s head, he decided to just give it a try. Those outside swiftly departed, as did Yao Si tomence his investigation.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 843: Domain (I)

    <h4>Chapter 843: Domain (I)</h4>

    Yuan Shuo entered Skystar City at the same time. He did so openly on this visit; various factions received word as soon as he walked through the city gates. There wasn¡¯t much wariness against the old man these days. People¡¯s only concern was that his disciple was quite unusual. For once, Yuan Shuo enjoyed the treatment of being able to saunter into a city without anyone daring to cause trouble for him. The only regret he felt was that he hadn¡¯t aplished this through his own merits, but through his disciple. Damn if that wasn¡¯t embarrassing!

    ......

    <i>The Skystar Commander Office.</i>

    Li Hao wordlessly greeted his master and Jadelight Sword¡¯s arrival. His master had the habit of picking the best timing! He arrived as soon as they finished divvying up the spoils. <i>There would¡¯ve been a share for you if you¡¯de just three days earlier!</i>

    Indeed, it was three days since the group had defeated the coconut tree. It was only now that Yuan Shuo showed himself.

    ¡°Teacher!¡±

    Yuan Shuo looked at Li Hao and inclined his head. ¡°Not bad!¡±

    Li Hao also sized up the old man with a twinkle in his eye. His teacher seemed to be stronger than before. That was some nice improvement for these two weeks!

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t respond and treated theplex like his home. He headed for the main hall.

    ¡°Have you opened all of your supernatural locks?¡± he asked as he walked.

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    ¡°You were in too much of a rush!¡± sighed Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°The enemy was too strong.¡±

    ¡°That too.¡± Yuan Shuo nodded. The enemy was very strong, but it also had to do with Li Hao being too hasty. This disciple of his was always in a rush. ¡°I might¡¯ve been able to help you return to martial dao in another few days.¡± He still found the young man¡¯s situation slightly regretful.

    ¡°Is that important, teacher?¡± Li Hao smiled.

    When theystmunicated through the pendants, Yuan Shuo had a hunch that Li Hao might snap his supernatural locks. He hadn¡¯t thought it would take ce so quickly. The locks might still be intact if he¡¯d emerged from the ruins earlier.

    Yuan Shuo walked into the main hall and sat down, grabbing a tea cup for refreshment.

    ¡°That¡¯s Martial Uncle Southern Fist¡¯s.¡±

    ¡°Is this his house?¡± Yuan Shuo flicked a nce at Li Hao.

    ¡°......¡± The young man smiled and didn¡¯t say anything else.

    Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t mind the cup¡¯s former user and continued drinking. He spat with disgust after a while, ¡°Does He Yong not brush his teeth?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao grinned.

    ¡°You mentionedst time that you wanted to resolve the issue of making mysterious power be part of the body,¡± Yuan Shuo cut straight to the chase. ¡°I see there¡¯s only a faint sheen of mysterious powering from your body now. Have you solved the problem?¡±

    ¡°More or less.¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°I¡¯ve been wanting to tell teacher, but I haven¡¯t been able to get in touch with you.¡±

    ¡°You said before that the aura and mysterious power can coexist at the same time,¡± Yuan Shuo asked slowly after some thought. ¡°Have you aplished that? I don¡¯t sense any auraing from you. Whether it¡¯s internal force or mysterious power, neither of the two matter. The key for martial masters of our age lies in the aura!

    ¡°I¡¯m not saying that we must have internal force to be a martial master. Martial masters do not care about that. Let¡¯s put it this way, there is a thousand years of history behind martial dao by our current age. It existed at the start of the Star Era.

    ¡°Generation upon generation of humans improved on martial dao until we ultimately created the aura. One could say that it is the collective wisdom of a thousand years of Silver Moon denizens. They determined the most suitable way of cultivation for current humans.¡± Yuan Shuo began a lecture of martial dao origins for his student. ¡°After the ancient civilization fell silent, several rounds of obstacles rolled through Silver Moon and there was even a period of great stillness. It wasn¡¯t until the start of the Star Era calendar that we truly built a new civilization.

    ¡°Humanity did so to adapt to the adverse environment. Keep in mind that when there was no energy throughout thend, it was very difficult to be a powerhouse in Late Martial. Later on, humans discovered the aura¡ªit did not require energy!

    ¡°This is a unique system that evolved out of necessity in the end times, a period in which there was no energy!¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s eyes widened. The aura did not require energy. Martial masters needed energy, but they could also replenish their bodies through eating food.

    ¡°You are still a martial master so long as your aura exists...¡±

    ¡°It exists!¡± Li Hao nodded, drawing a raised eyebrow from his teacher. ¡°Ibined all of my energy into a special force. My aura is still there...¡±

    ¡°Show me!¡±

    Li Hao promptly summoned the fire aura. A ¡®fire¡¯ character floated in front of Yuan Shuo. The old man¡¯s eyes narrowed as he grabbed it.

    <i>Boom!</i>

    The fire aura erupted with a tiger roar. Yuan Shuo frowned slightly and manifested a giant ape with a wave of his hand.

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Tiger and ape collided into each other. Yuan Shuo was inly weaker, but the giant ape abruptly ballooned to twice its size. A ck bear and a small deer also manifested, creating a creature that didn¡¯t resemble any particr animal.

    The strange amalgamation burst forth with incredible strength. The five auras became one and crashed down on the tiger with a loud rumble!

    Yuan Shuo exhaled heavily andughed when he saw the tiger give up the struggle. ¡°Interesting!¡± He looked at Li Hao. ¡°This is the Tranquil Star art from the ancient civilization, right?¡±

    Intrigued, he grabbed the character for a closer look. Li Hao kept a strong grip on the tiger to make sure that it wouldn¡¯t struggle. Yuan Shuo employed both mind intent and his own aura to investigate this new contraption.

    ¡°This is indeed interesting. Mysterious power, internal force, blood qi, mind intent, and the aura have nothing to do together and cannot coexist. But they¡¯re fused as one in this thing. The aura is the key, it is the medium for everything. The aura is as if a great dao, there is nothing without it...¡± Yuan Shuo keenly observed the supernatural character.

    Li Hao let him do as he wished. That this was Yuan Shuo¡¯s first priority after arriving was in line with Yuan Shuo¡¯s style. The young man turned his attention to greeting Jadelight Sword. ¡°Martial Aunt Jadelight, did you obtain the second half of the Jadelight method?¡±

    He¡¯d noted that Jadelight¡¯s strength also showed marked improvement. But strictly speaking, she¡¯d just barely managed to set foot into the stage of saturating her supernatural locks. That meant to say she¡¯d just reached the peak of being a martial master. She wasn¡¯t too strong yet and would just barely make it to Arcanus if she snapped her supernatural locks now. It would be a very far reach that might not seed.

    Of course, it was still a vast improvementpared to a few months ago.

    Jadelight was an aloof person, but she was polite to Li Hao. ¡°I did, but it¡¯s not that suited for my current style. Your master said he¡¯ll modify it and is still working on it.¡±

    <i>Modify... and you believed him??</i>

    Granted, it made sense that she would believe him. Yuan Shuo was very skilled in this area. At the very least, it was better than Jadelight modifying it herself.

    ¡°You should have a few more supernatural characters up your sleeves, show them all to me...¡± Yuan Shuo brought up.

    ¡°Teacher, you won¡¯t be able to keep them under control if I bring them all out.¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Yuan Shuo directed the full force of his gaze on the young man, as did Li Hao look at his teacher. Three secondster, he summoned the rest of his characters. A Yuan Shuo with clenched teeth erupted with fury and vented his annoyance via a thorough beating on supernatural characters that Li Hao had purposefully weakened.

    The young man smiled and ignored his teacher, opting to drink tea with Jadelight. The two chatted idly as Yuan Shuo began his investigation anew. The supernatural characters were a simple contract, so someone like Yuan Shuo should¡¯ve instantly grasped them. For some reason, he kept studying them.

    Li Hao was knowledgeable enough after recent events, he justcked experience and tempering in the ways of the world. But he let Yuan Shuo be¡ªperhaps his teacher was trying to decide if he wanted to do the same for himself?

    The old man poked at the characters and even shoved his own aura into them. It was... highly ufortable. The characters were a projection of the body, so with Yuan Shuo shoving his aura inside... It was... eh... slightly shameful. Li Hao regarded his teacher with resignation, what was Yuan Shuo doing?

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    The pigeon that was Yuan Shuo upied the sparrow''s nest and utilized his five auras to thrash the ferocious tiger. He beat the tiger so badly that Li Hao¡¯s fire aura wanted to rage with fury.

    ¡°This development of yours doesn¡¯t work!¡± Yuan Shuo frowned. ¡°You¡¯ve got one character corresponding to one aura. How many auras will you need toprehend before you seed?¡±

    The man thought for a bit. ¡°If you want to rapidly improve, I rmend you abandon the other auras and keep only one, using one to transform into a myriad of others...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what Martial Uncle Hong does!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s an awful idea!¡± Yuan Shuo immediately changed his tune. ¡°I was just saying that earlier, you cannot do so at any cost!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao nearly burst outughing. <i>You were </i>just<i> saying that I should abandon all of my other auras.</i> But his teacher¡¯s thoughts happened to coincide with Hong Yitang¡¯s. The young man did want to smile at that. What a coincidence!

    Yuan Shuo had finished his study of the characters and turned over his thoughts. ¡°Although the method is simple and even a little crude, I have to say that it¡¯s innovative to fashion them into words and have the aura be the medium. You even took pointers from the Incantation of the de of Blood and ultimate art Tranquil Star. That¡¯s very good!¡±

    The old man rarely praised people, but he voiced a fewpliments for his student¡¯s work. He sat in thought for a bit.

    ¡°This undos some of the barriers between martial masters and supernaturals,bining the two roads as one.¡± Yuan Shuo sank back into contemtion and said nothing for a long time.

    Li Hao and Jadelight Sword waited quietly by the side¡ªthey waited for half an hour.

    ¡°Have you tried connecting to the heavenly aura?¡±

    Li Hao blinked. <i>What heavenly aura?</i>

    Yuan Shuo frowned to see his student at a loss. ¡°When I told you about the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, I also mentioned the modified Five Styles. Have you not studied them?¡±

    Li Hao remained silent.

    ¡°Or perhaps you think that my Five Styles does not measure up to the secret arts of the ancient civilization, that a modern human cannot create a secret art more powerful. Is that so?¡±

    ¡°Not at all...¡± Li Hao hastily said.

    ¡°Of course you do!¡± Yuan Shuoughed. ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with thinking that either. The limit of my Five Styles is Refiner of Spirit, whereas the sky was the limit for the ancient arts. One is in the heavens and the other on the ground, why would you think much of my methods?¡±

 Chapter 844: Domain (II)

    <h4>Chapter 844: Domain (II)</h4>

    ¡°Teacher, I really didn¡¯t mean it like that,¡± Li Hao said with resignation. Yuan Shuo didn¡¯t care either way.

    ¡°Just keep in mind that while my Five Styles is less than ancient knowledge, it is most suited for the world today and modern humans!¡± Yuan Shuo said calmly.

    There was nothing to argue about the fact that his secret art was not as impressive as that of ancient techniques. His, however, was more suited for modern humans.

    ¡°I told youst time that the aura does not exist in a vacuum.¡± Yuan Shuo frowned. ¡°It melds with heaven and earth, summoning the winds and rain like it is an esoteric, arcane ability. Everything in the world is attached to the aura!

    ¡°Dao is not of the person. You need to know that you have not reached the step of defining dao by yourself!¡± Yuan Shuo looked at his student. ¡°I am gratified that you modified a method and created the supernatural characters. That means you have your own thoughts, which is wonderful. As your teacher, I also have your best interests in mind. The key to the Five Styles method lies with incorporating the aura into heaven and earth!

    ¡°As they say, a just cause enjoys abundant support while an unjust cause finds little support. This saying is also rted to the cultivation of martial masters and the aura. Do not keep the aura hidden away all the time. There are advantages to that, but also drawbacks...

    ¡°You should know that being of this world, you will ultimately return to it. When martial masters die, their aura scatters through the world forter descendants toprehend...¡±

    ¡°So you mean...¡± Li Hao suddenly grasped some of what his teacher was saying.

    ¡°Heaven and earth is nature, as is dao!¡± Yuan Shuo intoned. ¡°You have some reflections, but you have not yet reached that stage. Keep in mind that this world is much stronger and much more natural than you!

    ¡°It¡¯s not good for your auras to remain in hiding forever. You¡¯ve only refined the auras into your body. I wanted you to refine them into your supernatural locks before, but your locks have been devoured. Some changes need to be made, you can no longer walk the path of refining the spirit. You need to change to a new medium for the Refiner of Spirit level...¡±

    ¡°Wait, teacher, it¡¯s more that my auras have discovered the secondary dimension that the supernatural locks reside in. I¡¯ve recently assimted them into that area...¡±

    Yuan Shuo blinked; Li Hao quickly exined histest discovery. The old man sank into deep thought once more. So the secondary dimension was where the supernatural locks resided. He¡¯d rather underestimated his disciple.

    ¡°Concealing the intent within the keys... that makes sense,¡± he said after a while. ¡°But that is not a suitable course of action for the current you. I rmend that you nurture your auras outside your body in your current state.¡±

    ¡°Outside my body?¡±

    Yuan Shuo summoned a gout of me with a grasp of his hand, then raindrops a secondter. ¡°Nurture them outside, within the world! Meld them into heaven and earth! I¡¯ll study the secondary dimension that you mentioned. I don¡¯t have experience in this area, but I have experience in nurturing auras.

    ¡°There is wind, fire, and water in the world. All of this is where the aura stems from. The auras of heaven and earth are the strongest auras. Your auras are just a tiny portion of this vast expanse. You must conscientiouslyprehend it all and incorporate it into yourself so that you can be part of this world!

    ¡°Your current state is an even better proposition!¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°Since you¡¯ve created the supernatural characters, it will be much easier for you to nurture your auras and others. Your auras aren¡¯t strong enough, after all.¡±

    ¡°How do I do that?¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t quite understand.

    ¡°Did you sense the ripples of the earth when youprehended the earth aura, a certain kind of rhythm...?¡±

    Li Hao nodded.

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    ¡°That¡¯s it then,¡± Yuan Shuo chuckled. ¡°You can enter that state once more and incorporate your earth aura into the rhythm. You will be part of the earth from then on.¡±

    The old man reached out and red a killing intent. ¡°Look, this is the metal aura! I¡¯ve incorporated all of my auras into the worldtely. I mentioned this to you when I taught you the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, but I didn¡¯t exin the concept that clearly. You yourself also didn¡¯t view it with much importance...¡±

    Li Hao looked around sheepishly. <i>How was I supposed to know I should research it?</i>

    ¡°Also, I sense that your auras are somehow melding together,¡± Yuan Shuo said in a strange tone. ¡°Have you learned something else that is forcing them together?¡±

    Li Hao knew that this had to do with events of Evenround Martial. He had indeed tried fusing his auras together, but he¡¯d yet to fully seed.

    Yuan Shuo knew he¡¯d guessed correctly when he read the expression on the young man¡¯s face. However, Li Hao couldn¡¯t confirm it for his teacher since there was a restriction on sharing that knowledge. The old man didn¡¯t mind.

    ¡°Your assimtion is a bit forced, but it¡¯s a good sign. You¡¯ll be able to easilyplete the process once you incorporate them into the world. Tryprehending the auras again once you have that foundation. Why do wind, fire, water, and electricity coexist in the world? They are auras of nature, how do they live in tandem? Put yourself in the shoes of heaven and earth and use your imagination. If you were the world, how would you integrate them into your body?¡±

    Li Hao bobbed his head up and down, which drew an eye roll from Yuan Shuo. ¡°What are you just nodding for? Try it!!¡±

    The young man jerked with awkwardness. His teacher¡¯s temper was poortely, there was no sign of the charitable man that he once was. But... should he give it a try? After some consideration, he assessed his five supernatural characters. The one of ¡®earth¡¯ might be more suitable. So was he supposed to be part of the world and sense the ripples of the earth?

    He recalled his mental journey when he first grasped the earth aura and immersed himself back in it. Ripples started undting over the ¡®earth¡¯ character; they called out to the earth. The ground beneath the Skystar Commander Office seemed to tremble¡ªmundanes would not feel it, only martial masters with the aura would be able to sense a nebulous something.

    The ground was shaking in rhythmic fashion. Meanwhile, a peculiar scene yed out in Li Hao¡¯s mind¡¯s eye. Was the shaking of the earth... its breathing? And where was his supernatural character supposed to be nurtured?

    ¡°Follow the ripples of the earth, your character is part of it,¡± came Yuan Shuo¡¯s voice in his ear. ¡°It exudes its own ripples. Utilize the ripples to incorporate the character via a natural fashion...¡±

    The supernatural character undted with ripples as Li Hao took in his teacher¡¯s instructions. The ripples between the character and the earth gradually melded as one. He opened his eyes when the ripples disappeared and the character within his body also vanished.

    However, he could sense it beneath his feet. He wasn¡¯t sure as to exactly where it was; it might be inside the ground. It might just be going for a ride as it followed the ripples. How interesting! He¡¯d never tried this before. In this moment, he truly felt that he¡¯d be one with the earth.

    Li Hao vanished when his feet shifted. He reappeared in front of the great hall¡ªearth bending!

    The young man blinked. This was a supernatural skill that he hadn¡¯t known before. He didn¡¯t mind that he couldn¡¯t employ it as this wasn¡¯t learned supernatural knowledge. It was an innate talent. He felt that hisck of fanfare into entering the supernatural domain might¡¯ve been because he went straight to Arcanus from being a martial master.

    However, now he understood that it was because he hadn¡¯t understood the supernatural enough. He could now bend the earth!

    ¡°This is the true supernatural character, the true Arcanus level!¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°Your auras were limited by yourself before, so how were you an Arcanus? Is the Arcanus level simply an explosion of strength?

    ¡°Your thinking was too narrow!¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°Earth bending is just the most basic skill. Do you know how long it took for me to travel here from Silver Moon? One day! If it wasn¡¯t for Jadelight slowing me down, it would only take me half a day to traverse five thousand kilometers! This is what it means to be an Arcanus!¡±

    He was rather displeased and contemptuous at the modern iteration of Arcanus. ¡°This is a good name for the cultivator level and the rightful name since this is a level of the esoteric and obscure, but these supernaturals erroneously shift their focus to an eruption of strength at this point. They forget the core nature of being supernatural!

    ¡°A re in strength is the basic, the myriad of changes is the core of being an Arcanus! How are you to be one without bing part of nature? They can do so when they¡¯re weak, but not when they¡¯re strong. Do you know why?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s... right... I¡¯ve noticed that the Arcanus powerhousesck the earth or wood bending skills they possess at the lower levels. Why is that?¡±

    ¡°Because their self consciousness has grown stronger!¡± Yuan Shuo exined. ¡°Their potential wasn¡¯t under control before, but they manage to bring some of it to heel at this level. But they turn their back on nature when they do so!

    ¡°Supernaturals may not have an aura, but that doesn¡¯t mean theyck a dao! They have their own dao, but when they seek to control more of their body, the further they travel from dao!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, then suddenly smiled. ¡°Teacher, do you mean that if I incorporate all of my auras into nature, I¡¯ll be able to transform into anything and do everything?¡±

    ¡°The caveat is that you have toprehend endless auras first!¡± Yuan Shuo pinned as well. ¡°Try the other characters and then try fusing them once they¡¯re all part of the world. Follow the natural order of things. See how the earth and water interact, how earth and nts work together, then how light and darkness supersede each other...¡±

    Li Hao continued to nod. His teacher brought new inspiration each time he appeared. The young man tried incorporating all of his characters into the world and slowly discovered something new. When his five characters were part of nature, he suddenly discovered an enclosed space around him of the five elements. Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth existed in his surroundings.

    It took the work of a thought to feel that he¡¯d been isted, then the work of another thought to vanish on the spot. The earth¡¯s rhythm was apparent in front of him. He vanished on the spot with a sh, then reappeared at the entrance to the Inspectorate.

    Chen Zhongtian immediately appeared when he sensed a visitor; he was surprised to see Li Hao pop out. The young man looked at him and vanished when the old man thought of offering a greeting.

    ¡°What the?¡± blinked Chen Zhongtian. ¡°Space?¡±

    The old man frowned and extended his senses with confusion. Earth bending? He didn¡¯t get it. Was Li Hao improving again?

    ......

    Li Hao returned to the Skystar Commander Office; Yuan Shuo was drinking tea again.

    ¡°Teacher, it¡¯s strange, there seems to be... something... after the five elements are incorporated into the world...¡± mentioned the puzzled young man.

    ¡°It¡¯s your domain!¡±ughed Yuan Shuo. ¡°Have you sensed that you¡¯re trapped in a small world? Don¡¯t think too much about it, that¡¯s the domain of your perspective! It is your unique world!¡±

    ¡°An inner world?¡± Li Hao murmured to himself.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 845: Domain (III)

    <h4>Chapter 845: Domain (III)</h4>

    ¡°It¡¯s not an inner world.¡± Yuan Shuo shook his head. ¡°I¡¯ve heard about that concept, that¡¯s the path of the ancient Human King. Ours... counts as an outer world at most! You¡¯re so weak, how can you have an inner world? You wouldn¡¯t be a weakling then, you¡¯d be the ancient Human King!

    ¡°You can call this an outer world or a domain, it doesn¡¯t matter. Melding your aura into the world and building your domain... then gradually erging it is the process of strengthening your aura. When your aura upies the entire world and turns the world into your own, hmm, that would be an inner world!¡±

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    ¡°......¡± Li Hao gaped. ¡°upy the entire world?¡±

    ¡°What?¡±ughed Yuan Shuo. ¡°Can you not do it? That¡¯s your goal, I¡¯m not saying you have to do it right away. Just work toward that goal!¡±

    He was only setting a target, he wasn¡¯t saying that his student really had to take over the entire world. Li Hao, on the other hand, was in a daze about what he¡¯d heard. <i>Inner world, outer world, domain, the secondary dimension of the human body...</i>

    A variety ofplicated thoughts rose in his mind.

    ¡°Go for that target,¡± Yuan Shuo continued. ¡°For example, your character of light can absolutely be the sun of the world in the future. Your character of darkness can be the moon. Your character of fire will be the spark of heaven and earth, your character of wood will popte all forests beneath the heavens. Earth will be the ground...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s heart shook. Was this... possible? An inner world... The Human King was said to have created his inner world; his teacher¡¯s words painted a simr picture.

    ¡°Your dao of supernatural characters is very interesting and innovative. You should continue developing it and not just think that you are stronger because you collect more characters. You don¡¯t even know how to use them at present, how are you to continue developing them? Your base must be stable! Don¡¯t be in a rush to create new characters...

    ¡°The five elements is already a tiny cirction system. Solidify that foundation first! You¡¯ll find that although you¡¯re a five element Arcanus, you¡¯ll be able to trounce seven, eight, or nine elements...¡±

    ¡°Teacher, what... level can you fight at right now?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help his curiosity.

    ¡°I¡¯ve onlypleted a small cirction of the five elements.¡± Yuan Shuo delivered his response without boasting. ¡°But I¡¯m still confined to the supernatural locks and fusion of the five elements. Based on the world¡¯s current hierarchy of power, I¡¯ve just saturated nine locks. It puts me on the same level as Light Sword and the others, back when they hadn¡¯t broken their locks. However, I won¡¯t be afraid of any regr Arcanus!¡±

    He could just manage to withstand Arcanus powerhouses during theirst encounter, so the improvement in his abilities didn¡¯t feel that pronounced. However, Li Hao was surprised to hear his teacher say that he had only reached saturation of nine locks. Yao Si and the others could barely manage Arcanus when they attained saturation of eleven locks.

    ¡°You¡¯ve given me some inspiration, though,¡± Yuan Shuo continued. ¡°Such is martial dao. You improve, I improve, everyone improves together. We integrate each other¡¯s virtues to make for greater room for improvement.

    ¡°I¡¯ll give it a try myself,¡± the old man said after some thought. ¡°But I may not have the same results. We¡¯ll know after I try it out!¡±

    Li Hao nodded, his emotions frothing with excitement. The domain! He didn¡¯t care whether or not his teacher would make the attempt. No one would touch his teacher while he was around. He was more interested in experimenting whether he could trap a powerhouse if he formed a small domain with the five elements.

    As for melding his auras together, his teacher had said that he only needed to study the auras in more detail and determine precisely how he wouldbine them. He might aplish the task very quickly.

    ¡°Then my sword aura...¡±

    ¡°Are you finding it less than useful?¡±ughed Yuan Shuo. ¡°Don¡¯t think too much, you¡¯re a far cry from the exalted emperors of the ancient civilization. Your sword aura is still very useful. The sword aura focuses on offense¡ªone blow for one world, one blow for one domain. It can trap, it can kill, it can defend. It focuses on holistic development, which I think suits you quite well!¡±

    Li Hao continued to nod.

    ¡°So the key lies with the issue of the body...¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm!¡± Yuan Shuo nodded this time as well. ¡°My breathing method can strengthen the entire body, but it works too slowly at present. The secondary dimension that you speak of may be the key. I¡¯ll need some time to test and verify this...

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll be staying here for a while! Give me five hundred drops of Water of Life, I¡¯ll try some experiments.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao smiled ruefully. ¡°Teacher really has a...¡±

    <i>Large appetite!</i>

    ¡°Research is costly!¡± Yuan Shuo smiled. ¡°It¡¯d be one thing in other times, but thinking of how much you¡¯ve expended on He Yong and the others recently... it¡¯s a waste! You might have better effect if you let me look into things.¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll get five hundred drops as soon as possible.¡± Li Hao could only acquiesce.

    <i>The kid is so rich now! </i>Yuan Shuo inwardly clucked his tongue. <i>Damn he¡¯s reallye up in the world! He was damned poor before, but this rich now?</i>

    ¡°I hear that you¡¯re in a rush to move against the Wind and Cloud Pavilion, set that aside for now...¡± Yuan Shuo said. ¡°Focus on your little domain first. You¡¯ll stand a greater chance of sess if you seed. And another thing, wait for me to seed first. Bring me along when you attack them. I¡¯d like to give it a try too.¡±

    Li Haoughed with surprise and nodded.

    That was all that master and disciple talked about after finally seeing each other. Yuan Shuo found his mouth a bit dry after the conversation and finally recalled someone else nearby.

    ¡°Have Li Hao saturate your supernatural locks over the next couple of days.¡± He looked at Jadelight. ¡°Don¡¯t be in a rush to convert them to supernatural characters. There¡¯s not much meaning in doing the conversion when you¡¯re weak.

    ¡°The key still lies with the aura. Nothing is strong when the aura isn¡¯t strong! You should try incorporating the sword aura into the world. Once that is strong, the rest of your strength will soon follow. Although He Yong and them look strong now, they don¡¯t know the heart of the issue and just blindly cultivate.¡±

    Jadelight smiled and inclined her head. Li Hao looked at his teacher, then at Jadelight Sword. His teacher cared quite a great deal about Jadelight. <i>When ites to me... he just checks in on me every time he emerges from seclusion. He ignores me otherwise and definitely ignores my messages.</i>

    Liu Long walked through the doors as Li Haopared the difference in treatment. ¡°Commander, Professor Yuan, there is a visitor at the door.¡±

    Yuan Shuo blinked. What did it have to do with him?

    ¡°It¡¯s Yuan Xingwu!¡±

    A frown crossed Yuan Shuo¡¯s forehead and he fell silent. Li Hao didn¡¯t say anything either. Yuan Xingwu!

    ¡°Have him leave!¡± Yuan Shuo said calmly. ¡°He chose his own path back in the day and he¡¯s walked it well enough. The Ministry of Armed Forces continues to stand strong and that Qi Pingjiang is a peak six element Arcanus. Since he¡¯s made his choice, he should continue to follow it! There¡¯s no need to consider us and it would just be awkward if we are to meet. Those who betray their masters do not meet with good ends in the martial world.¡±

    ¡°Teacher...¡± Li Hao looked at Yuan Shuo.

    ¡°I know what you¡¯re thinking,¡± Yuan Shuo sighed and shook his head. ¡°The Ministry of Armed Forces cannot coexist with the Skystar Commander Office! He reaches beyond his ability and wants to be a middleman¡ªthere¡¯s no need to give him any attention! We all walk our own paths, I only offer some advice and reminders. Even you don¡¯t have to pay heed to me when you start down your own path in the future.

    ¡°I am only your teacher, not your parent. Even if I were your father, I would not interfere in your choices!¡± Heughed, ¡°Now take me to the ruins. I¡¯m going to cultivate there.¡±

    Li Hao had brought up the matter of killing the nt spirit earlier, Yuan Shuo wouldn¡¯t have demanded five hundred drops otherwise. He wasn¡¯t surprised by the feat; perhaps Yuan Shuo felt that this was only to be expected since Li Hao had created the supernatural characters.

    The young man nodded. Liu Long didn¡¯t ask further before leaving to convey their words.

    ......

    <i>The front doors of the Skystar Commander Office.</i>

    Yuan Xingwu sighed when he heard the response, inclined his body, and left. His master was unwilling to see him. Armed Forces hoped that he could confer with his master and junior brother. It looked like that was out of the question.

    He turned to look back at the Skystar Commander Office with aplicated look in his eyes. Armed Forces was one of the more fair and impartial ministries among the nine. He felt that it would be more appropriate for his junior brother to join forces with the ministry to eliminate the royal family first. There were alsorge quantities of powerhouses in Armed Forces that¡¯d risen from humble beginnings.

    But inly, his master and junior brother didn¡¯t think so.

    ......

    Li Hao sent Yuan Shuo into the ruins and didn¡¯t bother considering how Yuan Shuo would get along with the little tree. His teacher was skilled in this area. As for Jadelight, he simply offered her some cultivation resources. Jadelight seemed more willing to follow in his teacher¡¯s footsteps and didn¡¯t want to experiment with the supernatural characters. The young man didn¡¯t have any thoughts otherwise.

    Meanwhile, he started researching the personal domain. This was an interesting topic! His teacher always brought some surprises with him. After Li Hao melded his five auras into the world, he seemed to be able to control the five elements beneath the heavens. Granted, he was limited to a very small range at the moment.

    He further discovered that the domain formed by the supernatural characters of the five elements gave him the same feeling as the... ruins did when he drew near it. It was the sensation of being isted from everything and that he could let loose with even greater strength.

    Li Hao quickly found Deputy Zhou. The deputy was very busytely and also spent his days in difort. Due to the weakness of the void, he had to continuously defend against the cutting effect of space.

    ¡°Deputy Zhou,e close to me for a second!¡±

    Although mystified, the deputy walked closer to Li Hao. He was immediately perplexed by what he sensed and looked around with astonishment. The world was the same around him, but he seemed to have entered a ruin. What was going on here?

    The void no longer cut into him, an effect likewise noticed by Li Hao. He found it strange, but it confirmed his spection. A simr environment could be found in the ruins, one seemed isted from the world when within home. Of course, that was a result of the ruins or their powerhouses being very strong.

 Chapter 846: Grown Too Bold (I)

    <h4>Chapter 846: Grown Too Bold (I)</h4>

    Li Hao¡¯s tiny domain began to shrink, trapping the frowning deputy.

    ¡°Try breaking it, Deputy Zhou!¡±

    Zhou Chuan struck without hesitation, sting the air with a punch. There was nothing around them, but his fist collided with the sound of metal breaking.

    The force of the five elements rushed out as Deputy Zhou breathed out heavily, once more feeling the air press in around him and wanting to cut him to pieces. Li Hao frowned when he sensed the change. Since he¡¯d yet tobine his five auras into one, there were gaps in them, which resulted in the domain being easily shattered.

    That was fine, once he seeded, he felt that just this tiny domain would be able to entrap Deputy Zhou. It was like he¡¯d gained a new toy. He swiftly vanished to spend more time with it.

    Deputy Zhou watched him leave, then looked at the direction of the rear yard. Yuan Shuo must have said something to Li Hao. The deputy found the master and disciple duo to be quite the characters. One dared to think of the moon and the other dared reach for it. Li Hao hade up with something new again.

    It was a terrifying proposition to be enemies with them.

    ¡°The physical body is weak, but if whatever that was can be used as a defensive shield, that will temporarily resolve the issue of a weak body. If that''s aplished, then Li Hao will be nearly invincible in the outside world!¡±

    It wasn¡¯t just a simple defensive treasure, but a natural defensive shield formed by the power of heaven and earth. It could prevent the reaction of the void. That meant that Li Hao could bring his full force to bear in any asion, whereas everyone else had to split their attention with protecting themselves from the void. Even seven element Arcanus would be suppressed!

    The young man would trounce almost everyone he fought in the outside world. How long had it taken for Li Hao to improve so much? Deputy Zhou looked emotionally in the young man¡¯s direction again. The only beings who posed a threat to him now would be those ancient existences.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, the western outskirts. Evenround Martial University.</i>

    The ck Armor tilted his head back, seeing through this world to view the one outside.

    ¡°Has he grown stronger again?¡± he asked slowly after a while. Li Hao seemed to havepleted another portion of this new dao. Although it was still too weak to the ck Armor, there were minuscule changes in the world outside again.

    Everything was bing ever more interesting!

    The ck Armorughed soundlessly. It was a new age and, as such, a new state of the world. What heights would this age reach?

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    ......

    In these days, so long as Li Hao didn¡¯t raise a fuss, no one would dare cause trouble before the second awakening. No one dared make trouble for the top three of the Arcanus Ranking either. There might have been consequences to the Wind and Cloud Pavilion¡¯s original ranking¡ªwho wouldn¡¯t be afraid if Li Hao was listed as number one and nearly half of the top twenty being Silver Moon martial masters?

    But now, a peak six elements Li Hao didn¡¯t seem to be a concern. After all, the top three were seven elements. Therefore, when Li Hao no longer stirred up trouble and devoted himself to coalescing his personal domain, all was quiet and at peace beneath the heavens.

    ......

    That was only rtively speaking. In reality, Skystar Dynasty was growing ever more chaotic. It was November. Apart from the temperatures being slightly milder in the south, everywhere else was long frozen over. The results of supernatural agitation were on full disy.

    Food prices soared to new heights in the marketce. The number of refugees from war increased throughout thend. Although Skystar City was as prosperous and opulent as ever, its denizens could feel the pressures of day to day living. No one was interested in the struggles of the strong or what new conflict had developed. They only wanted to survive.

    <i>The outskirts of Skystar City.</i>

    Hong Yitang walked down broken streets. So much had happenedtely that he was kept busy from day to night. He didn¡¯t have any effort to spare for the Skystar Martial Academy, and he wasn¡¯t here for the academy either.

    He walked down what might be the slums of Skystar City. The surroundings were rundown and ramshackle, at odds with the bustling shine of the thriving city. Children ran through the streets. Although it was close to the end of the year, there was no atmosphere of cheer or celebration. It was just cold. Thin clothing hung on the children¡¯s bodies. This was the vibrant capital of the dynasty, but their faces were sallow and sunken from hunger.

    Hong Yitang quietly observed them. He¡¯d been too busy killing or fightingtely to carry out some of his ideas. Today, he made time to walk through the city. He paused when he reached a grain storefront and listened to people ask about food prices. Half a kilogram of rice was now going for five star coins!

    The man furrowed his brows. What kind of notion was five star coins?

    When Li Hao was an official member of the Silver City Inspectorate, his monthly sry was only one thousand coins. That would buy less than two hundred kilograms of rice! While sries in the capital were slightly higher, doubling the rate would only fetch approximately two hundred and fifty kilograms of rice.

    Food wasn¡¯t the only necessity when one lived in the capital city. Could such a modest sry really feed a family? Just monthly food expenses alone were startling enough. Under these circumstances, being able to fill one¡¯s stomach made one immensely lucky.

    Hong Yitang frowned. So food was this costly now? He hadn¡¯t paid attention for a while and now found that prices had suddenly reached five star coins per half kilogram. The rest of his colleagues didn¡¯t eat or drink, so they were unaware of the significance of this detail. They utilized mysterious power stones and Water of Life. Death would note for them even if they didn¡¯t eat or drink. Li Hao himself hadn¡¯t eaten food in a very long time.

    The same did not apply to ordinary people.

    <i>Li Hao¡¯s been focused on supernaturals and forgotten to consider the rest of the people...</i> And Hong Yitang was in the capital. What was the situation like in other areas? Most likely even worse off!

    <i>We must increase our speed of reforms. Li Hao can¡¯t go around killing anymore...</i>

    Hong Yitang felt that they should take advantage of the lull before the second awakening. Otherwise, too many would die during this winter.

    <i>We need technology, supernaturals, nt spirits... </i>They needed supernaturals to build sturdy homes, as well as technology and revolution to ensure that everyone had food on the table. nt spirits were required to swiftly develop crops and produce high quality seeds. Supernaturals were also needed to induce them to sprout and grow. The Judgment Guard might be of some use in this area, but the thousands of supernaturals they had weren¡¯t enough.

    Perhaps... Li Hao could take down the City of Supernaturals! There were one million supernaturals in that city! It was thergest gathering spot of supernaturals in Skystar Dynasty. Anything was feasible once they were brought under Li Hao¡¯s banner. That one million supernaturals was up to no good from day to night¡ªthey would be better off working the fields!

    If the light, life, and five element attributes worked together, crops could be harvested three times a month! What was the point of keeping such a group of supernaturals around? Some matters could not be easily aplished, but these affairs could be.

    <i>Skystar Dynasty needs to be reformed, but full bellies and warm clothes, as well as general literacy needs toe first. Education needs to be reformed and standardized. Li Hao possesses sufficient strength now and has found his footing. The world might be thrown into chaos after the second awakening, so the second awakening needs to be dyed!</i>

    Various thoughts appeared in Hong Yitang¡¯s mind. He¡¯de to Skystar City for this.

    <i>I need to discuss this with Li Hao. Skystar Martial Academy needs to be open to all geniuses throughout thends as soon as possible...</i>

    A ten-year-old child in ragged clothing approached Hong Yitang. The man ignored the child at first, but looked over curiously when it became apparent that he wanted to talk to Hong Yitang.

    The child was as sallow and thin as the rest, but he wasn¡¯t apprehensive. ¡°Are you Headmaster Hong?¡±

    A stern look crossed Hong Yitang¡¯s face, but he quickly nodded with a smile. The child was highly alert. ¡°They say that Headmaster Hong is willing to take in refugees in Silver Moon and train them to be independent members of society. They say you have built the greatest refugee center in the dynasty. Your visit to this neighborhood today must be to observe how people live their lives...¡±

    Hong Yitang looked calmly at the child.

    ¡°I am Yun Yuqi¡¯s little brother, Yun Yuming,¡± the boy said frankly. He waspletely unafraid. ¡°The headmastermiserates with the people of the world. I can sense a saintly light from the headmaster, so I hope that you can tell Commander Li...¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°To please open a research center!¡± Yun Yuming said seriously. ¡°There is certain to be great disaster this year¡ªavnches, droughts, and even the beginning of an ice age! Our harvests will bepletely barren! I thought that themander would open a research center sooner orter, but am growing worried upon seeing him focus only on the Wind and Cloud Pavilion without thought of anything else.

    ¡°Only in opening a research center can we obtain more skill,¡± Yuming said despondently. ¡°That is how we can swiftlyplete the development and poprization of technology! It will be able to withstand natural disasters. Please keep in mind that there are more than supernaturals and martial masters in this world, there are hundreds of millions of people...¡±

    ¡°Who are you?¡± Hong Yitang asked after levying an extended stare at the boy. Yuming had already introduced himself, but Hong Yitang repeated the question again.

    ¡°Yun Yuming!¡±

    ¡°Who are you?¡± Hong Yitang asked again.

    ¡°I really am Yun Yuming...¡± the boy pulled a long face. ¡°It¡¯s just... I¡¯m more mature and random stuff appears in my memories sometimes. But I¡¯m certain that I¡¯m Yun Yuming. Maybe... maybe my grandpa left something that affects me, but I¡¯m definitely still me.

    ¡°If we really want to get down to it, maybe I have the bloodline heritage of the monster spirits?¡± The boy looked at Hong Yitang. ¡°I came to you because I heard of what you¡¯ve done in Silver Moon. I¡¯m worried that I¡¯m so insignificant that Commander Li won¡¯t even want to see me...¡±

    ¡°Your sister and aunt are both working with him. Why don¡¯t you go to them?¡±

    ¡°Like I said, insignificant.¡± Yun Yuming smiled ruefully. ¡°My aunt is just a centurion of the Demon Hunter Army and my sister runs errands. It¡¯s difficult to catch a glimpse of themander...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not right!¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°Li Hao brought your aunt with him from Silver City, she¡¯s one of his staunchest subordinates. Since you can find me, you should know that your aunt can absolutely gain an audience with him. Even if she can¡¯t, she can ask Liu Long to pass on a message for her.

    ¡°And how did you know I would be here? I came on a whim, the spur of a moment. Were you waiting here for me, or did you anticipate that I woulde? You¡¯ve got quite the skill to do that. What is Lu Zhen¡¯s rtionship with you?¡±

 Chapter 847: Grown Too Bold (II)

    <h4>Chapter 847: Grown Too Bold (II)</h4>

    ¡°No rtionship, really.¡± Yun Fuming was rather resigned. ¡°If we must identify one, some of my memory fragments indicate that Director Lu was the martial forefather of the owner of these memory fragments.¡±

    <i>Lu Zhen¡¯s granddisciple?</i> Hong Yitang didn¡¯t actually know who Lu Zhen was, just that Li Hao had mentioned the name to them before. Lu Zhen¡¯s daughter had apparently been the Human King¡¯s teacher in the ancient civilization. That made him the Human King¡¯s martial grandfather.

    If the child in front of him had absorbed some of the lingering mental fragments, then when it came to seniority, it might put him in the same generation as the Human King. That was a high status and identity.

    The owner of the memory fragments was an entity resurrected from mental strength lingering in the Lu Zhen Research Center. Did that make this child the one from the ancient civilization, or the modern Yun Yuming? It was hard to say, and the boy made sense. Perhaps... this was a sort of bloodline heritage from monster spirits? All the same, Yun Yuming had certainly obtained some of the other¡¯s memories and possibly even abilities!

    ¡°What is your goal in having Li Hao start a research center?¡±

    ¡°No other reason,¡± Yuming answered seriously. ¡°Please trust the nature of a researcher, Headmaster Hong. Please also trust that, so long as they weren¡¯t traitors, everyone in New Martial possessed a heart that loved the people. I really have determined that disasters will rock Skystar Dynasty in the days toe. Great trouble will develop if we aren¡¯t ready ahead of time!

    ¡°Who will have a mind to spare for the ordinary people once the supernaturals rise up? We would bemitting grave sins then with countless dead or injured, the people will struggle in abject misery!

    ¡°I know this is exactly the scene that some of the local tyrants wish to see. Perhaps even Commander Li and Headmaster Hong lean in that direction as well. How is new life supposed to spring forth from desperation and all neglected tasks be undertaken if the world is not thrown into chaos?

    ¡°But that is not the case!¡± Yuming shook his head. ¡°Even if no one knows what you¡¯ve done because crisis is averted from your actions, the heavens will know!¡± He pointed at the sky. ¡°It¡¯s true, the heavens really will know! They see everything!

    ¡°Those who seek to be the Human King now are all jokes! All they have in their hearts is pettyparison, consideration of benefits, and schemes. How can people like that be the Human King?!

    ¡°Only those with a sincere heart can do so!¡± rang Yun Yuming¡¯s young voice. ¡°This is a type of cultivation as well. It¡¯s fine if Commander Li doesn¡¯t wish to be the Human King. Once he is, the heavens will be aware, even if the people remain oblivious. Even if the heart of the world sinks into oblivion, it will know that you were saving lives!

    ¡°A world possesses its own will and has a soul¡ªnot the will and soul that we know conventionally, but that if you can obtain the support of the heavens, you will truly be the son and father of the world!¡±

    Hong Yitang slowly turned over the meaning behind these words. ¡°It¡¯s not that Li Hao is ignoring all this,¡± he said softly. ¡°He¡¯s been trying to do something about it and takes risk after risk not for fame or fortune, but because of his heroic heart. However, you are just as aware of the current state of the world. There are too many restrictions that hem us in!

    ¡°What help can you bring to Li Hao?¡± Hong Yitang looked at the boy.

    ¡°I may not be able to bring much help,¡± Yuming admitted after some thought. ¡°I am weak when ites to martial strength and possibly less than your side when ites to wisdom. I can aplish one thing for Commander Li¡ªthe construction of themunication system. I am skilled at that. The owner of my memories was themunications expert of the research center.

    ¡°I hear my sister say that Commander Li took some people from the Nine Dragons Pavilion, but has sidelined them ever since. I think maybe that¡¯s because themander is too busy and the rest of his people don¡¯t really understand the task. I¡¯d like to rmend myself to join the Skystar Commander Office and be hismunications manager!

    ¡°What are we most afraid of in this day and age?¡± the boy analyzed solemnly. ¡°That it takes many days for a message to reach its goal, that it might not even make it there...

    ¡°With supernaturals, martial masters, and technology, I¡¯ll be able to quickly build a specialmunication system for the dynasty¡ªthe sky canopy system!¡±

    ¡°Sky canopy?¡± Hong Yitang looked quizzically at the young man.

    ¡°That was a special system in New Martial, thebination of technology and martial dao,¡± Yuming introduced. ¡°It utilizes projection technology to reach the four corners of the dynasty at any time. Anything can be projected throughout thend with just onemand!

    ¡°You can immediately broadcast anything you want to any part of the dynasty. Where there are people, there is the sky canopy.

    ¡°Communication between the military¡¯s armored warriors actually made use of the sky canopy back in the day. But the military used an internal version, not the one publicly essible...

    ¡°I came to Headmaster Hong because I know that the headmaster is preparing to establish the Skystar Martial Academy and recruit some of the teachers and students from the Ancient Academy. Therefore, I know that the headmaster might want to restart the technological revolution, so I want in!¡±

    Hong Yitang furrowed his brows. He wasn¡¯t that reassured when it came to this one. Apparently, the kid¡¯s grandfather treated him as a test subject and modified him, inducing some of the mental strength lingering inside the ruins into him. It was difficult to say whether he was Yun Yuming or the ancient existence¡¯s consciousness.

    And now he wanted to join the Skystar Commander Office. Did he have other motives in mind, or did he really just want to better everyone¡¯s lives? That he could predict Hong Yitang would visit this street must mean that he had special abilities. Perhaps his mental strength was so strong that he had some precognitive abilities.

    That would be quite normal. Hong Yitang¡¯s mental strength was likewise strong; although he couldn¡¯t foretell the future, he could predict what his opponent would do in the next second. That meant the boy¡¯s mental strength might be even stronger than his.

    <i>The Lu Zhen Research Center...</i>

    Li Hao hadn¡¯t visited that ruin because he knew it might give rise to certain troubles. It was even more thorny considering that the research material involved the resurrection of mental strength. He might unwittingly release some terrifying existences.

    Not to mention, essing those ruins might result in outright hostility with the nine ministries and royal family. They would quickly turn their weapons on Li Hao.

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    Hong Yitang ran throughout numerous possibilities in his mind. ¡°Then I¡¯ll take you to Li Hao,¡± he exhaled. ¡°You talk to him about this yourself. Perhaps this is precisely the result you wanted. Additionally... liven up a bit. Be more cheerful. You don¡¯t seem like a child at all at your age!¡±

    Yuming smiled and nodded. <i>Like a child? Do I not seem like one? I¡¯ve always been one. </i>He felt that Hong Yitang had misunderstood something, but this wasn¡¯t a good time to speak further.

    ......

    Li Hao was working on his personal domain in the Skystar Commander Office when his eyes snapped open. He seemed to see a ball of light!

    Light flickered through his eyes as he saw two people. He ignored Hong Yitang and looked at the child. Something appeared in his eyes¡ªthe ball of light was rather mottled and murky. It was his first time witnessing such a unique situation. Red light appeared in Li Hao¡¯s eyes and he looked at the child again.

    ¡°We are graced by a senior¡¯s presence, Li Hao has failed to show proper hospitality!¡± he smiled after a long moment.

    ¡°I am Yun Yuming, greetings to themander!¡± Yuming said with resignation.

    ¡°I know you.¡± Li Hao inclined his head. ¡°Your mental strength is intermingled and one might even say that you¡¯ve upied another¡¯s ce. But... this child was touched in the head to begin with, you¡¯ve bestowed him intelligence. But do you count as an ancient being or a modern human?¡±

    ¡°A modern human!¡± grumped Yuming. ¡°Really, themander must believe me.¡±

    He looked curiously at Li Hao, impressed by the young man¡¯s powers of observation. Not only that, but the boy sensed a peculiarity in the void around him. It seemed to be an independent space. Yuming quietly probed it, finding it both curious and strange.

    What a powerful guy! Not in terms of strength, but that some of his methods were very special. Li Hao would be nothing in the ancient civilization¡ªany division leader of ten thousand would be stronger than him.

    Yuming repeated what he¡¯d just told Hong Yitang.

    ¡°The sky canopy?¡± murmured Li Hao. This guy wanted to build the sky canopy system for him? As for the people he¡¯d grabbed from the Nine Dragons Pavilion, he had indeed left them sitting around. The main thing was that he¡¯d been preupied with all the previous fighting and had been concerned that he wouldn¡¯t be back after every engagement.

    This fellow was an interesting one to approach him and say that he hoped to ess the Lu Zhen Research Center. Was that good or bad?

    Li Hao sank into deep thought. Thete Chen Hai had asked him if he wanted to start a dynasty that inherited the ancient civilization or a brand new one?

    He¡¯d responded then that he wanted to start a new one. No matter how strong or good New Martial had been, those were people and events of yesteryear. Man should look forward and only learn from the past, not relive it. Therefore, Li Hao was equal parts wary and respectful of ancient people, items, and monster spirits.

    Were the ancient people and monster spirits of Silver Moon good entities?

    Not necessarily!

    Were the good people of that age still good people in this age?

    Not necessarily either!

    The little tree said that gods had once existed in Silver Moon Territory, that they were the original inhabitants. They¡¯d been exterminated by New Martial all the same. So did Li Hao and the rest count as original inhabitants or foreigners?

    New Martial didn¡¯t give a definitivebel to them, but for Li Hao, he felt a distance between himself and the ancient civilization. He looked at Yuming again with a smile. ¡°I wee your help, but what do you need?¡±

    ¡°Mysterious power stones, some machines, and some equipment. Those can be found in the research center, but I can also create them from scratch. However, I¡¯ll need a lot of time to do so. There¡¯s a sky canopy generator in the research center that can mass produce endless canopies. There¡¯s also a lot in storage. It will take at least ten years for the same level to be reached in the outside world.¡±

    So at the end of the day, he still wanted Li Hao to open the ruins. The young man fell silent and said after a long while, ¡°You should go discuss this with your aunt. I¡¯ll consider it if she thinks there¡¯s a need to open them.¡±

    ¡°I... already discussed it with her,¡± Yuming said with resignation after a while. ¡°She ignored me and said it¡¯s best if that ce is sealed away forever!¡±

    Li Hao grinned. Yun Yao had not mentioned this to him, so Yun Yao should¡¯ve already met Yun Yuming and felt that it was a bad idea.

 Chapter 848: Grown Too Bold (III)

    <h4>Chapter 848: Grown Too Bold (III)</h4>

    ¡°Then tell me, what do you want to do?¡± asked Li Hao. ¡°Tell me the truth, I¡¯ll consider it.¡±

    ¡°I <i>have</i> been speaking the truth,¡± Yuming said with resignation. ¡°Of course, I¡¯ve left some things out. I hadn¡¯t thought of this before, but recently, I¡¯m of the mind to borrow some of the equipment in the research center to see if I can resurrect someone...¡±

    Li Hao smiled¡ªa very dangerous smile.

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    ¡°Who?¡±

    ¡°You should know him as well,¡± Yuming sighed. ¡°Someone in Evenround Martial University. My memories show that they¡¯ve either all left or died, but to think that someone is still alive in it...¡±

    <i>The ck Armor?</i> Li Hao frowned. ¡°How do you know?¡±

    ¡°I can sense it!¡± Yuming exined. ¡°I sensed a few things thest time themander emerged from the ruins. It seemed familiar¡ªsome memories awoke out of my fragments after that. I know that that person is still alive, just that his physical body has dposed.¡±

    ¡°Why do you want to resurrect him?¡±

    ¡°He is one of the Human King¡¯s most loyal guards and has an important identity.¡± Yuming scratched his head, seeming more like a child in this moment. ¡°He¡¯s even more important than Commander Li. If he is revived, then he might be able to unite the eight main cities. That would prevent any grumblings among the eight after they are active again and any shes from mutual dissatisfaction.

    ¡°His strength might not be the strongest among the survivors, but he is the spokesperson for the Human King. He represents a lot of things and can save themander a lot of trouble if he¡¯s present.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s... the spokesperson for the Human King?¡± Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°He counts as it,¡± Yuming exined. ¡°He is still alive if his mental strength still exists, it¡¯s just his physical body that is no more. This would be an easy problem to fix in our time with powerhouses around. We would simply need a vast quantity of indestructible matter and arge quantity of life essence to help them return to their former selves. However, the quantity required is so great that it¡¯s almost impossible to find now.

    ¡°Therefore, we need to utilize special methods to decrease their strength and weaken their physical bodies. We can then create a weaker physical body to hold their mental strength. In this regard, while they¡¯lle back to life, much of their previous strength will scatter and disappear.

    ¡°Granted, that¡¯s a good thing in this age because core origin dao has disappeared. Having too much strength might cause a bacsh for their core origin. There are many treasures inside the research center, but not ones in the conventional sense. Many of them are items that are critical to this new era, including transportation passages!¡±

    ¡°And what¡¯s that?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°In the ancient times, Apexes could tear through the void and instantly cover five hundred kilometers. After the Human King conquered the world, the research center found that these passages through space could be stabilized through certain treasures. The treasures anchored the passages. That saved a lot of time!

    ¡°A unique transportation system formed in thetter days of New Martial. Ordinary people used nes or cars, the strong and military used transportation passages. This technology exists in the research center.

    ¡°Like now, if themander wishes to go to Silver Moon, it will take you at least a day no matter how strong you are. Much can change in a day. Once the transportation passages are constructed, you can be there in the blink of an eye. All it¡¯ll take is a lot of mysterious power stones.¡±

    This was tant temptation. Li Hao looked at him and didn¡¯t say a word. It was difficult to say whether this guy was a modern or ancient human. He had the memories of an ancient human and the body of a modern human. However, his memories might not be intact and his life mark belonged to this age. Li Hao could tell that the other¡¯s mess of mental strength did not fully overwrite a young soul.

    So this guy wanted to resurrect the ck Armor. How interesting! The ck Armor himself didn¡¯t wish to revive, or he would¡¯ve asked Li Hao for help long ago. ording to Yuming, the ck Armor could even issue emergencymands to the leaders of the eight main cities. Was that true?

    Could the dean of education for a universitymand the Battle Heaven city lord andmander-in-chief?

    Of course, Li Hao was aware that Evenround Martial University did note from an ordinary background. It was certainly impressive that they had the second and third generations of the truly powerful as students.

    The young man actually vaguely knew the reason for this. The author behind <i>The ounts of Evenround </i>had mentioned that she had an older brother, that everyone liked herter on because they adored her brother. Who could aplish that in the ancient age?

    <i>Personally edited by the Human King...</i>

    Li Hao wasn¡¯t an idiot, he¡¯d long guessed at the truth. The principal of Evenround Martial was probably the Human King¡¯s younger sister. It wouldn¡¯t be hyperbole to say that her background was the greatest there was. However, it¡¯d been so many years since the fall of New Martial. Would any of its technology still be operating?

    ¡°Do those of the New Martial era have any goals?¡± Li Hao asked as various thoughts appeared in his mind.

    ¡°Um... yes!¡± Yuming blinked. ¡°True New Martial citizens only have one goal, and that is to go back!¡±

    ¡°Go back?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    Li Hao suddenly understood. That had been the case at Evenround Martial. A puppet sought him out saying that they wanted to go home and hoped that he could help.

    ¡°I mean true New Martial citizens,¡± Yuming further borated. ¡°But many nt spirits, beast spirits, and even some powerhouses might¡¯ve had their original intentions eroded by the passage of time. Perhaps they want to be the masters of the world, perhaps they wish to set themselves up as kings and emperors, perhaps they¡¯re afraid of everything behind the Star Gate...

    ¡°Real New Martial denizens will not bow their heads! They wish to go back, to take to the battlefield once more. Therefore, Commander Li does not need to fear these people or these monster spirits. What you need to fear are the faux New Martial citizens who have lost their honor!¡±

    The true ancients only wanted to go back. Li Hao turned over these words. That was probably true. When the leader of the tenth troop in Battle Heaven pierced through the firmament with his sword, his only thought was to march on the heavens again...

    They wanted to return to their home. Silver Moon Territory was just a vassal world.

    ¡°Make your preparations for the sky canopy first,¡± Li Hao said with a deep breath. ¡°I¡¯ll consider these matters and inquire with the dean as to his thoughts. You can¡¯t do what you want just because you want to!¡±

    ¡°You... he¡¯s willing to talk to you?¡± Yuming blinked.

    ¡°And why not?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Yuming didn¡¯t say anything. <i>Isn¡¯t it very normal for him not to be willing? My memories paint him as a proud and aloof individual. So Li Hao can talk to him! That¡¯s a good thing.</i>

    ¡°Is there anything you wish for me to pass on to him?¡± asked Li Hao.

    Yuming thought it over and shook his head. ¡°No. The owner of my memories isn¡¯t... actually that close to him. The two weren¡¯t part of the same system, so there¡¯s nothing they can discuss. Everything he¡¯s doing is just to go home.¡±

    Alright then! Li Hao had nothing to say about that. He did have a new decision in mind, however. He¡¯d wanted to drag his heels a little before, but now decided to make a trip back to Silver Moon.

    But before that, he would visit Evenround Martial first.

    ¡°Go on then, do whatever you should do!¡± Li Hao waved off the boy. ¡°Additionally, this will be the only exception. There will not be a second. If the resurrection you speak of involves taking possession of a body from a modern human, I¡¯ll let you know that death is the only oue in store even after revival!¡±

    Yuming nodded and said after some hesitation, ¡°Um... Commander Li truly overestimates the modern human body. No real New Martial powerhouse will be willing to take possession of a weakling¡¯s body. Even forging one out of life force is better than using the body of a modern human. Not to mention, our cultivation systems are different. It would be difficult for them to return to their previous strength.

    ¡°Hence, there¡¯s really no need for themander to worry about this. Especially... especially as Skystar citizens are really ridiculously weak. Even themander is incredibly weak and less than the body of an eighth ss golden body...¡±

    Li Hao glowered. That was a p right to the face!

    ¡°These aren¡¯t my thoughts, but the ones from the memories buried deep in my mind...¡± Yuming said with embarrassment.

    ¡°That¡¯s enough, you may go. Go find your sister and aunt!¡± Li Hao dismissed impatiently.

    ¡°My apologies for making a spectacle!¡± Yuming promptly left. Li Hao was irritated and he didn¡¯t want to spend a long period of time with themander either. Li Hao still naturally exuded a certain pressure.

    Once he left, Hong Yitang said softly, ¡°You don¡¯t need to pay too much attention to him. I rather hope you subdue the City of Supernaturals as soon as possible. I need the one million supernaturals to work the fields.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao rolled his eyes. Old Hong was getting too full of himself! ¡°Too much is happening recently, I need to deal with them one at a time. I¡¯ll take care of the Wind and Cloud Pavilion first, then kill a few nt spirits for sufficient Water of Life. Once I can dominate the nt spirits, I¡¯ll swiftly finish my conquests onnd!

    ¡°I¡¯ll try to finish it all before the end of the year and will be making a visit back in hopes that the strong nt spirit in Battle Heaven can till the fields for me. I need sufficient grain to make it through this winter...¡±

    Hong Yitang felt that the young man was getting too full of himself. <i>I just want one million supernaturals to be farmers, but you want General Pagoda to y that role for you? You¡¯re nuts!</i>

    The two looked at each other and smiled. All of it was fine! These people and nt spirits could all be sent to the fields. What was this constant nonsense about conquest and dominion?

    ¡°What new knowledge has your master taught you?¡± Hong Yitang smiled as he looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°Mm, Martial Uncle Hong can visit my master in the Hu ruins if you¡¯re interested.¡± Li Hao wouldn¡¯t teach anyone else when his master was around.

    ¡°Forget it, I don¡¯t get along with him.¡± Hong Yitang shook his head. ¡°Biting off too big a mouthful leads to indigestion, I don¡¯t have your potential and level of energy...¡±

    ¡°My potential is ordinary...¡±

    Hong Yitang couldn¡¯t be bothered with a response. That was ordinary? Li Hao¡¯s potential was frighteningly strong. Just the speed with which heprehended the five auras was shockingly fast. Only Li Hao thought he was too slow and less than his teacher. He¡¯d forgotten that Yuan Shuo took decades to grasp his!

    The young man was taught by the ancients and the most talented group of martial masters in the modern world. His breadth of knowledge was absolutely astounding. How many were more knowledgeable than him in this world?

    He was just a bit young and hadn¡¯t personally experienced everything he¡¯d heard of.

    Hong Yitang didn¡¯t want to listen to more of this foolishness and left. He needed to prepare for the start of the school year.

 Chapter 849: Grown Too Bold (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 849: Grown Too Bold (IV)</h4>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t return to his study of the personal domain. He was so busy these days that he wanted nothing more than a double of himself. A double to cultivate, a double to do work, a double to travel, and a double to be in a rtionship for him... What a pity that such a thing wasn¡¯t possible.

    ......

    <i>Evenround Martial University.</i>

    ¡°What are you doing here again?¡± grumbled the ck Armor when he sensed his visitor. Again and again, this was so annoying! He wanted to spend some time contemting life, but the little bastard kept interrupting his thoughts! It¡¯d only been a few days since thest visit!

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    ¡°I¡¯m a student. Is the dean not letting a student return to campus?¡±

    ¡°......¡± The ck Armor wanted to dunk himself in a vat of regret. Why had he made the little bastard a student?? <i>Damn it!</i> The august personage wanted to break out in curses!

    ¡°What do you want?¡± he asked brusquely.

    ¡°There seems to be a lingering trace of mental strength from the Lu Zhen Research Center that¡¯s awoken in a modern human. Is this good or bad?¡±

    ¡°Are you thinking of possession?¡± rumbled the ck Armor. ¡°It shouldn¡¯te down to that. Normal New Martial citizens wouldn¡¯t find your bodies appealing. They would rather take possession of a weapon and be a weapon spirit than one of you.¡±

    ...damn if that wasn¡¯t a vicious tongue! Li Hao wanted to erupt in outright insults!

    ¡°Has someone gone about it in a haphazard manner and broken this person¡¯s mental strength to force it into another person¡¯s body? If that¡¯s the case, then there might be no helping it. The mental strength and memories might be mixed together to the point where they can¡¯t be separated...¡±

    Li Hao nodded. That was what had happened. Those were precisely Yun Haoran¡¯s actions.

    ¡°Whoever did so... was diabolical!¡± sighed the ck Armor. ¡°Living in a strictly mental form is better than having memories shattered and being forced into another person¡¯s body. What a shame, I wonder which of Lu Zhen¡¯s research members was that unlucky.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t find the words to respond. He¡¯d just wanted to know if this was a good or bad development, but the ck Armor¡¯s response was to the level of¡ª<i>don¡¯t even think about it. I wouldn¡¯t take possession of a body even if you presented it to me for free. I¡¯d rather live in pure mental form!</i>

    ¡°So this means to say that ancient powerhouses won¡¯t possess modern people?¡±

    ¡°Ai!¡± sighed the ck Armor again. ¡°It¡¯s not impossible. If that person wasn¡¯t right in the head, in a confused state, or about to explode... then they might randomly take possession of whoever¡¯s nearby. Otherwise, isn¡¯t it better to be obliterated?¡±

    <i>You... I¡¯d never realized before that you can be so cutting with your words. But you seem more alive this way. You were like a machine before!</i>

    ¡°He wants to resurrect you...¡± Li Hao set his reactions aside.

    ¡°There¡¯s no need!¡± The ck Armor shook his head. ¡°I know a bit of what the research center was looking into, but it¡¯s all trash. My mental strength will decline and my body will be iparably weak after I am revived. I would soon turn into an eighth or ninth rank existencepared to what I am now. The only way I can ept that is if I¡¯m dead!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    Very well then! And Yuming wanted to resurrect him... but his target didn¡¯t desire that course of action.

    ¡°Eighth or ninth rank... is that the equivalent of five or six element Arcanus?¡±

    ¡°Pretty much. They can live for one thousand years if their body is strong enough. Thus, it¡¯s apletely different notion.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao didn¡¯t even want to continue the conversation anymore. He changed the subject in a muffled voice, ¡°That¡¯s fine, we can drop the topic. I have another question, senior, I¡¯d like to revive General Pagoda. Is there any problem with that?¡±

    ¡°It should be fine so long as Battle Heaven still stands,¡± the ck Armor said after some thought. ¡°Do not revive the nt spirits if the city has fully fallen silent! Those not of our race are certain to have turned traitor! But if Battle Heaven still exists, then that means the core ideals are still present. Faith is still present, and if faith is present, then all is well!¡±

    Although he felt that this fellow¡¯s tongue was too sharp, Li Hao was more at ease with his answer.

    ¡°I¡¯ll p you to death if you keep insulting me in your heart!¡± the ck Armor chose to say at this moment.

    ¡°...cough cough cough!¡± Li Hao broke into a coughing fit and stered a wide smile on his face. ¡°You misunderstand me, senior!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to sense your thoughts either,¡± the ck Armor said faintly. ¡°But I am only mental strength now and as such, it is even easier for me to sense mental processes. Shroud your mind with the aura if you don¡¯t wish for me or other powerhouses to hear you. Wrap it around your mind...¡±

    ¡°Like this?¡± Li Hao was suddenly enveloped by a personal domain.

    The ck Armor quieted down and seemed to be looking upon the scene with great emotion. ¡°Go on, I don¡¯t have what you want. Don¡¯t disturb me so easily next time, I want to spend some time in peace and quiet!¡±

    Li Haoughed. <i>You walking hunk of metal wants some quiet? Guess what? I¡¯ming back!</i> He was delighted to see apleteck of reaction from a litany of disrespect. The ck Armor really couldn¡¯t read his thoughts anymore!

    With that, the young man walked off. He patted the robotic cat at the school gates when he left. ¡°So cute, I¡¯lle back to see you guys again...¡± He was gone.

    ¡°Teacher, he touched me!¡± the robotic cat gasped after he left.

    ¡°He touched a puppet, not you. Don¡¯t think too much!¡± The ck Armor said after a while.

    ¡°But... he touched me!¡±

    ¡°Settle down. So he touched you, you don¡¯t have a physical body anymore...¡±

    ¡°But...¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s enough. Remember that you¡¯re seventy... eighty thousand... who knows how old you are! He¡¯s only twenty. So he touched you, go back to resting!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not that old...¡± The cat instantly disappeared with a sob.

    The ck Armor ignored her. It was useless to deny it. Time passed even as they slept. Li Hao was growing ever more interesting and bold. Was he ready to revive General Pagoda?

    Battle Heaven... That rather reminded him of a young junior at Demonic Martial that was a division leader at Battle Heaven. <i>I wonder if he¡¯s still alive? I forgot to ask Li Hao to look into it.</i>

    ......

    Li Hao didn¡¯t even bring Panther with him on his next outing. He sent the dog to keep watch. Panth was first rate at concealing its presence and finding people. It would only waste food if it stayed at home. Hence, it was better for it to go out and stay busy.

    The young man didn¡¯t bother telling anyone about his ns. After truly setting foot into Arcanus, he quite liked traveling alone to test his new abilities.

    ......

    <i>Earthbending.</i>

    The technique felt like taking a bath in a hot spring. It was veryforting to Li Hao as he shot through the ground. The terrain ahead of him formed in his mind¡¯s eye as he traveled at an extremely fast speed. He climbed every mountain and swam through every body of water he encountered. When he came across the isted desert, he manifested to shoot through the void as a ball of fiery light.

    <i>This</i> was what it truly meant to be an Arcanus!

    He also experimented with the wind and thunder secret arts, trying to be a gale wind or both of lightning. Each trip was a cultivation opportunity for him, a chance to rx.

    He flew to his heart¡¯s desire and thoroughly enjoyed the joy of cultivation each time he was in an uninhabited area. His inner child came out to y when he was in a ce where no one would see him.

    Cultivation was fun, but being forced into it and cultivating for the sake of killing wasn¡¯t what he wanted. That wasn¡¯t the meaning of cultivation. Whether it was martial masters or superhumans, they were all meant to explore the mysteries of the human body in Li Hao¡¯s eyes. He didn¡¯t understand those who fixated on conquest and being the Human King. Wasn¡¯t cultivation meant to strengthen the self and surpass the limits of life?

    He wandered unhurriedly through the world, exulting in his freedom. However, that sensation soon disappeared. Another figure was rushing through the void and stopped when it sensed Li Hao. Its extremely fast figure paused and looked back at the young man.

    Li Hao also looked into the distance, seeing that the other had very delicate features. They seemed quite young¡ªa woman. He more or less recognized her the second he saw her face. There were very few powerful women beneath the heavens these days. It was usually either city lord Lin Hongyu or the Celestial Sword Immortal of the Celestial organization.

    The person in front of him was not the Celestial Sword Immortal that he¡¯d seenst time. Since she wasn¡¯t, it had to be Lin Hongyu of the City of Supernaturals. She was said to be the heir of an ancient aristocracy and had be city lord at a young age.

    Lin Hongyu looked very young¡ªan appearance that reflected her actual age. Li Hao wasn¡¯t very familiar with her, only hearing from others that she was roughly thirty or so. All the same, she was able to dominate the other families of the city to be the city lord. One had to say, that was very indicative of strength and skill.

    She wore a long green skirt and didn¡¯t seem like a martial master. Li Hao hadn¡¯t thought they would cross paths here; killing intent gradually built in his eyes. What a coincidence! The City of Supernaturals had just announced that they would ally with Jade Flute and Sunset Mountain. This was the northern direction, so that meant she was likely headed to Jade Flute Mountain.

    It was said that that mountain lord was also female. These two mountains kept such a low profile that Li Hao wasn¡¯t familiar with them.

    So the city lord headed to Jade Flute Mountain, was she? Li Hao promptly vanished from sight with a p of thunder and lightning.

    Though Lin Hongyu¡¯s expression shifted slightly in the distance, she remained without fear. She hadn¡¯t thought that she¡¯d run into the renowned Li Hao in the middle of this bleakndscape. She¡¯d yet toe in contact with the young man, whereas Li Hao had killed a few Arcanus from her city.

    The City of Supernaturals had decided to quietly let things lie and didn¡¯t demonstrate hostility toward the Skystar Commander Office for it. Of course, it was a given that the Skystar Commander Office would want to bring the City of Supernaturals to heel.

    She knew the situation was bad when Li Hao disappeared. The young man was highly arrogant, alright! As a fellow peak six elements, her cement on the real ranking should be in the top ten. Li Hao chose to attack without further word¡ªa sign of how cocky he was. The two met in battle!

 Chapter 850: An Eye for an Eye (I)

    <h4>Chapter 850: An Eye for an Eye (I)</h4>

    A curved de appeared in Lin Hongyu¡¯s hand. The void seemed to break when she thrust it forward and immense blood qi rushed to the clouds. It was apparent from that move alone that she was also a martial master like Chen Zhongtian, using origin weapons to protect her meridians.

    Wind and thunder roared as the advent of a storm! An incredible downpour covered thend in a misty haze.

    de light pierced through the vicinity. The peak six elements Lin Hongyu was formidable beyond belief. She shed through wind and thunder, broke through the deafening rain, and split apart the waves.

    Meanwhile, mes rose from the ground as Li Hao reached out with his hand! Golden sword qi swept through thend. Sand dunes undted over the desert, forming a towering giant that punched at Lin Hongyu.

    The two hadn¡¯t said a single word since encountering each other. To meet was to go for the other¡¯s throat. Both were surprised by the sudden battle, but neither of the two showed the slightest desire to pull their blows or fire only warning shots.

    Li Hao had been experimenting with the abilities of his five elements recently. It was a stroke of luck that he happened to run into a powerful opponent that fulfilled his testing needs. The giant of sand shook the world when it punched out. Lin Hongyu grunted and shed through the sky with her de. The giant copsed!

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    <i>Incredible!</i>

    The woman was domineering indeed. No wonder she ranked above Qi Pingjiang. Her true ranking had been number five, behind Li Hao, Ying Hongyue, the old Skystar King, and the old minister of Administration.

    Her curved de scored the void, showing that it could break through the void as a possibility. Li Hao didn¡¯t mind. He closed his eyes and sent the wind howling around him. Thunder and lightning danced with glee!

    The five elements converged from all sides. Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth red through the hazy mist across the ground and formed five elemental powerhouses. A fire tiger, willow tree, waves...

    The five heavyweights rushed Lin Hongyu. The woman¡¯s expression changed drastically. <i>What is this??</i>

    Li Hao directed his elements elsewhere instead of drawing closer to his opponent, turning them into mind-boggling disys of skill as appropriate of the Arcanus level. Lin Hongyu rose into the air, breaking through the void again with her curved de. Her hair fanned out like thousands of sharp daggers, piercing through the sky.

    The five elemental heavyweights could not stop her!

    <i>RUMBLE!!</i>

    A massive impact broke through the enormous wave. Lin Hongyu whirled around to flee. She knew she was in grave trouble when the five elements appeared. Li Hao also had wind and thunder to draw on, which meant he¡¯d set foot into seven elements. The only reason why he couldn¡¯t bring all of his strength to bear was because the world did not tolerate seven element Arcanus.

    Regardless, she needed to depart the scene. Otherwise, she might soon die to Li Hao¡¯s hands. Never did Lin Hongyu fathom that she¡¯d be attacked halfway on a casual trip to Jade Flute Mountain!

    ¡°Trying to leave?¡± Li Hao looked coolly at his opponent. Lin Hongyu¡¯s expression changed drastically as the world snapped into ce around her as a cage!

    The domain of the five elements sealed off the four corners. Li Hao approached her through the air. ¡°Since we¡¯ve bumped into each other, stay!¡±

    ¡°Commander Li!¡± Lin Hongyu demanded solemnly. ¡°Do we have a grudge with each other?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Three Arcanus from the City of Supernaturals tried to kill me at Evenround Martial! The Heaven¡¯s Eye threatened my master at Skystar Sea to force him to hand over the secret arts of the Five Styles! <i>You</i> tell <i>me</i> if there is a grudge between us!¡±

    Sword light shot through the air before Lin Hongyu had a chance to respond. A sword shed out, the firmament split open!

    Lin Hongyu¡¯s jaw dropped with dismay. ¡°This is impossible!¡± Seven elements!

    She roared and broke through the void with a swing of her de. A redwood manifested in the void, its presence formidable. It jerked with dismay as soon as it appeared!

    ¡°Apex level??¡± Mental ripples roiled violently.

    ¡°Break the blockade!¡± Lin Hongyu shouted.

    <i>BOOM!</i>

    The tree¡¯s branches shook and shattered the void. It brought unimaginable battle strength to bear, piercing through Li Hao¡¯s domain of the five elements. The void shattered, but sliced the big tree to pieces at the same time.

    The young man grunted and withdrew his power of the five elements. Lin Hongyu broke through the air and vanished. The big tree was immediately sliced to smithereens. A cold look on his face, Li Hao summoned thousands of rays of sword intent with one hand and swung Steris, detonating the tree!

    A surge of core origin agitated¡ªthe precursor to self detonation. Li Hao¡¯s cage of the five elements descended once more and confined all of the core origin. It still churned ferociously!

    Li Hao frowned at it. That big tree should¡¯ve been the replica of a powerful nt spirit. It possessed the battle strength of an Apex, but was unable to bring its full strength to bear once it left the protective zone of his personal domain. The void would swoop in then to cut it to pieces.

    Breaking the domain of the five elements was a suicidal move for the big tree. And yet, it¡¯d done so without hesitation for Lin Hongyu. Didn¡¯t it know the consequences of its actions?

    Li Hao looked at the streak of green fast disappearing in the distance. His voice shook heaven and earth as it pursued the figure.

    ¡°Lin Hongyu, you will lead the one million inhabitants of the City of Supernaturals and offer yourplete surrender within ten days. Otherwise, you can escape today, but you cannot escape forever. I¡¯d like to see how many core origin replicas are willing to sacrifice themselves for you¡ªor even the primary body itself!¡± Li Hao denounced coldly. If it hadn¡¯t been for the Apex-level replica buying time for Lin Hongyu, she would already be dead.

    Although the redwood¡¯s replica had shattered, it was still struggling. It looked at the young man with disbelief and incredulity. ¡°Who... are you?¡±

    ¡°Li Hao.¡± Li Hao frowned at the violently shaking ripples. He wasn¡¯t willing to absorb core origin power, but wouldn¡¯t it be a waste to not absorb it? Forget it, he would save it and gift it to the little tree¡¯s primary body as a greeting gift.

    <i>I¡¯m such a polite person!</i>

    Although he was irritated at Lin Hongyu running off, he didn¡¯t mind it that much. So what if word got out about his strength? Seven elements? There were three more seven element Arcanus on the ranking. Did it matter if he became the fourth?

    ¡°Heh, this is rather interesting though...¡± Li Hao looked at the tattered redwood replica. ¡°You are willing to sacrifice your own replica in order to protect her. You would¡¯ve retained your strength if you continued to fight me inside the domain. Why did you break it?¡±

    The replica didn¡¯t respond.

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if you don¡¯t say anything.¡± Li Hao raised an eyebrow. ¡°It¡¯s my lucky day to pick up an Apex core origin replica for free. I need a greeting gift for my return to Silver Moon, so this is perfect!¡±

    The big tree wanted to speak on, but intent of the Lifeless Sword erupted!

    <i>Boom!</i>

    Core origin shattered as the replica was eradicated from the world. Core origin power began to drift away on the wind, but Li Hao enclosed the pieces with a domain of the five elements. The young man was powerful beyond belief in this moment!

    ......

    In the distance, Lin Hongyu fled with an ashen face. When had she ever thought that she would end up in such dismal straits with an Apex replica protecting her? Not only was the replica no more, but she¡¯d almost died on the spot. She would¡¯ve died without the replica.

    ¡°That¡¯s impossible... seven elements... and being able to fully deploy the strength of seven elements...¡± Lin Hongyu was white as a sheet. How could Li Hao have reached these heights?? It was unbelievable!

    She was to lead the City of Supernaturals in surrendering within ten days...

    Lin Hongyu had originally thought that even if three seven element Arcanus appeared, she would be fine if she allied with Jade Flute and Sunset Mountains. After all, those of seven elements could not fully exert themselves. Their strength would be much diminished even if they could avoid being severed by the void.

    What happened today was particrly hard to ept. She was beside herself; Lin Hongyu had always thought that she was the martial master with the strongest potential beneath the heavens. Making it to peak six elements at thirty years old with origin weapons protection her meridians made her the strongest martial master.

    There was nothing to Arcanus! She hadn¡¯t thought much of seven element Arcanus, but today, she discovered that this level was incredibly strong.

    This encounter was a surprise to both sides, but the results made Lin Hongyu despair. Why was Li Hao so strong?? The redwood¡¯s replica was gone!

    A variety of thoughts ran through her mind and she gave up her trip to Jade Flute Mountain. She ran as fast as she could, back to the City of Supernaturals! Perhaps... only there could she find peace of mind.

    Not even the City of Supernaturals was safe. Only the Lin secret base nearby could shelter be found. The primary body of the redwood could also be found there as well.

    ......

    <i>The desert.</i>

    Li Haoughed. Not bad! This was a nice pickup for a casual walk outside. The fight hadn¡¯t been intense as the tree¡¯s replica had shown a suicidal tendency. Otherwise, if they fought inside the domain of the five elements, it would be very difficult for Li Hao to kill the replica as he didn¡¯t have the little tree with him.

    Of course, he was invincible in the outside world and could withdraw the domain to achieve that, but that might facilitate the big tree¡¯s escape.

    ¡°Presentse to me when I set foot outside... I wonder if the woman will bring her one million citizens to surrender in ten days time?¡± Li Hao had simply issued a threat. It was fine if they didn¡¯t surrender, he would eradicate them all the same!

    The big tree had lost an Apex level replica. He was even considering whether he should rush over to kill the primary body. Heughed softly and left through the air.

    Someone raced to the scene long after his departure. The void fragments had returned to aplete whole. The neer observed carefully with some disbelief. ¡°The void is broken... who did it?¡± he asked softly. Had they gone down together with their opponent?

    This was a demonstration of strength beyond the limits of the world. That was why the void had broken. Was it the replica of a nt spirit, monster beast, or something else? It couldn¡¯t be a modern human... right? The three seven elements on the ranking all seemed to be at home.

 Chapter 851: An Eye for an Eye (II)

    <h4>Chapter 851: An Eye for an Eye (II)</h4>

    <i>Silver Moon.</i>

    Li Hao traveled very quickly, so swiftly that his speed couldn¡¯t be believed. Even a long journey was very enjoyable when one was in good spirits. He headed not for White Moon City or any other ce, but straight to Mount Cat Head.

    The ruin of the imperial pce immediately opened up to him. The little tree¡¯s primary body swayed with befuddlement. ¡°You¡¯ve...e back?¡±

    <i>Where¡¯s my replica?</i>

    The little tree had no way of knowing what¡¯d taken ce if its replica did not return. Only when its replica returned could the tree gain the full picture.

    ¡°I¡¯vee back and brought you some goodies!¡± Li Hao smiled. A dense current of core origin wafted out.

    The tree stilled with shock!

    ¡°Ah...¡±

    ¡°I bumped into the replica of a redwood spirit on my way here and decided to take it out.¡±

    The little tree waspletely taken aback, the dense core origin further prevented it from regaining itsposure. This all sounded so ordinary and run of the mill! There was so much core origin here that the other nt spirit was most likely just as strong as it. Its replica wasn¡¯t with Li Hao, so how was the young man supposed to kill the replica of an Apex under such circumstances?

    ¡°You... you killed it?¡± The little tree couldn¡¯t even remember to be delighted.

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    ¡°So your... your strength has improved? But...¡±

    ¡°Senior will know when you meet your replica. I hope that the senior will improve quickly. Your replica is probably on par with your primary body now. This core origin energy is my greeting gift. Please raise another crop of rations for me, the more the better!¡±

    The little tree was stunned beyond words. <i>My replica has improved too? What has Li Hao been doing?</i>

    Li Hao looked at the hazy outline of the imperial pce close by while the tree grappled with its shock. He was reminded of the little tree utilizing the pce¡¯s projection to suppress everything. That was indeed a domineering move. There were likely actual traces of a great emperor¡¯s dao in the pce. Even if it didn¡¯t have any treasures inside, this location itself was a treasure.

    The little tree grew nervous to see the young man nce at the pce. Indeed, nervous. What if Li Hao decided he wanted the pce?

    It could no longer see through the young man, particrly with his casual mention of killing an Apex redwood¡¯s replica on his way here. That was a nerve-racking development¡ªit hadn¡¯t thought that Li Hao would grow so strong in such a short period of time.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, senior!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°I¡¯m just looking around, I don¡¯t have anything else in mind. Whether it¡¯s the imperial majesty¡¯s pce or the Human King¡¯s pce... they¡¯re just ancient architecture to me. There¡¯s not much value in them.¡±

    He was weak, but his breadth of view had grown greater. These were just temporary, abandoned pces! He might be a little more interested if this was the primary residence.

    ¡°Please create more rations for me, senior, I¡¯ll be off. I¡¯m going to visit Battle Heaven and see if I can revitalize General Pagoda with the Immortal nt spirit¡¯s trunk...¡±

    ¡°Immortal?¡±

    ¡°Mmhmm. I coordinated with the senior¡¯s replica a few days ago to kill an Immortal nt spirit¡ªone of the ten guardian spirits protecting Skystar Town back in the day. It was a coconut tree¡ªthe Golden Coconut.¡±

    The little tree physically reeled from shock and even some horror. How was this possible?! The primary body of an Immortal!

    ¡°Li... Li Hao, aren¡¯t Apexes not tolerated by the outside world?¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    ¡°Then...¡±

    ¡°It tolerates me!¡±

    Fine then. The little tree had nothing to say. It didn¡¯t know why Li Hao could operate in the world outside; only shock and inexplicable reverence filled it. It was starting to grow afraid of how the young man¡¯s strength changed by the day.

    ¡°Then I take my leave, senior...¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t you need any more Water of Life?¡± came the little tree¡¯s ripples. ¡°With so much core origin, I can supply some Water of Life to you...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine!¡± Li Haoughed. ¡°Just focus on the rations. If General Pagoda awakens and converts Water of Life faster, I¡¯ll ask him. If not, I still have the senior¡¯s replica. It converts very quickly these days too...¡±

    The young man disappeared on the spot, leaving behind a suddenly anxious little tree.<i> I... don¡¯t seem as important anymore.</i> It didn¡¯t know what¡¯d taken ce all this time because its replica was still journeying outside. Li Hao was no longer taking its replica along when he traveled¡ªthat was a demonstration of utmost confidence! He was certain that nothing would happen to him even without the replica by his side.

    Indeed, he killed an Apex replica when he happened to encounter it along the way! That was terrifying!

    ¡°What should I do?¡±

    The young man had gone to revive General Pagoda. Would there be a ce left for it after the old general came back to life? The little tree grew frantic. It¡¯d finallytched onto this big thigh and even severed half of its core origin for the partnership. Who would¡¯ve thought that Li Hao would improve so quickly that even its replica might be less than useful these days? This was too panic inducing!

    Such a performance had only been seen in the Human King¡¯s era during the ancient civilization. Only that group of people had this kind of fortune and potential. Li Hao was shaping up to be even faster than them!

    ......

    Li Hao was unaware of the little tree¡¯s anxiety. He said all that to intimidate his nt spirit partner, to prevent any ulterior motives from developing. The second awakening mighte at any time. It was one thing if he was unfamiliar with a nt spirit, but those he was familiar with and had helped him before were targets that he was very willing to talk to.

    They better not start to brew other ns in their minds.

    Li Hao arrived at Rift Canyon before long; there were guards posted still. It was a much quieter ce these days as Silver Moon was much calmer after Li Hao started his conquest in Skystar City. Regr supernaturals didn¡¯t dare visit Silver Moon anymore.

    It was the deep of winter and white snow covered the canyon. The guards had rxed their vignce since all was quiet in Silver Moon these days. They blinked to see a figure appear in the void, tensing with nerves before erupting with glee and worship. ¡°Director Li!¡±

    ¡°At ease, everyone!¡± Li Hao smiled with a nod. ¡°You¡¯ve worked hard!¡±

    ¡°Not at all!¡± A Night Watcher powerhouse immediately rushed over. Well, a Sr counted as a powerhouse in Silver Moon. Li Hao remembered the man¡ªDeputy Director He, a water supernatural. ¡°Director Li, are you nning on entering the ruin?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao answered forthrightly. ¡°There¡¯s no need to notify anyone else. I¡¯m just making a quick visit.¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡± The deputy director quickly nodded. Li Hao was their superior these days, no one exercised more authority than him. After all, the Night Watcher headquarters had joined the Skystar Commander Office.

    The group watched Li Hao enter the ruins with mixed emotions. It¡¯d been a short period of time since he left White Moon City, but he soared to the skies as soon as he departed. He¡¯d brought all sides of the dynasty to heel and killed countless powerhouses. Arcanus fell like the rain. No one had anticipated any of this to happen.

    ......

    <i>Battle Heaven.</i>

    Director General Wang sensed something and immediately arrived at the city gates. A figure hovered in the distance.

    Li Hao raised his head to look at the towering pagoda tree¡ªit was so much bigger than the coconut tree that he couldn¡¯t see its top.

    ¡°I¡¯m heading into the city first, General Pagoda. I¡¯lle back for you in a moment!¡± The young man set foot forward. There was no response forting from the tree. Perhaps it was in full slumber.

    Li Hao immediately appeared by the city gates as soon as he set foot inside, startling the three troop leaders. So fast! A light shed within Director General Wang¡¯s golden armor.

    ¡°You¡¯re back!¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Li Hao smiled. ¡°Long time no see, director general!¡±

    Had it been a long time? Director General Wang was confused. It¡¯d... only been a month! Just about. Was that supposed to be long? ¡°You...¡±

    The director general couldn¡¯t determine anything from a casual nce at the young man. Li Hao hadpletely retracted his five elements as he entered the ruins, sending them to the secondary dimension. He looked the same as before¡ªtwo element Arcanus.

    That had been his level of strength on his prior visit and he looked the same now, but the director general felt that something had changed about the fellow.

    Li Hao was also much more confident than before, and much stronger. He could tell from a single nce that Director General Wang might have been an Apex or Immortal in his time, but he wasn¡¯t that strong now. What they¡¯d once found invincible was simply a result of themselves being too weak. Now that he looked at it, Director General Wang was at most an Apex¡ªon par with the replica of the big tree that he¡¯d killed earlier.

    He was... a little weak.

    A light suddenly shone out of Li Hao¡¯s eyes and he looked into the city with a raised eyebrow. ¡°Please don¡¯t look at me like that, senior.¡± He smiled. ¡°It¡¯s ufortable...¡±

    ¡°And why can¡¯t I look at you?¡± Director General Wang asked with surprise.

    ¡°Not you, director general.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Wang blinked and abruptly realized something. As expected, a voice rippled through the air.

    ¡°You... quite surprise me.¡±

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    ¡°The senior praises me too highly.¡± Li Hao inclined his body.

    ¡°......¡± Director General Wang was surprised beyond belief and turned to the pagoda. The guardian spirit was speaking to Li Hao! What was this?

    ¡°Open the doors, director general. I¡¯m entering the city.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Wang was so startled that he didn¡¯t know what to say. My image of a mysterious senior doesn¡¯t seem to havested for long.<i> This guy doesn¡¯t treat me with as much respect as he used to. What is this?</i>

    The city gates swung open and Li Hao raised his head to consider the two characters of ¡®Battle Heaven¡¯. Perhaps... he would have some additional gains this time. These two words hailed from an ancient exalted emperor themselves. They contained the exalted emperor¡¯s dao. He couldn¡¯t understand them before and only saw some mirages. But this time, he might be able to study them again. Perhaps he¡¯dprehend something new. If he could turn these characters into his supernatural characters... that would be a tremendous gain!

 Chapter 852: An Eye for an Eye (III)

    <h4>Chapter 852: An Eye for an Eye (III)</h4>

    Li Hao walked into the city. The three troop leaders immediately appeared as well. Light shed in the young man¡¯s eyes and he turned his gaze onto his threerades. He sighed inwardly when he did so, truly seeing the heart of their condition.

    <i>Souls residing in the armor!</i>

    The three troop leaders were fully dead and had be weapon souls. The ck Armor in Evenround Martial had said that true New Martial powerhouses would rather take possession of weapons than humans...

    Li Hao finally believed him with this evidence. So many martial masters and supernaturals hade from the outside world on previous excursions. Why be a weapon soul if they could take possession of those targets? It looked like these were true New Martial citizens and cleaved to their faith and pride.

    ¡°It¡¯s been a long time, troop leaders!¡±

    The three troop leaders looked at each other. Long time? It hadn¡¯t been that long! Li Hao¡¯s memories were confused, weren¡¯t they?

    ¡°Er... yes... long time...¡± They were unused to this treatment. When had Li Hao be so noticeable?

    Indeed, he was carrying himself in a manner that made him noticeable. His confidence was off the charts, one that stemmed from the bottom of his heart. This didn¡¯t mean to say that he could dominate Battle Heaven, just that he¡¯d lost some of the innate fear modern humans had toward ancient powerhouses after killing a nt spirit.

    He used to find them invincible. Now his thoughts were that <i>I can kill ancient nt spirits!</i>

    Director General Wang was quite surprised at the changes in the young man and didn¡¯t say anything for a while.

    Li Hao looked at the Turtle Pagoda. He¡¯d sensed some mental strengthing from it earlier¡ªso it seemed that the pagoda was far from ordinary. It should be an ancient weapon with a soul? Was there such a powerful one around?

    One had to know that even a Saint¡¯s weapon was just a weapon at the end of the day. His own Steris didn¡¯t demonstrate any overwhelming power. This pagoda, however, was different.

    A Battle Heaven treasure? The turtle of the Wangs? He¡¯d always thought that the ck Tortoise Seal was one of the weapons of the eight. Was he wrong and the true ck Tortoise Seal the pagoda?

    Various thoughts rose in his mind and Li Hao wasn¡¯t in a hurry to discuss other matters. He simply smiled and said, ¡°I¡¯ve just returned and must go to the barracks to meet themander and give a report. I will be back to meet with the director general!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Everyone was surprised. This guy wanted to stay as far away from the barracks as possible before. What¡¯d gotten into him today? He ran for the barracks as soon as he returned! Was he not afraid of themander anymore? How very strange!

    Director General Wang wasn¡¯t at liberty to say much, so he nodded. ¡°Very well, you should report in first.¡±

    Li Hao was gone before he finished. He really had rushed off to the barracks!

    ¡°What a strange fellow!¡± murmured the director general.

    ¡°The kid¡¯s had some unusual gains!¡± came the old turtle¡¯s voice by his ears. ¡°I sense some things from him... he might have killed an Apex not too long ago!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The director general blinked.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know if it was the primary body, maybe it was just a replica. But he should¡¯ve killed one. I can sense an air of ughter and some of the lingering reluctance and resentment of an Apex. It should¡¯ve happened recently¡ªthe signs wouldn¡¯t be so obvious otherwise!¡±

    ¡°How is that possible?¡± Director General Wang couldn¡¯t believe it, but immediately thought of something. ¡°Does it have to do with the guard of the imperial pce? There was a replica with thedst time...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, perhaps... not.¡± The old turtle fell silent. It didn¡¯t sense the imperial pce guard on Li Hao anymore. Perhaps it wasn¡¯t with the young man.

    ......

    <i>Within the barracks.</i>

    A crowd of Red Armors saluted at Li Hao. A troop leader was still an officer. An excited Li Hao made straight for the headquarters of the Ninth Division¡ªhis nightmare was almost over! The leader of the Ninth Division was an Apex back in the day, how much battle strength did he have left?

    <i>You beat me with a single punch that day, but here I am back again!</i>

    Li Hao sauntered into the building and roared at the top of his lungs in front of the office, ¡°Li Hao, leader of the Twelfth Troop of the Ninth Division hase back to report to themander!¡±

    His voice was extremely loud and reverberated through the surroundings! The door to the office immediately swung open of its own ord. Within, the Gold Armor always seemed to be busy.

    ¡°Are you yelling so loudly because you feel confident in yourself?¡± He raised his head with an aureate glint in his eyes.

    Li Hao mmed his legs together with a loud p and shouted, ¡°As a soldier, our voices need to be loud to ensure sufficient decorum! Those with softer voices are wusses! Commander, I havee to report in!¡±

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    ¡°......¡± The Gold Armor looked at Li Hao for a while. ¡°Mmhmm, I see. Dismissed!¡±

    The young man did not leave. ¡°Commander, I would like to be restored to my title of general!¡± he shouted.

    The Gold Armor paused.

    ¡°Based on what themander said that day, I have the right to be conferred a general rank due to being an heir of the Lis. However, I have been held back by themander. I think I can be restored to it now!¡±

    ¡°On what basis?¡± The Gold Armor nearlyughed in his anger.

    ¡°The rules!¡± Li Hao roared with all his might. ¡°These are the rules of Battle Heaven! I am a member of the Lis and deserve this kind of treatment!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The Gold Armor sized up Li Hao and grinned. ¡°Hmm, it¡¯s not bad to be full of confidence! You probably think of yourself as invincible after killing some powerhouses outside. You¡¯ve grown proud and cocky... Do you think my surname is Wang?¡±

    Li Hao blinked.

    ¡°A soldier... should not be this smug!¡± The Gold Armor stood up aloofly. ¡°Li Hao, do not think of yourself as being very strong. Remember, you are still just a weakling!¡±

    Li Hao felt the world shattered around him! His supernatural characters of the five elements materialized and he erupted with the force of seven elements Arcanus, but an exceedingly strong sword intent erupted from themander¡¯s body!

    ......

    <i>The city gates.</i>

    ¡°Has that guy let loose with his full strength?¡± Director General Wang blinked. That one had been the highest ranked among military officers and would¡¯ve long been promoted if it wasn¡¯t for the unexpected happening to Battle Heaven. The frontlines had already sent orders that thismander was to lead their First Troop. Of that, the director general was well aware of.

    Sadly, Battle Heaventer lost contact with the outside world. As time went on, that one continued to be the division leader of the Ninth Troop and no longer had opportunities to demonstrate his capabilities.

    Is he... going to beat Li Hao to death this time?

    ......

    <i>Bam!</i>

    Li Hao felt that a sword had appeared in his mind¡ªthe world was a foggy chaos. Themander¡¯s aloof voice traveled into his ear. ¡°This is it? That¡¯s all you have? Strength almost on par with Apex? Strength like this would only make you a troop leader back in the day, where do you get the confidence to be amander?

    ¡°You are but half step Apex! One might have thought you were a Saint from the way you were carrying yourself!¡±

    <i>Bam!</i>

    One punch!

    Li Hao mmed into the wall and slowly slid off it. Themander retracted his fist.

    ¡°Your physical body is too weak to be considered and the forceful amalgamation of the five elements has resulted in numerous ws! Your mental strength is ordinary, leaving only the aura as something slightly worthy of note. Is this all there is to you?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao stared dumbly at the Gold Armor. Why was this happening?? <i>It wasn¡¯t possible! I can fight Immortals and I just casually killed an Apex replica! Have you fully awakened?</i>

    ¡°How much battle strength did that Immortal have left?¡± The Gold Armor seemed to see through Li Hao¡¯s thoughts as the young man didn¡¯t have a chance to protect his mind. ¡°What you view as an Immortal is justpletely useless trash! It¡¯s just the supplemental guardian spirit of a military town¡ªhow much battle strength does it still possess after countless eons? Any of the main division leaders will not be afraid of it! Any troop leader can easily kill it!

    ¡°The only Skystar Town nt spirit that has truly recovered some of its battle strength is that bramble rose! But even so, it had to lower itself and bow when it saw me in my peak! Little fellow, don¡¯t be too cocky in life!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao continued staring dumbly. That was a powerful guardian nt spirit, supposedly at peak Immortal. It had to bow to themander when he was at his peak?

    <i>Aren¡¯t you... just a division leader? That makes you peak Apex at most, doesn¡¯t it?</i>

    He was iling around in befuddlement as his nightmare was upon him again. <i>Why... have I been beaten around again?</i>

    The ninth division leader returned to his seat, took out a sheet of paper and swiftly wrote a few words. ¡°Arrogant and overbearing,pletely forgetting himself in his pride, and unworthy of his achievements. Rmendation: expulsion from the Battle Heaven Army!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao could see the writing¡ªperhaps on purpose. He bounced up. ¡°Don¡¯t...¡±

    ¡°Mind the rules!¡±

    ¡°I was wrong, sir!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Themander looked at him for a long moment before saying, ¡°Out!¡±

    ¡°Understood, sir!¡± Li Hao turned around and rang, resignation writrge across his face. Was this one still amander? Other people¡¯s strength decreased by a great amount when they died. Why did this one seem stronger?

    The hell??

 Chapter 853: Another Promotion (I)

    <h4>Chapter 853: Another Promotion (I)</h4>

    Li Hao was quite depressed when he walked out of themander¡¯s office. <i>Why??</i> ording to his assessment, a division leader was an Apex, a reservemander was an Immortal, and an armymander was a Saint. Was there anything wrong with his thinking?

    Not at all!

    Even a peak Apex was doing well for themselves if they maintained being an Apex after so many years. <i>Therefore, while I may be weaker than my opponent, it shouldn¡¯t reach the point of being defeated with one punch! And he also uses the sword!</i>

    Although it¡¯d been a punch that defeated Li Hao, a wave of sword intent had spontaneously suppressed his aura and mind intent. That was the manifestation of a sword cultivator! Various thoughts ran through the young man¡¯s mind as he drooped with dejection. C¡¯mon, he¡¯d easily killed an Apex replica! His confidence was shattered!

    He set one reluctant foot in front of the other and inwardly cried to himself. He still wasn¡¯t free of this nightmare!

    Li Hao sped straight to the city lord manor. Director General Wang was the best!

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    ......

    <i>The city lord manor.</i>

    Director General Wang had returned to his post and was jauntily seated in a casual manner. He seemed to be in high spirits and even smiled when Li Hao came through the door. Although his face was enclosed by the golden armor, the young man could sense the smile.

    It was certainly a sardonic smile! <i>Damn it!</i>

    ¡°What... level is thatmander?¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°Not much of a level, he¡¯s not that strong,¡±ughed the director general. ¡°He¡¯d only just set foot into the Immortal level that year, but he improved quite quickly and reached peak Immortal when the great silence was upon us. To be honest, that¡¯s nothing worthy of note!¡±

    <i>Peak Immortal?</i>

    ¡°Are all division leaders this level of strength?¡± Li Hao mumbled. <i>Didn¡¯t you sayst time that they were Apexes?</i>

    ¡°Of course they aren¡¯t,¡±ughed Director General Wang. ¡°Immortals are usually reservemanders, but you know that¡¯s under normal circumstances. They aren¡¯t during special asions. Your division leader was due for a promotion that year, then unexpected events dyed that from happening.¡±

    Alright then! That was depressing! No wonder he had the right to confer military titles upon others. It meant that while he was nominally a division leader, he¡¯d long since taken over the duties of a reservemander.

    Peak Immortal ced him on par with the bramble rose? Themander had said that the nt spirit needed to bow its head when it saw him. That was true¡ªthis was a major personage of the Battle Heaven Army. Skystar Town was on a lower ranking to begin with.

    ¡°It¡¯s just peak Immortal. Do you have that right, director general?¡± Li Hao asked again since he couldn¡¯t rest easy. ¡°How much strength does he have left?¡±

    <i>What do you mean just peak Immortal??</i> Director General Wang wanted to roll his eyes at the question.

    ¡°How much strength he has left depends on whether his mental strength has increased over the years, or weakened in the great silence. The stilling of core origin dao may not have impacted him that much...¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± Why not? Li Hao didn¡¯t understand.

    ¡°Because he¡¯s...¡± Director General Wang suddenly stopped speaking with a cough. ¡°Nothing, let us move onto other topics.¡±

    Li Hao was skeptical of the sudden change and looked at the director general. Thetter had just been issued a hefty warning¡ª<i>damn if that guy isn¡¯t overbearing!</i>

    Why had he been issued a warning?

    Because the guy¡¯s dao wasn¡¯t that of pure core origin either. All methods led to the same dao, all became one in the body, Li Changsheng was the only one beneath the heavens! [1]

    But that was only in the beginning. After that, the Eternal Sword Sovereign wasn¡¯t the only one in the world. All methods led to the same dao!

    The soldiers saw limited effects from the dissipation of core origin dao since all daos led to the same destination and not everyone pursued core origin dao. This branch in particr had very weak bodies. At times, Director General Wang wondered if the Li n had influenced modern humans too much. Their bodies were so weak!

    Who knew?

    Back in the day, Silver Moon Territory revered the Li n as their leader. Perhaps the Sword Sovereign¡¯s dao was so domineering that it affected the entire world. It wasn¡¯t as apparent before the great silence, but quite apparent afterward.

    Countless thoughts ran through the director general¡¯s mind. It was also unknown how much strength that one in the army retained. He was a tough nut to crack. There weren¡¯t many who¡¯d awakened to begin with and this one didn¡¯t like to talk. It made for lonely days in Battle Heaven. He sat in his office from day to night¡ªit¡¯d been tens of thousands of years!

    ¡°Then is the director general an Apex or Immortal?¡± asked Li Hao, breaking into Director General Wang¡¯s thoughts.

    ¡°Me?¡± the man chuckled. ¡°Why do you want to know?¡±

    ¡°No reason, I¡¯m just curious,¡± Li Hao exined. ¡°Because I¡¯ve met Immortal level nt spirits, so I¡¯m wondering if the director general of Security at a main city... is just an Apex?¡±

    ¡°Heh,¡± snorted Director General Wang. ¡°Don¡¯t ask about me, I¡¯m just here to fill space. It wasn¡¯t long that I set foot into Immortal before everything happened and I am far less than yourmander. Security is an inward facing agency, we don¡¯t fight external enemies. Otherwise, my rank is not a low one.¡±

    Someone who¡¯d just set foot into Immortal? Then his strength should be less than the nt spirit. The nt spirits have been alive all this time and their physical bodies remained intact. None of these people had their physical bodies anymore.

    ¡°Don¡¯t think random thoughts,¡± the director general said softly.

    ¡°Eh?¡±

    ¡°I haven¡¯t read your mind, I can just make an urate guess at your thoughts,¡± Director General Wang replied. ¡°Don¡¯tpare the powerhouses of the main cities with the nt spirits in the wilderness. Do not everpare the heavyweights of the military with the monster spirits either! You must understand that in the New Martial age, human cultivators could fight three peers at once under normal conditions.

    ¡°Cultivation level is one thing, but battle strength is another. Humans conquered the world. Would monster spirits havee under our rule if we could not defeat monster spirits of the same level? Monster spirits have strong bloodlines and bodies, but what else do they have?¡± the director general snorted withughter. ¡°Nothing else! Whereas humanity has the strongest battle methods, weapons,manders, will, and faith. That is why we were able to dominate the four cornerbacks back in the day and conquer the world!¡±

    Li Hao sank deep into thought.

    ¡°That¡¯s all there is to nt and beast spirits. You¡¯d be quite mistaken to think you can handle heavyweights of the military after killing nt and beast spirits. You mustmit to memory that if you meet with any New Martial military powerhouse¡ªthe kind that¡¯s turned traitor¡ªyou must treat them as a higher level of existence when fighting them. You will be dead without a doubt otherwise!¡±

    Li Hao bobbed his head up and down. So that was the case!

    ¡°And another point¡ªthere were many paths in New Martial, core origin was just one of many. There was another era before New Martial, that one trained weapons and the physical body. They were still unquestionably domineering without core origin dao! Of course...¡± Director General Wang thought for a bit. ¡°They don¡¯t seem to be present in Silver Moon Territory, are they?¡±

    ¡°Does the director general mean that these people were still very strong without core origin dao? That they retained peak condition?¡± Li Hao frowned.

    ¡°Not to that degree. After all, their physical bodies likely declined in the absence of energy. Only if their mental strength remained formidable would they stand a chance. Otherwise, they pretty much reached the end of the road when their bodies fell apart.¡± Director General Wang introduced more of the situation back in the day to the young man. ¡°Do you have more objectives at hand with your visit this time?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d like to try and revitalize General Pagoda.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± The director general was surprised. He took a look when Li Hao brought out a massive tree trunk. "The Golden Coconut is dead?¡±

    ¡°Ah, Director General Wang knows this nt spirit?¡±

    ¡°I do, it¡¯s the guardian nt spirit at Security in Skystar Town. All of Security falls under my purview, how would I not know it?¡± chuckled the director general. ¡°The Security of the eight main cities were higher ced than the one at Skystar Town and I visited the town a few times. I was familiar with the Golden Coconut, so... why have you killed it?¡±

    ¡°It supported the nine ministries behind the scenes and disturbed Skystar Dynasty. It should be killed!¡±

    ¡°Perhaps that should be the case from your perspective,¡± Director General Wang said slowly after a while. ¡°But from my perspective... it is difficult to survive to present day...¡±

    ¡°They want toe to Silver Moon to devour all of you. Does the director general still think you¡¯re on the same side?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Wang was speechless.

    ¡°I¡¯ve been to the ruins and seen that those at Skystar Security are likely all dead. There is disordered core origin on the scene and only the Golden Coconut was alive. There aren¡¯t even bodies to be found of the others.¡±

    ¡°Disordered core origin?¡± Director General Wang blinked and turned solemn. ¡°Tell me what you saw there.¡±

    Li Hao sketched out what he¡¯d found at the ruins, resulting in prolonged silence from the director general.

    ¡°Did unrest seize Skystar Town? There is even disordered core origin... That means arge sum of powerhouses abruptly died on the spot...¡± sighed the man. ¡°It looks like the town cutting off energy supplies back in the day might have had something to do with the unrest.¡±

    Director General Wang looked at the Golden Coconut¡¯s tree trunk with a smile. ¡°This is a nice item that may really revive General Pagoda. It¡¯s exceeded my expectations that you were able toe by it so quickly...¡±

    ¡°I have to thank the imperial pce guard for its help,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°It was so helpful to sever half of its core origin to create a replica.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me about that,¡±ughed the director general. ¡°I cannot call the shots in this. Tell General Pagoda.¡±

    Of course he understood the young man¡¯s connotations, thed wanted some benefits. However, the director general truly couldn¡¯t make the decision. Li Hao fell silent with a wordless look.

    1. Changsheng are the same characters as ¡®eternal¡¯ here. ?

 Chapter 854: Another Promotion (II)

    <h4>Chapter 854: Another Promotion (II)</h4>

    ¡°I have another question, director general,¡± raised Li Hao. ¡°Do you know Evenround Martial University? The dean of education there is a Saint level existence. He¡¯s awake now¡ªis he the only Saint level existence in Silver Moon Territory?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Wang paused. Another Gold Armor manifested in the next second.

    ¡°You say that there is still someone alive there?¡± came the Ninth Divisionmander¡¯s aloof voice.

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°The dean of education in ck armor and with a cat head emzoned on it!¡±

    So he was eavesdropping all along! <i>The heck man! You¡¯re a soldier! Are these kinds of actions appropriate?</i>

    ¡°Did he not withdraw with the army?¡± wondered themander. ¡°There aren¡¯t that many people there and no civilians, it¡¯s easy to fully withdraw from that spot. Why did he stay?¡±

    ¡°He... didn¡¯t leave?¡± mused the director general. ¡°Then...¡±

    ¡°Perhaps he rang out of time,¡± came a wizened voice in everyone¡¯s ears. ¡°The Star Gate closed in a hurry. He might¡¯ve run into some trouble or was tasked to bring up the rear. Being one step toote was to be unable to leave.¡±

    Li Hao listened quietly. It would seem that this dean of education possessed a high status.

    ¡°You said that unrest took ce at Skystar Town?¡± Themander looked at Li Hao.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°You canplete one of the three missions you undertook¡ªthe one of Skystar Town is consideredplete. You can obtain your merits at Military Supplies.¡±

    Li Hao recalled that it awarded ten thousand merits. To be honest, he didn¡¯t think much of that sum anymore. It could be traded for one hundred thousand mysterious power stones or promotion to division leader. He didn¡¯t have use for the promotion since he already had a set of golden armor. Its defensive capabilities... were eptable. That was all. There was nothing of much use about it otherwise.

    However, the young man recalled that the Voidbreak Incantation was ten thousand points precisely.

    ¡°Ah, there¡¯s another thing,¡± Li Hao said after further thought. ¡°Apparently the vicemander guarding the mine is still alive. He¡¯s been carrying out his duties all this time and hasn¡¯t let the bramble rose and others inside.¡±

    ¡°I see!¡± Themander didn¡¯t care much about this detail.

    ¡°It¡¯s good that he¡¯s alive, but... what a blockhead!¡±ughed the director general. Li Hao blinked. Why did they say that? The vicemander was defending the mines even now, he was very impressive! He strictly adhered to his duties, but why did these two seem to think less of him for it?

    ¡°Since riots urred at Skystar, something must have happened,¡± exined Director General Wang. ¡°What was the point in standing guard over the mines then? Absolutely nothing! Just blow them up and go down with the enemy! What¡¯s the point of putting himself through all this hardship for countless eons?

    ¡°He inly hasn¡¯tprehended the true spirit of New Martial! All of ourrge mines are equipped with explosive devices. He could¡¯ve detonated them all at the same time and destroyed the entire ind! It¡¯d be fine if he died, but he¡¯s still alive...¡±

    The director general had nothing else to say.

    ¡°Being alive doesn¡¯t mean that he¡¯s a good guy,¡± themander said coldly. ¡°And there¡¯s a very big issue with him not blowing up the mines! We would¡¯ve sensed their destruction and known their fate. But with the mines remaining intact, we knew nothing about Skystar Town and missed out on the best timing to rescue them. Be careful if you run into him!¡±

    Was that so? Li Hao came back to himself. So to these two, it was a dereliction of duty that the vicemander hadn¡¯t blown up the mines. To be honest, he¡¯d quite admired the man for sticking to his post until now. Was it wrong to steadfastly adhere to one¡¯s orders?

    And yet, this wasn¡¯t what those New Martial people thought. They felt that he should¡¯ve gone down in a ze of glory!

    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much, perhaps further unexpected events developed and he didn¡¯t have time to do so, or the explosives were sabotaged,¡±forted the director general. ¡°All of that is possible. However, it is still a dereliction of duty if they were sabotaged. They were ced at the heart of the mines. Was he more worried about someone stealing the resources within?¡±

    <i>Fine then!</i> There was nothing much to say to these ancients sometimes. They had their own judgment standard and way of conducting themselves. There were certain things that Li Hao could not understand.

    None of them asked anything of the young man or asked why he¡¯d gotten so much stronger. They could discern a thing or two, but didn¡¯t say anything. To each their own dao. Being able to improve was a testament of Li Hao¡¯s capabilities.

    Themander likewise dropped the topic. ¡°If you go to Evenround Martial again... please give my greetings to him. In addition, please tell him that...¡± the Gold Armor paused. ¡°That the Battle Heaven Army is still at the ready and has not fully given up!¡±

    Li Hao was confused why the message was phrased thus. <i>He¡¯s much stronger than you guys, isn¡¯t he? But is he less resolved than you?</i>

    Themander didn¡¯t exin himself as he knew a thing or two about that one. This was a person with an entric personality and tended to veer toward the extremes. It¡¯d taken him so many years to awaken and the state of the modern world was the first thing he saw. He might choose to give up entirely. That was what themander wished least to see.

    The two no longer discussed old events and brought up General Pagoda instead. ¡°Can the Golden Coconut¡¯s tree trunk really revitalize General Pagoda?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s give it a try!¡±

    ¡°Um... it really was very hard for me to kill the guy,¡± Li Hao couldn¡¯t help but interject. ¡°I almost lost all of my people. If the general really does return, can...¡±

    ¡°Ask the general yourself.¡±

    Li Hao fell silent with resignation. <i>It hasn¡¯t awakened yet, what am I supposed to ask? What if it says it didn¡¯t agree to anything after it revives? What can I do then?</i>

    It was rather the old turtle who spoke with a trace of mirth, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, there will be benefits aplenty.¡±

    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om

    <i>Very well then! </i>Li Hao wasn¡¯t aware of the old turtle¡¯s exact position in Battle Heaven, but it seemed very strong, so he would believe it for now.

    ¡°Then do I just shove the tree trunk at the general?¡±

    ¡°You can ce it on the altar!¡±

    Li Hao flew out without a word. The two Gold Armors followed him to the city gates and didn¡¯t exit with him.

    ......

    <i>Outside the city, where the altar was.</i>

    Li Hao gripped the massive tree trunk with some reluctance and wariness. ¡°Li Hao of the Battle Heaven Army has brought the body of an Immortal for the general. Please awaken, General Pagoda!¡±

    He ced the tree trunk bit by bit onto the altar. The altar was a marvelous construction as it took in the offering centimeter by centimeter, swallowing it at a very slow pace. It eventually picked up speed and the massive tree trunk started vibrating.

    A loud rumble echoed by Li Hao¡¯s ear and a ray of light seemed to dawn in the dim city. The rumbling grew bigger as the rest of the tree trunk was devoured!

    Skies shook and earth quaked! An enormous pagoda tree¡¯s branches started trembling as the entire world was illuminated.

    ......

    <i>At the same time, Silver Moon province.</i>

    Light sparkled in various ces as ruins trembled.

    <i>White Moon City.</i>

    Director General Zhao¡¯s expression shifted and he quickly vanished, reappearing at a certain spot and darting inside. He emerged in a massive city! Several Gold Armors floated out of it and a towering tree shook outside the city. It onlysted for a split second before the tree stopped moving.

    A Gold Armor on the city walls spoke in a trembling voice, ¡°That... that seemed toe from Battle Heaven... Has General Pagoda revived?¡±

    ¡°Battle Heaven?¡± The director general¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°Don¡¯t you guys say that the guards of the main cities are so strong that it is exceedingly hard to revitalize them?¡±

    It would require at least one hundred million mysterious power stones! Silver Moon might not revive a single one even if the province bankrupted itself.

    The Gold Armor was lost and shook its head. ¡°I don¡¯t know, but those ripples were immense. If someone has awakened, it must be a powerhouse from the eight main cities! The eight main cities were in charge of protecting all of Silver Moon. Only with one of their guardian spirits awakening would the ripples reach us...

    ¡°Perhaps General Pagoda really did revitalize!¡± he said with agitation. ¡°But how is that possible?¡±

    Director General Wang wasn¡¯t aware either. His thoughts didn¡¯t stray to Li Hao because someone surnamed Huang didn¡¯t mention the matter to the director general at all. Huang Yu had promised Li Hao that he would keep their operation a secret and had gone directly to the military barracks upon his return. He didn¡¯t meet with the director general.

    ¡°Then... is this development good or bad?¡± frowned Director General Wang.

    ¡°That will depend on whether the system of Battle Heaven remains intact.¡± The Gold Armor snapped back from his joy. ¡°The guardian spirit will not rebel if the system remains intact, but it will be difficult to say if it is the only one alive.¡±

    ¡°Someone told me before, the one that I mentioned to you guys, that there is a Gold Armor in the city lord manor still...¡±

    ¡°Then there shouldn¡¯t be much of a problem there.¡±

    ¡°But...¡± frowned the director general.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, even an awakening will not change much because the general will have only just revitalized. There might be only new advantages to us with this change and no drawbacks. Of the eight main cities, Battle Heaven was the strongest apart from the Sword Sovereign. There is another exalted emperor¡¯s heritage left there. Although Battle Heaven intes its importance, there is indeed a direct connection to that exalted emperor...¡±

    There was a difference in strength between the eight main cities¡ªBattle Heaven was stronger than the rest, for example. It bore a greater background and was on par with the city of the Lis.

    ¡°I¡¯d like to take a look around Battle Heaven.¡± Director General Wang could not rest at ease.

    ¡°Go on!¡± answered the Gold Armor. ¡°Take a look inside if you can enter. If you canmunicate with them... tell them that we are still here!¡±

    ¡°Alright!¡± Director General Wang swiftly vanished, a thousand thoughts churning in his mind. Who could revitalize a nt spirit of a main city? That was one hundred million mysterious power stones!

    Paying forth so much in resources only resulted in awakening the other. One had to offer more if they wished for more gains. One could revive four or five nt spirits with this level of resource¡ªthere was plenty to gain there.

    Who¡¯d done it?

    Li Hao?

    Was that kid that rich?

    Although he¡¯d apparently gotten a lot from hisst operation, didn¡¯t they say that it¡¯d all been turned to Water of Life and used to strengthen those around him? How else could he be peak six elements so quickly and take He Yong and the rest with him?

 Chapter 855: Another Promotion (III)

    <h4>Chapter 855: Another Promotion (III)</h4>

    <i>At the same time.</i>

    Ruins throughout thends shook in reaction.

    <i>Skystar City, underneath the pce.</i>

    The bramble rose transformed into a humanoid shape and looked to the north with confusion.

    ¡°How strange...¡± it said after a long while. ¡°There was a ripple through earth and sky just now, and it seemed toe from the eight main cities...¡±

    The rose was too far away from the disturbance to sense clearly, but there was a faint perception of... someone awakening? The bramble rose frowned. It would be enormous trouble if one of the main city nt spirits revitalized. Hopefully, that wasn¡¯t the case!

    The rose¡¯s frown deepened when it nced at the entrance to the mines in the distance. The second awakening was yet to start and it couldn¡¯t leave the ruins at the moment. There was no meaning in sending out a replica as it couldn¡¯t withstand any of the true powerhouses in any other ruin. It was also highly risky to sever sufficient core origin for a replica.

    They could only hope for the second awakening to take ce as soon as possible.

    <i>Damn it! </i>If it wasn¡¯t for the others constantly standing in its way, the second awakening would¡¯ve happened long ago. Unexpected developments often took ce during long nights.

    ......

    <i>Red Moon headquarters.</i>

    Ying Hongyue was cultivating when his eyes snapped open. The scarlet cloak materialized in the air. ¡°Something¡¯s happened at Battle Heaven. Li Hao might have gone back and supplied arge sum of energy. General Pagoda might have awoken!¡±

    ¡°Where does he get so many treasures from?¡± Ying Hongyue frowned. ¡°Although the various factions supplied quite a bit at theirst attempt to kill him, you also said that the revitalization of the Evenround Martial powerhouse depleted most of it. He¡¯s been furiously cultivating all this time, so where does he get so many mysterious power stones from?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± The scarlet cloak was equally nonplussed. ¡°Thank goodness that the disturbance wasn¡¯t great. Even if General Pagoda has awoken, it will barely be conscious. It would be frightening only if he¡¯s revitalized to the point of activating Battle Heaven. Right now... it¡¯s almost a nonexistent possibility!

    ¡°We need to eliminate Li Hao as soon as possible,¡± it insisted nheless. ¡°He will bring us a lot of trouble otherwise. He¡¯s been working towards the revitalization of the entire city this entire time. Battle Heaven is ranked number two among the main cities, it was on par with the city of the Lis back in those days!¡±

    ¡°Eliminate? How should we do that?¡± Ying Hongyue scowled at the difficult task.

    ¡°You can do it!¡± offered the scarlet shadow.

    Ying Hongyue sneered. ¡°I can do it? How?¡±

    The scarlet shadow was silent again. ¡°You do not need to be on guard against us, you should focus on eliminating Li Hao first! Our goals are the same. Haven¡¯t you been hiding your strength throughout our partnership because you¡¯re worried that we¡¯ll take action against you?¡±

    ¡°You think too much!¡±

    ¡°It is a threat to both of us if Li Hao is permitted to develop like this,¡± cautioned the scarlet shadow. ¡°Don¡¯t forget, you¡¯re his biggest enemy and you always have been. Be careful of raising a tiger that turns on you! Certain matters are open knowledge between us, be careful of being tripped up by matters of your own making!¡±

    ¡®I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about!¡±

    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

    ¡°If you say so,¡±ughed the scarlet shadow. ¡°Perhaps you have your own ns in mind, but the danger is borne by us all. Just make sure you don¡¯t regret your actions in the future!¡±

    The scarlet entity vanished. Ying Hongyue stared in its direction with a menacing look. They certainly had strong intelligenceworks! It knew of the changes in Battle Heaven as soon as the disturbance urred. He hadn¡¯t even received word yet!

    <i>Li Hao...</i>

    Ying Hongyue looked to the north with a deepening frown. The kid certainly had a few tricks up his sleeves! How had he done it?

    The man sank into deep thought andughed eerily after a long moment of silence. <i>Then let¡¯s give it a try.</i>

    ......

    <i>Battle Heaven.</i>

    The massive city rumbled as it expanded. A towering tree that had stilled in silence emanated a faintly aureate glow. Overwhelming presence gradually manifested in the surroundings, exerting so much pressure that Li Hao had trouble breathing.

    He backed out of the tree hole and tilted his head back, finding himself able to see the skies overhead now. A tree with slightly sparse branches radiated with new life. A leafrger than a person grew out of its branches. Mental strength swept in all directions. It didn¡¯t hurt Li Hao and simply spread in the environment.

    ¡°It¡¯s been so long!¡± sighed an astoundingly aged voice. ¡°I¡¯m alive again, old turtle!¡±

    A faint glow erupted from the Turtle Pagoda and the old turtle¡¯s voice drifted back, ¡°Indeed, it¡¯s been so long that I thought you would not be able to revive ever again.¡±

    ¡°I really did almost die. I likely wouldn¡¯t have made it to today if I didn¡¯t absorb some energy twenty years ago... There are too many bastards in Silver Moon and they took too much. Entirely too little made it to me...¡± the big tree said slowly.

    The other ces were well enough, but there was arge group of powerhouses and nt spirits in Silver Moon that were all very strong. They fought each other for the initial wave of energy as they all wanted to survive. That drained all of the energy that flourished in the province!

    A middle-aged, old man appeared on the massive tree trunk. Despite appearing middle aged, he had a head of white hair while the rest of his face wasn¡¯t that old. He walked out of an illusory haze from the trunk and stopped in front of Li Hao. ¡°Well done, little fellow!¡±

    Li Hao grinned, slightly on the alert, but quickly responded, ¡°Li Hao greets the general!¡±

    ¡°Well done!¡± the old man responded, but didn¡¯t mention anything else. He looked at the city with an emotionallyden sigh. ¡°So I see Battle Heaven again... I thought the opportunity would nevere upon me ever again.¡±

    Another old man materialized in the air. He was bent over with a walking cane; a turtle shell wouldplete the look.

    ¡°Congrattions, Ole Pagoda!¡±

    ¡°To both of us!¡± The white-haired General Pagoda smiled. ¡°But I haven¡¯t recovered enough, I¡¯ve just barely regained my sentience. There is no more energy to absorb in Silver Moon... ai!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good enough!¡± chuckled the old turtle. ¡°You¡¯re better off than the others.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true enough.¡± General Pagoda inclined his head and nced at Li Hao. ¡°Troop Leader Li has aplished a magnificent feat. I am honored to be part of it.¡±

    ¡°This was only to be expected!¡± Li Hao beamed radiantly. ¡°It was just the killing of an Immortal nt spirit. My people almost all died, but we still seeded. It¡¯s fine that we suffered some injuries, we¡¯re all part of the Battle Heaven Army! It only cost us one or two hundred million mysterious power stones and thousands of drops of Water of Life. Some people were also left with injuries that they cannot heal from, but giving up even our lives would be worth it to review the general!¡±

    ¡°......¡± The premises quieted down. General Pagoda didn¡¯t say a word and the old turtle immediately vanished.<i> This has nothing to do with me.</i>

    ¡°I do understand the hardships within...¡± The old man inclined his head after a while.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s really fine!¡± Li Hao shook his head. ¡°This is as we should do! The general doesn¡¯t need to stand on ceremony! The imperial pce guard actually asked to devour the Golden Coconut¡¯s trunk and said it would give me twenty thousand drops of Water of Life in return. But I didn¡¯t find that appropriate!¡±

    The young man frowned. ¡°It takes three hundred stones to coalesce one drop, twenty thousand drops would just be six million stones. That¡¯s the equivalent of sixty million modern stones, but it takes one hundred million to revive the general. That would be my loss!

    ¡°Not to mention, I am a Battle Heaven troop leader, not the imperial pce!¡± Li Hao finished with another wide grin.

    ¡°......¡± General Pagoda said slowly, ¡°I have just awoken and find that my strength may not match my ambitions...¡±

    ¡°That is true andpletely understandable,¡± Li Hao nodded. ¡°The general should rest more!¡±

    <i>Is this a matter of resting more?</i> thought the old tree.

    ¡°I¡¯ll go kill a few more Immortal nt spirits to fortify the general with. They¡¯re all bad guys, so there¡¯s no need to think too much about this. As for the danger... there¡¯s nothing to it. The general doesn¡¯t need to sever a core origin replica for me, that would damage you too much!¡±

    ¡°......¡±

    <i>Did I say anything about that? Did I say anything at all?</i>

    ¡°But we get injured too easily and need Water of Life for that,¡± Li Hao continued. ¡°We can recover faster that way and collect more for the general. I hear the imperial pce guard say that the stronger nt spirit seniors can convert Water of Life faster and at a cheaper rate.

    ¡°It requires three hundred stones for one drop. Apparently someone of the general¡¯s level only needs one hundred. I still have a couple million energy stones at hand¡ªabout three million. Can the general help me convert them to thirty thousand drops? I¡¯ll summon various powerhouses when I leave so we can hunt down foes together!¡±

    ¡°......¡± It was so silent that everyone¡¯s ears rang from theck of sound.

    ¡°One hundred stones a drop... and you say you heard that from the imperial pce guard?¡± General Pagoda said slowly after a very long moment.

    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡±

    ¡°The little fellow who camest time?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Is he still at the imperial pce?¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°Go back and tell it that I will visit it when the world can amodate us.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao coughed dryly. ¡°Then... I shall pass on the message when I return.¡±

    ¡°Give me the energy stones,¡± General Pagoda said with resignation. ¡°My consumption rate is not that low. If times were as before, you could have as much Water of Life as you wished. But it is truly out of the question for the moment as my own reserves have run dry. Give me three million energy stones, I can give you ten thousand drops in return, but I will need three days.¡±

    The times were different and it was nearly starving to death itself. There was nothing it could offer to Li Hao. Although it wouldn¡¯t retain much energy from the stones, the passage of energy through its body would more or less moisten its parched trunk. That would be a kind of revitalization as well.

    <i>Doesn¡¯t that make you the same as the little tree? </i>Li Hao looked down on General Pagoda. Well, the general was much faster. It could coalesce ten thousand drops in three days! It would take the little tree thirty days for the same amount, or it could operate day and night to produce Water of Life, but that would consume mysterious power stones at three times the regr rate.

    Mighty were the strong, alright. They converted mysterious power stones at a much faster rate.

    Li Hao poured out all of his stones, unconcerned that the pagoda tree would keep them for its own use. He had more than thirty million mysterious power stones on hand. Some could be kept for the little sword¡ªalthough Steris wasn¡¯t quite willing to eat themtely. Still, having some was better than none at all.

 Chapter 856: Another Promotion (IV)

    <h4>Chapter 856: Another Promotion (IV)</h4>

    All of the mysterious power stones disappeared when General Pagoda waved his hand. He was rather resigned to see Li Hao still looking at him. A man¡¯s ambitions were not far reaching when he was poor, and this same were a tree¡¯s ambitions. After some thought, he sighed andmanded a crystalline branch to fall off of the massive tree.

    ¡°This is the tree heart formed out of the core essence of my primary body...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just a regr branch!¡± The old turtle¡¯s voice could be faintly heard on the wind.

    General Pagoda looked at the city and then at Li Hao.

    ¡°I don¡¯t mind!¡± coughed the young man.

    ¡°......¡± General Pagoda was well and truly resigned. ¡°It is indeed a regr branch, but it¡¯s still different! There¡¯s not much use to this item, but if you carry it on you, it will be a deterrent to regr nt spirits that you meet. So long as they are not higher ranked than me, the natural difference in ranks will somewhat constrain their power.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not as useful as your dog¡¯s bloodline power!¡± The voice came again from the city.

    Li Hao looked innocently at General Pagoda. <i>I didn¡¯t say nothing, it came from that one!</i>

    The pagoda tree wanted to smite the one in the city! It fell silent for a bit before continuing, ¡°That¡¯s fine, it can also nourish your physical body...¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s less useful than one hundred drops of Water of Life.¡±

    ¡°Get out here!¡± General Pagoda flew into a rage.

    The old turtle nced outside the city from its position on top of the pagoda and couldn¡¯t be bothered to respond. It piped in withmentary because it couldn¡¯t stand how miserly the old tree was being. Its penny-pinching ways couldn¡¯t be tolerated! It would be the shame of all Battle Heaven!

    ......

    The old tree mused silently for a very long time. <i>I¡¯ve only just awoken, what do you want me to give him? I don¡¯t have anything to give!</i>

    Li Hao didn¡¯t suggest anything and merrily epted the branch. ¡°There¡¯s no need to mind any of this, general. We do not seek a reward, we did all of this voluntarily!¡±

    <i>Do you really not want a reward?</i> The old man projection from the tree wanted to roll his eyes. <i>Then why do you keep saying all this and keep looking at me? What¡¯s with that expectant expression?</i>

    ¡°You¡¯re not a division leader yet, are you?¡± he finally said after prolonged thought. ¡°With the changes in the world, Battle Heaven¡¯s city lord andmander-in-chief are not in residence. I and the old turtle can make some decisions on their behalf.

    ¡°I hereby promote you to leader of the Eleventh Division of the Reserve Defenders in ordance with wartime regtions! This will be valid so long as the old turtle agrees and certifies it with the ck Tortoise Seal. You will be able tomandeer ten thousand sets of armor from Military Supplies and issue orders ording to your own will. Themandes with ten sets of silver armor and one hundred sets of bronze armor. Internal assessments can be dyed until further notice given that we are at war...¡±

    Li Hao¡¯s jaw dropped.

    ¡°Is this... appropriate?¡± came the old turtle¡¯s voice.

    ¡°Why not?¡± the general said faintly. ¡°He revived me. Is that not a deed of great merit for Battle Heaven?¡±

    n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

    The old turtle was at a loss for words. <i>How are you turning it around on me?</i> It wasn¡¯t a grave matter, but that this promotion might cause some problems.

    ¡°Guardian, it is not out of the question to promote Li Hao to the Eleventh Division leader,¡± the Gold Armormander said coldly at the gates. ¡°But if anything untoward develops, it is the guardian who is at fault!¡±

    The position of division leader didn¡¯t matter much; giving Li Hao the authority to recruit more ck Armors was inconsequential. But giving him authority over denoting more Silver Armors¡ªtroop leaders¡ªwas very problematic.

    ¡°I will take full responsibility!¡±

    ¡°Then I have no opinions otherwise after receiving the guardian¡¯s assurance!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t have an opinion either...¡± stated Director General Wang.

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter even if you do,¡± chuckled General Pagoda. ¡°Security¡¯s jurisdiction does not include the military.¡±

    ¡°......¡± Director General Wang swallowed the rest of his words. <i>Will you listen to yourself?</i>

    Li Hao ducked his head and swallowed hard. This was not bad! Ten thousand sets of ck armor, ten sets of silver armor and one hundred sets of bronze... <i>Heh, not bad! Not bad at all!</i> He knew that the old tree was poor, but this was an unexpected surprise. <i>I¡¯ll take it!</i>

    ¡°My thanks to Sir Guardian!¡±

    ¡°Go to the barracks,¡± General Pagoda didn¡¯t say anything else. ¡°Come find me in three days!¡±

    The human projection vanished and Li Hao immediately ran back to the city. The Gold Armor on the city gates had vanished, the old turtle remained silent, and Director General Wang was quite dejected. So Li Hao really had be a division leader... there was no helping it!

    The three troop leaders on the city gates looked at each other with some envy.

    ¡°Favoritism... we don¡¯t need to be bothered by it!¡± transmitted one of them. The other two looked at the one who¡¯d spoken. <i>Seriously now?</i>

    <i>Even if he made use of nepotism to get to his position, we have to acknowledge it all the same. The key thing was, he¡¯s been promoted! </i>Although the Eleventh Division no longer existed and was merely an empty shell, the young man was still a division leader in title.

    Golden armor manifested over Li Hao and he swiftly moved toward the city gates. He looked mirthfully at the three troop leaders. ¡°Then I¡¯m off to the barracks, gentlemen...¡±

    ¡°Greetings to Division Leader Li!¡± The three snapped salutes, as did the thousands of ck Armors on the ground.

    Li Hao roared withughter and vanished, but quickly returned a few secondster. ¡°I forgot to say just now that we should all have a drinkter...¡±

    ¡°Greetings, Commander Li!¡± The group saluted again.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be like that, at ease, everyone!¡± Li Hao said humbly and vanished again. The three room leaders were speechless and nearly went up a wall when the young man came back.

    <i>He¡¯s gone crazy, hasn¡¯t he?</i>

    ¡°Greetings, sir!¡±

    ¡°At ease. I just remembered that the seventh troop leader gave me some advice before. My thanks! Let¡¯s talk about itter!¡±

    The three watched him leave before looking hesitantly at each other. Their heads drooped when he didn¡¯te back this time. He might¡¯ve heard their transmission. <i>This guy did all that on purpose!</i>

    In the barracks, themander of the Ninth Division was equally at a loss. After a long moment, he said to a Red Armor next to him, ¡°Throw him out if hees again!¡±

    ¡°Understood!¡±

    The doors to the Ninth Division headquarters mmed shut. Themander couldn''t be bothered to see Li Hao¡¯s smug face. Out of sight was out of mind.

    Meanwhile, Li Hao inly didn¡¯t care and sped straight to Military Supplies. What a pity he hadn¡¯t been made themissioner of Military Supplies. He¡¯d be able to throw his weight around the deputymissioner who didn¡¯t treat him with much respect!

    ......

    <i>Military Supplies.</i>

    Li Hao was here again. Zhang Liang had already heard General Pagoda¡¯s words and was already morose for it. The irritating fellow was a division leader now, the rank of a general. Wasn¡¯t it nice to have a backer? Even though their armymander, reservemander, and city lord were gone, he was still promoted when he ought to be.

    ¡°He¡¯s here...¡± Zhang Liang mumbled to himself, his vat of jealousy overflowing.

    ¡°Hello, Deputy Commissioner Zhang!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Zhang Liang¡¯s moroseness deepened. Now<i> you know I¡¯m a deputymissioner? People change when theye into power! You¡¯re such a petty person, pah!</i>

    ¡°Deputy Commissioner Zhang, I¡¯ll mention to General Pagodater that Military Supplies needs amissioner,¡± Li Hao chuckled. ¡°Someone has to take over the position, right?¡±

    ¡°Greetings,mander!¡± Zhang Liang snapped to attention and was full of energy. ¡°What do you need, sir? Zhang Liang is at your service!¡±

    ¡°......¡± Li Hao remained chuckling merrily. <i>Now </i>there¡¯s<i> a real enthusiast of bureaucracy. I¡¯m not. I just want some benefits and don¡¯t care about titles. This one though, won¡¯t be happy unless he¡¯s promoted.</i>

    The young man was so joyful that he was in an even better mood.

    ¡°Give me ten thousand sets of armor!¡± He¡¯d already taken five thousand before, so strictly speaking, all he needed was another five thousand to round out his numbers. But... who said what he requested before was part of this count?

    ¡°The newly designated Eleventh Division is so poor andcks everything!¡± Li Hao sighed. ¡°It¡¯s all up to you, Deputy Commissioner Zhang. Now that General Pagoda is awake and has time, I can chat with it. It won¡¯t be hard to aplish this with wartime regtions in effect, right?¡±

    ¡°Ten thousand sets of armor, did you say?¡± the deputymissioner quickly responded. ¡°Not a problem! The reserve defenders have their own reserve armor that hasn¡¯t been in use for many years. There¡¯s no use for them anymore now that everyone is dead. I¡¯ll go fetch it for themander. Is there anything else you need other than the armor?¡±

    ¡°What else are the other divisions equipped with?¡± Li Hao smiled.

    ¡°Energy cannons, do you want them?¡±

    ¡°What are those?¡±

    ¡°Um... weapons that can fire on cities...¡±

    <i>Energy cannons? Why do they sound like our city annihtion missiles?</i>

    ¡°I do! How many do you have?¡±

    ¡°Regr divisions are equipped with apany in charge of energy weapons. That makes for ten cannons and one thousand rounds of ammunition.¡±

    ¡°Just ten?¡± Li Hao¡¯s eyes gleamed. ¡°Mine¡¯s a new division, isn¡¯t there an allowance made for a certain scrap rate?¡±

    ¡°......¡± Zhang Liang no longer had teeth or his would be aching by now. <i>Where did you learn this concept? </i>He mumbled, ¡°Yes... then... I¡¯ll assign twelve cannons and twelve hundred rounds of ammunition to your division?¡±

    ¡°Yep, Deputy Commissioner Zhang is the best!¡±

    Zhang Liang didn¡¯t know what to say, but at least this was all within the rules, so it didn¡¯t count as him opening a back door for Li Hao.

    ¡°What else are regr divisions equipped with?¡±

    ¡°Under normal circumstances, a division¡¯s functionality is to be taken into ount when assigning equipment other than armor and energy cannons. But there are many parts of the city that are inactive and some that we do not have in storage, so I¡¯ll speak of what we do have.¡± Zhang Liang quickly ran a mental checklist. ¡°A newly designated division is allotted ten signal towers that can expand the range ofmunication by tenfold. That¡¯s ten times five hundred kilometers, not just fifteen hundred kilometers... With these towers,munication can range over five thousand kilometers and each troop is equipped with one.¡±

    Signal towers! This was great. Li Hao quickly nodded rapidly.

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